A/N: You can thank Toonami and Aniplex for me writing this Chapter early to bring you guys some news. I will be in the bottom Author's Note if you want to see it. I updated the previous move already as well.

Zoro had teleported into his rest area with Kirito in tow, he set the Black Swordsman down and went to his usual seat to drink his sake like usual after a fight. A few hours later, Kirito awoke healed from his rest and looked around, He immediately drew his blades and got into a stance.

"Relax kid, I'm not here to fight, you're in no shape to fight me either boy, I didn't even need to draw my second sword this time, I never even got to use any of the stronger versions of my techniques. Listen, there's a room there that will spawn mobs continuously for you to fight, you might have improved, but it's not enough."

"Why should I trust you? You killed me and nearly did again, you seem to know Kayaba as well, most of the other players don't trust you for this even if you aren't a programme."

"Kayaba was the one who fixed me up after I ended up here, I was fighting some guy, but he caught me and my crew off guard. I owe him some thanks and so I humor him and his ploy, it's not that I don't want to save you guys but I can't exactly just beat all of them for you or Kayaba will just keep you trapped here forever. I've seen his type before, this is how they operate, only thing we can do is bend the rules a tad and hope. Now go and train before I change my mind!"

Kirito ran off to the training room while contemplating what Zoro had said.

'That's right… Kayaba would probably just restart this game if Zoro cleared everything for us, that means that we have to fight as well, relying on Zoro entirely isn't going to get us anywhere...'

Kirito pulled the lever and entered the room, waves and waves of mobs immediately spawned and tried to attack Kirito, he immediately drew his weapons and slashed at the monsters. The mob barely took any damage and just continued to assault Kirito. Kirito continued to activate sword skill after sword skill in an attempt to kill the monster. When it finally pixelated into hexagons, it instantly respawned, but a wealth of experience flooded Kirito and he immediately leveled up, he quickly allocated his stat boosts and continued to fight.

A timer was visible at the top left corner of his view, it had started from five hundred and had gone to two hundred, Kirito ignored it to focus on surviving the mobs, blocking and parrying the strikes that came at him. One of the mobs, a snake variant, managed to catch Kirito off guard with it's tail. The attack knocked him to the wall and brought him down to twenty percent health, just as the mob was about to stab it's scimitar into Kirito, the timer hit zero. The mobs despawned and the gate opened.

Kirito stumbled out the gate into Zoro, he fell back as he knocked into the swordsman.

"What the heck was that about? Were you trying to kill me?"

"Huh? You mean you didn't change the difficulty level before going in? Those were to mobs I used to train, they die in one hit for me though. Hold on, lemme knock it down a notch for you."

Zoro headed to the side of the gate and pushed the button, an interface popped up where Zoro changed the settings from ten thousand to one and pressed enter.

"There ya go, now it should be around your level."

"One? Even I can't be that weak right? I mean I beat one of those ten thousand ones right?"

"Don't get cocky now kid, you only beat that one cause it literally let you, the first kill is almost free as a precaution to make sure the system isn't glitched. You'll find that even at Level One, these mobs aren't that easy to kill… There's always gonna be someone stronger than you kid, remember that as you fight, even if you are the strongest at what you do, there'll always be someone who can defeat you with ease using a different skill…"

"Sorry…"

"Don't apologise to me, just make sure to train up and beat me. Relax, I'll only fight you with the very basics of my techniques, I doubt you could handle anything else anyway!"

"Yeah, I guess so…"

Kirito headed into the room and pulled the lever once more, the mobs spawned again and Kirito slayed the first one. After the system detected no glitches, the monsters became fully active and started to swarm him. They each took multiple sword skills to take down, but dealt low damage. Kirito was battered around by the massive amount of creatures that swarmed him, each hit chipping off a little bit of his health bar. His Battle Healing kept him relatively safe, but he was slowly getting overwhelmed. The counter soon reached zero and the gate opened once more, Kirito exited the room exhausted from the barrage of monsters. He looked to see Zoro drinking a bottle of sake at the bar humming to the tune playing in the background.

"Oi Zoro, how much sake does that thing hold? I see you drinking from it all the time, but do you ever need to refill it or something?"

