Monochrome Duet

by Solid Shark

After the brutal 25th Floor Boss Raid, Asuna has left Kirito's side to join the Knights of Blood. With his partner gone, Kirito resigns himself to returning to the life of a solo player-until a familiar face from the lower floors unexpectedly reenters his life. The strangely-human NPC Kizmel, despite her quest being over, has returned to his side... Kirito/Kizmel.

20. Chapter XX: Ballad of Twilight I

March 8th, 2024

---

The calls of seabirds were what gradually drew Kirito out of a sound sleep, instead of the usual wind instruments of his system alarm. Seabirds, and the smell that heralded rain—or maybe a storm.

Kayaba really went all-out, if I can smell that, he thought groggily. Mm… I should get up and close the window before it hits. And why didn't I set my alarm last night…?

Despite the open window and the coming storm, though, he was too warm to really want to move. Warmer than the tropical air of the Fifty-First Floor could account for, now that he thought about it—and then as he reluctantly came closer to full wakefulness, he registered more than just sound and smell.

Soft, warm breath brushing over his neck. A comfortable weight stretched across him, tangled in his legs and reaching clear up to his shoulder. Warm softness pressing against his chest, rising and falling with gentle breathing, thumping with the comforting sound of another's heartbeat. Smooth skin and toned muscles under his hands.

Blinking sleep out of his eyes, Kirito looked down to see lilac hair and a peaceful smile on the face of the Dark Elf slumbering in his arms. He couldn't see much below that, at some point in the night he'd apparently pulled up a blanket against the coming storm, but he didn't really need to. His hands told him plenty. Memory told him enough for his face to burn.

It wasn't the first time he'd woken up to find Kizmel in his bed, by any means. She and Asuna had dragooned him into sharing as far back as the Sixth Floor, and since then the elf had made something of a habit of it after particularly bad days—once on that very floor—and eventually just if she felt like it. That much he'd gotten used to, and even secretly come to enjoy.

Kizmel in his bed naked? That was new. Though he wasn't sure if it was her state of undress that was more of a shock to his system, or the realization he had no reason to be concerned, and every reason to just appreciate it.

Everything had changed in the past two days. Kizmel knew the truth, finally. He'd finally been able to come clean with that, and then with his feelings for her. He'd married her. Slept with her.

Killed for her.

Remembering the look on Morte's face as his blades shattered the PKer gave Kirito a chill worse than the wind coming in through the window. Cold enough that even the warmth of Kizmel's bare skin on his couldn't chase it away. The whirlwind of emotion and passion the previous night had kept what he'd done from sinking in for a few hours, but now that he was at peace…

Coper died because his own trap backfired. Sasamaru because I could only save one. I killed Morte with my own hands. My own swords.

Odds were good that if the players ever succeeded in beating Sword Art Online, all the deaths would be legally attributed to Kayaba Akihiko's deathtrap. No one else, not even Laughing Coffin, was likely to shoulder any responsibility, so far as society was concerned. Kirito knew his home culture well enough to be sure they'd just want to sweep it all under the rug.

He knew better. He'd told Rosalia the deaths she'd caused, the lives she'd taken, were her own responsibility. What he'd done had been self-defense, not cold-blooded murder, but one essential truth was the same: Morte's blood was on his own hands, and he knew it.

Maybe it was the chills that understanding brought that stirred Kizmel, if SAO was able to simulate that. More likely it was the shivers, which the game engine communicated perfectly well. Either way, her breathing changed, and her eyes fluttered open. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she turned half-lidded violet on him, and a smile that managed to chase away the chill again.

The way she pulled herself up to kiss him, gently but thoroughly, definitely distracted him. Thoroughly.

When the elf girl finally broke away, she settled back into the crook of Kirito's arm with another smile, not bothering to pull the blanket back up. "Good morning, my husband," she murmured.

"Good morning, Kizmel." Still coming to grips with the idea that he was someone's husband, let alone this amazing girl's, he pulled her a little closer. Trying not to stare at her chest—well, not too much, anyway; she'd made it clear she'd be insulted if he didn't look at all—he added, "Did you sleep well?"

"Better than I ever have before," Kizmel replied, leaning into his embrace. "…I do suspect I'll be having nightmares soon enough, but I believe last night's events kept them at bay quite well for one night."

He blushed. Now he remembered why he hadn't set his alarm; "sleep" hadn't exactly been on his mind for much of the night. Neither of them had really known what they were doing, but there certainly hadn't been any lack of… enthusiasm.

Maybe because of what else happened yesterday, Kirito thought, idly letting one hand stray farther down from her shoulder than he would ever have dared before. We were both glad to be alive, and after she had her world turned upside-down and what I had to do to Morte… We both needed the distraction.

"What troubles you, Kirito-kun?" Kizmel asked, shifting to allow his wandering hand better access with a pleased hum.

For a second, he was torn between cold logic and the promise of warm skin. Logic won out—though he didn't stop his hand, either. "…I killed Morte. On purpose."

She let out a slow sigh, breath tickling his chest. "I suspected as much," she admitted. "Truthfully, I'm still struggling with understanding that what I had believed reality is illusion. I can't imagine that taking a real life for the first time, after so long fighting nothing but dolls, is any easier."

"Not really, no." Though the fact that she understood helped. Probably no one else in Aincrad, player or AI, could understand what Kirito was feeling as well as his partner. My wife. How weird is that? "I thought I was prepared, that after getting the Baneblade I'd thought through what it would be like." He chuckled; a bitter sound, ironic more than amused. "My grandfather always said it would be like that. That's why he taught kendo, he told us, not kenjutsu."

Years after the stern old man had died, years more since Kirito had fled the dojo, and now he finally had a glimmer of understanding. Some power in the universe was laughing at him, he was sure of it.

"I doubt either of us will find easy answers to our problems, Kirito-kun," Kizmel said then. "All I can say is this: if you'd known from the start that you would have to kill Morte, would you have done the same?"

"Yes," Kirito said at once, closing his eyes. "He was trying to kill me. He was probably responsible for more than a few of the deaths the players have suffered, directly or indirectly. And he was between you and me." Behind closed lids, he could still see Morte shattering, like so many before him. "I couldn't make any other choice."

"Then hold onto that, my love. It was terrible thing to have to do—but it was Morte's own choice to be in that position." Her hand began to stroke along his chest, tracing what muscle he did still have after years away from the dojo. "When others turn to evil, it would be more evil yet for us to turn away."

"…I can't argue with that." That, right there, was one reason he was inclined to believe what Klein had relayed to him the previous day: that somehow Kizmel had lived a full life, improbable as it was. He just couldn't believe that kind of experience could be programmed.

Though Kirito was starting to have a little trouble concentrating on that, between the softness under his hand and the touch of her fingers roaming his body. Tragedy was only part of the previous day's events, and Kizmel suddenly seemed quite determined to remind him of the fact.

Impossible to concentrate, a few moments later, when she straddled him, pressed her torso tight to his, and pulled him into a burning kiss.

Reason was on pause for a bit after that. Only when the elf girl broke away for air, panting for breath—not that he was any better off—did Kirito catch a glimpse of the time display in his HUD. Some trace of sanity managed to get the upper hand over hormones, and he gripped her shoulders to hold her off before she could dive in again.

"Kirito-kun…"

The pout on that flushed face was just not fair, and it almost won out over good sense. "I wish we could stay in bed all day, too, Kizmel," he managed. "But it's getting a little late in the morning."

Kizmel's eyes flicked toward her lower-right, where her own time display would be hovering in her vision. Her pout turned to a grimace when she saw, as he had, that it was already ten in the morning—well after their usual wakeup—and after a moment she relented and leaned back.

"I suppose we shouldn't keep Philia and Rain waiting any longer," she said with a sigh. "But truly, Kirito-kun, we must find some time to have our own—what did Argo call it? Ah, yes—'honeymoon' when we can."

"That'd be nice, yeah. Maybe the next time we hit a breather level." Still, part of Kirito was relieved when she climbed off him, sliding off the bed entirely. If she'd pushed it, he didn't think he would've been able to refuse.

Hormones nearly won out again anyway, watching Kizmel walk over to the open window with a casual disregard for modesty. He didn't think she was even trying to be seductive now—which if anything made it worse. She was just herself, and "herself" was a combination of exotic beauty and the lithe muscle and graceful motion of a swordswoman.

He almost went deep into his menu to reactivate the Ethics Code out of sheer self-preservation. Would have, in fact, had Kizmel not confessed to him in a brief moment of sanity the previous night that she always had it off when they were in private. Had, in fact, since months before she'd realized she was in love with him.

That gesture of trust was one Kirito couldn't bring himself not to reciprocate. Even when he was hanging onto rationality by his fingernails.

Leaning her head out the window, Kizmel sniffed at the growing wind. "A storm is coming," she said after a moment. "I fear we'll need to dress more warmly today, Kirito-kun."

He shrugged, firmly squashing his inner conflict about whether that was a good or bad thing. "We'd have to after breakfast, anyway," he pointed out. "It's not quite spring, up on the Fifty-Sixth Floor. Even if most of it's a desert."

That in mind, he finally opened his menu, skipped quickly through the sub-menus, and with a few keystrokes equipped his usual black clothes. Even without the coat, it was enough to keep away the chill Kizmel's absence had left on his skin. Not to mention gave him a much-needed buffer between hormones and good sense.

"You have a point," the elf girl mused. Stepping back from the window, she closed it against the wind, turned to face him, and swept two fingers down to bring up her own menu. "Besides, I believe I saw Black Cat coming in, with Asuna as a passenger."

Asuna's coming? Must be business; she never gets two days off in a row.

Kirito was distracted from that, and the pang of disappointment when dusky skin vanished from view, by Kizmel's choice of attire for the morning. He'd been expecting the tights and tunic she normally wore out of armor, or maybe her nightgown if she wasn't through teasing him.

What shimmered into place over bare skin was instead tights, a black skirt that reached midway down her thighs, and a purple tank top eerily similar to something he'd once seen on her mirror image.

Seeing Kizmel dressed in a way that wouldn't look out of place on the streets of his hometown in the real world, Kirito found himself at a complete loss for words. Just then, maybe for the first time, he could clearly picture her in Kawagoe, coming home with him…

Without realizing it, he'd come to his feet, and now stood in front of her. Swallowing against the abrupt dryness in his mouth, he reached out to cup her cheek, suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of sheer unreality. "Kizmel…"

Kizmel pressed his hand closer with hers, smiling. "Well," she murmured. "I don't believe I need ask what you think of Asuna's wedding present." She leaned into his touch a moment longer, then pulled away. Turning him to the door leading back into the common area of the cabana, the elf girl wrapped her arm around his. "Come, my love. Let's not keep the others waiting."

---

For all the many things that had gone wrong of late, Kizmel still felt she had reason to be pleased with herself. It had taken two months and world-shattering revelations, but she had succeeded in fulfilling, as Argo might have put it, her "New Year's resolution". Quite well, at that, she thought with a smile, as she and Kirito walked into the cabana's common room. Better than I ever dreamed.

Not the most ostentatious room, that. Simple wood-paneled walls, a fireplace that wasn't likely to see much use in the Fifty-First Floor's climate. Four chairs set around a breakfast table under a window by the east wall; and by the fireplace, the one piece of furniture that looked at all expensive, a large couch.

Nothing much. Only a beginning. But to Kizmel, it was everything. A home for her new family, one that had no memories but the ones they would create together.

"Hey, sleepyheads!" Philia called from the table. "About time you got up. Though honestly, I wasn't expecting to see you guys until at least noon." The treasure hunter gave them a sly grin. "Should Rain and I be glad sound doesn't travel through closed doors in SAO?"

Kirito choked, and a furiously blushing Rain turned a glare on the blonde from the other side of the table. "Philia, you can't just—I mean—!"

