Fire raged and laid an entire forest of America to ash. Ela walked through it menacingly after the escaping conductor of the mission which put Kazu into Underworld out of schedule. Her life was being forcefully extended in that environment. Time was passing faster in reality, so she needed to save her. She couldn't until she found the person who captured her. She didn't have the lead she needed. So she went to the one point that was most viable. The minister of defense of the United States of America. He was laughing it up in his mansion when she arrived, and it took less than a minute for her to get him to admit his part in disrupting her project. He claimed her a madwoman and a liar, a devil who was destroying the world instead of saving it. So she surrounded him in his version of hell. An endless inferno which scorched the senses and robbed sanity. She was honestly enjoying his stumbling around, trying to avoid her.

His guard he had stationed to support him abandoned him immediately. They saw reason in her, while seeing insanity and the beliefs of a flawed religion dictating their defense minister's actions. He paid a covert operations team to infiltrate Japan long before Ela was working in Japan, intending to take over the VR advancement. When he learned of her plans to bring humanity together and that she was speaking of being related to the lord and savior of their religion, that he was a monster who did terrible things he ordered his people to capture the weakest link. That the book they followed so fervently was full of lies and propaganda. She knew her words were true, but of course the religion was too strongly tied to the country's leadership. Thankfully the current president himself wasn't involved in the foolishness, but the next person with power was a fool.

A tree collapsed just in front of the defense minister and he shrieked in terror, finding all paths besides Ela's barred. He coughed violently, smoke filling his lungs and the air thin from the fire surrounding them.

"Are you ready to surrender? I would spare your life if you give up now. It doesn't mean your life going forward will be easy, but it would certainly be better than being dead."

"Never! I will never surrender to a devil like you!"

She sighed.

"Then it's your funeral. You even get free cremation now. I'm not getting out of the way so you might as well jump into the fire and make it quick."

He hesitated. His faith was weaker than his will to live. He looked from the fire, burning his eyes to Ela and part of him screamed to surrender. He fell to his knees, not having the strength to jump into the fire.

"It seems your faith lost to your will to live. You will talk, whether you want to or not. I need the location of those who abducted my student."

With the end of those words, a heavy rain crashed down over the entire forest, easily wiping out the fire. With the fire gone, the forest didn't seem such a hellish place. The defense minister sighed in relief. He wasn't through the current ordeal yet though.

"I could very well be the deity your religion desires. Not the intolerant monster created over the passage of time in your book, but the one who loves and cares for all who live in the world. I don't have those lofty commandments either, just a few easy to follow rules. My young fool of a brother was a monster, but he grew up a human just like you. He was flawed from the beginning. As soon as he learned that our mother was able to use magic, he sneaked away at every chance he had and he played tricks on people with it. It grew more elaborate over time. He's the least talented out of all descendants. I'm the eldest child of the family, and the strongest of her progeny. He had some good thoughts put into his head by our mother, but in the end he took out his frustrations at their meager lifestyle, that they weren't living like kings, on our mother. It's unforgivable. He has been suffering ever since. I could show you a glimpse of what torture his soul has been put through all that time, but I'm sure you've had enough anguish today. I'm forgiving, but you'll need to do something which earns forgiveness. Tell me now where your team has taken my student."

Ela looked like a being with both angelic features and demonic at that moment to him. She was her usual self, albeit dampened by her heavy rain. He kowtowed to her.

"Please just spare me...give me something to believe in...if my religion is a lie, if my lord and savior wouldn't save me just now, then you are the only I can put my faith in. Please deliver this world from its current disastrous state!"

She nodded.

"That was my intent from the start. You should have agreed sooner. I'll have to give this forest some energy to recover after this run around you gave me. Now."

He firmly planted his head against the ground and responded regarding Kazu's location.

"Your student was taken to the location where mister Kayaba dove into the death game."

The next moment, he felt warmth and a cool breeze. He looked up and he was in an unfamiliar room with other people. He was moved to a migration building just inside of the ground layer of the Ygg city which replaced Yellowstone mountain. He balked, but everyone else present stared in confusion.

"Wh-what?!"

"I figure you might as well helm a project more fitting of your position. Work here with your people in getting people situated within the barrier of the Ygg. People need protection and defense, so lead it as your job title indicates. Not from a mansion far from the Ygg itself."

