Sword Art Online (an SAO Fan-Fiction) *EDITED*

Chapter 14 (GGO)

The masked man, Death Gun, left us. 

Kirito and I backed slowly into the nearby booth. My friend was shivering uncontrollably. Death Gun was the same as them, a survivor of SAO. Kirito practically wilted against the seats, forcing me to shore him up with my shoulder. "Did you recognize him?" I asked, using a gentle tone. Kirito mumbled something. I caught a few words, something about a raid on Laughing coffin near the tail end of SAO. I remembered that. Tomoyo hadn't allowed Falis or I to join in, which has been fine with me, but Tomoyo had gone, along with four other guild members. 

When he'd come back with a hollow look in this eyes, he'd recounted the story. I remembered my failed attempts at comfort, and his pained voice. 

The guilds had planned a frontal assault on the stronghold of Laughing Coffin, the most notorious and cruel Player Kill guild in all of Aincrad. However, the plan had leaked and the guild warriors were ambushed by the Laughing Coffin. 

"So many of our people died," Tomoyo had said. "Because we didn't want to kill them. They had no such reservations." 

I'd feared asking the question, "how many did you kill?" but it had come out anyway. "Two. Two people." he'd replied. He'd laced his fingers together and leaned his forehead on them, completely ignoring the tea. That had been before we'd started dating, but I'd gone over to hug him anyway.

Kirito's violent shivers brought me back to reality. His eyes were wide, and his face was an unhealthy mix of white and green, like he was trying to decide between being sick or going into shock. I wiped off his face with my sleeve, and held onto his shoulder the way a mother does when she doesn't want her child to fall over. 

The gesture surprised me, though Kirito showed no response, because of how close I felt to him now. Before all this, it was like they were merely friends because they knew the same people, and during the beta test, he had been a rival. Now, he felt almost like a brother. 

Sinon came over, victorious from her match. She stopped when she saw us, huddled up on the bench. "What's wrong with you two?" She asked cautiously. "You look like you saw a ghost." 

"I suppose you could call it that," I murmured. "A ghost. Or rather, someone we never thought we'd see again." 

Sinon frowned "Did you think he was dead? Or missing?" At that, I raised my head. "We thought that he'd been imprisoned for his crimes," I explained. "Maybe even executed." 

Kirito, calming down a smidgen, gave a sharp nod-like jerk of his head. Sinon took a seat "his crimes?" She inquired. I hesitated, then steeled my will. "Murder," I spat. "Not one or twice, either. Multiple counts of murder." 

Sinon suppressed a shiver. She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by the sound of the alarm signifying the start of the next round.

Sinon stood, waiting as I coaxed my dazed friend to his feet. I could feel a burning in my chest, the fiery determination of someone who had looked death in the face, a feeling I could tell Sinon was very familiar with.

We all went off to our separate matches, a mixture of fear, dread, and anxiety visible in our strides.

.....

I wasn't sure how long I'd been fighting for, but it felt like hours. 

Finally, I stepped into my final match. 

I remembered seeing my opponent before, walking in and out of matches. He was a gangly blonde haired man named Aifreed, who wielded a small but painful military style barreta pistol. He, I remembered, was wearing camo armor, which was a serious advantage given we were fighting in a dense forest biome.

I ran through the trees, a constant itch between my shoulder blades were I was expecting a bullet. Finding a section of thick underbrush, I crouched down and became as quiet as possible.

I stayed that way for several long minutes, watching and waiting. 

I heard a crunch behind me, and I immediately went completely still, holding my breath. After another minute, when my back was burning from remaining hunched over for so long, an involuntary tremor ran down my spine. 

The footsteps stopped, and came closer. 

Silence. 

Then a weight ramming into her back. I tumbled out into the open, my vision wheeling between ground and tree canopy, and for an absurd moment I thought that I had tripped down a hill, like I'd done so many times as a child. But no.

My head slammed into the ground and I heard my gun clattered across the ground, landing just out of reach. A man's face, handsome but smug, with dark green eyes. His face was so close to hers that his overlong hair brushed against her skin, which crawled with revulsion. "I win" said Aifreed, his free hand pressing the gun to her head.
A wicked gleam rose in his eyes, and she remembered. 

That same gleam had been in that vile Oberon's eyes too. 

He'd done something similar to this, during those long days in the cage. She had been pinned down panicked and fearing death. She remembered curling against the floor, too frightened to watch the sword fall. The two men's faces merged in her mind, she couldn't distinguish whether she was in the forest with Aifreed or the giant tree with Oberon. 

My weapon. 

My fingers scrabbled in the dirt and leaves, hunting for my gun. . . Or was it my ax? I felt my heart race as Aifreed's finger curled around the trigger, savoring the moment of triumph. His legs, which were straddling me, prevented me from kicking at him, and his free arm was holding onto my left wrist, leaving only my gun hand frantically searching among the forest floor. 

My fingers closed around a rough, thick branch. With a yell, I brought it up, smacking Aifreed in the head. He cried out, instinctively pulling away. I took his moment of pause to lunge to the side in a desperate attempt at my gun. 

My fingers brushed against the cold metal, and I had barely managed to wrap my hand around it when my opponent was pulling me back.

His expression was angry, his hair disheveled, he lowered the gun to my head again, the barrel cold between her eyebrows. His face lowered to mine, his breath fanning across my face. He looked like he was done playing around. I pulled my arm up for a second time, slamming him in the side with the heavy assault rifle. He slipped off of me and I quickly scrambled away,  bringing the gun up and in front of me. Aifreed pointed his pistol. I pulled the trigger, an involuntary cry bursting from my lips.

Aifreed collapsed and shattered.

Before I could blink, I was back in the transporter. 

Curling in on myself, I modulated my strangled breathing into a calmer, evener tempo, forcing back the ragged sobs. I wondered then, if I would ever truly get over SAO and, more importantly, Oberon's cruelty. I'd fallen apart the second set found myself facing something that reminded me of his assault. It had been worse, much worse, in the beginning: panic attacks in the middle of the night, horrible dreams that sapped at her sanity. I thought that I'd gotten better. Apparently not. 

Picking myself up, I walked out the door, determined to take this one secret, this one weakness, to the grave.