The Black Swordsman

Chapter 18: The Best Player in SAO

1 Year Into SAO:

I always used to wonder who would win in a fight between Asuna and I, ever since I met her on the first floor of Aincrad and saw her fighting enemies with the grace and beauty of a shooting star. After that first glance of her in combat, I knew deep down, that she had the potential to be one of the best players in the game and a key driving force of clearing the game of hell that Kayaba had created. I spent quite a while with Asuna, training with her, making sure that she knew the basics of the game world. As enjoyable as it was having a partner and a friend in that shitty VR world, I knew that it wouldn't last, no matter how much I wanted it to. Asuna had all of the great qualities of a leader...of someone who could make a difference...of someone people would respect and follow...and I was nothing more than a beater that most people in the game world couldn't stand. A beta tester, who cheated to gain an advantage against other players. The more time that I spent with Asuna, the more the other players in the guilds began to look down on her...thinking that she was pathetic for following a beta tester, instead of helping the rest of the players and joining one of their guilds...they called it selfish. It pissed me off, especially when one night when we were staying at one of the inns, I heard her crying while walking past the room she was inside of. I realized right then and there that I never wanted Asuna to be lumped into the same category as me and the other beta testers. She was too good for that. It's ironic. In the moment, the only thing I could think was how I never wanted to hear Asuna cry like that, again, when, in reality, I had no idea how many more tears I caused her.

Shit, she's gotten better than I could have ever imagined, I thought to myself as I attempted to dodge the lightning flash strikes from Asuna's Rapier during our duel in the middle of the forest.

Both of our health bars were sitting at 75% which was 25% away from the goal of 50% which signaled the end of the duel. It wasn't a fight to the death like other battles the both of us had been in. The duel was to solve a petty argument that we had in regards to the next boss fight...nothing more...nothing less. That's part of what made it so confusing that Asuna was fighting so aggressively, in comparison to myself. It was like she was treating this fight like an actual one...she was fighting like she had something to prove, despite already being the second in command of the top guild in the game. Perhaps, I shouldn't have been holding back, either. It was disrespectful to Asuna and all of the hard work she'd done on her own to become as powerful as she was to not fight with everything I had. It was just hard to because a part of me still remembered her as my partner and friend during the first floors of Aincrad, before we went our separate ways. Now that I think about it, ever since that day, Asuna and I's relationship had been completely different. She always seemed annoyed or bitter when I was around...could it have something to do with the way that our partnership ended? Was all of this pinned up aggression and anger that I was seeing during this fight...was it my fault?

Asuna, recklessly, slashed her rapier at me and I was able to dodge the flurry of attacks with my Dark Repulser. After her barrage of quick strikes was over, she immediately hopped back, before I could retaliate in any way. Asuna panted, clearly exhausted from the onslaught but I still felt like I had plenty of energy to keep fighting. That was the disadvantage of fighting with such constant ferocity like she was. Not wanting to take it easy on my former partner any longer, I, vertically, slashed my Dark Repulser at her but, to my surprise, despite her fatigue, she was able to parry the strike with her rapier and finished with a punch to the gut, catching me off guard. She grabbed me by the collar of my black cloak and threw me onto the floor and attempted to slash my back with her rapier but I rolled out of the way causing her blade to hit the grass instead of me. I lunged in her direction and tried to, once again, get in an attack but she sidestepped me, immediately, and hit me with a horizontal slash of her weapon, taking away more of my health.