AN: This is AU! The main and probably only real difference to canon, until this story starts is that Kirito and Asuna didn't come together. They were good friends, but that was it. Have fun (larger AN at the end of the chapter )

¨Where the fuck am I?¨

That was the main thought that occupied Kirito's brain at the moment. The last thing that he could remember was the doors opening to the boss dungeon on floor 75. They had all been pretty nervous since it was milestone boss and both milestone bosses before were a lot more difficult to handle than the others.

He couldn't remember how the fight went or if there even was a fight. There was just the opening of the door and then nothing, the next memory being him coming too in this strange forest.

And truly it was strange. The trees were pitch-black, in stark contrast to the snow that was laying everywhere, he still was in his Avatar, with both of his swords strapped to his back and his trusty black cloak resting on his shoulders. If he didn't knew any better he would have thought that he went from the virtual reality SAO to another one.

Sadly there were some facts that disapproved that theory:

First was the fact that there were just too many details. The NG Technology was great, no questions there, but the amount of details that he could see at this very moment was simply impossible to achieve with the computers that were available. He could see every snowflake, not one looking like the other, the trees, hell his own body was as detailed as in real life. That just wasn't possible and even if somehow the computers were developed for such a high quality, the next reason destroyed that theory completely.

He could feel pain, bleed and as far as he could tell he was I a real body, with flesh, bones, muscles and everything else. The feeling of real pain and bleeding was impossible in SAO and the NGs weren't built to transmit pain. Kayaba may have disregarded other safety measures, but real pain was one of the things that this generation of NGs was not able to do. They could transmit discomfort and make you believe that you are in pain, but real undiluted pain was not possible.

That meant that Kirito was not in a different virtual reality, instead he was in probably a different world/reality going by the shattered moon and he didn't have the slightest idea how he got there. Another thing was his body. It was real, but not his original real body, instead it was more like someone had taken his SAO character and used it to model a body after it that matched it perfectly.

Yet another thing that convinced him a bit more that this was a real world, was the fact that he no longer had a HUD or could open a menu, no mater in which pattern he moved his hand.

And the last curiosity was that he still felt as strong as he had been by the time they had planned to tackle boss number 75. Not that he complained, a strong trained body was definitely a plus, immensely more so since he didn´t know where he was and what could happen, but it still was strange, how could someone take his virtual body and make it real, or for that matter how could anything take him from a virtual reality to another one?

Kirito knew that he wouldn´t find the answers now, no matter how hard he thought about it, so he decided to try and find another living being that hopefully was friendly and would be able to at least answer some of his questions.

And what amazed Kirito quite a lot was his own psyche, he didn´t flip, was calm and analytical and had already a plan on what to do, even if the plan consisted only of finding another live form at the moment. He was better at improvising anyway.

-_-_-()-_-_-_-

It had been three days and Kirito still didn´t have the slightest idea where he was. He was still surrounded by trees, he had crossed two small rivers, which was good for him since he had been quite thirsty, which was yet another indicator that it was a real world, he had eaten some berries, which were definitely not enough to satisfy his stomach and he had met the local predators.

Those black animals or whatever they were had given him quite a scare. He had been going through a thicker part of the forest and if it hadn´t been for his inhuman reflexes, the clawed hand of the black wolf would have taken his head.

Dispatching it after that wasn´t to hard, he was used to fighting big ominous things and had his beloved two swords, but the initial attack from the monster had left Kirito with quite an adrenaline rush that he had used to dispatch the other three black wolves, that showed up moments after he had sent the head of the first wolf flying.

Beside the black wolves he had met another black monster which reminded him of a bear. It too attack him as soon as it was able to and Kirito had to ram his sword into it´s skull to finally defeat it. The bear hadn´t been as fast as the four wolves, but it was a lot tougher and packed a way stronger punch, if the shattered rocks were any indication.

Another thing he had learned was that the more bones he could see on the body of the black thingies the stronger they were, which probably too translated to their age.

