The door closed behind Caenor with a muffled click.

It was late at night, but that didn't stop Caenor from worrying. Nor, it seemed, did it stop the other two from waiting outside Seki's room. Cantabile appeared antsier than usual, twiddling her fingers as she leaned against the wall. Altorius was his typically stoic self, arms crossed, staring into the distance.

"How is she?" Cantabile asked as Caenor walked up to them.

"She's… fine." Caenor coughed, as though clearing the words that were trapped behind his tongue. "She says her arms still hurt, but she'll be up and running with some rest."

Pain in the virtual world was a curious thing. The sensory stimulators that mimicked the feeling of pain in a given area of the body only activated if that area were subject to any damage – once the damage was healed and the player's health was restored, the pain would ostensibly go away. Yet in the same way that a severed hand might still cause a phantom ache, a soreness that stemmed from the mind could not be so easily ameliorated.

The NerveGear could claim one's five senses for its own, but its influence did not reach any deeper than that. This ensured that players largely had cognitive autonomy, but it also meant that the players had to watch their own sanities lest they dug themselves into a hole from which there was no physical or mental escape.

"You were right," Caenor added.

Cantabile frowned. "Right about what?"

"About Seki." Caenor lowered his voice. "She's not ready. We need to find more recruits from elsewhere."

"But you said it yourself. There are no recruits from elsewhere. The raid schedule is heating up – the vice-commanders won't release anyone from the front lines, and no one would volunteer to leave anyway. Plus, I think she did a pretty okay job holding the golems off in that Labyrinth, even if we had to abandon the whole experiment after that. At the very least, I know she can fight when it really matters."

"The fact that we had to stop going any further and bring Seki home is exactly the proof that she won't be able to cut it the way she is now." Caenor narrowed his eyes. "And, you know… when she was fighting those golems, she wasn't herself at all. It was like there was something possessing her. She said her memories of that time are a complete blur. One moment she was about to die, then next thing she knew, all the golems had been defeated."

"That may be a product of the trauma she experienced," suggested Cantabile. "Though I don't know how exactly that would work. I've had my fair share of horrible experiences, but something like that has never happened to me. Speaking of which…"

"What?"

"I don't really know how to say this, but… you seem almost totally unaffected by what happened to your friends. One's dead, one's a totally nervous wreck, but you act like everything is pretty much as it should be. I've seen many people break over far less serious things. You're either extremely resilient to trauma, or you're hiding something from us – or from yourself."

"I…" Caenor blinked hard as he processed Cantabile's observations. "I don't really know why that is. I feel a little numbness here and there, but even that's mostly gone away. It's not like I've suppressed my fears or anything like that. I think it would be obvious if I did."

"Trauma isn't always accompanied by fear. It's closer in nature to an unwanted obsession – something unpleasant that you just can't stop thinking about. Does that sound like something you're experiencing?"

A sudden frostiness took hold of Caenor's heart, and he instinctively rubbed his chest as if to warm it up. "Definitely," he replied. "But it's not really the worst thing in the world, to have a constant reminder of what I'm fighting for. Maybe that's just how I am – I'd hate to lay around in bed, feeling useless and sorry for myself, if I could be out there dealing with my troubles in a more productive way."

Just then, the door beside them creaked open, and a frustrated-looking face popped out from within.

"I can hear everything you guys are saying," Seki said crossly. "I'm trying to sleep, you know."

"Sorry." Caenor smiled. "We should probably talk somewhere else."

Seki rolled her eyes. "No point, I'm wide awake now. Also…" Her features fell.

"What is it?"

"I… know you think I'm not ready. If I lose my head again, I'll just be a liability. I know that. But I…" Her mouth, which glistened in the dim torchlight, quivered. "You say you'd hate to be lying around doing nothing if you could be out there fixing things for yourself. If that's true, then you know exactly how I feel right now. If I have to spend another day staring at the engravings in the ceiling, tucked into my bed, I'm probably going to lose it anyway. I might as well go crazy out there than in here."

Cantabile laughed. "She has a point."

"No, she doesn't." Caenor shook his head. "Listen, Seki. What happened to you in the Labyrinth… there's no guarantee that it'll have the same effect that it had on you the next time it pops up. If you freeze up instead, or you get a mental breakdown, then that really will be the end. Also, you couldn't remember anything about it, which means that it's not something you have any control over. It's just too dangerous. Those episodes need to stop before you can fight again."

Seki chewed over what Caenor said. "You know, about that…" She held up a finger. "You got one thing wrong there."

"How so?"

"Now that I think about it, I didn't totally blank out back then. I do remember one thing."

"Really now?" Caenor tilted his head in disbelief. "What was it?"

Seki put her raised finger to her lips, caressing them slowly as she spoke.

"Whatever I was doing, it felt… good," she murmured. "Really, really good."

"Appetitive aggression."

"What?"

Caenor and Cantabile were walking back to their own rooms. Altorius, who lived in the same block as Seki, had already bid them farewell for the night, leaving them to find their own ways home.

