A/N: Hey, everyone! Here's yet another chapter of this story! I think I'll be able to update this on a monthly basis at the very least, given that my full-time job is now a full-time priority for me. But I'll try and shoot for a semimonthly updating schedule in next month or September. We'll see how that goes for us.

In other news, good ole Southern Cali is undergoing a big heat-wave, and I'm caught up in the midst of it. Even worse, it seems like it's also pretty humid, which makes the heat worse for me. For those of you who don't know, I don't do well in high temperatures, and it makes my writing pace sluggish. It makes my pace of life sluggish overall, actually. XP XP XP I was hoping I could put in some significant writing time by the time I posted this chapter, but today was so hot and humid that I cut it off a little short, sadly. Don't worry, this won't affect my overall updating schedule.

Okay, that should be enough of all this unnecessary rambling! On with the chapter. ENJOY!

P.S.: For updates regarding progress on my writing and just life in general, please check out my profile! I try to update it as often as I possibly can with any status update!

P.P.S.: Due to the slowly improving situation regarding the coronavirus outbreak, I am going to have to remind you all about the basic steps you should take if you want to stay healthy, courtesy of my university's reminder emails:

-Wash hands often with soap and water for 20-30 seconds at a time, and/or use hand sanitizer
-Avoid close contact with people who are sick
-Keep your hands away from nose, eyes, and mouth (I can't imagine how difficult this part is probably going to be)
-Eat well, get adequate rest, and exercise regularly
-Get a flu shot if you haven't already and are able to
-Stay informed on the COVID-19 vaccines, get shots if you're able to, and try to get a booster shot if you're eligible

And if you ARE sick (I hope you get better if you are), please be a good sport and save other folks the trouble of getting sick. You can do this by:

-Covering your mouth and nose with your sleeve, elbow, or a tissue whenever you sneeze or cough
-Not sharing food and drinks with others
-Avoiding touching your mouth, nose, and eyes (Again, I understand this is probably going to be difficult)
-Avoiding close contact with others
-Cleaning and disinfecting surfaces and objects
-Staying at home if you're unwell (PRIORITY NUMBER ONE!)
-Staying calm and keeping yourself well-informed (My personal advice)

If you already know this, then great! If you didn't know any of this beforehand, please keep that information in mind as we all go through this trying time. It's a realm of unknowns at this point, and I wish myself and all of humanity well.

– June 21, 2023 –
Aincrad, Floor 16, Great Black Swamp

Eighteen months ago

"Kirito! Keita-kun! Guys?! Where are you?!"

The petite, demure, trembling girl waded through the murky, viscous, waist-high waters, leaving behind a trail of fearful whimpers in her wake. She tried looking around in search of her companions, but all that she could see was a thick, cold fog and many barren trees with long branches that stretched out in the air in crooked, curling directions, like sidewinding snakes. The only noises that filled the air were the croaks of Poison Arrow Frogs, the groans of a distant dying tree, and the discomfiting slosh of water as she continued to wallow through it. They all created an orchestra that could only signal one thing for her.

Doom. Certain, absolute doom.

"No," a fear-stricken Sachi whispered. She shook her head in an increasingly frantic motion as she kept her simple spear close to her body. "No, no, no, no, no... This can't be happening to me... This can't..."

"Ohhhhh, but I'm afraid it is."

The spike of fear within her was so palpable that it nearly skewered her heart.

"KIRITO!" she called again over the slosh of water. "KIRITO, PLEASE YELL BACK IF YOU CAN HEAR ME! KIRITO! KIRITO, KIRITO, KIRITO!"

"Kirito, Kirito, Kiritooooo... How pathetic. He can't save you."

Sachi's grip tightened around her spear. "No. No. I can't die in here, not in a horrible place like this! I can't! I...I gotta..."

"Gotta what? Fight?"

The sloshing of water continued. Sachi felt a cold shiver crawling up her body.

"Why fight that which is inevitable? The best thing for you to do is sit back and let it happen."

She gritted her teeth as she wandered further and further into the dark swamp and the thick fog.

"The less you fight, the less painful it'll be. Ever thought about that?"

The sloshing of water grew louder by the minute. Sachi felt a phantom sensation that reminded her of a sea snake from her science textbooks, in the water and encircling her.

"And who knows? With you out of the way, the Moonlit Black Cats will finally realize their potential."

"Their...potential...?"

The sloshing still grew louder.

"Your cowardice has held them back for so long. They've wasted precious time trying to protect you."

"NO!" Sachi started looking around now, trying to prepare herself. "NO, I-!"

"It's for the best if you just...removed yourself from the equation."

"NO!"

At that moment, Sachi saw something in the long distance, something that made her heart leap in remembrance. A light, suspended in midair from the thickness of the fog, but vaguely shining through the translucent sheen.

"KIRITO!" She started running through the water, as fast as her legs could carry her through its murky depths. "KIRITO!"

She continued running and running and running, away from the lure of the low, taunting voices and towards the comfort of the light. It grew larger and brighter with each passing minute and every call she hurled at it. But the light didn't seem to react, forcing Sachi to yell louder.

"KIRITO! KIRITO! KIRITO!"

Finally, the light reacted to her voice. Sachi's heart skipped with joy, and she felt a newfound surge of energy and resolve as the voices grew fainter and her hope for salvation grew stronger-

"SACHI, NO!"

Kirito's familiar voice, normally a source of comfort for her, caused her heart to stop cold today.

For it came from behind her.

A second later, a bellow resounded through the swamp, and the fog parted to reveal something rising from the soup-like water. At first, it appeared as a ten-foot-tall mound of slimy, drippy mud, until two large, mud-coated arms with vaguely-defined muscles slowly sprouted from it, followed by a head with a beaked, turtle-like mouth that opened up to release a breath of visible oxygen. Then, two glowing circles of yellow bloomed upon the head, joining the third light that had lured Sachi over to her current position of doom, which tipped the creature's long, snakelike tail. Next, the mud finally started to fully drip off the horrible beast's body, revealing a piscine, humanoid appearance.

Finally, once much of the monster's body had been bared to the helpless, terrified Sachi, a banner appeared right above its head, accompanied by a trio of terrifying green health bars.

[Creature of the Black Swamp]

The Creature opened its mouth again, wider this time, and let out a great, bloodcurdling roar at Sachi's direction. The girl screamed but remained still as she smelled its foul breath and felt flecks of slimy spit land on her face. She attempted to summon the willpower to aim the tip of her spear at its torso, but the weapon had only moved a couple of centimeters by the time the Creature raised a clawed arm and prepared to strike.

In that moment, all Sachi could do was let out a tiny squeak of a gasp. She was going to die right here and right now, all without doing anything meaningful-

"HHHHHAAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!"

A blur of jet-black, nearly obscured by the grim shade of the swamp, landed atop the Creature's head and drove a sword into its skull before it could have the chance to react. This action alone completely drained the Creature of its first health bar.

"SSSSSKKKKKRRRRREEEEEAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!"

Momentarily flailing in agony, the Creature reached for its unexpected attacker, but the black swordsman moved quicker, yanking his sword out of its skull and moving towards the gills pulsating on its neck. With another scream of resolve, he swung his sword at them, leaving behind a deep, salmon-pink gash on one side of its neck and halving its second health bar. Before the Creature could grab him, the black swordsman moved to the other side and pierced one of the untouched gills with his blade, depleting the Creature's second bar completely.

These latest strikes evoked more shrill shrieks of pain from the Creature, but it did absolutely nothing to deter the black swordsman. Instead, he continued his assault, effortlessly yet aggressively delivering one calculated strike after another like he was engaged in a coordinated dance of great complexity. Every strike ate away at the Creature's Hit Points until it was reduced to nothing in a matter of minutes.

And then, Sachi watched as the swordsman landed in front of the Creature, his back bravely, defiantly facing it even as it was suspended in motion. Another second later, it exploded in a brilliant shower of sparks and polygons that illuminated the entire swamp. She could feel all of the phantom sensations lurking in the viscous water fearfully retreating from the abundant yet abnormal presence of light.

But none of that mattered to her anymore. All that mattered now was the person standing in front of her, her savior. The one who promised her that he wouldn't let her die in this cruel game.

"Kirito..." she said with a fond, grateful smile.

CHAPTER 10: SUPPLEMENTARY ANGLES

Floor 11, Taft

"I still can't believe Kirito took on the Creature of the Black Swamp all by himself!"

"Dude, how'd you do it? I hear the Creature was one of the tougher Flag Mobs!"

"For a Level 20, his strength is like a Level 40 sometimes."

"Hey, that's Kirito for ya! Rather than give it his all, he goes above and beyond!"

"What a badass. Why can't you take his example more, Sachi?!"

"Wh-Whaaaaa?!"

With a pout of disappointment, Sachi shrunk into her seat in humiliation while she warily watched the rest of the Moonlit Black Cats. Like usual, they were gathered around the oblong table that they always liked to congregate at after a long, grueling day of training and farming. Kirito also looked just as mortified by how awestruck the other boys were from his stunning defeat of the Creature, and she noticed how he'd been particularly alerted by Tetsuo's comparison between his strength and that of a Level 40 player.