"If you're going to ask something like that, please do it when you don't have guests," Asuna agreed, herself so red steam was literally coming out of her ears. From the couch by the fireplace, she favored Philia with the full glare of a Vice-Commander. "I know more about some things than I want to as it is, Philia-san."

Her own face burning, Kizmel could only nod in mute agreement. As she'd told Kirito once before, what was done in private was often a very different thing from what was done around others, and this was definitely one of them. Even "girl talk" had its limits.

Clearing her throat awkwardly, she pulled Kirito to the remaining chairs at the table. "We had an… enjoyable evening, Philia," she managed, looking anywhere but at the treasure hunter—or Kirito. "I believe that's really all that needs to be said on the matter."

"That's still too much information," Asuna muttered. "But… good for you."

That last was under her breath, so quiet Kizmel suspected she was the only one who heard it at all. She let her friend have her illusion of privacy, though. I haven't seen Asuna so embarrassed since the time I tricked her and Kirito into sharing a hot spring with me without those ridiculous swimsuits. This time, I have to agree with her.

Has Philia been taking lessons from Argo? Terrifying thought, that.

Once they were all settled again, it was Asuna's turn to clear her throat. "If everyone is quite done talking about… that…" She took a deep breath, looked over at Kizmel, and smiled. "That looks good on you, Kizmel-chan. I was hoping I'd gotten a good match for you."

"It's perfect, Asuna. Thank you." Kizmel glanced down at the Swordmaster-style casual clothes she'd chosen for the morning, and felt a small smile of her own. "Not quite what I'm used to, but that's not a bad thing at all."

In point of fact, she'd chosen Asuna's gift for this morning's attire partly for exactly that reason. Still off-balance—to put it mildly—from the radical shift in her own view of the world, she'd decided wearing something completely different from her people's style was exactly what she needed.

The shattering change in perspective on her past was something with which it would take some time for her to truly reconcile. In the meantime, as with their new home, she thought an entirely new beginning was in order. There were no memories, good or ill, associated with a Swordmaster's skirt and "tank top".

Well, she amended. Some good memories already. The look on Kirito's face… Perhaps the day didn't start as well as I would have preferred, but it certainly wasn't bad.

"Well," Asuna said then, abruptly standing. "I wish I could say I was here for a social call like last night, but today the Commander sent me on business. Let me get breakfast for the newlyweds, and we can get started."

She disappeared into the cabana's small kitchen, leaving a perplexed team behind. "…Vice-Commander Asuna has the Cooking skill?" Philia said, blinking.

"Asuna's dabbled in non-combat skills almost as long as I've known her," Kirito said with a shrug, redness finally fading from his face. "I think she finally settled on Cooking because a good meal can be a major morale boost, sometimes."

"'An army travels on its stomach'!" Rain proclaimed, nodding. "That's the expression, isn't it?"

So Kizmel had heard, during her training as a knight. Though she had suspicions now as to the origin of the saying, along with most of everything else she'd been taught in those days. This world is Kayaba's invention, and perhaps a few others. Makers of games, not soldiers. I hope they at least consulted with true warriors.

Well. Perhaps that fear, at least, was groundless. From what her friends among the Swordmasters had begun to explain, now that she knew the truth, Kayaba had apparently had no shame when it came to "borrowing" from other sources. Such a perfectionist was likely to have stolen the best military wisdom, as well.

"Breakfast!" Asuna called out, before the elf could go too far down that mental path. "Don't worry about me," she added, setting plates of pancakes and bacon, flavored with a delicious-smelling syrup, on the table. "I ate this morning. For me this is all business."

So she said, Kizmel mused as she dug gratefully into her friend's cooking. But if she was any judge, Asuna was more relaxed than she'd seen in some months. I wonder what, exactly, Kirito had to say to her two days ago? This reminds me more of the Asuna from the days of our battles against the Forest and Fallen.

Kizmel wasn't about to question it, in any case. For now she intended to merely enjoy the food—Kirito identified the syrup as maple, with evident surprise—and not worry about anything more serious for a few moments longer.

All too soon, though, breakfast came to an end, and their four-person party turned their chairs to face the couch. Asuna, who'd waited with admirable patience, took that as her cue. "All right, you guys," she began. "Kirito-kun. I understand there were some things you didn't want to talk about in front of the whole clearing group. What happened yesterday, really?"

Kirito and Kizmel glanced at each other, and with a small nod the elf girl ceded to the swordsman. His news, she felt, was the more painful. It would be better for him to get it out of the way.

Sighing, he opened his menu, went into his storage, and materialized the Baneblade. "First things first," he said, turning to Philia. "Can you Inspect this for me, Philia?"

The treasure hunter, the only one present who had the skill that allowed for examining a weapon's status, took the sword. "The Baneblade? What about it…?" With a quick tap, she brought up its status, and moved her finger down the immaterial page that appeared. "Hm… Eh? 'With the blade tested by the blood of evil, its sleeping power begins to wake. Let its edge taste the Well of Life, and the sword shall be restored.'" She looked up, eyes wide. "Kirito…"

"Yeah." Kirito sighed, looking down at the clenched hands in his lap. "I was afraid it would say something like that."

If Philia was surprised, Asuna looked downright stricken. "Kirito-kun…"

"Morte is dead," he said flatly. "I killed him yesterday, with the Baneblade." Kizmel wrapped an arm around his back, and he didn't resist her pulling him closer to her side. "I had to. He was between me and Kizmel while she fought off another member of Laughing Coffin, he was trying to kill me, and…" He drew in a deep breath, eyes falling closed in a wince. "No. Never mind that."

Kizmel gently rubbed his back. He'd told her, the previous evening, the part he couldn't bring himself to say to the others. That, having used Dual Blades, he hadn't wanted to risk leaving Morte as a witness. Not of perhaps the one crucial advantage he might have, if it came to fighting PoH again.

She understood, but she'd lived the life of a warrior. Even now, few of the Swordmasters had any idea of the kind of cold, hard logic battles between intelligent warriors held.

"…I'm sorry, Kirito-kun," Asuna said softly. "But… we all knew it was going to come to that, sooner or later. Don't blame yourself."

"And don't start thinking we're going to think you're some kind of monster, either," Philia put in quickly. "We were there for Titan's Hand, remember? Those guys wouldn't back down 'til we poisoned them, and they were so low-level they couldn't even hurt us. Morte…"

"One of the first PKers," Rain put in, nodding. "I remember from Argo's notes. He almost killed you more than once, didn't he?"

"I know," Kirito whispered. Outside the window, the wind began to keen, as if to match the mood inside. "I almost killed him, too, back on the Sixth Floor. I thought I was prepared. But…" He accepted the Baneblade back from Philia, and banished it to his storage with a shiver. "My grandfather always said it wouldn't be easy."

If they hadn't already been focused on him, four sets of eyes would've locked on him with that comment. The greatest taboo of the Swordmasters, besides killing one another, was speaking of the world they'd left behind. Kirito had relaxed that some with his closest friends, but Kizmel knew he still didn't bring it up lightly. "Kirito-kun?"

"My grandfather taught kendo," he said in answer to Asuna's query. "Never kenjutsu. But… well. While he never talked about it much, he was a police officer before he retired to focus on kendo. Like a city guard," he added, before Kizmel could ask. "Grandfather always told my sister and me that a real sword has only one purpose: to kill. He taught kendo because he never wanted any students who would have to face that reality. 'Too many young fools think they're ready, and they never are,'" he continued, with the air of quoting words oft-heard. "'Except sometimes, they are—and that's worse.'"

Kizmel put that statement together with her husband's reaction to the previous day, and what she'd seen of the PKers they'd fought, and winced. That much, at least, matched with her own training and experience. On the one hand reassuring, on the other… not.

"He said that a lot, when I was growing up," Kirito added, seeing the looks Rain and Philia were giving him. "I didn't train under him very long, but, well, when he said something it tended to stick." He shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm… dealing with it. Kind of. But the Baneblade is not helping." He shivered again, under Kizmel's touch. "That message? That thing is intended to get more powerful after killing someone. I don't care if it only worked against someone who deliberately attacked someone else. Kayaba is a bastard."

"Indeed," Kizmel said softly. "Were this truly a relic of an ancient conflict, as I had believed, that would not be so unreasonable. As part of a game? Kayaba's machinations are those of a cruel weaver of tales, not one managing a world of living people."

That, she'd decided in the past day, was perhaps what was most horrifying about the Swordmasters' captor. When she'd believed him to be a sorcerer who had called realms of real people into the sky, he'd only been manipulating a situation that already existed. From legends that still survived from before the Great Separation, it was even possible there'd been a cold logic to it, aiming toward a legitimate end.

Instead, the entire world was nothing but a way for a mad storyteller to use people as living characters in a story. For that, Kizmel would gladly have placed her sword between his ribs.

For what she'd begun to sickly suspect, since her journey of self-discovery, she would have volunteered him for the darkest rituals of the Fallen Elves.

Abruptly, Kizmel shook her head. "Enough about Morte and the Baneblade," she said into the gloomy silence that had fallen. "We have no clues at all on this 'Well of Life', so let it rest for now. There is something else you must know, Asuna—something that, somehow, we must tell the other clearers. Though I fear how they may respond." It was her turn to take a deep breath. "I was wrong to believe the residents of the Steel Castle were as alive as I, Asuna. But the Swordmasters have been just as wrong in assuming I was the only living soul here before you."

She told them all, then, of her encounter with Tia. The "NPC" who claimed to be less than what Kizmel was, yet more than most of the inhabitants of Aincrad. How the cold girl had spoken of the presence of others like her—and that she herself had sided with Laughing Coffin, for the sake of delaying the end of the only world she knew.

The storm was upon their cabana in earnest, by the time Kizmel's side of the tale was told. She thought it was fitting, given what a storm the previous day's events had the potential to set off. I thought it was my world alone that was upset, she thought, leaning into her husband's side as the others took in the news. But this… I need not understand the whole truth of this "Sword Art Online" to comprehend the implications of Tia's existence.

Rain was the first to break the silence otherwise marred only by wind and thunder. "Well," she began, mustering a small smile. "There's a bit of good news in there, right? I mean, if Tilnel really existed, then…"

"Then Kizmel-chan's memories aren't just fakes," Asuna agreed. She was kneeling by the fireplace, coaxing it to life against the growing chill. "I'm glad for that, really. But this could change everything." When the sparks had turned to a merrily crackling fire, she turned back to Kizmel's group. "Kirito-kun? What do you think?"

"…It's going to complicate things some," Kirito said slowly. He looked out the window at the crashing waves and brights flashes of lightning. "Though maybe not as much as you'd think. We'd already agreed we need to treat every quest as if we were really summoned heroes, right?"

"After what you pointed out about how Kayaba probably set up the lore?" She nodded. "Even Lind isn't going to risk anything like what he originally suggested against The Geocrawler. There might be a couple in the clearing group that disagree, but there shouldn't be any organized action." Asuna pursed her lips in thought, settling back down on the couch. "Which means we're not likely to hurt any of these 'living NPCs'."

"At least not by accident," Rain put in, a troubled frown on her face. "If this 'Tia' is with Laughing Coffin, though… Who knows how many of them there might be out to get us. I mean, she wasn't wrong. We'd be killing them just by trying to go home, even if we never laid eyes on them."

Kizmel nodded silently. That was, after all, the crux of her own dilemma, and why it had taken so long to close the last distance with Kirito. There are those seeking to free me from this world before the end, she thought, gently squeezing Kirito's hand. Yet whether they succeed or fail, my choice was made. As a knight, I cannot choose selfishness. Tia and others like her may not be so bound.

