One Year…It’s already been one year since we’ve been stuck in SAO… Time flies fast and you lose track and yourself through that time… Throughout that year though, We’ve made outstanding progress, Reaching floor 62 with the help of the Black Swordsman, Lightning Flash, Prodigal Swordsmen, Silent Wraith, Thousand Hand Fistfighter, and The Reaper. Most of us went our own ways, each splitting up into two groups and doing our own things. Toru and I were together for the longest time, right beside Kirito and Asuna’s relationship. By this point, The biggest guilds were created. KoB or Knights of Blood Oath is THE biggest guild out there, the Frontlines aren’t a group as the Frontlines are mostly freelancing solo and group players.

It was July 18th, 2023, A meeting was held and hosted by KoB. We were all there as I stayed outside, looking at the chasm of the cave systems. We held the floor at floor 60 to make privacy for ourselves. I had a mask on as the mask covered my nose and mouth, the strap on the mask was slightly worn a bit from the countless battles I had to endure.

My Indicator was green for the moment as KoB was still uneasy with my presence at the meeting location. I began to eavesdrop on two KoB members whispering to each other, “Why is he here..? Shouldn’t he be up at the newer floors..?” One of the KoB members whispered to the other, as they kept talking. I sighed and looked at them saying “If you have something to say, say it to my face”.

Both of them jumped a bit as they looked at me and shook their heads saying “W-W-We weren’t saying anything! Please forgive us!” as they bowed hastefully. “Don’t bow at me please, It’s not like you two are gonna hurt me either way..” I told them as I sighed and turned my attention away from them.

“It’s already one year… about to be two…”

I thought to myself, I sighed once more but a bit heavily this time as I felt dizzy. I stumbled forward a bit before catching myself and balancing myself to stay up, my vision began to haze as the two KoB members outside came to my aid after I dropped to the floor.

“Kirin?! Kirin!! Get the others now!!”

One of their voices said as my ears toned it out and everything went silent.

I opened my eyes to hear a machine running in the background, the sound of a monitor. I heard beeps every couple of seconds as the heartbeat was at a slowed state, the beeping then began to beep faster. I waited as I heard mutters and tuned out the commotion from the voidless area. “I’m…Tired…” I said as I heard crying from the void again. I wanted to tune it out from my mind but it wasn’t tuning out, I looked to my side as I saw a mental image replication of myself in a hospital bed.

I looked at it and saw the nervegear still on my head, I forced myself to get up and walked a bit sloppily towards the replication. I put my hand on the bed as it felt very soft. The fabric felt soft and comfy. I saw a bright light behind me, hearing a voice from it saying “Kichiro Namikaze, come towards the light” as the voice sounded like my late-mothers.

Her silhouette then came from the light as I slowly walked over towards the light, “You can rest now son…” Her voice said in a calming way as she opened her arms. “Yeah…I am tired…” I thought as a hand grabbed onto my shoulder, I was then stopped and I turned around.

The hand came from my mental image of Sato. He began to speak but nothing came out of his mouth, I had to figure out what he was trying to say. I looked at him and said “Please..Just let me sleep Sato…” pulling my shoulder from his hand and walking towards the light again.

I was mere moments from walking into the light and embracing my late-mothers arms as I felt the weight on my shoulders lifted off. I felt happy for a moment before thinking about the life I am leaving behind, I stopped myself from walking into her arms as I looked back at the void-like opening. “What’s wrong dear?” She said as I looked up at her and said “I…I don’t think it’s time for me to leave…”.

“You don’t need to worry about them…They’re strong and independent…”

She said once more as she put her hand on my cheek saying “Kichiro…You’ve done enough for this world…”. I took more thought as it didn’t make sense to me, I put my hand on her wrist before softly pushing it off saying “I didn’t do anything…I was stuck in a world by force…I’m sorry mom…” before backing up and back into the void. The light faded away as her voice said one last time “I’m proud of you son…” as the light faded away completely.

I shedded a tear for the first time in a year as It dropped into the void and rippled beneath my feet. I felt myself being lifted into the air and shot up back into a blue light.

“Kirin!!!”

A voice shouted as I moved my head a bit before opening my eyes back up in SAO, I saw that the person shouting my name was Toru, she was in tears as she hugged me saying “Thank god you’re okay…” in Japanese as I replied “Sorry..” in japanese as well.

Sato, Neo, Kirito, and Asuna sighed in relief as Kirito got a message from Klein. “What is it Kirito?” Asuna said to Kirito as he swiped the message away and closed his menu, telling Asuna “Fuurinkazan found a hidden dungeon underneath floor 62’s village.”. “We’re going with you guys” Sato said as Neo nodded, Kirito however shook his head saying “No, you guys should look over Kirin for now and make sure he’s in a stable condition.”

