The outrageous beeping of a timer told Argo that it was safe to stop moving. The blonde felt the now familiar feeling of her body going from moving somewhere close to the speed of light to normal speed as she planted her feet on the ground.

The whiplash from the action would've killed a man were they not the short and mousey Akira Yuuki with the gamertag Argo. Argo however merely felt the force ripple through her back and fade before she so much as twitched a finger. Her deep brown eyes flickered from the wall she was facing to the thick bulletproof glass wall that seperated her from those she knew was watching her. Sure enough, as per usual, there was a triage of lab-coat wearing men standing behind the glass, but by now she had expected them to be. One gets used to having people standing there staring at them as they appeared to the scientists as a blur and ran like a hamster in a hamster ball as they produced enough power to power a small city. Not that Argo trusted them to actually use the power generated toward anything but their ridiculous scientific tests.

She could feel the marks the mask had made in the sides of her face as she pulled the strap around her head over it and held the malleable clear plastic in her other hand. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the men, one with salt and pepper grey hair, press a button on the console next to the glass. One they were probably glad she couldn't touch since she'd press every button just to grate on their cumulative nerves.

"How're you feeling Argo?" He asked and Argo bit her tongue to keep from snorting at the question. Clearly this guy was new to the project, whatever project she and thousands of others had gotten themselves roped into.

"'Ine," Argo shrugged and unbuckled the mandatory wrist device from her wrist, "Can I go now?" Her breathing was already back to normal, as though she hadn't just spent the last ten minutes running at a pace equal to the speed of sound. Even the lingering burn of the workout in her calves was gone now. Leaving the now ex-info-broker feeling how she usually did after she rolled out of bed in the morning and reluctantly trudged over here like she was legally required to do every day.

Like usual, they ignored her, "any fatigue or muscle aches?"

"No," Argo deadpanned with an eye roll, of course they had no interest in listening to her. Just like her own disinterest in listening to them when she would've preferred to have made it out of the testing room by now.

"What about throat irritation?"

Argo scowled and headed for the door, picking up her jacket as she went. "No, ya dimwits, 'ust like da last time ya asked."

"Very well, you are free to go."

Thank god.

Argo slipped out of the room and waited for the door to close for her to cough a couple times. The irritating side effect of running so quickly for an extended amount of time. Something she preferred to keep as a secret from the lab techs, since she didn't really want to have them cut open her chest and mess around with and upgrade her lungs to fix that issue.

Her lungs were fine thank you, just because they weren't super human like Shino's were now doesn't mean there was anything wrong with them.

"Fuck dose 'tupid tests," Argo muttered angrily to herself, scowling as she turned the corner, heading toward her room-

An arm slid tightly part way around Argo's neck, covering her mouth with the angle of the hold.

Someone had grabbed her.

Instinctively the small blonde's feet moved, intending to move with the speed that allowed her to power this place in a couple minutes, but she was lifted up, preventing her feet from touching the ground and disabling her.

"Mhmph!" Argo struggled violently, fighting to escape the room that her captor was dragging her into. Her teeth sank into the other person's arm.

"Ow! Fucking hell, Argo would you cut it out?" A voice snapped wapishly as the arm wrenched away from her teeth and Argo froze. She knew this voice, which meant that they were going to give her an earful for this later. "I'm not going to hurt you. Well, not like what you just did to me with those sharpened canines, anyway!"

Damnit, she totally just bit one of her two partners, namely her girlfriend Caylee. Bitten her with one of the sharpest bites among them since her canines were sharpened for defense.

"Can ya blame me? Ya 'ust grabbed me with no ezplanation!" Argo retorted and whirled around to look at the girl who had grabbed her like she had, "ya were bein' kinda 'uspicious 'nd everythin!"

"Seeing how I have to get my girlfriend with a fucking tazer microneedle at the neck," Caylee snapped back and flicked the blood on her arm off. The wound was already sealing up and healing thanks to her regeneration ability via nano tech. "I figured that I would get it done and over with before you could take off!"

Argo hadn't even noticed that the girl was holding some kind of rather janky looking device in her other hand. Either way, she really didn't want to be jabbed with whatever it was.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Argo backed up as her girlfriend took a few steps closer, "what da 'ell are ya doin' with dat?!"