But up to now he hadn´t met anything that was a real problem. As long as the monsters didn´t get the drop on him, they were almost too easy to defeat. The way bigger problem was the fact that he still hadn´t found anything really substantial to eat. The black monsters disintegrated as soon as he killed them and even if that weren´t the case Kirito would eat that black flesh if you could call it that only in the direst of situations and even then only at sword point.

Kirito wasn´t a trained survivalist, but even if he had been, in the strange forest he was in it wouldn´t have really helped him. Beside the rare berry bush there were only trees in the entire forest he had seen so far. He hadn´t heard the cry of even one animal beside the black things and those were as stated before not a real option.

And the hunger really was his biggest problem, going three days with almost nothing to eat little sleep thanks to the monsters and fighting said monsters was draining his strength away and even his reflexes had already dulled.

He could really see the irony, one of the strongest players of ASO, the Black Swordsman, bested by his stomach. What would he give now for one of Asuna´s godly sandwiches, hell he would even consider eating a creation from Argo. That took him back, as incredible as the info broker could be, her first few experiments with cooking were a crime against humanity and probably broke the system too, since Kirito could hardly imagine that Kayaba would have allowed something like that to exist.

But Kirito wasn´t going to go down without a fight. The human body could survive seven days without food, the fact that he had to travel and fight reduced that number, but giving up was a concept that he had all but forgotten in the hell of SAO.

And so he continued moving, searching for people, food and shelter all the while killing black monsters.

He was almost ready to climb some tree again for a few hours of sleep when he noticed something different. Beneath the shattered moon he saw something glowing, it was faint, but thanks to the fact that there were no other light sources beside the shattered moon, which Kirito had come to like quite a bit, he could still see it. And since the black monsters couldn´t make fire, at least as far as he had seen, meant that somewhere before him other intelligent beings had to be located. And that meant food. Probably nothing compared to Asuna´s divine cooking, but Kirito really didn´t feel like caring about that at the moment.

Sleeping all but forgotten at the prospect of finally filling the hole in his stomach he made his way to the glowing light. It didn´t take long until he could smell the fire and noticed that it was a pretty big one. That concerned him and caused his steady pace to change into a run.

And he finally reached the village, or better said the remains of it. As far as he could see it was a rather little village with probably no more than fifty people, but that number was no longer correct. The fire he had seen were the burning houses of the villagers and said villagers were probably all dead. The remains of some of them were strewn across the street in the middle of the houses and hadn´t it been for the fact that his stomach was empty, it would have been after seeing the large amounts of blood on the streets and the severed body parts. Legs, arms, fingers, Kirito saw things that he would never be able to forget, but he didn´t run away. No he went further into the village hoping to find someone who was still alive, or at least something to eat. He would have to wait until he had calmed himself down enough to actually eat it, but he knew that his best chance to find food was now and while he searched for survivors it wouldn´t be hard to look for food too.

Kirito was almost finished with the village. Thanks to SAO he was no stranger to death, but in SAO it always were clean deaths since you shattered into crystal shards. Here was no such thing. His dreams would probably be dominated by the gore he had seen here for the next few months if he managed to survive that long.

The last building of the village was the only one that hadn´t burned, mostly because it was the only building made out of stone beside the roof and because there was enough distance to the other burning houses.

That gave Kirito some hope, if there were survivors then it would be in this house. Up to now he had only found death, a rucksack were he put the food he had found, which wasn´t much and more death.

The door of the building was still in place which was another indicator that maybe someone had survived this massacre. He walked up to it and knocked.

¨Hello! Is somebody in there?!¨ The door wouldn´t open from the outside and after waiting for some time and yelling again, he was contemplating how to best enter the house, when he heard something clicking at the door.

He turned his gaze into the direction of the door and just in that moment it opened, revealing the head of a young injured looking girl.

¨ A-are you with the hunters?¨ The girl had a light brown complexion, with short, straight brown hair. She has a beauty mark below her left eye. She also had a gold bracer on her left arm, two gold bracelets on her right wrist, a pair of golden armored boots and a golden pauldron on her right shoulder as well as a shoulder strap with some pouches slung diagonally across her body. As she got further out of the door Kirito could see that she was injured, her clothes were torn, bloodstains were everywhere on her body and he could see some fresh scars on her face.

