The first time Kazuto touched a real sword, he'd been just eight years old.

The ceremonial katana had been on display in the dojo's sword rack. Grandfather had brought it down and passed it to Kazuto. It was heavy.

"Careful," Grandfather had warned as Kazuto gingerly unsheathed the blade. "Fingers don't grow back."

It had been good advice at the time, Kazuto supposed.

He wondered what Grandfather would say if he could see him now.

----------------------------------------

AUGUST 31ST, 2024

11:45 PM

The Sword Art: Online beta test would end in fifteen minutes.

None of the beta testers had managed to clear the 10th floor’s final boss yet—but not for the lack of trying. In the week since the boss had been unlocked, hundreds of players had launched thousands of attempts, and still not a single raiding party had succeeded.

Most of the beta testers had given up, choosing instead to attend the closing ceremony. Why bother with a frustratingly difficult boss, when the beta test was about to end and all progress would be wiped anyway?

Kazuto did not share that sentiment.

To him, it was a matter of pride.

Fifteen minutes left.

It wasn’t over yet.

The boss stood six meters tall in its traditional samurai armor. It wielded an ornate, five-meter-long katana, and was named “Kagachi, The Samurai Lord”—a painfully generic title, for what should have been a painfully generic boss.

Unfortunately, this boss had a trick up its lacquered leather sleeves. Every so often, the boss’s katana would extend—growing from five meters to over fifteen with no discernible warning. No previous boss had done anything like that, and no one had figured out how to predict this mechanic, nor how to handle it without rapidly suffering casualties. This particular boss attempt, for example, had started less than a minute ago, and yet that little lengthening gimmick had already sent three of the eight-man raid party on to their next life.

Mercifully, they’d simply shattered into polygons and respawned safely outside the locked boss arena to nurse their wounds.

One other player, though, wasn’t so lucky. A red-hot Sword Skill from the boss had sliced her in half, but her skull and upper spine hitboxes remained perfectly intact, leaving her very much alive. Sobbing in agony, she was now dragging herself towards the relative safety of the arena’s edge. It was slow going, since she had lost both her legs.

The boss ignored her—apparently clever enough to recognize that she was no longer a threat.

Kazuto—or rather, “Kirito”, which was his chosen in-game name—was among the five players left standing (well, only four were actually standing). He wielded a sword-and-shield—not his preferred weapon, but that hardly mattered because he wasn’t planning to attack. Instead, Kirito kept well outside the boss’s extended attack range, focusing on observing and deciphering the boss’s attack patterns—particularly the blade extension mechanic—while avoiding further damage.

He was sure he could figure it out. He just needed a little more time, a little more luck, a little more concentration—

The boss’s katana extended.

Red-hot and glowing, the blade slammed down, narrowly missing the raid leader who had managed to throw himself out of the way at the last moment. But another party member hadn’t been as alert. Blue polygons spilled and bounced across the ground before fading.

Four players down.

What was the pattern?

"Kirito!" roared the raid leader. "Stop standing around and FIGHT!"

Kirito stayed right where he was. Like all full-dive VR games, SAO promised total sensory immersion. However, unlike other full-dive VR games, SAO delivered that promise through pain. It was, without a doubt, fantastic for immersion—the massive looming bosses with their gigantic gleaming swords were absolutely terrifying in a way that no other game could replicate. Many beta testers claimed to have sworn off the game the first time they suffered through the pain of a mortal wound. But somehow, they kept coming back. No other game could make you feel like SAO did—even if fear was a large fraction of it. Perhaps it was the threat of death that made people feel more alive? Nah, probably not.

But excruciating pain was a distraction, to put it mildly. And Kirito felt that right now, putting his full attention into understanding the pattern was more important than trying to save this already-doomed run. Kirito would have explained his point of view to the raid leader, but that would also have been a distraction.

Ehh, I'll explain after the wipe, he thought.

Still, he quickly found that pain could still be highly distracting even if he wasn't the one suffering from it.

Kirito felt a tug at his ankle. The long-suffering legless player had, despite her grievous wounds, managed to crawl all the way to Kirito's side.

"Please," she croaked. "Healing crystal, please... It hurts..."

