The Black Swordsman

Chapter 1: A Broken Promise

The vast and deadly world of Sword Art Online or SAO for short was something to truly behold. It was supposed to be the first Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game released to the Japanese market. Millions of Japanese kids and adults of various ages waited patiently for almost ten years for it to drop. Unfortunately, none of these poor souls realized the horrors that awaited them in this cursed game of death. What was supposed to be a harmless and fun virtual reality video game to play with friends, turned into a game of survival where death in the game world would cause the nerve gear (a device that allowed players to travel to the beautiful and detailed VR world of Sword Art Online) would fry the player's brain, killing them in the real world. When the game's creator, Akihiko Kayaba, made the haunting announcement in front of all the players while they were in game, that he hadn't included a "log out" button, there was immediate panic amongst the players of the game. Many were confused...many were scared...some thought it was just some kind of sick twisted joke...but it was real. The only way to return to the real world was to reach the 100th floor of Sword Art Online and defeat the game's final boss. This was the final statement made by Akihiko Kayaba, before his giant floating avatar disappeared.

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690 days into SAO:

The peaceful quiet of the night was welcoming as I sat on a wooden rocking chair, outside of the cabin that I shared with my partner. My name was Kazuto Kirigaya, a player...no, a survivor of the death game, SAO. Instead of using my real name in the game, I had chosen the name Kirito, a combination of my first and last name, for my avatar. I had survived over a year and half in this game from hell...spending the majority of it alone, as a solo player. There was only two times when I wasn't alone...one of those times cost the lives of an entire guild and the other...

I turned to face the girl, who had been my very first partner in the game of SAO. I still remembered meeting her for the first time in a dark cave on the first floor of the game...the hopelessness in her beautiful hazel eyes and the absolutely incredible potential she showed during combat. I knew from the very first time that I met her that she would one day be one of the top players in the game and I was right. Her name was Asuna Yuuki, Second in Command of the Knights of the Blood Oath, the largest guild in SAO...the girl who had earned the nickname "The Lightning Flash" due to her incredible speed...and the girl who I had fallen in love with after spending a year and a half in the most fucked up situation possible.

She was resting her head on my shoulder and I figured that she was fast asleep. I could still recall the silly hood that she used to wear when I had met her on the first floor of Aincrad, another name for the world of Sword Art Online. When I looked down at her, at my side, I couldn't possibly imagine why she would want to hide her gorgeous and long chest nut brown hair or her face that was equally as perfect...in my opinion, of course. One of the last things that the game's creator, Akihiko Kayaba, did during his haunting and only announcement during the game, was change all of our in-game appearances to match what we looked like in the real world. He claimed that it was supposed to add to the realism of the game but I felt like it did more damage than good...instead of my bad ass avatar that I had created from scratch, my physical features matched exactly what I looked like in the real world, a nerdy 16 – year old boy with black bangs hanging in his eyes of the same color. I looked like a fucking nerd...I mean, that's exactly what I was. Nothing more than a nerd, who played way too many video games in the real world...as a result, when I had first arrived in Sword Art Online, I had zero social skills at all. Hell, I still didn't have much in the way of a personality but Asuna and her bubbly personality made up for it. Although, a part of me couldn't forget about how Asuna acted when I first met her. If I actually had friends in the real world and managed to clear this death game, I would show off Asuna to them like no tomorrow...then again, that required me to actually have friends in the real world. As fucked up as it was, a part of me wished that I didn't have to ever return to the real world. I had grown accustomed to the vast world of Aincrad and I had grown even more accustomed to the girl who was by my side. I knew it was selfish of me but...dying here in Aincrad, alongside Asuna...that wouldn't be too bad at all.