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Rebuild of Sword Art Online

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Huh. Think we're in the same time zone.
But yeah, writing at that time wouldn't be fun. Just post it when you're ready :)
 
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    • He couldn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. Wanted to think this night, this last month, the whole fucking thing had been nothing but a nightmare. It took him a second, an achingly long and silent second, to process it. He might have cried out. He wasn't quite sure any more. Kirito made to rise, snatching up his swords from where they lay in the snow.

    Only to be suddenly and sharply shoved back down.

    "You're staying right there until I'm done with you," Klein hissed through gritted teeth. He was pale from cold and pain, but far from dying as Kirito had first imagined. His wounds were shallow, most of the icy spears remaining in the open air. They had been fouled up in the padding and winter reinforcement of Klein's armour. His health bar confirmed it - practically a flesh wound. "Until I know... you'll stop being... crazy."

    "Get off me!" Kirito bucked madly, nearly throwing Klein off despite the weight discrepancy. Again he fell back with the thump and crunch of powdered snow parting, nearly driving the wind out of him. He stared helplessly past the Salamander samurai, catching glimpses of the rest of Fuurinkazan. Darting back and forth, staying as mobile as they could in the snow. The shield-user - Dale, the overweight one, he remembered numbly - struggled to weather what blows from Jólnir he could. Arrows arced overhead, fired by some unseen archer. Most fouled up against the giant's cloak and mail, but others found meaty purchase in exposed flesh. He saw no more, as he felt a hand seize his face and sharply turn it back.

    "Focus Kirito." The pain barely seemed to faze Klein any more. There was more worry in his voice than anything else now. "Don't look at them, look at me. "

    "Let me go I have to help them!"

    "So you can get yourself killed? So you can run right in without a plan and get torn apart!?"

    "Maybe maybe not I don't care! Why do you care!?"

    "And then what!?" Klein seized Kirito by the front of his coat and shook him. "What happens when you die right in front of us all? When you condemn me to going through the same thing you're going through now, when you're dead and gone too and your friends can't bring you back either? Will that make it okay? Will that satisfy you Kirito? Getting yourself killed chasing a fairy tale just because you don't think you're worth anything!?"

    Kirito's heart was beating so fast that he couldn't even feel the individual pumps any more. It was just an endless rolling thrum of noise, filling his ears, clouding his vision, fogging his mind. He couldn't breathe. His chest just wasn't moving. He couldn't-

    Sachi's eyes as she died. His palms against the gold-white shield that separated them. His hands reaching out to catch her, to save her, even as she disintegrated into nothing but graphical artifacts. All because he'd fooled her, fooled her so much worse than the rest of the Black Cats. His greatest lie. Making her think he was worth something.

    "Yeah." He croaked the word so softly that he could barely hear it himself, but it sank in. Leather creaked dangerously as Klein's fists tightened. For a moment he thought - hoped, even - that Klein was going to hit him.

    "Kirito I am so, so sorry about what happened to you. If I ever lost one of the guys... I don't think I'd do much better than you have. And you've been dealing with it on your own. I just... I just need you to understand how much I don't want to see one of my friends die too. Not when I think I can help him."

    stop it shut up you don't know what you're saying you don't understand i'm not worth it if anyone dies it'll be all my fault just leave me to rot it's what i deserve

    "I know don't think I have a reason to care about you but I do okay. If it hadn't been for what little you taught me back on the first day I might already be dead. Okay? I was alone and I was scared too and if it wasn't for you I don't think I'd even be here right now. And even putting that aside you're a good guy Kirito. You put up with me on your first day, didn't you? You tried to bring me along to your secret beta-tester hunting grounds, didn't you? I had to send you away, didn't I?"

    "Get as strong as you can as fast as you can, then come back and find me. Then I'll add you on my friends list. Call it a bet."

    "I need you, Kirito. We all do. Not out of guilt or... or obligation or anything like that. I need you, as a friend, to help me finish this. I need you with me. I don't know if I can do it without you."

