Chapter 25: Demons

A/N: Hi! I know i take a long time. School is stupid. Anyway, hope you enjoy this and i will see you at the bottom!

2024/07/16 (elapsed time: two days)

"Alright. Is everyone here?" Asuna asked, looking at the group gathered around her. They were in a sort of briefing room, sitting in chairs at a large round table.

"Fel's not here." Ryner muttered from his seat.

"Well where is she?"

"She said she had personal business to attend to." Kirito cut in.

Asuna was quiet for a minute, pensively observing the empty chair between the two boys. "I guess she can be excused today. I'll message her about the main points." She briefly looked around at everyone gathered, who were mostly the prominent members of the defense division. "Ok. I now call this meeting to order. Toma, if you would brief us on what you've gathered?"

Toma nodded. Placing a mirage-sphere on the table, he began to speak. "Over the past six months, we have been successful in subduing many criminal guilds and red-players, but there are still many left that are causing problems for the people in Aincrad. On top of that, new 'problems' pop up seemingly by the day. The majority of these guilds are composed of petty thieves and troublemakers, but our main concern are the murder guilds, Laughing Coffin in particular." The mirage-sphere was on now, and Toma was pointing out sections of Aincrad as he mentioned them. "Criminal guilds seem to be active on the floors with the most players living on them. This means Floors 1-30. However, we have discovered that the more prominent guilds are moving to higher floors. Just recently, we received a report that members of Laughing Coffin were spotted on Floor 36 in this area here. We acted immediately, but were unable to find them."

"If I may say something," Kirito said, raising his hand, "In my opinion, we took too long to organize. If we had arrived even a minute earlier, we could have gotten a result of some kind. We need a way to react to these situations without too much hassle."

Asuna nodded thoughtfully. "What do you have in mind?"

"I'm glad you asked. I was thinking that we come up with a team and a list of names and guilds that promise to participate in taking down Laughing Coffin. That way, we can assemble in less time while not having to worry about who to invite."

"Is this team only being formed with the purpose of taking down Laughing Coffin, or will it be used for other red guilds as well?" Toma asked.

"If need be, it will be used to take out other guilds. But my thinking is that, if we take out the largest and most influential guild, then the others will lose confidence, eventually collapsing and disbanding on their own."

"I could see that working." Toma mused.

"Alright. We'll begin creating this subjugation force immediately. I want everyone to invite players and guilds who they know to be trustworthy and powerful enough to handle something like this. I don't want innocent people dying." Asuna had her arms and legs crossed, looking business-like. "Onto other matters, have we learned anything specific about our targets?"

Toma nodded to Ryner and sat down. The other knight stood up to speak his part.

"We haven't learned much about the smaller guilds. Mostly, we've just had reported sightings. But we have gleaned a lot about Laughing Coffin recently. We have nothing on their location, but weinterrogated some people on their nature. There's that merchant we arrested a couple days ago that was a supplier to LC, and he informed us about some of the other suppliers he knew. We have also been getting tips from Kuroshida about the guild itself, though half of what he says leads to dead ends. More recently, he was able to tell us with certainty that LC has acquired items that negate status inhibitors and that the name of their leader is PoH."

It was silent for a moment, as everyone let that sink in.

"Has anyone ever seen or heard of this 'PoH' before?" Asuna queried.

Everyone glanced at each other. Some shook their heads.

Asuna sighed. "Ok. That's enough for this week. Keep me informed on any developments. Dismissed." With that, everyone stood up to leave. "Not you, Ryner. We need to talk."

Said knight looked up to see Asuna and Kirito still sitting down. " . . . Alright." He said after a while, walking over and taking a seat closer to them. When everyone was gone and the door was shut, Ryner finally asked "What's this about?"

"We need to talk about Felicita." Asuna said quietly.

A pit formed in the knight's stomach. ". . . Ok."

"You've noticed how different she is recently, right? How distant?" Kirito asked, his tone serious.

Ryner nodded. "Yeah. She doesn't speak as freely anymore. She's even started wearing her hood up again."

"Do you have any idea why?"

Ryner's eyebrows furrowed. "No. Don't you?"

Kirito sighed and shook his head.

"That's what we need you to find out." Asuna said.

