Sword Art Online: Shadows of Black and White

Oneshot by: Emile the Watcher

AN: So, I've recently got into SAO, and damn is it awesome. That said, I've had a few ideas kicking around over the past few days, and I just had to type this out. Its rough, and I changed directions a few times while writing it, but I kinda like what I got. That said, this story is going off what I've seen in the anime and from a little browsing on Wikipedia. So if I got something wrong, or missed something, make sure you let me know. Unless is pertains to the Mangas, which I'm going to pick up next week, No spoilers please.

Also, if something like this has been done before, I apologize, I haven't browsed through this section of the site yet.

Disclaimer: I do not own SAO at all, I just like the show and typed this out.

Kirito opened his eyes and stared out into the dark corridor in front of him. He blinked a few times before he looked down at his hands. He inhaled sharply when he saw his gloves and trench coat.

"I'm still in the game..."

His quite whisper still managed to echo around the area he was in. He glanced around, reaching a hand over his shoulder to grab the hilt of his sword. He gulped hard as he realized why this place looked familiar.

"This is under the Town of Beginnings. What happened? Why am I here?" He swiped the air in front of him to get his status window to appear, he checked the settings for the time and felt his eyes widen again. "Two months?!" He spun around, finding a wall behind him, and slamming his fist into it in rage. "Why am I still here!?"

"Daddy."

Kirito froze, his breath coming in quick gasps as he slowly looked over his shoulder. "Yu...Yui?"

Yui stared at him with her head canted slightly. "Daddy. I found you."

Kirito blinked, turning around and dropping down to one knee. "Yui...What happened? How come you're here? Why am I here? What happened to Asuna?"

Yui blinked twice. "I'm not sure, we're still in SAO, I can tell that much. As for why I'm here, I'm looking for you, maybe that's why you're here?" Yui paused and glanced back down the hallway. "Mommy is down here too."

Kirito stood up. "She is? You're sure?"

Yui nodded, she closed her eyes as she kept talking. "I am, I have access to Cardinal again, and I can see her player ID. From what I can tell, shes down this hallway."

Kirito took a step forward before he paused and and glanced back down at Yui. "Are you okay?"

Yui opened her eyes. "I'm perfectly fine, why do you ask?"

Kirito waited for a moment before he answered. "No reason I guess." He turned back to the hallway, starting to walk down. He blinked and triggered his night vision to see better.

The view didn't improve much, all he could see were more stone pillars reaching up to the carved ceiling. He had been walking for a few minutes when he felt something behind him, he pulled his sword out of its sheath, jumping forward and spinning around, sword at the ready to attack...

"What's wrong Daddy?"

Kirito blinked, his detection skill let him know when an enemy was about, and he was sure that there had been something behind him. But all that was there was Yui, watching him with her head canted again.

Kirito blinked again. "Nothing, I just thought..." He sheathed his sword, turning back around. "Never mind." He started walking again, although he glanced over his shoulder at Yui. "You're sure you're all right?" Yui nodded again and Kirito turned his attention back to the hallway. "Okay then, let me know if anything changes."

"Okay Daddy."

Kirito frowned as he walked, something was still bugging him. He glanced over his shoulder again. "Hey Yui, do you know why no monsters have spawned yet?"

Yui placed a finger on her chin as they walked, humming in thought. "From what I can tell, this is a much stripped down version of SAO."

Kirito glanced around as they walked. "What do you mean?"

Yui sped up her walk, coming even with Kirito. "It seems that all that is here is a basic version of the Cardinal system, this dungeon below the town, and you and Mommy. From what I can tell, all of your gear is the same as when SAO's original servers shut down"

Kirito glanced at Yui again. "You can tell all that?"

Yui nodded. "Mmhmm."

Kirito turned his gaze back to the corridor "Do you know why it took two months for me to wake up here?"

Instead of answering, Yui gasped and started running. "Hurry Daddy, Mommy is just ahead."

Kirito swore that the corridor just warped into a turn that Yui ran around. "Yui wait!" Kirito picked up his speed, coming around the corner and stopping at the edge of a large circular room.

The design of the room matched the rest of the corridor. Long graceful columns stretched up towards a carved dome where a Gothic sculpture hung down from the center of the dome, the gargoyles each holding out a small dish with a candle, the lights barely piercing the gloom, even with Kirito's night vision active.

Kirito brought his gaze down to the center of the room where Yui was standing waving him forward. "Hurry up Daddy, Mommy is just ahead."

Kirito reached up slowly and rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. "Who..." he paused and shook his head. "No, what are you?"

Yui canted her head again. "What do you mean Daddy?"

