A/N: Wow, people really liked the first chapter, that is good to know. Before I get started I have a few things to say. First, I plan on writing about every boss fight, including the ones that were skipped in normal storyline. While I like to think of myself as creative, I don't think I will be able to come up with that many separate bosses and still make the fights unique. If anyone is willing to help me out with some ideas please send me a PM, all I am looking for is some general ideas and concepts, I will likely end up combining many of the aspects of what people send in to create the Bosses. You can also send in some of your favorite bosses in games you play if you would like, I am just looking for some general ideas to build off of. The other thing I would like to know is what you think of the Stat System being involved in the story; do you want me to keep telling you guys the characters stats as they level up or do you think it is annoying and makes the story harder to read, I am fine with doing it either way.

Replies to reviews:

Forgotten64: Really glad you enjoy this story so far. In all honesty you are probably the biggest reason I enjoy writing these stories, you have reviewed almost every chapter of all my stories and I really appreciate it

Rexfan1333: Thanks, here is the new chapter.

madking97: Yeah, it did take a while; I spent a few days just playing around with numbers and ideas trying to figure out how to make it work well.

Weaver Chance: I actually fully agree with what you said, my original plan was to reveal what happened in the Beta Test gradually as the story went on but I decided to give a fairly large chunk of the information about it in this chapter instead. I hope that this explains a bit more about my reasoning for what I did. I do actually agree with you, but somehow I felt like giving him all fives would be a good idea, looking back on it I would have given him six or seven. The reason Rein has ten is basically because that is his 'thing' so to speak. He is the main character in one of my stories and a fairly important character in my other story; I wanted to preserve what I felt are his core strengths through to this story as well. (Also, other than the Bond Rein got pretty bad starting stats, he has ten points in Reiatsu Sensing, which does not contribute to combat abilities at all; if Kirito and Rein were to fight at level one Kirito would probably win.)

Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer1: I only own the boring kind of bleach…
Disclaimer2: I don't own Sword Art Online…

Zanpakuto Art Online

Chapter 2


Rein, Anima, Tsume, and Senna all walked out to the large field outside the starting town, preparing to begin leveling.

"Before we begin would you mind sending me your current stats? It will make it easier for me to determine your current strengths." Rein requested, the other three all raised their right hands and Rein quickly received three messages.

He read them through; Anima was 2/3/3/10/10/2/1, Tsume was 6/6/6/4/4/4/1, and Senna was 5/6/4/3/6/6/1.

"Right, so Anima, Your greatest strength is your Zanjutsu, followed by your Kido, then Hakuda, then Hoho. Tsume, your greatest strength is your Kido, followed by your Zanjutsu, and your Hoho and Hakuda are tied. Senna, your strength is also your Kido, followed by Zanjutsu, Hoho, and finally Hakuda. Obviously as you level your stats the order could easily change so try to come up with an order for what you prioritize most." Rein suggested.

Anima spoke up first "I am fine with Zanjutsu being my strength, that is really all I want to focus on."

Tsume was next "I want to focus on Zanjutsu, Hoho, and Kido."

"And I want to focus on everything." Senna said cheerfully.

"Alright, Anima, the best weapon for you to use if you solely focus on Zanjutsu would be your True weapon, but since that isn't an option right now just say whatever type of weapon sounds like the most fun." Rein stated.

"I think I would like to use a katana." Anima answered.

"Sounds good, the only issue is that Katana is an Extra Skill that you unlock by using curved swords. The starting sword is not a curved sword and you can't afford to buy one yet. For now just go kill some monsters until you get some money." Rein paused "Tsume, considering what you want to do it would be best to go with a one handed weapon of some sort, either a dagger or a short sword. Either option is light enough for you to use Hoho effectively while leaving your off-hand open to cast spells." He paused again "And Senna, I would say you just go kill some monsters and find what style of combat feels the best for you."

"Rein, what about you?" Senna asked.

"Well my stats are 4/10/10/2/2/2/10, making my greatest strength Kido, which is about double the power of Tsume's and yours. Despite my low physical stats my high Bond makes my Zanjutsu fairly strong, my greatest weakness is my Hakuda. Since I already know what form my True Weapon takes I know what skills to train from the start. I am just going to kill monsters alongside you for the time being since I am still level one." Rein explained, beginning to lead them away.

"Why is your Bond higher than ours?" Tsume asked.

"The developers decided to let the Beta Testers retain ten percent of their Bond. They never said anything about it or everyone in the Beta would have spent the entire time trying to level it. I am honestly not too sure why they decided to let it carry over, my best guess is that they wanted to give the Beta Testers some ability to lead the way for the other players, and giving them a bit of a stat bonus was the easiest way to do that." Rein replied.

