Time to Remember

No one talked. We knew it. We all knew what he was thinking. We knew it.

We all knew.

We knew... that either Eita Onishi or Mamiyu Arai trapped Asuna and Kirito, and we had to figure out how... And why...

Their Yui, now a pegacorn like my baby, said, "I still don't understand, why can daddy sign out and mommy can't?" Devon quickly thinks and comes up with an answer.

"Because," he said. "It's easy. Kirito was smart, and the person who did this easily thought Asuna was not. They both are still on the NerveGear, so we still cannot remove the gear that easily. The person who did this must have thought that they would never be able to find another way out, like they did for SAO and ALO. This person must have a grudge against these two." He gets up and takes a book from the bookshelf. "When I first started this game, I never really thought I would love my girlfriend. I just started this game so I could find someone else while hanging out with her. But, when she was gone, I always did research on this game to get a good idea on how to work it. I found myself always going to this book." He held it up so we could so the cover. It said 'Mamiyu Arai: Famous Designer'. "She explained not only in here how to work this game." He opened the book to a page. "But also who she is, and there's more." He set the book on the table and grabbed another one. "The end of that book says to read this one. Neither of these are supposed to exist in this world, but I found the Easter egg." He shows the title to us once again. This one said "Eita Onishi: A Great Teacher'. "If you want I can read this to you."

"Please do!" Yui (not mine, still, mine was hiding behind me) said.

Devon nodded. He sat down and opened the book on Mamiyu. "'I'm Mamiyu Arai. I never really meant for this game to be so popular. This game was just a school project that I have decided, with the help from my teacher, Mr. Eita Onishi, to make a full game. My Little Bronies is a virtual game world where you can meet people that also enjoy the show 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic'. I myself do not care for the show, but my ex-boyfriend did, and when we decided we were not for each other, I still wanted to help him find someone who did like MLP:FIM. So, when Mr. O gave us the assessment, I knew I had the perfect chance to do so. Any who, my father created ALO, Sugou.'" He paused. "There is her reason to trap you, Kirito, you almost killed her father and sent him to jail. That is why she could have left you locked in here, but why here? I mean, she could have created another game where it is just you, no way out. Correct?" Kirito nodded. "So why trap you in here? I believe her teacher did this, would you like if I explain why?" All of us nodded, though I knew why. It was actually very obvious. "I believe this because 1, he shows signs of loving Arai. He helped her when he didn't have to. Yes, most teachers could do this, but he was known to be a pervert around the school. Also, he has once admitted in class that he does think Arai is very beautiful, and according to the student that was near his desk, he whispered afterword that he "wouldn't mind to hit that all night". 2, he knew about Kirito and Sugou. The day after it was issued in the paper that he was in jail and Kirito caused it, he was known to be yelling at his class, saying "That damn Kirito will learn to mess with Sugou!" It is known around the school that he actually hated Sugou and most were surprised to find him defending Sugou. 3, even if Arai did it, she could have created a place where Kirito can go permanently to die, and not here, in a romance game. Onishi had no experience in technology. He couldn't have. Both ALO and SAO was shut down, so he couldn't put them there. He had to put them somewhere, and this is the only game that he could be put in in his NerveGear."

We all thought. Except Devon. He sat there, hanging over the book, reading to himself.

I soaked in the information.

"If that is true, Devon," Kirito says. "Then we need to know all about either of them."

Devon nods and opens the book on Mamiyu Arai. "ALO is a pretty different from MLB. ALO includes levels and swords and skills. MLB is a romance game and has nothing to do with swords and things. You can still have skills in certain things. Cooking, sports, and things like that." Devon pauses. "This just explains the difference's on ALO and MLB. Do you want to skip over it?" Kirito and Asuna nod in unison. Devon continues. "My dad and I are very different from each other, but the only thing we have in common is the love of the NerveGear. Any who, I guess I should explain who I am. Again, my name is Mamiyu Arai. I am a high school student. I never really thought I would be making a game for people to play. I was just never the person to play video games; any. Romance, horror, adventure. Any video games at all, I never played at all. I read books and things. I was very old schooled. When Mr. Onishi gave this project, I was very surprised. I never thought I would ever have to deal with video games. That's pretty much my life. I never played any games, I read books and colored and things like that. I was never very interesting."

