Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

AN: Hello there everyone! This is a repost of my first fic so don’t expect anything like regular updates or perfect grammar and language (I Don't speak English as my main language).

As for the story itself it will take place after SAO Fatal Bullet and at the start of Sword Art Online 23: Unital Ring II, so SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE LIGHT NOVEL

Halo will be an in universe game based on the seed nexus (if u watched or read SAO u surely know what i am talking about), other than the whole SAO cast i will add my OC, Six and Kureha from the SAO fatal bullet game.

Without further ado let’s dive into the story! I hope this story will be of your liking!

DISCLAIMER: i don’t own Halo or Sword Art Online all rights are of Microsoft, 343 industries and Reki Kawahara Kadokawa and Dengeki Bunko

Chapter 1: Worlds Collide

//STORY START//

On september 25th 2026 Halo Infinite made its debut in the VRMMO genre after being adapted and ported to the Seed Nexus as it was expected in it’s 10 year roadmap after the enormous success of other Seed based games like Gun Gale Online and Alfheim Online.

The VRMMO as a video game genre had quite the worst headstart after the SAO accident trapping 10000 players inside a death game that lasted 2 years with thousands of casualties in the first year of the game.

This accident delayed the development and subsequent launch of infinite for full dive gear to a to be announced date, as the main game was released less than a year before the release of Sword Art Online.

Now on the nineteenth anniversary of the famed and loved Halo 3, Halo Infinite was making its debut in the VR space.

Six had always been a fan of Halo since the first time he played Halo Combat Evolved in 2010 at the age of 4, he and Kureha had known each other since the age of 5 and since then had played games together.

When Kureha first invited Six to play GGO also known as Gun Gale Online he was quite skeptical about Full Dive games as a whole, reason being the SAO accident, but when he tried it he quickly fell in love with it.

And now after 5 years from its original release his favorite game Halo Infinite was coming to Full dive.

He and his girlfriend Momiji also known as Kueha in the VRMMO space were ready to dive in and explore Zeta Halo for the first time in VR at midnight of september 25.

At first the game looked like the original campaign except that now the whole ring was accessible and that the campaign was turned into a spartan adventure to be played with your own custom spartan that was able to be converted from the base non VR game retaining all it’s cosmetic items.

One of the new features was the option to take off the mjolnir armor and experience the ring as a normal person having your own avatar exported from previous seed games, naturally Six and Kureha choose to export both, they had their GGO avatars and their own armors from the base game.

Six was wearing his Mark VII armor core equipping the iconic Mark VI helmet with the CNM[5]/BNR/FASCINATOR helmet attachment , UA/Agathius shoulder pads, myesel ammo puche as hip attachment, Tac Mk 88 combat knife on as chest attachment, Vandal visor and the Banished Deception armor coating

Kureha armor was also a Mark VII, it was equipped with the Cavallino Helmet with the Purrfect Audio helmet attachment (halo infinite cat ears), UA/Agathius shoulder pads,

Vandal visor and Faded Blush armor coating.

Their spartans were 10 cm higher with their mjolnir on, Six stood at 190 and Kureha at 174 cm.

The first day on zeta halo was a dream coming true, the first thing they did after converting their avatars was collecting and wearing their armor, then they moved on to secure the first FOB on the ring, the in game lore Visual Intelligence System Reconnecense or VISR for short was the perfect take on a User Interface for a Seed game, it was simple clean and intuitive, the pop up windows were just like the one from GGO but with an halo take, the TAC map was able to be projected on the ground for grupe consulting and now spartans personal AIs could interact with the player and provide strategic and tactical support to the player but could also be used to have some funny chats.

At 4:50 on sunday, September 27th, 2026, Six and Kureha were enjoying the view from FOB Charlie when suddenly the ground started shaking, the marines in the fob where disoriented and the 2 spartans were confused, ‘’Is this meant to be part of the game?’’ said Kureha with a perplexed tone, ‘’I have no idea of what this is but I don't think this is part of the campaign’’ replied Six.

