March 12th, 2024

"Vice-Commander Asuna is where?"

Hearing that question, as he led Fuurinkazan into the meeting room, didn't do wonders for Klein's peace of mind. Considering how rattled he already was from the events he'd witnessed on the Fifty-Seventh Floor, that really wasn't what he wanted to hear first thing.

After watching the town of Karika turn from "peaceful" to "consumed by a freaking zombie apocalypse", and playing rearguard for a small evacuation of players, Fuurinkazan had teleported back to the previous floor. The shell-shocked guild spent the next couple of hours after that alternately waiting out the shakes, and trying to figure out what the hell had happened.

Without much luck, given how little they'd had time to see before bugging out. Klein had been relieved when a messenger from the KoB showed up at the Tumbleweed Inn in Eastwood, asking any players in the clearing group who would listen to come to a meeting in Pani, on the Fifty-Sixth Floor's southern edge. He'd hoped that meant the Knights of Blood had a better idea of what was happening up at the frontline.

Hearing Lind's anxious question just as his guild entered the carved meeting room the clearing group had used back when the cave town was the staging ground for the clearing of the floor's labyrinth was not what he considered a good sign.

There was a small contingent of the KoB already there, along with a very wired-looking party from the Divine Dragons. Somewhat surprisingly, the survivors of the Legend Braves had shown up, too. A couple of the hardier solos rounded things out—and Argo, which at least meant there was probably some new information on hand.

At the head of the KoB group, the red-armored Heathcliff shrugged, looking just a bit less imperturbable than Klein was used to. "I don't know," he said. "All I know for certain is that she joined up with Team Kirito, and not too long after that her location tracking went completely blank. She's alive, but where?" He nodded to the Rat. "Argo-kun has a report for us. She insisted on waiting until everyone who was going to arrive, did."

"It was that, or charge all of ya," Argo said, face hidden in the shadow of her hood. "I only wanna do this once, an' Master Heathcliff already paid. So listen up."

She sounded serious. That alone sent a chill down Klein's spine.

"First, sit-rep. An' yeah, I know you KoB guys wanna know 'bout Asuna. I'll get to it, trust me." She stepped out of the shadows, pulled a map out of her cloak, and spread it over the big stone table in the middle of the room. It was circular, but mostly blank; just a swath of the lower-right quadrant was detailed. The Fifty-Seventh Floor, and what had been mapped of it so far, Klein thought. "To start with, Karika has been completely overrun by zombies. There might be a handful of NPCs holed up in buildings, Immortal Object status seems ta be holdin' up, but I wouldn't bet on more than that."

Sachi inhaled sharply to Klein's right, and he didn't blame her a bit. Karika wasn't the biggest town they'd been to in Aincrad, but it wasn't exactly small, either. That was hundreds of NPCs Argo was talking about, all infected by the crazy status effect.

And it's not just "they look so real" that's got us freaked. We need those NPCs—and if they can be infected in a Safe Haven, can we? And what other Safe Haven effects aren't working right?

"I wish I could tell ya what the cause was," Argo went on. "But there was nobody left ta ask, an' I wasn't gonna poke around too close by my lonesome. But I can tell ya this: the zombie status can hit pretty much any NPC—an' it can grab players, too."

Faces all around the table went pale, and Klein heard somebody in the DDA crew—Quetzalcoatl, he thought—let out a vile English obscenity.

"Don't panic yet," the Rat said sharply, straightening from where she'd been bent over the map. "In a Safe Haven, all it does to a player is make 'em real ugly, an' it makes the zeds leave 'em alone. And there's a cure: some kinda holy water potion, available on request from any church priest, fer a modest fee. So if you're careful, it shouldn't be the worst thing we've run into."

"Except, maybe, psychologically." Lind was still pale, but he pushed through. Klein had to give him credit for guts, if nothing else. "What are the effects outside of a Safe Haven?"

Argo raised her hands, palm-up. "That, I dunno. My source freaked, went for a church, got purified, an' zipped back to the Fifty-First Floor in a big hurry. Don't think they'll be comin' back to the front 'til this mess is over."

"Can't blame them for that," Klein muttered, remembering the sight of NPCs screaming as they turned. "Okay. So we know the town is a lost cause, and we know we've got a counter to the status effect. What else do you know, Argo?"

"Three things, Klein." She raised one finger. "First: they can't actually hurt ya in a Safe Haven, and it runs both ways. Except." A second finger came up. "Holy weapons'll do the trick. Kii-bou hit 'em with the Baneblade an' they died. Well, kinda, but I'll get to that in a minute… Regular weapons that've been 'blessed' can hurt 'em, too. The priest my source talked to said holy water works for a bit, and supposedly there's something better, some kinda charm, but what that means, he didn't say."

That brought some color back to some of the faces around the room. If they could fight back, while the zombies couldn't, that would be a big help.

"What about outside a Safe Haven?" Lind asked, looking a little more confident now. Though from the shade his face still was, Klein suspected he'd seen some of the same things Fuurinkazan had, up above. "How durable are they in normal conditions?"

Argo shrugged again. "No data on that yet, either. 'Cept that they can get back up from getting' their heads cut off, so if you want a crit kill you'd better go for the heart."

"Oh, great," Dynamm muttered, nervously stroking his mustache. "We don't just get zombies, we get super zombies. …I think I liked it better when Kayaba was stealing the mainstream ideas."

"No kidding." Klein thought he had a vague idea of what might've given Kayaba this particular diabolical idea, but only a vague one. He didn't remember enough details to really come up with a specific strategy. "This is not going to be a fun floor, that's for sure."

Heathcliff cleared his throat. "And the third point, Argo-kun?"

"Ah. That." She lifted one more finger. "I kinda bugged out m'self, after givin' Team Kirito a lead, but, well, I kinda saw some of the zeds on the march toward the south exit of Karika. Y'know, the one with the road back to the stairs down to the last boss room."

"They're heading for the lower floors?!" Liten, that was; one of the DDA's best tanks along with her boyfriend Shivata. Even through her ever-present helmet, her near-panic was palpable, and her armor clanked as she grabbed Shivata's arm. "But—if this spreads—!"

Even Heathcliff, the Paladin who'd reputedly held off the Fiftieth Floor's terrifying boss for ten minutes by himself, looked more than a little unsettled at that. Which, if anything, made Klein all the more nervous himself. If the KoB's near-invincible guildmaster was worried…

Everyone was. Liten was the most vocal, but Argo's pronouncement had the room filled with chatter, as hardened clearers who'd faced down Vemacitrin and lived to tell the tale did a pretty good imitation of panicked noobs facing their first elite mobs.

And just where the hell is Kirito in the middle of all this? Heathcliff said Asuna-san linked up with "Team Kirito"—and boy, is it about time somebody figured out what to call them, wish they'd just make a guild and be done with it—and she's out of contact now. Which means they're all up to their necks in something. Dammit, Kirito, please tell me you haven't done something crazy again…

Oh, who was he kidding? It was Kirito. Of course he'd done something crazy. That was the same guy who'd married a sapient NPC, after all.

…And Klein was just distracting himself from the real problem, and he knew it. Truth was, he wished Kirito was there so that somebody would keep the clearers from completely freaking out. With both him and Asuna the Flash MIA, it was down to Heathcliff—and this once, Heathcliff wasn't quite being the rock everybody needed.

Though he was trying. "We cannot afford to panic," he said sharply, breaking into the babble. "Clearly there's a system glitch involved, but just as clearly there's a solution to this. The way SAO is designed, if its moderator considered this an unsolvable problem, there would have been an intervention." His metallic eyes swept over the assembled clearers. "We need suggestions, not panic. The undead mobs can be hurt even in Safe Havens. Outside them, presumably they're no more unkillable than anything else. And we have a simple, accessible cure to the status ailment."

Right. He's right. Kirito likes to say this isn't a game, it's a story with gameplay mechanics—but a story where the good guys die halfway through isn't fun for anybody. So let's settle down, try to ignore the nasty rotting flesh stuff, and think. You're a guildmaster, dammit!

Taking a deep breath, Klein stepped up and slapped his hand down on the map table. "First thing we do," he said, projecting a confidence he didn't quite feel, "is make sure this doesn't spread to the lower floors. That happens, we're screwed. So how do we stop that?"

His forceful, direct approach quieted down what hubbub was left after Heathcliff's statement. Faces were still pale all around, and from the clinking of armor there were still people shaking, but they were thinking again. Kind of.

Lind shook himself. "Block their travel, to begin with." He frowned down at the map. "Argo. Was there any sign of the undead mobs being able to teleport?"

The info broker shook her head. "Nope. Not surprised, really. I can think of a coupla pretty basic glitches that coulda caused the Safe Haven problem, but teleporting? That'd be more than just a glitch."

"That's what I thought. Which means their only means of descent is via the boss room." The blue-haired guildmaster stared at the map a moment longer, then nodded sharply. "It's a simple bottleneck, then. If we station guards at the top of the stairs, and in the boss room itself, we can stop them cold."

"Indeed." Orlando of the Legend Braves rubbed his chin, his other hand fingering the hilt of his sword. "As they say, choose the ground for the battle, and you've half-won it already. But we'll need a fair few fighters to pull this off, if you're suggesting guarding the pass day and night."

Which, Klein knew, wasn't just going to be about total available numbers. He was sure Argo's informant wasn't going to be the only player who took one look at the Fifty-Seventh Floor and went straight back the other way. His nightmares were going to be bad enough.

"It will have to be volunteers only, but I think we can do it." Lind looked up at Heathcliff. "Guildmaster? If the DDA handles the top of the stairway, can the KoB take the boss room? We have the numbers; if anything does get past to reach the labyrinth, we'll need strength to finish them off."

That's about as close as he'll come to admitting DDA's got strength in numbers, but the KoB snapped up most of the good fighters. Must be like pulling teeth. Or does making the first move give him morale points?

Heathcliff nodded slowly. "If the Legend Braves can supplement, I believe the KoB will have enough volunteers."

"We can do it," Orlando said, with a confidence probably as forced as Klein's own. "We just need to remember we also need to keep a path to a safe area clear, so that the teams have a place to rest between shifts." His expression was grave, but not as freaked as just about everyone had been a few minutes earlier. "But Guildmasters—we're not going to be able to keep that up forever. We need someone looking into the source of this, and putting a stop to it."

"Master Orlando is right. Which brings me back to my first question." Lind looked first at Heathcliff, then at Argo. "Where is Vice-Commander Asuna? And 'Team Kirito', as you two put it?"

"Ah. That's where things get a bit complicated." The Rat cleared her throat. "So. Thing is, when I was skulkin' around, I saw somebody headin' fer that train station at the northwest end of town. A player, from the cursor. Leading a horde o' zeds."

Leading. There were a lot of nervous looks, and whispers, exchanged, and Klein felt a chill go down his spine. "Leading, Argo? Please tell me you mean he was kiting them." Because as bad as that is, if he wasn't, if somehow a player was giving them directions without being a target… Oh, hell, I don't even know what that would mean, but I know it wouldn't be good.

A shake of a whiskered head, in the shadows of her hood. "That, I couldn't tell ya, Klein. I wasn't crazy enough to get that close alone. But there were a lot of 'em, and they were getting' on a train, so they were goin' somewhere. So… I wrote down what I had, tracked down Kii-bou an' the girls, and gave 'em the lead to the train. Dunno what happened after that, 'cept it got pretty darn foggy right after the train left."

"Sudden fog. An instanced map?" Lind abruptly broke away from the map table, beginning to pace. "Which would suggest the system is taking some kind of measures… but it also means the team most likely to do something to get to the bottom of this is in no position to do so."

"Dunno about that. They're prolly up their necks in somethin' to do with it. But… yeah."

Son of a bitch. Kirito, and Kizmel, and Vice-Commander Asuna out of the picture, the major clearing guilds tied down making sure this doesn't spread to the lower floors—and that's the people who didn't just freak and leave the frontlines completely. And I thought the way the clearing stalled in the lead-up to Vemacitrin was bad.

"One more question, Argo-kun," Heathcliff said, a tiny frown creasing his brow. "Do you know if all the players who'd gone to the Fifty-Seventh Floor escaped?"

