"You want to go to the 22nd floor?"
"There've been rumors of a ghost goin' round and I want to get to the bottom o' it." Argo shifted uncomfortably in her seat, clearly trying to say something more but it wasn't coming out.
"But the 22nd floor, Argo?" Asuna said, leaning across the table to look into' Argo's eyes, "Do you real-"
"I need ta do this." Argo's voice was hard, resolute. There would be no turning her back from this, I knew. "I don' want to stay in the safe zones forever. 'Sides," she tapped her new breastplate, "I've got some better armor now, I shoul' be fine."
"I know," I said, raising my gaze from my clasped hands to meet Argo's eyes, "We're just worried about you." It had been three days since I'd woken up to see her sleeping in the chair at the dinner table, or still awake, unable to sleep, but… you didn't just get over near-death experiences like that. I still had nightmares about falling through the sky sometimes, and I hadn't come anywhere as near to death facing Xyrphan as Argo had on the 22nd floor.
"That's why I want your help."
Asuna and I exchanged a look, coming to an agreement before we could even talk.
"What do you want us to do?"
* * *
"Well, here we are," I said, resting one foot on a rock, leaning over my raised knee. "The 22nd floor." I peered out through the woods, trying to catch any glimpse of the mobs that I knew roamed this place. I had come prepared with two full stacks of throwing picks to kill any monster before it even entered aggro range.
Asuna had quicker movement than I did, and would be better positioned to protect Argo if something did attack. My job, as the man with throwing weapons, was to try and keep them from having to react.
There!
I snatched a pick from the holster. My arm came up, then back, and then forward and down. My body pivoted as my arm moved. I brought my hip around, leading my leg in front of my body. The pick left my hand just as it passed my shoulder.
A perfect throw.
The [Feral Woods Wolf] didn't stand a chance, just barely able to open its mouth before my throwing pick hit it. Before the mob could release the howl that would call any nearby wolves toward us, it shattered. The whole affair took less than a second.
"Hurry up Kirito!" Ah, shoot. I glanced down the pathway towards where Asuna was calling me from. My wife stood in a ready stance, one hand on her rapier, ready to draw it. Despite the fact that she was clearly ready for combat, she looked supremely annoyed.
"We need to stay together!"
"Sorry, I'm coming!" I called out, deciding to leave the throwing pick for lost. Liz sold me them for a bargain anyway.
"Honestly Kirito, you need to stay focused," Asuna said as I caught up to them, relaxing her stance minutely, "We're here to investigate, not to hunt mobs."
"Mmmuh. It's no good," Argo grumbled from where she was peeking into the woods.
"Argo?" I asked, coming to stand behind her. The Info Broker had hardly said a word the entire time that we'd been on the 22nd floor, almost seeming to fade into her cloak. Neither Asuna or I said it, but we were planning to cut this trip short if we didn't find what we were looking for within half an hour.
"The foliage 's too thick. I though' I saw somethin' through 'ere, but I'll need to get a closer look." Argo then stepped off the path into the underbrush, her stealth skills making her passage into the wild almost impossible to detect. Without hesitation, I followed her, Asuna half a step behind me.
I crept quietly behind Argo through the forest, careful to avoid brushing up against any of the trees and create unnecessary noise that could attract the attention of a mob. Asuna followed behind me, her rapier drawn in case she needed to respond, although she was shaking slightly.
As we approached a clearing, Argo motioned for us to be still, and I felt Asuna hide behind me. When we peered through the bushes, Asuna whispered "Do you think it's really a ghost?"
"I don't know, but we can't rule it out."
"Oh," Asuna said, her hand on my shoulder shaking a little more.
At her words, Argo turned her head towards us, a familiar smirk on her face. "Aww, Aa-chan, are ya scared of ghosts?"
"No. No I'm not!" Asuna hissed, her fingers digging into my shoulder. "I just have a healthy respect for-"
"Healthy respec'. Riiight."
"What? It's true!"
I let Asuna and Argo whisper heatedly while I peered through the woods. It was no use, the underbrush in this area was just too thick. Closing my eyes briefly, I fired off a [Scan].
The nearly maxed-out skill swept through the forest, highlighting all the living things in the area, and feeding the information about what they were back to me. I grappled briefly with the influx of information, isolating specific colors of thread from the web that was drawn back to me in the wake of my skill. There were two mobs in our immediate vicinity, both Feral Woods Wolves, and one unknown presence, 20 meters away, on the other side of the clearing, and moving towards us.
