"Sakura, hurry up Sakura or you'll be late!"
     Eight years old, Yamada Sakura pulled on her rain boots and ran out the front door, jumping past her fourth eldest brother to stomp down hard on the first puddle on the sidewalk.
     "Hey, don't do that Sakura!" Her brother shouted, a year older than her, he was always so annoying, telling her not to do things that were fun.
     "Hurry up or you'll be late!" Sakura parroted back as she ran down the sidewalk.
     "Ah, Sakura, you mustn't run on the wet sidewalk, Sakura!"
    …
     "Ah, Sakura-chan, Sakura-chan. You mustn't do that Sakura-chan!"
     Ten year old Yamada Sakura huffed irritably as her third eldest brother retrieved the Kimono she'd allowed to fall to the ground. "Grandmother and Grandfather are expecting us to look our best."
     "I'm not going to wear something like that!" She grumbled. She and her third eldest brother had never gotten along. He was always teasing her and nothing she said ever seemed to have any effect. It wasn't fair!
     "But we're all going to the festival Sakura-chan."
     "Not dressed like this!" She complained, sticking out her tongue.
     Sakura immediately regretted it, her brother had seen his opening. "But it's so pretty Sakura-chan. I'm sure Ojii-san would love to see you wearing it. You'll be the family's Chisai-hime!"
     "Don't say that! I don't want to be all girly!"
     "Ah, but you are a girl Chisai-hime, or would your prefer we call you our Sakuya-hime?!"
     "Stop! That's even worse!"
    …
     "Sakura!"
     "Y-yes!" Fourteen years old, Sakura tried not to stutter a she faced off against her second eldest brother. It was hard.
     Her second eldest brother had always been her favorite, warm and constantly encouraging her to pursue her interests. But as soon as he entered the dojo he became a completely different person, stern, and only interested in pushing her as hard as he could, only to change back into his kind self when practice was finished.
     "Remember Sakura-chan, you can't hesitate because you're afraid of being hit. Hesitation is less than useless, if you hesitate, then you will definitely be hit. Do you understand?"
     "Y-yes!"
     He had always been the athlete of the family, an accomplished Kendo Practitioner, it had only been natural that she had gone to him when she had first started practicing four years ago. Of course, from his perspective, she had started late and needed lots of extra work.
     Her father had been mortified. The only daughter among five children, to have her devote herself to Kendo had not seemed terribly feminine. But her brothers had come to her aid and father had eventually relented. It meant taking etiquette lessons, and not complaining about dressing up for festival when they went to see their grandparents, but she would be allowed to attend a high school that was renowned for its Kendo team. If she wanted to make the cut, she needed to give it her all now.
     "Very well then." Her second eldest brother said solemnly as he lowered his helmet. "Then begin by showing me what you learned last time…"
    …
     "Sakura! Hey Sakura! Hold on!"
     'Nii-chan?' She wondered, she felt like she was floating, drifting. Her eldest brother was leaning over her, phone clutched tightly in his hand.
     She'd been running home to get her bag for practice, and then, there had been a car. The driver had tried to stop, but the road was slick.
     What had happened after that? She didn't know. Why was he yelling at her?
     Then she'd felt herself being lifted, carried, placed down on an ambulance stretcher to be taken to the hospital. When she'd finally regained her senses, she almost wished she hadn't.
     Concussion, broken collar bone, broken hip, shattered ulna, three broken ribs on her right side. The doctors said she was lucky it hadn't been worse, with therapy, she'd be able to walk again, eventually.
     Her father had thanked her attending physician fervently as he sat at her bedside along with her four elder brothers.
     Lucky? She wasn't lucky! If she was lucky, she would have been killed! This couldn't be happening, not now, she'd made it this far, all the way to nationals!
     Even if she managed to recover, her chance would have long since passed her by, and she'd probably never be able to get back to where she had been. She'd wept bitterly for days afterwords. She couldn't face her team mates who were relying on her, she couldn't face her brothers who had dedicated so much of their time to helping her… She just wanted to disappear.
    …
     "Sakura-chan, are you sure you don't need my help?"
