SAO: The Spirit Blades

by Irelia Yuuki

[AU] [T-Rated for now, may go up to M] Maho is a successful daughter of the Yuuki family and older sister to Asuna Yuuki. Shino is a friend of Maho's and Kazuto's. But what Kazuto didn't know was that Maho was a Alpha tester of SAO and Shino got a beta key from said girl. How will things in the death game turn out with some extra Unique Skills and three extra friends for Kazuto?

1. The First Day

A/N: Hello and welcome to my 2nd story. This is a SAO AU fanfic where Asuna has a big, LoL playing sister and Sinon is also a beta-tester of SAO. Constructive criticism is appreciated as well as feedback. Anyways, if there are any typos and grammar errors please contact me and I shall correct them. Note: I don't intend to make this story a SAO/LoL crossover fanfic as there will be only tiny bits of LoL mentioned and you do not need to know the game to understand this story.

Also, a HUGE shoutout to Gashadokuro Amanojaku for pointing out the plot holes in this first chapter. It is also he who beta-read the reworked chapter. Thank you! :)

Enjoy!

~Irelia Yuuki

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own SAO/LoL and do not claim ownership to its characters/story/general stuff

It was a warm day in the month of May and Asada Shino was sitting in the cafeteria of the Kokusai high school as she saw the new girl come into the cafeteria. She had beautiful, large green eyes that complimented her crimson lips and straight, sorta small nose well. Her waist-long, smooth onyx-colored hair stood a nice contrast to her pure alabaster skin. She was surrounded by so many boys that you could only barely make out the tiny spotlets of black that consisted of her black sweater. A bone-piercing cold cry broke the regular chatter of the cafeteria.

"WOULD you PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE?!"

With that, most of the boys' shoulders just slumped forward and they walked away. Then, the mysterious girl sat down across of Shino.

"Hey Shino. Long time no see. Still remember me?"

After Shino had caught up with the girl actually sitting down with her, she recognized the person. It was Maho Yuuki. The 2nd child of the Yuuki family. A genius in her own right, she graduated from MIT (with a PhD in both IT and physics) just a few days ago, at the age of 15, having done elementary school at 6 and graduating secondary school at the tender age of 12. But why was she here now? She was also a very skilled gamer, as she is ranked in multiple international online gaming leaderboards of different genres, ranging from FPS to RTS games. Furthermore, she had 2 accounts in the game "League Of Legends" ranked in challenger, this being a smaller but relevant achievement in games. (The larger ones being some international gaming tournaments she had won)

"Maho? Why are you here?" "Well, I graduated from MIT Massachusetts a few days ago… And as I know your story, I'm here to back you up. The principal has agreed under the condition that my tests and results are not calculated into the school's average score and that I do not contribute anything to the classes. Also, I know that you are being bullied. So, why not, as strings are fairly easy to pull if you are in my position…"

'Though he simply agreed when I said that I wanted a bit of a social life now that I am back in japan,' the girl thought, not mentioning this to Shino.

At that comment, Shino thought, understanding, 'so that's why she is here now…'

"Maho, are you serious about this? I mean I don't want to tarnish your reputation. Also, I know that your mom wouldn't appreciate you being here." "I am sure, of course. Mom is another issue. She knows your story but, as a long-time friend of your mother's, she let me go. By the way, have you met the new dude, what's his name again? Kazuto?"

Deciding to just drop the matter on how Maho was here, Shino simply went along with it, understanding that her childhood friend just wanted to help.

"Yea, he's an ok guy but seems like he's the second person to get me real mad…" To that, Maho just put on a mischievous smirk. "Seems like I'm not alone then. Oh, yeah, by the way, I have a gift for you. Because I am a top challenger with 2 accounts, I got you a beta to the game 'Sword Art Online'. I will participate beginning with the alpha because I was randomly chosen as 1 of 250 alpha testers. So I'll see you in the beta."

Shino just thought 'oh great, a game…' but simply accepted the gift. "Thanks."

