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Chapter Text

Haze Online

A Sword Art Online/Harry Potter Crossover

By Sif Shadowheart

Prologue: Paved with Good Intentions

November 6, 2022; Town of Beginning, 1^st Floor, Aincrad, Sword Art Online VRMMORPG; 2200 In-Game

“Fuck me sideways.”  Harry muttered, scowling with livid-fire green eyes up at the monologuing talking cloak creator of the new game he’d been talked into trying called Sword Art Online by his best-friend, Ron insisting that as he and his brothers, with help and inspiration from Hermione and a bit of financial help from his dogfathers, had gotten the NerveGear for him for his birthday, that he had to at least try it out before passing it off to George or another friend, complete with somehow, he was thinking throwing his name around with his Gringotts investment contacts, a pre-order of the game Sword Art Online which at that point wasn’t even in beta-testing yet.  “Ron, what did you get me into…”

July 31, 2022; Grimmauld Place, London

Harry stared unblinking down at the gunmetal grey helmet with wires sprouting off of it as his friends and godfathers watched with bated breath, before giving in.

“Um…”  He looked up at Hermione, knowing that anything that tech-related was likely her doing, what with wizarding purebloods like Ron and George still struggling with the idea of a television with an Atari attached, let alone anything this advanced.  Honestly, if it wasn’t for her helping him figure out the right wards for his new “game-room” that he’d added in a fit of desperation-laced remodeling after the battle as part of his St. Mungo’s-mandated therapy, Sirius right beside him with sledge in hand, he would still probably be right there with them only with IPhones being the pinnacle of his tech-knowledge.  “What is it?”

“It’s a VR helmet, Harry.”  Hermione explained with an amused quirk of her lips.  “Called NerveGear, and a pre-order of that company’s first virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game they’re calling Sword Art Online.”  The more she spoke, the more Harry got the feeling that he’d gotten this gift so she could come over when Ron was training with Mad-Eye for future Aurorship and she was off from her own mad study schedule to play with it, all three of them given a gap-year to recover from the battle along with Neville, Luna, and Ginny as some were a bit more damaged than others.  “It starts beta-testing soon and is set to release officially the first week of November.”

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I played even a regular MMORPG, Hermione?”  Harry asked drily.  “And even that was older games like the original GuildWars, nothing like what you’re talking about with…this.”  He held up the helmet with it’s green eye-shield-screen-thing for emphasis.

“We all think it’s a good idea for you to at least try it out, mate.”  Ron jumped in when Hermione sat back with a huff.  “You can’t just hang out here with Sirius and Remus all day watching the telly and reading dusty old books from the Black Library.”

“Hey!”  Harry protested.  “I go out.”

Sort of.

“Running miles on a treadmill at the dingy gym two blocks over before stopping for curry doesn’t count, Harry.  And neither does meeting with your investment manager at Gringotts.”  Hermione shot that down without mercy.  “When was the last time you spoke to someone besides us?”  She held up a hand when he opened his mouth.  “No, the rest of the Weasleys and Hedwig do not count for the purposes of this question.”

Harry traded an amused-but-resigned glance with her boyfriend.

“Can you tell she’s going into law, mate?”

“Yep.”  Ron told him cheerfully, popping another cupcake courtesy of his mum into his mouth and chewing noisily.  “That’s why it’d be barmy to argue with her on this one.”

And that was that.

November 6, 2022; 0500; Grimmauld Place, London

'That being that' didn’t make him any more excited to try the game – one that required actual participation from him rather than just a few clicks of a mouse, and he hadn’t even started playing yet since the game didn’t “open” until 1300 on the sixth in Tokyo, despite him doing a few “full-dive” immersions in the slim-pickings of NerveGear VR games – when the countdown had begun.

Nonetheless – to stave off badgering if naught else – Harry spent the prior day setting up his SAO profile with minimum effort: male, just-got-laid black hair, emerald green eyes, golden-tan skin, five-eight, same build.  Basically, him without the scars covering a good chunk of his body.  There were more than a few clothing options, but again, he went simple: white t-shirt, blue zip-up hoody, tan cargo trousers with lots of room for odds-and-ends, sturdy brown belt, boots, gloves, and pack, plus plain “standard” pants and socks, and he wished he was done.

Not even close.

Beyond that was choosing a name, which came off the record playing low in the background “Haze” which also doubled as a nickname for Harry…at least in England.

That way he might only be one of a dozen Hazes running around instead of a hundred Harrys if the others were having his same problems of effort versus originality – he rather doubted it.

Unsurprising for a game called “Sword Art Online” he was allowed to choose from a couple of basic swords to start out with – “Um, curved, I guess?” – and equip his first two skills, all of this completed after having to do a half-dozen “calibration” exercises to get him used to wearing the VR headset.

At least the skills were easy enough: choosing a curved sword gave him a sword attack called “Reaver” that came automatically under the Curved Sword Skill, though the rest of the attacks under that skill would have to be unlocked.  Each type of weapon came with their accompanying Skill that had to be selected, and then a catalog of attacks that a player could either Learn from another mentoring player, purchasing them from a Trainer NPC, or by Leveling and/or completing specific quests.  Then using the attacks was a case of taking up the correct stance or charging them if they had some kind of specific lead-in that had to be accomplished.  Starting out there were only a couple other basic skills to choose from without “unlocking” them according to the gamer’s guide that came with the purchase.

And Harry being Harry, with his ability to find trouble or have trouble find him, he was going to have that handy Searching skill on all the time so at least he’d get a bit of warning about the monsters headed his way.

Then the time came, Harry laid back on his bed, and gave the command.

“Link Start.”

Town of Beginnings, Aincrad, SA0; 0005 Game-Time

Alright, Harry had to admit, the creators of this game had made it beyond beautiful with colors so vivid and different than he was used to that he was reminded – sharply – of the first time he set foot in Diagon Alley with Hagrid waving him on: distinctly alive.

Which he enjoyed the irony of given that everything at the moment was all in his head.

Or in a server…or something.

Regardless, he decided as he moved through the bustling town of NPCs and players who were either forming up groups based on outside real-life friendships or just in shared excitement, it was a whole new world of possibilities, one he found himself excited – if despite himself – to explore without the worry or danger of imminent death.

During set-up he'd chosen a better-quality belt and boots over an extra item like a dagger or a shield, so Harry made for the merchant NPCs he located on his map, quirking a bit of a grin when he found that he’d gained plus-twelve experience for using his “Searching” skill to see what was available in-game.

And if he stuck to his ground-in habits of being a spend-thrift by snagging some fruit from one of the trees to tuck away for later that he knew was “edible” for his avatar from the game guide that was no one’s business but his…and the other players who saw him do it and promptly mimicked him.

Smart kids.

Not that he knew they were kids…but he was having a bit of a problem separating his own beliefs about who played these kinds of games from the reality of not being able to tell thanks to the avatars being able to be fashioned near any age, look, or gender a player wanted.

Still, as minutes clicked by, the town began to fill with more and more players, and Harry had zero intention of being stuck with the pre-release estimate of ten-thousand gawking, talking, people – VR or not – when there was a whole world to explore.

And with that firmly in mind, Harry set out onto the plains surrounding the town, breaking easily into a soft lope with his curved sword – a scimitar, he thought – only bouncing a bit from where it was sheathed at his hip.  At least he was an adult and didn’t have to worry about his weaponry being too big to manage.  He’d spotted more than one avatar in town before he set off that would barely hit his sternum.  Why they’d made themselves that small he had no earthly idea.  Unless it came down to him basically being lazy and making himself, himself, only with the tyke-sized players sticking to their own dimensions.

If that was the case, at least it wouldn’t be hard to pick out the kids who due to age or preference had the Moral Conduct mod turned on.

Harry himself liked being able to swear, thank-you-very-fucking-much, even if he wasn’t all that interested in the Relationship, Sex, or Marriage aspects of the game he'd read about on the forums at Hermione's insistence that he at least do a little research rather than jump in head-first and end up wandering around like a ninny - her words.

Harry wasn’t more than a few yards from the town wall, just on the other side of the “Safe” area, when the pixelating air had a dark grin springing onto his face.

It was time to see just how realistic combat was…against something he had zero guilt about destroying at that.

A few hours and levels later, Harry had to admit – grinding and farming experience was so much more fun, if just as monotonous, in VR.

It took him about forty kills to make level two from the basic pissed-off-pig monsters that wandered the plains outside of the town, and by that time there were more and more players moving on from the hug-exclaim-befriend cycle going on as more and more players logged on.

Which meant it was time for him to take off…again, after a bit of a rest, a piece of fruit, and a regeneration/healing potion that took a few minutes to kick in.

Harry appreciated the basic Steel Scimitar that one of the hogs had dropped in lieu of random junk to sell to merchants or for use in crafting (something he wasn’t much interested in but he knew appealed to some people) or “cor” the currency used in Aincrad, especially as said steel scimitar had double the stats of the truly-crappy basic bronze scimitar he’d started with.

More grinding and farming later and Harry was almost out of his regen potions and coming up on a full inventory but he’d avoided the other players – he really liked that Searching skill – and was one quest away from hitting level six and getting his third skill slot opened…he was thinking Hiding.

If Hermione – or Merlin forbid, his mind healer – were here they’d be scolding him over managing to be antisocial in a social game…but meh.

It was only the first day of the launch, just coming up on half-way.

There was plenty of time to – blech – be social later since this game wasn’t all bad, with him having unlocked a dozen or so skills just from wandering and killing shit.

Not that he could use said skills without losing his progress on his Curved Sword and Searching skill but…still.

Effort counted, right?

Needless to say, Harry was in a surprisingly good – if tired – mood…which was when it all came crashing down courtesy of a forced-teleport back to the Room of Resurrection and a motherfucking megalomaniac.

Because he hadn’t dealt with enough of those yet in his life.

This wanker was apparently the creator of the game.

And the only way to escape it was by winning it.

Win, and you win your life.

Lose, and they’re all stuck in Aincrad or dead in real life.

“Fuck me sideways.”  He seethed, eyes glaring even as he did what his well-honed instincts were screaming at him to do and turned and started running for outside the town.  “What the fuck did I get into…?”

As the noise rose – and the hysteria with it – in his wake, Harry having gotten the gist of Captain-Talking-Head’s dastardly speech, Harry noted that he wasn’t the only one realizing the danger of both a hysterical crowd and well, people in general, as all around people were breaking off and getting away from the overcrowded room – and the town with it.

Most were behind him, Harry not one to stick around until the other shoe dropped no matter how exhausted he already was, but there were a few ahead as well, Harry coming up on them as one pair in the lead of him in the direction of where he’d pinged a town earlier but not visited towards the northwest came to a stop, Harry slowing down just enough to catch what one was saying to the other – god, they were younger than him and stuck in a death game – the black-haired boy speaking in accented English to the other.

Harry idly was thankful he’d ordered Dobby not to let anyone disturb him and had kept his headset plugged in, not able to wander far in the magic-rich environs of Grimmauld Place.

At least the House Elf should be able to keep Sirius from doing anything…rash until the cooler-head of Remus could prevail.

“I have friends here, Kirito.”  The older one was explaining.  “If this is- if this is it for now, I want to be with them.”

“Ok, Klein.”  The younger one with black hair nodded and stepped back, voice shaking despite his calm face.  “Keep in touch, I’ll be around if you need more help.”

“Thanks, Kirito.”

The two waved and then Harry pounced.

“Hey.”  He said, his English accent coming through loud and clear, pegging the other black-haired teen as from an Asian country from his accent, though he didn’t know them well enough to sort it out further than that.  “You heading out of town too?”

The boy nodded, eyes narrowed a bit on the older teen with eyes so green he’d think they were still his avatar’s render if not for knowing that his own features had changed back to his actual looks thanks to the game creator’s “gift”…though he, Kirito, didn’t have the scars to pop into being on his avatar that the older teen did.

Whoever he was in real life, he’d have to be tough, especially with the jagged – almost lightning-like – scar that started near his hairline over his left eye and ended on his left cheekbone, just missing one emerald green orb and its eyelids.

“Hai, yes.”  Kirito corrected himself, even as he fell into pace with the other teen’s stride, the pair speeding up to a jog as they headed for the northwest gate of the town.  “Panic is…dangerous.”

Well, it was now.

“There’s a village I found earlier about an hour’s jog from here, maybe twice that if we have to slow down or fight monsters.”  Harry continued, explaining his sudden bout of friendliness to himself as much as Kirito.  Personally…he thought it had as much to do with the innocent young face that looked like it’d never seen a day’s tragedy as it did anything else.

Damn saving-people-thing.

Always rearing its ugly head at the worst damn times.

“Want to team up to make it there?”  He asked.  “I logged in straight-away and now I’m pretty spent.”

“Sounds…smart.”  Kirito had to admit, given that he’d done the same…though by the look of the non-basic scimitar on the other teen’s hip, this guy hadn’t spent the hours in-between helping out a rookie, whether he was one himself or not.  “I’m Kirito.”  So saying he flicked his hand and brought up the Party control screen.

“Haze.”  The older teen supplied, blinking a bit when his screen pinged with the message:

Player Kirito would like to form a Party.

[O]Accept     [X]Decline

A flick of his finger had him hitting the “O” to accept the party invitation, and with that the two of them jogged for the village Harry’d spotted, speaking now and then with Harry helping his new party-mate with a bit of English now and again as they made idle conversation to help pass the time, Harry learning that he’d made a better choice than he’d known, his instincts carrying over well so far from real life to his now VR-trapped-reality.

Kirito was a beta.

He knew Aincrad.

Harry’s chances of surviving his newest megalomaniac just became that much better.

Chapter Text

Haze Online

1

Day One, Horunka Village, 1^st Floor Aincrad

Harry woke up – which was a plus, Dobby must have successfully kept Sirius from doing anything final with help from Remus – after about six hours of sleep which was a bit more than he usually needed being a chronic insomniac but given the stress of the prior day completely understandable.  A quick check of his menu showed that he was still partied with Kirito, which was also good news.  The other teen hadn’t kicked him from the party and disappeared while he slept at least.  Stumbling to his feet he rubbed his hands over his face and plodded along into the bathroom, since VR or not certain things had to be taken care of…which was just weird.

Being able to fuck and kiss and eat and drink in VR he got.

Having to shower?

Not so much.

Like he said: weird.

But it was his reality now until either the game was cleared or someone outside the game figured out a way to free them without pulling their plugs – figuratively or literally.

Feeling as awake as he was going to get, Harry got ready, munching his way through some more fruit from his inventory and water from the bathroom tap.

There were a couple things he needed to get through as quickly as possible: mainly making levels six and ten.

With the former he snagged another skill slot as well as the ability to switch between two different skill “sets”, designed for combat and non-combat so a player could have a full-experience in SAO instead of having to focus just on crafting/lifestyle skills or adventuring/combat skills, while the latter unlocked the six secondary attributes with another six for a total of sixteen opening at level twenty-five.  Attributes were non-skill, non-item, game mods that helped determine how effective certain skills and interactions were based on what attributes a player spent attribute points from leveling or completing special quests on.  Attributes, skills, and player actions determined what classes were unlocked, if any, for a player.

And in a death game, the special “traits” that unlocked with selecting a class could very well save his life.

For his first attributes he’d dumped his four starter points in an even split between strength, precision, agility, and vitality/constitution, but as he’d gained a point with each level and then four points for level five, he’d focused more on maxing precision and agility with the class he hoped to unlock…but now that it was a death game, he’d need to focus maxing his vitality which increased his HP, making him harder to kill, a strategy any player with an active brain cell should apply since you can’t bump your speed and effectiveness of health regeneration until level twenty-five with the healing attribute unlock or by training up the Battle Healing skill.

Though he was certain there were going to be some meat-heads that point-dumped on strength instead.

Harry was all for offense as a defense but first you needed an actual defense, the best of which from what he could see was becoming as hard to kill as possible rather than becoming the best killer possible.

Not to say he wasn’t going to work on that too, but still, priorities.

His life may not have been that exciting in recent months with his recovery and everything, but he’d like to return to living it none-the-fucking-less.

Setting off towards a lit “!” curser that was a quest NPC sitting on a fence rail at the edge of town he’d located with his Searching, he sent off a private message to Kirito, not wanting the other guy to think he’d taken off on him.  He’d pick up the quest and then hit the merchants to clear his inventory of the junk he’d accumulated the previous day, since it’d been maxed with the drops from the random dire wolves he and Kirito had run into on the trip from the Town of Beginnings to Horunka.

Though he had to say…revenge of the cows was one of the weirdest quests he’d ever heard of, moreover he now had all day to kill around town before the “attack” at moonrise.

Maybe Kirito knew another quick quest or two they could do while he waited.

And if not, there were always the simple dailies posted on the village announcement board.

Harry’d been right – all it took was a single quest, in his case a simple “kill five dire wolves and collect their pelts”, to hit level six, a quest that took most of the hour between him nabbing the low-hanging quests like the dailies off the village board and the cow quest and Kirito waking up.  He’d just selected his third combat/adventuring skill of Hiding, as some skills that didn’t necessarily seem like combat skills (Searching, Hiding, Sneaking, Sprint, etc.) were classed that way because of their uses in adventuring being way above that of, say, fishing or metal refining.  Harry had known of course that there was an almost unlimited number of skills but having them pop up as “unlocked” all over the place as he went about his day was nuts.  Though he thought it would slow down after he got the first set of natural-action skills unlocked like cooking.

For his part, he was starting his second set of skills as a strict safe-area set with Map-Making, Cooking, and Mixing, the latter being the SAO version of potion-making and useful for crafting poisons, medicine, and antidotes.

And like most-everything else, items crafted by a skilled player were always better than what was purchased or dropped from a NPC or a monster.

Kirito’s PM popped up on his left-hand side in mid-air in the form of a floating envelope which Harry had to tap with his finger to open and read.

Thankfully, SAO came with a written-language translator or else he’d be screwed given the massive percentage of players that were from Nippon where Argus, the creator of both NerveGear and SAO were headquartered.

As it was, his English should get him through most situations, or at least it should a lot more effectively than his bare-bones public-school and Fleur-practiced French.

Ready to go?  I know a Quest that rewards an <Anneal Blade>.

Harry hummed, debating after taking a look at the weapon stats.

It was a one-handed straight sword, not his preference, but it had good stats so he could trade it for a better scimitar, saber, katana, or kopesh he supposed, not wanting to lose his progress on his Curved Sword skill that came with using a scimitar.

Ready when you are.  Need to be back at moonrise for <Quest: Cows Counterattack>.

He replied, jogging over towards the inn where he spotted Kirito waiting patiently, leaning back against the wall and arms crossed over his chest.

