The Hunter Chapter 4
The Manipulator
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, Sword Art Online and Naruto belong to their respective creators and I am just using that, illegally, without explicit permission. Sue me. The only things that are mine are the ideas that I introduce in this fic.
Random bit of info, someone asked me to try writing a Durarara/Naruto crossover. Knowing that Durarara seemed rather popular amongst many people even though I myself have never seen it, I decided to go and read the first volume of the light novels before watching episode 1 – 4 of the anime. After only a few moments of thinking, I concluded one thing.
If I ever write a Durarara/Naruto crossover, it would only be about 500 words long and consist of nothing but Naruto kicking Izaya off a cliff with some very big rocks or spikes at the bottom before shoving every single member of the cast into an asylum. I'm dead serious, with the exception of Celty, Anri and arguably Shizuo (this one should be on a monastery or on some lonely mountain), every single goddamn one of them belongs in a mental hospital under 24/7 observation.
Soundtrack List
Yuyu Matsushita – Trust Me
Final Fantasy XIII – Lightning's Theme
Otome Youkai Zakuro OST – Benibana no Otome Uta
Fort Minor – Remember the Name
****The Hunter****
Play Yuyu Matsushita – Trust Me
24th December 2022
"Oh my, a guild?" Naruto replied with a bit of humour.
Heathcliff nodded, "A guild. My purpose is to create a guild with the most talented people in SAO for the sole purpose of clearing Aincrad."
"I'm flattered. But I don't see a reason to join a guild. Especially not since I've made my intentions about being a soloer clear, besides I doubt you'll gain any recruits if you have people as infamous as us in the guild." He added sarcastically, referring to his staunch defence of Kirito shortly after the defeat of the first floor's boss and their subsequent isolation from normal players.
Heathcliff swiftly surveyed the people watching him and Joker with varying degrees of intensity, the man in red armour hadn't even noticed that his cup of juice had turned over in the excitement and was slowly staining his pants. Off to the side, a small girl in thick robes and a hood watched with gleaming eyes, waiting for delicious gossip like a piranha waited for flesh, while the giant of a dark skinned man looked on with a curious interest. The brown haired girl stood in a corner with a contemplating expression along with two pink haired ones, both of them watching him, one with childish interest, the other with a fearsome intensity. The only person who seemed not to be paying the conversation any attention was the black haired swordsman clad in a simple black shirt, staring at the wall and swirling his cup of juice with feigned disinterest.
"I think you'll find yourself mistaken about being infamous, as for why, I'm sure that you already know that we are already on the ninth floor. Within the next month or so, I am confident that we will reach the eleventh floor. Do you understand what I am implying?" Heathcliff replied with a steady smile. The pink haired girl beside him barely gave him and the blonde any attention, choosing instead to happily look around the cabin silently with bright amber eyes.
"That you are a beta tester as well." Naruto concluded easily, causing everyone to start slightly at how easy the phrase was uttered, "Almost everybody has had no problems with fighting normal mobs because their algorithms are known and predictable. After the tenth floor, no one will know anything, so they will have to inch forward, bit by bit for safety's sake and the exploration rate will slowly down drastically compared to the first ten floors."
Heathcliff slowly clapped with an admiring smile, "As expected of the White Archer. You don't miss much with those eyes. Though I would also like to add that once the eleventh floor is opened, there will no longer be any reason for beta testers to be discriminated against, because everybody will now be on an even keel; the new players will already have ten floors worth of MMORPG experience and the beta testers will no longer have the edge in knowledge. Anyone who says otherwise is simply trying to stir up trouble. That being said, since you already know the situation, it would only make sense to join a guild where you have support do you not think so?"
"That's good and all, but I still don't see a reason you want me to join, there are many others just as, if not more skilled than me. I will always be at the meeting anyway, and I have no problems soloing or going in a group with my friends which I happen to trust." He waved at the gathered group, causing most of them to grin and wave back confidently, "Egil, who I know will always have my back and then some. Kirito is a little sour but his far more dependable than he looks with his sword. Asuna is as sharp with her tongue as she is with her rapier, but there is no other person I would have by my side when I need some firepower. Argo is a little shifty and small, but when you need something done, there's no one better than her."
"Oi!"
"Oh yea, I have Kline too. He's the comedy relief." Naruto replied flatly, hiding a smile as Kline shook a fist at him from behind.
"OI!"
"Well, more than some random fellow of the street anyway, much less someone I know is going to leave me to die sooner or later." Kline actually began jumping up and down to show off his enthusiasm before Egil planted a fist atop his skull to stop the man child from embarrassing them any further.
"That's true. But relationships are built over time. You can't expect them to trust them, if you don't let them." Heathcliff replied reasonably, "Furthermore, to be honest, I want to create a place where people who want to learn how to use a bow can easily join us and learn directly from you."
