Sword Art Online/ソードアート・オンライン 1. Master of Cerberus

Gun Gale Online: Cerberus

AN:

First off for those of you who have read my other SAO fanfictions such as "Demon Lord Kirito" and "Kirito: The Black Knight", I apologize since I have abandoned them.

I have decided to take a different in writing my SAO fanfictions now, since whenever I use Kirito as the main character I don't deviate from the original storyline much and that in my opinion is worthless and will make fanfiction readers disappointed.

So to force myself to think more creatively I have decided to replace the original Death Game of Sword Art Online with Gun Gale Online!This I will be forced into being more creative or die trying (not that severe). Personally I think that's ingenious.

If you don't know what Gun Gale Online is, it is the VMMORPG that appears in volume 5 and 6.

Anyways since GGO (Gun Gale Online) will be the death game I will change some features of the original game.

Anyways for this fanfiction I'm going to try to put more effort into making the characters feeling and the darker nature of the situation, while keeping some humor in it, of course it would at the expense of Kirito.

Anyway I have to thank ToumaFF and his SAO fanfic "Prince of Swords" that motivated me to write SAO fanfics again.

Anyways I will apologize ahead if my new fanfic has any similarities to his. Some of those similarities might be coincidences and may have already appeared in my past fanfictions.

Talk-"Kirito-kun"

Thought-_'Kyaa!?'_

Game Terms-«Photon Blade: Hades»

System Announcement- -congratulations-

Passive Skills: **Divinity**

Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, wished I did though.

Chapter 1: Master of Cerberus

It was dark and gloomy. The surrounding of the dirt road consisted of nothing but ashen trees with a few occasional boulders near them. The animals were monstrous looking mutations of what was normally seen in a forest trail. Even the greenery was grey and unhealthy looking.

The sky was filled with dark grey clouds covering the night sky, or was it daytime?

The player who walked the road shook his head, no one could really tell unless they had the clock from the menu tell the. There were some small differences in lightings and the movement of animals, but that was far too small for most to notice.

Well for most, for the beta players it was much more obvious as they had already experienced.

The player that walked through the road was clad in a black long coat that was opened. He had a silver belt that held several magazines for his semi-automatic gun, the «FN Five-Seven», that was placed on his left side for his left hand to use.

On the other side was a sliver tube like object that was three centimeters in diameters and twenty-five centimeters in length. On each end there a metallic ring that increased the diameter and on one side that was facing down there was a black as if to discharge something. This was «Kagemitsu G2», it was essentially a weakened version of the «Kagemitsu G4».

He had black pants, fingerless gloves, and boots all with some defensive properties that fitted his character level. There was a gauntlet like armor on his left arm and a metal breastplate on him.

His face was quite feminine and it was only increased by his chin length hair and bangs that reached into middle of his eyes. And although you couldn't tell by the black visor that he had on he had onyx black eyes.

The player's name was «Kirito», currently one of the strongest player if not the strongest of «Gun Gale Online» or GGO for short.

Three weeks ago, when fifteen thousand players logged on, they were trapped unable to log out.

Kayaba Akihiko trapped them into this game.

Only if they had «Key» could the trapped players escape. No one knew where it was but they had to find it in this post apocalyptic world. The world was created after World War V destroyed the earth as we know it with nuclear weapons.

Everything was in ruins and the only humans surviving were in Starting City». Located in the center of the giant continent the players had to start from there to expand and explore.

Monsters littered the «dungeons» or rather the mutated beast that used to be animals, some had even gained «Intelligence» comparable to humans. In other words «Bosses» with more complicate AIs that players have to defeat.

So far no one had moved any further than ten kilometers from «Starting City». The reason was because of the «Territory Bosses» that were placed in each region to guard it and unless they were defeated players were unable to pass them.

The world was made of many regions some small others larger, generally the larger the region the stronger the territory boss was. So far no one was able to even defeat one, it led to a stasis on the advancement of the players. The region where Starting City didn't count as it was the only boss free region, well as far as anyone knew.

Kirito was planning to break that stasis, alone.

If you asked other players about Kirito's action, they would call him foolish and suicidal. However Kirito was also known as the «Strongest Fool» for a reason.

The reason was because of his choice of weapon, the Kagemitsu G2.

It was a sword.

This was a game of guns.

Guns always were superior to swords.

Unless you were Kirito

He was the man who had used the Kagemitsu G2, otherwise known as a «Photon Sword» and the only fictional world where the weapons were based on the real world equivalent of them, to slice bullets for kendo practice during the Beta-testing!

And he succeeded too!

The other reason was because the photon swords were known as the strongest weapon however they were incredibly dangerous to use as they had the shortest range when it was much safer to use guns.

Normally Kirito wouldn't go after it either but since the start of the official release extra features were installed to increase the chance of survival. They were known as «Passive Skills».

Such abilities weren't affected by «Levels» rather they «Ability Points» were given in proportion to the amount of experience gain.

There was no set limits on the amount of passive skills a player could have, but having too much skills would result in inefficient abilities in the higher levels.

So far Kirito had invested in four skills:

**Night Vision: 59**

**Searching: 99**

**Tracking: 49**

**Hiding: 60**

The skills were incredibly boring to master, and they could only be fully master at 1000. Normally a player wouldn't have four already, but instead have one or two and rely on a partner or team to have the other essential skills.

But for a «Solo Player» like Kirito it was must. Besides thanks to his fighting style he easily took down monsters down with his photon sword and was probably the highest level players there was.

Besides the Passive Skills there were other skills known as «Crafting», those skills were used to make or modify technology. For example a «Semi-Automatic Gun Crafter» could make semi-automatic guns of higher qualities than normal monster drops and make specialized bullets with special effects for those types of gun. However only a few took Crafting as the formulas they needed to know were extremely hard and not to mention many other factors that must also calculated.

Stats were also an essential for players, the stats consisted of:

AGI (Agility) - determines movement speed of a character

VIT (Vitality) - determines health of a character

DEX (Dexterity) - determines accuracy of a player and ability to hit targets

STR (Strength) - determines the carrying capacity and ability to wield certain guns

DEF (Defender) - determines the ability to defend against an ambush attack

Well the Vit stat didn't exist anymore, as the health was now connected to a player's level. Kirito suspected that it was also again to increase the probability of survival as before many players neglected the Vit stat and died.

In fact it was very easy to die during the Beta-testing, but Kirito noticed that it was harder now.

Kirito had thanked the design because now he had more stat points to focus on increasing the other stats.

AGI: 65%

DEX: 0%

STR: 25%

DEF: 10%

Kirito had chosen such a distribution was mostly due to his fighting style. He needed speed to be quick and move when he used his primary weapon the photon sword.

The strength was not only to increase the power of the photon sword's attack but also allow him to equip and use his secondary weapon, his handgun and currently his FN Five-Seven, effectively.

The DEF was used to alert and protect him long enough to either run away or strike back. Kirito was quite confident at his natural abilities through years of kendo to protect him at such times.

DEX: Wasn't increased because Kirito was a close range fighter, not to mention his aim was already good. He mainly used his handgun to attack the weak points of the monster or to distract at a distance he would never miss unless something happened.

Clak

Clak

Clak

Kirito came to stop as he stood in front of a large black gate five meters tall and two point five meter wide. It had intricate engraving with one single large skull in the center.

This was one of the «Gates» leading to the territorial boss. Each and every territorial boss were located behind such gates, at least most of them that were defeated during the Beta-testing.

Kirito braced himself as he pushed open the gate alone thinking of how he had gotten into this mess in the first place.

-Flash Back-

Kirito, or rather Kirigaya Kazuto his real name, held back a yawn as he watched the headmaster of his school finish the graduation speech for the senior on how proud he was of them, how he wished them luck, and blah blah blah.

Kazuto was one of the seniors graduating that year. It was quite an unusual age to graduate as a senior, but Kazuto was a known prodigy that could accomplish anything he set his mind to.

But because of this, he also incited the jealousy and envy some of his fellow school mates that were several years his age. But Kazuto didn't care, and the jealous students were too afraid to actual do anything since that incident.

One of the more jealous student grouped together and tried to attack Kazuto on his way home, knowing that they couldn't outright do it as he was a favorite of almost all the teachers.

They just forgot one little important fact.

He was also kendo user and one of the top eight kendo nationalist.

He always carried his shinai (the wooden sword that kendo users used) with him.

They were beaten…badly.

And even then they tried having the school expel him, they weren't successful due to being the teacher's favorite. And none of them would believe that at the time thirteen year old could defeat three other students several years his age. And even then if it was true, the teacher would turn a blind because Kazuto's presence in the school brought them great prestige.

Ever since then, none of the jealous students tried anything. But that didn't mean Kazuto wasn't popular, in fact he was rather popular with his frail looking body stature despite all the lean muscle he had, girl like face and polite personality, especially among the girls.

But he was never really close to any of them, despite what the students wanted to say, he could never really bring himself to get close to any of them.

"I'm back." Kazuto said as he opened the gate to his traditional Japanese home.

"Welcome back Kazuto." His mother, Kirigaya Midori, said from the kitchen. Well even though she was his mother, she really was his aunt. His real parents died when he was a younger and Midori the sister of his father adopted him.

And his foster father was overseas working so he rarely saw him.

"Where's Oji-san?" Kazuto asked after he placed his school materials into his room.

"Ah, he's out with some friends." His mother said as she continued to work in the kitchen. "Even though he's not here you shouldn't be lazy and not do your kendo practice even though you're the national champion."

Kazuto said "Of course" as he went to small dojo in the family's property to practice. His grandfather was a famous kendoist, and had wanted his son to continue. Unfortunately Kazuto's father quitted kendo once he left high school.

As a result the grandfather pushed all his hopes and dreams on Kazuto. And Kazuto was spectacular at it just like everything else he actually tried to do. Although he didn't particularly like it or hate it, he preferred computers to kendo any day.

Kazuto stood in the middle of the dojo in his blacken gray dougi and black hakama, he had two shinai one in each hand. The one in his right hand was slightly longer than the usual one and the one in his left was half the usual size.

Kazuto's right shoulder was facing the front with his left shoulder almost directly behind it. The right shinai was held in front while the left was also held out behind the left shoulder with his feet crouched a bit.

This was Kazuto's standard starting position for his two-sword style, an incredibly rare style that few used, mostly because of the difficulty and impracticability of using it in a real match.

Unlike most kendo starting positions which had the user use two hands to hold the shinai with the front facing the opponent, for a two-sword style user it was not the same.

Kazuto started to do his katas, at first slowly but as time past he gradually began to move faster until his movements was a blur to regular people and amateurs.

This was his daily practice, usually his grandfather would spar with and with Kirito losing…yeah Kazuto's grandfather is a monster even at that age.

Hell he only used one shinai compared to Kazuto's two shinai, although Kazuto was able to last longer every time they sparred now.

After thirty minutes of nonstop action, Kazuto had a thin film of sweat on him. Fifteen minutes later Kazuto decided to stop and take a break.

He took a small hand towel from a rack in the dojo and wiped the sweat from his face and neck. After that he took a water bottle from another rack nearby, opened the top, and drank greedily from it.

Those racks were placed here by Kazuto for himself and his little sister to use during their practices.

Having down the last of the water, Kazuto threw it away as he began put away his kendo practice gear.

_Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh_

The sound of the sliding door could be heard as a Kirigaya Suguha, Kazuto's little sister but who was in reality his cousin, opened the door already dressed in her white dougi and black hakama.

"Ah, Onii-chan!?" She called out in surprise.

Suguha was a girl of thirteen years and with a athletes body with lean muscles due her kendo training like Kazuto. She had black, chin length hime style hair that complimented her cute boyish looking face.

"Have you come here to practice too Sugu?" Kazuto asked his younger sister with smile.

"Of course, my goal is to be able to defeat you after all!" Sugu replied energetically.

Ever since Suguha and Kazuto have started kendo together, she had always wanted to defeat her brother, as far as she knew, since he was always better than her. However unlike Kazuto she loved kendo with a passion.

It was because of this that Kazuto didn't quit and as he didn't want to insult her by saying that he was better at her in kendo even though he was impartial to it. To this day he was waiting for Suguha to surpass him.

"Don't practice too long or it'll be bad for body okay?" Kazuto said as he patted Suguha on the head.

Suguha made a pouting face as she balled her fist Kazuto in a threatening manner. "Geez Onii-chan I'm not a little kid anymore!"

Kazuto just chuckled as he walked out of the dojo intending to take a bath to wash off all the sweat before he did anything else.

