A Whole Different Game

The Beginning

"Hide!" Kankei yelled out while he ran away from a wild boar. Hide laughed as his friend ran for his life. How could he not defeat a low level boar?

"Come on Kaneki! You can do it!" Hide cheered between bursts of giggles. Sure this was a virtual game, but Kaneki still didn't want to get hurt.

"Hide!" Kankei yelled once again. He was already regretting letting Hide convince him to play this new game with him. He could be working at Anteiku or training with Touka. But he had promised Hide last week that he would spend more time with him, but he never meant it this way.

"Alright, alright." Hide smiled at his friend before going over to help him. With one skillful strike of his blade, he managed to take down the wild boar. Kaneki finally came to a stop and fell to the ground, wheezing and panting. "Dude, you alright?" Hide asked as he crouched down to Kaneki's eye level. The dark haired boy glared up at his friend the best he could, earning a laugh from the blonde. "Come on." Hide encouraged with a hand stuck out to help Kaneki up. After Kaneki was up, the two suddenly heard a noise to their right. The two curiously looked over to see two other guys messing around with their logs. Curious Kaneki and Hide walked over to them.

"Hey!" Hide waved over at them. This caught the two's attention as they looked up. One had red hair and the other had longish black hair. "What are you guys doin?"

"Well, we're trying to find the logout button since I've got to go pay for my pizza soon, but we can't find it." The red haired man answered with a worried expression.

"Really?" Kaneki asked as he too opened his logs and started to search for the logout button. His eyes widened in shock when he couldn't find it. "Uh... Hide..." Kaneki pointed toward the spot to where the logout button should have been, only for it to not be there. The four of them looked at one another before being surrounded by fragments of light. When they could see again, they had been teleported back at the starting town with every single player.

Suddenly errors covered the sky and blood started to drip from between the lines and form someone in a dark red cloak. He introduced himself as the creator of Sword Art Online and why no one could find their log out button. Dread filled Kaneki as one thought popped into his head.

'This is going to be a long day...'