Monochrome Duet

by Solid Shark

After the brutal 25th Floor Boss Raid, Asuna has left Kirito's side to join the Knights of Blood. With his partner gone, Kirito resigns himself to returning to the life of a solo player-until a familiar face from the lower floors unexpectedly reenters his life. The strangely-human NPC Kizmel, despite her quest being over, has returned to his side... Kirito/Kizmel.

15. Chapter XV: Serenade of Water III

January 15th, 2024

---

"Can't believe it took us this long to get to the end of this place," Philia muttered, fingers nimbly working at the lock with a narrow pick. "Two days to clear a cave dungeon on an island? On a breather level? That's just crazy, especially with four of us."

"We had to find it, first," Kirito reminded her, watching her actions with some interest. Or maybe her body, considering that even here they were all in swimsuits. Though Rain admitted to herself that wasn't especially likely; while she was sure that the so-called "Beater" was anything but disinterested in girls, his interest seemed to be pretty specific."Just knowing the name wasn't much to go on."

"Remember also the time we lost learning of the Sun and Moon Doors," Kizmel said. She was leaning against one of the rough-hewn cavern walls, arms folded under her breasts in a position that just so happened to put her in Kirito's peripheral vision. "They were an unprecedented complication in themselves."

"Kinda hard to be quick about it when we have to wait for the lighting to be just right," Rain agreed, keeping careful watch back the way they had come. "Not to mention the regular locks—like this one."

Two days after the Dread Pirate Robair's flagship Kobayashi spectacularly blew herself to pieces, their little treasure-hunting party was deep inside the Zaro Cave Palace, on the western edge of the Fifty-First Floor. Located on Zaro Island, it had taken them most of the previous day to even find it, and only had thanks to a tip from the KoB's Vice-Commander Asuna.

The chance meeting had been an awkward one. Rain wasn't entirely sure why the Flash had seemed torn between irritation and hilarity at the sight of her former partner surrounded by girls in swimsuits, but she did know she didn't really want to be in that position again.

Asuna had given them the map data that led them to Zaro Island, though, so Rain wasn't going to complain too much. She did kind of feel like complaining at Kayaba for coming up with doors that could only be opened at certain times of day, though. Reaching the Cave Palace's entrance in late afternoon only to learn they had to wait until the moon came up to actually get in hadn't gone over very well for any of them.

Discovering a door leading to an open-air passage that needed dawn to open had just about done them all in.

At least the mobs hadn't been too bad. The sound-hunting Cave Salamanders had carried a nasty perpetual Heat effect, but they'd been easy enough to kite with simple thrown rocks. Their nearly-deaf Sunbathing Newt cousins had fallen for Rain's hiding so thoroughly she almost felt guilty about it—though that guilt had been no match for how tasty their hides had been, barbequed on the beach for dinner that night.

The regular locks would've been a pain if we'd had to go looking for keys, though. Good thing we've got a treasure hunter with us.

If there was anything besides pure swordsmanship that Rain prided herself on, it was her skill at Hiding. She'd pit her ability to sneak around against anybody in Aincrad—maybe even including the PKers Argo had warned her about. But if there was anyone in Aincrad even better than she was at getting into places she wasn't supposed to, it was Philia. The self-proclaimed treasure hunter was the first player Rain had actually met who not only had the Lock-picking skill, but had actually come very close to mastering it.

Kirito, she thought, was kind of spooked by that. Though when she overheard him muttering something about never letting Argo know about that, she couldn't really blame him. The last thing anyone in Aincrad wanted was the Rat with a partner in gathering blackmail material.

Now, three "special" doors and at least seventeen normal locks—not to mention a Giant Salanewt in the middle of the Cave Palace—later, they were at what the map suggested would be the final door. Behind it, they hoped to find the key leading to Hyrus' Forge itself, and hopefully a map showing where it actually was. They'd checked with both Asuna and Argo, and supposedly no quest had yet been found that gave the Forge's location.

"Okay," Philia announced, fingers carefully making one last, precise nudge at the lock. "I think I've just… about… got it… There!"

With a click that sounded oddly loud in the confines of the cavern, the stone door swung open, leading the way into the Cave Palace's final chamber.

"At last," Kizmel murmured, following Philia's lead into the new room. "I don't object to the attire enforced by the floor's conditions, but I find myself missing my boots right now. The sand in these caves clings all too well to my feet."

Taking up the rear, Rain had to stifle a snicker at the way Kirito's gaze snapped briefly to elf girl's bare feet, before just as quickly returning to the view ahead. If it were anybody else, that really would be hilarious.

"Huh," he said once they were all in, eyes quickly sweeping over the chamber's contents. "Kind of reminds me of the place we found the note about Robair in."

"No creepy writing on the wall this time, though," Philia said, making a beeline for one of the chests piled up in the room. "Just chests, and… I think that's a map on that wall, isn't it?"

"Sure looks like one," Rain agreed, leaving the others to the treasure in favor of looking at said map herself. "Looks like it's a map of this floor, in fact; or at least, the sea that was turned into this floor. I recognize Ousetta Island, the Graveyard, Torvan's Shipyard… Some places we haven't seen, though." She leaned in closer, frowning at the labels. "There's captions, but I can't read 'em. Kizmel?"

The Dark Elf was at her side in a moment. "Hm… Well, if this is to be believed, there's a hot spring on the island in the center of the floor, Onzenna." Off to the side, Kirito audibly choked, prompting a quick smile from Kizmel. "Of course, there is no way to know if that's still accurate, after all this time. More importantly, Hyrus' Forge's location is marked."

Kirito turned from where he'd been examining a tunic he'd found in a chest, one made of an odd, black, scaly material. "It is? Where?"

She frowned. "That's strange… It says right here." Kizmel tapped a spot on the map just a bit to the north of Zaro Island, which showed a drawing of what looked like some kind of stone fortress. "I certainly didn't see any other island so close by as we approached Zaro…"

Oh, yay. Rain could think of a couple of different possibilities, none of them good. It might've been invisible, showing up only under the right conditions or with the right items; or maybe when the Great Separation occurred, it had ended up in a different spot from what the map said. Or the Forge is actually on a giant turtle, and it just moved itself. Oh, that's a fun idea.

"I think I might have the answer to that one, guys," Philia called out. "Look at these." The girl was just emerging from a chest so big most of her torso had fit in it, and dangling from her hand was some kind of full-face mask. Goggle-like pieces covered the eyes, with some sort of grill to go over the nose and mouth.

Kizmel looked perplexed, but Kirito met Rain's eyes with understanding. "Is that what I think it is, Philia?"

"Pretty sure, Kirito. There's enough of them in that chest for a full party of six, and when I brought up the menu it said 'Diver's Mask'." Philia grinned. "I don't think anybody's beating us to these treasures, guys. Time for some deep-sea diving!"

---

As late as it was, there was no question of going for what the old map called "Hyrus Fortress" that night. If it had been an ordinary dungeon, they might've considered it; none of them, though, were willing to risk diving for the sea floor in the dark. Fighting mobs in the water was hard enough when there was enough light to see them coming.

Instead, the team retreated to Black Cat, intending to rest up for an early start the next morning. At least, that was the plan until Kirito noticed something strange as they returned to Zaro's beach. "Hang on," he said, raising a hand. "Do you guys see that?"

From the way the girls tensed, he assumed they had. It was faint from distance, but there was pretty distinctly a light showing through the porthole in Black Cat's tiny lounge. Seeing as it had still been daylight when they last left…

"The anchor's down, though," Philia whispered. "There shouldn't be any way somebody could've snuck aboard… right?"

"Not according to my understanding of human 'Safe Haven' charms, at any rate," Kizmel agreed, hand drifting to the hilt of her saber. "Kirito?"

"No," he said immediately. "Well, okay, just about anybody who isn't orange could probably have gotten on deck, but they shouldn't have been able to get into the cabins, so long as we left the hatch shut." There was, Kirito supposed, the possibility of a glitch, but though he'd seen a few genuine system errors in the year he'd been in SAO the Safe Havens had always worked just fine.

There's always a first time, though, he thought, his hand twitching toward the sword slung over his back. And something is definitely going on here…

He shot a glance at Kizmel, who nodded sharply. "Let us see what's going on," she said softly. "Carefully. Rain?"

"On it." The redhead dropped into a crouch, edged toward the water, and soon disappeared into the waves, the sea and darkness both working with her Hiding to conceal her almost as well as the elf girl's cloak.

Kirito gave a mental nod of approval. That would be one ace in the hole, at least, if something really was about to go wrong. "Let's go."

With the greatest care they'd taken since leaving the Fiftieth Floor's brutal dungeons behind, the remaining members of the group crept back to their boat, climbed aboard, and gathered around the hatch. As soundlessly as he could, Kirito drew the Sea Dragon's Sword from his back, and nodded for Kizmel to spring the latch.

Saber in hand, she did exactly that, and quickly pulled open the hatch—

"Ah, there ya guys are! I was startin' to wonder if you were planning to be out dungeon-crawling all night!"

Sword forgotten, Kirito stared at the girl seated at the small table inside, still wearing the same yellow tankini he'd last seen her in. Reclining in her seat with a fruity drink in hand and a lazy smile on her face, she gave a cheerful wave with her free hand. "…Argo," he said slowly. "How did you…?"

"Quick freebie, Kii-bou," the Rat said, gesturing for them to come in. "People on yer Friends List can walk right in on one of these boats. Well, 'cept for the sleeping cabins, anyway. Now c'mon, get in here and tell Argo-nee-chan how your day went!"

A couple of minutes later, all of them were gathered in the cramped lounge, and—Rain making an irritable comment about Argo being lucky drying was quick in Aincrad aside—the foreboding feeling that had been creeping up on Kirito had vanished. Mostly, anyway. Dealing with Argo was always cause to be a little nervous, regardless of her exact business.

"How did you even get here, Argo?" Kizmel asked when they were all settled. She was another source of anxiety for him, the close confines of Black Cat's lounge forcing her to sit right up against him; but if she was bothered, it wasn't obvious. "I didn't see any other boats around, and I cannot imagine you swimming this far."

After the Rat had already given them a "freebie" about the boat's mechanics, Kirito expected her to grin and name a price. Instead, Argo just shrugged, took a sip of her drink, and said, "No big secret. Remember those floater-paddle shoes from Rovia? I hitched a ride with Aa-chan 'til we were close to Zaro, an' water-walked the rest o' the way."

That figured. As Kirito remembered it, those shoes had a very low weight-limit—his mind quickly shied away from the teasing implications Argo had made about her equipment at the time—but on this floor no one was wearing heavy gear anyway. He was a little impressed, though, that she'd thought to use them again, so long after the Fourth Floor had been cleared.

"So… you just decided to drop by? I thought info brokers were supposed to be neutral, Argo," Rain said, eyeing the other girl suspiciously. "I'd have expected you to call Kirito to a meeting in some cafe somewhere."

I wonder what's with her? It's not like Argo is a suspicious character or something. Er, the dangerous kind, anyway.

Argo grinned. "Eh, everybody knows I get lotsa my info from Kii-bou and Kii-chan, anyway. Nothin' suspicious about that. Who'd suspect I'm really willing to bend the rules for my favorite Black Swordsman?" She waved her drink, heedless of how she almost spilled it on the lantern lighting the cabin. "Anyhow. I got the latest floor-clearing update, with bonus rumors—an' I'll even give ya a discount in exchange for the story of what you've been up to the last couple days."

At least that much was typical Rat behavior, Kirito thought with hidden relief. Any time she started putting on the "big sister" act, he got even more nervous than usual.

