Path of Blades

Basically just a self insertion fanfic, because every Sword Art Online fan wants is to be trapped in Sword Art Online *obvious sarcasm is obvious*. Obviously I don't own Sword Art Online or anything else I make reference to in this series.​

Link to Fanfic.net​

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10843446/1/Path-of-Blades​

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Okay, so This is my second attempt at writing this SAO self insert fanfic. The first attempt was an abysmal failure... in my eyes at least (people still seem to like it). Basically, to give away something about it, this was originally written for two reasons. First, to write a sef insert of one of my favourite animes where it makes sense, since there would be plenty of unnamed characters. Second, see username.​

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Chapter 1: The First Day​

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Spoiler

On November 6, 2022, the public release of the VRMMORPG Sword Art Online, or SAO, became the talk of gamers all over the world. People had been lining up to get the first releases of the game, to jump into the experiences that all the beta testers had said were so great.
While the world was in hype, there was a dark presence within the game's production. Kayaba Akihito, the main creator of the game, had secretly designed the game to suit his ideas. He had turned SAO into a roguelike game, but with the stakes extremely high. What the fans didn't know was, once they logged in, they couldn't log out, and they couldn't afford to die.
"All right, the store is ope..." The manager of the local game store opened the doors to a stampede of fans, all lining up to get a copy of the new VRMMORPG, SAO, and the NerveGear console to play it. The poor man hadn't expected to be knocked down by the rush of all the gamers, but he was knocked to the ground before he could even finish his sentence.
"You know, this reminds me of something that would happen in an anime." One of the few eager gamers who didn't rush in looked at the store manager. "And I thought the hype over the Call of Duty games was crazy. At least they are hyped up over a decent game."
"Seriously, you got to get over your hate for the FPS genre. I get that you don't like it for personal reasons, but some of those games are actually good. And I remember you saying that you actually enjoyed HALO."
"Dude, I wish you'd stop bringing that up every time I bag Call of Duty." Both of the friends grabbed a copy of the game they had been waiting for off the ground. In the mad rush, most of the excited gamers had thrown the cases everywhere to get their copy. "I swear these guys are probably going to die a few times on the first floor, they are way too excited."
"We'll see if you can survive your first few steps outside the first town. We both know how much you fail at these sorts of games." The quick retort was followed by an incoming punch from his friend, which he caught just as it was about to hit his arm.
"Damn you, why do you have to be so quick. Oh well, see you in the game later." Wishing that he could get some payback on his friend, he sulked out of the store, looked once more at the store manager, who had gotten himself up, and headed home.
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Once the game was booted up, the character of "Rukia_Shimazu" was created. Rukia was a tall teenager with short brown hair. He had chosen a theif-esque looking class, with the starting weapon of a knife.
While Rukia and his friends were waiting in line for the game store to open, they had all said they would wait for each other at whatever the beginner's spawn area was. They had also said to each other what their character names would be.
One of Rukia's friends, whose username was going to be "Jinx_the_Brave", logged in at the same time as Rukia, although they didn't realise it. Rukia started swiping his hand to open the main menu, but the menu wasn't opening. As he was starting to get frustrated, a player with blue hair tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey, you'll need to use your other hand for that." Jinx snickered at the advice the player was giving Rukia. "And swipe like this." The man demonstrated the action to open the menu.
"Oh, so kind of like a cat then" Rukia smiled and cocked his head. Jinx looked over to the cat comment, thinking that it was possibly his friend.
The blue haired man rubbed his head confused. "Well, okay, you could look at it that way. The name's Diabel, glad I could help."
"Thanks mate." Diabel walked away after Rukia didn't say his name. He went to open the menu, saying "Nyan" as he swiped his hand down. As soon as he said that, Jinx turned around and tapped Rukia on the shoulder.
"Too much cat references. You have got to stop with the nyan thing." Jinx smiled at Rukia, holding his sword over his shoulder for no reason other than to look cool.
"Jinx, you know two of my favourite animes have characters that like being Nekos occasionally. And I see you didn't skimp out on the samurai style." Jinx had designed his character both to show that he liked the series Total War, as well as to mock Rukia's lack of skill at strategy games.
"Let's hope you do better at this MMO then you do at Shogun 2. You know you suck at a game when you can't beat the tutorial." Ever since Rukia tried playing that, Jinx had mocked him about it.
"Anyway, you want to start up that guild now, or wait for everyone to catch up? I'm not sure we'll be able to find them as easily as we found each other." Rukia opened the menu to find the guild menu.
"May as well do it now, not everyone recognizes you little verbal tic" As if on cue, Rukia swiped his hand as if he was a cat and said nyan. "Everyone else just finds it weird. We'll find them soon."
"All right, you want to go do some quick grinding, since the developers clearly didn't bother to create a tutorial level." Rukia found the screen to create a guild and created the <<Crows of Saika>> guild. He sent a guild request to Jinx.
"Yea, I guess we should. And sure I'll join, although I wish you would stop with the Crows of Saika name." Jinx accepted the guild request. "So, what you going to make the emblem, a rifle or a black and red crow?"
"I'll think about it tonight Jinx. Let's get goi..." Before Rukia could finish, a blue light consumed both him and Jinx, teleporting them to a colosseum in the middle of the Town of Beginnings.
"Uh, Jinx, what the hell just happened? Why did we get teleported to this place?" Suddenly a red hexagon appeared in the sky saying "System Announcement" on it. When it finished flashing, more of the red hexagons appeared to cover the sky with "System Announcement" or "WARNING" on them.
Before Jinx and Rukia could start trying to ask questions, a substance that looked like blood flowed from the edges of the hexagons. The liquid combined to for a red robed figure. It raised its arms and started talking.
"I'm sure you have already noticed the log out button missing from the main menu," said the voice of the robe, "But this is not a defect in the game." The players in the colosseum were confused, they started talking to each other, worried. Surely the GM was joking.
"You will not be able to log out of SAO yourselves. And no one on the outside can shut down or remove the NerveGear for you. Should this be attempted, the transmitter inside the NerveGear will emit a powerful microwave destroying your brain and thus ending your life." Images of news articles about this were brought up by the floating robe. The GM wasn't lying. There really was no way to log out of this game, and they could die from prematurely evacuating.
"Now are we done with the public service announcement, I want find a way to escape" Rukia was becoming irritated. He had school, he had friends who weren't quite into MMOs that much which he wasn't going to be able to see. "Jinx, we need to stick together."
Just then, the GM began to speak. Maybe he was going to say a way out of the game, Rukia hoped.
"There is no longer any method to revive someone within the game. If your Hp drops to zero, your avatar will be forever lost." Rukia knew there was something more to this. It wasn't going to be that you'd just create a new avatar like a normal rogue-like. "And simultaneously, the NerveGear will destroy your brain."
There was the kicker that he had waited for. Rukia looked up at the GM's robed figure and cocked his head. How could anyone be so sadistic, so cruel? Games were meant to be a fun way to live a life that you could never live IRL. This game was designed to simulate another life so much though that you'd die IRL as well. What twisted mind could think of that?
"There is only one way to escape this game." Rukia and Jinx already guessed what had to be done. Clearing all 100 floors was the only way to escape. Why else would an MMO have such a progression and be a trap like this.
"So basically, it's an actual RPG with an endpoint unlike other MMOs. Rukia, you sure we can handle this?" Jinx knew that Rukia wasn't an amazing gamer, especially when it came to MMOs or RTS games.
Before Rukia could respond, the robed figure had one last thing to say. "I have left an item in your inventories." Everyone opened their inventories at the robed figure's final remark before it disappeared. There was a strange item called the <<Reflecting Mirror>>. Rukia was suspicious, the GM who had just announced they were trapped in this game was giving them an item. Would this be an item that would help keep them alive, screw them over, or just amuse the twisted man who created this death game? Before he could decide whether to toss the item or not, people around him, including Jinx, were taking the item out of their inventories. They were surrounded in a blue light and suddenly their avatars had changed.
"What the hell is going on, what did that item do?" Rukia looked around until he saw his friend Jinx... but he looked different. He was like what he looked like in real life. It wasn't much of a change, mainly that he was taller than what his avatar originally looked like. There were also other subtle differences between his avatar and his current appearance, but it still shocked Rukia all the same. "Jinx, you look like you do IRL, this is weird."
Jinx looked around and saw people covered in the blue light and their appearance changed. Then he looked at Rukia and saw he hadn't used the mirror yet. "Okay, I know you like to make your avatar mostly like yourself, but just use the damn item. It would be wrong if you didn't after everyone else has." Jinx's friend clearly agreed with that logic and used the item. As Jinx had said, there wasn't much of a difference. It was mostly height and hairstyle differences.
"I don't see the point of this, why would they change everyone's avatars, especially when some people would have put so much time into their avatar creation." The creator's intentions didn't really come across properly through the speech. Rukia was confused by everything that had happened.
Rukia drew his weapon. "This dagger, it is my only defence against all the dangers in this world." Rukia closed his fist around the dagger and shot his hand into the air. "Jinx, we will survive in this game. It won't defeat us."
Jinx cocked his head. "What the hell showmanship are you doing you idiot." Jinx slapped his friend in the back of the head. Thankfully PVP was not possible within towns otherwise he might have actually caused some damage to his friend.
"Come on Jinx, just take out your katana and do it with me." This earned him another slap to the back of the head. "Yea, I should have seen that one coming." He rubbed the back of his head, even though it didn't actually hurt. "Let's go, we should probably do a bit of grinding for levels and stuff Jinx."
"Yea, you really do have a death wish, don't you Black Sta--- Rukia."
"And here I was thinking you'd never watched Soul Eater Jinx. At least I know that you've seen that." Then Rukia realised something. "Hold on, I'm not going to be able to watch any anime for a long time." He crashed down onto his knees and screamed 'WHY!'
Jinx slapped him again. "Keep up the theatrics and I can raise my martial arts skills to max before they even clear the first floor. Honestly, it's getting annoying."
Rukia just smiled. "Let's get going. At least two levels then we can come back."
"I never realised how much of an idiot you are." Jinx sighed and followed behind Rukia. He had the horrible feeling that his friend was going to get himself killed. "Hold up... if you're Black Star, who does that make me? Rukia!!!"

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(Naomi Shika is showing up in my fanfics now...)​

Chapter 2: Crossing Paths​

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Spoiler

With almost 10000 people trapped in a death game, they know that their only way out is to clear all 100 floors. There were almost certainly people who were going to die, especially before the completion of the first few floors. Our hero is not a member of this story. Instead, it follows a group of amateur MMORPG players who are trying to survive rather than be strong.
"Jinx, come on, were almost at the level 1 training area. Hurry up." A dagger wielder with scruffy dark brown hair was eagerly running out into the field. He was slashing his dagger against the air as a practice, loving the fact that he could actually feel himself doing the attacks.
"Rukia, you honestly look like you are running out there to get yourself killed or something. You remember that this game will kill you when you die. No Leroy Jenkins like you would normally do." A katana wielder with short blonde hair, yet a fraction taller than his friend was walking calmly, a little ways behind the dagger wielder.
Unsure how new areas worked in this game, they were both awaiting some message saying that they had changed zones or something on their HUDs, but no such message was displayed. They had to rely on the hope that they didn't wander into the territories of hostile mobs while trying to find the place.
Finally they found some mobs and people grinding. There was a group of five people all taking on two boar like enemies together, the female in the group seeming hesitant about fighting. Not wanting to steal and Exp or drops from the group, the two moved on. They came across another of the boar mobs. It was alone and had the tag <<Frenzy Boar>> over the top of it. It was definitely the mob they were looking for.
"Jinx, found one!" Rukia shouted to his friend, who was still catching up to his friend. Thankfully the mob wasn't hostile, because Rukia had completely dropped his guard.
Jinx drew his katana from its sheath at his waist. "You know that if this mob was hostile you'd already be dead, right?"
"But it's not. This is the level one area, they wouldn't have hostile mobs in this area, just neutral." Rukia unsheathed his dagger and prepared himself to strike. He had heard about Sword Skills from the beta tester's reviews. He just had to make the right motion...
He tossed the dagger into the air and caught it, gripping the dagger so that the blade was parallel to his arm. Rukia got in a crouching position and put his dagger arm behind his and his other in front. There was a sound like something charging up and he felt... something, like a build-up of energy. He grinned and released the energy, his body charging forward with such speed it was like he had flashstepped. He struck the boar, which was still a neutral mob, and its health depleted fast.
The boar turned to Rukia. He didn't have enough time to charge up another skill and this game relied on the use of sword skills. With a dagger he wasn't able to block properly and normal attacking didn't do that much in this game. The boar charged, and Jinx was too far away to help him. Just as he through that the boar was going to hit him, he heard another charging sound.
A rock seemingly came out of nowhere, until Rukia heard some voices shouting out. He turned to see the same group that they had passed before was running towards that. "There you go, and, now its attention is on us." They got ready for battle, the girl from before standing right at the back, looking extremely nervous about the fight.
Before the boar was even halfway between the other group and Rukia, Jinx came running at the boar, his katana glowing in an orange light. He jumped in the air and struck across the boar's side, creating a large red gash before the boar explodes into blue triangles.
"These Sword Skills are pretty damn amazing. I mean you jumped higher than you ever would have been able to IRL Jinx. And that mid-air twirl, so graceful." Rukia smirked during his last comment.
Jinx dropped his head in disappointment at his friend. "Seriously, what did I tell you, no going Leroy Jenkins. Just because I called you Black Star an hour ago doesn't mean you have to act like him." Jinx looked up. "I will say though, that flashstep was amazing in its own right. If only your damage stat was higher, then you wouldn't have had to worry about a retaliation."
The group of five had reached Rukia and Jinx. Rukia stepped forward and held out his hand. "Thanks guys, you really saved my ass out there. Those things may be weak but the shock of realising you're going to be attacked really gets to you."
The leader of their group took Rukia's hand and shook it. "No problem, Sachi here saw you pass by us a while ago and I think she recognized you or something. Anyway, we're actually a small guild of friends called the Black Cats of the Full Moon. My name is Keita, the blonde one is Ducker, Sasamaru is the one with the spear, The mace wielder is Tetsuo, he's the one who threw the rock, and Sachi is the girl who seems to be hiding behind everyone else at the moment."
"Black Cats of the Full Moon. Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue does it?" Rukia received a slap in the back of the head, his life bar drained ever so slightly as a result. "You know that actually does damage since we aren't in a town... Anyway, I'm Rukia and this here is Jinx."
"Please forgive Rukia, he normally isn't this much of an ass when it comes to... well, anything really. Anyway, pleased to meet you guys. We have our own guild, the Crows of Saika. The fool picked out the name." Jinx looked over to Rukia, who was opening the menu with the cat action that he had used before, accompanied by the nyan. "Seriously Rukia, how many stupid things have you done in front of these guys in the past minute?" Rukia's action did provoke a laugh from some of the Black Cats though.
Rukia turned around and stick his tongue out playfully and went back to checking what he had gotten from the battle. It seemed that the boar had dropped a health potion and some in game currency called Col. It wasn't much, but at least it was something. "Yo Jinx, what did you get?"
Jinx swiped the menu open, finding a boar tusk in his inventory. "I think it's a crafting material, you?"
"Health pots. Anyway, you know Monkey is going to probably be a blacksmith, it could be useful. I might try my hand at whatever crafting systems they have in the game as well, although I doubt it will be as good as Dragon Quest."
Jinxed sighed. His friend was making an idiot of himself, and in front of a girl too. This must have been what it is like to have no dignity. "Again with the Dragon Quest. Get over it, that was a great crafting system but no one else decided to copy it. Or give any more of those games a local release either."
Keita looked at the two friends bantering between themselves. He didn't really want to break up the moment, but he wanted to get a word in. "Hey guys, I'll keep in touch with you two, you seem like fun." Keita tried to send a friend request to Rukia and Jinx, but it wasn't registering their names. "Let me guess, you two have long character names with underscores and stuff."
Jinx rubbed his head. "Yea. How about we just send you the friend requests. I'm assuming you are just Keita for your username?" Keita nodded in response, accepting Jinx's friend request then Rukia's.
Rukia put two fingers up to his forehead and flicked them away as if saluting. "Well, I guess we'll see you around Black Cats."
Keita chuckled, Rukia was still trying to be a comedian. "Same to you Crows." They both went their separate ways. As soon as they were out of earshot of their new friends, Jinx turned to Rukia.
"What the hell is this anyway?" He imitated Rukia's gesture mockingly. "You've done it for so long, it's so stupid and I don't get what it is."
Rukia let out a slight laugh. "It's just my goodbye gesture. I don't even remember where I picked it up from, I just do it."
Jinx couldn't really argue with that. Rukia tended to pick up random thing from places and just adopt them as an action. "Anyway, I'm glad you didn't do that Monkey Magic thing when we mentioned him." As if on cue, Rukia put his right hand in the same gesture as before, but instead moved them back and forth and inch from his mouth while blowing a steady stream of air at them.
"Yea, that Monkey Magic thing." Jinx was tempted to slap Rukia again, but if he got into a habit of it he might actually do a lot of damage to Rukia in the long run. He was lucky that it wasn't registered in the game as an attempted PK and he was still a Green player. "Even the game must think you're an idiot."

