“I’m going to be asking for my share of the money.”
“No… After this fight you’ll be part of our guild. I’ll be designating this duel as one of the guild’s missions.”
Heathcliff then erased his smile, and his brass colored eyes started giving off an overwhelming energy. Intimidated, I unconsciously took half a step back. In reality, we were probably lying down at places far away from each other, with only digital data being passed between us. But, I still felt something that could only be called killing intent.
My mind went into its battle state, and my eyes received Heathcliff’s gaze head on. The loud cheering sounded as if it was moving further away. Before I realized it, my senses had already begun to quicken, and it felt like even the colors of the surroundings had changed.
Heathcliff turned his gaze and walked to a spot about ten meters away from me. He then raised his right hand and manipulated the menu screen that appeared without even glancing at it. A duel message appeared in front of me. I consented and set the mode to first strike.
The countdown started. I could barely hear the shouts around me now.
My blood began to pump faster. I vanquished the last remaining bits of hesitation and let loose my desire to fight. Then I drew my two swords at the same time from behind my back. My opponent wasn’t someone I could win against unless I went all out from the beginning.
Heathcliff drew his thin, long sword from his shield, and then held it resolutely as he entered his combat stance.
He stood with his shield turned towards me and the right side of his body away from me. I couldn’t feel any forced strength behind his stance. I realized that trying to predict his actions would only confuse me further, and decided to simply charge in immediately and attack with full power.
Even though neither of us glanced at the window, we both kicked off as soon as the «Duel» message appeared.
I lowered my stance as I ran; my body nearly scraping the floor as it glided in.
I twisted my body around right before reaching Heathcliff and swung the sword in my right hand upwards to the left. It was blocked by the cross-shaped shield and sent out a burst of sparks. But my attack was part of a two hit combo. Point one second after the first strike, my left sword slid in behind the shield. It was a Dual Blades dash-type skill «Double Circular».
The strike from the left was deflected by the long sword; its circular lighting effect stopped midway. Although it was disappointing, this move was just a signal for beginning the fight. Using the force of the sword skill, I widened the distance between us and then charged at my opponent again.
This time, Heathcliff countered by charging me with his shield. His right arm was hidden behind his huge cross-shaped shield, making it hard to see.
“Che!”
I dashed to my right in an attempt to evade his attack. I thought that if I stayed on Heathcliff’s shield side, I would have enough time to react to his attacks even if I couldn’t see the trajectory.
But then Heathcliff lifted his shield up horizontally.
“Haa!”
With this low shout, he executed a piercing attack with his shield. It came at me, leaving a trail of pure white light.
“Ahh!!”
I just managed to guard by crossing my two swords. The powerful impact rattled my entire body and sent me flying back by several meters. I dug my right sword into the ground to stop myself from falling over and then flipped in midair before landing.
It was unexpected, but it seemed that the shield itself could also be used as a weapon. It was similar to Dual Blades in a sense. I had originally thought that my overwhelming attack speed would allow me to win in a first strike duel; but it seemed that I was wrong.
Heathcliff dashed towards me, closing the distance between us and denying me of any time to recover. The sword with the cross-shaped hilt in his right hand pierced towards me at a speed that could rival Asuna the «Flash».
As the opponent started his combo attack, I could only use both of my swords to defend. Before the duel, Asuna had explained as much as she could about «Holy Sword»; but it seemed that cramming just wasn’t enough. Therefore, I could only rely on split-second decisions to block the incoming blows.
After using my left sword to parry the last upward slash of his eight strike combo, I immediately attempted a one-hit sword skill, «Vorpal Strike», with my right.
“Hya…aaa!!”
With the metallic noise of a jet engine, the sword skill left a red trail of light before striking the center of his shield. It felt as if I had hit a stone wall; but my hands kept going to finish the strike.
Claang!! The sound of the impact rang out, and this time Heathcliff was pushed back. I couldn’t completely pierce the shield, but I felt the feeling of having «penetrated» his defense. Heathcliff’s HP had been reduced slightly, but not enough to decide the fight.
Heathcliff landed agilely and widened the distance between us.
“…impressive reaction time.”
“More like your defense is too perfect…!!”
I charged as I said this. Heathcliff also raised his sword and closed in on me.
We started trading blows at blinding speeds. My sword was blocked by his shield; his sword was deflected by mine. Various light trails of different colors appeared and faded continuously around us, while the sounds of our weapons clashing shook the arena floor. A minor blow made it through every once a while, and our HP decreased bit by bit. Even if both players failed to make a clean hit, one would win the moment their opponent’s HP fell below fifty percent.
But I didn’t care about that anymore. I felt myself accelerating in exhilaration, as this was the first time I had faced such a strong opponent since being trapped in SAO. Every time my senses sharpened, the speed of my attacks rose by another notch.
I still haven’t reached my limit. I can still get faster. Follow me if you can, Heathcliff!!!
