AN: Hey, good to say hi. Fourth of July is coming up and, my traffic stats say not all of you are American, but I am, so I'm gonna go with Happy 4th. Yeah.
Anyways, I really hope these next two chapters are fun. SAO: Abridged is one of those shows me and my friends watch all the time. That inevitable second season cannot come fast enough. I hope I capture Kirito-Abridged and his tremendous a-holeishness well, and especially that you all enjoy it.
Finally, I'm glad that the last chapter's notification e-mail went through. I dunno what happened with the chapter before that.
Responses!
To Ssjzohan: Thanks!
To Chretner/cturner971: I'm happy you liked the Bleach world. I hope the fact that this next world is SAO Abridged instead of SAO isn't a problem. I hope you enjoy it anyways!
To commandosquirrel: Well, that is the plan. Jaune's not the same as Sora in this story, and I'm not going to just write the same story over again.
To HelpSomeone: I love Kirito-Abridged, too. I'm going to try to make him as close to abridgon as possible, even when things that don't happen in the show are going on. I had fun writing his interactions, especially with Jaune.
To Gojosin: Yeah, Jaune as he's trying to be now will never be at the same level he was. I'm happy that I'm writing the brief spurts of power well, and I hope I keep writing it well. Jaune's worried about it, so he'll talk about it with Sora, and the Cloak is going to play a big part, too.
To G3r1k: Thanks! This is definitely the Abridged world, and I took your suggestion into account. I hope I did it well!
Chapter 5: Mutual Hatred
Jaune and Yang wandered the small city side by side, the two of them growing ever more confused by the world around them. Everywhere they looked, people were walking around the small city. Some had green crystals hovering above their heads while some had nothing at all. Interestingly enough, the people who didn't have one of those crystals had far fewer weapons, in some cases walking around without any. Meanwhile, the green crystals were warriors, all dressed in similar blue, black, pink shirts beneath gray-silver armor with various weapons strapped across their backs. "Well, you wanted more swords," Jaune remarked quietly to Yang beside him.
The blonde woman grinned. "Good, I get to use all the material you weren't there for in Soul Society," she said, half-joking. She looked around at all of the people milling about around them, trading insults and making jokes. Mostly insulting each other. "So, all these weapons must mean there's some sort of monsters here other than the Heartless."
"Good. I said I need to work on fighting," Jaune said, half bitter about the fact he had lost so much of his earlier skill. On the other hand, he was more than willing to work at regaining it, and he had tapped into that knowledge a few times during his fights in the Soul Society. He'd even managed to help beat Byakuya using that power... not that he knew how he'd tapped into it, really. He grimaced. "Though... I have no idea where we should go."
The two blondes began to look around again, trying to find out if anyone knew what they were doing. Most of the people were wandering around aimlessly, moving in a dozen streams in every direction. And all of them looked terrified, like they knew they would soon die. "Okay, I'm getting a pretty bad vibe from this place," Yang muttered as even she got the chills from the dead eyed stares around them. She knew what giving up looked like from personal experience, and this was even worse. Eventually, however, her gaze fell on a figure who didn't have that look on his face. In fact, this person almost looked... bored by the people around him and their terror. No, more pissed off and apathetic to their worry.
He had deep black hair that partially obscured his features, a strand running down his nose between his two gray-black eyes. He was scowling at the air, growing increasingly annoyed by something. "We could ask him," Yang suggested.
Jaune's eyes followed hers to the dark haired, confident looking kid. "Oh, wow. What brilliant insight; it's so deep it loops right back around to being stupid," the dark man with a high pitched, almost feminine sounding voice ranted at the sky.
"Wait, what was that" the kid shouted at the sky, his voice between confused and angry.
The conversation continued, and no one was looking at him weird. "What gods? What are you talking about? It's all bullshit metaphors with you!"
"Are you... sure?" Jaune muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "He seems... angry and unbalanced."
"Narrator off..! Dick." A purple hexagon appeared above his head, adorned with black words stating 'Narrator off.' He shook his head and began to walk with a small, counter stream of green crystals towards the other side of the small town.
"Or just angry," Yang remarked. She traded a confused look with Jaune. "Hey, you chose this place." Then she walked off, following the black clad swordsman.
"Something I regret more and more," he noted under his breath before doing as expected and following her. He weaved uncomfortably through the crowd, apologizing for running into them while Yang simply walked through them, and they moved around her. Jaune felt a pang of jealousy that she was such a formidable presence whereas he was... not. As if to prove his point, he was nearly barreled over by a man with really spiky brown hair reminiscent of a mace . He had a large sword strapped across his back and was ranting about 'Beta Testers.'
Jaune raised one eyebrow. Beta Testers? Like in a video game? It would certainly explain some things, like the green crystals over everyone's heads and the fact that one or two voices would keep screaming at the sky, "WE MUST SAVE MY FAMILY!" Every time this earned the response of "Godammit, Gary!"
He looked above Yang, finally noticing she, too, had a crystal floating above her head. "Wow, do we miss things easily," Jaune muttered to himself. He began to move faster and pushed through the crowd, slowly gaining on Yang. "Yang! Yang!"
The woman stopped and turned around. "What, were you getting lost?" she asked from behind a smirk.