"Guilty as charged. Anyway, let's go find Monkey." Rukia made it look like he was about to do the action again, but he didn't. "Oh come on, lighten up Jinx. I wasn't going to do it anyway. Let's say when we get back to town where there is no damage and no chance of becoming Orange you can slap me as hard as you want, even if I won't feel a thing."

The next day, Jinx and Rukia had gone out grinding again. Jinx messaged Keita to see if he wanted to maybe come with them today and farm mob as a group of seven, they might have been able to go to the higher level areas. After fighting off some boars and a few higher level wolf enemies, they came across two figures who looked surprisingly worn out.
One of them was a fairly stocky teenager with short black hair and some slight stubble and a quarterstaff as a weapon. The other was a female with black hair in pigtails and a greatsword across her back. As they came closer into view of Jinx and Rukia, they both recognized the quarterstaff wielder.
"Monkey, is that you," both of them said simultaneously. Monkey looked up at the sound of his username being called out. It took him a few seconds to recognize his friends, but as soon he did he started running towards them.
"Hey guys, I was wondering where you were. I was really worried about you two and Neo." Monkey looked around for his other friend. "Oh, have you guys not found him?"
"No not yet. So, how have you been?" Rukia was still curious about the girl that Monkey was travelling with, but he thought it best not to bring it up just yet.
"Well, I've been doing some grinding, but other than that I haven't really got up to too much." Monkey was spinning his quarterstaff around casually while talking to his friends.
Jinx laughed as he noticed what Monkey was doing. "You really are taking the Sun Wukong thing on. Quarterstaff and the username Monkey. Honestly, I didn't even know that Quarterstaves existed in this game."
Monkey looked at his weapon curiously. "I was thinking that as well, but there was some mysterious merchant who said he would give me a special weapon class that wasn't available unless we first got it from him. I've seen one or two other people with them as well, and most people have the same reaction." He looked in his skill menu for the skill level to show his friends.
Rukia opened his own menu, repeating his nyan action. He looked for any location of the skill in his list, but there was none. "It must be a unique skill or something." He decided now was a good time to ask his friend. "Anyway, who is the girl you've been travelling with?" Rukia gestured to the person Monkey came with.
Jinx and Rukia's friend was about to talk when the black haired girl introduced herself. "Hi there, I'm Dragonhunter_Naomi, or just Naomi." She unsheathed her greatsword and swung it around. "I've been travelling with your friend here since that big announcement in the colosseum." Naomi smiled and put her hand on Monkey's shoulder.
Monkey looked uneasy from Naomi. "Yea, we've been grinding a fair amount, and you wouldn't believe the range on this quarterstaff." Monkey started spinning his weapon again and he seemed to calm down.
Jinx decided to chime in. "So, Monkey, you're most likely going to join the guild, but what about you Naomi? Since you've become a decent travelling companion with our friend here, do you want to join our guild?"
Naomi looked at the blonde samurai sceptically. She was normally a solo player, in most MMOs she didn't join guilds and rarely joined parties. However, she had been travelling with a companion for a day so far, maybe joining this guild wouldn't be so bad.
"You know what, I accept your offer." Naomi waited for the guild request to appear before her. When the screen appeared, she hit the green circle to accept the invitation.
Monkey whispered into Naomi's ear. "Hey Naomi, you know how I was telling you that my friends are a little insane... Are you sure about this?"
Naomi just smiled at her friend. "I can adapt." She then turned to Jinx. "And mister samurai, you know blonde samurais don't exist, right?"
Rukia and Monkey chucked at Naomi, and Jinx made a defensive face while holding back a smile. As Rukia stopped laughing, he looked at his guild. "I think Naomi is going to fit in here. To the future of the Crows of Saika." Rukia raised his weapon into the air, with Jinx, Monkey and Naomi soon following suit.
"Now we have one more issue to address. Monkey and Jinx, you can't both be Tsubaki, so we need to decide on which of you is Tsubaki and which character the other one is."
Jinx glared at Rukia. "You have to be kidding me. I thought that we dropped that Black Star thing yesterday. And since when was Monkey Tsubaki...?" Naomi and Monkey couldn't help but laugh at the banter between Rukia and Jinx.
"I think I'll like it in this guild after all." Naomi said after he finished laughing.

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Chapter 3: Breaking Out​

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Spoiler

After a whole month within the death game that was Sword Art Online, no one had found the gate to the first boss door. Within Aincrad the only escape was the clearing of all 100 floors or death, and players were fighting to ensure that the latter possibility wasn't going to happen to them. However, no matter how skilled, people were still going to lose.
Two thousand players have already lost their lives to this horrible creation of Kayaba Akihiko, and there would be more to come. However, soon there would be hope for the people trapped within Aincrad, all starting with the beta tester named Diabel.

"So, did you guys hear about the meeting that is being held soon?" Monkey was leaning on his quarterstaff, he had found a new quarterstaff as an enemy drop, and while it was still wooden it had engravings in it. It was slightly stronger, and it looked cool to him, so he kept it.
Rukia sighed. "Yea, I'm not too interested in participating in the boss fights. One chance to with, I'll probably lose." The group didn't like saying anything about death, so they often substituted other words in.
Jinx got up from the bench he was sitting on. "I'd actually like to check out this boss fight. Even if I don't participate, or can't, in a future fight, I want to check out this." Jinx stood there, waiting for his friends to respond. Finally, Naomi spoke up.
"I'll go with Jinx. I agree that it'd be interesting to check out the fight, see how it goes. And I'm sure that Jinx and I can protect each other." She took the greatsword's sheath off he back and laid her head on it. "Darkheart here will make sure we both survive"
"Naomi, what will you do when you get a stronger greatsword with a different colour?" Rukia watched her hug her sword. He had gotten used to it overtime, but it still unnerved him every time he saw her do it. Her sword was made of some black metal, so she had named her sword Darkheart.
The girl looked at her sword. "Eh, I'll find another sword. I actually want a sword that looks like the Darknut's one in Legend of Zelda... Uhh, the one with the wolf..." Naomi was fond of a large amount of games, but she often blanked on the names.
Monkey's scratched the side of his head. "You mean Twilight Princess? I think I've played that one before. Rukia loves that one." Naomi nodded at Monkey, who smiled in response. "Anyway, I'm not too fond of the idea of going up against bosses either. I think that Naomi and Jinx can go together to the meeting and see if the rumours are true." The two sword wielders looked at Monkey then at each other.
"Seems like a good idea. I guess we'll all meet up after either the meeting or the fight." On side Jinx whispered in an afterthought. "If we survive the fight that is." The rest of the guild heard his final comment and a look of despair spread to the rest of the group. Finally, Rukia broke the silence.
"Well, I guess we'll see you two later." He was hopeful that they'd meet up after the meeting that was being held. "And we can't be certain that it is about the boss fight, that's just a rumour." He was almost certain he was wrong, but he didn't want to lose either his friends to something that he couldn't change.

If the worst outcome would come to pass, Rukia and Monkey might not see their friends again.


While Jinx and Naomi didn't return after the meeting, they did manage to survive the boss fight. However, they were so shaken from the events that had occurred during the boss fight that they didn't return to the inn the Crows of Saika were staying at until night time.
When they entered the inn, they were greeted with cheers from Rukia and Monkey. "God damn it you two, you had been gone so long that we thought you might have been dead." Rukia ran up to Jinx and Naomi, resisting the urge to hug them. "Boy do we have a story for you, some weird shit went down while you guys were gone. There was this quest and ---"
"Slow down Rukia, if you're going to be like this every time we split up... I don't know..." Jinx smiled at his friend. "And it's not like you to swear, did you miss us that much?"
Rukia nodded while Monkey got up and walked over, much calmer than Rukia was. "Anyway, why don't you tell us what happened during that fight and Rukia can share his story." The other three agreed and they all walked up to the room that they were renting, Rukia almost skipping along.
"I'm interested to hear what happened to you two while we were gone, but I guess the more important story will come first." Naomi was just barely faking a smile, but Rukia and Monkey didn't notice.

Each of the Crows of Saika sat down in their room, with Rukia and Monkey on one side and Naomi and Jinx on the other. "Well, I think we can skip what happened at the meeting, although I think that you might want to know Diabel was leading the group. He is the one who called the meeting." Rukia's eyes widened with interest. "Anyway, I'll get to the story."


As the raid group neared the door to the boss room, there was a great deal of nervous tension in the air. The members of the party didn't seem to know how a boss in this game worked, were there ways to escape the room if things got ugly for them or would they all be slaughtered. However, no one was having second thoughts about fighting in the first boss fight of the game.
Jinx and Naomi were both assigned to one of the groups designated to holding off the boss' lackeys. This would give time for the main attack party to focus solely on the boss instead of worrying if the minions would attack them as well. As far as they could tell, the other party who was doing the same job was a group of two as well, a teenager with a blue top, a chestplate, jeans and a sword strung across his back and a cloaked figure whose features were almost impossible to distinguish.
As Diabel announced that they were entering the room, the massive doors were pushed open with such ease that they seemed to be made of paper. For thick stone doors, it didn't take much. As the raid party entered, the room suddenly filled with a multi-coloured light and a massive seemingly ape-like red creature dropped out of nowhere, with three smaller, armoured and more humanoid creatures surrounding it. Around the larger monster there were multiple health bars and a name reading <<Illfang the Kobold Lord>>.
"Okay, so our job is to keep those little guys busy, right Jinx?" Naomi spoke quietly to her guildmate. "We are definitely not to go after the boss."
"Exactly." Just as Jinx finished talking, Illfang and the three lackeys were charging at the group. The swordsman ran to intercept one of the armoured minions, Jinx pulled out his sword to distract the leftmost. As far as they could tell, there seemed to be another group distracting the third one, so the main groups were free to go all out against Illfang.
Jinx started up a sword skill, waiting for the armoured Kobold to come within range of his strike. As soon as it did Jinx dashed forward and slashed it across the back. He then kicked the creature towards Naomi, which they often did during grinding sessions. Naomi charged up her Greatsword and thrust it at the creature, stabbing it through the centre of the chest. The life bar was still only in yellow.
"Damn it these things have a lot of health. They're a lot stronger than the stuff outside." The Kobold was still recovering from Naomi's stab. Naomi jumped back as the Kobold started to charge at her.
Jinx ran at the creature, charging up another sword skill. When he was close to the creature, he jumped up into the air, spinning in a way that wouldn't have been possible without the game's assistance and slicing the head of the creature, and landing. "These are the boss' minions Naomi, of course they wouldn't be so easy."
Naomi was already charging for the Kobold when Jinx landed. "And follow up the Helm Splitter with a Back Slice!" She ran behind the Kobold and drew her Greatsword across its back faster than what should have been possible. The creature was launched, its health bar dropping quickly. It had almost been defeated, but not quite.
"Aww, come on, I thought that would finish the guy. Jinx, would you care to do the honours?" Naomi sighed in disappointment that their comboes hadn't completely finished their foe.
Jinx rushed the enemy, katana glowing with light as he ran. "I already said that these guys wouldn't be easy Naomi." He slashed at the Kobold, draining the remainder of its HP, but not before the creature got a quick blow at the Samurai. The creature slumped onto its legs before exploding into blue triangles.
"So, what was it, these guys spawn every time one is defeated or to they spawn every time the boss losses a bar of HP? I can't remember what Diabel said." Jinx looked around for another enemy to fight, but there was none other than one remaining Kobold warrior and Illfang. The blue shirted swordsman and the hooded fighter had finished off their Kobold as well.
"I'm assuming that it is every time its health drops another bar. And what was that thing about it switching weapons? Something about a Talwar?" Naomi looked at the boss' remaining HP. It was close to being drained a quarter. "And do you think that the minions will get tougher with the boss?"
"Wouldn't be a challenge if it didn't." Jinx drew his katana into a position ready to face the next opponent, while Naomi was stroking her blade. "You know, some day someone is going to mistake you for a sadist if you keep doing that."
Naomi looked up at Jinx as if she had forgotten what was happening. "Yea, I know, I just love this sword, its so damn cool." She noticed Jinx was ready for the next enemy, she positioned herself within the range of Jinx's launch.
"They are probably going to be smarter as well, with better AIs and quicker adaptability as time goes on. I'm not totally sure, but it makes sense. They were too easy for a boss room." Illfang's health reached the end of the first life bar. It jumped back from the group and roared, summoning three more Kobolds
Jinx and Naomi continued to fight the Kobolds, comboing them of each other. Like Jinx expected, the Kobolds got progressively more difficult, and generally the main boss' life was drained another bar soon after all the Kobolds were defeated. Either the boss' defense grew with each life bar drained or the life bars were not the same amount of health.
By the time Illfang was down to one health bar, it threw its axe and shield away, reaching for a weapon behind him. As soon as it did, Diabel ran for the monster, charging up a skill that caused his sword to glow in a cross-shaped light. As Diabel neared the monster, Jinx noticed something that the Swordsman in the nearby group yelled out to Diabel. The weapon that the monster was holding was not a Talwar, it was a completely different weapon, and while Jinx couldn't recognize it, the other swordsman called it a Nodachi.
"Damn it, what does he expect to do against that. The boss still has a full life bar left, it won't go down it one hit. Even if it had a Talwar and Diabel could predict its movements, he wouldn't be able to take it down in one hit." As Jinx finished talking to himself, Illfang took a swing at Diabel, knocking him up. It followed up with three more attacks, knocking the man into one of the pillars in the corner of the room. As soon as he fell, the swordsman in the blue shirt ran to him, attempting to give him a health potion, but Diabel refused it.
It was a motion that the others would likely mistake as hesitation to give Diabel the potion. The man who had been leading the charge against Illfang laid back in the arms of the swordman, his body suddenly glitching before exploding into the same blue triangles that the monsters did when they were slain. While most people wouldn't have, Jinx could see the shock on his face when their leader had died.
After the shock cleared off his face, the swordsman turned to his partner and they charged at Illfang together. The swordsman parried Illfang's Nodachi while the hooded one charged a sword skill with their rapier. As she was about to hit the monster, it swung again, tearing through the cloak. The figure was a girl with bright orange hair and red and white clothing.
After losing the cloak, the girl struck with her rapier, launching Illfang across the room with a force that you would not expect of a rapier. "If Rukia could see this, he probably wouldn't be dissing rapiers as much as he does."
While everyone else was still getting over the shock of Diabel's sudden demise, the swordsman and the rapier wielder worked together flawlessly to deal damage to Illfang. The swordman was parrying the blows while the rapier wielder focused on dealing damage. The swordsman had yelled out the rapier wielder's name before, but Jinx couldn't remember.
Eventually, Illfang managed to get a hit on the swordsman, launching him into the girl. Around this time some of the other groups ran at Illfang and started to attack him. However, the monster knocked down the group. It jumped in the air, but before it could kill anyone else, the swordsman recovered and intercepted the blow, knocking Illfang out of the air.
The swordman called out to his partner, Asuna, to finish off Illfang. They both charged at the creature, side by side, the swordsman parrying Illfang's strike, Asuna hitting the monster with one of her rapier skills, and the swordsman slashing upwards, tearing through the monster, leaving red where the flesh would have been severed and launching the creature into the air. At the tip of its arc, Illfang started to swell and exploded into blue triangles.
A huge message appeared in the air in block white letters. "CONGRATULATIONS" it said. Everyone was cheering at the defeat of Illfang and the clearing of the first floor. The celebration continued until a short man who had made himself known at the meeting as Kibaou decided that he wanted to be a prick again.
"Why did you let Diabel die?" Kibaou broke through everyone's cheering and brought everyone's attention to the temporary hero swordsman. Jinx stepped forward to try and defend the swordsman, but Naomi grabbed his shoulder.
"Jinx, just let it go, I'm sure he can explain it himself or something." As if on cue, the swordsman started talking in response to Kibaou's claims that it was his fault Diabel was dead.
He started laughing like a maniac, drawing more attention to himself than he needed. "A beta tester? I wish you wouldn't compare me to those newbies." His words sent a shock through the crowd of people. "Most of the thousand beta testers were beginners who didn't even know how to level up. You guys are better than they are." He could have left off there and possibly quelled the anger of the raid group. However, he decided to continue and bring at the hate towards himself.
"But I'm not like them. I made it higher than anyone else during the beta test. The reason I knew the boss' skills is because I fought monsters with katana skills on floors far above us. I know a lot more. Way more than any information broker." As soon as the swordsman finished speaking, Kibaou had to screw his words.
"That's even worse than a beta tester. You're cheating, you're a cheater." Naomi tried to step forward to argue that Kibaou's statement made no logical sense, but Jinx stopped her.
"Naomi, he is taking the fall for all the beta testers out there. He is sacrificing himself to protect them." People were screaming at him that he was a cheater and still going on about the fact that he was a beta tester. Eventually someone had the bright idea of calling the swordsman a beater.
He decided to take that name. "From now on, don't confuse me with the other testers" He put on a black cloak that had most likely been the last attack bonus from the boss.
Asuna ran up to the now black cloaked swordsman and asked him how he know her name. Using your real name for online games is never a good idea, but some people still do it.
It response, the swordsman replies with a snarky comment. "Sorry for just using your first name. Or did I mess up the pronunciation?" Asuna clearly didn't know about the party system, and the black cloaked swordsman decided to be helpful. "You can see another HP gauge below yours, around here, right?" He pointed in the general direction that the party members HP bar and names were. "Isn't something written next to it?"
After a little pause, Asuna said a name. "Kirito?" So that was the name of the swordsman. It was a cool sounding name and the black cloak he put on suited the name. Asuna started laughing at the realisation that Kirito's name had been on her HUD since they formed a party.
Kirito then went on about strength and joining a guild to Asuna, Jinx and Naomi had stopped paying attention around that point. Kirito walked up to the door, the large concrete doors opened up as he approached and he walked through. Soon after, some of the other members of the raid party followed suit, at least to have a look at the next floor they had fought so hard to unlock.
"Well, that's basically it." Jinx fell back into his bed, exhausted just from the memory. "That's pretty much what happened."
Rukia and Monkey were wide-eyed. "You say that like it was normal, someone freaking died Jinx. Diabel died, Jinx!" After saying it, Rukia's face dropped, frozen in the shock of it.
"Don't you think I've been trying to deal with that? Diabel was such a help to us when we started out. Without him we probably wouldn't have been able to figure out the menu as quick as we did." Jinx was fighting back tears.
"So, I'm assuming our story will have to wait then?" Monkey tried to lighten the mood in the room, but Jinx and Rukia were barely paying attention. Naomi knocked on the wall by her chair to get everyone's attention. This time Jinx and Rukia looked up.
"Jinx and Rukia need time to get over what happened to Diabel. I say we should all go to sleep for the night and when we get up tomorrow morning Rukia and Monkey can talk about their amazing adventure they had." Naomi looked around, everyone was nodding. "Well, I'm see you guys in the morning."
Naomi left for her separate room, Monkey leaving for his as well. Rukia crawled into his bed in one corner of the room and pulled his sheets over himself, his face buried in the pillow. Jinx practically mimicked his friend's actions, although he was facing the wall.

