Prologue
"A Desperate Battle for Freedom"

Beacon Academy Ruins
March 29th, 2026
Players Remaining: 300,124
Casualties: Approximately 69.9%

Among those present, many of the players had assumed their final battle would be on a large scale. The previous battle would have qualified had it not been a red herring. Not a single person who watched expected to see everything hinge on a one on one battle, a battle that they were powerless to assist in.

A battle that was going poorly.

Everyone present knew this was their last chance for freedom. The man who had tormented them for over three years would never let his secret be known. Their hopes were in the hands of a 17-year-old boy named Kirito. If he died here, the rest of the assault team had no hope of survival. While recent events would ensure the outside world would know the truth, it would be of little comfort to those trapped within this nightmare, if they even learned of the exact nature of this battle. It would only be a matter of time before World of Remnant claimed its final victim. Past that, there was no telling what damage this lunatic would cause to the world if he found some way to achieve his goals.

Kirito quickly risked a glance at his peripherals to see how everything was looking. Somehow, he had managed to take his opponent down to 59% of his Aura. Kirito himself was at 27% remaining. His health sat at 79% and was slowly dropping from a bleeding effect caused by his opponent's Moonslice. The realization that he was going to lose the war of attrition was a grim reminder of something he said a long time ago:

MMOs that use leveling systems are unfair that way.

If he was going to win this battle, then Kirito needed to get creative. So far, he had refrained from using Sword Skills and Semblance abilities knowing full well the chances of them being countered or avoided were high. That, and he didn't want to risk running his own Aura too low. However, the time for those concerns was quickly going out the window. By his own estimate, Kirito had just enough Aura left for the three skills he needed. If this worked, then the long nightmare would finally be over. If not, then all hope would be lost.

Ducking under a slash, Kirito jumped back to give himself room. The Elucidator began to glow a light blue as he rushed forward and attacked with Rage Spike. Several audible gasps filled the area as the distance closed.

"What are you doing?!" came a panicked shout from Blake.
"He's just going to counter it!" was the shout that came from Agil's direction.

With a sadistic glee in his eyes, their tormentor could barely contain his excitement. "You fool! If you wanted to die this much, you could have asked nicely. The only thing this accomplishes is making poor Asuna a widow!" Oddly enough, the only voice not among the panic and screaming was Asuna. She carried a look on her face that radiated confidence as Kirito's attack was easily parried. Before his momentum carried him past his target, his Dark Repulser began to glow as he launched a Vertical Arc with his off-hand weapon. No one who bore witness expected a second attack with no delay. With no time to react, the attack landed true for two quick hits. The man who had started this deadly game staggered back. It was clear that he had not anticipated actually getting hit by a Sword Skill.

On the sidelines, Pyrrha looked like she was attempting to ask a question of Asuna, but she just couldn't find the words. Several people had the same look on their faces. The only other person present that didn't seem shocked was Yuuki. She began to laugh a bit. "I didn't think his crazy idea would work!" she said. "Leave it to him to find new ways to break the system!" However, an explanation regarding what happened would have to wait. Both of Kirito's weapons glowed blue as his stunned opponent was now at his mercy.

"This is where it all ends! STARBURST STREAM!"

Everyone could feel it. After nearly three and a half years of pain and suffering, it was almost over. The hour of victory was at hand...

...until horror set in once more.

Out of nowhere, Kirito's opponent glowed red. The shocked expression on Kirito's face said it all as he effortlessly dodged every blow from Starburst Stream with practically no effort. The glow from his Aura subsided just at the last part of the attack missed. Kirito was an easy target now that he was caught in a delay. With no choice, he too activated his Speed Semblance as his Aura began to glow black. It was enough to avoid a combo that would have proven fatal, but too much use saw his Aura shatter. With another attack incoming, Kirito managed to bring his Dark Repulser around to block, but soon found the weapon separated from his grip and across the battlefield. Getting desperate, Kirito drew his Five-Seven pistol into his off-hand and transformed Elucidator into its own handgun form. His hope was the barrage of gunfire would catch him off guard, but after another quick burst of Speed Semblance, Kirito quickly found himself out of ammo with a Sword Skill aimed directly at a weak point on Elucidator. As the weapon shattered, Kirito was left unarmed and took an attack on the leg that left him bleeding more and on the ground. A check of his vitals showed how desperate the situation had become:

