A/N: Am I killing myself mentally by writing several fics of different categories? Probably. I just felt in the mood to write this one. This follows events from SAOIF and the anime. Please favourite, follow, and review this if you like it, or review it to suggest improvement or ideas. Share it if you enjoy it. Cheers!

"Bye bye, reality. Hello SAO," I put on the NerveGear eagerly. "No more beta testing, no more bugs and stuff. Now is the real deal,"

I whistle to myself whilst doing one last maintenance check on the bulky headset before me. The semester was coming to a close, and school life had become more lax. What better way to enjoy it than to binge on some games?

Not to mention, I did promise 2 people I'd login on the first official day.

"Link Start!"

I took in my surroundings, grinning madly. The login went smoothly. Unlike the first day of the beta. Now, I just have to find-

"Um, excuse me, are you-"

I turned around to see a familiar girl with green eyes and black hair behind me. "Nice to see you again, Koharu,"

The girl's face lit up. I met her on the last day of the Beta. She was, to put it mildly, a fish out of the water. Apparently it was her first MMO and she hadn't a clue how to fight, level up and improve equipment. I helped her grasp some of the basics, and she asked me to meet up on day one.

I was skeptical, but seeing the joy and eagerness in her face, I figured she was being genuine.

"Nice to see you too, Rui!"

Ah, I forgot to mention. I lacked creativity entirely, so I just used a part of my real name as my user ID. Yeah, I'm hopeless, but nobody is going to assume 'Rui' would be my genuine name either. Right?

...right?

"Well, what do you want to do now?" I asked. "You want to go and uh level up?"

I scratched my head. It's been a while since I spoke this much with someone outside of my friends and family.

"Um," she looked a bit embarrassed by something. "I… may have forgotten what you taught me a week ago,"

I smiled. "Then let's do a recap, shall we?"

She smiled and nodded.

"Ow, h-hey stop that! OW!"

I really did not expect her to get this rusty over a week. Though I did not mind. It was eerily similar to how I was when I first started.

"Alright, let me help you out there," I took hold of her hand and adjusted her stance "Let me move your arm a bit," I said. For some reason, her face looked a bit on the red side, but she nodded. I began to guide her through the sword movements.

"There, see? Feels a bit more fluid. Now you try,"

I let go and chucked a stone at the boar, which promptly reared its ugly head and charged. Koharu raised the small sword, visibly nervous and shaking. The boar got closer. 5 metres. 3 metres. 1 metre.

With a yell, she finally swung with all her might. The boar was stunned for a while, having been struck and knocked back mid-jump.

"I-I did it!" She let out a whoop, grinning broadly at her success.

"Nicely done," I told her. Damn, her joy was infectious. I could feel it taking control, if the grin tugging at my mouth was any indication. I turned back to the boar, which had recovered from the shock. I lunged forward and swung my sword down. The boar grunted in pain, before disintegrating into polygon fragments.

"I thought I'd run into you two sooner or later,"

I turned around to face the newcomer- a tall man in a blue shirt, grey vest and long black hair. "Oh hey, Kirito," I greeted.

I first bumped into Kirito during the Beta. At first, we butted heads over styles, but after a few boss fights and revelations, we became friends. And he did jump in to save me and Koharu when we got ambushed in the dungeon, on the last day of the Beta.

"Nice to see you again!" Koharu greeted cheerfully.

"Wait up K-dawg… gah! Who knew... running in this game... would be this tiring?"

I turned my attention down the dirt track. Another man with long red hair and a bandana ran up towards us, panting heavily.

"Oh don't mind him. He's Klein. New player. I'm helping him grasp the basics,"

"Yeah, and you sure are a good sensei, abandoning your student to run and meet some friends,"

"It's just wild boars" Kirito deadpanned

"Well, they sure know to aim for the crown je-"

I decided to step in then. "Well, nice to meet you Klein. I'm Rui, and this is Koharu. We're both former Betas. How about we all go and practice a bit together?"

"Aw man, I almost had it!"

I shook my head as klein fumed. We had spotted a little greyish-purple object in the distance while grinding and practicing. Kirito and I explained it was probably a ragout rabbit. Highly valuable but at our current level, equipment and the rabbit's distance and speed, unobtainable. Klein got excited and chased after it though, and ended up tripping over a rock, head first into a nearby pack of boars.

"I did tell you it would despawn before we got close enough," I said, finishing off the last boar with a mighty swing.

"That was some good practice though," Kirito remarked with a grin. "It feels better to fight with your own body instead of magic like in other RPGs, ain't it?"

"It sure is!" Klein yelled

I shook my head, though I did look away. It was a bit funny.

I turned to Koharu. "You alright?" I asked.

She gave me a tired smile. "Yeah, but I could do with something lighter, something faster," she said, giving the bronze sword a swing.