The next few weeks went uneventful for both Shino and Maho. Shino befriended Kazuto and, well, he was also popular. Due to this, Maho and Kazuto became fast friends with her and the 3 teens hang out together when they could.

This attracted the attention and envy of Endou, though, who decided to just bully Shino to the ground as she also knew the black-haired girl's secret. One day, she just grabbed Shino's arm and dragged her into an alleyway.

"So, Shino, what are you doing with Maho-chan and Kazuto-kun?" She asked. "Make sure that you stay away from them both, you're a filthy killer that doesn't deserve them." "Endou, I am not doing anything to them, apart from being the-"Her sentence ended as she saw Endou form a pistol with her hand. "Boom."

With that, Shino broke down with a scream, her memories hitting back at her, the very memories she tried to forget every day. Tears started falling as the stench of sulfur and blood came at her full force. Eventually, Shino got torn out of her memories by a cold, ice cold voice.

"Endou, what are you doing?" Endou just turned to the entrance of the alleyway and covered Shino with her silhouette. "Nothing?" she replied, getting a little nervous.

"Endou, why not let Shino step out of the shadows and tell the truth. Haven't you had enough bullying her for a few years already?" At this, Endou paled, knowing that Maho had more than enough ways to stomp both her social and private life into the ground.

"What are you talking about? I am not doing anything. Am I, Shino-chan?" She sounded, desperate to get herself out of this situation.

"Bullshit. I know for a fact that you are bullying Shino with her past, because I know her story and saw you acting toxic towards her all the time. Now get lost before I choose to publish the stories I dug up from your past. Because if i would do that, oh boy... those dudes would have a new victim." At that, Shino decided to look up, seeing that it was Maho who arrived at the scene.

With that, Endou snapped. "JUST GET AWAY! WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO BE POPULAR?!" she then just ran away.

"Shino, are you okay?" Maho's voice sounded, suddenly back to the caring tone of voice she usually had. Shino just froze, not knowing what to do as another figure popped up, clad in black clothes, unlike Maho, who wore a long yellow summer dress. "Maho, what's going on here?" he asked.

Shino recognized the voice as Kazuto's as Maho spoke up yet again. "Endou was bullying Shino around, using her past to destroy her." With that, Shino decided to stand up. Thanking them for the save, and telling them that she just wanted to go home. Hearing that, the two walked her home.

The time for the closed alpha stage of SAO had finally come. Being the gamer that she was, Maho went into the alpha stage the first minute the server opened up. Being the first to be able to create her character was a nice perk, as all the names would be free.

She chose her name after the favorite champ of hers in League (in other words: the champ that she carried her way to challenger with), meaning that Irelia was her name from now on.

The appearance of the character was vastly different though. Instead of the red armored clothing and the gigantic blade the champion possessed, the avatar had a white starter shirt and a Small Sword equipped. Being female, the avatar also had a matching skirt that reached down to the knees with jet-black stockings, with fittingly black shoes adorning her feet as she stood there. The face was a perfect copy of Maho's, with a few years in difference, apart from the baby-blue eyes and blonde hair. Frowning at the sight, she just changed the avatar's eyes into a clear, shining emerald color and the previously hair to strands of flowing onyx, matching her 'real' appearance. Then, she changed the starter shirt's color into a dark blue and chose the hooded option. This option equipped the character with a hooded cape with infinite durability and no stat boosts, thus being purely cosmetic. (The attacks would just tear through the cloth with full strength, ripping it apart. The hood would regenerate when the player is not in combat, much like a passive mending characteristic. This mechanic was also used for other cosmetic clothing items.) The coat itself though looked good. Making one final change at her skirt, she changed its color into a darker blue than the shirt, noticing a white trim at the bottom of the skirt. With that, the character creation was complete.

