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Hello all, welcome to my first ever attempt at writing a story, 'Swords of Simulacra.' I was initially hesitant to write anything on this site for several reasons, most notably both fear of commitment if successful and fear of failure if not. Recently I've come to decide that it's not really a big deal if either of these situations come to being, as it's simply in my best interests to write as much as I can to improve my skill set. I wish to bring a consistently updated piece of quality and quantity to readers, though 'consistent' may not be the case (fuck, quality may not be either, let me know in the reviews). I am not among the most disciplined of people, but an attempt will be made.
This story is not for everyone. It is rated mature for a reason. There will be extremely disturbing and graphic themes within this work. Sexual scenes may be suggested, though not depicted - while I do not look down on those who do otherwise, I am not that kind of writer. If you are uncomfortable with any of this, please do not read any further.
As mentioned earlier, constructive criticism is welcome. Hate is not. All comments and reviews on plot, detail, and structure will be taken into consideration. This story will be posted on both and AO3, and updates will be posted at the same time. Hopefully that's every couple of weeks, improbably shorter, possibly longer. Without any further ado, enjoy the first chapter.
Chapter 1
Overcast
July 24, 2022
"This is ridiculous"
"Ridiculous? I think it's quite reasonable."
"What part of getting rid of the man who's nurtured this project from the ground up is reasonable? You know where this company would be without me? Gone. Swallowed up by some transnational and relegated to child's play. The game exists because I created the platform for it. The board-"
"With all due respect, the board represents the interests of the shareholders and the prosperity of the company. You have been consistently uncooperative with the decisions of the board, and thus at odds with the company. It's really not a lot of effort to get a team going on microtransactions. Surely you could have seen this coming."
"You'll recall that Caesar had planned to leave Rome to oversee the invasion of Parthia before he was assassinated by the Senate. Some of us are too busy with progress to notice the knife before it's too late."
"The Senate was concerned that Caesar planned to claim the title of King and rule as a tyrant."
"Do I come off as the type of man to deify himself?
"..."
"It was an opportunist assumption backed by fear that festered through resentment. Man wishes fortune to his peers, but no more than what is bestowed upon himself. Do you think this golden handshake you're giving to me even remotely covers what you're taking? A mother does not sell her child."
"There's 15 weeks until release. Do anything rash before then, and this… transaction between us will turn sour. Goodbye, Kayaba."
November 5th, 2022
Kirito bent backwards in time to narrowly dodge a vicious lunge from the molten basilisk that he'd been occupied with for the past ninety minutes, and in doing so nearly tumbled off of the obsidian chunk he'd been using as a raft to careen down the river of fire. It was a violent beast, setting upon him the instant he stepped foot into the Gorge of Slag and flinging him towards the river, searing his cloak and nearly drowning him in the flames.
Its length was difficult to ascertain as the majority of its body was submerged beneath the lava, the bubbling substance climbing up its body through cracks in its scales and dripping slowly from its fangs. Since that impolite introduction it had been a battle of attrition, Kirito laden with burns from boiling venom and the serpent weeping magma from a number of deep lacerations issued kindly from the boy's twin short swords.
The basilisk shrieked, rearing back and diving beneath the orange waves. Kirito frowned. So far the snake had been rather predictable, but if its two brain cells began sharing notes, he was going to have a problem. Taking advantage of the lull in the attack, he grabbed a rope from his pack and tied a lasso, hastily throwing one end toward the riverbank. The black rock jutted out in shards, allowing the rope to snag easily. Kirito wrapped his end of the rope around his wrist twice and braced his feet against the obsidian.
"Mom says it's your turn to pick up dinner."
The basilisk erupted from the depths of the liquid rock, slamming its head into Kirito's raft and sending the boy flying skywards.
"It's from that sushi place a few blocks down. We got you norimaki."
The line pulled taut, turning the swordsman's upward momentum sideways as he arced over the serpent.
"I would have asked you what you wanted, but I didn't care enough. You seem busy anyways."
The rope snapped, overloaded from strain and heat, dumping Kirito unceremoniously onto a bed of black spikes. He made to stand up but was unsuccessful, finding one of the obsidian shards lining the banks piercing through his thigh. The basilisk whipped around, its burning eyes singing victory.
"Just make sure to get me one of those twisty straws, I'm saving a bunch of them up to tape together."
Kiriyaga Kazuto sat back in his chair as he watched the snake bite his avatar in half, tilting its head back and swallowing his torso while his legs plummeted into the lava below. He chuckled at the sight, amused that his death was brought about by a rock of all things. Go back even 5 years and it would be unthinkable for a game to run a sophisticated enough physics engine to simulate the tearing of a muscle in real time. That was a game developer's wet dream, or a painful render in a 3D program. The seventeen-year-old silently cursed human ingenuity.
