Right Back At It Again - Chapter 5

      "Erica-san!"

        I raised my eyelids from their drooped position and looked at my teacher.  Did he just call me Erica?  "Yes, teacher?"  I replied, resisting the urge to yawn.
        "Since you've decided to make this class your nap time, perhaps you would like to answer a question for me," my instructor said, putting his hand on his hip and pointing to the learning screen that replaced the SMART Boards of the 2010's.  "What is a system that provides computer-based support for complex, nonroutine decisions, primarily for middle managers and knowledge workers?"
        Blinking, I yawned despite my attempts to prevent it.  "Um... a business intelligence system?" I said, glad that I had dozed off in Information Technology class, one of my best subjects and coincidentally, the last class of the day.
      "That's... correct," the middle-aged teacher said, pushing his glasses father up on his nose.  "However, in the future, I would like you to stay awake for my class, Erica-san."
        I opened my mouth to correct him, but I decided to let it go.  At least he didn't call me by my last name, I thought to myself, looking at the digital clock on the learning screen.  Being called Erica was one thing, but being called McNancy was just asking for someone to make fun of you.  The bell sounded and the teacher flipped off the large, low light-emitting screen at the front of the classroom.
        "Don't forget to do assignments 3.12 and 3.13!  Your discussion responses are due by midnight tonight," my teacher reminded us, his voice rising slightly to be heard above the sound of students muttering to each other.  I smiled as I got up from my seat; I had already completed all of chapter three's assignments and had written my discussion response this morning. 
      I felt my ponytail move as if something had flicked it and turned around to see Garrith's smiling face.  "Oh hey," I said, patting the side of his arm.  "I'm a bit slow today."
        "It's probably because you were up so late last night online," my friend said, the combination of his scruffy face with his school uniform making him seem older than he was.  He patted my head and I instinctively raised my hands up to see if any strands of hair had been pulled out of the tight hair band that held my hair in its ponytail.  According to school policy, any hair longer than shoulder length had to be tied back into a ponytail and usually most students obeyed the rules.  However, Yuuki Asuna, the former second in command of the Knights of the Blood Oath, seemed to get special treatment from the school's higher-ups; either that, or she only put her hair in a ponytail when she was in class.
        "Yeah, that's probably it," I replied, fully aware that ALO hadn't been what had kept me up all night long.  PoH's words were still echoing in my head and I doubt I would be able to get any productive sleep soon.  Thinking back to yesterday's events, I suddenly remembered something.  "Did you guys ever figure out what Rafaeru was doing on that Amusphere?”
       "Mhm," Garrith said, picking up my backpack and handing it over to me.  "He said he was playing this MMO, Gun Gale Online, on orders from the VD.  To be honest, though, I think he was just making an excuse to play a VRMMO and find a way to pay his rent."  He shook his head as he relayed the information over to me; I guess his attempted pranking of the Virtual Division's agent hadn't turned out like he had planned on it.
       "I don't understand why he doesn't just use his salary from the VD,"  I muttered, marking this as his third month without paying me to live at my house.  "Anyways, I'll meet up with you and the others at the water fountain after I get the rest of my stuff."
        I waved bye to my friend and turned around to run into something solid.  I feel backwards into my chair and rubbed my throbbing head.  Christ, what the hell?  I thought to myself, looking up to see what had caused the pain.
       "I-I'm Korea!" a student with short, soft black hair that was long in the back said, holding out his hand to let me back up.  I accepted his offer and almost fell off of my feet when he pulled me up quickly with ease.  He's pretty strong, I thought to myself.  And his chest must be made of freaking steel.
        "Um... nice to meet you Korea,"  I said, tucking a strand of hair that had made it out of my hair band behind my ear.  "You must be pretty strong to be able to pull me up so quickly."
         "Dang, I messed up again," the boy said, covering his eyes with his eyes and sighing.  "My name is Nico Chung.  I'm a transfer student, like you, from South Korea.  I'm really not that strong: you're just super light."  His cheeks were a light shade of pink and I wondered why he was acting so strange.
        He must not be very good around people; that could be the reason why he had ever played SAO in the first place, I thought to myself.  "Well, you already know my name from the teacher scolding me,"  I said, clasping my other hand around his and shaking it.  "Would you like to walk with me before I meet up with my friends?"