“There you are, Haze-kun.”  Kirito nodded, pushing off the wall with his shoulders with a half-smile.  “Sleep well?”

“Better than expected, Kirito-kun.”  Harry drawled with a rolled of his expressive green eyes, the Nippon-born teen having given him a crash-course on honorifics to go with his bare-bones backstory.  Not that Harry had been any better.  Until it became relevant he had zero intention of telling anyone, even a possible friend, about him being the equivalent of a child soldier and defense tutor in his real life.

And then there was the magic thing.

Yeah, he didn’t see himself becoming Mr. Shares-a-Lot, and that was before SAO turned into a Death Game.

“You?”

Kirito shrugged then led the way to one of the village houses, explaining as he went.

“This is one of the quests you have to interact with the NPC before they show a quest curser.”  He told the older teen.  “The mother will offer you a cup of water.  If you accept then she goes into the quest dialogue.”  He grimaced.  “This one is tedious.  During the beta I figured the drop rate of the quest item needed for completion at less than one percent.  As soon as the chaos dies down the other players are going to start swarming it since the Anneal Blade is probably still the best weapons drop on the first level.”

“What level monsters?”

“Little Nepenthes which are actually big and ugly plant monsters.”  Kirito wrinkled his nose.  “Level Three.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem.”  Harry shrugged.  He wouldn’t get much leveling gain with partying as the Cardinal game control AI system parceled out exp, drops, and cor between them based on each player’s damage dealt to a monster, so Harry would be lucky to score even a couple points off a Level 3 monster.  And being a higher level, he would need more exp than Kirito to gain his next level up, but the reward exp and sword should make it worth it.  “Nothing we can’t handle.”

The leveling system was simple: you gained experience for every kill, plus bonus experience for completing quests or working on skills.  Each level required an increased amount of experience to reach the next level up, while simultaneously you received a decreased amount of experience for killing monsters that were below your own level even as the amount of cor and quality of drops remained the same.  Attacking a monster five levels or more weaker than yourself wouldn't net you any experience at all.  For example: at level six Harry wouldn’t receive any experience for killing a basic level 1 <Frenzy Boar> but would still get the 30 cor and whatever junk it dropped.  It was a game mechanic that helped protect weaker players by forcing stronger players to hunt stronger monsters…in theory.

Now that it was a Death Game…Harry didn’t think anything was going to work the way it had been designed anymore.

Kirito nodded, giving him a searching look.

Haze-kun was an interesting one, that was certain.  He’d noticed his calm straight off during the Game Maker’s speech, him and another much older man had been two of the only players he’d seen staying collected despite the institution of the Death Game, though in Haze-kun’s case his inner anger had shone in his eyes, which had still been hot with anger when he’d caught up to him and Klein before leaving town.  It was that – that calm steadiness – that had encouraged Kirito, normally not the most social of players, to accept Haze-kun’s proposal of teaming up.

Kirito knew that the only way to survive was to get as strong as he could as fast as he could.

He wasn’t able – or maybe just wasn’t willing – to take on three new players with Klein and his other two friends.

Haze however…he hadn’t wasted his time in Aincrad, already leveling several times before the announcement.

And Haze-kun had more than held his own the prior night on their jog to Horunka, his mechanics a little rough but his level and skill suggesting either prior experience with the NerveGear or something else that made him a good natural fighter, fencing or kendo maybe.

He also wasn’t flashy – either in dress or in talk – something Kirito appreciated in a party member.

Yes, Kirito thought that Haze-kun had been worth the risk inherent in partying with him, and wouldn’t hold him back from leveling as fast as possible to survive.

If anything…he might just push him to be better, to match him, rather than get stuck in a rut on his own.

Either way, Kirito was interested to find out, even if that interest was still tinged with the soul-deep fear for his life that the Game Maker’s announcement had sent spiraling through most if not all of the SAO players a handful of hours ago.

The quest acquisition went exactly as Kirito had said, something which Harry took under consideration.  He didn’t know how high Kirito had leveled or what floor he’d gotten to during the beta, but for now his information and knowledge were trustworthy enough.  Though given that Kirito hadn’t known that the village Harry was leading him to was Horunka, he knew that at least the layout of the floors was different than the beta, making him wonder how much else was changed and how useful the beta’s knowledge would be in the long run – or perhaps he should say how accurate rather than useful.

Harry’s supposition about the lack of exp he gained from killing the quest monsters was accurate as well, only netting four exp points per Little Nepenthes that they took out.  But since they ended up having to kill almost a hundred of the damn things before the one with the flower populated, he ended up with another near-full inventory from the random drops off the ugly plant monsters anyway.  The flower-bearing monster hadn’t populated alone however, bringing a buddy along with what looked like a fruit, Harry’s well-honed danger instincts telling him to stay well-the-fuck-away from the fruit.

“Go get your seed, Kirito-kun.”  Harry told him.  “I’ll keep the other one busy.”

“Thanks, Haze-kun.”  Kirito smiled brightly at him, his cheerful demeanor at odds with the killing machine he’d been when facing off against any of the monsters they’d fought together.

Yeah, Harry thought he’d made the right choice with Kirito.

Didn’t mean he wanted to guild-up with him or be attached at the hip, but at least if there was a quest that was better managed by more than a solo player they would each have a friend to call on for help.

Kirito took up his unique opening stance, and Harry squared off with the fruit-head, both dodging almost in unison to engage one of the plant monsters, Harry sticking to body blows since he knew he didn’t want to damage that fruit even if he didn’t know why.

His new friend might not be on the same level as Harry – not yet – but it didn’t take the experienced player long to take out the flower-bearing Little Nepenthes, which like the fruit-head when Harry used his Searching skill as they darted out of the other’s engagement range he’d think was a level four monster instead of a level three, a thought which was born out by Harry’s increase of eight exp instead of four, with extra cor and a better drop to go with the quest item of the <Little Nepenthes Seed>.

“Why didn’t you kill the other one?”  Kirito asked, head cocked to the side in a – though Harry wouldn’t say it knowing how defensive he used to be about his own height and pretty-boy looks – cute kittenish fashion.

“Something felt off about it.”  Harry explained.  “Over the years I’ve learned to listen to my gut when it tugs at me in a potentially dangerous situation.  And it wasn’t like we needed it for the quest anyway.”

“Whatever you say, Haze-kun.”  Kirito agreed, willing to trust the other fighter.  He’d yet to be wrong about coming across monsters and mobs so far.  “Ready to go get our rewards?”

“Mmm.”  Harry nodded, falling into jog-step with the shorter boy.  “Someone will be willing to trade it for a katana or some other curved blade I’m sure.  And if not I can always refine it and repurpose the metal.”

Kirito rolled his eyes.

One day in and Haze-kun was already stuck on a single sword type.

Well, some players were just that way he supposed.

For himself he’d tried them all during the beta and liked his one-handed straight swords the best.

To each his own.

Anneal Blade in hand – for Kirito, Harry having stashed his away until he could trade it or melt it down – and junk sold at the merchants, the two players focused on grinding in the fields and woods around Horunka until it started to drift towards twilight so they could complete Harry’s cow quest.

It might be a silly thing, but it awarded <Cream> as Kirito had enlightened Harry, which could either be consumed as a filling food item or used to fashion other foods with Harry's Cooking skill.

The cows were again all level three monsters, barely worth either of their time now that Kirito had leveled to level five and Harry had made seven, but the bull at least was a single level five and Harry’s Last Strike furnished a drop of a decent <Steel Katana>.

It wasn’t anywhere near as nice as Kirito’s Anneal Blade, but it wasn’t awful either and unlocked a new set of Katana sword skills that allowed Harry to equip Katana instead of Curved Sword, but still gave him access to both the Curved Sword and some of the Two-Handed Sword attacks as a katana could be used and equipped either one or two handed. Which was an awesome as fuck workaround that Kirito called an "Extra" skill that would only let ten players at a time access it. First come, first served he guessed. Kirito wasn't extremely forthcoming on what other Extra skills there might be hidden in the game, but Harry thought that might have to do with the beta being careful with information as no one knew how much had been changed by the programmers in the month between the beta and the limited releases, let alone tweaked again by the Game Maker. The fucking evil cunt.

Quest rewards stashed away, junk again sold off and night falling, the pair made their way back to the inn where they’d earlier renewed their stay for another night.

A wise decision as they’d seen increasing movement in the area as players trickled away from the Town of Beginnings and started putting in work towards leveling and doing more than panicking with their new realities, making the small Horunka inn full-up for the night.

Over a simple dinner of Harry’s last remaining fruit and sandwiches purchased from the barmaid, the pair hashed out a plan to head off towards the boundary and work on power-leveling while searching for the first-floor Labyrinth.

Kirito knew it was supposed to be on the edge of the floor but not where anymore given the changed floor layout.

“We meet-up at night with each other at whatever town we’re basing out of.”  Harry suggested, knowing that the other teen like him wasn’t always going to want to socialize, even if said socialization was little more than whacking away at monsters in silence.  “That way if we want to do quests that need more than one player we have a go-to.  But we’re free to solo adventure whenever we want: no strings and no commitments just taking it day by day.”

“Sounds good to me.”  Kirito agreed.  “Party leveling can seem safer, and is good for learning to work together for boss fights, but soloing gives better cor and drops plus the full experience points.”

“What’s the max level for each floor?”  Harry asked, figuring the beta would have some idea from his own runs through the game.

“Level twenty for the first floor, then another ten levels on each floor after with hard grinding.”  Kirito told him.  “If the Cardinal,” the game management AI system.  “Is still programmed that way.  Realistically once you hit level fifty it’ll be about a floor a level.  Without hard grinding you’re looking at four or five levels per floor and then one level every two to three floors after the tenth floor all depending on how long it takes to clear a floor.”

“We need to max level each floor if we want to survive this thing, don’t we?”  Harry asked with a wry grin.  “As you said: depending on how long it takes to clear a floor.”

Kirito just gave a solemn nod, then bid Haze-kun goodnight.

“You too, Kirito-kun.”  Harry told him as he stood, planning on getting in some minor non-combat skill leveling while he was awake.  He didn’t want to grind in the dark.  Not with other people starting to show up more and more.

Monsters were one thing.

People were another.

Well, he had a few new places to add to his Map for one skill, and a few ingredients he thought he could throw together for his mixing skill.

If all else failed…at least he’d probably have a poison to use on his sword blade if nothing else.

Maybe.

Probably.

He hoped.

And that was how things went for the next month.

The First Floor Labyrinth took about two weeks to locate with search parties, though for Harry and Kirito with their focus switching to trying to clear the dungeon, it took another day for them to find the nearest town which was called Tolbana.  Harry would go off one day to take a break from peopling, then Kirito would do the same a couple days later.  But they always kept in contact as they moved from settlement to settlement searching for the labyrinth level which held the Floor Boss room…if they could find it.

Kirito was game-smart, but Harry was people smart.

At least when it came to how easy it was for people to turn on you and how even the nicest person – or so they seemed – could have a selfish core when it came to anything from survival to money to fame.

Kirito taught him about the game.

Harry taught Kirito about people, the veteran gamer more naïve than Harry would have thought but then he and his friends weren’t exactly normal kids, even if it took Ron and Hermione much longer than Harry to lose their childhood blinders, Ron’s surrounding Light Magic and Hermione’s regarding authority figures.

As Harry’d predicted, Kirito had caught up to him in leveling, the two neck-and-neck at level nineteen and straining to max out the floor, a prospect helped by the seemingly endless spawns of level twenty monsters in the labyrinth, both of them having gotten a reputation as “Clearers” players who were of higher-level and fought on the front lines clearing the floor, almost against their own wishes.

Kirito would message back and forth with Klein.

Harry worked on his skills, having added hide-tanning to his non-combat set with thoughts of making some of his own gear, and set to working on unlocking more of his katana attacks as he added Battle Healing to his repertoire at level twelve.

Though he wasn’t the last to unlock Katana by using a curved blade and equipping a Katana - which apparently could only be gained from drops or by having them forged once Katana had been unlocked for that player.

Just the first, a piece of information a knowledge-broker beta called Argo had been more than happy to purchase and pass on to other players.

As a Gryffindor, Harry probably should have just disseminated the information for free.

However, given that he wanted to survive to see his friends and family again, Harry’s Slytherin side had trapped, beaten-up, gagged, and hog-tied Harry’s inner Gryffindor and shoved it down into the deepest darkest recesses of his mind.

Though Slytherin-Harry was notably useless in doing the same with his Ravenclaw tendencies of learning all he could from Kirito and other experienced players or at keeping Hufflepuff-Harry from cooing – just a bit – over how frigging cute some of the younger players like Argo with her painted-on whiskers and, yes, even Kirito could be.

On that day, day twenty-nine, Harry and Kirito split up after leaving their inn in Tolbana, the two trusting each other enough after most of a month spent in close company to share a double room to save Cor.

As Kirito headed back into the Labyrinth, Harry headed off towards a side-quest he’d found a couple days before that had struck his fancy.

It was a solo-only, which was interesting, with a minimum level of level fifteen to activate the quest from the NPC which was a random mare in a hidden glade of the nearby Shadow Forest.

Kirito was mildly interested in the quest but wasn’t familiar with what the unknown reward in the <Reward Chest> offered in lieu of a known reward or even how much the Cor for completing it was.  Harry had agreed to find out for them both…with the understanding that he was going to turn right around and sell the information to Argo after Kirito went to complete the quest himself.  They’d both heard rumblings and bitterness towards betas, something that Harry took great relish in shutting down every night when it inevitably came up over drinks at the inn tavern wherever they stayed unless they rented a room for the night from the random NPCs that rented rooms in their cottages, homes, or even barns to players.

Apparently, betas were all out for themselves.

How that made them any fucking different from the rest of the players, Harry didn’t know, something he had to explain to Kirito more than once given the soft heart of the younger teen.

Thank Merlin they’d partnered up.

Harry didn’t like to think about how guilt-ridden and savior-complex Kirito would have gotten without a recovering guilt-and-savior-complex-addict there to head-slap some sense into him.

Broody may have worked for the other boy as a look but as Harry had spent all of his fifth year excelling at it he knew it wouldn’t have been good for his morale.

Rolling his head on his neck, Harry looked up at the beautiful Aincrad sky then broke into an easy lope that would have him at the hidden glade in about an hour and a half from Tolbana.  The forest itself wasn’t easy to find, being hidden in a crack in a rock face that you had to squeeze through to access the butterfly NPC that opened a mini-dungeon you had to beat to access the Forest.  Kirito had known that part, leading Harry there to hunt <Savage Forest Spiders> in the mini-dungeon that led to a level eighteen boss <Savage Forest Spider Queen> who dropped a pair of <Venomous Throwing Picks> that he’d wanted that had a +4 Damage buff.  Harry had just been along for the ride but didn’t mind at all picking up a pair of black boots that had an Agility buff from the mini-dungeon boss.

That had been a week ago and ever since every-other day found Harry exploring the Shadow Forest leading to the discovery of the <Quest: Hidden Glade Herd> but he’d had to head back to Tolbana for the night before he could attempt the quest.

Harry was glad he didn’t have any issues with confined spaces after ten years of living in a cupboard, since it was a tight squeeze through the rock face passage, Harry about the largest someone could be and make it through, Kirito having a lot less trouble when they’d done the mini-dungeon than Harry as the crack opened into a moderately-wide corridor that led to the <Savage Forest Spider Nest> until you defeated the mini-dungeon boss of the spider queen and then afterward the far wall disappeared into an open cave mouth to the Shadow Forest.

Inside the Shadow Forest which looked like something out of Tolkein, being very mini-Mirkwood-esque, at the center was the Hidden Glade and the mare NPC.

Harry walked up to the <Hidden Glade Mare NPC> with its green “!” curser saying: “What’s wrong?” to activate the quest dialogue.

Hidden Glade Mare whinnies and bucks.  A <Wild Stallion> is trying to take over the <Hidden Glade Herd>.

“How can I help?”

Hidden Glade Mare tosses her head and snorts, jerking her nose towards the far side of the Hidden Glade.

A <Wild Stallion> appears.

<Quest: Hidden Glade Herd> Save the <Hidden Glade Herd Stallion> from the encroaching <Wild Stallion>.

Do you Accept?

[O]Accept                  [X]Decline

Harry tapped the Accept button on the open quest menu, cracking his head as the <Wild Stallion> snorted and wheeled, its curser changing from Orange to the Red of an active monster, its level showing as level 20 with the HP to go with it.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a boss, so it only had the one HP bar, otherwise this would take way longer than he wanted to spend on a solo quest, not to mention sure to cost him in health and recovery potions.

Well, it would if he wanted to be back up to fighting form for teaming with Kirito in the Labyrinth again tomorrow.

Harry gave a shrill whistle, rolling his eyes a bit when his menu flashed with the: <Skill: Whistle> Unlocked notification.  He hadn’t had that happen in the last week or so, a random skill popping up.

Combat skills and attacks, yes. 

Randomness like Howl and Whistle…not so much.

At the first charge of the Wild Stallion – a magnificent creature that Harry thought (mainly from Aunt Marge’s copies of Horse and Hounds that she toted with her every trip to visit) had been based off one of the big work horse breeds like a Clydesdale or Percheron – that stood at least a foot taller at the shoulder than the mare it charged passed towards Harry.  There wasn’t a <Hidden Glade Herd Stallion> that populated, which was a relief.  He wouldn’t have to focus on protecting the Stallion and fighting the Wild Stallion at the same time which would be a lot easier as a beginning solo player than for someone like Kirito who was more familiar with the game mechanics and how the monsters were programmed to behave.

Harry didn’t have any experience with horses, something that sucked as he stared down a charging one.

What he did have was experience with Buckbeak and the Forbidden Forest thestrals.

If Harry could duck a slash from the wicked talons of a hippogriff in a strop, he should be able to wear down a Wild Stallion.

One thing he knew for certain: he did not want to get either kicked or stomped by a creature that large and strong.

As a result, Harry yelled and whistled at the charging stallion, goading it only to spin out of the way of the stampede, giving him first-hand experience with the monster’s braking and turning ability…which wasn’t that great, taking a couple seconds to wheel and turn to charge back at him.

Harry did it again.

And again, paying attention to the movement and one eye on the HP bar and praying that its Endurance wasn’t linked to its HP.

The stallion began to tire out after about a dozen charges.

It was also getting cranky, Harry barely dodging a stomp and swipe of a hoof with a tumble.

Harry thought fast, thinking back to his hippogriff lessons, then switched out his katana for a pair of things from his inventory: an <Apple> and a <Ruined Shirt>.

Changing from goading to crooning, Harry held out the apple to the stallion, hiding the ruined shirt behind his back.

