AN: It wasn't that I forgot to mention that there would be a time skip this chapter, I simply didn't decide to do it till after I'd posted the last chapter. Also I apologize that last chapter was crappy, and that the characters personalities was off. That chapter was me trying to get back into my groove, remind myself 'ok this is where we were and what was happening'.

Also, the dialog between Diabel, Kibaou, and Agil is almost directly quoted from the anime. This won't happen often, but in this case I chose to keep the dialog the same rather than alter it.

Review response:

Inkwell Archive- So I realize that the misunderstanding was completely my fault. With the way the story flowed and the fact Mike hasn't made his appearance, I realize it does seem like Lily abandoned him, and part of Mike's personality when he's introduced will be that he actually does feel like she abandoned him at first. However, the only reason Lily didn't go back for him is because at that point in his life, Mike was completely spoiled by James and Dumbledore, thought that they're never in the wrong, and would never have gone with her. With his complete belief in them, he would have been more likely to either feel betrayed that she would even think about leaving James or thought Dante had put her under a love potion. In either case Mike would have refused to leave with her and in fact tell James that she was leaving. So it was less that she abandoned him, and more that she already knew exactly what would happen if she tried to take him with her.

December 2nd 2022- 26 days since SAO launch:

Hanna and Kirito were waiting in Tolbana, the town closest to the first floor's «Labyrinth», for the first boss raid meeting to begin in two hours. The previous day a party had announced the time and location of the meeting, and asked everyone who was willing to fight and over level nine to come. They were simply sitting on a bench a bit removed from the town's main plaza when Argo walked up to them.

Hanna smiled warmly at Argo while greeting her, "Hello again Argo, always nice to see you. That buyer send you back again?"

Argo smiled in return while replying, "It's good to see you too, Hanna-chan. Ya they've raised the price to 29,800 col now. And yes Kirito, I told them what you said last time about not wanting to sell your «Anneal Blade +8»(1) no matter how much they offered, but they're persistent."

Hanna grinned even wider when Kirito frowned at the two of them. While Argo was his friend he also considered her to be incredibly annoying. As such he'd been horrified when he realized that Argo and her got along like a house on fire once they got to know each other. Kirito shook his head, then turned to Argo to reply, "Seriously? Ok, I get that I've gotten lucky enough to max out the «Anneal Blade», and I get that it's the most powerful «One-Handed Straight Sword» till floor three. I even understand that with the new rules of Aincrad people desire the absolute best even more than usual to up their survival chances, but 29,800 for a sword? That's ridiculous."

Hanna frowned, then before Kirito could say more interrupted him, "Take the offer." Kirito stared at her in astonishment, but before he could reply she shook her head and continued, "Just trust me ok? Take the offer. We'll discuss it later. Much as I like Argo, neither of us are stupid enough to talk freely in front of her."

Kirito stared at her for a minute before nodding slowly. Turning to Argo he asked, "Guess I'll be taking that deal after all. Do you have the money already or do you need to see your mysterious buyer?"

Hanna frowned at the reminder of not knowing the buyers identity. Argo was well known to be willing to sell pretty much any information, except the identities of the beta testers, but if you paid her enough, she'd keep her buyers anonymous. Unless, of course, you paid her even more than the person paid to be anonymous. Which is why if you really wanted to be anonymous with Argo you had to try and pay more than you thought anyone would be willing to pay to learn your identity. It was tricky business, Argo's silence, but whoever wanted Kirito's sword, wanted Kirito to know who they were even less. Wanted it bad enough to have paid Argo 40,000 to keep quiet, and Kirito and herself weren't quite willing to fork over more than 40 thousand to learn their identity. More importantly no matter how good a weapon or the current circumstances of Aincrad, the almost 30,000 col was already very overpriced, much less the total 70,000 cost of the sword and their anonymity. At least not for first floor gear. Once they get to the upper floors, the amazing equipment will be easily twice the combined sword/anonymity price on its own.

