ch 22- A samurai, A Ninja and a swordsman walk into a bar.....

May 16th 2023

Kirito woke up at night when all the members of the guild were asleep, he checked his stats to confirm his progress so far.

LEVEL 48

Unaware that sachi, sleeping close to him on the side bed saw his level.

She was surprised by his high level but mostly confused as to why he didn't tell them and was hiding his strength.

She noticed during their hunts that he usually seems more relaxed and collected as opposed to the others apart from yuki, but his case can be explained because his level was higher than the rest.

Now she knew why, but she didn't bother him and pretended to be asleep to avoid his notice.

 She assumed he must have his own circumstances for keeping this to himself,  the kirito that she knows is a very kind person who cares for his friends, so she decided to trust in him and keep his secret, to wait for him to share it when he feels assured.

Kirito closed his status window, looked around the room and confirmed the others asleep state before getting up from the bed and leaving the room.

walking through the plains and trying to come up with a plan of action. He has been with the moon lit black cats now for a while and they have been getting better steadily both as a team and individually.

He has been going out at night to do his own private hunting to keep his level above the average player limit.

He goes to the front line floors and hunts the field mobs relentlessly through the night as that is the only time he could do this without the others finding out about it well except yuki as he already knew about it.

 *******

FLOOR 28

WOLF PLAINS

Michael walks through the plains stealthily, avoiding the wolves attention as this wasn't the destination he was headed towards but as usual his plan was foiled again by something he didn't account for... and would you look at that, it turned out to be furuikasan guild again.

He just promised himself not too long ago to give them a beating and let them off if he happened upon them again and it turns out the universe also wants them to have a reckoning.

****

Klein was leading a red wolf away from the pack with 2 of his team mates by his side.

 They led it to michael's path unknowingly and this ended up sealing their fates.

Michael charged at the incoming wolf, pulling out his short swords and slitting it's neck bursting it into fragments.

Klein and his mates immediately jumped back noticing the arrival of a new player but upon closer inspection, he realized that it was the player they had an encounter with the other day and he couldn't help but curse his bad luck at running into him again so soon.

He could see the tense state of his remaining mates and the rest of his guild has joined them.

 they were all tense and ready to strike at a moment's notice, but still held back as they still had phantom pains from the previous thrashing they received from this masked man's hands.

Wanting to quickly defuse the situation before a fight breaks out, he spoke out quickly saying

"Hey man, we don't want any trouble"

receiving no reply from him, he continued

"I asked my bro about what happened the last time. he said he was sorry about what happened" He said while gesturing his friend to step forward.

His friend came out from the group, he said " I am sorry about what happened the last time man, i was just in bad mood at the time and happened upon you. So we good ?"

Michael looked at them, contemplating the best way to tell them they were in for a rude awakening if they thought this was enough to set them free.

" Aren't you guys supposed to be samurai" He questioned in a deep voice to avoid recognition.

"Yeah??" Klein answered confused at this turn of events.

"Then where is your honour as samurai, step up and accept responsibility for your wrong doings. Accept my attacks for 2 minutes and I'll consider letting your slight against me go" Michael says to the group while looking them all in the face forcing them to shrink back.

The offender was about to protest about michael's condition, but klein immediately intervened before things escalated.

"Okay, if that's what you need then so be it" He said to michael surprising him as his condition was a little bit overbearing yet klein agreed.

"It's just two minutes right, lets do this guys" Klein says to his team mates, psyching them up for the fight.

"Yeah"

They all hollered out loud together, gripping their weapons tightly and preparing for michael's assault as they would a raid boss.

Giving them time to prepare, he began the attack by launching himself into the centre of their formation, he lead with a punch to the abdomen knocking a player far off.

 spinning on his heels, he used his momentum to land two kicks to the faces of the other 2 players in front of him.

ducking under the swing of klein's slash as he was able to react this time having prepared himself for such speed.

Michael limited his movements to the level he was the last time they met to give them a fair chance at surviving his assault, if they had improved since then, or at least that was the illusion he placed before them.

He appeared between the remaining two players far from klein and punched them to face, stunning them then he went down low and swept them off their feet and landing their backs to the ground.

 doing a handstand get up he jumped high in the air spinning around and landed on their faces still on the floor forming craters on the ground beneath their heads.

Klein, Seeing the brutal thrashing of his friends realised that he was too naive in accepting his request and became angry at himself before lunging at michael who had his back to him hoping to at least land a hit on him.

His hopes were dashed when michael vanished from his spot, looking down, he could see a foot that felt so large to him he couldn't move before he was thrown into the air.

Squatting down and taking a crouching stance, michael followed after him and continued his barrage of attacks with twin black daggers in hand.

2 hit, 6 hit , 10 hit

14 hit

20 hit

25 hit combo!!!!.

Ending with a roundhouse kick to the temple, sending him back down to the ground causing a loud booming sound and forming a large crater where his body landed.

