A Reaper's Game -Part One: Aincrad's New Reaper-

Sword I: Arrival

'My head…' Ragna groaned as he felt himself lying on soft grassy ground, his entire body aching in a way that reminded him of his early days training with his teacher. 'What in the seven hells just happened?' He slowly opened his eyes with a left emerald green iris and a crimson red right iris, now staring up at a cloudy blue sky that looked... off. 'The last thing I remember is…' Images flashed through his mind, causing the Reaper to grimace at the pain as he relived his rather unpleasant life. 'Right... I just tried to erase myself from the Master Unit's sight... At least I managed to put that bastard Terumi down for good... Gotta say, not existing still feels a hell of a lot like existing.'

As Ragna managed to force himself to sit upright, he observed that he was in the middle of a large grassy field. There was a collection of buildings resembling a town a small ways to his right and a dense forest further to his left. The most noticeable feature, however, was a giant pillar in the distance that seemed to be reaching towards the sky.

"...The more things change the more they stay the same I guess," Ragna said aloud to himself with a dark chuckle. It then occurred to the Reaper that he was able to use his right arm and eye, something that would require a specific type of energy. "Is there Seither here or something? I wouldn't be able to move otherwise."

Ragna then noticed his sword Blood-Scythe on the ground beside him, something that clearly shouldn't have been there; he'd intended to leave his favored weapon back in his home world as a final reminder so what was it doing here? Shrugging, he picked up the chipped and scarred weapon with ease and twirled it around in his hand a few times before setting it back on his belt. With no other destination in mind, he then decided to head out to the town, maybe ask around for his bearings if he could... getting recognized for a criminal could actually put his mind at ease for once.

"What's with the feeling of this place?" Ragna thought aloud as he walked to the town, not in any hurry to arrive. Hearing some sort of low grunting, he turned his head non-nonchalantly to the source; it appeared to be some form of a feral boar. The boar dug its hooves into the ground before sprinting at Ragna full force. 'The hell? What'd I ever do to you, pig?' he thought with ire as he dodged effortlessly to the side. He then noticed the curved bar above the boar. 'And what is that supposed to be? This is making less sense the more I look at it.'

The boar skidded on the ground and changed direction before charging again for a second attack. Groaning at the annoyance, Ragna stood in place and waited until the creature was right in front of him before punting the boar. It gave a squeal of pain as it flew threw the air twenty feet before crashing to the ground, the bar above it depleting by about a third.

"Seriously? That's all I did?" Ragna groaned as he took his chipped sword off of his belt as the boar slow rose and shock itself of the impact. Reeling on its hind legs, it charged at Ragna once more only for the Reaper to nonchalantly impale the monster through its front. It gave a weak but shrill scream right before its form wavered and shattered, turning into a strange explosion of glass like particles that then slowly faded. As Ragna put his weapon back on his belt, a strange screen suddenly appeared in front of him.

Result

Exp 24

Col 30

Items 2

"And this crap just keeps getting worse," Ragna muttered. "I have absolutely no idea what's going on right now. Hopefully there's someone in town that can explain this damn nightmare I'm in."

As he started getting closer to the town he noticed that there were a few people at the entrance, touching a weird screen in front of them that looked similar to the one that he'd just seen. He then observed one player make a motion with his hand and cause the screen to appear.

Feeling a little curious he tried it out himself, creating a screen in front of him with several options. 'This is... progress, I guess,' he thought. 'Let's see here… maybe if I try 'equipment.' After touching the button on the screen, a sub-screen with his inventory came up. The first item was his sword: Scratched Blood-Scythe. He pushed the button revealing the sword with several statistics linked to it. 'These numbers don't make much sense, but this small section at the bottom says that it has locked abilities, whatever the hell that means. It also says it can be improved by adding different metals. Does that have something to do with the stats?'

