June 17th, 2030

Leafa was in a small library, somewhere in the northern half of the Green Mountains. Along with her was MerWizOne, and she sat on a bench, reading through a book. "I never thought I'd be doing so much reading inside of a game," Leafa said, interrupting the silence.

"Growing up, video games weren't as exciting," the old man spoke. "Hell, through most of my childhood, I don't remember any video games… they were a brand new phenomena when I was in my early teens. I found more entertainment in books."

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Sixty-two now," the man spoke. "The Pegasus messenger told me I was the oldest player in the game."

"Sixty-two… that's put your birthday…"

"June twenty-third, nineteen-sixty-eight. A year before a man walked on the moon, I know… I'm old."

Leafa looked at the time and date on her player menu, and looked over to him. "Your birthday is in six days, and you didn't bother telling me?"

"I've known you for a whole two days." He laughed a little at her. "Besides, when you get this old, you're supposed to spend your birthdays surrounded by family, but… I'm cut off from mine, stuck here…"

"Well…" As Leafa thought, she closed the book, and set it down. "That doesn't mean we can't do something special, right? Surely there's some kind of magic cookbook around here. I could conjure a cake."

"Don't be ridiculous," the old man said. "This is ogre magic. The only thing you might learn how to conjure here is a pot roast, and half of the time, the ogres don't know magic from science."

"Well, then… I know a good in-game cook—"

"Leafa, dear," the wizard said. "Please, I'm asking you not to. I don't want the reminder that I can't see my children and grandchildren while I'm in this game."

"Sorry," Leafa said. She opened the book back up, and continued reading through it. Next to her, she had her own book of empty pages, a journal where she copied down spells she found useful, and after reading through another page of the ogre spell book, she wrote something down out of it. "How many spells do you have written?"

MerWizOne stopped reading, and pulled out a journal of his own, and held it out to her. She took it, and started looking through it. "I sure could use a copy of this," she said. Before she could start writing anything down, he took it back from her. "You're not going to let me at least read it?"

"If you're just going to copy all of my spells, then you're wasting your time," he said. "The whole point of the arcanist class is that no two of us are the same… we all know different things, and it makes us unique. Besides, you don't have enough mana to cast most of my spells, anyways."

"Well, I will someday…" Leafa said. "Mana is based on the hidden intelligence stat, which comes from the real world. The more I learn, the more mana I have. And we can just use in-game mechanics to create a copy, so… it wouldn't hurt you, would it?"

"Not necessarily," he said. "But if I gave you a copy, it'd be like cheating. I enjoy games… and I despise cheaters."

Later in the night, after the wizard started sleeping, Leafa took his journal from his side, and started reading through it. Then, she discovered the real reason he didn't want to give her a copy. It wasn't just a list of spells. Throughout the book, there were personal entries about his time in the game. As she read through them, she started to learn a little more about him.

Richard Clarkson was born to a middle-class family in London. He had a son, and two daughters, one of whom died at a young age. His son, the oldest, had two children of his own, and his daughter had recently given birth to a little girl. In the journal were his personal feelings, as well as last wishes that he wished to send to them some day.

On September 6th, 2028, Richard Clarkson was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and was fighting the cancer with modern medicine. The tumors had shrunk in size, and just before the game, a brain surgeon successfully removed the last piece of it. The treatment burdened his family financially, but since the show started, they were finally starting to bounce back.

The journal seemed to have started out as a personal item copied into the game world. It was filled with parting words that Richard was prepared to leave behind for his family, comforting sentiments for them to get by in case he passed. Leafa stopped reading halfway through, and put the journal back in its place before sleeping.

June 23rd, 2030

Leafa and the wizard kept moving on, from place to place, searching out any non-player race which practiced any form of magic, looking always to expand their growing collection of spells. Leafa thought for a while how she could do something nice for the man's birthday, but wasn't sure of what considering how he didn't want to be reminded of it.

"You remind me of my wife," the wizard suddenly said.

