Chapter 20: Demon Blade
Dark Territory, Southern Ruins
"And now... «It's SHOWTIME!»"
I had been glaring at PoH, our weapons clashing evenly against each other. Or, strictly speaking, I was winning; my Starry Night Dagger had more Priority than his Mate Chopper, so eventually it would win the battle. Sparks flew from the point where both blades pressed against each other.
Then, just as he'd declared he had figured out how the world works, he'd shouted his signature catchphrase and something in the clash changed.
It definitely shifted towards me. My Starry Night Dagger was pressed backwards just a centimeter towards my chest, but it didn't matter how small the shift was. I hadn't wavered. I hadn't even lost strength, when the poison in PoH's words tried to corrupt me. But somehow, PoH was pressuring me back. The reason for that... was that the Mate Chopper PoH clenched in his right hand was vibrating and visibly getting larger by the second.
PoH cackled, and his eyes practically glowed red - no, wait! They were glowing red, and a menacing aura swirled from behind him. What looked like dark clouds made of glowing black and purple particles drifted towards his blade and sank into the Mate Chopper. "All the spilled blood and lives lost in this world get converted to energy. Like when that Radiant Medium shot that laser and torched the Dark Territory army."
Well, yeah. That made sense. But that energy was spatial resources, something that could be used for sacred arts. PoH hadn't chanted anything like that, and besides - the Mate Chopper was equipment from SAO. It shouldn't have the ability to absorb the Underworld's resources, let alone use them to grow bigger!
"Back in Aincrad, any time I used the ol' Mate Chopper here to kill a monster, its stats would go down. But if I used it to kill a person, they'd go up. Look at it now! Here in the Underworld, it can suck the energy from human lives right outta the air and power up all on its own," PoH continued. "Life energy's swirling all around us, from the American players you killed and from the Japanese players the Chinese and Koreans killed. As soon as they're done killing each other, this place is gonna be overflowin' with energy!"
While he ranted, smiling like a madman, the Mate Chopper was slowly growing bigger and bigger. What had started out looking like a butcher's blade had swelled to twice its size. The screech of metal against metal rang out, and my Starry Night Dagger shifted back towards my chest. It must be... Incarnation.
"My Chopper's gonna absorb it all. And then, I'm gonna hunt down every artificial Fluctlight and kill all of them, too! I'll start with the Dark Territory. Then murder my way across the Human Empire. I figure if I go that far, the Black Swordsman I remember will finally be pushed to the edge! I want to see him snap. I want to kill that fake niceness and stain his hands with my blood!"
PoH's words echoed in my ears, and he pressed down on me. This piece of shit... He was a monster. He wasn't an assassin, he was a monster. He'd pretended to be someone who cheerfully sparked chaos in Aincrad, but his true nature... He just wanted to kill, kill, and kill.
A demon.
My lips twisted, and even though PoH seemed like he had grown along with his Mate Chopper, I refused to let my knees bend. His weapon was bigger, but it was still the size of an oversized dagger. Nothing I couldn't stop!
However, my plan wouldn't work if I let PoH dictate the course of the engagement; every second I waited would be worse for me in this clash as the Mate Chopper drank in more power with his Incarnation. So instead I deliberately let the glow of my Sword Skill fade as I twisted my dagger and wrenched it to the side. PoH's heavy chop cleaved through the remains of my armor, shattering the blood red metal, and leaving me with just a regular shirt. But his eyes widened and I took advantage of that.
I spun from the momentum of his blow on one leg, and snapped a kick towards his head with the extra rotation. Even though PoH ducked away, I didn't let up. The blade of my dagger glowed again and I slid forward towards PoH under the force of my «Cross Edge» Sword Skill. He dodged the first slash, and our blades collided as he parried the second blow that made a cross in the air-
White enveloped my mind.
...
San Francisco, United States, 2015
Vassago Casals had been born in San Francisco, in the slums. His mother had Spanish heritage, and his father was Japanese. Naturally, he couldn't be named Devil or Satan; but his mother had named him Vassago, after one of the demons listed in the Ars Goetia - a Prince of Hell. There was only one reason for a mother to name her child like that.
*Crash!*
The thrown glass shattered on the cracked concrete wall behind Vassago. The shards fell to the ground and the alcohol splattered on the wall, but Vassago didn't so much as flinch. This was a common occurrence.
"Ever since you slithered out, you've been nothing but a curse on my life. You're a demon!"
These hateful words lodged themselves deep in Vassago's fifteen-year-old heart to sit nestled next to all the other spiteful words shouted at him. The one collapsed on the couch, disheveled and clearly drunk, was his 'mother'.
...
A shiver ran down my spine. That had been... For an instant, I had been PoH, staring at his mother as she glared at him and threw glass at his head. But how...
