"Can I get everyone to cover that flank?"

The response to the direction was slow, the actions were sloppy of the raid team, and everyone in general was having a rough time. Floor 40's boss was giving the raid team a whole new level of difficulty. Klein and Heathcliff were fighting over raid lead, and while everyone trusted Klein more, Heathcliff was truthfully better at leading than him. The absence of the ill Kirito really hampered the raid party. Thankfully they had information on the mechanics due to hard work from him, but Kirito was still suffering from social anxiety and insomnia catching up to him.

Klein wasn't tanking the raid boss, but directing the raid team wasn't working with the conflicting shouts coming from Heathcliff. Klein was using the same information and conveying it in a way he understood, but Heathcliff was conveying in the way Kirito usually directed the raid team.

Rushing from both sides, being brushed off easily by the giant orc, only Heathcliff and Agil from the melee team didn't get thrown a long distance away. The ranged fighters still continued loosing their arrows. Sachi, Sinon and the addition of Silica made their long distance team extremely powerful in big raid battles. They didn't need to worry about the melee patterns for avoiding mechanics, and they already knew Kirito's information even better than Klein or Heathcliff could convey it.

The orc roared as it's hit points reached enrage, it stomped, getting into a stance to use a massive swing with it's giant hammer, and began spinning. The horrifying tempest of the orc's movement threw anyone in melee range far away and rebounded the arrows fired at it. The orc's health didn't drop anymore.

Heathcliff tried over and over to get the boss monster to spin over to him so he could stop the spinning with his great shield and perfect blocking, but it seemed he needed someone to knock the boss into him.

"Agil san, can you get on the other side of the boss, use this ram with a few people and bash it toward me? I'm going to block it with my perfect blocking so we can stop it's enrage long enough to finish it off."

Heathcliff summoned a large item out of his personal inventory and shoved it to Agil. The heavy, massive object which was literally meant for fortress siege on a cart was rolled to the other side of the boss monster from Heathcliff, and Agil as well as every other melee in the viscinity put all their strength into slamming the battering ram into the orc's tempest. Spinning out of control from the balance being thrown off, Heathcliff activated his perfect blocking skill along with a shield bash, stunning the boss monster out of its tempest.

The halt of the enrage was the signal and everyone put their all into executing the last of the boss's hit points. When the victory tune played through the room, everyone crumpled to the ground.

"That...was exhausting."

Forty eight minutes. That was how long the fight took. Kirito's estimate of a thirty minute fight for them turned into forty eight minutes because of the messy raid leading. Nobody died, but at the cost of bad raid leading, people needed to be healed more, and damage output was decreased immensely.

"Let's deal with all the items and move out. I need a rest after that..."

Klein was exhausted and still in the leading mindset. Heathcliff was standing there as if he hadn't been fighting at all. A stoic knight who stood strong even through a harsh battle.

Klein went through the loot table and began organizing it how Kirito had taught him, talking with the guild leaders present. It took about five minutes to sort it all out, and everyone left the boss room through the staircase as per usual. Yui was the first to port into the plaza when the teleport plaza was activated, and she hugged Asuna's legs.

"Was so worried. Scary fight..."

Yui's voice expressed that she was exhausted from the mental turmoil of only being able to watch their fight. Kirito was probably still asleep. She wasn't getting the attention she desired from him, so she was roaming a little more since he was claimed by sleep. She was gravitating most to Asuna since as far as Yui was concerned, Asuna was the most present member of the party in concern of Kirito. Leafa and Sinon just expressed that he needed the sleep, and went on to continue their work on improving themselves and providing for the guild. Sachi was worried, but she distanced herself out of anxiety approaching her feelings. Silica and Lisbeth were working with Agil to keep their guild store running smoothly, so while they were worried about Kirito, they knew he would want them to keep going and not worry about him.

"It's okay Yui, we're fine."

Yui looked up to look into Asuna's eyes and she puffed her cheeks in a big pout.

"Mama passed out watching!"

Asuna immediately ported to the house with Yui while the rest of their group stared at where they were standing before porting off. Asuna pulled Yui up into her arms as she sprinted through the house to Kirito's room. As she arrived into the room, she saw a frightening appearance for Kirito. He was contorted in pain, gripping at his chest with one hand while his other was covering his eyes. The silence from his agape mouth that gave a screaming impression made the appearance the most frightening.

"Are you okay?!"