-Three Days Later-

Kazuto was smiling from the giddiness waiting for the clock to strike one o'clock. _'Today is the day!'_ Kazuto thought.

What day is it?

It was the official opening day for Gun Gale Online, where guns ruled the world, well mostly that is.

Kazuto normally wasn't the type of person to play a gun game but this was the first VRMMO to ever exist, so no matter what type of game it was he would play it.

But of course he found a way to use a sword in a world full of guns. At first it was just basic thought during the time he Beta-tested it but soon it became his fighting style. It was during the Beta-test that Kazuto decided to use the photon sword as his primary weapon.

Kazuto honestly loved his style, using his sword in his right hand and a handgun in his left to fight against gun users, it was unique and fun.

But that wasn't all due to his «experience» in slicing bullets in the game his perception had increased drastically to the point that the world seemed to slow down when he was in combat mode. Kazuto credited his win in the national tournament to spending the Beta-test slicing bullets in half.

Oh did I mention that he loved the looks on the «PKers», or player killers, face when he slices through them with his sword. Nothing could describe their faces.

Bibibibibeep!

Bibibibibeep!

The alarm sounded as the designated time arrived. Kazuto shut the alarm off before placing the «Nerve Gear», the console that makes virtual reality to life, onto his head before lying on his bed.

"Link Start." He said as his sense of reality was warped before settling a floating sensation in black space.

Beep!

A holographic screen appeared in front of him asking him to input the basic details for character creation.

Having already done this once before, Kazuto breezed through the process and soon he found himself appearing in the center of «Starting City» along with many other players.

Kazuto became Kirito the future swordsman among the many future gunmen.

He ignored the signs leading towards the tutorial as he walked straight towards the beginner's weapon shop where beginning player would receive their first primary weapon.

"Hey wait up!" Kirito stopped and turned around to see a heavily customized red-haired avatar coming towards him. He had a macho soldier like look with an extremely short spiky hair. In other words he looked like a hero from a soldier anime.

"You're a Beta-tester right?" The man asked to which Kirito nodded. "Lucky!"

Then he suddenly did a bow "My name is Klein, please teach me a few things!" Kirito did an inward gape at how shameless he acted before putting a wry smile.

"Sure, why not? My name is Kirito" Kirito said as he led Klein into the store.

"Wow…" uttered Klein as he gazed into gun filled racks of the store. Kirito who watched him from the side also smiled, remembering his and many other's first reaction.

"Klein, all of these guns are taken from real life, but that doesn't mean you can just equip any of them, each gun has specific requirements that need certain stats to equip. So you can equip ANY gun as long as your stats meet the requirement." Kirito explained to his friend.

"Wow…" Klein uttered again as he moved closer to inspect each rack of weapons. While Klein was looking through the guns Kirito went to the salesclerk, a scantily clad woman, to receive his primary weapon the Kagemitsu G2.

The Kagemitsu only had half the attack of the original Kagemitsu G4, but it was still pretty powerful as the Kagemitsu G4 was the strongest weapon in the game, well currently that is. Kirito didn't know if there was any newer undiscovered weapon that could triumph the attack power of photon swords but if there were any they were going to be very few of them.

In fact many of free weapons here were downgraded version of their more powerful and rarer counter parts.

"Hey, Kirito! Help me what should I choose!? I don't know what's good or not!?" Klein who had gotten out of his daze pleaded Kirito. In truth Kirito didn't know much about the gun until he actually started to play it during Beta-testing. He had spent hours researching about them and he had a sinking feeling that the players were going to become gun experts whether they want to or not.

"Well, if you were to ask me…" Kirito started to say as he looked around the shop before he finally settled his eyes on a gun. "It would be that one."

"The «Uzi One-Fourth», think of it as a downgraded version of the original Uzi, despite only having less ammo per magazine and reduced damage it is still the best gun in the store for close to mid range combat. Well the best you can get here at least, but despite that you can probably keep use it better than most guns until you get to level ten."

Klein taking Kirito's advice bought the gun. After that Kirito brought Klein to specialized store and told him about secondary weapons. Which were usually handguns.

Klein bought one with 500 «credits» out of his 1000 that all beginners got. «credits» the currency of GGO.

Kirito however didn't claiming that he wanted to save it up before buying his secondary weapon as it was quite costly.

"YAHHH!" Klein's voice rang out as he unloaded his magazine of it bullets into the «Mutated Boar» causing its «death» and making it shatter into millions of polygons. The «Mutated Boar» was the «Slime» equivalent to other MMORPGs. But they also served another purpose, to get players to familiarize themselves to fighting moving monsters that roam the VRMMO.

"Klein, you know that in here monsters would be alerted of your presence if you start to shout at them before you even attack them right?" Kirito asked.

Klein had a confused look on his face not getting it, "What do you mean?"

Kirito sighed, "In this game, they try to blend the lines between VR and reality as much as possible, so monsters are often able to hear out sounds when we approach ensuring that they don't get caught off guard, making them harder prey. Not to mention other monster might here you and start to mob you together. We're just lucky that the «Mutated Boar» will only retaliate when attacked."

"Oops I guess…" Klein said as he rubbed his head sheepishly.

"Hey, Kirito?"

"Yes?"

"What's you weapon? I mean you helped me get my gun and I also saw you getting something but I don't see it." Klein said as he observed at Kirito.\

Kirito smirked as he grabbed his photon sword that was currently off. "Watch." That was all he said before he started to run at high speeds, well as fast as his AGI stat let him, before turning the sword on. It let out a dangerous sound as Kirito slash through one of the «Mutated Boar».

But Kirito didn't stop there he kept running and similarly kept cutting through the other monsters decimating the barren land of its monster.

-Congratulations you reached level 2-

The system announcement on the rectangular window said as it appeared in front of Kirito with also other information.

Kirito smiled as he distributed the stats before looking at Klein who had an amazed look on his face.

"WOW! Why didn't you tell me to buy a light saber like you!? I mean look how you took down all those monster with what would have taken me ten bullets!"

"The reason was because you would not have been able to use." Kirito said

Klein had a confused look on his face, "What do you mean? I just saw you take down all those monsters easily though!"

"Klein most players would have been made into Swiss cheese if they tried to use a photon sword against a gun user, and in this world where «PvP» is common."

"Klein looked even more confused now, "But then why do you use it?"

Kirito had a smug smirk on his lips as he started walk about one meter away from Klein. "Klein shoot me."

"B-but-"

"Just do it." Kirito commanded, Klein looked hesitant at first before he decided to aim his Uzi at Kirito.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

It was at that moment that Kirito's hand flashed. Klein could only stare as three streaks of light cut three of his bullets apart while he ignored two of the bullets that just flew past him harmlessly.

"W-what!? How! But! ARghhh! How did you do that!?" Klein asked gaping now.

"You know what the «Trajectory Perception» is?"

"Yeah of course, it lets you see the «Ballistic Prediction Line» or the Bullet Line that ammo follows allowing most people to have a better chance to dodge it."

"Correct that is of course if you could see the enemy before he started to shoot at you, but sometimes players can sneak up behind you and the bullet line wouldn't appear until the player shoots his first bullet."

Klein nodded taking the information in.

"But I don't use the bullet line like that, in fact I predict the bullet line before it appears and then cut where the bullet line to slice the bullets."

Klein who heard those words could gape before he regain some semblance of speech back, "P-p-pre-predict the b–b-bullet line?"

"Correct, well that was what I do at first, and I still do, but now I can actually see the bullet but their mostly blurs to me."

"See the bullet!?" Klein shouted incrediously.

Suddenly he got on his knees as he crawled towards Kirito and started to grovel at his knees. "Teach me oh Kirito-sama!"

"I can't!"

"What! Why!?"

"During the Beta-test I tried to teach the people but none of them could, so I guess it's is an «outside system skill» that only can use."

"Outside system skill?"

"Yeah, it's called OSS for short, basically they are skills and abilities we players learn that aren't programmed into the game."

Klein who heard this stood up with a depressed look before he started cry, "*sniff* *sniff* and here I wanted to impress the girls with that ability…" he mutter to which Kirito could only sweat drop at.

After that they continued to hunt monsters for a couple hours, with Klein gaining single level and Kirito becoming a level three.

Klein's delicate eyes looked at the bottom right of his vision. He must have been checking the time.

" Hey Kirito...well, I should log off and eat. I ordered some pizza for 5:30."

"Ah okay" Kirito said.

Klein was about to opened his menu but suddenly he thought of something.

"Hey, Kirito I promised to meet some mates at the «Starting City» in a bit. I could introduce you to some of them and you could register them as friends. That way you could always send messages. How about it?"

"Errr... Hmmm..." Kirito mumbled subconsciously.

Kirito knotted his eyebrows thinking. He honestly liked Klein but he might not get along with his friends, and if that happened he would have a fall out with Klein.

"Should I...?"

Seeming to understand the reason behind Kirito's plight, Klein shook his head.

"Ah, I don't mean to force you. There'll be a chance to introduce them sometime anyway."

"...Yeah. Sorry, and thanks."

As soon as Kirito thanked him, Klein shook his head vigorously.

"Hey, hey! I should be the one thanking you. I got a lot of help from you. I'll pay you back sometime soon. Mentally."

Klein smiled and took another look at the clock.

"...Well, I'll log off for a bit. Thanks a lot, Kirito. Be seein' ya."

With that, he put his hand forward. At that moment, I thought this person would have been a great leader in «another game» and shook his hand.

"Yeah, see you around."

They each let go of the other's hand.

Klein stepped back a bit, put his right index finger and thumb together, and pulled downwards. This was the action that opened the «main menu window». Immediately afterwards, there was a ringing sound and a shining purple rectangle appeared.

Kirito moved to sit on a rock, and opened his menu too. He was planning to organize the items he had gotten from killing the boars.

Then...

"Eh?" Klein said in a strange tone. "What's this...? There's no log out button."

Kirito stopped moving my fingers and raised my head at that.

"No button...? No way, look a bit closer," He said, a bit confused.

The swordsman opened his eyes wide beneath the bandana and pushed his face closer to the menu.

The rectangle, wider than it was high, had a bunch of buttons to the left and a silhouette showing what equipment you had on to the right. At the bottom of the menu, there was a «LOG OUT» button that allowed you to escape from this world.

"It's really not there. You take a look Kirito."

"There's told you that there's no way that it's not there..." Kirito muttered with a sigh as he searched his own menu window for it.

Kirito's body froze and his eyes widen in slight dear.

It wasn't here.

As Klein had said, the button that had been there during the beta test had disappeared.

He was brought out of his stupor at Klein's voice.

"...Not there, right?"

"Yeah, it's not there."

Kirito nodded, although it felt slightly annoying to agree so easily. Klein smiled and started rubbing his thick chin.

"Well, it's the first day so these sort of bugs could occur. Around about now, the GMs should be crying by now from the number of messages flooding in," Klein said calmly.

"Is it all right for you to stand around like that? You said that you ordered some pizza, didn't you?" Kirito asked teasingly despite the seriousness of the situation

"Ah, that's right!"

Kirito smiled as he threw away a couple of items he didn't need from his inventory, which had turned red from having too many items, and then walked over to Klein.

Argh! My anchovy pizza and ginger ale...!"

Kirito had to chuckle at Klein's reaction, it was quiet comical, really.

"Why don't you call a GM? They might cut you off from their side."

"I tried, but there's no response. It's already 5:25! Hey, Kirito! Isn't there some other way to log out?"

After listening to what Klein, who was waving both arms, said...

Kirito's face and body went stiff as he once again realized the seriousness of the situation.

"Let's see... to log out..." Kirito.

'_To get out of this virtual reality and back to my room, I have to: open the main menu, press the 'Log Out' button, and press 'Yes' on the window that popped up on the right. It was pretty simple. But... at the same time, apart from that procedure, I wasn't aware of any other way of logging off.'_

Kirito looked up at Klein's face, situated quite a bit higher than his own, and shook his head.

"No... there's none. If you want to log yourself off, you have to use the menu. Apart from that, there's no other way."

"That's impossible... there's got to be something!"

Klein suddenly started shouting as if he was denying my statement.

"Return! Log out! Escape!"

But of course nothing happened. There were no voice commands in GGO of that description.

After Klein shouted this and that and even jumped around, Kirito spoke to him.

"Klein, it's useless. Even the manual doesn't have anything on emergency access terminations."

"But... this is just stupid! Even if it's a bug, I can't even go back to my room and my body when I want to!" Klein shouted with a bewildered expression on his face.