Which was understandable, given what she had learned about Kirito's true power.

"I still wonder why he's not being upfront about his true level," she thought. "There's got to be a good reason why..."

"Seriously, Sachi," Keita said, "I know you're not a big fan of being up in the front, but if you're gonna get lost in a place like the Great Black Swamp, you gotta be more prepared. You're lucky Kirito was able to track you down as quickly as he did." His brow became furrowed in concern. "Are you sure you don't wanna upgrade your equipment? That would've been a lifesaver for you up there."

Sachi meekly shook her head. "Mm-mm. I'm...I'm fine with where I am-"

"Which is being a damsel in distress?" Ducker joked. Then, he gave her an unusually serious frown. "Oh seriously, Sachi, one of us is always saving you every other day."

She slumped her shoulders in embarrassment. "I'm...I'm sorry..."

"What if it all comes down to you in a boss fight?" asked Sasamaru. "We're the Moonlit Black Cats, not the Moonlit Black Cats plus one. You're just as integral of a part of the guild as we are. We need to know that you can be dependable when we need you."

Sachi lightly bit her lip, trying her best to make sure that the act went unnoticed. But at the corner of her eye, she could see Kirito's eyes softening in empathetic concern.

Then, the black swordsman spoke up. "Come on, guys. I think you're putting a little too much pressure on her."

"Pressure?" Tetsuo asked, affronted.

"Look, Kirito," said Keita, "I understand your concern, but we gotta start trying to nudge Sachi out of her comfort zone a little. If we keep Sachi in the back and minimize her contact with an enemy all the time, then we're just making her even more vulnerable to danger. We don't know what kinds of enemies we'll encounter as we go up floor by floor, so she can't just keep shadowing us all the time..." He narrowed his eyes slightly. "And I notice she's been more and more dependent on you, every passing day. I don't mean to sound rude, but if you're babying her-"

"He's not babying me, Keita-kun!" Sachi protested. Then, she shyly looked away. "It's just, well...I, uh...I...I..."

She could not bear to finish her sentence, all while her heart-rate began to go out of control. Her face started to burn up, and she knew her face had to be as red as a cherry. And to her misfortune, Ducker noticed this as well, for his lips curled upward into his trademark grin of mischief.

"Ohhhhh?" he asked teasingly. "My, does our little Sachi have a thing for our newest pal?"

Sachi could've sworn steam was jettisoning out of every orifice she had, even as she averted her gaze from all the boys. She was so overwhelmed with embarrassment and humiliation that she couldn't even emit whimpers. She couldn't even bear to think about the kind of face Kirito was giving her.

At this point, she could hear her friends from a long distance away.

"Oi, dude," Sasamaru piped up in concern. "I think you broke her or something."

Ducker gulped audibly. "Ah, shit. My bad."

"Come on," Tetsuo said. "Let's retire for the day."

"Y-Yeah," Kirito replied awkwardly. "Let's..."

Keita didn't say anything.

"Good night, Kirito."

"Good night, Sachi."

Sachi smiled sweetly at Kirito as they lay in the latter's bed together, facing one another. It was big enough to fit the two of them, although they'd always kept their distance from one another. After all, having two people of the opposite gender sleeping in the same bed and claiming they were just platonic friends afterwards was bound to raise many questions. The wrong kinds of questions. But Sachi had recently been positioning herself to be closer to Kirito, moving her body just one centimeter after another every night, until it came to the point where the wrong kinds of questions were more justifiable.

Even so, she saw nothing wrong with their positions. After all, he was her only comfort, her one true shield, in this cruel death game, so she might as well be as close to him as humanly possible.

All of a sudden, Kirito's voice pierced the silence. "Hey...Sachi...?"

"Yes, Kirito?" she replied.

"I'm...I'm sorry..." Kirito's dark, metallic eyes narrowed morosely. "I'm so, so sorry... I left you alone in that swamp for a while-"

Sachi's eyes grew wide in shock. "No! No, don't you say that, Kirito! None of that was your fault! I..." She looked away in shame. "I shouldn't have gotten separated from you and the others. I shouldn't have been so afraid-"

"But I promised you that you'd all survive! I promised you that it was gonna be okay! I...I..."

What happened next shocked Sachi to her core. The face of her protector, her shield, started to tremble and waver in its razor-sharp seriousness and resolve. Though it wasn't obvious to the naked eye, Sachi could recognize the fear and grief in his face, for it was the same kind of fear and grief that she always wore from day to day.

For once, Kirito was actually afraid, and he desperately didn't want her to see it.

So, in an effort to placate him, the girl rolled from her side and onto her back before staring at the ceiling of their shared room with a fond, nostalgic smile.

"Hey, Kirito," she said. "You know what I'm hoping to get, out of all of this?"

Sachi heard Kirito shift uncomfortably beside her.

"What, Sachi?" he asked.

"I want to see the end of this world," she replied in earnest. "I want to find out its purpose. I want to find out why all of us were brought together here. And then...when we get out of here, I want us to meet again, in the real world."

Though she could not see him, Sachi knew that the boy had calmed down from his panic attack. She could only visualize the smile on his face, but the image was as clear as day.

"Yeah, that'd be nice..." he replied. "You, me, the other Moonlit Black Cats, hanging out at school or watching a movie or taking a walk in the park..."

She sighed in elation. "I'd love all of that, Kirito...and more..." She took a deep, soft breath of longing while delving into her cherished memories. "You know, I used to hang out with Keita-kun in our local park. Since we were kids." She sighed nostalgically. "I would love to have all of that back, here and now..."

"Wait, since you were kids?" Kirito asked, surprised by the revelation. "I didn't know you two were childhood friends."

Sachi turned her head to look at him. "Oh, you didn't know that?"

He shook his head. "All I know about you guys is your PC research club in junior high."

"Oh. I guess the topic never came up..." Sachi looked back at the ceiling. "But...yeah. He...He and I knew each other for a long time. We are next-door neighbors in the same apartment complex. I could never get along with the other children there. Just him." She took a deep breath. "Before you, Kirito, it was always him. He was the one who was looking out for me all the time, protecting me..."

"Huh, I never would've guessed..." Kirito too looked towards the ceiling. "He's always trying to get you to take on a more proactive role in the guild."

"As we grew older, he tried to get me to be more social. It's why I joined the PC research club in the first place. Frankly, I would've preferred to use the computer and play video games on my own, but Keita encouraged me to join up. Or...more like unintentionally badger me into joining." Sachi briefly giggled. "But, I suppose it worked out in the end. I never would have become friends with Tetsuo, Sasamaru, and Ducker. And we wouldn't have logged into SAO, where we met you..."

"I guess fate has a funny way of working things out," replied Kirito. "In a roundabout way."

"There's always a reason for everything, like Kotaro-nii always says."

He raised an eyebrow. "Uh...Kotaro-nii...?"

"Hm?" She looked at him. "Oh! I guess Keita didn't mention this to you either. Well, he's got an older brother."

"Wow." Kirito also cast his gaze to the ceiling. "Yeah, Keita never mentioned him before. Kotaro, huh?"

"Yeah. Kotaro works for a big VR research company. He's like a hero to Keita. He was the one who got me and Keita into computers and video games in the first place. He even bought the entire PC research club our...o-our NerveGear units..." As the realization dawned on her, Sachi's eyes started to shine with somber sympathy. "Oh, Kotaro-nii... I...I can't even begin to imagine the guilt he must feel..."

Kirito looked back at her, and the realization dawned on him as well. Without even thinking, he reached for Sachi's hand and took it, holding on with a gentle, compassionate grip. The girl's eyes grew wide by a few centimeters, and she looked at him once again. He smiled at her.

"It's not his fault that you're all in this mess, Sachi," he said consolingly. "It's no one's fault. No one except for Kayaba. It is him that is at fault and him alone. But we are not gonna let him beat us. It's just like you said earlier. There's always a reason for everything. And the reason for us being here, together, is that we're going to beat him, at his own game, and we're going to find out the reason why we met, why we're here, together. And then, once we get out of this game...we'll do whatever we want together."

Sachi returned his smile, and she tightened her grip around his hand. "Whatever we want...together..."

She snuggled into her pillow, images of her and Kirito and the other Moonlit Black Cats together in the real world flooding her mind. There was no biting of her lower lip or uncontrollable quivering as the meek, uncertain girl began to accept the sandman's embrace, her eyelids slowly but steadily fluttering to a close.

"I can't wait..."

Before her eyes fully closed, Sachi could see Kirito's expression changing slightly. In retrospect, it went from gentleness to a mixture of resolve and...something else...

"To this day, I still don't know when exactly I developed my feelings for Kirito. It could've happened on day one when we first met, or sometime after, or maybe even more recently. But I think that time, on the night of June 15, 2023, was the time when I felt that there truly was something between me and him. Something more. But, of course, it didn't work in the end. I never did get to find out if it would have become something more...

"And now, I don't know if I ever will..."

