A/N: Hello, everyone. Been a bit of a rough week, so I apologize for making you all wait a bit longer for this chapter than I had initially planned. In any case, with the Fifth Commandment and the Moonlit Black Cats successfully merged together, I thought that a little bit of an adjustment period was needed- as well as the introduction of one last character from the video games.
Who, you ask? 'Mataras, hasn't everyone from Hollow Fragment already been inserted?' Why yes, they have. But there's one more person that I think would be appropriate to introduce, and for those of you familiar with her character, I think you'll like what I've done. If you don't know who she is, I'll give a little more context to her in the omake after the chapter is over.
Now, read, review, and as always, enjoy!
P.S. If you liked the wedding artwork from the last chapter, you can still see it on my Instagram at the_red_swordsman
By blood we are bound
Not by the red in our veins
But by what we shed
Sisters
The echoes of metal striking metal echoed throughout the house of the Moonlit Black Cats as the sun left the horizon behind it. Accompanying the harsh notes were the sounds of exertion coming from four individuals; three girls and one boy. Due to these noises, Rivka gave up on trying to sleep in and stumbled out of bed to look out her window into the backyard of their new home, feeling the corners of her lips turn downward as she looked upon her comrades.
Mataras was down in the grass, armed with a flaming sword and saxe knife, trading lightning-fast blows with his sister's massive broadsword, Strea's new zanbato that she had gotten from the Gleam Eyes, and Sinon's sword-breaking dagger. He was glorious in motion, no moves wasted as he flowed like water from one stance to the next in order to defend and counterattack against his three opponents. Of course, part of the reason he wasn't immediately overwhelmed was due to the fact that they seemed to be engaging in a battle royal of sorts- otherwise Strea and Saphira's combined strengths would have easily put him out of commission.
As it was, the only way that any of them were making headway against the smaller girl was whenever they coordinated their attacks to inflict damage or simply stave her off for a moment. Mataras and Sinon seemed to favor this tactic, but they were also quick to strike at each other the instant that they saw an opportunity.
Seeing the two of them working together so well made Rivka's stomach twist a little. Despite Saphira's assurances that there was nothing romantic between the two former fugitives, she couldn't help but feel jealous of the camaraderie that they shared, and the undeniable bond that had formed between them. Kirito had told them that there was something in her past that Mataras had been able to sympathize with, and thus gain her confidence, but he had refused to say what. Whatever the case was, the two were undoubtedly close to each other, and with a long history of fighting side-by-side under even more perilous circumstances than she could comprehend between them, Rivka felt out of place with her childhood friend whenever the archer was around.
She just hoped that her jealousy wouldn't lead to her saying something that would completely destroy her relationship with Mataras.
"And the last round goes to me," I said with a smirk as I took my foot off of Saphira's stomach and backed away a couple of paces. "Sorry, kid."
"Oh please, the only reason you won was because you used Sinon for cover after I took out Strea," she grunted as she got to her feet, our resident AI quickly following suit.
"He saw an advantage, and he took it," Sinon grinned as she tossed me my saxe, which I had dropped while trying to block a blow from Strea's sword. "Don't worry, Saphira. We can get him next time."
"I don't like this idea," I muttered while we all put away our weapons in our inventories.
"I know, that's why I'm suggesting it," Sinon quipped.
"I think that when Kirito and Sachi get back, we should have a girls versus boys' battle!" Strea chirped.
"Like that'd be any fun," I complained as we started walking toward the house. "You'd get nine people, and it'd just be me and Kirito."
"Hmm, he makes a good point," Saphira mused as we walked onto the back porch. "We'd have to give them some kind of a handicap."
"We could always invite Agil and Klein to join us," Strea suggested.
"Pfft, if you wanna give my team an advantage, put Klein on your side," I chuckled.
"Wow, dude," Saphira said as she shook her head in mock exasperation. By now we were heading into the kitchen for breakfast, all of us looking forward to a break from the fast-paced training we had taken up at dawn.
It had been a week since Kirito and Sachi's wedding, and other than a few pictures that they had sent us yesterday, we had refrained from having any contact with them out of a desire to give them their space. In that time, I had met with the leaders of the other guilds in my new position as Vice Commander of the Cats, and delivered to them the news that Kirito and Sachi would not be returning until it was time for a boss raid. This of course, was met with outrage and ridicule aimed at me, but by the end of the day, I had left the meeting room, laughing uncontrollably.
After about half an hour of arguing with the other guild leaders (and doing my very best not to lose my temper in the process), Saphira walked up to the massive central stone table that was sitting in the meeting hall of the K.O.B. guild, raised her left fist, and broke the furniture in two with a single blow. This left the entire gathering in a stunned silence- even Heathcliff looked unsettled, for once- and gave her the opportunity to say, "The next guy to object to his presence gets the same treatment. We're the biggest guns in this game, he's leading us in Kirito's absence, and until he remembers who Kayaba is, or we clear the game the hard way, you're gonna work with him politely, if not gladly. Ipso facto. See you all at the next boss meet." With that, she spun on her heel, grabbed me by the arm, and led me out of Grandzam, the both of us bursting out into helpless laughter as soon as we made it out of the castle.
Since then, we had encountered a few parties from other guilds in the field, and while they weren't friendly, they didn't attack us on sight, either. It was marked improvement on the way that my life had been when I was running operations out of the Hollow Area.
Speaking of which, the hidden world was now being used regularly by everyone in our party to continue levelling up, though the reprogramming of the Hollow AI had now ceased on our end. Hollow Asuna and about a dozen others still remained loyal to us, but I ordered Strea to stop acquiring new ones, as we didn't really need them anymore. They assisted my less-experienced guild mates in getting around the Hollow Area, but other than that, they remained on standby in the gardens where the Fifth Commandment's old camp remained.
The exceptions to this were Erika, our seamstress, Horace, who acted as our merchant, and Liz, our metal smith. They had come to live with us in our new home after Strea made sure that the Cardinal system wouldn't recognize them as duplicate ID's, and destroy them accordingly. The house had a small forge in the basement, which Liz and Horace were able to turn into a functioning workshop, and Erika took to setting up a work table in her given room.
All three of them were ordered not to go outside the house, as we did not want to run the risk of someone recognizing them, slim as the chance might be. Liz's source player was still alive, but the original Horace and Erika had both died during the first month of Sword Art Online. It wouldn't do for somebody to identify dead people or a non-existing twin at our headquarters while we were trying to get things to die down.
Even as all of this was going on, the guild continued to press on through the front lines of Aincrad under my command, our efforts contributing a significant amount of map data to the Assault Team's combined efforts to clear the seventy-fifth floor. It wasn't exactly tough going for those of us used to living in the Hollow Area, but it was still very time-consuming.
Strangely enough, I was okay with that. I knew that when I made it out of the game, it would only mean transferring from one prison to another. At least in this cage, I could ensure the safety of the people that I loved with the strength that I had earned during my imprisonment. Here, I was powerful, feared, and resourceful.
Out there, I'll be just like everyone else, if not worse off, I thought morosely. But everyone else will be free- and that's good enough for me.
At breakfast, Kiriha received another message from her brother, which we all found odd. "Didn't Sachi just send us some pictures yesterday?" Silica asked as Kiriha started scanning the message.
"Yeah, it looked like they were having fun," Yuuki nodded.
"Maybe the honeymoon is over," I snickered, earning me a smack to the head from my sister. The system's safe zone prevented the blow from actually connecting, but her STR stat was high enough to inflict something like recoil on me, which resulted in my face planting in the table. "Yeah, I deserved that," I mumbled.
"What's happening?" Sinon asked Kiriha, who now looked very surprised. "Are they okay?"
"I think so," the blond girl answered. "But he says that they need help, preferably from Mataras' team."
"Huh?" I asked as I lifted my head from the wooden surface, even as Sinon and Strea exchanged puzzled glances. "Did he say why?"
"Not really," Kiriha replied as she let the message close. "Apparently they found someone who's in- as he put it- 'an unusual situation'. I guess he thinks that your experiences with the Hollow Area makes you an expert on the weird and unexplained in SAO."