After something that could be described as a bright flash in their vision Kureha noticed that the holes in the damaged part of the ring form which you could see space where showing what looked like a big forest underneath them, she freezed for an instant ‘’we are falling toward what look like to be a forest!’’ she gasped, ‘’how is it possible zeta halo is supposed to be in space!’’ six replied, ‘’i know!’’ said kureha.

Meanwhile Sinon was farming rare metals from enemy robots in GGO, when after a bright flash she found herself in a town she’d never seen before.

Sinon had traveled the whole map of GGO from end to end but she didn’t recognise this place. 

The buildings were made of stone not the industrial looking concrete of GGO, the road was made of cracked bricks rather than asphalt, all around her she noticed GGO players being teleported near her all of whom looked confused like her, but she didn't know a single one of them.

Sinon did not appreciate being surrounded by unfamiliar mens so she decided to get inside a building, clutching her sniper rifle Hecate II she listened to the voices of the players outside as they began discussing about the situation, she then heard someone saying that there was a difference in the UI and that they tried to contact the dev team with no response.

That left logging out as the only way to collect more information, Sinon really wanted to log out but an ominous feeling kept her online.

She heard the players deciding to log out,but when she looked outside the window she saw around 10 avatars in the familiar stand by pose of ALO and GGO.

She soon saw shadows and noticed strange insectoid monsters making their way towards the group of logged out players, Sinon quickly realized that once logged out the player’s avatar would just stay in a stand by pose and not disappear like the VRMMOs she was used to.

Fearing for the safety of the players, Sinon aimed her Hecate at one of the insects and fired one bullet completely destroying the head of the monster.

One detail she noticed was that one of the key features of GGO the bullet circle was not present, ‘’a bug?, no maybe a system error’’ she thought.

Having killed the strange insects, Sinon decided to get out of the building to check the player’s avatars, she tried to wave a hand in front of the eyes of everyone confirming her doubt. They actually logged off.

It was quiet, too quiet for Sinon’s liking, all of a sudden she heard a loud roar from the sky and quickly switched to her mp7 for a more cqc defense fearing some more weird monsters would attack her, but when she looked to the sky she saw an enormous ring, losing pieces  that it was falling in her direction.

That ring was Zeta Halo, and the world where everyone was inside of  was the new game that absorbed all the Seed Nexus VRMMOs, Unital Ring.

//STORY ENDS//

Chapter Text

//STORY START//

The fragment of the ring on which Six and Kureha stood had crash landed near the Zelletelio forest, not far from the city where Sinon and the others GGO players were teleported.

As for the ring itself only the initial fragment where the single player campaign took place in the original version of the game had landed on the ground.

The rest of the ring stood approximately 1 kilometer above the forest, it’s shadow was so big that encased nearly all the forest except for the eastern side of it where pieces of new aincrad had landed when the event later known as Unital Ring point 0 had happened some minutes earlier.

Along with the parts of new aincrad that landed in the forest was present the twenty second floor on which stood  Kirito and Asuna’s log house.

[Remnant of Zeta Halo 17:50, one hour after Unital Ring point 0 happened]

Six and Kureha stood in what remained of FOB charlie the section of the ring they were on was splitted in several fragments during the fall to the ground, in the distance they could see that the larger island on which were located the house of reckoning and the silent auditorium had crashed several kilometer from their position in what they supposed was the center of the forest.

With a loud alarm sound the main terminal of FOB Charlie sprung to life, ‘'alert, enemy aircraft detected! alert enemy aircraft detected! ’’ shouted the fob bumb AI, and with a ferocious roar the two saw a banished warship that was crashing inside the forest.

‘’We should keep an eye out for banished recon teams, i’m sure that they will search the area near the crash site before anything else, check your gear we need to find an operational fob to understand what's happened to us’’ said Six ‘’I’m right behind you’’ said kureha as she checked her ammo reserves.

As Six opened his TAC map he noticed that the forest where the parts of the ring had crashed was named Zelletelio forest, this was strange because in halo there isn’t a place with such a name, when Six reduced the map size he discovered that the map was way bigger than he could imagine, there were big gray areas labeled as UNKNOWN and the only information available was ‘’reach the destination the discover it’’.

