Title: As Fire Blazes on the Horizon

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn! or Sword Art Online.

Warnings: AU, WIDELY AU.

(AN at bottom.)

As Fire Blazes on the Horizon

01: "Ignite"

Tsuna reached over and turned off the faucet of the sink, lightly tipping the pot in his hands to drain the water that had gathered on the bottom from the last rinsing. It was a simple thing after that to turn and place the ceramic pot on the drying rack, and he let out a soft, contented little sigh as he finally leaned back and stretched.

Well, there goes the last of the after-lunch cleanup.

He glanced up at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall.

12:48.

Tsuna nodded to himself in satisfaction and nabbed the two bottles of water he had set aside earlier on the counter, immediately heading towards the living room in search of his roommate. His sock-covered feet slid soundlessly over the wooden floorboards as he walked towards the faint voice emanating softly from that direction, a voice that gradually grew louder and louder as he neared the room –from quiet mumbles to jumbled words, then cohesive sentences.

"-know that the official launch will be at 1:00 PM. Many players have expressed their excitement at finally being able to experience the virtual world of SAO, which many of the beta-testers have claimed to be the–"

"Hey there, Tsuna!"

The dark-haired boy sitting on the couch with his laptop open in front of him gave Tsuna a cheery grin and a casual wave as he entered the room, which Tsuna returned with a smile. Yamamoto Takeshi took a brief moment to reach behind himself for the remote control before holding out the small device and turning off the TV. As the reporter's voice disappeared, cut off right in the middle of a sentence, Takeshi quickly scooted over to the left side of the couch and patted the spot he had just vacated.

At the unspoken invitation, Tsuna sat down beside him and peered at the screen from over his roommate's shoulder.

"Is that–?"

"Yup, it sure is." Takeshi flashed another grin at his friend. "Looks like most people are going haywire on the forums right now, haha."

"I'm not surprised," Tsuna replied dryly, and Takeshi laughed. "How long have you been checking out the online forum discussions?"

"Eh… ever since I finished vacuuming the floor like you asked me to?" The tanned teen shrugged. "There's not much new stuff that's going on here, other than the fact that there's a lot more threads for 'being enthusiastic for the official launch' that's in… eleven minutes."

"Ten," Tsuna corrected as the number changed, smiling. "Are you participating in these discussions, too?"

"Nah, there's not much point in doing that. I mean, from what the beta testers say, it's apparently literally like being in another world –tips and tricks for motor control and getting used to a new environment can only go so far when they're ink on paper. Or rather, text on a digital screen." Takeshi reached out his other hand and closed his laptop, quickly powering it down. "I was just browsing through the discussions, seeing if anyone was going to let slip something new. No luck so far and I doubt my luck is going to change in the last ten minutes."

Tsuna hummed lightly in agreement, before holding out Takeshi's bottle of water to him, which the other boy accepted with a grateful nod.

"Well, I still can't believe how lucky we were to even get the NerveGear and SAO in the first place." Tsuna stood up from the couch and ambled his way over to where they had spread out two futon side by side. The power outlets in the living room were much easier to connect the NerveGear to than from the cluttered confines of their respective bedrooms, which was why they had decided to camp out here. "Do you suppose Reborn had anything to do with it?"

"You mean, did he pull some strings to let you buy a game to play… right after he preached that every minute not spent training was a minute wasted?"

Tsuna laughed, "I'm pretty sure he meant that as in, 'Don't slack off for too long because you're playing a game,' not 'Don't play, period.' It's just Reborn's way of… showing affection, I guess."

Takeshi mouthed 'showing affection' in silent amazement, shaking his head.

"C'mon, let's just get ready for this now." Tsuna held up one of the bulky NerveGear helmets limply, "… Er, how does this thing work again?"

"Like this," Takeshi stepped over and deftly connected the wires, before fitting the helmet over Tsuna's head. "We already did the body calibrations when we got them last week, so we don't need to do that again. Now, scoot over, will you?"