Argo broke her out of her thoughts when she answered Kirito's question, "I don't have it right this minute, but I'll have it in 30 minutes max. Will you guys still be here, or are you going somewhere?"

Hanna spoke quickly, "We'll be back at the inn. Kirito and I need to have a private discussion without risking any eavesdroppers." she paused to give a pointed look at Argo, who merely grinned unashamed, then continued, "My room is at the very end of the hall on the second floor. We'll be there. See you later, Argo."

Argo nodded and began walking off throwing back a lazy, "Later Kii-bou, Hanna-chan."

Getting back to the inn, and to her room quickly. Kirito plopped himself onto a chair, then raised an eyebrow and started talking, "What was that about, it may not have been apparent at first, but 30 thousand col makes it pretty obvious someone's trying to weaken me specifically. Though I can't figure out why, but why are you letting them?"

"I'm assuming you haven't forgotten what happened when we went to do the «Secret Medicine if the Forest» quest?"

Kirito huffed before replying, "Of course not. After what Coper tried to do how could I?"

Hanna's face darkened at the reminder of Coper, who she'd been trying not to think about. An hour after they'd set out to do the quest so as to get Kirito's sword, they'd met Coper who was also attempting to get an «Anneal Blade». There'd quickly realized that he was a beta tester, and they'd agreed to help each other complete the quest. After an additional half hour of searching for a «Little Nepent» with a flower, which was the only type that dropped the item needed for the quest, they'd found one. However Coper betrayed them by purposely hitting the fruit on another «Little Nepent» that had spawned nearby. Hitting the fruit on a «Little Nepent» caused all nearby «Little Nepents» to not only become extremely aggressive, but to converge on the location of the «Little Nepent» with the fruit. In other words, Coper had tried to murder them via Monster PK.

Coper himself has almost been killed, as he was unaware that the «Hiding» skill didn't work on mobs that didn't rely on eyesight, but because she was watching his back Kirito had managed to save Coper. They'd gotten into a disagreement after that. Kirito understood that Coper only wanted the «Anneal Blade» and had only attempted to kill them out of desperation to make sure he got it, so as to survive Aincrad. She understood that as well, but had felt they had to do something, since in her opinion Coper's reasons didn't matter. All that mattered was that he'd tried to kill them. Eventually Kirito had simply given Coper the «Little Nepent Ovule» that was needed to complete the quest, and told him to leave and never bother them again. After that, it had taken them three more hours to find a «Little Nepent» with a flower, but by a stroke of luck they'd found not one, but two. So instead of one «Anneal Blade» they got two. Kirito had suggested giving the second sword away, so Hanna had tricked him into giving it to her, and then bluntly informed him that he wouldn't get it back unless he needed it.

Hanna shook herself from the dark path her thoughts had taken her down, then continued in a rough tone, "Well after you got lucky enough to get your sword up to plus eight, I took the liberty of upgrading the spare. Technically at the moment we have two +8 Anneal Blades, but our mystery buyer doesn't know that. They'll think that you're weakened now that they've 'convinced' you to sell your sword. Maybe it'll draw them out, so that at the very least we can possibly find out why they what to weaken you."

She knew Kirito well enough by now to know he heard everything she said, but someone who didn't know him would think he hadn't heard anything after 'two +8 Anneal Blades' with the way he got a slightly awed look on his face. A minute later Kirito began speaking lowly, "You got the spare up to plus eight as well? You must have crazy good luck." Hanna blushed, shook her head, and opened her mouth to deny it, but Kirito interrupted her, now speaking in a regular volume with a slightly teasing tone, "No seriously, I've always had horrible luck. Then I party with you and suddenly I've not only got two Anneal Blades, but they're both plus eight? Just getting a Little Nepent with a flower on its head to spawn takes either a little luck or a lot of patience, but upgrading a weapon is completely luck based. To get two Anneal Blades fully upgraded..." he trailed off then shook his head, and with a playfully mischievous look, did a half bow from his seated position while saying, "I bow to you, oh luck goddess. Please continue to bestow your divine luck upon me."