…Oh, hell. I didn't even think of that. I assumed everybody made it. Everybody I saw made it. But how many lowbie tourists got there, between opening the Teleport Gate and the zombies showing up?

"That's a good question," Argo said, into the uneasy murmuring that sprang up from Heathcliff's question. She didn't look any happier than the rest of them. "Thought they did, when I got word to Kii-bou. But I've had a coupla people since askin' after buddies they lost track of." She spread her hands, shrugging. "I dunno, Master Heathcliff. But I got a bad feeling 'bout it."

Son of a bitch. Now who's going to be crazy enough to jump head-first into this mess?

"Klein," Sachi said softly, speaking up for the first time since the meeting started. "You know what we have to do."

…Yep. I was afraid she was gonna say that. Not that he thought it would've been any different if the former Black Cat hadn't been around to kick them all in the collective behind—sometimes literally. When Klein turned to check the rest of his guild, they were all giving him woe-is-me, we-hate-life looks.

But no panic. Nothing to suggest they wouldn't follow right in after him, when he pulled exactly the kind of stupid, reckless stunt he was always complaining about Kirito doing. Just the resigned grouchery of, Here we go again, doing the right thing no matter how much we hate it.

Worst was Sachi, of course. She wasn't even annoyed. Just staring at him, daring him to say she was wrong.

Klein allowed himself the luxury of a long-suffering sigh, hung his head, then turned back to the rest of the clearers. Squaring his shoulders, he drew his katana, flipped it, and stabbed it down into the map. "You guys need a forward team? Fuurinkazan's your people. First thing tomorrow, we'll get in and track down whatever the hell went wrong."

Heathcliff looked at him sharply, an oddly speculative gleam in this metallic gray eyes. "Just seven people? Into a zombie outbreak, with unknown system glitches involved?"

The red samurai shrugged, putting on a smile he almost felt. "Someone's gotta do it, Heathcliff-san. And it doesn't look like anybody else here has the guts, so I guess it's up to us."

"Why, you—" Quetzalcoatl began.

"I don't see you volunteering, Quet-san. And come to think of it, I don't see Schmidt at all. Isn't he supposed to be one of your best tanks?" Klein flourished his sword, and swept it back into its sheath without a glance. I knew practicing that would come in handy someday. Thank you, Kirito, for telling me how much spectacle matters sometimes. "You want to be the heroes? Hold the line—and be ready when we find the source. We might need the backup." He grinned—and this time, he meant it. Mostly. "'Course, if you take too long, we'll be happy to take all the EXP…"

[Safe Haven].

Kirito hardly noticed those incongruous words popping up in the middle of the train car. He was too busy staring at the lavender-haired NPC who'd taken out the remaining zombies, and had casually made an outrageous introduction. "Agent of the Cardinal System?" he repeated dumbly. "You mean…?"

"Your wife over there—congratulations on that, by the way!—started off as Quest NPC, right?" The girl—Strea—nodded at Kizmel, grinning briefly before snapping back to serious. "I'm—well, never mind my original function. Currently, you might say my job is as a moderator. Where Cardinal can't act behind the scenes, I'm sent to fix things directly."

He glanced quickly at Kizmel, then at Asuna, and got wary looks in return. None of his party lowered their weapons just yet. There was more than one way that statement could be taken, after all—and part of it didn't even make any sense, from a programming standpoint. Unless she isn't talking about the zombies.

Rain beat him to the obvious question. "What's that supposed to mean? How can there be a situation the operating system 'can't' deal with?" Her sword wasn't quite in the right position for a Rage Spike's pre-motion. "If there's a system error, you don't 'attack' it, you fix the code."

"Well… usually, yeah." Strea knocked at the side of her own head, smiling sheepishly. "But things are… kinda complicated here." She looked over the still-drawn weapons that weren't quite aimed at her, and her smile faded. "Okay. First? I come in peace. And this is a safe area. This train is currently configured so that when a car is cleared, it becomes a Safe Haven. Also, the next car is a sleeping cabin. If we're going to talk, why don't we all get comfortable?"

Kirito hesitated. So far, the "agent of Cardinal" didn't seem hostile, but… well. He knew this would be a bad time to guess wrong, and he knew better than anyone his people skills weren't the best. Glancing quickly at Asuna again, he silently pleaded for her to take over.

His old partner frowned, but after a moment's thought gingerly sheathed her rapier. "Lead the way, Strea-san," she said, giving a shallow bow.

"Just 'Strea' is fine, really." Smiling brightly again, the NPC led them over to the door leading to the next car. "We might be working together for a little while, so let's not worry about the formal stuff, yeah?"

As she'd said, the next car was some kind of rest area. Unlike the first two cars, this one had a full roof, and there were a dozen beds laid out in two rows from one end to the other. They weren't the largest Kirito had seen, but they were bigger than the bunks on the Fifty-First Floor's sailboats, and they looked comfortable enough.

Better yet, there was no [Outside Field] notice when they entered, another point in Strea's favor.

When the five Swordmasters and one "agent of Cardinal" had perched themselves on various beds, it was Kizmel—sitting on the edge of one bed, leaning into Kirito's side—who started the conversation again. "All right, Strea. Can you tell us what, exactly, you're doing here now?"

"My pleasure." Strea stretched out on another bed, legs crossed, head propped up on crossed arms just under a window. "First things first: what information I can disclose is limited. I have only partial access to Cardinal's full database, and what access I do have carries restrictions on what I can discuss."

Kirito found himself nodding, and felt an odd measure of relief. That much, at least, sounded like logical programming. Even if that relief was tempered by a flicker of unease over the NPC's demeanor, at least this was something closer to familiar ground for him.

Kizmel was also nodding, he noticed. Probably from her experience as a knight under military discipline, where "need to know" was a fact of life.

"We understand, Strea," Asuna said for all them. Sitting on her chosen bed, legs drawn up to her chest, she looked calmer than any of them. Probably because of her fondness for zombie movies, Kirito figured. "So, why are you here, and what do you want with us?"

"I'm here because, as you've probably figured out, the zombies—actually, they're called Necros—aren't supposed to be able to enter Safe Havens. They're really not supposed to be able to infect anyone, player or NPC, inside a town." Strea made a face, like the whole "undead" thing disgusted her as much as any of them. "Exactly what happened, I'm not privy to, though I would speculate it was because of the unique status effect and the unusual nature of this floor's main questline."

"Unusual?" Philia, already on the very edge of her bed, leaned forward, eyes bright with a treasure hunter's zeal. "What's that mean?"

Strea laughed, waving a hand. "I'll get to that, really. Let me explain the rest, first." Sobering again, she turned her attention to Rain. "You were right, earlier. Normally this would be corrected by Cardinal on a programming level. But Cardinal has been forbidden to directly patch the errors."

Forbidden? Kirito met Rain's eyes, seeing an echo of the same chill he was feeling. As the two best-versed in computers of the team, they both knew there was only one person who could possibly place such restrictions on Cardinal. If Kayaba is prohibiting Cardinal from correcting errors… Oh, man. This cannot be good.

"I don't think it's a good sign, either." He jumped, looking up to find Strea giving him a sympathetic smile. "But either Cardinal wasn't given a reason, or I'm not privy to that information. Bear in mind, Cardinal as a whole is not 'full' AI; only certain subsections are fully self-aware, as required for their specific duties. The Cardinal System itself exists only to maintain the stability of Sword Art Online."

How did she—? Never mind. She's not the first NPC to pick up on emotional cues. "If Cardinal isn't allowed to correct it," Kirito said aloud, "why are you here, Strea?"

"Because while Cardinal is forbidden to correct the code, containment measures via gameplay mechanics have not been prohibited." Strea gestured at the car as a whole. "This train was being used by a player in an attempt to transport the Necro Plague to Reccoa City, on the far side of the Garda Mountains. Cardinal quarantined the train by shifting it to an instanced map, and I was sent in to clear the Necros before it's returned to the Fifty-Seventh Floor."

"A player set this off?" Asuna said sharply, legs coming down off her bed as she came halfway to her feet. "This whole mess was triggered on purpose?"

"System logs indicate that, yes," Strea confirmed, looking far calmer than Kirito—or, he was sure, any of his team—felt. "One definitely triggered part of the Clearing Quest, and I spotted him leading a large number of Necros onto the train. Analysis suggests deliberate contagion is the intent." She shrugged. "Clearing that was looking kinda crazy, especially since Cardinal NPCs aren't allowed Immortal Object status. But then I ran into you guys! Which, believe me, is gonna make this a lot easier."

"How reassuring." Kizmel's voice was dry as dust, but right then dry humor was just what Kirito needed, especially with the realization of just who must've been responsible for the whole situation. "You're proposing an alliance, Strea?"

"At least until the train is cleared. 'Til then, none of us can leave, right?" Strea slid down so that her head was resting on her pillow. "I'll tell you right now, we might not always be on the same side. My job is to maintain system stability, not take sides. But for right now, we're definitely in this together."

"Somehow I find that ominous." The elf girl cracked a wry smile then. "But I suppose I've seen conflicts with stranger bedfellows. Right, Kirito?"

He was sure she used that particular turn of phrase on purpose. He still managed to keep a blush at bay, between overexposure from being literal "bedfellows" for over a week, and keeping in mind the other meaning of her words. They had, indeed, allied with some unexpected people during the Elf War quest, between Forest Elves near the end and one impromptu team-up with Kibaou's ALS.

"We can work with that," Kirito said aloud, after quickly checking his team's reactions for cues. "What's the plan? You said Cardinal was using the train for quarantine…"

"I'll give you the briefing in the morning. No arguments," Strea said firmly, when Rain started to protest. "I do have access to some player bio data, and all of you need sleep. You, too, Kizmel, you're more like them than me. This a safe area, the train won't be leaving the quarantine instance until the Necros have been cleared, and none of you need to be getting into a fight with infectious mobs without rest. And I won't tell you what you need to know until you've all had eight hours' sleep. So there."

Kirito opened his mouth to argue, worried about what would be going on back on the Fifty-Seventh Floor in their absence, but gave up when Strea closed her eyes and went limp. If she wasn't going to say anything else, there really wasn't anything they could do—not safely, anyway. All of them knew all too well how irresponsible it was to go into a quest without all the information they could possibly get.

"She's probably right," Asuna said reluctantly, settling back down on her bed. "We've had worse fights than today, but I think we can all agree this one made up for it with the stress. And I like zombie stories. Besides," she added, slipping under the blankets and bringing up her menu to change into sleeping clothes, "it's not like the other clearers are helpless. Being five players short won't cripple them."

"…No. I guess not." Sighing, Rain followed Asuna's example. "I don't like the idea of a PKer sharing the train with us, though."

"Door's locked," Strea told her, about making the players jump out of their collective skins. She didn't open her eyes or otherwise move a muscle, only her jaw's motion showing she wasn't truly asleep. "That much, I can do. Now go to sleep, guys."

Something about her tone vaguely irritated Kirito. He wasn't sure why, though, until Kizmel chuckled and quite abruptly shoved him onto his back. As she cuddled close into his side and drew the blankets up over them both, it clicked.

Is it me, or do all the girls I know walk all over me when they feel like it? Strea's like an NPC Argo, all by herself. When she's not all matter-of-fact, anyway… What did I do to deserve this?

Then Kizmel leaned up to press a gentle kiss on his cheek, whispered, "Losta mae," in his ear, and let her head fall into the crook of his arm. In what was becoming comfortable habit, he pulled her in closer, one hand on her back, the other stroking lilac hair.

I have no idea what I did to deserve this. But I'm not about to complain.

March 13th, 2024

The Fifty-Seventh Floor. After the emotional turmoil that the Fifty-Sixth's Field Boss had set off—not to mention the sheer frustration of dealing with the thing—it had been expected the Fifty-Seventh would be calmer. Instead, it was shaping up to be Aincrad's own horror story, judging from the rumors Argo the Rat had already reported to the clearing group.

Emerging with the rest of Fuurinkazan from the stairway in the floor's southwest quadrant, Sachi understood that creeping terror perfectly. Her guild had been right there when the zombie horde first reached Karika's shopping district, and they'd held the line while other players had retreated to the Teleport Plaza or used Teleport Crystals to escape. The sights from those hectic minutes had given her nightmares already.

