All In All

The strange girl stiffened when she felt something pressed against her back. It had to figure the girl was too weak and cowardly do much on her own, but at least if not for the sneak attack she was confident she could have taken both of them. Now wasn't worth the risk if the person behind her knew where her Soul Gem was.

"Stop making a idiot of yourself Sonya. We aren't bailing you out this time if you start with something more then you can chew."

"Tch.." The green-haired girl revealed as Sonya let Naoki go at that along with the less then desirbale position she was put in. The voice in question came from another woman, slightly older with blue hair who had a bored look. There was another girl with her black hair eyes, glasses and a body suit of some kind. "I could have handled it."

"No, you couldn't. If you bothered listening to me you wouldn't be in this mess." They said causally, seemingly not caring that their ally was at gun point. "While she is certainly a pain, I do need her alive to pull her own weight or riddled with bullets but alive as the case may be. She's sort of useless to us that way. That I would prefer not to end up starting a fight that causes enough trouble to have Nobus crack down on us."

Kirito was, of course, taking note of everything. New information was important here. Kaori, however, was a blank canvas in terms of emotion, and seemed like she might actually pull the trigger. She certainly wanted to. She didn't work this hard, go through so much, trying to protect her friends, for some random bitch to come after one of her friends. After a moment, Kaori finally spoke.

"...Get out of this city. If you come back, I will kill you..."

Sonya was livid at this point, she wanted to take her sword and jam it through the gun wielders neck at the moment.

"You lost Sonya. Let it go and let's leave." The blue-haired girl said, still looking bored and unconcerned. "I'm not starting another Turf War with others. It's their territory first anyway."

"..Fine." They said, and reluctantly and left with the other two Puella Magi.

Naoki wasn't sure what to feel. The thought of Kaori could threaten to kill anyone that easily unerved her a lot. That, and she wasn't sure why she helped her after being so distant. Kaori's motives confused her, Naoki couldn't really figure her out.

Kirito crossed his arms. "Well, that was interesting. So-"

"Mind your own business before you get yourself killed." Kaori simply turned and walked away, and Kirito glanced at Naoki.

"So... care to explain what's going on? Witches, Grief Seeds? Territory? That girl being kind of scary?"

Naoki paused biting her lip. "..I don't know what's wrong with Kaori, she's so cold but then she does things like this. As for the other things, I want to tell you but you're a normal human so..it would be irresponsible for me to tell dangerous things like that. But, what I can say right now is that I'm a magical girl and so are some of my friends." Magical Girls, Knights, none of that was honestly anything new far as earth went.

"Um..if you want I could explain a bit more when we get to my place. I don't think its a good idea to talk about these things out in the open anyway."

Kirito cocked his head to the side. "You're inviting me to your place? We just met, but I'll assume you meant just as friends." Teasing was rather easy when it came to Naoki. 'Note to self; never let Asuna or Sugu find out about this teasing, they'll kill me...'

"Muu.." Naoki made some strange noise at that, but it was also cute. "F-friends! J-just friends!" She really wished her face stopping burning like it did, she was going to get sick or something one of these days. Or combust.

Her mom..

Naoki didn't know what she was going to do, she just knew her mother was going to tease about her finally bringing a boy home if Kirito was here by the time she got back with Samara and her little brother.

She pushed it aside, and lead Kirito to her home. When they got there, she unlocked the door before leading him and closing it behind them. It was pretty quite without her family around, she was used to the background noise working in some form or another. She wasn't really sure where to start telling the story. But thinking about it, if Kirito knew how dangerous it was then him being a normal human he would have no reason to get involved. It would be for his own sake, maybe just leave a few things out.

Satisfied, Naoki fiddled with her Soul Gem. "I'm not too good at this. Um. I'm a Magical Girl, but my type is called a Puella Magi. I was a normal girl at first, but then me and my friend Sayaka met a girl named Mami who became our friend. She could fight with magical muskets and was a Puella Magi as well. She has to fight Witches.."

Naoki held up waving her hands as if to ward off a incoming question or alarm. "Not those kind of Witches, we aren't crazy hunters like Isacroit or anything. Anyway, Withes are born out of negative emotions so its a Puella Magi's job to fight them. See, here."

She showed her Soul Gem. "This is called a Soul Gem. If a Puella Magi beats a Witch, they get a Grief Seed which recharges our magic. Everytime we use our magic, it darkens so we then have to clean it. Witches can't be seen by normal people, they live in their own dimension domains of theirs, its kinda scary still."

Naoki shook her head. "They don't kill people by being invisible; people get stuck in their labyrinths that can't be seen. So people think they just go missing, they aren't all in the same area either. Other times, the Witches drive people to sucide.." She sighed at that. "That's why the Puella Magi fight them. That girl Sonya? I think her name was, she was one too. I don't know why she wanted to chase me off so badly for Grief Seeds."

Kirito thought about that. "Hm... well, you said you use Grief Seeds to recharge your magic, right? I'd assume that they want to make sure that they have enough Grief Seeds to keep themselves in fighting shape at all times, and are going to extremes... reminds me of back then... when it's a question of survival, some people will adopt a 'it's me or them' attitude, and will do whatever they have to to put themselves in a better position to survive, including killing others... it doesn't make sense though, you should all be working together if Witches are such a threat... Naoki, how did you get these powers? They don't seem like an in-born thing."

Naoki hesitated a bit at that question. She wasn't sure if she should answer that, but she thought about how Mami trusted her and Sayaka despite not knowing them long. "You get these powers by making a wish a friend of mine named Kyubey makes them and you also become a Magical Girl. There's some limits to it, but not sure what all they are. That's why I couldn't just wish the Witches away. I made. As for why more Magical Girls don't work together.."