"Learn how to use a bow?" Naruto arched an eyebrow before pointing at a grinning Argo, "I thought I already published the methods and exploits. I don't see why there is a reason for me to personally teach people. I myself wasn't exactly good with a bow to start with."
The pale man almost grinned, "Do you remember what you said when you left the boss clearing group after the first boss? You said, and I quote, 'It'll be there for you ungrateful idiots to copy, assuming any of you are skilled enough to use it anyway.'" Heathcliff paused with a half smile, "The keyword here, being skilled."
Naruto scratched the back of his head and wrinkled his nose, showing that he was thinking hard, in a way that most of the females in the room thought was adorable, "Skilled? I'm afraid I don't follow."
"Ahaha, you didn't know Baka-Ruto?"
"Know what?" a nonplussed Naruto glared at a laughing Argo.
She gasped and tried to compose herself, "O-Oh right, you and Ki-bou were stuck up that mountain so you wouldn't have seen it. Right after I published how your bow works, everyone, and I mean everyone from the clearing group, and then some, gathered in Urbus and tried to do it. The best anybody got was hitting a target, off centre, from 5 meters away. They finally gave up when that Kiba-yarou put a spear through his own head, I don't even want to know how he managed to shoot 180 degrees away from where he was aiming. He was lucky that they were at least smart enough to practice in the safety zone or we'd be less one person on the clearing front." She snorted, "No one has tried since." As soon as the memory of Kibaou's terrified and bulging eyes with a pointy spear lodged in his head returned to her, the small girl collapsed in gales of laughter again, causing the others to begin smiling and giggling as they imagined the same of the admittedly rather unpleasant person.
"As pleasant as that image is, you can now see why I wanted to ask for your help. You can see why having more people that can use archery would help us clear SAO faster do you not?" Heathcliff continued with a charming smile.
As Kirito and Asuna watched their blonde friend, they realized he was clearly getting manipulated into agreeing if the way he shifted his eyes or tapped the table nervously was any indication, Kirito felt a slight sting at the thought that he would go back to being completely alone again since Asuna was almost guaranteed to join if Naruto did. It was a simple no brainer question because of her limitations as a rapier user when it came to levelling alone, unless she could somehow work harder than both of them which was out of the question since he didn't want her to burn herself out. Would Naruto and Asuna leave the house then? It would only make sense since they would now have their own Headquarters... Kirito was so busy thinking that he had not noticed that the cup in his hand had actually been crumpled into a small ball that promptly disappeared the moment its durability ran out.
"Bu-but you'd have problems finding anybody willing enough to learn under me. As I mentioned before, I'm not exactly popular or well liked."
"Again, you'll find that that is not completely true. While is there some dissension about you for being one of the elites so to speak, the White Archer is well respected as one of the clearer's leaders alongside the Black Swordsman and the Flash. Think back to the last few Strategy Meetings. After Diabel's unfortunate passing on the first floor, no one dared to step up and be the leader that organized them until you or Kirito-san did for fear of falling to the same fate as Diabel. The fact that the fight with the second floor's boss went about as well as a train wreck without a proper leader did not inspire any others to do the same." Heathcliff pointed out with an almost smug smile.
****Third Floor Strategy Meeting****
"It's been one hour and all we've done is sit around looking like idiots." Kirito grumbled under his breath, "Like this it won't even matter if we found the boss room. All we're doing is standing around like idiots." And it was true; the entire Town Hall of the third floor that was being used as the Strategy Room was filled to the brim with uncomfortable looking people milling around. All of them were either staring at the walls or their shuffling feet in an attempt to avoid excessive eye contact, just in case they were chosen as the organizer.
Naruto grinned and nudged Kirito, pushing him forwards, causing him to stumble straight into the sights of everyone the room, "Since you're complaining about it, why don't you volunteer?"
The raven haired youth immediately scrambled back into the line with a muttered apology, "Screw you. I don't want to pull attention to myself." He hissed at the grinning blonde.
The grinning blonde held up a closed fist while a hooded Asuna who was standing behind the blonde slapped a palm to her forehead, "Alright, a gamble then. Jan Ken Pon. Loser has to be the leader. It's either that, or we stay here until we all die of old age instead of being killed by monsters."
Kirito grinned slightly in amusement, "Alright. You're on, I'm confident about my reflexes you know."
"Jan..."
"Ken..."
"PON!"
Naruto stared at his rock that had lost to Kirito's paper in chagrin, "That's not fair! You cheated, I saw you coming out with a scissors, and you changed halfway! That was cheating."
