#me when i'm sacrificing the first place i found safety in because they refused to protect my loved one: 😁😁😆😆

[dreamofimmortality]

[Image description: Collage of panels of Yukimi from chapter 48 of Nabari no Ou, zoomed in on him smiling and grinning while battling Raikou. End description]

some sort of compilation 😁😆

[rhamrhanch]

Shepherd of Death, Don't Herd Me

Part Six: Rook Takes Knight

Rating: Mature

Pairing: Ramattra/Reader (gender-neutral pronouns)

Word Count: 2.7K

Warnings: canon-typical violence, hurt/comfort

Next Chapter // Masterlist

A/N: polished the previous chapters. also if this chapter feels short it's because I split the original in half because it was getting too long, so the next chapter should come out in a day or two. thanks for reading!

chapter under the cut ↓

---

Of all the possible factors that made this match so insurmountably difficult, being distracted by your opponent was one you expected the least.

Sleep deprivation clouding your mind was taxing enough, and that was without the added burden of needing to outsmart an omnic in a game of strategy. Not just any omnic either; a Ravager, armed with unrivaled processing power and crafted specifically for tactical decision making in battle. The environment may have changed, but his approach certainly did not. Your hubris would not allow you to admit that perhaps you were in over your head.

Knowing what a considerable disadvantage you were at, you still couldn't keep your thoughts from straying from the game at hand. It was odd, though, what became the object of your focus. In the moments between your turns, you found your gaze lingering not on the board in front of you, but on your opponent’s hands.

They moved gracefully, always with purpose. When he finished his turn, they did not linger or fidget, always returning to rest on his knees. As if he refused to waste any time or energy letting them idle.

You watched his slender fingers as they picked up the chess pieces, listened to the scrape of the hinges that connected the segments together. The memory of holding his hand between yours, bending his fingers and kneading the rusted joints of his wrist and arm, resurfaced. You remembered how his thumb and forefinger had twitched when you ran your fingertips just below his wrist and up the center of his palm, so fast that you almost hadn't caught it. You had wondered after that moment if certain parts of his body held more active sensors than others, if his hands were more acutely tuned to sensation than the rest of him. His hands, cold when they had wrapped around your throat with the intent to kill. The same hands that had circled your waist and pulled you to safety.

Hands that knew the weight of a gun.

It had been a constant nagging thought in the back of your mind ever since you first laid eyes on him. As one of the few Ravagers that remained after the Crisis, he belonged to the ever-decreasing group of people that held the answers to questions you had always harbored.

What had it felt like, to be under the yoke of Anubis? Did he remember any of it, the thousands of omnics he had led into battle? Did his memories haunt him, awakened at random to remind him of what he had done, as yours did? Or was it like this, the omnics he commanded sacrificed as easily as if they were no more than pawns on a chessboard?

"Your turn."

His voice snapped you out of your thoughts, and you finally noticed Ramattra's hand had returned to rest on his knee, signaling the end of his turn. Your eyes darted around the board, searching for any clue as to what exactly he did. After finding nothing, you glanced back up at him.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. What did you do?"

He crossed his arms and clicked in distaste. It was interesting, you thought, that for an omnic with such disdain for humanity, he adopted many of their mannerisms.

"I moved my bishop from here," he said, lifting his arm and pointing to an empty square and then another diagonal to it four squares away, "to here."

Your brow furrowed as you analyzed the move. That was not the play you expected. His bishop was suspiciously unintrusive, considering the position of your pieces. You looked to where your knight stood, having edged closer and closer to his king over the course of the game. His bishop was not even in place to threaten it, let alone any of your other pieces.

As the game continued, the bishop remained, a constant presence that confounded you, but otherwise posed no issue. It was not long before you simply assumed that he had only placed it there to take space and would never move it. That is, until you led your king away from the threatening advance of his rook, and he finally pushed his bishop two squares over.

"Checkmate."

Your eyes snapped up to his face plate in an instant. "What?"