‘’Hey K, is your map the same as mine?’’ asked Six to Kureha, ‘’yes i have large areas with the UNKNOWN label on them’’ answered Kureha.

While the two were checking their maps they heard the familiar sound of a phantom approaching their position, and in an instant banished troopers were attacking them.

‘’Get to cover they are coming!’’ shouted Six as he was taking an M9 HE-DP grenade out of his belt, ‘’I see grunts and jackals with a few brute captains coming to our position’’ said Kureha as she was fiering precision shots with her MA40 assault rifle.

‘’Attention Spartans enemy reinforcements incoming’’ chanted in unison their personal AIs 

As the phantom unloaded his troops Kureha noticed 2 elites ultra activating their active camo before disappearing into thin air.

‘’Camo elites pay attention to your motion tracker!’’ shouted Kureha, as Six was gunning down grunts he heard footsteps behind him.

As Six checked his sides the elite ultra deactivated its camo and with a ferocious battle cry swinged its energy sword towards Six whom managed not to get a direct hit but was still hit in the side, the hit consuming all of its energy shields, ‘’I’m hit, need a hand!’’ shouted the spartan, ‘’Six hold on I’m coming’’ said kureha as she started sprinting towards her partner while laying some well placed ar shots on the elite, as the elite was stunned by the cover fire of Kureha and now unshielded Six took the opportunity and unholstering his combat knife he performed an assassination move on the disoriented elite.

‘’That was a close one, the bastard took out my shields and i felt what is like to be nearly stabbed by an energy sword’’ said Six, ‘’next time pay more attention you moron, you almost got yourself killed!’’said kureha, ‘’I’m lucky i have my warrior princess protecting me’’ said Six with a smirk under it’s helmet, ‘’You are unfair!’’ said kureha pouting, ‘’now let’s get moving FOB Echo seems to be operational and It’s only 700 meters from here’’ said Six.

[Outskirts of Zelletelio forest, near Zeta Halo Remnants 18:07]

Sinon had been walking in the forest for half an hour and to her surprise she encountered very little monsters ‘’maybe those islands crash landing in the forest scared them’’ she said to herself.

After getting out of the town sinon wanted to check one of the islands that had fallen from the enormous ring that was over her head, she was curious to see what was inside of those giant artificial islands, and judging by the tray of gigant metal looking pillars that was near the road she was crossing, she was going in the right direction.

After some minutes of walk an icon popped up on her hud, ass she opened the map she was greeted with the message new destination discovered with the name ZETA HALO written in english letters instead of japanese kanji, ‘’this is odd, why is it written in english?’’ she thought, but her thoughts were short lived as she heard footsteps coming her way.

On the artificial hill made of the same pillars she saw on her way to this strange Zeta halo location Sinon noticed two figures clad in what looked like futuristic power armor: the first figure looked more carefree, it was wearing a pink armor that had cat ears on the helmet, the second one instead looked more careful, it was about 20 cm taller than its counterpart and had a gray armor with red details, in his arms what looked the biggest assault rifle Sinon had ever seen.

‘’This is strange, they can’t be GGO players. I was the only one to come this way and I've never seen their gear… hmmm, maybe they are npcs but it’s rather unlikely, i should approach them’’ Thought sinon while loading a fresh mag into her beloved Hecate II.

As the two got closer Sinon pointed her sniper rifle and shouted ‘’freeze! Leave your guns and put your hands up where i can see them!’’The two figures suddenly stopped and watched as the girl with blue hair that told them to stop was aiming a big sniper rifle to Six’s head.

‘’Sinon, is that you? ‘’ said Kureha with a confused tone, ‘’how do you know my name, who are you!’’ gasped Sinon, ‘’it’s me  Kureha, we played together in the last squad jam, remember’’ said Kureha as she took off her helmet, as her helmet was in her hands her HUD changed, its wasn’t the Halo infinite that she had grown accustomed to in the last 3 days of playing the game, this hus was reminiscent of the one from ALO.