At least now we know why everything here looks half-dead, she thought, as Klein walked over to consult with the leader of the DDA group guarding the stairs. It is half-dead. Zombies… I knew there were undead mobs in SAO, but this outbreak is worse than anything I'd ever heard about.

I hope Kirito and Kizmel are okay.

"Shivata says we should be clear most of the way to Karika," Klein reported, rejoining the guild. "The first group Argo warned about hit during the night, and there've been a couple of smaller batches since, but nothing in the last hour." He cast a wary look down the road. "The DDA people haven't wanted to risk going far—fair enough, that's our job—but Quetzalcoatl has high Searching. He climbed the biggest tree here and got a good look."

"That's something," Dale grumbled. The stout tank—Sachi's current partner, her being the odd one out in Fuurinkazan's old party arrangement—reached back to the hilt of the heavy sword slung over his back. "We just have to worry about the final stretch. Not to mention the town itself." He gave their guildmaster a pleading look that Sachi thought was only half-feigned. "Are you sure we have to go into the town, Boss?"

"Unless you'd like to go into things completely blind." Klein raised his hands. "I don't like it either, but it's the only lead we have now. We have to start somewhere, right?"

"Not like there's going to be anywhere here that isn't creepy as hell," Kunimittz conceded with a sigh. "We're just the lucky ones who got the job of playing scout. …I don't suppose there's been anything from Kirito's team?"

Klein shook his head. "Still nothing," Sachi answered. That had been another feature of her nightmares, knowing that the friends who had gotten her through the battle that cost her her old guild, and introduced her to her new one, had gone missing. On a train full of undead monsters, no less. "Kirito and Kizmel are definitely still alive, but they're still out of contact."

Which was enough to give her a constant knot in her stomach, now. If Argo was right, they'd entered a dungeon map on a train over eight hours earlier—and there shouldn't have been any distance in Aincrad that would take a train that long to cover.

"They'll be fine," Klein said confidently. "They're probably just stuck, what with the glitches here." He jerked his head northward. "C'mon, let's get going. The sooner we figure out what's going on, the sooner we can bring in the cavalry."

Though she'd only been a clearer since the Fifty-First Floor, Sachi had been through every one of Aincrad's floors at one time or another. She'd explored the eerie dungeon ruins of the Fifth Floor, the swamps of the Seventh, the caves of the Twenty-Fifth, and the foggy seas of the Fifty-First. Once she'd gotten back on her feet, she thought she'd seen the worst environments the Steel Castle had to offer.

Trekking across the sickened plain of the Fifty-Seventh Floor's southwest, Sachi understood she'd been very wrong. The Fifth Floor had been more about jump scares, like a haunted house. The Fifty-Seventh, with its diseased trees, grass, and brush, and a BGM that was little more than a subliminal wail, was a subtler horror. Every step felt like it was one further into another world; the very fact that there wasn't anything popping up to attack was a source of primal dread.

Walking down the road that yesterday had only seemed a bit eerie was now chilling enough that Sachi restrained herself from wrapping herself in the Nightcloak only with effort. When, around a third of the way to town, they spotted a dozen or so zombies shambling in the direction of the stairs, she very nearly shrouded herself anyway.

That time, Dynamm went for his cutlass. Klein gripped his forearm, though, shaking his head. "Not our job," he murmured, just loud enough for the guild to hear. "The DDA can handle them. We don't want to get bogged down—or worse, aggro ones we don't even see."

It went against the grain for all of them. Some players might have been perfectly fine leaving a known mob group to attack others, but Fuurinkazan was only even in the clearing group because they held themselves to a higher standard. But Klein was right. Their mission was to find answers. If they did things right, there wouldn't be more groups of out-of-control mobs.

From there, it was smooth going the rest of the way to Karika. They did spot one more group of zombies along the way, but they looked to be heading toward the distant mountains. As long as they kept going that way, they were no concern to Fuurinkazan or the guilds guarding the stairway.

Luck ran out only when they reached the town's southern gate. There, some ten zombies were just emerging from Karika, moving with unnerving coordination and deliberation in what looked like a straight line toward the stairs back down to the Fifty-Sixth Floor. None of them were armed, nor did any of them wear more than tattered civilian clothes, but the glowing red eyes and volcanic veins were a warning signal all by themselves.

Klein cursed, drawing his katana. "Guess we shouldn't be surprised. Okay, guys, this group we take. But let's wait until they're out of the Safe Haven; no sense using up any of our Holy Water before we have to."

That made sense. They'd stocked up before turning in the night before, with as much as they could carry—but a seven-player group had limits. Sachi remembered that well enough from the days of the Black Cats' doomed attempt to grind toward the frontline, let alone her time with Fuurinkazan.

"Sachi," Klein was continuing, "get under your cloak, and get ready to flank them. Dale, you go with her, distract them if they notice anything. Everyone else, with me. We'll draw them out, hit them from the front, then those two can hit them from behind."

Wordlessly, Sachi complied, disappearing under her Nightcloak. It was technically a long-obsolete piece of armor, so far above the floor on which she'd acquired it, but its Invisibility effect was so uncommon she'd never found a replacement. With the fighting style she'd evolved since the destruction of her former guild, the stat penalty in that one equipment slot was well worth it.

While the rest of the guild moved in for a frontal assault on the mob group, she kept pace behind Dale as the two of them circled around. She could feel her heart rate picking up during the quiet dash across diseased grass; for all that the entire guild was well over the minimum safety margin for the floor, the existence of the zombification ailment was a complication none of them had ever had to deal with before.

But we can handle it, Sachi told herself. This isn't like the Black Cats. Fuurinkazan's more careful than that. As she thought that, Klein motioned his party to a halt just outside the aggro range Argo had reported, prompting her and Dale to do the same.

Wait for it, Sachi thought, as the zombies edged closer. Wait for it… Now!

"Seiyaa!" With that cry, Klein hit the first zombie with the draw-and-strike of a Zekkuu, his katana carving a deep crimson line through its chest. The zombie stumbled back—giving room to another, which lunged for the red samurai and managed to sink its teeth into the bracer on his left arm.

It was promptly flung off by Issin's twin-pronged sasumata, snarling and snapping its teeth. Issin put on the pressure, burying the prongs deep in the zombie's chest, and with a grunt swung the mob sideways. That sent it toppling into two others, staggering them, while he ripped his weapon free and turned his attention to the next.

Then it was Kunimittz's turn, ramming a Straight Thrust from his spear into the heart of a zombie on the right flank of the group—only to grunt in surprise as the spearhead seemed to clash on something and get stuck. From the flash of red light and howl from the zombie, the stab seemed to crit, but at the same time Kunimittz couldn't get his weapon free.

It took him a second, maybe two, to process that. A second too long, giving another of the zombies a chance to charge him, snarling, and sink teeth into Kunimittz's mostly-unarmored upper arm.

He cried out, even as a sickly green light seeped into his arm. Then Dynamm's cutlass was coming down on the mob's neck, slicing its head clean off, and with a follow-up kick its body was sent tumbling away.

While Dynamm tended to Issin—first by bashing the severed head off his arm with a good shield-whack—Sachi chose her moment. All of the zombies fixated on Fuurinkazan's main group, none of them were prepared when she came charging from under her Nightcloak, sword sliding free from its scabbard right into the pre-motion for a Sonic Leap. With a yell, she came down on a zombie on the left flank of the group, slicing down into its left shoulder.

Her sword, too, hit something surprisingly hard where the zombie's heart should've been. Coming in from an angle, though, it rebounded instead of lodging, giving her the chance to bounce back and away, riding the momentum right through the post-motion freeze.

Sachi's target survived her attack. It wasn't so lucky when Dale's huge blade came down in an Avalanche right where her Sonic Leap had already cut. His sword hitched just a little when it hit whatever was guarding its heart, but otherwise kept right on going, coming out between the zombie's legs.

Somehow, it still lived through that. It was wounded, bleeding red polygons, yet it was still on its feet, and its eyes flashed a bright crimson as it set its gaze on the one who'd almost torn it in half. With a howl, it lunged for Dale, the tank still caught in post-motion—

Sachi's sword stabbed it in the chest, right at the heart. Then she stabbed it again. Just to be sure, her blade darted in three more times, slashed down, and tore right back up so fast her feet left the ground in a backflip. Landing in a crouch, she dragged the sword up again with her, cleaving right up the line Dale had carved downward.

In the wake of the Howling Octave, the zombie finally split in half and shattered into blue shards.

For a few seconds things were kind of scary, at least three of the zombies coming after Sachi while she was still recovering from the eight-hit Sword Skill. Dale pushed between her and them, though, unflinchingly taking rakes of claw-like fingers across his breastplate, and a solid bite to his left bracer. The third was leaping into the air, coming down for a try at his throat, when he swept his big sword around in a glowing circle, smashing all three with a Cyclone.

Harry One moved in then, his much-lighter blade going down to finish one of the now-prone zombies. Sachi took that time to disappear back under the Nightcloak, and leapt back to find another opening.

Between the old guard of Fuurinkazan's blunt approach, and Sachi ambushing whenever one of the mobs was appropriately distracted, the fight couldn't have taken longer than three or four minutes by the time it was done. The howls, snarls, and general animalistic behavior of the zombies still made it one of the most unnerving battles Sachi had so far experienced.

When all of them—even the ones that had fought on after severe dismembering—were finally dead, the first priority was to deal with the really creepy part of the whole thing. Swearing up a storm at the rot already creeping up his neck, left arm limp and useless, Kunimittz dropped his spear and went for another Holy Water potion. He almost dropped it, prompting a word that made Sachi blush, got it open, and downed it one long gulp.

The rot hesitated, as if reluctant to admit it was beaten. For a second Sachi was afraid the potion would only stop the infection, not cure it completely—but then it was receding back under Kunimittz's armor, the sickly green glow disappearing with it.

"Well," he said, once the last trace had vanished. "That was nasty. Klein, you sure we've gotta go in there?"

"'Fraid so, buddy." Sheathing his katana, Klein patted the lancer on the shoulder with a sympathetic grin. "Look on the bright side. Now we know we can kill the things, right?"

"Yeah, out here." Dynamm shivered. "In there? Who knows if it's even consistent. With things this glitched in the first place…"

Sachi sheathed her own blade, pulled the Nightcloak close around without quite pulling on the hood, and stepped up next to Klein. "Just think of it like a haunted house, guys," she said, with a bit more confidence than she felt. "Whatever happens, we know the Safe Haven HP protections still work. That's good enough." Reaching for her hood, she nodded to their guildmaster. "I'll go scout ahead, Klein. If I can find us a clear path, and maybe a lead—I think Argo's report said something about the news stands—"

His face tightened, as if he wanted to protest. But he was Fuurinkazan's guild leader. She knew he understood the situation as well as she did. "Go," he said, with only a brief hesitation. "Be careful."

"Always," she said sincerely. Wrapping herself in the Nightcloak's invisibility, Sachi trotted into Karika—and hoped Klein hadn't seen the ghosts of nightmares in her eyes.

Something terrible was waiting for them, there or elsewhere on the Fifty-Seventh Floor. She didn't know what it was, but the same dread she'd felt before the Moonlit Black Cats encountered The Commandant dogged every step, growing heavier as she walked into that town of the dead.

Waking was a tremendous relief. Nightmares had plagued her for several nights as it was, only soothed by opening her eyes to a warm embrace, reminding her of the one truth she'd gained instead of lost. This past night, she'd had the same nightmares of the world twisting around her, only worse.

Dark eyes fluttering open, Kizmel found herself looking up at Kirito's concerned face, not the warped, rotting visages of her people succumbing to the Necro plague that had been playing out behind closed lids. His arms, and the gentle rocking of the train she now remembered they were on, helped bring her back to reality.

Sighing in relief, she buried herself into his chest. "Good morning, Kirito-kun," she whispered.

"'Morning, Kizmel." She felt a finger trace her ear, sending a pleasant thrill through her that both further grounded her and made her wish they were in more private lodgings. "I guess I shouldn't ask if you slept any better than I did."

"No," she agreed softly. "I… realize now, intellectually, that those afflicted by this plague are merely dolls. But intellect is a poor match for decades of belief." Nor does it help when some of the faces I saw so twisted are real people…

"Trust me, Kizmel. It's not really much easier for us. Remember, NPCs are lifelike enough to be confusing even if you do know the truth." That finger reached the tip and stayed there, moving gently back and forth; Kizmel was left wondering if he was unaware of the effect that was having on her, or doing it on purpose to distract her. "The sooner we finish this floor, the happier we'll all be."