Although Kirito didn't say anything he whole heartedly agreed with Klein.

"Hey... what is this? It's just really weird. Right now, we can't get out of this game!"

Klein gave a desperate laugh then quickly started talking again.

"Wait, we can just turn the power off. Or just pull the «Gear» off."

Klein began to move his hands as if he was trying to take off some invisible hat. Kirito who was watching began to feel his anxiety rise even higher.

"That's impossible, both of them. Right now, we can't move our bodies... our real bodies. The Nerve Gear intercepts all the signals that our brain is sending here," Kirito tapped the back of his head, "and reroutes them to move our avatars here."

Klein slowly closed his mouth and put his hands down.

They both stood speechless for a while, each lost in thought.

To reach the FullDive state, the Nerve Gear intercepts the signals that the brain sends down their spines and translates them so that they can control their avatars in this world. However as a result they can't move their body in the real world.

As another side effect of this function, no user of the Nerve Gear can't cancel the FullDive of our own free will right now.

"...So unless the bug is fixed or somebody in the real world takes the Gear off, we have to wait it out?" Klein mumbled, still a little dazed.

Kirito had no need to confirm nor deny the statement as both of them knew it was true.

"But I live by myself. You?"

Kirito hesitated slightly but decided to him the truth. He like Klein despite just meeting him today.

"...I live with my mom and my younger sister, a family of three. I think that I'll be forced out of the Dive if I don't come down for dinner..."

"What? H-How old is your sister?"

Klein suddenly looked at Kirito, his eyes sparkling. Kirito pushed him away as fast as possible.

"You're pretty calm right now, aren't you? She's in a sports club and hates games, so she's got nothing in common with people like us... but more than that," Kirito spread his right arm in an attempt to change the subject. "Don't you think it's weird?"

"Well sure. Since it's a bug."

"No, I mean it's not just a bug, it's a «can't log out» bug. It's a big enough problem to bother the operation of the game itself. Like your pizza in the real world is getting colder every second, it's an actual economical loss, isn't it?"

"...A cold pizza... That's as meaningless as hard natto!"

Kirito ignored these meaningless comments and kept talking despite how much he wanted to clobber Klein at the moment.

"If it's like this, the operators should take the server down and log everyone out, whatever the cause. But... it's been 15 minutes since we first noticed this and there hasn't even been a system message, let alone taking the server down. It's just too weird."

"Hmm, now that I think of it, you're right."

Klein started rubbing his chin with a serious expression on his face. In the area beneath the bandana, which covered a little bit of his sharp nose, intelligence sparkled in his eyes.

"...The company which created GGO, «Argus», is a company that's famous for being considerate of its users, isn't it? That's why everyone was fighting to get their hands on a copy even though it's the first online game. It's sorta meaningless if they screw up like this on their first day."

"I agree. And GGO is the first VRMMORPG. If something goes wrong now, they might pass regulations for the whole genre."

Klein and Kirito looked at each other's virtual faces and sighed.

It was just past 5:30 when it happened.

When Kirito's world changed forever.

-Flashback End-

'_That day Klein and I went our separately ways. He went to his friend to protect and help prepare them with the information I provided him with. I abandoned everyone else and took the path of a Solo. Well it wasn't like I could help, my fundamentally is unique only to me after all.'_ Kirito thought trying to convince himself that abandoning the other players was the right decision, trying to lessen the guilt.

It didn't work.

CREAK

Kirito pushed opened the giant doors of the gate as he walked into a large circular room about twenty-five meters in diameters and about seven meters high.

The large room was deathly purple poison like color that decorated the room, with the large cylinder columns situated around the walls with red fire lighting the room up in their skull like torch holders.

Oh! Did I mention skeletons littered the floor?

A large roar shook the whole room and sent chills down Kirito's spine.

'_Maybe this wasn't such a great idea…' _Kirito thought to himself, as he started to regret his decision.

A large dog of about two meters long and one meter tall and wide leapt from its resting into Kirito's face.

It had three heads.

It had a snake for a tail.

The territory boss' name was «The Cerberus».

"Maybe the pressure was getting to me…" Kirito muttered to himself as he charged at hell's guardian.

The Cerberus roared as he felt the "pain" of the Kagemitsu G2, he brought his right claw up as he brought down at Kirito.

Kirito who had just slashed the boss' left head jumped back and nimbly avoided the clawed paw that would probably take a third of his health.

The three headed didn't wait for Kirito to attack him as he charged at Kirito intent on mauling him.

In response Kirito aimed his FN Five-seven at the dogs face and fired three bullets. One of them pierced the eye of Cerberus' middle head.

The dog reared back in pain. Despite that only one of the head was injured it still hand part control of body and Kirito exploited it to his advantage.

With a small battle cry Kirito charged at the boss once more and unleashed a one-sword technique from kendo.

The Cerberus that was under Kirito's assault retreated a few step before it used its left clawed paw to attack Kirito once more.

Instead of dodging Kirito used his photon sword to block the attack, but he had forgotten about the Cerberus's snake headed tail, which had its mouth opened as it tried to strike at GGO only swordsman.

Kirito luckily jumped quick enough to dodge, however the Cerberus' other paw came closing in to attack him.

Unfortunately for Kirito who was midair he could only bring his photon sword up to block the attack but he was still flung back from the force of the attack.

Kirito was flung into the wall, but as he came falling down he flipped in the air and landed on his feet.

"Damn it" He said as he saw that his health was down by 21%, the Cerberus's was down to 15%, but that was only one of his four health bars.

Kirito positioned himself into the starting position of his two-sword kendo stance.

"Here we go." He muttered as he suddenly moved his left shoulder to face the Cerberus and fire the rest of the bullet in his FN Five-Seven's magazine using his split second aiming skills.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

-With Diabel-

Diabel sucked his breath, as he and his group of players reached a black gate leading to one of the territory bosses.

He had hidden his status as a beta player and successfully brought the top players of GGO to band together and fight a territory boss.

Beta players weren't well liked because some of them had abandoned the other players and thought only of themselves. Unfortunately the new players had grouped all the beta players into the same group.

"-Let's go!" He shouted with his light blue hair moving due to the gentle wind opening the large door generated.

All forty-one players charged with vigor into the circular room…

Only to stare at the Cerberus that was leaping towards them…no it was at the foolish player that wielded a photon sword.

The foolish player with the black visor covering his eyes leapt at the Cerberus.

The players watched the battle with awe as the black swordsman sliced the boss while he avoided the claw in mid air!

The player clad in black had landed on top of the platform where the stairs on the opposite side of the room led to.

They all heard the Cerberus growl threateningly as it landed and changed its direction to face the single player ignoring the forty-two players behind him.

They all watched in anticipation.

Suddenly the Cerberus collapsed onto the ground as if bowing to the lord of the dead, Hades his master, before shattering into a million pieces of polygon.

They stared in shock as they just witnessed a single player defeat a territory boss, accomplishing one by himself what a large group of players couldn't.

The players whose eyes were glued onto Cerberus before moved them to look at that lone player.

That lone player swung the photon sword in a practiced motion before turning it off and lacing both his handgun and sword back onto his belt.

He turned and then pushed opened the door on the platform opening the way to a new land.

AN: How was it?

Hahaha… I'm not that confident in my knowledge of guns so I'm going to have to ask you for advice.

What kind of guns should the other members of the cast have?

I was thinking for Asuna to have two handguns with blades attached to it to use gun-fu XD.

And for Heathcliff I was thinking of having him use swords too, since I planned to have him to create SAO but dropped it mid way and change it to GGO. But that didn't mean he still didn't create the sword skills!

I also want help from you guys, concerning what types of guns should appear and what their place on the hierarchy is.

Oh, and please leave constructive criticism.


	2. Enter Asuna the White Devil

Gun Gale Online: Cerberus

AN:Thank you everyone who reviewed, it makes me really happy in fact I'm positively giddy every time I read a review unless it's of course a flame. Those hurt A LOT TT_TT

CarelessWind: Well there is a slight problem with that…Photon swords cylinder like…in a way they are like light sabers so it would physically impossible in the game unless you programmed it and made one

liexi&Solera: Of course Sinon would appear (I'm conflicted on which one I like better Sinon or Asuna actually), she will probably make her debut in the next chapter (hopefully).

Well Asuna is going to get semi-automatic guns as you'll see and eventually both Kirito and Asuna are going to get variations of gunblades(Note: not those incredibly big ones as they would hinder more unless you're in a fantasy game, no their blade parts are only going to be a bit longer than the gun themselves.)

And for Heathcliff…meh that's for future thought…I still haven't decided yet.

Mr. Juishi: If you want I will…just kidding, personally I think I will go quite far with this, since I am going to take a break from my Naruto fanfics due to a hurtful flame…(I hate those). But yeah, I want to make farther and all the way to the Alicization. I already have some basic plans for volume 7 (I really want to make it there).

nxkris: Thank you, and about the changes there's going to be a lot of them since GGO is a fundamentally different game then SAO. And for Heathcliff he won't slice bullets up because no matter how much of genius he is the only reason he beat Kirito was because of his pre-knowledge of the sword skills HE made. I still kinda want to give a sword or at least a sort of shield as he did use one in SAO.

ToumaFF-You're correct about the death rate, but right now I'm not going to put too much focus on it, since it's because people know how other people easily kill people and it scares them so they try not to think about it…well until someone does the first kill

For the Kirito soloing the boss, I believe it is possible as the «Photon Sword» are the strongest type of weapon in GGO. Using to solo the first few bosses wouldn't be a stretch in my opinion, unlike SAO where everyone has swords. After all, the photon sword is an absurdly powerful/lethal joke weapon. And in my opinion the players are going to be more vulnerable so the bosses should be too.

As for the beater part, that term hasn't been coined yet, in my humble opinion it was Kibaou's fault that the situation became like that in the first place. God I hate that guy. Although there will be tension between the invisible beta-players. If you're wondering why no one recognizes Kirito since I made that he used a photon sword in the beta test, well the testers don't want to give names.

- Well I agree with OP thought, but he is using a photon sword, aka the strongest type of weapon in GGO. As for grammer mistakes…sorry about that. I suspect that Grammer Nazi would want to kill me if they ever saw this…hahahaha and as for the redundancy…sorry about that too. I will try my best to improve.

And thank you also for reviewing: princejayz, shugokage, ChaosTheVoid, alkner

Anyways since GGO (Gun Gale Online) will be the death game I will change some features of the original game (SAO and GGO).

Anyways for this fanfiction I'm going to try to put more effort into making the characters feeling and the darker nature of the situation, while keeping some humor in it, of course it would at the expense of Kirito.

I have to thank ToumaFF and his SAO fanfic "Prince of Swords" that motivated me to write SAO fanfics again.

Anyways I will apologize ahead if my new fanfic has any similarities to his. Some of those similarities might be coincidences and may have already appeared in my past fanfictions.

Talk-"Kirito-kun"

Thought-_'Kyaa!?'_

Game Terms-«Photon Blade: Hades»

System Announcement- -congratulations-

Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, wish I did though.

Passive Skills: **Divinity**

Chapter 2:Enter Asuna the White Devil

It has been nearly two weeks since the news of a single player slaying the territory boss, «The Cerberus». They didn't know who did it just that he wielded a handgun in his left hand and a photon sword in his right.

Actually they didn't even know the gender of the player; some people claim it was boy, while others claim it was girl.

It was quite lucky for Kirito that his name or identity wasn't discovered. Or he might've been followed/stalked daily since his new status as «GGO Strongest' Player».

He had also gained the moniker «Hades», the reason was quite simple; when he had defeated the Cerberus it looked as if the Cerberus had bowed to him from the players' perspectives.

Of course his identity was going to be found out sooner or later, as he was the only player able to use photon sword after all.

Naturally it also came with downsides to it, many players have already begun to speculate that he was a beta tester. Well it was logical, I mean who would use a photon sword in a world of guns unless you had prior experience, and the fact that a boss was soloed led some credibility. In fact the tension between them might have lessened a bit thanks to «Hades», as some see him as a hero for defeating boss and for giving them hope as well.

There was another thing troubling him. It was his newly acquired «Passive Skill», **Divinity**. The skill had just magically appeared in his available skill list when he checked on it, and he didn't know how he received it but he had a guess. It was because he soloed a territory boss.

With that skill, it changed many things for our black haired hero. Physically…well for his avatar that is, his eyes have changed from midnight black to scarlet crimson.

The problems were the effects of the skill. His «Stats» increased in proportion to his level. So at level fourteen all his stat increased by 14%. Not only that his other «Passive Skills» points that were placed inside doubled, all of them.

