Sword Art Online: The Lone Blade and The Swift Dagger

by Joetemer

November 6th, 2022, the VR game, Sword Art Online traps 10,000 players and the only way to get out is to clear all 100 floors, but the catch is that if you die in the game, you die in real life, two former Beta Testers, Jose and Koharu, find themselves in this death game and must fight through all 100 floors, but at the same time ensure that they don't die in the process.

1. Prologue: End Of The Beta Test

Note: this story will have shifting perspectives, be in first person, and will follow somewhat closely to the game itself with some characters and events changing to add some kind of flavor, enjoy!

Sword Art Online, a revolutionary VR game created by the genius, Akihiko Kayaba, the game takes place in the floating castle of Aincrad, the castle itself contained 100 floors with the final floor, The Ruby Palace, being where the game supposedly ends, the beta was launched on August 2nd, 2022 and only 1,000 people were picked to test the game, though it only lasted for the rest of the month.

Jose's POV

August 31st, 2022

The dark brown halls of the first-floor dungeon were….interesting, to say the least, it had its purpose to be intimidating, and with the added fact of it spawning monsters every few minutes made it more so, I ignored these as I was looking for something, a secret boss room of sorts that Argo told me about and wanted data on it, however, there was only an hour left in the beta. I doubt I would find the damn thing before the beta ended, Hell let alone get it to Argo, but it was worth a shot, that is until I heard a scream of sorts, it came from a girl? I unsheath my sword and run towards the direction of the scream to check out what happened.

Elsewhere

Koharu's POV

To say that I was a noob at this game might as well be the understatement of the year, I didn't know what I was doing half of the time and it got me killed multiple times, it brought my confidence in getting at the very least be decent in this game to extreme lows, so much so that there were times where I didn't log in just due to the fact I knew I would get killed, this last day, however, I was determined to not die once, my plan was to lure one or two monsters away from a group and kill them with stabs and swings from my Dagger, as I do not know how to use sword skills, and to be honest it worked fairly well for the most part. I'm currently at 20 kills in total, not bad considering my past attempts in fighting, but things fell apart and I'm running for my life, but it's no use, more monsters showed up and all that I'm left to do is scream. That is until a dark tan-skinned boy with black hair and a One-Handed Sword shows up.

Jose's POV

I leap into the air and activate the sword skill Sonic Leap, and just like that 5 boars are killed and burst into polygons, "alright now for the rest of them" I thought to myself, there are 3 dire wolves to my left and 4 more boars to my right. I make a rather stupid decision and immediately go for the boars, I use the one-hit sword skill Vorpal Strike to Immidetly kill the boars. I pivot my feet and get in a defensive stance where my sword is in front of me. The dire wolves circle around me, trying to get some sort of opening. Without a second thought I immediately thrust my sword into the body of the Dire Wolf on my right, the one that was in front of me tried pouncing on me, but I swiftly turn and cut its head clean off. The final Dire Wolf slowly approaches me, before it could do anything, however, the girl, whom I presumed was the one that screamed, stabs it in the neck and it bursts into polygons just like the rest. I simply stare at the girl, she has short thick black hair parted at the right of her head, a pair of light green eyes and she has, what looks to be the basic gear of a starting player, which is a leather breastplate, a shirt underneath, a white skirt, brown boots and on her hand is a Dagger.

Before I could leave the girl spoke up "T-thanks." I stare back and nod, she continues in a somewhat awkward way "I'm Koharu by the way! What's yours?"

I was honestly surprised by it, but I shake my head slightly as I respond in a neutral way "Jose…..Jose is my name"

Koharu's POV

Jose huh, it was a simple name to remember, I stand there waiting for some kind of response, but he just stands there in silence, and so I took initiative and spoke up "so" I started, not really sure how to even go about this "Jose, mind if I join you for the rest of the beta?" it was a stupid request regardless of the fact and I honestly suspected he would say no, but to my surprise, he raises an eyebrow and asks

"Why?" I sheepishly rub both of my hands together as I respond meekly

"I pretty much suck at this game and I was kinda hoping for someone like you to help me?" he glances to the side whilst tilting his head, he looks to be thinking about it as he says with a shrug "sure".

