Kirito watched passively as the rain fell in slow motion. The looks of fear… he'd seen them before, at the same time the police had come in to find an 8 year old boy holding a bloody knife surrounded by 3 bodies. It was in self-defense of course, they had kidnapped him after all and they had planned to kill him to send a message to some of the others they had taken. He imagined he'd had the same haunted face that he was probably sporting now. It had been three months after that before he began speaking again, even longer till he had gotten back a sense of normality.

The reality is that he had never truly recovered, his addiction to kendo proved that. He had trained and trained until he was viewed as the most talented prodigy at kendo in the world, defeating people three times his age with unparalleled ease. It had been around this time when he had mastered his ability. To the best he could explain it was essentially a reroute of several parts of his brain. He of course did not know if this should be possible but he wasn't going to risk being put in a padded cell to find out.

When he used it his emotions were stunted, he didn't sweat, or even feel pain. It was as if his mind shut down everything non-essential to fighting in order to give him a massive boost to his reflexes and coordination. He was the world's most skilled kendo prodigy without it, with it; he was almost unstoppable, within reason of course. He had once been forced to use it when he was almost mugged by a small gang when he was 10, there were 9 of them. Not a single one had been conscious by the time he was finished.

All these thoughts passed through the back of his mind as he stared down the Pkers. The range of emotions they showed was rather small being limited to shock and fear mostly. As for his guild mates, there was a larger range of emotions, he could see bits of fear in some of their eyes. Others were filled with worry, guilt, awe, and some held a mixture of emotions, seemingly contradicting each other. His eyes turned to face the only cactus in the general vicinity.

Said cactus brained mass murdering jackass had fear rolling off him in waves. When Kirito stared directly into his eyes he flinched taking a step back.

-POV switch-

His heart had nearly stopped when the brat had looked right at him. This brat… no this monster, for any child who could kill 2 men in less than as many minutes without a shred of hesitation or even emotion surely couldn't be human. Hell he couldn't even see his eyes just a sense of foreboding as he stared at the shadow that covered the top half of Kirito's face. He subconsciously took a step back watching with choking fear as the black haired boy spoke again.

"The Knights of the blood should arrive here soon with the rest of the guilds" Kirito stated "you have no chance of victory."

The resident cactus paused I idea popping up in his head. "One brat" he said "that's all that stands between us and freedom." He continued his voice growing more stable "none of the rest of these cowards have the ability to kill any of you." He said as the eyes of some of the Pkers widened at his implications.

Smirking slightly he continued "he might be able to beat five of us in a straight up fight but what about 10? 20? Do you really think he stands a chance against nearly 100 people?" Kibaou yelled "as for the alternative, well we could always rot in some prison dungeon for a few years till the games cleared, and then what? We go to jail for the rest of our lives?" he continued as the pkers morale began to recover. "A single child, probably not even old enough to drive is all that blocks our way!"

-General Pov-

A cheer of determination broke out from the pkers as they prepared to charge. A second before the pkers were about to charge a neutral broke through their veil of confidence.

"The first 7" Kirito spoke calmly

"What are you-?" Kibaou began.

"The first 7 of you to charge will die." Kirito spoke again, calmly as if merely stating a well-known fact. "It doesn't matter if you retreat afterwards, if you surrender or even if your rendered unable to fight, I will kill you. If you attack, I will kill you, if you encourage others to attack, I will kill you, if you try to run past me, I will kill you, if you do anything other than stand still or surrender, I will kill you." Kirito spoke without missing a beat.

Just as he finished speaking there was a flash as lightning struck somewhere nearby and for a second the light illuminated his eyes allowing the people nearest to him, namely the pkers, a short momentary view of his face. In that moment the morale spike Kibaou had just worked to inspired was negated and the morale of the pkers went even further down then before.

Kibaou especially paled 'it's like looking at death itself' he though fearfully. 'Those empty eyes, promising death.' He shivered 'what the hell is this kid'.

Gathering the last of his faltering courage Kibaou prepared to start a charge against the black haired youth but fortunately (or unfortunately) before he could open his mouth a small group of pkers let out a battle cry and charged. Kibaou blinked watching the 11 men as they charged towards the black garbed swordsman. He could see the rest of his army about to charge as well, Kibaou would later realized that if he had spoken up it would mostly like have resulted in his death.

