I swear I've never procrastinated or fidgeted on this as much as this chapter. The details at the first part of the fic really drove me into a dead end for a while. As a result, it was rather shorter (4k) than my usual standard for other chapters. But it is a lot of plot and canon stuff that really drives this fic forward and what makes the center theme of this story, so I'm still proud of what I have written. I hope you don't mind this little setback I have. I'm still trying my best to actually complete a fic that I can actually say composes of a cohesive and relatable character, and this so far has been the one I'm really rooting for. Again, thank you for your support throughout the eleven chapters. I could not have made it up here without you guys. I hope you enjoy the chapter, and I'll see you guys in the next one.

Chapter 12: A Lost Scabbard

The flight to the Yggdrasil city did not take more than fifteen minutes. All hail the developer for finally removing that jerkass of a feature known as limited flight time. Without the thing, I could beeline straight towards the tree without even turning a degree. I also did not have to look anywhere far for the stadium, as it was the defining landmark of the entire game. As soon as I enter the city's airspace, all I had to do was just fly up a little high in the sky and the tortoise-shaped silhouette of the stadium flew into my eyes like a bullet.

The catchy thing about the architecture was that it was decorated like what you'd see in a typical ancient gladiator movie. The dome was just grandiose, as it dwarfed any mortal beings like me by the thousands. It was probably even bigger than the Black Iron Palace, as the time it took to walk from a far endpoint to another around the ring would probably have my legs screaming in tears. Though I wasn't a very sporty person to be clear. My stamina had only been improved since I had to exert myself more in recent months. Before that, buses had taken me straight to the doorway of the class, so I didn't feel the pain of actually having to hike to class like the majority of the class members. Man, maybe that would have been a good thing back then.

Nevertheless, once stepped on the gigantic roof of the dome, I could feel its organic surface bounce me up and down like a trampoline. My descent from the sky rocked the entire roof like a wave of water fleeting down the ocean floor before colliding onto the onshore rocks that were the other players standing nearby, or it slowly lost its glory and disappeared into the digits.

"Interesting design…"

It did give the feel. But probably only worked for digital worlds. Japanese climate would send the building into a one-year-old's masterpiece.

I walked over to the edge of the dome as I peered down the massive arena. There was no duel occurring right now. It was entirely a free-for-all practice ground, but it seemed like people were minding their own business. Those who practiced with their partners were rarely bothered, and spells that could potentially affect a massive scale were not encouraged to be used.

"Now where is Yuuki?"

I just needed to search for anything or anyone that contains purple as their outfit, as Yuuki is an imp. Sounds simple. But from here, purple and black were the same. Even some Salamanders who think they are edgy enough to wear darker red. It was a difficult filter. But eventually, I could finally track her down at the far east of the arena, on the other half of my end, seemingly practicing or dueling with another player. She really did enjoy this, didn't she?

I could see it in her movements, even though from up here, she barely looked any different from a mole or the birthmark on my arm, the speed and agility, the curves of each time she took flight with the newly powerful and mighty wings we were blessed upon, she really was taking this to heart. Just like how she did the other day with me. She took this with a sword straight on her hand but with no fingers crossed. Maybe that was the reason why I enjoyed her company so much. There was no facade to her. There were no bullshit motives behind every word she echoed. She was who she was, and that was a very commendable feature that we now lacked.

The other person didn't seem too much of a match for Yuuki, her movements were noticeably lacking behind, but he or she did boost their capability as a competent swordsman, as their shifts of metals correlated evenly and nicely with Yuuki's blade like a violin string. In fact, a better comparison of their skills would probably be with me. I couldn't hold a candle to Yuuki yet I could still provide adequate support that would be of use to her. It wasn't a perfect show of power, but it was indeed fun and charming to watch. The two fighters appeared to be enjoying themselves, as their body swung just along with their trusted companion. They clashed with the blades and parted just as they had enough.

The battle lasted about a few minutes before one fighter appeared to be spiraling down to the ground like a shot down aircraft. A flash of gold dirt shot up and expanded out like an explosion, while the other one simply landed nicely right a few feet in front of her. According to my own verdict earlier, it was easy to determine the identity of each person.

I figured that the battle had ended, that one of them had taken a strong direct hit and therefore lost the duel. It was backed up soon after as they did not continue on the fight. It was probably time to show myself up now.

