This takes place sometime after episode seven of SAO and during episode three of the legendary heroes arc. Since I'm starting mid-series there's no exposition, as per usual in my writing. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Falling

It all happened so fast.

One second he was fighting off a PKer, the next, he was falling in open air, watching as everything he cared about got farther and farther away.

Today wasn't meant to go like this.

It was supposed to be a good day, one meant to be spent leveling and maybe buying something nice for Asuna. Instead, it had been spent fighting for his life a little more desperately than usual and falling off the side of the goddamn floating castle. What luck!

Sarcasm aside, he needed to do something before he shattered into shards of light. Actually, shouldn't that have happened by now? No one fell off Aincrad and survived. It was unheard of. Players died before they fell long enough to reach the next floor down. So why was he still alive?

Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Kirito tried to angle his body so he would drift back towards Aincrad, but found he was paralyzed. Right! When the PKer had knocked him over the edge he had stabbed him with something. It must have been a paralyzing agent. As a result he was unable to redirect his fall so that he'd land on a lower floor, or grab a teleport crystal to save himself, instead forced to watch as each floor flew past.

He passed floor fifty and wondered if Lizbeth would look out her window and see him. Probably not.

Aincrad was a big place, and it took a long time to pass just a single floor. With any luck (not that he'd had much today) the paralysis would wear off before he reached the first floor. Whatever was allowing him to survive wouldn't be much help if he missed the castle.

Forty-nine…forty-eight…forty-seven…

He struggled against the paralysis, but still he couldn't even move a pinky.

Forty-six…forty-five…forty-four…

An ordinary person would be discouraged and give up at this point, but not Kirito. He had things to do, people to get back to. He was determined.

Forty-three…forty-two…forty-one…

Kirito lost track of the floors as he focused solely on breaking through the paralysis. He refused to let this chance he had been given to survive pass by just because he couldn't move. If he could just move his right hand he might be able to navigate the menu and get a teleport crystal ready.

More and more floors were passing by in his peripheral vision as he struggled. He was running out of time. Like he was the sand in an hour glass, he was falling ever closer to the bottom.

A finger twitched. Yes! Finally! He tried to do it again but failed. Looks like this was going to take more work.

He glanced back at the castle to try to gauge how far he'd fallen. Was that floor twenty-seven? He could recognize that fateful floor anywhere. The floor where his friends were slaughtered haunted him. But now wasn't the time to grieve over the deaths of the Moonlit Black Cats. If he wasted any time on that he'd end up joining them.

Well, at least he had a count again.

Twenty-six…twenty-five…twenty-four…

At this point he was beginning to panic. Over half of his time was gone and the paralysis still wasn't wearing off. He was getting desperate.

Twenty-three…twenty-two…twenty-one…

His desperation turned out to be a blessing because it fueled his efforts to break free. This time he was able to get his entire hand to move! He opened his menu.

Twenty…nineteen…eighteen…

It took a few floors before he was able to move his hand again, but he managed to click a few buttons and access his crystal menu. Just one more click to materialize one—

Seventeen…sixteen…

There! He clicked the menu and the crystal appeared in his hand. His very paralyzed, loose hand. He dropped the crystal.

Fifteen…fourteen…

His breath caught. He couldn't believe he had just done that. That was his last teleport crystal! What was he going to do?!

Thirteen…twelve…

There was still a chance he could try to land back on the castle if he could control his fall. He was getting better at fighting the paralysis now. Maybe it was wearing off? He leaned to one side to try to change direction.

Eleven…ten…

He was going to wrong way. With some difficulty he turned himself to drift back towards the castle.

Nine…eight…

He could only hope the fall damage wouldn't kill him.

Seven…

He looked up at his health bar. The fight with the PKer had left him in the low green, but it appeared there was a bleeding effect. It ticked down to yellow.

Six…

He wasn't far now. He could see the leaves on the trees he was getting so close.

Five…

He bounced off the wall between floors. His HP took a hit, taking another eighth of his health. He didn't like his chances.

Four…

Hitting the wall sent him careening away from the castle in a wild spin. Even though he was falling, he was having a hard time telling which way was up.

Three…

He was panicking. He was panicking and he didn't know which way was up and his health was falling to dangerous levels and he didn't know how to fix any of it.

Two…

In his panic he didn't notice the paralysis wear off. Didn't take advantage of the fact that he could now materialize a healing potion or crystal and redirect his fall to solid ground.

One…

I'm sorry Asuna…Klein…

Tears were streaming from his eyes. He didn't know if they were from the wind or from crying, but it's not like it mattered. No one could see him to judge now.

He had missed the castle.

"Uh this is your captain speaking. If you direct your attention to the left side of our aircraft you can see that freaky floatin' castle, some clouds, and what appears to be a swarm of ferocious flying monsters ready to devour us!" What started calm enough ended in a panicky shout.