His chin dipped down as he met your gaze. "You cannot move your king. That means you're in checkmate, correct?"

You looked down at the board. He was right—your king was completely cornered. You had lost. How did you miss that?

"Yes," you answered softly, dazed by how quickly the game had ended. "That's… correct."

"Then I assume I've won?"

Strangely, you felt no disappointment in your chest at having been defeated so swiftly. There was something else, something electrifying that rushed throughout your body and prickled in the tips of your fingers. It felt… exhilarating.

The smallest of smiles rose to your face. "Yes," you repeated, and extended your hand to him. "Good game."

Ramattra stared down at your outstretched hand for a moment, as if unsure what to do with it. Then, you felt the familiar chill of metal as his fingers slid against your palm, grasping your hand in his. He squeezed your hand tightly for a moment before quickly loosening his grip, as if he had only just realized your hand was not as sturdy as his.

You brought your joined hands up and back down in a curt motion, before releasing him and immediately reaching toward the pile of discarded pieces. "Shall we play again?"

He watched you silently as you reset the pieces. Then, he collected the significantly smaller pile of discarded pieces on his side into his palm and began placing them on the board after you, mirroring your movements.

"Fine," he said brusquely, his tone contrasting with the gentle way he handled the pieces. "Perhaps this time you will not be so preoccupied."

Your face warmed, and you sincerely hoped his words came from coincidence and not observation. "I'll try my best."

---

"Ah, a Sicilian defense."

Ramattra paused, hand hovering over the piece he had just moved. "What?"

Your head popped out from behind the book in your hand, titled 100 Chess Openings for Amateurs. After your seventh consecutive loss, your ego had been bruised enough to finally consider assistance from accompanying literature.

"What you just did."

His tone was one of disbelief. "You have a colloquial term for this move?"

"Well, how else would you remember it?"

"It is the most advantageous move for my position," he answered curtly. "I do not require a nickname to recognize that."

Sometimes you wondered if he was being rude on purpose. It wasn't as though it would have been out of character for him. For the week that you had continued this routine, the few times you dared to ask Ramattra to explain the strategy behind his decisions were shut down immediately. Usually, it was because he had ignored your question entirely, but the few times he did answer, he would say something along the lines of It was the correct move or I had no use for that piece anymore, with little regard to how vague and entirely unhelpful his explanations were.

Though, you supposed you couldn't hold it entirely against him. From the many, many games you had played and, subsequently, lost against him, it seemed that no matter how hard you tried, outmaneuvering you would always amount to little more than child's play to him. For someone to whom tactical precision was second nature, trying to explain decisions that were made on instinct would likely be difficult.

On some level, you could relate to that. As an engineer, you'd had your fair share of situations where someone had asked you to explain why you did this or that, and you found yourself searching for the words to explain something that had no explanation. Only that it felt right, so you had done it.

Following the steps outlined in your book, you expanded out with your knight. Ramattra reacted instantly, placing one of his pawns two squares forward. Oddly, it was at this moment that you truly felt the cosmic unfairness of this matchup.

You had not imagined that playing chess against Ramattra would be a walk in the park, but some part of you (an extremely naive part, you now realized) thought it would have at least been manageable. But the rapidness of his movements, the split second it took for him to reach decisions that would have taken you ten times as long…

Ramattra was more than just calculating. He was creative.

He adapted on the spot, molded his approach based on how you were playing. His moves, once defensive, could switch seamlessly in an instant, putting you on the backfoot without a single moment of hesitation. And, perhaps most aggravating of all, was how incredibly fast he learned. Not only were you fighting against his own mind, but all your previous behaviors compounded.

The engineer in you felt the urge to applaud Anubis, to acknowledge how incredible the intelligence forged within its omnium was. But every cursory glance you spared at the omnic sitting opposite from you only served to remind you what he had been created for. Any praise you could have lauded Anubis vanished like smoke in the wind at the thought of what such an extraordinary mind had been wasted on.

