Chapter I: "I Died Today"

November 6th, 2032

There was a kind of forbidden thrill to running her fingers over the smooth, blue polymer. The helmet, with its blocky logo and simple trio of system lights, represented something completely outside her experience. Something she absolutely wasn't allowed to do—but was doing anyway.

Sitting in the desk chair in her bedroom, Yuuki Asuna felt a confused rush of worry, guilt, and excitement. The NerveGear she held in her hands was something of which her mother would never have approved, and she knew it. Yet it represented a kind of freedom she'd never known in her life, one just moments away.

"Okay, Asuna," her brother Kouichirou said, backing out from under her desk. "It's connected to the house network. I doubt Mother will even notice, if you're careful… Here." He picked up the case sitting on the desk, pulled out the ROM unit, and held it out to her. "All you need to do now is put it in, and put the NerveGear on."

"Thanks, Nii-san." Taking the ROM, Asuna carefully inserted the game into the appropriate port. She'd never handled a NerveGear before at all, but she'd done her research well, since the day Kouichirou's talk with their father had gotten her attention. From the moment she'd learned of Full-Dive, it had been eating at her, and if she still didn't understand all the little details, she thought she knew enough to get started.

Dusting off his knees, her brother smiled ruefully. "I never thought you'd get to try it before I did, Asuna. I guess that's the breaks of business… Be careful, okay? If Mother finds out…"

"I know, Nii-san." She knew all too well how Yuuki Kyouko was likely to react, if she knew what Asuna was planning. Fortunately, their mother kept herself to as rigid a schedule as her children, giving Asuna at least something of a safety margin. "Don't worry. There's supposed to be an alarm function in-game, right? I'll set it as soon as I'm in."

"Good." Kouichirou patted her on the shoulder. "In that case, I'd better get going. Stupid day for a business meeting… Have fun, Asuna." Heading for her door, he paused just before opening it. "Try not to get too far ahead of me, okay? I want to party with you in-game when I do have time!"

Asuna giggled. "No promises! …Though you'll catch up to me quick, anyway." Settling the blue helmet over her head, she turned a more serious look on her brother. "Nii-san? Thank you."

He gave her a serious smile in return. "'Least I could do, Asuna. I could tell you needed it. …See you soon."

When Kouichirou had gone—and safely closed the door behind him—Asuna leaned back in her chair. From what she'd read, it was best to be in a reclining position, going into Full-Dive. She wasn't going to take any chances on her first time. Which, if she wasn't mistaken, was going to be in just a few moments.

As she fastened the NerveGear's chinstrap, the clock on its thin visor was crawling forward. Just when she'd settled in, it ticked over to [13:00], and Asuna took a deep breath to steady herself against the adrenaline flooding her veins. This was it, her first little act of rebellion.

"Link Start!"

Pure darkness. Absolute silence. If she hadn't still been able to feel the chair beneath her and the NerveGear on her head, Asuna would've panicked. Even knowing from her brother's comments that it was coming, the sudden sensory deprivation was still a shock.

It only lasted a second, even if it felt longer. A rainbow appeared in her vision, first fuzzy then gradually growing sharper. Against that backdrop, a [NERVEGEAR] logo formed out of nothingness. A few moments more, and [Visual Connection OK] appeared below the logo.

A strange pattern of sounds followed, some recognizable as a simple scale, others completely alien. All of them were fuzzy and distorted. Gradually, though, they settled into a harmonious melody, and another line of text appeared in her vision: [Auditory Nerve Connection OK].

The sensation of her chair disappeared right after that, leaving Asuna feeling as if she were floating. The music, logo, and status messages kept her grounded—but if anyone had asked, she would've readily admitted it was unsettling.

After touch and the genuinely disturbing taste connection checks, not to mention the indescribable smell test, all sensory connections were apparently [OK]. Then Asuna was falling forward, into that rainbow, in one of the most dizzying experiences of her life.

She landed in a white room, with a display that reminded her for all the world of a clothes shopping app. The variety of sliders for determining the body type of her avatar was frankly bewildering, and after some quick poking she gave up, settling for setting the body's height to match her real body. That and a quick change of hair and eye color, whimsically choosing a deep blue, was good enough for her. The face wasn't too bad, she thought, and if she changed her mind she was sure she'd be able to edit it when she understood the system better.

Asuna found herself frowning at the limited clothing options available. She knew she'd seen more of a variety in screenshots… Only with difficulty did she stop herself from facepalming, remembering belatedly that in a game like this, most options were probably obtained through actively playing it.

Fine, then. A simple hooded cloak was all she bothered to add to the default, reasoning that like the body she could change it later. She didn't want to spend too long building her character, anyway, not if she wanted time to experience the game the first day.

The last step, she found puzzling. A Romanji keyboard and text field replaced the avatar, with a simple prompt. A name? Shouldn't it already have that from my account registration? Well, whatever.

Shrugging, she simply typed in [Asuna], and hit enter. She'd ask Kouichirou about it later.

The entire menu disappeared, leaving her standing alone in that empty white room. Then, before she could start to worry, an artificial voice rang out. "Thank you for playing. Welcome… to Sword Art Online."

The world fell away.

A chatter of excited voices reached her ears, and Asuna opened her eyes to sheer wonder.

She stood in a vast plaza of a grand city, surrounded by majestic stone buildings. Out beyond the tallest towers, she caught a glimpse of mountains reaching higher still, surrounding the city; within the plaza, she was presented with a bewildering sea of people. Some of them dressed plainly, others in all manner of flamboyant colors, with hair dyed to match.

Instantly overwhelmed, Asuna turned in place, one way and then the other, just trying to take it all in. A bubbling fountain was the centerpiece of the plaza, pouring into a huge pool surrounding it. Well beyond it, a bell tower caught her eye among the towers surrounding the plaza. Streets ran out in all directions, disappearing between those grand buildings.

What really got her attention, though, and spurred her into motion, was the huge platform on one side. Dozens of people—players, she thought, realizing belatedly the more ordinary people were probably "NPCs"—were already there, looking at the same thing she wanted to see.

Running up to the railing, cloak billowing gently in the breeze, she skidded to a halt right against it. Beyond that railing, the city—and the land—simply ended. All that there was, before her amazed eyes, was open sky. Open sky, a faint golden shimmer, and myriad islands floating in the air, a collection stretching out as far as she could see.

This was it, Asuna realized giddily. This was the place that had captured her imagination, when she'd first seen her brother looking at previews. Even as her body lay motionless in her bedroom, here she stood at the very edge of Origia, the first city players saw in the Aincrad Archipelago. A city on an island sailing through the endless sky, a whole new world.

"Just look at it all!" she heard another player exclaim in awe. "I was so jealous of the beta testers, and now here I am… Can you believe this?"

"Yeah! The first VRMMORPG. Man, I was sure it was too good to be true. I mean, previews always exaggerate, right? But this—wow! I didn't think you could do this with VR!"

Asuna couldn't disagree with the sentiment. On a moment's reflection, she noticed a few things were off—she didn't have any hair except on her head, as far as she could tell, and her skin looked just a bit smoother than it should've been. But otherwise? Her clothes felt so real. She could see so clearly, much better than she could with her own body. She'd smelled the fountain in the air when she passed it, and the breeze brought her the faint scent of baking bread. The cacophony of excited voices reached her ears more clearly that even her latest smartphone.

Wheeling away from that amazing—and dizzying—view of the open sky, Asuna trotted back to the city proper. She marveled at the smooth cobblestones under her feet, at the weathered stone of the buildings. If she hadn't known better, she would've believed she'd really been transported to a whole new world. Between players chatting about the same things she was taking in, she saw ordinary people going about their lives. Street merchants selling food and goods, like something out of any real city.

It's a good thing I do have an alarm, she thought. Quickly dragging two fingers down, as the pre-release material had said, to bring up her in-game menu. I'd never remember to get out in time otherwise!

After awkwardly navigating that menu and setting it to alert her at 17:30, she took off into the city. She didn't know what she wanted to see first, she just knew she wanted to see it all.

Asuna was in a strange city in a strange world, with no family or chaperones around. She didn't think she'd ever felt so free in her life.

"I'm Klein, samurai, twenty-four years old, looking for a girlfriend!"

The thing about being in a strange city in a strange world, when Asuna had never touched a game in her life, was that once she'd seen the obvious sights she had no idea what to do next. She knew she needed to buy a weapon, but she didn't know where to look for one, and for all that she'd read all the preview material she could get her hands on, she had only the vaguest idea how fighting worked. She was eager to learn, yet had no idea whatsoever where to start.

Having quickly gotten lost, she'd begun heading vaguely back in the direction of the plaza. Not long after she thought she'd gotten onto a street going more or less that way, she'd run into the man who'd just given her the bizarrely blunt introduction. "You're a noob, too, right?" he'd said at first. "Man, I don't even know where to go first! Isn't that awesome?"

Then he'd said… that.

Tall, rakishly handsome, with flaming hair tied back in a samurai's topknot with an outfit that looked like a vague attempt to match. If she hadn't been reasonably sure he looked nothing like that in the real world, Asuna might've been impressed. Well, that, and his ridiculous greeting.

That straightforward self-introduction—made all the weirder by the fact that she was pretty sure he couldn't even see what she looked like under her hood—left Asuna utterly flabbergasted. She could only blink rapidly, staring at the formal bow he had to have lifted right from a Jidai Geki movie, and wonder if he could possibly be for real.

And he kept holding that bow, as if his honor depended on letting her make the next move.

She did, finally. Unable to help herself, Asuna broke down in a fit of giggles, clutching at her stomach. In the real world, she would've found the proposition creepy. Here, in a world of wonders, in a city full of people who looked just as inhumanly good as the self-proclaimed samurai, it came across as just ridiculous.

