Swordsaint
is a Sword Art Online Fan Fic that is an Alternate Universe Fic written by SeerKing.
This story is a retelling of the original Aincrad Arc with the Original Character Joan getting involved.
This work contains examples of:
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Lampshaded in-universe in a conversation between Kayaba and Rinko, where it's pointed out that casualties would be significantly worse if the mechanics of combat in Sword Art Online were as realistic as the equipment is.
- Adaptational Villainy: While Kibaou was already something of a Jerkass, he really upped the ante by trying to MPK Joan and then when he was subsequently kicked out of the guild, he goes and joins Laughing Coffin.
- Arch-Enemy:
- Joan and Kayaba seem to be falling into this dynamic, with the former hating the latter for turning what should have been a fun game into a deathtrap. She even notes, completely seriously, that if Kayaba was still alive after he was defeated, she would have dug out her family's ancestral sword out of storage and tracked him down to kill him herself.
- Kibaou also seems to be becoming this to Joan, especially after he tried to use a boss to MPK her after she saved him and his men from it, which gets him kicked out of his guild and putting a price on her head.
- After SAO is beaten Sugou quickly steps into Kayaba's role as Joan's most hated enemy. Besides what he did to Asuna and his other captives, she also dislikes how he just copied large chunks of SAO's code, and she quickly realizes that the "Grand Quest" is Unwinnable by Design.
- Badass in Distress: After defeating the boss she designed, Kayaba abducts Joan and holds her captive for over a week using his power over the system to keep her immobilized.
- Berserk Button: Kayaba to Joan. She also had a lesser one in monsters attacking her haori whenever she wore one.
- Call-Forward: Yuna's death is mentioned.
- Celibate Hero: Joan. Romance is a tertiary concern for her at best, unlike with her mother, and she's simply never found anyone, male or female, that interests her like that.
- Daddy's Girl: Ai was always closer to her biological father than her mother, and it only gets worse after her father died and her mother remarried after only two months.
- Death by Adaptation: By all accounts, Kibaou survived SAO in canon, but here his last attempt to go after Joan ends with him killed by the Fatal Scythe boss.
- For Want Of A Nail: To note:
- Kibaou's attempts to isolate the Beta Testers from the player base fails, in part, because they can tell how much Joan, a beta tester herself, loathes Kayaba.
- Joan gets caught in the anti-crystal trap instead of the Moonlight Black Cats, allowing the latter to survive.
- Asuna isn't stabbed by Kayaba because Joan pushes her out of the way.
- Godzilla Threshold: In order to stop her mother from meddling in her life, Ai shows her she has filled a form that would allow her to officially disassociate from the Yamada family and keep them from having any legal power over her. As long as Clair respects her boundaries, it won't be filed.
- Good Counterpart: Joan to Kayaba.
- Glorified Sperm Donor: Gender inverted with Morisato Clair. As far as Ai is concerned, Clair's just the woman that gave birth to her, and she holds little to no love for her.
- Half-Breed Discrimination: Morisato Ai is mentioned as having had unwanted attention in school as a result of her half-breed status. She's even completely refused to take English classes as a result.
- Honorary Aunt: Joan becomes one to Yui.
- Like Parent, Unlike Child: Ai outright tells her stepfather that she and her mother are nothing alike.
- Literal-Minded: Cardinal has moments of this. For example, Kayaba tells it to give Kirito, Asuna, and Joan useful items after defeating the Gleam Eyes. It did so for Kirito and Joan, but because Asuna was spending more after she started dating Kirito, it gave her a shield, counter to her fighting style, so she could sell it for funds.
- The Most Dangerous Video Game: Sword Art Online, as per canon.
