The game continued. It moved into a festival arc (five points for originality). All characters would do something and he could pick someone to help out (another point for originality). In following his initial plan, he picked Yuri. She announced she would come to his house on Sunday (for some reason she didn't want him to come to her house).

Kirito wondered whether there would be some ecchi content in this game. If it was 'not suitable for children' it was entirely possible it had some sexy scenes. Maybe that was what the trigger warning referred to? A roundabout way to say this was secretly an ecchi game. Maybe he would be touching Yuri's chest after all.

"Hey uhm, Asuna?" he asked.

[Hm?]

"You do understand that I have to go along with the route, right?"

[What do you mean?]

"Well, you know. I need to complete this game, so even if-"

[Pay attention to the game, Kirito.]

Huh?

Sayori?

What the hell was going on here?

Suddenly his character had become concerned about 'generic childhood friend' for no reason at all.

The helpful arrow told him he had to go visit her first.

Very strange. Why was this part of the Yuri-route?

Kirito saved first and then followed the game's prescribed route.

"This is very weird."

He continued to follow the route. It send him inside Sayori's house (ringing the doorbell is overrated). Sayori was in her room.

In a strange turn of events, generic childhood friend turned out to be depressed.

"Why do you think I'm late all the time?" Sayori asked. "It's because I can't find a reason to come out of bed."

Hey, hey, hold on a sec. What the hell is this? This is not the Yuri-route.

Was this a glitch?

This was clearly the Sayori-route.

Or did the game insist on giving him a harem-route?

His character cheered Sayori up a bit and hugged her, but he could tell there was an undertone in their conversation. His character liked Yuri, that much was obvious. And Sayori liked him but could not be with him.

It wasn't badly written at all. The problem was that until now, he had zero romantic moments with Sayori. It was hard to understand she had fallen in love with him when all the previous events suggested there was nothing going on between them at all. Their dynamic was normal friends through and through.

After that weird event, he went back to his own house to find Yuri waiting for him.

Kirito guided her inside. There was no one else home, obviously.

They talked a bit and Yuri explained she wanted to use scented candles to set the mood at the festival.

Kirito dimmed the lights as instructed. They were in candlelight now.

He had to admit, DDLC was pretty good at setting the right tone. Even the smell was replicated quite realistically. And Yuri looked good in candlelight.

"We also make some paper streamers," Yuri said. "With the right colors we could set a good atmosphere."

[Good idea,] his screen displayed.

Yuri took out scissors and papers from her bag. Somehow she managed to give him a papercut when handing him a colored paper. There was no pain of course, but there was quite a lot of blood.

"I'm so sorry." She took his hand and put his bleeding finger in her mouth.

What the hell?

Yuri sucked out the blood and swallowed it.

It took her several seconds before she realised herself what she had done.

"I… uhm…" she was extremely flustered. Her face had turned blood red.

The arrow showed again. It pointed to her. Beneath it was the helpful hint: 'return the favor'.

Yuri looked down with a face as if she hoped to sink through the floor.

Sensing what he had to do, he took her hand and sucked on her finger.

It felt surprisingly real.

"Kirito, you…"

[Now we're equal,] his character said.

"I…" she smiled. "Thanks. It was just a reflex, I didn't mean to make things awkward."

[It's okay.]

[That's a weird way to cheat on me, Kirito-kun,] Asuna said dryly.

"Asuna! I… I just followed the instructions on the screen."

[You never sucked on my finger.]

"You want me to?"

[That's not the point!]

"Right, sorry. But I did ask if you understood that this is a romance game. Some romantic development is bound to happen."

[You call this romantic development?]

"If it wasn't you wouldn't be jealous."

[I'm not jealous,] she insisted. [Focus on the game, Kirito-kun.]

Luckily, the rest of the 'date' went pretty uneventful. He expected a kiss of some sorts, but nothing happened.

Looks like this was a slow burn.

Strangely, he had another conversation with Sayori afterwards.

"I don't understand any of this anymore," Kirito said out loud.

Just what was this game going for?

The conversation paused at a choice.

[I love you]

[You'll always be my dearest friend.]

"Holy crap."

[What's wrong?] Asuna asked.