"That's for sure," Asuna broke in. "I like zombie movies, but I admit this is a bit much. If we at least could rely on Safe Havens…" There was the sound of menu selections, the swish of exchanged equipment, and then the rustle of blankets. "We'd better get started, or we'll never even get off this train."

Kizmel felt a flare of resentment at having to get out of bed so soon, but quickly stifled it. If she wanted private time with her husband—which she did; four other young women being present was not as intimate as she usually preferred—then completing their current mission was a pressing matter.

Which did not stop her, under the cover of blankets, from enjoying the brief moment between nightgown and battle-ready tunic. Kirito was regrettably wearing a shirt, but that was the only layer between her body and his, and for that instant the hand not on her ear was directly stroking her back.

A honeymoon, Kizmel promised herself as her tunic formed, and she reluctantly rolled off him. As soon as we reach a place where the clearers can spare us for a time. This simply is not fair.

The other girls were already dressed and sitting up by that time. Asuna and Rain, she noticed, were blushing, while Philia flashed her a grin and a Swordmaster's thumbs-up. Kizmel was left wondering just how much they'd noticed, and decided she was better off not knowing.

Especially with Strea contributing a smile she couldn't begin to interpret. The other Aincrad native made the elf girl distinctly uneasy, somehow.

Coughing, Kirito sat up next to her. "All right, Strea," he said, tapping his menu to call up his habitual longcoat. "What can you tell us now?"

"Let's talk as we go," the lavender-haired girl suggested, hopping to her feet and summoning up her greatsword without so much as a menu command. "There's not that much to tell right now."

"'Right now'?" Rain echoed. She'd brought out both her sword and the book she used to enchant the team's weapons. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I told you last night: there are limits to what I can discuss." Maneuvering between the sleeping car's beds, Strea led the way toward the door at the far end. "For now I can only tell you what you could've learned from NPCs in Karika. If the contagion spreads to Reveno Village, or circumstances force a complete bypass, I can explain more then."

"Need-to-know, enforced by programming," Kirito muttered. "Okay, that makes sense… Well? What's going on right now, then?"

Strea stopped at the door, put a hand to the hilt of her sword, and gestured for their party to gather to either side with the other. "First? Try not to get bitten. There should be a charm in Rain's book to cure it, but it's got strict limits. There'll be a stash of Holy Water around the middle of the train, though… Anyway. The current quest? It's a Clearing Quest. Floor-wide, single-instance, one-time. The entire playerbase is meant to cooperate for this one."

Kizmel blinked. Not a week earlier, that would have been common sense to her. Knowing what she did now about the nature of the Steel Castle, it was bizarre. Kirito and Klein both had made a point of how one-time quests did not make sense from a "gameplay" perspective.

Asuna looked just as puzzled, but the rest of her party just looked slightly surprised. "I didn't know there was anything like that in Aincrad," Philia said with only a slight frown. "I've heard of 'em in other games, but not here."

"I don't know the details," Strea said with a shrug. "Not in Cardinal's purview, I guess. But there's at least this one. Unfortunately, bug-testing apparently missed that it caused a glitch with the Safe Haven code."

They were all in position by then, and their erstwhile ally tapped something on the door. A quiet click followed, and a flash of a message Kizmel didn't quite see—and then Strea pushed open the door.

[Outside Field],

Rain was the first through it, her sword licking out to catch a Necro that attempted to push through into the safe car in the throat. She hadn't invoked the Holy charm, but as with the night before her blade still managed to leave a deep mark outside the Safe Haven. The Necro fell back, gurgling; more lunged forward into the gap, but Philia was waiting with her Swordbreaker.

Soon, they were all into the next car, blades flashing from dawn light streaming in the windows and the occasional glow of a Sword Skill. "There was supposed to be a Necro outbreak on this floor," Strea called into fray, voice as casual as if she wasn't in the middle of chopping a Necro in half from crown to pelvis. "But it was supposed to be in the field and a couple of major dungeons. But the flags for 'Clearing Quest' and the Necrosis status ended up overriding the 'Safe Haven' flag."

"How did that make it through testing?" Asuna demanded with a grunt. Her rapier stabbed a Necro in the throat, chest, and stomach, then came up and did three more from left to right. "This is kind of obvious, I think!"

"Actually," Kirito bit out, Baneblade slashing a Horizontal through the neck of a Necro trying for the back of Asuna's, "that's the first thing I've heard since we got here that makes sense. SAO's big. I can see them cutting corners on testing events that shouldn't even come up—"

"Switch!" Kizmel snapped.

He ducked away, Body-Checking another undead mob while her saber drove into the heart of the one he'd beheaded. "Not that they should," he added, as Rain kicked his new foe in the chin from the other side. "But if they're in a hurry, well, things happen."

"Only if the dev responsible for this quest forgot about the Corrupted Blood incident," Philia retorted. There was a hideous grating noise from her direction; Kizmel recognized the sound of serrations sawing through bone. "I know, that was like twenty years ago, but if we've heard of it, they should have!"

"Well, yeah, I did say they should've done the testing…"

"'Corrupted Blood'?" Kizmel repeated, burying a chill in the motion of ripping her saber free of a shattering Necro. "That sounds ominous."

"In-game pandemic," Kirito told her, sweeping his leg through another Necro's just as it bit into his left sleeve. It went down hard, tripping two more behind it; before any of them could recover, he reversed the Baneblade in his grip and drove it down into the mob's heart. "Pretty close to what's going on now, actually, except it was a rapid DoT, not a zombie status, and NPCs were asymptomatic carriers… Why the heck didn't the devs remember that?"

"Not in Cardinal's records," Strea said, somehow managing to shrug in the middle of thrusting her huge blade with such force that two Necros were thrown halfway across the car. "I recognize the term, but only because the player responsible for triggering the train mentioned it. I have no context for it."

Eerie, that. Conversation lapsed as the team wove through the snarling mass of diseased flesh, snapping jaws, and raking claws, leaving Kizmel just enough idle attention to reflect on the sheer oddity of someone who spoke like a Swordmaster, yet was as limited as she was to knowledge available within Aincrad.

Whatever Kayaba's mindset may be, the man seems farther from the humans I've known than I am. He seems almost like a human Fallen Elf. …Which may explain their depravity, at that.

Not to mention the presence of the Necros. A set of claws dragged across Kizmel's cheek halfway through the car, making her wince and pray to whatever deity might actually exist that they couldn't infect that way—and prompting Kirito to snarl something impolite and lash out with a Vorpal Strike that impaled not only that Necro but two behind it.

Blushing at the imprecation but also savoring the warm feeling from his protectiveness, she returned the favor with the snicker-snack of a Snake Bite through the spine of a Necro that tried to take advantage of the Vorpal Strike's backlash. It wasn't enough to quite kill the abomination, to her annoyance, though it did hamper it and seemed to irritate it.

It had only just begun to turn from its original prey, however, when a blinding Linear drove into its heart from behind, and with a weak howl of dying rage it shattered.

There was something utterly incongruous about the calm smile on Asuna's face, as she pulled back to twirl around one more zombie and parry its claws. Yet Kizmel decided she wasn't going to complain if one of their number didn't share her nightmares, however unsettling part of her still felt it. At least one of us seems able to keep a clear head. That may be very important indeed.

"So," Philia asked a couple of minutes later, when the last of the Necros was vanishing into blue shards. "How many cars are there on this train? And how many Necros?"

[Safe Haven].

"Twelve cars," Strea told her, with an easy smile. "So, eight more, counting the engine. Seven, practically speaking. Eighty-nine Necros between them, plus the player who led them onto the train in the first place."

"Eighty-nine." Kirito's deadpan repetition was, Kizmel thought, more or less the general sentiment. "Just like those guys?"

"That's right. A mix of standard Necros and Redclaws, mostly. A few Jacklanterns thrown in, though, so you might want to be careful."

"I know I'm going to regret this," Rain sighed. "But what's a 'Jacklantern'?"

"They've got pumpkins for heads," Strea answered, as if the answer were perfectly normal. "With a candle showing through the eyes and mouth. They were meant for a Halloween event, I'm not really sure why there's some involved in the Clearing Quest… Oh, and I don't recommend beheading them. Those candles? Are fuses. The heads blow up if they're hit too hard."

There was a pause, as the party of Swordmasters digested that. Then Rain turned to Kizmel, a look of morbid curiosity on her face. "Kizmel? Is that normal in Aincrad? I mean, I've seen some weird things here, and I heard about the evil Santa at Christmas, but…"

"No, Rain. Undead with exploding pumpkins for heads are not something with which I'm familiar." Kizmel raised one eyebrow. "I take it they're not something you would expect to encounter in your world, either."

"No," Kirito said, shaking his head. "Not really." He looked over at Strea. "Okay. Basic zombies, the guys with claws, and ones that blow up. And a player. Please tell me that Revenant thing didn't somehow get back aboard?" She shook her head in turn. "And… speaking of. That thing… it knew me. What—?"

"I am not permitted to disclose details of the Revenants," Strea interrupted, expression suddenly sober. "Their parameters are not to be revealed during the course of the Clearing Quest at all.

"But I can give you this warning, Kirito: avoid them if at all possible. They are dangerous, they are targeting you, and you will not like what is behind their helmets."

The blunt, cold words were completely at odds with the attitude Strea had displayed up to that point. Indeed, Kizmel was reminded somewhat of Tia, except where that NPC had seemed more detached, Strea had an air of… distress, almost, locked behind a mask of duty.

"Further information on the subject is not available," Strea said then, and walked toward the door to the next car. "C'mon. We still have seven more cars, and who knows what's been going on back on the Fifty-Seventh Floor…"

This is Fallen Elf work. I'm sure of it.

Ghosting down Karika's streets under the cover of the Nightcloak, Sachi was convinced that was the origin of the zombie plague that had overtaken the town. Between the Black Cats' training with Kirito and Kizmel and Fuurinkazan's drive to reach the frontlines, she'd seen just about every notable NPC faction Aincrad had. The Fallen Elves were the only ones whose work gave her such a sense of primal evil.

She knew, even as she slipped into an alley between a bar and a smithy, that it was only a game. That however deadly it had become, NPCs—normal NPCs, anyway—were just mindless constructs, neither good nor evil.

Seeing an NPC girl—the daughter of an innkeeper, she thought—turned to the same rotting, gray-skinned abomination as the others made that difficult to remember. Having watched helplessly as so many NPCs underwent that transformation in the initial attack, screaming in all-too-authentic pain and horror… Sachi couldn't help but remember The Commandant.

Malice, she thought. Some things here… I don't care if they're not real. Kayaba gave them malice. Maybe he never intended for this outbreak, but he still made these things, and made it possible for them to do things like this.

Sachi kept her focus anyway. Disturbing as it was, weaving invisibly through the unquiet dead, it still didn't match up to watching her friends die around her. She was able to shut it out, at least well enough to carefully mark on her map streets the zombies seemed to be ignoring, or at least were they were sparser.

So far, she'd managed to chart a route about halfway through Karika. It was roundabout, circuitous, but logical enough. The undead didn't seem to care much for the alleys and backstreets, probably because there had been fewer targets back there.

Still no survivors, though, she thought grimly. And no clues, either. Getting through Karika doesn't help if we don't know where to go next!

Well. She didn't like it, but she knew there was only one way that was likely to change. If there were no NPCs left to ask, then she'd have to investigate some of the buildings. Which was going to be a lot trickier than just sneaking around the streets, there wasn't going to be much room to maneuver indoors, but they needed some kind of lead.

About two-thirds of the way across the town of the dead, Sachi found something that looked promising: a stout building with the legend "City Guard" written in Roman letters above its doors. The street was relatively deserted, with the nearest zombies a good two doors down…

She was still careful about it. Rather than going straight to the swinging, saloon-style doors at the front, Sachi first checked the windows. She didn't have the Eavesdropping Skill to listen for any of the characteristic moans or groans through the wood and glass, but she could at least get something of an idea of things just by looking.

