Disclaimer: I don't own the Sword Art Online series; all credit goes to Reki Kawahara for writing the light novel and A-1 Pictures for creating the anime. The only thing I take credit for is any OCs I might include in this story.

Chapter 1: Link Start

Quick Note: This is my first attempt at an SAO fan fic, so I apologize if anyone is OOC. I'm still kind of not familiar with SAO as I would like, but this was a spur of the moment kind thing, so I had to do this story. Sorry if this sorta seems like a carbon copy of episode 1, but have to establish stuff you know. Hope you enjoy! Oh yeah, this is an AU reboot, so I'm changing some things around.

September 16, 2022

"Link Start!"

The world faded to black for a split for a second as Kirigaya Kazuto's mind began its transfer into the virtual world known as Aincrad. As quickly as it turned black, the world began to flash a wide variety of colorful rays of light as various blue screens appeared before the boy's mind. Characters for the username and password were entered in the bars that were required to be completed to log in as the language window appeared before Kazuto. Being from Kawagoe City in the Saitama prefecture, the choice was obvious for the boy to pick Japanese as his default language. After the final window disappeared, Kazuto's subconscious was transferred to the location he had to put the Nerve Gear on in order to reach, Sword Art Online's server.

Kirigaya Kazuto was no longer the Kirigaya Kazuto of Kawagoe; he wasn't even the Kirigaya Kazuto of the real world anymore. He was now Kirito, one of the lucky ten thousand people who got the first shipping of Sword Art Online, as well as being a player of SAO that was lucky enough to be one of the thousand chosen beta testers out of those ten thousand to play and test the game out before it was released to the public. Of course, Kirito was very proud of the fact that he had the honor of beta testing one of the first ever Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online game, or VRMMO for short, the company Argus produced. Thanks to the efforts of the genius known as Kayaba Akihiko and the thousand beta testers, SAO eventually was able to get out of the beta stages and finally be completed. Now…the time spent to improve this game was finally able to be shown to humanity as the wondrous world of Aincrad can at last be experienced by everyone.

Anyway, Kirito was walking through the first town of the game, The Town of Beginnings, while the simulated wind blew in his long black hair. His face that looked way too like a fantasy RPG protagonist's to be real was beaming with confidence as he took out his small sword in order to inspect it. Kirito's grin showed that he was happy with this blade despite the fact that it was only a level one item. Once he walked into the village, he began dashing towards the market area to look for teleporting crystals and healing items, he did have two thousand cols to spend since this was his first account.

"Hey, Kazuto! Wait up!" a voice shouted before the boy stopped running.

"Wait a minute…Keiko? What are you doing here? You have to be at least thirteen in order to play SAO," Kirito questioned as he turned around to see a girl with brown hair behind him.

"I'm going to be thirteen next month, and my name is Silica on SAO," the girl innocently replied with a smile on her face.

Kirito loosened up a little after that response, but was still a little skeptical about a twelve year old girl playing this game. Sure, he's known Ayano Keiko for seven years and knew that she could learn how to adapt to this game, but it just seemed a little weird that she picked SAO to be her first MMO. Well, Kirito couldn't dwell on this forever, so he decided to let that pass and instead ask her something else.

"Alright…Silica, how did you know it was me?" the boy asked.

"Easy, no one is that excited when it comes to online games but you. You've been like a big brother to me for as long as I've known you, I know you better than anyone else," Silica answered as she walked closer to Kirito with her innocent smile.

"We've been over this Keiko, I'm fourteen. You're twelve…"

"Thirteen in a month," Silica retorted with an annoyed look on her face.

"And I'll be fifteen in a month. The point is, it wouldn't work out if we went out. I don't want to hurt my only friend, and I don't want to hurt my little sister."

"Fine Kirito, I won't bring it up…for now," the girl told him with a little disappoint in her voice.

"Thanks, Keiko…"

"Silica!"

"Silica, sorry. Anyway, I'm going to go look around the town some more. Want to get some dinner after we log off? It's already five-fifteen and I don't have any dinner," Kirito requested as he scratched the back of his head.

"Sure, I'd love that!" Silica replied with her innocent smile.

"See you later then," the boy told her before he walked away.

In the real world, cars were beginning to return to their homes since it was around the time for people to come back from work. However, in one of the giant houses in the neighborhood, a car was being driven out of the garage and was heading out of the neighborhood. The driver of this car was Kouichirou Yuuki, one of the beta testers for Sword Art Online. However he didn't get to play the game on its opening day, as he had a sudden business trip to attend to, and thus didn't get to put on the Nerve Gear and enter the world of Aincrad again.

