"Hey punk! Are you even listening to me!?"
I had just finished going through an extremely exhausting swords class with the Ares cabin. It wasn't that the class was difficult or anything. Despite their being sons and daughters of a war god, I thrashed all of them easily. The thing that made it exhausting was the fact that I had to fight their camp counciler Clarise a total of 57 times.
Every time I beat her, she would demand a rematch. I didn't use Elucidator. I considered it a little unfair, since Elucidator had become a weapon comparable to that of a god's power (even though it still had certain restraints placed on it). I instead, used one of the weapons provided in the weapon's shed. Despite the difference in weight and durability for each blade, I had no trouble adapting to the swords I tried.
The thing was, I had used plenty of different swords in SAO that all had different attributes, weights, lengths, and fighting methods. So I wasn't a stranger to getting using a different weapon, as long as it was a sword.
"Come on punk!" shouted Clarise. "One more time!! This time I'll pulverize ya!"
I sighed. "Seriously Clarise, I'm tired already..... class is over, the next group is coming in soon."
Clarise raised her sword stubbornly. "One more then punk. Unless you're scared."
I shrugged and walked off. "Sure...you got me, I am so totally scared."
"Aw come on!" said Clarise. "You're just saying that!!"
Clarise's cabinmates who were sitting nearby, looked at each other and smirked. Supposedly the only one who ever beat Clarise in a sword fight was Percy Jackson. This was proving to be a rather sore point for their councillor.
"Clarise, no offense, but this is just way too exhausting." I said. "We've spent so much time sparring, that none of the others got a turn."
Suddenly, Asuna walked into the training area followed by Hazel, both of them had bought their weapons, so they must have been with the next group that was coming in.
"Perfect!" said Clarise. "How about if you don't challenge me, I'll fight your girlfriend instead."
I raised an eyebrow. "You sure you wanna go down that road?"
Clarisse folded her arms confidentally. "Yep! So now will you-?"
"Hey Asuna!" I said. "This one wants to spar with you!"
"Huh?" said Clarisse. This obviously wasn't the response she was expecting.
Asuna walked over with a radiant smile. "Wow, my first sword match here.....I guess I'm fighting Clarisse right?"
I nodded grinning. Even though Asuna had been at this camp longer then I had, she hadn't participated much in any of the camp activities until I had come here. So nobody knew what kind of fighter she was.
Asuna drew her white sword Morning Rose and readied herself.
Clarisse, looking a little taken aback, readied herself as well.
Clarisse shifted like she was about to attack. All of a sudden, there was a blur of lighting quick movement and Clarisse's sword flew into the air and clanged onto the floor nearby. Asuna had the point of her sword at Clarise's throat with a determined look on her face. Her face quickly turned cheerful as she sheathed Morning Rose to the sheath at her side.
"Your reaction time was a little slow..." said Asuna. "But with that kind of stance, I can tell you're pretty skilled, you want to have a rematch?"
Clarisse stuttered. "U-uh, no thanks, g-great technique though."
The other campers nodded with open jaws. They obviously had not seen anyone but Percy or Annabeth move that quick.
Hazel chuckled. "So that's why they called her The Lightning Flash huh?"
"Yep."I said. "Though back on ALO, they called her the Healer Beserker."
Asuna went red. "Kirito, you know that name is just......you know."
I shrugged again. "You definitely are the most combative Healer class I've ever seen in Alfheim."
Clarrise just kept staring, like she had never seen anything quite like Asuna before. "Hey......kid, you have got to join our team for Capture the Flag later."
"Sorry!" said Asuna. "But me and Kirito already agreed to team up with the Athena cabin!"
The rest of the Ares kids mumbled among each other. Some of the words I heard in there were words like, "Aw, come on." and. "No fair, they've already got Percy."
"Hey Kirito." Hazel whispered into my ear. "We need to talk....."
I looked at Hazel feeling curious. "Something up?"
Hazel nodded. "Something big........really, really big."
Me and Hazel walked out of the training area.
"Kirito, they found Aincrad."
"They what?!" I exclaimed.
"Shhh.." shushed Hazel. "Chiron doesn't want anyone knowing until after Capture the Flag tonight, not until we know more."
"What's there to know?" I said. "We need to get there now!"
"The problem is that....well....it just seems too suspicious."