Takeshi settled himself down next to Tsuna. It took him a moment longer to ready his own NerveGear, but eventually he managed it with a small cry of triumph that made Tsuna smile.

"How long do we have left before the launch again?"

"Five-ish, I'm guessing?" Tsuna glanced at the watch on his wrist. "Make that three minutes."

"I'm going to set an alarm for 6 PM. Is that okay with you? Dad wants us over at the sushi bar around then, so we should be able to get there around 6:30." Takeshi rolled over and fiddled with his cell phone before setting it back onto the couch and flopping down again.

12:58.

Yamamoto Takeshi was one of the only friends that Tsuna had –courtesy of constantly moving all over the world during his childhood, only recently settling in Tokyo for the last two years. The two of them hadn't exactly hit it off with each other at first, but they instead ended up slowly gravitating together. For all that Takeshi was popular and well-liked at school as the star of the baseball team, he was actually incredibly isolated from his peers.

Long story short, there had been an accident involving a broken arm and a thwarted murder attempt, which was what solidified their friendship with each other for good. Shortly thereafter Takeshi had found out that Tsuna lived by himself and worked part-time jobs after school to pitch in to the rent for his small apartment, which was when he moved in with his friend –declaring that, as roommates, the burden should be halved between them, which would make it easier on Tsuna.

(And for all his initial protests in the beginning, Tsuna was truly, honestly grateful –grateful that Takeshi wanted to help him. Yamamoto Tsuyoshi had seemed absurdly pleased when his son explained his reasons for moving out, only citing that he wanted the boys to come over to his sushi bar whenever possible. The only other person who had ever done anything like Takeshi had was–)

"Link Start."

Tsuna jerked lightly, having lost track of time in his thoughts, and hastily echoed the voice command that Takeshi had said. Instantly, the world fell away around him –the ceiling disappeared and was immediately replaced by whiteness; a solid world of whiteness that stretched as far as the eye could see, before prismatic lines swarmed in from the edge of his vision, converging together towards a single point and–

Welcome to Sword Art Online. Please enter your username below.

There was a box, floating in midair, when he opened his eyes again. A closer look discovered that it came with a blue-green keyboard hovering underneath. Hesitantly, Tsuna reached out with a single hand and touched one of the keys, eyes widening with amazement when he could actually feel it vibrate lightly under his fingertip and the corresponding letter appeared in the box above.

He hastily deleted the character and re-typed the name he had decided to use, waiting with bated breath as he was registered by the system.

Player confirmed. Please proceed to the next step and modify your in-game avatar.

It was… himself.

Tsuna stared for a moment at his avatar, an inanimate doppelganger of himself, before shrugging off the surrealness of the situation and turning to look at the options bar on the side. There was an incredible variety of factors that players could animate: Skin color, hair color, hair style, eye color, facial structure, height… gender?

(Nope, nope, not touching that last option with a ten-foot pole.)

Well… yes, he would like to be a little taller, but didn't one of the beta discussions mention that the discrepancy in height was a troublesome change to adjust to that made movements jerky and awkward?

Tsuna ended up simply changing his hair into a darker brown and shortening it slightly, adding a tanned tone to his skin as an afterthought, before pressing the 'Confirm' button floating off to the side.

Avatar confirmed. Saving…

A bell-like chime rang through the air in a signal of success.

Natsu, your avatar has been saved. Please stand by while the game is loading in 3… 2… 1…

Colors swirled together and the ground dropped out from under his feet–

Thank you for choosing Sword Art Online. We hope you will enjoy your adventure here!

As a beta tester, Kirito had the distinct advantage of being privy to certain tidbits of information useful to playing SAO. Information such as the layout of the area map and where the best farming spots were, for example.

