Mishe
Aincrad Floor 35 - December 24, 2023
With our raid assembled, we split up to avoid attracting attention. Some of us teleported straight to Mishe; others went to neighboring towns and made the hike by foot to rendezvous on the north side of town. The Forest of Wandering was a twenty-minute walk from there, and with our numbers and levels, we steamrolled through all resistance on the way. Any mobs that happened to stroll across the road were cut down with extreme and unflinching prejudice. No one even took the time to admire their loot.
The Forest itself was a complex outdoor dungeon. Each square sector was linked to four other random, nonadjacent sectors. If the player didn't evacuate the current sector quickly enough, he would be teleported randomly to another sector. The only way to escape was by navigating the maze.
The NPCs in town sold a map of the Forest, however, and it showed which sectors connected to which others. I'd planned out this route with Sachi weeks before, so it took only a brief glance at the map to refresh my memory. Forward, left, right, back…as long as you could kill any mobs inside the sector, you would have no trouble getting to the next before the timer went off.
The problem we most feared wasn't a pack of mobs, though.
See, even in an outdoor dungeon like the Forest, SAO forbade private messaging or any other communication beyond what you could see or hear in the game world. That made surveilling such areas difficult, but most guilds still used one or two agile advanced scouts to map out dangerous areas. That day, these scouts were used not to map the Forest (since each group would have at least one person with the vendor-bought map) but to look out for other players.
We started noticing these scouts about ten minutes into the maze. They stuck to the edges of each sector and retreated if we made eye contact with them, but it was only a matter of time until they brought reinforcements. There were, in theory, many paths to the fir tree, but following a route that someone else had already figured out—that was much easier than devising one yourself. And we had the disadvantage of having to clear mobs along the way, mobs that our pursuers wouldn't have to fight.
It wasn't a big surprise, then, that someone caught up to us.
"You guys again?"
The man in sparkling armor—yes, that was Donovan, from Forgot to Repair, but there were more behind him, and not just from his guild. All in all, a group of thirty approached us, outnumbering us by a hair.
Donovan, for his part, seemed genuinely confused.
"I didn't think you guys were still a guild. What are you doing here, working with Klein?"
Klein drew his katana, leveling it on Donovan with both hands.
"Looks to me like we're doing the same thing you are. Should I bother asking what the meaning of this is, or should we get right to trading blows?"
"Look, we're all here to be equitable. You guys seem to know what you're doing. Lead us to the boss, and we can talk about an appropriate cut of the loot for you."
Klein glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, but I had to shake my head.
"If a whole bunch of other people are there, I don't know what she'd do. Maybe we should—"
"Nope!"
Nope?
"Fūrinkazan! Prepare for battle! Go on, Kirito! We'll hold them off!"
The members of Fūrinkazan drew their weapons, joining him in front of the group, but Donovan scoffed.
"Ten against thirty? Are you out of your minds?"
"I'd take ten of my guys any day over thirty of you! Bring it on!"
My appreciations would always be with Klein; without him, we never would've had a chance, and I didn't envy him for the difficult task he faced. It's hard to fight other people, to avoid killing them, without running the risk of getting killed yourself.
All Klein had to do as hold off and distract the whole of Donovan's combined force until the one-minute timer elapsed, and then they'd all be teleported to a random tile and have to quickly solve the puzzle to get back to a valid route. At that point, it'd probably be easier for them to go for the exit than to continue on.
As Klein and Donovan locked swords, the rest of went ahead.
It was a tense journey toward the fir tree, for though we crossed sector after sector, the tree would loom large in one area, only for us to jaunt away from it again. The evening grew later, and a light snow fell over the forest, unsettling for the lack of bone-chilling cold that we all expected.
But at last, around ten minutes to midnight, we came to the end of the path, to the fir tree.
And to Sachi.
She sat in the snow, her knees bent, her body casting a void on the ground, where the snow had melted or couldn't fall. Even as the rest of us arrived in the fir tree's sector, Sachi only glanced over her shoulder, staying put.
"There's more of you than I thought."
She laughed to herself, staring at the sky again.
"You never do anything halfway, do you, Kirito?"
"I'm not taking any chances with your safety, no."
"I'm not leaving."
"I didn't expect you would when I haven't even had the chance to talk you into it yet."
She peered over her shoulder again, at me and then at the rest of the group.
"Guys, you all don't need to stay; it's cold, and you all should be with people you care about and who've cared about you now."
Ezekiel looked left and right, down the line of the group, and said,
"I don't think anyone's leaving without you, Sachi."
"I'm prepared to die fighting this boss. Are you?"
"If that's what it takes to keep you from throwing your life away, yes, in a heartbeat."
I took Ezekiel aside, whispering,
"That's not what we talked about."
"She's not budging. What are we going to do—carry her away? We're all here. Anyone who doesn't feel ready to fight can go, no questions asked. You guys were prepared to do the boss with just six people, right? We've got fifteen. If the boss is dead, she's not in danger anymore."
"Killing that boss won't help her put those feelings aside, even if it does drop the res item."
"Then we have to be there for her then; this is the only way I see for us to be there for her now."
I took a heavy breath, and I looked back to Sachi.
"All right, fine, we stay and fight, but if we're overwhelmed, we're leaving. I don't care if that makes the boss despawn. You may not be concerned about your own life, Sachi, but these are our friends, and I will not see them risked needlessly here."
Sachi stared at me for a moment, saying nothing, and she faced the sky once more with a small nod.