The giggling, finally, broke Klein's formal bow, and he straightened up with an aggrieved look. "Aw, c'mon, I didn't think it was that bad a line…" That only set her off more, and then he rallied with a sheepish grin. "Okay, okay, maybe it was that bad."

"S-sorry," she got out, gradually shoving the giggles down behind a smile of her own. "It's just, here I am in a whole new world, and the first time somebody even talks to me, it's with that?" Choking off the last of the giggles, Asuna took the edge of her cloak in hand and swept it around in a formal bow of her own. "Asuna, knight errant," she proclaimed, in the spirit of Klein's introduction. "Not looking for a boyfriend."

"Fair enough!" He gave her another bow, this one less stiff and formal, and followed up with another grin. "Okay. Now that we've broken the ice… maybe we can help each other out? I really don't know where to start!"

Another time, another place, Asuna would've said no. She'd been taught from an early age to avoid strangers, after all, especially weird strangers. But here, in the islands in the sky of Aincrad, well, doing the unusual was the whole point. It wasn't like her real body was at risk—even her avatar wasn't supposed to be, inside a town—so as long as she was careful not to give out personal information, she thought it ought to fine.

"Okay, then," she agreed, smiling. "Tell where you've been, I'll tell you where I have, and between us maybe we can at least figure out where to buy weapons."

"Sounds like a plan. And maybe we'll find somebody who does know what they're doing!"

It didn't take long for Asuna to decide that Klein was probably harmless. He kept up a cheerful stream of chatter as they made their way through Origia's streets, weaving through the NPC traffic and the odd group of players who seemed as lost as they were. He also looked very carefully at anything vaguely female along the way, but since he made no further comment or action like his introduction, she was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

It was also a good sign, she thought, that he didn't ask any questions about her real self, not even her age. She might not have known gaming, but she did know basic 'net safety. Heck, I'm surprised he doesn't think I'm really a guy. I bet he isn't as young as he looks…

Well. As long as things stayed as they were, Asuna wasn't going to worry about it too much. She was just going to enjoy the casual chat with someone who was absolutely nothing like anyone in her social circles, enjoy the scenery of a city right out of The Lord of the Rings, and keep a sharp eye out for something like a commercial district.

Their ambling circle of the city eventually took them higher up the side of one of the mountains. There, they found a huge, flat platform, which Asuna at first mistook for an airport tarmac. After a second look, she realized she wasn't that far off.

Lining one edge of the platform was a long line of wooden hulls, the larger ones resting in cradles, some of the smaller ones on skids built right into them. Some of them, especially the bigger ones, had visible masts; all of them had at least two pods mounted on their flanks, resembling nothing so much as fantastical jet engines.

It was hard to tell from ground level, but Asuna thought there were ominous barrels mounted on at least some of them.

Klein whistled. "Will you look at that. Airships, huh? I remember seeing screenshots, but it's something else to see them in person!"

"For sure," Asuna agreed, admiring the ships that could never have existed in the world she knew. "Too bad we probably won't be seeing much of them for awhile. Don't I remember from the previews that players only get access to them a little ways into the game?"

"Once the first Skywall is cleared, yeah. Or something like that. Gotta admit, I only read the basics before logging in." He grinned sheepishly. "Kinda wanted things to be a surprise, y'know? I mean, this is the killer app for NerveGear! Who wants spoilers?"

She only had the vaguest notion what a "killer app" was, but nodded anyway. "Must be nice," she said wistfully, turning back to the grounded airships. "I don't expect to have much time to play most days, so I read everything I could find before the game came out. Not that I understood most of the information about gameplay, but…"

A hand landed on her shoulder, light enough to be more reassuring than creepy. "Hey," Klein said seriously. "It's just the first day, right? Don't go getting depressed on me so soon! This is a big game, there's lots to see that wouldn't have in the previews!"

Shaking herself, Asuna turned a smile on the samurai. "You're right, of course. Anyway, not much of the story was in the previews at all; Kayaba said it'd spoil the twists. I'm looking forward to finding out what he meant."

"That's the spirit!" Grinning, Klein let go of her shoulder and gestured toward the city. "So. Much as I'd love to give these ladies a closer look, we'd better get back down into the city. I don't think we'll find the shops we're after up here."

Too true. And she was on a tight schedule. She'd have hated to have wasted the chance to get into the meat of the game on her first day, after all. Giving the airships one more wistful look, she turned her back and joined Klein on the path back down into Origia proper.

Asuna had to hand it the programmers at Argus, the company behind Sword Art Online. This was only the first city on the first of a full one hundred islands, yet it was insanely detailed. Not to mention huge, with a stunning number of NPCs populating it. If it weren't for the few tiny details left out—and, now that she thought about it, something just slightly off about gravity—she would've thought she'd genuinely been transported to another planet, instead of wandering through data projected into her brain.

And this is only the beginning, from what the previews said. Weren't there even supposed to be other races here? I wonder if any of them are friendly. I know lots of fantasy stories have elves, but if Kayaba was thinking more Fae in the classic sense than Tolkien… well, I'll just have to see for myself, won't I?

If I can ever get a sword, anyway!

"Hey," Klein said suddenly, just as the plaza from before finally came into view again. "That guy looks like he knows where he's going. Hey!" he called out, waving. "You got a minute, buddy?"

Asuna turned to look, rolling her eyes at her companion's latest antics—and stopped.

It wasn't his looks that got her attention. He was tall, around Klein's height, with vaguely handsome features and short, dark blue hair. As with the samurai, that was just a face sculpted by computer modeling, probably hiding a much older—or pudgier—man. It certainly wasn't his outfit, which was just a variation of the same plain adventuring garb she and Klein wore, if a bit darker.

It was his confidence that really stopped Asuna in her tracks. Here they were, in a city so far removed from reality in general, let alone Japan, and yet he looked like he knew exactly what he was doing, where, and why. Before Klein called out to him, the youthful man was running down the street as if he was following a dotted line, ducking around the crowds like they weren't even there.

Now he stopped in his tracks, turning to look at Klein—and Asuna—with a cool, casual demeanor. "…Can I help you?"

…What's it like, to be that confident in a place like this…?

The one thing Kirigaya Kazuto hadn't counted on, returning to SAO after an excruciating two-month wait since the beta test ended, was crowding. The beta had had a grand total of one thousand players log in at the start, and even all at once they were a drop in the bucket for Origia's starting plaza. Twenty thousand, dropped into that space?

Forget the physical issues trying to get around so many people. The shell-shock alone had disoriented him enough that his first priority had been a simple, blind need to get out. Somewhere, anywhere, he didn't care, just so long as he got away from that noisy, busy crowd. He didn't think he'd ever been around so many people in one place in his entire life, let alone the last six years.

Then, after finally getting his head on straight from that, reorienting himself, and taking off for Origia's commercial district to gear up, naturally he had to be waylaid by someone.

Actually, he thought, turning to face the player who'd called out to him, this is… kind of weird. Who bothers talking to me? "…Can I help you?" he said, trying to project the kind of cool confidence his carefully-crafted avatar ought to have.

Two players, he saw then. One a flamboyant man who seemed to be trying to copy Himura Kenshin, the other… He wasn't quite sure, really. Close to his own height, in starter gear not too different from his own—except for a hooded cloak, which kept him from seeing any other features except a few long locks of blue hair.

"Sorry to bother you," the samurai-wannabe said with a grin. "But we're, y'know, pretty much noobs, and you look like a guy who knows what he's doing." He bowed sharply. "Could you have pity on a couple of noobs and show us the ropes, please?!"

Taken aback, he blinked. Really going overboard with the samurai thing. Except louder. Hoping for a saner response, he looked over at the cloaked figure.

"…Loudmouth aside, he seems like a nice enough man," the hooded player said quietly. "He's Klein. I'm Asuna." The player—a girl, he realized to his surprise; though who knew if she really was a "she" behind the avatar—gave a shrug. "If we're bothering you, we'll find our own way around."

He hesitated, glancing between the wary girl and the still-bowing samurai. Normally, he would've just made up an excuse and left. He wasn't rude enough to outright run, but he wasn't exactly keen on being accosted out of nowhere. Not to mention, he wanted to get geared up and started on quests as soon as he could.

But it's not like I'm in that big a hurry… and Suguha is always telling me I need to talk to people more. He felt a pang at the thought. Besides… if not here, in Aincrad again, where else? Back then, I…

"…The name's Kirito," he said at last, giving a cool nod. "I was a beta tester, so I… guess I can give you some pointers, at least. If you want."

Klein immediately straightened up, with a grin that had Kirito wishing sunglasses were available this early in the game. "Thanks much! I promise you won't regret it!"

Kirito had his doubts about that, somehow. Oddly enough, the way the girl was more reserved was much easier on his nerves. "I'd appreciate it," she said quietly, face still hidden by her hood. "I'm pretty new to the whole gaming thing, so I don't even know where to start."

A gaming newbie, in SAO? Huh. He felt an odd flicker of interest. Maybe giving a couple of noobs a hand would be the kind of social activity he could handle. If I can keep my foot out of my mouth. I don't remember the last time I even talked to a girl besides Suguha.

Or Argo. Eeep. Let's hope I don't run into her until after I've got these two on their way. I don't want to know what kind of rumors she'd spread. I can't imagine anybody else would care, but I would.

"Okay, then," Kirito said, deliberately banishing the thought of his one notable acquaintance from the beta test. "First, let's hit the weapons shops. Starting armor isn't too bad, at least for the first few quests, but unless you study martial arts IRL you're not going to get far without a sword…"

Asuna's first impression of Kirito had been that he had far more self-confidence than she did. Her second was that he might just have some problem with his social skills. He hid it well, but she'd spent her life learning how to put up a mask. In her schools, the dark loner would've been eaten alive.