"No! Yang... Look, I think this world is a v -"
"Wow, you two look ready for a fight," A desperate, scared voice shouted. Jaune groaned at the interruption and turned to look at the man who had spoken. He was one of the green crystal humans, a blue haired man dressed in a similarly colored, lop sided tunic adorned with brown armor. He was a few inches shorter than Yang with a cocky grin on his face, and had a sword strapped to his hip with a shield across his back. "Good, we need all the help we can – I mean, you're here for the strategy meeting?"
Yang and Jaune shared a look and looked around quickly for the dark haired kid, who they seemed to have lost. Great... Well, maybe we can learn something from this. "Uh, yeah?" Jaune muttered, after Yang shrugged and decided it was up to him. He was the one Oz had made a team leader what felt like a lifetime ago, after all. Strategy was his thing – punching that strategy into existence was hers.
The blue haired man let out a sigh of relief that he tried and failed to play off. "Uh, then head down and get ready. We'll be starting soon," he said, moving aside and gesturing for them to enter what looked to be an old-style amphitheatre. They walked past him and looked around for a place to sit.
"Hey!" Yang shouted. She grabbed hold of Jaune's shoulder and tore him towards a seat, causing him to stumble and nearly fall onto his face before she plopped him down next to her and... The dark haired kid.
"Oh, good... My stalkers," the dark haired kid muttered, glancing over at Yang and Jaune. His chin was resting on his palm, which only served to magnify the bored, arrogant look in his eyes. "What do you want, besides staring at me with those dumb looks on your faces."
"Charming," Yang muttered.
The kid shrugged and looked away from them. "I try."
Jaune grabbed Yang's shoulder before she could retort and say something that would start a real argument. "Look, we're just trying to, er, that is... Do you know where we are?"
The kid looked over and began to laugh mockingly, his hand falling from his chin. Everyone glanced their way when the harsh, shrill laughter began. Everyone began to scoot away from the three at the epicenter. "Wow, I'd heard the stereotype, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. Dumb and Dumber blondes. You could star in a documentary and nobody could tell the difference from the movie," he mocked through his laughter.
"And I'm surprised you aren't always bleeding from those edges you keep lording," Yang mocked back, cutting off the other person's laughter.
Jaune was surprised that the kid hadn't gotten angry at that retort. He just continued the cycle of mocking. "Wow, looks like I was right. Your boyfriend is your cheerleader."
Yang looked over at Jaune. "Yeah, he is," she said with a shrug.
"Yang..." Jaune muttered, growing annoyed that this kept going on. He sighed and looked over at the boy again, shoving down his anger with the man. "Look, can you please just help us?"
"Helping my stalkers. That sounds like a great idea," the kid muttered. He looked away from them and stared hard at the amphitheatre again before placing his chin on his hand. "If you aren't one of the 2000 morons who have died this month you must be unbelievably lucky idiots."
Yang looked at Jaune. "Yeah, he is," she said with yet another shrug.
"Yang!" Jaune hissed through the woman's and – more surprisingly – the dark haired boy's snickering. He froze. "Did you say 2000 people have -"
"Okay, hey everyone! Thanks for coming to our little pow-wow!" the blue haired guy began, smiling as he tried to attract the attention of everyone sitting in the amphitheatre. Jaune glanced towards the dark haired boy and noticed he was listening more intently than usual, so the Keyblade Wielder decided to do the same. "Now, I know you all may be discouraged by the fact that over 2000 people have died this month."
Jaune couldn't believe that fact was now confirmed. "Two thousand people are dead!" Jaune shouted in surprise and sadness, drawing an annoyed glare from his and Yang's new... 'friend.'
"Maybe he'd have understood if I'd tattooed it to his head," the younger boy muttered. He leaned back and sighed to himself.
The blue haired man who had been so happy to see them caught sight of Jaune and his smile became tighter and less real. He paused and waited for an embarrassed Jaune to sit back down before continuing. "And I know you're all down because we haven't even cleared the first floor ye -"
This drew cries of surprise and anguish from the others in the crowd, Jaune thankfully not being the one to cry out this time. "Good job, Jaune, you can learn from your mistakes. Don't shout out things people just said!" Yang said, shoving her elbow into Jaune's side.
"Okay, maybe you aren't too bad," the dark haired boy said of Yang, only half-interested.
"You guys do know there are a hundred floors, right?" the blue haired man at the center asked, growing ever more dismayed by the growing idiocy of his peers. He looked around, trying to get everyone back on track.
"I thought we were almost done..!"
Jaune grimaced at that statement and realized he – someone from another world – may actually be one of the people more on top of things than anyone around him, barring blue hair and black hair, maybe. Everyone was dressed the same – that was the norm for early game MMOs, not late game when everyone had specialized somehow and had armor, emblems, weapons, and more drops to reflect those specializations. He was never the one who knew the most! That was probably bad news.
"Jeez, I'm just making things worse..." the blue haired man muttered.
He began to speak again, but was drowned out when Yang leaned in close to Jaune. "Jaune... this all seems weird. Why are they acting like this is a video game?"
"Jesus, never mind. You're Dumber, he's Dumb," the boy mocked now. He leveled his glare on the two blondes, growing ever more disgusted with them as time went on. "Of course it's a video game! You bought SAO for Christ's sake!"
"Sh-she meant, why are they treating it like it's a game when it's life or death?" Jaune muttered, having picked up that something had gone wrong with the game world. People don't just die playing an MMO. This was reminding him a bit too much of that story Sora had told them about Tron and the Grid.