It was for that reason that when the player named Klein asked him to show him the ropes, Kirito's mind immediately leapt to one of the fields in the north, a little ways outside the Town of Beginnings, where level 1 Wild Boars spawned sporadically on the grassy plains. The mobs were generally sparser in that location, making it perfect for instructing beginners and first-time NerveGear users on how to kill monsters and use Sword Skills in SAO.

"The System Assist will help you use your skills," he explained, leaning back against the tree. "But you have to get into the right position in order to trigger the Sword Skill first. Then the system will help you carry the movement through and hit your target."

The redhead in front of him continued flailing helplessly against the Wild Boar, continuously taking down tiny slivers of HP with each hit. It got to a point where the Wild Boar finally seemed tired of his feeble attempts as well, lowering its head and headbutting him straight in the–

"OWW!" Klein yelped and dropped to the ground like a rock, curling up in the fetal position. The raven-haired boy watching with him simply sighed, shaking his head at the other man's antics. True, Klein was a rather fun guy to be around, but he had the tendency to dramatize and overreact to everything he saw. In all likelihood, though, it was probably because this was his first time using a NerveGear.

Kirito himself had spent hours upon hours familiarizing himself with this world during the beta-testing period to get to the point where he was now; hadn't his attitude been the same as Klein's in the beginning?

"C'mon, get up. It's not like you can even feel pain here."

"Eh?" Klein blinked, startled by what was just pointed out to him, before smiling sheepishly and scratching his head. "Ah, right, even though this is all so realistic, you can't feel pain… haha, force of habit, I guess."

He gingerly picked himself up from the ground.

"In order to use Sword Skills, it's a bit like… hm, how do I put this…" Kirito mused aloud, taking a moment to pick up a pebble to demonstrate for his companion, "Take the stance for a skill, and when you feel it beginning to build up, just relax and let the system take care of the rest."

Almost as if on cue, the rock began glowing red towards the end of his sentence, and hurtled into the Wild Boar's flank in a flash of crimson light as he released the skill. Startled, the monster spun around and glared, before charging straight at him. Kirito easily dodged the first lunge with a small sidestep and used his sword to block the second, glancing towards Klein and motioning for him to try again.

This time, it was a success.

The redhead's curved blade was coated in a yellow light as the system registered the skill, and he let out a battle cry as he sprinted forward, carving a deep gouge into the boar's side, a long strike that easily took out the remainder of the Wild Boar's HP and shattered the monster in a burst of pixilated light.

"Congrats." Kirito smiled as the man pumped a fist into the air in excitement. "Although, I should mention; the boar that you killed just now is the equivalent of slimes in other games."

"Eh?!" Klein's jaw abruptly dropped upon hearing the parallel as he whirled around to stare at him, gaping. "No way! I thought that thing was a field boss or something! It's way tougher than a slime should be!"

"Didn't you hear? After an entire summer of beta-testing, we only got up to the 10th Floor." He shrugged, a spark of excitement lighting in his chest in anticipation of the challenges to come. "There's 100 floors in total in Aincrad."

"Haa, such a hellish difficulty curve…" Klein whistled and shook his head in amazement, "Hey, speaking of which, I heard that SAO has practically any skill you can think of incorporated into its gameplay, but there's no magic, right?"

"Nope," Kirito confirmed for him. "Some of the beta players raised complaints about it, but there's been no word about a magic expansion to the game."

"Definitely no magic? Eh, that's fine with me." The redhead grinned, "This game is pretty insane already! I mean, if they–"

"H-HEADS UP BELOW!"

Kirito stepped back in alarm when a blue blur suddenly dropped down from the sky, swiftly followed by an orange one. Klein wasn't as lucky, looking up just in time to become a human mattress for the pair of players who literally hurtled down out of nowhere.

Kirito blinked.

Well. This was a new one.