"Speed, huh?" I thought for a while. "Ever tried using a rapier? They're light, meant for quick and fast attacks,"

She looked thoughtful. "I'll… think about it,"

"I think she'll make a good rapier user," Kirito interjected. "She is fast and agile, and her style so far would be more suited to lighter, less bulky weaponry,"

"I agree," I said.

"Well, I guess I may go and buy one later! Though, you may have to lend me some col!" She said.

"Speaking of later," Kirito said. "It is getting quite late,"

I looked to the artificial sky above us, now pink and orange, set to match the time in the real world, at least in Japan.

"Yeah, it is. Any longer and my parents may just chuck my manga out the window," I joked

"You're such a dweeb," Koharu jabbed.

I gave her a look of mock-hurt. "Hey, that hurts, y'know,"

"Well, I'm going to just leave first, guys. I got some Teriyaki Mayo pizza and ginger beer coming at 5:30,"

I froze, raising an eyebrow, horrified, at Klein. "I'm sorry, a Teriyaki-"

"-Mayonnaise-" Kirito continued, looking equally scandalised.

"-pizza?" Koharu finished, looking disgusted.

"Hey! Don't question my taste in fusion pizza! Besides, it tastes great! Don't judge something without trying!" Klein retorted.

"I don't need to try that to know it's-"

"Absolutely amazing!" Klein cut me off. I shook my head.

"Well suit yourself. My mom is probably going to drag me out later to try whatever strange concoction she made for dinner," I said, gagging a little at the thought of her last experiment.

"Sounds rough, man," Kirito said.

"I know, but I can't just say no. She puts a lot of effort into them. She just cares a lot about me. A mom's love, y'know, though I wish she stuck to simpler recipes," I said wincing at the last attempt. I am still not sure how I was alive after consuming a bowl of cheesy chili miso udon with boiled squid.

I shook my head, but something caught my eye. Koharu seemed to be staring at the ground, in deep thought, a sombre look on her face.

"Uh, Koharu?"

"...a mother's love…"

"Koharu?"

She looked up and blinked, before flashing a rather odd, almost fake, smile. "Oh, uh nothing, was just remembering something.

I narrowed my eyes. Something about that… seemed off.

"Uh, hey guys? The logout button is gone,"

I blinked, turning around and raising an eyebrow at Klein. "What do you mean 'it's gone'?"

I swiped my finger down and opened my menu. Sure enough, at the bottom of the screen, where the exit button was, was a blank button. I tapped on it. Nothing happened.

I frowned. "Oh you have got to be kidding me, not again!"

"It's just like on day 3 of the beta," Kirito said. "The logout button bugged out for 2 hours. Caused an uproar,"

"Well, it is the first day of launch, glitches are to be expected. I can imagine people would be freaking out by now,"

I checked the time. 17:25.

"Well, you'd be freaking out too," I said.

"Eh?"

"It's 5:25 PM," Kirito pointed out.

Klein looked at his own menu and stared at the time. Then it visibly hit him.

"Ah crap! My pizza and ginger beer!"

"Oh calm down, Klein. We'll just contact Kayaba," I pulled out the feedback button. Except this too was blank. "Huh, that is weird,"

Suddenly Klein glowed a bright blue. With a bright flash, he vanished into a million polygons.

"What the hell?" I yelled out.

Kirito looked equally confused. "Teleportation? But we don't have crysta-"

Before Kirito could finish, he too disappeared into a million polygons.

Koharu looked scared. No, that wouldn't be accurate. She was trembling. "R-rui, what is-?"

She began to glow a bright blue too.

"Oh hell no!" I tried grabbing her hand, but before I could, her figure disappeared.

I could not believe it. I looked around frantically, looking for any sign of her. Was this some elaborate prank? "Koharu!"

My vision became obscured by blue light. The next thing I knew, I was in the Town of Beginnings-the starter town.

"Rui!" I spun around and discerned Koharu, Klein and Kirito standing by the entrance to the merchant district. I ran over to them, relief filling me.

"There you guys are!" I gasped. "What is going on?"

At that moment many more blue flashes appeared in the plaza, as one by one thousands more players were teleported to the town.

Suddenly the sky directly above the teleport monument glowed red. A grid-like pattern appeared, as a hitbox slowly descended from the sky. It reformed, revealing a giant hooded figure, who was staring down at the whole plaza.

"Greetings, fellow players. I'm sure you are all wondering why you are here,"

I recognized that voice. "Kayaba,"

"Sorry?" Klein asked.

"During the Beta, when we first started the game and chose our avatars, Kayaba left a recorded message. And that voice sounds just like that in the message," Kirito answered

"Are you sure?"

