Just once, I saw an actual shooting star.

It wasn't on a camping trip under the clear night sky, but from my bedroom window. This wouldn't be such a rare occurrence to those who lived in areas with clear skies or that are properly dark at night, but my home of thirteen years, Kawagoe in Saitama prefecture, was neither of those things. Even on a clear night, you could only see the brightest of stars with the naked eye.

But one midwinter night, I just so happened to glance out of the window and catch a glimpse of a momentary brilliance falling vertically through a starless, grey night sky, pale with the city lights. I was in either fourth or fifth grade at the time, and in my innocent youth, I decided to make a wish... only to squander it on the most pointless thing imaginable: "I wish the next monster would drop a rare item."

I was in the middle of grinding for a level-up in my favorite MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Role-play game) at the time.

I saw another shooting star of the same color and speed three, maybe four, years later.

But this one was not with the naked eye, and it did not flash against the grey night sky. It happened within the murky depths of a labyrinth that was generated by a device called the NerveGear—the world's first full-sensory immersive Virtual Reality interface.

—==[]==—

"Ahh... ha... uwahh!"

The sword, swinging to these strange shouts, swished around cutting nothing but air.

Right afterwards, the blue boar, which moved surprisingly quick considering its bulk, charged fiercely at its assailant. I burst into laughter after watching him fly through the air after getting hit by the boar's flat nose and rolling on the hill.

"Hahaha...not like that. The first movement is important, Klein."

"Argh...that bastard."

The complaining assailant, a party member called Klein, got up and glanced at me while answering plaintively.

"But Kirito, even if you say that... I can't do anything about the fact that it's moving."

I met this person, who had reddish hair held up by a bandanna and simple leather armor worn over this thin body, a few hours ago. If he had revealed his real name it would have been hard to omit the honorifics, but his name Klein and mine Kirito, were both names we had made up for our characters. Putting "-san" or "-kun" at the end of them would sound comical more than anything.

The legs of the person in question started shaking.

Seems like he's a little dizzy.

I picked up a pebble from the undergrowth at my feet and raised it above my shoulder. As soon as the system detected the first motion of a sword skill, the pebble started giving off a slight green light.

After that, my left hand almost moved by itself and the pebble went flying, drawing a straight line of light and hit the boar between its eyebrows. Ggiik! The boar squealed in fury and turned towards me.

"Of course they move. They're not training dummies. But if you start the right motion, the system will put your sword skill into motion and hit the target for you."

"Motion...motion..." While muttering this like some spell, Klein raised the cutlass that he had in his right hand.

Although the blue boar, officially named «Frenzy Boar» was a level one monster, Klein had had almost half of his HP reduced while getting hit by counterattacks due to his wild swings. Well, even if he died he'd just respawn at the «Town of Beginnings» near here, but coming all the way out to this hunting ground again was somewhat annoying.

It seemed like there was only one more moved left before the fight reached its conclusion.

"How should I put it?"

I cocked my head as I blocked the boar's attack with the sword in my right hand.

"Add a slight pause, and when you feel the skill begin to activate, let it explode."

"Explode?"

Klein's face grimaced into an unsightly image and leveled his sword with the middle of his body.

Breathe in, and out; after taking a deep breath, he lowered his pose and raised his sword as if he was going to shoulder it. This time the system sensed the pose correctly and the arcing sword slowly started shining orange.

I smiled at this, and redirected the boar towards him with a hard kick.

"Ha!"

With his low yell, he jumped off the ground with a movement that was completely different to the ones before. Swish—! With this crisp sound the sword drew its flame red trajectory through the air. The «Reaver», a basic skill of the one handed curved sword, struck the boar right in its neck as it was about to charge and got rid of the rest of its HP, which, like Klein's, was about half full.

It screamed a pitiful cry and its large body shattered like glass and purple numbers appeared, showing how much virtual experience points I gained.

"All right!"

Klein took an overstated pose of victory with a huge smile on his face and raised his left hand.

