August 3rd, 2024

Granzam. The main settlement of the Fifty-Fifth Floor, it was a place Kirito generally tried to avoid: it was cold, generally depressing, and lacking in the verdant life that made so much of Aincrad so paradoxically beautiful. It was known among the Swordmasters as the Steel City, its buildings built entirely of metal.

His team made quite the racket just walking down the street, four pairs of boots ringing on roads that were themselves made of huge steel plates held together by obvious riveting. It was enough to make him wince, even with SAO's lack of pain sensation, and he could see Kizmel's ears twitch with every step.

I hate this place, Kirito thought, even as a chill wind made his team's collection of coats and cloaks billow dramatically. So much of Aincrad is warm and open. Granzam… all this steel is oppressive, and cold. How does the KoB stand hanging around here all the time?

Well, that was just one of many reasons he avoided guilds. His team could hang out at their tropical island when they weren't dungeon-crawling, and nobody could tell them they couldn't. It wasn't like they didn't do their part in the clearing otherwise.

Not that that was what they were in Granzam for, just as the weather wasn't the only reason Kirito felt so cold. Asuna hadn't given him much detail in her message, but it was enough for him to have a pretty good idea what the big meeting was about.

"So this is where the KoB hang out?" Rain muttered, as the four of them approached the cathedral-like mountain of steel that was the Knights of Blood's guildhall. "Oof. They sure like to look imposing, don't they?"

"I admit, I prefer the fortifications of my own people," Kizmel mused, giving the building a critical once-over. "But perhaps I'm simply biased from a lifetime of stone." She glanced sidelong at Kirito. "Dare I hope cities in the 'real world' are not so foreboding?"

"Not quite like this, no," he told her, nodding briefly at a KoB guard watching the entrance. "More like Reccoa City, only bigger. Not enough trees for my liking, otherwise not too bad. …Not as many zombies, either," he added, knowing the joke was lame but feeling the need to keep the tension off a few precious moments longer.

"Except at the mall, when there's a big sale," Philia quipped, with the ghost of a grin.

Normally, Kirito might've expected Kizmel to ask for more detail on that. This once, the elf girl only smiled faintly, shook her head, and kept her peace. Maybe because, inside the guildhall, an escort was waiting for them, seeming as grim as the surroundings.

Given that the escort in question was Godfree, the Knight the four of them had worked with during the nearly-disastrous Vemacitrin battle, Kirito wasn't entirely surprised. He'd never seen the bearded man in a boss fight since, and he couldn't imagine the poor guy felt any better about the current situation.

In moments, they were ushered into a conference room, and Godfree withdrew. Probably, Kirito thought, to do something safer, like guard against eavesdroppers.

The room itself represented the KoB just about perfectly, in Kirito's opinion. Cold metal floor and walls, with a huge, semi-circular table, backed by a long row of tall, narrow windows. Cold, grand, and trying entirely too hard to look impressive.

How does Asuna stand being with these guys all the time? No wonder she was getting so pragmatic about everything, before the mess with The Geocrawler woke her up.

Right then, the table was occupied by what Kirito assumed were the highest-ranking members of the KoB, in their typical red-trimmed white uniforms. Wearing the red robes he seemed to favor when not in the field, Heathcliff sat in the center, while Asuna stood to his left, on the near side of the table. Surprisingly, the Divine Dragons' Lind stood on the other side, apparently already part of whatever was going on.

In the middle of the room were more Knights—as well as representatives of the DDA, a fair few unaffiliated players, the Legend Braves, and the entirety of Fuurinkazan.

I haven't seen a meeting this big outside of pre-boss raids in a long time. …Looks like we're the last ones here.

"Thank you all for coming," Asuna said, as the conference room's doors swung ponderously shut. Her face was grave, as solemn as Kirito could ever remember seeing it. "First, let me say that anyone who doesn't want to participate in the upcoming crusade, no one will hold it against you. All we ask is that you not spread word of our plans—not that I expect anyone in this room to do such a thing."

Crusade. The very word sent a chill through Kirito, deeper than Granzam itself could. "Clearing", "raid", those were words he was used to in these meetings. He couldn't remember "crusade" ever being said. But then, nothing like this has ever happened before.

Asuna allowed her first statement to sink in for a few moments, waiting out the uneasy looks the clearers were giving each other. Then she cleared her throat. "You probably all suspect what this is about. After all, we've known for months that Laughing Coffin was increasing its activities—the outbreak on the Fifty-Seventh Floor was their work, and they've only gotten more direct since. I'm sure everyone in this room has known at least one person murdered by them."

Kirito exchanged a silent, somber look with Kizmel, and he wasn't surprised to see Sachi's fists clench. After all, the Moonlit Black Cats had been destroyed by Laughing Coffin's machinations, long before the red guild had ever announced itself. Three dead, one broken, and one somehow forging ahead—plus two traumatized clearers who'd only tried to help the fledgling guild.

"What you may not know is that the confirmed death toll to Laughing Coffin's PKs has reached three hundred three."

The silence that followed felt like more than a mere absence of sound. Kirito felt pure ice fill his veins, and every Swordmaster he could see had gone varying shades of white. "Three… hundred…?" he whispered, so softly he wasn't even sure he'd spoken. "How…?"

"Three hundred?!" Klein burst out, echoing his shock with a shout. "What the hell—?!"

"We've tried to keep the exact numbers quiet," Heathcliff put in, his calm voice cutting through the babble that followed Klein's outburst. "After the nightmare we only barely averted with the Necrosis Plague, we didn't want to risk another panic. Those of you who have come here, however, need to know the stakes."

"The Commander is right," Asuna said, eyes shadowed, resting a hand on the hilt of the rapier she wore even there. "You have to understand why we've been driven to this point. The measures we're about to undertake… normally, they'd be unthinkable. But we no longer have a choice."

Kirito couldn't help but wonder how many people in that room really understood what she was saying. If even she knew the full weight of what she was implying. I do. I've made that choice before. After Morte, and Kuze… I can't exactly say she's wrong, either.

After three hundred… something has to be done.

After a long silence, punctuated only by low murmurs and the quiet shifting of cloth and armor, Lind cleared his throat. "Before anyone asks if negotiation is an option… I should inform you that's been tried. Several times, by the KoB and DDA both." He swallowed, showing a rare vulnerability. "Every envoy was killed."

Damn. Not that Kirito was at all surprised. Morte had never said, in that last confrontation, exactly what they had intended to do about Kizmel if she rejected their recruitment pitch. The fact that he'd been willing to go permanently orange to keep Kirito from interfering had made it pretty plain, anyway.

"This has to stop," Asuna said, clenching her right hand. "None of us want to face this, but this has to stop. Laughing Coffin isn't willing to negotiate. They're not going to stop, even though they have to know this just makes it harder for us all to clear the game and go home. So it's time to take the fight to them."

"You mean kill them." Agil, that was, out in front like the old days, and just as willing to cut to the heart of the matter. That wasn't surprising, either. He'd fallen victim to one of PoH's earliest plots, the upgrade scam, way back on the Second Floor. "Don't you, Vice-Commander."

That put a stop to the murmurs right there, and started a lot more uneasy shifting. Especially, Kirito noticed, from the Legend Braves—the guild PoH had put up to that scam in the first place.

"I'd like to think it won't come to that," Asuna said, pale but unflinching. "That's partly why we're going in force, so they hopefully won't start anything at all. Also, we've been in contact with the Army, down on the First Floor. They're prepared to act as guards, if we can get the PKers down to the Black Iron Castle. They'll make sure none of the red players ever get out again."

"Like Titan's Hand," Kizmel murmured, and Kirito nodded. As far as he knew, anyway, Rosalia and her gang of murderers were still locked up, ever since they'd made the mistake of targeting a mid-level under Team Kirito's protection.

"That said," Asuna continued, the backlighting from the room's big windows somehow adding weight to her demeanor, "I can't deny we might have to kill some of them. …Maybe most of them." She took a deep breath. "Kirito-kun. I'm sorry, but you probably know them better than anyone…."

In a clatter of bootheels on steel floor, most of the room turned to look at him. If Kirito hadn't had experience playing the villain to keep the clearers from descending into in-fighting—if he hadn't had Kizmel, Rain, and Philia backing him up—he was pretty sure he'd have choked. As it was, he managed to maintain his composure, and after a second cleared his throat.

"I've met at least five members of Laughing Coffin," he said, keeping his voice as steady as he could. "Including PoH. If they'd had time, I believe Morte and Kuze would both have fled before being killed." He had no intention of explaining exactly how either had died, and moved on quickly in hopes no one would question if he'd given them a chance. "PoH… I think he'd take the chance to run, if he could. He retreated both times I've faced him, and he's worked through proxies the rest of the time. XaXa's also likely to make a break for it if he has a chance."

"Johnny Black, however, may be a different story." Kizmel stepped up to his side, picking up the discussion. "While he did flee for his life the last time I encountered him, he was quite plainly unhinged by the experience. Kuze's comments suggest that's not entirely uncommon in Laughing Coffin, as he and XaXa were apparently the only members considered stable enough to carry out the Necrosis scheme. If cornered…."

She let the statement hang. Really, Kirito thought, it said enough. Laughing Coffin was crazy enough to keep killing players when they had to know it would make getting out of the death game even harder. Who knew what they'd do, if pushed to the wall.

Into the silence that had—again—fallen, Agil coughed. "So. Bad choices, but they've brought this on themselves. 'Scuse me, Vice-Commander, but that only really matters if we know where to find 'em." He fixed Asuna with a level stare. "Do we?"

"We do," she said evenly. "Argo the Rat provided the information yesterday, free of charge." There was another stir at that. Forget the clearers, everyone in Aincrad knew Argo didn't give out freebies. "She also provided a file of known Laughing Coffin members. She refused to reveal her source, on the basis that it would put him or her in danger, but I think we all know her information will be good."

