Rebuild of Sword Art Online
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ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
"Get behind me!" Tetsuo called. Understandable. Logical. The right choice. He was their shield, the wall that protected them. Of course they had no problem huddling behind him, minds racing for ideas and plans as the Reaper swung its scythe. A shining crescent in the darkness, its own brilliant light. It didn't strike Tetsuo's shield.
It passed right through.
There was no blood. No slicing of metal and flesh and bone. The Reaper let the swing taper off, and for a moment Kirito thought it had simply missed. Then Tetsuo crumpled. Not slowly, not sinking to his knees dramatically before falling off to the side. He just fell, a puppet with its strings cut. Mace rolling out of nerveless fingers. His body shattered, the flurry of prismatic pixels pitiful in the darkness. Another bloodstain, Another Black Cat gone.
"Tetsuo!" Sachi screamed. From Ducker and Kirito there was no response. Just silence. Numb, frozen silence. Keita reacted differently.
"Die you bastard!" he snarled, his voice harsh and ragged. Like an animal. Kirito felt the heat of the spell before he saw it. Even then he saw the light of it before he could turn his head. It was no fireball that was hovering above the tip of Keita's staff, growing in size and heat and power even as he watched. It was closer to a miniature sun, so bright he could barely look at it, so hot he had to recoil. It became a shooting star, streaking through the darkness from Keita's staff to the Reaper.
It splashed across Baleful Scythe's 'chest', oily liquid flame spilling across its ragged black robes. For an ever so brief moment the deep, dark mausoleum was finally illuminated. Row upon row of ancient cobwebbed tombs lined its curved walls, skeletal designs etched into its walls and all across its high domed ceiling. Once there had been four passageways in and out of the crypt, but they had long since been bricked up. The fleeting snatch of clarity faded. The fire died. The Reaper barely even noticed the flickering orange flames finally dissipating.
Then it charged.
"RUN!" Kirito yelled. They, the four survivors, scattered wildly as the Reaper came. Scythe like crystallized moonlight, scoffing at the resistance of their mundane arms and armour. The ancient stones beneath them parted at the touch of its razored edge like paper. The very air being cut, washing over Kirito like a gale. He rolled and recovered, both swords readied uselessly.
"I didn't even scratch him!" Keita at his side. "What is that thing!?"
"I don't know, I've never fought anything like it before!"
"What do you mean 'before'!?"
The Reaper turned, scythe spinning around itself. Practically orbiting, independant of its master's fleshless grasp. They pulled back, minds and hearts racing. Regrouping in the middle of the room, surrounded on all sides by darkness. Keita conjured a spear of razored ice, lanced it with a bolt of lightning. Ducker threw fistfuls of knives, every single tiny blade finding its mark. Nothing fazed it. Nothing even made it flinch.
"Are we gonna die?" Ducker whispered. Kirito knew the answer. He just didn't want to say it.
Sachi was chanting. Murmuring a spell under her breath, pouring her power into it, golden cursive swirling around her body in a hurricane of words and phrases. It surrounded her in a visible aura, making her glow. She raised her staff, crying out the final word, and a light was flung into the air. This one truly was like a star, a ball of incandescent light that flooded the room and chased away the shadows. The Reaper finally recoiled, raising a robed arm to shield its eyes from the light.
"Yes! You hurt it!" Keita hissed in triumph. "Do it again! Make it fucking suffer."
"I didn't hurt it!" Sachi stumbled back a step, sweat beading from her forehead. "I'm just holding it back. We have to get out of here, now!"
Kirito's eyes darted left and right. The pounding of his heart filling his ears. Deafening him. He spun, staring at one of the bricked-up passageways. Focused. It was blocked but whoever had done so had done a shoddy job. It was crumbling, huge holes left in the brickwork. He could see empty space beyond. He took off almost reflexively, feet pounding across the uneven stonework as he called for the others to follow. He didn't even slow down. He turned his shoulder and rammed into the wall of bricks. As old as it was, the impact jarred every bone in his body. His right arm went nearly completely numb. He saw stars. But he felt bricks loosen and fall.