I immediately jumped off the organic roof and materialized my wings as they slowed my descent to the ground. With a few adjustment, I landed within Yuuki's view.

"Oh hey. Hirano-san!"

Quickly, Yuuki recognized me as her lips quickly radiated a smile while she waved frantically as I slowly approached her.

"What are you doing here? How do you know I'm here?"

"The guys told me you're enjoying your fame." I replied, chuckling sarcastically as the salt in my mouth had yet to dissolve.

"I tell you, they're preying on me like I'm a sausage." Yuuki remarked, either returning my sarcasm or completely unaware of it. "I'm starting to feel my arms and legs torn apart."

"You can feel tiredness? I didn't know…" I placed my finger on my chin as I half-closed my eyes like a half-moon.

"Hey, I have my limits too you know!" She quickly jumped back in response, to which I could barely contain my laughter. Too typical for me to expect differently.

"I'm done for the day though. I don't have any more moods for another fight."

"Then do you wanna just hang out in the city? You know…walking around, get some snacks."

"Sure!" She nodded cheerfully. "Tremble Shortcake?"

"NO!"

You little…

"Hahaha, you're so easy to tease." She giggled loudly. "Come on, let's go."

"So how's your day has been?" I asked as we, right next to each other, both strode down the streets of Yggdrasil City.

"It's been an exciting week." She replied with a smile as she appeared to be hopping with every step on the way. "I've been raising my one-handed sword points. I'm about to reach the point where I could make my own sword skills."

"Your own?" My brows ticked.

"Yeah. Your original sword skills. Your very own." She boasted with confidence. "It was in the newest patch information. Didn't you read it?"

"Ah no. I must've missed it. Hahaha."

I scratched my head as I forced a laugh for myself. It didn't make me look any cooler or anything really. In fact, I must have sounded cringy to her. But apparently, she didn't mind that. Visibly speaking. I cared more of what went underneath the surface rather than what was thrown right at me.

"Well, the requirement is pretty simple that you need at least one thousand points of a particular skill you want to create. For me, I can only create one-handed sword skills and it only." She explained. "I don't know if you focus on being a jack-of-all-trade and masters of none."

"No, I don't. I'm like you in that regards. I use only a one-handed sword."

"What's your points at the moment."

"I'm at eight-hundred fifty. I haven't got much time this week." I shook my head.

"Ah, it's not bad." She said. "I'm at nine-hundred thirty now. I'll probably get that by the end of next week."

"Nice." I gave her a thumbs-up. "Hey how about we have a day together to level up?"

"That's good for me." She happily accepted, without much hesitation. "Just us two or with the rest of the guys too?"

"Your choice." I replied.

"Alrighty. When do you want to meet up?"

"Uhh…"

I had a midterm the next Monday. It was about graphic design, a pretty tough course to be honest. I could do well with the arts, but it wasn't all about the aesthetics, but rather about the understanding of the program and stuff, some of which weren't my cup of tea nor my forte. I may want to take the entire weekend off to revise it onto the back of my hand. After that, I might be able to go for it, but my body or maybe even Nariko would disagree. She probably wouldn't want to stress it like that. Even if this was for entertainment purposes, diving away from the real world too often could also have health consequences. Well, not that I was to speak about that matter anyway…

"How about next Tuesday in the afternoon?" I suggested. Tuesday would probably be the safest option to go.

"That's quite a long time to get started." She pouted a little. "You seem to have a pretty unconventional schedule huh."

"Well…" My head fell on my shoulder like a rolling stone. "You're hanging out with a dude in college."

"Is it common for you guys?" She tilted her head curiously. Well not surprisingly. She was only fourteen not even fifteen. That would put her in junior year of high school at best. You would expect people like her to know what's beyond their school, but you'd be shocked.

"Yeah, it is. Unlike high school or middle school where you basically have a morning and afternoon class, we don't have a static timetable. We make them instead." I explained.

"So you choose your own time at school instead? Wow! That's so awesome!" She exclaimed excitedly.

"Yeah, you also have like one to two subjects a day. But every subject's gonna be a few hours in length."

"So I'm gonna be able to learn music for a few hours?!" She bolted in shock. "Though in exchange I'd have to do the math for a few hours as well…" Before the amps fell down like a falling rock. Math is still a demonized subject I see.

"But you can't afford to be lazy though. Having less workload doesn't mean you can slack off."