Kirito gave him a dry look, "I don't want to hear about cheating from someone like you. Besides, my reflexes won't lose to you, yea know." He coughed uncomfortably as he glanced around at the room full of people that were looking at them sourly for being so cheerfully loud despite the gloomy atmosphere, "By the way... Don't you think you should start organizing things, Loser-san?"
Naruto grumbled some rather unsavoury adjectives about Kirito as he stepped forward and climbed up on the stage specially prepared for the unfortunate leader.
Sighing, he gathered his guts and clapped loudly, gaining the attention of everyone in the room, "Alright, enough looking like a bunch of drowned rats." A few people broke out in wry chuckles, "Let's start by organizing ourselves into groups and finding out who we have available for the boss fight." He gestured to both sides of the large room that barely managed to contain nearly 100 players, "Tanks on one side, Sweepers on the other." Without question, everybody began shuffling to each side of the room, recognizing their own roles, Tanks being the ones that specialized in hate keeping skills that usually came with the heavy weapon classes as they were levelled up. Although their damage output wasn't as spectacular as the Sweepers on the other side of the room, their Hate skills allowed them to keep the boss' attention on themselves, absorbing whatever punishment that was dealt out to them, allowing the Sweepers to slowly whittle away at the boss' health without fear.
He himself got down and went to the side of the Tanks when he realized everyone was staring at him as if he was doing something particularly stupid. Then again, that wasn't that rare an occurrence.
"What?" he asked blankly.
"Why are you over there?" someone called out.
"Huh? I'm using a spear, I'm wearing heavy armour, that means I'm a Tank doesn't it? Where else am I supposed to go?" the blonde asked in confusion as he tapped the heavy plate mail on his chest.
Three seconds later, Naruto found himself completely stripped and standing alone in the middle of the room with nothing but an open jaw and a pair of orange briefs to protect his decency, "WHY?!" he covered his front with a red face, "I call foul! This is discrimination! It's freaking December you know!? I can feel a goddamn breeze in places that shouldn't even have one!"
Asuna, some of the females in the room and a few males began spurting blood thanks to the animesque facial recognition system that exaggerated their expressions.
"Just shut up and shoot!" was the overwhelming response by nearly everybody in the room.
****Fourth Floor Strategy Meeting****
Asuna lost the Jan Ken Pon match and was busy looking over the map when she sighed and called out without even looking behind her, "Naruto, stop trying to sneak in with the Tanks and get back in your spot."
A dejected Naruto, heavily swathed in robes that obscured his every feature grudgingly trudged back into the middle of the room, "This is racism. A guy can't even do what he wants nowadays, what happened to free-"
"Shut up and shoot!" Everyone yelled at him.
****Fifth Floor Strategy Meeting****
Kirito was the leader this time, incidentally he lost because Naruto cheated, and like Asuna, he wasted no time calling out, "Naruto, get your ass back in the middle."
"I AM in the middle!" a rather miffed Naruto replied huffily, "Alone... all cold and alone..."
"Shut up and shoot." You could almost taste the exasperated dryness in everybody's united words.
"Oh yes, I'll shoot. I'll shoot your balls off." Naruto mumbled, quietly crying in a corner of the room with a gloomy aura surrounding him.
Hours later, Naruto blinked in surprise as he blew off one tenth of a single HP bar, which was nearly equivalent to three Sweepers worth of damage in one hit, with a spear to the boss' little green apples, "Wow. I can't believe that actually worked... Oh crap."His eyes widened as he realized it might have worked a little too well. The roar- no- squeaking Frog Man that served as the boss for the sixth floor, completely ignored the Tanks and began chasing him with an unholy fury burning in its eyes, "EEEEeeeK!" the blonde screeched like a girl and darted away from a earth shaking punch.
"Note to self, shot to balls equals instant hate." He mumbled as he dodged an overhead axe cleave and continued running around the chamber like a scared rabbit, "Akihiko, goddamn you! Did you REALLY have to be so anal retentive about the small details?!" he uselessly cursed the ceiling.
A few days after that boss fight when he started showing a tendency to aim for soft spots, or rather, just that one in particular, Naruto gained another title amongst the clearers.
It happened to be his favourite.
Joker the Nutcracker.
****The Hunter****
Kirito snorted at the memory while everyone in the room was rolling around in varying degrees of amusement, "Like I keep saying... You are the only person I know that can piss off NPCs for some reason."
Naruto sighed with rolling eyes at everybody else who seemed to be laughing, even the stoic Lightning was trying and miserably failing to contain herself to a light chuckle, "Fine, fine I get your point." The blonde conceded.
Heathcliff smiled.
"But," The smile dropped as Heathcliff waited expectantly, "I'll wait until we reach the eleventh floor. If we experience more trouble than I expected then I will join. And I will only teach the bow to people who I deem worthy. No random idiot of the street."