"Heads up." Asuna and Argo quieted almost instantly, peering forward in the same direction I was looking, the one that had indicated an unknown presence. We waited, the tension building as the grass started to rustle.
I felt Asuna's grip on my shoulder tighten until it was just shy of causing damage. Then a short figure walked into the clearing. Small, was my first impression, and she, for it was a girl, moved with an ethereal quality, as though the grass beneath her feet did not exist. Her white dress and long black hair were reminiscent of the ghost from The Ring, and for a second, I thought that we actually had found a ghost.
Asuna certainly thought so, judging by the scream she let out.
The girl froze in the clearing, standing ramrod straight, as if Asuna's scream had carried a paralyzing effect. I knew that I couldn't move, and Argo seemed to be much the same. We were seeing something momentous here, and I didn't know what.
The girl fell over backwards, collapsing like a puppet with her strings cut. Her fall brought me into action, words of realization coming out without any conscious effort.
"That's a player!"
Argo reached the fallen girl almost half a second before I did. When she stopped, she took one look at the fallen form and said, "If she is, then somethin's wrong with her," I saw what she meant almost immediately.
"She doesn't have a cursor."
"What?" Asuna had recovered from her fright at the news that it wasn't actually a ghost, and had joined us by the time I had finished talking. The three of us examined the girl, Argo prodding and poking all over her body while me and my wife contented ourselves with looking.
"She's really lucky we found her when we did." I kneeled down on the ground next to her, carefully reaching under her to lift her up.
"Yeah." Argo's face was covered in shadows, and I winced. A player alone in hostile territory for an unknown amount of time. It was very similar to what Argo had gone through barely a week ago, and though she seemed okay… I had my doubts, and this scenario couldn't be doing her any favors.
Wordlessly, Asuna took Argo's arm, and started leading her back towards town through the woods. The whiskered girl didn't resist, seemingly grateful to not have to look at the girl I was carrying.
"Any change, Argo?" I asked, pausing in the open doorway to my bedroom. The girl we had picked up in the forest was sleeping peacefully underneath the covers of the bed. Argo was sitting in a chair she had dragged from the table, looking simultaneously bored and fascinated.
"No, although that's somethin' in of itself," Argo said, stretching her body out, letting out a wince and a grunt of pain as staying in the same position for over an hour caught up with her.
"How's that?"
"Well," Argo began, gesturing at the girl, "She hasn' moved once since we laid her on the bed, excep' for breathin'. I've been watchin' her for the past couple hours now, and she hasn' so much as twitched." The info broker leaned in closer, trying to see if the target of her observation had shifted in any way.
"I mean, take a look at these." Argo flicked open her menu and scrolled down to a familiar tool.
"I didn't know you knew how to use the camera," I said, only half surprised. If anyone else could figure it out, it would be Argo. She had an inquisitive nature and a talent for ferreting out secrets that far surpassed anyone else I had seen.
"Havin' photo evidence is good for makin' my guides," Argo responded distractedly, scrolling to the bottom of her camera roll, "I jus' wish that I coul' print 'em." She selected two of the pictures, and blew them up.
"You see this one here is from half an hour after I started this." The Rat gestured at the photo on the left. "And this one is from fifteen minutes ago." She gestured at the one on the right.
"It's the same photo." The pictures really were identical. My bedroom didn't get that much light, so even though the photos were taken
"Nah Sherlock, they jus' look the same," Argo drawled, pulling up another two photos, "An' these are from an experiment I did six months back." The new photos were fairly similar to each other, but the man pictured sleeping in the one time stamped half an hour later than the other one had his head facing the other way.
"An' before you ask, I made sure he was alrigh' with me takin' photos for my experiment."
"I have no idea why you think I'd think that." I brushed my hand up against one of the photos, even though I couldn't interact with it, I still felt like I could. Even after all this time, my brain hadn't fully adapted to virtual reality. "I know how protective you are of people's privacy."
Argo made most of her info-broking money by selling the locations and stats of rare item drops, mat farming locations, and dungeon optimizations. Even though she also sold data on players, the costs attached for anything more than a one-time 'here's their location at this exact moment' was so expensive that even a top-tier guild like the KoB would be hard-pressed to do more than rudimentary tracking on a rival guild.
That, and people paid her to keep their data private. As far as I knew, once you paid her, she stayed paid, even if she got a better offer from someone else.
"If that's what you want to think, Kii-bou." Argo singsonged, her voice pitching a little more wildly than normal. Was she trying to hide something?
Probably.
