First Day of the Beta

August 1, 2022

Town of Beginnings, 1.08 pm

Kirito PoV

As I logged into the beta test for SAO for the first time, I was surrounded by a large plaza with a clock tower in the center. I had changed my appearance, if only in the hair length and a sharper, slighter older face. I had looked down and seen that I was wearing a dark, almost night sky blue long sleeve shirt, a light brown chest piece and fingerless gloves, dark brown pants, and black boots. The three of us had gotten together and decided to use the names we had in the last MMO we played together. I had chosen Kirito, Yuuna decided surprisingly enough to use Yuna, (which Eiji and I laughed at), and Eiji used Nautilus.

As more players logged into the beta test, it seemed that the plaza would be able to fit more than the one thousand players that were here. As I awed at the sensation of both being inside a virtual world and how it had looked, two people had approached me, the first was Nautilus, who hadn't changed his appearance and was recognized easily. While he was recognizable, Yuna had changed her hair and eye color to while and red respectfully, (A/N I'm basing Yuna's beta appearance from the "White Yuna'' from Ordinal Scale) and like myself, they were wearing the same starting gear as myself, but Nautilus had a yellow shirt, and Yuna with a lighter shade of blue.

"So, I'm guessing that's you, Kirito. If so, then you went overboard with the customizer?" Yuna said slyly. "Nautilus here didn't change anything from his IRL appearance and I only went for the hair dye and the eyes."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, why don't you," at this, Nautilus had indeed laughed and Yuna giggled. After a few seconds, their mirth had died down and I sighed. "So, what starter weapons are the both of you going to choose? I'm gonna go with the basic longsword."

As we were walking towards the blacksmith, Eiji raised his eyebrow, "really Kirito, though you might've gone with a katana, especially with your previous kendo training?"

"Nah, man. Plus we're here to forget about our lives outside even for a little while. So, what weapon are you choosing, Nautilus?" I nudged him while pointing at Yuna. "See, our most lovely friend might stab her dagger into you."

At this, Nautilus gave me a knowing glare and Yuna blushed slightly, going unknowing by both boys. "Just hurry up Ei-Nautilus and choose a weapon, I want to test out the combat for a few hours before I log out for dinner."

At this, the older boy had picked up and accepted another basic longsword. As we stood there, Yuna had also found what was a lute, but no of us had the Col to afford it. "So, let's get going and train," Nautilus said. "We've been here long enough already."

As we headed out of the city, Yuna had started humming a slow tune that I knew all too well, since I helped create it. It never stops to amaze me that even in a virtual world she may eventually become the biggest musician on Aincrad when we finish it. When we reached the outskirts of the Town of Beginnings, we had only now to send party invites to each other. With that over and done with, we saw a pack of five dire wolves and we drew our weapons.

I had gripped my blade into a basic kendo stance, holding the grip with both hands and blade held diagonally forward. Nautilus was in a slight crouch, left foot in front of right and the blade was held vertically. And finally, Yuna held her dagger in a basic stance. When we drew our weapons, we decided to set ourselves into a pattern that one of us, either Nautilus or myself would take the lead, since we had longswords, then Yuna would do a follow-up attack and finally, the person pulling up the rear would finish the kill and repeat.

5:54 pm

Notus Inn, Town of Beginnings

Kirito PoV

We spent most of the day hunting, mostly around the Town of Beginnings with dire wolves and a couple of their alphas. We had also been able to level up to level three after four hours of grinding, and we managed to stumble onto the combat system with our fourth mob. Since it was getting late in the day and almost twilight, we all decided to log out for the rest of the day.

During our walk back, we had seen a few other players, but it looked less than a hundred others who had the combat of SAO. We had seen an inn which was a good location to log out from. Before we logged out, Yuna grabbed my arm and gave me a knowing look. She then turned to Nautilus, "can you give the two of us a minute, Nautilus?"

I was shocked while Nautilus raised an eyebrow, "really Yuna?" He had laughed while going through his menu, and before he logged out, he turned to his two closest friends. "Hope your conversation doesn't take too long. Unless…"

When he had said that, Yuna had blushed but glared back at him. "Jealous, Nautilus. It's just we were working on something IRL, but we just need to finish a few minor details." After that, he did confirm to log out of SAO. I waved to a couple of chairs and we sat down. "I'm worried about him, you know. He got better over the last few months, but today was the first day he was somewhat happy."