My eyes flicked to the Mate Chopper, still absorbing the black clouds of death energy and growing bigger. Incarnation...? Had our souls somehow linked, and I'd read some of his memories?
Never mind that! Focus on the battle, Rythin!
I didn't let myself get trapped in a clash again. Instead, as soon as the pressure of his attack knocked me backwards, I chained my skill into the «Shadow Stitch» Art. I glided forward, slashing my blade down as I passed PoH again. He parried it again with his own Sword Skill -
Again, white light bloomed behind my eyes.
...
"I'm glad to see you're looking… healthy."
Vassago gritted his teeth at the back of the man staring out the window. The fifteen-year-old boy's shabby coat and jeans, combined with the red bandana he wore around his neck, didn't fit the decor of the elegant hotel room or the tan suit the man wore.
"Yeah, like you ever cared. I haven't seen you in years, Dad. "
The man didn't deserve that title. Not when the only contribution he'd made was to occasionally check on Vassago's health and teach him the Japanese language.
Vassago sneered. "What do you want?"
"My son, your older half-brother, suffers from congenital kidney failure." The man turned to look at him. "He needs a kidney transplant as soon as possible."
"And why are you telling me this?"
"I've found the best hospital in Japan for the procedure. Along with the top surgeon to perform it."
"So?"
"I want you to donate one of your kidneys to my son."
Vassago surged to his feet. "What the hell? You bastard!"
In the end, he'd been unable to refuse, but Vassago extracted one promise in return - he would be allowed to live in Japan. If he stayed in the slums, he would never be able to rise from poverty; it was much better to just leave and start over in a new world.
His father accepted the condition.
...
I didn't stop or waver. Instead, I broke the clash again and slid by PoH again. These hit and run attacks were the privilege of the weak against the strong, after all. Immediately, I crouched and charged up the «Armor Piercer» Skill, and unleashed it. This Sword Skill blasted towards PoH, trying to carve a hole in his heart.
Instead, PoH dodged in a jump that left his cloak rippling. I still managed to score a small hit on his right leg, but I'd run out of Sword Skills to chain together and I felt the freeze hit me.
PoH sneered. "My turn, Rythin! You're nothing but scum compared to Blackie!"
His glowing blade descended on me, and at the last second the freeze left my body. I could only guard, though, and the black glow of his oversized dagger knocked me to the side in a tumble.
I took a second to gather my energy, then exploded towards him in a rush. PoH had been waiting for the approach, so he slashed at me - but my glowing Starry Night Dagger was a feint and I jumped over the attack. I twisted in midair and kicked PoH solidly in the chest.
He landed on his feet after flipping in the air, and I glared at him for a second. Then, we both ran towards each other. His blade glowed and he unleashed a trio of attacks in a pointed triangle, and I met the blade with a Sword Skill of my own -
...
Fluorescent lights passed overhead as Vassago was wheeled towards the operating room. The whole place stank of antiseptic, and the only ones there were the nurses and orderlies. Vassago had left California without so much as a goodbye to his mother.
At the last second, before the doors to the operating room swung open, Vassago tilted his head forward and saw a boy only a year older than him dressed in pajamas at the end of the hall. He stared at Vassago, and behind him with a fatherly hand on his shoulder was the bastard who had made a 'transaction' for Vassago.
Acting like a father?! To him!?
Infinite rage filled Vassago's heart. He clung to that hate and rage, even as the anesthesia put him under and the doctors began the surgery.
When Vassago woke up in the hospital missing his left kidney, a passport sat on the desk next to him. His father was nowhere to be seen. The hate and anger burned inside Vassago, enough for him to ignore the pain on his left side.
"Those Japanese bastards...!"
...
My Sword Skill was entirely defensive, and I slid backwards instead of fighting the pressure. PoH's cleaver slammed into the ground. In the crack it made, I heard a grinding sound as the blade absorbed even more death energy and grew again. When he lifted it up, it was the size of a one-handed sword.
He lunged forward with a slash that would take off my head, but I ducked at the last second. Then, I surged upwards and grabbed his extended arm. A sneer twisted at my lips as I tossed my dagger into the air long enough to flip him over my shoulder. This takedown... I had learned this one from Karasuma!
PoH flew through the air, and I snatched my dagger back. Then, I leapt into the air and plunged it down in a heavy stab attack. PoH, who had landed first, shouted angrily and jumped up after me. His black Mate Chopper clashed against my blade -
...
For Vassago, there was no way for him to survive in Japan despite speaking the language. Being adopted would have been nearly impossible thanks to being born in America, and even if he had there was no way he would have been granted a residency permit. So, naturally, the only thing waiting for him was the criminal underworld.
He'd been taken in by a Korean crime syndicate, given a fake ID, and trained into an assassin for them.
