Kirito and his gang have once again gotten stuck in SAO. However, with perma-death no longer being an issue, how will this effect the resolve of the SAO survivors. And are they really stuck in SAO again? or is there something else going on?
(I DO NOT OWN SWORD ART ONLINE OR IT'S CHARACTERS, BOTH ARE PROPERTY OF REKI KAWAHARA) (i'm pretty sure i've accidentally re-worded that disclaimer every single chapter now :p)
"B-but I thought…That they changed it." Kirito said as he came to a proper realisation. Klein finally turned and looked at him with defeated eyes.
"Looks…like we're stuck in here again Kirito. This is a serious case of déjà vu if you ask me." Klein fell back to the ground and sat down. Suddenly, Kirito came to another realisation. He doubted that it would work but he was desperate at that time so he had to give it a try. He quickly took a breath and shouted towards the sky.
"System Command! Log Out User! I.D Kirito!"
There was a moment of dead silence as Klein looked at Kirito with confusion. Suddenly, Kirito's whole vision was encased in a bright light and with a big flash of light. He was thrusted back into reality and woke up in the dive building. He looked around him and saw all his friends still logged in…No, still stuck in SAO. Kikuoka's data team looked at him with concern and ran over to him.
"H-how did you log out!" Some of them expressed their concern. Then, the leader of this whole mission, Dr Kurahashi, walked up to him.
"The seed's data altered itself automatically and won't let anyone who's using the NerveGear log out. We can't change it while it's active otherwise everyone who's logged in will go into shock and get put into a permanent coma or worse, die." he said.
"Wait, so what your saying is that I'm the only one who can log out due to the GM status that I gained?" Kazuto asked them.
"Yes, that is what we presume. We also heavily doubt that even with your status, you won't be able to log a different user out. But, you can try if you want." the doctor admitted.
"Answer me this one thing. Does this mean that perma-death has been reactivated?" Kazuto asked them with a serious tone to his voice.
"No. I can safely say that the perma-death function of SAO is still off, and we will do everything in our power to keep it that way." Dr Kurahashi announced. Kazuto still had a serious look on his face as he laid back down on his dive bed.
"Make sure to look for a way to enable the log out button while you're at it." He ordered them.
"Will do, good luck." After the brief goodbye, Kazuto closed his eyes again and re-entered SAO
"Link Start!" He shouted as his consciousness was whisked away.
Kirito reappeared on the scene at the exact place where he had left it, and to his surprise, Klein was still there as well.
"Kirito! How the heck did you do that man? I've been sitting here for five whole minutes yelling the same words that you said and nothing's happened What's the big deal?" Klein question Kirito the moment he had arrived.
"Well, long story short, Kayaba's consciousness gave me GM privileges while I was saving Asuna from Alfheim a while back." Kirito said with a sigh. "I'll tell you the whole story later. Right now, we need to go to the town of beginnings and make sure everyone else is okay."
"Right." Klein nodded in agreement. "But, how do we get there without walking."
"Easy." Kirito said as he put his two swords in the sheaths on his back "We run." With that, he jumped off the side of the floating island that they were on.
"But that's the same thing." Klein whined as he regretfully followed suit. While he was falling through the air, Klein came to a realisation. SAO doesn't have wings so what the heck was going to break their fall. At this realisation, Klein screamed in horror as he made his way towards the ground at speed. Kirito had also realised his mistake but luckily managed to maneuver his way to above a lake. Kirito hit the lake with a big splash and saw that his health bar had drop by a centimeter or so. Klein however, was not as lucky. He hit the ground with a thud and immediately exploded in a crystallised fashion. He had died right in front of Kirito's eyes and for the briefest moment, Kirito had thought that he died for real. After all the shards of data that was Kleins avatar had been blown away in the wind. Kirito forced his way out of the water and made a super quick beeline for the Town of Beginnings because, if the beta for SAO had taught him anything, it was that people who died on the first floor would respawn at the center of the Town of Beginnings. So, in short, he was no the only one who had yet to arrive. He did briefly think about just killing himself as well but ultimately decided that it would probably be too psychologically annoying. So he just ran his heart out.
