Thanks all for reading this, it's been a labor of love, and I hope you stick around for the remainder of the week.
Once again, I am writing this as part of KiriArgo week 2021, hosted on the SAO Fanfiction Central discord. Link here: sNFEpCSPSc if you want to join.
Content warning for this chapter: Death
Day 4: Dungeon
"Stupid, stupid, stupid Kii-bou!" Argo shouted as she drove her claws into another [Wandering Forest Bark]
"Going into a forest dungeon with low durability!" She leaped over the mob's low and slow swing, driving a heel into its side in a spinning kick.
"Getting trapped right next to the boss room!" Argo used the momentum of her kick to bring her claws around and score two strikes deep into the mob's bark-covered face, shattering it.
Her next words were so quiet that a listener would have to strain to hear them, even if they were right next to her. "Don't ya dare die on me."
She hit the ground running, ignoring the rare drop that fell behind her. Kirito was trapped, and nothing mattered more than getting to him and making sure he was safe.
Thank god for the emergency alert system.
Even as she ran, Argo paged through her inventory, frantically moving all the healing and curing items she could to the top, ready to be used.
"That idiot's going to owe me so much cake for this," The info broker said, dodging around a pack of smaller mobs before they could engage her. They stopped pursuing her after 50 feet, their aggression algorithms no longer registering her as a target.
A warning beep that her speed buff potion was about to expire sounded, and without even looking, Argo renewed it, using her last speed potion. Hopefully the refreshed buff would last long enough for her to get to Kirito.
The further she went, the less mobs accosted her, until it had been minutes since she had had to dodge an encounter.
It disturbed her.
She pushed onward, redoubling her pace, her breathing low and even. It had been almost an hour since she had received Kirito's alert, and the fast-response squad that Asuna had put together at her request couldn't be far behind.
"Why didn't you ask me for help, Kii-bou?" Argo bit out as she continued running. "I'd have helped ya, ya know I would've."
But she already knew the answer.
Kirito was stupidly stubborn about his bad reputation among the other players, insisting that she not 'taint' herself by associating with him too openly.
Next time he went dungeon diving, she was coming with him, no matter what he said.
Argo skidded around a turn in the corridor, her claws raised to face whatever enemy might be waiting for her.
But there was nothing there. Just a large, empty room, the doors to what was presumably the boss arena, and—
And a green player icon, hovering over a bundle of cloth that was almost invisible in the darkness of the dungeon.
"Kii-bou!" Argo shouted, sprinting as fast as she could over to his side, stumbling as her last speed buff ran out. The cloth started moving, and Kirito struggled into a sitting position, his face confused, almost like he wasn't even there anymore.
"Ar...go?" he said, as if he wasn't really sure she was there. Then he started toppling over backwards again.
Argo dropped to her knees and slid, wrapping an arm around his head to catch him before he could hit the ground. She cast an eye over her partner, trying to figure out what status effect was making him so lethargic.
The first thing she noticed was his health bar.
It was worryingly low, blinking on the last few pixels, the red blasting into her eyes.
Then she noticed the status icon under the health bar.
It was black, and edged in the red that indicated a damage over time effect.
Argo swiped open her inventory with one hand and pulled out one of the healing crystals that she had prepared earlier.
As she did, another few pixels vanished from Kirito's health bar.
"C'mon, Kii-bou, We'll get out o' here." Argo said, pressing the crystal to her partner's chest and slamming her hand down on the [use] button.
"Don… bother," Kirito croaked out as a window popped up in front of Argo.
[Unable to use item] it read, and Argo, scowling, grabbed a cleansing crystal from her inventory.
"Won'... work." Kirito slurred, his hands fumbling for something at his side.
"Shut up." Argo pressed the cleanse crystal to his chest. They worked even in anti-crystal zones; it had to work now.
It had to.
As the crystal glowed, Argo felt her heart leap into her throat, and as it shattered, the info broker grabbed the healing crystal from where it had fallen, pressing it to Kirito's chest and activating it again.
[Unable to use item]
"Told... you." Kirito rasped as his health bar ticked lower.
"Shut up!" Argo screamed, grabbing her last resort out of her inventory. It would take three seconds to activate, but the teleport crystal just might save his life.
She pressed the activate button so hard that for a second she thought that she might actually punch through the system window.
The light of a teleport starting swirled around her and Kirito and for a second, Argo felt hope. She was getting him out of here. He was going to live.
Then it was shattered as the light blinked out, leaving them in the gloom.
"NO!" Argo screamed, staring blankly at the window that had popped up in front of her.