"What?" asked her subordinate, looking confused.

The Lightning Flash sighed. "We're worried about her, Ryner. We need you to see what's bothering her."

"Why me? I mean, if anything you're closer to her." He said, speaking to Kirito.

"Maybe." Kirito said, though he didn't look like he believed it. "But you've known her longest. Besides, I don't think I'm the person she wants to talk to right now." He said this last part so quietly, the other two in the room barely heard him.

"Alright then." Ryner said after a while. "What do you want me to do?"

Asuna and Kirito glanced at each other.

"Well, there's no right way of doing this." Asuna began. "But we were thinking that you could talk to her, spend time with her. See if you can make her open up a bit."

". . . I guess I could try that."

"Good." Here, Asuna stood up. "I'm giving you and Felicita the rest of the day off, and if you need it, tomorrow as well. I'm not expecting you to get everything out of her, just get things started."

Ryner knew that it wasn't going to work from the start. He wasn't clever or sneaky when it came to tactical maneuvering, he was mostly a direct and upfront kind of person. He liked to face things head on. So tailing Felicita and Akane to find out where they were going definitely wasn't going to work out for him.

First, he had asked around the guild, trying to find out where the former thief had gone. When no one could help him, Ryner had trudged dejectedly out of HQ only to run straight into the girl he had been searching for. He had walked out the front doors without really paying attention and had literally bumped into her before rushing back in before she could tell who it had been. After a few minutes of staring out of a window overhead, watching the girl in gray just stand there, Ryner saw another girl run up to Felicita. The two greeted each other before leaving together in the direction of the center of town. As the two walked away, Ryner was surprised to realize that the girl with Fel was Akane, the girl that had come in a few days ago begging for help. He briefly wondered what they were doing before trailing after them.

Eventually the two led him to the square were the teleportation dais was located. He barely caught them saying the name of a town on Floor 36 before they disappeared in a flash of light. Ryner's eyebrows furrowed. Floor 36 was the floor that Akane had been attacked on. After a minute of waiting, Ryner teleported after them so they wouldn't be there when he arrived. He really hoped that he wouldn't get caught as he walked toward the snowy mountain range, pulling on his fur cloak as he did so, but of course, the universe ignored his pleas.

Ryner was starting to despair a little as he rounded a corner. He hasn't seen any sign of Felicita or Akane for almost half an hour now. He really wasn't cut out for this spy stuff, but really, how else could he learn what Fel was up to without getting a violent reply.

Apparently there was absolutely no way on Earth he could have avoided the violence because as he stepped around the corner, gravity suddenly switched off and he seemed to be upside-down. It was like slow motion as he flipped and suddenly fell head-first into the snow. He landed hard and it took him a second to actually register what he was seeing before he knew what it was. Standing over him were two girls. One was dressed in a gray cloak, her hood was up and her eyebrow was raised at him as if asking 'really?' The other girl wore red attire and looked down at him with worriedly.

Ryner blinked up at them for a few seconds.

"What are you doing here, Ryner?" Felicita asked in a bored tone.

The knight smiled sheepishly. "Hey, Fel. Akane. How's it going?"

"Are you ok?" Akane asked, grabbing Ryner's hand and helping him up.

"Yeah." Ryner grunted. "I'm fine. I'm more than used to Fel's unique greetings by now."

"You're avoiding my question." Felicita deadpanned.

". . . Right. Well I was, uh, nearby and I saw you guys and—"

"You're a sucky liar."

The boy hung his head in shame. "Yeah. I know. How'd you figure out I was following you?"

Felicita smirked, but it didn't look as teasingly condescending as it should have. "I'm a master thief. You think that amateurs could outwit me?"

Ryner smiled back in an attempt to keep the atmosphere light. "I suppose not."

"So tell me, why are you here?"

The boy clad in red and white thought about his options for a minute.

Tell the truth and get punched in the gut or tell a lie and get punched in the face?

After careful consideration, he finally decided that a half-truth was best.

"I wanted to tag along?"

After a second, the girl sighed and turned so that she faced the road ahead. "I guess you could make yourself useful. Just keep up and don't get in the way." As she finished, she began to walk down the path. Akane trailed after her and it took Ryner a second to process what she had said before jogging to catch up.