The group waited in silence as the snow continued to fall. Most checked their weapons and armor, to make sure nothing would break during the middle of a fight—or at least, that was the ostensible reason, but really it was more of a nervous tick for people than anything.
As the minutes wound down to midnight, I walked around the edge of the sector, just to make sure we weren't being watched. With Searching active, the world turned to otherworldly shades of black and green, making anyone in Hiding stand out. I glanced over the group and scanned the perimeter.
A bright green silhouette stuck out among the trees.
I did my best to let my eyes slide over the person, trying not to let my gaze linger.
"Ezekiel! Let's fan out around the tree. We don't know where he'll spawn, right?"
Kali answered the call right away.
"You want your group over there, Kirito? I'll take mine to the north."
The parties move into position, ready to deal with whatever came to us. I led my group toward the green silhouette, and as I took a position just across the tree from it, I gave the others instructions:
"Sachi and Peeler, you guys got the middle? Twins further down; Collmenter and I will camp out here."
From the corner of my eye, I studied the green shape. Even though it was invisible to the naked eye, it hid halfway behind a tree trunk, obscuring any distinguishing features.
"Something wrong, Kirito?"
That was Ezekiel.
I glanced back at the figure in green.
"We have a scout watching us."
"We do?"
Ezekiel shuffled his feet, kicking a little snow away.
"Probably waiting for us to soften up the boss before they get the rest of their guild and nab the kill. You wanna chase him off?"
"If we do that, then their guild comes right away. Think we can burn down the boss before they can get here?"
Ezekiel shrugged.
"No way to know but to try."
With that, I cast one more look at the scout and turned Searching off.
The minutes ticked away. 23:59. We all watched our interface clocks and bathed in the glow of the fir tree—an unnatural blue-white glow that made it look more like a fluorescent stick than a piece of nature.
At ten seconds to midnight, the bells began to ring—heavy, lumbering bells, like those of a clock tower.
"It's here! The boss is coming!"
That was followed by lighter bells—jingle bells, perhaps? I know of the song, but I'm not actually sure which kind of bells would be actually jingle bells. Never mind. They were bells, too.
"Look! Up in the sky!"
Two white lines streaked across the night; they followed a straight path and zoomed past the tree line, fading away.
But a dark blob fell from that path, and it headed straight for us.
Crash! It plowed into the earth and splattered snow in a shockwave all around us, through us. Only when the snow cleared did I get a good look at it:
A giant, pallid monstrosity, dressed like Santa Claus—that was the enemy we faced. His upper arms were bare, even though his forearms weren't—strange, right?—and his eyes were crooked and unfocused. He stood two or three times the height of any normal player, and he wielded a giant battle-axe whose blade was wider than the trunks of some trees.
And with a creaky, cantankerous voice, the monster—Nicholas the Renegade—yelled for all to hear:
"This world is overcome with naughty children, none of them deserving of generosity! Come to me, you ill-behaved brats! Come to me, so I can punish you! Defeat me, and you may take the treasures you no longer deserve! But that will be a tall order. Just you watch…."
With the boss in position, waiting to be engaged, Ezekiel held up his dagger, so that the light from the fir tree glinted off his blade. He called out,
"Everyone ready?"
"Ready!"
We all shouted back to him, and he smiled.
"Kill the thing!"
Ezekiel didn't have to ask twice. Sachi charged the boss, and we followed her lead.
"There'll be no lumps of coal for the likes of you! When I'm done with you, only scraps for the elves will be left behind!"
The first minute of a new boss fight in SAO—that's the most intense thing in the world. No one knows what the boss might do. No one knows what to look for. Most of us didn't even engage Nicholas; aside from the tank switch rotation, we were all waiting just to see what he would do first, what trick he had up his sleeve.
At first, it was disappointing. Nicholas swung at Sachi with no special attacks—just simple, predictable swings. After a few seconds of watching that, our three groups of DPS took positions near Nicholas's legs. I broke into a seven-hit combo, cutting and slashing at Nicholas's knee. That's the boring part of a boss fight, really: you're throwing tons of damage around, and it doesn't make a bit of difference until the boss abruptly dies.
And meanwhile, the boss goes into a new phase totally unconcerned with how hard you're hitting:
"I see you're not here to play around! Well, neither am I! Elves of Christmas, come to my aid! Give me the strength and speed to slaughter these fools!"
Like so. Nicholas's voice boomed through the sector, and from the trees emerged a horde of Christmas Elves. Individually, they were small, waddling things, in green and red felt hats.
"I got one!"
Kali peeled off the boss to engage them. She assaulted one with a Crane Strike combo: she crouched, jabbed the Elf twice in the chin, kneed its gut, and finished the combo with a dazzling right cross. WHAM!
The Elf tumbled backward from the finishing it, but when Kali went to finish it off, it scooted past her, making a beeline for Nicholas.
"They're fixated on the boss!"
That got Ezekiel's attention; he broke from overseeing the DPS switches and scanned the area.
"Okay, off! Everybody off boss; take care of the adds!"
At Ezekiel's word, everyone but Sachi and Peeler made for the Elves. We spread ourselves out as thinly as we could: a man to one or two elves each. They didn't have a ton of health, but their constant walking made some combos difficult to pull off. I tried a Vertical Square on one of them—downward cut, left-to-right, downward cut—but it wandered off before I could get the fourth hit through, leaving me with a useless post-combo delay and little to show for it.
"They're getting through!"