"Oh, dammit, she's a Role-Player? Seriously, your prospects are getting dimmer by the second, Dumb and Dumber." The kid shook his head and opened his mouth to continue the mocking, He stared at them for a while. "I bet your avatars changed from the base models after Kayaba's mirror thing – you don't look like you could figure out all those sliders."
"Beta testers?" a familiar voice shouted.
Jaune groaned. "This guy again?" he grumbled, looking over his shoulder at the spiky haired sword wielder who had been ranting earlier.
Apparently, everyone knew about the guy, as the man at the center of the amphitheatre growled with frustration. "Oh, goddamit!" His voice turned said, almost broken by every interruption that had been piling up. "Kibao, what do you want?"
"Beta Testers are the reason we're stuck in this game!" Kibao shouted angrily. "And the reason all those people died!"
"Well, somebody needs to interrupt this train of thought," Yang said, already taking the responsibility upon herself. Jaune sighed when a massive explosion of hair hit him in the side of the head, wind ruffling his hair and signifying that Yang had just leaped down to the center of the theater.
"How did she..?" Jaune ignored the dark haired boy and shook his head. Yang, already picking a fight after five seconds.
"Oh my god, a hot girl!" someone within the crowd shouted, voice cracking as he did, when Yang landed heavily behind Kibao and turned around. There was a sharp intake of breath as they realized that, yes, this was a hot girl. Soon, almost everyone was on their feet, cheering.
She kissed to the crowd. "You got that right," she said, waving to her now cheering, adoring audience. She looked down at Kibao, who was looking increasingly scared of the blonde, red eyed woman. "Please, please... Don't stop this witch hunt because of me."
"Oh, so now it's charge the stage time," the man with the shield growled, growing disappointed with how he was progressively losing control of the situation. "Why doesn't anyone else just walk up here!?"
"Well, if you insist," a deep voice said, and a tall, dark skinned man walked towards them.
He shouted in exasperation, "I was being sarcastic, whoever you are!"
The tall man stopped in front of Kibao and stood intimidatingly over him, catching the antagonistic jerk between two tall, scary warriors. "I am the Mountain Slayer, Thunder Lion, the Chocolate Ax." He stopped speaking for a moment and pointed down at Kibao's face, placing one huge index finger in front of the man's eye. "But you, dumbass? You may call me... Tiffany." The name appeared above his head and Kibao backed away slightly, completely unsure of what to do next.
The man next to Jaune snickered. "I bet his original avatar was a three foot tall lolli," he muttered under his breath and forcing Jaune to imagine Tiffany's face on a short, creepy looking little girl. He shivered.
"Masculine," Yang said, earning an annoyed glare from Tiffany.
"Shouldn't be, it's a woman's name," he responded bluntly.
"I'm not sure what to say to either of you," Kibao muttered, glancing between Yang and Tiffany with growing fear, annoyance, and frustration.
"Good then shut the fuck up" The tall man turned around to the crowd, pulling a small brown notebook from his inventory. "Does everyone here have this book in their inventory? It's full of tips and strategies on how to survive the game, put together by Beta Testers."
Jaune began to answer 'No,' but stopped when he caught the annoyed glare on his neighbor's face. Thankfully, a large group of people said no. Chocolate Ax's eyes widened at that. "Wh- 2000 people are dead!"
"What!?"the crowd shouted. Tiffany just stared back in shock and disgust, unable to comprehend how they had forgotten what was being talked about five seconds earlier.
The dark kid beside Jaune shook his head. "Sadly, this is still going better than I'd hoped." He caught Jaune's look and narrowed his eyes. "What? I'm not talking to you!"
Kibao suddenly regained his composure, anger flashing behind his eyes. "Everyone read it, but it doesn't even mention those weird monsters that are showing up. Their levels are too high and they've killed half the people here!" He pointed out at the crowd and they began looking at one another, unsure who to trust. "Isn't that right, Jesus?"
"It's pronounced Hey-zeus, and I don't know you," Jesus remarked dryly.
"Those people died because they were too stupid to avoid monsters with question marks instead of a level designator!" Thunder Lion pointed out. He looked Kibao up and down. "Which begs the question, how is your dumb ass alive?" He then turned away, ignoring the useless, ranting man he was embarassing.
"I, gah..." Kibao looked as if he wanted to snap back at Tiffany, but was too scared to do anything about it. He growled, Darkness swirling around his shoulders. "Shut up!" He pulled his sword from his back and lashed out, trying to catch Chocolate Ax unawares. His sword whistled towards Tiffany's neck and a collective gasp filled the air. Would this be the first official murder in SAO?
But Ember Celica was quick to activate, and Yang was even quicker to move. She caught the sword on her bracer and glared at the man who was being enveloped by a shroud of darkness more and more with each passing moment. The sword flashed backwards, giving Yang time to slam her shoulder into his chest and send him skidding away. "Get off the stage," she demanded simply of Tiffany and the blue haired man.
"I can fight my own battles, Goldilocks," Chocolate Ax said, reaching back to grab the... ax on his back.
"Maybe," she said, tossing him a grin. "But I've already got dibs." Then she raised her fists again and charged Kibao.
"What a woman!" the same voice cracking individual cried out from within the crowd.
