So, I wanted to make this a 'Real World' chapter but I just got to this point in the Progressive novel and it's rather Argo centric, and I like Argo, so still in Aincrad at this point. Next chapter will be Kou's shenanigans, Midori and Suguha's reactions and Sugou having a rather nasty revelation made public, should be fun.

"So many stairs, why are their so many god damned stairs in this game!?" Kirito whined lightly earning an amused snort from her partner who for her part gently smacked the younger girl on the back of the head. Ignoring the irritated 'Oy!' earned for said action Asuna rolled her eyes slowly as she continued to climb the spiraling staircase.

"Weren't we both mocking the boys for their lack of stamina only a couple hours ago? You don't strike me as a hypocrite, well unless you're wearing one of your masks that is...would that even count since you were only playing a part? Huh."

Kirito muttered under her breath about tsunderes and mood swings before replying, "That was different! I nearly got freaking Aerith'ed on top of bringing my A-game out on that fight! I'm allowed to be tired! The guys were just worn out because they enjoyed one too many Cheetos and Mountain Dew breaks in the real world!"

Asuna took in Kirito's contritely pouting visage a moment before giving in to the cuteness as she reached over and patted the top of her head, "Now now none of that. You did great back there and I'm only teasing you," at this her voice dropped its sympathetic lilt switching quickly to one of excitement. "So! What can you tell me about this the second floor?"

Kirito eyed her for a moment before huffing out a mumbled 'tsunderes' then quickly gave her explanation, "Unlike the first floor which had varied terrain the second floor is open plains and mesas. Primary city is Urbus, it's located on top of a mesa actually so hope you aren't afraid of heights.

"It has a lot of space available for player expansion, apartments and the like along with none combat job training, but outside of that it really isn't that interesting." She paused for a moment before snorting in amusement, "Oh and the primary enemy mobs are cows."

Asuna actually faltered her next step and nearly fell backwards, Kirito's quick action to steady her the only thing that saved the brunette from a rather long tumble back down the stairs. Shaking her head and thanking her friend Asuna met the smirking teens eyes evenly as she replied in a deadpan tone.

"Cow? Seriously?"

Kirito snickered to herself as she nodded while grabbing Asuna's hand guiding her up once again, "Yup! It's mixed up of course, there's some bee mobs we can kill to collect stingers to upgrade your rapier and the like but yeah, mostly bovine based enemies. The floor boss is a minotaur so my guess is they built everything around him."

Asuna's face remained blank as they finally reached the top of the stairs, yet whatever her response was going to be was cut off as the doors swung open and the pair got their first look of the second floor.

While Kirito smiled in fond remembrance of the antics she and Argo had gotten into out here Asuna's expression was one of wonder, "It's beautiful!"

It really was, the open blue sky, the rocky mesas, and the endless grasslands truly looked like it was clipped out of a travel brochure and, well...it kinda reminded Keiko of that first night of SAO's launch. Before it was a death game, when she and Klein peacefully took in the breathtaking sunset marveling at the games ability to capture true beauty, rather then the blood sport it would become.

"Yup, and guess what? We're the first ones in the entire game to see it, in fact you are the first retail player to step foot here ever! How does that feel?" Asuna's eyes widened slightly then she smiled happily as she hopped out into the swaying grass with a giggle, landing softly she spun around beaming at her friend happily.

"It feels like I've finally taken the first step to take control of my life," Kirito could only grin in return, and to think only yesterday this girl had all but given up on surviving. Sometimes, a lot of times really, she was quite glad her taskmaster of a grandfather had so dutifully taught her the art of reading and understanding ones opponents at a glance.

It made manipulating people so much easier, and to view Asuna's truly brilliant smile because said manipulations prevented the older girl from giving up? Well, the old man would probably have been proud of Keiko at the moment... Then would likely clock her in the head with a shinai for getting caught by said girl mere minutes after she dropped her mask to deal with Kibaou.

Old bastard had been predictable like that, at least Asuna was ok with her using everyone for her own advantage, grandfather would likely have approved of her choice of partners at least and Keiko took that thought to heart.

It really was amazing how much you could resent someone you loved almost as much as you looked up to them. Mom always did say love and hate were just two sides of the same coin and after all, Keiko's relationship with her father was a clear indicator of that.

Feeling that particular line of thought leading straight to the violent part of her psyche she immediately poured her entire focus on Asuna. Opening town portals now, fuming on abandonment issues never, thanks.

