Months after the launch of the game, Sword Art Online started to feel… a bit more like home. So far, 30 floors have been found. Some people seemed to be quite content living in Aincrad, settling down, buying homes, even getting married. But then… you have the guilds and assault teams. The guilds are groups of players, dedicated to growing stronger and joining the assault teams. The assault teams are armies of players who focus solely on clearing the game as a group. For some reason, some people are still trying to remove the NerveGear and getting stuck in SAO as a result. As for Kirito… he's still a one-man assault team.
"I'm a one-man assault team." said Kirito "Why would I join you and impede on my progress?"
"Come on man, the most powerful player in the game, in the best guild in the game, the only thing between us and freedom is a turkey sandwich!" said the maroon-haired guy with armor named Keita.
A yellow haired guy named Ducker said
"01010111 01100101 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100110 01100001 01101101 01101001 01101100 01111001"
"What?" Kirito asked.
Keita twiddled his fingers.
"You know those rogue AIs that Kayaba told us to kill on sight?"
"Yeah?"
"Apparently they're super easy to brainwash."
"Wait… Do you mean that this entire guild is mostly AIs?"
"01010111 01100101 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100110 01100001 01101101 01101001 01101100 01111001" said Ducker.
"Well… Sachi and I are humans!" Keita said.
"Who's Sachi?"'
"Hey Sachi! Get over here!" Keita yelled in the direction of another table.
"Coming!" said the black haired girl with turquoise eyes, who was in the middle of a game of solitaire.
"01010111 01100101 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01100110 01100001 01101101 01101001 01101100 01111001" Ducker spouted some more binary. But Kirito wasn't listening, he was still staring blankly at Sachi.
"Uh, Kirito?" Keita said.
"Huh? Oh! What? Hi!" Kirito stuttered and held out a hand to Sachi. "I'm Kirito!"
"I'm Sachi. Although, my brother probably told you that," said Sachi, taking Kirito's handshake. "Nice to meet you."
"Okay, enough of that." Said Keita, quite eager to change the subject. "Kirito, what's it gonna take for you to join the Moonlit Black Cats? Money? Items? The satisfaction of being with others?"
Kirito thought for a moment. Why the heck am I even considering this? He glanced at Sachi. Hmmm, she is kinda pretty… hey! I don't do pretty! And I don't do guilds! I don't do friends! I just don't do people in…
SMACK!
"Ouch…" Kirito muttered, rubbing his head. "What the heck just happened?"
"01001011 01100101 01101001 01110100 01100001 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01100011 01101011 01100101 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100100 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110011 01101100 01100101 01100101 01110000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100010 01101111 01100100 01111001 00100000 01101010 01101111 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100111 01110101 01101001 01101100 01100100" said Ducker.
"WHAT?" Kirito exclaimed. "Keita!" he turned to the person in question. "You knocked me out and forced me to join the guild?!"
"Aw drat, I need to do something about that obedience programming. But anyway, welcome to the Moonlit Black Cats!" Keita smirked.
Kirito opened his menu and groaned when he saw the words "Moonlit Black Cats" under "Guild."
"It'll be… nice to hang out with you." Sachi said shyly.
Kirito put his hand to his chin Maybe this won't be so bad… with Sachi… Hey! Enough about Sachi! You'll put up with her.
And so, Kirito begrudgingly joined the Moonlit Black Cats. While he was usually cold and distant towards the group, he would always warm up when Sachi was involved. Despite his obvious distaste of guilds, the members grew ever closer to them. Well, the human ones did. The AIs were more or less empty shells, blindly following orders. And Keita was more or less solely intent on keeping Kirito in the guild. So, he only really grew closer to Sachi. As much as he hated to admit it, she was actually pretty nice.
One night, while walking back from some late-night hunting, Kirito got a message from Keita.
"Hey, Kirito! I have no idea what you're doing at this hour, but I thought you'd like to know that my sister has gone missing, and I have no idea how to find her. Bye! Ps. can you bring back some more sauce?"
"Sachi is missing?!" Kirito said out loud. He took on a face of determination.
Activate Skill: Friend Tracker
Sachi sat by herself under the stone bridge, listening to the run of the water. She suddenly heard someone.
"Sachi!" Kirito exclaimed. "What are you doing here? I was worried sick!" he ran up to her. "It's not like I like you or anything! Baka!" What the heck did I just say? Sachi giggled.
"Oh, you. And you see… I've been thinking..."
"Huh?"
"I want to run away… from here… from this town… from this floor… from SAO"
Kirito listened to her while watching the moon sparkle on her eyes.
"Maybe from life…" Sachi looked up thoughtfully.
"Life?!" he gasped.
Sachi let out a small chuckle.