"S-Sorry!" The brunet was the first to roll out of the moaning pile, a movement mirrored by his dark-haired friend. Klein groaned dazedly as he slowly got to his feet again –missing a good chunk of his HP gauge, too, which was now in the red. "I'm really sorry, Takeshi and I were just exploring those areas over there, and there was this– this crazy large boar with giant tusks that was as tall as the town wall and hit like a wrecking ball–"

"Maa, it's okay, it's okay, no harm done." Klein grinned and waved off their apologies, shooting them a thumbs-up, before doing a double-take when he saw the sorry state of his HP. "Wha–?!"

"Better drink a potion," Kirito smiled, before turning his attention onto the newcomers. Judging by that frantic description just now, they had most likely ran into the actual field boss in this area. It was a good thing that nothing had followed them down from wherever they had jumped; the last thing they needed was for a field boss to use Klein as a landing pad as well. Seeing as there were no monsters pursuing them, they had probably gotten far enough to escape from drawing the aggro of the field boss by now.

"I'm really, really sorry about this–"

"Hey, didn't I say it was okay already?" Klein waved a hand carelessly as his HP bar went back up again after drinking a potion. "Just… watch where you're going next time and don't use some other poor guy as a trampoline, yeah? I mean, I'm pretty sturdy and all, but if you landed on someone like Kirito here, you'd probably end up with a pancake on your hand!"

Kirito's head snapped up. "Hey!"

The taller of the two boys laughed good-naturedly. "Tsuna, what do you think? Who should we use as a trampoline next time?"

"There won't be a next time!" 'Tsuna' insisted, groaning at the implication. "Takeshi, do you enjoy watching me suffer or something? I swear, your sense of humor is getting more and more Reborn-like every day!"

Reborn-like?

"Haha, you really think so? I'm flattered."

"That's not a compliment!"

"Really? Sure sounded like one to me," Klein joined in on the friendly teasing, hefting his curved sword onto his shoulder. "So, uh, Tsuna and Takeshi, was it? I'm Klein, and this guy over here is Kirito –Kirito is showing me the ropes in this game since he's one of the betas. Wanna join us?"

"Natsu and Kirisame, actually; we just know each other in real life so we're used to calling each other by our actual names. And… are you sure? I mean, we did kind of crash-land on you and all…" the brunet trailed off, glancing in Kirito's direction.

"I don't mind if Klein doesn't," Kirito shrugged, folding his arms. From what he could see so far, the two seemed to be decent people, for all that they nearly KO'd Klein by complete accident. Though he was a little miffed that Klein hadn't asked his opinion before inviting the duo to join them, he also knew that Klein was friendly and easygoing by nature, the type to waltz up to complete strangers and walk away as friends. The same couldn't exactly be said for himself, which the brunet seemed to understand, judging by the way he was looking at him right now.

Kirito pushed a small smile onto his face. "Pleased to meet you. Welcome to our party, I guess."

"Pleased to meet you too, Kirito." Natsu smiled brightly, holding out his hand, "Thanks for letting us tag along!"

(Even after Kirito let go of Natsu's hand, something in his palm tingled, as if he had held his hand over an open flame. But it wasn't… unpleasant. In fact, it felt warm. It felt… rather nice, really.)

Being forcibly teleported, Tsuna decided, was a decidedly Not Nice experience. It felt a bit like having the carpet yanked out from under your feet (a stomach-flipping sensation that he could sadly attest to, courtesy of a certain Spartan hitman), perhaps with a dash of being liberally doused in cold water, as well (again, something he could attest to by personal experience).

"What's going on?"

No idea.

Tsuna scanned the large stadium they had been teleported into as more and more flashes of light lit up around them, rapidly bringing other players into the same space. He quickly reached out a hand and grabbed onto Takeshi's wrist –they had gotten separated from Klein and Kirito when they appeared here; Tsuna thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't gotten separated from Takeshi as well. There was something coiling restlessly in the pit of his stomach right now, which most likely meant that something big was coming… and it probably wasn't anything good.