Which, of course, was half the reason she followed him down Origia's backstreets with only a brief hesitation. It hadn't been Kirito's idea for her and Klein to go with him, he obviously wasn't entirely comfortable with it—and he was about as far from the kind of person her mother would've approved of her going into a dark alley without as could be without being an obvious creep. Right then, that made him exactly the kind of person she wanted to associate with.

Worst came to it, after all, she could just log out. Being in SAO was all about doing the things and taking the risks she wasn't allowed to in real life.

She wasn't entirely surprised when Kirito led them into a small shop in a back alley, rather than someplace more obviously mercantile. "First rule of SAO," he said quietly, opening the door of the oddly-named Left-Handed Lizard. "Never settle for the obvious. You'll get better deals in back alleys. When they're not the cheapest, the stuff will be worth the price."

Asuna nodded thoughtfully. "And they won't be as crowded."

"Well… yeah." Kirito scratched the back of his head. "That's a side benefit… Okay," he amended, seeming to feel the look she gave him from under her hood. "Maybe I prefer it this way. But there's still practical reasons." He waved a hand. "See anything you like? Just about anything here should be within your starting budget."

Klein eagerly bounded in, ponytail whipping around as he looked around enthusiastically. Asuna followed at a more sedate pace, taking in the shop. Surprisingly well-lit for what Kirito implied was a black market shop, with just a single counter toward the back. And weapons. Lots of weapons.

At first she could only goggle at the sight. In Japan, weapons of any kind were a rarity; if there were any shops like this one in Tokyo, they were definitely black market, catering to Yakuza. Seeing all manner of blades, bows, shields, and less familiar items filling every available space on three walls was something of a shock to her system.

But not a bad one, she reminded herself. This was why she was here, after all.

"You won't find many players using bows," Kirito remarked, heading straight for the east wall. "They're more for hunting; they don't fire fast enough to keep the range open against other players."

"They're better in large units," Asuna said, thinking back to some reading she'd done on her own time. "Barrage fire might be good, I guess?"

"Theoretically," he acknowledged, with a nod and a hesitant smile. "There was talk of trying just that in the beta, but they could never get enough people interested in archery. This is a world of swords, first and foremost."

"What about guns?" Klein asked, eagerly examining the wares on the opposite wall. "I heard SAO has stuff like cannons, right?"

"Shipboard, yeah. Airship battles can be pretty impressive, at that. Player weapons?" Kirito shrugged. "Flintlock pistols, and one weird wrist-thing I ran into once. They've got the same problem as bows—reload time—plus they're not very accurate. You'll probably see some people using them to get in cheap shots in the middle of a melee, but not much else."

Asuna nodded thoughtfully. She wasn't going to complain, really. Honestly, the focus on swords had been part of what drew her in, too. She knew, intellectually, that blades were no more elegant than guns. But in the kind of world SAO was supposed to represent, they did have the grace and nobility legend ascribed to samurai and Medieval knights.

"Well, that's just fine by me!" Klein announced, lifting a blade off the wall with a reverent air. "I'm a samurai! Samurai are supposed to use katana!"

As the "samurai" proudly carried his long, curved blade to the counter, Kirito gave a nod. "A slash-type weapon, by SAO's rules. Good reach, about mid-range speed. Agility can be a bit of a problem, with both hands tied up, but no worse than any two-handed weapon and better than some. Katana are more focused on critical hits than, say, two-handed longswords."

Which pretty much fit with what Asuna knew of real swordplay. Well, Kayaba and his team are supposed to be big on research… "What are you using, Kirito-san?"

He blinked. "Well, first, honorifics aren't used much in VR, most people think it sounds weird with character names… Anyway." Kirito lifted a simple sword off the wall. "Basic one-handed sword. Mostly slashing, with a couple of good thrust-type moves. Good speed, and it leaves the other hand free. Not really the best at anything, but a good all-around type."

Character names? …Oops. Did I do something stupid with my name? Oh, well. Just the given name shouldn't be a problem. Deciding to worry about possible privacy issues later, Asuna turned her attention back to the weapons in front of her. Some she recognized easily enough, variations on Kirito's basic sword or Klein's katana. Sabers she knew well enough, along with the basic polearm types like axes, spears, and naginata. Others were more fantastic, like a nodachi at least two meters long and a… thing, that seemed to be a slab of metal, sharpened on one side and angling to an abrupt point near the end.

Forget avatars being stronger than real bodies. Simple geometry meant you'd have to be a giant just to swing the things.

Some, she only had the vaguest idea about, and one or two curved blades escaped her completely. But nestled among them was something that struck an odd chord with her. There was something similar to it hanging on a wall in her family's house, and if that was an association she didn't entirely like, there was still a certain appeal.

I did call myself a "knight errant" a little bit ago. This would be straight out of… what was that Western story called? The Three Musketeers? I should read that again…

When Asuna took the slim, plain rapier off the wall, she turned a questioning look on her impromptu teacher. "Thrusting weapon," he said, answering her unspoken question. "Some slashing ability, but mostly you'd be stabbing things a lot. High agility, so you'll be faster than practically anybody else, and while individual hits might be weaker they'll be adding up fast." He looked her up and down, and she started to bristle—then, remembering he couldn't even see her figure under her cloak, she realized he was probably checking something else entirely. "It should suit your avatar's build pretty well."

Oh. Right. …Wasn't I just thinking about how that matters for bigger weapons? Beginning to smile, Asuna took hold of the hilt, let her hand wrap around it—and pulled.

The thin blade was simple, unadorned, and frankly looked a bit cheap. She loved it already.

Shing!

A blinding white flash. A sound like the chiming of a bell—and then, as Asuna's Iron Rapier pierced cleanly through the wolf-like Wild Fang's side, the crash of shattering glass. The enemy—mob, Kirito had called it—broke into a thousand azure polygons, scattering into the wind.

She skidded to a stop, feeling the strange tug of "System Assist" let go, and turned to watch those blue triangles fade away. At first, she'd thought it would be hard to attack such life-like creatures, but the nature of SAO's combat had eased those fears. Red particle sprays and streaks of wireframe, followed by breaking into pieces? That, she could handle.

"Sword Skills are the basis of combat in this world," Kirito said. Off to one side, on the hill he'd led them to outside Origia, he was nimbly dancing between a pair of bird-type mobs. "Very few players are likely to know going in how to use a weapon, so the game was designed to compensate."

"I can see why," Klein grunted, ineffectually swinging his katana at the Wild Fang he'd attracted. It casually jumped to one side, then leapt for his arm with open jaws. Only at the last moment did he manage to find the right position for a Sword Skill of his own, the flat, backhand slash catching those open jaws and continuing straight through the beast's head. "This is tough enough as it is!"

"You get used to it. It's easier once you've built up your skill level high enough, and have access to more Sword Skills." Kirito ducked away from a diving beak, then with barely a flicker of motion brought his sword down in a blue flash. The simple, vertical slice cut through the other Grassbird's neck, dropping it right to the ground.

"So we only have one or two to start?" Asuna was already heading for her next target, giddy at having defeated her first. She found another Wild Fang only a few meters away, and quickly lined up for a repeat of her first successful skill.

"Three," Kirito answered, casually rapping the remaining Grassbird across the beak. It broke away, squawking indignantly, and climbed up to start circling him. "Asuna, besides that Linear you should have Streak and Oblique, that's a slash and a downward thrust…"

Blinking, Asuna quickly changed her stance, feeling around for the right position. She found it a moment before the Wild Fang noticed her, and she was inordinately pleased to see and feel her blade slash across its nose. With a whimper that almost made her feel sorry for it, it fell back, almost half its HP already gone.

Not as much as the Linear did. Grr.

"Not every skill is meant to finish things right off," Kirito called, glancing back from instructing Klein in the proper "pre-motion" for another of his skills. "Sometimes you're better off using it to set up for unassisted attacks."

Skipping to one side, she let the Fang sail past her in its next leap, and obligingly stabbed at it with nothing but her avatar's strength. "I thought you said Sword Skills were the 'basis of combat'," she said, even as she met the Fang with one more thrust.

"Oh, they are. But there's a lot more to SAO than Sword Skills. Kayaba Akihiko—the lead developer—said in an interview that they're really meant more as a teaching method. Players are called Swordmasters for a reason. Sword Skills do have power boosts—"

Jumping to the left as the Grassbird tried to dive bomb him, Kirito swept his blade out in a backhand not too different from what Klein had done earlier. Again flashing blue, his sword cut through the bird and sent it flying away—then he was spinning around, slashing at another bird that tried to ambush him.

"—But a 'true' Swordmaster is supposed to use them strategically. Once you know what you're doing, you should be able to fight with your own skill, not relying on the system to move for you."

"Ooh." Bringing his katana down in a vicious chop, cutting deep into the flank of his current Wild Fang, Klein grinned. "Now that is cool. You can already do that, huh? Being a beta tester and all."

"Me? No way." Kirito laughed, shaking his head. "The beta only lasted two months, remember? We only reached Siehn—that's the tenth island—in that time, and nobody got good enough to skip system assist that fast. But," he added, grinning in a way Asuna would've found deeply unnerving in the real world, "I did learn some other tricks. Like… this."

Unleashing another horizontal slash against his most recent opponent, Kirito promptly whirled. There was another trio of Grassbirds circling not far away, looking for all the world like buzzards wondering if there was about to be a fresh meal. They were also well out of reach—or so Asuna had thought.

She'd wondered about the odd, wrist-mounted… thing… the youth had bought at the Left-Handed Lizard. Looking like nothing so much as an anchor on a spring, she hadn't had the least idea what it was for. Now she found out.

The moment Kirito's left arm was aligned with the circling birds, the "anchor" launched into the air, dragging a cable. It buried itself in the chest of one of the Grassbirds—prompting another, sharper squawk—and with a tug of his wrist it was yanked back, right out of the air.

