Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online.

So, I am going to be completely honest with you. I got a lot of flack for how the last version of this chapter was so different from everything else, and I get it, I do. I was really iffy about it when I posted it, too. It just didn't fit, even if I had spent hours of work trying to get it just right. So, to honor all of my readers who didn't feel quite right about the last chapter, here is the same plot, less 'villain' and more 'Kirito being Kirito' in the midst of a crisis he doesn't know about, an enemy stalking him from the shadows, and a certain Rat being more elusive than normal.

For those of you that enjoyed the last chapter, I have it saved to my computer in a separate document, and I am considering turning it into its own storyline. Would anyone like that? Please let me know.

Chapter 5

Last Laugh

Kikuoka Seijirou had a headache.

He pulled off his glasses and pinched his nose in irritation as he looked at the numbers on the screen in front of him. As head of the SAO task force, the last few months had been mind numbingly busy. He'd visited hospitals, families of the victims, some of the victims themselves, and worked through weeks of paperwork about the release of the SAO players back into society.

And, on top of that? There was the Ocean Turtle. His own not so little side project. He'd just gotten word; project Alicization was a go.

None of that was the cause of his headache, however.

Unlike most of the world, Kikuoka Seijirou had no delusions that the survivors of Sword Art Online were just going to roll over and assimilate back into society. He'd seen war veterans who'd come back from the front lines. The things they'd seen? It haunted them, and they were never quite the same after.

The Sword Art Online survivors had the same exact look in their eyes.

And that was the reason why Kikuoka had made it a point to visit any of the survivors who had come up as red flags. He glanced down at the files in front of him, landing on the topmost page. The image pinned to the file depicted a slightly feminin boy of 14 with dark hair and darker eyes.

Kazuto Kirigaya.

The photo was obviously taken before the incident, and Kikuoka would have pegged him as a troublemaker even before he was trapped. There was a troubled look in the boy's eyes, like he carried some heavy secret he couldn't reveal to anyone.

"Patient woke at approximately 1:24 AM and proceeded to get out of bed and wander the halls. He seemed coherent enough to have taken his IV bag with him. Was found at 1:50 AM collapsed just before the stairs down to the next level. Possible attempted escapee."

Kazuto was flagged because the boy just wouldn't stay down. The boy had been jittery, flinching every time one of the doctors or nurses came anywhere near him with what could be mistaken as a weapon. He'd kept demanding to see someone named "Asuna", another SAO patient from a different hospital.

It had been noted that he didn't seem fond of authority.

Kikuoka honestly hadn't known what to expect when he visited the boy around a day after the Awakening. Maybe a half mad child desperately searching for his friends, or maybe a trigger happy boy ready to fly off the handle.

He hadn't expected Kazuto to stair him down from the hospital bed, dark eyes locking on him the moment he entered the door, and demand a list of the SAO survivors.

He didn't expect the commander in the body of a child.

He didn't expect Kirito.

"Hello, Kirigaya," Kikuoka spoke calmly as he closed the door behind him. The nurses had already left, as he'd directed. This was to be a private conversation. "My name is Kikuoka Seijirou."

Kazuto was sitting up in bed, dark eyes sharp as glass and hands folded calmly in his lap. It was only Kikuoka's trained eyes that saw how tense the muscles in the boy's jaw were, or how the relaxed arms were not so obviously kept anchored to the sides of the bed with a length of soft cloth. Probably to keep him from getting back up and stressing his post coma body more than he already had.

Kikuoka kept his face bland as he tucked a few of the files he was carrying under his arm. Young Kazuto Kirigaya wasn't the first person he had visited today, and he wouldn't be the last, but there was something about this one that had him on edge.

"This is just a routine checkup," Kikuoka started, pulling back as sitting in the guest chair, "Circumstances being what they are, we thought it best to meet with each of the survivors and-"

"You're a government agent," Kikuoka choked on his words when Kazuto interrupted him, eyes so dark they seemed to cut to his very center. "You have access to the SAO survivor list, yes? I need to see it."

Kikuoka eyed the boy quietly before shaking his head. "I am afraid I can't do that, Kirigaya."

Kirito's folded hands tightened and his eyes, if possible, went even darker.

"You want what I know," the words were chilling, cold. They weren't the words of a child. "You want to know where Kayaba is hiding."

This time, Kikuoka really did choke. Was Kirigaya really insinuating what he thought he was?

After Sword Art Online went up, Kayaba just up and vanished. All of his notes, his diagrams, everything that might lead to where he was going or what he was after had been deleted from the system. He'd had no living family, no close ties to any of the other scientists, and no loose ends. Even his citizen registration forms had up and vanished.

He was like a ghost.