No question there. Argo lived by accurate information. The last time she'd sold info she hadn't personally verified, Johnny Black had been using it to trap and destroy the Black Cats.

And Klein told me Argo's promised revenge. I guess this is it.

"As I said before, anyone who isn't up to participating, go ahead and leave," Asuna said then, sweeping her gaze over the dozens of assembled Swordmasters. "Everyone else—listen up. We're going in two days, and I want everyone to memorize the targets. One thing we absolutely can't risk is friendly fire…."

"We've confirmed thirty willing members of Laughing Coffin," Asuna said, using her rapier to point to the board mounted on the conference room wall. "Unfortunately Argo's source wasn't able to name all of them, nor get us screenshots. These are the ones we do have. Pay attention, please."

Under any other circumstances, Rain would've found it funny. The Vice-Commander of the Knights of Blood, talking to the seasoned clearers like a teacher addressing a class? But she's right. We can't afford to screw this up, no matter what.

"'Willing' members, Vice-Commander?" the DDA's Shivata repeated, frowning at the faces shown on the wall.

"We know from the incident on the Fifty-Seventh Floor that LC has coerced some players into helping them," Asuna said grimly. She tapped one picture in particular, set apart from the rest, with the tip of her rapier. A girl with light green hair; Rain recognized her from one of the dungeons on that horrible floor. "We don't know exactly how many, I'm sorry to say. Fortunately, the odds are good any blackmailed innocents will refuse to fight."

Likely enough, Rain thought, and felt a tiny flicker of relief. The "crusade" was going to be hard enough, without worrying about hurting people whose only crime was being threatened by the real murderers.

"We should be able to mitigate that danger more," Kirito put in, absently tapping one foot as he examined a few faces he probably found a little too familiar. "If you've got weapons with paralysis poison, or can get them by the time we head out, that'll prevent hurting the wrong people, and make it easier to take LC members in alive."

"That's a PKer trick," Schmidt objected, turning to frown at him. He was also obviously nervous, which didn't surprise Rain even slightly. Really, she was more surprised he'd volunteered for the crusade at all—and hadn't left, when Asuna gave her last warning—given his past. One thing the guy didn't have to spare was courage, and the whole clearing group knew it.

And like always, he's driving me nuts. No wonder he's in the DDA. "PKer trick or not," Rain put in, before Kizmel could say something worse in their leader's defense, "it's also why Titan's Hand is locked up in the Black Iron Castle. Don't knock it just 'cause the bad guys use it too, Schmidt."

Hopefully, the faces currently staring back at them would soon be joining Rosalia's gang of bandits. Like the guy in the skull mask, with eerie red eyes. She remembered Kirito and Kizmel had mentioned him as one of the ambushers during the Reliquary quest, a creepy guy who was really good with an estoc.

Who'd also, if she remembered right, been involved in the Necrosis Plague scheme, running interference against Fuurinkazan and somehow getting out without a scratch. He was one of the ones she was really worried about, this time.

Then there was the man with the bag over his head. Supposedly they had a picture of him without it, from the days when he'd been a member of the Aincrad Liberation Squad under the name "Joe". The bag-mask pic was the one the KoB had put up, though, because that was how Johnny Black was likely to look.

Too crazy to care any more. Rain shivered. We're all probably better off without Morte around, but it snapped this guy. …I don't wish that fight on anyone else, but I can't help hoping we're the ones who run into him.

Then there was the slight, black-haired girl. Technically an NPC, without even the player privileges Kizmel had obtained, none of Team Kirito wanted to fight her at all. Whether they'd have a choice at all, though…. Tia was a true believer in Laughing Coffin, or at least in the lies their leader had told her. Given her nature, talking her down wasn't going to be easy, to hear Kirito tell it.

In the center of the lineup, though, was the really scary one. Any member of Laughing Coffin was all too likely to fight, and a couple of them—like XaXa—were probably going to be tough customers. The man in the poncho, red tattoo barely visible on one side of his face, scared Rain out of her wits. Though she'd never encountered him herself, she knew the reputation of PoH, self-proclaimed "Prince of Hell".

A sword point, shining with almost blinding light from the windows behind them, suddenly settled on that very picture. "You've all probably heard of PoH," Asuna said grimly, dragging that sword point across the image. "In case you haven't? If you see him, don't engage him alone. He's very, very good with a knife, good enough he doesn't need to use Sword Skills—and we've been hearing some ugly rumors lately about the specific weapon he's using these days."

"He's also very, very smart." Kirito clearly didn't like being the center of attention any more than he usually did, but this time he didn't hesitate to raise his voice. "I don't think many of you here were clearers in the early days, so maybe you don't know this." He turned in place, coat swirling, seeming to look every clearer present in the eye. "In the earliest floors, he nearly destroyed the clearing efforts half a dozen times over, without ever drawing a blade. He just whispered in the right ears, manipulated various quests, and watched. Since then, he's probably killed dozens without getting anywhere near. Don't underestimate him."

The handful of clearers who had been around back then nodded, cursed, and otherwise looked grim. Rain hoped the newcomers—like herself, she admitted—would take the lesson to heart. Of the seventy-odd Swordmasters who'd been called, fifty had remained for the full briefing. Please be smart enough to be careful. I've got a bad feeling about this.

"One more thing," Klein called out, stepping out from Fuurinkazan's little knot. He drew his katana, ignoring the dirty looks its red-black blade drew, and tapped it against Johnny Black's picture. "Don't know how many of you have ever done PvP, but after the Doppels I can tell you one thing: it's way too easy to mistake people in a melee." He turned a sudden glare on the gathered players. "This guy probably isn't the only guy in LC edgy enough to wear lots of black. Don't get them mixed up with Kirito. Anyone who hurts him, by accident or by 'accident', answers to Fuurinkazan. And me."

Kirito winced. "Klein…."

"That, of course, presupposes I don't get to them first." Kizmel's expression was pleasant, but the steel in her eyes was plain. "Though I trust no one here would be so careless as to let old grudges mislead them now. No doubt our warnings are… unnecessary."

"Is it me," Philia whispered, leaning close to Rain's ear, "or do those two hold grudges more than Kirito does?"

"You think?" Rain couldn't quite suppress a snort. "Somebody's got to, though, you know the martyr complex he's got."

Though Kirito had been better lately. She thought. Marrying an elf who had absolutely no patience for misplaced guilt probably helped.

Asuna coughed, and rapped her blade sharply against the steel wall. "Now that we've all been properly reminded we need to be careful…?" She drew her sword over to the map on the wall, next to the faces, with an ear-splitting metal-on-metal screech. "This is the Laughing Coffin base. Apparently the reason we never found them is that they've been using safe zones within dungeons—places that keep out mobs, but let in even orange-marked players. Until fairly recently, they were using a cave system on the Twenty-Third Floor. Now, they're in a small tower on the Forty-Sixth."

"Makes sense," Agil mused, stepping up to take a close look at the map. "I recognize the place, kinda—according to just about every merchant and info broker I know, there's pretty much nothing there. I think there's, like, one quest that even goes there, and no mats worth grinding for. At least not in any crafting recipe I've heard of."

"Our thoughts exactly. Now, we're going to have to move fast, if we're going to have any hope of catching them all." She grimaced. "The strange thing, fortunate as it may be for us, is that the dungeon has several anti-crystal areas. Why Laughing Coffin would choose a place like that, we don't know, so we have to be even more careful than usual to watch out for traps…."

As Asuna began to lay out the plan, with occasional contributions from Lind and questions from the other members of the raid, Rain tried to pay as close attention as she could. She couldn't help but notice, though, that Kirito and Kizmel were looking very, very grim.

"Guys?" she whispered, under the bustle of the briefing. "What's wrong?"

"Just… old memories, Rain," Kizmel murmured back, shivering. "Suffice to say, a 'minor' tower dungeon, with an anti-crystal trap? Reminds us a little too much of another time Laughing Coffin meddled with us."

Kirito's hands clenched. "That's not happening again," he breathed. "I won't let it. This time, they're the ones who are trapped."

Rain stared, then twitched. "…Oh." Now she remembered. It was in a place just like that, according to the information she'd bought from Argo some eight months before, that the Black Cats had died.

Right at that moment, she wasn't sure she wanted to be there when the two of them met Laughing Coffin at swordpoint.

August 4th, 2024

[The stage is set. It all goes down tomorrow. Last chance to back out. If I don't hear from you, I'll assume we're on. Remember: you will be protected.]

Even if she'd been holed up in a locked inn room in a town, Lux wouldn't have dared leave that message up for long. Even with her menu set to private, there was all too much chance someone would wonder what she was looking at, especially since she wasn't sure how long she could maintain her composure. It ought to be impossible for someone to sneak up on her in such a place, and she'd still be terrified.

Sitting on a stone platform four meters above the floor, in the middle of the dungeon Safe Haven her "guild" called home, she had the message up only long enough to read it once. Long enough to see it was the message she'd been waiting for since March, and dreading the whole time.

Lux very carefully peered out over the rest of the safe zone, deep in the heart of one the dungeon's highest floors. There wasn't much to it, just a big, open room, with a few platforms like hers mounted on the walls. Some members of Laughing Coffin had added things like sleeping bags, lanterns, and portable stoves, but that was it. By any sane standard, it was no place to live.

More than twenty of the red players were doing just that, at that very moment. She saw two dice games going on, another group had gotten a pack of playing cards out, and several players were just chatting as they performed maintenance on their gear.

XaXa, in particular, was silently polishing his estoc, sitting cross-legged on another platform. All that could be seen of his face, under his favorite skull mask, was the flat line of his mouth.

