:: Author's Note ::

Finally back on Fanfic! I took a hiatus from writing on this site for a while to pursue other projects. Namely my Devil's Colt series which you can now read on Tapas. If you enjoy this story, consider giving it a read. Just head over to Tapas and search for "The Devil's Colt: Rise of a Hunter."

Okay, enough shameless self-promotion. Let's talk Sword Art Online. The story you're about to read does not star normal Kirito. Nor does it star the newer more likable abridged Kirito that many of us have come to know and love thanks to Something Witty Entertainment. This is 'my' Kirito. And he's quite a bit different, I feel than just about anything I've seen done so far.

I first got this idea after rewatching the original series. Something about Kirito always struck me as odd. He has that sort of cookie-cutter every-man kind of personality that's fairly typical among anime protagonists. Yet he was also incredibly withdrawn and lacking in any sort of personality. It got me thinking, and I realized something.

Kirito, whether this was intentional or not, shares a lot of personality traits that are typical of a teenager on the autistic spectrum.

Once I realized this, it gave me a whole bunch of ideas on how to write my own interpretation of the story of SAO with a protagonist who I personally think is both compelling and wholly unique from anything I've seen done so far. This story is a complete rewrite of the original series. Names, locations, and key character relationships will remain the same. However, aside from those few similarities, this story will be almost entirely different.

In this retelling of the original series, we will follow the story of Kazuto Kirigaya. A genius savant with high functioning autism who struggles to adapt to a world that was not made for him. Though socially inhibited, his nack for programming and gift with numbers lands him a career as one of Dr. Kayaba's top programmers during the Alpha Build of Sword Art Online. Now in its Beta, Kirito has become a legend in the world of Aincrad as the Black Swordsman. A Beta Tester who hunts down and eliminates Beaters in the game. As successful as he is, he's still reclusive. But all of this changes when he meets Asuna and takes her on a journey she will never forget. This story is one about overcoming life's obstacles. It's a story about love and the bumps life can put in its path. It's a story about escapism and the consequences of leaving reality forever. But more than that, it's a story of hope for those who feel hopeless.

Kazuto's autism will be portrayed in as accurate and respectful a manner as I can present. I've done plenty of research into this subject, I've worked with those with ASD throughout my career, as has my fiancee. We're both extremely well versed in the subject, and we're both non-neurotypical, which is the only reason I feel comfortable portraying this character with autism the way I have. This character is not meant to make fun of, or belittle those with ASD, I cannot stress that enough.

I hope you all enjoy. Please feel free to like and leave a comment if you do. With that said, I proudly present Chapter One.

:: End Note ::

Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye.

-Plato

In the year 2032, mankind at last discovered the ability to create a fully immersive virtual world. Gone were the days of clunky motion sensors and limited user input. With the invention of FullDive technology, complete neurological uplink with a fully rendered 3D environment became possible for the first time in human history.

What began as a medical project in the year 2022 led to the formation of NerveGear. A revolutionary new type of gaming platform that allowed players to fully sync with their avatars in ways that could only be dreamed of before. Purely visual and auditory input was now a thing of the past. Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, all of it could be replicated on a one to one scale in fully rendered, fully immersive, three dimensional environments.

This breakthrough in VR science unlocked an entirely new realm of possibility in the gaming industry. No longer did companies battle over creating machines with bigger and badder specs. With the invention of NerveGear, gaming machines were ancient history.

The human mind had become the processor now. And with it, a realm of infinite potential was born. This potential saw its first seed bloom in the form of the massively multiplayer virtual reality game Sword Art Online. The very first of its kind.

First conceived by the NerveGear's creator, Dr. Akihiko Kayaba, SAO, as it came to be known, promised a gaming experience unlike any other. Fully immersive virtual reality. Each floor of Castle Aincrad was based on not only suggestions, but memories, visual info, and brainwave scans of the one hundred Alpha-Testers who first put on the NerveGear and stepped into the virtual world of his creation.

Now in its Beta, the one hundred individuals who first helped Dr. Kayaba conceive this brand new world are joined by nine hundred more souls. Each looking to explore and unlock the mysteries of Aincrad, discover its secrets, tap into its power.

And prepare themselves for the day of official launch.

Tokyo Japan.

