Turns out I didn't need to step into the forest to find a scout.

When I materialized in the log cabin, I took a moment to sit in place for no reason. At the moment I decided to do something, Leafa logs in herself. Already on my feet, I hold my hand out to help her. "Sup, Leafa. You're on later than your brother."

"I know... You're ready?"

I cross my arms and look out the nearest window. "Yeah, of course. Fighting the odds is nothing new for me."

She lowers her head and slouches slightly. Her downcast expression, highlighted by the sunset illuminating half her face, creates a cliche 'heart to heart' you see in shows. Given our minor height differences (Leafa comes up just underneath my eye line in VR, Suguha to my shoulders in the real world), it was easy for her to take a step forward and place her head under my chin. "That's not what I mean."

Innately, my hand rises to the back of Leafa's head and back in a brotherly embrace. I'll admit that, when it comes to women, I'm a piece of crap, but never once in the year and a half since I've personally known her have I seen Suguha in a way other than as Kazuto's little sister and a fairly attractive girl off her own right. Sure, I joked about it once or twice in SAO, but that's one thing. To me, she's my best friend's little sister and nothing else. To her, I'm her big brother's best friend. The trope of a guy's little sister hooking up with his best friend never clicked in our direction for a moment. In a way, she's like a little sister when she comes to me when she can't go to her brother, like right now.

"I don't want to give you false hope, but Kirito and I will figure this out. Trust me on that, Leafa."

"I want to believe we can win, but what if Mutasina finds out first? What do we do?"

"We just need to get her alone. That's what I'm counting on." I begin to push Leafa away while looking out the window. The gate to the log cabin opens, and from outside it comes a gathering of Insectsite players. I guess they were out in the wild leveling up or scouting. Zarion the rhinoceros beetle and Beeming the stag beetle lead the group, followed by a brown grasshopper I think is named Needy carrying...a human-shaped bundle of white rope. I hope that's white rope...then again, we don't have a spider in our midst.

"What is going on?"

"Let's check it out." Leafa leads us out of the cabin just as Needy unwinds the rope, revealing an ALO player of the salamander race, though not the usual frame of one. Unlike the vast majority of salamanders, he's on the short and skinny side like me. There's a weird pink mark on his left cheek. From the porch, I get to watch him look around the area in panic, then when he turns to Kirito, he shrieks, "A-are you with these bug people?"

"Um, yeah."

"Dammit! J-just kill me and get it over with, then!"

I snort as I step off the porch, disappointed by my comrade's cowardice. "That's not how a salamander should act,"

"Something about him is familiar," Leafa murmurs, then snaps her fingers as she grabs my wrist and leads me towards the gathering. "Ohhh! It's that guy!" I don't get a chance to question how she knows him as she greets the rest of the group (and I do so awkwardly) on our approach to the wrapped man. She glances at him again and nods to herself. "I knew it. Big B...I mean, Kirito and Jaymes, this is him!"

"Him who?" Kirito asks.

"Ahhh! Are you Kirito and Jaymes? Master Black and Lucky Red!"

"That nickname got transferred over to ALO?"

"H-have we met before?"

"It's me! Remember me? Last year, I fought you when you turned all demonic in the Lugru Corridor, and you nearly ate me." I look at Kirito, and he looks at me, then back to the guy.

"...Ahhhhh!"

"Ohhhh! You're that guy!"

"Kirito, let him live!" Good thing he heard her before the Salamander's head became a busted balloon. Dropped on the bridge, Leafa and Strea secure the lone survivor with their swords. "Now, why don't you explain who sent you here?"

"K-Kill me if you want!"

"Why, you..."

"Oh, that was fun!"

"That was freaking awesome!" Leafa turns to the boys, who look like they are enjoying themselves. Jaymes reaches down and pats his fellow Salamander on the shoulder. "Dude, you guys were cool, right, Kirito?"

"Hey, nice fight. That was a good plan. If we'd been alone, we wouldn't have lasted a minute."

"A minute? Oh, give them more credit! Thirty seconds in, we would have been toast!"

Leafa looks at them in confusion. "W-Wait, Kirito!"