Landing soundlessly close to the pile of bodies with their hp close to depleting, michael looked at the time and found the 2 minutes were up.

he walked towards them while satisfied that he kept his promise of teaching them a valuable lesson especially klein as the leader should bear the consequences of his subordinate's actions but his path was blocked by a new arrival.

 Decked in all black, carrying a black sword, black hair and eyes..... the black swordsman kirito.

'What is this emo looking kid doing here' Michael thought to himself as he stopped walking and stared at him silently.

They continued to stare at each other for a few seconds, at this point, the players have already recovered enough to begin using healing items on them selves to recover faster.

Michael wasn't sure how to approach this situation as this wasn't in his plans at all tonight.

he had a casual relationship with kirito, they could be called acquaintances at best and he didn't want his identity to be exposed so he waited fro kirito to act so he could react.

Kirito wasn't expecting to run into klein this way, being on the floor battered and beaten with the rest of his guild also and a player that looks awfully familiar to someone he knows of, despite the different getup and mask on his face.

he really hoped that this whole thing was just a misunderstanding and quickly blocked his advance before he could continue his attack.

he knew that if his hunch was right, he stood no chance of winning but he couldn't just stand by and watch klein get thrashed and he also knew at least to his knowledge that this individual is not a pker.

"What's going on here, klein, you guys, are u okay?" kirito questioned still keeping his eyes trained on michael, as any slip ups at this point may prove fatal.

"Yea.... hah hah ... don't worry we are good. It's a surprise to see you here kirito, how u been?" klein replied trying to make small talk to de escalate the situation before another fight breaks out as he knew that the 2 minutes were over and that's why michael hasn't attacked yet, when suddenly,

"You look decent enough, bring it on" Michael says to kirito, making a come on gesture while getting into a fighting stance which is useless for him but he does so out of habit.

Kirito was surprised by the sudden challenge and he wanted to refuse but he knew that he would be attacked either way so he took the advantage and attacked first prompting klein to quickly shout.

"STOP!!"

But it was too late.

He arrived by michael's side, sword in motion to cleave him in half diagonally, michael easily parried his strike with ease, redirecting his force back to him, tripping him up.

Kirito jumped back to make some distance between them, he saw michael still standing in the same spot.

furrowing his brows he looked to klein and the rest who were now silently watching the duel before launching himself at michael again.

"Come, I'll show you something interesting" Michael said smirking at his fast approaching opponent.

Taking out his short swords, he parried kirito's slash again and returned a slash of his own, cutting him in the abdomen.

Kirito slashed out once more at michael and missed. slash, miss, repeat.

Michael at this point hadn't moved much from his spot since when kirito began attacking.

 he just casually parries and redirects his attacks, he sidesteps, ducks and jumps over all his attacks, and kirito failed to land a hit on him.

Finished assessing his skill level, he ends the duel by jumping into the air and landing a triple kick to kirito's mid section launching him away, but he ended up crashing into the ruins nearby and covered by rubble.

Michael pretended not to notice and dusted off the non existent dirt on his clothes before saying.

"Not bad, black swordsman."

Then he looked at furuikasan guild and said

"See you guys around, hope you stay out of trouble"

Then he simply vanished from their field of view, causing them all to release the collective breaths they didn't realize they were holding.

"Man i hope we never run into that psycho again" one of them quietly mutters still afraid of being heard.

"Yea" That was the collective response from everyone of them.

Klein looked at the heap of rubble falling down and kirito standing in the centre.

"You okay man?" he asked concerned.

"Haah ..... I'm alright, how about you guys?" He returned back

"We are okay, i was trying to tell you not to attack, but you didn't listen" Klein followed up.

when he got no response from kirito.

"Soooo... what are you doing.. wait is that what I think it is? Did you join a guild?" He asked with shock as he didn't expect this gloomy guy to join a guild, but seeing his response by trying to avoid looking him in the eye he knew he still felt guilty about leaving him back on floor 1.

 he couldn't convince him to let it go so he change the topic.

"Good for you bro" he said while tapping his shoulder but kirito still fidgeted uncomfortably so he withdrew his approach.

"Emmm..... I gotta go, see you around"

Kirito Said.

"yeah.... sure"

Klein replied exasperated at his behaviour.

 they said their good byes before going their separate ways.

Michael watched them leaving and couldn't help but think back to yuki's account of kirito, he felt that the dude has potential but he has a lot of baggage to work through before he could bloom.

He knew that yuki should be able to help him with it, so he left on his way to continue his daily patrol through the floors or 'drives' as he likes to call them.

-----------------------------------------------

once I get enough support, my drop will most definitely be encouraged to increase.

Motivation is needed.

please drop more power stones.

please guys if you feeling up to it and the novel's okay 👌👌 in your opinion, support me on ko-fi

at

https://ko-fi.com/manuelxander97

thanks guys