"You've got about ten seconds before I kick this door down and drag you into the world of the living," Suguha's voice drifted out from the hallway. Kazuto stood, removing his headset and running a hand through his hair in a futile attempt to fix the dents from the headband as he made his way to placate his sister. The room was filled with various cables, hardware, and assorted parts stacked languidly on the floor, so densely packed in some areas that a path was needed to cut through the sea of metal and plastic.
The debris was a byproduct of the teenagers fascination with anything electronic, most of it sourced from discarded appliances at a local electronics recycling building. This hobby often landed him in trouble with his mother; one time in particular he had created a microwave cannon (that he called the "cancer ray", but the 1500 watts of DC from the power supply would kill you far sooner than the radiation) using a broken microwave oven's cavity magnetron. That stunt had ended with him banned from tinkering for two months, which Kazuto thought was complete bullshit considering the multiple safety features it had sported.
Good thing I built the second one in secret, Kazuto thought as he strategically maneuvered around a couple of tower cases and a rogue ethernet cable, pulling open the door.
"You smell like shit!" Suguha jumped back as if shocked, wrinkling her nose and making a cross with her fingers, continuing the insult in broken English: "The power of Christ compels you - to take a shower!"
Kazuto raised his arm and smelled his armpit. She wasn't wrong.
"I'm just going down the street," Kazuto sighed. "I'll put on some deodorant or something."
Suguha pulled a face at him and scampered down the hall back to her room. Kazuto took the time to hit the bathroom and clean himself up before heading downstairs. His mother was waiting for him in the foyer, holding some money and an umbrella.
"Take this, it's raining out," She offered, holding the umbrella out towards him. "It's going to stay that way too, all through tomorrow - though I doubt you're going to notice. Make sure you get a good night's sleep tonight and drink plenty of water tomorrow morning. I know you're going to be logged on for a long time."
"I will, mom," assured Kazuto, not bothering to specify which statement he was referring to. He took the money and parasol and walked out into the hallway of the apartment complex, jogging down several flights of stairs and into the storm outside. Tomorrow was a date marked in the calendar of anyone even remotely interested in video games, technology, or science. Last year the programming savant Kayaba Akihiko announced to a stunned world the creation of a revolutionary new platform called the NerveGear, a helmet that was capable of completely immersing the user in what came to be known as a full-dive experience.
Within the hour every major media outlet across the globe had the NerveGear on the front page. In the next three the stock market crashed. The following day there were rumors the U.S military was partnering with the JSDF to develop training software for the platform, rumors that were confirmed true the next week.
Seven months go by and it's May of 2022, and the NerveGear hits the markets like a truck. Eleven million units were sold at launch and another seventy-nine million were backordered. Hospitals, police departments, universities, strip clubs - everyone needed full-dive for one reason or another and were intent on getting their hands on one before the other guy did. Fighting in the streets in front of tech retailers in Tokyo devolved to the point where a curfew was ordered, four times.
May turned to June and the world had begun to adapt to the new technology, demand coming off its bender and the helmet seeing widespread implementation, seeping its way into every pore of modern day life. Things were returning to normal, until Kayaba Akihiko appeared on the screen in every household once again and unveiled his ties with the game development company Sakura.
He revealed that they had spent the last five years working to create the largest and most technically advanced video game in history; their flagship project Sword Art Online, an MMORPG where players would work to clear 100 floors of the floating castle Aincrad. This in itself was massive news, but Kayaba went on to further elaborate that SAO would be an immersive experience coming to the NerveGear on November 6th in half a year, detonating the video game industry like a powder keg and driving NerveGear sales through a roof that had just been repaired.
Kazuto kicked a stone, sending it skittering down the sidewalk. He had himself purchased a NerveGear, as well as a copy of SAO as soon as it was available for preorder a couple weeks ago. He had to pawn a shit ton of hardware to afford the pair, but he figured most of it was technically obsolete now. The fact that most of his free time was spent in virtual worlds grinding character experience and killing monsters had hammered home the decision.
The rain picked up, the drops gleaming like small diamonds in the streetlights as they slammed relentlessly into asphalt, concrete, and fiberglass. The streets of Tokyo were surprisingly quiet, the downfall no doubt keeping the usual nightcrawlers in their homes. Kazuto took caution to avoid the deep puddles strewn about the sidewalk, crossing the street and walking past the fountain that sat near the entrance of the sushi restaurant. He made to enter when a voice called out from behind him.
"Why do you go around the puddles? Are you afraid of getting wet?"