"So that means your Bond was at one-hundred in the Beta, right?" Anima asked "What exactly happened in the Beta, did you get to see any of the Bosses?"

"In the Beta we only managed to get to the tenth floor. Of the nine bosses we faced I was only present for the ninth one." Rein answered.

"Why? Wouldn't it be smartest to learn as much as you could about the game to give yourself an advantage when it went live?" Senna inquired.

Rein scratched the back of his head "Yes it would have, but the Bond feature really caught my eye, I spent the majority of my time communicating with my Zanpakuto rather than leveling my other stats, my level at the end of the Beta was six, the top testers managed to reach the mid-twenties." Rein explained "Basically, what happened was I sat around on floor one for the first twenty-six days of the Beta simply leveling the Bond stat. On the twenty-seventh day my Bond reached one-hundred and I formed my True Weapon and Armor. Once I did that I decided to work on my other stats, by the twenty-eighth day of the test I had made my way up to the ninth floor, where most of the other players were preparing to fight the boss. I joined in the fight and managed to contribute significantly despite my low level."

"So you are saying that True Weapons are overpowered?" Tsume said.

"Yes and no, mine did give me power well beyond my level, but I was still weaker compared to the top testers. In my opinion the best way to go about leveling your stats is to split your time between Bond and other stats, the biggest problem with only leveling Bond is that it does not increase your actual level, and thus does not increase your HP. Especially now that death in the game now applies to the real world as well I would not even think about risking only focusing on Bond, because one little slip up means death." Rein stated "The benefit to being inside the game permanently is that you can spend the day leveling combat stats and the night leveling your Bond. I will give you the basics for leveling Bond later today, but for now our goal is to hit level three."

"Where are we going to go and level? It looks like pretty much all the monsters have already been exterminated." Anima asked.

"You'll see." Rein assured. A minute or so later they entered a dense forest "This area of the forest is safe; just don't go too far from this position until you hit level two." He headed forward and engaged a boar, easily dispatching it with a single slash from the starting sword. He moved on to the next monster and dispatched it just as easily, clearly the developers had decreased the difficulty of these early enemies in order to allow the players a fair chance at learning the game.

About an hour later the group met up again at the edge of the forest "How did it go?" Rein asked.

(A/N: Just to clarify this, they all ranked up skills two times but that is completely unrelated to their level increase, it just happened to be the same for the earlier levels.)

"I leveled up my Reiryoku twice; I also managed to raise my Zanjutsu Skill by two ranks." Anima stated.

"I increased my Reiatsu Control and Speed, my Kido and Zanjutsu also went up by one each." Tsume said.

"And I increased my Reiatsu Control and my Muscle. My Hakuda and Kido skills went up by one rank." Senna informed "Rein, how about you?"

"I managed to get my Coordination and Speed up by one each, and ranked up my Zanjutsu and Hoho." Rein answered "All of us should have enough money to buy the weapons we need in town, and I also made some extra to get us a place to stay for the night." Rein led them into the town.


Soon thereafter the group was sitting in a room that Rein had rented. Rein and Anima had both purchased curved swords while Tsume had bought a fairly long dagger.

"So Rein, what does the Reiatsu Sensing stat do?" Senna asked.

"It is a utility statistic mostly. As you level it you gain access to more information about the things around you, at level twenty you are able to see your enemies' health bars and at points after that you get the ability to see various stats, and eventually get the ability to detect the effect of a skill before it is actually cast. It also gives you the ability to sense people nearby you and effectively 'ignore' a portion of their hiding skill." Rein paused "The majority of the players in the Beta leveled it to twenty and then left it alone because it offers no direct combat benefits."

"It must be annoying that you started with so many points in it then." Tsume commented.

"Not really, I also started with a high Bond so it balances out; right now our combat stats are pretty much identical." Rein answered "Anyway, now it is time to teach you about Bond." He took a breath "Bond is a very unique stat; it has no effect on your level and cannot be leveled by training. Bond is a numerical representation of how well you get along with your Zanpakuto Spirit."

"What is a Zanpakuto Spirit?" Senna asked.

"It is an extremely realistic AI that is generated based on your personality as soon as you log in. Sometimes it may be a total flip of your personality, other times it might just have slightly changed extremes, but the most important part is that it is a reflection of your own personality. In order to raise Bond you must enter your inner world, which is an infinite landscape based on your personality. Once you are there you should be able to find your Zanpakuto Spirit fairly easily; when you find it just speak to it, ask it questions and it will ask you questions. The goal is to form a relationship with it; how you form it is up to you." Rein explained.