"This? It's an endless bottle kid, Kayaba gave it to me, and a fine endless bottle of sake it is…"

Zoro downed another gulp of sake and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"Well, I'll be going out now, try not to die on me Black Swordsman…"

Zoro teleported out and back into the arena and started to grind on more Asuras. After a short break, Kirito decided to continue his training and pulled the lever once more.

Over a month had passed since Kirito had been taken by Zoro, Asuna was devastated by this but eventually learned to suppress the feelings with assurance from Yui that he was still alive and the obligation to save everyone from the death game. By three weeks in, Asuna had managed to readjust to life without Kirito, but it never felt the same. The day for the 76th boss meeting came and what the scouting team described was unusual to say the least.

In the Beta, the second floor boss had been "Baran the General Taurus", but was changed when the game was officially released. The boss that the scouts described was very similar to it.

"This boss sounds a lot like the boss we fought on the second floor in the Beta, if it's just a powered up version of that, then we can assume it at least has the same moveset…" one of the Beta members reasoned.

"I propose we train a bit more first, we pretty much lost the fight last floor and I don't want anymore casualties like last time." Asuna suggested.

"Then we are wasting more of our lives in this game than we have to! I'm sure everyone here wants to leave as soon as possible and we all know that the easiest way to do that is sacrificing five people!" a clearer shoted.

The room immediately fell into a state of silence as the player broke the unspoken rule of never mentioning sacrifices.

"The boss fight will commence next week, take the time to train. This meeting is adjourned…"

The clearers left the meeting in silence, leaving a depressed Asuna behind.

'Kirito-kun, where are you? I can't do this on my own…'

The week passed and a meeting was held by the new Vice-Commander of KOB to discuss the weaknesses of the boss, while Asuna took care of setting up the portal.

"Alright, so to summarize, the room is likely an Anti-Crystal Zone, the boss has an AOE attack and can summon mobs, anything else? No? Then let's move out!"

The clearers went to the meeting point and just as they arrived, a portal opened up, they headed through it and found themselves before the boss door with Asuna next to it. When all the players were assembled, they opened the boss door and met their boss.

It was a giant monster that resembled a minotaur, surrounding it was a horde of Private Minotaurs. When the boss took notice of them and the battle began, the boss took out two battle axes and dual wielded them. It's name and six health bars then appeared.

"General Baroque of the Minotaur Army"

Baroque's eyes flared red and he spun both his axes before posing with one pointed at the clearers and the other by his side.. The doors slammed shut and Baroque commanded his Minotaur army to attack the players. The creatures charged towards the clearers, each with their own target. Those caught off guard were pinned to the ground or knocked away by the beasts, the clearers who managed to notice the attack in time either stood their ground and blocked or used the Minotaur's own momentum against them to shove them away.

Those who beat back the Privates moved on to help the others, with the extra time to train, the clearers suffered no losses, but multiple people needed to rest and heal. The tanks that were relatively unscathed from the stampede immediately formed their line of defense to shield the recovering clearers.

Baroque, detecting that his soldiers had fallen, slammed its two axes into the ground by its side, spawning two Specialist Minotaurs. They held pikes and had a little more armor than the Privates, the Specialists were also significantly larger. The mobs advanced on the clearers, the two Specialists were significantly stronger than the Privates and easily shrugged off most of the strikes from the clearers who split off from the main group. The Specialists rushed through the tanks, going straight for the players with high attack.

The different targeting method of the Specialists caught the clearers off guard, the tanks tried to slash at the Specialists as they charged past but did minimal damage. The two mobs distracted a majority of the hard hitters and the tanks were left to fend for themselves against Baroque. Asuna shouted out orders and let Fuurinkazan and the Divine Dragon Alliance deal with a Specialist each while she and the rest of the Knights of Blood headed to distract Baroque until the Specialists were defeated and the guilds could combine forces against the boss.

The fights with the Specialists were easy due to their set pattern and low armor. Only when Klein made a joke of how stupid it was for having a set attack pattern did the Specialist the see an opening to strike at Klein, the hit knocked Klein onto the ground causing less serious members of his guild, mainly his friends, to laugh at him while dodging the strikes.

A KOB member shouted at them from the fight with Baroque upon hearing the laughter.

"Oi, this is no time to be messing around, focus on the fight you guys!"