Spawning in the Starting City, she gained her bearings. 'Wow, such a large city. And this on floor 1. I wonder what the other towns look like. Also, such great detail that went into this. According to the manual, there must be 99 more cities like this…" After that first look around, Irelia tried to walk… which ended with her falling face first to the floor. 'I've got to work on the walking…' She thought as she tried heaving herself off the floor. '… and on my arm movements, too…'

The rest of the 2 month long alpha test went by as uneventful as it possibly could have been. The few bugs that were there have been fixed and it was a nice experience all along, as there were no game-breaking bugs. (The few minor bugs found were almost always fixed the day afterwards, being live-logged and fixed in the nightly server reset.) Irelia was now at level 23, whilst reaching floor 11, which resulted in her being recognized as the strongest player in the alpha.

In the last week of the alpha, Kayaba Akihiko announced a knock-out type tournament where everybody could participate in, the prize being a Unique Skill and a weapon to go with it, and a privilege to keep one item, apart from the prize, 10% of the XP (all of the proficiencies will be reset on release), and 5% of the currently owned col in the beta and the release.

Everybody was allowed to sign up. But many were actually discouraged by the top-25 players already signed up, thus resulting in roughly 75 entries from the testers.

The tournament was to be held in an arena especially made for 3 dimensional combat, not limiting the players vertically, giving their skills a fair chance, thus allowing the weak people to be able to outplay the stronger ones.

What Kayaba didn't know though, is that Maho gathered a lot of experience of 3-D movement since she was (almost) always messing with acrobatics in-game. To state a fact, it is also because she has a very advanced spatial awareness that enabled her to pull this off. Also, her fair share of gaming experience helped her a lot in the end, as the raw skill of hers proved to be pretty much unmatched in the alpha, bringing her into the finals with relative ease.

So, the player that she met in the finals was a gamer who called himself Pale Rider. He had boosted all his stats into AGI and used a speed boosting dagger, resulting in a fairly even fight. That amount of speed combined with skill proved enough to be able to skillfully dodge and weave in the 3-D movement map and, eventually, get to Irelia. But due to the lack of damage the dagger had, Irelia almost always out-traded Pale Rider and simply finished him, choosing to take the hits and go for the tournament-winning kill.

With that, she had gained the Unique Skill called Spirit Blades: Hiten and a weapon called Chronokeeper. It was a four-bladed floating weapon with a small golden sphere in the center. The blades themselves were all similar; a straight, handle-less sword with a single edge forged out of golden colored metal. The transparent fuller consisted of metallic colored gears of various size, most only partially displayed. Also, the cross guard is a quarter of a circle with two spikes protruding outwards and one spike over the fuller.

'This is simply ironic. I chose the name of my favorite champion and now I get the matching weapon.' Irelia thought, 'Even the name of the fighting style is the same.'

Upon further examining the weapon, she found out that it was able to equip a light weapon whilst commanding the blade (and one was able to use both the equipped weapon's and the Chronokeeper's Sword Skills at the same time), as it was autonomously floating around and awaiting the command of the mind.

Also, the weapon has a passive called Variability; a unique passive to this sword that gives it varying other passives depending on what sword skills one used. Also, this gives the Chronokeeper damage scaling to the level of mastery and the player's XP, making the Chronokeeper one of the strongest weapons of the game.

But, as we all know, strength comes at a price. The largest drawback is called Spirit Bonds; it lowered the defensive values of the user once the sword, or parts of it, are farther than 1.5m away from the user (the distance will scale with the mastery level, eventually ending at 2.5 meters). Once that happened, the defensive stats got a huge hit down, which would then decline farther the farther the blade was. On maximum range (15m) even a boar on the first floor could one hit kill you. This was made so that abusing the Chronokeeper's range couldn't be done unless one wanted to get punished really hard for it.

The last passive though is what makes the weapon special. It's called Adaptability; one could copy a sword skill of choice at mastery level 500 and 1000, but only if it was a skill for a one-handed sharp weapon (one handed axe, rapier, sword, dagger and similar). If the copied skill is executed, the blades will follow the path of the blade and effectively skyrocket the hit amount by 5 times. The skills themselves had also got a much higher cooldown and freeze period though, while the actual sword skills of the Chronokeeper are freeze-less, being autonomous, though the cooldowns of the skills were at least a tenfold of the normal ones.

