A/N: From this chapter on, Akio will be referred as Yuriko, as that is his in game name. Also, still looking for OCs! Send me a message if you want me to add your character!
Disclaimer: Do not own SAO, nor do I own any OC's outside of Yuriko and Rin.
Chapter 1
As the Game Master went on, people slowly became more and more concerned at what was going on. Generally, when a GM was giving an announcement, it usually was bad news, especially since he was talking to the players as a whole. The master paused for a moment as if he was taking in the ramblings going on.
He then boomed, "My name is Kayaba Akihiko. As of this moment, I am the sole person who can control this world."
More worried rumbles came from the crowd, as they did not like it.
"I'm sure that you've already noticed that the logout button is missing from the menu. This is not a defect. I repeat, this is not a defect. It is a feature of Sword Art Online."
"What? Is this guy insane?!" someone shouted out in confusion.
"Yeah, this guy is messing with us, I'm leaving…"
Despite most of the people not wanting to believe him, there was still a general feeling of fear, scared that they were in this game for who knows how long.
"You cannot log out of SAO yourselves. And no one on the outside can shut down and remove the NerveGear. Should this be attempted, the transmitter inside the NerveGear will emit powerful microwave, destroying your brain and ending your life."
Kayaba paused once more, watching as the people began to panic a little.
Yuriko gritted his teeth, clenching his fists. 'This guy… he… he's insane! Why?!' Slowly, he began to back towards the invisible wall, preventing anyone from leaving, including Yuriko.
"Unfortunately, several players' friends and families have ignored this warning and have attempted to remove the NerveGear. As a result, two hundred and thirteen players are gone forever, from both Aincrad and the real world. Many new organizations across the world have reported what was happening, so the risk of this happening again is minimal."
Shaking his head, Yuriko shook his head and slammed his fist into the invisible wall in rage. "I swear I will find this guy and kill him…" he murmured under his breath. "This… murderer…"
"Next, if you lose all of your health in Sword Art Online, the same microwave will emit from the NerveGear and end your life. In order to escape SAO, you need to defeat all one hundred levels of Aincrad."
"That's impossible!"
"I doubt anyone in the Beta has even got past level ten! This guy is insane!"
"Finally… I've added a present from me to your item storage. Please see for yourselves."
All of the players nearly simultaneously opened up their inventories and found the mirror and taking it out, activating it. The whole town center lighting up, blinding anyone in the square for a few moments.
Yuriko opened up his eyes, the blindness wearing off finally as he looked into the mirror.
To his surprise, he looked identical to his real life self. Medium dark brown hair, brown eyes, but he saw the same thing as he did in his old game character, the dark expression reflecting the absolute fear in his eyes, almost seeing into the future of what was to come, of the people dying whether it be out of desperation, or out of giving up on this whole thing.
Yuriko began to zone out, ignoring why Kayaba was doing this whole thing. Anger began to replace the fear, as he wanted to kill the man behind this, whether it is in game or real life. Determination made him forget the chance of dying in his quest, while at the same time, he wanted to make sure anyone survives the incident. No one deserved to die here. No matter whom they were or what they did in their lives before this. I… I won't allow it.
"This ends the tutorial for the official Sword Art Online launch. Good luck, players."
With that, Kayaba seemingly disappeared from the cloak, which quickly became a liquid and being sucked back up to the sky.
A few moments of silence followed the disappearance of the creator, before someone cried out. This created a domino effect for the whole square, which collapsed into crying, screaming, and yelling.
Yuriko backed away silently, dashing off away from the pandemonium from the square. He opened up his messages and sent Rin;
Meet me on the closest path towards the next town.
"Where is he…" muttered Yuriko, looking around for his friend. He then heard Rin running towards him from the town.
"…Alright, what's the plan?" he asked Yuriko, not bothering to ask about if everything was true, as he knew that chances are it was.
Yuriko opened up his menu and pulled up a map, tracing a path for Rin to follow, who nodded in response.
"Along the way, we need to level up a little. There is a quest at the next town which gives us a house that we can make our base of sorts. Let's go before anyone takes the quest."
With that, the two set off down the road, occasionally stopping to grind up their levels a little.
A deep sigh escaped Yuriko as he dusted himself off, the earlier battle making some of the dust particles cover his grey duster.
"Okay, next… we need to move to the boss room, and kill it, which should complete the quest," Rin announced, putting his sword away.
