Today was a very special day at the Sunshine Orphanage. Today was Haruka's birthday. For one special day, everybody took the time to thank Haruka for everything she had done for the kids. The festivities lasted all day. Nakahara and Mikio even brought over a big cake for everyone to enjoy, but something bothered Haruka. She hadn't seen Kazuma all day. Where could he be at a time like this? Just as everyone had finished eating cake, and Haruka's worry had reached its maximum, everyone heard Taichi shout out "Oji-san!" Everyone ran out to the front yard to see Kiryu walking towards them, carrying two big boxes in his arms, and out of breath. "Haru-chan!" he called out, "I'm sorry I missed your party, I wasn't expecting the lines to be so long." Haruka smiled with tears of joy, and tackled Kiryu to the ground, hugging him, knocking the boxes into the sand. "Happy birthday, Haruka-chan," he said, rubbing her head reassuringly.
Kiryu got up and picked up one of the boxes, and asked Mikio to help carry the other. Kiryu had time for one slice of cake before Haruka decided to open her presents. She unwrapped the boxes neatly, so that the wrapping paper could be used for Christmas presents later that year, to reveal two Nervegear helmets, each with a copy of the hugely anticipated Online Role-Playing-Game, Sword Art Online. Haruka's eyes lit up. "Oji-san, are you going to play with me?!" she asked with excitement. Kiryu nodded, "Yeah, I hear this device actually puts you in the game. I've had some experience with a game like that, so I thought it would be fun to play together."
Haruka eagerly put her helmet on, whilst Kiryu and Mikio set things up. Finally, everything was all ready. "Link Start!" Kiryu and Haruka said in unison, as they began their journey into the virtual world of Aincrad. In creating their avatars, Haruka decided to just go by her usual name, whereas Kiryu decided upon the name "Heat_Dragon," due to his fondness of dragons. They met up in the bustling Level 1 town. Kiryu was dressed in typical Ronin garb, with a dark grey open front top, with baggy red pants, and sandals, holding a katana, sheathed at his side. He tried to make his face look like himself, but he wasn't very good with the sliders, so he ended up looking much younger than he actually was. Haruka, on the other hand, was all dressed up like a Magical Girl, with a pink skirt, and puffy shoulder thingies, with an unproportionally large pink and yellow hammer clinging to her back. Her character had light purple eyes, and bright pink hair in long pigtails, just like Hatsune Miku. "Oji-san, let's go!"
"Yeah," he nodded.
They headed out into the plains to fight boars for a while. Seeing that it was a beginner's area, and Kiryu was a trained swordsman, fighting the boars was little trouble to Kiryu, so he mostly made sure to play support for Haruka. They played and fought boars for a few hours, until it finally became evening. "All right, Haruka-chan," Kiryu began, a little fatigued from all the fun they had, "We should log out for the night and get ready for bed."
"Yes, oji-san," she said, waving her hand through the air to bring up her menu. As she looked through the menus, her expression became one of confusion. "What's wrong, Haruka-chan?"
"I can't find the 'log-out' option," she responded.
"The manual said it should be right around-," Kiryu brought up his menu, only to see that the "log-out" option was grayed out. He tried selecting it, only to get an error sound effect. "Huh?"
Suddenly a bell could be heard from all around. Before Kiryu could even figure out what it meant, he and Haruka were both warped into the town square, along with everyone else in Aincrad. Then, a spectre appeared before the crowd. "I am Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of this game," the spectre informed, "by now, you have all most likely noticed that you cannot log out. This is not a bug, this is the real game. No one may leave this game until you clear the final floor. If you die in the game, your Nervegear will send microwaves into your brain to turn it into pudding. If anybody tries to remove the Nervegear from your head before the game is cleared, the Nervegear will send microwaves into your brain to turn it into mashed potatoes. Oh, and one more thing," Kayaba gave everyone little hand mirrors, as one by one, everyone's avatars turned into their real life selves. Kiryu gritted his teeth, and clenched his fists, crushing the little mirror as his rage filled his heat-guage. "Oji-san," Haruka whined, her voice on the edge of tears, "what's going to happen to us?" Kiryu, seeing how scared Haruka was, calmed his rage for the time being to console her. "I'm going to get us out of here," he assured Haruka, "and I'm going to teach that punk a lesson."