Lux shivered. All of the PKers bothered her, but XaXa was definitely one of the worst. He was one of the ones who knew perfectly well how real death was in SAO, yet he was always unnervingly calm about it. That could be worse than PoH's cheerful scheming, sometimes.

Though the worst is definitely….

"Kill 'em all," came the mutter from below. "Been months since we had any real action, and that bastard is still kicking. Him, and that bitch of a doll. They keep getting away…."

Worst of all was that no one else even twitched, as Johnny Black paced around the room. He was completely unhinged, constantly rambling about killing the clearers in general and the ones responsible for his partner's death in particular, and no one even cared. He was just white noise—because really, in a room full of killers, what did it matter if one of them was crazier than the others?

Still. If none of them were paying attention to Black's ramblings, at least it looked like no one had noticed her checking her messages, either. Lux would accept that small favor, when it sounded like everything would soon be over anyway.

She still nearly fell off the platform when another player suddenly jumped into view, vaulting from the floor clear onto her platform. "Wha—?!"

"'Morning, Lux," Gwen said cheerfully, the waving of her twin-tailed hair the only sign she'd just jumped four meters in a single bound. "Whoa there, girl, what's got you so wired? You'd think I was the Black Swordsman, comin' for you!"

I wish. From the rumors, that was one player who'd know exactly what to do, if he walked in and saw a green-marked player in the middle of all the orange. Part of her hoped that was what Argo the Rat meant by "protected"….

Lux shook herself. "Sorry, Gwen," she managed. "Just…." She nodded at the floor below, where the distinctive bag-mask was still making the rounds. "He really creeps me out."

That was one advantage to Johnny Black's habits. He was always handy to blame, if someone noticed she was twitchier than usual.

"Oh, him?" Gwen snickered. "Yeah. He really did check out when Morte bought it, didn't he? Ah, don't worry. If you hung around more, you'd get used to him in no time. Everybody knows PoH would put him in his place quick if he really tried anything stupid."

That wasn't exactly as reassuring as the bandit leader probably meant it to be. Still, it was the closest Lux thought she was going to get to reassurance, so she did her best to take it in the spirit intended. Forcing herself to settle back down, she cast a curious look at her one friend among the criminals. "So… what are you up to, Gwen?"

Producing a thick blanket from her inventory and flopping down on it, Gwen waved a careless hand. "Ah, nothing much. Just got back from a raid. Small party, just coming back from a dungeon raid with fresh loot." She chuckled. "They were smart, handed over the goods without a fight. PoH would've been disappointed, but I like it when my guys don't have to risk going orange. Couple of 'em are one infraction away from perma-orange."

It said something that Lux found herself relaxing at that. That Gwen preferred stealing without killing was probably the only reason she could stand the other girl at all.

I have to get out of here. I don't want that to be reassuring.

"So, usual stuff." Gwen rolled onto her stomach, quirking one eyebrow at the green-haired girl. "What about you? What's PoH had you doing lately?"

"Usual stuff," Lux replied, managing an almost-genuine smile. "I was just dropping off some supplies this morning, and the latest gossip. The word is that clearing the dungeon tower up on the Seventieth Floor hit a snag, so they're putting together a raid to brute force it soon."

She suspected that was just a cover, after Argo's message. Not that she was going to admit that, even to Gwen.

Gwen nodded thoughtfully. "Huh. Well, the 'ten' floors are always a bit of a spike, even if they're not as bad as the quarter marks. …Better them than me." She flipped onto her back again, propped up her head on one arm, and materialized a sandwich from her inventory with the other. "Let the heroes do the dying. I'll have my fun down here in the meantime."

Lux forced herself to nod. It wasn't like either of them were suited for clearing work, anyway. The last time she'd tried, it had gotten her mixed up with Laughing Coffin in the first place.

Please, Argo. Please be right. I… I have to get out of here.

Her life seemed like a distant dream, the past few months. Something seen through a wavering lens, or deep water. Ever since the night she'd gone to sleep, and awoken to blackness and the words [You Are Dead]. Everything since then, a struggle to even see, let alone move.

Or be.

Sometimes, though, she could see. Move. Almost hold things in her hands. It took a tremendous effort to make anyone see her, hear her, but she could do it. In those brief periods when time wasn't stuttering, she could still have an impact, despite everything.

And sometimes, it was an advantage to not be seen. Moving like the ghost she was pretty sure she'd become, she could go places no living player could—like the heart of Laughing Coffin's lair.

Some time after the one green-marked player had left—at least, she thought it was after; time was strange, but she was pretty sure it was still linear—she lurked in the corner of that lair. She'd noticed they never let that girl—Lux?—hear what they really planned, and this time PoH seemed to be up to something… different.

Straining ethereal eyes and ears, she watched and listened as the man in the black poncho gathered his murderers around. "Listen up, guys," he said, his words reaching her as though through water. "Got word from K this morning. The goody-two-shoes on the frontlines got a…."

She missed the next few words; hearing was always harder when she wasn't making the effort to be seen. Sight was easier, so she could tell the PKers were worried—or excited. That was worse, she thought.

"…Was it who…?" she caught Johnny Black saying furiously, when she got her ears working again. "I'll kill the trai…."

"…There, Johnny." PoH raised placating hands. "Might've been one of the greens we use, might've been somebody on Gwen's…. …Might just be the Rat got lucky. But don't panic." Under his hood, he grinned. "Outside of the Black Swordsman and his pet, who d'you think can fight us? Fight like they mean it?"

XaXa, as eerily calm as he always was, ran a sharpening stone down his estoc. "They come, they die," he said coolly. "Just like, their 'envoys'."

"That's right. They got most of us beat on levels and gear, but they don't know PvP. They don't have the guts for PvP." PoH's grin showed teeth, as he nodded at the NPC who so often hung around Laughing Coffin. "Keep it cool, and when it's over, meet up. The Hollow's waiting for us."

She shivered, wondering if ghosts could really feel so cold. She'd heard him talk about that before, but not what it was. Never enough to try and warn anyone, like she had before.

"It's on, boss?" Black said eagerly, his always-high voice rising more with excitement. "We've got the keys?"

"Almost, Johnny. Grimlock's really come through for us this time." PoH straightened from his crouch, drew the cleaver-like blade he carried, and twirled it like a dagger around his fingers. "Just a bit longer, and he'll be done. Then… it's showtime."

Grimlock. She closed her eyes, wanting to cry. Her ghostly body couldn't, of course, but she wanted to. Of everything this game took from me, that's what hurts more than death….

She knew she ought to listen more, learn as much as could. The reminder of how deeply she'd been hurt was too much, though. Losing the focus she needed to manifest, she surrendered to the timeless abyss.

August 5th, 2024

"Hopefully the rumors the KoB and DDA spread did the trick," Kirito muttered, as "Team Kirito" walked with the rest of the raid group—the crusade, as Asuna had called it—to Granzam's Teleport Plaza. "The last thing we need is for Laughing Coffin to see us coming. …Too bad we couldn't use Argo to sell it."

Kizmel nodded, grim. "But she survives by her reputation. As important as this is, we could hardly ask her to risk that." She lowered her voice, even though only allies ought to have been in earshot. "Have you heard from her?"

A minute shake of his head. "Not since the day before yesterday. Whatever she's up to, she's not taking any chances." He hesitated. "At least, I hope she isn't. Disappearing like this really isn't like her. I hope she's not planning a solo ambush, or something crazy like that."

"Mm." Not that she thought her husband was in any position to criticize anyone else for "crazy" actions. Still, she saw his point. Argo had always had a hard edge about her, when the subject of the PKers came up. Over a year after the fact, she had neither forgiven nor forgotten being used to bait a trap.

But Argo is careful by nature, Kizmel reminded herself, ears twitching at the ringing of fifty pairs of boots on Granzam's steel streets. Whatever she may be planning now, she'll have left nothing to chance. …Now we must do our part, and hope that we've not waited too long.

It was Asuna and Lind leading the way, as the crusaders marched up to the teleporter. Though there were few non-clearers likely to notice them in the metal city, Heathcliff was nonetheless leading a decoy group to the Seventieth Floor. His second-in-command was left to take charge of the real operation, while the clearers who'd opted out played their own role.

It wasn't a formal raid, being two Swordmasters too many for the system to recognize, so they were forced to go through one party at a time. Still, it was Asuna who stepped up first, took a deep breath, and declared, "Teleport: Fienala!"

Their arrival in the central town of the Forty-Sixth Floor was probably more obvious than their departure from the nearly-deserted Fifty-Fifth. There was no way around that, though. They could only hope that they could reach the dungeon serving as Laughing Coffin's base before any word could reach the murderers.

It was fortunate, Kizmel supposed, that Swordmaster bodies felt fatigue no more than they did pain. From the moment the entire raid gathered in Fienala, they were off at a dead run, racing as fast as their "AGI stats" would allow. From the dreary stone town, through the cold, barren valleys that made up most of the floor, they rushed with more haste than caution.

She wondered if Laughing Coffin had chosen the floor for convenience, or because they found it fitting in some twisted way. The rocky mountain passes, occupied mostly by hideous, ferocious Chimera mobs, were alive with the mournful howling of chill winds. The gray stone was leavened only by the occasional shrub and bush, as bleak a place as any she'd seen short of the half-dead Fifty-Seventh Floor.

If there was a place in Aincrad as cold as the heart of a murderer, it was the Forty-Sixth Floor.

Somehow, Kizmel was not at all surprised by the black stone tower that waited at journey's end. Not the warm gleam of Dark Elf fortifications, it was the light-drinking obsidian of which she'd seen entirely too much in the last two years. Just looking at it brought old ghosts to the forefront of her mind.

"Why am I not surprised," Kirito muttered, as the raid slowed to file into the tower's lone entrance. "Laughing Coffin's been dealing with Fallen Elves at least since the Sixth Floor, makes sense they'd hole up in one of their dungeons."