I understood what she meant, and I took her hands in mine. "I think he didn't want to worry us," I glanced at where Nautilus once stood. "And that he still blamed himself for everything that happened back in March."

As we sat there, she started humming the same tune from earlier. After a minute or so, she stopped and looked me in the eyes again. "We started this little project together, so let's just finish it already."

I can still remember the day, back in June, when Yuna decided to write a song and asked my help, especially for the lyrics. Yuna wanted to keep surprising Nautilus to help him to find some peace after the robbery went wrong which killed his parents. She was the one to tell me that they still haven't caught the one who did it. We had spent the last two months on this one song, and we had had fun with writing it.

"-rito, are you even listening?" like that, I snapped back into attention. "You weren't listening were you. Ha," she giggled, "do you think the song is finished yet?"

I pondered on it, but without going through the entire song with a guitar, then we need to play from the top. "I think so, but we need to play it. Other than that, we can change the details after."

"It can wait, but I think Nautilus will like it anyway," Yuna said. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Kirito."

With that, I nodded and smiled at her. "Well, I better go before Nautilus starts talking about this. They probably won't stop for the rest of the night." She blushed again but smiled anyway. I brought up the game menu, pressed the log out button, and confirmed.

Kirigaya Household, 6:27 pm

Kazuto PoV

As my eyes fluttered open, knowing that I was in my bedroom, I soon sat up on my bed, removed the nervegear from my head, and headed downstairs. As I reached the top of the stairs, I heard Eiji talking about SAO and how it felt like being in a virtual world to Sugu. They turned their heads when Eiji initially heard me from the stairs and went back to talking about the afternoon.

I sat down next to Eiji and joined the conversation. After talking for a few minutes, Eiji wanted to know how I thought of the experience. I thought about the experience of the past afternoon and how it felt.

"Well for one thing, depending on what we're focusing on, were very detailed," I said. "If I didn't know it was a game, I might've thought it was real. Never put much thought of it until you asked."

"Don't forget that Yuuna wanted to talk with you, privately, I might add," Eiji said, and hearing that Sugu looked at me scrupulously.

"So what happened, Kazuto, cause I didn't believe this one," pointing to Eiji, "saying anything about a virtual date. If it was, you would've been down here later."

"Can't say, promised to keep quiet until it's finished. Plus it was Yuunas idea," I replied. "Plus with the afternoon we had, I just wanted some food." They laughed when I said that. After their laughter died down, I started eating dinner not looking at either one of them.

A bit of time later, I got up, collected our dinner plates, walked to the kitchen and, was about to start cleaning the dishes when I heard Sugu walk into the kitchen. "Kazuto, can we talk?"

"Yeah, sure. What's on your mind?" I replied while starting the cleaning.

"We never really had a chance to talk for a while, especially about how mum told me you were really my cousin and not my brother. I was just wondering, how did you find out about it?" she said while rocking on her feet nerviously, a sign I've always noticed since we were kids.

"I discovered the internet," she gave me a really look. "I'm serious, that's how I found out. I was looking around the internet for my birth certificate, for something I can't really remember, but not only did I find it, but also my adoption records were attached to it. Mum confirmed it when I asked later if they could tell me about them. So you know, Sugu."

"Thanks for telling me Kazuto," she said and left as I just finished washing the last plate. Soon after, I walked back to my bedroom and went to bed for the night.

A/N. The second chapter is done, and with this story, it may take me a week for a chapter of around fifteen hundred words thereabouts since I'm working nine-hour shifts Mondays till Fridays and might have an hour or two before and after. But I'm doing this for fun and writing this more or less off the top of my mind. Like I said in the last A/N I'm basing this off the show, but I'm gonna do it very loosely and many events that may appear from the show will have more than a few non-canon aspects. The first can be seen with the Kazuto/Sugu aspect, that for me, with the initial relationship that's seen in the Fairy Dance Arc was weird. And finally, I know that there will be questions, the project/song is Smile for you, from the end of Ordinal Scale.