Taking turns, they recounted their respective adventures since beginning the Hyrus' Forge quest. Argo nodded here and there, grinned disturbingly once or twice when one or another of them glossed over a few details—Kirito, for one, had no intention of speaking of the conversation he and Rain had had aboard Kobayashi—and lifted her eyebrows at the description of Kobayashi's final moments.

"At least we finally finished that Cave Palace," Philia said at length, rounding out the tale. "In all my treasure hunting, I've never found a dungeon where the time of day matters that much—and I hope I never do again!"

"Heh, I bet. Well, that's one I'll be sure to mention in the next Argo Guide." The Rat rolled her eyes. "I think we'd all be better off if the DDA didn't have something else to freak out about, y'know?"

Kirito nodded glumly over his fruit cocktail. With how the battle against Vemacitrin had gone, he wanted as little to do with the Divine Dragons as he could for awhile. And if Argo can charge them through the nose while keeping them calmer, well, I'm not about to complain.

"Speaking of those guides," he said, bringing up his menu, "what do you have for us, Argo?"

She took the small pouch he handed over, grinned, and swung her feet up on the table. "First off, the big news: Aa-chan's plannin' on hittin' Medrizzel day after tomorrow. Plan is for the raid group to meet up just off Torvan's Shipyard mid-afternoon, an' sail to the Graveyard from there."

"Already?" Philia—who'd drawn back to avoid being hit by Argo's legs—leaned forward, propping her chin on her hands. "I thought the KoB was waiting for more info, or something? I remember Vice-Commander Asuna said something about that when we met her the other day."

"An' they found it. In the belly of a whale, if ya can believe it." Argo gestured toward the porthole. "One of their guys, Havok, had a hunch and did a little free-diving this morning. 'Bout five meters down, he got swallowed by a whale." She chuckled. "Shoulda seen 'im when he came back up, all shakin' and shiverin'… Anyhow, before the whale puked him up again, he found a skeleton and a journal of some Knight of the Order who got swallowed ages ago. Had some tips about Medrizzel, so Aa-chan's gettin' ready to go for it."

Kirito nodded slowly. The day after tomorrow, huh? "So," he said slowly, "if we want to be involved, we'd better wrap this up in the next day or so. Especially since we'll need to make a side trip to Algade to actually use the Forge."

"Sounds about right, Kii-bou," she agreed. "Which brings me to the next bit of info: Havok didn't know what it meant, but he did see the top of a fortress down there, when the whale let 'im go. I'm betting that's the 'Hyrus Fortress' you're after." With a few deft motions, she brought up her menu and materialized the map data. "X marks the spot, Kii-bou."

"Thanks, Argo." Gratefully, he added the new information to his own map, quickly sharing it with the rest of his party. Knowing the exact spot would save a lot of trouble, considering how tricky the swim was likely to be as it was.

"A deep dive," Kizmel remarked, peering at her own map. "Hopefully the masks we found will work as well as they claim… Was there anything else of significance, Argo?"

"One or two things, yeah." Argo grinned again—the sly grin, the one that always made Kirito want to crawl into a hole and pull it in after him. "Fer one thing, somebody finally made landfall on Onzenna and confirmed what the locals at Ousetta said. When you're all done with Hyrus, there's a nice hot spring you can unwind in. Really fancy, got sections for men, women, and mixed."

Kirito choked—and when the gazes of four girls fixated as one on him, he couldn't bring himself to even look at the table anymore. Philia just looked amused, but Argo's eyes promised blackmail, Rain was strangely blushing, and Kizmel had a speculative gleam he wasn't at all sure he liked.

After a few moments of silence and the sensation of being examined, Argo finally chuckled. "Ah, you're too easy, Kii-bou! It's almost not any fun anymore! …Almost." She coughed. "Moving on… Well, this ain't much more than a rumor, but there's something another info broker was tellin' me that I think you guys oughtta know."

That brought Kirito's gaze back around. The Rat didn't usually give out rumors. She'd buy them, sure, but she'd only pass them on if she verified them personally. "What kind of rumor, Argo?"

She shrugged, looking unusually serious. "Well, you know I sell to other brokers, right? If somebody's buying, I'm selling. I sold a complete Elf War chronicle to this guy awhile back, and he mentioned to me the other day that somebody else was getting very interested in it. He wouldn't tell me who, but it sounds like somebody's tryin' to get an in with the Elves."

Kirito felt a chill go down his spine at that. In theory, that shouldn't have meant much; while his and Asuna's version of the quest seemed remain unique, he knew perfectly well the ordinary questline was still available. Even so…

I don't know what the ordinary questline is beyond the Ninth Floor. In the beta, that's where it ended, but with all the other changes in the retail version, who knows if that's still true. For that matter, I don't actually know how the Forest Elf side goes past the Third Floor…

The warm body still pressed against his side was oddly still. He wondered how Kizmel was taking the news; still in the dark about the very concept of repeatable quests—that in truth, the war she thought over was still raging in an endless cycle—he had the sudden fear his partner would now ask the questions he'd been dreading for months.

When she finally spoke, though, Kizmel said only, "Did your contact say exactly what his buyer was trying to do?"

"'Fraid not, Kii-chan." Pausing to polish off her drink, Argo set the glass down with a thunk and shrugged. "Don't think he knew, actually. Just that somebody was buying up the info and doing something with it."

"Hm."

He'd known the elf for a long time now, but he couldn't quite interpret her quiet hum this time. A quick glance at her face showed Kirito only that she was looking down into her drink, apparently lost in thought. What that thought was, he couldn't begin to guess.

"Well, it's not like it could be anything major, right?" Rain said into the silence, idly brushing her hair away from her face. "I've bought all that info, too, and I can't imagine anything anyone else could be doing that would have anything to do with us."

At that, Kirito exchanged a quick look with Argo. Contrary to her image, there were a handful of things even the Rat would never sell, and a couple of details of the finale of the Elf War questline were among them. It's still only a theory, and there's a good chance nobody would even find out without Kizmel being involved, but still. If the likes of PoH or Morte ever learned what we did at the Twilight Citadel…

He shivered. That possibility probably wouldn't be on the table even for the PKers, going too far even for them, but it still made him nervous. He, Asuna, and Kizmel had sworn secrecy over the Fallen Elves' true plan for a reason; Argo only knew because they'd been desperate to get an outside opinion, and the Rat had agreed with them on all particulars.

Look on the bright side, Kirito told himself. There's basically no chance they've got "another" Kizmel with them, at least. If I'm right—

An arm suddenly reaching across his back to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder startled him out of his reverie. "Regardless of who may be seeking contact with my people, or why," Kizmel said, casually leaning further into Kirito's side, "we can at least be assured that if their intentions are ill, we're already several steps ahead of them. I do thank you for the forewarning, Argo, but I believe we've little to fear right now."

"Hey, treasure is serious business, Kizmel!" Philia protested, thumping a fist on the table. "I can't call myself a treasure hunter if I let some latecomers beat me to the good stuff!"

"Then I'll keep ya updated, Phi-chan," Argo told her with a lazy grin, leaning back in her seat. "'Long as you've got the Cor for it, o' course, Argo-nee-chan's got ya covered!"

"That has so many ominous possibilities," Kizmel murmured.

I'll say! Despite his outward groan, though, Kirito was grateful for the byplay. It broke the building gloom, helping him to keep in mind strange rumors didn't have to mean something serious was really going on. For all they knew, it was nothing more than some oddball players pursuing some personal goal of their own, like the Fuuma Ninja had when the First Floor had been cleared.

Although if pushed, he'd admit the soft warmth pressing into his side was at least as much a distraction. Good or bad, he was not prepared to say.

Rain cleared her throat. "If we're going to keep ahead of the game, then we'd better get an early start on that fortress tomorrow," she said pointedly. "So how about we all get some sleep?"

"Excellent idea, Rain-chan!" Argo dropped her feet to the deck and waved a hand. "So how 'bout you guys go do that and leave a girl some room to stretch? I don't want a back ache in the morning!"

"You're spending the night, Argo?" Kirito asked, knowing even as he did that he wouldn't like the answer.

"What, are ya really gonna toss a poor girl out in the cold sea in the middle of the night, Kii-bou?" Argo pouted. "You're so cold, treating your Nee-chan like that!"

"…Forget I said anything." Shaking his head, he carefully disentangled himself from Kizmel and stood. "I'll see you girls in the morning, then."

"Oi, Kii-bou!" Argo called after him, as he and his partner headed back to the two-person cabin they shared. "If the two of ya decide to share, lemme know so I can take the spare bunk, will ya?"

"Shut up, Argo," Kirito muttered—hopefully quietly enough not to be heard by the Rat. Though Kizmel certainly caught it, from her soft chuckle. Assuming she wasn't reacting to Argo's suggestion, anyway.

It better not be that. If those two start double-teaming me, I'm a dead man.

---

January 16th, 2024

---

The soft, peaceful notes of woodwind instruments that formed a Swordmaster's morning "alarm" stirred Kizmel from her dreams. Visions of a brutal battle in a dark fortress gave way to the ethereal numbers of her HUD's time display; Kirito's frantic expression gazing down on her desperately-wounded form was replaced by him sleeping peacefully across in the bunk across from hers.

Ever since learning of the alarm's existence from Argo's guide, she'd made a habit of setting hers a few minutes before her partner's. Especially in recent months, during which they'd had frequent cause to work with others, this was the time she could most easily watch him in peace, as she occasionally had during their earliest cooperation.

Partly it was for the sake of admiring the view. Kirito's self-deprecation aside, she could see in his body the glimmerings of a handsome warrior. Were it not for the unchanging nature of Swordmaster "avatars", it was clear his constant practice with a blade over the course of his time in Aincrad would've given him an enviable physique; as it was, he obviously hadn't let himself go as much as he'd implied from his younger days of training.

Not that I know how long ago those days were, Kizmel admitted to herself, propping herself up on one elbow to observe the rise and fall of his chest as he slept on, oblivious. He implies he's only a child, and yet…

And yet. The other reason she tried to watch over him in the morning, preferably alone, was for the chance to try and soothe his sleep when nightmares struck. Some of them, she could tell from his mutterings, were of events she herself had been present for; others, she wasn't so sure. Without knowing what kind of world he came from, she couldn't guess what traumas he might have suffered there.

Though sleep on this floor, at least, has been peaceful for us both. As terrible as Kayaba may be, I give him credit for leaving us this opportunity to recover from our battles. The gentle rocking of an anchored boat was, she'd found, as much a boon to relaxing as the relative lack of danger. Although the first night was certainly the most pleasant here.

Pity she wasn't likely to arrange that again. Though Kizmel had plans for addressing part of the problem, Black Cat's bunks were sadly too narrow for two—Argo's suggestions for "improving" them aside.

Her vigil came to an end all too soon, Kirito's eyes flickering open a few short minutes later. Yawning, he pushed himself up to lean against one bulkhead, legs dangling into the small gap between their bunks. "'Morning, Kizmel," he said blearily, rubbing his eyes.

"Good morning, Kirito-kun." Kizmel waited for his eyes to focus before swinging upright herself, privately relishing the way his gaze was instantly drawn to her figure. "Did you sleep well?"

He quickly snapped his eyes back up to hers, flushing. "Well enough." Her partner grimaced then, some other thought chasing the embarrassment from his face. "Good thing, too. I think we'll need all the energy we can get today."

She propped her chin on one hand and raised an eyebrow. "And why, besides Argo still being aboard, might that be, my friend? Are you expecting something like what happened on Kobayashi at Hyrus Fortress?"