Kirito had already taken several major hits this fight. Four of his crystals had shattered as a result—each serving as a sacrificial buffer for otherwise-fatal damage. Admittedly, a broken crystal was better than a broken skull. But since his armor only had five slots, it meant he had just one last crystal. One last chance.

"It's my last crystal, Hana," said Kirito, trying to keep his focus on the boss, who'd just bisected the raid leader with a non-extended white-hot finishing move. Kirito guessed the raid leader had run out of crystals too.

Five players down.

"So yeah, I kinda need it,” said Kirito. “Sorry.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

There has to be a pattern to the extensions! What's the trigger?

At his feet, Hana moaned, a pitiful, painful noise. Then, still sobbing, she began crawling back towards the boss.

What’s she doing? Is she seriously hoping for a stray katana-swing to put her out of her misery?

Kirito stared, dumbfounded, as Hana crawled back into the boss’s melee range. Then she curled into what would have been a foetal position, had her legs not ended mid-thigh.

Stop thinking about her! Focus on the boss! Figure out the pattern! Is it a time-based cooldown? Or does it auto-extend if the target’s out of range? Which is it? Think, think, think!

The boss stepped over Hana’s prone form in pursuit of another, less-incapacitated player. Clearly, it was still ignoring her completely. Meanwhile, she was still sobbing. Her voice was hoarse. It grated on Kirito’s ears, and also his conscience.

In the end, Kirito realized he couldn't do nothing.

He just couldn’t bring himself to simply stand and watch his teammate suffer in front of him. He had to do something, even if it made no tactical sense whatsoever.

He had to at least try, right?

Kirito sighed in frustration, then raised his voice, addressing the game's virtual assistant. "Yui," said Kirito. "My last crystal. Use it on Hana."

Just above his shoulder, a tiny pixie with black hair and a pink dress shimmered into existence. "Acknowledged," Yui said brightly, then snapped her fingers. With only a slight pang of regret, Kirito watched his final crystal evaporate into blue sparks that shot toward Hana. The sparks spiraled, forming glyphs around Hana's injury, then there was a flash—and the girl's missing limbs were restored.

Hana rose, trembling, to her newfound feet.

"Thank you, Kirito," she said in a shaking voice. "Thank—"

The boss's red-glowing katana extended.

Hana's head toppled to the ground, sliding diagonally off her recently-severed neck.

She shattered.

Six players down.

In the corner of his eye, Kirito saw Hana respawn outside the arena.

At least she wasn’t suffering any more.

But now he was out of crystals, and he still hadn’t figured out the pattern.

Damn it!

"What the fuck was that, Kirito?!" yelled the only other surviving player. "You wasted your—"

The boss's white-hot katana cut him off. The player's three remaining crystals all shattered at once.

The player ran. Not fast enough. With a slight flash and the flick of a gauntleted wrist, the fleeing player was reduced to polygons.

Seven players down.

One player remaining.

Kagachi The Samurai Lord turned to face Kirito, its beady eyes seemingly aflame.

"Yui," said Kirito. "Weapon swap. Now."

"Anneal Blade +34 equipped," said the virtual assistant cheerfully, and Kirito’s sword-and-shield instantly vanished. Then the comforting weight of his favourite, highly-enhanced one-handed longsword materialized in his hand.

Guess I'll have to do it myself.

----------------------------------------

Your name is Kirito.

You are the last surviving player in your party.

You are facing a boss that you know you cannot defeat, not yet, not until you've figured out the pattern behind the samurai's extending blade.

You are certain that it's possible. The others have given up and decided to work around it instead, but you know better. You're a gamer, a good one, and your intuition is screaming. There has to be a pattern. No sane game developer would do otherwise, right?

Would a “sane developer” choose to implement real pain inside a game that children can play? Hmm. Never mind, no time for that now. Pay attention!

The samurai lord settles into his stance and his blade begins to glow red-hot, telegraphing the start of a Sword Skill combo. You recognize this, because you are paying attention.

You scramble to reposition.

The first swing comes from the left, and it barely passes over your head as you duck.

The second swing comes next from the right, but this time it’s coming in lower—the boss has adjusted its aim, and you strongly suspect that ducking won't cut it this time.

