"What did you just say?" I asked.

I know what he said, though. My ears are working just fine. I just needed to make sure.

Tetsuo still stayed quiet. He crumbled to the ground.

"What did you say about Ducker, Tetsuo?"

Still quiet…

It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together…

"There was something more going on that night, wasn't it?"

Tetsuo finally lift his face up. He looked miserable.

"Leave me alone…just leave me alone…"

His face looked so pitiful.

There's no use trying to pursue the topic further right now.

But I know that there was indeed something more happened that fateful day.

I left Tetsuo alone for now and walked back to Lisbeth, still clutching her pained chest. She had been staring confusedly at Tetsuo for a while now.

"He says he need some time alone. Let's just leave him be for now." I told her.

The air around us is getting colder and colder.

"It's getting dark now. I'm getting the sleeping bags out."

Tetsuo didn't say a word for three hours now.

Lisbeth and I pretended that we're the only ones down here and just go about our business. Still, the uncomfortable feeling remained.

There's still no sign of Keita and the rest of the group. The dragon might have driven them away from here, or maybe Keita pulled off the rescue until the morning. Smart move on his part if the latter is the case, as every player know travelling in unsafe areas during nighttime is nothing short of suicidal.

Me and Lisbeth are both in sleeping bags now in the middle of the hole. The only source of light (and heat) is from Lisbeth's gas lamp between us. Tired as we were, we couldn't get ourselves to sleep.

Lisbeth was the first to start talking,

"All of this we've been through…it's so weird…" She mumbled, her eyes stared toward the night sky above us.

"A surprise visit by Asuna, the business with you and your guild. In just one day, I ended up here, sleeping in a middle of nowhere, next to someone else I've just met."

"You'd be surprise to know what life can throw at you sometimes. Getting trapped into this game is one of these things." I said.

"Touché" Lisbeth giggled. "Still, I've never found someone as weird as you! Trying running up the wall? Who the hell does that!?"

And then she laughed again. So annoying!

But I won't deny, though, she sounded kinda cute, too.

"Well, I'm sorry that I'm too crazy for your taste."

Another silence.

"Talking about crazy…" Lisbeth began again, this time she sounded less chipper. "Why did you save me and that guy?"

I turned to look at her.

"I know you and him hated each other to guts, and you don't even know anything about me, so why did you risk your life to save both of us?"

"I'm not the type of person who just let someone to die if there is a way I can save them." I replied. "And even if I can't save them, if I can die with them rather than leaving them to die alone, then that's the next best thing, right?"

Lisbeth looked confused for a second, then she smiled again.

"You really are a weirdo, Kirito." She said.

Time passed by little by little. I glanced back at Tetsuo from time to time. He's already asleep with his back rested on the wall.

He didn't have anything to cover him from the cold, so Lisbeth decided to put the jacket he lent her earlier gently on his back.

"Wouldn't want him to catch a cold now, would we?" She gave me a little smile when she saw me looking at them.

"Had he not being such an ass, I'd say you and him will probably make a nice match." I teased her. Lisbeth just blushed furiously.

"I-I didn't like him! He's just, well, he seems like a kind man. Except when he's with you, of course!"

"Heh…"

And with that, Lisbeth settled back in her bag.

"If it's okay with you, can you tell me what happened between you and your group?" Lisbeth asked.

I hesitated for a bit. The subject of 'that day' is still not my favorite subject to talk with others, but seeing that there's no point hiding it from her, I decided to tell everything.

Almost everything, by the way. She fell asleep a while into the story.

I followed her to sleep not long after that.

"They're coming from everywhere!"

Someone screamed.

The ominous siren sound echoed throughout the blood-red lit room. It's like we're in some kind of hell.

"Everyone, get back! Get behind me!" I shouted.

"Someone, anyone! Help me!" A girl voice, Sachi's, cried.

Damn it, I'm not gonna let them hurt her!

Hundreds of stone golems and dwarf axemen surrounded us, but they won't stop me from saving her.

"Hey, Kirito, Kirito! Don't break the cover! You'll…" I heard Tetsuo shouted after me, but I couldn't caught the last part.

I'm just too busy trying to stay alive, and keeping her alive.

Because I made her a promise…

I broke through just in time to block what could've been a killing blow to Sachi. The poor girl didn't even fight back. She just dodged the attacks hopelessly while the monsters closing in on her.

"Hey, what the hell!? Tetsuo! Anyone, help!"

It's Ducker's voice.

"It hurts so much! IT HURTS! STOP, PLEASE! PLEASE HELPP!"

I turned back just in time to see the dwarfs slammed their axes into Ducker's back, and his body disintegrated right before my eyes. The bastards didn't even stop swinging their weapons after he disappeared.

I went berserk, and the whole world exploded.

.

.

.

"What the hell!? Tetsuo!..."

.

.

.

"I'm sorry that I pushed you down, Ducker…"

.

"What the hell!?."

.

