Just a note at the beginning. This Kiriko is pretty much a psychopath. Note that psychopath ≠ sadistic. A psychopath isn't a 'psycho'. It just means lack or partial lack of empathy and remorse, antisocial behavior, and being bold, disinhibited, or egotistical. This Kiriko checks all those boxes except egotism and disinhibition. She's crazy is a way that may seem disinhibited, but she carefully considers the dangers and consequences of her actions before promptly ignoring them.

She is also basically immune to social pressure and really doesn't give a fuck what people think of her.


As another kobold shatters after being bisected by my sword, I say, "Maybe we should get back to town for the day."

Tazen nods. "I am getting somewhat tired and there's no point taking risks. We've already explored a lot."

As we turn to head back, I hear the sound of metal clashing in the distance.

"Let's go say hi?" I offer.

"Why not?"

We follow the sounds of metal clashing on metal through the maze until we see someone cloaked in red with a rapier fighting some kobolds. While they were incredibly good with their [Linears] and the like, they were clearly exhausted and the kobolds were overwhelming them.

I sigh and draw my sword, approaching the creatures silently.

As I decapitate two of them, a few turn to me.

And then roughly 30 seconds later, they were all dead.

"If you keep doing that, you're going to die," I say to the rapier wielder.

"Why does it matter, we're all going to die here anyway."

It sounded like a girl's voice.

"I sure as hell don't plan to. And besides, you could apply that attitude to the real world too, 'we're all going to die at some point, so why not now?'" I say.

"So what are you going to do? Clear all 100 floors?" she asks.

"Yes, actually," I say.

"It's been nearly a month and we haven't even beaten the first one. Even if we killed the boss tomorrow, at that rate it'd take us 8 years to get out."

"That's because everybody has your attitude of it being impossible. If in the beta we could beat a floor every 5 or 6 days then with 10 times as many people, even with over leveling and overpreparation, we should be able to go at least as fast. Once we beat the first boss and show to the people like you that it is possible to beat the game, it will be much faster."

I sigh. "When was the last time you left the dungeon?"

The fencer doesn't answer.

"Hello?"

She collapses. As she falls, I decide whether to catch her, eventually coming to 'yes' and catching her before she can actually hit the ground.

"Why do I get the feeling that wasn't instinctive at all and that you actually decided through conscious thought whether to catch her," Tazen comments.

"Because I did," I answer as I hold her bridal-carry style. Since this was SAO, lifting a person was rather easy.

"Come on, let's get out of here," I say.


I set her down against a tree outside the dungeon and Tazen asks, "So we just leave her here?"

"Why would I go through the trouble of carrying her out if I was planning on leaving her to just die here anyway. If she wants to die, she's welcome to, but not before she gives us her map data."

"So what? We watch her until she wakes up?"

"Hell no," I say and poke her cheek a few times, then proceed to shake her until she groans and opens her eyes.

"Huh? W-what? Where am I?" she mumbles.

"I carried you out of the dungeon after you passed out," I say.

"Why?"

"Because you have map data and letting you die would be a waste. And we were already on our way out so I figured it would be less effort to carry you out and wait here where there are fewer enemies."

She chuckles.

"Anyway, you're free to go kill yourself if you want after you hand over the map data."

"You're heartless," she mutters.

"Really? I thought I was being nice," I say sarcastically.

"Now just give us the map data and we'll be out of your hair."

"Fine, fine," the girl mumbles and a menu screen appears. I press accept.

"Goodbye," I say and turn around and start to leave.

Do I really want to let her kill herself? Why should I care what she does? Somebody cared for me and that's probably why I'm still alive. Whatever, it doesn't take much effort.

"You should get some sleep. And eat."

"Why should I eat? It's pointless."

"While you can't die of hunger, your brain still thinks you're hungry and it is distracting," I say and toss her a bun and cream.

"What's this?"

"Go ahead and find out. It actually makes the buns taste passable," I say and follow after Tazen.