Yang didn't really hear this, as she was in full on 'battle mode.' She was having a hard time dodging the increasingly erratic and increasingly fast attacks that the man was unleashing. "Look, Spike, I mean this with all due offense... you're not very good at this fighting thing," she said as she blocked another heavy blow with her left bracer. The blade slammed into her arm and she swore she could feel it almost rattle her arm. Still, that wasn't going to make her stop mocking this guy. She brought her robotic fist around and tore the blade out of Kibao's hands, then lashed out with a front kick that forced him to double over.
"What the hell is happening? Is he using some sort of item to make that aura?" the edgelord sitting beside Jaune asked. He narrowed his eyes and his voice became a low, angry growl. "We wants it..."
"Kibao, huh? That sounds like the noise my fist'll make when I punch you in the face," Yang pointed out, jumping into the air and raising her clasped fists above her head. She came down, slamming them into Kibao's face, an almost echoing 'KI-BAO!' echoing through the amphitheatre. His face hit the ground and a purple hexagon appeared above him below a green bar that rapidly shrank into a thin, red line. The hexagon read "2000 Newtons, new record!"
Again: "What a woman!"
"Are we done here?" Tiffany inquired, moving up to stand beside Yang, whose eyes had returned to their normal lilac, and the now unconscious Kibao.
"Yeah... wasn't even a good fight," Yang said, disappointed.
"Okay, I get why you're her cheerleader, Blondie," the dark haired boy said, truly impressed. His voice turned saccharine and cruel. "Does she keep little old you safe from all the scary monsters?"
"I'm not -" Jaune sighed and glared at the man sitting beside him
"Now, as Mr. Thunder Chocolate was saying," the blue haired man said, picking up where he left off as if nothing had happened.
"Thunder Lion," Thunder Lion hissed under his breath. "Thunder Lion, is it so hard?"
"This guide book is full of strategies on how to fight the first boss, Ilfang." He opened his book and began to flip through it. "Ahem. 'As you enter the first boss room, he's gonna send wave after wave of disposable minions after you... You should... Respond in kind?' Uh, let's skip ahead... 'Once his health goes into the red, he'll enter his second stage and you should... Final Solution?' Jesus, who wrote this?"
Jaune looked over to see his neighbor laughing under his breath, though it threatened to spill out completely. Jaune was seriously starting to doubt asking this... "human" for anything.
"Okay, look, just... just group up. We'll figure something out on the way," the blue haired man muttered, immediately moving off to find his own group.
Yang caught Jaune's eye and jerked her head to the side. He raised a confused eyebrow and she did it again. Finally, he turned and saw an empty space beside him. He turned back to shrug at her before mentally slapping himself. "Where'd he go?" he growled, looking around frantically. Again, Yang jerked her head to the side and began to walk into the crowd. Jaune got up and followed, as Yang seemed to have some idea of where to go.
"And what about you? Why haven't you joined the others?" a young woman in a burgundy cloak obscuring her face and armor asked their new friend.
"Lots of reasons," he replied with a shrug. His voice became incredibly caustic and condescending. "Mostly because they're a lot of mouth-breathing neckbeards who think LMAO is how French people laugh."
Jaune laughed, realizing he could piss the guy off. He was enjoying this feeling, not caring what this guy thought. That he could make the jerk angry, even a little. If it hadn't felt so good, he might have been a little worried. "That's so l-mao," he said.
"I'll kill whoever –" the dark haired man snapped before whirling around on Jaune and Yang. His shoulders sagged and he shook his head in annoyance. "Oh, you two again. Great."
"So you do have a party," the girl pointed out dryly.
"A party?" he asked, turning back to her. "No, Dumb and Dumber here are my stalkers, not my NPC party followers. Though between how you can't open the menu, she's a Role-Player, and he's her cheerleader... you might as well all be."
Jaune scoffed at the insulting insinuation he was worthless, anger rising in his gut. This guy had done nothing but act like an ass since they met him, so where did he get off acting superior? Jaune shook his head and joked back, "Wow, I haven't seen overcompensation this bad since Cardin Winchester." Jaune paused and wondered where that had come from. He wasn't usually that biting with how he spoke to people; maybe Yang's attitude was rubbing off on him. Jaune dismissed these thoughts and simply glared at the boy. "And I don't think his problem was as small as yours."
"Wow, an insult from the cheerleader. I'm sure you're -"
Yang stepped between them, surprised she had to be the calm one. She made a mental note to talk to Jaune about ths later when they were alone. "Look, it's simple. You need to party up with more than one person, and we're available. Can we just try to kill each other later?" Yang inquired.
"Ah, dammit." Yang turned around to see that almost every member of the crowd had been waiting in line to try and ask for her to party up with them.
"Well, if taking you on annoys them, I'm all for it," the boy responded with a grin. He swiped his left hand in front of him and opened a list of names. "So... Asuna, Yang, and... Jaune? Jaune? Sounds like a girl's name to me."
Jaune fought off the growing urge to point out that, with the other boy's voice, that meant they almost had three girls.
"Charming... Kirito?" Yang asked, wondering if she'd said it right.
"I try," Kirito responded with a shrug. He frowned and stared off into space. "What the hell are those!?"
"What the hell are what?" Jaune growled. He was quite done with this guy, a far cry from the amicable Ichigo or any of his other friends from back home. Jaune noticed that the anger was building up more and more, just as it had back in Soul Society and tried to stomp it down again, balling it up and ignoring it. He took a breath. "What are what?"