He was going to only get one shot at this so he’d better make it count.

Or the stallion would turn him into Harry pâté.

It eyed him suspiciously, but it was tired and had taken a couple of hits that lowered his HP bar, even if Harry had intentionally made them glancing blows.

Patience, for this quest, was a virtue Harry found as he must have stood there in a silent battle of wills with a horse for several minutes before it clipped carefully over towards Harry and took the apple, half of it dropping onto the ground.

The stallion lowered his head.

Harry pounced, wrapping the ruined shirt around its eyes and using it to keep control of the stallion, muscles straining as the horse screamed and kicked out with his back legs, bucking for all it was worth.

But it couldn’t maintain it long, the dancing the two had down had worn down the stallion’s endurance significantly and Harry was a stubborn motherfucker.

That apple had cost him 2,000 Cor from a trader, it being one of the rarer fruit drops and one of the tastiest, equal to twenty nights’ rent at a nicer inn.

All the while as the horse screamed and bucked, Harry crooned to soothe it…in theory anyway.

He wasn’t a Beast Tamer nor did he really want to be.

But a horse that he didn’t have to rent or bother equipping Riding to use as a mount?

Now that was worth a bit of effort and having a skill slot dedicated to Familiar Communication, especially since a big-ass stallion would be a benefit in battle as well except in tight quarters.

His patience – which by the time the horse settled was looking more like being bullheaded than anything else as sweat dripped down Harry’s face and his arms throbbed from strain – was rewarded.

Literally, as the stallion’s curser flashed from red to yellow and a notification lit up in Harry’s vision with a jingling noise.

<Quest Complete!>

Reward:

+1800 EXP

+180 Cor

+ 1 <Reward Chest>

Bonus:

UNLOCKED! <Skill: Familiar Communication> Equip Now? O-Yes X-No

UNLOCKED! <Skill: Familiar Retrieval> Equip Now? O-Yes X-No

UNLOCKED! <Skill: Emotional Support/Comfort> Equip Now? O-Yes X-No

<Congratulations!  Level UP!>

<Level 19 -> Level 20>

UNLOCKED! <Skill Slot 5>

“Guess you’re my familiar now, huh?”  He asked the stallion who’s name icon had changed from <Wild Stallion> to <Unnamed Pet>.

Tapping a few buttons, he equipped <Familiar Communication> in both his skill sets’ fifth slot, then eyed the stallion and tapped the horse button that had appeared to the top left of his screen opposite where his party member menu options populated when he teamed up with Kirito.

The button loaded the Familiar Controls Menu, which showed similar options as Harry’s own player controls over things like attributes and skills, but with an added Name field that had a flashing curser waiting for him to name his new pet.

Laughing a bit to himself at the amount of useless information he’d amassed between Hermione and Sirius he quoted the Illiad: "... there is no man that shall catch thee by a burst of speed, neither pass thee by, nay, not though in pursuit he were driving goodly Arion, the swift horse of Adrastus, that was of heavenly stock ...”

“Do you like that boy?”  He asked absently as he opened up his inventory and got out a <Sugar Cube> that he brought in bulk since it made the tasteless Aincrad tea actually taste like watered down Tetleys…which he’d take since that was better than swamp water or nothing at all.  “Arion?”

The newly-dubbed stallion with his night-black coat and single white “star” patch on his forehead snorted and lipped up the sugar cube then nudged Harry’s hand for pets.

“Guess so.”  He smirked, obliging the horse whose back was at his eye level and whose head towered over him.  Harry noted the base stats for the level twenty Stallion: Strength and Intimidation were maxed for a level twenty creature, with half-maxed Vitality, Damage, and Speed with no points at all used so far for any other attributes.

Arion came with three skills which was normal from what little he knew about having a familiar, they leveled and gained attributes and skill slots slower than players to limit the ability of Beast Tamers from managing hordes of creatures.

For every familiar tamed by a player, they lost a skill slot capping the number of active familiars at level twenty at three, and so on, forcing a beast tamer to wait until their current familiar(s) have all gained another skill slot before taming a new one.

And there weren’t that many monsters that could be tamed with most of those of the smaller varieties.

Arion’s skills were currently Listening (Familiar-Player Required Skill) which was the counterpart to Harry’s Familiar Communication, Charge, and Kick.

Familiars also only had one set of skills, so you had to choose your pet’s skills wisely as you couldn’t level two sets depending on where you were.

Running one hand down Arion’s neck, Harry opened the Reward Chest, unsurprised by what he found.

“I bet that changes depending on how a player completes the quest.”  He murmured, equipping the <Leather Saddle>, <Woven Saddle Blanket>, <Leather Hackamore>, and <Leather Reins>, which doubled as basic “armor” for Arion, buffing his Vitality (saddle blanket), Precision (reins), and Concentration (saddle and hackamore) all to Arion’s armor menu.  “Since a player that doesn’t tame a stallion wouldn’t need horse tack.”

On the plus side, he was pretty sure he could find a leatherworker to trade some of Harry's tanned hides and furs to make him some saddlebags, so Arion could carry his own food and gear, lightening the burden on Harry’s inventory. Harry wanted to learn leatherworking, it seemed like one of the most versatile skills for clothes, armor, as well as gear and decorative items. He just didn't have the skill slots yet to add it. Eventually he'd pick it up. Especially given how long it's taken to find the First Floor Labyrinth alone, which didn't fill him with glee regarding the speed they'd clear out the next ninety-nine to come in order to beat the game and return to the physical world instead of the mental world of the game.

“Good thing Padfoot is such an Englishman.”  Harry grimaced, thinking of Sirius’s attempts to teach Harry how to ride beyond “hold on and don’t let go.”  “Otherwise this wouldn’t be fun.  Hold still, Arion.”

The horse nodded his head, his Listening skill gaining exp the same as Harry’s Familiar Communication as he grabbed hold of the saddle, reins resting in his forward hand, and foot in the stirrup heaved himself up onto and threw his leg over Arion’s back, having a moment of vertigo at the sudden change in perspective.

Arion was tall.

Not quite Abraxan tall but definitely taller than either Buckbeak or the thestrals from the Forbidden Forest back home.

“Okay, you’re not going to fit through the cave-access.”  Harry spoke half to himself and half to Arion, activating his Searching skill to find a secondary exit.  “What else is there…?”

Nothing, at least what he could see but then…

“I haven’t come out the other side of the forest before.”  Harry clicked his tongue and directed Arion with the reins after orienting with his map.  “Let’s see if there’s another way out.”

There would have to be, given that a smart player who didn’t just kill the <Wild Stallion> from the quest wouldn’t be able to use the cave access to this hidden part of the first floor.

The only question was how long it would take Harry and Arion to find it.

A nudge of Harry’s knees and Arion was setting off at an easy lope through the <Dirt Horse Path> that opened up alongside the end of the quest.

“We better make it back to Tolbana on time.”  Harry sighed as he leaned forward, urging Arion on faster as the apple and sugar lump plus the bit of a rest had replenished Arion’s endurance bar.  “Or Kirito will never let me hear the end of it…”

Chapter Text

Haze Online

31

Tolbana, First Floor, Aincrad

Kirito had taken the sight of Harry riding into town – late, but he still made it before it got too dark – on a horse with equanimity…right up until he saw the Pet Name field in Yellow side-by-side with Harry’s Player Name green curser.

Then the former beta tester had jumped all over him with excitement.

Horses were prohibitive to rent from <Stables> but they made travel significantly faster than walking or running on foot.

Rented Horses also required Riding skill to use them to best effectiveness.

Arion didn’t, at least not for Harry since he had a tiny bit of real-world experience in riding even if only the basics, a neat workaround for the wizard.

“You’d have to give up two skill slots, Kirito-kun.”  Harry explained that night.  “Do you really want to do that when Arion can carry us both easily?  Unless you’re second-guessing our partnership?”

“No, no, Haze-kun.”  Kirito rushed to wave that off.  “Maybe later, hai?  When I have more skill slots unlocked.”  He blinked.  “If Arion-san doesn’t mind.”

“Okay then.”  Harry nodded.  “Guess I won’t be selling this secret to Argo.”

“Other players won’t like that.”  Kirito warned.  “Arion-san is a major advantage.”

Harry shrugged.

“Other players aren’t my friends or my problem – unless they make themselves my problem.”  He shrugged the warning off.  “I’m just not as nice as you are, Kirito-kun.”  Harry told him honestly.  “And too paranoid to take the risk of some of the seedier players ending up with a horse familiar.”

“Have you heard?”  Kirito asked, leaning forward with a frown and a hushed voice.  “About the…deaths?”

“Player-on-player was always an aspect of the game that appealed to some, Kirito-kun.”  Harry’s lips turned down as he scowled.  “Everyone has a dark side.  The new rules have just given some people license that they didn’t have before to act on that dark side.”

“You think players are killing other players?”

“I think they will if they haven’t already.”  Harry sighed, slumping back against his chair.  “Two thousand players already dead from suicide or the game.  That’s a twenty percent loss in thirty days.”  Harry shook his head.  “We can’t sustain that level of loss and expect for anyone to survive.”

“But not everyone will see it that way.”

“No.”  Harry agreed as much as he wished he thought otherwise.  “No, they won’t.”

The next day Harry, Kirito, and Arion had gone into the Labyrinth, clearing old ground to test Arion’s abilities in combat and finding that while his Kick skill carried higher damage, his Charge did damage and caused Knock-Down for up to three opponents.

And then the news came: one of the relatively few in number female players named Asuna had collapsed in exhaustion on the Front Lines of the Clearing parties that were trying to find the final Boss Room in the Labyrinth.  Kirito knew her, at least a little bit having warned the cloak-wearing player about exhausting herself, so the pair had gone and hauled her back to Tolbana on Arion’s back.  She hadn’t been pleased to say the least when she woke up.

Except for one thing.

A Clearing party led by a player named Diavel had located the Boss Room on Level 20 of the Labyrinth and called for a strategy meeting in Tolbana.

Tolbana Fountain Plaza, Tolbana, Aincrad 1^st Floor, December 2022, Day 31

“Alright.”  The player called out as he jumped up onto the edge of the fountain, doing a quick count and finding forty-five higher-level players gathered for the boss strategy meeting.  “Everybody’s here so let’s get started.  My name’s Diavel and my search team found the stairs to the 20^th floor Boss Room in the Labyrinth.”  He said excitedly.  “We can do this.  We have to do beat this boss and unlock the 2^nd Floor so the weaker players can see that we can beat this game!”

Several of the gathered Clearers hooted and hollered, stomping their feet and cheering.

“Now,” Diavel tried to start the strategy part of the meeting only to get interrupted.

“Wait.”  A shorter but solidly-built player with sandy-brown hair shouted, scowling and stomping towards the front of the crowd.  “What about the betas?”

“What about them?”  Diavel asked, confused.

“Two thousand players are dead.”  The player ranted.  “Two thousand.  You think the betas couldn’t have prevented that?  The deaths are their fault and they should have to pay for it.”

“Bullshit.”  Harry coughed-shouted into his fist.  “What’s your name, brain-trust?”

“Kibaou,” the sandy-haired player puffed himself up as he finally spotted the owner of the mocking tone sprawled on the grass of the fountain plaza with a black horse munching on a small pile of <Oats> next to him.  “My squad has been on the Front Lines clearing the Labyrinth while beta-busters like you have been running around banking cor and getting big drops and it’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair, princess.”  Harry snorted, ignoring the crowd that was slowly starting to split as well as Kirito’s anxious shifting and Asuna’s whisper-hissing to shut-up where the two stood beside his indolent form.  “And I’m not a beta.”  He sprang to his feet in an agile motion.  “A month ago I was a brand-new beginner just like you, Kibaou.  And I don’t blame the betas for something some asshole on a powertrip did to all of us.”

“They should still have to apologize!”  Kibaou ranted.  “Handing over their rare items and cor would be a start at paying for hoarding their advanced information.”

“Again: bullshit.”  Harry crossed his arms arching a brow.

“Haze is right.”  A player Harry and Kirito had run into before named Agil agreed.  “Anyone can get a beginning field guide in towns.  And the betas and more experienced players are the ones who gave the information for it.”

Seeing that his plan was spiked, Kibaou shut his mouth, though if looks could kill Harry would be nothing but pixeled dust.

“Now that that’s settled.”  Harry snorted.  “You were saying, Diavel?”

“We found the entrance to the floor boss room.”  Diavel explained.  “Now we need a couple parties to map it before we set a strategy to take out the Boss, which Argo’s field guide says should be <Illfang the Kobold Lord>.”

Harry traded a glance with Kirito and Asuna, the latter of whom had eaten and rested from her collapse earlier in the day.

“We’ll go.”  Kirito announced, as he, Asuna-san, and Haze-kun were some of the current top players, gesturing to the triad.  “But we’ll need a support player for healing in case of mobs.”

“I’ll go with you, Kirito, Haze, Asuna.”  Agil offered with a glare of his own for Kibaou.  “I wield a mean axe but I have <First Aid> equipped.”

As the African-American player made his way over to the triad, Harry opening up his Party Menu as the current “Leader” of himself and Kirito, a job that the two of them swapped between them, Harry sent invites to both Asuna and Agil, seeing their icons and HP bars pop up on the right-hand side of his vision.

Agil from what he saw was a bit of a tank, having more Vitality than either Kirito or Asuna but not as much as Harry due to his paranoia while Asuna had the least HP of all of them.

A strike-first player, she was fast he’d give her that.

But her sulky, depressed, kill-everything attitude could get old fast.

Agil was also freaking massive, standing a head above Harry and head and shoulders taller than either Kirito or Asuna.

Partied up, the quartet headed off to walk the half-hour to the Labyrinth and the location of the 20^th Floor staircase which Diavel had messaged Harry and the other party leader Heathcliff as a second party had been put together to help run the floor with Harry and Kirito’s quartet.

“You think the information is good?”  Agil asked, meaning Argo’s field guide that several of the beta testers had contributed to in the wake of the Death Game.

“I think.”  Harry stated, having not met or worked with Agil before.  “That if the Game Maker was psycho enough to risk killing 10,000 people to play god then it pays to be cautious.  The floor layouts are different, and we’ve run into things that betas didn’t know about or at least that weren’t shared.  If the maps can change I wouldn’t be surprised if other things changed as well.”

The two Clearing parties switched out running point as they worked their way through the single long corridor beyond the stairs to the massive double doors that – they hoped – led to the Boss Room.  A corridor that was infested with Level 19 and 20 <Kobold Sentry> monsters which according to Kirito would also spawn to protect the Boss, with a new set of three spawning with every HP bar they wiped, which <Illfang the Kobold Lord> was supposed to have four of.  Well, clearing the simple layout of several dozen <Kobold Sentry> got Kirito his Level 20 at least so the day wasn’t totally wasted.

It was one of the rare floors that didn’t have a “Recovery” area set-up as monster-free, so they had no choice but to continue pushing forward.

Finally, they came to the massive double doors, Harry and Kirito both bringing up their Searching skill since the two teams had established that the pair had the highest levels in that skill, preventing them from having to open the doors and trigger the Boss.

“Is it him?”  Asuna asked, catching her breath from their last skirmish, though at least the monsters weren’t respawning behind them.

So there was that.

Lit up like a star on a Christmas Tree, at the very end of Harry’s map was a marker reading a bright red.

Without triggering it they wouldn’t know for certain but it was late, they were tired, and this floor at least had matched Argo’s field guide verbatim.

“Won’t know for certain until we trigger him.”  Harry drawled.  “But it looks like it.”

“Time to report back.”  Heathcliff said – more like ordered – abruptly.  “Can your pet carry more than one, Haze-san?”

“More than one, sure.”  He shrugged and crossed his eyes in exasperation at Kirito, the middle-aged tank of a fighter having long since gotten on Harry’s last nerve with his highhandedness.  “But not my whole team.  We’ll meet you back at Tolbana, yeah?”  With that he waved them off and started striding for the exit.

“Not much of a team-player, are you Haze?”  Agil asked, chuckling as he and the other two followed after the somewhat irascible black-haired teen.

“Nope.”  Harry agreed with smirk.  “Never have been, never will be.  Why do you think Kirito-kun and I make such good partners?  Our cheery personalities?  Or because neither of us needs to be attached to the other twenty-four/seven?”

Kirito just shrugged when the bald-headed older man glanced his way.

It wasn’t like it was a lie, though there was more to it at this point than just not irritating each other.

Or at least, Kirito hoped there was, which Haze-kun’s holding back – despite all the badgering he’d taken in the last day alone – over how he’d gotten Arion seemed to support since Haze-kun didn’t want other players to have an advantage that Kirito couldn’t equal.

“Are you okay with this?”  Harry leaned over to mutter in Kirito’s ear.

This, being the plan that Diavel was concocting for taking on the Boss, a plan that Harry himself had more than one problem with.

The main of which being that it relied on the field guide’s information being accurate which they couldn’t know without a scouting raid on the Boss Room.

Kirito gave a frown as Diavel laid out the rest of the plan: he’d call command, the forty-five players split into groups of six with three players left over to run support where needed, who by necessity would be those that worked best solo: Kirito, Haze, and Asuna, with everyone attacking en-mass after the fourth and final Boss HP bar hit half-way gone and triggered Illfang’s final skill which in the beta was switching its weapon set for a Talwar with accompanying skills.

“Diavel’s group is the one that found the Boss Floor.”  Kirito decided.

“That doesn’t make him the automatic leader of this operation, Kirito-kun.”  Harry told him, rolling his eyes in exasperation.  “Not when player safety should come first.  What do we have to lose by waiting a day to run a scouting raid?  I’ll tell you,” he snorted.  “Not a goddamned thing.”

“Is there a problem, Haze?”  Agil prompted, having noted the growing thunder-cloud over the emerald-eyed teenager’s head, Diavel – and most of the other players for that matter who had reconvened for the report from the two Clearing parties sent to the Boss Floor – turning towards him in question.

“Why aren’t we running a scouting raid?”  Harry asked, just done with the lack of planning going into this op.

Gamers.

Still too used to having Resurrection Rooms and no consequences.

“Well, the field guide…”  Diavel started to explain only to get cut off rudely.

“Has holes in it.”  Harry growled.  “Missing information, wrong information.  It should be taken as advice at best and suspect at worst.  I repeat: why aren’t we running a scouting raid?  What’s the rush?  It’s taken us this long to find the Boss, what’s one more day?”

“One more day stuck here, that’s what!”  Asuna lashed out at the other player, voice strident.  “This isn’t real or have you forgotten that, Haze-san?”