¨Sorry, I don´t know any hunters, but more importantly, are you okay? No, stupid question, you are obviously not, but do you need any medical help? I´m not great at it, but I do know some first aid.¨ Kirito went closer to her, she didn´t look good and if her shaking was any indication, she probably needed more than just his measly first aid skills.

¨ It´s too l-late … I can fe-feel my powers … being drained … ¨ Kirito was just fast enough to catch her before she hit the ground. And after catching her he finally saw the true extend of her injuries. She had at least three broken bones, a lot of deep cuts, an arrow was sticking out of her back and was loosing a lot of blood. He was by no means an expert, but even so he could tell that the girl in his arms didn´t have much time left.

Kirito didn´t know what to do, nobody that could help him was in the area, he himself could do nothing to help the girl and without help she would soon die.

So he did the only thing that he could. He placed her head on his lap and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. He put a strand of hair out of her pale face, carefully avoiding the scarred area on her face and tried his best to calm her down.

But before he could speak to her she had raised her hand and touched his cheek and in that moment her eyes were devoid of any pain, fear, suffering or other emotion. Instead there was fire surrounding her eyes. It didn´t seem to hurt her and Kirito couldn´t feel any heat coming from it.

¨ You aren´t from here … right? You are different … it could w-work … deny her my powers … I am sorry.¨ and with that her eyes closed and Kirito wondered what she had meant.

¨What do-¨ and with that Kirito´s world turned black.

Where once had been a destroyed village was now a single house with a tree and he could hear a voice and saw four women approaching the house. The voice explained to him why the women were there, told him about the man in the house, the different roles of the girls and their reward for helping him, how they each received a power of one of the four seasons.

Then the scenery changed, now he saw the girl, fleeing from three assailants while she ripped something black and white from her forehead and in the same move produce a huge smokescreen. He could also see that she wasn´t able to get rid of all of the white and black thing, a part was still there, burying itself in her forehead.

He could hear her assailants talking about it being unnecessary to pursue her, because she would die thanks to the poisoned arrow anyway and that her powers were still being transferred to the woman in the middle of the three.

He could see her reaching the destroyed village, devoid of anything remotely alive thanks to the black monsters and how she had barricaded herself in the only not burning house until she had spotted him.

´ I am sorry. You are hearing me thanks to a connection we have as long as I am transferring my powers to you.´ Kirito was about to say something, but she cut him off, ´Don´t talk, I haven´t much time left and I need to tell you the most important things. I don´t know why, but you are different from normal humans, thanks to that I am able to store the rest of my powers that haven´t been drained yet in you. You won´t be able to use them, as you are no girl nor have you inherited them the normal way, but you will be able to safeguard them and eventually pass them on. While you were watching some of my memories I was watching some of yours and because of that I know that you have a good heart. Make sure that they don´t steal the rest of my powers and please, save our world. Don´t let anybody, that you don´t completely trust know of what you now guard. Goodbye, and again I am sorry … for placing this burden on you and because of this you will never be able to manifest your aura or your Semblance.´

With those last words Kirito´s mind returned to the world. He had no idea what an aura or Semblance was, but he now knew of the importance of the dead girl that lay in his lap. Sad at seeing yet another death he just sat there thinking about death, who had been a constant companion of him since the last two years, though the massacre here and the death of the girl here in front of him were only topped by Sachi´s death and he knew that this event now too would never let him go.

Kirito could feel that something inside of him had changed. He knew that it was because of the powers the girl had stored inside of him, but didn´t know what exactly that entailed. He felt awful, but he still managed to stand up and after some swaying he entered the house and a little while later came out again, a white sheet in his hand to cover the now dead girl. At the moment he had neither the strength nor the tools to bury her, but as far as he had gotten to know her in the last few minutes that had felt so much longer while the power transfer had happened, he knew that she was a hero in her own right and as cheesy as it sounded, she was one of the good guys that died way to early.

So he covered her up and wanted to get inside, but as soon as the sheet had completely covered her, the pain Kirito had been suppressing thus far came back with vengeance and his world, for the second time today turned black and his mind slipped into unconsciousness.

