"Kirito-kun?"

The light had gone away, and now I stood in the middle of a ruined town. Buildings were on fire, houses were destroyed, and there was debris everywhere.

"What… happened?" I muttered.

"Where is everyone? I thought all the remaining players were coming here…" Asuna analyzed the area. "And… this place…"

Suddenly, a figure flew out of an alleyway. It was wearing a cloak and had a mask on, blocking my view of the figure's face. But all I knew was that the person was barreling towards Asuna, and I wasn't going to have that.

Swiftly, I ran in front of the figure before it could approach Asuna. Looking closer, I realized that this person was wielding a silver battle axe. It looked immensely powerful, and I worried that it could kill us. But that was a silly thought; I was a dual-wielder.

"What do you want?" I asked, unsheathing one of my swords. A chuckle came out of the figure's mouth.

"I don't want anything," The figure spoke, revealing that it was a man with a deep voice, "I just wanted to see if anyone else was even here."

"Well, we are. Put away the axe." I shot back, standing next to Asuna. She had a nervous look on her face.

"What's up with this place? Was it always like this, or–"

"I said for you to put away the axe." I reminded the cloaked man, putting away my own sword to show him how it worked.

"Yes, yes, of course, master." He mocked, opening up his menu and unequipping it. "Anyways, really sucks that there's fifty more floors, eh?"

Asuna and I didn't respond.

"I think everyone probably spawned in random locations in order to not have everyone just get slaughtered right at the beginning." The man chuckled again.

"That isn't a laughing matter." Asuna declared.

"Oh, excuse me. I'm not a very serious guy. Speaking of me… I don't believe we've formally introduced ourselves, have we? The name's Mitsuo. You guys?"

I hesitantly decided to tell this mysterious man my name.

"I'm Kirito."

"Asuna."

"What nice names. Are you two… in a relationship?" Mitsuo guessed, shocking me. It was typical teasing, but the way he said it gave me the irrational thought that he somehow knew all about me.

Impossible.

"Yes, in fact. We're married." Asuna didn't hesitate to speak up about our marriage.

"Ooh… surprising. I haven't met a married couple in this death game yet. Hear you two must share an inventory. How is that, eh?"

"Enough with the questions. We need to go now, Mitsuo. It was… pleasant… talking to you." I lied, grasping Asuna's hand. "Goodbye, now."

"Kirito and Asuna, sittin' in a tree. K-I-S-S-I–"

By that point, we were running far away from the strange, masked man. I didn't know what to make of him, but he gave me an odd feeling. It was a feeling that I didn't enjoy.

Completely hopeless as to knowing where to go, Asuna and I rushed through the desolated city, seeking something; there were no monsters or any other people in this abandoned town. Just us two and Mitsuo, which wasn't a great circumstance.

Why was Mitsuo asking us so many questions? What did he really want with us? I would understand why he would talk to us, as we were the only other players in the city, but why introduce himself by leaping out of the shadows and aiming a battle axe for my wife's head?

So far, Floor 101 made absolutely no sense.

And there were also no monsters in sight. This completely went against what Kayaba Akhiko himself had said, and threw me off quite a bit. For a while, while running with Asuna, I was ready for battle, but I slowly stopped telling myself a monster would appear any second when it had been five minutes and not a single monster had been seen.

"We should really stop running, Kirito-kun." Asuna softly spoke, startling me. Snapping out my thoughts, I nodded. We sat down next to a pile of debris.

"So… what now? Do we take a break and keep running?" I asked, panting.

"I don't think it's worth–"

"Hey!" The familiar cloaked man came into view, falling out of the sky and right in front of us. "Why are you stopping now? Gotta get out of this town!"

"You!" Asuna and I snarled in unison.

"What? So, I followed you… just wanted company. I'm a lonely guy, y'know." Mitsuo shrugged.

"Go a different way and leave us alone!" Asuna, in a swift motion, shot up and kicked Mitsuo in the stomach. His HP went down by about 30%. I sat in awe.

"Hey! Chick, you're going to kill me!" Mitsuo opened up his menu and grabbed a healing potion, gulping it down.

"Then go away. What do you want, for real!?" Asuna stepped closer to Mitsuo as he stepped further backward.

"I'm telling you! I'm just a lonely guy and I want company! I'm not willing to be alone in this destroyed town! Would you want me to be like that…?"

"Yes." We said in unison.

"Oh, don't be like that." Mitsuo grumbled as his HP slowly regenerated.

"Look, Mitsuo," I referred to the cloaked man with his name to get his attention, "I still really don't know exactly why you're stalking us, but you need to go away."

"Guys!" Mitsuo completely ignored my comment, shooting up his arm and frantically pointing to the right of us. I turned around to see an odd sight. It was something that resembled an elephant. But instead of the usual colors of an elephant, it was completely blue. Certain parts of it were different shades of blue, but no other color was exhibited on the creature.

"Is… that a monster?" I mumbled, unsheathing one of my swords.

"It's so cute!" Mitsuo galloped over to the creature, but within a second of being in close contact with it, the creature rammed into him with its tusks, sending him hurdling back in our direction.

We broke down laughing. Mitsuo's HP hadn't been depleted too much, but it was still quite the funny sight to see.