The bird slammed down against the hill, hard, and shattered. Another, casual flick of the wrist, and the cable retracted neatly into its launcher.

"…Okay," Asuna said after a moment. "I'll bite. What is that?"

Kirito grinned again, a much friendlier expression this time. "Oh, this?" He tapped the blade and its cable. "Wrist-grapnel. SAO has a variety of subweapons available, mostly for people using one-handed main weapons. Shields are probably the most common, though I've seen rapier and saber wielders with parrying daggers. And I think I mentioned that weird wrist-gun from the beta, I think that was a rare drop the guy had gotten somewhere… But I prefer this."

"I can see why," Klein said, giving the grapnel an admiring look. Probably lamenting his own weapon made it impractical, Asuna thought. "That was a cool trick."

"That's one use," Kirito said with a nod. "There's more to it than that, though. You know there's airships a little ways into the game, right? You can't land those just anywhere. The most obvious solution is to find the nearest place you can, and go the rest of the way on foot. With one of these?" He grinned. "Hook it on your ship, and you can lower yourself down just about anywhere. A little trick to stay ahead of the pack."

That got Asuna's attention, and she found herself listening very closely as he explained the other ways a grapnel could be used to navigate or attack. I'm not a gamer. I'm starting a step behind everybody else. Any advantage that lets me catch up, I need to know.

And I want to get ahead of Nii-san. This time, I'm going to be the one with the head start!

She was sure she could do it. The studying habits that had kept her right by the top of her class in school all her life, turned on learning the rules of a game? She could do it. She would do it.

"Of course," Kirito was saying then, "most of that doesn't matter for a while yet, anyway. The Skywall blocks airship travel, so the NPCs at the Aerodrome won't even talk to players until the first Barrier Guardian is killed." He paused. "Oh, and guys? Maybe you should pay a little closer attention to your surroundings."

"To my—yipe!"

Caught up in the beta tester's exposition, Asuna had honestly kind of forgotten they were still outside a safe zone. She had to abruptly throw herself aside before a dive-bombing bird could hit her in the back of the head—and had to put up with indignity of a laughing Kirito swatting the mob aside.

Klein wasn't quite as lucky. With a squawk fit to compete with the Grassbirds, he batted at the Wild Fang that had taken the opportunity to bite into his backside. It resisted, growling; with another, angrier yelp, the samurai spun as hard as he could, and the moment the Fang was clear slashed down with his katana. "Youch! Take this, you son of a—!"

"Take it easy, Klein." Kirito shook his head, chuckling. "You do remember you can't feel pain here, right?"

"Oh, sure, I can't," Klein groused, viciously stabbing the mob to finish it off. "My pride, now, that's something else! What kind of samurai lets himself get bit in the—?"

"Someone who's been samurai for about an hour," the younger—Asuna thought, anyway—man said dryly. "You've got a ways to go before you're a master."

Oooh, I'm not taking that lying down. Recovering her poise, Asuna lifted her chin and fixed Kirito with a hard stare. She wasn't sure he could even see it, past her hood, but it was the principle of the thing. "Fine, then. How about you show us what we're doing wrong?"

Kirito raised one eyebrow. "Well, I suppose I can give you a few more pointers… if you're paying attention, that is."

…I don't know if I want to pick his brains, or strangle him….

It was exhilarating, losing herself in the fantasy that she was a musketeer training to help save a world from evil. Asuna had never so much as touched a video game before, having thought them needless distractions from her studying. Now that the pressure of all that studying had driven her right to that distraction, she realized she'd been missing something incredible.

Though maybe it was just as well. She honestly wasn't sure she would've been so taken with a game less immersive, less alive, than Sword Art Online. Aincrad, where she found herself stabbing wolves with an awkward loner and a goofy would-be samurai, was like stepping into another life, not just playing a game.

It must've been around five o'clock, four hours after she'd first logged in, when the three of them climbed another hill outside Origia's walls. This one was free of any enemies, and held some kind of observation tower, provided a breathtaking view of both Origia and the endless sky.

"This? Has got to be the best game ever," Klein declared, when they'd all dropped onto the tower's stone roof. "Man, I didn't know they could do something like this!"

Kirito chuckled, again scratching his head awkwardly. "Is this your first time in Full-Dive?"

"Hell, yeah! Saved up for months to get my NerveGear and a copy of the game." Klein flopped onto his back, resting his head on his hands. "Only twenty thousand copies, right? I had to make sure I pre-ordered it! …Come to think of it, isn't that kind of a tiny number for a game like this?"

"Usually," Kirito agreed, resting an arm on his knee. "But this is the first Full-Dive MMO. Even the NerveGear's only been out for a couple years, and this is the biggest game ever. I heard the small initial release is a server load-test; word is there'll be more copies when they're sure the servers can handle it. And when they're sure there'll be enough players to justify more servers."

"I think there will be," Asuna said honestly. "This is… this place is incredible."

Just from where she sat, she could see the mountains into which Origia was nestled, along with the vast stone towers of the city itself. Off to the south, the hills rolled down into a deep forest, with the glint of lakes beyond. She thought she could glimpse the roofs of a smaller town, somewhere farther out.

Beyond the edge of Einsla Island, she could see more of the Archipelago in the distance. Between Einsla and the next island, though, she still saw that golden shimmer. In the afternoon light, she could more clearly see it was a honeycomb wall, stretching high into the sky and vanishing into the deep clouds below.

It really did remind her of a beehive, at that. Perspective made it hard to tell, given its grand scale, but she thought it wrapped around Einsla and the other islands like a hive, individual cells separate but linked…

"The Skywall," Kirito said, breaking into her thoughts. "The barrier that wraps around the spiral of the Archipelago, and keeps each island apart. Sections can be lowered by defeating Barrier Guardians, but only one at a time, until Centoria is finally reached."

"Centoria," Asuna whispered, tasting the word. "The center of Aincrad… Who put up the Skywall, anyway? And why?" She knew it was just a game, but surely there was some in-universe explanation. A world this intricate wouldn't just have walls for the sake of walls, right?

Of course, he did say the beta testers didn't get very far, but still…

"It was the Axiom Church," Kirito said softly. He was looking out at the Skywall himself, a distant look in his dark eyes. "Centuries ago, the Highest Administrator began to gradually assert power over the Archipelago, until finally, in a grand ritual, she raised the Skywall. Only at her whim can the islands contact each other, and her will is enforced by the Barrier Guardians… and the Integrity Knights."

"Integrity Knights?" Klein repeated, before Asuna could. "What're they?"

"No one knows for sure," Kirito told him, shrugging. His eyes were still on the Skywall. "Like heroes out of old stories, supposedly. They say the Knights can use magic, even though it's lost to everyone else. Supposedly, the Swordmasters are part of a ritual to summon heroes that can stand against the Integrity Knights on even footing, reclaim the Archipelago."

It was only the story of a game. It was only there to provide context for the actions of players having fun playing at being swordsmen. But in that moment, hearing Kirito's wistful tone, Asuna couldn't help but believe in it. Just a little. He sounded less like someone playing a game than someone telling a story about something real.

He sounds… sad, she realized. Why? Is he one of those hardcore gamers I've heard about? A… what's the word, a roleplayer?

Kirito visibly shook himself, turning away from that golden wall. "I don't think any beta tester ever actually ran into an Integrity Knight," he said, tone suddenly lighter. "During that time, I think I saw one, riding a dragon beyond Siehn. From what somebody I know dug up, trying to fight one that early would be suicide."

"Elite bosses for later in the game, huh?" Klein said. "Cool! Ahh, I can see it now: a lone samurai, standing between a dark knight and the helpless villagers, grimly determined to win even if it costs him his life—"

"It probably would," Kirito said wryly. "Lore aside, I'm guessing they're raid-level bosses. One player, against that?" He chuckled. "Well, you might get plenty of views on Nico-Nico. For being the new Leeroy Jenkins."

Leeroy Jenkins? Not a name Asuna had ever heard before, but Klein reacted as if Kirito had struck him a physical blow. Oookay… Only four hours or so she'd been in SAO, and she was already realizing she had a lot to learn. Gamers spoke a completely different language, with their own stories and history. She hadn't felt so lost since she'd started middle school, if then.

Well, she thought, turning to look at the Skywall again, if there's one thing I know, it's studying. I'll learn. A musical tone in her ear startled her, bringing her eyes up to the clock display hovering in one corner of her vision. And speaking of studying… I guess I'd better go soon.

She didn't want to. In four short hours, she'd had more fun than she had in longer than she could remember. She'd even found two people to chat with, however weird they might've been. Because of how weird they were, really. Klein's sheer goofiness was oddly endearing, and if she was honest, Kirito's strange wistfulness and social awkwardness struck an odd chord with her.

It's not like this will be the last time I log in, anyway, Asuna reminded herself. So long as I'm careful, I can come back tomorrow. And she would be careful. There was no way she was losing this chance from slipping up around her mother.

"Man, this is just too cool," Klein said, apparently recovered from whatever insult Kirito had delivered with that unfamiliar name. "So real… I wish I could just stay in all night!"

Kirito turned back from the Skywall. "You have to log out soon?"

"Yeah, 'fraid so." The samurai stretched, red ponytail looking like fire in the light of the setting sun. "I'm gonna be back in later to meet some buddies, but probably not for long. I've got a pizza set to be delivered in just a few minutes… and then I've got work in the morning. Bleh."

"I should be going, too," Asuna said regretfully, pushing herself to her feet. "I've got an early start tomorrow, too." She decided it was best not to say what. The two had left a surprisingly good impression on her, but making it clear she was a teenage girl didn't seem like a good idea. Not yet, anyway. "Thank you for the help, Kirito...kun."