"RUN!" he cried desperately. He scrabbled, ripped, stabbed at the wall. Used his swords as levers to crowbar the bricks out of their dusty mortar. His slender scimitar snapped like a dry twig. Every time Kirito looked back it was as if the others were moving in slow motion. Like that simple distance across the mausoleum were a thousand miles. He saw the Reaper recover. Sweeping its arm, the darkness resurgent around it. Snuffing out Sachi's light, plunging the tomb into darkness once more. Visible only by the blazing red pinpoints of its eyes as it glided across the room. Visible by the silver light of its sweeping scythe. Ducker stumbled and fell, body unmarked in the brief moments before the system deleted it. One more bloodstain. Kirito made a noise halfway between a scream and a choked sob.
Keita and Sachi reached the bricked-up passageway. They joined his efforts, ripping and tearing and smashing with the desperate strength of certainty of death. With an almost reluctant groan it came free in a flurry of debris and choking dust, opening the passageway. Far ahead, through the cramped corridor, lay the light of the moon. Freedom was in their grasp. They scrambled to enter, the passageway barely big enough to admit them single file. Keita forced his way through first, his robed silhouette briefly blocking the tantalizing light. Kirito dived through second.
Sachi last.
Kirito turned.
It all happened in the space of an instant. Not even a second. Kirito's adrenaline was up so high that he could remember every last detail of it. Slowed down to an utter crawl. The kind of hyper-awareness that lets a police officer read the etchings on their own spent shell casings as they fly past. Sachi with her back to the Reaper, mid-stride, trying to reach safety. Himself, half-turned, hand stretched out. The Reaper remaining where it hovered in the middle of the room, scythe useless in the narrow passageway. Three thick chains of solid, gleaming darkness shooting from within its voluminous robes like striking snakes. Crossing the distance with the speed of bullets.
The uncovered passageway was lined with tombs as well. A sword lay atop one beside him, covered in dust and webs but undoubtedly powerful. His hand crept closer to it. Fingers wrapped around the hilt, pulling the unmarked blade free of a scabbard rusted right to the lid of the tomb. A desperate gamble. Something to hurt it. To save her. Sachi's eyes widened, realizing that something was wrong. The barest hint of the incoming chains, glimpsed out of the corner of her eyes as she turned her head. No time to do any more. Kirito's mouth opened to shout a useless warning. Her hands, palms out. An incantation on her lips. A blazing wall of pure white light sliced the passageway in half between them.
The chains of midnight pierced Sachi's back.
No sound. No concept of the world around him beyond this one moment. The shield that had halted the chains, stopped them from impaling anybody but her, faded. She fell forward, body unmarked by the cursed chains. As quick as death by the Reaper's scythe, it seemed. The only comfort that remained in that deafeningly silent moment. Kirito saw the life leave her before she could even look down and realize her fate. Her face was questioning, almost pleading, before it slackened in death. Why? Why had he let it go this far? Why had he let her die? Why, Kazuto?
He spread his arms, as if he could catch her as she fell. As if catching her would fix everything. As if she'd just be hurt or winded or stunned and everything would be okay. She didn't even exist that long. He remembered it, every single second of it. The exact order in which the pieces of her avatar broke away and disappeared. The way she dissolved. The way she was nothing more than a cloud of glittering dust the moment he would have touched her. The way she wasn't even that in the next instant. The way she was gone, erased from the world forever.
The Reaper was stymied for now. As if bored with them now, it turned its back on the passageway. Kirito was safe, alone with his swords.
***
The tunnel let out into open air at last. It was a still, balmy night. The full moon hung in the sky, shining down brightly on the grassy hills. A lake lay beyond the mouth of the tunnel, so clear and still that it might have been a liquid mirror or a second sky. Keita was there, standing forlorn in the shade of a tree. At last, Aincrad explained the grand deception to them. Cheery little notifications popped into existance before him. He was congratulated on how much of the Labyrinth of Avarice he had uncovered on his map. He was rewarded with an attribute point for being the first group in the game to explore the Grave of Saints.
