Chapter 1: The Anti-Hero
Floor 58 - Goruda`ha (The Golden-Leaf Forest); June 23, 2024
...
Asuna ran at full-speed through the woods that surrounded her. So many thoughts raced through her mind of the events that had occurred over the past week. Even now, she was still trying to wrap her head around everything that was going on…
At first she tried to remember what happened that caused her to be in this mess… but she didn't even want to try to think about it. Her head was spinning and nothing made sense in the situation she was in.
So here she was… running aimlessly through the thick woods that surrounded her.
She could hear growls and barks behind her; she had attracted the attention of predators.
Asuna turned her head over her shoulder; she was being chased by a pack of hybrid wolf-looking creatures. They were big, powerful… and hungry.
"Oh no, Asuna, what have you gotten yourself into this time?" she gasped to herself, continuing to dash forward through the woods.
Suddenly she came to a clearing and darted through, her feet making light thumps against the grass beneath her.
The beasts behind her rushed out into the small clearing in the woods and began to spread out and surround her from behind.
Suddenly the alpha of the pack gained a huge burst of speed and thrust forward with its hind legs, dashing towards Asuna and quickly catching up to her.
Asuna turned just in time to see the alpha beast chomp into her calf and she watched as blood gushed out like a geyser in every direction. Instantly, and unceremoniously, she flew forward as the alpha loosened its death-grip on her calf and she crashed hard against the wet, grass-covered ground.
She pulled out her sword and gasped for breath as the beasts surrounded her completely.
"No… I can't… not like this…" she gasped in an aggressive tone, her teeth grinding together as she gasped for breath.
The huge beasts quickly swarmed and prepared to attack.
She turned to look at the wound on her calf. It looked as if her leg was completely demolished. It was a surprise that the alpha didn't tear it off completely, because it was mangled and ripped apart.
"Well… this might be it…" she growled, struggling to stand on one leg and hold her sword out in fighting position, "…But I'm not going down without a fight!"
The alpha circled around to face in front of her. The massive beast bared its fangs and let out an incredible roar that caused Asuna to stumble back from it.
Immediately after she stumbled, everything seemed to fall into a state of slow motion as she fell back onto her rear-end and the alpha lunged forward with an open jaw in preparation to wipe her from the game.
But in a flash, a shadow of a figure dashed past Asuna, causing her chestnut-colored hair to be swept forward by the wind that followed the figure's speedy entrance.
A loud crack echoed through the air followed by the sound of gushing blood. Instantly the figure and the beast both came to a sudden halt.
Asuna opened her eyes and gasped to see the figure hunched over with their arm shoved deep into the open jaws of the wolf-creature. Slowly, the dark silhouette that encompassed his form disappeared and he became a detailed person.
The beast let out a quiet choking sound at the arm that was lodged into its innards.
"Didn't your designer teach you any manners…" the figure deadpanned.
Asuna was confused at what they meant until she saw blood dripping down from the creature's mouth to the ground. It was the blood of her unknown savior.
The creature let out a gross gargling noise before chomping down as hard as it could onto their arm. The sound of tearing flesh released into the air and the unknown player let out a loud cry of pain before throwing back their free hand and summoning their weapon in a flash of light.
The flash faded into a massive, two-handed straight sword. The blade was blood-red around the trim of the blade and whitish-silver down the center, the hilt shone a light steel color and the handle wrapped in black cloth.
Without a moment of hesitation, the figure brought their blade crashing down onto the beast's head, eliciting a sickening crack from its skull before it fell to the ground and shattered into glass-like pixels.
The figure stood straight again and the remaining beasts in front of him all stared at the figure in fearful silence at the death of their alpha.
Asuna used this pause to her advantage and began to take in the appearance of the figure. Her view was limited from behind but it would suffice. Their armor was a light-weight variant, the shirt ending at their mid-thighs but strapped around the waist with a leather-belt to give the shirt a very tight look about it. The rest of the armor held a similar color scheme and a black cape floated down from their neck to their mid-back and held a hood attached at the top that covered the figure's head and ultimately blocked out her view of their face.
