Asuna, a little bit earlier.

Her skirt and hair dripping wet with water, her body slumped against the wall, Asuna lamented her misfortune ever since she stepped down the staircase to the second level of the catacombs. The result of her adventuring is the loss of the Chivalric Rapier Plus 5 to a vanished Sly Shrewman.

Her solo adventure began after she and Kirito split off to their respective rooms. Asuna was mentally kicking herself and Kirito's butts for not speaking about the friend request he mentioned earlier at dinner about Argo. As of now, the only people on said list is Mito and Koharu, for she never thought to add Kirito before. And even then, logically, she didn't need to; Koharu added her prior to the fight against Illfang the Kobold Lord, believing the party would split there. It was meant to message the other and keep in touch.

Asuna is with Kirito daily, so she does not need to message him. Yet...emotionally, it wouldn't have been so hard for him to ask her to be his friend and for her to accept. Emotionally, she wants it to be done. But it probably has slipped his mind, so if she wants it, she'll have to ask for it. But before that happens, Asuna swore to herself she'll only do so once she's on the same level as Kirito.

She was going to take a bath, located down the hallway instead of connected to her room, when she noticed Kirito sneaking out of the inn. Curious and knowing what he was doing, she decided to stalk him, forgoing getting Mito's help. As she raced after him in Karluin, she tried to message him, but by the time she was ready to send it, Kirito had slipped into the second level of the catacombs. Messages, whether instant or from friends, cannot be sent or received in dungeons, meaning the second and third levels of the catacombs are inaccessible locations.

It is that very thing that sent Kirito into the dungeon again. At dinner, he tried sending Argo a message but could not do so. After explaining the difference between a friend and instant messages (instant messages are only sendable if the recipient is on the same floor as the sender, while friend messaging can occur across floors) and the dungeon itself, he dropped the subject. But if he was going on this excursion, he could have asked for help.

She swore again to be strong and decided to catch up to him.

Asuna lost his trail at the catacombs entrance, though she knew he went through the southern exit of the first room. She steeled herself and ventured down to the second level after him. She searched through the doors that lined the hallway and succeeded in the descending staircase, finding them void of the black swordsman and (living or reanimated) people. If there were monsters here, someone must've cleaned house. Kirito was a few minutes ahead of her, but he couldn't be fighting this fast. She remembers Jaymes and Koharu stayed behind too, but chances are they long left the dungeon now.

Eventually, something caught her attention, and that'll prove to start this series of unfortunate events.

In the fifth room she searched, she noticed the sparkle that indicated a relic. Asuna and her partner ate some more blue-blueberry tart just for the hell of it, so the buff was still active. She crept into the crypt, heading to a crack in the back wall where the sparkle originated. It revealed itself to be a silver pendant. Placing it in her pocket, Asuna started to leave the room, only for a sarcophagus lid to start moving and a Mournful Wraith to emerge from it.

Asuna's fright from its wail caused her to step back, unintentionally triggering a trap door. Shaken by her fear, she dropped thirteen feet down to the third level of the catacombs. She reacted quickly enough not to land head first but to roll upon landing into a wall. She was fine, only losing about ten percent of her health. Body frozen from the impact, she quickly decided her new goal to return to the second floor.

During the fall, she intentionally released her sword to brace for impact, and it lay about six feet away from her until the Sly Shrewman appeared and stole it. Knowing the consequence of losing sight of the monster, she ran after it. Thanks to the Sprint skill in place of her Tailoring skill, she caught up to the rodent, trying her best to grab its tail and retrieve her weapon back.

She almost had it when she lost her footing in an unexpected puddle. She toppled butt-first into the pool and could only watch in defeat as the shrewman darted off into the darkness.

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"Kirito..." she whispers to the absent swordsman, reaching for a hand that isn't there. He could be anywhere on the second floor now. Maybe even a couple of feet away. Heck, maybe Jaymes and Koharu are in the dungeon still, and if she shouts loud enough, one of those three might hear her.

But her trembling lips stop her before she can say the first syllable of Kirito's name. If she shouts and her friends don't hear her, the powerful monsters will. Right now, she has no means of fighting back. Right now, she's on the bottom floor of the dungeon, the front line of the fifth floor. Doing anything to draw attention to herself will end Asuna Yuuki's life.

