Extra chapter for the delay, and because you guys have been feeding me stone and reviews.
Thank you so much
Without any further to do, enjoy!
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(Tsukumo Yuki's POV)
The steam from the kitchen, the sizzle of oil, the chatter of other patrons, it all faded into a dull hum. Yuki's entire world had narrowed to the man sitting beside her.
Her playful grin was still plastered on her face, a well-practiced mask, but behind it, her mind was a whirlwind of impossible calculations.
Zero.
It wasn't low. It wasn't suppressed. It was a perfect, absolute zero.
A complete and utter void of Cursed Energy.
It was like looking at a human-shaped hole in the fabric of reality itself.
In all her travels, in all her battles and research into the very core of jujutsu, she had only ever heard of one other case.
A myth. A bogeyman from the Zen'in clan: Fushiguro Toji.
The man who possessed a Heavenly Restriction so severe it granted him a body blessed by the heavens themselves in exchange for all his Cursed Energy.
A body that could move faster than the eye could track, that could shrug off techniques that would vaporize a special grade sorcerer.
And now, she was sitting right next to someone who radiated that same impossible, soul-less stillness.
"Damn, that is a very handsome face" She stated, the words automatic, a probe disguised as a compliment. She invaded his space, testing his boundaries. "Hey, handsome. What kind of girls do you like?"
His reaction, or lack thereof, was even more telling.
Those wine-dark eyes slid towards her, held her gaze for a fraction of a second that felt like an eternity, and then dismissed her.
He turned back to watch the chefs as if her question was nothing more than hot air.
No flicker of interest, no annoyance, no ego. Nothing.
She deflated slightly, a genuine flicker of surprise breaking through her persona. This wasn't going as planned. "Hey, don't need to be shy, handsome," she pressed, leaning closer. "I don't bite. Much."
His voice, when it came, was flat, devoid of any inflection. "Your question is unnecessary."
Undeterred, Yuki shifted tactics. If he wouldn't play the social game, she'd go for the jugular "Alright, strong and silent type. I get it. Let's try a different question. You ever see things? Monsters in the shadows? Things that... other people don't?"
She watched him like a hawk, searching for any micro-expression, any tell.
He didn't even blink. "I have not."
A perfect, flat denial.
It was infuriating. And fascinating.
Their food arrived then, a merciful interruption. Joichiro placed a bowl of violently red mapo tofu in front of Akira and an even spicier one in front of her. "Enjoy."
Yuki dug in, the familiar, delicious heat a comfort. But her focus was still on the enigma beside her. Between bites, she tried again. "So, you're new around here? I haven't seen you around"
She took a large mouthful of noodles, preparing her next, more direct line of questioning. When she looked up, her spoon halfway to her mouth, she froze.
Akira's bowl was empty. Perfectly clean.
He had consumed the scalding dish with an efficiency that bordered on the supernatural. He hadn't eaten; he had inhaled it.
He placed a single, crisp bill on the counter, exactly the right amount plus a precise tip. "It was good" he stated to Joichiro, who just nodded, used to the strange compliment.
Then he stood.
He looked down at Yuki, those impossible crimson eyes seeming to look through her rather than at her.
"I don't see anything of whatever you are talking about" He said, his voice a low, final murmur meant only for her "Let it be."
And then he was gone, sliding out the door and melting into the evening crowd as silently as he had arrived.
Yuki sat alone with her half-eaten bowl of noodles, the spice suddenly tasting like ashes.
A thrill of pure, unadulterated excitement shot through her.
He wasn't just a potential Heavenly Restriction.
He was something else entirely.
She had a new mission. Find him again.
And figure out what, exactly, he was
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(?'s POV)
The rhythmic clack of her shoes on the pavement was the only sound accompanying the late-night silence.
Kendo practice had run far later than usual, a grueling session that had left her muscles pleasantly sore and her mind clear.
The moon was high, casting long, distorted shadows down the empty residential street.
She didn't mind the solitude; in fact, she found a certain peace in it.
The peace shattered in an instant.
