Kyo

Kyo realized that in her panic, she'd done something again. Something that she'd been doing all her life, and that only Kenshin had ever really understood her well enough not to be swept away by: she'd rushed on to the conclusion of her logic without adequately explaining the thought process that had brought her there. And really, Kyo had trouble following her own logic sometimes. It was as if her brain worked faster than her own ability to track it, when it really got going, forcing her to stop and breathe and close her eyes and actually ask herself what she was thinking before she could even

Kyo's gaze was intent on Takao as he expanded on what he'd said about Cardinal. As he got into just how involved Cardinal was in crafting and revising the content of SAO, though, her eyebrows steadily went up. Partway through she blindly reached for the dessert Takao had brought her at the start of their conversation, grabbed a spoon (also without looking) and began shoveling the food into her mouth rapidly... seemingly just to ground herself as she took it all in. When he finished talking, she froze in place right where she was, with a mouthful of that sweet treat already having been sho

Takao's mounting anxiety about the military brought a wan grin to Kyo's face. "...I wouldn't worry too much about government overreach in this case," Kyo said. "Too much publicity's involved, yeah, and also: the government'd probably've forced a recall on the NerveGear entirely. They'd also be really wary of messin' with the servers, unless they set off some defense Kayaba installed and kill us all by accident." Kyo looked up at the ceiling of the café, frowning to herself. The only real worry, which she felt it would be unwise to voice out loud at the moment, was that if they were too sl

At Morningstar's mention of there being some level of pain here, Kyo's eyebrows went up. She wondered if that were really true, or if it was a case of the human mind filling in blanks with what it expected to feel. In the early days of NerveGear software, before Sword Art Online had been anything more than the unprecedented publicity leading up to launch, she had kept her finger on the pulse of Full-Dive technology for her own reasons. She knew, for example, that the NerveGear could simulate pain. That was something mentioned in a think-piece about VR's potential for military and law-enforceme

Kyo's lips quirked upward as Takao took the idea of a training sim to a few logical conclusions, then chuckled a bit at the partially-ridiculous—but not-entirely-unreasonable—place he'd taken the logic. She was kind of impressed that he'd considered the effect that could be had on muscle memory, particularly with the Sword Arts. There was a conversation to be had about those, but since they couldn't log out and see how well their movements translated to reality, she decided to hold her peace on those speculations. And there were weapons for which Sword Art movements would be utterly usele

Kyo's eating pace slowed as Takeo spoke up about how amazing games could be with Full-Dive. It was about the response she'd expected, though he did at least show a bit of outside-the-box thinking with his comment about the military. When he offered to help her with tips and pointers, she gave him a grateful smile, but didn't directly answer. Her attention had visibly and obviously been caught by something else Takao had said, and it was taking up all of her mental bandwidth just at the moment. After swallowing her latest bite of chicken, Kyo set down her chopsticks. "Argus and Akihik

At Sorun's observation that her objective was "a risky but noble goal," Kyo actually looked away and let out a faint snort. Risky, for sure, but noble? Absolutely not. The only reason Kyo was doing it was because after so long, she had reached a point where the only way she would find any kind of closure was if she personally put an end to Kayaba... or was, at least, part of what did. If she died in the process of trying, it would still be a less-certain death than if she never tried at all. If the game ended before she found that son of a... well. She wasn't sure what she'd do with herse

"That's your inner ear goin' wibbly, not a concussion," Kyo stated matter-of-factly. "A concussion is a physical injury t' the brain. It might be possible for Full-Dive t' simulate the symptoms of a concussion, but I don't think SAO was made t' do that. It is true that if we go through too much stress in here too quickly, it'd probably have a backlash o' some kind on our real bodies, though..." The green-haired girl scratched her chin as she considered this, then shrugged her shoulders. She remained silent while the others talked about things that were obviously outside her sphere of expe

Kyo allowed herself a moment of pride at Takao's reaction to her physique—she had worked hard for it, after all, and Sword Art Online had managed to recreate her real-life body pretty accurately. Takao's enthusiastic acceptance of her half-joking idea that they could be gym buddies on the other side turned that hidden pride into a goofy grin. Who knew if the two of them would remember this conversation by the time they escaped, given the glacial pace of clearing? But she made a note to at least try. Allowing herself the fantasy of having a friend along for the rehabilitation ride let her prete

Takao's lament about how he had only just started putting on weight brought a humorless grin to Kyo's face. "I'm not exactly happy about it either," she said. She pushed her chair back, turning toward Takao so he could see her front fully... her open jacket, midriff-baring top, and the rather impressive abs they bared. "I put a lotta work inta this, ya know, and I'm gonna hafta do it all over again, on top o' rehab. Ha! Y'know, maybe we can be gym buddies when this is all over, cheer each other on." Kyo certainly seemed not to have the same reservations about their situation as Takao

"Well, thanks for the warm welcome, I guess, though I'm a long way off from properly joinin' the fray—" Kyo heard a honk. She looked up, and saw the tail-end of what could only be described as "a very sad story." A branch cracked, and the protagonist of said sad story fell out of the tree, onto his face. Well, at least it had happened in a safe haven, Kyo reflected. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. "Trapped in a death game by a madman, only a quarter o' the way through after two years..." she muttered, "and this is what I find when I leave town a

"Off-limits? ...Huh," Kyo thought, sounding nonplussed. Clearly this was another of the many, many things that she had missed while she had been trapped in her depression for the past while. She wondered what this woman had done to get the rest of the clearing group to force her onto the bench. Ah, well. If it meant there was a high-level player who was perfectly free to help her get going, and who had just so happened to stumble across her path like this... well, that was a useful coinky-dink, wasn't it? Yeah. Useful. And quite the coinky-dink. Kyo's suspicion faded, but did not vanish c

Kyo blinked and stared down at the menu when Takao indicated the cheaper items and explained them. Wait, food has buffs in SAO...? After a moment's thought, she realized she should have expected as much. It was, after all, the only thing that normally made videogame food worth a damn in most of the many, many RPGs that included it, from single-player games to MMORPGs. The only exceptions were games that had survival mechanics, but those tended to be kind of niche. Since they felt hunger pains here if they starved themselves—and since SAO's design ethos was obviously and decidedly ver

What the green-haired virtual chef would find waiting, when he reached the table she'd sat at, was a girl with green hair and green eyes not far off in shade from his, looking up at him and blinking in surprise. She had been slouching in her chair as if exhausted, but was straight-backed as a flagpole now. It was obvious that she hadn't expected anyone to approach her just then. "Eh?!" she blurted. Her eyes darted to the space above Takao's head but that just brought a grimace to her face: she was checking whether he was a player or an NPC, but cursors didn't show indoors. Eventually she

"...Mm?" Kyo turned a surprised look in the direction of the voice that responded. For a moment she narrowed her eyes—the idea that Kayaba might masquerade as a player had occurred to her more than once, when she was planning the initial stages of her path to the frontlines of clearing—but the suspicious look passed as quickly as it came. While she expected Kayaba would be living in a place like this in reality, she didn't think he'd be loitering around here when there were so many more interesting things to observe on higher, more player-dense floors. So after a moment she said, "Na