By the time he had turned twenty, he'd completed nine 'jobs' for them. His hate for his targets, combined with the ability to speak English, Spanish, and Japanese, made him very effective. Then, he received his tenth job on November 9th, 2022. The rules of engagement were entirely different from any job before.
The target was in a virtual world, despite being unapproachable in the real world.
He didn't quite understand what was going on right away, but as he listened to a TV broadcast, he learned quite a bit.
"Coming to you live at the Tokorozawa General Hospital, where victims of the SAO Incident have been arriving by ambulance non-stop. Since the game went live three days ago, officials have yet to find a solution. Meanwhile, the death toll reached 478, and that number is expected to climb."
A death game... Vassago's target had been caught up in the incident; in the real world, he was holed up in his heavily-guarded home, but he was vulnerable in the game. Leaving it to the death game was risky, since there was no guarantee he would die at all. But, Vassago could Dive into the game and take him out, leaving the NerveGear to execute its programming faithfully.
There were three problems. First, Vassago wouldn't be able to leave the game himself. Second, his own life was at risk from the same condition. And finally, Vassago couldn't directly attack the man since the system would log player-versus-player actions.
The reward for pulling it off was an incredible amount of money, and Vassago took the job. He didn't really expect them to pay him when he successfully completed the mission - that's how big the reward was - but he couldn't exactly refuse.
A NerveGear was smuggled to his apartment and from there, nobody could stop him from entering the game.
"Link start."
When Vassago opened his eyes in the virtual world, he was greeted with a prompt to enter his character name. At first, he typed in 'Prince of Hell', the name his mother had given him.
Then, after a second of thought, he erased all but the first letters of each word.
«PoH».
He spawned into the starting city wearing a black poncho, and he looked around. After that, he smiled. It felt like something had changed - or no. Been liberated. The players around him reminded him of his father and his older half brother, whom he'd ignored for years, and the hatred and loathing roared back to life with a vengeance.
"In this world... I can kill all the Japanese I want."
...
This time, my blade slid past PoH's guard just enough to leave a scratch across the man's blue cheek tattoo.
These glimpses into his memories... I could finally see PoH for what he was. A man filled with hate and rage, with nothing else inside him. He truly was a demon.
I landed lightly and closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Then, I exhaled slowly.
"Release... Recollection."
Dark Territory, Northern Chasm
Sheyta knelt down next to her exhausted dragon and rubbed her hand along Yoiyobi's chin. Her left hand clutched the Black Lily Sword, but at this point she could not find the strength in herself to point it at her enemies. She still wanted to cut them down, but she simply could not.
It truly was a shame. She had felt like she was on the verge of understanding important...
The remaining pugilists formed a circle around her badly injured dragon, facing outwards towards the seemingly never-ending sea of crimson knights from the other world. Their numbers had been thinned by the sudden attack from the red dragon, but one fire breath could only do so much to hold off the enemies. It didn't take long for them to form the circle again.
The pugilist's leader, Iskahn, the one that had challenged her... He gritted his teeth as he sat next to Yoiyobi, and then sighed explosively. "Damn... I woulda liked to fight you again. Doesn't look like we'll get the chance."
Sheyta looked at him, and tilted her head in thought. "Hm. I would... kill you."
"Heh..."
The circle of enemies pressed a little bit closer, shrinking the distance to not even twenty mel. They looked around at the exhausted pugilists and talked to themselves in the words of the Sacred Tongue; Sheyta could only understand bits and pieces of it. Still, she understood killing intent, and when they all shouted, she felt it.
«Kill them all!»
With their weapons drawn, the crimson knights steadily approached.
"I guess this is it…" Iskahn muttered.
Sheyta, instead of responding, looked up. There was something in the distant skies, rapidly approaching. "...What is...?"
A loud roar answered her question, and Yoiyobi summoned the strength to raise her head and look to the skies. A great flash of golden light in the sky bloomed like it was a descending star.
Behind the red knights, a human silhouette descended; long yellow hair with a tinge of green billowed in the wind, and the green attire exposed her pale skin, so pale it seemed to shine. It was undoubtedly a young girl from the Human Empire, and in her right hand she clutched a silver katana.
The girl smashed into the ground behind the red knights, sending up a cloud of dust.
There was no question where she'd come from, either. The five dragons in the sky belonged to Integrity Knights. Sheyta could see Fanatio Synthesis Two in the lead, with four more Knights flying behind her.
A series of explosions rocked the earth from behind the red knight's lines, sending plumes of dust mixed with that strange crystalline appearance the red knights had after Sheyta slashed them. She couldn't see the girl attacking, but her right hand shook on the hilt of her Black Lily Sword, as if it sensed something.
