"Welcome to Devil Arts Online." The robotic voice called out. "Enjoy your stay." A flash of light and Kazuto now called Kirito in this virtual world soon found himself in a medieval looking city far bigger then anything he had ever seen. Heck, it was far bigger then any city that was possibly out there in the real world. Its architecture gothic. It was crowded and bustling with both players and NPC's alike and the sun looked to be rising as opposed to the setting sun in the real world. He could feel the virtual suns warmth. He savored the warmth like he savored the way the wind blew passed his long hair. Before he could take a step, he heard a chiming noise. Kirito smiled as he opened the menu and read his very first message in game.

Add me to your friends list and meet us at the fountain.-At-9.

Main Square.

The main square was loaded with players standing around. Either talking or sifting through their equipment on their menus. Kirito's own eyes were sifting through the hundreds of players looking for At-9. When he was scanning around the fountain, he finally found who he was looking for when he spotted a green tag on top an adult male, wearing leather armor and equipment. Right next to him was another older male, red hair and a beard. The green tagged male waved Kirito over.

"At-9 and Klein?" Kirito said looking over at the others red head

screen name confused. Daisuke had always used Daikon as a screen name It was a little strange that he'd choose something else. At-9 shook his head.

"Daikon says he's going to log in later. His relatives are visiting right now and he's having dinner with them. This here is Klein. He's completely new. First time with nerve gear actually. Thought I'd help him out. We'll be going outside to level up a bit. Let him get a feel for combat." Kirito smiled and offered his hand.

"Nice to meet you Klein. I'm Kirito." Klein returned the smile and shook his hand.

"Kirito. Its great to meet you too. At-9 tells me you were also a beta tester for the game?"

"That's true." Kirito commented as he took a seat on the fountain. "And since we have time before Daikon logs on, I think I can also show you a few tricks I've learned" At-9 perked up at that.

"Where do we start then?"

"There's a nice a little private spot we can train. Lets start there." Atsuro nodded and the trio left the city.

Outside Starting City

"Alright. To activate your sword skills just hold your weapon like so, and let the auto assist activate." At-9 commented. The trio were fighting six frenzy boars. Monsters which were basically bestial versions of real boars. It has red eyes, horns, and an aggressiveness which would give any newbie pause. As Klein was having a trouble hold off even one boar. Kirito and At-9 were easily able to dispatch the other five with incredible ease.

"Damn, I don't know what Naoya or Kayaba did but the feel of this world is even more immersive then the beta." Atsuro commented as he swung his short sword to finish off his second boar. Kirito nodded before performed a whirl wind sword skill which finished off two of the boars, cleaving their heads clean off their bodies.

"The bodies don't even disappear anymore after you kill them. I can literally smell the blood from my sword." Kirito replied, his eyes scanning his weapon.

"Um guys can you help me here!" a panicked voice yelled out from behind them. The pair of friends turned to watch their red headed newbie run for his life from two other boars.

"Come on Klein focus!" Kirito called out. He chased one of the predators trying to attack his new friend and buried his blade his blade in its spine. Klein managed to put distance between himself and the monster. Getting into to an attack position, he raised his blade at the right angle and then...

"THERE!" Klein bellowed out. His sword began to glow, the auto assist activated. Slant! his mind screamed out. A simple slash broke through the boars spiritual barrier. Once the barrier shattered, half the boars body was severed its guts spilling on the the emerald field.

"Nice one." At-9 complimented. He walked over to Kleins kill observing it. "Damn, they really went out of their way with the physics engine for this world. The Boar's guts smell awful." He took his own sword and poked at its flesh. Klein however was yelling out and throwing his arms out in celebration of his first kill.

"Yeah, I was really skeptical when they removed HP and MP by replacing both with the spiritual power. Not exactly RPG like, but its really been fun and challenging" Kirito said joining his friend. In a move to add a different kind of depth to the game, the concept of leveling up has been dramatically altered for Devil Arts Online. Players and monsters instead get spiritual power or SP for short. SP is a means to summon devil or demons and to cast spells to attack. It also acts as a way of protecting the player from attacks by placing an barrier around the player called spiritual aura which is called SA for short. The Spiritual Aura is tied to the players SP. If the Aura is attacked in any way SP would go down preventing the player from casting any more effective spells and forcing them to hide or find a safe place and wait for it to recharge. If the Aura is damaged with enough force, Aura can break and cause the player an internal injury. Interestingly, a player can even release their SA allowing them a hundred percent access to their SP however doing so lands the risk of actually getting killed by monsters. When the Aura is not around, players can actually receive the same amount of injuries as one would get in the real world. Cuts ,bruises, even broken bones to the player require a realistic amount of time to heal. Of course, to save time on recovering from such injuries, the healing spells in game heal such injuries instantly. However, paying to get healed in game is actually expensive in the earlier floors and learning the spells can be a chore.

