Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, in any way, shape or form. Reki Kawahara wrote the original light novels, while A-1 Pictures produced the anime series. I do not claim to own it at all.
Claimer: However, I do own any original characters seen in this story.
A young, black haired man in a black jacket wearing black jeans happily approached the Salon De Café restaurant. He is a skinny eighteen year old boy, one would assume. However, his past experiences have grown him into a person far beyond an average teenager.
He was among one of the many players who survived the Sword Art Online incident. The one where ten thousand players were trapped, all by the hands of one Akihiko Kayaba. This teenager is one of the six thousand that lived to tell the tale.
But that's all in the past for him. He lives a happy life, playing other Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online games. He frequents ALfheim Online, a game developed a year after the SAO incident was resolved, along with his friends. Together they do quests, locate items and generally do things together. This teen is happy with his life.
Yet, he wasn't too happy to receive a call from an accomplice who works for the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Telecommunications Bureau. Something had happened regarding a VRMMO, something that required the teenager's attention. To any, this situation where a government official contacts a seemingly normal eighteen year old would appear to be peculiar.
This is normal for the teen. Actually, this exact restaurant and time were the same conditions of their previous meeting. For the teenager, this meant something dangerous in the VRMMO industry had reared its ugly head in. It's only the third dangerous virtual conflict he's had to deal with.
Almost like a magnet.
The teen entered Salon De Cafè and met with the female receptionist.
"Hello, sir. Do you have any reservations set?" the teen was asked.
"There should be one under Kikuoka Seijirou," was the young man's answer.
One quick check on the receptionist's computer revealed that there was indeed a reservation under that name. The teen was pleased; if Kikuoka hadn't sorted one out by now, there'd be some issues. Luckily, there were none.
"Feel free to go in," the receptionist instructed.
With this, the teen freely entered the dining area of the restaurant. It only took some seconds for him to locate the man he was supposed to meet, the same man who sorted out the reservation. The teen sat down on the chair belonging to the table Kikuoka was already at - a window table.
"How was the trip over here?" Kikuoka started, keeping his glasses in place.
"It was good. Nothing special happened," the teen simply replied. "I'm sure you didn't come all the way here just to ask about my public transport usage. What's going on this time?"
"Straight to the point, I see. No point in wasting time," Kikuoka commented. "Anyway, there's this game called Lapis Pugna Online. Heard of it?"
"Once or twice. I read that a lot of its concepts are based on an old browser game from the 2000s,' the teen remembered, knowledgeable on VRMMOs.
"Figured you'd know something like that. Two weeks ago, the game was under control by a madman named Yokunai Juusan. He had infiltrated the developers' HQ with a number of armed guards, demanded total administrative control of the game and placed all of its players under a death game-like situation where they couldn't log out."
"What?! There are still people willing to do that kind of thing?"
"Indeed," Kikuoka nodded. "But it was fixed soon after the log out button was removed. It turned out that Yokunai had infiltrated Big Dreamers, the developers, some time before removing the players' freedom. Thanks to the wise thinking of the CEO, Konpyu Odayakana and the courage of one of the players, Kyohan Ainara, Yokunai was brought down."
The teen took all of this information in. "Alright, but I'm not sure exactly why you're telling me this if it's already been resolved."
"I need you to enter Lapis Pugna, find this Kyohan person and learn more about the incident. I need to file a detailed report," Kikuoka placed a copy of the game on the table.
"Can't you do it?"
"Nope, I'm too busy with work and other things. I need you to do it," Kikuoka shook his head. "Kirigaya Kazuto."
The teen, whose name had now been revealed, sighed. He folded his arms and began to think.
"Fine, I'll do it. Asuna and everyone else will give me a hard time for switching games again, but they'll understand once I tell them," Kazuto accepted. He took the copy of Lapis Pugna Online and put it into a pocket.
Later that day, once Kazuto returned home after enjoying a nice meal and having to endure some initially disapproving words from his girlfriend, he inserted the Lapis Pugna cartridge into his AmuSphere 2.0.
"Link Start!"
April 14th 2026 - Lapis Pugna Online
4:31 PM - In-game Time
Past the very familiar FullDive bootup animation, Kazuto was presented with a choice he was expecting to get. Since he used his current AmuSphere to play ALfheim with a previously created account, the information for said account was stored on the device. Thus, the bootup sequence detected it and came up with the option to create a copy of it, then to transfer the duplicate to Lapis Pugna.
