It was finally the morning for the day of the official release. Kazuto was finally excited from something enough he woke up early. Him and Shino were up for a lot of the night before talking about it and how excited they were to try and compete with other players than those they saw during the beta test.

Suguha had kept it to herself that she was also excited and that she had been part of the tester community. When the news went live online, the three started up their NervGear in their respective bedrooms, logging into Sword Art Online as some of the first few hundred into the game. People were extremely excited for the first Virtual Reality game, and to boot, it was a massively multi-player type of game. There would be ten thousand people logging in the very first day. Beta testers automatically received a code for the official release, so they could log in as soon as they were ready on the day of release. After Kazuto finished making breakfast for the three of them and they finished eating, it seemed they were right to their bedrooms. As if no obstacles would stop them from logging in.

Suguha had even forgotten the reason she was starting into the game in the first place. She loved every second of playing the beta test, even the part of reporting any bugs and errors he met while playing. She even made it a challenge to not let her hit points reach zero.

She never even had the idea that she might have met Kazuto and Shino during the test.

Shino and Kazuto were different. They were competing with everyone else. In fact, they challenged the floor bosses during the beta test, and nobody else had the nerve after finding out how difficult it was for them. They climbed though. To ten floors, the two best players of the beta test climbed and won. Floor ten was the limit though. Only because of time constraint though. It took a long time for them to walk and explore the floors and dungeons. To level up enough that they stood a chance against the floor bosses which were multiples of times more difficult than the regular monsters on the floors before them. According to them, it would be something regularly challenged by a large raid party in other MMO settings.

Suguha thought those well known players must be someone else. They were both male avatars after all, and were so outgoing compared to how withdrawn Kazuto and Shino were in day-to-day. Suguha logged into the game, and she finally wondered if she would be able to find Kazuto and Shino in the game. She didn't even care about the crush she had on Kazuto any more. She was having fun playing the game.

When they logged into the game, Kazuto and Shino were the ones with a clear first objective. Meet at the base of the clock tower in the town of beginnings before going to the field and fighting low level enemies until comfortable enough to progress further. Suguha immediately went to the market and blew the starting money on gear to make sure she could handle the monsters of the first area.

Suguha ploughed onto the field, and people who were brand new to the game were stunned by the swift and deadly strokes of someone who was obviously a beta tester, demolishing every monster around the town walls in a single stroke.

Word was spreading fast that beta testers were unfair. Especially since so few worked with brand new players. Suguha was one of the few who didn't play with others. Neither did Kazuto and Shino - until a scruffy looking beansprout of a guy with red colour scheme hair and a very interesting personality noticed them running around knowing where they were going called them out.

The boy called himself out as Klein, and while he wielded for his starting weapon a scimitar class sword, he immediately claimed he would rise up in the ranks and unlock the katana sword class. He would be one of the first Samurai of the game. Kazuto and Shino thought he was a little funny, but he had a goal, and it would be worth it to at least add one other person to their friends list who was aiming to be better in the game. They weren't just in the game to play and enjoy it, though that was the biggest point. They wanted to play to win and feel the rush they felt when they were the best of the beta testers.

"You're doing it all wrong."

Klein was a mess swinging his scimitar at the gentle boars of the hills nearby the town. They found a nice spot to relax for the time being and teach him step by step how to fight using the guidance system in the game.

"I already showed you the positioning... Just watch..."

Kazuto picked up a pebble from the ground nearby the boulder him and Shino were sitting on while watching Klein miss every swipe with his blade. After steadying the pebble in his grip, Kazuto aimed and readied at a certain angle until he felt the click when a skill was about to be used. Unlike the basic actions any person could use in a fight, skills had a set percentage of hitting the enemy, so long as you consider them your target.

He tossed the pebble like a bullet at the backside of the boar. That didn't do much more than a scratch for damage to the health bar over its head, but it did draw aggro to him. Klein seemed even more puzzled.