Asuna's fear was that Kirito was just short of fading out with the death animation of his avatar shattering. She observed his status, and he was at full hit points, but he was suffering three debuffs. All of them were new to her eyes. One of them was labeled [Anxiety], one was [Terror], and the last was [Nightmare]. He was asleep, but anxiety and terror were wreaking havoc on him through his nightmare.

Asuna was shocked for a couple of seconds, but a tug from Yui on her hair pulled her out of the shock, rushing through her inventory of potions until she found a panacea Kirito had only recently managed to create. An ailment cure all type of potion. She was the designated battle healer, throwing the potions on their guild during battle, so she held most of the potions the guild had.

After she used the panacea on him, he was given a buff [Recovery]. He was going to recover over time. The panacea wasn't an instant effect potion. Asuna sat down on the bed next to Kirito, moving his body around so he was in a more comfortable position. When he was in a good recovering position, he combed her fingers through his hair and cried.

Asuna imagined losing him right then. Her heart hurt and the shock remained with her. Tears continued streaming down her face, and the urge to hug him, to hold him to reaffirm to herself that he was still alive resonated through her. She held back, but resisting hurt her.

Yui hugged his arm on the other side from Asuna, thanking Asuna for saving Kirito.

The first ailement to go was terror. Soon after, the nightmare went.

Asuna wondered why anxiety was an ailment in the system. Everyone would experience anxiety being stuck inside of Aincrad at the beginning, but she had never seen the status before. She wondered if it was a result of having too much of the feeling or sensation which developed the ailment. Terror wasn't totally new to her. She hadn't seen it before, but had heard of it. She hadn't seen the nightmare status either. It worried her that there might be a boss within the game that would make use of any of the statuses.

Finally the nightmare debuff was replaced by a sleeping debuff and soon after, Kirito woke up as the sleeping debuff faded and the buff from the panacea's recovery ran out.

"Nnn..."

The groan from Kirito made Asuna more alert, just in case he had other afflictions that weren't obvious and therefore not cured by the panacea.

"S...sorry for worrying to Yui. Asuna...you're here."

The sleep in his eyes and voice made it clear he was still recovering.

"I am here, Kirito."

Yui only hugged his arm tighter, while Asuna grabbed his other hand with both of hers and she gripped it to assure him she was with him.

"What...happened?"

Kirito's worry in his voice made the tears fall back down her face. Asuna looked away from him, gripping his hand a little tighter to remind him she was there in spite of looking away. She didn't want him to worry about her.

"According to Yui, you passed out during out battle, so after we defeated the boss, I hurried here with her when she let me know. I remembered the panacea potions you gave to me not long ago and gave you one. You were suffering three status ailments which were hurting you without damaging your hit points. [Anxiety], [Terror], and [Nightmare]..."

Asuna's voice trailed off as she finished explaining, remembering that only minutes ago, seeing how he was suffering had put her into a state of imagining him dying, and how that effected her so deeply that she couldn't help but cry.

"I'm...sorry I worried you..."

Kirito's voice being so slow and weak worried Asuna. Why was he taking so long to recover? She checked over his status repeatedly, worried that there was something she wasn't seeing.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position and what made him talk slowly seemed to vanish when he began talking again. He had to struggle into the sitting position but when he made it there, he seemed relieved.

"I'm truly sorry for worrying you, Asuna. I was having a nightmare about losing all of you, about a potential alternate timeline where, right now, Sachi and her classmates would have died to a trap on this floor. The nightmare of losing her and her classmates to a trap room in the floor 40 dungeon has been happening for the last week, and it only got worse and more brutal this last time...after seeing everyone struggle in that boss fight, I fainted. I think my mind ran every horrible situation I could imagine through my head because I witnessed at least ten different ways the boss managed to wipe everyone out, and it was terrifying to me that I could only spectate, not be there and not do something about it. I was so worried I was about to lose everyone, so scared..."

Asuna tightened her grip on his hand again, her grip having loosened.

"I'm here, we're all safe. Thankfully, Heathcliff san managed to coordinate everyone through the enrage. Everyone made it through alive."

Asuna looked him in the eyes, and her puffy red appearance from her crying showed her vulnerable side to him. She hadn't really shown herself as vulnerable to him, and she couldn't hold herself back anymore. She wanted to assure him in every way possible that everything went okay without him. But it wasn't. Leadership was a mess, trust wasn't there for the competent leader, and everyone nearly died to the enrage. If not for Heathcliff taking charge, everyone could have died there.

"From now on, we're not going to fight a big battle without you."

Kirito gripped Asuna's hand back finally and nodded with a gentle expression on his face.

