why would MOS!Shirou be playing a videogame
why would MOS!Shirou be playing a videogame
Because there are thousands of lives at stake and the man responsible is inside?
ok whatever
1968 20th September // London, England
"Leave me, Carrigan."
The elderly manservant nodded mutely, and retreated up the stairs to the atelier proper. When the door had firmly shut, the bearded Caucasian man exhaled wearily and opened one of the panel-lids to the mortuary cabinet installed within the cellar wall. Sliding the steel drawer outwards, he frowned at the charred corpse that occupied the tray.
"Paranoid bastard."
Removing the black leather glove on his right hand, he set his fore- and middle-finger against the center of the cadaver's chest, near the heart.
"Establish Jurisdiction." At his word, lines of glowing blue traced themselves across the carbon-blackened flesh, forming a twelve-pointed star within a circle. When it had completed, he uttered. "Time Alter - Thanatosis Release."
The body spasmed, and in an abrupt fit of hyperventilation, it began to draw in the cold, dry air of the cellar. Stepping away from the mortuary tray to avoid the flailing limbs, the man pulled his glove back on and simply waited, expression pensive. Nearly two minutes later, the last of the seizures subsided with the glow of the lines, and the diaphragm of the dead-looking creature began to rise and fall at a more controlled rate of respiration.
"K- Kiritsugu ..." it rasped. Blood-shot eyes parted with some difficulty, and fixated on the man's face. "Lord Harris ... that means ..."
The bearded man offered a gloved hand, and wincing in pain, the creature allowed itself to be helped into a sitting position.
"The security measures you built in about the dummy crest gave the Enforcers quite a scare," said the man. "They were barely able to isolate half of the circuits before your body set itself aflame. It's fortuitous that I was able to intervene before any permanent damage could occur."
"It worked as intended."
The bearded man sighed.
"How could you allow yourself to fall into such a predicament, Mister Emiya? I wasn't expecting to see you again quite so soon."
"Complacency and carelessness as always," replied the creature, flexing its fingers experimentally. "Tell me, what's the date?"
"Twentieth September, Nineteen Sixty-Two."
"Two months ..."
"Some time was required to acclimate to the peculiarities of time manipulation," said the man. "On the pretext of, ah, 'preserving you as a specimen,' I've taken the liberty of removing any truly debilitating wounds from your person. Your remaining injuries are primarily cosmetic in nature." He paused. "If you require it, I can arrange to restore or modify your appearance."
"I'll live with this, I think. As a reminder." The creature gripped the edge of the mortuary tray. "I want to know where my son is."
"Have you heard of the name Kaminski? Natalia Kaminski?"
"Doesn't sound familiar, no. Who is she?"
"A freelancer for the Association, involved in the cleanup on Arimago," said the bearded man, seating himself to a wooden stool by the wall. "Shortly after your 'remains' were processed, she registered your son as an apprentice, and negotiated to transfer to him a fragment of the dummy crest."
"He's fine, then," said the creature, pressing its fire-scarred palms against its eyes. "I haven't failed entirely."
Supporting his hands upon the ivory clasp of his cane, the bearded man eyed the creature's scars.
"I do believe you might have short-changed yourself when setting the terms of our contract, though," he observed. "The falsification of a single death is nowhere near equivalent in weight to capabilities in temporal manipulation."
The creature tilted its head and stared into the light of the sole oil lamp that lit the chamber.
"You underestimate the worth of having a new lease on life, Lord Harris," it said. "A crest can be rebuilt. For the sake of saving humanity from itself, this is a small price to pay ..."
[ sword art : EXTEND ]
02: The Thief of Time
2024 10th November // Aincrad, 55th Floor
Kayaba's successor as Commander to «The Knights of the Blood Oath» was a twenty-ish male player by the username of Staedtler -- probably a highly-educated academic, going by his appearance and mannerisms. If it weren't for the look of triumphant smugness that had marred his features from the moment he was sworn in, Kirito might've considered him good-looking in a herbivorous way.
At the moment, however, he only wanted to punch the guy in the face.
"Consequently, as my first executive action," said the bespectacled man, "I hereby relieve former Sub-Commander Asuna of her duties at the front lines. As of the Tenth of November, 2024, she shall be acting as our new Director of Recruitment and Training -- filling the vacancy left by Godfrey."
The ranks of the Knights gathered within the reception hall grew agitated at the announcement, but the stout, middle aged man seated at Staedtler's left quieted them with a gesture.
"In light of the losses we suffered on the 75th Floor, Staedtler and I have been discussing the appropriateness of your deployment, Asuna," he said, offering an apologetic smile. "It isn't that we're questioning your competence as a field leader, but-"
"No," interrupted Staedtler. "There's no need to mince words about it, Secretary Merlose. It's *precisely* that we're questioning her competence. The late Commander was willing to appoint a mere girl to officership out of a naive belief that he could develop her potential as an asset to our organization. He paid for this misplaced trust not only with his own life, but that of five of our men." He slammed a fist against the table. "As acting Commander, I will not permit such needless sacrifice!"
Somehow aware that Kirito was reaching the end of his patience, Asuna's grip tightened around his hand, and he saw her faintly shake her head. A few chairs away, however, somebody else had had enough.
"Hold up, now." Standing in a sudden motion that knocked over his seat, Daizen pointed a stubby finger across the officer's table. "I dunno what snake-oil yer sellin' us, Mister Staed'ler, but don't you be bad-mouthin' C'mmander Heathcliff and Miss Asuna without any proof." With a quick hand movement, he called up a word processor interface. "You ac-shully read this thing through the whole way? It's the Af'er-Action Report Miss Asuna filed. Yesterday, I went and co-roberated the contents wit' all o' Knights who were up there, and I don't have any clue how yer concludin' Miss Asuna was at fault fer the deaths o' those men. She was vol'ntarily tankin' right alongside the C'mmander, and she ain't even the author of the strategy."
Asuna's brow twisted slightly in guilt.
