Stories of Aincrad; The Last Mile [OOC][OPEN]

[Tracian Empire]

Dead most certainly not. I've been working on another IC post for a while, but besides from my chaotic schedule and me having to take care of other roleplays, I've kinda forgotten what I wanted to do from the beginning, so I had to recreate my plan for the end of the boss battle from scratch.

It will be done next week hopefully.

Hopefully, by the beginning of next month, I'm freed from my current miserable internship and be available for the next three months.

Well, I'm probably going to be pretty busy for the next few months, since this is my final year of highschool, but things should be relatively alright in the second half of March and in April.

And I will do my best to get a post up tomorrow.

[United States of Indonesia]

Still waiting for that post, Trace.

<< Nearing final year of Uni.

[Tracian Empire]

Still waiting for that post, Trace.

<< Nearing final year of Uni.

There is certainly no excuse for me not posting for over a year.

There is an excuse for me not posting for the past week though, which is a cocktail of school, competitions, a cold, and trying to survive in a flu infested apocalypse.

[Charlia]

Leave it alone, Indonesia. He'll post when he has the time.

[Castle Crashers]

Leave it alone, Indonesia. He'll post when he has the time.

I agree with this. You’ve waited a year, what’s a week or two more?

[United States of Indonesia]

Leave it alone, Indonesia. He'll post when he has the time.

I agree with this. You’ve waited a year, what’s a week or two more?

I know. Just reminding him, since the RP that I was active in last year got into inactivity. It's sad really, when an RP you really like gets inactive. While I know it's affected by personal circumstances of the authors, it's really sad to see them completely forgot about their stories in the RP they used to be active in. I'm a story-junkie, so I wanna see things to the end if possible, or at the very least, closure for only that chapter.

[United States of Indonesia]

While we wait for the next post, let's talk about Alicization's STL.

Unless you're caught up with the latest volume of the LN, DO NOT READ THIS PARTICULAR POST.

The STL allows for the power of "imagination", so to speak, of the characters inside the Underworld to get manifested into the simulation's reality. For example: When Kirito was able to unleash his Dual-wielding and the accompanying image of him during his time in SAO.

We're working with the fact that our characters would have their memories blocked, but due to some reasons, we've managed to regain it after some time. Question is, during the period where we don't remember, would our soul remember? As in, the many traits we have both in Aincrad and in real life? It's not as if we would immediately remember, it's just like a normal habit, things that we always do. Even though we don't really know why, we always do it, even in the Underworld. Thoughts on this matter?

[Tracian Empire]

Well unfortunately, I don't think that you have anyone to talk with. As far as I remember, I was the only other one who read some of the light novels, but I stopped at Alicization Uniting I think? I remember the story but not exactly what volume it was.

I have all the other ones but I didn't manage to finish them.

[Parcia]

This is still Running?


Damn.

[Tracian Empire]

This is still Running?


Damn.

Sort of? I have no excuse for leaving it for dead for over a year, but I've been trying to at least end the IC so that we could focus on a potential sequel.

And when I wanted to start working on a post, fate stopped cooperating.

I will make a post once I'll be feeling better at least. Then we'll see what has to be done

[United States of Indonesia]

Was continuing a draft for a final attack post, but accidentally closed the browser & forgot to save it. I cri.

[Tracian Empire]

Was continuing a draft for a final attack post, but accidentally closed the browser & forgot to save it. I cri.

Well, your draft won't matter that much anyway, since I am going to post and give people something to do, a final attack from the boss and ways to defeat it.

Yes, as always, sorry for not posting an entire year, I don't have any excuses for that, but life hasn't been cooperating for the past few weeks either. I will post as soon as I am able to.

[United States of Indonesia]

Well, this is an epilogue (draft) post that I'm planning since you will be the final shot caller, Thrace. Here ya go.

Epilogue
Room 10, VIP Ward
Tokyo Tama Hospital, Tokyo
Shortly after the disconnect
Josua

Am I... Finally back?

Is this... Reality...?

Those where his first thoughts after the automatic disconnect occurred & he felt the chill from what's probably an AC. He had yet to open his eyes, so he tested by trying to move his fingers first.

One... Okay. That worked.
Now, two... Okay, I can feel it.
Finally, all five...

Was what he thought when he moved his fingers. All of it were moving properly, albeit he felt that it was weaker than his usual movement(s). He then proceeded to move his arms.

Damn, it's too weak, He thought as he moved through the blanket that was over his body. By this point, he had yet to open his eyes.

