Kayaba's Dream

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

XXX

People had wondered why he'd avoided putting magic into the game-mechanics of SAO, they'd told him that it'd be easy to do so, and there were many who clamored for it to be done.

But Kayaba continued to refuse.

Some thought it was a touch of realism, to have the players only fight with weapons that they might find in real life, and not the fantastic arcane abilities that would only be available to them within the game.

They were wrong.

Kayaba did it out of mercy.

Just like he'd excluded ranged weapons nearly entirely from being included, only allowing the weakest of attacks for the sake of hunting fast game and the like, Kayaba excluded magic for a very specific reason.

In a game to the death, the semi-affectionate term of 'meat-shield' took on a horrifying degree of truth. And so the cowards would coax themselves out from underneath their holes thinking that they could just let others die in their stead, that they didn't really need to go toe-to-toe with the monsters of the game. And then they'd get everyone around them killed, one way or the other.

The sword-skills were designed to be up close and personal as a deterrent to keep those who were too frightened to fight with their own two hands from interfering in battles. And to keep the poor sods, who would've been stuck trying to protect their pathetically weakly armored characters, from being blamed when they couldn't be everywhere at once and the mages ended up dead.

So removing the temptation of it was a mercy.

They asked him why he insisted on the healing potions and time being the only way to regain health, when surely a bit of healing in between friends would go a long way to make it more fun.

And he rebutted them all.

Because to give healing magic to an inexperienced person, and put them in charge of keeping a group alive with nothing but their own abilities, was a way to break a man.

To fail, time and time again as their allies slipped past the red zone, and vanished into sparks. All the while knowing that they'd failed, that they hadn't been good enough, and that they were going to have to explain to that person's friends why they hadn't been able to heal him when that was the only job that they had.

Doctors were made of stern stuff, and most all of them still needed training to reach the point where they could deal with living their lives and carry on regardless, when the survivors of their own failures raged at them because they needed someone to blame. Because every one of their patients had someone who cared, and who better for those people to blame than the one that was supposed to keep them alive?

To throw an inexperienced youth into that role?

No, excluding healing from the abilities of the players was a mercy. It was probably the greatest mercy of them all.

So he continued to stand firm whenever a new argument over a possible magic-system was leveled at him, and he continued to prepare himself for that one moment. The beginning of his dream, the start of a nightmare, and a world that he tried to make as kind and loving as possible.

They asked why he didn't include gore and blood, and he quoted how it would drive away costumers, even as he kept himself from shuddering at what seeing a loved one's bloodied corpse would do to a person. The shards they shattered into as they lost their only life in the game would be more than horrible enough for what they signified.

The creator was their only true enemy from the very start. The guardians of the stairs kept them aimed at a common goal. And he mercifully allowed them to aim their raging fury at his person, to forget to blame those surrounding them, in an effort to kill him with their own two hands for the horrors that he'd inflicted upon them.

Because even if he was a monster, even if he was a demon... Kayaba was a dreamer, and if the dream he made was a nightmare, he wanted it to be the kindest one possible.

Because Aincrad was his masterpiece, and he wanted even those trapped within the deepest pitches of that nightmare to have a chance to see the true beauty of his dream.

The beauty of a world born anew.

XXX

A/n: I loved the SAO anime, every single moment of it. But the one character I sympathized with, the one I related to, was always Kayaba. Maybe it's because I'm a writer, or because I'm a dreaming introvert with some passing skill in psychology, but I understand him perfectly.

And he truly was merciful in his cruelty.