[SIZE=11pt] "Night Rukia." Jinx spoke quietly, still facing the wall. Rukia muffed an inaudible response, presumably something along the lines of 'good [/SIZE]​

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Chapter 4: The Black Crystal​

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Spoiler

"Yo Rukia, Jinx, are you two up yet?" Naomi was knocking on the door and calling out. Monkey had woken up during Naomi's yelling, and was now rubbing his eyes, still tired.
"Naomi, you know this is an inn. There are a lot of other people here sleeping, and they won't appreciate being woken up by you yelling." Monkey yawned, clearly having hoped to sleep more than he did.
"Eh, I'm not a very heavy sleeper, so I get impatient when I'm waiting for other--- Oh, hey Rukia." The door had been opened while Naomi and Monkey were bantering, but neither of them had noticed until now.
"Naomi, do you realise how stupid it is to ask someone if they are awake or not. If they aren't awake and you don't get a response, you just keep asking till you get a response." Rukia wasn't as tired as Monkey. "You're lucky I don't sleep for a long time, otherwise this would have been a Schrodinger's Cat situation that would wake up the whole freaking inn." Rukia went back inside the room he shared with Jinx and sat down in one of the chairs.
"Naomi, he has a point." Monkey walked in, surprised that Jinx was still managing to sleep through all that noise. As he sat down, he saw Jinx in his sleep gesture for Rukia to come towards him. When he did, Jinx slapped him, not very hard, but still enough to make Rukia move a bit.
"You know what, I'm not even going to ask what that was." Naomi had already walked in the door and sat herself down. She thought she saw Jinx gesturing to her to come closer, but seeing as Jinx had just sleep slapped Rukia, she didn't want to take the chance.
With Jinx still sleeping, they couldn't really listen to Monkey and Rukia's story. "Monkey, Naomi, what do you want to do while we wait?" Rukia wasn't a very patient person most of the time.
"You know, I want to have a duel. I haven't fought you before Rukia, I want to see your skills firsthand." Naomi smiled, hoping that she would be able to fight.
Rukia opened his menu, his occasionally 'nyan' occurring again. "Alright, let's see. I got a new dagger while you and Jinx were out..." Rukia suddenly remembered the story of Diabel's death, but it didn't shake him as much as he expected. "Uh... here it is." He equipped the weapon, and Monkey, Rukia and Naomi as went outside of the inn, since duels weren't allowed in inns.
"I'll send you the duel request. I'll go with a one-minute time limit and half health." Naomi scrolled through her menu till she found the option to send someone a duel request. It took her a while to remember the Rukia's full username was Rukia_Shimazu, as she got a message saying no players with the username Rukia were nearby. "Damn it Rukia, why did you have to choose two names for the username."
"You're one to talk, yours says Dragonslayer at the start." Rukia accepted Naomi's duel request and equipped his battle gear. Neither of the two had battle gear too different from their normal outfits, so it didn't take too long. The generous one minute timer till the start of the match was only on 40 seconds left when they both finished getting prepared. For the next 40 seconds, they were thinking strategies.
Rukia's strategy involved mostly dodging and ensuring that he didn't get hit. Naomi's was much simpler, hit Rukia.
When the countdown finally ended, Rukia rushed at Naomi with blinding speed, starting off with his flashstep attack. Naomi was expecting this, although she didn't think it would be quite as fast as it actually was. She brought up her greatsword to deflect the attack, but Rukia's knife still nicked her arm. The difference in speed was quite apparent, but the difference in power between the two weapons was almost as equal.
Rukia was rushing for a second attack. If he could just make sure that he didn't get hit by Naomi's greatsword then he would win by default, since he had dealt some damage to her already. He jumped into the air and slashed at Naomi, connecting the attack. He then turned so his feet landed on her shoulders and used here as a springboard to launch himself away.
Unfortunately for Rukia, those were his only tricks he had mastered at the moment. The rest would be dodging for the next half a minute to ensure that he was not hit. He rushed in close to Naomi to get her to swing her sword, but she didn't.
Naomi was waiting for Rukia to get impatient. That was his downfall. He would try to make her swing and he would dodge, then go for a blow. However, if he didn't get the chance to do that, he would eventually rush into close quarters, where she would have the chance to hit him easily.
With ten seconds remaining, Rukia's patience ran out, just as Naomi was expecting. As Rukia rushed her, she swung her greatsword straight forward, giving no time for Rukia to dodge. She impaled him straight through the chest, depleting a quarter of his health bar with a single blow. She pulled her greatsword back out, a gaping hole in Rukia's chest, and kicked him away. By the time he hit the ground the massive wound had fixed itself, but he had no chance of winning now. With five seconds left on the clock, victory would have gone to Naomi no matter what happened.
And as the last few seconds counted down, Rukia got back up and sheathed his blade. When the timer reached zero, a message congratulating Naomi's victory appeared. The combatants walked towards each other and shook hands.
"Good fighting Naomi, I certainly should have seen that attack coming, but I wasn't focusing." Rukia was trying to make excuses as to why he lost.
"You wish you impatient little bastard. You were going to do that stupid little move no matter what happened. I applaud you for knowing when you have lost though." Naomi smiled and started walking back towards the inn.
From behind her Naomi could hear Monkey and Rukia talking. She started to talk to herself. "That kid has so much energy, but he can't use it properly. Honestly, he is going to get himself killed if he doesn't learn to control it." She sighed and then Monkey tapped her on the shoulder.
"Rukia said that this is you reward for victory." He opened the trade menu up and sent her the money that Rukia had given to monkey.

"Oh joy, 100 cor, so he basically sent me two nights rent for victory, even though the amount of grinding we do easily pays for it." Naomi was doing her best to sound sarcastic, and she assumed it was working when Monkey made a sound similar to a laugh. "Anyway, let's get back already, Jinx is probably waiting for us.

By the time that Rukia, Naomi and Monkey had returned to their apartment, Jinx was just starting to wake up. "Oh, hey guys... I don't know why, but in this dream I was having I heard Naomi shouting at me." Naomi shot Jinx a glance, telling him to shut up.
"Oh, Naomi, can't you send a duel request directly from the friend list? I mean, most games have things where you can party or duel with people on your friends list quickly." Naomi opened her friends list and tapped on Rukia's username. One of the options that appeared said 'duel.'
"Damn you Rukia, stop being right." Naomi was peeved for some reason, even though she had won the duel earlier. "Anyway, don't you guys have some sort of story to tell us?"
"Oh yea," Rukia perked up, "Once upon a t---

"Oh shut up Rukia, let Monkey tell it. I'm tired and I don't need your crap" Jinx's face was buried in his pillow and he had just flipped the bird to Rukia. Monkey took up the chance to talk before Rukia could respond.

During the day that the raid party took down the first floor boss, Rukai and Monkey had been wondering aimlessly through the forest. They were mostly grinding for experience and cor, but they were looking for anything else, like a quest to do.
After taking down another forest based monster, they spotted an NPC in a clearing in the distance. There were no monsters nearby, and they doubted that this NPC was going to be a merchant. Hopefully it was a quest and not just some unnecessary NPC who was doing nothing.
As they approached the NPC, a quest screen appeared in front of both Rukia and Monkey. However, the quest description said it required a 3 person party. After finding this obscure quest spot, the duo weren't going to just give up.
"Hey Monkey, do you have anyone on your friend's list other than Naomi and Jinx who might be able to help out?" Monkey shook his head, he hadn't really been doing anything since the game started away from Naomi, Rukia or Jinx. "Alright, let me check mine."
Rukia was doubting that he had anyone else on his friend's list, but he checked anyway. When he opened the list though, he almost smashed his head on a nearby tree.
"I forgot that me and Jinx had added Keita to our friends lists. I'll send him a message, see if any of the Black Cats want to help us out." Rukia opened up the list and tapped the message icon. He typed up a message to the leader of the <<Black Cats of the Full Moon>> guild.
'Hey Keita, I found this interesting quest in a forest. You should be able to see my location on the map screen. The thing is, it is a quest that is recommended for a three person party. We were curious if any of your group was free to help us out, we only need one more person.'
Rukia and Monkey sat down by the nearby trees and waited to hear back from Keita. It was agonizing to wait to do a quest, so Monkey went off to do some more grinding to wait. Rukia knew that if he moved too far from the spot he would completely forget where the quest was. His short-term memory was appalling to say the least.
"Oh bloody hell, why has Keita not replied yet." Rukia walked back over to the quest giver. There was something that it said on the quest description that made him curious. The rewards section, underneath the cor and exp payout, there was a line of question marks. That clearly meant an item, but it normally would say what the item was.
"So, why are they so desperate to cover up whatever item this is? It must be important if they won't tell anyone what it is." Before Rukia could question the quest any further, a message icon appeared in Rukia's HUD.
'Alright, we'll send over Sachi. We aren't doing anything today, and Sachi need more battle experience and confidence.'
Rukia remembered from the first time they met the Black Cats that Sachi was quite shy, and when Jinx and himself had passed by them on the first day, she didn't seem like she was very enthusiastic about a fight. Rukia decided to try and meet up with Sachi outside the forest and get Monkey to wait by the quest.
After sending a message to Monkey, Rukia travelled back to the entrance to the forest, battling a few monsters on the way back. Being a solo player with a knife made the fights much more difficult, seeing as to how he had to be so close to the monsters without any backup.
By the time that Rukia reached the entrance of the forest, Sachi was already waiting, looking bored. "How long did it take me to get here... and you waited at the entrance..." Rukia was dumbfounded that Sachi had waited where Rukia was planning on meeting up without any sort of communication.
"I didn't want to go into a monster infested forest alone. And I've only been waiting a few minutes." The blue haired girl was looking down at her feet. She didn't look very interested in the idea of a fight. She started murmuring, "I never wanted to leave the first town anyway."
"Come on, let's go Sachi."Rukia spun his dagger and wandered into the forest. He stopped a few metres in to check whether Sachi was following him. She was, but at a distance, looking very uneasy.
"Don't worry, I'm here to protect you." Rukia smiled with self-gratification.
Sachi began to mumble again. "I saw how you fight on the first day, I'd feel safer if I was alone." She was still not too interested in the idea of wandering into the forest.
As the duo ventured back towards the quest area, they faced a few mobs. Rukia was slightly more risky in his fighting on the way back as he had Sachi to back him up, but she wasn't too keen on aiding her temporary ally. She pitched in with an attack only when she saw Rukia had done something incredibly stupid that he would have taken a large amount of damage, although she backed off as soon as Rukia was back in a rhythm.
They eventually reached the quest area. Monkey was sitting bored waiting for Rukia to return. He got up and walked over to Rukia and Sachi. "Hello, I'm Monkey. I hope the idiot hasn't given you too much trouble." Sachi smiled at Monkey, happy to be with someone who wasn't full of themselves.
Rukia walked over to the quest marker. "Alright, so let's form a party. Sachi, do you have any extra parts to your username, or is it just Sachi?" She shook her head in response. Rukia sent a party request to Monkey through the friend list, then typed Sachi's name into the party request. With the party formed, he returned to the quest giver.
"Alright, I'm accepting the quest now." All three players saw the quest accept button appear in front of them, accepting.
The quest giver started to talk. "Hello travellers, you see, this monster further into the forest has stolen a very mysterious object from me. I don't need it anymore, but in the hands of a monster, it will likely cause a great deal of devastation. If you manage to defeat the monster and return the item to me, I'll give it to whoever I believe would benefit the most from it."
The trio appeared confused after his last statement. Only one of them would get this special item after they all completed the quest. That didn't make any sense. Why would the quest restrict who gets the rewards?
"And before you say anything, I will still give cor to the others after the item is returned to me, but this item is special, only one of it exists."
Why create only one of an item? Was is so powerful that the wielder would destroy everything in their path? It didn't make sense to have such a game breaking item on the first floor.
"Anyway, the monster you are looking for is deeper in the forest." The quest giver pointed behind himself and nodded. "I wish you all luck."
The trio headed off. Rukia was in the lead while Monkey was trying to calm down an agitated Sachi. "Monkey, Sachi, are you two thinking that this quest is just a bit odd as well, or is it just me?"
"Rukia, even a certified idiot would find that something was up with this quest." Rukia showed a mock expression of shock.
"I'm not a certified idiot." Rukia folded his arms and looked away to make himself look even stupider.
Sachi piped up. "Lack of certification does not prove intelligence." Rukia's face was in utter shock now. Even the quiet one was against him.
Rukia took over his blade and started to spin it. "I feel like that was quoting something... but I'm not sure what." He started to click his fingers trying to remember what it was. "Nope, nothing is coming to me."
As the trio continued deeper into the forest, they didn't encounter much at all. There was just a large amount of trees. There wasn't even a single monster.
"Do you think they made a spawn rate of zero while you are in this quest maybe?" Monkey was looking around for anything. He was sure that they would have found something by now. "We haven't found anything y---"
Before he could finish, they walked into another clearing with an Ent in the middle. In its hands it held what looked like a teleport crystal or a healing crystal, but it was pitch black.
"Okay, so, what do you guys think we should do. I'm going with Sachi and me stay in the back and Rukia attack from the fron---"
"LEEROOOOY JEEEEEEEENKINNNS!!!!" Rukia rushed the monster without paying any attention to what Monkey had been saying.
"Goddamnit Rukia." Monkey ran after the dagger wielder, quarterstaff in hand. Sachi followed behind him slowly.
Rukia sarted the fight with the same general tactic he always did. He only spammed two moves during a fight, so strategies didn't really change how he would attack an enemy. He rushed up to the enemy and flashstepped, slicing the side of the enemy and ending off behind it. As it was turning around, Monkey came in from behind it and whacked the Ent with a side swing. Rukia jumped onto the monster and plunged the dagger where the forehead would be on a humanoid monster and, after removing it, kicked off the monster.
Not being a humanoid monster and instead a tree, and a heavy one at that, it did not stagger after the kick like usual. It retaliated instantly, catching Rukia in the back and flinging him into a tree. As he got up, he finally took notice of the health bar.
"Guys, it has two health bars. It's draining at about a third of the rate of a normal monster, but it must be classed as a mini boss of some kind." He looked back to the monster's hand. "I'm also worried about that crystal. They normally only cure status ailments, so why would it be so bad for a monster to grab one? And aren't they normally one use only and they are destroyed?"
Monkey and Sachi looked at the crystal in the monster's hands, Sachi shrugging and Monkey looking slightly uninterested. If the item was important, the quest giver would have told them what it does, right?
As Monkey and Rukia slowly whittled away the monster's first health bar, Sachi looked on, watching for any moment that they would need her help. Finally when the first health bar only had a sliver of health remaining, Rukia was caught by surprised with a backwards swipe from the tree Ent. She rushed into the battle, quickly drawing the monster's attention away from Rukia.
As soon as the monster noticed her though, she froze up like a deer in headlights. She couldn't move herself out of the way of the monster's next attack. The only thing that stopped her from getting launched by the Ent was Monkey, blocking the attack. Rukia ran up to the monster and drew its attention back to himself, slashing at it from behind.
At last the first health bar had been depleted. The Ent screamed wildly, as if shrieking. Rukia shivered, with the action bringing back memories of something that had frustrated him as a kid.
"Bloody ReDeads, can't kill 'em, they scream in wreck your entire day, especially TP." Rukia was mumbled to himself. He failed to notice that the Ent was now holding up the crystal, about to use it.
As it used it, two shimmering images appeared next to the monster. They appeared as carbon copies of the Ent. When the Ent finally finished using the crystal, the two shimmering figures solidified and it was impossible to tell the difference. The crystal itself though had not shattered.
"What the hell it this!!!" Monkey was looking at their foes in shock.
"Think about Guild Wars, the Mesmer class, they are likely illusions, probably don't have much strength or health." However, the lack of strength idea was quickly disproved by one of the illusionary Ents moving from where it was and swiping at Rukia, launching him into the same tree as before.
"You have got to be kidding me. Is this why it suggested three participants. This is freaking stupid." Monkey rushed at the illusion that had attacked Rukia. He swung and the illusion shattered almost instantly. At least Rukia had been right about the lack of health.
After using one of his health potions, Rukia got back up and rushed at the Ent he thought was the real one. After using a flashstep, the Ent shattered into nothing.
"Goddamnit, what the hell is this." The real Ent raised the crystal again, this time retreating into the forest where it couldn't be seen. "If this is how the item behaves, it really is game breaking." Rukia slashed at one of the illusions nearby and shattered it. He then rushed into the forest after the ent.
Of course, in the middle of so many trees, and Ent was difficult to spot. Rukia decided that he would keep punching trees until one of them moved to attack him. Eventually, in an area that didn't have too many trees around, Rukia found it.
The Ent tried to use the crystal again, but it one created one illusion this time. Monkey and Sachi had been, rather than attacking the illusion, just blocking its attacks so that it wouldn't shatter. Rukia wasn't as quick to pick up on that. He slashed at the illusion and came after the real thing. However, NPCs in SAO had an adaptive AI, so they would often learn from their enemy's movements. Normally the foes that Rukia would be facing would have been defeated before this took any real effect, but the Ent wasn't as weak. Rukia charged up his flashstep attack again and the Ent moved backwards ever so slightly. As soon as Rukia finished the attack, the Ent was now able to reach him.
Once again, Rukia was slammed into a tree via the back of the Ent's hand. It came after Rukia, but Rukia moved out of the way of its next attack. He attacked with his forehead stab again, being just a bit too quick for the Ent to smash Rukia while he was still on the Ent. The lifebar wasn't draining very much, Rukia's solo performance wasn't great as he had designed his play style around speed over power.
He quickly messaged Monkey asking for some backup. Afterwards, Rukia retreated into an area he was sure the Ent couldn't reach.
"Black Star, calling for backup, what on earth is going on here?" Monkey was joking around with Rukia again while running towards his ally.
"Black Star needs Tsubaki to do anything really." Rukia looked at his friend, who was looking at him with a disapproving face.
"Actually, he can attack on his own... Let's get back to the fight at hand you idiot." Monkey slammed his quarterstaff into the Ent again. "Sachi said she was fine taking on an illusion. She said that she wouldn't freeze up again a fake."
Rukia and Monkey each alternated between attacking and distracting, slowly draining its health bar. Once again, with only a sliver of health left, Rukia charged at it. Before he could attack, the Ent's health suddenly dropped to zero. It shattered into blue triangles and behind the monster was Sachi with her spear thrust forward.
"Wow, I did not expect Sachi to finish off the monster." Rukia was scratching his head.
"It wasn't going to see me if I finished it off, so I was fine. It was about to attack you again anyway." Sachi sat down, exhausted for having to block so much against the illusion.
The quest giver came out of the forest to where the trio was standing. "I'm glad you could defeat the monster." He walked over to where the crystal was. "Seems like the extra power the monster gave the crystal has also dissipated."
Rukia looked at the quest giver. "So wait, that crystal is normally not that powerful? Oh wait, I'm talking to an NPC..." He smacked his own forehead.
The quest giver started talking again. "This crystal normally creates one illusion, only once a day. The illusion has the same strength as the normal, however, the user can only control their illusion and not their body when the illusion is active. And it only had one Hp, so it is useful for a distraction."
The quest giver then walked over to Sachi. "You deserve this, I think that you would benefit the most out of it. Also note that this item will be soulbound to you, so don't even try to give it to someone else."
Rukia looked heartbroken. "But that item would be perfect for a ninj--- I'm talking to an NPC again. Why do I keep talking to an NPC?"
Monkey couldn't help but laugh. After Sachi received the item and everyone received the cor and exp, they walked back out of the forest.
"So, we going to tell our guilds about this or not?" Rukia had his hands folded behind his head.
"Eh, you guys can tell your guild, but if I tell the Black Cats about this, they'll probably put me in even more situations I'm not comfortable with." Sachi looked down at her feet again. "Anyway, I'll see you guys again some time."
While they were in the forest, Sachi sent a friend request to Monkey. Rukia pestered her for one but she refused. Eventually he had given up and moped for a bit.