Leafa laughed for a bit. "Of your wife?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yes," he said. "My wife… when we were young, she would always try to impress me by proving how much she loved me. Every year, she always wanted to throw me a big surprise party, but… as we both got older, that got old, and we slowly started toning it down. I never had to tell her what I wanted for my birthday, and she always found the perfect gift. It's… why I decided to marry her, actually."

"How did she know?" Leafa asked.

"Well, as it got close to my birthday, she would wait till I left for work or… to run some errands, and she'd sneak into my things. So what is it?" he asked, stopping to look at her. "What's the surprise?"

Leafa blinked. "I… don't know what you mean," she said.

"I may be old, but I'm not senile," he said. "I know you've been reading my journal, trying to find out what to do for my birthday. So what is it?"

Leafa looked down, and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," she said. "For looking through your things when you asked me not to. I won't do it again…"

The wizard laughed shortly. "I don't care about that," he said. "I would have stopped you sooner if I did. So just tell me what you're planning."

Leafa shrugged. "Nothing… you said you didn't want to be reminded, so I was going to just go about like a normal day," she said.

"Nonsense," he said. "Isn't that what you've been silent about? Trying to think of a good way to pay me back for letting you travel with me and learn more arcane magic?"

"Well, uhh… Happy Birthday," Leafa said, shrugging. "I'm sorry, but I haven't got much in the way of a surprise party."

"Did you enjoy reading my story, then?"

Leafa nodded slowly. "Yeah," she said. "It was kind of sad…"

The wizard took a seat on a rock ledge nearby, and Leafa leaned against it next to him. "Tell me your story," he said.

"My story?"

"It's only fair… you know almost all there is to know about me. I want to know about you. Your brother is Kirito, the hero of Sword Art Online. Why don't you start there?"

March 25th, 2031

The ship, which was a Red Hand trireme and bore Red Hand banners, docked on the northern edge of Paradise Island, the location of the Order's home base, Paradise City. The city encompassed the entire island, but the northern edge was the least populous.

"Alright," Kirito said. "Lisbeth, Sampson, Silica… you stay here and watch the ship. We'll need to beat a hasty retreat once we find Ryun's man. Keep any of our… prisoners from escaping." The three of them nodded, and the rest of the group left the ship and went out from the docks to the shore.

"I'm going to take us on the least traveled routes," Ryun said. "Your presence and membership in the guild will stir up questions, so the less people we run into, the better." He led them on a winding path that went into a small wooded area. There were a handful of Red Hand on the shores, but none seemed to notice the group coming in.

As the group of them moved through the woods, they stopped. Ryun sent his friend a message, and moments later he got a response. "Alright," Ryun said, "This way…"

Before he could continue to lead the group on, Asuna stopped him. "Wait," she said. "How do we know we can trust him?"

"We're friends," Ryun said. "We can trust him."

"That may be good enough for you," Kirito said. "But for all we know, you could be leading us into a trap."

"And you're just now raising these concerns?" Ryun asked. "We need to move…" Ryun kept on moving, and the others followed him, but with great caution.

They went from the small jungle into another part of the city, what appeared to be something of a small square, and they entered an inn. All around were players, many of them Red Hand, but many of them not. It struck Kirito and his group by surprise, as these other players who appeared to be slaves were able to walk around freely, and other than their position in the Order's caste, they seemed to be acting normally.

The group sat down at a table in a back, private room. "What's the deal with this place?" Kirito asked. "You're a murder guild who practices slavery, but for slaves… your non-guild-members seem pretty…"

"When the Order began," Ryun explained, "There were a few changes in policies regarding slaves. We still try to break them, psychologically speaking, but we aren't so direct about it. There's two classes of slaves in their ranks. The high slaves are the ones who agree to serve us, without question, but do not wish to become killers or torturers. They are… more or less complacent in their position. The low slaves are mostly new slaves. They are not complacent, and they still fight. We torture them and try to break them into becoming a part of us. They always have a choice to join us or the high slaves. Their faith in freedom keeps them in their low position, while their constitution prevents them from joining our ranks."