"I am an expert," Strea grinned.
"That's because you're weird and unexplained," Sinon quipped, prompting me to chuckle and give her a fist bump.
"And proud of it!"
"Does it just have to be Mataras' group?" Rivka asked. "Why don't we all take the day off and go see what's up?"
"They only asked for the three of them," Kiriha answered with a shrug. "Plus, their house is small, so I don't know how well it's gonna work out if all of us suddenly show up on their doorstep."
"We got this," I said with a grin aimed at my old friend. "If we need reinforcements for whatever reason, you'll be the first one I'll message." Turning to Kiriha, I added, "Please let him know that we'll be there in less than an hour."
"Sure."
Rivka appeared dissatisfied with my decision, but before she could voice an objection, Saphira preempted her by asking, "What should the rest of us do while you're down on the lower floors?"
"Liz was asking for some carmine ore from the volcano zone in the Hollow Area," I replied. "If two or three of you could go and find her some, that'd be great. Everyone else can either get in some levelling in the same place, or just focus on clearing floor seventy-five. My team will head out here in about twenty minutes." Sinon and Strea wordlessly nodded in agreement at that.
"Any idea how much further we have to go on that?" Philia asked as she stood up with her empty plate and silverware.
"Fuurinkazan beat the dungeon's mid-boss last night, and the Holy Dragon Alliance finished the last info quest the day before, so we really just need to find the boss room," I answered. "Hopefully that'll happen before the week is over, but the traps on this floor are being especially difficult."
"It is a milestone floor," Kiriha pointed out. "It's bound to be extra hard to clear."
"Not for us," Strea chirped as she followed Philia to wash her dishes. "This is basically like a normal Tuesday for the Fifth Commandment."
"I have a question," Silica piped up. "Why does the Hollow Area keep letting you guys stay ahead of everyone else? I mean, when Mataras first went there, it couldn't have been any harder than the stuff on floor forty or fifty, right? But it's still really tough to get around in there, and monsters are crazy strong, no matter how much we level up."
"The Hollow Area is designed to evolve its difficulty settings the more that Aincrad is cleared," Strea answered. "That means that even the dungeons inside of it would change periodically, which was a giant pain to figure out. Even when we reach floor one hundred, it'll keep increasing its danger factor."
"Why is that?" Philia inquired. "Isn't the point just to test out weapons and monsters up to floor one hundred's difficulty level?"
"Yes and no," I told them, having heard this from Strea before. "The Hollow Area is still run by the Cardinal System, but under a different prerogative. The best way I can think of to put it is that Aincrad was designed to be beaten, while the Hollow Area was not. It'll just keep getting tougher and tougher until it's deleted."
"But how does it know how to scale the difficulty level?" Yuuki asked curiously. "It's gotta be basing the data for that on something, otherwise it'd probably outpace the Assault Team's ability to conquer SAO."
"It's based on us, the elite players," I replied, startling the others. Seeing their continued looks of confusion, I added, "It's designed to be difficult for potential test subjects, but not quite impossible to survive. So it extrapolates monster levels based on how powerful I am, and Sinon, Yuuki, Philia, anyone marked as a candidate to receive a unique skill or have a Hollow replicate created ahead of their death."
"So we're the ones setting the standard, huh?" Philia muttered.
"No wonder we always have such a hard time there!" Silica said. "I always wondered how you survived on your own in that place."
"Pfft, I never actually made it very far on my own," I reminded them. "Even when I tried to be alone, this one wouldn't let me." I jerked a thumb at Saphira, who stuck her tongue out at me. "She's the only one here that actually managed to survive the place without help for any length of time."
"On that note, would you mind leading the team that goes in for the ore?" Kiriha asked her.
"Yeah, no problem," my sister replied. "Shouldn't be too bad."
"Make sure you take Philia or Rivka with you," I added. "The ore that Lisbeth wants can spawn in the volcano, even if there's no blacksmith in the party, but it never hurts to check the odd treasure chest for extra materials."
"Dibs," Philia volunteered. "It's been a while since I've been able to get my hands on some Hollow Area treasure."
"Hey, I haven't been around Saphira in a long time," Rivka argued. "I'm going."
"You can both come, but we'll need an extra sword to watch each other's backs in there," Saphira said to prevent any arguing. "Kiriha?"
"Yeah, why not?" the younger Kirigaya shrugged. "I guess that leaves Yuuki and Silica on floor-clearing for today."
"Awesome!" Yuuki said with a fist pump to the air. "We're gonna have a blast, kid!"
"Uh, sure…" Silica replied, looking less than convinced that this would be the case.
"Send updates at lunchtime via message," I ordered as I put my plate and utensils in the sink, where Strea was already at work. "Yuuki, take it easy on Silica- I know she's an Assault Team member, but very few of us can match your speed."
"Roger!" she said with a mock salute, putting a smile on our faces.
"I gotta say, even with our new place, I'm kinda jealous of the view that Kirito and Sachi have down here," Sinon said as we walked along the path that ran past the lake.
"If there was a house big enough, I'm sure we would have at least taken a look," I replied while Strea went down to splash in the ankle-deep parts of the water. Seeing this, I chuckled to myself and said, "You'd think that she's never seen a body of water before."
"We did have that pool back in the Ulpuera Garden, but Strea hardly ever got to go anywhere besides there and the control room after you recruited her," my partner pointed out. "This is all still fresh and new for her."
"True," I mused, feeling a twinge in my gut that was becoming rather familiar these days. "Hey, Sinon?"
"What's up?"
"Do you think that I was cruel to her?" I asked grimly without turning around.
Sinon's answer took a few moments for her to formulate, but eventually she said, "No, I don't think that, and I'm sure that she doesn't, either."
"What makes you certain?"
"I think she knows that it was your way of keeping her- and by extension, the rest of us- safe," she replied as she briefly increased her pace to walk alongside me. "Without her, none of us would have lasted long in the Hollow Area, and we'd still be chasing Laughing Coffin in circles if she hadn't helped us. And she wouldn't have done any of that if she thought that you were a bad person."
"I am a bad person," I commented dryly.
"We're all bad people trying to do good in the world," Sinon told me. "The Fifth Commandment did its best, but the time has evidently come for us to move on."
Here, I did turn my head toward my partner and asked, "Do you think I did the wrong thing, coming back to the Cats?"
"No," she answered resolutely. "I've never seen you so at peace, Mataras. That alone is enough to tell me that you made the right decision. And if something is good for you, then I'm all for it."
"What did I do to deserve such loyalty?" I asked with a rueful grin as she bumped my shoulder with her own.
"You saved me," she replied simply. "And you're my best friend."
"You too."
"Hey, guys!" Strea shouted as she waved her arms at us excitedly from the crystal blue water. "There's some really ugly fish in here! Can we try and catch them?!"
"Maybe later," I told her as I bit back a laugh that was lurking in the back of my throat. "Right now, we've got a couple of lovebirds that need our help, and I don't think that it'd be polite to keep them waiting."
"Party pooper!"
"Hey, Mataras?"
"What's up?"
"Are you any closer to remembering who Kayaba is?" Sinon asked in a low tone.
"I keep feeling like I can almost remember, but…" I shook my head in frustration. "I remembered that he's designated as an immortal object until he plans to fight us on floor 100, but that doesn't help me until I know who it is."
"Why not?"
"I can't exactly go around stabbing members of the Assault Team until one of them fails to die," I said in a dry tone.
"Good point," she chuckled.
We made our way to the cabin about ten minutes later, enjoying the good weather and the fact that for once, we weren't entirely pressed for time. Strea's face was lit up like a child's as she skipped ahead, behind, and around us. Sinon had a look of peace on her face that I had never seen before, and for the first time since I had met the two of them, they seemed truly happy.
I only wish that Crimson was here to see how it all turned out, I thought with a hint of sadness as we turned up the road to see Kirito and Sachi's cozy-looking cabin. There was smoke rising from the chimney, which told me that at least one of them would be home at the moment. I wasn't entirely certain if the person they needed help with would be there already, but I imagined that we would soon find out.
