Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online (or the works of H.P. Lovecraft).
Chapter 11: Door to the Dark
It was close to breakfast time as Kazuto waited in the kitchen for Suguha to come down from her room. He needed to have a serious talk with her about Donis. Kazuto had already contacted Kikuoka Seijiro, the government who had previously questioned him about the events of SAO and recruited him to investigate the Death Gun incident in GGO. The government agent wasn't exactly Kazuto's favorite person to deal with, but the dark-haired young man believed that if anyone could find out if his character data had been hacked, Kikuoka was the man to do it. Besides, Kazuto felt that Kikuoka owed him a bit.
At long last, Suguha came down into the kitchen. Kazuto took a deep breath and tried to prepare for what he was sure would be a difficult conversation.
"If you're going to apologize for what happened with Donis last night, now would be a good time to do it." Suguha told him.
"I'm not going to apologize for what happened." Kazuto responded. "In fact, Sugu… I want you to stay away from Donis."
"You have no right to tell me who I can and can't see!" Suguha snapped.
"Sugu, I'm pretty sure that the reason Donis looks so much like me in ALO is because he somehow hacked and copied my character data." Kazuto explained. "He looks too much like me for it to be some odd coincidence caused by random appearance settings, and Yui's pretty sure that his stats are almost exactly the same as mine. There's no way all of that can be chalked up to a coincidence."
"You don't know what you're talking about." Suguha told him. "I can't believe you, Kazuto! You don't even know Donis and you're already judging him!"
"You don't know who he is either!" Kazuto pointed out a little more forcefully than he wanted to. "He's using my face in ALO, and there's no way he could've gotten it without hacking the game. You may think you know who Donis is, Sugu, but it's pretty obvious that he's lying to you."
"You're wrong about Donis." Suguha insisted. "And I'm going to keep seeing him weather you like it or not!"
With that, Suguha picked up her school bag and headed for the door. Kazuto attempted to go after her, but she slammed the door in his face before he could stop her. The dark-haired young man let out a heavy defeated sigh and went back to the kitchen table. Kazuto knew he had blown it, but then he knew that the conversation was going to be a doomed effort from the beginning. He had a pretty good idea of how Suguha felt about Donis, and simply telling her to stay away from him wasn't going to be nearly enough to solve the problem.
It was midday as Asuna went to the roof of the school. As she had expected, she found Kazuto sitting in his usual spot looking at the sky through the chain link fence. Asuna put a hand on Kazuto's shoulder to get his attention and sat down next to him.
"Bet I can guess what's got you down." Asuna spoke. "You tried talking to Suguha about Donis, didn't you?"
"Yeah… she pretty much shot me down." Kazuto replied.
"I had a pretty similar conversation with Rika earlier at lunch." Asuna revealed. "It's probably a safe bet that would won't get anywhere talking with Shino either."
"I don't think I've ever had this bad of an argument with Sugu before." Kazuto declared. "She just doesn't want to listen to me."
"I think we both know why." Asuna told him. "Suguha's in love with Donis. I'm betting it's partly because he looks so much like you in-game."
Kazuto merely nodded in agreement. Asuna had pretty much hit the nail on the head. He knew very well that he had been Suguha's first love. And since they were actually just cousins instead of brother and sister, Suguha had once thought that they might've had something more than a sibling relationship at one time because of that fact. But of course that had simply not been the case, as Kazuto had found Asuna. Kazuto mused that it was natural for Suguha to fall for someone who appeared to be a carbon copy of him, at least in an online game.
"I can understand Suguha's reaction." Asuna continued. "There's nothing that makes a girl want to be with someone she likes more than having her family disapprove of him."
"Your dad seems to like me pretty well." Kazuto remarked.
"Yeah, well after the last guy he tried to set me up with, he kinda decided that I was probably a better judge of who I should be with." Asuna replied. "Anyway, the only way we can get through to Suguha and the others is to show Donis for who he really is. The problem is we have no idea how to do that."
"There might be a way." Kazuto told her. "I called Kikuoka this morning to ask him to do some digging. I figured he owed us that much"
"How long until we hear back from him?" Asuna asked.
"He said it'd probably be a day or two." Kazuto answered. "I'm betting that the sooner we hear back from him though, the better."