Heathcliff snapped his fingers in triumph, "Accepted. Tamamo." The pale brown haired man waved for the pink haired girl who had been silent up till now to come closer. Petting her head, he glanced at the blonde who was watching them with an unfathomable expression, "Until you decide, can I ask you to let Tamamo stay with you? She knows how to contact me when you have made up your mind."
"Understood."
The two of them shared a silent conversation and understanding of the unstated exchange.
After the strange man in the robes left, the pink haired girl obediently walked straight up to Naruto and peered up into his crystal blue eyes with her own amber ones before nodding slightly and quietly speaking, "Please take care of me, Joker-san."
"Ah..." Naruto scratched his cheek, uncomfortably stepping back from her decidedly too close inspection, "I-It's alright. Feel free to just mix around I guess. You can have my bed for tonight; I'll just take the hall until we figure something out-urk!" the blonde was shoved out of the way by a shiny eyed Kline who bowed deeply and began stuttering, "I'm Kl-Kline, 22 ye-years old, single and looking for a girlfriend, instead of staying with that pervert how bout you come with m-ack!"
His guild mate knocked him out with by smashing chair to the head and a long suffering sigh of familiarity. It really didn't take a genius to realize that the thuggish faced man probably acted the same way to every pretty girl he came across.
"Ignore this idiot," a chubby man, the one that had knocked out Kline grinned at the blank faced girl and hefted his guild leader onto his shoulders, "I think it's time for us to leave. See yea Naruto, thanks for the party man!"
"Osu! See you on New Year's Day, eh?" the blonde shouted back.
"Hah?! Another meeting like this? If this is how we get to live, I don't mind staying in Aincrad forever, all I need to do is fight monsters and get to eat good food and sleep as long as I want. That's waaay better than a shitty accounting job any day, ahahaha!" the chubby man guffawed heartily.
Naruto grinned and slapped him on the back with an amused grin, knowing that he was simply joking.
All of them had people, things, dreams and hopes waiting for them back in the real world. Even if they left Aincrad sometime in the future, the bonds that they had formed here would not falter.
As the rest of Furinkazan trooped out the door, they waved at the blonde and thanked him for the party, simultaneously apologizing for the unconscious idiot which was slung over the chubby man's shoulder.
Naruto grinned wryly as the last of the Furinkazan members left before clapping loudly, "Why don't the rest of you get to know Tamamo-san and finish up the rest of the food? I'll start cleaning up the dishes."
"Arigato, Kaa-san!"
"Fuck you."
"No thanks, I don't swing that way!"
Play Final Fantasy XIII – Lightning's Theme
Rolling his eyes, Naruto entered the small kitchen as the sound of music and chatting started up while a grinning Serah, Argo and Asuna cornered Tamamo in the room that he had just left. He had to chuckle at the look on her face, resembling one of a scared rabbit, a far cry from the earlier one she had worn, one of pure childish interest.
Carefully setting down the load of dishes beside the sink, Naruto put in the maximum capacity allowed and tapped the tap to pull out a menu from which he selected the Wash option. As the dishes bgan vibrating in the sink inside a bubble of clear liquid, the blonde settled himself against the counter as he gazed out the small window above the sink and mused to himself that it was certainly more convenient than doing it by hand like he had always done in real life.
"Do you need help?" A quiet voice asked from behind him, startling the blonde a little. Spinning around, he grinned at the pink haired Sergeant, "Not really. It's not done by hand so there's not much trouble. I just have to watch for the end of the cycle and reload it like a real dishwasher."
Lightning hummed noncommittally and settled herself comfortably on one of the wooden chairs by the counter before blinking slightly, "This is really comfortable. The level must be really high, most furniture that me and Serah managed to buy in CoB don't even have half the comfort rating that these do."
The blonde puffed out his chest in pride, "I made them myself, almost every wooden furniture in this house was made by me."
"You picked the Wood Crafting skill early on didn't you? Didn't it put you at a real disadvantage compared to the pure players?" Lightning inquired with her usual stiff and formal tone.
"A little." Naruto admitted with a light nod, "If you compare me to someone like Kirito and Asuna who picked all the combat skills that give them the best stat gains with me who gains nothing from Wood Crafting or Cooking except for my own purposes, then yes you are completely right. But I'm pretty satisfied with the way I'm going so far. Though you could say that they worked out pretty well for me." He finished with a small half smile.
Lightning observed the tall and tanned blonde and if you went by his lean but relaxed face and pose, he was probably barely in his early twenties but you really wouldn't think so just looking at him at him talk and move like an experienced house husband, "Cooking, Wood crafting, washing the dishes, cleaning the house and skilled at fighting." Lightning noted with no small interrogative curiosity and feigned casualness, "You seem to have a pretty wide array of random skills, especially since it looks like you gained them from real life and applied them to SAO rather than the reverse."