"Congrats." I high-fived him and smiled again. "However... That boar. It was about as weak as slimes from other games."

"Eh, really? I thought it was some sort of mid-level boss or something!"

"No chance of that." My smile became a little forced as I sheathed my sword on my back.

Even though I was teasing him, I understood what he was feeling right now. Since I had two more months of experience than him, it was only now that he could feel the exhilarating feeling of destroying his enemy by his own hand.

Klein started to use the same sword skill over and over again yelling as he did so, perhaps as a way of practicing. I left him alone and looked around.

"There are lots of skills, like blacksmithing and stuff, right?"

"Yeah. I've heard that there's an unlimited number of skills. However, there's no magic."

Klein shouldered his sword once again, the light charging back up. "An RPG without magic, huh? That's a pretty bold decision." His sword swept forward, leaving behind a red streak of light.

"Isn't it more fun to move your body as you fight?" I asked him.

"You're right!" Klein exclaimed. I nodded in response.

—==[]==—

The endlessly stretching plains gave off a beautiful red as the sun had started setting. Way up north there was the silhouette of a forest, a sparkling lake down north, and I could just about make out the walls that surrounded the city to the east. To the west there was a limitless sky going on forever with bunches of golden clouds drifting by.

We were at the plains that stretched to the west of the «Town of Beginnings», which was situated at the north end of the first floor of the colossal floating castle—«Aincrad». There should be numerous players fighting monsters around here; but because of the enormous size, none of them were visible.

Seeming finally satisfied, Klein sheathed his sword and walked over while observing the area as well.

"But really...however many times I look around like this, I still can't believe that this is «Inside the Game»."

"Well even if you say 'inside' it's not like our souls were sucked in or anything. Our brain's just seeing and listening instead of our eyes and ears...with the signals that the «NerveGear» is sending."

I said while shrugging. Klein pouted his lips like a kid. "You might be used to it now, but for me it's the first time doing a «Full-Dive»! Isn't it awesome? Really...it's a relief that I was born in this decade!"

"You're exaggerating." But as I laughed, I totally agreed with him.

«NerveGear»

That's the name of the hardware that moved this VRMMORPG— «Sword Art Online».

"So SAO is the first game for the NerveGear that you've played?" I asked.

Klein, looking like a calmly handsome warrior from the Sengoku period, turned his head my way and nodded. "Yeah. Well to be exact I sorta bought the hardware in a rush after I managed to get my hands on SAO. There was only ten thousand in the first batch. So I suppose I was really lucky...well, if I think about it you were ten times luckier when you got picked for beta testing. They only picked a thousand!"

"An, yeah, I suppose." I was lost in thought for a bit, wracking my brain for something to say. "So...what do you want to do? Do you want to keep hunting till you get used to it?"

"Sure! ...is what I want to say, but..." Klein's delicate eyes looked at the bottom right of his vision. He must have been checking the time. "...well, I should log off and eat. I ordered some pizza for 5:30."

"Pretty thorough." I said at a loss for words, Klein spread his chest.

"Of course!" he said proudly. "I promised to meet some mates at the «Town of Beginnings» in a bit. I could introduce you to some of them and you could register them as friends. That way you would always send messages. How about it?"

"Errr... Hmmm...," I mumbled subconsciously.

I got along with Klein pretty well but there was no guarantee that it'd be the same for his friends. I felt like that there would be a higher chance of not getting along with them and as a result, fall out with Klein as well.

"Should I...?" Seemingly understanding the reason for my not-so-confident answer, Klein shook his head.

"Ah, I don't mean to force you. There'll be a chance to introduce them sometime anyway."

"...Yeah. Sorry, and thanks." As soon as I thanked him, Klein shook his head vigorously.

"Hey, hey! I should be the one thanking you. I received a lot of help from you. I'll pay you back sometime soon. Mentally."

Klein smiled and took another look at the clock. "...well, I'll log off for a bit. Thanks a lot, Kirito. Be seeing ya."

With that, he put his hand forward. At that moment, I thought this person would have been a great leader in and shook his hand.

