Exactly 16 days before the 1 year mark of being stuck in SAO, the frontliners of the Assault Team gathered in front of the boss room of the 22nd floor.
349 days wasn't a very special milestone, true. Not as much as a full year. But today was the day of another floor boss raid, and that was memorable on its own.
Plenty of spectators were anxiously waiting for the start of the battle. Not just the SAO players gathered in the Town of Beginnings, but also the tens and hundreds of millions of people outside who had taken to watching Sword Art Online like one would the Olympics or the World Cup. Only deadly.
There was a reason gladiatorial combat had been famous for so long, and that wasn't only because the ancient Romans were bloodthirsty. There was some deeply hidden, bestial part of the human being that delighted in the violence. Something in their roots, first as prey, then as hunters.
Bets about the outcome and every aspect of the boss raids were common. From how long it would take, whether someone would die, and if so how many, and who. And also bets on less darker topics such as who would deliver the final blow, which guild would have the highest contribution, and so on.
Japan had already cracked down on the underground organizations arranging the bets within the country. Those were their citizens fighting for their lives inside SAO, not participants of some blood sport. But they had no control over what happened outside their islands.
Kikouka Seijirou shook his head. Whatever was happening outside of SAO wasn't his concern. His job was to get the players out of the death game as soon as possible or, failing that - as he had until now- make sure their bodies were safe.
This was not an issue he had ever expected, but now faced. Just two short months ago there had been an attempt on the life of a SAO victim.
Two players had gotten into a heated argument, which Seijirou had only seen the recordings of much later. The content had been inane, but a few days later, one of the players had committed suicide by allowing mobs to kill him without trying to defend himself.
The father of the victim, in his grief, had blamed the second player for it, and, during a visit to the hospital to formalize the proceedings for the retrieval of the body of his son, attempted to pull off the NerveGear of the other player.
Luckily, a nurse had noticed the man's odd behavior and notified security to keep an eye on him, allowing the guards to subdue him as soon as he entered the room of the second player. The man himself had freely admitted what he planned on doing when questioned.
Yet, the incident had alerted Seijirou to the failings of his security measures, which he promptly reinforced by stationing more soldiers in the hospital, and a much stricter screening of staff and visitors.
No similar problems had cropped up since then, and Seijirou hoped it would stay that way. The deities above knew he needed some respite.
A loud creaking noise coming from his computer pulled Seijirou from his thoughts, and he sat up to watch the Assault Team opening the door to the 22nd floor boss room.
That primal, bestial urge resurfaced, and the SAO task force leader found himself inwardly cheering for his champions.
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"Go, Dragon Knight!"
"Yeah, get him! Hit the bastard, Merchant Warrior!"
"Kibaou the Challenger! Kibaou the Challenger!"
"Look at them go! Lighting Flash! Black Swordsman!"
"Broken Spear Drifter! Go!"
For a people known to be quiet and introspective, the Japanese weren't being shy about the amount of noise they made. Every bar across the country was full to the brim with people drinking and watching the raid, cheering the players on.
Any such business that didn't have a television mounted on the wall playing the SAO broadcast was pretty much guaranteed to go bankrupt. Different establishments showed different perspectives, but all of them were, without a doubt, tuned in to the boss raid.
The Assault Team was making quick work of the boss, and more cheers resounded when Liten the Fortress and Indomitable Knight Nautilus both blocked a giant stone hammer each, not ceding an inch of ground to the boss as the frontliners swarmed it like ants from the sides.
It was not an easy battle by any means. << One Soul >>, the boss, was a giant construct of pale white stone and glowing moss, and hit hard. Yet, in front of the veteran frontliners, the boss appeared to be little more than a plaything for the players.
At least, that was how it seemed to the onlookers. To this day, countless had yet to understand how the frontliners could face monstrosities like the floor bosses without flinching.
The truth was, very few could understand, and that was good. To look at death and spit in its face like frontliners did demanded a price nobody should ever pay.
But all of that was far from the minds of the spectators, who cheered loudly as Broken Spear Drifter used his signature move and threw his spear directly at the boss' head, knocking the monster back a dozen meters.
"Yeah! Get it! Go!"
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Yuuki Shouzou found himself in one of the strangest gatherings he had ever been part of. Not really because of the people involved, but because of how casual it was.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He didn't do casual. He was the CEO of a multi-billion dollar enterprise, who had recently acquired the company behind SAO, and was responsible for the game and the souls trapped in it. Every gathering he attended since he was a child had been a formal affair, where no one particularly liked each other, but was only there for the connections.
Being in the Kirigaya household, humble as it was compared to his own home, was a novel experience. As was mingling with people who would, usually, be considered much below his standing.
Shouzou enjoyed it. The families of Reaver's Requiem were kind and genuine. He didn't need to put on a facade and mull over every word spoken to him searching for double meanings and hidden implications. Here, he was just Asuna's father. Not even Lightning Flash, but just Asuna.
He wished his wife saw it the same way. The woman hadn't come to any of the gatherings, which were organized mostly by Kirito and Drifter's families. To her, they were all peasants, unworthy of her time.
Truth be told, Shouzou was starting to lose his temper with her. Love his wife as he did, she insisted on acting like their daughter wasn't trapped inside a deadly game, fighting for her life. She didn't even watch the boss raids broadcasts, and Shouzou was almost 100% sure she hadn't tuned in to Asuna's transmission even once.