With a blush heating her cheeks, Hanna huffed before replying, "Only if you continue to deserve it. And technically it's goddess of life."

Kirito grinned, "You got it!" then tilting his head in curiosity, "And what's a goddess of life?"

Hanna grinned lightly in return before responding, "Hanna, my screen name, it means goddess of life. I chose it as a joke to myself." seeing Kirito tilt his head again she explained, "In real life I'm named after a goddess of witchcraft, winter, and death. So when I named my character, I chose the name of a goddess of life."

Kirito grinned lightly and nodded his understanding. Just as he was about to say something though, someone knocked on the door. Opening the door Hanna swiftly invited Argo in, and they got down to business.

Hanna sat next to Kirito in the upper section of the amphitheater the meeting was to take place in, waiting for said meeting to begin. Kirito was watching the stage at the bottom of the amphitheater, she on the other hand was looking around at the other players trying to gauge their strength, which was much harder in a video game than it was in real life. She was beginning to get the hang of it though. Just as she was halfway through looking at the other players she was yanked from her self-appointed task by two sharp claps from the stage.

Shifting her gaze to the stage, she saw a young man with blue hair and eyes. Immediately he began talking, "Okay, let's get started! Thank you all for showing up today. My name is Diabel. The job I chose is knight!"

It was obvious to her that he was trying to dispel the tension in the other people by joking about classes, and to his credit it worked. Immediately the other players started laughing and calling out that there wasn't a class system. She wasn't overly concerned with that though, she was more distracted by his name. She'd known a beta player by the name Diabel. She'd only originally been interested in him because she found his name amusing, really what was the luck that out of 1500 people, and despite her anti-social tendencies, she'd meet a player whose name meant Devil. After talking to him for a while though, she'd found out that he was also an international beta tester, and from America like her. Though she used the term loosely, they'd become friends after that. However, Argus had sent out a questionnaire asking each tester if they were planning on using their beta account, so they could delete the accounts not in use. The problem was that at the end of the beta Diabel still hadn't decided whether he wanted to keep his beta account or not. So, the question was whether or not this Diabel was the Diabel she knew from the beta, or if Diabel let his account be deleted and this was another player who happened to choose the same name. She didn't think the latter was the case, it seemed unlikely, but she wasn't completely sure.

She was pulled from her thoughts when the others in the amphitheater started clapping and whistling, she tuned back in to what was being said in time to hear Diabel continue talking, "First, we'll divide everyone into parties of six. Please take a moment to do so.

From the corner of her eye she saw Kirito calmly glance around. People were quickly forming full parties with their friends and acquaintances, so it was unlikely they could join them, which meant they'd probably be the incomplete party of stragglers. Kirito tapped her shoulder, and once she'd glanced over nodded his head towards the only other player without a party that she could see. Once she nodded in agreement to asking the stray player, Kirito slid over to her. She saw them talk for a few moments, and Kirito quickly manipulate his menu, then a third name and health bar appeared below her own and Kirito's. Taking a quick glance she learned the girls name was Asuna.

A moment later Diabel began speaking again, "Okay, have you formed your parties? Then-"

Abruptly Diabel was interrupted by a player yelling from the top of the amphitheater, "Wait up a sec!" the player began hopping down the steps, and landed a few feet away from Diabel. Hanna rolled her eyes. From his entrance and the fact that he'd clearly spent all his money on one piece of expensive scale mail armor, and subsequently left the rest of his gear to be distinctly lacking, it was obvious he was trying to be flashy. Pointing at himself, the player loudly proclaimed, "My name's Kibaou. I just wanna say something before we take this boss on. Some of you here need to apologize to the thousands who've died so far!"

Kibaou finished by pointing sharply at the crowd. There was murmuring from everyone at his bold accusation. Then Diabel spoke up, "Kibaou, are you saying the beta testers should apologize?"