"You've actually touched upon a point I wanted to bring up, Bursar Daizen," said Staedtler, smiling coolly. "Remind me if you will -- who precisely did Commander Heathcliff appoint to the task of coordinating strategy with the other clearing guilds? Whose inaction was it that resulted in the adoption of the half-baked plan the Commander was forced to personally oversee?"
Daizen narrowed his eyes -- glaring at the bespectacled man with more fierceness than Kirito had thought him capable of.
"That's right, Bursar Daizen," Staedtler continued. "The romantic dalliances of a certain seventeen-year-old girl provoked a personal dispute that resulted in the death of Director Godfrey. Then, rather than imposing any preventative sanctions against future incidents or forcing her to return to her appointed task, Commander Heathcliff dotingly permitted her an arbitrary leave of absence to play hookey with her new squeeze. This was the root cause of the tragedy on the 75th Floor."
"That Kuradeel was a crim'nal wit' tha Laughin' Coffin!" said Daizen. "Why ain'tcha blamin' him fer anything!?"
"Asuna was aware of her popularity amongst male players. Knowing that commitment to any romantic relationship could well result in fluctuations to guild morale or possessive retribution, it was irresponsible of her to go ahead and engage in a dalliance anyway. In other words, her decision directly provoked Kuradeel into the course of action that led to Godfrey's death."
It wasn't a fair reading of the events at all -- just one leap of logic on top of another, on top of another, with a strange undercurrent of machismo and misogyny. And yet, amongst the crowd of predominantly male players gathered beyond the officers' table, the faint whispers that had been running since the start of the impromptu debate had begun at some point to turn in favor of Staedtler's account.
Objectivity, Kirito realized, had never really been the goal.
The officership of «The Knights of the Blood Oath» wasn't determined by anything resembling a democratic process, but in order for the machinery of the organization to properly function, the acting Commander still required the popular support of the members. If it was generally felt that a different party possessed a legitimate claim to leadership, problems would definitely arise. Staedtler's solution to the problem was crucifiction.
"I accept my reassignment," said Asuna.
Staedtler blinked in slight surprise, and his expression began to ease into a grin.
"I don't believe we all heard you, Director Asuna," he said. "Could you repeat that for me?"
"On account of the deaths that occurred on the 75th Floor, Commander," said Asuna, "I accept my reassignment without complaint."
Daizen and a number of the guild members appeared crestfallen at the pronouncement, but Kirito could grasp what Asuna hoped to communicate; she'd met the eyes of her new commanding officer, and her expression was nothing but resolute. For the sake of the organization, she would take the loss, but it wouldn't be with defeat.
It seemed that Staedtler had intended on persisting in his inquisition nevertheless, but the tall, muscular man who had for the whole of the meeting merely remained seated at the Commander's right chose at that moment to cut him off.
"You've achieved what you set out to do, Commander," he stated tonelessly, uncrossing his arms and setting his hands flat upon the table.
The bespectacled man fell momentarily to something resembling a stunned silence -- but after several seconds, he closed his eyes and nodded his acknowledgement.
"Our agenda for the afternoon is concluded," he said, pushing his glasses against the bridge of his nose. "Please return to your assigned tasks. Dismissed."
//
The tall man remained after the others had left.
"Thank you, Sub-Commander Gloucester," said Asuna, nodding to him as he approached.
"There's no need," he said. "It wasn't out of benevolence that I acted."
Kirito couldn't say if it was really gratitude he felt for the man, but at the least, it wasn't the sort of instinctive disgust that Merlose and Staedtler had provoked. On the other hand, he was intimately acquainted with Gloucester's type: hard-working, honorable, and painfully serious. His grandfather had been the same.
"Was there something you needed?" he asked.
Rather than immediately replying, Gloucester called up his inventory and produced a dagger with a bronze-colored hilt and sheath. Setting it on the table before Kirito and Asuna, he pushed it towards them.
"I would like for the two of you to examine this," said the large man.
Asuna complied, tapping the sheath of the dagger with her forefinger. The window that appeared indicated that the weapon's designation was «Blood-Stained Salome», a system-generated item with an equipment level requirement of 60. Below, in the attributes section, though, there was something that Kirito hadn't heard of before: '«Painbringer» +0: 2% Chance to Inflict «Limiter-Break» Status on Critical.'
Frowning, Kirito reached over and pressed the name of the debuff, calling up a help prompt: '«Limiter-Break»: A player status with a probability of occurrence on critical damage from mobiles, traps, or items with the «Painbringer» Attribute. When the status is active, pain feedback is delimited to realistic levels, appropriate to the circumstances of injury. Active duration varies per the damage of the inflicting strike; the status may not be reapplied before active duration concludes.'
"«Painbringer»?" asked Kirito. "«Limiter-Break»? What is this?"
"Exactly what it sounds like," said Gloucester. "«Limiter-Break» is a debuff that causes players to experience actual, realistic pain when they receive damage, rather than just physical discomfort. It shouldn't be difficult for you to imagine how this might impact the flow of a PvP engagement. As far as our tests can determine, the status can't be inflicted upon monsters or NPCs -- and so, what you see before you is most likely a weapon legitimately designed for Anti-Human purposes."
Kirito winced. The absence of the sensation of pain was a conspicuous breach in the realism of the «Aincrad» experience -- but one that had contributed significantly to the enjoyability of «Sword Art Online» in terms of gameplay. If something like the «Painbringer» Attribute were to become commonplace, however, there was little doubt that the nature of combat as a whole would change irrevocably. A vast array of common attacks dealt damage in what would be considered a 'lethal' manner in the real world; Kirito didn't want to consider what 'pain appropriate to the circumstances of injury' meant in context.
"I'm not really sure what it is that you're asking of us, though," said Asuna. "Are we coordinating some sort of effort against the circulation of these weapons?"
"Halfway correct," Gloucester replied, crossing his arms. "Presently, weapons bearing the attribute are only known to be obtainable as random drops within the «Black Iron Dungeon». I understand that the two of you provided our initial mapping data for this area?"
Drawing her lips into a thin line, Asuna shook her head in confirmation.
