As soon as we arrived on floor forty-fifth, trouble awaited us once again.

"Watch out!" I heard Izumi's voice shouted.

Me and Keita, the last ones to travel through the Teleport Gate from floor twenty-fourth, barely ducked to avoid someone flying toward us at high speed.

"Holy hell! What happened here!?" Keita exclaimed.

The scene in front of us can only be described as messy. Two large group of people are going all-out-war on each other.

The Knights of the Blood Oath and the Holy Dragon Alliance.

"Damn it! Why won't these people give us a break!?" Asuna complained. She's currently fending off two HDA paladins who attacked her.

"Stop this right now, paladins! That's an order! I said stop! Please!" Sinon ordered to her subordinates, but everyone's just focused on the fight and not listening to her. Some KBO knights even attacked her, too, forcing her to defend herself.

"This is bad! We need to get out of here!" Tetsuo yelled.

"Thank you for telling the obvious!" Asuna shouted back.

I myself tried to clear a path for others to escape. Several HDA paladins are familiar faces that we've fought during our escape from the KBO headquarter; the elite paladins.

This is going to be a tough fight.

"ARGGGH!" A HDA paladin growled as he rushed onto me, but I dodged him and slam my Elucidator on his back, causing him to be knocked out.

Other combatants started realizing that we're here.

"Hey! That's the guy commander Feron wanted!" Another paladin spoke after seeing Agil. "Let's get him!"

Oh snap!

"Oi! Isn't that the vice commander of the HDA!?" One of the KBO knights pointed at Sinon. "Capture her!"

And then before we realized it, everyone ran toward us.

As much as I hate to admit it, this fight's just too much.

"Everyone, get out of here, now!" I shouted to the rest of my friends.

And then we all ran like hell.

Me, Agil, Asuna and Sinon covered the Black Cats while they're retreating, and soon we ran into a small alley deep within the city.

"After them!" One of the KBO knights, who apparently is the leader, shouted. He and a couple of KBO knights managed to follow us into the alley.

"Damn it, why are those guys so stubborn!?" Sinon grunted.

The lead KBO knight smashed his sword onto her, but I blocked it with my sword instead.

"Get out of the way, you brat!" He yelled. His two companions flanked me from both sides, but Sinon uses her spear to clear them away with ease.

"Just give up already!" I spoke.

"NEVER!" He screamed, using all his strength to break my defense, to no avail.

His two-handed sword is not as strong as it seems, even though from the heavily decorated looks of it.

Within seconds, his sword shattered, and I used this moment of distraction to kick him down and point my blade at him.

"No...way..." He grumbled in defeat.

Feeling secured in the deep alley away from the big fight, Asuna, Agil and the rest of the Black Cats joined us.

"Wha?" Asuna spoke, her eyes stared in surprise at the downed KBO knight below her.

"Kuradeel? What the hell are you doing here!?" She asked.

"V-vice commander Asuna!?"

The downed KBO knight stared in surprise at his superior officer. His eyes filled with shock.

"I-I...I thought you were...!" He stammered.

"What!? What happened!?"

Kuradeel took a deep breath, before answering her.

"I thought you were killed when the HDA attacked our base!"

"The heck!?" Asuna shrieked. "Well, I'm still alive, aren't I? So what are you and your friends doing here going all out with those HDA paladins!? Who ordered you to do this!?"

"U-uh...commander Heathcliff appointed me as the new vice commander. So...er...I was in charge of launching a retaliation against the HDA for their attack on our HQ." Kuradeel explained.

"You're lying." Asuna hissed. "Heathcliff saw me alive and well after he drove the HDA forces back, and I didn't stick around because I have a new quest to do. Besides, he'll never appoint someone like you to be the vice commander!"

Asuna walked toward him, and point her rapier at his face.

"Tell your men to retreat immediately, Kuradeel. That is an order from your vice commander. Now go before I decided to kick your ass!"

Kuradeel quickly got up and ran away along with his men, leaving us bewildered to everything that just happened.

"That guy's pretty weird." Lamia commented.

"Don't be fooled. As idiot as he looked, he's actually a pretty good fighter, and a slippery bastard." Asuna said. "He was even assigned to be my bodyguard, too, much to my annoyance."

"Whoa, so even you needed a bodyguard, huh?" Sinon teased. "I never needed one during my time as the vice commander."

"Just shut up!" Asuna yelled.

I looked around the alley. Looks like we're in the clear.

As I'm preparing to remove my weapon, I noticed something on the weapon status menu.

Weapon: Elucidator

Class: One-handed Sword

Type: Slash

ATK: 700-710 Durability: 1350

Weight: 170 Requires: 61

Equip: +50 Agility: +28

Strength: +48

Status: *Dented* ATK -95

Aw, hell no!

"Guys, my sword is dented." I said miserably. "The attack damage's greatly reduced. At this rate, I won't be much of a help in future battles."

"Well, why don't you use your almighty 'Dual Blade' skills to help that out, you idiot?" Asuna grinned evilly at me. She's still mad at me for not telling her about this.

"Well, like I could find a nice sword to match my Elucidator! As awesome as it is, it is quite useless if the two swords I used are completely different! If you could lent me your rapier, then yes, I could use it!" I replied. I'm not going down on this without a fight!

"No way! You're not touching my Lambent Light again!" She yelled. Looks like I win, again.

"We need to find someone to fix your sword, Kirito!" Sachi said. "It's dangerous to go into a battle with your weapon broken."

"I agreed with her, Kirito." Agil added. "Though I can't really help much with this. I have some blacksmithing skills, yes, but swords are not my expertise at all. You're gonna need to find someone better."

"Heh, looks like it's time for you to finally need my help, Black Swordsman!" Asuna smiled. "I think I might know someone who could fix your sword!"

Damn it! She just turned the tide of battle!

"N...no...I think I could find someone else on the way to..."

"But you see, we're so in a hurry, Kirito! And it's not like you could come across a great swordsmith every day, you know?" She added.

"Just! Just give me a chance! I don't want to bother you so much!"

"Really!? How kind of you! Well, you're throwing away your chance of a lifetime, you know? The swordsmith friend of mine is actually a very cute girl, and she'll love having a new customer like you to her shop!"

"Alright, damn it, I gave up!" I finally surrendered, just as everyone started to laugh at my misery.

Damn, this hurts me so bad.

"Just bring me to her shop, damn it. And not a word along the way!"

The shop itself is just on floor forty-eighth. Not really a long travel, but we need to avoid some skirmishes between the KBO and the HDA along the way.

The sign of the shop hanged above the door.

It reads, Lisbeth's Smith Shop.

Editor's note: Well, two familiar faces mentioned in this chapter, right? :)

I know, it's pretty short, but I just can't think of anything right now, and I wanted to add some original events from the anime source to the story, too, with some tweaks, of course!

Next chapter will come within next week, hopefully! Thank you for your patience, dear readers!