For the first time in weeks, she's alone. She's afraid and regretting she came down here. If only she had caught up to Kirito or got Mito's attention before leaving the inn. All the stats she's built up to this day, the gear she's enhanced, and the accomplishments she's garnered as Kirito, Jaymes, and Koharu's teammate have all gone the drain. All because being with them has made her heart weak and reliant on them, breaking down the strength she gained since her parting with Mito and meeting with Kirito.

Asuna tells herself that she's wrong.

The Asuna she was in the past had given up leaving this world. That Asuna had almost died to an overwhelming attack by the Nephantes, her best friend had abandoned her, and after she'd been saved once by Argo, Jaymes, and Koharu, she was ready to die on her feet.

The Asuna now found a reason to keep living. She made a great friend in Koharu. She became Kirito's partner. She...has a mutual understanding with Jaymes. She reunited with Mito. She made great progress in escaping this world. She aims to become as strong as Kirito and asks him to be her friend. No, go beyond that. Being that both boys are equal in her eyes, she'll ask Jaymes of the same thing too.

"—So he finds a spot he thinks is safe, then does the "materialize all items" trick, dumping all his stuff onto the floor at his feet. The problem is, there are looting mobs in that dungeon! All these little gremlins come pouring out of the woodwork to grab everything off the floor, stuff it into their sacks, and scamper off. It takes him five whole hours to hunt down each and every one of those gremlins to get his stuff back…I tell you, it brought a tear to my eye…"

Kirito told her that tale after recovering the Wind Fleuret by materializing all her items with the MATERIALIZE ALL ITEMS button. It would be easy to do, but if that means more shrewmen will come out of the darkness and steal her stuff, it's not worth the risk for her beloved sword. He even told her those mobs had the Robbing Skill, which overwrites the ownership of an item once picked up. There's only one surefire way she'll get the Chivalric Rapier back...She'll just have to hunt it down.

"Fine. I'll do it." She rubs her eyes and swings her hand, opening her menu to get to her inventory. The first step is having a weapon, and after sorting it only to show rapiers, one appears, the last of the Iron Rapiers she bought in bulk on the first floor. She materializes the weapon and grabs the wooden sheath. Standing up, she draws the blade out, gazing at the thin, dull steel. Right now, it is her lifeline.

"I'm sorry I wasn't taking care of you. Please...help me." Asuna places the rapier back in its sheath, strapping that to the left side of her waist, and modifies her equipment further. She replaces her red hooded cape with a silver one, a pair of shell-shaped earrings called the Earrings of Ripples (boosts to hearing), and mid-length boots with over-the-knee socks called Prancing Boots (boost to jumping and diminishes the sound of footsteps). The latter two items are her rewards from Yofel Castle.

With the best gear in her inventory equipped, Asuna sets her sight on finding the Sly Shrewmen who stole her rapier.

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She didn't find that shrewmen, but her plan of using the pendant she found as bait to lure the humanoid rodents out leads her to a mysterious player-written note. Thanks to the ring she found and its Candlepower ability (produces a light when the ring is breathed upon), she found out that there's to be a meeting on the night of the 29th at ten pm, the third floor of the catacombs on the coordinates 181, 203. At her current position, she was thirty meters and fifteen minutes away from finding out what this meeting was about.

About ten minutes later, she arrives. The destination is a small room. A stalagmite rises from the floor like a bench, and from the eastern wall pours a small spring of water. Ignoring her thirst and searching for a place to hide, Asuna finds a hollow to hide in and squeezes within. This spot will have to do, for she doesn't have Kirito's Hiding skill or Kizmel's invisibility cloak.

A minute after securing her position, a new set of footsteps approach, boots against the stone floor. It's another player who carries no light, so the details she makes out come from the glowing moss illuminating the room. The person is short and thin, wears a hooded cape that conceals his body. and his cursor is green with a nearly full HP bar. If he has a weapon, it's a small one, likely a dagger. He must be a frontliner to make it this far alone, but she can't figure out who they are. Names don't appear on the cursor, and she doesn't recognize their appearance.