Seeing this, Irelia decided to also equip her Sabre Ciel, a sky-blue rapier and try fighting.

At first, she needed to accustom herself to the presence of the blades and activating sword skills. After a long day of fighting though she learned to use the blades to strike, without skill (which did almost no damage at all, unless you really planned out a strike), whilst striking out with her rapier.

In the end, she sold everything apart from the Mimung, a rapier acquired as a last-hit bonus from the 10th floor boss. This rapier wasn't upgraded so the Sabre Ciel was effectively stronger than the newer rapier's base stats. In the end, she got a message that she would get a XP bonus for 2 weeks, a special coat for alpha testers of which you could customize the color and an extra non-combat skill slot, along with every other alpha-tester of the game.

Two weeks after the alpha ended, the closed beta began. Asada Shino created herself a character named Sinon and got to play the game, thanks to her best friend, Maho.

That girl wasn't able to participate in the beta, though, as she got a few sudden problems with her certificate of graduation, resulting in her getting back to the US for 4 weeks (with 2 of them being purely vacation).

The character itself resembled Shino's real face, with a few sharper contours and a pointier jawline, the main difference being the ice-blue eyes and turquoise hair.

Sinon then met Kazuto in the game, not knowing that it was him, as he was in the character of Kirito. The two became good friends, like in real life, and eventually came out as the two best players in the game; Sinon infamous for ranged attack accuracy and Kirito for one of the fastest reaction times in the whole beta.

The players in the beta got a few perks, such as a XP bonus for 1 week, a special cloak given to beta testers, allowing them to customize the color of said cloak without remaking it (the stat boosts were still nonexistent), and an extra non-combat skill slot (those could be acquired on release with an Easter-egg, and don't stack, meaning that you didn't get two skills extra, participating in the alpha and beta.). Extra starting col was also included, being 2.5% of their current col.

Knowing this, they both sold every item in their inventories on the last day of beta and decided to go to a café as their last act in the game.

The pair had a nice conversation until Kirito asked a somewhat weird question. "Sinon, you are a girl, right?" "Of course I am. What did you expect?" Came her prompt answer, in a fairly angry tone. "Well, I have this friend in real life… and I wanted to spend time with them, but the beta got in the way and I got addicted to this… what should I do?" This caught Sinon by surprise, as she also had a friend with whom she spent a lot less time with since the beta. "To be true, I also have the same problem on my hands. If I were you, I'd just go and talk to them. That's the best solution." "Thanks!"

With that reply, the conversation went back to normal and they eventually logged off, after promising each other to meet in the release as well.

~2 days after the beta

Shino was sitting in the school cafeteria and thought about the SAO beta and her partner in-crime, Kirito, as she noticed two familiar faces walking towards her.

Putting on an apologetic smile, she said, at the same time as Kazuto: "Sorry."

Kazuto then frowned, asking her what was wrong. "Oh, I'm just apologizing for my business in the last month…" then, Kazuto simply smiled.

"I did also have a lot less time the last month, wanting to climb in League and betaing a game at the same time isn't easy, though… well, whatever. Maho, you up for a game of duo-queue tonight?"

Kazuto smiled even more as Maho nodded her affirmative and bade them farewell. She had class after all. This meant for Kazuto that his promotion series into master would go successful to say the least.

~A few days later:

Maho and Kazuto were sitting on a bench, rambling on about games after Shino left, giving them a bit of time together whilst she was preoccupied with class. (The two decided to keep shut about their gaming passion when Shino was present, as she found such things rather boring.)

"So, Kazuto, how do you find the VRMMO tech?" The older student asked, causing a surprised look to form on Kazuto's face.

"Well, I guess it's decent, not that bad, though I am not interested. Why?" He replied, not wanting to say something wrong, as Maho did mostly play old-school games.

Maho actually frowned as she really wanted to tell Kazuto that she had another NerVGear at home, which was not in use, and that Shino and her were going to play SAO.

