Issei Hyoudou was attempting to overcome an overwhelming feeling of doom and eminent despair as he faced an opponent he stood no chance at defeating.

If the Gremory peerage didn't defeat Riser in the rating game, Rias would be forced into a marriage with a contemptable pig of a man and any chance of her being able to find love would be drastically reduced, if not wholly destroyed. While this wasn't directly related to Issei's current impending fight, it was something that may be affected by his current fight, and whether they would come out victorious against Riser.

For while the rating game wasn't for another few weeks and Riser was not his current opponent, Issei was fully aware that he was in for a rough time as he stared down the black-haired boy that was standing opposite him. After Argo Marchosias' Queen, the aforementioned black-haired boy, had completely trashed the entirety of Riser's peerage and the flaming douche himself, Rias had finally swallowed her pride enough to ask for help in her preparations.

The result was that the other high-class devil had basically directed Kirito at Issei and told him to do his thing before moving on to help Rias and the other members of the Gremory peerage, leaving Issei to be led off to a clearing a couple of miles away from where the rest of the group was training. Desperately attempting to ignore the indication behind the fact that Kirito had deliberately led him so far away from everyone else, Issei prepared for hell on earth.

"Alright then" Kirito murmured looking around casually "This should be a good enough place to begin."

"Begin what?" Issei asked apprehensively.

Kirito smiled and replied unhelpfully "Why training of course."

Issei deadpanned "I know that! What kind of training is what I'm asking!"

"Oh, that's simple!" Kirito replied as an immense pressure suddenly bore down on Issei and a chill shot through his spine. "I'm going to try and kill you, don't die."

Panic overcoming him, Issei stumbled backwards and fell on his ass as Kirito began…. Laughing?

"I can't believe you fell for that" Kirito managed between his laughter "seriously do you think that anime-bullshit training method actually works in reality? I didn't even give you any pointers to work on prior to starting."

"huh? What…" Issei fumbled.

"The minimum requirement for training like that would be for the teacher to be on such a higher level there was literally no risk of them actually inflicting a fatal blow if they notice their student couldn't block it, the gap between us is pretty big, but its only to the level where I'd be able to 100% reliably reduce an instantly fatal attack to a mortal wound." Kirito explained after recovering.

"You!" Issei raged as he rose to his feet "you scared the shit out of me you damn pretty boy!" he roared as Kirito began laughing again.

"Sorry, Sorry" Kirito apologized lightly, not sounding sorry at all "Okay for real this time." Kirito began, growing serious "Your sacred gear, or rather your current ability to use it, isn't enough to pull off an attack that could down Riser," He paused "that is, Riser in top condition. Riser's immortality grows weaker if his mental state falters, the attack I used to finish him off wouldn't have slowed him for a second if I'd done it at the beginning of the fight."

"You mean before you mind raped him after smacking him around like a bitch for fifteen minutes." Issei interjected dryly.

"Yep!" Kirito chirped "So the thing we have to focus on is giving you the impression and presence of someone who everyone's favorite Phoenix-sama can't down, maybe work on building a little bit of killing intent up. Basically, we just have to make Riser start doubting himself. Once he starts doubting himself he'll start growing weaker which will cause him to doubt himself even more creating a happy little cycle that you'll be able to exploit to kick his ass. His experience with me -where even his greatest efforts and determination ended up meaning jack shit- should make him a bit more prone to bending under pressure, at least for the immediate future."

"How are we supposed to pull that off?" Issei asked.

"Easy, I just have to help you be able to face even a drastically superior opponent without backing down, basically if Riser thinks you're confident in beating him then he'll start to wonder if you can, starting that lovely doubt cycle we just talked about."

Issei gulped "how are we going to do that, exactly" he managed nervously.

"Oh, that's simple!" Kirito replied as Issei felt every instinct he had start screaming at him "I'm going to try and maim you; don't get maimed!"

"That's not much better than the first thi- EK! THAT'S A SWORD!"