To learn any sort of magic in game, the player has to either do a quest chain in the magic school on the floor or contract a Demon which knows healing and get the demon to teach them. Doing quests in a Magic School requires the player to go an several missions that go from collecting items to killing a certain set of monsters. These fetch and kill quests may take hours, sometimes even days to complete and unfortunately the reward for theses quests is random and most of the time players don't even receive the spells they want. Though the process of contracting a demon is tedious yet easy. Getting them to teach a player something they know is even harder as its diffuclty and amount of time is dependent on the the demons class and species. Getting any offensive magic is easy from any demon geared for battle. However support or healing demons are always they hardest to talk to.

The dead boars smell was starting to get to Kirito. At-9 agreed as he stepped away from the beasts corpse.

"How do we level SP up?" Klein asked, sheathing his sword. He waved his hand out and pulled up his menu, checking his Characters stat sheet. "I don't really see anything on my status menu indicating the number."

"You can level it up by either contracting demons, absorbing demons SP when you kill them, or repeated use of your spiritual energy. All of them actually have down sides. Your actually treated differently by NPC's depending on what demons are contracted to you. If you contract the wrong demon an NPC may either charge you a higher amount of money or a town guard would end up attacking you on sight. Of course it could work both ways. If you contract the right demon you can get discounts on items or even a free gift. NPC's can also assist you in battle directly by either offering support or fight along side you.

A bell sound could from Kleins arm gauntlet. Klein looked confused, however the two beta testers looked curious.

"Hey. What's that?" Klein asked as he was looking at the guantlet..

"Speak of the devil, You've attracted a demon to the area." Kirito responded. "See that screen, on your gauntlet tap on it and it should show you where its at." Klein responded with an excited squeak.

"The demon taming feature! I finally get to use it!" Klein turned to the other two. "Since you two did help I suppose you should get first crack it." The two other players shook their head.

"The demon wants to test you alone and depending on how well you perform you can recruit it. Kirito responded. "Besides Tame stealing his hard. Not to mention as beta-testers we both get a free demon already at the start of the game." As to demonstrated he tapped his metal gauntlet and called out "Sparna!" A giant bird appeared with yellow feather and blue feathers materialized next to him. Klein looked in at awe as it flew up into the sky and circled the the trio.

"Damn I wanted Sparna." At-9 responded, his head pointed up skywards, looking at the circling demon."Well guess I'll have to settle with..." He tapped his arm pad and a tall horse like creature with two horns appeared right next to his him."

"Bicorn is still pretty good." Kirito responded scanning the demon up and down.

"Yeah but I wanted to get something I can fly."

"You'll still be able to cover more ground easily when you explore. I have to reach a certain level with Sparna before I can use her as a mount. Bicorn already comes with the mount feature." The bell whistling can be heard again, prompting Kirito to turn to Klein. "Well then lets get you started. Klein your gauntlet should have compass that we'll guide you to a demon." Klein nodded, and tapped on his gauntlet. A holographic compass appeared right over the COMP. The letter N glowed indicating the direction of the demon.

The demon's location was only a few feet away in another clearing.

"Look over there." Atsuro called out. The demon's appearance is a giant pumpkin head with a blue cape and a pointed hat. It was carrying a lamp. Kirito looked at his own COMP and scanned the demon.

"Pyro Jack. This ones pretty good." Kirito commented. "Simple to tame, and it comes with a decent set of fire skills and debuffs. Which is good until you reach one of the floors which heavily ues ice creatures. Now to talk to the demon, set your gauntlet to recruit mode." Klein did so and a green light surrounded the new player. "Good, this will show the demon your here to talk."

"What do I then?" Klein asked.

"It will ask you to either give it items such Macca or life stones, ask you to duel it; Which to be honest is rare this early in game or you can debate with it."

"Um Debate?"Klein replied looking bewildered

"Demons will get into a debate about order vs chaos. You know the primary theme this game's story line gets into. Certain demon clans are either for one side or the other. They may fall somewhere in between. You'll be able to get a feel for what side a demons on once you speak to it. The game manuals calls it a debate but really it just means agreeing with the demon on its views of order and chaos." Klein nodded, turned around and went to the Pyro Jack. The Pyro Jack in return approached Klein. The pair began speaking to each other.