Ragna then went to the next option on the list was his outfit, given the title Bloodedge Coat Basic. Again, this gave Ragna a few statistics, these ones pertaining to defense. It seemed like this could also be improved by adding different materials. 'Hopefully it doesn't change the design, I like my coat the way it is.'

He went down the list, observing that he managed to have a healing potion and some boar hide; items that he'd likely gotten from the boar. The last option on the list was different than the others; the text was written in blood-red instead of the usual black. Azure Grimoire. Ragna clicked on the option.

'Description: An arm of otherworldly origins, this allows for an unorthodox and arcane fighting style. This artifact will increase in power along with its wielder.

Ability: Enhanced Battle regeneration Lv1: When recovering from damage in battle using natural battle regeneration, this effect is increased 5 points.'

Ragna was unsure what to make of all of this. Keep in mind this guy had constantly been fighting the NOL, so he never exactly had the chance to be able to enjoy himself and play an RPG or anything (if he even knew what that was). With little idea of what was going on, he decided to walk around town and find somewhere less overcrowded with people. Eventually he came across a tavern and decided it would do. There were several people inside eating and talking with one another. The Reaper took a seat off to the side of the groups, not exactly feeling sociable at the moment.

After a few moments, a waitress made her way over to him. "Can I get you something?"

'Answers, for one thing. At least we speak the same language,' Ragna thought to himself, but decided against saying it. "Just some coffee."

"Sure thing, that will be five coal," she told him. A panel appeared in front of him asking if he'd like to pay an amount of col in exchange for the mug of coffee. Though a little caught off guard at the appearance, he decided to accept. "Great, I'll be back in just a few."

As she walked away, Ragna opened up his menu again and continued looking through it. Under Skills he saw that he had three techniques; two unfamiliar attacks called Blast and Horizontal Slash along with his original Hell's Fang. It seemed he'd lost most of his fighting techniques, but he figured he'd work to get them back later… somehow. By the time the serving girl came back to him with his coffee, he'd read through most of the basic tutorials, though it didn't make much sense to him at the moment.

"I still can't believe it," he overheard someone from a group of people close to his table groan. "I remember buying the Nerve Gear thinking of all of the fun I'd have with it, not being trapped in some sadistic death game."

"Two weeks in and you're still complaining about it?" one of his friends asked as Ragna took a sip of his coffee and listened from afar, hoping to get a grasp of whatever situation he was in. "Though I guess you have plenty of reason to. You buy the most sought video game of all time thinking it'll be the best thing in your life and then they drop the bomb and tell you that you can't escape. You die in here and your body gets fried in real life. Even though the system doesn't have us register pain, we all got screwed over."

"Yeah, especially when they did the true appearance reveal you found out the girl you were hitting on was actually an overweight guy, that probably hurt!" another one said with a laugh. Ragna fought the urge to roll his eyes, he fought hard. "But seriously, clear all a hundred levels or you get trapped here forever? We haven't even found the first boss room and over a thousand people are already dead!"

"At least there are people working on it, hopefully some of them are beta-testers that know what they're doing," the first one told the others before standing. "Come on, let's see if we can get a quest done and level up by the end of the day."

"I'm going to need some col anyways to get better armor, so what the hell?"

As the group left Ragna attempted to make sense of what he just heard. 'So I'm trapped in some sort of ...video game? Everyone else is tied to some sort of Nerve Gear thing, and that's going to kill 'em for real if they die in this place... And if the 'game' gets cleared, what happens to me?' Ragna let out a small chuckle. 'Don't tell me I've become shallow enough that I'm frighted by dying of all things? I was expecting to get erased already; what's one more fight, all things considered?'

Deciding he'd move forward out of nothing more than sheer boredom, Ragna finished his coffee and left the mug on the table. Nodding to the serving girl, he exited the restaurant and began walking through the streets on his way back to the gate. During said walk he noticed several types of people; some that were trying to act like nothing was wrong, more that were focusing on the fact that they were living inside their dream game... others that were sitting prostrate against the walls, unable to move for fear of their own lives. Ragna didn't say anything, only passing through the gates and knowing what needed to be done.