Hearing him not interested threw her off a bit, leading to her not saying anything about that again. "Nothing. It popped up not so long ago and I wanted to know how you felt about it. That's all."

The next few months flew by like nothing and November the first soon came. The friends all met up in the morning as SAO would launch at 1 PM.

Sinon and Kazuto still don't know about each-other's characters in the beta. Although Shino knew about Maho playing SAO, she didn't ask about her in-game name as she had a partner already. (Also, one had to take her shyness into account, resulting in her not telling Kazuto that she was beta-testing SAO.)

One could also say that Kazuto felt indifferent about it, not knowing that the two girls played SAO, and not thinking about Maho being interested in VRMMO tech.

Eventually they disbanded to get online into SAO, as it was about lunchtime and the launch of the game would come soon.

~Maho's POV (1st person)

I heard my sister asking me if I would allow her to use onii-chan's NerVGear that he bought last week. Not thinking that there would be any complications, I agreed. After giving her my approval, she went ahead and got herself linked up. "I'm going to play SAO for a while, be back at 5." "OK" came her reply.

Looking at the clock, I saw that it was already 12:55. Connecting my NerVGear to the computer and inserting my copy of SAO, I laid down on my bed and waited for the hour to pass, knowing that I'd have to find Shino.

As the clock hit 1 pm, I shouted: "Link Start!" After that, I was asked whether I chose the Advanced Login (start with the little bonuses from the alpha) or the Normal Login (start anew like any other player). Choosing the Advanced Login option, I was asked if I wanted to change the appearance of my avatar, whose face was essentially my face plus a few years.

Finding these settings alright, I just entered the game, along with everybody else, as I took on my in-game name. Whilst running around town, I was opening my gifts from the alpha test stage and checking buffs and nerfs to the items I had;

The Mimung's AGI and DMG were nerfed a bit, also its residual effects have partially been removed, and the DEF reduction for the Chronokeeper has been slightly increased.

Now I doubt that the beautiful Rapier will be the Last-Hit Bonus for the 10th floor boss, but rather a quest reward or a rare monster drop, as the residual effects were what made the blade so special, and I needed to be even more careful when using a little larger range.

As I was level 6 (kept some of my XP from the alpha stage) I had 4 skill slots, of which 3 were spent; Spirit Blades: Hiten, One-Handed Rapier and Acrobatics.The 4th skill slot was a non-combat skill, so I chose Sprint, as I didn't need nor use that before.

Then, I hid my level and general stats using the privacy options in the game, hoping not to attract the attention of any noobies in the game.

After a while, I saw a red-headed guy talking to a way too handsome man in his late 20's in an alleyway. Deciding to remember their names as the word "Beta-tester" fell, I read their names; Kirito and Klein.

Making a mental note, I wrapped around a corner just to see the town gates appear. I exited the town gate whilst thinking what Shino would do in the game.

~Shino's & Kazuto's POV (3rd person)

Shino logged into the game with a happy look on her face as she reentered the world of SAO. Then, the one thing on her mind was to find her partner, Kirito. Knowing that she had a slightly increased amount of starting col from the beta, she made for the shops, even finding some rare steel throwing knives, which tore up a lot of her budget.

After equipping herself with an ornate looking, black bladed dagger called Ebony Wing, (that alone cost her half of her col, as it was one of these one-time only offers that randomly popped up. These were mostly expensive, but worth it, having great upgrade potential and decent base stats), and some light armor, she was fine heading to the fields, investing her skill points in One-Handed Dagger, Blade Throwing and Searching for the non-combat skill slot.

Knowing that she still had stat points to spend, she spent two points in AGI and one in STR, as the dagger was AGI based and you needed STR to effectively use Blade Throwing. After that, she headed out into the fields, her intuition telling her that she would find Kirito in the fields.

Meanwhile Kirito has logged into SAO. Clutching his fist and grinning to himself, he made out for the shops whilst taking two points in STR and one point in AGI.

Being level 1, he chose the One-Handed Sword and the Battle Healing Skills, also having Searching for his non-combat skill slot. Looking at his Small Sword, he frowned. He had to get the Anneal Blade quite soon if he was to get any one-handed long swords at this stage.

