A little bit rushed I know, but to be honest I was getting bored with the out of the game stuff. So yeah, I don't own any of this except my OC as he is a character in a novel I am writing.

The time had finally come, after a long day of being absolutely annoyed by Hosaka, Hayato had finally gotten his Nerve Gear and copy of SAO. Though he would probably never tell anyone, he was super excited for this. He read more about SAO and its main developer Akihiko Kayaba and was really impressed with everything. Though the premise of the game seemed really simple, he never really thought that playing a game in an almost out of body experience would be a possibility or at least a possibility in his life. The excitement was a new feeling for Hayato. He never had told Hosaka or Kirigaya out of the fact that they would bug him way too much about it. Being honest to himself, he did want to play with them, but it wasn't worth the trouble or annoyance that he would suffer due to it.

Tying his hair back in a small pony tail he quickly rips open the box and starts pulling out the parts. Surprisingly it did not have many parts to it, just the headset, a power cord, and the game itself. He went to his bed, and pulled it away from the wall just enough that he could plug in the power supply. Knowing he would be hungry and would not want to make food he had prepared snacks and meals so he can just quit, eat and log back in. Taking his time setting everything up, he had moved is desk to right next to the head of his bed so he can easily set things on it and grab them when he logged off.

"Finally," he said to himself, looking over at his whole setup, double checking everything and bringing over extra pillows and some blankets for comfort. After making sure he would have comfort, he went and walked to his front door to make sure it was locked. Looking back into his room which was a simple one room, with the front door and a small entrance into the kitchen and a bathroom, he smiled. He had cleaned and reorganized. He only had a bed, a desk, and a bookshelf as he liked to keep things small and minimalist, all his clothes were on a rack he could hang them on.

Laying down, and putting on the headset on, a menu popped up requesting that he calibrate the headset. Requesting that he touch random parts of his body and put in his height and weight. He honestly thought it was mildly invasive and was annoying him. The rewards outweighed the cost he finally concluded. As it was coming to an end, it showed a screen saying the scan was complete and the calibration was done. He laid there for a solid 5 minutes realizing he had no Idea what to do next or start the game. He put the game inside and it said it was ready to play, but he had no idea what to do. Sitting up he took off the headset and grabbed the manual. Skimming through it he got to a page that said "How to start the game. After calibration the game will be ready to boot, to boot game you will have to say 'Link Start' and the system will link the user to the headset and game allowing for the full dive experience."

Putting the headset back on, he laid down. Taking in a deep breath, he looked up at the time in the top right of the display, the time had just turned to 17:30. "Link Start!" Colors flooded his eyes, going to a white screen checking each of his senses making sure the calibration was successful and everything linked right. Slowly the screen faded to black. It sat there for a few seconds making Hayato worry that it had already crashed, and making his impatience with the loading time grow ever so slightly.

"Welcome to Sword Art Online," a voice had said, and slowly everything lit up around him showing the title of the game. "Please create your avatar." A menu of options showed up in front of him, different sliders for everything from his hair color to the size of his feet. In the corner he noticed a little mirror icon, pressing it made his avatar look like a clone of him. He decided to use that, but he modified it a bit. He had his hair tied back in a ponytail, and used black piercings unlike his silver ones that he had in real life. He was sure no one would recognize him with his hair tied back and with the piercings in since he never walked around anywhere but home like that. "Do you wish to use this avatar?" Another screen popped up with a blue circle and a red one. "What name do you wish to use?" He sighed in relief, for a slight moment he thought it would make him use his real name. Staring at the floating keyboard for almost 5 minutes, and he still could not decide on a name to use. "Having kids will be troublesome." He muttered thinking about naming another human. Eventually he put in Shiro, which was ironic due to the nature of the blackness of his clothes he always wore. After confirming the screen turned blindingly white.