Moments later, another hooded player enters the room. This one carries a one-handed sword. Upon the second player's approach, the first player extends their left thumb, index, and middle fingers out; the second player matches the motion. Asuna figures they're not lovers on a rendezvous, which would be weird for her, but something more suspicious. She decides not to reveal herself if nothing more for her own safety. Thankfully, the players can't hear her beating heart as they sit on the stalagmite bench, facing each other.

"Heya, heya, you're here early today. Waiting long?"

"Not that long, but it was a pain in the ass to get here." Both speakers are male, and the latter sounds familiar with his high-pitched voice. Yet once again, she can't determine their identities just from their voices.

"Speaking of pain in the ass, writing down that memo by hand is a royal one. I hate using that damn pen. Can't we just use regular messages?"

"You know we can't. That'll leave the message in your history, y'know. I'm lettin' things calm down and taking a break from both guilds. If they find out I've been sending messages around, all this trouble'll be for nothin'."

"Fine, fine, I get it."

"Just in case…you didn't get trailed, did you?"

"That's why we came all the way underground like this, right? Hiding won't work against the astral types on the second level, so anyone following me would get exposed."

"Yeah, good point. Well, let's get down to business…How did the matter go?" The second player, the one who seems more authoritative in Asuna's eyes, opens his window to type on a holo-keyboard.

"It went pretty well. Our main force is gonna break out early before the organized countdown event two days from now, and try to just sweep through the labyrinth on its own."

A countdown two days from now... December 31st, New Year's Eve. A countdown to ring in the new year. Then a force is going to use the event as a means to take on the floor boss. Only two powers can do that, either DKB or ALS. The first player is a member of one of those guilds, and just revealed their secret plan to someone outside of those group.

"...A spy?" Asuna mouths. Could it be that the second player is a member of the opposing guild, and the first just snitched on his guild's plans? No, the second player said he was involved with both guilds yet was taking a break. In this case, that male's a third party. But does he belong to another guild? Asuna can only think of three other large groups, and they're Agil's (who doesn't have a one-handed sword user in their group), the Legend Braves (who did lay out a scam once before but were making amends for it), and her team. Jaymes and Kirito wield single-hand swords, but Jaymes is with Koharu right now, and she'd know Kirito's voice by this time.

Wait a minute, the Legend Braves...their scam wasn't orchestrated by themselves, but an invention of the man with the black poncho.

"If they're separate people, we should assume Morte and the black poncho are working together."

"And I think there's another with them. Maybe more."

If Mito and Jaymes's words were true, could that mean the swordsman is part of a PK group and using the other cloaked player as a spy on one of the guilds? Or...what if they're both members? Asuna clenches her jaw tight, realizing the peril she's in. Being nervous about eavesdropping just turned into a deadly situation. If she was found, she highly doubts any negotiation for her life would succeed.

While her body freezes solid, the jovial-toned second player continues, "Hmm, that sounds nice. Things got a lil' toooo soft between Kiba and Lin on the last two floors. We gotta stir things up and get 'em to clash again to keep it from being too boring."

"Don't act like it's that simple. It's a hell of a job to manipulate a guild meeting into going any particular direction."

"Yeah, I know. But the boss is training us up on that point with that super-coooool conversational technique, you know?"

"True, true. I think I'm finally getting the hang of the exact point where I'm not bein' obnoxious by talking too much."

"Ah-ha-ha-ha, I've given up on that."

"Yeah, because the way you talk transcends obnoxious. Still, I just can't tell what the boss is thinking. I know what he wants to do, but it's just so twisted…I think he could get around to it in a much more direct way."

"Ha-ha, we're just sowing the seeds now. Get too hasty, and the fun of our little festival will be over in moments."

"Yeah, I know, I know. Enjoy the process, right?"

"Exactly."

As the men chuckle, Asuna feels a shiver flow down her spine. Someone else is leading the two, confirming Kirito and Jaymes' hypothesis. Everything said is true: these people seek to manipulate the two guilds into what Kirito termed provocation player killing. But why pit ALS and DKB intentionally against each other? What do they gain from such nonsense? If Asuna only had her Chivalric Rapier, she'd reveal herself and find out.

That fleeting thought causes Asuna's body to shift forward slightly. She catches her footing so she doesn't move out the hollow, but her boot kicks a loose pebble. It skips forward, creating sounds that echo off the walls of the room. The two hooded players stop laughing, alert to the sudden noise.

