Review Responses:

fairygirl90- Well then, hopefully it doesn't disappoint! It will change things a bit, but not a whole lot. The Dementors Blood is already fucking with his head and emotions, so they didn't want to add to it by telling what's going on with Marzanna when there's nothing he can do to help, even if he does have a right to know what's going on with his mate. He had to go back to school, yea, but that doesn't mean he can't stop by to do maintenance. Due to their status as an Ancient and Royal family, their profession, and the fact that his twin is in the hospital, and let me remind you that with real twins like they are now being away from each other for too long is detrimental to their health, Dumbledore can't really tell them that Mike can't leave. Well, then I hate to disappoint, but it's gonna be a bit longer before you start getting answers. If anything, I'll just be raising a few more questions in the meantime.

Deathknightguthix- Aww, I'm glad it makes your day! Thank you! I hope it continues to live up to your expectations!

HolyKnight5- Haha! Nice pun! I'll admit that had honestly slipped my mind, but Devils are a bit tougher than that, so it's not a huge deal. Honestly the damage to her mind is because he's been attacking it directly, though I will admit that Mike's bit about her only having a few more days was a bit false, she would in fact, have Devil Triggered before that happened.

Oh Asuna may not be officially claimed as such, but Marzanna definitely considers her an ally of the family. If that were to happen, it would put the Yuuki clan into an even worse bind than that. Her brother, being older, is likely the clan heir, and I hate to imply that Asuna is nothing more than a spare to her parents, especially since they both clearly love her, but it's probably not good at all to have you 'back up heir' so to speak, choose to side with another clan over their own. And you can't tell me her parents don't love her. They may make her mom out to be a cold hearted bitch at first during the Mother's Rosario arc, but just try and see things from her perspective. Everything she does is just because she's a mother worried about her daughter and her daughter's future.

harlequin320- You'll just have to wait and see! Sadly though, Marzanna isn't going to really be a part of the majority of this arc.

JZuCuadra- I really didn't want to have to deal with that, and I didn't see much of a point either, so I simply chose to nip it at the bud.

PikaMew1288- I already basically explained that. He didn't ask because even if there wasn't a way to prove his word against Sugou's, Lily and them would still try to act, and Kirito isn't willing to run the risk that Sugou isn't working alone.

Just a Dark Lord- … Call me biased if you will, but for some reason, COUGHnameCOUGH, you don't seem like a trustworthy person… Well, anyway! You'll just have to wait and see! Hope it doesn't disappoint!

oneoddtodd- Thank you! I'll certainly do my best!

January 20th, 2025

After his bath, Kazuto sits on his bed with his NerveGear, simply staring at it for a moment, remembering the meeting with Sugou. Then, despite being an inanimate object, he mutters to it pleadingly, "Please help me one more time. Let me be strong and save them once more."

He doesn't get a response, obviously, so he puts it on his desk for a moment to set everything up, inserting the cartridge, and hooking it up before picking it back up and putting it on. Laying down on his bed, he takes a deep breath to center himself, then closes his eyes, "Link start!"

Immediately his awareness of the real world disappears and he seems to rush down a tunnel of color, before that gives away to the sensory check screen, then language language selection.

A mere moment later he finds himself standing in a circular room, a message floating in the air before him before him for a moment, then being repeated by a disembodied female voice, "Welcome to Alfheim Online." A holographic looking keyboard appears in the air in front of him, "First enter your character name." The name choice seems fairly obvious to him, so with only a tiny bit of hesitation, he enters the name Kirito. Immediately the keyboard changes to simply be arrow keys and a 'select' button as example models of the races appear, "Now select you race. Please select one of the nine races." Kazuto scrolls through them for a moment, he was fairly certain that since the left and right arrow keys simply switched between the races, the up and down likely brought up basic descriptions of each race and what they were good at. However, he wasn't entering this game just to play it, so it didn't matter much to him. Therefore, as soon as he realized one of the races, the Spriggans, followed a black color theme that had somewhat matched his own in SAO, he selects it without hesitation. Upon clicking the select button, the Spriggan character model moved a bit smiling and shifting it's weight from a centered stance to placing most of its weight on its left foot while placing a loose fist against its right hip in a manner that Marzanna would probably dub 'Sassy', while the voice asked for confirmation, "You've selected Spriggan. Is this correct?" Clicking the ok button, then the voice asked one more question, "Your character's appearance will be decided at random. Is that alright, or would you like to pay to customize it?" After clicking the no button, the holographic looking display disappears, and the female voice gives him the last of the information, "You will now be transferred to the capital of the Spriggan territory, and run through the tutorial. Good luck."

With a tingling feeling similar to Aincrad's teleporting, Kirito disappears from the character creation room in a bright light that forces him to close his eyes. A moment letter, the ground beneath his feet disappears as his sense of gravity flips and he feels wind rush past his face. Opening his eyes, he finds himself high up and falling towards a well lit massive pyramid structure, though the fall feels more like a controlled descent, so it's likely part of the introduction. He can't help but smile widely, both at the elegant structure and the thrill of being back in a game, one that he could log out of anytime he desired.

His joy is short lived though, as his descent suddenly halts, something like blue electricity sparking around him for a moment. His gaze flicks around wildly in confusion, "What?' Then a pixelated, and definitely glitchy, looking hole begins to open below him, and he stops hovering in place, though this time, he's definitely falling rather than descending, and he's headed right for the glitchy hole, "What's going on?!"

For a few moments, he falls through seemingly endless darkness, then he's rather abruptly spit out of the glitchy void, only a few feet from the ground and promptly lands right on his face with a grunt of discomfort. Falling into his back, he looks up at the endless sky, dotted with floating islands, full of stars and a bright proponent full moon. There's a heavy tree canopy in his peripheral, and he begins wondering where he is since this clearing was definitely somewhere else entirely than where he's supposed to be. Though, it's undeniably beautiful, just like Aincrad had been.

He stares up at the sky, just taking in all the sounds of this world he's now in for a moment, "I'm back…" He can't help but close his eyes and smile in a slightly disbelieving manner, "After everything that happened." He stays there for a moment, then opens his eyes and quickly does a kick-up. As soon as he's standing, he begins to look around, the moonlit forest was admittedly gorgeous, but Kirito had already given enough time to simply appreciate this world, considering what's on the line, so he ignores that in favour of looking around, "Now, where exactly am I?"

Deciding the map could probably tell him, he ties to open it, but nothing happens. Frowning, he tries a couple more time, though it produces the same results. He's about to start panicking before he's reminded of another time he'd seen someone unable to access a menu, namely Yui.

Hesitating for only a moment, he ties with his left hand, and is immediately reassured by the menu opening. Shaken by the constant reminder of Aincrad since appearing, he ignores the basic character read out entirely and immediately opens the settings tab, then breaths a sigh of relief at the logout button being present, clicking it just to make sure it works, "It's here!"

Staring at the pop up asking him if he's sure he'd like to log out, he sighs again in relief, then clicks the 'x' for no. Now reassured, he finally looks at the menu in general. The various tabs look almost the same as they had in SAO, but that doesn't mean they were organized exactly as he's used to, but it's when he turns his gaze to the general character info default that he's utterly taken by surprise.

Though it should be blank except for basic starting skills, like one handed sword, there are twelve full slots. In the limited space of the general info screen, the names of those skills weren't written, rather, they were marked with unique but simplistic icons, such as a simple straight sword for that skill, a curved sword for that weapon types skill, or a fist for the martial arts skill, other than that there was simply a level and an exp bar for each skill.

