Author's Note: Well here is chapter 3. A familiar location will be revealed today! Apologies for a delay, my computer is acting up. I may need a new one...but ignore that!

Also, I do not own SAO or Dark Souls.

-3-

Firelink Shrine

Kirito soared through the air in the clutches of the large crow that took him from the Undead Asylum to his new, unknown location. Forests of murky green trees dotted the valley, and old stony churches soared up like spires from the canopies as the great bird flew low around a wide arena-shaped landing.

"The dead knight from the asylum mentioned a pilgrimage to the land of Lords." Kirito thought to himself, somehow calm while still alive in the bird's talons. He figured this beast would either take him to feed its young, or his better clue was that this was all part of the story, and that this crow was his means of journeying to the next adventure.

The bird flew lower still, between a cliff of green and grey rock, and a large stone wall, fit with merlon-lined parapets on top, and turrets along the sides cradled his new destination in a long and narrow canyon. The crow released its cargo, and let Kirito take a tumble down the cliff. The physically battered but internally strong Kirito found a resilience to stand and observe his new surroundings.

-Firelink Shrine-

This place sounded familiar to him. He knew the name of this location from somewhere. The suspicion of bonfires and daunting demons from the asylum filled his mind, and memories of old games from his early childhood tried to flood his reality as the screen prompted him further.

*In Lordran, level up and kindle at bonfires*

"Level up and kindle?" Kirito asked himself. "So what's is the difference between lighting and kindling the bonfire...?" Kirito's real-world knowledge was absent as well while he carried on forward, clutching his club and shield in his hands anticipating anything to approach him in this unsure scenery. He noticed a glowing item near the center of a massive bonfire pit, and swiftly picked it up.

Humanity. It would no doubt come in handy to him later on.

Kirito walked up to the bonfire, now what he imagined to be the Firelink Shrine, and rested there after a quick act of lighting the flame. He reviewed several new options available at the fire, but then noticed a man sitting on top of a short wall to the north, softly looking back at him with a leg swinging back and forth in boredom.

He was clad in a suit of armor. No skin deficiencies, a full head of hair even decorated the top of his weary head. He just sat there, bored out of his mind. Seemingly waiting for the next visitor to approach this ancient site.

"Well, what do we have here?" He spoke softly, with a dulled sense of amusement. "You must be a new arrival. Let me guess…" He tried to study Kirito's still near-naked body, shriveled in death.

"Fate of the Undead, right? Well, you're not the first."

"You mean there are other people here with me?" Kirito asked with innocence.

The man looked Kirito in the eye, shrugged, then slouched back down. "But there's no salvation here. You'd have done better to rot in the Undead Asylum… But, too late now."

A bit bemused, Kirito was quick to grow angry. "Sorry, but I'm not of this world…I want to get back to mine."

The man's face perked up a bit, though still with frail curiosity, but no excitement was shown from his body. "Well, since you're here… Let me help you out. There are actually two Bells of Awakening."

"Huh?" Kirito thought back to the dead knight's words. "The prophecy only mentioned one bell, though."

The man nodded his head backward. "One's up above, in the Undead Church. The other is far, far below, in the ruins at the base of Blighttown. Ring them both, and something happens… Brilliant, right?"

"The Undead Church…and Blighttown." Kirito sighed as his head grew more cloudy. "Well, those names sound really pleasant. Got any other leads for me, pal?"

The warrior chuckled. "Not much to go on, but I have a feeling that won't stop you. So, off you go. It is why you came, isn't it? To this accursed land of the Undead? Hah hah hah hah…"

Kirito went to give the laughing man a piece of his mind, but the warrior held out a hand slowly. "Oh, your face! You're practically Hollow."

"Ya think?" Kirito's voice and attitude were both salted.

The warrior carried on. "But who knows, going Hollow could solve quite a bit! Hah hah hah hah…"

Kirito finally put his weapons away, and realized this man's only purpose was for teasing the player into the introduction. "Yea, well the message at the bonfire told me that I can kindle at them, and then I found some item called humanity. Can I restore my humanity at a bonfire?"

"Hm, what? Restoring your humanity?" The man sat forward, more intrigued than before. "Well, there are a few ways to go about it…"

Kirito finally found a real use for this man, and turned to hear what he had to say.

The warrior instructed him further. "Collect it bit by bit from corpses, or you can butter up a cleric, and get yourself summoned. And the quickest way, although I'd never do it, is to kill a healthy Undead, and pillage its humanity."