"Ugh, I forgot all about Argo… That, too, but the thing is, the Fortress is underwater, right?" Kirito waited for her nod of understanding, and continued, "Remember what I said a few months back about dungeons associated with water?"

Any amusement Kizmel might've felt at his reaction was chased out by the memory of the Trial of the Wise. A convoluted place, that had been, with puzzles clearly designed to try the sanity of anyone seeking access to the Reliquary. On top of that, the true Trial that had awaited them at the top had in some ways been the worst of the three.

Worse, the place had been her introduction to the concept of cephalopods. She had yet to forgive the ancient Alliance for using such creatures to guard their secrets.

Sighing, Kizmel slipped off her bunk. "I see your point, Kirito-kun. In that case, let us have breakfast and be on our way. The sooner we deal with whatever perils Hyrus Fortress has for us, the better."

Argo was, fortunately, already awake when they moved from their tiny cabin to the lounge. Sitting upright at the table, she was eating what appeared to be a fish on a stick, while her free hand occasionally made motions suggesting she was browsing through her menu.

"G'morning, guys," she said, waving her snack at them. "Have a seat, an' Argo-nee-chan will be right with ya!"

Exchanging a very human eye-roll with her partner at being invited to sit on their own boat, Kizmel nonetheless complied. Taking care to sit close up to Kirito—for the sake of leaving space for Philia and Rain, of course—she brought up her menu to conjure up her own breakfast. In no mood for anything elaborate before the ordeal she feared was before them, she contented herself with a handful of granola bars; simple but filling, as she'd found some months before.

"I appreciate the consideration, Argo," she said, a few bites in, "but I don't think we actually need to consult with you before we begin our expedition today."

"Eh, that's what you think," Argo said, utterly unperturbed. "The Rat sees-all, knows-all… or somethin' to that effect!" She took a large bite of her fish, adding around it, "Anyway, yer guest star party members might have something to ask before ya go, yeah?"

"…'Guest star'…?" Kizmel murmured to Kirito.

"Gamer joke," he muttered back. "I'll tell you later."

Ah, of course. More of the interesting variations in Swordmaster dialect. Argo had included a thorough lexicon of relevant "gamer" terms in the guide she'd sold Kizmel when the elf first became a Swordmaster herself, but it had mostly been concerned with the expressions used by the Mystic Scribing. Much of the slang Swordmasters used in everyday situations and battle had also been included, but—perhaps unsurprisingly—some oversights had been made.

Not that Kizmel minded too much. Learning a bit more every day was just part of the adventure of fitting into Swordmaster society.

"Who's a guest star?" Blearily brushing red hair out of her face, Philia trailing a pace behind, Rain stepped into the lounge with a yawn—and cut off, registering the small gathering already there. "Oh. You're still here, huh?"

"Aw, Rain-chan, ya make a girl feel unwanted." Argo tore off the last bite of her fish, swallowed, and grinned around the stick left behind. "Don't worry, girls, I'll be outta yer hair soon. Can't stick around in one place too long, y'know; got clients to meet."

"Just so long as you don't sell somebody something that lets them beat us to Hyrus Fortress," Philia grumbled, thumping gracelessly into a seat at the table. "The loot there must be fantastic, and I call dibs!"

"No promises, Phi-chan. I got a rep to live up to, so I can't play favorites." The Rat leaned back, resting her head on linked hands. Propping her feet up on the table, her eyes fell half-closed in a way that reminded Kizmel of a cat with fresh prey. "Tell ya what, though: I'll give ya a head start. I'll wait until you're diving ta leave, how's that?"

Groaning, Kirito let his head sink onto the table. "Why do I get the feeling that's more for your benefit than ours, Argo…?"

---

No player in their right mind trusted Argo the Rat on anything they hadn't paid for. Philia, thus, was more than a little surprised when the info broker started her own preparations at the same time the treasure hunter team was getting ready to dive. After sailing north toward the supposed location of Hyrus Fortress, while the four of them were equipping blades, Argo conjured up her floater-paddles and moved to sit at the edge of Black Cat's deck.

I guess there's something to the rumors of the Rat having a soft spot for Kirito, Philia thought, checking to make sure her Swordbreaker was secure at her waist. Well, there's another perk of traveling with the Black Swordsman. Even if those DDA jerks don't think so.

"Are you going to be okay, Argo?" Kirito asked. He had one of the diving masks they'd gotten the previous night in one hand, but his attention was on the info broker. "We're pretty far from the nearest inhabited island, and you can't really fight on those things."

Argo waved a dismissive hand. "Ahh, don't worry 'bout me, Kii-bou. I'm just gonna go far enough so it ain't obvious I came from here, and meet up with Kraken fer my first appointment o' the day."

Philia saw Kizmel stiffen in the middle of taking her mask out of her inventory, and felt her own muscles tighten. Kraken was the massive thirty-meter sailboat serving as the Divine Dragons' flagship on the Fifty-First Floor's seas. Philia had only seen the boat from a distance so far, and was just as happy keeping it that way, given the way the DDA had been behaving lately.

"Be careful, my friend," Kizmel said quietly, looking at the Rat with obvious concern. "They are… not in the best of moods, as you well know."

"Dontcha worry 'bout that, Kii-chan." Argo's words were light, but for once her tone and expression were something resembling serious. "They may not be happy with 'Beaters' just now, but they won't do anything to little ol' me. They ain't crazy. I'm their best source o' info, and they know it. I can live with some death glares."

"You're probably right." Kirito still looked troubled, though; not that Philia blamed him. "Still. Watch your back, Argo. If anything goes wrong, send me a PM. If we're not in the dungeon, at least, we'll be right there."

She might've imagined it, Philia thought, but there actually seemed to be some genuine warmth in Argo's smile at that. "You'll be the first ta know, Kii-bou," she promised. "And… thanks." She pushed off then, jumping off Black Cat's deck to land nimbly on the water's surface. "Anyway, I'm off! See ya guys later—maybe at Onzenna, sometime tonight!"

"Lyusula preserve us," Kizmel muttered, watching her go.

"Tell me about it." Rain's gaze was sharp as it lingered on Argo's figure, shrinking into the distance with surprising speed. "What's with that girl, anyway?"

"If I ever figure it out, I'll let you know," Kirito told her, shaking his head with a sigh. "I've know her since the First Floor, and I still don't understand her."

Of course you don't. You really don't have a clue why people keep flocking around you, do you, Kirito? Let me guess: you pulled that "Beater" stunt after Illfang, and it never even entered your head even Argo might feel a debt?

Oh, well. If Kirito was going to be oblivious to the effect he had on the people he helped out, Philia wasn't going to pass up the fun of watching him be completely confused by people not hating him. Next to treasure hunting, it was probably the best part of their little party.

Well, that and knowing for sure there were people who had her back. She was actually going to miss that, when they finished the Hyrus' Forge quest.

Abruptly, Kirito shook himself and turned away from the direction of Argo's departure. "Well, we've got a dungeon to clear. If we can, I'd like to get it all done today, so everything is ready by the time the raid on Medrizzel starts."

"Then let's be about it, my friend." Kizmel settled her Diver's Mask over her face, paused to take a deep breath, and leapt off the deck in a perfect swan dive.

Kirito was only a second behind her, followed quickly by Rain. Philia, realizing she was on the verge of not being the first on the scene for treasure, hurriedly fixed her own mask in place and dove after them—only belatedly remembering they hadn't actually tested the masks yet.

Plunging into the Fifty-First Floor's unusually deep water, the treasure hunter was relieved to find the masks did exactly what they needed them to: instead of an icon indicating Drowning status showing up on her HUD, a symbol resembling gills popped up just under her HP bar. Despite being underwater, she could breathe just as if she were on dry land.

Kicking her feet to follow her teammates down, Philia also noticed the mask's goggles seemed to give clearer vision through the water; clear enough, actually, that she suspected they could've made the trip during the night without much trouble.

Not that I'd have wanted to try it, she thought, glancing uneasily to either side. Even on a breather floor, I wouldn't bet against nastier mobs coming out after dark.

Right now, though, she and her friends had a fairly clear shot down toward the bottom of the sea. Illuminated by the vision bonus from their masks and sunlight filtering down from above, there was nothing but blue water, the four descending swordsmen—and then, a few meters down, a small school of eels, lit up by their own flashes of static.

Spark Eels, those were. They'd encountered them during the search for Zaro, and weren't anything too dangerous. Assuming, of course, one took into account the attacks that gave them their name.

The four of them quickly split up to dodge the first blasts of electricity the eels sent their way. Kirito and Kizmel darted off in one direction, kiting about half the Spark Eels behind them; Philia and Rain drew off the others, and as soon as she had an opening the treasure hunter drove in with an awkward underwater Sonic Leap. Her target was just starting to charge up another shock when her Swordbreaker slashed into its neck; she took a mild charge that made her fingers numb even through the pain absorbers, but the affect on her HP wasn't worth worrying about.

The Spark Eel sputtered a couple of weak, powerless shocks into the water as its head drifted away from its body, before both pieces shattered into slowly-drifting polygons.

Meanwhile, just a couple of meters to one side, Rain rolled nimbly away from a fully-charged blast, then rammed a Rage Spike right into the middle of a Spark Eel's head. Kicking back away, she twitched violently when the eel's retaliatory spark grazed her; in return, she swung forward again and gutted it with a well-aimed Snake Bite.

I have got to figure out how she fights so well underwater, Philia thought enviously, pushing herself to awkwardly chop another eel to bits with a modified Horizontal Square. Sword Skills just don't work right when you can't plant your feet—eep!

One more Spark Eel had just charged up another spark blast, and its passage was close enough to Philia's head to make half her hair stand on end even underwater. Startled and irritated, she joined Rain in a double Vertical Arc, chopping the offending fish into a full eight separate pieces.

By the time they'd cleared out their half of the school, Kirito and Kizmel had taken out the rest and were headed back to rejoin them. Judging from their HP, the two of them hadn't had much more trouble, and with just a couple of quick glances to reassure themselves everyone was all right, they kicked off again toward the seafloor.

It wasn't long before a large shape came into clearer view ahead of them. What looked like the remnants of a sunken island, on which perched a squared-off fortress of dark stone, turrets adorning the corners and triangular sections sticking out from each side.

That's not exactly Dark Elf style, Philia thought uneasily, as they swam in closer to the fortress. That castle they've got on the Fourth Floor's bright, not… this.

It might've been the effect of having been underwater for who knew how many centuries. Somehow, though, she didn't think that was it. The stone looked like it had always been dark, not tarnished by time. It was still too smooth and clean for that. More, looking closer, something about the way the fortress was put together just didn't look to her like the same style as Yofel Castle.

From the quick look Kirito and Kizmel exchanged, it wasn't just her imagination.

Coming in close to the southern wall of the fortress, a large door set into that side's triangular projection came into view. Kirito quickly changed course to lead the party toward it, moving with strong but cautious strokes.

At last, they were close enough to touch down on the seafloor; as soon as they did, Kizmel stepped in close to the onyx door. Her expression was unreadable behind her mask, but Philia thought she could faintly hear the elf girl muttering something as she traced one hand over featureless stone.

No, not featureless, she realized, moving close enough to see for herself. That's… more of the writing from the cave on Ousetta? No, not quite. It looks… different, somehow.

After a long examination, Kizmel finally turned to Kirito, made a gesture Philia couldn't quite interpret, and led him to one side of the door. For a long moment, he only stared at the spot she indicated; then, slowly, he brought up his menu and made a few quick, abrupt motions. The Sea Dragon's Sword vanished from his back, replaced by the familiar tarnish of the Baneblade.