Though Kouichirou didn't get an opportunity to play, that didn't mean that the Yuuki's had no representative in the game. When Kouichirou left the house, his younger sister walked into his room and noticed the box for SAO and the Nerve Gear near his computer. Hearing all the praise that SAO got during closed beta, she was curious if the game was as good as it was hyped up to be. More importantly, if SAO was able to get a gamer like Kouichirou who really didn't have time to play video games excited enough to buy opening day, the game had to be as good as it was racked up to be.

There was another reason though, which was to find some friends. She was actually kind of lonely, having only one friend outside of her family to actually talk to and hang out with. An MMO was the perfect place to be social and maybe make new friends, so the girl decided to put the Nerve Gear over her delicate head. Her chestnut colored hair covered her eyes as she closed them shut in order to activate the Nerve Gear.

"Link Start."

Three windows appeared in front of the girl after her mind returned from the black void first projected when someone puts on their Nerve Gear. The first window was a login window, requesting for the account info in order to enter the world. Well, that was a problem then, she didn't actually have an account to use. Luckily, there was a create account option that allowed her to make a character.

"Alright…that's what she'll look like. Now all I need is a name." The girl told herself as she pondered what would be the best name for her character. This was all on the fly after all; she had no time to actually come up with a name for her avatar on SAO. She laughed a little when she finally came up with her answer as she thought it should have been so easy to figure it out. "Asuna. I might as well use my real name."

After choosing Japanese as her default language, Asuna was transported into the game, with an experience that would change her life forever soon to be revealed to her. Her old surroundings disappeared as her environment transformed into the virtual world of Aincrad. The wind blew in her hair as she looked at the majestic world she was now in and smiled before she began to head towards the Town of Beginning's main square.

Back in the market area of the town, Kirito was running to the next city when a man with pink hair and a bandana began to pursue him. Eventually, Kirito was tackled by the player as a sign to stop and fell to the ground. The boy looked slightly annoyed as he didn't really enjoy being knocked down very often. The man that was able to put him on the ground stood up first and quickly offered his hand to help Kirito back on his feet.

"Sorry about that, man…hey, weren't you in the beta?"

"…Yeah, how could you tell?" Kirito questioned as he accepted the hand and stood on his feet again.

"That hairstyle wasn't in the character creation, so I assumed that it was a beta only style," the man replied.

"It was, no clue why they took it out though," the boy responded as he studied the player in front of him.

"My name's Klein and this is my first time playing a game like this. So, I was wondering, would you help me get the basics down?" the man requested as he took out his sword.

"Sure…I don't see any problems with that. The name's Kirito by the way."

"Alright Kirito, let's go out to the fields then!" Klein enthusiastically shouted as he began heading towards the outside field, the Western Fields, where wild boars spawned.

In the main square of the Town of Beginnings, the chestnut colored hair girl named Asuna was wandering around looking for anybody to talk to and make friends with. With little to no luck, she sighed as she observed a girl wearing a pink long sleeve shirt under her armor flirt with a boy wearing the same thing except a forest green shirt under his armor instead. How did those two become more than friends easily yet Asuna couldn't even make a friend? Was she really that unsocial that she didn't know how to talk to people or how to be friendly to new people? Why was it so hard for just one person to talk to her and be friendly?

As these thoughts began to take over Asuna's mind, she didn't notice that she bumped into a female character that was also walking in the town square. The girl had brown hair with a bang in her face that was separated by a white hairclip. She was wearing a red tunic under a leather breastplate, a white skirt, and brown boots that most female players were given for their default gear. Asuna studied that gear before she looked at her own. Despite the fact that most females had the same default starting armor, Asuna wasn't actually wearing the same armor as the vast majority of the female avatars were. She was wearing a white shirt with a red vest with a belt on her waist to tie a red skirt with a white front to it and white stockings under the skirt. Since she was observing these clothes, Asuna failed to notice that the girl she bumped was trying to talk to her.

"…Hey, are you alright?"

"…Oh, yeah. Sorry for bumping into you like that," Asuna told her.

"No no, it's nothing. I should paid attention to where I was walking…Asuna?" the girl replied in a surprised tone.

"Wait a minute…you know my name? Rika, is that you?!" Asuna asked with a shocked expression on her face.

"Shhh…yeah, it's me. Don't use my real name though, call me Lisbeth. Actually, call me Liz for short," the brown hair girl whispered.

"Oh, sorry," Asuna told her in an apologetic voice.

"No, it's alright. Anyway, why are you here, Asuna? I thought you didn't like video games."