“No, I haven’t.”  Harry told her deadpan.  “I have a real life I want to get back to just as much as anyone else.  A family.  Friends.  But I want to survive to get back to them not die in a Boss Room because no one bothered to scout it.  If a scouting raid can save even one life, it’s worth the time it takes to run it.  This isn’t a game anymore for all that it’s VR.”  He reminded her – and everyone else – softly.  “You need to stop treating it like a game.”

“What makes you such an expert, boy?”  Kibaou hissed, still pissed at the teen’s mockery from earlier.

“You think I got these scars playing cricket in Merry Ol’?”  Harry asked derisively, gesturing to his face and arms, visible with his hoody off and stowed.  “I am – or I was, I suppose, a soldier.”

“We’ll run a scouting raid.”  Agil decided long minutes later after the squabbling had died back down.  “Three teams of fifteen rotating in and out as needed until we trigger the boss’s final attack then we get back out to plan for a successful offensive raid.”

And, Jesus, was he glad he’d listened to Haze, Agil decided the next afternoon.

“I thought you might be bullshitting me with that soldier bit.”  Agil panted as the scouting parties rested in the corridor after rushing out like their asses were on fire at the sight of Illfang swapping his weapon set for a <No-Dachi> instead of a <Talwar>.  And from the bouncing around the room the boss had done while the players ran for their fucking lives, the curved blade came with a top-tier Skill with it.  “’Cause you look so young, but you weren’t kidding were you?”

Agil was referring half to the now-established need for scouting raids on bosses even when everything else checked out, something that the Front Line Clearers were going to have to implement, and half towards Haze’s flash-quick reaction and call for retreat when Illfang swapped its weapons.

“I don’t play games with people’s lives.”  Harry snorted, standing tall and surveying the heavy-breathing going on all around him as he rubbed Arion’s side, the horse having had to snatch up more than one player during the battle with Illfang and his sentries and get them clear of the danger zone before they hit red in their HP bars.

Gamers.

That got him a considering glance from a few of the tougher players around him, notably Agil, Heathcliff, and Asuna.

Kirito, naturally, already knew this about his Haze-kun.

Though…when Haze-kun had becoming his Haze-kun he wasn’t quite sure.

A problem for another day, for now they needed to refine their strategy with the new information they’d found out.

“The teams idea will still work.”  Diavel insisted a few minutes later.  “But does anyone know what skill that was at the end?”

“It’s a katana skill.”  Kirito’s friend Klein provided, being one of the other two katana users on the Front Lines.  “High level, Haze might have a better idea.”

“Haze?”

“Not sure.”  Harry shrugged.  “But given the blowback the last out as he landed got hit with, it has to be an area of effect attack.  We either have to block it or get clear before our hardest hitters take Illfang out.”

“Knock-down attacks.”  Klein agreed with a nod.  “I haven’t unlocked Floating Boat yet, though…”

“I have.”  Harry said, wrinkling his nose.  “It takes a monster five seconds to recover and attack, it’s not a very big window but if some ranged fighters hit him in the air, the rest can finish him once he lands.”

“Why not both?”  Kirito suggested.  “I can counter Illfang’s attack in mid-air with Sonic Leap, then Haze-kun hits with Floating Boat, ranged attacks, then tanks.”

“And wash, rinse, repeat as necessary until the boss is dusted.”  Diavel nodded, agreeing.  “We’ll head back out at 0800 tomorrow.  For now,” he stretched with a groan.  “I need to recharge.”

Nothing, unfortunately, was ever that easy.

Best laid plans and all that.

They ran smaller groups, this time with five sets of nine players each to give a better split and fresher relief when Diavel would call out for groups to switch, and everything was fine if exhausting.

Then someone had to show up the others…and show off.

Kibaou.

Still holding a grudge, Kibaou tripped Kirito and flung him back – an impressive show of strength – to the edge of the “safe” zone they’d established based on the blow-back from Illfang’s katana strike the day before.

Only…it wasn’t enough.

He wasn’t enough.

And all the players could do was fall to their knees in the backlash as Illfang cut Kibaou in half with a single strike.

Most froze in horror.

Harry and Kirito weren’t most.

Fucked plan or not, they stuck to it as Kibaou had landed a single strike against Illfang before the blow hit, Kirito interrupting another go at the skill with Sonic Leap then Harry doing his part with his Floating Boat, a couple of the ranged-attackers snapping out of their shock long enough to hit Illfang in the air, Kirito and Harry already charging with Asuna, Agil, and Diavel with them for the downed boss.

Harry’s Phantom Moon hit first.

Kirito’s Vorpal Strike finished it.

And Kibaou dispersed into pixels as he bled out.

Below Illfang’s throne, a chest appeared in pixels of its own as the Cardinal AI divided exp and general drops to the various parties and their members as Kirito opened the chest, with a <Last-Attack Item> dropping at Kirito’s feet.

“He knew better.”  Agil said with a mournful sigh and shake of his head as several of the players broke down in tears, Kirito blank-faced as the younger teen equipped his new <Coat of Midnight> which had a +Hiding buff.

“He thought he knew better.”  Harry said with no little bitterness, even as he arched a brow.  He must’ve done quite a bit of damage with his last couple strikes on Illfang.  He’d received <Kobold’s Bane> a No-Dachi like Illfang’s if sized for a player to use from the drops.  “He was wrong.”

“About a lot of things, I think.”  Agil said thoughtfully, patting Haze and Kirito on their shoulders before moving to console some of his normal party members, Kirito already kicking everyone but Haze from their party.  “At least no one can say the beta testers didn’t try and help this time.”

“He’s right, you know.”  Harry told Kirito as Arion trotted over from where he’d been playing rescue-horse during the battle.  “There wasn’t anything anyone could have done to prevent Kibaou from doing that.”

“Let’s just get out of here, hai?”  Kirito sighed, shoulders slumped.  “I’ve had enough for today.”

Harry swung up into the saddle, offering his hand down to Kirito and helping him onto Arion’s back.

They had to travel all the way back to the Town of Beginnings to activate the <Teleport Gate> to the 2^nd Floor, roughly ten kilometers which with Arion doing the leg-work, shouldn’t take them long at all once they get clear of the Labyrinth.

The pair made a pit-stop at a merchant to clear their inventories and stock-up on potions, Harry ignoring the looks the pair was getting from the still-crowded town as he led Arion by his reins through the settlement towards the <Teleport Gate>, knowing that it wouldn’t open at the main 2^nd Floor settlement but at an exit elsewhere, leaving them to find their way from the 1^st Floor Exit Portal to a settlement before they could rest.

Sharing a glance, each teen lifted his free hand then gave the command:

“Activate Gate!  Teleport 2^nd Floor!”

1^st Floor Exit Portal, Aincrad 2^nd Floor

Harry and Kirito stepped out of the glowing portal, Arion with them, staring in wonder at the vastly different make of the second floor.

Where the first floor was mainly plains with forests and a few mountains, the entire second floor – which they had a pretty good view of with the portal opening up on a high mountain top – was savannah with flat-topped mountains scattered over the land.

Pretty but alien compared to the near-idyllic landscape of the first floor.

“That way.”  Kirito nudged Haze-kun, pointing towards the long set of stairs – the first of over a dozen – that led down the mountain towards the flat plains.

“Oh, goody.”  Harry sighed, shaking his head then remounting on Arion, Kirito swinging up behind him once more.  “Just what I want to do while on horseback: more stairs.”

Chapter Text

Haze Online

35

Field Boss Location, Aincrad 2^nd Floor, December 11, 2022

Thirty-five days into the Death Game, and Kirito had wandered off with Argo on some secret quest that she’d agreed to show him after he saved her from a couple thugs.

All well and good…but Harry was bored.

And a bored Harry, even in a Death Game, wasn’t good.

Which was how Harry found himself alone except for Arion, facing off against the 2^nd Floor Field Boss <Bulbous Bow> a bull monster that stuck mainly to a charge-turn-charge again pattern.

Compared to the weeks it took to locate the 1^st floor labyrinth, Harry had run into the Field Boss by following some cliffs and spotted the Labyrinth entrance behind it after only a few days.  With his Searching skill modded for Tracking the same as Kirito’s after leveling it to fifty (out of a thousand, skills at least leveled faster than players themselves did) he’d tagged the field boss as a level twenty-two boss, with two HP bars.  Which, after two days of grinding plus the exp from the first level boss fight, Harry thought he could handle on his own with Arion to distract the bull, since Harry’d hit level twenty-three and Arion level twenty-one.

Two HP bars for two HP bars, with a Slytherin’s cunning behind it, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Which he was pretty sure was going on his gravestone.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

He wasn’t sure when his inner Gryffindor escaped, but he hoped his Slytherin half beat it back up soon before it got him killed.

Hopefully, it wasn’t too late.

Harry activated his Hiding skill, using it to keep from drawing the bull’s attention as Arion played chicken (plus a kick as he passed the bull for good measure) with the field boss, finding that while he could use a sword skill while Hiding, it snapped him out of it at the end of the motion leaving him visible during cool-down.

Hence, the reason he was rethinking his strategy and life choices just a few days after lecturing the hell out of the other front-line players.

Do as he said kids, and not as he did: also another option for his epitaph.

However, thanks to Arion, Harry knew how to outlast a monster that relied on a charging attack, and it was just that simple: you had to outlast them if you couldn’t swarm them.

Arion did an excellent job of distracting and tiring the bull as Harry swapped between Floating Boat and Phantom Moon, his current two most useful attacks, with Hiding in between, but eventually the horse tired and gave one last rearing kick to the bull before obeying Harry’s command to leave the bull’s attack radius, focusing the snorting creature that had been whittled down to just under a single HP bar on Harry alone.

Running to meet the bull’s first charge, he hit with Floating Boat, knocking the bull high once more, following through immediately with Phantom Moon as Kirito had taught him to keep from freezing into cool-down, not able to risk being defenseless without Arion to have his back, though doubling up like that drained his own strength, precision, and agility like nothing else.

But it worked.

Harry didn’t escape unscathed, taking a massive blow from the bull after a miscalculation that definitely rang his bell, but he’d done it: limping, exhausted, and leaking HP, but he’d done it.

Collapsing where the bull had dissolved into pixels, Harry slumped over, ignoring the double-jingling of level-up for both himself and Arion, plus the drops and Cor.

Normally completed by a party, Harry had gotten the drops that were normally split up, making them higher in value than the bog-standard drops, even if the Last-Attack drop was the same, a <Chakram> throwing blade that would go nicely with his throwing blade weapons set even if his attack skills for throwing blades weren't as effective as his katana skills.  A side-effect of focusing mostly on leveling his main weapon skill instead of his secondary skills like Battle Healing or Blade Throwing or Parry.

Sucking down health and regeneration potions like they were mother’s milk and taking out an apple for Arion who definitely deserved it, Harry arched a brow as while he was slowly feeling less like hammered shit, a private message from Kirito popped up in his field of vision.

<Private Message From Player: Kirito>

<Open>

Message: Back in <Urbus> after successful quest.  Where are you?

<Private Message For Player: Kirito>

Message: I’ll explain later.  Be back soon, have to <Map> area before I head back.

<Send>

Switching out his skill sets he proceeded to do just that, marking the entrance to the 2^nd floor Labyrinth on his map which became more and more vivid and precise with every level of map-making he gained, then lumbering to his feet with a stumble.

“Well, boy.”  Harry patted Arion’s neck.  “Ready to head back?”

Arion snorted and stamped a hoof then turned to the side to offer the stirrup, replenished enough for a light lope back to Urbus to meet with his person’s friend.

“You’re an idiot, Haze-kun.”  Kirito told him with a vicious, cutting glare, black eyes burning.

“Believe me, I know.”  Harry grimaced, drooping where he sat in the stable loft in Urbus they’d let when arriving in town, a change from inn rooms that had come with Harry taming Arion.  “You’ve made that clear: in detail.”

Honestly, the only thing Kirito was missing from a Hermione-scale rant were some charts and diagrams detailing just how stupid his latest stunt had been.

That Harry had arrived in Urbus basically slumped over Arion’s back and Kirito having to haul him off the high back of the war horse hadn’t helped matters, as it was he’d barely made it up the ladder with Kirito’s help before slumping over in a pile of hay.

After finding out why his friend was so beat up, well.

Kirito had been Not Amused™.

And let “Haze” know it without mercy for the sore and exhausted older boy.

Kirito wasn’t sure if it was a Westerner thing, since a large percent of the SAO players who’d snagged copies for the first release had been from his home of Nippon, or just a Haze thing but for a player that lectured others about safety and having a regard or their own and others’ lives, he could be ridiculously cavalier with his own.

The fucking idiot.

“Hey, though.”  Harry moved to change the subject once Kirito had finished his latest rant over Harry’s behavior and settled onto his pallet to seethe.  “You didn’t tell me how the quest with Argo went or what it was.”

Kirito sighed, falling back onto the pallet and letting his arms relax, closing his eyes since he knew Haze would be giving him his Puppy Eyes of Doom™ silently asking for forgiveness for being an epic shit.

“It was a special quest with an extra skill reward.”  Kirito supplied after letting Haze hang for a minute longer before breaking the miniature version of the silent treatment.  “Martial Arts.”

“Brilliant!”  The other teen cheered, Kirito not even having to look over to know there was a bright grin on his scarred face.

“Hai, leveled too.”  Kirito sighed, not that Haze had said he’d leveled again, but given that he’d survived a fight with a field boss with only Arion for backup it went without saying that he’d have had to, without, you know, dying from idiocy!

“Mmm.”  Harry hummed letting himself start to drift since Arion would be aware before either of them if anyone came looking for the becoming-infamous pair.  “Sent word to Agil and Diavel about the Labyrinth.  Clearer Parties should start on it tomorrow.”

“Go to sleep, Haze-kun.”  Kirito sighed.  “Maybe I won’t be mad at you by the time we wake up.”

Dark Elf Queen’s Castle, 9^th Floor, Day 72, January 17, 2023

Some floors were smaller than others, Harry had come to find as he rested in the open window of his rented quarters in the <Dark Elf Queen’s Castle> which was both the only “settlement” and the only Labyrinth/area of the 9^th floor.

Another month had passed by and the players who’d taken on the challenge of clearing floors had gotten into a rhythm like a well-oiled machine for the most part.

There were still fights, arguments, and squabbles, but they were moving at a good clip, though one that Kirito warned would have to eventually slow down as time passed and players needed to ease up or risk burning out as the bosses got harder to beat.

The two still alternated between pairing up and solo playing, though it had gotten more common since their first several-day separation to meet up three or four times a week instead of every night, having leveled to the point that teleportation crystals weren’t as prohibitive and allowing them to set rendezvous points in advance, which was what Harry was doing waiting on the 9^th floor instead of out leveling or on the front lines with the other Clearers.

And wasn’t that something?

From savior boy-who-lived to Clearer, though at least he’d come by the latter title honestly instead of on accident.

There were better players.

Better leaders, better whatevers, but when it came to the boss fights, a dozen or so players had over the last twelve floors been set apart from all the rest, though Harry and Kirito still tended to trade the <Last-Attack> distinction between them as some like Diavel and Heathcliff preferred Command over being in the thick of things against the bosses.

The players had cleared up to the 13^th Floor so far, with Harry hitting level thirty in the process and adding Leatherworking to his town/leisure skill set, though he didn't focus on leveling it too much while his Mixing skill was still one of the highest in the game and allowed a decent income when he wasn't out fighting monsters or leveling in general, the latter of which slowed down as the required experience notched higher and higher.

He and Kirito had also completed the <Elf War> quest campaign and gained a crystal vial each that could be used to swap out slot skills without losing progress, allowing Harry to add Trapping to his combat skills that he alternated with Hiding, though he still wasn’t certain what Kirito used his for.

Arion didn’t like the ninth floor with its lack of grass, but it was still much better than some floors where you couldn’t set foot on the surface at all because it was water or suspended in mid-air.

“Brooding again, Haze-kun?”  Kirito asked with a sigh as he unlocked the door with the keycode Haze-kun had messaged him.

“Seventy-two days today, Kirito-kun.”  Harry replied in his shaky Japanese, the younger teen having moved from teaching Harry game mechanics to Japanese lessons given the hefty percentage of Nippon-born players compared to other countries.  “It’s worth a bit of a brood.”

“Hai, I suppose.”  Kirito opened up his inventory, swapping out his all-black adventuring gear for a set of soft lounge clothes, shaking his head at the green-clad teen in the window.

The Black Swordsman and the Green Rider, or so they were called, Kirito picking up his appellation from his <Coat of Midnight> while Haze-kun’s was originally due to his eye color, though the other teen had run with it a little, choosing clothes and armor in a mixture of green and black instead of the blue and brown he’d worn when they’d first met.

“What are you thinking about so hard, Haze-kun?”  Kirito asked when he came out of the bath, patting a sleep-standing Arion on the side as he passed the horse that was leaning against the castle wall, and spotted the older teen still in the same spot staring out at the alien Aincrad sky.

“Do you know what I was doing this time last year, Kirito-kun?”  Harry responded, eyes still locked on the sky as the other boy came and sat opposite him on the window seat, his legs stretching out on the outside of Harry’s own but not quite close enough to brush Harry’s hip but closer than they would have two months ago.  Harry noted it nonetheless.  “Did I ever tell you?”

“No, Haze-kun.”  Kirito shook his head with a light, confused frown.  “We’ve never really talked about…before.”

Not even at their lowest.

Like when Haze scared ten lives off of him with his stunt with the 2^nd Floor field boss, a stunt that they kept to themselves lest another player attempt it, allowing Argo and the others who knew they located the Labyrinth to think the pair did it together with Arion’s help – which still had many of the other players watching them with far too much awe.

Or when the first Clearer died in a boss fight and neither of them were close enough to help.

Yeah, that had been a dark day.

One that if it wasn’t for Agil dragging both of them to a hot spring to relax and deal without an audience likely would have been so much worse…for both of them for all that Haze tended to be more pragmatic than Kirito.

Harry nodded slowly, vaguely aware of how reticent many players were about before even as antisocial as he tended to be.

In that way, Hermione’s plan had definitely backfired, only instead of only being around his friends and family, Harry was only around Kirito and Arion unless they were helping Clear a floor.

“You know I was a soldier, though.”

“Hai, you said as much when you were frustrated with Diavel-san.”

“Hah, yeah.”  Harry scrubbed at the back of his head, his wild black hair trimmed close on the back and sides with just the top left to run wild, a style he’d started wearing after the Department of Mysteries.  Then he flexed his hand, bringing the words carved into his skin into relief.  “Do you know how old I am, Kirito-kun?”  He asked rhetorically, continuing before Kirito could respond in the negative.  “I’m sixteen.  A year ago: a government plant at my school was forcing me to cut these words into my hand over and over again until it scarred…until the message had fully sunk in.”  He finished with a snarl.

