Sword Art Online - Volume 28 - Chapter 8

8

Just outside the second exit of Shirokanedai Station, rain was beginning to fall.

Asuna fastened the buttons of her balmacaan coat up to the neck, removed a folding umbrella from her shoulder bag, and started walking northeast on the sidewalk of Meguro Dori.

It was 10:40 AM on Sunday, October 4. There were no notable shopping destinations or tourist spots in the area, so even on a weekend, there wasn’t much foot traffic.

White apartment buildings and offices lined the street. Nearly four years had passed since the last time she hurried down this particular street, and it was barely any different.

Eventually, a crossing street painted green appeared on the left side, indicating a school zone. She turned that way and walked another five minutes until she arrived at the gate of a place she had once attended as a student: Eterna Girls’ Academy. However, Asuna only gave a quick glance down a side path before continuing down the hill in the direction of the Takanawa neighborhood.

She went down the gentle rightward curve until she came to a crosswalk, which she used to get to the other side of the street. The venerable old hotel looming overhead was her destination that day. Once under the entrance canopy, she shook the droplets off her umbrella, folded it back up, and went through the sets of automatic doors.

The temperature was warm and pleasant in the lobby. She crossed it diagonally to the lounge café. She told the waiter she was meeting someone, then went to the back. The text message had already informed her of which table it was, so she didn’t need to waste time looking around.

The lounge’s back wall was a whole glass window that offered a view of the hotel’s courtyard, where the trees were in full autumnal foliage. Most of the two-seat tables along the glass were empty, but her destination was a four-seat table along the right wall. As Asuna approached, the person sitting alone sensed her coming and looked up with a friendly smile.

“Heya, A-chan.”

“Hello, Argo.”

She held out her hand to keep “Argo the Rat,” Tomo Hosaka, from getting up. Asuna took off her coat. The round, four-seat table had two armchairs and one sofa around it. Tomo was in a chair against the wall, so Asuna put her coat and bag by the edge of the sofa and sat down next to them.

“Sorry to drag you out here so early,” said Tomo. She wore a cool-weather, gray mohair sweater and salopettes. Her trademark mustard-yellow parka was folded up beneath the table.

“Oh, no worries. I got a nice, early bedtime last night.”

“Ah, well, that’s good to hear.”

Perfectly timed with the end of their greetings, the waitress came by with water, a wet hand towel, and a menu for the table. Tomo only had a glass of water in front of her, as she’d been waiting for Asuna to show up before ordering.

“It’s on me today, so order whatever ya want…as long as ya don’t get anything beyond a cake combo,” she said with a self-deprecating smirk.

“It’s fine, you don’t have to pay for me,” Asuna replied. “Those combos aren’t cheap, either.”

“No, no, no. My professional reputation is at stake here. Can’t be asking someone to make a trip and pay at the table.”

“…If you insist, then I’m grateful for your generosity,” Asuna said, opening the menu. The dishes were almost all over 3,000 yen, and even the drinks were around 2,000, which was a full digit higher than the cafeteria at the returnee school. The cake combo was 2,200 yen, which was reasonably priced…relatively speaking. But despite being in high school, Tomo was also a writer and researcher for MMO Today, the country’s largest gaming media site, so she had to be getting paid enough to reflect her expertise. And it was Tomo’s idea to meet up at a hotel lounge.

Asuna examined the page of cakes carefully. “I think I’ll go with the pomme verte and Darjeeling.”

“And I guess I’ll try…tiramisu and a cappuccino.”

They signaled to the waitress and gave their orders, and Asuna leaned back against the velour sofa. The lounge was only about a third full, whether due to the weather or the time of day. The trickling of the fountain in the center of the lounge was louder than the other voices. It was a familiar sound to her.

“This ain’t the first time for you here, is it, A-chan?” Tomo asked abruptly.

Asuna blinked and replied, “Y-you mean…you didn’t pick this place out for that reason?”

“Nope, I had no idea. And even I don’t go prying into private details like that about my friends.”

“Oh…I guess that’s true. Well, until four years ago, I used to be a student at the school just up the street from this hotel,” Asuna revealed.