With that, she disappeared into a portal and the portal instantly disappeared. She stood in front of the cottage mentioned by the defense minister. There were three American military trucks stationed outside. At least she wasn't told a complete lie in that there was someone there from first observation. She reached her sense of life into the building and found six adult males in the cottage surrounding Kazu who was in a stolen medicuboid. She pulled together energy around the men, opened the door and froze the men in place before they could so much as blink.

She looked over Kazu's condition within the machine and sighed.

"You morons were too rough with her. If she dies from your abduction, you're getting eternal level punishment. Just to make sure you realize this isn't over..."

She reached into their AR devices, which were obviously needed for such a high stakes job, and she force logged them into the punishment server where the Russian president and his assassins were. The bodies went limp as they fell asleep, and Ela created a portal over Kazu's current entrapment and the portal consumed it. She stepped through following it and they arrived at Rath headquarters.

"Higa, call the team together. I need to get Kazu into the medicuboid right now. She's already logged in there, so there'll be a momentary disconnect. Tell me how much time passed in Underworld and her current state before I move her out of the current machine."

"Yes, ma'am!"

He typed furiously and clicked the fastest he ever had before. While he did, Ela looked over Kazu with dread. Kazu was beat to the point she couldn't imagine Kazu being able to wake at all. The body itself was barely hanging on to life. Her hands and fingers were crushed, bone splinters jutting out. Her legs were in the same state, and she had several broken ribs. It was a wonder her body was alive at all. The bruises and cuts on her face were horrifying.

"I should have never left you alone..."

Ela began working energy into Kazu gently, slowly. So to not give too sudden a jolt to the brain and make things malfunction. At least for the time being, she fixed the bones and healed the damage to the muscles, got rid of the bruises. There was a lot of internal damage which needed more time.

"She just got into bed. A few hours have passed on that end. Time was passing in there at twice normal time, so not too much happened. But...there has been a lot of compromise."

The rest of the team were filing in.

"Log Kazu out, I'm getting her into the other medicuboid immediately. Her body needs it to help her from this point forward. My accuracy with healing magic isn't refined enough at this point to heal brain and heart injury of that scale..."

Higa blinked, tears rolling down his face. Asuna sprinted over to see Kazu as Ela lifted her out with the invisible touch of air, and she cried as she saw Kazu's unconscious body move in such an agonized expression.

Ela was trying to push out of her mind one particularly difficult to accept part of the current situation. Kazu wasn't just beat up. She was assaulted as a woman. In her unconscious. A fury burned in Ela that would never be quenched. She hoped at least, that Kazu was able to completely go without knowing what happened to her body while surrounded by her confusing situation in Underworld. She intended to make Kazu's body fully forget what was done to it.

Ela's face was drenched with tears as she secured a now naked Kazu in the medicuboid. She got the machine going, and as the machine filled with fluid, Ela focused on the new female anatomy Kazu had.

"Please look away for the next minute, Asuna. You won't want to see what was done to her..."

Asuna shook her head.

"It doesn't matter what I want to see or not! I love her and I need to know she's okay! She was abducted and had who knows what done to her...please tell me you gave some sort of vengeance to the people who hurt her..."

Ela nodded.

"I've logged them into the same virtual prison as the Russian president. They'll get a good dose of torture in there while we heal Kazu up. Please though. Look away. For your own good, and for Kazu's. Knowing what exactly happened to Kazu would plague your mind for a lot of the future going forward, and if Kazu doesn't know what happened to her body, then neither should you. You'll forever see her in a way that she would feel slighted by, because her mind didn't experience it."

Asuna scrunched her face, closing her eyes tightly, and she turned away with great effort.

Ela took Asuna's turning away as an opening to push out the objects and fluid which were put into Kazu's lower body. It wasn't just her new anatomy. Ela was on the verge of being sick, but seeing the objects and cloudy fluid dissolve to nothing in the medicuboid's fluids gave her a small peace of mind.

"Now you can look. Hopefully our effort in producing the best of the medicuboid will save her now. All her effort could save her."

Asuna turned back and stared at Kazu's face. The agony was gone, replaced by an innocent, sleeping expression. She sighed in relief and just continued to stare for a moment, but she couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm not looking for permission anymore. Log me in there and let me help her. I can't just keep going without her for such long periods of time."

Ela nodded.

"I understand. I have someone prepared who will be going in with you. He'll keep you on track so you don't give away too much information about the outside world. You're going as yourself. While there are god accounts for Underworld, I can't afford to send them in until an absolute emergency comes about. The emergency time has passed for now, so we'll need to wait for another."