"Well good on you, shall we?"

Asuna grabbed her hand and dragged her out into the sun as she began marching forward, "We shall!" She paused a moment coming to a stop as she looked around a bit sheepishly, "Er...which way?"

Not bothering to hold in the giggle that followed Kirito pointed to the northwest and began leading her less experienced partner forward.

After a few minutes of silence Kirito began humming the Zelda overworld theme to herself since it felt appropriate, but all good things must come to an end and eventually their peaceful trek was interrupted by an infuriated "MOOOOO!"

Fuck.

"Watch out!" How could she forget about the 'Mad Cows'? These things were a monumental pain in the ass and randomly spawned to boot, sighing Kirito dove out of the frothing beasts way as Asuna let out a shocked yelp landing on her bum.

"The...what? What the hell!" Asuna screeched as she rolled away from another charge, luckily for them the cow had ran into a stone pillar and was momentarily dazed. Taking advantage of the brief respite Kirito drew her sword while rushing over to Asuna gripping her hand and pulling her to her feet in one smooth motion.

"Freaking 'Mad Cows', they're berserker monsters that randomly spawn on the floor, they aggro on anything in the vicinity and they cause a madness debuff that can spread to other players by touch. They are a monumental pain in the ass because we can't counter its attacks like the kobolds."

Sighing the pair hopped out of the way of the renewed charge, Asuna let out a put upon huff as she glared at their bovine nemesis. "How exactly do we kill it then?"

Kirito twirled her sword a bit then grinned, "Kneecap it, you take the left I'll take the right, when it goes sprawling hit it with everything you've got." Asuna nodded and they waited as the insane cow charged past them as they dodged yet again. The two girls then struck out at the monster hitting its front legs, and were thus privy to see the rare sight of a cow going flying ass over tea kettle.

As the now disoriented cow tried standing back up Kirito struck it with a 'vertical arc' and not a moment later Asuna followed up with a 'linear', and just like that the cow exploded in a cascade of green sparkles. Huffing and puffing the pair exchanged a glance then laughed before shaking their heads in unison as they continued on towards Urbus.

Asuna was absently sifting through her inventory when she came upon her recently acquired loot, "Hey Keiko? Is this meat good? I mean mad cows and all."

Kirito nodded quickly at that, "Yup, ironically it's a couple grades higher then most of the beef that drops on this floor and thus tastes better. I think it can be used to make things like ribeye steaks and prime rib, most of the other stuff can only be used to make sirloin and hamburger. I never really leveled my cooking skill past the first floor though, saw no point to it since, you know, could just log out and cook my own meals in the real world."

Asuna looked contemplative a moment before nodding to herself, "Do you intend to level it out now?"

Kirito shrugged in turn, "Possibly, if one of the higher floors has some decent aquatic drops, would seriously stab a nun for some good unagi right about now... Though I'm not Catholic so I guess that loses some meaning doesn't it? Ok I'd stab anyone but my friends for some unagi, that sounds better."

Asuna chuckled lightly under her breath at the random tangent her friends thoughts were taking while coming to a decision, "All right then, I'll be our dedicated cook! You help me collect materials and I'll do the hard part."

Kirito glanced at her a moment while raising a brow, "Deal, but why?"

Asuna smiled slightly as her cheeks pinked a little bit, "I...I'm a really good cook in the real world, and since the game allows your real world skills to carry over I thought it could be something special I could do for you. For...giving me the will to live again..."

Kirito stared at her for several moments trying her best not to make an 'Awww' noise at how adorable her partner looked when she blushed like that. Deciding to not drag out what was obviously a slightly embarrassing moment for the older girl she quickly nodded.

"Sounds good, and thanks, you saved me in that boss fight, I was bleeding out and stunned, if you hadn't gotten me that potion in time I'd be dead. So...thanks."

Asuna's smile practically glowed after hearing this, Keiko once again thought sparkles should form around the brunette when she beamed like that. "Of course, it's what partners are for after all."

With that they fell back into comfortable silence as they approached the front gates of Urbus, walking in their first impression was it had more of an industrial revolution era Europe feel to it than the first floor. Aside from the complete lack of smog, litter, and people mind.

Meandering their way to the center of town the pair stopped before a stone arch, it looked like it was shimmering slightly at its base, almost like water.

"This is the portal to the first floor, just tap the arch and it'll open up the floor to the other players, you do the honors I've done it before after all."

