Haseo, Alkaid, and Zelkova weren't very successful in finding any of their comrades.

After a week's worth of searching, they gave up after a while, at least for the moment.

They changed their initial gameplan when this happened.

"It's probably best if we try beating the game first. Everyone's in-game levels were pretty high in "The World", so they should be able to take care of themselves. After all, everyone has a level of at least 139. Even though the mirrors halved our levels, it still shouldn't be so difficult to beat the level." Zelkova said, the trio gathered around an area map he'd pulled up for them to see, it being sunset yet again as they were huddled together in a field.

Haseo had adjusted to his new appearance, though he was surprised such a young child could actually be the same Zelkova he'd known in "The World".

Despite this, when questioned about the matter of why his avatar was the way it was, Zelkova was promptly interrupted by a person pushing him over and making him fall flat on his face.

Zelkova surprisingly was cool headed about that guy doing that, even as both Haseo and Alkaid checked on him to see if he was okay.

He simply got up, wiped himself off, and told them they needed to start searching for their comrades.

Asking now would be a bit irrelevant to the task at hand, Haseo thought.

"So we're going to try and beat the level?" Alkaid said, looking to the child.

"Yes, but I think we'll need to find more allies in order to accomplish that." Zelkova trailed his finger over the map.

"How do you think we can do that Zelkova? It's not as though we can just ask a bunch of people to fight with us; they would already be fighting to begin with." Haseo asked him.

"Yes, that may be true, but I've been hearing a lot of a meeting that's due to be starting tomorrow. It's said to be so that people can gather together and try to beat it as well, or at least the first boss rather."

"So that's our plan?"

"Yes." Zelkova nodded, and that had been the end of that conversation.

Looking back on it a few hours later, Haseo sighed as he lay in his bed on his side, facing the wall, the room rented out with the little money the three could manage to come up with doing several quests.

Laying in the dark, the sole light of the moon beamed obnoxiously all over him.

But even if Haseo didn't have that factor, he admitted to himself that he wouldn't be able to sleep well.

He clenched his fists tightly, doing the same to his teeth, brown eyes narrowing in deep hatred.

Just the inescapable fact that he was stuck here pissed him off.

Sometimes he just wanted to just - !

He swung his fist up in the air, then slammed it in the bed's side, the wood supporting the mattress being damaged greatly.

Haseo bit back his own pain, scowling deeply as the wood of the bed reformed itself and bounced his fist away.

"Damn it..." He seriously wanted to kill the Game Master at that moment.

What the hell was wrong with him? What kind of guy, with all those brains and resources, just squander it all through something like this?!

He sighed heavily, letting his head fall back on the mattress, closing his eyes.

But, he started reasoning with himself, there really was no point in getting angry. Now he was stuck in this world. He might as well accept the circumstances. Anger would only distract him.

It was a rather useless emotion, in truth.

"You can come in Alkaid." He said after a moment of silence, eyes opening.

Another moment, and Haseo looked up as the door creaked open, revealing the short girl.

"I guess I'm not that good at hiding, am I?" Alkaid said, usual confident self replaced by a deflated version of herself.

"You apparently suck at stealth Alkaid." Haseo lifted himself up, resting his elbow on his now bended leg, looking up at Alkaid, "What did you come in here for?"

She didn't give an answer for a moment, only gained a sudden interest in her sandles.

Then, "Is it alright if I sleep with you tonight?"

Haseo blinked in surprise, then looked at the girl before him, seeing her rather awkward body language.

"..." He stared for a moment when he realized just how serious she was about the request, "What's wrong with your room?" He asked after his own moment of silence.

Alkaid had a light shade of pink tinting her face in that moment, and she started walking away then, putting up her tough guy front again, "Forget it. It's nothing."

Haseo looked after her, then sighed, pulling himself out of bed, following her and quickly taking grasp of her arm in the hallway, "It's fine Alkaid. You can sleep with me."

She looked back at him, then nodded silently, eyes softening.

Together, they walked back to Haseo's room, and they sat together after closing the door behind them.

They simply sat together in silence, neither knowing what to say.

After a few minutes passed, Haseo looked at Alkaid, "You holding up alright right now?"

"Yeah, I'm... fine. Just still a bit... pissed off..." Alkaid admitted.

"Welcome to my world." Haseo voiced, eyes looking down.

"Sorry about this..." Alkaid looked at Haseo, but he waved it off.

"So long as we don't have a repeat of what happened when you, me, and Atoli were fighting together in the arena, I'm fine with it."

