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Sword Art Online: of Death Games and Diapers


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So, yeah… this happened. This idea is a fair bit more tame than most of my SAO fic concepts, and it’s almost canon-compliant… but of course, I’ll be adding my own twist to the events of Aincrad, because it’s me. Apologies in advance to anyone who misses my old stories, as I have no good news on those fronts, but as for this, well… I’m already three-thousand-ish words into chapter five, so that probably says a lot about how committed I am to this particular fic.

Anyway, things you need to know before proceeding to read. If you already read my status explaining all these, you can skip these, but if you’re a newcomer, give them a read:

#1: Kirito is a girl. Hence, Kirito has become Kiriko, as is customary for my fics. On a related note, most of the ships which become couples in this fic will be yuri/wlw/whatever you wanna call it. This applies to both Kiriko ships and non-Kiriko ships, btw. As for which ships will become couples… I’ll keep that to myself a bit longer. Until then, feel free to speculate!

#2: The first two, maybe a few more, arcs are predominantly viewed through Asuna’s perspective and are modeled off of the Progressive manga. If you like what you’re reading here, maybe give the Progressive manga a read, because it’s easily the best SAO Aincrad arc official media to ever have existed. Progressive is largely from Asuna’s perspective, but for those of you like me who don’t really like Asuna that much in canon, don’t worry, Progressive Asuna is way better as a character than OG canon Asuna. Like, so much so that I actually genuinely like Asuna in Progressive, whereas I normally hate her in other media.

#3: This version of SAO has a stupidly complex and unfair bathroom needs system implemented. As a result, toilets, pads, pullups and cloth/disposable diapers all exist. I’m explaining the disposable pullups/diapers as magical to get them into the setting, but they still feel very much like normal disposable pullups and diapers do.

#4: Certain characters who died in canon SAO will be living in this fic. To avoid spoiling you, I will not be naming any of them, but expect this to drastically change the events of the middle stages of this fic, after I stop modeling its plot off of Progressive.

#5: After/during floor 75’s Heathcliff deathmatch, we’ll be switching continuities to start travelling similar plot threads to the ones traveled by SAO Re: Hollow Fragment. As terrible as that game’s gameplay is, its plot isn’t half bad, and I have a soft spot for the gameverse continuity, so… yeah.

That’s about all you need to know. If this sounds like a fun read for you, go ahead and give this a try! See you below!


Sword Art Online: Of Death Games and Diapers

Chapter One: Asuna’s Shooting Star


In a small, barebones bedroom in the cheapest inn in the «Town of Beginnings», a pair of chestnut eyes suddenly snapped open, their owner sweating and panting in a disoriented mess as she slowly regained awareness of the world around her.

That nightmare…

Her whole body shivering in the cold, she raised her right hand and gestured with it to open her menu. After navigating submenus for a few seconds, she arrived at a date readout, and the light in her eyes dimmed. Just as she’d feared.

“November 19th, 2022. Saturday,” she mumbled it aloud, voice reflecting how dead inside she felt in that moment. “Today is the day… of the unified mock test…”

It was at precisely this moment that the young girl woke up just enough to notice why she was so cold. Her clothes, the covers, the bedsheets — all of them were damp. The girl took a deep breath, then sighed. It happened again. It happened every time she had a nightmare. Which, since she’d gotten trapped in this unfamiliar place, was almost every night.

Asuna Yuuki, high school girl and heiress of RECT Incorporated, had wet the bed.


After paying a small fee to wash both the bedding and the clothes she had been wearing, Asuna left the inn, stomach rumbling from hunger every few minutes as she walked through the crowded streets towards the place she always went to for breakfast.

She could barely see in front of her from under the veil of her hooded cape, but she made it there at around the usual time, maybe a few minutes faster than normal because bad moods made her walk faster. She stepped up to the counter and listened to the baker NPC’s ragged, boring old greeting with narrowed eyes, purchased a loaf of «Black Bread» for a single Col, and retreated to the steps leading up from the edge of the bakery’s food court to eat it in a subdued silence.

As she tossed the last scrap of bread into her mouth, she couldn’t help but think to herself, It doesn’t even taste any good…

“A hidden logout spot?” an incredulous voice asked, making Asuna’s eyes dart over to where she heard him. “It’s just another false rumor. Who would be dumb enough to believe that?”

The man sitting at the table with him calmly replied with a smug grin. “But I hear it comes from the «Rat» herself. She wouldn’t just make shit like that up.”

“Oh really now?” the first man pointed a finger at his buddy accusingly before bursting into laughter. He came off as… kinda drunk. Face was flushed and everything. “‘It comes from the Rat,’ he says. The nerve of this guy!”

A few moments passed without either of them speaking, but Asuna still listened attentively. If the rumor was true, then… she could take the test after all…

The man who’d seemed so confident in himself just a second ago sighed before speaking in a much more reserved tone. “So I hear it’s supposed to be in the forest west of here. There’s a cave way in the back that looks like the right place… and no one who’s gone has come back. What’s that tell you?”

Asuna hadn’t realized until she was halfway to their table, but she’d instinctively gotten up and started walking over to ask for more info. How could she not, though? If there was even a chance it was true, then… and taking that test was more important than anything she did in here.

The skeptic replied in a hearty tone. “That they got killed by the mobs in there. Fuckin’ dumbass!”

Just before he was about to burst out laughing again, Asuna reached the table and subconsciously slammed her fists down on top of it, startling the two men out of their drunken stupor as their heads snapped over in her direction.

Their stares made her nervous, but the young girl pressed on in desperation. “Um! Excuse me! Which way is the forest to the west?”

The guy who’d made the claim spoke first, his smug grin returning. “I mean, it’s where you think it’d be. It’s out west of here, bout an hour down the path out the western gate.”

“Thank you very much,” Asuna said as she turned to leave.

The voice of the skeptic called out to her before she got very far. “Uh, you know you need to be about level three around there, right?”

Asuna paused. It wasn’t like she hadn’t expected it to be challenging, but… for her stats all the way down at level one… could she handle this alone?

“You’re one of those folks waiting for help from the outside, right?” the skeptic continued, sounding genuinely concerned about her, a perfect stranger. “Don’t get yourself killed, there’s no need to rush. In another few days, I’m sure someone will hack in and we’ll all be rescued.”

Asuna shook her head. “In a few days, it’ll be too late.”

The other man piped up, voice sort of hesitant. “You got urgent business back in the real, girlie?”

She wanted to tell them just what she needed to do, but she knew she’d just sound stupid and childish if she did. She couldn’t admit she was risking her life just to take a mock test. It was effectively social suicide to people like these. But to her, these tests were her life! She’d rather die than waste a chance to escape and further her education… otherwise, her mother would—

No, never mind. It’s pointless, thinking like that, in terms of what she wants. I’m doing this for me.

“Yes,” she admitted, slumping her shoulders with a sigh. “Something very… important.”

After that, she left them without saying another word.


An hour and a half of walking down the path, treading through the forest and sneaking past all the enemies she saw on the way, Asuna stood before a structure inherently strange in design. It definitely reminded her she was in a stupid video game, at least.

At the base of a massive tree, underneath its roots which were almost all longer than she was tall, there was a large opening that seemed to lead deeper underground. That was all well and good, but because the game couldn’t let itself be too realistic, beneath the tree’s roots on either side of the opening were two circular stone pillars which seemed to be propping it up to keep it from closing the entrance.

This was it… it had to be here. It was the only thing in the entire forest that even remotely resembled a cave. Which meant that if the secret logout spot really did exist, this was the only place it could be. Asuna gulped in anticipation.

“You know you need to be about level three around there, right?”

That man’s words from earlier echoed through her mind, reminding her of the danger she was facing by coming here. But there was no turning back now. In order to escape in time for the mock exam, she’d have to get out in under an hour at this point.

So she had to advance. Now more than ever, especially because of how dangerous it would be from here on out.

It’s just a game, anyway. Why am I getting so worked up over this? How hard could it actually be?

With that as a mental footnote in her quest, Asuna walked into the cave, slowly drawing her rapier from its scabbard at her waist as she walked. “I need to get… out of here.”

Despite how it looked from a distance, the opening of the cave was tall enough that she didn’t even have to duck to get in. The path in front of her seemed to stretch on forever, even though she knew it realistically couldn’t be that big of a cave. Then again, it was a video game… they could break whatever laws of reality they wanted in here.

As the light from the entrance grew dimmer and dimmer, Asuna noticed that the air around her looked weirdly… thick. Like it was in a haze all around her. And it smelled nasty, too. She didn’t want to breathe it in, but she couldn’t just hold her breath forever. When she was finally forced to take a breath, it felt like her body became weirdly… relaxed.

The cave got hotter and more clammy the further into it she walked. Something was… off about it, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She could barely see even a foot in front of her at this point. In fact, it seemed like something was blocking her way. She reached out and felt it with her free hand, and it was…

Squishy… and fuzzy.

… Oh.

Asuna’s eyes looked up and met with the gleaming golden eyes of a gigantic black-furred beast. With a bulky human body and the head of a wild dog, this massive enemy towered over Asuna so much it made her look tiny by comparison. In its right arm held high above its head, it wielded a massive club almost as long as she was tall, which—

Oh no.

Before she could even react, the club came crashing down into her side and hit her so hard it knocked her into the air and sent her flying back, bouncing across the ground until her battered body skidded to a stop.

It felt like all the bones in her body were broken… she could barely move, no matter how hard she tried. There was a weird icon next to her HP readout, and she only had a sliver of HP left.

Am I going to die?

The massive monster slowly approached her, brandishing its huge club every few steps. It took its sweet time approaching her, like a wild dog slowly cornering its prey. It seemed to understand that Asuna couldn’t move, and it was intentionally drawing out her suffering.

Before I’ve had the chance to do a single thing with my life…?

Asuna’s life began flashing through her eyes as the monster closed in on her. She felt the bitterness and anger of knowing that she’d lived through fifteen years of hard work only for it to amount to nothing, her life over in a heartbeat, vanishing from the stage known as the world without leaving a single lasting mark on anything.

But just before the beast swung its club down on her, she saw something incredible. Appearing out of nowhere from behind the monster, a girl who couldn’t have been any older than Asuna brought a shimmering golden blade crashing down through the monster, cutting it clean in half and killing it in a single blow.

As its form shattered, for just an instant, Asuna got a good look at the girl who saved her. Her long, lustrous black hair had a radiant sheen to it, her figure was almost unfair, and her stunning violet eyes stared down at Asuna with an unreadable glint to them. And Asuna had never seen someone look so good dressed in all black before…

Then just as quickly as it began, it ended when Asuna’s head lost the strength to support her and fell back to the ground.

“It’s over,” the mysterious girl said in a deep, gentle voice. She sheathed her sword in a scabbard on her right waist, before kneeling down and patting Asuna’s head. “It’s gonna be okay. You can rest easy now.”

She… went out of her way to comfort me.

As the girl stood back up, another set of footsteps briskly approached the black-haired girl. “Heyo, nice work there! Gotta say, really gets under my skin that people are spreadin’ rumors usin’ my name.”

The black-haired girl replied without missing a beat. “Being an informant is a rough gig, huh?”

“Our newbie still kickin’?” The new entrance sat down in front of Asuna. Even without being able to see her, the chestnut-haired girl could feel she was being watched. “Oh nice, she is. Not by much, though~”

Is she teasing her friend…?

Asuna suddenly felt something get shoved into her mouth, and a sweet liquid started pouring down her throat. The cheeky girl staring at her simply said, “Here, drink this healing pot.”

“Lay off. I had to no damage run this place if I didn’t want permanent debuffs,” the black-haired girl said as she walked past Asuna’s field of vision, towards the exit. “Anyway, I’m off. You can deal with your impostor yourself. I’d do a lot for you, but I’m not going orange.”

The girl healing her shamelessly quipped back. “Aw, how sweet!~ No worries though, I got it covered.”

“Don’t forget about our other arrangement. Catch you later.” And just like that, Asuna’s savior left.

She saved the fifteen-year-old’s life like it was the easiest thing in the world, comforted her, and then disappeared in a flash. And in the singular moment their eyes met, she shone so brightly that nothing compared. Just like…

Like a shooting star.


When Asuna’s chestnut eyes next fluttered open, the first thing she noticed was that she hadn’t had a nightmare this time. How long had she even been asleep, anyway? She checked the time readout in the corner of her vision and realized she was out for around twenty minutes. If the logout spot really existed, she’d need to use it as soon as possible if she hoped to take the exam…

As she continued to wake up, she realized her crotch felt damp. So she’d went in her sleep… again. But unlike every other time she wet the bed, the rest of Asuna’s clothes felt perfectly dry. Why was that? And her underwear felt… quite a bit bulkier than normal, for some reason.

She reached a hand down and felt underneath her skirt, only to find that her underwear… well, wasn’t her underwear. It felt totally different from what she’d put on when she left the inn. Almost like—

“Oh, looks like yer awake now, huh?” a familiar, cheeky voice said with a unique nasal inflection.

Asuna nearly jumped out of her skin at the realization that she wasn’t alone. But then she realized — she’d been taken out of the cave. Her underwear had been replaced by something else. She’d been sleeping while sitting down, leaning against a rock, as opposed to the floor of the cave she’d passed out on. The odds that all this just happened automatically without the help of anyone else were abysmal.

The voice called out again, coming from behind her, probably on top of the rock. “You feelin’ better now? The potion I gave you had a little somethin’ extra in it to help you with the pain.”

So whatever this girl had Asuna drink, it was spiked with something. That must’ve been why she wet herself in her sleep again without even having a nightmare. But then why didn’t the rest of her clothes feel wet…? What had this person done to her underwear?

Asuna lifted up her skirt, and the sight that greeted her was one she never expected to see. This person had put her in a cloth diaper, with a star-patterned snap-up cover. She wanted to get mad, to ask what happened to the underwear she’d been wearing before, but… well, considering she’d already used it after having only been out for twenty minutes, the other girl had made the right call putting her in this babyish thing.

“Oh, right,” the girl answered her thoughts upon seeing the look on the diapered girl’s face. “Take it from me, after takin’ that much damage in that cave and healin’ with a numbin’ potion, you don’t wanna take any chances. I put yer old underwear back in yer storage though, no worries.”

Asuna sighed. She didn’t understand this person’s reasons, but they seemed to know more about the game than she did, so she’d just have to take their word for it. Come to think of it… her savior called this person…

“The girl who saved me… she called you an ‘informant,’” the chestnut-haired girl replied. “What’s that mean?”

Asuna looked back at the other girl out of the corner of her eye, and saw that she was wearing some pretty ratty looking clothes, and had whisker marks on her face. Like a cat… or maybe a rat? Those people in the Town of Beginnings seemed to place stock in the intel that game from someone who went by the “Rat.”

The whiskered girl smiled a laid back smile. “What it sounds like. My job is buying and selling information. I gather all kinds of info, then provide it at a reasonable price. If it benefits the public, I spread it… or if needed, I bury it forever.”