Sinon was confused, she recognized her friend from GGO but she was in some strange power armor with a big unknown man at her side, this made her worry for her friend, ‘’Hi Kureha, why are you in that strange armor and who is the man at your side, also i didn’t remember you being online in GGO when we got in this place’’ asked sinon with a concerned voice, ‘’i wasn’t online on GGO because i was playing another game the name it’s Halo Infinite, and the one at my side is my boyfriend Six, we played GGO together sometimes if you remember, we were playing together when Zeta Halo the big ring above us was teleported into this world and the damaged section where we were lost its integrity and crash landed into the forest.’’answered kureha.

‘’We should get to FOB Echo before nightfall, we can't spot the camo elites without light and we haven't unlocked the threat sensor already’’ said Six, ‘’he is right Sinon we should go to the FOB it’s a safe zone and the marines will defend it against the banished patrols’’said kureha, ‘’wait before i forgot, when you log out your avatar remain in the game, and also what are marines and banished?’’ asked sinon in a perplexed tone, ‘’the banished are the main enemy of halo infinite, their leader Escharum is located inside the house of reckoning

That big building you can see at the horizon, our goal in the game was to defeat him and the marines are soldiers of the UNSC, the same faction we are part of, they are NPCs, now we must hurry to the FOB explanation can wait, first we have to sort out this situation.’’ answered Six, ‘’ok lead the way’’ said Sinon.

Once at FOB Echo Six and Kureha took their helmets off and started discussing with sinon about how they got into this situation.

The three of them came to the conclusion that all the VRMMO were mashed in a big game and that they would log out for the day and seek information about everything.

‘’I’ll call you as soon as I know if this has happened to Kirito and the others, ok Kureha?’’ said sinon, ‘’sure we will start to search and see if there are any news about this’’ answered Kureha, ‘’are you sure we are safe in the FOB?’’asked perplexed Sinon, ‘’FOBs are equipped with autocannons and a marine fireteam, they will defend our bodies while we are offline’’ answered Six.

After that they all logged out.

//STORY ENDS//

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Revelations

//STORY START//

The evening of september 27th was the biggest day for media and press since the SAO accident in 2022.

The world where all the VRMMOs were now merged was called Unital Ring and was the headline on every newspaper and news channel in the gaming world.

[September 27th, Tokyo, Sinon’s apartment 20:03]

As soon as she logged out of Unital Ring, Sinon phoned her best friend Asuna to ask her if she and Kirito had gotten in the same world as her.

‘’Hi sinon, what’s the matter?’’ said Asuna as she answered the phone, ‘’Did you and Kirito end up in another place while you were playing ALO?’’ Asked Sinon, ‘’Yes something happened we were in the log house when all of a sudden we started to fall towards a big forest’’ said Asuna, ‘’then what happened?’’ asked Sinon, ‘’then a giant ring appeared above us and a big part of it fell into the forest’’said Asuna, ‘’then it’s like I thought we landed near each other, a friend of mine was playing the game where the ring is from when all of this happened’’ said Sinon.

The two girls went on telling each other what happend and then decided to meet at Dicey Cafe the next day.

[September 28th, Tokyo, Six and Kureha’s apartment 14:17]

As Kureha got out of the shower and checked her phone she noticed a message from sinon telling her and her boyfriend to meet with her at Dicey Cafe, and that she gathered some friends to talk about what was happening with this Unital Ring.

After 30 minutes Six and Kureha were in front of the Dicey Cafe.

As they entered the Cafe they were greeted by the owner and SAO survivor Agil, the man took the two of them to Sinon's table.

There were two people with Sinon: one was a boy with blach hair and eyes and a girl with beautiful chestnut hair, the two were Kirito and Asuna, two of the top players of ALO and former SAO survivors,known as the black swordsman and the lightning flash.

‘’Hi everyone nice to meet you my name is Takamine Momiji and this is my boyfriend Remida Kazuma, we are Sinon’s friends from GGO’’ said Kureha as she introduced herself and her boyfriend to Sinon’s friends, ‘’nice to meet you Takamine-san, Remida-kun, my name is Yuuki Asuna and this is my boyfriend Kirigaya Kazuto.’’ said Asuna.