Devon looks over the rest and closes the book. "If Onishi did it, we should learn more about him." He opens the book on him and starts reading. "My name is Eita Onishi. So, you must be wondering who I am. So, I am a male Japanese school teacher. Why am a teacher?" Devon pauses. "At a young age, my mother was put into the hospital while she was ill. After a few weeks past, my mother told me she was going to die soon. She told me that she loved me and said that she hoped I could become a teacher someday. I decided I would live out my mothers dream for her. She never did become a teacher." Devon scans the pages and continues to read a few minutes later. "My mother was sent to hospital with a bad flu that wouldn't go away. The doctors told us from square one that my mother is in great danger. But I loved my mom, and decided I would do everything to make her happy even if she's gone." I smiled. "About Eita- I came from a small town in Colorado. So small, in fact, that it isn't even on the map. Everything there is always the same. Every girl is like the next. Families stick with the same jobs their parents did. Nothing is ever different. Until my family came to live there years back. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother came to live there after years of poverty in our homeland. They moved there for money purposes.'"

He pauses and looks up at me. "Can you read this please, Mocha?" he asks. I nod, and he hands the book to me.

I clear my throat and start to read.

"'So after a while, I started to get bored of my little town. Mom was too, before she got sick. Even when she was, she tried to talk me into moving away. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was bored of the little town. Well, after my mom died, I decided I was going to go to college. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do until I remembered what my mom had wanted me to become, a teacher. After a year at college, a girl approached me. She was my friend at the time, Catriona Adcock. She told me so liked me and wanted to date me. I, not knowing what to do, said yes. We dated for a few years, until college ended and she had to go back to the USA... We broke up because we knew we would never be able to date overseas, and I couldn't leave without a passport, which I didn't have the money to buy. So, college was a bummer. Well, soon after, the school I currently work at called me up. They said I had the right schooling to become the new teacher for Tech Ed. I quickly made them promise me I would be working on Technology and not building... Well, after a few months of working there, I got a phone call. I couldn't believe it. On the other line was Catriona, and she said she was on her way back to Japan to work at the school. We promised to meet each other at the school when she got there. I couldn't believe it, it really was her! We had a short reunion, full of kissing and hugging, both of us really got over each other. But there was one problem. She had a different last name... Her name was Catriona Adair. She wouldn't tell me why. Well, I soon found out that she had a child, named Hazeline Adair. I asked her about it. She said that her mom had found someone in the USA because she didn't think she would ever get over me without someone else. She never thought that she would be able to get back to Japan. That's when she had Hazeline. She realized a few years later that her school was sending her here, so she broke up with him. She had her child's name changed so I wouldn't find out.'"

"Wow," says my Yui.

I nod and continue reading. "'After I told her that I knew about Claude, she broke up with me. I went to school depressed for a while. But while I was depressed, Mamiyu moved to the school. I was so happy a girl that was beautiful moved to the school. I know its weird, but I'm not very old. Seriously. I am only in my twenties even though I look very old,'" I say. I pause. "He never mentioned the guys name before." I shrug. "'I started to love her extremely until I figured out Sugou was her father. If you were wondering, I do have a past with him. We went to school together. We always made fun of each other, as friends. Until we went to high school. That's when we started to fall for girls. We fell for the same girl, and then we always tried to prove to her who was the better programmer. If you can't tell, he won and a few years later, he had Mamiyu. Well, okay, he didn't have her, his wife did. But anyway, he left her soon after and Mamiyu moved here with her father. Nobody's ever seen her mother since.'"

Devon clears his throat and I stop reading. We all look at him.

He holds a few papers and a pencil.

"What's that for, daddy?" my Yui asks.

He smiles and sets the paper on the table in front of him.

"We need a plan, a plan to get Asuna and Kirito out of here." He thinks. "So, as we know, its most likely Onishi who trapped them here." He writes 'ONISHI' at the top of the paper. "So now we need to figure out how." He points at me and I nod.