         "Um.... T-that would be g-great!” Nico said, his cheeks flaring up again.  I noticed him looking at my painted nails and I rolled my eyes and waited for him to ask me why they were black.  "Y-your nails look nice!"
        "Wait, you really think so?"  I asked, stunned.  Usually people had a problem with guys who used eyeliner and painted their nails; after all, the 1990's and 2000's were where "goths" and "punks" belonged, not 2025.  "That's really nice of you to say.  I worked on this while studying for British Literature, so I wasn't really paying too much attention to what I was doing."
        "Hehe, well, they turned out nice," Nico chuckled, walking with me outside of the classroom.  "You know, I don't know that many sonyeo who carry backpacks; they usually have satchels."
         "Well... I carry a lot of my textbooks with me, even though we don't use them in class,"  I said, not really wanting to explain why I was carrying my best friend's coat in my backpack.  I guess sonyeo is the Korean word for students, I thought to myself.  Switching from Japanese to Korean and back is sort of common for people from the divided nation.  "I guess that's kind of weird, huh?"
        "Nah, I think it's cool!"  he said with a wide grin.  "We sho-"
         "Hey, give me a break!"  one of my classmates protested as a girl with long, light chestnut brown hair reminded him to get started on his discussion question.  How does Asuna know about our classes assignments?  I wondered, watching as the girl playfully punched Kazuto in the shoulder.  I guess knowing Kirito - I mean, Kazuto - she would have asked the teacher to update her on his assignments to keep him from forgetting to do it.
         "I wonder why he isn't more popular?" I said, glancing back over to Nico and smiling.  "Kirigaya Kazuto, that is."
         "You mean Kirito?  I don't see why he should be,"  Nico muttered, glancing over to see our classmate dramatically holding his arm.  His tone carried a sense of toxicity towards him and I shook my head to check if I had heard him correctly.  He must just be jealous of him having Asuna "Lightning Flash" as a girlfriend; plenty of the other former SAO players are at least.
        "If it weren't for him, we would still be stuck in that death game,"  I explained, shifting my backpack's straps on my shoulder.  "Plus, Jeshika, one of my friends, was one of the 300 players that he  woke up, so I have him to thank for that."
        Nico reached his arm out and put it around my shoulder; I resisted the instinctive urge to push him away and kept walking alongside of him.  What's he doing? I thought to myself, noticing how our footsteps matched each other.  Maybe he's just really friendly?  "So, what's your opinion of Kazuto kun?"  Nico asked, his face a mask of emotion.
         "Well... I think he's pretty okay for a beater," I said, trying not to explain too much about how exactly I knew Kirito.  The truth was, I used to hate the raven-haired boy who forgot to do his homework.  That was before he unknowingly saved a PVP guild from me.

 +++

February 24, 2024

      I settled into the long grass and watched the bridge intensely.  This is where Mattias said that the orange guild would be planning to ambush a player, I thought to myself.  They must be hiding right now, because I can't see them.

       My target today was a small-time guild called <<Titan's Hand>> and they were the prime suspects in the murder of another guild, <<The Silver Flags>>.  However, the term, "suspect" wasn't exactly what I would call a member of the guild; the leader of <<The Silver Flags>>, the only remaining survivor of the ambush, had convinced me without a doubt that his accusations against this killer guild were true.  His tear-stained face that looked up at me while he begged me to help on his knees was too close the face I had seen staring back at me in the mirror the day Selwyn was killed.
       However, before I could tell the man that I would take care of his problem, someone had called out to the guild's leader that he would help him.  Looking over to see who had claimed the man's case, I saw that it was the <<Beater>> who got the leader of the first boss raid killed.  Assuming that the member of the assault team had just wanted to shut the man up like the rest of the arrogant jerks who were on the frontlines, I had walked away determined to hunt down the orange guild.
          I had been near the frontlines to see if I could find any traces of PKing in the guild, the Knights of the Blood Oath, which I had suspected had supported the killing of lower level players in an incident a few weeks earlier.  However, my suspicions had been proven false, as I couldn't find any fault in the guild, other than being elitist and snooty; when I ran into the leader of <<The Silver Flags>>, I was surprised to find that my travel to the frontlines hadn't been in vain.