He was enthusiastically updated on his quest log. The Test Of Avarice - Failed. What You Sow - Failed. Failed. Failed.
Failed.
"I should've known." Keita's clenched fist trembled, but he didn't turn around. "Too good to be just any player. Never talked about yourself. Always had a way of leading us to things. That armour. Two swords. You were the Black Swordsman all along, weren't you?"
"Yes." Whispered. Voice catching. Keita still heard him. He turned. His cheeks were glistening with tears, his eyes red. He had been crying. Was still crying.
Kirito wasn't.
"We never mattered to you, did we? Just a means to an end, like that Diavel guy. Just a way for you to get your payout!" Keita's voice had been low at first, a dangerous whisper, but it was rising now. The words coming faster. Barked. He was advancing on Kirito. "It didn't matter to you that they all died! Didn't matter that we treated you like family!"
Kirito said nothing. Keita saw the new sword in his hand. There was a blur of movement as Keita pounced. Kirito landed flat on his back with a heavy thud, the back of his head snapping back against the soft earth hard enough for him to see stars. Keita's weight was on top of him, his hands grabbing fistfuls of the front of his coat. His snarl full of gritted teeth inches from his face.
"They trusted you! We all trusted you and you let them die! You let them die because you were too selfish to tell the truth until it was too late! None of this would've happened if you'd just stopped!"
"Or you."
Silence. Keita's lips moved, as if about to ask what he'd said, but they stilled. Then curled back, baring his teeth. Snarling. He drew back a fist, screaming in rage and pain, poised to punch and punch and punch until Kirito's face was an unrecognizeable, bloody mess.
Kirito didn't flinch.
They stayed there, still and silent, for a long moment. Keita looked away. His fist dropped, unclenching. He moved away. Kirito stood up. Numb. Observing the world from far, far away.
"Here." A soft 'bing' from the interface. Keita has left the guild. You are now the guildmaster. "Take it. You win."
An ornate crescent moon adorned his health bar now. Kirito stared at it. He nearly missed Keita withdrawing his teleport crystal and activating it. The look his former friend gave him as he vanished in a flash of sapphire light was one of utter and profound disgust. And then, like that, he was alone again.
He finally looked down at the sword he had snatched up in the tomb. The statistics screen appeared above it automatically, attached to the blade by a few skeletal AR elements. It was easily as good as the Anneal Blade. Better, even. His reward. His prize.
He could feel the cold inside him. Not the winter air. Something far colder. The river of his grief and horror was turning to ice. Turning him into something hard and unfeeling to stop it from breaking him completely. He saw it all and couldn't - wouldn't - stop it. He was allowed only one last action.
A scream of fear and grief and loss. Rage at Aincrad, at Akihiko Kayaba, at himself. It was thin. Reedy. Pitiful. Petulant. Childish. All the emotional maturity of someone barely into his teens. Crying out at the world because it was all he could even do. The only way he could mourn the people that had kept him human. He wasn't consciously aware of his arm moving, but it was too late to stop it even if he wanted to.
"I WASN'T WORTH IT!"
He took that beautiful, powerful sword in his hand and hurled it through the air. It spun end over end, flashing in the moonlight. Bright as the day it was forged. When it hit the surface of the lake, it did so tip-first. It barely disturbed the waters at all, a single ripple in the perfect surface the only evidence that it had ever existed at all. Sinking rapidly into the inky depths of the deep, deep lake.
Caliburn struck the bottom. Where it would remain.
First snow fell in Aincrad.
END OF CHAPTER FIVE
It passed right through.
There was no blood. No slicing of metal and flesh and bone. The Reaper let the swing taper off, and for a moment Kirito thought it had simply missed. Then Tetsuo crumpled. Not slowly, not sinking to his knees dramatically before falling off to the side. He just fell, a puppet with its strings cut. Mace rolling out of nerveless fingers. His body shattered, the flurry of prismatic pixels pitiful in the darkness. Another bloodstain, Another Black Cat gone.
"Tetsuo!" Sachi screamed. From Ducker and Kirito there was no response. Just silence. Numb, frozen silence. Keita reacted differently.