His menu showed seven completed skills, three high level skills, two mid level skill, one that was a line of glitched out text, and an empty slot, "What?... Skill window. I need..."

Clicking the equip tab, then the skills tab, he's immediately presented with a skill menu that instantly makes his breath leave him in a rush. There, before him, were all of his skills from Aincrad with the exact same levels and everything, except for his Dual Wield, which likely didn't appear in this game. Clicking the items tab, he's assaulted by a screen almost entirely full of wonky text, barring the starting gear he's wearing.

For a moment he simply stares at it, dumbstruck, then he remembers the single most important item that had been in his and Hanna's joint inventory, and begins frantically scrolling through the wall of glitched out text boxes, "Please be here…"

Then, there before him, the only other item the system seems to recognize, named clear as day, MHCP001. However when he materializes it, it's not the tiny bright ice blue crystal he'd gotten used to seeing around Hanna's neck in those last few days in that world. While still tear drop shaped it was larger and was a mix of dark blue, light blue, and purple. Not to mention, rather than falling into his hand, it hovered about six inches above it. Unsure what's going on with it, he tries clicking. There's a cheerful little jingle as bright blue light explodes from it before turning into a ball of light that slowly floats up and dims.

As the light slowly fades away Yui is revealed, she's curled in on herself slightly, and her eyes are closed, but after a moment they slowly drift halfway open, then they snap fully open as she lets out a noise of surprised confusion.

Kirito approaches the still floating girl, then stops when he remembers he doesn't look the same anymore, "Yui, it's me. It's Kirito. Do you remember me?"

She stares at him with wide eyes for a moment, then they tear up as she smiles, "I got to see you again, Papa!"

He smiles at her warmly, "Yui…"

Yui reaches her arms towards him as she begins to drift down, without hesitation he takes the few steps needed to be able to catch her. She happily latches onto him with surprising strength, but he holds her just as tight if not more so, "I guess miracles really do happen."

Neither are anywhere near willing to let go, so Kirito carries her over to a massive tree root arching over a river with a view of what had to be the world tree in the distance, and sits on the edge with Yui in his lap. For a while, he just happily holds her while she latches onto him. It takes about five minutes before they're ready to separate, and even then, Yui remains seated on one of his legs, "So, I don't suppose you know what's going on here?" Yui looks up at him in confusion, and he finally remembers that she didn't know about anything that had happened since Cardinal tried to delete her, "We aren't inside SAO. It's another game called Alfheim Online."

Yui brings her hands up, lightly touching her temples as she closes her eyes, "Hold on a second. This world is based off a copy of the Sword Art Online servers."

Her eyes halfway open to gaze at him as she delivers this information, and Kirito tilts his head at her, "A copy?"

Yui nods, "Yes. The engine, programming, and the graphics format are identical, but the version of the Cardinal system is a little outdated."

Kirito's gaze drifts away and he presses his curled index finger to his chin in thought, "RCT took over operations after Argus, the company that originally made SAO, went bankrupt. In other words, RCT took Argus's programs and is using them." Then he lowers his hand and refocuses on Yui, "But why is my personal data here?"

Yui tilts her head, "Let me have a look at your data, papa." She closes her eyes again, "This is definitely your character data from SAO. The save data format in nearly identical, so any skills common to both games had their levels overwritten."

Kazuto nods in understanding, "That explains why my dual wielding, and only my dual wielding, is gone. If they copied SAO's servers with the intention of making a game of their own, it makes much more sense to keep the majority of it's massive skill list and only delete, change, or add skills as necessary to fit with this game."

Yui nods and moves off of his lap, sitting next to him to give him some space, "Your items appear to be lost as well, the only thing that seems to have survived is your money, and that's because other than renaming it to Yuld, it's got the exact same programming. You should delete them before the error detection program finds them."

Kirito sighs, "I see. That's a shame… Deleting all that stuff, most tied to some of my best memories.."

Then he shakes his head and opens his menu again. Navigating to the item menu, he clicks the select all button, then clicks delete. A pop up asking if he wants to delete the items, a small security measure against the chance of players accidentally clicking the delete button.

He hesitates quite a bit before clicking the circle signifying yes, then slumps in defeat as he let's out a sigh. After a moment, he turns to Yui, "Now, what about my skill levels?"

Yui shakes her head, "From the systems point of view, there's nothing strange except for your dual wielding, which it will flag as a mere glitch. The reason you had to get rid of the items is that having so many would've caused the system to flag you which would've gotten a GM to look into it. That would've been bad, because while your skills aren't unusual to the system, when comparing them to your play time…" She shakes her head briefly, "Well, anyway, your skills shouldn't be a problem unless an actual human game master sees them, and there's no reason for that too happen since you deleted your items."

Kirito let's out another sigh, this one of relief, having those skills would help a lot when it comes to his task after all, "Okay. That's nice to know." Then he looks down with a small smile as the irony strikes him, "I've gone from a Beater to a Cheater." Then he turns his gaze back to his daughter as an alarming idea strikes him, "How is the system treating you, Yui? It's not going to try and delete you as a foreign object, is it?"

Yui closes her eyes in a gesture that's rapidly growing familiar as she checks data, "Let's see… No, they must have recycled a fair bit of my programming, as the system is recognizing me as a player support artificial personality program, called a Navigation Pixie."

She suddenly begins to glow brightly, and Kirito recoils from the harsh light with a panicked cry, "Yui?!"

When is clears, Yui is perfectly fine, but she's changed from her plain white dress to an adorable little pink dress designed to look like it's been made from flower petals, with matching gloves going from just below her shoulder to her wrist, a necklace that looked like the detached lapel of a shirt, an anklet on each leg, a tiny blue flower in her hair, her ears had become pointed, and pale pink nearly see through wings extending from her back that also resemble flower petals, though they're longer and more delicate looking than the segments of the bottom of her dress.

The biggest change though, was the fact that she was now only ten centimetres tall. She smiles at him as she strikes an adorable little pose while hovering in front of him, "This is my form as a Pixie."

He stares at her with wide eyes, "Woah."

Then he pokes her adorable little cheek. She doesn't quite pull away or try to push his finger away, but she does giggle a little, "Stop, that tickles."

With a small chuckle he pulls his finger away. "Then do you still have admin privileges like before?"

Yui shakes her head, "No. All I can do is access the reference and wide-area map databases."

Kirito nods as him smile slips away, "I see. That's a shame, it would've been rather useful. You see, it seems Hanna… Your mama is here."

Yui gives him a confused look, "Mama?" She moves over to land on his shoulder, "What do you mean?"

Kirito sighs, "Even after SAO was cleared, Hanna, and our friend Asuna, never woke up in the real world. I heard about someone who saw her here, in Alfheim. So, even if it's a long shot, I came here to see for myself, and save them if necessary."

Yui slumps sadly, "So that's what happened… I'm sorry papa, if I had my admin privileges still…"

Kirito gives her a reassuring smile, "It's alright, there's no need to blame yourself. Besides I have a good idea of where to look. It's called the World Tree." He points to the massive thing in the distance, "I'm pretty sure that's it right there, but I haven't been here that long, as you likely saw from my play time earlier."

Yui turns her gaze to it as she sits on his shoulder, "Mama is over there?"

