December 8th, 2028. 23 days before the launch of the Vearth Death Game.

The school bells rang, and the students all left their classrooms to beat a hasty retreat to the bus stops. One student was in no hurry to leave. His hair was dyed black, and was cut long, hanging in front of one eye. He wore an oversized black sweater, an older one with a band logo on the front of it, and black cargo pants.

Outside, he sat on one of the benches, waiting at the loop for his bus to roll by. He was joined by a couple of his friends. They wore similar outfits, and were into similar things. One was a girl, looking to be a freshman, and she wore a skirt with a chain. The other was a boy, older than the first one, and his hair was gelled up into spikes.

"Will you be on tonight?" the boy asked. He was fat. "We can't really do this one without you."

He shook his head. "No," he said. "I have a therapy session."

"Your mom sucks," the girl said.

"I'll let her know…"

"Cory," a man said. They were in a dark room, a psychiatrist's office. Cory, the boy, sat in a chair, and looked down. "Cory, are you listening to me?"

"Yes," he said. "I'm always listening but you never say anything worth responding to."

"I heard your grades are improving. Can you tell me about that?"

"There's not much to tell. Class got easier." Cory looked up at the man, who wore a suit. He was aging and his hair and the beard on his chin were all turning grey, and he wore glasses. Cory looked up at the analog clock on the wall as it ticked away at time. Five minutes in. It would be a long session.

"Your mother told me that you were doing your homework the other day. She said it was odd, that you normally don't do your assignments outside of school."

"I don't need to, they're easy."

"If they're easy, then why are you so close to failing your courses?"

"I don't do them…"

The man leaned back, and rubbed his chin. "Why not?"

"They're too easy."

"Right," the man said. "So what you're saying is… if they were more challenging, you would put forth more effort?" Cory nodded. "Well, what's your best subject?"

"Math."

"And you're in… trigonometry, right?"

"Yeah. It's easy."

The man pulled over his iPad, and pulled up a screen with some basic trigonometry problems on it. He handed it towards Cory, but he didn't take it. "I want you to try these," he said.

"Why?" Cory glanced at the screen.

"I want to see that you can do them."

Cory sighed, and took the iPad. He read over the equations and looked up at the older man. "Four and… four and three quarters, about. I would need a calculator to find the exact answer."

Cory's psychiatrist took the iPad back. Scrolling down revealed an answer key. The answer to the equation pulled up: 4.781. "You are correct," he said. "Let's try something a little more challenging." The doctor pulled up a different equation. This one had a lot more pieces to the puzzle, and some of those pieces included imaginary numbers. "Try this one…" He handed the iPad back to Cory.

Cory looked at it for a few seconds after taking it back. It took him a little longer this time. "Negative… negative seven i." The doctor took it back once more, and nodded at it being the correct answer. "It wasn't that hard."

"You spend a lot of time playing video games, right?"

"Yes. I have an AmuSphere—wait, no, sorry… those got recalled. What do they call the replacements again? VirtuoSpheres? My friends wanted me to help them raid a dungeon today, but I couldn't because I'm here instead."

"Do you find those games more challenging than the things you do in the real world?"

"A little bit," Cory said. "But they're pretty easy. I like to fight player versus player more than anything though. Other players are always harder to beat. Plus…"

The man waited for him to continue, but he didn't. "Plus what?"

"It's the closest I can get to really killing someone without being arrested." Cory looked up at the doctor, and the man didn't flinch. "And I remember reading the reports on Sword Art Online. I kind of wish I was there."

"You would have been much younger. What if you didn't survive?"

"I would have."

"How do you know, though?"

"Because I'm smarter than everybody else. I know more, and knowledge is power. It would have been fun."

"With your life at risk every day for two years?"

Cory nodded. "That would have been a real challenge."

January 1st, 2029.

A crowd of players was gathered just outside of the area that would soon become Newberg City. At the head of the group, Kirito himself was speaking, developing a plan to get players organized and working together. "Right." A man had stood up from the crowd, to question Kirito's authority. "Who put you in charge?"

They don't know who they're talking to, do they? Cory asked this question to himself in his head. He looked down at the crowd, and then to the man standing, and then to Kirito, the legend himself. "I say we hold an election! We don't even know who he is? Is he qualified to tell us what to do?" The same person spoke again. He was arrogant. Cory hated him already.

"Yes," Kirito started to speak back, but was cut off by the man once again.

"You're just a nobody!" Cory heard him say. He was getting other players to nod in agreement while Kirito wasn't even allowed to talk. It had to be stopped. Cory stood up from the crowd.