"And how do we enter our Inner World?" Anima questioned.

"Just close your eyes and try to clear your mind, it is not exactly easy to explain but you should be able to get the hang of it." Rein replied.

The group all did as he instructed and eventually managed to enter their Inner Worlds.


Rein looked out across the familiar expanse of sand that was his Inner World. The sand was pure white and the sky was entirely covered with thick, dark clouds that let forth a heavy rain which was all absorbed by the sand beneath his feet. The only source of light was an abnormally huge moon that floated beneath the layers of clouds. There were no major features on the moon, but if Rein looked closely he could actually see sand dunes, suggesting that it was a mirror of the desert he was currently standing on.

In front of him stood a figure with long, blue hair that seemed to become flames as it extended out from his head. He was approximately Rein's height and their faces were quite similar. The figure wore a long black coat that also seemed to dissolve into flames at the edges; the center of the coat seemed to adhere to his chest and looked like it was made from segmented black armor. The armor extended across his entire body, stopping at his neck; the armor ended in spiked gloves on his hands and spiked boots on his feet.

"Hello Rein." The figure said calmly, extending his hand "I am your Zanpakuto Spirit."

Rein took the hand "Hello." He wasn't sure how much his Zanpakuto knew about the Beta Test and how much had been wiped from his memory so he decided to play it safe.

"So Rein, I am aware that we have met before, but the memories seem to have been blocked off, would you mind filling me in?" The spirit asked.

"Sure." Rein replied "I was a Beta Tester; I spent a lot of time speaking to you. I would guess that your memory was blocked through some means when the game went live."

"Most likely. My apologies, but I guess we will have to start over with our interaction." The blue haired man said sadly.

"I don't really mind. Honestly I really enjoyed this part of the game." Rein answered "You are interesting to talk to."

"What do you mean by that? I am based off of your personality so speaking with me would not be much different than speaking to yourself." The spirit asked.

"I'm not so sure about that." Rein paused "So what do you think about the game becoming reality, that death here means death in reality?"

"I think that the best option is to take it as the truth and play as though your life really does depend on it." The spirit answered.

"That wasn't what I meant. I was asking what you thought about the developer's decision." Rein clarified, putting his hands in his pockets.

The spirit paused for a moment "I think that it doesn't make much sense, his motive is unclear. If he wanted to simply kill everyone here he would have made the beginning monsters much more challenging, or even rigged the game to automatically kill everyone after a set time. From his actions it almost seems like he wants the players to succeed, but if he wanted everyone to survive he would not have made the game work like this. I don't really know how to explain it."

Rein nodded "It seems like he believes that this is the way a game is meant to be played."

"Exactly." The spirit agreed "Although, at this point it isn't even a game anymore, it might as well be reality."

"That was probably his goal; he didn't want to make a game. He must have wanted an alternate reality. The real question is why he is doing this; does he want to simply watch us as we struggle, does he want to play god with us, or maybe even something completely different." Rein stated.

"Those are questions that only he can answer." The spirit observed.

"Yeah, and I doubt I will ever get the chance. There really is no way he is going to get away with doing this and I doubt anyone is going to let me sit down and have a conversation about this with him, all we can do is sit and wonder." Rein said sadly "Well, nice speaking with you again, but I think I should go back now and make sure my friends aren't having any issues."

"Good idea." The spirit said with a smile "Do visit again soon."

Rein nodded and closed his eyes.


When he opened his eyes he was back in the room he had rented. Senna and Anima had both opened their eyes, but Tsume still seemed to be in her Inner world.

"How did it go for you two?" Rein asked.

"It was amazing, I love my Inner World!" Senna said excitedly "I raised my Bond by two levels too."

"I raised mine by three, what about you Rein?" Anima inquired.

"I managed to get it up to twelve." Rein answered "Did you get along with your Zanpakuto Spirits?" Anima and Tsume nodded and Rein continued "Good, once your Bond reaches twenty you learn what type of weapon your True Weapon will be, so reach that point as fast as you can and then you can begin training that weapon skill."

A few minutes later Tsume opened her eyes.

"How did it go?" Rein asked her.

Tsume shrugged "I think it went well, my Bond increased by four."

"Impressive, you might even hit one-hundred before I do." Rein commented.

The group went to sleep not much later.


"Ichigo and Ryuga, both of you are total morons." Tachikiru said, they had just gotten done with training their Bond.