    Klein slowly relaxed his grip on Kirito and sat up, his pinning weight lifting.

    "Please."

    He didn't want to move. Felt like he couldn't. What are you supposed to do after something like that? Say after something like that. It felt like his armour was made of woven lead. It felt like no effort, however strong, would make him move. Every part of him hurt. Every joint, every muscle, every inch of skin. Like his body trying to exact some kind of revenge, some kind of punishment. He wanted to lie down in a tarry pool of misery and wait to die.

    but klein asked

    Kirito stood. His body screamed at him, the bruises of Jólnir's mighty backhand smash crying out for consideration, but he ignored it all. He scooped up his swords and hacked at the air, two backhand slices that traced an X before him and drove the pain and fatigue away.

    "What's the plan?"

    Gulp. Gulp. Gulp. Gulp. Klein held up one finger as he sculled a flask of blood-red liquid with truly impressive speed. Then, with a grin, he threw the empty flask to the ground as hard as he could. It shattered loudly and impressively on contact, dissipating into a billion white motes of light. The ice-white spears in his back fell out, landing in the snow with blunt 'thumps'. Klein rested Ill-Fang's nodachi on his shoulder and offered his free hand, palm-up.

    A bright ball of flame ignited in his grip.

    "Copious amounts of fire usually do the trick."

    Kirito needed no crash-course in the spell's effects. Questions could be saved until after the tour and all that. He offered both swords, blades crossed. Klein's palm slapped against them, and the magic spread like a virus. White-orange flames licked along the swords as if they had been oiled, roaring and burning brightly yet failing to harm his hands. Kirito flourished the flaming blades experimentally. They melted twin trenches in the snow through radiation alone.

    He looked back in time to see Klein wrap this same free hand around the blade of his nodachi, hard enough for the silvered edge to bite deep. He hissed in pain, dark red blood welling from the gash in his palm. That same hand flourished up the length of the blade. The trailing droplets coated the sword, faster and more thoroughly than they had any right to. And then burst into flame. Bright and hot enough that Kirito could feel it on his face from where he stood, hot enough that the flames burned bright blue.

    "You fucking showoff," Kirito said with a smile.

    "You're just jealous."

    "ARE YOU QUITE DONE WITH YOUR LITTLE LOVE AFFAIR!?" Dale screamed from the battlefield, slowly being driven back through the snow by Jólnir's ringing axeblows.

    "You know how I gotta do things, Dale!" Klein called back. "It's my THING!"

    Kirito flinched, wishing he'd covered his ears. Somehow the final word had been amplified, as if spoken through a megaphone. Klein had taken some kind of stance, shoulders wide and back arched back as he yelled at the heavens. Like he'd been about to scream 'WRYYYYYYY' instead. He had even seen an audible shockwave through the air. Unmistakeably some kind of taunt skill.

    And it worked, too. Jólnir paused, axe already raised for one more strike at Dale. Slowly, with an almost audible creak, its head turned to look squarely at the pair of them. They were already charging, bright beacons of flame and heat in the dead of winter. The giant opened its coat once more, the swirling vortex of icy power returning as it prepared to riddle them with frost spears once more.

    "ISSIN!" Klein called. The response was immediate, a screaming missile lancing over their heads. Bright green. A Sword Art. It struck Jólnir full in the face, sinking deep and bursting on impact like a hollow-point bullet. Something hissed and steamed from within the giant's cowl, swiftly followed by a bellowing howl of pain. The flap of its coat was released, the portal of ice abandoned. Enraged, possibly blinded, Jólnir raised its axe for a two-handed chop that could probably split them both in half at once.

    "Behind me!" Klein called as he rose to meet it.