She...actually didn't know. She hadn't really questioned it. "..I don't know. Me and my friends are the only ones that work together I know of..besides Sonya and her friends I guess. The wish I made brought my doll I had back to life Samara..she um..was based from a Dark Magical Girl series named Relative Darkness." Naoki looked embarrassed. "I wanted to help my friend and didn't want to sit on the side lines..so I made my choice."

Kaori nodded a bit, deep in thought. "So... what about Kaori? She seems to know what's going on... and has guns, apparently..."

"Nobody really knows. Megumi has known Kaori a lot longer and is just as confused. I don't know where she got those guns though. How did she get them? I know a lot them you can't get unless you're part of the miltary or Nobus. And..I don't think too many people are going to sell guns to a fourteen year old. She helps sometimes, but I don't understand her! Why doesn't she just talk to us?"

Naoki took a deep breath calming down. "I don't know. It's very confusing. She doesn't like Kyubey for some reason and was trying to hurt him earlier. Normal people can't see him, she's a magical girl but Kyubey said he doesn't remember making a contract with her."

Kirito now had several pieces to the puzzle, but connecting them wasn't as easy. Now, however, was time for a bit of a show of faith. "Naoki? Can I be honest with you? I'm not exactly a normal guy." He couldn't tell her much. Certainly not that he was a Myriad Crusader. He could, however, let her know a few things.

"Wha..you're not?" Naoki was confused, but curious. "Then what do you mean? Are you human or you like Megumi being another race?"

Kirito smiled. "Well, I'm not human, I'm from the planet Hihat. But I was effectively human. No, what I meant, is that when I left LRO... a friend of mine had made it so that I could still fight like that. I guess you could say I'm like the male equivalent of a Magical Girl?"

"So a Magic Knight?" Naoki seemed to get excited. "That's really cool. I've never met one before but I've heard of them. Do you need to focus on something to transform like we do? And long have you been one?

Kirito sighed. "Since a few months after I woke up in the hospital after the game ended. As for a focus..." He pulled out a locket, holding it out to Naoki as he opened it, showing a picture of himself, Emus, and Zeno with the Moonlit Black Cats guild. "This... reminds me what I fight for."

Naoki looked it over carefully, both of the young men seemed around Kirito's age, maybe a bit older at the most from the looks of it. "..Who are they? Are they Magic Knights like you too Kirito?" She didn't ask if they were friends, you normally didn't get a locket of people you didn't like together.

Kirito paused. "...Did you hear about the Moonlit Black Cats guild? I'm not sure if that was broadcasted, since we weren't with the clearers at the time..."

She didn't know why, but Naoki had a bad feeling as she shook her head. "No. I'm sorry I didn't get to watch the whole thing. So I don't know about that guild."

Kirito nodded softly. "I lied to them. They were all around the 20's in level when I met them, and I was in my 40s. I told them I was the same level as them, because of the whole 'Beater' thing... me, Emus, and Zeno were the same. And because we didn't want to let them know of our higher levels, we didn't warn them of things we knew might be in a higher level dungeon... sure, we thought we could handle it... but then we were trapped in a room... and they all died, right in front of us... and the guild leader, when he found out... he was so angry... and then... he jumped off of Aincrad, killing himself..."

Naoki looked both horrified and shocked when he finished. She had never been through anything like that in her short fourteen going on fifteen years. Naoki wasn't sure she would be able to handle it if the samething had happened to her. But here Kirito was, still alive and still standing besides that and who knew what else he had been through.

Her eyes watered, and without thinking she gave Kirito a hug. It wasn't a long one, and she pulled away before too long wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry..I don't know what to say. What you went through was horrible. I mean..I know it was bad but hearing about it on the news and talking to someone who actually went through it is different. How..do you deal with it?"

Kirito paused. "My friends, mostly. I still feel guilty, we all do, but it's the past, and we can't change it. One of them... Sachi... she was terrified of dying in the game. We promised her we'd get her out of the game alive. The fact we failed that was the hardest thing... but even then, the thing I still have trouble dealing with, is that... I had to kill people. The Laughing Coffin guild. They were dedicated to killing other players. One of them tried to kill me. Later, the clearers gathered together to deal with the guild. Overall... I killed three people. I understand that they were bad people, and if I hadn't done it, I wouldn't be alive, but... it's still hard." He sighed, shaking his head.

"I doubt I will ever get over the things that happened in LRO. I was fourteen when it started, and sixteen when it ended. I'm still catching up a bit with life back in the real world. Sometimes, I feel as if Aincrad was the real world and this isn't. It's hard sometimes. But, I'm dealing with it. THings are getting better."

Naoki didn't know what to say at first. "..We'll..even if we only known each other for a day if you ever need to talk about things I'll be here. There's a lot I don't know and a lot I haven't experienced so sometimes I feel so lost on what to do or say with things, but I do my best."

She was going to say more when the door opened, revealing the rest of her family. Junko and Samara included. Her mother was carrying a few groceries which blocked her vision. "Sorry we're late, had to get a few things. How was school?"

Her little brother was gently tugged along, seemingly interested in the new stranger her mother didn't notice at first before she moved the bags. "..And who is your new friend? Pretty bold sneaking a boy while everyone is away I see."

"Mom!" Naoki's face was one again resembling a cherry. "His name is Kirito, he's a new friend from school."

Junko grinned. "Sorry sweetie, you walked into that one. Now-" Her gaze turned to Kirito, her expression was friendly but it seemed she was giving him a critical eye. "-I think proper introductions are in order. My name is Junko Kaname, you've obviously just met my other first daughter. This is my son Tatsuya. Nice to meet you young man."

The only reason she hadn't introduced Samara, was due to the fact Junko was giving her a crash course in socializing the best she could, when she actually could anyway.