Upon finally arriving in the town of beginnings, as well as catching his breath, Kirito found his group of friends, including Klein. When he walked up to them, he noticed that Klein was no longer wearing his armour from before.
"Hey Klein, what happened to your gear?" He asked his now nooby looking friend.
"Well, when I died, I lost all my stats and all my items. I was also put all the way back to level one. Judging from this experience, it seems like there is still a reason to stay alive." Klein said with a defeated tone to his voice. Suddenly he clenched his fists and brought it up to eye level "But hey, at least it's better than dying for real, am I right?" Kirito smiled at his optimistic friend as Lisbeth berated him.
"He would've been fine if he hadn't jumped of a big cliff like an idiot. Seen as Kirito looks fine, he must've found a smarter way down." She insulted Klein as everyone laughed.
"Actually, I was the first to jump off of the cliff, seen as it was my idea in the first place." Kirito hesitantly admitted. "I was just lucky enough to land in a patch of water." He awkwardly scratched the back of his head while he said it. All his friends start at him with dumbfounded looks.
"Yeah, what was I thinking, you two are like brothers from another mother." Everyone laughed at that comment. During our somewhat-of-a-reunion, He noticed that both Sinon and Leafa also looked like beginners. But that was because neither of them played the original SAO so it made sense.
"I'm happy we're all here and safe. But it's still a shame that no one can log out." Everyone's expressions dropped except Klein, who smiled in admiration.
"Actually, that's not entirely true." He said, causing everyone to look at him with disbelief. "Our old friend Kirito can! Kirito, show them." They all looked at him in anticipation.
"Klein, don't put me on the spot like that." He said as he cleared his throat. "System Command. Log Out User. I.D Kirito." And with a flash of light, he was whisked back to reality. Upon returning to SAO he got dazzled looks from everyone.
"That's amazing Kazuto!" Leafa expressed her excitement as well as everyone else.
"Have you tried logging someone else out using your GM status?" Sinon asked a logical question.
"Doctor Kurahashi said that he doubts it'll work, but I'll try it anyway." So he spoke the command again. "System Comand. Log Out User. I.D Sinon." A few seconds after Kirito said it, a notification popped up in front of him.
'Your status does not allow logging out other users. Either try again, or ask another administrator.'
"Looks like I can only log myself out. Sorry." Kirito expressed his disappointment. "And I'm sorry for making you jump off a cliff like that Klein, I guess the re-using of old avatars was just a one off."
"Hey, don't worry about it man!" Klein said as he put his hand on Kirito's shoulder. "Starting from level one will mean that it'll feel more accomplishing when we beat our way to the hundredth floor. Am I right or am I right!" Klein was the most optimistic about their situation.
"Well, I suggest we all join a party right now. Kirito, you'll be our leader." Kikuoka suggested.
"Good idea." He replied. Kirito went into his menu and started a party. His first couple of party invitations went to Asuna, Leafa and Sinon. "Now I'll invite you Klein." Kirito pressed the 'add to party' button on his menu and instead of a list of players, a notification popped up in his menu.
You are only allowed a maximum of 4 members per party.
The sudden notification took Kirito by surprise for a second, but even after re-reading it. He was still dumbfounded.
"That's…strange, I don't remember this restriction being in the original SAO." Kirito said as he scratched the back of his head.
"That's because there wasn't a restriction like that." The white and red clad knight that sported the uniform of the second in command of the Knights of the Blood Oath "With my experience in the Blood Oath guild, I can definitely say there was no restriction like that whatsoever. Some of our bigger parties consisted of up to sixteen people."
"My data team could possibly know something about this change." Kikuoka suggested to Kirito. But he shook his head.
"We can ask them about that later. Until then, lets focus on what's happening in-game." Kirito then looked to Agil. "Agil, I think you should lead the second party."