Tomo glanced to the left, in the direction of Eterna Girls’ Academy, then back. She instantly understood “four years ago” meant until being trapped in SAO, but she didn’t interrupt.

“Of course, I couldn’t come into a place like this alone while in elementary school or junior high, but there were plenty of parent-teacher events and things that brought my mother to the school, and she often took me here on the way home. I think it was because she liked it, though, more than that it was a treat for me.”

“Gotcha,” Tomo commented, right as the waitress reappeared with a tray on her left arm. She set out the dishes and cups, poured the tea for Asuna, then left the receipt holder at the end of the table.

“Let’s not let them get cold,” Tomo suggested. Asuna lifted her cup of Darjeeling tea and breathed in the vivid fragrance of orange pekoe. When she was in primary school, she always ordered juice or soda, but since reaching junior high, she’d become obsessed with tea, and that still held true.

That was why she was surprised the previous day in the Underworld to hear the Star Queen had developed new types of cofil tea, which was identical to coffee, and called it Moonlit Evening. If the Star Queen really was the version of herself who’d remained in the Underworld, then she would have expected herself to focus on making better kinds of black tea rather than cofil.

But the Star King and Queen had lived in the Underworld for over a century, so after that much time, tastes could change. She hadn’t liked straight black tea at first due to the bitterness, but over time she’d grown to love it.

She took a sip of Darjeeling, savored the mild and delicate flavor, then returned her cup to the saucer. Tomo was already working on the tiramisu, so Asuna picked up her fork and scooped up a nice chunk of the green apple mousse cake she’d ordered.

The bold freshness of green apple and gentle sweetness of white chocolate filled her mouth and melted away. The selection changed by the season, but she could vaguely remember having the same thing there once when she was still a student at Eterna.

In her memory, she’d had it with tea, so it must’ve been as a junior high student. But Asuna was wearing her uniform, not her own clothes…and she wasn’t with her mother. It was a Monday, and after leaving school, she had come to this lounge, wary of the gazes of other students. And in all eight years—seven and a half, technically—she spent at Eterna, that was only the one time…

“Mmm, this is definitely worth the price,” Tomo murmured, snapping Asuna back to reality.

“Yes, it’s delicious,” she replied.

“Might be a bit small for a serving, though… Figure out how to make this in UR, will ya?”

“What, tiramisu…? Maybe I could do it in ALO, but not Unital Ring. I don’t have flour or butter or chocolate, for one thing.”

“Nee-hee-hee. Good point.” Tomo chuckled mischievously, and stuck the last bit of tiramisu into her cheek. She savored the flavor, then downed the last of her cappuccino. “Ahhh… It was tough to get here from Hoya, but the trip was worth it.”

“Oh, right. You rent an apartment close to the school, don’t you, Argo? That must be nice.”

“And you live in Miyasaka over in Setagaya, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I bet it still takes time gettin’ to and from school, but that’s no different from the old one, huh? Let me guess: Setagaya Line to Sangenjaya, Den-en-toshi Line to Shibuya, Yamanote Line to Meguro, Mita Line to Shirokanedai… No, if you get on the Hanzomon Line at Sangenjaya, you can go directly to Nagatacho and take the Namboku Line from there… Am I right?”

“I’m astonished you can identify that complicated route without looking at a map,” Asuna remarked. “The truth is, though, in elementary school they used to drive me to Senzoku Station. Once I was in junior high, I took the train and bus.”

“Ahh, I see. Because you can take Senzoku straight to Shirokanedai without switching lines,” Tomo noted.

“But in that case, why’d you pick this place? You could’ve said Kichijoji or Ogikubo or even Shinjuku…”

“Good point,” Tomo said, shrugging. She picked up the small cookie that came with the cappuccino.

When Tomo suggested meeting up in real life on Sunday morning, it was in Unital Ring the previous day—or technically that same day, at two in the morning.

Saturday had been a truly turbulent day. Just before midnight, her father had driven her to Rath’s Roppongi office, where she dived into the Underworld and performed some bizarre window palm-touch she didn’t understand. Then Central Cathedral took off like a rocket, passed right by a mega-sized dragoncraft, and went into space, where they docked with a space fortress designed to look like a lotus flower.