"That's true enough, Rain. But that's going to be true no matter what we do. Even if we stopped trying to clear the game right now, this world wouldn't last forever." Kirito shrugged uncomfortably, meeting the redhead's eyes. "The SAO servers would have to be shut down eventually. But… for what it's worth—and I know it isn't much—there can't be more than a handful of NPCs like Tia."

"You're sure, Kirito-kun?" Asuna said sharply.

"Definitely." He nodded at Kizmel, a brief smile lighting his face. "Tia said she and her 'sisters' aren't the same as Kizmel. That implies Kizmel, like I always thought, isn't a conventional AI—and that Tia's type are born of conventional technology."

I think I'll be spending most of the next few weeks pestering him with questions about how this world truly works, Kizmel thought. From the look of it, the other humans in the room had some inkling of what Kirito meant, but she was completely lost. "The distinction being, Kirito?"

"Conventional means it obeys the rules I'm familiar with, Kizmel," he obliged. "Meaning however you bypass the normal rules, they don't. They're bound by the capabilities of SAO's hardware, and there's no way the servers can support more than a handful of NPCs with that kind of processing devoted to them."

"So at least not many will have to die for you to be free," she said softly. "That is a small consolation. Even so… I suppose it would be much worse if there truly were entire communities in this world."

"For us to be free, Kizmel," he said at once, squeezing her shoulder. "I promised you I'd bring you out, too, and I meant it."

So he had. And if there was one thing that had been reaffirmed about Kizmel's world over the past days, it was that Kirito never lied to her. No matter what, that was one rock in her life, one she was only too glad to cling to.

It means I will bear guilt as well, for what will become of the likes of Tia. But I had already decided to aid the Swordmasters—the players—whether I could be taken out of this world or not. The responsibility would be mine as well, and I will not look away from it.

Philia cleared her throat. "Um, not to break up the warm and fuzzies, but… I had a thought, about Tia. Am I the only one thinking her being a 'conventional' AI is exactly how she ended up with Laughing Coffin?" Collective attention turning to her, she raised her hands, palm-up. "I'm not a computer expert, but I'm gonna guess that if Tia is 'alive but not as alive as Kizmel', the biggest difference is probably in intuition. Does that make sense?"

Kirito frowned. "…Probably," he said after a moment. "You probably don't want the technical details, but there's basically two kinds of AI concepts: top-down, which makes decisions based on a pre-programmed logic tree, and bottom-up, which would be… well, essentially what Kizmel is: an intelligence that learns on its own, just like a human. Going by that, I'd say it's safe to assume Tia's a top-down. I didn't think we had the technology for even that before SAO, but if Kizmel proves the existence of bottom-up, then top-down would be easy."

I definitely need to ask questions. Many, many questions.

It was something of a relief when Kizmel met Asuna's eyes, and the human girl gave a resigned shrug. Apparently such knowledge wasn't ubiquitous in their world, either.

Philia seemed to follow it well enough, though, and she nodded. "Okay, then. Here's what I think: according to Argo, there's a few reports from survivors of Laughing Coffin attacks that mention a girl that was probably Tia—and nothing that sounds like her before that. So PoH or one of his guys was probably the first player she met. Which means Laughing Coffin's view is the only one she knows."

That, Kizmel grasped readily. "You're suggesting Tia follows PoH's philosophy—or at least the one he's told her—because she knows no other, and lacks the ability to question it without a comparison." She winced. "That… must be a terrible life."

"It… would make sense," Asuna said softly. It was her turn to look out the window, expression distant. "Humans can have a hard time understanding what life is like outside what they're been brought up with it. An AI like what you guys are describing… I only hope her 'sisters' haven't been found by Laughing Coffin."

"Yeah." Kirito slumped in his chair with a sigh. "I'm worried enough about what we might have to do about the red players as it is, and they made their own choices. I don't like the thought of having to fight someone just because they don't know any better."

Depressing thought, that. Though unlike her companions, it wasn't entirely unfamiliar to Kizmel. The situation had never arisen, to her immense relief, but she'd occasionally wondered what would have happened had they encountered any children among the Fallen Elves. With the Forest, there had always been at least the possibility of reason. The Fallen were warped, one and all, and she'd been sickeningly sure any children born to them would have been just as twisted, through no fault of their own.

Now that was a disturbingly comforting thought. Her life before meeting the Swordmasters had been a lie, yet it seemed her experiences were still applicable to some degree.

That fact was enough to make her want to vomit.

"Don't give up, guys," Rain said suddenly, again the one to break the rain-filled silence. When eyes turned to her, she grinned. "So Tia doesn't know anything else? Then all we have to do is show her! We've got Kizmel as all the example she needs of what a real heroine to her people is, don't we?"

Kizmel flushed at the praise. "Please, Rain, you give me far too much credit. After all, my own motives are hardly entirely altruistic—and unlike Tia and her sisters, I have the chance of escape."

The redhead snorted. "And we all know you'd be doing the same thing even if you didn't. But forget about that. They're tied to this world? That's what Kayaba decided, and I don't remember any of us wanting to do things by Kayaba's rules. If there's a way to bring Kizmel out with us, then we'll find a way for the others, too—even if we have to find Kayaba and make him do it for us!"

---

March 10th, 2024

---

The most frightening thing about being in Laughing Coffin, Lux often thought, was just how little she actually saw of their activities. Since being given the choice of joining them or dying in a dungeon, none of her greatest fears had yet come to pass. Two months on, and she had never been given the task of luring other players to where the PKers of the guild could murder them.

She wished that meant her conscience was clear. After all, so far all she'd done was make supply runs into towns for the orange-marked players and provide what information she could pick up about the activities of the clearing guilds. Jobs that kept her away from Laughing Coffin's base much of the time, and out of any direct schemes of murder.

Lux knew better than to let herself feel good about even that. Just supplying the orange players—the red players, as the PKers were starting to be called—made her an accessory, and she knew it all too well. What they did with the scraps of information she provided, she was afraid to ever know.

Frightening as it was, that ignorance was just barely enough to keep her sane. Her hands weren't clean, but she could at least tell herself she wasn't the monster her "guildmates" were. It was sometimes even enough to let her sleep at night—though she wasn't sure she'd have been able to if she spent all her time in the red guild's base.

Now Lux did have reason to be there, though. Delving deep into a cavern on the Twenty-Third Floor, she was returning to the dungeon Safe Haven Laughing Coffin's red players used with a fresh batch of supplies. At least all I should need to do today is drop these off and go, she thought, nimbly dodging a Dwarf Bandit's axe before swatting it into a tunnel wall with a Horizontal. How do they sleep here?

She'd tried, once, before PoH had decided exactly what her job would be. The drums the Dwarf mobs liked to play in the night hadn't been good for rest. Worse had been Johnny Black's cackling suggestion the Dwarves might've dug too deep.

No Balrogs so far. But that Bandit Lord I ran into last time shouldn't have been so close to the surface. This place is really starting to give me the creeps.

When Lux slipped through the hidden tunnel into Laughing Coffin's chosen safe area, she almost wished she had run into a Balrog along the way. At her level, she might've been able to solo even a minor boss on that floor, and it certainly wouldn't have been as disturbing as what she found among her "allies".

The rough-hewn, torchlit cavern was filled with a dozen of the ragtag batch of killers PoH had assembled. Most of them were lounging around, talking among themselves or checking equipment, as was usually the case when Lux visited. This time, though, the distinctive figure of Johnny Black was pacing around, gesticulating wildly as he muttered to himself. For an audience he had XaXa, watching him through the red eyes of his mask while he polished his estoc, and PoH, who slouched against one wall with a very thoughtful look on his face.

"Bastard… I'll kill him for that, I swear… Him and that bitch of a doll he's always fawning over… They thought what happened to those brats in the Black Cats was bad? I'll make them beg for mercy…!"

Lux shivered. Johnny Black had never struck her as the most stable of Laughing Coffin, but deranged amusement was more his habit. Rambling was normal enough for him; she knew that well from when they'd "rescued" her. Furious mumbling was something else entirely.

And… isn't someone missing?

Taking care to stay as far from Black as she could, Lux edged over to the only other girl in the room, a blonde with long, twin-tailed hair. "Gwen?" she whispered. "Did something happen?"

"Hey, Lux," Gwen replied, smiling slightly. "You missed it, huh? Johnny's been having a fit for three days now. Seems the Black Swordsman killed Morte the other day."

Lux gasped, eyes going wide. "Morte is dead?!" she blurted, only barely keeping her voice low. "But… but the clearers never risk PvP! Doesn't XaXa always complain none of them, um… none of them have the guts for it?"

Anyone else, she wouldn't have risked asking. She tried to keep her interactions with the rest of Laughing Coffin to a minimum. Gwen, though, was only "allied", as the leader of another orange guild. She was also the closest to being sane of any orange player Lux had met.

Striking up a friendship, even a tenuous one, with an orange player was crazy, and Lux knew it. She was also afraid she'd lose it completely if there wasn't someone she could talk to.

"That's what they always say," Gwen agreed with a nod. "The Black Swordsman's different, though. I heard he almost killed Morte back on the Sixth Floor, once—and unlike some people I could name, I paid attention to the rumors after Titan's Hand got locked up. If any of those goody-two-shoes would PK, it'd be the Beater." She chuckled darkly. "I don't know if Johnny's slept a wink since."

Hypocrite, Lux wanted to say. But she couldn't, any more than she'd been able to reject PoH's original ultimatum. If she wanted to survive, these were the people with whom she'd have to work. Johnny Black wasn't stable at the best of times, and she could see crossing him right then would've been suicidal.

"Any idea what happened?" she murmured, trying to seem only curious. "Even with the rumors about the Black Swordsman… I mean, Morte was good."

"They say the top players are the Flash, the Paladin, and the Black Swordsman—and that NPC Blackie hangs around with is supposed to be a monster, too." Gwen shrugged. "All I know is, PoH thought that Dark Elf was a possible recruit, and he sent Tia to bring her in, with Morte and Johnny as backup. I told 'em it wasn't a good idea, but did they listen? Of course not."

Lux was torn between horror at the death of another player, and a terrible relief. Morte was—had been—one of Laughing Coffin's best fighters, and unlike a lot of them he'd known perfectly well that he was killing people for real. If he was dead, then that was one fewer red player committing cold-blooded murder.

On the other hand, Morte was about the only one besides PoH who could keep Black under control. …I don't want to see what he's like if he goes completely over the edge.

Worse, no one else even seemed to care, either about Morte's death or Johnny Black's mad rambling. A room full of killers, and none of them cared.

Abruptly, Black spun to face PoH. "Boss! When the hell are we gonna go after the Beater?! We can't let him get away with killing Morte! Him and his pet, they've gotta pay for that!"

"And they will, Johnny," PoH said coolly. Lux couldn't see his eyes under the hood of his poncho, but the lower half of his face showed an eerie calm. "But we have to be subtle. That's how we've gotten as many kills as we have, remember? And with the Black Swordsman, we have to be even more careful. He's sharp enough to have spoiled more than his share of our schemes. You were there, you know what I'm talking about."

Lux wasn't sure if she was relieved by PoH's reasonable response or not. Black was frightening because he was crazy. PoH was even scarier because, as far as she could tell, he wasn't. If she'd heard right, he'd almost gotten the clearing group to tear itself apart more than once without even showing up, just by whispering in the right ears.

"Of course, if you do want to try for revenge yourself, be my guest." PoH grinned, showing teeth. "I wouldn't mind a good show, and I hear the Baneblade lights up real nice in PvP."

Definitely not relieved.

Black's teeth audibly gnashed behind his bag mask. "But Boss! We gotta show everybody you can't just kill one of Laughing Coffin, and—!"

Abruptly, PoH raised a hand, cutting the mad killer off mid-rant. "Just a second, Johnny. She's coming."

