Asuna

Once upon a time, Asuna would have run from a fight when there was no escape except death or victory. That once lead her to separate from her friend Mito. Later on, she'd fall for the rumor of a hidden exit from Aincrad to the real world, and following it almost led to her death and acceptance of a pitiful death-but Jaymes, Koharu, and Argo saved her.

Once upon a later time, she considered that if she at least tried to fight and escape, her death would be worth it. That got her entangled with Koharu, Jaymes, and Kirito and a reunion with Mito. That kept her onward until she became vice commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath, mere moments after the single deadliest loss of life in SAO ended. All because a Pker held on to a vital piece of information that could have saved lives.

Between then and the time she'd reunite with Jaymes and Kirito over a year later, she decided that death was not an option, so any means necessary to fight and win was worth it. She didn't like the thought too much, and she saw the results of it. It almost cost Jaymes his humanity on the thirty-fifth floor doing just that. It brought her head-to-head with Kirito on the fifty-six floor when deciding to use NPCs as bait at the boss raid meeting.

From the moment they reunited as a trio to the end of the game, Asuna held a slightly different mindset. Death was not an option; any means justify the end, but only if her soul would come clean. It holds to this day. When it comes to protecting Kirito, Jaymes, or anyone, she will do whatever it takes as long as it is not the extreme option. They saved her so many times, all without sacrificing much of themselves, that it is only right she does the same thing for them.

At the same time, all she knows is anger.

When Johnny Black attacked Kirito, she cursed her helplessness and was angry. When she reunited with Koharu hours before becoming Stacia, she cursed her past inability to help Jaymes. She took those feelings out on PoH. When Jaymes fell to Eydis and the First Children, she cursed her lateness and inability to do anything over the next few days. Seeing Jaymes and Kirito both be manipulated into a fight that she had to intervene in only stoked the flames.

Now one of the four is responsible for everything in front of her. And she doesn't waste a moment striking. Asuna makes the opening moves, yet Eva avoids her, going as far as to taunt Asuna by holding her rapier behind her back. That only makes Asuna angrier until Eva uses her sword to defend herself...and an equally taunting smile. "This is the might of the imposter? Maybe I underestimated you."

Asuna grits her teeth and continues to take the offensive. But no matter what Asuna throws, whether a regular attack or a sword skill, Eva manages to hold her guard. When Eva encroaches on the barrier, she finds a way not to be between it and Asuna. No, it seems like Eva is avoiding touching the barrier. Is there a downside to making contact with it, like being shocked or the like?

Asuna decides to find out.

Driving Eva back again, Asuna waits until Eva is about three-fourths of the way to the barrier. She gets into a stance for a thrust. Eva sets up to defend herself, thinking it's coming, and Asuna gives her the expected attack halfway. Just before she hits Eva's blade, Asuna swings up sharply, and with it comes the command of earth manipulation. A blunt pillar erupts obliquely, following the direction of Asuna's sword, and pounds against Eva. The daughter of Solus is caught off guard and pinned into the barrier.

Eva's electrified yelps bring a slight smile to Asuna's face.

After a moment, she swipes her blade, crumbling the pillar and letting Eva drop to the ground. The armored woman continues to spasm as Asuna makes her approach. "Huh. Is this the might of the daughter of Solus?" Eva growls as she tries to get up, but the earth wraps her arms and legs around her with a tap of Asuna's sword. She continues to struggle as she's buried under more earth, with only her head exposed. "You thought you were playing with me, had me in your hands, but I've learned from two of the best. When I met them, I was a scared girl looking to die. They took me under their wing, taught me to fight and survive, and created a person who is their equal. One of the most important lessons is to stay perceptive to your opponent in a duel."

"...Is that so?" Eva closes her eyes with a weirdly confident smile. "I'll admit, you caught me off guard. But you must know that if you cannot perceive something, you can't fight it." Taking Eva's words as a warning, Asuna drops back but notices a passing single yellow sphere too late.

There are many differences between the NerveGear and Amusphere and the Soul Translator. However, two things are consistent: one, information from the virtual world is still sent to her true brain, and two, simulated reception from the five senses still operates as if a real body was sensing the stimuli. Food that tastes good to her in the real world will taste good in virtual reality, and the inverse is true. Touch, smell, hearing, and seeing all work as they normally would.