Tsuna truly wanted to be optimistic that they were simply being gathered here for some 'first day' event or for the GMs finally fixing whatever had caused the 'Log Out' button in their menus to be disabled, but…

(A soft voice, whispering in the back of his mind. A vague sense of unease as he looked out across the crowd of players. A faint intuition of something wrong, one that was gradually growing stronger –one that he couldn't brush aside anymore. He had assumed that maybe it was because Reborn had dropped back for a surprise check on them again, but he knew that wasn't the case. This feeling, the last time he had felt anything remotely like it had been when–)

System Error.

Warning.

SYSTEM ERROR.

WARNING.

–the sky turned red. Flashing red signs of 'System Error' and 'Warning' changed the sky from azure blue to crimson red in less than a heartbeat, casting a scarlet shadow upon them all. Tsuna could feel his heart pounding in his chest –or at least some simulation that the game made of the actual, physical sensation– when a viscous red liquid dripped down from between the cracks and twisted together, bulging and swelling not unlike what he had once seen when V–

A cloak.

A red cloak, covering a faceless man in the sky.

It spoke.

"Greetings, players." The robed figure spread its hands, gesturing at its surroundings. "Welcome to the world of Aincrad. My name is Kayaba Akihiko, and right now, I am the only one who can control this world."

'Only one who can control this world.' That… didn't sound good. Wait, Kayaba Akihiko? As in, Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of SAO? That Kayaba?

"I am sure that many of you have realized by now that the 'Log Out' button is missing from your menu. This is not a mistake. I repeat: this is not a mistake. The game has been intentionally designed this way." The ominous figure garbed in red paused, "There is no way to log out. Should anyone from the outside attempt to forcibly shut down or remove the NerveGear, the transmitter installed inside will emit a large microwave pulse to destroy your brain… and end your life."

He wasn't lying.

Tsuna trusted his intuition, it was what had gotten him out of an innumerable number of tight spots before –and right now, it was telling him that Kayaba Akihiko wasn't lying about trapping 10,000 people in a VR game.

"This news is currently being spread to those in the real world as well. Unfortunately, there have been several well-meaning attempts by friends and family to remove the NerveGear." A wave of the hand, and he could see it. Broadcasts of various channels. Online articles. Images of the chaos currently taking place in reality, images that hammered in the cold, harsh truth that faced them. "As a result, I regret to inform you that 213 players are no longer with us –gone from both Aincrad and the real world. However, as proper measures are now being taken, you may assume that the danger of dying from the NerveGear is now minimal, and focus your efforts on upon clearing the game."

Another small pause.

"I now present to you this ultimatum: Defeat the final boss to clear the game, and I will release you. Presently, you are on the first floor of Aincrad. There are one hundred floors total, each with a different boss waiting in every dungeon. There are no methods of resurrection or revival. As soon as your HP is reduced to zero, you are dead. In the same instant that your avatar disappears, the NerveGear will destroy your brain."

Trapping people in a VR game and forcing them to defeat the game in order to escape? It was… it was…

(Ridiculous. Crazy. Insane.)

… It was real.

He wasn't lying.

He wasn't lying.

"I have recently added a present to your personal inventory. Please, have a look."

Menu. Items. Tsuna scrolled to the bottom to find a Hand Mirror listed there, and–

He hesitated.

(Kayaba is trapping us in a game, forcing us to put our lives on the line for a game. Would he really give us anything that would help us here?)

But Takeshi had gone and taken out the mirror and was currently staring at it, so Tsuna bit his tongue and pressed the button as well. The rectangular mirror that materialized in his hand looked simple and innocuous enough, but the reflection inside…

The reflection didn't show Natsu. It showed a reflection of the real Sawada Tsunayoshi, exactly as he appeared in real life.

Stunned, Tsuna almost didn't notice it when he was engulfed in a burst of light that twisted his body like so many others around him until–

"Tsuna! Tsuna, are you alright?"

"… 'M fine, Takeshi." He mumbled dazedly, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair. "What just–"

He froze.