For a moment, the two of them simply sit there, staring at the massive tree quite a bit away. Then, something occurs to Kirito, "Actually, why did I end up at this forest? I was supposed to be warped to the Spriggan capital…"

Yui tilts her head, "I don't know. Maybe you location data got corrupted? Or something got confused? With the way your save data was clashing with your data as a brand new player, the system would've been trying to resolve it. I think that the most likely scenario was that someone rather close by was diving as well, and while trying to resolve the issue with the clashing data, the system confused your location data with theirs and transferred you to nearby."

Kirito tilts his head at her, "Nearby… Like say, diving in the same house on the same internet connection?"

Yui nods, "Yes, diving on the same internet connection with your clashing data would be more than sufficient."

He nods firmly as he stands up, then he turns to Yui, "How do I fly?"

Yui tilts her head, a thoughtful expression on her face for a moment, "There's an assist controller. Raise your left hand as if you're grabbing something." She mimics the motion herself as she explains, so he fill copies her without hesitation. Immediately a controller materializes in his hand and there's a tingling sensation on his back. Turning to look he observes the black wings for a moment, then looks back to Yui. Once he has it, Yui continues her explanation, "Pull it towards yourself to elevate, push to descend, and move it left or right to turn."

He pulls it towards him experimentally, raising quickly before he adjusts the controller, and comes to a stop, hovering in mid air. Yui flies after him, hovering in front of him again with a smile, though she does put a bit of distance between them for him to move around while he's learning to control his flight, "Hold down the button to accelerate. Release to decelerate." He pushes the button, and starts flying around, though the movements are rather jerky due to his inexperience. Yui turns on the spot to follow his flight, "You can fly as long as your wings are shining. After ten minutes, you need to let them rest."

He flies around a bit more, quickly getting the hang of it enough to fly in mostly smooth loops as he laughs lightly. Then he lowers himself down to hover in front if Yui again with a smile, "I see. I think I've got it. Now, can you tell if there are any players nearby?"

She tilts her head in confusion, but nods and briefly gets that thoughtful look again, "Yes. Seven players are that way."

She points off in a seemingly random direction, and he nods his understating as he turns to face that way, "Can you tell if any of them are a female Sylph named Leafa?'

She flies over to hover near his face, "Yes. Do you know her?"

He smiles at her, "Yes. You know how I asked about me diving on the same internet connection? Leafa is my Imouto in the real world. She's diving as well." Then he tilts his head at her, "I suppose that makes her your aunt."

She gives him an excited smile, "Really?! I have an aunt?!"

He laughs lightly, "Yup. You've also got two maternal uncles, though they're not here. Ready to go meet her?"

Yui beams as she nods rapidly, then her expression becomes worried, "We'd better hurry though. Five of those other players appear to be fighting Aunt Leafa and someone with her. You'll have to carry me though, I can't fly as fast as papa."

Scooping her up, he gently slips her into his breast pocket, "In that case, we've no time to lose."

He takes off in the direction Yui had pointed as fast as he can. Yui adjusts his course as they fly, and keeps him updated as best she can with what little data she has access to, "Aunt Leafa just killed one of the attacking players… So did the player with her, he- Oh, he just died as well. It's just Aunt Leafa and her remaining three attackers now…"

At this point, he can see bursts of flames coming from the forest and just barely make out the two other enemies rushing his sister. Distracted by them, she gets hit with one of the streams of fire and falls down into the forest, the other three following after her immediately. He's still about a minute away though, and hopes that she can hold her own that long.

Leafa pants heavily as she stares her three enemies down. The middle one, who seems to be in charge, tries to 'reason' with her, "Sorry, but we're on a mission. Leave your money and items, and we'll let you go."

The one on the left turns his head to look at the leader, "Why are you being a gentleman, Kagemune?"

The other one nods, "It's been ages since we fought a woman. Let's kill her!"

Leafa clenches her teeth in fury at that. There were unfortunately quite a few of these types of players in the game. Males who delighted in killing female players, they were by far not the majority, but there were still far too many for Leafa's liking.

She shifts her grip on her sword from one handed to two, "I'll take at least one of you with me." Then she lifts her weapon above her head, "Anyone who doesn't fear the death penalty can come and get me!"

Kagemune sighs, "You're a strong-willed girl. Very well."

The three Salamanders drift back and spread out as they ready their weapons. She stares them down, waiting to see which would move first even if only by a few seconds. That one would get to her first, and she'd be damned if she didn't take them with her. They tensely stare each other down for almost half a minute, then suddenly a loud startled cry sounds, dragging both her and the Salamanders shocked attention to the player that suddenly falls on his face a couple metres away.

He says vertical for a moment, then his body falls into a kneeling position, and he starts rubbing at his head, "Gonna have to work on landing…"

Leafa stares at him in shock, from his incredibly basic gear, it was rather obvious he was new to the game, however the more shocking thing was that he was a Spriggan, whose territory was literally on the opposite side of the map. The player slowly climbs to his feet, releasing his controller and letting it disappear.

He rubs his head again as he stares at them all, completely relaxed. If he was so new to this game and had still made it all the way here, he had probably gotten extremely lucky and not run into any player hunting parties. If that was the case, Leafa didn't want him to have to confront the truth just yet, but rather be able to enjoy it with blissful ignorance as long as possible.

That was probably why she sounded to angry when she snapped at him, "What are you doing? Run!"

He ignores her words though, to stare the Salamanders down, "Three tanky fighters attacking a single girl? That's kind of lame."

The Salamanders, predictably, grow angry, although Kagemune doesn't seem fazed. The one of the right tightening his grip on his weapon, "What did you say?!"

The one on the left lifts his weapon threatening, "Stay out of this, newbie."

The Spriggan simply smirks at them, so they both drift into ready stances to attack him, the one that had been on the right growling, "Then we'll fight you too!"

He immediately rushes the player after speaking, his friend waiting a beat before rushing as well so as to get him if he dodges. It was a rather basic tactic, but it was more than the newbie would be able to handle, and Leafa is about to look away, not wanting to see the naive player get killed, but just before she does something remarkable happens.

Rather than dodge, the player casually lifts his left hand and catches the Salamander's weapon, stopping both it and him dead in their tracks. Then he pushes on the weapon, throwing him into the second Salamander, knocking then both to the ground.

The player looks at her, the nods at the Salamanders, "Um… Do you mind if I kill them?"

Leafa stares at him unsurely, no matter how she looked, he still appeared to be a newbie, but… She lowers her weapon a bit, "N-No. They're all yours."

By now the Salamanders had climbed to their feet, and the one that had attacked him first all but hisses at him, "Self-righteous little-"

The player casually cuts him off as he turns to glare at the two Salamanders, "First of all, I don't think that's the word you were looking for. Secondly, that's not what I am. What I am, is a pissed off older brother. You see, not even twenty minutes ago, my player location data got corrupted and confused with the player data of someone diving in the same house as me." Leafa gasps lightly as she realizes who exactly the player was. That was her Onii-chan! That only makes her more confused about his display though, because she knows he just started the game. He smiles at her briefly before returning his glare to the Salamanders, "So not only did I fall through a glitchy void to nearby, and fall right on my face mind you, but then I come across my Imouto being ganged up on by some tanks only to fall on my face again. I. Am. Not. Happy." He draws his sword, letting it hang loosely towards the ground, "Now, shut up and try to die with some dignity."

