ALfheim Offline

Chapter Two

"I need you to come to my house right now. It's an emergency." Kirito quietly read out. He responded to the message asking what was wrong. "Something weird happened. Just get over here now!" Kirito quickly logged out of the game leaving the rest of the group wondering just what exactly was going on. Lifting off his Amusphere, he quickly darted out of his room. Kirito ran outside to his motorcycle and jumped on hitting the gas as soon as he could and disappearing over the horizon. Thoughts of everything that had happened so far rushed through his mind. He couldn't stop imagining the possibilities of what could be happening. He reached Sinon's apartment building and leaped off of his bike, rushing towards the doors. He made his was towards the elevator eagerly and nervously waiting to meet Sinon and find out about this madness. His heart raced as he ran down the hallway towards her room. He knocked loudly on the door.

"Sinon! Are you okay?" Kirito shouted. The door creaked open. A scared looking Shino Asada appeared before Kirito. Her skin was pale. She looked as if she had just seen a ghost. She motioned Kirito inside of her apartment. The two sat down facing each other.

"Sinon. What happened?" Kirito questioned trying to keep the shaken young girl as well as himself calm. Sinon didn't respond. "Sinon. I just want to help. Everyone was worried. We're just wondering what happened."

"I….I don't know..." Sinon murmured. "J-just look." She began to lift the bottom of her shirt revealing a scar across her abdomen. Kirito's eyes widened as he stared at the gash.

"Wh...when and how did this happen?"

"...it happened when I lost the duel..." Thoughts of possibilities raced through Kirito's mind.

"W-what?!" Kirito exclaimed. "But how?!"

"I don't know." She appeared to be calming down. "I think I can piece together something out of this though." Sinon gathered her thoughts together and began to recount what might have happened. "Okay. The guy I was dueling defeated me with a sword blow to my mid-section, but the thing is something about it wasn't normal. In ALO, you can't feel large amounts of pain if any pain at all, but when I got hit…. It felt like it actually happened."

"So that's why it looked like you were hurt."

"I guess so….well then my Amusphere disconnected from the game. When I woke up I was still in pain. I looked for the source and found this scar….it..it was in the exact place where my opponent hit me." Her calm attitude disappeared after she finished her sentence. "Kirito…..I'm scared." she muttered. "I thought we were done with all of this. I thought we could just enjoy life after Shinkawa was arrested." A few tears ran down her cheeks. Kirito grasped her hand to comfort her.

"Listen. I know how your feeling right now." Kirito looked down at the ground trying to recount the gruesome memories of the game that nearly cost him his life. "When I first discovered the truth about SAO, I didn't want to believe it. I'm lucky I survived. All we know is that something isn't right here, and I promise you, we are going to get to the bottom of this." Sinon wiped away her tears and managed to regain her calm mindset.

"...T-thank you Kirito." She clenched her fist, stood up and began shouting. "If what's happening is what I think is happening… then I'm going to figure it out. Even if it's the last thing I do. There's no use in being weak and standing aside in a situation like this. If anything, doing that will only hold the team back. I'm going to fight this fight!" As those last words left her mouth she collapsed back into her chair clutching her scar.

"Sinon!" Kirito exclaimed. He looked around her room. "Do you have a first-aid kit? I think we should get that thing bandaged up."

"Y-yeah.. There sh-should be one on the wall near the door." Sinon weakly muttered. Kirito ran to the front door and grabbed the first-aid kit. He began to wrap a bandage around the young girl's injury.

"Listen Sinon, you need to rest. I'm gonna head back to ALO and meet with everyone. If you want you can join once you thing you're alright to. I'm not going to force you to do anything. If anything happens, let me now." Sinon nodded her head and went to go lay down. With that Kirito rushed back to the lobby and outside to ride his motorbike home. As he rode home, he tried to piece together what he had learned in his mind. What was happening wasn't normal. It couldn't be the Amusphere could it? No. It's not like the NerveGear. They deactivated any features that may affect the human body in a negative way. But what if it wasn't the developers who did this. Kirito was so focused in figuring out what was going on that he nearly missed an oncoming car. He finally made it home and rushed up to his room only to be stopped by Suguha.

"Hey Kazuto, is everything okay? What happened with Sinon?" she spouted.

"I'll explain that to you in game. We gotta meet up with everyone."

"Alright, I'll go log in." The two went to their rooms and put on their Amuspheres.

"This device….it has some of the same technology as the NerveGear...but could it really have some sort of effect on our actual bodies?" Kirito thought to himself as he lay on his bed. "We need to find the cause of all this. Before something worse happens." With that Kirito sent himself into ALO repeating the same words he always had. Even during the Aincrad days.

"Link start!"