"Okay here's what we're going to start with…" Argo began before being interrupted by the distant sound of an explosion "… Seeing as you guys are going in outnumbered I'm going to teach you some basic divide and conquer tactics as well as run some drills on fighting in sync" she continued completely ignoring the distant explosions.

Rias blinked uncertainty, looking of nervously in the direction of the explosions "umm… is that..."

"Don't worry about it" Argo reassured her "everything's fine".

The Gremory peerage (sans Issei) looked at Argo uncertainly as a distant scream of terror reached the edge of their hearing range.

"Are you sure-" Rias began.

"Yes, everything is fine" Argo injected firmly.

"Well if you say so…" Rias trailed off.

"What could possibly go wrong." Argo said calmly "It's well within acceptable risk margins." She affirmed in an even tone of voice "After this is all over I'm going to get married." She noted dully.

Rias blinked "Wait a minute… Aren't you just listing off random death flags!?"

"It looks like it's finally over"

"You are! Aren't you!"

"I'm just seeing things, looks like nothing was there"

"What are you! an Npc guard failing to detect B*g B*ss or something!"

"Nothing could possibly have survived that"

"That is not reassuring at all! Seriously what the hell is going on over there!"

"War… War never changes…"

"What the hell does that mean!?"

Kirito was confused.

Life -in his opinion- had become really strange recently. Just a few days ago he had been fighting against a (self-proclaimed) immortal in mortal -no pun intended- combat in order to prevent his master and friend(?) from being forced to marry said immortal because of some stupid underworld politics and yet, here he was, less than a week later, stuck in a math class he could probably teach. The fact that this particular teacher apparently seemed to take his ability to solve complex equations quickly and with minimal effort as an insult didn't help. The truth was that the calculations required for glyph-based magic were several times more complex than anything that would appear in a high school class and the visible ease with which he answered any question shot his way appeared to annoy his math teacher. To add insult to injury, his math teacher was also his homeroom teacher, so he had to deal with this in the early morning.

It was to the extent that the teacher rather blatantly spent most of the class alternating between teaching and trying to catch him off guard with a question that seemed a little bit (and sometimes more than a little bit) too complex for a high school class. Most days he could keep up with his teacher's semi-harassment easily enough but today he found himself nearly stumbling a few times, only avoiding saying something stupid by virtue of his (literally) inhuman thought processing speed. The truth was that he was having a bit of trouble focusing in class today.

Half of this stemmed from the fact that today was the day that Asuna, Silica, Lizbeth, Sinon, and Yuuki were supposed to transfer in and he was somewhat nervous about how they would react to the whole 'becoming devils' thing. The other half was -unsurprisingly- Argo. But for once he wasn't weary because he was worried she was going to pull off some weird or embarrassing (for him) stunt or somehow infect the rest of their friends with middle school syndrome… well, that wasn't the main reason he was worried anyway.

He was smart enough to conclude that their little kiss after the rating game wasn't a one-time thank you kiss. Any chance of that idea taking root had been thoroughly stomped into the ground by the fact that Argo had repeated her little stunt more than half a dozen times in the last few days; kissing Kirito before he could react at completely unexpected moments, timed perfectly so no one else saw it but he still couldn't make a big deal about it without drawing a commotion.

Despite his newfound awareness that Argo like-liked him, Kirito had yet to properly and clearly broach the subject, mainly because any attempt to do so quickly degraded into him forgetting how to speak properly and ended with some iteration of a flustered 'n-never mind' as he bade a hasty retreat. While he had almost always been perfectly capable of interacting with people he held at arm's length –whom were mere acquaintances- it had taken him a significant portion of his time in SAO to get used to having close friends and it was still something that could be considered somewhat new for him, so for him to go a step beyond that? Not something he was really confident in dealing with. While a surprisingly large portion of the female population within SAO had proclaimed to be in love with him as his reputation and power within the game grew, dealing with them was rather easy (emotionally, if not physically) because of what they were: fangirls.

