EDIT NOTE: MARCH 15, 2016:

So after receiving several well-intentioned reviews, some less-than-polite, regarding certain issues with this chapter, I made the decision to go back and run a full edit of the story so far. Since only three chapters have been posted at this point, the effort isn't too much. Besides some typo correction, the main changes include:

Descriptive paragraphs have been added to most scenes. In addition, character and entity descriptions that I (and others) felt were lacking have been added.

The scene in the flashback where Kirito meets the people who will become his guild has been rewritten largely from scratch. Diabel's behavior was unbelievable. I find the edited version to stretch the reader's suspension of disbelief much less.

With that said, the chapter ends now with all the characters in the same positions and with the same character dynamics as they had in the initial form. Anyone who read the original need not reread if it satisfied them. Now on to the original A/N:

A/N: Read "The Black Knights". I said I'd recommend it, so I did. It inspired this, and as such, this story is dedicated to that fic. It may well not be completed, but that doesn't change the fact that without it, I wouldn't be writing this now. This is the fic that was promised, two-odd years ago, to continue/reboot that one. Bit late, but here it is.

(Er… this note was written a long time ago. Or at least that part was. I left it because I did promise to rec it… but that fic got taken down. I feel bad for taking so long. Here's the author, with their now-empty profile: u/4553034/)

If anyone happens to know my Naruto stories, it may interest you to know that this is a continuation of my cliché-bending tradition. The SAO archive may only have 500 stories, but—as always—there are a couple of budding clichés I can use. Even if this one has, I think, two stories. Sum total. It's "Kirito's Guild", or GuildMaster!Kirito, if the summary didn't tell you that.

The next seven paragraphs are a discussion of Sword Art Online, and how it relates to this story. Skip them if you're not interested. Disclaimer on that point: I haven't watched the second season past the first couple episodes—just haven't had time, and knew it wouldn't pertain to this fic—so anything I say relates exclusively to Season 1.

SAO is a great setting. Hell, it's one of the best I've ever seen. The potential philosophical and psychological implications of a digital world where death is real are vast in scope. Unfortunately, the anime (and to a lesser degree even the light novels) screwed it up.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the SAO anime. It was good fun to watch. The Aincrad Arc, at least. (ALO… less so. I kept hoping it would get good, and the final fight was a romp, but…) The light novels were quite good—I'm not far into the series yet (too busy) but I'm far enough to make that judgement. But they screwed up a few things, the anime in particular. Episodes one and two were fantastic. The Red-Nosed Reindeer was AMAZING. But the rest of the series lost sight of the whole point of the series—the setting.

The setting was a masterpiece, and they lost sight of what made it so fantastic: the blurring of reality and game as the game became real enough to kill.

(Also, they REALLY messed up Asuna's character; in episode 2 she was arguably the most badass female I've ever seen in an anime—in her next appearance she was right back into the stereotypical 'damsel-almost-in-distress' cliché which Metroid: Other M dropped Samus into. In fact, I make a lot of comparisons between Asuna and Samus. Both started out as compelling, strong female protagonists, and later degrading into something a bit less interesting. Asuna took it farther than Samus with ALO, but the comparison still stands. From what I've heard—I've never played a Tomb Raider game—much the same recently happened with Lara Croft.)

In short, though, I'm here to take that setting and do what should have been done with it to begin with—discuss how 'virtual' virtual reality can be, and how very real it can become. I don't claim to be the perfect writer for this job, but nor do I claim exclusive right to DO the job—in fact, I encourage anyone who wants to give it their own shot. But for me, I just want to have something to enjoy that takes this setting—this fantastic setting—and makes it into all it could be.

(And stays LOYAL to the CHARACTERS, who are also amazing, or could be. Kirito's as loyal to his own character as a pancake—that is to say, he keeps flipping back and forth. Solo player? Team player. Solo player. Effeminate? Hottest guy EVAR. Oh... now his sister/cousin too? And catgirls...? Hopefully I can do something about that WITHOUT breaking what of his character is there already.)

Disclaimer:

Sword Art Online is the property, in anime, manga, and novel form, of its owner(s), of which I am none. This fanfiction is merely a deviation from the established canon of, by, and for fans of the series. If you are not a fan of Sword Art Online, you should not be reading this, but rather supporting the official releases. Thank you.

(No chance I'm doing another one of those. Almost never do them anyway.)

And now…

Guild Wars

A Sword Art Online Fanfiction

"…Those who fail to complete their mission are trash. But those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash."
-Hatake Kakashi (Naruto, by Kishimoto Masashi) [Translation from Japanese]

"And glory; eternal glory! We shall bear its weight together!"
-Vode An, Mandalorian War Chant (George Lucas' Star Wars—specifically, the Republic Commando game) [Translation from Mando'a]

Chapter 1: Crossover

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one."
-Albert Einstein

Kirito blinked his eyes open and was met with the vibrant colors of the game. He could not keep a smile from creeping onto the face that, over the months of the beta test, had become his own.