The players helped their leader up and got back into stance, soon, the Specialist the DDA were dealing with fell, but just as it's health bar hit zero, it activated it's last attack skill and threw its pike straight at one of the DDA members. The flying projectile caught him off guard and hit him dead on, the pike continued to fly and embedded itself into the wall of the room, the clearer struggled to get free, but the pike had penetrated through his lungs and his health was draining fast. His health bar hit zero and he burst into hexagons along with the Specialists.

One of the calmer DDA members informed the other clearers of the last attack and they managed to counter the next one. With the Specialists down, the clearers joined up to attack the boss. The boss' attack pattern had already been analyzed by the KOB and they effectively managed to whittle down the boss' health bar. The first health bar eventually reached zero and Baroque used its skill. His two axes glowed green as he smashed them both into the ground repeatedly, simulating an earthquake which incapacitated most of the clearers and caused portions of the roof to collapse. The collapse sealed part of the boss room and limited the area the clearers had to fight.

At the end of the earthquake, Baroque slammed his two axe handles into the ground a final time, spawning two Corporal Minotaurs. The Corporal Minotaurs were equipped with swords and shields, much like the loadout of most tanks. The Corporals wore heavy frontal armor and had thick shields. Unlike the Specialists, the Corporals stood their ground and protected the boss from the clearers. The players were hard pressed to get past the powerful defense of the Corporals, though the upside was that the Corporals rarely attacked and only moved to block the clearers from attacking Baroque.

As the tanks slowly took damage, one of the players thought of an idea and shot a Throwing Needle at the eye of one of the Corporals. The beast yelled out in pain and knocked its ally over, damaging both their shields beyond repair. Without a shield to use for defense any longer, the Corporals drew their swords and proceeded to hack at the clearer's tanks instead. Each strike pushed the tanks back bit by bit, the resounding clash of metal against metal echoing through the room. With each hit, the durability of the tanks' shields fell, the Corporals had apparently gone berserk and only targeted tanks, leaving the high damage dealers able to attack them from their armourless backs.

Asuna once again split the clearers into the three main groups for the battle, the fight raged on and the Corporals eventually were defeated. They broke into hexagons and the clearers grouped up to focus on Baroque. With a health bar gone, Baroque's attack pattern had changed and he now held one of the axes in a reverse grip. This made his attacks more unpredictable for the clearers, resulting in more failed dodges and blocks. While he had six health bars, Baroque did not do a large amount of damage and instead relied on his summons to fight for him. The players soon learned to effectively dodge his attacks and managed to knock another health bar down.

As the second health bar broke, Baroque once again created an earthquake, sealing more of the room off from the clearers. This time, two Warrant Officer and Lieutenant Minotaurs were spawned. The Warrant Officers had light armor but held crossbows and immediately retreated behind Baroque where they loaded their weapons and began firing on the clearers. The Lieutenants held broadswords and charged the clearers, clashing with their sword wielders while the Warrant Officers provided support.

Now with five enemies to deal with, Asuna lead the KOB against the Warrant Officers and let her Vice-Commander lead the DDA against the Lieutenants. Fuurinkazan was tasked with distracting the boss and was barely able to dodge the first few shots from the Warrant Officers. When Asuna and the KOB got close to the Warrant Officers, the Minotaurs kept their crossbows and drew short swords. The short blade length of the swords allowed the KOB members to dodge easily, but it also allowed the Warrant Officers to attack quicker. The clearers took more time to adapt to these patterns than the earlier ones and DDA was doing much better now that they could fight the Lieutenants without being fired upon.

Fuurinkazan however, was having a hard time coping with Baroque, they had fewer members than the other two clearer guilds and so were easily outmatched by the boss. Baroque's attack pattern had changed once again and this time he held both in reverse grip and used them to stab at the clearers from above. While Klein complained about the boss underestimating him, the clearer guilds finished off their mobs with minimal injuries and joined up with the others to take down another of Baroque's health bars.

The third health bar soon fell, enraging Baroque. He once more caused an earthquake that sealed off even more of the room, leaving only a small portion left. Baroque then spawned two Captain Minotaurs. The Captains wore brass knuckles and had a lot of armor on their arms, they rushed forwards and attacked the tanks of the groups, each one of them threw heavy punches that nearly dented the shields. Unlike the other Minotaurs, the Captains stayed together, protecting the other from damage. In order to account for this, Asuna deployed the DDA and Fuurinkazan to deal with them together from the front and back while she and the KOB dealt with the boss.