     "I'm… fine." Nineteen years old, Yamada Sakura limped down the front steps of her family's home. Nine months and she could almost walk like she used to, although her hip was constantly stiff and she wasn't supposed to run while the bone was still healing.
     Her eldest brother offered her his hand as he held the door to the Taxi.
     She stopped before getting in.
     "Come on Sakura-chan! We're going to be late." Her youngest brother urged.
     "Just a minute." She said, turning to her eldest brother. In the last nine months, Sakura had learned more about her eldest brother then she had in the previous nineteen years."Thank you, for everything." She hugged him tightly.
     Quiet, serious, and even more stoic than their father, she'd thought he had hated her. Instead she'd learned how wrong she'd been In the end, it had been him who had convinced her that her life wasn't over.
     He'd gotten her to stand up, to work through her physical therapy, to walk again. She'd discovered that her brother possessed a wonderful, dry sense of humor and that they shared a great love of history and literature. They'd talk whenever they could while she was recovering, either late at night when he got off work, or video chatting over his lunch hour.
     She let go, smiling as he shifted awkwardly.
     "Everything's packed." Her second eldest brother said. "Uncle said he'll help you move everything in when when you get there."
     "You haven't forgotten anything, have you." Her third eldest brother asked. "Phone, keys, wallet, all your clothes, books, map of the campus…" He kept listing things off until she slugged him in the shoulder when he started to mention being sure she'd packed clean underwear.
     "Why do you have to be such an insufferable jerk?" She asked.
     He grew serious. "I thought I was a perfectly sufferable jerk." He said as he rubbed at his arm.
     "Sakura-chan!" Her youngest brother said again impatiently.
     They would both be attending the same university, it was her brother's second year and her first. Their uncle had already agreed to room them, but that meant arriving early and getting settled.
     Sakura threaded past her youngest brother and slipped into the back seat. "Hurry up, or you'll be late." She teased, waiting as her brother ran around to the other side of the taxi and got in.
     "And now we're off, eh Sakura-chan?" He brother noted. "Well, first years tough, but you'll have fun, I think."
     Twisting around in her seat, Sakura had watched her her brothers, her house, and her street vanish away behind her…
   
    The hammering came again and Sakuya wasn't sure at first whether it was in her room, or in her head. The third round of knocking finally convinced her that it was coming from the door and she groaned as she groped around in the dark.
    The ledger she had been reading before bed fell to the floor with a heavy -thunk- and was followed by the another as her comb followed it the ground. She didn't find what she was looking for, but her hand brushed against the control for the bedside lamp. She was left briefly dazzled by the warm light before her eyes began to adjust.
    Squinting, she blinked a few times, feeling at her face before finally realizing that she was looking for a pair of glasses that didn't exist in this world. Yamada Sakura the human might have had an acute case of myopia, but Lady Sakuya the Sylph had perfect twenty ten vision. Just another reminder of this insane world.
    She looked around the room, the master bedroom of the mansion that she and her volunteer staff had commandeered as their headquarters. It was suitably impressive, she thought. This one room was bigger than her whole apartment in Japan, the antique furniture alone would have been worth more than everything she owned.
    The knocking at the door came again. The hands of the tall grandfather clock in the corner were presently at fifteen minutes past three, presumably AM given the inky blackness beyond the open balcony doors. She briefly entertained the idea of ignoring the noise and going back to sleep, but if she was being disturbed this early, it had to be important. Reluctantly Sakuya pulled the heavy blankets back and swung her legs over the side of the bed, padding barefoot to the door. She stopped to check herself in the mirror.
    Dressed in green and white pinstripe pajamas and with her long, dark green hair gathered up to keep it out of the way while she slept. It wasn't an appearance that anyone would associate with Sakuya, Lady of the Sylphs. It wasn't an appearance that anyone would have associated with Yamada Sakura either. Sakura was pretty, but Sakuya was gorgeous in the sort of casual way that very few real women could be.