Drawing the enchanted weapon, he thrust it into stone—and with a water-muffled groan, the door swung ponderously open.

---

From the moment they stepped into the entrance foyer of Hyrus Fortress, Kirito was deeply uneasy. The rest of his party seemed uncomfortable, too, as the door closed behind them, but his problem had nothing to do with the way the water around them drained away like an airlock. Kizmel, he was sure, felt the same.

I've seen this styling before, he thought, reaching up to pull off his diving mask when the water had drained completely. It's been four months since the last time, but there's no mistaking it.

The stone walls of the foyer weren't quite as dark as the last building of its kind he and Kizmel had entered, but if anything that made the similarities to another such much clearer. The bas-relief artwork was unmistakable, in both style and detail. The imagery was grim, with an unmistakable undertone of a deep grudge, and a desire for power. Just like…

Kirito was pulled out of dark recollection by a hand landing on his shoulder. Turning his head, he found Kizmel looking back at him, understanding clear in her eyes. Minutely, she shook her head, and gently squeezed his shoulder. "This isn't like before, Kirito," she murmured.

Taking a deep breath, he nodded slowly. "…You're right. Sorry." This time, we're on a floor we can be pretty sure is easier than usual, this isn't part of a do-or-die questline—and Philia and Rain aren't low-levels in over their heads.

"Um, guys?" Rain asked, when the pause had stretched on too long. "Sorry, but am I missing something here? I don't like the look of this place. It doesn't look anything like Yofel Castle, or the Reliquary."

"That's because it's not Dark Elf, or ancient human," Kirito told her, finally looking beyond the disturbing artwork. "It's not even Forest Elf."

The Fortress' entrance was wide, but oddly-shaped, set as it was into one of the structure's angular projections. Walled in stone like a very dark granite, it was lit by torches of flame so deeply blue as to almost be a glowing black. At the opposite end from the outer door, set at a strange angle enforced by the outside wall's position, a smaller door of the same onyx as the first appeared to lead deeper inside.

Unnervingly, there was no trace of any enemy. Nothing was there to greet them, save the bas-reliefs on the walls.

"I've seen something like this a few times before, though," Kirito said after a brief pause, starting off for that far door. "This is Fallen Elf work. No mistake."

"Fallen Elf," Philia repeated, her footsteps hesitant behind him. "Um. As in those heretic elves who tried to get the other two groups to kill each other? Those Fallen Elves?"

"Those Fallen Elves," Kizmel affirmed. "This place is eerily similar to their Twilight Citadel." She fell quiet for a second. "Although not quite the same. This door did not attempt to kill us on entry."

Kirito shivered. He remembered that little trap too well. It had featured prominently in his nightmares about that raid for months after.

"Killing doors. That's really friendly." There was a rasp of metal on leather, as Rain drew her sword. "Okay. Any idea why Hyrus' Forge would be in a Fallen Elf castle, if the guy was supposed to be part of the ancient Alliance?"

Coming up on the door leading into the fortress proper, Kirito pulled out the Sea Dragon's Sword, and heard Kizmel and Philia doing the same. "That's a good question," he admitted. "Nothing in the questline so far has said anything about Fallen Elves, and trust me, they're kind of a big deal."

Conversation paused while he reached for the door handle—normal, to his relief, unlike the one on the outer door—and nodded for Kizmel to stand off to one side. She sidestepped, placing herself in a position to catch anything that might come through, and lifted her heater shield to defend the other girls.

Gut tensing in nervous anticipation, Kirito yanked open the door.

Instantly, something bone-white flashed into view, smashed into Kizmel's shield, and rebounded with a screech. A second later, a similarly-bright shape barreled under the shield, where it was promptly skewered by the swords of three startled players. It howled, an eerily hollow sound, collapsed to the stone floor, and shattered to pieces.

Kizmel quickly thrust her saber down in an Oblique against the fallen first enemy, catching it right in the skull. Then the three of them were through the door, and very busy.

A wide chamber, with oddly bright walls. That was the first impression Kirito got, between dodging claws, teeth, talons, and beaks. There were also an awful lot of mobs in it, judging from the flashes of movement he caught. Some of them humanoid, he thought—but as he was having to pry a sudden grip of very fangy jaws off his shoulder, he didn't really get a very good look.

The toothy thing biting him went flying with a Senda punch to the nose, buying him time help Kizmel swat away something flying that was trying very hard to peck her head off. Their two blades together sent it hurtling to shatter against a wall; Rain leapt through the gap, planting a Sonic Leap into something else.

She finished it off by bodily hurling it in a Shoulder Throw to slam hard into the floor, exploding into shards with a high-pitched whimper.

Around the time Kirito was gaining some breathing room with a Serration Wave, he caught the very disturbing snapping of bones somewhere behind him. That, if he wasn't mistaken, was the sound of Philia's Swordbreaker breaking something besides swords.

The battle ended sooner than he expected it to, the room emptying of mobs with startling suddenness. Only when the last of them was spinning azure polygons did he realize that half the movement he'd seen coming in, and all of the "humanoid", had been nothing more than reflections.

The long hall they found themselves in now was lined with dozens of mirrors. Some of them gave perfect reflections; others were warped in various ways, like funhouse mirrors. Put together, they gave an illusion of the room being even bigger than it was, and had very successfully given Kirito the impression they'd walked into a massive ambush.

They also reminded him once again just how good a programmer Kayaba Akihiko really was. Mirrors were, like water, something tricky to get just right in a Full-Dive environment.

"Well," Rain said, slightly short of breath, when it was clear nothing more was coming. "That was fun. Anybody know what those things were? I didn't get a good look at their names in that mess."

"Bone Wolves and Bone Falcons," Kizmel said, slowly straightening from a combat stance. "Undead allies of the Dark and Forest Elves. Which leads me to suspect why Hyrus' Forge is in a Fallen Elf fortress." She shot a glance at Kirito. "Are you thinking as I am, my friend?"

He nodded, the pieces coming together for him now, too. "The Alliance took this place away from the Fallen Elves, and used it to store the Forge more securely, if I had to guess. Animated skeletons like that were probably left over from traps or something when the Alliance attacked."

Or made with Fallen Elf techniques after they took the place, if they were feeling more pragmatic than principled that day. Brr… Let's not think about that.

"Just a guess, of course," he added with a shrug. "But it'd certainly explain a lot. Though speaking of the unexplained…" He lifted an eyebrow in Rain's direction. "You actually got the Martial Arts Extra Skill? Argo doesn't usually sell people that info."

I should know. After that hassle, I'm not surprised Argo was worried about revenge.

The redhead chuckled, scratching the back of her head sheepishly. "Ah… well, you know how it is, being a solo, Kirito. You pick up whatever you can to give yourself better odds, right?"

Kirito looked at her for a long moment, his introspection almost making him overlook her revealing swimsuit for once. High-level Hiding, strong Sword Skills, and great footwork—and now Martial Arts, too? You're not exactly an average solo, Rain.

"Well, I can't argue with that," he said aloud. "Anyway, we should probably get moving. Something about those mirrors tells me this place has worse than mobs to throw at us."

"Tell me about it," Philia muttered. Shaking her head, she started walking toward the door at the other end of the hall, muttering, "Some of those mirrors aren't very flattering, as it is…"

At that moment, she walked by one mirror in particular that made Kirito stifle a snicker. Instead of distorting her figure, this one just changed her outfit: instead of a blue bikini, the mirror showed her dressed for exploring lost temples, complete with a fedora on her head and a whip coiled at her waist.

Catching a glimpse of it herself, Philia paused, staring at the "reflection". "Eh? What the—"

Rain didn't bother suppressing her own snicker at the sight. "Hey, I guess this one shows your true self! That's totally you, isn't it, Philia?"

"…But I'm a treasure hunter, not an archaeologist," the blonde said, pouting. "I don't want to put ancient relics in a museum, I want to take them home!" She stepped away from mirror, giving it a wary look. "You try it, Rain!"

Gamely, the redhead approached, still chuckling—only for her laughter to cut off when she saw her own altered image. For her, the mirror on the wall gave a frilly white outfit, complete with apron and headdress. "Er—"

Philia grinned. "Ha! So your 'true self' belongs in a maid cafe, Rain? Some long-hidden dream of yours you haven't mentioned?"

Rain flushed and edged away. "Okay, so it's just making fun of us," she muttered. "What about you two? C'mon, we shouldn't be the only ones!"

A small smile playing at her lips, Kizmel walked up. "I admit I'm curious—though you'll have to explain the jokes for me, later… Hm?"

The first two had left Kirito laughing to himself. His partner's illusory reflection, though, made him fall quiet, silently staring at the result.

For Philia and Rain, the mirror had shown them in obvious costume, the treasure hunter's obvious cosplay making him wonder just how direct Kayaba's involvement was. For the elf girl, the effect was simpler, but despite—or because of—that simplicity, it hit all the harder.

Kizmel's violet swimsuit was, in the mirror, replaced by blue jeans and a purple tank top, both of them tight enough to show off her figure almost as effectively as her bikini. More importantly, though, at least to Kirito…

"These are… human clothes, aren't they?" the elf murmured, looking over her own reflection with obvious interest. "From your world, that is, not the fashions of the humans of Aincrad."

"…Yep," Rain said quietly. "Sure are." After a few moments of quiet observation, the redhead smiled. "Not bad, Kizmel. Looks good on you."

"…Yeah, it does," Kirito whispered, something tightening painfully in his chest. "Really good…"

Just as the hush was starting to feel oppressive, a flash of light broke the tension. "Got a picture!" Philia declared, holding up a crystal. "Can't forget this one, can we?"

"No, I suppose not," Kizmel agreed, smiling. "Thank you, Philia. Now, then… Kirito? I believe it's your turn."

Kirito rolled his eyes, but moved to take his partner's place readily enough. Inwardly, he was actually grateful for the distraction. Kizmel had looked really nice in the mirror—but at the same time, the sight of her in modern Earth street clothes had reminded him of the dilemma that weighed on him a little more every day.

I will find a way, he told himself, approaching the mirror. I can't… I can't just let it end like—

Dark thoughts were blown right out of his head when he finally saw his own reflection in the enchanted mirror. For a long, horrified moment, he could only stare. So could his party members, whose gazes he could feel, even if he couldn't see them.

"…You know, my friend," Kizmel said slowly, a teasing note in her voice, "I think the hair is really the only difference to your body…"

That, along with Rain and Philia breaking into giggles, broke the spell. Wrenching his gaze away from the horrifying image in the mirror, Kirito, darted toward the door. Nothing in the fortress was going to frighten him worse than that!

---

"Okay, I admit the first mirror room was kind of funny," Rain groused, tracing an inverted triangle via Sharp Nail into the back of a Walking Armor. "This one? Kind of losing the novelty!"

While Philia tangled the Armor's sword up with the ridges on the back of her own blade, a crash echoed from somewhere beyond them. "Working on it!" Kirito called. "I think we've almost got it—Kizmel, look out for that Deadhand!"

Belying the dark stone of the exterior and entrance room, so far most chambers in Hyrus Fortress had had a wide assortment of mirrors, each with their own gimmick—or none at all, which Rain thought was almost worse. The regular mirrors might not have done anything by themselves, but those rooms had had more mobs in them, and made fighting them that much more confusing.

The room they were in then was circular, with lights bouncing off the mirrors in strange patterns. Philia had quickly figured out they needed to change the patterns by breaking some of the mirrors; the problem was working out exactly which. On the bright side, there was a switch in the middle that reset them, as they'd had to do three times already.