Her job… was buying and selling information? Was this the Rat the people back in town mentioned, then? No, wait… back in the cave, this person mentioned having an impostor spreading false rumors using her name. So which one was she…?

What are the lies… and what is the truth? This is just like—

Asuna chuckled grimly. “How weird. This is a game… but it feels like reality.”

“Of course it does. This is our reality now.” The whiskered girl met her eyes with a cold stare.

Of course someone like her would see it that way. Asuna’s eyes hit the ground as she faced forward again. “Miss informant… is the ‘hidden logout spot…’ just a false rumor?”

There was a pause. Asuna could feel she was being watched. She clutched the hem of her skirt anxiously the longer the silence lasted, before the informant finally ended the suspense.

“Sorry. There’s no such thing.”

Never had the simple late autumn breeze felt so chilling to the bone.

As Asuna crossed her arms for warmth, her eyes narrowed and she made up her mind. “In that case… please sell me some info.”

Her left hand curled into a fist as she recalled the feeling of helplessness as she realized she was about to die in the cave. She remembered how it felt needing to be saved by someone she didn’t even know, whose beauty shone like a shooting star crashing down to earth as she killed the monster that nearly felled Asuna in a single hit. To prevent something like that from happening again…

“I want to know how to get stronger.”

The informant replied without missing a beat. “Is that in order to survive longer?”

Asuna shook her head, as images of her savior flashed through her mind, of the back she’d soon be chasing after. “No. It’s so that I don’t ever regret anything again.”

“Hmm,” the informant hummed along, taking Asuna’s resolute words as casual as could be. “Then you’ll want this.”

A moment later, a window appeared in front of Asuna. The informant’s hand pointed to a button press. She seemed to want the girl to press the circle button. When the chestnut-haired girl finally did, a small booklet bound together by leather string suddenly materialized into the air above her hands, and she caught it just in time.

The cover had a rat-like icon, and next to that, the title read:

“SAO Strategy Guide

1F: Field Area”

At the bottom, it said it was compiled and written by “Argo.”

As if on cue, the whiskered informant withdrew her hand and said, “It’s my strategy guide for the first floor of SAO. Think of it like a reference manual. Free, just for you.”

Asuna abruptly stood up as she caught sight of one of the boars she’d been trying to hide from on her way here. She instinctively opened the booklet she’d just been given, flipping through its pages until she saw a page which had a picture of this monster.

“«Frenzied Boar»… non-active?” she read a part of the page aloud before leafing through the pages to the term’s citation and reading further. “Oh. If I don’t attack it first, it won’t target me.”

Asuna suppressed the urge to sigh. “The source of data and prerequisites are somewhat vague. Did the author test this information to determine its accuracy? Still, it’s a good guide for a starting player. Well-indexed, plenty of notes, even images and diagrams.”

Argo watched on in stunned silence as the fruit of her labor was dissected by a complete newbie, not quite sure how to feel about it. But this girl was a fast learner, huh? She never stayed on one subject for very long. She went from monsters to monster types to the entry for her starting weapon in a matter of seconds, then drew hers and—

“Oh. It worked.”

Argo did a double take as she processed the fact that this girl went from reading through her guide book to using a skill to kill her first monster in one hit faster than she could even see the newbie move. That was fast! Almost as fast as Kiriko, even…!

The chestnut-haired girl held up her rapier and stared at it. “Well then. I can do it after all.”

Argo’s jaw went slack for just an instant before she regained her senses. She smirked, realizing this player’s information would become quite valuable as the game progressed. She couldn’t just let her up and leave like this, it’d be like passing up the chance for free money!

“I take it back. No longer free,” Argo said, rubbing her hands together greedily. “As my fee, tell me yer name.”

The girl looked over her way and didn’t seem bothered by this request at all. “My name? It’s Asuna Yuuki.”

It was safe to say Argo got more than she bargained for, being told this person’s real name. She… she’d just pretend to forget that… “Wait, sorry, newbie! I meant yer player name!”

“Ah. Just Asuna, then,” the girl replied, not seeming to understand why what she just said was not good. That she used her real name as her player name… Argo would pretend she forgot that, too.

“So that’s yer player name, too,” Argo sighed. “When anyone in here mentions name, they mean your player name. I’ll forget that piece of info, just be careful from now on.”

Not one second after Argo finished talking and her newbie friend finished nodding along, she went back to using «Linear» on a new boar spawn, killing this one in one hit too with perfect fencing form, making Argo wonder if she’d even been paying attention the whole time.

Still… Argo thought to herself as she watched Asuna slay boar after boar for practice. Asuna the fencer, huh? She’ll go far.

Argo could feel it. The day would come when this girl caught up to the top players in the game and earned herself a fantastic nickname. When that time came, Argo could sell this day’s events for a hefty price. And not just to other top players like Kiriko. People the game over would want in on this…

“Hey… miss informant,” Asuna’s voice called out to her, as she paused to catch her breath between kills. “Do you think I could defeat that monster from before, the way I am now?”

Argo had to stifle a chuckle. She really hadn’t realized it yet, had she? Well, Argo mused, that just makes it more interesting. The Rat couldn’t help but wonder which piece of info would sell for more when this one became famous. The story of how Asuna started out, or the fact that if she didn’t pay closer attention to the drawbacks of visiting certain dungeons, she’d end up in diapers full-time before she knew it?


So yeah, here’s chapter one for you. There’s more where that came from, by the way! Once I’m done with chapter five, expect me to release chapter two ASAP! Shouldn’t take too long, I’m already around 3k words into it with the first scene alone and that scene isn’t even over and done with, but yeah, expect me to try and keep a pretty consistently fast release schedule while I keep the momentum going.

Until next time, feel free to leave your thoughts, comments and critiques in the comments. Catch you next time!

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Sword Art Online: Of Death Games and Diapers

Chapter Two: Kiriko’s Shooting Star


Friday, December 2nd, 2022

Floor One Labyrinth

Asuna’s rapier pierced through the heart of the Kobold before her in a lightning-quick «Linear». Having been hit in a spot guaranteed to cause a critical hit, the beast exploded into polygonal fragments, leaving Asuna alone in the labyrinth once again.

How many days have passed… since I walked into this dungeon?

Asuna might’ve technically been free of physical exhaustion, but she still got mentally fatigued. At times, her wits would grow faint, and the ever-present feeling that she was slowly losing it had only grown more intense the further she progressed.

After walking through to the next room, Asuna slumped down to the floor, just barely managing to prop herself up by holding onto her rapier. What would happen when her concentration faltered in the most dangerous part of a labyrinth stuffed to the brim with monsters?

One after another, Kobold monsters began spawning all around her. In front, on each side, from behind — every route of escape was cut off in a matter of seconds as Asuna slowly, shakily rose to her feet to defend herself.

Damn… I’m not getting out of this ambush. Not without a fight.

The first strike came from the Kobold right in front of her. Asuna evaded the horizontal slash of her enemy’s axe by a hair’s width, and then sidestepped out of the reach of a slash from a Kobold on her left. The one on her right attacked in short order, but by the time its slash left a trail of light in the air, Asuna had already dashed forward, right past its predictable trajectory.

Back to dealing with the first Kobold right in front of her, she sidestepped a vertical slash aimed at her head, then brought her rapier into the pre-motion for «Linear», planning to strike in the tiny window of opportunity while its axe was stuck in the ground.

But she wouldn’t get the chance. Right before her skill would’ve activated, a Kobold snuck up from behind her and delivered a wicked strike down through her spine. Her HP dropped into the yellow zone in an instant, and as she felt herself lose all her strength to stand and she collapsed into a sit, just barely managing to clutch onto her rapier to keep from falling face first to the ground, she noticed a familiar icon appear next to her HP bar.

A stun effect, she thought to herself, heaving an internal sigh. I guess this is it.

As all the Kobolds around her closed in and began the pre-motions for axe skills to finish her off, she looked back on how far she’d made it in just a few short weeks with an odd, yet all too predictable sense of pride. This wasn’t the worst way to go out, she supposed.

Well, at least… I kept pushing until the end.

But just before their sword skills would’ve launched, another female player dashed in front of Asuna so fast she could barely see her move and launched a horizontal slashing skill with the sword in her left hand. With that singular slash so fast Asuna could only see the trail of blue light left in its wake, all the monsters surrounding them were cleaved in two, shattering into polygonal fragments soon after.

As the girl in front of Asuna straightened her posture into a stand, her lustrous black hair settling back down from its frenetic movement and settling onto her back, she began to speak. “You know…”

Who… is she? I don’t know her.

Asuna’s savior’s voice resonated throughout the room in a cool, detached tone as more Kobolds spawned all around them. “If you keep fighting like that, you’ll die.”

Mind your own damn business! Asuna shouted internally as she felt the stun effect begin to fade. She had been so close to dying without regrets, and then this girl showed up and robbed that from her in the blink of an eye. And the black-haired girl had the nerve to lecture her, on top of that? It was so…!

“We’re all going to die anyway!” Asuna shouted in a strangled voice, barely having the strength to project it. “The only difference is when and where, sooner or later!”

The left-handed swordswoman standing before her drew a second sword from the scabbard at her waist with her right hand, but gave no indication that she even heard what Asuna just said. The way she held those two identical one-handed swords made the unorthodox style seem natural, like it was the easiest thing in the world for her to do.

“At least let me fight to my heart’s content…” Asuna continued, voice more subdued than before. “So I can die satisfied, and without regrets.”

As the new Kobold spawns began to close in on the two of them, numbering twice as many as last time, her dark-clothed savior heaved a quiet sigh. “I’m not saying that you have to treasure your life, or some altruistic bullcrap like that.”

She turned her head back to look at Asuna out of the corner of her familiar, amethyst eye, before swinging her left sword back to point it right at my neck. This girl… what was she after? What did she want from all this? And who was she?

“But at least let me have your map data,” she continued, looking back at me with a cocky grin. “It would be a waste to let that disappear. You can die after that.”

This girl wanted… Asuna’s map data? Why? Why would she put herself at such great risk just to expand her own map of the labyrinth? And why did her eyes have a glint which showed so much raw determination in them? Like…

Like she has no intention of dying at all.

“Got that? On your feet!” the violet-eyed dual-wielder said with an upbeat voice.

Asuna struggled to stand up as the stun effect finally completely faded away, feeling like she was constantly short of breath no matter how many breaths she took. She propped herself up on her sword before shakily holding it up and pointing it at the throat of one of the Kobolds slowly but surely closing in on them.

“That’s the spirit, miss fencer,” the black-haired girl said as she turned away and pressed her back up against Asuna’s. “You watch my back, I’ll watch yours. We attack together.”

Asuna scowled. “Don’t order me around!”

“We attack on my mark,” the dual-wielder continued as if she hadn’t even heard Asuna’s protest. “Three!”

Sheesh! Asuna complained in her head, knowing full well that complaining out loud wouldn’t do her any good. Who does she think she is?!

“Two!” the black-haired girl continued her countdown, as Asuna felt her back muscles tense up from behind. Looked like this girl intended to strike the moment the countdown finished, not a single second later. “One!”

Asuna’s own muscles instinctively tensed up as she prepared to make a mad dash for the nearest enemy. She wasn’t about to be so easily outdone by this obnoxious girl, no matter how exhausted she may have been.

“Go!”

And just like that, both of them leapt into action without a moment’s hesitation. Fighting for their lives, just like any other day in this cursed deathtrap.

Except this time, they weren’t alone anymore.


Just once, I actually saw a shooting star. Being the MMO junkie of a kid I was at the time, the wish I made was pretty stupid and insignificant. I just wished for the next monster I fought to drop a rare item.

But…

I never expected to see a second… here in the murky depths of this labyrinth. In between kills, I kept looking over to make sure my fencer friend was doing okay. And every time I did, I felt like something was… off about the way she fought. Her masterful use of the starting rapier skill, Linear, displayed a level of skill, speed and power which was no small feat, her well-honed technique going far above and beyond what the «System Assist» would be able to achieve on its own.

And yet her evasive and defensive maneuvers were on the edge, like those of a complete newb who didn’t have an adequate sense of danger. She knew these mobs had a stun effect, she’d just been hit by one not two minutes ago. Yet she kept only avoiding their strikes by a hair’s width rather than blocking or parrying them, amplifying the risk she took on by fighting them manifold.

That unique blend of potent skill and technique and an inexperienced fighting style was just like a shooting star, shining brilliantly right before it faded from view and burned out, never to be seen again.

Just as I used my right sword to activate a quick «Slant» and kill the last mob on my side while nullifying the post-motion delay from the last skill I used with my left sword, I turned back to look at her again, observing her more closely now that I had a few moments’ reprieve.

She’s fast, I couldn’t help but absently note as I watched her tear through mob after mob. And her technique is so refined, so precise. So why…

“I cleared the way ahead of us, there’s a safe room just past here!” I shouted back to her, knowing she was dangerously close to running out of stamina as it is. “Hurry and run for… it…”

It took me a second to register the fact that she’d stopped moving, the air around her completely still. I turned around to get a clearer look at her half of the room, and then it hit me.

The mob she’d just beaten was the last one.

She’d killed just as many of the Kobolds as I had using two swords and a system exploit to eliminate my post-motion delays, in almost the same exact timeframe as me. “You… killed them all?”

Almost immediately after I said that, the fencer lost her grip on her rapier, lost balance, and collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Like my assurance that the mobs were all gone was all she needed to relax enough to pass out.

“Miss fencer!”


When Asuna had fallen unconscious on the labyrinth floor, she remembered thinking that her living nightmare inside SAO was finally at an end. That the girl who saved her would be forced to leave her behind due to weight limits, more monsters would spawn after she moved on, and that would be that. She’d die in her sleep, and be freed of this tormented life inside a VR game she’d only gotten trapped in by chance.

That was why, when she opened her eyes again and found herself inside a forest clearing, sleeping on a bed of grass as soft and plush as the carpet in her bedroom back in the real[1] [2]  and surrounded by trees whose branches shielded her from the sun’s harsh rays, the first thing she wondered was if this was what the afterlife was supposed to look like.

Wait, no…

As she slowly shifted into a sitting position, she noted a familiar warm, damp feeling between her legs. This couldn’t have been the afterlife if she was still wetting herself in her sleep…

Asuna gingerly reached underneath her skirt and felt the diaper between her legs, trying to check to see whether she needed a change. Spending day after day in the dungeon as she had been, she’d given up on normal bathroom breaks before she even left town and purchased a sizeable supply of disposable tape-up diapers so she didn’t have to leave the dungeon every time she had to use the bathroom. It had taken time to figure out how to put them on right, but once she had it down, it was far more convenient than leaving for bathroom breaks, to an almost frustrating degree.