His hair. It wasn't the shorter hairstyle that Natsu sported; rather, it was Tsuna's normal hairstyle. His hairstyle in the real world. That meant…

He glanced up at Takeshi, who had lost the long hair and topknot of Kirisame, and was instead simply Takeshi, who stared back at him with the same surprise written in his eyes. They weren't the only ones shocked by this turn of events –already chaos was beginning to spread throughout the rest of the players at discovering they had been turned back into their original appearances.

"I will now take this moment to announce the first update to SAO. The Dying Will Flames System has now been enabled. This is a feature new and unique to SAO that has not been introduced in the beta version. I recommend that you all adapt quickly and learn to harness your Flames –this skill will prove both indispensible and invaluable to you in clearing the game."

… Dying Will Flames?

Dying Will Flames.

Dying Will Flames.

"… He just broke Omerta," Takeshi whispered softly, eyes wide. Tsuna's own reaction was hardly any better.

Of course, breaking Omerta meant that someone had to know that it had been broken in the first place. While that was still true in their case, it was literally impossible for the Vindice to swoop in and arrest Kayaba when he had revealed the existence of Dying Will Flames in a closed environment, in a virtual world. No one other than the players themselves would ever know of what had transpired here unless they were rescued or managed to escape from the game.

"This now concludes the tutorial for the official launch of SAO." The cloaked figure in the sky folded its hands together, bowing its head in what could be construed as a slight nod. "Players, I wish you the best of luck. Arrivederci."

Slowly, the figure disappeared, first dissolving into a gelatinous red fluid again before vanishing through the cracks of the scarlet sky –a sky that reverted to a normal blue hue again as soon as Kayaba Akihiko was gone. The damning silence that had befallen them in wake of his departure was stifling, suffocating, crushing–

Then all hell broke loose when someone shattered the silence with a shrill scream.

Instant pandemonium.

"He… he just broke Omerta," Takeshi finally repeated again, still poleaxed by what had just transpired. Tsuna forcibly tugged his friend along as he wove his way through the rampaging crowd, doing his best to go along with the flow in order to avoid being trampled. "Tsuna, why would he…?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Heart in his throat, Tsuna quickly scanned ahead of them and all but dragged Takeshi into one of the smaller offshoots of the main street, ducking into the empty alleyway. "This can't be good, though. Dying Will Flames, they're not… Reborn told me the theory behind them, how everyone has a Flame burning inside their core. It's what gives us life, but… just, it's not just anyone who can draw it out. The mafia knows how to harness this power, so they developed the appropriate training methods for it…"

"But this is a game." Takeshi's eyes furrowed, "I mean, how does that even work? Unless Kayaba installed a set of Flame-based skills like those Sword Skills…? If he programmed it into the system, maybe…"

He trailed off, seeing his friend frown at whatever he saw on the screen floating in front of him.

"Tsuna?"

"Check your skill page, Takeshi." Tsuna said instead, biting his lip, "Follow the instructions there and tell me what you see. Please."

"A-Alright," the dark-haired boy nodded and opened his own menu, navigating to the 'Skills' tab. There was a subcategory there titled 'Dying Will Flame.' Takeshi clicked on the subcategory with a single finger, which led to another page where only one skill was listed –'Determine Attribute.'

He pressed the button.

And that was when he felt it, a small tugging sensation in his navel. The sensation of something pulling at his flames, something that didn't make sense –wasn't this supposed to be the avatar in a virtual world? How was it possible to feel something like this so clearly? It felt almost as if he was in his real body, and someone was trying to drain his flames–

Congratulations! You have now activated your Rain Flames.

"Takeshi?"

"I…" he glanced up at Tsuna, shaken by what had just happened. "It says I have Rain Flames. How does it even know–?"

"Under your HP bar, is there an extra one there now?"

"Y-Yeah. Yeah, there is. It… huh, it's way ahead of what I have for HP." Takeshi scratched his head, frowning at the implications. If this game could somehow measure the level of their Flames, it… it didn't bode well. "It's labeled FV, though. Something flame-related, I'm guessing?"