The voice came from a tall, slender man leaning on the fountain about five meters away. Kazuto couldn't make out his face, hindered by the shimmering curtains of water falling from the night sky. He stood calmly, and though obviously soaked from head to toe showed no signs of discomfort. His hands were splayed on the fountain's marble lip, and as it overflowed a steady stream wound about his fingers and under his palms, cascading down into a pool grasping his calves. Kazuto thought him foolish, or perhaps a drunk.
"What kind of question is that?" asked Kazuto, turning fully to face the stranger.
"One that I'd like you to answer," the shrouded man replied, craning his neck and gazing upwards.
Kazuto studied the man. Normally he wouldn't feel any obligation to answer the questions of some random passerby on the street, especially one as odd as the man before him. His mother had often warned him of the dangerous people in the city; the desperate, the disturbed, men and women that life had beaten down and taken from - yet he felt slighted by the mysterious figure, annoyed that his actions were being criticized.
"Why get wet when I don't have to?" he said. "Look at you. You're drenched. The rain is making your clothes cold and heavy, and they shrink and stick to your skin, causing friction and bringing irritation. You stand there, chafing and uncomfortable, and ask me some pretend philosophical question that you expect me to consider in some equally pompous manner. I'm not interested."
The man laughed, a quick and sharp sound piercing through the drumbeat of droplets striking the ground.
"A teenager, and already so pragmatic. Did you learn this in school? At church? At home?"
Kazuto opened his mouth to answer but the man kept talking.
"It doesn't matter. It's not your fault. This world has forgotten how to teach its children, the books of achievement burned and replaced with tomes of want. It is diseased, boy - the people in it stricken with desire and infatuated with hedonic escapes."
The man straightened up and stared directly at the cautious boy.
"When I bring them poison they collapse to their knees in rapture and worship, overjoyed... at the idea of taking another step towards a climax they will never reach. But when I stand in the tears of their God they - they abhor me, they rape me, violate me with their glares as if my discomfort befouls their mad pursuit of pleasure. Why!? They laugh behind their hands at the stupid man who dances with Pandora and her stupid box!"
He was shouting now, spitting into the air and chest heaving. Kazuto stumbled backwards, attempting to flee but slipping on the flooded pavement. He pitched forwards and would have cracked his skull on the fountain rim had the man not caught and held him upright.
"...I'm sorry," he said after some time, letting go of the boy. "I didn't mean to startle you."
He backed up and sat down at a bench, one arm draped over the back and resting his forehead between his thumb and index fingers. Slightly shaken, Kazuto checked himself for injuries and, finding none, stooped down to pick up his dropped umbrella. Once back over his head, Kazuto looked again at the stranger.
"Anything else?" he asked tentatively.
"No," the man replied. "Just needed to get that off my chest."
"I see," Kazuto said. "I've got food to pick up. Good talk though."
Kazuto hurriedly withdrew himself, entering the sushi restaurant. A couple of employees inside gave him a once-over, one giving him a menacing glance as he eyed the trail of water following the boy in. Nevertheless they kept silent, and he picked up the order. When he stepped back outside, the madman was nowhere to be found.
"Probably to change his clothes," Kazuto muttered.
The journey home was uneventful, no preachers jumping out from the bushes to tell of their plight. Kazuto wondered what led people to such behavior. There wasn't anything to gain from raving to a kid, or anyone for that matter. Words didn't solve problems, they were just sounds. It was numbers that made progress.
After much consideration, he reasoned that the man must have suffered a great amount. Pain made people irrational. When a stroke tore through his father five years ago, he remembered being filled with rage at the injustice of it all, and the even worse pangs of loss and feeling of emptiness that accompanied them. During that same week a priest had come to speak at his school, on a mission to make those he spoke to believe in his God. Kazuto had asked the holy man why his God would kill people, why he would take his father when Kazuto still needed him. The priest had said that it was simply his fathers time to meet his God, to which Kazuto responded by hurling a pencil sharpener at his face and breaking his nose. A week later he had been allowed to return to school, his classroom now housing one more 9 year-old atheist than before.
Soon the concrete stature of his building stood before him. Kazuto sighed, and went inside. He had no sooner entered the apartment than his mother caught sight of his waterlogged outfit and yelled at him to stay in the foyer while she got him a towel. He dried himself and left the food on the kitchen table, throwing on a shirt and sweatpants before sitting down with his family to eat dinner. He ate quickly, briefly coming up with a lie about how he got wet before dodging his sister's taunts and returning upstairs to his room.
The soft whir of computer fans welcomed him in, the sound always a warm companion to his otherwise lonely nights. He stripped and collapsed into bed, turning his head to stare at his desk. On it sat the NerveGear, plugged into the electrical outlet and power light blinking red to signal that it was charging. Kazuto grabbed his shirt from the floor and tossed it on top of the device, covering the lights and bathing the room in darkness. He closed his eyes, and dreamt of puddles.