"I'm not a delinquent if that's what you're asking. Pure blonde, was born that way." Naruto replied with a grin, "Never got into a fight in my life before SAO either." He turned around and began loading the next set of dishes into the sink with a light hum. When he was done he leaned back on his spot on the counter and stared out the window again, "My parents passed away when I was about 3 years old, I was adopted by a friend of theirs; Tsunade-baa chan, she taught Konoha-ryuu Kyujutsu and that's pretty much where I learnt the basics of archery from."
He chuckled sheepishly while Lightning continued observing him through narrowed eyes, "Though I wasn't very good at it. Too impatient." He waved vaguely, "She had her own grandchildren and they sort of became my siblings. My older brother usually had his head somewhere up in the clouds and Tsunade-baa chan..." He struggled to find an appropriate word before wryly grinning; "Well... she wasn't exactly the best guardian around; drank sake like a fish drank water. So I was basically the only one that kept the house looking like a house and my little sister wasn't exactly the healthiest person around." He unloaded the dishes and began putting in the last set of dishes, "With her drinking too much to properly teach, I took a part time job with the local wood crafter that supplied the bows for our dojo. So I guess you could say I learned a lot of stuff just living life. Nothing special really." He finished with a nonchalant smile at Lightning who was coldly scrutinizing him.
After a moment, she spoke, "Aren't you afraid of me using that information for my own purposes? It's only natural in a place like this and I'll do whatever it takes to make sure my sister and I survive."
The blonde shrugged in an almost carefree manner as he smiled at her with a weird expression, half challenging, half proud of... her, it was a very weird feeling especially since she could tell he was completely and utterly sincere, "If it was to save your sister, then I have no complaint but I know you won't use it for your own purposes."
"Why would you say so?" she asked with a tilt of the head.
He stared at her with clear eyes, "Because we're friends aren't we?"
There was almost an oppressive pressure between them as they stared at each other silently, before Lightning began to chuckle lightly and leapt off the wooden stool, "You... I don't know if you are the most cunning bastard around or really just that stupid."
Naruto gave her a foxy grin, "That's up to you to decide isn't it?"
"True." She nodded dryly and patted down her skirt before turning to leave the kitchenette, "I'll go with stupid for now, Nutcracker-san."
This time it was the blonde's turn to laugh as he turned his gaze back to the night sky.
On the way out, Lightning lightly tapped on Asuna's shoulder, who was watching the kitchenette's entrance with something approaching amusement and casually leaned on the wall beside her, "He's almost worse than Heathcliff, I'm beginning to believe that he allowed that guy to persuade him rather than the reverse." Lightning observed flatly.
"You are probably right, though he usually has his reasons." Asuna replied with a cheerful smile.
"You don't doubt him? At all?"
In response, the brunette simply watched her with mirthfully glinting eyes.
Lightning held her gaze for a moment before almost shamefully acquiescing, "...You were right about him. He makes you feel... It's almost as if, you want to try your hardest not because you are afraid of him or even because you don't want to disappoint him. Whether you were willing or not, you just don't want to fail him. Period. It's a very... disturbing feeling especially since we've essentially only known each other for barely 5 hours but at same time a little relieving."
"Welcome to the club." Was all Asuna said, complete with a little smirk.
****The Hunter****
Otome Youkai Zakuro OST – Benibaba no Otome Uta
Naruto rolled out a futon for Tamamo in his room, the bed was being taken by Lightning and Serah, both of which whom were currently bathing, because it was too late to send them back to the CoB, so he was preparing an extra place for Tamamo to sleep for the night, "Here you go." He patted the futon with some sense of achievement, "I had one of Egil's contacts make this for me. You don't really see Futon's in Aincrad but sometimes when I need to feel better, sleeping in one always soothes me, I think you might feel the same too." Like most other items and equipment in Aincrad, the Futon's durability was limited, and went down every time he slept in it, so he tried to use the Futon sparingly since it was pretty hard to gather all the necessary ingredients for the item.
The pink haired girl stared at the futon as if trying to comprehend the item before lifting one finger to point at herself with a cute tilt of the head.
"Yep, it's for you." He grinned happily.
The girl slowly crawled into the futon and began fluffing the thick comforters, a smile spread on her face as she slowly bounced on the down filled mattress.
Ruffling her hair slightly, he slipped his free hand into his pocket and pulled out two blue ribbons before handing them to the curious girl, "Here's something you left in my care a long time ago. I should give them back to you isn't it?"