"The dude's avatar is several times our size, is floating and just came out of the sky barrier. Who else could it have been?"

"I am Kayaba Akihiko. The Gamemaster, Designer and Developer of Sword Art Online. First, I would like to welcome all 10,623 of you players to my world. I am sure many of you have noticed that the logout button is no longer functioning. Those of you from the Beta would recognize this supposed error.

"However this is no error,"

"What is he babbling about?" Klein blurted out.

"This game was designed to trap all 10,623 of you players in a world of my creation. A world where I am god. You cannot simply logout, nor can someone remove the NerveGear or shut the game down. The NerveGear is designed as such. I have already activated a protocol in the Nervegear to ensure that in the event the nervegear is removed or shutdown, it will discharge a high-magnitude microwave signal to fry your brain.

"Already, 256 people have died due to this, and I have already warned the outside world to refrain from doing so,"

Immediately several windows appeared out of thin air, displaying news reports and social media posts of players having perished from the NerveGear.

"Impossible," I heard Koharu mutter. Panicked muttering reverberated throughout the crowd.

"I hope this will provide some consolation as you proceed to clear the game,"

Something inside me snapped. "What the fuck are you talking about?!"

"Let me say this once, and it would be best to remember it: You will not respawn in the game anymore. Should your HP drop to Zero, you will cease to exist in this game, and the microwave transmitter in your NerveGear will destroy your brain. In short, dying here means dying in the real world,"

I was taken aback by those words. I felt my eyes widen, my jaw dropping as shock fear and realisation took hold.

"The only way to get out of my domain is to clear all 100 floors of Aincrad. Currently you are on floor 1,"

A holographic map appears just then.

"If you manage to find and clear the main dungeon of each floor, you would be able to advance to the next. Clear all 100 floors, and you will have your freedom,"

"Is he insane?"

"We can't clear all 100 floors!"

"The Beta-testers only got as far as floor 10!"

"Oh, and that reminds me, some elements of the game have been changed from the Beta to provide a more immersive, stimulating and challenging experience,"

I felt a pit form in my stomach. That would render parts of our knowledge of floors 1-10 obsolete. It could just be game mechanics, equipment settings, mob spawn rates… or even the boss and its attacks.

"Lastly, I'd like all of you to check your gift storage. I have a present for everyone,"

I opened my gift tab. Sure enough, there was something there. I took it out and inspected it. It appeared to be a mirror. Suddenly, my vision was engulfed in white light. The next thing I knew, I was staring at the reflection… of my real face.

"What the hell?!" I stared hard at my reflection. My hair colour was back to my real world hair colour- dark brown. The yellow eyes I chose were replaced by brown ones, just like in the real world, as was my face structure.

I looked around. Everyone else had also reverted to their real world looks. I idly noted one girl in a pink dress had turned into a scrawny boy... in a pink dress

"Wait a second," I said. I turned to face my friends. In the place of Klein was a taller man with a hooked nose, a small beard and shorter brown hair. In the place of Kirito was a teen around my age with shorter black hair, wider black eyes and a completely different face. In the place of Koharu… was Koharu.

"Is that you, Rui?" Koharu asked.

"Woah, Rui?" Klein asked. "You and Kirito look about as young as Koharu!"

I don't know why, but I got a bit ticked off by that comment. I brushed it aside. "Wait, you used your real life appearance as your avatar Koharu?"

"I used the nervegear to shop for clothes online," she explained. "It knew my face and dimensions. When I got the game, it asked if I wanted to transfer it over,"

It finally clicked. "The nerve gear has high energy transmitters. It can scan our faces. And when they asked us to calibrate by moving our arms and legs and touching, it was intercepting our brain signals to map an accurate version of our bodies,"

"It feels better to be your true self in this game. The nervegear is capable of replicating your body down to a single cell. Now, let the games begin. Who will live? Who will die? Who will get to see the outside world again? Will anyone get to see the outside world again? It sure is fun to be god. I'd wager that half of you will never see your families again.

"Remember, freedom awaits you on the one hundredth floor, and death awaits you everywhere. This is a separate world. My world. In fact, I would say it is safer to stay here. There is no escape if you fear death. May fate smile on you, players,"

With that, the cloaked figure disappeared, and the sky went back to normal. For a few seconds, everyone remained rooted to the spot, stunned at the revelation. I knew soon, pandemonium would ensue. And it did.

The crowd erupted into uproar. People were stampeding, some were yelling and shouting. I wanted to get out of here, to get as far away as possible from the mass of people, so as to find emptier farming ground and get away from the chaos. With that in mind, I squeezed past the crowd, and headed for the exit.

But as I neared the gate to the plains beyond, yet unopened as people still tried to scramble about inside the town, a thought occurred to me: where was Koharu?