Without hesitation Kibaou rounded on Diabel and bitterly replied, "Of course I am! The day this stupid game started, the testers ditched all the newbies, leaving us all to die. They took all the good grinding spots and easy quests for themselves, ensuring that they could get ahead. And then they just ignored the rest of us!" turning his anger back on the crowd he continued, "I have no doubt that someone here was in the beta! They should get down on their knees and apologize, and give up all the items and money they've hoarded. If they don't, we can't trust them to protect us as party members, and they can't trust us either!"

Hanna narrowed her eyes on Kibaou, she was furious that he would dare shove blame on them. First of all, Argo had been keeping track of as many beta testers as she could, and of the 2 thousand that had died so far, almost three hundred had been beta testers. Second, Argo had started compiling a book of tips and tricks from the beta testers less than a week after this death game started. She'd personally given Argo at least three chapters worth on manual sword fighting, and Kirito had proved to be a fountain of knowledge as well. Before her temper could become explosive, she heard Kirito let out a shuddering breath. Glancing over quickly she saw him shaking lightly with his eyes clenched shut. Her eyes softened and her anger dissipated at the sight. In the month they'd been together, she'd come to realize that illogical though it was, Kirito thought himself to be a selfish bastard, simply because he hadn't helped anyone face to face. She'd tried pointing out how many people he'd undoubtedly helped with the information he'd given Argo. Especially the stuff on choosing a play style, what skills to choose to best compliment certain aspects of each style, and the most efficient way to place your stat points for your character build. Kirito was very stubborn though, so she hadn't really made any progress on convincing him that he was actually a great guy.

Reaching over she grabbed one of the hands he had clenched and pressed tightly into his legs, and squeezed gently. His eyes snapped open instantly and all of his breath came out in one sharp exhale. He glanced at her, and she smiled. He closed his eyes again, and pulled in a shaky breath, held it for a moment, then let it out slowly. After that he slowly unclenched his hands. Reopening his eyes he flipped the hand in her grip, and gave it a return squeeze, while glancing at her with a grateful look in his eyes.

The interaction had taken less than a minute, during which time everyone else was murmuring at Kibaou's allegation. They were yanked out of their own little world when a deep voice abruptly cut through the muttering of the crowd. Though Hanna noticed that Kirito didn't release her hand. Not that she was complaining. It felt... nice, actually.

The deep voice rumbled out, "Hang on just a minute." the speaker stood up, revealing himself to be a massive bald man, and walk down to the stage before continuing calmly, "My name is Agil. I want to make sure I understood you correctly. Are you saying that so many beginners died because the beta testers didn't babysit them? That they should take responsibility, apologize, and provide compensation? Is that right?"

Kibaou looked distinctly nervous as he stuttered out his reply, "Y-Yeah."

Agil rummaged in his pocket for a moment before pulling out a small brown book. With a jolt she recognized it as the very same book she'd been thinking of moments prior. Agil held up the book, and continued with his line of questioning, "You picked up this guide book, didn't you? It was provided for free at the item store."

Kibaou looked mildly confused, but responded anyway, "Course I did... What's that got to do with anything?"

In response, Agil simply informed Kibaou and the dead silent crowd, "It was compiled from information that the beta testers provided."

Immediately the crowds silence was broken as disbelieving murmuring cut through Agil and Kibaou's discussion. Kibaou frowned, but Agil ignored him and turned back to the crowd, "Listen. Everyone had equal access to this information. And many players died regardless. I thought that we were having a discussion here about what we could learn from their deaths, and how that knowledge can help us defeat this boss."

Some agreement came from the crowd at that. Agil turned back to Kibaou and gave him a pointed look. Kibaou scowled, then with a sharp huff, angrily took a seat. After waiting for Agil to sit back down Diabel reached back and pulled out his own copy of the guide book Argo made, "Alright. Let's continue then, shall we?"