Later of course being in the next ten seconds when the 11 pkers who had charged reached Kirito, and were promptly torn to bits. Kirito moved forward in a blur slicing and stabbing with surgical precision. Within 30 seconds 4 of the 11 pkers were dead; of the rest, not a single one had a health bar higher than 60%. Kirito, on the other hand was still at a comfortable 96% which was only rising as his battle healing skill kicked in.

Moving rapidly Kirito unleashed a horizontal sword skill slicing 3 more pkers into oblivion. At this the remaining 4 pkers broke formation and ran, as for Kirito, he just stood there impassive.

"As I said, the first seven to attack will die." He said coldly "surrender or I will kill you." He spoke again.

And it was there, amid the clashing thunder and arcing lightning that a sound that was audible against all odds was heard across the entire battlefield; The sound of a single weapon clattering to the ground. And with that single sound it was if a dam had broken, weapons clattered to the ground left and right as all the pkers remaining courage fled them. A minute later there was only one pker still clutching his weapon, none other than Kibaou himself. Kirito turned looking him right in the eye, and with distinct finality the sound of one final weapon crashing to the ground was heard across the field.

-Pov change-

Sinon just stared, watching as more than 90 grown men surrendered to a single teenager. You might argue that there was a group of 60 battle ready fighters nearby supporting said teenager but really you'd be wrong. The fact was that all 60 of them had done less over the course of the last hour than Kirito had done in the last 3 minutes.

An especially loud bolt of lighten shook Sinon out of her stupor for a second "Well what are you waiting for? Start using the prison crystals!" she yelled breaking the rest of the black marks members out of their stupor and into action.

It was of course at this moment that the reinforcements from the KOB and the other guilds in arrived to the stunning sight of a youth garbed in black surrounded by nearly more than a dozen abandoned swords and every single pker that was still alive in the canyon staring at said youth in absolute fear.

-Pov change-

I stared at the pkers; and they stared right back. The looks of fear, yes I've seen them before; far too many times already. I watch passively as my guild mates began tossing prison teleport crystals left and right. In less than a minute the entire assembly of pkers was gone; Vanished into nothing but pixels and light as they were teleported to the dungeons.

I took a step forward towards the gate as I felt time begin to speed up. It was gradual though and time was still moving as if through molasses when I arrived at the gates to the mansion. I saw Sinon out of the corner of looking at me slightly afraid but above that, concerned.

"Can I leave the cleanup to you?" I asked my voice sounding less dead and more tired than it had but seconds earlier.

Sinon blinked before speaking in a reassuring manor "Of course Kirito" she said before her expression morphed into one of concern "but are you alright?"

"I-" I began before sighing "I need to go rest a bit okay?" I said tiredly deliberately ignoring the question walking off towards the mansion.

I climbed the stairs as quickly as I could as intense tiredness began to cloud my mind. This was one of the largest flaws of my ability, the other being the carelessness that comes with a lack of pain. With many of my bodies' non-life sustaining functions shutdown my body rapidly reached a state of chemical imbalance similar to what happens when you go too long without sleep. To the point that when I had it activated every minute is the equivalent of staying up for 3 hours.

I had sustained it for around 10 minutes, that's the equivalent of 30 hours added to the fact that I had already been up for around 12 more and I had essentially not slept for the last 42 hours. The human body can remain awake for around 5 days before it becomes fatal. This means that I can use my ability for at most 40 minutes from a point where I was fully rested. Although staying up even for that amount would likely result in my death, or at least cause me to enter a coma.

I reached my room and slammed the door behind me locking it. Repressed emotions from my battle surged through my mind as I fought the urge to be sick. Opening my inventory I lay on my bed before pulling out a potion. Without hesitation I uncapped it and without another thought drank the entire thing. My vision began to blur and twist as the sleeping potion kicked in whisking me away from my pain and guilt, and above all, from my fear and self-disgust.

(A/N well there we go chapter 17, in the next few chapters its probably gonna be a bit mopey as the other members of the Black mark get over what happened and work together to try and get their now chronically depressed leader out of the dumps. Will they succeed? Or will Kirito spend the rest of his life with a prescription for Cymbalta? Find out next time in the next installment which hopefully won't be months from now.)