RYOKO (Sword Art Online)

Chapter 8 - Worry

I felt my brother's arms tighten around me at the sound of his real name being spoken by Luis. He kissed the top of my head one more time before looking up at Luis, his brow arched

"How the hell do you know my name?" He asked him, suspicion clear in his voice but also another emotion I couldn't quite place. Luis rose his hands up in mock defense

"Chill, don't worry. You are actually pretty popular out in the real world." I sighed, shaking my head. 'Guess job, Luis, at making my brother even more confused.' I sarcastically thought to myself. Tsuboi helped me up, making sure to keep me close by his side

"How the hell would you know?!"

"We will discuss that in the inn, what me and your sister are apart of isn't exactly opened to the public yet." Luis informed him, gently brushing past Tsuboi with a small wave of his hips, as if sassing him. Tsuboi pressed his lips in a firm line, grabbing hold of both of my shoulders before slightly leaning down to look at me

"Should we trust this guy?" I rolled my eyes, softly smiling up at him and his worry

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't." I stated before following after Luis, grabbing hold of Tsuboi's arm in the process to drag him along with me. We entered the tavern portion of the inn, many NPCs, Quest Givers, and even players flooded the entire room, it was kinda hard to keep up with each conversation with so many voices. Near the corner of the room I could see some players playing some sort of game and a booth above them were trading items for money or value. My eyes scanned the room for Luis' big head before seeing the mop of dark purple hair bouncing about in the midst of the crowd

"Make sure you still have your items when we get to the room." Tsuboi whispered to me, me almost not catching it from the constant voices being integrated and bouncing off of the walls. I furrowed my brows, glancing up at him, "Why, Tsu-" I caught myself from saying his name from the real world, "Ahem, I mean why, Klein?" I asked him

"Pickpockets. More of them have been popping up lately, especially after mostly only the top guilds have been at the front lines to beat the game." He softly informed me with a small smile, 'What, I forgot thievery could be a skill set in any sort of MMO or RPG Game...'. We finally made it through the crowd and made our ways up the stairs, the floorboards lightly creaking to give it a feel of it being real, being succumbed under our weight. I glanced up at Klein using my peripheral view, remembering how he looked back in the hospital. He seemed... A lot more healthy in here, even if he was just a virtual model made out of data. But, he was still here. If that makes any sense.

Klein moved to in front of us, leaving me to finally let go of his arm for him to open the door to his room. Both me and Luis walked in while Klein made sure to close and lock the door. He sighed deeply, rubbing his face tiredly before leaning against the pine wooden door. I chewed on the inside of my cheeks while I looked around the room, seeing that it was just a normal inn room with a few of Klein's belongings strewn about without a care. I snorted, he still hasn't changed when it came to cleaning up his stuff

"Nice place you got here." Luis commented, looking out the window and down at the crowd of people who are on their way to somewhere in quite a hurry or in no hurry at all. Klein cleared his throat, signalling he wanted answers. Luis took the initiative to answer them

"Me and your sister are apart of an experiment to save all of the players in this game without having to beat it." Klein furrowed his brows, "Experiment?"

"Yes. Experiment." I agreed with Luis to give Klein that it was nothing more that that

"There was 3,000 others who had bought the game on launch day but never plugged into the game, including me, Xander Ito in the real world and your little sister, Reiko Ryoutarou." Luis softly explained before gesturing to himself, "You may call me Luis while we are in this death game."