"Why didn't you tell him what happens if he fails the debate?" At-9 whispered into Kirito's ear.

"No need to, the first floor is forgiving to all newbies."

"Those Frenzy boars weren't."

"The system tailors encounters to a party. It probably detected the fact that we were beta-testers, and ramped up the difficulty."

The process was long and tedious for Klein. The pair watched several times as Klein face when between confusion and frustration as he either gave the demon items or health or answering a question which elicited an irritated wave from the demon. Before they knew it the Pyro Jack he was talking to vanished, turning into glowing crimson dust. That crimson dust entered Kleins gauntlet.

"Congrats!" At-9 replied as Klein approached. The red head gave them the widest of grins.

"My first demon. This is great." Another chiming sound could be heard from Klein. This time it wasn't coming from his gauntlet. "Hold on let me get this." Klein opened the players menu. "Looks like my buddies logged in but..." He grimaced. "I have to log out. My pizza should be arriving at any moment. We'll its been great seeing you both. We should actually form a party again sometime." The pair nodded as they each spoke their own good byes and went to approach the town "Wait a minute. Somethings weird..."

"What is it?" Kirito asked, turning around walking towards Klein.

"This is a really strange thing to say but I can't find my log out button."

"Let me see. It should be there." Kirito pulled up his own menu, and tapped on the player options. "That is weird. Let me check the settings. Maybe I can..." At-9 copied Kirito as he pulled up his own menu, sifting through the settings as well. Klein tried a different alternative by making a motion resembling removing a helmet.

"Not going to work." Kirito said watching Klein. "Nerve Gear stops motor functions. When you use it, intercepts an signals your brain sends to the body and vice versa."

"We should find a GM and find out what's going on?" At-9 said. He frowned as attempted to send a message. "Damn it. The GM's not responding."

The three were left to ponder on this dilemma before something else happened. In an instant Kirito felt his vision blur and watched as the area around him slowly vanished. The last thing he saw was At-9 and Klein being enveloped by a blue light. The next thing he knew he was the square of the fountain in the Town of beginnings again along with AT-9 and Klein. From where he was, the square was packed and dense. More people teleported in. More confusion filled the atmosphere as the trio and the rest of the crowd were all wondering the same thing. Why were they teleported there.

The answer to this mystery would come in the form of a gigantic floating red cloaked man materializing high up in the crimson sky.

"Hell of an entrance." At-9 commented as the crowd grew silent. The figure raised its arms to silence any left over people speaking

"My name is Kayabe Akahiko. As creator of Devil Arts Online, I'd like you to personally welcome you to my world. By now, most of you have noticed that there is no log out button on your menu. This is no bug or glitch. All of you are now trapped here in this world. Anybody trying to disconnect your from the outside world will kill you accidentally. The Nerve Gear your using comes equipped with Transceivers that can send bursts of microwaves to the brain if there is any attempt to shut off or remove the nerve gear." He paused to let the information get in before continuing on " "Thanks to a new breakthrough I have had in programming this world; Your avatars will now require sleep, food, and water in order to function in this world properly and survive. Not only that, but as of now I have removed the pain limiters from your gear. You'll actually feel your avatar's hunger and thirst if you don't eat or drink. You'll even feel fatigue if you don't rest. Your virtual body will also feel fatigue if you preform combat or any other sort of physical activity. This is to add an element of realism to the world. To draw you, the guest into a once in a like time experience. One more thing, if you are killed in this world, the transmitters will also fry your brain." Confusion began to grow as people began to whisper to each other, trying to make sense of it all. The red reaper that is Kayaba continued on though. "213 players have already died because their friends or relatives have tried to remove their nerve gears. By now the news has caught wind of what happened." To demonstrate, several screens materialized all around Kayaba. Kirito could see that they were screens of news channels broadcasting this 'abduction'. "I have given them permission to allow all your body's to be moved to a hospital so it can be sustained during your stay here. Most; if not all of you will be in hibernation mode when this happens." He paused let the gravity of the situation the players have found themselves sink in. "The only way to leave Aincrad is to fight your way through the hundred floors of this world and defeat beast which lies on top. If you can beat this challenge I pose to you then I will allow all of you to log out." The screens of the news shut off and a model of Aincrad appeared right before the group of players. "Now some of you wonder why I have done all of this. The answers is that I have always wanted to hold dominion over the world by watching, nurturing, and evolving it. In order to advance the world I require help from you, the players. Every sacrifice, action and moment you have here contributes to the evolution of this world. This world will fully mature once all of you together attain the power to reach and survive the end. That being said I would like to wish you all good luck. May fortune guide you." The red reaper raised its arms once more. "Before I leave now I think it best that I do one more thing to help with you growth and progression into this world. In your inventory you should have a mirror. Look into it." Kirito, accessed his inventory pulled out his mirror. For a moment it showed him the reflection of his avatar. White light began to envelope him and all the players in the square. He was blinded for a moment.