"I'm joking of course. If anything…"
Kirito noticed a small tear in her eye.
"Sachi?"
"I'm scared of dying… Kirito," she said. "I'm scared that I'll get everyone else killed… I'm scared that… that…"
"What the heck are you doing?"
"Huh?"
"What skill is that?"
"Skill?"
"How else are you making me actually care about your… problems?" Kirito was unable to add the word "Dumb" to his sentence, as he intended
"Cause… we're friends?
"Friends?... Oh my gosh! Is this companionship? Why do I suddenly feel companionship!" Kirito panicked.
"You… haven't felt companionship before?"
"Heck no… what is wrong with me?"
"Haven't you had any friends before?"
"I never really could think of a reason to have them."
"What about your parents?"
"I never knew them. I grew up living with my psychotic sister."
"Didn't you love her?"
"Lemme flashback a moment…"
Flashback:
Leafa: Squeeze it harder!
Flashback over! For good reasons.
"Oh my. That explains a lot" Sachi cringed at that image
"It's not just that. People are always annoying to be around! Klein can't shut up about friendship, Asuna is trying to kill me, Agil's a nerd, Diavel's a control freak, and Keita is…"
"A con-man?"
"Yeah… that's exactly what I was thinking. You know, I was gonna say something bad about you, but I l…" Kirito stuttered. "Ll-li-ee... I can't say it."
"Thanks for being here Kirito."
"Huh?"
"While I'm still terrified of our current predicament… I feel like I know the real you."
"Thanks? I guess? But you make a valid point. I think it's about time I stopped resenting people by default."
"That wasn't… you know what, I don't care" Sachi looked thoughtfully at the water, remembering the days before this death game started.
Sachi: Days in the sun
When my life had barely begun
Kirito: Not until this whole game is done
Will, I ever leave you
Will I tremble again?
From my sister, who's always insane?
Sachi: Will the real world forever remain
Out of reach of my arms?
All those days in the sun.
What I'd give to relive just one
I would love, to be with you
In real life, I'd like to see you
Both: All those days in the sun
What I'd give to relive just one
Undo what's done
And bring back the light
Sachi and Kirito were interrupted when another message from Keita appeared.
"Hey, guys! Kirito, did you find Sachi? Sachi where the heck is you, get back over here!"
"I guess that's our cue," said Kirito. Sachi smiled at him. The two stared into each other's eyes for a while.
"Ps. GET OVER HERE THIS INSTANT OR I'M HIRING AN ASSASIN TO KNOCK YOU OUT AND BRING YOU HERE!"
"That's not what an assassin is for." Kirito frowned. "And for the record, only Asuna is allowed to do that."
"Pss. DON'T YOU QUESTION ME, SIR!"
"Alright everyone, let's get down to buisnuiss," said Keita. "Now, here's the deal: I may or may not have sold everything to a shady guy in an alleyway."
"Say what?" Kirito exclaimed.
"He offered more than nine thousand col for all of the guilds items."
"You know our items combined are worth nine hundred col?"
"Well, who understand finances these days?" Keita chuckled nervously. "But yeah, we're broke now."
"01001110 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 00100001" said Ducker.
"So, in order to make our money back, we're going to floor 27 in order to grind!"
"That's not how grinding works," said Kirito
"So here's the plan: Kirito and Sachi, frontlines."
"You know you should put the tank first, right?"
"Everyone else, behind them."
"Okay, I get the feeling that you're not actually doing this right-"
SMACK!
"Uh… what happened?" said Kirito, realizing that they were all inside a dungeon.
"01001110 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 01101111 00100001" said Ducker.
"Keita knocked us out and ditched us here? Aw, come on!"
"Hey look!" said Sachi. "A treasure chest!" she pointed to an open room with blue walls, containing a single chest in the middle.
"Oh, that's a trap for noobs. If we go inside we'll be attacked by the worst type on monster there is." said Kirito.
"Yikes! I was almost about to…"
One of the AIs ran up to the treasure chest and opened it.
"Oh, darn it!"
The room started to flash red, the door closed behind the guild.
POOF!
"Granite Elementals!" yelled Kirito. Surrounding them, were hundreds of tall humanoid creatures made of grey rocks. Kirito wasted no time in pulling out his sword and slashing the nearest monster to pieces. But more were spawned, over and over. The Moonlit Black Cats fought with all their might, but they could not defeat the monsters as fast as they were spawning. One by one, AI's were struck down. To be fair, most of them didn't actually matter, since pretty much no one can remember their names. One of the Elementals took a surprise swing at Sachi, hitting her square in the face with the force of a cannonball.
"SACHI!" yelled Kirito. But he was too late. Sachi fell to the floor and exploded into a cloud of polygons. Kirito felt something that he hadn't felt in forever.
Tears.