St. Mark's General Hospital. Behavioral Health Center.

Two months before official launch of SAO.

Midori Kirigaya had been waiting in the lobby of Dr. Sojiro's office for almost two hours now. She understood that he was a busy man. But still...considering this wasn't even an official appointment, the fact that she'd been forced to sit there with nothing but pamphlets to read was a little exhausting.

Still, this was all for the sake of her son, something she had to remind herself of whenever she felt her eyelids start to grow heavy from sheer boredom. This wasn't the first time that Dr. Sojiro asked to see her away from her son's presence. What was slightly irregular, however, was for him to request her all by her lonesome like this. Normally these consultations happened after one of her son's appointments. Yet he wasn't scheduled to meet with the good doctor today. So why did he need to talk to her?

In the end, she could only pray that Kazuto wasn't in any sort of trouble...again.

"Mrs. Kirigaya?" A nurse in pink scrubs opened the door to the back office and looked around.

Midori stood from her chair and smiled. "That's me."

The nurse nodded her head respectfully. "Dr. Sojiro is ready for you now. If you'll please follow me."

Midori followed the polite nurse to the back office where an older balding man sitting behind a desk awaited her.

Upon seeing her in the doorway, he stood up from his chair and bowed respectfully. "Mrs. Kirigaya, good afternoon to you."

She returned the gesture. "To you as well, Doctor."

"Please have a seat." He gestured to the chair across from his desk.

Midori took the generously offered seat whereupon he retook his as well.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet me on such short notice," he spoke in a polite professional tone. "I realize this is a bit irregular so I apologize if the wait was too much."

She shook her head assuredly. "It was no trouble. I'm just curious as to why you felt the need to call me here without my son."

"I wanted to touch base with you and ask a few questions regarding his behavior over the past few months," he confessed.

She frowned at him. "Doctor, you've been working with him for the past six years. If anyone understands his behavior best, it should be you."

He chuckled in amusement. "I wouldn't be so bold as to state I understand his behavior better than his own mother."

"That's a much kinder response than I deserve, Doctor." She stated with a depressed sigh. "There are days I feel like I barely know my son."

He nodded in understanding. "Kazuto has a unique mind, Mrs. Kirigaya. More so than just about any other child I've worked with. Why, I'd go so far as to say he's one of the most remarkable cases of my entire career. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

"Still…" She looked up at him with concern. "What was the point of these past six years if we never got him to come out of his shell? He's eighteen now and he's yet to look at or even consider any options for college."

"From what I understand, he scored remarkably well on his entrance exams," Dr. Sojiro encouraged.

"And yet he hasn't applied for anything," she insisted worriedly. "Keeps going on about how college is just a place where people go to learn how everything they thought they believed isn't actually true. And that nothing they've ever done up until that point has really mattered."

He frowned at that.

"I really thought we were making progress but...lately he seems more withdrawn than ever. He barely leaves his room anymore. Barely eats. There's no telling how late he's staying up doing God only knows what on his computer." The more she talked, the more worried she sounded. "Did I go wrong somewhere, Doctor? Kazuto was doing so well. Now it seems like he's right back to where we started."

Dr. Sojiro shook his head vehemently. "I don't believe it was any action by either you or myself that brought on this change. However, I'm glad you brought it up. As that's primarily what I wanted to ask you about."

"Like I said. I'm not sure how much help I can be," she admitted solemnly. "There isn't much I can tell you that you don't already know."

"That may not be entirely true. There is one bit of information about his personal life I feel you may be more privy to than I currently am."

She quirked her head at him curiously. "What would that be, Doctor?"

He leaned back in his desk and cast his gaze out the window. "What do you know about Sword Art Online?"

She gave him a weird look. "You mean that VR game that's coming out in a couple of months? Why do you want to know about that?"

He strummed his fingers on his desk, seemingly lost in thought. "I'm not entirely unconvinced that his recent pattern of behavior and the announcement of this game are unrelated."

At that she frowned worriedly again. "It's all he wants to talk about. In the few moments his sister and I can actually get him to hold a conversation, that is. He's become completely obsessed with that game."

Dr. Sojiro nodded his head. "Yes, I figured as much."