“How were you a soldier at sixteen, Haze-kun?”  Kirito asked confused.  That didn’t make any sense.  Unless…

“I was a child soldier.”  Harry said, tone quiet and rather…dead.  “My childhood ended when I was fifteen months old when a terrorist murdered my parents.”  He turned emerald eyes dark with remembered pain on his younger friend.  “My mum’s birthday would be in two weeks and Christmas was three weeks ago.”

Ah.  Kirito nodded to himself.  He understood.

It wasn’t how long they’d been in the game that was bothering his friend – his best friend probably at this point – it was what they were missing by being here.

Death, for all that Kirito could tell, didn’t really bother Haze-kun as far as applying to himself.

Haze would move heaven and earth to prevent the death of another, including Arion or Kirito, but his own life was a different matter.

Kirito and Haze were both dedicated to becoming as strong in the game as they could, to survive the game, but Kirito was starting to think that while their goals were the same, their motivations were very different.

He thought, perhaps, that if it wasn’t for who waited for him in real-life, that Haze-kun would be content to truly live in this amazing world, death game and all.

Haze-kun was fearless not because he wasn’t afraid to die but because he wasn’t afraid to live rather than merely survive.

“This place was supposed to be part of my recovery.”  Harry laughed derisively.  “There was a battle and some of my friends, some of the other fighters, even my godfather all came way too close to dying.”

“What happened?”

“We won.”  Harry said simply, not willing – or just too damn tired – to weave the right lies together to make his friend understand without revealing magic…something he also had no way to prove.  “Injured, nearly dead in my case, but it was finally over.”  He let his head thud back against the castle wall.  “And five months later I get trapped in a death game with no way out, no magic escape flying in to save me or a battle to win to return home.”

“We’re going to get home, Haze-kun.”  Kirito told him fiercely, reaching forward and grabbing his left arm and giving him a rough shake.  “We are.  We make more progress every day.”

“But at what cost, Kirito?”  Harry’s breath rasped and rattled as he shoved down his rage and grief again, something that it felt like he’d had to do almost hourly lately.  “Thousands dead.  Thousands.”  He rocked his head in place against the wall.  “More die every day.  And for what?”  He snorted.  “A madman’s dream?  I had enough of that in my real life, I didn’t need more of it in my supposedly therapeutic gaming.”

“No one makes any of us fight, Haze-kun.”  Kirito told him solemnly.  “The ones who do like us…they know the risks.  All we can do is what we have been: level and clear.”

“Harry.”

“What?”  Kirito frowned, cocking his head to the side as Haze-kun lifted his head from the wall and turned those once-again bright emerald orbs on him.

“My name: it’s Harry.”

Kirito chewed on that for a long moment then gave a decisive nod and stood, snapping a respectful bow.

“Kazuto.”

Harry echoed his bow despite his seated position, showing off the grace that had been present in the green-eyed fighter ever since the very first day.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Kazuto.”

“And you…Hari.”

Things changed after that.

A trust that was inherently known between them alongside knowing each other’s real first name.

It was the first step towards a change that neither teen expected...

Even if it was still months in coming to find them for good.

Thunder Fields Dungeon Exit, 15^th Floor Aincrad; April 8, 2023

The trio of Harry, Kirito, and Arion were wandering out of the <Thunder Fields Dungeon> when the shriek pierced the air.

Kirito’s hand clenched automatically on Harry’s hip in response to the high-pitched sound, the two players not even needing to trade a glance or a word so in tune were they as Harry kneed Arion’s sides and had the war horse galloping towards the sound, Kirito shifting behind Harry’s unyielding form to crouch behind him, his feet steady and balanced between his ever-growing Riding skill and the saddle-bags and pillion Harry had had crafted to make their travels easier.

Another shriek, this one filled with pain as well as panic pierced the air nearly covering the sound of Kirito’s one-handed longsword leaving its sheathe on his back as they came into sight of the problem: a group of mid-level players overset by a group of monsters on the edge of the Labyrinth valley.

There were only five of them and a single forward out of that five, a forward who was taking far too much damage to be able to switch-out with any of his party members.

Harry brought up his Searching skill, tagging and flagging the highest-level monster on the party map for Kirito, a level 26 <Thunder Spirit> that was hitting the weaker group hard with chained attacks.  A problem for them.  Not so much for either Clearer.

They’d hit 44 in their last boss fight up on level twenty-five, staying neck-and-neck with each other, but after five months of near-constant power-leveling, clearing, and boss fights, they were planning to take a bit of time to relax as Harry’s near-breakdown a couple months before had proven they needed, lest they focus too much on the “death” aspect of the death game.

Five months to clear a quarter of the floors of Aincrad.

Floor 25 took two months alone, culling a whole third of the Clearers in the process.

Yeah, some R&R was just what the healer ordered.

But first, monsters.

Arion galloped then leaped straight over the group of players, his hooves kicking up sod from his <Jump> as the war horse barreled through the converging monsters, Kirito kicking off from horseback with a <Backflip> putting himself in front of the beleaguered forward, sword drawn and charged for attack as Harry wheeled Arion for another <Charge>.

They worked in perfect sync after months of partnership on quests and boss raids alike, Harry and Arion clearing the flanks of the monster mob with Kirito tearing through the center like a demon.

After their shock wore off, the players who’d been overset jumped back in as well, laying down support fire on the <Wind Spirits> and <Thunder Spirits> that had been threatening their very lives thanks to spawning as a mob.

As Kirito took out one of the last remaining <Thunder Spirit – Lvl 25> he spied Haze-kun’s green and black coat on the ground beside him, the other player having dismounted once the flanks of monsters that threatened to encircle the group were cleared, his dark-grey bladed <Kobold’s Bane> flashing green as he used <Whirlwind> to devastating effect against the lower-level monsters, the skill from what Kirito understood a lesser version of Illfang’s deadly omnidirectional attack.

That was another thing – and another reason for Haze-kun’s nickname among the other Clearers – his attack color.

Haze-kun was the only player Kirito had ever met that had a single attack color: the same vibrant green as his eyes, rather than an attack color-graphic that matched to a specific skill or skill type.

It was a distinctly “Haze-kun” thing that had no logic behind it, much like his outside skills that came through in the game, such as his ability to almost look through a player to what their nature was or to know when a situation was about to – or had the potential as with their very first boss fight – turn lethal.

And from the murmuring coming from the party they’d rescued, Haze-kun’s reputation – mainly as a surly foul-mouthed Clearer – had preceded them, Kirito being less distinct away from the front-lines…when he wanted to be anyway, than Haze-kun.

At one time, Kirito was in turns baffled and beleaguered by Haze-kun’s public persona.

Now he knew it was just a mask Haze-kun wore to protect himself.

To survive.

Attachments were something the older teen avoided like the plague, to the point of freeing up Kirito by going off on solo quests so that he could party with Agil and his guild or with Asuna when she asked rather than risk getting close to either Clearer.  Kirito understood the fear of attachment, having had to make the same decision that first day of intending to set out on his own rather than drag a trio of noobs with him into the more dangerous areas of the first floor to power level.  Haze-kun had been an anomaly Kirito hadn’t expected, one that had proven time and again that while attachments in a death game could be a fearful thing, they weren’t necessarily dangerous.  Haze-kun didn’t agree, shunning everyone as much as possible other than Kirito and Arion.

Kirito understood it but at the same time wondered at what made him so different that Haze-kun had been willing to partner with him from the first rather than allow them each to go it alone.

He’d never asked.

Not for fear of the answer, no.

But from a feeling that he wasn’t ready – yet – to hear it.

To know what made him and him alone different in Haze-kun’s eyes and worth the risk that attachment presented to the otherwise stone-cold Englishman.

Arion didn’t count.

As a pet, it was impossible for the war horse to pose the sort of risk to Haze-kun’s survival and worse, emotions, that Kirito did.

Still he wondered.

But as of yet…hadn’t worked up the courage to ask.

An interesting thing…as never once did Kirito doubt that Haze-kun would answer.

But only if Kirito ever asked, Haze-kun rarely if ever volunteering information, which made the few times he had done so, such as with his status as a former child-soldier followed with his real first-name that much more meaningful to Kirito.

After accepting the drops from their mini-killing-spree to save the other group, Harry with Arion at his side joined Kirito as they went over to check on the shell-shocked party that after a quick head count Harry noted was made up of five members of varying looks and age, including a female, but all were teenagers.

Probably high schoolers, with three of them definitely younger than the other two.

Harry was able – sort of – to keep up with the rapid-speed Japanese that followed between Kirito and who’d stepped forward to talk to them, the oldest boy if Harry had to guess and probably the party leader.  From what he gathered (mostly about every third word) they were a mid-level guild and wanted to thank Harry and Kirito with a round of drinks at an inn they’d made their temporary headquarters.  When Kirito turned to Harry who arched a brow in question and repeated the conversation in English, he was happy to note that while some of the nuances of the conversation had likely been lost, he hadn’t been, as Kirito repeated the other teen’s invitation to meet up at a tavern in <Taft> on the 11^th Floor.

The other teens looked a little abashed at having assumed that Harry was also from Nippon, especially given that he had distinctly European features compared to Kirito, but Harry waved off the apology and accepted the invitation on both of their behalf after a glance at Kirito who seemed open to the idea.

“Meet you there.”  Harry told them in his coming-along Japanese.  “Soon.”

He preferred, one of his paranoid hang-ups that he couldn’t shake, to take his own teleport crystal whenever possible.

Though the closest that he had to Taft left them off at the 9^th Floor <Dark Elf Queen’s Castle> but with Arion to carry them they still made it to Taft in a handful of hours, more than enough time for the guild to rest and recover.

“They didn’t seem scared of us.”  Kirito noted, used to getting a mixture of fear and awe from the lower-level and mid-level players.

Really, outside of the Clearers, that was how everyone treated them anymore when they were together as they weren’t exactly inconspicuous running around with Arion.

“No, they didn’t.”  Harry agreed.  “Pretty cheerful bunch outside of the shaking-in-her-boots spear-user.  Even the forward that was torn up had a smile on his face.”

“Haze-kun.”  Kirito scolded him mildly over the less-than-kind observation of the female player.  Though at least it hadn’t been profanity laden, something Harry had slowly cut down on when he realized how much it bothered Kirito.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong…”

“Then?”

“You’re being harsh to the timid players again.”  Kirito told him, even as he reached out to gently clasp his shoulder in one hand as they walked through Taft towards the ale-house the guild leader, Keita, had pinged for them.

“At least I’m not being harsh to her face this time.”  Harry pointed out with an eye-roll for Kirito’s soft-heart.  Being afraid of death did nothing but make someone afraid to live as far as he was concerned, something he’d pointed out more than once to certain players.

Caring only about survival could swing towards two extremes: Asuna’s devil-may-care attitude where it didn’t seem to matter if she lived or died, or the opposite like Ms. Timid: being so afraid of death that you cowered at the thought of leaving your front door.

Ms. Timid wasn’t quite there – yet – but if someone didn’t pull her head out that was the way she was going to go, making her a burden on her friends and guild-mates alike, something nobody could afford above the first floor.

“Try to be nice?”  Kirito asked with a sigh, not wanting to get into one of Harry’s rants about living again.  Even though Kirito agreed with him, that didn’t stop Harry sometimes when he built up a head of steam.  “For me?”

“For you.”  Harry agreed with a sigh, reaching up to squeeze the hand resting on his shoulder.  “But if she says something stupid…”

Kirito held up both his hands in a timeless gesture of surrender.

“Trying is all I ask.”  He said firmly.  “I don’t expect you to act like anyone else but you, Haze-kun.  Not ever.”

“Thanks, Kirito-kun.”  Harry’s eyes softened as he grinned down at the shorter teen.  “That means a lot to me.”  He had no idea just how much…

“You’re my best-friend, Harry.”  Kirito whispered, resting his head on Haze-kun’s shoulder for a split second as he whispered.  “Why would I want you to be anyone else than yourself?”

Then Kirito was upright and standing strong, striding into the ale-house while Harry looped Arion’s reins around a nearby post and then following after his friend, but not before equipping Arion with a bucket of water and some <Oats> from the war horse’s saddle-bags.

“Ah, Kirito-san, Haze-san!”  Keita saw them first and waved from the wide table that had the small guild filling its benches except for the near-bench facing Keita, which had presumably been left free for the pair.  “Over here!”

Smiling up at Haze-kun, Kirito tilted his head towards the table and grabbed his anti-social friend’s arm to tow him over, not taking the even odds that Haze-kun would divert for the bar instead of ever making it to joining their hosts.

Haze-kun could be a cranky-ass that way, as he’d ducked out on meeting up with Asuna that way more than once, though notably he never did the same to Agil, which Kirito put down to Haze liking Agil’s calm personality and attitude more than Asuna’s tendency towards recklessness – and not just with her own life the way Haze-kun could be when left on his own.

There were dark things in Haze-kun’s eyes sometimes.

Things that went with the unspoken truth of what it had been like – what it had done to his friend – to be a child-soldier who woke from deep sleeps panting and gasping in the night or who would flinch or even attack if approached wrong or while he was – rarely – not paying attention.

Those dark things were why Kirito never stayed gone too long if he could help it with his own solo playing or helping Asuna or Agil out with a quest.

Arion was good company for the emerald-eyed man, but he couldn’t talk to Haze-kun about good things or silly things or even nothing at all to draw him from a dark mood that would lead to him doing something utterly idiotic…like taking on a field boss with only his horse for back up.

And yes.

Kirito was still upset about that.

He didn’t think he would ever not be upset about it, as it had shown him clearly the casual disregard Haze-kun had for his own life…or perhaps that he was damaged to the point that he didn’t – or couldn’t – understand the value it had.

Kirito tried to show him since rather than trying to talk sense into his stubborn friend.

Tried to make him see how losing Harry would hurt Kazuto.

He wasn’t certain if it had sunk in, not even months later.

Still, he kept trying.

That was all he could do after all: try.

Chapter Text

Haze Online

Interlude 1: London

Number 12 Grimmauld Place, November 7, 2022, 0800

Sirius snapped awake at the sound-feel of a knock on his wards over the Black Townhouse.

Once, he’d hated it here.

But in the wake of the Battle of Mysteries, where his pup had finally defeated Voldy-Shorts for the last and final time and Sirius himself had both nearly died and been finally exonerated, the townhouse had become home.

Not just for him, but for his pup and mate as well, Harry and Remus right there with him with sledges and wands to help turn the downtrodden old house that his paranoid grandfather had locked down tighter than a drum during the Grindlewald era – including moving the main “residence” of the Blacks from their manor in Wiltshire to the townhouse – into a livable home.

Harry, between the years of misuse by the Headmaster and his early years, had needed a home.

A place to rest and just be while trying to sort out all the mess and gunk in his head, a process Sirius was all too familiar with himself.

The muggle-style “entertainment” room had been a joint venture between Sirius and Harry’s mind healer, muggle games and entertainment being just one of countless normal parts of a childhood that Harry’s unlamented blood-relatives had withheld from him.

Harry’s eye had lit up at the very idea of filling it with a television and game consoles, a computer, and more that Sirius barely followed the descriptions of but had nodded along and shelled out his revered “Black” Gringotts card for, being one of perhaps a dozen magical persons in the wizarding world to have the vaunted “black” card as one of the goblins’ wealthiest clients.

It apparently corresponded to a similar by-invitation-only credit card in the muggle world judging by the expression on the salesperson’s face when he’d tossed it down on the cash wrap.

Sirius couldn’t lie – he liked the effect the very sight of the card had on magical and muggle salespeople alike.

After a life lived under contempt from one source or another, it felt good to be respected and revered, even if only for his family’s wealth, wealth that he would one day leave to Harry, though James and Lily had turned out to be savvy investors themselves, making his godson nearly as wealthy as Sirius was if not more-so as they’d jumped on the muggle tech craze much sooner than any other magical family thanks to Lily’s ties to the muggle world.

She had seen what was happening, what was coming, and the Potters had benefited from it in a vast increase of wealth the like not seen since James’s grandfather Fleamont had created the Sleakeazy Hair Potion, though thankfully for the Potter wealth James’s father Charlus hadn’t sold out from the Stinchcombe Potion Company despite several inducements to do so by his peers in the Wizengamot who found a peer actively engaged in trade distasteful.

Aunt Dorea’s husband had told the stuffy wankers to fuck right off, his grandson becoming one of the wealthiest young Lords at his inheritance a few months before at sixteen in the entire world in the as a result between Charlus’s tenacity in the magical holdings and his parents’ creativity in their branching out into muggle investments like the Nippon-based company Argus which had created both the NerveGear and Sword Art Online.

Sirius, on Harry and Hermione’s recommendation, had invested in Argus as well, giving orders similar to Harry’s standing arrangement with his own goblin investment manager to snap up whatever shares came onto the market.

An excellent idea, though Sirius had no idea – as yet – just how important said idea would become.

But he was about to find out.

“Masters.”  Harry’s favorite house elf, who’d been ecstatic at being bound to Harry on his recent birthday, named Dobby popped into the master suite.  “There is being Aurors and Healers at the door, Master Black and Master Moony, sirs.”

Groaning, Sirius turned over and sat up, already scrubbing his hands over his face as Remus let out a curse and fumbled for his wand before snapping quick cleaning and hygiene charms at them both, then summoned slippers and basic robes from the closet.

“Aurors and Healers.”  Sirius muttered, silver eyes dark with worry.  “That’s not good.”

“Don’t panic, love.”  Remus, ever the clearer head even as his own worry showed in the gold lining his amber eyes.  “Whatever it is, we’ll manage.”

They always do.

“What?!”  The pair of werewolf alpha and Black Lord shouted in unison at the unfortunate fuckers given the task of reporting their godson’s – and heir’s – current status.

Said status being trapped in a death game that not one fucking soul in the world knew how to free him or the other – currently following actual deaths – estimated nine thousand seven-hundred souls that remained linked to the VRMMORPG.

“Please, please calm down.”  Tonks, one of said-unfortunate-fuckers who’d been chosen for her friendship with her cousin and his mate, held out her hands and gestured for the pair to sit down before they could dart upstairs to the game room and do something…rash.  “And let Kings finish.”

Kingsley, the new head Auror in the wake of Madam Bones’s elevation to Minister of Magic after Fudge was unceremoniously kicked to the curb after the DoM fiasco, and his own boss Scrimgeour taking up the headship of the DMLE, took a breath and tried to explain as best he could, he and Dora having had this same conversation or a version of it with only a handful of other magical family members or friends of the trapped souls this morning.

They knew more about the muggle world for one.

And they had the power to restrain said friends and family members and to carryout whatever action was needed to protect the trapped souls under their orders from the Minister herself.