The player had an unusually thin frame and the tight armor emphasized their shape and body features, which caused Asuna to question whether they were male or female…
They turned to her, providing her with only a good view of their mouth and nose, "Can you fight?" they asked with a deep tone.
Male. They were definitely male.
She quickly looked to the gash marks on her calf to see they were mostly gone but the red glow that indicated damage was still present.
"I think so… but don't expect to see my best performance; I'm not having a very good day," she sighed in response.
He chuckled, "Yeah, YOU'RE having a bad day."
A slight breeze kicked in and blew his cape to the side and Asuna gasped once again to see his left arm was completely torn off at the elbow and blood dripped from the stub that was left behind.
"Y-Your arm! It's gone!" she exclaimed.
He let out a quiet "Tsk," and turned back to the creatures in front of him which were now getting into attack formation.
She glared at the back of his head, "Don't act so stubborn, how do you expect to fight these things in that condition?!"
He extended out his remaining left arm, with sword in hand, in the direction of the beasts, "It's just one arm. As long as I have one arm, I can wield a sword. And as long as I can wield a sword, then I'll fight. So stop worrying about me and start worrying about the opponents behind you."
She gave him a puzzled expression before turning to see three more of the beasts behind her.
Her eyebrows furrowed in a deathly look of seriousness, before she stood to her feet and turned around, fully, to draw forth her sword and lower into attack position.
The unknown player behind her stood motionless as he watched the beasts begin to circle them at a pace of extreme caution.
"What are they doing…?" Asuna whispered.
"Processing. Deciding. Their programming is telling them to flee due to the death of their leader, but another section of their programming is telling them they have strength in numbers. So they're measuring us up," the player explained.
"And if they decide they can handle us?"
The figure remained quiet for a short moment before replying bluntly with, "We fight."
Vicious growls begin to escape the beast's throats, the occasional droplet of drool falling from their massive jaws.
Seeing this, the hooded player, himself, lowered into a defensive stance with his sword extended in the direction of the wolf-hybrids.
And right before the beasts closed in, to attack, one of the larger beasts let out several loud barks and dashed into the woods, disappearing in the foliage. The rest of the beasts shared various barks and growls as well before rushing past Asuna and the unknown player to disappear into the woods with the first one.
The chestnut-haired girl let out a sigh of relief and slumped to the ground, turning to the slowly-healing wound on her calf and giving it a light rub.
Then she suddenly remembered her unknown savior and turned to see him walking towards a rock and pulling his hood off his head before turning around to sit down against the small, flat-topped boulder while propping his sword up against the side of the large rock.
It was almost difficult to tell he pulled the hood off because the hair that lied beneath his hood, matched the hood in color.
His hair extended out in several long spikes off the side of his head in a wild, yet stylish fashion. It was pitch-black in color and just long enough to droop over his eyes as he turned his gaze to his missing limb and he applied pressure to the wound with his remaining hand to try to get rid of his 'Bleeding' status effect.
He let out a quiet hiss at the stinging sensation that ran up the stub of his arm.
A gasp of surprise left his lips at hearing a girl's voice suddenly say, "Do you need any help?"
He glanced up to see Asuna leaning down in front of him, with her fists pressed firmly against her hips as she stared curiously down at the injury he was inflicted with.
A harsh blush spread across his cheeks at the girl's offer to help him and his eyes quickly met the ground, "I'm fine…" and he made a not-so-subtle attempt at scooting to his left to keep his distance from her.
She frowned at his lack of sociality and sat down beside him to grab his shoulder and keep him from moving.
"W-What are you—?!"
"Stop squirming, I'm checking your injury!" she quickly retorted.
The black-haired player's expression quickly returned to a neutral one and he kept himself completely still, so she could scan over the dismembered limb.
With a light smile she said, "Well, I can say this, you must be pretty pain-intolerant because this looks like it must have really hurt…"
He glanced away from her with a simple, "Yeah…"
Asuna applied pressure to the wound herself, until she saw his health bar suddenly appear and circle around his body in a green glow and the 'Bleeding' status symbol faded away above his health bar.
"The limb should reform on its own in an hour or so…" she paused and glanced up at his health bar again, "… Xathe?"
The hooded teen turned to her again with eyebrows furrowed in a puzzled expression, "How do you know my name?"