"Those blue bars beneath your health bars, obviously you... You... What the hell kind of skills do you have to have a second bar? What does it even do? This isn't allowed by the rules of the game!"
"Where are these health bar -"
Kirito stood up and placed his hand over Yang's mouth. "Please. Stop talking. If you don't, I might just kill you," he said, his voice barely a hoarse whisper. His pupils had basically disappeared, shrinking down just as his mental state began to deteriorate. He pointed up. "Look right here and you'll see all of our goddamn health bars!"
Yang looked up, ignoring Kirito's screaming – which was attracting everyone's attention – about how there were no women in this game that could figure out the menu. Yang noticed that there were four and wondered how she'd missed these before. Two of them, those at the bottom, were labeled Kirito and Asuna. They both were simple green bars, both filled to the brim. Unlike those, however, the top two – hers and Jaune's – had a secondary, thin line of blue beneath it. "Magic..." they both muttered, clearly understanding what it was from the many hours of video games both had played.
"Excuse me?" Asuna asked, surging to her feet. "SAO doesn't have magic, it's the draw. And, now that I think about it, one of the shittiest draws for a fantasy RPG. Why don't we have magic?"
"I'll take no magic if it means no goddamn fairies with their prissy wings and stupid elf ears," Kirito muttered. He shut his eyes and shivered in rage. "And some stupid race war. Ugh, I'm almost glad that, after this dumpster fire of a launch title, VRMMO's are never going to get funded again."
"... Right," Yang said simply. She shrugged and grabbed everyone by the shoulders. "Now, let's go get acquainted... Team JAYK! No, no... I can come up with better!" Then she began to drag the group out of the city and towards the hunting grounds for what was apparently this game's level 1 monsters.
Yang didn't even notice the tall, red haired woman with a face almost identical to Yang's following them from a distance. The crystal-less woman frowned as she walked, and her grip tightened on her blade. "Is it fate or chance that places you on my path, I wonder?" Then she turned down an empty street, disappearing into a black portal so the Nobody could move undetected in the same direction as her daughter. Morrigan reappeared in a forest a few miles outside of the town and jumped into a tree. "Come to me, Weakness, so I may overcome you."
S M H S
The man in the cloak walked through the crowded city, ignoring the bustling crowds and the smell of food wafting around. He wasn't back here to have fun, he was back here to finally read the scroll he had received in his trade with Sosuke Aizen. He moved effortlessly through the crowd, his mere presence forcing them to part around him. His posture, his behavior demanded that they move around him. He kept his hands in his pockets, one wrapped tight around the yet to be opened scroll. He needed to open that scroll as soon as possible; the knowledge within was paramount to his success.
Despite the urgency of these matter at hand, the man could not help but stop when he passed a food stand on a nearby corner, one of the advertised brands catching his eye. He turned and walked towards the stand, the flow of people around him altering with his new direction. He stopped in front of the stand and the man operating it turned to him with a smile. "What'll it be?"
"Pumpkin Pete Ice Cream Sandwich," the cloak replied simply, pulling out a card of Lien before the price could be given. He tossed it forward and took the sandwich, then peeled it open and turned to leave in one move."Keep the change." He raised the ice cream between two slabs of marshmallow encrusted flakes to his mouth and took a bite. He stopped moving for a moment and appreciated the many flavors interacting. "Mmmm..." He shook his head a moment later, realizing he had taken too much time. He began to move again, taking small bites as he went. He had to admit, he missed the small things sometimes.
He opened the door to his apartment building a few minutes later and tossed the wrapper to his snack in his trash. He kept his jacket on despite the fact he was 'home' now, though he did lower his hood and sit down at the table. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the scroll, placing it on the table. The man held his hand out and summoned his Keyblade to place beside it as he felt more comfortable knowing that the weapon was nearby.
The man in the black coat froze before unwrapping the scroll. This was it – this was what he was looking for. He ran a hand through his hair and held in a giddy laugh. It was exciting to know that, after this, he only had a list to complete before he got what he wanted. Before he finally got what he wanted. He reached out and slowly began to unfurl the scroll, a sharp intake of breath occurring as he broke the seal holding it shut. He began to hold his breath as if he were afraid that the slightest provocation would make it disappear from the table.
He exhaled the air and the giddy feeling disappeared as soon as he could read the list. The man laughed, exasperated, and began to read the list aloud to himself. "The heart of an unborn World? Something that can reshape reality? Where am I going to find an item that creates true Darkness in a Heart or a nugget of Darkness made corporeal?" His eyes settled on the final item and he groaned angrily. "A True Key..? Dammit, that must mean one of Salem's 'Successes.' A Kingdom Key." He leaned back and cast a glance at his own Keyblade, a 'failure.' The first. A dark, twisted Keyblade that contained much power, but not the same amount that a Kingdom Key would. Those were the Gold standard for Keyblades.
He frowned. Gold. There was a Golden Keyblade, a Kingdom Key. He remembered that much. The man nodded and reached out for his Keyblade to tap on the handle, the beat matching the rhythm of his thoughts. The Kingdom Key D, a Keyblade locked in the Realm of Darkness. Could it have been brought to the future by the rebirth of the Realm of Darkness through the Journal? He supposed it was possible, and definitely worth the trouble of finding out. If it was there, he could use the Kingdom Key D to replace his own weapon indefinitely. And if not... he could figure out how to get Sora or Jaune to help him. It wouldn't be too difficult, all things considered. He wouldn't be opposed to a quid pro quo, either. Neither person would ask for too much.