"This is horrible," Asuna said. "You're just evil… How can you talk like that with a straight face?"

Ryun shrugged. "I was broken too, once. It has made me indifferent to the suffering of others."

"Blank," Sinon said, looking to the other Red Hand. "You just recently joined them. How do you feel about all of this?"

Blank looked at her, and shook her head. "I don't care anymore. Before everything was destroyed, I had been a slave for the better part of a year. I watched all of my friends turn on each other to save themselves, and I myself have been stabbed, beaten and treated horribly by those once considered my friends. I thought for so long about how awful my situation was, about how I would kill myself or about how I would make sure that they never forgot what they did to me when the game finally ended… but then the slave town was swallowed up by a canyon and fire. They are all dead now. Most of the people I knew in this game, whether they were good or bad, have likely suffered the same fate. I had faith once… but when I saw so many lives taken in such little time, I lost it. There's no point in being good or bad, it gets us nowhere. I decided that the only rational thing left to do was to survive."

"Oh shit…" Ryun said, reading a message. "Don't panic… but we're in trouble."

"What happened?" Kirito asked.

After he said that, the inn was invaded by more than two dozen Red Hand soldiers, and. "What do we do?" Asuna asked.

"Uhh… uhh," Ryun looked around. "They won't kill you outright. They'll want to know why you're suddenly guild members. They'll ask a lot of questions about me and how you got here. You… go with them, and I'll find my friend."

Kirito jumped up and pulled out his weapons. "Like hell you will!" he shouted. "I knew we couldn't count on you!"

"I'll bring him back to the ship," Ryun said as he got up from the table and backed away from Kirito. "You five," he was talking to Kirito, Asuna, Klein, Leafa and Sinon. "…there's a main dock on the western end of the city. You'll make it, I have faith in you."

After that, the Red Hand made their way to their table, and held their weapons out. "Lower your weapons, Kirito!" one of them shouted. It was a woman, and she walked forward slowly. "You're so heavily outnumbered right now that even if you could take us all on, you'd be fighting for hours and hours just to get back to the shore."

Kirito grit his teeth, and then sheathed his swords. "Alright," he said. "What do you want?"

"To talk," the woman said. "My name is Vice Commander Talia. Long story short, I'm not convinced of your sudden change of heart and your decision to join the Order of the Red Hand. So if you'll be so kind, I'd like to take this conversation to the capitol offices." She then looked to Ryun. "And you. Go write up a report on what happened to our slave town in the Dune Sea. I expect it to be on my desk by morning."

"Yes ma'am!" Ryun said before beating a hasty retreat, and dragging Blank with him.

In the vice commander's office in the capitol building of Paradise City, the five players all sat around the room as Talia sat behind a wooden desk. "Okay, so," she said. "After years of us hunting you, you decided to join us instead. Why is that?"

Kirito looked at her, and then to the rest of his group. He shrugged. "You wouldn't believe it if we told you," he said.

"Try me…"

Kirito sighed. "Okay… Death Oath, another player killer guild, turned all of the players in Newberg into mind slaves. We need to stop GothGod, their leader, except he now commands the largest army ever assembled."

Talia looked at him, and blinked. "Still not sure how that leads to you joining the Red Hand."

"Guys…" Kirito said, looking to the others. "Back me up here."

"Uh," Klein thought for a moment, and then spoke. "Yeah," he finally said. "GothGod killed Mother Earth, and caused the end of the world. So… now, we want to go and fight him, and figure out a way to free all of the players of the mind control."

"But we can't get close enough to him!" Asuna chimed in. "He has an army of innocent players who we don't want to kill."

"And," Leafa said. "We joined the Red Hand so that we could meet with you without your entire guild trying to kill us."

"I'm sorry to say that you cannot become members of this guild like that," Talia said. "You haven't undergone the psychological conditioning that the rest of us have… the conditioning that's turned us into the fiercest warriors in the game. Did Ryun allow you to join the guild?"