-_-_-(With a sober [\(O#O)/ OMG] Qrow)-_-_-

Qrow was not happy and remarkebly it was not because he was sober or thinking about his missing sister or dead friend. No, it was because he had just found the dead horse that Amber had used for travelling and no further traces of Amber or her possible attackers, since she was way to strong to fall to some simple Grimm, beside the blood trail that lead in the direction of a small settlement that refused to move into the secure walls of Vale.

That gave him some hope. If the blood was from Amber then there was a good possibility that she survived the attack and if it was from the attacker, then there was a good possibility that Amber won the fight and that she decided to continue forward by foot.

So Qrow chose the only reasonable option and made his way to the village to find either Amber or her attacker. If Amber had won and continued on with her way then she didn´t really need his help since he had seen no other blood beside the trail that lead to the village and that meant that she was okay, if she was the one to win the fight.

But it normally never was that easy and his instincts were telling him that something bad had happened or would be happening soon and so far his instincts had mostly been right about such things. He had had a bad feeling before Raven had left Tai-Yang, before Summer died and when Yang had taken Ruby to that god damn Grimm infested shack, just to name a few occasions were he had wished his gut feeling was wrong.

And he was proven right yet again.

The village looked like a battlefield. Every single house of the village was either burning or a smoking ruin beside one stone building he had seen from afar and corpses, heavily mutilated corpses could be seen lying on the street.

¨Fucking Grimm.¨ Qrow grumbled, yet another small village that was annihilated after besting the Grimm for so long.

As he made his way through the debris towards the stone house he discovered something that gave him hope, which was a bit strange considering what he discovered and at the same time quite a bit of worry that made him run as fast as he could towards the house, sword in hand, ready to be used.

For in front of the house was a Griffin, claws raised and in a downward motion to pierce someone's body that was lying in front of the entrance right next to something else that was covered in a white sheet.

That there even was a Griffin was worrying, since they were rather strong Grimm that normally weren´t in this region, hell normally they were found a lot further out in the wildness and not here. Griffin were strong and durable Grimm that could be could the all in one package, since they were as fast as Beowolfes, their strength was comparable to Ursais, they were able to fly and their body was pretty resistant to physical and Dust based attacks. All in all Qrow wasn´t sure if he would be fast enough to stop the Grimm before its claws found another unwilling victim.

Everything was in slow motion. The claw inching closer and closer to the black teen that Qrow was now able to see and Qrow himself, sword held down on his right side in preparation to make an upward cut that would hopefully stop the attack of the Grimm.

Qrow put all of his strength into his cut and his blade went through the claws like a hot knife through butter, continuing upwards and cutting open a part of the Griffin´s nose. The momentum of his cut carried Qrow as far as the door were he spun in the air to meet it with his feet and catapult him back towards the Griffin that was still confused about where its nose went, blood tripping from the wound onto the downed teen that Qrow had probably saved. Before the Griffin could regain his wit, Qrow speared its head with his sword, the speed and strength from his jump from the door carrying his blade clearly through the head of the monster, which promptly started to evaporate a few seconds afterwards.

¨That could have been a lot more difficult. I think Ozpin owes me a drink for this.¨ And what he said was true. Had he not gotten the drop on that Grimm he would have still won, but after a way longer and harder fight, not to mention that the boy would have had a way higher chance of being injured during the fighting.

Speaking of which, Qrow sheathed his weapon and cursed when he saw the boy. He had been fast enough to divert the Griffin from piercing his heart, but he wasn´t fast enough to prevent the claw from injuring the black teen.

When Qrow had hit the claw with his upward attack it was just millimeters away from killing the boy and had after being intercepted left a deep cut starting by his left cheekbone over his entire left face, ending just before his hair starts.

It would probably leave a scar and there was a possibility that the boy had lost his left eye, but the injury wasn´t life threatening and since Qrow couldn´t see any other injuries on him he bandaged the face up as good as possible and turned his attention to the something under the white cover that now as he looked closer turned out to be another probably dead person. Had Qrow looked a bit sooner at the boy he would have seen something black being absorbed into the blood that was coming out of the boy´s cut and into his eye, but now this would go unnoticed until some professionals could take a look at him.