I'm back, he thought.

Immediately he began looking around. The central square of the Starting Town was an open, circular area, lined along the outside with market stalls with vibrantly-colored covers. Most were empty—reserved for player merchants—but some few were staffed already by NPCs. In the center of the square was a fountain, and the gentle rushing sound of the water was almost drowned out by the excited babble of almost ten thousand people logging in at once.

The crowd made it difficult to find anyone specific. Kirito began to jog around the area, ducking under waving arms and sliding between bustling bodies, his eyes darting to and fro in search of…

There! The abnormal blue hair made him impossible to mistake—Kirito would recognize him anywhere.

With a grin, he rushed over, dodging carefully through gaps in the throng. "Diabel!"

Diabel turned and grinned at him. "Kirito! Good to see you! Good to be back, right?"

Kirito grinned, his altered appearance falling into the almost threatening look naturally, making it seem feral where his real form would have looked more feminine than anything else. "Absolutely! Shall we get back to where we left off?"

Diabel nodded with a smile. "Let's just find the others, all right?"

Kirito nodded, and with a laugh the two online friends began to search for the other two they had worked with in the beta.

It took at least four players to form a guild in this game: Sword Art Online, or SAO for short. Kirito had at first been inclined to play the game solo, but had been converted by Diabel as they fought together in the beta on the fourth floor. Kirito remembered it distinctly. He should, for it was the very last time he ever came close to dying in this game.

Kirito fell back against the floor. Over him stood a beast, slightly smaller than him—an Angry Hobgoblin, apparently. Its wrinkled skin was an unhealthy orange, and it was clad in rusty chainmail which barely held together over its frame in places. It was bald, and its narrowed red eyes had no brows. A pig's snout jutted out from where a human's mouth would be, but from within it bared unnaturally sharp, yellowed teeth.

It was weaker than him, but it wasn't what was killing him—no, that was the almost-twenty of its brethren that surrounded him on his other sides. This one was only going to take his last few HP.

Its eyes seemed to glint evilly as it raised its short axe—ridiculous, he knew, since this games mobs did not have such advanced AI—even the NPCs and Quest Givers didn't—and he gritted his teeth, waiting for the flash of light that would signal a respawn.

But it didn't come. There was a shout, a metallic shing! noise, and then someone was shouting from above him, "Hey! Open your eyes—I have a crystal!"

Kirito opened his eyes with a start and accepted the blue-haired man's offer of healing. Then he stood with a muttered "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," said the man with a kind smile. Kirito could immediately see that he was, to use the RPG term that had become popular in the past few years, a "Paragon" player—one who always stayed on the good side of things. Kirito himself was not so clear cut, especially in Virtual Reality—it was harder to be moral and high-minded when everything seemed so real—but he had a healthy respect for those who were.

The man wore fine steel scalemail over a blue tunic and white leggings. In his right hand was an unadorned blade of about three and a half feet, and in his left was a small, steel kiteshield adorned with a painted blue cross.

He took the opportunity to look around. There were two others flanking them. One was a stout, red-headed man with a bushy beard wearing heavy, finely-crafted plate armor. In his hands was a weighty, two-handed warhammer, with a head of what looked like granite. The other was a slim girl with waist-length blond hair, wearing hardened leathers studded with sliver. In her hands was a long, simple spear tipped with bronze.

The Angry Hobgoblins had retreated—the trio, it seemed, had killed more than one of them when they saved Kirito, but were now eying them all hungrily again. Kirito gritted his teeth. "Introductions later?" he suggested grimly.

The man who had healed Kirito grinned, and now there was a vicious side to the expression. "Right," he agreed, turning away and facing the line of Hobgoblins.

Kirito turned too and faced the beasts behind him. The other two pressed in and then the four of them were back-to-back, shoulder-to-shoulder, and the horde pressed forward. Kirito didn't know exactly how many there were; there had been twenty at some point, but now there might be less if these three had dented their numbers, or more if another set had been dragged in.

Kirito swallowed. "Thanks for the help," he said lowly. "Have you got a way out?"

The large man in plate chuckled. "They didn't look this… numerous… from the outside."

"Right," Kirito said. "When I jump in, plug the hole back up."

The horde charged. Kirito dove under one's notched sword and slashed at its side as he passed.

One down, he thought morbidly. Lots to go.

He landed in a kneeling position on one knee and continued his sword up in its arc, blocking another Hobgoblin's swing. He drew himself up on his front leg and brought his back leg up with him before spinning and kicking the mob in the chest, pushing it away from him.

As it turned out, that monster was the outer edge of the ring. He was out. He could run now and the horde would likely focus on the poor saps who had come to save him.

He turned instead. The mad with sword and shield was trying vainly to protect the lighter-armored girl as she took potshots at range with her spear. The man with the hammer was bringing the weapon up and down almost rhythmically, heedless of the repeated hits he was taking.