Pop! Pop-pop-pop! Four Elves made a sickening sound when they reached the boss, disappearing like balloons stung by pins. And the boss reacted to their sacrifice: he flexed his arms, and strength rippled through him. His muscles bulged, and his beard turned darker and more colorful—a sign of vibrance, of youth.
"I created the Elves to help me with my task; now, that task is pointless, and their magic comes back from whence it came! Hah!"
Thud! The axe clanged on Peeler's shield, dropping his health almost ten percent, and in one motion, Nicholas twirled the axe around to swing again. Thud!
It was stacking a buff. Each Elf that reached Nicholas increased his damage and attack speed. We had to whittle him down from that point without sacrificing too much damage to take care of any more Elves that spawned. If we got to aggressive, the increase in boss damage would overwhelm the tanks and force us to reset it.
"More Elves!"
This wave was smaller; only three or four Elves, staggered in their spawn time. It was more of a steady trickle than an outright rush. Ezekiel sized up the situation and gave out his orders:
"Okay, my group and Kirito's group, we've got one or two people looking for Elves and taking them out at all times. Collmenter, you guys do the same for the back line. Each group covers a third of the area. Everybody got that?"
With area assignments for the raid, we kept up with the continual spawns of Elves well enough. It slowed down damage on the boss, but the most important thing was to keep any additional Elves from reaching Nicholas. As long as we could buy enough time to clear his stack, the damage wouldn't run away and get out of hand. Every so often, a full wave of ten or more Elves would spawn, and invariably, some would get through, but we dealt with the smaller straggler waves handily, and the boss's damage stayed relatively consistent.
But of course, just when you start to get really comfortable with a phase of a boss fight, the fight throws something different at you. That started around 50%, with Nicholas giving a shout,
"No! Not enough! Not enough, I tell you! I must have more! Come Dasher, come Dancer, come Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen! Saint Nicholas needs you now! Protect the Elves, so that I may crush these naughty children!"
The lines in the sky—the gleaming trail of Nicholas's flying sleigh—raced back into view, and as a new wave of Elves approached from the tree line, a seres of red and green circular runes appeared on the snow-covered ground.
"Incoming!"
PAM! PAM-PAM-PAM-PAM! The runes disappeared, and giant candy canes bombed the spots they marked, exploding on impact. They showered the raid in small, sticky projectiles. Collmenter followed an Elf into a set of four runes, and his health dropped in half from the hit. He staggered from the impact, straining to move with sticky goop covering him from head to toe.
"Watch out on that slow! You'll be a sitting duck for the next one if you've got no movement skills!"
But that wasn't even the worst of it. With so many of us ducking for cover, a half-dozen Elves made it through, and this time, Nicholas wasn't content with just letting them merge their magic and strength into him.
"I'll consume them whole if I must, to make sure their power doesn't fade away so quickly!"
He took a whole handful of Elves and bit at their heads the way one would the end of a lollipop. Thankfully, the Elves disintegrated as soon as he bit, but the nauseating impact of this animation was nothing compared to the effect it had on the fight. While tanking Nicholas and dealing with his superpowered axe swings, Sachi noticed it straight away:
"The stack's not falling off!"
You could see the icon next to the boss's health: the power Nicholas gained from consuming Elves was a status effect, that showed both a stack counter and an animation to tell when it would fall off. The stack was going up with each Elf consumed, but the icon itself stayed bright and steady, even when we defended a wave completely.
The boss would get stronger and stronger as the fight went on, and with the bombardment from the reindeer above us, it would be difficult to keep more Elves from empowering him.
That didn't demand a lot of change in strategy—we just had to get the Elves down as fast as possible while learning how to dodge the candy cane bombs—but there was another wrinkle that neither we, nor the encounter designer, could've counted on:
"Stand back! Step away from the boss! This is DDA's boss fight from here on out!"
Coming through the barrier between this sector and its distant neighbors was an army of DDA raiders, led by none other than the master prick himself, Lind. With a flick of his sword, Lind gestured to his wannabe samurai minions, who intervened in the attempt and body blocked the rest of us from the boss. They outnumbered us two-to-one.
"You guys already got him to half? This should be a piece of cake, then."
Ezekiel glared daggers at Lind, a look almost as sharp as the blade in his hand.
"So it was you guys. You scouted us out and waited for the perfect opportunity to ninja a kill from us."
"Scouted you out?"
Lind raised an eyebrow, but after a moment's consideration, he broke into a smirk.
"Well duh. Why put my own raiders at risk blindly on a first attempt?"
"You expect us to just tell you how do this boss properly, then?"
Lind frowned, sizing up Ezekiel.
"If I did, should I trust anything you'd tell me?"
"Don't let any of the Christmas Elves touch the boss. As satisfying as it would be to see you guys panic, the stack doesn't fall off. Avoid the candy cane bombs, and you won't have too much trouble. Positioning might be a bit difficult, though."
"Why's that?"
"All your big heads are going to bump into each other."
Sneering, Lind stuck his nose into the air, strutting to the boss's rear, so he could put in a few token sword strikes on the boss. About ten or so of DDA's people stayed behind to keep us away from the boss and well-behaved. At sword-point, we stood by as the boss's health fell. For all that we resented DDA, their people generally knew how to execute, and with a group of almost thirty, they cut through the Elves and the boss's health quickly. Their tanks switched off like clockwork. Even the panicky Ringo held fast, deflecting Nicholas's axe swings lest the blade stick in his shield.