"Give me a second." Kirito opens a prompt window and shows it to the mage. "So I have an offer for you. These are the items and Yuld I won in the last battle. If you answer my questions, maybe you can have them!"

The mage looks confused. "S-Seriously?"

"It's better than the second, more painful option. Trust me, my Salamander friend is in a sour mood." Kirito gestures to Jaymes, whose unnatural giant smile makes Leafa uncomfortable.

"Take it, buddy." After a second of thought, the mage agrees with a greedy laugh, and that soon spreads to all three of them.

"Men," Leafa comments in disbelief.

"He's pretty blunt about it," Yui adds.

Strea, however, is enjoying the sight. "Reminds me of a girl who loves treasure. She'd totally be influenced by the offer."

After Yui and Strea confirmed his identity, Kirito asks Needy to loosen more of the rope. His neck revealed the mark of the Noose of the Accursed around his neck. He converted from ALO to UR, joined one of the teams, and was present two nights ago at the Stiss Ruins when Mutasina put them under her spell. "Got it. So you got hit by Mutasina's suffocation magic, huh?"

"Y-you know about her? And this stupid spell she cast?"

"Of course I do. And I know that a hundred players trapped by the Noose just like you are going to attack this town tonight. She ordered you to scout this town, didn't she? Until the insects found you and caught you. And your friends are?" Kirito eyes the beetles Zarion and Beeming, who have Argo translating the conversation. They shrug when she catches up to where Kirito pauses, in which they shrug. "Guess they fought back and died. So what will you do? You know we can't just release you. Will you bounce out of Unital Ring now, or will you be our prisoner and tell us what you know?"

Kirito tries to sound threatening, which isn't working in this situation. I consciously decided not to aid and actually look threatening, but my hand unintentionally slides up and grabs the hilt of my photon sword. That gets the man to start yapping. "Kirito, Jaymes, you know how freakin' scary the Noose's effect is - and you still want to fight Mutasina? You'd be better off not taking her magic lightly. You can't just withstand the effect with willpower and mental preparation. I don't wanna be her slave either, but the only way to survive is to obey her."

Kirito holds his hand up, stopping him from talking, and pulls down the throat protector of his armor and the collar of his undershirt. The man's eyes and mouth widen with shock. I clip the hilt back to my waist and kneel down to the salamander's level. "Kirito and another one of us are troubled by the Noose. I was lucky to protect myself from it. But we're going to fight her despite that. So... Let's make a deal. Same as last time, that is. All of Mutasina's drops, aside from her staff, and maybe any other drops; in exchange, any information you have. What do you say?"

He exhales long and slow, and with a weak smile, says, "Really?"

"Course. You know me already, but if you know Lucky Red, you know exactly how I roll."

xxxxxxxxx

Thanks to Argo's interrogation, Friscoll the Salamander told us plenty of information. As expected, us in Ruis na Rig are higher level than Mutasina's army on average. They range around level 10 or 11, which gives us the power and abilities advantage but not the numbers. Furthermore, they're leaving the Stiss Ruins at nine o'clock, not eight as predicted, which I immediately informed Rei of. Everything else we expected, from them using the Maruba River to travel to Ruis na Rig, and leveling the forest around us to create an open field, turned out to be potential offensive measures. They'll either break the town's walls to invade or flush us out to surround and get us Noose'd.

Eighty-seven players, excluding Friscoll and his three allies who fell, are coming to attack us. The remaining nine have real-life priorities, so they won't be included in the distribution of spoils and reward payment, which is ten el per person. There's the Virtual Study Society too - four people in all, including Mutasina, that he's seen. There's a dark mage named Magis and two swordswomen named Viola and Dia. Kirito and I already knew the VSS members were bound by the Noose willingly.

"Anyway, they're all weird, including Mutasina. if they're that tough from the very start, they'd have to be absolute top-tier players in ALO, but nobody's ever seen them before or heard their names. Do they ring a bell to you?"

Kirito and I share a look. Granted, I've spent more hours in GGO than I have in ALO, but I have been around in ALO - and just in case, I take my memories into SAO - and none of them ring a bell. I don't remember every name, but I'd be hard-pressed to forget someone of the VSS's caliber. "I've never heard of them." I look back to Leafa, who've been in ALO longer than all of us, then to Strea, whose memory is impeccable like her sister's. Neither of them seems to recall any member of the Virtual Study Society.

