Disclaimer: Kuroko no Basuke and Sword Art Online are not mine.

Summary: Akashi, as a reward for winning their first basketball tournament of the year, gifts his teammates with exclusive beta invitations for the world's first VRMMORPG Sword Art Online. It goes downhill from there. Sword Art Online AU. No SAO characters.

Author's Note: There is a severe lack of SAO AUs in KnB. I am here to remedy that. This is really more like a series of interconnected oneshots with a vague, overarching storyline. Don't expect chronological accuracy of any kind. Also, Akashi here is like a mix of Oreshi and Bokushi because reasons.

[ 1 ]

The Virtual Douchebag Hanamiya Makoto

The Generation of Miracles: a newly dubbed team of second-year basketball prodigies with incredible talents only seen once every ten years. These players were beyond famous in the Japanese middle school basketball circle.

One day, renowned genius inventor Hanamiya Makoto released the beta version of the world's first ever VRMMORPG (virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game), Sword Art Online. Akashi, using his various connections, managed to secure beta invitations for his team, including their manager, to celebrate their first tournament win of the year. Even basketball idiots like them were curious about the possibilities of virtual reality.

As expected, they dominated Aincrad, the world of Sword Art Online.

Life was good. The team of geniuses continued to kick ass in both basketball and virtual reality. The beta players gave rave reviews over the beta version of Sword Art Online, stoking fires of excitement within the gaming community. They sung praises about the beautiful virtual world, the challenging dungeons, the variety of fantasy monsters and other wonders of Aincrad. Finally, after much anticipation, Sword Art Online was officially released to the public, all ten thousand copies being sold within minutes along with thousands of NerveGears.

In the world of virtual reality, ten thousand players marvelled at the beautiful landscape, the realistic NPCs, the fierce monsters roaming outside the town. They rushed to the stores to spend their beginning money on swords and armours, ready to explore the whole new world and conquer the floating castle of Aincrad.

Or so they thought.

Floor 1 – Starting City
9 January 2036

"What the hell is going on!" Aomine roared.

Kuroko frowned and tried to placate his best friend. "Calm down, Aomi—um, Aokuma-kun."

"Maybe it's an event," Kise suggested brightly.

"There's something not right here," Midorima noted, glancing at the equally confused players around them."

"Maybe it's a glitch," Momoi said, fiddling with her avatar's long blue hair.

"I need to log out," Murasakibara said mournfully. "Dinner's almost ready."

Akashi didn't say anything.

Suddenly, the sky turned blood-red. Players looked up and gasped as what looked like blood seeped out of invisible cracks and formed a giant hooded figure floating above them all.

"Attention all players," the figure intoned. "I am Hanamiya Makoto and, as of this moment, I am in total control of your world." His words was met with a buzz of confused murmurs and irritated questions.

The figure continued. "I'm sure by now you've noticed the absence of a log out button on your menus. Let me assure you: this is not a bug. I repeat, this is not a bug. This is how Sword Art Online is designed to be."

"What…?" Momoi clung to Kuroko, her arms wrapping around his arm. "Tetsu-kun… I don't like the sound of this."

"None of you can log out of Sword Art Online, and no one from the real world will be able to shut down or remove the NerveGears from your heads. If anyone attempts to do so, the NerveGear will send a lethal microwave signal into your skull, thus destroying your brain and ending your life. If you don't believe me…" Hanamiya waved his hand, summoning an array of browser windows showing frantic news reporters and emergency broadcasts. "… here's proof. As you can see, over two hundred players have already died either by dying in the game or through their family's well-meaning attempts to disconnect their NerveGears."

"Oh my god," Momoi whimpered, clutching her crush tighter.

"Two hundred…" Midorima said, shocked.

Hanamiya Makoto continued his explanation, stating how emergency personnel were scrambling to transport the players' bodies into hospitals during the grace period he provided, how no one in the real world could help them now, and how the only way to escape Sword Art Online was to complete all one hundred floors of Aincrad and defeat the final boss. "Oh, and one more thing," he said. Everyone could hear the smirk in his voice. "Check your inventories. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

Exchanging a look with Aomine, Kuroko opened his inventory window and noticed an item he hadn't noticed before at the very top: «Mirror». He equipped it on his right hand, the item appearing in a flash of bright light. Looking into the surface, his avatar's reflection stared back at him: black hair, black eyes, slightly taller and bulkier build.

