"It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?"

―Isaac Asimov, I, Robot

Link to Reality

Chapter XII

November 16th

Klein didn't think that getting a ride in a taxi for free could ever feel so utterly unimportant. He'd always considered taking a cab a luxury he wasn't very used to, but it was also an effective way to get somewhere fairly quickly compared to switching trains all the time.

Right now, all that went right out the window, as every second it took the car to reach his destination felt hours longer than it should.

Shouta had tried when he'd seen the look on Klein's face, which must have terrified him out of his wits, but the final traffic light that stopped them just a block away from their goal had been an obstacle he couldn't simply bypass. Now every second they spent waiting for the lights to change felt like an eternity. Klein nervously tapped the floor of the car with his crutches, thinking how he could have just walked out of the car right there and sprinted instead, if only he didn't have those two stupid pieces of wood as a necessary addition.

Finally, the lights changed and the car was on the move again. Not twenty seconds later, Shouta-san pulled over right in front of a small café.

The car had barely stopped moving by the time Klein opened the back door and was scrambling out with his crutches.

"Thank you, Shouta-san!" he yelled over his shoulder in the meantime.

"You're welcome, but—"

"I'll give you a call later!"

Klein slammed the door shut and proceeded to march towards the Dicey Café as fast as his atrophied muscles would allow him.

According to the clock he noticed when he walked in, it was 12:37 PM. Exactly twenty-two minutes from the time he'd walked out of his house and got into Shouta's car.

The café was once again devoid of customers and the person behind the bar was looking up at him crossly.

"A little less force when you open the door, next time," she told him and Klein nodded obediently, not because he was intending on listening, but simply because Kathy Mills was one scary lady. Who knew what she might do if he didn't agree right away.

The café itself was devoid of customers, but there were two people sitting at the table in the corner, seemingly having been engaged in a conversation which had abruptly stopped when Klein walked in. The dark-skinned girl sitting with her back turned to the wall was Kathy-san's little sister named Michelle if Klein remembered well. He didn't understand why she was present at all as this was a matter that shouldn't be concerned of either her or her sister, but he wasn't going to complain aloud.

The other person sitting in the chair beside her was the very owner of the place, Andrew Gilbert Mills, but to Klein better known by his SAO name, Agil. Unlike the last time Klein had visited, he was no longer moving in the wheelchair, but there was a pair of crutches similar to Klein's resting in the corner. He looked at Klein with a rather somber expression that once and for all cleared any doubts from Klein's mind that the e-mail he'd received a little over an hour ago was a joke.

Perhaps Agil saw it in his face, too, but the first thing he told him was to calm down. The second was to join them at the table.

Klein did exactly that, his mind clear for the first time that day. He even forgot that he was supposed to be flustered at the girl sitting there with them.

"You got here pretty fast. I wasn't expecting you before one," Agil admitted after a beat.

"I… didn't have anything important to do. I was going to have some old friends come over, but I asked if they could do it later instead. Now tell me, what was the meaning of that e-mail you sent? 'I might have some clue as to what happened to Kirito and Asuna', that's what it said. What does it mean?"

Agil didn't answer right away and in his peripheral vision Klein noticed his sister-in-law squirm, but then she pushed the tablet that was resting in front of her to Klein. He stopped it from sliding of the table and looked at her questioningly, but the girl bit her lip and said, "Take a look at those pictures. Do… do they look familiar?"

He didn't understand at first. Only once Agil gave him an affirmative nod did he focus his attention on the hi-tech device.

A folder was already open and it contained seven images in total. From the number of people there he initially thought it had to be some sort of a party, but when he opened the first picture, the room behind the people reminded him of the cheap pubs he occasionally visited during his time in SAO. It confused him, as there was no way that could be somewhere in real life, but then his attention was taken over by the people in the image.

Well, calling them people might be a bit of a stretch. Klein was pretty sure normal humans didn't have pointed ears and hair colors such as blue or purple. Nor did they have cat ears.

"What is this?" he asked in confusion. The first image wasn't of any help as he couldn't recognize a single person present, but it was confusing like hell.

"Look here," Michelle said as she took the tablet back and zoomed in on the image. When she returned it, the most he could see was half of a frame of a pretty girl with long blue hair, a grin on her face and an arm over her shoulder. She looked as if she were a bit squeezed while trying to make space for somebody with very large shoulders, but otherwise seemed to be in a pretty good mood. There was something infuriatingly familiar about that face, Klein thought, but he simply couldn't piece it together.