Before we reached the steps that led up to the porch, the front door opened to admit Kirito, who was dressed in his casual attire. "Hey, guys," he said as I met him in front of the door, reaching out to shake hands with him. "Good to see you."
"Married life seems to be treating you well," Sinon grinned as she shook hands with him, followed by a bone-crushing hug from Strea.
Once he had been put down, he replied, "It's been really nice down here. Quiet, peaceful."
"You're itching to go on a tough quest, aren't you?" I said with a smirk, knowing what lines his mind was likely to running along.
"You have no idea," he admitted. "But I didn't ask you guys down here to go on a quest."
"You said someone needs our help?" Sinon reminded him. "What does someone need from a group of ex-player-hunters?"
"That's not the skillset that I'm needing from you," he answered with a slight shake of his head. "You three are familiar with the weirder stuff that goes on in SAO, more than probably anyone but Kayaba himself. I'm hoping that you know how to handle what Sachi and I found."
"What or who?" I replied.
"Who," he confirmed as he turned around to lead the way into his home. "Come on in." As he opened the door, he called, "Sachi! Mataras and the others are here!"
"Okay," the girl called back as we stepped into a comfortable-looking living room. "I'll be in there real soon." I thought I heard another voice following hers', but it was so soft that I couldn't really be sure that I had actually detected the presence of another person.
"So, where's the girl that needs help?" I asked as Sinon and I took one of the couches that surrounded the coffee table, with Strea taking the rocking chair next to it. I was familiar with the layout of the house, having furnished it myself after buying it for the couple.
"Why do you assume it's a girl?" Kirito asked me suspiciously as he sat on the couch across from us.
"Dude, have you taken a look at our friend group?" I asked him dryly while indicating Sinon and Strea. "Of course it's a girl."
"He's not wrong," Sinon grinned.
"…Okay, fine, it's a girl," Kirito admitted. "But even so, she's very different from anyone in our guild."
"That's quite the claim," Sinon said as she started raising her fingers in tandem with the names of the people she would list. "We've got Strea, a psychiatrist AI that joined up with one of the deadliest players in SAO. There's his sister, the girl we thought was dead for more than a year, and now probably the strongest player in the game. We've also got Yuuki, who's picked up the nickname 'Sword Saint' because of her dual-wielding. We've got a master treasure hunter that was deemed capable of surviving the Hollow Area by the Cardinal System-"
"Not to mention the archer that saved my bacon more times than I can count," I chuckled. Ignoring the elbow that she pushed into my ribs, I added, "She's right, though. Between all of them, plus Silica, Rivka, and your sister, I really don't see how there could be a girl out there with a bigger surprise than the ones that we're already friends with."
"Come on in, Yui," I heard Sachi say as she came into the room with a tray of finger food, followed by a little girl dressed in white that barely went up to her elbow. "Say hello to everyone."
"…Hello," the little girl managed to whisper as she peeked out from behind Sachi with innocent brow eyes. "Who are these people, Momma?"
Turning instantly to Kirito, who had an awkward smile on his face, I asked him, "Did you guys wish really hard-?"
"No!"
"I'm tempted to repeat my tirades about stupidity that I gave to your sister when she first logged in to SAO," I said to my guild leader as sat out on the porch in a pair of lawn chairs. Sinon was sitting on a rocking chair close by while we could hear Sachi and Strea playing inside the house with Yui.
"I don't think that's gonna help," Sinon said as she gave Kirito a flat stare while he squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "He's almost as stubborn as you are."
"The only person as stubborn as me is Saphira, and the only one more stubborn than us was my mother," I grumbled as I kept up my disapproving scowl at my friend.
"She's lost her memory," he protested. "What were Sachi and supposed to do? Scare her with the fact that the house she woke up in doesn't belong to her mother and father?"
"It'd be better than lying to her about it," I said shortly.
He had just finished explaining to us that Sachi and he had been on a walk in the forest the previous afternoon when they came across little Yui, who had fainted the moment that they had laid eyes on her. When they were unable to revive her, and further noticed that for some reason she lacked a cursor of any kind, they decided to bring her back to their home so that she would at least have a safe place to rest for the night. While she did wake up in the morning, she displayed the mental developments of someone closer to the age of four or five as opposed to the eight-year-old that she appeared to be, in addition to only being able to recall her name; Yui.
She'd actually be ten by now, since these bodies don't age, I thought as my ears pricked at the sound of Sachi's laughter coming from the cabin. Even so, what parent would let their little kid use a NerveGear? I thought that Silica was too young to be using the rig in the first place, never mind this girl! The official age of approved use for the full-dive rig was thirteen, and our youngest member had confessed to being only twelve when she had first put it on. It wasn't a major difference in age, sure, but I did worry on occasion that it would have lasting negative effects on her psyche as her life went on. Then again, I think we're all gonna have some permanent negativity after what we've been through in here, I thought wryly.
I then forced myself to snap back to the present as I heard Kirito saying, "…just until we can find her real parents. They've gotta be somewhere in SAO."
"Unless she put on the rig without their knowing, and by the time they found her, it was too late," Sinon pointed out.
"Or they're dead," I shrugged, causing Kirito to turn toward me with anger in his eyes.
"And if that's the case, it might've been you that killed them," he said harshly, causing my face to redden, though I held my tongue for a number of reasons. The most prevalent one, of course, was that he was right- I may well have murdered the parents of the child that he was now caring for.
"We won't know anything for sure until either we find someone who knows her, or she gets her memories back," Sinon said in an attempt to diffuse the awkward atmosphere that had settled in.
"My question is, 'why is my team here'?" I asked the other boy as I felt the heat in my face fading away. "I don't do well with kids, and neither does Sinon."
"You guys have spent the most time in the Hollow Area," Kirito began as he straightened up slightly in his reclined chair. "You know the Hollow AI better than any other player in SAO. Do you think it's possible that Yui is one of them?"
This gave both Sinon and I pause enough for us to exchange a thoughtful look before my partner said, "It's very unlikely, but I won't dismiss it just because of that."
"I don't see how," I argued quickly. "Hollows can't come into Aincrad unless they have the permission of someone with admin privileges. Also, if she was one, she would definitely have a cursor like Crimson did, and our helpers do. I get the feeling that we're not getting the full picture."
"Her not having a cursor doesn't really bother me," Sinon countered. "Everyone and everything in SAO has one- the fact that she doesn't only adds to my idea that it could've been a glitch that sent her here. Her data could've gotten a little messed up like Saphira's did when she was forced to the Hollow Area. There's also the fact that she's having memory issues, which is pretty common among the Hollows."
She made some good points, but I still wasn't convinced yet. "If she is a Hollow, then where's her source?" I asked. "There's that orphanage for kids her age down on floor one, but I don't ever remember seeing a girl like her with them."
"Wait, there's an orphanage down on floor one?" Kirito asked me curiously. "How do you know about that? Why do you know about that?"
"You remember that creep, Viren?" I asked him in return. "Info broker?"
"Oh yeah," Kirito said as he made a face. "I never got a good vibe from him."
"There's a reason for that," Sinon said darkly. "He was stalking some of the kids that lived in a church that a lady named Sasha turned into a home for kids without their parents. Turns out he was facing assault charges against five minors back in Japan."
"How'd you know that?" Kirito asked me slowly, which just led to me giving him a flat stare.
"Really?" I asked in an equally dry tone. "You know how I worked. But if you want the details, I held him over a dragon's nest on floor 57 and threatened to drop him in it while the boss was sleeping unless he talked."
"Did he?"
"Sang like a bird," I replied.
"Until you dropped him anyway," Sinon smirked. When Kirito gave her a disapproving look, she shrugged and said, "He came onto our radar because he was one of the people giving tips to Laughing Coffin on where some of the mid-level guilds like to grind for EXP."
"Back to Yui," I said, feeling as though we had strayed too far from the original topic. "Whether or not she's a Hollow, we can have Strea analyze her player data to determine the truth of her identity, as well as hopefully finding her real parents or family members so that we can return her."
