Everything happened too fast.

The lead guy in the middle, the one who took Sachi hostage, snapped his fingers, and before anyone could react, we are completely surrounded.

Three monsters; the same types as those me, Asuna and Sinon fought with last night, appeared from behind the pillar and ambushed us from behind.

"Tsk, tsk, do you really think I'll let you people wasted my personal army I've been working so hard to create?" The lead man taunted, followed by his four henchmen laughed.

"What are you planning to do!?" Asuna growled.

"The same as what everyone's been trying to do, my dear girl." He replied, smiling smugly as doing so. "Trying to clear this goddamn game and get the hell out of this place."

"By turning people into monsters for your own benefits!?" I shouted.

"What? You can think of a better way of combating those endless armies of monsters out there, kid!? You have what it takes to fight them all!?"

"At least we're fighting them by ourselves!" I continued. No matter what, this isn't right, and one way or another, I'm putting a stop to it. "We don't need anyone to be used as weapons for our own gains. If we're gonna die trying to get out, at least there won't be any innocent blood on our hands!"

"Bold words, coming from one of the best players in the game like you." That man spoke. "I must admit, I underestimated you last night. You're far better than we expected, Black Swordsman! Or..."

He paused for a little bit.

"...should I say, the Twin Blades Swordsman?"

Aw, shit.

Everyone went quiet, all eyes staring at me.

"...what did he just say?" Sinon began.

"I..." I struggled.

"Cat got your tongue now, huh?" That man spoke again. "And this is why we are forced to do something like this..."

"What do you mean?!" Keita spoke, still trying to break free from his captor, to no avail.

"You are a great fighter, but you won't fight. Just like good ol' Achilles, you simply hid your talents and won't use it unless it's for your own gains. What's so different between you and me, huh!? Hundreds of players out there could turn the tide of the game in our favor any time, but what did they do instead!? They wasted their skills fighting each other! You see now, Twin Swordsman!? We're doing this for the good of others! As extreme as it is, we're doing something! My hacking skills can make a difference in this game! Can you dare say that your sword skills ever did something good while you're here?"

His rant was harsh, but I know that some of his words are undeniably true, and that's why I stayed silent.

His every word regarding me is true.

"He did!" Somebody shouted out.

It was Sachi.

"He saved my life, and my friends' lives!" She continued. "While all your ever did is taking others!"

"Don't be stupid, girl!" The man yelled at her. "He just saved you because he couldn't stand it if he let you die. In the end, it's all about him! He never truly cared for you!"

"So what if he doesn't care about me!? What if we meant nothing to him!? What I know is that he meant something to us! We wouldn't be standing here right now without him..."

Sachi gritted her teeth, her voice filled with anger, something I wouldn't ever expect to come from her.

"...so why don't you do us all a favor and shut up?"

She shouldn't have said that.

The lead man who grabbed her examined her for a second, then flipped her so that she is facing him, his red eyes stared fixed on her.

"Lady first." He said coldly, before slapping her hard in the face.

He shouldn't have done that.

That slap on her brought me back to my sense, and my body just moved on its own.

"THAT'S IT, YOU BASTARD!" I screamed.

Chaos erupted as soon as I rushed out with my sword drawn.

"ATTACK! KILL THEM ALL!"

Everyone who wasn't captured, except Lamia and Ryuji (who to be fair are still confused about the sudden turn of events), readied their weapons and fought with the beasts. Three of the five 'townspeople', transformed into beast forms themselves and joined the fight. Izumi, Tetsuo and Keita also managed to break free and summoned their weapons, bringing the battle to a standstill.

Just like last night, even though we outnumbered them, the beasts' sheer strength and mobility made up yet another dangerous battle.

Sinon's new spear, the one that brought so much trouble for Agil, proved to be much useful. She can actually handle the beasts on her own alright now. Asuna also used her hit-and-run tactic to her maximum advantage in contrast of last night, where the darkness prevented her from doing so. Others are not so lucky, it took Agil and Tetsuo to take on one of the beasts, and Izumi and Keita for the other.

I myself decided to take on the leader on my own. He pushed Sachi away before summoning his weapon:

Another Elucidator.

"Well, looks like I got careless this time, kid." He grinned as our swords clashed. "Should've told my friends to cut your companions to pieces before we got here. That bitch's so annoying with that sharp mouth of hers!"

We started parrying. Even without taking the beast form, this guy's pretty dangerous just using his own sword.

"Apologize to her!" I demanded.

That guy just sneered in respond as he attempted another flurry. I blocked his attacks as I tried to analyze the weakness in his tactics.

I was about to do just that but something made me lose my focus.

"AH!"

Lamia yelled as one of the beasts attacked her.

"Lamia, no!" Izumi shouted.

Suddenly, a light shined from where Lamia is sitting. A light so bright that it blinded my eyes for a few seconds.

"Got you!"

My opponent strike his sword against mine with a force so hard, I was sent onto the floor, my sword slipped out of my hand.

My HP bar dropped to about a half.

I looked around, all my friends are downed as more monsters started pouring in. The situation's just hopeless. There's no way we can get out of this alive. The leader himself stood over me, his sword positioned just over my head.