As I released every ounce of strength at my disposal, I drowned myself in the savage joy of swinging my swords. I was most probably laughing. While the exchange of sword blows intensified, the HP of both sides continued to decrease until they nearly reached the fifty-percent area.
At that instant, Heathcliff’s stoic face finally showed a flash of emotion.
What was it? Nervousness? I felt the speed of his blows decrease just a little.
“Haaaa!”
In that moment, I abandoned all defenses and launched an assault with both of my swords: «Starburst Stream». My blades rushed towards Heathcliff like the blazing flames of a solar prominence.
“Argh…!!”
Heathcliff raised his cross-shaped shield to guard. But I just ignored it and kept hacking away at him from the right, left, up, and down. Meanwhile, his responses became even slower.
-I can break through!!
I was certain that the last strike would breach his defense. With his shield overextended to the right, my attack from the left streaked in, drawing a trajectory of light. As long as this blow lands, his HP will definitely fall below the halfway mark, and I would win the-
Then, at this moment, my entire world shook.
“-!?”
How should I describe it? It was as if some of my time had been taken away from me.
For several tenths of a second, everything around me seemed to freeze; everything except Heathcliff. The shield that should have been on the right suddenly appeared on the left, as if I was watching a stop motion video, and blocked my sword.
“Wha-!”
I was stunned for a fatal moment after the strong attack was blocked. There was no way that Heathcliff would have lost that chance.
The long sword in his right hand launched a one-hit skill, which came at me with a detestable accuracy that would surely decide the match. I fell into an unsightly heap. I could see the purple system message, which announced that the duel had ended, with the corner of my eye.
My battle state had disappeared. I simply laid there, my mind blank, e
ven as the cheering registered in my head once again.
“Kirito!!”
Asuna ran over and shook me back to my senses.
“Ah…yeah… I’m fine.”
Asuna looked at my blank expression with worry.
I lost-?
I still couldn’t believe it. Heathcliff’s unearthly speed during those final moments had gone past the limits of a player—past the limits of any human. I even saw the polygons that made up his avatar distort for a moment because of the impossible speed.
As I sat on the ground, I raised my head and gazed at Heathcliff’s face.
But the expression of the winner was angry for some reason. The red paladin glared at us with his metallic eyes, then turned around wordlessly and walked over to his waiting room amidst the thunderous cheering.
Chapter 14
“Wha…what is that!?”
“What do you mean? You know what this is. Now come on, get up!”
The things that Asuna had forced me into were my new clothes. Although it had the same design as the coat I used to wear, it was also blindingly white. There were two small crosses on each of my cuffs, and a large one on my back; all three of them dyed in bright red. It was, beyond any doubt, a KoB uniform.
“…I-I said I wanted something plain…”
“This is already pretty plain. Yeah, it suits you!!”
I sank into the rocking chair as all strength left my body. I was still living on the second floor of Egil’s shop. The place had already become my disaster shelter, so the pitiable shopkeeper could only sleep on a simple bed on the first floor. The only reason he hadn’t chased me out was because Asuna came every other day to help out with the shop. It was the best advertising opportunity he could get.
As I groaned in my chair, Asuna came and sat down on the armrest, which had become her designated spot. She rocked the chair with a smile, as if my current predicament was amusing to her, and then clapped her hands together as if she had thought of something.
“Ah, we better say our greetings properly. As a member of the guild, I hope we can get along well.”
As she suddenly bowed, I straightened my back to reply.
“I-I hope we get along too…but then again, I’m just a normal member while you’re the sub-leader, so…”
I swept my right forefinger down Asuna’s spine.
“I won’t be able to do things like this anymore-.”
“Kyaa!”
With this scream, my superior jumped up and struck her subordinate’s head. Then she walked over to the opposite chair and sat down; her face pouting.
Under the lazy sunlight of late autumn, we went into a short and peaceful lull.
My loss in the duel against Heathcliff had passed two days ago. As I wasn’t someone who would go back on his word, I joined the Knights of the Blood as I had agreed with Heathcliff. The guild gave me two days to prepare, so starting tomorrow I would be following their orders to explore the seventy-fifth floor labyrinth.
Joining a guild, huh-.
Asuna glanced at me as she heard my quiet sigh.
“…you got mixed up in all this because of me.”
“Nah, it’s fine. It’s a good opportunity for me. I was starting to feel the limits of solo playing anyway…”
“It’s a relief to hear you say that… Hey, Kirito…”
Asuna’s hazelnut eyes looked directly at me.
“Can you tell me why you avoid guilds…avoid people…? I don’t think it’s merely because you’re a beta tester or a unique skill user, because you are a very kind person.”
I shifted my gaze downwards and slowly rocked my chair.
“…a long time ago…over a year actually, I once joined a guild….”
The words came out so easily that it surprised me. Maybe it was because Asuna’s gaze felt like it would be able to melt the pain that spiked through me every time I thought about this.
“I was offered a spot after I met and helped them by chance in a labyrinth area… It was a small guild with only six members, including me, and it had an interesting name: «Black Cats of the Full Moon».”
Asuna smiled lightly.