‘’I called you today to discuss what happened yesterday, as we all know something brought together all VRMMOs into one single VR world called Unital Ring, and as we noticed yesterday when you log out your avatar simply stands still and is vulnerable to attacks at all times, fortunately while i was exploring the forest I managed to meet Kureha and Six and we managed to get to a safe location from their game of origin were we could log out safely.’’ said Sinon.

‘’Sorry to interrupt You Sinonon but which game are you from guys?’’ asked Asuna.

‘’We are from a sci-fi game Called halo infinite, in the game our avatars are supersoldiers of the UNSC, the spartans, most of our equipment converted into the new game as well as out enemy the banished, when we got into the forest we saw a big portion of the ring falling inside it and one of their ships crash landed near the fragment, in no time they will conquer the forest’’ said Six.

‘’What about the log-out how did you manage to get to safety?’’ asked kirito, ‘’we got to one of the UNSC’s FOBs they are safe locations protected by marine npcs and autocannons for AA defense, it's like a small bastion and from what i noticed when we took it back this game added an upgrade tab to buildings i didn’t get into the details, what about you where did you log out?’’asked Six to Kirito.

‘’Our log house from ALO came to this new world with us and now Alice and Yui are watching over our avatars’’ answered Kirito, ‘’wait Alice?, the same AI from raths i worked with her.. How… nevermind, we shall meet inside the game and secure your log house if you can manage to send me a set of coordinates i can track a route to your log house’’ said Six, ‘’sure thing now let's go back home and then we shall meet inside unital ring’’ said Kirito.

With that the group thanked Agil and proceeded to get back to their respective homes.

[September 28th, Unital Ring, Zetiello Forest, 16:00]

Six, Kureha and Sinon logged back inside of Unital Ring and found themselves back at FOB Echo in the same place they left.

The three decided to get going toward the coordinates given to them by kirito AI ‘’daughter’’ Yui.

[September 28th, Zetiello Forest, Kirito and Asuna log house, 16:30]

30 minutes had passed since they first logged in, kirito was trying to figure out how the building system worked in this game while Asuna and Alice were playing with Yui, their activities were suddenly interrupted when they heard Sinon’s voice announcing her and their new friends, Kirito, Asuna, Alice and Yui moved to the front door to welcome their guests they were met by sinon flanked by two figures clad in futuristic power armor, as the two figures reached the house they took their helmets off revealing their avatar’s faces.

‘’Hi everyone’’ said Kureha, ‘’Kirito, Asuna, Alice’’ said Six, hearing the man’s voice Alice gasped ‘’Doctor Remida what are you doing here!’’, ‘’the same as you, I was playing games with Kureha when I got teleported into this world’’ said Six.

‘’Wait you know alice?’’ asked kirito with a surprised look, ‘’we worked together on a project, i will tell you more when we properly secure your log house’’replied Six.

Then he detached a small circular module from his belt and opened his TAC map in display mode showing a tri dimensional representation of Zetiello forest.

‘’This module right here is a UNSC beacon, it can convert every location into a UNSC FOB, you will receive a small squad of marines and a level one auto turret to protect the location, they are already en route’’ said Six, ‘’Thanks, now we won't have to worry about getting killed while we are offline’’ said Asuna.

As the group was talking about the game a loud noise and a pop up message appeared in their view.

SYSTEM WIDE BROADCAST INITIATED, with that the message was replaced by an audio spectrum, and a message played.

‘’The hour approaches, our forces occupy the ring, within hours it will be under our control.

The UNSC will burn, their brazen defiance will be all but a memory.

No more Prophets, No more lies, WE STAND TOGETHER BROTHERS TO THE END, WE ARE HIS WILL, WE ARE HIS LEGACY, WE ARE THE BANISHED’’.

‘’Who was the one speaking? Was it a player?’’ asked kirito perplexed, ‘’no it wasn’t a player, that was Escharum, war chief of the Banished, he is the main villain of the game we are from, Halo infinite.

//STORY ENDS//