OminousStar here thanks for clicking on this I'm farily new to FanFic writing so any feedback is most appreciated and helpful Um first I know the first chapter is kinda slow and nothing new but the characters had to be introduced I promise things will get exciting soon.

Inner thoughts

[Sword and system messages]

Genesis

Swords and guns I thought I'd just be getting the ultimate gaming experience little did I know of the pain and suffering that would take place there instead. At the same time they say every dark cloud has it's sliver lining I regret what happened there but it was something I had to go through to help me find peace and strength and most importantly I found her.

November 2 12:59 A.M.

I sat in my apartment looking out the widow. I was bored to death of waiting but it was just another minute now. I sighed. I just wanted the servers online already.

Warrior Art Online's servers were online as of today and I had a free copy courtesy of my friend Tadashi, since his dad worked for the company It wasn't hard for him get a couple."No problem what are friends for?" he had said.

Right. Friends. I didn't understand why someone like Tadashi was friends with someone like me he was popular, kind, handsome, and me well I was none of those things.

I shook those thoughts from my mind. I was actually excited for once and it felt good I shouldn't ruin it with dark thoughts. I looking over at the clock I realized it was 1:05.

Well the servers should definitely be on now. I grabbed the Nerve gear helmet and placed it on my head and hoped down on my bed. "Link start." I said and the game booted up. I didn't know the chain of events that I had just thrown myself into but it would leave me forever changed.

I created my character look way different than me. In real life I had shoulder length slivery white spiky hair pale skin and pink eyes. I was constantly picked on before about being my albino appearance, it was a touchy thing for me. I made my character look around my height and age I made my hair short and orange and my eye's green. I was horrible at user names so I just used my last name Tsuki.

I like it. I thought looking over my character with a grin.

I confirmed my selection and started the game. I was teleported in the middle of a city right in the middle of dozens of players. Tadashi was a beta tester I think he called this the SBC Glocken or city of beginnings. This is like nothing I've seen before it was so realistic. I was in awe of the beauty of the how alive the game felt, It was a futuristic cityscape tall Skyscrapers that seemed impossiblely tall, halographic signs with advertisements, and far in the distance a large black dome.

I was taking it all in when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to find a unfamiliar looking guy standing there. His hair was a dark red one side hung down covering his right eye which was a lighter red, he was wearing what looked like a light protective vest, black and white camouflage pants, and armored boots

."It's pretty spectacular huh?" The guy says with a great deal of familiarity.

"Um yeah, sorry do I know you?"

"Rin only you could only think of your last name for your handle." The red haired guy said a familiar smirk crossing his face.

"Tadashi?" I asked.

"Of course it's Hoshi here though, I told you I'd meet you here."

"Oh right I kinda forgot." I said scratching the back of my head.

"Yeah your first full dive will do that to you." He said laughing a bit. "Well let's get you some weapons." He said.

"Alright."

We walked a short distance till we we stopped in front of a shop that had a Halographic sign that said 'Weapons'. As we stepped in my jaw nearly dropped at the amount of guns and swords, etc. as an advid gamer I was pretty excited until I spotted a shelf that had a selection of combat knives.

I couldn't move no matter how much I willed my body to, I could only stand there staring at them.

I blood curdling scream pirced my ears, and my hands stained a dark crimson.

It's not happening.. it's not happening.. It's not

"Rin you okay?" Tadashi asked followimg my eye's to the knives.

Tadashi's voice quickly snapped me out of it. "Yeah." I said breathing finally."I'm fine, I'm fine let's get some weapons." I smiled a bit to sell that I was fine. He looked me in my eyes for a second then shrugged.

"Okay than what catches Your eye?" He asked. "You got your Tech guns which focus more on rate of fire and don't need to reload, their great for mobs ,then you have your live fire guns which focus more on DPS great for players and mobs but the ammo and guns tend to be heavier."

I looked at what I believed to be a submachine gun.

"I like this." I said, leaning in for a closer look.

"Micro Uzi eh?" he walking over. "Great for laying down covering fire but it's pretty inaccurate you usually have to get up close and personal, but there are some pretty good attachments for it." He said.

"I like up close and personal." I said, as I looked at the price and checked my Menu looking at money. "Okay, definitely can't afford that." I said with a disappointed sigh.

"Don't worry I've got plenty." Tadashi opens his menu makes a couple of clicks.

[Cor received from Hoshi] The notification had appeared almost instantly.

"Tadashi you didn't-" " I started in protest.

"Don't worry about it were friends." He said cutting me off.I sighed inwardly, when he made up his mind to help there was no changing it.