"The Reconnaissance Unit that I headed was posted to the «Starting City» to investigate the zone as a potential training ground for recruits," the man continued. "As of the clearing of the 75th, we discovered that new entrances had opened up across the undercity, and that the tunnel network had significantly expanded. Before we got around to mapping out the new sections, though, we ran into interference from a guild called «The Kings of the Fang». They appear to be farming rare drops for the orange player community."
The name was vaguely familiar to Kirito, but for some reason, he couldn't quite place it.
"Describe the guild to me?" he asked.
"It seemed like a substantially-sized group -- maybe forty or fifty members. The majority of them were low-to-mid-level players, but their use of «Painbringer» weapons granted them a significant enough edge to drive us into temporary retreat."
"So, you want us to flush them out and secure the area, essentially," summarized Kirito.
"Correct. We believe that the guild comprises primarily of former members of the «Aincrad Liberation Force», who were expunged with the leader's recent housekeeping reforms. Apprehending them should temporarily resolve the weapons problem."
The mention of «The Army» connected the dots in Kirito's mind: 'Kiba' was to 'Fang' as 'Ou' was to 'King.' It seemed that Kibaou was still being a nuisance -- and this time he'd named a guild after himself.
"This is gonna take a bit of manpower," said Asuna, sighing. "Do I have permission to mobilize resources outside of Training and Recruitment?"
"I authorize it so long as the resources in question aren't key members of the clearing party," said Gloucester. "However, please keep it within the guild. It isn't my intention to monopolize the dungeon as a resource, but circulation of the weapons has to be brought to an end immediately. Do you have any questions?"
Kirito raised a hand, prompting a look from Gloucester.
"Is there any chance I can keep this thing?" he asked, pointing at the dagger on the table.
2016 26th September // Caribbeans
It wasn't a feeling that Shirou could easily put to words; there was an intense sensation of 'thinness' in the air, as if the empty sea immediately about the fishing vessel were somehow less 'real' than the ocean beyond. Fourteen years ago, before he'd dismantled the 726th Grail, the municipal park in Fuyuki City had a similar ambiance.
A refresh to the GPS service on his scratched, outdated phone confirmed once again that these were indeed the coordinates he'd extracted from the low-lifes back in San Juan -- the hard-earned location of an uncharted island he'd suspected to function as the hub of a human trafficking ring. After eight months of false leads and dead ends, he'd somewhat hoped that his efforts were finally bearing fruit; but now it seemed as if he'd merely stumbled upon a prelude to something more irritating.
The distortion around him wasn't the product of a bounded field; it was an indication to the presence of a frontier. Though a student of the mainstream thaumaturgical academia certainly wouldn't have recognized it as such, what lay within these waters was a boundary to the domain of Alaya -- impassable to the conventions of modern magecraft.
Emiya Shirou was unrestrained by any such limitation.
"The path I forge," he uttered, "shall always be of Unlimited Blade Works."
Momentarily, the clear afternoon sky shimmered -- filling with immense, interlocking gears that might have been the scale of mountains. When the instant had passed, the metallic wheels faded like a mirage; and as if it had always been there, a forested tropical island lay maybe half a kilometer before his vessel.
Submerged to their knees in the shallows, three humanoid creatures tattooed with thaumaturgical symbols appeared to notice his arrival -- hairless, elephantine beasts whose heads and faces consisted entirely of shark-like maws.
"Poor taste in defenses ..."
He'd voiced his opinion in disdain, but even as he called forth his bow and readied himself for combat, Shirou's lips bore a faint, dangerous smile.
//
The primacy of Gaia was almost palpable.
Analysis gave that the atelier ruins on the hilly eastern peninsula weren't as old as they appeared. The place had probably been in use as recent as several months prior -- but reclamation by the local flora had already progressed to the point that the buildings seemed to have been derelict for years, if not decades. It was sheer luck that the termites hadn't entirely destroyed the few remaining documents the researchers had left behind before he'd captured their structure for future perusal.
Quite improbably, the two-story building that appeared to have served as the atelier's living quarters still hinted of human or human-like habitation when he ventured in for clues regarding the researchers' identities. Heightening his guard just in case, he materialized a pair of ceramic combat knives suited to close-quarters, and softened his footfalls as well as permitted by the broken glass that littered parts of the floor.
It didn't do him a whole lot of good.
Shirou was confident in his capacity to detect oncoming danger, but it was a good few seconds after he'd entered one of three bedrooms on the upper floor that he noticed his would-be assailant from the corner of his eye -- crouching on one of the ceiling beams. Barely dodging the attack, he'd already instinctively delivered a heavy kick before consciously registering the attacker's appearance.
The nude, ebony-skinned figure that now blocked the doorway had landed upon all four limbs, but it was unmistakably a human woman -- over two meters tall when she stood to her full height, and grotesquely muscular. At some point, her facial features might have counted as attractive, but the predatory, animalistic glint of her eyes made it difficult for Shirou to imagine her as anything besides a beast that needed to be put down.
'She didn't turn up when I conducted a cursory scan of the building,' he thought. 'Presence regulation, purposed for hunting, maybe?'
The woman was fast; unreasonably strong. Without thaumaturgical reinforcement, human nails shouldn't have been able to cut through his knives, but her first two claw-swipes actually dealt a significant amount of damage to their material. Dismissing them, he evaded a punch that shattered a decrepit wooden desk, and traced out a European longsword -- a replica of an A-ranked Noble Phantasm he'd witnessed long ago.
His intent was transparent, and predictably, the woman made to block his vertical strike with her blade-like fingernails -- or attempted to. Being of superior conceptual priority, the traced weapon cut clear through the keratin and continued downwards along a semicircular path, eliciting a hoarse, pained scream as its tip left a bloody gash across the side of the woman's scarred abdomen.
Shirou didn't have the time to berate himself for missing her vitals. Entering his guard with almost no preparatory motion, the woman grasped both of his wrists within her left hand, and slammed him across the face with an open palm. The Noble Phantasm left his grip as he impacted a bare cement wall, fracturing the surface. He'd made sure to keep up his standard reinforcement against damage, but the blunt trauma was still disorienting enough that the woman was able to lazily saunter over and straddle his legs.
