AN: Shortly after the events by the lake, in which Yuuki gets up to a few things before settling back in safety.

IRL Side: Yuuki Konno

To deviate from a plan after new variables were introduced should be expected from any planner worth their salt.

Unless, of course, said planner had pride that could be measured by how vast the oceans were.

Thankfully for one Yuuki Konno, her husband was the type of person that wasn't above stabbing his enemies in the back and letting them die before indulging in talking about his crazy complex plot.

Gloating was enjoyable, but he was practical enough to only gloat while standing above the corpse of his enemies.

It was definitely a morbid thought.

But the thought that he was the type to wait until victory was assured showed that he considered personal pride an accessory, not a necessity.

In this case, his original plans of getting out of Sword Art Online before healing her sister and herself was altered.

To be honest, she could imagine him saying it was "just as planned" even if he improvised 99% of the steps on the way.

At any rate, it was during a Monday morning, specifically at 3 a.m. where ALO had their server maintenance that Yuuki took action.

Outside of Virtual Reality, that is.

It was only a matter of informing her sister and online friends that she was entering a private full-dive server that her rich in-game husband owned.

As expected, her sister was… um, annoyed? Livid?

She wasn't quite sure what to describe the emotion that could be summed up as "beat up whoever is even thinking of having illicit relationships with my little sister".

Having always been the little sister, she wasn't quite sure of what it felt like to be the bigger sister.

Perhaps that… overprotectiveness would come about when she would be on the cusp of motherhood.

Moving her fingers along the virtual panel, she logged herself off the Medicuboid and everything else.

And as her senses were detached from the virtual world and back to her real body.

She felt immensely weak yet more powerful than before.

Ah, how long has it been since she felt warm and soothing pulse of her own mana, the energies that her soul produced through the connection of her spirit and body?

It took her a few seconds to re-orientate her physical senses.

She could note that there were some doctors and nurses around, but none paid any attention to the clearly abnormal situation.

"Hehe, micro-management for the win, eh?" She rasped out, quickly realising that her throat wasn't as hydrated as expected.

That probably meant that she took longer than expected to take out all the things plugged into her body.

"You'll have to get out of the room for some water. It's not like they have a glass ready for a patient of such a room."

Turning her head slightly to the left, she saw Nick, or rather the illusionary one, standing by the door remarking on her situation.

"Right right, sterilised room and all… gotcha!" Yuuki nodded cheerfully even as she focused on her inner energy, drawing out more mana as Nick once taught her back in the previous timeline.

The soul was the blueprint for the body, although that statement worked literally in the Nasuverse, it could work in the same way within her world if a person knew the right healing techniques.

In her case, even with Nick's tutoring, she was pretty much a third-rate magician with a specialization in healing magic. Combat wise, well, she could be between second-rate and first-rate depending on the opponent.

At any rate, she activated the rather blandly named [Self-Body Rejuvenation] spell that Nick had forced her to learn back then.

It was enough to bring her up to around half of her ALO stats and all her mental stats, at the very least. It wouldn't cure her disease, but it could push it back and slow it down considerably.

Hopping out of the bed, she was about to walk to the door when she realised one thing.

"Iiiieee! C-cold!"

Cycling between each of her feet, she started hopping on one foot as she realised how insanely cold the hospital floor was.

"You should have noticed that you were barefoot you know?" He had an amused grin on his expression that Yuuki couldn't help but complain against.

"Stop that and get me some slippers!"

"Can't. I'm just an innocent image. Dear old dear…"

"Brrrr…"

"You could just use [Conjuration] or the rock in your hand to make yourself some wooly socks."

"I never learnt conjew-conja- conjumagic! Ah, forget it!"

With some of her will, she manifested the rock that Nick had given her to use in his inner world earlier on into her hand.

Or rather, a weak copy that he reproduced that was powered up by his excess mana.

The Hogyoku, or rather, the Hogyoku Lite.

"Warm footwear please!" She yelled while pumping up her fist with the Hogyoku in it into the air.

As if it had a sense of humour, a pair of wooly slippers with the cartoon patterns of sheep dropped on her head.

She held the pose for a few seconds before gracefully ignoring Nick's snickering at the anti-climatic response to her dramatic use of willpower.

After somehow getting through the door, finding a vending machine and using the Hogyoku for petty things like producing counterfeit money to buy drinks.

(Coke never tasted so good…)

She made her way to her sister's own room.

…

Yuuki stared at her sister's sunken face, muscle atrophy and the many signs of a body not doing very well.

Her left hand clenched into a fist, wrapping the Hogyoku even more tightly than before.

It pained her to see her decisive sister like this, especially when it was her sister's decision to let her have the sterilised room that led to Aiko's state.

It frustrated her when she remembered the times where she didn't take her studies seriously. If she tried harder, then perhaps she would have the skills needed to simply heal Aiko and be done with it.

But it wasn't as if she could predict that she would be traveling through time herself.