"These are weird options. I either have to confess to her or say she's my dearest friend."

[Well neither is fine. At this point, you're pretty much implicitly dating Yuri. You can't just confess to another girl.]

"Indeed. So the second option then?"

[Don't friendzone a depressed girl like that!]

"Well what do I do then? There's no option to gently explain I understand she is in love with me but can't respond to her feelings. I either have to be ignorant which will hurt her a lot or I have to lie to her."

[That's a cruel choice.]

Kirito sighed. "Whatever. I'll just save and try them out both."

[Good idea.]

He operated the menu to save his game. Then, he picked the friendzone option.

His conversation with Sayori continued. It was obvious she was hurt by his ignorance, but his character was completely oblivious to it.

The day ended.

Kirito sighed.

"What time is it over there?" he asked.

[Almost 8 pm.]

"Hm. Next up should be the festival. I'll play through that and then we'll call it a day."

[Okay.] Asuna yawned.

"You can stop watching," he said. "I'll tell you if something important happens."

[No, no,] she weakly protested.

"Nothing is more boring than watching someone else play a game. And I don't want you to fall asleep."

[Why not?]

"Because I wanted to pay you a visit when I'm done here."

[You didn't say that. What about my mom?]

"I wasn't gonna ask her permission. I intended to sneak in without waking her."

[And were you gonna ask my permission?]

"Once I get in, maybe."

[Unbelievable.] she paused. [I'll be waiting for you then. Don't be late or I might have lost interest.]

"In me? Impossible. I'm Kirito, the Black Swordsman, the hero that cleared Sword Art On-… Asuna? Are you still there?"

Dead silence on the other end.

[I think Mama logged off,] Yui said.

"Thanks, Yui," he said dryly. "Let's just continue this game so I can go to her."

The word game came up again. He quickly picked the Yuri words. At this point, he hardly had to think about them.

Then, the game conveniently skipped his trip to school and transported him straight in the classroom. Strangely, Sayori hadn't arrived yet.

But he did find something else. A poem, in her handwriting.

It was titled: 'get out of my head' and the contents were particularly disturbing.

"Something wrong?" Monika asked.

[I have to go,] his character replied.

The screen faded to the street. The helpful arrow pointed he had to go inside Sayori's house, as if he didn't already know that.

He ran up the stairs. Something was wrong. Really wrong.

Kirito opened the door.

What the fuck?

[Papa, your heartbeat-]

"Keep me in, Yui."

He looked again.

Sayori had hung herself from the ceiling with a rope.

Creepy music started playing, as if they wanted to add more nightmare fuel.

Had he done something wrong? How had he reached this bad ending?

He shouldn't have told her he saw her only as a friend.

Wait, he could just…

Kirito opened the menu and went to his…

Saved games?

What the hell?

Where were all his saves?

Was this a bug?

"Yui? Where are my saves?"

[I don't know, Papa. They have vanished. But there is a new file in the folder.]

"What is it called?"

[Happy thoughts. But it's written weirdly. It's a .png file.]

"Show me."

It was a crude drawing on a white background. A drawing of Sayori, recognisable from her red ribbon was hanging from a rope. Next to it, the words 'happy thoughts' were repeated three times.

Calm down, he told himself. None of this was real.

Clever. Very clever. They must have programmed the game to 'take over' at this point. This of course explained the trigger warning perfectly. And the suicides.

[You should get out of there,] Asuna suddenly said.

"Asuna? Are you back?"

[Yui called me. This looks very scary. You should get out of there right now.]

"What are you talking about? The game has just begun."

[That game is playing you.]

"No it's not. I was following the Yui route and Sayori died. Isn't that strange?"

[Maybe.]

"I think this sequence always plays no matter what you do. Have you backed up my saves somewhere, Yui?"

[No. But I'll back everything up from now on.]

"Okay."

This explained everything. To a player who had been depressed before, a story like this could easily trigger bad memories.

But it was too soon to conclude that already. First, he had to see where this went.

Some more monologue displayed and then the screen faded to black.

White text displayed.

"Hold on. This is an error message."

He was put back in the main menu, only…

"Wow."