A click rung in the air as Ramattra moved his rook, its quartz base tapping against the smooth surface of the board. You glanced back at your book, an idea forming in the corners of your mind.

Holding your chin in your hand, you fixed the Ravager with a look of faux concern. "What an odd play. Are you sure about that?"

Ramattra said nothing. His face remained expressionless as always, but you felt his scrutinizing gaze pierce through you. "How so?"

You hummed, pretending to scan your book closely, before shrugging your shoulders. "If you think it's fine, then I suppose it doesn't matter."

He fell silent again, folding his arms across his chest as he considered you. You fought every instinct you had to break as you met his gaze, lifting your chin in a show of confidence. There was the telltale hiss of air from his vents before he spoke again.

"You are trying to mislead me."

His instant identification of what you were doing rattled you a little, but you put on a show of innocence as you asked, "What gave you that impression?"

He tilted his head down at you. "You are not a convincing liar."

As if to prove his point, you scowled and dropped the act immediately, letting your book fall in your lap. "Fine, you caught me." A wry grin made its way onto your face. "I should have known better than to try to trick you."

"Yes," he said coldly. "You should have."

Your face fell. There was a harsh bite to his words, almost resentful. It was so unexpected that it slammed you back to the present, and you were suddenly reminded of the reality of what you were doing.

This was not a casual game of chess between companions. You were not doing this for fun. The only reason you were doing this at all was to stall for Winston until he found some leverage that could convince Ramattra to cooperate.

He had no interest in you or the outcome of this game. The only reason he had even agreed to this was because he had nothing else to do on account of being imprisoned. Because of you. Because he was the leader of Null Sector, and you were an engineer for Overwatch.

You cleared your throat, avoiding looking at his face plate as you reached toward the board.

Neither of you spoke for the rest of the game.

---

Ramattra watched you leave, chess box tucked under your arm as usual. You lingered by the closed door until the sound of multiple automatic locks clicking into place resounded in the quiet. Your footsteps echoed behind you as you walked to the other end of the hall faster than usual, before silence settled around him once again.

Only once you were fully out of his sight did he allow his shoulders to fall, bringing a hand to his face plate as his vision blurred with static. The same red warning message blared on his HUD as it had for the past week, signaling his lack of power. It had been at a manageable level for a few days, but it seemed he was finally reaching his limit.

He relied on his ship's circular power relay for recharging, but it had been… How long had it been since his power cores were last at full capacity? Before he met you, certainly, which had been after his attack on Gothenburg. That was several months ago.

He had started entering brief rest periods in your absence to conserve what little energy remained in his power cores, but it would not last forever. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed how weak he was, and there would be little he could do to resist whatever Overwatch decided to do with him.

Ramattra cursed his lack of foresight. Rarely did he ever allow the periods between recharges to lapse this much, but with the responsibilities of leading Null Sector falling solely on his shoulders now, it was difficult to dedicate time to maintaining himself. Not for the first time, he felt the overbearing weight of his solitude. He should have let Talon find you, and he would have never ended up here.

You, who he had initially thought of as nothing more than a human engineer who reserved a moment of kindness for a Ravager, had now become a constant that his days revolved around. To his surprise, your presence had actually grown to something he looked forward to.

The hours spent in your company, playing a simple game in the quiet serenity of the conference room… Yes, he supposed he had come to enjoy it, if only a little.

He could not help but be impressed by the rather stalwart defense you put up against him. Even during you first match, what he expected to be a relatively simple defeat took him longer than he anticipated. Learning from your moves, planning several turns ahead how to outmaneuver you… it was almost fun.

But with that thought came the ever-present feeling that he was wasting time. Every day that passed with him still caged in this room was another day he could have spent rebuilding his forces, planning his next invasion. He still needed to consult with Talon about retrieving his drowned ship. Even partially destroyed, it was still better than having to build another from scratch. But instead, here he remained, no further along in his plans than he was the day he woke in your workshop, mangled and half-functioning.