A man stumbled out from a narrow alleyway, his breath hitting the cool air in a foul, alcoholic cloud. His eyes were bloodshot, his movements uncoordinated.
"Hey there, pretty thing," he slurred, blocking her path. "All alone? Dangerous night for a girl to be out."
"Step aside," She commanded, her voice cold and steady. She tightened her grip on the shinai case in her hand.
He laughed, a wet, ugly sound, and lunged forward, shoving her hard against the brick wall behind her. The impact knocked the air from her lungs. "Feisty. I like that."
Rage, cold and sharp, eclipsed her fear.
In one fluid motion, she unclipped her shinai case and drew the polished wooden sword. The man's drunken eyes widened in surprise a second before she moved.
Thwack!
The shinai connected with his shoulder with a satisfying crack. He howled in pain.
Crack!
A reverse swing caught him across the jaw. He stumbled back, spitting a glob of blood onto the pavement.
A wild, ecstatic thrill shot through her.
The clarity of combat, uses of her force, the wimping in pain of the man in front of her, it was intoxicating.
Then, just as quickly, a wave of disgust followed. She was enjoying this. The feeling was wrong.
The man pushed himself up, his face a mask of drunken fury and pain. "You bitch!" he roared, his voice raw. "I'll make you pay for that! I'll kill you!"
Suddenly, every hair on her arms stood on end.
Her instincts, honed from years of martial arts, screamed at her to move.
She threw herself to the side just as the brick wall where her head had been exploded inward, shattered by an invisible, immense force. Dust and debris filled the air.
Her blood ran cold. She hadn't seen anything.
No weapon, no movement.
The wall had just… ruptured.
This man wasn't just a drunk. He was something else. Something not human.
She raised her shinai again, her heart hammering against her ribs, her mind struggling to process the moment
"Move away."
The voice was calm, flat, and came from behind her. She spun around.
A man stood there, as if he had materialized from the shadows themselves. He was tall, with hair the color of moonlight and sharp, impossibly handsome features.
But it was his eyes that held her a deep, unsettling crimson that seemed to absorb the scant light. He wore a simple, dark jacket, his hands tucked into his pockets as if he were on a casual stroll.
"You will not be able to harm him with that" He stated, his gaze flicking to her shinai before returning to the drunken man.
He took a single step forward, placing himself between her and the threat. His attention focused on the drunkard.
"Using a Shikigami to assault a civilian" The platinum-haired man said, his voice devoid of anger, only a cold, analytical disdain "Are you that desperate? Or simply too intoxicated to comprehend your own stupidity?"
The drunk man just snarled, his eyes glazing over with a malicious intent. "Kill him!" he spat into the empty air.
Saeko watched, her breath caught in her throat, as the pavement in front of the drunk man cracked and cratered, as if an invisible giant had just landed there.
The air distorted.
The new arrival didn't flinch. He simply raised a hand and made a slight, dismissive swiping motion, as if brushing away a fly.
The distortion vanished. The pressure in the air dissipated. Nothing happened.
Enraged, the drunk man let out a guttural yell and launched himself forward. He cleared a distance of ten feet in a single, impossible leap, a height and speed no normal human could achieve, his fist aimed at the other man's head.
The platinum-haired man evaded with an almost lazy sidestep. His own hand shot out, not a punch, but a precise, open-palm strike to the man's chest that stopped his momentum dead and threw him forward.
There was a sickening crunch. In the same motion, he grabbed the man's outstretched leg, yanked him back out of the air, and drove him head-first into the concrete sidewalk.
The impact wasn't loud. It was a deep, final thud.
A spiderweb of cracks spread out from the point of impact. The man's body went limp, his head buried in a small crater in the pavement.
Silence returned to the street.
The platinum-haired man turned to her. Those crimson eyes scanned her. "Are you injured?"
She could only shake her head, her mind reeling, trying to process the brutal, efficient violence she had just witnessed.
"You are covered in blood," he noted clinically.
She looked down. Flecks of the drunkard's blood stained her uniform and her hands. She hadn't even noticed.