She gave a light smile again, in response, "I can read your avatar name above your health bar."
His eyes widened a bit and his eyes quickly found the ground again as his flustered blush returned, "Err… right, I knew that."
She gave him a quizzical look. It was unusual, this 'Xathe' character sure seemed to blush a lot… talk about easily embarrassed.
"I must ask you something…" Xathe stated, "Is that a KoB uniform you have on?"
Asuna was taken aback by the question, "How did you know I was a member of The Knights of The Blood Oath?"
He was finally able to look her in the eye, "It's fairly obvious. You're Asuna, right? Sub-commander of the KoB and leader out on the front-lines?"
"Have we met before?"
Xathe shook his head, "You wouldn't have remembered me if we had, anyways. But I've heard plenty about you."
"Is that why you chose to save me? Because of my status in the game?" she asked.
Suddenly he stood from his seat and grabbed the sword beside him to send it back into his inventory in a flashy display of pixels, "Why I saved you isn't important. What matters is you're alive and I have some business to take care of. So I guess this is goodbye for now…"
She scowled and stood from the boulder as well, "Hey! Don't think you can just walk away from this. Not many can say they helped save the life of Asuna the Flash… I owe you big for this and I intend to pay off my debt to you, so what will it be? You want money, food, a kiss on the cheek?" she smirked mischievously at seeing another blush light up on his cheeks, as she predicted.
Instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own, "Why were you out here running from CPU creatures all by yourself in the middle of the Golden-Leaf Woods? That seems a bit peculiar to me…"
Asuna looked down as memories came back to her, "I… lost some friends not far from here. We were ambushed by red-players and… they told me to get away, so I guess I just did."
Xathe stared at her, his expression displaying a mix between surprise and disbelief.
She shook her head in a frustrated way, "Look, I really don't want to talk about this right now, I've already got enough things pressing on my mind at the moment!"
"You're not alone on that end…"
Asuna looked back up at him with a look of question.
His deep-blue eyes stared into her amber ones. She almost felt a bit intimidated by his gaze, for he held a piercing glare deep within his pupils. Though his expression was soft, his eyes emanated that of a thousand painful experiences to give him the striking appearance he held in his eyes.
"I have a bad history with red-players, as well. They separated me from the people I loved. I don't think they're dead, but they are far away from me…" the black-haired teen trailed off for a short second. "They were my best friends and I loved them more than anything in the world."
Asuna listened to him quietly.
"Now I'm here… wandering aimlessly through the wilderness to find two players that I don't even know if they still exist or not," he sighed.
Suddenly, Asuna's gaze sharpened with a determined gleam in her eyes as she announced, "Let me help."
His eyes widened in near shock, "W-What?"
"Do you have any leads on where they're at? And how sure are you that they're still alive?" she exclaimed, instantly beginning to take charge in the conversation.
He scratched the side of his head with his index finger, "Err… pretty sure. But as far as leads go, I've pretty much got nothing."
Asuna brought her fist up to her chin as she contemplated over Xathe's words.
"Alright… well it'll take some work, then, if we're going to find leads on their locations, but I'm sure we can handle it just fine if I'm in charge of the operation," Asuna thought out loud.
Xathe grew an almost panicky look, "I'm very highly against that! I really think you have no idea what you're getting yourself into, here!"
The chestnut-haired girl gave a confident sneer, "Are you doubting my abilities or are you just scared that I might get the job done better than you?"
His eyebrows furrowed in deep frustration, "Neither! I'm wondering why you're suddenly so persistent to help me find my friends!"
"Well why shouldn't I be so persistent to help you?" she asked with a quirked brow.
He opened his mouth to answer but quickly found himself with no answer to give.
"I told you that I owe a debt to you, Xathe. And I'll be damned if I don't repay you for it! To me, this is the perfect opportunity to pay you back for saving me."
Xathe let out a rough sigh, "You know… I honestly don't believe in such a thing as 'debts.'"
She let out an amused chuckle, "Well unfortunately for you, I do! Now when do we start?"
The black-haired teen looked to the ground and closed his eyes lightly, "Tell me something, first… are you repaying this debt because you feel obliged to or because you actually want to?"