There, that sounds about right. It doesn't feel right to skip it altogether.

Kirito smiled, looking just a bit shy. "It was no problem, really. It was… kinda fun, actually."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Klein said plaintively; but he was smiling, too. "Thanks, buddy. Both of you. I would've been totally lost today without you. So…" He swept two fingers down, bringing up his menu. "Up for some friend requests?"

Asuna blinked. Hesitated. Exchanged a quick, wary glance with Kirito, and found herself oddly reassured by his own hesitation. Honestly, she'd expected to go it completely alone in SAO, at least until her brother was able to log in. The idea of making in-game friends hadn't even crossed her mind until Klein had given his hilariously awkward introduction, and she still had no idea what either of them was really like behind the avatar.

But online games wouldn't be so popular in the first place if it was that dangerous. This is normal, right? As long as I'm careful…

"Okay," she said finally, smiling just a little. "I'm up for it. Kirito-kun?"

She wondered about his hesitation. He was obviously a veteran gamer, so he had to be used to this kind of thing. Right?

Eventually, though, he seemed to come to a decision, and with another shy smile he nodded. "…Why not?"

Grinning, Klein sent first Kirito, then Asuna friend requests, both of them quickly accepting. She couldn't help but feel a bit of a thrill, seeing the first name fill in the top of her Friends List—then had to stifle a giggle as she and Kirito just looked at each other for a long moment. In the end, she took the initiative to send the request to him, and after another tiny pause, his name appeared in her menu, too.

Friends, she thought. …Maybe we really can be. Even if it's just here, in Aincrad.

Klein looked like he was about to say something else, then seemed to think better of it. "Well, it's been a blast, guys," he said. "If you guys are logged in tomorrow, maybe I'll introduce you to my friends. But for tonight," he proclaimed dramatically, "pizza awaits!"

Asuna couldn't help but giggle again at his antics. But she really was starting to push her luck, so after inclining her head respectfully to Kirito, she brought her menu back up. It was, she thought regretfully, time for her to go back to being a student, and hang up her new sword.

For tonight, anyway. If I just time things carefully… enough… huh? What the—?

With the faintest thrill of alarm creeping up her spine, she stared at the log-out option. The grayed-out option, which had just given her an indignant "Beep!" when she pressed it. Pressing it again, slowly and carefully, got her the same reaction, this time accompanied by a red circle-and-slash symbol appearing over the floating button.

"…Guys?" Asuna said slowly. "Are either of you able to log out?"

"You, too?" Klein's words immediately dashed her hopes. "Nope." He was stabbing at his own menu, with the same amount of success. "Not doing a damn thing. Hey, Kirito, the 'Log-Out' button is supposed to, y'know, log us out, right?"

Glancing up from whatever menu work he'd been doing, Kirito frowned. "Well… yeah, that is kinda the point. Maybe you're pushing… the wrong… one…?" As he spoke, he visibly shifted through submenus, and his frown deepened. "Okay… that's weird."

Asuna's blood was getting colder by the moment. "Weird?" she blurted. "It's a disaster!" If I don't get out quick, Mother will find out what I'm doing, and then—!

"Easy," Kirito told her, flicking over to another menu. "This is too big a glitch for the GMs to just ignore. Forget emergency patching, as soon as they realize there's an issue, they'll probably force-eject everybody. If we all send reports, that should get things moving faster."

She forced herself to stay calm. "And how long will that take?"

"A few minutes, if we're lucky. Maybe half an hour, tops?" He shrugged. "If nothing else, if you've got anybody living with you, they can just take the NerveGear off and cut the connection that way. It's not fun, but it works."

Her blood froze at that. No, no, no, that's bad! That's as bad as it gets! If Mother has to do that, she'll never let me out of her sight again! I'll—I'll be stuck with that—!

"I live alone, though," Klein said slowly. The samurai was frowning, the first trace of concern crossing his face. "What about you guys?"

Asuna was too petrified to answer. Kirito shrugged, giving an oddly sad smile. "Oh, my sister should notice. Eventually, anyway…"

If she'd been a tiny bit less frightened, she would've kicked Klein for the way his expression suddenly lit up. "You have a sister?! What's she like?! Is she going to be playing—"

She would never forget the sound that interrupted him. The sound of a bell ringing, somewhere in the distance. Deep, and booming. She'd never heard anything like it, and she was suddenly sure she never wanted to hear it again. The ringing went deep into her bones, bringing with it an indefinable, yet inescapable, feeling of dread.

"Hear it not," the quote from Macbeth whispered through Asuna's mind. "For it is a knell that summons thee to heaven, or to hell…"

Blue light washed over the three of them, and the tower was swept away beneath their feet.

Bad enough for the log out function to be glitched out on launch day, when Suguha was all too likely to assume he was just playing late and not try to help. Worse to hear again a bell that had haunted his nightmares for years. It was almost a relief when the blue light of a forced teleport followed, instead of the wrath Kirito had instinctively anticipated.

Being dropped right back in the Summoning Plaza, surrounded by twenty thousand very confused—and loud—players still wasn't quite as bad. Almost, though. What the hell is going on?

Dropped in right next to him, Klein was looking around wildly, his ridiculous ponytail hitting Kirito in the neck. "What the—is this something to do with the 'force-eject' you mentioned, Kirito?"

Asuna, he noticed, was standing on his other side, frozen stiff. He didn't know exactly what was wrong, and for once found himself really wishing he'd leveled-up his social skills before. Not having the least idea how to reassure her was just plain painful.

At least he could answer Klein's question. Kind of. "I don't see how it could be," he said, pitching his voice to carry through the babble of so many other players. "If anything, gathering all the players first would just make things worse, what with the lag. …Actually, we ought to have seen plenty of lag just from the VFX of all the teleports…"

Kirito was still chewing on that technical oddity when Asuna inhaled sharply. "What… what's going on up there?"

He followed her pointing finger, just in time to see the entire sky turn from sunset orange to stark, glaring red. The Skywall that encased Einsla had changed from a warm gold to crimson, the hexagons that formed it now proclaiming [System Alert].

A lot of the other players in the plaza were audibly scared. Kirito, though, felt his shoulders slump in relief. "It's okay," he said. "I think I know what's going on now. They brought everybody here to explain what's going on all at once."

Asuna didn't seem reassured. "Well," she said, through gritted teeth to judge from her tone, "I wish they'd hurry up. Some of us need to log out now!"

…Sounds serious. Guess it's not my business, though. But she's right, too, they ought to be quicker about this—

The alert message was reassuring. The bright, crimson flash from beyond the Summoning Plaza's observation platform, not quite so much. If only because Kirito couldn't remember anything like it happening during the beta. None of what was going on fit with the beta, and when he turned with the rest of the players to see what was going on, something in him expected to see a dragon. Maybe several dragons.

Or worse, a pale face in the sky, pronouncing judgment…

No dragons. No faces out of nightmares. Just a wireframe in the shape of a flying battleship, out beyond the Skywall. Approaching that wall, the wireframe filled out, layer by layer, as if being rendered from the ground up. Just as its bow touched the Skywall, a gleaming hull settled into place—and as it pushed through, the crimson alert messages seemed to bleed over it.

Soon, the blood-red airship was through, gliding to an easy halt a dozen meters from the observation platform. There was no sound, except for the drone from the ship's massive propellers. No movement, except the restless stirring of twenty thousand players. And then—

Light, from the airship's superstructure. Bright lines flickering out, tracing a figure in the air in the same way the ship itself had appeared. Layer by layer, until there stood on the airship's deck a giant, translucent figure. An ordinary man, at first glance, notable only for his long, white labcoat.

"W-what is that?!" he heard someone nearby—a girl, he thought, though not one he knew—exclaim. "What's going on here?!"

"Don't worry," a deeper voice assured her confidently. "He never showed up in the beta, but that's the lead developer. He must be here to tell us what's going on, or maybe he's part of an event. Cool airship, don't you think?"

No. I don't think that's what's happening at all. Something's not right here…

"Greetings, Swordmasters," a deep, booming voice said from that hologram. "I am Kayaba Akihiko. Allow me to welcome you to Sword Art Online, and to the Islands of the Aincrad Archipelago. To your new home. To the beginning of your new lives."

"Kayaba… Akihiko…?" Asuna whispered. "Isn't he… the creator of SAO…?"

"And what the hell does he mean, 'new home'?" Klein demanded. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"What you've all no doubt noticed by now is no prank or system error," Kayaba said, as if answering the samurai directly. "The final version of Sword Art Online never possessed a log out option at all, nor was it intended to. You have been called here to complete this world, and the moment you logged in, the circle was closed. Your new journey, to open the skies of Aincrad, has begun. Until that journey is complete, this is your world."

Asuna had thought, for so much of her life, that a failed test was about the worst thing that would happen to her. The possibility of her mother's displeasure, should she stumble in her studies, had been the most frightening in her life. That was why she'd been so careful, scheming with her brother for this simple respite.

We can't… log out…? We're trapped here…?

Sheer, howling terror at how her mother would react distracted her from even the hubbub around her, as other players yelled at the apparition of Kayaba. She barely noticed Kirito tersely explaining to Klein just how real the possibility was, that Kayaba was telling the truth. She was too busy picturing her mother's frown.

Not fair. It's not fair! I was finally having fun, you can't do this to me…!

"Perhaps I've been unclear… so let me speak plainly. You cannot exit SAO. Until you have cleared the game, you will remain within Aincrad. Any attempt by those on the outside to remove the NerveGear, disconnect it from external power, or from the SAO servers, will result in the NerveGear's signal sensors overloading, destroying the player's brain."

Those words yanked her attention back to that huge, impassive figure. "W-what…?" He couldn't possibly have said what it sounded like. Being trapped was one thing, horrible as it was. He couldn't really have just said…"Did—did he just say we'll… die?" she whispered. "That's… that isn't possible… is it…?"