And all of us watched helplessly, as prisoners. All of us, of course, except for Sachi: she rolled her sword around in her hand, staring as Nicholas fell below 20%.
"They can't come out here while we're already fighting the boss and just steal it away from us."
She held her sword level at her side, drawing some attention from the DDA guards, but Sachi held her place until a cry came out from the DDA tanks at the boss:
"Okay, switch!"
ZIP!
She blasted past the guards, kicking up a spray of snow in her wake. She forced herself to the boss's front, body-blocking a DDA tank out of the way, and Nicholas's axe clanged off Sachi's shield.
"Are you serious?"
That was Lind, hardly suppressing his laughter.
"You want the boss? Gonna save us the trouble of taking heat from him? Go right ahead!"
Sachi peeked over her shoulder with a smug smile.
"Okay, you asked for it!"
She started to backpedal, stepping out of the way as Nicholas's axe hit the snow and dirt. She backpedaled Nicholas into a trio of runes on the ground.
"Scram! It's in the bomb radius!"
One of the DDA forwards yelled to the others, and the lot of them scattered, just as the candy cane bombs showered the snow in sweet, sticky fragments of green, red, and white shards.
Lind scowled, and he drew his sword.
"All right, not funny. Give us the boss back, or this is getting serious."
"Make me!"
Sachi parried an axe swing, but her arm buckled under the force of the blow, and a good fifth of her health ebbed away.
At that, Lind stepped back, twirling his sword like a baton.
"Doesn't look like I need to."
Lind was right. With Sachi all by herself, Nicholas would surely kill her within a minute. And since Sachi had run off past the DDA guards, they were even more watchful and wary than before: they'd drawn their weapons, ready to cut us down (flag or not) if we dared step out of line.
I crouched to a knee, bowing my head, and put my hands to the snow.
"Oi, Kirito, we've got to do something to help Sachi here!"
That was Agil, but I nodded absently, not even looking at him. I took a bit of snow between my hands, pressed it hard and compact, and said,
"Just follow my lead."
"Your lead? What are you going to do?"
One of the DDA guards stomped ahead, coming between us.
"You two, stop talking!"
"Like this, Agil!"
Fwump! I slammed the snowball into the DDA guard's face. He tumbled to the ground, and I breezed past him. A DDA member raised a mace to me, but I slid underneath a wide, sweeping swing and ran in.
"Sachi, let me have it!"
Her eyes wide, Sachi fended off an overhead swipe of Nicholas's axe, saying,
"But Kirito, you can't do that for long!"
"I can do it for a little while! Get safe!"
She turned and ran, and I swapped in just in time for Nicholas's glimmering axe to come down on me.
Clang! I parried the blow, and my arm felt like jelly. Wincing, I called over my shoulder,
"Guys! A little help would be nice!"
But the prisoners and their guards traded volleys of snowballs, stalemated. Liz, for her part, was leading the offensive: she caught one DDA guard in the face and raised her weapon, yelling,
"Come on! We need to get Peeler and the other tank free to help Sachi! Pick off these guards, and let's get them out of here!"
Ezekiel's tank, Frakkis, managed to escape when two nearby guards were slugged with ice balls, but that still was only enough for a tenuous rotation.
"I can take it if you need, Kirito!"
I shook my head and dodged another violent swing of that axe.
"I want to buy Sachi as much time as I can! I'll hold, for a little while!"
Of course, that was easy to say. Not only did I have to worry about my own health, but I had to drag the boss in and around the candy cane runes to fend off DDA's damage dealers. Damage on Nicholas ground to a halt, with him hovering around 15%, and with DDA people still having to fend off the Christmas Elves, Lind finally blew a gasket.
"Are you out of your goddamn mind? What the hell do you think this is going to do for you, huh? There are too many of us. We're getting the last hit. You're just making things hard on yourselves—and us—for no point!"
Sachi raised her shield, facing Lind down.
"We were here first; this is ours, and you have no right to it. We're here for the res item—to try to do something right for people in this game. What are you here for? Loot?"
"What else is there in this world?"
"A lot, but I guess you'd never understand that. Understand this, then: we have control of the boss, and unless you think you can force your way back in on a switch, we're keeping it. Don't get your own people killed trying to keep damage on it. There's no need for lives to be lost here!"
Lind narrowed his eyes, and he marched past Sachi to the boss's front.
"The only person losing his life here is the guy tanking our boss! We're the strongest guild in the game. Either you're one of us, or you're not. I make sure my members have the best weapons and strongest armor in the game, so if you're gonna stand in our way…"
Shink! Lind drove his sword through my back, and six centimeters of blade stuck out through the other side.
"…then there's only one thing left to do with you."
I staggered; the blade hindered my movements, so Ezekiel's tank Frakkis switched in and walked it aside. My health fell below half, and each second the sword stayed there, small particles emanated from the wound, taking some HP with them.
I tried to breathe, and I could feel the blade's edges inside me as my chest heaved. Even though no one needed to breathe in SAO, it was an alarming sensation, to say the least. I choked for breath.
"What? You scared? Scared you're gonna die? Well, maybe you should be!"
I grabbed the tip of the blade and tried to push it back through my body and out. The edges dug into my hands, cutting them up, too. Though I planted my heels for traction, my feet gave way on the snow, and Lind pushed forward with his own weight to keep the sword there.
"The rest of you, step back, or I'll bleed every last point of HP off him. What'll it be, huh?"
The tip of a rapier touched Lind's temple.