"I literally said I was going to taz you in the neck," Caylee deadpanned, "weren't you listening?"

"Yeah, but now's not da time for yer weird kinks!" Argo said as she backed up a bit more.

"What is wrong with your brain?!" Caylee snapped with a very red face as she stormed closer, "and I don't have a kink for electricity-"

"Ya got one 'or 'ain!"

Caylee narrowed her eyes, oh god, she was going to kill her for that one. "That's it! Get back here you rat!" The furious and flaming hacker tackled the smaller girl, knocking her to the floor with a squeal.

"Just cause ya like 'ain doesn't mean I do!" Argo complained and wrestled against the bigger girl, stubbornly refusing to let her trusted girlfriend taser her with some kind janky microneedle. Regardless of how much she trusted Caylee's computer skills from the game, she did not trust her ability to make anything with anything IRL since she didn't know her before the game.

"I do not have a pain kink, you asshole," Caylee all but snarled in Argo's ear as she fought to remove Argo's jacket, which had a fluffy hood and blocked most of the back of her neck. She shoved a bunch of papers and clothes of Argo's and Kuroshiro's out of the way as she did so, trying to reach the bottom of the hooded jacket, "and telling me that, is rich coming from the girl who wants to try every kink in the book!"

"I never 'aid I didn't 'ave any!" Argo refuted and squeaked when Caylee finally got her in a headlock and lifted her up till they were both kneeling on the ground. "Ima kick ya!" she warned, smirking and showing off her longer and much sharper canine teeth with the threat of kneeing her in a very sensitive spot for Caylee

"Don't you dare," Caylee growled and Argo smirked before she kneed her girlfriend and the girl crumpled, instantly releasing her with a pained groan. It didn't exactly get Caylee off of her since the girl's head was in her lap, but it did get her out of the headlock.

To be fair though, she hadn't meant to get her that hard…

"Fucking god," Caylee groaned at her from her spot crumpled on the floor with one hand curled up in a fist on the floor and her curly ponytail getting all over Argo's lap. "Why did I ever choose to date your sorry ass before the game…"

Before the game? Wait, Caylee remembered before the game?

"Wait, before da game?" Argo asked and looked at her oddly before slowly asking another question, "we were datin' before da game?"

"Oh, now you want to know," Caylee snapped irritably, "after you kneed me in the groin when you know for a fact that I'd be just as sensitive to it as Kuro!"

Fuck, yeah that had been a bad call on her part. Kneeing her trans non-op girlfriend harder than she meant to really wasn't helping her get any information from her.

"But yes," Caylee grunted and propped her upper body up with a wince and via the hand that had been fisted on the floor and Argo stood up before helping her sit up straight. "Why do you think there's no point in the game where we got together? Only Kuro had that moment with us." She hauled herself to her feet with a scowl and a sigh, "now will you let me do what I had been trying to do before you kicked me like that?"

"Does it 'ave ta do with my blocked memories?"

"Yes."

"Who… who're you?"

Argo could've choked.

Standing in front of her, having just seen their significant other go down after being hit in the head by the but of a gun and handcuffed and had been shouting about it a moment ago, was Kuroshiro Kazuma. And yet, despite four years of being partners in the game with her and Caylee, and all three of them being a trio for three years…

…she was being asked who she was.

No… no, why didn't it work?

Why didn't the device work?!

Why didn't he have his memories?! Caylee had gotten him straight in… the…

Her vision had been off from the whoozy drugs they had given all of the science players….

No…

Caylee had missed.

And now there was only one charge left and she had two significant others.

Kuroshiro, who was staring at her like she was a stranger, and Caylee, who she didn't know if she'd ever see again.

She…. she needed time to decided, to figure out the best plan and-

"Asuna Yuuki! Akira Yuuki! Rika Shinozaki! Prepare your things, you're in the first group to leave in 2 minutes!"

What? Why? Why them and now?! But-

Argo looked over at the boy who was staring at her, puzzlement on his handsome platinum blonde face and in those unique silver and gold eyes.