The problems weren't the effects themselves, but rather what would happen if other people found out.

One they would either praise him as a hero or two the far more likely one would be to hate him and envy him. There might even be assassination attempts at his life. Kirito unlike other didn't delude himself, he knew sooner or later people will «PK», player kill.

During the beta-test almost 70% of the one thousand players killed each other than try to expand the map, it was logical Kirito suppose, after all GGO was a gun that was originally built for «PvP».

But there was a far more concerning implication of skill. Why did Kayaba create such a skill? Was it to force that player to become the hero? Or is it something else?

Kirito sighed as he shot at a monster that took the form of a mutated dog.

Normally he would have used his KagemitsuG2 in conjunction with his gun, but right now he was practicing his aim so that he wasted fewer bullets and there one was one other reason.

That other reason was to learn the skill «Crit S», an abbreviation of Critical Shot. It was a skill that was recently discovered, the condition for the skill to be evoked was quite simple in theory, however putting it into practical use was hard and it was more based on luck rather than skill.

To evoke it, all a players needed to do was shoot a monster at the same place with multiple amounts of bullets. For each shot the damage is stacked up upon the original damage.

So if you shot at it twice in the same spot it would receive 2x the regular damage, three time it would receive 3x the regular damage, four times it would receive 4x the regular damage, and five times well you get the idea. However the bullets must hit within one second of each other.

So far Kirito could hit the same spot twice with 80% accuracy, and three it was only 15%, and four times…don't even mention it.

The monster disappeared with a vengeful cry as it shattered into millions of polygons once more. The death in GGO… it looked so…so…clean that it was unnatural in the dreary environment.

Kirito placed his black «Desert Eagle Mark I» back onto his belt. The Desert Eagle was the main reason he had defeated the Cerberus boss, as Kirito knew it was a boss dropping.

The Desert Eagle was one of the most powerful handguns for «beginners» in GGO and it was something he had used during Beta-testing so feeling the weight of it on his belt gave him some sense of security. Theoretically it should last him at least ten or twenty more territories before he would need to replace with a better gun.

But it was also one that required higher strength regular handguns, having a recoil in comparison to a rifle. He had to devote himself to «grinding» for the last five days before he could've used it efficiently even with the recoil!

Along with the strongest weapon any single player could posses right now, Kirito was sure that he was currently the highest-level player.

Kirito looked away from where the monster used to be before he started walk back towards «Starting City». Even after his singlehandedly defeat of one territory boss, only one other was defeated and it was by a large group of players, so only two new regions were opened for players to explore.

But no new town or city had been discovered yet in any of the new regions it. It seemed that when the game officially started Kayaba had changed the old location of the cities.

Speaking of cities or towns, each one of them has a «Teleport Gate», which basically is a portal access to other towns. Once the teleport gate of new town has been activated every teleport gate can lead you to it. So each teleport are linked to each other, provided of course they have already been activated that is.

With his **scanning **skill activated Kirito walked the barren land back to towards his house.

It was faint at first but as Kirito continued to walk, the sound of bullets became more pronounced until he saw figure clad in white surrounded by several «Goliath Greats ».

«Goliath Greats» true to their name were giant insect type monsters of the insect variety. Their height was about half way to the players' waist and their length were at least two meters.

They were troublesome monsters due to their tough exoskeleton that provided immense defense against the beginning players. However once you broke their shell and shot their weak insides they were as good as good, since in exchange for their high defense they had the lowest health of the monsters in the region.

Generally they would be a good monster to fight since they yielded good experience points if they didn't attack in mobs… Even a group of veterans would have trouble yet this girl…she was decimating them like nothing!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The girl now that he had been close enough to tell, had waist length chestnut hair, her face was heart, and the list could go on, but Kirito was sure that she was one of the few female characters of exceptional beauty in GGO where everyone had their real faces.

But what was even more surprising was her fighting style. She didn't use rifles, machine guns, or any of the medium size guns, no she used two handguns. And by the looks of it they were two «Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless». They were…sufficient to kill the monsters around «Starting City».

But to kill monsters about ten kilometers away? The notion was impossible.

'_But then why are they being killed so fast?'_ Kirito wondered as his curiosity pushed him to walk closer to observe.

When he was just a mere five meters away, he realized why. The girl in her white military uniform and skirt was using «Crit S» putting bullets into the monsters at the same three or four bullets in succession.

Kirito gaped, even he couldn't do that! He briefly wondered if she was the person who had discovered the skill.

But shook his head, it didn't matter anyway if she did or not, but right now Kirito was conflicted.

Should he go help or not?

He didn't think it was good to grinding like that, even for him it would be tough to protect himself three hundred and sixty degrees like the girl was.

He idly had an internally battle while fiddling with his Desert Eagle in his left hand while he watched her.

It was like from a sappy gun movie, where the hero or heroine used ridiculous movements to shoot and kill his or her enemies, yet the girl before him could make it into reality while being graceful at the same time.

Maybe like Lara Croft? Nah the girl in front of him was way stronger and cooler his opinion.

Clink ClinkClink

Kirito raised his gun and aimed at the monsters, it seemed that the girl had run out of bullets in her magazine.

'_Damn I'm too late!'_ Kirito thought as he saw one of the insects jump at the girl with its position far too close for him to shoot at without harming the girl.

Then it happened. The girl just calmly stood there in a loose gun like stance waiting for the bug to jump on her…

BAM!

She bitch-slapped the freakin, giant bug with her gun, bitch-slapped the monster away…

Kirito started to rub his eyes trying to make sure that he wasn't hallucinating.

The girl who had just slapped away the bug away from her gun didn't seem surprised at the event, moved both guns to her waist point down. On each side of the waist was some sort of mechanism with five magazines attached.

She pushed the loaded magazine into the mechanism with a click pulled them out before she just loaded the magazine empty guns new ones at the bottom of the mechanism that she just deposited her magazine to in one quick and fluid motion.

Kirito's eyebrow rose as he saw this. _'That's a «Magazine Quick Loader»! Those things only appeared in the commercials for the game and even none of the Beta testers got one, how in the world did she get it?'_

The girl aimed her gun once more at the monsters and clicked the trigger…only for empty air to come out. No bullets not even a spark was seen coming out.

Kirito almost stumbled and crash into the ground at what happened. After the badass bitch-slap the girl did and performed a magazine reload greater than even Lara Croft's, it turns out that all her magazines were out of bullets!?

But despite the comical situation Kirito saw that was probably taken out of an anime, he knew he had to save the girl or she would die.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Kirito shot out four .50 caliber bullets as he ran towards the girl with his photon sword out.

The four bullets fired from the Desert Eagle easily pierced the exoskeleton of the insects and killed the four nearest monsters surrounding the girl.

With a jump Kirito jumped in front of her and used his sword to kill all of the monsters in front of him. Another reason to like his photon sword, it easily destroyed monsters in one hit that would take others hundreds of bullets.

"Wah!?" The girl cried out at the sudden entrance of Kirito.

But the GGO's online swordsman paid no heed as he deftly moved around the girl and killed the remaining monsters like they were nothing.

"Are you alright?" Kirito asked after he turned off his photon sword and placed back on his belt, though his Desert Eagle was still out.

"Why?"

"Hmmm?"

"Why did you save me?" The girl finally asked her voice full of despair and emptiness.

"I don't need a reason to save anyone, are you saying that I should have left you to die?" Kirito asked the girl before him with some fear within him at hearing her answer.

'_Hmm she has beautiful eyes.'_ Kirito idly noted as he observed the girl before him.

"Yes" That one word caught Kirito off guard. "Everyone here will die sooner or later anyways." She muttered.

Kirito stared at her not even trying to hide his surprise. "Don't you have something you want to live for!?" Kirito shouted at her as he grabbed her shoulders.

"Why does matter! Over one thousand people have already died! And we've only cleared two regions! There is no hope!" She cried out as she flung Kirito's arms off.

"Yes there is!"

"No there isn't, just let me die…"

Kirito stared at the girl before him, the girl who was staring at him with teary eyes full of despair.

Call it an impulse whatever you want, Kirito suddenly had a slightly crazy…okay make that completely stupid not to mention perhaps homicidal plan that would work.

Without warning he pulled his left hand up and aimed his gun point black at the girls head.

"If you're so eager to die then let me help you." Kirito said in his sub zero tone that he usually reserved for his kendo opponents at tournaments.

BANG!

Kirito pulled the trigger and unleashed the bullet and the girl…

"NOOOO!"

She pushed Kirito back with all her might as she slumped onto the ground, her legs losing all their strength.

"See you want to live after all." Kirito said with a smug tone. He aimed the gun at her head to intimidate her and move the barrel away almost at the last second before he pulled the trigger.

Suddenly he wanted to make himself as small as possible the girl before him pushed herself the ground and glare at him. It was a bone chilling glare that no man wanted to face,

"Ummm I'm sorry?"

"I'M SORRY? IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF!? YOU COULD'VE KILLED ME!?"

"Bu-but you said you wanted to die…I was just trying to help…"

"HELP!? BY SCARING THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF ME!? ARE YOU CRAZY!?"

"Hey! I couldn't just leave you here! I'm trying to help you!" Kirito shouted back getting tired of being yelled at.

The girl who had realized she was shouting toned her voice down although it was still loud.

"Fine you helped me realized that I don't want to die! Now what, I don't even know what to do now!"

"Ummm, well usually you would go with your friends and start to from «parties» and fight monsters."

"What's a party?"

Kirito froze as he heard this. "Hey, this wouldn't happen to be the first MMORPG you played right?"

"Yeah it is, what about?" The girl answered with her hands on her hip.

Kirito sighed as he explained the functions of a party to her, "Anyways I have to go" He said after explaining the most basic features of MMORPGs to her.

As he turned away and took his first step, "Hey you're just going to leave me here?"

"Well yeah…"

"Yeah, that's it!? After going through all that effort to stop me from wanting to die you're just going leave me here? You have to take responsibility!"

"R-r-re-responsibility? But we hardly know each o-other!" Kirito stuttered with a blush.

The girl narrowed her eyes as she pointed the gun in her right hand at Kirito's face. "What are you thinking!? I don't mean like that. I have no friends, and I don't even know what to do and as the person who convinced me to live you have to take care of me!"

"Okay, but what's the point of pointing your gun at me? It's not like you can even use it-"

Bam! Kirito just got gun-slapped.

"-I stand corrected." He said as he watched his health lower by 1%. "Well I was looking for strong players to make a «Guild» with." Kirito said as he began to walk and motion the girl to follow him.

The girl complied, "Why a guild for what reason?"

"You have heard «Hades», the player that took down a territory boss by himself?"

"Yeah, they say he's the strongest player and the one most likely to either die first or live the longest."

Kirito's eyes twitched not knowing what to make of the information. "That player is." He calmly announced to the now wide eyed girl who was opening staring at him.

He of course promptly ignored it, "Thinking back on it, I realized it was incredibly foolish, that is why I want to make a guild. A guild comprised of small but elite and strong members to help me take down territory boss and to find the «Key»."

After that the two continued in silence with the girl agreeing with Kirito.

"Hey, I've been wondering, where did you learn to fight like that?" Kirito asked breaking the silence and genuinely curious.

"Why, is that uncommon, I thought that's how everyone fought in games like these." She answered as if it was normal.

"Of course not! Normally no one would even fight like that! It would akin to suicide!" Kirito briefly paused at the last statement as in a way it was true. "Anyways it's not normal."

"Says the girl who uses a light saber in a world full of guns."

"Touché…wait what!? I'm a guy!"

The female in front of him now had a genuinely shocked face on her. "But your face and the hair!"

Kirito paused as he tried to feel how long his hair was now, and judging by what he felt it was now at the base of his neck.

Kirito inwardly cursed at the «Growth System» of GGO. The growth system was a program in GGO to emulate the growth real life and that would include hair. His longer hair coupled with his already feminine and girlish face…he looked completely like a girl.

"I'm a guy…I just haven't cut my hair in awhile since I've been too lazy to…" Kirito said with as much dignity as he had left.

His eyes twitched as he heard the girl giggle.

"I'm Asuna by the way."

"I'm Kirito"

-«Starting City» Shopping District Lisbeth's Stall-

"Thank you very much please come again!" A cute brown haired girl with pinks eyes and freckles said with her business to the male in front of her as she handed her specially made bullets to him. She wore a pinkish red military like uniform with a white skirt.