– January 21, 2025 –
Alfheim, near Undine Territory

Present day

Sachi opened her blue eyes and gazed at Kirito.

The Spriggan was flying ahead of her, and she could already sense the resolve coming from him as he soared across the skies. His posture was firm, his fists were clenched, and his head did not move as his gaze, likely smoldering in all of its intensity, remained transfixed on what was ahead.

"We're going to beat him, at his own game, and we're going to find out the reason why we met, why we're here, together. And then, once we're freed...we'll do whatever we want together."

"Well," the Undine thought somberly, "I guess we couldn't fulfill that promise... Any part of it..." She then smiled at Kirito as he continued to fly on ahead of her and the rest of the group. "But I guess that makes two of us..."

– X-Y-X –

Unbeknownst to Sachi, she was not the only one who was reflecting on their time in Aincrad. Ahead of the group, unseen by all, Kirito was deep in thought, fully aware of the awkward circumstance that he was now finding himself in.

"Sachi's back in my life," he thought, as if he still had a hard time believing it. "Sachi's...back in my life... And she's now a completely different person... A more proactive, capable...braver person. After seeing just a little of what she could do in ALO, I'm..."

"I love you, so very much."

"I'm..."

"Thank you. Goodbye."

"I'm..."

"We can't live with this anymore..."

A sudden pang shot through Kirito's brain, nearly throwing his focus and coordination off-balance. Highly conscious of the presences of Yui and his teammates, he grimaced as subtly as he possibly could, although he couldn't ignore the subtler yet sharper discomfort brewing in his heart.

A discomfort that brewed hotter and hotter every time Sachi and her precious smile filled the corners of his mind.

"I can't believe...I'm feeling these feelings again... I thought...I'd gotten past them... I was hoping I could..."

He resisted the urge to put a hand over his heart while his own memories returned to him.

– June 21, 2023 –
Aincrad, Floor 11, Taft

He hadn't been thinking when he reached for Sachi's hand and held onto it with a gentle, compassionate grip. Even when the girl's eyes grew wide by a few centimeters, Kirito knew that she did not interpret this as an unwelcome action. When she looked at him with her blue eyes, which looked even more doe-like than ever, he fondly smiled at her.

"It's not his fault that you're all in this mess, Sachi," he said consolingly. "It's no one's fault. No one except for Kayaba. It is him that is at fault and him alone. But we are not gonna let him beat us. It's just like you said earlier. There's always a reason for everything. And the reason for us being here, together, is that we're going to beat him, at his own game, and we're going to find out the reason why we met, why we're here, together. And then, once we get out of this game...we'll do whatever we want together."

He meant every word with every fiber of his soul, and those words came from the deep bottom of his heart. Even before he got trapped in SAO, he thought he would always be alone, with nothing but computers and video games to keep him company. But now that he met the Moonlit Black Cats, now that he met her, he felt as if a gate had been opened to him, granting him access to a whole new world of boundless possibilities. A myriad of possibilities that he could enjoy with her and all the others.

And so, when Sachi returned his smile and tightened her soft grip around his hand, he felt his heart flutter with joy, like a butterfly's wings flapping.

"Whatever we want...together..." she repeated.

She snuggled into her pillow, evoking more of the warm, pleasant feeling that was bubbling inside Kirito. He watched as the meek, uncertain girl began to accept the sandman's embrace, her eyelids slowly but steadily fluttering to a close.

"I can't wait..."

While she closed her eyes, a single thought passed through Kirito's mind as he continued his protective observation.

"I'll protect you until the end of this world, Sachi. I promise you that. And then, we can all be together."

Then, as soon as the girl closed her eyes and fell asleep, another thought crossed Kirito's mind, prompted by the sight of Sachi's calm, peaceful, slumbering face and the tender feeling of her hand in his.

"She...She looks so...so..."

All of a sudden, Kirito started to lean forward without warning, his lips slowly puckering while aiming themselves for her soft forehead. Fortunately, he caught himself in the middle of this sudden act and quickly, awkwardly readjusted himself back to his original position. After a few minutes, Kirito laid upon his back and dumbly stared up at the ceiling. He could feel his face becoming as hot as lava.

"Less than twelve hours after that night, I lost her. So...I really, truly thought it was never meant to be. But now, with Sachi back in my life...I don't know what to do... If I should keep it that way...or if I want to..."

– X-Y-X –

– January 21, 2025 –
Toto Institute of Technology, Ōokayama

"In the world of medical technology, man and machine go hand in hand. Machines are rigged to the human body when it is in a state of near-death. But the machines only work as well as the people calibrating them. It's a cyclical matter that you could call symbiotic. There are no other factors in the equation."

A middle-aged, dark-haired man stood alone at the polished wooden podium, facing his audience from his position at the front of the lecture hall. The expansive room was full to the point where extra students were forced to line the walls and take notes from there. Behind him, a banner hung in front of an electronic whiteboard, and projected on it was the now-infamous promotional image of a castle floating in the sky.

"Case in point, the SAO Incident."

The man up front raised his hand, which held a small remote, and pressed a button to switch the projected image to the next slide. A brown-haired man, clad in a white lab-coat, was posing inside his office for another promotional image, his face emotionless and his metallic-colored eyes empty.

"Before he disappeared, the creator of SAO, Argus game developer Akihiko Kayaba, warned the entire world that logging the patients out from the outside, by deactivating and removing their NerveGear, would simply activate the NerveGear's microwave transceivers, frying the wearers' brains and killing them in seconds. As for what would happen to the patients themselves, they would be doomed to die if their health bar reaches zero.

"The only way for these ten thousand people to escape their horrible fate, according to Kayaba, was to clear the...the..."

The classroom door had suddenly slid open, and two more people stepped into the room. Their presences quickly caught the lecturer's attention, and he awkwardly stopped midsentence. The students kept their eyes trained on him, and even those who were beginning to doze off started to stir themselves back to life, intrigued by the sudden silence that hung off his last word.

"The..." the lecturer uttered, almost silently.

Off to the side of the lecture hall's stage, two men stood attentively, partially in the shadows. One of them, a young man with grayish-brown hair and hazel eyes, blinked in surprise at the lecturer's reaction. Then, he followed the man's line of sight and spotted the two newest visitors. This man narrowed his eyes at the older one of them, a middle-aged man with graying brown hair and an extended goatee beard.

The other, a man with pale skin, graying black hair, and an overall frail appearance that didn't fit his evidently young age, stepped forward and gave the lecturer a nudge on the shoulder.

"Doctor?" he asked in a whisper. He then gave him another nudge. "Doctor?"

This brought the lecturer out of his reverie, and he hastily announced, in a slightly shaken voice, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this lecture short. Remember, your first drafts are due by the end of this week. I am interested to hear what your topics will be. And remember to finish reading Chapters Ten and Eleven."

The students started to pack up their supplies and flood out of the lecture hall. This gave the two newest visitors enough room to stroll down the small set of stairs towards the stage. There, the lecturer and his two assistants waited; while the lecturer and the paler of the assistants looked confused and uncertain from their presence, the other assistant continued to glower at the middle-aged man. But this visitor didn't meet his hateful gaze and instead addressed the lecturer.

"Hayami," he said.

The lecturer respectfully bowed his head. "Shigemura."

"I can't believe it. I mean, I...I talked to him last night... J-Just last night..."

Hayami vacantly, somberly stared out of the window of his small, unembellished high-rise office. His back was on Seijirou Kikuoka and Tetsuhiro Shigemura, who were sitting right beside one another in identical leather chairs, opposite his desk of unremarkable wood. Hayami's assistants had already left, leaving the three older men in the room.

"Is it really true?" Hayami asked with a slightly shaky voice. "His pacemaker suffered a catastrophic failure?"

"I'm afraid so, Hidetaka," Shigemura replied.

"And on top of that, the White Star prototype is missing..." The man then turned to face his colleague. "You think-?"

"We don't just think, Dr. Hayami," interrupted a grim Kikuoka. "We know. Rentarō Yonemoto was one of the White Star's inventors. He was killed on the exact same day the White Star is reported missing. The coroner just estimated his time of death to be at around 8:00 a.m. About a half-hour before anyone finds out the White Star is missing. And...with the way Yonemoto was killed..." His glasses glinted. "There are just too many coincidences for all of it to be, well...a coincidence."

"Damn..." Hayami tightly clenched his fists. "That was our only prototype. If words gets out on what happened to him, it will damage the credibility of all those studies that proved the White Star was safe! Not to mention there'll be ten families who'll be very unhappy, to say the least." He looked down at the simple carpeted floor in shame. "What am I going to tell them? That their last chance at freeing their loved ones from that death game has become a weapon of death itself? That they invested their time and energy into a human trial experiment that'll never happen in the end?!"

"I'm just as frustrated as you are, Hidetaka," Shigemura replied. "The only thing we can do now is recover the prototype before it's used to wreak more carnage. We owe Rentarō that much, at the very least."

"Well, I don't see how much help I can be to you. Like I said before, the last time I talked to him was last night. He was fine. I never got the impression that he was being followed, or that he made any enemies in recent days."