He takes a step forward, then completely disappears. The Salamander in the back has just enough time to look around and mutter, "He's gone?"

Then the effects of the attack catch up, and the Salamander bursts into the tell tale «End Flames» indicating death, leaving behind nothing but a Remain Light. Her eyes shift past him to her brother as he slowly straightens. Even she hadn't seen him move, but that was to be expected. The only thing that controls speed in ALO are buffs and how fast your brain can process the signals going between it and the NerveGear. Part of it was innate reflexes, but a player would improve as they played. Her Onii-chan already had incredible reflexes, but he'd also been stuck in SAO for two years straight. She had no doubt that because of that alone, her Onii-chan was the fastest player in ALO.

Then her Onii-chan turns and smirks at the other Salamander just as he turns to face her Onii-chan, "You're next." The Salamander takes a step back, but that one step won't help him in the slightest. As she sees her Onii-chan lower his center of gravity slightly, she knows he's about to attack again and focuses as hard as she can, determined to at least see her Onii-chan's attack this time. She just barely manages to catch the initial burst of movement when he kicks off into what's almost a glide. Placing his other foot down only to launch himself into a jumping attack as his sword comes up, cleanly cleaving the player in half in a slight diagonal manner just above guys waist.

Landing between her and the remaining enemy, her Onii-chan slowly straightens, grinning at her, "Well. I feel a lot better." Then he casually turns around, his gaze lazily shifting to Kagemune, "Well? You want to fight too?"

Kagemune shakes his head, "I'll pass. My magic skill will reach level 900 soon. I'd rather not incur a death penalty."

Her Onii-chan chuckles lightly, "Well, it seems one of you has a brain at least. I was honest beginning to wonder how those two were diving since they seemed to be lacking key equipment." Kagemune snorts in amusement, and Onii-chan glances at her, clearly making sure she's alright with this. She nods as she sheathed her weapon, so her Onii-chan turns back to Kagemune, "Well then I guess you get to leave."

Kagemune seems surprised that they're actually letting him go, but nods, "In that case, I suppose I owe you a bit."

Kirito watches as the remaining Salamander takes off without another word. Probably worried that they'll change their minds. Once he's gone, Kirito turns to his sister with curiosity as he points at the flames the two dead Salamanders had left behind, "Hey, what are these flames?"

She presses her finger to her lips as she walks over to him, "Shh!... They're Remain Lights. Their minds are still there." They wait quietly after that, but a moment later the two lights fade, "Must've chosen to respawn when they realized they wouldn't hear anything of interest…" Then she turns to him with a curious look, "So… Your location data really got corrupted?"

Kirito nods, "Yea, it… wasn't a pleasant experience."

Yui begins to shift, then flies out of his pocket, "For all that it's surprisingly comfortable in Papa's pocket, I'd rather come out if the fighting is over."

Leafa stares at it in shock, "Onii-chan, how do you have a Private Pixie? And why does it call you papa?"

He holds up a finger, "First of all, she's not an 'it' she's a she, her name is Yui by the way, second of all, well, it's complicated and probably take a bit to explain.. "

Leafa raises an eyebrow, "I need to let me wings recharge anyway, and that's going to take a bit, seeing as they're fully depleted."

Kirito glances down at Yui, then takes a deep breath and starts explaining. As he goes on, his sister grows more and more incredulous, but she also doesn't deny what he's says. Finally he ends his kinda long story, "... So then I realized that my items would probably still be the same as well and scrolled through to see if she was still in there. Sure enough she was, although when I materialized her item her crystal looked a bit different and when I touched it it exploded with light and she appeared. After we talked a bit she told me the system recognizes her as a Navigation Pixie and changed to look like this."

Yui, now happily sitting on his shoulder tilts her head to look at him, "When players first get navigation Pixies they appear as an item in their inventory to be activated at their leisure, so that's what that was. And technically speaking, Navigation Pixies are just stripped down copies of my programming, so of course the system recognizes me." Then she turns to the dumbstruck Leafa, smiling hopefully as she flies off his shoulder to hover in front of her, "Papa says that you're my auntie. Are you really my auntie?"

His sister opens and closes her mouth a few times, unsure what to say, and Yui takes her hesitation as a negative, slumping sadly. Leafa, not being immune to his daughters cuteness as no one is, immediately starts waving her hands in front of her in panic, "No, no! You misunderstand! I was just shocked by Onii-chan's story! Of course I'm your aunt!"

Yui immediately perks back up, beaming happily at her, then with a flash of white light, she shifts back into her larger form and throws her arms around Leafa in a hug, "Auntie Leafa!"

Leafa grows flustered at the blatant affection from his daughter and hesitantly returns the hug, but he simply chuckles. At the sound Leafa looks up at him and flushes then turns her head away in embarrassment, "Well, my wings are recharged already, so we, ah, we should get going. There's a neutral village to the north. It's a bit far, but let's fly there."

Yui steps back a bit and returns to her Pixie form, "But Sylvein is a lot closer Aunt Leafa."

Leafa nods, "Yes, but that's Sylph territory. You're not exactly expressly forbidden from going there, but you can't attack someone in their own territory towns whereas they can attack you. You can't even defend yourself."

Kirito grins confidently, "They wouldn't just start attacking for no reason. And I've got you with me Leafa."

Leafa sighs, but she's smiling slightly, "Alright then. We'll go to Sylvein. Anyway, let's get going."

Then she turns to go and her wings appear, to Kirito's shock, they move entirely on their own, "You can fly without an assist controller?"

She turns her head to look at him, "Ah… Right. There's a trick to flying on your own. Here, turn around and don't use your controller." He does she says, and hears her approach before she places her hand a bit above his shoulder blades, "You can feel where I'm touching right?" He nods, so she continues, "Imagine virtual bones and muscles growing from here, then try to move them."

He concentrates, "Virtual bone and muscles…"

It takes a moment, but then he feels them appear and switches his focus to moving them. They begin to twitch within seconds, and his sister actually sounds impressed, "Like that! Just like that. Try the same movement again, but stronger."

He stops trying to move them for a moment to take a deep breath and clear his mind of the wayward thoughts drifting through it. He was sure that if he could just do it correctly once, he could repeat the process easily, so with even more determination, he tries again. After a moment, his sister suddenly shoves him. Kirito, having just been starting to get his wings moving right, shoots off with a shout through the treetops like a bullet, though thankfully Yui had fallen off his shoulder as soon as he was shoved and didn't go violently through the branches and leaves with him.

Thankfully once he's clear off the trees, he no longer has to worry about flying into something despite having zero control over himself. After a moment, he sees Leafa and Yui raise up above the treetops with worried looks, both of them shouting for him as they look around.

Seeing as he's being dragged through the air around wildly with no control, he shouts at Leafa, "Make it stop!"

The two stare at him for a moment, share a look, then burst into laughter, "I'm sorry papa! That's hilarious…"

It takes a while for Leafa to calm enough to dart in and grab him by the collar and teach him how to actually control his flight. She does apologize for it, explaining that when teaching someone to fly voluntarily, you usually gave them a push when the thrust in their wings was sufficient so they could get a feel for what it was like to take off, though usually the result was just them hovering a bit. Him shooting off like that… it wasn't supposed to happen.

By the time she's finished her ten minute lecture, he's got total control over his flight and he can't help but laugh happily, "This is amazing!"