"Where did that come from?" Ryuga asked.

"Both of you decided to completely eliminate Kido from your list of options in exchange for brute strength. Have you ever heard the saying that brains always beat brawn?" Tachikiru was nearly yelling.

"Well Kido isn't really my style so I decided to get the most out of my options." Ichigo shot back.

"I am sure you will regret that decision when you start seeing the insane things that the other players will be doing with Kido." Tachikiru warned "Regardless, everyone did a good job leveling today; we all hit level three and increased our Bond a bit."

Tachikiru went over the numbers again. He had hit 5/5/1/2/10/10/6 as well as increasing his Hoho skill by two ranks and his One-Handed; Sword skill by one. Ichigo had reached 10/2/1/10/5/4/3 while raising his Zanjutsu skill by two and his One-Handed; Sword skill by one. Ryuga had reached 8/3/2/10/4/5/5, raising his bond by an exceptional four. His Zanjutsu skill had increased twice and his One-Handed; Sword skill had increased once. Klein had hit 5/5/4/6/6/6/4 while raising both his Zanjutsu and Hoho by one rank.

In addition to stats Klein had also purchased a one handed curved sword at the end of the day. As far as he was concerned they had made fair progress today.


Amber, Asuna, and Saiden had also just finished their Bond leveling and were preparing to sleep. Amber had gotten her stats to 4/8/8/2/6/4/6 while raising her Zanjutsu and Kido by one rank each as well as increasing her One-Handed; Sword skill once. Asuna had reached 4/4/3/5/8/8/4 and raised her Zanjutsu and Kido by one. Her One-Handed; Sword had also increased by one. Saiden had reached 4/8/4/10/5/1/4 while increasing his Zanjutsu and Kido once each. His One-Handed; Sword skill had increased by one rank.


Kirito had spent most of the day leveling and doing quests at the same time. Instead of spending the night in the first town like the rest of the players he had decided to set up a slightly more permanent home in the second town. He had already rented a room for the next three days and had also accepted a fair number of quests from the area. Once he had handed all the quests in and spent some time increasing his Bond he looked over his stats. He was level five, with two-hundred HP and his stats were 5/7/5/5/7/5/8 His Zanjutsu had gone up by two ranks and his Hoho by one. In addition, his One-Handed; Sword skill had increased by two.


The next morning Rein sent messages to everyone he knew, telling them to meet him in the first town. He soon received a reply from Kirito saying that he wasn't going to go and Rein assured him it was fine. When everyone had arrived he spoke "Everyone here is level three now, and you all have some basic equipment. I think we are ready to tackle a Sub-Dungeon, there is one that I know of on the first floor, and I think I am the only Beta Tester to know about it because it had not been cleared even on the twenty-seventh day of the Beta. The path to the dungeon is fairly dangerous but I know a safer route. In order to clear this one we should form two parties and then group together."

"Why are we going to a dungeon? What is inside it besides monsters?" Amber asked.

"Well, there are a quite a few good weapon drops inside, and the experience you get in comparison with the difficulty is really good. If we manage to clear it we should all be around level ten, and that means we should be ready to take on the First Floor Labyrinth. In addition, during the Beta Test there was a strange multiplier on the experience while inside the dungeon, new skills are learned much earlier than you would normally expect, so it is a great way to unlock some of the Extra Skills and Additional Weapon Skills." Rein explained.

The rest of the group seemed to be in agreement so they formed their parties and headed off.

When they had arrived Rein spoke again, he pointed to a cave "This is the tricky part, the entrance is at the back of that cave, but fighting inside there is nearly impossible, in order to get past we have two options, either bind the monsters inside with Kido and kill them, or run past them. Who here has the best Kido stats?"

"That would be me and Saiden." Amber said.

"Alright, once we get in the two of you are going to each bind the same monster. Once we do that Ichigo, Ryuga, and Anima will attack that monster with everything they have, the rest of us will keep other monsters from entering the cave. Any questions?" Rein asked.

"Why Ichigo, Ryuga, and Anima?" Tsume asked.

"Because they should have the highest Zanjutsu abilities and we need to hit hard. Ryuga and Ichigo both disabled their Kido so they will be able to deal insane damage with their swords. Anima also has stats well suited to Zanjutsu so he will join in. Between the three of them we should be able to instantly kill each monster guarding the entrance." Rein answered. There were no more questions so the group took up their positions.

Amber and Saiden raised their hands in front of them, pointing at the closest monster "Bakudo number one, Sai." They said it in unison, and the monster soon contorted itself into an uncomfortable looking position.