He turned his attention back to the body. "He is dead."
"Wha… what was that?" She finally managed to stammer out, her voice trembling. "What… what are you?"
He was silent for a long moment, his gaze distant, as if consulting some internal database. "I will explain later," he said finally. "For now, I will deal with this."
He walked to the corpse and pressed his hand on it. Then it disappeared
The body was gone. The only evidence that something happened was the craters left behind and the blood on her clothes and the adrenaline screaming through her veins.
He looked back at her. "Is your home nearby? Is there someone there?"
"It's… it's close," she said, her voice still unsteady. "I live alone."
"Guide me," he instructed, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You can change your clothes. I will explain everything there"
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The steam from the bath did little to cleanse the tremor from her hands.
Scrubbing the flecks of blood from her skin felt like trying to erase a nightmare with a loofah.
She changed into clean, comfortable clothes, simple trousers and a sweater, her movements automatic, her mind a thousand miles away, replaying the same few seconds on a loop.
And her own reaction.
The thrill.
The warmth in her core at the sight of the man's pain.
The ecstatic focus. Something was deeply, undeniably wrong with her.
She prepared tea with a practiced, ceremonial focus, the ritual a small anchor in a world that had suddenly tilted off its axis.
Carrying the tray into the living room felt surreal.
There he was.
The platinum-haired man. He sat on her sofa, perfectly still, his posture unnervingly straight. He looked like a statue someone had placed in her apartment. His crimson eyes were fixed on nothing, yet she felt they saw everything.
She placed the tray on the low table, the china rattling softly despite her best efforts to steady her hands.
"I forgot to present myself" She said, her voice more formal than she intended. "I am Busujima Saeko."
He looked at her, his gaze shifting from the middle distance to her face. "Yoshioka Akira."
The silence stretched. Saeko knelt opposite him, pouring the tea with a precision that felt hollow. She couldn't bear the quiet any longer.
"What was all that?" The question burst from her, stripped of any pretense. "That man... the air... you. It wasn't human."
Akira accepted the tea cup but did not drink. He held it, his fingers perfectly steady.
"There is a world," he began, his voice a flat, calm baritone that made the unbelievable sound mundane, "Hidden beneath the one you know. It is a world where horrors move, entities born from negative emotion and human suffering. The man you encountered was one of the few born with the ability to perceive and combat them. Or, he was supposed to"
Saeko's mind raced, trying to fit this explanation into the reality she had always known.
"But why?" she pressed, frustration seeping into her tone. "Why could I not see it? I felt it. I felt the air... shift. But I saw nothing."
Akira's crimson eyes held hers. The answer was delivered not with malice, but with the finality of a scientific fact "Because you were born normal" He stated. "Your perception is limited to the physical world. You were intended to carry a normal life, unaware of the underlying chaos."
The words were a verdict. They landed with the weight of a tombstone. 'Born normal'
One of those supernatural humans. like the one before, could probably do whatever they wanted with her, and she wouldn't be able to do anything.
All her skill, all her dedication to the blade, it was rendered meaningless by the simple fact of her birth.
She was built for a different world, a simpler one. The admission tasted like ash. It was the ultimate defeat.
She looked down at her hands, the hands that had gripped the shinai with such surety, now feeling utterly useless.
The cold dread of her irrelevance was worse than any fear of the supernatural.
"I don't want to feel weak" She said, her voice hardening, the steel returning to her spine. She met his crimson eyes, her own gaze fierce, refusing to accept the sentence he had just passed on her. "All my life, I have trained for combat. I have dedicated myself to the way of the sword, to strength, to never being a victim. I will not allow myself to be weak. Not against anything. Not even this"
Akira stared at her for a long, silent moment.
His expression was unreadable, but she felt the immense weight of his assessment.
It was the same feeling she got from her most demanding sensei, her father, multiplied by a thousand.
"Very well," He said.
He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and produced a small, black notepad and a pen.
With the same unnerving precision, he seemed to do everything, he wrote a series of numbers on a page, tore it out, and placed it on the table between them.