"But doesn't it take a fundamental understanding of movement in a fight to be able to figure out stuff like that?"

Kazuto and Shino giggled softly at that question. Of course they had plenty of experience in combat with their kendo and archery training.

"Oh right, we haven't partied up yet, so I don't even know your names. I'm Klein, as I've already introduced myself."

Kazuto introduced himself with the name he gave his avatar, Kirito, mixing his first and last name to make it easy to remember when he would be called by it in game.

"My name is Kirito."

"Mine is Sinon, like the sniper archer of legend."

Shino was proud of the name they came up with for official launch together. Klein seemed impressed, more by the name Sinon than the fact Kirito hacked down the boar in a single slash when it finally closed the distance.

"That's so cool! It's too bad they didn't program an archery base class in this game, but then, it is called Sword Art Online. There's only throwing objects for range right? It feels strange having a fantasy setting and no magic, but that's kind of understandable for the very first VRMMO..."

He was very interested and easily distracted. Finally he managed to get the first skill to activate and kill a boar. Scimitar were considered one of the stronger starter weapons, so it was easy to cut down small fry with a skill. One hand swords like Kirito used, and daggers like Sinon were considered weaker. Unfortunately something like dual wielding wasn't allowed. It was possible to equip one to each hand, but wielding them properly was impossible unless you had real life experience wielding like that. There were no skills attached to it.

They gave Klein the lecture on what kind of layout there was for equipment types and things that were known to be able to be unlocked. Klein already knew of katana being unlocked after mastering scimitar skills, so that was his aim. He did admit to being a little interested in the heaviest weapon type, two handed swords. He only had his mind on something that would intimidate other people.

"Oh right, I have a few friends who are logging on later, and we're going to form a guild together. Do you two feel like joining us? It would be great to have a pair of beta testers helping us out."

Kirito and Sinon looked at each other and shook their heads after a moment of consideration.

"Sorry Klein. We wouldn't mind if it were just you, but helping a group of people would be a lot of work and drain the fun from the game. It would be fun to take on bosses together in a group, but the guild stuff is just...sorry."

Kirito broke the news to him. Klein seemed a little hurt at first, but he became fine with it.

Kirito looked very different with his avatar compared to the appearance outside of the game. He had short spiky hair like an anime protagonist, still black like usual, had a more masculine frame and was a little taller. Sinon's changed appearance was much different as well. Of course the biggest difference was that she was playing a male avatar. She made his hair colour a very light blue coloured, short, even taller than Kirito, and muscular. It was funny to her, and one of her first jokes she made about the difference was that Kirito really was the princess in comparison this time around.

While they were mentally comparing their changed appearances to real life and getting ready for logging out temporarily for dinner, Suguha was finally taking a break from fighting the small fry in the area around the town. They weren't really offering experience any more. It would take another eighty to move to the next level.

After she sat down on a boulder near a group of passive monsters and watched as some new players who just logged on started fighting their first monsters, she was tempted to join in, but it was too late before they experienced their first death. It would be an experience to learn from at least.

She sighed in wonder at how different it was compared to real life, comparing her change in appearance as well. She still stuck with being female, but she made herself like an amazon, tall, powerful and frightening with long blond hair. She had to laugh at how silly it was. She really wanted to be a much cuter appearance that would get Kazuto's attention, but that wasn't the goal when she was having fun with the character creation. She named her avatar Leafa, like a fairy who guided an amazon through trouble in a legend. She didn't think it very fitting, but shrugged her shoulders in acceptance of the decision. It was only an avatar and she could change it later. Maybe she would play as a fairy later.

