For as long as Kirigaya Kazuto, or Kirito to his friends, can remember he has lived with his family on the 80th floor of Aincrad. His parents died when he was very young so his aunt and uncle took him in. When he learned of this Kirito started to retreat inside himself and distance himself from his family. That was until his grandfather set him straight and pointed out how much pain he was causing his family. Especially his little sister, Suguha. Who cares that she isn't really his sister or Midori isn't his mother or that Minetaka isn't his father. They raised him, treated him like a son/brother, and still unconditional love him even as he grew more distant. With this realization he rekindle his family bonds and even grow closer to his grandfather. Life was pretty great for Kirito. His father took over sword lessons when his grandfather passed away and his mother taught him magic which like most dragon Kirito had a natural affinity for. The most important spell that all dragons are taught from almost day one is how to take a human form so Kirito to go to local town or play with his sister in the woods and not raise alarms.
Dragons were by and large a highly independent group in Aincrad not really bothering with other and just doing a the please. Though being a giant nigh-invincible creature with wings certainly helped that mentality. When the Ruby King took over Aincrad he wanted to either eradicate or enslave the dragon like he had done with so many other races in Aincrad. So 100,000 monsters marched on their home with the intent to raid and kill the Kirigaya family. It ended as a horrible failure. Midori just changed into her dragon form and as a giant white dragon flew down and froze, ate, or otherwise destroyed all the attackers sparing one which was sent back to report on the massacre. The Ruby king, wisely, decide not to send another attack seeing and the Kirigaya's didn't actively try disrupt his rule or cause much problems so he for the most part left them alone and them him. From the Kirigaya's standpoint the monsters stayed in their designated summoned areas and the denizens of Aincrad, for the most part, just stayed in their towns were ancient magic could keep them safe. Even when the ruby king summoned up 99 powerful monsters to help guard each floor and limit travel between them they could just fly down or up if they had to get around so it had very little effect on their day to day lives.
Kirito was fourteen when his mom came to him and told him about the rumors of adventures on the first floor. "This is your chance. Go my son meet new people, make friends, maybe even find a girl." Midori said the last part with a wink. Kirito took this idea to heart and fueled by his adventurous spirit he flew down to the first floor to help the adventures. The going was tough at first. If Kirito went anywhere in his dragon form and an adventure or group of adventures would almost always come running up and shout something along the lines of "In the name of justice you evil monster will be slain on this day and the legend of Meatball(or some equally silly name) will live on in legend." Most of these fights were solved with a quick jet of black flame that burned the adventure to a crisp causing them to reform(or respawn at the adventures called it) at the nearest town. The second major obstacle was the slang the adventure used. Things like DPS(Damage Per Second) or Logout(The magic that allowed a adventure to return home) and some of the more confusing ones like NPC(Anyone who isn't an adventure) or Player(Which for some reason is what the adventures refer to each other as). Though to help with this Kirito made his first friend, Argo, an information broker and you get past her teasing nature not a bad friend and traveling companion.
Throughout what was called the Beta period when the first group of adventures would scout out and try and get as far as possible into Aincrad before retreating and coming back with more people Kirito made a name for himself as The Black Swordsman and obtained minor celebrity status and a lot of challengers for sword duels. At boss fights when a floor boss was challenged he would work with a expert shield user named Diavel and his unit. But all good things must come to an end and soon the Beta period ran out.
On the last day of the beta Kirito, Diavel, Argo, and many other players had a party of sorts to celebrate the battles fought and friendships made that would hopefully continue when they came back with the reinforcements.
"Cheers." Shouted Diavel raising his glass into the air. A action mirrored many others in the room.
Diavel made his way over to the table with Argo and Kirito who already deep in a conversation.
"You know for a complete noob you are surprisingly good with a sword Kii-bou." Argo said with a smirk on her lips.
"She's Right Kirito. I remember the first time we teamed up I had to explain what DPS and switching was and now look you. You're The Black Swordsmen." Said Diavel while taking a seat next to the pair.
"Ya, and thanks for everything guys, I can't wait till can meet up and finally push to the top floor." said Kirito trying to take the focus of his impressive repertoire of skills and achievements.
"The one thing that I still wonder about is that Black dragon that was seen on the first few days of the Beta the disappeared." said Argo 'Even I have no info on the thing other that it's really dangerous."
"Oh does the great Rat not have info on something." Said Kirito smirking earning a chuckle from Diavel and a smile from Argo.
"Ya ya. Laugh it up. Like you know something I don't." replied Argo
Kirito briefly considered spilling the beans to his two friends , but decided against it. Who know what they would do and Kirito really didn't want to lose his two friends.
At the end of the night Kirito went home and told more tales of adventures to his little sister and spent some time sparing with his father while starting the month long wait for the full force of adventures to come and Kirito's friends to return. Who know what adventures are in store and Kirito even gets to help the adventures end the rule of the tyrannical Ruby King. Kirito could barely wait.
Hey the story idea was inspired by another story called Hope in the deep by Hector flores with my own spin added to it. SO I own nothing except the plot I guess(even though most of that is taken from SAO it's self. Welp I guess read, review, and follow if you enjoyed this and I will try to get another update out soon.
