Sword Art Online: Phantom Reaper || SAO OC

29 - Scent Of Danger

December 14th 2025 - 9:09am

Niko sat on his bed staring blankly at the wall. He barely slept the night before, tormented by nightmares of his time in SAO. As he sat there lost in thought, he tried to remember what happened the day before.

When he logged out of GGO after the qualifiers, he felt like there was something he should've known about but he couldn't figure out what it was. The thought tugged at his consciousness all throughout the night and into the morning.

He remembered everything before his first match clearly, so he knew whatever it was that happened to him after that, it was bad enough to trigger him. That thought alone terrified him.

His phone rang and pulled him out of his thoughts. He looked at the caller ID and saw it was Asuna calling him. After taking a few breaths he answered the phone and tried to sound as casual as possible. "Hey Asuna, what's up?"

"Hey Niko, I was just calling to check up on you."

Her tone sounded suspiciously suggestive - as if she was nudging him to say something but he couldn't understand what it was. "I'm fine... Maybe a little tired though.."

"Tired? From what?"

"Just another sleepless night. Nothing new really."

"Is that so?" she said sounding doubtful of his words. "Well, if you're not busy we were gonna meet up at the mall today for lunch. Do you want to tag along?"

Niko breathed a sigh of relief, feeling a little bit of peace at the thought of just spending a day with his friends without any strings attached. He didn't mind the time they spend grinding in ALO, but this was a good excuse to get out of the house without turning to VR.

"Yeah sure, I don't mind meeting up. Where and when?"

"We were thinking of a sweet shop... or maybe a café?"

The two of them continued making plans and eventually ended the call. Niko stood up and got changed, putting on a white t-shirt and black jeans with a denim blue jacket and blue sneakers. He grabbed his phone, wallet, and the tablet he borrowed from Kikuoka and rushed down the stairs, slowing down when he felt the familiar and annoying dull pain in his leg.

Garrett who sat on the couch in the living room noticed Niko rush down the stairs and greeted him. "Hey bro, what's got you in a hurry?"

Niko shook his head as he took the car keys from the key rack on the wall near the front door. "Just meeting up with a few friends."

As he reached for the door handle he heard Garrett call out to him "Alright. But hey, you can't take the car."

Niko sagged his shoulders and sighed. "Why not?"

"Because you can't... I need it for something later today." his voice sounded hesitant, like he was hiding something.

Niko recalled that he had seen scratches on the pole that had the gate security keypad outside. He looked at Garrett who seemed to have tensed up.

"Where's the other one?" Garrett didn't respond, and Niko rolled his eyes.

"Garrett... what did you do?" he asked but got no response. Niko sighed again "You knocked over the security post again, didn't you?"

"No!" he said defensively "I didn't... but... well I need to replace it again for... reasons. So I'm gonna drive out to get the pad replaced. So you'll have to use the bike today."

"Reasons, huh? Right... Didn't you repair it two weeks ago?"

"Yeah, but it's been acting up lately so I'm just gonna flat out replace it. The system'll be down for a bit but it's better than one that always breaks down, right?"