"Kazuto has been known to hyperfixate on certain subjects that interest him in the past," she admitted. "That's not new behavior for him. But this time it feels different somehow."

"How so?"

She shrugged in uncertainty. "Honestly, I'm not sure. It just feels...deeper this time. It's not just hyperfixation, it's more akin to total obsession."

He considered this information for a moment. "Do you remember when you first brought Kazuto to me six years ago?"

Midori nodded. "Of course."

"Your son was essentially a brick wall of emotion," he continued. "I could barely get him to look me in the eye, let alone talk."

"The first month was so frustrating," she admitted. "It felt like we weren't getting anywhere."

"It wasn't until I noticed him staring at the rubix cube on my desk that we had a breakthrough. I jumbled it up and gave it to him to play with and he was able to solve the cube in less than thirty seconds," the doctor explained. "So I jumbled it up again. Same result. I finally asked him how he was able to solve the cube so fast...and that was the first time he spoke to me."

"I remember," she assured, a hint of amazement in her voice. "You told me he was memorizing your hand movements as you jumbled the puzzle and then repeating them in reverse order. I almost didn't believe you the first time you told me."

He chuckled at that. "I hardly believed it myself. Regardless, I started putting puzzles and other distractions in front of him and he gradually began opening up to me. The issue I ran into was that he would often solve whatever puzzle I put in front of him far too quickly for us to get anywhere in our session. So...I moved on to games."

She nodded her head, listening intently.

"We started with checkers but he quickly lost interest in that," he continued. "So we moved on to chess, and from there shogi. No matter how many times we played together...I could never beat him. Not once. As soon as I explained the rules to him, he worked out a strategy for each game that I couldn't win against."

"You had him play one of your colleagues in chess too, didn't you?"

"I did," he confirmed. "Dr. Mokodo played a game with him and lost. What was so remarkable about that particular game was the fact that he'd only been playing for a month at that point...and he was playing against someone who competed regularly in regional tournaments."

"But what does this have to do with his behavior now?" she asked insistently.

"I'm getting to that," he assured her. "You see, when your son first came here I diagnosed him with autism spectrum disorder, high functioning. But once I realized his level of intelligence, I began to suspect your son was in fact a savant. So I decided to play on a hunch and have him take a standardized test. Sure enough, he did quite poorly. Scoring in the lowest percentile." Dr. Sojiro smirked at her. "But then I had him take that same test again a month later and he scored perfect marks. Do you remember why?"

She nodded. "Yes. I remember. You told him it was a game you'd invented."

"I disguised the test," he explained. "That was when he confessed that he hated taking tests because the rules weren't always clear like they were in games."

"So you suggested he think of his schoolwork as a game," she recalled. "You even helped him develop a list of rules to follow and how to progress through each exam as if it were a level in a video game."

"Honestly, I barely had any input in that," he insisted. "I merely offered a few suggestions and his brain just sort of...took over on its own."

Midori smiled at the memory. "Either way, he started scoring perfect marks in every single one of his classes. Kazuto went from barely passing to a straight A student."

"Once we had established this pattern of behavior, we used it in every single one of our sessions from that point forward. It's done wonders for him, hasn't it?"

"It really has," she admitted. "You know...Kazuto built his first gaming computer when he was twelve. Games and computers are his life, most of his interactions with people have been through online gaming." She smiled happily at the memory. "Whenever I would pass by his room and I'd hear him talking to all his little online friends, I'd get so happy. He always sounded so much more...alive than when he talked to people in the real world." Her smile vanished. "But I'm worried that this new thing, this...NerveGear, is different. It's completely taken over everything. His grades have been slipping again. He's become a total recluse. It's like we're right back to where we started."

"How much do you know about NerveGear?" he asked.

"Only as much as Kazuto has been able to explain to me," she admitted. "I can't make heads or tails of most of it but from what I understand, it's some sort of new gaming console."

He nodded. "They were first announced roughly two years ago. Virtual reality headsets that promised total neurological simulation. Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. Every single human sense recreated on a one to one scale."

"I remember Kazuto telling me about it," she continued. "It was all he could talk about. I looked into getting him one but the cheapest I could find was over seven hundred thousand yen." Midori shook her head in disbelief. "Not that it mattered. He managed to acquire his own. I'm not even sure where he could have gotten that kind of money from."