The man stood up and walked to the window, looking out over the city at the newly rebuilt emerald towers on the cliff overlooking everything. The sunlight was reflecting off of the buildings, creating a brilliant green glare. School would be starting up in Beacon Academy soon, a result of the efforts Sora, Ruby, and their allies had put forth in defeating Salem. Since her defeat, Vale – and indeed all of Remnant – had enjoyed an amicable peace that had been unheard of in the Four Kingdoms' histories. Still, the Dark undercurrent present within the world remained. Muted, yes, but it remained.
The man turned his mental energies back to the list. The fact that he had obtained these from Aizen implied that these items were obtainable in the wider World, perhaps even in his world alone. It wouldn't be smart to focus that heavily on one world, however. To amass the items would likely result in multiple betrayals if he focused on one world – clashing with Aizen, then the Shinigami, then Aizen again. It would become too difficult. Therefore, it was a better idea to look for many worlds, each with one, maybe two items from the list. It would take time to find the world with these, but he was sure the Keyblade would lead him where his Heart desired.
The Keyblade disappeared in a crackling cloud of black and white, dismissed by its master. He pulled his hood back up and walked to the center of the largest room, holding up a hand cloaked in Darkness. A column of inky black appeared in front of him, a portal to another world. He supposed that it was about time he begin looking for the items on that list; there was a whole new universe to explore, after all. He stepped into the portal and allowed it to slide shut behind him.
S M H S
Akihiko Kayaba was not a very happy man. Not very happy at all. In the past month, two thousand more aimless, moronic, goddamn idiots had kicked the bucket. Two. Thousand. Two thousand people had died on the first level! He honestly felt that was an indictment of the human species that this had happened, and that wasn't even getting into the fact that half those idiots had died from standing in the middle of fire hazards in the environment. When he'd heard that, he'd made a few quick changes to the Narrator Mode that would ensure all of the lemmings following each other off the cliff to death would at least know someone was disappointed in them.
Kayaba rubbed the bridge of his nose, having uplugged from his own VRMMO some time ago in order to patch a few crippling bugs that would kill many more of those fu – idiots. He knew for a fact that everything going on so far was only the beginning. They had yet to clear floor one, and it was partially because no one with even a modicum of intelligence had decided to coordinate the idiots into a single sword to be wielded against the Bosses. Ugh, if that blue haired shmuck couldn't handle this first boss without kicking the bucket, he might as well do it himself.
Kayaba shuddered at the thought. It would take a true masochist to lead a guild comprised of the players of his game.
Kayaba began to walk back to the NerveGear controller he had plugged in to his bunker and linked to the net through an ever shifting series of proxy network connections. He had to check in on the new updates, maybe see how the first Raid Party was holding up. It – He froze and turned as his computer began to beep excitedly. He frowned and walked towards the machine, surprised that this had happened. He'd programmed in an alarm for if someone inserted themselves into his game, hacking through layers of firewalls, pirating a copy of the game – which must not have been easy considering that the game was a deathtrap now – and deciding to plug themselves into the lovechild of Tron and Scanners. What kind of idiot would do that?
He sat down and began to type commands into his computer, looking for the information regarding the intruders to the game. The system scanned through the player list, something that would take quite some time on his less than ideal fugitive setup. Still, he elected to wait. It was a necessity, and a nice distraction from the deaths that were occurring. This was the first – and hopefully only – time that the population of SAO had increased rather than decreased.
It took upwards of an hour, but the program finally terminated and two names popped up. "Jaune Arc and Yang Xiao Long. Weird names for a pair of new players. Items... Wait, I don't remember coding in these weapons!" Kayaba surged to his feet and opened another window, searching through the list of weapons and armor he had placed into his life's work. "Subset bracers. Ember Celica... No match. Keyblade subset? I know I didn't put that in. Square wouldn't give me the rights to put even one in the entire game! Not with Kingdom Hearts 3 coming out next year, 2023. Probably."
Kayaba's frown deepened before he shut the window and moved through the files until he found what he was looking for, an old file that formed the source code framework for SAO from the ground up. The World Seed was still there, with no signs of tampering or having been copied at all. He did another more in depth check, but again there was no example of meddling. Kayaba sat down and scratched his chin, growing ever more confused. This... It... How the hell could this happen? The game was built to have rules! True, they were buggy, odd, broken rules that would occasionally frag themselves and turn someone's skin inside out, but they were rules. Weapons that did not exist in his game appearing so soon after those... monsters that had never existed in his game? If he believed any kind of higher power cared about his game he'd say that it almost seemed planned instead of coincidence. Well, maybe the Devil cared about his game. After all it had killed so many people.
Kayaba leaned back in his chair, briefly wondering what he should do. He could kick them out of the game, but that would probably kill these two attractive twenty-somethings. Of course, anyone stupid enough to make it into the game already known worldwide for killing anyone who failed its roguelike rules was probably stupid enough to die somewhere down the road. If he did it now, all he'd be doing is saving time. His fingers slowly lowered to the keyboard, typing in the commands that would be needed to give the two a death more merciful than Sheeptar the Sheep King would give them.