Leafa was lying on her bed completely nude as Donis left a trail of fiery kisses down her stomach. When he finally reached her waist, the Kirito lookalike gently pulled her legs apart. Leafa took a breath as Donis moved in towards her crotch. In mere moments, Donis began to probe Leafa's womanhood with his tongue, causing her to moan and her eyes to shoot wide open. The blonde fairy arched her back and dug her fingers into the sheets as Donis continued to explore her.
As Leafa slowly began to come closer to the edge, she leaned up a bit and grabbed onto the back of Donis's head, letting her buck her hips to speed herself towards orgasm. Then at long last, Leafa climaxed, crying out Donis's name at the top of her lungs. As Leafa caught her breath, Donis crawled back onto the bed next to her. Leafa rolled onto her side to face him.
"…I got an IM from Selene earlier this morning." Donis spoke after a few moments. "She and her survey team found the entrance into the final underground dungeon beneath Yoth."
"That's the dungeon called N'kai, right?" Leafa recalled as she sat up a little. "I remember Sinon talking about it before."
"Sinon mentioned something she found regarding N'kai while examining the Necronomicon the other day." Donis informed her. "It seems that in in the deepest part of than dungeon, there's a portal that can take someone to another realm called Leng. I'm quite curious to explore that realm."
"But isn't N'kai supposed to be inhabited by some kind of evil god?" Leafa pointed out. "Whatever that god is, it's probably going to be some very powerful boss monster."
"I am more than willing to take the risk if you are, dearest Leafa." Donis replied. "I'd like you to travel to Leng with me. We could be the first people to explore that realm, just the two of us. Will you come with me?"
"Well… okay. Why not?" Leafa replied. "Sounds like a blast."
Donis smirked and gently stroked Leafa's cheek. "I knew that would be your answer. We'll go there during our next raid into the mound tomorrow afternoon."
With that, the two of them became locked in another deep open-mouthed kiss. The two of them rolled on the bed together until Leafa was on top. The blonde sat up and repositioned herself, moaning a bit as Donis's already hardened manhood slid into her. Leafa gently began to rock her hips at a slow pace, trying to draw out the experience for as long as possible. Over time though, Leafa gradually picked up the pace.
The force of Leafa's movements caused the legs of the bed to creek against the floorboards of the room. Eventually Leafa grabbed hold of the headboard to get more leverage. The blonde fairy's inner walls began to tighten around Donis's rod. Donis began to buck his hips into Leafa from underneath as best he could, and then at last they came to a hard climax in the same sweet moment. Leafa collapsed onto Donis, her body covered in sweat. Donis stroked Leafa's hair as she drifted off to sleep.
Donis and Leafa walked together down the main street of the red lit kingdom of Yoth until them came to a small building made of black stone on the farthest end of the city. The building appeared to be some kind of temple, but the architecture was far more primitive than all the other buildings in Yoth. The thought occurred to Leafa that they might be looking at the oldest building in the dungeon. Selene and two imp women were waiting in front of the building's entrance.
"I trust you have not been waiting long, Selene." Donis spoke as he and Leafa approached.
"My girls and I have only been here a couple hours." Selene told him. "I gotta say though that I'm a little nervous about being down here. There have been more and more of those blob things popping up down here. The hoards are getting as big as at least six blobs at a time."
"What's causing the encounter rate for those things to go up?" Leafa wondered.
"If I had to guess, I'd say that maybe we triggered some kind of game event that we don't know about." Selene theorized. "Hell. For all we know, it could've been something that was triggered when the door into Yoth was opened. Either way, these trips down into Yoth have been getting kinda dangerous. Who knows what the hell we'll find down in N'kai? So are you sure you want to open the door to that place, Donis?"
"I'm certain that the rewards will outweigh the risks." Donis confidently answered. "Now, you said the door to N'kai in this little temple?"
"Yeah, and it's a creepy temple." Selene replied. "I didn't even try going down the staircase to the door."
"Well then. Let's see what there is to see." Donis decided.
With that, Selene led Donis and Leafa into the temple. Strange black vines covered the walls inside, and the only thing in the little square chamber was the doorway to a staircase on the opposite wall. Carved into the archway at the top of the door was a small statuary figure of a revolting frog-like creature with bat-like ears. Leafa couldn't help but be disgusted by the site of the little carving.