"And ever since then, he's become reclusive right?" Dr. Sojiro guessed.

She nodded sadly. "He spends all day up in his room connected to that thing. I don't even know what he's doing, he just lays there...not moving." A chill ran up her spine. "It's a little unsettling to look at, if I'm honest."

"I know it may not look like it. But he's actually playing a game," the doctor explained. "The NerveGear allows for total immersion in a fantasy world like a Nintendo or Playstation game. Only with the NerveGear, it looks and feels completely real. Up until now, the technology has been very limited in what it can do. Most of the games you can buy have been solo experiences with very simple gameplay. They were more akin to demos meant to iron out the kinks in the software."

"They still managed to completely consume his life," she insisted.

"Which brings me to Sword Art Online," he continued. "This new game promises to be different. A fully immersive world where players can wield swords and other weapons while exploring their environment. I don't know the specifics of it, but I do know it's big. Really big."

"You seem to know a lot about NerveGear," she observed. "Are your kids gamers too, Doctor?"

He chuckled. "No, my kids are a bit older than your son is. And they've had no real interest in NerveGear or gaming in general." Dr. Sojiro leaned back in his seat and folded his hands in his lap. "In all honesty, I know next to nothing about gaming, but I do understand the science that's gone into this new technology rather well."

"You do?"

"A lot of doctors do," he admitted. "NerveGear is what is known as FullDive technology. That is, technology that bypasses our physical bodies and interacts directly with the brain. But NerveGear is a second generation device. The original first generation technology was actually built and developed by a doctor. It was never intended to be used for gaming."

She placed a hand against her chest. "I didn't know that. All my son has ever talked about is how his NerveGear was a new gaming console."

He shook his head. "That's not how it originally started. FullDive technology was first conceived by a brilliant Israeli Neurologist named Dr. Ari Moshe. Back in the year 2022, he proposed that, with the right technical applications, low doses of microwave radiation could be used to target and manipulate specific neurotransmitters in the brain as a form of therapy for certain genetic disorders. Much in the same way we use gamma rays to treat certain forms of cancer."

"I think I remember reading an article about that somewhere online."

He nodded. "His work was considered extremely groundbreaking, if a bit radical. To test his hypothesis, Dr. Moshe partnered with a former Nasa engineer to build a device that could emit and control extremely low doses of microwave radiation and target specific neurotransmitters in the brains of sheep and pigs. This was the first prototype for what would become FullDive technology."

"Did it work?"

"It absolutely did," he confirmed. "Dr. Moshe was able to prove that the brain, when exposed to specific stimulation via microwaves, could be manipulated to release desired neurotransmitters into various nerve clusters within the brain. Thus giving one the ability to rewire certain parts of our bodies internal circuitry. The potential applications for this technology were limitless. Paralysis treatments, cures for degenerative brain disorders, more effective ways of treating alzheimers. To say nothing of the potential applications for people suffering from deficits like your son. We were on the cusp of one of the greatest medical breakthroughs since the discovery of penicillin."

"So what happened?"

The doctor frowned in disappointment. "Mmm. What indeed? Like with most great things, the potential for FullDive technology proved to be a case of almost, but not quite," he explained sadly. "It became abysmally clear early in the technology's development that the costs required to make it work made any practical application a pipe dream. At least within the next forty years or so. Still, Dr. Moshe was determined to make this technology work. And he spent the better part of a decade trying to do so."

"But how did the technology wind up in the hands of a gaming company?" she asked curiously.

"It didn't. Not originally anyway," he continued. "Argus, the company that created NerveGear, wasn't always a gaming company. They were originally private military contractors. Argus saw the potential for Dr. Moshe's work as a possible advancement in homeland defense measures and counterterrorism. So they offered to fund his research in exchange for building a few prototypes for them. But they ran into the same problem that he did. Nothing he created was cost effective enough to be worth the effort."

His eyes narrowed.

"That is...until their lead director, a man by the name of Akihiko Kayaba, got his hands on the original schematics for Dr. Moshe's prototype."

She stood up straight in her chair. "Wait, I know that name. Kazuto talks about him all the time. He's quite the fan."