As he reached the end of the sequence, however, he stopped. Something told him it would be better if he did something else. He paused his prior work and began to bring up a video rendering of what the two kids were doing in his game.
The two – blondes, of course – were fighting alongside other players in the game, destroying goblins in a small forest with a miniboss that would require some good cannon fodder. The kid with the Keyblade, Jaune, was slashing through monsters beside... Kirito? They both looked incredibly annoyed with each others' company, leaving Kayaba wondering which person was at fault for that. Elsewhere in the forest, but not too far off, Yang was smashing goblins with her bare hands beside a rapier wielding girl in a cloak. The girl in the hood was pretty good at the fighting itself, but kept freaking out whenever anything happened in the game, as if she didn't understand the core concepts of a video game, much less the mountain of algorithms he'd created.
Kayaba bit his cheek. If they killed any more of these things, they'd activate the mini boss he'd created for that region. Well, if it still existed. Those monsters had begun replacing his encoded enemies, minibosses more than others. He had toured a few of the higher level floors and found almost half of his minbosses deleted and replaced by the creatures. Thankfully, his security on the Boss rooms had kept any of them from being altered so far, but he didn't expect that to keep. He'd have to upgrade security on everything, especially the boss rooms. If one of those got replaced with whatever those things were, he'd probably end up seeing the entire population of the game die after a few seconds. Whatever these glitches were, that would only make it worse – every player killed by one of those creatures created another monster. Which meant more deaths, more monsters, etcetera, etcetera, on and on. He'd spent the last week working on a permanent patch that would create a skill so they could identify these things' levels on sight. He was having a little bit of trouble.
The miniboss triggered. Kayaba sighed and brought up a visual on that creature, soon finding that this miniboss had, indeed, been one of those replaced with the monsters he hadn't coded. The '?' symbol appeared instead of a level indicator beside a large health bar. The creature had a large shield with a dog head on it and was dressed in silvery armor. It looked nothing like the goblin lord he'd created and more like one of the Heartless from Square's old game.
Welp, four more to the dead pile. Unless they weren't as stupid as they looked. "Fly you fools," Kayaba muttered at the screen, knowing they wouldn't. The creature began to lumber through the forest, towards the two boys. He sat back n his chair; maybe they would at least give him a show.
S M H S
Morrigan watched from her perch within the trees as her Weakness and another girl raised their weapons again. "Did you hear that?" the other girl asked, the danger having sharpened her usually confused nature into a focused edge. Morrigan shifted her feet and shut her eyes to listen to the creature approaching in the darkness. She recognized its gait, a Heartless she had encountered in the past.
Her eyes slid open and refocused on the two young women. She dashed across the clearing after them, landing silently in another tree. The two young women had entered the path of the creature, though they had yet to encounter it. It was only a matter of time, of course, especially with the direction they were moving. Morrigan jumped to another tree, then another, moving silently until she had found what she was looking for. The two boys were glaring at one another, obviously having found their personalities at odds with one another. "Wow, your sword skills are almost as underwhelming as your intelligence," the one with the dark hair said with a smirk.
Jaune snarled and shot back, "And your jokes are nowhere near as insulting as your shrill voice, Kirito."
"O-oh, some attitude, eh?" Kirito asked, actually impressed by this turn of events. "Keep working and in a few years you might be able to insult a depressed, five year old girl."
"A few years? So, you'll still have the voice of a depressed, five year old girl. Maybe you'll be the one I insult," Jaune cut back with a snarl.
Kirito stopped moving, his right eye twitching. "I... You... What?" His hand drifted up to the sword strapped across his back and a maniacal, broken laugh began to echo from his mouth through the forest. "I'm gonna kill you for that one..."
"Look, it didn't even take me years to insult a depressed, five year old girl!" Jaune growled, summoning the Keyblade to his hand. He wasn't going to just sit there and let this squeaky voiced jerk treat him like garbage. Jaune's friends could make jokes because he deserved it from them – not that any except Yang ever would – but not from this Kirito idiot.
"I'll kill -"
The two turned, broken out of their mutual hatred by the sound of an explosion echoing from deeper in the forest. A loud roar followed. "That's where the girls were," Jaune muttered before taking off.
"Hey, you're charging towards the monster noise? You're dumber than I thought!" Kirito snapped. He had decided not to budge; he wasn't going to die for these idiots. Yeah, then... He sighed, realizing that if they died he didn't have a party for the Floor Boss. "And apparently, so am I." He sprinted after Jaune and drew his sword, silently cursing the fact he had to take care of three idiots for his own benefit.
Morrigan followed in the trees.
Jaune rounded a tree a few moments later, the roar having come from a different location this time. As soon as he entered the clearing, however, he was hit by something large and incredibly yellow. He slammed into a tree with his new passenger and groaned in pain. "Yang, get off of me," Jaune groaned from beneath the brawler.
"Jaune? Good, I was wondering when you'd get here," she said with a grin. She pushed herself off of him and ruffled his hair. "You don't need to try that hard to get close to me."
"Yang, what's happening here?" Jaune asked, electing to ignore her smirk. He pushed himself up and looked past her to see Asuna deftly dodging the massive shield slamming into the ground. She spun around a fireball that came at her next and stabbed forward, only for the attack to bounce off of the shield. "A Defender Heartless?"