"You don't recognize her?" Michelle frowned in thought.

"Not in the slightest."

She took the tablet back and quickly went over several photos, zoomed in and returned it back to Klein.

"How about here?"

The image now was taken at the same place like the previous one, only this time the girl wasn't looking towards the camera. The quality was a bit better than the previous image and this time he could clearly see both her and the guy who had his arm on her shoulder. He raised an eyebrow at the boy trying to hide behind her back, but looking at her face from profile somehow made it look a lot more familiar. Then Klein remembered the e-mail he'd received and looked at Agil in with wide eyes.

"You think that could be Asuna?" he breathed out. "And the one hiding—Kirito?"

"Got it in one."

Klein looked back towards the image and zoomed out, then quickly scrolled through the rest of them. Six images in total were taken at the same place, but only those two he saw had the two possible friends of his on it. The final image was a bit weirder, though, showing another blue haired girl giving a victory sign and was clearly taken somewhere outside.

"B-but how? Where?" Klein stammered as he pushed it away.

"ALfheim Online."

Klein's head snapped towards Michelle who was the one to answer his question. Not that the answer made any sense.

"You better tell him what you told me," Agil told her in soft voice and Michelle took a shaky breath, then nodded.

"ALO… abbreviation for the name of the game I just mentioned. It's a VRMMO you can play with AmuSphere, but I'll skip that part," she explained as she noticed Klein's puzzled expression. "It's something I've been playing for a while now. Anyway, a few days ago I was logged in with my guild and we encountered—well, more like he found us, really. A strange guy, solo, obviously beginner, but he beat us when the three of us teamed up on him."

"And you think it might be Kirito?" Klein asked to Agil with growing doubt.

"It is," Michelle interrupted him. "At least that's what he said his name is. And the person he was meeting at the World Tree goes by the name Asuna. That can't be a coincidence, right?"

Klein's fists clutched as he thought back to the image she'd shown him. The resemblance between the girl and Asuna was present, he could attest to that, but was it really…? No, that wasn't the right question.

"Did they come out and say it?" he asked. "How do you even know? Do you know either one of them?"

Michelle opened her mouth, looking a bit overwhelmed by all the questions he'd asked. She then took a deep breath and explained, "I don't. Not in RL, if that's what you meant. Hell, I hardly know them in-game, but if anyone had told me the two of them might be the SAO players who haven't woken up, I'd suggest them to visit asylum."

"Then how—?"

"It's the raid," she said desperately. "A group of us tried to conquer the World Tree in a pretty weird way and we failed miserably. I was raving about it to Andrew this morning and Kirito's name just slipped… and he recognized it."

Klein once again looked at Agil, but the other man just shrugged. "I didn't think it possible, at first. It's not that rare of a name so I thought it was just the coincidence, but I went on asking about him and the more I learned, the more certain I got. It's them."

"But doesn't that mean they're awake?" Klein asked. "Because if they're already playing another MMO, they have to be—"

"I don't think so," Agil said while shaking his head. "If that were true, I think Kirito would have already tried contacting me, or so I'd like to think. I don't know, but I suspect they might be trapped in there."

"Which I keep saying is impossible," Michelle argued. "How do you get stuck inside a game? What happened with SAO was pre-planned and ALO wouldn't have ever been released if there existed a slightest possibility for somebody to get stuck in there against their will! Besides, what happened in SAO happened due to a safety fault in NerveGears that nobody would ever think would be exploited that way! AmuSpheres have special safeties installed specifically for that reason!"

"Which is why I think that neither one of them is using an AmuSphere," Agil countered. "ALfheim can be played with NerveGears as well. And transfers from one game to another are possible in theoretical sense if the servers are similar or outside factors are having a hand at it."

Michelle opened her mouth to argue again, but then she seemed to realize that it might be possible after all, so she just shook her head. "I still don't think they're trapped inside. But I can't deny that I've never seen them log out. That's weird, right?"

Agil nodded in acceptance and reached out for her tablet. She raised an eyebrow, but allowed him to take it. For several minutes Klein and Michelle watched in silence as Agil rapidly typed something in a hurry.

Klein didn't know what to think. On one hand, he knew that without asking those guys from National Security, they had no way of knowing whether Kirito was awake or not. On the other, his gut feeling was telling him that Agil was right to be suspicious of this and that there was something important they didn't know about this.

"What are you looking for?" Michelle asked, successfully breaking Klein's train of thought. For a moment he was convinced that she was asking him, but then he saw her looking at Agil whose face expression was beginning to change as he couldn't seem to find whatever he was looking for.