"That's a little too intense for me." Kirito pieced together that 'healthy' was code for innocent in this world, and chose not to partake in that route either.

The man shrugged, and smirked some more. "Coveting thy neighbor is only human, after all! Hah hah hah hah…"

Kirito narrowed his own vision, which drew and even sharper smile from the now sinister knight sitting on the perched wall.

"What are you looking at? Don't try anything clever. You might regret it."

"Mghmm…" Kirito grumbled underneath his breath, and turned back toward the bonfire. He remembered the item he picked up over by the rocks, and then tried summoning his menu as he sat next to the flame.

Knowing a wave of his left hand would summon his hot bar and Estus, waving his right hand did exactly as he predicted, and summoned his in-game menu. Regretfully, he noticed a lack of end game or log out button, but he did manage to locate his items. The humanity item from before was sitting alone. It looked like a frail ghost, trapped in his bag like a frightened animal.

He sat up on one knee, and placed his hands firmly on the twirling sword of the flame. Kirito activated its separate menu, and swiftly noticed a choice to Reverse Hollowing. He was prompted to offer his humanity as a charge to reverse his curse, and answered without a second thought of hesitation.

It all seemed rather instinctual, almost predestined.

When the item was asked to be used by its owner, the player soundly pressed 'Yes' and waited for something to happen. Suddenly he stood, and held the humanity over the fire. The black and grey item floating in his hand cracked open like an egg, and released a fuzzy spirit that flew about his body. A thick green smoke turned into words that read a new message.

HUMANITY RESTORED

Kirito felt a warm wave of soft energy fall over his body, and as he looked down at his salmon-colored decrepit skin, he noticed it was now reverted back to his pale, lively self. He let a new bit of confidence take his still bare shoulders, and quickly noticed the option to 'kindle' the bonfire was available after returning to a full human. The bonfire lit up to twice its original heat and glow, and he noticed five new Estus Flasks sitting in his inventory.

It all hit him soon after. His memories of what happened the night before, on the streets outside Asuna's house. The robbers, the ones that stuck something in his neck, and took Asuna into the night. He also knew this game, an old favorite from his childhood. He was now back alive both in mind and body, and ready to unfurl the clues of his arrival here.

"This game, ughhh..." He muttered to himself with a chill down his back as he checked his menu again. "I'm trapped in this game of all places without a log-out button."

*RING*

*RING*

Suddenly Kirito heard a loud ringing sound chiming from far off in the distance. It sounded like an old church bell from the middle ages, and right as the third chime rang, his eyes widened.

"The Bell? Was that one of the Bells? It had to be from the Parish..." He turned swiftly, and asked the mysterious warrior with drastic curiosity.

The warrior sat up a hair, and shrugged. "… Oh, somebody rang the first bell… Wait. It wasn't you, was it?"

"How would I have done that?" Kirito asked with a snappy sound in his voice. "I've been here all this time!"

The man shrugged again. "Well, don't stop now. Only one more, but it's going to be suicide. Hah hah hah hah…"

Kirito wanted to throw the man off the cliff, but what he wanted more was to figure out who was responsible for ringing the first Bell of Awakening. He went to turn away, but quickly remembered the most important item on his to-do list, prompted so by looking down at his lack of decent trousers.

"I need to go to Blighttown, then I need to figure out who rang that bell…but first, I need a new set of armor."

-A Look Back-

Asuna Yuuki had her hands handcuffed to an office chair inside a dimly lit tech room. Flashing computers lit up, and three men circled about preparing for what looked like a sinister experiment in the lab of a mad scientist.

But her eyes, between their clenching as she struggled to pull the cuffs off, always settled on the unconscious body of Kirito, lying on a flatbed wearing his own NerveGear system from Sword Art Online. He brought it to her house for the evening, after her parents left for a trip on their own. She just wanted to have an innocent night alone with her boyfriend, but all things came crashing down as three nasty strangers kidnapped them off the streets, and set them up in this computer lab.

Her mouth was taped shut, and as she realized Kirito would not wake up soon, she turned angrily toward one of them men behind the monitor. He was laughing into a cup of coffee that was freshly poured, and spoke loudly for his supervisors to hear.

"Okay, so as long as our friend here is hooked up to his NerveGear, we don't actually have to hack the thing. We just have to make sure he stays inside and logged on to something."

"Easy enough." The second man replied. "As long as you have a long enough game to trap him inside. The coding Kayaba used to trap players in SAO is pretty advanced, but isn't too hard to mimic. I can do it with any game. As long as we use his NerveGear."