Blinking, only then did Lux realize another of the regular residents of the cavern was missing. Not for long, though: within moments of PoH's comment, a familiar girl in blue, with an (NPC)cursor, entered the Safe Haven from the same tunnel Lux had used.

As creepy as ever, she thought. Tia wasn't homicidal like the others, but to Lux that made her almost worse. Where and how PoH had recruited the NPC, she didn't know, but Tia's innocence gave her a sick feeling. Like she followed PoH because she literally didn't know anything else…

"PoH," Tia said then, walking right up to the PKer leader. "The clearing group is expected to attack the Fifty-Sixth Floor Boss tomorrow."

PoH nodded. "Figured as much. Once they finally got The Geocrawler out of the way, they sure were in a hurry. Any intel on what comes next?"

Again, Lux found herself shivering. By rights there should've been no way to know what lay on floors the clearers hadn't yet reached. Beta tester knowledge had only covered up to the Tenth Floor, and that not even the Floor Boss. Yet somehow, PoH occasionally came up with scraps of information just a little bit in advance even then.

"'S' wouldn't say much," Tia answered PoH, a tiny frown creasing her forehead. "But she was unhappy. There is a system error, and it is going uncorrected. She said she was going to have to take action personally this time, in absence of higher orders."

"Did she, now?" PoH hummed, sounding very interested. "How about that. I thought she only got involved for special occasions… Any hints about what's going on?"

Tia's frown deepened. "I didn't understand. She said something about an 'outbreak'…"

If the way the other members of Laughing Coffin suddenly perked up wasn't enough to send chills down Lux's spine, PoH's slow grin would've done it quite nicely. "Well, well, that is interesting. C'mon, Tia. Tell me exactly what 'S' said. If I'm right, then it really is showtime."

---

March 12th, 2024

---

"I'm trying to decide if this floor is better or worse than the last," Kizmel mused, boots ringing on the stone-paved road. "On the one hand, I'm well-pleased at being rid of the dryness and the dust. Especially after the dust storm that nearly choked us all to death on approach to the Pillar of the Heavens. On the other… something about this place is deeply unsettling."

"I know what you mean," Kirito agreed quietly. There was, he knew, no real reason to be so quiet here—especially not when they were nearly to a Safe Haven. Despite that, he couldn't help but feel like being too loud would attract… something.

What, he had no idea. But that itch behind his shoulder blades wasn't something he was prepared to ignore. Not after the last time he'd felt so twitchy, it had presaged an attempted PK.

No, Kirito reminded himself. Morte was counting on me deflecting it. He wanted to stop me, not fight. He didn't expect the duel—not the way it happened.

"Something not quite right about the grass here," Rain said, just behind them. "It looks… not quite dead, I guess. But not healthy. And those trees look like they're petrified, but alive. If that makes any sense."

"No birds, either." Philia's voice was distracted; the tone she got when she was Searching the surroundings, Kirito thought. "There's something moving out there, but whatever it is, it's in the grass. Like it's hiding, only not from us. Not mobs, though, just critters."

The four of them were making their way along a roadway Kirito thought would've done the Romans proud, leading from the staircase from the previous floor to the first town of the Fifty-Seventh Floor. Karika, according to a road sign they'd passed, located just a bit west of center near the southern edge of the floor.

After the defeat of the Fifty-Sixth Floor's boss, Kirito's party had been more or less ordered to go on ahead and activate the Teleport Gate on the new floor. Lind's idea, that; Kirito still wasn't sure if it was the DDA guildmaster's way of trying to reassert his authority after the debacle with The Geocrawler, or some kind of odd apology. Asuna had agreed with it, though, and truthfully none of them minded a little time away from the raid group, before the inevitable flood of visitors from lower floors.

What they'd found on the Fifty-Seventh Floor hadn't quite been what any of them might have expected. Not that there was ever a way to know what a new floor would hold, so far beyond what the beta testers had reached, but after fifty-six floors Aincrad's vagaries had become somewhat predictable to the clearers. After a dusty, barren floor like the Fifty-Sixth, Kirito had honestly expected something a bit livelier.

Well, it's not a desert this time, he thought, as a keening wind threatened to tangle his coat with Kizmel's cloak. I'm just not sure I'd call it alive, either.

Well. Not healthy, anyway, like Rain had said. Nothing encroached on the pavement of the road, the grass was a shade of green that just didn't look right, and the trees… the trees reminded Kirito of the Forest of Demise, only not quite dead. That, combined with the behavior Philia reported of the local non-hostile wildlife, only added to his unease.

Kizmel's left hand strayed to his right, giving it a light squeeze. Glancing over at her, he found her giving him a small smile. The sight was enough to make him relax, just a little, reminding him he wasn't alone. Not with Rain and Philia watching his back, and his wife at his side, as reliable as ever.

My wife. That's going to take more than a week to get used to. …I'm not sure if it's funny or scary to think of introducing her that way to Sugu. Not that I think Kizmel will give me a choice.

"We're almost to Karika," Kirito said then, as tall walls came into view around a bend in the road. He wasn't sure if he was glad for the distraction from the direction his thoughts had taken or not. "Whatever this floor's gimmick is, we should be able to find out soon enough."

---

"The concept of each floor having a deliberate 'gimmick' certainly explains a great deal," Kizmel remarked some fifteen minutes later. Within Karika, the buildings were of a style somewhat like the Fifty-Sixth Floor's "frontier town" look, but a bit sturdier, and the road the same smooth stone pavement that had led there. "I had always wondered why each floor seemed to have its own crisis, apart from the war between the elves and the clearing as a whole."

"A game has to be kept interesting," Kirito agreed, inwardly glad that she was so calm about it. Six days, after all, wasn't exactly enough time to recover from such a huge shift in worldview. He knew. "I hate to say it, but I'll give Kayaba credit for managing to have so much variety, over so many floors."

"Well, he wasn't exactly operating in a vacuum," Rain pointed out absently. She was poring over a newspaper she'd bought from a local NPC, a timid young man who seemed as unwilling to speak loudly as any of them. "Kayaba created the NerveGear, sure, and obviously a lot of the programming for SAO itself, but he couldn't have done all of it by himself."

"True. Come to think of it, I don't know if he was involved in the Anti-Harassment Code at all. The interviews I saw talking about the debate the developers had over it never once quoted him." Kirito grimaced. "Probably because he was just going to do things his way in the end, anyway."

He tried not to think too hard about the corollary to that. After his wedding night with Kizmel, he'd very reluctantly consulted Argo on the matter—figuring if he was going to be teased about it, he might as well get some info in exchange—and between the two of them they'd come up with two possibilities. Either Kayaba had determined it was necessary, either for immersion or for mental health, to make player avatars "fully functional", or else another developer or two had done it as a joke, with the code intended to be dummied out in the final release.

Kirito was reasonably sure Argo's sly suggestion it was meant as a testbed for virtual eroge wasn't correct. That, he thought, would've been a bridge too far for the CERO board.

He hoped.

"Other developers," Kizmel said thoughtfully, glancing away from a group of NPCs walking into what looked like bar, chatting about a card game. "So Kayaba was not the only sorcerer involved in Aincrad's creation? 'Programmer', rather?"

"Too big a project," Philia said. She was turning her head from side to side, peering intently at the surrounding buildings. "Where was that bed and breakfast the town guard mentioned…? Oh, there it is. Anyway," she continued, leading them down a side street, "Kayaba's a genius, but nobody's that good. Even if he could do it by himself at all, he couldn't have done it so fast."

"Ah. That makes sense." The elf girl frowned. "…And how likely is it any of them were complicit in Kayaba's crime?"

"No killing programmers out of hand, Kizmel," Rain said dryly, looking up from her paper. "Kayaba's probably in here somewhere, so he's fair game, but I can't imagine any cronies of his are in here, too. There's gotta be a limit to how much server access can be hidden."

In the near distance, Kirito noticed the shimmering sounds of teleports. Now that Karika's Teleport Gate was open, it seemed other players were beginning to arrive. Tourists from the lower floors, probably, he thought. The KoB and DDA will probably just follow us up from the stairs, like usual.

Can't see the visitors staying long, though. Algade may be a good place for even low-level players to hang out, but this place is just creepy.

"Server access?" Kizmel sighed, waving a hand. "Never mind, I'll ask Kirito this evening. I fear it will take me until we reach the Ruby Palace before I understand half of how this world truly works, let alone yours. At least now I have the frame of reference to try… For now, is there anything useful in that newspaper?"

Excited chatter was beginning to grow as more players arrived behind them. Rain seemed to pay it no attention, though, frowning down at the crinkled paper in her hands. "I'm not sure. There's some warnings not to go out of town without hiring guards, though. Something about how 'they' just overran the main pass through the Garda Mountains a couple of days ago."

"'They'?" Kirito repeated, a chill running down his spine. "What are 'they'?" Because I've heard that kind of nonspecific address before, and it usually meant—

Somehow, the piercing scream that rang out didn't even surprise him. Not at first. He only whirled in the direction of the shriek, hand flashing up to grip the Duskshard's hilt. Only when the first cry was joined by several more did his blood run cold.

"We're in a Safe Haven," Kizmel breathed, voicing his realization even as she yanked her saber from its scabbard. "This isn't like Dollarah. I saw the notice." She darted a glance at Kirito. "Could this be some kind of 'event'?"

"If it is, I've got another reason to strangle Kayaba," he growled. "You're supposed to have to trigger those, and out in the middle of a town isn't—"

"It's them! Run!"

---

Usually, progressing to the next floor was a cause for celebration simply for the fact that it was one step closer to freedom. For Lind, Guildmaster of the Divine Dragons Alliance, there was an additional reason he was glad to see the first town of the Fifty-Seventh Floor—and a reason he wasn't as pleased as he'd expected.

On the one hand, it was a welcome distraction from the events that had plagued the previous floor. On the other, Karika's general style was too much like a refined version of Dollarah's to take his mind off things properly.

There was a reason Lind was leading his small contingent of the DDA into town after a bit more of a delay than he would have normally. Even with the day wearing on into afternoon, there was more than enough daylight left to give Kirito's party a bit of a head start.

I still don't think I was wrong, he thought, walking through Karika's gate with the rest of his own party. While I perhaps should've remembered from the Sixth Floor that my plan could backfire, and I may not have been as tactful as I could have been, Kizmel-san still needed to know the truth. Better she learn it now than at a more crucial point in the clearing.

Despite that conviction, Lind was willing to concede the Black Swordsman's party had a reason to be unhappy with him, however well things had clearly turned out in the end. So long as they were all able to work together when the time came for the next boss raid, he was perfectly willing to give them space.

Besides, just then his guild had other concerns. Stopping by an NPC just inside the town gate, he purchased a map. After thanking the vendor—he doubted she was another Turing-class AI, but he'd come to the conclusion it never hurt to be polite—he unfolded it and started down the street again. "Hm… According to this, the shopping district is east of here. Let's stock up on potions before we find an inn for the night."

"Good idea, Guildmaster," one of his longest-serving guild members, Shivata, said with a wince. "I kinda ran low during the boss fight. Sorry. I know it wasn't even that bad a fight—"

Lind raised his free hand. "Don't worry about it, Shivata. You were right in the thick of it with Liten. If you took that much damage, it just means the DDA did their part."

The KoB had stolen the show again, along with a certain group of independent players, but Lind wasn't going to blame his subordinates for that. The DDA were still an essential part of the clearing efforts. Someday he still intended to dislodge the KoB from their position as de facto leaders; until then, he was proud of what they'd accomplished already.