"I'm sorry that I pushed you down…"

.

"What the hell, Tetsuo!?"

.

"I pushed you down…"

.

.

.

I woke up with a start.

The sky's still dark, and Lisbeth's still sleeping beside me.

Sweats ran across my face and body. It almost felt like I was back into fighting that dreadful fight again.

Only this time, I've seen everything.

"Good, you're awake." A voice called.

It's Tetsuo.

I got up and slowly walked toward him, carefully not to awake Lisbeth. Tetsuo himself stood by the wall. The light from the gas lamp cast a shadow on him, making him looked rather more menacing than he should be.

"What do you want now?" I asked.

"I want to tell you the truth."

"The truth?"

"Yes, the truth behind Ducker's death."

Silence.

"Why now?" I asked, my voice slowly raising. "Why choose now to tell me this? Because you're sorry? You don't feel really sorry before when you tormented me with those creative insults of yours."

"Don't be a prick, Kirito. Most of them were still your fault that we all ended up like this. You deserved all of them." Tetsuo said coldly, but strangely, there's no sign of hostility in his voice. "You abandoned the cover to go rescue Sachi and left an open for the majority of monsters to flank us. I tried to warn you but you're just too busy saving the girl."

Oh, now I remember now.

"Hey, Kirito, Kirito! Don't break the cover! You'll leave us wide open!"

"But I ran after Sachi to save her! One of your guildmates! You know how scared of death she was, and you would just leave her to die?"

"If it means getting the rest of us out of that deathtrap alive, then yes! No matter how much I cared for her as my best friend!" Tetsuo spoke loudly. "That's why I…that's why I…"

"That's why you pushed Ducker down." I continued. Somehow, it all made perfect sense.

"You pushed Ducker down because he's the one who triggered the trap, so that made him the primary target for the monsters. So while everyone's too busy fighting to care for anything else, you pushed him down into the group of monsters to lure them and buy yourself some time…"

My fists clenched again.

"…enough time for me to kill them all for you in blind rage."

"I will not deny that I'm a coward but…" Tetsuo began, but I didn't let him finish.

"Yes, you're fucking coward." I grabbed him by the collar. "All this time I've blamed myself, I thought I was the person responsible for his death…"

"So…what!?" Tetsuo struggled to speak. "I just did…what I had to do!...If I hadn't, none of us…would be…walking out of that room alive!"

I let go of his collar.

"What about you!? You thought you could take on everything all by yourself? I might be a coward, but I'm not stupid enough not to know that we need to pull out all stops to win this game! I just wanted to get ourselves out of this alive the best way I can! But people like you…people like you only wanted to take…take and no give…We trusted you once, Kirito, and looked how it turned out back then! Is it any surprise why I'm very hesitated to bring you along for the second time?"

"Maybe you're right," I replied. "Maybe I'm an idiot all along, but at least I don't hide it behind that all high-and-mighty tone of yours, thinking that you can never do anything wrong. Well, guess what? Everyone fucks up once in a while! That's how life goes! The least you could do is not bitching about it all the time and just let. It. Go!"

Another silence. A very long silence.

"I guess we are both idiots, then." Tetsuo ended.

"..achoo!..."

I heard someone sneezed behind me.

"Lisbeth, you're awake?"

I turned back to see Lisbeth, who's still in her sleeping bag with her back turned to us, but I know that she's already awake.

"Did you hear all of them?" Tetsuo asked.

"…most of it…" Lisbeth admitted, before she got out of her sleeping bag and walked toward us. Her face expression a mixture of sadness and acceptance.

"You two are the most idiotic people I have ever met…" She said. "…but I know that deep down, both of you only wanted the best for the people you cared for. You two mean well in what you do, it's only that…it's only that you don't always end up doing well…"

And with that, she embraced both of us.

"…and I couldn't hope for a better person to be stuck down here in this hole with me."

Sometimes, I wondered. Maybe fate does have a sense of humor.

Of all the possible resolutions of this situation I could think of, all of this were never on my mind, and yet from a point of view, it's also the most cliché ending of all…

But I'm glad that everything ended up this way. It's probably for the best.

Well, that, and the fact that we still need to work together to find a way out of this hole…

A/N: Another chapter down! Had so much fun writing this one!

To be honest, this whole Tetsuo arc wasn't in my first script. I recently came up with it when I decided to return to writing. I was just thinking up a way to conclude Lisbeth's arc as well as developing a character in Keita's guild, too, and while I first wanted to develop Izumi, I ended up choosing Tetsuo instead. That makes two Black Cat members' arcs ended so far! Damn, maybe I should've thought this out more clearly before I started writing the damn thing…

Also, a confession, the line "Mean well, not do well." was inspired by a similar line in Dead Space 3, spoken by the protagonist Isaac Clarke late in the game. It's so simple, yet full of meaning. One of my favorite quotes I couldn't help but including it here. :)

Any suggestions and reviews are welcomed! Thank you for reading!