Running to the gates of the Starting City, he stopped as he heard someone calling. "Hey! Wait up!"

After turning around, he saw a red-headed man talking to him. "What's up?" Kirito asked. "You're from the beta, right? I see it in the way you move. Could you teach a newb the ropes? Oh yeah, names Klein by the way"

Considering his options, Kirito thought that training Klein didn't come with any direct disadvantages, he accepted. "Ok. So what type of player do you want to become? My name's Kirito, by the way. Nice to meet you." "I want to become a super tanky samurai!" Came his reply, which made Kirito chuckle. "Well, let's hurry and get supplies. I don't want to keep my partner waiting." With that, the two people made their way to the fields after visiting the shops.

(On the fields)

"Owwwww! That hurts!" Klein grunted, clutching his crotch after a boar hit him in said part of the body. "It doesn't really hurt, though…" Kirito said. "Oh, force of habit."

Kirito then told Klein that the secret in using sword skills was in the starting motion, picking up a pebble and throwing it. Klein tried to get a sword skill activated as Kirito pointed out that he should try waiting for the skill to build up and, eventually let it go. Klein did just that and unleashed a Reaver sword skill, killing the boar that Kirito brought to half-life.

"Wow, I knew that you were here, Kirito-kun" came a calm voice, causing the boy to turn around. "Sinon! How have you been?" To Klein he said: "Klein, this is Sinon, my partner from the beta test. She-"

"Hello! My name's Klein. I'm 24, single and-"

His sentence was interrupted by Kirito, who hit Klein in the crotch. Sinon, obviously annoyed, thanked Kirito for his quick reaction. After that, they went grinding and grinding. And after that, even more grinding.

(The same day 5:25 PM, fields outside the starting city)

The three people were up on a hillside, enjoying the view. As Klein suddenly brought up the subject of logging off because he had a pizza which was to arrive in 5 minutes. Swiping in the air for his menu to pop up, he frowned as he didn't see the logout button he was searching for.

"Err… Kirito, there's no logout button…" "What? It's right th-" Kirito stopped talking as he too swiped up his menu and saw that the logout button was missing indeed. "What the…" Sinon muttered.

Kirito was the first to regain his composure. "Maybe it's a bug. I guess that it'll be fixed soon… but such a bug? On release? It didn't happen in the beta, though… and the GM's aren't responding"

After that, a bell rang, echoing through the whole floor and a blue light engulfed each of the three players. As the light subsided, they found themselves in the central plaza.

Whilst briefly wondering what was going on, Kirito spoke up. "A forced teleport?" Noticing that probably every other player logged into SAO was here too, thoughts started swimming in his head, which were then interrupted by Sinon, who was pointing at a hexagon in the sky. "There! A System announcement notice!"

The hexagons quickly spread, covering the entire sky of the floor. Then, a red liquid poured out of the borders of the hexagons, forming a sphere, and eventually a hooded man.

"Welcome, players of Sword Art Online, to my world. My Name is Kayaba Akihiko and I am the GM of this VRMMORPG. As many if not all of you have already noticed, there is no logout button. This is NOT a bug. I repeat. This is NOT a bug. This is how it is supposed to be."

'Oh Shit' Kirito thought as Kayaba continued.

"You cannot log yourselves out of the game. Nobody from the outside will be able to shut down or remove the NerVGear on your head. Should they still try to do so, the NerVGear will discharge an overly strong microwave signal to destroy your brain, thus ending your life. Despite me distributing a warning before this announcement, 213 careless families or friends have tried to remove the helmet and now must pay the price."

"What?!" Klein shouted, "That many? Impossible!"

"Seeing this, all of you can rest assured that your experience in Aincrad will be undisturbed. Also, if your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be erased from the system and, simultaneously, the NerVGear will destroy your brain."

Kirito froze. 'This is absolutely insane! If you die in-game, your real body dies as well.'