"There was an article that came out a few days ago," he said as he scrolled through the page. "It was published online, about three hundred players not waking up and why the authorities would be trying to keep it under warps, but I can't find it."

"It probably got removed by now," Klein mumbled and Agil nodded in agreement. "But I believe you, so you don't have to waste your time on that."

Agil murmured something, but didn't stop.

"All right, I'm sick of this," Michelle decided. "I'm just going to go and log in right now, see if they're there and if they are, just ask them bluntly. That will make both of you stop looking like world's coming to an end and we'll know for sure why they hadn't contacted either of you by now. Does that sound okay?"

"No," Klein said.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, you're confusing me as well," Agil added. "Michelle could log in right now and we'd be finished in five minutes. Then we'd know for sure what is going on."

"That's probably true," Klein agreed, "but this is Kirito we're talking about. Do you really think he'd tell her about it even if he knew she knew us? Because I don't think he would. Even if he had a big problem going on, I doubt he'd tell me, let alone somebody whom he's known for a few days."

"Well, that certainly sounds like him," Agil muttered.

"That's why I'm going to log in," Klein decided. The decision surprised him as much as it surprised Agil, but he knew it to be the right one the moment the words left his mouth.

"O-oi, are you sure about—?"

"I'm sure," Klein said. "Michelle-san can help me adapt quickly to the game and she already knows where they are, so reaching them won't be much of a problem. I'm sure that if I ask personally, they would be honest. Using a third-party for conversations like that could never be a good idea to start with."

"If you're sure, then," Agil agreed. "Actually, I was intending on doing something similar as soon as my month-long ban was lifted so I already bought the game. I'll go get it—"

"Sit back down."

Agil froze in that very moment and looked over at Kathy – who had by now been deathly silent – as she gave an order with unquestionable authority before Agil even got a chance to move. She then looked at her sister and said, "Michelle, you go. You'll know where to find it. Heavens know I don't want to see him climbing the staircase in that condition."

"Right, then," Michelle said with an awkward smile. "I'll be right back."

Klein followed a quiet exchange of looks between the two sisters a little before Michelle left, then leaned over to Agil and whispered, "What month-long ban?"

Agil shrugged with a helpless look on his face. "I promised I wouldn't."

"You can't be serious."

"You can handle it yourself. If something really big goes down, I'll help out, but otherwise…"

"No, I get it," Klein then said as Agil cast a significant look towards his wife. "Your wife is scary." He felt heat rising up to his face when he realized the aforementioned lady was standing less than three meters away from them and could quite probably hear every single word they said.

Fortunately, that was the moment when Michelle returned.

"Here," she said, passing the game to Klein quickly. "Most of the basic things have been described in the manual, but if you want to get to Arun quickly I'd say the best thing you can do is stay logged in the whole night, not stop even when your wings are spent and continue by running. That should reduce the necessary time to a day, two at most depending on how quickly you want to go. There's also a search engine and you can add me as a friend without meeting me face to face. I'll give you a quick briefing on voluntary flight and other useful tricks in-game, you just send me an IM when you're logged in. Name's Amber. Race Leprechaun, in case there's somebody else by the same name."

Klein nodded, feeling a little bit amazed at the entire information influx. He wanted to ask about the flying thing, as it sounded a bit weird. He didn't think flying in a VRMMO would be possible, but it sounded pretty neat.

On his other side, Agil had both his eyebrows lifted and was looking at Michelle in surprise. "You're being really helpful today," he noticed.

She smiled, but there was something in it that made her look sad rather than happy or satisfied. Even her voice had a tinge of melancholy to it. "I guess… well, you weren't there, sitting beside the hospital bed of somebody you know while knowing that they were fighting a battle for survival in something that should have been just a pass-time activity."

"Is this about the brother of that friend of yours you've mentioned?" Agil asked solemnly.

"Yeah. But it's about you, too. Wasn't I the one who gave you that game in the first place?"

"I never held that against you. I asked for the first roll."

"Well, anyway, if you need anything, you know how to contact me. If you want, I can let them know you're coming, so they wouldn't be too shocked to see you come out of nowhere."

Having been a bit more immersed in their conversation than he probably should have, Klein was taken by surprise to find Michelle suddenly speaking to him. She gave him a strange look, to which he nodded in agreement. "Ah, yeah, that'd be great," he said. "Just tell them Klein's dropping for a visit."