"And within my flesh," he said -- almost as her hands had enclosed about his throat, "there dwell a thousand swords."
//
When it had finally ended, Shirou rolled the woman's body off of his own and tiredly stood, wiping the blood from the lower half of his face with a hand.
Against the ranking scheme used for Servant Attributes in the Grail War of Fuyuki, the woman's strength and agility would have placed well above the C range. She had, in other words, performed nearly on par to the heroes of the Age of Divinities -- and she had done so without noticeable thaumaturgical or medical modifications, as far as he could tell. It was a feat that modern humans were supposed to have been incapable of.
Whether or not she qualified as a 'modern human' was of course nothing he could draw a definite conclusion about -- but, given the degree to which the majority of the island's larger fauna exhibited vestiges of explicit thaumaturgical manipulation, it somehow seemed unlikely that she could be anything but an experimental subject manipulated by the masters of the atelier. Could she have originally been a native of the world beyond Alaya?
'It might actually get dangerous if she has any allies lying in wait,' he thought, tearing off the tattered, bloody remains of his dress shirt and generating a replacement. 'Been awhile since I was forced to use that.'
Noticing that something had fallen behind the fragments of the broken desk, he paced over and took care in withdrawing it, in case it had been damaged by the elements. The caution turned out to be excessive; it was a slightly yellowing photograph in a metallic frame, with a glass cover that was still intact. There were two individuals in the image, dressed in white laboratory coats: a attractive Asian woman with short hair, and a relatively nondescript man. Shirou had seen the latter before in assorted technology magazines.
"Kayaba Akihiko," he said. Looking down upon the shredded flesh of the woman beside the wall, he frowned in contemplation. "How are you related to this?"
[end segment]
This fic is based primarily in the canon of the Sword Art Online novel and anime. Content specific to the Material Edition, Sword Art : Progressive, and Sword Art Online : Infinity Moment shall not referenced.
Last edited by fallacies; December 2nd, 2012 at 05:21 AM.
Oh wow, I think this is the first fic that I read that changed anything as far back as Norikata. But then I have to wonder, how could someone else save him using Time Alter? Norikata can only transfer his magic to Kiritsugu, right?
And I'm a little bit disappointed; I had thought that you made Kayaba a normal person (as normal as mass murderers count as) but according to the way he's supposed to be connected with Ancient Mysteries in the middle of nowhere, it seems like he was anything but normal. Well, this is still better than most Fate/SAO crossovers I've read before, so I'll wait until more is revealed before commenting further.
~I hate writing English paragraphs longer that one line. Or any language, really.~
In the middle of re-re-redoubling the effort of erasing the habit of lurking for the 9001st time
Staedtler is written to be a unlikable character in the latest segment I think, and I have to say you've succeeded. That guy gets on my nerves.
Keep up the good work, though may I ask if you're planning on going back to the Evangelion+F/Z fic eventually?
Originally Posted by Elf
'Fae is Foul' - My SAO/ZnT Crossover fanfic (SB Thread) (FFN Link)
[ dramatis personae ]
Emiya Noritaka (94): thaumaturgical researcher; (former?) Sealing Designate and internationally wanted criminal; master of temporal manipulation magecraft
Kayaba Akihiko (37): researcher; computer scientist; wanted criminal; creator of the death game known as «Sword Art Online», the world's first true VR-MMORPG; player of the SAO character "Heathcliff," former Commander to the guild «The Knights of the Blood Oath»; also known by the epithet of «The Invincible Paladin»
Emiya Shirou (34?): freelance mercenary, assassin, and mass-murderer; recognized by the Thaumaturgical Association of London as a 3rd rate magus (?); the victor and sole survivor of the 5th War of the Holy Grail, a ritual held in Fuyuki, Japan; current player of the SAO character "Sirou" (?)
Kirigaya Kazuto (16): player of the SAO character "Kirito"; bearer of the Unique Skill «Dual Blades» (the 1st of 9 Unique Skill users); also known by the epithet of «The Black Swordsman»
Yuuki Asuna (17): player of the SAO character "Asuna"; Director of Recruitment and Training to the guild «The Knights of the Blood Oath»; formerly Sub-Commander; also known by the epithet of «Asuna the Flash»
Staedtler (28): an SAO player; Commander to the guild «The Knights of the Blood Oath»; formerly Director of General Affairs. Without intentional irony, he named his character after a brand of pencil.
Merlose (49): an SAO player; Secretary to the guild «The Knights of the Blood Oath»
Gloucester (29): an SAO player; Sub-Commander to the guild «The Knights of the Blood Oath»; formerly Director of Reconnaissance
Daizen (45): an SAO player; Bursar to the guild «The Knights of the Blood Oath»; floor manager at a large electronics retail chain
Godfrey (38; deceased): an SAO player; former Director of Recruitment and Training to the guild «The Knights of the Blood Oath»; a half-Japanese, half-Macedonian-Slav gym instructor
Kibaou (27): an SAO player; former Sub-Commander to the guild «Aincrad Liberation Force»; current Commander to the orange guild «The Kings of the Fang»
Orthos (32): an SAO player; clearing party member and field officer to the guild «The Divine Dragon Alliance»
Shimizu Kurou (17; deceased?): former player of the SAO character "Sirou"; a member of a certain non-official guild; murdered by Emiya Shirou (?)