Then the sound of the bell started chiming for six in the evening, and everyone was shocked by what happened to them. A forced teleport to the spawn in point in the Town of Beginnings. Everyone looked around, surprised, but those from the beta test seemed ready for the announcement of a big timed event of some sort. After a minute of waiting, what everyone's concern and lack of ability to even leave the central fountain area where they waited spawned something out of horror. The colourful sky overhead of greys of the bottom of the next floor to yellow orange and red were covered over in a gridlock of notices for a system announcement. From the cracks in between, thick red fluid dripped down into a massive globe of what reminded traumatized people such as Kazuto and Shino of blood. So much it nearly made Shino faint. When Kazuto held her up, he could feel it also making him feel sick.

Finally, the globe of blood morphed into something else. A massive floating hooded figure which seemed hollow on the inside aside from eyes which looked down on them from above. From that figure, words were spoken, to tell everyone why they were gathered. Some already knew one part of the reason. Kirito Klein and Sinon weren't able to log out. Kirito wanted to log off a little early to make dinner, and Klein had pizza on order.

Something was really bothering Kirito though. Although the game was working fine according to how the beta test experience went, it seemed GMs wouldn't answer, and they always would for emergency situations. If there was something else someone had to do, the only way to get out of the game was for someone else to pull the NerveGear off the player's head. There were no commands to log out other than the missing button on the main menu. He had the feeling the situation was much more dire than a timed event.

Kirito thought about things like starving and getting sick in the game possibly forcing a person to log out, but not a single thing in the manual and other information regarding either the device or the game. They were stuck. He was concerned for other people who had this for the first experiencing of full dive into the game. Into a VR game.

Finally, the speech began.

"Attention players. Welcome to my world."

After those words alone, Kirito could only think of the person who was the lead developer for the game. As if answering that thought, the next words introduced the person controlling the giant avatar.

"My name is Kayaba Akihiko. I am currently the one and only person who can control this world."

The crowd of thousands of people buzzed at the words of the announcement. They were all confused and applauding the amount of time must have gone into planning such an event. Kirito wasn't so thrilled after hearing it was Kayaba Akihiko who was at the helm.

"I am sure many of you have already noticed that the log out button of the main menu has been removed."

That solidified it in Kirito's mind Kayaba intended for this to happen. He needed to hear the rest out though.

"However, this is by no means a mistake. I repeat. It is not a mistake but a feature of the true Sword Art Online."

Kirito wanted to ask questions, everyone did because the crowd continued to buzz, and Klein was exceptionally voicing his confusion at the matter. Kirito reminded himself that unless something unthinkable was done, getting the penalty of letting the character die would log anyone out. There was a way out...

"You are all unable to log out of Sword Art Online, and nobody in the real world can remove the NerveGear or interrupt its operation. Should it happen, the Nervegear will deliver a powerful burst of microwave radiation emitted from a transmitter in the NerveGear will destroy your brain, thus ending your life."

Many people were exclaiming their disbelief, and some tried getting out of the area because they were finished with listening to the speech. However, Kayaba Akihiko was not finished speaking. Kirito knew the validity of these points, and so did Sinon and she grabbed hold of his hand while they stared up and waited for him to finish explaining why he put everyone in this situation.

As if responding to the current questions being raised by the crowd, he answered.

"Unfortunately it's certainly possible that a player's friends and family would ignore this warning and attempt to forcibly remove the NerveGear. As proof of this, 213 players have already retired from this world and the real one."

This shocked many people, but some were still speculative it was a lie. For Suguha, she was reminded of the one player she was too late to save just a short while before the forced teleport. Did she watch that person's final moment?

As Kayaba continued to explain, he started to show many holographic news articles which were popping up confirming such news and showed them to the crowd questioning whether they can believe his words.

"As you can see, news of my warnings and the numerous victims are being spread world-wide. Thus it should be safe to say that the danger of removal attempts has become minimal. I hope you will all be at ease and focus on completing the game."

Kirito was now angry at the kind of situation laid out in front of them. Even him and Sinon hadn't made it that far out of the hundred floors during the beta test, and the monsters in the field were already sturdier than the beta test. He couldn't imagine even being able to defeat the first floor boss without a full raid party now.