Dante was attempting to keep himself busy with the influx of jobs in Japan. Since there were over 500 players from various countries around the word, instead of only Japanese citizens, the SAO incident was being considered an act of international terrorism. So being considered terrorism, the various governments were paying for the majority of expenses related to the ongoing incident. This included medical expenses, and safely relocating victims and their families to Japan, as they were the best equipped out of all the countries to handle those stuck in that death game, should the families choose such. As far as the non-magical governments knew Marzanna's family had chosen to relocate. What only the magical governments knew, and allowed as long as proper precautions were taken, was that once Vergil and Dante had arrived they'd swiftly 'bought' the small house and large property Dante owned under a fake name, and Vergil had cast a complicated spell that caused the Devil May Cry shop to exist in two places at once. Before they'd gone to Japan, Vergil and Lily, once she'd calmed enough not to burst into tears randomly, had magically expanded the shop. Creating an exact replica of the shop on the back of the house. Vergil anchored the back shop, and of course the attached house, in Japan. Then they'd sealed all the doors between the shop in America and the shop in Japan, so that no customers accidentally wandered from one country to another, but they could freely move between the two as they needed.

The reason Dante had owned the house and property was that they'd been taking international jobs for year, coincidentally the job to Fortuna Island that he'd met Nero on had been the first, but there'd been quite a few since. However they'd only really been able to take the ones that somehow caught their attention. They'd all known that there were plenty they simply never became aware of. That had changed when Vergil returned from hell, and Lily moved in shortly after. Vergil and Lily has both been delighted to have someone who enjoyed in depth debates on magic as much as they did, so there had suddenly been a lot of magical improvements to the house, all born from those debates. One of those improvements had started with the two demanding he get into the emergency funds and buy various properties in major or well-placed counties. He'd refused until they explained what they wanted the homes for. Vergil and Lily had worked out a way to anchor two doors to each other no matter where they were in the world. So the houses were needed as both anchors, and so that no one noticed their arrivals or departures, which would get the magicals on their cases. In less than three months they'd had 25 doors to various countries set up in their basement, which was of course magically sealed. Once Marzanna had been trapped in that game though, the doorway to Japan wouldn't suffice. Hence the original doorway being disconnected, and the shop existing in both America and Japan at the same time. Well to be technical the front shop only existed in America, and the back shop only existed in Japan. Technically only the house existed in both places, and was attached to both.

Once the house had been anchored people had begun doing their best to distract themselves. For Dante, Nero, and Vergil, this was by taking on the increasing number of jobs in Japan. Demons were attracted to tragedy, and with two thousand deaths already, they were being drawn to Japan like moths to a flame. Lady, Kat, and Trish would be helping with the jobs, but they had their own task. Within a few days of Marzanna getting trapped, it became apparent that Dante wasn't the only one who wanted Kayaba to pay. The whole family had been on a warpath. This had also led the others to finding out that Eva was a Seraphim, the most powerful species of Angel, and yes that was species unlike what people belied there were more than four Seraphim. Although they were extremely rare. Once Eva, and everyone else's, fury was curbed to controllable levels, Kat, Lady, and Trish had set out trying to track down Kayaba. It may be against their beliefs to kill humans, as tempting as it was in Kayaba's case, that belief didn't stop them from making him pay. Though that actually did go against the general view of not even hurting humans, in Kayaba's case they were all willing to make an... exception. Even Kyrie, who was normally kind, sweet, and against violence, was bloodthirsty when it came to Kayaba.

Kayaba better hope the authorities caught up to him before they did, because they would make him pay heavily for threatening Marzanna's life.