Perhaps that had been your intention. To waste his processing power on something so trivial, so he would not have the wherewithal to think of anything else. You claimed your motivations were innocent, but what reason did he have to trust you, someone who had betrayed him once before without a second thought? If you saw him in this state, what reason did he have to assume you wouldn't take advantage of his weakness?

When once you so fiercely guarded your thoughts from him, now you spoke to him casually, almost familiarly. You spoke to him, smiled at him, even dared to joke with him at times, as if you were simply two acquaintances catching up over a game of chess. As if you were not an agent of Overwatch, and he was not the leader of Null Sector. As if you were not a human, and he was not created to kill you.

When he escaped this place, and he would escape, did you think he would change his mind? That he would abandon his righteous cause, simply because one human spared him from their hatred?

You should have known better than to be friendly with him. You should have known better than to speak with him, to take pity on him, to thank him, to betray him.

In the end, he would be your destruction.

[roseylaces]

I'm sorry but why do you like sword art online so much??? And like is Asuna really strong.. because didn't she "die" (and how is she alive even -___-) and also got captured and molested and stripped yet didn't at least yell at the man or something? Like, she could've kicked - sorry in advance if her legs were chained up or something I forgot but? Idk spat at him?

okay this answer is going to be really long, so apologies in advance if that’s not your style… yet this ask ticked something in me, and i have to justify myself as to why i love sao, and why asuna is such a strong heroine, character, and person.

first of all, i definitely think this ask could’ve been worded better. wondering how asuna survived sao and forgetting what even happened during the final battle in fairy dance is a definite indicator of your lack of research.

im hoping that the answer to your first question will become evident as i answer your other queries, because im sure my passion for the series will come to light.

for your second question, yes, asuna truly is strong, in every sense of the word. she is physically strong, mentally strong, and spiritually strong. at the beginning of sword art online, asuna was a fifteen year old girl, suddenly removed from everything she knew. from the safe, incubator-style life she had lived up until that point, from her parents, life, and school, into a world where she did not know a single thing; a place where she had to fight to live without even knowing how. she had to constantly overcome her own mind, and strive to survive in a world that always tried to end her. if you were faced with the prospect of death at the slightest wrong turn, would you even try to push forward? i doubt many people would, yet asuna did. despite knowing that her efforts may amount to nothing, she refused to sit still, constantly fighting mobs in the first floor’s dungeon just to prove that she would not give in. she went to the most dangerous part of the floor at that time, and battled. from the beginning, her worth as a member of the game’s frontlines was secured, and even kirito knew this. when she first met kirito, she told him that she had to fight, and how that would be the one thing to determine her worth. if she was going to die, she was to do it on her own terms. how much strength must you possess to overcome a will to admit defeat and harness a determination to not play by the rules? not even kirito was able to think that way.

additionally, she is physically strong. after the sao incident, she pushed her weakened body to its limits, refusing to let what had happened to her determine her future. im not lying when i say she could definitely beat kirito in a real-life fight if that were to ever happen. shes very active, and even before the sao incident she was a fit person, which was one of the reasons why her agility in sao was so great. a part of the indicator for abilities in sao, although primarily determined by the system, also comes down to physical prowess, and this is something that enabled asuna to continue to be perceived as strong.

further to this, she’s spiritually strong. even after kirito found her in the first floor dungeon, she refused to become a damsel who submitted herself to her ‘more powerful’ partner, seeking to possess further strength so that she could be his equal. even when she joins the knights of the blood and she falls in love with kirito, she does not let this love stand in the way of her mission and purpose, instead utilising this to enable her to become even stronger. she now had something to fight for. she would not let the game take him from her, or take her from him. asuna is a rare heroine because romance did not become her strength, but instead allowed her strength to become purposeful. shes very inspirational in this regard, and truly is strong. she knows her weaknesses and turns them into power.