"Indeed." Kizmel shook her head, shivering. "All this time, and it always comes back to them. One day I hope to be free of their wretched legacy. We've lost too much to their machinations, Laughing Coffin and Fallen Elves both."

"That's for sure. Speaking of…." He raised his voice, just enough to carry through the raid. "Asuna? Can you come here a sec?"

The black stone around them seemed to swallow sound as well as it did light, but the fencer heard anyway. A quick exchange with another Knight, and she was falling back to the middle of the group. "What is it, Kirito-kun?" she asked, frowning in obvious concern. "Did we miss something?"

"No, nothing like that. It's, well…. Here." Kirito dug into a belt pouch, his hand coming out with a Teleport Crystal. Only this one was a deep blue, not quite like a Corridor Crystal, but more like the color of the seas of the Fifty-First Floor. "If anything goes wrong—anything—get out of the anti-crystal area, and use this."

He pressed it into Asuna's hand, wrapping her fingers around it. She stared down at it, then looked up to meet his gaze. "Kirito-kun, isn't this…?"

"One of the crystals locked to our cabana. Yeah." He nudged her back into motion, so they wouldn't fall behind the raid, but didn't let go of her hand. "Asuna. I know we haven't been partners in a long time now, but you're still my friend. Our friend."

"We need you to be safe," Kizmel put in, moving up to lay her hand on theirs. "There is nowhere in Aincrad safer than our home."

"Yep!" Philia chimed in, smiling. "I know we haven't known you as long, but you've been with us for some crazy stuff, Asuna."

"And if anything is likely to go crazy, it's this," Rain finished, nodding firmly. "You're a friend, and the leader of the clearing group, 'Vice-Commander'. Whatever that jerk Lind might want."

For just a moment, Kizmel thought Asuna might refuse it anyway. She knew her sister in all but blood was worried about putting Kirito in any more danger, after all the times he'd been forced to act the villain for the sake of the Swordmasters as a whole. It would have been just like her to conclude that, too, would be a burden.

Perhaps Asuna recognized not doing so would be more of a burden, this time, because after a long moment she smiled. Squeezing the hands covering hers, she said, "Thank you, all of you. I hope I won't need it, but… thank you." She pulled away, tucked the crystal into her own belt, and started back toward the front of the raid.

Then, abruptly, she paused, stiffening. Glanced back at them—and at the sword slung behind Kirito's right shoulder, wing-like hilt in plain view.

"Kirito-kun. You're carrying the Baneblade." Asuna looked over all of them, and the swords they had equipped. "…None of you have paralysis weapons equipped, do you."

Kirito's face smoothed into a calm, collected mask. Kizmel could feel her own expression going just as blank. "No," her husband said simply. Flatly. "We don't."

Kirito didn't think his nerves had been so tight since March, in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Bad enough that his team—and over forty other Swordmasters—was skulking through a Fallen Elf dungeon, far too similar to the one that had doomed the Black Cats. Worse to know why they were there.

While most of the "crusaders" kept a weather eye out for random mobs, he couldn't help but expect an ambush at every corner in the dark hallways. Very, very few clearers had ever fought PKers directly. He had. He knew exactly how sneaky some of them could be, and all too well how deranged they could be.

He should have been using a paralysis weapon. It was hypocritical of him not to, after the advice he'd given in the briefing. But the simple fact was, he didn't trust the PKers not to have some kind of resistance to it.

And after Kuze, I can't trust that locking them up here would be the end of it. It's not an attitude a law-abiding Japanese citizen should have, but I… I'm not that person anymore.

There wasn't time to worry about it. Kirito had made his choice, just as his teammates had. Whatever happened, when the crusade reached their destination, the dice had already been thrown.

The climb up that Fallen Elf tower was eerie. The mobs weren't even remotely a concern, not with clearers used to the Seventieth Floor facing monsters of the Forty-Sixth. A single party could've cleared the tower with ease; fifty Swordmasters made for an absolute massacre—which if anything made it worse for Kirito's nerves. Everything was going right.

With no sign whatsoever of any stray PKers. Which should've meant the plan was working, and they were all holed up in their Safe Haven. Most of them are probably crazy enough not to worry about setting lookouts. But I thought PoH, at least, was smarter than that….

Even so, nothing happened for the first eight floors of the tower, as the raid slaughtered its way up. The handful of Fallen Elf Servitors—creepy demi-humans, reminding Kirito vaguely of Uruk-hai—they met on the eighth floor would've been a challenge back when the Forty-Sixth Floor was still being cleared, but now were flattened without even a Sword Skill. Apart from that, there wasn't a single mob worth mentioning.

Then they were on the ninth floor, just below the top. Their target. "Two more corners," Asuna called out, just loud enough to be heard by the entire raid. "Then we'll be at the Safe Haven. Everyone, be ready."

They won't be. I wasn't.

Kirito exchanged quick looks with his team, seeing the grim certainty on Kizmel's face, and the anxious resolve of Rain and Philia. Those two, he was sure, weren't really ready for this either, but he trusted they'd manage. They always had, even against the Necros.

Fifty meters of corridor and two left turns later, they were all standing at one wide doorway. Absolutely nothing distinguished it from any other, except the faint, shimmering distortion that marked a field Safe Haven. There, the crusaders paused, made sure their weapons were all ready—and at Asuna's sharp gesture with her rapier, they charged.

To find no one inside. There were sleeping bags, blankets, some other odds and ends of camping gear, but not a single human being.

"What the…?" Schmidt gave voice to the general sentiment, all of them looking around in confusion. "Where are they? Did they figure out—"

Kirito had felt the sense of pure malice before, and it had saved his life. This time, the unmistakable feeling of killing intent was practically screaming in his ears, and he spun around to look up, above the door through which they'd just come. In the same motion, he swung the Baneblade up in a flashing Uppercut—just in time to catch the scimitar aimed at his head by a falling, grinning PKer.

"Ambush!"

"Die!"

The silence was suddenly a cacophony, as more players than Kirito could count dropped down from platforms high on the safe zone's walls. His Uppercut sent his own first opponent tumbling, landing on the floor hard, but there was no time to see how much damage the Baneblade's bonuses had done. Another PKer, laughing maniacally, landed right in front of him and tried to gut him with a halberd.

Kizmel was in no position to help, either. A familiar figure with a skull mask had dropped right in on her, estoc clashing with her saber with lightning-fast stabs. "Hah! So, you're more than a doll after all! This will be fun!"

Hacking down at the haft of his opponent's halberd, he could only spare a split-second glance back, to see Rain and Philia similarly engaged. He had to turn his attention back forward at once; with the halberd deflected just before it could ram into his stomach, he had a fraction of an opening to slam his boot into the PKer's head in a fierce Roundhouse.

Then someone was attacking him from the side, with some kind of green-dripping stiletto, and Kirito was suddenly very busy.

What had been an orderly raid had instantly dissolved into chaos. He was whirling, sidestepping, ducking, slashing; where in a boss raid there'd be predictable patterns, mobs spawning at particular times, there was no rhyme or reason here. He couldn't even keep track of his own team, between slashing one PKer dressed up like a bedsheet ghost and punching someone else in the head.

"Stand down!" he heard someone shout. "All of you, stand down! Don't make us—!"

The rest of Lind's demand was lost in the clanging of swords and armor—and screaming. In the middle of a Serration Wave to buy himself just a little space, Kirito became aware of the screaming, from PKer and crusader alike.

Then an axe was coming for his head, and with a scream of his own Kirito thrust a Vorpal Strike at the red player's heart.

Kizmel had thought she'd known what to expect, from a battle such as this. Unlike any of her comrades, even her husband, she'd fought in a war—a fake one, but real enough to her at the time. To her, the crusade had been an unpleasant necessity, but one which held no surprises for her.

She was learning the hard way that fighting so many opponents who could truly think was something very different. XaXa alone was bad enough, his estoc stabbing out even faster than when she'd fought him in the Reliquary; worse were the attacks coming from other angles, as Laughing Coffin attacked with a horrifying disregard for their own safety.

She caught XaXa's estoc on her shield, and shoved back. Let a broadsword breeze past behind her, not quite scratching her neck. Slashed her saber in a Horizontal at the PKer tried to gut her from the right; his shortsword bit deep, dropping her HP by an uncomfortable margin, but her strike took off his sword arm in return. That one was pushed away, out of sight, as a shouting Rain drove someone else into him with a Shoulder Tackle.

Little time to think, between one murder attempt and another. Long enough, barely, between countering XaXa's Parallel Sting with a Streak, to glimpse how the crusade as a whole was going.

Not well. In the heartbeats between Sword Skills, Kizmel could see that not every crusader was even fighting back. One Knight of Blood she saw was backing away from a PKer bearing a two-handed sword, not even trying to retaliate against the heavy blows. "Stop it!" the Knight begged, even as a Cyclone tore a thick red line through his chest. "Stop it, we don't want to hurt anyone! Stop—!"

The heavy sword came up, glowing, and the PKer laughed, high and gleeful. Before Kizmel's horrified eyes, the sword came down in an Avalanche, and the Knight was split in half. His scream died with him, his body shattering to azure fragments and vanishing.

No time to avenge, no matter how badly she wanted to. Kizmel could only let out a howl of rage, smash her shield into XaXa's face, and fling herself into the melee.

They weren't ready. None of us were ready. You monsters…!

Philia had expected the raid to be like the fight her team had had against their own mirror images, in Hyrus Fortress. That, she thought, had given her an idea of what real PvP was like, even if living players were sure to be a lot more dangerous. That had given her something of a baseline for her expectations.

The reality was more like the battle with Vemacitrin, the laughing, sadistic boss of the Fiftieth Floor. It was just like that day—only with more chaos.

