Demon Swordsman: Remastered (Sword Art Online X Male Reader)

Chapter 17 - Hope

(A/n): Chapter 17. I rewrote the first half; that's why it took a while. Warning: It's a long chapter.

Rain, like many others, had heard of the Demon Swordsman.

Who wouldn't have heard of the Demon of Aincrad? It was impossible not to have heard about it with how much people talked about it. When it was happening, the rumours and exploits of the Demon Swordsman were the talk of the town, only officially gaining the name much later when it got to an all-time high, and players began to fear for their lives. Nobody could confirm anything about it, and the Info Brokers refused to divulge any information they may have had. Argo the Rat, especially, stayed silent on the matter. She refused to budge on the matter no matter how much Col was offered, a truly first case.

Rain never paid attention to the rumours because she felt they weren't true. It wasn't out of fear because the Demon Swordsman had supposedly begun to slaughter Green Players like the Red Players, but it was because the rumours were word of mouth than anything. She didn't like to judge people without at least talking to them, and this applied to the Demon Swordsman. She may have never crossed paths with him, and that would have been fine, but it was who Rain was. Rain wouldn't excuse murder because it was still murder, but the morality of whether murdering murderers was right was not something she was deeply interested in.

However, Rain did hear the opinions of others around her. Some Players said, "Good riddance," when the killings regarded Red Players alone, and many agreed, but when the addition of Green Players was added, those words turned into, "What a bastard. A Clearer turned into a murderer. Why aren't they doing something about him?"

Rain didn't understand how the people around her could easily be swayed by opinions. Where did the addition of the rumour come from? Maybe somebody decided to say that to grow the disdain toward the Demon Swordsman further? A Red Player could have done that. It could have been true. Nobody but the Demon Swordsman knew the truth. They knew nothing.

Rain had spoken with her friend Philia about it. It wasn't a long discussion like they were involved because they weren't, but they had agreed that the Demon Swordsman wasn't what everybody thought. The first rumour of the Demon Swordsman involved saving the Clearers from a massacre on the twenty-fifth-floor boss fight. It was the first time he appeared, a Clearer turned saviour of the Clearers, now infamous due to becoming something else—a Demon.

Rain believed there was much more to the Demon Swordsman than what was said about him. He may have been a demon, but a demon doesn't save people. Maybe it was a bad trait of hers, but she believed there to be more in the supposed cruellest player of Aincrad. She would continue believing that in the back of her mind as the days passed, even as the Demon Swordsman faded from the forefront of her mind as she focused on surviving the Death Game.

Survival was all everybody thought of. Rain was no different because she had a reason to return to the real world. She had run into Philia shortly after that fateful day, and they decided to stick together from then on. They only partied with each other, but when they needed to party with others, they mostly bounced from party to party in the months that followed that fateful day. What seemed impossible to consider normal became normal, and the reality of the situation slowly settled despite always wanting to return to the real world.

Rain never forgot why she wanted to return to the real world. It's what kept her going. Her family was an important driving force in her desire to return. She wanted to be able to open her eyes and greet her mother with a smile, telling her she was okay because her mother had been the reason why Rain had gotten the Nervegear in the first place. It was a present for everything that happened in her life, a way her mother was trying her best despite the hardships. Rain loved her mother so much because of that.