On the not-so-bright side, the room had two animated suits of armor, which seemed to keep respawning until the puzzle was finished. That left two of the party on mirror-smashing duty, and the other two guarding.

Topping things off were the Deadhands, one of which Kizmel was just then impaling through its giant palm. Huge, necrotic hands, which—going from experience with the series the quest was clearly ripping off—probably yanked anyone they grabbed clear back to the entrance to the Fortress.

If they don't just drop us into some death trap, Rain thought grimly. This may be a breather level, and Kayaba might play "fair", but let's not forget about the whole "exploding pirate ship" thing, right?

The Walking Armor's sword abruptly snapped under Philia's continued assault, giving Rain the opportunity to slam a Suigetsu roundhouse kick into the back of its empty helmet. The Armor tumbled sideways, clumsily headbutting its own companion before it could regain its footing.

For a second, Rain had the urge to giggle, seeing both helmets fly off. The urge was stronger when she saw them flail around in response, as if trying to find their lost heads. Then—

Crash!

"Got it!" Kirito yelled triumphantly. "Kizmel, get that one over there, that should be the last—"

"Yes, I see it!" Kizmel was still tangling with the Deadhand with her saber, and the lamps reflecting off mirrors gave the whole room a bewildering psychedelic lightshow, but somehow she was able to turn from her target and fling her shield with surprising precision at the mirror Kirito indicated. With another loud crash, it shattered to pieces, leaving bare stone behind.

Light stabilized. The two Walking Armors stopped blindly trying to find their helmets, and dropped straight to the floor like puppets with cut strings. For a long, wonderful moment, the room was quiet, and still.

Which, of course, was when the largest mirror in the room blew inward in a hail of glass shards, broken apart by a tide of water rushing in.

Hurriedly opening her menu to retrieve her Diving Mask, Rain heard the others doing the same, along with high-pitched sounds of outrage. And above it all, in a tone of deep disgust, Kirito yelled, "I hate water dungeons!"

---

The ancients did an excellent job of guarding their treasures, Kizmel thought, slashing her saber across the nose of a Barracanha just before it could sink its many teeth into her arm. The defenses they left behind have worked wonderfully to keep them out of the hands of evildoers.

I may never forgive them for it.

While she dueled with the many-toothed fish, Philia and Rain swam by in half pursuit-of, half flight-from a Greater Ignition Squid. They busily hacked away at its tentacles, at the same time dodging away from those they couldn't quite hit and doing their best not to be burnt by the strange underwater flames it was occasionally sending their way.

At least that was the last of the Ignition Squids. Once she finished off the Barracanha, Kizmel could join the two of them in doing their very best to utterly obliterate the "mini-boss" that was this particular flooded chamber's main denizen.

[Tyrant Squid Emperor], it was called. Half again the size of the Tyrant Squid King she and Kirito had fought in the Trial of the Wise three months before, it had a similarly greater number of tentacles—and underwater, it was considerably more agile than its smaller brethren had been.

"Down to its third lifebar now!" she heard Kirito call out, his voice muffled and distorted by the water and the masks they all wore against it. He was near the ceiling of the chamber, slashing a Savage Fulcrum into one of the Squid Emperor's heavier tentacles. "Halfway there, guys!"

Kizmel drove a Reaver into the Barracanha's flank, finally emptying the carnivorous fish's lifebar. She turned away from it, thinking nothing of its thrashing death throws—only to yelp in undignified surprise when its teeth managed a spiteful bite on her shoulder, just before shattering to pieces.

Muttering imprecations under her breath, she paused only long enough to confirm the bite had done little to her HP before kicking off to join the chase above. With healing made difficult, to put it mildly, by the environment, the obvious strategy was to defeat the Squid Emperor as quickly as possible.

Halfway to the malevolent cephalopod's main body, one of its thicker "main" tentacles tried to swat Kizmel into a wall. With an adroit twist, she managed to skim past it and inflict a light slash; two smaller limbs lashed out at her in response, almost wrapping around her legs before she got away.

One of those tentacles suddenly fell limp and began to drift away in a spray of red light just before it could reach, sawed free by the back of Philia's Swordbreaker. The other flailed wildly, recoiling from a deep stab from Rain's blade—its uncontrolled thrashing catching Philia in the process.

The heat of sudden anger rushed through Kizmel's veins at the sight of her friend spinning toward the wall. "Kirito!" she shouted through the water, redoubling her pace. "Switch!"

Her partner was just finishing a three-hit attack of his own, leaving glowing slashes like claw-marks in the Squid Emperor's hide. Before she'd even finished the second word, he twisted mid-stroke, kicked off the mini-boss' bulbous head, and swam off to engage its tentacles.

Kizmel and Rain promptly filled the space he'd left, yelling twin battlecries as their blades sank deep into the Squid Emperor's skull. The redhead's sword tore a long gash out near the squid's maw; the Dark Elf's saber went higher, finally nicking one eye as it ripped free.

The resulting convulsions from the Squid Emperor set its tentacles flailing randomly, managing to catch all three of its active foes with hard blows. Adding insult to injury, Kirito's tumble sent him right into the recovering Philia, ending with both of them crashing hard into one stone wall.

"Where's a lawyer when you need one?!" Rain gasped out, bouncing back-first off one of the chamber's ubiquitous mirrors. "There's no way this is legal for a Thirteen-Rated game!"

Kizmel had no idea what the redhead was talking about, but as she ricocheted off the ceiling she could certainly concur with the sentiment. When first Argo had offhandedly described human legal matters to her, the elf had thought she would never wish the process on anyone. This, she decided irritably, assuredly warranted it.

"Enough!" she snapped, twisting to rest her feet solidly on stone. "My friends—let us finish this beast!"

Lunging back into combat with the tentacled abomination, Kizmel found an obscure satisfaction in hearing loud cries of agreement from her female companions. In many ways she remained an outsider among the Swordmasters, after all.

Against monstrosities such as this, it appeared she had all the allies she could ever wish for.

---

"Okay. I think this is the final room," Philia said wearily, turning the large key they'd finally located in the lock. "Whew… And I thought the Zaro Cave Palace was bad. If I never see another water-based dungeon again…"

Kirito nodded in rueful agreement. Having set out for Hyrus Fortress mid-morning, it had taken them until late afternoon to finally make their way to the chamber at the very heart of the dungeon. Far too many mirror-based puzzles had been involved, one of which had left them completely turned around for almost an hour; almost worse had been that one entire half of the Fortress was inverted relative to the rest. Everywhere, mirrors lining walls had confused even the simplest actions.

Not to mention Kizmel and squids, he thought, carefully not looking at his partner. Not that he needed to, to be able to feel her ire. Ever since the encounter with the Tyrant Squid Emperor, Kizmel had been simmering hot enough he could almost sense it in the air. Let's not come back here again.

With luck, they wouldn't need to. The big key of distinctly ancient aesthetic released the seal with a loud click, and the ornate onyx door groaned open to reveal what the map suggested should be the final chamber. All that remained now was to see what final challenge Hyrus Fortress had for them.

Kirito didn't know what he expected, exactly. The last dungeon he'd been to relating to the Baneblade had, at its core, contained only the blade and an ancient treaty; the battle he and his partner had fought had been with other players, not a challenge given by the game.

What greeted the party here, he soon found, was a circular room lit by more dark blue torches, with a fountain in the center. It wasn't really that different from other rooms they'd passed through—save that the only mirrors present were six set in the far wall, rather than a number across the whole chamber.

It seemed oddly simple. Which, really, might've been why he wasn't even surprised when the door swung ponderously shut behind them.

"Well," Kizmel remarked after a moment. "I suppose this must, indeed, be the end. In that case, where is our final challenge?"

"Good question," Rain muttered, hand resting uneasily on the hilt of her sword. "Though I'm guessing it's got something to do with those mirrors…"

A giggle filled the air then. Kirito's hair instantly stood on end just from the sound.

Atop the fountain in the center of the chamber, a silhouette faded into view. He couldn't see much detail; just that the figure seemed to be female—very female, from the curves—was carrying a very large sword on her back, and if he squinted seemed to have a very bright shade of hair. Pink? Maybe purple? …No, that's not really important right now. Who or what…?

Sitting with legs crossed, the figure giggled again. "Well, hello there! Challengers at last? Come to claim Hyrus' Forge, to restore the Baneblade's shine? Welcome, welcome!"

Kirito exchanged a deeply uneasy glance with Kizmel. Previous challenges in ancient ruins had been administered by somber shades of people the two of them had known. This strangely cheery girl did not fit either category. "That's right," he said, squaring his shoulders, trying not to make it too obvious that he wanted nothing more than to draw his sword. "You're here to challenge us, right?"

"Uh-huh!" the silhouette said. He got the vague impression of a grin. "Well, kinda. Actually, I'm just here to observe how you deal with it. Your real challenge will be… these!"

She snapped her fingers, and four of the mirrors flashed brightly. When the light faded, four figures stepped out of them, shrouded in darkness. Even after stepping into the torchlight, their features remained obscure, monochromatic; it took Kirito a couple seconds to make out what they actually were.

One male, three female, none of them wearing proper armor. Between them, two ordinary one-handed swords, another with a ridged back, and a saber paired with a heater shield.

"Ulp," he heard Philia say, as his gaze zeroed in on the figure standing right across from him. "Mirror-match, huh?"

"That's right!" the silhouetted girl said brightly. "After all, isn't our worst enemy always ourselves? Now… prove your worth to claim Hyrus' Forge!"

Oh, hell, no, Kirito thought, hand blurring up to grasp his sword—and his dark doppelgänger launched in a Sonic Leap to meet him.

---

Kizmel's first, inane thought as the battle was joined was simply, At least it's not squids! If there was one foe she thought she could happily go a lifetime without ever encountering again, it was anything with tentacles. Finding that Hyrus Fortress' final challenge had nothing to do with them was initially a deep relief.

Then, mere moments into the battle with their own mirror images—their "Others", as the names above their heads proclaimed them—a staccato of sounds not unlike cymbals clashing filled the room—one of them being from Kizmel's Oblique thrust bouncing off her copy's identical strike.

What?!

The moment the backlash released her, she jumped back, raising her shield to ward against the other-self. To her disquiet, it also retreated; though that did at least give her a chance to see what had happened with her friends. Making sure to keep the doppelgänger in the corner of her vision, she risked a glance to one side, then the other.

As she'd suspected, though she hadn't seen exactly how the others had chosen to open the battle, they all were recovering from the rebound of two Sword Skills colliding.

Kirito was the first to try again, darting in close to his copy to unleash the beginning of a Snake Bite. He was as fast as ever—faster than any other Swordmaster Kizmel had ever known, save only Asuna—yet still, somehow, his Other matched him movement for movement, intercepting the Sea Dragon's Sword mid-swing with a loud crash.

"Mirror images," he grunted out, working with the recoil to push himself farther back and away. "This is just like—"

"Yeah," Rain agreed grimly, spinning her sword lightly in one hand. "Water Temple. Why'd it have to be like that old dungeon?!"

"Because this whole world is crazy?" Philia suggested, watching her Other anxiously. "So, um… Ideas, guys?"

"Wait just a second," Kirito suggested, eyes narrowing. "The challenges in these dungeons haven't always been straightforward. Maybe the answer isn't even to fight at all, but to just wait—look out!"

The warning was welcome, but unneeded. Kizmel's eyes had never completely left her Other, and when it suddenly darted forward to thrust its saber at her, she had her shield in the way in plenty of time. There was a teeth-grating sound of steel shearing against steel, the Other's saber scraping across the shield; then it was leaping back and away from Kizmel's leg as she attempted to sweep its legs.