Alkaid had to crack a smile at the thought of that, "The look on your face was priceless that day."

"I wonder how it'd feel to be put into that position by your own comrade, see how you like being thrown into that kind of misunderstanding." Haseo responded bluntly, scowling at her.

"You dug yourself into that situation; don't blame me!" Alkaid smirked.

They were talking of how in the Holy Palace tournament, Alkaid and Haseo had been training together to get stronger, but when Atoli had returned to them ready to fight, Alkaid deliberately messed up the details of the training with few small but very misleading words: "Super hot, super secret training."

Just the word, "training", wasn't enough for her, was it?

Atoli got the wrong idea, of course, and the more Haseo tried to clear up the misunderstanding, the more he seemed to guide Atoli away from accepting his own words.

She had become visibly cheeky after that moment.

Seeing the disdain in his eyes, Alkaid bonked him on the head playfully, "Sorry, I guess." She apologized meekly.

She only gained a sigh as a response.

"Were you only here to tease me again?" Haseo asked her.

Alkaid shook her head, though she seemed a bit more relaxed then before.

"I just couldn't sleep. And I'm willing to bet you weren't able to sleep either." Alkaid looked up at him, and Haseo knew he couldn't deny that fact.

"But why can't you sleep?" Haseo looked to her, questioning in his eyes.

"I guess it's the fact that I'm stuck here with no way of talking or seeing my friends or family for a while." Alkaid said, looking up at the ceiling, "And the fact of the matter is, you guys are all I have right now. I'm just scared of losing you, if I'm to be honest." She pulled her knees up to her shoulders, hugging them, looking at the floor beneath her sadly, "I miss everyone... the people from the reading club, my friends from school, my family..."

She rested her head in her arms, crossed arms clenched tightly.

"Hey," Haseo said, and even before Alkaid looked up at him, he already knew her face would be glistening with tears, "We'll get out of here. You just try your best to help us get to the real world."

"You mean it?" Alkaid asked, and Haseo sighed.

"Of course I mean it. You really think I wouldn't mean something like that, the circumstances we're in right now?" Haseo looked at her, the rhetorical question hitting the girl and striking a chord.

"..." She closed her eyes, shaking her head with a smile playing back onto her face, "No, I don't think you would."

"Good." Haseo stood up suddenly, "Now, I'm betting you want to get some shut-eye before the morning. Try resting up."

He stretched his arms out in the air, and he felt the joints in them straightening out with a realistic crack.

"Yeah," Alkaid lay her head down on the bed, "I'm ready to go to sleep. You?"

Haseo only responded by pulling a chair next to the end of the bed closest to Alkaid's feet, sitting himself down, crossing his arms, and leaning his head against the wall with his eyes closed.

"Haseo?" Alkaid looked up at him, looking at him questioningly.

"What?" Haseo looked at her, opening his eyes somewhat.

"Aren't you sleeping on the bed?"

"You simply said you wanted to sleep with me. You didn't say anything about me literally sleeping in bed with you." He went back to resting his head on the wall.

"Then I'll change the question then," Alkaid got up, got into an all fours crawling position, and started crawling to him, "Do you want to sleep with me in bed?"

Haseo blinked in surprise at the mischievous glint in her eyes, which mixed with the innocent smile that her lips creased into, and his cheeks reddened at the question.

Yet still, his answer was still blunt.

"No." Haseo said, even scooting his chair a few inches away for emphasis, trying to hide his face from Alkaid.

Alkaid laughed then, hands over her stomach, "I just love messing with you, man!"

Haseo only deadpanned her with a scowl, "Go to sleep Alkaid."

"Yeah, alright." Alkaid let herself fall back onto the bed, arms spread out, a smile on her face.

Haseo let himself be consumed by the tugging of his eyelids on him, and didn't even realize how much his and Alkaid's talk had benefited him.

Somehow he'd become more relaxed so to speak.

"Mister Haseo, Miss Alkaid, it's time to wake up." Haseo was woken up by someone shaking his shoulder, and he opened his eyes, gaze quickly finding Zelkova.

After saying a quick thank you, Haseo stood up and watched as Zelkova walked to Alkaid's side, "I had gotten worried when I didn't find her in her room." Zelkova commented over his shoulder, then proceeded to shake her awake.

The three could be found walking towards their new destination soon after, discussing some ideas and throwing them around.

One such idea was the possibility that their friends would be in attendance to that meeting.

"I can't say it's not posssible..." Haseo said, a thoughtful look on his face.