They'd hit a block about a year and a half ago. There were no sightings, no rumors, and no way of tracking the man down. And, as much as the government wanted him caught for what he had done, they'd had to back down because the man just didn't seem to exist.

And yet here was Kirigaya, saying that he might know something.

"Let's make a bargain, Mr. Kikuoka," Kirito leaned forward as far as he could with the straps on his arms, calculation sharp in every movement, "One name and location," his eyes glinted, "For one piece of information."

Kikuoka's breath hitched, and Kirito smirked. He'd already won this round.

"Choose wisely."

Kazuto Kirigaya was an . . . interesting case. It had been clear from the moment that the boy had laid down his terms that things weren't going to be easy. Young as he looked (and was), Kirigaya was a soldier. And a high ranked one, at that.

The story that he wove (at the cost of almost a dozen names and locations Kikuoka really shouldn't be using as bargaining chips) was a chilling tale of life, loss, a battle for freedom, and an ultimate betrayal from one of their own.

These kids aren't just survivors, they are fighters that just got yanked back out of the middle of a war. You don't just let those kinds of people back out into society without careful evaluation.

Kayaba had never been hiding in the real world. He'd been hiding in theirs. That's why they had never found him. That's why they still couldn't find him.

"Akihiko Kayaba is dead," Kirito's voice was void of emotion, "by my own hand."

Everyone that came out of that game was going to be dealing with trauma for the rest of their lives. As much as Kikuoka would like to sic a therapist on each and every one of them, the government had already put its foot down.

The kids have already been away from their families for two years, they said. We can't justify keeping them away for any longer now that they are awake.

Right. Trigger happy survivors that had spent two years fighting for their lives and freedom. Where a fast moving object hurtling toward you meant attack and you ran the risk of being murdered by your neighbor if you slept without locking your door.

But, Kikuoka was the head of the task force and as such he still had to follow the orders of his superiors.

Which also meant that he'd spent the last several months tracking down and covering up the SAO survivors slip ups. Right now the media labeled the people that came out of SAO as victims, which was much better than potentially dangerous soldiers. Best to keep it that way. Paperwork. Paperwork. Paperwork.

One boy ended up accidentally stabbing his dog when it tried to sneak up on him while he was cooking. The mother had almost called the cops, but Kikuoka was able to get wind of it fast enough to calm her.

A girl from a bad home packed her bags and took to the streets. Kikuoka had the family investigated and quietly arrested. He and his task force were still trying to track her back down. Last he'd heard, she was headed for a more forested part of the country. Kikuoka would be more worried but, meh, Sword Art Online survivor. She'd be fine.

These and dozens of other cases had been popping up all over the place. Most of the survivors just couldn't seem to keep their hands off the knives. The paperwork alone could have killed him . . .

And that was his problem right there.

Kikuoka tapped his fingers against his desk with a frown, eyeing the new empty spaces that had cleared up in the last few days. He'd expected the amount of paper to increase, not vanish.

Sure, there were still little incidents. But that's just it. Little. They were hardly worth tracking down and correcting. Every survivor that was high risk, every person that he'd had under watch, just stopped.

He hadn't noticed anything really different until a few days ago, when one of his task force members brought up how nice it was that things were starting to calm down.

But . . . they hadn't calmed down. Calming down, he would have understood. All of the psychological problems, the twitchy fingers, the shifty eyes? It should have taken a few years before they finally subsided.

He'd had someone put the numbers together, and what he was seeing didn't look good.

The number of incidents had been increasing steadily every day since the SAO patients had been released home. And then, about three weeks ago, they'd vanished. Like, all of the potential twitchy fingers suddenly weren't so twitchy. Survivors were holding up in their rooms on their computers or out walking the streets happily. Not being jumpy, or twitchy, or . . . or normal.

Oddly enough, this correlates with the ALO incident. But none of that was released to the public. No one but the people involved should know what happened.

Somehow, he just knew that this was all Kirigaya's fault.

What, Kikuoka scowled, are you involved in this time, Kirito?

0~o~0

The sound of something loud blaring at him from behind had Kirito automatically reaching for the sword handle at his back as he fell into a slight crouch.

Large and loud, approaching fast. Spin should get me out of the way, and if I get get my sword out I can damage it as it goes past-

His hand closed on empty air.

Kirito blinked slowly as a car screeched past, horn bleeding a few more times before going silent.

Ah, I did it again.

A few people on the sidewalk with him gave him an odd look as he straightened back up again, cheeks reddening slightly.

Three months and a couple of weeks, he'd been out of Aincrad. For the most part, Kirito would say that he was doing fairly good. His muscle mass was picking up, and he hadn't seriously overreacted to anything yet. Sure, some things still surprised him, and it irritated him that the bamboo swords in the dojo weren't as heavy as he would like them, but over all he was okay. He was out of the game, Kayaba was gone, Asuna was awake, and he had his family with him.