"Die you bastard!" he snarled, his voice harsh and ragged. Like an animal. Kirito felt the heat of the spell before he saw it. Even then he saw the light of it before he could turn his head. It was no fireball that was hovering above the tip of Keita's staff, growing in size and heat and power even as he watched. It was closer to a miniature sun, so bright he could barely look at it, so hot he had to recoil. It became a shooting star, streaking through the darkness from Keita's staff to the Reaper.
It splashed across Baleful Scythe's 'chest', oily liquid flame spilling across its ragged black robes. For an ever so brief moment the deep, dark mausoleum was finally illuminated. Row upon row of ancient cobwebbed tombs lined its curved walls, skeletal designs etched into its walls and all across its high domed ceiling. Once there had been four passageways in and out of the crypt, but they had long since been bricked up. The fleeting snatch of clarity faded. The fire died. The Reaper barely even noticed the flickering orange flames finally dissipating.
Then it charged.
"RUN!" Kirito yelled. They, the four survivors, scattered wildly as the Reaper came. Scythe like crystallized moonlight, scoffing at the resistance of their mundane arms and armour. The ancient stones beneath them parted at the touch of its razored edge like paper. The very air being cut, washing over Kirito like a gale. He rolled and recovered, both swords readied uselessly.
"I didn't even scratch him!" Keita at his side. "What is that thing!?"
"I don't know, I've never fought anything like it before!"
"What do you mean 'before'!?"
The Reaper turned, scythe spinning around itself. Practically orbiting, independant of its master's fleshless grasp. They pulled back, minds and hearts racing. Regrouping in the middle of the room, surrounded on all sides by darkness. Keita conjured a spear of razored ice, lanced it with a bolt of lightning. Ducker threw fistfuls of knives, every single tiny blade finding its mark. Nothing fazed it. Nothing even made it flinch.
"Are we gonna die?" Ducker whispered. Kirito knew the answer. He just didn't want to say it.
Sachi was chanting. Murmuring a spell under her breath, pouring her power into it, golden cursive swirling around her body in a hurricane of words and phrases. It surrounded her in a visible aura, making her glow. She raised her staff, crying out the final word, and a light was flung into the air. This one truly was like a star, a ball of incandescent light that flooded the room and chased away the shadows. The Reaper finally recoiled, raising a robed arm to shield its eyes from the light.
"Yes! You hurt it!" Keita hissed in triumph. "Do it again! Make it fucking suffer."
"I didn't hurt it!" Sachi stumbled back a step, sweat beading from her forehead. "I'm just holding it back. We have to get out of here, now!"
Kirito's eyes darted left and right. The pounding of his heart filling his ears. Deafening him. He spun, staring at one of the bricked-up passageways. Focused. It was blocked but whoever had done so had done a shoddy job. It was crumbling, huge holes left in the brickwork. He could see empty space beyond. He took off almost reflexively, feet pounding across the uneven stonework as he called for the others to follow. He didn't even slow down. He turned his shoulder and rammed into the wall of bricks. As old as it was, the impact jarred every bone in his body. His right arm went nearly completely numb. He saw stars. But he felt bricks loosen and fall.
"RUN!" he cried desperately. He scrabbled, ripped, stabbed at the wall. Used his swords as levers to crowbar the bricks out of their dusty mortar. His slender scimitar snapped like a dry twig. Every time Kirito looked back it was as if the others were moving in slow motion. Like that simple distance across the mausoleum were a thousand miles. He saw the Reaper recover. Sweeping its arm, the darkness resurgent around it. Snuffing out Sachi's light, plunging the tomb into darkness once more. Visible only by the blazing red pinpoints of its eyes as it glided across the room. Visible by the silver light of its sweeping scythe. Ducker stumbled and fell, body unmarked in the brief moments before the system deleted it. One more bloodstain. Kirito made a noise halfway between a scream and a choked sob.