The guy stuttered a thank you to Lisbeth as he made his way out of the stall with a very happy expression; no doubt it was because he had talked to a very cute girl.

Lisbeth sighed as she let the false smile disappear from his face. It really annoying she had decided that all the male players that bought her guns and bullets did at first because she was a girl, a very cute one but that didn't excuse their reason at all.

She was a «Crafter» type player. In other words a player that made items to use and one that didn't fight on the frontlines against monster and instead aided players, she was specifically a «Semi-Automatic Handgun Crafter».

Crafter-type players didn't actually make the guns themselves, but the parts and assemble them. Of course there were requirements too, mainly the «tool» needed to make those parts. The metals and material were of course also important.

When she had first started, it was…maddening at first. Being a girl who had no interest in guns she didn't know what to do. In fact most of guns she tried to assemble didn't fit and failed. The ones that did fit together always blew up in her face…

She had almost given up until s_he_ came. She was a looking for a crafter to make bullets for her semi-automatic gun, at first she was confused at what he meant. Turns out that crafter-type players could make certain types of bullets for what type of guns they make.

And unlike ordinary bullets crafter type bullets often carry certain enhancements, such as piercing ability, increased damage, stunning effect, poison effect, and etc.

Of course Lisbeth didn't know about it at all, thankfully the chin length female player made a deal with her. In exchange for teaching her about the craft she would be able to get discounts in the future.

She taught her tips and tricks in building guns and maximizing their efficiency. And not only that, she also taught her about modifying guns around her skill level and special formulas for bullets.

At her current level, she was the best crafter for handguns that any player could want, well her guns were the best but compared to rare drops of monster they were still lacking. But her real business came from selling those bullets she made.

If she had a complaint, it would that person's gender. Turned out that _she_ was _he_…

It wouldn't be so bad that is if she didn't found out after she had changed her clothes right in front of him.

Thinking back to that incident it was very embarrassing and never failed to make her flush her face to a bright cherry color.

Checking her time at the menu screen, she packed up her supplies and began to walk towards her group's temporary rented condo of starting city.

The group was created by _him,_ Kirito that asshole who saw her body as Lisbeth put it.

Kirito had created that group quite recently, with the goal to become a guild focusing on clearing the game. Currently there were only three members, Kirito, Argo, and Lisbeth herself.

Argo was chosen because of her ability to gather information, which would be crucial, and Lisbeth was chosen because of her growing skills in crafting that would no doubt branch out and create even better weapons and items.

Kirito, well he was the main fighting force, not to mention the only fighting force they had, which was why Kirito had told each one of them to keep an eye out for a potential recruit.

_Ding dong…_

The bell rang out as Lisbeth pushed the door to their condo. It wasn't really much; it only had a single living room, kitchen, two bathrooms, and five bedrooms. The color scheme was from a very natural design. The floor was made of _wood_ and many plants were strategically placed around the condo.

Lisbeth really liked the place, it was refreshing to see greenery when all you have been staring at were the grey sky and barren land, and don't even get here started on how many metallic and inorganic stuff she sees even with her eyes closed.

"Hiya Lisbeth" Another girl with curly brown hair of a light shade than Lisbeth's called to her from the couch. Her face was quite cute in a way too. And unlike Lisbeth, Argo wore autumn brown colored military outfit with no sleeves and short shorts.

This was Argo, otherwise known as «The Informant».

"Hey Argo." Lisbeth called back as she collapsed onto the couch the day's work finally catching to her.

"Where's Kirito?" She asked as she looked around the condo. _'Strange, he's usually back by now.'_

"Oh? Didn't you get the message?"

At Argo's question Lisbeth showed a confused look. "What message?"

"Apparently he found another member for our group, it's a fighter." Argo answered.

"Hey Lisbeth?" Argo asked.

"Yes?" Lisbeth answered cautiously as she heard the underlying teasing tone of Argo.

"You have competition."

"Huh?" was Lisbeth's smart reply.

"It seems that Ki-bou has brought back another girl." Argo informed Lisbeth with a grin that spoke volumes.

Lisbeth's face was confused for a second before it flushed bright red, in fact you can even see the steam coming out of her ears due to the over exaggerated emotion function of GGO. "I don't have a crush on him."

"Sure you don't~"

"That's it die!" Lisbeth screamed as she lunged at Argo.

-With Kirito-

"Please come in." The black haired photon sword user said as he opened the door to his group's condo for Asuna.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he saw his companion froze halfway through the door. Not hearing an answer he looked into the condo himself and froze.

Lisbeth was on top of Argo. Now that wouldn't normally freeze out hero as they frequently argued, but….their position right now was very compromising.

Lisbeth's left hand was on Argo's right breast and her right leg was up her crotch, not to mention to mention that her military skirt lost its magic skirt properties and her innocent white panties were showing.

"T-th-this isn't what it looks like!" Lisbeth cried out in embarrassment. Hell even Argo's face was red from embarrassment.

But Kirito didn't hear as his brain shut down due to over processing information. One second later he fainted.

Yes the only man to be able to use a photon sword to cut bullets, the man who soloed and defeated a territory boss fainted.

After Kirito had woken up, the four of them had a _very_ awkward dinner…in fact Kirito who LOVES food couldn't even taste anything because of the tension.

"Ahem, let me introduce you to the new member to our group Asuna." Kirito said trying to dispel the tension _after_ dinner as he gestured toward the chestnut haired beauty.

"Told you so." Argo said to Lisbeth, which incited the confusion of the two fighters.

"Shut up!" Lisbeth growled out towards Argo.

"Okay…okay…" Argo said with her hand raised saying, "I surrender" as she saw Lisbeth bring out one of her crafting tools, the drill.

Asuna sweat drop at the scene, while Kirito just smiled as he was already used to it.

"By the way Ki-bou have you thought of a name for the guild yet?" Argo asked their leader.

"Well I was thinking about waiting until we can actually make the guild before choosing a name." Kirito replied.

"But I already thought of a name." Argo said.

"Fine is your idea?" Kirito asked seeing no harm in it as he brought his cup up for a drink.

"Kirito's Harem."

"poshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" That was Kirito spewing his drink out.

The glare from the three other people of the drink didn't even faze Argo. "But it doesn't sound strong so I was thinking of calling the guild «Cerberus»."

"Why Cerberus?" Kirito asked.

"Well everyone knows you as «Hades» and your identity will soon be found out anyways, and besides a Cerberus has already become you official symbol in the eyes of the other players any ways." Argo explained to the other people.

'_Well it's better than Kirito's Harem, I don't even want to think about the players that would try to murder me if I had called my guild that.'_ "Fine…" Kirito finally said after debating internally for a while.

"But it still doesn't change the fact that it's you harem~" Argo said in sing song voice as a last comment.

Kirito banged his head against the table as the two other girls besides Argo glared it him now. _'Why did I ever want her in my guild again?'_

AN: Done

How was it? I hope it was up to your expectations.

Truth be told, I had a lot of difficulties writing this, mainly because I really didn't like the chapters where I have to set things up for future chapters. I forced myself to finish this today because the new episode came out.

The part about this I don't like the most is the Asuna portion, I just didn't know any other way to get her to want to live and go with Kirito at the same time…maybe I'll change it in the future when I have a better idea.

I have another question now…I want Kirito to obtain a motorcycle sometime later in the game, specifically Fenrir the motorcycle Cloud owns in FFVII Advent children. And I want him to be able to use his swords while against the more simple and easier monsters.


	3. Don't Bully Hades!

Gun Gale Online: Cerberus

AN: I got a beta! Her name is Sephoriya! And so I would like us all to give our thanks to her for helping me! :)

For some of you who have read the light novels concerning GGO and questioning about the Optical Guns compared to the Live Fire ones. Well I do not plan on introducing optical guns into the story, in my opinion it would hazardess to introduce two guns, one for monsters and the other for humans, in a death game where it will affect the human psych much more. I mean it would okay "if" it was just a regular game, but in a death game? No.

And for the other characters like Agil And Silica they won't appear until later in the story.

Oh! For Heathcliff's weapon how about I give him a Unique crafting skill known as Cyber Armor, basically he builds a robatic armor that only he can use. Well in my opinion it would work since I plan to give Kirito a Photon Sword Crafting skill.

And thanks to those who review, it really makes me happy that you people review my story C:

Talk-"Kirito-kun"

Thought-_'Kyaa!?'_

Game Terms-«Photon Blade: Hades»

System Announcement- -congratulations-

Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, wish I did though.

Passive Skills: **Divinity**

Chapter 3: Don't Bully Hades!

"Please go out with me!"

Kirito sighed with a depressed air around him as he saw ANOTHER guy bow down before him and ask to go out with him…it was the second time today!

It all started the day everyone found out that «Hades» was him, the player Kirito. But that wasn't the problem…the problem was that everyone thought he was a girl…

As a result, there were frequent requests for dates much to Kirito's chagrin and Argo's amusement.

He even told them he was a boy, but to his shock and anger no one believed him.

It didn't help that the girls refuse to let him cut his hair, which was the main point that Kirito blamed for his more than usual effeminate look.

But it did come with its good benefits.

For one his guild, «Cerberus», which was just made after the fifth territory boss was defeated, was already making its name known due to the fact that he was in it.

Asuna was already being praised to be one of the strongest players thanks to her daring fighting style with high yield results. Her pretty looks also helped. Although, much to Kirito's chagrin again, the players would ask him on dates more often than any of his other guild members.

Argo was well…still the same, being the top informant and all but her allegiance was now for Cerberus.

Lisbeth's reputation was perhaps the one who brought the most profit. She was already well known withina small group of players, thanks to her gun crafting skills. Now she was practically known as the best hand gun manufacturer.

Her guns were known to be the best that any player could buy at the moment, but the main profit came from the bullets she made. Players from all over came to buy her bullets.

In fact it had gotten so popular that she was forced to up the prices due to the limited amount she could make, and even then she was still hard pressed to make them.

"I'm sorry but no." Kirito said as he began to walk away with Asuna. As stated before he had already tried to correct them on their assumptions that he was a girl, but when only one out of a hundred believed him, he just started to reject them without trying to correct them. "Come on let's go Asuna."

By his side Asuna walked with him as they made their way to their temporary guild house that was located in «Detroit». It was one of the war torn cities that was found within the territories found several days ago.

On a side note, it seemed that the names for the city were named after American cities. Perhaps they're trying to imply that it was America who fired the nuclear weapons first?

Kirito and Asuna were just returning from one of their daily explorations. Only the two of them actually went to the frontlines as both Argo and Lisbeth weren't the fighting type.

Sure they had their weapons and could fight, but they just weren't suited for it.

"We're back." Kirito called out as he entered the guild building with Asuna following him in.

"Welcome back Kirito-kun!" Lisbeth called from seat on the couch. She had her holographic window open. And judging from what Kirito knew of her, she was probably thinking of ways to make a new type of bullet or manufacturing guns.

For some reason after Lisbeth had gotten used to making them, she started to enjoy making. She even started call them puzzles that were fun to make.

Kirito let himself plop onto couch next to Lisbeth as the day's fatigue finally caught up to him.

"I'm going to take a bath." Asuna said right after she walked in. The two other present members of Cerberus nodded as they were used to it. Taking «bath» was a sort of a daily ritual for Asuna now.

Ever since she found out that taking a bath was possible she made sure to do it every day unless the circumstances forbid her, Lisbeth and Argo also liked the baths, although it wasn't to the extent of Asuna's love for them.

Lisbeth slightly fidgeted beside Kirito hoping that he wouldn't notice. It was only slight at first, but ever since he had helped that fateful day weeks ago, she knew that she held Kirito in a very high place in her heart.

But as time passed she started to become more self conscious about herself in front of him. Every time he asked for new bullets, she would forgo what she was currently doing just to make the bullets for him,evenif the she was in the middle of making an order for a customer that would yield a lot of credits.

Lisbeth looked at Kirito out of the corner of her eye as she watched him there half laying, and half sitting on the couch next to her.

If someone asked her what she thought of Kirito, she would reply that he was reliable, strong, smart, kind, and many other compliments, although that is if you could get her to say her real opinions of him, otherwise it would be arrogant, lazy, glutton, and smartass.

She didn't know what, but there was something that drew her towards him, maybe it was the confident air around him or his kindness that he showed. Whatever it was she was sure she wasn't the only one affected by it. She could already tell Argo believed in Kirito fully no questions asked, and Asuna was already changing because of him.

No longer was she the shy, reserved girl that they first met, but she was now more outgoing, talkative, and had actually begun to show interest in other stuff besides finding the «Key».