Nothing on the ground floor that I can see, she thought, after circling quietly around all sides. If I were Kirito, I might try climbing up to look in second-story windows… I'll just have to hope there isn't a basement. Or that it's locked, if there is.

If there was a basement, Sachi promised herself, she wasn't going to check it. Not even if there were hints of a secret log-out point.

She was of two minds about the saloon-style doors, when she came back to the front. On the one hand, she was able to crawl under them without risking any sound that might attract the zombies. On the other, she had an uncomfortable feeling they didn't latch. In which case there was entirely too good a chance the undead mobs would be able to push through them, instead of being kept out like most of the other buildings in town.

Although if normal doors do keep them out, why didn't I see any survivors through the windows on the way here?

Not a comfortable thought. Probably something the clearing group would have to deal with, if—when—the spread of the plague was stopped, but not a notion she wanted to deal with just then.

And why does a building like this have the swinging doors in the first place?

The City Guard headquarters had a broad foyer, with an impressive staircase leading up to the second floor. Sachi very carefully skirted around that, instead heading into a side hall to the left. She'd go up there if she had to, and only if she had to.

Five minutes of creeping around the ground floor, finding nothing more interesting than an empty cafeteria with plates still laid out, an equally-empty armory, and a staircase leading down into ominous darkness, led her to a glum conclusion. If there was any information, she'd have to go up.

Still no zombies, though. And if there are any up there, I know the Nightcloak will keep me hidden. …I wish Argo had said if these things can hunt by smell.

Maybe she'd gotten lucky on that one. None of the zombies outside had picked up on her, and she'd gotten way too close a couple of times for comfort. Maybe Kayaba had decided the zombie status itself was enough of a challenge, without giving them super-senses, too.

Shivering under the cloak she'd pulled tight, Sachi climbed the stairs. And winced at every creak, expecting zombies to come pouring out of the halls to either side of the upper walkway at any moment.

Nothing. By the time she'd reached the top, there was still no sign of any mob at all. Somehow, this time, it looked like she really had gotten lucky. Though she still kept her stride to a slow, near-silent stalk when she turned to head down the right-hand hallway, she was almost feeling optimistic.

If they can get in and out of this place, then it makes sense any infected NPCs here would've gone out looking for prey. Nobody in here, no reason to stick around, right?

A comforting thought. One that lasted clear to when she reached a door with a plaque reading Guard Commander, and twisted the knob.

When the door suddenly flew open in her face, Sachi sprang back three meters in sheer tight-reflex surprise. Far out of reach of the zombie that lurched out of the office—and right into a wall, driving the virtual air out of her lungs from the impact.

Reflexes of a clearer, born of the determination to never suffer an event like the battle with The Commandant again, still kept her alive, even when the noise prompted another rotting mob to burst from the room closest to that wall. She moved with the rebound, allowing the wind of her passage to fling the Nightcloak back out of her away even as she pulled her sword free. She ducked under the closer zombie's grasping, clawed hands. Dropped into a crouch as it overextended, and swung her blade in an awkward Horizontal.

It did no damage, but did slam the zombie into the wall hard enough to stun it. That bought her just enough time to snag a Holy Water potion from her belt and smash it over her blade. Then she was pushing off, leaping toward the first zombie to bury a Rage Spike in its gut.

That was just enough time for Sachi to get her shield out, too—just as well, since a third zombie picked that moment to come around the corner at the other end of the hall.

Thank goodness we still don't take damage in the Safe Haven!

The next few moments were a confused whirl of snarls, groans, and Sachi's sword and shield swinging around as fast as she'd ever managed. At some point she felt claws raking across her leg; she was pretty sure, afterward, that was what prompted her to bash a zombie in the face with her shield, hard enough to send it tumbling out the nearest window.

She thought she was the one who'd opened it, somewhere in the confusion. At least, she hoped the mobs weren't smart enough to try that. She also hoped the zombie who'd gone out wasn't smart enough to try and come back with friends.

At least two were easier to deal with than three, even in the confines of a hallway. Two or three minutes—and maybe a bit of hysterical screaming—later, and nothing remained of the zombies but a lingering stench.

A stench, and more bites than she cared to think about. Being immune to damage had allowed her to be more reckless than usual, but it had still had consequences of its own. Her vision was beginning to blur and change colors in a way that made her very uncomfortable, and her limbs were getting unnervingly shaky—and turning colors she was pretty sure weren't just from her distorted vision.

That took three Holy Water potions, one of which she almost spilled, to take care of. But then, finally, Sachi was able to stumble into the guard commander's office.

I did it, she told herself. All by myself. So let's not worry about how bad the bites were, right? Just focus on checking for clues, and getting out of here… Hm? What's this?

In the small office, with little furniture besides a desk, three chairs, and a couple of cabinets, the first clue was right under her nose. A piece of parchment, sitting in plain view on the desk, as obvious a Key Item as anything she'd ever seen in a game. Strength rapidly returning to her limbs, she hurried over to it.

"Commander Steele. I pray this message reaches your hands. As we feared, the Necrosis Plague carriers are closing in on the pass through the Garda Mountains. The garrison believes they can hold, but only if the plague does not claim too many more. They also reported a scouting party went north, past Reveno Village, and has not returned.

"With my greater force, I chose to investigate. I hoped it was not so, that this resurgence of the Plague was from someone stumbling on an artifact from the war, but the evidence could not be ignored.

"Commander. Do not send rescue. Send word to Reccoa. If at all possible, get word even to the elves, Dark or Forest. But come here only in force enough destroy it all. It is worse than we feared: the Dead Workshop has been breached, and someone has become a Necromaster. It's too late for us, but perhaps, if the rumors of the Swordmasters are true…"

Sachi almost dropped the parchment from suddenly nerveless fingers. Any other quest, she would've treated it as ordinary flavor text. Any other quest. Not this one. And… a "Dead Workshop"? A "Necromaster"? …Something is wrong here, very wrong.

I need to call in the others, quick—

"Help me."

Turning away from the desk, Sachi dropped the note and jerked back so suddenly she hit the wall. She wasn't alone in the office anymore: another player had somehow entered without her noticing. A tall woman, in gear not too different from her own. Simple but sturdy armor, a hooded cloak, and a one-handed sword paired with a shield.

Her brown hair was unremarkable; her green eyes, not so much. But what really fixated Sachi's attention was that she could just faintly see the office door through the woman.

"Help me," the woman said again, in a voice that seemed to come from far away. "You must… stop them…

"Please…"

"Whoever came up with this quest should be forced to eat—ulp!"

Asuna didn't know exactly what Rain was trying to say about the justly-maligned game developer, and suspected she was better off not finding out. Not that she had a chance to ask, as the same explosion that tossed the redhead across the train car threw Asuna herself into a wall.

Strea hadn't been kidding about the Jacklanterns. There'd just been two of them, surrounded by several Redclaws, but Asuna suspected they were the in-universe reason this particular train car had had its roof torn off. They'd killed the first with a front-and-back attack from Kirito and Kizmel; shattering it harmlessly. The second had gotten kind of lost in the melee…

Then that big sword of Strea's got it. Whoever she is, she needs to be more careful with that thing!

No time to chastise the system NPC. Asuna had managed to twist mid-flight well enough to spread the impact across her back and shoulders, protecting her head, and even somewhat broke a flailing Philia's flight. Now, with just four Redclaws left in the car—and those having been tossed around by the exploding Jacklantern—she pushed off and back into the fray.

"Kirito-kun, Switch!"

Why her former partner hadn't been using Dual Blades while clearing the train, she wasn't quite sure. She wasn't inclined to complain, though, as she knew how to coordinate with his usual style. Having recovered faster than any of them from the blast, Kirito was just finishing a Sharp Nail when she called out; as she charged in with a Shooting Star, he smoothly spun out of the way to draw the attention of a Redclaw then menacing Kizmel.

The clawed zombies were definitely more dangerous than the basic Necros. This was the third car they'd cleared so far, and by now all of them had taken some hits from the talons. But they were only a little more durable, and had the exact same weak points.

A rapier was designed for precision work.

Asuna's charging attack pierced straight through the Redclaw's tough chest, grinding into its armored heart. At first her blade didn't break through, only pushing the Redclaw back a little, and its claws swung toward her face with a deranged howl—

Philia's serrated blade caught the flailing arm, producing a horrific sawing noise. With a shout, the treasure hunter yanked back and up, and the Redclaw's arm flew clear in a spray of red particles.

Adding a yell of her own, Asuna pushed on, getting inside the reach of the Redclaw's remaining arm. Putting every point of her STR stat into it, she drove the zombie right into the car wall—and with a final shout, her sword pierced through, shattering the cage surrounding its heart.

The sound of the Redclaw shattering seemed to stutter. It took Asuna a second to realize that was because Kirito and Kizmel had just finished off their target at the same time. Which leaves two more. Rain and Strea should be—there!

Strea was kneeling on the metal floor, apparently in the post-motion of a strong skill. There were deep gashes in her face, and judging from the state of her HP bar in the corner of Asuna's vision, she'd been hit harder by the exploding Jacklantern than any of them.

Which apparently didn't mean she was in much danger. The Redclaw she'd just hit grabbed her by the throat, lifted her up to biting height—and immediately dropped her again, gurgling in rage and pain as a thrown sword sank into its throat.

Without missing a beat, Rain gestured, snatched a new blade seemingly out of the air, and spun in a graceful pirouette around the last Redclaw. With a battlecry of her own, she stabbed the stumbling zombie five times in the back, drew up and back to carve a vicious downward slash. Wrenched her blade back up with enough force to spin in a complete circle, and rode the momentum for one more powerful uppercut.

It wasn't the perfect Howling Octave that drew Asuna's widened eyes, even as Strea casually tore her opponent in half with a Cyclone. She'd fought with Kirito and Kizmel enough times to recognize the skill, and if Rain was with them it wasn't surprising her One-Handed Sword level was high enough to use it.

That throw, though… She did that last night, too. At least the first half. …Right, she works with Kirito-kun and Kizmel-chan. Why am I even surprised?

Aloud, Asuna said, as casually as she could, "I'm impressed, Rain. I don't think I've seen sword-throwing before. Was that something like Kirito-kun's Dual Blades…?"

As the [Safe Haven] notice blinked by, Rain scratched the back of her head with her free hand, chuckling sheepishly. "Kinda? Actually, it turns out if you get Blade Throwing high enough, it lets you throw swords for full damage, too. Of course, then you don't have a weapon, unless…"

Asuna nodded, remembering then where she'd seen a trick like that before. Though she'd never seen it done quite like that. "You used the Quick Change mod to keep right on fighting with a backup weapon."

"Yep." Calling up her menu briefly, Rain switched out the sword she was holding, calling back the one that had clattered to the floor when Strea finished off the Redclaw. "You might say it's my own personal Outside System Skill. Still trying to think of a cool name for it… The real problem is, I've only got two swords good enough for the frontlines, and trying to upgrade enough extras to make the skill work the way I want it to is kinda pricey."

Asuna could believe it. For really good weapons, a clearer had to scrimp as much as possible as it was. She was still surprised Rain's party had managed to buy a home without setting themselves back too much, with only the resources of four people.

I guess it helps they've got a "treasure hunter" as part of their team. I wonder what quests she's found that we've missed? Too bad there's no chance of convincing them to join the KoB.

"It's still a cool trick," Kirito said, walking over with Kizmel. He gave Rain a wry grin. "There's a reason I call her our team ninja. We never quite know what she'll come up with next."

"Oh, come on, Kirito, cut it out with the…"

Rain trailed off at the same moment Asuna felt a chill go down her neck. She wasn't the only one, either. Kirito abruptly stiffened, and Kizmel's hand went to the saber she'd only just sheathed. Only Philia and Strea seemed not to notice… whatever it was.

"We're being watched," Kirito said, giving voice to what they were feeling. "Someone else is here."

"How can you tell?" Strea gave him a confused look, before glancing over the car at large. "There's nothing here. At least, nothing a player's senses can detect. I'm limited to those, and I don't see anything. Or hear. Or smell."

Fair enough. This train car had been completely empty when they got to it, barring too many rotting, walking corpses. There was simply nowhere for anyone to hide. But Asuna still felt that prickle on the back of her neck…

Philia's eyes lit up with the green glow of Searching. "No hidden compartments," she reported after a quick once-over of the car. "You guys sure you're not imaging things? I mean, zombies, paranoia… Kind of comes with the genre, right?"