"See ya" Monkey and Rukia both said at the same time.

"Okay, there is one thing I'm not understanding Monkey. If some parts of that story had Rukia alone, how did you know what was going on?" Jinx looked sceptical.
"Eh, he told me about what had happened while he was on his own and I told him about what I did. We both knew what the other did." Monkey shrugged "And a lot more of the interesting stuff happened to Rukia, so he got more story."
Jinx looked at his friend again. "And you believed what he told you?"
"Hell no, I knew he was embellishing the story, I just toned it down to what I expected happened and what Sachi clarified via PM afterwards." Jinx and Naomi started laughing.

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I guess there is a limit to how much a post can contain, even with spoilers... So new post, removing a redundant chapter summary...​

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Chapter 5: Entering Moonlight​

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Spoiler

Five months have passed since the clearing of the first floor. Unlike the first floor, the lead party has been making tremendous progress in clearing floors. The lead group has cleared sat least 20 floors already, and they don't seem like they are going to slow down to their previous pace. The Black Cats of the Full Moon and the Crows of Saika have become close allies over this time, often taking on lower level floor quests to keep around the middle of the SAO players.
They didn't know that over the next two months, tragedy was to occur.
"Hey Keita, do you think we should call over Jinx and the others? They might want to know we got a new member." Tetsuo was sitting back in his chair after welcoming a new member into the group.
The leader of the guild <<The Black Cats of the Full Moon>>, Keita, glared at his guildmate. "Tetsuo, we should probably wait for him to settle into the guild before we introduce him to the Crows."
Sachi, the blue haired and unconfident member of the guild whispered. "I agree with Tetsuo. They are good enough friends that they should know." No one but the blond thief Ducker heard her speak.
"If Sachi agrees, I think we should message them." The thief leaned back against the wall near the Black Cats' table. "Come on Keita."
Keita looked around at all the main members of the group. They were all nodding with agreement. "You really want to introduce him to those wackjobs. Fine, but I'm blaming all of you if he quits the guild afterwards."
The rest of the members of the Black Cats cheered, including Sachi. Their new member, a black cloaked swordsman, just looked around at his new guild. He was used to being a solo player, not working alongside people, except once in the past.

Keita started to draft up a message to Jinx, who was the more trustworthy of the two co-leaders of the <<Crows of Saika>> guild. Even though Rukia was the founder of the guild, most of the Black Cats agreed he couldn't lead anything decently, so they acknowledged Jinx as the main leader. Even the members of the Crows didn't really see Rukia as a leader. Only Rukia saw himself as leader, and even then he knew he wasn't a good one.

"Hey guys, I just got a message from Keita. Apparently he has some news to tell us." Jinx and the rest of the Crows of Saika were up late discussing plans of where to farm tomorrow. If it hadn't been for that, they probably wouldn't have gotten the message till morning.
"Read it Jinx, we wanna know what it says as well." Rukia's eyes widened at Jinx's announcement. He always enjoyed the company of the Black Cats, even if a few of them, specifically a certain blue haired spear wielder, didn't think well of him.
"All right, here goes. Hey Jinx, Monkey, Naomi and other. Against my better judgement, we would like to introduce you to the newest member of our guild. He recently joined us after he saved our asses. As usual, Ducker was getting overconfident in his abilities. I'm sure you know what I mean."
Oh come on, Ducker is ten times worse than me, his incompetence is on a whole other level." Rukia made a mockingly hurt expression, turning away from Jinx. "I'm hurt that Keita would even compare me to him."
Jinx shot a warning glance at Rukia. "You do want me to continue, don't you?" Rukia nodded, continuing to be an idiot. "Alright, ignoring the Herondale over there for a moment. We are currently in an inn on the eleventh floor. I'm sure you guys can meet up tonight, but if not we should be staying on the eleventh floor for a few more days. Anyway, I'll wait for about half an hour for your reply. See you later, Keita."
"Hold on Jinx, did you just call me a Herondale? I'd much rather be Magnus. Magnus is ---"
Jinx threw something across the room at Rukia. "Shut up Herondale, you can sit in your little corner and plan your stupidity while the adults have a decent conversation." He sighed and got back to typing a message.
Naomi got up and sat down next to Rukia. "Don't worry about it, I'm sure Jinx is just tired. You just need to stop provoking him." She smiled at her guildmate.
"We used to be such great friends before this, he would get a kick out of my stupidity, he would never react like this." Rukia looked down at his lap, then at Jinx. What was it about Aincrad and Sword Art Online that had been driving a wedge between them?
"I've noticed him being a little more on edge then when I first met him. I don't know. Anyway, I'm sure we will sort this out." Naomi hugged Rukia, trying to calm him down. As soon as he stopped squirming, she got up and walked over to Jinx.

Rukia mumbled to himself. "I wish she would stop hugging me like that."

A few minutes later, the four had decided to warp down to the eleventh floor that night and meet up with the Black Cats. They stepped outside the inn that they had been staying in and each shouted the town name with their warp crystals.
"Warp: Taft" All four said in unison. A bright blue light surrounded the four as they dissolved into blue dots. They reappeared in the town square of Taft on the eleventh floor. They headed down to the inn that Jinx's friend's list said Keita and the others were currently at.
"So, the Black Cats are quite a closed guild. Even if that guy had saved them, how come they are letting him join?" Monkey was scratching the back of his head. "Sometimes that guy's logic escapes me."
"We were a closed guild, it was just going to be the three of us, but we still let Naomi join." Rukia clapped his hands together behind his back and continued walking, fingers interlocked.
Naomi looked to Rukia and Monkey. "Well, that's cause I had been hanging out with Monkey for the day before you guys caught up to him. You guys didn't want either of us to feel lonely." She looked quizzically at the ground. "I don't understand what Keita is doing."
"He likes to do random things whenever he feels like it. Remember a week ago when he had the not so bright idea of pushing Sachi to do sword and shield instead. He's probably still pushing her to do that." Jinx had his hands folded behind his head as he walked.
Rukia, Monkey and Naomi all shrugged in unison. They continued walking through the night towards the inn. It wasn't too far away, but with guild tired from the day, they were really finding the task draining. Rukia was complaining (as usual) about how long it was going to be.
Not too far from the inn, Rukia spotted a store that he thought he might have use for in the near future. There weren't many NPC stores that sold the cheap ores around, so made sure to remember the location for this one.
"Well, we're here." Jinx announced to the guild. Rukia sighed in relief.
As the four entered the inn, Naomi instantly ran towards Sachi. "Sa-chan, it's so good to see you again." She hugged Sachi, completely oblivious to the scowl on the other girl's face.
If there was one thing, and only one thing, that Rukia and Sachi agreed on, it was that Naomi hugged way too much. After Sachi finally squeezed out of Naomi's grip, she went to greet Jinx and Monkey, purposely avoiding Rukia.
The rest of both guild greeted each other before the new member of the Black Cats guild showed himself. Naomi and Jinx both gasped in surprise. "Hold on, isn't th---," Jinx covered Naomi's mouth before she could reveal who the swordsman was. They both recognized him as the guy who started the "beater" phrase, and they were almost certain he was still on the front lines fighting.
Jinx whispered into Naomi's ear. "What do you think a front lines player, and a solo player at that, is doing joining a guild so low down in Aincrad." Naomi just shrugged. The swordsman, Kirito, noticed the Jinx and Naomi, suddenly becoming nervous.
Kirito had just lied about his level to Keita and the rest of the Black Cats so they would accept him. If people had recognized him, he could have been kicked out of the Black Cats. Keita clearly cared for his guild, so Kirito was slightly worried as to what Keita would do.
"So, what's your name new guy?" Rukia was sitting on top of the table next to the Black Cats, swinging his legs back and forth.
Kirito was hesitant. If those two hadn't fully recognized him by now, if he said his name to them, they would probably recognize him instantly. And the other two didn't seem extraordinarily ignorant, no matter how stupid the one sitting on the table looked at the moment.
"It's... Kirito." The hesitation was apparent in his tone. Both Jinx and Naomi could tell, he was worried one of them would tell the Black Cats who he really was. Monkey picked up on it soon after, and even the dagger wielder didn't go completely oblivious.
Naomi spoke up next, with Jinx ready to cover her mouth if she was about to say something about who the swordsman really was. "So, how have you found the Black Cats so far? They are quite eccentric, although we can't say any different about our guild." She looked around to each member of the Crows of Saika, quickly pointing at Monkey and Sachi at the same time before either of them noticed. "Keita can really push a point when he wants to, trust me, we know."
Sachi noticed Naomi's subtle hand sign and scowled at her. If it wasn't for the level-headed Jinx and the shy Monkey, she would never have been able to put up with Rukia or Naomi.
The swordsman responded after considering his answer a while. He certainly didn't want to anger his new guildmaster with the wrong answer. "Uhh, well, I will say this group is quite interesting. And I have to agree with you, once Keita has an idea, he doesn't seem to stop, no matter how much you refuse." The Black Cats and the Crows both laugh, excluding Keita, who didn't seem to understand the joke.
"Well, I guess we'll be seeing you around the place Kirito. The Black Cats and us are quite a close group." Rukia had picked up a nearby fork and was spinning it in his left hand without even looking. "Oh, I have a secret, I'm not really left handed." Rukia jokingly said when Kirito looked to the dagger wielder's hand.
"Inigo, would you please be serious for one minute." Jinx had his hand over his face, moving it back and forth in disappointment. Rukia just stuck his tongue out at his friend.
"You know what I need, purple hair dye. I need purple hair. Dark purple hair. And black wings." Rukia was looking to the sky, talking to no one.
Naomi looked displeased at the kid, as did Jinx. However, the four all gasped in unison when Sachi responded. "Lucifer, please control your urges to look cool."
Rukia's eyes widened at the fact that Sachi had actually understood one of his countless references. Most of the time they were just met with a simple look of either confusion or disapproval, but she actually understood. Rukia fistpumped the air, being met with disapproving looks from both Sachi and Jinx, but a soft chuckle from the remaining people.
"Well, you guys still want to go out to train tomorrow like we had planned or not, cause Rukia is really desperate to go and fight some ore golems down in the floor 12 caverns. He's been strangely eager to collect a bunch of ores." Monkey had finally spoken up, almost feeling forgotten amoung the Crows.
Earlier in the week, Jinx, Rukia, Keita and Tetsuo (being seen as the vice leader of the Black Cats) had all agreed to do some grinding together a few times in that following week. Rukia had been desperate to grind on foes that would drop any kind of ores, although he hadn't told anyone why.
Tetsuo responded. "Yea, I think it would be good for Kirito to get used to both of our groups. Fighting style and personality wise. Plus, if he can teach Ducker some way to stop screwing us over, that would be great." A laugh was shared throughout most of the group, except for Kirito, who didn't really understand the joke.
Rukia jumped off of the table he had been sitting on and announced to the group that they would be going. Everyone agreed that they were tired, and they were desperate for some sleep. They would see each other the next day, so they weren't too worried about catching up too much.
"See ya."
"Au revoir."
"Well, we'll see you tomorrow guys."

After various other goodbyes, the Crows of Saika headed back to the inn they had been staying at. They had a good bank of teleport crystals, but they would likely have to stock up on more soon. As soon as they got back to their inn, they headed off into their rooms, falling asleep soon after entering their rooms.