In fact she had taken the «Cooking» skill. Although Lisbeth suspected that it was because Kirito enjoyed good food that she had even leveled it in the first place.

Slowly Lisbeth's eyes began to move away from her window and towards Kirito's sleeping face.

'_I always thought that he was older than me, with his confidence and strength that he showed, but looking at his peaceful face like this…he looks younger than me.'_

Soon without realizing it her face was only a few centimeters away from Kirito's sleeping face…

"By the way, where's Argo?"

…or not.

"Kyaaaa!?" Lisbeth let out a small, surprised squeak as she pulled her face away as fast as possible.

"What's wrong?" Kirito asked as his eyes flew opened towards the beet red faced gun crafter.

"N-n-nothing!" Lisbeth said almost too quickly.

"Are you sure, you're not sick are you?" Kirito asked in concern as he lean towards Lisbeth now noticing her cherry red face.

"A-are you an idiot!? How can someone get sick in a game!?" Lisbeth retorted her blush deepening as Kirito leaned closer.

"Well, your avatar can't get sick, but your body can." Kirito said he moved the hair out of Lisbeth's forehead and pressed his against hers. "Are you sure you don't feel sick?" Kirito asked after he pulled his forehead back with concern.

Lisbeth who was sure her ears were letting out steam due to the over exaggerated emotion feature of GGO could only say 'I'm fine." in a quiet voice as she went back to looking at her screen not sure whether to jumping in joy because of what Kirito had just done or beat him to a pulp.

Lisbeth settled to not do anything.

"If you say so." Kirito not convinced that she was fine, well at least he now knew it wasn't because of a cold. "Going back to the question, where's Argo?"

"She is still out gathering information." Lisbeth replied still in her daze.

Kirito nodded, well it wasn't that uncommon. Argo being GGO's top informant of course would spend quite a bit amount of time gathering information. Her pride as an information dealer was that she was the top one after all.

The atmosphere lapsed back into a comfortable silence once again as Kirito began to think about clearing the game while keeping his guild safe once again and Lisbeth manipulating the manufacturing formula for the bullets and guns in the window once more.

It wasn't long after that Asuna came out, and without exchanging any words began to prepare dinner.

Despite Asuna opening up, she still wasn't the most talkative person and someone else needed to start the conversation first, although she was now more talkative than Kirito.

Usually it was either Lisbeth or Argo that started the conversation, but with Lisbeth busy and Argo not home yet, no one talked.

Patak!

Then the door opened, and Argo walked in. "Oh honey! I'm home!" Argo said out loud with her usual jolly and slightly squeaky voice.

"Who are you calling honey?" Kirito asked with a slight eye twitch at Argo's antics.

"Of course you Ki-bou~" Argo replied without missing a beat as she plopped down in Kirito's lap.

BAM!

Kirito suddenly felt two, large killing intent directed at him. Shakily he turned his head towards Lisbeth to see her glaring at him with a shadow casted over her eyes. Then he looked at Asuna to see her holding up the kitchen knife threateningly. The cutting bored where she was preparing the food was somehow cut in half despite it being an «Immortal Object».

Kirito gulped.

Several death threats and several brushes with death on Kirito's part,courtesy of the kitchen knife and Lisbeth's newly made hand gun, the group consisting of one male and three females ate dinner.

Kirito watched with a small smile as the girls before him made small talk.

Lisbeth hadn't changed much in his opinion, but she seemed to be happier. Maybe it was the fact that she had two other girlfriends now.

Asuna was the who had changed the most in his opinion, she seemed to be totally changed from the "everyone's going to die" attitude that she showed when he had first met her. Although still reluctant, Kirito could tell she that she now had a bond with the two other girls.

Argo was the one who hadn't changed one bit, but at the same time the most. It wasn't that she talked differently than she used to, but more of the fact that she didn't seemed to be as forced, and that her words held more genuine meaning rather than the false emotions Kirito had felt behind the words.

Kirito could tell because at school he was like that too, always forcing himself to be polite and be the perfect student in front of the teachers.

The only time he showed his true self was to his family, _'Well I guess we are a family in a way now.' _Kirito thought to himself.

Oh how right he was, except it wouldn't always be the way he expected it to be in the future.

"So you're saying that there's going to be a gathering of at least sixty players to discuss how to defeat the «Tennessee» territory boss in three days time?" Kirito asked Argo, who was sitting on a love seat couch with Lisbeth while he and Asuna sat on another one.

"Correct. From what I know it's the same player known as Diabel who led a group of about thirty-five players against three smaller territory bosses, although I heard that there was *originally* forty-two players." Argo replied.

Argo didn't need to say anymore to one another as Kirito, Asuna, and Lisbeth had already come to the conclusion that seven players had already died in the fight against the three territory bosses.

'_Hmmm, the «Tennessee» territory has never appeared in the beta test so no one knows about the boss of that territory. I can understandwhy Diabel would want to gather more players to beat the boss considering that the size of the territory is about three times the territory of «The Cerberus» that I had defeated. But what I'm worried is if there's some ulterior motive. From what I heard from Argo, Diabel always gets the «Last Attack», also known as LA, against the bosses and yet no one seems to mind.'_

"Well Ki-bou?" Argo asked, as she and the other three members looked at Kirito and waited for his verdict.

Finally after a sigh, "We'll join, well Asuna and I will join, you two stay here as you two are not the fighter types."

Asuna, Lisbeth, and Argo nodded as they knew it was true.

-Three Days Later-

Kirito inspected himself in front of the mirror, looking at his new clothes.

It was a gift from Argo to everyone in the guild. She claimed that she bought from one of the «Seamstress» known as Ashley.

His set of cloth was mainly black but lined with gold. And from the stats shown on the item's window, it must have been quite expensive since the stats of it were superior to his old one and that was a monster drop from «The Cerberus»!

His clothes were split into two pieces, the bottom half with the pants and waist cape, and the top half with its long sleeved jacket that only made it halfway to his waist. Although much to his chagrin the sides of his stomach were exposed.

Along with the clothes he had black pauldrons ( en dot wikipedia dot org/wiki/Pauldron) to cover his shoulders and a black chest plate.

His eye twitched as he noticed that thanks to the new clothes that he looked even _more_ feminine. He didn't know whether Argo was doing this on purpose or not.

With a sigh he walked down from his room and onto the second floor. He was quite surprised to see the other members of his guild already there.

Argo was wearing a white long coat that was opened at the belly showing that she wasn't wearing anything on her belly and the white shorts she had. And unlike his, it was white with gold lining.

Lisbeth's looked like a maid uniform with a knee length skirt. The part near her shoulder was puffed out and there was an opening that showed the top part of her breast (Kinda like Lyfa's only hers was square-ish). However, unlike her guild members, her clothes had frills over it. And like Argo's, the color scheme was gold on white.

Asuna had a sleeveless jacket top that was high collared and was zipped up along with white chest armor. She wore a short white sailor skirt that was lined gold at the end. She had a waist cape that was pure white attached to her belt which contained her «Magazine Quick Loader» and her two handguns, the «FN Five-Seven» Kirito's old hand gun, and a «Colt Double Eagle» which had comparative or perhaps even more fire power than his old gun as Lisbeth had modified the Colt. Her color scheme was just like the other two.

Despite the color differences their clothes all had one thing in common, the Cerberus Symbol that was drawn in gold on the back of their clothes.

"Why's mine the only one that's black?" Kirito asked.

"That's because you're the leader." Argo said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Kirito was about to say he wasn't, but thinking back he realized he was the one giving out the orders and he was the guild leader.

With a sigh, "Fine." He said.

-Player gathering place at the center of the city's desolated park at «Orlando»-

"Welcome, my name is Diabel and I am the guild leader of «Sacred Knights» and yes we are the group that defeated three territory bosses…"

Kirito only paid half attention to the blue haired player whose gun a «FN Minimi» was slung on his back in a way that showed it to everyone.

Kirito almost snorted out loud as he heard Diabel's speech which half consisted of praising his guild and how they were the ones going to free the other players and becomes heroes. Of course he said it in the underlying tones but Kirito could tell he was making the other players have respect and make them want to join his guild.

And it seemed to be working, as Kirito saw about one fourth of the eighty players that weren't in the Sacred Knights look at him with awe in their eyes.

"My name is Kibaou, and I would like to say a few words!" A man of short stature and spiky hair said just as Diabel finished his speech. Kirito stared at his jealous filled eyes as Kibaou scanned the crowded of players that had gathered.

"Which one of you is Kirito?!" He suddenly asked in a hate filled voice.

Kirito contemplated on whether to stand up or not, but he finally decided to stand up as everyone stared at him.

Now the next question was how should he react and what to say. After all it could either help his image or worsen it; finally he decided to use his persona that he would put up in front of teacher when someone was trying to bully him…only it was a girl version.

"I-I-I a-am." Kirito said in a small meek voice.

Kibaou seeing Kirito stomped towards him and slapped him across the cheek.

Kirito pretended to be surprised as he held his cheek in his left hand as stared at Kibaou with false shock.

"You! It's all your fault! It's your fault that hundreds of players died! And not just you! All of you beta players ditched us to fend for ourselves!" Kibaou shouted out with venom as he pointed accusingly at Kirito.

"Unless you and the other Beta-players strip yourselves of your equipments and prostate yourselves, we can't trust damn assholes to work with us!"

Kirito stared at him pretending to be in shock while contemplating what to do. While his eyes wandered to Diabel, who was wearing the smallest of smirks.

'_That bastard he's trying to make me look bad as I'm practically the symbol for the good side of the Beta players! If he succeeds then he would practically be worshipped as a hero thus giving him more power!'_

Kirito thought angrily before finally decided to make Kibaou look so bad that there wouldn't be another attempt to shame his image.

Kirito using his acting skills he had acquired over the years pretending to be the perfect student, started to get teary-eyed as he shakily opened his equipment window and unequipped his outer jacket showing his bare arms and some of the unclothed side of his torso.

Really quickly he covered his chest with his arms hiding his _manly_ chest under his chest armor and burst into crocodile tears. To those who saw him the first time, it looked like a cute girl being bullied by a freaking asshole. Well the last part was true.

Asuna who had finally gotten over the shock at Kirito epic acting skills quickly stood up and kick Kibaou down while holding Kirito who was a bit taller than her in a protective hug.

"You perverted asshole! You want her to strip in front of everyone!? What kind of person are you, you made Kirito cry!" Asuna spat out at Kibaou with as much spite as she could.

Kibaou, who just finished hearing Asuna talk, stood up and made an angry face as he once again stomped toward Kirito who was in Asuna's arms.

But he was stopped by a large number of players who were now glaring at him.

"What are you doing!?"

"Stop being a bully!"

"Apologize to her!"

"If you do that again we will kick you out of the guild!" this time it was a member of Scared Knights, which Kibaou was also a part of. That wasn't the last of it as almost all the players gathered began to gang up on Kibaou.

Inside Asuna's arms Kirito was cackling madly in his head as he heard and saw how Kibaou was being treated. He spared a glance at Diabel whose face was strained as he tried to smile.

Kirito smirked as he doubted that anyone else would try that again as they would try again no matter how popular they were.

For once Kirito was glad he looked so feminine.

END Questions: Hi, the third chapter, hope you like it. Yeah it was kinda short…my apologies as I had planned to make it longer but I don't have enough time due to school work.

Okay, now I have a question for you guys again, I gave Kirito the moniker Hades, and Sinon of course will get Hecate Goddess of Witchcraft. But what should Asuna be called? I know I called her the White Devil in chapter 2's title, but I really want give her a moniker associated with one of the Greek goddesses to fit in with the theme.

And while we're on the subjects of names what should I call Sachi? I want it to be Greek and associated with songs. As I don't really plan for her to be front liner once she joins Kirito.

END Questions: Hi, the third chapter, hope you like it. Yeah it was kinda short…my apologies as I had planned to make it longer but I don't have enough time due to school work.

Okay, now I have a question for you guys again, I gave Kirito the moniker Hades, and Sinon of course will get Hecate Goddess of Witchcraft. But what should Asuna be called? I know I called her the White Devil in chapter 2's title, but I really want give her a moniker associated with one of the Greek goddesses to fit in with the theme.

Hmmm I'm currently thinking of the name Athena since my Beta recommended, and honestly I don't really have a problem with it.

And while we're on the subjects of names what should I call Sachi? I want it to be Greek and associated with songs. As I don't really plan for her to be front liner once she joins Kirito.

