Asuna pretty much mastered «Voluntary Flight» without a joystick on the first day she connected to ALO as a normal player, and now her aerial techniques weren’t any worse than veterans who were playing since before Aincrad was patched.
Even so, as expected, the movements that permeated her body during the 2 years of fighting in SAO didn’t weaken at all. In truth, fighting on the ground was difficult. Moving her toes, she felt the hardness of the ground coming from beneath her boot.
Next, Asuna confirmed the «Multicolor Pointer» of the girl who was known as Zekken.
This small window automatically emerged near people your attention was focused on. Other than displaying the target’s name, HP, MP and small icons for buffs and debuffs, the color of the window also showed your relationship with the target. Conditions like same race, neutral race, enemy race, friend, guild, party and so on would change its color, which was why it was called multicolor pointer.
However, since it was the first time Asuna and the girl had met, it wouldn’t show her name, thus there was nothing above her HP bar. Comparatively, to the left side was a small icon. It was known as a «Guild Emblem». As its name implied, it meant that the person belonged to a guild. The emblem could be freely edited, the girl’s emblem was a very cute one with a pink heart with two white wings spreading from its side. Asuna herself wasn’t part of any guild, so there was no emblem on her pointer. Several times, she and her companions have mentioned forming a guild, but for some reason it had always stayed like that.
The girl was probably also looking at Asuna’s pointer, the girl who was focused slightly away from Asuna once again looked directly at her with her beautiful, violet eyes. She smiled, waved her right hand and skillfully manipulated the system window which appeared. After that, a request for a duel appeared in Asuna’s vision accompanied by a heart-stirring sound effect. The top row said —
【Yuuki is challenging you.】
ユウキ, read as Yuuki, was probably the name of that girl’s character. Cute yet imposing, it was a name which really suited her.
Like in SAO, there were 3 modes selectable at the bottom of the window. Beginning from the top, they were «First Strike Mode», «Half Loss Mode» and «Total Loss Mode». In the previous Aincrad, duels were basically all done in first strike mode. Obviously losing all your HP was out of the question, even if it was half loss mode, it was possible to reduce someone’s HP to the danger zone if the finishing hit was a critical hit.
But now, the obvious choice was total loss mode.
Feeling the change in times in a corner of her brain, Asuna clicked OK. The name 【Yuuki】 appeared on the girl’s multicolor pointer. At the same time, the pointer she was looking at should display the name 【Asuna】.
The window requesting a duel automatically disappeared, replacing it was a ten second timer. Asuna and the girl — «Zekken» Yuuki unsheathed their swords at the same time, ka-chink, two clear sounds overlapped and rang.
Zekken’s weapon was a thin, single-handed, double-edged straight sword. It was translucent with an obsidian black hue like her armor. Judging from the radiance and details, the weapon’s level was more or less the same as Asuna’s rapier. That was saying, it probably didn’t have the additional effects unique to rare, legendary weapons.
Yuuki placed her sword in front of her at her waist, and naturally lowered her body. In comparison, Asuna placed her right hand at the side of her body, her rapier held almost perpendicular. At the same time, the surrounding cheers ebbed away like a tide.
While she took a deep breath and breathed out, the counter on the timer reached zero.
In the instant the word 【DUEL】 flashed, Asuna stomped on the ground with all her strength. Closing the distance of about seven meters in an instant, she twisted her body towards the right.
“Ha!”
Following that short cry, Asuna’s right hand shot forward like an arrow. Those thrusts filled with torque and inertia shot out twice slightly to the left of the center of Zekken’s body, and another thrust ingeniously shot out to her right after a short while. It was a regular skill rather than a sword skill, although it wasn’t as fast, its aim was more precise. If she dodged to the right to avoid the first two thrusts, she couldn’t evade the following one.