An ordinary thrust, she realized. Not a Sword Skill. Why…?

Testing it, she lunged forward while the Other was still mid-leap. A simple but fast Reaver, quick enough to get past an unready opponent's guard. Usually.

Against a Swordmaster, Kizmel would've been startled that her foe actually managed to initiate one of its own while still airborne. Against these Others, she felt only grim resignation.

"Okay," Kirito conceded, as the elf fell back into a defensive stance. "Looks like we're going to have to do this the hard way. Sooner or later, they have to slip up, and—" He broke off, whipping up his sword to counter an abrupt leap from his Other, before chasing it back with a simple Horizontal. "And I think their gear isn't as good as ours," he finished, pointing his blade toward his Other's lifebar.

A quick glance told Kizmel what her partner meant. Even when Sword Skills canceled each other out, both parties still received a tiny injury to their life-forces. All things being equal, that trade meant it was better to dodge and strike directly whenever possible; against these Others, it seemed that the foe took greater harm.

"That will be a long battle of attrition," she warned.

"Then we'd better get started, right?" Rain spun her sword again, bearing a feral grin, and without further warning launched in a Sonic Leap at her dark Other.

Kizmel hesitated for an eyeblink, surprised by the other girl's audacity. An eyeblink only—then she was racing for her own doppelgänger. Skidding to a halt a meter away from it, she used her momentum to begin a spin, unleashing a Treble Scythe on the Other.

As before, their blades collided in a flash of crimson light and crash of sound. This time, though, she rode the backlash, whirling back and away—and right back in, driving a blazing Linear at her double.

A sliver vanished from her HP with each blow, but twice that was taken from the Other. It was driven back as much as she when their Skills clashed, and it seemed so long as she forced it match her blow for blow, the Other could not or would not attempt a lesser strike to slip past her guard.

Kirito and Rain had taken up similar strategies to either side of her, Kizmel registered in the gap between a Streak and the beginnings of a Parallel Sting. The two of them were blurs of singing steel, the redhead scarcely slower than the Black Swordsman himself as they kept their copies in a deadlock.

Here, Vertical Arcs rebounded into Gengetsu flip-kicks; there, Rage Spikes met in midair, the blades' wielders bouncing back to touch against walls and leap forward again. Slants collided, their users stumbling, rejoining into Vorpal Strikes that shook the room with their clash.

At the farthest edge of the chamber, Philia seemed to have taken a different tack, her Swordbreaker's ridged back striking against her Other's blade with every strike. Having taken Kirito's words to heart, the treasure hunter appeared to be trying to shatter her dark duplicate's lesser weapon.

An interesting tactic, Kizmel thought, though she was unsure how well it was likely to work. Then again, she thought, leaping halfway across the room to meet her Other with a Fell Crescent, it's not as if this is going very well for any of us—

It was then, as two sabers met two meters above the floor, that two Sea Dragon's Swords unleashed twin Serration Waves. A weak strike, meant to distract and gain distance more than injure.

A Skill that struck in a wide area, not directly against one opponent.

Buffeted by the fringe of Kirito's Serration Wave, Kizmel's Other's saber slid just a hair to one side, and her own blade came slashing down through the gap to carve a deep line down through the Other's shoulder.

Kizmel landed behind the Other, spun, and shouted, "Kirito! Switch!"

Her partner didn't ask questions. He only twisted away from his opponent and leapt for the Other Kizmel, sword alight with the glow presaging another Sword Skill. Crossing Kizmel's path while she turned her own attention elsewhere, Kirito's Sea Dragon's Sword blurred into a Vertical Square as soon as he was within reach—and this time, the Other made no effort to directly mirror him.

Facing off now against Kirito's doppelgänger, Kizmel stabbed at it four times in rapid succession, stunning the dark Other with Quadruple Pain. In the moment that bought her, she found herself hesitating for just a fraction of a breath: monochrome or not, it was a direct copy of her partner, her friend, and raising her blade against that face tightened something in her chest.

She quickly forced that away, though, holding close the intellectual certainty that this was nothing but a soulless mirror image. If she wanted to protect the real one, the fake needed to be put down.

At the other end of the room, while she traced a triangle in stabs against Kirito's Other, she caught glimpses of Rain and Philia similarly trading dueling partners. The redhead rolled away from her Other, coming up in a Suigetsu roundhouse kick to Philia's mirror-face; the blonde hopped sideways to catch the dark Rain's blade in the ridges of her Swordbreaker, and tugged, yanking it off-balance.

The war of attrition turned abruptly to a chaotic melee, Swordmasters trading foes in a mad scramble around the room that took them around, past, over, and sometimes under one another. Not that the change favored the living entirely; the shift in tactics allowed them to elude the Others' mirroring of their strikes, but at the same time—

Kizmel found the hard way that the Others were not completely unprepared when Kirito's unleashed a Snake Bite on her. The first blow struck her shield aside; the second would've taken her head, had she not recoiled from the blow.

Or if my "stats" were but a few levels lower, she thought ruefully, retaliating with a quick Diagonal Sting to stomach and chest. She could feel a faint numbness from her neck, one she had come to recognize would've been agonizing pain before she'd become a Swordmaster herself.

A year ago, that blow would have taken my life. But not today. Not any longer.

Rain flashed by, using the chamber's central fountain as a jumping-off point for a descending Meteor Palm against Other Philia. Her own double lashed out at the real Philia with a Savage Fulcrum, only to be countered before it could land the third blow by Kirito slashing Sharp Nail into its back.

Without needing to be called, Kizmel broke her Other's pursuit with a simple Reaver, forcing it to mimic her. Rain, reeling from her foe's latest Slant, turned her stumble into a whirling Serration Wave to keep Other Kirito busy a moment.

They'd all lost a tithe and more of their HP, Kizmel saw when she had a free moment in the chaos. More injury than any of them had taken in the quest so far, even aboard Kobayashi. Even so, even without time to pull back and heal, she knew they'd all faced much worse before. This battle…

This is the kind of battle a true warrior lives for, she thought, glimpsing a wild grin on Kirito's face as they again traded enemies without a word. A challenge, not a massacre—and with friends to count on to watch my back.

This is what I could never find among my own people.

As their mirror-images' life-forces dwindled, the party of Swordmasters grew bolder even as the Others' attacks grew faster and more desperate. Longer Sword Skills were traded for single-hit strikes—and finally, Rain was the first to abandon them entirely, in favor of blows driven only by her own strength and reflexes. Slower to finish than those attacks empowered by ancient charms, and weaker, yet faster to begin, and far less predictable.

"Philia, Switch!"

It was with these practiced, not charmed, strikes that Rain suddenly resumed her attack against her own Other, driving it back from Philia. Not by any means the smooth, memorized slashes of someone who had trained without benefit of Sword Skills for a lifetime, yet Kizmel was still impressed with the way the redhead's blade slipped past her Other's guard in a flash, sinking into its gut with admirable speed and power before ripping back out and away.

Left facing her own double again, Philia was quick to put her Swordbreaker's unique advantages to use. Amid lightning-quick thrusts and slashes, here she parried; there, she caught her doppelgänger's blade in the ridges of her own. The Other, quick as it was to mimic Sword Skills, seemed not to understand, and could only use the back of its blade to tear at flesh, not steel.

From the sudden, widened grin on Kirito's face, her partner took their companions' success as a challenge. And why not? I don't believe I'm ready to be upstaged, either!

In a whirl of steel, a too-brief moment of their backs in contact, elf and human Swordmasters switched places once again, coming face to face with themselves one more time. Unlike Rain, Kirito had been slowly training himself to fight without benefit of charms for more than just a single blow when a Sword Skill would be wasteful, and Kizmel had been his sparring partner in that pursuit.

Reflexes they had honed to battle against evils among the Swordmasters came into play now against mere "elite mobs".

Kirito was a whirlwind of black steel at her back, reflexes seeming to outpace even his Other's. He hammered its blade aside with one brutal blow; the Sea Dragon's Sword whipped up and away again before it could recover, slashing deeply across the Other's chest. It swept a forehand blow at him in return, but he only accepted the dip in his HP from the glancing hit to his shoulder, and pressed the attack.

Kizmel took the simple, direct approach of smashing her shield into her Other's saber—and kept right on going, driving it right into the stone wall. Pinned for a precious moment by the impact, it let out an incoherent grunt when her saber darted past its shield, stabbing into the dark double's gut. Once, twice, three times, the elf mercilessly thrust.

Recovery of the Other meant a shield driving Kizmel back in turn, and in a blur of spinning blades she and Kirito instinctively spun again, changing up the flow of battle once more.

In the center of the chamber, Rain traded fisticuffs with her Other as much as bladework. The meaty thuds of flesh meeting flesh dueled with the clash of steel-on-steel. At the far end, ominous sounds of abused metal heralded Philia's duel, seeming to count the moments until one side or the other failed completely.

Blue had long since turned to yellow, and yellow was draining fast into red—

"Switch!"

A ridge-backed sword caught straight steel, twisted, and snapped. Half a blade tumbled away, and Swordbreaker continued on, burying into a dark throat. Black hair that might almost have mimicked red fell away to the cold stone floor.

Metal screamed against metal. A ridge-backed sword was flung back, still clutched in one dark hand but an eternal instant too far to return. A knife-edged hand plunged into monochrome flesh with a brilliant red glow, and a sword was dropped to bounce on stone with a piercing clang.

A loud "Kiai!" as a black sword blurred through the air, slipping past saber and shield both. A brief resistance, futile against the sword's keen edge; two hands fell away, cleanly severed at the wrist. A twist of living wrist, a blinding-quick slash; a head flew free to join the lost limbs.

Shield met sword and won. A saber sank deep between ribs, and she watched herself enact a twisted parody of her nightmares. A face like the one she cared so much for stared back at her, blank eyes dimming with death.

With a resounding crash, four bodies shattered. In time with them, so too did the mirrors on the walls fracture and break into tinkling shards.

After minutes of yells and clashing steel, and moments of shattering glass, silence filled the room.

---

Shuddering, Philia slowly pulled herself upright from the pose her last strike had left her in. With shaking hands, she slipped her battered Swordbreaker into the scabbard at her waist, and took several moments to just breathe.

Not the most difficult fight she'd ever been in. Fast and furious as it had been, it still had nothing on Vemacitrin for difficulty—at least physically. Mentally, it had taken quite a toll, fighting enemies that looked human. Worse, ones that looked like copies of her friends.

And herself. Later, Philia was going to thank Rain for at least sparing her from having to kill "herself". Dealing the final blow to the redhead's NPC clone had been bad enough. If these things hadn't been monochrome, if they'd been full-color copies… I don't know if I could've done it at all.

Looking over at her party members, the treasure hunter had a feeling she wasn't alone in that. Rain and Kirito both looked so inscrutable it was obvious they weren't happy, and Kizmel's eyes were noticeably shadowed. The general silence told its own tale.

That silence was abruptly broken by a giggle, drawing Philia's eyes back to the fountain at the center of the chamber. Forgotten during the fight, the silhouette of a girl still sat there, watching them. "Great job!" she said, clapping. "That's the determination it takes to master the Baneblade—and to find the Steel Castle's deepest secrets. Maybe you guys are worthy to find the truth."

Truth? Philia glanced at the others, wondering if they had any better idea what that meant than she did. Rain, from the look on her face, didn't; Kirito and Kizmel… Eh? What's with them?