    The nodachi met the descending axe blade, and the clearing came alive with blazing light. Cold iron met Klein's blazing sword, an immense flurry of blue and white sparks cascading from the point of contact and sizzling in the snow around them. They ground together, an ear-splitting keening as opposites warred for supremacy. Not that Klein met it head on - he let the nodachi glide along the flat of the axe, spitting and sparking all the while. Let it deflect the axe that crucial measure off-course, letting it slam sizzling into the snow beside him. The snow solidified and thrust skyward, great frozen lances of ice bursting from below and threatening to spear Kirito alive. He dived to the right just in time, rolling and springing up even as the line of frost spears continued to rise. Klein let his slash continue, following through, along the unprotected haft of the giant's axe. Letting it carve right into Jólnir's right hand.

    The giant roared, shaking the fresh snowfall from the trees that surrounded them with its sheer force. His right hand was maimed, practically crippled, but he still had another. He was still a threat. That was where Kirito came in. He dashed into the fray, so fast he almost imagined a blizzard-like wake of snow behind him. He leaped, harder and higher than he possibly could have in the real world, and drew back both blades. For just a moment, they blazed as brightly as Klein's, the energy of his Sword Arts turning them sapphire. When they struck they bit deep, nearly cleaving the giant's left hand in half. For just a moment, cerulean contrails remained where Kirito had struck.

    The axe fell from Jólnir's nerveless grip like a felled tree, so heavily that it nearly sank completely from view into the white carpet of snow beneath them. Kirito could almost imagine that the giant was just staring at its ruined hands, pondering how the tide could have turned so hard, so fast. He could definitely imagine those thoughts being driven from its mind as another acid-green Art-reinforced arrow flashed into the darkness beneath its cowl.

    "I got it!" another Fuurinkazan member called, 'Kunimittz' briefly visible in bright green text over his head as he darted into the fray and buried every last inch of his naginata blade into the back of Jólnir's knee. The giant bellowed like a wounded animal, dropping heavily to the ruined knee. Kirito could hear more strikes from the other side of the behemoth, more swords hacking deep into its back. Jólnir raised its gashed and bleeding fists, slamming them to the ground with a roar of defiance. A stinging blizzard sprung into being around it, a storm in a bottle, as lances of ice burst from below. Desperate leaps back from all within range, some more nimbly than others, but wounding them had not been the point. The frigid wall of spears protected the giant of frost as he gathered his power, motes of cold blue-white power swirling around him.

    Kirito's swords blazed again and again, sapphire lights fading in and out to a rhythm that only he could feel. The ice, hard as steel, parted like warm butter to his attack. A combo, smooth, almost rehearsed. Clearing a path to the crippled giant, slicing ruthlessly into its torso. Hacking through flesh and armour, burning whole sections off at a time. For a moment the chain didn't look like a chain at all, but a Sword Art of Kirito's own creation. By the time his stamina bar finally emptied, the ringmail protecting Jólnir's front was in tatters. Perfect conditions, he thought as he hopped back, for what Klein was about to do next.

    Klein's nodachi flashed, the blue flames turning crimson for a moment as his own Sword Art activated. Sword back and to his right side at waist level, body twisted at the hips towards it. A deep horizontal slash that left a flaming scar in the air, not to mention the sizzling gash in Jólnir's torso. A diagonal slash, up and to the right, drawing a harsh angle in the air. Another burning line in the air, another wound joining the first at the edge. The third slash, a vicious downward chop, completed the symbol. Klein turned his back on Jólnir, wiped the nodachi clean against the rim of his sheath, and slowly slid it home.

    As it clicked, the fourth and final hit of Savage Fulcrum activated. The blazing '4' that he had carved into the giant blazed white hot, bright as a magnesium flare. The flames consumed the giant, setting his precious red cloak alight in a blaze of orange flame and the pungent stench of burning fur. Slowly, ponderously, Jólnir toppled like all the other trees felled that night. The impact of his landing was enough to shake the earth, almost enough to unseat them. Klein held his pose stoically, though the intense grin of satisfaction on his face ruined it somewhat.

    "I'd say that was worth a Platinum S-rank," he said as the guild slowly converged around Jólnir's burning corpse.

    "You took damage. So no, you still fail," Dale pointed out.

    "Yeah, well, the game doesn't lie. We'll just see who gets what, buddy."