That Harry Potter was one of the trapped souls was something everyone cognizant of the issued desperately wanted kept under-wraps lest the wizarding world – at least in Western Europe – riot.

Nippon was already dealing with riots enough outside their government buildings and the Argus headquarters, they did not need them spilling over here, especially as Wizarding Great Britain was still dealing with the aftermath of Voldemort’s short return but bloody return.

“Our pup is fucking trapped!” Sirius snarled, looking every inch the irate Grim that he was inside.  “Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down, cousin!”

“Pads.”  Remus sucked in a breath and grit his teeth, shoving his worry and rage and fear down and away.  He’d lose his head later.  Right now, one of them needed to be calm and as ever it wasn’t going to be his hot-headed lover and mate.  Sirius could – and would – make it up to him later when Moony needed to blow off steam.  “Let them talk.  We need to know everything before we start tackling the situation.”

“Thank you, Remus.”  Kingsley nodded his bald head, golden earring glinting in the candlelight provided by the sitting room candelabra.  “Yes, Mr. Potter is trapped.  The creator and designer of the, ah, NerveGear technology and the game itself apparently has a god-complex the like of which Voldemort could only aspire to.  He manipulated the game controls: keeping the players trapped, taking away their ability to, ah,” he frowned, still not certain of the game mechanics involved.  “Resurrect in-game and to log out.”

“What about the NerveGear device itself.”  Sirius was visibly straining to put his canny fighter’s brain to the problem instead of losing himself to rage.  “Can it be turned off somehow?”

“No.”  Tonks bit her lip.  “People tried that in a panic when their trapped ones wouldn’t wake up or in the wake of the announcement from this Kayaba Akihiko.”

“From what we understand from the representatives of Argus.”  Kingsley took over, knowing that it was hard for Tonks to speak of – especially with Harry trapped.  “There is a safety in the NerveGear that is supposed to protect the wearer from a lethal reaction from the headset.  Kayaba turned off the safety and set the thing to kill anyone who has their headset tampered with.”

“Merlin.”  Remus gasped out, one hand reaching out and curling around Siri’s as the Black Lord’s expression shattered, tears filling his eyes.  “What, what about their bodies?”  He asked in desperation.  “Surely this Kayaba knows that they can’t survive?”

Tonks and Kingsley traded a look.

“He knew.”  Kingsley admitted.  “He’s there…with them in the game.”

“What?”  Sirius hissed, hand clamping down in instant reaction to that news.  “My pup is not only fucking trapped but he’s trapped with the psycho who did this to him?”

“Yes.”  Kingsley answered firmly.  “A piece of information that understandably isn’t being shared outside a few trusted individuals.  As far as the bodies of the trapped souls, a force has been mobilized to carefully transfer each trapped player to a hospital where their bodies can be cared for without interrupting the NerveGear connection.”

“That’s why we have Healers cooling their heels in the locked-down dining room.”  Tonks added.

“No.”  Sirius denied that course of action immediately – as from the smirks on both Kingsley and Tonks’s faces they’d known he was going to do.  “We can’t entrust Harry to anywhere even a bit public.”

Not with Death Eaters still hidden and needing taken care of, let alone the supporters who weren’t marked, or countless others who would jump at the chance to…erase a threat as great as Harry Potter posed to the status quo.

“We can hire a private healer to take care of him.”  Remus agreed, eyes thoughtful as he gave a comforting squeeze to his love’s hand.  “Andy would be best.”

Tonks grinned at the compliment to her mum, nodding.

“She’d take the job in a heartbeat.”  Tonks agreed then gave a devious smirk.  “Might even be able to correct some of those lingering health issues that Captain Stubborn Pants upstairs refused to have looked at.”

Sirius and Remus shared a bemused smile at that.

It wasn’t like she was wrong after all.

And anything they would do here to strengthen their pup could only help Harry…wherever he was.

“Is…”  Remus closed his eyes and shook his head, then finished his thought.  “Is there a way for them to win free of this trap?”

Sirius echoed the question with a nod in like-mindedness with his mate.

If there was…then their pup would find it, even as they wished against all odds that he hadn’t been trapped in the first place.

“From the announcement from Kayaba sent out when the game locked-down,” Kingsley supplied.  “Yes.”

“What do they have to do?”

“Beat the game.”  Kingsley grimaced.  “And never die in the process.”

“How is he, Andy?”  Sirius asked his cousin and professional Healer as the tall witch – who bore a startling resemblance to her once-again-incarcerated sister Bellatrix…but sane – lowered her wand after casting a series of diagnostics.

After, of course, convincing Dobby that no, his Master Harry Potter Sir wasn’t going to be harmed or moved, and that the Mistress Healer Tonks Ma’am was there to help keep him healthy.

“A bit peckish and in need of fluids as well as a few, ahem,” Andromeda Tonks neé Black coughed.  “Personal care spells but other than that…” she sighed.  “I truly wish you had convinced him to see a healer earlier, cousin.”

“How bad?”  Remus asked, folding Pads into his arms as Sirius gave a worried grumble.

“Rampant malnutrition that goes back far into his childhood.”  Andromeda reported to her newest patient’s guardians per Sirius’s exoneration and reclamation of his rights.  “Broken bones that were never set correctly or at all, Cruiciatus damage that went untreated that’s over a year old, exposure to a dark artifact leaving scarring on his right hand, and more.”  She sighed, shaking her head.  “Not all of which can be corrected.”

“The bones at least.”  Sirius knew from experience, voice straining as he held his human form rather than slipping into the simpler – and easier to function – form of Padfoot.  “Those can be vanished and regrown.”

“Yes, that can be done.”  Andromeda nodded.  “As well as some of his long-standing malnutrition corrected, his vision problems, and so on.  With proper maintenance spells while he is in what for all intents-and-purposes is a coma…”  Not that she liked the circumstances by any measure, nor even agreed with that being the best designation for his current status, but it was close enough and gave Sirius as Harry’s guardian the leeway to make decisions on his behalf, including hiring her to look after him while he slept.  “He could very well wake in better condition than when he logged-in to this game.”

“How much of the maintenance spells can be done by a house-elf?”  Remus asked with patent practicality.  Even the most devoted healer couldn’t look after Harry 24/7, neither could he or Sirius for all that they might like to.  And with Harry in such a vulnerable state, they needed to limit access to him as much as possible.

“With the proper training and potions on hand, ninety percent after the initial healing.”  Andromeda reported, already snapping out a few spells to deal with Harry’s current state: spelling in food, water, and nutrition potions into his stomach with a healer’s efficacy then taking care of the boy’s bodily needs with targeted healing-class vanishing spells.  “For the first week he’ll need constant observation by myself or another witch or wizard for side-effects from his healing and the potions he’ll need to be on while he’s in this state.”

“Whatever you need, Andy.”  Sirius vowed, face grim.

“Dobby is the best choice for Harry’s caregiver elf.”  Remus said thoughtfully.  “We’ll hire another elf for the house and keeping Kreacher in check, plus a second caregiver-trained elf to help Dobby even if the closest we can come to the proper training from the placement agency is a nanny elf.”

“I’ll send the owl.”  Sirius agreed, squaring his shoulders and stepping out of Remus’s caring arms, heading for his office.

“Wait, cousin.”  Andromeda commanded, flicking her wand to conjure a list.  “These are the potions Harry will need.”  She winced.  “I know you don’t like him…”

“But Snape is the best.”  Sirius finished with a grimace of distaste and a sigh.  “But for Harry, I’ll contract with him so long as you personally test each batch of potions he makes for tampering.”

“Siri.”  Remus scolded.  “Severus wouldn’t poison Harry.”

“Maybe not.”  Sirius shrugged, unconcerned with his mate’s frustration over the long-standing feud.  “But it’s not a chance I’m willing to take.”

Not with Harry’s life.

Not ever.

Gringotts London, December 29, 2022

“Lord Black.”  The Black – and currently the Potter account manager with Sirius having control of Harry’s affairs whilst he was in his “coma” business manager Sharpfang greeted Sirius as he was ushered into the manager’s office.

“Sharpfang.”  Sirius gave a sharp jerk of his head in a vicious nod, his mood being less than his normal charming self due to Harry’s continued unconscious state.

Though it was heartening in one factor: of the approximately 2,000 trapped souls who had perished in the last month-plus, his pup wasn’t one of them.

He was surviving.

Under strain and danger at times as Andy could tell from his hormone fluctuations such as adrenaline levels caused by his body reacting to his brain signals but surviving nonetheless.

“What business requires my presence?”

“As you know, Lord Black.”  Sharpfang folded his clawed hands on the desk-blotter before him.  “Both yourself and Heir Potter gave orders that any available shares of certain companies should be purchased as they came available, including those of the company being held responsible for the current state of certain trapped souls, one Argus Inc. based out of Tokyo, Nippon.”

“I am aware.”

“In the wake of the…incident,” Sharpfang didn’t wince at the vicious glare in silver-eyes that shot his way…but it was close.  “Argus has been subject to heavy scrutiny and plummeting stock prices.”

“And?”

“You own it.”  Sharpfang didn’t beat around the bush any further.  “Or at least, yourself and Heir Potter combined own ninety percent of the active stock, with the remaining ten percent acquired by another Nippon-based company one RECT Inc., which you both also own stock in.  RECT Inc. has made overtures to purchase the remaining Argus stock and effectively take over the existing operations and servers from yourself and Heir Potter.”

“No.”  Sirius shot him down cold.  “Over my dead body, and likely not even then.  Those servers,” he drawled the muggle word.  “Contain the very essence of my godson.  They will be maintained under my control until Harry wakes up.”  Sirius rose back to his feet.  “If that is all…?”

“I warned the RECT Inc. representative as such through our muggle liaisons.”  Sharpfang waved a hand.  “In such an event as now, they would like to propose a partnership and merger instead between you, giving you oversight and control over certain operations that are of most concern.”

“No.”  Sirius shrugged, giving his business manager an infuriating little smile.  “If Argus is defunct, have it folded under the Potter-Black Global umbrella.  Let’s see if our own technology branch can make anything of the Argus data.  Buy the remaining ten percent from RECT Inc., even if we have to trade them share-for-share with their own stock.”

“As you wish, Lord Black.”

Harry’s mind would not remain in the hands of anyone but him, so help him Circe.

Chapter Text

Haze Online

154

Halcyon Inn, Taft, 11th Floor Aincrad, April 8, 2023

One hundred and fifty-four days into life in a game, Harry found himself tagging along after a smiling Kirito to join the mid-level players they’d saved for a thank-you drink.

Granted, there were worse ways to spend his time, and definitely worse places.

Though the 11th Floor had a European feel to it that made him a little homesick, but not as much as other floors that leaned towards medieval European villages like Hogsmeade for their architecture aesthetic.

Still, Harry wasn’t Mr. Social.

He would have been fine with just saving the group of younger teens and moving on.

In truth…he was only here for Kirito, and wasn’t that a kick in the ass?

All his work at being as antisocial as he could legitimately manage in a social game just goes crashing down every time the younger Nippon-born teen flashed soft black eyes at him.

Why that worked Harry was remaining stubbornly oblivious to.

That was a bridge Harry had no intention of acknowledging let alone crossing anywhen soon.

He wasn’t, however, prepared to do without the younger teen’s company, especially on one of “their” days where they teamed up rather than wander off on solo trips or partnering up with some of the other Clearers that had become, if not actual friends, then at least friendly with one or both of them…though the latter was still mostly Kirito.

Agil managed to talk Harry around once or twice, but he wanted nothing to do with Asuna’s attitude, and the two of them plus Klein were pretty much the only players other than Argo that Kirito talked to on a regular basis besides Harry, which still made him a hell of a lot more sociable than Harry was known for being.

Kirito called him a cranky-ass, and Harry definitely didn’t try to argue it.

His horse Arion, and Kirito were really all the socialization Harry either needed or wanted, but he was willing to tolerate others for the younger teen’s sake.

Or even be friendly-ish with Agil when the older man cornered him for a drink.

Otherwise - especially when it came to the offers to join up with guilds - Harry had a solid pass philosophy.

“Kirito-san, Haze-san,” Keita greeted them with a wide grin, the rest of the small guild cheering at the sight of them walking over to their table in the tavern.  “I’m glad you decided to join us.  Please,” he waved to the waitress NPC.  “Order whatever you like in gratitude for your timely assistance.”

“Cider,” Harry told the NPC, Kirito joining them and adding a platter of <Antipasti> for them to share off the limited tavern menu.  Neither of which were the most expensive or conversely the cheapest items there, Kirito able to find the middle ground between taking advantage of their gratitude and insulting them far easier than Harry.  “And after surviving this long, you all should know better than to take on monsters too strong for your guild to handle.”

Keita took the mild - for Haze-san, his sharp-tongued reputation preceded him - rebuke with good grace even as the only female in their guild, Sachi, blushed a vivid red and the others: Tetsuo, Ducker, and Sasamaru all spluttered a bit, vanities offended at the Clearer’s blunt assessment of their predicament before he and Kirito-san arrived.

“Ha, yes.”  Keita ducked his head and ruffled the back of his short brown hair.  “You are right of course, Haze-san.”

“We’re working to get stronger!”  Tetsuo declared firmly.  “So we can join the Clearers on the front lines instead of merely surviving while the strongest players do all the work to save us!”

“That’s a noble sentiment, Tetsuo-san.”  Kirito responded calmly as the waitress delivered his and Haze-kun’s food and drinks.  “But risking your lives in dangerous stunts is not the way to do it.”

“It’s a waste.”  Harry had no problem playing bad-cop.  Not a single one considering that all of these kids were on the younger side for players, maybe thirteen, while the leader being a year or two older.  If it was up to him, he’d wrangle all the players under fourteen and lock them into the Town of Beginnings and the fields surrounding it instead of allowing them to risk their lives and die when there were plenty of older teens and adults to take those risks.  “We fight on the front lines not just to save ourselves but many of us also for the younger players who would die attempting to free themselves if we don’t.  Risking your lives to join us is wasting the sacrifice the other Clearers who’ve died trying to free us have made.”

And yes, even as Kirito shot him a look, Harry understood that that was more than a little hypocritical coming from him.

But since he tended to confine his personal bouts of idiocy to privacy and solo adventuring, no one but Kirito needed to know that.

“Then help us.”  Keita turned the tables on the infamous pair.  “You’re both strong, with your help, we’d be able to level up much faster than going it alone, and you likely know all the most dangerous areas.”

“I’m not much of a joiner.”  Harry immediately put paid to that idea, at least on his part, but he could see that it appealed to Kirito if the pouty look on his friend’s face was any sign.  He sighed, closing his eyes for a long moment.  “But,” he looked at Kirito.  “If you want to help out, Kirito-kun, I can focus on solo adventuring and saving up for that house we were talking about on level twenty-four.”

After five months trapped in a game and spending their nights - when they weren’t doing the odd night quest - in a variety of taverns, inns, stables, and NPC homes, both of them were more than ready for a stable place to rest their heads and make their own.  Plus with the right purchases or skills, they could store materials and extra items in chests or cupboards or other types of furniture.

And given their friendship, buying one together in one of the more oasis/paradise levels just made sense.

“Haze-kun,” Kirito scolded.  “That wouldn’t be fair without me doing my share.”

“Well,” Harry countered.  “We completed the quest to unlock the <Idyllic Cottage> together and we’ve already set aside most of the cor for it.  I’ll work on earning the last bit, then when you’re done with your mentoring spree you can craft most of the furniture for it, which would definitely count as far as I’m concerned as doing your share.”

“You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?”  Kirito sighed, neither of them paying attention to their audience who were enjoying their dinner with a show.

All except Sachi, who was still red-faced but now for another reason that had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the implications of their pair’s byplay, even if it was meant innocently, and what that meant for her own idle fantasy of striking up a romance with the handsome and untouchable Kirito-san.

She didn’t know what Kirito-san saw in that foul-mouthed gaijin but it had to be because he was one of the strongest players in the game.

Even if all sense said that Asura-san was also one of the strongest players in the game and female besides so if that was all it took to gain Kirito-san’s interest it would’ve fallen on the Flash long before now.

Harry smirked down into Kirito’s resigned pout.

“You know it, Kirito-kun.”

“Fine, fine.”  Kirito waved a hand then stole Harry-kun’s last <Pitted Black Olive> off of the small plate he’d taken from the <Antipasti> platter.  “Have it your way, you always do anyway.”

“Not quite.”  Harry snorted then took a long draught of his cider, remembering more than one quest he’d been talked into joining with Kirito and Asuna - if only to make sure that that reckless bint didn’t get his friend killed.

Now that Kirito had picked up an entire handful of strays, he didn’t see that as a trend that would be ending anywhen soon.

Two months passed in a blink as Harry and Kirito did just as they planned over that meal with the Moonlit Black Cats.

Harry would spend one night a week at the tavern/inn in Taft that was the guild’s temporary headquarters, always sharing a room with Kirito that got them more than one sideways glance that they were both oblivious to receiving at this point.

They’d been paired up and spending at least a couple nights a week together while going on quests and adventuring and killing Floor Bosses with the other Clearers that they might as well be deaf and blind to the rumors and looks they fielded whenever other players were around.

That Kirito was entirely comfortable riding behind “Haze” on Arion, usually with his arms wrapped around the other teen’s waist certainly didn’t help quiet the whispers.

Openly making plans to move-in together had merely spurred the gossip on.

No one who might have a problem with whatever-it-was they thought was going on between the two was brave enough to confront either of them however, as while it was also rumored that Heathcliff, the guild leader of the Knights of the Blood, was of a higher level than the pair, he wasn’t as notorious.

Harry in particular was solitary enough that beating the shit out of a mouthy asshole wouldn’t really affect him for the amount of time it’d take for his player icon to go back to Green after bleeding Orange for an attack on another player outside of a Duel, whereas Kirito probably would only do the same against a PK or Player Killer.

A murderer.

At this point, with the Game Maker’s words otherwise having been proved true, there was no logical reason to disbelieve them about deaths in the game carrying over to deaths in real life.

And both Kirito and Harry had views on murderers, even if Harry’s were far more vicious and virulent than Kirito’s own.

For Kirito it was a matter of morals and principals.

For Harry it was a matter of his life and all that he’d been forced to deal with it over the course of it.

From the contents of Kirito’s recent messages, Harry had a feeling that his friend was starting to get itchy feet and was ready to hit the front lines or power level again, especially since Harry had outpaced him in leveling.

It’d been expected, with Harry alternating between solo adventuring and helping on the front lines whenever they hit the level Boss, that he would level faster while Kirito was held back by mentoring his strays.  That didn’t mean Kirito liked it.  He was sure to like it even less when Harry showed him what he’d unlocked in the process of getting the Last Strike bonus for the Level 30 floor boss.  Harry’s luck had always been weird.  That hadn’t changed since becoming trapped in a death game, it had only shifted a bit.