'I might not be able to wrap my head around this combat system yet, but that doesn't mean I can't still swing a sword like the rest of them,' he thought as he came across another boar early into the fields. "Hell's Fang!" he shouted as he lunged forward with a violent line of black flames trailing behind him as he slammed his fist into the creature which squealed in pain. He also tried to follow up the attack with a wave of darkness, but for some reason it didn't work. "This again? Give me a break..." he complained as he dodged the boar's retaliating rush.

Ragna then drew his sword and slashed the boar across its body, finishing it off. As the result screen came up the Reaper gave a small grin at the simplicity of it all. "Alright then, let's see if I can power through a couple more of these fights."

Two Hours Later

Ragna had been fighting every boar he'd come across as well as the occasional wolf which were (supposedly) a little harder and worth a little more experience. With all of the constant fighting he'd managed to level up three times ('Whatever that means,' he thought), but he still hadn't recovered any of his earlier techniques. Currently he was searching for a better challenge so he could get more experience and col at a faster rate. He'd decided to follow the path out of the town's area in order to head to the next section, hoping there'd be something stronger to fight over there..

'Those guys back in town said something about needing to clear a hundred floors of this game, and if this is only the first one it would make sense why everything I'm fighting against is so friggen' weak.. Then again I can't say I'm much better. I feel so damn weak that I can barely feel my BlazBlue at all... What a pain in the ass.'

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he noticed a group of players who were finishing off what appeared to have been a group of boars. They were all dressed in beginning garb and appeared to be somewhat skilled. They teamed up with each other in order to flank their pray, out maneuver them, and trade off attacks to keep the boars off their balance. It wasn't long before all of the monsters had shattered into the same glass material Ragna had seen happen whenever he beat down monsters.

"Looks like that's all of them," a redhead with a bandana said as he sheathed his weapon and looked over the result screen. "We're getting closer to level ten. If we finish off that quest we came back here for and use the materials we find for upgrades, we should be ready to go back and tackle that dungeon we found a few days ago." He then looked up and saw Ragna off in the distance, starting to walk off after he'd seen Klein's group fight. "Huh? Is that a solo player?"

"Maybe," one of his teammates responded. "We haven't seen him around, so maybe he started coming out of town recently?"

"Either way you need a group if want to fight out here," another one commented. "Most of the people we lost were stubborn solo players who took on more than they could chew. He should join us; at least for now, right?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea," the leader admitted before waving his hand above his head. "Hey buddy! Over here!"

Ragna heard them calling over and paused in his step. Sure he could've just ignored them and likely saved himself from trying to explain things he couldn't, but he'd overheard them conversing about their concern for him. Huge of a jerk as he was, he figured he could at least set the record straight. Bracing himself and trying to come up with a few excuses for anything he'd be asked, he headed over to them and watched as they looked over his attire and weapon with an analytical expression.

"You wanted something?" the Reaper asked nonchalantly.

"Kind of, just wanted to know why you've decided to travel alone. You stand more of a chance in Sword Art Online if you find a good team to survive with. I mean if you want to you could always come with us; our teams always got room for one more."

"No offense, but I'm not exactly what you'd call a people person," Ragna told them. "I'm better off on my own." 'Plus, I'm not really sure how I feel about them being so close to my BlazBlue…'

"Buddy, we're in a video game, none in here is exactly homecoming king material," the redhead said tried to convince him. "Acting cool's just going to get you killed, so why not at least try to find a team?"

"I'm not trying to be cool, I'm just not interested in teaming up with anyone," Ragna told him off before he let out a sigh as he realized he was kinda being a dick. "Thanks for the concern though."

"Come on boss, he's acting like you're not gonna let this go," one of the red head's friends told him. "What level is he anyways?"

"Level? Right, I think I'm level..." Ragna did the math in his head. "...Four?"