They were most of the way to the shopping district when the first sounds of commotion reached Lind's ears. He frowned, wondering what was going on, but quickly dismissed the noise. Probably just tourists from the lower floors celebrating, he thought. Or else an NPC festival of some kind. …That actually sounds kind of nice. We could use the break…

"Um, Boss?" Quetzalcoatl said, as they turned the corner onto the main shopping street. "Do you hear screaming up ahead? Like, not-good screaming?"

"Very not-good screaming," Liten agreed, an edge of worry audible even through the muffling of her helmet. "I, um, think it's coming this way, Guildmaster."

Quet, Lind might've brushed off. For all the katana-wielder's skill in combat, the young man was a bit of a hothead, and Lind knew it. Liten, on the other hand, had always been a steady one; it wasn't just because her boyfriend was already in the DDA that he'd poached her when Kibaou's Aincrad Liberation Force had more or less collapsed.

Still. "We're in a Safe Haven, everyone," he reminded them. "We all saw the notice when we entered the town. Let's at least stock up, then we can go take a look."

That in mind, he calmly led his party over to a potions vendor. He was even starting a transaction when the shopkeeper suddenly took on a nervous look, totally at odds with what Lind was accustomed to from ordinary NPCs—and then the screaming began in earnest.

"What the—?"

"Boss!"

Lind turned to look, and his eyes went wide at the sight. NPCs—ordinary town NPCs, who moments before had been walking the streets as normal—were making a mad dash in their direction. As they got closer, more of the NPCs also turned to run, as if the panic was spreading.

Behind them was a veritable horde. Moaning, roaring, adding their own incoherent screams to the cacophony; the only thing about their appearance that Lind could process for a few stunned seconds was that they looked like they'd just crawled out of their own graves.

Then one of the raging mass caught up to one of the slower NPCs, seized her by the throat, and bit.

Not possible, Lind thought numbly. Not in a town. And not—those can't be—!

The way the NPC woman's gurgling cries died off, even as her attacker released her, and her skin started changing before his eyes chilled him to the bone. She wasn't dying… which, if anything, was worse.

"Guildmaster?" Liten ventured, voice quavering. "Wh-what do we do?"

The monstrous "NPCs" were getting closer, and before their eyes more of the townspeople succumbed to bites. Behind the DDA party, other players that had begun arriving also started to panic. Lind heard a familiar voice utter a filthy curse, accompanied by a shing of steel being drawn; most didn't seem to have the presence of mind.

Something's wrong here. Badly. We—we can't just—

Lind made a snap decision. "Everyone out, now!" he snapped. "Back to the previous floor for now. Go!" Amid a shaky chorus of assent from his party, he yanked a Teleport Crystal from a belt pouch. "Teleport: Eastwood!"

The last thing he saw as the blue sphere took him was the potion seller he'd just been trying to buy from, one of the horde who'd rushed ahead clamped onto the NPC's neck. The image of a screaming man who looked perfectly human transforming into something else would haunt Lind's nightmares.

---

"Guys?" Rain said anxiously. "That does not sound good…"

Kirito was in complete agreement with her on that, and would've said so if he hadn't been immediately distracted by something else. The sudden influx of NPCs running in their direction was bad enough. The dozen or so players that tore on past made it even worse.

The moaning, gray-skinned people who jogged into view after NPCs and players both were enough to render him momentarily speechless. Tattered clothes. Skin that looked like it was rotting. Glowing eyes—and on some of them, glowing veins as well, as if their blood was on fire.

…They're trying to bite those NPCs, Kirito realized. "No way," he whispered.

"Ulp," Philia agreed. "Guys? Are those zombies? In a town?"

"This has to be some kind of event," Rain said numbly. "But even for Kayaba, zombies in a town is sadistic! Even if they can't hurt us, this is going to make it impossible to get any sleep here!"

"Zombies?" Kizmel repeated blankly. "Ugh… Later. Stay calm, my friends. According to the rules you've explained to me, we have nothing to truly fear from them here."

She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as them, but Kirito latched onto her words anyway. After all, one of the few inviolable rules of SAO that ran in the players' favor was that HP could not be reduced in a Safe Haven save by an official duel.

That in mind, he forced tense muscles to relax, and started to return the Duskshard to its scabbard—

"What are you idiots doing?!" A player who'd fallen behind the others paused to grab Kirito's arm, wild-eyed. "We have to get out of here! I saw those things hit the shopping street—all the shopkeepers turned, too! This isn't safe!"

"They—wait, what?!" Before Kirito could demand more of an explanation, though, the other player let go and fled down a side street, running like his life depended on it. Safe Haven or not.

"Questions better wait, guys," Rain said, voice quavering but determined. "If there's any place that's still going to be safe, it'll be an inn—and if you haven't noticed, there's another horde between us and the inn we were going to."

He spun, swearing under his breath. She was right: another group of zombies was coming from the alley next to the Railway Inn, and had already blocked their path. A dozen of them, he estimated—and they'd seen his team.

It had to be the fast kind of zombie, he thought, swearing again as they broke into a run. Where's Asuna when I need her? She'd love this!

Then there was no more time to think. The horde was on them.

Normally Kirito preferred to take the initiative against mobs, frequently with the simple but effective Sonic Leap. There wasn't time for that here, and boxed in with his friends there wasn't much room to maneuver, either. That being the case, he opened up with a basic Vertical, aiming to cleave down through the first zombie's chest through its left shoulder. The Duskshard flared azure with his hurried pre-motion, and came down toward the mob in a brilliant streak.

From the bright flashes around him, the others had much the same idea. In the instant before impact, Kirito uttered a silent prayer that their attacks would be no more hindered by the Safe Haven than the zombie's bites seemed to be.

The concussion that rang out battered his virtual ears, but succeeded in knocking back several of the horde before they could get into gnawing range. There was also, to Kirito's considerable relief, no purple flash or [Immortal Object] notice from any of them.

There was also, to his dismay, almost no other effect. In the short opening the collective attack provided, he had the chance to recognize that the zombies' cursors were a relatively pale red, and the HP of those that had been hit had not gone down.

At all.

Rain muttered something that sounded very uncomplimentary in a language Kirito only recognized from other times he'd heard her curse. "Zombies," she bit out then, using the English term. "What do you think, guys?" she added quickly, the horde closing in again. "Aim for the head?"

"Neck," Philia grunted, pulling her Ridgeback Sword in close. "Swords aren't good for destroying the brain. Hurry!"

Easier said than done. "Push them back!" Kirito called out. "We need space for that!" In the same breath, he slammed his free hand's palm into a zombie that was getting too close for comfort; the Meteor Palm smashed it back hard enough to trip up two more behind it.

Rain copied his move, while Kizmel instead chose to simply bash her shield into another's face. Not quite as effective as Martial Arts skill backed by System Assist, it still staggered the walking corpse, opening just a little bit of room on their patch of street.

That was all the opening Philia needed to let loose with a Horizontal Arc, her sword biting into the neck of a zombie just as it lunged for her. The skill tore in with what Kirito thought was more effort than usual, and when it ripped back out the way it came, the mob's head remained stubbornly attached.

At least it staggered it more, he thought, taking the time to shove several back from his side with a Serration Wave. Like a critical hit. But still no actual damage! Is it because this is a Safe Haven, or—?

"The Baneblade, Kirito!" Kizmel snapped. She smacked another zombie with her shield; followed up with a jab from her saber to the eye that sent another reeling with an anguished moan. "If all else fails, perhaps that will harm these things!"

Damn! He didn't argue, though. He only ducked back from the next ravenous lunge, twisted out of the way as Kizmel unleashed a vicious slash to buy him time and breathing room, and dropped the Duskshard. Letting it clatter to the stone pavement, he opened his menu and tapped a sequence of commands that were becoming entirely too familiar.

The Duskshard vanished from the ground. The shining Mythril of the Baneblade shimmered into his hand, and with a furious shout Kirito unleashed a Horizontal, catching a zombie that had outright leapt three meters into the air to attack.

The mob's body kept on going past. So did its head. They went by on opposite sides of him, though, severed as neatly as anything else he'd had to behead in the year and more he'd been in Aincrad. The resistance the Duskshard had met was nearly nonexistent, against the "holy" blade.

Snarling, Kirito stepped out of the circle his team had formed, going on the offensive now. The inverted triangle of a Sharp Nail took off both arms and the head of another; a Suigetsu roundhouse kick bought him a clear meter's worth of space by bashing one zombie into two others. That was time enough for his sword arm to be released from post-motion, and he followed up with a Snake Bite to dismember one more.

"Holy blade," he heard Rain mutter behind him. "So that's what that was for… Fine, then!" There were the sounds of menu commands, and an object shimmering into existence. Then, "Lacho calad! Drego morn!"

In the middle of ripping the Baneblade through a fourth undead NPC's throat with an unassisted, two-handed blow, Kirito couldn't afford the luxury of a double-take. He wanted to, though, confused as he was by Rain suddenly shouting in Sindarin in the middle of a fight. Especially when it was followed by a flash of light, which was itself accompanied by shrieks from the mobs.

"Ha!" Kizmel shouted. "That's better!" She stepped into his field of view, lowering her saber into position for a Treble Scythe. "Begone!"

Then Kirito did blink, as the spinning Sword Skill bit deeply into three of the horde. Far from the mere stagger and knockback his wife's blade had been doing before, this time it sent limbs flying in a spray of red particle effects.

Risking a glance over his shoulder, he found Rain and Philia similarly tearing into mobs on their side, their swords alight with a blue glow similar to the Baneblade's. "What the…?"

"I'll explain later," Rain got out, fending off an attempted biting of her left shoulder with an Embracer to the rotting mob's throat. "I only just figured out—what's that?!"

Pausing only to push back the mobs still encroaching on his side with a Serration Wave, Kirito turned to look back down the street—and almost wished he hadn't. Stalking toward them from the direction of the Teleport Plaza was a very tall, very broad-shouldered figure in heavy armor, wielding a sword of comparable size. Through the gaps in the armor, all that could be seen was mummified flesh, with bone peeking through in places.

Above its head was a dark red cursor, and the name [Revenant].

"That does not look good," Kizmel said, with studied understatement. "Kirito," she added, stepping in close to his side, "we cannot stay here. Even strengthened, we are outnumbered. And—ugh." Her eyes closed for a moment. "That is, pardon me, not fair."

It took only a moment for Kirito to spot what she was talking about. They'd all beheaded a fair few of the zombies by that point, following the basic principle of any zombie movie—and all of them were getting back up. Or crawling, in the case of those without enough remaining limbs to stand.

He was just taking in that blatantly unfair sight when the Revenant appeared to notice his party, in turn. Which, of course, prompted it to turn its stalk into a fast walk.

"Guys?" Philia said nervously. "I don't like the look of that." She joined Rain in smashed aside two more of the "ordinary" undead, and moved closer to Kirito and Kizmel. "I think maybe we'd better—"

The Revenant screamed, a sound that tore at Kirito's ears and simultaneously triggered a Slow debuff by his HP bar. It flickered out again almost instantly—too far away for the full effect, he guessed—but at the same time the Revenant's fast walk turned to a run.

He suspected the way the glowing veins on the zombies flared even brighter wasn't a good sign for their side, either.

"Run," Kirito got out. "Now. Run!"

The zombies between them and the inn were a risk. Between the Baneblade, whatever buff Rain had managed to trigger, and sheer desperation, they charged through anyway.

Since when is SAO a survival horror game?! Kirito demanded of the absent Kayaba, as his team forced their way toward the Railway Inn's front door. Kayaba, you son of a bitch!

---

"I used to think the swamp and jungle floors were the worst. Now I think I didn't know when I was well off."

Rain nodded in rueful agreement with Kirito's sentiment. "Yeah. I always hated the muck—especially when it rained. This is a thousand times worse. …Ugh, I wish they'd at least quit pounding on the windows. How is anyone supposed to get any sleep around here?"