Like Asuna thought, Yuuki’s body moved slightly to the right to avoid the first two strikes. As her movement stopped, she entered the striking zone of the third hit —
However, as the tip of the rapier was about to hit her chest armor, Yuuki’s right hand moved indistinctly. At the same time, sparks appeared to the right side of Asuna’s rapier, and the trajectory of the thrust shifted slightly.
Zekken accurately parried her rapier which was thrust at an ultra-high speed, as her brain understood that, the tip of her rapier grazed Zekken’s armor and hit air.
Expecting a counterattack, the skin on Asuna’s neck numbed. However, if she retracted her rapier right now, her posture would be rigid. Following her skill’s inertia, she hardened her heart and spun to her left.
At the same time, a black light aiming for her neck leapt into her eyesight.
“–-!!”
Tremors filled Asuna’s body as she faced this terrifying, lightning fast speed. She gritted her teeth and twisted her body to its limit, the strength exerted by her right foot almost scraping off the surface of the ground.
The friction of the grass which grew densely at her feet was set slightly lower than that of rocks or bare earth. This value betrayed Asuna and her right foot slipped. Instantly, her body tilted abruptly.
However, luckily, Zekken’s sword only grazed across Asuna’s chest. Clang! The impact passed close to her ear. If hair had hitboxes, Asuna’s long, light blue hair would probably be left with half its original length. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the energy released into the air spreading out.
Asuna recovered her balance, stomped the ground with her boot and leapt to the right. She leapt with her left foot once again and stopped a good distance away.
Even though Asuna was bent low in preparation for pursuit attacks, Zekken retained the same smile, stopped moving and once again raised her sword to her waist. Asuna calmed her heartbeat and smiled back — but inside, she was covered in cold sweat.
The trajectory of the thrust which came flying towards her was just a single point. Basically, you could only avoid it using footwork, but Zekken accurately deflected Asuna’s rapier.
Rather than the speed of her counterattack, Asuna was more speechless at her amazing reaction speed. Although she kept hearing about how strong she was, the opponent’s unexpectedly cute face put her off guard. She once suspected that the reason Kirito lost was due to negligence or discretion while fighting a girl, but that was completely undeserved. Even he wasn’t able to successfully block Asuna’s full power thrust even once.
Asuna once again breathed in deeply and held her breath. She was indeed a terrifying opponent, but giving up after just a single round would be a disgrace.
Unexpectedly, a sound echoed in her ear.
— What sword. That kind of thing, it’s just a game…
Asuna clenched her teeth and threw away the noise in her mind. This world was already a real world, fights in this place were real battles. She must treat it as such.
As though to spur herself on, Asuna shook her rapier, raised it to her right shoulder and faced her opponent.
If normal skills won’t work, then she must be prepared to risk using sword skills from now on. However, sword skills have a set recovery time, if all the hits are avoided, she will surely receive a fatal counterattack. She must think of a way to destroy her opponent’s posture and create a situation where it will definitely hit. Asuna clenched her left hand.
She once again stomped on the ground and leapt, this time her mind completely clear. Something that was rarely ever felt during fights in the ALO world, the feeling of her nerves burning as her thoughts accelerated, engulfed her body.
This time, Zekken a
lso leapt forward. The smile in the corner of her mouth was gone and a radiance shone in her amethyst eyes.
The obsidian sword came howling diagonally from the upper right, Asuna pushed it aside from the left. A haircurling impact came from her right hand along with sparks and a metallic noise. Using the blocked off sword, Zekken quickly swung again as though she couldn’t feel the weight of her weapon, she attacked again and again. Her speed was so fast that it was impossible to react by the time you saw her attacks. Completely focusing her eyesight on her opponent, Asuna predicted the direction of her next attack from her movements and blocked or avoided it. Occasionally their swords would cross and graze each other’s bodies, causing both of their HP to drop a little, but there wasn’t a single clean hit.
Rapidly swinging her sword, Asuna suddenly felt uneasy.
