I have some bad news for you all, but I'll wait until the end of the chapter to tell you. Here's the chapter I've been putting off, tying to break the 2k words mark, and failing miserably. I can only apologize for this, and the news. Without further ado, here's the chapter.
(Line Break)
Chapter 2 - The aftermath of Kayaba's Announcement
"If you open your inventory, I've left you a gift." Kayaba's voice boomed out over the speechless crowd.
At this point, the area had gone silent for a second or two, then the chiming of the menu being accessed could be heard. When each player checked their inventory, they found an item called «Mirror» in their Items Tab. When they withdrew them, making them into a "physical" item, the area around them lit up. As the light died down, it revealed each player's original form - original being the body they were born with, not their generic Avatar before they had tweaked them. People started freaking out. Some with female avatars became crossdressing males, some male avatars became pretty females, some skinny avatars became large, heavy-set players, and tall avatars became short- err, vertically challenged- players.
"This concludes the tutorial. Good luck, Players of Sword Art Online." Kayaba's Avatar melted.
Then, pandemonium broke out.
Silica had started crying, while in contrast Naruto was deadly calm. A certain Swordsman ran towards an exit, only to be stopped on the way by a red-wearing wannabe-Samurai. The rest of the players were mentally breaking down. It was chaos at it's worst.
Naruto snapped out of his calm thinking process and grabbed Silica's hand. "Come on, we have to go. If we want to get out of this game, we need to be strong enough to help those fighting bosses. So be strong for me, Silica-chan, and I'll be strong for you. We'll make it out of this together, that's a promise!"
Silica blushed while her light crying tapered to a halt. He was so strong, mentally, compared to her. "O-okay. Together."
"Let's go kill some boars. Maybe we can get some awesome materials from mob drops if we explore this floor. Who knows, we might even get enough to buy a house, or at least rent one. I don't know about you, but I don't trust inns. They may be locked safe zones, but too many shady things can happen there." Naruto started walking a pace that the now slightly shorter Silica could follow at.
(Line Break goes here)
As the weeks passed, much went on in the life of Kirigaya 'Kirito' Kazuto. First was getting stuck in this "Death Game". Next was nearly getting MPKed by Coper. At least he got something out of it, besides a newly formed mistrust of some of the other players. After that, he'd met someone who was acting suicidal in the dungeon, who he promptly dragged out when they'd fainted. Last, but certainly not least, he met Uzumaki 'Kurama or Naruto, take your pick' Naruto, and his slightly younger friend, 'Silica', whose real name he hasn't asked about and had not been given. That was a somewhat amusing encounter.
But now, he was at the Boss Raid Meeting, set up by a person calling himself 'Diabel', which was somewhat a diabolical name, or so Naruto said. Kirito just thought that joke fell flat.
"Okay, let's start this meeting! My name is Diabel, and I like to think my Class is a Knight!" At this statement, Diabel got some ribbing from the other players, saying that there was no class system in this game. "In all seriousness, now, my party recently came across the Boss Room in the Labyrinth. This meeting is to set up Parties for the Boss Raid. Please party up with at least 6 members to a party."
As he finished speaking, five Players from the crowd stood up and joined him on stage, and while there was no indication that they were grouped in a party, it was safe to assume they were Diabel's teammates for the upcoming battle. The seriousness of the meeting gave way to a nervous sense of comradery as people began just talking and joking with each other, finding who they were compatible with and who they weren't, and sending party invites accordingly. Kirito looked around and noticed that only he, Naruto, Silica, and one other figure, wrapped in a cloak, were not partied up. Taking the initiative, Kirito walked up to the cloaked figure, with Naruto and Silica following behind at a distance. They didn't want to make the figure think they were pressuring her, after all.
"Hey, are you alone?" Kirito asked.
"All the others are partied up." The figure said in a distant voice.
"Well, would you mind partying with me, and the two behind me?" Kirito opened his menu and sent the figure a party request.
The figure thought about it and nodded, accepting the party invitation sent her way.
"Great, welcome to the group." Naruto told her. "My name, in-game at least, is Kurama, but if you want you can call me Naruto. It's nice to meet you."
"Hi, I'm Silica. I'd also like to welcome you to the party. Welcome, Asuna-san."
At hearing her name, Asuna stiffened. "How do you know my name?" She asked.
Kirito was the one to answer. "Well, if you look diagonally upwards, without turning your head in that direction, you'll see your Health bar. Underneath that, you'll see our names as well as our current health."
"Oh! So that's where my Health is!"
At those words, everyone besides Asuna had to resist the urge to palm their faces.
"Before we move on to strategies, I have one thing to say to certain people out there." A cactus-esque haired man spoke. He moved to join Diabel's party on the stage, and faced the crowd. "All the beta players out there should give up the Col and rare items that they gathered, as restitution for those who have died. They might not have died if those damned Beta Players had stuck around and helped out!"
After this was said, an almost literal giant of a man stood up.
"What is your name?" the giant dark skinned man spoke.
"It's Kibaou."
"I'm Agil. Kibaou, you mentioned that the beta players, who may or may not be here, should give up their Col and rare items, correct?"
Kibaou nodded.
"Well," and at this point, Agil pulled a little brown book with a marking that looked like a rat from… Somewhere, and said, "Did you receive this guide book from the item store NPC?"
Kibaou nodded again, though he looked somewhat nervous.
"This book contains knowledge that the beta testers had put together, and it was the measly price of free at the item store I mentioned earlier. If the beta testers did this for the regular players, and yet some still died, why should they have to give up their items and Col?"
At this Kibaou promptly shut up and sat down.
"Now that we've got that over with, it's on to the strategy portion of the meeting. According to the Information Guide that was just put out, the boss of this floor is known as 'Illfang the Kobold Lord', and it uses a battle axe and a buckler. When it's HP is taken down to the last bar, it switches weapons to a Talwar. Now, in order to have the best results, I'm going to give you at least 3 days to prepare, be that by grinding, or by preparing items for the fight, or even trying to figure out a strategy based off the Guide's information."
(Line Break)
Okay, here's the bad news that you've probably been dreading. I'm going to mark this story as complete, seeing as how I've lost all interest in it. I've had little to no motivation to complete the story, no notes as to what I wanted to do, beyond having Silica marry Naruto, then a lemon soon after, and then continue until the end of the first SAO novel. I was gonna stop it there, because not much is seen of Silica and the rest of the gang outside of side stories. I was also going to have Naruto get a ring custom made in SAO to complement the wedding ring that you get when you get married, and have it have, like, an additional +50 to defense, and a ludicrous amount of durability for the ring. Outside of all that, I was flying by the seat of my pants, which usually leads to me having no direction in the story, and then abandoning the story. I really do NOT like abandoning my stories, because I sometimes come across stories that are good, but haven't updated in forever. So I apologize profusely for doing this myself. But I've lost interest in writing, and I really only write when I have inspiration, which is why I have so many one-shots in my profile. Anyways, I'm sorry it had to come to this, but if anyone wants to pick this up, feel free, just give me a message to say that you want it. (Not that anyone will...) Anyways, That's all from me. I hope the rest of the day works out for you lot.
Edit: This is just because some anonymous ASS tried to review telling me to delete the story, I'm not deleting it, just in the off chance I get inspiration for it and decide "You know what, I'm gonna update that story." That is the only reason I don't delete any of my stories that aren't complete, but are marked as such.