Maybe. But… no. I'm sure—

Two swords leapt out into the shining wheels of Spinning Shields, a kite shield snapping up to add to the coverage. Metal rang on metal, accompanied by a screeching spang as something grated against the edge of a rapier.

Throwing Spikes, Asuna realized, in the moment after their collective reflexive defense. Tips glowing a sickly green, a dozen of the simple throwing weapons were strewn around the car, under the wide eyes of Strea and Philia. And above, at the edge of the torn and blasted car roof—

A chuckle, quickly turning into a full-on laugh. "Well, well! I knew you guys had to be good, but now I see how Morte could've been killed! The Black Swordsman's party really does live up to the rep. I'm impressed!"

Wild, spiky white hair. The first pair of sunglasses Asuna had seen in Aincrad. A tight blue tank-top, partly covered by a half-cape. A katana long enough she would've called it a tachi. A toothy grin she thought belonged on a movie serial killer. A sickly green glow and rough gray skin halfway up his right arm, stopping at an odd, wrought-iron cuff on his bicep.

An orange cursor spinning over his head. And visible on his left shoulder, a tattoo of a coffin with a grinning mouth, a skeletal arm reaching out of it.

"Laughing Coffin," Kirito ground out, voice suddenly as low and harsh as Asuna had ever heard it. "I thought one of you had to be behind this."

"Well, somebody had to do it," the orange—no, Asuna corrected herself grimly, red—player said cheerfully, still crouched at the edge of what remained of the roof. "And it sure couldn't be Johnny. I mean, he'd have loved to, but he's not really good at the thinking stuff right now, you know?"

Johnny Black. Asuna remembered the PKer, from the days when he'd gone by "Joe". Just as she remembered he'd been Morte's partner. Had been. He'd never been a paragon of stability as it was. With Morte dead, she wasn't surprised he wasn't reliable enough for one of Laughing Coffin's typical schemes.

"If you know about what happened to Morte, then you should be surrendering right now," Kirito said, pointing the Baneblade's tip up at the PKer. "I did that alone. What do you think you're going to manage against six of us, with no way to get backup of your own?"

"There's still four more cars full of Necros," the red player pointed out, still grinning. "All I have to do is head back to the engine car, and let them do the work. By the time you get through them… well, who knows?"

"You're willing to bet your life on that?" Asuna asked. Tensing her legs, she let her rapier drift down, just shy of the position for a Shooting Star. "If you surrender now, I promise you'll only be locked in the Black Iron Castle."

"Yeah… see, that's why you guys in the KoB can't stop us. You're too damn soft, 'Vice-Commander'." The PKer's sunglasses glinted in the faint sunlight trickling in through the surrounding fog, as his gaze focused briefly on her, then slid to Kirito. "The Black Swordsman, now… you and your girl, it might be worth crossing blades with you. You two know what this world is. You'd be good… practice."

Practice. Asuna had no idea what he meant by that—and suddenly decided she didn't need to. If he really thought she was too soft, she was going to show him what it really meant to be one of the leaders of the clearers. She moved her rapier the last couple of centimeters for the pre-motion, even as something flashed from Rain's direction—

"Whoops!"

The red player was fast, almost as fast as Kirito. Asuna's rapier passed through empty air, her target nimbly flipping backward and out of sight. She tried to catch the edge of the torn roof, intending to follow; but caught in the post-motion of her own skill, her arm refused to quite reach, and she fell back into the cleared car.

"I said you were too soft, Vice-Commander!" the red player's voice came, from somewhere further on. "A real killer would've gotten me!" Another loud, too-cheerful laugh. "You want me, come and get me! Try not to let the Necros get you—though that'd be fun, too!"

"What do you want?!" Kirito snarled. "What the hell does Laughing Coffin get out of this?!"

"You still don't get it, Black Swordsman? Ha! Then ask me again when you reach the front! Let that sword of yours do the talking! I'll be waiting!"

There was a faint sound of boots on metal, quickly swallowed up by the sound of the train's own passage. As was all too common with Laughing Coffin, Asuna thought, this one had made good his escape.

With a look of deep disgust, Rain called up her menu to retrieve the sword she'd just thrown. "Great. We really do have a player as the bad guy here, and he talks like a shounen manga character. Somehow that bothers me almost as much as him being a red player."

"I'm more worried about what his plan is." Kirito's face was tense; anxious as much as angry, Asuna thought. "Why does he think it'd be fun for him if one of us was infected? Strea?"

The NPC's expression was flat, closed. "I can't tell you that. Not unless and until the crisis takes us past Reveno. Some details are restricted beyond that."

"Oh, yay. That's reassuring." Philia rolled her eyes. "Okay, let me take a stab at that one. Does this have anything to do with that armband the guy was wearing? 'Cause if my Searching wasn't lying, that was a key item from a quest. And seeing as the infection he had stopped right there—"

"Details on that are restricted," Strea said flatly.

"I see." Kizmel was giving her fellow NPC a very strange look. Realization, unease… and maybe a little disgust, Asuna thought. "A suggestion, Strea? If you do not want to answer a question, you'd best learn from the Swordmasters. As I've learned from Argo, sometimes 'no comment' is itself an answer."

It was almost funny, the way Strea's eyebrows went up in surprise, down in a thoughtful frown—and then her expression went completely blank. Funny, if it weren't kind of disturbing. I'm starting to see what that Tia girl meant about "alive, but not as alive as Kizmel".

Asuna didn't wait for Strea to come up with a response, though. There wasn't time for that. "All right, let's go," she said firmly, striding toward the door to the next car. "We still have four cars left to clear—and we still have to figure out why that red player still thinks he's winning, when this train is under quarantine. There's something going on here that we aren't seeing yet."

Klein deeply, truly hoped this would be the last floor of Aincrad with a significant presence of undead mobs. The trip from the stairway to Karika had been bad enough. Following the route Sachi's PM advised through Karika was worse. Way worse.

No sounds of townspeople, or other players. Just the mournful BGM, the keening wind—and the moans and shuffling footsteps of infected NPCs.

The trip was unnervingly slow, on top of everything else. Without Sachi's Nightcloak, the rest of Fuurinkazan had to rely on careful movement, skulking single-file across streets, taking the most ridiculously roundabout route imaginable. It was frustrating as hell—but the knowledge that if they screwed up, they'd have an entire town's worth of zombies after them was a hell of an incentive.

Damn glad Kirito did bring us Sachi, back then, Klein told himself, just after almost walking right into a cluster of zombies by the Railway Inn. They seemed to be eating something, which he figured was the only reason they didn't hear his suddenly-rapid heartbeat. I hate the circumstances, but she's been worth it all. I'd sure hate to be trying this without her maps.

Whatever it felt like, intellectually he knew it couldn't have taken more than ten minutes to cross from Karika's gate to their destination. Even so, Klein thought he'd seldom been so glad to see an empty building as when Dynamm waved him across the street to the guard HQ. If it had been his real body, he'd have needed a good long shower just from all the sweating.

"That girl's got nerves of steel," Kunimittz muttered, pushing open the swinging doors into the building as he took point. "Forget the trip. This place gives me the survival horror shivers just looking at it."

"Can't argue with that, man." Dale, moving with the exaggerated caution of a man who knew his own size was all too likely to make him bump into things at exactly the wrong moment, cast a nervous glance down the hallways branching off from the foyer. "Can't believe there's people crazy enough to play those VR. Seriously, that VR RE two years back should've been Z-rated, with a medical waver…"

"Cool it, guys," Klein warned softly, beckoning them toward the stairs. "At least until we're upstairs. Sachi didn't check the basement, remember?"

That got the silence he needed—even if he didn't really want it—and a hastier trip up the stairs. Only when they were at the second floor and headed for the office Sachi had told them about did they even begin to relax, and that only a little.

None of them were quite willing to trust that there wouldn't be newly-spawned zombies around.

Harry One and Dynamm stayed out by the stairway end of the hall for exactly that reason, while Dale and Kunimittz took the other end. Only Issin followed Klein into the guard commander's office. Though I bet the other guys wish there was room…

Sachi was waiting for them, cloak wrapped tight around her as if to ward off a chill. She visibly relaxed when she saw them, though her face stayed a pale shade Klein didn't like one bit. "Klein!" she said, a relieved—if shaky—smile on her face. "You made it."

"Like I'd ever be late for a date—oof!" That earned him the light punch to the stomach he'd expected and counted on. The cuff to his shoulder from Issin, he wasn't quite so happy about. "Okay, we're here. What'd you find, Sachi?"

Pulling back from the gut-punch, she nodded at the desk. "That. I don't think you're going to like it, Klein." She hesitated. "And… No. Never mind."

Halfway to the note on the desk, Klein turned back to frown at her. "Don't give me that, Sachi. What's wrong? Can't just be the clue. You look like you've seen a ghost."

Sachi swallowed. "…That's the thing," she said, voice barely a whisper. "I… think I did."

"Okay, I admit it, guys," Klein announced, fifteen minutes after meeting up with Sachi in Karika. "We really shouldn't have taken this job." His shoulder blades itched, but he refused to look back. "Are they still after us?"

"Why don't you stop and ask them?" Dynamm retorted, shield clanking on his back with every running step. "I'm not looking!"

"Still there," Kunimittz said laconically. "Good thing avatars don't get tired. Though I could do with a snack about now. Isn't it about time we stopped for lunch, Boss?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, brilliant idea!" Now Klein did risk a glance back, and immediately wished he hadn't. "Fine! There's supposed to be a village between here and our destination, right? We'll take a break there!"

Assuming the two dozen Necros tethered by then, anyway. He had no idea, actually, if they would tether. The scraps they'd turned up in Karika, even the notebook they'd found inside the guard commander's desk, hadn't given much in the way of hints about mob behavior. They knew that at least some of the Necros could roam pretty much anywhere—given the attempted assault on the lower floors—but Klein was holding out some hope not all of them could range so far.

A kilometer out from Karika, Fuurinkazan running as fast their AGI stats allowed, it wasn't looking promising.

"We could stop and take them out," Sachi suggested, from somewhere off to Klein's left. He could occasionally see her legs, clipping out through the Nightcloak, but otherwise could only tell her position from sound.

"Too risky, this far out of a Safe Haven," he said, now resolutely facing forward. "And too many of them. Look, they're finally starting to lose ground on us. If some of them do follow as far as Reveno, we'll deal with it then."

"Says the guy who aggroed them in the first place," Harry One muttered. "Did we have to go out the window?"

"We finally found a lead," Klein shot back. "And I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to take any longer than we have to on this one."

That shut up his insubordinate guild members quite nicely, if he did say so himself. Though he wished it had been for better reasons. None of them, really, had wanted to stay in Karika after what Sachi had reported—and all of them wanted to get the next stage out of the way as soon as possible.

Lunch, Klein told himself, was the longest they could allow themselves to stall. They'd have lunch, send a quick update to the rest of the clearing group, check Reveno Village for clues… and then deal with the Dead Workshop as fast as they possibly could.

"So much for lunch." Klein's words were flippant. His tone wasn't. Neither was his expression. Standing on the crest of the hill overlooking Reveno Village, Fuurinkazan's guildmaster gazed down at the small settlement with a cold, bitter expression. "Bastards."

"The programmers, or whoever set off the zombie plague?" Kunimittz asked, leaning on his spear with an air that was just little too casual to be real.

"Yes."

"They were just NPCs, Boss," Dynamm pointed out gently. Resting a hand on Klein's shoulder, though, the piratical player couldn't seem to look at the village. "There wouldn't have been any players down there."

"That's not the point, dammit!" Klein snapped, suddenly angry. "It doesn't matter if there was anybody like Kizmel down there, or the other AIs we've heard about. It doesn't even matter if there were any players. What matters is that this is the only reality we've got, and anybody who'd do that has crossed a line nobody here ever should!" He gestured sharply at Reveno. "Tell me you can look at faces just like ours and do that, and live with yourself! Because if you can, if any of you can, you're out, right now!"

The rest of Fuurinkazan collectively winced. But only at the fury—the pain—in Klein's voice. The threat was an empty one, and they all knew it.

