The word that Yui spoke still hung heavily in the air with everyone taking their sweet time to absorb what she just said, as if their thoughts were going on a trip to visit grandma or something. Several tense minutes passed for the teens in their minds but for the little girl on the bed, she kept looking at Helios with a soft expectant look on her face.

Soon enough however all hell broke loose.

"What the hell?!" Alice exclaimed.

"Did that girl just call Helios 'Papa'?!" Asuna asked, just as shocked as the others.

"Hang on, everybody just calm down." Ren said. "It's probably just a simple misunderstanding." He kneeled down and looked at Yui at eye level. "Can you tell us who your father is?"

Yui raised her arm and pointed towards Helios.

Ren gave a soft nervous chuckle and put her hand down. "Now Yui I'm serious here, we need to find your dad. So we need to know where he is okay?"

The young girl nodded her head and once again, pointed at Helios. "Papa. He's my papa."

Helios could feel the multitude of eyes staring at him right now. He had no idea what was going on right now, begging for it to be some sick joke. But the thing that scared him the most was the hidden glare coming from one person in particular.

"Helios…" Dagger said in a tone that was covered in honey but hidden with venom. "Is there something you'd like to tell me?"

"Dagger I know what you are thinking and I swear I did not cheat on you!" Helios frantically said, very eager to calm his girlfriend's hidden rage.

The stare from Dagger did not lessen in the slightest. "Swear on your life."

He placed a hand on his heart and brought the other one up to show he was serious. "I swear on my life that I didn't cheat!"

"Swear on the life of your weapon."

"On the life of my precious Executioner I swear that I remain and always will be faithful!"

Dagger stared at her boyfriend's eyes closely for several long seconds before finally nodding her head. "Alright, I believe you."

"Seriously?" Riku asked.

"You'd be surprised how serious he is about that axe of his. He wouldn't swear on it lightly." Dagger explained.

Ignoring the awkward feeling in the room, Kirito kneeled down next to Yui. "I'm sorry Yui, but I think you're mistaken. Helios isn't your father."

"Yes he is." Yui insisted, grabbing onto Helios's arm. "He's my Papa."

"Helios you gotta explain the situation to this girl and set her straight." Alice told her guildmate. "We can't have her believing you're actually her dad."

The ash haired teen in question felt a huge amount of pressure was just tossed upon his shoulders at this moment, everyone looking at the teen in expectation. 'Goddamnit Alice, I'm gonna kill you for this!' He sighed heavily and grabbed Yui by the shoulders, looking her in her round innocent eyes. "Yui listen to me…"

"Yes papa?"

It really hurt Helios to do this to a little girl but he had very little choice in the matter. Her parents were probably worried sick about her and wanted nothing more than for her to be home alongside them. At the thought of the parents two thoughts came to his mind, one of which made him shudder. What kind of parents or siblings would be so irresponsible as to let their kid wander off into who knows where without having some sort of way to track her? By eyeing her alone it was easy to see that Yui had nothing else on her other than the clothes on her back. The second thought that flashed in Helios's mind was what if her parents or siblings… were dead?

Though it was very rare, he had heard stories of family friends who logged in together who ended up dying and leaving their kids who logged in with them alone and orphaned. Perhaps Yui ran away from something that killed her family and the trauma of the situation was too much for her young mind to handle and ended up repressing the memory to save her from going crazy. But the biggest implication of this whole mess was one that Helios was all too familiar with.

Being alone.

Only Ren knew of how loneliness and deep seated pain scratched at Helios's heart from when they were kids. Ever since 5th grade he'd been a loner with his mother all but ignoring his very existence in favor of his perfect older brother and his father never around due to constant business trips. Friends was a foreign concept to him until he met his first best friend Ren in the arcade that one fateful day. Although the two usually just hung out with each other, Riku did join in soon enough and made the duo a trio that stuck together. Even now in SAO although being surrounded by friends and having a girlfriend, his heart still ached for love he never truly got growing up.

Looking at Yui, this innocent little girl who had done no wrong, he didn't want her to go through the same pain he felt growing up. The pain of not having parental love, of not being loved in general with no one to call mom or dad or even friend. He knew this was going to bite him hard at a later time but he knew what he had to do.