Kirito nodded. "Yes. He got us into the guild after he couldn't kill us. He used it as a bargaining chip to save his own life, promising us a meeting with the Red Hand leadership."

Talia laughed at them, and called for her guards who waited outside.

"So… do you believe us?" Klein asked.

"Of course not," Talia said. "Guards, please take them into custody. Bring them out into the courtyard and cut their heads off.

At that, Leafa cast her mass disarm spell, and suddenly everyone who was armed in the room, that is, only Talia and her guards, were disarmed, and knocked to the ground. The players ran from the room and quickly headed for the door. As they did, they drew their weapons, and started fighting their way out.

A Red Hand soldier charged for them with a large axe. Kirito slid on his knees under the swing, and Asuna killed him in one shot with her spear. As Kirito reached the end of his slide, he hopped up, and made two quick slashed at another approaching enemy, and then another who came from the side, killing both with ease.

As they ran through the halls and towards the front doors of the building, more approached. Sinon fired arrows at a few of them, killing them with headshots, and Klein performed his Quickdraw on more of them as he moved along. The Red Hand guards and soldiers were absolute cannon fodder compared to Kirito and his team.

Leafa didn't even need to heal the group, she focused on casting knockback spells and other minor attacks while conserving her mana. It wasn't long before the five of them were running through the city streets. More and more Red Hand attacked them, but they were no match. Archers started taking positions on rooftops. They fired away at Kirito and the others, but most of their shots missed. The ones that hit merely grazed them, and Leafa's healing was fast enough to keep them at full health.

Sinon would fire an arrow here and there at the shooters that looked to be a little higher in levels. As they ran, they quickly made their way down the steady incline and to the docks. Now, adding to the mix, there were flame sorcerers. The first fireball nearly hit Asuna, but she stopped and jumped back at the last second, just before running onto one of the docks. "This way!" Kirito shouted, already moving towards a different dock.

"Hold your fire!" someone shouted. "Don't use fireballs on our own city you morons!"

The group of heroes made their way to a boat, and jumped onto it. It was another trireme, and the players already on it were quickly kicked and thrown off into the water. More Red Hand were on their way, charging towards them from the docks. Sinon picked them off one by one, and Leafa assisted her while the other three pulled down the ship's sails. Once they were down and the anchor was up, Leafa casted a spell on the ship's sails, making them fill as if full of wind, and carry the boat out to sea.

As the ship sailed out, the fireballs started to rain down again. Leafa used small shields to stop the attacks mid-air, and Sinon helped her by firing arrows at incoming projectiles. Slowly but surely, the group had gotten away, fleeing into the seas.

Meanwhile, Ryun had gathered his friend up, and was heading back for the ship that the group arrived on. On the way out, the word had gotten down that he was a fugitive, and his guild mates soon started to attack him as he ran for shore.

His friend was a voodoo master though, and so he was casting numerous spells on attackers, making them miss, aim at the wrong players, and close their eyes. Voodoo was all about simple tricks to thwart an enemy. Voodoo practitioners were also the leading experts in performing and breaking charms. This man's name was Doc.

"So," Doc said. He was a tall, black man with unkempt dreadlocks, and a thick accent, hailing from somewhere in the Caribbean. "You got yourself in trouble with the leadership?"

"Yeah," Ryun said as they ran. "I found Kirito and Asuna, and I let them live. And I brought them here."

"Good job," Doc said. "So now we're on our own side?"

"Now we're on their side!" Ryun said with a bit of a chuckle.

"Kirito and Asuna's side? That's a dangerous side to be on, don't you think?"

Ryun nodded and laughed as her charged onto the boat. "I know, I know," he said. "But hey, at least we're bound to have some great adventures."

"And we can be done with this slavery nonsense," Doc said as he walked onboard. "Speakin of which. Blank, was it?"

"That's… what they started calling me," she said.

"No hard feelings, right?"

She shook her head. "Nope," she said. "Just survive in a world of kill or be killed."

"Where is Kirito… Asuna… where is everyone?" Lisbeth asked as the three of them climbed aboard.

