The world arrived in a stunning rush of light and color.
When Tsurugi spoke the words "Link Start," the white void shattered, replaced by an impossible reality.
He stood in the Town of Beginnings, the lowest level of Aincrad, the giant floating castle.
The first thing he saw was the sky: a vast, perfect blue dome stretching over the world.
The town itself was beautiful—medieval streets made of cobblestone, wooden shops with brightly colored roofs, and countless players flooding the square, all cheering and shouting.
And towering above it all, impossibly huge, was the stone ceiling of the second level, a massive, jagged disk blocking the sun.
For a moment, the heavy weight of the last year lifted.
Tsurugi felt a flicker of the wonder Hayato had promised. This is real, he thought, and I'm here. I'm Zanshin.
He checked his equipment. His character, the clean, white short-haired version of himself, was wearing simple brown leather gear.
In his hands was the Polearm he had chosen: a Basic Glaive, long and heavy, designed for distance.
He kept his distance from the noisy crowd, feeling the familiar instinct to isolate himself.
He quickly found the West Field, the area outside the town gates where new players began their grind against weak monsters.
Tsurugi needed to learn this system.
His years of rigorous martial arts discipline had taught him absolute focus and perfect physical form, but they were disciplines of speed and striking intimacy.
The Glaive, however, was a weapon of sweeping force and control from afar, fundamentally incompatible with his ingrained, quick-reaction style. He had chosen safety over skill.
He walked out into a quiet section of the field, where the grass was knee-high and the air smelled of digital freshness.
He spotted his first target: a small, plump Wild Boar with a muddy coat, lazily rooting in the soil.
He gripped the Glaive. It felt long and strange, clumsy in his hands—nothing like the balanced, familiar training stick he was used to.
"Alright," he muttered to himself. "Stay outside their reach. Control the space. Zanshin."
He charged.
The Boar noticed him, grunted, and stamped its little hooves.
Tsurugi executed a quick, smooth dash, utilizing the focused footwork he had practiced thousands of times—then swung the Glaive in a wide, powerful horizontal arc.
He aimed for the Boar's soft flank, keeping his posture perfectly straight.
The swing felt heavy and slow, fighting against his own speed.
The weight of the polearm felt foreign and unwieldy.
Swoosh.
The Glaive cut through the air where the Boar had been a second ago.
The Boar, moving with cartoonish speed and precision, had effortlessly side-stepped the attack.
"Huh?" Tsurugi frowned.
That attack should have hit.
In the real world, his timing was always perfect, but here, the weapon's mechanics were alien to him.
The Boar countered, darting forward and headbutting Tsurugi hard in the shin.
CRACK!
Tsurugi felt a flash of pain, but the system instantly converted it into damage.
A bright, orange number, -50, popped up over his leg.
More alarmingly, his green Health Bar at the corner of his vision dipped sharply.
He stumbled back, surprised and confused.
This wasn't real-world movement; his perfect form meant nothing.
The game was calculating his strike based on a fixed animation he hadn't triggered.
His practiced movements were failing him, and his lack of innate talent for the Glaive was painfully obvious.
Tsurugi adjusted his grip, digital sweat already forming on his brow.
He tried again.
This time, he jabbed the Glaive straight out, a fast, thrusting attack, aiming for the Boar's head.
He missed completely.
The system seemed to reject his fast, fluid motion, forcing the weapon into a slow, clumsy, half-hearted animation that the Boar easily dodged.
The Boar, sensing its advantage, became aggressive.
It charged, snorting, its movements cartoonishly quick and efficient.
Tsurugi tried to swing the Glaive to block, but the long, heavy weapon felt like an awkward length of dead pipe.
The Boar slammed into his chest, hard. -65!
His body twisted, and he fell backward into the grass.
The air rushed out of his lungs, and he stared up at the impossible sky.
His health bar was flashing angry RED. He was critically low, barely holding on.
The Boar trotted up, ready for the killing blow.
Tsurugi stared at the Boar's snout coming closer, and the panic of digital death triggered the horrific memory of his trauma. It wasn't the Boar he saw; it was the world collapsing on the dusty floor of the training hall.
Low HP. Death.
The idea of losing control, of failing with a weapon again, froze him completely.
He was paralyzed, unable to move, unable to fight back. His mind was screaming: You're too dangerous to live, and too afraid to die.
The Boar raised its head, preparing to strike.
Tsurugi closed his eyes, accepting the digital end, which felt far too much like the real end he deserved.
Just as the Boar lunged, a sudden, sharp, green flash zipped past Tsurugi's face.
SHING!
A bright, clean slice of energy ripped through the Boar's side.
The Boar squealed, its HP bar dropping to zero, and it instantly shattered into thousands of glowing blue polygons.