"There is only one way you can escape now. At the moment, you're at floor 1 of the castle Aincrad. Beat all the 100 floors and the final boss and all players shall be free to return to the outer world."

With that, Kazuto snapped back to reality. 'Resources and XP are limited, items will get rarer the farther we go. There is only one way to survive. Be fast, get strong, and beat the game.' Shino seemed to have calmed down from the initial shock too. In her mind, it was pretty much the same thing. But she was also wondering about Maho's whereabouts.

"This marks the end of the tutorial of Sword Art Online. To commemorate that, I have sent you all a gift. Please examine your inboxes."

The three opened their inboxes, along with everybody else, to find a Hand Mirror in each of their inboxes. Taking them out, blue light once again engulfed the people. This time, the entire plaza was affected as well. As the light subsided, they looked into the mirror.

Kirito had a much more effeminate face and his hair got slightly shorter and his eyes a little bit rounder. Now, he didn't look like Kirito anymore, but rather like Kazuto Kirigaya.

Sinon met the same fate, her eyes and hair returning to their normal dark grey/black coloring, the jawline becoming rounder and the face in general changing into a younger version of itself.

Klein wasn't even recognizable anymore, though. His hair got short and spiky, his jaw flat and bearded, and his face in general changed into the edgier direction.

After overcoming the shock that their avatar's current appearances resembled their real life counterparts, Kirito recognized Sinon as Shino, and likewise with Sinon recognizing Kirito as Kazuto. Then, Kayaba Akihiko decided to interrupt the little moment of shock the two friends were sharing.

"As you all can see, I have changed your avatar's look to resemble the faces and bodies of your current selves. This Marks the creation of your new reality. I hope you enjoy the stay in my world."

With that, the man that trapped 10.000 people in a virtual reality disappeared. Kirito was the first to take action. Pulling Sinon and Klein out into a little alleyway, thus escaping the chaos that ensued immediately after that as a result.

"Guys, XP and Col are limited, so we've got to go. Now. The mobs on the nearby fields are gonna be wiped out in no-time. I know another town that is not very far from here. The route, although dangerous, is not difficult to manage. So I, or better, we as in Sinon and I, want you to come along, Klein." Came Kirito's quick explanation.

Klein frowned. He had a few friends that were back at the plaza that were waiting for him there. Knowing this, he declined the offer. "Thanks, Kirito, but I can't accept your offer. I've got a few friends that will need my help. I will teach them what you taught me, so they will survive this death game." "So this is goodbye then." Kirito concluded. "Yeah. But do me a favor. Don't die." "Will do!" These were the last words that Kirito spoke to Klein before he ran off in direction Horunka.

After a while, Kirito spoke up. "Shino?" "Yes, Kazuto?" "Why have you joined SAO? I thought you aren't into gaming" "Well, I got my NerVGear and beta key from Maho, who won it being at the top of the challenger division."

Then, a blush crept over Sinon's face out of nowhere. 'So he was consulting me about… me!' "So why did you consult me about… me? You knew that I couldn't be mad at you for something as trivial as that…" "I dunno, just felt like you could." Sinon chuckled.

"Oh yeah, how should I call you?" He asked. "How about Sinon in public and Shino if it's just us two? Oh. How about you by the way?" "Well, I think the same would work for me" he concluded, stopping the conversation there as the two friends made their way towards the village of Horunka.

~Maho's PoV (3rd person)

'Well, I'll be damned.' she thought. 'I've got to find Shino. And quickly so.'

Putting herself in the younger girl's mindset, she knew that Shino would probably head to Horunka, a small village located in the northwest of the Starting City. Still mildly annoyed that her appearance has become like her real-life image, she made her way to the northwest, activating her Sprinting skill. But little does she know that more than one person close to her was trapped in Kayaba Akihiko's death game.

To be continued.

A/N: That was quite the prologue, wasn't it? Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. As always, Feedback and constructive criticism much appreciated and thanks for reading. Leave a PM if you find any typos/grammar errors.

That's all. Yours truly,

~Irelia Yuuki.