"If it's okay with you two, I think the gals and I are going to stay up here 'til you get back." Selene requested. "This place is really giving me the creeps."
"Very well. If Leafa and I do not return within two hours, contact the rest of the guild." Donis ordered. "Leafa, let's go."
Leafa followed Donis through the doorway and down the staircase beyond. The walls of the tunnel around them were far rougher than the tunnels leading into K'n-yan and Yoth, almost as if some sort of worm that could burrow through stone had dug the tunnel. The stairway seemed to go down into the earth forever. For several minutes the only thing that the couple could see ahead was an infinite darkness. There were a few moments during the trek down when Leafa wondered if they were ever going to reach the end.
Then at long last the two of them came to a large stone door at the bottom of the staircase. The door was covered in some kind of disgusting black ichor, and unpleasant stench pervaded the entire tunnel.
"Donis, I'm really not sure about this." Leafa told him. "We really don't know what we're walking into here."
"What you fear Leafa is that of the unknown, the greatest fear of all." Donis told her. "The only way to dispel that fear is to unmask the unknown, and to do that we must open this door. Are you with me?"
"…Okay. Let's do it." Leafa finally answered.
Together, the two of them gave the slime-covered doors a gentle push. The door swung inward, and a second later the earth seemed to shake for a moment. The tremor stopped almost as soon as it had begun, and suddenly seven of the black blob monsters came at them from the darkness beyond the door. Not liking their odds, Leafa and Donis ran back up the staircase as fast as their legs could carry them. After a few minutes they finally made it back to the top and emerged from the temple, but what they found when they came out stunned them. The entire city of Yoth was crawling with black blobs. Selene and the rest of her squad was busy trying to dispatch some of the fouls beasts.
"What happened?" Leafa asked Selene as the imp warrior fought one of the blobs.
"How the hell should I know?" Selene answered as she stabbed the blob she was fighting. "These damn things just suddenly stampeded in here!"
"Donis! We must've trigger something when we opened the door!" Leafa realized.
Donis nodded. "I am forced to agree. We must contact the rest of the guild and regroup at the headquarters! We're going to need everyone to correct this mistake."
Kirito and Asuna were in the wasteland on Floor 76 of New Aincrad fighting a hoard consisting of four of lizard men with Klein and Siune assisting. The lizard creatures in question were covered in brown scales and wore black torn pieces of cloth around their waists. Each one wielded an axe made from pieces of bone and black rock. Kirito dispatched the two lizard monsters he was fighting with hits from Excalibur and the Master's Blade, while Asuna took out one with a finishing attack in the form of her inherited Mother's Rosario move. Klein meanwhile finished off the last beast with a flame attack from his sword.
"These monsters are pretty easy compared to the dragon boss on Floor 75." Klein remarked.
Asuna noticed Kirito looking at the Master's Blade. "Something wrong, Kirito?"
"During that whole fight, the Master's Blade didn't give off the same effect that it did when I dueled Donis last night." Kirito explained.
"You mean that freaky color change thing that took off a bunch of that copycat's HP?" Klein recalled. "Now that you mention it, I didn't notice that happen when you used the sword on those lizard guys."
"There's something about this sword that we don't know about." Kirito told them. "It's not an ordinary weapon."
Before anyone could reply to Kirito, the Traveler suddenly emerged from behind a large boulder that was on the corner of the battlefield. The old man walked up to Kirito and looked him square in the eye.
"You again." Kirito spoke. "What do you want?"
"The time I have warned you about has come, fairy swordsman." The Traveler told him. "The Sleeper of N'kai has awoken, and his wretched spawn is already starting to crawl up from the depths of the earth to lay waste to the land below this floating castle. You must go to the mound. You must go down into the depths and face the Sleeper of N'kai. If you do not, this land is doomed."
Before Kirito could as the old man what he meant, the traveler turned and walked away with quicker speed than one might expect from one of such advanced years. Kirito attempted to follow him, but the traveler had vanished as soon as he got behind the boulder.
"What the hell was that about?" Klein wondered.
"I think we should pay the Order of Yig another visit." Kirito decided. "I think Donis might know something about all this."
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