Indeed, Zekken Yuuki’s attack and reaction speed were quite terrifying. Judging from speed alone, she was even above Kirito. Even so, the reason Asuna was able to persist until now wasn’t only due to the large amount of combat experience she amassed in SAO, but also because her opponent’s attacks were too direct. From the beginning to the end, she didn’t use a single feint, which could upset the rhythm in an instant.
Asuna felt that, perhaps, Yuuki didn’t have much experience fighting players. If that was the case, even if it was only for an instant, she had a chance of winning if she took her by surprise.
Entering the gap between the three-hit combo coming from her top right, top left and left side, Asuna ruthlessly entered Zekken’s bosom. The two of them were nearly stuck together. That way, neither of them could avoid attacks using footwork.
Asuna bent down, the rapier in her right hand pointing directly at the center of her opponent’s body, and resolutely thrust forward —
Zekken responded, and blocked the rapier from bottom up —
At that instant, Asuna suddenly pulled back her right hand, and at the same time, clenched her left fist and punched Zekken’s right side. This was a «Boxing» skill which she learned when she visited the Gnome capital’s training field. Even though it didn’t have much power because she didn’t equip a knuckle-type weapon, it caused a paralyzing effect which was impossible without using a skill.
Dong, an impact came from her left fist, Zekken widened her eyes in shock. This was her first and last chance. Asuna didn’t hesitate and activated the four-hit sword skill «Quadruple Pain».
Asuna’s rapier shone bright red and at the same time her right hand, controlled by the system, shredded the air like lightning.
Asuna was confident that the attack would hit. The opponent’s posture was already destroyed and it was also impossible to avoid in terms of distance.
However. Letting the system speed up her right hand, Asuna looked at Zekken’s face, and tremors once again filled her body. Even though Zekken’s eyes were wide open, there wasn’t a hint of panic in her violet eyes. Her eyes were focused on the tip of the rapier.
She could see the thrusts —?
The instant this thought crossed Asuna’s mind, Zekken’s right hand flashed out.
Like a sword placed on a grinding wheel, a hard, scraping sound continuously rang out four times. Asuna’s four-hit combo was accurately parried up, down, left and right, not a single blow hit. Asuna could only see a thin, ink-like afterimage left on Zekken’s sword.
Her last hit being parried, Asuna was frozen in a position with her right arm stretched out for several tenths of a second — this hopeless recovery time overtook Asuna. Zekken didn’t let go of this chance.
With a clang, she pulled back her obsidian sword, her sword glowing purple.
A counterattack — sword skill!
“Aaah!”
For the first time in the match, Yuuki let out an awe-inspiring cry. Then, she thrust forward with a speed that would’ve been very hard to avoid even if Asuna wasn’t recovering from her skill, and caught Asuna’s left shoulder. Slanting directly towards the bottom-right, she executed a five-hit combo without rest. All of them beautifully hit and Asuna’s HP bar rapidly decreased and became yellow. She didn’t remember a one-handed sword skill like that, which meant it was an «Original Sword Skill». She actually compiled such a fast five-hit combo—
While Asuna was dazed and thinking that, the light of Yuuki’s sword didn’t fade and she raised it to her upper-left.
It didn’t end in five hits. It was still continuing. Finally being released from her skill’s recovery time, Asuna pulled herself together and once again trembled.
Supposing Yuuki thrust at her another five times, there was no doubt that her HP would drop to zero. However, it was impossible to avoid.
Rather than uselessly trying to run and getting hit in the back, it’d be better to gamble on a small chance. Asuna put all her energy into her right hand and once again activated a sword skill. The only five-hit OSS which she had successfully compiled, named «Starry Tear».
Red and blue flashes interlocked. Going from Asuna’s right shoulder to her bottom-left, the tip of Yuuki’s sword intersected with her previous hits and made a cross.
However, Asuna’s rapier finally hit Zekken. Drawing the apex of a small star, the five-hit thrust skill pierced the black armor.
They finished exchanging five hits, and there was a moment of silence. Neither of them had fallen.