"Who's that?" Iskahn asked. "And those dragons... More of you Integrity Knights?"
Sheyta nodded, but another commotion from the dust caught her attention and her eyes widened. "Who are they?"
"Uraaaaah!"
The war cries came from a large group of soldiers charging towards the enemy from the northern side of the battlefield. There were so many of them that the sky filled with more dust even as the signs of the blonde girl's attack faded. Each of the soldiers were short and round, with drooping ears and pig-like snouts.
With the help of the human girl, they cut a path through the encircling crimson knights. "We came as fast as we could!" one of them said to Sheyta and Iskahn. He had nicer clothes than the rest and stood at the front of the charge, leading Sheyta to believe he was the leader. Strangely, his right eye was closed and a trail of blood leaked down his face, much like Iskahn.
"Why are you here?" Iskahn asked. "The Emperor said you had to stand by at the gates!"
An axe-wielding soldier was cut in half by a gleaming katana, and the beautiful blonde girl stepped forward. "Because we're all in this together, aren't we?" Then, she turned her bright gaze to the orc. "Lilpilin, you take the pugilists and fall back. I'll keep these creeps busy."
"But, we should fight 'em with you!"
"No way! You and your people have suffered enough casualties already! "
The blonde girl's refusal was instantaneous, and Sheyta tilted her head slightly. This girl was clearly a human like her, but she was concerned about the soldiers from the Dark Territory...?
With a firm step, the blonde girl turned and faced the enemies. She raised her katana high in the air. At that moment, there weren't any soldiers near her. In fact, most of them had backed off at the appearance of reinforcements. But...
The girl's sword and arms blurred as she swung her sword. Sheyta couldn't follow the speed of the slash despite her talents on the battlefield; it was just a flash of silver light and then the girl was standing in the next position, her sword extended.
A gleaming ray of light shot forward along the path her slash traced in the air and raced along the ground. Wherever it touched an enemy, the red soldiers were sliced in half, their upper bodies tossed up in the air without the time to scream.
Then, angling her shoulders slightly, the girl turned her blade and slashed upwards just as quickly as before. A second ray of light blasted through the ranks, splitting the heavy armor - and the soldiers wearing it - in half without slowing down.
"...So strong," Sheyta whispered to herself. Those attacks resembled the carnage Fanatio Synthesis Two had wrought on the battlefield with her Divine Object the «Heaven Piercing Sword». But to unleash two incredibly powerful attacks like they were nothing, and with the face and hair resembling the murals on the 50th Floor of the Central Cathedral...
The girl in front of her could only be the goddess Terraria.
Gusts of wind stirred up around her as the dragons above flapped their wings to slowly descend. When they landed, Fanatio slipped down from her dragon, followed shortly by the others. "Leafa," she said, "we will discuss jumping from my dragon later."
"Eheheh... I knew I'd be okay?"
Fanatio raised a single eyebrow, clearly not buying the excuse offered by the goddess - Leafa. Then, she shook her head and turned to Sheyta and the pugilist chieftain. "You did well holding them off for this long, Sheyta."
"...Thank you." The urge to raise her sword and slash rose up, but Sheyta tried her hardest to crush it down. This was why she hated talking to the others.
"I'm going to charge forward to face them," Leafa announced, her sword at the ready. "Fanatio, please make sure everyone stays safe!"
The purple-haired woman frowned. "Alone? That's foolhardy at best, girl."
"Don't worry! It doesn't matter how many of them there are, they're going down!"
Leafa said that with a smile and held her sword firmly as she stepped forward to face the legion of enemies alone.
Dark Territory, Southern Ruins
The battlefield should have been nothing but chaos. The sudden appearance of the red knights' reinforcements, from China and Korea, would have seen to that. The Japanese players, already outnumbered by the Americans, were fighting a losing battle from the start. The wave of red soldiers poured down the steps of the ruins with loud, angry shouts, rapidly surrounding the Human Empire army and the supply wagons.
Not every person in the wave of reinforcements was shouting loudly and swinging their weapons gleefully, however. PoH's inability to spread his message had sent a ripple of uncertainty across some of the players who hadn't been totally convinced. They didn't stop running, but at the same time the red knights kept their distance, only carefully attacking.
Even with half-hearted soldiers in their ranks, the sheer numbers of the red knights started to overwhelm the defenders. Their fighting had started off as a battle; then, as minutes passed and the shouts and screams kept ringing out across the field, it turned into a 'defense'. Finally, the crushing pressure forced players back, and it started to turn into a slaughter.
...
Ronie's hands glowed as she chanted a healing Art to restore strength to one of the knights in shining armor that had arrived; he was pale and shivering from the bloody gash on his left shin. Ronie had judged the wound to not be too deep, thankfully, but he was only the latest injury she'd treated among the never-ending stream of wounds. "I'm almost finished, Sir Knight," she said to him with a smile. The bloody cut finally sealed itself up and the trail of blood vanished, leaving behind the damaged leg armor and a faint scar.