"Yeah, see you around." We let go of each other's hand.

"Eh?" Klein said in a strange tone. "What's this? ...there's no log out button."

At that I stopped moving my fingers and raised my head. "No button...? No way, look a bit closer." I said a bit confused. The swordsman opened his eyes wide beneath the bandanna and pushed his head closer to the menu. The rectangle, which was longer sideways than high, had a bunch of buttons on the left and a silhouette showing what equipment you had on on the right. At the bottom of the menu there was a «LOGOUT» button that allowed to you escape from this world.

As I was turning my head to the item list that listed the items that I had gained over hours of fighting, Klein started speaking in an unusually high voice. "It's really not there. You take a look Kirito."

"I told you that there's no way that it's not there..." I muttered with a sigh as I clicked on the button on the top left to go back to the menu screen. The inventory window on the right closed and it went back to the main screen. At the left of the silhouette, which still had quite a lot of empty spaces, there was a long row of buttons. I moved my hand down in a movement that had almost become a habit and—

My body froze. It wasn't here.

As Klein had said, the button that had been there during the beta test—no, even right after I'd logged on—had disappeared. I stared at the empty space for a couple of seconds, then looked through the menu, making sure that it hadn't just changed its position. Klein looked up with "Right?" written on his face.

"...not there, right?"

"Yeah, it's not there."

"Well, it's the first day so these sort of bugs could occur. Around about now the GMs should be crying by now from the amount of messages flooding in," Klein said calmly.

"Is it alright for you to stand around like that? You said that you ordered some pizza, didn't you?" I asked teasingly.

"Ah, that's right!" I smiled as I watched him jump around, his eyes wide. I threw away a couple of items I didn't need from the inventory, which had turned red due to having too many items inside, and then walked over to Klein. "Argh! My anchovy pizza and ginger ale—!"

"Why don't you call a GM? They might cut you off from their side."

"I tried, but there's no response. It's already 5:25! Hey, Kirito! Isn't there some other way to log out?" After listening to what Klein said while waving both of his arms—

My face became rigid. I felt a groundless fear send a chill down my back. "Let's see...to log out..." I said while thinking.

To get out of this virtual reality and back to my room, I have to open the main menu, press the logout button and press yes on the window that popped up on the right. It was pretty simple. But—at the same time, apart from the procedure above I wasn't aware of any other way of logging off. I looked up at Klein's face, which was situated quite a bit higher than my own, and shook my head. "No...there's none. If you want to log out yourself you have to use the menu, apart from that there's no other way."

"That's impossible...there's got to be something!" Klein suddenly starting shouting as if he was denying my statement. "Return! Log out! Escape!"

But of course, nothing happened. There were no voice commands on SAO of that description. After shouting this and that and even jumping, I spoke to Klein.

"Klein, it's useless. Even the manual doesn't have anything on emergency access terminations."

"But...this is just stupid! Even if it's a bug, I can't even go back to my room and my body when I want to!"

Klein shouted with a bewildered expression on his face. I totally agreed with him.

This was impossible. It was complete non-sense. But it was indisputably the truth.

"Hey...what is this? It's really just weird. Right now, we can't get out of this game!"

Klein gave out a desperate laugh then quickly started talking again. "Wait, we can just turn the power off. Or just pull the off."

As I watched Klein move his hands, as if he was trying to take of some invisible hat, I felt the anxiety returning.

"That's impossible, both of them. Right now we can't move our bodies...our real bodies. The receives all the signals that our brain is sending here..." I tapped the back of my head. "... and reroutes them to move our avatars here."

We both stood speechless for a while, each lost in thought.

"...so unless the bug is fixed or somebody in the real world takes the Gear off in the real world, we have to wait it out?" Klein mumbled, still a little dazed. I silently signaled my agreement.

"But I live by myself. You?"

I hesitated slightly but told him the truth. "...I live with my mom and my younger sister, a family of three. I think that I'll be forced out of Dive if I don't come down for dinner..."