The first KoB member dying without a fight was only part of the horror, and she didn't have time to see what happened to the man's killer. She was too busy fending off a maniac with a poleaxe, who had a range advantage on her and obviously knew it. Worse, he didn't seem to care if he hit his own allies in the process, made clear when he unleashed a Spinning Cane and bashed another PKer to the side. The red player obviously noticed, but he only laughed, focusing his skill on Philia.

Not! Happening! Gritting her teeth, she dropped to the floor rather than try to counter. She had to roll desperately to avoid being stomped on by a DDA player—frantically parrying a knife-wielder and obviously losing the battle—but it gave her the opening she wanted. Spinning back to her feet, ignoring the scrape from a passing claw-user, she lunged into the poleaxe's reach while its user was still stuck in post-motion.

My turn! A quick twist of her fingers, and Philia's sword spun in her grip. Then she was bringing the ridged back of her Swordbreaker down, catching the polearm's haft. With a snarl, she yanked the blade back, metal rasping against wood.

The poleaxe survived the blow—but when the PKer tried to launch into the seven hits of a Gale Dance, the handle snapped in the middle, leaving him suddenly weaponless. For a bare instant, the red player stared at the broken stick in his hand, and Philia thought it was over.

Only barely did she dodge the splintered weapon when he threw it at her. Her sheer shock as the PKer broke into giggling almost cost her her life, when someone flung a poisoned spike at her from another direction. Again, when the former poleaxe-wielder took that brief moment to yank a saber out of his inventory, and charge at her again.

He was abruptly slammed out of sight by a screaming Klein, as Fuurinkazan barreled as one force through the chaos.

These people are insane. They've lost their minds for real!

A flicker of motion in the corner of her eye, and Philia was diving back into the melee, catching with her Swordbreaker a zweihander that would've cut a Knight's arm off.

Asuna was going to be sick. For all that she'd told the crusaders, in that first briefing, that it might come down to lethal force, she hadn't truly believed it. After everything Laughing Coffin had done, after all the lives that had been lost to them, she hadn't been able to believe, deep down, that they'd really push it that far.

Now she was fighting for her life, desperately stabbing at a PKer with poisoned claws, and rediscovering the reality of fighting LC. Something she should've remembered, after the fighting with Morte back on the Sixth Floor—and Kuze on the Fifty-Seventh—but she'd spent so long leading boss raids she'd forgotten what PvP was really like.

Worse, it was clear to her she was one of the only members of the crusade who'd ever known it. She could see Kirito fighting off everything that got close, Baneblade shining as it cut through any defense; she saw Kizmel, a snarl of rage twisting her usually noble face, lopping a PKer's arm off, before stabbing him in the chest.

She didn't see if that killed the man. She was too busy flattening her opponent with the knockback of a Triangular, and wincing at the sight of one of Lind's DDA taking a knife to the throat. He fell to the stone floor, grasping at the knife, only for his gurgling scream to be cut off by his entire body shattering.

They're not going to surrender… are they….

Too many of the crusaders just weren't willing to fight back, and most of the ones who were, didn't know how to handle the chaotic melee. If the murderers of Laughing Coffin hadn't been crazed enough to keep fighting anyway, that weakness would've been blood in the water to them anyway.

That observation, that moment of inattention, was almost fatal. Someone—she didn't know if it was even friend or foe—bumped into her, knocking her off-balance at a crucial moment. With a high, gleeful laugh the claw-wielder she'd been fighting drove in for the kill, blades dripping green as they went for her neck.

For Asuna, time seemed to crawl. She could see the claws coming for her, and knew from all too much experience one critical hit to the throat would be the end of her. She could hear Kirito's desperate yell, his scream, and knew he was too far away to reach her.

She could feel the grip of Lambent Light, the rapier Lisbeth had forged for her from the rarest materials she could find, filling her hand. Feel how her fingers curled around it, having gotten to know every centimeter of the sword as intimately as she had her old Chivalric Rapier.

…No. I won't let you…!

The claws were fast. Asuna the Flash was faster. Catching herself with one boot in a seam between floor stones, she raised Lambent Light, and like a meteor in the darkness drove it forward in the fastest Linear she'd ever launched, thrusting at the PKer's throat.

Straight and true, it was a critical hit. The PKer didn't even have time to look surprised, before his body broke into azure shards around the tip of that rapier.

This isn't how this was supposed to go! This is crazy! I can't—!

Komodo, long-standing member of the Divine Dragons Alliance, understood combat in Sword Art Online. He'd been a clearer for a year and a half, fighting through dozens of Field and Floor Boss raids. Helped map dozens of floors and dungeons. He knew One-Handed Sword Skills as well as anybody. He knew what it was like to fight in Aincrad.

Fifty clearers. Probably the biggest show of force SAO had ever seen. It would've been sheer insanity for anybody to even consider fighting them. Putting down Laughing Coffin should've been as easy as showing up!

Komodo had no idea what was going on anymore. Everyone was screaming, dozens of Sword Skills were going off every second, he couldn't hear or see over the racket and bright flashes. The red players he'd been so sure would just give up when they realized they were trapped were fighting like demons—

Including the madman with a katana who was trying to cut Komodo to pieces. It had begun with an Iai that almost took his arms off before he could react, and now Komodo was desperately trying to fend off a whirlwind of slashes. He didn't even recognize half of the Sword Skills being sent his way; he just knew that they were chipping away at his HP, and his own sword was only catching half of them at best.

I have to fight back, Komodo thought, parrying frantically. I have to—but, but I can't! If I fight this guy, I'll kill him, and I—I can't do that!

"C'mon!" the maniac with the katana shouted at him, adding to the confusing babble of screams. "C'mon, c'mon, you just gonna let me kill ya?! Are ya?! Where's the fun in that?!"

Komodo knew he had to fight back. The reflexes he'd honed as a clearer showed him openings every time the PKer triggered a skill, his constant use of high-level skills leaving him caught in post-motion delay after every blow. It was the only reason Komodo had even survived this long, backing up in those brief seconds, trying not to get caught in stray skills from the rest of the melee.

"Well, if you're gonna give up," the PKer said, grinning madly, "then I'll just kill ya now!" He suddenly sheathed his sword, and a red glow gathered around the scabbard.

That was it. If the blow came out, Komodo was a dead man, and he knew it. But it was also a short-ranged skill, so if he used that second to back up, he could at least make a break for it. Get out, before he lost his mind or his life, and teleport—

Komodo jumped back—and realized, too late, he'd been backed into a wall. He hit, his momentum bouncing him right back off. Flailing, he staggered right past the PKer.

There was a flash of red, and Komodo was falling. Twisting midair, he tried to catch himself, only to find something was hideously wrong with his balance. He flopped down, hard, suddenly getting a perfect view of the melee going on above him. Of a red player suddenly falling back, a thrown sword stuck in his chest, a redhead pulling another sword from thin air as she chased him.

Of his own legs, just toppling over.

Komodo stared at his HP gauge. Before his eyes, the red drained out of it, all the way to the left. Completely empty. He raised his hand, still clutching his sword, and watched as if in slow motion as it shattered. One brief moment, watching his sword begin to fall, and everything went black.

[You Are Dead].

Rain caught the sword before it hit the stone floor, and snarled. She'd never hung around the DDA, and didn't even know the name of the Dragon who'd just died. Now, she'd never have the chance to know a player who'd been brave enough to go after Laughing Coffin, but not as ready to fight other players as he'd thought he was.

She hadn't been sure she was ready, either. Now, holding her own sword in one hand and a dead man's in the other, she was.

"Monsters," she hissed. "Enough!"

The insane katana wielder wasn't Kuze, but he was obviously good. Good enough her sword-throwing probably wouldn't work. But I know how Kirito killed Kuze, and I've seen him fight. I can do this!

Sword in either hand, Rain charged the PKer head-on. With her own sword, she swatted aside the red player she'd been fighting before, knocking him off-balance—and into the reach of a screaming Klein. With the dead Dragon's sword, she swatted aside a throwing spike.

With both swords, Rain caught the PKer's Hirazuki, trapping the thrust in her best imitation of Kirito's Cross Block. Snarling, she shoved the katana up and away. The PKer's grin slipped, replaced with wide-eyed surprise. He was caught by post-motion, though, unable to immediately react.

Rain wasn't. With a scream, she spun both swords in her hands, cutting deep into his arms. Straightened them out, and stabbed his chest. Pulled back, and started madly hacking at him.

If she'd had time to think, she couldn't have done it. Kirito had told her, long before, that trying to dual-wield without his unique skill just wasn't done. The moment concentration slipped, so did any chance of fighting with two swords. There was a reason such styles were rare IRL.

Rain was done with thinking. Too many people had died. Too many people were dying. All that mattered was making it stop.

At some point, the katana came back down, and a Zekkuu carved a deep gash through her chest. It was too little, too late; with a look of pure incomprehension more than fear, the PKer suddenly dropped his sword. His mouth worked silently, and then he exploded into blue fragments.

There wasn't time to think. Not to reflect on the fact that she'd just killed another human being. There was only time for Rain to pull her swords back, spin around, and charge back into the melee. She only barely noticed when the head of the PKer she'd been fighting earlier rolled by, a suddenly stone-faced Klein flicking nonexistent blood off his katana.

There were fewer screams, now. Rain didn't let herself think how many people there would never scream again.

I just killed a man. That's going to hurt, later.

Klein didn't think he was going to be the worst off of the crusaders, though. Most of his guild had just mobbed a Laughing Coffin tank with heavy armor and insanely high HP, and if he didn't know who'd struck the final blow, he was sure they were all going to feel it.