Kirito grimaced and took out a Hobgoblinn from behind with a quick stab. "I'll make a path for you!" he called to the three of them. "Come this way!"

The man with the shield gave him a glance and a nod of confirmation. He slashed out and caught one mob in the next as Kirito watched. "Move!" he ordered.

"You face back!" Kirito told him. "Use your shield, dammit!" he swung his blade in an arc, slicing neatly through one Hobgoblin and catching on the ringmail of another with a light, percussive chink! "Keep them off your friends' backs!"

The man nodded and faced away from Kirito while the other two surged into position, the man beginning to push monsters bodily out of the way while the girl lanced out at any target she could reach.

Kirito gutted one mob to his right while kicking another aside to his left. "Keep moving!" he ordered. "If you can get out of the ring you have a chance!" He brought his sword down hard on the back of another mob and then the three were in front of him.

He turned. "Run!" he commanded, and led the way.

They fled, the horde hot on their heels. Kirito brought up a hand as he sprinted to access his map. On his way here, he had gotten into a fight with a Taurus in a narrow corridor. If he could find it now…

There. Just a few hundred paces away, if they took the correct turns.

"Follow me!" he called, and turned left into a side passage. The marble floor, brick walls, and high ceiling of the main route was replaced by the cracked cobblestones and mossy brickwork of a side passage, but this place was still too wide.

He led them down a right turn, and this place might have satisfied if all four of them were at full health. Kirito wished he was in a party with these three so he could see their healthbars, but as it stood he could only assume that, at the very least, the man with the warhammer had to be near the red zone after all the hits he'd taken. Four people could block this passage together, but as it stood thy had only two, Kirito figured, who could afford to take hits.

He took a left and then they were at the place. The corridor was narrow—about as wide as three people shoulder to shoulder, if they squeezed tightly, which meant that two could comfortably block it. The cobblestone beneath their feet was finer here, and the bricks seemed almost maintained, for only a few weeks' worth of moss covered them.

Kirito turned and squeezed himself up against the wall to allow the bearded man and the girl to pass. The final player turned beside him and raised his shield and then there was no more time for words or people.

The Hobgoblins were tightly packed so that three could attack the two players at once, but at the cost that they had only a narrow range of motion and couldn't swing their weapons properly. Unfortunately for Kirito, the first one to attack him had a spear and didn't need to swing.

He parried the blow with the flat of his sword and followed the shaft up and into the arm, and then the chest, of the beast that had attacked him.

Then the middle Hobgoblin slashed at him with its axe. He twisted his sword in its brother has he brought his arm around to catch the blow on the crossguard of his blade. The slashing metal sparked as the axe's blade slid down the flat of Kirito's sword.

Kirito pushed forward and the Hobgoblin staggered back and fell against its brethren. Kirito pulled his sword out of the impaled mod even as it shattered and swung in a low arc, taking out the legs of the next Hobgoblin and the left leg of the one he'd shoved before just as it began to recover. It staggered sideways and he dispatched it with a swipe downward.

Beside him, the man in blue was carefully blocking the mobs' hits. He was still on his first opponent, but Kirito hadn't seen him taking any risks trying to hit it, preferring instead to tank traditionally and wait for an opening. Even as Kirito gave him a passing glance, the man saw one. His sword lanced forward and cut into the heart of the monster, which gave a porcine squeal and shattered.

Kirito looked back at his enemy and almost paid for his momentary distraction as he barely brought his blade into position in time to deflect the arcing swing of the next Hobgoblin's massive claymore. The flaw inherent in two-handed weapons, however, was their slow recovery time, and so Kirito dispatched the monster with ease as it tried to raise the weapon again.

This was not how Kirito liked to fight. There was adrenaline, certainly, but there was no freedom. He could not move about the battlefield at will, darting between blows and catching his foes in their weakest points. Instead he had to stay stock-still and hold the line while the people behind him recovered.

But now it seemed one of them had, for from between the two fighting players a spear lanced out and caught another charging Hobgoblin in the chest.

Kirito risked a glance over the heads of the horde. The quick glance confirmed what he'd hoped—there were only a handful of monsters left; six, by his count, in two rows of three.

He slashed upward into the next as it rushed him, but it caught his blade on its own and deflected his swing around it. His eyes widened as his rising sword-arm exposed his chest to a strike.

The man with the beside him thrust his sword to the side and caught the middle Hobgoblin's swung mace on it even as the girl behind them caught it in the neck with her spear. Kirito took advantage of the moment to return his sword to an en garde and lancing forward before the mob could properly ready itself. It shattered.

The final row came forward (save one, which could not replace the monster Kirito's fellow had not yet dispatched). Kirito took a deep breath and lowered his sword into a ready position. He just wanted this to be over.

He took a hit as he charged the Sword Skill, but it wasn't enough to drop his health even into the yellow, despite his minor focus on Vitality. As the Skill finished charging, Kirito's now-glowing blade came up and with a flurry of slashes he sliced cleanly through the armor of all four remaining Hobgoblins as he rushed straight through their line.