"Did you hear something?" says the one with the sword.

"Hmm...maybe it's a mob?"

"It wasn't the sound of a monster popping…What's the hallway like down that way?"

"It's a straight shot for about sixty meters, then a dead end. If anyone snuck in there, we'd see the cursor—it's a dead giveaway."

"Hmm…but in these natural dungeons, even straight passages have little dips and bends. That would suck if someone heard our little secret convo."

They're coming. Asuna can't win a fight with the Iron Rapier, and she probably wouldn't last long enough to escape. Yet, as thoughts spark in her mind, she comes up with a solution-the paper she found earlier. She pulls it out of her pocket, balls it up, and drops it at her feet without a sound. She prays for the target to come just as the swordsman announces he will check things out.

"Come on, come on, hurry!"

"Whoa! What the hell!" shouts the first player as a rodent screech. It ran inside the room from another adjacent hallway, reacting to the tossed paper. "Get the hell outta here!"

"C'mon, keep that door on the other side closed, please." A sword is drawn, a sword skill rings out and glows blue, and a second later, the shrewman's dying screech echoes. "Stupid ratman, startling me like that. Musta been the sound of it scurrying around."

"Goddamn annoying little looters... Did they show up in the beta, too?"

"It was terrible if you ever dropped your weapon. The best part was that every once in a while, you'd lift someone else's nice gear from one…and what do you know! No sooner are the words out of my mouth!"

"Ohh, no way! That rapier looks mega-rare!"

Asuna feels her blood still as the men's words seep into her head. The shrewman she had been searching for, the one that stole her Chilvaric Rapier, was her rescuer. Her rapier is now in the hands of the swordsman. And Kirito's explanation of weapon ownership replays as well.

"If someone picks up your weapon or you hand it to them, the weapon cell in your menu goes blank. Including situations like the one where you gave the blacksmith your Wind Fleuret. But here's the thing. The equipment cell might be empty, as though you're not equipping anything…but that Anneal Blade's equipper info hasn't been deleted. And the equipment rights are protected much more tightly than simple ownership rights. For example, if I take an unequipped weapon out of storage and give it to you, my ownership of that item disappears in just three hundred seconds—that's five minutes. As soon as it goes into someone else's inventory, it is owned by that player. But the length of ownership for an equipped item is far longer. It won't be overwritten until either 3,600 seconds have passed, or the original owner equips a different weapon in that slot."

She already voided the ownership by equipping the Iron Rapier. No, the shrewman voided it with its Robbing Skill when it looted the sword. Now it is in the hands of the hooded swordsman, his newest possession. That devastates Asuna more than losing it to the shrewman.

"Hey, let me see that... Whoa, it's heavy! Let's look at the specs... Shwaa, you gotta be kidding! Check out the attack value! It might a s well be a double-handed weapon!"

"Sounds cool."

"Seriously? That's all you have to say? If you're not interested, then give it to me!"

"Uhh, but you're, like, a dagger user. Do you even have enough strength?"

"If I had a weapon like this, I'd switch to being a fencer! It's called…a Cilvaric Rapier. Damn, that's cool!"

"Look closer—it says 'Chivalric.'"

"Who cares what the name is?! Whoa, and it's already boosted to plus five!"

Asuna has had the worst luck today. The ghost this morning, now losing her most valuable possession to a monster and another player who got to her target first. She would do anything to get it back, even if it meant begging the men. She'd reveal herself and that she's been listening to the entire time. Even if they turn their weapons on her, the last thing she wants is for her Chivalric Rapier to take the lives of others.

Asuna musters her courage and peeps out the hollow, enough to see the turned-around men. She readies her nerves, pushes aside a bit of her fear, and prepares to step into the little room just when a new figure appears from the darkness of the north side of the area. This new person wears a long, black leather coat. A longsword hangs off his back, and dark eyes pierce underneath long black bangs.

"Mwuh?"

"...Well, well, well, I always seem to run into you in the funniest places." The swordsman shushes his companion before he can speak, then steps in front as if to hide the other's identity. "Mind if I ask one question? How long have you been there?"

"I just got here. Heard you two talking."

"Well, wouldn'tcha know it. I thought we were keeping it nice and quiet from the main hallway, but I guess we got carried away once I acquired this nice rare loot, ha-ha-ha."