"It is unusually sadistic, even for Kayaba." Kizmel rested her head on Kirito's shoulder, looking as tired as if she'd just taken on a Field Boss. "Up to now, even as far back as I remember, the rules of this world have held firm. I wouldn't have expected him to inflict something such as this on us."

"I dunno… Something about this doesn't feel right, y'know?" Philia glanced out one of the windows, grimacing at how little light was getting through. "This is way worse than, say, the anti-crystal traps that pop up here and there. I mean, this is a town, and not a dungeon town like Dollarah was!"

The four of them were huddled in a second-floor room of the Railway Inn, having escaped the apparent undead horde still gathering outside. Kirito and Kizmel had claimed one of the beds, curling up together with an unusual disregard for the other girls' presence; Rain had taken the other, sitting with her back against the wall and a book in her hand. Philia had chosen one of the chairs by the windows, though she looked like she was regretting it.

The fact that there were zombified NPCs crawling across those windows might have been related. The banging as they tried to break through the windows—and the inn's doors, and any other possible opening they found—was wearing on the entire team's nerves.

"At least the building still counts as an Immortal Object," Kirito offered, brushing a hand through Kizmel's hair in a gesture Rain suspected was entirely unconscious. "We'll be fine as long as we stay in here. And if we do have to leave in a hurry, Teleport Crystals should still work, too."

"If Kayaba hasn't put one of those traps on the town, too," Rain said sourly, flipping to the next page in her book. "Wouldn't that fit with the whole 'zombie apocalypse' thing?"

"Your world clearly has very strange literature," Kizmel said, violet eyes opening a crack. "Zombies… Judging from the behavior of those mobs, I take it that's a term your culture has for unquiet dead? To be sure, I'd heard tales of the undead in my childhood, but they were always cautionary, remembering the twisted rituals of the Fallen Elves. Certainly they weren't meant for… entertainment."

Kirito surprised them all with a chuckle. "Don't let Asuna hear you say that. I sent her a message, too; I hope to hear back soon… Rain." He turned to meet the redhead's gaze, brief humor already gone. "That book. What did you do back there?"

Rain shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. This was a mystery she'd hoped to investigate on her own a while longer, given what little she'd already discovered. Especially after she'd gotten the full story about not just the final quest of the Moonlit Black Cats, but also the end of the Elf War campaign.

"It's the book I picked up back on the Fifty-First Floor," she said finally, staring down at the yellowed, crinkling pages. "You remember, back in Hyrus Fortress? The mirror match boss?" The others collectively shivered at the reminder; not that she was any better off. "It's… supposed to be a record of the war with the Fallen Elves. From before the Great Separation. The Chronicle of the Great War, it's called."

Kizmel pushed herself up, though not far enough to break Kirito's hold. "A record from that era?" she said sharply. "What kind of record?"

"I don't quite know yet," Rain admitted. Holding out the book for the others to see, she flipped through the pages. Most of them were entirely blank, and the handful toward the beginning were faded and torn, with some passages completely illegible. "It's been filling itself in gradually since I got it. Some of it seems to be based on my skill progression, some of it showed up whenever I leveled up. A few passages were filled in every time we cleared a floor."

Including just as they'd gotten to the Fifty-Seventh. Unfortunately it had been cryptic enough in its references to a Necromancer that she hadn't made the connection until Kirito had brought out the Baneblade against the zombies.

"Some of it is bits of lore, I think," she continued, turning back to the partly-filled pages. "There's also some gameplay tips, though, and hints about some kind of special skill. I think, in-game, this is supposed to be the journal of a Dark Elf knight from way back. That charm it showed me during the fight was in Sindarin, after all."

"Thought that sounded familiar." A bang on the window entirely too close to her head made Philia jump, but the treasure hunter visibly did her best to ignore it. "What was it, anyway? You said a charm. Like what the elves do instead of Swordmaster menus and items?"

"That's what it looks like. 'Lacho calad. Drego morn,'" Rain quoted. "'Flame light. Flee darkness.'"

"Battle cry," Kirito put in, nodding. "From The Unfinished Tales, I think. Fits for a buff that seemed to be mimicking what the Baneblade does."

"Unfinished Tales?" Kizmel repeated, eyebrows and ears alike perking up. "When we have the time, I'd very much like to know what stories were used for my people… Later. When time permits. I assume, Rain, that that charm has limitations?"

""Fraid so," Rain said, grimacing. "I have to be holding the book, and it only works on 'the evil of the Three Races' foes', which I think means it doesn't have the Baneblade's PvP buffs. Worse, it only lasts about half an hour, and it has a two-hour cooldown."

Which would probably have been "fair" under normal conditions, she suspected. If she was right, and it was allowing them to somewhat bypass the Safe Haven protections—scary thought, but right now it balanced things in their favor—it probably wasn't essential to fighting Aincrad-style zombies. In normal dungeon-crawling, that would probably have been more than enough.

As it was…

"Then we'll have to hope those things aren't so durable out in the field." It was Kirito's turn to grimace. "Philia's right, though, this doesn't feel right. Clearing is going to be almost impossible if even the town NPCs are affected by this, and—"

A knock on the door interrupted him. A knock on the inside door, not the front door almost directly beneath their room.

Which—or how many—of them made undignified squeaks, none of them were likely to admit later. Rain was prepared to admit to her heart rate skyrocketing, and from the looks on her friends' faces, she wasn't alone in that, either. Nor in her relief when a familiar voice called through the door.

"Kirito-kun? It's me." A pause. "And don't worry, I'm not infected. You can let me in."

There was something completely unfair about Vice-Commander Asuna's wry, unruffled tone, Rain thought as she went to open the door. How even the Flash could be so calm in the middle of a zombie outbreak…

Still, it was something of a relief to see another living, non-panicked face when the dignified girl in white and red stepped into the room. "I'm glad to see you all safe," Asuna said, while Rain closed the door behind her. "It's chaos out there. Pretty much all the other players who made it up here have already teleported back to lower floors."

"So Teleport Crystals still work here?" Philia asked quickly, this time not even flinching when a zombie pounded on the window behind her. "Or did everyone reach the Teleport Plaza?"

Asuna shrugged. "Hard to say who did what, but the Commander and I got here just in time to see Fuurinkazan using crystals to get out. This definitely isn't an anti-crystal trap, at least."

Kirito and Kizmel both relaxed at that. Considering how close they were to Fuurinkazan, and their own experiences with anti-crystal traps, Rain wasn't surprised. "At least they're okay," Kirito said with a sigh. "Alright. Did you find out anything on the way here, Asuna?"

The KoB vice-commander sat on the end of the bed Rain had reclaimed, displaying a dignified poise the redhead honestly envied. "Not much. But I can tell you the zombie plague, or whatever it is, is spreading through the whole town. If there's a shopkeeper NPC still 'alive' by now, I'll be surprised. By the end of the night this place will probably be completely overrun."

Kizmel closed her eyes, huddling closer to Kirito. Kinda wish I could, Rain thought, still just a bit jealous. And I don't have a lifetime of thinking NPCs are all people. That's gotta hurt.

"It's worse than that, though," Asuna continued, expression turning to Vice-Commander calm in the middle of a crisis. "I don't know yet if the status effect can hit players. Whether it does or not, word of this is going to spread. Bad enough that we know it can get in town, and affects shopkeeper NPCs. Even if it can't leave this floor or infect players, there's going to be rumors."

"And that'll lead to panic," Kirito said quietly, tightening the arm he had around Kizmel. "People hiding in inns. If it gets bad enough, even clearers might freak."

"Exactly." Asuna took a deep breath. "Kirito-kun. Commander Heathcliff is going to try to keep things under control with the rest of the guild. He formally requests your party help me figure out what's going on, and how to stop it. Whether this is a glitch, an event, or… whatever. Will you?"

Kirito took a quick look around the room. His silent question drew a shaky grin from Philia and a wordless hum from Kizmel. Rain simply rolled her eyes. Like I'm going to sit this one out? I'm trying to be a hero. Even without the Chronicle of the Great War, I'd be going.

"We're in, Asuna," their leader said, smiling just a little. "…I don't suppose you have any idea where to start?"

"Not yet," Asuna said, sighing. "I sent a message to Argo asking for her help, though. She'll be careful, Kirito-kun," she added, seeing the sudden anxiety on his face. "She told me she'd already heard from Fuurinkazan, and Sachi-chan was able to hide from the zombies with her cloak. Argo's Hiding should keep her safe enough."

"Should". That wasn't really a word any clearer liked to rely on. Even so, Rain thought, Argo really was the best at what she did—and this was one risk someone had to take. If ever there was a quest as important to clearing Aincrad as any Floor Boss, this was it.

"…All right, then." Kirito was obviously unhappy, but he didn't push it. "We'll have to wait for her to dig something up. In the meantime, Asuna, here's what we were able to figure out from the initial attack. Not that it's much…"

---

Thump-crack. Thump-crack. Thump-crack…

At least the windows were still showing no sign of breaking, despite the fists pounding on them from outside. To Kirito, though, that was cold comfort, pitted against the primal reaction his brain had to the constant noise. His fight-or-flight reactions were screaming at him to do one or the other, preferably both; and while he was keeping his cool without too much trouble, he still resented it.

He wasn't sure, though, which bothered him more: the noise itself, or that it was distracting him from what would otherwise have been a pretty comfortable position. He liked not having to be embarrassed at Kizmel tucking herself up against him, even with Rain, Philia, and Asuna in the room with them.

Kirito wasn't quite sure what to make of the look Asuna was giving them. There was a soft smile on his old partner's face—but at the same time, a sadness in her eyes. Not jealousy, he thought—despite all the girls that ended up hanging around him, he at least had the consolation of not being at the center of any love triangles—but something else. Something deeper.

…Probably the same thing that bothers me, when I let myself think about it too much. There's no way to know how long any of this will last.

The late hour probably wasn't helping. Though the battle with the Fifty-Sixth Floor Boss had been earlier in the day than most, that was a relative term. Between reaching Karika, beginning to explore it, fighting through a zombie outbreak, and holing up, it was edging toward sunset.

Sunset, with zombies—zombies still trying ineffectually to break in through the windows. Even for Kirito, used to odd hours and disturbing quests, it made for a bad combination with the apparent glitch in the Safe Haven mechanics.

"You know, it's too bad this had to happen," Asuna remarked, an hour after they'd all settled in to wait for Argo's report. "I didn't get a chance to look at much of the town, but what I saw was pretty interesting. Did any of you notice there's what looks like railroad tracks here?"

Kirito started at that—but Kizmel beat him to replying. "A railroad?" she repeated, lifting her head from his shoulder. "I had no idea there were left in this world—or I should say, I didn't know there were any here at all. Not with the Steel Castle as it is."

It was the humans' turn to look at the elf in collective surprise. "You know what a railroad is, Kizmel?" Philia blurted, eyes wide.

"Certainly," Kizmel replied, shifting to sit up in bed. "Though I suspect they're not quite the same as what you have in your world, Philia. Do remember, for all that I've little experience with them, I am somewhat familiar with the concept of machines." She frowned thoughtfully. "Ah, of course. That would be why this is called the Railway Inn. I wonder…"

"If there are any events or quests tied to it?" Rain guessed. "Must be. It wouldn't be in the game if it wasn't important, right?"

Not quite true, Kirito thought to himself. The Elf War quest turned out to be a lot more important than any of us thought, but there's still a lot of details here in SAO that are just there for flavor. Still, she's probably right about something as big as a railroad, of all things.

He was about to say as much, but was shortstopped by a rapid knock at the door. "Hey! Lemme in, guys, hurry!"