Asuna nodded in understanding. She wore a confused expression however.

"Who is this prepared person you mentioned."

"Just a childhood friend who has been working for Ela-san since you all were trapped in Sword Art Online."

Shiro's appearance was most unexpected to Asuna. She hadn't seen him since the first weeks out of Aincrad. She stood up and hugged him.

"It's been so long, it feels like. How are you?"

He smiled wide.

"I'm doing okay. Extremely sore from trying to keep up with miss infinite talent in the machine behind you. I'm good aside from the aches and pain though, thank you for asking. It's time to get in there and lend her some help, let her know what things are going to be like going forward."

Asuna nodded.

"I'm just so glad it's you who's helping, for several reasons. You really helped back then, so I'll be relying on you going forward."

Ela made a sound as if to clear her throat, which didn't need it.

"Did you remember to bring the machines with you from the production factory?"

Shiro sighed.

"Of course I did. Where do you want me to set them up?"

Ela and him each took one and she pointed where Shiro was to set up the other while she set up one alongside the one Kazu occupied. It took a minute for them to be ready, and Ela locked the room for them to go in. She had Shiro dive in first, freezing Underworld's time before sending him in, so that Asuna didn't need to show her bare self in front of him.

"Thank you for letting me go in this time."

"No, I'm sorry for not protecting her better. This is my fault..."

Asuna shook her head, climbed onto the medicuboid's surface and as she dove, Ela rubbed away the last of the tears. She was resolved to ensure they were in their last dive for Underworld. All at once, they would resolve everything.

Asuna blinked her eyes when she found herself not surrounded by the strangely comforting fluid of the medicuboid. The warm, dry air around her was a stark contrast to her previous state. She heard the sound of footsteps close by, and pushed herself to her feet to see Shiro standing tall nearby, stretching.

"Before we go into Rulid, we're going to need to go over our cover stories. First I'll tell you mine and you can go off of mine as some linking cover. I'm a dragon tamer from the dark lands who specifically worked in forging saddles and equipment for the dragons and riders. I use heat based magic and am well versed in dragon riding as well, but lacked the balance to continue forward. I've come to the Dark and Light Academy to learn from the best teachers in how to improve my balance, and to become a more well rounded individual overall. We can use our real names if we're both from the dragon tamer tribe since both our names fit their naming culture."

Asuna blinked in surprise. She was stunned at how quickly and concisely he explained his cover for her to understand. She imagined he was well prepared ahead of time for the emergency of going in to help Kazu if the need arose. He probably knew as much about the on-goings of Underworld as Ela.

"Then...could I be a dragon? Change my shape and such?"

He shook his head.

"If you had a lot of time to hone your ability with magic like Kazu-chan and myself, then that would be possible, but you'd not be able to change into a convincing dragon as you are now."

She shrugged, she wanted to at least give it a shot.

"Then I'll be the fencing expert of our people, and I've come alongside you, a friend, because I heard the cooking classes at the academy were unrivaled and the most generous in the world. I'll go by my real name. Oh, do we use family names here? Or just given names?"

"Just given. Let's go."

Asuna was surprised by how much preparation she was given. Either Shiro was confident in his ability to cover for her if she made any mistakes, or he trusted her a little more than he should that she was adept at adapting to such situations as they would encounter.

It didn't take long before Shiro turned to Asuna and stopped.

"We should be in Rulid already. We should have been dropped only a hundred meters or so away from Rulid, but from the amount of distance we've made and how long we've been going, we're not making it closer fast enough to get there within the next few hours. I'm almost tempted to log back out, but unfortunately logging out is from the outside to prevent world corruption."

Asuna nodded in understanding.

"So we're walking for a few hours. It's not going to make that much of a difference if they make this world move faster as far as their perception. I'd like our time not to be wasted but do you think they would log us out."

He shook his head.

"Ela's testing my adaptability. I'm changing my story. I'm a half dragon who shifts between human and dragon, and I fled because of abuse from the elder dragons of the tribe for being a little weaker. You can keep your story the same."

Asuna nodded, she understood.

Shiro took a deep breath, got down on all fours and covered himself in ambient energy. He only went so far as a solid illusion. He wasn't quite good enough to morph his body into that of a dragon. Instead, it was like controlling a robot.

"This will be faster for getting there. Get on the back."

Asuna looked at Shiro with a strange expression.

"Is riding on your back really the only option? You couldn't use magic to do something else?"