"'School Life - I started school soon after my mothers death. It didn't take me long to get into the college that I wanted. If you didn't know, I was very good in school. I got advanced in everything I did and always got on Honor Role. I was never late and never missed a day. I always did everything my teachers wanted me to do. Gym was nothing at all. I was also very athletic and nerdy. Every girl loved me, but I never dated anybody. My teachers said I was very talented and I would go far in life before my mothers death. Afterward, everything was a blur. I remember changing to home schooling, but never actually doing anything. I remember my spending all my time with my dying mother. Everyday mixed in with the next. If you couldn't tell, I was close to my mom. Closer than her and my father, anyway.'" I pause for a breath, and it was a new section anyway. "'My Mothers Sickness - My mother was very sick before we took her to the doctors. We thought she just had a flu until it stayed for longer than usual. It wouldn't go away, and she was getting sicker by the day. The doctors said it there was no way to cure it, it was a virus nobody had seen before. They said they had to wait until she died until they could find a cure. I was furious when they told me this. I yelled at them, asking them why they couldn't do that now. They responded calmly, telling me they didn't know where the virus was from, it could have started in her heart. They would have to cut her open for a while to find the core. And it would kill her in the state she was in, she was vulnerable. I didn't know what to tell my mom, so I didn't. A few days later, she told me she knew she was going to die soon, and she wanted me to fulfill her dream to become a teacher. I was hoping she was wrong, but she wasn't. She died about a week later. College - College was where I finally figured out what subject I wanted to teach: technology. It was always a passion of mine before... mothers sickness. It was easy for me to understand and work. I helped in the making of the NerveGear. It was way harder than what I expected. As a computer genius, I was a big help. It wasn't too hard but harder than what I was expecting it to be.'" As I read, Devon writes down everything about the making of the NerveGear.

After a little while, he tells me to stop reading, and he holds up the paper.

It was filled with notes on everything I had just read, with the giant "ONISHI" at the top still.

He clears his throat before speaking.

"As we just heard Moka read, he helped in the making of the NerveGear. This helps us prove that he trapped Kirito in here. The new machine is the same thing as the NerveGear, but it is safer. He just had to use the knowledge he knew about the NerveGear, and apply it to the new machine." He pauses. "If my notes are correct, and that book is too, then we have the way he trapped her." Devon pauses once again to think for a second. "He could have trapped her using the same technique Akihiko Kayaba used. He could have even been helping in the trapping of SAO. If I remember correctly, Kayaba made the NerveGear to make the current happen. Then, when everyone logged in, he used his power to change the game while everyone was there. As you know, he made it impossible to log out of SAO. Onishi could have used the same thing. He could have grabbed you while you were leaving ALO, and planted you here. He could have used Kayaba's power, as you did Kirito, and make it impossible to log out for you, Asuna. He obviously didn't bother to change you guys to ponies, or deleting your Yui. He must have been in a rush. This could mean he was doing so in class, he was borrowing someone's NerveGear, or someone was watching him from the real world and he knew so."

I nod and close the book. I slide it across the table to him. "He could have anticipated that someone like us would help you and he must have done something to help trap Asuna," I say.

Devon nods.

"If he did, we have to figure out what."

Asuna clears her throat and we all look at her.

"Couldn't we just use Kayaba's power to log me out, like in ALO?" she asks. Devon nods and looks over to Kirito.

"We don't know how to do it."

He nods and whispers something. He slides in front of him.

Nothing happens.

Devon nods and says, "He made it impossible to log into the power. Your still you, the system is responding." A screen pops in front of Kiritos face and he jumps.

Once he realizes what it is, he reads it out loud.

"'Akihiko Kayaba is an invalid username. You are logged in as Kirito.'"

Devon nods. "My point proven. So he must have deleted his account. We need to find Onishi to get Asuna out. And he must have figured out that's what we would come up with. He's protected somehow, and I'm not quite sure how. But I have an idea where," he says and walks to the door. "We're taking a field trip."

My Yui jumps up and runs up to Devon's side.

"Yay! Field Trips are awesome!"

Authors Note

Sorry it took so long. I would have an idea, then I wouldn't. Then I would come up with another and...

You get it.

Anyway, hope you still are enjoying the story. I'm trying my best to write as much as I can.

I'm really sorry it took me so long!

~HeyyImInsaneAboutAnime, or Mary