"I think I'll be fine with that, haha." She ended with a big laugh, before staring up at the sky as the sky began to shade a massive red tinge. "Man, I wish I could experience that one day…"

For some reason, our atmosphere changed like a turning compass.

"You can definitely go for it if you want to." I casually said. To my curiosity.

"Not for me though. I don't think I'll be qualified for one." She replied as she breathed out heavily. The air seemed to mold my chest as I felt a grip so tight that I could suffocate. "You see I'm not enrolled in any schools at all at the moment. That's been like that for a few years already."

None?…

Factually, it wasn't something brand new. I've already known that she was diving in the game full twenty-four. But it wasn't the fact that she was not in school that was tying me in a leash. It was that she seemed to enjoy it. She wanted to come to school, but for some reasons, she couldn't. It was a rare and honestly admirable trait that people tend to lack nowadays. But life just had the habit of getting in the way.

"It has something to do with it yeah?"

"With what?" She asked.

"What you said in the clubhouse that day." I answered. "The thing that you need time with."

Would she be able to tell it? And was I, in her eyes, the person she could share it with? Had I shown that to her?

"Mhm." She nodded lightly. So light I barely noticed.

"You still need some more?"

This time she didn't reply. The silence made me want to retract the questions back. It did sound a little intrusive. But the echo was already transmitted. Already out there.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have…"

No no no. That wouldn't work. She didn't need time. The time that she said she did was for assessment. To get herself close enough to a person to the point where she could share the problems that she could not find herself expressing freely. And it wasn't simply sympathy or meaningless reassurance. She had to find herself a mutual understanding. She had to see the same thing in me.

And to compare, I wasn't any different. I wasn't the one to see the worst of people. Obviously, there were many who wished good fortunes for me ever since they knew I had ALS. But they themselves had never understood them. They were people who stood afar and wiped off the sweat from their forehead that they weren't in their shoes. And it was frustrating. When people, even friends, and families kept acting cautiously around me like I was some sort of problem or a weirdo. I am a normal human being at that. And I am doing my best to normalize myself right now. I don't need to tell me that I desperately need help.

"In truth though…"

And I decided. If I were to get myself the opportunity to be that person, I would have to open first. Tell her what I feel.

"I'm also not confident in my ability to finish school."

And maybe…maybe she feels the same.

Yuuki suddenly looked up. Her eyes filled with some contrasted curiosity as her lips.

"Why not?" She asked.

"Because I'm not going to live very long."

And it could not simply be a performance. I had to be myself, in order for her to be. It might prove a waste of time, but to hide and shut myself wouldn't give me anything at all. I would not be a coward to wait for her own feelings to come out before mine does.

"In fact, I'd probably be gone by next year or so."

The feeling. This feeling. What would it feel like to leave? It would be a hard truth for everyone, but what now was the time for me? The void that I would leave. The feeling when I wasn't here anymore. That I could no longer be spoken to, no longer be talked to anymore. What things would she or others have to feel after that?

But I had said it. I may have predicted entirely wrong. Yuuki might not be the same as me. That night at the new Aincrad when we had our first date, when Yuuki told me about her sickly condition when she was still in school. Her insane and extremely unusual gaming schedule that perhaps no parents or guardians would allow. And how she approached me like how I approached her. And now that I think about it, there were no reasons to explain such a lifestyle. A lifestyle that discarded personal education for a device for entertainment. My guts tell me there wasn't a different thing about it.

Yuuki's eyes were just…infinite. It felt like I could fall into it and never get out of it again. It was perhaps too much to see it all. For a simple-minded, energetic and cheerful girl I usually see, the tangledness was what I could never have expected. And she probably would have seen the same.

And then.

"I knew it."

Suddenly, the depths that I had peered into was filled, as tears quickly filled the void.

"I knew I would have picked the right person."

What?

"Can you elaborate on that?"

She knew it all along that I was going through a chronic disease? Or did she know I had the same feelings as her?

Yuuki giggled, as if making fun of my obliviousness, as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

"I knew I picked the right person to be my closest friend."

She said it. So casually and cheerful it melted my heart. I am her closest friend? I never would have expected. Out of the whole Sleeping Knight, I was the latest member, yet I was the closest among all?

"So you knew all along as well of what I'm dealing with?" I asked.

"Well." Yuuki turned away for a moment, sounded a little dragged out. "I didn't know exactly what, but I saw signs all over you that you were dealing with something unpleasant."