Sato said in a harsher tone “Hey! It doesn’t mean you have to do everything yourself!!” as Kirito began walking away. Asuna followed behind him as Sato implied to Neo “Let’s go, we don’t need to listen to him..” as they both began to follow behind Kirito, just a bit farther.

I hugged Toru with one arm, saying to her “I’m…really glad that we continued our relationship..”. She hugged a little tighter and firmly replying with a shaky tone “I…I’m glad too..”, she loosened up her grip slightly as I smiled a bit. After 5 minutes Toru and I went back up to floor 62, we walked into an Inn as we crashed at the place for the day. Toru and I slept comfortably with each other by now as I was wide awake, Toru slept like a baby since she was a heavy sleeper. I turned myself to look at the ceiling, I sat up at the side of the bed as I swiped my hand down to open my menu.

I clicked a couple of buttons as I wanted to see my stats, seeing that it showed up as a textbox with an arrow from the previous menu.

Name: Kirin

HP: 28,411

LVL: 85

EXP: 82,309/731,488

STR: 3,810

VIT: 4,009

AGI: 3,107

DEX: 2,871

LUK: 1,301

I then tapped out my stats and clicked onto my inventory, looking at my main items in combat.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Main Items

Azir’s Boots of Haste

Fallen Angel Gloves

Drakarn’s Ghoul Mask

ShadowDemon Coat

R.Riding’s Suppression Cloak

Izanagi’s Holy Blade

Izanami’s Shoulder Guard

Lens of the Oracle Deity

Shinigami’s Scythe

After looking at it, I closed my menus and got up, walking out of the inn to walk around the fields by myself. I equipped all of my items and lifted up my mask, covering my mouth and nose, My eyes then glimmered a slight black haze as I walked out towards the forest. I opened my messages to see a message from a player, “There were PKers spotted far off from a cliff, their base should be near the dungeons that have a crystalized icicle.” I closed the message and began looking around the premises. After searching nearby cliffs, I spotted the crystalized Icicles and saw the dungeon they had mentioned nearby. I scouted out a bit more to find where this base was before confirming anything.

After a while, I didn’t see any base that was nearby, so I then headed into the cave and walked a bit cautiously. I heard commotion nearby as I moved along the wall and heard more commotion. “That was a good chunk of things we got” a player said as I peeked around the corner, seeing that their indicators were red. “Yeah, I can’t believe that we got these of KoB members” The other PKer said as I waited and just decided to eavesdrop.

“What should we do with the loot?”

One of them said as the other replied “Let’s just give it to Laughing Coffin, I’d bet they give a lot of COL for it” as they both laughed a bit. I sighed slightly before walking around the corner, making my presence known. Both players turned around and unsheathed their weapons, I looked at them both saying “You guys should just drop those back to KoB” as I crossed my arms.

One of the PKers recgonized my outfit as he dropped his sword saying “O-oh…Shit…W-we’re dead…” as the other one looked confused. One of them got on their knees and began saying “PLEASE LET ME GO! I PROMISE I WON’T DO THIS AGAIN!!” as the other one replied saying “What the fuck are you talking about! It’s just one guy!”.

The other one got up and grabbed him saying “That’s the fucking Grim Reaper! He Took on MULTIPLE PKERS ALONE!!” as the other one started to grow a bit worried and fearful. “At least someone has a brain,” I said smugfully as they both began begging. I took the two PKers to Blackiron Palace as I confiscated their stolen goods and handed them back to KoB. I dropped it off as I walked away and heard more back talking from KoB members, I was seen as nothing better than the PKers themselves for my tactics.

I was seen as a double edged sword between players, PKers feared my reputation as a PK slayer and the Grim reaper. Meanwhile, I was seen as an outcast solo player by top guilds, taking things into my own hands rather than letting them kill each other and lower our player counts. I walked into the inn and saw Toru waiting. I walked up to her as she had a pouting face, I chuckled a bit saying “Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you up” as she hit my shoulder a bit roughly.

“That’s for not waking me up”

Toru said to me, walking out of the Inn. I followed right behind her as we walked out of the safezone and walked towards a crater in the ground. The Crater was enormous as it had several pathways that led down to the Labyrinth floor at the middle. “Where are we? At a construction site or something?” I said out loud as she replied “I don’t know, let’s check it out” as she went ahead of me.

We continued our walk down the path trying not to slip as we saw a couple of sturdy rocks sticking out of the wall, I walked up to one as I grabbed it and tried to pull it out. The rock was very embedded into the wall as it didn’t budge or move as much, I shook it hard as it shook a little bit but didn’t really make any progress on falling out. “I’ll get that stone later then..” I thought to myself as I turned around to see Toru looking down.

“What is it-”

I said to Toru, walking over and looking down, stopping my sentence and stared straight down the dark depths of the crater. Above the depths was a gas-like cloud as we looked around to see if there were any other players around. “Don’t tell me you want to go down there…” I said to her as she nodded saying “we are definitely going down there”.