    Pale, impossibly perfect skin, high forehead, delicate Japanese features accentuated by Sylph racial traits. To be honest, since finding herself trapped in this skin, she'd grown to hate it. It felt like a lie to which she couldn't tell the truth. But it had turned out to be a convenient lie for dealing with the Nobility of Tristain. With the right clothes, the right posture, right voice, this form practically exuded Confident Young Noblewoman, an impression that she sought to cultivate now more than ever.
    And there was no point in stopping now. Straightening her shirt and rubbing the sleep from her eyes quickly, she unlocked the door and cracked it open to look out into the hallway. "Yes…" She blinked. "Alicia?"
    Flanked by a Sylph and Cait Syth guard, Alicia Rue, Leader of the Cait Syth, nodded quickly as she glanced up and down the hall. More than the unnatural hour, the tenseness in Alicia's posture alarmed Sakuya. The Cait Syth looked… well she looked skittish, like a cat with its hackles up.
    "What's wrong?" She asked, feeling suddenly even more tired. As twisted as it was, Sakuya was starting to operate under the assumption that something bad was always about to happen, it seemed to be a safe bet these days.
    Alicia finally stopped glancing around and focused on Sakuya. The normal smile was missing, and even while she forced herself to relax, her tail continued to lash from side to side, betraying her inner turmoil. "Sakuya-chan." Alicia greeted. "Uhm, I think you should get dressed quickly. We need you to come to the Arrun outskirts with us. There's been well… " She trailed off. "You need to see it for yourself."
    Sakuya nodded slowly, not sure what had happened but knowing Alicia well enough. If something had given her pause, it had to be bad.
    "Can you wait here for just a minute?" Sakuya asked, there wasn't any time to get properly prepared, but she could at least put on something more formal than her night clothes. Then again, Alicia wasn't wearing much more than a night shirt and shorts, a sure sign that she'd been pulled from bed similarly unprepared.
    "I'd really rather not." Alicia said and then chuckled weakly. "Don't worry, the only people who are dressed are the guards who were on watch. I think even Rute just showed up in his boxers. Ugh, too much information huh?!" She tried to joke but that only made it seem all the more urgent.
    Sakuya gestured for the guards to stand off before leaning in closely to one sensitive ear. "Alicia-chan… no Arisa… what's happened?"
    Alicia paled a little, eyes widening. She looked like she was trapped. "Sakuya-chan… the night watch patrol found a body at the roadside around half a kilometer outside of Arrun. It's Novair."

Standing among a gathering crowd of investigators, guards, and onlookers, Argo was not a happy kitty, and it wasn't just because she'd been dragged out of bed before dawn to wade around in the mud outside of Arrun. Though that might have had a little bit to do with it.
    She pulled her coat a little tighter around herself as she sipped a mug of hot tea in an effort to wake herself up. If that didn't work, all she needed to do was look in front of her. One hundred percent guaranteed to wake her up, with a fifty percent chance of causing her to lose what was left of her dinner.
    Being an information broker was a dangerous job, especially in the death game of Sword Art Online. Even optimizing her build for scouting and survivability and keeping a careful ear to the ground, Argo had seen more than her fair share of close calls and people dying. But it hadn't been like this. People dissolving into polygons and light effects lacked the visceral impact of a dead body.
    The corpse had been left where it had been found by the watch squadron that had discovered it. Most had watched or read enough murder mysteries to know that they shouldn't tamper with the crime scene.
    Argo snorted as she stroked the head of her Nav Pixie Suisen, of course, it wasn't like they had a fully equipped forensics lab or a squad of well qualified crime scene investigators, that particular profession had come through the transition underrepresented. Not that they needed any sort of specialist to tell them the cause of death.
    Body slowly going stiff, the Sylph stared sightlessly up into the sky, the collar of his shirt stained red where blood from his slit throat had spilled down. Argo used the term slit, but it was more accurate to say ripped open, or maybe sawed all the way back to the bone. Not a pleasant picture in any case. That was why she was trying hard not to look.
    "Time of death estimated to be three hours ago judging by ambient temperature and commencement of rigor mortis." A black clad Spriggan girl reported.