"... The others are talking crazy talk, I'm your papa no doubt." He said decisively.

"HELIOS!" Everyone yelled at the top of their lungs as Yui squealed with happiness and jumped to hug the player.

"Dude this isn't a joke! Tell her the truth that you aren't her father, that's an order!" Ren was never usually one to invoke his power as a leader in this sense but he would not stand for Helios stringing this little girl along for whatever he had in mind.

Alice frantically shook her head in agreement with her boyfriend. "This isn't a game Helios! Someone could be looking for her for all we know! She needs to be with her real family!"

"Would you all just shut the hell up!?" He barked at them loudly which caused Yui to shrink back a bit in fear of her dad getting angry. Helios saw this and gave the girl a soft hug to calm her down. "It's okay Yui, papa just has to tell some people off. Be a good girl and cover your ears." She nodded her head and placed both of her palms flat on her ears while humming a soft tune. "Listen I know it's wrong for me to do this and I'm sure it's gonna come bite me in the ass sooner or later but I… I just can't bare the thought of this girl being alone with no one to take proper care of her."

"And you think you can take proper care of her!?" Riku asked incredulously. "You can hardly take care of your weapons, what makes you think you can take care of a living human being!?"

"I'm sure the edge of my axe might have the answer you're looking for if you keep on pushing it Riku!" The ash haired teen barked at the knife user before sighing. "Look just… try to look out for people missing kids that aren't dead. There's no way in hell I'm taking Yui to that orphanage down on Floor 1 ever since the Army took hold of the Town of Beginnings." He then picked up the little girl who immediately hugged him in response. "I'm taking Yui back to the inn. Go and do some searching while I keep her company alright?"

Needless to say this… wasn't the Helios everyone was used to. Seeing the usually dickish teen show such seriousness and taking on such a heavy responsibility was like seeing a magical fairy that was giving away free money. Ren felt in the back of his mind that he knew the reason behind Helios's sudden shift in demeanor but he hoped he was wrong.

"Alright just go on, we'll take it from here Helios." the leader said, once again causing a huge wave of shock to go around the group.

"Right. See you guys back at the inn." He hefted up Yui to sit on his shoulders which made her giggle. "Come on Yui. Time for papa to show you where we live."

"Okay papa! Bye everyone!" she yelled while waving her hands as the duo left and closed the door behind them.

Almost immediately, Alice turned her head towards Ren. "What are you thinking Ren?! You can't seriously think Helios is capable of taking care of her!"

Ren kept his head lowered. "Just trust me on this. Let's just say Helios… knows what it's like to be alone."

"What are you talking about?" Asuna asked.

"It's not for me to say." Ren said with a shake of his head. "For now, I say we let Helios keep her safe. We need to focus on finding Yui's family right now."

"And exactly how do we do that?" Mai asked. "Finding a couple of people in all of Aincrad is like finding a needle in a haystack."

"We can narrow it down at least." Ren explained. "The towns on the lower floors would be a good place to start. Judging by her gear, Yui doesn't seem to be someone that's been grinding day and night. And if she's got a family, I doubt they'd be leveling in the fields and leaving her alone day after day. In other words, they're probably not all that high leveled."

"And if they're not high leveled, that means they'd most likely be on the lower floors, where it's safer and cheaper to live." Kirito finished, following Ren's train of thought.

"That's still a big area to search." Riku pointed out. "Searching through the Town of Beginnings will take nearly a day on its own."

"I can get Argo to ask around." Dagger suggested. "With her information network, it'll be a lot easier to find them."

Ren nodded his head. "Alright then, you contact Argo and tell her about the situation. The rest of us will figure out where to start looking."

Dagger nodded her head and walked out of the room to send a message to Argo. Meanwhile, the rest of the group sat down and formed out a plan to cover as much ground as possible in the shortest amount of time. The most likely area to search would be the Town of Beginnings, but at the same time it was also the most dangerous with Army soldiers running around the streets. After some discussion, the group decided that it would be best if they split up and searched the Town of Beginnings first. Afterwards, they would each go around the other towns on the Floor and slowly work their way up each floor. With their limited supply of manpower, it was the best strategy they could come up with for now.

"We should bring Yui with us too." Asuna suggested. "Perhaps we can jog her memory if we bring her somewhere familiar."

