AN: Please don't expect really big chapters a lot. I altered Yui's personality a bit. Instead of being attached to just two people, she's… well you'll find out. Oh, and Yui's a A.I. Produced by Cardinal. What makes her classified differently from NPCs? Also, a Mental Counselling Program apparently manifests as a young girl, not a therapist. I'm a little confused by the logic.

Oh, and I'm also busy altering previous chapters that I think were rushed.

Chapter 13: Runaway

Floor 75 Main City- Corinth

They ran through the streets, half a dozen DDA scouts on their heels. Asuna in front, pushed players and NPCs past, heading for the city bounds.

"Get out of the safe zone!" Kirito yelled, unsheathing two blades from his back. The city limits were rapidly closing in, and the scouts still followed.

"Don't head directly to the house! I'll take care of the DDA! No, Asuna, don't stay!" Kirito went past the city limits , and turned around, and faced the lightly armored warriors. Two came at him, activating Sword Skills. He crossed his swords, blocking the scouts' attacks, as they went past him. Four more scouts tried to attack him, and he dodged out of the way. The DDA players started to surround him. Kirito glanced at his guildmates, already far away.

Why aren't they pursuing them? Kirito thought, and an obvious thought hit his head. Oh, right, I'm the leader.

The scouts edged closer, and Kirito was caught in a familiar situation again.

But the guild wasn't at his back. A few players started taking interest in the standoff.

"Surrender!" A scout in better armor than the rest called out. Kirito just glared at him.

"3!" The leader counted, syncing up his Sword Skill with the rest, attacking all at once.

"2!" Kirito breathed in, calming himself down.

"1!" Don't make the same mistake as last time, he thought, and clenched his teeth. A barrage of attacks were launched against him, and his HP was reduced extremely fast. Kirito went one by one, hitting a certain point in one enemy's sword and disintegrating it, and went for another target, all while ignoring the attacks. Kirito smashed the last one, effectively disarming all of the scouts in less than 15 seconds. He looked at his HP.

[100/22000]

Kirito looked around at the now helpless scouts, his dual swords waving around menacingly, red digital lacerations dotted throughout his body. One scout started to run back to the town, followed by another, and soon they were running.

Asuna peeked through, the window, and saw Kirito sprint back, constantly looking back. He opened the door slowly.

"I has be something to tell you," he looked a little downtrodden.

"What?"

"We have to sell the house."

"What?!" the whole guild burst.

"I didn't know we were going to sell it!"

"We just finished the house quest!"

Kirito winced at everyone's response.

"Calm down!" Kirito shouted. Everyone shut up from Kirito's loudest voice outside of battle.

"We're going to have to sell the house, and quickly. Trust me." The guild started to get their stuff from storage chests.

"Alright, you better have a good reason."

They went to the NPC vendor and sold the house.

"25 million Col. Alright. Update armor, weapons, and potions from the guild vault. Then meet me at Floor 22." Kirito saw some blue knights in a distance.

"Teleport crystals! Use it to travel! Buy some more!" he shouted urgently, and the knights started to pursue them.

"One more thing; clear out your friends list!"

Floor 45

"We'll see all of your best weapons. And do you sell potions?"

"A few potions, not that much. Weapons, though," she took out an armful of weapons.

"You guys look sad. What's the problem?" Lisbeth asked. Klein looked up.

"We don't have a house. And then we bought one! And then we sold it." Klein replied.

"Why did you sell it?"

"Kirito said to trust him. I don't know why, but he probably has a good reason." Lisbeth nodded.

"I know why we have to leave." Dynamm announced. Recon tensed up. "But I'm going to let Kirito tell us." He sighed, and rubbed his head.

"Asuna, do you know what happened?"

"Please don't ask."

"Well, good luck about that," Lisbeth said.

Floor 22 Outskirts

Kirito opened the door. A couch, a coffee table, and two living chairs were in front of him. A glass sliding door was beyond the chairs, leading to a patio. To the right, there was a fairly large circular table, and a kitchen. There was a door leading to a bedroom with two beds.

Their hideout.

He lumbered to a chair and slumped on it, staring at the wooden walls.

"What am I going to do?" he talked to himself. He felt his eyelids drop.

Two knocks came from the door.

He jerked awake out of the chair, gripping both of his sword's hilts.

The knocks repeated. Kirito quickly opened the door a bit, peeking.