"Guys…" Mitsuo muttered, pulling himself up, "that thing has a saddle."

"I don't see a saddle." Asuna replied, looking closely at the elephant.

"It's blue." Mitsuo spat back.

"Ahh…" Asuna looked at Mitsuo again. Dirt covered his cloak and the black mask that covered his face. We didn't bother to question why he wore a mask, as, number one, I didn't really care, and number two, there might be some long, personal explanation that I didn't want to hear.

Asuna and I now stood side-by-side examining the creature. I wasn't sure what to make of it. The saddle made me think about the fact that Kayaba had created rideable creatures for the next fifty floors. But it still seemed hostile, attacking Mitsuo.

"Die, fowl beast!" A familiar voice called out from behind the creature. And then, quite suddenly, it was in two halves. It had been swiftly cut open by a sword. Oddly enough, the creature exploded. Smoke went everywhere. Asuna tackled me as we hugged each other for dear life while Mitsuo frantically tried to climb a building to escape the smoke.

But once the smoke cleared, a figure emerged. He was wielding a sword and had one foot on one half of the elephant-thing's body. I examined this person more clearly.

"Klein?" I called out.

"Kirito!" Klein's voice rang out through the city as he ran over to the three of us. "Who's the cloaked dude?"

"I'm honestly not too sure." I replied.

"My name's Mitsuo. Nice to meet you." The odd cloaked man held out his hand as Klein accepted the handshake.

"This is crappy, isn't it?" Klein stated. "Fifty more floors… the people who are fighting on the front lines need to regroup. You guys are the first people I've seen all day. It seems like the rest of the people remaining have been spread out all across Floor 101."

"Say… Asuna and I were given a private speech by Akhiko, but how were the rest of the players in SAO given the information?" I asked Klein. I could've technically asked Mitsuo, but I didn't trust him in the slightest.

"There was a system announcement. It was really weird, after we all heard the message that the game had been cleared. Hey, and you two got a private meeting with Kayaba Akhiko? Nice."

"Yeah, but he's anything but nice. I can't believe he's doing this… he's already killed thousands of people… why is he going for more?" I gritted my teeth at the thought of this.

"Well, everybody… really you, Klein… you just killed a rare creature that I think might be one of those rideable monsters. It had a saddle." Mitsuo placed himself into the conversation.

"It had a saddle? Man… I would've looked so cool on that thing." Klein pouted.

"Enough about that. It's dead, so there's nothing we can do about it." I grumbled.

"Might as well try to lighten the mood… there's a ton of people that are going to die… no safe zones and all…"

"I agree with Klein!" Mitsuo awkwardly shoved his arm around my friend. I wasn't sure if it was a joke or what, but it made everyone extremely uncomfortable.

"So, us four should totally form a guild!" Mitsuo suggested.

"No thanks. I've already got my own, and we're fighting on the front lines." Klein denied the jokester's offer.

"Kirito-kun… now that we know Heathcliff is Kayaba Akihiko… there's no leader to my guild…"

"Maybe you could be the leader, Asuna!" Klein suggested.

"I don't know…" She replied.

Suddenly, out of the blue, I saw my HP decreasing rapidly. It was already in the yellow zone, and it was about to go down to the red zone. Looking behind me, I saw a terrifying sight: it was a huge dog, taller than me. It had dark red eyes and was staring into my soul. Its teeth were digging into my arm.

Suddenly, Asuna smashed her weapon into the dog, and it stepped back a little.

"You okay, Kirito?" Klein and Mitsuo rushed over to the scene, unsheathing their weapons. Mitsuo gripped his battle axe and swung for the dog, hitting in right in the chest. These two attacks had lowered its HP just barely. Examining the dog's level, I saw that it was…

103.

We were fighting a Level 103 monster.

Realizing this, after drinking a health potion I unsheathed both of my swords and initiated Double Circular, swiftly smashing my blades into the dog. This did a little more damage, but the monster was still in the green zone, and it didn't seem fazed at all from the attacks we'd thrown at it so far. The four of us had HP that was either almost or in the yellow zone, and I was starting to worry.

We couldn't die here.

Not in the first of the next fifty floors. But this monster was almost as powerful as a boss, and we were not prepared in the slightest.

"I got this." Mitsuo suddenly said. And, in mere seconds, the masked man's hand started to glow green as the axe catapulted right into the dog's face. It ripped a hole through it, and the dog's HP quickly dropped to zero. It exploded into shards.

"You…"

"How…"

"What…"

"It's a sword skill. Not sure how nobody else has it, but… it's pretty useful, I guess." Mitsuo chuckled nervously.

"You just took down a Level 103. What level are you?" I asked, suspiciously.

"79."

"Then… you got a special skill that no one else has… you're really weird, Mitsuo."

"I agree with that," Mitsuo stated, "I've always been weirded out that no one else has that ability."

"Well…" Klein spoke up, "I should probably go find my guild now."

"And Asuna and I will try to go find hers, if that's alright with her."

"Yes, Kirito-kun." Asuna agreed with me.

"Then I guess we're splitting up for now… I'll see you all later. I'm going to go annoy some more people for now…" Mitsuo declared.

Floor 101 was proving to be an odd experience thus far.