"I'd rethink that idea if I were you."
Sachi and Peeler yanked the sword out of me, and I burned a Healing Crystal to recover most of my lost health. Asuna, who still had Lind at swordpoint, cracked a small smile as my wounds closed, but as soon as her eyes were back on Lind, her expression turned back to that of a hunter cornering her prey. A group of nearly twenty KoB stalwarts filed in behind her, cornering the DDA members and driving them away from the boss.
"Haven't you heard, Lind? We send people to prison for attacking other players these days. As far as I can tell, you're the one who's flagged, and no one's done anything to provoke you."
Lind narrowed his eyes, considering his words.
"You can't raid the Labyrinth without DDA. You send me to jail, the guild will refuse to raid in protest."
"Why would people who put loot over everything else in this world stay in a guild that isn't raiding?"
Lind growled at that, and the rest of the DDA ranks began to grow restless, reaching for their weapons again despite being outnumbered.
I went to Asuna's side, whispering,
"Maybe we want to get these guys out of here before there's more trouble?"
Asuna eyed me curiously.
"That's letting him off light."
"Punishing Lind isn't my top priority right now."
Asuna's gaze flickered to Sachi, who was about ready to take her turn with the boss again.
"All right."
She cleared her throat and addressed Lind.
"Get out of here, DDA. Go into the maze and lose yourselves. I don't want to see any of the rest of you until we start raiding again. Do that, and I'll forget what happened here."
Grumbling, Lind sheathed his sword, and the rest of DDA filed out behind him. They trudged through the forest and vanished as they crossed the border of the adjacent sector.
"And good riddance!"
The formerly stern and cold-blooded deputy GM left that parting shot for Lind and his comrades, drawing some laughter from the rest of the group and slight embarrassment on Asuna's part.
"Well, I guess I should say I'm glad I made it here before things really got out of hand."
I coughed at that.
"I thought you weren't planning on helping us. Why did you come here?"
She coked her head at that.
"You saw our scout, didn't you?"
Her scout, not DDA's. The green silhouette I'd seen in the woods—Asuna had had him placed there the whole time, since before midnight.
"I mean, he thought you must've sussed him out with Searching. But, it's natural I'd have a scout here, isn't it? If you guys were right, this would be the site of a great fight."
I raised an eyebrow at that, and Asuna, going a little red in her cheeks, averted her eyes.
"Well, it's not that I didn't want to help you guys, but it's a relief that I could make KoB available to help anyone who might've been in need today…yet still I could be here, too."
She smiled warmly on finishing that conclusion, before going on to say,
"Now, are we going to kill a boss or what?"
That's right. With all the commotion, you could be forgiven for almost forgetting there was a boss to fight.
Though at this point, it may as well have been a formality. With KoB helping out, and the boss already quite low, it was more of a light show of Sword Skills than a real fight. We had extra tanks to put in rotation, relieving the pressure on Sachi and Peeler drastically. We had more than enough DPS to kill the steady trickle of Elves and to deal with the surprise horde spawns that otherwise would've overwhelmed us. When one or two people would get caught in a candy cane bomb, we'd just have them step off to the side, far away from the Elves or the boss, and sit back to recover some health for a while. With the overabundance of people, Nicholas stood no chance.
And though I'm loathe to admit it, there is something beautiful about striking down a boss in SAO. When everything is right, and you're not dealing with freak, unexpected mechanics, you're free to just let the system guide your sword. You launch into swirling, acrobatic combos. Your sword glows with all the colors of the rainbow, and brilliant streaks of light slice through your foe. On that night, that dark Christmas Day, In Mem stood reunited. KoB had our back, and all of us diced and bashed Nicholas the Renegade with our weapons—our maces, our axes, our swords. Our swords shined with the light of hope itself, and the only thing that could damp that light was the need to slow down, so one person in particular could claim the last it.
We stopped with Nicholas's health at a sliver, and Asuna sheathed her rapier.
"Go on, Sachi-san. I think I speak for everyone when I say that the honor is yours."
Frakkis deflected an axe swing, and Sachi switched in. In that brief gap in the boss's attack timer, Sachi stomped her left foot and brought down her sword.
TCHEW!
She sliced backhanded, cutting across Nicholas' knees.
TCHEW!
She cut from overhead, slicing across his hip.
TCHEW!
And with her sword beaming with blue-white light, she swung with a backhanded uppercut, gashing Nicholas's chest. Four streaks of blue-white light formed a square, which spun and dissipated with the blow.
And Nicholas fell along with it.
"No! I will not give in to the likes of you! I will not give freely anymore! If you want my gifts, you'll have to take them! Take from my…corpse…eugh."
With that, Nicholas keeled over like a felled tree, and he shattered on impact with the ground, leaving only a yellow sack of loot behind. The rest of us stood around the bag; there was only one person we could let touch it.
"Go ahead, Sachi. This is yours."
She looked to me, wide-eyed, and then with a nod, she tip-toed over to the sack, touching and holding that touch. That brought up an interface menu with the full list of loot inside, which she scrolled through carefully, looking for something unique and magical.
"Oh…I don't—it's here! It's actually here!"
She tapped the item's entry in the loot list, and it materialized in front of her, falling into her hand. The rest of us crowded around Sachi, trying to get a look at the thing. It was a jewel, or perhaps a crystal egg—quite a beautiful thing, I would say.
"But how do you use it?"
That question came from the crowd, and none of us knew the answer. Sachi touched the item, and a dialog appeared with flavor text and use instructions.