"Geez, you're really nervous, aren't you?" Klein pushed the door open. They poured into the small room.

"We'll be living in a log cabin now?" Silica asked.

"How much did it cost?" Dale asked. "20 million Col," Kirito responded. "And no quest to complete it."

"Now, I probably have to tell you why we're doing this,"

"You think?" Kunimittz muttered.

"Recon, tell your story." The boy in question sighed, and drew breath. "Actually, I'll do it." Suguha suggested, taking weight off his shoulders.

"Get on with it please."

Floor 14 Field Dungeon

Keita stared at the DDA leader, hearing Fūrin Kazan teleport away.

"You helped them!" the blue knight shouted.

"You were going to fight them!" Keita responded.

"The boy knew the poison! He needs to be taken in!"

"Honestly, if anybody in your guild knew how to make the poison, would you imprison him?" Keita shot back. The DDA started to bow their head, as if in respect. Keita scrunched his eyes in confusion.

"Yes, we would." The sullen leader replied softly.

"Did something happen?"

"A month ago, two Laughing Coffin members infiltrated our guild. They killed the main leader, and killed all the sub-leaders. I wasn't a sub-leader at the time. I don't trust anybody that might've had contact with the red guild. "

"I'm pretty sure Kirito isn't an idiot-"

"Kirito's the name of the Fūrin Kazan leader? Well, he doesn't understand. The infiltrator will turn on him in any moment. And you helped him escape."

Keita looked at the leader nervously, but still stood his ground.

"Arrest them!" DDA warriors started to circle the Black Cats.

"What?!" Tetsuo yelled, and they started to charge up Sword Skills, but were tackled before they could've attacked. People started holding their hands down, confiscating weapons, and the leader took out a Corridor Crystal.

"Crap."

Floor 22

"So, that's what happened," Issin muttered. "Now we're in trouble because Recon used a poisoned throwing knife to paralyze the Laughing Coffin leader from running away. They want to imprison him now."

"Well it would make sense to think he's an infiltrator." The whole guild stared at Issin in shock.

"But he captured the leader! So that balances it out, I guess."

"This is why we're here. To hide from them. Now take out some bedrolls or something. Big day ahead." Kirito announced, and went to the bedroom. It was still thirty past 3.

What should I do? He laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Klein entered.

"Hey."

"Hey. I'm taking the second bed." Klein responded, and sat down on his bed. "Your sister's sleeping outside. The guy with the staff-"

"Recon?"

"Yeah, he… left. Asuna's using the kitchen. Everyone else is taking a walk."

"Okay." Kirito opened his menu. His old black coat started to replace the dark red one.

"Whoa, what are you doing?"

"We need to eliminate any signs we're in a guild." Kirito replied. Klein groaned. "This is taking it too far. Asuna! Kirito doesn't want to wear the red coat!"

"Do you know how many dragons we had to kill for that?" Asuna asked. "Do you know how many dragons I had to kill for my coat?" Kirito shot back. Klein scoffed.

"You battled Blackwyrms. We attacked Redwyrms, a much higher tier. What do you think we were doing while you were gone for three months?"

"I'll put the coat back on, okay! But what are we going to do with mine?" he presented the problem. Asuna smiled.

"I'll take it to Lisbeth."

"It's a coat. You have to sew that, not make it in a forge!"

"Fine. Klein, un-sew it."

"I can't sew."

"And you expect me to believe you bought that new headband of yours? With our guild's logo?"

"Fine, geez." Kirito put the red coat back on and handed him the folded black coat. Klein got scissors from his inventory, and the coat transformed into a pile of bones and scales. "I'll take this to Lisbeth." Asuna grabbed the pile, and went out the door.

Recon sat on the dock, with a mortar and pestle. He looked at the sun, halfway to the horizon, and continued crushing ingredients, turning it into dust. He then poured it onto a bottle of water, put in a cork, and shook it. The liquid glowed green, and turned red.

"What's that?" Silica asked. Recon jumped.

"Oh! This is a potion." He raised the bottle up. "This restores your health."

"How much HP?"

"50% of your HP, no matter how much you have."

"Well that's nice!"

"You need to complete the Drug Mixing skill to make the paralysis poison; I used the skill ever since Floor 1." Recon explained, and tossed the potion to her. "You can keep it."

"Is there any potions that benefit familiars?"

