Chapter 3

I looked around profusely, checking everywhere and even in my inventory for it. I then heard a shatter behind me as I looked behind me and saw that the sheath for the sword had shattered, "My sword broke..?" I said, I was a bit saddened by this news. Toru then dragged me back to the Safe zone saying in Japanese "We'll get you a new one alright." as I nodded, replying in Japanese "Okay..." with a bit of sorrowful tears.

When we got to the safe zone, I unequipped my mask as we saw a crowd near the teleport pad. Curious as we were, we walked up to the crowd and broke through it to see what was happening. We heard the beeping sound of a timer, we looked up to see a duel between Kirito and someone named Raven. We watched both Kirito and this new guy as the timer hit zero, both of them didn't move an inch as they charged up their skills, this Raven person had a katana as his weapon. Raven dashed towards Kirito as Kirito dashed in, both of them were swinging and clashing hits as Kirito was using his elucidator.

I counted 10 individual hits that were all clashed and traded from both Kirito and this Raven person. They suddenly jumped back as Kirito rushed in as well as Raven, they swung high and low this time with the time stopping the both of them, Raven swung high, almost hitting Kirito's head right off as Kirito went low, almost hitting Raven's body in half.

The Duel between them was a Tie as Kirito got up and both of them sheathed their swords. Kirito turned around as he walked to Asuna and grabbed her arm, saying "Let's go" in a somewhat annoyed tone. "Hey wait!, where are we going??" Asuna said as they walked off to another part of the town. The crowd that was around the duel scattered apart as Toru and I looked at the direction that Kirito and Asuna went.

I turned my attention to this Raven person, looking at him he stood at least 5'6, his hair wasn't that messy as his hair was sleeked towards his left side, he had a scar on his nose as his eyes were a deep blue. His posture however was really good, he stood up straight when I saw him.

We made eye contact as he recognized my cloak, seemingly uninterested and walked off. I turned my attention away to see that Toru was gone, I looked around frantically and saw Toru at a food stall. "Get me one!" I shouted at her and ran over, she bought two as we ate our sandwiches from the stall.

I was in bliss eating this sandwich, but I had an idea asking Toru "Can you make these?" pointing at the sandwich. "Oh, sure it's not a hard recipe either way" Toru said casually as I grabbed her hand smiling saying "Thanks Toru! You're the best!". She looked away muttering underneath her breath "P...Praise me more..." as I looked at her saying "Did you say something?".

"I-I said No problem!"

Toru stuttered as we just wandered around the map, gazing at the scenery. While we were walking, we stumbled upon the Raven person, who was underneath a tree and leaning against it. "Are you The Reapers Horseman Kirin?" he said in a cold but straightforward tone. "Yeah, that's me, why do you ask?" I said to him as he replied to the question "Can you duel with me?".

Toru and I looked confused as I said "Duel..? Why?" as a text popped up in-front of me, a Duel Request from Raven, First hit. I looked at the text and looked up at Raven, as he was completely serious. I looked back down at the textbox and hesitated for the first time in a year, Toru then puts her hand on my shoulder saying "Don't sweat it, you can do this Kirin-Kun." I took some deep breaths.

"Alright.."

I thought to myself as I clicked the blue button, accepting his duel as the timer showed up a few feet above us, Toru stepped back a bit and to the side as underneath the timer, there was text saying "Raven VS Kirin".

We both pulled out our swords as I was using a sword I had equipped previously, a sword from the 58th floor. we heard the timer reach zero, we both dashed in towards each other and swung our swords.