    They might not have had many forensics specialists, but the transition had brought through several morticians, morgue workers, and doctors who were more than able to identify the stages of decay in a cadaver. They could only hope that it would be enough when coupled with the expertise of their few police officers and detectives.
    "Are you sure, Abigail-san?" The question came from a distraught looking Yulier.
    The silver haired Undine had arrived just after Argo, no doubt taking flight as soon as she had been alerted, wearing little more than a white jacket over a pale blue nightgown. Her co-leader, Thinker was just as lightly garbed in gray slacks and a t-shirt.
    The Spriggan girl grimaced. "I'm reasonably sure, assuming that our musculature is anything like a humans, he's only just starting to go stiff."
    "I see." Yulier replied queasily.
    "What the devil was he doing out here so late at night is what I want to know." Lord Rute grunted as he paced nearby. The Lord of the Leprechauns had arrived a little late, taking the time to put on his red buttoned coat, although not enough time to ensure a proper fit.
    "Who said he was out here?" Argo asked rhetorically.
    "That's right." Abigail said as she straightened out her black, gothic lolita skirt. "There's a good chance that the body was moved here after death. The… well, the killer probably thought it would be a good way to get rid of the corpse. Leave it out here and hope a mob would eat it."
    Argo nodded thoughtfully. "Too bad the mob patrols have been so successful."
    "Argo-chan!" Abigail said in surprise. "That wouldn't be good! If that happened, we wouldn't have found the body, and then we wouldn't know that someone had killed him, and that would be terrible! Unless… you're being sarcastic… " The Spriggan trailed off.
    "Bingo." Argo sighed before a light to the north drew her attention. A quartet of green and yellow stars were descending from the direction of Arrun, wings taking shape into the familiar forms of Sylphs and Cait Syth. "Well then, that's everyone but Mortimer." Argo thought out loud.
    The Gnomes still hadn't selected a permanent leader and their representative was currently busy up north negotiating with the Valliere family. Likewise, Zia had been officially elected as the official representative of the Puca and was busily organizing her home city. The same went for Zolf and Morgiana who had business in their respective faction capitals at the moment and thus wouldn't be back for a few days.
    That left only five of the nine leaders in Arrun available to respond immediately. Argo stuffed her hands into the pockets of her cloak, feeling her ears fold down of their own volition. Five people to be informed as soon as possible that they had a murder on their hands.
    The first to touch down was Lady Sakuya followed by Alicia Rue. The Lady of the Sylphs and the Leader of the Cait Syth had both arrived in their night clothes, followed closely by a pair of guards.
    "Argo-san, I came as soon as I heard!" Sakuya said as she jogged down from the elevated shoulder of the roadway. As soon as she caught sight of the body, she raised her hands to her mouth and went pale. Argo gave her a few moments to let it sink in. "I… I'm sorry." Sakuya whispered softly. "I'd heard, but I didn't really believe it. I'm… I… Novair."
    "Tis alright, you're not the only one." Argo breathed softly.
    Sakuya came slowly to stand over the body, hand held close over her mouth. "H-how could this have happened?" It was like she didn't believe what she was seeing.
    Argo couldn't blame her. When the first reports of deliberate PKs had started cropping up in SAO, nobody had quite grasped what it meant. The idea of ordinary people, players, turning on each other in such desperate circumstances had seemed unbelievable.
    "Tis what we're going to find out." Argo assured her. "But we'll need your cooperation Sakuya-san."
    The Sylph woman nodded her head weakly. "O-of course. Anything."
    "Then…" Argo began, but before she could continue, she was brushed aside by an Undine and Salamander that had been standing off, examining the scene, and taking careful notes of Abigail's observations.
    "We'll take it from here Miss." The Undine man, dark blue haired and goateed, said briskly. "Lady Sakuya, I'm Jensen and this is Vakarian-san." He gestured to serious looked Salamander at his side complete with Salamander battle markings on each cheek. "We're members of the city watch. We've already been given permission to head the murder investigation."