Sacred Stone of Rebirth
Can be used from the player's shortcut menu or when materialized. Shout "Revive: (player name)" to revive a fallen player. Must be used between the death of the player and the end of the death animation (approximately ten seconds).
Ten seconds.
A pall came over all of us, and Sachi, her head hanging low, let the stone slip out of her hand. It made a soft thump as it landed amid the snow. She started walking, the crowd parted to make way for her.
"Sachi, wait!"
I jogged after her, getting in front of her before she made it to the woods.
"Where are you going?"
She cast her gaze aside and wandered on.
"Please, Kirito. I think I need to be alone for a while."
"We're all here for you, Sachi. Please, don't forget that."
She stopped, casting her eyes about the crowd—from Ezekiel and his new guildmates, to Collmenter and the rest of our party, to Liz and Agil, and to Asuna and her knights in red and white.
But Sachi's gaze was bleak and forlorn, and all she could muster was a small nod before she disappeared into the woods.
#
I came out of that fight thinking, was there anything I should've done differently? Should I have made her promise we'd see each other again, at least one more time?
Agil pointed out to me that, even if she'd agreed to such a thing, it would've been empty.
"She could say yes just to get you off her back. Give her a few days, then remind her that people who care about her are still around."
I tried to do just that. On the 28th, I asked Asuna and Lisbeth to check in on Sachi. The girls went to lunch at the café in Paname. Lisbeth got Sachi to say that the decor was "nice."
And, when asked if she planned to kill herself, Sachi apparently said,
"I don't know yet. I thought we'd be able to bring someone back, or I would die against the boss. I didn't think this would happen, that I'd still be here, when things are the same as they were before…."
That was a good sign—she hadn't yet decided for sure that she wanted to take her own life.
When asked about me, though, Sachi had this to say:
"I might talk to Kirito alone, at some point. Soon."
I had no choice but to take that statement at face value, so I did my best to pass the time. I went out with Ezekiel's group and worked a light leveling schedule, to help them get back up to speed with top-level raiders. With agreement from Collmenter and the rest of our group, we started talking about merging back in with Ezekiel and Everbloom, probably under the In Mem moniker again. In the words of Ezekiel,
"Sometimes families quarrel, right? But what makes them family is that they reconcile when it's all said and done. There's still a need for a group like us. I'm ready to make something big again, and to work with good people in doing so."
One of the good works we did, which kept me busy while waiting for Sachi, was visiting with Hera and SniperX in prison. SniperX, for his part, seemed to understand what had happened to him pretty well:
"We did what we did because we believed we were entitled to it. The reality is, there's no such thing as entitlement. There's only what people agree to let you have and what you can take from them with or without repurcussions. Didn't matter if we were right that we could use stuff better than you guys. The cost was too high."
"So you wouldn't do it again?"
From the back corner of his cell, SniperX looked back at me with folded arms, his face half in light and half in shadow.
"The goal was to get out of this game. Sitting here on the sidelines doesn't help with that. Killing someone, even accidentally, doesn't help with that."
Where SniperX had gained some perspective, Hera had not. She'd taken to pacing about her prison cell in frustration, and when I visited her, she was quick to point a finger at me.
"This is your doing, isn't it? I know it is. You pulled it off damn bastards. You guys just waltzed right in and thought you could take something from me, something that matters."
"What did we take from you?"
"Raiding. You took raiding away from me. I was helping get us out of this game, and now…"
She kicked one of bars of her cell. The bar didn't even budge, and a popup notification told everyone around that the bars were Immortal Objects and couldn't even be damaged, so it was pointless to try. Hera didn't care. She kicked the bar again anyway.
"Reduced to nothing. Reduced to meaninglessness. That's all I have left."
Hera deserved her incarceration, don't get me wrong, but I took something from her words. It's hard for a person to lose something meaningful to them—a friend, a lover, or a choice of pursuit. I had to think Sachi was feeling the same way.
But I couldn't be there for her until she wanted me to be there. Sometimes, I'd catch myself glancing at the messaging panel in my interface. Could a message have snuck by me while I wasn't looking? Not possible, right? The notifications were in-your-face prompts that you couldn't ignore. But I looked anyway, several times, and found nothing.
No, there was never going to be that kind of message, for Sachi reached out to me with a physical (so to speak) note instead, left at Agil's door.
"Kirito: meet me at the Myujen market, Sunday night, before the clock tower rings in the new year. —Sachi."
#
Sunday night. New Year's Eve.
Of all the places I'd hoped to meet Sachi again, Myujen was the last one. Without a doubt, it was a beautiful city, but its location worried me: sitting at the southwest corner of the floor, it was very easy for someone to lose their life there. All it would take was one step over the edge, and not even in the protection of the Area would save you.
But Myujen was a festive town, and the raiding community had taken it upon themselves to celebrate the new year almost as much as the NPCs in town were. Some players with high Cooking skill set up stands to sell noodles, and business was booming, for a crowd of players had gathered in the market. There, some NPCs had come together to hold a singing contest. Two teams—a red team and a white team—stood at the center of the market, where the Christmas tree had been, and one of the participants performed for the assembled crowd. At front and center was a boy who looked like he could hardly keep his voice steady, but his singing voice was earnest and sweet:
How much longer must we sleep until New Year's Day?
When the New Year comes around, let's go fly a kite!
And take a spinning top and set it on the floor!
Oh, hurry up so we can play! Come on New Year's Day!