He slid it toward her. "Call this number on the weekend. Only if you are certain of your decision."
He stood up to leave, his movement fluid and silent. He paused at her doorway, not looking back.
"The path is ruthless" His voice cut through the quiet room. "They will not care who you are or what you are. They will only see another target to kill."
Then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving Saeko alone with a slip of paper that felt like both a death sentence and her only chance at salvation
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(Yukinoshita Yukino's POV)
The home economics classroom was a controlled chaos of flour, sugar, and the warm, buttery scent of failed attempts.
Yukino wiped a stray strand of black hair painted silver from her forehead with the back of her wrist, leaving a faint dusting of white.
Across the counter, her classmates Miura and another girl were debating the consistency of their third batch of cake batter, their voices a high-pitched blend of frustration and determination.
Their class had, predictably, decided on a café for the Cultural Festival.
And she, predictably, had been assigned to the dessert division. She knew how to cook and bake, but baking for oneself and baking for many people while teaching this incompetent wastes of hormones was another think all togther
Her sharp, ice-blue eyes scanned the room. They were behind schedule. Her gaze landed on the one constant in the room, the one variable that seemed utterly uncaring of the pandemonium going around
Yoshioka-sensei stood near the door, observing the proceedings with the placid, analytical disinterest of a scientist watching an experiment unfold. He had been "supervising," which, in his case, meant standing perfectly still and looking at the chaos without doing nothing
A thought, cold and pragmatic, occurred to her. He was an adult. Adults possessed certain baseline skills. Perhaps he could be more useful than a simple observer.
She approached him, her steps quiet and precise. "Yoshioka-sensei."
His crimson eyes slid from a student struggling with a whisk to meet hers "Yukinoshita."
"Do you know how to bake?" she asked, her tone clinical. "We appear to be lacking in helping and competent hands"
He didn't even blink "It would be disastrous if I were to attempt it."
A flicker of annoyance crossed her features. A typical, useless male response. "I see. So you are simply incompetent in the kitchen as well"
"No" he stated, his voice its usual flat baritone. "It is not a matter of knowledge. It is something else entirely. Leave it at that"
Yukino processed this. It was the strangest and most definitive declaration of incompetence she had ever heard.
It left no room for argument. Her original plan was foiled.
"Then, do you know of someone who could provide help? Someone with skill who could... streamline our process?" She refused to say 'save us.'
Yoshioka-sensei was silent for a moment, his gaze turning inward as if accessing an internal directory. Then, he gave a slight nod.
He retrieved his cellphone from his pocket, dialed a number and held it to his ear.
After two rings, it was answered. "Tatsu. Are you available?" A pause. "There is a situation requiring your help at Soubu High School, you know, where I work" Another pause. "Understood. I will meet you at the gate I will explain when you arrive"
He ended the call and pocket the phone. "Wait here. I will pick up the help. He will be here shortly" Without another word, he turned and left the classroom, leaving a faint vacuum of silence in his wake
Yukino returned to her station, her mind racing. 'Tatsu?' It was not a name that inspired confidence in pastry arts.
As she pretended to examine a recipe, her ears, always keen, tuned into the chatter of her classmates now that the imposing teacher was gone
"...so handsome, though," Miura sighed, staring at the door. "It's a shame he can't cook. A man who's good in the kitchen is so attractive"
"Right?" Another girl agreed. "But have you heard the rumours? Hiratsuka-sensei is always talking to him. I saw them sharing tea in the staff room the other day. They looked... close."
Another girl, leaned in conspiratorially. "That's nothing. My friend in Class 3-C swears she saw him leaving with Kirisu-sensei from the library last week. They were talking about 'private lessons.'"
A third voice, barely a whisper, joined in. "The biggest rumour is about him and Sakurajima-san. You know, the third-year model? People say she waits for him after school sometimes. And the way she looks at him... it's not a student-teacher look, if you know what I mean..."
Yukino's expression remained a mask of cool indifference, but her mind was meticulously cataloguing every piece of information Hiratsuka-sensei. Kirisu-sensei. Sakurajima Mai. Each was a variable in the mysterious being that was Yoshioka Akira.