Ahem, I would say thanks to my Beta Reader again :)

My thoughts after watching episode 14- DIE SUGUO YOU F*CKING ASSHOLE!


	4. The Coward's Scar

Gun Gale Online: Cerberus

Officially beta-d by Sephoriya, and I would like to give my thanks to her once again.

Oh I would to say that I meant episode 15 in the last comment I wrote on the previous chapter.

Thank you all for your ideas on concerning the guild member's nickname. Here's my thoughts currently concerning them.

Sachi- The Muse of Hades

Asuna-Athena or Artemis

Argo-maybe Athena if Asuna becomes Artemis

As for Kirito being known as a girl, it will mostly kept for the purpose of humor and nothing really important in the story besides that…sorry I have to run now, Kirito is charging towards me with a his sword XP

I still haven't decided on what to do for Heathcliff…

Btw, Sinon will make an appearance in this chapter…

And thanks to those who review, it really makes me happy that you people review my story C:

Talk-"Kirito-kun"

Thought-_'Kyaa!?'_

Game Terms-«Photon Blade: Hades»

System Announcement- -congratulations-

Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, wish I did though.

Passive Skills: **Divinity**

Chapter 4: The Coward's Scar

"Pfff ahhahaahahaha!" The sound of laughter came out of Argo's mouth without restraint as she fell off the couch laughing.

It was around eight o'clock and the members of the large group decided it was time to go back to their dwelling to rest before they regrouped the next morning so that they would be fresh to fight the boss.

Currently Kirito had just finished his tale on what had happened during the meeting.

"Seriously how could you have done such a thing?" Asuna asked as she made a slightly disgusted face.

"Why can't I? He was asking for it anyways…besides those people are just bullies…" Kirito thought darkly as he thought of his real life experiences with them.

"Would you stop laughing!? I know Kibaou getting put in his place was funny and all but is it really _that _funny?" said Kirito as his eyes twitched at Argo's laughing form.

"But Kiriko-chan~, I'm just so happy that you've stopped lying to yourself and accepted that you are a girl." Argo said with a completely straight face as she stood before she broke into a fit of laughter once more.

"Pfff" That was Lisbeth and Asuna trying to hold back their laughter.

"T-t-that was a one-time thing!" Kirito sputtered out with a red face; obviously the embarrassment was now catching up to him.

"Sure Ki-bou, whatever makes you feel better~" Argo teased as she continued to laugh.

"Kirito-chan it's okay to accept that you're a girl. You're obviously too pretty to be a boy anyways." Asuna _assured_ her guild leader and placed a _reassuring _hand on _her _shoulder.

"You know Kirito-chan, I was kinda mad that a boy was more popular than me a real girl, but now I can also tell that you are also a _girl _so I forgive you." Lisbeth said with a _kind _expression before she burst out into laughter.

Kirito groaned at his guild mate's antics. "What did I ever do to deserve this?"

"You're cuter than me"

"You shot a bullet at my face."

"You killed me several times during the beta-testing."

Kirito just went to his emo corner to mope. "It's not my fault my face looks cuter than yours… I saved your life with that bullet… I killed because you kept annoying me though…" He muttered to himself as he tried to justify their accusations.

-Next morning-

"Okay everyone! Let's split up into about thirteen groups. The leaders for the attacking force will be Kibaou, Tanker, Linger, Emat, Noir, Lexer, Nexus, Ssanoa, and finally myself. Everyone else you're in the diversion group!" Diabel said as he clapped his hand.

'_Tch, all of the leader of the attacking groups is under him. He's purposely setting up so that his guild will get th_e _«LA»_ _the most, but…it's not like I can do anything about without getting them annoyed at me since about half of the players are Diabel's subordinates.'_ Kirito thought to himself as he saw the other players start to group without noticing it.

Well some probably noticed, but didn't say anything as they didn't want to be singled out and probably be ousted as a beta player like Kirito the day before.

Asuna and Kirito joined one of the attacking groups even if they didn't like it; on a side note their leader was Nexus.

The trek towards the boss wasn't anything special just an occasional group of monster or two that were quickly decimated by the large number of players. Well the three parties in the front got rid of them anyways.

The group of thirteen parties was separated so that three attacking parties of which Diabel was in the front, two diversion parties on their sides, four groups of attackers, then the last two attackers in the back of which Kirito "just so happened" to be in, and then finally two more diversion groups on the sides slightly in front of the back attacking group but after the middle.

If this was a regular fantasy game there would probably be the tank type players, but in a world of guns almost everyone wanted to be an AGI type which focus on dodging and attacking at rapid rates.

Of course those that value higher defense and stronger attack instead of speed will appear sooner or later, but at the moment only the AGI speed build has proven effective and it would be too risky to build a STR/DEF avatar from scratch especially if a single mistake means death.

It was about thirty minutes later that the group arrived at the entrance that led to the boss. The surrounding area was a barren land, like always, with large slabs and pieces of rock, and the entrance to the boss was actually a cave hole that sprouted from the ground.

It was unlike his solo boss battle. In GGO there were two types of battles: «Room Battles» and «Open Terrain Battles». Well those were the only that were discovered so far, who knows if there were more types of battles.

«Room Battles» were like the one where Kirito battled the boss in a closed room. In room battles you couldn't escape no matter what and room was limited, but generally those bosses were weaker and generally predictable.

«Open Terrain Battles» like its name suggests, is a battle where the whole terrain is the battlefield and wasn't limited to a single room. However the bosses were stronger, sometimes there weren't any hiding places like those rocks, and surprises often appear and in a death game, surprises usually equaled death.

"GET READY THE BOSS IS ABOUT TO COME OUT!" Diabel shouted as he quickly his behind a large rock.

Everyone else followed his example and hid behind rocks as the ground rumbled due to the boss's movement.

Kirito could hear a few players gulp as they felt the quaking ground and then Kirito saw it. He saw the gleaming and beady eyes of the boss along with a metallic shine of some sort of armor.

A few gasps could be heard as the boss fully emerged from the cave. It was a large, grotesque and balding orc wearing what seemed like a crudely made armor from the stone ages, in its hand was a metal club that seemed to be one of those construction beams or at least it used to be.

The worse part wasn't the loincloth that covered it besides the crude armor, or the ugly face of his, or the sickly green skin, or the dirty look of the boss, or even the fact that it stood about five meters tall, nor was the rotting teeth, but… rather it was the smell. It was unbearable to the point that the adjective rancid didn't even begin to describe it.

Kirito's cursor focused onto the boss and soon its name was revealed to be…«The Orc Lord Diabel»…

If it wasn't for the serious situation Kirito might've laughed at the absurd coincidence between the ugly boss's name and Diabel's name.

"GRAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The Orc Lord…Diabel roared as it began to charge with its blunt club probably intent on crushing one of the players hiding behind one of the rocks.

Kirito smirked; in general bosses were divided into two category types, the stupid and the intelligent kind. The stupid kind is at it implies, the boss's «AI» are simple and easy to predict, but the intelligent ones are the one players have to watch out for.

There is only one sure way to tell if it is intelligent or not, namely if it has the ability of speech but even then not all of them have to be able to speak whether they are intelligent or not.

Among the sub-categories of the intelligent types there are those that learn in mid battle. Well all monsters learn in mid battle but those were generally quite slow. Their most defining feature is how cautious they are and are quite hard to defeat if you only have a single party even if it is a boss of a small territory.

But enough about boss types

CRACK!

The blunt club smashed the tall rock into tens or even hundreds of smaller pieces. The player behind the rock barely manage to roll out of the way, he pulled his gun up and began to shoot at the Orc Lord.

The bullets fired from the gun hardly fazed the gigantic monster, it only had a look of irritation and the bullets were being fired at its face! In general a common weak point of monsters were their faces, but even for a boss ignoring it as if the bullets were just flies was a surprise.

The Orc raised its club once more above its head was about to bring it down on the player. It would mean certain death judging from how almost effortlessly the rock was destroyed.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

The player's savior came in the form of Asuna, who was broken out of the shock first and used the Colt Double Eagle to fire four bullets in quick succession.

The first three bullets collided with cheek all in the same place and the fourth was at the eye, an ever greater weak point.

The Orc as expected roared in rage as it diverted its attention towards Asuna, who just so happened to stand next to Kirito…

Yeah the Orc charged at them with unseen speed, Asuna was only saved by Kirito's timely intervention.

Soon sounds of guns being fired no matter the type began to spread through the air.

It was an aggravating battle for Kirito; his fighting style was unsuited for it. If he got too close a stray bullet might hit him, and so with great reluctance Kirito kept his distance and fired his Desert Eagle.

The ensuing battle was quite easy in Kirito's opinion, granted it took three hours, but…no one died in fact no one's health fell below the fifty percent!

The boss was far too simple in Kirito's opinion, every single time it was attacked it would divert its attention to the newest attacker, hell the only damage that was inflicted was from the stray rocks that crashed into players!

'_Something is wrong! It__'s__ too easy! Granted the boss was far stronger and its defense far harder than any of the bosses recorded before…but it was too simple!'_ Kirito analyzed in his mind as he looked around. Most of the players were cheering at their victory too happy that no one died to see if anything was wrong.

10 seconds

30 seconds

1 minute

2 minutes

Kirito looked around in confusion as nothing happen, the player were grouping together as they prepared to leave. _'Maybe I was over thinking things,' _Kirito thought to himself as he too began to leave.

He was about to turn around to call Asuna to come with him to leave, but he suddenly felt a tremor. It was extremely soft, so soft that it was hidden by the player's cheering. Kirito felt a sense of dread as he whipped his body around to stare at the cave entrance where Orc Lord Diabel first came from.

Two gleaming eyes pierced through the darkness.

Kirito didn't know what was worse the fact that there were actually two bosses, something that never appeared in the Beta, or the fact that it suddenly leapt out and aimed its club at a single female whose back was facing the cave.

The player was Asuna.

"ASUNA! GET OUT OF THERE! THERE IS ANOTHER BOSS!" Kirito shouted with all his might.

Asuna's eyes widen as she turned around instead of running and froze as she saw that the club was only about two feet away from her face, and there was nothing she could do to get out of the way.

"NOOOOO!"

**BAM! **

A single shot was heard and before anyone knew it, a small explosion occurred next to the boss's head and it was flung off course.

Kirito turned his head toward where the sound of the bullet came from only to see a small speck of blue about one hundred meters away. His cursor focused on that speck and it turned green, it was a player, it was a «sniper» type player.

Kirito gaped inside; one could say that sniper types were as rare as sword type players like him. As the name suggests, these players used sniper rifles of all kinds to kill monsters or perhaps even players.

However they were hard to use, as in the game there was no auto-assist for aiming unless you count the bullet lines, more than that they were the rare types of players that had to use their points for STR instead of the popular AGI build. But that was for ordinary long range to close quarter attacks. Sniper bullets lines only showed where the bullet would end up without any interference.

In other words snipers had to account for wind force, gravity, angle of shot, and distance among other things. There was in fact one more reason and that was the player's heartbeat. To make long story short a sniper had to time their shot correctly with their heartbeat that the nerve gears pick up or else their shot would miss ninety-nine, point nine, nine, nine, nine, percent of the time.

For those reasons above, no one in the Beta test was a sniper; they simply did not have the skills necessary for it.

'_I have to get him to join the guild!' _Kirito thought at that moment, but he quickly filed that thought away from as the second boss agilely jumped from its former slump position the ground towards the group of players that were playing to leave.

It happened too quickly for them to react, well react properly that is. They were grouped together too closely as they prepared to leave. In a normal MMO it would be okay as the weapons were usually CQC types but in a gun game such as this friendly fire would be too easy in such close spaces.

Chaos: that was the result.

Players fired at each other, and some burst into a million polygons signifying there death.

**BAM!**

The sniper's bullet once again reached its aim, and once again the monster was pushed off its feet due to the force of the bullet.

The player's faces were etched with fear, and many of them ran away as their psych was damaged by the sight of their comrades' lives shattering from reality. Those that originally did not retreat soon also retreated due to the fact that they weren't confident in their ability to win because of the small remaining numbers.

But for Kirito and a few remaining players who weren't part of the group clustered together, they couldn't escape.

Their exit was cut- off; no it was actually more like they wouldn't. If they made a wrong turn and got lost, there was a high chance that they would die for a variety of reasons.

And so for the first time Kirito activated his photon sword and without hesitation charged at the boss who met his attack with his club.

They were in a deadlock with each other, one trying to overpower the other, although it was quite easy to tell that Kirito was on the losing end.

