Preface:

You know how the story went. Two thousand players died in the first month of the game, and by the end over four thousand had perished trying to survive that game of death that was Sword Art Online. That was a few years ago, I've told the stories of my adventure in that game as a solo player, you know, of my companions, Asuna my girlfriend, then and now, and of our closest friends Lizbeth the Blacksmith, Agil the hammer wielding merchant, Klein the wannabe Samurai, and Silica the animal trainer. There is the story of Yui my AI daughter and, my duel with Heathcliff that put me in the guide Knights of the Blood Oath, culminating in how it all ended… the duel again with him not knows as Akihiko Kayaba that lead to me completing the game on the 75th floor. Then there is the story that I try not to talk about, when I joined a guide of low level players, the Moonlit Black Cats, where they all perished because I was too afraid to revel my true level and tell them about that trap room…

Then there are the events of what happened afterwards. Asuna being trapped in Alfheim Online, where I went in on the possibility of her being in there and meeting Leafa the Slyph who turned out to be my cousin. How we travel through that world getting to the world tree and then finding and rescuing Asuna from her prison.

But there is one story that has not been told, and it is long overdue. It is a story that is as important to the completion SAO. I nor Asuna, or anyone for that matter have mentioned this story because it is the most painful one for us to deal with, and to be quite honest we never fully got over it, I mean, we have referenced to it a few times, in fact when I was in Gun Gale Online it was the center piece of why I ended up in the Bullet of Bullets where I saved Shino Asada from getting murdered by a member of the extinct laughing coffin. This is the story of when Agil, Asuna, Klein, and I all became PKers. The first people we killed in SAO, but there is more to it than us attacking the player killing guild "Laughing Coffin". It is how we came to find out where they were located and when to attack. Basically this story is about the one player who infiltrated them on our behalf to gather information on their location, the players, the equipment, everything.

It all started with a boy, a boy that should never have been in the game if I am being honest. He was American and visiting Japan on a study abroad program. He was a year or two older than Asuna, I think he was a second year in high school. He was an avid gamer, especially of the consoles of the early 2000's, but his passion had always been that of virtual reality. He used to talk about the history of VR, he was a nerd, but more than that he was the most selfless person I knew in the game. He would jump in to help any player in need. He was a beta tester like myself, although he loved to joke that he was the 1001th player in the beta claiming that he hacked into the server, it was complete nonsense. He was an informant, buying and selling information to the highest bidder, but he never revealed information he felt would harm an individual, he would help new weak players with quests citing a price for his service, but I will tell you one thing, more often than not he would waive the fee or outright disappear before they could pay him. He always wanted to help and push the game forward, but he preferred to do it from the shadows. That is what he was good at, blending in and being unseen. This is the story of Shiro Fujimoto, and how he brought the end to Laughing Coffin.

We called him… Hiei meaning "Flying Shadow".