"But I would like you all to keep this in mind. From this point on, all methods of revival in the game will no longer function. If your hit points reach zero, your avatar will perish for eternity and at that moment, the NerveGear will destroy your brain."

Kirito was angry, Sinon was holding him tight, though the sensor for pressure didn't register him feeling any increase in the contact. There was no pain after all. People were panicking, and the reality of the live news feed ensured them the truth was that people were already dead.

"There is only one condition you must meet to be free: the completion of this game. You are all currently on the first floor, the lowest point in Aincrad. If you conquer a floor's dungeon and defeat the Floor Boss, you may continue up to the next one. Assuming you manage to defeat the final boss on the hundredth floor, the game will be considered cleared."

When he finished explaining the goal for everyone to work toward, there was even more uproar and confusion. Klein even mentioned how ridiculous that was when even the beta testers only made it to floor ten in the two months of the test period.

Ignoring the final protests of the ridiculous goal ahead of them, Kayaba begins his final explanation to them for the event.

"And lastly, I have prepared a present to all of you in your item storage. Take a look."

It was a mandatory thing. He wouldn't continue until everyone opened their inventories and found the strange item labelled Mirror, and used it. Kirito, Sinon, Suguha, Klein, everyone who was a little late to using the item were confused as other avatars began glowing. When they finally used their items, they knew exactly what happened. Everyone knew what happened. Kirito was frustrated and infuriated beyond belief. In a moment, everyone there no longer had the appearance of their avatars. They looked exactly as they had outside of the game.

Klein turned around in confusion after the first few seconds, hoping to see that Sinon and Kirito were okay. Suguha panicked after her point of view shrunk down to a familiar height and screamed in protest when someone nearby grabbed her shoulder to see if she was okay.

Klein panicked and started looking around to see if they had been swapped with someone else, but the two feminine people in front of him were no doubt Kirito and Sinon, the way they were still holding onto each other.

"Both...girls?"

His confusion was answered with less confusion, the vision of Klein nearly no different from that of his avatar. Kirito was angry that Klein instantly made the assumption that Kirito was a girl, but he didn't argue it just then. He assumed there was more to listen to. Sinon was reverting back to terror like after the incident. Suguha finally remembered the reason she was trying the game in the first place and started running around to try and find Kazuto and Shino.

Kirito explains to Klein why they looked like themselves. The NerveGear does a scan of the face whenever it loads to find the data of the person using it, and on first use, there is a mandatory pat down of the body to ensure the proportions using a sensor. The device could definitely copy the appearance into the game.

"Right now, you're all probably wondering Why? Why would I, Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of Sword Art Online and the NerveGear, do such a thing? I have already achieved my goal. I created the world of Sword Art Online solely for my personal enjoyment. And now the preparations are complete. This concludes the tutorial for the official launch of Sword Art Online. Players, I wish you the best of luck."

After those final words, the visual effects of the giant avatar being pixellated like when a monster dies or another player lead into the inside of the giant robed figure turning to red gas and flying up into the cracks of the announcement signs above. When all sign of the avatar disappear, the grey and orange sunset returned to normal. The announcement above was no longer there, and the restriction to movement was gone.

Many people like Klein were in shock over characters being different from their gender, and when Kirito pulled Sinon to a nearby alley to get out of the crowd, Suguha noticed Klein following the familiar long black hair and followed. When she saw Kirito and Sinon together, she exclaimed she was happy they were okay, cutting off Klein's continued questioning of why Kirito and Sinon's avatars were so different.

"Onii-chan! Shino-chan! Thank goodness you're alright... I...I already saw someone die earlier just before the announcement... This is terrible. How's Mom's handling this...and Dad..."

"Onii-chan?So one of you really is a boy? Short with super long black hair? No way. You're totally my type. And cute. Why aren't you a girl..."

Klein seemed more in distress that Kirito wasn't a girl now than he was finding out the two beta testers who helped him out were shorter and feminine. Suguha was angry and stomped on his slightly more forward foot.

