A/N: So... sorry that this took EIGHT MONTHS to do but unfortunate I do not do good with yuri. Got to the point where I needed TheSib's help to finish it... I swear that from now on I WILL update this much more often then what happened this year. TichePotato, I hope you enjoy this, as vanilla as it is

Chapter 5: Dragon Flower (Silica x Mai) One Shot

The sun shone brightly on the flowering fields of Floor 60 if the cheerful chirping of birds was any sign of it. Since the floor was long since cleared of any overly dangerous threat numerous players happily roamed around enjoying the scenery and all it had to offer.

"Hey Silica, check out these flowers over here!"

And of course it meant that the younger players could enjoy the floor as most kids their age should, outside with friends.

The young girl Silica ran to the voice that called out to her, being followed by her loyal and beloved pet Pina the dragon. Ever since their reunion following the dragon's short lived death, the dragon tamer vowed never to let anything bad happen to her loved pet again so that meant never going alone to level up on the upper floors. However this is where her friend that was calling for her came into the picture

"Oh wow these are beautiful!" Silica gaped in awe at the flora. The flowers that captured her attention were bright baby blue with a brilliant yellow stigma that poked out in a showy fashion. "Are there anymore or is this the only patch you found Mai?"

Mai, resident rapier wielder of the famous Wyvern's Inferno, shook her head at the dragon tamer's inquiry. "No these are the only ones around as far as I can tell. The yellow middle is my favorite part of it, especially how it just juts out like that."

Silica gave the flower a soft poke and smiled at it. "I agree, it's so cute. I hope no one else finds these flowers and tramples on them. I want this to be a special place between us."

"B-Between us?" Mai stuttered, her face growing the softest tinge of pink at her friend's words.

"Yeah there's no one I'd rather share this flower patch with than you. After all you're my best friend in this whole game." The dragon tamer affirmed which made Mai smile softly which made the girl's heart skip a beat.

"Y-Yeah best friend! And so are you Silica, my best friend I mean!"

Silica gave a concerned look to the rapier user as the girl in question arose from their spot. "Are you okay Mai? You seem kinda jumpy." The dragon tamer got up as well and pressed her hand to Mai's head to see if she was getting sick. This in turn only caused the girl to grow more red faced and panic-y

Mai waved her hand in an over exaggerated way whilst chuckling nervously. "Nope nothing wrong at all Silica my best friend. Nothing is wrong at all. Oh look at the time my sister is probably worried about me! I should get going okay? Alright see you later!"

The pigtailed girl stood baffled at seeing Mai suddenly bolt from the area with a burning hot face, shoving players aside as she made her way to the gate. Pina gave a small confused tilt of her head, looking at her owner while letting out a confused cry. All she could do is shrug her shoulders in response to her beloved pet. "I'm just as confused as you are Pina."

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"Ooooooooh! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" Mai groaned loudly while pounding her head against the brick wall of the inn that she and her guildmates were currently based in. Never in her whole life did she feel so stupid and embarrassed at the same time. Silica probably didn't even mean what she said in the way that the girl was thinking of but damn it if it didn't trigger warning bells in her head. "Ahhh… This is the worst day of my life…" She continued to hit her head halfheartedly against the wall in despair

"Ahem… Am I interrupting something Mai?"

The young girl turned around to see her older sister Alice looking at her with a questioning gaze. Mai's face grew bright red in embarrassment at being caught by her sister in her lowest moment and held her face in her cheeks. "Don't look at me! I'm such a screw up!"

"Whoa whoa hey! What's gotten into you Mai?" Alice questioned, walking up to her sister and wrapping her in a comforting hug. "You know you can tell me if anything is wrong right? I'm here to help."

"...You wouldn't be able to help with this problem…"

"Try me, if it's for you I'll do anything to help. That's what sisters do for each other." The scythe wielder began to move her sister inside the inn. "Come on, you can tell me what's wrong inside the inn okay?"

Mai nodded her head as she let herself be guided by Alice into Wyvern's Inferno's shared room. Being a good sized guild meant they got access to the normally unavailable rooms that were much more spacious than the ones on the lower floors. But it didn't come with separate sections so the room was as co-ed as it could get. But with four of their members already being in a serious relationship, this meant very little to the guild as a whole.

Opening the door Alice moved Mai inside the room but to their surprise they weren't alone. Helios, the resident tank and annoying dick of Wyvern's Inferno was sitting in his bed alongside Dagger, the guilds merchant and off time schemer. In addition to that, Riku was sitting off to the side doing maintenance on his equipment. Helios looked up from his girlfriend to see the sisters enter the room and gave his usual sneer at the younger of the two. "Hey there squirt, have fun on your little play date with Silica?"

Mai buried her face into her hands in embarrassment while Alice stepped forward like the protective sister she was. "Helios shut up. Mai doesn't need to hear your crap today alright?"

"Ooh! Looks like someone is snippy today. Better watch out before Miss Berserker goes on a rampage again."

"That was ONE TIME, I thought we all agreed that you aren't allowed to talk about it anymore!"

"We you see Alice here in lies the problem." Helios raised his left hand and opened it. "Here in my hand is all the F's I give about you telling me to shut up about that incident. As you can see there is nothing there so I will do as I please."

Alice wanted so badly to wipe that smirk off his annoying face but feeling Mai grip her shirt from behind reminded her there were more important things to do at the moment. "Whatever… Mai can you tell me what's been bugging you? I can tell this isn't a recent problem."