"Thanks . . . I guess." It was silent for a minute and all the three of them could hear was their shoes crunching the snow and the wind whistling, gently sending snowflakes spiraling to the ground.

"So what are you guys here for?"

"I should have added to keep quiet." Felicita mused loudly.

Akane skipped the insults and gave Ryner a small smile. "We're going to that cave to look for any clues on Laughing Coffin."

The knight's eyes widened. "What? But we were just there a few days ago."

"Something wasn't sitting right with me." Felicita mumbled in response. "And anyway, Akane was insisting on trying to find the people who attacked her."

"Really?" Ryner asked in awe. Akane gave him a sheepish nod. "That's really brave of you, Akane."

"Thank you, but I don't really think it's all that brave. I just want to help prevent other people from getting hurt."

"Well that's a good thing to—"

"Sh" Felicita hissed at him.

"Rude." He shot at her. "I was just—"

"Sh!" Came a much louder hiss. The thief was pointing at a dark abyss in the side of the mountain. "We're here, baka. Keep quiet. We don't know what we could be up against." Felicita took one more look around before heading out. "Get you're weapons ready."

Akane and Ryner nodded, pulling out their halberd and longsword respectively. Cautiously, the group of three entered the cave, scanning the darkness for anything unusual. When nothing obvious appeared, they crept deeper into the cavern.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Ryner hissed.

Felicita glared at him for silence. "Anything that's not supposed to be here."

"Right." Ryner muttered, glancing around with his sword drawn. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him. He turned around, to ask Akane if she saw anything. He was a little concerned for her. She had just had a bad experience with Laughing Coffin, yet still wanted to face them head on to stop them. She must be really scared.

Apparently there was no need for concern. Ryner had turned to look at Akane, ready to whisper, when suddenly he registered the fact that there was something sticking out of his abdomen. He stared in shock at the hilt. His eyes traveled to the hand, passed the wrist, up the arm to the face of Akane. She grinned at him, an evil glint to her eye as she pulled the blade out. After a moment, Ryner tried to move, but found him unable to do so. He glanced at the paralysis symbol that appeared beside his health bar as he toppled to the floor. As his entire body made contact with the ground, Ryner could only find the strength to say one thing:

"Fel, run."

It had come out strained, so Felicita didn't understand what he said nor the urgency with which he said it.

"What do you want now?" She snapped, but froze when she saw Akane smirking at her as she brandished a knife, Ryner on the ground behind her.

Felicita was speechless for a few seconds. "A-Akane, what—?"

"Good work." A voice echoed from the darkness.

Akane's face lit up as several figures appeared. "You really think so?" She asked hopefully as she pranced over to the man in the center. He patted her head as she reached him.

"Of course. You did quite well, my little actress."

Akane smiled wider as she was showered with affection. Felicita's and Ryner's eyes widened in fear and realization as they watched the scene before them. All of the newcomers wore the signature cloaks and masks of a certain murder guild.

"Laughing Coffin." Felicita growled, pulling out her knives as she stepped protectively between Ryner and the red players. As she did this, she and Ryner noticed the wall of people that had appeared between them and the exit.

The man petting Akane ceased his affectionate actions to turn toward the girl in gray. He didn't say anything in answer to her comment. Instead, he said two simple words:

"It's Showtime."

Immediately players left and right rushed at Felicita. Her stomach lurched as they pounced at her. She spun around in a one-eighty so that she was behind one of them, and elbowed him, adding to his momentum and sending him across the cave. She kept up her momentum so that she completed her spin, sweeping her leg out. She tripped another criminal and twirled up into a standing position. Soon she was like a spinning top, slicing her blades in a whirlwind. There were so many of them, it was hard to keep up. She blurred slightly. Now, only the people around her could tell where she was and not what she was doing, only that players were falling left and right.

Ryner still laid on the ground, immobile and absolutely helpless. It pissed him off, seeing what was going on and not being able to do anything. He couldn't help. He couldn't protect himself. He couldn't protect her.

Felicita grimaced as more people came at her. She was afraid, as much as she didn't want to admit it. She was afraid that they would defeat her. That she wouldn't be able to win against them. They outnumbered her, out-powered her. The outcome was in their favor.