Aura: Depleted
HP: 29% and dropping with two bleeding effects slowly draining what little was left

Asuna was perhaps the most stunned at what just happened. "How?! You use a Moonslice Semblance! How were you able to use a Speed Semblance skill?" With a chuckle and a smug smile, the man who had imprisoned them said, "Sweetheart, I'm the final boss. We generally like to bend the rules. Haven't you seen Lance's level 50 Dragonite?"

Meanwhile, Yang was also in a panic. Looking to Mercury she said, "If you've got a plan up your sleeve, now would be the time to let me know!" His sigh was the only confirmation she needed. Kirito was about to die, everyone else would be killed, and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it. Once again focused on Kirito, the last boss of this hellish world circled him like an animal toying with its prey.

"I've got to hand it to you kid, you are always full of surprises. Arms Blast? Haven't had much chance to use it myself, but that's a fun one. Your little trick with the One Handed Sword Skills? I honestly wouldn't have thought avoiding the skill delay would be something possible with Dual Blades. But, it still wasn't enough, was it?" As he raised his weapon for the final blow, he screamed at the boy.

"THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR ARMS ARE TOO SHORT TO BOX WITH GOD!"

At that moment, Kirito knew he was right. This would be where it all ended. Just not in the way he imagined...

AN: "Enigma, what are you doing!? This isn't Broken World!"

No, no it's not. If you're a regular reader of my other work, you'll remember that I had mentioned several plans for side projects some time ago. At this point however, we can replace "side project" with "new main project." ^_^()

I'd rather not get into it here as it's likely some folks reading this are first time readers. Don't want to start things off on a downer. However, if you're a long time reader and saw my author's note just prior to my last chapter of Broken World, I think you can put two and two together. We'll leave it at that for now. Just know that Broken World is on hiatus. I have plans to continue it and will fully address things once another chapter is out, but it likely won't be until the summer months. Forgive me for that. It's just been hard to work on and find motivation to push forward for a number of reasons.

In the meantime, let's set that aside.

Anyway, this one has been brewing for awhile. Sword Art Online crossovers are hardly new at this point. However, I feel the execution of some of those fics generally doesn't go past "Let's take characters from this show and put them in Aincrad!" On the flipside of that coin we also have "What if Kirito and company were playing a game based on this anime/game/film instead?"

I find the results of those two ideas to be rather mixed at times. Other characters in the SAO setting are intriguing, but don't always work out for various reasons. Meanwhile, you would think making X world into a game for the SAO characters would be simple enough to do, but in some cases it just doesn't feel right if the characters from that particular world aren't present. I felt there was only one proper way to do this:

What if the characters from RWBY existed in the real world alongside the characters from SAO?
What if the game wasn't set in Aincrad, but in Remnant instead?

Could this work out well? Perhaps!
Is there a chance such an idea will crash and burn? Oh yeah!
...wait...

In all seriousness, strap yourselves in. Don't feel overwhelmed if you only know one series over the other. I'm planning to write this in a way where fans of one of the two series can get eased into the new setting while at the same time seeing the familiar elements.

One fair warning however: early on this might be weighted a bit more towards the RWBY cast. The prologue may have started close to the end, but this would be a very short story if I moved on from this point, wouldn't it? There will be an introduction to set up the game world, followed by a "present day" scene to help frame things in the aftermath. Following that, we're off to the beginning to see how everything went down. The early parts of the story are mainly going to be used to set up these "real world" and alternate versions of the RWBY characters. The primary SAO characters in a new game world are still the same characters at their core, but the RWBY characters in a new setting obviously require an introduction.

Anyway, enjoy the ride. As usual, no firm update schedule, but I will at least say the introduction will also be up sometime this weekend. Already written and finished as the prologue/intro have been up on RWBY Amino for some time. Just trying to pace things a bit ^_~