Leafa laughs as well from where she's hovering with Yui nearby, "I know, right?! You've got good instincts Onii-chan." Then she turns and begins flying away, "Now follow me. You'll wanna go slow at first."

She turns to him turns to him with a smile, but he just smirks at her, "We can go faster."

She stares at him, then turns back with a smile, and takes off. He catches up quickly, and after a moment she turns with a slight smirk, only to grow shocked when she realizes he's following her easily. He smirks again, "Is this the fastest we can go?"

She frowns at him as she turns forward again, "Don't blame me for whatever happens."

She takes off even faster, and he hurries to catch up. After a moment, Yui begins to struggle to keep up, "I can't go on…"

Without another word, she dives into his pocket, then shifts around to poke her head out. Kirito turns to to Leafa next to him, and they both laugh. Leafa smiles at him, "You're the only person who's ever managed to keep with me, Onii-chan."

He smiles at her, then turns his gaze forward as he notices a green glow in front of them. His eyes widen at the site of the beautiful city, "Is that Sylvein?"

Leafa nods happily, "Yea, it's gorgeous, isn't it?" He nods, and shares a smile with his sister, "We'll land at the base of the central tower." After a moment though, her smile disappears as she seems to realize something, "Onii-chan, do you know how to land?"

He stares at her blankly for a moment, then turns back to the rapidly approaching tower in shock, "I don't!"

His sister grows flustered, "Um… Sorry! It's too late." Then she smiles awkwardly at him, "Good luck!"

With that she drops away to land, and he stares after her incredulously for a second, "Y-You're kidding me!" He turns back to the tower just in time to smash into it. After he's fallen to the ground, his sister hurries over and crouches near him, still smiling awkwardly, and he huffs at her, "That was horrible, Leafa. Couldn't you have just grabbed the back of my collar again?" Then he sighs, "That's the third time I've rammed into something with my face today…"

She chuckles lightly, "It's okay. I'll heal you."

Then she straightens her posture and gains a look of concentration as she holds her hand out in front of her. As she begins chanting, circles of words spin around her slowly, a word snapping into place as the rest in its line disappear with each word she says.

As she finishes, a greenish glow surrounds him briefly, refilling his damaged health bar, "Wow, so this is magic?"

She smiles at him through the glow, "Undines are the best at healing magic, but it's a really important spell, so you should learn it too."

He nods as he sits up, "Right, because different races get different bonuses. I, uh, I didn't actually bother checking the race descriptions as I wasn't joining to play seriously. I kinda just picked this one because I liked how Spriggans look…"

His sister sighs, "That explains it then. I was wondering why you chose a Spriggan of all things…"

He frowns at her, "What's wrong with Spriggans?"

His sister shakes her head, "There's nothing wrong with them per say, it's just… While they're one of the only two races with natural night vision, the only things they're particularly good at are treasure hunting and illusion magic. Neither of those is really any good for battle."

Kirito sighs, then shakes his head, "Doesn't really matter I suppose…" After leaning back and doing a kick-up, he stretches a bit as he looks around, "So this is a Sylph town? It really is pretty…"

She smiles at him and nods, and they both just observe the town for a minute. Then a voice calls out from behind them, "Leafa-chan!' Turning with his sister, Kirito see a short green haired Sylph male running up to them, waving at Leafa, "You're ok!"

He stops in front of her bending over to place his hands on his knees while he tries to catch his breath, which was of course, simply reflexive. His sister crosses her arms as she greets him, "Oh, Recon."

Even though he's still panting, the boy still forces out, "You're great, Leafa-chan." Then he seems to notice Kirito, "A Spriggan?!"

Jumping back a couple steps, he places his hand on the dagger resting horizontally on his back defensively, but his sister simply smiles and raises a hand in a stopping gesture, "It's ok. He saved me." That seems to shock the Recon, who clearly thought his sister had gotten out of that situation on her own, but his sister ignores him and turns to him, gesturing to the boy, "This is Recon, my friend from school I told you about."

Kirito extends his hand to Recon, "Hi, I'm Kirito."

Recon rubs at his head in an awkward manner as he removes his hand from his dagger, extending it to shake Kirito's hand, "Nice to meet you." Before he's even done more than grabbed Kirito's hand though, he yanks his hands away and jumps back and grabs his dagger again, "No… No, no, no! Are you sure about this?" He turns to Leafa, "He isn't a spy or anything, is he?"

Leafa glares at Recon, "Don't be stupid. I was trying to avoid saying anything private in a public place like this, but he's my brother you dolt. My IRL brother. I told you about him before, remember? About SAO?"

Recon's eyes widen and he quickly let's go of his dagger, "Oh! I- I'm sorry! Err… How did he…"

Understanding what he was asking, Kirito sighs, "My character glitched out a bit and in the confusion my location data got confused with Leafa's…"

Recon relaxes, "Oh, I see." Then he shakes his head and turns to Leafa, "Sigurd and the rest saved you a seat at the usual tavern."

Leafa shakes her head, "I'm not going." Recon looks at her like a kicked puppy, causing her to sigh, "I told you guys that I'd be leaving the party after today to meet up with someone. Well, that was... " She glances at him, "Err, you said you're character name was Kirito, right? I should probably get used to using that here…" She shakes her head of the wayward thoughts, "Anyway, I was supposed to be meeting up with him in Arun to help him out with something, but since he's here, I'll be leaving the party now."

Recon slumps slightly, "Oh. Ok…. But! Once you've helped him you'll come back, right?"

Leafa shrugs, "Maybe. I don't know. Sigurd is… not very likable… Anyway, I'll see you later!"

With that, she grabs his hand and starts pulling him away, ignoring Recon's pitiful whine of her name. They only get a few streets over before Kirito tugs her to a stop, "Is there a good equipment shop in town? I really need to replace this beginner stuff…"

His sister turns to him, frowning slightly, "There is, but Onii-ch-, err Kirito, that stuff will be expensive…"

He smiles at her, "Leafa, you don't have to correct yourself like that. Onii-chan is fine."

She looks at him unsurely, "But it's rude to mention things about someone's real life…"

He pats her head, "It's fine. I really don't mind. As for equipment…" He leans over and lowers his voice to a whisper, "I told you when I was explaining Yui that my save from SAO tried to load and I had to delete everything. I did however, get to keep my money because other than renaming it, it's exactly the same from SAO. Yui says the automatic error correction would've thought the name thing was a glitch and fixed it. Normally I wouldn't cheat like this, but… I don't really have the time to get that honestly."

Leafa nods in understanding, "Are you sure it'll be enough though. The better equipment… It can get kinda ridiculous when you take into account that they don't even have any special effects, seeing as you can only get weapons like that from drops and quests…"

Kirito hums in thought, "Well, it was a hefty sum there. Here… The programming may be the same, but it doesn't mean the value of that currency matches up…. Look, just take me to the best place in town for gear, and if I can't afford it we'll just slowly make our way down."

His sister glances at him, then nods, "Alright then, follow me."

She quickly leads him to a nice looking shop, and he looks around curiously as they enter before sighing, "All green…"

Leafa gives him a bemused look, "It's not just starting gear that matches the color scheme of your race. Anything you equip does it automatically. This stuff is just all shown as green because we're in Sylph territory. If you entered a shop with the exact same items in Spriggan territory, it'd all be black."