during boss battles and whilst frontlining, asuna never, ever let kirito do anything that would deny her determination and personal strength. she fought as her own person, was revered as the subleader of the biggest guild, and was able to do so because she possessed such powers. yes, she fought alongside kirito, but he never shut her out for her safety or dulled her light. she protected her own raid party, sometimes up to 47 others, kept control of the guild, and made the most out of every unfortunate situation. she entered sao not knowing a single thing about mmorpg combat, but she continued to learn, and utilise this new knowledge in order to push herself further. she saw kirito as a partner and a mentor, and soon became his equal and, i would even say, surpassed him in her understanding of technique and strategy. although she is partnered with kirito often, she is always considered her own player, her own person, dubbed ‘the flash’. only truly strong players are given nicknames, and this is an indicator of her strength.

and yes, asuna did die within sao during the 75th floor boss fight. she died because she sacrificed herself for the sake of the entire raid group; for the entire player population of sao. asuna knew that if it came down to either her or kirito, kirito would be the one that had to live in order to continue the endeavour towards beating the death game. he had the dual blade wielding ability, he was chosen by heathcliff/kayaba to be the game’s sole saviour. she jumped in front of heathcliff, a seemingly immortal object, to take the blow for kirito and give him a chance to fight and win. she did not die unnecessarily, she did not die in vain. she knew that her sacrifice would be for the sake of those 8,000 players still within sao. this act in itself is the true indicator of asuna’s strength. the ability to think of the greater good over one’s own self, and the act of sacrifice in such a dismal and dire situation, are both things that only those who are truly powerful in their mentality and sense of self would be able to do.

asuna was able to live because kayaba recognised this power. he recognised that asuna’s death was valiant and altruistic. her defeat was for the sake of those she did not even know. i know many people say that she jumped in front of heathcliff with for the sole purpose of protecting kirito, but this greatly undermines asuna. although, yes, she wanted to protect him, she was also thinking about the bigger picture - the future of sao - and knew that kirito was the necessary piece in the game to ensure survival. he would be the beacon of hope, and asuna knew that this was not the role set of her. so she did what she had to do, even if this ended her life. kayaba realised that asuna did not deserve to die, that her sacrifice was so great that to kill her would defeat the purpose of his ‘world’. so he saved her. it was her reward for possessing such inner strength.

to answer your third question, asuna was bound by her hands to the ceiling within the last battle scene with fairy king obeiron (sugou), and constrained by the manipulation of gravity as utilised by sugou by the alfheim system. she could not move at all, and these chains were deemed as immortal objects by this same system. also, asuna did yell at sugou. she demanded for him to stop. yet there was not much she could do, given the situation. if she refused too fervently, sugou could have hurt kirito more severely than what he did by turning down the pain absorption to a lower level, and if that had occured, she would never have been able to forgive herself. the lower pain absorption would have hurt her, too, and this is a key factor to keep in mind when analysing this scene. asuna had to make very quick, very calculated decision in such a short and desperate span of time. she had to decide the best way to ensure her and kirito’s safety, which would be so so difficult, seeing as the safest option would be to have sugou sexually harass her, to satisfy him and hopefully prevent him from doing anything horrific. of course, she would not want this, but thinking about the bigger scheme of things, sugou harming her would be better than fighting back, which may have resulted in having kirito or herself killed. she had to restrain her desires to give up for the sake of their best interests. that’s another exhibition of her strength, and further proves my initial proposal. further to this, she would not spit on sugou because she would in no way stoop to his level. she had to be above him, and refuse him in a way that proved his abhorrent insolence. asuna is so so strong because of this, and she is such a wonderful character.

as i said at the beginning, this became very long, but i truly am passionate about proving that asuna is a strong character, and that sword art online is so much more than what people think it to be. the characters are very complex and three dimensional, the story is engaging and very well thought out, and nothing happens without a reason. every action has a reaction, and kawahara-sensei is a master novelist for this reason. if i can convince even one more person that sao is not worth the hate it gets, or that asuna is not just a member of kirito’s (non-existent) harem, i feel like i would have done my job as an advocate for the series, and i hope people come to understand my love for the series and its characters.