"Of course he had to bring the NerveGear..." Asuna thought to herself, and remembered that while Kirito does own both the old hardware and the newer AmuSphere, he chose tonight of all nights to bring out the older of the two devices. He must have had a reason for bringing that to her house instead of the AmuSphere, but why were these guys so crazy about getting their hands on it? Her thoughts were halted as the other man spoke again.

"Oh, we found a good game for the Beater to wait inside. And old classic." Said the deeper third voice from the back of the room. Asuna smelled cigarette smoke coming from his direction, and hoped for him to put it out since they were all enclosed inside the computer room with no windows or fresh outlets.

"And?" Said the first guy with an annoying, nasally voice. It was the same man that grabbed Kirito off the street. "Show us what it is! I hope you found a way to bring SAO back to life!"

"Worse." The second voice replied. He was the man who took Asuna. "We've touched it up since it came out last decade, but even a fresh coat of paint won't help him get out alive."

"MGHMGH!" Asuna tore at her handcuffs, and yelled into her muffled mouth with eyes on fire as the men continued to talk about torturing her beloved friend. She writhed in anger, and let the men build up a chorus of laughter while they watched her struggle.

The man behind the computer screen gestured to the third, now standing directly behind Asuna. "We gonna put her away, or just let her see what's going on?"

"She can watch." The main voice spoke quickly. "This is a punishment for both of them."

"Mgh?" Asuna tried to put a finger on who these people were. She remembered hearing the organization name when they took her off the street, but had no recognition of the name "Glowgen", and their faces were nothing familiar either. She now knew, though, that they were people who wished to harm Kirito and her for some unknown reason.

"It's up!" The high-pitched first voice was excited. "Game on."

The men shifted around to view a large monitor standing at the back wall of the room. It powered on with a blank white screen, then, she saw it.

Her older brother, Kouichirou Yuuki grew up a fan of video games before working in his father's company at RECT. He preferred playing MMOs, and was set to be one of the 10,000 people trapped inside of Akihiko Kayaba's Sword Art Online title, but due to being absent on a business trip, he gave the game to his sister to play.

However, he did play other RPGs growing up, and a very young Asuna still remembered this particular title screen coming up on his television whenever she watched him from the hallway outside his bedroom door. The game was one that stuck with her for years, and the moment the illuminated font lit up on the laboratory monitor, he eyes grew with her fear.

-DARK SOULS-

"We'll leave him trapped in Lordran for a little while. We can hack his NerveGear while he's hollowing on the inside. Hopefully he doesn't keel over too soon though, otherwise..."

"MGHMGHGH!"

Asuna was flailing up from her chair, and her wrists were now on fire in a painful red color as the metal cuffs choked them to the chair. She knew this FromSoftware game all too well. She had no idea what Kirito's experience was with the Dark Souls series, but either way it was not something to be taken lightly.

Especially in a Virtual Reality setting, and without the ability to log out.

"What the hell is the princess barking about?" Said the first voice very annoyed over his shoulder. "Does she want a piece of the action too?"

"MMH-HMM!" Her head frantically nodded up and down, with anger darting from her eyes. She paid the annoying man no mind and now looked at the taller, deep voiced leader, with eyes looking both furious and helpless.

"..." The leader ignored the perplexed looks of his two assistants staring back at him, and walked forward to rip the duct tape off her lips. She coughed for a bit, and puckered her lips to quell the pain.

"I..." Asuna paused with elongated breaths. "I...I want in on the game."

"You what?" The second man, sitting at the computer, looked totally baffled, but slightly intrigued.

"HA!" The first man spun in his chair. "You dumb bitch! Do you know what game this is? This makes SAO look like Mario Party! Your boyfriend probably won't even last through the first boss!"

"You sure about that?" Asuna's eyes narrowed. "It sounds to me like ome of you knows who we are...I'm guessing the rest of you are familiar with SAO? You do know Kirito beat Kayaba and won the game, right? I was with him for the final fight too."

She then looked at the leader. "It also sounds like your group has a grudge against Kirito for some reason, which means at one time or another, you've tried underestimating him before."

The three men were silent, then the leader leaned back on a desk. He took a drag off his cigarette, and gave her a nod. "No way, were you that commander in that big clearing guild?"

He waited for the smoke to clear before taking another puff.

"Hah, the Queen of the K.o.B. wants to enter Dark Souls." He smiled, and pointed his finger at her. "You know what this game is, don't you?"