She’d been shell-shocked by the whole thing, but really, Airy was the only one who wasn’t. Actually, there was one other person—a woman named Lily Lou who managed the space fortress—but she didn’t even have time to introduce herself. That was because Asuna elected to use her super-account’s geographic manipulation ability to generate rock Kirito could convert to steel and crystal elements with Incarnation, which Airy could then use to regenerate the cathedral’s walls.

After creating twenty-something rocks, however, Asuna got a bit of a headache. She said she would be fine, but Kirito and Alice refused to allow her to continue using those powers, so she hastily greeted Fanatio, who had just been awakened, and an unfamiliar Integrity Knight, Eydis, before logging out. Eydis didn’t know anything about the real world, however, and looked quite skeptical.

In the end, she was only in the Underworld for less than forty minutes, and didn’t feel like she’d done all that much, but according to Airy, if she hadn’t helped them unlock that weird symbol window, Central Cathedral wouldn’t have been able to take off, and the mega-sized dragoncraft’s cannon would have completely destroyed the top of the tower.

Asuna turned to Alice in her reclining chair and said, “good luck” before leaving the STL room. She didn’t see Rinko or Shouzou in the hallway, but she heard voices, so she followed the sound to find them chatting in the reception room with the door open.

The open door was probably Rinko’s signal that they weren’t going to discuss business. Shouzou took her hint and kept the chitchat to the typical politics and financial news. On the car ride home, however, he said, “That Dr. Koujiro is one brilliant woman,” so he must have been quite impressed with her management skills.

They returned home in Setagaya Ward around one fifteen. Her mother, Kyouko, was home by then, but Shouzou covered for Asuna by saying it was his idea to take her out for a drive, so there was no scolding.

Once in her room, she shook off her fatigue and dived back into Unital Ring, mostly to move her idle avatar to a safer location.

But to her surprise, the team had collected an astonishing amount of resources in just the two hours she was gone, and had performed a lot of repair work on the holes in the abandoned building. They could have repaired the roof, too, but according to Argo, completely repairing an abandoned building caused it to be registered as a “primary structure,” which both conferred protective bonuses and summoned a legendary local beast to attack. Presumably that beast would be much tougher than the thornspike cave bear that attacked the log house down on the first tier, so they decided to limit themselves to just repairing the walls for the time being.

Still, they’d learned from experience in Ruis na Ríg that thick stone walls were plenty strong enough to protect players from weak roaming monsters, so at two in the morning, they concluded their adventuring for the day and parted ways. She lay down on a bed of dried grass and was about to log out when Argo quietly asked her if they could meet in the morning.

Now Argo, as Tomo, was peeling the plastic away from the cookie and taking a bite. After chewing it for a bit and washing it down with water, she said, “The truth is, A-chan, I wasn’t the one who picked this place out.”

“Huh…? What do you mean?”

“Sorry to spring this on ya…but there’s someone I want you to meet…”

“Me…?”

Asuna stared at Tomo, taken aback. Maybe it was a lack of confidence in her own communication skills that stopped her from simply saying, “That’s fine, of course.”

Until just a few days ago, Asuna had thought of herself as being on the more sociable side. She could talk with someone she’d never met before without difficulty, and once they got talking, they would get along.

But when Shikimi Kamura, who had just transferred to the returnee school, suggested they get lunch together the next day, Asuna accepted, but felt awkward about the whole thing. It wasn’t just a trick of the mind, either, because when Shikimi was absent from school the following day, Asuna actually felt relieved. Even though the other girl, who’d gone to the same junior high, probably needed her help.

Could it be? she wondered.

Was the person Tomo wanted her to meet Shikimi Kamura? She’d transferred from Eterna Girls’ Academy to the returnee school, so it would make perfect sense that she’d know about this hotel lounge.

When Asuna didn’t say anything, Tomo looked suspicious. All she had to do was ask, “Who is it?” but her mouth wouldn’t open.

Just then, she heard hard soles hitting carpet behind her. Someone was coming right toward Asuna from the entrance over her left shoulder. She could feel herself tensing up as she listened to the sound. The next few seconds felt both brief and eternal, until the footsteps stopped right next to her.