His sword's light died after a moment and he sheathed it over his shoulder before turning back to face the three other players. They looked back at him, and for a moment there was the slightly awkward silence of people who didn't know each other well but who had just succeeded at something difficult together.

Then the bearded man's face broke into a smile and he let out a whoop. "I can't believe you pulled that off!" he exclaimed. "Sorry I wasn't more help, but damn!"

The other man grinned at him. "Without you shoving them out of the way, we'd never have made it out of that mess earlier, Dweion," he said. "Don't try for all the credit."

"I'll settle for some," Dweion agreed amiably. "But, seriously," he cocked his head at Kirito, "how the hell did you get that many of them after you?"

Kirito rubbed the back of his next sheepishly. "Ah… I usually stack mob spawns," he said. "I miscalculated, and accidentally stacked a couple extra camps…"

"And then they all came after you," the man in blue nodded sympathetically. "I had something like that happen to me in… which game was it? One of the D&D adaptations, I think. Lost everything."

Kirito nodded ruefully. "Would've had the same happen to me if you hadn't been here," he admitted. "Thanks for the help."

The man shook his head. "We should be thanking you," he said with a chuckle. "It took three of us to save you the first time, and then you got us all out of the mess. You're really good at this game."

Kirito looked away, uncomfortable. In his experience, MMO gamers were jealous types. This was out of his comfort zone.

The man smiled, understanding. "My name's Diabel," he said, holding out his hand. "This is Kasui," he gestured at the blonde girl, who nodded at Kirito stoically—Kirito repeated the gesture— "and this is Dweion," here he tilted his head toward the man Kirito had already heard named who grinned jovially. Kirito smiled back.

"Kirito," he said. "Nice to meet you all. Thanks again for your help."

Dweion grinned. "Like Diabel said—we should be thanking you!"

"How about we agree that we should all thank each other," suggested Kasui with an exasperated roll of her eyes, "and cut the sap?"

Kirito cracked a smile. "Fair enough," he agreed. "Thank you. And you're welcome. He glanced behind him. The corridor was empty. "I should get going," he said. "I can probably get a bit more grinding done today if I hurry." He flicked open his inventory and was just going through the monster drops he'd acquired when Diabel spoke.

"So you're a solo player?" he asked.

Kirito nodded. "I've had… bad experiences with groups," he confessed. "And I just don't like having to share loot."

Kasui nodded understandingly. "But a team of two can get more than twice as much as a solo player," she countered evenly. "I know from experience. So even if it's hard to divvy up, the individual loot is still more."

"Kasui used to play solo," said Diabel, smiling at her. "Then Dweion and I met her in real life, and got her to play with us. She knows what she's talking about."

Kirito studied the advanced-looking armor they all wore and had to admit that there was something to all this. Diabel's and Dweion's mail was burnished steel, clearly player-crafted, which meant they must have had access to a good deal of Col to pay for it. Kasui's studded leather might be even more impressive: it had gaps cut in specific locations, not to show off her form, but to allow her a totally unimpeded range of motion without having to sacrifice the hardening of the leather. Kirito himself had always had to settle for equipment acquired from drops directly or crafted from basic materials he scrounged together in the field.

"Well, maybe you're right," said Kirito, smiling. "All the same—"

"Well, wait a minute!" said Diabel as the solo gamer made to turn away. "Do you want to join up with us? You'd make a great leader for the team!"

Dweion choked. "Leader? Diabel, you're leader!"

Diabel sighed. "Look," he said. "Kirito knew exactly what to do. He got himself out of the ring of monsters, organized us so we could get out of the ring, and then led us to this choke point so we could take them out. All this, and he's still able to take the things out faster than any of us despite having mid-tier equipment."

Kirito blinked at him. "I just… did what came naturally," he said cautiously. "I mean… why not try to get out of the mob perimeter? And my not drag them to a choke point? None of that was really impressive…"

"Thinking of them is," Diabel said firmly. "It takes a certain kind of mind to come up with ideas like that on the fly, Kirito, and it's that kind of mind that a leader of any group in this game needs. I don't have it—I can play chess decently well if it's not timed, but time it and I'm terrible. And this—" he gestured broadly around at the Dungeon— "is a lot more stressful than timed chess."

He held out his hand for Kirito to shake. "So?" he asked with a grin. "What do you say?

Kirito blinked at it. "I don't know any of you in real life!" he said, bewildered. "Or if I do I don't know about it. You all know each other! Is this a good idea?"

"We'll form a guild!" Diabel said, grinning. "That way we'll always be able to find each other online."

Kirito blinked. The idea was not without flaws—all planning with him would have to be in-game, for instance, which would take up time he would otherwise not have to waste, but… it was sound nonetheless. And, if he was honest, he did find himself started to like these three—Dweion, who Kirito could already see put a jovial face on everything; Kasui, who was stoic but sharply witty when in the mood; and Diabel, who had the charisma of a leader but lacked the intellect and tactical reasoning to back it.