"Oh, um... Thank you."
Ronie shook her head. "Thank you for coming to our aid."
"Um- Your name -"
Ronie blinked when the boy - because he was young, barely older than Kirito - blurted out the start of a question only to have an armored hand land on his shoulder. "I wouldn't, dude," the other knight in bright scarlet armor said. "I saw her talking to that Black Swordsman guy earlier."
"Oh come on, seriously?"
"It's totally not fair, but what else are we going to do?"
Ronie cleared her throat. "Excuse me... But, are you talking about Kirito?" Her cheeks grew a little warm. So Kirito really was someone important! She knew it. She was so lucky to have him as her mentor.
The second knight shrugged. "See what I mean?"
"It's not fair... Stupid lady's man swordsman..."
The first knight groused and grumbled under his breath, but used his halberd to push himself to his feet. He let out a deep breath, and then tightened his grip on the polearm. Ronie smiled uncertainly as he ran back to the lines of battle.
Confused, Ronie looked over to where Tiese was busy healing another warrior from the outside world. "Tiese, do you know what they were talking about?"
"Hmm... Not really? Sorry, I wasn't listening that much..." The red-haired girl shook her head.
"Oh. Well, maybe Kirito is just that amazing in the other world too!"
Ronie smacked her cheeks after that and narrowed her eyes. She needed to focus hard to heal everyone!
...
Even with the help of the Human Empire army that had fallen back to the supply wagons and concentrated solely on their healing Arts, the Japanese players were being pushed backwards without fail.
"Everyone!" Asuna shouted, her voice ringing across the battlefield. "Fall back! Fall back now! We need to protect the Underworld soldiers at all costs!"
The order from the army's leader was the perfect call in that circumstance. The Japanese players couldn't give a unified reply like they had before, but they all started to pull back from the front lines. All around, small pockets of players were getting surrounded by the Chinese and Korean players and overwhelmed by the numbers of the blood-red enemies. Compared to the arithmetic that always ended in the Japanese players screaming and dying, their bodies disappearing, the heavy lance charge had been easier for the soldiers to handle.
The only saving grace was the hesitance of the red-armored players that gave the Japanese VRMMO time to retreat and form their ranks again. By the time the bloodthirsty, shouting foreign players approached again, they couldn't catch any more single players alone.
The fighting, however, only got more desperate from there.
...
"All right! Don't let a single one break through!"
Sakuya gave her loyal Sylph soldiers her commands in a loud, clear voice. The graduate student that hid behind the face of the beautiful Sylph Lord might have been terrified, but she needed to be the calm and inspiring leader.
It helped that the Sylph race had become extremely skilled at carrying out these orders. This strategy, of whirlwind attacks from lightly-armed warriors always constantly shielding each other as they moved, had been perfected against the Salamanders, who also loved attacking with heavily-armored players. It kept her entire squad on the defensive, but it stopped the enemies from surrounding them and dragging them down one-by-one with numbers.
"Bellflower Team, Lily Team, push them to the right!" She slashed her katana through the air. "Stay close! Synch your sword skills... ready! In five! Four, three, two..."
With this, they could push the approaching enemies towards the Salamander squad on the right, which could use their assault power to break the enemy's approach. As long as they stayed in their formation, they would be fine.
"Don't give up, guys!"
The sudden scream from her left made Sakuya's blood run cold. She forgot to breath as she looked to her left, and saw a small squad of Japanese players wearing yellow and gold equipment. They were surrounded by a group of foreign soldiers, and in the center of the ring was a short girl with tan skin wearing a pair of metal claws.
"We need to keep 'em busy!" Alicia Rue shouted.
But, they were about to be steamrolled; one of the crimson soldiers slashed a player across the chest, but didn't kill him. Instead, he fell backwards and knocked Alicia Rue over, pinning her to the ground.
"Rue!" Sakuya screamed. In that instant, she changed back to a graduate student. Before she knew it, her feet were flying towards her best friend on her own. The red soldiers barred her way, but her katana was a silver blur as it slashed them apart. She cut them down without stopping, her sword twisting like a living creature as she ran through the blade dances that the young Sylph Leafa had taught her one day.
"No! Get back, Sakuya!"
Sakuya wasn't going to listen to her best friend, however. She flipper herself gracefully over an enemy that held an axe, and thrust forward with a slash that pierced through the helmet of the sword-wielding knight that was about to stab at Alicia Rue.
She held her katana out, and spared a second to glance at her friend, scuffed from the dirt. "I'm not going to let you get hurt, Rue!"