Asuna stood there hand hovering over the rough stone a few lingering moments, eventually Kirito raised a brow yet again, "Something wrong?"

Asuna shook her head smiling ruefully as she caught Kirito's gaze with her own, "Just relishing the feeling that we're the only two people on this entire floor, it's something that'll never happen again, you know?"

Kirito snickered at that, "Yeah, I've felt the same before, I get it," with that Asuna touched the arch and suddenly there was a shimmering flash of blue light and fanfare music playing. Unfortunately neither girl had been expecting the sudden blast of brass instruments so they both jumped back like startled cats.

Before they could fully recover a wave of cheerful people began streaming through the gate, and just like that they were surrounded by crowds again. By very large crowds actually, and hundreds more were pouring through the gate and much to Asuna's surprise Kirito's eyes had widened to a rather concerning size and she had begun breathing erratically.

Not understanding what was wrong and being truly worried about her friend she wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her towards a chapel, once inside Asuna walked Kirito up a few flights of stairs to end up at the top of the tower. Kirito slid to the floor wrapping her arms around her legs as she buried her face in her knees trying not to hyperventilate, all Asuna could do was slid down next to her and wrap an arm around her shoulders.

After a time Keiko spoke up in a quiet, almost timid voice, "Pathetic, isn't it? Big bad sword master who can talk or fight her way through anything, and what does me in?" She let out a disdainful snort, "Freaking crowds, I hate it, I hate it so damn much."

Asuna nodded slowly at this revelation, "Enochlophobia?" She asked quietly, Keiko nodded slowly, face still buried in her knees hidden in a cascade of raven black hair.

"It started when I was ten, my father left me at an arcade to go to the bar with some coworkers since Suguha was with my mom at the doctors and grandfather was out of town. I'd been taking self defense courses along with my kendo training since I was seven, and I carry around a nasty powerful taser so...so I guess he might have thought it would be ok."

She looked up and met Asuna's gaze evenly, "It wasn't."

Asuna really didn't know what to say about that, but felt she needed to say something. "What happened?"

Keiko dropped her head back to the brick wall and sighed, "I learned that there are bad people in this world, that the bystander effect is real, and the only person you can truly rely on is yourself."

Her eyes deadened a bit at that as she glanced away, "And I learned when you taze someone kidnapping you and they fall into the street...there's not a whole lot a terrified ten year old girl can do to stop traffic..."

Asuna's eyes widened at that, eventually Keiko sighed and stood up as she stared down at her partner sadly, "I understand if you don't want to be my friend anymore. Normally...in the real world this wouldn't have happened, Xanax is a wonderful thing... So...yeah, you're the first outside of my family to hear about that and like I said, I understand if you don't want anything to do with me anymore."

Faster then she thought possible Asuna was standing and had her arms wrapped around Keiko, "I'm so sorry."

Said girl could only reply with confusion, "For what?"

Asuna released her and took a step back to meet her gaze evenly, "For everything you've gone through, honestly a lot about your personality makes sense now. I'm not going to push you away ok? You're my partner and honestly, the first friend that I was able to choose for myself. I'm not going anywhere, all right?"

Keiko didn't cry, but it was a close thing, instead she nodded while quietly whispering, "Ok..." There was a tense silence as they both stared out the window for a time when a flash of very familiar auburn curls entered their vision quickly running away from two pursuing figures.

"Hey, isn't that Argo?" Panic attack and uncomfortable revelations forgotten Kirito's dark eyes narrowed, as she dove out the window and landed on the roof of the adjacent building. A moment later Asuna landed beside her scowling slightly, "There are stairs you know."

Kirito nodded as she activated her tracking skill and typed in Argo's name, seeing the green footprints glowing on the cobblestones below she finally replied with, "Too many of them in the game, I don't bow down to convenience. Come on lets find out what's going on, if these guys can keep up with Argo then they can't be up to any good."

Sighing Asuna just nodded as she followed her friend through the streets, noting that as long as Keiko had something to focus on, the crowds didn't seem to bother her. That was probably her coping technique for the most part, just focus on a goal or objective and ignore the bystanders. It was obviously effective considering everything, she must have lost her control only due to the sudden appearance of the crowds of bench warmers.

Asuna had to pause at that, at what point did she start thinking of those who didn't fight on the front lines as bench warmers? Huh...a thought to mull over later. Eventually Argo's trail led them outside of the city near a cliff edge, without any hesitation Kirito managed to climb up the rock face in seconds and was quickly rushing along as if nothing had happened.