(The next day, <<Black Rock Caverns>>, Floor 12)
Rukia was itching to get into a fight with some of the monster in the caverns. Jinx and Sachi were both talking about how stupid he was being, as usual in their mind. "Black Star, if you could please calm down and we'll sort out the groups for today. And, I'm so sorry Sachi, but this pairing was bound to happen at some point."
The blue haired girl knew exactly what Jinx was apologizing for. Without him even needing to announce it, she knew she was in a duo with Rukia. She had been lucky that she hadn't been paired with him solo with him up until now. She was dreading this pairing, and she already hated all this grinding, hating fighting monsters, preferring to stay in towns instead. But being paired with Rukia, she thought she was going to go mad halfway through the day.
"And finally, we have Rukia and Sachi... Good luck." Jinx finished announcing the groups. Everyone had already grouped up, including Jinx. Everyone, except Ducker, was giving worried looks to Sachi, and staring at Rukia. Someone was even making the stereotypical anime stare sound. Ducker was instead smiling at Rukia, who was looking away from the blonde rogue.
"It was bound to happen eventually." Sachi had her head down and was whispering to herself. She was quite peeved by her unfortunate set of circumstances.
Rukia was jumping around, his jitteriness was not settling down. "Come on Sachi. I promise you that I'm much more focused in a fight."
Sachi's first response was a finger gun to the side of her head. Everyone else had already gone off, so Sachi and Rukia were alone just standing around. Rukia checked his map, using that to map out a path that none of the other groups were taking so they would have a decent amount of grinding.
"So... Rukia... I'm curious. You've been quite insistent on these ore drops. What are you planning on doing?" Sachi figured that if she stayed quiet through the whole thing, she would have more chance of losing it. Rukia was already walking with a haughty air about him, what could be worse?
However, Rukia's air of confidence slowly faded after the question was asked. Slowly, the foolish boy seemed like he was coming back down to earth. "You know how Christmas came around recently?" Sachi nodded her head, suddenly curious as to where this was going.
"Well, I felt extremely bad about missing Christmas, both with my friends and my family. I was thinking about making a special weapon with our guild logo for each of them." Rukia started to throw his dagger in the air, making it flipping over.
Sachi's eyes widened at Rukia's idea. "So, you're gathering all this ore so you can practice and increase your blacksmithing level?" For a second, she had forgotten that the idiot kid was an idiot kid. Then she snapped back to reality, Rukia was a fool. He couldn't really be thinking this far in advance over one little thing, could he.
Rukia kept walking along, looking for a monster to fight. "Basically, that's the idea. Start early so I can first of all get a decent blacksmithing skill and not fail the final product and I can practice trying to get a formula to make the weapon that I want to make." He sighed, disappointed that there hadn't been a monster down this path yet.
"And you're telling me this why?" Sachi hated Rukia, which really made her wonder why he was trusting her about this. He clearly hadn't told anyone else about this.
Rukia shrugged his shoulders. "No one has bothered to ask me about it. Jinx and Monkey don't really question what I do. Naomi hasn't really bothered to ask. Keita and Tetsuo don't really care what I do. Ducker is too much of an idiot to pay attention to anyone. Sasamaru is... I don't know." He was starting to get quite agitated. The fact that they hadn't encountered any monsters was starting to get on his nerves.
Sachi decided to equip her weapons, which was a shock for Rukia. She had been telling the Crows recently that Keita wanted her to start using a sword and shield combo, since they already had Sasamaru on the spear. Sachi's main concern was that she would have to get up closer to the monsters that she hated fighting, but the shield was also meant to protect her.
The thing is, Sachi was constantly refusing the idea. She hated the idea. So, why did she suddenly have a shortsword and shield equipped?
"I finally decided to change over. Keita has been bugging me for so long, I finally decided to switch over, at least temporarily." Sachi sighed. "Why am I telling you this anyway? You're an idiot."
"It's called a coping mechanism." Rukia instinctively responded before he could stop himself. He liked playing the idiot, even if he wasn't blond. If he was blond he would have named his character after one of the Herondales. Lucky for Rukia, there was a monster right up ahead. He didn't want to explain himself.
The monster up ahead was one of the monsters that Rukia had been grinding. It was an <<Ore Golem>>, the name right above the monster's health bar. They had a high rate of a random ore drop depending on their colour, but the ores were generally quite common. There was one or two that were a rare colour, and thus a rare ore. Rukia was saving those ones for later.
Rukia was tempted to charge straight in. However, he felt obliged to let Sachi help, or at least coax her to help. "Listen, Sachi. I want to help you out with the whole switch to sword and shield thing." He waved Sachi over towards him. "Okay, what you want to do is this." Rukia walked over to the monster, which was still neutral, and knelt down on one knee. He mimicked holding a shield in front of his body, with the sword hand near his waist.
"Alright, so you basically want to hold your shield like this. Basically. I'll attack it a few times, then you'll hit is with your sword. Make sure at all times you have the shield up so the monster's strikes are only going to hit that. Then I'll go back to hitting it." Rukia was clicking his fingers as he talked, a nervous habit he had when he was trying to work something out.
Sachi looked nervous. She was scared of the idea of getting killed. Most people were.
"Just trust me." Rukia was trying to get Sachi to help. "You can do it."
"I don't want to Rukia. I don't want to."
"You have a shield. It will protect you. The durability of the shield should be right up to the maximum. It won't break on you."
Hesitantly, Sachi walked over to where Rukia was crouching.
"Alright, get into the position. As soon as I've hit is about four times I'll need to recharge the skill. That is when you distract it, block the blow, and then I'll get back to hitting it." Sachi nodded, worried that one of them was going to screw up. She crouched down onto the ground and placed her shield in front of her.
Rukia charged at the golem. He charged up a skill that he had learnt to use recently. The dagger started to glow, then Rukia dashed towards the monster's legs. He slashed through the monster's legs, applying a cripple effect to the creature. He then backflipped onto the creature's shoulders, jabbing the blade into the monster's neck. Finishing off the move, he slipped off of the creature and slashed across the creature's chest.
The <<Ore Golem>> roared in rage at being attack, the marker over its head turning from orange neutral to red aggressive. It swung its arm at Rukia, clipping the boy's arm. Only taking minor damage, Rukia wasn't too worried. However, if this kept up though this session he might be in a bit of danger. From what he had read, health could regen if you were out of combat for ten seconds, and it would regen while you were being attacked so long as you didn't attack back.
"Sachi, now!" Rukia yelled out. The blue haired girl was increasingly nervous about the fight, but she temporarily put her shield down. She used a simple thrust skill to strike the creature's leg, then instantly raised her shield. It took a few seconds to realise that someone else had attacked it and focused on the shield. It punched the shield, Sachi squealed in fright. She looked ready to run.
"Sachi, don't worry, it's not going to hit you directly so long as I distract and cripple it." Rukia rushed back at the golem and used another cripple attack. This time, he got the golem to turn around, then used one of his favourite skills. He threw his dagger at the golem's forehead then ran at the monster. He jumped and kicked the dagger further into the monster, then yanked his weapon back out. For a large monster, the golem didn't have all that much health remaining after these attacks. The fact that the monster was still quite a common version and low level also would have counted towards the speed at which its health drained.
"One more Sac---" When Rukia looked towards where Sachi's avatar was crouching, he saw a doubled version holding a spear. "Wait, what was that."
"You remember the crystal from the first floor? Well, I've been using it a few times without the others noticing." She grabbed her spear tight, trying to work up the courage to attack the monster. "I can be as reckless as I want with this, when it gets hit it vanishes and I go back to my normal avatar." Closing her eyes tight, she started to charge up a skill with her spear. The spear glowed with light, and when Sachi re-opened her eyes, the spear's butt slammed into the side of the golem's head. She then flipped around the spear and jabbed the spear through the chest of the monster.
Sachi's moment of bravery was short lived however, as the monster was not quite dead. It swiped at Sachi's illusion and shattered it. She was back in her usual avatar and suddenly quite freaked out behind her shield.
Before the golem could do any more to shatter Sachi's confidence anymore, Rukia grabbed one of the bronze throwing picks (a bronze throwing weapon that looked suspiciously like a needle for sewing) that he had equipped and threw it at the monster. The golem's body started to glow blue and shattered into blue triangles. Both Sachi and Rukia got a small screen infront of them saying the drops, exp and cor that they obtained from the fight.
Rukia had gotten a piece of bronze ore from the monster, Sachi getting the same. "Goddamnit Sachi. That little bit at the end was amazing. I've never seen you do anything like that. If only you could do something like that without the aid of an illusion."
Sachi stood up shakily, smiling at Rukia. "I'm not confident enough to do that sort of thing. I can't do that sort of thing normally, and if I was to do it around my guild I probably will get told to do it more often than I'm comfortable with."
Rukia was leaning up against the wall, waiting for the health regen to take effect. "Well, I certainly thought that our combo, even without the unexpected little use of the crystal, was pretty solid. Want to continue that as we go on." Sachi hesitated for a while before nodding.
"So, do you want the ore I got Rukia?" Before Rukia could protest, she had already sent him the item.

Rukia looked disappointed at Sachi's decision. "You didn't really need to do that." Sachi just shrugged. They moved further into the tunnel.

As the tunnels all converged back to the entrance, Rukia and Sachi was laughing at something. Most of the other groups had already arrived back at the entrance, and Sachi was the first to notice. She elbowed Rukia.
"Listen, if anyone asks, we bickered the whole time." Sachi stared at Rukia, trying to make sure he didn't say a word of what Sachi had been doing during the fights between the golems.
Rukia just smiled back at her, receiving a punch to the back of the head. "You're almost as bad as Jinx at taking a joke." His health had drained ever so slightly. It would heal itself in a few seconds, so Rukia wasn't too worried about it.
"Yo, Monkey, Naomi, we're back." Rukia yelled out to his guildmates. Sachi had gone back to acting as her nervous self like she had been before she went grinding in that tunnel. Rukia was greeted with waves from the two Crows who were back. Jinx, Tetsuo and Ducker were the only group who hadn't finished yet.
Naomi ran up and hugged Sachi. "Sa-chan. I hope Rukia didn't make too much of an idiot of himself in there." Sachi didn't try to squirm out of the hug like she had the night before.
"It wasn't as bad as I expected, he was still a pretty big idiot though." Naomi started laughing and Sachi tried her best to hide a smile. "Anyway, I guess you four should get going."
As Naomi and Sachi were talking, Jinx, Tetsuo and Ducker were all arguing over something Ducker had done in the tunnels. Jinx looked over, not surprised that everyone else was already back.
"Guys, we're going. Now." Jinx was at the end of his patience with Ducker. He wanted to leave as soon as possible. He stormed out of the cave and used his teleport crystal to warp back to the town inn that the Crows were staying at tonight. The rest of the Crows of Saika said goodbye to the Black Cats, conveniently leaving out Ducker (as usual). The three pulled out a teleport crystal and warped back to the town that Jinx had already gone off to.
"Why does everyone seem to avoid me so actively?" Ducker looked around to the rest of his guild for an answer. Everyone except Kirito avoided his gaze. Kirito just scratched the back of his head, having no idea how to respond.

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Chapter 6: Accepting Moonlight​

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Spoiler

It's been a month since Kirito has joined the Black Cats of the Full Moon, and as of yet, none of the members know of his secret. He still trains to be a lead party player, training most nights to keep up his level. The Crows of Saika all know about him, Jinx and Naomi told everyone that they knew for certain that it was the guy who named himself 'beater' during the first floor boss fight.
This hasn't changed the relationship between the Cats and the Crows at all. They are still both great allies, and Kirito often mentions the fact that the front lines could do with some guilds like them. However, catastrophe still looms overhead.
"So, Keita said he was going to be training alone with the Black Cats today. He said they are close to accumulating enough money to get a guild house." Jinx was sitting in another inn, talking to the rest of the Crows of Saika.
The rest of the group looked at their leader. Over the past month Rukia had abdicated his leadership over the guild and handed it over to Jinx. Handling a guild had been proving to be too much for the boy and the guild all agreed that Jinx was a better organizer for the guild.
"Damn it, I thought he was going to train with us today. Ever since he had focused on getting a guild house he has had less and less time for us." Rukia kicked a wall, a small purple hexagon appeared with the words 'Immortal object'. "I can't take this anymore. Sachi, Kirito and Tetsuo are getting a bit sick of it as well."
Naomi and Monkey sighed. They hadn't seen their friends for a week at least because Keita was so insistent on buying a guild house. If he went out grinding with the Crows then his guild would only get half the money and it would take twice as long.
"Well, I guess we will see them sometime soon." Jinx leaned back against the wall.
Rukia grinned. "And if not, we could always knock Keita out and the rest of us go out and do something." Monkey and Naomi laughed, Jinx had to hide a slight chuckle behind his hand. "Well, I have something else I need to do. See you guys later."
"Rukia. Why don't you tell us where you are going?" Naomi looked at Rukia and frowned. She had been curious about what he was doing and constantly tried to guilt trip and answer out of him.
"You will see eventually. It's a pretty big project." Rukia opened the door and left. He was almost sure that they couldn't hear him. "And I'm pretty sure you guys are going to like it."
He walked out of the hall and into the inn's main reception room. He opened his message system and sent a message
Yo AD, have you opened up shop yet? I'm coming down right about now. Rukia took a teleport crystal from his inventory. "Warp, Mechania."
As usual, a blue light shone around Rukia and he warped to a town on another floor.
Mechania was a town that existed on the 13th floor. It was a Steampunk inspired town that a lot of starting Blacksmiths and Shopkeepers were. There were also some cheap buildings that Players could purchase to start up a weaponsmith, armoury or simple item shop.
Rukia ran down the street, passing by different stores, some NPC and some Player stores. "I really hope she is open today. I have way too much ore in my inventory today." While he was still running, he got a message.
Just opening up now Rukia, great timing. Knock whenever you get here, and no Sheldon Cooper knocking. Rukia laughed, still running. He finally reached the store, The Immortalis Blacksmith.
Rukia knocked on the door, the shopkeeper inside yelling for him to come in. "Hey AD, I've got a huge amount of ore with me. The smithing station is clear."
The girl at the counter waved at Rukia. She had blonde hair in a ponytail, a metal breastplate and a black shirt and pants. "Yeap, I'm pretty sure I haven't left anything in the back."
"Last time you said that you left all your projects on the table and I had to help you move them out front." Rukia glared at her.
AD grinned and held up a peace sign with her hands. "Yea, that was totally an accident." She opened the door to the back of the shop. "But seriously, there isn't anything else back there."
Rukia walked into the back of the shop. There was a furnace, racks for completed weapons and two anvils in the middle of the room.
"Anyway, for my own requests I need some speed ore, power ore and dark ore if you have any. I've gathered everything else myself. Let's work on the other stuff together. Experimenting is the best way to get what you want."
Rukia looked through his inventory. "I've got the Speed and Dark Ores, it's a no on the Power Ore though" He opened up the trade tab and sent the Ores to AD. "I guess you will need to collect that."
AD looked disappointed. "Oh well, one of my really good customers requested a Dark and Power Ore combination. I'll message him quickly and tell him I still haven't got the ingredients. Poor guy, I haven't been able to find Power Ore for a whole week. I'm going to give the guy a discount."
She walked over to Rukia and passed him the blacksmithing hammer. Rukia spawned one of the Bronze Ores and hit it with a hammer, creating a small dagger. Every little thing he did would raise his Blacksmithing up slowly, letting him make higher quality stuff. Plus, unnecessary creations that wouldn't go to customers would just be sold at NPC shops for some extra cor.
"Alright, I'll equip my own hammer now AD." Rukia handed the hammer back to AD, who took it gleefully. Rukia grabbed the bronze dagger and threw it into a box labelled 'to sell #2'. Since Rukia had started using AD's blacksmith shop, she put a new crate in the corner of the room for Rukia's scrap weapons. Rukia would then take the weapons to a nearby NPC shop and sell them for cor, giving 10% to AD for the use of her shop.
For the next hours or two, Rukia and AD worked at making up random weapons. A good deal were dud weapons, which were thrown into their 'to sell' bins. Some were decent weapons that AD could sell to her occasional customers. One or two of them were a high quality weapon that would be sold to AD's more frequent customers.
Rukia and AD had met two weeks prior while the Crows of Saika were out on a grinding trip. Well... Rukia and AD had actually met on an Online TCG about a year before the SAO incident. Rukia quit the game a month before SAO started, but the last thing that Rukia expected was his best friend from that game to have joined SAO, let alone come across her.
AD had been out searching for ores and she had come across the Crows of Saika. Why not party up with a group that seemed kind of strong, she could have collected more ore and a lot faster. She had not expected that one of the guild members would recognize her username.
"So, wouldn't it be great if we met some of the other players from that game here?" Rukia was leaning against a wall after finished with all the ores they were using today.
"You say that every time you come over here. It was just a lucky coincidence that we met that one time. Even if they did play, in a game this big what are the chances we'd find them? You're lucky I even kept my username from that." AD was putting some of the better weapons on the weapons rack.
Rukia looked disappointed. He grabbed one of the regular weapons and brought it out front. Suddenly he got a message from Jinx.
Keita said that we can go and meet up with him and the rest of the Black Cats. He must have realised how much of a douche he was being or something, or he got tired of Sachi and Tetsuo slamming him over ignoring us.
"AD, I'm going up to Floor 20, Keita has finally stopped being a douche and is letting us do some hunting with them." Rukia started to wave goodbye, but before he could leave AD shouted to him.
"Rukia, could I come with you? You've talked about the Black Cats a number of times before, I want to meet them." AD started at Rukia. "Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
"AD, stop tha---"
"Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
"Fine, you can come. Equip your weapons." AD jumped in glee, almost running to hug Rukia but stopping herself before she could perform the action.
Rukia send a party invite to AD, which she quickly accepted. He then got to typing a message to Jinx.
That's awesome Jinx, I really hope he will drop hte whole thing about the house and stuff, it's stupid. Also, AD decided she wanted to tag along. She is coming up too.
Rukia only realised he made a spelling error after sending the message. He kicked nearby wall and swore. Then he turned to AD. "I hope you have a good amount of TP crystals. I'll help you out up there, since you haven't gone as high as the 20th floor."
AD nodded in response before they both pulled out a teleport crystal. "So, what was it again?"
"Uhh, I think it was the Sunshine Forest. Thank god you can warp to places you haven't been before if you know the name of them. It would be a pain trudging through so many floors if you were behind." Both Rukia and AD pulled out their teleport crystals.
"Warp, Sunshine Forest!" Both AD and Rukia teleported to the entrance of the forest. Jinx, Naomi and Monkey were already waiting for them. Naomi and Monkey waved at the two of them, Jinx was busy with his message bank.
"Keita and the others are at rest stop 2 at the moment. They said that they would wait there for us. And it's good to see you again AD." Jinx spoke without looking up from his messages.
"It would be nice if you said that while looking at me Rocket Girl." AD had nicknamed Jinx 'Rocket Girl' after Jinx from League of Legends. "Sometimes I can't tell if you can't deal with human contact or you just aren't polite."
"It's neither, I'm just busy. Rukia's generally the one who sucks at human contact, especially with girls." Jinx was still looking down at his messages, typing one up to Keita. Rukia snuck up behind him and read over his shoulder.
The idiot has arrived, he brought a friend, we are coming now. Rukia whispered into Jinx's ear. "You're an ass"
"Goddamnit Rukia, what the hell." Jinx yelled as he hit the send button.
"It's not nice to be referred to as 'the idiot' Jinx. I wish you and Keita would stop referring to me like that." Rukia folded his arms over in annoyance.
"At least I don't misspell the word 'the' constantly." Jinx smiled slyly.
Rukia acted surprised. "I type fast, I misspell 'the' because the positioning of the letters on the keyboard is weird. There isn't any autocorrect in SAO." He flicked his head to the side in mock annoyance.
"Let's just go already." Jinx walked into the Sunshine Forest dungeon.
"You're an ass, you're an ass. You're. An. Ass." Rukia was chanting to Jinx as they walked into the forest.