A couple days later, there was a boss meeting headed by a man named Diabel, and while he looked different from the beta, I remembered the name. He led one of the floor boss raids and also a couple dungeon raids.

"Hello. I'm the one who called this meeting. My name is Diabel and my class is Knight."

He is met with laughter and some people calling things along the lines of 'there are no classes in SAO.'

His icebreaker certainly worked.

"Alright alright, quiet down! Do you want to hear what I have to say or not?" he yells and everyone quiets down.

"Yesterday, my party and I found the boss room!" he says.

There were mutterings among the various groups.

Technically, Tazen and I had found it before him, but we didn't want to deal with leading a raid or organizing a meeting, so we decided to wait a couple days.

"Now, before we discuss strategy, I'd like everyone to party up," he says.

"Now wait a moment! Before we go further, there's something I'd like to get off my chest!" some brown cactus who jumps down into the amphitheater a few steps at a time says.

"You are?" Diabel asks.

"Name's Kibaou. Now, there are some people here who need to apologize to the 2000 people who've died so far!" he yells.

Me personally. But I'm sure he's talking about beta testers in general.

"Kibaou, do you mean the beta testers?" Diabel asks carefully.

"That's right! When this game started, the beta testers just ditched us new players and took all the easy quests and good grinding spots. They should get down on their knees and apologize. AND give up all the items and Col they stole."

A tall African-American man stands up and walks towards Kibaou.

"Name's Agil. Now Kibaou, you're saying that since the beta testers didn't protect the new players they're responsible for their deaths and they should give up their items and money in atonement?"

"Y-yes," Kibaou stutters at the man looming above him.

Agil pulls out a booklet I immediately recognize as the Guide Book, distributed by Argo the Rat. A beta tester info dealer who played as a man in the beta test despite being a girl, much like me, though we also both knew the other was actually a girl. Me because I bought it from her and she because she bought it from me. Technically, that is. Practically speaking, we just traded the information.

"Do you know what this is?" he asks.

"It's the guide book. It's available from every general store from free. How is this relevant?" he says, gaining back some confidence.

"This book contains extremely detailed information on a wide variety of topics, including quests, grinding spots, combat, sword skills, skill descriptions, and any number of other useful things. Do you really think Kayaba would just provide us with this information for free? Of course not. This booklet is a compilation of the beta testers' knowledge. You can see the author of each section too. The beta tester who wrote the combat section, sword skills section, skill descriptions section, and most of the other game mechanics sections is here, for example. Those people had all this information that the beta testers have and they still died, I thought the point of this was to learn from their mistakes and beat the game, not fight amongst ourselves," Agil says and glances at me.

Damnit, Argo!

After that, Kibaou backs down and the rest of the meeting continues smoothly, with Tazen and I partying with the fencer, who had survived the few days and found out about the meeting and turned out to be named Asuna. Somebody shows up with an updated version of the booklet which contains the info on the beta version of the boss.


After Diabel gives his encouragement speech which I completely tune out, we move into the boss fight and Diabel gives his orders, which for us means fighting the minions that show up.

"You two, stick together and cover each others' backs," I say.

"And you?" Asuna asks.

"She'll be fine," Tazen says.

I split off from the two and go after the nearest [Ruin Kobold Sentinal], abusing the broken (though when I complained about it I was told that it was only broken in my hands and was actually a balanced skill and that anything could be overpowered in my hands, including a wooden spoon (true story)) skill that is [Parry] to stun it by getting a [Perfect Parry] on its attack, allowing me to drive my sword through its throat where there was a gap between breastplate and helmet.

As it shatters, I move onto the next one and repeat the process, continuing until all of them were dead, killed either by me or one of the two other groups killing them, namely, Kibaou's group and Tazen and Asuna.

A short while later more spawn and they are also dealt with.

As the boss hits 25% on its last HP bar and throws aside its shield and ax.

"Stand back! I got this!" Diabel yells.

I sigh and press my hands to my face. What an idiot.