They were in 'love' with someone whose very existence was a mere illusion, in love with the invincible black swordsman, the flawless leader of the strongest guild in Aincrad. That had been something easy enough to brush off and ignore as the fake and shallow emotions they were and hadn't really flustered him all that much. With this? Regarding someone he'd known for years? Someone who knew his faults and failings, who saw the numerous subtle (or at least well hidden) imperfections that tarnished the apparently perfect prodigy most saw when they looked at him? Someone who knew how warped and distorted parts of him really were and yet, for all that, had grown to love him anyway?

Kirito had no idea whatsoever how to even begin approaching this kind of situation.

"Kirito, are you even paying attention? If so, then what is the answer to the question I just put up on the board?" the Math teacher barked, having apparently noticed Kirito's slightly zone out expression

"Two x squared over y one to the third multiplied by the sine of y two cubed plus the cosine of 3x" Kirito droned tiredly after a moment, his slightly dazed expression remaining firmly upon his face as he continued agonizing over the more pressing aspects of his life.

"Correct" the teacher grumbled, clearly annoyed.

Argo Marchosias was all but glowing.

Even taking into account her father's ominous lack of retaliation within the last few days she couldn't push down the genuinely cheerful, downright giddy, attitude that had overtaken her the last few days. While few would notice the difference -seeing she typically acted in such a manner at school anyway- it was now an almost completely genuine attitude rather than an act. While she'd been extremely nervous of being rejected at first, that had faded swiftly and she was now into the phase of enjoying the unbelievably rare sight referred to as embarrassed Kirito whenever he tried to bring up the topic in conversation. She was fairly confident that Kirito was, in the very least, not against an intimate relationship, even if he wasn't really aware of that himself at the moment.

The source of her confidence? Well, Kirito's continued 'inability' to stop her from kissing him despite his drastically greater speed and reaction times spoke for itself. Not being able to react the first time was understandable, but the second? The third, fourth and fifth? The eleventh? Yeah, Argo Marchosias was pretty confident she had firmly moved past the treacherous area known as the friend zone firmly into the haven of being dating material in Kirito's eyes.

Argo had to force herself to not squirm in her seat as she tried to prevent her now nearly ever-present smile from getting even wider (her cheeks were already sore enough from smiling so much) as a certain thought crossed her mind.

'I cannot wait until Aa-chan and the others realize how far behind they are now' Argo's grin turned a bit mischievous.

While Argo wasn't against sharing and wouldn't outright interfere with the other girl's attempts to garner their favorite swordsman's affection, she wasn't exactly going to go out of way to help them either… well not without getting some personal enjoyment out of it for herself first anyway. During their time in SAO she hadn't been able to fully enjoy the obligatory harem-comedy antics that inevitably followed Kirito wherever he went for various reasons: ranging from her own emotional issues early on to worries that Kirito might have been a member of a faction opposing the underworld, or worse *shiver* one that practiced monogamy. So, with those worries out of the way and her foot firmly in the metaphorical doorway through the massive nigh-invincible wall that was Kirito's peerless density to a maiden in love's emotions, she was now in the perfect position to properly enjoy harem antics in real life!

But for the heroine who remained the very embodiment of Chaotic good (more the former than the latter) one question remained…

When Kirito and the others saw each other again, who would be more shell-shocked: The girls? When they found out she and Kirito were now more or less dating. Or Kirito? When he realized the prank she'd been playing on him ever since reincarnating him all those months ago.

Regardless of how that little reunion played out one thing was certain: life had never been better for the Marchosias heiress.

"Alright everyone" Kirito and Argo's homeroom teacher began "I know miss Argento just transferred in last week but we have another student joining us today."

As per norm (a sad reality in retrospect) half the class burst out into random conversation.

"I hope they're a cute girl" a bald ex-jock cried out shamelessly crediting his title as the perverted baldy.

"hm" a tired looking Issei Hyoudou murmured in a disinterested manner emphasizing his status as the Oppai-ba… wait what did he just say?

"We'll soon know for sure," the 3rd and final member of the infamous perverted trio stated, pushing up his glasses with one finger and causing them to glint dramatically "No stats can hide from my sight, 3 sizes here… we… come?" finished the one known as the 3-sizes scouter hesitantly before he, and the rest of the class, froze and spun towards a certain student.