"Well, you'll find out on your own, if you keep it up. For now—" The silhouette snapped her fingers, and with a grinding sound the fountain slid sideways. "You have conquered Hyrus Fortress, fair and square. Claim your reward, brave warriors—and maybe we'll meet again, someday!"

One more clap, an impression of a grin on a shadowed face, and the girl faded completely from view.

Treasure. That I can deal with. Clapping her own hands, Philia was the first to move toward the stairs now revealed in the floor. "Okay, guys!" she said loudly. "Let's see what we've got here!"

The others followed eagerly enough, and soon they were dividing up the contents of the small treasure room. Philia quickly claimed a shiny new Swordbreaker to replace her own, nearly worn-out weapon, while Kizmel hefted an ornate heater shield that looked to have been part of a set with the Swordbreaker.

She wasn't quite sure what Rain picked out. The redhead picked up some kind of old book, looked it over, and declared it to be hers without explanation.

In any case, the main attraction was the torch burning in the center of the circle of treasure chests. A blue flame, like the torches that lit the fortress throughout, but more intense. "Is that…?"

"Hyrus' Forge," Kirito confirmed, tapping it to bring up its status display. "Actually," he amended with a rueful grin, "it's the 'Flames of Hyrus' Forge'. According to this, the torch will light any forge sturdy enough with the kind of fire Hyrus used to make swords."

"Ah." Kizmel chuckled. "We misunderstood our goal this whole time… I did wonder how even a Swordmaster's inventory would carry an entire forge."

"So did I, really." Kirito shrugged, tapped a few commands into his menu, and consigned the torch to his storage. "I guess we bring this to Lisbeth, then, and let her take it from there."

"Agreed. But I would suggest we wait until tomorrow morning. I realize that's close to when the raid against Medrizzel is to be launched," Kizmel added, when he opened his mouth. "I think, though, that we could all use a rest." She nodded at where her time display would've been in her vision. "In any case, Liz will have closed her shop by the time we could return to the Teleport Gate. In light of that, I would advise we retire to Onzenna for the evening, and unwind in the hot springs."

"Seconded!" Philia said quickly, perking up at the idea.

"Sounds like a plan," Rain chimed in, tucking away her book with a tired smile. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm beat. Water dungeons are a real pain."

Kirito gulped, obviously uncomfortable with the idea. Which Philia had pretty much expected, after everything that had happened already on the Fifty-First Floor, not to mention her little chat with Kizmel on Kobayashi. "I don't suppose I get a say…?"

"Not a chance!"

---

"Haaah… I guess this isn't so bad, after all…"

Sinking deeper into the water of the hot spring, Kirito let out a contented sigh and looked up at the underside of the floor above, glittering with reflected light. He'd been naturally anxious when his teammates insisted on going to Onzenna's hot springs; all the more so when they'd arrived, well after dark, and found that many other clearers had had the same idea. The kind of crowd conditions that obtained on the Fifty-First Floor were exactly what he'd been trying to avoid, after all.

Other than a few dirty looks from the DDA, though, no one had seemed to pay any attention to his party, and as the central island of the floor Onzenna wasn't exactly small. The open-air hot springs had more than enough partitions to find a couple of lonely spots to themselves, far away from the main body of the clearing group.

Better yet, none of the girls had even suggested trying out the mixed bathing section. They'd gone straight for an unoccupied women's spring, leaving Kirito to a likewise-empty men's, alone with his thoughts for practically the first time since they'd arrived on the floor.

Of course, as good as Onzenna's springs were, they were no better than any other body of water in Aincrad at simulating the feel of liquid. Even still, it was far better than nothing.

Letting the hot spring water soak into tired muscles, he felt the stress of the day ebbing out in turn. The tension of dancing around Argo's little schemes, the headache from navigating another water-based dungeon, the remembered fear of Fallen Elf fortifications…

The disturbing experience of fighting an elite mob with his best friend's face. That had been an exhilarating fight, no doubt about it, but it had taken an effort to ignore what his final foe had looked like. Watching "her" die, by his own hand, had felt horribly like all the times he'd seen the real thing fall in the beta test, only worse.

It was just a mirror boss, Kirito reminded himself, eyes falling closed. Not the first time I've fought something like that in a game. It wasn't real. And anyway, the quest is over now. Tomorrow morning we'll take the Flame down to Liz, get the Baneblade an upgrade, and get back to clearing the floor properly. After crazy doors, mirrors, and an exploding pirate ship, even a sea dragon should be a relief.

Besides, he reflected, thoughts turning to a different kind of awkwardness that had pervaded the Fifty-First Floor's clearing, the sooner we finish this floor, the sooner everything goes back to normal…

Click.

Somehow, Kirito wasn't even surprised to hear the door open. He'd reserved the place, so only a party member could've unlocked it; all of them were girls, but he had a pretty good idea who might've done it anyway—especially right after he'd gone and tempted Fate.

"This is the men's side, y'know," he said without opening his eyes, as the motion of gentle waves heralded someone else slipping into the water. "I thought you were with Rain and Philia, Kizmel."

A quiet chuckle reached his ears. "Of course, I know where I am, my friend," his partner said. "Which means we're more likely to be able to talk without being interrupted, yes?" A pause, followed by a long, pleased sigh. "Aaahhh… this feels wonderful. Better even than the baths at the Royal Palace."

"…I guess I can't argue with that logic," Kirito admitted. Which part of her logic, he was less prepared to admit to. "Especially after a long day of dungeon crawling," he added, finally opening his eyes. "I'm starting to understand Asuna just a little… better…"

He trailed off as his gaze lowered to look at Kizmel, and he felt all voluntary functions seize up. Knowing the elf girl's habits well by now, he'd expected to see her in her usual purple swimsuit. He'd even worn his own as a precaution, having half-expected her to walk in on him.

Leaning against the smooth rocks on the opposite edge of the hot spring, half-submerged in water that did absolutely nothing to conceal her, Kizmel was completely naked.

For a long moment, Kirito was stunned stiff, staring at his partner's body, revealed to a degree he hadn't seen since a particularly embarrassing incident in another hot spring, way back on the Sixth Floor. Just like then, the only thing she wore was an amused smile, not at all abashed.

Kizmel's low chuckle snapped him out of it, alerting him to the fact that he'd been staring for at least half a minute. Whipping his head around, face flaming, he quickly began to stand. "Um, actually, maybe we should talk in the morning," he blurted. "I was just about to fall asleep in here anyway, and that's never a good thing in a spring, so I'll just leave you to enjoy—"

"Stop."

The sharp snap in his partner's voice stopped Kirito mid-turn, before he could even begin to make for the door. It was an authoritative command, with an overtone of genuine irritation that he wasn't used to hearing from her. Especially not directed at him. "K-Kizmel—?"

"I said stop," she repeated. "Look at me, Kirito-kun."

Against his will, unable to disobey the order of a Knight who was used to being obeyed—or a trusted partner who'd fought through many a battle by his side—Kirito turned back to face her. She hadn't moved from her place by the hot spring's edge, though she had folded her arms—in a way that emphasized her figure, rather than hiding it.

He'd never really looked at her this way. For every reason possible to a young man with no social skills and a proper Japanese upbringing, any time Kizmel had been naked around him, he'd done his best not to see too much. Now, forced to, the first inane thought to come to mind was etymological.

They call player bodies "avatars", from the Sanskrit "avatara". Right now, I don't know that's far off…

If Kizmel were the manifestation of a deity, she would have been an ethereal war goddess. A figure that any girl, human or otherwise, would be jealous of; dusky skin, lilac hair, and long, pointed ears that lent a sense of the exotic and otherworldly. Normally hidden by her modest armor, Kirito could see toned muscles under supple skin, the sleekness of an athlete rather than the bulk of a bodybuilder.

…She really is beautiful…

A sigh jarred Kirito out of his reverie, and his eyes snapped back up to see her frowning at him. "Kirito-kun, why are you so afraid to look at me?" She waved a hand when he opened his mouth to reply, shaking her head. "And please, don't try to say you're afraid of my reaction. By now, you certainly ought to know I am not a tsundere."

He had the sudden conviction Argo had something to do with the whole situation. Only the Rat could've put a word like that in the elf girl's head, he was sure.

"Indeed, I'm not human at all, as you well know. Human standards are not my concern. Nor should they be yours, as much an outcast as you are among Swordmasters." Kizmel sighed again, eyes falling closed. "Am I wrong?"

"W-well, not exactly—but—" Kirito fumbled for words, for some argument that would actually get through her casual unconcern. "I mean, we're not alone here, and—"

"We are at this moment, Kirito-kun. True," she admitted with a slight grimace, "if others were here, even Asuna, I'd respect human customs. But she is not here to punish you for being a 'pervert', Argo is in no position to humiliate either of us, and even Rain and Philia are elsewhere. Between the two of us? I've worried about human customs long enough. You're my partner, Kirito-kun, and my best friend. Neither of us has any reason to be bothered by you seeing me naked."

Kirito gulped, blush intensifying at her blunt forwardness. She'd never been exactly shy around him, but this was taking things to an entirely different level. "Kizmel… I…"

He wanted to look away. Not, admittedly, from her body—or at least, the more primal part of his brain didn't; he was a teenager—but definitely from that hard stare. Not least because her logic was, in a way, very difficult for him to refute. Certainly it didn't seem likely he'd suffer any consequences for just letting himself enjoy the view. As she'd pointed out, they were alone, and for whatever reason the anti-harassment code had simply never worked properly around her, before or after she obtained player privileges.

"Kirito-kun," the elf girl said then, voice softening. "If you do have a reason besides irrelevant human taboo, please, tell me." She leaned forward in the water, pulling up her legs to hug her knees. "We're partners. Friends. We've shared battles, grief, and beds. Don't you trust me?"

…Now that was just not fair. Because yes, he did trust her, more than he sometimes thought was sane—and because he knew how fragile her trust was in return, even if she didn't, he had always done his very best to never, ever lie to her.

No matter how much it hurt.

With a long, shuddering sigh, Kirito finally slid all the way back into the water. "…I'm afraid," he said, this time having no trouble meeting her eyes. "I'm afraid of screwing things up, because I never quite know where I stand with anyone. If I wasn't afraid, I might not even be here."

Kizmel looked at him over her knees, gaze indecipherable. "Tell me, Kirito-kun."

He didn't want to. He'd never told anyone exactly why he'd fled into video games, long before he literally became trapped in one. Never admitted to a living soul how he always felt like he was standing on shifting sand.

Even so, Kirito found the words came surprisingly easily, as if he'd been waiting to unload the burden for a long time. "I told you about my sister, right?" he began, finding himself imitating Kizmel's posture, arms wrapped around his knees. "And how we're not actually siblings?" When she gave a sober nod, he continued, "Well… the thing is, I didn't actually know that myself, for a long time."

Another slow nod. "Go on," Kizmel urged him softly. "How did you find out the truth?"

"Completely by accident. I was… searching through a database—um, kind of like the Mystic Scribing we use in this world. Just messing around, really." He shied away from mentioning just why he'd been throwing himself into the computer that particular day; the memory of his last day in the dojo remained a painful one. "I decided on a whim to look up information about myself, partly just for the challenge—I kind of wasn't supposed to be able to get into those records at all—and… didn't find what I was expecting."

And isn't that an understatement, Kirito mused bitterly.

"If I hadn't been quite so good at it, I still wouldn't have figured it out," he continued, lifting his gaze to the floor above. "Getting in was a challenge by itself. Tracing changes in the records back to a deletion—Um." Seeing the blank look on Kizmel's face, he quickly rephrased. "I found out portions of my record as a citizen had been destroyed, and I was able to recover part of it." He smiled; a bitter expression, not at all happy. "I didn't exactly expect to find out that I used to have a different name."