"You're right about that. But if they aren't there, then I guess we'll just have to keep searching." The former Demon Palace Empress mused.

"If we're going to do that," Zelkova added, "We should probably pin our hopes to finding them in this and the next level."

"Why only there?" Haseo looked.

"We could potentially find them somewhere when the third level is unlocked, however," Zelkova, who took the front as he was guiding them to the meeting place, looked back at the two, "It will gradually become more and more difficult to locate anyone the more floors that are unlocked. If that happens, it could take months to find anyone, let alone everyone - they'd all probably be just too far spread out."

"That makes sense..." Haseo thought for a moment, then looked back up, "What if we were to stay at the gate that's open for everyone to pass when we beat the level? Surely when everyone gets word of what happened, they'll try to get to the next level. We'll try to find them then."

"That's a reasonable idea Haseo..." Zelkova suddenly stopped at what looked like the perfect place for an auditorium, and looked back at him, "But there's only one problem."

"What?"

"How will we find them if we've no idea what they look like?"

"..." Haseo hadn't thought about that. Sure, they knew what their avatars looked like, but even then, since that damn Game Master had given everyone those mirrors, the ability to know each and everyone would be near impossible.

And as though matters weren't bad enough, Haseo couldn't help imagining a scenario similar to the time he'd first met Atoli.

Her PC had been so similar to Shino's that it was almost impossible to tell the difference (except for when you heard their voices).

So even if their real life selves were dressed the same way, the chance of them having the same face was generally zero.

Zelkova smiled, then patted his shoulder, "It's okay Mr. Haseo. We'll find them sooner or later. I just wanted to let you realize that it wouldn't be very easy."

He realized then how he'd slouched forward, sighing heavily, and gave a simple nod, standing up straight.

"Good," Zelkova smiled, "Now let's go, the meeting's started."

"Okay, let's get started people!" A voice yelled, as though on cue.

The three immediately got their own seats.

"I thank you all for coming today. I'm Diabel, and I enjoy considering my "job" as Knight." The boy who had blue green hair pointed a thumb at himself with a smile.

"There's no job system in this game!"

"Is this meeting some kind of joke?"

"Take this more seriously man!"

Those were his immediate responses.

His smile faltered, and he did in fact become more serious after the last comment, "Recently, our party found the location of the Boss Room at the top of the tower."

There were murmurs of surprise and interest now.

"We need to beat the boss, get to the second level, and tell everyone in the Town of Beginnings that it's possible to beat this game!" He looked across the small crowd, "We all share this same duty! Don't you think so?"

There was another murmur, and then people started applauding.

Haseo felt himself begin to smile.

Diabel seemed like an enthusiastic leader.

"Alright, so let's begin our planning. First, all of you need to divide into parties of 6."

He blinked, then looked to Alkaid, seeing her with a similar look, then to Zelkova, who simply took that information calmly.

"..." Haseo sighed when he looked and saw a good majority of everyone had found a full party already, or were starting to make up a full party, "At least we'll be together."

Then he noticed the lone girl on the other side of the seats. She wore white leggings that came up her thigh and connected to her shoes, a sleeveless green dress covering her upper body with wings attached to the back of it. On each of her forearms were golden cuffs to hold up her green sleeves, her wand like staff resting on her lap, one giant cap with a green assortment of strings hanging off the side of it.

Haseo rose up from his seat suddenly, not beleiving it.

Then he started running towards the girl, not stopping until he was in front of her, to which she looked up, "Atoli, is that you?"

Her eyes widened, then she looked at his body, then back up at him, "Haseo?"

He nodded as he stood straight, and Atoli smiled brightly, face lighting up.

Then she gave him the biggest bear hug in his life, "Oh Haseo! I'm so glad you're alright!" She yelled, the inertia of her practically jumping on her making him fall over.

And her yells got an unnecessary amount of attention towards them.

"Hey, you lovebirds get a room! This isn't the place for that!" A guy yelled over in their direction.

Haseo was leaning up towards her, then let his head fall to the floor as Atoli hugged him tightly, her want to let him go not visibly existing.

"Hey... could you..." Haseo tried to say after a minute.

She looked up at him, black hair and blue eyes evident to him.

So that's what Atoli looked like in real life...

"Geez, I can't leave you alone for a second, can I?" Alkaid's voice hovered above him, and he looked up as a shadow blocked the sun, only to see Alkaid squatting down and resting her arms on her knees, "Looks like you found Atoli though."