"This is different…SAO was the most anticipated game in history right? I wanted to see if it really was good as people say it is. I also…" the girl with chestnut color hair stopped talking to hide the fact that she came into Sword Art Online to meet some new friends.

"I get it; you're hoping to find a boyfriend, aren't you?" Liz asked with a smug expression on her face.

"What?! No no no no, it's not like that at all!" Asuna insisted as her face turned red from embarrassment.

"It's okay Asuna; you don't have to hide something like that from me. I can already tell from the look on your face. I'll see you tomorrow!" Liz told her before walking away with a huge grin on her face.

"Hey, Liz! It's not like that at all! Come back here!" Asuna angrily demanded as she watched her friend walk away. Even though that did annoy her, Asuna was glad that she had at least one friend in this game. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad.

"Holy crap!" Klein complained while rolling around the ground. In the lush green fields that both he and Kirito were practicing in, a wild boar spawned in their path and stared at Klein. The katana wielder knew that the wild beast was challenging him, so he took out his trusted blade and assumed a battle stance. The old man began to swing wildly at this animal...and he missed every slice and completely passed the boar he was trying to kill. Once he turned around, his private area was met with a boar head and he began to revolve around from this sudden attack.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything, but you don't actually feel pain here," Kirito commented as he observed these events.

"Huh…you're right. Force of habit I guess," Klein remarked as he stood up again.

"I got to admit though, you sure know how to give someone something to laugh about," Kirito joked as he began to chuckle again.

"Shut it. The target's moving, of course I'm going to struggle," the man protested.

"Dude, it's not a training dummy. This is a basic mook that's only level one. You shouldn't be struggling this much," the boy told him.

"Wait, are you serious?! I thought this was like, a mid level boss enemy!" Klein shouted in terror.

"This is going to be a long training section," Kirito mumbled under his breath.

"Hiya!" the katana wielder yelled as he attempted a stab, only to miss and get knocked down to the ground. A green bar appeared besides Klein and suddenly decreased until it turned yellow and became half empty. The bar disappeared as quickly as it appeared as Klein reluctantly entered a new fighting pose.

Kirito grinned as he scooped up a pebble from the ground. "I'll tell you the trick."

"Hmm? You will? That would be awesome man!" Klein exclaimed in an overjoyed tone.

"It's easy. You wait until you feel the skill is going to explode inside you, and then you act. The moment you act is when the system decides to hit the target for you…if you did the right motion that is."

"Motion?"

"I'll show you."

Kirito clenched his fist that had the pebble inside of it, and closed his eyes shut. He took a deep sigh as he began to gather all of his energy into his hand. Each breath, the wind blowing in his hair every second, even the heartbeat that this virtual reality was trying to imitate; they were all influencing the skill that the beta tester was trying to perform in front of Klein's eyes. This feeling that Kirito felt every instance he used a skill in the beta, was it joy? Maybe it was excitement, or even pride that was spreading throughout his body. Whatever it was, Kirito knew that it was still inside him from the days as a beta, and that it wouldn't leave him ever. This feeling, it put a smile on his face as he charged up the skill he was about to use.

It finally came to him. The moment he was waiting for, it had arrived at last. The power to use a skill was about to explode out of his body, and now was the time to act. Kirito quickly opened his eyes and with a sudden burst in his arm, launched the pebble and threw it directly at the boar. The tiny rock was followed by a yellow stream of light that represented the fact the pebble was moving at light speed, and hit the animal right in the leg.

"That's pretty much how you do it. Got it down?" Kirito asked with a grin.

"Yeah…I think anyway," Klein said in response before he began to focus.

Klein took a deep breath before he began to see nothing but pitch black. He began to feel the wind blow in his face while the world went silent except for it and the boar he was about to kill. Wait for the most opportune time to strike, and wait for the time that the skill was about to activate. That was what Kirito told him, and now was the time to apply everything he learned. The man began to smile as he too felt that emotion that was inside Kirito as he was using a skill. Whatever the enigmatic sensation was, one thing was clear: Klein was having fun right now. That fun showed the katana wielder the joy of being in a game like SAO, and that he should just relax and have a good time playing the game instead of focusing so much on getting good at it. At the moment that sudden realization came to him, he smiled and let the skill inside him explode. As he looked back, he saw one virtual pig that was no longer in the programming as it was cut in half by his sword and the skill he was able to perform just now.

"Yes! My first kill in SAO! This is so awesome!" Klein exclaimed as he jumped for joy.

Kirito chuckled again as he walked over to his new friend. "That's cool and all, but that's still only a level one creature."