Her sister, who asked about any information regarding him, would find this particularly interesting.
She filed it all away for later
The classroom door slid open again. All chatter ceased.
Yoshioka-sensei re-entered. "I have brought help"
The man who followed him into the room made every student freeze mid-motion.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and clad in a black suit that strained against his muscular frame. His face was a monument of stern, sharp angles and grim severity, with a gaze that could curdle cream and a scar on his left eye. He looked like he had just walked off the set of a yakuza film. Or was a yakuza himself
And he was wearing a frilly, pink, heart-covered apron tied neatly over his suit with the logo of a dog on the centre.
The man's eyes scanned the room like a hawk surveying a field of mice. He zeroed in on the counter of failed pastries. His voice, a low, gravelly rumble that promised violence, echoed in the silent room.
"I heard there is someone here that needs to be taught a lesson."
A collective, silent gasp went through the students.
Miura dropped a measuring cup. Another girl looked like she was about to cry.
Yoshioka-sensei gestured vaguely towards the counter. "They need help on baking desserts, Tatsu"
The man, Tatsu, gave a single, sharp nod. He strode to the counter, his presence commanding absolute attention. He picked up a bag of flour.
"The foundation of any operation is the powder, the good stuff, the powder needs to be of quality, you get me?" He intoned, his voice deadly serious. "You gotta sift it. Separate the pure from the impure. Any lumps" He crushed an imaginary lump in his powerful fist, "Are a sign of a weak organization. You understand?"
The students nodded mutely, terrified.
He moved to the eggs. "Cracking an egg is like dealing with a rival. One clean, decisive strike." He demonstrated, tapping an egg perfectly on the bowl's edge and splitting it with no shell fragments. "No hesitation. No mess. Or you'll have a war on your hands."
He worked with a terrifying, brutal efficiency, his large, intimidating hands performing tasks with a delicate, impossible grace.
He kneaded dough like he was subduing an enemy. He piped frosting with the precise focus of a swordsman
Within minutes, a perfect, adorable, and undoubtedly delicious batch of miniature strawberry shortcakes sat on the counter.
"Taste it," he commanded.
Hesitantly, the girls each took one. Their eyes widened in shock. It was the most delicious thing any of them had ever eaten.
The contrast between the thuggish delivery and the sublime result was mind-bending.
Emboldened by success, the students returned to their stations, trying to mimic Tatsu's "techniques."
The atmosphere was still tense, but now it was a tense workshop.
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It was during a lesson on the "Art of the fruit glaze" that it happened.
Miura, nervous under Tatsu's intense stare, fumbled with a bottle of red cherry sauce. It slipped from her grasp, flew through the air, and splattered directly across Tatsu's chest and face.
The thick, vivid red liquid dripped from his chin and soaked into his white shirtfront, stark against his black suit and the pink apron.
He looked like he'd just taken a knife to the heart.
The room fell deathly silent.
At that exact moment, the door burst open.
"Yoshioka-san! I heard you were seen walking with a—" Hiratsuka-sensei's voice cut off as she took in the scene: the terrified students, the yakuza-looking giant, seemingly drenched in blood.
Her eyes narrowed. Her protective instincts, fuelled by a weekend's worth of sake and a deep-seated sense of justice, kicked into overdrive
"YOU! Get away from my students!" she roared, and before anyone could process a single word, she launched a perfectly aimed, sensei-grade punch.
THWACK.
It connected squarely with Tatsu's jaw. His eyes rolled back into his head, and the immovable object met the irresistible force of Shizuka's righteous fury.
He crumpled to the floor like a sack of flour.
Shizuka stood over him, breathing heavily, already pulling out her phone. "I'm calling the cops! Everyone, stay calm!"
Yukino could only stare, her usual composure utterly shattered.
She looked from the unconscious culinary Yakuza on the floor to Yoshioka-sensei, who was observing the new development with a deadpan expression and a bit quirk on his lips
The misunderstanding was, eventually, solved before the police were called.