"But you're Japan's lead expert on SAO victims," Kikuoka said. "Including the outliers-"

The investigator was cut off by a cold chuckle from Hayami.

"Ohhhhh, Kikuoka," the doctor remarked. "You know, I've almost forgotten how much of an ass you were. Always asking questions for your little incident report. One too many questions for comfort. Always scaring off my patients." He scowled at him with intense resentment. "You speak of them as if they were supposed to die in real life like they did in the game. As if they defied the will of God. But those people who survived the NerveGears, Kikuoka, they're not outliers. They're all survivors, just like the ones who were freed on R-Day. And Akihiko Kayaba is not God. He's just a petty excuse of a man with twisted delusions and no care for anyone else."

"I didn't mean to imply any of that."

"Of course you didn't," Hayami replied dryly. "But, back to the matter at hand, what use could you have for my expertise on the survivors? Why is the SAO Case Victims Rescue Force even involved in the case?"

"Your expertise is not of particular value to the investigation. Rather, we think it could be of value...to the killer..."

Hayami blinked in surprise. "What, you think he or she might be after the scientific community's foremost experts on the SAO Incident?"

"Well, if I can recall, you and Yonemoto and Shigemura all came up with the White Star together..." Kikuoka scanned the office with a tiny smile. "And I hear the idea popped up in this very office. It's a story worthy of a biography."

"Oh, so you think this is all about the three of us and the White Star?"

"The White Star prototype was in a highly secure vault, Hayami," Shigemura replied grimly. "Deep in the restricted areas of this institute. In order for him to steal the White Star, murder Yonemoto, and escape undetected, he'd need to have an abundant amount of advanced knowledge of the school grounds."

"Advanced knowledge that only a teacher or esteemed alumnus could have," added Kikuoka.

"Teacher?" Hayami narrowed his eyes, affronted. "Well, for your information, Kikuoka, I was at a dinner with my wife last night. She and thirteen other people can confirm this. I already sent Shigemura photos of the event!"

Kikuoka nodded. "Yes, I know, and I've seen them too. But don't worry, Hayami, you're not a suspect..." He adjusted his glasses. "Now, do you remember how I emphasized 'esteemed alumnus' earlier?"

"What're you-?" But Hayami stopped, and his mind put two and two together. "Kayaba."

"The SAO Case Victims Rescue Force strongly believes that Kayaba's using the 300 remaining trapped players as a means to an end. What kind of end, we don't know, but obviously, the White Star poses a threat to his plans. If the human trials were a success and the White Star was used to free them, then he's got no hostages. No bargaining chip. No trump card. So-"

"So he steals the White Star and uses it to murder Yonemoto in an effort to damage its reputation. Despicable..."

"And for all we know," Shigemura replied, "he could be after either of us next, because we understand the White Star the best. We created it, after all."

"Damn him..." Hayami turned his back on the two men again and decided to stare out of the window and at the students and buildings below. "If I can remember correctly, it was you who first told me about him, Tetsuhiro. Him and his, quote unquote, remarkable, admirable intellect." He scoffed coldly. "So, when he decided to audit my classes, I thought I would be graced with the presence of a genius. A prodigy. And...I was...along with his cold, aloof, borderline-sociopathic nature. I knew something was off about him from the start.

"But hey, all geniuses have their quirks, right? Their little peculiarities? So, I stomached my concerns and let him listen to all my lectures about the human brain. About medically-induced comas. About..." He briefly choked on his own voice. "A-About how the quickest, most painless way to kill someone would be to deliver a critical hit to the brainstem..."

Shigemura's face fell grimly. "I know, Hayami. I know. He blindsided all of us here at Toto. I feel betrayed by him too. He was my star pupil..."

Hayami tightly pursed his lips as he asked, "Kikuoka. What can the Rescue Force tell me about their current knowledge of Kayaba's whereabouts?"

"Still unknown," the investigator replied.

"And is that the...official consensus? Or is that the BS that your superiors have decided to spew to the public to maintain their trust?"

"Would you believe me either way?" Kikuoka's glasses gleamed again. "But rest assured, Hayami, we're leaving no stone unturned. In the meantime, I strongly recommend having a security detail monitoring you at all times. The lead sergeant on Yonemoto's murder, Igarashi, has already made the arrangements."

"Yes..." Hayami's shoulders stiffened. "In the meantime, I want you to question Rinko Koujiro."

"Koujiro?" Shigemura asked in surprise.

"We've already interrogated her, Hayami," Kikuoka responded. "Many times, and vigorously so each time. She claims that she doesn't know anything."

"That's what she claims." Hayami finally turned around to face the investigator. "But...she was my best student. She was like a daughter to me. And I watched their relationship blossom..." His face hardened in resolve. "If anyone knows where he is, then it would be her."

– X-Y-X –

Shigemura stepped out of the office, followed by Kikuoka. As soon as he walked through the door, the middle-aged man was stunned to see the two police officers stationed on either side of it. When Kikuoka followed him out, the investigator nodded at the officers and started walking beside Shigemura.

"Thank you for helping me find Hayami, Shigemura," Kikuoka said. "But now, it's time for you to get home. Igarashi-san has already arranged for a police escort, and there'll be two officers in front of your home twenty-four-seven."

"Have him double the number," Shigemura replied in a low voice. "No, triple it. As long as I am in danger, my daughter is under the same threat as well."

Kikuoka blinked, impressed. "I understand. I'll give him a call as soon as we get you in that squad car."

At that moment, the two men rounded a corner, and that was when they were surprised by a new presence. Kikuoka was quick to recognize him as one of Hayami's two assistants, the young man with the grayish-brown hair. Despite his youth, his face was clearly weathered, like it had been through enough experiences worthy of an older man.

And that same weathered face was currently exhibiting a look of tranquil fury directed at Shigemura, which he returned.

"As if trapping Yuuna in that house wasn't enough," the assistant snarled. "Now you're gonna have guards monitoring her all day and all night?! Do you have any idea how she'd feel about that?!"

"Nochizawa..." Shigemura snarled in an unwelcoming affect.

"Nochizawa?" asked Kikuoka. The name tugged the chords of familiarity within his brain, but it took him a minute to fully make the recollection. "Ohhh! You're Nautilus! From Saitama! My colleague interviewed you!"

The young man visibly recoiled at the sound of the name. "I don't go by that name anymore..."

"You don't understand, Nochizawa-" Shigemura began in an ominous tone.

"No, I understand completely!" the man interrupted with absolute bitterness laced in his voice. "And what I understand is that you're so paranoid of losing her again that you've become a control freak!"

"Paranoid?! C-Control freak?!" The older man gnashed his teeth together, as he felt the fires of his rage burn up his body from the inside. "It's all because of you that Yuuna nearly DIED! My precious Yuuna! You were the one who dragged her into that...that accursed death game with you! YOU! And if it weren't for that faulty NerveGear that I gave her, I would've lost her for good!" He clenched his fists. "I cannot lose my daughter, my only child, ever again, not to anything else...and not to anyone as reckless and as blind as you, Eiji Nochizawa!"

A vicious growl seeped from Eiji's mouth, and he looked so close to attacking the older man. But then, he caught sight of the police officers stationed by Hayami's office door a couple of yards away, and his posture relaxed by only a few crude centimeters. Mustering nothing more than tightly pursed lips and stiffened shoulders, Eiji shouldered Shigemura aside so he could proceed to his superior's room.

Shigemura refused to watch Eiji go, and he simply stared ahead at the corner of the hall. Then, after a couple of minutes spent seething, the older man continued on his way, with Kikuoka following behind him.

"Well..." the investigator said, "that was pleasant..."

Shigemura's lips became even more pursed, and he gave a sigh of irritation. Kikuoka seemed to notice his reaction, since he quickly slowed down, trying to give the older man some additional, well-needed space while appearing as casual and non-confrontational as possible.

"I apologize, Shigemura," the investigator said. "I was out of line. I thought a little humor would break the ice, but-"

"Don't say any further," Shigemura interrupted harshly. "The more words come out of your mouth, the less likely I am to put my trust in you."

"Heh. You're not the first person to say that, and I doubt you'll be the last one too."

The two men approached the elevators, and Shigemura pressed the 'Down' button. As he waited for the first elevator to come up, he began to recall Eiji's accusatory words.

"As if trapping Yuuna in that house wasn't enough. Now you're gonna have guards monitoring her all day and all night?! Do you have any idea how she'd feel about that?!"

"You don't know anything, Nochizawa," he thought angrily. "You don't know what it feels like to almost have the one you love nearly slip out of your reach, by just a thread. Now, I must hang on to what I have left of my daughter, while she's still intact by that same thread... I can't lose her again..." He narrowed his eyes with determination. "I won't."

– X-Y-X –

"Thank you very much for your help, Nochizawa. I appreciate it."

Eiji gave Hayami a swift, respectful bow of his head while the lecturer departed from his office with his suitcase. As soon as he heard his footsteps fade into the distance, along with those of the police officers watching him, he turned his head towards a corner of the room, which had a sofa propped up against it, with a couple of pillows and blanket on it.

