Sword Art Online: X

Crisis of Faith and Blood - Alice

"... and so, you see, none of this is real from our perspective!" X crowed as he continued dancing around the Administrator's sword golem, "This entire world is just the creation of a man, not a god!"

"What...?" I heard Eugeo murmur underneath his breath as he looked up at X.

"So... Nothing matters." My eyes follow X's figure, "No matter what we do, this world will still be a horrible experiment from a man who plays god."

X grinned, "Yep! Now you're getting it! You and Eugeo, you're just an ambitious guy's science project. You're not real people, at least not in the traditional sense of the world. You're like us because you have souls, but back in our world, you don't actually have any physical bodies."

"X!" Kirito snapped from beside me, "Not the time!"

Right, Kirito had been against all this from the beginning, hadn't he?

"They had to know eventually, Kirito!" X knocked one of the sword golem's arms aside and retreated by my side, "It was either I tell them, or she tells them."

The Administrator was silent throughout all this as her sword golem did all the work. Her gaze seemed to linger on X before she finally spoke.

"Are you certain you have their best interests at heart?" Quinella mused as her eyes crinkled with amusement, "You certainly don't act it."

X rolled his eyes, "Hey, look. I'm only here because Kirito over here-" He jerked his thumb at Kirito, "Decided it was a good idea to get poisoned and subsequently kidnapped by the guys who made this world. If he didn't, I wouldn't bother with this world whatsoever."

He paused in thought slightly before correcting himself, "Actually, I wouldn't have even known about this world if none of that happened, so scratch that. Whatever. Bottom line is: I really don't care about this world one way or another."

X's words caused me to falter from my kneeling position, "You... what?"

The bowman scoffed, "Don't tell me you're seriously surprised. I did tell you that I'm a terrible person. You seriously expect me to care? What happens in here has no effect where I come from, so why would I care? I don't care."

He then proceeded to go on a long tangent about how little he cares, which went on for so long that even the Administrator paused, "I mean, really. I could be doing literally anything else right now. I'd rather be doing literally anything else right now." He paced back and forth across the room.

He continued, his voice sounding louder and more manic as he spoke, "Why the fuck would I risk my life for people I don't know? That's the dumbest thing I could possibly do in this situation. The only reason I'm here is to grab Kirito and get out of this world, but unfortunately, his vitals aren't stable enough for me to pull him out without possibly killing him, because despite two years having passed in here, out there, it's been less than two days!" 

"And of course, I can't spend all my time in here, because I still need to fucking eat, and every time I do, it seems Kirito gets himself in deeper and deeper shit!" X stopped he fingers twitching as he held up his hands as if he was trying to crush something in his grip, "And now we're dealing with a psychopathic machine who treats human beings like toys! Oh, and guess what? Because I'm stuck picking up after Kirito's bullshit, I never get to spend time with people I would much rather be spending time with, like Shino!" 

The archer didn't pause. He didn't even stop to take a breath, "Seriously, who'd want to deal with a god? Not me! No thank you, but as his friend, I'm contractually obligated to help Kirito, so really, can we just cut the bullshit and get this assfuckery over with?"

X flicked his right hand and summoned something that seemed to resemble the Stacia Window, but also doesn't. The Administrator narrowed her eyes.

Seeing as the Administrator had all her attention on X, I quietly shuffled over to the blonde boy who was so painfully familiar, yet still such a stranger, "Are you... Are you okay?"

It was like he didn't even hear me. His eyes were glassy, unfocused, as if he were lost in his mind. I could vaguely hear him muttering underneath his breath, "N-No... I am real... I have to be real... I'm- I'm real... Sulinea's real... My family, they're real... right...? I'm real. I'm real I'm real I'm real-"

"Hey."

The boy jolted as he stared up at me with broken eyes, "Alice... We're real, right?"

His question stopped me in my tracks. Am I real? My experiences all told me I was. I took a deep breath, "That's... a debatable question, one that I certainly won't attempt to answer right now, but our experiences and feelings are real. Isn't that real enough?" 

He sniffed, "How... How are you dealing with this so well...? We've just been told our entire lives are just a massive lie...!"

"I'm an integrity knight. I can always have a panic attack after this battle." I glance back at the Administrator, who had engaged X in... something. The Administrator was chanting sacred arts while X's fingers flitted across his Stacia Window, seemingly interrupting Quinella's spells.

"What... is he doing...?" I murmur underneath my breath, managing to catch Kirito's attention as he scooted back.

"He's cancelling Quinella's spells. The moment she casts them, X is deleting their effects on his console so they end up fizzling away." He explained, "X has really studied the game system, and he knows basically every spell Quinella can cast, so at the moment, they're at a stalemate."

"What... what about the sword golem?" Eugeo asked, "Can't she use it to attack him?"

Kirito shook his head, "She could, but she knows X can dodge its attacks. It wouldn't help."

"Perhaps not, but what if I'm not aiming for him?" Quinella's voice, rife with irritation, met my ears.

A sword plunged through the chamber, and the squelching of flesh permeated the air as blood sprayed on my face.

A/N: Well, shit. Who died this time? We shall see, in time. I just noticed that in one of my previous chapters, I noted that X logged in using a nervegear. That was a mistake. He has an amusphere, and is currently fulldiving with that. 

He's callous, but he's not dumb. He wouldn't risk logging in with a nervegear knowing what he knows about Underworld.

Anyways. D&D character concept for the chapter: A wild elf assassin serial killer who snipes her victims from 500 feet away. This one is simple, but effective, and is one of my earlier character concepts before I started delving into some more complicated backstories.

It's almost midnight again, so I'm going to go pass out now. I have an early day at uni tomorrow.

Timeless_95, signing out.