"I don't know. I mean, it's not that they can evolve,"

"Pina has an XP bar! Maybe he can-"

"It's not Pokemon!" Recon exclaimed, much to Silica's chagrin. "Anything's possible! Like the thing that can revive players!" she brightened.

"That's not real. You can't revive players-"

"Yeah, we can. We have the Divine Stone of Returning Soul, we beat DDA to it. Or at least, Klein told me. I wasn't with them at the time. Klein could show it to you, actually."

"Alright, fine. Maybe we can 'evolve' it. Apparently, there's a potion, that could force a level-up. It's only a rumour though, and it's not that I know what the ingredients are. And I don't know if familiars drink potions."

"Familiars do drink them. I'll find out." Silica walked away.

"Wait, your familiar. How strong is it?" Recon asked. Silica brought the small dragon from her head. The little creature snuggled up to her quietly.

"Pina can heal me, and breath fire, but the attack isn't that great. Dynamm said that I could only count on her as support. Issin said I can use her as a distraction while I hide." Recon noticed Silica describe the familiar as 'her'.

"Well, I'll try to find out the ingredients." Recon watched Silica walk away.

"How long do you think we're gonna be here guys?" Dale asked. Issin shrugged. "Probably when we get this problem sorted out. The real question is how." Kunimittz nodded.

"I can't believe we're in this mess. Did Kirito really have to join the crusade? Did Recon have to capture the leader like that?"

"Relax. We'll get through it."

"The Divine Dragon Alliance is the second largest guild. The Aincrad Liberation Force is the largest. DDA's at least 20 times larger than us."

"Not that we asked for that info dump, Issin." Kunimittz replied dryly.

"Just to show you what we're facing." He shrugged. Harry Two kicked some dust in the trail.

"Damn it! We had a really big house, a reputation!" We were the Elementals!"

"We were only called that like, three times, you know that right?" Dale asked him.

"Still!" he interjected. "He should've told us first! He should've brought us with him!"

"We outnumbered Laughing Coffin." Dynamm stated. Harry Two scratched his head. "Oh."

"We have to deal with it." Harry One told his brother. "Complaining won't help." They looked at each other.

"I guess."

Kunimittz's head jerked to the side, scanning for movement.

"What is it?" Issin questioned his behavior.

"Do you see that?!" he yelled, attracting the attention if other guild mates.

"Seriously, what is it?" Dale said in a bored voice.

"Over there!" Kunimittz pointed vaguely at the forest. Dale looked beyond the trees, and saw the sheen of black hair.

"Holy shit." Dale gripped his greatsword hilt. "Issin, Searching skill! Scan the forest!"

"Fine, fine." Issin's eyes and vision turned green. His enhanced vision marked out a person hidden among the trees, highlighting the silhouette.

"There's a girl there! I can't see the colour cursor, but get ready!" he quickly pointed his spear forward. Everyone quickly went into formation. A small shield wall was formed, with Issin and Dynamm in both sides to attack any monsters flanking or in front of the wall. Dale was the bait, Kunimittz ready to switch with him .

"Who's there?!" Dale shouted out, greatsword ready.

"It's moving!" Issin yelled warningly. He pointed his two-pronged spear at the incoming target.

12 feet. Dale's greatsword glowed green.

"Help!" A young girl in a white dress burst from the forest, and a gigantic wolf followed. It's green glowing eyes set on Dale.

Who instantly turned tail and ran. The shield wall opened, and Dale was let through. The wolf still pursued him, but when it went through the wall, spears and swords scraped along it's sides. Maces butted the wolf forward, and into Dale's incoming combo. The rapid succession of attacks quickly disintegrated it. It was a plan designed to face minibosses, and can be repeated a number of times.

The girl clung to Dale, hugging the stocky man.

"Uh, who are you?" he said nervously, trying to gently push away the child. The small girl just hugged harder.

"You saved my life! I'm Yui; I'm forever in your debt!" The girl snuggled Dale, much to his slight annoyance.

"It's an NPC. No colour cursor or something like that. But, uh, something's weird." Issin analyzed.

"It's not that useful?" Kunimittz suggested dryly. Issin shrugged back. Dale looked at them confused.

"Help?"

"Why? Don't you want to be hugged?" Harry Two joked, much to Dale's annoyance. Dynamm walked towards him.

"Yui, please stop hugging him." He said simply. The A.I. stepped back. Dynamm knelt down.

"Right. What's your problem?"