He nodded in understanding. "Doesn't surprise me one bit. They share a lot in common. Dr. Akihiko Kayaba was born on the autistic spectrum, much like your son is. And just like Kazuto, he's also a gifted savant. I've followed a lot of his work. He's an absolutely brilliant Neurophysicist, if a bit on the histrionic side. Though his true passion has always been programming and software development, apparently."

"And he turned Dr. Moshe's prototype into a video game?"

"Kayaba was the first one to suggest researching applications for the technology in the private sector. He believed he could make FullDive tech more marketable and draw more investors by selling it as the next generation of gaming consoles. He hypothesized he could use FullDive technology to create a fully immersive 3D environment without the need for external sources of stimuli, by using microwaves to manipulate the brain directly while the player was in a semi-conscious state. He began working on a new prototype based on Dr. Moshe's original design with this application in mind."

"I can't imagine Dr. Moshe was terribly happy about that," she commented.

He shook his head. "He wasn't. Kayaba's new design was more efficient and far less costly to construct than his, but it was also far more invasive as well. Dr. Moshe considered what Kayaba was doing to be incredibly unethical, so he stepped down from the project. Of course by then, Kayaba had completely taken over development of FullDive technology, so it was really a moot point." Dr. Sojiro sighed. "For better or worse, the end result is where we are now. NerveGear and FullDive technology has skyrocketed Argus's stock prices and they've completely devoted themselves to its development, along with their rebranding as the next generation of gaming and virtual reality."

"And now my son has been swept up in this madness," she spoke glumly. "What should I do, Doctor?"

Dr. Sojiro thought about it for a moment. "Honestly...I'm not sure there's much we can do." He quickly raised a hand up upon seeing her despondent face. "Or rather, what I mean is, I don't think there's much we should do."

She gave him a confused look.

"The technology that's used to power NerveGear is still based primarily on Dr. Moshe's original designs. And your son, inhibited as he may be socially, is honestly smarter than you and I are." He smiled at her. "I believe that this could be good for him. Which is why I brought you here to talk."

"Wait…" She raised a hand up in front of her. "...I just want to make sure I understand you correctly, Doctor. Are you saying you called me here to ask that I keep letting my son do as he pleases?"

"Don't misinterpret my words. I'm not saying you should let him neglect his personal health," he assured. "Kazuto should still be encouraged to commit two hours a day to activities outside his room. Meals, regular exercise, everything we've worked on over the past six years."

She smiled in understanding and nodded. "Okay. But are you sure we shouldn't talk about this?"

"Normally I would say yes, but...no. I don't think that will be necessary. Honestly, I don't believe Kazuto is regressing. Quite the opposite."

He leaned forward on his desk.

"I believe that this new world he's about to enter could be the next big breakthrough in getting Kazuto to come out of his shell."

Sword Art Online: Beta

Aincrad: Floor 22, North of Coral Village.

The village of Coral was a relatively peaceful little hamlet for what it was worth. Though Kreg would have been lying if he said he wasn't getting a little tired of seeing yet another tiny village in the woods. Weren't there any other terrain types the Alpha Players could have bothered to suggest?

Ultimately, this was all nitpicking. After all, it didn't take away from the fact he was in a freaking game, controlling an avatar with his own mind. Sword Art Online could be filled with nothing but forests and boring grassy fields and he'd still think this was the coolest thing on planet Earth. And the fact that he got to be one of the lucky few to Beta Test SAO made it all the better.

It meant he could figure out all the cheats before anyone else had a chance to get to them.

SAO's developers boasted that their software was uncrackable. The Cardinal System was an impressive piece of coding to be sure. A task management program backed by an AI processing core, Akihiko Kayaba claimed that Aincrad's system was self sustaining and self automating. System exploits and cheats could be patched before anyone even knew they existed.

At least, that was the claim. But in all honesty, Kreg and his buddies just saw that as a challenge. Sure enough, after a bit of tinkering with their NerveGear rigs and uploading a few malware programs of their own design, they'd created several system exploits disguised as in-game items that gave them a competitive edge over every other Beta Tester and allowed their small group to climb higher than anyone else.

They could hardly call themselves Beta Testers anymore. They were more like Beta Cheaters. Beaters, as they liked to say.