"What... is it?" she lifted the ribbons to her nose and sniffed them, causing the blonde to chuckle before lifting them out of her hands and tying her hair into two distinct ponytails with the ribbons. The peaks of her new ponytails stood up like pseudo kitsune ears that wriggled around when the girl mutely squirmed around to look at them. Chuckling, the blonde pulled down his interface with his right hand and materialized the mirror that he had gotten when Kayaba Akihiko had made his appearance in front of 10000 players and trapped them in this death game, which he passed to wide eyed girl. As the pink haired girl, now with two pony tails drooping down until they nearly reached her shoulders excitedly stared into the mirror, Naruto spoke, "You can keep that. I don't really need it anymore."
"Thank you. I've never gotten a... gift before." She spoke haltingly as she clutched the mirror to her chest.
Naruto winked, "Then I'll be sure to give you more isn't it? Oh, you might like this as well." He pulled out a small bag that he had been carrying around ever since he had started playing SAO and placed them in the excited girl's open palm, "Open it. I think you might like them." He urged gently.
Her newly found ears twitched as she sniffed the pouch, her amber pupils dilated and she hurriedly tipped the bag over spill a few sheets of deep-fried tofu into her hand which she devoured immediately, savouring the soft sweetness of each sheet, while the blonde watched in amusement.
Dropping the bag which disappeared into little sparks, she immediately shot to the blonde, coming almost face to face with him and silently begged him for more with soulful amber eyes, newly found ears twitching furiously, causing him to start laughing heartily, "That's enough. No more for you, it's already late and too much of those aren't good for you."
She began whining and the blonde damn near folded, fortunately his will was strong and he gave her a stern look, "If you don't go to sleep, you won't get any more tomorrow."
Chastised, the pink haired girl instantly scrambled into her futon and hid under the covers. Standing up, Naruto tapped the wall to bring up the menu and turned off the light before giving the girl, who was feigning sleep, one last smile, "Good night Tamamo. It was good to finally see you again."
One amber eye opened to look at him in questioning curiosity but the blonde had already closed the door with finality. Confused, Tamamo retreated back into her futon and wondered why the blonde seemed to know her, especially since the only person she had ever made contact with in the game was Heathcliff. As she furiously thought about, her half lidded eyes unconsciously began to droop until she fell asleep; dreaming peacefully of being buried in a mountain of delicious deep-fried tofu.
****The Hunter****
A slight thudding sound, repeated every few seconds was what jolted Asuna awake in the middle of the night. Rubbing at her eyes blearily, she threw on a fluffy pink robe and began to feel her way towards the hall in the darkness, wondering if someone was at the door. If there was, she was seriously considering murder. It would be completely justified, Asuna thought to herself as she yawned cutely.
It was only when she accidentally stubbed her toe on the dining table that the brown haired girl recalled that she had just recently learned how see in the dark. Activating Night Vision with a muttered curse, the girl made her way through the small cabin with green eyes glowing in the dark that cast everything within her vision with a bright neon green tint when the thuddings stopped, freezing the girl in her steps as her heart hammered out a rhythm in her chest.
She disliked ghosts.
Okay... she really really hated ghosts.
Peeking out the window from behind the curtains, she looked around the porch for any signs of life but failed to find any. She seriously considered grabbing Kirito or Naruto and kick them out of the house to investigate when the thuddings began again with the same consistent rhythm, nearly startling the girl out of her nightie, "Hii..." she was about to call out for her housemates when she saw a flash of white and yellow amongst the trees at the very beginning of the thin trees circling their cabin. Normally, just that alone would have probably sent the girl straight into dream land, but she had seen that cloak flap one too many times to not recognize it as the White Archer's trademark Windwalker's Cloak. Unlike Kirito who had already switched his cloak around a few times, despite always maintaining the same jet black theme, the blonde had refused to part with his for some weird reason.
It was probably a guy thing she muttered to herself, drawing the robe tighter around her to shield her from the cold as she stepped out on to the porch and began slinking her unseen way towards where she could see the blonde doing something in the forest. So focused was he, that he didn't even realize that he was being stalked until the brunette was practically looking over his shoulder.
"GYAH!"
"Kyah!"
"Da heck was that for?!" A panting Naruto demanded from his housemate.
"Wha-what are you talking about?! It was your stupid thudding that woke me up!" The equally irate Asuna shouted back.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, the blonde gestured with one elbow. Using her Night Vision, Asuna squinted in the direction that he had gestured, not realizing what she was looking at due to her sleepiness until moments later.
A small round target, about the size of a human's head was pinned to a tree, about 40 meters away from where the two of them were sitting on the ground. Littering the ground all around it, embedded into both wood and ground was nearly a whole arsenal of spears. Nearby the blonde, neatly folded under a tree was one last Black Wood bow. She knew that he usually kept one on him at all times and at least another twenty in the house, and she struggled to remember if there was any left on her way out but failed to recall anything in the darkness and sleepiness.