- My Beloved Smother: Morisato Clair is a textbook example; following the SAO Incident, she cuts Ai off from all contact with anyone who was part of the incident, sells her computer (illegally, since Ai purchased it with her own money), places locks that only she has a key to on the doors, and has the windows modified so they can only open a certain distance. Ai says she was more of a prisoner at home than she ever was in the death game, and both she and the medical staff helping with her physical therapy are annoyed by how Clair is interfering with her recovery with her overprotectiveness, and Ai and Kikuoaka notes a lot of the modifications to the house are against fire safety advice (meaning that she's putting her daughter in danger in the name of "protecting" her). Thankfully, things get better when she talks to her stepfather about it.
- Never My Fault: Part of the reason that Kibaou hates Joan is because he delusionally blames her for everything that's gone wrong for him in SAO so he doesn't have to accept responsibility for his own mistakes, something a flabbergasted Joan calls him on when she hears it.
- Original Character: There are quite a few such as Joan, one of the central characters of the story.
- Parents as People: Ai's stepfather at least tries to interact positively with her, and after talking with Ai and realizing just how bad their relationship is he manages to get his wife to back off with her My Beloved Smother attitude, even giving Ai a phone.
- Player Killing: Laughing Coffin, as usual.
- Psychological Projection:
- It's implied that Kibaou is doing this to Joan, as his claims of her being a glory hound are more accurate to his personality than hers, and blames her for all his mistakes so that he doesn't have to accept them as his fault.
- Clair also does this with Ai, constantly assuming that her daughter will eventually agree with her actions as My Beloved Smother and that she'll accept being put through an Arranged Marriage without complaining, when all she does is to drive her angrier and more willing to cut ties with her the moment she is old enough. Her husband also notes that Clair tends to assume that other women share her old-fashioned views about the role of a woman in a relationship, and has trouble comprehending that they could feel differently.
- Running Gag: Kirito, Asuna, and Joan have one where they triple-kill bosses, forcing Cardinal to give all of them the Last Strike Bonus.
- Serial-Killer Killer: Joan made a habit of killing Player Killing players in a previous game she played.
- Shout-Out: The Unique Skill Battojutsu basically gives Joan access to the Hiten Mitsurugi Style.
- One of Joan's attacks through the Martial Arts skill makes her feel the urge to shout Rider Kick whenever she uses it.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- The Moonlight Black Cats avoid being killed by the monsters spawned by an anti-crystal trap due to Joan triggering it first.
- Kobatz manages to survive the Gleam Eyes fight.
- Taking the Bullet: When Asuna pushes Kirito out of the way of Kayaba's blow, Joan pushed her away, only to get stabbed herself.
- Technologically Blind Elders: While Ai's mother Clair can use most modern technology alright, but when it comes to understanding how it works she's completely clueless. When Ai tries to explain that the AmuSphere was specifically designed to avoid a potential repeat of the SAO incident and goes into detail on the safety features, she might as well have been speaking a foreign language, as Clair just stares at her blankly.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Joan, as someone who dreamed of designing games as a way to allow people to have fun, views Kayaba's Death Game as a perversion of her dream.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- An Aincrad Liberation Squad group, already exhausted, tried to attack the Gleam Eyes with no plan, getting two of them killed.
- Kibaou ends up getting himself killed by the Fatal Scythe boss after his trap for Joan went south and he tried to run further into the dungeon to escape..
- Ai notes that a lot of Claire's My Beloved Smother actions are against fire safety advice, meaning that, despite claiming to be doing this to "protect" her daughter, she's really just putting her, and by extension herself and her husband, in danger (for instance, the fact that the windows won't open more than a certain distance means that they can't be used as an emergency exit).
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Joan does this during the Laughing Coffin raid, surprising the murderers when it works.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Kibaou tries to MPK Joan after she saves his life, and even ends up joining Laughing Coffin after putting a price on her head.
- Villain Takes an Interest: Kayaba does this to Kirito and Asuna, but especially Joan.
- Womanchild: Ai outright refers to her mother as one by the trope name, annoyed by her tantrums and tears whenever she doesn't get what she wants.