Ah, for the days of childhood and innocent games, right? I think most of the crowd appreciated the sentiment, for they listened patiently as the boy went through another couple verses and gave him warm applause when he was done. I put my hands together too, even as I craned my head around to look for Sachi. She had said to meet at the market, but amid that crowd and the unused vendor stalls, I was having a tough time finding her.
"Excuse me."
There was a tug on my sleeve; a girl I didn't know—not too young, but rather short and childish-looking, with two short pigtails—peered up at me. I couldn't help but stare at her for a bit, not just for her young appearance but for the blue dragon whelp that was curled up on her head.
She blushed a bit, and I realized I'd been staring.
"Ah, sorry, just didn't expect to see a creature in town. Are you a beast tamer?"
"Oh, yes!"
She bowed.
"Beast Tamer Silica, at your service. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Kirito-san."
"How do you know my name?"
"Because I'm on a quest, and my objective is to retrieve you. Now, are you going to come willingly, or do I have to drag you to the quest giver?"
I stifled a laugh at that.
"Did Sachi put you up to this?"
"Eh?"
She pouted.
"How did you know?"
"Just a hunch."
I offered my arm.
"Lead the way, Beast Tamer. I am a mere objective; I have no will of my own, so I am bound to follow you."
Silica led me out of the crowd, and we talked for a bit about her familiar Pina and the process of taming it. She took me to an alley southwest of the market, where the air was clear and the stars bright—a sign of being close to the edge of Aincrad. Sure enough, I could see the preventative railing that guarded against accidental falls. An oil lamp lit the area, but Silica and I were in shadow.
"Thank you, Silica."
Taking a step out of the dark, Sachi appeared before the two of us, and she placed a small pouch into Silica's hand.
"You've done me a great favor. I hope you and Pina are well in the future. Have a good new year."
Silica bowed again.
"The same to both of you. It was nice to meet you!"
With that, Silica ran off, and her familiar Pina took off, flying beside her. They turned a corner, into the market again, and went out of sight.
And then Sachi hugged me—as tight and warm an embrace as I could ever remember from her.
"Sorry for all the cloak and dagger business. I just didn't want to have to go out there, into the light. I'm happy you came, Kirito. I'm really happy."
"You are?"
"Of course. I'd regret it if I didn't see you again."
A knot formed in my throat, and it was all I could do to stammer,
"S—So you've made your decision, then."
She closed her eyes, nodding.
"Yes. I know what I need to do."
"Why?"
She pulled away from me, but she met my eyes with a serious, steady look.
"It's like I said in my letter. Every time we dare to light the fire of hope in this world, something just comes along to snuff it out. And I realized, over the last week, that I did a very foolish thing, going after that boss. What did I think? That Kayaba would wait to fry people's brains indefinitely? That he'd wait until we cleared the game, only to murder all the fallen players at once?
"No, you were right. There was no hope for them, but I hoped against all reason anyway. I won't keep grasping at straws only to find nothing. That's dangerous. It's dangerous for me, and it's dangerous for you. That's why this has to end."
So bleak was her expression, so resigned her voice, that it was like getting taken down and having a foot press against my throat, but I shook it all off. I put my hands on her shoulders and smiled.
"The game's being cleared, Sachi. Yes, people will die along the way, but we can survive. I believe that, and I want to survive with you. There might not be any hope of getting out of here tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, but we can make progress. And together, we can cope with the horrible things we might see, or that we'll have to endure. I'm not saying it's going to be easy. We both know it isn't, and that it won't be, but we can endure all those things together, right? The two of us, with Ezekiel, and Collmenter and Kali, and Peeler and the twins—all of them."
"Until one of them dies."
Sachi looked to me again, and she smiled wanly.
"It's okay, Kirito. You don't have to struggle anymore. I know it's been hard, being with me. Once the clock strikes midnight, I'm going to the railing. You don't have to stay and watch, but I don't mind if you do."
It was two minutes to midnight. That was all I had—two minutes to try to convince Sachi not to end her life, and all my previous ideas had failed me.
But at least we were alone. Maybe it was selfish, but I wanted to take in everything I could of her before she left. I slipped my hand into hers, as if I could hold her there and keep her from walking off that ledge, but that was a vain hope. I stroked her cheek, and she smiled bashfully, averting her eyes.
And in those still moments before midnight, only a few scant voices could be heard from the market.
"All right, everyone! For our last act, we close with a song to mark the new year! Tonight, we sing a traditional melody of Myujen, in the language of its founders. We present to you 'Days Gone By,' or as it is better known in its original tongue, 'Auld Lang Syne.' Thank you."
The performers began to hum a familiar tune—the tune of "Light of the Fireflies," so it wasn't out of place on New Year's Eve—but when the singers began the lyrics, the words were quite different from what I was used to. I didn't catch all the words at the time—I wasn't an expert at making out sung English—but I learned later it was something like this:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
The performers began to hum again after the chorus, and Sachi squeezed my hand.
"I think I like this version. Don't you?"
I did, too. It was apt for the occasion, wasn't it? The new year is always a good time to remember, to look back on the good memories shared with friends that we might not see again.
Through all these months with Sachi, I'd met a lot of people and kept in contact with them. Who would I have become if I hadn't stayed with Sachi? If I hadn't met Aurora and Ezekiel? If I hadn't become a part of In Memoriam and tried to build something with them? I would've walked a long, dark road alone, no doubt. I would've failed to learn from Aurora's ambitions and tragedies. I would've missed those conversations with Ezekiel about guild communities and raid encounters. Those were all good things—some that I could build off of, others that I would just have to treasure in my memory.