Ichigo, Ryuga, and Anima all ran at the monster with their weapons drawn and slashed it straight down the middle, reducing its HP to zero. They repeated the process for the other three monsters inside the cramped cave and all proceeded down the staircase they were guarding.

Soon they had reached the bottom of the staircase and looked at the set of rocky tunnels around them, they branched out in four directions from the entry room.

"Which way do we go first Rein?" Senna asked.

"I don't know. The dungeons in the live game are different in layout than the Beta so I don't know which path is the best one to take. It doesn't matter though, our goal is to completely clear out this dungeon and get all the experience, money, and drops it has to offer us. Anyway, everyone check your skills and see if anything has been unlocked." Rein said, raising his hand and opening the menu.

Anima spoke first "I unlocked the Katana Extra Skill."

Klein was next "So did I."

"I unlocked the Two-Handed; Curved Sword skill." Ichigo said.

"And I unlocked the Two-Handed; Sword skill." Ryuga stated.

"I also unlocked the Two-Handed; Sword skill." Saiden said quietly.

"I unlocked the One-Handed; Rapier skill." Asuna informed.

"I unlocked something called Fist Weapons." Senna stated.

"I also unlocked the Katana Skill." Rein said "Did anyone else unlock anything?"

"It says I unlocked a skill called Dual Curved Daggers." Tsume said quietly.

(A/N: I know a lot of you just read that and basically said 'What the heck? Dual-wielding is Kirito's thing!' and you are right, dual wielding is his thing; this is an entirely different skill. Instead of being sad that someone other than him can dual-wield look forward to the abilities he will get in addition to dual-wielding, because they will be pretty cool.)

"So you can equip two Curved Daggers at once?" Rein asked.

Tsume nodded "That's what it says."

"Well, Curved Daggers are an exceptionally uncommon type of Dagger, in the Beta we only actually found two daggers that went into that category. Most of us thought the developers would simply eliminate the distinction but I guess they didn't. Luckily for you one of the two Curved Daggers I know about can be found on the First Floor."

"It's great that we got all these skills already, but we don't have any weapons to use with them." Tachikiru commented.

"Actually, I did a bit of questing last night. It seems most of the players weren't interested in quests that did not give stat rewards and skipped over them, so I took the liberty of completing a few. Since I had a feeling that we would unlock a load of weapon skills today I went ahead and bought a bunch of weapons to give to you guys." Rein said sheepishly.

"How did you know which types to get?" Amber asked.

"Intuition, and I just bought three of each kind of weapon to be sure." Rein replied. He opened his menu and sent trade requests to everyone who had unlocked a weapon skill. He gave a weapon called 'Katana' to Klein and Anima, also equipping one for himself.

Katana (Variable-Handed Katana)
Edge: 2,3 (A/N: First number is Strength scaling, second is Dexterity scaling.)
Mass: 100
Heaviness: 50
Weight: 100
Durability: 90/90

Rein then gave a weapon called 'Claymore' to Saiden and Ryuga.

Claymore (Two-Handed Sword)
Edge: 4,1
Mass: 150
Heaviness: 100
Weight: 150
Durability: 140/140

He then sent a 'Cleaver' to Ichigo.

Cleaver (Two-Handed Curved Sword)
Edge: 3,2
Mass: 120
Heaviness: 90
Weight: 120
Durability: 130/130

Asuna got her 'Rapier' next.

Rapier (One-handed Rapier)
Edge: 1,4
Mass: 40
Heaviness: 30
Weight: 40
Durability: 70/70

Rein then gave a 'Shortsword' to Amber and Tachikiru.

Shortsword (One-Handed Sword)
Edge: 2.5,2.5
Mass: 60
Heaviness: 60
Weight: 60
Durability: 100/100

He turned to Senna "You are lucky, these were a reward from one of the quests I did." He gave a pair of 'Combat Gloves' to her.

Combat Gloves (Offensive hand armor)
Edge: 3,2
Mass: 5
Heaviness: 1
Weight: 5
Durability: 120/120

And finally he handed a set of two 'Kukri' to Tsume.

Kukri (One-Handed Curved Dagger)
Edge: 0,5
Mass: 8
Heaviness: 8
Weight: 8
Durability: 60/60

"Now we should be able to handle this dungeon, I guess we should start with the path to the left and see where it takes us; I will map out the paths we follow so we don't get lost." Rein stated and they headed down the path.


Words: 4,276

A/N: Leave a review and tell me what you think, let me know what you think of the stats being inside the story like they are, I am completely open to suggestions in that regard.