Kirito could see her digesting that, and for a moment reflected on just how different she was from any NPC he'd ever known. A "normal" AI, if it could've understood at all, would've doubtless drawn a conclusion in a fraction of a second; Kizmel took as long to think it over as he might've expected a human to, and he didn't think it was a "programmed" delay.

No wonder I'm always so confused with her, he thought ruefully. She can't be human, but she doesn't make sense as AI, either… but if there's one thing I am sure of now, it's that she's real. …Which just makes some of this harder.

"How old were you, when you found out?" Kizmel asked at last. There was a glimmer of understanding in her eyes, though, as if she already had an idea of what he was going to say.

"Ten years old," Kirito told her. He chuckled; a reaction as humorless as his previous smile. "Just a kid, sure, but not that young. Ten years old, and I found out my parents were my aunt and uncle, and my sister was my cousin. Everything I thought I knew about my life, turned upside-down in one little accident. It was like… like I'd been standing on solid rock all my life, and it suddenly turned to quicksand."

Two moments from that day, he could remember all too clearly. The pain of his grandfather's hand on his face, while his sister tearfully declared she'd carry on the family legacy for both of them—and the gut-wrenching disorientation of learning that grandfather was the only member of his family who actually was who Kirito had always believed him to be.

"So," he went on after a moment, forcing that pain back into a password-protected folder in the back of his mind, "after that, I drifted away from my family. I didn't know how to deal with them, whether I should think of Sugu as my sister or my cousin, her parents as mine or as aunt and uncle. I spent all my time playing games to run away—and that didn't really help, either. On the other side of a screen, there's no way to know if the people you see are really what they look like.

"And then I came here, and got stuck in a place where guessing wrong about where I stand could get me killed."

Even the warmth of the hot spring couldn't chase out the chill. Because the few people he did genuinely believe he could trust, he'd driven away for their own safety—and the only way he'd been able to ensure that safety, once, had been to make others believe he was something different from what he really was.

"Kirito-kun." Kizmel's voice pulled him back to the present, and he found himself meeting her eyes again. "We've been partners for a long time now. Do you truly believe you cannot trust where you stand with me?"

Kirito swallowed hard. "I trust you," he said, voice barely a whisper. "More than anyone. But, Kizmel… you don't know where you stand with me."

It all came down to that. It always had. He knew the truth about Kizmel's world, about the people in it, and she didn't. So long as that imbalance stood between them, it felt like he was lying to her every moment. And every time they came close to the subject, he was terrified she'd demand an answer. Terrified of how she'd take that answer.

It hurt, deeper than anything since that discovery about his family.

He was startled, then, when the elf girl tsked at him. "Kirito-kun," she said, shaking her head. "You've told me before that there are things about this world that you can't explain. I can tell that you're afraid of what will happen when I finally do understand them. But you've also said you try to treat this world as 'real', even if you cannot truly believe that." There was a look in her eyes that he couldn't quite understand, now. "And you told me that you believe I'm real. Was that a lie?"

"No!" Kirito said at once, stung. "No, if there's one thing I'm sure is real here, it's you! But—"

"Hush." Kizmel smiled now, and rose to her feet—abruptly reminding him that she was still naked. "I can't promise that I won't be angry, when I learn your secret. I am—I was—a Knight, not some pure-hearted priestess." Slowly, she walked toward him across the spring, halting so that she was standing over him. Folding her arms under her breasts, she went on, "But I will promise you this: whatever happens, whatever hardships come upon—or between—us, I'll always be honest with you. If I'm angry with you, I'll tell you. Just as you can be sure you'll know when you have my favor."

He shivered despite the warmth. That was a level of trust he wasn't used to anymore, and it scared him. But this time, he couldn't just run away from it. She wouldn't let him, and just like he'd been pulled by the sense of family the Black Cats had had, he found himself craving it.

"Are you… sure about that?" he asked hoarsely.

"So long as you trust me in return. I'm your partner." She unfolded her arms, propped one hand provocatively on her hip, and extended the other to him. "I won't hurt you, Kirito-kun. So please, don't insult me by looking away."

With a deep, shuddering breath, Kirito took the offered hand, and let her pull him to his feet. "I'll… try," he got out, eyes glancing at her bare body as he struggled with the contradicting dictates of cultural and habit, and his partner's command. "But it's not something I can just change right away…"

"That's all right, my friend. I'll do my best to… aid your efforts." She smiled; a calm, encouraging smile, without the teasing he'd honestly expected under the circumstances.

Okay, he thought, his heart rate beginning to calm. I can do this. I'm still not sure this is quite the right thing, but… she's my partner. One step at a time. I got used to the swimsuits and the Sunblock, right? Start small, and—eep!

Kirito let out a squeak even he couldn't deny as the naked elf suddenly pulled him into a hug, pressing herself tightly against him and resting her chin on his shoulder. "There are other things I have to say, my friend," Kizmel murmured in his ear. "But I can see it's too soon for that." She chuckled; a low, throaty sound that sent an entirely different kind of shiver through him. "Mm… another time, then, Kirito-kun."

His brain gibbered, froze up, and BSOD'd for several seconds. A forced mental shutdown took a dozen seconds more, as the shameless girl laughed in his ear. When higher brain function finally rebooted, he found that his autonomic nervous system had carefully reciprocated the hug, one hand resting at the small of her back, the other just below her neck.

If the NerveGears hadn't been tampered with, Kirito was absolutely certain he would've incurred a forced log-out from a dangerously elevated heart rate.

With that escape denied him, and Kizmel showing no inclination to let go, he could only go with the flow, mind frantically trying to calculate an appropriate response. In the end, his memory completely lacking any prior context from which to derive an answer, he simply blurted out the first remotely coherent thought that emerged.

"You blush like any human girl when Argo teases you, but you're willing to do something like this?"

Another of those low chuckles, which did nothing for Kirito's peace of mind. "The exigencies of war are one thing, Kirito-kun," she whispered, warm breath tickling his ear. "Much less what a girl does in private, with a trusted partner. The Rat is something else. I am not an exhibitionist."

---

Humming to herself, Kizmel settled herself back into the warmth of the spring with a light heart. Perhaps it didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped, she mused, watching with some amusement as her partner tried not to stare at her, while at the same time he tried not to look away too obviously. But I think it counts as a step forward.

Now that she knew Kirito did have a legitimate concern, however misplaced she thought it was with her, she was content to give him time. Pushing too hard would scarcely accomplish anything, after all. Besides, there was no real hurry; there was time enough to make her move, before the clearing of the Steel Castle was complete.

Not that the conversation had been entirely to Kizmel's liking, if she were honest about it. She still suspected he was omitting details about his past; it hadn't escaped her notice that his search that had so changed his life had occurred about the same time as his falling-out with his grandfather. Something told her that was more serious than he was admitting.

And, if I'm truly honest… something in me is afraid, she thought. Over a year he's known me now, and Kirito is still afraid of how I'll take whatever "truth" he's hiding.

That there was something off about the world, compared to what she'd grown up believing, Kizmel had herself begun to suspect some time before. The ominous words on the wall of a cave about a spell to dull the minds of Aincrad's people had resonated all too well with observations she'd made in the months since reuniting with Kirito. That, and with the steadfast belief most Swordmasters had that Aincrad was nothing but a deadly dream.

Not to mention the strange girl she'd met the day they began their current quest, who'd uttered a disturbing prediction of doom.

As if the world around me was changed, the day the Swordmasters arrived. It sometimes feels as if… I was dreaming, when Kirito fought through the "beta test", and somehow I was drawn into that dream that day. The more I see in our travels, the more I wonder…

Shivering at the thought, Kizmel clung to a few certainties. No matter the condition of the world around her, she was real, her partner was real, and the Swordmasters—and if no one else born of the Steel Castle was quite as they should have been, her sister's spirit had certainly been. However her world had changed, not everything wavered.

More, some things are steadier than they've ever been, she reflected, letting the hot spring chase away the dark thoughts. The water itself, for one. Ever since she'd begun experimenting with the hidden option in the Swordmasters' menu, the Dark Elf had found baths to be more enjoyable than ever. At least, when she dispensed with the utterly extraneous swimsuit.

All the more reason to bring Kirito to his senses on the subject. Smiling to herself, Kizmel watched her partner gradually recover from the shock she'd inflicted on him. She'd contemplated sitting close enough to lean against him, but regretfully decided that might've been a step too far. At least for now. Just being in sight seemed to be enough of a source of tension for him.

Taking pity on him, the elf girl cleared her throat. "About your Mystic Scribing," she began, "I've been wondering, Kirito-kun. These 'computers' are the means by which the sorcerer Kayaba interferes in this world, right?"

"Huh?" Kirito started. "Oh! Um, yeah, that's right. A lot more complex than the menus players have access to, though."

"I thought as much. Still," she continued thoughtfully, "you mentioned that you breached records you 'weren't supposed to' when you were quite young. In your world, then, you're quite a skilled sorcerer yourself?"

"W-well, I wouldn't say I'm in Kayaba's league, but I guess I'm not bad," he said. He scratched the back of his head, looking uncomfortable; and not, she judged, because of her unclad body. This time. "Though as long as we're stuck in Aincrad itself, there's not much I can do without a better interface than the menus players get…" He trailed off. "Uh, Kizmel, what's this about, anyway?"

"Ah, nothing important, Kirito-kun," Kizmel replied, giving a casual shrug and a smile. "Merely… planning for the future, I suppose.

"After all, why should we play this 'game' according to Kayaba's rules? Or even his game at all…"

---

Author's Note:

---

Okay, so I'm three months late and a hundred Cor short with the update. To make a long, boring story short, the end of last year and beginning of this one was a rather busy time for me, following which I had a complicated combination of bureaucracy and health issues dogging my heels.

Then I finally got to the final stage of this chapter, and found it just a tad more difficult to write than I expected. I fear I may have gone just a bit overboard with some of it; if it crossed from "logical culture clash involving shameless elf and teenage boy" into "excessive fan service", I apologize. I'm not really used to writing scenes like that, and finding the right balance was tricky.

Having just read Kizmel's debut in another fic, whose content I had somewhat underestimated based on the T rating, may have had a bit more influence on my own work that I'd hoped. (Speaking: just when is Kizmel going to be added to the character filter? I'm not the only one using her anymore, darn it!)

Ahem. That aside, this chapter's size also got away from me; hopefully it's not too much to digest all at once. As it is, as might be guessed, there's one more chapter's worth of material for this arc, so we're not out of the beach episode just yet. There's a couple of rather significant plot points yet to be covered, plus a sea monster to kill. But I promise, this time I see no way even I can manage to stretch things out beyond my current expectation; with Chapter XII as a comparison, I really do have reason to be sure of that. For once.

Ah, yes, one off-topic comment I must make: in case anyone in the SAO fandom hasn't yet run across it, I must highly recommend Catsy's Fairy Dance of Death. While it doesn't have Kizmel in it—ahem; pardon the brief indulgence in ego—that story has a scope that Duet, alas, cannot hope to equal. Very much worth the read.

So… I suppose that's it for this chapter. I hope the length, if anything, somewhat makes up for the long delay, and that I didn't completely botch the final scenes. I'll be interested in opinions on that, of a certainty. And next chapter, at the least, shouldn't be delayed by story complications—though I know better than to guarantee external factors won't interfere. 'Til then, please enjoy, comrades. -Solid