        In the end, if it weren't for Mattias, I wouldn't have even been able to find a single member of <<Titan's Hand>>.  Through methods I don't understand, he had been able to pinpoint the next planned attack by the orange guild and had given me the coordinates of the location.  Before Mattias had joined the guild, he had been an info-broker, even though he hadn't participated in the beta-test.  He was notorious for having information about bosses and quests before anyone else did and charging a lot for his intel.
         Despite being a member of our regular MMO group, Mattias had refused to join the guild for almost three months after SAO started.  I guess part of that was because of his newfound freedom he had found right before the death game started and in the game itself.  Because of his high IQ, Mattias' parents had always been extremely strict and insistent that he kept academics on the foremost part of his mind.  The day that Sword Art Online opened for the public, he got into a huge argument with his parents and ran away to hang out at Jinx's house.  In celebration of his independence, he and Jinx decided to play SAO that night; however, when he found out that he was stuck in the world of Aincrad, Mattias said that he was finally free of his parents and left the group.
       It wasn't until I was taking the guild on a dungeon raid and Mattias saw us in action that he decided to join the guild.  Just like in the other MMOs we had played together, he was an incredible ally in battle, able to instantly recognize attack patterns and weaknesses.  He was also the one who first saw Auser in action and suggested that we recruit him to the guild.
        I noticed movement over at the bridge and glanced over to see who was there.  Two players were slowly walking back from the Hill of Memories and one was taller than the other.  Assessing the shorter player, I could see that she was a little girl, about 12 years old from the looks of it.  Walking next to her was a familiar figure dressed in a black coat, the hilt of his sword peeking over his shoulder.
         "What the hell is he doing with a little girl on Floor 47?"  I muttered to myself, sinking lower into the long strands of grass.  So he's a sicko and a beater, I thought to myself as I came to the obvious conclusion.  I'll kill him too, once he shows that he's with the orange guild; after all, why else would he be bringing her through the area that the guild is supposed to ambush?
        "Whoever's out there, come out!"
          I instinctively crouched down lower in the grass and gripped my sword.  How is he able to see me?  I wondered, as beads of sweat accumulated on my brow.  I haven't leveled my hiding skill but I should be out of his range.   
      A high-pitched voice cried, "Rosalia?" and I lifted my head up to see what was going on.  A slender girl with dyed red hair now stood on the other side of the bridge, opposite from Kirito and the young player.  She carried a cross-shaped spear and wore black, tight-fitting leather armor with scarlet belts and buckles.  Tuffs of gray fur poked out of the various separate pieces of armor, as if the inside was coated with it.
        "If you saw through my hiding skill so easily, your detection skill must be really high, swordsman," Rosalia stated, moving forward slightly.  She must be the orange guild's leader, I thought to myself.  I wonder why the beater wanted her to come out from hiding instead of just letting the guild do the ambush from their hiding spot.
       "Oooh, it looks like you were successful in getting your hands on the <<Pneuma Flower>>,"  the guild leader said, talking to the little girl.  Why would she need a <<Pneuma Flower>>... unless... I wondered, trying to piece together what was going on in front of me.  She must be one of those rare beast tamers.  "Congratulations: now hand it over before you get hurt."
        "What are you talking about?" the beast tamer asked, her voice quivering slightly.  I started to pull my sword out of its sheath and crouched, ready to attack when the beater revealed that he was working with Titan's Hand. 
        "No one's handing anything over, Rosalia." Kirito said and I scrunched up my eyebrows in confusion.  "Not to you or the orange guild.  Or should I say, <<Titan's Hand>>?  You're their leader, right?"
        I let go of <<Ice-Stained Blade>> and lowered myself back into my hiding spot; I would have to do a little more waiting anyways if I wanted to be able to kill all of the members of the guild without missing any because they were hiding.  "But Rosalie's cursor is green," I heard the little girl said, her hair ribbons moving in the air as she took a step forward.