His arms indeed moved, but it was so weak that he almost thought it wasn't real. He then moved both his arms to help him sit upright. It was hard, but it wasn't too difficult. As he sat, he removed the NerveGear from his head. As he removed it, his hair that never got cut finally breathed air since he put it on his head & played SAO. He then began to try & speak with his mouth. His lips felt dry, and the same can be said for his skin, albeit it was still cared for by the hospital, somewhat. His throat also felt dry, hence it was hard when he first tried to speak. He then adjusted and opened his mouth.

"Test... 1... ,2... ,3..." he said as his voice was cracked, but audible.

With both his sense of touch & sound at least confirmed to be functional, he then opened his eyes. His eyes somehow got better, though he still need his glasses to properly see. It was a room of a Hospital. He then saw both of his hands. They were thinner than before, but he could still make a grip now that he was fully awake. He then touched his face, and felt the slightly dry skin of it, alongside the slightly skinnier feel of his overall face. He felt his beard was quite thick, but wasn't really sure by how much it had grown out of control. He looked to the tables at the side of his bed for his stuff. His phone, a Samsung Galaxy Note 10, and his glasses, were at a table beside his bed. He wore his glasses & checked his phone. 2 years definitely had passed since the start of SAO, from the piles of calls and messages that he got from his friends on LINE & WhatsApp that probably came since the start of the whole incident and onwards until he woke up. He puts down his phone, and got off his bed, trying to stand up, wanting to truly see his current body. As his feet touched the cold floor, he felt very weak, but he somehow managed to kept his body still standing. He slowly walked into the bathroom that was available inside his room, and looked at the mirror. His face looked skinnier, somewhat, compared to when he put on the NerveGear and started SAO. Also, he saw his beard, and it was somewhat bushier than expected, since he was trapped & never shaved it from when he entered the game. He rolled up the sleeves of the hospital clothes that was on him, and he saw his arms. Along with the lines of his face, his arms had became thin, but not as bad as he originally thought. From there, he immediately checked his torso & abdomen. The two parts have thinned more than his arms, yet it wasn't to the point of skeletal. It simply made him look... Thin, as in the typical kind of a normal person. He then went out of the bathroom, closed the door, and climbed back to his bed. He later looked for a Call button. He found it and pressed the button, calling a nurse to his room. Little did he know that the actual weight loss that his body had endured was around 40 kg, from 100-ish kg to between 60-80 kg.

The nurse came a few moments after he pressed the button, and the look on her face was a mix of shock & relief. He wanted to ask her for some water before the nurse left the room and ran through the hallway to the stationed doctor. A little while later, the doctor came, with a couple of nurses along behind her. She then proceeded to do a basic check-up on him: His eyes, arms, body response. She then gave the all-clear, and the nurses behind her brought some food & water for him. He immediately ravaged the food that was before him, and it was finished after only 5 minutes. He breathes a sigh of relief, finally gotten something to eat & drink.

"How do you feel?" she asked in Japanese.

"Better now, I suppose. Don't worry, I can speak Japanese. My voice right now isn't really allowing me to speak it at the moment, however." he answered in English.

A nurse then came into the room and whispered something to the doctor. She then told the other nurses to pick up the tray of empty glass & plate.

"The Ambassador for Indonesia is here to see you now. If you need any help, please do not hesitate to call me. I will be excusing myself for now." she said as she bows slightly and left the room.

As she exited the room through the automatic slide door, another group entered. They were in suits, and clearly they were pretty much like the stereotype of people from the Government. Apart from one person in the group, the rest were, for him, easily identified as Indonesians. One in the front, with the pin of the nation's flag, and another one, the man who wasn't an Indonesian, went to his side.

"Mr. Josua, I assume?" the Indonesian man asked (he was asking in Indonesian).

"Yes, in the flesh. I assume you're the ambassador?" Josua replied and asked back.

"You're correct. My name is Arifin Tasrif. I'm the current ambassador of our nation. And this gentleman here~" the ambassador answered while gesturing to the non-Indonesian man (this part was in English).

The other man stood forward, wearing a suit with a pattern of stripes, and wore a pair of glasses.

"He's a part of the SAO Incident Victims Rescue Force. His name is-" Mr. Arifin said before the man in glasses gestured him to halt (this part was also in English).

"My name is Kikuoka Seijirou. I was assigned by the Japanese government as part of the SAO Incident Victims Rescue Force. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance." the glasses man said as he bowed slightly.

"As you know, some of SAO's players were foreigners, hence people from my task force are also accompanied by the ambassadors, or part of the diplomatic corps, of their respective nationalities." Kikuoka explained.

"Due to the sensitive nature of this incident, we're currently working with the affected's governments for a solution that's satisfying to all sides." He then continued.

"So... I assume that both of you are here to inform of the solution that have been deemed to be of satisfaction by both governments?" Josua asked the two of them.