Tatsu was helped to his feet, dazed and still dripping cherry red, and Shizuka stammered her mortified apologies.
The rumour mill that evening went into overdrive. The new prevailing theory would be that the impossibly handsome, enigmatic Yoshioka-sensei had connections to the yakuza.
And she couldn't wait to report this particular data point to her sister.
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(Third Person POV)
The school day had concluded as usual.
After a brief, silent walk during which Tatsu had informed him he was "off to secure the good stuff", meaning he was going to buy groceries, Akira found himself alone.
His destination was the Silverman Gym, a place that has become routine on his day to day life.
His path took him over a pedestrian overcrossing, a concrete bridge arcing over the busy street below.
He descended the steps on the other side, his movement fluid and silent amidst the trickle of other pedestrians.
He was halfway down when a voice, sharp with panic, cut through the ambient noise from behind him. "Look out!"
Akira turned with the calm precision. His mind instantly registering the incoming objects first: two large, soft-looking balloons aimed directly for his face.
He instantly knew those things were attached to a girl. And if he were to move out of the way the girl would fall directly below and suffer grave injuries
So, he moved
In a motion too fluid to be called a dodge, he shifted his weight, his hands coming up not to block, but to intercept and redirect the momentum of the person attached to the balloons.
There was a soft oof of expelled air, a tangle of limbs, and then the impact. Akira's body absorbed the fall perfectly, his posture minimizing the force as they landed on the concrete steps with him on the bottom
The girl on top of him, a busty brown haired girl with a dazed expression, pushed herself up, rubbing the back of her head. "Ow... jeez..." Her eyes, wide and slightly unfocused, blinked as the situation processed. The memory of tripping and crashing into someone flooded back.
"Oh my god! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?" She asked, her voice laced with genuine alarm as she scrambled off him.
Akira was already moving. He rose to his feet in one smooth, uninterrupted motion, his expression as placid as if he'd just stood up from a chair. He brushed a faint layer of dust from his trousers with a few precise flicks of his wrist.
"I'm okay," he stated, his voice a calm, low baritone. He turned his crimson eyes to her, scanning her for injury with a detached, clinical air. "Are you okay?"
The question seemed to short-circuit her concern. She stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. "Me? I'm fine, but you—you broke my fall! You must be hurt!"
He cut off her stammering with a slight raise of his hand, a gesture so final it silenced her immediately. "I am uninjured. There is nothing to worry about."
Before she could form another word of protest or apology, he gave a curt nod, turned on his heel, and continued on his. His pace was exactly the same as it had been before the collision.
The girl could only watch him go, one hand still absently rubbing her head.
He moved away with an unnerving silence, merging back into the foot traffic and disappearing from view before she could even think to ask for his name.
She stood there for a long moment on the steps, the strange, brief encounter feeling more like a dream than reality
-------------------------------------------
(Thousands of Years Ago)
(?'s POV)
A suffocating silence had fallen over the assembled raid force, broken only by the nervous clink of armor and the soft rustle of cloth.
They stood before the immense doors to the 75th floor's boss chamber, an army of Aincrad's best and brightest, yet each felt terribly small.
The name of their target hung over them like a funeral shroud: The Skull Reaper.
Her fingers tightened around the hilt of her rapier, Lambent Light. The familiar weight was a small comfort against the cold dread coiling in her stomach.
To her left, Kirito's presence was a steadying force, his own grim focus mirroring her own. At the head of their coalition, Heathcliff stood immovable, a paragon of strength, his legendary shield ready to be their bulwark against the horror within.
"This is it," Heathcliff's voice, calm and authoritative, cut through the tension. "Remember the formation. The front line holds. The damage dealers focus on the leg joints. We can win this."
He placed a hand on the gargantuan door, ready to signal the beginning of their most desperate battle.
And then they heard it.
Not the expected, chilling stillness of a boss waiting in its lair, but the sounds of combat. A thunderous, enraged roar echoed from within, followed by the distinct, sharp crack of a powerful impact against a hard carapace.