"Okay," Kirito sighed, and it wasn't lost on me how disappointed he sounded.
Sitting up straight on my own recliner, I folded my hands in front of me and said in a low voice, "Kirito, you know that this won't work for long. She's a stranger with a family out there that loves her- if not here, then back in the real world- and you're the leader of the Moonlit Black Cats. You can't play 'house' with her. It wouldn't be right or fair to any parties involved- not to you and Sachi, not to her, and definitely not to her family."
"I know," he said tightly as he clenched his fists. "I know it's stupid, but I just couldn't help but feel like for these last few hours… It feels like Sachi and I have our whole lives ahead of us, here in this cabin, with Yui. I can't explain it, but…" His voice died away, and I was shocked to see a shimmer of tears in his eyes as he gazed out over the sparkling blue lake.
Even further to my surprise was when I heard Sinon say, "I don't know exactly what you're feeling, Kirito, but I can relate a little bit."
"You can?" I asked as I looked at her incredulously. "I thought you said-"
"Not back in the real world," she said as she reached out and put a hesitant hand on Kirito's shoulder. When he didn't recoil, she remained where she was and told me, "It's something that I found for myself here- with you."
"Me?" I asked, feeling a nervous coil clenching in my gut. "Sinon, what are you-?"
"I hated you, at first," she grinned, causing me to roll my eyes slightly. Turning back to Kirito, she said, "But despite that, Mataras welcomed me with open arms when no one else in my life but my family had before. He was so hateful toward the world, but to me he showed only strength and compassion. When he gave me the place at his right hand, I felt like I had arrived at the place that I had been heading to from the first moments of my life- that I was home."
"Anyone else hearing Hallmark music playing in the background?" I asked as I looked up to the sky in mock wonderment.
"Oh, shut up," Sinon smiled as she patted Kirito on the back while his expression remained bleak. "I'm not saying this to rub it in your face, I promise. I just want you to know that I understand what you're going through- and what you're gonna have to go through."
"Do you?" he asked softly.
"I watched my best friend die," Sinon replied, her tone lowering to match his as her face sobered up. "My place in the world was ripped out from under me, leaving me alone with Strea, and with the ghosts of the dead. At least when you give up your place in Yui's life, she'll be alive and well- you won't have to mourn her with a gravestone."
"I'm alive and well," I pointed out, though I made sure to keep a straight face, not wanting to upset Kirito any more than he already was.
"And while I'm grateful for that, that didn't do me any good during my mourning for you and Crimson," she replied.
"I know you're trying to help, and I appreciate it," Kirito said as he lowered his head into his hands. "I really do. But… Can you just leave me alone for a little bit?"
Before Sinon could say anything, I held up a hand to indicate that I wanted her to remain quiet and simply said, "Yeah. We'll be out back, whenever you need us."
"You're not going inside?" he asked as he wiped at his eyes while we moved away.
"This kid is already making attachments to you, Sachi, and now Strea," I answered with a shrug. "It's gonna be hard enough for her to let go as it is. I'm no good with kids, but even I'm not gonna make it harder for her to say goodbye to you guys." With that, my partner and I left our friend to the privacy of his thoughts.
Saphira watched with a raised eyebrow as she saw Rivka unleash a five-hit spear skill called 'Vent Forth', which finished off a trio of salamander creatures that she and Kiriha had been working on for the last minute or so. That wasn't so much what caught her attention as the fact that all of the monsters' health were so low that they could have been finished off with a single blow, even without using a system skill. There was only one word for what Saphira had just seen; overkill.
"You doing okay?" she asked the older girl as she wiped at the sweat on her brow, a result of the heat from the volcano that they were currently inside of. Mataras is right, our avatars are reacting to stuff more and more like our bodies would back home- hopefully I'm not cooking my brain with a placebo-induced fever right now.
"Fine, why?" Rivka answered shortly. Philia and Kiriha moved ahead to take point and draw the agro of anymore nearby mobs toward them. It had been a long three hours of making their way through the lava-infused dungeon, but their goal was nearly within their grasp.
"Rivka, why do you lie to me?" Saphira asked her with an easy smile as she shouldered her massive sword and started after the other girls, her old friend matching her pace easily. "You know I'm going to find out what's bothering you eventually, so why bother?" She had an idea of what was irritating the other girl, but she wanted to be sure.
"You've been gone a long time," Rivka replied without looking at her. "Maybe I've gotten better at keeping things to myself."
"Not from me, you haven't," Saphira giggled. "Come on. I outlasted the Red Swordsman's stubbornness- you really think that I can't do the same to you?"
"I'm more stubborn than your brother," her friend muttered.
"First of all, no, you're not," the younger girl replied quickly. "Secondly, if I'm right about what's bothering you, you'd better work on being more stubborn, cos you're gonna need all the resolve you can get."
Rivka gave her a dirty look before she grumbled, "He told you about our dance, didn't he?"
"Yes," Saphira answered calmly. "For the record, I'm hoping that he'll change his mind about his prospects for the future, for the sake of both of you. But before you start getting any more mad at either him or me, let me just say that I am on both of your sides. You're my friend, and I want what's best for you two, but he is my brother."
"I know that, and I know you would never hurt either of us," Rivka admitted begrudgingly. "I actually don't think you're even physically or mentally capable of doing that. But it's not even what he said during the wedding that bothers me so much."
"It's what he's saying around Sinon," Saphira guessed. "Or more like it's how he says what he says."
"I wanna hate her," Rivka groaned. "I really, really wanna hate her. It would make my life so much easier if I was allowed to do that. But she's become his best friend, and now I'm the odd one out because of that. The biggest problem for me is that she knows him better than I do at this point, much as I despise admitting that."
"You feel like she's taken your place in his life," Saphira surmised.
"Hasn't she?" Rivka said bitterly as they walked around a bubbling lava pit. "She's always the first one that he wants by his side whenever we split into teams. They almost always sit together for lunch and dinner, they read the same books so that they can talk about them afterward, and she hardly ever smiles for anyone but him."
"So… why don't you hate her?" Saphira inquired. "And before you ask, no, I'm not being sarcastic- I really want to know."
"Don't you like her?" Rivka asked.
"Yes, but we're talking about you," she replied as she waved the matter aside. "Come on, spill. Even I can see why you'd hate her, but you say that you don't. Why is that?"
"Because in spite of everything that I can't stand about her, she kept him safe, from monsters, other people, and himself," Rivka replied despondently. "That, and he cares about her. So I worry that if I let myself hate her, I'll start to resent him by association, and I can't bear the thought of that."
"Why haven't you told Mataras any of this?" Saphira asked. "He'd prefer it if you were honest with him. That and he's denser than a brick wall when it comes to picking up on what girls are trying to tell him without using their words, even with you. He won't know unless you say something."
"That risks me losing him anyway."
"Right…" Saphira said as she tapped her jaw with pretend thoughtfulness. "Keep your feelings bottled up inside to the point where you can't even admit what they actually are, and wait for an inevitable explosion that'll definitely affect your relationship with him in a negative way, or tell him what's going on and at the very least earn his respect for being honest about it. Decisions, decisions."
"…You are definitely his sister," Rivka growled. "You make it sound that simple."
"I couldn't make it sound simple if wasn't so," Saphira retorted. "You're hyping yourself up to the worst-case scenarios, which will only happen if you let things stand as they are. That I can guarantee you."
"You don't know the future."
"I know my brother, and I know you," the younger girl grinned in an annoyingly superior way that was incredibly reminiscent of Mataras when he was trying to needle somebody. "But I'm not gonna be the go-between for you two, I can tell you that right now. You're both adults, so confront him like one."
Rivka gave her a flat look before asking, "If we're the adults, why are you the one lecturing me?"
"Just because you're the age of a legally independent citizen, it doesn't mean that you're done growing and learning," Saphira snickered. "Mataras will eventually come around to you, as long as you're honest with him."