As I look up towards the boss again I realize something fairly major. It wasn't using a tulwar like in the beta, and thus, guide book. It was using an oversized nodachi, a type of long katana which was used in the real world by mounted troops.

Which meant its patterns would be entirely different.

"Diabel get back!" I call. Frankly, I didn't care if he died through his own stupidity and greed. Care much. I did care enough to put in the effort of yelling.

"You just want the loot. It belongs to Diabel" Kibaou calls. I ignore him. He should be grateful I'm putting in any effort to save his dumbass friend. Dumbass beta tester friend who has plenty enough information to realize he was running to his likely death.

"That's a nodachi, not a tulwar. It's changed from the beta!" I yell.

He processes what I said just in time to be surprised before Illfang starts his skill. The massive creature moves with surprising agility.

You know. If I save his life, I get the LAB. And I'll probably have to kill the boss after he dies anyway. I think I remember something about being in charge if he dies. Scumbag.

I close my eyes for what feels like a few long seconds, though to everybody else or a clock it would be a small fraction of a second. I enter a state of calm. Actually, calm is a bad word for this. I was already perfectly calm. Stillness would be better. "In the midst of movement and chaos keep stillness inside of you." This completely through away everything but rational thought. Instincts and impulses continue to function at normal speeds, allowing me to think faster than them and potentially suppress them.

As I open my eyes, the world is tinted grey, an odd side effect of ability. Aside from that, the world is also extremely slow. In the physical world, this manifests itself as an inhumanly fast reaction speed, inhumanly fast—even beyond my normal inhuman speed of thought—speed of thought, and the ability to push my muscles beyond normal limits, like with adrenaline. (This may or may not be how biology/anatomy. I don't care because I do not know biology/anatomy well enough to care.)

In the virtual world, the first two stayed the same, but the same speed up was applied directly to my movement.

Illfang floated in midair, practically frozen still, as was everything else.

I kick off the ground and cross the distance of 10 meters in what to everyone else would be a tiny fraction of a second and to me... was a not as tiny fraction of a second, I suppose. I swing my sword and [Perfect Parry] Illfang's [Sword Skill], knocking it up and canceling the skill. I cut across across his stomach before allowing time to return to normal speed.

It was mentally very exhausting to do this, especially for prolonged periods. And while it only set in after a short while, I knew it would so I tended to minimize the use. Basically I would have a head ache and be tired and... basically it's like not sleeping for a long time. Something like a day for every 30 seconds from my perspective of use, I suppose. Using it for 2-3 minutes would probably kill me. I wasn't interested in finding out. Maybe it wouldn't because while the effects are similar, it is not actually lack of sleep. As I said, not interested in finding out. If I pushed it far enough—as I just did—every second became what feels like many hours of not sleeping.

Or telling anyone about the ability really. Let them think what they want. There were two other people who knew. One was Argo, the other, however, I'm not sure whether I regret telling them or not. Maybe it's paranoia from watching too many supernatural powers anime (where the people with superpowers become lab rats), but I didn't really want scientists or anyone asking about it.

As the boss activates another skill, aimed at me this time, I jump into the air, twisting between the repeated blows as the boss spins in circle since I already knew the skill and exactly where his sword would be. He unleashes another skill as I land on the ground and I step, twist, lean, and otherwise dodge or parry all the strikes with practiced ease.

As the skill finishes I use the PMD to pass through his guard and my sword glows crimson as I activate [Tripuncture], a skill which consists of three fast stabs in an equilateral triangle, available for any one handed and relatively straight sword. The three stabs all pierce into the beasts stomach, taking large chunks out of his HP.

I jump back, out of immediate range of Illfang before my PMD activates, holding me still for half a second.

He reaches me as it wears off and activates a purple sword skill I recognize as a single, diagonal slash which was incredibly powerful and fast.

Unfortunately, hitting me with something like that was impossible.

It freezes in PMD as the skill finishes. Enemies had PMD too, and while for bosses it was reduced, it was still there. And the skill it just used was the sort of trump skill which tends to end the battle one way or the way, either killing your opponent or allowing them to likely kill you in your PMD. In this case it was the latter.