"Is it possible that they're aliases? The player's cursor doesn't show up here until you attack or get attacked, you know. When she cast the Noose on Lux and me, she was too far away to see her cursor well."

"There's another way to see a player's name aside from their cursor, you know. I've been in a raid party with the other three, so I made sure to check on their names that appear up here on the left. That's how I know how to spell the three names. If you ask me, they sound pretty typical for player names."

"In any case, this doesn't change what we need to do. We'll beat Mutasina and clear up this hurdle before we head off for the center of the world. It's been a long series of events since that first night, but this time, we're going to get a good clean start for ourselves!"

After Hyme, Agil, and Klein logged on, we prepared to leave Ruis na Rig. The first order of business was dealing with Friscoll, who decided to come with us tied up to a tree instead of staying with the Bashin, who'll remain in town. We deduced that if he can't willingly log out, he's in no position to betray us - and he realizes his head is safer with us than with the Bashin if he tried logging out. His only escape is the Amusphere automatically logging him out, like if he has to pee badly, but if he didn't return promptly we'd know he'd betrayed us.

Granted, Mutasina should know we have the insects with us, or something along those lines from Friscoll's allies.

With five Bashin and five Patter, both groups willing to defend their new home with us, fifteen ALO players, two SA:O "players", six GGO players, and twenty Insectsite players make our way to the spot Argo, Kirito, and I made it to the location we marked yesterday. We get to work to build the contraption Kirito planned out. The plan is somewhat similar to one I've used before, in a similar situation, but the specifics are different. In Gun Gale against Lievre, I didn't need to solely craft the various traps we used against the vehicles and soldiers of her army, we either had it in our inventory or bought it from the stores. We just needed the right equipment in the right positions, the correct timing of the explosives, and most importantly, Lievre's location along the many roads leading into the SBC Glocken.

At nine-thirty, all we have is Kirito's trap along this strip of the river and Rei and Lievre scouting out the enemy's position. If something changes on Mutasina's side, we'll have to rethink everything. Even if they enter the Zelletelio Forest away from the Maruba River, the best armor they have is leather, so the enemies of the forest can harm them. As for us, all of us have metal, whether completely or mixed with leather for our lighter fighters. Zeliska and Koharu are the only ones in their imported gear.

Once things seem to come to a standstill, I step away to gain a bit of solitude. Finding a good tree to serve as a backrest, I drop to the ground and sigh. I haven't felt this stress in 200 years...no, three months since the Otherworlder War. In that battle, I did create strategies with Bercouli. Eydis, Alice, and the Integrity Knights in those final days. I flew to the World's End Altar, created a "checkpoint", and returned to the Eastern Ravine just after the war began. So I guess I didn't have the stress of preparing for war since last year's attack in Gun Gale or, beyond my memories, the subsequent wars in the Underworld after the Otherworlder War.

We didn't fight impossible odds against Lievre's army the second time she tried invading. With as many allies as possible, much like when Lisbeth rallied players to the Underworld, we defeated her. But the first time feels just like right now. We were against an unlimited army of Arfa-Sys allied with Lievre, and all her mechanical might. Crimson Squad and the few allies we had scrapped by enough to repel her.

Tonight, we can't repel Mutasina, we have to defeat her. No, we could repel her, but it's not an option. She won't back down; if push comes to shove, she'll try to add us to her ranks. If she does use the Noose, there goes Kirito, Lux, and her army. I'd have a hard time deciding whether to barter for Kirito and Lux's suffering or to take her out and unintentionally prolong the curse. If that happens, what would I do?

"Troubled?" I glance up, hearing a calming voice come around the tree. I nod in response, and the speaker, a pink-haired blacksmith, sits down ninety degrees to my left, bringing her knees to her chest. Her eyes focus on the dark treeline, trying to find the stars through the leafy barrier. "This is my first raid against other players in a game like this, with my life on the line. It's scary but at the same time, exciting. If this occurred in Sword Art Online, you'd been 'No, Liz, you cannot join' and all that, hehe."

