A/N: System Call: Generate Death Game Announcement.
Death Game is right.
The sirens, or alarms silenced, as the red robe fully formed from the blood that poured from the Service Announcement. Sure it said System Announcement, but I perceived it as Service because of the man pulling the strings. I never did understand why he did what he did. Nor could I relate to his motives or backstory when I'd watched the anime. Now he was floating before me, and the creepy vibes I got from the silence that came with him appearing before all of us like this said all it needed. He rose both arms, one after the other and white gloves peaked out from beneath the massive sleeves. There was no flesh, only darkness.
"Welcome to my world, Dear Players."
The calm, deep voice thrummed. Emanating from within the red cloak filled with emptiness. Ah… emptiness, he's an empty person and created this entire world because he wanted a feeling of fulfillment. I get it now. Or maybe I don't.
I looked around, the players shifted uneasily. Glad I wasn't the only one feeling creeped out. I looked back at him.
"My name is Kayaba Akihiko. As of this moment, I am the only human being alive with control over this world."
The words bore a weight that I was all to familiar with. Sinon grabbed my arm, tightly. I thought I'd start taking damage from how her nails dug into my skin. "I'm scared." She whispered. I placed my hand over her own. It was all I could do.
In short, Kayaba Akihiko was a young game designer turned quantum physicist who turned the company Argus into a top dog in terms of video game companies. He himself designed the technology that lead to the NerveGear. He was the idol of all gamers, the man who allowed people to live SAO. To dive into a world. He was a god amongst men, and now here he was, literally living that power trip.
But he was putting my best friend Sinon's life at risk and that was absolutely unforgivable. I grit my teeth, and mentally prepared myself for the next two years. She would live.
"You have likely noticed by now that the log-out button has disappeared from the main menu. This is not a bug. I repeat, this is not a bug— but a feature of Sword Art Online."
"What the hell?" Sinon's eyes were filled with tears. "What does he mean?! A feature?"
I was still, like a statue. Waiting for the next words to be spoken.
"From this point onward, you will be unable to freely log out of the game until the summit of this castle is conquered."
There was silence.
"What castle?" Sinon asked, but I had a feeling she already knew.
"Furthermore, the NerveGear cannot be removed or shutdown by external means. If forceful means of exit are attempted…"
He paused. The air was heavy. It felt like everyone stopped breathing, hell I knew this was coming and even I was holding my breath.
Sinon? She froze with… something. Her expression was blank and her eyes looked as fear-ridden and broken as the day we met.
"…the high-powered microwaves emitted by the NerveGear will scramble your brain and shut down your vital processes."
Sinon's eyes met mine, and she smiled, then collapsed to her knees. "Why… did I end up with such bad luck?" She laughed bitterly, and started to sob silently.
Well. "Maybe if you hadn't met me… this wouldn't have happened."
Slap!
"Ow," my vision had flashed white and though I didn't feel pain from that hit the sudden loss of vision and realization of what happened kind of hurt.
"No!" Sinon shouted, drawing eyes from around, she was taken aback by how she loud sounded but didn't relent. "Meeting you is the best thing that's ever happened to me! So don't ever say that again!" Sinon had tears streaming down her eyes and I didn't realize it until now, but my eyes were also leaking, just a bit.
I thought she would break, but she is strong. Remembering it correctly, despite her fear, she tried desperately time after time to confront it on her own. The realization hit me, that she didn't actually need me.
"What a girl." I said aloud. Rubbed my cheek, and smiled self-deprecatingly.
"Sorry." She said.
Our moment was interrupted.
"Ha-ha. What's he talking about? That's not possible. The NerveGear's just a game system, it can't possibly like… destroy our brains or whatever. Right Kirito?"
We shimmied through the bodies over to the source of Klein making a scene, and being as loud as ever. Kirito was mid-sentence when we got there. And his eyes mine and Sinon's, he didn't stop talking.
"— has to be bluffing. I mean, if you just pull the plug on the NerveGear how can it produce enough juice to do that, unless it has massive batteries."
Klein let out a loud groan, "But it does, I hear that at least a third of the thing's weight is batteries! But still! This is ridiculous! What if there's a black out?!"
I jumped at the sound of Kayaba's voice. "To be more specific. The brain-frying sequence will commence upon meeting any of the following criteria: Ten minutes with no external power; 2 hours of network disruption; removal, dismantling or destruction of the NerveGear. The authorities and media in the outside world have already announced the details of these conditions to the general public. At present, the friends and family of several players have already ignored these warnings and attempted to forcibly remove their NerveGears, the result being…"
He paused, took in an audible breath and then continued.