You try to block with your sword, but the enemy's katana is not only five meters long but also benefiting from a red-hot damage buff which doubles damage. Your Anneal Blade may have been enhanced 34 times, but it's small, and its steel is cold and unbuffed. It simply cannot compare.

In this contest of sheer power—you lose. It’s not even close.

You strain to maintain your guard, gritting your teeth as you strain against the massive impact, but the momentum of the enemy's attack sends you flying—

Arcing—

Falling—

And then tumbling—unceremoniously, to the ground.

You struggle to reorient yourself, but the enemy raises its sword high into the air for the combo finisher.

And because it is a finisher, the red-hot katana turns white-hot—tripling its damage—not that it matters. You barely survived red, what do you think will happen now?

You know your options. No blocking this time. You dodge or you die.

The enemy aims. Its beady eyes track the very center of your barely-moving hitbox.

You're throwing yourself to the side, but it's too late, you can do nothing as the white-hot blade comes down, perfectly aimed right at the spot just above your right shoulder. You know it will bisect you diagonally, slicing through your spine, emerging somewhere around your left hip, and—

It misses.

What?

Instead of splitting you like a chef's cleaver into a chicken, it falls short instead, slamming into the ground before you and fracturing the floor of the arena.

You realize what has happened.

You got lucky.

That mighty blow that had thrown you into the air? It had flung you six meters away from the boss.

The enemy's katana, however, stretches only five.

Five meters, when unextended.

Why didn't it extend?

If it had, you would’ve been a smear on the ground.

You have no time to ponder, because even as the samurai lord plucks his cooling katana from the crater in the ground, he is already shifting into a different stance.

Another Sword Skill is coming.

The boss’s katana begins glowing red, again. But this time—

This time, you answer with your own.

"Horizontal," you say, leaping to your feet, bringing your blade at your side. It's a basic Sword Skill with no combos, no mobility, and no finishers, but that's alright, this isn't the time to be fancy.

You smile grimly as you feel the sudden heat on your skin. Now your blade, too, glows.

The boss’s red-hot katana approaches again, left to right.

You meet it with your own red-hot Anneal Blade, and you put every gram of your virtual weight behind it.

Red steel, clashing.

Blue sparks, spraying.

The recoil blasts through the bones and flesh of your sword arm, shuddering through your wrist and your elbow and your shoulder and your everything.

But—

You manage to knock the samurai's katana away.

The rebound is massive, and your own sword nearly slips out of your grasp, but that's the good thing about your one-handed longsword—it's much easier to control than a five-meter-long monster of a katana. By the time you're poised and ready to strike again, the enemy's still halfway staggering.

"Go for the throat!" Yui calls out helpfully from behind. "That is his weak point!"

Thanks, Yui, but you already knew that.

"Sonic Leap!" You shout, drawing your longsword in towards your chest. This is a Speed-type Sword Skill in the Anneal Blade's base moveset—Speed-type, not Power, so no white-hot combo finisher, but it does come with a momentum-assisted leap. Highly useful for engaging an enemy just outside of melee range—and also some niche, unorthodox uses that creative players might be able to exploit.

Like, say, stabbing a six-meter-tall samurai lord in the neck.

Your blade glows red.

You leap into the air.

Kagachi The Samurai Lord, still recovering from your counterattack, is unable to bring his blade up in time.

He does, however, bring up his foot.

He kicks you away like you’re a particularly annoying puppy.

As you land on your rear end for the second time in five seconds, your enemy raises his ornate katana high in the air. No sword skill this time, just plain, cold, not-glowing steel.

At least you’re out of the samurai’s melee range. Maybe eight meters, you guess, or perhaps a little more. You’ve certainly been knocked slightly further than before. At this distance, you should be—

Something on the katana's tsuba glints and cracks.

The cold blade extends.

Ah.

I see it now.

The katana comes down, and in a flash of burning pain, it meets the space between your eyebrows and separates the left and right halves of your face.

For a split second you see double as your vision falls apart.

And then everything goes black.

----------------------------------------

It's 11:49 PM.

You have eleven minutes left.

This isn't over yet.