Keyblade Online

Chapter Two: One Year, Ninety-Nine Worlds

A/N:

Well, here's chapter two! Hope it doesn't disappoint!

So yeah, I'm going to be making use of time-skips every once in a while, just to let you know. This chapter starts out on the… well, you probably already figured out by the title, huh?

See ya at the bottom!

"Then… take care. I'll see you, Namine."

With that, I turned around and ran until I reached a crossroad. When I turned back, I didn't see Namine, and I knew that I might never see her again. I felt something warm in my eyes, and my vision blurred. I put a hand to my eyes, wiping warm liquid from my face.

I'm… crying?

I turned back around, beginning to run. I ran through the alleyways, past the «Safe Zone», and into the dark streets. I saw a mid-level «Heartless» several meters in front of me, but I didn't stop. Instead, I materialized my Keyblade, putting it in the stance to execute something I didn't tell Namine about: weapon magic.

I've got this! I can do this! This world can't beat me!

The weapon skill unleashed itself unto the «Heartless», destroying it in one hit. I didn't even stop when I heard a level-up sound.

I will survive!

"HAAAAAAA!"

About a month into the game, the only world cleared was «Traverse Town», and only because of one player: yours truly.

During that time, just under two thousand players died, leaving us with only eight thousand left. Now, after one year, there are only seven thousand.

The surviving players were split into four categories.

The first consisted of a little over half the surviving players, or four thousand. They were the ones who still wouldn't accept the conditions that Hoshikage Yami had put forth and still waited for outside help.

I understood what they were thinking painfully well. Their real bodies would be lying on a hospital bed, fast asleep. That was reality and this situation was fake. If there was even the smallest discovery, they might be able to get out. Of course, the log out button was gone, but there might be something that the creators of the game might have overlooked…

And outside, the company who ran the game would be trying harder than anyone to save the players. If they could just wait, they might be able to open their eyes, have a teary reunion with their family, and then return to school or work and this would all have been just something to talk about…

It wasn't really unreasonable to think like that. I think I was hoping for the same thing deep inside.

Their plan of action was to wait. They didn't take a single step out of the city and used the money they had been given at the beginning of the game sparingly, buying only the food they needed to get through the day, finding cheap inns to sleep in, and walking around in groups, spending each day without any thought.

Thankfully, the «Safe Zone» of «Traverse Town» was a section that took up forty percent of the third world, so it was large enough to hold a Tokyo district, which meant the four thousand players would have sufficient room to live in.

But no help was coming, no matter long they waited. On some days the sky in each world was not a crystal blue, but covered with grey clouds. Their money couldn't last forever, and they realized that they would have to do something.

The second category consisted of about thirty percent, or two thousand one hundred players. It was a group where all the players worked together. Their leader was the admin of the largest online game info site.

The players who made up this category were split into several groups and shared all of their gains, collected information on the game, and set out to explore areas outside the «Safe Zones» in hopes of finding the «Keyhole» of each world.

This huge group didn't have a name for quite a while, but after all the members received a uniform, somebody gave them the somewhat grim name, «The Army».

The third category consisted of, at an estimate, one thousand players. It was made up of people who had wasted all their Col, but didn't want to make money by fighting monsters.

As a side-note, there were two basic bodily needs in KBO: one was fatigue and the other was hunger.

I understood why fatigue existed. Virtual information and real information were no different to the players' brains. If players became sleepy they could go to an inn and rent a room to sleep in depending on the amount of money they had. If one saved up a lot of money, they could buy a house, but the sum needed wasn't small.

Hunger was a need that many players thought of as strange. Although they didn't really want to imagine what was happening to their bodies in the real world, it was most likely that we were being force-fed nutrients somehow. That meant that the emptiness we felt here had nothing to do with our real bodies.

But if we bought some virtual bread or meat in the game and ate it, the emptiness disappeared and we felt full. There was no way to find out how this strange mechanism worked short of asking a professional in the field of neurology.

So the opposite was true too: the hunger didn't disappear unless we ate something. We most probably wouldn't die if we starved, but the fact that it's a need that's hard to ignore doesn't change. So the players visited the restaurants that the NPCs ran daily and ate some food.

Also, there was no need to excrete waste in the game. As to what was happening in the real world, I didn't even want to think about it.

Well, back to the main point…

The players who had squandered all their money in the beginning and couldn't sleep or eat usually joined the huge organization that I mentioned a while ago, «The Army». This was because they received at least something to eat if they followed the orders from the top.

But there are always those who can't ever cooperate with others however hard they try. The ones who never wanted to join, or got kicked out for causing trouble, used the slums of the «Starting City» as their base and started thieving.