"Wait... Kazuto?" Kirito turned around, and looked at the source of the voice. His widened in surprise.

"Atsuro? What's going on?" Kirito replied. No longer did At-9 have the face of an older bearded male. It was now Atsuro looking exactly the same as he did in the real world. He looked around where Klein was supposed to be. Instead of the strong super model of an person, the real Klein is a skinny man with a red beard and a lean yet tired looking face.

"That's really you Klein?"

"Your name is Kazuto?"

After the true faces of a players were revealed Kayaba vanished letting the shock sink into the now trapped players. It was silent. The silence became whispers, then mutters, then screams. Panic pierced the air. There was going to be riot in the square and the few that have expected it such as Kirito, At-9 and Klein slipped away unnoticed.

Back Alley

"Damn it!" At-9 yelled as he slammed his fist to a wall. "I... I actually believed in him. I actually wanted to be like him!"

"You shouldn't meet your role models." Kirito spoke with a bitter smile. "At least we're not alone. We can pull through this together." The pair nodded, sharing same the same sentiment: determination. Klein however looked worried as he stared at the entrance of the square. "What's the matter?"

"My buddies, the ones I told you about. I think I saw them back there."

"Then you should get to them." Kirito responded. "Actually, we should start forming a guild with them and us as members as soon as possible. We should also find and hunt for demons to contract." At-9 frowned. Kirito noticed. "What?"

"Did Naoya know about this? I know he's mainly worked on the programming. But I thought he'd have a good look at the nerve gear. Get a sense of how dangerous it is." Before Kirito could answer another beeping noise could be heard. He had a message. At-9 had one too as they both pulled up their menu. Both of them looked at the other confusedly. "It's from Naoya."

Meet me at North Field.- Naoya

"Naoya? I thought he didn't want to play this game." At-9 asked confused

"Maybe he changed his mind? Either way we do have to meet up with him. Pull together if want to survive this game" Kirito responded. Looking over the message.

"What's going on?" Klein asked "And who's Naoya?"

"He's my brother and he's one of the programmers for DAO"

"Really?" Klein asked. "Do you think you can get him break us out?" Kirito shook his head.

"If he's here I highly doubt he'd be in any position to break us out." Klein looked crest fallen.

"Regardless we do have to meet him." At-9 interjected "Maybe he could give us ideas on how to survive."

"Can you two go meet him then while I go and find my friends. They look helpless without me." Klein replied. Kirito and At-9 nodded. "We'll get a guild up and running once we're together. I've run guilds the past before in other games. It should be no problem." At-9 frowned.

"I think Kirito and I should be the ones to run the guild seeing as we have more experience playing DAO."

"My friends will trust me more then two strangers."

"You'll be more likely to survive if you follow one of us..." At-9 shot back irritably.

"We'll settle on who is guild leader after we gather everyone up." Kirito spoke. At-9 and Klein nodded grudgingly and soon went their own ways.

Outside The Town of Beginnings: North Field.

"He said to meet us here." At-9 spoke as he looked around. Kirito shrugged.

"Maybe he's running late?" Kirito pondered looking around. There was nothing but another green field filled with Frenzy boars.

"I never run late" A voice called out behind them. Kirito and AT-9 turned around at the sound of the voice. It was Naoya. Still dressed in his same cloak with a button shirt. He was smiling. Kirito could tell it was forced and fake though. "How've you been Bro?"

"Naoya. How come your wearing that in here and not the starting gear. Do you get special privileges as a progammer" The younger brother asked approaching him.

"That's because I'm technically not a player. I've managed to hack into the servers with my own Nerve Gear and created an avatar which convinces the Cardinal system that I am ghost."

"Can you get us out?"

"I'm sorry." Naoya responded, his smile faltering. "I can't." The two players gave their mentor a confused look "Whatever defenses he's placed on the system; They are far more complex then anything I can come up with. There is a reason why he's hailed as the the greatest inventor of this century"

"So what can you do?"