He perks up at that, starts to take a step towards the NPC behind the counter before pausing, "In SAO you could manually bring an item up or just initiate a buy menu by asking the NPC to see their wares, is that the same, or…"

Leafa nods, so he hurries over to the NPC, quickly initiating the buy menu. He raises an eyebrow when it pops up. For this to be the best shop in the capital, it's equipment seemed kinda cheap considering the stats on some of it. At least, in comparison to SAO gear. He quickly goes through the gear, purchasing everything he needs and selecting the 'equip now' option for each piece of equipment he purchases, all while leaving his coat and sword for last, both of which were choices he took incredibly seriously. It wouldn't do for the Black Swordsman to not have a damn good coat after all.

However, he's distracted after purchasing his throwing picks by his sister, "Eh? Onii-chan, why would you get those? Magic is vastly superior."

He glances back at her, "Well, yea, I figured they weren't as good as magic, but…" He sighs, glancing around to make sure the shop is empty, he quickly opens his menu and skill tab, then makes it viewable as he waves her closer. He points at his skills, "Look my throwing weapon skill is almost maxed out, not to mention I'm used to it, whereas I've never used magic."

His sister nods in a distracted manner, her eyes wide in astonishment, "O-Onii-chan… Are- Are these really your skill levels from there? How… It was so dangerous in there…"

He shrugs, "That only made it all the more important to level myself and them up."

She nods slowly, still transfixed by his skills, then points with a slightly shaky hand at the one line of gibberish amongst his skills, "What's that supposed to be?"

He sighs, "It's supposed to be my Dual Wielding, but this game doesn't have that skill in the system."

She looks up at him and tilts her head, "Well, that's because anyone can equip two primary weapons if they want. It's just that most players barely have the skill to handle one weapon, much less two…"

Kirito glances at her, "Really?" She nods, and he can't help but grin, "Fantastic."

Closing his menu, he returns to the NPC. Having only needed a few more things after the throwing picks, he turns to the serious task ahead of him, "Now Leafa. What I'm about to do is the single most important task of selecting my gear. I shall need all of my concentration, so please remain silent for a moment."

His sister gives a hesitant nod, "O-Ok… I didn't realize you took selecting a sword so seriously…"

He holds up a hand, "Sh!"

There's a tense silence in the shop for ten minutes as he carefully looks over the selection and debates before he finally makes his choice. He sighs as he purchases and equips it, "It's not the best, but I suppose it's the best you peasants have to offer "

The item apparently takes his sister off guard as she gapes at him, "Eh?! Onii-chan, that's a coat! I thought you were debating which sword to pick! That isn't a something worth any more serious thought than it's stats!"

He turns to her with a grave expression, "Leafa… In SAO, I was nicknamed The Black Swordsman. Do you know why I was nicknamed The Black Swordsman?" His sister shakes her head hesitantly, "I was called the Black Swordsman for two reasons, and two reasons alone… One, because I was in the top three strongest players in the game." She leans forward, hanging onto his words with wide eyes, "The second, and in my opinion far more important reason… was because of my badass black coats." She slumps, giving him an incredulous look, but he simply turns back to the shop menu, "It doesn't matter if these people have never heard of the Black Swordsman, it wouldn't do for me to wear a sub par coat. Just give me another minute to look over the swords and I'll be done."

His sister sighs, "Onii-chan…. You're ridiculous, you know that?"

He huffs, "Blasphemy. Without Elucidator, my choice of coat becomes the single most important decision I need to make in regards to my gear."

His sister gives him a look like she's not quite sure she actually wants to ask, "Ok, I'll bite. What's Elucidator?"

He turns to her slowly, "Elucidator is the single most beautiful, amazing, and badass sword of all time. I truly feel sorry for you, for you shall never be so lucky as to see it."

Then he whirls back around, and he can feel the incredulously exasperated look. Yui flies out of his pocket and sits on his shoulder facing Leafa, "Papa is mostly joking. While he did love both his coat and his swords, especially Elucidator, he's mostly just messing with you."

His sister sighs in relief, "Oh good. For a minute there I was worried he was serious."

Yui giggles, and it only takes a few seconds for Leafa to join in. He shoots her an amused smile over his shoulder then returns to looking over the swords for a minute before sighing, "Why are all of these so light? The only sword even close to my preferred sword weight is way to large to comfortably use with two swords. Hell, from this info read out, it's almost as tall as me!"

Yui and Leafa giggle, and his sister grins at him, "Even if it was good for Dual Wielding, it wouldn't be a very good choice. You'd look ridiculous with it. And this is a Sylph town, our race is known for its wind magic and speed, it only makes sense for the majority of the gear to be light and fast."

Kirito sighs, "I know. It's still annoying…" Eventually he settles on two one handed straight swords that are the size he's used to, if not the weight. Equipping them, he draws them for a few experimental swings, then sighs as he stares at them, "So light…"

Leafa tilts her head, "I can understand being worried about putting yourself off balance because you're used to swinging something heavier, but… That doesn't seem to be that case, so I really don't see why it's so important for them to be heavy."

Kirito slowly sheaths the swords, "Well, I suppose it's really not, but… ever since I got used to the heaviness of my usual type of sword in Aincrad, anything that's too light just feels… flimsy and unreliable. Like it's a made of glass or just a toy…"

His sister tilts her head at him, then shrugs, "Well, anyway. Let's hurry up and buy everything else we'll need for the journey."

He follows after as they stop by a few more shops, while Leafa picks up a few things, though the only really items he himself buys are health and mana potions, just in case, and a few random things that seem interesting.

Eventually his sister seems to run through a mental check list, then nods firmly, "Well, that's everything we'll need for the journey. Come on, I'll take you to an inn."

He looks at her with mild confusion as they walk, "An inn? Why?"

She glances back at him, "Players can only safely log out in either towns in their territory, or inns. While you can log out somewhere else, your avatar won't disappear for thirty minutes and can still be interacted with. So if you log out in any place besides a town in your territory or an inn, you basically leave your character completely vulnerable to attack and theft."

Kirito sighs, "I see… Well, that's nice to know at least."

It's not long before his sister leads him to an inn and pub called Lily of the Valley Pavilion. She points at it, "Just go in there and ask the NPC to rent a room. Once you have one, you'll be able to safely log out inside it. Got it?"

He nods, "Yup. Rent a room, log out in room. I do have a brain you know."

She blushes, "Sorry, I didn't mean… I just wanted to make sure you didn't misunderstand anything I said. Anyway! I'm logging out. See you on the other side Onii-chan. I need to take a bath, then make dinner since it's my turn and you're probably already hungry again despite those sandwiches earlier…"

He grins at her sheepishly, then watches her log out before heading inside to do the same. Though he could logout immediately once he was in his room, logging out while standing up could cause the feeling of vertigo. It wasn't a huge issue, though most players, both back in the beta test and now from his understanding, preferred to simply fall asleep, which along with automatically logging the player out, also made the transition back to reality smoother. Since he prefers that method of logging out, he simply unequips his swords and climbs into bed.

Yui flies over and switches back into her full sized form standing next to his bed with a slight sad smile, "This is goodbye until tomorrow. Right, Papa?"

He smiles at her, "I'll be back soon to see you again."

She smiles happily at him, then gains an unsure look, "Um. Players will be automatically logged out if they fall asleep in an inn, so… Can I sleep next to you until you log out?"

That startles him, but he smiles at her again, "Yea, sure."

He scoots over to make room for her, and touches the wall next to the bed to bring up a basic room menu to extinguish the lamps, then smiles warmly at Yui as she snuggles in, "Let's save Hanna and buy a house somewhere again, okay?"