"What? H-How old is your sister?" Klein suddenly looked at me, his eyes sparkling. I pushed his head away.

"You're pretty calm right now, aren't you? She's part of the sports club and hates games, so she's got nothing in common with people like us...but more than that," I spread my right arm in an attempt to change the subject. "Don't you think it's weird?"

"Well sure. Since it's a bug."

"No, I mean it's not just a bug, it's a bug, it's a big enough problem to bother the operation of the game itself. Like your pizza in the real world is getting colder every second, it's an actual economical loss, isn't it?"

"...a cold pizza...it's as meaningless as hard nato!"

"If it's like this, the operators should put the server down and log everyone out whatever the case. But...it's already been 15 minutes since we've noticed this but there hasn't even been a system message, let alone putting the server down, it's just too weird."

"Hmm, now that I think of it, you're right." Now Klein started rubbing his chin with a serious expression on his face. In the area beneath the bandanna, which covered a little bit of his sharp nose, intelligence sparkled in his eyes.

I started listening to Klein, feeling a little strange about talking with someone who I'd never meet if I erased my account.

"...the company which created SAO, is a company that's famous for being considerate about its users, isn't it? That's why everyone was fighting to get their hands on a copy even though it's the first online game. It's sorta meaningless if they screw up like this on their first day."

"I agree, and SAO is the first VRMMORPG. If something goes wrong now they might put down regulations for the genre itself."

Klein and I looked at each other's virtual faces and sighed. Aincrad's seasons were based on reality, so it was early fall here as well. I looked up, sucking in the virtual air, taking a deep, cold breath.

100 meters away I could just about see the light purple bottom of the 2nd floor. As I followed the uneven surface I saw the huge tower—the that was the path to the upper floor, and saw that it was connected to the outer entrance.

It was just past 5:30 and the small strip of sky that could be seen was red with the light of the sunset. Despite the situation I was in, seeing the endless plains painted gold with the light of the evening sun I found myself speechless in front of the beauty of this virtual world. Right after that. The world changed forever.

—==[]==—

Ding, ding, a chiming noise like a bell, or perhaps a warning bell, sounded loudly, making Klein and me jump in surprise.

"Ah..."

"What's this!?"

We shouted at the same time and stared at each other, both of our eyes wide. Both Klein and I were immersed in a clear blue pillar of light. Past the blue veil, the plains in my vision blurred steadily. I've experienced this a few times during beta testing. It was a «Teleport» initiated by an item. I didn't have the prerequisite item nor did I shout the proper command. Did the operators initiate a forced teleport? If so, why didn't they even inform us?

As my thoughts raced, the light around me pulsed stronger and darkness overtook me. As the blue light faded, my surroundings became clear again. However, this wasn't the plains lit with the sunset anymore.

A large road paved with stone. Medieval streets surrounded by street-lamps and the huge palace radiating a dark light a fair distance away up ahead. This was the starting point, the central plaza of the «Town of Beginnings».

Looking at the bunch of stunningly beautiful people with a variety of equipment and different hair colors, they were no doubt other players like me. There were about a few thousand—ten thousand people here. It was likely that everyone who was logged on right now had been forcefully transported to the central plaza. For a few seconds, everyone just looked around without a word. Then a few mumbles and mutters could be heard here and there; it started to get louder.

"What's happening?"

"Can we log out now?"

"Can't they take care of it quickly?"

Comments like these could be heard from time to time.

As the players started to get more annoyed shouts like "Is this a joke?" and "Get the hell out here, GMs!" could be heard.

Then suddenly.

Somebody raised his voice above all these comments and shouted. "Ah...look above!"

Klein and I almost automatically turned our eyes upward and looked. There a strange sight greeted us. The bottom surface of the second floor, one hundred meters up in the air, was checkered in red. When I looked closely I could make out that they were made up of two phrases crisscrossing each other. The word that was written in red was [Warning] and the other [System Announcement].

I was surprised for a moment but then thought Oh, the operator's going to begin informing us now, and loosened my shoulders a little bit. The chatter died down in the plaza and you could feel everyone waiting to hear what was going to be said.