Because none of us would ever think of doing something like this, Sachi thought to herself, looking down at what used to be Reveno Village. We all know we have to act like NPCs are human, if we're going to stay human ourselves. If we're ever going to live in the real world again.

They'd been afraid Reveno might have been attacked already. Which, from all the shambling, groaning, rotting NPCs they could see, was unfortunately exactly what had happened.

Finding the village burning, a few last surviving NPCs dying before their eyes… that, none of them had been prepared for. It wasn't an instanced map. There shouldn't have been any way for an entire town to have been destroyed in a public map.

They'd thought at first, when the flaming buildings had come into sight, that it hadn't been intended as a true town at all. That it had been a dungeon from the start. That would've been disturbing, but honestly expected, especially with the zombie apocalypse theme the Fifty-Seventh Floor had.

"Save… me… …Kill… me…"

Those were the only words the dying tavern girl, burnt not quite badly enough to violate SAO's age rating, had gotten out, before succumbing to injury—and to the Necrosis Plague. With her turning, an [Outside Field] notice had appeared, confirming that Reveno had been a Safe Haven.

Klein had been the one to put her down, unwilling to leave it to anyone else. Then he'd led them up the hill, outside of the charnel house Reveno Village had become. From there, they could all see how complete the destruction of the village was, as it all burnt to the ground.

Like Karika, there seemed to be no survivors.

"We have to clear this floor, as quick as we can," Sachi whispered, shivering at the sight. "Even if what's going on here is just a gimmick for this floor… I don't want to think about how most players would react. We have to open the next floor—and warn people away from this one."

"Yeah," Dale agreed glumly. "Damn… what was Kayaba thinking, with this one?"

"We'll ask Kirito what he thinks, when he pops up again," Klein said, as grim as Sachi had ever heard him. "But if I had to guess? This is just part of making this world 'real'. Reminding us this isn't just a game." Armored fingers curled into a tight fist. "Kayaba's not even the one I really want right now. If that note back in Karika's right, this only happened because a player made the choice. I want whoever did this."

Sometimes, Klein came across as a salaryman cosplaying as a samurai, or maybe a bandit. Right then, Sachi thought, he looked every bit the noble lord, furious at an atrocity in his land.

Not that Sachi disagreed. Not one bit.

"We're going," Klein said abruptly, turning away from the horror below the hill. "We're going, and we're not stopping until we find the Dead Workshop. And whoever did this—they'd better surrender quietly. For their sakes."

"Well. That sure looks ominous." Kunimittz stroked his stubbly goatee, looking up at the wall standing before Fuurinkazan. "Elf work, Sachi?"

"Yeah," Sachi confirmed in a low voice. She looked for all the world like she wanted to pull the Nightcloak tight and run away, but she stood her ground. "Not Forest, though. Or Dark. That's Fallen Elf. I'd recognize the style anywhere, after what happened back in…"

Klein didn't blame her for not finishing the sentence. Though he never had managed to get the girl to open up about the friend she'd lost early in the death game, he'd gotten the full story on what happened to the Black Cats the night Kirito and Kizmel had dropped her off with him. Whatever bad memories those two had of Fallen Elves, Sachi's might just have been worse.

That's not what scares me, though, he thought, as his guild cautiously spread out to either side, looking for an entrance. What scares me is, what the hell did this? …Not that I can't guess.

A wall of stone so black and oily it seemed to outright eat light. One side of a sharp, obsidian rectangle, one Klein uneasily thought was bigger than Reveno Village had been before being burnt to the ground. Just the fact that it had been built by the Fallen Elves—and in apparent plain sight—would've been enough to make him very nervous. Fuurinkazan had never dealt with Fallen Elves or their dungeons, but he'd bought everything Argo had to sell on it long since.

What really bugged him was that the wall was crumbling in places. And that at least one of the openings looked uncomfortably person-sized.

The Necros we've seen so far are bad enough. What could've broken through stone walls under its own power? …Well, whatever it is, we're going in anyway. Whoever set them on Reveno might be in there.

I want them.

But he wasn't going to be stupid about it. Which meant not going into one of the holes broken through solid stone, if they could possibly help it. That way, he thought, could be treasure, could be secret passages—or could be death traps. Better to find the "intended" way in, first.

"Main entrance looks to be over here, Boss," Dale called a minute later, waving from southeastern end of the wall. "I don't think we'll have much trouble getting in."

Klein jogged over, Sachi close behind. True to his friend's word, there was what had probably been the front door, once upon a time. "Had been" being the operative phrase. The remains of a wooden gate were evident only from thick splinters scattered around, and the portcullis that had been behind it was bent and broken as if things had physically torn it away.

"Oookay. That definitely trips my spooky meter," Dynamm said, peering inside. "At least it looks like the lighting's decent. Torches… and sunlight, from the holes higher up." He turned back to Klein, one eyebrow reaching for his bandana. "What do you think, Boss? Not the worst dungeon we've ever seen, design-wise."

"Unless it rains," Kunimittz quipped. "Wet zombies? That must be worse than wet dog."

Sachi gave him a very speaking look. Klein didn't say a word, though. His friend's humor was morbid, but it was just what was needed to break the tension. Before going into a place named the "Dead Workshop", they needed all the tension-breaking they could get.

"We're going in," he said, with a calm he didn't entirely feel. "Just remember: we might not see any Necros from here, but there's bound to be some inside. And the PKer who set all this off might be in there, too. Sachi, get under your cloak. Everybody else, weapons out. You see red, you hit it. You see orange… hit it harder."

Klein got very sober looks from that order, and a flinch from Sachi that quickly vanished into thin air under the Nightcloak. He didn't get any disagreement, though. Just the sound of varied weapons behind drawn and readied.

As he led them into the black stone hallway, lit by deep blue torches and sunlight from impromptu skylights, he prayed none of them would have to obey that last order. He had a bad feeling Kirito had had to so already, from the change in his young friend's demeanor in recent days. The idea of any of Fuurinkazan having to kill a player…

I'll do it myself, if it needs to be done. The PKing needs to stop. But I'd rather it be me, if it has to happen at all.

What was really spooky, though, was that at first, nothing happened at all. Seven players trooping into a dungeon made by the nastiest group in Aincrad's lore, with a name as dripping in nasty as "Dead Workshop", and for over five minutes nothing even tried to jump out and eat them.

One pressure plate triggered a falling chunk of stone that nearly crushed Dale, and judging from the "Eep!" when another set off a blade in the wall at neck-height, Sachi had a very close call. But that was all, as they passed from the entrance hall past what looked for all the world like offices. A barracks. Even a mess hall.

The mess hall was the worst, on the way in. The moldy food still on plates said something had still been living in the Workshop recently—and departed very, very abruptly.

Only after three dead ends—all of them almost literal, but with death traps so unremarkable none of them even cared—did Fuurinkazan start to hear ominous moans. Only when they came to a huge room, somewhere near the Workshop's center, with giant vats of… something… in the middle, did the truth rear its ugly head.

Klein felt all the hairs that would've been on the back of his neck if SAO rendered that much detail stand up, and heard a sharp inhalation from Sachi, just before he spotted the blur standing in front of one of the vats. A blur that, as he stared at it, started to resolve itself into a humanoid shape.

"Well, well. Not exactly. Who I was expecting." A low chuckle. "So. The Black Swordsman. And his doll. Must be. The ones bothering Kuze. Very interesting. I wonder. If he'll survive?"

"Who the hell are you?" Klein demanded, leveling his katana at the player now wavering into full view. Tall and lanky, with a skull mask, and eerie red eyes visible even from a distance, topped with a hooded cloak. He was holding a long, thin sword in one hand—and despite being faced by six visible players, he was smiling. "Did you set those zombies on the town?"

Not that there was much doubt. Not with that orange cursor hanging over his head.

"You don't need. To know. My name. If you live. He can tell. But I. Don't intend. To fight you now." The PKer gestured sharply with his sword—an estoc, Klein realized belatedly—at the vats. "You want. Answers? You've found them. You'll wish. You hadn't." Another low chuckle, and he crouched, looking like he was about to run. "Maybe you'll even. Rather die. Than fight them."

"Them—? Hey, stop him!"

The PKer was fast. Faster than anyone Klein had seen short of Kirito or Asuna. In the time it took him to start to ask one question, the masked red player jumped clear over Fuurinkazan's heads, landing in a dead run. Klein started to turn, not willing to let the probable culprit get away—

"No… it can't… it can't be…"

Sachi's horrified whisper, as much as the sudden sloshing and gurgling noises, stopped Klein short. Whipping back around, he saw what had caught her attention: Necros, climbing out of the vats, a disturbing black muck dripping off them. But they weren't like any Necros he'd seen before. These wore armor, and carried weapons…

Not just any armor or weapons, he realized in dawning horror, even as Issin choked out something that might've been a denial. That's player gear! They're imitating—no!

"No," Sachi whispered, hood falling away to reveal sheer horror on her face. "No, no, no… no." She stared at one set of Necros in particular, a small group that were heading right for her. "Ducker… Sasamaru… Tetsuo… Sumika…!"

Klein had never known those faces. Not in life. But he knew the names, from one dark night—and from Sachi's cries in her nightmares.

The dead of the Moonlit Black Cats. In the undead, rotting flesh. Coming for them, with other faces Klein did know.

Player zombies…! Kayaba, you bastard!

The last Redclaw shattered into blue fragments, claws centimeters from Kirito's heart. Off to his left, beyond the gaping hole in one wall of the train car, one final Jacklantern exploded harmlessly in the fog. Strea gave an utterly incongruous whoop at its demise; as if in agreement, the [Safe Haven] notice promptly popped up.

"That's the last of the Necros on the train, then," Kizmel said with obvious relief, pulling back from the post-motion of her final skill. "All that remains is the Swordmaster." She glanced at the door leading to the final car, the engine itself. "Strea? Could he have locked that?"

The Cardinal NPC frowned, hesitating for a brief instant. "No. He hasn't completed the quest needed for the Engineer Skill. He could start the train, but only set it on its default course, with no other usage privileges."

Engineer Skill? Kirito thought. That's a new one… Is it only related to this floor? No, never mind that for now. If the door isn't locked, and all the Necros are gone, all that's left is to finish this. He felt a sudden wave of nausea. …I don't have a Corridor Crystal, and my Paralysis gear is back at the cabana's storage.

Chances are, the only way to stop this guy will be… No. Wait. I'm not alone. Not this time. Maybe…?

He looked around at the group at large. "Guys. There's six of us, but only one of him. Taking him down shouldn't be that hard. But to actually bring him down… Well. I don't suppose anyone brought any Paralysis—?"

The question was cut off before he could finish it, by the fog outside the train abruptly blowing away like smoke in a gale. Beyond the gash ripped in the left wall, bright Aincrad daylight was suddenly visible, along with the diseased grass of the Fifty-Seventh Floor's plains.

Not where they'd left the public map, either. Just visible to the rear, when Kirito darted over to the open side to check, were sheer cliffs.

As if to confirm it, the [Outside Field] notice popped into view, hung there for a moment, and disappeared without fanfare.

"We're out of the instance," Asuna said, unnecessarily, as she joined him. "Why? The red player is still aboard!"

"Quarantine was only permitted as long as there were still Necros aboard," Strea told her, with a careless shrug. "That threat has been neutralized. So? We can stop him now, before he can reach—any other place with Necros."

"Maybe we can," Rain said sharply. "But I've got another question: where are we?"

"Well, we're right where—" Strea cut off abruptly, eyes widening. "Wait. Ending the quarantine should've dropped the train right back where it was before. So why are we—?" Another flicker of a pause; Kirito realized she was checking the system itself. "Values have been changed… by higher authority? Why…? Oh, that's not good! The Garda Mountains are back there, and the default course for the train is Reccoa City—"

Whatever Kirito might've expected the agent of Cardinal to do next, it was not flinging herself out of the train mid-sentence. Before he, or any of the group, could so much as cry out, Strea had hit the ground and vanished from sight behind the curve of the railroad.

"…What just happened?" Philia said plaintively. "We're on the other side of the mountains, right? Heading for the city Strea said Necros weren't supposed to get to? So… why did she just jump off the train?"

