ソードアート・オンライン
Sword Art Online: CTS
So, I've been watching this amazing Anime, and I'd really recommend anyone who hasn't heard of it to give it a watch if you're a fan of Shonen Action anime. Or especially if you like .Hack, because it has a fairly similar feel. Anyway, enough yappin.
Chapter 1: Formation
Choose a weapon. I had already gone through the customization process, and in fact, this was the last step. Once I made this decision, I would enter the game. But I couldn't rush this, if I chose the wrong weapon, then I would be going nowhere fast and probably die quite a few times. Alright, think…
Browsing the list, I noticed some choices that were listed in the manual were missing. I must have to win them from monsters or something. Even with that, there was still a lot to choose from. Swords, spears, daggers, all sorts of bladed weapons. I think…I'll try this. I touched my finger to a panel that read Twin Swords and the world went black.
A few seconds passed before a harsh red light entered my eyes, causing me to wince and rub my eyes. People seemed to be panicking in the square, and I felt someone bump me from behind. Turning, I noticed a very familiar face. He had mid-length, dirty brown hair, and a black trench coat. "Kouhei?" My friend didn't like what he described to me that he'd look like in the game. In fact, he looked exactly like he did in real life. "I thought-"
"No time to talk, come with me!" Without giving me a chance to protest, he grabbed my arm and dragged me into a nearby shop. Inside were four other players, and I'm pretty sure I could recognize most of them from school. The first one to greet me was a boy with short, dark red hair, and he seemed to be slightly older than me.
"Hello, are you the one Kouhei was talking about?" He deftly materialized a menu screen in front of him, and after a couple of taps of his finger, a pop-up appeared before me.
Accept friend invite from: Yoru? Y/N. I thought for a second and shrugged before hitting accept. After taking a look at everyone, I noticed one of the girls was on the floor, curled up in a ball and crying softly. "Is she okay?"
"Oh, you must not have been here for the announcement," Yoru said. "The creator of the game showed up before us, we're trapped here." It took me a moment to process this, especially with this kid smiling as he said it. I decided to look into it myself, and brought up my own menu, and scrolled down to where Logout should have been. There was only an empty space. Clicking it didn't do anything.
"We're trapped?! But what about our real selves?!" Yoru gave me another uncomfortable smile, which I think was supposed to help relax me, but it only made me more nervous.
"Yep yep, if we die, we die for real, and the only way out is to clear the 100th floor and beat the game."I could feel my eyes widening in horror at the nonchalant statement.
"How can you be so calm?!" He thought for a moment before giving me another smile.
"I know I can beat this game without dying, so I'm not worried." I couldn't even respond before he took me by the shoulder, "c'mon, you need to meet everybody." He pulled out a fairly large sword, "I'm Yoru, a broadsword user." Then he pointed out another boy who I think was my age, but might've been older. "He's Beat, Katana."
Beat was leaning against the wall, a katana strapped to his back, and straight blue hair which was sticking almost straight up. All he did was grunt in response. "Over there," Yoru continued, "is Miyabi. She's using daggers, and she's gonna be a Beast Tamer.
Miyabi didn't acknowledge us, she just sat at the table, occasionally checking her menu, and every time she closed it, she appeared to become more stressed. She ran her hand through her long, straight, blonde hair, and finally slumped against the table. "Finally," Yoru said, ignoring Miyabi completely, "we have miss sunshine, Nyoko."
I walked over and squatted next to her, "are you okay?" She looked up to me with light blue eyes that looked almost watery with all of the tears, but she looked away.
"She hasn't taken the news so well, but she uses that Yari(1) you see sitting next to her." Yoru explained, and I sighed.
"I guess it's my turn for an introduction." I stood back up and pulled out my twin swords, "my name's Seichi, and my weapons are these two swords."
Yoru spent the rest of the night teaching us the basics of Sword Art Online, because he was a beta tester, and I was grateful for the help. He apparently made it to the 6th floor by the end of the month. After deliberation, it was decided among us that we would create a guild in the morning, and that Yoru would be our leader. On that note, each of us laid out some sleeping bags on the floor and went to sleep.
My sleep was disturbed only a half hour into it by the sound of soft sobbing, and it was pretty easy to guess who it was. "Nyoko?" I called out softly. The sobbing ceased for a moment with a small sniffle, and I crawled over to where she was sleeping, careful not to disturb anyone else. A streetlamp just outside the window illuminated the room enough for me to see her straight brown hair, and the tear stains all over her pale face. I couldn't help giving her a small touch on the shoulder.
She tensed up for a moment before collapsing into my chest, and continuing to cry. I really had no idea what to do, so I just ran my hand through her hair a few times, hoping she would calm down before anyone else woke up and saw us like this.
After a few minutes, she rubbed her eyes, said something that I think sounded like "thanks", and crawled back into her sleeping bag. I nodded, and got back into my own before closing my eyes.
I could feel the sunlight pouring on my face, feeling the hand shaking me on the shoulder. "Seichi, time to get up, we need to start questing." This voice didn't belong to Yoru, and opening my eyes, I could see that it was Kouhei. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, seeing everyone else already packing their things and getting ready to go. Nyoko looked a little better than she did yesterday, quietly pulling her hair up into a ponytail, and grabbing her bag. She didn't give me or anyone else a straight look.
Yoru walked in, holding up a scroll, "I got our guild registered!" He opened it and we all looked at it in confusion.
I was the first one to ask what was on all of our minds. "What does CTS stand for?"
Yoru gave us one of his trademark smiles before announcing triumphantly. "Cute Tomato Star."
And so it begins, I hope you guys enjoyed, and I hope to see you around for future chapters! Until then, later!
Author's Notes:
I nearly forgot these.
– Yari, a Japanese spear, Wikipedia has a fairly extensive article on it.
– Seichi, myself, a picture is here. .me/profile/20100131/4b65132452b0f_ (Ignore hair colors and clothes for now)
– Nyoko, gallery/#/d4e1bug
– Kouhei , fs70/i/2011/029/f/a/ct_s4_kouhei_by_najwah_
– Yoru, . /_
– Beat, gallery/#/d2pk8ec