Disclaimer: I don't own Rick Riordan's works or Sword Art Online.
Warnings: angst, mentions of murder, attempted murder, etcetera
Note: Sorry, I tried to post this last night but the website was down.
Enjoy!
"Whoever's hiding out there, come out!" Kirito called, stopping Silica by putting a hand on her shoulder. "Now!"
A short moment later, a red-haired woman with short curly hair and fringe covering the right side of her face stepped out from behind a tree.
"Rosalia?" Silica asked quietly, surprised.
"If you saw through my hiding skill so easy, your detection skill must be really high, Swordsman." The woman said with a pretty smile, before glancing at Silica. "Ooh! It looks like you were successful getting your hands on the Pneuma Flower! Congratulations!"
Suddenly, her haze sharpened, and she sneered a bit. "Now hand it over before you get hurt."
"What are you talking about?" Silica asked, wide-eyed.
"No one's handing anything over, Rosalia." Kirito said calmly, and Rosalia was slightly nervous to see the darkness in his eyes as he stared at her. "Or the Orange Guild. Or should I say Titan's Hand? You're their leader, right?"
'She killed them.' Kirito thought, resisting the urge to reach for his sword, since Silica was right there. 'She's the reason Sachi and the other guys are dead.'
Rosalia paused slightly, halting in her advance as her eyes narrowed a bit more. "Nice."
"But Rosalia's cursor is green!" Silica told Kirito, glancing at the little green diamond shape above the older girl's head.
"It's an easy trick." Kirito explained. "The green members find their victims. Then they lure them straight to the orange players for the ambush."
He looked up sharply. "That was one of your pals eavesdropping on us last night at the inn, wasn't it?"
"Then…the reason you were in that party with me was to…" Silica's eyes widened in horror, realizing what had happened to the others in the party.
"How perceptive." Rosalia said, sly smile growing wider. "I was observing their strength, watching them earn all that beautiful money." She licked her lips greedily, and Silica hid behind Kirito. "You were who I was excited about, and I was so sad when you left the party, but then you told me you were getting a rare item!"
As she said this, she ran her hands against the shaft of her spear.
"What I want to know is if you knew about us, why did you bring her here?" she directed the question to Kirito. "Are you dumb? Or does she have you wrapped around her finger?"
"Nope. You're wrong both times." Kirito said. "See, I've been looking all over for you, Rosalia."
"What are you talking about?" Rosalia asked, dropping the flirtatious tone.
"Remember two weeks ago, when you and your guild killed the members of the Moonlit Black Cats guild?" Kirito asked, fists clenching slightly, enough for Silica to notice.
"Oh, those weaklings?" Rosalia huffed out a laugh. "They did have quite a bit of money saved up."
Kirito scowled heavily. "Well, the thing about committing murder is that you should probably make sure that your victims don't have friends in high places…"
The redhead frowned in confusion. "Meaning?"
Kirito glared at her harshly, causing both female's eyes to widen.
"I was a member of that guild…" Kirito said quietly. "I didn't appreciate my friends being killed!"
He tried to ignore the guilt eating away at him. If only he hadn't left, maybe Rosalia wouldn't have targeted them.
But then she would've picked other victims.
Speaking of which.
"Remember ten days ago?" Kirito continued. "You attacked a guild called the Silver Flags? The leader survived. Four didn't."
"Oh!" Rosalia murmured, twirling her hair a bit. "The losers with no money."
"Their leader went back and forth, from the Warp Point to the Front Lines, morning 'til night, and with tears in his eyes he begged everyone he met to avenge his dead friends. But he didn't want you killed—no, he wanted you to go to prison! Do you have any idea how he felt?"
Because Kirito did.
"Can't say I do." Rosalia said airily, shifting her stance and placing a hand on her hip. "Only idiots take this seriously. So what if we kill someone in here? There's no proof dying here means you're dead IRL. Anyway, it's time you started worrying about yourselves…"
Rosalia snapped her fingers, and a moment later a group of men armed with spears and swords stepped out from the trees they'd been hiding behind.
Not that Kirito was surprised. They were even less adept at hiding than Rosalia had been. Silica, on the other hand, wasn't expecting them, and stepped back slightly.
Silica glanced at the orange diamonds. "Kirito, there's too many of them, we should get out of here!"
"No, it's okay, you'll be safe if you stay here." Kirito assured the fourteen year old, patting her on the head. "Keep the crystal handy until I say so."
"O-okay, but—" Silica reached into her pouch for the transportation crystal and turned back, only to see Kirito walking towards the group. "Kirito!"
"Kirito?!" one of the men shouted in alarm, staring at the teen's imposing figure, sword drawn.
"Dressed in black. One-handed. No shield. Holy crap, it's the Black Swordsman!" one of the men gasped.
"Rosalia, that guy!" another said, turning to the woman. "That guy! He's the Beater who plays solo at the front lines! He's with the Assault Team!"
"No way, he is?" Silica wondered, eyes widening a bit.
"Why would someone from the Assault Team be all the way down here?" Rosalia argued. "Go on! Take him out! And take everything he owns!"
With that, the men readied their swords, the weapons glowing in preparation for use.
"Die!" one of them shouted as the group lunged forward to attack.
Kirito didn't move, even as red lines appeared all over his body from the attacks.
Rosalia chuckled.
