Chapter 50: Decision

During the conversion of their real body into virtual data, one of the things that remained unchanged is their sense of pain. Unlike normal SAO players that don't feel pain (but instead feel a sense of discomfort), the group's pain absorber is disabled. Meaning, they would feel just as much pain as they would in real life.

"Arghh!!!" Kuroneko's face distorted due to the unbearable pain that she felt in her right arm. It felt as if it is burning fiercely--something that she didn't experience before. Thankfully, she managed to turn on [Thought Acceleration], making her forget about the burning sensation from her cut arm.

Due to her being in this dire situation, she was able to reach higher speeds on [Thought Acceleration]. Just because she received the full mastery, it doesn't mean that she can use it on her body at its full power.

'W-what was that? It's really painful!' She panicked for a while before calming down. 'It's very painful... This is how it feels.'

If not for her [Thought Acceleration], she wouldn't be able to pull this feat of slowing down one's perception of time.

'...What should I do now?'

Kuroneko felt conflicted as she thought of the two orange players that attacked her just now. Unfortunately, she doesn't have any corridor crystals, nor she could apprehend them until she brings them to the player prison back in the Black Iron Castle.

Given enough time, they would be able to break free from the silver wires.

'Should I just run away?' She is tempted by the thought, yes, since nobody could blame a 16-year old girl from running away in this kind of situation. 'But... They will kill someone in the near future.'

From their looks, she recognized that the skeleton-mask player is "ZaZa" while the sack-mask player is "Johnny Black", two infamous co-leaders of Laughing Coffin, a guild that kills players for their own whim. In the novel, they led player killers to commit countless atrocities in the game, only ending when their leader himself "leaked" their headquarters to the Clearers due to his boredom.

Even though they only have less than 100 members, the green players from other guilds (spies, informants, dealers, etc) weren't counted in the novel, thus one could say that Laughing Coffin's establishment alone had brought together all sorts of evil people in the game.

'At this rate, should I really just run? Should I do something that I might regret?'

Kuroneko remembered what happened a month prior before she got connected to the chat group. She knew that things would end in that way - she saw it miles away. Yet, she'd still done it. She and Kyousuke became a couple, albeit only for a few weeks. In that meeting, she had been very hurt, but she realized that she'd got the thing that she wanted, which is the two siblings being true to each other.

That time, she knew that they were destined to not be together. No matter how much she loved him, that remains still. She knew that her ideal world can only stay as her ideals--she knew it all from the beginning.

'Ah.'

The images of locking herself in her room after the rejection. That time when she shut herself in her own cage--in her own delusions that everything will go as intended.

'It happened again.'

History repeats itself. Kuroneko is now at another crossroads, whereas all paths would only lead to more regrets.

'Killing for an acceptable cause to myself.'

She was conflicted upon hearing this. Why would Touka bring up a topic about killing all of a sudden. Only this time did she knew why.

At this moment, she already got an answer--a choice between accepting the forced change or refusing to move forward.

Cancelling her [Thought Acceleration], she felt the searing pain once more but disregarded it. Holding the severed part of her arm that only has a bluish grid on it, she asked, "You wouldn't... stop killing, right?"

Kuroneko is just in ZaZa's estoc range, but he decided to entertain her for a while, thinking that her mind is now polluted with fear.

"I mean, why not kill? It's fun to see someone despairing, y'know?" He replied with a cynical tone, his previous calmness that is merely a facade gone. "In this messed up game, why couldn't players be messed up as well?"

"Well said, bro, well said!"

Johnny Black agreed on his statement and cheered on him. He added, "In the first place, the one that killed those players are not us, but Kayaba Akihiko!"

"So this is the price of throwing away normality. It will change your life whether you like it or not." She mumbled in a low voice, a stern look could be seen in her eyes hidden under her bangs.

"What, are you paralyzed in fe-" Just as he was about to place his blade beside her neck, he was abruptly stopped by dozens of silver wires that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. The same also happened to Johnny Black, with silver wires tightening around all over his body.

Thanks to her [Thought Acceleration], only a few seconds had passed. Johnny Black hadn't moved much from his position while Zaza jumped straight at the place where the silver wires can be prominently found.

"This Queen of Darkness... administers judgement."

"Wha-?!"

"Thi-?!"

She tightened the silver wires further in one fell swoop as she casted her lightning magecraft in her left hand. Holding the silver wires, she managed to send more than a thousand volts in it, electrocuting them until their HP gauge went down to 0.

The two players didn't manage to scream their woes of death as they turned into light blue crystals that flickered for a moment before slowly disappearing.

After this ordeal, she instantly plopped down the ground, the entirety of her being exhausted. Her body trembled, a sign that she couldn't calm down. She sat like this until the "Body Part Loss" status effect disappeared, regenerating her severed arm from earlier.

"I... I killed someone."

When she was determined earlier, she was momentarily numbed, allowing her to execute the killing blow cleanly. Now that the deed was done, she couldn't calm down.

"W-will they still accept me..? For what I've done?" She thought of Saori, Sena, Ayase, Kirino, and... Kyousuke. She stood up while her legs are trembling, walking aimlessly as doubts started appearing inside her mind.

A window appeared when she'd killed those two, but she paid it no heed.

As she continued walking, she suddenly fell down a hole. It is a very deep hole, with darkness dominating most of it. Kuroneko had already expected that she would die once, but someone caught her just as she was about to fall down to the ground.

"Shi..ro?"

"Greetings."

Shiro caught her on a princess carry style. He smiled at her playfully until he saw that something's wrong. In her eyes, he saw that doubts began clouding her mind. If this continued further, she would fall to her former depressed self, but much worse.

"Do you need my help?" He asked, being direct to the point.

"I...I..."

She began tearing up as she buried her head in his chest. Shiro, experiencing this for the first time, doesn't know what to do. Still, he tried his best to let her stay in this position comfortably. 20 minutes later, she calmed down. After asking Shiro to put her down, she sat on the floor and spoke.

"I killed someone."

*****

A/N: There we go with Kuroneko's development. Unlike that certain novel that turned her into a fujoshi (out of all things), I want to expound her character more here. If you know her from light novel/anime, you know how good of a waifu she is. I can't even fathom Kyousuke's brain when he chose his sister over a top-tier waifu/girlfriend that would support you no matter what.

Anyways, here's a fact on Sword Art Online this time.

Fact #10: In Sword Art Online, the player killers weren't jailed. That's right. It is because of SAO's logs being deleted when SAO collapsed. Due to that, the government couldn't convict them and chose to put them into therapy instead. In my estimates, hundreds of such psychopaths are roaming free in the world of Sword Art Online. Looking at what happened in GGO and real life, that is not a very wise move...

(Kirito went into cardiac arrest while 4 people died in GGO's Death Gun incident. Everything's caused by three people...)