However, what happened next wasn't what I had expected. From the middle of the pattern a liquid similar to blood started oozing down slowly. It came down at a rate that almost emphasized how viscid it was; but it didn't fall down, instead it started morphing into another shape.

What appeared was a twenty meter tall man with a hooded robe draped around him.

No, that wasn't exactly right. From where we were looking, we could easily see into the hood—there was no face. It was absolutely empty. We could clearly see the inner cloth and the green embroidery inside of the hood. It was the same inside the robe, all we could see inside the rim were shadows.

I've seen the actual robe before. It was the clothes that the Argus employees who had been working as GMs during the beta test had always worn. But then the male GMs had had a face like an old sorcerer with a long beard and the females had had an avatar of a bespectacled girl. They might have used the robe due to lack of time to prepare a proper avatar, but the empty space beneath the hood gave me an unexplainable feeling of anxiety.

The countless players around me must have felt the same.

"Is that a GM?"

"Why doesn't it have a face?"

Numerous whispers like these could be heard. Then the right hand of the huge robe moved as if to silence them.

Then the left arm slowly lifted upwards, too. Then with its two empty gloves spread out in front of ten thousand players, the faceless person opened his mouth—no, it felt like it did. Then a low and calm voice of a male resonated from high up in the air.

"Players, I welcome you all to my world.

"My name is Kayaba Akihiko. Right now, I am the only person who can control this world.

"I think that most of you have discovered the fact that the log out button has disappeared from the main menu. This is not a bug, it is all part of «Sword Art Online»'s system.

"Until you get to the top of this castle, you cannot log out of your own free will.

"...also, the discontinuation or dismantling of the Nerve Gear from the outside is strictly forbidden. If these things are attempted..."

A moment of silence.

The silence of ten thousand people was overwhelming. The next words came slowly.

"The signal sensors in your Nerve Gears will emit a strong electromagnetic pulse, destroying your brain and stopping all of your basic functions."

It was as if my mind was refusing to believe what had just been said. But Kayaba's short statement pierced through my body with a ferocity that was both hard and dense.

Destroy our brains.

In other words, kill us.

Any user that turned the Nerve Gear off or unlocked the clasp and took it off would be killed. That is what Kayaba had just stated.

People in the crowd started muttering, but there was no one shouting or panicking. It was either that everyone, like me, couldn't understand it yet, or refused to.

Klein raised his right hand slowly and tried to grasp the headgear that would be situated there in the real world. As he did this, he let out a dry laugh and started talking.

"Haha...what's he saying? That man, has he gone nuts? He's not making any sense. The Nerve Gear... It's just a game. Destroy our brain... How is he going to do that? Right Kirito?"

His voice broke at the last shout. Klein stared at me hard, but I couldn't nod in agreement. The infinite signal sensors in the Nerve Gear's helmet emitted small electronic pulses to send virtual signals to the brain. They might call this the newest ultra technology but the basic theory was the same as a certain household appliance that's been used for over 40 years in Japan, the microwave.

If there was sufficient output, it was possible that the Nerve Gear would vibrate the water particles in our brains and fry it with the heat from the friction. But...

"...theoretically it's possible, but...he must be bluffing. Because if we pull the plug on the Nerve Gear there's no way it can emit that sort of a strong pulse. Unless there's some form of battery with a huge storage capability...inside..."

Klein would have already guessed the reason why I had stopped talking.

"There...is one," he said, his words almost a scream with a hollow expression on his face. "Thirty percent of the gear's weight is in the battery. But...that's totally crazy! What if there was a sudden power outage or something!?"

Kayaba started explaining, as if he had heard what Klein had shouted.

"To be a little more specific, dislocation from an outside source of electricity for ten minutes, being cut off from the system for more than two hours, or any attempt to unlock, dismantle, or destroy the Nerve Gear. If any of these conditions are met, the brain destruction sequence will start. These conditions have been made known to the government and the public through mass-media in the outside world. On that note, there have been several cases where the relatives or friends have ignored the warnings and tried to forcefully get rid of the Nerve Gears. The result—"

The metallic voice took a short breath here.