¨SHIT!¨ Qrow cursed again. He had lifted up the sheet and found the one person under it that he really didn´t want to be under it. He tried to feel a pulse from Amber, but his hopes were slim and true enough he could feel nothing.

Disappointed and sad he took out his scroll and called Ozpin to inform him about what had happened and to organize a bullhead to pick him, the corpse of Amber and the boy up.

-_-_-(With a happy turned angry Cinder)-_-_-

¨Cinder what´s wrong?¨ Emerald looked at her boss with concern, until five minutes ago she had been in a pretty good mood, but then suddenly, shortly before the three of them went to the white Fang again she had stood stock still and after that had donned a contemplative unhappy expression that hadn´t left her face since.

¨Fuck! That little!¨ Emerald got the feeling that Cinder´s bad mood had something to do with Amber, though she should have been dead already from the poison, so what could possibly gone wrong?

And a few seconds later Emerald´s suspicions were confirmed. ¨ The transfer of her powers has stopped, but I can feel that I didn´t get all of it. Which should be impossible. The transfer had still worked thanks to the parts that burrowed themselves into her skin which means that even if someone found her the transfer shouldn´t have stopped and if she was already dead then the rest of her powers should have left her and gone to me!¨

¨But they didn´t.¨ Mercury supplied and was rewarded with a look that could kill.

¨No they didn´t, it´s probably that fucking headmasters fault. Aaarghh!¨ Cinder was royally pissed, which wasn´t good since she had planned to show off her new powers at the White Fang and take them over. That was still possible with the powers she had already drained, but she would need to be calm if she wanted to do it.

After a few more moments and a few deep breaths she decided that she was sufficiently calm and ready to take the next step in her plan. ¨Well whatever, we can try to find out what happened later, I have over half of her powers and that should be more then enough to cower those animals.¨

¨ Yes, Cinder.¨ Emerald said enthusiastically.

Mercury stepped closer to Emerald and whispered to her, ¨Be careful that you don´t slip on your own slime trail.¨ And with that he the two of them started bickering again about the same thing they always bicker about. Emerald´s supposed ass creeping to Cinder.

-_-_-(With a sober [\(O#O)/ OMG] Qrow and Ozpin in the infirmary)-_-_-

"I don't know how it happened and that means something coming from me." The doctor told Ozpin and Qrow. And he was right that it meant something coming from him, considering that he was one of the best doctors in the entirety of Vale, exclusively contracted to Beacon to ensure the safety and health of the students. "As both of you can see here," he pointed at two monitors from machines that were connected to the black boys body, "he has somehow gotten Grimm blood into his body. That could normally only happen if his entire Aura was spent, including the passive Aura that everyone has that is considered to be almost impossible to spent, simply because the passive Aura uses up next to no energy, even if you are gravely injured and had your Aura never awakened, the passive Aura would still be there and prevent something like Grimm blood from entering your bodies system."

The doctor let out a breath, he was used to strange and/or grave injuries thanks to Hunters and Huntresses in training being reckless, but he had never seen a case such as this. "But the Grimm blood in his system isn't what really has me wondering. It is rare but there already were persons who have gotten contaminated by it. And every single one of those cases had something in common that this one has not."

"And I assume that that is what has you up in a frenzy?" Qrow asked. It was most likely a rhetorical question, but Qrow didn't care, this was just getting weirder and weirder and Ozpin now definitely owed him some high quality alcohol.

"Yes, all of them had in common that whoever had the blood in his system would experience pains not imaginable and die shortly after. The longest recorded survival was 15 minutes and believe me when I say that that the victim from that time didn't like his last fifteen minutes on the planet. And now we have our patient here, long cut on the left side of his face, eye most like lost, otherwise fine beside the fact that he is unconscious and slightly malnourished and last but not least alive after hours of having something Grimm in him without any pains whatsoever." The Doc finished.

I am sorry doctor, but I don´t know any more about this than you and I´m pretty sure Ozpin here has as much of a clue as I have.¨ Qrow said while indicating to Ozpin.