"I don't know," Kirito said honestly. "I'm kind of afraid to find out. But that doesn't change anything." He nodded at the door to the engine car. "We still have him to deal with. So like I was saying, do any of you have—?"

He was interrupted. Again. This time by the door swinging wide open. "Well, well! Isn't this interesting?" The red player strode out, bold and grinning. "And here I thought I'd have to hold you guys off a lot longer, to get where I'm going! Somebody upstairs must like me."

"I highly doubt that," Kizmel said flatly, taking a quick step over to Kirito's side. "More apt to be a demon, if your 'real world' has such beings." She leveled her saber at the PKer. "You might as well surrender, in any case. You are outnumbered, and your plan has failed. Give up, and we won't be forced to kill you."

Kill. Kirito winced, but made no protest. There was no time, now, to even ask if anyone else had paralysis-inducing gear on hand. This is it. Now he'll either do the smart thing, or—

The PKer surprised them all by laughing. "Oh, really? You think I've failed? Ha! You don't get it at all! The Necros on the train… they were just a bonus."

What? Then what was the point—?

"That armband," Philia snapped. "It is a quest item! That's how you led the Necros here!"

"Points to the treasure hunter!" The PKer actually clapped. "Yeah, you could say that. Clever girl!" His grin thinned, showing canines like fangs. "But you don't quite know all of it. And I'm not gonna tell, 'cause I'm not that stupid."

"You're stupid enough, if you think you're getting away," Asuna said coldly, stepping to the front of the group. "Last chance. Drop your weapon and come quietly. You can't win if you fight us."

"Hm… nope. Don't think so." The PKer pushed up the bridge of his sunglasses with one hand, casually resting the other on the hilt of his katana. "Y'see, you've got two problems here: me, and the little fact that I set the train to top speed. Which, y'know, should slow down automatically when it reaches a town. But we all know this floor doesn't follow normal rules, don't we?"

Clearing Quest. Non-repeatable. What if…?

"Philia, Rain!" Kirito said sharply. "Get in there, and stop this train!" He hoped he was wrong, that the hideous idea that had just occurred to him was impossible, but this was SAO. Normal game logic didn't always apply—something Strea had made clear was very much the case on the Fifty-Seventh Floor in particular.

"But—!" Philia began.

"No arguments! We don't know what'll happen if this hits the next town at this speed, and you're the best at this! Rain, watch her back!" And the fewer of us who have to risk killing, the better.

Philia bit her lip. Rain stared at him for a moment, seeming to weigh something behind her eyes—and then nodded sharply, grabbed the treasure hunter, and dragged her over to the next car. "We'll handle it!" she promised. "You handle him!"

"Good luck!" the PKer called over his shoulder, not even bothering to try to stop them. "Billions of levers and switches in there. Took me ten minutes to find the ones that actually did something!"

He's too calm. Something's wrong here. He knows I killed Morte. Either he's a suicidal idiot—or he knows something we don't. Mind racing, Kirito glanced quickly over their enemy's equipment. Most of it seemed normal enough, even if he'd never before seen sunglasses in Aincrad. Though the particular katana the PKer was using was unfamiliar, Kirito at least knew the skills available well enough.

The armband, though… There was something about that he really, really didn't like. Especially with the PKer's declaration that there was more to it than just leading undead mobs around.

Asuna took another step forward, her rapier lowering to just shy of the starting position for a Linear. "Enough!" she snapped. "Stand down—"

There was exactly one kind of attack that could be launched from a sheathed katana. That was probably the only thing that saved Asuna's life, reflexes honed from fighting Orochi Elite Guards back on the Tenth Floor. In the instant the PKer's blade began to flash out, she was already flipping away, leaving only the toe of her right boot to be caught.

That wasn't a Zekkuu, Kirito realized with a chill, recognizing the subtle difference in angle—and the bright red flash that had accompanied it, rather than the clear blue of a Zekkuu. Iai!

One of the highest-level skills the Katana line had available, equivalent to a Vorpal Strike. Whoever this was, he wasn't a mere ganker. The fact that his katana—almost a tachi, really—seemed to be made of the same material as the Necros' bones made that even clearer.

"Ooh, not bad," the PKer said, still with that sly grin, as Asuna touched down. "Just what I'd expect from the Vice-Commander of the KoB. Let me introduce myself, as a token of my respect." He lifted his katana in salute. "Kuze, of Laughing Coffin. The man who's going to end this game, the hard way—"

Enough!

With a shout, Kirito launched into a Sonic Leap, trying to catch the PKer—Kuze—while he was still talking. At the same time, Kizmel darted forward with a Fell Crescent, almost directly beneath him. Between the two charge-type skills, especially the high-level Fell Crescent, they had a good chance of knocking the PKer clear into the red right at the start.

If they hit.

With surprising speed, Kuze spun on one foot, letting Kizmel's saber narrowly slip past. In the same motion, he countered the Sonic Leap with the rising slash of an Ukifune, clashing directly with the Baneblade. The heavier skill overpowered the lighter, and Kirito found himself flung straight up into the ceiling.

Definitely not just a ganker!

Even as Kirito's back hit the roof and rebounded, Asuna charged into the gap with a yell. Taking advantage of the delay imposed by the Ukifune, she stabbed once, twice, four times with her rapier, peppering Kuze with a Quadruple Pain. He was pushed back, almost to the wall, grunting with each hit; but, lucky enough to be spared the skill's chance of inflicting a Stun, he was able to turn enough for Kizmel's Shooting Star to only graze his flank, instead of piercing his heart.

Kuze continued the turn, segueing into a Revolving Wheel that pushed both girls back, ugly red slashes cut across their chests.

Yelling angrily, Kirito threw himself back into the fight, getting in close enough to unleash the vicious up-down-up of a Sharp Nail. Kuze's own chest was left marked like the slash of some giant beast's claws, and his grin shrank just a little. It vanished completely when his back finally struck the metal wall—yet he turned the rebound to his advantage, flinging himself forward and past his three opponents.

It might've been a perfect chance to cut him down, his back completely open and vulnerable. Kirito hesitated barely an instant before trying to do just that, throwing his arm forward in a Vorpal Strike—only to stumble just as the System Assist kicked in, the train shuddering and bouncing under his feet.

The Vorpal Strike went wide, over the tumbling Kuze's shoulder. The Fell Crescent Kizmel had similarly attempted went clear over his head, carrying her into the back wall of the car with a grunt and a thud.

Asuna hadn't quite moved. Kirito thought he knew why, and wasn't sure if he was annoyed or not.

"What was that?!" he called over his shoulder, in the few breaths of the post-motion of the Vorpal Strike. Inwardly, he was grateful Kuze seemed to have suffered a Tumble. "Rain, Philia—!"

"Not us!" Philia shouted back. "The train just jumped the track… Oh, that's not good!"

Kuze was suddenly rolling to his feet, giving Kirito just enough warning to leap to one side of the Ukifune the PKer launched his way. "Define 'not good'!"

He almost took a stab right to heart before he could get a reply, as Kuze unexpectedly abandoned Sword Skills. Asuna did her best to skewer the red player for it, stabbing him in both shoulders and the face with a Triangular.

Whoever Kuze was, he was good, and had the best equipment that could be crafted, dropped, or stolen. Despite the amount of damage he had to have taken, he kept on fighting, and the next few moments were a whirlwind of flashing blades. If anything, Kuze grew more agile as the battle continued, and through most of it he kept up his grin.

But he has to be in the red by now. If I use Dual Blades, I could… No. Not unless I have to. If I don't have to make that choice again, I—

"Somebody switched the tracks!" Philia called out, at some point in the melee. "Kirito! We're not headed for the city anymore! It's—!"

Kuze flung himself back and out of the fight, even though the leap almost tore his own head off on Kizmel's saber. "Well, well! Not what I planned, but hey, you work with what you've got!" Bowing, he danced back several steps, to the gash in the left wall of the car. "It's been fun, guys, but I think we all have bigger problems now."

He sheathed his blade, reached into a pocket, and pulled out a Healing Crystal, as casual as if three angry clearers weren't preparing high-level skills that might well have been powerful enough to kill him outright.

"Surrender," Asuna said flatly, positioning her rapier for what Kirito recognized as the eight-hit Neutron. "I won't say it again!"

"Thanks, but nope! Heal!" Kuze's Healing Crystal washed his body in cool green light, and he lifted his hand in mocking salute. "If you live through the next, oh, thirty seconds, we'll probably meet again. Though really, I think you'd rather we didn't. Later!"

Kirito almost wasn't surprised when the PKer promptly toppled backwards out of the train. It had been that kind of day, and Kuze, he'd already decided, was crazy. But crazy like a fox. We had him, but it shouldn't have taken that long.

No time to dwell on that. The moment they were sure Kuze was out of the way, all three clearers rushed for the door into the engine car. Inside was a short stairway leading up to a higher level, and then they were in the control compartment, where Rain and Philia were waiting.

Crowded with five people. None of them really noticed. "Is that a lake?" Kirito asked numbly, staring out the window looking out over the train's engine. "Right in front of us?"

"Yep," Rain replied, with the casual tone of someone who had had one too many surprises in one day.

"Do the tracks lead right into it?" Kizmel asked. Her voice showed little but morbid fascination.

"Yep."

"Not quite," Philia countered. "Looks like they go up a bit, just off the edge of that cliff."

"We need to slow down," Kirito said, with a strangely calm urgency. "Now."

"We did," the treasure hunter told him. "Or reduced throttle, anyway. But, well, the brakes aren't working." She turned a strained smile on the others. "I think we've got about, um, ten seconds to get out of here?"

"Run!"

Asuna's command was about the least necessary one Kirito had heard all day. There was a collective mad dash back out of the control compartment, down the stairs, back into the damaged car—

The train hit the end of the tracks, and leapt out over the lake.

Author's Note:

Okay, yes. I am evil. I admit. Two cliffhangers in one chapter? I may have outdone myself. But it gets worse: I'm going to be doing two back-to-back chapters of my Persona fic. I will, however, try to work on the next Duet chapter during that period, and the good news is that those will be the last chapters of Defiance, after which I'll be able to focus completely on Duet for a little while. Better yet, aside from some battle shenanigans—as some of you may know, battle scenes are my bane—I really do have most of those two chapters plotted out. Helps to have been outlining them for the better part of a decade.

And believe you me, I'll be getting those down as quickly as I possibly can. The fic is like an albatross around my neck these days. I want it done. Then Duet gets priority for several chapters, before I even think of starting anything else major.

So. Self-analysis of this chapter. First, yes, I know "grouchery" isn't a word. It is now. So there.

Second. Big, kinda bloated. Definite case of "middle-chapter syndrome", if you ask me. Hopefully there was enough of interest in here to keep your attention, at least, but I'll be the first to admit this was probably more like additional setup than a real payoff.

I do think I know what went wrong, though. Trying to run Team Kirito and Fuurinkazan plotlines together was perhaps a bit overly ambitious on my part. Not at all sure I'll be trying that again, after this arc is finished. Though if anyone thinks differently, I'll be glad to get another perspective on it.

Kuze, I must admit, is an OC, though technically I did get his name from the shot of the Monument of Life at the end of the first anime episode. I didn't want to resort to that, but I found myself with a dearth of named Laughing Coffin members I could use, having killed off Morte two chapters ago and left Johnny Black in no fit state for a crafty scheme. So, needs must. For reference, his appearance is roughly based on Yukishiro Enishi from Rurouni Kenshin, though it's mostly just a visual thing. His motives have other inspirations.

Oh, and I might as well confirm that, yes, the "zombies on a train" thing, along with much of the physical characteristics of the Necros, is inspired by Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. I already had a zombie theme in mind, partly based on Resident Evil; the Revenants being kind of a cross between the Nemesis and ReDeads from The Legend of Zelda (specifically the Twilight Princess version). Credit goes to Vathara for drawing my attention to Kabaneri, thus producing much of this arc's plot.

The delay in the chapter can be attributed directly to the "middle chapter syndrome" above. This one just didn't feel right, and fought back tenaciously. I hope the result wasn't a complete disappointment. And again, I deeply apologize for the delay with the next one, but as I say after that I can really buckle down and get Duet moving properly. I hope you'll be patient with me.

Finally? Eleven hundred Favs and over twelve hundred Follows. I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again: you guys are awesome -Solid