Shiro realized right away that she was uncomfortable because of the implication of riding on his back directly.

"Don't worry, I'm not the full body. Think of it like I'm riding a mech and you're on the back of it. If you really don't like it, I could cut down a tree and make a cart and pull it while using wind magic to push us forward. But changing our story to being mages could end up bad since they don't have any mage tribe occupants of the school yet and we shouldn't set the precedent."

Asuna sighed.

"I'd rather take a risk with being roaming sorcerers who were exiled for not approving of the return of Vector than ride on your magic's back."

Shiro sighed.

"That was Ela's suggestion, but I wanted to be from the dragon tamer tribe to have an excuse being related to dragons. Thankfully nobody nearby would have seen my magic. I always run into her being right, even when she's not there to witness her being right about something. Whether it be this or anything else when she was teaching me for work."

He reverted to his normal appearance and jogged off of the road to a nearby cluster of trees. He straightened his fingers, aligning them with his arm turning them into the image of a blade. He bent forward slashing his magicked blade extending from his fingertips down at the base of the tree. The tree slid down slowly and before it crashed on the ground, Shiro got underneath it, measuring how to catch it without injury and without it crashing against the ground.

Shiro had grown immensely under the near impossibly strict tutelage of Ela. He was essentially super human when it came to physical situations. He wasn't anywhere near as talented with magic, struggling with anything more than illusions. He could do basic enhancement magic so to increase speed and strength at which he did physical work, and he could use the bare acceptable minimum as far as the elements. He made use of what he was able to do, and made a basic cart out of the tree he felled, turning the leaves into a fine fibre with wind magic slicing it up thinly before weaving it together into a canvas to cover the wood and protect Asuna's bottom from the potential of splinters. There were no wheels. He would use wind propelling magic to keep the cart up off of the ground and he would use wind magic to decrease how much he had to run.

He lifted the cart with the wind magic and motioned for her to get on.

"No. Teach me how to use wind magic."

Shiro wanted to scream. He dropped the cart he built and walked over it to her, focusing on the space above his open hand. He swirled the air above his hand with his mind and turned it into an orb of whipping lashing wind, focusing it until it was a perfect orb without any wind lashing out.

"Start small, like how you saw the wind generating over my hand, and then give it physical form. How you manipulate and shape an element is the greatest key in using magic. Outside in real life this will all hold weight as well around the Ygg. This goes for all elements. Imagine an element at its smallest, move it about and give it form. Imbue your understanding of what it really is into it, and you could make fire hotter, you could make water thick as molasses, you could make air deprived of certain elements to make it toxic to breathe. You could gather elements together and make stronger metal out of less and less mineral. It's easy to understand, but my ability to imagine the growth slow and steadily, to fill in all the details, is weak. So I end up with weak magic. My wind magic is the strongest of my magic, because of what happened between me, Kazu and onee-chan. The turbulent storm which took them away in the taxi after Kazu's parents passed away. The intensity of the experiences back then and since being like a storm. It carried me to now."

Asuna nodded and closed her eyes for a second to pull her thoughts together, to open her mind to focusing on what she would. She lifted Shiro off of the cart, set him aside, and then used the wind she held with her imagination to shape a more compact carriage, smaller. It again had no wheels, but it had a more comfortable shape. She set it on the ground, the simple and elegantly redesigned egg shaped carriage. She stepped in and beckoned Shiro in. He sat down across from her in the tiny carriage, she lifted it up and moved them forward toward the massive white and black school Kirim built. She kept them over the road, watching out the side of the carriage to ensure they were still over it as they progressed toward Rulid. They were moving fast. Faster than even a sprinting horse, she found as they passed a sprinting horse carrying a single person on its back. She slowed down to match the pace of the horse and looked to the rider.

"By chance would you like some help?"

Shiro was still in disbelief that Asuna was learning and putting into practice what he taught her so quickly he could never keep pace. She might not match him in physical combat, but she excelled easily in magic. Even his strongest element didn't come close to her first real use of magic.

"Wha-never mind! I'm on urgent business to inform the principal of the Light and Dark Academy that the knight training tournament was voted to be in Rulid this year."

Asuna nodded.

"There's enough room in here for you to hitch a ride. Or I could give your horse a small wind current to float on at our pace."

"Wind for my horse, please!"