Even though Alicia Rue smiled and groaned quietly, Sakuya knew her friend was happy to see her. Still... Her eyes darted back and forth as the sea of red knights swarmed towards them like a tsunami. How were they going to get out of this...?
*Thwiiiiiir*
There was a quiet sound in the air, but Sakuya had no idea where it came from. Then, the knights surrounding them fell to pieces, revealing a young boy with armor and green hair. A blast of wind came from the sky as a shining star flew back to his palm, spinning there.
"Are you alright?" the knight asked.
Sakuya knelt and helped Alicia Rue to her feet. Now that her friend had been saved, a mixed rush of relief and embarrassment filled the elegant Sylph Lord. She'd lost her head instantly...
No, there was no time for her to dwell on that. "Yes, we are," she said. "Thank you..."
"Oh! I am Integrity Knight Renly Synthesis Twenty-Seven," the young boy said. "Hurry, before they surround us again!"
Sakuya nodded and helped Alicia Rue walk forward. It only took a second for her to turn leadership over to her sub-leader, and then the two college girls limped off to the healers together. The green-haired Integrity Knight followed them to the cute red-haired and brown-haired girls that were happy to heal them.
...
Stranded at the entrance to the ruins because they'd been able to push out that far before reinforcements cut them off, the Sleeping Knights stood back to back.
'I have to do something. I can't just stand here.' The thought ran through the mind of An Si-eun, better known as Siune. The Undine mage was half Korean on her father's side, and she'd grown up learning both languages. She could pick out bits and pieces of the furious shouts coming from some of the waves of red players, and it gave her a basic idea of why they were attacking.
Siune was the only one who could do this, since she was the only one that spoke Korean. She clasped her hands. 'There's only one way to get our point across. Isn't that right, Yuuki?'
"Everyone, listen! I need to get through here! Create a space for me, just this once!"
Each of the four other Sleeping Knights looked at her in surprise - and then their eyes firmed. "You got it!" Jun, the sword-wielding Salamander damage dealer said. "Tecchi, Talken, Nori, let's sync up our attacks and knock them back! In three! Two, hit it!"
The blades of their weapons glowed at the same time, and each of the four warriors unleashed powerful attacks that blew away every enemy near them in an earth-shaking blast.
In the instance of surprise and relative silence, Siune stepped forward and approached the single soldier that had remained upright. Her Undine robes were just that, in this world, and he could easily kill her. But she still approached, even as he raised his sword and swung it down.
Siune raised her hand and stopped the blade with her palm. The skin split open and blood poured down her wrist, but compared to the treatments and sickness from her leukemia, it was nothing. She still grimaced a bit, but she stared at the man and shouted.
"Listen to me!" she shouted in Korean. "You've all been deceived. This server belongs to a Japanese company, and these people are not hackers. We're legitimate users!"
"You're lying! We saw what you did! When we logged in, you were killing red knights left and right! They were the same as us!"
The Korean player whose sword she was gripping was quick to reply, but Siune shot back just as quickly. "We were defending ourselves against them! They were American players who were also deceived! You're all being used to sabotage the Japanese company."
Her words seemed to have an effect as the soldiers around them shifted and lowered their weapons. Some of them started to whisper to each other, too quiet for Siune to hear what they were saying, but they seemed uncertain.
"Hey. Are you telling us the truth? "
As another red soldier approached, Siune drew back, cradling her injured hand, but the new player reached up and removed his helmet to reveal a generically handsome face with long green hair pulled into a ponytail that fell over his shoulder.
"My handle's Moonphase. What's yours?"
Siune was a little surprised, but his eyes seemed sincere. "I go by Siune."
He nodded. "Alright. I believe you. Ever since I dove in here, I had a bad feeling about this. "
Some of his allies shouted loudly and raised their weapons, but Moonphase glared at them and slammed his sword into its sheath loudly. Their noise was silenced instantly.
"Excuse me, let me by."
Another player walked forward and removed their helmet. This time, it was a girl with short red hair, and a strawberry hairclip keeping her bangs pulled out of her face. "Moonphase, there you are," she said. "Something's way off about this game."
"Mei Xiang, you think so, too?" Moonphase asked.
"Yeah."
Moonphase frowned. "The message we got said that hackers from Japan were the aggressors here, but by the looks of it, all you guys are doing is protecting each other. "
Siune smiled. "Thank goodness you believe us!"
"Hang on," The girl, Mei Xiang, said. "Do you have any kind of proof what you're saying is true?"
Proof? Siune had no idea how to prove something to these people. The Underworld was a virtual world, and there was no physical evidence, only testimony. They wouldn't believe her just like that, and as she hesitated she could feel the anger start to rise.
"Siune, the Underworld people!" Nori suddenly shouted. "Have them meet the people who live here, and once they see they're speaking Japanese, they'll know this is a Japanese server!"