And they were skilled. Not true gaming prodigies (as he had to admit, if he cast off humility, he was), perhaps, but still not shabby at all. After all, they were on the front lines—only about seventy-five players were up there—the rest were still getting used to the interfaces on the first floor.

With a sudden smile, he reached out and grasped Diabel's hand.

"Kirito! Diabel!" Dweion's hearty shout disturbed Kirito's musings. He and Diabel looked over, and there they were—Dweion and Kasui, both smiling and waving.

They waved back and picked their way towards them through the crowds. There were handshakes and high-fives all around. "So," Kasui began eventually, grinning at Kirito, "What now? What's the plan?"

Kirito smiled back and opened his interface. Navigating it expertly as a veteran, he created a party and invited all three of them. The 'accepts' were not long in coming. Then he quickly selected the option to 'Create a Guild with this Party'.

Everyone accepted the pop-up, and the notification appeared a second time, just as it had in the beta: 'Congratulation! You have formed a Guild!'

There was a round of applause and whoops from the four friends. The guild was formalized again. Then the pop-up appeared on Kirito's interface. 'What would you like to name your Guild?'

He looked around at the other three. "Same name?" he asked.

"Of course!" Dweion boomed, grinning. "Why alter perfection?"

Kirito chuckled and into the box typed 'Black Knights'.

"We're going to have to get our equipment back up to spec," Kirito offered casually as another 'Congratulation!' box appeared.

"That shouldn't be too hard," Kasui replied offhandedly, stretching. "We just have to get to the Kobold Lord and get on Floor Two—that'll already set us ahead of the rest."

"Easier said than done," said Diabel, smiling at her. "The entire floor's been rearranged, other than the Starting City and the two villages. We don't even know where the Labyrinth begins, much less how to get through it."

"We found it last time, didn't we?" Dweion shrugged. "It can't be too much harder this time. Just look for the giant pillar."

"We'll see," Kirito said, unconvinced. It was true that the pillar that formed the labyrinth was visible across most of each floor, but there was usually some sort of obstacle area surrounding it. Finding the pillar was easy—finding one door somewhere on the base of that pillar was a great deal harder.

At that moment, another player walked up to them. He had violent red hair curtaining his face under a red bandana and a dusting of stubble covered his chin. "Hey, you four," he began uncertainly. "I overheard you talking and I couldn't help wondering... are you beta-testers?"

Diabel nodded at the man, smiling encouragingly. "Yes, we were in the beta. Can we help you?"

"Well, a few of my friends and I just got the game today, and none of us were beta-testers," the young man explained. "We're going to form a guild, but none of us are really experienced in VR-gaming. Er... could you maybe..."

"Give you a tutorial?" Kasui smirked. "I don't think all of us need to be there for that, but one of us can, I'm sure."

Kirito nodded. "You three go on ahead," he said. "Remember, questing is limited, but the Anneal Blade quest should still be up. Get a head start on that, if you can. See if you can't get a stockpile of some kind set up. I'll help... uh, what's your name?"

"Klein."

"Klein, here, out."

Diabel nodded. "We'll meet back here at, say, six?" he asked, looking at Kirito.

Kirito nodded. "Fine for me."

Dweion and Kasui both agreed and the other three founding members of the Black Knights jogged off. Hopefully they'll manage to get the Anneal Blade, Kirito thought. That's the best item on this floor, and I'm a one-hand sword specialist—I'll really need the damage output.

"Come on then, Klein," he said aloud, grinning at the new player. "We'll head out into the field, and I'll get you started on the basics."

"So what did you mean when you said questing was limited?" Klein asked Kirito suddenly. They were taking a small lunch on the grass of the fields outside the Starting Town as a break from their training. The digital sun shone bright and warm in the blue sky above.

Klein was now familiar with the general concept of Sword Skills, and Kirito had gotten a little grinding in on the side. SAO really was a grind-heavy game—levels were a valuable commodity, and difficult to acquire, both in combat level and in the side skills—so every bit helped.

In any other game, that might be a flaw, but in Sword Art Online, it was a genius bit of design—the whole point of VR was to make gaming feel real, and reality, when combined with the elements of a game, rarely grew dull.

"Each quest can only be completed a limited number of times—often only once—across the board by all players," Kirito explained, laying down on the grass and looking up at the sky. "The Anneal Blade is the best item offered on the First Floor by any quest that can be done by level-one players, and since I'm our guild's main DPS, I really need it."

"Wait," Klein jumped up. "All this time you've been teaching me, I've been missing out on quests? And now I can't do them?"

Kirito shook his head, not looking at the redhead, but focusing instead on the vibrant blue sky. "Quests in SAO aren't quite like in other MMOs. They take a long time, quite a bit of skill—at least if the rewards are good, and the Anneal Blade is—and if, at any point along the quest line, you die, you have to start the whole thing over again. The fact of the matter is, until you've at least gotten used to the game, you can't even consider questing."