I purchased the micro Uzi and equipped it holstered at my side. I also picked out a large combat knife as my side arm. It's just a game.I told myself as I picked out the knife.I can handle it if it's just a game.

"Oh and take this." Tadashi picked up some strange looking silver octagonal object. "Their free it's a shield module." I take it and put on the octagonal thing which was apparently equipped at the waist.

"I think it's time you learn about combat." We left the shop and headed outside the town.

We were in a grassy plain stalking a boar. Tadashi had equipped a semi auto rifle with a scope and bipod. I had my micro Uzi equipped.

"Okay aim down the sights at the boar." He said.

I did and a pulsing green circle appeared.

"Okay you should be seeing the gun circle where your aiming and it's growing and shrinking right?"

"Yeah." I said, I was trying to keep the reticle on target but it was too unstable.

"Okay calm your heart rate and breathing and it shouldn't do that as as much."

I do as instructed taking a few deep breaths and calming myself, soon the circle was pulsing and figeting a heck of a lot less.

"Okay it's pulsing a lot less."

"When your ready take the shot and drop the boar." I lined up with the boars head and took three shots. All three connected two grazing and one hitting it in the head, for a split second I noticed a red line with each shot I fired. The boar burst into pixels and disappeared.

"Nice shot for a beginner, could've been better."

"Yeah let's see you do better." I challenged.

With a smirk Tadashi got on his stomach, flipped out his bipod, and aimed at another boar. "500 meters away no problem."

He fired a single shot piercing it's head and it exploded into pixels. "Okay that was impressive." I said admittedly.

"Oh I know." he said smugly.

"You notice that red line with each shot we fired those are called prediction lines excluding the the first shot from a sniper rifle those always appear as a indication of where the bullets will go, A player can use those to avoid getting filled with holes if you're fast enough." He said standing up and brushing himself off.

"Now I'll show you how to use sword skills. He pulled out the large almost machete sized knife similar to mine from the sheath on his side.

"You perform the initial motion until you feel the skill begin to activate and then release." He draws back until his Knife glows blue and then he released a horizontal slash.

"That was [Horizontal] a pretty basic sword skill." He explained "Now you try."

I drew the knife, from the sheath on my back, hesitantly. A cold shiver down my spine and I froze for a second. The weight of the blade feels exactly the same.

"Rin?" Tadashi said giving me a curious look.

"Oh sorry about that." I copy his motion perfectly unleashing a horizontal slash but strangely I noticed only for a split second I couldn't move.

"Again pretty good." he said."I saw you noticed the movement penalty that sword skils have, that was minor the more complex the skill the longer it is."

"Gotcha."

"The last thing I'm gonna teach you is your shields and health."

"You probably already guessed that grey bar with a white shield icon next to it is your shield right?"

I nodded.

"When you take damage the number next to the shield should begin to deplete that means your shields are being damaged,but some attacks your shield might not protect you from completely or at all, that's when the big green one drains that's your health and both tend to regenerate very slowly over time."

"Now you know the basics of the game."

"I've got a little test, that is if your up for it?" He said.

"Oh I'm up for it, what did you have in mind?"

"Lets see who can kill the most boars!" He said. "Loser buys winner a beef bowl."

"Wait from your Gramps shop right?" I asked my mouth watering and he nodded.

"You. Are. On." I said quickly drawing my gun. We both took off and start mowing down boars.

After a while he'd managed to kill 50 and I killed 45.

We were both laying back in the grassy plain, looking up at the setting sun.

"Well you almost beat the master." He said smugly again.

"Yeah, yeah hotshot, when I get better I'm gonna wipe the floor with you." I say punching his arm lightly.

We both shared a laugh. I had fun that was something that didn't happen often I'm glad Tadashi is my friend he's the only one I have usually I drive people off but not him.

I opened my menu to check the time. 5:29.

"Crap I gotta go!" I said hurriedly bolting to my feet." my Grandmother's coming over today and she'll kill me if she sees my room the way it is."

"You mean kill you again." He said chuckling.

"Shut up."

"Well.." He said as he stood up and stretched..

" I'm gonna go hunt a bit more before I call it a day." Tadashi says. "So I guess I'll see ya later for my my beef bowl."

"Yeah, Yeah, see ya." I opened up my menu and scrolled down. Where's the log out button? I double then triple checked before I turned to Tadashi.

"Hey is the log out button missing from yours too?" I asked.

"Of course n-" He started. "Wait it is..." He said with a slight pause.

"That's weird but I guess you can expect bugs like that on the first day." As he said that for some reason I got this ominous feeling, some thing felt...Wrong.