The normal atmosphere (normal abnormal atmosphere?) of the class room shattered as all the students (save for a specific duo) starred in shock at Issei Hyoudou, who had his chin resting on his hands with a half dead expression on his face.

"H-hey?" the perverted bald- err- Matsuda began "Issei, buddy, you okay?"

"hmm?" Issei replied listlessly "yeah I'm fine, why?"

"Were getting a new student today, didn't you hear?" the 3-sizes scou-cough- Motohama asked cautiously.

"yeah" Issei yawned disinterestedly "so?"

The classroom was dead silent at this point as every student (and the teacher) stared at Issei in shock.

"I-it" Matsuda began nervously "it might be a cute girl."

Issei yawned again "sure, I guess, what's your point" the boy murmured as he struggled to keep his eyes open.

Both Matsuda and Motohama jumped back and away from Issei and yelled in tandem "Evil spirits be gone, give us back our friend foul aberrations!"

"That Oppai-baka doesn't care about a cute girl? The end is nigh!" one female student screamed in genuine terror.

"It's the apocalypse!" yelled the teacher frantically.

"The sky is falling!" a scrawny boy with glasses shouted.

"Someone hold me!" a -distinctly male- member of Kouh's sports club squealed in almost impressively high-pitched voice.

"Aliens!" a boy with extremely messy brown hair yelled out.

In the back corner of classroom next to the windows (prime protagonist seating, in Argo's words) two students sat calmly watching the chaos unfold even as their classmates panicked excessively. Catching Argo's eye, Kirito partially activated his concealment magic before the two began to talk casually.

"It's not really all that surprising is it, considering the training we've been doing over the last few days. Say what you want about the pervert's tendencies, but once he's set his mind on something he's more stubborn than just about anyone I've ever met." Kirito murmured.

Argo giggled, "Yeah, now that Ria-tans finally overcome her pride and asked for our help they've been progressing pretty quickly haven't they." Argo blinked, recalling something "oh right, by the way, while we've been training after school for the past few days, with break coming up Rias wants us to come along on a little training trip she has planned."

Kirito hummed before nodding "That works out pretty well for us too doesn't it, since the others can use that time to adapt too."

Argo smirked "Adapt indeed, we'll be meeting with the others in the old school building after school, Rias and her peerage will be off somewhere to give us some privacy for our reunion"

Kirito just smiled and gave a brisk nod before refocusing on the front of the class as a familiar brown-haired girl with glasses walked in.

-Later in the old school building-

A pair of blue catlike ears twitched in amusement even as a purple haired girl floated in apparent surprise, suspended by a set of what looked to be draconic wings in the back of the room.

Kirito stood stock still, blinking in confusion as he took in the sight in front of him, before shifting his gaze to a pair of somewhat pointed ears sticking out from chestnut hair, moving and settling on a pair of amused looking hazel eyes set upon a young yet somehow timeless face for a moment before slowly turning, ignoring both an awkward looking girl holding up a couch with one hand and a younger looking girl with a pair of unnaturally vivid red eyes that Kirito was fairly sure had been brown when he'd seen her from a distance not half an hour ago.

"Argo" he intoned lowly.

The devil in question simply smiled innocently "What is it Kii-bou? Something wrong?"

At this one of the room's other occupants seemed to snap out of their surprise "Kirito!" a purple haired blur chirped in excitement as she crossed the room, jump tackling Kirito with enough power to force him back a half-step as he caught the girl. "It's great to see you again!"

"You too, Yuuki" Kirito commented genuinely, calmly assessing the fact that his friend and former subordinate from SAO had just casually hug tackled him with the force of a small car and had wings that were clearly not those of a devil.

"I can't believe you were actually human before" Yuuki chirped "I mean Argo mentioned it, but it just seemed so crazy that I didn't really believe it, but, well, seeing as I can't sense anything other than demonic power from you I guess it was true after all."