"Not sounding too sure there, but you're going to need a higher level then that," the redhead told him. "The first five are pretty easy to get to, but after that you have to grind like crazy an entire day, going on quests and beating up countless monsters just to get one level… Kinda like Dragon Quest (shots fired). Anyways, the name's Klein. Nice to meetcha." He held his hand out for Ragna to shake, so the white haired Reaper was forced to try and make a sociable face as he grabbed it.

"Ragna, and... likewise," the Reaper told him as the two shook hands. "Anyways, I'm going to head for the next area, so I'll see you around."

"Try to get there soon," Klein advised as Ragna started heading out. "Monsters are a lot stronger at night and... ah, hell I can't just let you go off on your own like that." Ragna watched as Klein opened his menu and made a few taps as he selected his options. A screen then appeared before Ragna, showing that he'd been sent several healing potions.

"Huh? You're giving these to me?" Ragna questioned as he looked at the screen in surprise. "I can't take 'em."

"Either you take the items or you join up with us for now; it's your call," Klein said, giving Ragna a well placed ultimatum. "Come on, my team's got plenty and you're going to need healing items if you're going to survive this thing alone... Just to be safe, here's my contact info."

Yet another screen appeared before Ragna, this one showing that he'd been sent a Friend Request by Klein. He looked at the screen before glancing back up at the issuer and seeing that he was serious.

"Uh... thanks?" Ragna said with some confusion as he tapped accept on his screen. "...What's this for exactly?

"Just so you can let me know if you've run into some trouble in a dungeon or need my help. Send a message my way and my team will make sure that you don't die off... we've already lost too many people in this thing as it stands."

"...Thanks for the help then," Ragna decided finally before turning and heading off as Klein's group headed the opposite way. 'He's just trying to make sure no one else has to die in this thing. I guess I can't exactly fault him for wanting that, but it's weird having someone other than Celica looking out for me... I guess I should at least give the guy a chance; he means well at the very least.'

Later -The Further Fields-

Ragna continued traveling along the plains, the sky above him turning dark as night slowly shifted to night. The Reaper didn't have any clue where the next town was, so he just had to keep walking along the path and see where it took him. It wasn't that large of an issue however; unlike back home, now he didn't have to worry about avoiding large patches of Seither when he traveled. Back home he'd already had to worry about fighting off Seither beasts during a wilderness trek, so these monsters weren't too much different in comparison... though his current level of strength left something to be desired.

'I guess it's not that surprising,' Ragna thought to himself. 'If you try to erase yourself, even if you survive you'd had to have lost something in the process, right? ...I just hope the world I left for everyone is as good as I wanted it to be.' The Reaper paused as a collection of snarls came from around him. 'Looks like I've got company...'

(Cue No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle Sling Shot )

Surrounding Ragna were several reptilian creatures that were wearing some sort of leather armor over their torsos. Above their head was a line of text that read 'Kobold Whelp.' Their scales were a rusty dull red and their eyes were a venomous yellow that struck Ragna a little too close to home. They were all using some sort of jagged dagger that looked like they had gotten some use with the rest of them. Like most of the other monsters of this game, they decided to go for a full frontal assault instead of trying to surround him with their better numbers... not that they'd have fared any better.

Ragna didn't waste any time as he brought out Blood-Scythe and rushed towards one of the creatures and slashed at its head. Surprisingly the creature was still standing as the 'slashed' animation played across its head. It only appeared to lose a solid third of its health before it retaliated at the Reaper, missing by a mile as Ragna dove back to avoid its dagger.

'I guess as long as these things still have health, even a hit like that won't force 'em to drop,' Ragna thought as one of the other Kobolds brought back its sword. Ragna watched with surprise as he saw the weapon glow purple for a short second before the monster flew forward with a slashing attack. He felt the wind hit him as the monster neared, only to block its weapon with his own and sent the beast stumbling back. Swinging his sword ferociously, Ragna's first upward slash sent the monster into the air before his second attack came down and cut the monster in half across the chest, turning yet another victim to particles.