"—regretfully 213 players have already exited this game, and the real world forever."

A long, thin scream was heard. But most of the players couldn't believe it, or refused to believe what they had been told and just stood there slack-jawed, or with a wry smile on their faces.

My head tried to reject what Kayaba had just said. But my body betrayed it and my knees started shaking violently. I stumbled back a few paces on my weak knees and managed to keep myself from falling. Klein fell on his backside, his expression lifeless.

213 players have already...

This phrase replayed over and over again in my head.

If what Kayaba said was true-over 200 people have already died up to now?

Among them there would have been beta testers such as me. I might have even known some of their character names and avatars. These people had had their brains burnt and...died, is this what Kayaba was saying?

"...don't believe it... I don't believe it." Klein, who was still sitting on the floor, started talking in a strained voice.

"He's just trying to scare us. How would he do such a thing? Stop kidding around and let us out. We don't have time to play along to your sick opening ceremony. Yeah...this is all just an event. An opening show, right?"

Inside my head, I was screaming the same thing. But as if to dismiss our hopes, Kayaba's businesslike voice restarted its explanation.

"Players, there is no need to worry about the bodies that you have left on the other side. As of this moment, all TV, radio, and internet media are all repeatedly reporting this situation, including the fact that there have been numerous deaths. The danger of having your Nerve Gears taken off has already all but disappeared. In a moment, using the two hours I have given, all of you will be transported to hospitals or similar institutes and be given the best treatment. So you can relax...and concentrate on beating the game."

"What...?" Then, at last my mouth started shouting violently. "What are you saying!? Beat the game!? You want us to play around in a situation like this!?" I kept shouting, glaring at the red robe that had seeped out of the surface of the upper floor.

"This isn't a game anymore!"

Then Kayaba Akihiko started announcing silently with his monotonous voice.

"But I ask of you all to understand that is no longer a simple game. It is a second reality. ...from now on, any form of revival in the game will no longer work. The moment that your HP reaches 0, your avatar will be gone forever, and at the same time—"

I could guess what he was going to say all too clearly.

"Your brain will be destroyed by the NerveGear."

Suddenly, an urge to laugh out loud bubbled up from the bottom of my stomach. I drove it down. A long horizontal line was shining at the top left corner of my vision. As I focused on it, the numbers 342/342 overlaid it. Hit points. My life-force.

The moment it reaches zero, I will die—the electromagnetic waves will fry my brain, killing me instantaneously. This is what Kayaba had said. This is without a doubt a game, a game with your life at stake. In other words, a death game. I must have died at least 100 times during the two months of beta testing. I had respawned with a slightly embarrassed smile on my face in the castle at the north of the main plaza, the «Black Iron Palace», and ran off into the hunting grounds again.

"Players there is only one way to be freed from this game, as I have said before you must get to the top of Aincrad, the one hundredth floor and defeat the final boss that resides there. All players still alive at that time will be immediately logged out of the game. I give you all my word."

"Clear...all 100 floors!?" Klein suddenly shouted. He got up quickly and raised a fist up to the sky. "And how do you want us to do that? I heard that getting up was crazy hard even during the beta testing!"

This was true. During the two months of beta testing, the one thousand players that had taken part had only managed to get to the ninth floor. Even if ten thousand people had dived right now, how long would it take to get through all 100 floors?

Most players who had been forced here would have been asking this answer-less question. The strained silence eventually gave way to low murmuring. But there was no sign of fear or despair.

"Then I will show you evidence that this is the only reality. In your inventories there will be a gift from me. Please confirm this."

As soon as I heard this, I pressed my finger and thumb together and pulled downwards. All the players did likewise and the plaza was filled with the ringing sound of bells. I pressed the item button on the menu that had just appeared and the item was there, at the top of my belongings list. The name of the item—

«Hand Mirror»

Why did he give us this? Even as I wondered I tapped on the name and pressed the "Materialize Object" button. Immediately afterwards, there was a twinkling sound effect and a small rectangular mirror appeared. I grabbed it hesitantly but nothing happened. All that it showed was the face of the avatar that I had gone through a lot of trouble to make.