But to her surprise, the one she was wearing right now was even less wet than the one she’d been wearing before she passed out. And… something about it felt different. She lifted the hem of her skirt to take a peek, and her suspicions were confirmed. This was a different kind from the ones she’d bought before. Someone had changed her diaper while she was asleep…

But who would even bother with something like that? And why?

She got the answer to the first question when she took a look over to her right. At the edge of the clearing, a dark gray silhouette sat, leaning against the trunk of a particularly large tree. She held onto two identical, somewhat large one-handed swords with both arms, their sheaths propped up below her head as a makeshift pillow. The girl from before… long, black hair covered her face so that it couldn’t be seen, but from the equipment and her slim, toned, and busty physique, there was no mistaking her for anyone else.

She saved me again… what’s with this girl?

As if sensing her movement, the black-haired girl’s dark gray leather jacket-covered shoulders shook as she silently yawned and lifted her head slightly. In the bright, mid-morning forest, the girl’s violet eyes shone and sparkled like perfectly cut amethyst gemstones as she sleepily smiled over at Asuna.

“Good morning, miss fence—”

Asuna indignantly interrupted the greeting, meeting her smile with a glare. “Why…? Why didn’t you leave me behind?”

The violet-eyed girl closed her eyes and heaved a silent sigh, the smile still not leaving her face. She began refastening the sheaths of her two swords to each side of the belt she was wearing over the top of her own black, knife-pleated skirt. It was kind of amazing that her skirt and belt could hold the weight of two one-handed swords at the same time… but it was probably just standard fare video game logic at play.

The woman shrugged her shoulders and flipped a lock of her long, lustrous black hair back over her shoulder. “You’re free to pursue your glamorous death all you want… but as I told you before, I want that map data first.”

As she spoke, she stared back at Asuna’s glare with a confident gaze, that ever-present smile still on her face. She seemed completely at ease, both with herself and with her situation. That confidence and calm composure almost made the chestnut-haired girl jealous of her, especially considering how beautiful this girl was. She just gave off this aura of maturity, like she was at least as old as Asuna’s older brother, in spite of how her appearance made that seem quite unlikely.

The girl’s violet eyes opened again, averting to the side to look at her right sword. “Then again… there are ways to get around that stuff when the other person is asleep.”

The moment Asuna’s brain processed what the other girl had just said, she drew her rapier and aimed a Linear right at her head, the other girl just barely dodging in time with a startled yelp. Asuna transitioned from stabbing at her to pointing her rapier right at the black-haired girl’s heart, just barely managing to keep the blade from shaking. She couldn’t show signs of weakness to this person…!

“What did you do to my body…?” she asked, trying to sound as threatening as possible.

She raised both hands up in the air as a sign of surrender, looking like she was freaking out but also clearly hamming it up for dramatic effect. “Nothing! Nothing at all! Cross my heart, hope to die, don’t stick that needle in my eye!”

“You… y-you liar!” Asuna shouted back, rapier beginning to tremble as she started imagining all the things this girl could’ve done. “You used my map data as an excuse to do things to my body, like… things! Things!”

Kiriko shouted back like she had a gun to her head, but her eyes made it seem more like she was trying to hold back laughter. “No way! It’s a false charge! I have zero motive!”

Ugh, this girl is obnoxious! She’s just screwing around with me!

“Draw! Your! Damn! Blades!” I shouted, rattling my rapier at her.

At precisely this moment in time, Asuna’s hunger decided to make itself known, both to her and to the dual-wielder sitting before her. Hell, probably to anyone in a hundred meter radius of her. Asuna’s stomach began rumbling so loudly and for so long that after a few seconds, it was all she could do to turn around, collapse to her knees and hide her face in shame, repeating “Stupid game!” over and over in her head like a mantra as this obnoxious girl finally lost it and started laughing as hard as she possibly could.

“Ahah, ha… we should probably get you some food,” the dual-wielder said from behind Asuna as her laughter finally began to die down.

Asuna turned around to glower into those violet eyes. “I-I don’t need it! I’m not going to die from lack of food here, so it doesn’t matter!”

Those amethyst eyes lit up, like she’d realized something important. She smirked up at the fencer. “Oh, I see it now… you’re avoiding food. Because now that you’re wearing tape-on diapers all the time, eating means you’ll have to use them for more than just peeing.”

Asuna’s face flushed bright red as she realized this girl had figured her secret out so quickly and effortlessly. Had it really been that obvious? Or was this person just that obnoxiously perceptive…?

“Anyway, you should eat, even if it comes with an unpleasant aftereffect,” the violet-eyed girl asserted, opening her menu for a second before materializing a loaf of that cheap «Black Bread». “You can’t definitively say that your passing out in the dungeon had nothing to do with extreme hunger, right?”

Asuna’s eyes hit the floor as she realized she couldn’t refute that logic. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it made logical sense. And that’s what frustrated her the most. It was just a stupid game. Why did it need to be so realistic that even bathroom needs were simulated? And why didn’t these massive dungeons have bathrooms to accommodate that? Why was the only efficient solution to wear these stupid diapers and soil herself like a toddler?

Undeterred by Asuna’s silence, the black-haired beauty sitting before her thrust the loaf of bread out towards her. “If you’re going to risk your life in the dungeon, day in and day out, it’s worth eating properly, right? Plus, this is just plain tasty.”

Asuna looked over at her through narrowed eyes, gingerly accepting the loaf. “... Now I’m doubting your sense of taste. It’s that cheap Black Bread.”

“You just need something to mix it up a little,” she replied with a laid-back smile. She materialized something else from her inventory, some kind of jar. “Here. Tap the lid, then drag that finger across the bread.”

Asuna did as instructed and touched the lid, and her finger began to glow. As she dragged it across the top of her loaf of bread, she found a thick, yellowish white substance materializing from her fingertips and spreading across the bread. This was…

“Cream…?”

After she finished spreading it, staring at the bread in awe, the proponent of this “mixup” simply replied, “Go on, try it.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Asuna brought the loaf to her mouth, but her breath hitched at the cool feeling of the cream against her lips. She instinctively stopped just short of taking a bite, unable to pin down why. Maybe it was the nostalgic, sweet smell, or maybe it was just the first time food this cold had touched her lips since the start of the game.

Not eating it now would just be wasteful, right? As her hesitation wavered, she opened her mouth and took a small bite. She had been expecting the same coarse and dry texture she’d always tasted from the one-col bakery bread. What she got was a cool, creamy texture spreading over her tongue before disappearing in a hungry swallow before she could taste it for long enough to fully appreciate such a treat. It was…

Unbelievably good.

She hadn’t even realized she’d instinctively closed her eyes until she opened them. Her stomach felt warm and fulfilled for the first time in days as the beginnings of teardrops pricked at the corners of her chestnut eyes.

“Aah…” It’s just a stupid game…

She practically shoved her face into the next bite, almost letting slip a small, pleasured moan and stifling it into this wonderful meal she’d been given. Then another, then one more. It didn’t hit her she’d eaten it all until she’d been staring at her empty hands for several seconds straight. That alone almost seemed like cause to let those tears fall after all.

“Someone’s hungry,” the dual-wielder replied between chuckles, nearly making Asuna jump out of her skin. “The cream is a quest reward. If you wanna do it, I can give you some tips. Do it efficiently and it clocks in just under two hours.”

Honestly, Asuna was moved. With that cream, even the one Col Black Bread could become a small feast. It may have been fake food which fulfilled a fake hunger, but she wanted to eat it again… every day, if possible. But…

The chestnut-haired girl lowered her eyes, shaking her head underneath her hood in a subdued manner as she slowly stood up to leave. “I’ll pass. I didn’t survive this long and advance this far just to eat better food.”

The swordswoman paused for a moment, and when she spoke, her voice held no trace of the lighthearted tone it had before. “Why did you leave the «Starting City»? If you’d have spent wisely, you could’ve made your starting Col last months, maybe even a year. But you left. One day, you chose to advance.”

“It’s… to prove I exist, and stay true to myself,” Asuna replied, turning around to face the black-haired beauty, expression beginning to harden. “If the alternative is to hide back in the first city and waste away to nothing… then I’d rather fight with all my strength until the very last moment! And then…!”

Asuna’s tone gradually increased in intensity, but the dual-wielder staring up at her remained unshaken. “You can ‘die satisfied?’”

Asuna couldn’t help but flinch back a little at it being stated in such a reproachful tone like that. But when she realized she was being scolded by a stranger over how to live her life, she found the grit she needed to hit back.

“It’s a hundred floors, and after a month, we haven’t even beaten the first one!” She shouted, glaring at her critic as hard as she could. But she still didn’t even blink, didn’t even change the expression on her face. So Asuna pressed on. “You know how many people have died in that time? Two thousand!”

After that remark, the light seemed to vanish from the black-clad girl’s eyes. She still didn’t reply, but the spark of scorn in her expression was gone. Good riddance. In a situation like this, it was pointless to hold onto hope.

Rapidly losing steam, Asuna decided to conclude her rant, her eyes falling to the ground. “It’s time to face facts… it’s impossible. We’re never going back home.”

For a good few seconds, she got no response whatsoever. The only sound heard between them was the sound of the trees wrestling in the autumn breeze. When Asuna looked up and tried to look her in the eyes, those violet irises were cast to the earth, a troubled expression on her face.

“... I’m sorry.”

She… apologized? But why would she? Was fault lied in her for this wide-awake nightmare of existence they were in? She didn’t seem to be apologizing about criticizing Asuna… her tone was heavier than that.

“This situation we’re in, it’s my…”

Asuna couldn’t hear the rest of what the swordswoman said. A bell toll blocked the rest of it out. And once she stopped, she seemed in no mood to repeat herself. Asuna wasn’t even sure she wanted to know the rest anyway.

“A bell?” she chirped in an effort to change the subject.

Those amethyst eyes hidden by her bangs, her savior replied without missing a beat. “That’s the town. «Tolbana’s» close by. Looks like the bell struck three. Let’s go.”

Without another word, she leapt to her feet and began walking towards the source of the bell tolling. Her skirt rose a decent bit, but stopped and fell back down just before revealing anything. Which made Asuna wonder… where had she gotten the diapers she changed her with?

“Go where?” the flaxen-haired girl called out, instinctively starting to follow.

The dual-wielder didn’t even take a second glance back at her before pointing upwards with her left hand. “To the second floor, before anyone else. It’s time for the boss battle. And if you really wanna see if this game can be cleared, or even just go out with a bang, you’ll come, too.”


Yeah, so Asuna starved herself so she wouldn’t need to use her diaper for #2, lol. As for whether Kiriko is wearing diapers, I think I’ll leave you all in suspense a bit longer.

In the meantime, expect chapter three to drop relatively soon? I’m pretty close to finishing chapter six, it’s just a matter of finishing the current scene and a very short scene that happens after it.

Catch you next time!

Link to comment

So I’ve been done with chapter six for a while already, but I didn’t want to overload y’all with new content, so I held off a few days before posting this. As a result, my reserve might increase from three to four pretty soon, giving me even more leeway if IRL shiz comes up or I get burnt out for a bit.

Anyway, expect this chapter to diverge from the Progressive manga in a few key ways this chapter. I’ll leave you to find out how on your own.

See you below!


Sword Art Online: Of Death Games and Diapers

Chapter Three: Boss Meeting


The journey from the forest to «Tolbana» was spent in silence. The dual-wielder’s demeanor had changed since the bell tolling. Rather than her obnoxious persona that seemed to take almost nothing seriously, her expression and posture seemed to carry an air of solemn contemplation.

“This situation we’re in, it’s my…”

What had she been about to say? Asuna was almost afraid of the answer to that question. But not knowing the answer made her feel restless. It was strange. It felt like she both did and didn’t want to know what the swordswoman in front of her had been saying back then.

When they passed through the gates of the settlement onto the main street, the black-haired beauty turned around to face Asuna, face unreadable. “At the amphitheater, four o’clock. Don’t be late.”

She turned around to leave without a moment’s delay. But just before she disappeared into the crowd, she turned back to point at the space behind Asuna, a quizzical expression on her face.

“By the way…” she said, amethyst gaze focused on a spot behind the chestnut-haired girl’s right side. “… Never mind.”

She waved with her left hand and disappeared in the crowd without another word, leaving Asuna wondering just what the other girl had been thinking.

“Curious?”

Asuna nearly jumped out of her skin at the familiar voice coming from right behind her, almost directly into her right ear. She turned back and found Argo leaning over her shoulder, pointing at the spot where the dual-wielder disappeared into the crowd.

“Miss informant?” Asuna nearly exclaimed, surprised at the sudden appearance of the person responsible for helping her make it this far.

Argo seemed unfazed by her client’s surprise, simply repeating her question. “You curious about her? I can give you the details for cheap, A-chan.”

Setting the nickname she had apparently been given aside, Asuna couldn’t help but wonder, She knows about that girl…?

“I hear you’ve been quite the hard worker, huh?” Argo didn’t wait for Asuna to reply before grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her around a bit. “I hear stories about a little red riding hood hunting wolf-men in the labyrinth day and night. Word gets around!”

Asuna turned back to look at Argo with a pointed stare. “No, you’ve got it all wrong.”

“How so?” the informant asked with a small smirk.

“About her, I mean!” Asuna responded, trying to hide her nerves as she gestured at the crowd in front of them. “She’s just teaching me about the strategy meeting, that’s all.”

It was at this point that Asuna started to feel a familiar twinge. She barely noticed it, but she kinda had to pee… but the boss meeting was about to happen. She could hold it until after that, then find a toilet. Just because she was wearing a diaper didn’t mean she had to use it, even in town. She barely even had to go, anyway.

Pushing the urge to the back of her mind, Asuna distanced herself from Argo and gave a half-hearted glare. “Anyway, I only just met her. Please stop trying to pry and spread weird rumors!”

Argo’s bemused expression gradually dawned into one of understanding. “Ah, I see.” She then gave Asuna a lighthearted smile, gesturing at her with her hand as she stifled a giggle. “Gotcha. Thanks for the tip.”

Asuna felt a surge of awkwardness in her chest, one that she couldn’t quite suppress. Did I just give her something to sell…?

As they resumed walking through the streets toward the amphitheater, Asuna couldn’t help but ask, trying to shake off her embarrassment at being teased. “A-anyway, miss informant… do you know much about her?”

Setting aside what the dual-wielder said before, there were some other things Asuna wondered about the black-haired beauty as well. Like where she got the diapers she’d changed Asuna into while she was asleep, for one. The unique light blue design and white star pattern which yellowed when wet was a dead giveaway; those diapers were valuable, and definitely not store-bought. And there was also the question of whether she wore diapers herself, just like Asuna did. But more than any of those questions, the one she wanted answers for was…

Why does she look so… familiar? Like I’ve seen her before…

Argo’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “So you wanna know more about your would-be bird… A-chan’ll do anything once she sets eyes on her prize.”

Asuna had to resist the urge to face-palm as she spoke through grit teeth. “I have no idea where you’re getting this idea.”

