Sword Art Online: Phantom Reaper || SAO OC

67 - To Be Alone

5th April 2026 - 2:30pm

Niko's body felt strangely heavy and his eyes were greeted with nothing but darkness. The sound of his heart beating in his chest echoed in his ears, breaking through the suffocating silence around him.

It took several moments for him to realize that his eyes were closed. When he opened his eyes he was greeted with a plain white ceiling, in a room lit up by sunlight - something that Niko hadn't seen much of in the past week.

He could barely make out two voices making conversation from somewhere outside the room he was in, but wasn't quite sure where they were coming from.

"Did you forget that this is a university, not a hospital?"

"Not at all. I just decided that you'd be best to help. You needed someone new to test out your robotics too, so this works out."

Niko hesitantly sat up, scratching his head in confusion as to where he was. His vision was blurry at first, but cleared up when he blinked a few times.

He still wore the same dirty tracksuit from earlier but the bruises he had on his arms and hands had healed somewhat.

He felt strange weight on his left leg and quickly realized that he had some kind of leg brace on it beneath his clothes.

He rolled up his pant leg, revealing the black brace covering his lower thigh and knee. It wasn't the usual kind, it seemed to be woven in with light metals in certain places - looking like some kind of high tech accessory.

It was thin but tough enough to keep his leg stuck in place. It was nothing like he'd seen before and he wondered where it could've come from.

He pushed his skepticism aside and studied the room he was in. It didn't stand out to him as anything special, but he could immediately tell that it wasn't a hospital room.

Medical posters adorned the walls with a rather messy looking desk in the corner of the room. The door was furthest from him, with a small box at its side. It looked more like a school's nurse's office than any traditional medical facility.

The door opened and two men walked in. One of them was Mr Kikuoka, but Niko did not recognize the other person.

"You're awake. You sure took your time there..." Kikuoka remarked with a small smile.

The man next to him mumbled in annoyance and brushed him off. "It was most likely the sedatives. He's recovered now though so that's good."

Niko ask what was going on and before Kikuoka could respond the unknown man stepped forward, allowing Niko to get a better look at him.

He wore a lab coat with regular dress pants and a button up shirt. He wore glasses and looked to be middle-aged, making Kikuoka look deceptively younger in comparison.

"How are you feeling?" the man asked Niko who stared at him confused. The man cleared his throat and offered Niko a sheepish smile. "Apologies, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Professor Shigemura, a lecturer at the Toto University."

"He is also the creator of the Augma - An experimental AR headset." Kikuoka cut in, earning an annoyed mumble from the professor.

"Yes well, you were brought here by him. You seemed to be in bad shape and he seemed to think that a university was a proper location for you to get medical attention." the professor explained, but it did little to help Niko understand what was happening.

Niko nodded slowly, trying to piece together what happened to lead him here. He tried adjusting his position and quickly realized that he couldn't feel his leg. "What's this?" he asked, pointing at the strange brace around his knee.