Kazuto accepted. As a result, he discovered he'd be skipping the tutorial, with explanations of the game's mechanics given to him in the Hints section of the menu. More of the animation played out - those multi-coloured beams passed by.
Eventually, Kirito found himself in a town with stone-paved paths and brick/wood buildings. He was standing next to a fountain, assumedly in the middle of the settlement. He checked his menu.
"Incipien...this must be the starting town," Kirito thought as he gathered himself. "Seijirou wanted me to find someone called Kyohan. Looks like I've got to ask around.'
Before he started to do so, Kirito had a quick look at his stats, finding they had been copied over from ALfheim but changed slightly to fit this game's system. He was still a strong speedster. Kirito also discovered he had a level: 105. The SAO survivor remembered the unbalanced nature of the level-based system, it being the main reason why ALfheim did not have one. He would have to get used to it again.
Kirito now merely wanted to get on with proceedings. After all, he wasn't going to be doing any major fighting here. For that reason, Kirito began to ask random players about someone named Kyohan. It didn't take long for a guild named 'Masayoshi Hanta' to be mentioned.
Upon further investigation, the Masayoshi Hanta is a player made guild that Kyohan (turns out it is her avatar's name) leads. Their sole purpose is to maintain the peaceful community of the game. They fight against any wrongs, including the likes of the Grey Knights who had control over certain accounts before being disbanded by the Masayoshi Hanta. While all this information would be useful for Seijirou's report, Kirito still didn't know where to find the guild.
He learnt, from the next person, that the Masayoshi Hanta had their own base of operations which was made with the 'create your own House' feature located next to the town of Vicus. In order to get into that base, he'd need access permissions from a member of the guild. This was where Kirito hit a snag.
"Want some help?" a messy, orange haired player asked Kirito. He had just finished learning about Lapis Pugna's house feature when this stranger approached him.
"Are you a member of the Masayoshi Hanta?" Kirito asked the player, who smirked at the question.
"Nope, but I'm a friend of their tactician. That makes me an honorary member," the player grinned. "I've got permissions to their base. Sorry, couldn't help but overhear there."
Kirito narrowed his eyes momentarily. The stranger didn't seem to notice the gesture. "Got it. Can you help me out here? I need to ask their leader a few questions."
"A few questions? Or one, romantic, question? If I were you, I wouldn't bother with that. Remember what happened two weeks ago?"
"Uh, no. I only just started the game. But I transferred my account from another. I'm here to help with a government report on Yokunai's infiltration against Big Dreamers. I've been instructed to ask Kyohan about it."
"Huh. Well, that clears things up. My name's Hitakaru. What about yours, fella?"
"Kirito."
Hitakaru paused. His expression turned from relaxed to surprised. "Y-you're THAT Kirito? The same guy who saved Sword Art Online's players?!"
"Yeah...honestly, it's not a big deal. I do feel great about saving all those lives, but it happened a while ago. I guess I'm over it."
"I see what you mean. After all, having a feeling like that can be a little draining. I think you'll like my friend. He said something about wanting to be as good as you."
"Really?" Kirito was actually curious.
"It was a while ago, but he did say it. We were talkin' about you at school - how you've been going across different games. I remember calling you a game-hopper."
An embarrassed giggle came from the game-hopper. "Oh, I've had my reasons for that. Sorry to rush you, Hitakaru, but could you get me to that guild? I promised my friends I'd be back in ALfhiem as soon as possible."
"Sure thing, Kirito."
With that, Hitakaru equipped himself with a spellbook and began to draw a circle around himself and Kirito. The only one of the two not familiar with Lapis Pugna found himself more confused as he and Hitakaru warped away from Incipien.
April 14th 2026 - Lapis Pugna Online
4:44 PM - In-game Time
Hitakaru and Kirito were now at Vicus, evidenced by the large amount of quartz buildings. They were on a large, square platform with a rune inscription - the town's teleport pad. Hitakaru explained each town had one of these. Different spells allowed you to warp directly to them as a form of fast travel, but you need to have the right level of Magic as well as the correct number of runes. Kirito took all of this in.
The player wearing the Steel Armour led the one wearing the one-tier-lower Iron Armour to the town's north entrance, where some others were entering and exiting from a circular purple portal. Hitakaru presented it with his left hand.
"And this thing is the portal that'll bring you to your House," the orange haired one started, speaking as if he was continuing an explanation. "In this case, their House. Lemme just get the settings for a mo'..."