“The leader was a good person. He was a two-handed staves user called Keita. He always thought of the guild members first in any situation, so everyone trusted him deeply. He told me that he was on the lookout for a forward, since most of the members used longer-ranged two-handed weapons…”
To tell the truth, their levels were all much lower than mine. No, I should say that I had leveled too much.
If I had told him my level, Keita would have thought otherwise about inviting me. But I had been getting tired of going into the Labyrinths alone day after day, and the family-like atmosphere of the «Black Cats» had made me envious. It felt like they were real-life friends, as the conversations they had with each other lacked any of the awkwardness and distance that was usually evident in online conversations between players; that had deeply appealed to me as well.
Frankly, I had no right to desire for the care of others. I had lost that right when I decided to become a solo player and selfishly leveled only for myself. But I had quelled my inner voices and joined the guild, hiding both my level and my beta-tester past.
Keita asked me if I could train one of their spear users into a sword-and-shield user. Because then there would be three forwards, including myself, and the guild would make a balanced party.
The spear user who he had entrusted to me was a quiet girl with shoulder-length black hair named Sachi. When we were introduced, she said, with an embarrassed smile, that despite being a long-time gamer, she hadn’t been able to make many friends due to her personality. Whenever there were no guild activities, I had hung out with her and taught her how to use her single-handed sword.
Sachi and I were similar in a lot of ways. We were both socially awkward, preferred to wall ourselves in, and yet feared loneliness.
Then one day, she suddenly told me that she was afraid of dying, that she was so scared of this game of death that she didn’t want to go out and train.
In response to her divulgence, I could only say “I won’t let you die.” I couldn’t say anything else to her since I was still trying to hide my level. After she heard my response, she cried for a bit before forcing out a smile.
On another day, some time later, the five of us, all of the guild excluding Keita, went into a labyrinth. Keita didn’t come with us because he had gone to bargain for a house to use as our HQ with the money that we had managed to save up.
Although the labyrinth we went to had already been cleared, there were still unexplored areas within it. One of the members discovered a treasure chest when we were preparing to leave. I recommended leaving it alone, as we were close to the front lines so the monsters had high levels. Furthermore, I didn’t trust the trap dismantling skills of the members. But since only Sachi and I opposed opening the treasure chest, we lost 3 to 2 on the vote.
It was an alarm trap, one of the worst types of traps. As soon as we opened the chest, an ear-splitting alarm sounded, and monsters began to pour in from every entrance to the room. We immediately attempted to escape by teleporting.
But the trap was twofold. The room was an Anti-Crystal Area—our crystals didn’t work.
There were simply too many monsters to hold back. The other members fell into complete confusion and ran around aimlessly. I tried to cut a path open by using the high class sword skills that I had been hiding up until now, but the panicked members didn’t make it out in time. One by one, their HP fell to zero and they screamed before bursting into tiny fragments. I thought that I could at least save Sachi and swung my sword endlessly.
But it was too late. I saw Sachi reaching out towards me with her hand while a monster cut her down mercilessly. Her eyes were still trusting even as she shattered like a glass statue and disappeared. She had trusted and relied on me until the very end; but because my words were weak and shallow, they had become nothing more than an empty promi
se, a lie.
Keita had been waiting for us in the inn that had served as our temporary base with the new HQ keys in his hands. After returning to the inn by myself, I explained to Keita what had happened. He had listened wordlessly until I finished, then asked me:
“How did you survive?”
Then I revealed my real level and that I had been a beta tester.
Keita had glared at me as if I was something disgusting, then said one thing.
-A beater like you didn’t have any right to join us.
Those words had stabbed through me as if they were a steel sword.
“…what happened…to that person…?”
“He committed suicide.”
Asuna’s body shuddered on the chair.
“He jumped off the edge of the floor. Most probably cursing me…to the very end…”
I felt my throat contract. As I recounted these memories that I had sealed deep inside my heart, the painful emotions of back then returned with perfect clarity. I gritted my teeth. Although I wanted to reach out to Asuna for comfort, a voice in my mind whispered, “you have no right to do so,” which left me with only the option of tightly clenching my fists.
“I had killed them. If I didn’t hide the fact that I was a beta tester, I would have been able to persuade them to leave the chest alone. It was me… I’m the one who had killed Keita… and Sachi…”
With my eyes wide open, I forced these words out of my gritted teeth.
Asuna suddenly stood up, took two steps towards me, and caressed my face with both her hands. She pulled her beautiful face closer to mine with a warm smile.
“I won’t die.”
She said it in a whisper, yet the voice was very clear. I felt the strength leave my tensed body.
“Because, I’m… I’m somebody who’ll protect you.”
After saying this, Asuna brought my head to her chest and embraced it. I felt a soft and warm darkness cover me.
As I closed my eyes, my mind reached over the dark veil of my memories and saw the faces of the Black Cat members; they were all sitting at the Inn’s counter, bathed in an orange glow.
Sword Art Online - Volume 1 - Aincrad Page 13