"Gone," Doc said. "They'll make some other way out. We have to go…" Ryun and Blank were already getting the ship set to sail.

"We can't leave without them!" Lisbeth shouted. Then she got a message, and read it. "Oh… they're out. Let's go!" She unfurled her wings, and wrapped her tail around the bow of the ship to pull it out into the sea as fast as she could, just to get it going. A short while later, the wind kicked in, and she returned to the deck of the ship.

"What happened?" Silica asked.

"They got captured," Ryun said. "But I told them how to escape, and left the rest to them. I knew they'd be fine, they're like level one hundred and something. There's maybe one or two plus one-hundreds in our whole guild."

"Where are the mind-controlled friends of yours?" Doc asked. "I got something special for them." Silica waved him on, and he followed her into the sole cabin at the back end of the ship, where the three players were tied up. Doc approached Xaela first, and took one good look at her. He pulled out a magical powder, and threw it against her face.

"Hey!" Xaela shouted, springing awake. She coughed a little bit, and shook her head. "What the hell was that for?"

"It let me see things that can't normally be seen," Doc said. "Like hidden buffs… you're clean."

"If you throw that in my face, I'll kill you," Michiko said. Doc didn't pay any bit of attention to her threat, and did it anyways. Around her vitals appeared a mind control icon. Michiko growled at him after she got over the coughing fit.

"They got you, didn't they," Doc said, smiling at her. Even kneeling down next to the two, he looked down at them. "I hope they can't see what's happening through you right now." He took out another set of items, a dream catcher and something like a doll. He started speaking in strange words, and a strange black mist flowed from Michiko, through the dream catcher, and into the doll. After that, the doll burned up in a flash of fire. "Better?"

Michiko looked dizzy, and then passed out, falling asleep. "Does that mean we can untie them now?" Silica asked.

"Looks like you've got one more I should check out," Doc said.

Silica shook her head. "She's got a different problem… it's a long, complicated story."

"Can you untie us already?" Xaela asked. Doc and Silica both went to untying the three of them. When they finished, Xaela rubbed her wrists, and then went over to Michiko. She shook her head. "She's better now, right?"

"Should be," Doc said. He untied the alternate Asuna, and she rubbed her wrists once she was free, and stood up to stretch. "So, what's your story, then?" He looked at her gray player cursor, and raised a brow. "I've never seen that before."

"I'll tell you later," she said. "I need some sunshine. Where's Kirito? Wait… don't tell me that. He's not on the boat, obviously though, right?"

Silica nodded to her. "We went our separate ways for now. Our party is split up at the moment." She followed the fake Asuna out of the cabin, and Doc followed her.

Kirito, Asuna, Leafa, Sinon and Klein were sailing out on their own ship. The Red Hand would have tried to follow them, but their ships were numbered now, with the shattering wiping out most of their fleet, so the order came down to let them go. "Kirito," Klein said as they all stood on the deck with him. "What's our next move?"

Kirito turned from him to the rest of the party. Asuna was farthest back, leaning against a wall and lost in thought. Leafa and Sinon were sitting with their feet of the edge, chatting. "Our next move," he muttered. The players all looked up, and turned towards him to listen. "I don't know… we need a plan. We need to rescue Eulsam, Agil, and as many champions as we can including members of the Veteran Protectors and the Black Wardens who were caught in the mind control. We… we need help. We need to rally as many as we can to join the fight against Death Oath, and the Red Hand who no doubt have capitalized on the events of the shattering."

"Zandria is dead," Klein said. "Must have died in the shattering, but… the last message I got didn't indicate anything positive."

"We'll plan a trip to Duneclimb," Kirito said. "If anyone's left there, then they can help us, too."

"I got a message from someone I partied with back while you and Asuna were staying in the Temple of Gaea," Sinon told him. "There's nothing left of Duneclimb… it's been completely destroyed."