"Are you okay?" He asked her patiently, warmly with the empathy that made Argo's heart break just that little more.

She didn't have the charge on her, she wasn't going to make it back here to him, in the main hall, in time to get him free and figure stuff out.

There was no possible way for her to get there and back and not get caught or in trouble.

So, Argo swallowed the growing lump in her throat and blinked once to hide the heavy burning in her eyes, because she was about to be very, very alone. "My name's Akira Yuuki but I go by Argo," she casually introduced herself with her voice just barely wobbling, "what's yer name?"

"Woah, you have a cool accent," Kuroshiro, the boy alongside Caylee who had stolen her heart, grinned at her with the same first line he had spoken to her four years ago when he met her in the game for the first time and outside of school and chance meetings in front of Caylee's apartment.

It made the pain in her heart turn to a stab from a knife.

"I'm Kuroshiro Kazuma, I swear your name sounds familiar. Even if I can't place it," he admitted sheepishly and Argo had to swallow again so she could speak without her voice breaking.

"choolmates," Argo offered him a slightly weak smirk, "nd Ima da girl dat dated yer neighbor, Caylee."

Kuroshiro snapped as it clicked and he laughed, "that explains it, wow, can't believe I forgot her girlfriend, you were always over there, right?"

"Mhmm," Argo agreed with a stronger smirk that she couldn't feel, "Ya were Ki-Lii's best 'riend in school 'nd I was 'er 'avorite distraction."

She was going numb.

Numb to protect herself now… now that she was completely alone.

Alone for the first time in over four years.

It was just Argo now.

No Kuroshiro decoding languages and spitballing possibilities, cooking meals and flirting, snuggling, and of course teasing her.

No Caylee swearing at players' idiocies and letting her head rest in her lap while Argo worked, playing with the hair of her migraine clad girlfriend.

Just Argo.

"Ma'am?"

Argo jolted, opening her eyes and scooting backward in a panic till her back collided with the back of the couch she had been sitting on, at least till she had fallen asleep.

Oh.

She had fallen asleep waiting for her family.

Argo slouched, sliding partway down the back of the couch till she had half reclined and rubbed at her eyes beneath the glasses perched on her nose. Since the one thing that seemed to have happened to her now that most of the modifications were turned off, was that her vision was very lacking.

Hence why she had been dragged into getting glasses months ago, which she didn't wear unless her eyes were aching like today.

Her fingers drummed noiselessly over the leather armrest of the couch.

"Orry," she murmured to the staff member of the house, silently apologizing for falling asleep on the couch, if only because she felt guilty that they had to wake her up.

"Are you okay, miss?" the man's blue eyes reminded Argo vaguely of Caylee, just the bright blue color of the irises. Even if she had seen the girl reluctantly wear a suit like this in the game, as the brunette passed herself off as a man through the binding at her chest as Argo's date for the casino floor while Kirito was Asuna's.

The reminder made the knife in her chest sink in deeper.

God, she missed them. Missed her best friends and partners in life.

"You were twitching and whimpering in your sleep."

Argo's hazel eyes now green from the side effect of the biomechanics causing a mutation in her eyes, flickered upward toward the staff member and she leaned her head on her hand. "Mhmm, Ima fine," she reassured him in what tone she could muster, which wasn't much, just a slightly numbed quiet tone. Since she wanted to save her energy pretending to be fine for when Asuna and the rest of her family got here. "Ust 'ad a bad dream, 's all," she added once she noticed that he didn't look like he believed her.

Oh well, she honestly didn't really care if he did or not, at least not right now.

When her heart was stinging and all she wanted was to see her partners standing side by side, nudging and messing with each other till she jumped and threw her arms around their necks and they'd stop and greet her with their warm smiles.

She gave her head a mental shake, she needed to get a grip.

Nobody was here, it was just her. Just her, so she needed to remember that.

I'm fine, I'm fine alone it doesn't bother me, I'm fine, the information broker silently repeated like a mantra and she was still doing it when her family arrived.

She was fine alone… she was fine. Definitely, definitely cool as a cucumber about being alone and separated from almost all of the ones she loved.

Definitely.