I run up to the frozen boss and cut my sword from its right hip to its left shoulder, flinging it and making it shatter. My own HP had taken the tiniest scratch from the parries. And the LAB I get is a badass coat.

Everyone stares at me in amazement. I know that my sword had been supersonic because I could actually see the distortion due to pressure wave. Oh sure it was fast, but not impossible to notice.

I sigh as people start cheering.

"That was cool," Tazen says.

"I'm going to go activate the teleporter on the second floor. Don't come with me, in the beta it happened all too many times that players would beat the boss only to be killed by the new monsters on the next floor before making it to the town," I say.

"Alright," he says.

Perfect, now before I do that, I can take a nap. It used to fuck with my sleep schedule, but it doesn't really exist anymore. I just go to bed whenever I want and wake up whenever I want.

"Stop cheering!" Kibaou calls.

I say, "What now?" not bothering to keep the sleepiness out of my voice and off my face.

"You stole the [Last Attack Bonus] and now you're just going to walk away?" he asks.

"Stole it?" I ask.

"Diabel earned that, finding the boss fight and leading the raid and then you just steal it!"

I sigh.

"How did she know all the boss patterns?"

"I bet she's a beta tester."

"She and all her kind are just greedy bastards. She was just waiting for an opportunity to steal the LAB this whole fight."

"You knew all the boss's patterns but you beta testers put some random crap in that damn booklet of yours because you wanted to get the LAB yourself."

Argo, you better thank me for this.

I start laughing. Mocking laughter. I stand up and face them.

"What? Why are you laughing." I ignore him in favor of rubbing my eyes.

"What? Are trying to escape by looking cute or something?" If I was, it would work. Believe it or not, I am capable of acting cute.

"Huh? Oh no that's not it, I just realized I didn't get nearly enough sleep to deal with idiots like you lot," I say. My plan did not involve escaping them hating me... it was the exact opposite. Which is why I was acting even more condescending than usual.

"So you guys think I'm a beta tester? Please, don't lump me in with those noobs. Most of them were so green they didn't even know how to level up. Hell, you idiots are better than they were. But me? I made it to higher floors than anyone else. I know more than any info broker. I knew Illfang's patterns because I had fought dangerous monsters on higher floors which had katana skills."

"I-if that's the case, you're worse than a beta tester! You're a cheater! A goddamn cheater! That's what you are!" somebody yells. What an idiot. Even if I am a cheater, I'm on your side and you have no interest in beating the game fairly, so that I'm a cheater would be a good thing.

"A beta tester and a cheater! A beater! She's a beater!" Whoever said it gets a chorus of agreement.

"Beater... hmm... I like it. Yeah, I'm a beater," I say and equip the LAB, turning around and walking away in the most badass way possible.

Nobody follows me, which is good because the aftereffects were kinda getting to me. Just a little. Not really, it was actually quite a lot.

I walk out of the boss room and into the sunlight of the second floor. I stop a little ways.

I hear two sets of footsteps behind me. The quiet, relatively familiar steps of Tazen and the louder, though still elegant, footsteps of Asuna. "I thought I told you not to follow me."

"I know you weren't serious," Asuna says.

"Almost everything I said was the truth."

"Except beta testers being noobs. The beta test entry was a lottery but tickets were gotten through various gaming events," Tazen says.

"Compared to me they were," I say.

"Seeing as you single-handedly wiped the floor with a floor boss's more difficult phase, I can believe that."

"Anyway. You two should stay away from me, if somebody invites you to a guild you should join. There's only far being solo will take you," Kiriko says.

"You're solo. I asked Argo about it, you were one of the extremely few beta players who stayed solo till the very end."

"I'm an exception, Asuna. I actually do know more about mechanics and combat than any info broker and as you just saw, I can kill pretty much anything."

"How do you know my name?" Asuna asks.