Kirito however didn't mind as he took this chance to analyze the boss. It name was «The True Orc Lord Diabel», _'I knew it, so the first one was just distraction so that we could be easily surprised and taken down by the second boss monster!' _Other than that, the boss was smaller standing only at about two meters, he was lankier too.

"Hehehe you're pretty strong for human!" The Boss suddenly said. Kirito's eyes widened, _'Shit! This boss is an intelligent type I ha-'Kirito_ never got to finish his train of thought as the strength behind the boss's club increased and he was flung back.

Kirito slid across the dirt ground, but he quickly got up quickly so he could defend himself. And none too soon as Diabel's club came down at him, acting on reflex Kirito brought his sword up and blocked. But the strength behind the club was tremendous and Kirito was forced to drop his Desert Eagle and use both hands to block and even then he was forced onto his knee.

"Kirito-kun!" Asuna shouted as she used Crit S on the monster, surprisingly it was far more effective against this smaller one than the larger one because the defense was weaker?

Kirito didn't dwell on the thought as he lunged at the boss after picking up his Desert Eagle with Asuna pushing it back. "Thanks Asuna!" he yelled. Asuna didn't reply but Kirito knew that she had heard him.

Kirito began a series of slash and stabs that dealt deadly damage to the boss with it meagerly defense.

With Kirito pushing it back in CQC, Asuna soon joined in and also dealt deadly damage via Crit S X4.

The True Orc Lord Diabel was a specialized opponent made to take down long range gun users who couldn't effectively take down monsters in close quarters, unfortunately for this boss both Asuna and Kirito were mostly CQC type players who dealt massive damage.

Despite its increased speed and high attack it lost the high defense the first boss had and it was a defect that both Kirito and Asuna took advantage of.

"This is it!" Kirito yelled as he jumped up in front of the boss intent on bringing his photon sword upon the boss's head and finishing it off-

**BOOM!**

The sniper had just fired his third bullet and Diabel's last remaining health disappeared and the embracing light of death surrounded The True Orc Lord Diabel and it dissolved into a million pieces.

A perfect death once more.

-Indefinite amount of days later-

"Hrahhhhh!"

Kirito watched as Argo unloaded the bullets into a random monster that he honestly didn't care about. A few days ago he requested information from Argo about any snipers in GGO.

To his surprise there was one, but no one knew who it was. Apparently that person is called «L.A.S. », aka Last Attack Sniper, for ahem irritating reasons. That player would always shoot afar and attack monsters at the last chance, mostly it would be mini-bosses, but this was the first time he performed an LA on a boss.

No one would know who that person was because for the single fact that he always disappeared before anyone could find him.

But Kirito had suspicion about that person, that person had blue hair! He had no doubt about that, he had seen it and it couldn't have been anything else since snipers usually lay on the ground when they sniped.

So for that reason Kirito asked Argo to give him a list of people with blue hair, it shouldn't be too hard considering that the player's image changing items were quite rare.

And as expected there were only two candidates.

One was called Sachi, a female player with emerald green eyes. But her hair was far too dark to the point that it was borderline black, so he quickly dismissed her. Although she was known as one of the best supporters using a long range rifle to hit her targets about twenty meters away. Kirito would've have wanted her for his guild but she was already in a guild known as «The Black Cats of the Full Moon».

Kirito was almost one hundred percent sure that the other girl was the sniper. She had light blue hair that seemed to be the color of cool ice, her eyes was the thing that made Kirito suspect her the most.

Those cold pair of cat like ice blue eyes that held cold fire, it was it was literally saying that "I will snipe you down".

Of course it was just a gut feeling, but Kirito was quite sure it was her.

Although the information Argo gave him was that she only used a single hand gun and she had somehow attained a personal buggy.

It didn't make sense, if she used just a hand gun there wasn't anything special about it so she should've used a medium assault rifle or the like, she was hiding something. Another was the buggy, a transportation vehicle that players can obtain.

That would explain why she was able to run away so quickly and that no one found out her identity.

He had already asked Argo for the girl's location or where she would usually frequent. Of course Argo _generously_ gave him the information, provided that of course that he would party with her and help her level up _alone._

For some absurd reason that night his food was… well it reminded him of the Orc bosses, and Lisbeth would _accidently _shoot near his crotch whenever she was _testing_ a new gun.

On a side note people started to call Diabel, Orc Lord Diabel after they heard how he had retreated like dog with its tail between his legs and left Hades the damsel to fend for herself.

Yeah the last part pissed Kirito off but the satisfaction of the first balanced it out.

"Okay, Ki-bou it's time for break." Argo said to him to which Kirito nodded.

"Argo?"

"Yes Ki-bou~?"

"What are you doing?"

"Can't you tell I'm setting up picnic?!" Argo beamed at Kirito with a dazzling smile.

"Bu-b-bu-"All words of protest died in Kirito's mouth as he started to drool as Argo materialized a picnic basket and set it down on the blanket that covered the one of the few places with green grass.

It soon lapsed into a quiet but comfortable silence with the only sound being the food being consumed.

"W-w-what i-is it?" Argo stuttered slightly at Kirito unnerving stare. He had been staring at Argo for the past few minutes and it had unnerved Argo.

"Argo." Kirito said in serious tone that surprised Argo.

"Yes?" Argo replied actually using her serious tone for once with a hint of curiosity.

"Promise me one thing; just don't die no matter what happens."

"What! What are you talking about!?" Argo said slightly alarmed, but she was suddenly hugged by Kirito. At first she was shocked but now for once her face was cherry red.

"You are important to me, Asuna too, and Lisbeth. You are all important to me…That's why no matter what live until the end, live till the day that this death game is over…please"

Argo's eyes were wide, she didn't expect this. Kirito to her was always distant in a sort of way almost as if he was actively trying to distance himself from them. Slowly she brought her hands up and hugged him back. "Kirito-kun…what brought this up…?"

Kirito stayed silent few more moments before he started to speak again. "When I was twelve there was a friend, I really thought he was a real friend we shared everything together…but then one day I found out he was just using me…I was unnaturally smart to the point that I skipped many grades…that friend he was pretending to be my friend just to use…"

Argo felt Kirito tighten his hug as he spoke, it was heart wrenching hearing her leader the strongest person that she ever acknowledge look so…so…so weak. "From that day, I distanced myself from everyone but my family, even my former friends I couldn't trust anyone anymore. I always put up a façade since that day…but then one day you guys came into my life…"

Kirito let a small smile escape to his lips as he hugged even tighter. "I tried to distance myself from you guys…but slowly and surely…actually it wasn't even that slow, you could say that you guys wriggled your ways into my heart without my approval in the days we spent together. But I was afraid, afraid that you guys would betray like that person. But on the boss fight when Asuna almost died, I realized I didn't care anymore…so just promise you'll live till the end." Kirito said as he released himself from the hug and put himself at arm's length away from Argo with his hands on her shoulder.

Argo who was still a bit shocked at Kirito's confession that she could only stare at his eyes that spoke sincerity and confidence, but now there was something else she didn't see before…his vulnerable side cause by his sadness, a scar of sadness.

With a small smile, she took one of Kirito's hands and placed it on her cheek. "I promise." She said. "We all promise, but you have to promise me that you'll live to the end too."

Kirito looked surprise at what Argo said, but a small smile once again found its way to his lips again. "I promise."

AN: I wanted to write more…but I felt that if I died this ending would be ruined…

Anways I apologized if the last scene wasn't that good, I will admit that it is my first attempt at these type scenes so it might not be up to expectations

Anyways Kirito's scars won't be all healed at this moment, and there's more to the simplified story that Kirito told Argo. So there's going be some moments in later chapters that will eventually heal all his scars.

And Sinon will probably be the same way.

On a note something unrelated to GGO: Cerberus, I'm going to post a SAO fanfic idea I came up that I posted on ToumaFF's blog.

I just copied and paste what I posted just to tell you if some of it doesn't make sense.

Okay here's another idea for a slight SAO crossover with Code Geass specifically Knightmare Frames (I blame my recent re-obsession with Code Geass)

Okay basically Kirito and co don't go to SAO as the First Game, It was Knightmare Frame Online/KFO or something like that. The ppl are each given a Knightmare and the use it to try to conquere Britannia to stop the empire's tyranny. Most people usually go to teh battlefield with KMF but when they get hit they are ejected onto the field and are forced to make their way back to the city where the risk of death is high.

The goal is to conquer Britannia and overthrow the tyrant emperor.

It is each player's goal, and they can make different/groups guild to help and it is not advised to go solo since it will basically be you verse like 50 knightmares. To get to the emperor they have to conquer cities one by one to get closer, however each city can be conquered by Britannia after a certain time.

As for Knightmare frames, the money that the players earns can be used to buy parts for the Knightmare for upgrade, and new technology can be made from the available technology using formulas that the Cardinal created. Of course maintenance will cost some of the player's earnings. If the player's knightmare is destroyed they will have to make a new one (which will be costly) and it isnt necessarily that they can have only one knightmare, they can have more provided that have the space for it.

Kirito makes a guild/ group known as the Knight of the Round (I love their uniforms)

Kirito will be Knight of One or Zero if you want but give him the regular round's uniform cape only black, and to distinguish himself from the others his rounds white suit will be black and more decorative

Kirito will have the Lancelot only his is black and gold

Heathcliff will create the black knights

Hmmm maybe there can be a technician "class"

and thats pretty much all I've thought of

OH! And there will be no geass, since I doubt it can be replicated in a game

...Now I really want to write this myself...oh well...I'll probably use this to replace the GGO of the original game...if I ever get to that point...

Hmmmm, the characters from Code Geass i kinda don't want them to appear well the main characters like Lelouch, Suzaku, CC, and the others. Maybe important characters but not exactly main characters such as Xingke and Todoh. Well maybe Xingke can make the Chinese Federation group or something and Todoh the Four Holy Swords...but wouldn't they be too old to play games?

I definitely want Tamaki to appear...as a butt monkey

and on Heathcliff's group/guild lets change it to the Knights of Blood and have someone else make the black knights or not make it at all.

Yeah that does sound like a good idea, but I was thinking for the emperor being heathcliff and him still creating the Knight of Bloods. Basically Heathcliff keeps himself as the final boss idea.

Hmm about the character as quest givers, I'm not sure because if they are I need or whoever the author is he/she would need to think up of quests.

Speaking of quests, I should starting thinking of quest that i can include in my story

I just thought of a great idea for the SAO and Knightmare frame online (IMO of course)

There is a quest that allows you to attain Geass, well its not really geass. It's just the supernatural power that allows you to summon you knightmare whenever and wherever you want, even in a city where you can use it but the knightmare wont damage anything unless the city is under siege.

But there is a downside where if your Knightmare's core is destroyed the player dies too, but that is an optional thing if you want.

I thought of another option where it also allows you to summona human sized knightmare armor that has 1/20 power of the original knightmare.

I think this is a good idea because generally when you use the the knightmare you arent conspicuous and there are quest that only you can achieve when you arent piloting a knightmare.

So what do you think?

«»


	5. Author's Note

Author's Note

Sorry guys this isn't a new chapter, just an author's note.

Ever since I started writing Sword Art Online: Prince of Darkness chapter 2 I have been thinking of rewriting Gun Gale Online: Cerberus.

Nothing will really change except that Kirito didn't meet Asuna first, instead it will be Sinon. Kinda like how Prince of Darkness is a Kirito x Yuuki x Harem, the rewrite will be a Kirito x Sinon x Harem story.

So…the focus will mostly be on Kirito and Sinon like how Prince of Darkness is like.

Oh and another thing, I've been feeling like I've been going too fast with the romance in this story so the pace of the girls falling in love with Kirito will slow down too.

So should I do a rewrite or just continued this?

There will be a poll on my profile.

P.S. If I do continue this story instead of doing a rewrite, I will replace this author's note with chapter five and erase this note just FYI.


	6. ReWrite and Sorry!

Author's Note

CRAP SORRY I POSTED THE WRONG FILE!

Sorry guys this isn't a new chapter, just an author's note.

Ok, after finally getting my muse back...and with some input from fellow authors, reviews, and the voting I have decided to make a rewrite of Gun Gale Online: Cerberus that will be called Gun Gale Online: Erebus.

Expect it to come out sometimes this week.


	7. ReWrite Posted!

Author's Note

GOOD NEWS!

Gun Gale Online: Prologue has been posted!

Sorry abou it being so late, school and stuff happened XP.


End file.

Sword Art Online/ソードアート・オンライン, Adventure, Sci-Fi