“…Asuna.”

Asuna gasped when she heard the voice.

It was not at all the high-pitched, cold voice of Shikimi. It was a bit raspy, but clear, low, and strong. It was a voice she had definitely heard somewhere before…

A deep breath broke her free from the paralysis. Slowly, Asuna turned to her left.

The first thing she saw were two slender legs in brown leather boots and skinny black jeans. She wore a dark gray motorcycle jacket over a thin-hemmed shirt and held a mod coat under her left arm.

Asuna blinked, then stared at the face of the person who had just called her name.

“……!!”

She gasped. The long hair tied in a ponytail, the smooth forehead and crisp bridge of the nose, the long and slender eyes with a greenish tint—the features were more grown-up than she remembered, but she would never mistake them for anyone else’s. Before she knew it, she was on her feet, stepping forward.

“Mito…”

She took another step forward, held out her hands, and hugged the woman. Even the waft of citrus fragrance was just like the perfume she used in Aincrad.

They embraced for over five seconds before Asuna finally let go. But she did not pull away. She looked closely at the other person’s face.

“…You look good,” she murmured, her voice a bit stuffy. The other woman blinked tears out of her eyes.

“So do you, Asuna. I’m so happy to see you.”

“Yes…me too.”

Finally, she took a step backward, then realized the waitress was waiting for them. She ushered her old friend onto the sofa, then sat down next to her.

The waitress set down another water, wet hand towel, and menu, then picked up the used plates and cups, but all Asuna could look at was the face of the cool, calm girl next to her.

Mito, or Misumi Tozawa, was an SAO Survivor like Asuna. But she was known by a different name in Aincrad. She was the heroic tailor known as Ashley—the first player to complete the Tailoring skill, meaning she reached the top proficiency of 1,000. She was a real legend in the game.

The Blackwyrm Coat Kirito wore when he beat the game and the red-and-white Serene Corsage that was Asuna’s knight uniform were both crafted by Ashley. The Blackwyrm Coat was made with the hide and mane of a uniquely named black dragon, as the name suggested, and each stitch took ten seconds to complete, apparently. But she often complained that Asuna’s uniform was harder to make. And the reason for that was…

“…This really brings me back,” Misumi said, leaning back against the sofa after finishing her order.

“Huh? To what?” Asuna asked, coming out of her reverie of memories.

“The time you custom-ordered that setup in your guild colors. You said you wanted the exact same design as what you were already using, but with the highest possible specs. I didn’t know what to do.”

Apparently, Misumi had just been thinking of the exact same memory. Asuna giggled and said, “We were sitting side by side on a sofa like this back then, too. How did you end up re-creating the design…?”

“I put together the pattern paper for your old clothes, then auto-crafted the fabric indicated on the paper, cut it into separate parts, traced them over S-tier fabric, cut them out, then hand-sewed them all back together. I’d never done that before and never did it after.”

“Wow…just hearing that explanation makes it sound annoying.”

“And whose fault was that?”

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just that I couldn’t change the guild’s uniform design. But the main thing was that I wanted you to make it, Ashl…Mito.”

“It’s not fair to call me that,” said Misumi, giving Asuna a little side-eye. Then a faint smile played over her lips, just like it used to, before vanishing as delicately as frost in the morning sun.

“I’m sorry, Asuna,” she said, dropping her eyes to her lap, “for not reaching out in two years. While I was in there, my parents turned off my phone and canceled my account. They thought it was my friends’ fault I got involved in SAO. But it was the other way around…”

“……” Asuna paused, then shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault I dived into SAO, Mito. My family had a NerveGear, and on the day the game came out, I wore it on a sheer whim…That was all it took.”

“But I was the one who told you about SAO… If not for that, you wouldn’t have had that whim, would you?” Misumi asked.

She couldn’t deny that one. She could still vividly remember the first time she heard Misumi say the phrase Sword Art Online.