She smiles happily, "It sounds like a dream, getting to live with Papa and Mama again."

He gently brushes her bands from her face, "It isn't a dream. We'll save your mama and make it reality soon."

She beams at him and for a moment they just lay there, then he quickly drifts off.

January 21st, 2025

Logging in, Kirito is mildly surprised to find himself in the bar rather than his room, but shakes it off as Leafa logs in. This morning he and his sister had decided to log on at three as the kendo club adviser had asked her to go down to the school, but she'd gotten home earlier than expected, so they'd logged in at two instead.

His sister smiles at him, then launches right into the thick of things without any small talk, which made sense seeing as they lived together and made small talk on a daily basis, "Ready to head out?"

He nods, then looks around a bit before thinking to look in his pocket. Yui, sure enough, seemed to be sleeping inside, so he gently tugs on his coat, shaking it a bit, "Yui, we're leaving now."

She blinks awake and sits up to poke her head out before letting out a massive yawn and stretching, "Ok." Once awake, she smiles up at him sweetly, "Good afternoon Papa. I missed you."

He chuckles as he gets up, "I missed you too. We'll be off to go see if your mama really is here now."

She smiles widely, "Ok!"

Leafa tilts her head, "Well, actually, after yesterday's… incident… I was wondering if you'd like to practice landing before we head out?"

Kirito gives his sister a slightly annoyed look, "An incident that wouldn't have happened if someone had remembered to teach me how to land…" She laughs awkwardly, but before she can say anything he huffs, "That said, if you don't mind, I'd rather learn when there's nothing for me to run into. We'll have to stop at least a couple times to let our wings recharge, right? If we just stop a bit early in a clearing or something…"

Leafa laughs lightly, "Yea, that's probably for the best… Well, come on then."

Following after her, he's a bit confused to be led to the tower from the previous night, which he gives a glare on sheer principle before turning to his sister, "Why are we going to the tower?"

She pauses to look up at it, "Oh, when flying long distances, it's better to start from the top of the tower. It gives you extra altitude."

He nods, "Oh, I get it."

He stares at it, still remembering crashing into it with his face last night, and is taken by surprise when his sister places her hands on his back and starts pushing him towards it, "Let's get going. I want to make it through the forest by nightfall."

Getting the hint, he begins heading for the large doors to the tower, and his sister stops pushing him, coming around to walk beside him. As they enter the tower, Kirito pauses to look around, but his sister quickly grabs his hand to pull him forward again, "This way, come on!"

His sister drags him towards a large stone cylinder in the middle of the room. It stretches all the to the ceiling, and Kirito was confident that it was probably a teleporter or something leading up into the tower. The tower was massive and it sounded like players routinely went to the very top of it.

They've almost reached it when a male voice calls out to them, "Leafa!"

His sister sighs tiredly then puts on a pleasant smile before they turn to face the approaching group of three, "Hello Sigurd."

The man, Sigurd, scowls at Leafa despite her pleasant greeting, "You're really leaving the party, Leafa?"

She nods, "Yes, there are things I need to take care of."

His scowl deepens, "Don't you understand how that will inconvenience the other members?"

His sister purses her lips at that, "You promised I could join only when I had time, and that I could leave whenever I wanted. Well I want to leave so that I'll have time to do things that are more important to me."

He sighs as though being forced to explain something simple to a child, "You're already a well-known member of our party. If you of all people leave without reason, it will damage our reputation immensely."

His sister doesn't seem to know what to say to that, looking stricken, likely beginning to realize what it was really about, he and can't help closing his eyes with a resigned sigh. He feels terrible for her, for spending over a year in this game before realizing something like that. The short time he'd been around town had been more than enough to tell that female players, while not precisely rare were highly uncommon, and given that there were few players good at fighting already, female players that could fight as well as his sister were likely almost unheard of. In other words, to a person like Sigurd, Leafa's fighting skill was only an added benefit. She was primarily a trophy to show off the status of his party.

Opening his eyes, he glares at the man, "Your party members aren't items."

His sister looks at him with wide eyes, but he ignores her to take a few walks towards Sigurd calmly, who shifts his scowl to him, "What was that?"

He stops only a few feet away from the man, glaring up at the taller male, "You can't keep other players equipped all the time, as if they were your sword or armor."

The man's scowl turns into a furious glare and he grabs his sword, shifting into a stance, "You… You're just another Spriggan who likes to rummage through trash! You're probably just some nobody renegade who was kicked out of his own territory. Don't pretend to understand what's going on!"

Kirito rolls his eyes at that, honestly he'd heard better insults as a Beater in Aincrad, "No. Leafa is my Imouto, and she's helping me with something important to me, which is why I came to meet up with her. I don't appreciate people treating my Imouto as some sort of trophy. Which is why I will not allow you to pressure her into rejoining you."

Sigurd scowls furiously, "What did you say? Leafa, do you mean to abandon your territory and become a renegade too?"

Kirito is actually astonished by the man's arrogance, to believe that his sister was abandoning the Sylph as a whole simply because she refused to go back to his party. Leafa startles him a bit more by running with it though, "Yes, I am. I'm leaving this place."

Sigurd draws his sword, leveling it at Kirito furiously, "As long as you just buzzed around, I didn't plan to concern myself with you. But if you're going to be a thief, that's a different matter. If you're here, in another race's territory, you can't complain if you get killed, right?"

Kirito had noticed the attention their argument was getting as soon as it started when Sigurd had called him a renegade, and played it to his advantage, "Ah, but we've come right back around to my original point. My Imouto is a person, not a rare item for you to hoard or a trophy to display and therefore cannot be stolen. I may not have a right to complain about getting killed, if you can even manage to do so, but as her older brother, I do have the right to remove her from the presence of filth like you who sees her as nothing more than an object that belongs to you."

The crowd starts whispering at his words, but he'll need a bit more than what he'd just said to get them on his side. After all, anyone could simply say they were related to someone and trying to protect them.

Which is why he was banking on his sister's fairly predictable nature, thankfully, it pays off, though given that his sister is terrible at acting, he knows the concern in her voice is genuine, "Onii-chan! Stop it, you can't fight back against him here. It's alright, really."

The crowds whispering increases to muttering and most of them start giving Sigurd and his party members dirty looks, so he gives the final push, "No, it's not ok. I won't just stand by and let my sister be used like an item by some coward who goes around killing people who can't fight back."

At that, more than one fighter in the crowd scowls and draws their weapon, ready to defend them against Sigurd's party. Their attention drawn by the sound of the weapons, Sigurd and the other two pale slightly as they realize the situation they've gotten themselves into.

The one of the left, apparently being at least a bit smarter than Sigurd, hesitantly says, "C-Come on Sigurd. I-I know you're angry, but fighting someone who can't defend themselves is dishonorable. L-Let's just go…"

Sigurd growls lightly, but sheaths his weapon, "Once you're outside, run and hide Leafa. If you betray me, it won't be long before you regret it."

He turns and leaves, and Kirito struggles quite a bit too hold back a grin. There were few things that man could have said that would ruin his oh so precious reputation so spectacularly. To the crowd, Kirito was simply an older brother trying to look out for his sister, who herself was simply trying to leave a party with a toxic atmosphere. But to say that leaving was a betrayal and threaten her? Oh that guy may not have realized it yet, but his reputation had just gone down the drain.