Poor Sachi had vanished under her cloak the moment the ambush started, only to reappear five minutes in. Dropping from one of the platforms Laughing Coffin themselves had used, she'd drawn on the momentum of the fall to drive a brutal Slant into an axeman who'd been trying to chop up Agil. The eight-hit skill she'd blitzed the guy with after had sent what was left of him flying into the far wall.

I was wrong, he thought dispassionately, catching a scimitar on the edge of his katana. There is something worse than the zombies.

Someday, I'm going to kill PoH for this.

Klein's Suzaku Blade slid beneath the scimitar, and he twisted his wrists to turn it into the pre-motion of a Hirazuki. He resolutely refused to look at his enemy's face, determinedly ignored the glimpse that told him his opponent was younger even than Kirito, and just drove the flat thrust in.

The PKer went sailing back, red particles streaming from his heart. He was still alive—and for the life of him, Klein couldn't say if that was a good thing.

It has to be. This has to mean something. We can't be killing these people for nothing!

Though as far as Klein could tell, the only crusaders who were doing any killing at all were those who'd survived the madness of the Fifty-Seventh Floor. A corner of his mind wondered if that had made them tougher, or cost them something important.

A PKer with a lance was trying to run Sachi through, though, and suddenly none of that mattered. All that mattered was switching the Suzaku Blade to his left hand, stretching his right out to guide the sword's tip, and letting the Gatotsu thrust carry him across the room.

No one hurts mine. No one!

Later, Kirito was going to be sick. He'd known it wasn't going to be simple, but the chaos the crusade had descended into surpassed his worst nightmares. He was holding his own, he hadn't been forced to Dual Blades like he'd been afraid he would—and if anything, that just made it worse.

Eighty Swordmasters had been in that room, when the fighting started. By his conservative estimate, in the moments he could spare to look, at least two dozen of them weren't there any more. His own, reflexive Vorpal Strike had finished one of them.

That was the Baneblade's power, after all. That was why he'd brought it here, to this battle. Its damage bonus against orange-marked players was as strong as it had ever been—stronger, since being strengthened on the Fifty-Seventh Floor. Though its normal attack power was a bit low for the frontlines at this point, in a battle against PKers it surpassed even Elucidator.

Kirito hated it. Hated what he was doing, even as his shining sword stabbed into the heart of a PKer whose saber was within centimeters of Philia's neck. Hated that it gave Philia the opening she needed to tear her Swordbreaker through yet another PKer's back, severing his spine and breaking him to pieces.

They called me the Beater. I played the villain, to that everyone would survive. This is just more of the same.

Most of the fighting, he never really remembered. Sporadic moments of combat, like screenshots in his brain. For several tense, insane seconds, he fought side-by-side with Kizmel, against XaXa's blindingly-fast estoc. At some point, they managed to lop off his limbs, one after another, and left him to lie helpless on the floor.

At some point, as Laughing Coffin's numbers began to thin, someone—maybe more than one—managed to get out paralysis-laced weaponry, and some of the PKers started to fall. Fall, but survive, living to be thrown in prison when it was all over.

Most of that, Kirito only saw afterward. For most of the fight, all that stuck with him were the moments when people died. When a KoB swordsman died without a fight, when a DDA man tried to flee, only to be cut down. When Kizmel tore a red player to pieces with the spinning death of a Treble Scythe, and Rain cut into another with thrown swords and improvised dual-wielding.

When Asuna, his brave, noble ex-partner, stabbed a PKer's throat out. When Sachi ambushed an axeman, using Laughing Coffin's own tactics against them. When Fuurinkazan ganged up on one tank, and gave a lethal lesson in why they'd never lost a player.

When his Vorpal Strike tore out a heart, and then another.

The screams were dying down, finally. He couldn't let himself to think of why that was. He could only take a moment, with no one trying in that split second to kill him, to look around, and recognize how much emptier the Safe Haven was than when the fighting began.

A moment in which he saw one last sword begin to glow. Eyes widening, he realized a Laughing Coffin fencer was still on his feat, and he was charging a Flashing Penetrator—one of the highest-level skills the Rapier had. Fast. Powerful.

Aimed right at Asuna's back.

Somehow, Kizmel saw it, too. Without even a word, she drew back her shield, and when Kirito backflipped onto it, she thrust her arm forward, boosting him. In the same moment, he yanked the Baneblade up into the pre-motion for a Sonic Leap; the combination sent him flying across the room, screaming incoherently.

Halfway across, he was sure he wasn't going to make it. But Asuna was spinning in place, impossibly fast, and her own rapier was shining bright.

Linear was the most basic skill the Rapier had. Flashing Penetrator should've overwhelmed it. Asuna the Flash's Linear was honed by two years of practice, driven by the fastest arm in Aincrad.

The two skills collided. The Flashing Penetrator might've won out in the end anyway, but it was slowed. Just by a second or two. Just enough to hold the PKer in place for precious instants.

Just long enough for a howling Kirito to bring the Baneblade down on the murderer's neck, cleaving his head off. The Flashing Penetrator died instantly, brilliant white glow replaced by the azure flash of a shattering body. Probably the man never even knew he was dead.

Kirito landed hard, falling to one knee. Breathing heavily, he looked up to meet Asuna's gaze, confirming for himself that she was alive. Her eyes were haunted, but she was alive.

And the room was still, the screams silenced.

Breathing heavily, Asuna slowly lowered her rapier. She wasn't quite sure what had just happened. Really, she only remembered a little of what had happened since the moment she'd led the crusade into the room, and the ambush turned everything on its head.

…I know I killed someone, though. Maybe more than one. How… how did it come to this…?

The only people still on their feet, finally, were crusaders. All the orange cursors she could see were on the floor, some of them visibly paralyzed, others just missing too many limbs to move. Kizmel, she noticed, was moving around those, a borrowed dagger in hand, paralyzing them for good measure.

At least someone's calm after this. Kirito was following the elf girl like a shadow, Baneblade still in his hand, eyes dull. Most of the other crusaders were dropping to the floor themselves, sitting with varying degrees of shaking and vacant stares; two of them were flat-out prone, sobbing.

I… can't break down. Not yet. Shuddering, Asuna sheathed Lambent Light, took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. "Casualties?" she called out, voice as cool and calm as she could make it.

"…We lost eleven," Lind got out. He was leaning heavily against one wall, scrolling through his menu with a shaking hand. "I… don't know how many of the PKers were…."

"Twenty-one." Kirito turned to face her, his expression a mask of stone. "They knew we were coming, and they still fought to the death." He slowly shook his head. "I knew PoH's people were crazy, I knew this was going to be a fight… but I didn't think they'd be that crazy."

Asuna shuddered again. We outnumbered them, we had higher levels and better gear than most of them, and they still did this. What brought them to this? Did SAO do this to them? So many of us have adapted, in our own ways, but I remember that first month. Is this… what happened to the ones who broke, but didn't die?

What bothered her even more was that she wasn't sure if she was more horrified by that, or by the fact that some of those on her side had died because they just couldn't bring themselves to even fight. A part of her remembered that was considered healthy behavior back "home". The vice-commander in her could only reflect on how suicidal it was.

All of her was very, very sick.

Agil, sitting on the floor and leaning heavily against the haft of his axe, wearily pushed himself to his feet. "Two-thirds of Laughing Coffin is dead," he said, his deep voice rumbling like a mountain in the aftermath of the battle. "Honestly, that's probably a good thing. But I'm pretty sure there were a couple of important faces missing."

Blunt as ever. Asuna supposed they all needed him to ask the hard questions just then.

"PoH definitely isn't here," Kirito said, still giving the room at large a very wary look. "I'm not surprised. If he knew this was coming, he'll have made sure he was nowhere near. No sign of Tia, either, but he'd probably have more use for her." He glanced toward the doorway, frowning deeply. "What bothers me more is that I didn't see Johnny Black here, either…."

Starting, Asuna quickly looked over the surviving PKers. Sachi's reaction was even stronger, the former Black Cat leaping to her feet to check for herself, a frighteningly blank look on her face. With only nine survivors, it didn't take her long.

The expression on her face, when she silently shook her head, chilled Asuna to the bone.

"He might've been killed in the melee," Schmidt put in. Slumped against the wall, he was staring listlessly at the floor. "I sure as hell couldn't keep track of everything…. Ask the Rat later, maybe she'll know something." He lifted his head, looking to his own guild leader. "Better question. How'd they know we were coming?"

The silence that fell at that question was an ugly one—and one that Asuna knew all too well, from the earliest days of clearing. The crusaders still functional at all started looking at each other, suspicion plain on all too many faces.

No. Not this, not now. We've suffered enough today without PoH tearing us apart after we beat his killers! He probably even planned this, somehow, one last scheme to—

"I doubt anyone leaked it," Kirito said, voice cold and pitched to echo off the stone walls. Deliberately, he sheathed the Baneblade, motioned for his team to gather around him, turned an all-too-familiar look of contempt on the raid. "Honestly, I was afraid this was going to happen. Fifty Swordmasters, all heading out together? All it would've taken was one pair of eyes in the wrong place, and they could've gotten word here ahead of us."

This one time, Asuna wasn't sure if Kirito really believed what he said, or meant that contempt. The important thing was that, one more time, he'd cracked the mood before it could get even darker. You idiot, she thought, giving him just the tiniest, thankful nod. You must be about to break, and yet you still….

"Kirito's probably right," Klein said, slowly standing and sheathing his Suzaku Blade with an elaborate flourish. "If he's not, we'll get the word from the Rat later. Right now, we need to get these bastards down to the Black Iron Castle, and lock 'em up."

"…Heh," a voice wheezed out, from somewhere on the floor. "This isn't… over. It will never… be over…."

Asuna turned a glare in that general direction. "It's over today," she said firmly. "You've lost—and I don't think PoH will be able to put together this many madmen again."

