[Nibelheim ]

Cloud watched as the tourist came and left like usual today was no different from any other day, it's been years since the kids he grew up with moved on and left the town and even though Nibelheim was so close to the floating island of Aincrad there wasn't any real reason to stay.

The war with Aincrad had ended before it even really began so even though he wanted to join the Shinra military, he was denied entry to it.

It wasn't that Shinra didn't need soldiers, far from it, it was the fact that Nibelhime was so close to the flying castle that the corporation thought it was better to keep him close to it.

The only other person that remained from his childhood other than all of the adults that were getting old, was Tyfa and even though the two of them weren't close, the fact that they were the only ones whose ages were similar meant that they ended up passing more time together than they did in the past.

Nibelheim wasn't that big of a town far from it, cloud didn't even know if people even knew it existed considering that everyone that passed through it on their way to take a picture of the flying castle was surprised to see the town.

So like usual cloud found himself passing his time watching the tourist leave.

"Hey," Tifa said to him as she stood next to him

"Hey" he answered her, as the voices o children playing in the river could be heard.

The river was something that had been created after the castle had arrived, somehow somewhere along the way the mountain\ castle had a leak somewhere and as a result, a lot of fresh water poured from it.

Needless to say, a lot of monsters were attracted to the water and soon the dead rocky land started turning green and the town started charging people to swim in it, after all, why wouldn't they, everyone in town was living off the river now, considering that it was the only drinking water left for miles.

He heard Tifa exhale as they both looked at the floating castle.

"You know just once, I want to see, what it's like"

"You know, I want to see what's in there," Tifa said to him as she looked at the castle

Cloud was about to answer her when he heard something that he hadn't heard for months, it was the sound of massive gates of Aincrad opening.

Cloud and Tifa both watched as the doors opened wide and not one or two but a whole lot of knights stepped out.

They weren't the same amount as they were when the war was about to start but they weren't few either and worst of all they were headed straight for the town.

The two of them turned to look at each other and they immediately understood what they had to do, Cloud ran towards the town to warn everyone and Tifa ran towards the people playing in the river to get them to escape in case something terrible happened.

"Everyone!" Cloud screamed as he arrived in the town and everyone looked at him as if he was crazy

"The- the castle opened and a lot of knights!" cloud began to warn the people when he suddenly noticed that everyone was looking past him

"Turn around, we're right behind you," Kirito said to Cloud before walking up to him and placing his hand on Cloud's shoulder.

"Relax we just came to say hie and speak to your mayor or whoever is in charge here," Kirito said to cloud and the elder stepped forward

"Oldman I'm here to offer you and everyone in this town a deal," Kirito said to the elder of the town before handing him a sheet of paper.

"I'll have to tell everyone in town and we will have to vote on it" the elder answered Kirito before Kirito smiled and left the town, but not before saying that if the people of Niblehim agreed they just had to go to Aincrad and deliver the news.

"What does it say?" Cloud asked the elder, who looked at him with an extremely happy smile.

"We have just been offered a chance to enter the mountain\castle and hunt - visit- sell- buy and explore in exchange for us doing the same for the knights and the people of the castle," he said to Cloud and everyone in town who considering that everyone had gathered to see what the knights had left behind.

"The terms are simple, kidnapping and rape are punishments that will be punished by death, unless there is a good reason, like if you were forced or manipulated to do the acts"

"Stealing is punished by either making a person a knight or a hunter, depending on the reason"

"The examples they gave are, you became a thief because no one would hire you and so you had no other choice, that qualifies you for knight training, that means you always have a job."

"If you stole because you ere either just a bad person or too young, you will be made a hunter. Go on and live however you want"

Cloud couldn't believe what he was hearing and apparently neither did everyone else, but soon everyone agreed that there was no reason for them to say no and so they all voted in favor of trading with the kingdom of Aincrad.

Cloud remembered Tifa and he ran to tell her about what had happened, he knew that she would be hiding along with the tourists in one of the nearby caves and he soon found her.

After telling everyone that things were safe and that it was okay for them t come out, he told TRifa what had happened and the two of them ran towards their houses.

Tifa ran to get her martial arts gear and cloud to get his sword.