"Wait, do you see that?"

"You're going to have to be more specific Yugi, there's a lot of things flying around out here." A somewhat snarky feminine voice retorted.

"It's not flying, it—there! Someone is falling!" The second voice, Yugi, apparently, returned.

"I got it. Go, Harpy Lady! Catch the falling person!"

The paralysis had worn off completely now, too little too late. Kirito used his newly functioning dexterity to right himself, swaying to and fro in the air. He wondered what he was supposed to do now. Was he going to fall forever? He'd rather die than endure nothing but falling until the game ended. Who knew how mad he would go in that time.

Maybe he should hold off on using that healing potion…

The was a low hum, like a distant sound of roaring that he could hear over the rush of wind flying past his ears. Was he going mad already? Was he imagining things? It looked like there was something going on below him. As if he wasn't the only thing below Aincrad. As he continued to fall the muddled mess below him sharpened into individual shapes. What kinds of monsters were those?

Countless monsters swarmed in the sky, and he was headed straight for them. Winged lions, giant bugs, dragons and even some wingless serpents spiraled about. He'd never seen any of them before. Maybe this was where scrapped ideas went? Whatever the case, if they were monsters, he could fight them.

He cracked his knuckles (or would have, if that was something one could do in SAO. Alas; there were no bones under a player's wireframe to crack) in anticipation; he'd never fought an aerial battle before. It might be fun. It couldn't be that hard, right?

Now would be the perfect time to test out his dual wielding skill, but he didn't have the time it would take to equip a second sword. In seconds he was upon them.

He hacked and slashed and cut into everything around him, trying to kill everything within reach before they had a chance to notice him. He had less maneuverability in the air and wouldn't be able to dodge any of their attacks.

A gust of wind blew, blowing him off course from the monster he was targeting. His sword skill missed as a result, alerting the giant bug creature to his presence. It screeched and swatted him away with a pincher, and he was sent tumbling away without any semblance of control. His health bar was his only visual anchor as the world whirled around him. It had gone down even farther from both the bleeding effect from before and the swat from the bug just now, leaving him in the low yellow zone. His battle healing skill was being countered by the bleed, so it was no use to him now.

He realized that he didn't want to die, even if he spent the rest of the game falling. His survival instinct was too strong.

He fumbled around for a potion, but with the world spinning about as it was he couldn't even open his menu. He watched with frustrated horror as his health clipped down to red.

Suddenly something slammed into him from the side and his health cut itself in half. The world had stopped spinning now, but whatever had run into him had grabbed him, immobilizing his arms. He could only hang in its grasp and revel in the fact that he was no longer falling. He wondered where it would take him. Was there stable ground somewhere?

A serpent tried to snap at him, but the monster holding him clawed it away. It ducked and weaved around other monsters as they too tried to attack them. It was not a smooth ride for Kirito, but at least he wasn't falling. With a cry the monster charged through the throng of beasts, and Kirito saw where they were headed. Was that an airplane? Since when were planes in SAO?

It looked like there were other players on the plane, too. He was saved! One of them must have been a beast tamer and had their tamed monster catch him. With this plane, he could go back to Aincrad! Heck, with a plane he could go to any floor he wanted, even ones that hadn't been unlocked yet.

When they reached the plane he was unceremoniously dropped on his butt. He didn't care though. All he cared about was getting that health potion. Now that his hands were free he hurriedly swiped down, opening his menu and clicking through the item inventory before finally materializing the small bottle. He downed it instantly, watching with no small amount of relief as the bleeding effect was negated and his health gradually started increasing again. His battle healing started working again, aiding the potion in getting him back to the yellow zone. When at last it inched back to green he looked up at his surroundings.

The three strangers were watching him curiously. Seeing him look up, the shortest one stepped forward. "Are you okay?"

Kirito sighed and stood up. "Now that the potion is doing its work, I'll be fine. What are you doing below Aincrad? Did you fall too?" The three looked confused.

"Pal, we're from the ground!" The one in the barbarian-looking outfit (Kirito hadn't know outfits like that existed in SAO until now) said proudly. "Uh, what's an Aincrad?"

'What's an Aincrad?' Was this guy for real? Something wasn't quite right here…the odd clothes, the placement in an unlikely-to-be-found, dangerous place, and now the lack of knowledge of something fundamental to the game? He looked over their heads to be sure, and sure enough they didn't have cursors. This had Quest NPC written all over it.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Kirito said one of the commonly accepted lines that triggered quests. Maybe the reward was a ride to Aincrad, or a new area. In this case, the ground.

The short one seemed taken aback by the abrupt question. "Yes actually. We're trying to get to the Castle of Dark Illusions to rescue some friends. Would you help us? We don't have a lot of time."