"He's not nobody! Don't you know who you're talking to? I sure do… That is an SAO veteran." Cory shouted back at the man. He thought about this for a moment. If people thought Kirito was a nobody, then surely they wouldn't trust him. He had to establish himself somehow, so he lied. "Kirito, I remember him from my own time in that game. A legend among the lower levels. A soldier on the front lines who single-handedly defeated a floor boss on the sixty-fourth floor!"

"It was the seventy—" Kirito started to speak again, but Cory interrupted him now.

"Even better! A ten armed demon with three heads! And it breathed ice!" The crowd, quite impressed with this feat, starting talking amongst themselves. Cory sat down. He shouldn't have spoken so much. Already his lie was nearly uncovered, and he couldn't let anyone know he was a liar.

Then, as the rambling went on, Cory heard what sounded to him like an angel, fierce and beautiful. When he looked down to see who talked, he was delighted to see her as beautiful in the virtual flesh as she was in voice. "Quiet!" she shouted. What was her name? He looked down to her, and squinted: Asuna.

Asuna, he thought, he would make her his and his alone. From the moment she heard her speak, he was in love.

December 21st, 2028. 19 days before the launch of the Vearth Death Game.

In the virtual world of New Aincrad, Cory led his small group of friends towards the boss at the sixty-third floor. In addition to the two he knew from school, there were seven in his party, and he led them. The younger girl from high school walked right next to him. "Hey Cory," she said. Her virtual avatar was the same as Harlock's, but she had a different name.

"Yeah?" he asked her.

"Happy birthday." She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.

"Thanks," he said.

They stopped at the boss door, and Cory turned to address his small party. "On this day," he said. "Sixteen years ago, I was born. Do you know what day that was?"

The players seemed to shrug. Only Cory's closer friends, the two of them, seemed to know. "December twenty-first, twenty-twelve… was the day the world was supposed to end. Instead, I was born." The players had a little chuckle at him. "Okay, so… maybe my birth didn't stop the end of the world, but I do find a certain poetic value in that fact. From a day that was supposed to be full of death… I came to life. Do you know what I want for my birthday?"

The players shook their heads. Cory smiled. "I want my name on that wall," he said. "Who's ready for this?" They all cheered, and he turned to charge into the boss room.

After the game, Cory logged off, and got up from his bed to go brush his teeth. He smiled, and pumped his fist before grabbing a tooth brush. The room he lived in, as well as the bathroom, was filthy. Clothes were on the floor, and stains covered carpets and counters. He looked up at the mirror, cracked, and sighed. There was a blood stain at the middle of the crack where he had punched the glass in anger. It was right over his left eye.

He brushed his teeth, and when he was finished he spat into the sink, and didn't bother to rinse it down with water. He looked back up at the mirror. For a split second, he saw something. Behind him stood a man, looking down at him. He shouted out and nearly hit the glass again, but stopped himself.

He had woken his mother, who was now shouting for him. He could hear his little sister start to cry shortly after. He left the bathroom and locked his bedroom door. His mother started bang on it angrily. He didn't answer, and dropped onto a mattress on the floor to go to sleep. On the floor next to his bed sat a journal, and it was opened to a page where he had a sketch and personal notes.

At the top of the page was a skull, large and taking up the entire top half, and its mouth was opened. From its mouth came a scroll and on it was written these words: "When Death arrives and ask of me to fly, to him I'll say that 'I will never die." Below the symbol, he had written something else… "Today, I saw my father again…"

May 4th, 2029

Asuna walked through the Bonechill Mountains to the northwest of Pinewood. As she crossed a certain path and made a certain turn, she found herself looking at a player, sitting on a rock and wielding what appeared to be a wooden staff. This player was cloaked, and as she cautiously approached, he tapped his staff to the floor, and got up to turn around. "Asuna," he said.

Asuna blinked, and stopped. "Who are you?" She looked up at his in-game information, but none of it appeared. His level and name were blocked out from her view.

"I am…" he started and stopped. "My name is Cory. I've been wanting to meet you for a long time."

"That's a little creepy," she said. "Why have you been wanting to meet me?"

Cory looked up at her. His face was uncovered. "You're very pretty," he said. "I've always wanted to talk to a pretty girl."

Asuna took a step back, and drew her sword slowly. "Still creepy. What do you want?"

"Oh," he said. "Don't act that way. I hate it when girls act that way…" He tapped his staff again to the ground and took a step towards her once more. "Just talk to me. I want to talk."

"About what?"

"I don't know," Cory rubbed his chin, trying to think of something. "Oh, you're a cook, right? What kind of things can you cook?"