"Yes. In light of the SAO Incident, our government & the Japanese have agreed to allow for an arranged dual-citizenship. This means that you're allowed to retain your citizenship while gaining Japanese citizenship as well." Mr. Arifin said (in English).

"However-" Kikuoka continued, "We'll have you stay here for at least a year, since we need to have your testimony on what had transpired, and for this particular offer as well," he said as he gave Josua a folder (in English).

The folder contained what seemed to be a Terms & Conditions, or rather a contract, with him requiring his signature at the end of the page. The "contract" was written in English and Indonesian, with both nation's symbol at the top-middle of the T&C. He then skimmed through most of the parts, and then he arrived at a certain section of the page:

Signer agrees to be employed as a Consultant for the Japanese Ministry of Information for a pre-determined amount of time. Signer must provide information & knowledge regarding the requested matter and its relevant information. In exchange, the signer will be granted permanent dual-citizenship of both Japan & their home country, guaranteed by both governments. Also, the signer will be financed by the Japanese government for their period as a Special Consultant.

"How do I say it... It's very convenient, and I suppose it's quite satisfying." Josua replied, chuckling when he saw that particular section.

"Of course it seems that way. Your President was very insistent on this matter, since some of his citizen was affected." Kikuoka said to him.

"This decision was made by the previous President. The current one is willing to abide by this directive, in honor of the previous one's achievements and legacy." Mr. Arifin also said.

While it was obvious that he would accept the offer, he then wanted to do something before that.

"Mr. Arifin, thank you for being here. But I wish to speak with Mr. Kikuoka for the time being. I want to discuss some of the finer details for some things on the Japanese Government's side." Josua said (in English).

"Sure. But once again, we welcome you back to reality, and are thankful since you are unharmed." Mr. Arifin replied as he gestured, ordering his entourage to exit the room with him, while Kikuoka remained.

As the door closed, he held out a long sigh.

"So, the so-called finer details... What would you like to discuss about it?" Kikuoka asked him.

"Heh, you knew that I was just telling him to leave the room nicely and formally." Josua replied, as the two laughed.

"So, what's your real intention on having this private conversation?" Kikuoka asked after calming down.

"Ah, yeah. I'm gonna sign this, but I need you to do something for me." Josua replied, with a slight pause before continuing.
"I want you to find a certain person. A woman, who's also an SAO player like me." he continued as he signed the "contract", unlocked his phone, and wrote with its stylus the name of a certain person, showing it to Kikuoka after he was done writing.
"Tell her that I'll be waiting. Give her the address of this hospital and my phone number." Josua further said.

"Okay, I can do that." Kikuoka paused for a little, taking a picture of the name from Josua's phone.
"But what will you do after she's here?" he then asked.

"Well... Maybe a little R&R." Josua replied with a short answer while smirking.

From the face that Josua made, Kikuoka knew what he meant with the answer. He simply chuckled, before bowing and slowly walked towards the room's door, exiting the room. Josua enjoyed the view from the window. It was still snowing, and nearing nighttime. He then opened his Facebook and made his first status update. Just moments after he posted it on his feed, it was flooded by comments from his friends, asking if he was okay. He had to make another post, just because it was still getting overwhelmed by the amount of replies in the comment section. He then turned on the TV at the opposite wall in front of him. He saw the news on many SAO players waking up, and the declaration that the SAO Incident had finally ended. And his Facebook post got featured in the news as well, being one of the first to update their current situation. He enjoyed watching the news, as his phone suddenly vibrated and a new notification came in. It was a friend request from a certain person. He smiled as he accepted the request.

[United States of Indonesia]

And now, this is the part where I know I'm being annoying, and yes I'm probably being pushy by this point, but here's the usual reminder for people to not forget this RP!

[Tracian Empire]

And now, this is the part where I know I'm being annoying, and yes I'm probably being pushy by this point, but here's the usual reminder for people to not forget this RP!

I haven't forgotten about it, trust me, it's just that life hasn't been cooperating at all, and the bits and pieces of free time that I've had have been taken by the few other roleplays that are still fully active and where I must take an active role.

Not much of an excuse, but I will have a post out here next week, I promise. I've been also stuck a bit in regards to what exactly to do - my old plan would have involved continuing the battle as I would have if there wouldn't have been a break, but that would be too much to ask so I'll simply give the characters a final chance to crush Kayaba's last health bar, and then we can just do epilogue and post-game things at our own pace as we discuss the sequel.

[United States of Indonesia]

I'm just copy-pasting by this point XD

And now, this is the part where I know I'm being annoying, and yes I'm probably being pushy by this point, but here's the usual reminder for people on this RP XD

[United States of Indonesia]

I'm just copy-pasting by this point XD

(I'm not trying to spam)

And now, this is the part where I know I'm being annoying, and yes I'm probably being pushy by this point, but here's the usual reminder for people on this RP XD

[Tracian Empire]

You're not pushy - it's just that I went through what was probably the most difficult period in my life so far. Like I said before, I don't exactly have an excuse for the year or so that passed between the last IC post and people posting again here in the OOC, but for the past few months I've been very busy with exams and college admissions and everything, I just had my last exam today.