"…If I spend the next ten years waiting on him for nothing, it's gonna be all your fault," Rivka informed her friend.
"Not my fault that you decided to fall in love with an idiot."
"So, what do you think we should do now?"
"Other than find the kid's parents, maybe get her cursor fixed?" I answered Sinon as we drew, aimed, and fired a pair of arrows into a tree about fifty yards away, both missiles landing within centimeters of one another. "It's likely not a big deal, but I'd never hear the end of it from Kirito if there's something we can do about it, but don't." As I finished speaking, Sinon aimed at another tree, and I followed suit, firing another arrow in tandem with her attack skill, producing similar results to the previous shot.
"You're dropping your bow hand when you release."
I gave her a pained look while she pulled another arrow from her quiver. While waiting for Kirito to speak to Sachi and Strea concerning Yui's situation, my partner and I had decided to relax by practicing our archery skills, something that Sinon was close to maxing out.
"Okay, the day that you can beat me in a knife fight, you can criticize my bow skills all you want," I told her a little sourly. "Besides, you should shoot so well. You've got an auto-assist from the skill system. I have nothing but my own abilities guiding the arrow."
"Sorry, couldn't hear you over the sound of my arrow hitting the center of the target," she replied with a coy grin.
In response, I aimed a punch at her arm, which she deftly blocked before trying to counter with her dagger. Having seen her hand drop toward the weapon the instant that I struck, I was ready for the action, and sidestepped the attack before bringing my fist down on the hilt, knocking it out of her hand. This was followed by the two of us trying to use our body weight and STR stats to try and topple the other, which just ended with us both being hurled to the ground in defeat.
"Draw?" she asked as we stared up at the early afternoon sky.
"Sure."
Such interactions were normal for us- after all, we'd always had to expect trouble everywhere that we went, so it had become a practice for us to take cheap shots at each other whenever the other least expected it. Needless to say, it had proven quite effective in sharpening our reaction times and combat readiness.
"We should go get our arrows," Sinon added after a moment of nothing but the fall breeze sweeping the grass around us.
"Mmm."
"Mataras?"
"Yeah?"
"Something on your mind?" Sinon's tone was a little concerned, and I heard her sitting up, so I did the same, turning around to face her as I folded my legs underneath me.
"Weirdly enough, no," I said with a slight grin. "For the first time since I entered SAO, I had nothing on my mind. I know there's plenty for us to worry about, but for just a second, I was completely relaxed. I'd forgotten how that felt."
Sinon looked surprised, but a soft smile worked its way across her face after a brief moment. "I'm happy for you," she said sincerely. "Even if it doesn't last, I'm glad to hear that you've been able to touch on that feeling again."
"Me too," I laughed again. Raising an eyebrow at her, I then asked, "What about you? Been able to relax at all?"
She smiled a little wider at that. "Somehow, yeah," she nodded. "I can't remember the last time that I felt any measure of real peace. We did our job, and you're safe. I can't find it in me to ask for more than that."
Her words touched me deeply, and they sparked a new curiosity inside of me. "I've been thinking…"
"Don't hurt yourself."
"…Okay, I deserved that," I conceded as she giggled to herself. "But seriously, I realized that even though we've been through hell and high water together, enough that I consider you my closest friend, there's a lot that we don't know about each other."
"You want to change that?"
"Yeah." I felt my face go neutral as I remembered our times together, the good and the terrible. "Everything that we know about one another is based on what we needed to be the Red Swordsman. If we're gonna move on with our lives in any capacity, I feel like we should try to do it together. Even if it's just with the little things, like learning what your favorite color is, or what's your favorite music." When she remained quiet, I shrugged and added, "It doesn't have to be that, of course, but I do want to know the Sinon that exists outside of SAO." I didn't really have much experience in the department of making normal friends anymore- I had to rely on memories of the times when Rivka and I had been getting to know each other.
"…Shino," she replied quietly.
"Come again?"
"My real name is Shino Asada," she told me as she reaffixed her eyes onto mine. "My favorite color is blue, but I look best in green. My favorite music is Celtic."
"Seriously?" I chuckled. "Rivka loves that stuff- you two should see if you've heard the same bands."
"Maybe," Sinon answered with a strange grin that I didn't really understand, but she didn't give me time to wonder at it. "So, what about you? If you're gonna learn about Shino Asada, I want to know about the player behind Mataras."
"Oh, right," I said as I scratched the back of my head. "To be honest, I expected to have a harder time convincing you to share."
"You said it, we trust one another as much as two people can," she shrugged. "I agree, so I'm all for getting to know each other better. Your turn- spill."
"My name is Michael Nichols," I told her swiftly. "I was born in the US, but I moved to Japan when I was six. I'm sure you can guess my favorite color, and I've never really been able to settle on what genre of music is my favorite, though I'm not a fan of reggae or rap."
"I thought you might be American," she nodded thoughtfully. "You have a tendency to curse in English, and your accent is still kind of off."
"Wow, I'm starting to regret this." I feigned a hurt look, which got her to smiling again.
"It was your idea."
"That's why I find myself regretting it."
"Hey, Mataras?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think it's weird that we're as close as we are?" she inquired as she looked up to the sky above the mountains. "You're a guy, I'm a girl, but we're not 'involved', you know? Isn't that pretty strange?"
"Sure," I answered quickly, drawing her surprised attention back to me. Meeting her gaze with an even expression, I went to say, "In this day and age, it's pretty weird for a guy and a girl to have a close platonic relationship. Honestly, it's something about society that really irritates me. Gender shouldn't determine whether or not two people can be good friends. All that being said, I was never one to try and act normal, either. It's boring, overrated, and I can't be bothered to conform to social norms."
Sinon laughed at that, bringing a smile to my own face. "I never would have guessed that you condemned the status quo," she told me, sarcasm heavy in her voice, though she kept up her smile. "But it is nice to know that I'm not the only who thinks so."
"You really thought that I would say differently?"
"No, but sometimes it's good to have some things said out loud." She extended her fist out to me, just within reach of my own hand. "Glad to know that you're not going anywhere, partner."
"If literal death and my own stubbornness didn't stop me, what do you think would keep me from coming back to you?" I held out my own fist and bumped knuckles with her, glad that we'd been able to have this moment together.
Of course as fate would have it, that's when we were interrupted. "Guys, guys!" Strea called as she ran up to us. "You are never gonna believe this!"
"Seya!" The sound of glass breaking announced the death of the last undead soldier in the area by Yuuki's swords. Turning around to look at a surprised Silica, she flashed a cheery smile and said, "I think that about fills our exploration quota for today. You wanna head back home?"
"Sure," the younger girl answered. "I'm tired, and I didn't even do a lot of the fighting. You must be exhausted!"
"Nah," Yuuki giggled as she put away her blades and bounced on her toes. "I could do this for another few hours, easy. But the boss says that we oughta be home in time for dinner, so we'd better get going, unless we wanna burn through a teleport crystal."
"Good point," Silica acknowledged. "Maybe we'll get lucky and run into a few respawns so we can collect some more col before we make it home."
"That's the spirit, kid!" Yuuki said brightly. "But it's not like we're in a major hurry, and we took out a lot of monsters on the way up here. Heading home should be more of a relaxed stroll than anything."
Before Silica could answer that, the pair heard a frightened scream echo off the walls from a corridor that they had passed by earlier. This was followed by the sound of weapons clashing frantically, causing Yuuki to give vent to a disappointed sigh.
"Or we could go save somebody from a deadly dungeon before we go back," she said. "Me and my big mouth."
Silica was already moving in the direction of the scream, her dagger out, and Pina flying just a few inches over her head, ready to heal her master at the first sign of lethal danger. Yuuki kept pace with the little girl effortlessly- in fact, it would have been no challenge at all for the older girl to fly past her younger comrade in pursuit of the screamer. However, while she was very much determined to save whoever was in trouble, she knew it was her responsibility to keep Silica safe, something that would be all but impossible to do if she got too far ahead of her.