"Yep" Kirito drawled before returning his now exceptionally deadpanned gaze to a certain smirking devil "Argo" he murmured lowly "explain." He finished flatly.

Argo's smirk simply grew "Why Kii-bou," she spoke with faux surprise "I thought you knew, after all I mentioned it when you were first reincarnated as devil." She teased "y'know, how odd it was that you managed to have the fastest reaction time in a game populated by a fair few species beyond humanity and all?" her smirk grew further.

"Argo…" Kirito intoned, twitching.

Said devil let out a rapturous giggle before she spoke "You don't mean to tell me you though I was the only one in our guild's upper ranks that was from a supernatural species, do you?" she giggled as Kirito continued twitching "Truth is…" she trailed off, laughter in her eyes even as she drew nearer "… you were the only one amongst us that was human." She finished with almost sinister glee.

Kirito twitched once more, before gaining a somewhat serene expression of exhausted enlightenment, one which was strained when Argo unrepentantly used the moment to casually steal a kiss and simultaneously cause the rest of the room's occupants to begin panicking.

"Hey!"

"What do you think you're!"

"Argo!"

Watching as Argo slipped back, giggling and dodging the grabbing arms of the room's now outraged other occupants, Kirito let out a heavy, world-weary sigh.

"God Damn it Argo." The dark-haired teen groaned, scarcely noticing the small spike of pain he received for his comment as he gazed at his unrepentant friend (girlfriend, he supposed) as she was chased around by his clearly less human than he thought friends.

Once the chaos the room had descended into had subsided somewhat, Kirito found himself sitting down on a small couch alongside a smug looking Argo, deliberately ignoring the fact that the room's other occupants were glaring at the girl now sidled up next to him Kirito addressed his friends with the air of a world weary veteran "So none of you were actually human?" he noted shaking his head "Not that that's a bad thing, of course, just…" he waved his hand vaguely "Kind of a bit of a shocker, all things considered."

"Says you" Sinon noted "I'm fairly certain humans without magic -hell with magic- aren't supposed to have bullshit level reactions times."

"Thank you, Sinon who is also a cat girl, so I've been told" Kirito drawled tiredly.

"The term is Nekomata" the girl hissed before huffing and shifting her focused to Argo "And you, what the heck was that?" she demanded.

"What was what?" Argo chirped with false innocence, causing Sinon's tail to stick up irritably.

"You know what!" Asuna interjected irritably.

"Yes, she does, Asuna who is apparently an elf" Kirito spoke dully "but that's probably not going to help you get an answer." He noted.

"High elf technically, but that's not important at the moment" Asuna corrected absently "and you'd be surprised, now Argo, explain" she continued.

"Y-Yeah!" Yuuki stuttered "I mean you j-just, k-kissed him!" she floundered momentarily before finishing in an oddly excited tone "like on the lips kissed him!"

"Yes she did, Yuuki who is apparently part-dragon, yes she did." Kirito agreed, his tone still flat.

"umm" a hesitant voice called out "are you alright Kirito? You seem a bit…uhm" Silica trailed off sheepishly.

"I'll be fine in a bit, Silica who is also a dhampir" he reassured the girl tonelessly "Once I'm done processing this, that is."

"Processing us not being human or Argo kissing you?" the last occupant of the room asked suspiciously "Because it almost seemed like you were used to the latter." She gazed at Kirito intently even as the other girls -sans an amused Argo- locked in on Kirito "Also yes, I'm a dwarf giant mix and hence normal size with bullshit strength, no need to tack on a weird descriptor to my name" she added.

"That I was the only normal human in our direct group, Lizbeth who is-" Kirito paused "Lizbeth" he retracted, processing the girl's comment before further explaining "Argo's been spontaneously kissing me for the past few days, and I think we're dating now or something" he deadpanned.

"Oh~" Argo squirmed excitedly "That's a yes!"

Kirito nodded mechanically "So yes, we're dating, which I am okay with some for some reason" he drawled, before sighing heavily and shaking himself, dropping his deadpanned expression focusing back on Argo "Okay enough of that, Argo please explain from the beginning with no bullshit this time okay?" he half ordered, his voice still somewhat exasperated.