I'm not sure what will happen next, there is still a chance that I won't enter where my parents want me to go and that they'll take my PC anyway, but even if they do, I will do my best to start working on a post to properly finish the IC.

And we will start talking about a sequel, since I'm kinda planning to synchronize that potential sequel with the second cour of SAO in fall.

[United States of Indonesia]

You're not pushy - it's just that I went through what was probably the most difficult period in my life so far. Like I said before, I don't exactly have an excuse for the year or so that passed between the last IC post and people posting again here in the OOC, but for the past few months I've been very busy with exams and college admissions and everything, I just had my last exam today.

I'm not sure what will happen next, there is still a chance that I won't enter where my parents want me to go and that they'll take my PC anyway, but even if they do, I will do my best to start working on a post to properly finish the IC.

And we will start talking about a sequel, since I'm kinda planning to synchronize that potential sequel with the second cour of SAO in fall.

Wow. Just take your time then. Really. I want this to end on a proper note, without anyone feeling forced or something like that.

[Tracian Empire]

You're not pushy - it's just that I went through what was probably the most difficult period in my life so far. Like I said before, I don't exactly have an excuse for the year or so that passed between the last IC post and people posting again here in the OOC, but for the past few months I've been very busy with exams and college admissions and everything, I just had my last exam today.

I'm not sure what will happen next, there is still a chance that I won't enter where my parents want me to go and that they'll take my PC anyway, but even if they do, I will do my best to start working on a post to properly finish the IC.

And we will start talking about a sequel, since I'm kinda planning to synchronize that potential sequel with the second cour of SAO in fall.

Wow. Just take your time then. Really. I want this to end on a proper note, without anyone feeling forced or something like that.

Oh well, that's exactly what I was trying to do. I did think a lot about it.

My initial plan was to simply continue the thread as if the huge break in posting and activity didn't even happen, you know, just have the characters continue fighting Kayaba until they could defeat him - he still had a couple of health bars left as far as I could remember. But then I started to think that this could be boring for the others. Fighting scenes have never been my strong point when it came to creating plots, and just having everyone continue a fight that started over a year ago could feel forced - any sort of investment people had in that fight, emotional and so on, is long gone.

Then I decided that I should just give it a proper ending post, but that's where I got stuck. My idea so far is to write a slightly longer post and to make it so that by the time the characters kill their respective hallucinations, Kayaba's HP will be at it its last bar - which would allow anyone who is still interested to write a fancy post that could act like a coup de grace of sorts, having the players finally kill him. But since I haven't actually been able to write it yet, it seems feels as if such a post would look too rushed- it would be just a sudden time jump anyway and it could end up being a bad ending.

And at the same time, honestly, what I want to do is to simply get over the fight to get to the final part - the short amount of time that the players would spend in the game before the system automatically logs them off, because of the feels involved.

And once that actually happens, and while we discuss sequel ideas here in the OOC or somewhere else, some of us do have a lot of ideas planned for what the characters would do in the real world until the eventual sequel, which all seem a bit more interesting than the fight.

[Tracian Empire]

Well, I'm fully aware of just how bad of an OP I've been ever since taking over from Tophat, and there is nothing I can do that could change that or the two years of near complete silence that this has experienced.

But, I've never meant to give it up. I still have some vague hopes for a sequel or a reboot, who knows, but until then I can at the very least give this a proper ending, and since we are getting close to the fifth anniversary of this roleplay series, it's the least I can try to do.

Until then, I've made a small list of the threads and history of this roleplay, out of nostalgia xD

[United States of Indonesia]

Might as well turn this whole thing into a webnovel... sigh...

[Parcia]

Might as well turn this whole thing into a webnovel... sigh...

Normally I Dislike having people using my Characters for outside works.

Buuuuuuut, go for it.

[Tracian Empire]

Might as well turn this whole thing into a webnovel... sigh...

Well, I know it sounds ridiculous after all this time, but I do have a nearly completed post that would have ended the battle. It's just that after all this, I felt like no one would care about it. I might still post it though, the roleplay deserves an ending at least.

But as for turning this into a webnovel, I don't think that you should include the characters of other players without their consent.

[Tracian Empire]

As for the roleplay itself, I don't know. A Sword Art Progressive anime was announced, and Progressive is a lot closer to what we were doing here in this roleplay, so an attempt to do something might be worth a shot, but I don't think we'd have the interest to do much