Asuna tilted her head. "Lots of stuff," she said. "You're really weird. Why are we doing this?"

"Cook me something!" he said. "I have all kinds of ingredients."

"I'm a little busy right now," Asuna said. "I'm looking for something important."

"What is it? I can help you find it!"

Asuna thought for a moment. He clearly couldn't be trusted, but perhaps she could use this line of questioning to get him to rejoin Kirito and the others. "A resurrection item. We lost a friend of ours recently and so—"

"I can help," Cory said. "No, really. I can. I have become a master at witchcraft, voodoo, and other forms of black magic. I know dozens of ways to bring someone back from the dead."

Asuna blinked, and went to sheath her sword. Maybe… maybe she couldn't trust him, but if he was telling the truth, it would be worth a shot. "Tell me more. I need to know if I can trust you."

"They're complicated, and require a lot of items from dungeons. And I have an interest in many of them myself. If you help me clear the dungeons to get these items, I can create a hex that will cause your friend's body to rise up from the ground. This is only temporary, mind you. They would be in a state of purgatory. The player would be bound to the body as long as the body is kept up properly. It is more of a way of delaying the inevitable until a more permanent solution can be found."

"That could work," Asuna said. "How would the… the body need to be maintained?"

"I could do that too. Just more magic, really. Maybe a few sewing needles and bolts, but it would work."

"I'll tell my friends," Asuna said. She opened her player menu.

"No, wait," Cory said. "I don't want you to do that."

"Why not?" Asuna was growing uneasy again. "You're acting pretty strange."

"If you do," he said. "If you bring others here, I will have no choice but to make you forget our conversation, and then vanish."

"Why?" Asuna's unease had turned to outright frustration.

"Because… I don't trust people. One person, I can cast so many hexes and charms that they won't be able to remember their first name. But more than one… more than one and I am in danger."

"They're not going to hurt you if you can bring our friend back to life."

"They will if they can recognize me. You would if you could recognize me. I am a wanted man."

"Wanted how?"

"I will be truthful with you," Cory said. "I am a murderer. I have killed players, and not for any good reason. I will continue to do so in the future, and I will tell you right now that if you have the interest of the players in heart, you should kill me now while you still can."

Asuna blinked and drew her weapon again. "You're very confusing. And if that's true, I can't trust you no matter what. But if it's true, why would you tell me that?"

"Like I said," Cory said. "I can make you forget."

"If we need you to keep our friend going once you bring her back, then why would you propose such an offer if you're unwilling and unable to travel with all of us?"

"No, you are mistaken," Cory said. "Once I bring your friend back to life, I expect you to leave her with me. I will take her in, and keep her alive. She will be allowed to join my guild, and we will protect her."

"We certainly cannot trust our friend to you!" Asuna said. "That's ridiculous. You can't have expected me to agree to that."

"You have only one chance of seeing your friend alive again," Cory said. "And you're looking at him. There is one alternative I would grant."

"What's that?"

"Since you cannot trust me with your friend alone, I would allow you with us as well. I would promise not to mistreat either of you. But if this is what you wish, then you must come with me."

Asuna shook her head. "I will do no such thing." She stood there, and stared at him.

"Then leave," he said. "If you are willing to let your friend die instead of risking a life with me. Leave."

Asuna turned her head to look back the way she came. She grit her teeth and looked back at Cory. "What other ways can we resurrect her?"

"I will offer no alternative."

"Why are you doing this?" Asuna asked.

"You're very pretty…" Asuna shuddered as he said that to her again. "I have been honest with you thus far. I am called the Black Prophet. I speak only in truths… but those truths are never kind and always self-serving. I am not offering a free pass for your friend. I am bargaining the rest of your time in this virtual world for your friend's life."

"If things were slightly different," she said. "I would consider it. But you see, in the real world, I am pregnant. I have a boyfriend who I believe intends to marry me, and he's in this world with me. I cannot abandon him or my unborn child."

"I see," Cory said. He tapped his stick to the ground again. "I know how to force your hand then." Cory took out a sheet of paper, and wrote Asuna's name on it. Asuna blinked at him. "This is a death note." He held it up to her. "I write your name on it, cast a bit of magic on it, and then whoever touches it will seek to kill that person until they succeed, or until someone else touches it. If you won't accept my offer, I will cast my magic on it, and then you will die."

Asuna laughed at him. "You couldn't kill me. I bet your level isn't even that high. It's just hidden with your magic, like your name."