“Of course, for the right price, I wouldn’t mind partin’ with that information,” Argo said in a voice so smug, Asuna could feel it without even looking at her.

Asuna visibly twitched at this admission, realizing that she might get some answers after all if she had the Col for it. But as Asuna was about to give in, Argo preempted her question with something that gave her pause, to put it mildly.

“But you know, if you buy her info from me…” Argo said in a cautionary tone. “That transaction becomes a new product for me to sell, y’see? Still interested?”

An involuntary flinch escaped Asuna when she realized what she was about to do… she didn’t want anyone to know she’d been asking about them, much less the source of the questions herself. And there was a non-zero chance of that happening if she did actually ask…

“No thanks!” Asuna decided with a huff as she turned to walk away, towards the amphitheater. “I have no interest in her, thank you very much!”

A few moments later, Argo’s voice chimed in right as Asuna felt a pat on the back. “I see. Good to hear.”

Before Asuna had a chance to collect her thoughts enough to reply, Argo passed her and disappeared into the crowd ahead of her, the hint of a grin on her face.


“Wow… look at all these people…”

Asuna couldn’t help but mutter this thought aloud as she glanced over the group of people amassed at the amphitheater. There were easily dozens of them. A quick headcount revealed the number was above forty people, and the host hadn’t even shown up yet. They had at least another few minutes before the meeting was supposed to start, so there might even be more coming.

“Even knowing they could die in the attempt, this many people gathered…” she repeated, still sort of in awe.

It must’ve taken a lot of bravery for them to come here… they’re not looking to die, like I am—

“How earnest, miss fencer!” a familiar voice called out to her from behind. Asuna turned around to find the dual-wielder from before, giving her what could only be assumed was a condescending smirk. “You really think they’re all doing it out of the goodness of their hearts?”

The fencer balked. “What other motive could they possibly have for risking their lives on the strongest enemy on the entire floor?”

The swordswoman gave her a smirk before putting her left hand to her chin. Huh. Asuna just realized this, but whenever the dual-wielder made a hand gesture or only fought with one sword, it was always her left arm doing the work… was she left-handed? Add that to the list of questions the fencer had about this girl…

Said girl sighed. “I’m not saying there aren’t any without good motives. I give this small ragtag group two, maybe three people doing it out of genuine goodwill. But as for the rest of them, I think they’re afraid of being left in the dust.”

“Left in the dust?” Asuna couldn’t help but ask, her rising curiosity making her frown lightly. With her eyes still trained at the violet-haired enigma, she quickened her pace as if to match her heartbeat. “Behind what?”

She knew the answer to her question, but something inside her had forced her to ask. “Behind the frontier. The thought of dying is frightening, sure,” The voice right in front of her said, the girl now too deep in thought to notice her company had brisked up.

“But so is the idea that the boss is being defeated without them. Heck, that’s why I’m here, too.”

What this girl said… it made sense. And it had an all-too familiar ring to it. Asuna had felt that same feeling before. She’d had dozens of nightmares over it since SAO began. And half the reason she had pushed herself to reach the frontier in this death game was because she’d already been left behind in the “frontier” of her real life. It was a constant, pressing feeling that if she didn’t keep advancing something to the limit before she finally died, she’d go insane.

“Is that like… the same kind of motivation…” Asuna found herself asking the swordswoman as they walked towards a row of seats in the back of the amphitheater. “You need to keep yourself in the top 2% of the country? Or stay in the top ten of your year?”

One violet eye looked back at her, a rather bemused look on her face. “Yeah. Exactly like that, except applied to something that actually matters: a literal matter of life and death in a timed race against our own bodies wasting away to nothing and killing us anyway.”

With that pointed remark, the dual-wielder unceremoniously plopped down into a seat near the back row. Despite how the girl seemed to say that specifically to get under her skin… Asuna had to begrudgingly admit, she had a point. In a sense, beating this death game as soon as possible was more important than doing well in school ever was.

It’s the same thing.

And it was for that reason that Asuna chose to sit down next to the standoffish noirette in spite of her attempt to distance herself. Because she didn’t want this particular player to leave her in the dust any time soon. She wanted to prove she had a right to walk the same path as her.

Chased into a corner by something you can’t see… without a clear goal in sight.

Get into a good high school, just because. Get into a good college, just because. Get a good job with a motive just as hollow as the first two. What happened then? Asuna couldn’t even fathom. She’d never really given it much thought before now. In that sense, she wasn’t any different from the eight-thousand game addicts still alive in SAO.

I need… a new goal. And I know what it is already.

She’d clear the first floor. And until they conquered all one-hundred, she’d strike quicker than any other. So fast, she’d even leave the talented girl sitting next to her in the dust with her speed.

A loud clapping suddenly burst out from center stage. Looked like the meeting was about to get underway. A man with dyed-blue hair had taken the spot at the center of the edge, clapping to get everyone’s attention. Once all the idle chit-chat of the people stopped and all heads turned towards him, he started to speak.

“Thank you all for heeding my call today!” He shouted up, his voice making for some decent acoustics. He could easily be heard, even all the way in the back row. “You are the best and brightest of SAO!”

Suddenly, an overwhelming pressure made itself known to Asuna. She jammed a hand to her crotch as fast as she could, but even with her near-instant reaction, the warmth she felt down there proved a small spurt managed to leak out before her hand could stem the flow.

How did I not notice I had to pee this bad earlier…?!

Asuna could only hope the meeting wouldn’t last too long, or that the urge would fade… because otherwise, she wasn’t sure how long she could hold it.

“My name’s Diavel! And I like to think of myself…” the host of the meeting said with a wide smile, providing Asuna with a much-needed distraction. “As playing a knight!”

Almost everyone in the amphitheater burst out laughing, and one of them called out between chuckles, “Bet you wanted to say you’re playing a ‘hero!’”

Asuna could feel eyes on her. She turned over to look at the dual-wielder next to her, but she seemed to be looking at the host of the meeting with a puzzled frown. It wasn’t her…? She looked behind her and quickly spotted a familiar face. It was Argo, leaning on a fire-lit streetlight a couple meters behind them, trying to suppress her laughter as she looked squarely at Asuna. She offered a wave when their eyes met, and Asuna realized something important.

To anyone looking at me, it’s probably obvious that I have to pee…! She thought, the horror of her situation starting to sink in. If I let an information broker watch me wet myself, she’ll not only know about that, but also the fact that I’m wearing a diaper…!

Asuna faced forward with grit teeth, a sense of newfound determination crossing her features. She definitely couldn’t wet herself here! But how long could she hold out? She might need to leave the meeting partway in order to find a bathroom… but standing up worried her. If she stood up, she might lose control on the spot…!

Her breathing turn laboured from overthinking in but a few moments. Thankfully, Diavel started speaking again once the laughter died down, distracting Asuna from what felt like her impending doom. “Now, you’re all top players in the game, active around the front line of our progress. I hardly need to remind you of why we’re here.”

But it soon proved ineffective. With every word Diavel said, Asuna’s bladder throbbed painfully, begging for release. Asuna could only keep holding on because her hand was jammed between her legs to stem the flow. But for the moment at least, she was safe. No more would leak out unless it got even worse than it already was.

“Today, our party discovered the first floor boss chamber! The time has come to beat the boss and reach the second floor!” The “Knight” grandly gestured out with his right hand, a smile donning his features. “It took an entire month… but now we have the chance to show everyone that some day, we can beat this death game! That’s the duty of all the top-level players here! Isn’t that right?!”

The players in the amphitheater became restless, but seemed to agree. Then, one person started clapping. Then another, and another, until almost everyone in the amphitheater had joined in on this round of applause.

“Hey… I don’t mean to pry, but… are you okay?” as the players clapped and cheered, the dual-wielder sitting next to her called out in a voice just barely audible over the applause. Asuna looked over to see an expression of genuine concern on her face. Did she deliberately wait until it was too loud to listen in before speaking up? “If you really need to, you should just let go. The one I changed you into can hold quite a bit more than anything you’d buy in a store on this floor, and the meeting isn’t going to end any time soon.”

Asuna felt conflicted. This girl seemed to genuinely care about her wellbeing on some level, in spite of how she occasionally came across. And she was right, as painful as it was to admit. If she just sat here, she probably wouldn’t make it through to the end of the meeting. And even if she could, she’d have to remove her hand to take the diaper off in order to use a toilet. This was… a no-win situation, most likely.

But with that informant watching me…

No. She couldn’t give in just yet. She had to at least wait until the information broker had left, or stopped watching her, or something. She couldn’t let her embarrassing secret be found out by a person whose entire job was buying and selling information, especially if she had any intention of making a name for herself…!

“I’m… okay, for now,” Asuna replied, trying her best to smile back at her acquaintance’s unexpected kindness. “Thank you for your concern.”

The desperate girl spared a glance back at Argo, who still seemed to be eagerly watching her, before turning her head back to—

“Hang on just a sec, sir knight.”

This loud, bombastic voice with a Kansai dialect resounded through the area from the steps leading down to the stage, instantly silencing the clapping and drawing all heads toward its undeterred, cactus-haired owner. He began walking towards the stage, his walk having a certain swagger about it that made it sort of painful to watch. Asuna couldn’t help but wonder if this man thought he looked intimidating walking like that, in spite of his ridiculous orange hair.

“Gotta get somethin’ offa my chest…” he said, aggressively pointing his finger at Diavel right before he reached the stage and leapt up onto it. “Before we can start playin’ like we’re all pals.”

Diavel responded to this aggression with good cheer and perfect poise. “What’s on your mind, friend? Positive opinions are always welcome. However, I’d ask you to introduce yourself first.”

“Hmph. The name’s Kibaou,” the cactus-haired man said, sounding kind of annoyed he had to even tell them something as simple as his name.

Then, despite Asuna’s best efforts, another spurt escaped her grasp, warming the crotch of her diaper again. She could feel it… she wasn’t going to hold out long against this. And the meeting was only getting started. She either had to get up and find a bathroom as soon as possible, or she’d wet herself here, with an information broker watching every second of it.

She stood up, keeping her hand pressed tightly against her crotch, but before she could walk away, her violet-haired acquaintance grabbed her free hand and pulled her back down to her seat and began speaking, voice just barely above a whisper. “It’s okay. You don’t want people to see you like this, right? If you leave now, people will notice. Right now, the only ones paying attention to you are me and Argo.”

Once again, Asuna found herself strangely touched by the sympathy and compassion her violet-eyed acquaintance was showing for her in this moment. She took a deep breath, then let it out, and nodded before turning her attention back to the meeting.

“C’mon, you cowardly beta testers! Show yerselves!”

… Just in time to hear that Kibaou person shout this. At the top of his lungs, in an exaggeratedly dramatic pose, he shouted these words in the most aggressive, accusatory tone he could muster. Asuna was so stunned by this development that her hold on her crotch loosened up for just an instant before she recovered and clamped down again, just as her diaper became even warmer from the third time her bladder had leaked in the span of only a few minutes.

Her bladder seemed to calm down a bit for the moment now that she’d leaked so much, but she knew she’d be just as desperate as she was before in minutes, if not even less. The bladder filled up more every few minutes, and she was already just about full as it was.

Please, let something distract Argo or make her leave soon…! Asuna thought, beginning to lightly tap her left foot on the ground.

“I know there’s five or ten of ‘em here! Come out an’ name yerselves!” Kibaou’s shout provided a welcome distraction from her need to pee. He pointed out at the crowd in an accusatory fashion, sporting a glare that could kill, were it possible. “You owe an apology to the two-thousand people who already died, because you were too busy hoggin’ everythin’ to yerselves!”

Kibaou’s tirade seemed… a little too extreme. He seemed ready to declare war on the beta testers, almost. But if there really were that many of them here in this crowd, wouldn’t that be a good thing? It would make the group that took on the boss that much stronger, wouldn’t it?

“Now get down on yer hands and knees ta apologize…” Kibaou’s rant continued, becoming even more extreme than it was before. “And donate yer stockpile o’ Col and items!”

He seemed to pause. Was he done? Was he waiting for people in the crowd to back him up, or was he just waiting for the beta testers he alleged were in the crowd to comply with his absurd demands?

For their part, the crowd seemed to have mixed reactions to his rhetoric. A few people seemed to agree with him, with one of them shouting for the testers to “do it,” and then there were others who seemed to think the idea was just as stupid as Asuna did. One of them even said, “Like anyone’s gonna do that,” in a tone thick with sarcasm.

And while the onlookers of the stage descended into chaos, nobody seemed to notice that another player had walked onto the stage from the steps on the side, the normal way, and stepped up to the spot directly behind Kibaou. Someone so tall, he towered over the cactus-haired man enough to cover him completely in his shadow.

“May I speak?” this man asked in a rich and forceful baritone, his calm voice quelling the chaos in an instant and echoing through the evening plaza.

When Kibaou turned around, one could see the anger and energy drain from his body until he was leaning back in a seeming sense of fear as this massive player loomed over him.

“My name’s Agil. Kibaou, if I have this right…” the dark-skinned giant said with a calm and casual tone. Asuna couldn’t tell if he was aware of how much he was intimidating Kibaou or not… “You’re claiming that many newbies died because the former testers didn’t help them, so they ought to pay reparations. Is that correct?”

“Y… yeah. They abandoned all the new players who didn’t know left from right on the day this damn game started,” Kibaou seemed to regain just a tiny bit of his fighting spirit as he responded. “An’ hightailed it right outta the town of beginnings to pursue their own selfish ends. You know anyone who fits the bill?”

Asuna heard a subtle shifting next to her. She turned to look over at her acquaintance, only to find the black-haired beauty glaring daggers at Kibaou, a hand to her chin and a bead of sweat dripping down her forehead. Was… was she a—

“When them beta assholes hogged all the best huntin’ grounds and lucrative quests,” Kibaou’s voice cut Asuna’s thoughts off as he continued talking. Asuna noticed her acquaintance’s face become more grim with every word. “They kept the beginners from good leveling spots, so they had ta venture inta dangerous zones and wound up dead.”

“That’s true. The resources available to players in this game are limited by the system. But I have a question, Kibaou.” Agil’s response came quickly, like he’d been prepared to hear exactly that. “If you were a self-interested beta tester who only cared about your own survival, and you could monopolize one thing, what would you choose? The best hunting ground? The lucrative quests?”

Kibaou’s bemused face seemed to lose a bit of its angry vigor at that. “Wh-what’s yer point?”

Agil materialized a small, familiar-looking book from his inventory. That… that was one of Argo’s strategy guides, wasn’t it? But why would he bring one of those out now, of all times? Unless he was implying… but if that was true, then—

This time, rather than someone’s words interrupting Asuna’s thoughts, the sharpening pain of her own bladder did. Her need to pee was getting worse, and fast. She didn’t think she’d hold out very long against this…! She could feel the pee start to leak through her grip on her diaper regardless of how tightly she tried to press her hand against it to jam the flow.