"Man, you'd think with the hardware that went into this thing, Kayaba could have come up with something a little more creative than just another enchanted forest," Kreg's buddy Puck commented as they made their way out of Coral Village and into the nearby woods.

"I don't know, I kinda dig it. This one's clearly got more of a North American vibe than the last floor," Sneetch offered while resting his hand on the battleaxe strapped to his oxenhide leather belt. He pointed to a clearing next to a waterfall. "Like, check out that primo real estate. It'd be pretty cool to build a cabin there."

Puck shrugged. "Eh, I've seen better." He rested his lance on his shoulder. "Maybe this wouldn't feel so tedious if we weren't so hideously OP."

The entire group laughed as they made their way deeper into the woods.

"Seriously though, is anyone else worried by just how easy it was to hack the Cardinal System? This thing is supposed to be bulletproof."

Kreg scoffed at him. "That's what they all say. Besides, what the heck are you worried about? Once we sell these updated scripts on the Deep Web, we'll make a mint."

One of their party members stopped.

"And if we should get caught by the Black Swordsman?"

They all turned around and glared at him in disbelief.

"Hold on, don't tell me you actually believe that ridiculous rumor, Thatch," Kreg insisted.

His eyes darted around nervously. "I'm just saying. Maybe we shouldn't dismiss it as a possibility. I heard a couple of Beaters got caught down on floor seventeen by a dude in a black trench coat. They say he beat all of them with nothing but a one handed sword. No held item in his off hand or nothin."

"The Black Swordsman is a myth," Kreg responded. "Those guys were probably just a bunch of script kiddies who got caught by the system wanting to save face."

Thatch finally shrugged his shoulders, seeming to calm down. "Well, if you say so."

They continued their journey in silence, nothing but the sound of the wind rustling through the trees and chirping of crickets to keep them company.

"So...Thatch." Puck finally spoke up. "These rumors you heard, about the Black Swordsman, what all did they say?"

"I mean, from everything I heard, the Black Swordsman was one of the original one hundred Alpha Testers. He started playing back when this whole world was just untextured shapes and polygons," he explained nervously. "Now? He's a Beta Tester who hunts down Beaters and player kills them."

Kreg chuckled in amusement and shook his head. "That's ridiculous. The only way he could PK a Beater is if he himself was also a Beater. Which would just make him a hypocrite."

"That's just the thing though," Thatch continued quietly. "They say he is a Beater. But...he's a White Hat working for the Cardinal System. Hunting down hackers and cheaters and erasing their avatars from the game. Then he saves the system data to his NerveGear and hands the exploits over to Cardinal."

Sneetch stopped dead in his tracks. "Hold on...he erases player avatars?"

"Would you idiots chill out already?" Kreg insisted impatiently. "If we were gonna get caught, it would have happened by now. I'm telling you, the algorithm I've got in place is untraceable. We're fine."

Puck looked around at his surroundings. "Maybe...we should still be careful, Boss. I mean, what's to say we aren't being..."

"Either this guy's just a myth. Or he's some loser neet trying to roleplay a watchdog. Either way, I'm not worried. We're all well above the floor level, there's six of us, and we have our exploit gear equipped."

Despite his boss's confidence, Puck found himself subconsciously checking over his shoulder every few seconds.

"Look, would you stop doing that?" Kreg insisted in annoyance.

"Are you sure we're the only ones who've made it this far, Boss?" He asked worriedly.

"I keep telling you, no one else is up here. We've got this," his boss assured with a confident smile on his face. After a few more moments of walking however, he stopped and turned around to look at his party member. "Out of curiosity, why do you ask?"

"Well it's just…" Puck looked around at his surroundings. "...I can't help but notice we haven't run into any trash mobs yet. And we're fairly deep in."

The whole party became deathly quiet as they listened in to their surroundings.

"Come to think of it...it is pretty dead out here," Sneetch commented, a nervous chill running down his spine. "The script info for this forest said there was supposed to be goblins waiting for us. But...we've been walking for twenty minutes and we still haven't encountered anything."

They all came to a dead stop and looked around. As much as Kreg didn't want to admit it, the lack of any trash mobs, or indeed anything beyond those simulated cricket noises, was starting to unnerve him.