[Teleport crystal cannot be used in an anti-crystal zone.]
"NO!"
"Argo." The info broker looked down immediately, at Kirito offering her the broken hilts of his swords; what a weapon turned into when it hit zero durability. "Take-"
The info broker cut him off by grabbing his arm, swinging it around her shoulders.
"I'm getting you out of here." And then she started walking.
He was heavy, and STR had never been her highest stat, but she had to keep moving. Had to get out of the anti-crystal zone. Had to get somewhere she could teleport. Before…
Before…
Argo shook her head.
It wasn't going to happen. She was going to get him out, he was going to live, and then she'd be able to tease him about going into a wood-themed dungeon with low durability weapons.
He wasn't going to die.
He wasn't.
Each step seemed to take an eternity, and the entrance she had come through earlier seemed miles away, but Argo kept plodding along, desperate to save her friend.
I should have saved some of my speed potions, the info broker thought, something, anything to take her mind off of her partner dying in her arms.
"Argo," Kirito said, the arm not slung over her shoulder poking her in the stomach. "Take… take this." He was offering her his broken swords again. He knew what he was doing.
He knew what it meant to give someone your weapons.
Argo stumbled under his weight, dropping to one knee.
"Keep them." She spat, clambering back up. "You'll need them later."
Still he pressed them into her chest, trying to give her the weapons. He wasn't dying, he wasn't, and if she could just get across the cavern then they'd probably be out of the anti-crystal zone and she could teleport them out of here.
Kirito coughed out a hoarse laugh. "We both know that's not… not true."
"It is true," Argo insisted, pushing herself forward. "I'm gonna make it true." Then her grip failed and Kirito slid off her shoulders like a sack of wet potatoes as the info broker stumbled forward.
She whirled around and grabbed Kirito's arm, her eyes desperately avoiding looking at his health bar.
"C'mon, we're almost there," she said, trying to tug him up. But whatever status effect was causing the D.o.T. effect was also making his body weak. Kirito swung his broken swords up, pressing the hilts into her hands.
"Take care of them for me, okay?" He said, smiling that stupid smile that had never failed to make Argo's heart skip a beat even as his body faded into the grey that Argo had grown oh so familiar with.
"No." She said, tugging at Kirito's arm with one hand even as the other held Kirito's broken swords. "NO!" She dropped the swords, wrapping both her arms around her partner, pressing her face up against his chest, desperate to feel him breathing, any sign that he was still alive.
"You can't do this, you idiot! You promised me we'd get out of here together. We were going to live together, get married in Kyoto, and live in the Tokyo Suburbs!" She cried into his chest, tears falling from her eyes and running down her cheeks as she clung desperately to her partner.
He just smiled at her, and brought one shaky hand up to rub her cheek in the way that she liked.
"I… love…" He said, his voice shaky, like a microphone that didn't work quite right.
"I love you too," Argo said, her voice breaking as she wrapped one hand around the back of her partner's head and pulled him in for a kiss.
But before their lips met, there was a sound like shattering glass, and the warmth and weight of Kirito disappeared from her arms.
She was too late.
He was gone.
Argo stayed there, in that pose; her eyes closed and her arms wrapped around empty air.
If she never opened them, she could pretend that he was still there. That everything was okay.
But she was Argo the Rat, and she dealt in truth, not lies.
Even when she so desperately wanted to believe the lie.
So she opened her eyes, and took in the empty space where her partner had been, only a few agonizing seconds earlier.
"Kii-bou…" She whispered, the name feeling ugly and raw in her throat.
She rose to her feet, the motion sending something clattering to the floor. His swords! Argo scooped up the broken blades, holding them close to her chest. He'd only shared the knowledge of his dual-wielding skill with her reluctantly, and only after extracting a promise to not advertise it.
Now she was the only one who would ever know that he had it.
Oh, god, she was the only one who knew!
She was the only one who knew about that sheepish little grin he'd make when he wasn't quite sure if a gift would be enough, who knew how he had struggled so hard with the martial arts quest that he had almost given up on it, who knew how he loved to catalogue the different flowers in the floors and find the ones that shared models.
She was the only one who knew.
An entire life, gone. Kirito's rich inner world that she, even as his partner, had only caught a few glimpses of, gone.
Kirito was gone.
Argo wanted to collapse to her knees, to sob until her eyes turned red and her breath was gone. She wanted to turn back time, to arrive even a minute earlier, so that she could save the most wonderful person she'd ever had the privilege to know.
But she couldn't, and Kirito was gone.
She was alone in the dark. In the dungeon where he had died.
He was gone.