Inside the «Safe Zones», there was protection implemented by the system, so players couldn't hurt each other. But it wasn't like that outside. The stragglers made teams with other stragglers and ambushed other players —which was in many ways much more profitable than hunting monsters— outside the «Safe Zones»

Even then, they never murdered anybody— well, in the first six months, that is.

This group got slowly larger until they reached the aforementioned number of one thousand.

The final, fourth category was, simply said, the rest.

There were around fifty groups created by people who wanted to clear the game but didn't join the huge organization. They numbered around five hundred. We called these groups Guilds, and they had a mobility that «The Army» lacked. Using that mobility, they steadily grew stronger.

Then there were the very few who chose the merchant and craftsman classes. They only numbered about two to three hundred, but they created guilds of their own and started training the skills that they would need to earn the Col they need to get by.

The rest, around one hundred players, were called solo players. This was the group I belonged to.

They were the selfish group who had decided that acting alone would be better for strengthening themselves and simply surviving. If they could use the information they had, they could level up quickly. After they had gained the power to fight against monsters and bandits by themselves, there was truthfully no merit in fighting with other players. If one had the required skills, playing solo was much more effective in getting experience points than party playing.

Of course, there were risks involved. To give an example, if a person was paralyzed and he had party members with him, they'd just cure him and that'd be that. But if the person was playing solo, it could lead straight to death. Actually, in the very beginning, solo players had the highest fatality rate amongst all the players.

But if you had the experience and knowledge to win through all this danger, there was a much better compensation for all this risk, and the beta-testers (including myself) had both of these things.

With this precious information the solo players leveled up at a fierce pace and a huge gap soon opened between them and the rest of the players.

Now, a year and ninety-nine worlds into the game, a total of around seven thousand people remain.

This is how all the players live their lives. This is the current situation of «Keyblade Online».

"You were never meant to exist!"

"What are you talking about, mommy?" I asked her.

"You never should've been born! You were only a mistake made from a crazy night!"

I woke up in a cheap inn I had rented for the night, sweating profusely.

"That dream…" I whispered. "Why would it come back now, of all times?"

I got up, equipping my clothes that I would be using for the day's exploration.

A black coat with a hood to disguise my identity, black boots, and a black shirt and pants. I had absolutely no metal armor in my ensemble, but I liked it better that way. Even a little bit of metal would slow me down and possibly restrict my movements, and everything about the way I fight relies on speed and mobility.

Having paid the fee for my room up front, I walked out of the inn and into the streets of the ninety-ninth world, «Agrabah».

The city of thieves… I'd better watch my back. There could be NPC thieves, or «Heartless» that can steal items.

I walked through the streets, looking for my favorite diner and shop, run by one of the only people who would talk to me.

After all… I'm a—

"I figured I'd find you if I waited here," someone said, proceeding to tap on my right shoulder.

I turned around swiftly, coming face-to-face with Namine, one of my only friends in this game.

She had long, blonde hair that came down to her mid-back, a cute figure, and wore all-white clothes.

She joined the strongest guild, the «Saving Lights», about three months back, and since becoming second-in-command, she became known as one of the strongest —and fastest— players in the game.

Of course, I'm still faster.

"What do you want?" I asked coldly.

"That's mean," she said. "I wanted to check on you to make sure you're still alive, since the scouters are close to finding the «Keyhole»."

"I'm on your friends list, you know. You could have checked that."

"W-well, it doesn't matter. You're alive, and that's what's important," Namine said, her cheeks tinged with a light pink color.

"Whatever. So, what did you really come to see me for?" I queried.

"You promised me we'd party every once in a while, remember?"

It was then that I was made painfully aware of the person, presumably her bodyguard, standing next to her.

"Lady Namine, I cannot let you party with such a shady character!" he shouted.

"Shady? Maybe so, but he's probably more than twenty levels higher than you, and I know for a fact that he's maxed out his Keyblade's level."

"Are you implying that this urchin is superior to me, one of the members of the «Saving Lights»?"

This guy's really asking for me to rough him up.

I grit my teeth, deciding to step in and say, "She made that pretty obvious, man. You'd have to be really dense not to figure it out."

"Why you— wait, I see now! You're one of those no-good «Beaters», aren't you?!"

«Beater». A name combined from the term «Beta-Tester» and the English word "cheater". It was given to the beta players who fought solo, which accounted for ninety percent of all solo players. Thus, every solo player is considered to be a «Beater» until proven otherwise.

"I won't deny it."

The noise he was making had started to attract attention, and people were coming to look at the spectacle of an unknown player being lippy to one of the members of the strongest guild. Soon enough, though, their attention was drawn towards Namine, the «Light Speed Warrior».

"Lady Namine, you can't go with him! Those «Beaters» only care about themselves! He'll turn his back on you at the soonest opportunity!"