AD pulled out a battleaxe. "Let's go, and you're quoting it wrong. What you want is you are an ass."

As the group was nearing the area 2 rest stop, they came across the area boss. A giant praying mantis. "If the Black Cats could beat this thing then we shouldn't have too much trouble. We're just that bit stronger than them, right?" The Crows and AD were all worn out. The area boss wasn't tough on the grounds that it was an exceptionally strong monster, but just a slightly stronger monster after wave and wave of regular monster.
"This place is a nightmare, but being able to get insect parts will be good for my blacksmith shop. They make for some interesting looking speed weapons, and the handles you can make out of them feel so cool." AD was thinking about all the weapons she could make from the equipment she was gathering. "I could even start an armoury and have Ru---"
She stopped herself before she said anything more. Rukia's little trips to the blacksmith shop were a secret (although she suspected that they may have figured that out already by the fact that she was here). Rukia's blacksmithing was a secret only she and one of the members of the Black Cats knew, although she hadn't been told the name of them.
"What were you saying AD?" Naomi was curious, but wasn't fully paying attention to anything she had said, being in the middle of a fight.
"Don't worry about it." The Mantis rushed towards AD and swung its scythed arm at the blacksmith. She blocked it with her battleaxe and Monkey rushed up and smashed it with his quarterstaff. The Mantis was knocked to the ground temporarily, but it got up and continued its barrage of attacks soon enough.
The group was dodging the flurry of attacks while slowly whittling away its health. They were getting very tired and their dodged were slugging. Naomi and AD were able to block the jabs with their weapons because of the width of them. Monkey was able to use the lack of weight to his weapon to parry any attacks that came his way without difficulty. Rukia and Jinx were taking the brunt of the damage.
Rukia noticed something about their foe while they were fighting. He didn't realise for a while what he had seen, but he thought that there might have been an easier way to beat the monster.
"Hey guys, has anyone else noticed that there are smaller joints around the body? The ones that look like those little spherical magnets that you would roll around in your hand and they'd stick to each other." The group responded with a resounding no.
"Oh... uh, AD, could you try and get it to attack you so its arm is outstretched. Everyone else look at the joint." AD hesitantly did what Rukia suggested. She attacked the Mantis with a powerful attack, getting its attention temporarily focused on her. She waited for an attack to come and blocked it again with her axe.
The armoured plating that covered the insect's joint moved away so that the shoulder could be seen by the rest of the group.
"And what are we supposed to do with that." Monkey asked.
"I think that either Jinx, Naomi or AD could sever the shoulders of the Mantis, meaning we could attack it with full force and not worry about a counter attack. I've seen monsters that have lost limbs or other parts of their body in a fight before, so I think it is possible."
Before Rukia could say anymore, Naomi rushed at the right shoulder. It was moving towards AD again, its attention still focused on her. She swung upwards with her greatsword and the limb flew clean off. It shattered midair and a transparent item screen showed up in the centre of her HUD.
"Hey, it actually worked. AD, you take the other one." Naomi called out to the axe wielding blacksmith just as the Mantis swung an attack at Naomi, enraged at the severing of its arms.
AD swung the axe down hard at the left shoulder. It came apart, shattering into blue triangles again and AD got the same item screen as Naomi.
The Mantis was now completely unarmed. It couldn't fight back, only stand there, completely armless, while the party wailed on it as hard as they could. Its health drained quicker than before, as there was no worry about counterattacks. Eventually the monster lost all its HP and shattered into the same blue triangles as its arms had previously.
"Finally, we're done with this area." Rukia sighed, lying against a tree. "Time for the rest stop."
The rest of the Crows breathed a collective sigh of relief. They all walked towards the clearing where they could see the layered stone bricks of the rest areas in Sunshine Forest. One the very edge they could see the Black Cats.
"Keita you jackass, we finally made it!" Rukia shouted out to the group of six who were sitting around waiting. Ducker was already screwing around, with Keita in a healock.
Tetsuo stood up with Sachi and Kirito doing the same behind him. They were waving at the group. Naomi shot off running at Sachi. She jumped to try and glomp the blue haired girl.
Sachi dodged and Naomi fell face first onto the ground nearby, an inch from where Ducker still had Keita trapped. Naomi looked up and smiled.
Tetsuo offered her a hand. Naomi shook her head in refusal and got up herself. "Sa-chan, you're no fun sometimes."
"Sometime I wish you would stop calling me Sa-chan." Sachi was looking at the ground, rubbing her arm nervously. She clearly still hadn't gotten used to fighting. Kirito tapped her on the shoulder and she looked at him inquisitively. He smiled at her and she smiled back in turn.
Rukia walked over, cocking his head sideways. "It there something going on between the two of you?" Kirito looked confused at the dagger wielder's words. Sachi stepped backwards and quickly started to deny any idea of it.
"No, definitely not, why would you think that?" Rukia looked at her quizzically. He knew he could play on this for a little while longer. He gave a cheeky smirk.
"Deny it like that and it would seem like you two have a relationship." Sachi balled up her fist and smashed it down onto Rukia's head.
Most of the group broke into laughter. "It's just comforting to have someone a bit stronger than us to help us out in a fight... There is nothing there." Rukia looked back up, stuck out his tongue and held up a peace sign. This time, Sachi struck him in the jaw, knocking him backwards.
Everyone started laughing even harder. Even Sachi was laughing at Rukia. "It's like you guys are just one guild, you all get along so well."
The Black Cats all looked over to the new voice they didn't recognize. Keita spoke first. "I'm assuming she is the one who tagged along with Rukia." AD was aghast. She could hear in his voice that Keita didn't like Rukia. The way Keita talked, he made it sound like anyone who willingly did anything with Rukia was an idiot.
"I'll have you know I'm a capable Blacksmith and fighter." AD puffed out her chest to try and look as cool as she could. "I'm better in every way than Rukia, so maybe you could consider he was tagging along with me." Everyone else laughed, Keita just groaned.
While all of this was going on, Sachi tapped Rukia on the shoulder. "I need to talk to you quickly. Over there where the rest of my guild won't hear. Especially not Kirito."
Rukia looked at her confused. He saw a sort of desperation in Sachi's eyes. He didn't argue, they walked over to the highest platform of the clearing and started talking.
"I noticed something about Kirito. His level is almost double ours. He was lying when he joined us." Sachi had some worry in her voice.
She looked surprised when Rukia just grinned at her. "So, have you figured out who he is yet?"
It took the blue haired girl a few seconds to realise what Rukia meant. "Hold on, you knew that he was a higher level to us this whole time!"
Rukia just nodded but also signalled for Sachi to keep her voice down. "Yea, ever heard the term Beater before?" Sachi nodded hesitantly. "Kirito is the one who created that term. I don't know the whole story since I was only told secondhand by Jinx, but there was something about beta testers and stuff. Anyway, he is one of the members of the lead group."
Sachi's eyes widened at the news. The person who had joined their guild was the infamous Black Swordsman. But why? Why would he of all people join a guild like theirs?
"I don't believe it. He's the Black Swordsman." Sachi was trying to keep her shock in check, making sure the rest of her guild didn't hear her.
Tetsuo yelled up to Sachi and Rukia. "Yo, lovebirds, are you done talking yet?" Rukia simply flipped him the bird and went back to the matter at hand.
"Basically, yes. He is the Black Swordsman. I honestly don't know why he came down here and joined you guys, but I'm pretty sure he still does some of his lead group stuff as well, since I've heard stuff about the Black Swordsman recently." Rukia scratched the back of his head.
"Well, I really don't care. He has become a normal part of our guild, and he is a comforting figure within our guild." Sachi was smiling while she was talking.
"You look like Crona Gorgon right now. That one scene where she is smiling into the pillow." Rukia was grinning cheekily, which he immediately regretted. Sachi brought her fist in a right hook into his jaw. Rukia was sent flying off the platform and down onto the one below.
Tetsuo was laughing again. "Ouch, is Sachi mad at her boyfriend." Sachi glared at Tetsuo.
"Tetsuo, I will impale you if you don't shut up." Sachi equipped her spear, still glaring at her guildmate.
Keita laughed. "If only you showed this much tenacity while you were fighting monsters."
Everyone started laughing now, except for Rukia, who was conscious as to not push Sachi's buttons much more than he already had.
AD was sitting on her knees. "Is it normally this crazy around here?" Jinx and Naomi both responded with a resounding yes. "Why don't I join up with you guys, I could also do some personal smithing for you guys." She smiled. "I could get used to this more often, but my shop certainly comes first."
Naomi looked at her, a bit shocked that someone had asked to join their guild. Jinx as slightly surprised as well. Eventually the two of them came out of their daze and, once again, a yes came from the both of them.
Jinx opened up the guild menu and tapped 'add member'. He typed in 'AD' into the bar and an accept menu appeared in front of the blacksmith. She tapped onto the accept button and a little menu saying Congratulations appeared in its place.
"Welcome to the guild, AD the blacksmith." Jinx reached to her hand and pulled her up to her feet. "Get ready for insanity." AD smiled with absolute glee.
"So, are we guys going to finish off this dungeon or what? We only have one more area to clear." Kirito was starting to get impatient with the group. "Let's get going."

The Crows and Cats both got up from where they were sitting and moved towards the exit of the safe area. "Let's get going."

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Chapter 7: Shattered Moonlight​

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Spoiler

The Crows of Saika and the Black Cats of the Full Moon have patched up their rocky relationship. It's been about a month since AD joined the Crows and the two guilds started talking to each other again. And the lead group is still keeping up the pace of clearing floor after floor.
Finally, both guilds have a chance to buy a guild hall. However, will tragedy strike first?
"Yo, Rukia, you got anything today?" Rukia and AD had met up in The Immortalis Blacksmith. They were going through making whatever the hell they could, fulfilling AD's customer requests first off and then moving on to experimentation.
"I actually think that I got a good combination. Check this out." Rukia pulled out 3 pieces of Iron Ore, one Dark Ore and a five Glittering Lizard Scales and put them on his anvil. He positioned them in a sword like shape, the scales making the hilt, one of the Iron Ores near the hilt, the Dark Ore next, and finally two Iron Ores next to each other.
He started to hammer away. The first strike made each of the ingredients mould into one. It shone with a red glow. He continued hammering until the hilt made from the scales was no longer glowing but a regular blue. He then picked up the hilt and pushed the rest of the sword into the nearby water pot.
When he pulled it out, the sword as an awkward looking greatsword. It had a golden hilt, and the sword itself was black. The shape as fairly broad at the base, narrowing in the middle and coming back out into a wide end with a semicircular tip.
"Let me see that." AD took the sword. "It does look exactly like it, although Kayaba obviously thought more about copyright complaints over the safety of all the people he trapped in the game." AD was looking at the info. <<Shadownut Greatsword>>. "Yea, it's clearly a rip off of a Darknut's sword from Twilight Princess. Well, I guess that's one down, two to go."
"Oh, come on, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't make you one as well. You're part of the guild now, you get a hand-forged weapon." Rukia grinned at the Blacksmith. He quickly got a piece of paper and wrote down the recipe. He drew a little picture of the layout, great by his standards, not by anyone else's.
AD smiled at the drawing. She got out a little notebook and flipped it to a blank page. She wrote down the exact same information, but instead included the weapon name, a little sketch of the final weapon, and the recipe. It spanned the two pages and was much better than her fellow blacksmith's. "You should get one of these if you plan on being a full time blacksmith."
Rukia ignored the suggestion, as he had every other time she had said it. "It's your shop AD, I just help out." He looked up at the ceiling. "I can't believe that we managed to convince Jinx to buy a guild house in Mechania. How great that your shop is so close to ours." A bell chimed in the store, signalling someone had entered.
AD went out alone to greet the customer, Rukia got to checking the stats. The stats looked quite good for a greatsword, and he was sure that in a way Naomi could use it as a shield. The sword even gave a slight defence bonus, which was a plus.
"Uh, let's see. Your order is over here sir." AD waved to Rukia and held up the number two with her hand. Rukia looked around for the number two order for today. He found it in one of the boxes and laid it against the doorway. AD picked up the katana and gave it to the man. "Thank you, how much did we agree that was again?"
Rukia messaged Jinx quickly while AD was sorting out some of the final touch ups. So, you and Keita are going down to the First Floor to get the keys, right? Wouldn't it be great if you could just buy the house by walking up to it and buying it there? He sent just as AD finalised the deal with her customer.
"Thanks, please come again." AD smiled at her customer and walked into the back room again, where her smile faded. "That ass just cheated me for price. He dropped his agreed price and said he wouldn't go any higher. Stupid. At least it got me a sale though."
Rukia just chuckled against the wall. "It's always hilarious to watch you mad after a sale." AD started to breathe long breaths before talking again.
"I hope you don't say that to me when I'm in a really bad mood." She started to laugh as well. "Anyway, what are the others doing? I heard they were going off to some dungeon somewhere."
"Nah, the Cats were doing that. Monkey and Naomi were just going off grinding I think. I swear there is something between those two." Rukia checked his message bank, waiting for a reply. "Oh well, at least our experimental weaponmaking has proved useful..."
"Hey, Rukia, isn't it your birthday soon?" AD suddenly reminded Rukia of the fact out of nowhere. He looked a little surprised, in the heat of this insane game they had forgotten about everyone's birthdays and all sorts of other celebrations.
"It's tomorrow actually. I guess this guild house is like an early present." He was smirking at the idea. "So far I'm the only one whose birthday has been remembered by anyone, and the fact that you remember makes it that much more bizarre."

It couldn't be too terrible today, could it?

