The Heroes Of Olympus: Aincrad Reborn

Asuna

It was dark...........so very dark.......

Asuna could remember the last time it had been this dark before. She had seen many dark dungeons in the depths of the world known as Aincrad, and she had gone camping with her boyfriend before and seen the pitch blackness of the forests.

But this kind of darkness......it wasn't just a darkness......it was The Darkness.......

Asuna was walking down a long dark tunnel. The shadows around her seemed to move and twist, as if beckoning her to come closer......so they could devour her. Little purple flames with ghastly faces led her through the tunnel.....yokai. Asuna never really read much about myths and folk tales....but after what happened to her over the past month, myths coming to life were no stranger to her.

This was a dream. Asuna could tell that much. It didn't feel like she was entirely in this place, as if she was just a phantom passing through. A phantom that could only be seen and heard by a select few. As she moved closer and closer to the light at the end of the tunnel, Asuna's legs seemed to move slower and slower. As if she was walking through very thick water. The air seemed to get colder and colder, and the white sword at her side, Morning Rose, seemed to get heavier and heavier.

Finally, she made it to the end of the tunnel. It was an impressive throne room with brilliant architecture. It was lit by torches, and red tapestries adorned the walls. All the tapestries depicted one thing, a huge scythe. And sitting on the throne was...........well...........nothing.

Suddenly a voice rang out of the darkness. It was cold and metalic, like a knife scraping over stone. "HAHAHAHAHA!! Welcome to the top, Asuna Yuuki........ Here you find many things...Glory, heroism....and my favorite: utter loss and despair!!"

"Wh-who are you!?" shouted Asuna. "Where is this!!?"

"Ahhhh......yes." said the voice. "I had nearly forgotten that you never reached the top.........That foolish Kayabe decided to duel that boy early before the top floor was ever reached....All because puny Kirito figured out Heathcliff's true identity.....Rest assured I won't make the same mistake. Take your time. I'll be waiting here for you, so that I may throw you down into the same pit that idiot son threw me into."

"You're Kronos." said Asuna quietly. "Aren't you?"

"Oh look at the brains on you." said Kronos maniacly. "Yes........I'll be able to use you just fine........."

Suddenly a hole opened up in the stone floor beneath Asuna, and she fell screaming through all 100 floors of the ginormous castle, as Kronos laughed with absolute hilarity.

Asuna awoke to find herself lying in a bed in what was known in Camp Halblood as the Hermes Cabin. In a bed nearby, her boyfriend Kazuto Kirigaya lay peacefully, as if nothing could trouble him.

This had been the first time she had a dream like this. One that felt so real, yet you could tell it was a dream. Did it mean something, or was she just being dilirious. Asuna shook her head, this wasn't the time to be thinking about that. There was something else going on that she absolutely swore to herself that she and Kirito were not going to miss.

The rest of the cabin was already empty. Asuna guessed that the others didn't want to wake her and Kirito because they wanted to give them a little privacy. Or it could probably be because of the fact that the last guy who woke her up and startled her, nearly got his head chopped off by Morning Rose, the sword which lay sheathed at her bedside.

Asuna picked up the sword, unsheathed it and looked over it again. The blade was completely white, and the silver handle was decorated to look like a silver oaken tree with it's branches intertwining with the lower part of the blade. It wasn't like Kirito's sword, Elucidator, which had orriginally been a weapon inside SAO. This was a completely orriginal work. And though Asuna had no way to prove it, she had the strange feeling that it had been forged specifically for her.

When she had been given this sword, the misty woman had told her that the metal that the blade was made from had no name. For it was rarer then Imperial Gold, Celestial Bronze, or even Stygian Iron. However she had been given it's name. Morning Rose, beautiful at first glance.....thorny when taken lightly. The sword was built for speed, it's blade was thinner then that of a long sword, and the sword itself was light to hold. Basically it was built exactly to the way Asuna had been used to fighting back in the VR world.

"Weird." Asuna muttered to herself. "Just weird."

She resheathed Morning Rose and got up from the bed yawning. Might as well get up before she missed breakfast. After all, today was capture the flag........and no way was she letting Kirito miss a sport in this camp that she knew he would thoroughly enjoy.

Asuna quickly got dressed. (a white sweater and some red jeans.....she still missed the colors of her old guild.) and then she picked up her pillow with a mischevious grin on her face.

"THINK FAST!" Asuna threw the pillow at Kirito, which flew at him like a bullet before being caught instantly by Kirito's outstretched hand.

Kirito got up grinning. "Sorry, you're going to have to get up earlier then that to catch me off-oooofff!!" Kirito just got hit in the gut by another pillow.

"And you're going to have to get up earlier then that if you want make sure I'm completely out of tricks." said Asuna smiling. "Nice reflexes though."

"Had practice.." said Kirito rubbing his gut. "Sughu has been playing the same trick on me for 5 years. But she never followed up with the second pillow......wow....good force."

Asuna grinned. "Well are we going to go do this thing or what?"

"What thing?"

Asuna pouted. "Don't tell me you've forgotten already, you only just promised me last night that we'd all participate in the Capture the Flag today. I've already told Percy and Annabeth that we'd be on their team.

"Oh, right! That!" said Kirito. He got up and yawned. "Well, one thing's for sure, as long as we give you some pillows, the other side is bound to lose-ooofff!!" Kirito recieved another pillow to the gut.

Suddenly the door opened and Darren Brighton walked in with Yui sitting on her shoulders giggling madly with joy. "Hey guys! I know you two probably love to sleep in, but could you please take your kid off my hands?......I don't think I can do the pony another one hundred times."

"What are you waiting for!?" Laughed Yui as she pulled slightly on Darren's hair. "Again! Again!"

"Erm....the pony is all tired out Yui...." said Darren with an exhausted look on his face.

"Awww....." said Yui with a pouting look.

Kirito laughed. "Come on Yui, I'll give you a ride."

Kirito moved off with Yui riding on his shoulders.

"So," said Asuna. "Any word about Aincrad yet?"

Darren shook his head. "Nothing yet...Reyna's been getting her big eagles and stuff to search the sky for any sign of them. And so far there hasn't been a single report on the mortal news about anything strange flying around in the sky. Guess the Mist is so intense around that thing that it's pretty much invisible now."

This felt too omninous for Asuna's liking. Aincrad was supposed to be headed towards Greece right? But yet there hadn't been a single sighting of that humungous country sized castle flying around anywhere. What was Kronos playing at?

"Where is Aincrad?" muttered Asuna.

The answer would come of course.......but it wouldn't be an answer anyone expected.