"Both," she answered, brushing past him and heading towards a narrow path at the edge of the clearing, leading out of the woods.
"W-What? Both?" he asked confusedly, turning around to stare at the back of her head with a dumbfounded expression.
She stopped and turned a slight bit to look down with a thoughtful gleam in her eye, "Yeah… but we should probably party up before we head out together. Wouldn't want us to randomly lose track of each other, somehow, if we got separated like you did with your friends."
"You're going to be the loss of my sanity by the end of this…" Xathe grumbled.
She gave a happy smile as she scrolled two fingers in a downward arch in front of her to summon her player menu, "I'll take that as a compliment! Now get ready to accept my party invite, because I'm about to send it."
Xathe nodded to her, "Sure thing—"
Once the words left his mouth, a notification sound rang through the air and a message box appeared in front of him, reading that Asuna had invited him to join her party.
He read over the words carefully for a moment before bringing up his hand and clicking the 'Accept' button with his first two fingers. A light beep emanated off the holographic screen before it collapsed and disappeared before his eyes.
Shortly afterwards, another health bar appeared at the upper-left-hand corner of his screen which had Asuna's name above it. Without a word, he summoned his own player menu and scrolled down to his party screen to click on the one available option to click on: Asuna.
Her level, abilities, and stat information opened up beneath her name and he scrolled through the list with an approving nod.
"The rumors don't lie, she's got an impressive skill set…" he stated to no one in particular.
Asuna didn't see him do this, but she subconsciously did the same thing as him with his stats.
Her eyes widened at the list of numbers she saw before her and her finger very slowly scrolled down through the list.
Xathe closed out his menu and made his way towards Asuna's direction.
"Xathe, these numbers…" she gasped quietly.
He took his time walking and she suddenly felt him brush past her as he replied, "Did you think I was going to be just some mediocre player going solo near the front lines of the game?"
Her eyebrows furrowed down at the list as she scrolled down to his list of major sword-skills, "No, but I—"
She stopped, her eyes widening even further as she saw what his highest-leveled ability was.
"X-Xathe, is this… is this a unique ability?!" she exclaimed, her voice echoing against the trees.
"I don't know! Read the description of the ability, I don't know what's unique and what isn't!" he shouted back from the narrow path he was already walking down.
Her expression became stiff again as she clicked on the ability and read its description:
'Kageken/Sword of Darkness: The wielder becomes shrouded in shadows to give a temporary, but substantial, boost to a stat of the wielder's prior choice; requires an absolute balance of STR and AGI stats to unlock this ability.'
She thought carefully over the description of the ability before remembering a brief memory of when Xathe first jumped in to save her from being crushed by the CPU beast.
"The wielder becomes shrouded in shadows…" Asuna whispered to herself.
Her memory was a bit foggy, but she briefly remembered first seeing Xathe as a dark silhouette when he joined the fray.
She smiled knowingly at the transparent menu in front of her, "He thinks he can hide this from me, but I KNOW I haven't seen anyone use this ability before… what else does he know, that he's too stubborn to share?"
As if to answer her question, a loud voice shouted from a faraway place in the woods, "Hey, you coming or not?!"
Her menu was sent away with a flick of her fingers and she spun around on one heel, making haste to catch up with him down the long path that he was already at the end of, "Yeah, hold up, I'm coming!"
Footsteps once again made their patting sound against the moist grass as she rushed out of the small clearing.
A small mile found its way across her lips as she sprinted in Xathe's direction.
Though she still felt the pain of loss deep in her chest, nothing could stop the excitement she was beginning to feel at the start of the brand new adventure she was about to embark on.
Her brand new adventure… to find the redemption she longed for now more than ever before.
…
(A/N) Thus ends the first chapter to my story: Swords of A Feather.
{EDIT 12/1/14} I fixed up various grammar mistakes and unneeded ellipses. Most importantly I made a huge update on almost every scene in the second half of the chapter and I think it looks much better now.
Anyways, hope you all enjoyed the first chapter and every other chapter to come as well. Feel free to leave a review and tell me what you think, I respond to all my reviews and am thankful for every one that I get so I thank you in advance.
Seeya guys.
-KtD