Tsurugi opened his eyes and scrambled backward, sitting up in the grass.
Standing over him was a player in dark, sleek leather armor, holding a simple, single-edged sword.
He looked annoyed and slightly bored.
Another player rushed up, wearing slightly bulkier armor and a red headband, looking both frantic and deeply relieved.
Klein immediately shoved a small, glowing red potion into Tsurugi's virtual hand.
"Here! Quick! That was way too close! HP is flashing!"
Tsurugi, still shaking, fumbled with the bottle. The system automatically drank it, and the potion's warm light flowed through his avatar.
His HP bar instantly snapped back up to full green.
Kirito sighed, sheathing his sword and looking at both Klein and Tsurugi. "You two are going to get yourselves deleted if you don't learn the basics. You're using the weapons wrong. You need to use the system assist."
Klein frowned, adjusting his headband.
"System assist? Like, auto-attack?"
"No, Sword Skills," Kirito corrected sharply.
"Look, your real-life motion is just the cue. When you move the weapon with enough speed and force, the system recognizes the initial movement and locks your body into a perfect, powerful attack sequence. That's a Sword Skill."
Kirito pointed to the Glaive Tsurugi was holding, and then to Klein's katana.
"This applies to both of you, newbie or not. Your real-world skill only gets you into the right position. It doesn't execute the attack."
Kirito demonstrated, raising his sword slightly, his body still. Then, he moved his hand in a short, clean downward motion.
For a split second, his sword glowed green.
Vertical Arc!
Kirito's body instantly flashed forward in a blur, his sword slicing down in a devastating arc that left a green energy trail.
The animation was incredibly fast and powerful, far beyond human ability.
"See?" Kirito said, standing still again.
"I didn't do all that. The system did.
You have to commit to the initial movement. The system recognizes the starting motion and completes the sequence for you.
Your body becomes the trigger, not the engine."
Tsurugi stared, his eyes wide with desperate realization.
His failure wasn't due to his martial arts training, but his inability to adapt to the Glaive's wide, heavy attack cues, combined with his mind fighting the digital assistance.
He was so terrified of losing control that he hadn't allowed the system to take over.
"Try it, dude," Klein urged him, now focused and curious.
"Try a simple thrust. Move quickly, commit to the angle. I want to see this yellow glow he was talking about."
Tsurugi swallowed, taking a deep breath.
He held the Polearm out in front of him. He focused, not on the physical movement, which felt entirely awkward and unfamiliar, but on the cold, hard logic of the system.
He put all his mental focus into the single, sharp motion, forcing himself to surrender his control to the code.
He pushed the Glaive forward sharply.
For a moment, his past doubt fought with the system input.
Then, the long wooden shaft of the Glaive suddenly glowed a pale yellow.
Sting Thrust!
His avatar's arm locked, and the Glaive shot forward, impossibly straight and fast, leaving a yellow energy trail behind the point.
The movement was disciplined, precise, and over in an instant.
It was the absolute control he had always sought, delivered by the game.
The system had taken the fear out of the swing, replacing Tsurugi's real-world doubt and physical incompatibility with pure, flawless code.
Tsurugi's heart hammered, but not from fear—from the shock of perfect execution.
"Whoa! That was awesome!" Klein shouted, jumping slightly.
"My turn!"
Kirito nodded, looking at Tsurugi with a hint of approval.
"Good. You catch on fast. You have sharp instincts. Just trust the system. Don't fight the animation. Get familiar with the Skill Cues, or you'll keep dying out here."
Tsurugi stood up straight, gripping the Glaive.
He finally had the key to this world, the tool he needed to maintain Zanshin in this digital reality: Surrender.
He nodded once, seriously. "Thank you. My name is Zanshin."
Kirito didn't offer to party up, but his advice was a lifeline.
"Stay safe, Zanshin. You too, Klein. Don't die before the information brokers catch up."
Kirito then turned and quickly walked towards the deeper fields, moving with the speed and certainty of a true veteran.
Tsurugi and Klein watched him go. Klein turned to Tsurugi.
"Man, that guy was intense. We should probably team up, right? Since we both almost died?"
Tsurugi looked at Klein, seeing the same mixture of fear and excitement he felt, but without the paralyzing guilt.
He was hesitant, his isolation instinct screaming at him, but he remembered his complete failure against the Boar.
He couldn't afford to be alone here.
"Yes," Tsurugi said, gripping the Glaive tighter.
"We should."
He was still broken, but here, in Aincrad, he could learn the new rules of control.
He could swing a weapon without real consequences.
He raised the Glaive, ready to practice the Skill Cues until his digital muscles were raw. He had traded everything for this escape, and he would not fail in this world.