Deciding that enough was enough, I said, "Look, I won't abandon her or turn on her. She's an old friend. If you're worried about my strength, then I have no problem in proving it to you."

"You insolent brat!" the man shouted, his already creepy face contorting into one of terrifying rage. The fire in his eyes matched his fiery red eyes perfectly, and I knew I was in for an easy fight.

He's letting his emotions get the best of him.

"I guess that means we're dueling?" I said, giving him a smirk.

Soon enough, I got a notification, and when I pressed it, a duel invitation appeared in front of me.

Accept the Duel?

1 VS 1

Lea VS Roxas

Mode: First Strike

Time Limit: None

I hit accept, and a timer started to count down.

59, 58, 57, 56, 55—

I watched as he materialized his Keyblade.

It looks like he's wielding the strongest store-bought Keyblade to date, but that particular Keyblade is also easy to break if you hit the right spot.

I materialized my own Keyblade, a special one that only I knew the name of.

«Two Become One».

It was a very powerful Keyblade, though no one knew just how powerful other than me, seeing as no one has seen me fight.

30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25—

He got into a stance that was millimeters away from the initial position of a powerful fire-attributed weapon attack I recognized as «Blazing Fury».

So he deals in weapon magic, huh? Perfect.

I kept my stance relaxed, trying to fool him into thinking I didn't know proper form. As soon as the buzzer sounded, I planned to activate a water-attributed attack to counter, despite my lack of proficiency in the element.

7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… GO!

The buzzer sounded, signaling the beginning of the duel.

The man, now known to me as Lea, shifted his position ever-so-slightly so as to start the initial position of his attack.

I shifted my position into the stance of my own attack, putting on a smirk.

We charged at the same time, but he was faster…

Or was he?

I had purposefully activated an attack that increased in speed as time went on, just to put up the façade that he was stronger and faster than me.

When our Keyblades made contact, the shrill sound of metal breaking apart filled the area.

His Keyblade broke in two.

But my attack didn't stop. No, it was part of a two-hit combo, one that first hit the opponent's weapon aside, then spun me around to deliver a blow to his or her back.

And it did.

The buzzer sounded, signifying that I had won the duel. His Keyblade, both the part of it in his hands, and the part of it on the ground, dispersed into particles of light, never to be seen again.

"H-how…? How did a «Beater» like you defeat me, a member of the glorious «Saving Lights»?!"

"I guess I can tell you," I said.

"Your Keyblade is a really powerful one, and if you had hit mine in the right spot, it would've caused enough recoil damage to end the duel. But at the same time, your Keyblade had a vital spot. Since it was so heavily decorated, all I had to do was hit the over-decorated spot with a weapon attack and it would break. The tricky part was figuring out which attack to use, since not all of them would come in at the right angle so they could hit that spot.

"Thinking of that, I chose a water-attributed attack, since the element advantage would widen the breaking area of your blade considerably.

"I decided to choose the attack I did because it was a two-hit combo, which would allow me to break your weapon and end the duel in one attack."

He looked at me, eyes wide.

"As I'm sure you can tell by now, I'm a lot more qualified to guard her than you."

"You…!"

"That's enough, Lea," Namine said coldly. "You can go to the HQ for now."

"But lady Namine, I can't allow you to leave with scum like him!"

This guy is asking for it.

Namine gave him a cold glare that I didn't think she could even make. "Lea, you have done admirably in your mission as my bodyguard up until now, but I cannot tolerate you disrespecting a person who has not wronged you. You are hereby relieved of your mission as my bodyguard. You are to return to headquarters and await further instruction. Understood?"

Lea's eyes went wide, and then narrowed into slits from which I could feel primal fury leaking. "Yes, lady Namine."

He got out a «Teleport Crystal». "Teleport: world fifty-one, «Saving Lights Headquarters»."

Once he was gone, I turned back to Namine. "Are you sure this is all right?"

"I wouldn't have done it otherwise."

"Well, okay…"

Namine made the motions to open up her menu, and a few seconds later, a notification popped up in front of me.

Namine has invited you to join a party

Accept/Decline

I took a deep breath.

Why am I so worried? It's not like we're going to fight a «Boss Heartless» by ourselves.

I hit accept.

"Great! Let's go, Roxas!" Namine said happily.

We began walking out of the city, heading towards the «Cave of Wonders».

A/N:

Well, that's chapter two for you guys! I got this one out pretty fast, huh?

To be fair, I modeled some of it off of the Sword Art Online LN volume one, but any diehard fan probably noticed that already.

Well, I guess that's about it! Time for the disclaimers!

I don't own the Kingdom Hearts franchise, nor do I own the Sword Art Online light novel series, which, by default, means I don't own any of the things I use from them!

See ya!