She knew that Nick planned to split the timeline, but she never considered herself a part of that plan as they were happy with simply being together.

That was why she took things easy. His birthday gift of allowing her to talk with her family from their afterlife, Heaven (it's a nice place, apparently), allowed her to be at peace even more.

And now, she wondered if this was how Nick always felt like when he pushed himself.

Or rather, he pushed himself so that he wouldn't have to feel this… useless, impotent and… she didn't know many more hard words to use in order to describe how weak she felt at this moment.

"Nee-chan…"

Making her way into the room and trusting Nick to use Kyoka Suigetsu effectively to mask her presence, she took hold of her sister's frail hand even as her mind was in the virtual world and could not respond to her touch.

"There isn't much I know I can do. I really should have learned enough so that I could heal others well, guess I've got too into games, haha…"

"Yuuki… even with the Hogyoku, with me being in SAO my influence over reality here isn't potent enough at the moment." Nick didn't sound like he wanted to remind her of that.

She knew that, he told her earlier that the amount of mana that could be stored in this copy, coupled with her lack of mastery over such advanced things meant that the Hogyoku Lite couldn't heal Aiko.

"I know that… but even so, I still pray that…"

Grasping the stone of wishes, she placed it within Aiko's palm with both of her own hands wrapped around it and closed her eyes.

It's been awhile since she made a wish like this.

"I pray that you won't have to suffer any more, that you will be healed from your infirmities. I pray that you'll walk out of bed and have fun with your friends. I pray that you'll find a lot of new friends so that you won't fuss over me all the time. I pray, that you'll be able to live a fulfilling and ...happy life."

Opening her eyes, she had to wipe it a few times to actually comprehend what was in front of her.

Her sister's skin color was no longer an unhealthy pale white, her body had filled up considerably and she looked almost as healthy as she used to be years ago.

"Wha-"

It was then, that Nick had to enlighten her with a strangely satisfied tone.

"The only thing humans can do is make choices. When you made a wish… you granted it yourself. If you made such an earnest prayer, then how could it not come to pass?"

As shocked as she was, she took the time to take in his words before relaxing, taking a deep breath and smiled back at him.

"As nice as the lines you ripped off Shirou Emiya sounded, could you tell me what you did? This rock can't do more than petty tricks on my end, after all."

"I suppose that's true. But the same can't be said if I wished for your wish to come true on my end."

"... Geez, you could have told me earlier…"

"If I did, it wouldn't have worked. [Desire Manifestation]'s power works the best on pure wishes, and it's power is magnified if more than one person's wishes are in line with each others. Of course, there's a lot of room for catastrophic consequences if it comes in contact with a bunch of edge lords that want the world to burn, which is why I keep the power limited to myself most of the time."

"You're talking a lot again."

"Whoops."

Even if Aiko was mostly healed at this point, well, there would be too many complications for a sudden miracle so they'll take things slowly.

They'll probably still need to keep up the facade that they're still sick since it would be easily for Nick to sort everything out in one go once he gets out. There'll be too many eyes and unwanted attention if it got out there was some miraculous healing in this hospital.

One too many urban legends coming to life, or certain interested parties could make life difficult.

It wouldn't be a problem in the past timeline where Nick sorted it out through great violence...

She stood up, went around and casted some other healing spells she knew wouldn't cause complications on the other members of the Sleeping Knights guild.

At any rate, it was time to get to work.

She needed to be back in the virtual world to avoid suspicion, as even with Kyoka Suigetsu, Nick couldn't warp reality at an insane level to simply fix a normal life quick enough.

Not when he was still stuck in there and with the barriers the Shinto pantheon had placed around this country.

"Woohoo! Croquettes!"

That said, she couldn't resist running to the nearest Family Mart in her hospital gown, using fake money to buy some real food!

Oh, and ice cream too!

She stuffed herself with snacks and sweets even as she worked on the letter that she was to write down while letting the Hogyoku handle the rest of the creation process on the package.

Soon enough, a few minutes before the server maintanence was over, she had a letter with an advanced USB drive filled with information transferred from Nick's mind. Next up, she ran to the post box and placed it in there, with the correct stamps and address, of course.

Argo's, or rather Ginjo Shiori's family would be getting a little offer to do some research.

They wouldn't refuse with the incentive that Nick had given them.

Probably… he often complained the future was fuzzy ever since he came to this world after losing everything along with some tiny soul shard carrying off his favourite OP power with it.

Apparently that soul shard has grown into it's own person fighting on the Moon or something, weird stuff.

Either way, his priority when getting out of SAO would be to recreate that power.

As for her, she let the Hogyoku lite do the work in plugging her back in and slightly warping the perceptions of the staff before getting back into the Medicuboid.

Ah, real life was fun! But there's a time and place for everything. Right now, she could be more useful staying safe in the hospital and acting as Nick's eyes in the virtual space.

"Link Start!"