She briefly glimpsed Ryner on the ground. He was just lying there, watching the battle with a furious look on his face. She knew how he was feeling. It was the same as how she felt back then, when she was too weak to even fight on her own, to give a fight her all and not screw up. Seeing him down there reminded her of her weakness, her fear that one day she really won't be able to do anything.

Think of your fear in a different perspective. If you're afraid, think of it as conviction.

Suddenly, Kirito's words came back to her. Having that fear would cause her to crumble, but I if she turned it into something else, the pressure would cease to crush her, but instead push her up, cause her to rise and do what she knew needed to be done.

Her grip on her weapons tightened. She couldn't give up. She could not afford to lose. Ryner was there, he was counting on her to get him out of there. Only she could save his life.

I will not give up. You will not beat me. You will not kill me! YOU WILL NOT KILL HIM!

With an angry swipe of her knives, Felicita flung back multiple enemies onto the floor away from her. Some shattered on impact, others dissipated in midair. The girl in the middle was breathing heavily at this point, but there was no way she was backing down.

The remaining Laughing Coffin members were getting back up, preparing to attack again.

"Stop."

Everyone looked up at the man who was obviously the leader.

"That's all for now." With a lazy flick of his wrist, he sent his underlings away. Felicita just glared at him warily as he neared her. "I apologize for this meeting, Shadow Thief, but I wanted to meet you in person. I also wanted to test you, to see if you had gotten soft since leaving us. I can see now that you are still a formidable foe." He stopped a few meters away from her. "I don't know if you have heard of me or not, but my name is PoH."

Felicita's eyes widened.

"So you have heard of me. Did Kuroshida inform you of my identity?" There was no response, but he seemed to get his answer from the silence. He sighed. "I shouldn't be surprised. He was always one to worry more about self-preservation than anything else." After a moment, he turned on the spot and walked back into the darkness. "Send him my regards for me would you? In the meantime, I will look forward to our next encounter. I believe that it will be quite interesting."

Then he was gone, the darkness swallowing him along with his guild. Felicita stood there for a long time, eyeing the darkness with narrowed eyes to make sure no one was coming back. Then, she rushed over to Ryner with an antidote crystal. Once the item shattered, Ryner attempted to lift himself into the sitting position. He watched as Felicita wandered across the cave, staring into the dark void that Laughing Coffin had disappeared into.

To Ryner's shocked surprise, Felicita kicked a boulder and sent it flying. The rock smashed into the wall and shattered, dissipating in little polygons.

"Dammit! I knew they were screwing with me!" She yelled. In fury, she walked to the nearest wall and slammed her fist into it. An 'immortal object' notification popped up at the impact but Felicita ignored it as she hit the rock again. After each agitated beep with no signs of inflicting any damage, Felicita yelled in frustration and pulled out one of her knives. She thrust the blade at the wall, only to have it glance off with a high-pitched 'shing!'

"Fel!"

The thief stopped abruptly, staring at the wall as if just noticing what she was doing. Ryner just looked on in silence, not knowing what to do. His friend just looked so upset and angry . . . it scared him a little. But he wasn't scared of her. He was scared for her.

The girl's arms went limp, the grip on her weapon slackened and it soon clattered to the floor. Without a word, she walked in the direction of the exit. It took Ryner a few seconds to gather his wits before scooping up the fallen weapon and following her.

As soon as the knight reached the mouth of the cave, he saw her. She was just standing a few meters away, her dark form greatly contrasting with the pure white of the landscape. Her back was too him, so Ryner had no idea what she was feeling as he slowly walked closer to her.

"I'm scared of myself, Ryner."

The boy stopped a few feet behind her, surprised by her statement. "What do you mean?"

It was silent for a minute as Felicita gathered her thoughts. "I'm scared of myself, of what I might end up doing. I'm scared of what I might be becoming."

She felt a presence at her shoulder. "Why?" came the simple question.

Her fists clenched tightly by her sides. "Because of what I've already done."

Ryner suddenly walked around to face her. "Do you mean from your stealing days? Because I'm pretty sure that those are behind you."