Asuna darted over as quick as her namesake, quickly yanking at the knob. "Argo?" she began, as the info broker darted in. "What did you find about—"

"No time!" Argo interrupted, a harried look on her face. "Train's leaving in five minutes! Ya gotta be on it!" She thrust a small book into Asuna's hands. "Full report's in there. Read it when you have time. Get going!"

Argo the Rat in a hurry was enough to galvanize anyone with a brain. Asuna was out the door in a second, followed quickly by Rain and Philia. Kizmel leapt into motion barely a second later, but Kirito hesitated. "Argo," he said, "are you—?"

"No time!" Argo insisted again. "I'm not specced for this kinda thing, an' somebody's gotta catch the train! Go!"

Bewildered, and more than a little unnerved—maybe even anxious—Kirito finally obeyed, rushing out into the hall and toward the stairs down to the first floor of the inn. She can always teleport out, he reminded himself. And Asuna has her report. I just have to hope—uh-oh.

It looked like a horde of the zombies had followed Argo to the inn, which suggested her Hiding hadn't quite been good enough. More urgently, it meant there was no small obstacle between them and the destination the Rat had urged them toward.

And we still don't know if they're infectious to players. This isn't good.

Lingering just inside the doors that were still keeping the mobs out, his friends exchanged glances. "I don't suppose that charm is ready again yet, Rain?" Philia asked, with forced calm. "'Cause otherwise, um…"

Rain shook her head. "Not yet," she said heavily. "At least another half-hour."

"Then it's knockbacks and running," Asuna said firmly, more collected than the rest of them. Resting a hand on the hilt of her rapier, she turned to Kirito. "Kirito-kun. I hate to ask this, but I don't think there'll be any other players around to see, and right now we need every advantage we can get. Can you…?"

Kirito took a deep, steadying breath. "I know. Just a second."

It wasn't much longer than that, either. When he began preparing for his duel with Asuna back during The Geocrawler fiasco, he'd changed the setup for his Quick Change mod—and after his fight to the death with Morte, he'd left it that way. Sometimes, he'd realized, he needed a trump card; and sometimes he needed it very, very fast. Fast, and sometimes more urgently than even the Baneblade.

With just a downward sweep of his hand to open his menu, then one jabbed command on the ethereal page, the back of his coat shimmered. The Baneblade remained sheathed over his right shoulder; the Duskshard's scabbard materialized over his left.

Dual Blades was a double-edged sword, considering what was likely to happen if people learned the Beater had yet another unique ability. Just then, he didn't see any other choice. If Argo was right, there wasn't time.

He drew both swords, and nodded to the others. "Open the door, and run," he said, as they drew their own weapons. "Asuna, do you remember where you saw the railroad?"

"It's the most noticeable thing in town," she said, returning a nod of her own. "Lead the way, Kirito-kun, Kizmel-chan. I'll give directions as we go."

"Okay." Kirito drew in another breath. "Now—let's go!"

Kizmel kicked the doors open. That was enough to catch the first two zombies cleanly in the face, pushing them back and staggering a couple more behind them. At least three more piled into the gap—and the Baneblade and Duskshard flashed out to either side as Kirito dashed through. The Double Circular that was the most basic offensive move Dual Blades had cleared a good three meters around, between the direct impacts and the domino effect.

Three heads went flying separately from the bodies. At the same time, though, Kirito noticed a cracking noise from the Duskshard, which didn't strike him as a good sign.

There was no time to worry about it. Either because of Argo's flight or simply that the Railway Inn was the only place players were in town just then, a huge mass of the undead had gathered on the street. Even as he led his party out, more of them poured in from all sides.

"Turn left!" Asuna snapped out, jabbing a Linear beneath grasping hands. "We need to head northwest!"

Great. Into the setting sun. Kirito's eyes narrowed against the light now streaming through the gap between floors, grateful that there was no pain in SAO. Why does this feel like the ending of a movie? With us on the wrong side?

Philia and Rain unleashed twin Horizontals, breaking an opening toward the indicated direction. A small one. In the post-motion delay, the redhead swore in the language she'd used before as another zombie managed to get hold of her arm. Gripping it with enough strength to challenge a clearer's STR stat, it lowered its head to bite—

Kizmel smashed the back of its head with her shield, giving Kirito time to rip through its left arm at the shoulder with the Baneblade. That gave a snarling Rain enough leverage to yank free from the remaining hand, slam her palm into its face, and get back into motion.

"Would that Agil was still on the frontline," Kizmel bit out, twisting to one side as they pounded down the street to keep her cloak out of yet another decaying hand. "This would be a good time for, what's the Swordmaster term, 'area of effect'!" Her shield swung out to one side, fending off jaws descending for her shoulder; her saber slashed in a vicious backhand on the other, almost catching Kirito in the chest in the process of dissuading one trying for him.

"We'll make do," Asuna said confidently. One more zombie emerged from the horde to lunge at her; she jumped clear over it, pulling off a flawless mid-air Diagonal Sting to shove a mob out of the way of her landing. "Turn right at the next intersection!" she added. "The station isn't too far from here!"

While Kirito was introducing an infected NPC—a priest at the town church, he thought with a wince, judging from the cassock—to a Twin Stab to the chest, Philia huffed. "How are you so calm right now, Asuna-san?!" she demanded, her Ridgeback screeching down another zombie's nose. "We're in the middle of a zombie apocalypse here!"

Asuna rammed an Oblique into her latest opponent just as they turned the corner, hitting with such force that it was flung clear into the window of a shop. Kirito couldn't help but notice the [Immortal Object] notice pop up almost comically at the impact. "I like zombie movies," the fencer answered Philia with a laugh. "If this weren't an outbreak in a town, I'd be having a lot of fun! And just 'Asuna' is fine."

You sure sound like you're having fun anyway, Asuna. Kirito wasn't going to complain, though. He'd missed the Asuna who could take the time to enjoy Aincrad, even in the middle of the death game. If this was what it took to show him that side of her again, fine.

Well. "Fine" once we get this outbreak under control—yikes!

Turning one more corner, the open-air train station was suddenly in clear view. The train sitting on the tracks was even recognizable, in general form if not specifics. Boxy, sitting on ordinary-looking wheels and tracks, with about a dozen cars visible. Kirito was willing to bet they weren't made of steel, especially not with the liquidy sheen they gave off, but otherwise it didn't look too strange.

The angular car at the very front wasn't at all familiar to him, though. Armored, like it was expected to ram through things, there was no trace of smokestacks or anything he'd have recognized from a more modern train. Instead the "engine" car gave off a surreal azure glow, reminiscent of some Sword Skills and other system effects.

Kirito had an uneasy feeling that meant the train was just about ready to leave the station. He wished that was the worst part of the situation.

There were no zombies for quite a long stretch between his party and the train. He would've counted that as a good thing, except it was because this was the first place the Fifty-Seventh Floor's roads were anything less than perfect. There was a large gap in the street, or perhaps better said a small gorge; and while it wasn't possible for it to be that deep, any fall had unpleasant possibilities in the middle of a zombie outbreak.

They're closing in on us, there's a horde of them at the station itself, and if Argo's right—and I'm reading that front car right—we're running out of time.

Kirito swung both swords out low and back to his sides. "Everyone, charge-type skills! We're jumping the gap and hitting that last horde running!"

There was a chorus of acknowledgments, and a bright flare as five Swordmasters with six weapons all began pre-motion at once. The high-pitched hum of Sword Skills waiting to be unleashed was almost as deafening as the multicolored light was blinding—and then they were at the gap in the road.

A chorus a yells now, as they unleashed their skills. Kizmel reached the hole first in the blinding light of a Flashing Penetrator; the raw momentum of the high-level thrusting skill took her clear across and then some, crashing into the undead mobs on the other side like a bowling ball.

Kirito was close behind, leaping at the very edge and curling into a ball, twin swords spinning in the vertical wheel of a Corkscrew. Not as insanely fast or long as a Flashing Penetrator, it still took him neatly across the gap and into the zombies like a buzz saw. Limbs and heads went flying from the impact—along with another of those ominous cracks.

Asuna hurtled into the fray after that, her Shooting Star scattering another small cluster of the undead. The single-hit skill had none of the prolonged effects of the first two to cross the gap; on the other hand, the post-motion was shorter, allowing her to quickly step in with a Quadruple Pain to give Kirito and Kizmel time to recover.

Twin Sonic Leaps crashed down a split second later, toppling four more almost as an afterthought with Rain and Philia's arrival.

"Okay," Kirito got out, spinning upright from the crouch Corkscrew had ended in. "We made it this far." He almost missed the hand grabbing at his shoulder; a brutal backhand from the Baneblade disarmed that one. "Now what?"

He should've known better than to ask that, he immediately realized. The entirely recognizable sound of a train whistle was all the answer he needed, and not at all the one he wanted. Not when the remaining dozen or so zombies who'd merely been tossed around were recovering, and those the Baneblade had dismembered were mostly pulling themselves up as well.

Mostly. Kirito did notice one he'd more or less bisected vertically seemed to be staying put. Though the fact that it hadn't shattered struck him as a bad sign.

"The train's leaving, Kirito-kun!" Asuna called out, entirely unnecessarily in his view. "We have to hurry!"

"I know!" Baring his teeth in what couldn't even be mistaken for a smile, he whirled to face the accelerating train. "We can still make it! Move!"

The next few moments were a confused whirl of blades, decaying arms, teeth, and unnerving, glowing veins. The last push to the platform saw the five of them dodging jaws, twisting away from grasping arms, lashing out with Sword Skills as they could. Bodies were flung away, mostly just from knockback. Without the charm from Rain's book, only the Baneblade managed any genuine harm.

Kirito hoped, as he sent one of the zombies flying away in several more pieces than it had arrived, that it was only because it was a Safe Haven that they were so durable. As it was, the implications that anything they had could hurt them inside a town was giving him major chills.

The implications of the infection working in a Safe Haven were worse. So far they'd been lucky, but sooner or later, just one slip…

Then they were at the platform itself. The last zombie standing in their way took a Linear from Asuna, fell back onto the tracks, and with a hideous gurgle was caught in the train's wheels. Several noises that Kirito thought would haunt his nightmares later, and it was spat out the other side.

Just in time for him to realize they were running out of train to catch.

"Move!" he screamed again. "Go!"

Kizmel was first, catapulting herself from the platform onto the side of the last, open-topped car. Rain and Philia slammed into place a moment later, gripping metal rails set vertically into the car. Then Asuna, leaping with typical grace to join them as the train picked up speed.

Almost too late, Kirito sheathed his swords and pushed off, flinging himself onto the back wall of that last car. Catching himself on the very edge, he slammed into it almost hard enough to trigger a stun; pausing only a brief moment for breath, he flipped himself up and into the car itself.

He thought he finally had time to rest, as his friends clambered over the sides to join him. Then Asuna, turning a relieved smile toward him, froze, eyes widening. "Kirito-kun!"

No time for thought. Baneblade and Duskshard leapt back into his hands, and he brought them up in an instinctive Cross Block as he spun—just in time to catch a heavy sword in the junction of the blades.

The thud as the Revenant's armored, mummified body landed on the floor of the train car was almost an afterthought, next to the impact of its massive blade against Kirito's. He didn't even really notice it, staring into the red eyes that glowed behind its heavy, spiked helm.

"You," the Revenant breathed out. "Found you."

Ice filled Kirito's veins at the undead warrior's proclamation. He'd been recognized by a mob before, but that had always made immediate sense in context. The Revenant was completely unknown to him—and the idea that it knew him chilled him to the bone.

Almost a year and a half of combat reflexes still got him moving quickly. Breaking away from their weapon lock, he swung his swords back, letting pre-motion grip them; at the same time, the Revenant inhaled, obviously preparing another scream like before. Only this time, close enough to matter.

I have to be faster—!