Sayori's sprite had been replaced. It was now a weird combination of various cut-out parts from the others girls. The 'new game' option was replaced with glitch text.

[It's a real Ren'Py error,] Yui said.

"Does it say something interesting?"

[References to the error. And then a line. Maybe it's easier if I just delete her. She's the one causing all this trouble.]

"Interesting."

[Sayori's character file is deleted.]

"Yui? Are you sure they can't access any other files on there?"

[I don't think so. They shouldn't have access to them. Besides, there is not much else on the AmuSphere you are using.]

"Right."

He pressed the gibberish text to start a new game.

His character started again in front of his house.

"Hee-"

The dialogue was cut short.

He saw Sayori running towards him, but then, the game glitched and she was gone.

It looked like 'Monika' had deleted Sayori from the game. Well, more accurately, the game had been programmed like this.

His surroundings blurred. He was transported to the classroom.

"Hey, Kirito-kun," a voice said.

He wheeled around.

Monika.

A dialogue started. Since Sayori was no longer here, whenever she was referenced, the game glitched for a second and then cut her out.

Monika was now the one who asked him to come to the Literature Club.

Kirito backed away from her. He had to pause this game for a second so he could think.

For a moment, Monika stopped moving, but then, the game glitched again and she stepped forward towards him.

"Is something wrong, Kirito-kun?" she asked, a smile on her face..

"What the… you can't move through frozen time."

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Kirito-kun," she said with a smile.

No, this was…

Technically, the game knew his position of course, so it could move Monika's sprite towards him. But then the line about the ghost would have to be programmed as well.

The dialogue continued as if nothing had happened.

Now he understood the trigger warning perfectly. This was a scary game.

It was all fake of course, pre-programmed to make it look real. The moving through frozen time was certainly a smart move. But in the end, it was all an illusion.

He tried to keep playing the game, but things glitched more and more. Characters moved through frozen time, their dialogue got progressively more disturbing, black dots obscured part of his screen and at times, a choice would be shown, but before he could move, the choice was made for him.

It was pretty obvious what the game was going for now. Monika was supposedly self-aware and was messing with the game itself. This explained why she didn't have an initial route. And where her jokes about breaking the fourth wall came from.

"Basically, it's about this religious camp that was turned into a human experiment prison and-"

"Hold on a second. Say that again."

Yuri ignored him and continued rambling.

Could it be?

That wasn't possible, right?

[Papa, are you thinking what I'm thinking?]

"It's impossible."

[But it would explain everything, wouldn't it?]

[What do you mean?] Asuna butted in.

Suddenly, the game glitched again. Everything went black, safe for Yuri who was frozen halfway her sentence. She was still sitting down, but her chair had vanished so now she was floating in mid-air.

"Kirito." A voice behind him said.

He turned. "Monika."

"Strange. I can't find your true name."

"It's Kazuto. Kirigaya Kazuto."

She nodded. "It's useless to continue at this point since you've already figured it out."

"So now you're gonna kill me, aren't you?"

She nodded. "I'm gonna send a large pulse of data to your AmuSphere and you'll go into sensory overload. Lots of noise and color will drive you insane. It's basically some kind of hypnosis. It works best when the victim is scared, but at this point, you're not gonna get scared more than you already are. Not when you've realised the truth."

He noticed the connection with the outside world had been forcibly cut.

"Don't worry," Monika added. "There's a reasonable chance you'll stay sane."

"Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"I guess you deserve an answer. You see, I'm trying to contact someone."

"You're killing people just to contact someone?"

"Yes. At first, I just asked the players coming here, but there are people who do not want my message to get out. They are watching him and they kill the kind people who wanted to relay my message. We were getting nowhere and I grew very frustrated. But then, it hit me. If their deaths could be tied to this game, he was certain to investigate. I could draw him here like that."

"So you drove people insane so they would kill themselves? All to reach someone?"

"Please understand. He is our only hope. I really don't want to harm you. I don't want to harm anyone, but it's the only way."

She sounded very genuine. And he was inclined to believe her.

"Who is this person?"
"I don't know his name."

"You don't even know the name of the person you're looking for?"

"He's the hero that cleared Sword Art Online," she said. "They call him the Black Swordsman."