From the disbelieving yells and curses, Asuna wasn't the only one doubting that casual statement. But when she looked at Kirito, that cool, collected youth, he'd gone deathly pale. "The transmitters in the NerveGear redirect nerve impulses, Asuna," he said, sounding more numb than terrified. "That's… pretty delicate work. And deep. Overloading the system…"

Asuna didn't really hear what he said after that. The details of how it worked, what precautions Kayaba could've taken—none of that mattered. Not next to the simple fact.

I'm dead. Whatever happens now… I'm dead.

"Let me assure you, you will not die merely by an act of God. So long as the NerveGear itself is not tampered with, there is a grace period of ten minutes disconnected external power and two hours disconnected from the SAO servers before the overload is triggered. Provided outside support is careful, you may have no fear in that respect."

What did that matter? She had an important test coming up soon. Fail it, and it didn't even really matter if she was still alive. Everything in her life was crumbling anyway, with every moment she stood in that plaza.

"This can't… it can't be real…."

"Be assured, also, that the relevant government authorities have already been informed, and measures are being prepared to take care of your bodies on the other side. I would advise all of you to find safe places by midnight, lest you be caught in the field during your transfer to medical facilities. Regretfully," Kayaba added—and bizarrely, there did seem to be a note of regret in his voice—"not everyone believed the reports. Four hundred thirty Swordmasters have exited this world and the other."

Sick horror washed over her, mixed with a distant bitterness. Obviously, her careful timing to avoid her mother discovering what she was up to had worked. Otherwise, Asuna was absolutely certain, she would have already died. Yuuki Kyouko, she thought sickly, was unlikely to believe such a ridiculous tale without evidence.

Her knees finally buckled, and she collapsed to the stone pavement. Dead… they're dead, and I… I was almost….

Kirito didn't blame Asuna for falling, any more than he did the many other players succumbing to shock. He was surprised he was able to stay on his feet, as Kayaba Akihiko coolly and dispassionately explained their doom. Explained how they'd all be fine now, showed them all proof in windows hovering over his grand crimson airship depicting news reports.

The family he caught a glimpse of in one of those windows wasn't his. He knew that. Small comfort to those he suspected were seeing family, and small comfort to him, knowing how he'd left his own behind.

He had the sudden, nauseating feeling he was inflicting on them exactly what had driven him to Aincrad in the first place. The reversal was enough to make him want to either vomit, or run screaming from the Summoning Plaza.

"As I say, you have little to fear from the world in which your bodies remain," Kayaba continued in a calm, conversational tone. "You are free to focus on the task ahead: tearing down the Skywall, and claiming Bifrost. The bridge between worlds at the heart of the Archipelago is the key to your release, if you can but reach it."

"Are… are you serious?!" Kirito was surprised to realize the voice now shouting to the sky was his own, as was the first raised against the crimson airship and the man who stood upon it. "You've trapped us in here! How the hell can you expect us to just keep on like it was still a game…!"

Kayaba's avatar didn't really turn to look at him directly. There was no no reason whatsoever for the game master who controlled the world to look at Kirito specifically, to address one lone player. But when that mild-looking face turned, he couldn't help but think the gamemaster really was staring right at him.

"There is one final condition," that booming voice said. "If your HP should reach zero, your avatars will still be destroyed. Now, however, that destruction will be final. The NerveGear's termination protocol will activate. Death, after all, is death, no matter the world in which you reside."

Kirito's eyes were drawn at once to the lifebar hovering in the upper-left of his vision. Bright blue, it was completely full, reading 342/342. As of that moment, that number represented how long he could survive, in the very combat he'd been teaching Asuna and Klein only minutes before.

He'd seen that number fall to zero dozens of times, in the beta test. Not one Barrier Guardian had ever been defeated without total party wipes, and even successes had always had casualties. He'd died there, again and again. He'd learned, but he'd died, even as late as the final day of the beta.

Who in their right mind would even try to beat the game when a single mistake will kill you…? If any of this is true, nobody will ever even leave Origia!

"Remember," Kayaba said. "Nothing is eternal. No matter what, this world will not last forever. If you wish to ever leave it, your only choice is to reach Centoria Cathedral, and claim Bifrost for yourselves. Only then will you ever escape this simulacrum. That is your choice, Swordmasters: stay in safety, until your real bodies give out or the system is shut down, or fight your way to freedom."

For a moment, Kirito's vision swam. It had been years since he'd been confronted with such a contradiction in the world, since he'd seen something else as just as "real" as the world he lived in with his parents and Suguha. He'd escaped that contradiction the hard way, and had never fully shaken the nightmares from it. Now, in the same way as before, having to do the opposite, focus on the unreal—

How can I do that? How can I just push aside the real world? How can anybody? This is just….

"To those who still doubt the world before their eyes, I give you a gift. A way to keep in mind the stakes of the game, while keeping in sight your final goal. Please, open your inventories and see the item I've placed there."

A sinking feeling in his stomach, Kirito obeyed Kayaba's instruction. Everyone did, as far as he could tell; maybe they were all too numb to do anything else. Soon, a mirror was falling into his hand. A perfectly ordinary hand mirror, to his confusion. All it showed, when he looked into it, was his carefully-crafted avatar, wearing an expression of pure puzzlement.

And then—

White light, all around her. Asuna heard yells of confusion, fear, even anger. She was too numb to feel any of those things, only blinking against the bright light—but when it faded, she found herself as confused as anyone.

The red samurai had vanished, replaced by a bandit. His clothes were still there, along with his bandana, but the face was completely different, bearing a scruffy goatee. The flaming ponytail was gone, replaced by much shorter hair of a much duller shade of red. Beside him, the handsome youth had also changed, build turning leaner, face losing some of the sharpness. His deep blue hair had turned an ordinary black.

She stared at them. They stared at each other. Then, eyes wide, they glanced back at their mirrors.

Chestnut hair. Brown eyes. My hair. My eyes. …My body….

"You really are a teenager?!" Asuna blurted, in time with the bandit.

"You really are a girl?!" Kirito yelped.

"Klein?!"

"How?!" Klein demanded. "How the hell does the game know what we really look like?! It's not like the thing has a webcam or anything!"

Kirito's dark eyes took on a distant look. She could practically see him reading manuals in his head. "Sensors in the NerveGear," he muttered, with the air of someone focusing on the familiar to escape the frightening. "It can scan our faces as well as our brains… and the calibration test…"

Oh. Right. That one, Asuna remembered. It had been embarrassing, giving herself a pat down, but it had made some sense at the time. Now it made more terrifying sense, realizing what the point of it all had been.

From the babble of the players around them, others had realized it, too. The reminder that they weren't alone drew Asuna's attention from the realization that Kirito couldn't have been any older than her, back to the programmer and his crimson airship hovering in the sky above.

"I am sure you have one last question," Kayaba said then, as if deciding enough people were paying attention again. "'Why?' Why would I, Kayaba Akihiko, be doing such a thing? Am I holding you for ransom, you ask yourselves? Am I a psychotic mass murderer? …No. SAO itself was my goal all along. As I told you before, with your summoning the circle was closed. The developer's role is ended. What you do with the world before you is my goal.

"Your destiny is yours alone now. In this world of swords and open sky, your choices are limited only by your own will. Fight alone, or together. Press on, or hide in safety. Perhaps…" Kayaba seemed to smile then, incongruously. "Perhaps you will even find allies within this world. Your destination is blocked by the Skywall. There is no single path beyond it.

"Rejoice, Swordmasters! From now until you reach Centoria Cathedral, you cannot return to your world—but in exchange, you have ahead of you a journey none on Earth have ever seen. Your trials and tribulations as you conquer Aincrad's skies will be experiences to be treasured. And once you wrest Bifrost from the Highest Administrator, from Quinella's grasp, you will have gained freedom to leave this world by your own hands!

"Rejoice, Swordmasters. Welcome once more to the Aincrad Archipelago. Rejoice, and shape your Fate!"

There was silence, on the heels of Kayaba Akihiko's final proclamation. Silence… and then Kayaba's avatar collapsed, the lights on his airship's bridge cutting out. Its engines roared, propellers revving up to push it forward. The ship accelerated, swinging in a wide arc to cast its shadow over the city and the players, and soared back to the Skywall. It pierced that wall again, dissolving as it went—and then it was gone.

A frozen stillness. Then, in the blink of an eye, the Skywall's hexagons snapped back to shimmering, ethereal gold, with no trace of the alert message.

Asuna could only stare up at that barrier, feeling the foundations of her world come tumbling down. She'd logged into SAO, come to the world of Aincrad, for a chance at something different from the life she'd always lived. She hadn't counted on then being unable to leave it.

Einsla, Origia, the Skywall, and all that lay beyond… that that was now her world was something she just couldn't process. Not right away. Even after Kayaba's speech, it was just too unreal—

Then the screaming began. The screaming, the panic, the begging, as twenty thousand players reacted at once. "Stop joking! Get back here, you bastard, and let us out!"

"This can't be real… this can't be real…!"

"Are you nuts?! I have an important dinner meeting! Quick playing around, dammit!"

"But… but I have an exam tomorrow, I need to study…!"

That last brought Asuna back to herself with a gasp. Glancing around wildly, she recognized for the first time that she and her companions weren't the only ones who had changed. Every face was different, and so many of them were suddenly younger, with completely different bodies. So few girls…

She had to resist a hysterical giggle, in the middle of that horror, at seeing so many guys in female outfits. It was like one last, cruel joke from Kayaba—but if she gave in to the humor, she wasn't sure she'd ever come out of it.