The woman had always raised Asuna to be the perfect daughter, and behaved as if they were still in the Shogunate. And for the most part, Asuna had grown to be exactly what his wife had molded her to be. Her first act of defiance had been to borrow her brother's NerveGear. Who could have imagined the consequences would be so harsh and far-reaching?
But Kyouko still acted as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. And honestly, his wife or not, Shouzou was starting to get quite pissed off with her.
Her latest fixation was finding a good match for Asuna. Ordinarily, Shouzou wouldn't be concerned about this. In the circles he ran in, it was normal, even expected, for the parents to decide on the marriage of their offspring. It was what happened with him, and he had very rarely had reason to complain about his chosen partner, at least until now.
If only his wife were to watch their daughter's transmission for even 30 seconds, she would realize that Asuna had already found the love of her life. And if there was one thing the girl had inherited from her parents, it was their stubbornness. Trying to force her into ending her relationship with the Kirigaya boy and into a marriage with a stranger was a surefire way to push Asuna away.
If he was being honest with himself, Shouzou was a little ashamed. Weren't it for the broadcasts, he might have actually allowed Kyouko to go through with her plans.
Not now. His daughter's happiness was the most important thing to him, and when - not if - she escaped SAO, he would not break her heart by forcing her to marry someone she didn't even know.
Kirito was a good kid. His family might not have the financial power or political influence to match his own, but the boy was a damn hero. No one could deny that, not with what they were watching right now.
Shouzou slid to the edge of his seat as the Black Swordsman ran forward, parrying a hammer by the skin of his teeth, not even blinking twice.
How he could do that, Shouzou would never understand. But Kirito followed up with a blue-glowing skill Shouzou recognized as << Horizontal >>, carving a red gash on the boss' ankle.
The weapon that partly earned Kirito his title was a blur, skills and normal attacks being delivered faster than the eye could follow. By now, the frontliners had decidedly surpassed human limits. SAO was a game of numbers, after all.
A golden shadow flew past Kirito, and the boy nodded gratefully to the Aero Huntress, Sinon. The arrow had almost grazed his cheek, but he didn't show any surprise or shock. The implicit trust between the Reavers was impressive to see, at the very least.
The thought brought another to the front of Shouzou's mind, and he looked around the room. With the boss raid still ongoing, everyone was watching the TV with rapt attention. And there were a lot of people.
The Kirigaya family was there, obviously, Kirito's younger sister/cousin sitting on the mat in front of the sofa. There were also Ogawa Kana and Ogawa Genji, Broken Spear Drifter's parents. And many more.
Argo the Rat, Aero Huntress Sinon, Songstress Yuna, Indomitable Knight Nautilus, Merchant Warrior Agil, Dragon Tamer Silica, Lisbeth, Vallerk, Wolv, all of them had family and loved ones here. Even Griselda's widowed mother had come.
The bonds Reaver's Requiem had been built upon transcended the game, even if the players themselves didn't know it yet. Their families had found their much-needed support on each other to get through those difficult times.
Oddly, Shouzou felt that when - again, not if - the Reavers came out of their virtual prison, they would be proud.
"Yes!"
Several throats shouted the same word, and Shouzou turned his attention back to the broadcast just in time to see the twins, Ran and Yuuki, working together to carve out pieces of << One Soul >>. Their synchronization was perfect, the wounds they left on the right and left of the boss' torso almost mirroring each other.
Whoever thought the Reavers were done with just that was sorely mistaken. The next second, Shouzou watched his own daughter and Dragon Tamer Silica take advantage of the boss' distraction to run up its arms to reach its head.
"Keiko!"
"Asuna."
Shouzou's exclamation was much quieter than that of Silica's father, but carried no less emotion.
Of course, none of what they said reached the players, and the duo continued undeterred in their endeavor, stacking injury upon injury on the boss before jumping off when it tried to squash them with its large hands.
There was something both awe-inspiring and horrifying about witnessing two children battle and climb on such a monster without hesitation. It made one think of what they had experienced that made them so bold and fearless.
Everyone knew what they went through. While much was still unknown about the first 10 floors, everything after that had been watched by billions of people around the world. But what frontliners did and how they fought would never be normal.
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Once the boss raid started, you forgot everything else. That was one of the core rules of the Assault Team.
Who would get the last hit, what would the drops be, how the SAO players were watching them, everything stopped to matter. You stuck to the plan, fought, and survived. That was all that was important.
Broken Spear Drifter did just so. He had never cared much for fame, and knowing he had spectators didn't occupy more than a remote corner of his mind since about the 3rd floor.
Everything other than keeping his teammates alive and killing the boss was unimportant, in that order.
His spear moved as if it possessed a life of its own, and Drifter never gave the boss a break. He stabbed twice before slashing a large gash on << One Soul's >> palm when it tried to grab him.
Swift movements of his feet, almost as if he were dancing, kept Drifter away from the boss' attacks. Not all of them, but any that would really hurt.
As random thoughts were meant to be, one intruded onto Drifter's mind. He didn't know how to dance, but he thought that it should be easy for him to learn now, with all his self-taught footwork. Something to bring up with Yuna, she would probably like it.
Later, of course. Now they had a boss to kill.