"I don't appreciate the mocking voice, and my voice isn't that deep. And yeah, I would have swayed you away if you ever considered joining a raid of any kind at your level."

"That's how it sounds to me, and that's mean. I could have become a front liner if I desired!"

"Pah."

"Jerk... Was it like this for you against Laughing Coffin in that raid?"

"No," I state, colder than I meant to. "No, I didn't have nerves back then. At the most, I was trying to hold my intent. All I cared about was avenging Koharu while trying not to kill, but that didn't bold so well. But against Lievre last year, or the Otherworlder War...hell, when I participated in Squad Jam 2 I was nervous. But the stakes were never this high since facing Laughing Coffin. I mean, in Underworld, I technically had only one life, my friends did too, but I could always come back. For the most part, though, not many people could challenge me, and there were only two people I couldn't beat that I know of: Asuna and Eydis. This time, we only get one shot at victory and one life. I'm not as powerful as I was in SAO, GGO, or the Underworld. And..."

"And?"

"Right now, Rei and Lievre should be coming back. There's been no news of changed plans, but I have to think it could happen. If it does, we haven't planned contingencies. We haven't done enough if I'm being honest. If the worst happens, then-" Before I can complete that statement, Lisbeth's right over me. Her eyes and mine meet, and suddenly her words from the prior week replay in my head as I'm pressed against her chest in a tight hold.

"I love Koharu. She's important to me too, you know. But no matter how long it takes, no matter if I have to hammer Koharu to the ground myself... I will win in the end. I still love you. I still believe in you and me."

As the hug breaks, Lisbeth holds my face in her gloved hands, her voice low and soft. "Whatever happens tonight...be yourself."

"M-myself?"

Lisbeth realizes how vague that is and adjusts her answer. "Be whatever version of yourself you need to be tonight. Be my Crimson Warrior, be Crimson Squad's Lucky Red. It doesn't matter, but we need your head in the game. Most of us out there are supposed to be worried, and you and Kirito have the right things to say to alleviate those worries. I know it's a harsh generalization, and it implies you're not supposed to be vulnerable, but... Don't worry about what Mutasina throws at us; answer it. We're going to pull through as we always have, together, all of us."

Be whichever version of myself I need to be... That's easier said than done. There's the young, ruthless Crimson Warrior, the reckless, risk-taking Lucky Red, and the wiser, matured Crimson Emperor. Which "me" is appropriate for keeping my friends safe and my enemies out of my way. Which "me" is right for defeating Mutasina?

"I'm asking the person who subjugated what I call the 'Integral Factor' and became it himself... That's for you to figure out what that means now. For you to reshape it to something of your own...and to have others close to you do the same. Then maybe you can tell me."

Akihiko Kayaba's digital ghost spoke those words to me during my time in the Underworld. Though they were for a different threat, they ring true now. Back then, I had my entire past thrown in my face. I can't remember the specifics, and my Fluctlight didn't go into exhaustive detail, but I can remember the cold darkness while watching the worst moments of the past four years playing like a movie for me to relive. In the aftermath, I accepted who I was and decided to move forward. I integrated all of me into one being, this person Kayaba called the "Integral Factor," and moved onwards.

If that person is who can win this fight... That's who'll I be going forward.

I relax my nerves and reach for Lisbeth's hands. Taking hold of them, I meet her eyes and say, "Stay alive, okay?"

"What else would I do? I need to be saying that to you."

"Yeah, you're right. But...if the chance comes, I will slay Mutasina without hesitation. Can you handle that?"

She nods and, scooting off me to my right side, drops her head to my shoulder. "You said it yourself - we can't negotiate or avoid her. If protecting everyone means eliminating her, then...so be it. As long as we survive in the end..."

"...Then we have nothing to fear."

At ten-thirty, Rei and Lievre joined us, saying that Mutasina's party was not going with a new plan. They are following the Maruba River and will be here in an hour.

At eleven, forty-three players registered in a raid party and got in our positions.

At eleven-thirty, I received a signal from Sinon that she could see the enemy forces via their torches through the scope of the Hecate II.

Ten minutes later, hiding with Kureha and the rest of Crimson Squad in the bushes and trees upstream of the Maruba River, I had eyes on the orange flames.