Fortunately for the player that had cried out, the two of them weren't very far away from the room that they had gotten themselves cornered in. Seeing a small horde of skeletons all bunched up into a darkened corner, Yuuki immediately knew the course of action to take. "Whoever's in there, duck!" she shouted as she leaped forward, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake. Her swords glowed green as she shouted, "Ending Revolver!" The verdant blades tore through the monsters, shattering most of them into dust. The ones that weren't were swiftly finished off by Silica, who leaped in and hit them with a series of quick slashes and stabs.
Well, all except for one that had a crown on its head. As Silica rolled away from her last strike, Yuuki finally noticed the difference between this monster and its underlings. "Uh oh," she grimaced, even as the tall skeleton turned around, hate in its glowing purple eyes. "Er… Sorry?"
"Watch out!" A voice that Yuuki guessed belonged to the one who had screamed came from the dark corner. "He's got a stun attack!"
As if on cue, the skeleton- a mini-boss named 'Mordu the Undying'- swung an axe at Yuuki that glowed yellow. Her lightning reflexes only just allowed her to dodge the attack. "Whoa!" she yelped. "This thing wasn't on any of the info brokers' lists!" Even for someone accustomed to fighting monsters in the Hollow Area, Named Monsters like this one were challenging to defeat.
"You're telling me!" the other player grunted, sounding as though they were getting to their feet, even as Silica moved to back Yuuki up, in case she needed it. "Thanks for the assist, whoever you are."
"I'm Yuuki!" the girl in purple grunted as she slashed at the mini-boss, scoring deep wounds on its leg and left arm. "Mind giving me a hand with this thing?!" Even though she had dodged the boss' initial strike, she had sustained an injury to her neck, courtesy of a reverse blow from the axe. Seeing this, Silica gave Pina the order to heal Yuuki, even as she switched in, drawing the boss' attention so that her teammate could have a chance to recover.
"My health is almost back up!" the other player, now clearly identifiable as a girl, shouted back. "Get ready to switch out!"
"Silica, switch!" Yuuki ordered as soon as she saw movement in the corner of the cave. As the little girl beat a speedy retreat, her older teammate charged in, her blades stabbing deep into the body of the mini-boss, even as a silver-white sword simultaneously slashed through an arm and into the ribcage of their enemy.
The wielder was a girl about Yuuki's age with fiery red hair and amber eyes that met Yuuki's own gaze across the bones between them, both of them exchanging a fierce smile as they recognized a kindred spirit. "Seven Deadly Sins?" the other girl asked quickly.
"Top pick," Yuuki replied as they each darted out of the range of the wide swing that Mordu tried to batter them with. Bringing her swords out to her sides, she added, "Just stay to his right. I don't wanna accidentally slash you."
"Don't worry about me!"
"Silica, get ready with a skill, just in case we don't quite finish him off!"
"You got it!"
"Kay…" Yuuki breathed, her blades glowing like blue starlight. "Starburst Stream!"
"An MHCP?!" I sputtered. "There's more than one of you?!"
"Yeah-huh!" Strea nodded excitedly, practically bouncing on her toes as she stood in front of Sinon and I, having just explained Yui's bizarre origins. "My official system designation is MHCP-02. 'Strea' is my player ID."
"Lemme guess," Sinon interjected here. "Yui is MHCP-01?"
"Bingo," Strea replied. "Just like I was created to provide psychological care for the players in the Hollow Area, Yui was made to assist the players in SAO. In a sense, you could call her my older sister." Both Sinon and I exchanged a bewildered look at that- Strea clearly appeared and acted older than Yui did, so the comparison was nothing short of odd, even for her. However, she wasn't done speaking. "Based on what I've been able to see of her interactions with Kirito and Sachi, I think it's safe to say that she's malfunctioning."
"How would that have happened?" I asked, still trying to keep up with the freight train that was Strea's revelation.
"My best guess is that has something to do with why I can't access my admin privileges in Aincrad," she answered as her face grew serious. "For whatever reason, Akihiko Kayaba implemented a new code in the Cardinal System just before the launch that prevents programs like Yui and me from interacting with the players in Aincrad. Since Mataras appeared in the Hollow Area, I was able to go to him, albeit in a slightly different manner than Kayaba probably intended for a MHCP. Being the first of us, and specifically designated for the people in Aincrad, Yui wouldn't have had that opportunity- it's very likely that the only thing she would be able do over the last two years would be to monitor the players."
"Oh, I don't like where this is going," I cringed.
"If I'm right, the situation isn't pretty," Strea nodded with a slight wince. "If she couldn't help the people that she was monitoring, it's no small stretch of imagination to say that she must have accumulated errors upon errors that wound up causing a full-on data corruption."
"Wait, why would that happen?" Sinon spoke now, looking puzzled. "If Kayaba altered her programming, shouldn't that have kept her from getting messed up?"
"He altered her credentials, not her program," Strea answered. "She still had a mission, but she was deprived of all means to accomplish it."
"Strea began as a being of pure sympathy," I reminded Sinon. "However, due to our influence and her own experiences, she was able to evolve into something beyond her original purpose. Yui must have started out the same way, but she's been alone all this time. She's not only been fighting against her jail cell, but beating herself up for being unable to help, for about two years. Anyone would go crazy from that, but I guess AI just fall apart a little different that you and I would."
"We've all seen how you fall apart, Mataras."
I gave my partner a sour look to go with the words, "Thanks for that."
"No problem."
"Question now is, 'what do we do about it?" I turned to Strea as I folded my arms with a slight frown. "Can you restore her memory with admin privileges in the Hollow Area?"
"Maybe, but I don't know that I could do it without resetting her programming, which could lock her back up wherever she was trapped before she found Kirito and Sachi." Strea's red eyes darkened as she murmured, "No one like Yui should have to suffer in isolation like that."
"Add it to the massive pile of reasons we're gonna kill Kayaba," I muttered, though I agreed with her sentiment. "So, restoring her memory is out, and she has no parents to go home to."
"She has Kirito and Sachi," Strea said quickly, cutting off my next thought. "They'll take care of her, even if they know that she's like me. I know they will."
"That's not the issue, Strea." Sinon folded her arms while Strea's troubled gaze shifted to her. "The front lines is no place for a child- and make no mistake, with the state that Yui is in, she's pretty much a child. We need Kirito and Sachi to take up their swords again, soon. They're two of the strongest players in SAO, and the progress that they can contribute to the Assault Team is invaluable."
"Look, this is a bad situation, no matter which we slice it," I sighed before Strea could make a reply to our resident archer. "I say that we tell Sachi and Kirito about this and see what they come up with. The truth is that if they decide that they wanna play 'house' for the rest of our time in SAO, we can't really stop them. I'm gonna do my best to convince them otherwise, but we all know that Kirito's too much of a bleeding heart to abandon someone like Yui, especially once he learns the truth. And Sachi is even nicer than him, so she'll be all for helping the kid, too."
"So we're basically down two of our strongest members." Sinon looked irritated at me now. "You're gonna give it up, just like that? What gives?"
"I'm not giving up anything," I shot back. "I'm just a realist enough to know that the chances of us getting them to give up on Yui is pretty much nonexistent. What did I always tell you about potentially bad situations?"
"Always expect the worst, so if it does happen, at least you're not disappointed," she recited reluctantly. "Fair point."
"Hey guys, maybe we'll be able to figure out a way to help Yui, and get Sachi and Kirito to come back to the front lines," Strea said cheerfully. "Not everything has to be chosen between bad or worse, you know."
Before Sinon or I could make a response to that, I got a notification from Yuuki, titled 'status update'. Holding up a hand to the others, I stepped away and muttered, "Hang on. The others are sending their reports." I opened the message, my eyes swiftly scanning the hastily-typed words, trying to ignore the spelling mistakes and grammar errors.
After a few seconds, I felt my eyes bug out in tandem with my voice shouting, "Are you kidding me?!"
"What is it?"
"I'm gonna kill Yuuki, that's what!"
"Oh man, this is hilarious!" Saphira burst out laughing the second that she finished reading their guild mate's message. "Mataras is gonna lose it!"