"I'll do that. I'll go log in right now." She nodded and went to kiss her sister on the cheek, then grabbed her purse and left the café.

Klein looked over at Agil and asked, "So, what do we do if it turns out they're really trapped? Contact those guys from National Security?"

"It would probably be for the best."

Klein nodded, then took out his phone to send a text to his personal transporter. He felt a bit bad about it, exploiting his good will that way, but he promised to himself he was going to pay it back afterwards, as soon as the stupid crutches stopped being necessary.

The short reply '2 mins' was not something he'd been expecting, but it was much better than the ten he'd originally been hoping for.

He stood up and took the game. "I'm leaving, then. Thanks for telling me all this. I'll send you a mail as soon as I get to the bottom of this." Then he walked out with a nod of acknowledgment towards Kathy, which she returned. Klein looked down at the game he was holding in his hands and decided, as his friends wouldn't be coming over for at least another two hours, he could log in as soon as he got home.

"What are you up to?"

Kirito blinked in surprise as looked up to see Asuna standing at the door. Having been immersed into looking the photos of the World Tree that Ichigo had managed to take on the previous day, he didn't even hear her open the door. He'd normally expect a knock on the door or something of the kind, but since this was technically her room, it was he who was intruding.

"I was just looking over the pictures again. There were some things that don't quite match up, it's beginning to bother me," he told her honestly, then scrolled over to look at the next one.

"Really? Such as what?" Asuna asked as she walked over the room and leaned at the window.

Kirito looked at the image currently displayed, gestured to her to get closer, then sat up and started, zoomed in the image to the maximum size and pointed over at something. "What does that look like to you?"

He couldn't see her face expression well because she sat right beside him, but when she spoke it sounded as though she wasn't certain of her words, "An empty birdcage?"

"That's what I thought, too. But what's it doing down there? Ichigo said she'd flown past the lowest branches and could have gone higher if she hadn't been teleported back, but she said there'd been nothing close for her to land at. So that has to be one of the lowest branches. But according to whole legend thing shouldn't there be something there? Legendary city of Alfs, King Oberon's palace, things like that? She should have seen something more, because it's impossible for the tree to be so high."

"I don't know. I've never been that good with game mechanics," Asuna replied. "But, Kirito-kun, I've been thinking… I know I said I didn't want to get anyone else involved because you still think there's a possibility this might have been done to us on purpose, but there is something I haven't told you about."

She turned to him with a sharp look in his eyes that he might have thought she was angry with him, if it hadn't been for what she said next.

"The truth is, and I heard this from Ame sometime ago, the producer of this game is RECTO Progress Inc. According to her, it is the company that bought Argus after they bankrupted due to the SAO incident," there she paused and Kirito still didn't understand what she was trying to say.

What she told him made it more easier for their transfer to happen, but how exactly did it matter in the bigger picture? Unless if she knew something else he didn't, that information was of value, true, but not enough.

Just when he was about to tell her that, she said, "The CEO of that company is my father."

Somehow, that thought didn't seem very comforting.

First thing Kirito wanted to ask was why she hadn't told him that sooner, but from the look on her face he could tell that she wasn't very comfortable about mentioning it at all. Why, he had no slightest idea, but that was something he didn't feel necessary to think on too deeply at the moment. That information alone changed a great deal of things.

"So, did you want to contact the the GM?" he asked. That would be by far the most logical thing for them to do now. A certain variable of an unknown foe that had Kirito worried was removed with this particular fact. Having thought of many scenarios that could have ended with the two of them trapped in ALO, most of them involved a third party responsible of that. But if Asuna's family really owned the company that had produced the game, it reduced the risk by a significant amount.

To his surprise, however, Asuna quickly shook her head.

"No—not at all! The GM might be somebody working for my father, but what are the chances he will take my words seriously? I know some of the men who work with him and half of them wouldn't twitch an eye if somebody introduced themselves by my name and explained this situation. It might interest some, but most of them wouldn't bother checking. They'd think it's some sort of a prank. No, what I was thinking is that it would be better if I asked somebody I knew to try establishing contact from the outside."

"That's… not a bad idea. It would be almost ideal if we could get in touch with him through somebody—"

"Not my father," Asuna interrupted.

"No? Why not? You think he won't believe the story?"

"He'll believe, I think. I don't know. But he's a busy man. For him to talk to a gamer would take learning everything through somebody else, first. It would be much easier—"

The knock on the door interrupted her and they both turned towards the door sharply.