A wave of confusion swept through the ranks. Murmurs turned into alarmed questions. "What's going on?" "Is there already a party inside?" "Did they trigger it by accident?"
Heathcliff's composure cracked for a microsecond, his brow furrowing in genuine surprise. "That's... impossible. No one was to enter ahead of the main force."
With a powerful shove, he pushed the doors open.
The scene that greeted them was not what any of them had prepared for. It was chaos. It was a war already raging.
The Skull Reaper was a nightmare given form, a colossal insectoid horror of bleached bone and shadow, its countless legs scything through the air. But it was not standing placidly. It was thrashing, roaring in what could only be described as pain and fury.
And dancing within its whirlwind of death was a single figure.
A man in a long, grey coat that streamed behind him like a specter's shroud.
He moved with an economy of motion that was hypnotic.
He didn't leap; he stepped. He didn't duck; he tilted.
Every devastating swing of the monster's limbs missed him by a hair's breadth, whistling past his head or torso with inch-perfect precision. It was less a fight for survival and more a flawless, deadly dance
Her breath hitched. Her analytical mind, honed by two years of life-or-death combat, could barely process what she was seeing.
It was perfection. It was insanity.
Her eyes shot to the boss's health bar, hovering ominously above the fray. A collective, sharp intake of breath came from the crowd behind her.
The bar was already deep red, dipping below the halfway point.
"He's... he's soloing it..." Someone whispered, the words dripping with disbelief.
The man moved again.
A black lance, sleek and lethal, appeared in his hands. He didn't slash wildly. He thrust, each movement a pinpoint strike that found a seam in the armor, a weak point at a joint.
Each impact was accompanied by a sickening crunch and a visible chunk evaporating from the health bar.
A name, a legend, surfaced in her mind. A story passed between veterans in hushed tones.
The White Reaper.
A phantom said to clear floors alone. A rumour who hunted PKers to extinction. Many thought he was a fairy tale, a collective hope given form.
He was not a fairy tale
They could only watch, an audience of hundreds, as the myth became reality.
With a final, piston-driven thrust, the black lance found its mark in the Skull Reaper's central eye.
The monster froze, its death cry echoing through the chamber before it shattered into a universe of dissolving blue fragments.
Silence.
The loot window materialized and vanished, claimed by the sole victor. The man stood alone in the centre of the chamber, his back to them, the lance resting casually at his side. The silence was louder than any boss roar.
Slowly, he turned.
His features were sharp, strikingly handsome, and utterly devoid of emotion. Platinum hair, crimson eyes that seemed to stare into their very souls. His gaze swept over the army of stunned players as if they were part of the scenery.
He began to walk toward them. The crowd parted without a word, creating a path. He moved with an eerie silence, his passage marked only by the awe and fear on the faces he passed.
She found her voice, a mix of relief, frustration, and sheer admiration compelling her to step forward. "That was... unbelievable. But you shouldn't have done that alone! It was too dangerous! We had a strategy, we could have helped—"
He walked past her as if she were a ghost. His unwavering focus was fixed on one man.
He stopped directly in front of Heathcliff. The leader of the Knights of the Blood offered a respectful, albeit stunned, nod. "An unparalleled display, solo player. You have saved countless lives today. You have our deepest gratitu—"
The White Reaper moved.
The black lance flashed up, its tip halting a millimeter from Heathcliff's throat. The air in the chamber turned to ice. Steel rang as a hundred weapons were drawn in unison. Kirito move at her side, his sword held ready, his face a mask of shock and fury.
The man ignored them all. His crimson eyes locked onto Heathcliff's.
His voice was calm, flat, and carried an absolute, final authority that silenced the room.
"You have a lot to answer for, Kayaba Akihiko."
The name landed like a bomb. She felt the world drop out from under her. Kayaba? The game's creator? The man who trapped them here?
Her eyes shot to Heathcliff.
And in that moment, she saw it, not confusion or outrage, but a flicker of sheer, unguarded shock before the familiar mask of calm resolve slid back into place.
It was all the confirmation she needed.
The pillar of their world had just been shattered by a single, cold accusation