"About that weapon…You said it was a Chivalric Rapier plus five, right? You're sure about that?"

"Wow, you seem to have latched onto that detail for just hearin' it said once. What about it, pal?"

"That's my friend's." A second voice, feminine and cold, comes from behind the swordsman in black. Her form appears, a grey cloak wrapped around a purple tunic. Ruby irises burn as a single thread of her purple hair splits her face. Held behind her back is a crescent-shaped scythe gleaming with the light produced by the moss.

"Th-that scythe? R-Reaper?"

The swordsman once again holds his partner from saying anything else, then makes an exaggerated motion of confusion. "Ohh, is that so? Well, I just looted this off of a looter mon. So do I have this situation right? You want me to return your friend's weapon?"

The swordsman holds the scythe user back as well, then steps forward slightly. "No, I'm not going to get on your case about that. It's just... I have no way of judging if your words are true or not. After all, you could have gotten that sword by duel PKing my partner. Right, Morte?"

Identity revealed, Morte lowers his hood, revealing a metal coif. He shakes it to rattle the chains while laughing in a different tone. "Ahaaa... All right, I see your tactic here. You mean the way I did to you on the third floor...Kirito? And I don't know who this 'Reaper' is, but that's not the dear, sweet Koharu."

Morte, the man Kirito and Koharu met on the third floor. He dueled Kirito to a half-finish end but attempted to end Kirito's life just before it reached that mark with a critical hit. If things turned bad, Koharu would have been the next victim.

As the two swordsmen stare each other down, the scythe-wielding eyeing the dagger user to the point he shifts back in intimidation, Asuna realizes that Mito and Kirito are bluffing about the duel. They're still in her party, so they can see she's alive with ninety percent of her health. But the two men don't know that. Yet she can tell Kirito is serious, and Morte has his own aura of murder about him too. The instant one draws their blade, a fight will start. The first to land a hit will turn orange, unable to enter town until it returns to green.

And if the battle gets too heated, one of them might die. Asuna assumes Mito will intervene should that come, but if Morte's friend jumps in, then there's no guarantee her friends won't fight to protect their lives and inadvertently kill Morte and the other. On the flip side, she's beyond certain Morte will kill without a second thought.

The numbers, however, are still in Asuna's favor. And she has the element of surprise as no one knows she's present. Morte's companion, who holds the rapier, is still turned away from her. She could sneak up and snatch the rapier, but that wouldn't immediately change ownership. She'd have to wait five minutes. No, she needed something faster, more certain, something that works along the rules of Aincrad and in her favor. She needs to reset the ownership of the Chivalric Rapier altogether before possessing the weapon.

And it comes to her as two phenomena coincide. One, the dagger-user reaches for a weapon over his left hip. Two, the sound of a monster respawning to the south side, the direction in which she initially fell. Together, they initiate a strategy in Asuna's head that she has to trigger now.

Kirito has his eyes on Morte. Mito stares down the dagger-user. Once the battle begins, it won't end quickly, if at all.

So the moment the first player's dagger is revealed, Asuna drops the ball of paper again on the floor. At the same time, little footsteps begin approaching the south, and the dagger-user begins to switch the rapier from his right hand to his left. In those moments, Asuna springs out of her hiding spot, draws the Iron Rapier, and emits an ear-piercing scream. "Aaaaaaaaaah!"

The scream is so loud it causes the enemy to jump. The unnamed one drops the rapier, and as Asuna planned, a Sly Shrewman races forward and scoops it up, just for Asuna to hit it with the Oblique sword skill. The shrewman despawns and Asuna leaps back, immediately replacing the iron Rapier with the Chivalric Rapier.

The ordeal lasts about three seconds. By the time she lands, rapier in hand, the odds are three-to-two in favor of Asuna, Mito, and Kirito. The enemy is still dangerous, but now they are at a disadvantage. She glances in the direction of Kirito and Mito. Both had startled looks but were now presenting with grins and nods.

"Wh...what the? Where did...that come from?"