"I can give you information on any of the upcoming floors. As well as hand you keys to a dungeon which like my avatar doesn't technically exist. "

"Dungeon?"

"Darwin's Path"

"Never heard of it."

"Not surprised. It was scrapped shortly before the beta. But within it lies the key to ending this game quickly." Naoya paused as his avatar began blinking in and out of existence frantically. "Hold on." Naoya stood there frozen. Five minutes later and his avatar stabilized. He spoke again. "Cardinal is quickly catching on to me. I'll try to be quick. As for the dungeon: some of the other the designers ended up creating a set of bonus dungeons and with the completion of those bonus dungeons they had a reward. That reward was a power which allowed the user unlimited spiritual energy and enhanced stength. In order to attain this power though, the players would have to clear a set of dungeons on the different floors collectively called Darwin's Path. Since the power was such a game breaker, we decided to get rid of it and the dungeon for the beta and full game. We were short on time though. It would take a while to delete that much code. So instead of out right removing this code, we just simply gathered all the scattered dungeons merged them into one large fortress, created a barrier to block any entry into the dungeon, turn it invisible and placed it under a lake no player is likely to go to on the tenth floor."

"I take it you have a way for us to access it then..."

Naoya nodded. He extended his palm out. Pearls of blue light materialized taking the shape of two small rectangles. "I've programed these keys in order for you to gain access to that dungeon. Be warned though, that the monsters and demons there are far stronger then you can imagine. You'll have to train your spiritual power up in order to effectively survive there."

"Is there any way you can jump start our spiritual power?" At-9 asked

"I'm afraid not. As far as altering in-game rules and protocols. Its virtually impossible to alter. Any attempt I make at will be blocked by Cardinal. If the system discovers me I will be locked out."

"It the best we have." At-9 replied. "I'm surprised though. When your looking at the nerve gear didn't something strike you as odd. You've had to have known the transmitters could be dangerous if something went wrong. Hell, You've beaten it into our heads that we should always check for any defects whenever we buy or get any new hard ware ourselves"

"You mean. did I know that the nerve gear could be used to trap ten thousand people in a virtual world and force them into a death game. I'm sorry I wasn't looking for that when I was more or less tasked with programming the game. Its hardware others use anyway. Nothing to do with software I program" Naoya gave a sarcastic smile. At-9 glared the moment he saw that smirk.

"That smile..."

"What about it?"

"Can we get back on topic you two?" Kirito raised his voice. "I don't know what's gotten into you Atsuro, but Naoya has helped us a lot so far." At-9 quickly regained what little composure he lost opting to let Nayoa speak. Naoya in turn decide to ignore the outburst and continued "One more thing, I suggest you keep the existence of this dungeon between yourselves. If possible I only want the two of you to be the ones to clear it and gain that power."

"If its as complex as you said then we're going to need all the help we can get." Naoya shook his head.

"And if Kayaba finds out about that dungeon through the other players what do you think he'll do with the power that sleeps within inside that lake. Especially if its a power that ends his little game early."

"Then wouldn't it be better if we just went along with the game and formed our own guild? We'd have a higher chance of surviving." At-9 asked. Kirito frowned however. Naoya gave him another one his all knowing looks.

"And more players would end up dying." Kirito added. "More time spent here can also mean more chances for players to die."

"But we'd take an even greater risk to ourselves trying tackle a dungeon with just the two of us"

"I'm willing to take that risk if it means saving as many people as possible." Silence greeted those words as At-9 stared at him with a flabbergasted look. Naoya expecting this let out a quiet chuckle.

"Always the kind one." Naoya commented. His face became pained in an insane before reverting back to his mysterious smile. Ever since they were young Kazuto had always had an extraordinary desire to help others. His older brother found it hard to deal with most of the time. Naoya never really could understand how Kazuto possessed such a nature.

"Over ten thousand people suffering. I can't forgive myself if I turn back on a chance to save more lives." Kirito said, with a look of determination.

"Figures" At-9 replied with an exasperated sigh. "Some day that attitude of yours is going to get you in trouble. Your actually lucky it hasn't happened yet. I wonder though, where do you get that weird need to help others."

Kirito shifted uncomfortably. Part of him still remembered that dream he had every night. What he remembered most was how helpless he felt. How he couldn't help the silver haired boy in his dream. He never wanted to feel that way again.

"How is Aunt Midori and Suguha?" Kirito asked changing the subject

"I haven't seen them. The moment I've heard what happened, I placed all the effort I had into tracking and finding you." Naoya responded.