"Do I have to with them in the room?" Mai whispered in desperation. "I don't want my problems being made fun of by Helios."

The older sister patted her kin on the head and gave a wink to her. "He so much as says a word about this and I can guarantee you he won't be speaking for the next week."

Considering how scary and threatening Alice could be when enraged, hence why she got the nickname 'Berserker Lotus', Mai took her sister's words to heart and moved her to their beds that were right next to each other. "Alright well… the problem is with Silica."

"Silica? Aren't you friends with her?" Alice questioned, her face confused before coming to a conclusion. "Is she making you uncomfortable? Making fun of you or bullying?"

"What!? No, no, no! Nothing like that at all" Mai said frantically which made the others look her way. "Silica isn't being mean to me at all, she's my friend. My best friend in fact."

"Then what's the problem?"

The younger girl sighed deeply which made the concern from Alice grow all the more. "It's that whenever I'm around Silica I feel all weird inside. My chest feels tight and hot at the same time, I feel so happy whenever she smiles at me and when I see her frown I just want to make her smile again. Do you know what that means Alice?"

This information shook Alice down to her core with what was just said. All these signs, all these emotions that Mai was feeling were the exact same things that she felt when around Ren before they entered their relationship. If the criteria was similar enough then did that mean that Mai-

"Well squirt from the sound of it, it looks like you might be holding a flame for the little dragon keeper." Helios called from his bed.

Mai's face lit up red like the aforementioned candle which made her try to hide it in her pillow and caused Alice to shoot at death glare at the player. "Will you butt out of this!?"

"Oh relax I'm just making an observation here." Getting out of his bed, the tank moved over to the blushing girl and ruffled up her hair. "Looks like a first crush if I've ever seen one. Isn't that just precious?" He moved away from Mai when her older sister tried to sock him one in the face. Missing the shot only served to make Alice even more upset.

"Just shut up already Helios! I don't need you making things worse than they already are for Mai! She's probably really confused about these feelings and I don't think-"

"No Alice, I think Helios might be right." Mai said, her voice muffled by the pillow her head was buried in. "... I think I might be in love with Silica…"

Now there were many things that an older sister should be prepared for. A talk about the birds and bees, explaining the concept that is 'time of the month' and what kinds of problems boys could be to a growing girl. Though Alice never thought in her life she would be teaching the third topic but in an inverted way.

Translation, Alice never thought she'd have to explain lesbian attraction to her younger sister in this or any life time. "... Come again?"

"Now, now let big brother Helios explain this to little Mai. Now squirt there comes a time when we start to become attracted to a person in a way we aren't familiar with. In your case it's very unfamiliar since your current object of affection is another girl."

"Helios…" Alice's voice was laced with a dangerous tone that promised much pain should he continue further. But being the guy he was, Helios continued further with his explanation.

"Now there's nothing wrong with being attracted to another girl when you're a girl yourself. That's what you prefer and no one should judge you for your preferences. Trust me kid, I'll make fun of you for a lot of things but being gay ain't gonna be one of them. It's 2024 squirt, not the dark ages."

Deciding enough was enough, Alice shoved the tank away from them and gave her sister a comforting hand on her head. "Ignore him Mai let me tell you what you gotta do. Now no matter who you fall in love with, the matter of fact is that you're in love with this person. And that tingling feeling you have in your chest right now isn't gonna go away unless you do something about it."

"But what can I do to make it leave me alone?"

"The answer to that is very simple yet it's easier said than done. All you have to do is confess to them and make sure you get a response back be it positive or negative. When you get your answer you can either accept their love and be happy together or respect their feelings and move on."

Mai processed the advice given to her and slowly got up from her position. Although the concept of confessing love to someone sounded like a frightening concept she knew that deep down there was no other option but to go for it. With a deep exhale of breath the young rapier user jumped off of her bed and marched out the door with vigor which made Alice smile with pride.

'Go get her Mai, you can do it.'

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Kyu!"

"Oh I'm sorry Pina! I didn't realize I was brushing too hard."

Ever since the incident that took place an hour ago with Mai, Silica felt rather confused and distracted about the whole ordeal. Even doing something as simple as grooming her pet dragon was hard to keep focus on since her friend's behavior was just so uncanny. 'Was it something I said or did? All I did was tell her that she was my best friend.'

For the life of her, the dragon tamer could not come up with any sort of reason for Mai's weird behavior. She could chalk it up to something the girl had eaten earlier that day but she only seemed to act strange after their hang out.

'But why was she acting strange?' Silica wondered. The young dragon tamer looked at the flower she had picked earlier from the secret spot she had shown Mai. It was a beautiful flower. For some reason though, it reminded her of Mai.

Silica had any friends in the world of Aincrad. Most of them were just fans of hers that wanted her as their mascot. A select few were ones she actually considered real friends, such as Kirito and the Wyvern's Inferno guild Mai was apart of. But there was something different about Mai in particular. Her feelings towards the girl felt… stronger than the others. Even more than her feelings towards Pina almost. Now that she thought about it, the only person that had ever made her feel like this before was… Kirito.

'Wait. It can't be…' Silica thought to herself. 'Could I be… in love with Mai?'

A/N: I Can't believe how long it took to finish this but now that it's said and done, I can now focus on freelancing what if ships again and rekindle my love for writing again. I already have gotten started with the next chapter so look forward to that my friends. See you all next time!