I kneeled down in front of the chair, and raised my head to meet her gaze. If whatever was on her mind was bothering her so much she was letting it show, intentionally or not…
"Remember, if you need something, Asuna and I are always here to help." Argo froze, not blinking as her gaze jittered about my face, finally settling just below my eyes for some reason. "You can talk to me about anything." The chance that I could actually give her any help was small, but I would do my best to help nonetheless.
And with that, I rose, and helped her up from the chair. "I'll take over for you, you can go help Asuna decide what to have for dinner."
"Right!" Argo shook herself like a dog coming out of water, "Dinner, yes! I- I'll go help make some- something, yes!" The Info Broker spun in place, and marched out the door. Swerving to avoid banging into the doorframe. Was she feeling alright? Did she sit for too long in the chair?
I cast a sideways glance at the chair, deciding I would be better off sitting on the ground if sitting in the chair for so long had thrown off Argo's balance that much.
It was decidedly uncomfortable on the floor, but probably better than the chair. Thankfully, dinner was going to be soon.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid Kii-bou," Argo muttered under her breath as she paced around the living room of Kirito's apartment. "Bein' so fuckin' warm and carin' and…" Argo shivered as the memory of him looking so warmly and earnestly ran through her mind again.
"Ergh!" Argo flopped onto the couch, her mind whirling in circles. When her mind had settled, the Info Broker dragged one hand down her face, trying to sort her thoughts out. Alright, she thought to herself, I have a serious crush on Kirito.
She knew how it had first come about, too. She'd been nursing it and ignoring it to various degrees since the Beta, attracted to the boy who seemed to get even further into the secrets of the game than she had, despite being a combat junkie. She'd done the sensible thing and not tried to start a relationship with a guy that she'd met over the internet.
And the Sword Art Online launched, and Argo had been too busy putting together her network, and then getting her newspaper up and running. By the time she was done, Kirito was trying to isolate himself from everyone else, and doing a good job of it, too.
She couldn't blame him for not noticing her feelings. He was too wrapped up in hating himself for the incident with the Black Cats to see what other people really thought of him, and only one person had ever managed to truly pierce that shroud.
"Argo, can you come here please?"
Asuna.
The smiling woman's visage consumed Argo's attention, it's warm radiance making her feel like she was basking in the sun. Argo was half-convinced that it was a cosmic joke, that the two people she was most interested in dating were involved with each other.
"Yeah, sure," Argo said, moving a little more quickly than she normally did as she walked over to Asuna.
"I need your help taste-testing this food," The chef said, bringing a fork full of a rice covered in sauce up in front of her, "Ever since we ate the Ragout Rabbit, mine and Kirito's taste buds have been a little off." Asuna smiled and Argo melted a little bit inside.
"Now Say Ahh!" Asuna teased, moving the fork closer to Argo's face as if she were about to feed a baby. Without thinking, Argo darted forward, clamping her mouth down around the outstretched fork as her hand circled Asuna's wrist.
Heaven exploded in her mouth.
Asuna's cooking was always good, but she had outdone herself this time, and Argo couldn't stop herself from humming in enjoyment as she slowly chewed the rice. There were so many flavors mixed into the dish that she couldn't tell what the dish had been made from, only that it was good.
Argo finished chewing, and swallowed, quietly mourning the loss of the food. "'s good," She said, running her tongue around her mouth to try and find any missing particles of food that she may have missed.
Asuna nodded, and started to turn back to the stove, and Argo saw her opportunity. She tried to creep around Asuna, angling for the dish next to the sink that had such a heavenly smell wafting from the rice dish inside it.
Closer, closer. Argo chanted inside her head as she quietly moved one foot in front of the other, Just a few more-
"You better not be trying to steal dinner back there Argo," Asuna said, her tone unnaturally light, and Argo couldn't help but gulp when she heard it.
"Nah, 'course not," Argo said, leaning up against the counter behind her, "Jus' admirin' your beauty."
"Well you can admire me from the living room just as well," Asuna said, starting to flip the pork medallions over in the pan.
Argo quietly slunk out of the kitchen and collapsed face down onto the couch, pulling her hood down over her face. What the fuck was that! she squealed in her mind, kicking her feet back and forth wildly in the air, her face burning a bright red. Why did I try to flirt with her? She's Kirito's wife! And they're helpin' me so fuckin' much! I don't want to come between them! Ugh, why do they have to be so fuckin' hot!
Argo managed to wriggle and writhe her way into exhaustion on the couch as she rolled about, grappling with her feelings and thoughts. There she stayed until dinner.