         "It's an easy trick,"  Kirito explained, staring at the leader of <<Titan's Hand>>.  "The green members find their victims; then they lure them straight to the orange players for the ambush"  I gritted my teeth as I heard him describe the common PKing technique; I've had to kill my fair share of green players because of the use of that technique.  For some reason, even though I know that they are just as guilty of killing players as orange players, green players were harder to exterminate without hesitation.
       "That was one of your pals last night, eavesdropping on us, wasn't it?"  the beater asked, giving a faint smile.  I started to wonder why he was questioning her if he already knew the answer.
       "Then the reason why you were in that party with me and the others was to..." the young tamer said, trailing off as she  came to the horrifying conclusion.
        "How perceptive," Rosalia said, leaning on her pike.  "I was observing their strength and watching them earn all that beautiful money."  Although I couldn't see her face, I could tell that her expression had frightened the younger player.  All of these assholes are the same, I thought to myself clenching my fists.  All they care about is causing pain.
       "You were who I was excited about and I was so sad when you left the party.  But then I heard you were getting a rare item," the girl continued, twirling a strand of her red hair with her finger.  "What I want to know is if you knew about us, why'd you bring her here?  Are you dumb or does she have you wrapped around her finger?"  The last part was directed towards the beater and he smiled in response to her accusations.
        "Nope, you're wrong both times.  See, I've been looking all over for you, Rosalia."  Kirito said with a smirk.  What the hell is he talking about? I thought, moving slightly closer to the scene in curiosity.  Did he actually take up that guy's case?
       "What are you talking about?" Rosalia said, mirroring my own unspoken questions.
       "Remember ten days ago?  You attacked a guild, <<The Silver Flags>>?"  the player said in a questioning tone.  "The leader survived; four didn't." 
       "Oh, the losers with no money,"  the orange guild leader confirmed, shifting her weight to her other foot.  I started to stand up, shaking in anger at the arrogant girl, before I stopped myself and settled back into the flower spotted hill.
       "Their leader went back and forth, from the warp point to the front lines, morning to night.  With tears in his eyes, he begged everyone he met to avenge his friends.  But he didn't want you killed,"  Kirito said, painting the picture that I remembered so well.  "No: he wanted you to go to prison.  Do you have any idea how he felt?"  The player ended the last sentence with such an angry tone that it mirrored my own rage against the orange guild.
        "Can't say I do,"  replied Rosalia nonchalantly.  "Only idiots take this seriously; so what if we kill someone here?  There's no proof that they're dead IRL.  Anyways, it's time you started worrying about yourself."  With that, she snapped her fingers and the rest of her guild appeared, coming out of their hiding spots behind the trees that lined the path.  In total, I counted eight different players, including Rosalia.  The same as my guild, I thought to myself.  Only difference is that I'm the orange player and they're the green players.
        "Kirito, there's too many of them,"  the young tamer said, tugging on the beater's coat.  "We should get out of here."
        "No, it's okay,"  Kirito reassured her, patting her on the head.  The gesture seemed to be more of a brotherly action than a romantic one and I started to think twice about my assumption.  "You'll be safe if you stay here.  Keep the crystal handy till I say so."
         "Okay, but... Kirito!"  the girl cried as the beater started to move towards the group of PKers.  I relaxed, knowing that they didn't stand a chance against the assault team member.  Soon enough, all of these players would be dead and I could go back to town and search for more murderers.
           "Kirito?  Dressed in black, one-handed, no shield... Holy crap, it's the Black Swordsman!"  The words came from one of the guild members and I smiled despite the situation.  My own nickname, Player's Bane, was enough to strike fear in criminals everywhere.
         "Rosalia, that guy; he's the beater who plays solo on the front lines!  He's with the assault team!" one of the guild members to the right of Titan's Hand's leader said.
         "Why would a member of the assault team be all the way down here?"  Rosalia replied, shifting her weapon in her hand and pointing it at the lone swordsman.  "Go on: take him out and take everything he owns!"
        The guild charged the dark figure and bright red lines appeared on him as blade after blade slashed into him.  However, Kirito just stood still, letting the players attack him fruitlessly; his gaze seemed to be directed only at the leader of the orange guild.  What the hell is he doing?  I thought to myself.  Just kill them already and quit messing around.
        The guild members finally stopped attacking, realizing that there wasn't any use in fighting the higher level player.  "What the hell, you idiots!"  Rosalia cried, her voice strained and frustrated.  "Kill him already!"