"I know how you feel about Aunt Midori and the rest but you should really go see them."

"You do know they'll blame me for your kidnapping, Especially Aunt Midori."

"She'll be upset and angry. She won't be angry at you. She always worried about us. "

"She worries about you you mean. She hates me."

"Not true." Kirito replied insistently. "Whenever we hang out and I get home afterwards she always asks about how have you been. How your life is. Despite all that's happened between you two while you were living with us, I know she still cares. So could you at least visit her and the others for me."

"That's awfully sneaky of you. Using your kidnapping to get us to talk again." Naoya grinned. Kazuto ignored him.

"Promise me."

"Fine I promise." Naoya caved in. So long as it was in his power he'd always help out Kazuto. Even if it meant interacting with two people he's always resented. "But back on the topic. My brother here wants to go inside, but I know needs your help to do it Atsuro."

"What he needs is time to think this over." At-9 snapped back. "This is heavy task and in case you haven't noticed. I'm not eager to rush to my own death." He turned to Kirito. "Come on man, give it some thought. All this is a lot to take in. Plus once, you die you won't be able to help anyone."

Kirito looked between Nayoa and At-9 and Naoya again, his mind working furiously. He wanted to save them all. However, At-9 had a point. He would be no good to anyone dead.

"Fine." He sighed "I'll consider it. It's ten floors to that lake anyway. Plenty of time to give it some thought."

Entrance to Town of Beginnings

At-9 and Kirito soon made there way back to the Town of Beginnings. Naoya had leave because the Cardinal system was about to detect them. It seems that the panic has calmed since Kayaba's announcement. The air was still full of tension. People were now in the process of adjusting to this crisis they were thrown in.

"I don't like it." At-9 said at once, facing Kirito.

"I know you don't " Kirito responded. "None of us like being trapped here."

"Not That." At-9 stated "It's about Naoya"

"What about him?"

"I know he's your brother and of course I know you trust him implicitly but you said it yourself. He's always been keeping secrets from you. I think he's keeping a secret from you now."

"What makes you say that?" Kirito frowned.

"It's that smile he had."

"What about it?"

"You remember those little tests Naoya always gives us. Back when we first got started in programming and building computers. When he used to do things like hack into our phones and lock it down, and we'd have to hack into it ourselves and restore it or that time he programmed an impossible boss in any rpg we've been playing and it would only be possible to beat without cracking into the game and changing the program back it its original state?"

"Things did get interesting when he gave us his quizzes.." Kirito replied, wandering where this was going.

"He's always had this smile. Oh we all know how he just loves to smile all the time. But there was always this particular smirk that that always irritates me. Like he's dangling an answer above our heads. I've learned look for that smile so I could get a head start on his pop quiz. He had that smile now while we were talking to him."

"You think his testing us?"

"Its just a feeling I had."

"Why would he test us then?"

"I don't know." At-9 sighed. "Look I've got your back on whatever you want to do. But I'm just telling you from another point of view that there is something more to this death game and that Naoya knows more then he lets on.

"I understand" Kirito said frowning in thought. "Something to think about then while we're stuck here"

"One of many things to think about actually." At-9 replied tiredly as the innkeeper gave them the key to their room.

Inside Kirito and At-9's room

The room was a simple room. With Mahogany floors and feather white beds. Removing his sword and sheath and placing it to the side, Kirito collapsed on the bed yawning.

"That conversation with him took a while. We didn't even get to meet Klein and his friends."

"I sent a message to him apologizing about it. Told him we had a lot of things to talk about with Naoya. Didn't tell him the specifics of course." Kirito nodded.

"We'll be meeting up with him tomorrow anyway. Hopefully get this guild started."At-9 replied taking a the other bed."

"You know, with all things considered, I'm kind of looking forward to playing the game. I have mixed feelings of course. Being trapped here a big one" Kirito added.

"I know what you mean. I'm frightened with the worst outcome but part of me is excited too. I've been looking forward to this game for two years. Like a dream come true. Well a dream turned nightmare" At-9 added with sadly. He yawned "I wonder if we can actually dream in this world."

"I hope not..." Kirito added quietly. He would say more but At-9 went out like a night. Kirito chuckled. It had been a very long day for both of them. Kirito joined him wandering if he can even have that nightmare in this dream world conceived by a madman.

The nightmare never came while he slept. Kirito would wake up in the morning and realize this. For the first time since that car accident. He hasn't dreamed of the silver haired boy and the doll like girl. Or the shadow beast that reeked of death. Maybe because he was already in a nightmare.