Asuna gently stopped the horse's running, surrounding its legs in a calm wind. She lifted and carried them at the same pace and sped up to her previous pace, perhaps even increasing further. What was originally a few hours on foot, turned into several minutes as they reached the farmland around Rulid. There were some familiar faces from the visuals Ela provided of Kirim's experiences. She continued past along the road to the split and stopped them at the stone ground which signified the boundary of the school. She stopped them just short of the door.

"Many thanks! I'm Lu of Enri village between Rulid and Centoria where the annual swordsmanship tournament is usually held. If you ever need something of a knight, come find me and I'll do what I can to repay you for the help you granted me this day."

After dismounting his horse, he rushed through the doors and Asuna shook her head.

"He's a little too eager...Besides, we were on our way here regardless. You've been quiet since I started using magic. Are you alright?"

Shiro shrugged.

"I guess I just feel like my pride was shattered again. I tried so hard to improve my ability with magic, but I suppose the talented like you just easily overcome my effort as easily as breathing. Let's go. We're going with your back story for us. I'm your assistant who is more physically adept while you're a sorceress who was exiled from the dark lands due to not agreeing with Vector."

She nodded and got out of the carriage and when Shiro was also out, she collapsed the carriage in on itself, turning it into a robe of wood fiber. Shiro stared at her intensely.

"What's with your ability with magic? Have you also been training?"

"Of course."

She pushed the doors open gently with her wind magic and walked through. She saw a familiar face near a familiar mural. Kazu stood there, but the eye colour and ears didn't match. It wasn't Kirim either. Kirii was there at the mural. She pushed recognition from her mind and stopped just short of him.

"Hello, visitors. For what reason have you come to this academy?"

Shiro didn't get a chance to begin his explanation.

"I come from the dark lands. I'm a sorceress who would like to learn more from the best there is. I was of the dark mage tribe, but I didn't agree with Vector's ideals, so was exiled. This man with me is a friend who was originally from the dragon tamer tribe. He's skilled in physical combat but lacks ability in magic, so he covers my weakness. It would be excellent if we could study under your best instructors according to our strengths."

Kirii smiled, nodding.

"Then your teachers would be Kirim and Eugeo. Kirim is our expert in magic, and Eugeo our expert in physical combat. I would be the teacher for physical combat, but I've been tasked with administrative duties instead, ensuring people get where they're supposed to go. Another part of my job is to ensure principal Kirim's spell for sacred task distribution gets out to all new students and the shackles of law. She named them the shackles of law because they are used to determine a person's ability to follow her basic rules. As long as a person is decent, they won't invoke a single rune. I hope you will be among the few who don't invoke any runes."

Asuna nodded in understanding.

"I understand, so it's time for us to receive a sacred task and the shackles of law?"

Kirii shook his head.

"Not quite. Before that, one thing remains. You must tell me your names to commit you to the registry."

Asuna smiled, realizing she hadn't completed her introduction properly. It was a mistake she was embarrassed by. With the slight blush, she nodded.

"My name is Asuna."

"Mine is Shiro."

Kirii nodded.

"Definitely dark lander names."

That was it, he beckoned them closer with a hand gesture. When they were within reach of touch, he put up a hand to gesture them stopping. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and moved the sacred task magic from the mural to Asuna and Shiro. He followed it up immediately with giving them the shackles.

"Now you have the sacred task of student. As executive admin of this school, I will now test both of you for your abilities in physical and magical combat. Follow me. Eru, standby and let me know if we have further visitors."

Asuna was curious about the tournament representative they encountered on their way to the school, but she was more curious about the test which seemed to be a new ritual of the school she hadn't seen from outside. She was also barely aware of the rules for the runes on the shackles, but she figured she was fine on knowing the rules or not.

"Here we are. In this floor we can use our full strength and still never damage the school itself. I do advise against trying to seriously injure your opponents though, because that's against the rules."

Asuna nodded in understanding. Shiro stepped up first, ready to prove his extensive physical training worth the time he put into it.

"Do you need a weapon, or are you a fist fighter like the pugilists of the dark lands?"

Kirii's question earned a shrug from Shiro.

"Either way is fine, I trained in every imaginable weapon type back home since I wasn't talented enough with magic to become a dragon rider. I don't carry a weapon with me because I use what ability I have with magic to create weapons for myself."

Kirii smiled.

"Very interesting! I certainly hope your weapons aren't shoddy from the lack in magic ability. Throw everything you have at me. While I advise against going all out against other students, I have confidence most dark landers can't keep up with me or Kirim anymore."