Then the mirror glowed bright blue.

"Wha—?" Kuroko squinted against the glare, not noticing everyone else glowing brightly, until the light died down and he was left staring at his reflection—his real reflection—at the mirror. Light blue hair, light blue eyes, shorter height, slimmer body—

"IT'S ME!" Kise shrieked, breaking through the astounded silence that blanketed the arena.

"OHMYGOSH!"

"Holy shit…"

"Wait… You're not a girl!"

"And you're not seventeen!"

"Hey, is that Kise Ryouta?"

"What is the meaning of this?" Akashi hissed, staring at his legitimate red-haired reflection with furious red eyes.

"Your avatars are not the only things that changed," Hanamiya said casually. "Check your usernames."

Kuroko's eyes flicked to the top-left corner displaying his username—or, rather, what was supposed to be his username. Instead of displaying «Kuro», there, in white Lucida Sans Unicode font, it displayed «Kuroko Tetsuya».

"That's not my username," Murasakibara said blankly.

"You cannot hide behind false identities now," Hanamiya announced over the cacophony of enraged players. "From now on, Aincrad is your home, your reality, your prison. And it will stay that way until you reach the hundredth floor and defeat the final boss of Aincrad. Don't wait for the outside world to help you—trust me, they can't." With that, Hanamiya Makoto mockingly wished them good luck and vanished in a whirlpool of blood-red ooze.

For a moment, no one made a sound. The sounds of peddling NPCs and monster spawns outside the arena hung over the shocked gathering of players.

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

"U—UWAAAH! SOMEONE HELP!"

"MOMMY!"

"Oha-Asa predicted bad luck for all signs today," Midorima said furiously.

"Does this mean I can't eat real snacks anymore?" Murasakibara pouted. Aomine rounded on him.

"Are you seriously worried about that?"

"Akashicchi…" Kise looked desperately at the one person who could possibly have any idea what to do in this situation. Akash hardened his eyes.

"All of you, gather around." Akashi's Captain Voice broke through the panicked noise around them. All six basketball members gathered obediently around their leader. "We need to get out of here now. The other betas will be on the move; they will undoubtedly go for the best levelling spots."

"Wait," Midorima said, looking at Akashi incredulously, "are you saying we should actually risk our lives on the field? Did you not remember how many times we died in the beta?"

"What choice do we have?" Akashi snapped, glaring at the green-haired boy. "Someone has to fight. Hanamiya is a genius, Shintarou. This… thisdeath game of his, do you really think someone like him would launch a catastrophe of this magnitude without covering all his bases? No," he said, looking at each of his basketball teammates in the eye, "the people on the outside may be working to get us out, but right now we are on our own, and the people outside can only do so much to keep our bodies alive. Remember, while we are trapped here, we cannot move nor nourish our bodies. We must assume that we have a time limit."

"You mean," Kise swallowed, "the people outside might give up on us and just let us die? The government won't let them do that, our families won't let them…"

"Life support is very expensive," Kuroko murmured. "At least two hundred thousand yen a day, if I remember correctly. And there are over nine thousand of us here."

Aomine blinked in shock. "That's a lot of money." Akashi nodded.

"Exactly. While I have no doubt my father can afford to keep me alive, I am not so certain about the rest of the nine thousand here who do not have the means to pay for life support and will have to rely on the government."

Momoi rubbed her forehead. "Okay, we need to take matters into our own hands and try to get out of here ourselves in case they decide our lives aren't worth the money. And that means fighting and clearing the floors."

"Which brings me back to my point," Akashi continued. "We need to level up as quickly as possible and look for the boss dungeon, which, in all likelihood, will not be in the same place as in the beta. The nearest town is about a twenty minute straight run west. On the way, we'll try to gather as much experience points as possible—yes, even you Atsushi. After that…" he shook his head. "We'll figure out what to do later."

"Uh, Akashi," Aomine raised his hand. "Party limit's at six."

"Split into two groups," Akashi ordered. "Daiki, Satsuki, Tetusya, Ryouta, you're in one group. Atsushi, Shintarou, you're with me. Stick together anddon't lose sight of each other. Be aware of your HP; if it drops into the red, or even yellow, fall back immediately and use a healing crystal. If we get separated, we'll meet at the Rosebloom Inn. Do you remember where that is?"

"Yes," they chorused.

"Good. Let's go."

And that was the beginning of what would be the most powerful guild in all of Aincrad.