Suddenly he was on the ground, slowly opening his eyes he looked around. It was a sight to behold, a medieval looking town, there was NPCs standing outside there shops down the main paths of the village, a giant clock tower showing the time in the real world. The sky was blindingly blue, and the sun was in the middle of the sky. Everything was quite the sight to behold, from the thousand players wandering the town, to the vendors. You could even smell the food being cooked around the town.

Walking down a narrow path Shiro came across a weapons vendor. Never playing MMOs or RPGs, he just stared at the display.

"Hey if you can;t decide move over so I can get a better look." A player came up and said knocking Shiro out of his thoughts.

"Ah sorry sorry." After the player left he went back and looked over them again. Deciding on going more of an assassin approach he had bought a dagger and some throwing picks. Questioning as to why there weren't knives but shrugged it off thinking the devs got lazy. After getting some rather weak armor, and a set of clothes he was ready to head out. He had a leather chest plate, and shin guards, wearing a large black shirt with sleeves that ended halfway through is forearm, black pants, and finger less gloves. "Time to grind."

Hours had passed, and it was dark both in game and in the real world. Feeling like he had made no progress except for a new dagger which really wasn't that much better than the starter one he had. He felt like he killed hundreds of boars and little Kobold monsters. Never had he thought playing that he would feel physically exhausted, getting a room in the inn, he relaxed on the bed getting ready to log out when he heard it. It was Hosaka, he would recognize that voice anywhere. He quickly logged out and resisted the urge to go and check if it was really her.

Looking at the clock on his wall he decided it was time for bed, it just passed midnight. Taking a shower and eating, he lays back down staring at the ceiling not able to sleep. "There's nothing better to do." He puts the headset back on and goes back into SAO.

Leaving the room he had rented he goes downstairs to see a girl in a cloak sitting at the bar talking to an NPC, he decided to order something to see what food tasted like in this world. Not paying any attention to anything around him he felt a tap on his shoulder, mildly startled by the contact, not expecting to feel so real.

"What?"

"You got a moment?" The girl asked not lifting the cloak over her face.

"With what?" He raised an eyebrow, why him, I mean surely this girl has friends she can ask in the game.

"Well you see, I haven't really been able to level up and this side quest requires I kill some little nepenthes."

"Don't you have friends you could ask? Not to be rude but I am just a stranger at a inn bar." She frowns a bit, he can barely see her face but can tell she wasn't too happy with his response.

"I do have one, but he isn't online." The more she talked the more he felt her voice was rather familiar to this annoying blonde girl he knows.

"I mean sure I suppose it couldn't hurt."

"Let's go then."

As the two of them started to leave the inn, she looked up at him, and stared hard for a moment, Not able to place it but he felt familiar to her. Something about the facial expression, and way he talked. She decided to give up on it and focus on the quest at hand but she will definitely bug him about it later.

"Man the fields will never get old." The girl says as the walk out the gates of the Town of Beginnings. Shiro just nods, he himself can't get over how well the map is made and is surprised to see everything looking as good as it does.

"This may be weird to ask since I can see it already, but uh, what is your name?" She laughs loudly at him, not expecting such a simple question.

"Argo, nice to meet ya," she takes off her cloak revealing her face. Her big brown eyes, blonde hair, and whisker marks.

"Shiro, man you remind me of someone I know."

"I didn't alter my appearance much from the real world so I probably look more like people from the real world than most other people." That confirmed it for Shiro, this was definitely Hosaka, no one else could get under his skin this easily.

"Same here, just changed my hair really, added some other stuff." She looked closely at his face, as if analyzing his details. "What...?"

"Nothing I was tryng to see if I knew you, you did say I was familiar. I know a guy a lot like you but, he is too much of a downer and emo to be you. You look way better than him." Kirigaya he asked himself, no way she was talking about him.

They walked quietly for the next few minutes before arriving at the quest area. Both working together to kill the monsters the quest required. Neither understood the sword skills quite yet, making the fight take much longer than required. Though neither died they were both very low HP. Looking at eachother they smirked, suddenly Argo broke out in a laugh.