I cocked my head and looked at Klein. The samurai was also looking at the mirror in his hand with a blank expression on his face—then...

Suddenly Klein and the avatars around us were engulfed in white light. As soon as I took this in, I was surrounded too and all I could see was white. Almost 2, 3 seconds later, the surroundings reappeared just as they had been...

No. The face in front of me wasn't the one I'd gotten used to.

The armor made of metal plates sewn together, the bandanna, and the spiky red hair were all the same. But the face had changed into another shape altogether. His long, sharp eyes had become sunken and shone brighter. His delicate and high nose had become hooked, and a slight beard now appeared on his cheeks and chin. If the avatar had been a young and carefree samurai this one was a fallen warrior—or maybe a bandit. I forgot about the situation for a moment and muttered.

"Who...are you?"

The same words came out of the mouth of the man in front of me. "Hey...who're you?"

Then I was gripped by a sudden foreboding and realized what Kayaba's present, the «Hand Mirror» meant.

I raised the mirror in a rush, and the face staring back at me. Black hair that lay neatly over the head, two weak looking eyes that could be seen beneath the slightly long hair, and a delicate face that made people mistake me for a girl even now when I go out in casual clothes with my sister.

The calm face of a warrior that had had even a few seconds ago was no longer there. The face that was in the mirror—

Was my actual face that I had tried so hard to escape from.

"Ah...it's me..."

Klein, who had been also staring at his mirror, fell backwards. We both looked at each other and shouted at the same time.

"You're Klein!?"

"You're Kirito!?"

Both of our voices had changed too, perhaps the voice effectors had stopped working. But we didn't have time to spare on things like that. The mirrors fell from our hands and hit the ground, then were destroyed with a quiet smashing sound.

How on earth was this possible? Klein and I, and most probably all the players around us, had changed from the avatars that we'd made from nothing, to our real selves. Of course, the texture itself still seemed like a polygon model and it still felt slightly strange, but it was almost frighteningly accurate. It was as if the gear had a full body scanner on it.

—Scan.

"...ah, right!" I looked at Klein and forced my voice out.

"There are high density signal sensors in the Nerve Gear covering our whole head. So it can tell not only how our brains look, but our faces too..."

The average height of the players, who were now looking at their own and others' faces with various expressions on their faces, had been noticeably reduced after the . I—and most probably Klein too—had set the height to equal that of my height in the real world to prevent my extra height from hindering my movements, but most players had seemed to made themselves taller by about ten to twenty centimeters.

That wasn't all. The actual build and the horizontal length of the players had become larger too. There was no way that the Nerve Gear would have been able to know all this. The person who answered this question was Klein.

"Ah...wait. I bought the Nerve Gear just yesterday so I remember, but there was a part of the set-up...what was it called, calibration? Well anyway, during that bit it touched your body here and there, maybe it was that...?"

"Ah, right...that's what it was..." Calibration was where the Nerve Gear measured . This was done to reproduce the sense of feel accurately within the game. So to say, it was almost as if the Nerve Gear had data about our exact figures saved inside itself.

"...reality," I muttered. "He said that this was reality. That this polygon avatar...and our HP was our real body and our real life. In order to make us believe this he's produced a perfect copy of us..."

"But...but y'know Kirito."

Klein scratched his head roughly and the eyes beneath his bandanna shone as he shouted. "Why? Why the hell's he doing something like this...?"

I didn't answer that and pointed upwards past our heads. Kayaba didn't let me down. A few seconds later a voice, sounding almost solemn, sounded from the blood red sky.

"You will all most probably be wondering 'why.' Why am I—the creator of both the Nerve Gear and SAO, Kayaba Akihiko—doing something like this? Is this a sort of terrorist attack? Is he doing this to ransom us?