She arched an eyebrow at the blonde, "You're training?" she glanced at the menu, "At 5 a.m. in the morning? What in the world is wrong with you?" she harshly scolded him.
The sheepish blonde shrugged before wiping away the simulated sweat with his right hand when Asuna gasped, his entire red hand was bloody and covered in red scars, that was usually how Aincrad's systems recognized injuries, she could even see the wireframe inside the skin that constituted their bodies within Aincrad, as if all the skin on the palms of his hand had been completely torn away, "How long have you been training?!" She demanded from him angrily, almost incredulously.
Play Fort Minor – Remember the Name
"Ev-ever since everyone went to bed." The blonde answered truthfully, completely cowed by the usually placid Asuna's anger, "Don't worry about healing that, it doesn't really affect my aim and I don't really feel the pain."
His words, of course, just pissed her off even more. All he saw was the flash of silver in the moonlight and before he knew it, he had the pointy end of a rapier, barely 3 centimetres away from giving him a third nostril and a very upset and temperamental girl on the other end, "You are going to sit there, and STAY there, until I come back with some potions."
Naruto was about to argue that, despite the core stat penalties he was currently suffering alongside some really minor pain stings, it wasn't urgent since there were no monsters nearby and that they shouldn't waste potions, but when he saw her brown eyes nearly turn red, he rather quickly reassessed his earlier thoughts and nodded frantically like a good boy, dropping his bow with a loud clunk and held his hands towards the sky.
He sat there in that exact pose, sweating bullets until Asuna came back carrying two small red bottles which were forced down his throat in rapid order. Once the redness had faded away, at rapier point if he might add, the brunette seated herself under a nearby tree and glared at him, "So? Care to tell me what matter of lunacy you were trying to achieve at 5 a.m. in the morning while everyone and their grandmothers are still asleep?"
Warily keeping an eye on the rapier which was still being firmly gripped, Naruto slowly picked up his bow and notched a spear, shooting it down the improvised range as he talked, "It's nothing special. Just good old training," He snorted before firing another spear, and began to pick up speed, "My grandmother would be proud. I never practiced this hard no matter how much she hounded me."
"What are you talking about? You have pretty good aim already don't you?" Asuna glared at him.
Chuckling slightly, Naruto sighted down the shaft and shot another one, "I'm sure you've noticed. In all my fights so far, my aim is only good either when my target isn't moving and even then I can only hit anything accurately as long as they are within 20 meters, if my target is moving, I need to be at least 10 meters from him, or I fire at nearly point blank range if I want any semblance of accuracy at all. That's the reason I work well with Kirito, he lines up my targets for me nearly perfectly with his sword skills."
"What about bosses? You seem to hit those well enough." The brunette pointed out as she watched the blonde shoot spear after spear, each one missing the target miserably, though she noticed his aim starting to get closer and closer to the target.
"It's kinda hard to miss when your target's ass is big enough to fit into Asakusa's Thunder Gate and still have enough target to spare." Naruto replied dryly, "To be perfectly frank, I'm not that skilled, I simply cover it up with more... panache." The blonde grinned cheerfully, causing the brunette to roll her eyes before conceding the point with a reluctant nod, "I can understand that and considering how hard Kirito and I do as well, I don't think I have the right to say anything about you training until 5 a.m. in the morning but you've never done so until so late at night. Why start now?"
That was when she realized that his hands were trembling slightly.
"I'm afraid." He admitted quietly, "Heathcliff asking me to found a guild with him means that I will be taking responsibility for the lives of everyone in the guild and I can't imagine losing anyone of them even though..." his voice wavered, "I know we will." The bow in his hands disintegrated into blue dust and the blonde trudged over for his last replacement, "Sometimes I really admire Kline. There was a lull in the conversation as the blonde took the chance to gather whatever spears were left and stab them into the ground around him before continuing, "Amongst all of us, he acts the goofiest, he may not be the top player or the strongest in terms of skills or stats but he's definitely the strongest in heart, the most honourable and the steadiest one. I'm not sure if I can take the burden that he carries so easily."
Notching more spears, he began firing rapidly again.
"You've never had a problem taking charge of the Strategy Meeting though." Asuna quietly replied, she herself had never really thought of this, she had never even thought about the lives that had been placed in her hands and a slight twinge of guilt entered her heart when she remembered how careless she had been at times, "Why are you even speaking like this? No one says you have to do it. You're stupidly taking a burden that you don't have to take."
One side glance from the blonde was enough to answer her; it was simply in his nature to be stupidly heroic.
"It's different, being picked out of a group of people once in a while and being in complete charge of a group of people you personally know and... lo-are friends with." He replied stoically as he shot another red comet at the target, hitting the tree next to it with enough force to crack its bark.