A flicker of motion, beyond the Skywall, distracted her from that. Not Kayaba's grand ship this time, but something much smaller. Asuna squinted, too numb now even to be frightened of what could be coming next. Is that… a bird…? No… it's too big. But it has wings, and… and it's coming this way—

"Come on!"

A hand grabbed hers, tugging insistently. Any other time, Asuna would've snapped; now, in the daze, in the middle of twenty thousand panicked players, she allowed Kirito to drag her and Klein off to an alleyway, away from the crowds. Away from the scene where Kayaba had pronounced their doom.

Down the stone streets of Origia, through back alleys she'd gotten lost in with a kind of giddy amazement only hours before. As with the first time she'd seen him, Kirito seemed to know exactly where he was going, and why. That time she'd found it oddly inspiring. Now she was only grateful someone seemed able to keep a clear head in the middle of the madness.

Even if I have no idea how he's doing it. Who can think straight… after that…?

Kirito brought them to a halt at the mouth of an alley, leading out of Origia's walls into the deepening night. "Listen," he said, low and urgent. "Right now, everyone is panicking. Nobody knows what to do. But when the panic wears off, people are going to realize they need resources. Levels, money, materials—and in an MMO, there's always competition for that." His dark eyes met hers and Klein's in turn. "If we're going to survive, we need to stay ahead."

"And… how do we do that?" Asuna got out, past a throat that wasn't really dry, however much it felt like it should have been. "I… I don't know where to go…"

"I do. The area around Origia will be chaos for days, maybe weeks—but I know how to reach the next town safely. With three of us, we can fight the mobs in that area safely, without running out." He paused, suddenly looking much less certain. "I mean… if you'll trust me."

He didn't expect them to. Asuna could see that in Kirito's eyes and stance, hear it in his voice. He didn't really expect either of them to trust him. Not that much.

Is it because this is a game? Asuna wondered. You never know who anyone really is, even if we're all using our real faces now. But… it feels like it's more than that. Not like me, but… not that different, either.

Kirito was patient, she'd give him that. He only stood there, visibly keeping himself from fidgeting, and waited.

"…You've helped me out a ton already, Kirito," Klein said slowly, a troubled frown on his face. "I'd trust you to lead us anywhere. But… remember I said I was going to meet some friends?" He pointed a thumb back the way they'd come; Asuna could hear the shouts and screams even from where they were. "They're back there, somewhere. I can't just leave 'em."

Kirito opened his mouth, then closed it, looking suddenly anxious. After a moment, she realized why: whatever idea he had for keeping three people going probably wasn't going to work as well for many more. Someone like him, who'd probably mostly played alone, wouldn't likely know how to handle a larger group.

"Well," he began finally, "I might be able to find—"

Klein abruptly held up a hand. "Nope. Don't even offer, Kirito. Whatever it is, it's not gonna be easy on you. You've already done plenty, just showing me the ropes. I'm not gonna ask for more." Despite the situation, he actually grinned. "I was a guildmaster in our last game. I can take care of my guys, don't you worry."

Kirito swallowed. "Klein… I…"

"Nope! Not a word about it, buddy." The samurai shook his head firmly, still smiling. "You've done all a guy can ask. The only thing I want from you now?" He dropped a hand on Asuna's shoulder, startling her. "Take care of her. I think she'll do better with you than with my guys."

Klein's real face was scruffy-looking. The bandana and the red of his starter gear made him look like he was doing a bad cosplay of a samurai. He'd only barely gotten a start on learning to use a katana, however enthusiastic he may have been.

Tired, dazed, and scared out of her wits, Asuna had the strangest feeling Klein was handling the situation better than anyone.

Watching Kirito's face from under the cover of her hood, she saw Kirito hesitate, visibly torn. "I…" He stopped. Took a deep breath. Straightened his shoulders, and gave a slow nod. "All right, Klein. Take care of yourself—and if you have any questions, well…"

"You're on my list," Klein said, with a nod of his own. "I'll remember. You be careful, too, you hear me? I owe you." He turned to Asuna, then, and grabbed her other shoulder. "And you? Kirito might not look the part, but I think you can trust him. He's got that vibe, right?"

Mutely, Asuna nodded. The youth had the build of an otaku, but he obviously knew what he was doing. And if anything, his awkwardness reassured her. He'd hesitated, when she and Klein first approached him. And he had gotten them both out of the Summoning Plaza, before the situation could get any worse.

Not a judgment she would've made in the real world. In Aincrad, she thought she had no choice. Surviving the game of death Kayaba Akihiko had trapped them in would mean throwing the dice one way or another.

"Good." Klein gave a firm nod, let go of her shoulders, and moved to jog back down the alley. Halfway down, though, he paused. "Oi, Kirito!" he called over his shoulder. "Just so you know—you look a lot better when you're not trying too hard to be cool!"

Kirito laughed, shaky and strained. "And you're better off not pretending you aren't a bandit, Klein!" he shouted back. "Just make sure you only rob the right people!"

"Hah! Fine, then. Just like Goemon!"

Then he was gone, and Asuna was left alone in that alleyway with Kirito. Alone, with a boy she'd never met before, in a dark alley, in a world terrifyingly far from home. Turning back to face him, she met his eyes. Took a deep breath. Nodded.

After Klein had left, leaving Kirito with a terrible mix of relief and crushing guilt, he was left alone with a girl. In his sixteen years of life, it was startlingly novel experience. He didn't think he'd been alone with a girl in at least six years, and even he knew there was a difference between that situation at ten, and at sixteen.

Asuna only followed him silently, though, when he turned to head out into the field. As the sun dipped out of sight beyond the horizon, she followed him down the stone-paved road out of Origia. Followed him even when he turned away from the road, running up onto the hills along Einsla's edge.

He was glad. If he'd seen what he thought he'd seen, coming toward Einsla in the wake of Kayaba's speech, he didn't want to be anywhere near Origia when it arrived. If he—if the playerbase as a whole—was lucky, it was just there to find out what the fuss was about.

If not… We can't be there for it. Not now.

Only when they'd crested one of the taller hills, half a kilometer out from Origia, did Kirito slow down and stop, turning to face his unlikely companion. "Are you sure about this?" he asked. His voice was low, despite the nearest players being much too far away to hear. "I mean, I…"

She stopped, too, turning her still-hooded face toward the island's edge. Toward the rising night sky of Aincrad, so different from Earth. "…I died today."

He blinked, taken aback by the morbid statement. "Asuna…?"

"Kirito-kun," she said, still looking at the stars. At the first of Aincrad's moons, lifting above the horizon, far bigger than Earth's moon. "If I go with you, will you teach me how to fight?"

"Well, yeah." People, he didn't know very well at all. Aincrad's physics and gameplay were far more familiar. "I'll teach you everything I can about the game. But, Asuna…" Kirito swallowed. Klein had relieved him of the terrifying possibility of being responsible for an entire guild. That didn't make the burden the wannabe-samurai had entrusted him with much easier. "I can't guarantee your safety. If you leave the Safe Havens, you might really die."

That, more than his own death, scared him. One thing to risk his own life. In his nightmares, he'd done it before, and he was grimly prepared to do so in a waking dream. For escape, and to find the truth, he'd make that gamble. Someone else trusting him with that? He was feeling weak in the knees already.

"If this game kills me," Asuna said, low but firm, "at least it'll be on my own terms. I have to move forward, grow stronger here. One stumble, and I've lost everything in our world. The moment Kayaba trapped us, I died. If I'm going to live again, I need to be stronger. If I can be part of taking Bifrost, of freeing everyone, I'll have done something that my m… that no one can deny." She turned to face him, eyes just barely visible in the light as Aincrad's second moon began to rise. "If I can do that, I'll have the strength to stand on my own two feet."

Kirito had no idea what she meant by most of that. Even less of an idea what circumstances led her to the conviction that whatever life she had IRL was already over, just from being trapped a matter of hours. He didn't know what conviction kept her standing, staring at him, when she was plainly as frightened as anyone.

But I've got my own reasons for moving forward, even knowing this world can kill me now. Hers probably make a lot more sense than just chasing dreams, too. And… well, it's not like I won't be safer myself, with someone to watch my back.

"Aincrad is a world of swords and airships," Kirito said quietly, glancing away from her to the Skywall, shimmering like white gold under the twin moons. "In this world, those two things are all that matter. With them, you can go anywhere you want. Be anyone you want." Hesitantly, he held out one gloved hand. "If you're willing to trust me, I'll teach you everything I can."

Asuna looked down at that hand. Very slowly, she reached out to take it with her own—and with her free hand, she threw back her hood.

Chestnut hair flew free, gleaming almost black in the moonlight. Golden eyes met his black, and her hand gripped his with surprising firmness. "Then I'll be in your care, Kirito-kun."

Transfixed, Kirito could only nod. "Likewise, Asuna. …We won't lose to this world."

The entire world had gone completely mad. Under the light of unfamiliar constellations and two enormous moons, Asuna was running along a hill that bordered open sky with a boy she'd met less than twelve hours before. Instead of a school uniform and a book bag, she had a hooded cloak and a rapier.

Instead of worrying about her latest test scores, she had the prospect of death hanging over her like the Sword of Damocles.

There was something dizzyingly exhilarating about it. She was terrified, she was trapped—and yet she was free. The wind was in her hair, her path was lit by moon and starlight, and her companion was someone she never would've dreamed of associating with IRL. She'd chosen to follow Kirito's course, even when every ingrained instinct screamed for her to hide in Origia until rescue came.

Though, speaking of…

"Kirito-kun," Asuna said, as the dark-haired boy turned to start them down the hill, into the island's interior. "Why can't we just wait for rescue? I know what Kayaba said, but… there must be some way the authorities can break his trap."

"…There won't be rescue," Kirito said, almost too low to hear over the sound of their own passage. "If there were going to be, we'd already be out."

