The Night Sky Swordsman (Sword Art Online X OC)

Chapter 89 The Hero's Awakening

The price the syndicate offered to complete this near-impossible mission was astonishing. Vassago thought it unlikely that he would actually get it, even if he succeeded, but he didn't have the right to refuse either way.

Nearly all the unused NerveGears had been confiscated by police, but somehow, the syndicate acquired one. As long as he had the SAO software and the will to go in there, neither the police nor the software company could prevent him from logging in. The only real question after that was his character name. Vassago had never played a video game, and he wasn't sure what to go with at first. Deciding to keep it in-line with the name of the prince of hell his mother had given him, Vassago chose the handle PoH.

Vassago's first experience with virtual reality altered his personality—it set him free. He saw his long-forgotten father and distant relatives in the other Japanese players and was keenly reminded of just how much he loathed all Asian people.

He would kill his target, since that was his job. And along the way, he'd kill as many other people as he could.

It was with this thought in mind that Vassago founded the biggest guild of murderers in SAO, Laughing Coffin, and took many, many lives in total, not just that of his original target. When the guild got too big and he grew tired of running it, he had it clash headlong with the game's elite players to wipe it out so he could engage directly in the job of killing those he'd identified as the greatest targets of all: The Flash, The Treasure Hunter, The Black Swordsman and The Night Sky Swordsman. Not long after that, the game was beaten, releasing them all.

When he returned to the real world from the game of death, Vassago felt not joy but emptiness and disappointment. He knew that he would never again experience the dream come true that was Aincrad, so he chose to return to America in search of a similar experience. He murdered the boss, who was reluctant to pay what he'd promised, made off with the money, and crossed the Pacific. Over in San Diego, he found a place in the cyber-operations wing of a private military contractor.

In VR combat training against the National Guard and the Marine Corps, Vassago's SAO-honed skills shone brilliantly. He was promptly chosen to be an instructor, but the stable life and income that came along with it did not satisfy him.

PoH(mind): One more time. I want to go back there, just one more time. Back to that false world of truth, where everything is digital, bringing true human nature to the surface.

For all his wishing, Vassago finally found himself in the Underworld, a terrifyingly real virtual world, where he came across The Flash, The Treasure Hunter and the Night Sky Swordsman again. It wasn't a miracle; it had to be considered fate at this point.

For some reason, the Night Sky Swordsman had undergone some kind of change in mental state, but Vassago knew that if he killed enough people around him, he'd wake up again. It was exactly because the Night Sky Swordsman was that kind of man that Vassago was drawn to him in the first place. It was such a singular desire that Vassago would be happy to kill himself once he'd killed the swordsman.

First, he'd lure the Chinese and Koreans in with false information, then have them slaughter one another en masse. He'd never expected that impromptu story to hold up under scrutiny for very long anyway. More than a few of them were skeptical of the situation already and were arguing with the more fervently patriotic members of the crowd. Once that tension reached its peak, all he needed to provide was a little spark.

Not far away, the Korean he'd given a good punishing was still stubbornly trying to argue with his compatriots. If he shouted to them to cut that man's head off and slaughter all the cowards, the patriots would surely be driven into a bloodlust and draw their swords.