"Alkaid? Is that you?" Atoli asked Alkaid, blue eyes light with curiosity.

"Yeah. But I'm kind of surprised Haseo. You just seem to bring happiness wherever you go."

"What do you mean?" Atoli asked, leaning up to meet her eyes.

"Well, especially after what happened last night at the hotel, I never expected you to warm up to people so quickly."

"Last night?"

"Yeah," Haseo felt himself paling at the sudden change in Alkaid's tone, "We slept in the same room after having a little talk with each other."

"A... "talk"?"

"Yeah. One thing just seemed to lead to another, and we ended up sleeping in the room. est rest I ever had since getting stuck here."

"What does she mean Haseo?" Atoli looked at the former PKKer.

"It was a really intense talk. I don't think I ever had one exactly like that with anyone else. But what Haseo did afterwards..." Alkaid feigned a blush by coverig her cheeks with her hands and looking down, as though in shame, "I think I've said too much..."

Haseo felt himself start to glare at her, the kind of glare that said, 'Stop doing that!'

Atoli was oblivious, of course, "Haseo, is that true?"

Damn it - !

"I... welll... you see..." Haseo didn't know anyway to clear up the impeding fog of misunderstanding that was growing to come towards him, at least without making it any worse than it already was.

So... "Yeah... it's true..."

Atoli's cheeks instantly puffed up.

"Don't jump to conclusions..." Haseo spoke when he saw her look, "And... could you get off of me?"

Atoli realized then that she was still laying on top of him.

Quickly, she got off of him, yet still looked down on him in a weird way.

"Don't jump to conclusions Atoli." Haseo repeated himself, getting up.

"You said that you were sleeping in the same room, right?"

"Welll, yes but-"

"Then I don't need to jump to conclusions. I'm making a conclusion."

Haseo sighed, face palming, "It's the same thing if you don't listen to the whole story..."

Atoli crossed her arms and turned away.

"Ms. Atoli, please, don't misunderstand. Ms. Alkaid was simply trying to seek Mr. Haseo's comfort."

"What kind of "comfort"-" She froze as she realized who the voice belonged to, then turned, "Master Zel... kova?"

Zelkova smiled, and Atoli was obviously taken aback by the fact that the leader of her old guild resembled Tri-Edge (or at least who they thought had been Tri-Edge).

"Thank you for the formalities Ms. Atoli, but I'm not your master anymore."

"Y-Yes." She nodded.

"Seems like you're quite well aquainted with people Ryou."

Haseo looked over at the sound of his name, eyes widening, "Kazuto?"

"Call me "Kirito" here, if you don't mind." Kirito smiled, hand on his hip.

"Then call me "Haseo", Kirito." Haseo smiled back.

"..." Alkaid and Atoli looked at each other, and Atoli was the first to ask, "You guys know each other?"

"Yeah. We were friends back in elementary school. But it's been quite a while since I last saw you, Ry -" Kirito caught himself, "Haseo."

"Yeah, it has been." Haseo took Kirito's hand, and the latter mentioned boy responded by pulling him back up onto his feet, "I'm willing to bet you wanted to form a party with me. Am I right?"

"Yeah, everyone else already got a party, so that girl over there was the only one I got to join up with." He turned, only to find her walking to him, hood covering her face, "Oh, hey there Asuna. It looks like I got us a full party now."

Haseo looked at him, "You got a full party? I thought it was you asking me to let you into the party."

"Does it really matter Haseo?"

"Depends." He shrugged with spread hands.

"You haven't changed at all, have you?" Kirito sighed.

"It doesn't really matter at all who got who into the party." Asuna cut through the conversing pair, sitting a moderate distance away from them, but still close enough to be considered "in their group".

A rather anti-social type of person, huh, Haseo thought as he noticed this, kind of reminds-

"Hey!" A voice broke into his thoughts.

Out of nowhere, a guy jumped down right next to Diabel, orange hair over his scalp and his jawline.

"My name's Kibaou," he pointed a thumb at himself, "And I've got something to say before we take on the boss."

Haseo could tell from his tone and body language that it wasn't good.

"Some of you here need to apologize for abandoning us beginners, especially the ones who've died already." He pointed accusedly into the crowd of people.

"Kibaou was it?" Diabel looked at the newcomer, "Are you talking about the beta testers?"

"Who else would I be talking about?" Kibaou yelled, "Instead of helping the beginners to keep living they just up and ditched eveyone else to die!" He clenched his teeth, "I know someone here was in the beta! So whoever you are, get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness. Not only that but give up all the items and cash they've got stored-"

Kibaou was abruptly interrupted by an object shooting through the air and hitting him, blowing him back due to the system not allowing PC's to take damage in safe zones.