Now he turned his head and met Klein's gaze. "So by getting you some teaching in how this game works, I'm effectively getting you a head-start on questing in the future. There was never any chance for anyone but a beta-tester to get the Anneal Blade—it's unique, and all the beta-testers were planning to rush for it the moment the game launched. It was one of the only concessions Kayaba Akihiko made to the beta players."

Klein frowned. "Concessions?"

Kirito nodded. "In the months between the closing of the beta and the launch of the game, there was a lot of debating online." As a guild leader, it was his duty to keep up with things like this—he'd been following every bit of news on the game he could find since the beta shut down, from the interesting to the menial. "The beta players, many of them, wanted an advantage over the newbies—felt it was their right. Some others, and the newbies involved in the debates, argued that that was unfair, and that in a game of SAO's scale, every player had to start on the same level so that the game would really effectively test who was the best player."

"Argus eventually decided on a compromise," Kirito finished. "There would be a few concessions to the beta-testers, such as the layout of the first floor's towns and the Anneal Blade quest, but the rest of the game would, for the most part, be altered enough that the field would be level, except that the beta-testers were already familiar with the interface."

Klein looked at him in bewilderment. "All that was going on in the past few months? Why is it such a big deal?"

Kirito looked at him with a grin. "We're currently in the first floor of the floating castle Aincrad," he began. "There are 100 floors in total. Each floor contains a single labyrinth—no one even knows where the entrance to that is—and somewhere in each labyrinth is a boss. That boss must be defeated to proceed to the next floor." He sat up and looked out over the green fields. Of in the distance, a party of newbies in starting armor was struggling to bring down a boar.

His tone became tinged with admiration as he continued. "Kayaba Akihiko began the first stages of this project on his own when he was twelve years old- it's taken him the better part of twenty years to finish it. In those two decades, he's created a world that's as close to real as he could imagine. You could spend years in this game and not even begin to advance without ever doing the same thing twice. The most optimistic estimates of how long this game would take to complete after the closed beta were about four years."

Kirito looked back at Klein, a smile on his face. "This game is not just a video game. It's the greatest competition in the past century—it might be the greatest competition in human history. Ten thousand players—perhaps with more to come—are competing to see who will strike the last blow against the boss on the 100th floor in the end. Politicians are having week-long debates about what this is going to do to society. Psychologists are scrambling to publish studies on the players. This game, Klein, is literally the defining event of our generation. That's why it's a big deal."

Kirito, laughing at Klein's open-mouthed shock, had no idea how very right he was.

"Well, I need to go have dinner," said Klein regretfully a little after 17:00, Japanese time. "And you should probably get to your friends. Thank you for all your help! It was fun!"

Kirito nodded, grinning at him. "No problem. Let us know if you and your friends need any more help later on; we'll be the Black Knights Guild, on the front lines!"

Klein grinned, then stopped, looking confused. "Eh... how do I log out?"

Kirito laughed. "It's in the menu, down at the bottom."

"Oh, of course!" Klein opened the interface, scrolled down, opened the Exit Menu... and stopped. "It's not here."

"What?" Kirito opened his own menu, scrolled down, and confirmed Klein's finding. "It must be a bug," he mused uncertainly. "We should contact a Game Master." He navigated to that part of the interface and clicked to call a GM, but no voice answered, no matter how much he clicked. "This is odd," he said aloud, more to himself than to Klein.

"It's really bad, is what it is!" Klein exclaimed. "I had a pizza coming! A good one! How long will it take them to fix it?"

Kirito thought for a moment. "The Game Masters' servers have never gone down before. They're probably fixing that, and may have not even noticed that the logout button is missing. If that's the case, then it might take them hours more."

Klein cried out in despair and fell to his knees. "My pizza!"

As Kirito watched him fall, however, he noticed the runic circle he was falling on—a teleport. He looked down at his own feet; sure enough, a teleport was activating around him too. "This is new," he mused in surprise as the circles began to glow brighter. At the same time, he noticed the great bells of the Starting Town tolling ominously.

"What the..." Klein's shout was cut off as the power finished and they both found themselves in the central square of the Starting Town again. The reddening light of the sunset made the cobbled square seem eerie in the long shadows of the buildings, and the water in the fountain was tinged until, if one squinted, it almost looked like blood.

All around them, more blue lights were flaring, and the bells above kept tolling and tolling. Kirito caught sight of Diabel across the square and made eye contact with him before he was obscured by more appearing players.

After a moment, the teleports ceased, taking the bells with them. All around was the chatter of excited and worried people.

"An announcement, maybe?" Klein asked. "Explaining what's going on?"

Kirito nodded but said nothing.

