“…Onii-chan.” Suguha leaned her body on my back and whispered to my ears. “Asuna-san said that ‘he will be back like usual after creating chaos in GGO’, but I guess that she should be rather anxious. I’m like her too, because…because, onii-chan, you came back so late last night, and your face was really scary.” “Is…that so.” I could only answer that. Suguha’s short hair stroked my neck, and a voice with a tinge of breath was close to my left ear, and ringed, “It…shouldn’t be dangerous, right…? I don’t really want you to go somewhere far away…” “…I won’t leave.” This time, I said it clearly to her, and then placed my right hand on the small hand that’s on my left shoulders. “I promise. Tonight, after the GGO event’s over, I’ll come back to ALO…and this house.” “…Okay.” Suguha seemed to nod her head, and then leaned her upper body over to me as she just remained there. My imouto was already distraught during the 2 years I was trapped inside SAO, and I really shouldn’t have made her so anxious. Actually, I could send a message to Kikuoka Seijirou that ‘I don’t want to do it’, and just forget about everything— But after what happened in the preliminaries yesterday, there were two reasons that made it tough for me to do it.