Kirito tilted his head. "I thought everyone was logged out. Who could it be?"

"I know for sure that Tramp logged out over ten minutes ago. And I haven't seen anyone else. Ichigo-san said she had to work… It could be Ame-chan, but she said she'd send an IM when she logs in."

Kirito then got up and walked over to the door. Whoever it was, there was no use fretting about it. When he opened them he was standing face-to-face with Amber. Her eyes were wide, almost as if she hadn't been expecting him to open the door.

"Hey," he said.

"Uh, hi. I thought this was Asuna's room, sorry—"

"No, it's fine, Amber-san," Asuna called from the inside. "Come on in. I thought you said you weren't coming today."

Kirito stepped out of the way to let the Leprechaun girl pass, but as she walked in she was strangely slow and her face expression was something between uncomfortable and worried. As soon as Asuna saw it, she stood up and walked over to her. Amber had several centimeters on Asuna in heights, but for some reason she was holding her head so low that Asuna appeared to be taller.

"Is something wrong?"

"Wrong? Well, no. Not wrong, no. It's just…" she hesitated, looking over from Kirito and Asuna, until she seemed to come to a decision. "I need to ask you something, both of you."

Kirito glanced over to Asuna, but she was entirely focused on the Leprechaun girl.

"Go ahead."

Amber seemed to relax a little and she lifted her head to face them.

"When… when was the last time either of you logged out of ALO?"

To say that Kirito was surprised wouldn't be doing it any justice. He almost went out and said last night as a quick defense, but judging by the way she was looking at them, she wouldn't fall for such an answer. It meant that she either knew the part of the story or was on a very good route to figuring it out.

"What do you mean?"

Kirito had to give it to Asuna; her voice hardly wavered. She sounded almost as she was a touch worried, but the confusion in general was enough to cover it.

"You never did, did you?" Amber concluded. Unlike her last question, this one barely left her lips. If Kirito hadn't seen them move, he would have thought he was just imagining it. But she was looking from him to Asuna in a way that suggested that she already knew that answer. Not really seeing any point in lying, Kirito simply told her.

"We didn't."

"But how did you—?" Asuna started, but Amber interjected.

"I didn't," she said. "You wanted to ask how I figured it out, but I didn't. The most I've done was complained about yesterday's failure to somebody I know in the real world and…" she shook her head several times. "I refused to believe it at first. I thought it was impossible, crazy. It doesn't make any sense. But what he said actually made it out as possible and…"

"Who were you talking to?" Kirito asked, slowly beginning to panic on the inside. Did somebody know about this? If yes, why wasn't it taken care of yet? Was it impossible to log them out because of the same risk back in SAO? And just who did she tell?

"My brother-in-law. His name is Andrew Mills, but I don't know the name he used in SAO. I never… I never asked him. I mentioned your name, Kirito, I wasn't even thinking about it. He then kept asking and in the end came up with this theory that the two of you are basically imprisoned inside the game… I honestly thought he was wrong and was just thinking too much, but I remembered Sang mentioning that he'd once logged in at four in the morning and you were still logged in…"

She took a deep breath to calm her shaky voice. "Anyway, I was talking to him just ten minutes ago. He called over another friend from SAO…"

"Another…?"

"Do you know this other person's name?" Asuna asked.

Amber nodded. "Yeah. He said his name is Klein."

"K-Klein?" Kirito repeated.

"You know him, right? I mean, I don't think that you don't, but—"

"Yeah… I know him, all right," Kirito muttered. The mention of the name stirred up something inside of him. Perhaps it was because it was one familiar name that he now knew for sure was safe and back in the real world. To think that Amber had been talking to him less than ten minutes ago suddenly made everything he'd been through worthwhile.

"Is he… is he all right?" he asked despite himself.

"I guess. I mean, he certainly seemed that way when he said he'll be logging in later today…"

"He's what? He said that? He knows what's going on, yet he still said that?" Asuna exclaimed.

"Y-yep."

Kirito covered his eyes with his palm. "That idiot. Just what is he thinking?"

"He can't do that!" Asuna protested. "Amber-san, go back and stop him! What if he—?"

"Just what makes you think he won't be able to log out?" Amber asked them in disbelief. "I don't know how it might be for you, but I gave him the game I bought at the same place where I bought mine. There's no reason for him to get stranded here. Moreover, since when were you the one to panic?"

