All In All

Junko was silent when he finished, trying to process everything that was going on. Her baby girl was involved in something that dangerous? Why hadn't she told her? She knew something must've happened for Samara to come to be but she had never figured out what it was exactly. Junko could guess why she did it knowing Naoki; she didn't want her to worry.

That girl of mine is going to be the death of me.

She'd worry about that later, for now she focused on what Kirito had to say towards the end. In her mind, she could see where Kirito was worried about, but she didn't believe it was anything serious. "Knowing Naoki, as long as you're sincere and don't ditch her after your mission is done she won't hold it against you. I know Naoki, she's a very open and forgiving person..sometimes too much. I have to tell her at times its okay to be selfish and think for what's best for her. If your mission is too case sensitive, you don't have to tell her the finer details but that's part of the reason you Are here, but its not the only reason. A lot of people think my little girl is naive, and in a way she is but she's not dumb. She'll pick up when you're being sincere, or not."

Kirito thought about that, then nodded. "You have a point. I've already noticed that she's a lot more intuitive and perceptive than she'd appear to be. She's smart, and wise beyond her years, as they'd say. I guess she got that from her mother, far as I can tell." He grinned a bit. After a serious conversation, it was nice to lighten it up a bit.

Junko playfully elbowed him. "Flattery will get you everywhere." She wanted to change the topic too to get her mind off and after the depressing topics so far it was good to switch it. "So, why don't you tell me about your friends? You mentioned Signum, what's she like?"

Kirito just smiled. "Well..." He wasn't used to talking about other people and what they were like as a person, but he did his best. By the end of it though, he chuckled. "Honestly, I've probably done a terrible job... you'd really have to meet them. I'm sure you will eventually. Emus and Asuna are at our mobile base here in the city, but I'm not really supposed to have told you about my mission. I really felt you deserved to know though."

Junko shrugged a bit but smiled. "You're too hard on yourself, sure its fine though words is no subsistute for experience. I'm not sure if you have anything else you need to be doing, but you're more then welcome to stay here. Just as long as you pull your weight, but I don't have to tell you that."

Kirito smiled. "I really don't want to impose. Besides, I have my apartment. It would be wierd for me to suddenly start staying here, even if it would be nice, I'll admit. It's not like I'm alone there, I have Yui. That, and I wouldn't want people to get suspicious that me and Naoki are doing something, you know how schools can be."

"All right, then how about just staying over the night as a compromise then? It's a bit too late to be wandering back right now anyway." In Junko's mind, she didn't want to take no for a answer. Besides it was very late to begin with.

Kirito thought about it, then nodded. "Alright. I'd be a bit uncomfortable leaving you three alone here overnight right after what happened, anyway. Though, I need to say goodnight to Yui... do you have a computer I can use?"

Junko was curious of seeing Yui in the flesh so to speak. "I have my own laptop. Just a moment."

She left the room, coming back a minute or two later with a silver laptop which she handed to Kirito so he could talk to his daughter. "As advanced as earth has come along, we really aren't close to anything complicated with A.I. most we could do is things like dogs. Never mind advanced enough to make a real thinking person."

Kirito grinned. "Well, it seems it's mostly done on accident, like with Yui. She was originally meant to be a program only, meant to evaluate the mental conditions of the players in the game, and make sure there were no negative affects to the players, even counsel them if necessary. When the 'Death Game' was implemented, however, she was unable to do that, but could still see what was going on. From what she told us, it was seeing me and my friends living our lives as happily as we could that caused her to break herself free. It's like she forged her own self-awareness. Either way..." He got to work, needing to install and program a few things onto the laptop in order to speak to Yui. He explained his actions as he did them, along with other things.

"None of the things I'm doing will harm your computer at all. Actually, I've sped it up a bit, and am removing a virus or two that were hidden in your hard drive. I've also patched your anti-virus software to prevent those intrusions from happening again, and... here we go!" He smiled as a screen popped up. It seemed to be a bedroom of a cabin in a forested area; the house they had all lived in during the final months of the game. Yui was sitting up on the bed, lights off, and looking quite sleepy.

"Ah, Papa! I was afraid you weren't going to make it..."

"Sorry Yui, I got a bit held up, but I'm here now, even if only through the monitor. Here, I'd like you to meet someone. Yui, this is Naoki's mother, Junko Kaname." Yui blinked, and waved sleepily.

"Hello Mrs. Kaname." Kirito winced only slightly. He wasn't sure if Junko preferred a 'Ms.' on that, as he wasn't sure what the situation was with Naoki's father. He realized he wasn't around, but didn't know if it was by choice, or because he'd passed away. Yui, of course, simply assumed Naoki's father was around somewhere.

Junko gave a slow, but sad smile. "He's not with us anymore, they're in a better place. It's just miss now. Anyway, its a pleasure to meet you young lady. Your dad told me a lot about you, so its nice meeting you like this. We'll have to meet physically when you get a body of your own."

She didn't want Yui or Kirito to feel bad about that topic, it was in the past. So she didn't dwell on it or touch on it more then what needed to be said.

Kirito simply glanced at Junko, choosing not to talk about it. Yui looked sad for a moment, then nodded. "I'd like that, Ms. Kaname. Since he's with you right now, you and Naoki take care of Papa, okay? He's stubborn and reckless sometimes! Since I can't always be there to watch him, you do it for me, okay?" She seemed so serious about it, and Kirito couldn't help but chuckle.

This got a big grin on the older woman's face. "Don't worry. I'll keep them both out of trouble while he's here, all right? That's a promise. Your Papa is very smart though, so I don't think you'll have to worry as much."