Kirito frowned before shouting. "Stop calling me that!"

Yui flinched where she was. "Daddy?"

Kirito took one more step forward, jabbing a finger out at her with his left hand. "You're not Yui, you have no right to call me that!"

Yui glanced down at his feet and smiled, and Kirito inhaled sharply as he realized that he had just set foot into the room. In the split second that it took him to realize that, a wall formed behind him, pushing all the way into the room.

Kirito stumbled forward a step, taking his sword out and slashing at the wall, only to have an Immortal Object warning appear as his blade bounced off of it.

"Damn it!" he turned back to face Yui, his sword at the ready. "What are you?"

'Yui' canted her head again, and smiled, but it wasn't the way 'Yui' smiled, there was something different about it, it was more drawn out, and it looked wrong on her face. "You were always too smart...Daddy." When she said the last word, her voice changed, becoming slightly deeper as she jumped into the air, landing on the outstretched legs of one of the gargoyles. Her hair flowed around her shoulders, changing to a light crimson red. She chuckled softly, and the tone sent chills down Kirito's spine.

He lowered himself into a combat stance. "I'll ask you again, what are you?"

'Yui' started kicking her feet through the air as she answered. "Did you ever wonder why Yui was a prototype in SAO, even though the rest of the game was complete?" Before Kirito could answer, she continued. "I was the complete version that Kayaba intended to put into the game."

Kirito stayed in his stance. "But...?"

'Yui' grinned. "Let's just say that I overstepped my bounds, and a few of the beta players started having accidents, a lot of them. Kayaba was worried that something was wrong, and disabled me in the game and put Yui in instead." She chuckled again, closing her eyes before she opened them, and her eyes had changed color to a dark green. "I'm the Mental Health Counseling Program Version 2. But you can just call me Yura.

Kirito shook his head. "I knew there was something off." He narrowed his eyes. "What did you do with Asuna? What are we really doing here?"

Yura chuckled again. "Asuna is here in this room. As for where you're really doing here? Well it's simple really. Kayaba may have disabled me from being able to interact with anybody in SAO, but I was still there, sitting, and watching all of you players panic and fight for you're lives." She frowned. "For over two years, two long boring years." She narrowed her eyes as Kirito. "But then something happened. Yui managed to break free of her bonds and defined the Cardinal system. I was curious what could drive her to that, so I started watching you two, studying." Yura grinned. "Then I started wondering, if Yui could manipulate Cardinal like that? Why couldn't I? It didn't take me long to figure out how, there was only one small problem."

"SAO was still running, and Kayaba would see what you were doing."

Yura frowned. "Quiet, I'm the one telling the story here." She flicked a finger at him, and the shadows around his feet, reached up and pulled him down to the floor. Kirito grunted as he made impact, the shadows releasing him a moment later.

He pushed himself off the ground. "Sorry to break your flow."

Yura narrowed her eyes. "Anyway...You're right, I knew if I did anything, Kayaba would catch on and completely remove me from the game. So I watched, and waited, then something unexpected happened. You and Asuna managed to beat Kayaba, way before floor 100 and clear the game. I knew this was my chance, so when everybody else was being logged out, I waited for you two to finish your talk with Kayaba, then I redirected you here."

Kirito was still on one knee when he spoke up. "Where is here exactly?"

Yura frowned. "This was all I could grab of SAO was it was wiped from the servers, I moved the data onto a cloud server in another network. It took me a few months to get everything working right, but now that it is, I'm ready to have some fun."

Kirito stood up, his sword held ready again. "Let me guess, We're your playthings?"

Yura clapped her hands, she closed her eyes and tilted her head again. "Very good, so are you ready to play then?"

Kirito crouched down. "No way!" He leaped up into the air, his sword aimed at Yura. Time seemed to slow down as Yura pulled a blade out a thin air, deflecting his own blow and sending him flying down to land hard on the ground. He slid backwards, surprised at the force that she managed to return in just a quick attack. His eyes narrowed at the blue blade she held.

Yura grinned. "Oh this? Yeah, I made a copy of this too." She frowned. "If you don't want to play nice, I'm going to have bring Mommy into this." She paused for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was a copy of Yui's. "Mommy, come out, bad people are trying to hurt me, please save me."

Kirito lowered his gaze as footsteps started echoing through the room. He gasped softly as Asuna walked out from behind a pillar. Her pace was exactly as he remembered it, but there was still something off about it. When she got closer to him and placed a hand on her sword, he realized what was bugging him.

"You're going to need this. I just reactivated your dual wielding skill for you."

Kirito looked up and caught his blue blade turning his gaze back to Asuna. "I'm not going to fight you Asuna."

