A/N: Hey there readers! How have you been? Are you mad that I haven't posted in a while, even though I said specifically in the last chapter that I wouldn't do that anymore? Well you know how I said unless life decides to screw with me? Well it did. I got completely addicted to Robocraft.

Anyways(1), how about episode ten of SAO II, wasn't it just the cutest thing ever, and its ironic that I just did that scene in the previous chapter. Gahh you guys probably don't care about my thoughts, COMMENTS!

Revisions to last chapter's end note: When I said Girl X ? I was trying to explain a pairing Like Girl X Boy. I do not intend to introduce anymore OC's anytime soon… I think.

Reviews:

Salaeren: I don't beat myself up over it, and I LOVE writing Sinoto. Strengths, haha that was good. Really? YAYAYAY. If you call the speed I update rushing, I'd hate to see what you think is slow. I don't compromise, I just enjoy the input of my readers, usually I'm to immersed in the overall plot line, and its maze of twists, that often overlook the little things. No problem, and I'm glad to hear it.

Fundindar: My thinking exactly. Oh cool… What new attitude? Did I change? Am I even me? Are any of us ourselves?! *cough* Umm what. Yes that was terrible wording, but I know what you meant, yes exactly. My goal is to suck even less, slightly more.

llLiebell: Hehe. You're in good company.

AlexCaffri: Awwe. And here I was thining you had forgotten about me. Wait there was a party? Was I invited? Did I go? Was it fun? Why were you late? Was there dancing? I'm not good at dancing. I'm not good at parties. I'm not good at people. I think I'll just sit in my dark empty peopleless dancingless partyless corner of the internet and write the imaginary plots of imaginary characters in imaginary stories in imaginary worlds. If it was adorable, then I've succeeded at life. I can finally leave this cruel world. I swear I'm the same exact person I was at the beginning of the fic. I despise change, almost as much as light and human interaction. It is adorable, because it's Sinoto. Really? Good. I thought gay and straight ships were too mainstream so this is a thing now… It's not meta.

Guest: Diagnosis: DELUSIONAL! Gosh what's with you people. I like "the Kirito x Sinon thing" as well. Go back and read the rating of this fanfic, I really don't want the admins to delete this, so no thank you. Also, I am highly unlikely to write a lemon, I don't write smut, especially for Sinoto, they're to cute and emotional to do that to in my opinion. Thank you for reading. ^_^

Radar: Obviously your radar isn't that good. This fic is mediocre at best. I'm hardly the story you should read if you want the best fanfiction for Sinoto. My suggestions are Snow Storm, and Gun Gale Online: Angled Sights.

Speaking of Sinoto, check out the community page. This can be viewed either through my profile, or [Sinoto]. That'd be cool of you.

Anyways(2), if you don't read the A/N's I don't hold it against you, if you do: See you at the bottom! ^_^ I forgot to do this at the end of the last chapter so: ^_^

The Archery Skill

Chapter 10: The Black Swordsman Part 2

They were in a forest, The Forest of Wandering. Kirito looked intensely at the ground, activating his [Tracking] skill once more. He saw four pairs of tracks, one of them was smaller and more feint than the others. All of them appeared to be running: a chase.

Sinon was walking a ways behind Kirito. Between them was silence. They were tracking three members of the red-guild Laughing Coffin, and Kirito seemed to think that they were chasing someone, and knowing their guild, they probably weren't playing hide and seek.

They came to a small clearing, it was night out. Kirito looked down once more, the tracks split the fainter ones went straight while the other three seemed to have lingered around at the edge of the clearing before abrupt running back the direction close to the one from which they came. Kirito was about to just ignore the lone tracks, but then he heard a scream. It was a girl. His head snapped around and looked in the direction of the scream. He wanted to help whoever it was that was in trouble, yet he also wanted to capture those sick bastards from Laughing Coffin. The two of them had been tracking the murderers for two weeks, and they might never get this close again. He was pulled from his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder. It was Sinon's, she looked into his eyes giving him a feint, knowing smile, and nodded, taking off in the direction of the murderers. He smiled as he ran towards the person in trouble. She was the best.

As she ran, she swiped her menu open. The motion was second nature to her now, she took out her bow and equipped her arrows and daggers without even looking. At times it seemed like she had lived in this world her whole life. At times she even wondered why she was trying to get out. There was nothing of her old life here. For the first time since she was six she wasn't being treated like a freak. And no one, even him, knew what she had done, though he seemed to have guessed at pretty close to what it was. Suddenly she heard voices, slowing down and closing her distance more covertly.

Ahead of her were three figures. They were all wearing light brown, tattered linen cloaks. Their HP bars were all Slightly below full, suggesting a recent fight. She opened her menu and messaged Kirito. [Hey. Caught up to LC players. I'll tail them and try to hear what they're talking about. Msg me when you're done.]

Just moments later a message from Kirito appeared [K. Stay safe. I'm almost to where the scream came from. I'll come as soon as I can. Don't you dare try to fight them!]

Kirito closed his menu and sprinted into a clearing drawing his sword. Before him were three of the hardest monsters on this floor [Drunk Ape]. Fighting only one of them they were no problem, but if you're solo, and can't do enough damage quickly, they'll use their gourds to heal back to full health while one of the others fights. He was seeing this happen right before his eyes. A girl, ten maybe, was fighting one using a dagger. Behind it was another, its health in the red but going up quickly. Kirito ran towards the fight. Suddenly the girl fumbles, falling to her knees. The ape raised its club, reading a killing blow. He wouldn't get there in time. The ape brought down its club. Kirito winced. A fast moving blue object moved in front of the girl, intercepting the blow. It exploded into crystalline sparkling feathers. Kirito used this delay to burst foreword spinning and activating a horizontal at the same time. He sailed through the air, the world a blur. His blade made contact, once… twice… thrice… he landed, crouching his fist on the ground and his sword arm extended behind him. Three explosions were heard. He stood up, looking at the girl with sad eyes. She slumped and a tear rolled down her cheek. She had the look of one who's best friend had just died. He opened his mouth, then hesitated, afraid to break the somber silence. "I'm sorry I couldn't save your friend," He said.