She spurted once.

“I’d choose information,” Agil said, though Asuna could barely pay attention anymore. “Every time I reached a town, one of these guide books was available at item shops. And for free, too. I’d say everyone has made use of them, right?”

Twice.

“For free?” her acquaintance unexpectedly exclaimed beside her at the worst possible time, making Asuna’s concentration slip. “That rat! She charged me five-hundred col a pop!”

She peed for a second…

No, no, no…!

Two seconds…

 I can’t stop it!

Asuna teared up in embarrassment and frustration as she lost control of her bladder altogether, unable to stop peeing in her diaper no matter how hard she tried.

“Miss fencer…” her acquaintance whispered from beside her, wrapping a supportive arm around her shoulder. Asuna turned her teary gaze over to meet those compassionate violet eyes and was offered a sympathetic smile. “I was gonna say Argo left, so now is a good chance to let go… but it seems it’s a bit late to tell you that. Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

The dual-wielder began to soothingly rub the extremely embarrassed Asuna’s back as the fencer lifted her hand from her crotch in defeat, realizing it was too late to stop this accident. Content with the knowledge that Argo wouldn’t bear witness to her shame, she stopped trying to hold it in altogether and relaxed, gradually and thoroughly soaking her diaper without restraint.

She’d never say it aloud, but… her acquaintance’s sudden, compassionate gesture was something she never realized she needed until now. Someone to hold her close and tell her it would be okay. She relaxed and leaned into the black-haired girl’s embrace, taking deep breaths as the flow of pee soaking her diaper finally began to taper off and raising a hand to wipe the tears from her eyes.

Just this once… because of her… maybe wetting myself wasn’t so bad.

Asuna’s attention returned to the stage just in time for Agil to start talking again. She hadn’t missed out on much, apparently, because Agil seemed to have been waiting for the crowd to process what he said.

“But to me, it felt like it was all too quick,” Agil continued his explanation about the guide books, looking at his own with a contemplative expression. “I suspect that the only people who could’ve offered this information and map data… are the former beta testers who have already been well past anything we’ve seen so far.”

Kibaou’s expression dampened even further as he seemed to realize he probably wasn’t going to win this one. But Agil wasn’t done. He kept speaking, driving nail after nail into the proverbial coffin.

“Listen, the information was out there. And there’s no better gift you could give a group of beginners,” he said, holding his guide book up, almost as if waving it over Kibaou’s head to taunt him. “Yes, many people died. But that was because they assumed SAO worked the same way as other MMOs, and they failed to pull back when they needed to. Meanwhile, we’ve got the info from the guide, and we’re still alive.”

Asuna spoke up from in her acquaintance’s embrace, voice just barely kept from trembling. “He’s met his match. You always find people like him. People who aren’t happy and want to drag everyone else down with them. He doesn’t realize there’s a role only the frontrunners can play…”

The black-haired beauty gently squeezed Asuna in their embrace, smiling ruefully. “True. But I don’t think everyone can be broken down… into such simple categories.”

“Your point is well-taken, Kibaou. But isn’t this the time to look forward?” Diavel finally took his chance while everyone was quiet to step in. “If the former testers are going to lend us their help to defeat the boss, what greater ally could we possibly hope for? Now, do you mind? If we can get back to the topic at hand…”

“Diavel-san! Look!”

This frenzied exclamation reverberated through the stands from the back of the amphitheater. Asuna looked over to find a player holding what looked to be another of Argo’s guides, running down the steps toward the stage. He quickly hopped up onto the stage the moment he got to it, handing the booklet over to Diavel.

Diavel’s expression changed the moment he read the title. “What? A strategy guide for the boss?!”

As the guy who found this guide explained the NPC shops had just started selling them, the crowd began to react. They echoed the sentiment of shock that the «Rat» had a boss guide, that it was too quick for the information to already be out, and a few other things. Asuna could feel her black-haired acquaintance’s grip on her tense up, just a bit.

Diavel’s voice cut through the chaos before it could get any worse, as he flipped through the booklet and assessed its contents. “The boss’s name. Estimated HP. Sword Skills. Attack damage. Even his accompanying mobs… this information is impressive. This is very useful. The boss’s numerical stats aren’t too dangerous.”

Agil nodded with a smile as he looked up from reading it himself to meet Diavel’s eyes. “Seems that way.”

But of course, as Asuna should probably have predicted, a certain cactus-haired man wasn’t happy about this. “What?! Now wait just a damn second!” He pointed at a small message box on the cover of the booklet. “I knew it! The informant knows who’s a beta tester! In fact, I bet the Rat must be a beta tester herself. Maybe we need to have a lil’ chat, huh?”

The message box must’ve said something about the info coming from the beta test. It was the only logical conclusion to draw here, seeing as Asuna couldn’t see what it said from this distance herself. And of course, when the crowd processed this, it descended into what could only be described as pure chaos.

“Yeah, are we really gonna trust intel from beta testers?”

The dual-wielder’s grip on Asuna tensed up some more.

“They could be leaving out the most important info to screw us over!”

Some more tensing up. She really must’ve been a…

“Yeah, they might save all the best morsels for themselves!”

Even more. If the person who’d just shown her such unconditional kindness and compassion was being made to suffer by this outbreak, then…

“If this came from testers, maybe they should stand at the front of the battle and prove it’s true!”

Asuna had to do something. This was getting out of control, and fast.

“Where did she go?!”

“Yeah, where’s the Rat?! She was just here!”

Asuna didn’t want someone as kind-hearted as her violet-eyed acquaintance to be persecuted over this hysteric nonsense.

“Did she turn tail and run?!”

The black-haired girl’s grip on Asuna was so tense, it almost hurt. And it seemed like she’d finally had enough. “No…!” she whispered, sounding like she was desperate for this madness to stop.

That was it. Asuna had had enough of this. She suddenly stood up, walking away from her acquaintance so they couldn’t be associated with each other if the crowd turned on her. She walked up to the frenzied crowd, pulling the hood of her cloak a bit further down before starting to speak in a loud, authoritative tone.

“So tell me, what are you proposing we do…” she said, staring down each of the players she’d heard make the situation even worse with a death glare. “Other than be grateful for the info?”

All eyes in the amphitheater instantly turned on her, and everyone seemed totally shocked. Like they couldn’t believe that a girl had shown up at this meeting, too. All the stares made Asuna nervous, especially when she was currently in a warm, wet diaper that made it hard to walk without waddling. She instinctively began to wring her hands in front of her skirt, hoping it was long enough to cover her diaper now that it had become so much thicker from being wet.

To her relief, no one seemed to notice it. The only comments she heard were the standard fare comments about her appearance. People muttering questions like if she was cute, commenting on her figure being nice, the usual things a bunch of game addicts would focus on, until…

“But she’s just another game addict loser. No use getting our hopes up…”

Before she even had a chance to retort to that statement, Diavel’s voice called out over the murmurs of the crowd. “She’s correct! Our enemy is not the beta testers! It’s the floor boss. Let’s be grateful for this information, friends!”

Agil picked that moment to chime in, eyeing a few of the more rowdy players until the anger disappeared from their faces. “That’s right. This is gonna save us a bunch of recon missions. We might even be able to win without any deaths.”

“In fact, we will do so!” Diavel declared, one-upping Agil’s hope with a more certain proclamation. “If there’s any fault in the information, as you say, then I’ll take it upon myself to protect the group. On my pride as a knight, I swear this to you!”

Everyone calmed down at his self-assured words. Agil offered the knightly leader a smile, as did many of the other players in the crowd. Looked like things were going to work out after all… Asuna began to walk back towards her black-haired acquaintance, who was smiling up at her gratefully.

When Asuna sat back down next to her, she whispered, “Thank you for that, miss fencer.”

“Seems fitting, given that we have two princesses here.”

Well, it looked like nothing escaped this one. He’d known there were two girls here from the start, hadn’t he…?

Diavel turned away from the two of them after offering a kind smile and began to speak to the group as a whole again. “All right, I think it’s time to start planning! First we have to form a proper raid party. Now team up with your friends and others around you!”

It was strange. If Asuna hadn’t just gone through the harrowing experience of wetting herself despite her best efforts to hold it and being comforted by someone she least expected it from, she knew this command would’ve sent her into panic mode. But because that had just happened, she knew exactly who she wanted to team up with.

She turned and met her acquaintance in the eyes, and realized that she must’ve had the same thought. Asuna decided to be the one to say it first. “I’ll team up with you… if you send the invite.”

The other girl bashfully rubbed a hand against the back of her neck. “Are you sure? If you wanted to, you could probably get into a larger party than just with me. You could make it into a full party of six, with your looks. I don’t mind, but I’m a bit of a loner… so it’d just be us two.”

“You’re the only one I’d want to team up with anyway,” Asuna admitted, smiling back. Her first warm, genuine smile she’d had since this death game started. “So I don’t mind it being just us. Send the invite.”

The black-haired girl seemed a bit embarrassed as she went through her menu. Soon, a pop-up window appeared, asking if she wanted to join her acquaintance’s party. She hit accept, and in the corner of her vision, she saw a second HP gauge appear below her own.

“By the way…” Asuna started, eyes looking off in the distance. “You were saying something before we got here. I couldn’t hear it because the bell tolled in the middle. If we both survive the battle… tell me again.”

“... Okay.”

As the groups seemed to all be finalized, a familiar voice called out to them. “So you two are in your own party?”

Diavel walked up to them, smiling his normal, upbeat, friendly smile. Her black-haired… was she really just an acquaintance at this point? Could she be called a friend? Then again, they didn’t even know each other by name…

I’ll ask her for it if we survive the battle.

That aside, the black-haired beauty responded for them. “Yeah, it seems that way.”

“I see,” Diavel said, nodding his head. He seemed to contemplate something, before suddenly bowing his head. “Forgive me! Can I ask you two to back up the team handling the boss’s Kobold guards?”

The black-clad girl raised a hand to quell his remorse. “That’s fine. No choice, really. We don’t have the numbers for a full raid party, after all.”

“Thanks for understanding,” Diavel replied, his smile returning as he stood up straight again.

“You can’t just ignore those cronies, either,” Asuna’s acquaintance continued, seeming to bend over backwards to justify his decision. “It’s an important job. If they hit a player focused on the boss at the wrong time, that can interrupt a Sword Skill, or even end up getting someone killed.”

Diavel amicably smiled back at her, and it was at this point that Asuna noticed that the black-haired beauty was of similar height to Diavel. Which was impressive in and of itself, considering how tall their knightly leader was.

“I see,” Diavel replied, flashing them a wider grin. “But as a knight, I’m just glad I can minimize the risk faced by the raid’s twin princesses…”

Did… did Diavel think they weren’t strong enough to fight the boss directly? No, couldn’t be… maybe he just didn’t want the only two girls in the raid, rare as they were, to end up getting killed if the information in the guide was off. It had to be that…

Right?


And we’re done. This has easily been the longest chapter so far. There have been others which could’ve been longer, but I moved their final scenes to the next chapter because I don’t want to keep making chapters 6k+ words long. Felt a bit heavy to digest, especially when I’m currently only posting to Deviant Art and Omorashi Org…

Anyway, not much else to say. Assuming progress continues at its normal pace, expect another chapter in a few days. Until then, catch you later!

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23 hours ago, Night Rain said:

Do you plan on having any of the other members of the main cast show up in the story. Or just keep the focus upon both Kirito and Asuna?

After the first two floors are cleared, the story is going to stop adapting Progressive altogether, then cover the Aincrad side stories (Sachi's story, then I'll probably spend some time doing original shit, then Silica's story, then the story with Kiriko/to and Asuna solving the murder case maybe, then the Lisbeth side story), at which point I will likely go back to covering the actual Aincrad arc that starts on floor 74. Though in effort of full disclosure, there will be several key differences between the canon versions of these stories and this fic's plot, so it likely won't be anything close to a 1 to 1 representation of the canon timeline. After the Heathcliff deathmatch though, I'll branch off from canon entirely and start doing something somewhat like what the gameverse does in Re Hollow Fragment. So the TL;DR is that after floor two is cleared, notable characters who will get focus include Sachi, Silica, Lisbeth, Leafa and Sinon (they end up in Aincrad in the gameverse), and then finally Philia and Strea (gameverse-exclusive characters). 

I also might include Yuna from Ordinal Scale, but as I have not seen that movie, I will need to do some serious research before I get to that point if I actually decide to do that.

As for the amount of story significance each of them will have and what pairings will exist? Sorry, not spoiling that just yet. Also, expect me to deviate from the plot of every single story/continuity I just mentioned quite substantially, because certain shiz goes down very differently after floor two.

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It's been so long since I last read Progressive itself, all that I'm really hoping for is that all characters get equal time. I'm sure you might focus on some of the other characters more then others. If you want you can add in Yuuki as well giving Asuna another friend or just including her in something. Which reminds me of whatever happened to the idea of that one Yuuki story that was mentioned to you a while back?

I'm actually watching Ordinal Scale right now and I like Yuna.

That all leads to however you decide to play with the pairing and their story significance.

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16 hours ago, Night Rain said:

It's been so long since I last read Progressive itself, all that I'm really hoping for is that all characters get equal time. I'm sure you might focus on some of the other characters more then others. If you want you can add in Yuuki as well giving Asuna another friend or just including her in something. Which reminds me of whatever happened to the idea of that one Yuuki story that was mentioned to you a while back?

I'm actually watching Ordinal Scale right now and I like Yuna.

That all leads to however you decide to play with the pairing and their story significance.

Whether or not Yuuki is on the table in this fic is something I ultimately haven't decided. Yuuki does show up in Hollow Fragment, but only as a cameo, where you get to fight her when SAO is cleared right before you log out. But I do have multiple ways to justify bringing her in around the time of the Kiriko vs Heathcliff deathmatch on floor 75. The question becomes what would she add to the story, exactly, apart from just being a really strong character to help clear the game? And well, though I have a good idea of the tradeoffs of including her, I'm not exactly keen on spoiling them, because that would give away something else I don't want to spoil yet.

As for how much time each character gets, a running theme on that is that barring one exception, the order a character is unlocked in determines how much screentime they'll get, because for the most part, most of the cast I just mentioned will get consistent screentime starting around the time they first appear. Though as for which characters get the most focus placed on them when they get screentime, that's another issue altogether which is heavily influenced by the pairings I have planned. Which as I've said already, I don't intend to spoil just yet.

As for what happened to the Yuuki story, I thus far have not been able to build enough motivation in order to work on it consistently, so it's kinda in limbo. Sorry about that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'll have to watch Ordinal Scale myself then, because including Yuna would be a pretty big step outside my comfort zone, but it might be fun to do if I get to know the character first.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback, expect a new chapter to drop sometime soon!