"If you look to the upper right, with your eyes, not your head, you'll see our names and HP bars under yours," I say.

"Now go back before you get yourself killed," I say.

"Kiriko, can I talk to you in private for a moment?" Tazen asks.

"Make it quick then," I say as Asuna leaves.

"I know for a fact you got plenty of sleep," he says.

"I was faking it to act more condescending," I lie.

"You might be good at hiding what you're feeling, but I'm pretty good at reading people, and I can tell you weren't faking it. The fact that I can tell that when its you means you're probably about ready to collapse from exhaustion."

Damn right I am, so fuck off.

"Suppose you're right. So what?"

"It has to do with how you briefly moved at supersonic speed, doesn't it?" he says.

Annoyingly perceptive.

I look at him with a look that says, "And?"

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," I lie. It should convey the fact that I wasn't willing to talk about it.

"Fine, if you don't want to talk I'll go and leave you to your nap or whatever it is you planned to do," he says and leaves.

I leap up onto some high boulders where the particular type of enemy that existed in this area would be unable to reach me and lay down. I close my eyes.


After an hour or so, I wake up. It wasn't nearly enough, but it would be good enough to go activate the teleporter and then sleep for a few hours.

I jog along the path, cutting down a few [Trembling Oxen] along the way. I reach the town and activate the teleporter before leaping onto a nearby roof and hiding there. People flood out.

I close my eyes and lay back on the roof, hidden from sight, once more falling asleep.


I wake up to the sounds of conflict, though not combat, and the relatively familiar voice of a certain Rat.

I groan and get up, walking to the edge of the roof and jumping down onto the road between Argo and some assailants.

"You jackasses woke me up," I grumble.

"Hey Kiriko," Argo says.

"What's going on?"

"They want me to tell them where to find the quest for the [Martial Arts] quest, but I refuse to be responsible for the consequences."

"You know, I'd just let them go fail. It's their problem, not yours, but whatever."

"You Fuuma-somethings better leave before I make you," I say to them.

"It's Fuumaningun!" one of them yells.

"Good for you, now fuck off."

They draw their scimitars, completely useless in the town, and advance, saying, "Why don't you keep your nose out of other people's business?"

"See... there's the problem. You're bothering my friend. If she doesn't want to sell you the information, she doesn't have to. Now if you don't mind your own business, we'll be testing the limits of the [Safe Zone] protection," I say.

The two charge and I beat the crap out of them without ever drawing my sword. Since this was a [Safe Zone], I could easily knock aside their weapons with my hands... or not at all. They were completely speed built and so their blows didn't carry enough force to knock me off my feet or anything of the sort.

Soon they run off and Argo says, "Thanks Kiriko, I was really backed into a corner there."

"Anytime Argo. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a nap to get back to," I say.

"You had to use that?" she asks.

"Diabel was stupid and greedy," I say simply.

"And you actually went though the trouble of saving him?"

"I figured I'd have to kill the boss anyway if I wanted the LAB, which I did. And if I'm going to do it anyway, I care enough about his life to do it before it kills him rather than after," I say.

"Always making up excuses for being heroic..." Argo mutters.

"Hey! There generally is a very much practical reason to save somebody's life, or at least do something from which only a small amount of effort is required to save somebody's life," I object.

"You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better... because considering yourself to be heartless and cold makes you feel better, apparently. Somehow though, you end up saving anybody you run into who's in trouble and then rationalizing it away."

"Technically, I rationalize it away first, which is called reasoning."

"No. You make the decision and then come up with the reason, which is called rationalizing," Argo says.

"I do not," I say.

"Whatever you say, princess," Argo says.


I was tempted to switch to third person to keep Kiriko more mysterious, but in the end, by the time I thought that, I had already written the entire chapter and I was like 'screw this, I write for fun and rewriting 4k words isn't'.

Either way, thanks for reading, please follow, favorite, and leave a review telling me what you though! Unless what you thought is that Kiriko is too OP, in which case, I say to you, 'in this case, there is no such thing as too OP.'