Asuna watched from her fight from Baroque as she saw two clearers get out from the crowd and break into hexagons. Apparently the earlier fight with the other mobs had taken their toll and the tank's shields broke, allowing the Captains to catch the players off guard and take them out. The remaining tanks quickly switched to their weaker back up shields for fear of their main ones breaking. This lowered their defense slightly, weakening them to some extent. They players pressed on, determined to avenge their fallen comrades. The Captains had fought with their fists, allowing for extremely rapid attacks and the knuckles giving them an increased attack strength.

The tanks had to switch often as they endured the battering from both Captains, often changing shields or resorting to parrying with large weapons because of the durability lost from the fights. The clearers were also running low on healing potions, they had healing crystals but those were rendered useless because of the Anti-Crystal Zone. They had gotten through only half the boss and were already running low on supplies. It could only get more difficult from here on out. The Captains were eventually overwhelmed by the clearers, but they were exhausted and could barely stand, the stress of always checking your durability unnerved a lot of the clearers. The more zealous of the DDA and Fuurinkazan headed to join the KOB against Baroque but the others stayed behind to rest.

Baroque's new attack pattern was ridiculous, he spun with both of the axes out stretched every now and then before going back to the standard attacks, forcing the clearers to attack sparingly, but the lack of space caused by the earthquakes made it difficult to dodge. However, this allowed the clearers to have clear breaks, each guild would fight the boss for some time before the next guild switched over for the other guild to rest. Although the rest didn't amount to much because the players had to ration their potion usage and some had fallen back to using low level potions that barely healed any health in order to speed up their healing.

The boss fight progressed slowly as the clearers struggled to deal damage. When Baroque's health bar hit zero at last and shattered, he didn't created an earthquake like before. The boss instead went berserk and attacked randomly, catching the clearers off guard. The attacks were rash and unrefined and at one point, Baroque threw away one of his axes, colliding into one of the clearers, killing him instantly. After he threw his axe, Baroque stood still for a moment and looked around the room before gripping his remaining axe tightly. The boss held it with both hands and with lightning speed, brought it down on the leader of DDA, the strike was too quick to dodge.

Time slowed for the commander as he saw the axe approach him. Noatsugu remembered when he first got trapped in this world. He freaked out at first, much like the others, but then the realization dawned on him that it was practically a dream come true. He had always wanted to leave the horrible reality he was born in and become part of the virtual world, he was just an office worker and whatever money he had, he spent it on games. When he had heard of the Nerve Gear, he immediately started saving up money, at times going hungry to save up money to meet the understandably high buy price of the equipment.

He got lucky and was selected for the Beta Test, Noatsugu was ecstatic as he put on the Nerve Gear and linked up. The world he experienced was amazing, it was everything he could have dreamed of, though the time was short lived, the Beta Test came to a close and he had to go back to his monotonous life. He yearned for the official release day and when it finally came, he was the first in, he rejoiced as he was thrown back into the world. Noatsugu partnered with the next Beta Player that came online and immediately set to gaining levels.

After his party member failed to log out, he checked it himself and found it to be true, the teleportation surprised him but after the initial shock, he cheered Lind up and they both set to train. The Beater incident didn't surprise him, someone had to take the fall, and when guilds became available, he and Lind got together with some others and set up the Divine Dragon Alliance in commemoration of a dragon field boss they had slain together. Their guild grew bigger and bigger, soon becoming one of the top clearing guilds right along side the Knights of Blood. Noatsugu had gotten his dream of living in the virtual world and in his last moments, smiled… Though the smile was bittersweet…

And the axe came down.

Noatsugu was cut cleanly in half and shortly broke into hexagons, leaving everyone in shock as the fifth person was slain, and Zoro came.

A/N: Hello, for those who wanted to see Zoro beat up Baroque, sorry but it got a little long. Now for the news, Toonami has started to air Dragon Ball and One Piece at 8.00 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. on Saturdays, which is great, because it usually airs somewhere in the middle of the night. Another thing is that there is a karaoke contest for the English version of Crossing Field ending on 12 April. There is a video on Youtube by AniplexUS promoting it if you are interested. Now that this is all caught up to my other story, I'll be working on another story till it's done, so I'll probably take a while to update this. Be sure to Review and check out my other works or polls!