Argo's Intro Arc - of Hazel, Blue, and Gold

Part of Argo felt guilty for being envious of her sister.

It wasn't like she was even envious of her, herself. Or of the whole fact that her step mother actually liked Asuna and not her, or even her height. Argo had no qualms with her sister being different, being a beautiful shooting star that outshined others in order to be the beacon that everyone had needed back in the game. Did Argo being really short, almost five inches shorter than Asuna, bother her? Also no.

Being small meant she could slip in and out of somewhere much easier than someone who was tall. It made the world more interesting for sure, since she was a few inches below "average," and it meant that sitting up on counters and tables were her main source of extra height, especially with her tall partners, but she didn't really want to be tall anyway.

So nothing relating to who her sister was and their differences had anything to do with what Argo was guiltily envious over. Rather it had to do with a simple fact.

Argo was envious over the fact that her sister had one of her friends.

Rika was here, the brunette with pink highlights who Asuna grew up with just down the street, was here.

Argo's friends of their little family in SAO wasn't here, not one of them. Her partners and her friends before the game, Caylee and Kuroshiro, weren't here.

Which she made envious of the fact that Rika was a few houses down and had started finally interacting with Asuna more, which made her sister happy and that was what Argo wanted.

It didn't make the pain any better though.

Seeing Rika made the knife in Argo's heart sink deeper and slowly twist, since it was a constant reminder of what she didn't have and along with that…

It was a reminder that unlike everyone else, Argo had her memories.

She exactly who Rika was, the x-rays of her eye and what happened to it, the reason why the girl had so many migraines, and how and why her eye was so sensitive to light.

She knew the girl that Rika remembered, how they had acted in the game and why she wasn't here.

Asuna? Argo knew her exact position, the hells her sister had seen, the man who held her heart that she couldn't remember properly, etc.

Argo knew it all.

The games, the researching complex they all woke up at, the hell of being rat in a trap on Aincrad, being overwhelmed and forced under someone's thumb, and the day the chips all activated.

Which was why it was so hard to keep observing and not just jump in and act when her sister was suffering so much.

Argo silently turned a blind eye to her sister's angry muttered outburst about her memories being blocked and pretended that she just got out of her room.

Eventually she would be able to act, but not now and definitely not alone.

"Hide that, I'll need it later when I come back. Kuro, protect her. Both you, keep each other safe."

"I'll do my best, Cay."

"But…"

"I have to, They're forcing me."

Argo blinked and lifted her hand to her head in the heavily practiced now instinctive gesture of having a headache after a memory. As to not draw attention to herself and bit her tongue to make it so it would sound like she was in pain when she spoke.

"Ey, did pops call us? I didn't really 'ear 'him," the blonde asked her sister. The pain from biting her tongue allowed her to sound just like she would if she was like everyone else and just experienced one of the blocked memories.

"Yeah he said something about some kind of news for us," Asuna sighed and shot her a look of sympathy and concern as she headed for the stairs. The former of which only made Argo's stomach clench with more guilt at the fact that she was just pretending. "Headache?"

Argo followed after her, heading for the stairs.

"Just a bit," she admitted rather reluctantly, like she would've prior to the game. Prior to when her and her sister had been closer than ever throughout the game itself. With Asuna leading the players and Argo working behind the scenes and where Argo had learned that there was no point in hesitating, so she had learned to tell her or keep it to herself. Before she was jumping up onto the railing and sliding down, well aware that she would get in trouble, but also that she didn't really care if her step-mom blew up at her.

Since she could guess what was going on anyway.

It was time.

"Really? Gathering them up and tossing them into a remote complex?"

"I mean it sounds fair to me. it'll give their brains a chance to stabilize prior to the activation of the rest of the enhancements. So we don't end up in a situation like earlier."

"You mean with that pink one, the samurai, and that sniper girl? Where they all lost control of their abilities?"

"And the pink one broke straight through a wall? Yes, that's exactly what we're trying to avoid."

Huh, so they were planning something. Some kind of round up before locking them all up behind lock and key again, interesting… Argo's green eyes flickered to teh side from where she was leaning against the wall on the side opposite to the ones that were talking. Being able to hear at a much higher range and sensitivity certainly made things interesting.

Was this before or after the whole dispersal idea? Since everyone was currently here, blind to their previous lives, but with perfect memory of what happened within the past three and a half years.

Dispersing them for an allotted amount of time, then rounding them all up to protect normal humans certainly sounded like something people like these would do. Right, she'd have to tell Kuroshiro and Kirito after the rest of the players were taken out of the sleeping pods today.

She pushed herself off of the wall and started walking down the hallway. Fingers reaching up to spin down the dial on the device around her ear.

The sound around her reduced, not being picked up anymore by the bio-mechanical enhancements inside her ears via the dial on the controller, which looked simply like a earbud with an athletic wrap around earpiece.

This was going to be interesting…