Morte covers his partner's mouth, which momentarily poked out from under the hood. In the meantime, she got a good look at the bottom of Morte's face, seeing his pointed chin and snarling thin lips. It's all the light from the moss provides, but it is enough for Asuna to sear the image into her head. Meanwhile, Morte breaks off into a cold sneer. "Ah ha ha haa, scared by a lil' boo. First Blackie and that girl, now you. Y'all like to jump out of nowhere. And how long were you hiding over there?"

Asuna remains quiet at Kirito's instruction.

"What's wrong, cat got your tongue. You scared a good three seconds off my life with that stunt. I think you owe me one."

The other player removes Morte's hand from his mouth and grabs the dagger's hilt. "Listen, I'm really pissed off right now. Is this really the time to stand around and chitchat? We gotta react under the assumption that they heard everything."

"Impatience will get you nowhere, y'know?" Morte says, shrugging his shoulders. "Besides, you saw that rapier's stats. Assuming I take on Blackie and Reaper, do you really think you can handle that on your own?"

"Don't insult me. I can tackle a PvP amateur girl like her. Of course. Besides, I can't go home after having my badass rapier stolen on a lucky ruse. Are you sure you can handle those two?"

"I am." Morte holds his sword up at Mito and Kirito. Asuna turns her attention fully on the dagger user. Having seen his earlier spook, she figures he wrote the messy note she found. If he's not a victim of full-dive nonconformity, he's naturally clumsy. Her plan to recover her rapier was to take advantage of his nature so he'll drop the rapier to the shrewman. She may be able to use his clumsiness against him in battle.

But the battle Asuna believed was coming never happens.

Shocking her, Kirito races past Morte and his ally, grabs Asuna around her breastplate and dives into the hollow she hid in. He holds her against the wall, covers them with his coat, and activates the Hiding skill. She wondered why he'd do something like this, they wouldn't be hidden from the two players. Then she hears distant, increasing sounds of metal clicking against each other.

A group of monsters are coming, drawn by the shout Asuna emitted earlier.

"Shit, they brought a buncha mobs down to MPK us? The dirty bastards!"

"Ah ha ha ha, coming from you?" Morte's laugh has lost its cockiness and confidence. They're quiet for a moment, possibly preparing to fight the monsters, then Morte says, "Never mind, it'll suck fighting this many of them. We oughta pull back."

"Tsk, fine."

"Whoops, that's a dead end down there. We gotta sprint to the staircase, so do your ebst to keep up, bud."

"H-hey, wait!"

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After the sounds of the men and the monsters pass, only one sound remains in Asuna's ears-her throbbing, racing heart. It could be her virtual heart, simulating the flight-or-fight response of the sympathetic system. It could be her real heart, beating so loud and hard that it registers in the cerebral cortex of her brain and creates signals for the NerveGear.

Slowly calming down, she places the Chivalric Rapier back in its home to prevent herself from dropping it again. Feeling that, Kirito responds by exhaling and beginning to stand up, but Asuna stops him by connecting her right hand with his left.

Kirito is here. Her partner is here with her. At that moment, the emotions she had held within since her fall through the trapdoor finally built pressure in her body, begging to be let loose. Tears swell in her eyes, and her knees topple, but Kirito keeps her from falling to the floor.

"You did well," he whispers in her ear. "I'm glad...you're all right..."

For the first time since meeting Jaymes and Koharu properly, she understands Koharu's feelings. The strength Koharu seeks, the fear that Jaymes would seek someone stronger and more capable, and the tremendous amount of help Koharu's gotten... Asuna relates the same way with Kirito. And yet...

Placing her head on Kirito's chest, she lets her emotions speak through her trembling lips. "I was scared... I was so scared... There was a ghost, and I fell into a pit...then I got lost,, and dropped my rapier, and I thought I was done for...I though I was going to meet my end in this horrible dark cave...I was so, so scared, so scared...I really mean it..."

She takes hold of Kirito's shirt as her body quivers. Suddenly, a gentle feeling slowly works its way over her head. It's Kirito's hand rubbing her head over and over. "It's all right... You're all right. If we ever get split up again, I'll find you and come help. You're...my partner, Asuna."

"...Yeah." Her body stops trembling, but neither she nor Kirito moves out of the hollow. And as three more sets of footsteps enter the area, stopping at various points in the little room, Asuna realizes that she has more than just a partner to rely on.

She has her best friend, a younger girl who's becoming like a sister to her, and her guardian too.