And that was the only saving grace of the day. She'd killed, they'd lost a fifth of the raid—but they'd done it. As terrible as the cost had been, Laughing Coffin was no more. Even in the trap that was Aincrad, she couldn't believe there'd be enough killers to ever organize again.

For now, though… time to be the Vice-Commander, just a little longer.

"Guildmaster Klein is right," Asuna said, into the silence that had again fallen. "We're done here. Guildmaster Lind, if your people will help mine take the survivors into Army custody?"

Lind nodded sharply, no trace of his usual rivalry with her and her guild showing on his face. "Gladly, Vice-Commander. And then?"

"This crusade is over. You're all free to go about your own business." She took a deep breath, her careful facade beginning to crack under the strain. "But if you want my advice? …We should all take a couple of days off. We need to mourn our dead, and… and come to terms with what happened here."

With what we've done, she added silently, already turning to hoist up a paralyzed, limbless PKer. I don't know about Team Kirito, I don't know what they've already done… but I'm not going to sleep easy tonight.

Maybe not ever again….

I'm going to kill her! No games, no fun, just straight-up dead! I've had it with all these bastards, and now it's time to get some payback!

Johnny Black hadn't believed PoH at first, when the boss had revealed to the guild that their base had been discovered, and the clearers were coming. Oh, sure, if it'd been that bastard of a "Black Swordsman", that he would've bought. The son of a bitch had killed Mamoru and Kuze, it wouldn't have surprised him at all if the guy had come after the rest of Laughing Coffin.

Probably the damned doll he hung around with, too; not like she'd care about players.

But the clearers? Ha! No way they'd have the guts to come in force. There wasn't enough spine in the whole crew.

Sure enough, though, the clearers had gotten together a whole freaking raid, and everything had gone to hell. Johnny didn't know where PoH or Tia had gotten to; PoH'd given the word to hold off the raid—wasn't like the wimps could handle PvP, right?—and took off. Where, Johnny didn't know and frankly didn't care.

Because just before the raid hit, he'd seen that bitch Lux hightail it out of headquarters, and suddenly he knew exactly who must've spilled the beans.

Chasing after her, Johnny had decided right from the start she had to die. Now that names were dropping off his HUD, his buddies dying just like Mamoru had, he wasn't even going to have the fun he'd planned for her. He was going to catch her, poison her, and cut her damned head off, like the boss should've let him the day they found her.

If I can just catch the bitch!

Lux was quick, no doubt about it. She must've ditched her armor to run so fast, leading him on a chase down into parts of the dungeon he hadn't even seen before. Lucky for Johnny, though, she wasn't quite quick enough. Every time he thought he'd lost her, he got a glimpse of that stupid green hair of hers—and he was finally starting to catch up.

This ain't over, he snarled to himself, charging headlong down yet another stone hallway, poisoned dagger in hand. So what if the guys are dead? The boss' plan with the Hollows'll do more than most of the guys managed in months!

Either way, she's not gonna be around to see it… and hah! Dead end, bitch!

Johnny didn't know this part of the dungeon, but he had the maps from the other LC members. The room Lux had just scrambled into had just the one door—and he already knew he was better in a fight than she was. It was time to end their little game of cat and mouse, and get a down payment on revenge. Grinning wide behind his bag mask, he raced through the door just a few steps behind her.

He wasn't exactly sure how the room came to be spinning after that. He heard the door slam shut behind him, just as his back slammed hard into the floor. Confused, he checked his HUD, even as he tried to push himself up—and saw two distinctive icons above his HP bar.

Tumble, and Paralysis. The hell—?

Fighting the paralysis, Johnny forced his free hand to move a couple of centimeters from where it had fallen, just the short distance to his belt pouch. He'd gotten his Paralysis resistance that high, just from messing with his own weapons. It took him almost thirty seconds, but he did it, and his fingers closed on the crystal he kept there for emergencies.

"Cure!" he croaked out.

It took him a couple of seconds to realize absolutely nothing was happening. Only then did a low, cold voice speak up. "You made a big mistake, 'Joe'," it said. "Never cross an info broker." From behind him, where she'd been hiding beside the door, a figure stepped into his field of view. She wore a hooded cloak, and the claws on her hands were dripping the same green Paralysis poison Johnny favored himself. "'Specially not one called the Rat."

"You bitch," Johnny rasped, recognizing all too easily the whiskers of Argo the Rat. "You used Lux as bait?!"

Laughing Coffin's pawn walked into view, shaking. Like she usually did, really, but this time she was glaring at him. She'd never had the guts to do that before.

"Thought it'd be poetic justice," Argo told him. "Leadin' you into an anti-crystal trap, just like the one you tricked me into sendin' the Black Cats into. Takin' you down with yer own paralysis trick." The Rat's teeth gleamed in an ugly grin. "Even thought 'bout trying an MPK, but I figured that ain't my style."

That old job? That was why she was doing this? "Big mistake, bitch! The Black Iron Castle won't hold me forever. And if you 'good guys' win and break us all out, in the real world I'll—"

Lux flinched, but Argo only shook her head, and hoisted him to his feet. "Nope, don't think so," she said, shoving him against the wall. "'Cause y'see, the difference between us ain't the lengths we're willin' to go to, but the reasons… and responsibility. A real Rat does her own dirty work." Her claws gleamed, in the strange lighting of the dungeon. "G'bye, Johnny."

Johnny Black tried to scream, as those claws slashed toward him. It's not fair, she can't do this—! But they were on him in a flash, tearing into his throat, tearing out his throat—

The world shattered, and everything went black.

[You Are Dead].

"Teleport: Home!"

Klein was glad to see Team Kirito, and Vice-Commander Asuna, take off. His old buddy and the crazy crew he'd put together probably needed rest more than anybody, after what they'd all just done. The aftermath was better left to people who were better at dealing with, well, people—and Asuna darned well deserved the break, after Heathcliff had shoved the whole thing on her.

Paladin, hah. A real hero would've gotten his own hands dirty. You're a guildmaster, dammit, lead your guild!

Which was exactly what Klein was going to do, now that the LC survivors were carted off and both the DDA and KoB had left. Turning to them now, he first grabbed Sachi by the shoulder and pulled her in close. What she really needed right then was a big brother, and he was going to fill the role the best he could. "Hey," he said softly. "How are you doing?"

He wasn't going to ask if she was okay. If Sachi was "okay" after killing a man for the first time, she wouldn't be the girl he'd known for a year now. He sure as hell wasn't "okay", either.

"…I don't know," Sachi whispered, turning to bury her face in his shoulder. "I feel… numb, I think. Like I did after… after the Black Cats…."

Yeah. That about summed up how Klein felt, too. He was pretty sure he was going to feel worse later. Screaming nightmares tonight. Be surprised if I don't have 'em. …I'll worry if I don't.

He turned his attention to the rest of the guild. Time to do guildmaster things, and he could see from the dog-pile they'd fallen into that they needed it. "Okay, guys," Klein said, rubbing Sachi's hair with one hand while he did his best to project calm. "Today was a mess. It was ugly. We just did things we shouldn't have had to do. And if we're human, we're gonna have horrible screaming nightmares about it.

"But don't you dare tell yourselves it was wrong." He patted Sachi's shoulder with his free hand, and for a moment had no trouble at all reaching for righteous fury. "They started this. They killed hundreds of players. They were going to keep on killing, unless we stopped them. If they were willing to die for that… that's on them. Not you. Not us."

"Easy to say, Leader," Dynamm told him, head bowed. For once, he didn't even look up to making smart remarks. "Not that easy to live with."

"Can't imagine that it's going to be. If I thought you guys were gonna rest easy with this, I'd kick you out of the guild right now." Klein sighed. "But we all knew this was coming. Five months ago, when that bastard Kuze destroyed the Fifty-Seventh Floor. We all knew it was going to come to this sooner or later, and don't tell me you didn't." He looked around, at the safe zone in a dungeon that thirty PKers had been insane enough to call home just hours ago. "You ask Kirito, he'd probably tell you he saw this coming last year, after what Johnny Black did to the Black Cats."

He wondered, not for the first time, how Kirito was going to sleep that night. He had a bad feeling it would be better than just about anybody else who'd been in the crusade. Alone of the clearers, that day hadn't had his first kill.

"At least that ain't gonna happen again, Klein."

Klein turned at the high, nasally voice, and Sachi looked up from his shoulder. There was Argo the Rat herself, walking into the room with the scariest expression he'd seen on her face since the night the Black Cats died. This time she wasn't angry—she was something worse.

She was looking at Sachi now, though, not him. "Sacchin," the Rat said, "can't say if this'll help ya any… but the Black Cats are avenged."

Sachi inhaled sharply. "He's…?"

Argo nodded slowly, silently. The last Black Cat saw that, took a deep, shuddering breath… and turned to bury her face in Klein's shoulder again, sobbing.

He wasn't going to ask for details, he decided. From the look on her face, Argo had lived up to her vow of vengeance, and that was all he needed to know. So that's why Johnny Black wasn't here. Damn… nobody's gonna mess with Argo after today, that's for damn sure. Even if she doesn't spread the word, I damn well will.

The Rat's word is good. Cross her, and she'll end you. Hate to say it, but that rep might be important.

Argo seemed to read some of that in his expression, and for a second a strange, humorless smile flickered across her face. Then she was stepping aside, and gesturing behind her. "Speakin' o' the Black Cats, though… Klein. Ya got room fer one more? My friend here might be a target, an' we know a coupla LC got away."

Previously hidden behind Argo, a green-haired girl Klein knew only from the crusade's briefing walked in. She was wearing decent armor and a one-handed sword, but if she could fight right then, he'd have eaten his bandana. The girl was shaking like a leaf, and clearly holding back tears.

"Who's this?" Dale asked, hauling his bulk to his feet. "Wait—I remember, from the other day. You're…."