It was a stupid thought. She was probably in the chaos. The chaos which for my sake, I'd better leave. And she knew the basics. So she should be fine on her own. I turned back to the gate…

...and then turned around and forced my way back through the crowd. How can I leave a friend behind like this?

I soon spotted her on the ground, curled into a ball. I grabbed her arm firmly, pulling her to her feet, and leading her towards a more secluded alleyway, seeing as now the way to the gate was blocked by throngs of panicking players.

"Come on, we have to get out of here! We're going to go grab some equipment and items with what col we have and get-"

"Let go…"

My head spun so fast I could have sworn I heard my neck crick.

"I said let go!"

She wrenched her arm out of my grip, before sinking to the floor and curling up against a wall.

"We cannot stay here, Koharu," I tried to reason. "Soon, panicking players will swarm the town. And panicking people do crazy things. All the quests and items would be taken up. We need to head for Tolbana or one of the smaller towns-"

"Leave me,"

"Wha-?"

"I SAID LEAVE ME DAMN IT!" Koharu yelled, looking up at me with an irate expression. She looked back down as I saw tears build up in her eyes. She began to shake, sobbing softly.

"Koharu" I mumbled. I kneeled down beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I can't. I can't just leave you here. I can't just leave a friend behind in this madness,"

She stopped sobbing and looked back up, her eyes teary and as tear tracks ran down her cheeks. "F-friends?"

I thought over my choice of words. It had come out… quite instinctively. Were we friends? We only interacted for 2 days… but… I can't explain it… it did feel like we were friends.

"Yes," I said firmly. "We're friends. And as your friend, I am not letting you die here, I'm not letting you get engulfed by that pandemonium. I am getting you out of here alive. We will see the outside world again, one way or another. I'll make sure of it,"

She looked away. "I-I don't believe you. Nobody wants to be my friend. N-nobody wants to be with me. I have no 'friends'. People only pr-pretend to be my friend to h-hurt me,"

I was shocked. She has been through a lot of pain, a lot more than I realise, apparently. The more she spoke, the more her lips and voice trembled with each syllable, the more I found myself on the verge of tears too.

"A-at school, at h-home, I was alone. E-everyone hated me! They said it'd be better if I had died! That I was a-a-,"

I found myself hugging this sobbing girl, gently patting her back. "It's alright. It's alright,"

Koharu sniffed. "Even at home I feel alone… I wanted an escape. When SAO was announced, I figured it was the perfect opportunity, a chance t-to finally live. b-but it turned out to b-be another hell!"

"Koharu-"

"Why are you so nice to me Rui?"

I paused, deciding to calm her down first before saying anything. "Why shouldn't I? You were a fellow player. A person who needed help. More than that, I consider you a friend, one with indomitable cheer and a good heart,"

She calms down a bit. "Rui… What is the meaning of life? What drives you to live?"

I was a bit surprised by the question, and thought about it for a while. "Life… is an experience. A sort of journey. There will be ups and downs, but ultimately it is up to you to decide upon what path your life takes. Regardless of what other people say. As for what drives me," I paused in thought for a few seconds. "It is my desire to see my friends and family. To experience more, to find more joy and pain. Living life is taking a gamble. You won't know what exactly would happen next, but if it is bad you suck it up and carry on, or steer it to something good. And in my opinion, as long as my friends and family are there with me, the experience is worth it

"So let me be your friend, and let's get out of here. I promise that you will get to see joy once more. I promise, as your friend, that I will get you out of here. I promise that I will be there every step of the way until you have found the joy in life, or at least, your own meaning of it,"

I began to pull away, but, surprisingly, she gripped me tight. "Th-thank you Rui," she mumbled.

After a while, she let go and stood back up. "Let's go. You're right, we can't stay here for now. We need to level up," she said with a serious look. She then flashed me a smile, though this one felt genuine. "I'll race you to the plains!" She said.

I gave her a smile. "Now there's the Koharu I knew from the Beta. I'll need to grab you a rapier first, though,"

I did a quick check on Kirito and Klein first. I had added both to my friend list earlier while grinding. Klein messaged back, saying he was doing fine, and was with some friends from the real world. He said he'll keep in touch. Kirito said be around and about, but had left the town already. He also mentioned he wanted to solo for now, but was open to meeting up later around Tolbana in a few days. He also gave some advice, though, I more or less was planning to do what he was suggesting- get out of town and help ourselves first, before others.

"Right, let's grab some supplies and head for Tolbana. Kirito will meet us there in 2 days. We'll set up and grind there,"

I didn't know why I had done what I had done, but I was even more determined to whip Kayaba's rear and all his monster creations. So began our journey to the top.

A/N: Please tell me how it went, and if you want this to be multiple chapters, or just a one-shot. Please review, and Cheers!