"It doesn't have any explanations for the abbreviation here, but I'm betting it refers to 'Fiamma Volts.'" Tsuna let out an explosive exhale, leaning on the wall behind himself, trying to get his bearings. "Damn. Damn. Just… damn. Reborn is going to kill me for this."

"What?" Takeshi blinked, startled by the non-sequitur at the end. "Wait, why Reborn…?"

"Because I just got us trapped in a game that could very well kill us, if Kayaba is to be believed. And he is –or at least, he wasn't lying, not when he explained everything to us back there." the brunet grimaced.

"Hyper Intuition?" the Rain inquired lightly, and Tsuna nodded. "Well… damn. It's not your fault, though, no one could've known what he planned for this game. What's our next move, Tsuna?"

"… I don't doubt that your dad probably knows what's happening right now. He'll take care of us, and probably try to find some sort of way to get the NerveGear off safely –Reborn will be helping as well, once he gets here, and we can only pray that Kyouya won't go on a rampage when he finds out what happened to us." Tsuna twitched at the thought. "Problem is, we don't know how long it'll take for them to find the solution to getting the NerveGear off safely, or... or if it's even possible in the first place. They'll probably have to call in favors and use their contacts to find help, but with the mess in Italy and all…"

Takeshi folded his arms.

"So… our other option is to clear the game." He frowned and tapped his chin thoughtfully, "It's not going to be easy. The beta testing took, what, two to three months? They only got up to the tenth floor during that time. Even assuming we go twice as fast since there's more people playing the game now, that's almost two years. And with more people, Kayaba might decide to increase the level of difficulty, too."

"In short, we're stuck here for the foreseeable future," Tsuna concluded grimly with a soft sigh. "Wonderful. At least we won't have to worry about the exams next week."

Takeshi let out a sharp bark of laughter, "Tsuna, I'd actually welcome the exams now if it means they'll let us out of here."

"I know. But we're stuck here for now, aren't we? Seeing as we don't know how long it'll take, we might as well try to see whatever silver lining there is in our current situation," the young Sky pointed out.

"Yeah, it's just…" Takeshi let out a long breath, covering his eyes with his arm and tilting his face upwards. "Sorry for snapping at you, Tsuna. I shouldn't have done that. It's just… my old man, we were supposed to see him today after this. What's he going to say when he learns about this? And… his birthday is coming up soon, too, and I wanted to actually be there with him, y'know? We were going to invite you too, close the sushi bar for a day, and–"

"Then we just have to make it out of here, won't we?" Tsuna said gently, moving his hands over Takeshi's gripping them firmly to let it sink in that he wasn't alone and they could do this. "This is going to change a lot of things, seeing as we can't let ourselves die in the field anymore, but it just means we'll have to take a careful approach. No more provoking titanic boars way out of our level range and running off the edge of a cliff again, alright?"

"Roger that, Boss." Takeshi gave a slightly strangled laugh, and Tsuna bumped him lightly in the shoulder.

"I asked you not to call me that, didn't I?" the shorter boy corrected, though without any real heat in his voice. "It's 'Tsuna,' okay? Or… 'Natsu,' I guess, seeing as we're in a game right now, even though it's not really a game anymore…"

"A death game, more like." Takeshi shook his head and straightened, recovering his bearings and getting himself under control again. "Okay. Okay. So… focus on beating the game. Right. Crap, I just realized I'm going to be missing a lot of baseball if we don't get out of here soon…"

Tsuna laughed, glad at seeing Takeshi regain most of his composure. "Then we'll just have to try our best so we can go back to the real world soon, no? It's a good thing that we're used to fighting already, I guess. Though, it's certainly going to be weird fighting animals here for a change…"

"Ah, I second that thought." Takeshi pushed himself off the wall, stretching. "I guess that's another way to look at it –we're going through a period of intensive combat training here. Hey, isn't that what Full Dive technology was originally invented for?"

