The first boss fight of this fanfic and everybody manages to die… Oh, and Yuuyu might try to have a sensible conversation with Shinkou. Bonus points to anyone who knows what series I pulled Shinkou's katana skills from.

Chapter 4: A Dagger in the Dark

I had swapped weapons yet again in preparation for the boss, and now a pair of daggers rested near my waist, my longsword and an old shield from Tetsuya waiting against my back. After surviving the trapped room we had found an exit and contacted the other groups, quickly finding that the guild members we were searching for had vanished from SAO permanently. The raid party of 40 stood in front of the gate that led to the boss room, listening to Heathcliff's plan.

"Everyone please split into groups of four and choose a partner, then discuss your plan with your group and tell me about any changes through your group leader." After stating his instructions, Heathcliff formed a group with Kirito, Asuna, and another member of the KoB, their group falling silent after a few seconds of strategizing. I got my guild members organized almost as fast, and since our strategies always left room for everything to go wrong we only needed a few seconds to work out our plan.

The bosses had seemed weaker recently, and considering the games the four of us had played before getting trapped in SAO, we were getting more cautious whenever we reached a landmark floor, unsure of when the boss fights would rise in difficulty despite knowing that they would at some point in the future.

After a while our party opened the door to the boss room and stepped inside. Once everyone was inside I gave a few basic instructions and dashed off to the right side of the room with Yuuyu, our actions mirrored on the left by Sayoko and Tetsuya. When we reached the center of the room a pair of gargoyles came to life, the giant stone soldier behind them drawing its sword in preparation for battle. I gave a small signal to Tetsuya and rushed toward the nearest gargoyle, my daggers at the ready. The soldier refused to join either battle, as though it assumed the gargoyles would win without its help. The gargoyle in front of me lashed out with its claws, narrowly avoiding my shoulder. "Lightning Instant" The dagger in my left hand moved so fast that it momentarily disappeared, lodging itself in a weak spot of the gargoyle's throat. "Perfect Lightning Instant" The dagger in my right hand seemed to split itself into three perfect images as it closed in on its target. The gargoyle screeched in pain once more as my second blade stabbed into it just to the side of my first. It stumbled backwards and pulled a stone hammer and shield from its back, then charged toward me once more. I pulled my own sword and shield from my back and dodged the hammer as it down at my head. I slammed my shield into the gargoyle's side and dashed behind it, noticing that it was based on power, not speed. I smiled slightly as I brought my blade down on the gargoyle's back. Even if I wasn't doing much damage, I had built myself for pure agility, so most enemies couldn't reach me anymore.

"Yuuyu, switch." I yelled back at her, dodging around a counterattack and slamming my shield into the gargoyle's side before dashing out, giving Yuuyu a chance to drive her giant axe down on its back for massive damage. Once I was a safe distance from the fight, I swapped my longsword and shield for a katana from my inventory and drank a swap potion.

"Switch!" Without waiting for a response I dashed back into the fight, now far slower than normal. "Flash Strike" I rushed forward, temporarily disappearing as I ran past my opponent. The gargoyle split into two from a horizontal cut across its stomach, then burst into data. As the last of its fragments disappeared, I turned to watch Sayoko and Tetsuya deliver the final blow to their opponent. Noticing that the other groups had failed to help us, something they should have done once they realized we weren't just blindly rushing to our deaths, I looked behind to find a room half full of stone spiders that were quickly overwhelming all but the strongest teams. The two KoB teams stood out amongst the chaos, loud noises and bright sparks generating every time a weapon hit one of the stone bugs. Against my better judgment, I left Yuuyu to watch the stone soldier as I rushed toward the other groups, Sayoko and Tetsuya following my lead and meeting with me just before the three of us swung our blades in perfect unison, three streaks of bright crimson emanating from our weapons as we activated similar skills. "Triple Crimson Raid" The three of us shouted as our weapons tore through the stone bodies of the spiders, quickly ending their lives before they could kill any more of our allies.

I heard a high-pitched screech from behind me as I slammed the edge of my blade through the last spider. When I turned around, Yuuyu was sitting on the ground, her axe the only thing preventing the massive stone claymore in the stone soldier's hands from cutting her in half.

"Catharsis: Leaping" At the price of a few hundred HP I momentarily vanished, reappearing directly above the stone soldier. The sudden attack prompted the soldier to take a few hasty steps back, giving Yuuyu enough time to stand up.

The Guardian

The name above the soldier identified it as the real boss of this floor. It stood nearly 30 feet tall and wielded a stone claymore almost twice its size.

"Makouken" I wasted no time charging pitch black energy around the edge of my katana as I swung at the soldier once more, chipping its sword when it blocked. I ducked around the weapon, which had managed to embed itself in the ground, and activated another sword skill. "Hienzan" I brought my sword up, then slashed five times at random angles. The soldier countered by bringing its blade up and down once more, missing me by inches. "Souteha" I slammed the palm of my empty hand against the soldier's sword, pushing the weapon away slightly and forcing yet another crack to appear.

"Critical Blade" Yuuyu came out of nowhere and slammed her axe down into the soldier's back.

"Bassai Hououzan" I dashed forward, slashing the soldier's legs as I moved past it. As I got behind the soldier I turned and jumped into the air, cut along the soldier's spine, then kicked off and landed next to Yuuyu.

"Crimson Devastation" Yuuyu's axe glowed dark red as she swung down hard into the back of the soldier's legs.

"Geppa Souteha" I held my hand out as the soldier attempted to a counterattack, making its sword bounce away harmlessly as I brought my katana up in a crescent shaped vertical slash, leaving a deep cut along the soldier's leg and forcing it to the ground.