Of course, he'd also dealt some damage to Leafa's reputation by saying she was going renegade, which would slightly lessen the impact. However… The crowds attention hadn't wavered just yet, which means that as long as his sister cooperated with him, whether she knew it or not, he could still repair the damage.

Turning to his sister, he silently prays that she'll cooperate, "Hey. Was that really ok? Leaving his party was one thing, but that whole renegade business…"

Leafa sighs, "I didn't actually mean that… He was just making me so angry, insulting Onii-chan like that… I'm actually friends with Sakuya, the current Lord of the Sylph race. I'll clear it up with her later. If Sigurd tries to say anything to her, I'll just explain that I wanted to party with you for a bit. She'll understand."

Relief floods him as she unknowingly gives him exactly what he'd been looking for. Except for one or two people, it was obvious that the entire crowd had been swayed to the side of the 'poor siblings' who simply wanted to play together for a bit despite playing as different races. They were already whispering to one another, and seeing as Sigurd and his sister seemed to both be rather well known, the word would spread quickly. He and Leafa use the cylinder, which turns out to be a magic elevator, and as soon as they're of the roof, he finally allows himself a victorious smirk, though he tilts his head down to hide it from his sister as he didn't feel like explaining. It felt incredible to have utterly ruined that man who only saw his sister as a trophy, and protect his sister along with her reputation, all without having to lifting a single finger.

His sister's happy little laugh draws his gaze up, and his breath is taken away by the beautiful view from the tower as he walks forward to be closer to the edge without really thinking about it, "This view is amazing… We're so close to the sky. It's like I can reach out and touch it."

His sister smiles at him from her spot to his right, "Isn't it? Whenever I see this sky, everything else feels small." She looks up, stretching her hand out as though trying to actually touch the sky, "Despite the rough departure, it'll be nice to see more of this world."

He turns his gaze from the view to his sister, "Have you not seen much of it? I thought you said you'd been playing for a year though…"

Leafa nods, "I have, but… There are basically two types of players in this game. Players who mostly stick to their territory, only venturing out to do quests and the like with parties, which are entirely comprised of members of their own race, and that pay taxes to their territory to further its development. People like me and Recon fall within this category. Then there are renegades. They are players that are either banished from, or willingly abandon their race. You can usually tell a loyal party from a renegade party at a glance, as renegades are the only ones that have mixed parties." She sighs, "I've actually always wanted to leave this place and see more of Alfheim, but… If I do that and the Sylph manage to clear the World Tree, I'll miss out on the infinite flight, which makes up a solid half of the reason why I play Alfheim. I might've taken this opportunity anyway and simply left with Onii-chan, but you're only playing to find Marzanna-san and Asuna-san."

He looks at her, "Well, I might end up playing once Marzanna and Asuna, along with everyone else for that matter, are awake, but until then, there's no way I could concentrate on a game, so it's probably for the best that you didn't make that choice now."

Leafa smiles widely at him, "Yea, but I can always leave later if Onii-chan comes back.

Kirito returns her smile for a moment, "That sounds like it would be fun. But… Are you sure? Those other players made becoming a renegade sound kinda serious."

Leafa shrugs, "Not really. It's more that players loyal to their territories look down at renegades for being directionless and without purpose." She sighs, "I've never understood why they feel the need to tie each other down like that. We all have wings…"

Kirito stares at his sister, unsure what to say to that, but a moment later Yui pops out of his pocket, "Humans are complicated." Flying out, she lands on his shoulder and crosses her arms adorably, "I can't understand the psychology that causes the desire to seek others to manifest in such odd ways."

Leafa turns to them, or more accurately Yui, "Seek others?"

Yui nods, "This is what…" She pauses to press a kiss to his cheek, then smiles in a sweet innocent manner, "I'd do. It's simple and unmistakable."

Leafa laughs lightly, "Yes, I suppose it is. Though I don't think it'd work for all situations."

Yui giggles, "No, I guess not."

Leafa smiles at her for a moment, then her gaze drifts away as she gains a thoughtful look, "The desire to seek others…"

After a moment, the sound of the elevator doors opening comes from behind them, and the semi familiar voice of Recon called out, "Leafa-chan!"

Turning, they see the green haired boy running up, and his sister sighs lightly, "Oh, Recon."

The boy stops right in front of them, "I can't believe you! You could've at least said something before you left!"

His sister laughs awkwardly, "Sorry, I forgot."

Recon slumps in a defeated manner at that for a moment, then looks back up at Leafa, "Leafa-chan, they said you were gonna become a renegade!"

Leafa shakes her head, "No, that was just said in the heat of the moment. Sigurd was insulting Onii-chan and I lost my temper. Add I told you, I will be leaving for a bit though. What will you do?"

He straightens up and pulls his dagger, holding it in front of him in a non threatening manner, "What else can I do? My sword belongs to you alone!"

Leafa sighs, "I don't really need it though."

Recon slumps again, and Kirito can't help but tease him as he crosses his arms, "Bold."

Yui nods seriously as she mimics his motion, "Very bold."

Kirito nods, "In Aincrad, pledging your blade to one person alone was seen as a method of marriage proposal."

Yui nods seriously, and both Leafa and Recon turn beat red, before Recon shakes his head wildly, "That's not what I meant! I- I just meant-!" Finally seeming to realize he was just being teased, he gives them a pitiful look, "You're mean, Kirito-san." Then he sighs and turns back to Leafa, "W-Well, maybe I wouldn't be much help, but at least I could go with you. Or rather, I'd like to. But something's been bothering me."

His sister's brow furrows, "What is it?"

Recon looks away with slightly narrowed eyes, "I can't prove anything yet, but I want to look into some things, so I'll stay in Sigurd's party."

He turns back to Kirito, "I'm sure you already know this since she's your sister, but Leafa has a habit of flying right into trouble, so be careful."

He laughs lightly, "That's not something you should be telling me. I tend to just charge into danger myself."

Recon slumps even further, "Of course you do… Well, at the very least if you were able to save her from those Salamanders last night, you should be able to have her back."

Leafa glares at him lightly at the perceived slight against her skill, then sighs, "We'll probably be in neutral territory for a while. Send me a message if you need anything!"

Without another word, she turns with a huff and takes off. Recon slumps again, and Kirito pats his shoulder, "If it makes you feel better, I'm rooting for you. You seem like a good kid, so I wouldn't really mind you getting with her."

Recon blushes again, but before he can say anything, Kirito simply flashes him a grin while Yui dives into his pocket and takes off after his sister, quickly catching up to her, "You said he's a friend from school?"

She sighs, "Yea, sorta." He hums a bit, and she shoots him a glance, "Why, what of it?"

He smiles lightly, "Nothing really, I just think it's nice."

Yui pokes her head out, "He likes you, Auntie Leafa. What about you?"

Leafa blushes a bit, "I-I don't know!"

With those words, she flies faster to get away, and Kirito shares a confused look with his daughter. When they return their gazes to Leafa, she's looking back at Sylvain with a touch of sadness, but as she spots them it gives way to a smile, "Now let's go! We'll get to that lake before we land, then you can practice landing."

He smiles back at her, "Ok!"

As his sister turns back around, his gaze drifts to Yggdrasil in the distance, and his eyes narrow in fierce determination. Nothing would keep him from his mate. Not even some stupidly big tree full of supposedly impossible to beat enemies.