I sighed and picked up a small rock, dropping the rock down the hole and silently counting to myself the amount of seconds until it hits the floor. The rock hits the floor after 20 seconds, I thought to myself “That’s an instant death drop..”, I looked at Toru and said “Let’s wait for now” as she shrugged and followed behind me to a field nearby.

We walked to the field as a Sentinel Golem got out of the ground, scaring Toru and I a bit. I unsheath my sword and get my guard up as the Golem looks at us before slamming its huge arms into the ground. Toru and I fell down from the shockwave as I got up a bit quicker than her, running over towards the Golem and slashing its leg. The Golem turned around and smacked me away from the fight, falling onto my back and losing considerable amounts of health.

Toru punched the Golems other leg, causing a crack to appear onto its leg as it tried swiping Toru away. Toru however, quickly ran underneath it and climbed up onto its back. Toru raised her arm up high as she activated a martial arts skill, Dragon's Descent. She then slammed her fist right on top of the Golems head, splitting it’s head open and causing its body to crack and fracture upon itself, turning blue before shattering into polygons.

Toru fell down as she landed on her bottom. She rubbed it a bit in a little pain as she looked at me running towards her. When I got there I asked her “Are you alright?” as she nodded saying “Yeah, but what happened to your sword?” I looked at her confused and said “My sword? It’s right-” as I held up my empty hand. It took me a couple of seconds to realize my sword was gone as I shouted “MY SWORD?!! WHERE IS IT!!”.

I looked around profusely, checking everywhere and even in my inventory for it. I then heard a shatter behind me as I looked behind me and saw that the sheath for the sword had shattered, “My sword broke..?” I said, I was a bit saddened by this news. Toru then dragged me back to the Safezone saying in Japanese “We’ll get you a new one alright.” as I nodded, replying in Japanese “Okay…” with a bit of sorrowful tears.

When we got to the safezone, we saw a crowd near the Teleport pad. Curious as we were, we walked up to the crowd and broke through it to see what was happening. We heard the beeping sound of a timer, we looked up to see a duel between Kirito and someone named Raven. We watched both Kirito and this new guy as the timer hit zero, both of them didn’t move an inch as they charged up their skills, this Raven person had a katana as his weapon. Raven dashed towards Kirito as Kirito dashed in, both of them were swinging and clashing hits as Kirito was using his elucidator as his weapon.

I counted 10 individual hits that were all clashed and traded from both Kirito and this Raven person. They suddenly jumped back as Kirito rushed in as well as Raven, they swung high and low this time with the time stopping the both of them, Raven swung high, almost hitting Kirito’s head right off as Kirito went low, almost hitting Raven’s body in half.

The Duel between them was a Tie as Kirito got up and both of them sheathed their swords. Kirito turned around as he walked to Asuna and grabbed her arm, saying “Let’s go” in a somewhat annoyed tone. “Hey wait!, where are we going??” Asuna said as they walked off to another part of the town. The crowd that was around the duel scattered apart as Toru and I looked at the direction that Kirito and Asuna went.

I turned my attention to this Raven person, looking at him he stood at least 5’6, his hair wasn’t that messy as his hair was sleaked towards his left side, he had a scar on his nose as his eyes were a deep blue. His posture however was really good, he stood up straight for the majority of the time I saw him.

We made eye contact as he recognized my cloak, seemingly uninterested and walked off. I turned my attention away to see that Toru was gone, I looked around frantically and saw Toru at a food stall. “Get me one!” I shouted at her and ran over, she bought two as we ate our sandwiches from the stall.

I was in bliss eating this sandwich, but I had an idea asking Toru “Can you make these?” pointing at the sandwich. “Oh, sure it’s not a hard recipe either way” Toru said casually as I grabbed her hand smiling saying “Thanks Toru! You’re the best!”. She looked away muttering underneath her breath “P…Praise me more…” as I looked at her saying “Did you say something?”.

“I-I said No problem! Anything for you!”

Toru stuttered as we just wandered around the map, gazing at the scenery. While we were walking, we stumbled upon the Raven person, who was underneath a tree and leaning against it. “Are you The Reaper, Kirin?” he said in a cold but straightforward tone. “Yeah, that’s me, why do you ask?” I said to him as he replied to the question “Can you duel with me..”.

Toru and I looked confused as I said “Duel..? Why?” as a text popped up in-front of me, a Duel Request from Raven, First hit. I looked at the text and looked up at Raven, as he was completely serious. I looked back down at the textbox and hesitated for the first time in 6 months, Toru then puts her hand on my shoulder saying “Don’t sweat it, you can do this Kirin” as I took some deep breaths.

“Alright..”

I thought to myself as I clicked the blue button, accepting his duel as the timer showed up a few feet above us, Toru stepped back a bit and to the side as underneath the timer, there was text saying “Raven VS Kirin”.

We both pulled out our swords as we heard the timer reach zero, we both dashed in towards each other and swung our swords.