There was just one problem-

"Kazuto?" Sugu frowned at him, eyes flicking between his empty hand to the road, "Are you okay?"

That's not my name.

Kirito smiled blandly. "It's okay, Sugu. I was lost in thought, so it just surprised me."

He'd been Kirito so long that he didn't know how to be Kazuto anymore.

He could probably tell her. She might understand, a little bit, how hard it was for him. Sugu was also Leafa of Alfheim. She had to go by two names as well.

But . . . she'd never tried to just forget her original name.

Kirito didn't know when it happened. Maybe it was the first boss battle, when he made himself a target for all of the players. Maybe it was when he turned away from talking to people and turned instead to sleeping and grinding in the forests day in and day out.

How long ago had he let go of Kazuto and simply became Kirito?

"Hmm," Sugu tilted her head, "I don't know if I believe you."

Kirito shook his head and flexed his hand, hiding it from sight as he did so. "It's fine, Sugu. Really. You don't need to worry. Besides," he sighed, "if we don't hurry, we will be late to meet up with Asuna."

Sugu's face twisted for a moment before falling into a slight, rueful smile. "If you say so. Just, please know you can talk to me if you need anything."

Smiling, Kirito nodded as they set off again.

Neither of them noticed the young man who had been standing against the wall the entire time that they were talking, ball cap pulled low and face shadowed.

As they turned down the street, the figure flipped open an old phone and pressed the call button. After a moment, there was a click.

"What is it, XaXa?"

"Hello, Guild Master," XaXa smiled crookedly, one eye peeking out from under his cap and watching the pair of siblings as they walked away, "I believe I just found our target. Permission to tail them?"

There was silence on the other end, and then a crackle, "Permission granted. Don't get caught."

XaXa grinned. "With pleasure, PoH."

The phone cut off with a click.

0~o~0

PoH stared down at the phone with hooded eyes, contemplating what he had just heard.

In Aincrad, he'd been in his element. Feared by the population as a whole, he was probably the most wanted criminal in that entire world. No one could catch him, although they tried. Only a small handful of people even had the strength to stand against him and his followers.

And, although they had ruined his budding empire, he'd been happy.

So, so happy.

The real world was such a dull, dreary place. Everything was so grey. In all honesty, PoH had never wanted to return here. In Aincrad, it was kill or be killed. Live and die. Power and weakness. He'd never expected it to become real, but he'd adapted.

He'd practically written himself into the lore of Aincrad, by this point.

Aincrad, created by Akihiko Kayaba. A castle in the sky, with over a hundred floors. The Beater, the beta tester who wouldn't die. Asuna the Lightning Flash, so fast she leaves flickers of light in her wake. The Clearers, top leveled players who pushed the frontlines every day. The heroes of our generation.

And Laughing Coffin. The murder guild.

My life's work.

And he ruined it.

PoH tightened his grip on the burner phone in his hands, lips twisting into a snarl. Aincrad was a masterpiece. A work of art. It was a world, entirely one its own. It had its own laws, its own people, and its own legends.

When Laughing Coffin had been attacked and decimated, PoH had been furious. He'd spent years setting up everything just right. His final act had been about to open. And then he'd swooped in, dozens of clearers in his wake.

A black cloak flashing in and out of surprised red players like a shadow. Screams, clashes of metal against metal, and shattering as three of his men vanished in a hail of blue pixels.

The look in his eyes had been so cold.

But that wasn't what made PoH burn with rage. Oh, no.

You took us from that world. You ripped us from the lives that we'd built. We were happy there, and you destroyed everything.

PoH hated the real world. It was cold, and too many people were watching. But there was one good thing about it. All of the members of his guild that had been captured and put in prison were now free. Here, no one knew what they had done. No one knew to lock them away. All it had taken was hiring a hacker to get a hold of a few specific names.

So, no. This wasn't the end of Laughing Coffin. In fact, it might even be a new beginning.

"Kirito," PoH hissed, staring down at a single printed picture that one of his followers had managed to snag a few weeks ago before the familiar figure had been lost in the crowds, "I am going to find you. And when I do-"

His eyes blazed.

"It will be my blade you see last."

0~o~0

I hope that this fits the style of the story a little better than my last attempt. Again, if you liked my last attempt at the chapter, I might put it up for a different story. This still turned out a little darker than my other chapters, but I tried. I think I might just be in a mood right now. Arg.

Let me know what you think. Is it still too dark? Do I need to do another revision? I am going to try and bring Klein back in for the next chapter. Hopefully. Who knows when that will be, though.

(Published:3/23/2020)