"…That sadly, two-hundred and thirteen players have already been retired from both Aincrad and the real world."
A single scream, shrill, terrified, bone chilling. Echoed throughout the crowd. Despite that, almost everyone was stock-still.
"I won't believe it… I refuse to believe."
"Might as well believe it." I started bluntly, cutting off Klein, "What reason would this man have to lie or pull a stunt like this… he designed the NerveGear so he could do this. Face that possibility and accept that it's probably true. It's not like we don't have a way out though."
"There's no need to worry about your physical bodies in the real world. The current state of the game and today's fatalities have been covered far and wide on television, radio and the internet. The danger of somebody attempting to remove your NerveGears is already greatly diminished. The two hour offline leeway should provide ample time for your physical bodies to be transported to hospitals and other long-term care facilities with proper security, eliminating concerns over your well-being. You may rest assured, and focus on conquering the game."
"A way… out… conquer the game." Kirito murmured. He glared past me, at the avatar with no body, red robes and white gloves.
"Please proceed with caution. As of this moment, Sword Art Online is no longer a game to you. Player resurrection no longer functions and should your HP reach zero, your avatar will be permanently deleted and the NerveGear will fry your brain."
Kirito, Klein and Sinon. The players around us. Everyone was horrified back into silence. I contemplated for several long moments what that actually meant.
The upper-left hand corner of my vision was home to a bar, that was now my actual life force. If it hit zero. Death. Such was fate. It felt surreal, to have died and reincarnated into this world, but those final words finally made it feel real.
"This is ridiculous." Kirito said. "Who would venture out into the game now that we can't even die and respawn? Everyone is bound to stay within the safety of the walls!" He exclaimed, my sweet little brother, you didn't even wait for the man to finish talking.
"There is only one condition through which you can be freed from this game. Simply reach the Hundredth floor at the pinnacle of Aincrad and defeat the final boss who awaits you there. In that instant, all surviving players will be free to safely logout again."
Silence once again.
"Surviving players." I bit my lip, "So he knows that not all of us will survive…" I said, I knew this all in advance of course. But once again… in person. It was different.
I looked up at the ceiling. 99 floors stacked above our heads. And in two years, Kirito and the others had only made it to the 76th floor.
"Clear the hundredth floor, but how long will that even take? I heard the beta testers barely even made it through the start of the game after a month." Klein exclaimed, he looked stressed, but had the capacity to try and make sense of everything that was happening. He was smarter than he looked. That was for sure.
"That's right… given that it took us a month to barely even reach the Sixth floor… what will it take for us to clear all one hundred?" Kirito confirmed what Klein was saying.
"You're awfully calm little brother…" I said with a slight smirk, he was obviously shaken. And if he was shaken, I was stirred.
"So are you nee-chan." He never called me that. Always Riyu, or Yukiri. Well, honestly he mostly called me Riyu even in real life. It was just rearranging some characters, and it sounded like he was calling me a dragon. In fact this nickname started during those olden times of Kancho when he'd always called me Riyu.
Bastard.
I started laughing, he started laughing. We both laughed our lungs out, like we were a pair of psychotic twins. Then Kayaba started speaking again. Forcing us both back into silence.
"Finally, let me prove to you all that this is your one and only reality. I've left you all a gift, and you may find it in your item storage."
Call it a gamer instinct, even knowing what it was, I pulled my fingers downward and scanned for the item. Hand Mirror. Well. Goodbye my thighs. It was fun while it lasted.
Kirito, Klein, Sinon and everyone around us all withdrew our hand mirrors and for an instant nothing happened. Then a flash of white and my vision went blank for an instant. It returned, and we all looked at each other. Our real world selves. Ah, it felt good to be in my natural body again.
Kirito and Klein shared confusion. Well, yeah. Being my twin brother, and surprisingly feminine, people often mistook us for sisters and that hit Kirito harder than he cared to admit. His hair was short compared to mine, his didn't even reach his shoulders. While mine was just above waist-length.
"Who are you?" Klein asked, his flat and long red hair was gone, replaced by spiky brown hair.
"Eh? Who are you?" Kirito looked almost disgusted at Kleins new facial features and unshaved face. I almost laughed.