Like finding the Hidden Glade quest that got him an Emotional Support Warhorse in Arion.

Or Kirito seeing something in Harry that made him take a chance on him instead of striking out on his own as he’d intended after parting ways with Klein.

Harry was actually looking forward to Kirito’s competitiveness sparking once more over his latest round of luck dropping a gift or two on his head, even if he’d rightfully earned one of them while the other was a matter of chance.

He wouldn’t say he’d been lonely during the last two months, but...yeah, he’d missed his friend.

And if Agil side-eyed him any harder when he found him having a rare (in public) brood on Level 24 after buying the <Idyllic Cottage> like they’d been planning for, Harry would’ve had to Duel him and then grind him into a paste.

Thankfully, the older man knew when not to push, other than a wry suggestion that Harry find Kirito to celebrate his victory against the <Kyuubi no Kitsune> instead of sulking into his cider.

Only Harry had gone to the tavern in <Taft> to find that the Moonlit Black Cats had gone off to dungeon crawl on Level 27 while their leader went to the Town of Beginnings to purchase their new guild residence.

Damnit.

Oh well, a bit of Tracking was in order he supposed after debating for all of a second whether he wanted to just wait for them to return or not.

If nothing else, a bit of material farming wasn’t a bad idea since now Kirito had furniture to craft for their own new home.

After all: a deal was a deal.

Labyrinth Dungeon, 27th Floor Aincrad, June 22, 2023 (229 Days In-Game)

“Everyone down!”

Kirito had never been happier in his life to hear Haze-kun shouting - which he only did in lethal danger, even when his temper was riled he got calm and cold instead of loud - than he was in that moment directly after Ducker fumbled disabling a trap on a hidden loot chest and an Anti-Crystal Field sprang up all around the hidden room in the 27th Floor’s dungeon labyrinth.

Dungeons were an excellent place - generally - for lower and mid-level players to grind and farm materials and exp alike, as the Clearers and Front-Liners focused on finding and destroying the labyrinth’s Floor Boss.

However, they also came with the drawback of having traps, mini-dungeons, and anti-crystal fields that weren’t common knowledge because they usually weren’t cleared with the rest of the labyrinth.

In this case, it was a drawback that he’d felt a moment of true terror for his newest friends over, as when the trap had sprung and monsters started spawning with no way out, he didn’t know a way around the usual solution: that of defeating all of the trap’s monsters and “winning” the scenario.

Alone, it would’ve been an exhausting waste of time as far as exp was concerned: even the highest-level monsters in the trap weren’t high enough to net him even one point a piece.

But with four players who were surrounded and overwhelmed by monsters several levels higher than their own?

For the guild, it was a death sentence.

Or it would’ve been, if not for Haze-kun’s uncanny instincts regarding danger and strangely quirky luck leading him to track Kirito down and step into the hidden room literally as the trap sprang and the entrance sealed.

Arion was right behind him, the 27th Floor not one of the places where the warhorse was too large to maneuver, and with three combat assets that could take out low-thirties monsters in their sleep, maybe Ducker fumbling disabling the trap wouldn’t be a death sentence after all.

But first, Kirito sprinted forward and took the other four players down to the ground with him and out of the way of an attack that he didn’t recognize form his best-friend.

Huh.

Looks like they had lots to talk about...once he and Haze-kun got them out of this sticky predicament.

“Kirito, move!”  Harry shouted, shouldering the other Clearer out of his way, even as he gestured sharply with one hand for the Black Cats to stay down.  “Keep them off me, I need six seconds!”

As it looked like the - third, maybe? - of the almost wall-to-wall monsters that had been taken out with Harry’s attack were slowly respawning, Kirito didn’t argue, instead just worked on beating down anyone who came near while Harry...ah.

While Harry used his <Crystal Vial> to swap out his Hiding skill for Trapping, then set a defensive trap around the weaker players that would keep them safe and lash out at attackers.

It couldn’t cover a massive area, hence Haze-kun chivvying the Black Cats close together, and didn’t unleash that much damage, but it did work pretty nicely as a shield.

It also didn’t last very long, giving the pair of them (plus Arion, who was Charging, Kicking, and Stomping his way through the horde’s flanks) a minute at most to winnow down the horde so that the weaker players wouldn’t be completely overwhelmed.

Sure.

No problem.

Also - what the fuck has Haze-kun been doing while they were apart and was that a tanto? he was using in unison with his katana.

Seriously.

What the fuck?!

Still, it did feel good: fighting with Haze-kun on one side of the circle trap he’d set with Kirito on the other, and just being able to unleash on the horde without worrying about needing to cover the others.

He didn’t need to worry about that.

He’d never really had to worry about that, not with Harry.

About him doing stupid shit while he was alone: yep.

But in a battle, with other people on the line?

Nope, never.

Haze-kun could be trusted to watch his ass and cover Kirito’s flank, just as he knew Haze-kun trusted him in turn to do the same.

That said: when Haze-kun dropped the last <Elemental Minion> with the tail-end of his <Whirlwind> attack, Kirito was glad of it as the defensive trap over the Black Cats had dropped several minutes before, and while they’d managed to come up with a strategy of circling up and not letting the horde pick them off one by one...without healing potions it would’ve been a close thing.

Too close.

And, personally, Kirito would never want to be the guy who was entrusted with Keita’s ducklings (and real life friends from school, even if they were all a year below him and he mentored them in computers in real life) and have to tell him that they all got killed while he was away.

Uh uh.

No thank you.

Having Harry back, on the other hand?

Kirito was down for that any day of the week, even as his friend picked up the <Hidden Chest Key> that the last minion dropped and the Cardinal had assigned to Haze-kun, moving over to his side as Tetsuo made sure the rest of the Cats took healing potions and saw to their First Aid.

“I see that you picked up some new tricks, Haze-kun.”  Kirito said with a smile, even as Harry tucked away his <Tanto> into a hidden sheath on his belt.  

He didn’t directly mention what he meant by that.  Both of them were already notorious enough without word of one of them having a Unique Skill like that: being able to use two weapons at once; getting out about them.  Given what he knew about the guild members, he’d say that they were all too panicked for the most part to notice what Harry was doing in the blur of Harry and Kirito tearing through the horde.  Still: no need to draw extra attention to it.

“Have to keep you on your toes somehow, Kirito-kun.”  Harry returned his friend’s smile, then used the key to unlock the chest that had started the whole clusterfuck he’d walked in on.

Opening it, he blinked at what he found inside, even as he picked it up and stared at the stats.

It was a rare weapon called <Steel Heart>, an o-wakizashi with an embellishment on the hilt of an anatomically correct heart in silver, that could be upgraded to a maximum of +35 depending on what type of upgrade a blacksmith used with it.

Better by far than his <Kobold’s Bane> katana and almost as long in the blade hence the 'o' designation, but equal to his tanto drop from defeating the Lvl 30 Boss. Both <Steel Heart> and <The Ninth Tail> were technically off-hand weapons.  However, as Harry swapped out <Kobold's Bane> for <Steel Heart> he noticed (and was fucking thrilled by) the realization that with his new skill active, as long as the "main" weapon was (presumably, he'd have to test it) a Japanese-style curved sword and had a longer blade than the "offhand" curved sword/knife/dagger, he could use it in place of a katana without suffering a debuff or having his new skill and his Katana skill deactivate until he reequipped a katana.

Kirito made a choking sound as he peered over Harry’s shoulder at the stats on the o-wakizashi, shaking his head and backing up even as he waved off the Black Cats, who were at Kirito’s insistence preparing to use transport crystals back to Taft.

“Your luck is ridiculous, Haze-kun.”  Kirito complained lightly, feeling just a bit envious over the stats on the long knife/short sword.

“Always has been, always will be.”  Harry shrugged that off even as he equipped the <Steel Heart>.  “C’mon, let’s meet back up with your friends.  I’ll tell you all about what you’ve missed once we’re tucked up for the night.  Also,” Harry grinned, then sent Kirito a message with an item attached.  “I think you’re going to need this.”

If when Kirito beamed up at Harry after seeing the key and equipping it to his wallet, and Harry felt a bit of a, er, flutter that was no one’s business but his.

Chapter Text

Haze Online

229

11th Floor Teleportation Gate, Aincrad, June 22, 2023

“Uh oh.”  Harry chirped, voice far too cheery for the preferences of the Moonlit Black Cats as they all arrived at the teleportation gate outside of Taft to the sight of a harried and worried looking Keita.  “Somebody’s in trouble…”

“Guys!”  Keita rushed over to fuss over his battered guildies.  “What did you do?”   He scolded as soon as he was reassured that they weren’t in any need of immediate aid, for all that they were going to need to visit armorsmith and weaponsmith NPCs for repairs to their gear or find a player with high <Smithing> skill.  “Did you talk Kirito-san into taking you to that dungeon?”  He demanded perceptively.  “I told you it could wait until we leveled more…”

Harry leaned over, whispering in the ear of his best friend who immediately flushed: “They used Puppy Eyes on you, didn’t they?”

“Sachi is super effective at it in unison with Ducker.”  Kirito muttered, restraining the urge to cross his arms over his chest and pout at Haze-kun’s accurate guess through sheer pride.  “Though in all our defense, it was fine until the trap was triggered.  Not great, but fine.”

Harry snorted, the sound drawing Keita’s attention, the younger teen’s head snapping around to focus on them, the guild leader himself following not long after as he released his hold on Sasamaru, rushing over towards the Clearers.

“Thank you, for protecting them, Kirito-san, and for saving them, Haze-san.”  Keita told them effusively, giving them a sharp bow.  “I will ensure that they are more careful from now on.”  He turned his head a little, eyeing his guildies sharply.  “As it seems they - we all - require more training before we head to the front lines.”

“Knowing your own levels and skill is the bulk of the battle in this place, Keita-san.”  Harry told him, almost sighing as he also shot the Moonlit Black Cats a look.  “It can be easy to overestimate and get into trouble, better to be over prepared than under.”  He smirked.  “After all, there’s no guarantee that next time, someone gets in over their heads, that either Kirito or I or anyone will be there to save them.”

“You are very wise, Haze-san.”  Keita gave the scarred teen a warm smile.  “Thank you again, for all that you both have done for us.  If there is ever a way for us to repay the debt we owe you, do not fear telling us.”

“We won’t.”  Kirito jumped in, almost able to sense at this point when his partner was reaching the end of his tolerance for other people - which, interestingly, seemed to be far more scant when dealing with thanks or expressions of gratitude than even someone shouting in his face - after almost eight months of partnership.  “Take care, Black Cats, until next time.”

“Hai, we will.”

“Thank you, Kirito-kun, Haze-san!”

“Thank you, see you soon!”

“Yeah, see you soon!”

“Let’s get out of here.”  Harry muttered as they waved at the guild, Kirito officially disbanding the party, potentially for the last time depending on how the mid-level guild’s plans to continue leveling up went now that he’d helped them break out of their leveling plateau and reach the needed cor for their guild hall.  “I have a home to show you and then you, sir, have crafting to do.”

“Hai, hai.”  Kirito gave his friend a soft smile.  “What will you do while I work on that?”  He asked in curiosity, since it wasn’t like he’d be able to furnish an entire cottage in a snap of his fingers, even if he had been stockpiling crafting materials while helping out the Black Cats as a trainer.  “Upgrade your new weapons?”

“Mn, maybe.”  Harry hummed under his breath as they made their way to the level’s teleport gate to jump up to level twenty-four, where their new home was located.  “I’d have to find a player smith for the sort of customization I’d want, which means asking around unless you know one?”

Kirito shook his head ruefully, as while he was more social than his grumpy friend, with the amount of time he’d been spending adventuring or Clearing floors he hadn’t made many acquaintances who focused more on the crafting and lifestyle skills over adventuring ones.

“Agil or Asuna might have ideas.”  He suggested after a moment’s thought as Haze-kun paced calmly at his side, much less frustrated now that they were ostensibly alone despite other players and NPCs wandering around <Taft>.  Probably because none of the players were likely to come up and start talking to Haze-kun, unlike the Moonlit Black Cats who’d gotten used to his more surly temperament over the months Kirito had been working with them.  “Or barring that Argo would probably know someone for a fee.”

Harry huffed a laugh at the mention of the ruthless businesswoman of an information broker.

For such a young girl, Argo certainly knew how to wheel and deal with the best of them.

“If the contact is good enough, I might trade one of my new drops plus <Kobold’s Bane> for a high level katana.”  Harry said, though it was more a thought than a firm plan of action at the moment.  “Depending on which of my new offhand blades ends up buffing better.”

“Smart.”  Kirito said with a small nod, face brightening as the teleport gate came into view.  “You have time to decide, since it’ll probably take us a few days or even a week to settle in entirely to the cottage and craft everything we need for furniture and storage.”

“We, what we?”  Harry squawked a mild protest.  “The deal was you would do the crafting for our house since I made the last bit of cor we needed for it.”

“The furniture, yes.”  Kirito snickered, expression growing smug at having gotten one over on his older, and often impossibly clever, friend.  “But storage items aren’t considered furniture in the game menu, are they?”

“You little…”

It was a cackling Kirito, chased by a fondly-irritated Haze, who eventually bolted through the teleport gate on level twenty-four and out towards where their new in-game home awaited, to either amusement or bafflement of those who saw them.

Depending, really, on if any of the witnesses knew who it was they’d seen actually acting like the teens they were instead of the hard hitting Clearers they were known as.

“Wow, Haze-kun,” Kirito had to stop and marvel at the sight of their home for a moment.  “I know that the <Idyllic Cottage> was supposed to be pretty but this…”

Harry had to smile and nod in agreement with his partner’s astonishment.  The twenty-fourth floor of Aincrad was a gorgeous landscape - probably meant to lull players into docility before the hellscape that was the next floor up - divided between islands connected with floating bridges and an encompassing landmass surrounding the waterway.  It only had a single village that had a lot of Neoclassical doric columns and white stone.

Harry found it kinda Venice-meets-Rome with the lagoon and waterways and architecture whilst also very much not all at the same time.

Most of the islands contained either an NPC location or private player-owned villas, so Harry (like Kirito probably) had expected their <Idyllic Cottage> to be built along the same lines as the village and islands despite being located in a quiet wooded glade complete with waterfall on the larger landmass.

Only their <Idyllic Cottage> was very much that: a cottage, not a villa, despite having the same white stone exterior walls and large shuttered windows of the rest of the level.

The roof was thatched, rather than tile.  Its window shutters were painted a bright and vibrant blue instead of plain metal or wood.  There was a dormer on the front of the cottage’s second story and a rounded mock-tower taking over one corner.  A red brick chimney rose over the roof spearing into the sky attached to the kitchen hearth.  Even the walkways and trail leading up to the cottage from the forest were cobblestoned, rather than paved or gravel.

Harry had paid extra for a fenced paddock and attached shed/miniature stable for Arion - which reminded him that he needed to ask Kirito about whether he even wanted to return to the first floor and tame his own mount or if Harry was good to sell the information to Argo who’d been bugging him about it off and on ever since Harry trotted into Tolbana on Arion’s back months ago.

Thankfully the aesthetic outside touches like the paint or the decorative flower beds were automated by the game and didn’t require them to maintain them, since neither of them had worked on any sort of gardening or home maintenance skill.

“Nice, right?”  Harry said with a grin, bouncing on his toes before jogging over to the paddock to release Arion from his pet storage - that he’d paid out the wazoo for in grinding to get to the special beast tamer mountain for the special expansion - to let the stallion frolic around his new digs.

“It’s awesome.”  Kirito nodded, then synced the key that Haze-kun had given him with the locks on the cottage door, turning it into a personalized pass attached to his account rather than an item he had to keep in storage.  “How’s the inside?”

“Why not see for yourself?”  Harry asked in turn, cocking his head a bit to the side with a smile on his face that turned teasing in a heartbeat.  “Check out just how much work you have to do.”

Kirito narrowed his eyes at Haze-kun with a grumble, then opened the door, quickly losing the suspicious expression upon what met his eyes at the first glance at the interior.

On the inside, it was a simple open layout with a ladder leading up to a loft area separating the kitchen from a common area/dining room that included the rounded portion of the mock-tower.  Against the far wall on the right hand side of the interior was a door that had been left open, revealing a bathroom, and on the left hand side was the kitchen.  Craning his head back, Kirito took in the large loft area that covered a good half of the downstairs interior over the kitchen, the dormer he’d noticed outside bringing a lot of light into the upper level as well as the open balcony overlooking the common area/tower with its two stories worth of wide windows.  The brick of the chimney was exposed going up the wall through the loft rather than being contained on the outside of the building, potentially to warm the cottage in addition to the kitchen hearth.

The downstairs was all the same honey-toned wood effect for floors and white plastered walls - with the exception of the rear kitchen wall that had the food storage, sink, and preparation areas that weren’t quite the same as actual kitchen appliances from the real world but were still recognizable.  He wasn’t sure what anyone would cook in a hearth big enough for both of them to sit inside that took up half the exterior wall, but if nothing else Haze-kun could use it for Mixing recipes that required heat.  Kirito doubted the backsplash came that vivid color of dark royal blue, with Haze-kun choosing to source materials or pay extra for the decor more likely.  Either way: it was pretty.

Despite his partner’s threats of forcing Kirito to do all the crafting to furnish the house, he couldn’t help but notice the touches that said otherwise.  The painted backsplash in the kitchen, copper pots for cooking hanging off a metal rack overhead, Haze-kun’s mixing cauldron sat on one side of the hearth’s raised ledge, the stuffed leather kneeling cushions pushed against one wall and when he ventured upstairs matching leatherwork futons.  Haze-kun had already gotten a start on making the cottage a home, even if the only storage they had in it at the moment was the pile of leatherwork storage bags and saddlebags piled in the corner and there was nothing that could be strictly considered furniture in sight.

It was raw and unfinished, but with Haze-kun leaning against the wall watching him take it all in with a smile on his face, Kirito couldn’t help but think that it was all the more perfect for it nonetheless.

A place of their own, to make their own, where they wouldn’t have to worry about anyone trying to barge in or mess with them.

Perfectly imperfect, and all the more perfectly theirs for it.

“Like it?”  Haze-kun asked, a hint of vulnerability in his tone and face that Kirito never would’ve noticed six months before.

“Love it.”  Kirito reassured him.  “I love the little touches you’ve started with, Harry.”

“Thanks.”  Harry swallowed hard, glancing away quickly from those soft black eyes before he made an idiot of himself.  “I’m glad…Kazuto.”