"I just can't enjoy this moment, can I?" Klein jokingly asked as he moved to the ground to lay back and watch the sky. Two more boars spawned in the fields shortly after that moment to replace the boar that was killed.

"It was awesome, wasn't it? That feeling you got when you used your skill and killed that thing. You felt alive, right?"

Klein smiled as he looked at the now setting sun. "Yeah…I'm really glad I was born in this generation. This full dive technology, it's really incredible…and I'm really glad to have experienced it."

Kirito stood there for a minute before he asked, "Say, want to go hunting for a little longer?"

"Hell yeah…is what I want to say, but I'm starving," Klein admitted as his stomach began to growl.

Kirito again laughed at his friend. "If you eat something here, it won't actually feed your body."

"That's why I ordered a pizza! Should be coming at five-thirty," the man replied with a smug look on his face.

"Aren't you prepared?" the black hair boy sarcastically commented.

"Well, I'm going to get off for now, but after that I'm going to meet up with some of my buddies. I was thinking maybe you could hang with us…"

"Oh…I don't think so," Kirito sadly responded.

"No no, it's cool. There's always a next time. Anyway, thanks for everything man," Klein told the boy as he extended his hand.

"No problem. Just message me if you have any problems, alright?"

"Will do. See ya for now." The man with pink hair walked down the path of the fields and reached the hills before he opened the menu.

"Meet some friends huh? Maybe…" That thought echoed inside of Kirito's mind, which caused him to fail to notice Klein's screams for him.

"Kirito! Kirito, can you hear me?!"

"What is it Klein?"

"Is it just me, or is there no logout out button?"

"What are you talking about? It should be right under the help button." Kirito went into his menu and searched for the log out button, and gasped in shock when he discovered that it wasn't where it should have been.

"See, it's not there. People are probably freaking out right now," Klein joked with a smug look.

"Shouldn't you be one of them? Your pizza is coming in five minutes."

"You're right…AH; I GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE! MY PIZZA IS WAITING FOR ME!"

"Calm down, just call the GM."

"I tried that, but he isn't responding."

Kirito put his hand on his chin as he began to try to figure out this situation. "This is weird though, you would think there would be a forced log out by the server maintenance crew or an announcement.

"Now that you mention it, you're right. There's been nothing."

"This is strange…"

As Kirito finished his comment, a light swallowed the two people standing in the fields and transported them away. The time to worry was now since a red sign appeared in the sky as people began to teleport away from their locations until they were all in the same location. An ominous wind began to blow in the air…one of the final signs that something horrible was about to happen. Perhaps the final clue was the fact that the sky began to turn crimson red, and that was almost always a sign that something bad was going to go down in SAO.

The area that all ten thousand players were transported to was the town square of the Town of Beginnings. This was actually the first time that every single player of SAO were all in the same area, but this was not anything that resembled a happy in-game event…no, it was beginning to be one of the biggest nightmares for most of the players in the game. While some players were just looking around the facility in anger, most of the players were frightened and in various positions of terror that ranged from clasping their hands to holding on to another player. It was safe to say, not a single person in this center of town activity was happy about this sudden change of effects. In fact, if anyone was actually joyful about this dire situation…they could be classified as an insane human being that should be locked up in a mental hospital.

Kirito wasn't feeling any of these emotions right now. He was just confused about what happened; it's not normal to be forcefully teleported to an area where every other person in-game was also forcefully moved to. It was also a little…suspicious that sky began to turn red while a crimson red sign that said "warning" flashed in the sky. All that didn't matter though as he realized that some kind of liquid thing was beginning to leak out of that one sign before the whole sky was suddenly covered by these red signs. Eventually, the liquid that was flowing out of the original sign began to flood out of all of the signs and form a cloaked figure in the sky. For some people, this is what they imagined it would feel like to meet god, but why is this "god" coming down and talking to them? Was this some kind of in-game event? Was this one of the GMs that was summoned to tell the players the status of the logging out bug?

"Hello valued players. My name is Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of Sword Art Online," the voice announced from the heavens. That voice…it was calming yet it was also terrifying to the players. They were literally staring at "god", and he just casually addressed them. "You may have noticed that there is no log out button; I am here to announce to that it is not in fact, a bug or anything. It is actually a feature of SAO."

The entire crowd of players immediately showed their opinions. "WHAT?! Are you insane?!"

"Kirito, he's kidding right? You have to be pretty fucked up in the head to do something crazy like this…right?" Klein asked with a concerned tone in his voice.

"…" Kirito's silence and expression on his face told the whole story.

"No…why are you doing something like this asshole!" the man yelled from the crowd.

"You suck! You suck! You suck!"