"I'm not sure if I'm fit to be a leader Kirito. But if you insist, I'll try my best." Agil said with determination. Kirito smiled as he continued.
"A good idea would be for you to stay on the first floor and work on your leadership skills while also levelling Klein back up as much as possible." He suggested.
"What about your level one's? You have two of them. Wouldn't it make sense for all of the level ones to stay on the first floor while the rest get as high up the castle as possible?" Agil had a point in saying that, but he was forgetting something.
"Don't worry about my party, I have GM status, remember? I'll be able to help them even when fighting a boss." He informed Agil.
"Yeah, that makes sense. I guess we'll catch up with you once we've got Klein to level 10 or so." Agil thought aloud.
"Sounds good." Kirito said in agreement. Agil then proceeded to add Klein, Lisbeth and Silica to his party. All that was left was to get the level one's of Kirito's party some decent equipment. And, because he had all his stats and items back, he also had all of his Cor (SAO's currency) back as well. After checking how much he still had, which was a f***ton, he gave Sinon and Leafa each 150,000 cor to buy themselves some reliable equipment. "Okay, Agil. I want you to take Kikuoka and the rest of your party to an open field just to get the hang of battle again. Then, go to Moonlight Dungeon. It's a good place for starters to experience a real battle."
"Understood." Agil replied as he lead his party towards the edge of the town of beginnings.
"Asuna, I want you to take Sinon and Leafa to a good weapons shop." He asked as he started to run towards an alleyway.
"Wait, what about you!? Where are you going!?" she yelled after him.
"There just something I need to check up on. Don't worry about me, I'll meet up with you la-" Kirito was interrupted by accidentally running into someone. Both of them were thrown to the ground with a thud. "Ouch. Hey, sorry about that. I wasn't looking where I was…" When Kirito looked at the user who he had just hit, he saw very clearly that the boy was crying. "H-hey, are you alright?" Kirito asked him, but the boy just got up and continued to run as quickly possible. "The heck was up with that guy" Kirito said to himself, not noticing that Asuna was calling out to him.
"Kirito!? You Okay!?" She shouted from a distance. Kirito stood back up as he replied.
"Yeah, it's nothing, go on without me like I said, okay?" He said as he disappeared into the back alleys of the Town of Beginnings. Asuna let out an annoyed sigh.
"Where do you think he's going?" Leafa asked curiously.
"I don't know, but where ever it is, he obviously has a reason for doing it." Asuna then started walking towards the crowded part of town where all the shops are. "Come on, I know this really good craftsman shop in the centre of the town. He'll hook you up with some decent weapons until Lisbeth gets her shop back." They followed Asuna into the crowd of many people. On their way to the craftsman shop, Asuna happened to be looking to her left and saw a group of people seemingly saying goodbye to each other. What surprised her was what she saw next. All but one of the players proceeded to log out. In an extremely quick manner, Asuna pulled out her menu and went to settings, but unfortunately, the log out button was still deactivated. She wanted to run over there and ask the user how his friends logged out but didn't want to leave Sinon and Leafa alone. Her curiosity very quickly got the better of her and she charged over to the level one player. "You there!" she shouted at him, causing the poor soul to jump out of his skin.
"NO! I WASN'T DRINKING I SWEAR!" The overall wearing player shouted in fright before putting his hands over his mouth.
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you jump like that." Asuna apologised.
"It's fine." The user grumbled. "What do you want."
"Well..i just wanted to know how your friends were able to log out. That's all." She said politely, not showing the slight disgust she felt at his rudeness.
"Wait a second" the user said, dumbfounded. "You mean to tell me that you've been playing this game for just as long as I have, are a higher level, and you don't know how to log out?" The user said, holding in a sudden burst of laughter. Asuna's eyebrow was twitching from the sudden burst of outrage that she was stealthily holding in. "It's easy, you just open the menu, go to settings, click the log out button and Bam! You're back in the real world." The user showed her his menu and upon inspection, Asuna saw the users log out button right there where it's suppose to be.
"Maybe it's actually just a bug this time then." Asuna thought aloud, confusing the user.