So, this is all over, huh?

I closed my eyes, preparing for a blow that will eventually come.

But it never did.

"What the hell are you guys waiting for!? Take her down!" I heard that guy yelled.

"...w-we can't! We can't go anywhere near that light!" One of the monsters said with a gruff voice.

What happened?

I tried peeking my eyes open for a bit, and saw the unbelievable.

Lamia stood there, her hand gripping on her saber, which illuminates brightly.

"Get. Away. From. My. Friends." She spoke flatly, her sword raised up towards her enemies.

"Attack! Do whatever you can and get her!" The leader ordered.

I looked around, and just noticed that all the beasts ignored their current opponents, who are all downed or knocked out, to focus on Lamia.

"Eliminate her!"

At that moment, all the beasts lunged toward her at once.

"NO!" Everyone who is still conscious yelled out at the same time, but nobody could do anything.

We cannot do anything.

But...

"LUNA'S WRATH!" Lamia shouted, and a shockwave was sent into every direction, with her at the center.

All the beasts were knocked away.

"What the hell!?" The leader spoke in disbelief.

"Artemis's Blessing!" Lamia shouted again, and somehow, I found that my strengths are returning, as well as restoring some of my HPs.

I finally managed to get up, at the same time as Lamia using her light saber to casually dispatch the beasts one by one.

Asuna, Sinon, Agil and the rest of the Black Cats also managed to rejoin the fight.

"Take them down, Lamia!" Sasamaru cheered. He and Tetsuo managed to stop one of the beasts by themselves. Quite a feat, if you asked me.

As Lamia finally took down the last of the beasts, she collapsed due to exhaustion in front of Ryuji, who's still shocked.

"Thank you, brother..." She weakly said. "...for telling me about how my skills are their weakness. Light always defeats the dark in the end, right?"

Ryuji just smiled, but quickly fades as he saw what was coming from behind her.

"Lamia, watch out!" Me and Ryuji shouted simultaneously as the leader himself rushed toward her, his sword drawn.

"DIE!"

Ryuji moved swiftly, before covering his sister with his body.

"UCK!"

The Elucidator went straight into Ryuji's body.

"NO! BROTHER!" Lamia screamed.

"Why...why do you have to be so stupid, Ryuji!?" The leader growled. "I thought we were partners! Don't you remember how all those people treated you!? Don't you remember how I saved you at that boss's dungeon!?"

Ryuji's HP bar started dropping rapidly as he moaned painfully.

"...Y-you're right, Moran...I'm so stupid..." He struggled to speak, but he kept trying. "I'm so stupid to think that...that I'm all alone against the world...that I'm just a loser...that...that...no one cares to help..."

The HP bar's dropped to half now.

"B-but I was wrong...I...I wasn't alone...I...never...was...My sister's always with me...Even if we both...have...to...fight the whole world...for our happiness...then so be it..."

He glared at the leader, Moran. His HP bar's down to about one thirds now.

There's nothing we could do except watch. The damage was done. Potions are useless.

"...I...love my sister...I won't do anything to hurt her...never again..."

And with that, he turned his head toward Lamia, and gave her a smile.

"...win this for me, Lamia."

Finally, his lifebar hit zero, and his body shattered into pieces in front of a horrified Lamia.

"NOOOOOO!"

Her agonized voice echoed around the cavern. Nearby, the real townspeople inside the cages started regaining consciousness. Some of them stared at the occasion with a confused look.

Lamia gripped her saber tightly, its light shined, and slashing it at Moran.

"You...YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED MY BROTHER!"

She attacked furiously. Her eyes burning with anger.

"BRING HIM BACK, YOU HACKER BASTARD!"

"Enough!"

Moran yelled, before using his sword to disarm Lamia's saber in a split second. Her saber slipped off her hand, landing just in front of me.

"You want to see your brother so much? I'll send you to meet him!" He prepared to strike his sword into Lamia.

I acted quickly, grabbing Lamia's sword that fell from her hand, before equipping it on my left hand slot.

It's time to use my Dual Blade Skill, no matter how much I don't want to.

"It's over!" I ran toward them, before slamming my sword into Moran.

Moran fell backwards, his back downed on the floor. His lifebar started dropping.

"W-why? I just...I just wanted to get out of this game alive..."

I walked over to his dying body.

"You can hack a lot of things in this world and get away with it, Moran, but you can't hack a human life." I said.

And with that, his body shattered away.

It was a mess all after that.

We gathered up all the other co-conspirators of Moran; the rogue red guild Sinon's been looking for, and tied them up and send them to the game authorities. It also turned out that just only a few unlucky townspeople were transformed into those beasts, apart from them themselves. We've arrived too soon for them to be conducting the operation any further.

From what we've get, Moran and his colleagues are expert programmers who've taken part in writing some of SAO's system codes, and therefore know how to hack some of its systems. It's too bad that none of their knowledge could actually helped us play the game better, but well, it's better than nothing.

It took a while to explain to my friends about the whole 'Dual Blade' skill. After all, the truth was already out because I used both my Elucidator and Lamia's saber to take down Moran, but at least they accepted the fact that I don't know where I got it from or even how I earned it in the first place, and swore that they'll never tell any other about this. Asuna's still mad at me for not telling her this, though, but I'm sure she'll be fine. (So optimistic of me...)