"Lux," the girl whispered, not meeting anyone's eyes. "I'm Lux. And until today I was… Laughing Coffin's mole. I gave them information, helped them get supplies after just about all of them went permanent orange…."

"Before anybody gets any funny ideas," Argo said sharply, "she was blackmailed. An' it's only thanks to her that we just broke Laughing Coffin. She never hurt a single player herself, an' I don't think her info was what gave 'em the big jobs. Whatever she might've done for them, she did lots more for us today."

Klein found himself nodding slowly. He'd have to know the full story to be sure, but he at least had an inkling of what must've happened. LC killed lots of weak players. I can believe they picked one to keep alive. And, well, can't say I haven't done things I hated, just staying alive. Maybe not that, but I had Kirito teaching me how to fight.

And if she'd been the one to get them the info about where to find Laughing Coffin—and if he was right, whatever it was Argo had done to Johnny Black—he could all too easily see how she'd be in danger. PoH and Tia had gotten away, and who knew if LC had had other allies.

As an organized threat, Laughing Coffin was dead. That didn't mean the dregs couldn't still bite here and there.

Klein glanced over his crew, and was reassured to see they'd worked through the same logic he had. He got a couple of shrugs, some thumbs-ups, and an outright grin from Kunimittz. Against his shoulder, Sachi only nodded silently.

"You're in, Lux-chan," Klein said, beckoning her over. "Welcome to Fuurinkazan. I'll want to hear your story, but only when you're ready. Either way, you're safe with us. I promise."

Hesitantly, Lux walked over to join them. "I… wish I could really believe that," she whispered. "I'm… not sure I even deserve this. I… probably don't…."

Dale gently clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Don't think that way, Lux. We've all done things here that nobody back home would understand. Argo's right, whatever you did for them, you stopped them." Fuurinkazan's big guy managed a weary grin. "It may not feel like it yet, but it's over now."

It really was. Klein didn't think he'd believe it for awhile yet himself—even if he hadn't known just how bad Laughing Coffin's killing spree had gotten until two days before, he'd been right in the middle of their damned zombie apocalypse—but it was done.

Now it's just Kayaba's "game" killing us. That, we know how to fight by now.

"No…. It's not over yet…."

The soft voice made every hair on Klein's head stand up, and icy surprise flooded his veins. He spun, almost knocking Sachi over, to see a figure he hadn't seen in five months. Tall, brown hair, a hooded cloak and a guildmaster's ring—and he could see the far wall right through her.

"You've stopped Laughing Coffin," Griselda whispered, somehow sounding stronger than the last time Klein had seen her. "But I know… they were planning more." Her expression was tight, like that strength was costing her tremendous effort. "My husband… found something…. Please. You have to… stop them…."

Tired. Kirito was just so, so tired. Avatars in Aincrad felt no fatigue, and could theoretically keep on fighting for days. The human brain was something else, no matter what NerveGear may have done for—or to—it otherwise.

The human soul was something else.

He'd never been so grateful for his team's private home coming with a dedicated Teleport Crystal. The day's battle hadn't been half as long as the average Floor Boss raid, but he felt like he'd been through two or three of those back to back. Materializing in a blue flash just outside the cabana's front door was a tremendous relief.

Leading his team inside, Kirito promptly collapsed on the rug in front of the living room's fireplace. Made from the hide of an Aincrad Sabertooth Shirotiger, it was big, and soft, and when he'd banished his weapons and armor to his inventory, a heavenly comfort.

Kizmel took a moment to coax the fireplace to life, then promptly flopped over next to him with none of her usual grace. "Well," she said into the gloomy silence. "I suppose I needn't ask how anyone else is feeling, after what just happened."

Silently, Kirito shook his head. Personally, he was feeling tired, and numb, and in the back of his mind more than a bit disturbed that he wasn't having the shakes. After killing Morte and Kuze, a couple more murderers' lives just didn't have the weight on his conscience that he was sure they should have.

"I don't know if I'm gonna sleep tonight," Philia said quietly, huddling on one half of the couch. "Guess your grandfather was right, Kirito. You're never ready for it, even if you think you are."

"We stopped Laughing Coffin, though," Rain said. Hunched on the other half of the couch, knees drawn up to her chin, when Kirito turned to look at her he saw a haunted darkness in her eyes. "PoH's on the run. That has to count for something… right?"

"I hope so." Asuna sat in an armchair, still looking every bit the vice-commander—except for her trembling, and shallow breathing. "I have to believe it was worth losing eleven of our own. …I have to believe it was worth k...killing twenty of them ourselves." She swallowed hard. "Kirito-kun… does it get any easier?"

He started to answer, only for Kizmel to lightly squeeze his arm. Glancing at her—seeing the look in those sad violet eyes—he paused. Took a deep breath, and slowly shook his head. "I think it's different for everyone," he said softly. "I've… learned to live with it. Easier? …That depends on how you look at it."

She shuddered. "I'm not going to ask what you mean by that. I… don't think I want to know." But I'm going to find out. That unspoken thought was plain on her face.

There really wasn't anything Kirito could say to that. All of them had killed at least one PKer, that day. He thought Rain had gotten two, but he wasn't sure, and he wasn't going to ask. Already, he was doing his best to lock the details of the battle in a box deep in his mind, where he wouldn't have to see it.

It was cowardly, and he knew it. It was also the only way he thought he could possibly stay sane. He had his doubts about himself enough as it was, the past few months.

How the others would deal with it, he didn't know. Kizmel, he was sure, would be her usual self soon enough, having reconciled herself to such things subjective years—maybe decades—before. The others… he just didn't know, and wasn't going to ask.

They'd all find some way of living with themselves. He was at least sure they were that strong.

Who was the first to move after that, Kirito wasn't sure. He just knew that Kizmel was soon curling up against his left side, and the other girls were gathering around. Asuna wordlessly stretched out right on top of him, resting her ear over his heart. Rain claimed his right arm, silent tears falling onto his shoulder. Philia curled up on his legs like an overgrown cat.

It should've been awkward, in so many ways. Any other day, it would've been. Today, Kirito just accepted it, understanding all too well the need they had for comfort. The need he had, right then, to be reminded what it was to be human.

He didn't even look up when the cabana's front door unexpectedly opened again. Only friends could do that, and after the darkness of the crusade, he just didn't give a damn who saw what.

"Oi, Kii-bou," Argo said, walking into view. For once there was no trace of teasing in her voice or expression, even with what otherwise would've been priceless blackmail material right in front of her. She just looked tired, and as haunted as any of them. "It's done, Kii-bou. …Got room for one more?"

Unable to move his arms, Kirito nodded silently. If Argo the Rat needed solace, he wasn't going to deny her that. She was a mercenary and a gossip—but at the end of the day, she was his friend.

From her inventory, the whiskered girl produced a blanket. She draped it over the whole pile, even as she gracelessly sprawled over Kizmel and Asuna's backs.

Kirito didn't try to guess whose tears he heard, and felt. He just closed his eyes, hugged the girls as best he could, and surrendered to fatigue. Together, he hoped, they'd keep the nightmares at bay.

They'd ended Laughing Coffin. The Black Cats stood avenged. And as terrible as it all had been, Kirito wasn't alone.

Author's Note:

Nope, still not a harem fic. Just a bunch of teenagers who had a really, really bad day, and can't stand to face the night alone.

Sorry for how long it took me to get this chapter out; I really didn't mean to leave the fic dormant almost five months. As those following Oath of Rebellion will know, however, I've been dealing with a medical issue that's made writing for extended periods difficult. Only recently have I recovered enough to get back to work, and I can't guarantee when I can resume truly consistent writing. For what it's worth, though, this whole chapter only took me a week and a half to write once I got going.

Continuity notes for this chapter: the ill-fated Komodo is another case of me picking a semi-random name from the glimpse we get in the first anime episode of the Monument of Life—in this case selected to fit the DDA's theme-naming—so I can at least say the character has some basis in canon.

Rain's dual-wielding trick is doubly based in canon, believe it or not. In the gameverse, she is in fact capable of it—and lives up to what the implies about her skill as a swordswoman, in spades. And using two swords at once without the requisite Unique Skill is noted to be possible in SAO; you can't use any Sword Skills that way, and as is mentioned here it's incredibly difficult to do at all (Kirito does so in Progressive Volume 6, but can't keep it up for long), but the possibility is there. …I've been trying to work in Rain trying that out since the middle of the Ballad of Twilight arc, but it never seemed to fit until now.

The battle itself, I suspect may come across as a bit disjointed and chaotic. In my defense, it is a pretty chaotic fight; there just wasn't any structure to it, the way there is for proper boss battles.

Next up for this story will be the events of the Seventy-Fourth Floor, so we're closing in on the endgame of the Aincrad arc. I will say now, it's not going to end at the Seventy-Fifth Floor the way it did in canon; however, with the different pairing compared to canon, most of the events between The Gleameyes and Skullreaper battles won't even occur, so that will truncate matters some.

That being said, I'd kind of like to get some opinions on the period between the Seventy-Fifth and One Hundredth Floors. I have no intention of covering all twenty-five floors, of course, but I also don't want to just skip that time period entirely. I do have an arc planned to cover that period, the seeds of which have been sown in the last three chapters, combined with a re-purposed plot point or two from canon. Thing is, not much of it will really have to do with the central point of the story—Kirito and Kizmel's development—and indeed there isn't very much left that can be done for that in Aincrad at all.

So my question is: do you guys think I should put in all the plot points I've got worked out for that arc, and possibly drag things out without much bearing on Duet's core plot? Or pare it down to what's most relevant, so we can get out of Aincrad and have done with it?

Anyway, enough rambling. Let me know if this chapter got the impact I wanted from it, or was just a broken mess. 'Til next time, comrades. -Solid