"You should lighten up!" she said back, causing him to step back in surprise. "It can talk back to us now?!" Dale shouted.

"Considering how annoyed you get with NPCs, Dynamm, you're screwed."

"Shut up."

Silica caught up with the party, looking at Yui with curiosity.

"Hey Silica, we found your lost twin." Sh looked at Yui with interest

"Hello. What's your name?"

"Yui! I lived in a cabin with my parents, but the wolf came and killed them. I'm an orphan now. Nowhere else to go…" Yui started to cry, and Silica hugged her.

"I think it's manipulating our emotions-" Issin rubbed his head.

"We're bringing Yui with us!" Silica declared, prompting Issin to open his mouth.

"Shut up, Issin." Dynamm said in a rare moment of compassion. Yui hugged harder.

Floor 45

Asuna entered the shop, alerting Lisbeth. She quickly came up from her workshop, wiping sweat from her brow.

"Hi Lisbeth." Asuna placed Kirito's coat scrap pile on the counter. "I need to know if you can salvage anything from this." Lisbeth inspected it.

"This is Blackwyrm Scales. A pretty rare item a few levels below the frontlines. You can make an excellent coat from thi-"

"We made a new one that was better. Can you do something with this?" Asuna handed a scale out. Lisbeth rubbed her head. "I dunno. Scales are like skin. You can make dragon scale armor with scales that are hardened, but those are quickly outdated…" She spotted bones among the scales.

"Holy crap. Scales, you can make underpowered armor or a freakin' blanket but this…" She held out a bone segment. "This is pretty much classified as a metal. Give me all the Blackwyrm bones. I'll experiment." Asuna raked in all the scales, leaving the bones.

"Well, thanks again. Will this do?" A trade request opened, potentially giving Lisbeth a large amount of Col.

"Yes, thanks." Asuna turned around to leave. "Uh, Asuna, wait."

"What?"

"I was wondering, if you get loot from grinding, I would ask if you sold them to me." Asuna squinted her eyes from confusion. "Or at least, just the ores and metal."

"Well, sure, but why?"

"Business is slow, lately. The major guilds have their own blacksmiths, and they set up shop. The guilds can get stuff from the frontlines, and after arming their guild, they can make and sell the latest gear. The guild makes money. Win-win." Asuna threw a sympathizing look.

"Was that a subtle way of saying that you want to join my guild?" Lisbeth hid her face, faced down on the counter.

"Not so subtle, was it?"

"I would consider it, actually, if we weren't getting pursued by the Divine Dragon Alliance,"

"Wait, seriously?"

"Long story." Asuna started to grab all the Blackwyrm scales and put on a red cloak, hiding her face. "Asuna, come back in like, three days."

"I gotta go now. See you." Asuna disappeared, and Lisbeth looked around the empty shop.

"Not so subtle." She whispered, and glanced at the pile of bones on top of the counter. An idea presented itself.

Floor 1- Black Iron Castle

Keita thought about his guild's grim situation. Locked in a dungeon cell, in the Black Iron Palace. Four stone walls and an iron door. The DDA struck a deal with the Army to hold prisoners at the HQ dungeon. No other player homes had prison cells.

"So, what do we do now?"

"I don't know. They can't access our inventory, but these walls are indestructible, and this lock can't be picked. All they need to do is throw us in here, and lock the door." Tetsuo groaned in response.

"Clearers. It's not as hyped up as I thought."

"They're paranoid, Tetsuo. They're scared."

"Oh, so you're defending them!"

"I'm not defending them!" Keita shot back. Tetsuo opened his mouth, but Sasamaru interrupted.

"Before you start, stop! Geez, calm down. Kirito knows we stayed back, right? They'll rescue us. We just have to trust them. We're here because we did." Tetsuo opened his inventory, and checked the friends list.

"Uh, guys, is it just me? Fūrin Kazan's not in my friends' list." Keita checked. "Yeah, it's not."

"Me too,"

"Same here."

"Great. So they can't track us. They can't rescue us!"

"Hey!" Sasamaru shouted. "Calm down. There's probably a good explanation."

"There is." Ducker said, his first words since capture. "They can't be tracked now."

Floor 22

Kirito heard the door open, and the shuffling of feet.

"Hey Kirito!" Klein yelled, prompting him to get out of the bedroom.

"We have to get a meeting going-" Kirito looked at the white girl. "Who the hell is she?"