T.M. Harris (80; deceased): celebrated botanist; Cambridge Fellow; heir to the House Ledecestre, a noble lineage of magi; secretly, a sponsor to Emiya Noritaka, and a claimant of the Crest of Emiya
Norton Carrigan (91; deceased): a professional manservant and butler to the House Ledecestre; Irishman and five-time champion of the amateur competitions held by the City of London Bowling Club
Maria DeLorenzo (24; deceased): nurse, formerly in the employ of Hospital del Maestro in San Juan, Puerto Rico; a test subject in an experiment conducted by Emiya Noritaka and Kayaba Akihiko; murdered by Emiya Shirou
Emiya Kiritsugu (44; deceased): freelance mercenary and assassin; known to the Thaumaturgical Association of London by the epithet of "The Magus Killer"; a victor of the 4th War of the Holy Grail, a ritual held in Fuyuki, Japan; adoptive father to Emiya Shirou, and son to Emiya Noritaka
Natalia Kaminski (40; deceased): freelance mercenary and assassin for the Thaumaturgical Association of London; teacher and adoptive mother to Emiya Kiritsugu
Last edited by fallacies; December 2nd, 2012 at 09:38 AM.
You know, you including Natalia and Kiritsugu in that character sheet just makes me suspicious of you....
Is this some sort of AU where Waver did not survive the meeting with gilgamesh?
No, it was a bad copypaste. ^^;
Corrected now.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF---
The baits getting more tempting.
I hate it when you do this to me fallacies, I really do.
.........I want more.
This is amazing, and MoS!Shirou is a pleasure to read. Looking forward to seeing how Kayaba is connected to the Moonlit World.
Last edited by saintsant; September 12th, 2018 at 12:13 AM.
2022 6th November // Hong Kong
A little more than a year after taking up the job, Emiya Shirou had come across an old laptop that had belonged to his father while cleaning out the shed in his back yard. Surprisingly, it was still functional -- but the only non-system files that still remained on the disc was a folder filled with text documents titled by date.
It was a journal of sorts, infrequently kept. Shirou already knew that his father had been similar to him in youth -- killing his heart for the sake of building a just world. The files, however, painted a somewhat different portrait of the man.
For the majority of his adult life, Emiya Kiritsugu had been tortured by something he'd referred to as 'The Devil's Arithmetic' -- a hero's dilemma, wherein the sacrifice of the few was repeatedly weighted against the benefit of the masses. In his prime, 'The Magus Killer' had indeed rid the world of many a monster and villain; but at the core of his being, he believed that monsters could be deemed to exist only as a byproduct of splitting the world into black and white. Every life was ultimately equal before his eyes -- and every death that came of his hands was yet another sin committed in the name of the fiction known as 'necessity.'
Kotomine Kirei had been wrong, it seemed; the ideals and moralities that moved Emiya Shirou were not his father's. Comprehending the suffering that Kiritsugu had gone through only reinforced the respect he held for the man -- but similar empathy for sinners was beyond his ability. It was possible only if one were human.
//
Emiya Shirou was a sword.
The arithmetic that had emerged in his work was nothing but a series of criteria that determined justification for his involvement in a given undertaking: his logistical capacity to deploy; the threat of a target relative to the competence of the local authorities; and definite confirmation of prospective danger or prior guilt.
Passing the critical threshold on all three was by design not incredibly easy -- but tonight, their fulfillment had brought him to a stylishly decorated penthouse in the Mid-Levels of Hong Kong Island.
They had placed within his gloved hands a suppressed P250 -- stolen earlier in the day from a crooked cop.
The owner of the penthouse was a middle-aged man by the name of Samuel Leung, vice president to Leicester Port Holdings, the third largest asset management firm in the Special Administrative Region. Shirou had frequently heard his name had come up in investigations into the alleged corruption of the Executive Council -- but that wasn't the reason he'd come.
"Wh- why ... why are you doing this?"
The speaker was a pretty eleven-year-old named Janice -- Samuel's only daughter by his late wife. Sobbing uncontrollably, she held her father against her, hugging his bloodied corpse as if it might somehow bring him back.
"I don't make a habit of explaining my reasons to targets," said Shirou, ignoring the silent buzzing of his phone within his coat pocket. "Seeing as you appear to be incapable of linking consequence with cause, however, I'll make a special exception."
"C- consequence?"
"As Janus4290, you mined and distributed user information aggregated over the last ten years by the ListerLink social network," he continued. "Twenty-five thousand individuals have been affected, and fifty-three suicides are confirmed to have occurred as a direct consequence."
The girl's eyes widened, and her breath hitched.
"N- ... nobody was supposed to be die! It was just ... I d- didn't mean for all that to happen!"
"Whether or not your intentions were malicious is irrelevant," said Shirou, raising his gun.
"I ... I made somebody close to you die?"
Shirou's reply contained no words. The hopes and aspirations that the girl had held were splattered across the wall at her back, and her body slid slowly to the floor beside her father. Placing the gun on a nearby table, Shirou pulled out his phone.
"Emiya speaking," he said.
"Why did it take so long for you to answer?" asked the woman on the other end. "I've been sitting here for a whole minute."
"I was working," he said. "Is there something you need?"
"No, but you may want to check out the news currently breaking on CNN."
Frowning, Shirou walked into the living room and picked up a remote from the leather couch. Turning on the flat-screen, he switched the channel to CNN.
" ... death-toll may still be rising," said the newscaster. "In a press conference this evening, the National Police Agency of Japan has named Argus CEO, Akihiko Kayaba, as a person of interest in ..."
'It's been almost seven years,' thought Shirou. 'Need to work on my efficiency.'
[ sword art : EXTEND ]
03: The Day of the Fire
2024 10th November // Aincrad, 50th Floor
With furrowed brows, the tall African-American man tapped the away at the empty space above the dagger's ≪Item Attributes≫ prompt.
Kirito couldn't see the dialogue he was interacting with. The privacy features of the game permitted third party viewership of only a small portion of a player's graphical interface -- and a number of the specialized menus unlocked through skill advancement were subject to censorship. The display called up on activation of ≪Inspection≫ was one of these.
"See anything, Agil?" asked Kirito.
With a defeated sigh, the merchant shook his head and dismissed the menus before him.
"I'll have to look into this a bit more before I can say anything definite," he replied. "As a tentative answer to your question, though, there is a distinct chance that ≪Painbringer≫ follows the pattern of the ≪Faerie-Slayer≫ Attribute."