Another monster shattered around Naomi's greatsword. "So, how do you think the others are going today? We're both purchasing guild houses today, I can't wait to actually move into ours. I'm sick and tired of inns." Naomi looked around for more monsters to fight.
"Yea, I guess so." Monkey was spinning his staff, worried about something. "I get this feeling that we are missing something important. I've had this feeling a couple times over the time in the game." He eventually shrugged it off and went back to fighting.
Another monster spawned. It was a reptilian humanoid, with some snake-like features. It was holding a scimitar and charged at the two of them. The weapons of the monsters they had been fighting had been random over the time they had been fighting.
Their foe's scimitar started to glow as it rushed at Naomi. Monkey quickly jabbed his staff at the scimitar, knocking it in a way that distracted the snake-man and stopped the skill. Naomi then charged up her greatsword of a massive cut. It swung down across the snake-man's chest, leaving a massive gash across it.
Monkey immediately followed up with a jab to the snake-man's chest followed by a swing down onto its head. Naomi's attack had left it with red health. Monkey finished it off. It shattered into the blue triangles that they had become oh so familiar with by now.
"Well, do you think we should keep going, we've been keeping up a really high grind rate recently to finally get a house...? I think that we should take it slow for a bit." Monkey was leaning on his staff, tired from the past week.
"Think about this, the lead groups do that sort of training daily. Didn't you say that someday you want to participate in a boss fight? Maybe if we keep this up we can join in the next one." There was a silence for a second before the two broke out in laughter. "Yea, as if."
Another monster spawned, they both looked at each other and nodded. Both got out a blue crystal and yelled out. "Warp, Mechania."
They were surrounded in a blue light and warped to the town of blacksmiths and merchants. "Alright, so this was the house. It looks really cool."
The house that Jinx had gone to buy was one street away from AD's workshop. It had a giant cog on the side, but otherwise it looked like quite a generic house. The brickwork was what made it stand out, it had more of a sandstone colour than the regular brick colours. Rukia had picked it out instantly, he had an affinity for sandstone.

"We just wait for Jinx to get back now I guess." Monkey sat down against the wall, about to fall asleep against the wall. Naomi sat down next to him, just observing the streets.

"We've cleared out this corridor, now we just have the one to go before we clear out the dungeon." Tetsuo was leading the Black Cats in Keita's absence, with some helpful suggestions from Kirito on efficient paths through the dungeon.
"Just remember what I talked about, this dungeon tries to trick you like a labyrinth. There are traps everywhere." Kirito was lagging at the back of the group, watching out for any monsters that may have popped up behind the group. It had happened a fair amount of times, especially when they hit a dead end.
"That explains why there is no map data on this place to help us through." Ducker was grinning at the idea of treasure at the end of the dungeon. A lot of the time that was what he thought of over everything else.
Sachi was standing nervously in the middle of the group, keeping watch over everyone's health bars and calling out when people should be careful. Ducker rarely listened to her advice anyway, which often forced Tetsuo and Sasamaru to save his ass and Kirito to save their asses.
They were walking through empty halls that they had already cleared before. Sachi and Kirito were both on the lookout for anything that they had missed, monsters or hallways. Ducker was mostly just complaining about the lack of treasure. They eventually wound up finding the next path.
The first monster they came across followed the usual pattern they had repeated in this dungeon. Tetsuo initiated and Kirito immediately followed suit. Both of them dropped their foe's health a decent amount. Sachi would then rush in front of whichever of them had a higher aggro on the monster and defended the attacks while the other wailed on their foe like there was no tomorrow. Ducker and Sasamaru would wait for an opening to strike their own attacks on the monster.
It usually took them about a quarter of a minute for them to deal with any of the <<Rock Elementals>> that they came across, even less for the <<Zombie Dwarves>>. More often than not there were two of them two deal with, so Sachi would have to focus on defending against one or the other and leave the other one to Sasamaru's parries.
In this case there was only the one, so it died quickly. To everyone's surprise, Kirito grew a level in the presence of the Black Cats for the first time in their group's history. Up until now he hadn't actually levelled up while they hadn't been around. Kirito quickly swiped away the level up screen before anyone else noticed. Sachi had figured out a while ago, no one else did. No one else even noticed how fast he swiped it away.
"Congrats Kirito, I didn't get to see what level you are now, but I guess it will help however." Tetsuo was patting him on the back. Kirito was acting really nervous, hoping no one saw what level he really was. Sachi looked away quickly, hoping that the Black Swordsman didn't notice. The other three just thought it was some sort of lover's thing. Most of them were convinced there was a thing between Sachi and Kirito.
Out of all of them, Ducker was giving them the hardest time. He always seemed to. The rest of the group were grateful at the next monster spawn that Ducker shut up. Two this time, took a bit longer for them to take them out. The group continued down the hallway until something caught Ducker's eye. There was a treasure chest in the middle of a room off to the side.
Ducker looked into the room with a glint in his eye. He dashed straight into the room without a care in the world. Tetsuo and Sasmaru dashed in afterwards. Only Sachi and Kirito were left outside the room. Sachi was looking worriedly into the room, Kirito was hoping that this wasn't the trap room that he had talked about previously.
Kirito eventually called out to the other three that it was probably a trap. At some point before Ducker decided opening the chest was a good idea, Kirito yelled out to them that it might be a trap. Sachi finally remembered something Kirito had said earlier about a trap room in this dungeon.
Just in case, she equipped her special crystal. Just as Sachi materialized it, Ducker opened the chest. The room started to flash red, and Kirito rushed inside. Sachi used her crystal to create a body double before following him into the room. Instantly <<Zombie Dwarves>> and <<Rock Elementals>> came crawling out of the walls and spawning in the corners of the room.
They would never have been able to deal with this many enemies, so of course the teleport crystal was the best option. Ducker pulled it out his crystal and tried to warp out of the dungeon. However, no matter how many times he tried, the crystal wouldn't work. Everyone, even Kirito, looked baffled by this. Teleport crystals not working, that was something unheard of, unless it was a last minute addition to the game.
The other members tried to use their crystals, but Sasamaru and Tetsuo's didn't work either. The monsters were practically on top of the group now. Everyone else had gotten out their weapons, except Ducker. He was still trying his best to get his crystal to work.
One of the Dwarves knocked him down. A crowd of dwarves then gathered around him. They kept hitting the thief with their pickaxes, the rest of the Black Cats just stood back in shock. Ducker's life bar quickly drained until he was official dead. His body shattered as if he was just a mob that they had just killed.
Their shock over Ducker's death didn't last long. Their group was surrounded by the monsters. Everyone was fighting their hardest to make sure that the monsters didn't get on top of them, but it didn't take long before Tetsuo was also surrounded as well. Rock Elementals had surrounded him, they started to slash. Tetsuo was fighting back, parrying blows and killing a few monsters, but he was overwhelmed. The blows kept coming. Eventually his health ran out, he died and his in game avatar shattered into the same blue triangles that his prior comrade had.
Sachi and Kirito were now the only living members of the Black Cats in that room. They were fighting off the <<Rock Elementals>> and <<Zombie Dwarves>> quite well. Sachi's false avatar allowed her to be much more aggressive in her fighting style, allowing her last much longer than she would have normally.
Kirito eventually looked over at Sachi and yelled out her name. For a split second Sachi was distracted. It was enough that one of the <<Rock Elementals>> that Sachi had been fighting managed to slash her across the back. Given the fact that her false avatar was only able to stand one hit, it died instantly.
As it was dying, Kirito rushed for her. She knew it was useless, she wasn't dead, but how was be to know? She smiled at him and mouthed two sentences to him before her illusionary avatar shattered.
"Thank you. Goodbye."
She could see Kirito rushing to grab her in the few moments between when her avatar shattered and she woke back up in her real avatar. He really did care about her, none of her late guildmates were wrong about that.
Kirito was going to get out of that room. Sachi was tempted to show him the secret of her black crystal. She was also thinking how much of a shock to his system it would be if he found one of the people he had just seen die wasn't actually dead.
"No, it's better if in his mind I stay dead." Sachi shook her head, looking down at the ground. She had a slight smile on her face as she spoke. She actually chuckled a bit at the overall stupidity of the entire situation.
"I always expected it to be my own fault that I would get myself killed in this world. Instead it was everyone else and it was all Ducker's fault." She was devastated at the loss of her friends, but at the moment there was so much about the situation that was stupid she couldn't take it seriously.

Hey guys, I need to talk to you all. Something just happened. Sachi sent the message to the entire guild of the <<Crows of Saika>>. By the time that she was talking to them, she was certainly going to be devastated by then, but for now she was just going to laugh off the situation.

"So, guys, what do you think Sachi wants to talk about? It was quite a sudden message, don't you think?" Naomi was looking around, waiting inside the house for a knock at the door. Rukia had messaged Sachi previously the address of their house, and she replied that she was coming soon.
That was about two hours ago, it was nearly night time now. There hadn't been a message saying anything about what might have been keeping her. "It's a bit frustrating to wait for her." He was groaning, AD was standing beside him, arms folded.
"I'm really surprised she didn't send us a message if she wanted to talk to us so badly. Maybe she got caught up in something else." It was dark outside, and Jinx had just come back from getting the keys. Maybe Sachi and the rest of the Black Cats were admiring their new house.
Rukia quickly checked his friend list to send Sachi a message and noticed something important. "Hey guys. Two things. First off, all the Black Cats except Sachi are missing from my friends list. Second of all, it says Sachi is guildless. What the hell it going o---"
As Rukia was finishing his sentence, Sachi finally arrived. She was in tears, attempting to cover them by dropping her face but the drops still visible.
"Oh my, Sachi, what happened?" Jinx was the first one to speak. He rushed at the blue haired girl and grabbed her arm. "Come inside, we'll talk about it in there."
Sachi's head lifted up to see where she was actually walking until she got inside. When she sat down on the sofa, he head found its way to the wooden table in front of her. She was still crying.
"So, what was it that you wanted to talk about? You seem like something terrible has happened." Naomi sat beside Sachi, her hand on the girl's back.
"Yea, and what took so long?" Rukia stood in a corner, arms folded. Everyone stared daggers at him.
Sachi let out a few more sobs before she started her story. "We were in a dungeon. Ducker did something stupid. Kirito and me only ones left." Each sentence was interrupted at the end with another sob.
"Wait... you mean---" Naomi's eyes widened and her hand moved to her mouth.
"The Black Cats are all dead. Ducker's greed got the better of him and it got all of them killed. Kirito told Keita the news and he committed suicide off the edge of the world because of it." Sachi wasn't sobbing as much as before.
Naomi instantly hugged Sachi. Jinx's head was in his hands, as was Monkey's. Rukia just stared blankly at Sachi. AD sat in the corner, unsure how to react to the news, seeing as she had only met the Black Cats a month ago.
"I always knew that Ducker would do something stupid like this." Rukia spoke casually, still wide-eyed. Sachi instantly looked up and him, as did everyone else in the room.
"Rukia, out. NOW!" Jinx yelled at him and pointed at the door. Rukia's eyes were still open wide as he walked out of the guild house. He sat beside the door on the ground.
He heard the door open. He looked over to see Sachi, tears streaming down her face again and a balled up fist. She grabbed Rukia's shirt collar and punched him across the face.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU RUKIA! MY ENTIRE GUILD IS DEAD AND YOU MADE SOME SHITTY JOKE ABOUT IT." Her voice was quivering.
Rukia just looked away from Sachi. "Listen... I don't do well with this kind of stuff. I'm not emotional. The best that I do is to walk around with a blank expression for a few hours." Sachi was still staring daggers at the rogue, but her fist wasn't in a ball anymore. "There has only been one or two times since Year Seven at school where I have cried, because at the time I realised that I cry over the most stupid of things."
Sachi was scratching her head in confusion. It was a weird look for someone who has tears halfway down her face and red eyes from crying so much. "I still don't see your point. How could you make a joke about it?" Her voice now sounded hurt than angry. "What would make you think it's an appropriate time for that."
"I have no sense of when to stop. If I have one issue that I've never resolved, it's that I've never taken any situation seriously. I swear that if my health bar ever dropped to zero my corpse would be laughing before it shattered." Rukia had his back to Sachi, his face looking downwards.
"Oh..." Sachi was just staring at the boy. AD eventually opened the door for Sachi and told her that staying outside was not the best idea. She didn't even acknowledge Rukia's presence.
Sachi went back inside while Rukia started walking. He opened the door to AD's shop and walked into the back room. He had slept in here once before when he couldn't by stuffed to go to the inn where the guild was sleeping. It wouldn't be as bad the second time round.
He laid down on the ground. There was a pillow in the corner that AD used when she had had to sleep in the workshop. It was plain, so Rukia didn't feel as awkward using it as he should have.
He quickly opened up his friends list. He could see the spots where Keita and the other's names were missing. He tapped on Sachi's. There was a new guild emblem next to her name. The emblem of the <<Crows of Saika>>. "Well, that was fast."
He scrolled down to AD's name in the list and sent her a message. Hey, I'm going to be crashing in the workshop tonight. Any objections? No, well good night.

His message was replied to almost instantly. Go ahead and do whatever you want, you ass. He chuckled slightly before drifting into unconsciousness.

Yay, unnecessarily stupid and complex reasons why a character doesn't die. Yes, it is one of those fanfics.

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Chapter 8: The Thunder Beast​

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Spoiler

It has been over a month since the death of almost all of the <<Black Cats of the Full Moon>>, and since then the two survivors have gone their separate ways. Kirito went back to the front lines, always shattered over what he thought was his fault. Sachi moved on to the <<Crows of Saika>>, the guild that he always felt like a friend to her and her now deceased guildmates.
Surprisingly enough, things seem to have gotten back to normal. While what happened a month prior is still a touchy subject for any of them, especially Sachi, it hasn't destroyed anyone as much as they thought it would.
"Come on Sachi, try harder. It's honestly a good thing we are doing training in a building because otherwise you'd probably be losing a lot of health right now." Rukia was in one of the back rooms of the guild house for the <<Crows of Saika>>. It had a fair amount of weapons stacked against the walls, and the guild basically used it as their training room.
Sachi had asked the guild a few days after the deaths of the Black Cats to train her. She didn't want to be fearing for her life if a situation like that came around again. It wasn't that easy a process though. Fear wasn't something that you could get rid of overnight, especially the sort of anxiety that Sachi had whenever she got into a fight with a monster.
To her credit though, she was improving. She wasn't just hiding behind her shield anymore, she fought back. She still hesitated while fighting though, which was a habit that both Rukia and Jinx were trying to break from her.
"Against someone as fast as you I can't block as fast as I need to. Countering is great and all, but I need to be able to see what is happening. I'm not experienced enough." Sachi was waiting leaning against the wall to catch her breath.
"Just think of it as two separate moves. The sword and shield is the closest you can come to dual-wielding in this game since you can charge up a skill with the sword while charging up a block with the shield." Rukia mimed the action of deflecting a blow and then counter-striking afterwards with a stab.
Sachi just sighed and got back in her ready position. "Alright, let's go." Rukia came at her, doing his best to not charge up his flashstep skill. Sachi was already having enough trouble keeping up with his movements now. He ran up to her and swung his blade in a sideways arc. Sachi's shield glowed blue, her sword glowing orange. She deflected Rukia's strike, letting it slide along her shield. The sword skill she had been building up caused her to follow through with a slash across Rukia's back. He was sent flying into the wall with the unexpected force behind Sachi's strike.
Rukia turned himself over and chuckled. "That was excellent Sachi." Sachi was staring at her weapons in absolute awe. "If you can do that in a fight I think you'll be a lot more confident."
Sachi grinned. "You really think I'll be willingly getting into fights with monsters any time soon." She was just on the verge of laughing.
"You know, I don't think that a month ago you enjoyed even these practice sessions. I think that you're growing more confident about this game." The rogue boy pushed himself up off the floor as AD poked her head in the room.
"Hey you two, how is the training going?" She was carrying a box of materials. She had been planning on selling her old Blacksmith shop and open up a new one right next to the house. Most of the houses on <<Mechania>> were surrounded on both sides by workshops, so it wasn't difficult to buy it. She had sent a message to her regular customers that she would be changing her location, and there was a mostly positive response.
"We've been doing really well. Sachi just learnt how to do a counter. How is moving out the shop going?" A fair amount of the materials from the shop had been stored in a spare room in the <<Crows of Saika>>'s new house.
"Good. I've still got some on the really large stuff to move over, but I'll do that after when I'm ready to start moving stuff over. That wouldn't fit in the other room." AD quickly put down her boxes and materialized her weapon. "So, Sachi, why don't you show me this counter?"
Sachi's eyes widened in fear at the axe that her guildmate was holding. A sword or knife she could handle the thought of. The thought of an axe coming at her scared the living daylights out of her. But there were enemies with axes out there. She had to be brave.
The blue haired girl got into a defensive stance. AD smiled at how far Sachi had come since joining the guild. AD rushed the girl as fast as she could, although she was certainly not as fast as Rukia.
Sachi put up her shield and stared moving it towards the side as she had with Rukia. However, the power behind AD's axe was much greater. Sachi had expected the axe to move out of the way before she struck, but instead her arm was knocked out of the way and Sachi was sent flying back into the wall.
"Heavy weapons are different to light weapons. You can't move them out of the way in like a katana or knife. You have to block in completely with your shield instead and then you can counter." AD gave Sachi a few little practices at making the action before rushing at her with little warning.
This time the blacksmith came from the right side, hoping the Sachi would first of all register that she was coming in at a different angle, and secondly perform the correct action for a block. Sachi almost missed the altered direction of the axe swing, but she quickly corrected it, putting her shield arm in the way of blade, giving more strength by reinforcing with her sword arm.
The axe stopped and Sachi's arm shuddered, she was too busy realising that it had worked to follow through with a counter. AD knocked her with the butt of her axe lightly to snap her out of her amazement.
"Sachi, remember, follow through. The main job of a sword and shield are to block and counter. And you've clearly moved away from the spear, so you need to learn how this works." AD was trying her best to come off as friendly with her teaching, but she was about as good at it as Rukia.
Sachi frowned. "I was trying, I just didn't expect the shield the hold. I was too surprised that the shield didn't shatter or get knocked out of the way. I get that the system assists with that sort of thing, but I wish I had a large shield like that one that that Heathcliff guy is always lugging around, or at least a metal one instead of this crappy wooden one."
AD pulled up one of the wooden chairs in the practice room and sighed, looked straight at Sachi. Rukia was still sitting in the corner, acting lonely to make one of the two of them notice him. Neither of them did, or at least they didn't show it. "Listen, I can make you a better shield at some point, I'm trying to make a really awesome sword shield combo for the both of you, so just practice with that gear for a while longer." Sachi gave a shy little smile and a nod before the two of them drew their weapons again in sync and started practicing.
Rukia was by the door of the room, watching Sachi practice. A month ago, Sachi was a broken girl who wouldn't go near her weapons because she was afraid to be in a near death situation again and just the thought that the more she picked up her weapons, the more chance she had of dying. Now she was using that as an excuse to train, make herself stronger and stop those possibilities.
Soon after she joined the <<Crows of Saika>>, she told them that this was the first MMO she had ever played. While the other four members of her IT club at her school, AKA her former guildmates, had all been big gamers, she was more there doing programming for websites. She thought that why not play an MMO that she could literally get into, so she got SAO with her guildmates.