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Having Yuuki in the story would give Asuna someone to pair up with if you're going that way. By not having her pair up with Kiriko if you want to go another way you could add her as a boss fight on one of the floors after 75. But once again that's all up to you and what you truly decide on doing atop of those other ideas you have if you add her in or not.

Just as long as the character I like gets enough screentime will be fine with me. Whoever she's paired up with and whatever else happens to her is another thing. But once again I won't know what's going to happen to her until she's introduced into the story.

That's too bad, even my creative motivation has been lacking on my own things but that's my problem.

Yuna's backstory is fairly easy to understand though I'm not sure how you'll handle a certain side of her.

Ok.

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My completed chapter reserve has increased from three to four. My momentum for this story has frankly been fucking ridiculous. Anyway, I won’t keep you reading this note too long. Catch you at the bottom!


Sword Art Online: Of Death Games and Diapers

Chapter Four: What “Real” Means


Asuna. That was the name of the girl I’d partied up with.

I kind of worried about her, honestly. She seemed to have lost quite a bit of her toilet training while toiling away in the labyrinth without realizing it. She’d been giving it her all to hold it during the boss meeting… and she barely even made it five minutes before she had a full-blown accident. She seemed genuinely shaken up by her failure to hold her bladder, too.

Considering how quickly she went from not needing to go at all to almost losing it, she probably needed to stay in diapers all the time, not just when she went to the dungeon. But if I told her that, she probably wouldn’t take it very well…

And even if she did take well to the news that her bladder control was so weak, there was still another problem. She had just eaten something. And if she accepted that she had to wear diapers full-time, then that would mean what she’d eaten would have to go out into her diaper sooner or later. And I couldn’t exactly see her taking that very well either, especially since she had foregone food entirely specifically to avoid that problem.

I need a way to convince her to wear diapers, for her own good… because the accident debuffs without them can literally get her killed.

“Well, that should do it,” Diavel’s voice interrupted my thoughts, his voice ringing out through the evening plaza. “We tackle the boss two days from now. Meet again here at eight in the morning. Use tomorrow to rest up. Or practice with your team if you wish. Or just get to know each other. It’s all up to you.”

He then raised his hand, signaling to his group that had formed around him. “Any team that wants to join Team A’s practice, stick around. Otherwise, dismissed!”

The moment he finished speaking, Asuna began to walk away. This time, it was my turn to instinctively follow her around, I supposed. “Miss fencer? Don’t you want to join the practice session?”

“An ‘important job?’ You’re kidding. And we’re only the backup henchmen killers?” she answered me without even looking back, voice kind of irritated. “If we’re not a big part of their plan, they should just say so. Look, it’s nothing against you… it’s just frustrating, is all. It feels like we’re being treated differently based on our gender alone.”

She has a point… I got that impression, too.

I caught up to her and started walking side by side, noticing for the first time that she was… kind of waddling, a bit. She probably wanted to change out of the diaper I’d put her in as well, now that I thought about it. Certainly couldn’t do that here.

Still…

“What else can we do, though?” I asked her, shrugging my shoulders. “We can’t even switch in and last long enough for pot rotation…”

At my words, she visibly stiffened, before awkwardly turning back to face me. “Switch…? Pot rota… what?”

Oh, right. Forgot she was basically an ultra-talented newb for a second there. Guess that’d be what we did with our free day… “Tell you what. Tomorrow, I’ll explain party combat. There’s a good quest to practice that, but it’s only active in the morning. In the meantime, to avoid getting split up and missing our chance, how about you crash with me tonight? Rent-free.”

She pondered my offer for a moment before asking a question. “I don’t mind, but… why the gracious offer?”

I knew she’d ask that. I had other stuff I wanted to discuss with her, so I figured this’d be a good way to lure her in. I smirked, walking a bit closer to her than before and responding in a quiet voice.

“I don’t normally go around broadcasting this, especially not to other girls…” I told her, making sure I was just loud enough that only she could hear me. “But the place I’m renting out is the only place on the whole floor with a fully-functional private bath, as opposed to just a toilet. I figure you could use a chance to wash up in private between changes, don’t you?”

Her face went bright red when I said the word “changes,” but the look in her eyes was unmistakable. She gulped for a second before looking me dead in the eyes.

“Okay. Lead the way. And… thank you for being so kind to me.”

Hook, line, and sinker[1] .


The farmhouse that the black-haired swordswoman rented was situated along a small pasture in the eastern part of «Tolbana». When Asuna saw it for herself, she found herself struck by its size. It was far, far larger than she’d expected. If the barn and main building were included together, it was about as big as Asuna’s house in the real world.

A beautiful stream flowed through the side of the farm grounds, the waterwheel installed there making peaceful ‘pitter-patter[2]  sounds as the water cascaded through it. At the two-story main building, an NPC farmer family lived on the first floor, and the cheerful missus of the house directed a wide smile at Asuna when they arrived at the entrance. There was also an old grandma sleeping in a rocking chair by the fireplace who had a golden [!] mark to indicate she gave out a quest, but since she couldn’t rent out the floor herself with the black-haired girl staying there, Asuna ignored it for now. She’d mentioned on the way over that renting the second floor was a quest reward, so that was probably who you got it from.

Asuna followed the dual-wielder up the massive staircase to the second floor, where a single door lay at the end of a short corridor. When the swordswoman touched the doorknob, there was a sound of a lock opening automatically. Had Asuna been the one to touch it, the door definitely wouldn’t have opened. It was completely impossible to unlock rooms rented out to players, even with the «Lockpicking» skill.

The black-haired beauty pushed the door open, making a welcoming gesture with her free hand and moving aside. “Come on in.”

“... Thanks,” she quietly expressed her gratitude, walking through the doorway. The moment her eyes registered the room, her volume went from one to a hundred in an instant as she cried out unintentionally. “W-what is this?! It’s so huge, and you said it’s only twenty Col more expensive than my room! How did you find a place this big and cheap…?”

“Being able to find places like this quickly is a pretty important Outside System Skill,” the amethyst-eyed girl replied as she followed Asuna in and shut the door behind them. “Although in my case…”

The swordswoman trailed off unexpectedly. Asuna looked back over at her, but she only shook her head, as if replying to herself, eyes downcast. The fencer’s eyes widened for just an instant as she began falling into deep thought, remembering a bunch of little slip-ups she’d noticed this girl make since they met. How she’d seemed to think the situation they were stuck in was her fault, how she’d gotten so upset when Kibaou and the players at the meeting were threatening a borderline witch hunt of the beta testers, how she’d thanked Asuna personally after she tried to stop it, and now this…

The conclusion this all points to…

“You’re a beta tester… right?” Asuna tentatively asked, trying to ease into the topic as gently as possible. “I… figured it out back in the chaos at the boss meeting. Sorry.”’

Those amethyst eyes rose up to meet hers in a heartbeat, but still seemed hesitant. “I…”

“I don’t mean to invade your privacy or anything, but…” the fencer backpedaled for just a second, but decided to press on regardless. She wanted to be friends with this person. Communicating with your friends was important, right? “You don’t have to hide it from me. You get what you give, and you’ve been nothing kind to me since I…”

Asuna instinctively trailed off herself. In that moment, she realized why the dual-wielder found it so hard to admit she was a beta tester. Admitting a hidden, compromising truth about yourself was hard. But… As she’d just said, you get what you give — treat others the way you want to be treated. If Asuna wanted the black-haired girl to be honest about herself with her, then she’d have to be honest about herself with her. She took a deep breath, then—

“Since I wet myself,” she forced the words out, heart racing. “If I can be honest and not hide the truth from you, you can do the same with me, right?”

Those breathtaking violet eyes widened for a moment, and she smiled. A warm, genuine smile that reached those eyes and made them shine. “Yeah… I guess I can. You’re right. I’m a beta tester.” She cast her gaze to the side, her hand awkwardly scratching her nape.[3]  “Even just saying that out loud feels weird…”

“But it also feels kinda refreshing, doesn’t it?” Asuna replied with a jovial tone. Maybe she was projecting a bit, but… when she admitted she wet herself out loud, alongside the fear she pushed through, she also felt kind of… excited[4] . It was a nice change of pace. “Anyway, now that that’s sorted… I want a bath. I’m tired of sitting, standing and walking around in my own filth.”

She began searching the room for any signs leading towards a bathroom, and was once again struck by the room’s size. It had to be at least twenty tatami, around thirty square meters big. If the door that could be seen on the east wall was the bedroom, then that room was probably around the same size as well. And on the western wall— wait, there it was. There was a door with a [Bathroom] plate hanging on it. Just by the word alone, Asuna found herself attracted to it. She’d tried to downplay how much she wanted the bath when her beta friend offered it, but now, she was almost spellbound, beginning to walk over to it without even thinking.

The swordswoman quickly unequipped her two identical one-handed swords from her waist and the defensive equipment on her hands and feet before following her up to the bathroom, still seeming to be manipulating her menu.

Asuna looked glanced over at her right before putting her hand on the doorknob. “Do you need something in there, or…?”

The dual-wielder took a sigh before pressing a button on her menu. A window appeared in front of Asuna. It appeared to be… a trade menu? Soon afterwards, an item was put forth. When Asuna read the name, her eyes subconsciously widened.

«Starz Premium Diaper Pack [19 Remaining]»

I… I see.

Asuna wasn’t trusted to wear normal underwear, it seemed… but in a way, she supposed, it only made sense. In the time since they’d met, the fencer had wet herself in her sleep once, then wet herself again within five minutes of the urge arising barely an hour after she woke up. To the violet-eyed girl standing next to her, Asuna’s continence must’ve seemed pretty horrible. And she honestly didn’t really have a counterargument to that idea anyway… perhaps her wearing diapers until her potty training improved might’ve been for the best.

“We’re probably going to be going to bed as soon as we’re both done bathing,” the dual-wielder explained, rubbing a hand against the back of her neck. “So I want you to wear these, just in case. I’ll talk to you more about it when you get out of the bath, give you an idea of how to improve your toilet training stats and all. Sound good?”

“I appreciate the thought, thanks,” Asuna said, nodding her head as she hit the [Accept] button and the pack of diapers transferred into her inventory. “Now then…”

Asuna opened the door and stepped into the bathroom without another word. She looked through the room, instantly noting the toilet on the far end. But between it and her, there was…

“Oh…”

The bathtub, held a dozen or so centimeters off the ground, was constantly kept in an overflowing state, steaming hot water pouring over the edges of the tub in every direction and draining through gravity alone into a grate directly below the tub. The faucet which kept the hot water pouring into the tub from above had a magnificent demon-like monster shape, with the water pouring in a large, thick stream from its mouth and cascading down into one end of the steaming bathtub.

Asuna couldn’t help but ecstatically squeal in anticipation. “Wow~!”

“Well… enjoy,” the black-haired renter of this floor said, seeming to be trying to hold back laughter. She shut the door on Asuna, and the noise was loud enough to snap her out of the trance she’d been in. A moment later, the swordswoman’s voice called out from the other side. “The door doesn’t lock, but you’ll be fine, right? I wouldn’t intrude, but we’re both girls anyway, so…”

That reminded Asuna. Right when they’d met, the swordswoman had changed her wet diaper while the fencer had been asleep. Which meant that honestly, there was nothing to hide from this person anymore, she supposed… since she’d already seen it all regardless. She hadn’t done anything to Asuna while she was unconscious other than change her, as far as she knew, so… she could probably be trusted…

What am I thinking? She couldn’t help but ask herself with a shake of her head. There’s no way she’d intrude, especially since she knows I need to relax…

Based on common sense, such a large-scale hot water supply shouldn’t exist in a medieval European manor house like this building, but Asuna didn’t have the heart[5]  to complain about the lack of historical accuracy in a situation like this. She was being offered a chance to wash off all the filth of her own urine she’d been sitting, standing, laying down, and fighting in for days on end… how could she refuse this chance?

She brought up the main menu window with a slightly tense[6]  hand motion, then pressed the button to unequip all her armor and weapons in the «Equipment Figure» that the right half of the window displayed. Her hooded cape that she’d always covered herself with up till now, the crimson leather armor covering her chest, both her gauntlets and long boots, her large, reddish brown belt with a golden belt buckle, and the long, slender sword hanging at her waist; every single metal piece on her vanished and her long, straight chestnut hair flowed out behind her, caressing her back as it freely fell[7] .

Asuna lightly exhaled without even realizing, her body feeling like a feather in the wind without those metal burdens weighing her down. Days of always wearing armor made her forget how liberating it was to only be in her casual clothing.[8]  Now, only a wool tunic with three-quarter-length sleeves, her socks, and her crimson red pleated skirt remained on her. But even that would be short-lived, as she pressed the button again. In a flash, her simple white cotton bra and her soaked, star-printed diaper were the only items covering her privates.[9]  It hit her right then that this must’ve been a Starz diaper. The star print on the diaper’s pale blue shell was supposed to have white stars which turned yellow when wet, from what Asuna had been able to tell the few times she’d gotten a good look at it up to now.

Almost all of the stars on the front have turned yellow… and even the blue background of the diaper is discolored. Asuna stared at the heavily soaked[10]  diaper forlornly. She couldn’t help but feel sad about it. The state of this diaper was proof of her shame. Proof she couldn’t hold it very long at all, even when she tried her hardest. Was she… right to give me more of these?

Asuna glanced over at the door one more time, absently wondering what the swordswoman was doing, before finally pressing the newly-rechristened «Unequip All Underwear» button. Thankfully[11] , unlike putting on a diaper, taking one off didn’t have to be done manually; it could be done at the press of a button like this. In a flash, her bra and diaper vanished, and a new sense of cold brushed across her skin from the simulated winter air.

She pressed the button a final time, and the once more renamed «Undo Hair Braids» button caused the braids in the back of her hair to naturally unfurl, flowing down to join the rest of her hair in freely hanging across her body. With that as the final step, she rushed across the bathroom, and the instant she straddled over the edge of the ceramic-looking bathtub and submerged her left leg into the hot water, she was in heaven.

Barely withstanding the urge to plunge her whole body into the water, she walked through the tub and put her head under the shower of water from the mouth of the water faucet. As the feeling of warmth enveloped her entire body, the difference in temperature from the surrounding air faded away, and—

My crotch feels kind of like I just wet my diaper again…

Asuna had to resist the urge to slap herself for that stray thought. It was true, though. With the hot water running through that area, it felt eerily similar to wetting herself. And remembering that feeling caused her to remember the swordswoman comforting her before, at the meeting, when her best efforts to hold it in completely failed her and she lost control and had a genuine accident during the day for the first time since she was in preschool[12] [13] [14] . The moment when the black-haired beauty went from being kind of a jerk to being really endearing… and never really stopped.

That’s enough of that…

‘Sploosh!’

To distract herself from all these stray thoughts, Asuna fell backwards into the tub and fell into the water from behind. She spent a few seconds fully submerged, holding her breath, before her head slowly bobbed up to the surface. And when her mouth emerged back into the cool winter air…

“Uaaaaaaaaahh…”

She couldn’t help but let out a loud, low moan.