Argo laughed warmly "Okay, Okay" she agreed cheerfully "Well back in SAO we didn't say anything because of the risk of people being on opposing factions or from hostile groups, for the most part we thought your unwavering human 'act' was your way of making sure no political stuff got in the way inside of SAO, which ironically made us somewhat worried you were part of a faction with a lot of enemies rather than an actual human." Argo explained "I more or less figured out everyone else's species over the course of our time in SAO and revealed it to the others when it became clear we weren't from directly opposing factions. Everything except your reaction times pointed towards you being human but since I thought them to be outright impossible for a human I ended up just thinking you were hiding your real species super well and eventually dropped the issue after having come to assume you were meticulously hiding it for a really good reason."

Kirito nodded at that "Okay, that makes sense, but why after SAO" he looked at her sharply "Beyond your half reason of amusement, that is."

Argo's expression shifted near imperceptibly "Nah, amusement was the whole reason Kii-bou, best ones are the ones with a good run up, after all" she laughed, impiously.

Kirito sighed heavily "Your father then, who you tried to keep me as far away from in every sense of the phrase, who is apparently you but worse, worse, and worse again without any of your positive traits and much, much more experienced in doing what your family does." Kirito commented easily.

Argo froze at that "N-no that's-" she began.

"The truth" Kirito stated flatly "I'm not an idiot Argo, with the others not being random humans a lot of things start to fit together."

Argo flinched.

"Trouble in paradise?" Asuna jabbed without any real heat, a grim expression set on her face.

Kirito nodded "Argo's father, Damon Marchosias, is worse than Kuradeel, Nobuyuki Sugō, and POH combined, both in terms of threat level and morality." The dark haired queen stated matter-of-factly "Argo's been trying to deal with him almost entirely on her own while attempting to hide said dangers from me in an idiotic and self-sacrificial attempt to keep me as safe as possible, something I have pretended to not notice until now so I could tell all of you without giving Argo the chance to somehow manage to convince me to keep quiet about it." He finished flatly, even as Argo adopted a poleaxed expression.

"Ah" Sinon nodding in understanding "And now that we all know we can collectively keep our favorite foolish rat from doing stupid things" the girl paused before sighing "or at least from doing stupid things alone"

At the collection of nods Sinon's comment received, Kirito turned back to the now slightly red-faced and disbelieving Argo with a smirk "Well now that we're all in on this," his smirk widened "You might as well tell us everything before we go and do something stupid cause we didn't know better, huh?"

Argo opened and closed her mouth wordlessly for a few moment before letting out a defeated sigh that proved a poor cover for the small smile that forced its way onto the mousy girl's face "You're just the worst, Kii-bou" she complained "Seriously, of course you'd figure almost everything out, and here I thought you trusted me." she finished with a faux pout.

"With my life" Kirito interjected seriously, before a small grin crossed his face "But not yours," he noted "that's a bit too valuable to me." he finished dryly.

Argo blinked as her face went red, her mouth dropping open in embarrassed shock "W-womanizer!" she accused, pulling up her hood as Kirito laughed.

"To think she got this far ahead" Asuna grumbled irritably.

"No kidding" Sinon huffed.

"She's my friend and I care about her" Lizbeth noted "But I also want to beat her to death, just a little bit of course, not all the way."

"ah, yeah" Silica grumbled "this is irritating to watch."

"I think it's kind of hot actually" Yuuki murmured, drawing the cumulative attention of the other 4 girls even as her face reddened "I mean, that's, I…" she fumbled awkwardly "sharing is caring?" she finished lamely.

Asuna sighed heavily "Nope, not going down that rabbit hole" drawing tired nods from the other three girls even as Yuuki laughed sheepishly "Still I suppose we should focus on helping her with whatever we can surrounding her apparently evil father before we enact our terrible revenge on her."

"Yeah that's fair."

Kirito glanced over at the girls and away from the now beet red Argo "What are you all talking about?" he asked.