Keita and Sachi reached the bricked-up passageway. They joined his efforts, ripping and tearing and smashing with the desperate strength of certainty of death. With an almost reluctant groan it came free in a flurry of debris and choking dust, opening the passageway. Far ahead, through the cramped corridor, lay the light of the moon. Freedom was in their grasp. They scrambled to enter, the passageway barely big enough to admit them single file. Keita forced his way through first, his robed silhouette briefly blocking the tantalizing light. Kirito dived through second.
Sachi last.
Kirito turned.
It all happened in the space of an instant. Not even a second. Kirito's adrenaline was up so high that he could remember every last detail of it. Slowed down to an utter crawl. The kind of hyper-awareness that lets a police officer read the etchings on their own spent shell casings as they fly past. Sachi with her back to the Reaper, mid-stride, trying to reach safety. Himself, half-turned, hand stretched out. The Reaper remaining where it hovered in the middle of the room, scythe useless in the narrow passageway. Three thick chains of solid, gleaming darkness shooting from within its voluminous robes like striking snakes. Crossing the distance with the speed of bullets.
The uncovered passageway was lined with tombs as well. A sword lay atop one beside him, covered in dust and webs but undoubtedly powerful. His hand crept closer to it. Fingers wrapped around the hilt, pulling the unmarked blade free of a scabbard rusted right to the lid of the tomb. A desperate gamble. Something to hurt it. To save her. Sachi's eyes widened, realizing that something was wrong. The barest hint of the incoming chains, glimpsed out of the corner of her eyes as she turned her head. No time to do any more. Kirito's mouth opened to shout a useless warning. Her hands, palms out. An incantation on her lips. A blazing wall of pure white light sliced the passageway in half between them.
The chains of midnight pierced Sachi's back.
No sound. No concept of the world around him beyond this one moment. The shield that had halted the chains, stopped them from impaling anybody but her, faded. She fell forward, body unmarked by the cursed chains. As quick as death by the Reaper's scythe, it seemed. The only comfort that remained in that deafeningly silent moment. Kirito saw the life leave her before she could even look down and realize her fate. Her face was questioning, almost pleading, before it slackened in death. Why? Why had he let it go this far? Why had he let her die? Why, Kazuto?
He spread his arms, as if he could catch her as she fell. As if catching her would fix everything. As if she'd just be hurt or winded or stunned and everything would be okay. She didn't even exist that long. He remembered it, every single second of it. The exact order in which the pieces of her avatar broke away and disappeared. The way she dissolved. The way she was nothing more than a cloud of glittering dust the moment he would have touched her. The way she wasn't even that in the next instant. The way she was gone, erased from the world forever.
The Reaper was stymied for now. As if bored with them now, it turned its back on the passageway. Kirito was safe, alone with his swords.
***
The tunnel let out into open air at last. It was a still, balmy night. The full moon hung in the sky, shining down brightly on the grassy hills. A lake lay beyond the mouth of the tunnel, so clear and still that it might have been a liquid mirror or a second sky. Keita was there, standing forlorn in the shade of a tree. At last, Aincrad explained the grand deception to them. Cheery little notifications popped into existance before him. He was congratulated on how much of the Labyrinth of Avarice he had uncovered on his map. He was rewarded with an attribute point for being the first group in the game to explore the Grave of Saints.
He was enthusiastically updated on his quest log. The Test Of Avarice - Failed. What You Sow - Failed. Failed. Failed.
Failed.
"I should've known." Keita's clenched fist trembled, but he didn't turn around. "Too good to be just any player. Never talked about yourself. Always had a way of leading us to things. That armour. Two swords. You were the Black Swordsman all along, weren't you?"
"Yes." Whispered. Voice catching. Keita still heard him. He turned. His cheeks were glistening with tears, his eyes red. He had been crying. Was still crying.
Kirito wasn't.
"We never mattered to you, did we? Just a means to an end, like that Diavel guy. Just a way for you to get your payout!" Keita's voice had been low at first, a dangerous whisper, but it was rising now. The words coming faster. Barked. He was advancing on Kirito. "It didn't matter to you that they all died! Didn't matter that we treated you like family!"