¨Well not exactly. I don´t know why or how it happened, but I have got a theory that I would need your opinion since you are the specialist in that regard.¨ As the doctor nodded Ozpin continued, ¨Wouldn´t it be possible that his Aura saved him?¨ Before the doctor could interrupt him Ozpin motioned him to be quiet and let him continue.

¨ I know that you said he has no Aura whatsoever and that is why the blood came into his system, but wouldn´t be possible that he was just born without a passive Aura and upon the contact with the Grimm Blood his Aura activated and is now stopping the blood from killing him? Since this never happened before we don´t know exactly what is happening, but couldn´t it be that the blood instead of trying to kill him focused upon his Aura and that those two forces are keeping each other at bay?¨

¨Well, that is a possibility, but I know of no methods or machines that could verify those theories.¨ the doctor mused.

¨As I see it there is nothing we can really do about that for the moment. Let´s just settle for the fact that it doesn´t seem to kill him and leave it at that until we can get some new hints about it. More important is what we do from now on, we could leave him here in the infirmary, but there would be the risk that other students find him and leak information about him and I don´t want to know what our government is going to do to him to find out about his immunity to the Grimm blood.¨ Qrow said to the other two and after looking at Ozpin he knew that the Headmaster was thinking along the same lines.

¨We should organize something for him that let´s him life away from praying eyes, at least until he regains his consciousness, heals up and told us what he knows about what happened to Amber.¨ Ozpin mused when he had an idea. ¨Doesn´t your friend Tai-Yang life on Patch Island?¨

¨ Yeah he does, wait are you suggesting that we move him there? Sure he would probably be save there from prying eyes and Tai has finally gotten his act together again after what happened to Yang and Ruby but are you sure that´s a good idea?¨ Qrow knew that both Yang and Ruby wouldn´t have anything against someone living with them, provided that he has a nice personality, Yang because she liked to mingle with others and made fast friends and Ruby because she was rather socially awkward and could use another friend beside her sister.

¨ It´s just an option I´m entertaining of using, first he has to wake up and then we have to talk with Tai-Yang before we do anything.¨ While the two of them were discussing what to do the doctor had left, knowing that he wasn´t needed at the moment and that if something happened both of them would call for him and he would be there in a matter of seconds. Not that he believed that anything would happen, beside the fact that the teen was unconscious and had Grimm Blood in him he was as healthy as you get if you ignored the slight malnourishment.

The sound of the closing door triggered a reaction from the black boy in the hospital bed. ¨Just another 30 minutes.¨ he mumbled, just as he had done for the last year or so when one of his friends, mostly Asuna and Argo, had come to wake him up.

¨Haha, I like the kid Ozzy!¨ Qrow´s approval had caused two main reactions. Ozpin sighted and Kirito shot out of his lying position, not recognizing the voice and grabbing behind his back, just to realize that his beloved blades weren´t there. A second later and he recognized where he was and was lost for words. It was a hospital room with modern machines. He had not expected that. He remembered everything that had happened in the last few days and after seeing the village he had not expected such a high end facility to exist in this world.

Before he could think about it any more Ozzy interrupted his thought process. ¨Hello, I am headmaster Ozpin and this … good friend here is Qrow, would you mind telling us your name?¨

Okay, not Ozzy but Ozpin, Kirito was about to answer his question when he came up short. What was his name? He remembered all about SAO and that it was a virtual reality but beside that? Nothing. ¨ I wouldn´t mind, but my memories seem to be a bit fuzzy, you can call me Kirito for now I think.¨

¨Well Kirito there are a few things we would like to ask you.

AN: Aaaaand cut :)

So I thought up another story ;D

Please tell me what you think about it and how you liked it or your ideas about what could happen in the future (Yes I am fishing for reviews xD)

This story will probably be just a side project, which means that chapters are going to be updated pretty slowly (Beside chapter 2 that should be out rather quickly), my main focus is still on TBS and this was just an idea that got to big in my head and needed an outlet xD

I hope you liked the first chapter and that you F&F&R so until next time

Ps.: Disclaimer: I own nothing beside OCs if I decide to introduce some and any plot points twists etc that are not canon and thought up by me ;-)