After a few moments, during which the throng rumbled in fearful confusion, an alarm flared, and in the sky a red hexagon appeared. Kirito strained his eyes and made out the word 'WARNING'. Soon more hexagons like it appeared, interlocking with 'WARNING' and 'System Announcement'. They spread like a fungus—a crimson cancer covering the sky. Eventually a dome had formed over the assembled players, encasing them in the Starting Town—and as those in the outskirts of the crowd found, they could not even pass out of the central square.

Suddenly from the apex of the dome issued a red fluid, oozing and glutinous, and reminding Kirito terribly of blood—as though the game itself were bleeding out. This ooze dripped downward but stopped above the square and met with other streams of itself in a macabre refusal of physics. They formed an orb of red in the air, expanding constantly as more of the strange ichor flowed into it. Then it began to shift and morph, growing elliptical as it lost width and gained height, changing until it gained a recognizable shape.

A Game Master? Kirito thought, bewildered. A faceless Game Master? Is this how in-game announcements are supposed to go? They weren't like this in the beta!

"Hello." The booming voice from above and all around, seeming to emanate from the air itself, interrupted Kirito's wonderings and silenced the masses. "Welcome to Aincrad and to Sword Art Online. I am Kayaba Akihiko."

Kayaba Akihiko...? Why is he hiding his face? Kirito's mind raced. What's going on?

"I'm sure you all have many questions," said the founder of Argus. "I will not be taking them, but I will answer the obvious ones now. First, as I'm sure most of you have noticed by now, the ability to log out is no longer in the game menu. This is not a bug or glitch."

A young man gave a sharp breath in realization somewhere to Kirito's left. Kirito turned his head to see who it was, but couldn't tell among the crowds. What did they realize? he wondered.

"I repeat, this is not a bug." Kayaba's voice resonated onward through the air. "This is a feature of the NerveGear and of SAO. From this moment onward, logging out of SAO is impossible."

"So we have to wait for someone else to pull us out of FullDive?" someone asked.

"I live alone!" Klein shouted in alarm. "My pizza..."

"No," the unidentified young man—almost a boy, by his voice—to Kirito's left said, and though he spoke quietly, his voice had a cutting quality to it which sheared through the rising babble like butter, but he did not continue.

"In addition, attempting to remove the NerveGear from without will result in an electronic impulse being sent through the brain of the player," Kayaba continued. "This will result in instant brain death."

The silence was frozen in terror. "People have already been notified on the outside world of this danger." The voice carried no emotion. "Unfortunately, many have failed to heed, and as a result, 213 players are already dead."

"But that's not the real risk, is it?" said the mysterious voice to the left quietly. Kirito looked over again but could not find the speaker, despite not being the only head in the area turning this way and that.

"In addition, this microwave impulse will be sent through the NerveGear if one alternate criteria is met." Kirito's eyes widened—another way for people to be killed in this parody of a game? This was descending past horror. "Respawns have been disabled in SAO. If, anywhere in Aincrad, a player is killed, that player's real-world body will also die."

The ultimate hardcore gaming experience... Kirito remembered Argus' advertising slogan for SAO's full release. It was turning out truer than they could have imagined in their worst nightmares.

"There is now only one way to log out of SAO, short of death." Even the voice in the crowd was silent now. "In the moment when the final boss on the 100th floor is cleared, all players still living will be immediately logged out of the game.

"As of this moment, I am the only living thing with control over this world." Kayaba's voice was softer now, almost languid. "I control this world of Aincrad and everything in it. You 10,000 players—or now rather 9,787—must now prepare yourselves. In order to leave this game, you must clear all 100 floors and someone must strike down the final boss on the last. That is your goal, and the reward is freedom.

"I have one gift for each of you—it will now have appeared in your inventory." All around people suddenly moved and looked mechanically through their interface, into their inventory, and found there an item.

A Mirror? Kirito thought in numb confusion. What could that be for?

He took it out and examined his reflection in it. It faithfully reflected his in-game avatar. Then suddenly it flared and he felt the unique sensation of having his very body restructure itself around his spirit. Fortunately, his shape didn't have much to do—he'd deliberately kept a similar body type to his annoyingly effeminate one to avoid confusion. But his face altered itself. In later years, he would describe the feeling as "Like my flesh was rippling on by bones the way water does after a rock's dropped in it—except the bones were rippling too, and it was all so fast."

He fell to his knees, but soon stood up. Looking around, he noticed that all around him, people had changed—no one looked quite as he or she had before—indeed, some had changed from 'he' to 'she', and vice-versa. And there beside him was a taller man with a red bandana and natural reddish-brown hair, staring at him in surprise.

"Who are you?" the man asked.

Kirito looked into the mirror still clenched in his fist and saw his face—his real face. He looked up. "Klein?"

Klein blinked. "...Kirito? What...?"

There was a sound like the world choking, and everyone fell silent. Kayaba had cleared his throat.

"As of this moment," he declared, "I, Kayaba Akihiko, declare Sword Art Online to be fully launched." And without further ado, the scarlet robe melted back into the sky. The dome retreated and the barrier on the square was lifted.