While not showing his rage towards this sudden change of events physically, Kirito was furious by the announcement that Kayaba had proclaimed. Klein was right, what fucked up person would do something like this? Did Kayaba really want to see ten thousand people go insane from being trapped inside of this virtual simulation? What exactly was going through this mad man's mind right now as he was talking?

Even though the flames of hatred were coming from the crowd, Kayaba wasn't backing down at all by these insults or threats. Although most players couldn't see it under the hood he was wearing, the man was actually smiling at this verbal abuse. Whatever he was planning, it was clear that he was enjoying every second of it and didn't regret doing any of it.

"You are now trapped in my world with only one way of getting out…beating the game. You must clear all one hundred floors of this castle known as Aincrad, and live. If you die at any point during this game, you will die in the real world as well. If anyone tries to rip the Nerve Gear off your head in the real world, your brain will be electrified by microwaves and you will die both there and here. Thanks to the news, over two hundred people have been confirmed dead and no one else will try to take the helmet off. You will all be moved to a hospital eventually, where you will be disconnected from the server, but not die if you return before two hours have passed. One more thing, check your inventory as there should be one item that was given to you." The cloaked figure faded away once he finished that statement.

After that command, Kirito opened the menu and quickly entered his inventory. There was only one item…a mirror. When he clicked on the name of it, the mirror quickly appeared inside Kirito's hand and reflected an image of his real face. At that instance, a light surrounded the dashing protagonist for a few seconds before dissipating. Once looking at the mirror again, he realized that his face was what he actually looked like in real life. His long hair wasn't quite as long now, but it was still black and in a neat style while his face no longer showed any signs of masculinity. If he wasn't wearing the default armor that male avatars wore, it would be easy to mistake him for a girl. As he looked around, he noticed that other players also had changed looks, most likely their real appearance as well.

"Wait a minute…Kirito? Is that you?"

Kirito turned around and looked surprised at the man he was staring at. "Klein? You look like a thug in real life?" Klein was still wearing his armor, but his hair was now shaggy. Other than that though, the only real difference was that he now had a growing beard.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Kayaba trapped…Silica! Where is she?!" the boy asked scared out of his mind all of a sudden.

As the fact he was now in a death game finally sank in, he realized that Keiko was also trapped here. He began running through the crowds looking for his closest friend…no, his little sister, with Klein closely following him. One of the people they passed was Liz, who was now on her knees with a look of lost hope on her face. After another minute, they passed an Asuna who was on the verge of crying, but they ignored her as they didn't know who she was.

"I just wanted to play a sociable game," Asuna weakly pleaded as tears began to pour down her eyes.

Eventually, after the duo fought through riot after riot in the crowd, Kirito was able to find Silica hiding behind the side of a building, tears flowing down her face. She was only twelve, so to say this experience wasn't traumatizing to her would be a flat out lie. When she noticed Kirito running towards her, she quickly headed towards him and hugged him tightly. They weren't really related, but Silica looked up to Kirito like he was her big brother because he was the one person that tried to understand her and cheer her up, and she really needed someone like that right now.

"It's going to be alright; I'll protect you Keiko. Even if I die…I'll protect my little sister," Kirito promised as he continued to hold Silica in her arms.

"Kirito…take her and go to the next town," Klein told the boy as he turned around.

"Klein…" the boy stood there silently as he was really conflicted about what to do. Should he take Silica and leave behind his only other friend, or should he risk a harder journey by having two people with him at all times?

"It's alright; I have to find my friends anyway. I have to stick with them; they would do the same for me."

"…Promise me that you'll message me the moment trouble comes your way."

The old man folded his arms and waited for his friend to leave. "I will, now go!"

"Thanks Klein…" Kirito picked up Silica and began to run before he was stopped by that voice of the man again.

"Kirito, you look way better that way." The man grinned after giving that compliment.

"Right…and you're a good guy, despite your thuggish face," Kirito complimented before he and the girl in his arms left the town.

The winds of change blew as Kirito and Silica began heading towards the second town of this floor. In order to beat SAO, they would need to clear all one hundred floors of the flying castle known as Aincrad, which also happened to be the world that the game was set in. To survive, they would need to level up quickly, as well as not suffer a single death…otherwise its game over for them, both here and in the real world. A lone wolf that stood in their path antagonized was charging towards Kirito, who had a look of determination on his face. The boy took out his blade and began to focus his energy until…BOOM, a feeling to use a skill occurred. In a flash of a moment, he sliced that beast in half with one strike, which caused the creature to disappear. With a ferocious look on his face, Kirito yelled in victory with a happy Silica beside him. Together, they would survive this hellish game.