Asuna never answered. She let her eyes, lit by her inner fire, do all the talking.

He grinned. "Sounds good to me. Letting you in the game may make things...more fun."

"What!?" The first guy protested. "Are you out of your damned mind!? We don't need to give the blackswordsman an ally! Let alone some punk from the Knights of the Blood Oath!"

"Yea, we can't throw them both in, anyway." Said the third man, who was a little less versed in all the SAO jargon. "We only have one NerveGear."

The leader, still looking at Asuna, smiled still. "Check her bag. I bet they were heading to the his house."

Asuna did in fact bring her own Amusphere on her way to Kirito's house, only because these monsters cut the power in her own home, and she expected to play some at his place tomorrow. They grabbed her system, and the leader held the Amusphere right out in front of her face.

"I remember they called you Lightning Flash in that SAO game. Care ta test your skills in a new world?"

She made no noise or movements, choosing again to only speak with her eyes, frozen in anger. The leader lowered the hardware, and tossed it into her lap. "Unlock her cuffs. I'd hate to keep the kid waiting."

Asuna let the creepy one take the cuffs from her hands, and while she rubbed her sore wrists, she kept looking at the leader.

"I don't know what your plan is, but I want your word...if we beat your game, you let us go."

"Oh come on!" The man with the cuffs yelled out with an annoyed tone in his voice. "This chick needs to get her attitude checked! She really thinks she can walk in and beat a VR Dark Souls game in one try!? The bugs alone will be hell ta deal with!"

"Really, he has a point..." The man sitting at the computer desk narrowed his vision on Asuna. "That is pretty confident, even for the Heroes of Aincrad."

Silence filled the room, and while the two henchmen turned to look at their boss, his eyes were still transfixed on Asuna's staring right back in his direction.

Finally, he folded. "We can talk, after you beat the game. And only if we get what we came here for."

After making herself log into the game, Asuna was leaving the Firelink Shrine after meeting the Crestfallen Warrior for the very first time. He was the man sitting at the edge of the fire, the same on that would tease Kirito later that night. She was thrown into the game much sooner than Kirito. Either that, or the system took even longer when trying to wake Kirito up from his slumber.

She had no idea if Kirito was familiar with the Dark Souls series, but Asuna knew just enough about it to get along in the beginning, no small thanks to the lengthy introduction presented to the Lightning Flash after she logged in to the Virtual Realm of Lordran.

In the Age of Ancients, the world was unformed, shrouded by fog,

Archtrees and Everlasting Dragons.

But then there was fire, and with it came disparity.

Heat and cold, life and death, and of course, light and dark.

Then, from the dark, They came, and found the Souls of Lords within the flame.

Nito, the First of the Dead,

the Witch of Izalith and her Daughters of Chaos,

Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, and his faithful knights.

And the Furtive Pigmy, so easily forgotten.

With the strength of Lords, they challenged the Dragons,

Gwyn's mighty bolts peeled apart their stone scales.

The Witches weaved great firestorms.

Nito unleashed a miasma of death and disease.

And Seath the Scaleless betrayed his own,

and the Dragons were no more.

Thus began the Age of Fire.

But soon the flames will fade and only Dark will remain.

Even now there are only embers,

and man sees not light, but only endless nights.

And amongst the living are seen,

carriers of the accursed Darksign.

Yes, indeed. The Darksign brands the Undead.

And in this land, the Undead are corralled and led to the north,

where they are locked away, to await the end of the world…

This is your fate.

Asuna held the same dark mark that Kirito had, only hers was just off her right shoulder. She was given more freedoms that Kirito when logging into the game, and was even allowed to pick a starting class and gift. She chose cleric, mainly due to her brother selecting it one time in one of his previous playthroughs, but also because she thought having high faith would help keep her morale high as well.

A bit of a naive choice for a beginner in the Souls world, but even so Asuna was no stranger to unforgiving virtual realms.

She knew very little about Dark Souls builds in-general, and what would be best for her, but for her starting gift she decided the item called a 'Master Key' would be the most valuable item to her. She did not remember which gift her brother took in his playthrough, but remembered there being oh so many doors in the world of Dark Souls. A 'Master Key' had to be valuable in some way, right?

Even different from Kirito, however, she did not start in the Undead Asylum like her brother did all those years ago. Asuna started out right inside Fire Link Shrine, already holding a decently high soul level despite not beating the Asylum Demon first. Her Cleric build gave her the cleric's robe, a mace, and a flavored east-west shield for blocking and parrying attacks. This allowed her to wonder the ruins of Firelink Shrine rather easier than Kirito would later on, and even let her collect some of its hidden treasures on the way.