As the final seconds of my swapping potion ran out, the remainder of the groups who could still fight began rushing toward our fight. The sound of metal and stone colliding quickly began to resonate throughout the room, though the sound of a player dying could be heard almost every time the soldier swung its sword. I kept a careful eye on the boss' HP bar, waiting until the perfect moment to activate a finishing skill. When I got my chance I swapped with Yuuyu and backed around the boss, hoping to catch it off guard.

"Catharsis: Singularity" I waited as my HP turned into additional damage for my katana, rushing toward the boss as my HP dropped to 1. My blade made a satisfying clang as it struck my opponent, forcing the soldier to reel back as the remainder of its HP drained from the gauge. As it exploded into data, a message popped up in front of me displaying the katana I had received from the LAB, but I ignored it, instead looking behind me at our badly beaten raid party. Out of the 40 members who started the fight, only 12 remained. While I was happy that my guildmates had survived, 28 high level players had ceased to exist.

As my HP bar began to slowly regenerate, I was almost dropped back to 1 when Yuuyu attempted to hug me to death.

"Why… Why did you use Singularity, Kou-kun? Why do you keep putting yourself in danger like that?" Yuuyu began frantically questioning me as she cried against my chest.

"Sorry Yu-chan… for making you worry about me so much…" I hung my head slightly and returned her embrace, trying to let her know that I wouldn't leave her alone so easily.

"Be more careful next time." Yuuyu brought her smiling, tearstained face up to look at mine.

"And it wouldn't hurt to rely on us a bit more!" Tetsuya shouted enthusiastically from pointblank range.

"Says the other person who charged in ahead of us…" Sayoko chided him.

"It's not like it hurt anyone that much… Physically, I mean." The glares Tetsuya received from the girls forced him to falter midsentence and correct himself.

"We rely on you girls more than you realize, and not just in battles." I calmly stated. "I would've lost all hope by now if Yu-chan hadn't been by my side the whole time." I smiled brightly, prideful that one of my few reasons to continue living in this game was currently sharing her warmth with my left arm. I turned my head to look down at her. "One day, I'll become fast enough that you won't ever get hurt…" I whispered my promise to her.

"Then I'll become stronger. Strong enough to protect you in battle and peace." Yuuyu smiled brightly as she countered my promise with her own, making me laugh softly before hugging her tightly once more.

"Oi, lovebirds!" We planning on popping the gate open soon, or should we just let you have some alone time down here?" As usual, Tetsuya's insensitive comment broke us apart, dark blushes spreading across our faces as we headed toward the gate to the next floor.

Well that was… awkwardly romantic. I didn't think I had it in me to write fluff like that, even if it was a bit odd. While I'm on the topic of my awkward OC shipping, I originally wanted to make Yuuyu come across as a spacey, easily distracted, and just generally overly energetic person to counter Shinkou being… well, Shinkou. Turns out, giving Yuuyu a massive intelligence boost before putting her in the fanfic made her an even better character than I thought.

On that note, it's time for my usual explanations-that-turn-into-wordy-lectures-because-I-like-explaining-in-detail section.

This chapter brought up a few things. First off is LABs (Last Attack Bonuses). A LAB is a special (though often not much more powerful than the currently equipped items) reward for inflicting the final point of damage to a boss. Because HP bars have a lag time when receiving heavy damage, the engine that runs SAO (also known as Cardinal) basically has a calculator attached to the HP bar. This calculator is perfectly synchronized with the damage the boss receives, keeping a highly accurate record of who hit last and how hard they hit, then giving an equipment reward in addition to extra EXP and Col to whoever inflicts the last point of damage.

Next up, Shinkou's Catharsis skills. Last chapter I promised to explain his signature skills that will be getting some heavy abuse later. I originally came across the idea of his skills while playing one of my favorite games (Tales of Vesperia) where the main caster has a passive ability that trades her already low HP for MP. Because SAO doesn't run off of a mana system, I thought "Huh, what else can I do that would be worth sacrificing HP in a death game?", and before long I had thought up a set of skills that traded HP for various benefits. Under the effects of these skills, Shinkou is essentially trading his life for momentary boosts to certain aspects of fighting, so it's not like he's able to just walk around spamming Singularity on every basic enemy he encounters. I should also probably point out that the effects of any given Catharsis skill last until either a) the aspect that is improved is used (like a jump attack for Leaping), or b) another Catharsis skill is activated. In the case of Singularity, which boosts the damage of Shinkou's next attack, the effect lasts until the end of the attack, not the first strike (because screw the rules, I have combos).

To those of you who are reading this fanfic and don't know the KoB, I feel sorry for you. The KoB, or Knights of the Blood Oath, is one of the most powerful guilds in SAO, and is the guild that Asuna, and eventually Kirito, is a part of. Not trying to make my OC guild seem broken, but the relative strength of the two guilds is fairly close despite the massive difference in the number of players each guild has recruited.

And now the last item for explanation in this chapter, raid parties. Similar to a normal party, raid parties gather for a specific reason, usually a high level event or a floor boss. Raid parties can consist of between 8 and several thousand players, though the average raid party is no more than 100, and even that is rare. Despite the higher number of people involved, raid parties are actually much more organized if the leader is competent, and most raid parties are just small clusters of players who organize from several guilds, so everyone involved tends to know something about how to work well with the rest of the group to complete the common goal.

Now that explanations are finished, I can finally drop a few partial spoilers for the next chapter. Someone very special to Yuuyu will finally make her long hinted at appearance, we get to stalk Shinkou through his daily life, and we find out how much strain the relationships between the OCs can take before breaking.

See you next time, and please review if you can.