The townspeople all had it rough, including the NPCs as well, but after they returned to Mayfair, everything slowly returned to normal. After two days, the small, quiet town of Mayfair became bustling with activities once again.

The person who took it the hardest was Lamia, obviously. She thought she lost her brother, and when she finally reunited with him, she lost him all over again. What Ryuji have done maybe wrong, but he did all of that out of love for his sister. As a brother myself, I can understand full well how he feel.

I can just only hope that he will find a better place.

"Hey Lamia, you okay?" I asked her, after seeing her still up and sitting on a bench in the town during the night. She can't bring herself to sleep, after all that's happening.

"I...I think I'm going to be fine, Kirito-san." She said sadly.

She's not taking this well at all.

"Your brother was a good man, Lamia." I told her as I sat alongside her. "He was a good man..."

Lamia just nodded.

"When I was little, I used to be scared of the dark." Lamia began. "I will cry in the night when I cannot sleep. I can't bring myself to walk through the darkness to turn on the light, but then, my brother will always come to me. He will hold me close and tell me that it's going to be okay, then sing me a lullaby to bring me to sleep,"

Lamia paused for a bit. I looked at her face. She's smiling a bit, but her tears are visible even in the dark.

"...and then when that just won't work, he will light a candle for me. When I asked that why won't he just go turn on the light, he says that it's not necessary, and he just grabbed a matchbox on the desk because it was nearer. He also gave me a useful advice that sometimes, just a little glimpse of light is enough to drive the darkness away, what really matters is that we don't let our fears extinguish it by our own."

She took a deep breath, before turning toward me.

"That's how I overcome my fear of the dark. Without him, I wouldn't have be the person I am today. I own a lot to him..."

Suddenly, she rested her head on my shoulder.

"I'm going to miss him so much, Kirito..."

She held me tight, while I covered her with my arms, trying to comfort her of all the painful memories.

"You're going to be fine, Lamia. Be strong for your brother. Let him be proud to have you as his sister." I whispered into her ear.

Sometimes, for all the complex problems in the world, some simple solutions are enough to solve them, provided we find a right means to use it.

It's true, what Moran said, that with his hacking skills, he could turn the tide of the game in their favor, and there will be more chance of winning. However, what he had to sacrifice to achieve it is just too much.

So what if he could really get out of the game? I'd say he never really gets out of it, he has lost so much of himself inside this place that I don't think he'll ever be the same man again once he got out.

It's a game, it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, even if our lives depend on it.

After all, games are supposed to be fun. What point is there to play a game and feel bad about it later?

The next morning, we are ready to leave Mayfair.

"Have you guys forgetting something?" Agil asked, his head shaken in disapproval.

"Er...you?" Sasamaru said.

"That's one thing! You people all acted like I wasn't here the past few days!" Agil smacked his head. "And what I meant to say is, do you all forget about why we came here in the first place? You know, HDA's spear, the mysterious merchant, the impending guild war, stuffs like that?"

Ah, hell! I almost forget about that!

Everyone stayed silent, faces down with guilt.

Agil just sighed.

"Right, right. I understand. A lot of things happened, won't blame you guys, that's it. I've did my own search a few hours ago, it appears that the merchant I'm looking for left the town just prior Moran's group arrived. He went to floor forty-fifth, if I heard correctly."

"Floor forty-fifth? Why the heck will he be going there?" Keita asked.

"Only God knows what he's up to. Well, let's go back to the teleport town."

And then, we departed out of Mayfair.

"Man, and I thought I was going to find a nice house somewhere around here..." Sasamaru complained.

As we rode the horses through the Tranquil Forest once again, Lamia seems to be getting back to her usual self after getting some pep talk from the rest of the guild. She's still having a sad look on her face, but at least she could now smile now and then. Most of these are thanks to Sachi, though. She acted like she's Lamia's sister, and took care of her like nobody else does. Her kind words and actions are to be credited for bringing Lamia back from despair. I, for one, have to thank her for this.

Still...

"Sachi?" I rode my horse alongside her. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"Of course!" Sachi smiled.

"Um, how should I say this...er..."

Damn it, why do these things have to be so hard?

"That was...very brave of you...what you did in that cavern, standing up to Moran like that."

To my surprise, Sachi blushed.

"Did...did you just tell me that I'm...brave?"

"Yeah! You stood up to him while no one else did. How you defended me like that, it's...inspiring, you know that?"

Sachi's face gone even redder.

"Eh?! It's nothing! Nothing at all, Kirito-kun! I'm just happy to help my friends, that's all!"

And she quickly ride her horse away.

Heh, she's so cute when she's doing something like that.

Wait, what the heck am I thinking?

Argg! This is unbelievable!

Editor's note: Longest. Delay. Ever.

Seriously, guys. I'm beat.

But this chapter, well, it's worth it for me. At least I got it done tonight, because next week I'm gonna be busy as hell again. Sorry for another, ANOTHER long update!

Please read and review! And thanks for supporting, people!