That final question was directed at Kirito and he felt a bit awkward, now that she'd pointed it out. He exchanged a look with Asuna and he realized Amber had a pretty good reasoning. No matter how it turned out for the two of them, Klein would be logging in as a regular player and none of those players he'd met so far had any trouble leaving the game.

"It looks like we're the ones over thinking this now," he told Asuna. "But this might be a good thing. At least Klein might have a better idea of what's going on."

"I guess." She nodded in agreement slowly, then bit her lip as she turned to Amber. "Can you do something for me, please?"

"Like what?"

"There is a person I'd like for you to contact. Would you be able to do that?"

Kirito gave her a questioning look, but Asuna shook her head as to indicate she would explain it to him later, not that he considered it necessary. It was easy to see what she was doing.

Amber nodded reluctantly. "Okay. Just, tell me who and how I can reach them and I'll do it."

Asuna smiled gratefully then materialized the virtual keyboard. "His name is Yuuki Kouichirou. I'm not sure if he's still using it, but this is the e-mail address. Just tell him something that will get him to meet you in person. I know I'm asking too much, but I can't do it any other way. When you meet him, tell him everything you know. I'm sure you know even more than we do, as so far the only thing we know for sure is that we're alive. Don't accept if he offers to send somebody else, though."

"How will I even know who he is?" Amber moaned. "I've never seen him in my life and—"

"Just google him," Asuna said simply.

"Huh?"

"I mean it. The last I thing I heard is that he was supposed to be preparing to take over as RECTO's public face. There'll have to be pictures online."

"I guess that makes sense… but RECTO? The RECTO? How do you even know this person?"

"Secret~" Asuna chuckled. "But if somebody might be able to do anything about this," she gestured towards herself and Kirito, "then it's him."

"Fine," Amber agreed and opened her status window. "Looks like I'm being nothing but a messenger today. Errand girl. Ugh."

"Just think of yourself as harbinger of good news," Asuna laughed.

"You make it sound so much better," Amber said dryly, the last of her nervousness dissipating away and she even cracked a smile. It was gone quickly, however, replaced by a worried face. "I-is there any danger that something might happen to you in the real world, you know, if your HP drops to zero?"

At that, Asuna didn't have a proper response. She looked over to Kirito for help and he said quietly, "I don't know. But that's not going to happen. We'll stay inside the safe zones for the most part and even if we don't, you don't have to worry. We can take care of ourselves."

"If you're so sure… Well, I'm going, then. Don't kill me for logging out in your room if I interrupt something later."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Asuna demanded, but Amber only smiled before logging out. She then turned to Kirito as though offended. "And why do you look so amused?"

"It's nothing!"

"It better not be."

Kirito nodded obediently. He then looked through the window and asked, "Now what?"

"Now we wait." Asuna turned to look as well and when she spoke, it sounded just the way he felt. Relieved. Happy. But also incredibly useless and powerless. The power that had been in their hands for so long was now taken away from them entirely and was resting on the shoulders of others.

Was this how those middle and lower-level players felt when the clearers entered a dungeon?

He thought it ought to be different than that. More complicated, more conflicted. He could perhaps understand a tiny bit, what he hadn't understood before, as he'd been fighting from the very beginning. The way others must have felt while waiting for a rescue must have been similar to this. The truth was, he didn't like it at all.

"Let's go… outside, for a walk somewhere. Staying in a room like this… I feel like I'm suffocating."

"Yeah," Asuna agreed.

She led the way out, but for the briefest of moments he thought he'd seen her form shimmer. Perhaps he would have thought it to be a trick of the light in the real world, but in the virtual world he knew those things didn't happen without a reason. Even without him being aware of it at first, his hand grabbed Asuna's arm tightly and he felt incredibly relieved that he didn't grab empty air.

"Kirito-kun?" She gave him a questioning look, but he shook his head.

"It's fine. I just thought I saw something for a moment. Don't worry. Just… just promise me you'll be careful."

"What are you trying to say, that I can't take care of myself?"

"N-no, that's not it at all."

"Let's go. There was this restaurant I noticed in the north part of the city and I want to take a look. Food in ALfheim is so bland, it's even worse than the cheapest things you could get in Aincrad."

Kirito didn't try resisting as she pulled him along. Her behavior was normal and she didn't even appear to have noticed something strange. It almost left him feeling completely convinced that it was fine. Almost.

Author's Note: Update rate should slow down a lot now. I might be able to get the next chapter out before the weekend, but chances of that are pretty slim. Klein fans rejoice. He'll be showing up a lot more often from now on, including some other canon characters. Till the next chapter.