The explanation wasn't very enlightening, and Kirito had the distinct impression that he'd missed something that was common knowledge within the merchant circles. Probably, it was because he'd avoided any weapons with Attributes of the ≪-Slayer≫ category in the course of gearing himself for the front lines; a minimum damage modifier of +10% against monsters of a given race was too small an advantage to justify an average 10 point lag in stats versus other weapons of the same equipment level.
"What do you mean by 'pattern,' exactly?" he asked. "Was there something unique about the ≪Faerie-Slayer≫ Attribute?"
"'Unique' isn't really the word I would use," replied Agil. "It's kind of complicated to explain."
"Try me."
Supporting his elbows against the counter, Agil rubbed his goatee.
"I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but the ≪Faerie-Slayer≫ Attribute only started turning up in random drops around the clearing of the 25th Floor," he said. "That was the first time anyone saw the system introducing a completely new equipment Attribute based on floor advancement."
"So, this is like an event-triggered System Update?"
"More like the thing in those old console RPGs where they tutorial bits of the system as you progress in the plot," replied the tall man. "Not counting this new thing, though, all four of the Attributes so far introduced have a certain characteristic that they share."
"And what's that?"
"Say you're a swordsmith, and you're looking to forge a ≪Faerie-Slayer≫ weapon. Other than the necessary skills and equipment, what do you need?"
"Metal?"
"A type of metal to a given Attribute," said Agil. "≪Cold Iron≫, in this case. The one feature that all of these late-introduction Attributes share is that they occur 100% of the time if you successfully craft the appropriate equipment using their associated metal -- and 0% otherwise. There's a mild difficulty to obtaining the relevant ores, but not one of them truly qualifies as a rare item."
Agil didn't put it to words, but Kirito got the message: Somewhere out there, there could indeed be a means of obtaining ≪Painbringer≫ weapons without running a camp at ≪Black Iron Dungeon≫ -- and if this were the case, control of circulation might be all but impossible.
"Keep me posted if you find out anything new, would you?" he said.
The merchant nodded his assent, and satisfied that business was concluded, Kirito made to leave the premises. When he reached the exit, however, the tall man asked, "I don't mean to butt in on anything private, but, uh ... Are things going alright between you and the Missus? She didn't look so good when the two of you came in earlier."
Glancing over his shoulder as he pushed open the door, Kirito gave a forced smile.
"I'm working on it," he replied.
//
He found her beside a fountain in the nearby square, staring into the sky.
"If what happened back there really bothers you," he said, taking a seat beside her on the bench, "we could just leave ≪The Knights of the Blood Oath≫. Maybe we could form a new guild -- draw in some of the free agents?"
Asuna's gaze dropped to the cobblestone before her.
"I don't have that freedom, I think," she said. "I've been mulling over what Orthos was saying about morale at the end of the fight. As it is, ≪The Knights of the Blood Oath≫ are pretty much the backbone of the clearing party, and if I move against Staedtler in any way, I'd be introducing a divisive factor on the front lines. That isn't something we can really afford."
Leaning against the back of the bench, Kirito tilted his head back and watched the fall of the water.
"Personally," he said, "I don't think morale is worth supporting if it's being directed for purposes aside from clearing the game. That Staedtler guy isn't even a regular on the front lines. What was his previous job, anyways?"
"Director of General Affairs. He took care of the day-to-day business of the guild at Headquarters."
"In other words, he's essentially a pencil pusher, and you're the chief threat to his power base."
"Well, you can put it that way, I guess," said Asuna. Sighing, she leaned her head against his shoulder. "I'm really no good at any of this politicking stuff. There's a reason I had myself posted as a field commander."
'Politicking' was an overly nice way of putting it, Kirito felt; he could think of a number of other words for what Staedtler had been doing, but none of them were appropriate for polite company.
More importantly, they weren't what Asuna needed to hear.
"Agil gave me a tentative reply," he said.
Shifting slightly, Asuna looked to him with the sort of seriousness she usually reserved for combat.
"What did he say?"
2008 12th December // Tokyo, Japan
"You're being too much of a perfectionist, I think. I didn't even notice that the 'noise' was there until you pointed it out. It might be nothing."
"Hopefully that's the case," Kayaba permitted.
"Worst comes to worst, we'll just recalibrate the hardware on Monday, and it won't be there anymore. You'll see."
But Kayaba already knew that the irregularities wouldn't be going away so easily; recalibrating the headset was the second thing he'd tried. Still, the suggestion had been given in good faith, and he didn't want the evening to end on a sour note.
Instead, he said, "Sorry -- I think I might be losing reception soon, so I'll see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Rinko."
"G'night, Akihiko," she replied. "Love you."
Ending the call, he placed the phone into the inner pocket of his suit and descended the escalator. There was still a bit of time left until the last train, but aside the police officers he'd passed at the entrance, the subway station looked to be almost devoid of human life.
"Perfectionism, hm?" he asked himself, stepping out on to the deserted platform.
It was true that he'd been working longer hours since the initial batch of human tests had concluded, but the fact that the extra effort could have been interpreted as a pursuit of flawlessness was somewhat beyond his forecast. In its current, prototype design, FullDive was at best a large jumble of flaws that had been hammered into a very rough approximation of his intent -- severely limited by his general inexperience with the field of direct neural interfacing. In context, talk of perfection was distinctly lacking in meaning.
What he was hunting for was not a flaw.
Though the innovation achieved by his laboratory was unique, it wasn't terribly complicated in principle; the base concept had been anticipated by assorted science writers in the 1980's, but left unexplored due to the technological limitations of the time. In contrast to bionic eyes and other devices that acted only through the stimulation of the occipital lobe, the new FullDive headset interfaced additionally with the sectors of the brain involved in the production of spatial awareness -- permitting for the mind to directly comprehend or grasp virtual spaces in the manner of a real environment.
