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Summary: Two high school students are part of the ten thousand in Aincrad. What will happen to them and what is their fate?

AN: New anime, love it, a must see, but I know that I need to balance out my story writing and finish some of the others so the updates may be slow.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, though I wish I did.

Chapter 1

High School Student #1 POV:

I'm a normal, or as close to normal as possible, fourteen year old attending Mira Loma High School in Carmichael California as a freshman in the International Baccalaureate program. The program is very strict, rigorous, and excruciatingly hard at times. The program really becomes your life and you are the turned into what most would consider a nerd or know it all. I have always found it funny how summers are for the students to relax, but somehow the IB program turns them into time for extra classes and requirements. After the end of summer PE this year, 2022, I was exhausted and had no real desire to study or just do anything. The next day I had heard of the new game that was causing an uproar around the globe, Sword Art Online.

Flashback

I was lounging around the house after a long summer of PE and was trying to relax and regain my strength, when I decided to flip on the TV and surf the channels. I was watching Criminal Minds on CBS when suddenly it changed to a breaking news report.

"Breaking News! It's seems that a Japanese Game Maker has created a new game that's sweeping the world and there are limited amount of spaces for beta tester. Sign up now!" the news anchor said as she described the picture of the Sword Art Online game and its meaning.

Running crazily out of my room, I almost crashed into my grandparents, before plopping myself down into my chair and immediately resuming my computer from its sleep mode. I impatiently waited for my computer to start up and quickly logged onto my account. I pulled up my existing Google Chrome window with all my tabs for my fanfiction, Facebook, Google Play, Anime, and other websites and opened a new tab. As I waited for the search engine to process the key words 'Sword Art Online Beta Tester Sign-up', I clicked on the tab that had my email opened on it and reloaded the page for any new mail. After the page finally loaded, I was surprised to see that the first email in my Inbox was an email congratulating me for becoming one of the one thousand beta testers and showed the date that the game and NerveGear were going to get to my house.

"Yatta! This is a dream come true. I can't believe I'm lucky enough to get into the beta test without even signing up." I said to myself joyously. That day I was so excited and joyful about something new and entertaining in my life, I didn't think much, but thinking back on that day, I probably should have questioned the reason why I was getting a chance to beta test the game.

The first time I opened the game box, I quickly linked the NerveGear and took out these weird metal things. I slid on the NerveGear and tried to activate it, but it prompt me to use the weird metal thingies to run some tests.

'Please place the metal testers on your neck and allow them to move along your body and analyze and measure it.' was the simple message on the screen in front of me.

I put the metal things on my neck and they spread out, like an armor covering my body, and calculated everything from height to weight to ethnicity. I was wondering why the computer needed such accurate measurements as I read the stats that were popping onto the screen. That day I learned a few things that I didn't even know about my body, like my white blood cell count, before it finally, after what seemed like hours of waiting, asked for my confirmation that I was me. I touched the confirm button on the menu and the screen changed to the load screen of the NerveGear. On the menu was a list of actions that I could do ranging from insert disk to connecting to the internet and watching TV. I walked over to my computer and inserted the Sword Art Online game disk. I pressed the launch Sword Art Online game disk on the start menu.

End flashback

Sword Art Online was a new VMMORPG that was sweeping throughout the world and causing hardcore gamers all over the world scrambling for the stores. It was later that I realized the cause of me being the close family friend of the creator of SAO, Akihiko Kayaba, was the reason why I was one of the few lucky gamers that was able to beta test the game.

The game is the best virtual reality that was ever created. Using a new special product called the Nervegear, you were given the feeling that you were truly in Aincrad, the name of the virtual world. I played it nonstop and being the family friend of Kayaba, I was one of the few beta testers to actually make it past the fiftieth floor and clear half the game during the duration of the beta testing. I was shown ways to create unique techniques and how to quickly improve my skill and levels and unlock more spaces for all of my menus. I was a true addict and when the game was released to the public, I got all of my friends a copy as well.
The first day to log on to Sword Art Online, after the release to the public, was 11/6/2022 at exactly 1:00 pm. At the time I was anticipating the start of the log on with what would seem like an addict that didn't get their daily dose. Anyway at 12:58, I pulled out my Nervegear and the Sword Art Online game disk and inserted it into my computer. I flopped onto my bed and quickly slid the Nervegear onto my head before saying "Link Start" as soon as the time on the Nervegear showed that it was 1:00 pm. I quickly selected my Language choice as English, logged in on my account, and activated my beta test account save data.

I opened my eyes and looked around me to see where I was and found myself back in Aincrad, Floor 1: Town of the Beginnings. And this was the start of my adventure in the virtual world of Aincrad and the tragic story of my time in the dungeon created by Akihiko Kayaba.

Present Time

Floor 1: Town of Beginnings

I opened my menu and looked at my Username, Ryusatsugai, before looking at my avatar. I had tried to replicate myself to the best of my abilities when I created my avatar, so I look 5' 8", medium build, round face, brown eyes, spiky black hair, and a light brown skin tone. I was a level 100 weapons master/ summoner/ beast tamer/ warrior, but I was now back at level 1. On the bright side though, I had all of my old skills, at level 5, and all of my old weapons. Instead of chatting like most people and looking around for the best product I decided to go out and improve my skills further. As a true weapons master at heart, I went to work on my weapons crafting skill and simultaneous weapons use skills. Running through the town and going out into the fields and forest to train the basic skills and my most important weapons master skills. The basic skills I had chosen were; weapons crafting(instant creation from anything), regeneration, stealth, hand-to-hand combat, one- handed sword, ranged weapons, spear type weapons, cooking, beast taming, summoning, warrior, bender, healing/ medic (of others), and knight.

