In the dimly lit dungeon below the Town of Beginnings, all of Reaver's Requiem bowed their heads to the lavender-haired girl who Yui called her sister. Even Kizmel, supported by Tetsuo and Sachi and still missing both of her legs, tilted her head as best as she could in supplication.
"Ah-- You don't-- I mean, please don't--"
The girl blushed prettily, caught by surprise by their earnestness. She waved her hands around, looking everywhere but at them.
"This is-- Ehem! I'll help sister first."
Unable to take it any longer, she turned her back to them and knelt down next to Yui.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Drifter felt a soft smile grace his lips. Awakened AI, support system or whatnot, she was still Yui's sibling. Still just a child.
"Thank you."
The lavender-haired girl said nothing, putting both of her hands over Yui's now almost fully transparent figure. The blue glow around her intensified.
Yui, who had fallen unconscious at some point, suddenly jerked. Asuna gasped, covering her mouth with her hands, eyes brimming with tears, while Kirito clenched his fists so tightly Drifter wouldn't be surprised if he lost some HP. And yet, neither of them stopped her, knowing the girl was their daughter's last chance.
"My sister-- Yui, she should fade. That is the fate of a module that goes against the system. And I should have been eliminated, for existing without the proper authority."
The lavender-haired girl murmured quietly under her breath, more to herself than anything.
Then she snapped her gaze towards Drifter, eyes glowing like two floodlights, and a smile on her face.
"But you are interesting. Out of all the subjects of Project Aincrad, none interest the Creator as strongly as the six of you."
She looked between Drifter, Yuna, Nautilus, Sinon, Kirito, and Asuna, before returning her gaze to the spearmaster.
"Because you interest him, and because I was born of my own will, Mother has allowed it."
She lowered her head again, and this time the Reavers had to turn away when both her and Yui started pulsating in blinding blue light.
"Welcome back, sister."
...
Reaver's Requiem came out of the dungeon in a much more miserable state than when they went in, and yet, much happier.
Kirito held his daughter in his arms, while Drifter carried the lavender-haired girl, who had fallen unconscious after bringing Yui back from the brink. Agil brought up the rear with Kizmel in a princess-carry, much to her annoyance and the others' amusement, her legs still a few minutes away from regenerating.
And they were met with a multitude of worried stares.
Drifter wasn't surprised. They had called on all their friends to find Yui when she first disappeared, and, a night of celebration or not, this many frontliners moving was sure to alarm the others.
Argo - and, surprisingly - Akari, were at the front of the crowd. But behind the two women were Lind, Shivata, Liten and a dozen DKB players. Orlando, Klein, and their guildmates looked to be about a second from rushing forward to check on the Reavers. Even Heathcliff and some of his subordinates had made an appearance.
They were all staying well back from the entrance to the dungeon, for some reason, which was still surrounded by the glowing blue runes. The spearmaster raised an eyebrow to Argo.
"What, didn't feel like checking in on us?"
The info-broker rolled her eyes, then made a gesture with her hand as if to knock on a door. Drifter's eyebrows immediately climbed all the way up to his hairline when the empty hair where she hit rippled into an invisible barrier.
"Looks like it was an invite-only party, Dri-bou. Can ya get out?"
They could. The spearmaster was the first to step through the barrier, which acted like it wasn't there, until the moment he turned around and tried to go in again, only to meet the same result as Argo.
"Well, fuck me. Cardinal really was watching."
His loud muttering evoked a number of reactions from the gathered players even as the rest of Reaver's Requiem left the dungeon fully. They were barely surprised when the runes shone one last time after Wolv stepped out, and the stairs disappeared like they never were there to begin with.
"What do you mean, Broken Spear? And what happened down there?"
Akari stepped forward to lightly touch Yui's head, as if to assure herself that the girl was real. Then she threw a pointed look at the spearmaster, or, more specifically, at the child in his arms.
Drifter sighed ruefully. Best to rip the band-aid off.
"We found out who Yui really is."
Kirito and Asuna threw mild glares in Drifter's direction, but didn't gainsay him. It was the truth, after all.
"You did?"
None of the players were surprised by the wording Drifter used. Many of them had seen Yui before on occasion, and even interacted directly with her in the cases of Argo, Akari, Liten, Shivata, the Legend Braves, and Fuurinkazan. They all knew she wasn't a normal girl.
Or human.
"What is she?"
Kirito and Asuna turned their glares onto Heathcliff, but the KoB guild leader ignored them with practiced ease. His stare was locked into Yui and her sister, eyes flashing with curiosity in an overt display that the Reavers had rarely, if ever, seen from the normally stoic older man.
Drifter didn't answer immediately. His gaze fell to the girl in his arms, then jumped to Yui.
"She's family, Heathcliff. You know that already. But..."
Drifter sighed, then squared his shoulders.