        "410 per second, give or take.  That's about the total damage the seven of you can inflict on me,"  Kirito stated, looking around at the orange guild.  "I'm level 78; my HP is 14500 and my battle healing skill auto regenerates 600 points every ten seconds.  We can stand here all day and you wouldn't get anywhere."
        "T-that's not possible,"  a Titan's Hand member said, shaking.  I smirked at the ignorance of the player and waited for the beater to finish him off in a couple hits.
        "You wanna bet?"  Kirito snapped, jerking his head to look at the member who spoke.  "If your numbers are high enough, you're invincible.  MMOs that use leveling systems are unfair that way."
          "My client spent his entire fortune on this warp crystal and he's going to get his money's worth,"  he continued, holding up a light blue prism with a silver bottom.  "It's been set to the coordinates of the prison and I'm sending all of you bastards there."
          Wait, he's not going to kill them?  I thought, crouching in anticipation.  He's probably too chicken to finish these guys off.
        "Well, I'm green and if you hurt me, you'll go orange and-"  Rosalia started, holding her spear with both hands and pointing it at the dark figure.
         "I'm a solo player, got it?"  Kirito said, appearing in front of the guild leader in a gust of wind with his sword against her throat.  "I don't care if I have to play as orange for a couple days."
           Shocked, I almost fell backwards, but I managed to catch myself.  He doesn't care about being orange, but he still didn't kill them?  I thought to myself.  Throughout all of my player hunts, I never thought of the option of sending them to the prison; in my mind, I was the executioner, the final thing they would see in their vision before I sent them to hell.
         That day, Kirito helped shed the rock-hard shell of hatred that I had built around myself without ever even knowing it. I had killed so many people in the year that followed Selwyn's death that I had forgotten how special life was and that revenge wasn't necessarily the right choice.  After that day, I tried to use nonviolent measures to detain player killers whenever I could.  However, it seemed that players were more willing to die than go to prison for the rest of the game and perhaps their time in real life.  I ended up killing more people than imprisoning them, but I never forgot that I had a choice after that day.

+++



       "I said no!" 

       Looking over to see where the voice had come from, I saw Jeshika pushing away a student that had her arm in his hand.  I gritted my teeth and pulled myself away from Nico's arm, prepared to  go to my friend's aid.  I stopped when I saw Devon quietly walking towards the situation and relaxed my jaw.
       "Why?  What, do you have a boyfriend or something?"  the boy said, letting go of his grip on her arm, which she pulled back quickly.
       "Actually, I do,"  Jeshika replied, lifting her chin slightly as she spoke.  Her long, black hair was tied up in a ponytail as usual and her skinny body was shaking slightly with anger.  Jeshika had been one of the players we recruited in SAO and she was also the only beta-tester and unique skill-user that I knew personally.  When the game ended, Katie took care of her house while she was still stuck in the virtual world.  When she woke up, she asked if Katie would be her roommate, to which she agreed.
        "Oh really?  And who would that be?"  the guy said, crossing his arms and smirking.  Looking at how arrogant he seemed, I figured that he had no idea just how much sass that Jeshika was capable of. 
      "That would be me,"  Devon said, coming up behind the native-Japanese school girl as silently as if he were made.  He smiled faintly and placed his hands on her shoulders; Jeshika looked back with a nod and turned to glare at the offending  person.
        "Oh and what are you gonna do, girlie boy?"  the boy said, sneering at the taller student.  I narrowed my eyes, imagining that lasers were coming from my pupils.  "You gonna hurt me for messing with your girlfriend?"
        "No,"  Devon replied and for a second I saw the master dueler, Vin, that he was in SAO.  "I'm gonna laugh while I watch her beat the shit out of you." He gently maneuvered himself around his in-game wife and leaned towards the student menacingly.
        "And then I'm gonna break each and every one of your fingers for touching her," he promised, smiling with such warmth that from afar you would of thought that they had been best pals.  He then leaned back and slowly started to walk backwards from the boy as Jeshika started to crack her knuckles.
         "N-no that's f-fine," the student stammered, quickly moving away from the couple with sable hair.  Jeshika took a step towards the boy and he ran away, almost tripping over himself in his hurry to get away from her.