Purely in terms of psychometrics, the human volunteers performed better than expected on their assigned task -- piloting a 'camera' avatar via joystick through a building model the team had adapted from an FPS. Within a certain range from the avatar, however, there was inexplicably a slight, oscillating disturbance in the spatial data of the simulation, imperceptible to the volunteers themselves. The numerical attributes associated with particular coordinates were being modified by something unseen -- and if graphically represented in real-time, the occurrence of alteration would envelope the 'camera' in a moving cloud of constant Gaussian noise.
Nothing of the sort had appeared in trials where visual data was fed through an unworn headset to a monitor display. If Kayaba hadn't personally confirmed and reconfirmed that the system wasn't receiving any input from the headset at all, he might've been inclined to believe that the operation of the neural interface was itself producing the anomaly.
'Rinko, Sugou, and the others are just dismissing it out of hand, as if it were some inconsequential error,' thought Kayaba, watching the 11:40 Express pull into the station. 'Given how seriously they're committed to the project, their lack of concern about this doesn't make any sense.'
With an automated announcement, the doors simultaneously opened along the platform, and Kayaba boarded a carriage occupied by only one other passenger. Noting the high heat as he seated himself across from the man, he unraveled his scarf from about his neck.
"It's because they haven't deviated so far from the sense of the common man. The Counter Force doesn't like to be noticed, after all."
The doors closed. It took Kayaba a moment to recognize that the words had been directed at him; and another to grasp that he'd apparently been functioning on autopilot. Somehow, his mind had filled in the appearance of the passenger across from him with the features of a rather nondescript elderly gentleman. His eyes saw differently.
The gaunt, bespectacled 'gentleman' was dressed in clothes of visible quality -- a trench coat, suit, and waistcoat ensemble that probably cost more than a year's worth of Kayaba's tuition. Parts left exposed by the clothing, however, were heavily bandaged, and Kayaba could make out what looked to be third degree burns on the skin at the edges of the man's eyes and mouth. Closer to Halloween, and it would've invoked the image of a well-dressed Egyptian mummy.
"I'm sorry?" asked Kayaba.
"Let me rephrase that. Statistically, you're an extreme outlier -- and I don't mean this in a congratulatory sense. The reaction that your girlfriend and colleagues exhibited would in fact be the normal one."
Paranoia had begun to surface within Kayaba's mind -- but curiosity quickly won the battle against reason, and he didn't immediately make to depart. Whoever the man was, it was clear that he'd been watching the lab -- possibly for months.
"I have indeed been conducting surveillance," said the man, "but probably not by any means that you're imagining. And no, I can't actually tell what you're thinking."
"A cold reading, then," said Kayaba. "Like a stage magician."
The man didn't smile or laugh, but something about the turn of his lips gave Kayaba the impression that he found the comparison humorous.
"You know something about the phenomenon that I've encountered," Kayaba observed. "It's your doing, I suppose?"
"No," the man replied, shaking his head. "And if you don't believe me, you can go back and shield your system until you're absolutely satisfied that nothing can get in. Won't make a difference."
"Then what is it? Why is this happening?"
The bandaged man crossed his legs.
"It's the consequence of an observer effect. The illusion that the laws of men are absolute and non-arbitrary must be preserved at all costs -- and so our minds have evolved to colonize and establish jurisdiction over any novel space we happen to encounter."
This, Kayaba felt, was clearly a joke.
"For something along the lines of quantum decoherence to occur," he said, "there has to be actual interaction between the observer and the object of observation. Our headsets don't talk to the system, so that isn't possible -- unless you're invoking mind-over-machine, like out of bad science fiction."
"Not mind-over-machine," the man calmly replied. "Mind-over-reality."
"What?"
Rather than answering, the man raised his left arm before him and pulled back his sleeve. Unraveling his bandages, he bared the heavily burned flesh of his limb.
"What are you doing?" asked Kayaba, fidgeting slightly.
"Giving you a practical demonstration," said the man, flexing his flame-scarred fingers. "In case you can't tell, this is my actual arm -- not a prop."
Kayaba tensed as the man fished a butterfly knife from his coat pocket and flicked it open. No attack came, however; remaining seated, the burned man plunged the knife into his palm and pulled it back along his wrist and forearm, grimacing in obvious pain. Actual fear was an emotion largely alien to Kayaba, but as the man held up the fresh, bleeding wound for him examine, he felt rather unsettled.
"I can see you attempting to rationalize this away," said the man, bending forward so that he wouldn't bleed over his clothes. "But you should always wait for a magician to complete his act before dissecting it. Hold my knife for me."
Flicking clean the blade, he stored it and tossed it at Kayaba, who snatched it from the air with a frown. The burned man extended his wounded arm.
"Time Alter," he uttered. "Cicatrisation Accel."
Before Kayaba's eyes, the wound began to close. A matter of seconds later, only a faint mark amidst the burned, bloodstained skin indicated that an injury had ever existed.
"Release Alter."
Pulling a handkerchief out of the pocket he'd taken the knife from, the burned man wiped away the blood and looked up, once again meeting Kayaba's eyes.
"Obviously, what I've demonstrated isn't the anomaly that that plagues your experiments -- even by way of comparison," he said, "but mind-over-reality does exist. It's the very foundation of the world that man has wrought."
There was no lie; no sleight of hand or deception that Kayaba could detect. And yet, nothing within his education so far could justify what he had witnessed.
"Who are you?" he asked. "What is it that you want with me?"
For the first time since the conversation had begun, the man grinned.
"My name," he replied, "is Emiya Noritaka, and I'm looking to hire another assistant for my laboratory. Would you be interested?"
[end segment]
As the backstory is mostly laid out now, the next segment will be more substantially focused on Asuna and Kirito.
Last edited by fallacies; December 9th, 2012 at 08:31 PM.
Very interesting. Are Mind of Steel and Noritaka in a collision course?
... Damn, MoS!Shirou is a cold hearted SOB, isn't he?
Underneath the Stars
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Ohh, the collateral damage will be glorious.
@ lethum: At this point, Shirou isn't aware of Noritaka yet -- just Kayaba. But yes, they are on something of a collision course. Before they encounter each other, however, it's far more likely that Shirou will run across Kirito.