Kirito said nothing. Keita saw the new sword in his hand. There was a blur of movement as Keita pounced. Kirito landed flat on his back with a heavy thud, the back of his head snapping back against the soft earth hard enough for him to see stars. Keita's weight was on top of him, his hands grabbing fistfuls of the front of his coat. His snarl full of gritted teeth inches from his face.
"They trusted you! We all trusted you and you let them die! You let them die because you were too selfish to tell the truth until it was too late! None of this would've happened if you'd just stopped!"
"Or you."
Silence. Keita's lips moved, as if about to ask what he'd said, but they stilled. Then curled back, baring his teeth. Snarling. He drew back a fist, screaming in rage and pain, poised to punch and punch and punch until Kirito's face was an unrecognizeable, bloody mess.
Kirito didn't flinch.
They stayed there, still and silent, for a long moment. Keita looked away. His fist dropped, unclenching. He moved away. Kirito stood up. Numb. Observing the world from far, far away.
"Here." A soft 'bing' from the interface. Keita has left the guild. You are now the guildmaster. "Take it. You win."
An ornate crescent moon adorned his health bar now. Kirito stared at it. He nearly missed Keita withdrawing his teleport crystal and activating it. The look his former friend gave him as he vanished in a flash of sapphire light was one of utter and profound disgust. And then, like that, he was alone again.
He finally looked down at the sword he had snatched up in the tomb. The statistics screen appeared above it automatically, attached to the blade by a few skeletal AR elements. It was easily as good as the Anneal Blade. Better, even. His reward. His prize.
He could feel the cold inside him. Not the winter air. Something far colder. The river of his grief and horror was turning to ice. Turning him into something hard and unfeeling to stop it from breaking him completely. He saw it all and couldn't - wouldn't - stop it. He was allowed only one last action.
A scream of fear and grief and loss. Rage at Aincrad, at Akihiko Kayaba, at himself. It was thin. Reedy. Pitiful. Petulant. Childish. All the emotional maturity of someone barely into his teens. Crying out at the world because it was all he could even do. The only way he could mourn the people that had kept him human. He wasn't consciously aware of his arm moving, but it was too late to stop it even if he wanted to.
"I WASN'T WORTH IT!"
He took that beautiful, powerful sword in his hand and hurled it through the air. It spun end over end, flashing in the moonlight. Bright as the day it was forged. When it hit the surface of the lake, it did so tip-first. It barely disturbed the waters at all, a single ripple in the perfect surface the only evidence that it had ever existed at all. Sinking rapidly into the inky depths of the deep, deep lake.
Caliburn struck the bottom. Where it would remain.
First snow fell in Aincrad.
END OF CHAPTER FIVE
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PhDEevee
Mathematician and Questgiver
- Location
- Sydney
Hey, Keita lived. Unless he ends up throwing himself off a cliff again.
Keita did live! This will have fun consequences.
wdango
Storyteller
- Location
- Bali, Indonesia
Keita living might not be a good thing though. Oh gods the horror.
Walker Of Chaos
Best/Worst Dynasty
- Location
- Sweden
There is also the possibility that he was using that teleport crystal to get to a cliff (likelihood of this is close to zero though)
Walker Of Chaos
Best/Worst Dynasty
- Location
- Sweden
His current emotional state is horrible, he probably does not even have enough strength to refute them, plus he probably feels guilty because he thinks he was responsible for their deaths
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Ouch.... This is going to hurt worse than canon. Forget Sachi sleeping with him, this is worse because here they all trusted him, and with Keita surviving to spread the apparent story that the Black Swordsman's arrogance led them into a unsurvivable trap, Kritio is going to be even more isolated and half-crazy....
Rikki
Purple Love
- Location
- Purple Room
I wonder if he'll keep the new identity a secret? Though if Kirito doesn't take off the coat the secret'll be out anyway.
Well they are true. Kirito had 100+ detection, if they'd known that he would have been in the lead looking for traps (assuming they accepted him ofc). If he was, they wouldn't have been caught in the trap. Besides, Kirito did throw back Keita's secret debt back in his face with the whole "Or you" which they probably wouldn't have been in that dungeon if not for that. Both of them are responsible but...who wants to be responsible for that?