"I think I might've heard that mentioned somewhere." Tsuna nodded, then shivered. "Shouldn't be as bad as Reborn's boot camp, though, right?"

Other than the threat of death hanging over our heads, because no matter how much of a slave-driver Reborn is, he knows our limits. He wouldn't kill us. This game, it effectively hangs a Sword of Damocles over our heads. How many people will be able to withstand this type of pressure without cracking?

"I hope Klein and Kirito are alright."

Right; they had gotten separated from each other during the mass-teleportation. Both of them were good people, but… death was seldom fair. Tsuna would know; all he could hope for right now was that they would stay alive and safe. Kirito was probably the least of their worries, being a beta tester and all –Klein was a different matter altogether. But he had a good head on his shoulders, and with what Kirito had taught them about SAO itself, it would be as good of a start as they would ever get.

The Dying Will Flames, however…

Just the fact that Dying Will Flames were added as a feature of this game was worrisome. If what he suspected –if what he had felt when the system determined his Flame affinity– was true, then it meant that Kayaba had some ulterior motive behind developing this game. Breaking Omerta and revealing the existence of Dying Will Flames to civilians, then forcing them to fight their way through a hundred-floor floating castle? It sounded ludicrous when put into context like that, but that didn't mean it was any less true.

Just what was Kayaba after?

Tsuna focused his gaze to the left again. His FV gauge, like Takeshi's, far outstripped his HP bar, which seemed minuscule in comparison. Considering this, it was likely that the game system had made realistic calculations of their flame levels as they were in reality. Somehow, the system had been able to reach out and assess their Flame levels, before converting it into in-game data. There were many ways to measure Fiamma Volts, but they generally required some sort of special apparatus to do so.

Unless, was it part of the NerveGear somehow?

(Why would someone try to install a Flame-assessing mechanism into what was supposed to be the equivalent of a game console? It didn't make sense.)

Tsuna was many things, but thickheaded and oblivious were two things that he hadn't been for a long time, not since Reborn had first taken him under his wing. His intuition was accurate –and right now, it was telling him that there was something more to this. But just what was it? If the man went to all this effort to create this game… just what was in it for Kayaba Akihiko?

He asked Takeshi what he thought about the matter, only to be met with a small shrug.

"Well, I guess we'll find out when we reach the 100th Floor and get out, won't we?"

"… Ah. Yeah, I guess we will."

November 06, 2022.

The long-anticipated SAO is finally up and running, but it is not the game that people had hoped for.

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…

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Author's Notes:

Hi everyone. Welcome to As Fire Blazes on the Horizon.

KHRxSAO crossovers don't seem to be very popular, seeing as there are only three other stories in the archives at this point, but I couldn't resist trying my hand at this. :3 The idea for As Fire Blazes on the Horizon has been stewing in my mind for awhile, and when I browsed around the site for fanfics with a similar premise to what I have here, well… I couldn't find what I had in mind.

(And when you can't find the fanfic you want to read, what do you do? Go and try to write it yourself, of course. xD)

This story is going to be pretty AU. I'll be taking several liberties with both KHR and SAO in an attempt to mesh the two worlds together –we'll see how well the mixing goes as the story progresses. Note that I'll try to keep the cast in-character to the best of my ability, but be forewarned that things might not be perfect, especially since there's also the AU aspect of this all to consider. Which will make more sense as the story develops more, I suppose. I'm pretty sure that some AU aspects are already apparent from this first chapter.

No yaoi/yuri in this fic. The only pairing I know for sure will be in this fic is Kirito/Asuna, and I haven't made up my mind about the rest of the cast yet, though I'm leaning towards gen.

… Well.

Feel free to leave a note with any questions you might have about this story, and I'll see what I can do to respond. Or if you're interested in seeing this continued, yeah? :D Keep in mind that if you leave anonymous guest reviews, I can't respond to anything.

-XxZuiliu