She also introduced herself to some of the familiar faces along the way as well, like the bizarrely-sized crusader that stood to the east side of the shrine's ruins.

"Hello there. I believe we are not acquainted?" The similar cleric was wearing a heavy set of leather armor, with a colored knight's shield in his left hand. "I am Petrus of Thorolund. Have you business with us?"

"Us?" Asuna always hated how creepy these games came to be. "I-I'm sorry, but there's only one of you here. Are you traveling with a party?"

Petrus of Thorolund ignored her question, and looked her up and down with a weary expression. "… If not, I'd prefer to keep a distance, if possible."

"Rude much?" She kept her voice to a whisper, and tried starting things over. "I'm sorry if I come off as aggressive. My name's Asuna. It's nice to meet you."

Petrus lowered his shoulders, and smiled for her. "Hello there. I realize that I have requested that we retain our distance, But I also want you to know that it is not meant in ill-will."

"You're fine, I totally get it!" She tried agreeing with him, even if he seemed to be speaking nonsense. "I'll try not to bother you if that makes things easier."

Petrus shook his head, and held out a small, rounded copper item. "Here, take this. As a token of peace."

"Oh, I can't!" Asuna, occasionally like Kirito, had a hard time differentiating good AI from real world humans. She sympathized with the computer character. "I did nothing to earn that from you!"

Petrus gave her a human's smile. "No, go ahead. It's for you."

She took the copper coin from his hands, and nodded in thanks. Tucking it away in her pocket, she turned to match her eyes to an overhead bridge jutting from the southern end of the shrine. It appeared to head in the direction of the great stone wall that guarded one-half of this valley, and Asuna remembered from days watching with her brother that a settlement waited on the other side.

"Kirito..." She muttered softly to herself, as if she were hiding a secret. "I have no idea where you are...but please...don't die without me."

Back in Tokyo, Japan, the computer team responsible for high-jacking the two Heroes of Aincrad were watching their new female character navigate her way through the ruins of Lordran.

"So she just gets sent to Firelink right away since the beater's avatar is passed out in the asylum cell? And when is the kid going to wake up from his drug coma, anyway?" Asked the impatient first kidnapper. "I wanna see some action! Action that ends with his head smashing underneath the Asylum Demon's giant hammer!"

"He'll be fine vs the Asylum Demon." Said the second, more serious voice behind the main control desk. "This kid beat Akihiko Kayaba at his own game, remember? He may face hard bosses in this world, but the Asylum Demon won't be a real threat to him."

"It doesn't matter which boss takes him out." The ring leader stood over Kirito's unconscious body while the NerveGear helmet flashed over the fallen victim's face. "Once we finish hacking his NerveGear for that little Top-down mental health program, the beater will be of no real use to us."

"So what happens if he dies in the game?" The first man laughed with his feet on a desk. "Is this gonna fry him like SAO? I'd like to know what we're getting into before we take the sucker's life!"

"If he dies once? Hell no." Said the second man with an air of arrogance about his angered tone. "This is Dark Souls. You gotta have a little wiggle room...when you die as a human you turn hollow, remember?"

"True." Said the leader, now smoking a brand-new cigarette. "but if he dies while he's Hollowed...well, let's just hope we can download his NerveGear's files before that happens, heh!"

Ah that Crestfallen Warrior sure is a delight, isn't he?

Okay this had a lot of technical crap in it, and even with my own experience in the world of DS I'm trying to keep things as fluid as possible with the mechanics, but without bogging down the reader with too much technical DS crap. I want to remind the reader Kirito and Asuna will be playing the role of a gamer going through DS, but I don't want to go crazy on the hardcore theory crafting and stuff...Doing my best to appease fans of both series while also keeping the wheels rolling.

Kirito has restored his humanity, and his memory at that! It turns out he has played this game before! (Seriously, in what real-life scenario would a kid like Kirito not grow up playing this game? But the memory loss thing when he was hollowed is interesting...)

Asuna knows it too! I don't peg her as much of a gamer in her early youth, but if you're a fan of the show you'll remember she only logged into SAO because her brother couldn't play his copy. We never meet his character in the series, but I felt safe enough to use him here as her reference for the game. She picked Cleric! What a funny choice!

And the villains do know these two gamers, and appear to want some mental health program inside Kirito's NerveGear? We'll catch up to Asuna and Kirito next time! Stay healthy until then!