His hand began turning a raw red again, but he ignored it and urged himself to fire faster, to see further despite the pain. If anything, he used the pain to focus his concentration.
"You speak as though you know for certain that we will join Heathcliff's guild." Asuna commented idly.
"Not for sure, but I predict an 80% chance, give or take." Naruto countered as he fired another shot, "That's why I'm doing this; I also want to teach people how to survive and how to use a bow to clear the game faster. I can't do that if I'm so weak myself." His gathered spears slowly dwindled until he was finally hitting the correct tree, which was starting to look like the surface of the moon with the amount of craters left in it's bark.
"If one good shot can make all the difference in the world when the time comes then I'll keep practicing so that that one shot won't be wasted." He narrowed his eyes, urging his body to focus with more intensity, to fire faster; spears began leaving his bow so fast that it almost seemed like one continuous red stream.
"If one practice shot won't do it. I'll practice ten times. If ten times won't do it, I'll do it a hundred times. If a hundred times won't do it." He narrowed his eyes until they were naught but gleaming slits of ice cold chips.
"Then I'll do it a thousand times."
He fired his last spear.
It hit the target dead center and the tree exploded.
Asuna finally recalled how many bows were left in the house.
None.
****The Hunter****
Author's Note
Kiba-yarou – Fang Bastard instead of Kiba-ou (Fang King)
Knights of the Blood Basic Structure.
Ravagers – While still capable of long range attacks, their forte is in their acrobatic abilities and rapid fire attacks, forgoing the heavier Great Bow's damage dealing capability in exchange for lighter and weaker Short Bows and spears that enables them to harass Boss type mobs with great efficiency. Ravagers boast great movement speed that allows them to get into range and then hit hard and fast to interrupt attacks before it can be finished. To compensate for their lack of attacks, their arrows(spears) are often tipped with poison and other unpleasant things, usually failed attempts at dinner. Seeing a burnt hunk of something black on the business end of a spear is not uncommon, bonus points if a Ravager manages to get it into a monster's mouth. Not suitable against smaller mobs that are just as agile as the Ravagers themselves or crowds.
Sharpshooters – Calling Sharpshooters the demolition teams of Sword Art Online would not be an entirely inaccurate summary. Heavy armour coupled with the best spears and the biggest Great Bows results in nigh unmovable archers that slowly pound the toughest bosses into chunky salsa from afar with their high strength statistics. Highly unsuitable against mobs with above average AI that can manoeuvre around their ranged attacks and take advantage of the fact that they can only hit one mob at a time, or enemies that attack in overwhelming numbers.
Special Note: Maximum recorded range recorded for the KoB's Sharpshooter Corps is about 50m as of the twentieth floor. Joker currently holds the record for longest effective range at 80m but is known to have accurately hit targets even at 100 metres. Both the Ravagers Corps and the Sharpshooter Corps are under Joker's command.
Medics – Highly agile and lightly armoured volunteers placed under the command of Tamamo, leader of KoB's Medic Department and a concept introduced by the co-founder of KoB, Joker. Instead of doing any damage, these players focus on carrying the lives of their team mates on their small and frail shoulders. Instead of stocking weapons or equipment, their inventories are stuffed full of potions and healing crystals. Medics dart in and out of battle to heal their team mates whenever necessary or possible, a duty that very few volunteers undertake due to the thanklessness and inherent risk of wearing so little armour in exchange for mobility on a battlefield. Bosses are not known to uphold the Geneva Conventions and will more often than not one shot the Medics due to their low defence rating. Only the most determined and swiftest volunteers are inducted into the Medics Department as a result. However, with the introduction of medics into the dynamics of SAO, death rates have fallen to very low levels, in line with Joker's policies; No one gets left behind.
Asuna: Leader of KoB's Sweeper Corps. A team of fast and light armoured individuals that charge down onto the front lines with their fast and usually really, really good Damage Dealing capabilities in a blaze of glory with The Flash directly leading the charge, her long curtain of brown hair fanning out like an ephemeral wreath of flames behind her with each swift charge. The Sweeper Corps can and have been known to hit like freight trains and will wreak havoc on the front lines with each roar of charging feet. Lightning, leads her own subdivision under Asuna, comprising of Support type Sweepers that are more balanced than the others and can switch between roles easily.
Heathcliff: Leader of KoB's Tank Corps. The backbone of KoB placed under Heathcliff's command, form a phalanx of heavy armour and a bristling wall of weapons. These hulks can't move very fast but are more than capable of soaking up even the worst punishments with their high defence ratings granted to them by their heavy armour plating and have huge amounts of HP that prevents them from dying in one attack to anything short of a very powerful Boss level attack, and then give it back just as good with their spears, pikes, pole arms and axes. Anything but the most zealous effort will most likely fail to take them down, especially with a dedicated Medic or two in tow.