"There is something that has been running through my head in these dreams of late. Seeing some alternate timeline version of myself, that version of me being stubborn, dense, anti social...so many things that I've been enjoying not being, alongside everyone. Even the boring male clothing was uncomfortable to me. It makes me realize more and more that I'm happy with where life has led me. Right now, I'm happy. I have everyone with me, we're working together, not nearly as many people have been lost, we're moving so fast through Aincrad. There's so many positives here, and the biggest one personally is that I feel so free, so able to be myself here. Even though I'm hiding who I am outside of the game from people outside of our friend group, I'm honestly happy presenting as female. I'm happy being feminine, female even. I'm still not one hundred percent sure I'd be willing to change my real body to fit how I am here. Maybe I should try out wearing male clothes, tying my hair in a way that it feels short. Maybe doing those things for a while to figure out if that will change my perception here is the next thing I need to do in finding myself."

Asuna felt relieved to hear him pour his heart out to her. He had told her not long ago about how he felt about their guild members, but she didn't know about the dreams, about those feelings of his. She didn't mind at all the idea that who she was in love with, was identifying as the opposite gender they were born to. She only knew a female Kirito. Not the boy outside. She couldn't imagine liking the boy that he described he could have been in an alternate timeline. Maybe she would, because underneath it all he was still the same person.

Kirito hugged Asuna with one arm, and scrolled through his inventory with his other hand. After a minute, Asuna noticed that he was wearing different clothes. Instead of his silky long hair and pajamas, he was wearing a short hair wig, the hair not as short as short could be, but a boyish cut, messy. His clothes were changed to a thin black jacket, with a black undershirt and black pants. The appearance was fairly armored, so it was likely his alternate battle attire. From the dreams he talked about. Asuna's heart throbbed a little at the gap in what she was used to and the appearance in front of her. The female qualities of his avatar made it obvious that he wasn't male. He wasn't very womanly endowed to make it too obvious he was female inside of Aincrad, and he could use a binder item to pass as male. He was a cute boy. His natural appeals in the masculine attire and short hairstyle threw her off. She was still very much attracted to the person in front of her.

"You can come in too."

Asuna hadn't noticed, but the rest of the guild had been there a while, listening in on the conversation.

"I already get Asuna's impression, but what does everyone else think of this appearance? Does it suit me better or worse than my usual appearance?"

A resounding reply came from all but Sinon, with Sinon walking in close while everyone else gave their response.

"Usual appearance is better."

Sinon's whisper close to him so only the two of them could hear made him blush.

"Both are good but this...is more attractive to me."

Sinon backed off after revealing how she felt about the appearance. Kirito swapped his attire to some casual house clothes he was more used to, and sat at the edge of the bed.

"I'm sorry about making everyone worry."

Kirito bowed forward until Asuna pulled him back up.

"No worries Kirito. Today's battle was rough, but that just means we have to get better. We can't always rely on you. It made things very clear for us that we all have things we need to work on."

Agil's words made Kirito smile.

"Right! I should take this opportunity to learn how to lead for when you're unable to."

That comment from Lisbeth was unexpected, but for some reason it suited her. She was looking more and more knightly in her attire for combat, like a Valkyrie of legends. With her heavy hammer weapon and light buckler shield, the light plate armour gave her a commanding presence. Everyone knew Kirito being so lightly armoured was more for speed purposes, but he didn't look the leader part. He always had an appearance like he was slightly nervous and just doing his part so everyone could make it out of Aincrad alive. Kirito didn't exude the leadership appearance, but his was very imposing,. Knowing his ability was incredibly important. Everyone knew the staple appearance traits his equipment had, the colours, and the type of light armour. His primary weapon type being a one handed sword without a shield, it was rare. That alone was able to clue people in on who he was and that was enough to grant him the imposing atmosphere.

"I will look forward to working with you on the leadership skill then, Lisbeth. As much as Klein put in the effort, he's obviously not the leader type. Handling his guild is fine, but a group of dozens is not in his range."

Leafa pulled Kirito's hands to get him to his feet.

"Let's go eat something. I'm sure you need some food after everything. I'll cook with Asuna today and we can have something really yummy for lunch."

Leafa took Asuna by the hand and Asuna unwillingly followed. Everyone made their way into the main living area, and Leafa plopped Kirito onto the sofa while dragging Asuna along to the kitchen. She had Asuna fill her in on ingredient knowledge and what they were able to make on hand. Eventually, a beautiful sushi dish with a bunch of small side dishes in form of soups and seasoning were served. The atmosphere lightened significantly, and as everyone finished their meals, someone unexpected fainted in their seat. Sachi.