"Really? What's it doing?"
"That's the point!" said Hazel. "It's not doing anything! It's just sitting there over Tokyo doing absolutely nothing!"
"Wait, Tokyo!? I thought it was heading towards Greece, if it went to Japan, then it just overshot it's destination by an entire continent."
"Chiron's pretty confused about it too." said Hazel. "Supposedly the gods back on Olympus are going into a frenzy about it. Not only has Aincrad overshot it's destination, it's not doing anything about it, like Kronos has just lost his marbles."
"Maybe it's got something to do with him having a video game world for a body." I said. "Maybe it's affecting him somehow."
"Chiron said that's pretty slim." said Hazel. "Supposedly Kronos is up to something, but no one knows what, it's driving everyone nuts. And that's not even the weirdest thing, supposedly there are mortals down there who can actually see it, like how you and Asuna can somehow see through the Mist...it was on the Tokyo News I think."
I shook my head. "This is seriously wacked out. Does anyone else know besides Chiron and us?"
"Just Annabeth, Percy, and Piper." said Hazel. "Reyna and Leo back at Camp Jupiter know too, so does Octavian."
"So Octavian knows huh?" I said gritting my teeth a little. I barely knew Octavian, but from what Hazel had told me about the guy, he was a dangerous person to be handing certain information.
"Just don't tell anyone else yet." said Hazel. "Chiron doesn't want anything getting out of hand."
"Sure." I said. Suddenly something jumped into my head. It was just a small thought, it didn't even seem like a probable possibility.
"Say Hazel," I said. "Can I borrow your phone?"
Phones weren't usually allowed at Camp Halfblood or Camp Jupiter, due to the fact that monsters could track cellphone signals ( the exception being Yokai). Only the senior members in camp had them. That included Annabeth and some of the other counselors.
Hazel only had one just in case of an emergency happened on the recent Quest they had been a part of.
Hazel handed me the phone. "Umm...care to tell me why you need it?"
I dialed on the phone quickly. "Just need to confirm something."
Last week I had called my family back in Tokyo to tell them I was alright. I was pretty sure after dissapearing for who knows how long, (according to Asuna it had been around 2 months), that my mom and sister would be frantic with worry (in reality they were my cousin and aunt, My parents arent exactly around anymore) . Of course I didn't tell them that I had been training with wolves and then gone off on an epic quest where I sliced apart a bunch of Greek monsters and Yokai. Instead, I told them that I had been kidnapped, and through some miracle I had escaped to a nice summer camp where Asuna found me.
Chiron had helped verify the story by actually calling my family himself and flying overseas to talk to them. As a result, I had been allowed to stay at the camp and get my head together, as long as I called back every night.
I held the phone to my ear and heard the background ring. Finally someone picked up.
"Hellooooo?" said a girl's voice in Japanese. "Who is it?"
I answered back in Japanese. "Sughu it's me!"
"Oneechan!!!" shouted Sughu. "You're early!!"
"So are you." I said. "Isn't Kendo class still on?"
"You're messing up your time zones again Oneechan." said Sughu. "So how are you?"
"I'm great, I actually need to ask you something."
"Ask away!"
"You didn't happen to see anything strange going on?" I asked. "Like....erm, I don't know. Something VR related?"
"Well now that you mention it." said Sughu. "Me and Lizbeth were logged on to ALO last night, and aome weirdo in a tuxedo tried to steal all our items-"
"Nothing then..." I muttered. "Okay.."
"Well actually." said Sughu. "Well....I didn't tell anyone cause I thought people might think I was going crazy.........."
"Yeah?"
"But......I.....um........" Sughu paused.
"Sughu...you didn't happen to see Aincrad castle hovering in the sky did you?"
I could hear Sughu's breath nearly stop at my words. "H-how did you know that?"
"Sughu..I promise I'll explain everything later, but I need you to tell mom something."
"Y-yeah Oneechan?"
"Tell her I'll be coming home really soon, and I might be bringing some friends, okay?"
No response.
"Sughu? You're not nodding your head are you? Because I can't see you."
"Oh, right! I'll tell her."
I said goodbye to Sughu and hung up the phone.
"So," said Hazel. "Going to Japan are we?"
I nodded. "Guess we can finally get Darren to watch some anime."