"Uhh, guys?" Puck gulped before gripping his lance tightly and looking around. "I don't want to alarm you but...I'm starting to see shit."

"Dude, quit fucking with us," Sneetch inisted, having already drawn his battle axe and shield.

He shook his head vehemently. "I'm not. I just saw something dart behind a tree a couple yards away."

"It's just your imagination, Bro," Kreg insisted. Yet despite this, he was also getting visibly more nervous.

"I'm telling you, there's something out there," he whispered back frantically. "It was a black silhouette with glowing yellow eyes."

A harrowing silence enveloped the party. Now they were all seeing things moving from out of the corner of their vision. Kreg turned in the direction of a tree off in the distance. Sure enough, he saw a silhouette with eerie glowing yellow eyes for a fraction of a second moving from tree to tree faster than any player or enemy in the game should have been physically able to.

"Alright, whoevers out there come out!" he demanded before going into his menu and activating his searching skill, increasing his detection range.

Yet no player icon or enemy cursor appeared.

"Wh...what is it, Boss?" Thatch asked, his sword hand quivering.

"But..." Kreg shook his head in denial. "...no that can't be. My detection level is three hundred and fifty eight. No way I can't see this thing."

"Unless it's another player with a higher sneaking skill," Sneetch pointed out while readying his weapon. "Boss, I think we're being followed."

"Oh God...it's him." Thatch slowly backed away, gripping his sword until his knuckles turned white. "It's the Black Swordsman. He's gonna wipe our player data!"

"Would you shut up?!" Kreg growled back at him angrily. "I already said, he's just a myth!" He drew his two-handed claymore and turned back towards the sound of darting feet. "It's obviously just another Beater trolling us. We'll be fine as long as we use our exploit gear."

"Fuck this, Man. I'm warping out," Puck insisted before pulling a blue rectangular crystal from his pack. "Teleport Coral!"

Nothing. Their teleportation crystals were non-functional.

"The...the fuck is going on here?!" Sneetch was starting to legitimately panic. "Why isn't his crystal working?"

Thatch slowly backed away, palpable fear in his eyes. "I knew this was a bad idea. I should have never partied up with you guys!" He quickly opened up his menu and left the party.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Puck shot at him angrily.

"I'm getting the fuck out of here before I get ganked!" he spoke in a frightened voice. "Do you have any idea how long I had to save up for just to afford my NerveGear?! No way in hell am I getting blacklisted from the SAO servers while it's still in Beta!"

With that he turned tail and ran for it.

"Where are you going?! Get back here!" Kreg demanded.

Moments later, the briefest flash of a silhouette flew in front of Thatch, the afterswing of a sword art following in its trail. Thatch's decapitated head flew high into the air before coming back down to earth and rolling in front of the party, a look of surprise permanently frozen on his face. His bodiless neck was glowing an eerie neon red color.

The sight made the blood in their veins run cold. A moment later his head exploded in a flash of bluegreen particle effects. Whereupon his headless body collapsed to the ground and joined it, shattering into nothing in a flash of bright light.

"Hoooooly shit," Puck quietly muttered, the color draining from his face as fear overrode his senses. For a moment, he had completely forgotten he was just in a video game. The danger suddenly felt very real.

"Dude…" Sneetch shook his head over and over again. "...that was so fucked! We've gotta get outta here, Boss!"

"Calm down!" Kreg ordered despite his nerve having been clearly shaken. "We'll just use the logout exploit I installed onto our rings. Everyone open your menus!"

They did as instructed, opening their menus and searching for the logout button. Their eyes went wide with horror, however, upon seeing that it no longer existed.

"N...no way." Puck was now visibly shaking. "The logout button is gone."

"But...that's impossible." Kreg was petrified to the spot. "My exploit…"

"Look forget the stupid fucking exploit, Jeff!" Puck insisted, calling Kreg by his real name. "We can't log out of the fucking game! What the hell are we gonna…"

His words were cut off by two Japanese senbon whizzing through the air before impaling themselves in his neck, right in the spot where his carotid artery would be. Puck fell to the ground, not moving. Like Thatch, he bore an expression of permanent shock on his face.

"Wh...what the hell?!" Sneetch ran over to Puck and knelt down next to him, whereupon he noted Puck's health bar was draining obscenely fast. At the bottom right corner, a green teardrop could be seen.