Along with an AmuSphere unit.

"I cannot lose my daughter, my only child, ever again, not to anything else...and not to anyone as reckless and as blind as you, Eiji Nochizawa!"

Shigemura's words provoked a small surge of anger within the young man. Knowing there was no other way, he grabbed the AmuSphere, activated it, and put it on his head. Then, he lay his body down on the sofa, face-up.

Once he could hear the AmuSphere fully powering up, he yelled, "LINK START!"

– X-Y-X –

A gateway of three-dimensional colors and sounds...

touch – OK
sight – OK
hearing – OK
taste – OK
smell – OK

Language – Japanese

[Welcome to ALfheim Online, Eiji!]

Eiji opened his eyes and took a deep breath of elation.

"Well...I'm back."

Alfheim, Helmstok Inn, Neutral Territory

"Welcome back, Eiji-kun."

A female player was sitting by his bedside, giving him a smile as warm as the sunlight shining through the window of his rented room. She had hazel eyes and milk-tea-brown hair, and she was wearing a vivid, royal-blue, one-piece dress with golden frills, along with a white, feathered hat. An adorable harp of gold hung off her waistline.

"Hey...Yuna..." Eiji greeted.

But Yuna blinked in concern. "You look bothered. What's wrong? Has Shinkawa been giving you a hard time again?"

"No, no, it's not that, Yuna..." He sat up and adjusted his dark-purple collar. "I...I came across your dad today, at Toto..."

"Oh..." Yuna's face fell. "Well, it's sort of to be expected. You are the TA for one of Toto's other professors, after all-"

"Today was different, Yuna," he interrupted. "He was with Kikuoka. They were questioning Hayami about Dr. Yonemoto."

The girl's eyes grew large in surprise. "Dr. Yonemoto? What for?"

"He...He was killed earlier today, Yuna."

"Killed?! Dr. Yonemoto?" She covered her agape mouth in shock while her hazel eyes glimmered from stunned grief. "No! What...What happened?!"

Eiji narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "The news isn't saying much at the moment, but...I'm hearing rumors floating around the institute. Dr. Yonemoto's pacemaker apparently suffered what they believe to be a catastrophic failure."

"A catastrophic failure? Pacemakers don't just fail on you, not with today's technology. And not in the way you describe."

The boy's eyes narrowed even more. "Yes, yes they don't. And...judging by the way he was talking to Kikuoka, it sounds like Dr. Yonemoto's death was not an accident, but rather murder."

"Murder?! That's...That's horrible! Dad must be so grief-stricken! He spent the last few months working on my NerveGear together with him and Hayami-san!" Yuna raised her hand. "I'm gonna log out and-"

"No, Yuna!" Eiji grabbed her wrist without warning, before she could even summon her menu. "If you do that, he'll know you've been talking to me, and that means he's gonna find your AmuSphere rig! And at the rate things are going, you're never gonna be able to play ALO or any other VRMMORPG ever again! Not when he's got any say in the matter!"

Yuna's face fell again. "Oh, right..."

"Which...brings me back to my original point..." Eiji took a deep breath of exasperation while his grip relaxed around the girl's wrist. "Your dad's requested a big protective detail on your house."

"What?!" she exclaimed.

"You're gonna have cops swarming around your house twenty-four-seven." Wrinkles of grimness appeared on the young man's forehead. "He's worried that the killer will come after him next. And therefore...you will be in danger too."

"I will be in danger too?" Yuna gently pried her arm away from Eiji's grasp. "Well...then maybe I do need that protective detail, Eiji-kun!"

He looked at her in surprise. "What're you talking about, Yuna?! You know as well as I do that he's gonna use that damn protective detail as an excuse to control you even more!" He shot up from his bed and planted his feet firmly to the false floorboards. "And I'm not gonna let him do that to you! I just can't!"

She crossed her arms. "Protective detail or not, I can't just lie around in my bed all day playing ALO with you, Eiji-kun! It won't make my living situation any better! Only confronting my father can!"

"Yeah, like that worked the last time."

"It wasn't the perfect time back then! But the time will come! I just need to bide my time and wait my moment-"

"And then what's gonna happen if that still doesn't work out for you?!" Eiji snapped. "Worse, what will happen if he finds out that I had anything to do with you speaking out?! If he does find that out, then...the-then I won't be able to see you again! Ever! And I...I..." His face softened, and he put his hands on her shoulders while tears formed in his eyes. "I can't lose you again, Yuna... I...I just can't..."

Yuna sighed and softly removed his hands. "I know it's been hard, thinking I've been dead for over a year while you were still trapped in SAO. But...you don't have to worry about me, Eiji-kun. I'm fine, I really am. I've made peace with the fact that I nearly died a long time ago."

"In just the span of a year?" he asked dryly. "There's no way anyone can recover from that experience that quickly."

"It's a work in progress, Eiji-kun. Like all things are. But I've got three things helping me. One..."

Yuna stroked Eiji's right ear, evoking a sudden blush from his cheeks.

"Music. Two..."

She used her other hand to touch Eiji's left cheek.

"My support group. And three..."

She patted that same cheek with a soft grin.

"You, Eiji-kun."

Eiji's eyes softened with emotion. "Yuna..."

Then, Yuna's grin quickly turned into a playful frown. "But you need to give me some breathing room! You may not be as insecure as you used to be, but this protectiveness of yours is becoming a little excessive! It reminds me of my dad!"

Eiji angrily scowled. "Don't compare me with him-"

"I'm being serious, Eiji-kun! You and him may not have had the best relationship, but you're alike in more ways than you think!"

Yuna's hands then left Eiji's face and traveled down to his dark-colored uniform. With a glance of attentiveness befitting a mother having her child try on some new clothes, she straightened out and dusted his clothes.

"We'll talk about it later," she continued. "But for now, I don't wanna keep your new friends waiting. I hear you're gonna have another meeting with them?"

"Yeah..."

The sounds of Umbra's wild, violent convulsing and screaming returned to the forefront of Eiji's memory. He tightened his lips and grimaced from the memory, a memory that invited the recollection of more traumatic ones.

"Hopefully whatever happened with Umbra's AmuSphere got fixed by Squiggle," he said.

"If it hasn't, I can always join your party!" Yuna suggested with a smile that was teeming with unbridled enthusiasm. "My Sound Magic mastery may not be the best, but I think I've got a couple of new Spells down!" Her eyes started to shine in equaled enthusiasm. "Perhaps I can help you guys out on one of those missions you go out on! That'll be fun! Getting to see hidden stuff, like that girl in the birdcage that you talked about-"

Eiji shook his head and patted the top of her head. "No, Yuna. You stay and hold the fort, just like usual."

"Hrrrrrmph..." The girl pouted in disappointment. "Like I said, Eiji-kun, you're more like my dad than you'd like to think."

"It's not like that, Yuna!" he protested. "I just don't want a repeat of what happened with those Gnomes!"

"I think I can handle a couple of perverted old geezers just fine, thank you very much, Eiji-kun."

"We-Well..." Eiji struggled to come up with a solution that would satisfy them both. "Ho-How about this?! O-Once we get enough «Yrd» to buy an actual house for the two of us, I'll start inviting you to join us in some missions! I...I just need a little more time to gauge Pyre's perversity, th-that's all."

Yuna blinked slowly, evidently in suspicion, but she replied, "Alriiiiight, then. I'll have your word for it?"

"Y-Yes! You have my word on it!"

She put her hands on her own hips. "Okay, then! I'll take your word for it, but only on one other condition!"

"One...other...condition...?" Eiji asked in confusion.

"That you find something in ALO that tastes just like my favorite lozenges. Find it, do whatever it takes to get it, and give it to me as a gift." She chuckled. "I mean, I've always been giving you lozenges whenever you were down, Eiji-kun. Ever since when we were kids. I think it's time you returned the favor."

Eiji looked deeply into her hazel eyes, his own eyes radiating stunned incredulity. When the man saw nothing but spunky determination looking right back at him, he couldn't help but reciprocate her smile with a small one of his own.

"Okay, then," he replied. "It's a deal, Yuna."

Eiji stepped out of Helmstok Inn, taking a deep breath as he did so. It was an arrangement that he settled into with each passing day, ever since he got Yuna to start playing ALO. They would always log in and meet up in some inn in a Neutral Territory, have a small chat about the real world, and then say their goodbyes while he left to earn «Yrd» by any means necessary and she remained behind at the inn like some obedient housewife.

"Like I said, Eiji-kun, you're more like my dad than you'd like to think."

"I'm not like that possessive bastard," Eiji thought. "Once we buy our house, somewhere secluded in Alfheim, away from all the troubles of this world, then I'll let her go out more. I want to hear her sing, after all..."

"Oi!" a voice called. "Eiji-kun!"

Eiji sighed and lifted the purple-and-white-striped scarf to partially obscure his mouth. Emerging from the crowd of ALO players was a pair of peculiar characters. One was a Salamander, while the other was a Gnome.

"Pyre," Eiji greeted dryly. "Orceus."

"Hey, didja hear from Umbra or Squiggle?" asked Orceus.