I looked at Sinon. Her eyes were narrowed, and she was still staring at her hand mirror. Then it shattered and she looked at me. "Hello beautiful." I said, with a smirk.
She broke eye-contact. Nervously shifted back and forth before wrapping her fingers around one of the fringes she had tied back on either side of her face. "Don't tease me." She murmured, her brow furrowed slightly.
We looked back towards Kirito and Klein.
"You're Kirito?"
"You're Klein?!"
Their voices were back to normal. Nothing to see between two dudes confused for no what felt like no reason. I looked around the square with a feeling of triumph. This was nostalgic. Now I am the only one with anime-colored hair. Huzzah!
"Wait what happened to all the girls?! Oh my gaaawd!" I burst out laughing as I saw a tanned young boy with brutish facial features in a set of female gear, his short hair looked so out of place I couldn't help but feel bad at his blushing face. That didn't stop me from laughing though.
Kirito brought me back to the conversation. "So this is what he meant by showing us that this is our reality now." Kirito entered deep thought once again, "How is this possible?"
For me, in my world facial tracking technology was already present but VR technology was so far behind. "The change in height, width, and the fact that we're all wearing our real faces right now? This can be accounted for by the calibration we had to do when first running the NerveGear, you know when we had to pat ourselves down? As for the face well…" I trailed off. Klein pointed at me with finger guns and nodded.
Kirito's eyes went wide. "Of course! The NerveGear has those transmitters all over the underside of the helmet including the part that covers your face so it can not only read your brain, but also re-create your facial details."
"The degree of detail with which everyone represents their real-world selves is amazing, but those wide guys in the girl clothes… I feel kind of bad for them." Klein said softly.
"Don't bother, they knew what they were doing when they decided to play as cute girls and have a bunch of sweaty gamers chase after them and give them free stuff." I shrugged.
Kirito nodded in agreement.
Klein heaved a sigh, "But still I didn't think that you'd end up being even more beautiful than your avatar was, you totally look like Kirito too, are you guys twins?"
"Yes." Kirito answered, with slightly narrowed eyes.
I hmph'd and flipped my hair, "More importantly, let's wait and see if he tells us his reasons for doing this or just disappears into nothingness."
I knew he would, and I was right on cue, because his deep voice once again thrummed.
"You are probably asking yourselves, why? Why would Kayaba Akihiko, developer of SAO and the NerveGear unit, do such a thing? Is it an act of terrorism? An elaborate kidnapping to extract ransom money?"
His dark, emotionless voice filled with a sense of longing, he almost sounded desperate.
"What I seek is neither of these things. I have no goals or justifications at this moment. In fact, this very situation was my ultimate goal. I created the NerveGear and SAO precisely in order to build this world and observe it. I have no achieved that aim."
He paused, no longer was there emotion in his voice, back to the usual monotone.
"This concludes the tutorial phase of Sword Art Online. I wish you the best of luck, dear players."
With that, he was gone. The word players echoed as he silently ascended back into the Announcement messages. Head first, shoulder, chest, arms, and the tail of the robe left nothing but a ripple as they disappeared for good into the ceiling. Then the messages disappeared and all we could see was the evening sky. The silence gradually dissipated as a band of NPCs started playing music again. We were now allowed to continue playing, although the rules were different and the penalty was real death.
As if everyone in the square was holding their breath until Kayaba was gone, the entire crowd erupted into noise, with outrage, fear and crying.
"This! This can't be happening!"
"No way!"
"Screw this shit! Let me outta here man! I gotta feed my dog!"
"You can't do this to me! I had a date!"
Ah… youth.
"We can't stay here. Let's go!" Kirito started running, the three of us followed after him. I made sure to grab Sinon's hand so she wouldn't get lost or anything. She squeezed back, almost crushing my fingers. She was terrified, so was I, and I knew it was coming… I could only imagine how it felt coming into this blind.
"Kirito wait!" Klein shouted, he was a ways behind me and Sinon. "I've got some friends out there… they're probably scared and alone, I gotta… help them man." He looked apologetic.
Kirito nodded, his eyes were ablaze and steely. "Go. But don't die!"
Klein nodded, and started running the other way.
Then there were three. "Kirito where are we going?" Sinon asked.
"We're going to one of the outer villages to get a sword and find an uncontested hunting ground." He started running again.
Sinon didn't question why, or if he was crazy. She wanted out, and knew she was the only one who could make that happen. She didn't stop crying as she ran though.