"Ah...!"
That would work! Siune's eyes brightened, and she opened her mouth to translate what Nori had just told her.
At that moment, a dark horrible shadow shaped like some sort of demon rose up from the center of the ruins, and everything fell apart.
"Release… Recollection."
He had dragged these people into the Underworld to fight a battle for him, and in doing so he'd spilled countless amounts of death energy for his cursed sword to absorb. Even now, it was slowly growing bigger and bigger; if I didn't stop it, it would reach the size of a two-handed sword in no time.
I suppose I should fight back with a curse of my own.
The stars in my blade winked out one by one, and the shadows started to spill out of the weapon at an incredible rate.
"Wh-What is this?" PoH snapped.
I didn't answer him. Release Recollection... It was the second stage of the Armament Full Control Art. As an Integrity Knight under Quinella's thumb, I had never managed to activate it, and so I'd been treated as a half-failure.
The Art tapped into the memories of the core that created my Divine Object, but unlike the Enhance Armament it released every last bit of power. It was dangerous to unleash, because these memories were uncontrollable even by me.
As a dark cloud rose up and swallowed both myself and PoH, I smiled grimly. A curse for a curse.
Once we were enveloped by the darkness, the sounds of chaos stopped and died down. While my Enhance Armament would allow me to sever Sacred Arts before they'd been cast, the abilities of my Release Recollection were simple.
Inside the darkness, no spatial resources would gather. The memories of the immense black and white-striped tiger refused anything of the sort.
It exhausted the Life of my weapon, but if I could defeat PoH... there was no weapon I wouldn't use.
Neither PoH nor myself could see anything in this black void, but that didn't mean anything to me. I could feel his bloodlust like a beacon, trying to burn through. I revealed a shred of my own killing intent, and PoH's weapon smashed into the ground to my left. I'd already moved after sheathing the killing intent again.
In this silent, blind world...
It's time for me to join the hunt.
"Wh... What the hell?" PoH exclaimed, his voice swallowed by the darkness. "I'll find you, you little shit! And then I'm going to kill you! Screw seeing the despair on your face?"
"Oh really?"
PoH's bloodlust was easy for me to track even in the darkness, and getting behind him was simple. The smoke didn't ripple as I erased my presence and slid around behind him, but when I spoke and unsheathed my bloodlust, it was like a massive tiger had its jaws around his neck.
PoH swung at me with his Mate Chopper, still longsword-sized; I'd cut off the energy it could absorb, but it wouldn't change the fact that it had powered up. The longsword passed through my body - but it was just a fake image created by my killing intent, and it dissolved into more black smoke as a laugh echoed through the night.
A claw swiped at PoH's face, and he flinched away. Then, a second set of claws flashed out and tore at his right arm, shredding the sleeve of his poncho. Blood trickled from the set of wounds, more than the slashes should have earned. The ferocity of my weapon had been fully awakened and wounds made by it always dug a little bit deeper than they seemed.
Naturally, this was all just a manifestation of my killing intent. But in this world, Incarnation meant that the killing intent was real. I'd learned that from Bercouli and the other Integrity Knights. I smiled to myself and laughed quietly.
"What's wrong, PoH? Aren't you going to absorb the death energy?" I smirked. "Or is something wrong?"
"Stop getting in my way!"
PoH lunged through the darkness, but there was nothing he could do to hit me. I giggled to myself and drifted through the haze.
"There you are!"
He must have sensed a shred of my killing intent, because he did manage to turn and block the stab to his unprotected ribs with his Mate Chopper. But, in the end, if 99 percent of assassinations didn't need close-quarters combat... I still trained for that one percent probability. My fist smashed into his chest twice, followed by a powerful kicked that snapped into the dented spot. I exhaled slowly as a crack echoed out, followed by the beautiful sound of shattering equipment.
"Oh? Did I break your chest plate? Mm, sorry about that!"
I ducked quickly as PoH's Mate Chopper whistled over my head. I might have been taunting him a little too much... Though, to sense my real location in this darkness made from my Incarnation and not be fooled by the killing intent - I guess he really is a talented assassin. Maybe I should just end this instead of trying to drag it out even further.
PoH drew his Mate Chopper back then, in a simple stance, and the black and purple glow of his Incarnation surrounded the blade. "You weren't my most precious prey, Rythin, but you still disgust me! Standing on the front lines and pretending to be righteous... Killing you will definitely let me see that look on the faces of that Flash and Blackie!"
I clicked my tongue in irritation. I'd managed to wound him a few times with my weapon, but he'd figured out the trick. My Release Recollection was a curse and not a blessing, after all; the dark cloud blocked any and all spatial resources from entering its borders, but that applied to me as well. Because I couldn't gather the resources, I couldn't continue to increase the size of the dark smoke without limits. If it were to be blown away...