She gave him a forced smile and said, "No it was stupid of me to get lost in this forest all alone, thank you for saving me."

She was clutching something in her right hand. He looked more closely, it was a blue feather. "Check to see if that feather has an item name. If it does you can still revive it." She poked the feather and a item window popped up. He grabbed her hand and pulled her with him. "I've got a friend in trouble, but I can explain on the way." He explained. She started to stutter something but he cut her off, "On the forty-seventh floor there's a field dungeon. At the end of it theirs a rare item called the [Pneuma Flower] its capable of reviving a familiar." By now he had let go of her hand and continued, "I would go myself but the owner of the familiar has to be there and the heart item will degrade to a memento if it's not revived in three days. I assume your level is decent so with the help of my friend we should have no problem clearing it." He opened his menu and navigated to his friends list, messaging Sinon, [I'm done, and I'll have company, don't shoot.]

Several seconds later a reply appeared in his menu, [Ok I'll be waiting, away from the LC players]

Kirito opened his map and checked that they were going in the right direction, they were. He looked to his left, the girl was still running beside him. "I'm Kirito by the way, I guess I haven't introduced myself."

She looked back at him, her eyes still red from crying, "Silica."

They ran for several minutes more before hearing something behind them hit the ground, it sounded like a person dropping out of a tree. Both of them immediately drew their weapons, turning around. Before them crouched a cute girl with blue hair.

"Hey now none of that, and Kirito-kun, what have I told you about bringing back little girls with you when you go off saving people." She teased.

"Aww… but Sino-chi I just couldn't resist." He wined.

The girl looked on at this exchange in confusion. She had automatically assumed that this "Friend" was a guy, and she never expected them to be a couple. He didn't seem like the romantic type when he saved her, but seeing the way these two looked at each other they were obviously in love.

After a brief pause of stifled giggles Sinon said, "So we should probably finish our mission."

"Yes. But first. This is Silica, Sinon" He said to Sinon, indicating the little girl at his side, "And this is Sinon, Silica." He said to Silica, indicating the older girl. "We're both clearers from KoB. I need to ask you some questions."

"Questions, about what?

"Did you know the three men that were following you"

"Who are you talking about?" She asked, still confused.

"I'll take that as a no," He noted.

"How did they lose health then?" Sinon wondered out loud.

"What do you mean Sinon?" Asked Kirito

"Well when I started following them, they were all a little damaged."

Something in Kirito clicked, "A mob PK" He exclaimed, "The three LC members must've aggroed the drunk apes onto you, that's probably why their tracks were all weird at the edge of the clearing, is my guess anyways. We need to capture these murderers."

Kirito's face immediately took on a far more serious expression. It was an expression so morbid and void of emotion that no teenager should know it. Sadly, this pain was on all SAO players shared, almost everyone had friends who died before their very eyes, to powerless to save them, Silica was sure Kirito was no different.

The two started to walk off in a seemingly random direction, but then Kirito stopped and turned around. "Silica-chan," He started, sending her a trade request which she curiously accepted, "Take these they should boost you a few levels, stay here until we get back, were going somewhere really dangerous." He explained, dropping into the trade GUI a small fortune in rare equipment.

"Here…" Started the girl, adding gold to the trade, "I'm sure this won't be enough t—"

"Nah. You don't need to pay me."

This earned him a small jab in the ribs from Sinon.

"I mean I'll eventually need the equipment back of course." He continued, covering expertly.

"Okay, I guess that makes sense, I mean you can't just give every girl you save thousands of col worth of equipment."

"Anyways we'll be back… actually if we're not back in forty five minutes, wait at the inn nearest the teleport gate for a day, and if we're not back by then…" He trailed off. Glancing at the girls face and the look of horror on it he continued, "But we'll probably have no problems and be back in twenty minutes."

And with that they walked off, welting into the green of the forest, headed straight for the Laughing Coffin Base and maybe, a trap.

(Insert dramatic anime end song with a touch of suspense here)

A/N: Oh yes. I did write an entire chapter with no actual content… Sue me!

Sorry that was mean. Promise I'll update soon. With a chapter that has content.

I'd like to give a shout out to my beta testers (The three players who read the fic before y'all do, finding all the bugs and reporting them) Ph1n4l, kyrito, and Furrballnerd. Ty, you guys are awesome.

I'm revising the first chapter now so if you thought it was terrible (I thought it was) you can go back and read it again. It will have more content and flow better, I hope. Also, if you want an Arc 2 hint/preview, I've hidden something in the first half of the first chapter that will make the second arc not come as a complete out of the blue hit you with a 1000 ton weight kind of plot twist, so i suggest that if you love this fic you read that.

Sorry for the erratic and slow updates, I've just been… *sigh* stuff.

Anyways(3),

Sinoto: It's a great community.

R&R: Do this, it helps me plus you get to see your name in the next chapter, how fun is that.

P.M.: This is a great thing to use to call me a "fag who should stop writing and kill myself" I feel like not enough people are telling me this. I mean really guys, I think that's like the sole purpose of P.M.'s and no one has used them correctly yet, it's always like 'Good job', or 'you're not bad' or some other positive comment.

Anything else: better than this

Anyways(4), that's all I have to say, Peace Off ^_^