"True," he said. He spoke something she couldn't understand, and the next moment, her feet sank into the ground, and she dropped her sword. She was stuck. Cory approached her, and put the paper into her hand. "But you can. Accept my offer, or I will cast my spell!"

Asuna panicked, and dropped the paper to the ground. "No thanks!" He groaned, and went back to pick up the paper, and held it in her hand for her. She had a second weapon he didn't know about though, and she pulled it out. With her spear, she knocked him away. He got up and shook his head. He spoke a few more words, and then Asuna's spear was thrown away. She panicked and started to scream, but even that was stopped with another charm.

She looked at him in fear, but whatever spell he had on himself to mask his name and level was wearing off. He didn't seem to notice. She wrote Cory's in-game name on the back of that paper: GothGod.

He saw that she still had it in her hand and went over to her. He kicked her spear away, and knelt down to hold the paper in her hand. "Final offer…" he muttered. She glared at him, and he cast his spell. While he was casting however, she pulled out her shield, and hit him in the stomach. As he stumbled back, she slipped that paper into his own hand.

While he was still down, she freed herself, and started to run away, picking her weapons up on the way out. As she fled, she suddenly stopped, forgetting where she was. Cory was walking behind her when he heard another voice from a distance. He couldn't kill two, so he left. From that moment forward, he was destined to find and kill Asuna, and then kill himself. It was on that day he gave the paper to Kirito that his fate changed.

Asuna was the first he met in secret like this. But over time, he would meet all of his major enemies. Klein, Leafa, Lisbeth, all of them. To each one, he offered something extraordinary at some steep cost. Some of those he met joined him, becoming members of the Death Oath.

New Year's Eve, 2028. 3 Hours before the launch of the Vearth Death Game.

Cory's mother watched television out in the living room. The rest of the house was in just as much of a mess as his room. He walked out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen. His mother stood up, and turned to him to stop him. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"I was getting some Cheetos," he said.

"No," the woman said, moving towards him. "No food. It's too late for that."

"But mom, it's New Year's Eve."

"I don't care," she said. "You have been up late at night after you're finally done playing with that game of yours, screaming and making noises and waking everyone else up. Your sister is already asleep."

"I'll be quiet, I promise," he said as he kept on forward to grab the half eaten bag from the countertop.

"No," she said, moving closer. "That's not good enough. You spend all your time in there, not doing homework. Don't you know you have to do good in school if you want to be happy? You're failing three classes!"

"Is that what happened to you?" he asked, sarcastically.

She was furious, and grabbed the snack from his hand and threw it across the kitchen. Some of the treats spilled out on the floor. "Sorry," he said taking a step back from her. She raised her right hand and hit him, hard, on the face. He flinched and then shook his head. "I said I'm sorry."

"You think it's okay to talk to your mother like that?" She started to cry, but they were crocodile tears. "When your father died—"

"Please don't bring dad into this."

"No, when your father died you looked me in the eye and you said you would be a good boy," she said. "You said I wouldn't have to worry about how you were doing in school, or what kind of music you listened to—"

Cory raised his voice, shouting at her. "Dad died five years ago, mom! Five years! Get over it!" She screamed at him, and hit him again. He raised his hands to stop the hit from coming, and turned his head away. "And what have you been doing, huh? You started drinking again! You gave up on me!"

"You gave up on yourself, Cory!" Off in a bedroom down the hall, a girl started to cry. "You woke the baby up…"

"She's not a baby anymore, either, mom. She's eight years old!" His mother started to hit him again, and this time wouldn't stop. She backed into the kitchen, and he watched as she grabbed an empty bottle of Vodka, and raised to him. He had to fight back now. He caught her hand, and threw the bottle away, and she continued to hit him with her other hand.

When she went to grab another bottle, he pulled a knife off of the kitchen counter, and ended the fight right there. The blade shoved into her gut, and blood spilled all over the floor. He screamed at her and threw her to the ground, and then kept stabbing her. "Bitch! Whore! You're a terrible mother!" The slurs and the insults kept on coming, and it wasn't until her body was limp and lifeless that he stopped.

Cory stood up, and grabbed his bag of Cheetos, and walked back to his room around the body. The crying stopped, and his little sister ducked back into her bedroom when he went by her door. He went to his own room, and sat down on the mattress on the floor. He looked at his VirtuoSphere, and then ate one of the cheesy snacks with bloodied fingers. He put the device on his head, and laid back on his bed.

"Link… start!"

A series of checks were initiated as he looked into the visor and closed his eyes. The white screen came up and one by one, his senses were all checked out. Bright colors flashed all around his field of view, and then… the game began.