'The attack that thing used... is that anything like those other two skills that I got? It looks strong, but how did it-' Bringing his prized sword back, Ragna realized that his favored weapon was glowing a deep azure blue. Smirking to himself, he roared as he rushed forward and cut the two of the Kobolds in his rush. While neither of the beasts were defeated by that single attack, both of them were still damaged. One of them that launched itself into air to attack Ragna with an attack from above, but the Reaper drove his sword into the air and caught the monster dead in the chest and destroyed it.

As another monster came at him, Ragna switched up his single-handed reversed grip on the blade in favor of a two-handed grip for more power. Ragna brought that blade back once more, only to realize that this time the glow around him blade was a deep crimson red. Not letting it distract him from the fight, Ragna ferociously swung the sword forward. When it caught the Kobold in the chest, the monster was sent soaring back before shattering in mid air.

Now with more of a mind for the situation that they were in, the remaining three Kobolds separated slightly before all of them charged their sword skills once more, rushing forward with deadly speed. Ragna gave a sigh before he deflected the first attack with his sword and left that Kobold off balance before tripping the second with his foot and sending the monster flying. He then twisted the blade around and caught the third creature in the chest, impaling and destroying it immediately.

"Hell's Fang!" Ragna shouted, utilizing his signature attack once more. He managed to slam his fist into the creature he'd guarded against, but it wasn't that effective. Following up with a powerful uppercut, Ragna set the reptile flying before leaping into the air after it. Though it didn't carry the strength of his Azure Grimoire, Ragna's axe kick was still devastating enough to send the beast to the ground with amazing force which caused it to shatter upon impact.

"Great; I can't chain my BlazBlue attacks together, I barely have any techniques, and what I can use is weak as shit," Ragna muttered as he noticed the final monster approaching from behind. Seeing his sword, he considered his options. "Maybe if I..."

Bringing his sword back with a single hand on it, Ragna charged forward as his battle-status menu showed that he was using Horizontal Slash. Using the charging technique, Ragna managed to cut the monster across its chest and wound it greatly. Passing by the monster, it was still alive until Ragna grabbed his sword with both hand and quickly adjusted his stance, roaring as he used Blast. The creature took the full force of the attack and shattered to pieces.

(End theme)

"...It'll do... for now," Ragna said as he nonchalantly reset his sword back upon his metal belt. "Tch, I've been having to put up with more and more shit the further into this I go. Where the hell even is this?" Looking over the results screen, he gave a short sigh right before he closed it and accepted the rewards from the battle. "Looks like answers are gonna take awhile... since I'll be busy."

As the Grim Reaper continued walking off, his dulled senses prevented him from detecting a rather... strange presence watching him from above. Without his BlazBlue fully functioning, not a single soul could detect the figure; an enigma that was both there and not there.

"He's grouchy, but he might be just what this death game needs," the enigma said as he watched Ragna continue forward down below. He then saw a group of enemies heading his direction and smiled as the Reaper once more took out his blade to meet them. "Maybe this world's the fresh start that he needed before he ended it all; somewhere to start anew without the weight of the past. Make this second chance count... Ragna the Bloodedge."

Author's Note For the Reboot

So... You were probably expecting a revision, like I'd promised all of you. I plan on delivering that promise... but I also thought I'd take a step even further. Instead of just fixing the grammar mistakes, I'm planning on adjusting the story and certain events. Rest assured, all events that have been presented shall still remain... though the presentation will differ.

What this essentially means is that I plan on not only fixing the chapters that desperately need editing, but I'll be adding new chapters in between as well. This possibly means that I'll be able to dedicate a few chapters to every floor that I skipped in the original series (Only 5 floors, but we'll see how it goes).

Just a general reminder, I won't be considering anything 'canon' except that which was seen in the Season 1 Anime of SAO.

I understand some speculation, but if this doesn't go well I am willing to merely edit and continue that which I've already made... Just keep an open mind for now. Until next time.

Ciao.