Suddenly we were engulfed in the same light that appeared when we ported here. We were suddenly in the town square of the beginning city right in front of the black castle like dome. Along with thousands of other players, who all seemed as surprised as us.

"What the heck?" Tadashi said in surprise, His reaction shared by me and many of the other players.

"Tadashi what is going on?" He opened his mouth to answer me but was cut off as a giant robed figure appeared overhead. "Who or what the hell is that!" Someone exclaimed pointing at the large figure.

"I am Akihiko Kayaba and welcome to my world." The faceless figure announced. Akihiko Kayaba the game creator?

"Judging from the amount of calls I've received I'm sure by now,you've all realized an important feature missing from the menu the log out button." I noticed a couple of players check there menus, clearly unaware.

"It is not a defect but how the game was designed."

"He's not serious right?" Someone nearby asked.

"You can no longer log out and no one will be able to shutdown down or remove the nerve gear from your head any attempts to do so and a microwave signal will be transmitted from the inside the hemet and into skull frying your brain and ending your life."

I stood frozen in shock of what he had just said. Is this real can he really be doing this? As I look over at Tadashi I realized he had a similar look of shock.

"Tadashi you don't think this is true do you." I ask. "It all works out the nerve gear has an internal battery and transmits microwave signals he's... he's not lying." My heart sunk at those words.

"Despite my warning 213 people have already died from friends or family attempting to remove the nerve gear, unfortunate to say the least."

"As you can see international news outlets have been covering everything including the deaths." As he said this screens poped up with reporters and shots of grieving people and titles like 'Death game'. "So the threat of someone removing the nerve gear at this point is minimal I hope that gives you some comfort as you attempt to clear the game."

Everyone was stunned into a dead silence.

"There are two important things to remember there are no longer any ways to revive a player if your HP drops to zero your avatar will be deleted from the system and the nerve gear will simultaneously destroy your brain." Kayaba continued. "The only way for a player to escape the game now is too clear the game, you are currently on the first floor of the lowest level of Arincrad Complete the dungeon and beat the boss and you can progress to the next floor, Beat the boss on floor one hundred and everyone left at that point is free to go."

"One hundred, didn't the beta testers only make it to ten!" I hear someone shout amongst the thousands of cries of protest.

"Tadashi did you guys really only make it to ten?" I asked, silently hoping that they had made it higher. He noded grimly.

"And one more thing I've placed a special present in the inventory of every player please take a look." Kayaba said.

[Item(s) Received]

I opened my inventory to find...a hand mirror? I take it out and peer into it. What the hell is this supposed to do? Suddenly I'm engulfed in light.

"Rin!" Tadashi shouts only to be engulfed along with everybody else. The light faded and for some reason I felt different. I looked over to Tadashi to ask if he was okay when I finally noticed.

"What was th-" I started but stop as what just happened begins to make sense. Tadshi looked exactly like he did in the real world. His hair was much shorter and not blood red but a light brown and his eyes a darker brown.

"Rin your-" He started. "You too." I said "The nerve gear must have got our physical data from the calibration at the beginning."

He noded. "But why do this in the first place?" Tadashi asked.

"Im sure at this point your wondering why? Why would Akihiko Kayaba creator of nerve gear and Warrior art online do this, It's simple to control the fate of a world of my creation and I've achieved that goal." Kayaba stated.

How simple he made all this sound was really pissing me off. All this to fulfill some god complex.My grip tightened on my gun.

"This concludes the tutorial to WAO and players I wish you good luck." With that the hooded figure turned to gas and disappeared.

There was a long silence and nobody moved, hell it felt like nobody even breathed and then all hell broke loose. People panicked yelling, screaming, and crying ,I even saw someone faint on the spot.

I was frozen not sure how to feel I couldn't move I was at a loss.

Someone grabbed me and pulled me into a alley, I didn't resist I couldn't.

"Rin we have to go!" They shouted. Snapping out of it I realized it was Tadashi.

"Go where,, do what exactly, we're gonna die here no matter what we do." I said already feeling defeated, this wasn't a game anymore it was life or death.

"No we're not I have a plan were gonna live just follow me." He said placing his hands on my shoulder and giving me a grin brimming with confidence.

I wasn't sure if I believed him or not but what else was there to do just sit here and wait for death.

I nodded.

"Just follow me buddy and we'll make it." He said smiling confidentiality and ran off and I was right on his heels.

He made it sound easy his bravery gave me hope and I followed him. Maybe just maybe we would make it out of this 'Death game'

Next chapter Survivors

Please leave a review criticism helps improvement and thank you for reading.