His health bar hit zero and his body shattered into particles.

"Poison?!" Sneetch shouted half in anger and half in panic. "Bullshit! Our gear is supposed to make us immune to that!"

He looked up from where Puck's body once lay whereupon he saw a figure standing off in the distance, its glowing yellow eyes narrowed at him sharply.

"Fuck you! You cheating piece of shit!" Sneetch shouted in rage before pulling a throwing axe from his belt and activating his item cloning cheat. He tossed the axe, whereupon the thrown weapon duplicated into seven copies of itself, each on a direct course for the shadowy figure.

They were each cut clean in half one by one, shattering into particles as seven sword art after trails slashed through the air. The weapon connected to each of them moving faster than the eye could track. The shadowy figure vanished from sight yet again.

"How is he doing that?!" Sneetch shouted hysterically. "Even with exploits, no player avatar can move that fast!"

Kreg's stomach bottomed out. What was the answer here? How did he get out of this?

"Boss! What do we do?! Boss!"

He heard something cut through the air followed by the unmistakable sound of three sword slashes. Kreg didn't turn around. He didn't have to. All three of his party member's health bars dropped to zero at almost exactly the same time. Just like with Thatch and Puck, the moment their avatars vanished, their names disappeared from his friend's list. It wasn't just their avatars he was killing off. It was their accounts.

Kreg slowly turned around, gripping his claymore tightly in both hands. Standing behind him was a figure clad in a black trenchcoat, weilding a single handed broadsword in his right hand. His hair was raven black, his eyes were glowing yellow, and the lower half of his face was obscured by a black cloth mask.

He was real. The Black Swordsman was actually real.

"L...look. Maybe we can work something out." Kreg slowly backed away.

He didn't respond. Kreg couldn't see the Black Swordsman's level or character name, making it impossible for him to figure out how much higher he was. All he could see beyond a green health bar was the red icon floating above his head.

"I mean...sure I cheated. But if you think about it, you're cheating too right? You're a Beater, same as me."

The swordsman took a step forward.

"Come on, Dude!" Kreg insisted angrily. "You don't have to do this! I worked really hard for these exploits! They're worth a ton of cash! This is my livelihood you're wrecking here!"

He took another step forward.

"How much are they paying you?!" Kreg asked, holding a hand out in front of him to stop his advance. "I'll...I'll pay you more to give me a pass on this one! Just give me your account info and I'll transfer the..."

He advanced again.

"Are you even listening to me?!" The Beater started to turn angry. "I'm offering you a shit ton of cash here! Don't be stupid!"

Yet still, the swordsman said nothing. A white hot rage burned behind Kreg's eyes.

"You know what, fine! I'm not scared of you, you fucking white hat garbage! Keep sucking off the fucking Cardinal System, you fucking shit!"

His claymore began to glow red as he switched on his autohit and instacrit exploits before charging the swordsman. His opponent's sword began to glow yellow as he activated a sword skill of his own.

Whereupon he seemingly vanished, only to appear directly behind Kreg. Who looked down to see a horizontal slash through the midsection of his oxenhide leather chest piece. He then looked at his claymore, which was now cut in half. It shattered into nothing in his hand, whereupon his legs stopped working and he collapsed to his knees. Upon looking up at his health bar, he noted he was now in the red, multiple status effects having crippled his ability to move.

"Who the hell are you?" Kreg seethed in bitter resentment. "My scripts were untraceable. There's no way you should have been able to find me."

The mysterious figure slowly walked up behind him.

"What was it you told your friend?" he spoke in a calm, calculated voice. "That's what they all say."

He stabbed Kreg through the back of his armor, causing his blade to burst out the front of his chest. The Beater slowly craned his head back as his health dropped into the critical range, catching a glimpse of his player name.

"Kirito…"

Moments later, his health hit zero and his body shattered into particles. The Black Swordsman twirled his sword on his wrist before holstering it into the scabbard on his back. He then turned and walked away, stopping for a moment to appreciate a beautiful clearing off in the distance connected to a waterfall.

"Might be nice to build a cabin there," he spoke quietly to himself before turning off his tracking skill, pulling a teleportation crystal from his coat, and warping away.