As the black-haired swordswoman had said on the way there, the sense of bathing in the real world wasn’t completely reproduced. The feeling of hot water on the skin, the pressure of the water against the body, the light reflecting off the water’s wavering surface— they all left a subtle sense of incongruity.

But the “sensation of taking a bath” seemed preset to a certain extent, much like eating was, and it was sent to her brain regardless. And when she closed her eyes and stretched her arms and legs out, the difference was so trivial that she didn’t care anymore. It was a bath. More to the point, it was a deluxe package; a two-meter long bathtub with the luxurious hot water freely flowing through it from above and overflowing from all sides.

Sinking into the hot water until it was above her mouth, eyes closed and entire body relaxed, she started to think to herself. With this, I’ll have nothing left to regret. Even if I die in the boss fight and disappear from this world and the real one forever…

Actually… if I had the opportunity… she thought as she stretched out her arms, a bright, genuine smile on her face. “I could go for one more roll of bread with cream…”

From the moment the words finished leaving her lips, her eyes widened as she realized her mistake. She shook her head, trying to clear it of any more stray thoughts. She knew how it worked. That flavor and this water were just a series of electronic signals coming through the Nerve Gear.

It’s all… absolutely fake. But even so…

Had she ever wanted something as badly as this back in real life? All those full-course, organic meals she’d mechanically moved her into her mouth while talking to her parents even though she didn’t want to eat… or the virtual roll of bread with cream that her body had wished for so much that her mouth salivated. Which one should she call… the real thing?

I don’t know. As she sunk back below the surface with eyes shut tight, she let her thoughts run free this time, for once. But… one thing is certain.

Even in the face of death, she couldn’t help but desire… those simple electronic signals.

I can’t simply laugh that off.


I love the Asuna bath scene, tbh. Especially in the manga. Not because it’s risque or anything, but because it makes Asuna ponder some interesting and profound stuff.

Anyway, catch you next time!

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21 hours ago, diokno44x said:

Also, what's up with this bit?

Oh shit, the comments are partially retained. Oof, and I can't edit them out anymore.

Those are comments from the document the story was written in. I'll have to be a bit more careful about editing those out in the future...

On 1/30/2020 at 8:19 PM, Night Rain said:

Do you plan on anyone else finding out about Asuna's little problem or do you plan on keeping i between her and Kiriko?

Can confirm someone else has already found out by chapter 8. For now, only one more person. Later, definitely some more will.

Link to comment

Yo, we’re back with another chapter! I waited until I got chapter nine edited before posting this one, so it took a day or two longer than I’d have liked, but oh well.

Not much else to say. See you below!


Sword Art Online: Of Death Games and Diapers

Chapter Five: Deal with the Devil


Who knew it’d be so damn hard to keep from looking at a bathroom door?

As my body stayed deeply rooted to its spot on the sofa in the living room, I had to exert a lot of mental restraint to stay focused on Argo’s «Strategy Guide: 1F Boss Edition». But no matter how many times my eyes passed over the simple, easy to read Japanese font, the contents never registered in my brain.

Well, at least this scenario proves this place isn’t the real world.

For example, presupposing that this was my house in Kawagoe of the Saitama prefecture, that my family was absent, and for some godforsaken reason, there was a female classmate taking a bath in my bathroom because she’d wet herself in a diaper outside. In those circumstances, what would I do? The answer was obvious. I’d go out from the front door with silent footsteps, get on my beloved motorcycle paid for by my online side job, ride at full speed towards the prefectural road No. 51 in the Arakawa district and let Midori and Sugu deal with her when they got back. My school, which I got into on a full-ride scholarship, didn’t pay me enough to deal with the cretins who also went there with me after hours.

But fortunately for Asuna, this was the second floor of a large farmhouse built on the outskirts of Tolbana, on floor one of the floating castle Aincrad. I wasn’t the IT nut high school girl I would’ve been IRL, Kirigaya Kimiko, but instead the dual-wielding, skill-chaining swordswoman Kiriko. And Asuna wasn’t a hated classmate, but rather a girl desperately searching for hope in this cruel virtual world, a bright, flickering flame of talent which I didn’t want to see burn out just yet. Since we met under such unusual circumstances under false identities, there was nothing to fear and no reason to avoid her. Nothing would happen once she walked out of the bathroom.

I had no reason to go to the bathroom anyway. I didn’t have to pee or anything, and my bathroom system stats were all perfect, so even if I started needing to go soon, I’d be able to hold it until she made it out just fine. When she came out after bathing, I’d talk to her about what to do in order to get her own bathroom stats to improve, convince her to keep wearing diapers until they did somehow, and we’d go to bed. It’d be pretty simple, all things considered.

Just as I calmed back down enough to notice that the reason I couldn’t distract myself with this damn guide was because it was upside down, I heard a familiar sound from the door. Not the bathroom one, but the one leading to the hallway outside.

‘Tap, tap-tap-tap’

Someone was knocking on the door. But the one knocking couldn’t have been the house’s landlady, wrong pattern. This rhythm was the signal that had been agreed upon between me and a certain someone what felt like ages ago.

I can still escape, came my immediate thought upon recognizing the pattern as I turned around to face the thick oak door. Out the southern window, onto a donkey in the stable, and full speed down the path through the forest until I reach the labyrinth.

I couldn’t deny seriously considering this option in the face of what might’ve been a no-win situation. But riding a mount in SAO without the appropriate skill equipped was absurdly tough. From what I understood, the «Riding» skill could be trained and leveled up gradually by doing it like with any other skill, but I didn’t have the space on my skill slots to add a hobbyist skill like that, especially not on such short notice.

Instead of continuing to dwell on impossible methods of escape, I decided to get up off the sofa and check on the bathroom. On the other side of that door, Asuna would surely be in the middle of experiencing a bath for the first time since we got trapped in the game. If Argo found out, I’d be screwed. I could see it already; along with the rest of the info about me she already sold, a new entry would be added: “Kiriko is the type of girl to freely share her bath with complete strangers.” If she started selling that info to others, I knew the female traffic to my room would skyrocket every time I got one with a bath.

If that happened, I could kiss my reputation as a cold, talented solo player who doesn’t take shit from anyone goodbye, I mused through grit teeth. Replaced with one that made me seem like a freaking bath hooker.

But my one saving grace in this nightmare scenario was clear. All doors in this world had perfect soundproofing, under certain conditions. The only three sounds which could be heard through a closed door were shouting, knocking, and the sound of combat. The sounds of normal speech or the splashing of the bath couldn’t be heard even if you pressed your ear against the door.

So even if I let her in, as long as I kept the meeting brief enough that she left before Asuna got out of the bath, the person knocking right now wouldn’t notice that another player was here using the bathroom in the next room. If by some cruel twist of fate, the fencer came out while the person I let in was still here, well…

There’s always that donkey strat, as a last resort.

All these thoughts flashed through my brain as fast as a lightning bolt, and I approached the door, steeled my nerves, and opened up. Upon seeing the whiskered face over a head shorter than me on the other side, I spoke a line which may as well have been rehearsed.

“How rare,” I told her with a cynical smirk. “For Argo the «Rat» to pay a visit all the way to my room. Something must be up.”

The face of the game’s top informant with its trademark whiskers twitched in a suspicious manner for a moment, but she simply shrugged. “Ya got me, Kii-boy. The client wants to hear your reply today, no matter what.”

Without a hint of restraint, Argo walked into the room and nonchalantly sat down on the sofa I’d just left with a soft thump. I shut the door, walked to the wagon in the corner of the room while resisting the urge to look at the bathroom, and poured out two cups of fresh milk from a large pitcher. Bringing them over to the sofa set, I placed both on the low table in between. The Rat raised an eyebrow at that.

“For you, that’s pretty considerate,” she said after a short chuckle. “So tell me, what am I getting drugged with today?”

I simply shrugged before taking a sip from my own glass. “Notice I poured a glass for myself and tested it just now? Almost like I’m trying to prove my innocence or something…”

“Fair enough,” came the standard reply. She clapped her hands with a nod, lifting the glass to her lips with her right hand and draining it in a single chug with a contented sigh. “Thanks fer the drink. For an unlimited one, it sure tastes good. Ever thought of bottling it up and sellin’ it?”

“Nah, I wouldn’t bother if I were you. When you leave the farmhouse, its durability zeroes out in five minutes,” I replied with a casual wave at the pitcher in the corner before taking another sip. “More to the point, the remaining liquid becomes a gunky mess instead of disappearing, so… it’s a death sentence on not just the drink, but also the bottle you store it in.”

“Hoho, I didn’t even know that was a thing. Nothin’ scarier than free things, huh…” Argo’s voice resounded out as she looked at her glass with a perturbed expression.

As our rather pointless chitchat continued, my head kept filling more and more with a pressing desire for her to get to the point. But if she figured out I was thinking that, I’d be screwed, again, so I knew not to let it show. I picked up the copy of her floor one boss strategy guide I’d left on the table and tossed it in the air, giving it a quick aerial spin with a flick of the wrist before catching it right side up.

“Speaking of free things, what’s with this?” I couldn’t help but ask, giving her a smirk through narrowed eyes. “I don’t mind much, loyal customer here, but I been buying these for five-hundred Col a pop. Then yesterday at the meeting, the dude with the massive battle axe said that the books are distributed for free, didn’t he?”

I knew she’d hear the slight resentment in my tone. But despite my mild ire, she chuckled mischievously, drawing even more ‘Kiriko aggro’ on herself.

“It was because of the good sales of the first printings that I could distribute the second printings fer free,” she explained as if it were a hilarious joke. “Don’t worry, though; only the first release printings have an authentic Argo autograph printed on ‘em.”

“What a way of doing business. I think I’ll wait for the free version from now on,” I replied, resisting the urge to facepalm.

At this point, the reason for the free version was just north of obvious. She felt the need to take responsibility as a beta tester, simple as that. Though I wanted to ask about it more deeply, I couldn’t deny that, this desire didn’t weigh half as much as the near-complete refrain from discussing the beta with Argo which bordered on a taboo. And considering I myself was a former tester who’d only helped three players since the official release, one of whom was also a former tester, I may not have even had the right to ask.

The silence became a bit heavy for a few moments before Argo swung her golden brown, curly hair and changed the subject, just a bit. “Speaking of guide books, there’s one I been meaning to make. I might need yer help with it, since I don’t know the specifics myself.”

Something even Argo doesn’t know about, huh…? Why have I got a bad feeling about this?

“Now there’s a surprise,” I couldn’t resist the urge to point out. “What could an info broker of your caliber need my help for?”

Argo chuckled and manipulated her menu, and before long, a trade window popped up. In it was what looked to be a guide book template for— oh. Oh, that made sense… no wonder she didn’t know about it. It was something that didn’t even exist in the beta.

She wanted me to map out what each stat in the «Bathroom Needs System» did. Probably at each level, too. “Can I get back to you on that later? I understand the importance of mapping this out, and I’m sure the demand for this guide is pretty high, but…”

“Sure, no pressure.” A few moments later, the trade window closed, and she flashed me a pearly smile. “It’s a pretty big deal, considerin’ what you’d have to deal with in order to fully map it out. I’ll pay ya quite a bit for the info if you agree, but ya don’t gotta feel like ya have to.”

“Thanks…” I said, trailing off as I began to ponder the possibility.

How much would she pay me? Would it be worth the price I’d pay? In order to fully map out the Bathroom Needs System stats at every level, I’d basically have to commit to wearing diapers for the foreseeable future. And while I certainly had my share of those from all the monster drop packs I never ended up using, well…

Wait… wasn’t I just trying to convince Asuna to commit to wearing them full-time? And here I am worried about doing the same thing…

There was a certain humoristic irony to the way things had played out. Here I was trying to get Asuna to wear them all the time, and I didn’t even have the conviction to do it myself… maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty to rush her into them.

But if that’s the case, then… in order to take responsibility for setting her down this course so recklessly, I know what I have to do.

I looked Argo in the eyes before heaving a sigh. “Actually, you know what? Screw it, I’m in. But you better pay me good for this, we clear?”

Her eyes widened a bit, before she gave me her trademark mischievous grin. “Appreciate it, Kii-boy. Yer a lifesaver. How’s fifty thousand Col per a hundred points of a stat mapped out sound?”

At the mention of having that much cash at my disposal so easily, I almost began to salivate. That could certainly ease my build progression along quite a bit. Upgrading and maintaining two «Anneal Blades» was pretty expensive work, and I’d barely been getting by as it was, but with that kind of money rolling in, I’d more than make up for that financial drain…

“Sounds good to me.” I held out my left hand, signaling for a handshake. Since I was a lefty and Argo was ambidextrous, we’d always sealed big deals like this with a left-handed handshake.

She took my hand, and we each gave it a firm shake, setting our contract in stone. “Then it’s a deal.”

After we both finished shaking, I returned my hand to grasp my glass and chugged the rest in one go. If I was going to earn five-hundred Col per point of a bathroom stat, I might as well get a head start on one of them…

Argo’s face returned to normal, and with another toss of her hair, she finally, finally got to the freaking point. “Well then, time to get to the main topic. I think the client is at the point where he’s feelin’ considerate. If you sell both yer Anneal Blades to him today, he’s willin’ to pay eighty thousand Col.”

Eighty-thousand?! I barely avoided yelling this thought out. Over the past week or so since Argo and I got to Tolbana, we’d been in talks about a certain player through messages during the time I wasn’t slaving away in a dungeon. The player wanted to buy off both my Anneal Blades, for reasons I couldn’t even begin to fathom. Sure, with each of them at +6 and still having both of the last two attempts remaining, they were strong weapons. But the fact remained they were just two identical copies of the same weapon, so buying both seemed not only pointless, but also suspicious as all hell. Especially at this price.

“No disrespect, Argo, but this has gotta be a scam. No matter how you slice it, one of my swords isn’t worth forty K,” I said frankly, eyes narrowing. “The market price of a +0 Anneal Blade with all attempts remaining is only fifteen thousand. Add another twenty thousand for upgrades, and you can basically buy the mats to get it to +6 without wasting an attempt. It might take some time, but thirty-five K could make a sword on the same level as both of mine pretty reliably.”

“I said the exact same thing three times just to be sure, but the moron kept insisting!” Argo rejoindered with a rare expression that screamed, ‘I don’t get it!’

I crossed my arms and leaned back against the sofa, the bathroom situation completely forgotten now that this newer topic demanded my full attention. At this point, it was too late to give up my Anneal Blades, and not just because of attachment, familiarity and the like. It was just…

First off, I nearly died getting a second one, and I didn’t particularly feel like going through the trouble of getting two more from the player markets, assuming they were even for sale anywhere. Second, with the boss fight only two days away, I might not have adequate time to prepare a replacement for both of my swords even if I did want to sell them. Frankly put, the moment for these kinds of negotiations had already passed.