"Good idea." Mai nodded.

Dagger nodded her head and brought up her menu to shoot a message to Helios. "Sending him a message now to have Yui ready to go."

Ren got up from his seat on the couch. "Alright then. We've got ourselves a game plan. Alice, Mai, and Asuna, you go with Dagger to get Helios and Yui. We'll meet you in the Town of Beginnings."

With the plans in place the group scattered to their two halves and made their way to the set destinations. The guys had the easier part of the job since they got to stake out the town earlier and cover more ground. The girls however were dreading having to go to Helios and make him come to help out in Yui's parent search. Once they reached the teleport crystal, the girls made their way to floor 60 where Helios and Yui were situated to retrieve the young girl for their search.

Once making their way to the inn and reaching the upstairs floors, they heard a lot of shuffling around and loud footsteps coming from the inside of Helios's room. The four girls braced themselves for whatever sight they were in for as Dagger used her key to open the door to the room.

And boy was it a sight to behold.

Slowly opening the door to peek inside, they saw Yui running around giggling her head off while Helios playfully gave chase. Soon enough he caught the little girl and picked her up high above his head and spun her around making Yui laugh with joy. "Caught you, you little slippery bunny!"

"Papa caught me again!" the dark haired girl squealed.

The girls were in utter awe at the scene, that Helios could actually behave like a normal human being to another person and treat them with kindness. He then fell on his back while still holding Yui up and balanced her body on his hands and feet to push her up and down into the air which made her all the happier at the sensation of falling down and rising back up again.

While the scene before them was very cute, the girls knew they had a job to do and opened the door fully to reveal themselves to the duo. "Ahem are we interrupting something." Dagger asked, clearing her throat to get their attention.

At seeing the girls all lined up at the front door, Helios put Yui down gently next to him and gave her a pat to the head. "Well I was in the middle of playing with Yui before you all suddenly came in. Did you guys search the lower floors already?"

"No… We wanted to have Yui come along with u- Okay no, just what the heck was that all about!?" Mai suddenly yelled.

Helios raised an eyebrow at the girl. "What the hell's got you so uppity?"

"So you can take in some random cute little girl as your daughter and you treat her like she's the empress of Japan but when it's about me you make my life hell!?"

"Okay first of all there's nothing cute about you in the slightest!"

"Helios…" Alice warned but the axe user ignored her.

"Second, Yui is my daughter, quit saying she isn't! And third of all I didn't realize you were so desperate for brotherly love that you'd get jealous of Yui."

"I am not jealous damn you! Just treat me like a human being!"

"Try maybe actually doing something that'll make me respect you, you stupid squirt!"

At seeing her papa get frustrated with the smallest girl in the group in front of her, Yui stood up with an indignant look on her face and pointed at Mai. "Yeah, stupid squirt! Leave papa alone!"

Everyone turned dead silent at what just came out of Yui's mouth, the girl seeming to have a talent to render people speechless. Soon enough however, Helios picked the girl up in a hug and spun her around. "That's my girl!" he yelled with pride in his voice.

While Dagger and Asuna were still stunned, Alice noticed Mai slowly shamble off into the corner and began to sulk with a depressive aura surrounding her entire being. "Mai? What's wrong?"

"... Squirt… She… She called me squirt… I'm taller than her, older than her… Why does the world hate me?" She muttered softly as she fell victim to the claws of depression.

Shaking off her shock, Asuna moved past Alice and got to eye level of Yui. "Listen Yui, you and your papa need to come with us so we can help jog your memories. Can you do that for us?"

Yui nodded her head, which made the auburn haired girl inwardly sigh in relief for fear of Helios's attitude rubbing off on her. "Sure, papa and I can do that. … Oh!" As if remembering something, Yui squirmed out of Helios's hug and walked in between the four girls. "I have a something to ask."

Dagger moved to the girl and gave her a small pat on the head. "Anything kiddo, just shoot."

"Which one of you girls is my mommy?" She asked with a tilt of her head.

'... Why does God hate me?' Helios thought at seeing all four girls slowly rise their heads to look at him, all with an eerie expression on their faces. Dagger's especially scaring him due to the constant eye twitching she was showing.