Following a minute or two, Kirito received a notification telling him that he had the permission to enter the 'Masayoshi Hanta HQ'.
"There ya go. Whenever someone has permissions for a House, they can do the same thing for anyone else. That means you gotta pick someone trustworthy."
"You think I can be trusted?" Kirito joked.
"Considering what you've done, you're especially trustworthy."
Kirito followed Hitakaru to the NPC next to the portal, where the latter of the pair began talking with said non-player character. Meanwhile, the former noticed that although Hitakaru's and the NPC's mouths were moving, he could not hear anything they were saying. It took only a couple minutes for things be sorted out. The duo entered the portal at Hitakaru's instruction, instantly finding themselves in a circular piece of grassy land.
All around were flowers of different varieties. Tall mountains prevented anyone from leaving the area, which was about as large as nine soccer fields placed next to each other in a grid-like formation. Kirito took note of this as he and Hitakaru walked up to the three storey wooden structure in the middle of it all. No colourful sign, no automated machine, nothing of the sort. It just looked like a cabin. Strange for a highly renowned guild headquarters, thought Kirito.
Hitakaru pressed the doorbell. Seconds later, a grey haired player wearing a full set of the dark green, unusually patterned, Reinforced Snake armour, answered the ring.
"Oh, Hitakaru? What's up?" the player wondered aloud.
"Not much, Naohiro. Is Kyohan around?" Hitakaru replied. "I've got someone here that needs to ask her some stuff."
Naohiro, who Kirito presumed to be an archer due to the quiver that was on his back, took a detailed glance at the person who wished to speak with his guild's leader. "What do you need from her?" was his question.
"It's government business. I've been asked by someone from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to find out more about Yokunai's infiltration," Kirito explained. "Feel free to join us if you're uncertain."
"Hmm…I think I'll do just that. Come on in, you two," Naohiro accepted with a certain degree of skepticism. Hitakaru and Kirito stepped inside the abode. When they did, Naohiro began to make use of the game's messaging system. Nobody else could see exactly what he was doing, of course.
Like the teleportation loading times, the recipient of the archer's private message came down the stairs at a moderate pace. She partly reminded Kirito of Asuna, but he quickly discarded any further thoughts regarding that comparison.
"Alright, what's happening now? I was just about to have a little nap…" the female complained. She spoke with a more authoritative tone than Asuna while her avatar's hair was green, contrasting his companion's choice of blue. They were of similar height and size, though this person appeared to be slightly taller. "Huh? Hitakaru? Why are you here?"
Hitakaru merely pointed to Kirito. "That guy. He needs to know stuff. Didn't you read Naohiro's PM?"
"I did...I'm tired," the female answered with a yawn. He turned her attention to Kirito. "Who're you?"
"My name is Kirito."
Whilst the other two widened their eyes and audibly reacted with an 'oh', Hitakaru grinned at observing their reactions. Alike his initial encounter with the aforementioned player, Kirito was embarrassed somewhat.
"You're really him?" the long, green haired one questioned, slightly doubtful.
"I am. Although I don't like to admit it, I am Kirito."
Naohiro grinned. "Looks like we have a celebrity in our midst."
"Come on. I'm not a celebrity. The public don't constantly ask me questions or anything, it's just that blog one my friends made without me knowing. Most people don't even believe it," Kirito staunchly refuted. "Sure, the incident is famous, but my name isn't. And I'm glad."
"Don't want to be famous?" Hitakaru asked.
"I'd rather not be hounded by everyone ever. Anyway, can we just get to talking about Yokunai and what he did?" He looked at the green-haired player.
"Sure. I'll have to let the rest of my guild join, okay? I'm Kyohan, by the way," she revealed.
"Not a problem," allowed Kirito. He felt that they were going to join no matter what.
"Good," Kyohan smiled, then turned to Naohiro. "Get Senya and Jonetsu down, please. Tell them to meet us in the dining room."
"Will do, madam," Naohiro jokingly replied. He began to message the remaining two members of the guild while Kyohan led Kirito and Hitakaru into the wide room, past the double doors, at the end of the initial room.
Kyohan sat on the distant side of the twenty seater dining table, while Kirito sat in the chair directly opposite hers. Hitakaru chose the one next to Kirito. Later, Naohiro entered and sat two seats away from the right of the guild leader while a black haired player wearing dark blue Mithril armour chose to sit in between the prior duo. A dark red haired female equipped with similarly coloured mage robes sat to the left of Kyohan.