"W-what's a bug?" He asked curiously. Asuna pulled out her menu to show the guy her settings menu, he took a quick look and watched as nothing happened when she pressed her log out button.
"That's really odd." The user said. "When I press mine, I get a notification that says 'Are you sure you want to log out of SWORD ART ONLINE?' and I can press yes or no. The GM is probably fixing it as we speak so I wouldn't worry about it."
"Yeah, except the only GM here is Kirito and he can only log himself out." Asuna said in her head. "Y-yeah, I guess your right." She said with a convincing fake smile.
"Hey, do you mind if I get your name? Your avatar name I mean." He asked, totally oblivious to the fact that her in-game name is the exact same as her real name.
"Oh…it's Asuna. My avatar's name is Asuna." She said carefully, secretly hoping that he wasn't attempting to hit on her.
"Nice to meet you Asuna, my name's Kami." He said with a nice smile, if he was trying to sway her with that smile of his, it wasn't working. "Well, I'm going to log out now, have fun with being stuck in here, okay?" Kami teased as he disappeared in a flash of light. Asuna was glad he left because he was on the verge of driving her insane. Kirito on the other hand had spotted Sinon and Leafa at a craftsman shop, but Asuna wasn't with them.
"Sinon! Sugu!" he called out as he ran over.
"Where have you been all this time?" Sinon asked him.
"That's…It doesn't really matter." He said awkwardly "Where's Asuna? I thought she was with you guys?"
"She went over to a group of players and talked to them for a while, so we just looked for the shop on our own." Leafa answered in Sinons place. Kirito just gave a quick sigh and put it behind him.
"Well, I'm here now so I'll help you guys with items." He said, they both liked that idea. Some more than others. "First off, your definitely at the wrong shop. I know a shop just around the corner that sells better items for the same price if not less." He said as he gestured them to follow him. After walking about two blocks, Kirito stopped at a run down old building. Both of the girls looked at it with expressions of disgust and confusion
"This is where your glorified shop is?" Sinon asked him questionably.
"Yep, take a look inside, I'll bet you'll be surprised." Kirito said confidently. So Sinon walked up to the door and turned the knob. Upon seeing what was inside, Sinon was definitely surprised. Weapons of all sorts littered the walls and roof. There were swords, axes, spears, bows and arrows, knifes, shields, etc. It was pure heaven for a weapon lover. Being the gun person she was, Sinon went straight to the area closest to what she liked which was the Bow and Arrow area. Meanwhile, Leafa made her way towards the one-handed swords. "You see? Some of these weapons are over 10,000 Cor cheaper than the ones at the other shop you were at, and you can tell just by looking at them that they are in much better shape too." Kirito informed. Sinon quickly picked out a nice, deadly bow while Kirito gave Leafa tips on what one-handed sword to choose judging from her preferences. After buying their starting weapons, as well as decent armour and other such items, the three of them meet up with Asuna, who had been running around the whole town looking for them.
"The least you could've done was send me a PM." She said angrily but out of breath at the same time.
"We kind of forgot since we found Kirito and he took us to a good place. Sorry Asuna." Sinon said apologetically.
"Well, at least you were with someone." She said, looking towards Kirito "Anyway, what weapons did you guys pick?" Sinon went into her menu and equiped her new Bow.
"Mine's the Mk II Wind slasher." She announced "Not only was it the most well-balanced Bow in the store, but it was also on sale for only 80,000 Cor." She said proudly.
"And what about yours Leafa?" Leafa was about to reply to Asuna, but a sudden bright flash of light appeared in the sky above them.
"What the hell is that!?" Asuna shouted in confusion and worry. Suddenly, the flash of light shot a large beam straight towards the ground and landed right where Kirito was standing, even with his otherworldly speed, Kirito had no time to dodge the beam and it enveloped him completely
An unexpected hitch has made itself known to Kirito and his friends, the first fight of the story is on the horizon. But was it really unexpected? or was it planned?
Thank you for reading! Please review before leaving :)