Apparently Asuna was taking the low road.

When she eventually found the Information Broker she saw that the men had cornered her, and Argo wasn't taking too kindly to their actions.

"I told you I'm not selling you this information! It's nothing against you or your damn clan I'm not selling it to anyone!"

"One would assume you intend to hoard the information so you may monopolize it to further inflate the price, yet you insist you won't sell it regardless. Why?"

"Because reasons! I don't have to tell you anything!"

The other guy growled at this before speaking, they both spoke in stuffy, archaic manners that really didn't fit in the modern world, "We need that information to earn the Extra Skill to finish our builds! You are interfering with our plans and earning the ire of our entire clan!"

Asuna blinked at that, Extra Skill? What was that? Before anything else could be said and done there was a blur of motion as Kirito landed beside Argo with her sword drawn, startling all present.

"Oh it's you assholes! What the hell was your guilds name again? Fu..food? Fugue...no not that one either..."

"We are the Fuma Ninja Force!" Asuna took that as her queue to reveal herself as Kirito snapped her fingers and pointed at the speaker.

"Right, them, Asuna let me introduce to you the bane of my beta existence, role players."

"Role players?" Asuna asked startling the men into turning around in surprise, their clothing was a weird mishmash of styles and armor that kinda sorta looked like a stereotypical ninja outfit. Asuna personally found it looked ridiculous, and apparently the feeling was shared with Kirito.

"Yeah these pricks dump almost all their stat points into agility, they'll rush in, attack a monster, and when it gets too rough they run away while dragging the monsters along. Eventually the monster will aggro on another player forcing them to defeat it, but since they didn't tag it first these dicks get all the loot and XP."

Argo grinned widely at that, "The only time Ki-chan ever player killed in the beta was when a group of these guys pulled that trick on her and got the group she was with wiped out, was also how I found out she was a girl since her avatar was always male."

Asuna lifted a brow at that, "How did that show she was a girl?"

Argo snickered lightly, "Lets just say Ki-chan is very inventive when she's swearing and leave it at that."

"Ki-chan..." one of the ninja wannabes muttered as he took a step back from the grinning girl, "As in Kirito?" Her grin was even wider now and there was a dark gleam in her eyes.

"Yup," she stated cheerfully while popping the 'p'. The ninjas exchanged a look and much to Asuna's shock they both bowed to her at once.

"We wish no quarrel between our clan and the Black Queen, we shall leave...for now." With that they both took off in a flash while Kirito rolled her eyes to the sky muttering 'posers'.

Argo relaxed as Asuna approached Kirito smirking slightly, "The Black Queen eh? Better then the Black Princess I suppose, still, you have a moniker now."

Argo giggled as she turned to face Asuna, "I wouldn't laugh too much A-chan, they're starting to call you the White Queen, after all that entire fight was being streamed to the first floor." She sing songed the next part "A~nd together they're calling you two 'The Queens!"

Both girls froze at this and simultaneously face palmed while Kirito swore quietly to herself, Asuna eventually settled for pinching the bridge of her nose fuming at her own thoughts.

Eventually Kirito sighed and turned her very tired gaze to Argo, "So...aside from yet even more unwanted attention being aimed my way, what brings you out here, what's this about an extra skill?"

Argo worried her lip a moment then smiled cheerfully at the younger girl, "You know how I never told you about my whiskers? Why I had them and all that?"

Kirito snorted at this, "No you would tell me, for 29,000 col."

Argo giggled at that while giving off the most falsely innocent smile she could muster, "I'm a business woman after all Ki-chan! Still, those guys had me between a rock and a hard place...literally, and I know you don't fully trust me for good reasons. So, in part for thanking you for coming to my aid and...to prove I want to be your friend, I'll let you in on a little secret. I originally got these whiskers on this floor in the beta, trying to earn the Martial Arts skill.

"I never completed it since it was horrifically time consuming so the whiskers never went away, and they just kinda became my thing. I didn't want anyone to know so I made the price extortion level high so people would stop asking, I really have no idea how those idiots found out I knew."

Kirito leaned forward looking very interested, "Where is the skill trainer?"

Argo beamed at the Queens, since that was apparently what they were being referred to now as she nodded happily, "Follow me!"

So a bit of Keiko backstory to explain away a lot of her flippancy and skill set while expanding on friendships, next chapter we're going to deal primarily with the real world and the repercussions of...well everything up to this point.