Zekken’s HP bar was reduced by more than half, and turned yellow. Whereas Asuna’s HP bar entered the red zone, and there was only a little left. In the first place, Asuna, whose character data was inherited from SAO, had higher HP than ALO players. The astonishing ten-hit combo managed to actually chip almost all of it away, the power of Zekken’s OSS was really terrifying, however…
No. Yuuki’s longsword was still releasing a violet glow, the sword skill hadn’t ended.
Once again pulling back her sword, she aimed directly at the center of Asuna’s body, the intersection of the cross-shaped effect.
That is saying, this is the miraculous OSS which Zekken gambled on the duel? Asuna sighed deeply.
Power and speed which exceeded common sense, moreover, beauty which was even greater than those. I have no regrets losing to this kind of sword skill. Stating this in her heart, Asuna waited for the final hit.
The eleventh hit ferociously descended — but suddenly stopped right before it pierced through Asuna. The forcefully interrupted system support released a bright flash and the impact was released into the surrounding air, causing the surrounding grass to radially fall.
“—?!”
In front of Asuna’s dumbfounded eyes, Zekken placed down her weapon, and for some reason, quickly walked toward her. She patted Asuna’s shoulder with her left hand, smiling brilliantly. Opening her lips, she vigorously said:
“Yeah, that was great! I’ve decided on you!!”
“Wha… Eh…?”
Asuna was already completely lost, and could only let out a dazed sound.
“How, that… What happened to the last hit of the duel…?”
“I’m already satisfied with fighting this much. Did you want to continue till the end?”
Hearing her saying that while smiling, Asuna could only shake her head. No matter what, if Zekken didn’t stop her last hit, Asuna’s HP would’ve definitely been reduced to zero.
The girl who really suited the personal pronoun «boku» cheerfully nodded her head and continued speaking.
“I’ve always, always been looking for a strong person. This time I’ve finally found one! Hey, miss, do you have anything to do after this?”
“Well… uh. No…”
“Then, come with me for a while!”
Zekken Yuuki returned her sword to the sheath on her waist with a clink and energetically stretched out her right arm. Asuna also sheathed her sword for the moment and uneasily grasped her hand.
At the same time, Yuuki widened her back and activated the command which spreads out her wings. The translucent, bat-shaped wings appeared, raising her body slightly.
“A
h, right.”
Asuna hurriedly stretched out her shoulder blades, grew wings and kicked off the floor. Yuuki smiled once again, grasped Asuna’s hand, turned around and accelerated upwards like a rocket.
“Hey, Asuna, where are you going?!”
Looking back towards the sharp voice, Asuna saw Lizbet with a half-shocked, half-dazed expression on her face, yelling with her hand to her mouth. Lyfa, Scilica and also Yui who sat on Kirito’s head all looked dumb-founded, yet the black-clothed Spriggan just smiled calmly, as though he already predicted this development to some degree.
Encouraged by his expression, Asuna smiled and breathed in deeply.
“Well, about that… I’ll contact you later!”
After she shouted that to Lizbet, in front of her, Yuuki’s wings released a purple radiance and she instantly entered a sharp burst of speed. With her right hand being pulled, Asuna frantically flapped the wings on her back, following the back of the young, mysterious swordswoman.
Zekken flew directly south over the 24th floor’s lake, through an opening in Aincrad’s boundaries and into the space outside without hesitation.
“Uwah!”
At the same time, thick clouds hit Asuna’s face. They continued moving forward in that pure white space for several seconds before suddenly slicing through the layer of clouds, the azure sky stretched out boundlessly in front of them.
In the bottom-right corner of her eye, she could see a green cone stretching out where they pierced through the layer of clouds. It was the top of the world tree which towered in the center of Alfheim. Looking directly below her, she could faintly see a blue surface. Judging from the circular shape scooped out from the coastline, it seemed like Aincrad was flying above the «Crescent Gulf» in Undine territory.