"Shut the hell up you self-centered dumbass." Haseo said coldly, lowering his gun.

Everyone stared at him in surprise.

"What the hell was that for jackass?!" Kibaou yelled at him.

"What do you think?" Haseo started jumping down, until he was right next to him, "This place was a place we're all forced to be in. If you die, you die in real life, right?" Haseo looked down at him, "That means that there are only 2 ways to beat this game." He held up two fingers for emphasis, "1. Band together with everyone you can find and try to beat the game in a guerilla fashion, or 2.," He lowered his middle finger, forefinger still up, "Just go by "Survival of the fittest". If a person were to do what you say, you're saying that instead of just trying to fight through the game that they know better than anyone else, that they should not only bring along beginners that could turn out to be deadweight, but also put them in harm's way. Do you honestly think doing it the other way will benefit everyone? Don't be such a childish idiot."

Haseo turned away, starting to walk towards the steps, completely oblivious of the fact that Kibaou was drawing his sword...

"You bas - !" Kibaou tried to yell, only to be shot in the face again.

...until the man yelled out.

"Word to the wise, if you're going to attack, do it without yelling." Haseo said, walking away again.

He could feel people's eyes on him as he went, and as he was passing Kirito, seated on the end of one of the aisles, he heard him whisper to him, so only he could hear, "You didn't have to do that."

"You should know as well as I do that I did have to do that," Haseo whispered back.

And he walked up another aisle before sitting down, surprised to see a dark-skinned man speaking to Kibaou, holding up a small handbook and continuing to speak as silence filled the area.

Haseo only heard the end of what he was saying, "This book was compiled of information given by the beta testers."

Kibaou only scowled, as the man turned around, "We all had equal access to this information, and still many players died. I thought the reason for us all coming here was to learn from their mistakes and beat the boss."

Kibaou only scowled, then took a seat at the closest aisle, arms crossed.

"Alright, now to go back to the matter at hand." Diabel lifted his own handbook, "As Egil said, in here is information that could be used to defeat the boss of this level."

He opened it, turning a few pages, "According to it, the boss' name is Illfang the Kobold Lord, guarded by his assistants, called Ruin Kobold Sentinels, is armed with an axe and a buckler, has 4 health bars, and when his bar enters the red, he changes his weapon to a curved sword like weapon called a Talwar. In addition to that, he changes his attack pattern."

Once again, there were murmurs among the people, mainly of awe and surprise.

"This concludes the breifing. Items will automatically be distributed to you. EXP will go to the party that beats the boss, as well as the one who receives keeps it for themselves. Objections to that?"

There were none.

"We leave at 10:00 tomorrow morning. Make sure you're prepared for it then. I'll see you there!"

And the meeting was dispersed.

Haseo only looked, trying to see his party members, noticing then that one was gone already.

He noticed the absence of the hooded girl, looking behind himself only to find her walking away.

She truly was an anti-social...

Haseo shrugged the fact off, then followed behind everyone else as they attempted to follow.


A/N: Hope you enjoyed it.


Extra: Past of Zelkova

"Hey, Zelkova." Haseo said a few hours after that meeting itself was over.

They'd gone and sat around a fountain, the rest of their party walking around and talking to others.

It was well into the night then, and as they sat together, Haseo felt there wasn't a better time than that moment to ask of the boy's past.

And so, the 10 year old began, "Originally, I wasn't really a boy."

"Huh?"

"It's true. In actuality, I started out as a program started by "The World" R:1. But, after the defeat of Cubia, some particles of the AIDA phenomenon became real parts of the real world. I ended up becoming an actual child then. My adoptive father, Kaitou, was actually a player of "The World" R:1, and though his PC was lost in the fire that destroyed the data from the first version of "The World", Aura managed to save 3 PCs just before they were destroyed. One of those PCs, Kaitou's, is the one you see me in right now."

"Really?" Haseo looked at him, "That's gotta be a lot to take in."

"I'm used to it." Zelkova smiled, "And besides, my mother doesn't see me as simply a computer program, both adoptive d real ones."

"Your "real"...?" Haseo looked at him again.

"Yes, my real mother and father." Zelkova looked at Haseo, "In the real world, I live with my adoptive parents, Kaitou and Akira. But my biological parents are in fact the Twilight Knight Azure Flame Kite, and the goddess Aura herself."