Still, with Haze making a start on furnishing the cottage or not, Kirito was kept busy over the next few days as he either ran around the NPC merchants or worked at crafting what they needed to make their home functional for them as well as beautiful and welcoming.

Even if it didn’t really matter in-game, there was still something not-right to either of their brains about sleeping on bare leather futons, so soft furnishings took up one trip: linens, towels, a shower curtain, etc. while another trip saw them debating over different types of wardrobes since they were too complicated for Kirito’s minor leveling in woodworking to craft.

Not like the chabudai for their eating area, or simple chests for storage.

Anything with functioning shelves was going to be a no-go for him, as his attempts came out…wonky due to his middling progress with Carpentry.

All in all, it didn’t take them too long to settle in, though it only took him opening the wrong cabinet in the kitchen once scrounging for snacks before he slapped up labels for which had Haze’s Mixing ingredients and which had the actual food.

It was nice, finally having a place to call their own after spending months flitting between inns, rented rooms, and random stable lofts.

(Being able to finally clear out the bulk of their materials from their Inventories without worrying about them disappearing for one reason or another was a genuine relief.  Both of them had the Expanded Weight Limit skill equipped, but being able to carry less crafting supplies and more adventuring supplies would make life much easier.  Just having a safe space that no one else could access without one of them took away more stress from Kirito and likely Haze-kun than he’d expected.)

Even so, Kirito had already been itching to start power-leveling again after spending weeks helping out the Moonlit Black Cats, and that eagerness to go out and start pushing his abilities again only grew exponentially once he finally cornered Harry about the particulars regarding his new skill - and what level he’d reached while Kirito was taking a mental health break via playing mentor.

“You’re what level now, Haze-kun?!”

“Fifty-one.”  Harry shot the swordsman a knowing smirk as Kirito spluttered.  “One of the first to break fifty at that, which came with a bonus weight limit increase and expansion for my <Inventory>.”  He tilted his head, studying his friend for a long moment.  “Last I heard, only Heathcliff has also made level fifty, there’s still time for you to snag the last two levels you need for the first-ten bonus as well as the two skill slots.  Since I doubt Arion’s leveling counts as he’s not a player.”

The extra slot had been almost as big of a shock as the first-ten bonus for making level fifty, honestly.  According to all the notes, there wasn’t supposed to be an extra skill slot for making level fifty, just the standard one that came every ten levels.  In comparison, snagging a bonus for being one of the first players to complete a certain milestone in the game or find a special quest, etc. was almost expected anymore.

A fact which helped - a lot - with a portion of the lingering antagonism towards beta testers.  If Kayaba had messed with far more than the obvious in trapping them in a Death Game, then it helped level the playing field for the betas.  Especially once they’d hit the levels that had never been explored.

“We’re dungeon crawling starting in the morning and we’re not stopping until I have that bonus.”  Kirito declared, pouting (adorably to Harry’s eyes, but a lot about Kirito had become more and more adorable and he didn’t know what to do with that, what the fuck hormones?!) at the knowledge that he’d have to start all over again on catching up with his partner after they’d spent so many months in sync after that first week or so.  “Even if it means having to do night raids in a labyrinth for double xp.”

“Fine, fine.”  Harry held his hands up in surrender, which was easy enough as other than a minor worry about Kirito’s safety he didn’t really have a problem with Kirito’s decision.  

Kirito was quiet for long moments, a pensive expression on his face, when he at last asked:

“What about your new skill?”  His words were so quiet they were barely a whisper, as if he was afraid - even in the privacy of their home with no one around as confirmed by Harry’s Searching and his own Listening - that someone might hear.  “Was that also from leveling?”

Harry sighed, having had a feeling that that subject was going to come up sooner rather than later after Kirito spied the tanto sheath on his belt.

“No.”  He answered honestly.  “I don’t know why but here…”  With a few flicks and motions of his hands Harry brought up his new skill and made it viewable to others.

<Unique Skill: Daishō>

<Requirements: Big/Small Curved Blades Equipped in Main and Off Hands; All Standard Katana Skills Unlocked>

It continued, showing a new skill tier tree that utilized the pair of blades though only two skills weren’t greyed out: the main skill itself and a single attack skill called <Side Swipe> that paired a swiping block with the offhand towards the enemy’s weapon that resulted in a three second freeze, followed immediately by a forward lunging strike of the main weapon towards the frozen enemy with a low percentage of a critical strike that would increase as Harry trained the skill.

“A Secret Skill!”  Kirito’s eyes were large in his face as he goggled at the screen, reading through the details that Haze-kun’s minor work at leveling it had revealed so far.  “There were rumors about these during the Beta Test but no one ever unlocked one!  So cool!”

Harry grinned at his partn- friend’s, his friend’s, - excitement.  Sure, Kirito had a slender face that screamed youthfulness, but in the virtual world where no one’s avatar aged and they were all effectively stuck looking the exact same as they did the moment the <Mirror> stripped away their character renders, it became easy over time to stop really noticing physical age anymore unless he was dealing with a player who fell far outside the “typical” age range in either direction.  Like Agil or Heathcliff for older characters or the kids who lied their way through the registration process for SAO and for the most part stay in the Town of Beginning down on the first level - those ages people tended to notice.  But anyone who fell in the roughly teenager and a bit older category?

Nope.

It just became another normal part of Aincrad.

So to see Kirito acting like a kid who was a couple years younger than Harry, was a bit of a slap to the back of the head regarding where his mind had started to wander when it came to his friend.

Yes, everyone had had to grow up and mature fast once SAO turned into a Death Game, but there was still a vast difference in expected maturity between a normal (pre-SAO) fourteen year old and a former child soldier sixteen year old.

Get it together, Harry.   He snapped at himself.  Kirito is your friend.  Just your friend.  Stop it!   He had to stop letting his mind wander to thoughts that he was never going to act on given the age difference and implied power imbalance that went with it.

Kirito didn’t even like him - or anyone from what Harry could tell based on how utterly oblivious he was about the few girls they’d run into who flirted with him, Sachi immediately coming to mind - like that.

Silencing all of those kinds of thoughts and shoving them into the locked and barred corner of his mind where his Slytherin side kept his Gryffindor tendencies under lock-and-key, Harry focused back on Kirito’s excited, ecstatic babbling and hypothesizing about how Unique Skills were unlocked.

Which, if Harry could parse out any meaning from the over-his-head technobabble, he thought Kirito thought came down to being the first player to complete a secret set of parameters.

“Based on the requirements that are shown,” Kirito mused, one arm crossed over his chest and the elbow of the opposite arm propped on it, his hand raised and fingers curled over his mouth in a thinking pose.  “It could either be a single benchmark that must be met or a series of prerequisites or both.”

“I didn’t have curved blades in both weapon slots when it unlocked.”  Harry told him, trying to help narrow it down since if he knew anything about his friend after months of adventuring and fighting together, it was that while Kirito didn’t tend to flaunt it, he was low-key competitive.

“How close between unlocking <Scything Reaper>,” the highest-level and highest-damage skill in the Katana tree, “and <Daishō>?”  Kirito asked perceptively.

“Well, since I was a bit busy at the time with the Kyuubi boss fight,” Harry admitted dryly.  “I don’t quite know since like anyone with sense I silence all system-generated notifications during serious battles.  They were both there when I pulled up my skills to check advancement afterward, but they bookended the Lvl. 51 congratulatory notification.”

“One hundred levels,” Kirito continued, halfway thinking aloud and halfway actually speaking to Haze-kun.  “Originally it was speculated that that went for the number of floors to clear and the potential character leveling cap, but, based on the progression of fight difficulty as we climb the floors, taking out the Final Boss may require players of at least Lvl. 150 to succeed.”  He hummed, pleased with his calculations.  “In which case, having the milestone of a player reaching a certain leveling minimum before they become eligible for a Unique Skill would fit within the logic of the Cardinal System.”

Based on what they’d already run into - all the players, not just Kirito and Haze-kun - it seemed sound.  Kayaba seemed to like his milestones and benchmarks, considering how much more difficult Floor 25 had been.  Even the boss fight on Floor 30 - from what Haze-kun had told him of facing off against the <Kyuubi no Kitsune> hadn’t been as challenging or costly in terms of player lives lost as Floor 25.

If milestones weren’t a factor, that wouldn’t be the case, leading most players to assume that Kayaba had programmed the Cardinal System with more hidden milestones than anyone realized - both for good and ill.

Harry listened with care, waiting until Kirito had wound down to his conclusion, then canceled the shared screen and ruffled the swordsman’s hair.

“We better get to work then.”  He grinned.  “Since that means you’ve got a couple levels to go, if you’re right, before even the chance of getting a Unique Skill is possible for you.”  He frowned for a brief moment.  “Did those rumors say anything about how many Unique Skills might exist?”

“Assumptions say ten, based on first-come first-served precedents of the game like the quest for the <Anneal Blade> down on the first floor.”  Kirito admitted.  “But if anyone else has a Unique Skill, they’re not going to be quick to show it off, unless they’re one of the glory hounds.”

“That means only Heathcliff at the moment, unless one of the other front liners had made it in the last week or so.”  Harry blew out a breath, then wandered over to start equipping his gear.  He could wait a bit longer to worry about upgrading his armor and seeing about a new katana.  First, they really needed to get Kirito to Lvl. 50 - just in case the younger player was right.  “Time to grind, we’re heading for 29’s Icy Desolation.  Lots of arctic monster spawns like polar bears and wolves for you to level up on.”

“Mmm.”  Kirito nodded at the plan, pleased, as he tended to prefer the cooler/colder floors than the hot ones if he had to choose outside of a temperate region that made up roughly half the floors so far.  “Sounds good.”

“Good.”  Harry debated for a moment, then tossed a wrapped package over towards his friend that he’d been keeping among his gear for a few days.

Kirito could be nosy, but he usually kept out of Harry’s personal belongings - unless food was involved, then all bets were off.

“Here, you’re probably going to want this then.”

Kirito shot his friend a confused glance - it wasn’t his birthday, or a gift giving holiday, so what-? - even as he easily caught the bundle.  It was a little squishy under the plain paper wrapping and string.  Armor, maybe?  It wasn’t soft enough or have enough give for a blanket or clothes, he didn’t think.

Having learned during the Christmas events how Kirito’s culture was about gift-giving, Harry turned away and busied himself rather than watching as Kirito stared at the package for long moments before he climbed down the ladder in the loft to the common area below and then slowly undid the tie holding the gift closed.

At first, all Kirito could see was a light-drinking black something as he parted the paper and let it fall.  It was a stack of folded leather, all dyed the darkest black that he’d ever seen on anything in the game, even his <Coat of Midnight> that he’d outgrown (in a level/power sense) months ago but that he hadn’t managed to convince himself to replace anyway.  Especially since he’d spent the last few months training and adventuring with a mid-level guild rather than spending much time on the front lines unless directly asked to help with a boss raid.

Unfolding it and opening it up, Kirito felt his expression turn to shock as surprise ripped through him.

When had Haze-kun’s leatherworking skill grown high enough to reliably make light armor???

Reliably being the catch.  Anyone could get lucky with the algorithm.  It was only players who devoted a significant amount of time, materials, cor, and skill points into crafting who ended up being able to craft with intention rather than relying on sheer luck of the draw.

A Master Smith had a better chance of applying a high-level buff to a dropped piece of armor or weaponry than the average player, and a much higher probability of crafting a high level weapon or even Masterwork than someone who only crafted as a hobby or out of necessity.

So much so, in fact, that some players were actively turning towards crafting full time (and profitably) rather than splitting their focus between adventuring/crafting to get by as while adventuring was dangerous, it was also the easiest and most reliable way to earn cor and support oneself.

The best crafters were even starting to collect enough cor from their private one-on-one commissions from players via word of mouth to set up actual shops from what he’d heard while working with the Black Cats.

What Kirito held in his hands was a beautiful piece of craft, one that had been made with clear intention and vision to suit Kirito - down to the blackened metal work fasteners to the Mandarin style collar on the ankle length black leather duster.

It wasn’t a replica of his <Coat of Midnight> as Haze-kun had made it completely black instead of having grey/silver embellishments, as well as adding an actual hood, it was better.

Especially once Kirito stopped staring and actually added it to his <Inventory> to equip and saw the stats:

<Lvl. 45 Light Armor Masterwork: Reaper’s Duster>

<+12 Hiding>

<+10 Strength>

<-5% Taken Damage>

Haze-kun…could craft Masterworks, items that were so well crafted and powerful that they rivaled any rare drop at his current level and eventually would be as good or better than Unique or even Legendary drops.

What has Haze-kun been doing the last few months???!!!

His gift was exponentially better than Kirito’s <Coat of Midnight> so much so that even though he wanted it desperately, he didn’t feel right about accepting it.

“Haze-kun,” Kirito whispered, knowing that his partner would hear him.  “I can’t accept this.”

“Yes, you can and you will.”  Harry told him, arching a brow as he leapt down from the loft with a set of saddlebags swung over his shoulder…and wearing new armor of his own.  He gestured with his free hand to his own upgraded/updated gear, the first time he’d worn it since it was only after making Lvl. 50 that he had the time to devote to grinding his Leatherworking skill instead of only playing with it on alternate nights from his Mixing skill.  “Your duster is the same tier of light armor as my new <Ranger’s Jacket>,” he told the other teen bluntly, knowing that if Kirito thought that Harry was being too generous with the gift that not even he would be able to argue him into accepting the duster he’d made for him specifically, down to figuring out how to get the correct stats reliably.  Making Hiding and Strength play along had taken quite a bit of trial and error to find the right combinations, but the failures had sold for a pretty bit of cor so it wasn’t a total loss.  “Now that I’ve got the recipe for Hiding and Strength buffs in the same piece - and the added protection against incoming damage, though that was a happy accident, not intentional - I can use it for any piece needed, or the other buffs that I’ve figured out.”  He shrugged.

He wasn’t even lying.

His <Ranger’s Jacket> that was basically a leather version of a Regency or Wizarding (to his eyes, since he was pretty sure Sirius owned something like it) greatcoat.  It had more bulk than Kirito’s new duster, not cut as close to the body, with both a hood and a little capelet along the shoulders and upper back.  He could’ve made it the same ink-black as Kirito’s duster, but the <Onyx Jadeite Dust> and <Obsidian Greatwyrm Heart> needed were both a bitch to source both in rarity of drop rate and the difficulty of even getting to the right area to fight the right rare-spawn and then hoping for the drop.  He’d rather keep his limited stock for future Kirito projects and use less rare materials for his own gear.

As a result, his new jacket was a dark pine green across the body with brighter green geometric embellishment along the edges.

Its buffs were the same levels as Kirito’s duster but in Hiding, Agility, and Poison Resistance rather than Hiding, Strength, Damage Resistance.

Added to which were that unlike the single coat for Kirito (since Harry was still experimenting with getting the right buffs for different pieces since the recipes changed depending on the piece because Kayaba was a dick as well as a megalomaniac) Harry had upgraded all of his armor with his own craft.  Leatherworking was one of the most versatile Skills in the game in Harry’s opinion, but because metal armor was so much more popular, not many players bothered with it from what he could tell.  The closest he’d come to meeting another leatherworker was a Tailor named Ashley, but she only worked with materials supplied for her rather than going out and sourcing her own.

“Here,” Harry continued, sending a prepared Note over to his friend.  “My list of buffs I have the recipes for, at least for light armor, so if you want pieces with a mixture of buffs I can do that as things need to be replaced.  It’s not complete by a long shot, I still have more experimenting to do, but this is what I have figured out so far.”

Kirito sighed, feeling distinctly bullied by Haze-kun’s generosity, but equipped the duster regardless, knowing after all these months when a battle wasn’t going to be won in the face of Haze-kun’s sheer unbendable will.

He shifted and moved his arms as he felt the duster settle into place after the swap-out.  It was comfortable, just as comfortable as his previous coat, but unlike the other it was thicker around his chest and back for increased protection of his vital areas.  In contrast the leather felt lighter around his arms, allowing free movement but with thicker padding again on the shoulder caps and elbows.

Perfect, it really was perfect, and Kirito could only say one thing in response:

“Thank you, Harry.”  He told him sincerely.  “It’s a great piece of work.”

“Glad you like it.”  Harry grinned, feeling a stark sense of schadenfreude over Kirito being off balanced by a gift.  He could be so unflappable, that any chance Harry had to knock him a bit off-center was a win.  “And it’s a good thing you like it, since I’m going to be sourcing more crafting materials while you work on leveling, my stock is running low.”

“Hai,” Kirito agreed, jumping on the chance to repay his friend in the only way he knew the other teen would accept - labor and materials.  “Pelts?”

“Pelts.”  Harry nodded, since Leatherworking required both Sewing and Tanning to unlock originally, but as a composite skill he’d been able to swap out the pair of skills for Leatherworking instead, and add in Haggling/Bargaining to his lifestyle skill set without losing his ability to sew or make leather from raw materials.  He wouldn’t be able to make a set of cloth-only clothes, but as long as leather was involved in the crafting he was golden.  “And other materials to experiment with, we Cleared that level so fast I didn’t have much time for gathering.”

Kirito nodded, as that was a familiar lament of front liners: too busy fighting to engage in any real exploration or lifestyle experiences depending on how obsessive they were about it.  Asuna was one of the worst he knew for focusing on fighting above all else and never taking breaks, but he and Harry could be just as bad at times.  If there was anything he’d taken away from mentoring the Black Cats, it was that stepping back from the front lines - and for more than a couple days or even a week - had given him renewed energy and focus for leveling up and clearing Aincrad.

Reminded him of what it was like to do more than fight, of things he’d enjoyed before he’d been trapped in a Death Game.

Haze-kun had always been more sensible in that way: he never lost sight of why he was fighting, but also that he couldn’t make it his entire life when there was no real end to being stuck in the game in sight.

Months or even years from now?

Yes.

But years was a long time, especially at their ages, to do nothing but grind and clear.

Which was ironic, given that it was what they were setting out to do all over again: grind until Kirito hit Level 50, then go back to the Clearers on the front lines.

Ah well.

It’d been a nice vacation, adventures and quests with the Black Cats and all, but he wanted Level 50 and the bonus for being one of the first to manage it more than he wanted extra time to nap and fish.

Especially since it sounded like Haze-kun was going to stick with him all the way.

He’d missed him when his friend was only swinging through weekly.

Missed his sardonic sense of humor, flashing smile, and sheer bedrock reliability in a fight.

The gift was nice, but more importantly to Kirito it was a clear sign that his friend had missed him too, and been thinking about him while they went their own ways for a while.

It was…something for him to think about, even as he stopped himself from thinking too hard about why it meant so much to him.