"Easier said than done. As I recall, the boss is a human called 'The Shadow.' He sticks to his name and consistently disappears and tries to back stab you, which results in either an instant kill or a near instant kill. Be careful…"
With that, the duo walked into the room, careful of the boss. However, despite Yuriko's experience, he was wrong. Instead, a large orc ran at them, brandishing a massive axe, swinging it to them wildly, knocking them both back and to the ground, Yuriko taking the brunt of the hit. However, their situation was still not good, as their health hit yellow a moment later.
"Dammit…" grunted Yuriko, before he leapt up and sprinted back at the orc. In response, the orc slammed his axe downward upon him, but Yuriko deftly side-stepped him and slashed the boss' side.
The orc roared in pain, back handing Yuriko away easily.
"Switch!"
Rin by then was back standing, charging at the boss, which tried to slam his axe downwards upon him. With a quick parry, Rin did not stop his sprint and drove his sword into the creature's chest. The boss' health began to lower… but it did not kill the monster.
Yuriko widened his eyes, knowing what was going to happen.
"Say switch!" he shouted in desperation, but the words did not reach his friends ears.
The orc grabbed Rin and threw him to the ground, his health lowering to the red. The player tried to crawl away, but the orc stepped on his back, making Yuriko's friend cry out in pain. Yuriko took out his hatchet and charged at the orc, but the boss' axe slammed into his side, making his own health drop into the late yellow.
"No!" cried Yuriko, but no matter what he did, he couldn't save him.
The orc raised his axe and slammed it down on Rin's back, who cried out in pain. Helplessly, Yuriko watched as Rin's health began to drop to zero.
"Rin!" he shouted out, reaching to grab his only friend's hand, but it was far too late. The other's body had exploded into thousands of polygons, effectively removing Rin from the game… and real life.
Yuriko was frozen. He felt himself slowly give up on life. His earlier determination faded away, hope completely gone. He almost did not notice someone running into the cave.
It was a girl, by the looks of it a little older than him if he should guess. She had white-grey hair with emerald eyes that was, at that time, staring right at him.
"Snap out of it!" she called out to him, which was enough to make wake up from his daze. Shear anger took over Yuriko as he picked up his hatchet and charged the orc once more, not afraid of himself dying at the hands of the orc.
The orc tried to slash Yuriko in half, but he jumped into the air, bringing down his hatched into the monster's skull, ensuring that his health dropped to zero. The orc exploded into millions of polygons like Rin, which made Yuriko fall to the ground. The adrenaline subsided from Yuriko as he ignored the rewards screen.
"Hey! Are you alright!" called out the girl who ran over to him.
"No… No I'm not."
"Well it was your fault for engaging this boss. Your barely level 5 and this boss is fo-"
"I was fighting the orc with a friend."
The girl stopped what she was doing, before realizing what he meant.
"I-I'm sorry for your loss…"
Shaking his head, Yuriko moved towards the exit, before hearing the girl call out to him, "Don't give up yet! You can use his loss to make you stronger! As the old saying goes: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!"
Yuriko paused at the thought, before turning around to the girl. "Yes… I… See what you are saying. I… Thank you. I won't give up yet."
He then opened up his menu and said to the girl, "What's your name?"
Seeing that he was calming down a little bit, the girl smirked at him. "Mari. Mari Mao. Yours?"
"Yuriko Fujibayashi."
With that, he sent a friend request to her which she promptly accepted.
"See you later, Mari-san. We may meet again. If you want to talk or whatever, my house is outside of the town," replied Yuriko before he left the cave.
"See ya, Yuriko-san!"
Something told him that Mari would be stopping by his house, so he made a point not to stay there too often, preferring to be alone in the first place.
….Two Months Later…
Yuriko began to walk to town, reading that there was a meeting about the progression of beating the game. Deep down, he knew that someone had found the boss to get to the next level, and they were going to plan to take out the boss and make some progress. However, he knew that because no one had found, let alone clear, the boos room, many people had given up on trying, and morale was dangerously low for the players.
Along the way, he stopped by the shop to buy new weapons and armor. Since he defeated the boss, he had almost never stopped grinding up on his level, reminding himself that if he was stronger, Rin would still be with him. The death of Rin had weighed heavily upon him, and he was just as mad that he was just about to throw away his life. Now, he wanted to kill Kayaba Akihiko more.
He walked down towards the amphitheater, taking a seat in one of the upper levels, almost as if he was taking a seat his level compared to the others around him. In his own opinion, he was probably one of the highest leveled players here, but wouldn't bet money on it. Shaking his head, he listened to the man in the middle- a large white man with red spikey hair and using a two handed swords.