Edit: I don't mean the whole not caring accusations, but the "if we'd known you were strong they'd still be alive" ones.
Well they are true. Kirito had 100+ detection, if they'd known that he would have been in the lead looking for traps (assuming they accepted him ofc). If he was, they wouldn't have been caught in the trap. Besides, Kirito did throw back Keita's secret debt back in his face with the whole "Or you" which they probably wouldn't have been in that dungeon if not for that. Both of them are responsible but...who wants to be responsible for that?
Edit: I don't mean the whole not caring accusations, but the "if we'd known you were strong they'd still be alive" ones.
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cB557
voOOP
Now, I would be fine with him not defending himself if not for this. He doesn't just not try and climb out of his hole, he starts digging. Being traumatized doesn't account for that A: being a pretty stupid move, and B: Seemingly not realizing how stupid that was after.
Delusionist
Seeker of Truth
- Location
- Land of the Fruits and Nuts
The problem with suicide is that it doesn't actually end things in this Aincrad.
- Location
- Singapore
I cannot imagine, if Scillia is coming as per schedule, how she's going to repair this Kirito. At least, in Canon SAO, this point is Kirito's nadir - that, or the ending of Red Nose Reindeer itself, if indeed you are going for the revival item route . It remains to be seen whether this is indeed Kirito's nadir in this rebuilt - if not, then the next few arcs would be all about the healing, and Scillia, Lizbeth and finally Asuna would be integral to this slow process of putting that emotional humpty dumpty back together.
If Kirito goes pure solo for the next few arcs, I wouldn't be surprised.
Time for yet another name change.....
If Kirito goes pure solo for the next few arcs, I wouldn't be surprised.
Time for yet another name change.....
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75% Certain
25% horse thief
This sets up the next arc nicely. For Kirito, blaming Titans Hand for everything is going to be his way of externalizing his inner torment.
- Location
- Singapore
If Cardinal is a dick, it would return Caliburn straight to Kirito's inventory, citing it as an undroppable, Account/Soul Binded item ,and start two quests : You Broke it, You Bought it (Resolved upon acquiring Excalibur, or Cardinal deeming Kirito worthy enough to be redeemed), and Saint Nikolus Last Hope (offering a revival item, that only works in a five minute window after the target's death).
Last edited:
- Location
- FEMA Region V, USA
Great chapter. I especially like the end where Kirito throws away Excalibur and it sinks, point first, into the lake. I have to wonder if that might not be important later.
The only bit that seemed off was Kirito passing through the barricade before Sachi. It doesn't seem in character for him without some explanation in the story. Maybe Sachi pushed him from behind or the piece of the barricade he was working to remove crumbled just then and he fell through.
The only bit that seemed off was Kirito passing through the barricade before Sachi. It doesn't seem in character for him without some explanation in the story. Maybe Sachi pushed him from behind or the piece of the barricade he was working to remove crumbled just then and he fell through.
Feng Lengshun
Z-Program Researcher
- Location
- Indonesia
Them feels... why...
Now Titan's Hand is Kirito's problem. I look forward to seeing how he handles them.
FriedIce
The Authentic Fake
- Location
- Hyperreality
Ok, I can appreciate that you're just following canon but canon doesn't necessarily make for a good reboot. For instance I think that the idea that Kirito would go through the hole after Sachi is unlikely at best and contrived at worst-
Ok, before I go on a rant, let me just say that I'm still enjoying the fic. I just wish that you'd be more imaginative and daring with what you're doing. As it is I'm getting irritated because there is stuff that has so much more potential than canon but you're just slavishly following the plot. If rather better written. And its not even canon because you're missing out massive portions of Progressive.
Ok, before I go on a rant, let me just say that I'm still enjoying the fic. I just wish that you'd be more imaginative and daring with what you're doing. As it is I'm getting irritated because there is stuff that has so much more potential than canon but you're just slavishly following the plot. If rather better written. And its not even canon because you're missing out massive portions of Progressive.
75% Certain
25% horse thief
My feeling is that RoSAO!Kirito and Abridged!Kirito are rapidly beginning to overlap. Murderhobo mode, engage.