"How many people did you add to your friends list from Tartarus… the Temple of Fire or the Dragon's Nest?" Asuna asked. "I have that other tank who helped us, Klover… he's part of a guild called the Arctic Army now and I'm hoping that's an indication that their guild was too far north to be caught in GothGod's spell."

"Stomper," Klein said, looking through his friends list. "He's in that guild as well now, current location is Iceberg."

"Eulsam mentioned a guild called Black Flag," Kirito said. "They should be out here somewhere… if they're still alive. And Zeeka was a member of that guild, I think… another player boss on our side could go a long way, did anyone add her before she left the arenas?" The group all shook their heads.

Leafa blinked as she saw something magical occur in front of her. A small swirl of purple lights danced over her lap, and in the next moment, a book dropped onto her legs. She picked it up, and turned to the group, holding a letter that it came with. "MerWizOne," she said. "He was in Tartarus, and I trained with him afterwards." She held up the book. "This… it's his spellbook."

"That could come in handy," Kirito said. "What's he have to say?"

Leafa opened the note, and read from it. "Dear Leafa, I was going to wait for your birthday to come around to give this to you, but considering recent events, I thought it would be better given sooner rather than later. I wish I could do more to aid in the fight to come, but I'm afraid my current circumstances are keeping me from doing anything useful. Best of luck to you, and all of the heroes of Vearth."

"Why can't he help?" Klein asked.

"I don't know," Leafa said as she opened the book and started flipping through the pages. "But maybe this is all he really needs to do to help."

"Asuna," Kirito said. "Get word to Klover that we're going to start putting together a plan to fight Death Oath, and that he should do as much as he can from the north. If he's got any helpful information, now's the time to share it."

Back on the other boat, Michiko woke up, and looked up at Xaela, who was cradling her rather lovingly. "Xaela…" she muttered. "What happened?"

Xaela brushed her hair out of her face, and let out a deep sigh. "You were caught in a mass mind control spell. It's been a few days, but we managed to get you free."

"Mass… what?" Michiko asked. She was coming too, but stayed where she was, rather enjoying being held in Xaela's lap, and making herself comfy there.

"We split from Kirito's group to go find your guild."

"Yeah," Michiko said. "I know that much. Last I remember… we were trying to get Caliah free. What happened to her?"

Xaela shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "Everyone in the Kingdom of Newberg and the Ring Forest was caught in GothGod's spell, a mass mind control. We were right on the border of the spell, it caught you but not us… We got Caliah free—"

Michiko blinked up at her. "That's got to be like… at least three quarters of all of the players in the game," she said, still thinking about the concept of the mass mind control. "But you got everyone free. That's good. Does that mean the fighting is over?"

Xaela shook her head and frowned. "No," she said. "Just you. When you weren't in control, you attacked me, and I fled to go find Kirito. When I did, you followed me, and they were able to subdue you, but we left Caliah behind."

Michiko groaned, and held her head as the memories started coming back to her. It was painful. "I'm starting to remember," she muttered. The pain suddenly stopped as Xaela put a hand to her forehead. "I remember a little bit. I'm so sorry, Xaela… I never wanted to hurt you."

Xaela nodded, and smiled at her. "It's okay, you didn't. We made it out alive and we fixed you. It took some help from a rather… unexpected place, though." Michiko blinked at her again. "Strange as it sounds, a few renegade Red Hand members helped us out."

"Red Hand?" Michiko asked. "No… they can't be trusted…" She started to get up, but Xaela pushed her back down. "What?"

"It's fine," Xaela said. "Just let yourself get some rest, okay? I can be your pillow if you want…" Michiko looked up at Xaela, and then looked a little farther down from her face, to her chest. Xaela blushed, her cheeks turning red and she stared back at Michiko. "Pervert…" she said, dumping the woman off of her lap a couple seconds later.

"Aww," Michiko said before sitting upright. "Is it perverse to find the woman I love sexually attractive though? It seems normal to me."

Xaela blinked, and wrapped her arms over her chest. "Stop that," she said, her blush growing stronger. "You're making me feel… gross."