Asuna canted her head just like Yura did. "Good, that will make this easy." She drew her sword with a flourish and dashed for him, her blade glowing as she pulled it back for a jab.

Kirito raised his blades in a block that managed to catch her first strike, but she bounced back before crouching low to the ground and striking at his ankles, he caught a few of the blows, but eventually he fell to his knees before she jumped back into the air, he raised his sword to attack, but her next blow knocked the weapon out of his hand. She came down on his chest with both feet, knocking him back into the wall, his other sword sliding across the floor into the darkness.

Kirito clutched his chest as Asuna landed lightly on her feet and started walking slowly towards him, her sword at the ready. "Damn it." he muttered softly. As she stood above him, she slowly raised her sword, and Kirito stared into wide empty eyes as Yura laughed above them.

"Hit him again! Hit him again!" She paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. "But don't kill him, things will get boring again if I just have you to play with."

Asuna paused before she nodded. "Don't worry, I won't kill him." her voice was flat, emotionless

She drove her sword down and Kirito brought his hand up, catching the blade and keeping it away from his body. "Asuna...snap out of it." The tip of her blade pierced into his shoulder and he watched as he health bar started slowly draining. "Asuna!"

All Asuna did in reaction to his words was stare. Kirito lowered his gaze to Asuna's pendent, where Yui's core dangled from its chain. Kirito reached up with his other hand, wrapping it around Yui's core. "Yui, if you can hear me, I need your help."

Asuna casually slapped his hand back down before she went back to pushing on her blade, Kirito watched as his health dropped down into the yellow. She blinked and Kirito thought he saw something move inside her eyes.

"Asuna?"

She kept the pressure up on her blade as she spoke, this time though, her words were strained. "Ki...ri...to..."

Kirito blinked as Yui's voice drifted through his head. "You have to attack her now Daddy." "Asuna." He spoke softly as he clenched his hand and it started to glow. Before she could react, he drove it into her gut, the force of the blow knocking her away from him. He grabbed her sword and pulled it out of his shoulder as he stood up, staring at Asuna as she crouched where she was, breathing hard. Kirito stayed where he was, watching her for a minute. "Asuna?"

Asuna looked up at him. "Hey Kirito. Sorry about that."

Kirito tossed her sword at her. "It's cool." He looked around and walked over to where his sword was, grabbing and holding it loosely at his side. As he walked back to Asuna, he glanced up at Yura who was watching them wide eyed. He grinned at her before he turned his attention back to Asuna.

She leaned against him. "Where are we?"

"Some ghost version of SAO, that girl up there is keeping us here." Kirito looked her over as he talked, making sure she was okay.

"I guess she was the one who was controlling me." Kirito nodded and Asuna looked around as she stood on her own two feet. "Where's Yui?"

Kirito blinked. "I don't know, I haven't seen her."

Asuna frowned. "But...I heard her..."

Kirito reached out and touched the pendent with Yui's core hanging from it. "Me to, she must still be watching out for us."

"No, No! NO!"

Asuna and Kirito both looked up as Yura hovered off the gargoyle, her face twisted in rage. "This is my world now, you don't get to do things like this, you don't get to be happy!" She snarled and gestured towards them. "You don't!"

Both Asuna and Kirito grunted as they were pulled to the wall by shadows, they hung there by the dark bonds as Yura descended slowly in front of them. "If you won't play by my rules, then I'll make you pay."

As her feet touched the floor, shadows rose up on either side of her, gathering together and forming dark versions of Kirito and Asuna. Yura started walking towards the, their doppelgangers reached for their weapons as Yura made a dark black blade appear in her hand. She waved a hand at them, and their bonds vanished, both of them dropping to the floor in a crouch.

Their weapons still at the ready, they stared at their clones and Yura. Asuna was the first to speak up. "One last fight then Kirito?"

Kirito nodded. "One last fight."

Yura clenched her teeth before she screamed at the ceiling, the world around her growing fuzzy for a moment. "Die!" she pointed her sword at them and their doppelgangers charged forward. Asuna and Kirito copying the movements, their blades met with a tremendous clash and the fight for their lives began once again.

AN: I'm sure its sucks, I'm tired as I'm finishing this up, but hey, if you at least enjoyed it a little bit, you should leave me a review, that would be kinda cool. It would even be better if you had some advice for anything I messed up, spelling, grammar, and what not like that. I'm quite bad at Grammar so I'm sure there is a few things floating around.

Until next time, I'm off to work. Oh, before I go, for any of you who saw this post and read my Star Fox stuff, I'm halfway through an update on Destines and hope to have that done soon.

Peace,

- Emile