Asuna and Misumi were in the same year at Eterna Girls’ Academy. For the six years of elementary school, they basically never talked, but Asuna recognized Misumi as the tall and striking girl at school. It wasn’t until eighth grade, the second year of junior high, that they were placed in the same class together…and a bit over a month later, something unexpected happened.

It was on a Saturday, when there was no class, but a number of facilities at the school were open for students to use, so Asuna went to the library in the morning before leaving school, then stopped by Shibuya to do some shopping. On the way to the store she wanted to visit, she passed by an arcade and saw on the monitor outside that there was a fighting game tournament happening inside. At the time, Asuna had zero interest in anything related to games, so she was going to walk right past it when something in the video caught the corner of her eye, and she stopped. She noticed that on the screen was a player hunched over the joystick and buttons who looked very much like Misumi Tozawa.

Eterna strictly prohibited its students from visiting places like video game arcades, so Asuna peered through the window into the arcade assuming it was just a coincidental lookalike. The player in question wore a cap and hoodie, but that boyish profile had to belong to Misumi.

Asuna was shocked, but even more than that, she was jealous. The enthusiasm with which Misumi threw herself into the game gave off a heat she could feel even outside the arcade. It made her wonder if she had ever felt that passionate about anything in her own life.

Of course, she couldn’t just walk into the arcade and talk to her, so Asuna turned to leave. But as though sensing something, Misumi turned and looked over her shoulder, right at Asuna.

She’d never asked about it, but Asuna suspected that in that moment, Misumi was torn between wanting to finish her game or going and chasing down her classmate to keep her from telling anyone. She chose the latter, rushing out of the arcade and blocking Asuna’s path. After they stared at each other for a few moments, she asked Asuna to make some time for her after school on Monday.

Two days later, Misumi met up with Asuna outside school and took her to the lounge at the hotel down the street, in the place where they were sitting right now. Back then, they wore their Eterna uniforms, but the employees just assumed they were meeting their parents there and didn’t ask any questions before taking them to a table by the window.

Misumi looked at the prices on the menu with desperation, then steeled herself and offered Asuna a deal: Misumi would buy her a cake if she stayed quiet about Saturday.

As an eighth grader at the time, 4,400 yen for two cake combos was a huge expenditure for Misumi. But that was the kind of value she had to expend to make it a fair deal, and Asuna realized Misumi wouldn’t rest until they were even, so she forced herself to accept the deal and ordered a gâteau chantilly aux fraises—a strawberry shortcake with Darjeeling tea.

The cream was just as light as Asuna preferred, and the strawberries were fresh, but she couldn’t really tell if she liked the flavor. They finished eating without sharing more than a few words, and as they left the hotel, Asuna told Misumi, “Thank you for the treat. Now we’re both guilty of breaking school rules, so don’t worry,” and went home. At the time, she had no idea about the strange kind of friendship this would develop into.

“…You first told me about SAO a while after the second term started. I remember it well,” Asuna said softly. She took a deep breath and repeated, “but it wasn’t your fault I went into SAO, Mito. I think I would have put the NerveGear on that day even if we’d never met.”

She reached out and put her hand over Misumi’s where it rested limply on the sofa cushion.

Misumi lifted her gaze to Asuna, then shook her head again. “Even still, I need to look you in the face, in reality, and apologize…and I need to thank you, too. You beat that game of death and helped us all go free. If I really wanted to, I could’ve found a way to look up your information…”

“First of all, it wasn’t my work alone that beat the game—not at all. And I didn’t go looking for you, either. There was one time after coming back to the real world that I tried to get in touch, but I couldn’t reach you by phone or e-mail or messages. I thought maybe I could ask someone at Eterna for help…but…”

“They wouldn’t have known. I didn’t return to school until a year later, and I didn’t tell anyone at school my new contact information,” Misumi murmured.

Asuna hesitated for a while, then said, “So…you went back to Eterna.”

She had to resist the urge to ask why she hadn’t chosen to come to the returnee school instead. Whether it was her parents’ wishes or Misumi’s own decision, it was an important and private matter that shouldn’t be pried into.

Misumi bobbed her head, then looked from Asuna to Tomo. “Argo…I mean, Miss Hosaka, thank you for obliging my selfish request.”

