The Lightning Flash

Chapter 1: Asuna's Trauma

Asuna Yuuki, age 18, rested on a wooden rocker that was outside of a cabin that she shared with Kazuto Kirigaya. Her hazel eyes opened, slowly, as the wind blew her chest-nut brown hair back, slightly. The VR world she was in was based on the game of death, Sword Art Online, that her and her boyfriend, Kazuto, had both survived. Unlike Sword Art Online, however, the world that she was currently in had a log out button that she could use at any time which put her mind at ease. Asuna had been resting on the wooden rocker, after Kazuto had offered to cook dinner, alongside, Yui, who was an AI program that they both considered a daughter of sorts. Ever since this new VR world based on Sword Art Online was created, the two of them were both able to see Yui, once again, something that the both of them were extremely grateful for, especially Asuna. Now that Asuna was awake, she listened and tried to see if she could hear any noise coming from the cabin. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hear a thing.

"Hm, it's awfully quiet," she said to herself as she picked herself up off of the rocker. "I suppose I should check on the two of them. Cooking in Aincrad is definitely easier said than done."

Aincrad was the name of the world inside of Sword Art Online. A name that all players of Sword Art Online once feared and loathed...now, people treated it like a normal VR world and actually had fun in it. It was so strange to Asuna. The same VR world that had caused her and so many of her friends unimaginable mental pain...that had caused so many losses of life...treated like nothing more than a regular video game. The sad part was that she wasn't any different. After everything she had been through, she was still able to put the Nerve Gear back on and travel back to the virtual world. Not to engage in combat...explore dungeons...upgrade her character...none of these things mattered to her in the slightest. The only thing Asuna cared about in Aincrad was the log cabin...her and Kazuto's home...where not only she could see him but Yui as well. This log cabin was the only place where her mind felt at ease. In the real world, her mind was numbed with all of the antidepressants she had been on. She felt like a shell of her former self. But, when she was with Kazuto and Yui in their little home in Aincrad...everything felt fine to her. Her emotional trauma...her lack of energy...her decreasing grades at school...none of it mattered to her. The only thing that mattered was the life she had made with Kazuto and Yui in a world that wasn't even real.

Asuna entered the log cabin to check on the cooking situation, figuring that Kazuto and Yui needed help but were just too nervous to ask her for it. Once she was inside, though, her entire body froze in fear at the sight of a man with a black poncho on and a bloody cleaver in his right hand. The blood dripped off of the weapon onto the two bodies that laid at the base of his feet. He smiled, devilishly, at Asuna, sending a chill down her spine. Asuna's eyes traveled, downward, to the bodies that were at the man's feet. The first one was Kazuto Kirigaya, blood covering his usual black tail-coat like he had been stabbed and sliced several times. His arm was around the second body, almost like he was trying to protect it. The second body was much smaller and frailer. It was a girl with the same hair color as Kazuto...the same girl Kazuto and Asuna had taken in as their surrogate daughter...Yui. The sight of blood coming out of her mouth...the emptiness in her dead eyes and the horrifying cut on her throat made Asuna fall to her knees, trembling.

"I'm surprised this kind of thing bothers you, Lightning Flash," muttered the voice of the man, who was responsible for the death of the people Asuna cared about most.

There was no mistaking his voice. It was POH, the leader of Laughing Coffin, the murder guild of SAO. He stepped over the corpses of Kazuto and Yui and approached Asuna. Each step made Asuna shudder more and more. He crouched down so he was on the same level as her and the look of genuine terror on her face made his smile even wider and more sinister.