Within fifteen minutes of walking we had reached the large wooden town gates, they were closed but not locked so that the odd person could walk in or out through the gates into the valley. At the gate stood Asuna, her 6 Knights, 7 fully armoured and battle readied Dragons and against all expectations Kirito stood in front of the gates with Fuurinkazan placed firmly behind him. Kirito and the members of Fuurinkazen, however, seemed not to be waiting for the noon attack but were blocking the gateway from both the Blood knights and the Dragons, while Kirito stood off with his sword held at his side against Asuna who similarly held her white and teal blade at her side.
Seeing this stand off we stood where we were, a few meters behind the two opposed groups, Kirito quickly noticed us and shook his head in a way that simply told us to keep out of the way. He calmly looked back at Asuna who had fire in her eyes and held her rapier with a strong grip, almost waiting for an attack from Kirito. Kirito stepped forward, making Asuna raise her blade slightly and made her strengthen her stance. "I wont let you go along with this plan Asuna. You may think it will work, but it wont, its armour is too thick and in such a small and tight space its going to make it even harder to hit even if it is chasing after the villagers. If the rocks from yesterday alongside with a full two sided surprise attack wont work, why do you think this will do any better?" He asked calmly with his sword still slightly loose in his hand, obviously he was trying to reason with her before any fighting broke out.
"What if it does work, what then? Are you willing to miss this chance of quickly taking down this boss just because some soulless computer programs will get attacked, I'd rather clear this floor quickly instead of dragging it out for however much longer. Now get out of the way!" She came back angrily, seemingly far beyond reasoning with Kirito.
Kirito just shook his head in disbelief. "You honestly think I'm going to do what you tell me to do just because your the vice commander of the Blood Knights, its seriously pathetic how your guild tries to order people around just because your one of the strongest when it comes to money and equipment. Now are you going to give up on this stupid plan of your's to kill of the towns people in a vain attempt at a boss or are we going to stand here for the rest of the day." He said with irritation seemingly growing by the second, he also now held his blade tensely waiting for an attack.
"Well if you're not going to move, I'll have to move you myself." She announced with sheer fury as she, without looking down from Kirito, flicked open her menu panel and swiftly sent a duel request to Kirito. A panel appeared in front of Kirito, which he studied for a few seconds before slowly pressing the accept button and looking back up at the furious Asuna. A second after he pressed the accept button huge white lettering rose up between them reading "DUEL", under that was a wide white tab with the two's names and images of their face on opposite ends with a dark pink VS between them.
Asuna readied her Lambent Light in her hand ready to make a a swift initial attack, while on the other hand Kirito stood opposite her moved into a stronger stance moved his free hand back and put his Elucidator slightly forward and pointing down. By now people had begun to turn up for the twelve O'clock start and now gathered in a semi circle around the two duellers, some beginning to jeer and others giving out words of encouragement. However neither Asuna or Kirito seemed to be listening, their attention completely drawn onto each other.
A small round timer appeared over their heads with the number 20 above it. It started its countdown 19...18...17...10, the crowd was now silent and everyone was seemingly holding their breaths waiting for the duel to begin, 2... Asuna moved her feet slightly while Kirito strengthened his grip on his one handed sword.
1...0 START, the words burst out of the timer while the duel strip brightened and dissappeared as a mechanical noise sounded the start of the fight.
As soon as the timer hit zero both of them burst into action. Asuna brought her sword back, charging up a huge pink skill which emanated from her blade, and charged down at Kirito using her unparalleled speed. Kirito began to run forward while holding his sword to his side building up a blinding green skill which flared out from his sword. Asuna swiftly jumped in the air and with a spin she brought her blade plummeting down towards Kirito, Kirito swung his body sideways bringing his heavy blade up to meet Asuna's light rapier strike. The tip of the rapier missed hitting Kirito directly but sliced a shallow cut into Kirito's shirt and within a second the Elucidator smashed into the side of Lambent light with an eruption of power which sent it flying from Asuna's hand and scraping across the floor.
Asuna, shocked at what happened took a second to realise what had happened and shot a glance over to her disarmed rapier which lay a few meters to her left, however Kirito was next to her as soon as she had landed from her jump and came at her with a green glowing sword that was held to his side. He sliced his sword up to her chest, intending to land a solid blow which would end the duel, seeing the blade coming Asuna hurriedly ducked forward just below the blade's arc. Before Kirito could do anything more she had shoulder barged into his stomach, winding him for a second and making him loosen his grip on his sword and stumbling him back a few paces. She then, in the few precious seconds that Kirito took to recover, raced for her sword, sliding to get to it and with out a moments hesitation she stood back up and moved in for the next attack.
She quickly planted 2 precision strikes into Kirito's unprotected arm before quickly being put on the defence by a number of brutally powerful swings from Kirito. The two quickly sized each other up again and it was Kirito this time that pressed the initial attack, he ran full sprint at Asuna with his sword held high to his right. He span around swinging his sword initially downwards but as he turned into Asuna he brought it blazing up towards Asuna who could only turn her blade to try and deflect the strike.
The Elucidator's flat edge scraped smoothly across Lambent Light while the tip of the blade dug deep into and through Asuna's chest and up through her shoulder, this blow left a large glowing red pixelated gouge in her side and sent her flying backwards to the ground. She hit the ground with a thud and her rapier fell from her hand with a clatter of metal on the hard stone floor. Her HP bar inched slightly into yellow and the duel was over, the duel panel came back up showing the words "Winner" with Kirito's half highlighted in orange and Asuna's greyed out, the timer below it read 2:17. Kirito sheathed his sword quickly and looked down at the defeated Knight, he put out his hand to help her get up.
However she gave the hand a venomous glare before she painfully got up from the ground nursing her wounded side, she slowly moved over to where her sword lay on the ground, picked up, sheathed it and with a quick look of pure anger yet mixed with exhaustion directed at Kirito she walked off into the town, her stunned entourage quickly followed after her with the clanging of their armour and weapons. Everyone in the surrounded players stood silently stunned at how easily and quickly Kirito had taken on The Lightning Flash Asuna without taking much damage himself.
He looked around at everyone and simply said "Show's over. I expect to see everyone tomorrow at the meeting" before he himself walked through the crowd and off into the town without a second look back and seemingly without much care of what he had just accomplished in front of the massed front line players. With no other reason to be stood at the gates everyone began to disperse of to their different businesses and places of residence to wait again for the next meeting where a new plan of attack may be suggested.