Mike was conflicted. When his name first came out of the goblet of fire more than a month ago he'd been startled, but ecstatic. When Hagrid had tipped him off about the dragons he'd been weary, but confident. Now after actually facing the Hungarian Horntail, he finally understood just how dangerous this tournament was. He'd also finally realized that whoever put his name in the goblet was trying to kill him. He'd tried talking to his father, to ask if there really was no way to get out of competing in the tournament, but his dad had just looked at him weirdly and asked why he'd want to get out of the chance to increase his fame and glory. Dumbledore wasn't any help either, he'd simply flashed that old grandfatherly smile of his and calmly said that all things happened for a reason. Since it had finally occurred to him that someone was trying to kill him, he was pretty sure Dumbledore was using him as bait. That idea didn't sit well with Mike, not after having spent his whole life having complete faith in Dumbledore's wisdom and power.

He'd eventually gotten desperate enough that he'd asked Hermione Granger, the resident bookworm in Gryffindor. He'd spent the previous three years doing his best to avoid the girl after she'd given him and Ron a two hour lecture on doing their homework, a mere week after their first year started. When he'd approached her she'd initially been defensive, thinking he wanted help solving the egg he'd gotten during the first task. After he explained what he wanted to know she'd gotten a strange look on her face and asked a question similar to his dad. Unlike his father's inquiry though, it was obvious that Hermione meant it in a manner of why the 'Great' Mike Potter wanted to get out of a chance to make himself more famous. Especially since he was, in her words, an 'attention whore'. It had taken him half an hour to explain that he'd finally had his eyes opened to what was really happening. It would have taken less time, but Hermione kept interrupting with snide comments.

Eventually once he was done talking, Hermione had stared at him for a moment with a contemplating look on her face. Then finally after almost a full minute, she'd sighed before informing him that she'd looked up the tournament rules out of curiosity when the tournament was announced. She'd bluntly informed him that the only ways out of the tournament that he had control over were victory or death. The tournament would of course end if one of the other champions won, but unless he helped them, it was out of his hands.

He'd sat there for a good fifteen minutes taking that in with a solemn expression, before quietly thanking Hermione for her time, and getting up to leave. He didn't question Hermione's answer, the girl wouldn't share information with anyone unless she was utterly sure of it. Hermione gave him another strange look before asking him to stay. He'd been startled, but obliged. To be honest after the way three quarters of the school were treating him with scorn, and the remainder treated him like he was the second Merlin, Hermione was... refreshing. Sure she didn't like him, and treated him with contempt, but at least unlike the rest of the school she didn't like him for his attitude and the type of person he was, rather than something completely out of his hands.

For a few minutes there was an awkward silence, but then Hermione seemed to gather her thoughts. She quietly commented on him changing, and that she hoped it was for the better, before offering to help with his egg. He'd protested for a minute, not wanting to bother her any more than he had. She'd gaped at him for a minute, before commenting that he really was changing, and rapidly. He knew exactly why she said it to. A mere eight days prior he would've accepted her help, then once he no longer needed her, ditched her and claim he figured it out himself. All without ever once even thinking about how she'd feel about it. Worse yet, even after doing that to her if he needed help again, he would've gone back again and expected her to help him despite what he'd done. And if he'd managed to convince her to help again? He'd just repeat the whole thing all over.

It truly was astonishing how nearly dying, realizing someone was trying to kill him, and that neither his father nor mentor, Dumbledore, really cared could change a person.

AN: Mike's finally here! He'll be taking his spot as one of the main characters. Anyway, I've put a poll on my profile about who Mike should be paired with, if at all. Personally I lean towards Hermione, but I included Asuna, Lizbeth, Suguha, Sinon, Sachi, and even Argo. Yes minor spoiler, Sachi's gonna survive, and that's only a minor spoiler, because I'm not saying anything about the rest of the moonlit black cats. Or if there are enough votes for it I'll leave him unpaired.

Ugg. Dante's section is all clunky and awkward. I tried to make it smoother, but what's above was the best I could do.

(1) Yes I am aware that in canon Kirito only got the Anneal Blade up to plus six. This is not ignorance. I chose to alter it. Also, for those who haven't read the light novels, the part about someone trying to buy Kirito's Anneal Blade was omitted from the anime. I've never read the manga so I'm unaware if it was included there.