Tomo hadn’t said anything for a while, but her mouth curled into a grin. “Oh, please, I’m the one who should be thanking you. I was expecting to be turned down three times or so. The same way you did when I tried to make a custom order back then.”

“…That makes it sound like I was very full of myself, but it was simply because I had too large a backlog of orders.”

“I told you again and again to hire someone… You wouldn’t even use an NPC storekeeper!”

“I wanted to keep things agile. You were always a lone wolf, after all. Or should I say lone rat?”

Listening to her two old friends’ rapid chitchat made Asuna feel like she was back in the SAO days. She blinked rapidly. Between the wood interior, the rain dripping on the reddening leaves outside, and the burbling of the fountain, she was having trouble telling if this was the real world or virtual world.

She shook her head a little and interrupted, “Argo, Mito…um, can you explain how it is we all came to be here today…?”

They first looked at Asuna, then at each other. Tomo was the first to speak.

“Well, uh…I told ya how I was looking up info about a particular SAO Survivor the other day, didn’t I?”

“You did,” she confirmed.

Rath’s Seijirou Kikuoka had hired Tomo to investigate a certain VRMMO. It had been released by a company belonging to Kamura, the developers of the Augma, but based on the number of concurrent users, they were clearly losing money, but rather than trying to refurbish it or shut it down, they quietly continued to operate the game at a loss. It was a strange situation, but it wasn’t completely unheard-of in MMOs, and it was a mystery why Kikuoka would go to the trouble of hiring a researcher to get to the bottom of it.

As payment for her research, Tomo requested confidential material from the Ministry of Internal Affairs’s Virtual Division: private data of a particular SAO Survivor. She had told Asuna about that, but hadn’t revealed who that survivor was, and Asuna hadn’t pressed her for details.

Tomo took a deep drink of cold water to steel her resolve. Glass still in hand, she continued, “I don’t know their real name, their player name, or even their gender. There are only two clues I have: locational data about where they were in Aincrad at a particular month, day, and minute, and a nickname that might not be accurate. So I had the gentleman from the Virtual Division analyze the activity logs of all the players saved on the old SAO server, and yesterday was when I found out the results…”

Asuna and Misumi were leaning forward without realizing it. Tomo just shrugged.

“They said no player matches those criteria.”

“Huh…? Is that possible…?” Asuna asked.

Misumi added, “The activity logs can’t be wrong. Was the locational data accurate?”

“Yep. I saw it for myself. I saw them talking with members of Laughing Coffin…”

“…!!”

Asuna heard the air being sucked through her own teeth. Laughing Coffin was a red guild that committed all manner of murder and atrocities in SAO. Even after the deadly game had been cleared, the evil Laughing Coffin had spread continued to cast a shadow on the Seed Nexus.

Asuna was suddenly aware of the dryness of her throat, and she reached for her glass. She realized there was still tea in the pot and poured it into the empty cup. It was already cold, but lukewarm liquid was what she wanted.

After drinking down the helping of Darjeeling, Asuna asked Tomo, “Was the survivor you were looking for a member of Laughing Coffin?”

“Nah…I don’t think they were official. The cursor was normal, and I didn’t see the LC guild tag, either…”

“Oh, right…In SAO, players you had no connection to only displayed an HP bar and a guild tag,” Misumi murmured.

“That’s the thing,” Tomo said, grimacing, “and it was the only time I ever saw that player, before or after. I was almost about to burst out of my hiding spot and try challenging them to a duel. At least then I could see their player name.”

“Don’t even think of it!” Asuna snapped, louder than she meant to. “Dueling PKs are their specialty. I’m not doubting you or your ability, but challenging them is suicide.”

“A-chan, you’re talkin’ in present tense,” Tomo pointed out. It took her a moment to realize what she’d done. They were in the real world, and Laughing Coffin was long gone. Asuna sat back, dumbfounded. Tomo touched her arm and said, “Thanks for your concern, though. But I’m fine, I won’t get into danger… I just want to settle some work I left unfinished in Aincrad.”