"Appetitive aggression," Cantabile repeated. "That's what's affecting Seki. It makes a lot of sense, if you think about it."

"Appe… what?"

"Come on, now. You never took any psychology classes in high school?"

"Uh… no?" Caenor replied quizzically. "What sort of high school did you go to that taught you that stuff?"

"A good high school. Though I skipped most of my other classes." Cantabile snickered. "Anyway, what Seki says matches the description."

"I'm afraid you'll have to enlighten me."

"There's a theory that there are two key types of aggression: reactive aggression and appetitive aggression. Reactive aggression is exactly what its name suggests – when you face a threat, you react to it, and your aggression levels go up. You end up feeling fear, anxiety, and other negative emotions. Appetitive aggression is the polar opposite of that. It's aggression that promotes a positive response, like pleasure or enjoyment."

"So, Seki is feeling good about being aggressive. That doesn't sound so bad."

"It's not bad at all, really. You need a little bit of it to play this game – when you get ready to hunt a mob or a boss, you get rewarded with happy feelings, feelings of excitement and anticipation. That's just natural. The problem is when the positivity is artificially raised by, say, a traumatic experience, to a level that isn't healthy."

"Sort of like bloodlust, you mean."

"Exactly that. As for the reason behind it, there could be a combination of things. The desire for revenge. The urge to be useful, paired with the feeling of being helpless. In her case, both types of aggression have been bumped up – one moment, she's afraid that the ground is going to swallow her up, and won't take a single step outside her room; the next moment, she feels like she could take on the world on her own, and kill everything that gets in the way."

"I feel like you know more about this than you'd otherwise learn in class," Caenor quipped.

"I did a little extracurricular research on my own. I wanted to find out more about why I was feeling the way I did, so I looked these things up."

"You also have a lot of appe… whatever it is?"

"I do. I've learned to harness it in a way which helps me during battle. Seki can do the same, but…"

"But?"

"She'll have to come to terms with what caused her trauma. Right now, she's being controlled by it; it's taking over her psyche. She needs to wrest control of her mind back. Until then, like you say, it's too dangerous for her to be out and about."

"Not a great chance of that, the way she's going." Caenor let out an irritated breath through his nose. "You know, I'm not that sleepy yet. I'll probably pop by the office, sort out a few things before I sleep."

"I'll come with you," Cantabile offered. "I'm not that sleepy either."

At the office, Caenor rummaged through the ever-growing pile of paper, finally pulling out a small parchment. It was the all-important coordinates list of Laughing Coffin hideouts, but in contrast to the standard issue copies that had been handed to each of Caenor's teammates, this one had dates and other extra notes scrawled on it. In other words, it was the master copy. Caenor needed little reminder of the time someone had broken into the office and stolen a copy of this document from his desk, but as the office was now locked every time he left, he felt safe enough leaving such items of vital significance here.

"I've drafted a provisional schedule of our raids on the hideouts. Have a look."

Cantabile peered at the paper. "The raid on the 55th floor hideout is the day after tomorrow?"

"That one's just a taster. It's close by, so we shouldn't have any problems calling for backup if shit hits the fan. Remember when I told you that someone nicked a copy of this list?"

"Only too well," Cantabile muttered.

"If they were a green-marker member of Laughing Coffin, then it's highly likely Laughing Coffin are already aware that we're after them. Some of the hideouts on that list might already be abandoned – or worse, they might set up an ambush. We have to make our move as soon as possible, and as quickly as possible."

"You want us to raid multiple hideouts per day," Cantabile noted with more than a hint of incredulity as she continued to scan the list. "That's fucking crazy."

"They're fucking crazy as well," Caenor replied. "We have to be as crazy as they are. They already have a week's head start; we can't afford to give them any more time."

"Is Seki coming with us?"

"If she can't make it, she can't make it. The three of us will have to make do until we find more people."

Cantabile bit her lower lip. "Only if we actually can find more people."

A creak from outside made them freeze. Looking up in unison, they waited with bated breath for further noise, but none was forthcoming.

"Probably just the wind," Caenor whispered.

"Then why are you whispering?" Cantabile tiptoed over to the door and leaned her head towards it, holding up a finger as Caenor made to join her. "I hear something."

"Is it a person?" Caenor asked. "No one should be around here this time of night. Maybe we should go and see what it is."

"Shut the fuck up," Cantabile hissed. "I'm trying to listen."

Caenor put his hands up in resignation.

Cantabile's hand creeped towards the doorknob, her fingers slinking around the cold brass. Then, with a grunt, she wrenched it open and leapt out into the corridor.

"Who's there?!"

Sat on the rough stone floor, rubbing her head as she winced from the impact of the door slamming into her, was a girl who looked only a hair taller than Seki. She had a pale face, jade eyes that glowed azure in the torchlight…

…and a head of long, dark-gray hair, tied in a ponytail. Which curled around the collar of her set of brown armor.