Asuna got good grades in school. The best ones, in fact, and every time there was a test she'd proudly show her parents her perfect or almost-perfect scores, and she was golden

There was a video game, called Sword Art Online, and she got a copy, as a reward for getting so many good marks, and she preened before the praise. Then she logged in and couldn't log out, and everything happened too fast.

"If someone you trust asks you to join a guild, do it."

She pondered those words, because she could never be gold in a guild that wasn't hers, but then someone she trusted asked her, and he smiled at her kindly and told her she was good enough, and she thought that she could be happy with silver, just this once.

It wasn't fair, of course it wasn't, it never was for her. They called her fast and graceful and the third best player in the game, and so she trained like she used to study because she was forged from silver and bronze could never compare.

She met the second best player in the game and argued with him, because he kept chasing gold but she knew that wasn't possible; there was always someone better than her out there, why should he be any different?

Then she got to know him and they talked and suddenly she fell for him and she thought that if this was the one who stole the silver from her she didn't mind being bronze.

There were three players who were better than her, now. There was no gold or silver or bronze, and no podium for her to stand on, and for a while, a very long while, she was angry. Why had she been demoted this way? Who dared take her title, and push her down?

She met him, then, and he had a big smile on his face and a small guild, all of whom he knew in real life and had waited in line with to get this game, back when it was just a game, and he never lost a single member. He was nice to her and she was openly hostile, until he broke down her walls and they talked and she quietly cursed herself for not being able to hate the one who took her bronze from her.

The fifth best player, they called her. The sixth best player. The seventh best player. Eventually, she stopped keeping count. It hurt more, because sometimes she was silver or bronze but she was never gold like she'd once been and she was more often than not far away from even that.

Then it was a boss raid and The Skull Reaper was there and fourteen died. She thought that some of them were above her and some of them were below her but she stopped counting long ago anyway so she tried to pretend it didn't matter when it did.

Then the second best player fought the golden one who was really not a player, so the duel pitted the gold against the god, and the god won and the gold wasn't there anymore and he'd made it so she couldn't leave the rankings anymore.

And suddenly she was the uncontested gold.

She led them to one hundred because the only alternative was jumping off into the minus and respawning with her inventory intact and a health bar full, so she held her head up and fought. Her blade flashed silver and bronze and didn't flash at all but it never flashed gold.

This time, when the gold and the god were pitted against one another, the gold won.

The sunset was yellow and red and orange and pink and stunning but she did not want to see it when there was a false god standing next to her. She did not want to hear his compliments because they were the same as they had been when she first met him and she first accepted silver. He did not notice, and though now he painted her golden she struggled to believe it.