"Don't worry about it" Sinon waved her hand ambiguously "let's just get our evil pieces and move on to dealing with Argo's family issues."

"Good idea" Kirito agreed, poking Argo in the side and drawing a halfhearted slap in retaliation before the girl straightened up, her face still rather red despite her attempt to maintain an even expression.

"So yes, evil pieces!" she began somewhat awkwardly, drawing her set out from a small dimensional pocket and setting them on the small coffee table in front of her. "I was thinking Knight's for Yuuki and Asuna, Rooks for Liz and Silica, and then a bishop for Sinon, that good with you all?"

The girls nodded easily, each grabbing their respective evil piece and pressing it against the middle of their torso, causing the chess pieces to be absorbed through an extremely complex looking magic circle.

"Alright!" Argo chirped "It'll be a bit before the process is complete, but you guys are more or less reincarnated devils now!" she smirked mischievously "Welcome to the path of carnage~"

Kirito sighed "You stole that from somewhere, didn't you?"

"Probably" Sinon agreed.

"No doubt" Asuna nodded.

"Yep" Lizbeth affirmed.

Argo whined "meanies, Si-chan, Yu-chan, you don't think I stole it do you"

"You did though" Kirito drawled.

"I thought it was cool!" Yuuki noted before shuffling awkwardly "but yeah I think you stole it"

Argo turned a last desperate gaze to Silica who just shuffled and looked away "Sorry Argo, but…" the girl trailed off.

"Mou!" Argo whined "This is Kii-bou all over again! I am your masteeerr, respect mee~" she complained.

"Way past that point, sorry Argo" Sinon noted, shaking her head.

Argo groaned "meanies…" after another moment she sighed and grew serious "Well considering Kirito went full on 'all according to Keikaku' on me regarding my issues with my jackass of a father, I suppose I should get you all caught up on that now."

The room's occupants focused on Argo intently, Joking and teasing set aside as they grew serious. As Argo started and eventually finished her story, the 6 other occupants of the room maintained a grim silence that only ended when -of all people- Silica broke the silence.

"Okay~" the normally sweet and soft-spoken girl began "How can we kill this scumbag and get away with it?" she asked uncharacteristically.

"Good question" Kirito noted, his face stone cold.

"Violently answers part of the how, although the getting away with it bit is going to be a bit difficult, all things considered" Asuna commented almost idly, her face a near emotionless mask.

"What's with this group and traumatic childhoods" Sinon drawled "But I'm up for murder I guess."

"Yep" Lizbeth agreed "Don't worry about finding murder weapons, I'll handle that part of the equation."

"huh" Yuuki pondered "I've never been part of a murder conspiracy before, still as the old saying goes, I'll try everything once" she paused "or twice, or a hundred times if that's what it takes in this case."

Argo blinked, a small smile growing on her face "weirdly enough I find that all extremely touching" she laughed briefly, shaking her head before her smile collapsed into a frown "But it's not that simple, as I said my father is absurdly well connected, and while he isn't the strongest he still has the ability to corner basically anyone if they make even a slight misstep."

Kirito snorted "We know, but it's like Yuuki said: this is a murder conspiracy, it might take decades or centuries, but we'll do it and get away with it too." The black-haired queen stated with absolute certainty

Argo shook her head "But my father is-"

"Alone" Kirito interjected flatly "he has his pawns and pieces and his secrets and plots but, in the end, he is alone. Influence can be won and bought, information can be gathered and controlled, people can be tricked and ensnared, but nothing he or anyone else can do will turn us against you Argo. He has no one like that, even your mother is nothing more than an obsessive wreck hanging onto a memory, volatile and unreliable." Kirito paused for a moment, letting out almost amused huff before continuing "Do recall the reason why most of the surviving members of laughing coffin called me 'that psychotic yandere bastard' why don't you. It is in my nature to willingly do horrible, horrible things to keep the people I care about happy and safe. Even if I feel guilty for what I do, I will never hesitate when the time comes."