Yui nodded somewhat reluctantly. "Papa is smart, yeah... alright, I'll trust you with Papa, Ms. Kaname, please take care of him! Goodnight Ms. Kaname, goodnight Papa!" Yui personally disconnected the feed, as she flung herself into bed. Kirito just stared at the screen, bemused.

"...Why do I feel like I've been given away or something?"

"Not sure. Maybe she was more just sending you off?" Junko turned back to Kirito. "..You know, I'm slightly worried. This Kyubey gives wishes, but things don't make sense. If he can warp reality, why does he need young girls to fight? Why are all the girls so young in the first place, wouldn't a adult make more sense? I can't stop my baby from fighting, but I'm scared. She shouldn't be out there in battles like this, why can't she just leave it to Nobus or someone who's trained for these sorts of things? So much doesn't make sense to me and it leaves me suspcious."

Junko sighed softly. "But I also know Naoki can be stubborn when she wants too; she gets it from me. I can't make her stop most likely, so in the mean time please look after her for me. Fighting by her side is something I can't do.."

Kirito paused at that. "...Well... probably not... but I may be able to do something that can, at least temporarily, make you able to fight... I'm not sure. I'll need to look into it. Either way, of course I'll do whatever I can to protect Naoki. You have my word on that."

Junko wondered what it could be, there could be a number of things but none that would get her in fighting shape in a short enough time, save a few. Either way she was too tired physically and emotionally to prod the subject, she'd wait until tomorrow.

"I'm going to head to bed then. You're welcome to the kitchen whenever. Good night, Kirito." After that, Junko headed back into her room, curling back up with Samara and Naoki before soon drifting back to sleep.

* *

Around the next morning, Junko was still out cold but Naoki had woken up early as she typically did. Not wanting to wake her mother up, she got herself untangled from her grip before dropping down onto the cold wooden floor--it was always cold in the mornings most of the time. Kirito had stayed over, so she wondered if he was awake. If not that was fine, she really just wanted to eat and help her mother. After all she had been through, she'd do something's around the house. It was the least she could do.

Naoki decided she was going to get Kirito to train her, and soon.

Hopefully.

As it turned out, by this point in the morning, Kirito was awake, and in the yard, doing his own training. Unlike in SAO, he had to train daily to retain, and hopefully improve, his skills with his blades. He was currently... well, the easiest explanation was that he was bouncing all over the place, spinning like a buzz-saw at the moment. Sonic the Hedgehog came to mind for some people when they saw him doing this. Supposedly.

Naoki had no clue what she was really watching, or anything about real sword skills but it looked fancy. It reminded her of some of those martial arts movies with the really overly detailed and fancy fighting except this was in real life. While she wasn't a fighter, Naoki understood that kind of fighting was in fact real once you got a high enough skill level enough for it.

Not wanting to interrupt just yet, she went and found a seat.

Kirito seemed to be sweating a bit too..

Ah! Stop that!

It would seem odd she was blushing faintly seemingly for no reason all of a sudden.

When he trained at home or at headquarters, he usually did so wearing just shorts and no shirt. As that wasn't really an option at the moment, even he was embarrassed at the prospect of being shirtless here, he was wearing a simple t-shirt and shorts, having used magic to get them of course. When he finally noticed Naoki, he paused, and grinned a bit. "Hey, how long have you been there?"

Naoki almost jumped at that, holding up her hands. "N-not long." Her blush made it obvious that wasn't all there was to the story. "I just wanted to check up on you..and, um, ask you something."

She really wasn't sure how to say it, so after hesistantly slightly she continued. "I feel like, even though I've gained these powers, I'm still the same. What I mean is, when I first started I wanted to help people and so I could fight alongside my friends. But I still get scared. I still freeze up, and I still don't know what I'm doing. What I'm learning is there's a lot more to this then power, so please could you train me? I promise I won't slow you down."

Kirito blinked. "Well... that makes this easier. I was actually wondering how best to suggest training to you, without it sounding like I thought you were too weak or something. Since you want training though, I don't have to worry about that. So, yes, I'll train you. I figure we'll focus on conditioning, endurance training, things like that. And also a bit of focus and concentration exercises, to help you control your fear a bit better. I'd like to train you to use a melee weapon as well, in case you can't keep at range with an opponent. From what I've seen, you're the only one in that predicament when it comes to your friends. Mami has those ribbons, as well as using her guns as clubs. Sayaka, I saw her throwing swords at one point. Kyouko's spear apparently extends on chains. You just have your bow though..." He paused. "Wait, I think you said at one point something about Mami saying she used to only have her ribbons... and Sayaka, from what I saw in that fight with Olrox's golem Kamaury.. she seemed to realize mid-fight she could summon more swords... I wonder if your magic can evolve or something... maybe create another weapon out of the same energy as your arrows or something..."

At this, Naoki perked up. "You think maybe I could learn to summon a melee weapon too? If that's the case..not sure how I would start. Sayaka learned it by fighting, so maybe that's what I need too? Something to push me to help, or maybe just practice? I'm not sure. I would have to ask Mami about it when we meet up with her again."

Kirito nodded at that. "Good idea. Until then, though, the focus is conditioning your body for combat situations. When I got out of SAO, I was in a wierd situation. My mind and body had the memory, skill, and experience of two years of near near constant fighting. But since in the real world my body was actually laying in a bed, my body wasn't conditioned to allow me to do the things I could in SAO. So I had to fix that. So, pretty sure I can help you there. I can also help a bit with improving your bow skills, actually. At least at hitting a moving target, firing more rapidly, changing the nature of your shots, things like that..."

Naoki was listening, but then something made her pause."Wait, you know how to use a bow? I thought you stuck to swords for the most part?" Was there even bows in SAO? The game itself was about melee, then again maybe he had taken archery before or something. She wasn't too sure how she'd do with the conditioning, but she'd try.