The meeting started.
"Glad you could join us, Senya," Kyohan commented as the black haired player sat down. She did the same for the dark red haired avatar. "You too, Jonetsu."
Kirito ensured to remember their names, lest a slip up occur. Jonetsu was the first to make a comment. "So this is that Kirito guy? Little unimpressive if ya ask me."
"Excuse me?" Kirito asked, slightly annoyed at her words.
"Oh, don't get me wrong, you look like a decent guy. Just that I expected a huge bulkin' dude. Nothin' against ya," Jonetsu calmed his irritation. "What about you, Senya? What's your take?"
"My take…" Senya merely responded. He did not seem to be rather social, at least to those he was not comfortable with. "Is that appearances have little value over actions."
The SAO survivor didn't know what to say to this, so he didn't respond. Kyohan clapped her hands, getting everyone's attention.
"Hey, let's not waste any more time. I'm sure Kirito's friends don't want to be kept waiting," Kyohan hurried. "So what do you want to know, exactly?"
"I just want to hear it all from your perspective. What was it like when Yokunai started changing things?" Kirito began to interrogate.
"It started out with new features bein' added. House was one of 'em, but it wasn't ready at that point, which ended up causin' a glitch that allowed players - who were affected by it - to kill others in safe zones," Jonetsu explained. "Then there was that axe that could kill anythin' in one blow, which I think was taken out of the game shortly after."
Kirito nodded. The glitched feature reminded him of a similar happening from Sword Art Online. He then nodded as to signal he was ready for more information.
"After all that, Yokunai showed himself under the guise of an avatar named King. He had total control over the game, which he abused to high hell. Yokunai made an entire arena so random players could battle in there for his enjoyment and whoever lost was sent to this 'purgatory' of sorts," Naohiro continued.
Hitakaru shuddered at that reminder. "It was pretty creepy. Total pitch blackness...we could see each other there, but only barely. Boy am I glad I didn't send you there, Senya."
The enigmatic tactician lightly nodded.
"Since Yokunai had god-like control, there was no conventional way out. That's when Konpyu, the CEO of Big Dreamers, came up with a plan," Kyohan inaudibly gulped. "I have...a certain history with Yokunai. A brutally romantic one, if you get what I mean."
At first, Kirito didn't know what she meant. The eyebrow raise helped with that.
"Konpyu believed I could distract Yokunai long enough for him to change everything back to the way it was. You can tell that it worked out in the end," Kyohan broke the short pause. "And that actually sums it up pretty nicely."
"Let me get this straight...he intervened with a planned update, forced an unbalanced one out soon after that and basically held everyone captive until Konpyu and Kyohan initiated their plan," Kirito concisely summarised.
Excluding Senya, the members of the Masayoshi Hanta all mumbled a 'yeah', with Hitakaru joining in. Kirito stood up after a pause that was full of thought.
"I think I've got all that my friend needs for his report. Thank you all for helping. I'll leave your base before I log out," Kirito thanked his newfound accomplices. "Y'know, it'd be great to see you guys in ALfheim sometime. Maybe we all can have a get together or something."
"You mean like a party?" Kyohan asked, both in a joking and a serious manner that earned a smirk from Naohiro and Jonetsu.
"Sure, yeah," Kirito agreed. Admittedly, he found her joke to be somewhat funny. "See you all later."
The Black Swordsman walked to the dining room's doors and was inches away from touching the handle, when Senya reminded him of something important.
"Be certain to set us as your friends. When we are ready for our gathering, it would be wise to have direct contact with us. You need not go through others to arrive at our guild," Senya interjected.
"Oh right," realised Kirito, sweat dropping. "Good idea. Let's be friends."
From there, the black haired sword user added the members of the Masayoshi Hanta to his friend list, not forgetting Hitakaru. He then departed from the game, leaving the guild folks to reflect on their achievements thus far.
They have bested the Grey Knights, overcome personal boundaries and defeated Yokunai Juusan's revenge. Would life throw more challenges at them? Certainly. That is how life works. You never stop receiving challenges. The Masayoshi Hanta awaited their further trials.
Author Notes: So marks the end of Lapis Pugna Online. Thank you all for reading! Please favourite, like, review and share this story. Could do with more of that. But thank you to the few people that actually read this, I'm not ungrateful. Quite the opposite.
I'll still be writing Luster the Cat, so read that if you're a Sonic fan at all. If you're not, then I hope you'll be there to read whatever else I release. See ya!