Tears of Past Memories

Chapter: 1

The Oceanside town of Ragoria was located in the 49th territory. Kirito decided to take a day off today. He explored the towns life filled shopping district. People came here from all over trading every sort of thing. Asuna was helping with the dungeon, and Yui was at one of her classes again. Therefore Kirito was left with only Leafa to spend the day with. Leafa looked at various things she could use for her character, almost all of them were unaffordable by much.

Kirito always wondered why girls always looked at things they couldn't afford. There was no point to keep gawking at it after you have established that you couldn't afford it. However Leafa continued dreaming about how easy life would be if she had the item, or how much better she would look if she owned it. It was almost like if being trapped inside this artificial world had no effect on her anymore.

That was both a good thing and a bad thing. It was bad in the way that she was getting too used to this world, and like in Aincrad. Some might start wanting to stay in here. However it was good cause she was mentally strong now, no longer worrying if she would make it. She would be able to carry herself with confidence. Something that is useful in beating the game when it could mean your life.

Something unexpected start though. The ground began to shake and soon a tall citadel rose out of the water nearby Ragoria. Water drained out of the citadel's windows and what ever opening there was. Once the shaking stopped people looked at the newly arrived fortress with peaked curiousity.

Gui's appeared in mid-air and the masked face of the sick creator of this game appeared on it. Hysteria let out a laugh of sick amusement. His voice ringing throughout the city. Just in case people couldn't see the bigger gui's smaller counterparts appeared through the city.

"Hello players!" Hysteria greeted them.

Players looked in confusion, was a special event going to happen? If so then they all thought to be prepared to fight. Players everywhere readied their weapons.

"You all guessed right, theres a special event going on here. This citadel you see in front of you is where its at. If any of you can get to me at the top. I will give you the chance to build yourself a weapon that only you will get. However the monsters in here are going to be extra dangerous!" Hystria announced, "So good luck, and see you soon!"

The image disappeared and immediately people started swarming towards either the citadel or to shops to prepare to enter the citadel. Kirito pulled Leafa aside in order that they not get trampled by the crowd. Kirito watched as they all headed toward what would most likely be their slaughter.

"Oni-chan do you think he means it?" Leafa asked as they watched people stream by.

"Means what?" Kirito asked.

"The weapon, do you think he means it?" Leafa repeated.

Kirito thought for a moment, it was likely from past example that it wouldn't be true. However Hysteria was unpredictable. He didn't care about fairness like Kaiyaba did in SAO. That example was given by Ashbrookes sword skill, that which Kirito hasn't seen himself, but from what he was told there was no way it was balanced out with any other skills. Unless if the skills that balance it out haven't been discovered yet. However the rumor of Ashbrookes Blade Blitz ability was enough to ward off attacks from the player killing guilds. Thus spreading the fame of the Templars of the Night Sky, and therefore more players joined the guild, thus making it larger then before.

However Kirito will have to believe at the moment that there is no sense of balance in this game. Therefore if this theory of the weapon was going to be true, that would mean that lots of people will fail in trying to get this so called weapon.

"I'm not sure yet, we should take a few days and examine what happens," Kirito said.

" Okay there is a hotel nearby where the citadel appeared, maybe we can lodge there for a while," Leafa suggested.

Night came soon and Kirito had sent a message out to Ashbrooke asking to not be given jobs for a few days so he could investigate something. However Ashbrooke sent a message saying "Okay your new job is to investigate this phenomenon, afterwards you will report to me and you will be rewarded for your time. Does 150,000 Lucin sound good?" Kirito was a little taken aback by the message, and how readily Ashbrooke was to spend the guilds monetary resources. So all he and Leafa had to do was watch to see what happened.

Day after day players went in, either to teleport out in critical condition later, or to never return at all. It was like that every day, sometimes people went in multiple times before disappearing all together. Kirito figured that must be because of anti-teleportation rooms that would prevent them from teleporting out when they were at critical health.

It took the course of three weeks of watching people fail over and over again before Kirito figured that Hysteria would be telling the truth. He stood and started heading towards the doorway. Immediately Leafa followed him.

"What is it?" Leafa asked.

"Hysteria is telling the truth, and we're going in there," Kirito replied.

"Really?" Leafa asked.

"Yes, that why we're going to stock up," Kirito replied.

"So we're gonna need stat boost, healing relics, and teleportation relics," Leafa said listing them off.

"No, just healing items," Kirito quickly corrected.

"But why?" Leafa asked.

"Stat boosters and teleportation relics cost way more then healing relics, therefore if u don't by them you can buy significantly more healing items. Around five times as much if I estimate correctly," Kirito explained, "plus if you get stuck in an anti-teleportation room, that renders the teleportation relics useless. Then you run out of healing relics, and you die in that room. However if you have nothing but healing relics you can keep healing yourself in battle along with any skills that heal you. Then you just need to play defensively to slowly beat the enemy."

"Ah that makes sense," Leafa said as they entered into the a shop.

In that moment both of them blew out all their Lucin on nothing but as many healing relics as they could buy. Then afterward they traded with eachother so that they will have an equal amount of healing relics. However Kirito ended up having an odd number and decided to give Leafa the extra one. He would be able to manage without it. For his dual wielding and his counter abilities would help make p for that.

Kirito then invited Leafa to a party, then the two of them headed toward the citadel. Uncertainty lingered in both of them. But if Kirito was to truly confirm if this rumor was true or not, he would have to beat this citadel. Soon Kirito and Leafa found themselves in front of the citadel door. People looked at them with warning eyes. Obviously some felt that Kirito and Leafa were foolish, because there were entire parties of twenty that went in and were eliminated. They most likely thought it impossible that two could ever beat the citadel.

Kirito tapped the door and a menu popped up in front of him. "Enter the citadel?" it asked. Kirito gave a deep breath before hitting yes. Then as Kirito felt his body being teleported away he wondered if this was the best idea.