"Quite the fighter ain't ya good looking." He smirked, he knew she was normally like this but her confidence was definitely spiked even higher in the virtual world.

"I try," he shrugged he thought this was hilarious if he was going to be honest.

"How about we partner up?"

"Huh?"

"Well, you're pretty good at fighting, we could be a duo, I will collect info and help you a bit, while you fight and gather info for me to sell. We split profits. Information is money and people love a good guide." This confirmed it as Hosaka for him, she loved getting information and spreading it, that is how they met after all.

"Sure, why not. I don't have any friends in game anyway. I was planning on playing solo most the time."

"That settles it then." They shook hands solidifying the deal.

Taking his headset off, his clock read 04:00 deciding it was time to sleep, he sets the nerve gear on his desk and rolls over. He honestly was excited to see the virtual version of Hosaka.

It was the first of September and the test ended, Argo and Shiro were a force to be reckoned with. They had taken jobs with Argos friend Kirito here and there, but he was usually playing with one his friends Sinon. They had gathered all the info they could for the first 10 floors, and were working on posting the guide online for the full release. However, Shiro left all of it to Argo, and the weapons and rewards he got were well worth it. He had a cloak that improved stealth and increased all stats at night. People ended up calling him the ninja during the beta test, which he thought was insanely boring of a title.

A few days later and school had started again, walking to his bus stop blasting his ear buds at full volume he was ignoring everything. The last thing he expected was for Hosaka to jump on his back almost knocking him over. Looking at her, she had the biggest grin he had ever seen.

"Good morning to you Hosaka." He sighed pulling out his earbuds, "happy?"

"Very," responded jumping off, "I met a way more handsome version of you during the beta."

"Don't say it," he said to himself quietly.

"What?"

"Nothing."

As the bus arrived she took her normal spot next to Hayato. Leaning against him a bit, she went on ranting about how fun the beta was. And how she published a guide on all floors cleared during the beta. He couldn't help but smile a bit, it all was interesting to hear her talk about this great guy that was him.

"Stop that, it's creepy." Pulling his cheeks down into a frown. Slapping her hands away he just grunted.

Finally making their way into school, they saw Kirigaya and Asada talking at her desk, and Hosaka rushing over to talk about the beta with them. Hayato just went back to sleep on his desk. This repeated for a few months.

Leading up to the release of SAO, Hosaka and Hayato got really close, and hanging out more often, while Kirigaya kept getting sucked into the group of girls though he mostly tried to hangout with Asada. Walking down one of the main streets in Tokyo Hayato and Hosaka were watching people line up for the SAO release, silently she laughed to herself.

"Gonna join em' Haya~"

"No, I already got a copy." She looked at him, her face scrunched together, trying to figure out how.

"That isn't possible, you didn't play the beta."

"But I did for a day." She went quiet, he knew he probably shouldn't lie but it was fun so what's the harm. Taking a breath in, she prepared to yell in his ear, but held it in when she saw her friend Rika walking into the line and rushed over to talk to her. Hayato slowly walked over and joined them. He had met Rika a few times, mostly due to Kirigaya's little fan club he had gathered unintentionally. They chatted away as he just listened to music, he would have rather not wait for Hosaka but she was supposed to go over and watch a movie with him. After almost an hour, they had finally made it to his apartment. The movie was rather boring to the two of them so they ended up playing a mobile RPG together.

"Hey Haya, ready for the release tomorrow?"

"Eh I don't know." He responded not once looking up from his phone.

"I might not get on tomorrow, Probably crowded."

Sighing she said. "Of course you would say that, you lazy bum."

"And sad." He added to her statement with a small chuckle. Little did she know, they would be playing together sooner than she knew. Hayato still could not figure out how she didn't sniff him out, but was fine with it, things were more enjoyable this way he thought.

"Well I am headed home Haya, see you later."

"Let me walk you back at least, it is dark out."

"Yeah whatever you want." She said running out purposely making it harder on him.