[ glossary ]
Age of Divinities (thaumaturgical terminology): A period that concluded roughly 2000 years ago, with the emergence of the primacy of Alaya. Since then, it is said that humans have undergone a gradual decline in physical and thaumaturgical capabilities.
Aincrad, the Floating Castle of (SAO): The setting of Sword Art Online; a floating castle comprised of 100 floors. The name "Aincrad" is actually an acronym for "An INCarnating RADius."
Alaya (SAO): The Goddess of Paths, who grants patronage and divine protection to travelers and adventurers. Her power lies in opposition to that of the being known as the King in Crimson, the Tyrant of the Floating Castle of Aincrad.
Alaya Frontier (thaumaturgical terminology): A boundary to the domain of Alaya, where the reality of men comes to a conclusion; an 'end' of the world. The appearance of an Alaya Frontier may indicate the presence of a deployed Reality Marble or the entrance of an alien world.
Arimago Island: An island in Oceania, within the South Pacific. Presently deserted, due to a disease outbreak that occurred in 1968.
Assertion of Jurisdiction (magecraft): A procedure used in spiritual surgery to bypass or subjugate thaumaturgical resistance, generally possible only by consent of the subject. When jurisdiction is established, the user is granted capacity to execute magecraft within the domain of the subject's soul without significant interference from the Counter Force.
Black Iron Dungeon (SAO): A dungeon in Sword Art Online, originally accessible only from Black Iron Castle, on the 1st Floor of the Floating Castle of Aincrad. New portions of the dungeon appear to be unlocked through floor advancement. Currently, this is the only known location where weapons bearing the Painbringer attribute may be obtained. The true form of the dungeon has not yet been revealed ...
Cicatrisation (biology): The process by which a wound heals.
Digital Focusing System (SAO): A feature of the graphical interface of Sword Art Online. Objects within a certain radius of a user's POV are rendered in significantly higher detail than the rest of the environment. As a consequence, the user experiences the illusion that the game doesn't low-quality models.
Gaussian Noise (mathematics): Statistical noise with a probability density function equal to the normal distribution.
Incarnation Radius: A phenomenon discovered by Kayaba Akihiko in his research into FullDive technology; a spherical region of virtual space upon which the spatial grasp of the human mind appears to exert influence.
Incarnation System (Brain Burst): As of 2046, a hidden system within the underground VR game known as Brain Burst. Permits the psyche of the user to influence virtual environments to a limited degree.
Innate Temporal Manipulation (magecraft): Limited capacity to manipulate passage of time within the jurisdiction of one's spirit. However, if the flesh is dictated to behave in a manner alien to the temporal flow recognized by Gaia, structural damage may occur. The specialization of the presently extinct Emiya Crest.
Isaba Island: An uncharted island in the Caribbeans, said to be used as a hub by the local human traffickers. Its actual location is unknown.
The King in Crimson (SAO): The Tyrant of the Crimson Moon, who rules the Floating Castle of Aincrad from atop the Castle of Scarlet Jade. Seeking to restore humanity to past glory, he has by a forbidden magic unleashed upon his own people the great monsters of yore.
Level Cap (SAO): Players in SAO cannot advance beyond Level 100. This limitation does not apply to NPCs or Hostile Mobiles.
Magus Killer: A mercenary and assassin with thaumaturgical capabilities, active since the late 1970's. Due to chronological discrepancies in modus operandi and weapons of preference -- as well as a decade of inactivity between 1997 and 2007 -- it is thought that the present holder of the epithet may be distinct from the original; a copycat.
Mind-Over-Machine (science fiction): The capacity of a human to modulate the performance or function of a mechanical entity, as a variant of telekinesis. Generally 'simplified' for easy consumption by audiences, as it assumes the traits of generic telekinesis, ignoring topographical differences between the actual matter of control (e.g. data stored within a hard drive) and the visual representation of such.
Painbringer (SAO): A weapons attribute that permits the infliction of the "Limiter-Break" status upon player characters, wherein realistic pain is experienced with injury. "Weapons immersed in the power of the Crimson King, capable of bypassing the protection of the Goddess Alaya."
Phantasmal Lands (thaumaturgical terminology): Soft places, which have grown distant from the rest of the World; locations beyond the dictates of Alaya, where the laws of men have no hold. Inhabited by phantasmal lifeforms and the Transcendent Kind.
Presence Regulation (magecraft): An Oriental technique, whereby the spiritual gradient of the soul and its boundary are harmonized with ambient mana gradient of the environment.
Psychometrics (biology): The study or documentation of neural and mental capabilities; the matter of psychological measurement. In recent years, the field has become increasingly interrelated with neuroscience.
Taboo: Straying away from normality; placement as a statistical outlier, with relevance to the common sense of humanity.
Thanatosis (biology): A state of feigned death, utilized by certain species to deceive potential predators.
The Truth of the World (SAO): A flame-wreathed longsword, said to be the strongest system-generated weapon in Sword Art Online. "The Sword of the Crimson King."
Unique Skill (SAO): A skill that permits a unique utilization of an existing weapon class, and use of sword skills inaccessible to other players. Granted only to the first 9 players that exceed certain psychometric parameters. Known Unique Skills: Dual Blades (Kirito), Boomerang (???).
Last edited by fallacies; December 10th, 2012 at 03:42 AM.
While this is definitely interesting (and one of the only SAO fics I'd even touch), Fall, I don't see this ending well in any way for the SAO cast. Their setting was, to my mind, more light-hearted in spite of the death game element, and I don't see them being able to deal with the brutality of the full-blown Nasuverse. Too naive, IMO.
Did I miss something, or is Kayaba's characterisation different from how he is in SAO? His words in the first section give a different feel.
In SAO, he made a decision to kill Kirito, possibly as a sign of "respect," or to set an example. Here, he decides that Kirito's reliance on Sword Skills made him unworthy -- or not yet "mature" enough to be made an example of. (i.e. "Level up some more, kid. Fighting you right now doesn't even qualify as 'fun.'")
Reply With Quote