“…I understand how you feel,” murmured Misumi. “I think just about all the survivors left some regrets behind, whether large or small. I still think about things, wishing I’d only done that, or if I’d only done something different…You said you’re not going to do anything dangerous, Argo, but I think it’s plenty dangerous trying to chase down people related to Laughing Coffin. You haven’t forgotten what happened in Gun Gale Online at the end of last year, have you?”

“’Course not. Even if I find out who it is I’m lookin’ for, I wouldn’t go charging after ’em alone. I intend to submit the information to the relevant authorities and leave it at that,” she said simply. Asuna wanted to ask who the relevant authorities were in this case. But that was when Misumi’s no-bake cheesecake and vervain tea arrived.

She took a sip of the lemon-scented herbal tea and let out a relaxed breath, then looked to Asuna. “You’ve already eaten, haven’t you? Sorry I showed up late.”

“No, it’s fine… If I’d known you were coming, I would have waited to order with you,” she replied, throwing a nasty look at Tomo, who was smugly chewing on a second biscuit. Tomo was the one who had invited Misumi and kept it a secret to surprise Asuna.

But how had Tomo gotten in touch with her? They’d met in SAO, and she couldn’t believe they would have traded information while in there.

Tomo seemed to pick up on Asuna’s suspicion, so she resumed her explanation.

“…Anyway, my last great hope in the activity log turned out to be a big swing and a miss. My gentleman client felt bad about it and said he’d pay me extra for the job, so I thought I’d take that favor and use it to be a little nosy,” Tomo said, watching Misumi stuff cheesecake into her mouth. She bowed and said, “Sorry, Mi-chan. I got your contact information from the Virtual Division’s database.”

“I figured it was something like that.” Misumi chuckled. She twirled the fork deftly in her fingertips. “This cheesecake makes us even. I once tamed Asuna with the cake combo here, too.”

“Ahh, so that’s why you asked for this place. It was a memorable spot for you two, huh?” Tomo remarked, nodding.

Asuna found herself filled with an indescribable emotion. They had only met again a week ago, but Tomo/Argo had probably been thinking about Asuna and Mito for much, much longer. When she learned Mito wasn’t among Kirito’s team of friends, she decided to pass up extra pay to bring these two old friends together.

“…Thank you, Argo,” Asuna said again.

Tomo laughed self-consciously. “Aw, shucks, it was just a whim. But I’m glad to hear ya say that, because I was worrying I’d been meddling for nothing. Plus, I had a bit of a personal speculation involved, too.”

“Speculation…?”

“I wanted to ask you two something.” The smile vanished, and she took a deep breath. “About this SAO Survivor I’m lookin’ for. I said the only things I knew were locational data and an unclear nickname…right?”

“You did. What was the nickname?” Asuna asked. Misumi leaned forward.

Behind her curled bangs, Tomo’s eyes briefly darkened with hesitation. “Menthol. Did you ever hear of a name like that in the SAO days?”

“Huh…?”

Asuna stopped, looking to Misumi, then back to Tomo. “You mean, minty, cool…that menthol?”

“Probably.”

“……Well, there was a Mint in the KoB, and I feel like I remember a Melton Wool in the DDA, but no one named Menthol…”

“Same,” said Misumi, shaking her head.

“Argo, how are you so sure it’s a nickname, not the player’s official name?”

“Well, because I went to the Monument of Life in Blackiron Palace and went through all the player names looking for anything adjacent to ‘Menthol’ and following up on each of ’em. But they were all dead ends.”

“…You went to those lengths?” Asuna said, aghast. “I know Laughing Coffin was the biggest impediment to beating the game, but the main brain trust was PoH, Xaxa, and Johnny Black, and the others were just loyal…no, more like brainwashed pawns. Why are you so fixated on this Menthol person…?”

“True, I thought the same thing…at the time,” Tomo said, her voice tinged with a burgeoning pain. She glanced around and lowered her volume, as though worried about being overheard. “I can’t be sure of this, so it’s just speculation. I think all those creative ways of killing Laughing Coffin developed…the stuff outside just monster-PKing and poisoning—I’m talkin’ about duel PKs, sleep PKs, hallway PKs, everything that involved clever manipulation of the game systems… I think pretty much all those ideas might’ve come from Menthol.”