Eiji blinked. "No. Not a single PM." He looked around. "I thought they would be with you guys, to be honest."

"Well, obviously they aren't!" Pyre snapped. "And I'm gettin' goddamn worried, man! After the crazy shit that went down with Umbra, I'm wonderin' if we should be worried too!"

"Hm? What is there to be worried about, Pyre? Umbra's AmuSphere glitched or lagged out or something." The memory of the NerveGear unit sitting in his bedroom flashed across Eiji's mind. "That's all there is to it."

Pyre vigorously shook his head. "Uh-uh! Uh-uh! No way, nooooo friggin' way! Do you even remember how Umbra started wildin' right before he got kicked outta the game?! AmuSpheres don't just glitch out like that! And they don't lag out like that either! They're just not supposed to!"

"Look, you have to calm down, man-" began Orceus.

"Oh no, I ain't frigging calmin' down! What happened to Umbra sounds just like what happened with the NerveGear and SAO!"

Eiji's eyes grew wide in alarm, and he looked around to check if anyone had overheard Pyre's manic outburst. When the young man spotted some onlookers, he grabbed Pyre by the collar and half-dragged him to a more secluded spot beside the Helmstok Inn, with Orceus trailing right behind them. Once they took shelter underneath the inn's shade, Eiji glared at his fellow party member and Launcher.

"What the hell do you know about SAO?" Eiji snarled. "You weren't there!" Then, he blurted out as an afterthought, "No-None of us were!"

"Ohhh, I think I know enough!" snapped Pyre. "I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who got trapped in that hellhole! The whole thing freaked the whole gamin' community out! And if that shit's happenin' here too, then-"

"Look," Orceus interrupted, "just because Umbra got wacky on us before he got logged out, it doesn't mean something's automatically wrong with the AmuSphere. Remember how they kept telling us it was designed to be the anti-NerveGear, basically?"

"Ack, all I heard back then was blah blah blah blah blah. A whole bunch of yapper and back-pattin' over PR salvagin' shit. I bet those corporate shills were pattin' themselves in the back after all those press conferences!"

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, Pyre, I scoured the gaming forums afterwards. Whatever happened to Umbra made the rounds, but no one was reporting any other incidents elsewhere in ALO, or in any other VRMMORPGs, for that matter. Look, once Squiggle gets his ass here, he'll give us an explanation on what happened to him-"

"Oh, my God, Umbra's dead, guys! Umbra's DEAD!"

Eiji, Pyre, and Orceus turned to see Squiggle landing from the sky and running up to them as fast as he could. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and his entire body was trembling badly.

"Dude!" Pyre snapped. "Where the hell were you?! Orceus and I have been shooting PMs nonstop your way forever! And ya weren't even answering our forum posts-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, man!" Orceus exclaimed, alarmed by Squiggle's proclamations. "W-Wh-Whaddaya mean Umbra's dead?"

"I mean Umbra's dead!" the Leprechaun replied in exasperation. "I went to his place yesterday, just like you said! But he never answered the door or his phone, so I just assumed he went out to get his AmuSphere fixed after it glitched out on him! But when I returned earlier today, I found the place being infested with cops! And the coroner was there too!"

"The coroner?" asked Pyre. Then, his eyes widened in terror. "No way... No way..."

As for Eiji, he suddenly started to feel as if his newfound party members and the entire world were all getting farther and farther away from him. An unknown, invisible force started to squeeze his heart tightly, priming it to explode. He felt as if he couldn't even breathe. He could barely hear Pyre's response in the long distance. But the words that followed scarcely mattered to him, only the revelation that had suddenly been tossed onto his shoulders with the weight of bricks.

"Did...?"

But before he could continue, Eiji's voice became lodged in his throat. By that point, he had become too paralyzed in his terror to continue.

"Did they say how?" Orceus asked, completing his teammate's question.

"Not sure," Squiggle replied. "I...I overheard something about his AmuSphere being damaged, though."

"Holy CRAP!" squealed Pyre. "His AmuSphere?! I knew it! I KNEW something fishy had to have been going on with those things!"

"Look, this all started happening after that mission at the World Tree, right?" Squiggle asked abruptly.

"You mean our launchin' mission?! What does that have anythin' to do with what happened to Umbra?!"

"Well, as soon as we post a strange photo on the Internet, Umbra dies because of a conveniently damaged AmuSphere!" Squiggle's eyes narrowed slightly. "So, I have to know, for all our sakes, does anyone else know about what we did?"

"Well, there's the thousands of people who saw Umbra's post-"

"Aside from them. Does anyone close to us know that we were the ones who took the photo and posted it? B-Because I sure as hell didn't spill the beans to anyone else!"

"Nope!" Pyre shook his head. "I didn't say a thing either."

"Same here," Orceus added. "No sensible Launcher would want to admit they're a Launcher anyway."

Squiggle blinked and turned toward Eiji. "What about you? Did you tell anyone what we did?"

"Perhaps I can help you guys out on one of those missions you go out on! That'll be fun! Getting to see hidden stuff, like that girl in the birdcage that you talked about-"

Eiji's terror started to fade away, and in its place, he felt a wary protectiveness filling the cavity within his soul. He stiffly pursed his lips and managed out the best answer he could come up with, for Yuna's sake.

"N-No. We're the only ones who know, Squiggle."

The Leprechaun swept his gaze through his teammates. "So we're the only ones who have personally seen that birdcage and the girl in it, right?"

"That's what we're trying to say, man," Orceus replied. Then, he quirked an eyebrow at him. "Dude, calm down. The rest of us are gonna be fine. Whatever happened to Umbra, whether or not it's suspicious or not, it can't happen to any of us. We're spread out all over the Capital Region. And if his AmuSphere got damaged while he died, then RECT will be sure to inform the public and get to the bottom of what happened."

"Yeah... Yeah..." A strangely relaxed, stiff expression came over Squiggle's face. "You're right. You're absolutely right."

"Pfffffttttt..." Pyre rolled his eyes, unconvinced. "The day a corporation gets honest and transparent with their fuck-ups is the day I eat my shoes."

"Ah, come on, man! It's true!"

But Eiji did not get to hear the rest of the conversation. Instead, he turned away from his teammates, the ragtag players who took him in, and faced the direction of the World Tree. It was miles upon miles away from his position, and yet, the tree was so gigantic and mighty that it dominated the horizon, acting as the centerpiece of what was otherwise a winding range of mountains and a sea of green forests. It looked just like a flashy, colorful wallpaper that would be hanging from any ordinary gamer's bedroom.

But unlike any ordinary gamer, Eiji felt as if he had figured out some terrible, dark secret behind the World Tree, the very place that all ALO players wanted to beat.

"That girl in the birdcage," he thought. "From the moment I first saw her in that photo, I knew I recognized that face. I'd never, ever forget a face like that."

"That was a hell of a boss fight."

"Yeah. It'd be a whole lot more if the deadweight didn't freeze up on us and force us to protect his ass."

"Oh, hell yeah. Makes me wonder how the hell he got into the KoB in the first place."

"Alright, soldiers! Let's move on!"

"Y-Yes, Vice-Commander! As you command!"

Eiji could visualize the players clad in white-and-red, medieval-style uniforms walking past him, none of them giving him a second thought as he remained on his knees. He could remember his trembling, bloodshot eyes wandering towards the sole female of the group, their leader. She too remained focused on the path ahead, her eyes cold and calculated in their gaze. Not on him. Never on him.

"To think I'd be able to get out of that death game while she remains trapped somewhere. I thought it was some sort of twisted, karmic fate, to no longer be the helpless one for a change. But the face of the girl in the birdcage...it looked just the kind of face she'd make whenever a boss fight was finished. You can't emulate that kind of look, not for the sake of a video game, especially..."

"Well, as soon as we post a strange photo on the Internet, Umbra dies because of a conveniently damaged AmuSphere!"

Eiji cast a glance of concern towards his teammates, who were still talking amongst themselves about a strategy. Orceus and Pyre were arguing over who had come up with the better strategy, while Squiggle was as silent as a Spriggan in the midst of a treasure hunt, mentally contemplating to himself for once.

"What if Squiggle is right?" he thought. "What if this is all because of the photos we took and posted on the Internet? If that girl up in the World Tree really was the vice-commander, then we might've stumbled onto something dangerous... Something that might involve the 300 players still trapped in SAO..."

"Perhaps I can help you guys out on one of those missions you go out on! That'll be fun! Getting to see hidden stuff, like that girl in the birdcage that you talked about..."

He pursed his lips. "Yuna..."

– X-Y-X –

Real World, RECT Progress Laboratories, Saitama Prefecture

A majestic, powerful king, surrounded by fair maidens and tiny angels.

That was the first thing Nobuyuki Sugou saw when he opened his eyes. With a euphoric, orgastic smile, he sat up on his personal bed, averting his gaze from the huge classical painting that he had installed into the ceiling right above him. He removed the AmuSphere unit from his head and snatched the pair of rectangular, thin-framed glasses that sat upon the bedside table next to him.