"What, what happened?" Rivka asked as Saphira let the message fade away.
The blue-haired girl looked at her teammate, who was flanked by Philia and Kiriha, both of them also seemingly curious about the contents of the message. Barely managing to bite back another giggle, Saphira managed to get out, "Okay, but you can't get mad at my brother or Kirito for this one. They literally had nothing to do with it."
"…Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," Kiriha suddenly grumbled, having figured out the source of Saphira's amusement. "Another one?"
"Another one, what?" Philia asked, looking between the two sword maidens with growing confusion while Rivka introduced her hand to her face. "What's going on?"
"Seems like Yuuki made a new friend," Saphira giggled.
"So?"
"So, since it's our guild involved, just how attractive do you think she's gonna be?" Kiriha deadpanned. "Seriously, it's like a trend at this point."
"To be fair, Yuuki didn't say anything about her being pretty," Saphira remarked with a continued silly grin. "Just that her name is 'Rain', and she helped her out of a bind on floor 75. Yuuki wants to have her over for dinner, see if she'd be interested in joining the Cats."
"Why?" Rivka asked, her voice sharpening just a little bit.
"Probably because it's getting pretty close to impossible to solo the game at this point," Kiriha answered after she thought the matter over. "I know Agil is technically a solo front-liner, but he parties up with Fuurinkazan so often these days that I dunno if it really counts anymore. Other than him, I don't know anyone that isn't part of a regular party or guild on the Assault Team."
"I'm personally all for having another guild member," Saphira chirped. "I like meeting new people."
"That doesn't mean you have to befriend every person that you meet, though," Rivka said through slightly thinned lips. "Besides, we can't just invite people to join the guild randomly. It's not smart, and Mataras would never go for it."
"Eh, if Kirito overrides him, he'd have to accept it," Philia shrugged.
"He's on his honeymoon, we shouldn't bother him with this stuff."
"Oh, so he can bother us while he's on vacation, but not the other way around?"
"He's the guild leader, Kiriha, I'm pretty sure he gets to make the rules."
"Come on, what's the big deal?" Saphira asked of the group while spreading her hands in front of her. "Yuuki said she just wants to get to know this girl over dinner with the rest of us there. Nothing wrong with having a guest over every now and again, right?"
"Did you forget that your brother is hated by the majority of Aincrad right now?" Rivka pointed out. "What happens if she freaks out when she learns that she's sharing a meal with the Red Swordsman?"
"Oh, yeah…" Saphira frowned. "Forgot about that."
"More than likely, Sinon'll just shoot the girl," Philia commented.
"…Lemme message my brother real quick, make sure that he's got some kind of plan for all of this."
"You are so fired."
"Aw come on, it's not that bad!" Yuuki pouted as she glared at me. We were standing in the library of our new house, and I was not a happy man. Fortunately for our guest, she was currently on the other side of the house, unable to hear my objections to her presence.
"You invited an unknown into our home, one of the few places that my friends and I can stay off the radar of the Assault Team, just so you could have a new friend over?" I sputtered angrily.
"She's not an 'unknown', she's a front-liner like all of us," Yuuki said stubbornly. "And she's got a name- it's Rain."
"Great," I said with a sarcastic smile and thumbs-up. "Let's all start dancing a jig to Gene Kelly, why don't we?"
"Who now?"
"Never mind," I growled. "How do we know this girl isn't gonna go rat us out the minute that she leaves?"
"Well for starters, she's been here for thirty minutes, and there's no sign of the Assault Team banging on the gates," Yuuki quipped. "That, and the fact that she knows the Red Swordsman is here."
"She what?!"
"Dude, it's public knowledge by now that you're the Vice Commander of one of the strongest guilds in Aincrad," Yuuki reminded me. "Yours' and Saphira's performance at the last joint meeting saw to that, remember?"
"…I still don't like this."
"You don't have to like it," Yuuki smirked triumphantly. "But you do have to play nice."
"Why?"
"Cos I'm pretty sure that Saphira will snap you like a toothpick if you don't behave," my subordinate answered cheerily, dance-like steps carrying her toward the door. "She and Rain are already hitting it off."
"Of course they are," I muttered to myself once she was gone. "Saphira can get along with anyone she wants to. Sinon, why'd you hide in the curtains?" Turning toward the heavy fabric that decorated one of the large windows, I waited for my partner to emerge from the folds of red.
As soon as she stepped into the open, she made the reply, "Thought it might be better for you to have someone up your sleeve in case things went south."
"She's a guild mate, not an enemy."
"Right, I know," she replied quickly. "Still getting used to the idea."
"What's your take on this 'Rain' character?" I decided to switch to the more pressing concern, knowing that Sinon's skills and habits were still liable to keep me alive, even if paranoia came along with us because of them.
"From what I could get off her data in the Hollow Area before we came back, I didn't see anything to worry about," Sinon answered quickly. "No criminal history, no unique skills to be on guard for, been a solo player since day one. She's never joined a party, though, which is pretty impressive, even by our standards."
"Good news, too," I added with a small grin.
"How so?"
"Means that she's less likely to join our party," I replied, feeling some of the tension uncoil in my belly. "Fine, we have dinner, we play nice, and we send her on her merry way."
"Let's just hope that Rivka doesn't kill you before she leaves," Sinon snickered, causing me to look at her, feeling supremely bewildered.
"Why would she do that?" I inquired.
"Take it from a girl who sees everything in 20/20," my partner chuckled. "The more ladies that are around you on the regular, the more she's gonna be jealous, and the more she's gonna blame you."
"That doesn't make any sense!" I protested. "I didn't even invite her here!"
"Girls don't make sense- better get used to that fact."
"I don't need perfect vision to tell me that!"
After a few more moments of more-or-less friendly bickering, Sinon and I went down to meet Rain properly for the first time. Strea was the only one absent from the current group, having volunteered to stay and explain Yui's situation in detail to Kirito and Sachi while the rest of us were made to meet Yuuki's new friend.
As soon as we came into the dining room, where all the other girls were sitting around the table, waiting for Kiriha's stew to finish, I was quickly able to spot our guest, due to the bright red hair that fell past her shoulders and framed a pretty face. She quickly met my inspecting gaze, and golden eyes widened in surprise as they lit up with… recognition?
"Wait a sec, you're the Red Swordsman?" the girl called Rain asked, her voice pitched a little higher than I assumed was normal. "No way!"
"Er, I was?" I frowned, shooting a quick glance at Rivka, who did not look pleased by this development. "Apologies, but do I know you?"
"Oh, not really, I guess," she answered as she stood up and walked toward me, stopping just short of coming within reach. "I'd heard about you, and about how you supposedly died during the battle with Laughing Coffin. Then there were these crazy rumors saying that you'd come back to life somehow, which got me to hoping that I might be able to meet you someday."
"Why…?" I asked, feeling my nervousness return with a vengeance.
"I was one of the people that you saved during the Laughing Coffin battle," Rain told me, eliciting a surprised look from me. "I know there were a few of us that had been kidnapped by that awful guild, so it makes sense that we'd all blend together in your eyes. But I remember how you cut down two of their members so that me and a couple of others could get away."
She looked at me with something that I hadn't seen in someone for a long, long time, and it surprised me even more than I already was, as impossible as that seemed. The look in her eyes was a clear admiration- not fear, not a grudging respect, not even hatred. It was an emotion that I hadn't seen in a stranger in over a year, and it unsettled me greatly.
"Like I said, I've been wanting to find you for a while now," Rain reiterated. "I wanted to thank you for what you did. I know most people hate you, and I won't lie- I used to be among that number." Turning to include Sinon in the conversation, having noticed the bow slung on her back, she added, "When I saw how horrible the murder guilds really were, all I could think about was hoping for someone to come rescue me from them. And then, wonder of wonders, you guys showed up and made sure that they could never hurt anyone again. I can't thank your guild enough for what you did."
"Gratitude?" Sinon chuckled softly. "This is new." Turning to me with mock wonder, she asked, "What are we supposed to do with that?"