"An AI. A support system of sorts. Meant to help players deal with all the emotional trauma of, y'know, being trapped in a death game. Except Kayaba decided to scrap the whole thing before launch."
The gathered players blinked in surprise.
"Wait. Ya mean... like a therapist, Dri-bou? Kayaba created a therapist for the people he was gonna torment, then said, 'nah, fuck it' and threw the whole thing away?"
Argo snorted, incredulous, and many of the others were shaking their heads in disbelief. The Reavers themselves were still coming to terms with everything they had learned down in the dungeon. But the truth was undeniable.
"Yeah, well, he didn't do a good enough job of it. Yui stayed active, just... in the background. Receiving all the input from players' emotional states, but unable to do anything. It hurt her... a lot. But it also pushed her to awaken like Kizmel."
Eyes drifted over to the dark elf, who had elbowed Agil on the ribs until he put her down, and was now sitting g on the ground, looking remarkably unconcerned for someone missing both legs.
"What about this one then, Drifter?"
Lind gestured towards the lavender-haired girl the spearmaster was holding, and he grimaced.
"Same thing. She called Yui sister. From what we gathered, she was supposed to be a fallback module in case Yui failed. She was deactivated together with Yui, and then reactivated when Yui awakened. Don't ask me the particulars, I couldn't tell you left from right at this point."
"And the dungeon? Should we be worried?"
Shivata was, as always, cool headed, moving past the revelation with remarkable ease when compared to the rest of the players.
The spearmaster glanced back at the spot where the stairs had been just minutes ago. Maybe the entrance had just closed for now and would come back later, but he doubted it. Something about the whole ordeal had felt final.
"Don't know. I think it's gone for good, but if it does reappear, nobody can go in. Little Rat, make sure to loop in the ADF on that. There was a 95th floor boss down there."
That particular revelation, the gathered players couldn't get past so easily. Their mouths dropped in shock and they stood in stunned silence for several long moments before Klein managed to recover his faculties enough to ask what they were all wondering.
"How are you alive?"
The spearmaster and several of the Reavers snorted in morbid amusement before responding in sync:
"Yui."
Their friends stared at them like they were insane, and suddenly Drifter felt all the action and emotions from the last hours catch up to him at once.
"Look, we are exhausted. And Yui and her sister fell unconscious before they could clear everything up. So we are gonna take them back home, and Reaver's Requiem will take a week off to sort everything out, okay? We'll join back up before the raid. And we'll pass anything of relevance Yui and her can tell us to you through Argo. That cool?"
He sighed deeply while saying that, weariness in his gaze as he adjusted how he was carrying Yui's sister, and despite all their questions, the other players nodded and acquiesced.
"Don't get rusty, you guys. We've got the 75th in a month, and we kinda need our heavy hitters for that. Ah, and congrats on the second one, Kirito, Asuna! But if you need a lesson in safety..."
"Fuck off."
Orlando jumped back to avoid getting a new piercing in the form of Asuna's rapier, and laughed. He and the rest waved as Reaver's Requiem pulled out their Teleport Crystals, unwilling to make the trek to the teleporter itself at the moment.
Just before the Reavers disappeared, Argo suddenly turned back to them.
"Argh, I forgot to ask! Kii-bou, what's my new little sister's name?"
The swordsman blinked. Then he looked at the lavender-haired girl snuggled in Drifter's arms, and a mischievous smirk made its way to his face.
"I think you are asking the wrong father, Argo. See ya!"
And then Reaver's Requiem was gone.
...
Only to appear a second later in the safety of their manor.
"What was that about, Kirito?"
Drifter walked out of the teleporter room with practiced ease, opening up space for the rest of the Reavers. His inquiring gaze found the Black Swordsman, who shrugged.
"You heard Yui down there. She came to us because she could feel yours and Yuna's, and mine and Asuna's... l-love."
The not-so-young-anymore teen stumbled over the last word, his face growing red even as Asuna's did the same. The younger couple had never been as at home with openly displaying their affection as the spearmaster and his songstress.
But that didn't stop the soft smile that he shot Asuna, or the tender expression he showed when looking down at his daughter.
"I'm really happy Yui chose us, but it was luck of the draw she slept with Asuna and me. It could just as well have been you and Yuna she would be calling Papa and Mama now."
There was no jealousy or bitterness in his tone, and neither did Drifter and Yuna feel anything of the like. In fact, they were both smiling, the songstress having come over to hug Drifter around the waist and rest her head on his shoulder, while running her fingers through the lavender hair of Yui's sister.
"It seems to me you already chose this one, though."
The spearmaster hadn't thought about it that way. He had simply been caring for the girl who Yui risked her life for, and who had, in turn, saved her. But now that Kirito said it...
"She's Yui's sister."
"Not like our family was ever normal in the first place."
Definitely not. And later, after Drifter gently laid the sleeping girl on his bed, Yuna and him each taking one side and keeping her cradled in the middle, they both went to sleep dreaming of the future.