PoH unleashed a very simple Sword Skill; all it did was rotate the user in place like a tornado, slashing several times at the mob in front of them. Even back in SAO, it was really only used for people who didn't have better skills, since the stat adjustment scaled poorly and it could leave you dizzy. However... more importantly, as a result of the rotation, a strong wind would be kicked up!
The red sky was visible overhead as the darkness scattered, blown apart by PoH's attack. I shielded my face from the winds that blew my way as I rushed in, keeping low to the ground. At the last second I swung my hand up, and then hit the ground and slid forward. After I was clear of PoH's expanded range I rolled over and flipped back to my feet.
PoH's severed hand hit the ground a few seconds after that, and blood pooled as it poured from his stump. The man didn't seem to react at all, which was insane. He had to be using an STL! The Underworld didn't have pain inhibitors, and it was even worse when it was the STL, interfacing directly with your mind and senses. To not even flinch as I cut off his left hand!
"Whew," PoH whistled. "That was a nasty trick." His cold red eyes bore into me. "But it looks like you're done now, huh?"
I coughed a few times, and then the strength left my body. I grunted as I fell to one knee, gasping for breath desperately. I hadn't been injured... but I was totally exhausted. Even before the arrival of the Japanese VRMMO players, I'd been on my last legs; the small boost of energy I got from the relief had been drained even faster as I fought PoH without holding anything back.
Still though, I'd done quite a bit of damage. "You're not... looking great your... self," I said through deep breaths. I needed to stabilize my breathing...!
Obviously I'd severed his left hand, but that wasn't the extent of my attacks. The blood slowly dripping from his upper right arm came from a few slashes I'd landed, and I'd shattered the chest plate hidden under his black poncho.
"You can't... heal those," I said. "My weapon... won't let you." The memories of that savage beast meant that any cut I made bled more, and cost much more to heal.
"In that case... I won't try!" PoH's wide eyes narrowed in frustration. "Not enough... I need more! I need them to fight and kill!"
Ominous dark black and purple shadows started to pour from his poncho. The miasma rose up into the air like a living creature, and took the shape of a horned figure cloaked in shadow. Of course... The representation of PoH's bloodlust, his Incarnation, would naturally be a demon.
"Comrades! You answered my call to arms, and I am deeply grateful!" PoH shouted.
I gritted my teeth and tried to get to my feet to stop him, but I couldn't find the strength. As I was about to fall on my face, someone caught my side; Argo, her expression filled with concern, gently supported me.
"Since the dirty Japanese hacked the server, they got access to all the high-spec gear they want! You can't forgive these cowardly hackers! This is their true nature, so kill every last one of them! ...And everyone else that tries to stand in your way!"
The leering shadow spread tendrils of the miasma towards the fighting red knights. As it reached each of them, their bodies were surrounded by a copy of the purple shadows as if they were being infected by PoH's hate. It didn't seem to target every single one of the red knights, but it was enough.
I saw out of the corner of my eye as one of the infected knights, an eerie red glow coming from the slits of the helmet, turned and slashed at the red knight right behind. As that one fell, another red knight stabbed their comrade through the heart with a spear.
All around me, the battle fell into chaos as the 'allies' started fighting madly, with no distinction between friend and foe. It meant our side was safe, but as PoH cackled, I realized that this was falling right into his plan.
"What... What are you doing...!?" I gasped.
"Kekekekeh! It's time for the second act!"
The Underworld is a very loose setting, in terms of the rules put out by Reki and the rest of the canon bits. So, I've kinda just done whatever I want, within reason. Hence Rythin's Release Recollection blocking sacred power, just like the creature it came from.
Vassago is also kind of a shithead, huh? I decided to use his original backstory instead of the toned-down version from the anime; I like the parallels between Rythin and PoH better when he's an assassin instead of just some rando that decided to steal a NerveGear and go killing.
Sheyta is another difference. This time she hasn't managed to grasp the breakthrough she had in the original story, so her sword isn't broken yet. No worries, though. She'll get there eventually. Probably. I also like the idea that Fanatio is just kind of a mother, and is going to scold Leafa for jumping off of a dragon.
And Siune to save the day! I was torn whether to include the new girl (Mei Xiang) since she's anime-only to have someone talk to Moonphase - originally it was all one inner monologue so he figured it all out. In the end I figured why not throw her in there since she'll do the same job for me.
Anyone who's watched the anime only - we're roughly around episode 6 here. You might have noticed that someone doesn't exist here. Fuck Eiji. All my homies hate Eiji. Yuna: cute and good. Eiji: awful and bad.
Many thanks to everyone that favorited, followed, or reviewed.