"Oh crap, it's one of the Question Mark things," Kirito muttered as he came into the clearing as well. It – Kirito froze as the Keyblade glowed slightly and the Defender glowed to match. The '?' insignia glitched out for a moment before quickly turning into a '5.' "How – I – What the hell is going on?"
"Level 5? We'll be able to take this guy down easy," Yang said, slamming her fists together.
"These minibosses have killed groups of ten before! What chance do I have?" Kirito asked desperately. He raised his sword in front of him defensively.
Asuna's chin turned towards him. "You mean we, right?"
"No, me. Me and the three people I have to keep alive for some reason!" Kirito snapped back in a combination of annoyance and anger.
Jaune narrowed his eyes on the creature, and it too turned to look at him. The Defender ponderously began to move towards him, drawn to both the Keyblade and the Darkness in his Heart. Jaune froze up at the yellow, burning eyes in the face upon the shield. It was drawn to him. "Hey, Vomit Boy, snap out of it." Jaune turned in surprise to look at Yang, who was glaring down at him with an annoyed look on her face. She growled out, "You need to remember something important, Vomit boy: you're the plan guy, I'm the punching girl. Work on the plan!"
Kirito opened his mouth to say something mocking, but was cut off by a glare from Yang. "Right, no jokes. Got it," he muttered. Asuna began to stifle mocking laughter at his fear of Yang.
Jaune thought for a moment. This world's Heartless seemed to have weird, video game style rules to them. Before he'd gotten there, Yang had been having trouble with the Heartless. He was willing to bet that his arrival – or the Keyblade, really, had led to a change in that; now it was the same level as they were, according to the status indicators in the top left of his vision. He guessed this meant they could take it out now. "It's coming after me."
"Why?" Asuna inquired.
"That's not how aggro works!" Kirito agreed.
Jaune ignored them. It would take too long to explain, and Sora and Ozpin wouldn't want him blabbing to everyone about the other worlds. "So I'll distract it while you all you get behind the shield and -"
"Punch the crap out of it," Yang finished. She smiled at Jaune. "You plan and I punch – gotta love a team that just fits, right?" Then she ran off with Asuna and Kirito, the Heartless turning to follow the movement.
"Oh no you don't," Jaune growled. He surged to his feet and charged the Heartless, chanting inwardly, Don't screw up, don't screw up, don't...
He slammed his Keyblade into the deceptively fast creature's shield, a reflect wall appearing that forced his weapon to rebound. Still, it did its job. The Heartless whirled back on Jaune and began to twirl the shield, summoning a fireball that flew out at Jaune. He raised the Keyblade to block it and the fire dispersed in the air. Jaune lowered the Keyblade to move in for an attack, only for the shield to smash forward into his chest. He flipped through the air and hit the ground hard, forcing himself to roll to his feet as he slid back. He ran forward as soon as he stopped sliding and rushed the monster. He sidestepped a fireball and locked his Keyblade into the maw of the shield, locking it in place. "Yang, why are you all moving so slow!?"
"What, you can't handle it for five seconds?" Yang flew out of the trees, trailing fire. Her fist slammed into the small of the Defender's back, the force running up its body and into the arm holding the shield. The arm buckled, giving Jaune enough time to throw it to the outside of the creature's body and throw it further off balance.
Next, Kirito and Asuna ran up. Kirito's blade flashed blue and slashed upward through the creature as he passed it from behind. Asuna flipped over it, the tip of her rapier turning a bright green and stabbing through the head of the Defender a dozen times before she landed in front of it and dashed away, a cloud of dust forming at her feet. As she passed, Jaune dragged his Kingdom Key up through the dust. The teeth of the blade cracked the Defender's magical armor, leaving a large hole in the middle of its head. Asuna turned on a dime and sprinted back at the Heartless, jumping onto Jaune's shoulder and lashed out with the rapier. The green tip easily pierced the shadowy flesh of the creature and red shards began to float away from it. A blue flash came around and Kirito's sword moved beneath the rapier to decapitate the creature.
The Heartless stumbled backwards, smoke trailing from its body. Darkness began to rise upwards towards the sky until, eventually, there was nothing left. Kirito swung his blade to his right side and cleanly slid it into its scabbard on his back. "Wow, you earned some good boy points, Mr. Badass!" Asuna said dryly.
Kirito glared at their snickering faces and growled at the girl, "I'm learning that I hate you so much." He looked around at the others, ignoring the large XP bonus he had obtained for helping destroy the monster. "All of you."
"Feeling's mutual," Jaune hissed venomously, wisps of Darkness rising from his fist and going unnoticed by all in their group except Yang in the pitch of the forest. Her face darkened with worry at the tendrils of power and the enmity in the man's voice. "Trust me."
It did not go unnoticed by the one watching them, either. She could easily recall the power the blonde boy had held when his focus had been the Darkness. From what she had observed, however, it seemed that he was trying to stamp down that urge, that call of Darkness that echoed through his Heart. It had monumentally reduced his strength to do that, but that did not lessen the intensity of the Call. Morrigan could remember the call from her former life, and it was consuming. If Morrigan could feel anxiety, she might worry he would give in to that call during a fight. As it was, she could only recognize that he would not give into the call, not while her Weakness was present. That meant she would need to defeat him first, and then move to destroy her Weakness.
A plan made, Morrigan shut her eyes and disappeared into the shadows.