How ironic that the one of them who wasn't a gamer had outlived her friends. Since the incident a month about, slowly that because a sort of morbid joke that everyone told. Sachi was still having trouble getting over it, but she was also trying to break herself off from the final member of the guild. She had deleted Kirito from her friend's list, and she had quit her guild as soon as she had gotten out of the cave. As far as the Black Swordsman would have seen, Sachi had died with the rest of them, and she didn't need to make it harder on him or herself.

"So, you said that today we might do some field training with Sachi today. When are we going?" Naomi was sitting in the front room of the guild house, waiting impatiently with her weapon unsheathed.
Rukia was waiting on a couch opposite to his guildmate. "I don't know, AD said she wanted to train with he a while more. And what is with this quest you want to bring her on?"
Naomi sighed and slouched back in her chair. "Why not throw her in the deep end, we'll be there in case anything goes horribly wrong."
"I guess there is no talking you out of this, are you. I don't think this is going to be a good idea though." Rukia was speaking into his hand, a bit annoyed at Naomi's idea. She was clearly more interested in fighting than helping her new guildmate. "It's almost like a low-level rai---"
"Hey guys, AD and I are done. What were you talking about?" Sachi poked her head into the front room. She hadn't heard a lot of the conversation between Naomi and Rukia, so she was curious, especially when she realised she had cut Rukia off from something.
Naomi tried to cover it up quickly that they were planning on bringing her on what was considered a low level raid by some of the main group. "Oh, don't worry 'bout it. We were just thinking about quests to d---"
"Naomi thinks it's a good idea to take you with us on a raid." Rukia cut off his guildmate. He didn't see any problem in telling her and actually thought that Sachi finding out later would just break down all the confidence that hi, Jinx and now AD had begun to build up in her.
"Damn it Rukia, you didn't have to tell her!" Naomi folded her arms and huffed in an almost comical fashion. "Now she will never go with us."
"Actually..." Naomi grabbed the sides of her chair expectantly as Sachi started responding. "It think it might be interesting to have a bit of a challenge. I'm pretty sure that I won't lose my confidence in the middle of such a large fight."
"'K Crona." Rukia mumbled from his chair loud enough that Sachi and Naomi could hear. Sachi glared at him, Naomi just shrugged and continued speaking.
"So, you're actually interested in this... You realise none of us have ever done a raid in Sword Art Online before?" Rukia just facepalmed at Naomi's idiotic reveal of information. Sachi still looked unfazed.
"Well, I guess we will all be just as confident. That will really help I think." She grinned before attempting to walk back.
"I hear there is a unique spear as a last hit drop from the boss at the end. It's called the <<Thunder Spear>>, and it has the ability to be swung like a sword when you attack. I think it was a reference to some anime Something no something..." Naomi scratched her head trying to remember what it was.
"Akatsuki no Yona. That anime was awesome, don't dis it Naomi." Rukia looked at Naomi as if he were looking over glasses at her.
"I wasn't dissing it Rukia, I just couldn't remember the name. I only watched a few episo--- hey, Sachi left..." Naomi looked over at the hallway. Sachi had already left, irritated by Naomi and Rukia's anime arguments.
"Oh well, I'm tempted to go and train. I haven't actually fought in a duo with you yet, so it might be good practice." Rukia got up and equipped his dagger.
Naomi gave a smirk to her guildmate. "I thought you promised AD that you were going to help her set up her new shop. Why don't you do that and I'll train with Sachi for a bit."
Rukia mumbled a curse under his breath before objecting. "AD said she was fine for now, and I think it's going to be better if Sachi gets used to AD's axe attacks before she gets other training."
"Excuse me Rukia, what was that about me not needing help." Naomi mouthed the words 'you're screwed' to Rukia as AD stood at the entrance to the hallway, grinning and punching her hands together. "I'm going to train with Sachi, you can move some of the stuff into the new store location. Or else."
"I don't have to actually set it up do I, I have absolutely no idea how to---"
"I hope you realise I had to set this entire thing up myself the first time. I have the guild helping me out this time, so you can complain after you've set up your own smithy." AD stormed into the back rooms before calling out. "Oh, and I agree with Rukia on the training thing, Sachi doesn't need a new weapon type to get used to just yet."
All the smugness that Naomi had been emanating dissipated as soon as AD shot her down as well. "You should get to work on the stuff. I suggest just leaving the gear in the workshop and helping AD set it up when she has cooled down.
Rukia nodded before getting up and going to work. It wasn't actually difficult, the problem was that he could only carry one or two items of the gear in his inventory at a time because of the extra limits in place on crafting equipment.

"Damn it... Why do I always get the crappy jobs?"

"Hey Jinx, I want to talk to you about something." Sachi knocked on the door of the co-guild master. It opened, Jinx was fast asleep. Why was everyone in this guild so lazy? "Jinx, wake up."
Jinx's eyelids opened slowly, groaning as he realised someone was talking to him. "Go away Rukia, I'm not going to play Injustice with you." He opened his eyes and saw that Sachi was standing there and he was still in Sword Art Online. "Oh, crap, sorry about that."
"Don't worry, Tetsuo was a heavy sleeper in the real world, it took me forever to wake him up when we were working on a project together." Sachi just smiled, a sort of painful smile, remembering both her friends in the real world and their untimely demises. "Anyway, Naomi and Rukia were talking about some quest that we were planning on doing, and since Rukia is probably busy now and Naomi refuses to give any info, I want you to tell me."
Just as Jinx was going to say it was too early to worry about this he checked the time via his main menu screen. It was nearly noon. His eyes widened but he was too tired to do anything about it now, especially since he had nowhere to be. "Alright, which quest were they talking about? Me and Rukia recently got a mini-guidebook from an NPC vendor that detailed the quests on this floor."
Jinx opened his inventory and took out a booklet that detailed the quests that they could perform on each floor. The booklet grew in size each time a floor guide was purchased, so he sometimes got a bit frustrated with it.
"Neither of them said the name, but Naomi was saying something about a raid level quest and a quest reward called the <<Thunder Spear>>. Does that help?" Jinx nodded as he opened up the search bar for the guidebook. He selected the raids filter and typed in Thunder Spear in the rewards section. He found the quest name.
"Alright, I've found it. The quest is called <<The Thunder Beast>>. Apparently the quest has a boss-like enemy as the target that takes a large raid party to defeat. The boss is a large lion-like enemy that has the ability to spread lightning along the floor in set patterns or strike lightning on a certain area." Jinx kept reading the quest details as Sachi took mental notes about the details of the quest.
Jinx looked through until he found another piece of information that made him a lot calmer about the idea. "Apparently with raids there is a vendor who sells guidebooks on the boss so you don't have to send a scout party in like you do the floor bosses. It says that the raid vendor for this boss is on the 14th floor right outside the raid zone."
"And that is?" Sachi just glared at Jinx for leaving out information.
Jinx continued looking through the section for some mention of it. "Here we go, it says the location is the <<Sparking Grotto>> and it is just two floors above us. So it shouldn't be too bad, right?" He even found a map in the book about where the raid was located. It was in the middle of a large group of mountain near the main hub town of the 15th floor.
"I wonder how many other people will be willing to do it." Sachi was twiddling her thumbs now, not knowing whether she should be excited that she was going on a quest with her new guild rather than sitting out like she had done previously, or whether she should be scared for her life going up against such a strong monster. From what she had been told of MMOs by her late guild, raids were the hardest battles in any MMO, and even the lowest level ones are difficult. "I really hope we get some strong people in this group. No offense, but I doubt that we could take on something so powerful on our own."
Jinx chuckled slightly. "I took that into consideration. Monkey is actually around the hub town for the 15th floor trying to find other people interested in the raid. He said he found a few people already, but we are looking for a group of 24 people. At the moment we have twelve interested people, only half." Jinx got a message from Monkey and opened it. He grinned slightly as he read it.
"Make that fourteen. He just found another person who was interested who said that they were there for him and his guildmate." Jinx yawned slightly. "Anyway, don't tell anyone that I'm up here sleeping, they all think that I'm doing really important work with Shadow... Well, that's kinda true, but only to keep tally of when he gets a hold of someone who wants to help."
Sachi giggled slightly at Jinx's comment. "Don't worry, so long as Rukia finds out, we can just delegate all the work to him, right?" Jinx smirked and nodded. "Well, get Monkey to message me as well, I want to know how close this raid is to actually happening."
Jinx half nodded again as his head fell back into his pillow. Sachi just watched him fall asleep. Either he was just as lazy as Rukia, except with more sleep and less complaining, or he was actually up late trying to coordinate this raid with Monkey last night.
As she walked back into the main room, Naomi was still sitting in the room. Sachi just shrugged and sat down in one of the other couches.
"So, you wanna trai---"
"No!" Sachi cut her guildmate off. She agreed with AD, she didn't need to learn to get used to more than one weapon at a time. "What about some grinding though. I think I'm in the same boat as Rukia, I don't know anything about your fighting style."
Naomi grinned, almost maniacally, as Sachi suggested the idea of an actual fight with some mobs. All this talk of assisting in a raid and everyone was just sitting around waiting for it to happen, instead of training like hell like they should be. Finally someone was thinking straight, even if Rukia had suggested the same thing earlier.
"You're not sadistic, are you?" Naomi had a bit of a guilty chuckle before sighing at Sachi's question.
"Not exactly, I couldn't stand the idea of hurting someone IRL. Mobs on the other hand I love beating the crap out of." Sachi wasn't sure how to react to that. She just nodded awkwardly while thinking about leaving the room immediately.

"And just to be clear, everyone in this guild is this weird all the time?" Sachi asked as a rhetorical question, to which Naomi laughed. She had been in this guild long enough to know the answer to that.

"See, they aren't that difficult, are they." Naomi was cleaving at enemies dealing high amounts of damage while Sachi stood there, unsure of how to help. Naomi had numerous abilities that could cause knockback, so there was little need for Sachi to switch in with her to block and finish off any of the mobs.
"Could you please give me something, the idea was so that I can learn to blend with your fighting style, not watch as you dispatch countless mobs." She sighed before Naomi grinned.
"The problem is that there is little in this game to balance knockback. Larger enemies don't get effected, so I have to actually get help on them from others, but these regular mobs are really easy for me to solo." She was subtly trying to tell Sachi to learn her own solo style, but she was probably being too obscure. Thank god that a mob spawned close to her. "Sachi, on your right."
A <<Goblin Shaman>> was charging at Sachi, its cane-like weapon held in the air. From what she had seen the few times Naomi had been hit, they seemed to deal different debuffs for a short time when it caused damage. "Finally, I can do something."
Sachi turned around to face down her foe. She got in a stance to block an incoming attack before suddenly she remembered the last fight she had with the Black Cats. She froze up just long enough for the <<Goblin Shaman>> to get within striking range. The monster hit Sachi, and although her health bar drained very little, she had a defence decrease under her health bar. She was grateful that most of the enemies were spawning around Naomi and not her.
The <<Goblin Shaman>> was coming around for another attack. If she couldn't learn, she would die like the rest of her guild. She willed herself not to freeze up as the monster swung its weapon at her. He shield charged up and she swung it at the weapon, knocking it in the opposite direction. The cane swung back and hit the <<Goblin Shaman>> reducing its movement speed.
The game's logic meant that enemies could damage themselves or other enemies, so Sachi wasn't surprised by the recoil that had happened. She swung her sword across the monster's chest a few times, being able to add a few more than usual due to the debuff it had given itself. This time she was able to step out of the way of the attack and slash the monster across the back.
Naomi had the feeling that they had temporarily cleared the surrounding area, minus the monster that Sachi was still fighting. She was thinking about stepping in to finish it faster, but she was surprised to see how well Sachi was doing, especially after she had frozen up at the start of the encounter. "Alright, keep it up Sachi!"
Due to her level been lower than the guild average, Sachi wasn't dealing as much damage as the rest of the guild would've been doing. However, once she caught the flow of combat, she was able to dispatch the <<Goblin Shaman>> with ease. It shattered into the blue crystals that everything did when it was slain. A rewards screen appeared before Naomi and Sachi, giving out experience and items and another screen appeared in front of Sachi saying she had just levelled up.
"Nice work Sachi, I was hoping that would happen soon." Naomi was leaning on her sword, still smiling from the fight.
Sachi wasn't feeling as happy. She had sheathed her sword and shield over back and folded her arms, displeased. "I froze up. What if I do that in a real fight without you or someone else there to back me up?"
"Well that won't happen. What do you say to this, when we get about double our levels, let's go back to that room and clear it, all of us. Maybe then you won't feel so traumatic over that." Sachi's reaction was a mixture of shock and agreement. She wouldn't have expected to ever want to go back there, but maybe then she could feel that she had avenged her former guild.
"Sure, let's do it. But I think we just keep it between us and mention it when we're ready. Rukia will probably want to do it right away, prove himself better than Ducker." She laughed slightly, which surprised her. She didn't think that she would ever be able to say anything normally about her old guild.

"I agree, Rukia would make an idiot of himself." Both the girls laughed.

Hooray, I don't even know what I'm doing anymore Okay, so I was just planning on having this be one chapter, but I guess the way it unfolded it's turning into a few more chapters. I guess I can try to detail a raid or something in the next chapter or two. And then I can go and figure out what else to write... I mean, work on later ideas

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Chapter 5 is now completed. You can either unclick the spoiler or you can read it on fanfiction.net. Recommendations and reviews are appreciated...​

Summary​

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After the clearing of the first floor, the lead group has been clearing floors at a much faster pace. However, the Crows are not part of this lead group. They are staying behind. Over this time, the guilds of the Crows of Saika and the Black Cats of the Full Moon have become much closer. However, a mysterious swordsman has joined the Black Cats...​

 

Chapter 6 is now completed, unclick the spoiler or click the link to my fanfic to read.​

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Summary​

The Black Cats of the Full Moon have been avoiding the Crows of Saika recently, and it has put a downer on the Crows. They haven't seen each other much since Kirito's joining. And how is Rukia's secret blacksmithing working out?​

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I just want to say something else as well. I've added one of my friends from an old TCG MMO I used to play. I don't think it will matter to anyone else, but @[member='AD7'], if you ever come back on LV just to see what's new, I've written you into my story, even if I may have screwed up a bit with my memory... I may have written you in as a girl... oopsies.​

 

Chapter 7 is complete. As always, unclick the spoiler or read on fanfic.net (And I actually looked over the thing I suggest reading on fanfic rather than here.)​

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Summary​

Well, it's the end of the Moonlight chapter trilogy. Almost everyone can sense the tragedy that's is about to befall the two guilds, but just what happens. And what is the aftermath.​

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...And, yes, it is one of those fanfics...​

 

Chapter 8 complete. As always, you can read on Fanfic.net or unclick spoiler​

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Summary​

It's been about a month since most of the Black Cats of the Full Moon were slain. So, how has everyone been coping with their deaths, especially Sachi, the only surviving original member.​