As soon as he put the glasses on, a voice suddenly spoke to him in plain English.

"It looks like you had fun in there."

Sugou yelped, his voice cracking in the process, and he nearly fell out right of his bed in horror. Someone was sitting in a high-end armchair on the other side of the room, unbeknownst to him until now. It was a tall, middle-aged, foreign man with platinum-blond hair and gray eyes that were as cold as the Arctic. He was reading a book on psychology, which had been plucked from the fully-packed bookshelf behind him.

"Relax, Mr. Sugou," the man said, again in English; his empty gray eyes remained glued to the pages of the psychology book. "If I wanted you dead, you'd already be dead."

Upon hearing his visitor's voice, Sugou calmed down, and then his relief was quickly replaced with anger.

"Must ya drop in unannounced like this?!" he hissed. He spoke in English as well, albeit with a slightly thick accent. "And how the hell didja get in here anyway, Rasmussen?! This is a secured room!"

The foreign man blinked without looking at Sugou. "Oh, was it? I never noticed."

The businessman clenched his fists in outrage. "Are...Are ya mocking me, ya-?!"

"You know," Rasmussen interrupted with a voice tinged in disinterest, "if that's true, then I fear for the security measures of that game of yours. It's no wonder those kids were able to get photos of-"

"Don't you DARE mock my game design skills!" Then, Sugou gritted his teeth in irritation. "And what the hell didja mean, I had fun in there?!"

He moved to stand up from his bed, only to finally feel the obstructive lump between his legs. The businessman glanced downward, saw the physiological proof of his earlier excitement, and rushed to cover it up with his pillow while it kept on going down. His face turned scarlet in anger and humiliation.

By that point, Rasmussen had finally closed the psychology book with a loud echo of a clap. He calmly stood up from the armchair, put it back in the empty slot on the bookshelf, and stood from the armchair so he could finally look at Sugou.

"Anyway," he said, "now that you're finally out of that game, you can now speak to Mr. West."

Sugou's exasperation turned into surprise in an instant. "M-Mr. West?"

"Yes. He's been waiting for you most...patiently."

"Waiting?" Sugou's surprise quickly turned into terror. "Wait... H-He's here?"

"Yes." Rasmussen gestured toward the bookshelf. "Come. He's waiting outside, Mr. Sugou."

Sugou gulped, just as Rasmussen pulled another book halfway out of the bookshelf before stopping. This act triggered an audible locking mechanism, deep inside the walls, and a section of the bookshelf opened up, revealing a doorway leading into a large corporate office with moonlight shining right into it. Sugou gulped again and adjusted the tie he was wearing before walking through the secret door, with Rasmussen following behind him.

Once they entered the corporate office, Sugou balked at the absence of people in the room.

"Wh-What's the meanin' of this, Rasmussen?!"

He turned around, his face coated in a film of sweat, just as the secret door closed behind Rasmussen. The foreign man casually approached the desk stationed at the head of the office room; its nameplate, bearing Sugou's name, stood front and center on the table, gleaming from the shining moonlight.

"I didn't say Mr. West was physically here, Mr. Sugou..." Rasmussen explained as he took a peculiarly-placed laptop and turned it around. "He has more pertinent matters to take care of today, so he wished to communicate with you this way."

As soon as Rasmussen turned the laptop around, Sugou knew what he meant. On the screen was a well-dressed foreign man sitting in a slightly darkened space that seemed to have highly tinted windows around him. The faint sound of a car engine was in the background. Due to the lack of any light penetrating the darkened windows, the man's features were mostly shrouded in darkness.

"Mr. Sugou," the man greeted in an electronically modulated voice.

Sugou gulped and quickly bowed his head. "Mr. West. I..." He looked up at the screen. "I-I wasn't expectin' to see ya in person!"

"Well...desperate times call for desperate measures."

Understanding the reference, Sugou struggled to keep his anger at bay. "Well...as I insisted durin' our last conversation, I have the problem handled here." He exasperatedly glared at Rasmussen, who didn't react to his scathing gaze. "I don't need any...outside assistance, Mr. West..."

Mr. West's voice grew lower and more ominous this time, attracting Sugou's undivided attention. "Evidently, you need a little refresher, Mr. Sugou. It is because of your arrogant carelessness, and your petty vindictiveness, that people from the outside have seen one of our test subjects in a place where they shouldn't be! Have you not read the forums that those people infest?"

"I have heard of the online chatter," Sugou replied defensively. "But no one's made the connection, so there's no reason to worry, Mr. West! It's a long way to go from a leak of a supposed NPC to an ID of one of the 300 subjects who are still trapped!"

"Hearing things isn't the same thing as reading things, Mr. Sugou," Rasmussen said. "Every photo on the Internet is the latest breadcrumb of a long trail of breadcrumbs. And I followed that trail to the source. An ALO user going by the name of Umbra."

"Oh, excellent," Sugou said in a sardonic voice. "And I'm assumin' ya took care of that player, yes?"

"Indeed, but-"

The businessman suddenly began doing a derisive shooing gesture with his hand. "Alright then, ya may get out now. Ya eliminated the loose end and ya retrieved the item I asked for, so your work here is done now. Have a safe flight, Ras-"

"Ohhhhh, but it isn't, Mr. Sugou," Mr. West interjected. "There are still many loose ends still unaccounted for."

Sugou turned back towards the laptop. "Many loose ends? What else could we possibly need to tie up by now?!"

"The players who helped Umbra, for one thing," Rasmussen replied coolly, earning Sugou's attention yet again. "Umbra's last forum post indicated that he was in a party of five, and that the entire party took part in snapping those photos. Not to mention..." His eyes narrowed slightly. "One of his teammates recognized the girl in the photo."

Sugou took a moment to process Rasmussen's words, and then he blinked in realization.

"Oh..."

"I have already taken care of one of them. He walked in on me while I was leaving Umbra's apartment. I set it up to be a murder-suicide, but given how I dispatched Umbra, it will not be long until that Kikuoka pest sees through it. I found the second person's address, killed his parents, and assumed his ALO identity to find his friends."

"Then what the hell are ya standin' around here for?!" Sugou snapped abruptly. "Go kill 'em too!"

Rasmussen narrowed his eyes by a centimeter. "Finding an individual online is one thing, Sugou, but finding their real-life address is another entirely."

"Mr. Sugou..." Mr. West said, his modulated tone becoming more threatening than ever before, "you clearly have no inkling of what's at stake here. And this is the reason why we're talking face to face today. To let you know what exactly is at stake here. See...the reason why we have not paid you in full is because we need a venue out, in case your illegal experiments unexpectedly go public. A legal venue...that obviously does not include you."

Sugou's skin paled considerably, and he felt his blood run deathly cold as he gazed back at the screen. The businessman could feel the entire world spinning on and on and on without him.

"We're a multinational First World corporation with years of experience and influence on our belt. And you? You're just a computer scientist working for a mere video game developer. You may be the one offering all of this groundbreaking research to us, and you may think that this gives you power in this transaction...but it really doesn't."

Sugou gulped and made a tiny whimpering noise.

"We've got contracts with four other scientists across the globe to conduct similar experiments. You may be the first one to offer promising results, but you're as expendable to us as the rest of them. Why do you think we communicate like this, using encrypted devices and proxy servers? If your operation fails, then you'll be the only one left out to dry, and you can't prove our involvement in this. And in the meantime, we move on to the next promising scientist and the next promising experiment.

"You, Nobuyuki Sugou, are just a sacrificial lamb. A medium-sized fish who just swam into the territory of a bigger fish. So, unless you want to swim with the sharks, I suggest you take things more seriously. Starting with those players that the forums are calling...'Launchers'."

Overwhelmed by the revelations that had just been placed on his shoulders, Sugou could do nothing but feebly nod and whimper like a child caught in a naughty act. This act of submission was not lost on Mr. West, and although it was barely noticeable through the shadows, his head turned towards Rasmussen's direction.

"Rasmussen," the shadowy man said. "You know what to do. Get it done."

"Yes, Mr. West, sir," Rasmussen replied with a firm, loyal nod. "It will be quick and quiet, just the way you like it."

"Good. Very good." Mr. West paused for a moment while a faint, indistinct voice spoke in the background. "Apologies. I've just arrived at my destination, so I'll be leaving you two now. Remember, no loose ends. No witnesses. And most of all..." The shadowy man seemed to focus on Sugou in particular. "No foolishness."

The videoconference ended, leaving Sugou to stare at a blank laptop screen. Overcome with fear, he whipped his head at Rasmussen's direction, the sweat on his face shinier and more profuse than ever before. As soon as he glared at his new companion, he already saw him headed for the office doors.

"Wh-Where the hell d-d'ya think yer goin'?!" he demanded angrily.

Rasmussen stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Those other Launcher players aren't going to die by themselves, now will they?" The corner of his lip twitched in amusement. "I'll keep infiltrating the group as this...Squiggle person, and I'll determine their real-life locations in less than a week, maximum. As for you, you'll keep on doing what it is that you are doing, Mr. Sugou. Make sure no other players catch on to this discovery. I seem to recall you saying that you had spies planted in the game?"