"None of these is the reason I am doing this. Not only that, but now for me, there is no longer a reason or a purpose in doing this. The reason is because...this situation itself was my purpose in doing this. To create and watch this world is the only reason I have created the Nerve Gear and SAO. And now, everything has been realized."

Then after a short break, Kayaba's voice, now emotionless again, sounded.

"...now I have finished the official tutorial for «Sword Art Online». Players... I wish you luck."

I breathed slowly in, then out, and opened my mouth. "Klein, come over here for a sec."

I grabbed the warrior's arm, who seemed to be much older than me in real life, and made my way through the raving crowd. We made it out of it quite quickly, maybe because we were near the edge. We entered one of the many streets that led out of the plaza in a radial pattern and I jumped into the back of an unmoving carriage.

"...Klein," I called his name again. He still had a somewhat blank expression on his face. I continued talking, trying my best to sound serious.

"Listen to me. I'm going to get out of this city and head over to the next village. Come with me."

Klein opened his eyes wide under the bandanna. I kept talking in a low voice, forcing the words out.

"If what he said was true, in order to survive in this world we have to strengthen ourselves. You know that MMORPGs are a battle for resources between the players. Only the people who can acquire the most money and experience can get stronger. ...the people who've realized this are going to hunt all the monsters around the . You'll have to wait forever for the monsters to regenerate. Going to the next village right now would be better. I know the way and all the dangerous spots, so I can get there, even if I'm only level one."

Considering that it was me, that was quite a lot of words that I had just said, but despite that he stayed silent.

Then a few seconds later his face scrunched up. "But...but y'know. I said before that I stood in line for ages with my friends to buy this game. They would have logged in and most likely they'd be in the plaza even now. I can't...go without them."

I let out a sigh and bit my lip. I could understand all too well what Klein was trying to tell me through his nervous gaze.

He—was bright and was easy to get along with, and he most probably took care of other people pretty well. He was most definitely hoping that I'd take all his friends with him.

But I just couldn't nod.

If it was just Klein, I could get to the next village while protecting us from aggressive monsters. But if there was even two more—no, even one more person coming along it would be dangerous. If somebody died along the way, they'd die as Kayaba had announced.

To bear such a heavy burden, I could never do that. It was just simply impossible. Klein seemed to have read all these worries that had flashed through my mind. A smile appeared on his slightly bearded cheek and he shook his head.

"No...I can't keep relying on you. I was a guild master in the game I used to play. It'll be fine. I'll just make do with the techniques that you've taught me till now. And...there's still a chance that this was just a bad joke and that we'll all be logged off. So don't worry about us and go to the village."

"..."

With my mouth closed, I was wracked by an indecision that I'd never felt before in my life. Then I chose the words that would gnaw at me for two years. "...OK."

I nodded, stepped back, and said with my dry throat. "Well, let's part here. If anything comes up send me a message. ...well, see you later, Klein."

Klein called me as I turned my eyes downwards and turned to leave. "Kirito!"

I sent him a questioning glance but he didn't say anything, his cheek only shook a little. I waved once and turned northwest—the direction of the village that I'd use as my next base. When I had taken about five steps, a voice called out from behind me again.

"Hey, Kirito! You look pretty cute in real life! You're quite my style!"

I smiled bitterly and shouted over my shoulder. "Your look suits you ten times better too!"

Then I turned my back on the first friend that I had made in this world and ran straight forward ceaselessly.

After I had run through the winding alleyways for a few minutes, I looked back again. Of course, there was nobody there. I ignored the odd feeling of my chest being restricted and ran.

I ran desperately to the northwest gate of the Starting City and then past the large plains and the deep forest, then a small village located past all this—then past that to an endless, lonely game of survival.

A/N: To be fair, I wanted to make a story that was somewhat different. This first chapter turned out to be a lot of a recap for episode 1, but it will get better as the story progresses, I promise. I have a fairly good idea of where I want to go with this story. R&R, and hope you enjoy the story, when its more of a FANfic.