But the most glaring difference between the STL and the gaming headwear is the level of expressing those sensations. The NerveGear, aside from the killer microwave, kept its user safe from pain sensations. The Amusphere does as well. The Soul Translator does not. It also doesn't dampen the sensations of hunger or thirst like the other devices do, so if Asuna feels hungry and it goes on long enough, it will simulate a deep hunger nearly as good as the real feeling. And there are other feelings as well, both positive and negative, that the STL makes as if her real body is expressing it.

In short, the NerveGear and Amusphere would have protected her partially from the abrupt sensation of a bright light blasting in her fast. She may receive a temporary blind status, but it wouldn't blind her to the point she couldn't see. In the STL...well, imagine a flashlight turning on right in your face, and magnify that by fifty and have the rods and cones in your eyes instantly hypersensitized to the light. In the end, those receptors are so in shock that you cannot see for the current moment.

That's Asuna right now. With a single light element, Eva displayed her ability ass Solus' daughter, but even more, those light photons had nowhere to go. Well, Asuna's not going to try to interpret the physics of the Underworld, but if the photons that produce light in the Underworld...let's just say that light is much brighter than it would've been if there was no barrier.

Completely blinded, Asuna isn't sure how Eva escaped her earthen prison, but the first daughter of the Underworld does just that and knees Asuna in her liver, then a punch to her face sends her to and through the barrier. Now with her body as useless as her eyes, Asuna can only hear as Eva chortles with laughter and picks the young woman up by her hair. "So this is the queen from the stars. Pathetic." Asuna is thrown into a wall, her body aching as she again drops to the ground...or what feels like the cathedral's interior. Her eyesight is still poor, but she can hear voices.

"Get...get out of here..." The voices seem to listen, but not a second later the armored steps of Eva appear. Asuna, testing the motion of her fingers, starts to pick herself up.

"Pain, pain, pain... That's what you've chosen. I thought we could relate, but you would rather stay in darkness." Asuna is battered by a series of punches to her face, then picked up and rammed through another wall. Back on the floor, she tries to crawl anywhere to her right, yet her head is grabbed and slammed into the floor several times. She's raised to her feet again and punched so many times that she's unsure how she has maintained consciousness, and that barrage ends with her being thrown to another wall.

Grunting, she tries to reach her hand out, but Eva steps on it. "You've fought your last bout, Asuna Yuuki. Had you not intervened, your boyfriend or best friend, maybe even both, could have died in battle together, but now they'll die painful, horrible deaths at the hands of Primus, Noxium, and Stella. You just have to be the glue that holds them together, huh? But look at you know. Helpless. Weak. You say you're their equal, but you could've saved them then, and you won't save them now. And forget them...you couldn't save them either, the three girls you thought of as sisters. What were their names... Oh yes. Yuuki Konno, Koharu Honda, and Misumi Tozawa. And to add to the list..."

"Asuna!"

"Step away from her!"

Ronie? Tiese? Asuna lifts her head to see the vague shadows of two people standing behind Eva, swords drawn. "Get away from-ahhhhhh!" Her shoulder flares up in pain as Eva's thin lade stabs her, distracting her from ordering the younger girls. That, along with the pain already emitting in her body, sinks her consciousness into darkness...

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Mia

"Noxium! May you drown forever in your soul." With new armor and the Loveblight Bow at the height of its bow, Mia glares with violet fury at the man in front of her. For several moments, he's quiet, stunned by the turn of events to this very moment. Jaymes takes the hit from the poison blade for her, Noxium's failure to persuade her against Jaymes, then she unlocks a new power and presents it against him. Neither party expected this development.

As if his worries are adding up, Noxium slowly turns his head toward Obsidia, his brow rising and jaw gaping. "...No... It cannot be...Stella?" That's right, Stella went to the city, and if Noxium's looking like this, that means the first of four children is dead. Mia can sympathize with a loss of a sibling. Even though Stella and Noxium aren't truly siblings like Mia and Lipia, all the same, the feelings are.

"Noxium..."