    Argo rolled her eyes. She'd done a little digging into these two, and while there was not guarantee they were telling the truth, a few of their IRL friends had cropped up among the other factions. Apparently it wasn't entirely an act, they really were police officers, although it didn't sound like they were actually detectives, not that they had many of those anyways. That they'd been put in charge of the investigation was news to her.
    "By who, might I ask?" Lord Rute grunted. "I don't remember agreeing to that."
    "You did agree to and sign the City Watch charter however." The Salamander, Vakarian, said casually. "That's all we need in order to be empowered by the City Council or one of the Faerie Lords. "Now then, Lady Sakuya, can you confirm the identity of this man."
    "Yes." Sakuya nodded slowly. "He's Novair, one of my assistants. My secretary." She frowned. "Which Lord authorized this, Alicia?"
    The Cait Syth looked confused. "Don't look at me."
    "We just learned about it as well." Thinker said on behalf of himself and Yulier.
    "Is nobody going to ask me if I know anything about this?" Rute muttered.
    "Actually, the thought never crossed my mind." Alicia admitted chidingly. "I guess that's because you project a strong impression of being useless."
    The Leprechaun Lord Spluttered ineffectually as Jensen turned to the other Leaders. "If you want to know, you can just ask him yourself." He said, pointing again to the sky over Arrun where a trio of red lights were coming to set down.
    Argo wouldn't have been a very good information broker if she didn't pick up on Sakuya's sudden look of discomfort. The slight tensing of her shoulders, and the narrowing of her eyes. It was very clear that the Sylph Lord wasn't happy to see the latest arrival.
    "Good morning." Lord Mortimer said as he approached in the company of his guard commander, a Salamander Swordswoman named Lydia, and one of his heavily armored knights. The Salamander Lord, like Rute, was fully dressed in black and red robes over dark formal clothing. Mortimer had obviously decided his appearance was worth delaying his arrival. "Lady Sakuya, Lady Alicia." He nodded to the two senior Fae Lords.
    "You've something to do with this?" Sakuya asked suspiciously.
    "If you mean the death of this man? Of course not. If you mean the investigation." He nodded to the two watchmen. "I was the first person that was informed after the watch captain. It seemed prudent to begin immediately." The Salamander Lord came to stand over the body, observing clinically. "This is unfortunate, Novair-san was an exceptional asset."
    "An asset?" Sakuya bristled.
    "Yes." Mortimer offered coldly. "His organizational expertise was invaluable to the running of Arrun. Make no mistake, there is a murderer in our midst." Mortimer looked up, red eyes meeting Sakuya's own green gaze. "What I want to know is whether this was some tragic coincidence or foul play."
    "Lady Sakuya." Vakarian asked quietly. "You were the last person to see Novair alive, correct?"
    Sakuya shook her head distractedly, raising a hand to her forehead. "Yes, something like that. At the Governor's mansion. He keeps his own apartment off site so he departed around eleven-o-clock."
    "That matches with my estimate!" Abigail noted with a hint of satisfaction that was entirely out of place given the circumstances.
    "Can you tell us what you were discussing beforehand." Jensen added quickly. "It may be pertinent to the investigation."
    "Just the usual paperwork, budget reports, ration tickets, the new TRIST charter, nothing out of the ordinary." Sakuya rubbed at her eyes. "What could that possible have to do with anything?"
    "We can't say." Jensen replied as he jotted down some notes on his pad. "Can you tell us what your relationship with the deceased was? He was your secretary correct."
    "Yes." Sakuya nodded. "What does…"
    "And this was a purely professional relationship?" Vakarian added.
    "Of course! We…"
    "Then, one last question." Jensen cut in. "Are there any witnesses that can corroborate your location after the deceased departed."
    'Oh boy.' Argo thought. She guessed it was inevitable, after all, they had to start narrowing down witness somewhere. The response was equally as inevitable.
    Sakuya's mouth went agape and then shut tightly. One thing could be said for pale skin, even in the moonlight, the red stood out dangerously. "Are you implying…"
    "Ah, Sakuya-chan!" Alicia tried to cut in, but was silenced by a sharp wave of the Sylph Lord's hand.
    "Are you implying," Sakuya hissed, "that I had something to do with this?!"