Jose's POV

If the term eyes can turn into stars had a physical manifestation then this was Koharu's expression as she smiles so brightly and exclaims "awesome!" only to blush a little bit in embarrassment, she shakes her head a little as she starts "okay so, how do I actually use sword skills?" My immediate reaction is a facepalm as I mentally curse myself for even thinking of helping her.

With a sigh, I respond "Do you have one equipped?" Koharu shook her head, I almost wanted to walk away from this, though, tempting it might be, I knew it would likely bite me in the ass later on. And so I started teaching her the very basics of SAO, she was a rather quick learner, I was impressed in how she was able to pick up on things in an instant, which makes me wonder why she wasn't this good before I met, I didn't bring up that concern as teaching Koharu took top priority for now at least.

53 minutes later

Currently, we're both in the middle of a hallway, and to my right is a door, it's small, looks to only fit two people. I wonder if this leads anywhere, Koharu, however, decides to walk towards it and pushes open the door. It opens with a loud creak, inside the room is a singular chest, Koharu walks in and opens the chest, an alarm sounds spawning in 10 dire Wolves and 15 boars, my right eye twitches slightly as I say "oh great looks like we sprinted to our deaths at RECORD SPEED!" Koharu's shoulders drop down a bit as I pull out my sword and go for the nearest monster, I was able to get 3 dire wolves 5 boars with an AOE sword skill, snakebite, but we are getting overwhelmed, "shit" I thought myself "if this continues, we'll both die."

As that thought continues, however, I heard a faint noise, It sounds like a sword skill activating, then suddenly all of the remaining monsters get killed in an instant. I look to who saved us and, it was a boy with messy spikey hair, narrow grey eyes, and is visibly taller than my avatar, he also had a black coat and a One-Handed Sword, he asks "you alright?" I nod a bit as the boy in black leaves the room, I look at Koharu and say "the beta is almost over"

Koharu nods a bit and says in a questioning tone "think we will see each other again?" I simply shrug at it as she continues but in a more excited tone "well either way I can't wait to actually play SAO again!"

with thirty seconds remaining Koharu turns around to face me as she says "see you later" then the screen goes white

"thank you for playing the Sword Art Online Beta Test! we hope to see you again in the official release!" I shoot my eyes open and take off the spherical headset, I flip the front to face me as I look at its name NerveGear. I place the grey headset on my nightstand as I get off my bed, I look around my room. dark blue walls, dark brown wooden floors, to my right is my gaming pc, on it is a microphone I use to voice act, to the far left of my room is a small shelf, it contained an old Gunpla that has a pointy yellow V-fin, red shoulder pads with a white flower on the side, a blue chest plate, a very skinny inner frame on its waist and yellow vents on its chest and legs, lastly a few manga volumes of from an insanly popular series that ended early last year. I get out of my room and into the main hallway of the second floor, I look at past photos of myself in fairs and school. I smile at these, they may be trivial things to normal people, but to me, they are precious.

I walk down the stairs to my left and walk into the kitchen where my mom is making dinner it seems. "hey mom" I say in a casual and somewhat awkward manner.

she turns to face me as she says "Oh you're up!" which is followed by "how was the beta?"

I shrug "It was fun, to say the least." my mom chuckles a bit as she says in a tone that's a mixture of teasing and scolding "well dinner isn't going to be ready in another hour so wash yourself up." I head back upstairs to the bathroom, I look at myself in the mirror and notice how similar I made my avatar to myself, my darkish tan (almost brown even) skin, my dark chocolate eyes, and curly hair, but even then the curls don't show all that much thanks to my mom cutting it a little too much, she hasn't cut it recently, letting my hair grow out a bit, maybe its because dad didn't complain about my hair and how it's "too long". I get myself washed up and wait an hour, during that time I remember what Koharu said "see you later." I echo in my head, I hope I get to see her again in Aincrad.

Holy crap! this was supposed to be released like three days ago! but was delayed thanks to other factors like procrastination and school. so yeah this is the start of Sword Art Online: The Lone Blade and The Swift Dagger. hope you enjoyed this prologue chapter, obviously, the actual chapters will be a hell of a lot longer than this, but either way, welcome to the start of a VERY long fic so strap in, and like I said at the start, this will follow closely to the game itself, but some characters and events will change, what those changes will be, well wait and be patient, see you all in the first chapter.