"Though I'm doing better now," I said. "Thanks to your inspiration."

She looked away again, up and down as her cheeks seemed to ripen. But again, she recovered pretty quickly as she gave a pat to my shoulder with a big smile.

"I'm glad to hear!"

Her smile really was contagious. I couldn't help but be infected.

"So about that." But then the topic returned right to it, something that we could have forgotten in the feelings. "Again, I'm not going to press on if you don't want to. I just want to let you know that I'm willing to listen."

All of that didn't have to do. She'd have to open herself willingly.

"No no. I think I don't need anymore." Yuuki replied. The one thing that I had been waiting for quite a while. "But if you don't mind, let's go inside the inn. I don't want to talk in public."

"The Sleeping Knight was formed barely a year ago. At first, it was just me, my older sister Aiko and another friend of mine called Merida." Yuuki began. "It was a wonderful trio back then. We met at a game called Serene Garden, but also played Asuka Empire. We kind of interchange whenever we got bored."

After a quick search on the city map, we found an inn right nearby and so we rented a double room. We sat at a square coffee table, as me and Yuuki faced each other.

"It was fun already for us three, but we all wanted more friends. So we began inviting other people to join us in our adventures throughout the virtual worlds." She said. "Although it was hard to find members, we still found a lot of people like us surprisingly, in the same circumstances as us."

"Soon we reached nine people. Nine group members. That included all the current members you've seen here." She nevertheless continued. "From there we expanded from Serene Garden and Asuka Empire to all other games. Almost every other. Insect World, This War of Ours, Frostbite and now Alfheim Online. It was just a phenomenal experience. Did you know that…"

And she went on talking about how Siune was actually a caterpillar in Insect World, or how Tecchi fucked up and got shot by a sniper in the latter game. Her tone took a jump, as she went on for almost two minutes, recalling all the memorable events she could remember from the top of her head with great detail. I actually found myself laughing and even enjoying what she was saying. I know what it was like to have a group like that. A group made up of people who think the same, who acts the same and shares the same passion and interest. You could spend hours talking bullshits with them and they would still consider it a fun and productive day. But nine people? There was only seven right now, one of them was me, who joined way late in the guild.

"But as we just moved to Alfheim…" Suddenly, the tone that was just seconds ago sky-high fell back to the Earth with a slam. I knew exactly what was coming "Merida and Aiko passed away, along with one other member."

My heart tightened like a knot. I didn't need to begin explaining the feeling when you lose not just your founding members, but also your very own sister. The thought now, if I were to lose my mother or Yuina. Even…I just couldn't…

And that was just a year ago. One year. Just around the same time, my life had been cut short by decades. Just as I was declining into a lesser version of myself, she was expanding to the girl I knew today. Who knows how long she had lived with the condition that she tried her best to hide, but now, even as her sister was gone, her other friend was gone, she was still being the angel and finesse warrior of ALO that she had earned herself with a radiant smile on her face. She was the person I could have ever idealized to become, but she started out just like me. Now she was there, and I wasn't.

"So pretty much de facto, I became the leader." She lifted her eyes as forcibly she pulled a smile. But it wasn't any more clear that it wasn't her. I had known her long enough.

"Even though my old friends are gone…my new ones are just as fun. Jun, Siune, Talken, Nori, and Tecchi. They all make my story worth telling. Just like how I…"

But then again.

"...Just like how I made my sister's…'

How naive and ignorant I was.

The salty droplet, for the first time, ran down her right cheek before falling cleanly on the table. Then came another. Then another. And before the grieving and heart-wrenching sobs came, Yuuki's hand were already on her lips.

How could I forget that she was still a human being? A normal innocent teenage girl who had been forced against her will to endure such pain. She stood strong, she fought like a warrior, yet she grieved like all of us. She wasn't a nigh-flawless angel that I always looked up to as a model for a lost me. She still needed help and support all the same. She had her down times all the same. And that to me was what I also failed to realize. For her. And for myself…

Slowly, I held onto Yuuki's hand. Unlike the other day, I wrapped all five across hers sideway, shielding her small delicate hand with my own frail one. As she cried into the night, I did not say a thing. I won't pretend to understand or know her feelings, because I didn't completely. I'd never lost a dear person in my life. After it, I was too depressed to care. So I had no rights to say anything as pretentious as such.

But for now I would be here for her.