Silica grabbed her sword, ready to pull it out of its sheath. "I've got to save him! He won't last!"
But then she noticed something strange…
The men were doing damage to Kirito's health bar, yes, but…every few seconds Kirito would gain a bit more health, regaining what he lost.
"What's going on?" she whimpered as the group suddenly stopped attacking, panting for breath, though they still surrounded the older teen.
"What the hell you idiots?!" Rosalia yelled angrily. "Kill him already!"
Kirito smiled for the first time during their confrontation, before commenting on how much damage the seven men had managed to do.
"I'm level 78. I've got 14,500 HP. My battle-healing skill regenerates 600 HP every ten seconds. We could stand here all day and you wouldn't get anywhere." He said a bit smugly.
"That's not possible!"
"Wanna bet?" Kirito demanded, turning his head towards the man. "If your numbers are high enough you're invincible. MMO's that use leveling systems are unfair that way."
He pulled out a blue transportatioin crystal. "My client spent his entire savings on this crystal, and he'll get his money's worth! It's set to the coordinates of the Black Iron Prison. And I'm sending all of you bastards there!"
He didn't mention that he had reimbursed his 'client' for the crystal, paying for it himself and assuring the bewildered man that he had been searching for Titan's Hand and the information was payment enough.
Rosalia pointed her spear in his direction. "Well I'm green, and if you hurt me you'll go orange and-!"
She stopped as Kirito's sword was suddenly at her throat.
No one had even seen him move.
"I'm a solo-player, got it?" Kirito asked, glaring darkly at the redhead. "I don't care if I have to play as orange for a couple of days."
Rosalia lowered, and then dropped her spear as Silica looked in awe at Kirito.
Later that night, after Kirito had said his goodbyes to Silica and apologized for using her as bait, he found himself in a bar in one of the upper floors sitting next to Nyx.
"Long day?" Nico asked, dark brown eyes concerned for his obviously troubled friend.
Kirito sighed. "Yeah, you could say that."
Nyx didn't push, which oddly enough seemed to relax Kirito enough for him to open up a bit.
"I found Titan's Hand." He said eventually, nursing the simulated beer in his hands. Underage or not, he wished that he could feel the effects of the drink. "They're in prison."
"How are you feeling now?" Nyx asked carefully, understanding that such a delicate situation could bring mixed emotions.
He kind of considered himself a master of mixed emotions.
Kirito frowned a bit. "I'm glad that they can't hurt anybody else."
"And?" the Son of Hades urged, knowing that Kirito needed to talk about it to someone.
It would probably have been better to wait a day or two to let him absorb it, but he knew Kirito well enough to know that he wouldn't seek help.
Kirito clenched his fists, holding in a sob. "I…I wanted to kill her."
"That's normal." Nico assured him immediately. "She took away someone you cared about."
"But I'm not a murderer!" Kirito said, sounding slightly desperate as he stared into Nyx's eyes, trying to reassure himself of that fact.
In response, Nico slapped him upside the head. Not that it would hurt, being trapped in a game and all, but to get the slightly older teen's attention.
"Get that out of your head right now." The demigod, who was more than familiar with killing people in self-defense, said firmly.
Kirito blinked at his friend in surprise.
"Killing in self-defense or in the defense of others isn't wrong, Kirito." Nico said, eyes softening slightly. "What if Rosalia tried to run away, and the only way you could've stopped her was to kill her, and instead of doing so you hesitated? She would've escaped, and yeah, she might've laid low for a bit, but she would have found more cronies and gone right back to killing off the other players. If you have to choose between the life of a murderer and those who would become their victims, the choice is obvious."
The Black Swordsman couldn't bring himself to speak.
"So even if you had killed her, you wouldn't have been doing the wrong thing." Nyx continued. "And you didn't anyway, so why are you beating yourself up over it?"
"Because I wanted to—" Kirito tried.
"Again, a completely normal emotion in that situation." Nyx cut him off. "Trust me. I know that from experience. Though some would argue that I don't exactly embody the term 'normal,' you get what I mean. But seriously. No one who's been in that kind of situation would judge you for it."
Kirito huffed a slightly broken sounding laugh. "You know, people have asked me if we're brothers."
Nico blinked at the sudden change of topic, before raising an eyebrow. "The difference in ethnicity isn't enough of an answer?"
Kirito shrugged at that. "Who knows? But I think this answers which one of us would be the wiser one."
And with that, he stood up and began walking towards the door, before calling over his shoulder. "I'm still older! And taller!"
"And more annoying!" Nico called back, ignoring the amused laughs from the players around them.
Kirito smirked slightly, eyes still swimming with emotions but looking more at peace with himself, before he disappeared into the night.
Please review! :)
Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't updated this story in a while, I've been feeling very lazy lately, as well as absorbed in the Naruto fandom.
I was trying to figure out how I should play this. Have Kirito kill her? Almost kill her and have Nico stop him before he actually does it? Have her get away only for him to have to hunt her down again?
No.
I chose to do it this way because a) I want to stick fairly close to canon at this point and the dialogue and the interaction between Rosalia and Kirito is directly from the English dub, b) because I don't think Sachi and the boys would want Kirito to become a murderer for their sake, and c) later on in the series Kirito feels guilty enough for various things he did in SAO and I didn't want to give him more to angst about. Oh, and I didn't want Silica's little crush on Kirito to end before it really started. :P