An uproar broke out. Kirito grasped Klein's arm immediately—a good thing, since the crush would have separated them otherwise—and dragged him towards where he'd seen Diabel earlier.

Soon he caught sight of the man's signature blue hair—fortunately it was still blue—and managed to pick his way through the crowd to him.

"Diabel!" he shouted near the man's ear. Diabel turned to look at him, and the blank lack of recognition in his unfamiliar face hurt Kirito somewhere inside. "It's me, Kirito!"

Diabel's eyes widened. "Kirito!" He looked around. "Dweion, Kasui, follow me! Let's get out of this crowd!"

Kirito beckoned to Klein and they followed Diabel out of the crowd. When they reached the outskirts of the square the crowd did not thin: rather it gained a moving quality which negated its static crush as the people flowed, panicked, out of the square.

There the five of them stood together and look at one another. "I guess introductions are in order..." Diabel said, with a kind of forced cheer. "...again. Kirito, this is Dweion." The man hadn't changed overmuch—he was still bulky and had the same build, with the same bushy beard, the same red hair and the same laugh lines around his eyes. The difference was in scale—where before Dweion could be described as stout, at a height of perhaps five foot eight, now he towered over the rest, easily breaching six feet and more. His build was the same, but its magnitude was very different in real life.

In addition, Kirito could now see all the little flaws in his features—the slight dusting of tiny craters from old acne scarring, the other wrinkles—not laugh lines—which sagged slightly below his eyes, telling of many late nights and hard days.

But Dweion's smile was as infectious as ever, despite the overlay of stress that circumstances had now placed on it. Kirito could not help but grin back.

"And this is Kasui," Diabel inclined his head towards his female companion. She had changed somewhat more than Dweion. Her hair was still blond and sunny, her form still lithe and slim, but as Kirito might have expected her bust had diminished slightly and her flawless featured were now slightly spotted—a light dusting of freckles covered her nose and cheeks, her former high cheekbones were lowered, her eyes a slightly less vibrant shade of blue. Most importantly, she was shorter—before, she had been taller than Kirito by about half a foot, but now she was shorter than him by a couple of inches.

She did not smile as she nodded at him, but that was a relief—she had not changed, at her core. She never did smile in stressful situations, always reserving outward happiness for peaceful moments. He nodded back, but he did smile—leftover from Dweion.

"And, well, I'm Diabel." Kirito's friend grinned at him sheepishly. He had changed in terms of facial construction—where once had been a finely chiseled jaw, high cheekbones, and a brow that Kirito had often felt could have easily broken stone, there was now a much more ordinary kind of masculinity: a beautifully ordinary face looked out at Kirito. But three things that remained constant were Diabel's height—like Kirito he had kept about his ordinary, real height to avoid confusion, or perhaps he was simply pleased with it—the ocean-blue hair, stranger now than ever, and the bright blue eyes that looked out on the world.

Kirito grinned back at his friend. "Well, I'm Kirito," he said. "This," he nodded at his companion, "is Klein."

"And this is bad," Kasui interjected tersely. "You do all realize exactly what just happened, right?"

"Of course, Kasui," Dweion said, the smile dropping from his face. "But what can we do now? We can't exactly head out into the wild and start clearing the game just like that! We need supplies, and sleep!"

"And a plan," Kirito added. "That's most important. We need to think about this before we do anything."

Diabel looked at the thinning crowds flowing around them. "Will they?" he asked, seemingly to himself. "Will they think first? How many of us will die in this first night because we didn't think?"

Kirito's heart froze.

"I need to find my friends!" Klein's outburst shook them out of their reverie. "We were going to form a guild! I need to get to them before anything happens!"

Diabel gave him a smile—sincere, despite the thinly-veiled, barely-controlled worry they could all see under it. "Go, then, Klein. I hope we meet again soon."

Klein nodded at him, gave Kirito a quick, harried grin and rushed off, shouting names they didn't recognize.

"And now," Diabel said, turning to Kirito, "What say we find a place to rest up for the night, and worry about tomorrow when it comes?"

Kirito nodded. "Best idea I've heard all day."

A/N: And there you are. You may have noticed I've already started to expound on the existing lore. That's going to continue. I'm trying to realize this world as much as possible, among my other goals. Should be fun.

I can't promise regular updates, but I can promise a completed product at the end of this. I'm not giving up—that's the long and the short of it.

Note, however: I started this chapter in… late 2014, I think. Finished it in the middle of 2015. Started Chapter 2 almost immediately… didn't finish it until February. On the other hand, I have a complete outline of the story, and know where all the pieces go. So if I ever do get motivated to write this, it should be quick going.

One last point. As with all my recent stories, I want to discuss reviews. Lots of authors beg for them on their knees. I don't care enough. Got much more important things in my life than the review count of a story on the internet. Leave 'em if you've got something to say, good or bad. I'll listen to criticism, respond to questions, et cetera. But… I just don't care all that much. So reviews are appreciated but unnecessary.

With that said, I'll see you next time.