    The ranking system. Kirito had forgotten all about it. His heart leaped into his throat. What if it had all been for nothing? What if the revival item never dropped? Or what if it did, but to someone else? What if he had to beg one of Klein's friends for the rarest, most precious item in the whole game?

    The chart appeared before them all, rapidly shifting and filling in as the system calculated their contributions. Far more evenly than the last time he'd seen this screen, of course. Everyone in Fuurinkazan got their own fair slice of the pie chart, the ratios sliding back and forth with every new piece of information. At last they settled, proclaiming the system's final judgement.

    Kirito had come in second to Klein.

    ... and yet something appeared in his hand. Something small, round, and hard. Like a jewelled broach. For a moment Kirito thought his hand would freeze up, locking itself in a tight fist around it. With some coaxing, given plenty of time as Klein wondered aloud what he was supposed to do with a Damascus Steel Ingot, he opened his hand and looked at what he had been awarded.

    He'd been right.

    Worthless.

    All for nothing.

    "... Kirito?"

    Kirito turned away sharply. He couldn't, wouldn't, let him see him cry. Not now, not after everything he'd done for him. After how hard he'd tried to bring him back up. His fist clenched so hard his knuckles went white, so hard it started to hurt. In a fit of petulant rage he wanted to crush it, to shatter the worthless gem into a thousand tiny shards and grind it into dust so that he'd never have to remember how close and yet so far he'd been. Then, slowly, he forced himself to relax his grip once more. He swallowed it all.

    "It's nothing. Stupid drop just wasn't what I was after." Forcing the words out, even and flat. He tossed it over his shoulder, joints locked and mechanical. He heard Klein fumble for it behind him. "You can have it if you want."

    "Kirito I-"

    "You need it more than I do."

    Required a player bloodstain to be consumed.

    Bloodstains only lasted for sixty seconds.

    Didn't matter if it was six or six hundred any more.

    Too late. He'd been too late all along.

    The wind softly whistled through the glade. Snow crunched, armour creaked. Footsteps. A hand on his shoulder, warm and solid. No words followed.

    "There's some stuff I have to take care of," Kirito said. He brushed Klein's hand from his shoulder, but the movement was far from dismissive. Slowly, stiffly, as if only just remembering how to walk, he set off on the way back to Urbus. He almost made it to the edge of the clearing. Blip! A bright, white, rectangular AR prompt appeared before him like a stop-sign. He stopped dead mid-stride.

    'KLEIN has sent you a Friend Request. Accept? (O) (X)'

    He stood there for ten seconds. Finger extended, hovering over the prompt. Reading and rereading it. Frozen with indecision. Thoughts whirling in his head.

    Blip.

    The prompt box closed.

    'KLEIN has been added to your Friends List.'

    Kirito walked on.

    END OF CHAPTER SIX
     
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    • Klein, being that Bro should be a felony :)

    And another superbly-written battle Zerban. I look forward to seeing how you write Gleam Eyes with eager anticipation :D
     
    I'm not sure I buy Klein using the word "penitent" in a sentence.

    That's pretty much my only complaint, everything else was pretty sweet.
     
    defenestrator said:
    ...So the best way to fix the canon story was to make Klein the main character.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Pithy statements aside, SAO definitely is at its strongest when it's an ensemble piece. I try to avoid character bashing, but Kirito as the lone protagonist definitely diminishes the emotional weight of SAO's narrative, because he's not that interesting, relatively speaking. Klein gives the story a lot more heart, for what it's worth.

    That's one of the redeeming things about the Underworld arc for me--Eugeo's a solid co-protagonist, even if his role becomes increasingly irrelevant.
     
    Well, that was an awesome fight. Shame about the healing item, but we all guessed it'd turn out similar to canon (despite hopes to the contrary). Wonder what Klein's group got?
     
    So either Damascus Steel Ingot can craft the most amazing weapons in the game, or CARDINAL is intentionally messing with Kirito. Or a mix.

    Anywho, allow me to join in with the chorus of approval for Klein. The bro this story deserves and needs.
     
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