"Who's this pervert Onii-chan?"

Kirito seemed to be searching for reasons why Suguha would be playing the game at all when for the longest time she expressed a dislike for it. Right before Suguha was about to stomp his foot another time for trying to get close again, he finally spoke up.

"Sugu...first thing is that we shouldn't be referring to real names here, and second, why are you in the game in the first place? I thought that at least you and aunty would be fine, but... Klein, this is my younger cousin. Sugu, this is Klein. Sinon and I were helping him out until just before the forced teleport. He's a bit eccentric, but he's an interesting and kind of fun guy. Give him at least a bit of a chance."

She stared at Kirito in shock. Outside of the game, Kazuto hadn't been that vocal since before his parents passed away. After letting it register he was talking so much, she stood back and glared at Klein, who was currently flirting with Kirito.

"Klein...sorry. For me and Sinon, this was a way to get away from something difficult in our past. It's that way for a lot of people right? Not just something to do for fun. Now that lives are on the line, and we're the only ones with experience clearing floors, we might need to lead the charge in order for as many people still here to get out. I already mentioned the difficulty scaling before, but if you weren't well armoured, you would have died out in the beginner fields. Before the full launch today, you didn't have to worry about being armoured. Sinon and I are the floor clearers from the beta test, so we were able to go to the field without worries. Now...You should find your guild mates and make sure they receive that help from us to you. You should help them. Apparently Sinon and I have to help another person along the way..."

Kirito was now catching the glare from Leafa.

"Since we're using avatar names, let's get them out and fill the friend counter for all of us so we know everyone's okay at all times. Onii-chan, accept mine first."

Leafa wasn't having it anymore. She needed to be treated as the experienced player she was.

"Level five?! Already? I can understand if you were grinding the low level stuff around the town of the beginnings since this morning, but you became that much of a gamer?"

"And you two were the famous floor clearers?! Onii-chan!"

She was very upset with him. Since Kirito and Sinon had already done the friend request bit with each other and Klein before, Leafa kept on sending requests and receiving the accepts.

"Uh...Kirito. You are a guy so you might understand this. Your cousin is crazy cute right?! She's also totally my type."

Kirito grew a little frustrated at how much of a flirt Klein was already. He already flirted with him which was tolerable...barely...but now going after Leafa? He needed to get the girls away from such a creep. And he didn't have those kind of similarities with guys. Kirito wasn't a pervert, and revealing clothing wouldn't get him excited. After all, what could be more damaging than seeing a feminine figure every time you clean yourself?

"Take care of your friends Klein. The rest of us are going on ahead."

Kirito grabbed Leafa and Sinon by the wrist and started running through the alleys and streets which were still empty aside the vendor npcs and other roaming npcs. They didn't bother stopping or gearing up. There was another town further in with higher level quests more suitable to experienced players for the beta test which were time limited. He needed to take care of them. He finally had a chance to prove at least in some way that he was a boy, so what better way than to show them how well he could lead them?

Before the trio left the safe area, Kirito could feel eyes on him. A figure which was already covered in a robe with long light brown hair which looked ginger in the setting sun watched them leave. Perhaps it was someone who was looking for a group to help them. He couldn't bring them along, he thought. It would only prove his inability to lead and decrease the capability he had. First, maybe he might drop his interest in cooking for once and focus solely on leadership and combat type skills and growth...

When the first hostile monster on the main road crossed their path, his mind went blank from the thoughts before, he drew his sword, and swiftly cut through it with the fastest beginner sword skill. Sonic Leap. The level five wolf monster shattered to pixels the moment the skill ended, and Sinon and Leafa continued to follow behind without being pulled. One thing he kept in mind, if already running before using the Sonic Leap skill, the power is tripled. The amount of power could cut down anything up to a level eight monster in a single strike before the official launch. Maybe the skill was powered up in launch too.

The sun finished setting before they reached the next town.