So the music, the memories it triggered, had an effect on me, and it was having an effect on Sachi, too. She squeezed my hand tightly, and as the second verse began, a single tear rolled past her beauty mark, falling to the snowy street below.
And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp!
and surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
The clock struck twelve, and the choir was content to hum the melody while they waited for the din to clear. With each strike of the bell, Sachi shook a little, and after a few moments, she broke away from me, turning aside.
"I think it's time to go."
"Stay through the end of the song. It's beautiful."
"No, I think I want to go now."
"Sachi!"
She ran. She dashed down the street and stopped just short, peering over the edge.
"Wait!"
"For what? Wait for what, Kirito? No salvation is coming for us. What is there to wait for?"
"Just listen to me, one last time, please. If I haven't convinced you by the time I'm done, then you should go. There won't be anything else I could say then."
She stepped back from the edge and watched me. Standing half in the light of an oil lamp and half in shadow, I could only see one of her eyes, but it was steady and bored into me like a laser.
"All right. One last time."
That was it, then. No time to come up with something eloquent or thoughtful. All I had was what was on my mind. That was the best I could do.
"You know what kind of person I was, back before we met? I was a loner. A solo player."
Sachi smiled to herself.
"You were the hated beater."
"Right. I took that upon myself to try to help others, but I didn't mind having that moniker. It meant I could keep to myself and not stay connected to other people. I came to this world looking for that. I didn't feel connected to the people in my life, and I believed I didn't need that."
I touched her shoulder. Her eyes met mine, and I went on.
"But then I met you guys, and you all were like the family I wanted to have. You were friendly and accepting. You were all good people, and you guys had perspective, unlike a lot of gamers I'd met. I was attracted to that, and I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay so much that I couldn't break it to you about being a beater, or my level, or anything like that."
I scratched the back of my head, sighing.
"My parents aren't my parents. My sister isn't my sister. I didn't believe I could have close connections to people. I thought the truth would always make them alien to me. And if not for you, and your guild, and then Ezekiel and Aurora after that, I would've kept believing it. You changed my mind, Sachi. You made me believe I could really enjoy the company of others, instead of just playing with them briefly and forgetting about them as we all moved on. If you had asked me a year ago if I'd believed that could ever change, I would've said no, but now I think differently."
And I put my hands together, begging her. I dropped to my knees, letting the cold snow seep through my pant legs.
"So I'm asking you, Sachi. I'm asking you now. It's hard, losing friends. Maybe it's too hard. I'm not saying you're wrong to believe that, but give me a chance to change your mind. I can't do that in the span of a few seconds. I can't do that right here. All I can do is convince you to try, and the only thing I want now is the chance to repay you for what you did for me."
Sachi closed her eyes, and she turned aside, facing the railing.
"That's not enough for me, Kirito. I just don't—I can't feel any hope for that now. I'm sorry."
That was like getting puched right in the heart. The wind came out of me in a burst, and I just stared at her, gaping.
"It's not your fault, you know. Even though you took it upon yourself, you were never responsible for me. You understand?"
I bowed my head, nodding.
"I understand. Goodbye, Sachi. I'm sorry I couldn't help you."
My voice wavered, so I said no more. I kissed her on the cheek, and she smiled, but that comfort was brief and fleeting, and she pulled away from me, stepping up to the rail.
No matter how I shook, I watched her there. I breathed in shudders and sobs, but I forced myself to stand straight and tall. If Sachi were to die then, I would see it with my own eyes.
But as I watched Sachi, she didn't move.
"Maybe you should go after all."
Her voice was quiet, quiet enough that I leaned forward instinctively to try to hear.
"What? I thought you said—"
"I know what I said! I was wrong. Please go. I don't think I can do this with you here."
A small smile tugged at the corners of my lips. My heartbeat steadied, and I said,
"I'm here to listen and be here for you, Sachi, but there is nothing you can say to make me make it easier for you to kill yourself."
"Kirito!"
She balled up her hands and sobbed. Her chest heaving, she took a step toward the ledge and tried to wipe away the tears with her palm. Between her sniffles, opened her eyes to peer into the abyss below us, but her feet remained rooted to the ground.
I tiptoed my way to her side, and I put an arm around her. It was a light, guarded touch—enough, I hoped, to give her support, but not so much it would restrict her.
"Sachi, can we go back to the market? I'd like to see if they're going to sing any other songs tonight."
I pulled lightly on her shoulder, and her feet gave way. She stepped haltingly alongside me, and I steered her from the edge, back down the dark alley toward the center of town.
Once we left the light of the warning lamps at the edge, she threw an arm around my waist for support, and I pulled her closer. She wept and shook the whole way, and I did nothing to stop her tears. Let them flow. Let them flow and freeze and never be shed again.
I brought Sachi back near the market, close enough to hear the choir as they performed one last refrain:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
We stayed there in the snowy market until all the applause finished, and the last singer of the choir walked away.
Join us for the special finale to Auld Lang Syne in just one week, December 20, 2014, at 1 PM EST (10 AM PST), after the conclusion of Sword Art Online II's final episode stream.
Next time: "Epilogue." The story of Sachi and Kirito does not end here, but one story does, and it deserves to be concluded.
For notes and commentary on this chapter and others, check out the Auld Lang Syne thread on Sufficient Velocity, linked from my user profile.