"I-I got a person inside there, y-yes..."

Rasmussen narrowed his cold gray eyes and sharply exhaled. "That's not enough. You've got over 20,000 players in that game, right?"

"Y-Yes... Wh-What the hell does that have to do with anything?!"

"Then plant more people in there."

"Ya know as well as I do that isn't happenin'. I got a small team, and I need all the hands I can get for this experiment."

"Then put those GM skills of yours to good use for once. Or are you really going into that game just to have fun with that girl?"

Sugou stamped his left foot down on the office floor in a pathetic attempt to stand his ground. This was even as his once well-maintained collar started to become drenched in his leaking bodily fluids.

"O-Of course not!" he cried. "D-Don't take me f-for a f-f-fool! D-Do ya know who yer talking to, y-ya scum?!"

Rasmussen slowly blinked. "I do, in fact. From here, I'm talking to a small-minded child who believes the world revolves around him and can never accept the fact that it's a lot bigger, bigger than his feeble little mind can handle."

"WHAAAT?!" Sugou started marching towards him with trembling fists. "Ya...Ya got some nerve, ya dumb foreign sonuva-"

The bespectacled businessman was suddenly stopped in his tracks by a barrel aimed directly at his face. All of his boiling wrath and self-assured bravado eroded away in an instant, and his legs shook pathetically underneath the barrel's deadly gaze. In his terror, Sugou vaguely saw the white stripe running across the weapon's slide as Rasmussen slightly nudged it to the right in a dismissive gesture.

"Hmph..." Rasmussen put the weapon away. "Scared of a weapon that fires weakened EMPs. EMPs that wouldn't even do much of anything to the human body in the first place. Or at least a healthy one like yours..."

The foreign man suddenly started to scan Sugou's body from head to toe, his normally cold eyes lingering with unusually high attentiveness and interest. Feeling the weight of the stare on him, Sugou's skin crawled, and he desperately wanted to kick Rasmussen out of his office now. He was eventually given a reprieve when Rasmussen finished his scan, a painful minute later, and shot him a cruel smirk unbefitting of his usual nature. He then turned his back on Sugou and began to walk right out of the room.

But after the foreign man opened the office doors and stepped through the doorway, he stopped and took one last glance over his shoulder at Sugou. The hollow stoicism had returned to his face, but his eyes were still gleaming with a taunting energy.

"See you soon...cutie."

Sugou could do nothing but clench his fists tighter and purse his lips until Rasmussen finally turned to his right and went out of sight. And once his visitor went out of sight and earshot, the fuming businessman stormed back to the bookshelf, opened up its hidden entrance, and returned to his secret room with its ceiling-mounted painting and its boring books on psychology and its AmuSphere unit.

"A...A medium-sized fish?!" Sugou growled under his breath, having quickly reverted to his natural Japanese. The pace of his breathing shot up, and his face was still hot with sweat. "A sacrificial lamb?! A small-minded child?!"

He tossed himself on his bed, grabbed his AmuSphere, and stared intensely into its visor.

"Ohhhhh, I'll show them! I'll show all of those bastards!"

With a frantic, almost animalistic desperation, Sugou shoved the AmuSphere back on his head and laid back on the bed, allowing him to stare up at the painting he so strongly adored.

"LINK START!" he yelled, his voice cracking in the process.

– X-Y-X –

A gateway of three-dimensional colors and sounds...

touch – OK
sight – OK
hearing – OK
taste – OK
smell – OK

Language – Japanese

[Welcome to ALfheim Online, Oberon!]

Sugou found himself in the dead-center of the circular room of blue, reddish-orange, and white, the three colors towering above him with an ominous air of authority. But he ignored it as he pulled up his administrative menu, hastily selected a few options, and confirmed his decision. With that, the blue, reddish-orange, and white dissipated into polygons of code, which then reassembled to take on the image of a shadowy room filled with shapeless swirls of blue and red.

And then, in the middle of that endless, dark room, with nothing but a transparent turquoise floor to hold it, a small bed with golden bed-sheets and pillows materialized. This was quickly followed by the appearance of four female Fairies, one a Sylph, another an Undine, the third a Salamander, and the fourth a Cait Sith. All of them were strikingly beautiful and in scanty clothing, and yet, all of them also had frighteningly vacant and uncanny faces.

Without a moment's hesitation, Sugou marched up toward the Fairy quartet, echoing footsteps punctuating his approach. He no longer felt his dark business suit on him, and the air instead traveled up his swishing green cloak, giving his body a much-needed cool-down.

Even so, his face remained hot with anger as he punched the Undine in the face. The Fairy fell onto the bed, a hollow and almost artificial grunt expressing her pain, even as the bruise already started to form and darken on her fair cheek.

"Goooood fucking daaaaamn iiiiit!" Sugou barked, his enraged and unsatisfied voice echoing in the nothingness. "I...I will have you one of these days, Asuna! And I will show you that my intellect is not to be trifled with, Mr. West! I swear to it!"

With a mad, childlike giggle, Sugou fell on top of the Undine and started hungrily groping her soft, voluptuous body. She did nothing to resist and just stared vacantly into space, which only served to intensify his movements. And as he made use of the Fairy's body, Sugou continued to ramble, speaking more rapidly by the minute, to the point where his words became incomprehensible babble and he became dangerously close to losing his breath.

"You're nothing more than a lowly little pile of scum who doesn't deserve any love or kindness. You disgust me."

"I'll make you pay for rejecting me, Asuna! I will, I will, I WILL! But...I gotta break you first, Asuna! I'll break you! Ohhh, it wouldn't be fun otherwise! I WILL make you submit to my very being! And until I do that..."

Sugou then sat up and turned his attention to the Sylph. With all of his strength, he furiously tore off the strip of clothing that barely hid her artificially bountiful chest. But the Fairy didn't react beyond a mere halfhearted squeak even while her chest was bared to him.

"I'll have to avail myself of these goddamn plain, boring NPCs in the meantime!"

"Heh. Love. Such a strong word, it is. What is love, anyway?"

Next Time: Pythagorean Identities

A/N: And that is it for this chapter! Loads of developments from this one, obviously. First and foremost, we've got a little flashback to Kirito and Sachi's time with the Moonlit Black Cats, in which Kirito is beginning to come to terms for his own feelings for Sachi, whatever they may be. These scenes are obviously seeds for what to expect as we go along in the fic, so cross your fingers for more drama!

Secondly, we follow the investigation into Yonemoto's strange death, and that's where we are officially introduced to the "Ordinal Scale" elements of this story, namely Eiji, Yuna, and Dr. Shigemura. We get a little peek into their lives, and how Yuna is adjusting to life as another Outlier. We also learn that Eiji is a member of the same group of Launchers that took the photos of Asuna in the World Tree, so obviously this isn't the last that we've seen of these characters.

And finally, we get to learn a WHOLE lot more about Sugou's experiments on the remaining 300 comatose SAO players, specifically the kind of people he's working for. The canon never got to go into detail on the American company that hired Sugou to conduct the experiments and therefore set the Fairy Dance Arc into motion, so I thought I'd cover that angle in this fic. And obviously, it's crystal-clear that Sugou's gotten WAAAAY in over his head and can't afford to disappoint these people. And we all know what happens when a predator is cornered...

Anyway, I'd like to thank the following for reviewing:

-spiderfanboi: I assume you are talking about the scene where Sachi intentionally hits her head against an edge so that she could remain hospitalized and with Mari. If so, yes, very crazy and ballsy of her. Goes to show how clingy she can be.

-Naruto Sakura Uzumaki: As I'm sure you can see in this chapter, yes, in this AU, Yuna had the same fate as Sachi and is now an Outlier as well. And don't worry, she's going to become a major player in this fic, but that'll come later on.

-RandomDSdevel-WCFaWF:

1) Don't worry. Even if Suguha's initial reaction wasn't as intense as you'd expect, we are definitely going to follow up on that with EVEN MORE intense scenes, so stay tuned for that!

2) It's alright. You can just provide me with a brief list of comments regarding the stuff that stood out to you the most. I am here to improve as much as I am here to write, so please, be as honest and forthcoming as you possibly can. All the feedback and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated, even if it concerns minor topics.

3) Good luck with your Internet! I know, it really sucks to have bad Internet. My Internet can be poopy sometimes, so I can't imagine having to deal with that on a more long-term basis.

-Tertius711:

1) Thanks! I'm glad you like it! Yes, the Kirito/Asuna/Sachi love triangle is becoming quite a mess for everyone involved and is potentially leaving behind collateral damage too.

2) Yes, Kirito's feelings for both Asuna and Sachi are both borne from genuine places in his heart, and it'd be pretty hard for him to choose one girl without hurting the other after all they have been through together. So yes, when Kirito finally confronts his feelings for them both and must make a decision, it's going to be nothing but pain and drama. And we're all here to see it through to the end, unfortunately. We can only keep our fingers crossed for the least brutal outcome!

Well, hope you enjoyed this chapter! TheCartoonFanatic01 is out. PEACE!