Walking into the forest on the first day of my Sword Art Online trip, I was immediately attacked by level five monkey fiends. Deciding quickly to test myself in my special skill of instantaneous weapons creation from almost anything, I pulled my own special weapon Rose Thorn, a simple red adamantine one-handed double edged thorn shaped sword with two rose designs for the hilt guard, and struck the monkey away from me with a quick swipe of my Rose Thorn, lowering its health to about half, before swiping my hand through the air. Flying through the air, the monkey screeched at me before becoming silent at what I did with the air around me. The air that I swiped my hand through started to morph and shifted into a transparent one-handed sword with a winged hilt guard a slight flowy aspect to it.

"Special Skill, Creation Art! Nagarerushi!(Flowing Death!)" I yelled as I took hold of my newly formed sword. "Kingetsu First Style, Hakai no Senbunpiasu-fu!(Seven piercing winds of Destruction)" I said as I slashed Nagarerushi at the monkey, completely obliterating it and everything around it.
"Haha! That's more like it. I guess I need to work on my creation speed, can't believe it took me five seconds to create my simplest sword Nagarerushi!" I said to myself as I collected the experience and gold from defeating the monkey.

I continued to train in the forest raising my player level to 10 and my skill levels to 25 in the course of three hours of intense training consisting of rapidly changing skills while fighting the gorillas, medium level bosses of the forest. I was feeling quite good about myself and was walking around pulling weapons from the things around me and trying out my weapons to make sure that they were useable. I was walking along the road and when I got to a field full of wild boars, I decided to try my luck at getting a rare item and started to massacre the little things.

"Special Skill, Kusanagi!" I yelled as I created a sword out of the grass that was in the field, "Kingetsu, Tengoku Kusanagi Surasshu." I yelled as I created a huge energy slash that decimated the boars in the field.

I was checking my rewards when I saw that I got a very valuable lvl 50 Energy Sword with the ability to take on the element or techniques of the user and a Shadow Concealment cloak along with the few thousand gold that I had acquired. I heard someone approach me from behind and saw that it was a cute teenage girl that was staring at me with admiration.

"Is there anything that I can do for you?" I asked the girl as she continued to stare at me.

"Ummm... could you teach me how to kill these boars? I just started today and I'm not very good at games." the girl said to me.

"No problem. Here, first draw your weapon, then pause and feel the system weapon attack sequence and build up your energy, and when you feel your energy at its max, let it explode." I showed her as she slashed and killed a boar.

"Wow! That was so easy! Well I guess that will be it for today. I'm going to log off and go do my homework!" the girl said excitedly.

She opened her start menu, before she seemed to become confused. She refreshed the menu a few times before I started to get suspicious.

"Is there a problem?" I asked

"There doesn't seem to be a log off button on the menu screen." the girl replied worriedly.

"That can't be right. It should be on the start menu at the very bottom." I said as I opened the start menu and scrolled down to the bottom. Where the log off button, that I had grown so accustomed to, wasn't there at all. "Well this is strange. It's probably just a small bug in the system. It'll probably fix itself in a few minutes." I said reassuringly before I felt a sensation of being teleported.

When the teleportation sequence stopped, I realized that we were in the town square at the Town of Beginnings. There was a system announcement that was about to commence and it seemed that everyone was confused and somewhat scared. Suddenly the sky turned completely red and a huge figure appeared and started talking to the crowd.

"Hello everyone, I am Akihiko Kayaba and I am the sole controller of this world. You all seem to have realize that you can not log off, well that is no bug in the system. There is only one way for you to get free from this world and it is to clear all 100 floors of Aincrad. But there is one catch to this game, if your avatar dies in this world you will die in the real world. Sadly, there have been about 213 players that didn't believe this message and have already died. Well this system announcement will end with me giving you all a small gift. The gift shall appear in your inventory right about ...now." the red figure said to the crowd before dispersing.

I looked into my inventory and tapped on the new item that was there, 'A hand mirror'. I stood there wondering what was so useful about the mirror when suddenly I was covered in white light. When the bright light cleared away everywhere around the square I saw familiar faces and all of a sudden realized what the purpose the mirrors served. They were used to bring your real persona into the virtual world of Aincrad. I opened my avatar profile and saw that my name had changed to my real name, Eric Cai, and I looked over at the girl that I had been helping and was surprised to see that it was my close friend, Maddy Zhu.
Everywhere in the square there was commotion and chaos, people were breaking down and shouting about how clearing all a hundred floors was impossible if the betas couldn't even clear more than the first ten floors. Oh if they only knew that I had cleared fifty floors in the five months that were given for the beta test.

After standing around in a daze, I realized that Akihiko Kayaba wasn't lying about the fact that we were trapped in Aincrad and this game until we cleared all hundred levels and I realized my duty in the game. I was to become the eternal protector of these innocent people that were stuck here in the game. I was to be the one that was always hidden by the shadows, the one to clear the levels and try to keep the people of Aincrad safe, even if it was at the cost of my own life. This was the reason that I was given the chance to beta test the game and being quite the friend of Kayaba, I was the only one who could outsmart him in the end. I would become the Knight of the Neverending Shadows.

AN:

End Chapter 1

I hope that you all liked this chapter of my first SAO fanfiction. This was a pretty off the top of my head composition, so I hope I didn't screw it up too badly. This will be a story with two main characters and the chapters will be told with each character switching off by chapter, such character 1 get chapter 1 and character 2 gets chapter 2 and so on.

Please review. I take all reviews and constructive criticism into account but I will disregard any meaningless flames just because you want to feel cool and be mean.

Thank you for reading!

Dragonslayer9907 signing out.