It sucked that I’d lose out on a bit of extra money by declining, but at this point, I had bigger fish to fry. Who in their right mind would make such an outrageous offer for my swords? It was a question that couldn’t be left unanswered, no matter what angle I approached the problem from. I needed to know, simple as that. Having made up my mind, I spoke to Aincrad’s best informant.

“Argo… I’ll pay fifteen hundred Col for the name of your client,” I replied with a stern look, already feeling my wallet’s proverbial weight decrease. “Check with them and see if they’ll increase their hush money.”

I offered twice what I offered last time I tried this. That time, the other party had come back with nine-hundred and it had ended there. This time though, I was reasonably confident I’d get an answer — and lose a thousand and a half Col in doing so.

“Gotcha.” Argo nodded, then opened her menu and began rapidly typing an instant message. Less than a minute after she finished, her eyebrows twitched as she read the reply, and she gave a shrug and a sigh. “He says he doesn’t mind you learning his name.

Screw it, I don’t care anymore. I am so over this… I thought to myself as I opened my menu. I materialized one-thousand five-hundred Col in 250 coin form, piling the six coins up in front of Argo. Pinching them casually with her fingertips, the Rat playfully deposited them one by one into her own inventory. After nodding with a Cheshire Cat grin, Argo spoke.

“Actually, Kii-boy, you already know his face and name. Believe it or not, he went on quite the rampage at the boss meeting yesterday.”

“You’re shitting me,” I immediately responded, so shocked I completely lost my filter. “Kibaou?! That cuck has how much Col?! Why?!

In response, Argo simply nodded.

Kibaou. The man who burned with insane flames of hatred towards the former beta testers. He was the one willing to buck up eighty K for my two Anneal Blades? First off, where the hell did he get the money, and second, why did he want them in the first place? His weapon may have been a «One-Handed Straight Sword», same as mine, but it took some absurd skills and effective ambidexterity to pull off what I could with two of them, so to think he could do it was laughable at best.

Not to mention, Argo had been bugging me about this since we first arrived in Tolbana. Which boggles the mind, because it meant Kibaou knew about me well before we met at the meeting. This info I’d bought with one-thousand five-hundred Col just left me even more confounded than I was before. I crossed my legs on the chair’s cushion as I thought over this development. Argo, who had been sitting cross-legged from the get-go, spoke as if to remind me she was there.

“I take it there’ll be no deal on the swords again?” she asked me with a mild frown.

I sighed. “You got it…”

Of course it would turn out like this. The moment for negotiations had long since passed. And even if it hadn’t, I had no intention of selling these swords after spending so long with them. Honestly, after the hell I had to go through to get them, I’d probably keep using them and reforging them into better swords for quite some time…

“Well then, sorry for bothering ya with this,” Argo replied with her usual playful grin back on her face. “Lemme know when you’ve got a decent chunk of those stats mapped out so I can start compiling my notes for the guide.”

I nodded, but my mind was someplace else. Thinking back on it, I did kinda get the feeling during the meeting that, while Kibaou was on that stage, he’d given me in particular a pretty nasty look for a few moments. Then… that gaze… was it really just him trying to get a look at my swords? Was that what he looked like when eyeing something he wanted? That hateful mug? No… there must’ve been something else going on… but what?

Argo’s voice faintly registered in the back of my head, just loud enough for it to register. “Oh, and before I split, I’m gonna borrow the bathroom. Gotta go change into my night equipment.”

Wait, fucking what?!

Her words snapped me out of my stupor in a heartbeat, and as I looked up, I realized Argo was walking towards the bathroom. I got up as fast as I could, pouring all of my combat speed into bolting between Argo and the door, desperately trying to avoid having to exit my own room via window and ride away using skills I didn’t possess.

“N-Not this room,” I said, trying my best to remain composed. “Use the bedroom if you must.”

“Who are you hiding in there, Kii-boy?” The brunette’s guess made my eyes widen. She smirked devilishly as my face drained of color. “Nice, I was right! I knew somethin’ was up!”

I took a deep breath to collect myself before replying. “Not hiding, per se… just letting them use the bath. And if you open that door, I have no guarantees that either of us make it out of here unscathed.”

That was probably an exaggeration, but I really didn’t want to violate Asuna’s privacy any more than had already been done today… and Argo was about to force my hand.

“Oh? You sure keep some dangerous company, doncha Kii-boy?” Argo’s whiskers became distorted by her wide smirk as she played along with my line of reasoning. “I think I’ll stick around until this dangerous guest finishes up in there and makes an appearance.”

I deadpanned. “Why? You want more info to sell?”

She nodded without a hint of shame. Not a moment later, the door opened behind me, and I turned around just in time to see Asuna step out, fully-clothed in the same outfit as before, but without the metal bits she’d been wearing when we got here.

“Thanks,” she said with eyes closed as she walked forward. “I needed that— Ah!”

Asuna opened her eyes just in time to realize she was on a collision course with me, but by the time she realized, it was too late. She bumped into me and fell flat on her butt, and while she sat there, stunned, I realized all too late that her skirt had been flipped up by the fall, exposing her Starz printed diaper for all to see. When she snapped out of it, she instantly pulled her skirt back down, but by that point, judging by Argo’s face, she was a few seconds too late.

“Oh, it’s A-chan! Going for the kill so early, I’m impressed!” Argo replied, looking down on Asuna with a Cheshire Cat grin. But then her smile turned genuine as she said what came next. “As for what I just saw… I’ll pretend I didn’t see it. Maiden’s secrets aren’t meant to be sold away to any goon with the cash to foot the bill, just like that.”

Asuna looked up at Argo with a grateful smile, before taking the hand I offered her and getting back on her feet. “Thanks, miss informant. But I told you, it’s not like that! Anyway, why are you here?”

I blinked. Argo… did she just… willingly decide not to offer up a valuable piece of information on an even more valuable player for sale? Argo, the same woman who offered up her own supposed ‘maiden’s secrets’ for sale, exorbitant price and all? Something was fishy about that.

“Official business,” Argo replied, seemingly unaware of the conclusion I just reached. “But if you’re curious enough, I’ll tell ya for a thousand.”

“No thanks,” Asuna deadpanned in a somewhat similar manner to how I would’ve in her shoes.

Argo smiled at each of us before making a move to the door. “Well then, my business here is done. See you around, Kii-boy and A-chan.”

Wait a second. Didn’t she want to change into her nightclothes? But then, why would she have done that here in the first place? My brain was telling me that she must’ve figured out someone was in the bathroom and used the nightclothes bit as an excuse to check it out, but my gut said something different.

One of her objectives for coming here tonight was to get me to map out the bathroom needs system for her. But just now, when she saw Asuna in a diaper, she decided not to turn around and sell that info to future buyers. So could it be…

Was it possible that Argo wet the bed in this game? Because if she did, it’d explain the sudden interest in mapping out the bathroom needs system, as well as why she wouldn’t sell that kind of info on other players despite having a price just for the reason why she had whiskers on her face, of all things.

I’d have to ask her about that, next time I saw her. Not as a client… but as a friend.


Yeah, so now Argo knows. And also, Kiriko is about to start wearing diapers too. And the story is just getting started, lol.

Anyway, not much else to say. Catch you next time!

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Aaa, I've not read your still in quite some time. This is good stuff, and I'm glad to see you're still working on more SAO Yuri.

Almost makes me want to get back into my EoS stuff, but I doubt that I'd be able to get back into the swing of things again.

 

With that said, however, I have played GGO: Fatal Bullet, so I'm planning writing some fiction based on it.... Eventually. 😛

Jury is out on whether I go with the player character plus another girl, Focus on F/F stuff within the SAO (gameverse) Veterans, or something else within the same game timeline, though.

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2 minutes ago, Darksyn said:

Aaa, I've not read your still in quite some time. This is good stuff, and I'm glad to see you're still working on more SAO Yuri.

Almost makes me want to get back into my EoS stuff, but I doubt that I'd be able to get back into the swing of things again.

 

With that said, however, I have played GGO: Fatal Bullet, so I'm planning writing some fiction based on it.... Eventually. 😛

Jury is out on whether I go with the player character plus another girl, Focus on F/F stuff within the SAO (gameverse) Veterans, or something else within the same game timeline, though.

Yo, how you been man? Been a while since we last talked.

Also, funny you should mention EoS, because I'm using an expanded version of the system I developed for it in DMs with you way back when as the basis for the bathroom needs system in this story, lol.

As for writing a fic based on Fatal Bullet, though I'm not at all a fan of that game, it could probably be fun to read an omo/DL story about it. Though my thoughts on Fatal Bullet's protagonist is that he/she is basically Kirito 2.0, because they have all the same problems associated with Mary Sue/overpowered characters, lol. Not that I'm much better in that regard, but I do it intentionally and with more care so that it still reads better than canon.

My hot takes on Fatal Bullet aside, if you're gonna do yuri/wlw stuff about it, then I suggest protagonist x Zeliska (Kureha is okay too I guess, just make sure you don't pair the protag with that cunt Itsuki, lol) if you use the perspective of the protag of that game, or femKirito x Philia if you wanna use pre-existing characters. But that's just my preferences for gameverse ships, so take it with a grain of salt, lol.

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2 minutes ago, WriterForce6XV said:

Yo, how you been man? Been a while since we last talked.

Also, funny you should mention EoS, because I'm using an expanded version of the system I developed for it in DMs with you way back when as the basis for the bathroom needs system in this story, lol.

As for writing a fic based on Fatal Bullet, though I'm not at all a fan of that game, it could probably be fun to read an omo/DL story about it. Though my thoughts on Fatal Bullet's protagonist is that he/she is basically Kirito 2.0, because they have all the same problems associated with Mary Sue/overpowered characters, lol. Not that I'm much better in that regard, but I do it intentionally and with more care so that it still reads better than canon.

My hot takes on Fatal Bullet aside, if you're gonna do yuri/wlw stuff about it, then I suggest protagonist x Zeliska (Kureha is okay too I guess, just make sure you don't pair the protag with that cunt Itsuki, lol) if you use the perspective of the protag of that game, or femKirito x Philia if you wanna use pre-existing characters. But that's just my preferences for gameverse ships, so take it with a grain of salt, lol.

I've become more confident in depicting established characters since my last attempt, so it should prove a bit easier to write than my aborted first go at EoS.

Fatal Bullet's plot...? It's not the best quality story, admittedly, which is part of why I think I'd enjoy tackling it in fic form and trying to right the wrongs as it were. I have only a few preliminary ideas so far - as a sneak peek, I'll list a couple of things that I'll do different.

-Itsuki is straight-up nonexistant. His presence and attachment to the Death Gun story is tacked on and feels like a, bluntly, dumb rehash of Heathcliff/Kayaba. I do intend to cover Death Gun, as well as a fresh antagonist.

-Kureha is also absent. This is mostly because of my preference, but I am thoroughly uninterested in writing about her and her inferiority complex and so-forth. When I played, I threw her out of my party as often and as soon as humanly possible.

-The androids will be considerably more human, to the point where characters will struggle to identify if somebody is a player or an AI, even if they're still player-bound like in the game itself.

-I'm not using the "Please don't sue us, Daddies Smith and Wesson!" game names for guns. I'm a huge gun nerd and it grates on me super heavily. Expect gun porn.

and

-While my own personal preference lies primarily outside of diapers in regards to the kink content, they will feature fairly heavily in the story for a couple of reasons, with one admittedly being a nod to your work on fics for the franchise. That said, there'll be characters having accidents outside of diapers, but padding up is fairly common across the cast. The reasons or excuses for it will vary. 😛

As an added note, I do intend to include LLEN, Fukuraizoh (I swear I fucked that spelling up just now.), Pitohui, Fem!M, and Clarence from SAO Alternative: GGO.

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3 minutes ago, Darksyn said:

I've become more confident in depicting established characters since my last attempt, so it should prove a bit easier to write than my aborted first go at EoS.

Fatal Bullet's plot...? It's not the best quality story, admittedly, which is part of why I think I'd enjoy tackling it in fic form and trying to right the wrongs as it were. I have only a few preliminary ideas so far - as a sneak peek, I'll list a couple of things that I'll do different.

-Itsuki is straight-up nonexistant. His presence and attachment to the Death Gun story is tacked on and feels like a, bluntly, dumb rehash of Heathcliff/Kayaba. I do intend to cover Death Gun, as well as a fresh antagonist.

-Kureha is also absent. This is mostly because of my preference, but I am thoroughly uninterested in writing about her and her inferiority complex and so-forth. When I played, I threw her out of my party as often and as soon as humanly possible.

-The androids will be considerably more human, to the point where characters will struggle to identify if somebody is a player or an AI, even if they're still player-bound like in the game itself.

-I'm not using the "Please don't sue us, Daddies Smith and Wesson!" game names for guns. I'm a huge gun nerd and it grates on me super heavily. Expect gun porn.

and

-While my own personal preference lies primarily outside of diapers in regards to the kink content, they will feature fairly heavily in the story for a couple of reasons, with one admittedly being a nod to your work on fics for the franchise. That said, there'll be characters having accidents outside of diapers, but padding up is fairly common across the cast. The reasons or excuses for it will vary. 😛

As an added note, I do intend to include LLEN, Fukuraizoh (I swear I fucked that spelling up just now.), Pitohui, Fem!M, and Clarence from SAO Alternative: GGO.

Glad you're improving too, gives me something fun to read xD. And yeah, that's basically why I was like, "Okay so the game's got some narrative problems, but reading fics for it could be fun."

Responding to the alterations in order:

Itsuki being nonexistent is the single best thing I've heard all week, I fucking hate that character lol.

Kureha being absent is one where I don't particularly have strong feelings about it one way or another. I don't like or dislike Kureha, I mostly just see her as... kinda forgettable, I guess. She doesn't have the lasting impact of, say, Zeliska. And even the plot of the game seems to recognize this, because you can't choose to protect her rather than Zelliska at the end of the base game and get the True End at the same time.

AI being more human is a definite plus, not gonna lie. The protag's ArFA-Sys or whatever they're called in particular is probably my second favorite character in the game after Zeliska, so am glad her AI will get a buff, lol.

I'm not a gun nerd myself (though I have a SFW fic on FFN set in deathgame GGO which has around 1200 followers, so I probably should've done more research on the topic by now), but if you're writing a FB GGO-based fic, then you gotta do it right, so if I ever get around to writing one myself, I'll probably be looking to your fic's gun play for pointers, lol.

As for the nods in my direction with regards to kink content, much appreciated, man. Just don't burn yourself out, I'll survive if not every girl is in diapers every chapter, lol.

Finally, with the inclusions of the GGO Alternative characters, I definitely like the sound of that, once I actually sat down and watched that show I fucking loved it xD.

Am certainly glad to see you getting back into the swing of things, gives me good reading material and means I'm not the only one writing for SAO on this site anymore, lol. Hope to see your fic pop up soon, man!

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