Strange, Kirito wasn't getting a quest prompt. He gave the air in front of him where it should have been a funny look, but he nodded his head in acceptance anyway. Maybe this quest wasn't coded properly. It made sense if this was where scrapped ideas went. He could only hope there wouldn't be any bugs that could be life-threatening.

He turned away from the alleged NPCs, watching the horde of monsters in case any tried to attack. Keeping a lookout was far more important than making smalltalk, and he didn't know how effective the others were at fending off attacks themselves.

While he was turned away the three duelists were talking quietly.

"Hey Mai, you think he's another beta tester?" Joey asked.

"I don't know. I didn't see any other virtual pods in the office I was in."

"I don't think so Joey, look his wrist!" Yugi pointed out, "He doesn't have a duel-disk!"

"That's weird…why would he play a game like this without a deck?"

"And what's with the bar over his head?" Mai asked.

"Maybe Kaiba was testing more than one method to play?" Yugi hypothesized.

He realized they were being rude. "We should probably introduce ourselves instead of talking about him behind his back. Come on."

Kirito had heard them talking and had to reevaluate his assumption that they were NPCs. Only players wondered about beta testers. And what was a duel disk? His eyes narrowed.

He turned around as the three duelists approached.

"Hi, I'm Yugi," the first one introduced himself.

"The name's Joey! And this is Mai." Joey was oblivious to Mai's glare; she could introduce herself thank you very much.

"Kirito," he returned.

The flying machine shook, and they all fought to keep their balance. Yugi failed and fell back. A monster took advantage of the situation and attacked.

"Yugi look out!" Mai shouted.

Kirito lunged forward, sword drawn and sword skill charging up, but a small fairy came to Yugi's rescue first. She took the monster's attack instead of was thrown to the side. "Earu!"

Kirito destroyed the offending monster an instant later, much to the shock of a watching Joey and Mai. Was Kirito even another player? Or was he some kind of sentient duel monster?

A mage in a dark purple ensemble also arrived to aid Yugi, but seeing that the job was complete he returned to the battlefield—battlesky?—to fend off the other monsters.

"Swords of revealing light!" Yugi held up a card, of all things. To Kirito's shock glowing white swords materialized around the flying machine, creating a barrier that prevented all the monsters from reaching it.

"Yeah! That stopped those monsters cold!" Joey celebrated like their appearance wasn't strange at all.

Yugi cradled the little fairy in his hands. "Are you okay? Earu, say something." But the fairy only smiled, let out a small, relieved noise, and disintegrated into golden sparkles. Yugi fought back tears in despair. "No! She's been digitized."

Kirito watched with gritted teeth, his emotions in turmoil. He had already failed these people. He never wanted to see another person suffer through the death of someone—for even tamed beasts could be considered someone, if their AI was realistic enough—close ever again.

Anger set in; first anger at himself, then at the monsters flying around him. But he reeled his emotions in. Maybe he could help these people like he helped Silica.

"I've had enough!" Yugi declared as Kirito approached. Before he could get any closer he was blinded by a bright light coming from the upside-down pyramid that he hadn't noticed Yugi wearing before.

When the light died down at first he didn't see any difference. What was that? Then Yugi spoke and Kirito knew something was up. "Charge ahead, Joey!"

"Will do Yug!"

It was relatively smooth sailing until they hit something invisible. "Oh no, we've hit the magical barrier!"

…Magical barrier? There was no magic in SAO! What kind of mess had he gotten himself into?

"Well if this ship lives up to its legend," Joey started from the helm, "then we should be able to pass right through it."

Kirito found himself questioning his reality. "Pal, we're from the ground!" "What's an Aincrad?" "He doesn't have a duel-disk!" "I didn't see any more virtual pods in the office I was in." "Swords of revealing light!" "She's been digitized." "Oh no, we've hit the magical barrier!" None of this should be happening, but none of the others were batting an eye. What was going on?

First thing's first. "Magical barrier? There's no magic in Sword Art Online."

"I don't know what this Sword Art Online is that you're talking about, but you tell me what we're running into if it's not the magical barrier surrounding the Castle of Dark Illusions."

Kirito was starting to feel lightheaded. "Sword Art Online, the death game that trapped 10,000 players in a giant, floating steel castle where the only way out is to win. The game that we've been trapped in for over a year?"

"Kirito?" Yugi got his attention. "We're playing Kaiba's duel monsters adventure game, the first of it's kind. Are you sure you're okay?"

…What?

A/N: You have no idea how much I wanted to say "derezzed" instead of "died" or "shattered" there. Especially when Yugi said that Earu was digitized. It's derezzed, darnit. My Tron nerdism must not be unleashed!

There's a lot of different way I could go with this. I have a few things planned out, but even I don't know for sure where this will go! Maybe some suggestions would help, hint hint.