"Looks like it's time to being the meeting!" he announced, clapping his hands together. Many people began to quiet down as the man began to talk.
"First off, let me introduce myself. I am, Masa Takeo, kind of… the tank for most people."
He paused for a moment, before continuing; "Now you guys might be wondering why I called you here today. Well, I've got some important news: the boss room has been found, and it is clear that there is no way we can kill it without working together. I've already figured out how we should take this beast on, as I was in the beta and I know its tactics."
Masa stopped, walking forward a little. "The boss, who is known as Illfang the Kobold Lord, spawns with minions. These minions are meant to be distractions for him. Anyways, first we need everyone to get into groups."
Looking around, Yuriko walked towards the closest group of people, speaking to them, "Hey, mind if I join your group? I came here… alone…"
The supposed leader shrugged his shoulders, before replying, "I don't see why not. What's your level?"
"21."
The leader quirked and eyebrow at the answer, before speaking, "Alright… sounds good to me. Don't think these guys object either. My name is Seiryo Shimizu, or just Sei. Welcome to the team…?"
"Yuriko Fujibayashi, preferably Yuriko."
With that, Sei sent a invitation to join the party, before turning towards Masa.
"Now that everyone is has a group, I think we should start dictating what each group is doing. Now, Group A is…"
…A few hours later…
Yuriko, by then, had departed from his party, deeming that he spent enough time with them. Also, he had socialized enough for the day. Shaking his head, he recalled how anti-social he was in real life. He arrived in the center of town, which contained a large fountain, many players walking about the square, generally talking with friends. By then, the clear blue skies had changed to dark, indicating it was night time.
Sighing deeply, he walked towards fountain as he had nothing better to do, and he did not want to head back to his house just yet. Something told him that if he went, either Mari would be there, or he would get side-tracked grinding and would not get any sleep.
Yuriko stopped in front of the fountain, staring at the reflecting image of him. On the outside, he looked just like he did two-months ago, but he knew that time was still going on in real life, which meant that he was getting older by the minute. A pang of sadness hit him, as he then realized that he was losing his life slowly. Time in this game meant time lost in real life. Yuriko then recollected that Rin was dead, and his family would never see him again, nor would they hear his sarcastic statements, bad jokes, and ridiculous puns. He grit his teeth and kicked the base of the fountain lightly, angry at this game, at Kayaba.
"I'm going home…" grumbled the player as he turned the corner… and ran into a girl and stumbling backwards.
Much to Yuriko dismay, he accidentally knocked down the girl, making him frown. The girl, who had azure hair, easily reaching to her shoulders, strangely white eyes, with an almost fragile looking body type, stared back up at him.
"Ah… sorry…" he apologized, offering his hand to help her up. "I wasn't looking where I was going… kind of irritated at something."
The girl took the hand, and he pulled her up with somewhat ease.
"It's fine… though you need to look where you going. Who knows who will get mad if you bump into them on accident? They may get mad and challenge you to a duel or something…"
"Yeah. Couldn't agree more. This whole game just makes people go insane for the littlest of things."
He paused for a moment, before saying, "Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Yuriko Fujibayashi. Once, again, sorry for bumping into you…"
" Just call me 'Cyan.' "
"… Cyan?"
"Cyan."
"…Okay then, Cyan. Good luck in the game. Maybe we will see each other later."
"Good bye, Yuriko-san."
With that, Yuriko walked away, thinking to himself, "Something seems off about her… I bet I will be seeing her again in the near future…"
Yuriko arrived back into his house, shutting the door behind him. Ever since Rin died, he felt like the house was a lot more quite. That was probably why he did not want to come back to his house only but so much, or why he just continually grinded up levels. The silence made him feel alone, and unnerved him. He had to get out whenever he stayed in the home for long periods of time unless he was asleep.
Snapping out of the trance he was in, he moved towards the bed room and lay down on the bed, not bothering to take off his armor. Knowing his luck, he opted out of taking off his armor because he felt that he would sleep in a little, and would wake up late for the rendezvous to go to the boss room.
Moments began to drift on, before he finally fell asleep, a dreamless night lying ahead of him.
Thanks for those who have submitted an OC thus far! In the next chapter I will be putting in the OC's author's original name, but if you are one of the owners and do not wish your name to be added, send me a PM.
I plan to update either Friday of this week or Monday of the next, so keep a look out!
Until next time, Carbon839