He cuts his eyes at her, sadness completely replaced by a chuckle. "Whoops. I forgot how Stella likes to play tricks to conceal her presence. Though she kicked the can... This is how this fight will go: Don't let your power blind you. You cannot win against me. Starting with you, I'm going to kill you all. No, I will make every one of your dark worlders suffer. My soul will drown in eternal glee as you experience the most agonizing pain. You'll wish for me to kill you, but I'll draw back every time you come close. Only when you get to know the pain inside me now, that is when you'll die in front of your beloved master!"

Mia's sympathy passes just as quickly as Noxium charges her. Not used to a scythe (that's what Jaymes called this when the Reaper had it), she holds her new weapon in front of her, interrupting his charge. The scythe doesn't have the same balance as a sword, so she doesn't know how to use it, but she just feels her next move occurring. No, the Loveblight Bow (Loveblight Scythe?) guides her movements, allowing her to counter and slice at Noxium. He leaps back and takes flight, throwing dark-element projectiles at Mia as she chases after him on the ground. She dodges and deflects those projectiles, narrowing her eyes as Noxium continues to retreat away from her.

"What could you know of pain?"

"Administrator took everything from us. The world she could have had, we allowed it before the height of her power, but then she came after all that could oppose her. She enacted the Taboo Index, eliminated the Guardian Dragons, the Ancient Apostles retreated into hiding, and broke our family apart with my brother's death. We were happy just watching the world go uninterrupted, yet she disrupted the order our mothers and father intended. Then the humiliation...keeping us alive for all this time in deep sleep, and the world we wake up to is so far off course..."

"That's a quarrel with the Empire...and you've spoken about what Jaymes has done. But why us? What have we in the Dark Territory done?"

"Nothing, I suppose," Noxium says lightly. "Nothing except being in league with your emperors. Cruel, isn't it, to rightfully serve those you are supposed to and to suffer all the same. Unfair...but you made your choice to side with your master. So will everyone, all because the Law of Power dissuades disloyalty to the throne as the Taboo Index does to the Axiom Church. So, in a sense, you too are victims of Administrator's anarchy." Noxium ducks and grabs the long pole, halting her attack. "To be born on the other side of the mountain, yet to have the same sins."

"Sins, huh... Haa!" Noxium's cut by the glowing curved steel on his cheek seems to have an adverse effect as he shudders and screams. From the wound pours a stream of smoke, and that part of his face has a moment that it looks to dissolve or disappear. It returns to normal momentarily, but the ordeal quite shakes Noxium. Not wasting a second to follow up, she pivots on her foot and swings lower, but Noxium dodges and lifts off in the air. Without hesitation, Mia gives chase.

She can see in her peripheral vision that Obsidia Palace is getting bigger and bigger. Noxium is retreating to the city...no; he's leading her to the city, away from Jaymes. What is he planning? Whatever it is, she can't even allow it to occur. Pushing herself to a full sprint, she leaps, trying to obtain the ability to fly. It fails, of course, but she doesn't give up. She tries again, getting a little more height, but still not achieving flight.

Whether Noxium knows what she's trying to do or simply notices she's keeping up with him, he continues forward while a series of elements bombard her just as they did Jaymes at the beginning of the duel. She stops and covers herself, then notices a shadow and the discharging elements that come between her. She looks up, grabbing the red tunic that the warrior projecting a barrier around them wears out. "Jaymes, you have to stop him!"

Jaymes nods and pushes himself into the air. Holding the pale blue sword over his head, he shouts, "Time Splitting Sword: Karagiri!" A wheel of light spins towards Noxium, which clips him on the shoulder. Jaymes drops out from the air, landing on his knees, yet his face is aimed at the enemy who halts just outside the walls of Obsidia.

Mia catches up to her master, kneeling to put his arm on her shoulder. "What is he doing..."

"He split from Stella to deal with me. Why go to the city now?" Their answer comes when Noxium pauses beyond the city walls and extends his right hand outward. Jaymes seems to sense something as he gasps, grabs Mia, and in a blink of an eye, she finds herself back inside Obsidia. He lets go of her, standing in a hurry (though she can tell he's still weak) and holds his shield forward. From Noxium's hand, she can see a spark emit, and it flies out from his hand. It's so small, so tiny...and yet Mia has a bad feeling about the power contained in it.

"Master!"

"Enhance Arma-"