A silvery streak passed by a centimeter from Kirito's head, catching the Revenant right in one of the eyeholes. Weaponized scream turning to an anguished howl, it stumbled back—and in the moment it had only one foot solidly on the metal floor, he acted.

Screaming right back at it, Kirito hit it full-force with a Twin Stab, backing the System Assist with every point of his STR stat. Neither sword pierced the Revenant's armor, though the Baneblade flared almost painfully bright; still yelling, he kept the skill going as long as he could, forcing the blades farther with a determined step.

Crack. Crack. Snap!

The Duskshard's point broke off, followed by the rest of the sword shattering to pieces in Kirito's hand. But it was enough. The Revenant, unbalanced, crashed into the car's low back wall, and teetered there—and then Kizmel was there, rushing in to smash its helmet with her shield.

The massive, undead warrior tipped over, seemed to hang in the air for a moment, and fell to the railroad below. Within seconds, it was lost in the growing darkness of the evening.

"Found… you…!"

---

For a long, long moment after the Revenant tumbled from the train, the party of Swordmasters could only look at each numbly. Even the [Outside Field] notice that appeared in the air between them, officially signally they had left the relative safety of Karika, garnered no reaction.

Only when Kirito tossed aside the broken-off hilt of the Duskshard, letting it follow the blade into destruction, did Philia let out a deep sigh, shoulders slumping. "Okay," she said, staring down at the floor. "Does anybody know what that was about? What was that thing?"

"I wish I knew," Kizmel told her, shivering. "It's nothing I learned of growing up, or as a Pagoda Knight. As I said earlier, the undead were nothing but ancient tales to us, and I certainly don't recall hearing of anything like the Revenant." She turned toward the member of the team who'd been calmest in the situation, up to then. "Asuna? Was that from any 'movie' you know of?"

"Not specifically," Asuna replied with a shrug, slowly sheathing her rapier. "There's probably any number of horror movies that could've been borrowed from, but it's not like any zombie I've ever heard of." With a calm Kizmel honestly envied, the chestnut-haired girl turned to the party leader. "Kirito-kun, are you okay? Your sword broke on that thing. How many does that make now? Three you've had break in battle since we've been here?"

"…Four," Kirito muttered. "My Anneal Blade, the one PoH broke at the Reliquary, and—that other time." He sighed, holding up the Baneblade as if to check it for damage. "Good thing I've got this. The Durability stat is crazy, and it didn't just bounce off those things."

Asuna's eyes narrowed at his evasion, and she shot a sharp look at Kizmel. The elf, however, had absolutely no intention of enlightening her friend on that incident. The events of the Forty-Third Floor were a secret she and Kirito had managed to keep even from Argo, and they both meant to keep it that way.

Although, she thought with a hidden smile, I might suggest returning there, when time permits a respite from the clearing. I can think of certain… recreational uses for what we found there.

"Uh, guys?" Rain said, breaking the lighter mood that arisen. She'd gone to retrieve the sword she'd thrown into the Revenant's eye, but was now looking outside with a wary frown. "Is it me, or does it look kinda foggy all of a sudden? And shouldn't we be seeing the Garda Mountains by now?"

Kizmel wasn't the only one to turn her attention to view out the back of the car, and through the narrow windows set in the walls. "You're right," the elf girl said, seeing the fog Rain had already spotted. It was dense already, and growing thicker by the moment; as she watched, it closed in to within a couple of meters of the train itself. "That isn't normal at all. Could this be…?"

Kirito slashed his hand down, opening his menu. A fast movement of fingers later, and he uttered a curse under his breath. "We've entered an instanced map," he announced, glaring down at the menu. "I don't know where we're going, but it's not anywhere in the Fifty-Seventh Floor's normal fields. I can't tell how far this map goes, either."

The warmth that had crept back into Kizmel's body after the Revenant's eviction was chased right out again by that. "Should we teleport out?" she ventured. "I know Argo said we needed to be on this train, but this… I don't like this, Kirito. If we're no longer in Aincrad proper, we have no idea what might happen next. Asuna? What do you think?"

Both of them were frowning, and she could see Asuna weighing her responsibilities as vice-commander of the Knights of Blood. "You may be right," she said finally. "At the least, we should probably inform the Commander." She bit her lip. "Kirito-kun, everyone. I hate to ask this, but could you keep investigating for now, while I teleport to HQ? Get out the minute you think it's too much, but… I think we need this."

"Do it," Rain said immediately, fingers tightening on the hilt of her sword. "You're right, Asuna. Someone needs to tell the KoB what's up, and someone needs to find out where this train is going." She smiled; shakily, but honestly, Kizmel thought. "Go. We'll handle things here."

Asuna looked dubious, even when Kirito gave her a reassuring nod, but didn't protest. "All right, then. Be careful, everyone." Reaching into a belt pouch, she withdrew an azure crystal and held it aloft. "Teleport: Granzam!"

Somehow, Kizmel thought, it wasn't a shock to any of them when absolutely nothing happened. That was the kind of day they were all having, after all.

"An anti-crystal trap," Philia said numbly. "We're out in an instanced map, with no map data, and Teleport Crystals don't even work. Can this day get any worse?"

"Don't say that!"

The chorus from the others present—Kizmel included—apparently came just a moment too late. On the heels of Philia's ill-advised complaint, at the same moment as the collective rebuke, a pounding noise rang out on the door at the far end of the train car, leading to the next. The a second, louder noise.

Joined by several more, as if the first person—or thing—had had friends come to help.

"Kirito-kun?" Asuna said, with strained calm. "I don't suppose you have a spare sword? I think we're about to have company."

Kirito winced, began to shake his head. Kizmel spoke up before he could, however. "Kirito. Check our storage. There will be an item called 'Andvar' within." She coughed at the looks that got her. "I'd not mentioned it before because I was hoping for a more appropriate time, but… Well. Needs must."

Truthfully, she was surprised she'd kept it a surprise as long as she had. When their inventories merged upon their marriage, she'd suspected he might have spotted it; but apparently, as she'd hoped, it had simply gotten lost amid the myriad items they'd both collected over time.

Moments later, the cruciform blade of Andvar appeared in a bright flash, settling into Kirito's hand. "My father's sword," Kizmel explained softly. "I retrieved it when I visited my childhood home, some days ago. It's not as strong as the Duskshard, or I would have mentioned it sooner, but I believe it should be adequate for now."

"…Yeah. It should be just fine." The smile he gave her was enough to warm her chest and face both, even in the midst of the crisis. "Thanks, Kizmel. Now—" He broke off, seeing a crack appear in the door to the next car. "We'll talk later. Let's move!"

The two of them led the way, hitting the door hard enough to knock it clear off its weakened hinges. That sent the two zombies that had been attempting to break it down sprawling—which was just as well, as it quickly became apparent fighting them in the confines of a train car was worse than out in an open street.

It was well that the car, like the first, seemed empty of cargo. The undead within it, as Kizmel found when several streaks of red were suddenly etched down her sword arm, had claws.

She and Kirito forced their way into the new car as quickly as they could, his twin swords and her saber thrusting and slashing at the dozen or so zombies in clear view. No time or space for Sword Skills here; Kizmel could only be grateful that, outside the limits of Karika, it didn't take charms or a holy blade to inflict injury.

It was hard enough as it was to avoid being bitten, carving their way into the horde. But soon, as another zombie went down from a Baneblade thrust to heart—and stayed down, remarkably—Asuna was stabbing her own way into the melee. Following quickly behind, Rain and Philia tore into those that got around behind the forwards.

This train car was some ten meters long, by Kizmel's estimate. They had fought perhaps a third of the way down it when light filtering from above brought Kizmel the realization this one, too, had no roof. They'd bought themselves two meters more when she realized she could hear the sound of another blade in motion—from ahead of her party.

After lopping off the arm of a zombie that had just raked its claws down her face, Kizmel caught a glimpse of an enormous blade tearing into the undead from the opposite side of the car. For a brief, chilling moment, she thought the Revenant—or another like it—had somehow gotten aboard. Then she realized the figure behind the sword was, quite simply, far too short.

Also, the voice shouting out a battle cry was far too high-pitched to be anything like the monster they'd forced off the train. High-pitched, and almost… girlish…

She and Kirito double-teamed one more zombie—a corpulent one, so large it needed three swords to properly dismember—and then suddenly the way was clear. The last undead mob in the forward half the car was just then being hurled clear out the top by a wide, round-tipped sword, one that tore the zombie clear in half along the way.

"Take that!"

That last yell seemed to chase the final mob's remains away; and then, with a completely incongruous giggle, the figure holding the sword swung it up and behind its back. A motion that would've seemed perfectly normal, had the weapon not massed nearly as much as the wielder.

Kizmel squinted through the dark. There was something about the figure that seemed familiar. I've seen that silhouette before. But where? Surely no other player managed to reach here—and that voice. While I may not know every clearer, I thought I did know all the…

Moonlight chose that moment to stream in through a break in the fog above, casting their unexpected ally in stark relief. Lavender hair. Eyes of a color Kizmel could only describe as red wine. Largely purple clothes, of a cut that made Philia's usual outfits look modest, covering a figure that momentarily made even Kizmel feel inadequate.

Kizmel recognized her. Even the cheerful smile the girl—young woman?—turned their way, despite never having seen more than just her silhouette. But why… is someone like her…? No. She's—

"You," Kirito breathed. "You were the one who oversaw the battle in the Mirror Room, back in Hyrus Fortress." Despite the fact that the girl had put away her blade, he kept his in hand. Low, defensive, but ready. "What are you doing here?"

"Ehehe. About that…" The lavender-haired girl with the (NPC) mark under her cursor chuckled, scratching the back of her head. "Long time no see? I was really impressed with how you guys handled that! Nice job!" Then, with disturbing abruptness, she sobered, though she never quite lost the smile. "Kirito. Kizmel. Vice-Commander Asuna. I'm MHCP-002 Strea, an agent of the Cardinal System.

"We need to talk."

---

Author's Note

---

So. Yeah. Bit over three months again. Not going to give a litany of excuses here, just going to note February was—as usual—not fun, and this time it decided to hang around through most of March.

On the bright side, the unavoidable delay of the next Defiance chapter shouldn't be as long this time; that fic, at least, is pretty well figured out for the two or three chapters that remain.

The new arc of Duet may be another matter. Just for starters, this was originally intended to cover the Murder Case, but that went out the window when I realized the specific plot I'd come up with for the Fifty-Seventh Floor was growing large enough that the murder would be a side show by comparison. That'll be coming next arc, I suppose.

Pacing for this chapter is, I will be the first to admit, possibly a bit off. I had a lot of loose ends to tie up with the beginning, and then… absolutely nothing relevant left on the Fifty-Sixth Floor. Apologies if the mid-chapter time skip comes off as at all awkward; I really couldn't think of any other way to handle it.

Hopefully the abrupt turn to Zombie Apocalypse and surprise appearance by everyone's favorite Cloudcuckoolander AI. (Truthfully Strea was originally intended to get a proper debut much later than this, but when the zombie outbreak plot started expanding I had… other ideas.)

I should perhaps mention I'm aware I may have gotten the description of Gwen wrong. I still haven't had a chance to read the relevant portions of Girls' Ops, and the wiki didn't seem to have an image of her, so I did a search and went with the character that seemed to show up most in the results. If anyone more knowledge can confirm/correct me on that, I'd be grateful.

Also, apologies if the Sindarin is off. I just did a brief search for something appropriate, so I can't vouch for its authenticity.

Oh, and let me just say I'm genuinely amazed that this fic has now topped the one thousand Favorites mark, as well as having gained another hundred or so followers over just the last couple of chapters. Thank you all, and I'm glad so many are enjoying this story.

I think that about covers things here. I realize this chapter couldn't possibly live up to the last two, but I hope it was at least enjoyable. -Solid