The gloomy certainty in his voice earned him a sharp look. So did the fact that their course was now leading them directly toward a forest. She knew he'd said there was another town that would give them better chances, but right into the woods in the middle of the night wasn't quite what she'd expected. Especially not with what she'd seen on the edges of that forest, while they were still on the hilltops.

"You're going to explain yourself when we're somewhere safer," she said, eyeing him warily. "And why are we going into the forest, when there's a village on the outskirts? Wouldn't that be safer?"

"In the short term, in theory," Kirito replied. He slowed down as they reached the edge of the treeline, sweeping down two fingers to bring up his menu. "For long-term survival, though, we need to take a few risks. …And that village isn't a risk worth taking."

…I'm starting to wonder if this was a good idea already. That didn't even make sense. Asuna forced herself to stand and wait anyway, because like it or not, he knew more about the game in general than she did. She'd thrown the dice, now she had to live with them.

He'd set his menu to visible, allowing her to see his map. Though it had just as much empty, unexplored space as hers, he'd made several annotations of his own. Probably based on his knowledge from the beta test, she thought.

"Anyway," Kirito said, lifting the map so she could see it more easily, "that village wouldn't do us much good for grinding. Farming village, not many mobs, pretty much nowhere to get new gear." He tapped a spot further into the blank area of the forest. "Here's where we're going: Horunka Village. There's a couple of quests there for better weapons, the shop has tougher armor than Origia's markets. If we're careful—and with two of us, that shouldn't be hard—the mobs will be good for EXP, too."

Asuna considered that for a moment, then nodded. "Okay, that makes sense. Let's get started."

He dismissed his map, started toward the trees—then paused. "You're okay with going through the night?"

She huffed, hands on her hips. "And you're not?" she said pointedly. "You were the one who said we'll be competing with other players for stuff. Besides…" She looked away, back up at those eerie moons. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep for awhile yet, anyway."

If at all. If I go to sleep here, and wake up here… that'll make everything real. I'm… I'm not ready for that. Not yet.

Kirito looked back at her. She wondered, meeting those dark eyes, how much of that thought he could sense. Wondered, too, how much of it he was feeling himself. She'd seen him, during Kayaba's speech. He couldn't be nearly as calm as he looked, after that.

Whatever he may have been thinking, though, Kirito only nodded slowly. "All right. Then let's go." He started into a trot, going into the trees, and Asuna followed right behind. "For one thing, one of the quests I'm thinking of has a really low drop rate for the key item. If we don't get started now, we really will be at this all night."

Asuna wasn't sure that would be entirely a bad thing, if it kept her from having to face sleep.

Originally, Kirito had been glad to become a beta tester simply for the chance to get a head start on exploring SAO. Now he was guiltily grateful he had the knowledge that experience gave him to, just maybe, help keep himself and his impromptu partner alive.

First, the Anneal Blade quest, he thought, leading Asuna into the forest. I can't help her if I'm not at my best. Then… I guess I'll have to track down Argo, she should have some idea where to get a good rapier this early.

Although just then, the thing he was most grateful for about having been in the beta was that he was already used to the eerie blue light that lit the dark places of Aincrad. While the stars and the two moons lit the fields well enough, this deep in the forest that concession to gameplay was the only reason they could see at all. Without it, even he would've been tripping over tree roots and running into branches, at the pace they were maintaining.

At least Asuna was keeping up surprisingly well. Newbie she might've been, but she was a quick study. That was probably the only reason he wasn't completely freaking out at being responsible for her.

Though the deeper they got into the forest, the more something else was starting to bother Kirito. "…That's weird," he muttered, as much for his own benefit as for Asuna's. "We should've run into some mobs by now. This place should be crawling with Little Nepenthes, if nothing else…"

Certainly the hills had had their fair share of mobs, weak as they were so close to Origia. And if there aren't any Nepenthes around, that's going to make the quest kinda difficult. What…?

"Could someone have gotten here ahead of us?" Asuna asked, low and tense.

"Maybe," he said, dubious. "I'm not sure how, though. Even if they got out of the city before we did, we should've seen them on the way. Not even Argo the Rat should've fast enough to get here without us even noticing." If they'd been further into the game, he might've suspected someone of using Hiding, but there was no way anybody would have strong enough Hiding yet to stay invisible in broad moonlight.

Worry about it later, Kirito told himself. We're halfway to Horunka. Take care of business there, then figure out where all the mobs… went… Eh?

A sound had finally broken the silence, as they sprinted through the forest. A distinctive clang, over and over again, varying in pitch. Not one Kirito had ever heard IRL—but in Aincrad, he'd learned it very well. It was the sound that defined the world, after all.

And there was no reason at all he should've been hearing it right then, right there.

"What's that sound?" Asuna whispered. "It sounds almost like—"

If Kirito hadn't been so distracted, he never would've stumbled right into the clearing that way. As it was, he had to stifle a curse at his carelessness—and then a shocked exclamation, seeing what was already in that clearing. Whatever he might've expected to see, it absolutely wasn't what greeted his eyes.

Any more than he and Asuna where what they expected.

Fallen swords and a couple of shields lay on the ground. Right in the middle, a leafy bag. On one side, a tall, handsome man, pale-skinned and wearing golden armor. He was swinging a heavy two-handed sword, and had apparently been in mid-attack when the two players blundered in. Standing opposite him…

A lithe, beautiful young woman, with dusky skin, dark armor, and a billowing cloak. A saber in one hand and kite shield in the other. Short lilac hair, violet eyes, and ruby earrings. And like her opponent—long, pointed ears.

Over both their heads, the golden exclamation points of Quest NPCs.

In the middle of what was obviously a vicious battle, which from the look of it had killed several on either side already, the two elves now stared at the two players. The two players stared back, just as startled.

"No way…" Kirito breathed. "This… can't be right…"

He knew this scene. He'd been through it before, after all. Part of him was even glad to see the Dark Elf; he'd always hated how the encounter ended, in the beta. But the implications were both startling, and more than a little terrifying. No, not now! This isn't supposed to be here, not yet, we're not ready—!

"Kirito-kun…?"

He needed to grab Asuna, and retreat. Whatever mad whim of Kayaba's had changed things, getting involved right then and there was nothing short of suicidal. Kirito could already see the scripted event playing out just as it had in the beta, the Forest Elf's face twisting in a snarl. "Humans, here?! This is no affair of yours! Begone—or I'll kill you, the same as these Dark Elves!"

Just like in the beta. He could see in his mind's eye what the Dark Elf would do next, hear what she'd say, and if they didn't leave right now he wasn't sure they could—

The Dark Elf wasn't angry. Instead of a glare and a quick, sharp bark in the same vein as her opponent, she was looking right at him, eyes wide. Surprise, he thought—and, impossibly, recognition. Then her eyes narrowed, and she lifted her chin in defiance.

"Swordmasters!" she called out, even as her cursor abruptly changed from a golden exclamation point to the yellow inverted triangle of an allied NPC. "In the name of the Last Alliance, for the sake of both our peoples—lend me your swords!"

…What the hell…?!

Author's Note:

So. Here we have it: the first chapter of a new story I've been plotting for some time. As much as I love writing Monochrome Duet—and that fic does remain my primary focus—I admit I've found it somewhat limiting, designed as it is around canon gameplay mechanics and suchlike. This fic… is not so limited.

A few things to note at the start. I am very sorry it so closely resembles canon in several places; I rewrote several scenes to try and distance them from the source material, but I just couldn't seem to make it work without covering at least several of the basics. I do hope my spin on things was at least mildly interesting—and as is hopefully obvious from the exposition and general setup, it's not going to be nearly so close to canon now that the initial setup is done.

In case the presence of airships and the Axiom Church doesn't make it clear enough, this is not simply going to be a Duet rehash with Asuna on hand. Several themes that I couldn't do justice in Duet will be revisited, but I assure you the resemblance will otherwise be superficial at best. Among other things, the tone is going to be based more on the Progressive manga than the novels, so you can expect a fair bit more humor. (I hope.)

One thing I want to clarify that may not be clear from the text: the years and ages given are deliberately different from canon. I've pushed the setting back a decade for reasons of technological possibility—we're coming right up on SAO's canon timeframe, after all, and Full-Dive isn't quite in our grasp yet—and the characters are at the ages canon has for them as of the end of the SAO Incident. Kirito and Asuna being a couple of years older at the start makes some aspects a tad easier.

Just as an aside? I originally planned to give Asuna a katana for this fic. I'd run across an interview with Kawahara in which he mentioned he kind of regretted making her a fencer, so I had the idea of changing things up and basing her fighting style on Himura Kenshin, with some interesting twists to character growth along with. In the end, though, I decided that might not be a popular departure; fortunately I've figured out how to work most of the basic ideas into her fencer portrayal here, so it's not a total loss.

The title, for the curious, is taken from of all things a lyric in a fandub of a song from Aldnoah Zero. It seemed fitting, given Asuna's motivations and… a plot point I won't spoil just yet.

To those curious about pairings, let me say that for the time being my focus is on developing Kirito, Asuna, and Kizmel as a close-knit team. Where things develop from there… well, who knows. Though the spin I'm going to put on a bit of banter from canon Progressive has… possibilities.

At any rate. This first chapter is… rougher than I'd like, to put it mildly. I think, though, that's largely due to the nature of first chapters and the exigencies of introducing the world of Aincrad, so subsequent chapters should be much smoother. I assure you, the plot that's about to unfold is going to be very different from both canon and Monochrome Duet.

I can't promise the next chapter will be prompt, as I do need to get back to Duet. That being said, I'm rather excited about this project, so… if the Demon Murphy isn't too hard on me, with luck the delay won't be excruciating. In the meantime? Let me know if it's any good, please, or if I've completely lost my touch. -Solid