         I chuckled and I felt a tap on my shoulder.  Turning around, I saw that it was Nico; he had a sort of sly smile on and was looking past me, at the plaza.  "Well, it looks like your friends are here," he said, a faint blush still visible on his cheeks.  "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."
       "Sure, I'll see you to-"  I said, my words becoming muffled when Nico suddenly gave me a hug.  He's strangely friendly for just meeting me,  I thought to myself, before wrapping my arms around his body as well.  He soon broke away and started to walk away, almost abruptly and awkwardly.
        "So who was that?"  Katie said, appearing at my shoulder almost as if out of nowhere.  I turned around and got tackled with a hug from my old guild designer.  Katie has short, caramel-brown hair that tickled my nose right now and she had to stand on her toes to reach my height.  Katie was one of the first people I met from Japan; she had been a part of my MMO group when I was back in America.  Although originally from Virginia, she was brought to Japan when she was really young; she was a really good artist and she was the one that designed Darkness Falls' emblem.
       "A new friend, apparently,"  I answered, pulling myself away from her to look at the rest of my friends.  I reached up to fix my hair but decided that it was too much trouble and pulled my hair out of its ponytail.  I put the hair band on my wrist, wearing it as a bracelet, and shook my hair out.
        "You know what I would of done in your situation, Devon?"  Andorū said, kicking his feet at the air as he sat on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the courtyard.  "I would of kicked -"
         "His butt," Josh said, finishing his roommate's sentence.  "I'm pretty sure we all could of guessed what your temper would have caused you to do."  He sat down next to the kid and patted his back; the difference between the coffee brown of Jinx's long bangs and the sharp black of Andorū's hair contrasted with each other slightly.  Andorū , Auser's name in real life, was the only native of Japan, other than Jeshika, that was a part of our little group.
        "Did you ever figure out what that lady wanted with you?"  Andorū asked, glancing over at him.  I noticed that there was a scrape underneath his chin and figured that he had gotten into another fight.
        "Wait, what lady?"  I asked, walking closer to him and coming to a stop near Garrith.  Katie followed me and Matt came over and sat on the fountain's edge, a little way down from his other two roommates.
         "There was this lady that wanted to buy the house,"  Josh explained, running his hands through his hair.  "Apparently it's historically important or something."
        I nodded, thinking about the weird circumstances that Josh came into possession of the deed to the house.  Originally born in Chicago, Josh ended up in an orphanage in Japan when he was only 12 months old.  Other than where he was from, the officials didn't have any information about his background.  He was eventually adopted by a negligent couple, who forbade him from going outside much.  When he was 16, he received the deed to his house in the mail and he took it as a sign to move out of his adopted parent's home.  Mysteriously, all of the mortgage on the building had been paid off a long time ago and it came with an overseas account full of cash.  To this day, Josh still hasn't told me exactly how much money was in that overseas account.
         "Hey, I read in MMO daily this morning that the event quest for ALO was cleared,"  Matt remarked, showing his smart phone to everyone.  "You wouldn't have had anything to do with that, would you?"  He directed the last bit towards me and smiled, his short, black hair moving slightly and his glasses shifting up along his nose.  Matt was born in California to Japan-native parents and was brought to back to their homeland for better education.  After he woke up in the hospital after the death game ended, he checked the visitor list to see if his parents ever came by.  When he saw that they hadn't, he cut off all communication with them and went to live with Josh.
        "Yeah," I said, nodding; even in the real world, Matt seemed to always be the first one to find out about anything.  "Josh and I killed the event boss last night."
        "Heilige Scheiße!" Garrith exclaimed, looking at the article on Matt's smart phone.  I smiled despite not knowing what he had said; Garrith was originally from Germany but he rarely spoke in his native tongue.  "It says that the recommended number of players for a group for that quest was eight!"
        "Really?"  I said, glancing over at the small screen.  Sure enough, the recommended number in a group for the quest was eight.  "Anyways, I wanted to let all of you guys know that I'm officially coming back into VRMMOs."
        "And," I added, shifting my backpack and smiling.  "I want to meet up with all of you in ALO when you guys get home.  Let's get this guild started again."