Michiko sighed, sitting upright. "Right," she said. "You can't deal with the fact that I like you, even though you're totally jealous of the things Kirito and I have done."

Xaela let her arms down, and shook her head. "Actually," she said. "I think… I think I may have gotten over that, just a little bit."

"Good. Jealousy is petty and unattractive."

"Not that," Xaela said.

Michiko looked at her, and smiled brightly. "You mean… that?"

Xaela nodded slowly, and after she said "Yes… that," and admitted her feelings, she felt much less embarrassed about it. "I'm sorry, Michiko. The way I've treated you, the way I've acted… it was all wrong. I was wrong. My faith is… bad."

Michiko blinked, and leaned over towards Xaela. With her hand cupping her chin, she directed the other woman's gaze to her own. "Xaela," Michiko said. "Your faith was never wrong. It was your doubt."

"What?"

Michiko moved her hand to Xaela's body, pressing her palm just over her breast. "How much faith could you have really ever had in a book when you doubted what was in your own heart? You see… your faith wasn't wrong, just misplaced. You put all of it into what other people believed without ever bothering to ask or figure out what it was you believed in."

Xaela nodded slowly. "Thanks," she said. "That… really helps."

Michiko nodded. "I've really put in a lot of thought about what to say to you on the matter. I didn't expect it to come down to just that, so… I kind of have more to tell you now."

Xaela giggled at her. "Go on, then…"

"Okay so like… Another thing I thought of saying was along the lines of… you believed that the words of the book were true, even when your own heart told you a different truth. You know, like, would you believe words on a page over your own heart in matters of love?"

"Yeah, I get it," Xaela said, laughing a little more.

Michiko smiled at her laughter, and kept going on. "Or how'bout this one: If the truth is supposed to set you free… see, throwing a verse in there now… then how come so much of what you believed to be true ended up being like more of a prison?"

Xaela shook her head, and pulled Michiko closer to her. She leaned in and gave the woman a kiss. It was nothing at first, but Michiko wasn't going to let her love escape now. She wrapped her arms around Xaela's head and held her tight into the smacking of their lips and tangling of tongues. It would have gone on longer except they were interrupted by Ryun, who had walked back into the cabin and started watching. "Alright!" he shouted. "As much as I'd love to watch more of this, we've got news from Kirito and the others."

Xaela and Michiko broke apart in a bit of a shocked and embarrassed gasp. Afterwards, Ryun went back out, and Xaela and Michiko followed him out to the deck.

"Alright," Lisbeth said once they arrived. "Here's the plan. Kirito's group is going to head northwest, and go back to the Fountain of Silver Lights to harvest more Silver Steel. Leafa's found a nifty object teleportation spell to teleport the harvested ores to me. Meanwhile, we'll be heading northeast. Most of the dragons flew that direction, and I still have control over them if I get close enough. An army of dragons would be helpful in our efforts against Death Oath."

"I'm certain it would," Xaela said. "But let's not forget that the population of Newberg consists of innocent people. We can't just burn through them, blazing a trail to GothGod."

"Then comes in us," Doc said. "I'll be going with you two, the first objective will be to find my new brothers and sisters of the Black Wardens, and bring them back out of the mind control. If you've got any voodoo skills, I can teach you the proper spells to bring them out of the control of the Black Prophet."

"Brothers… and sisters?" Michiko asked. "But you're a player killer. We're headhunters!"

Doc then bowed on one knee before Michiko. "I admit I've made mistakes, and I have no atonement for the sin I committed in hurting others. But if you would have me, I would proudly join your guild, Michiko."

Michiko looked down at him, and thought about it. Xaela followed suite, bowing to her next to him. "Michiko," she said. "You have forgiven me as well, for many of the same crimes. You've even fallen in love with me. If you cannot accept him because of that, then you should kill us both right now… I as well wish to join your guild. I can't stay with the VPG, since with Eulsam under their control, they can track my location without my consent. The Black Wardens though… would make an excellent new home."

The Black Warden nodded slowly, and smiled at the two of them. "You raise a valid point," she said. "I will accept your offer. But I expect you both to prove yourselves."