Asuna let out a small somewhat bitter laugh at that "Stop acting like you're the only one with a body count and more yandere tendencies than you're strictly comfortable with, I'm certain that the former and strongly suspect that the latter applies to all of us by this point." She paused.

"Yeah, it's a bit of a weird turnaround in my case" Sinon noted "from being alone after my mom abandoned me for killing a guy to save her, to finding myself a willing member of a quite frequently externally murderous yet extremely tightknit group of friends, seriously I'm pretty sure the one among us with the lowest kill count in defense of the rest is Silica, and she's sitting at 6 or so, if I'm counting right."

"7, you weren't there but…" Silica began before trailing off, blinking "ah I don't feel as bad about that as I thought I would, I was actually kind of still having a rough time with that last I thought of it."

"Devil thing, apparently" Kirito supplied calmly "You still have awareness of right and wrong but can now forgive yourself for doing something you consider horrible easily, unless it's to someone you're emotionally close to."

Silica's bright red eyes blinked slowly "Neat" the girl commented hesitantly.

Yuuki let out a sigh "We have issues." She noted.

"Of course we do" Kirito sighed "We are a group of teenagers-" he paused, glancing around in question and receiving a series of nods in response, "teenagers" he reaffirmed with certainty "who were forced through a literal death game during which all of us were subjected to and/or haunted by horribly traumatic events. Between being forced to kill people and being largely ostracized one way or another from most of the player base and everything else we had to go through with basically only each other as support, not having issues would probably be an issue in itself. Becoming what amounts to a semi-yandere friend group is probably not the worst-case scenario, at least in our situation."

"I'm pretty sure this isn't what the anime my younger brother watches means by 'the power of friendship' but what the hell, close enough" Lizbeth shrugged.

Argo huffed, pulling up her hood again and hiding her face "you guys are crazy" she grumbled with poorly faked heat "how the hell did you all become my friends anyway." She mumbled rhetorically.

Kirito smirked, seeing an opportunity "Well would you look at that, Argo, it's starting to rain." He jabbed warmly.

"We're in-doors, and no its not" Sinon deadpanned.

"No," Argo interjected suddenly, lifting her head slightly to reveal tears sliding down her face "it's raining alright."

The rest of group just shook their heads in amusement.

Argo smirked, tears still streaming down her face "Also, Kirito, welcome to the dark side."

The dark-haired queen huffed "oh go to hell."

"Well yeah, that's the plan, during break remember?" the girl shot back.

Kirito sighed, a smile on his face "Damn it Argo" he mumbled warmly.

Author's notes: Wow it's been a while.

So two big reveals this time;

one that the others weren't exactly human: something I super vaguely hinted at by Argo's attitude to Kirito being the strongest player as a human in a game populated by supernatural species, with the unsaid hint being what the others being close in strength implied around their humanity, as Kirito was apparently an extreme exception to the rule being that strong as a human. Sinon's a Nekomata because of her ALO character, Asuna is a high elf because of her ALO characters (both), Yuuki is part dragon because it fits the combat Junkie stuff, Lizbeth is a dwarf giant hybrid because Smithing stereotypes and the need for a broken STR stat, and Silica is a Dhampir because of her red eyes in SAO. Somewhat whimsical reasons I know, but it still gives them a bit more variance to possible combat styles than normal humans + whatever evil piece would.

The other reveal is that Kirito and co have -as Yuuki put it- issues. I honestly thought canon SAO waved away the aftereffect of the death game much too lightly. With what they've been through the limit on what they are willing to do to protect the others is basically cranked through the roof; they have and will continue to kill to keep the others safe. This mentality isn't something that will come to light all that often, as it's an extreme rather than a norm, this time around they were extremely pissed (having just learned what Argo had been through) but also trying to cheer up and show support for Argo (hence Kirito's reference to a certain anime scene I'm sure several of you recognized, even if the original was sad AF)

I'm writing this last part when it's pretty late (I be tired) and I am a bit out of touch with the story (what with how long it's been) so reviews would be appreciated (I can't help but feel like I got a bit too edgy with that last scene, but that also might just be my pessimism kicking in).

That's all for now, later.