First Session

Nicole POV

This was fairly off-putting!

I had just sat on my chair when he raised his head and with a less than brief examination he had either deducted my nationality or made a spot on blind guess.

Either way I already had enough material to deduct that the person in front of me would not kill a person in the heat of the moment. To be more precise the person in front of me either didn't have heat of the moment times or he had a split personality. If I had to guess I would go with the first one but my job wasn't to guess.

My job was to deduct!

As to how I deducted this it was simple. A teenager who just got out of a, by all means, traumatizing experience, who was then inside the next 2 hours seized, chained and put in isolation except his interrogations in the accuse that he has killed enough people to rival the 9/11.

A person like that would be emotionally broken or his nerves would be in tatters if he didn't have an iron grip on his emotions and even then some signs of psychological stress would be seen by the educated eye.

The person in front of her had none.

No signs in his sleeveless arms of injury because he tried to escape. No signs in his eyes of crying or popped vessels because of anger. No signs or odor of sweating due to stress. No irregular speech patterns. If anything he could speak a language besides his mother tongue so flawlessly that if I had only heard him I would promise he was an American.

No the person in front of me didn't have an iron grip on his negative emotions. For some reason his defenses were such that didn't allow him to produce any negative emotions to speak of!

A rare trait and in any other case very admirable too. But right now the use it was put into was cold-blooded murder so that takes away enough from the admiration factor.

All of the above were thought by me in a maximum of 6 seconds. Certainly more than enough to make the young man misunderstand my calculations with surprise but not enough for him to cut through that. And I intended to keep it that way.

'Interesting!' I broke the silence and formed a trained disarming smile. 'I did not know I would have the pleasure of speaking my mother tongue with you. On the contrary I was stressed for the quality of the communication we would be having.'

Kirito smiled in kind. He knows the game just as well as me. By the book questions will have no affect apparently!

'Well I am also pleased to see that my guess of your origin was correct. I am also glad that the person that I will be conversing with until my trial will have a higher intellectual level than the guard.' He said and stole a glance towards the door. I purposefully widened my smile a bit to show that I acknowledged the joke but in a way that would not be seen by the cameras and would give the illusion to the teen that he was breaking through my shields.

As if…

'So may I start with the necessary formalities Mr. Kirigaya?' I asked. The cameras above my head recorded tapes that were archived inside the camera. No person from the outside could see inside this room. But those recordings could be shown to the outer world in the case that the patient, in this case Kazuto, gave his written permission. In that case, were I to fail my objectives, any mistakes I may have made would be shown against me in court.

In other words, I just covered my bases.

'Certainly Madam.' He said and smiled to her formally and maturely.

Rare levels of maturity in a young age. Signs of some kind of trauma that forced him to mature in a faster manner. More than likely for the trauma to have happened inside the game. Cannot be taken as fact. Shall be investigated at a later date. I mentally noted while opening my folder where I wrote my new deductions in short.

I would sort through all the possible theories that I had made the day before when I was at my home. Right now I would get as many information as I could from the source.

'Is your name Kazuto Kirigaya?' I asked

'Yes!' He replied in a polite tone.

'What is your sex?'

'Male!'

'What is your age?'

'I am 17 years old.'

'Good!' I said after I had filled out the necessities. 'Now, anything you wish to say before we officially begin?' I asked more out of habit although I always hoped they would just come out and say that they were guilty.

'Nothing at all Doctor.' He said

'Then let us begin.' I said and I almost started with all the by the book questions again. That wouldn't work. I would have to be a bit more creative. 'How do you feel now that you are out of the game?' I asked after some thought.

A slight tweak in his eyebrow betrayed reserved surprise at the change of pace but I was certain he had calculated the possibility.

'As a matter of fact I expected a warmer welcome.' He said amused. 'I mean I barely had time to will my muscles to work in their atrophied state before I was carried here and left for I don't even know how long.' He said but his tone betrayed no frustration. If anything he seemed to enjoy this hellish predicament.

'Do you know why you are kept here?' I asked

'I have been briefed by the interrogators. Although I would appreciate some more detail. If you have the jurisdiction to disclose it to me would you mind?' He asked

I thought about it and deducted that some pressure coming from the high-stakes that were on the table would probably discourage him from misbehavior.

'You are suspected of multiple murders and facing possible life times for killing people inside the SAO incident under the alias Poh.' I said in a short yet informative presentation.

'How interesting…' Kazuto started 'I lied to you before. My interrogator had told me everything and even more than that. But I wanted to see if you would disclose anything from me or if you would try to make it seem more dramatic. On the contrary you gave an honest presentation of only the facts. How peculiar…' He said and I would be lying if I said I was surprised. I expected some mind games and tests until he thought he had a grasp on my personality.

'So,' I broke the silence that had filled the room 'Were you truly Poh?' I asked. A useless question that would be answered by a straight no regardless of how guilty he was. I asked it to observe his possible tics when lying more than anything else.

'And why would I disclose that information to you, doctor?' He asked playfully. He still had the state of mind of not having to say anything he didn't want. I had no idea of his achievements inside the game but by this alone I was certain enough that he was in one way of a powerful and respected or feared position. One way or another…

'I would say that it is to protect yourself from the court but that would be a lie since I can't disclose anything you say to the court. My job here is to purely detect any and all possible psychological problems you may have.' I half lied emotionlessly.

He had made a mistake. He had given her a way to casually state he could say whatever he wanted inside this room and I couldn't disclose anything. Where I to just present the fact it would make me look suspicious but now it could look like I just happened to mention it.

'Well then doctor I do have something to say' He said and I tilted her head ever so slightly out of curiosity. 'My alias inside the game of Sword Art Online was indeed Poh.' He said and my mind went blank.

Was that a confession? Did he just blurt out he was guilty without getting tricked, or pressured or anything. He had just… said it.

Wait I thought all he has admitted by now is that his alias was Poh. That didn't mean he was a murderer or anything of this sort. If I call him out on it he may just recede back to his shell and say that maybe another person had the same name or that just his friends called him that and his nickname in the game was different.

'Would that mean you are the murderer that everyone is searching?' I asked without being able to keep certain grains of anxiousness from creeping into my voice at the possible revelation. In response he smiled cheekily!

'Well Doctor. That is one long story. Are you certain you wish to hear everything that happened inside this game?' He asked but he obviously knew the answer beforehand. I subconsciously frowned a bit at the liking this boy had taken at beating around the bush.

And the worst part was that he was getting to me.

'If you wish to talk about it I would be more than glad to lend you my ear.' I said a little faster than I should to seem impassive.

'Then get comfortable. This is going to be a looooong story of how I got through this game unscathed in a world that you can only live in, in your wildest dreams' He said and finally showed some true emotion by giving her a feral smile. 'And how I enjoyed turning it into a nightmare!'