Shiro felt the taunt hard, and fell for it. He dashed in so swiftly, there sounded to be a boom when he took off. He moved his left arm in an arc and a scimitar was in his hand just as his reach was close enough to touch Kirii. Shiro was afraid of hurting someone who looked like Kazu, but it wasn't so bad that his sense of rivalry with her wasn't gone. Winning against her someday was a goal of his for a while. For the time being, Kirii was a stepping stone there.

Kirii easily stepped just out of reach of the slash and copied the generated scimitar, slashing it through the middle before taking a dance-like stance. He took a deep breath and waited for Shiro to continue so he could adapt with his combative dance.

Words didn't need to be exchanged. Weapon after weapon was generated and broken, Kirii easily beating every single one. By the end, Shiro was exhausted, but able to get a single hit on Kirii. It was a punch, rather than a slash. Kirii didn't even budge from the contact, but it was strong enough that any regular person would have been sent hurtling into the far off wall behind him.

"You are skilled as a warrior indeed, but you have much you can still learn. Eugeo will have fun teaching you. He doesn't get many students as skilled as you at using multiple weapons. You will need to hone your ability to create weapons however, because they are too fragile. If your weapon breaks, you're defenseless for enough time your opponent could finish you off in a serious battle. You are exceptional beyond belief however so don't take this badly. You're simply up against someone who has trained with a person beyond human ability and you are human. For a human, you are near the pinnacle. Learning to dance with your weapons better would also aid your ability. I will inform Eugeo of your strengths and weaknesses as such he could provide you the lessons best suited to you."

Shiro fell to his knees and nodded. If the punch he landed on Kirii was returned at the same crushing strength he used to crush every attempt he made to beat Kirii in the fight, he might be dying from the impact alone. Kirii was terrifying. Fighting someone who had inhuman strength as someone with human strength was daunting already, but Kirii's skill was basically a cheat. In such time as he had, Kirii still had the humility to admit not being equal to Kirim, meaning that Kirim was still stronger, and Kazu was perhaps even stronger than both.

He couldn't help but feel like he would never catch up to Kazu.

"Your turn now, miss Asuna. Same as with Shiro I will test and match whatever magic you use."

Asuna felt thrilled. After seeing the adept fighting Kirii displayed only reminded her of Kazu more and more. That was exactly like the person she knew and loved, but the person in front of her was essentially one of Kazu's children in a sense, since he was the product of a single parent, the first iteration of Kazu manifesting in Underworld.

"Okay, here it goes."

Asuna said those words, and she conjured a storm of fire overhead, massive fireballs all blasting toward Kirii. Kirii balked and captured the fire barely in time to not suffer a single hit. The heat filling the room was stifling. She followed up with a flurry of different elements. She didn't want to hurt Kirii so badly, she aimed only to glance him, to hit him with the soft of whatever she threw at him. Eventually, everything got through and Kirii's uniform was in tatters. She stopped and ran over to him, restoring his clothes to their previous condition. Through the tattered clothes however, she saw that a feminine trait was developing. The chest was growing femininely at least for the time being.

"I'm sorry for taking this so seriously with you. You're really good at taunting."

Kirii shook his head.

"N-no! Don't be sorry! I didn't think anyone would be so talented with magic and coming here to learn more. Only one could teach you further here though, so hopefully you aren't disappointed in our school."

Asuna shook her head.

"Don't worry about if the school is enough for me or not. I needed a place to stay after wandering the dark lands as long as I did. Whether I can learn more here or not isn't important to me. I don't mind even becoming a teacher in the long run. I do want to meet someone stronger than me though, so hopefully my teacher can humble me."

Asuna spoke in a joking tone after saying that Kirii didn't need to worry, but he was convinced the joke was serious. She was serious about wanting to find someone stronger than her.

"You are young to have such skill though...is your magic teacher much older than you?"

Kirii shook his head.

"No, Kirim is only a year older than me so it's not significant. We are young as blood elves yes, but it feels as if Kirim has blessed us with centuries of skill and knowledge in the short time we've been together."

Asuna smiled.

"Then I can only benefit here. Thank you for letting me become a student here. Oh, and do let me know the rules, so I don't assume what's decent here. Every place can be different with what is decent."

She smiled an innocent smile. Kirii sighed. He didn't know how to feel about Asuna. She was a complete unknown to him. He hoped she truly meant well. Shortly after the initiation, Asuna and Shiro realized their testing was witnessed directly by Kazu and Koeru.