The girl's almond-colored eyes had a hard time meeting his. "It's not just that . . . I've killed people Ryner—"

"If you're talking about Seiji and Kinade—"

She suddenly looked up at him and he was surprised to see angry tears in her eyes. "No! It's not that either! I still feel bad about it but . . ." She trailed of slightly as she impatiently rubbed the water from her eyes. "I've done worse. I've killed people. You have no idea. I just killed those players and at Christmas last year I killed a bunch of soldiers!"

"That was only because they attacked you and today you were protecting me! You didn't have a choice!"

"But I didn't feel anything! I felt nothing as I ran my blades through their bodies! I'm a monster!" Ryner didn't know what to say to her before she spoke again. "And that night at the raid, in the castle on Floor 17, while you were . . . before Klein revived you . . . I killed Agate. I killed him in cold blood. You didn't see how . . . scary I was. He was just standing there, not even holding his sword and all I could feel was hatred. I wanted to stab him, run my blade through his chest and see the light leave his eyes . . . He said that he would destroy me and he was right. He made me just like him."

They stood there in silence. Neither one of them saying or doing anything. Felicita could feel herself crumbling, her walls were crashing down and she was exposing the weakness that she despised so much. She hated it. She hated herself for showing her vulnerability.

"I can feel it. Whenever I'm in battle. I'm so tempted to kill and—"

"You're wrong."

Felicita looked back up at Ryner. He glared down at her determinedly. "You're not like him. You're no monster."

She almost laughed. "You don't understand—"

"No, you don't understand!" The knight said, taking a step toward her. "You're not crazy or sadistic and you're definitely not a monster! You say that you didn't feel anything when you killed those people. Well obviously you did because you're beating yourself up over it now."

"Well what about, Agate? I murdered him! I hated him so I killed him. I felt no compassion at all!"

For a few seconds, there was nothing but the sound of her heavy breathing.

"If that's true, then why are you crying about it?"

Felicita blinked, suddenly registering her blurry vision. Before she could say anything, Ryner pulled her into an embrace. He tucked her head under his chin and held her close to him. All the girl could do was stand there, her eyes wide and her body frozen, and not by the cold.

"You obviously felt something. And even if you killed Agate out of hatred, you feel remorseful now. You're no monster. Humans make mistakes, but afterwards, they regret their actions and try to make up for it. Monsters do despicable things without a care in the world, and you obviously care."

Ryner continued to hold her as they stood there, the snow falling around them. After a while, Felicita brought her arms up to return Ryner's hug, burying her face in his front.

How could he say these things? How could anyone in Sword Art Online have such a positive mindset like this? This game was a living hell, and yet he still had the capacity to acknowledge that genuine human beings still existed?

Out of the corner of her eye, Felicita glimpsed the fallen snow shining in the sunlight.

He's so blinding he outshines the snow.

The knight looked down at the ground as he continued to comfort the girl in his arms. It was so sad that a girl as amazing as this had so many insecurities. She was so strong and stubborn as she kept up a façade to hide her vulnerable side, but there was only so much one person could handle, especially someone as small as her. She kept beating and berating herself over things that she did wrong, things that she regretted, and before long, she was falling apart at the seams. It was a lot for one person to handle alone. Trying to live life by yourself hurt. It hurt, and it gave a person less reasons to smile, to be happy. Ryner knew that firsthand.

He briefly looked at the sky in the distance.

Mom, you wanted me to smile, to be happy. That's all you ever wanted. Well I think I found my reason.

As he thought this, he held the girl tighter, not ever wanting to let go. He stood there calmly, taking in the world as he saw it. The contrast between the pure white snow and the darkly dressed girl in his arms stuck out the most. She stood out against the whiteness, her dark nature stood out amongst the monochrome of the world. It was a startling contrast, but Ryner smiled, thinking that it held a certain beauty to it.

A/N: So i got a review saying that a second love-interest was possible for Felicita. The only ones i can see that are possible are KiritoxFelicita and RynerxFelicita. Is that the same for you guys? I just want to be sure.

Anyway, this chapter was a good character/relationship development one. I thought it was interesting to develop the difference between monsters and humans because there is a difference despite what people think of themselves or each other.

Well, review to tell me how i did and i will see you next update!