"…You lost me," I admitted, genuinely puzzled. I was still scrutinizing her face, trying to remember if I really had met her during the raid. Just as I was about to resign myself to the idea that it must have been Crimson who rescued her, she gave me a charming smile, and a memory flashed in my head- one that must have been hidden by the aftereffects of my brush with death…
"Take one step toward us, and the kids die!" growled one of Laughing Coffin's axe-wielders, her blade pressed tightly against her hostage's neck, draining his health slowly. The boy couldn't have been older than fifteen, and he looked scared enough to wet himself. Another member of the murder guild had a spear aimed at a girl's head, ready to pierce her skull at the slightest provocation. Behind them cowered another three hostages, none of them possessing the weapons or the courage to defy their captors.
Useless, I thought with disgust.
Weighing my options swiftly, my eyes flicked back and forth between my two enemies. Everyone else was busy with other red players, so I was on my own here. I knew that if I called for help, I'd just get the hostages killed, and while I was prepared to destroy the red guild at any cost, it was highly preferable to me that no civilians perished in this war of extermination.
"What do you want?" I finally demanded roughly, Blazing Revolution vibrating in small circles as the flames of Dragon Blood danced along its length.
"Safe passage out of here, obviously," the woman snorted.
She's the one in charge, I thought quickly. Take her out, and her comrade will panic, make a mistake.
Letting out a resigned breath of frustration, I lowered my sword and growled out, "Fine. Leave those three behind, and you can go. You don't need five hostages, and if I can save three instead of none, then I-"
Without breaking the pattern of my speech, I flung my sword in an underhanded arc, slicing off the woman's arm that was holding the throwing axe. She recoiled with a startled yelp, jerking her hostage off-balance as she did, which in turn caused her to stumble backwards. Seeing this as an opening, I bolted forward, shoving the hostage into the girl and her captor, startling him enough that he let out a violent curse, but I paid him no mind for the moment.
My sole focus was on the woman, who I savagely kicked in the sternum, sending her crashing into the cave wall behind her, right next to where my red sword had lodged itself. Moving as fast as I could, I yanked the weapon out of the stone and cut her across her stomach, followed by a lengthwise slash that drained her health entirely.
As she let out a dying scream, I used the momentum that I had built up with the second attack to scoop up her axe and hurl it at the second murderer, who was just managing to get up from under the pile of limbs that had been his hostages. I got lucky, as I had been aiming for his head, but I wound up striking him in the throat, which was a more vulnerable spot, seeing as he was wearing a protective mask.
The weight of the axe, powered by my ridiculous STR stat knocked him backwards again, leaving him vulnerable to a leaping stab from me, allowing me to keep him pinned in place until his health ran all the way out.
When he tried to reach for his spear, I kicked it away and gave the five prisoners a glare, along with the words, "Take that and the axe, and get the hell out of here. There are players by the exit that will escort you to safety."
"What about the monsters in the dungeon?" asked the boy that had been held at axe-point.
"Is either them or the monsters in here!" I barked harshly, which saw to him scrambling to get away from me, followed swiftly by three of the other players.
Only one of them stayed behind, her red hair standing out among the dark stone of the cave around us as she looked at me with some mixture of fear and wonder. "You saved us," she said as she backed away slowly, even as the man beneath me finally expired, blown into pieces by the system. "I thought you were a bad guy, but-"
"Go!" I snapped, aware of a dagger-wielding maniac zeroing in on Strea in the background. "I don't have time to protect you anymore!" With that, I was gone, fire trailing in my wake.
I think that she shouted something to me from where I had left her, but by then I was busy trying to avoid poison knives while coordinating with my comrade, so I paid it no mind…
"I guess do remember you," I said with a slow nod, causing Rain's eyes to brighten up again. Raising an eyebrow, I added dryly, "Shouldn't the red cloak and sword given my title away?"
"Well, I remember another guy running around in red clothes that fought with a sword, and he seemed to be giving the orders to the people that escorted us out of the dungeon, so I thought that it might have been him," Rain admitted. "Sorry about the confusion."
"To be fair, that guy could have been his twin," Saphira grinned as she came up to stand next to the new girl. "So? You got your wish, Rain. Here's the Red Swordsman, in all his terrifying glory." The way she said the last part was spoken in a way that left no doubt as to the fact that she was mocking me.
"Ha-ha," I snorted. "Shut up."
"Never."
"Anyway…" Rain said hesitantly. "Since I am here, just let me say… Thank you so much. For saving me, and for making SAO safer. I'm so glad that I can meet you, Red Swordsman."
"He's got a name, you know," Kiriha huffed. "It's Mataras. And he's not the Red Swordsman, not anymore."
"Can anyone else say 'creep alert'?" Philia muttered in an undertone to Rivka, who seemed to share her sentiment. Honestly, I wasn't sure that I disagreed with them at the moment.
Rain seemed not to notice- my guess was that her detection skill wasn't as high as mine- because she smiled at me again and said, "I hope that I'm not overstepping a boundary here, but if there's anything that I can do to repay you, please let me know." Turning around to look at the others, she added, "That goes for everyone here. Any friend of the Red- of Mataras- can rely on me in a jam."
"Ain't that the truth," Yuuki said with a vigorous nod. "This girl's got some serious moves on her."
"I've never seen someone on a floor this high get so far into a dungeon on their own," Silica added, apparently sharing Yuuki's sentiment. "She's amazing."
Rain blushed at the praise, but she held her silence, seemingly content to wait until I said something, one way or another. Glancing around at the girls, I was met with very mixed vibes. Saphira, Yuuki, and Silica seemed on board with inviting her to stay with us. Rivka and Philia seemed wary of her, while Sinon and Kiriha didn't seem to feel one way or another about it.
Why me? I groaned internally.
Before the stretched silence could get too awkward, I made my decision. "Let's just have dinner for now," I told them. "I'm hungry, and it's been a weird day. Rain, we can talk about an IOU while we eat."
"Thanks," she said happily.
As she moved away to go talk to Yuuki and Saphira again, I murmured in a soft tone to Sinon, "Message Strea and have her run a thorough check on this girl. I don't want a crazy stalker on my hands any more than I want the Assault Team trying to jump me in the field."
"Glad to know that we're still on the same page," my partner replied in kind as she opened up her menu. "Already on it."
Part of me wanted to revel in this apparent hero worship that Rain seemed to have for me, but I had been playing SAO for too long now. I just couldn't afford to trust people at their face value, no matter how tempting it might be.
I hope you're not hiding something, Rain, I thought as Silica moved to retrieve dinner and Philia moved to set the table with Kiriha's help. I may not be the Red Swordsman proper anymore, but I'm still not someone to cross.
Kirito: Okay, why is she here? Not upset about it, just curious.
Mataras: Okay, so despite the fact that she first appears in Lost Song, the sequel game to Hollow Fragment, it is mentioned that she was a player that survived SAO. I decided to take a couple of liberties with her backstory in order to establish her role on the team sooner rather than later. She is the last person to get added to the group for the rest of the story, though.
Asuna: And what's with the goo-goo eyes that she was giving you?
Mataras: Let's be real, there had to be somebody out there that would feel that way I saved them.
Kirito: Aren't you worried about how this will affect your relationship with Rivka?
Mataras: Says the king of obliviousness.
Kirito: Huh?
Asuna: My question is why wasn't Yui more involved in this chapter?
Mataras: I had originally planned for her to be, but I just couldn't figure out how to make it work naturally. She's more or less on the sidelines for now, but don't you worry- she'll get her chance to be in the spotlight.
Kirito: How? Unless I'm mistaken, the next chapter should be the 75th boss fight- and the confrontation with Kayaba? Unless you're going a different route?
Mataras: No, both of those things will be occurring next chapter.
Asuna: Then how are you gonna take this story all the way up to floor 100?
Mataras: Would you look at that, we're out of time. See you all in a couple of weeks!
Kirito: Oh no, you don't! Get back here!
Asuna: You can't insert a cliffhanger on a cliffhanger!
Mataras: Watch me!