"Anything," Doc said.

"You already know of my loyalty to you," Xaela said.

"No, not as a onetime ceremonial rite of passage. When I say prove yourselves, I mean forever. As long as you are a member of the Black Wardens, you must dedicate everything to helping the victims of player killers, and bringing those who commit such travesties to justice. As a Black Warden, you are no longer yourself, but you are the very hammer of God, the name of justice in this cruel world. Will you accept?" Michiko put on her full set of gear, reequipping her helmet, which masked her identity and voice. Her name once again read Mokatso.

"I do," Doc said.

"Always…" Xaela said. Michiko opened her player menu, and sent the two of them a guild invitation. Doc accepted, but Xaela looked up at her funny. "I… I didn't get it?" she said.

Michiko shook her head. Behind her face mask, she rolled her eyes. "You did leave the VPG first, right?"

"Oh, right! Duh!" Xaela then opened her player menu, and left her former guild. Michiko resent the invitation, and she accepted it.

"Well," Ryun said. "With that settled, Blank and I have a mission of our own. We're going to go around to try and flip more of the Red Hand. We've sent out a mass message to everyone saying that what happened in Newberg also happened to Paradise City. It should… create quite a bit of confusion at the very least. Those who believe that little fib would be more likely to fall… nay, rally to my leadership. I'll turn them all from player killers into the redeemed army of murderers."

"At the very least," Blank said. "We intend to free a lot of slaves, and start a revolution. It could take some time, but we can promise at least a small army should you ever need one."

"Alright then," Lisbeth said. "I'll let Kirito know what we're up to. Asuna…"

"Hai?" the false Asuna asked.

"You'll stay with us, as far away from Kirito as possible. You'll make a valuable addition to our team."

"Actually, I had an idea," she said.

"What's that?" Sampson asked her.

"There's still that evil Kirito out there somewhere. They don't know that I haven't accepted the offer to try and kill the real Asuna. It would be a wonderful opportunity to remove a very powerful enemy from the game for you guys."

"But," Michiko said. "But you're okay with that? Going after Kirito? I know it's an evil Kirito from a screwed up timeline, but it's still Kirito. Are you sure you're okay with that?"

"Of course!" Asuna said. "It's perhaps the one good thing that can come from all of my hardship. I will do what I was made to do, and kill the evil Kirito. Plus… from what I gathered, he's a higher level than any of you, even the real Kirito. No one has a better chance than I do, then…"

"Alright," Michiko said. "As long as you're okay with it, I suppose it's your decision."

Lisbeth sent the message out to Kirito, and the group sailed onward to the northeast.

On Kirito's boat, the group received the message, and sent back a simple "OK." They looked on to the northwest, and where their adventures would take them next. Asuna approached Kirito who stood at the front of the ship, looking out over the horizon. She held his hand, and the two of them smiled.

"Kirito," she said.

Kirito looked to her.

"I… when I saw you fall, back when we were fighting and the world fell apart…"

"What was it?" Kirito asked.

"I have to be honest," Asuna said. "I was going to say no."

"No what?"

"I was going to say that I didn't love you. But when you fell, I felt my heart sink, and I knew I was wrong. I do still love you. After everything that happened, I began to doubt myself… and us. But I never felt so relieved that you were alive and well after that."

"It's okay, Asuna," Kirito said. "I always had enough love for the both of us, remember? And so did you. When we both started to lose a little, we still had more than enough…"

Asuna smiled. "I never want to leave you again…"

Kirto took her and they shared a kiss as the sun started to shine through the ashen clouds above. It was setting in the distance, and the ship sailed off towards the north, towards an uncertain future. But the heroes of Vearth didn't need their certainty. They had their faith... they would fight. They would fight for years or decades, however it long it took, and to their last, dying breaths for the good of all.

Despite everything they stood stronger than ever before. No matter how challenging the path laying before them, they could be certain of one thing: the future was in their hands. And that's all they needed to know.