It had begun when the 75th dungeon boss did not spawn in the raid party's field of view.

Asuna, just as thrown for a loop as anybody else in the room, skidded to a halt between Kirito, who was focused on observing every single angle of attack a mob could take firstly against herself, then his own self; and Heathcliff, slowly circling in place, searching specifically for the boss.

"This is unexpected..." Her guild leader had muttered.

An unfortunate series of events coalesced into one large blur after that.

An hour later, with Kirito's back pressing against her own in a team effort to stay upright, those three words sidled back into her mind and continued to tick away. Why would anyone have needed to say such a sentence out loud? They all knew exactly what they had to expect; that they had no clue what to expect. With ten scouts lost in a prior failed 'this is what to expect' attempt, the clearers understood only that they were going in blind.

Exhausted and overjoyed to be alive, she may be. But Asuna, an academically outstanding student with respect for grammar far beyond the norm, couldn't overlook this vernacular oddity.

She watched him, briefly. He stood facing away from them, with his sword and shield positioned at ease before him. Tall and composed as ever.

"Kirito? I'm sending you a PM." An utterance as quiet as possible. She felt him shift as her slender fingers flew over immaterial keys. Visible, thankfully, only to their user.

{Heathcliff said something weird earlier. Like he was surprised that... thing didn't appear right away. It's bothering me and I don't know why.} Jabbing out at the send button, Asuna eyed her guildmaster again, fast as lightning, almost like she had a fear of being caught passing answers in an exam. Which was silly, given how far removed such a setting was from her current one.

She found herself unable to laugh despite the obvious fallacy. Kirito's reply flashed in her HUD.

{I was thinking about the same thing. Asuna, don't react. Heathcliff is Kayaba. That has to be why he said it, he didn't expect the boss to deviate like it did.}

'...Excuse me?'

While her mind reeled, her fingers went into auto-pilot mode. {Are you sure? When the hell were you going to tell me?} 'And where did this even come from?'

In retrospect, she would've asked Kirito if he had gone insane instead. But what had they got to lose at this point, really? She could feel he was right, he had to be.

{Right now, I swear. Turn towards him slightly and wait for my signal. I'm gonna hit him, see what happens. Back me up but don't get too close, he has game master powers. He used them in our duel.}

'Damn it, Kirito!' How long had he been holding on to this?

This was it then. Pivoting slowly, she lined up with their new shared target; before even looking at Kirito, Asuna scrabbled around in the dirt to find and hold onto his hand. What scared her most, as usual, in this situation was the boy's goddamn foolhardiness.

He gripped her hand back, and she finally locked eyes with him. Much like when he had crucified his reputation and become a 'Beater', these stakes thrown on the table were extreme. If this turned out to be unfounded... she hoped the overwhelming worry in her heart for his wellbeing was obvious enough in her expression.

As he gazed back, putting on that carefree smile that had come to soothe her emotions so much, she couldn't help but smile softly too - even make a quip, ignoring how the corners of her eyes were beginning to feel damp.

"Some boss battle, huh?" Her estimations of this ending well were rapidly slimming. Already, fourteen people had died in this particular hellhole; and now they were plotting to attack Heathcliff of all people. Leader of a significant portion of the clearers, a player who's health had never been seen to drop below the halfway mark. Asuna trusted Kirito like no other, trusted his instinct was correct, as he did for her... but she'd drop dead herself before she allowed him to become the fifteenth. And whether he was wrong or right, he was about to risk just that.

Leaning towards her, gently running his thumb in circles on the back of her hand, he whispered back.

"One last fight. I promised I'd get you home." They spent a moment in silence, sharing resolution.

"Well you goddamn better make sure you come with me." That made him chuckle, gravitas asides.

His free hand moved to his black sword's hilt. "Let's do this."

Heathcliff's broad back was wide and suddenly very invitingly open. Asuna had a very itchy swordhand.

Kirito coiled, and burst forward, tailed very closely by a flash of white and red.

There was no telling exactly how fast they closed the gap, but none of their friends or acquaintances reacted before a sword skill thundered against the paladin's armour - and dissipated, leaving its executor frozen in cooldown momentarily. Heads began to turn towards the source of the pitched soundwave that rushed over them; Asuna snapped into position on Kirito's flank, rapier fixed at half-guard extending over his elbow, directly at a fluorescent indigo label hanging in midair.

Immediately above the connecting point of sword and cuirass.

[IMMORTAL OBJECT!]

"Commander...?"

"Kayaba." Kirito dispelled the illusion with malice and a small hint of pleasure.

He hadn't moved. Maybe he's trying to think of an excuse, Asuna reasoned to herself. The world around them caught up, those closest surely able to see the damning evidence before it faded. Several weapons quite literally growled, screeched, as they were picked up or redrawn. Agil rose into view, standing, readying his man-sized double axe; Klein's voice registered from behind. Even Kibaou himself, visible in the background Asuna could see beyond her traitorous leader, aimed his scimitar carefully.

Kirito swung his left arm back to land another blow.

"Wonderful." It flooded the room in stillness anew. "Just as I would've credited the two of you. Pray tell..."

His face was infuriatingly nonchalant. If only Asuna had a swarm of bulls. "What gave me away?"

Kirito's eyes flickered to Asuna's, then back. At some point they'd retaken each others' hand. "It's pretty simple, honestly. An old rule of thumb for gamers - why watch when you can play?" Heathcliff actually looked taken aback at these words. "And played you have, with your spotless record... how long did you think you could carry on never hitting the red before someone got suspicious? Against a boss like this, or the ones coming up?"

He could have given away the true reasons. It was a red herring, a ploy. Asuna had to act the part. If only Kirito appeared to be a genuine threat, maybe she could catch him unawares. 'Immortal object' be damned.

"You... lied to us? For all this time?"

Heathcliff shut his eyes, as if making a decision.

"Very well. Indeed... I am Kayaba Akihiko. And for all intents and purposes, I am your final boss." He didn't wait for the subsequent uproar to fizzle out. Drawing his two foremost fingers through the air, he threw a slashing motion. All the players fell like he'd cut their virtual strings.

Except two.

Kirito didn't move; Asuna only felt him tense up, as she span her head, searching reflexively for the slightest hint of a polygon.

"Paralysis!" Somebody shrieked.

Kayaba followed up with another slash, and nobody else replied. "There, ten minutes to ourselves."

So went their element of surprise.

She couldn't hold it in anymore. Desperation was wetting her eyes again, and beneath it roiled darker seas. "You bastard! Just let us go! Let us go home."

"I have an offer for you both." The murdering psychopath almost looked excited. "If you defeat me in combat, here and now, I will set you free. I will not use any of my advantages; you will be my equals. I promise you this."

"Why the fuck would we trust you?" Kirito spelled it out. "Don't you have some 'master plan' up your sleeve?"

Chuckling, Kayaba shook his head. "Rest assured, I did. Fortunately, you've dealt a far more thrilling hand; one that I will not pass. You have my word... if you are victorious."

He probably thought they'd need more than fifteen seconds to decide.

The two young lovers turned to each other, hand in hand. "Don't you dare say it." Asuna managed without sniffling. It hadn't escaped her how rapidly this had escalated, too fast to make anything but a rash decision... but home was potentially in sight. This had to be done.

"Let me fight him alone, Asuna. He's too powerful."

"Don't be stupid!" In reality, she easily would have risked crushing his fingers. "We're doing this together."

There was no argument to be brooked. Kirito squared back up to their captor.

"...You're on."

Kayaba seperated his shield and sword as his two opponents took their stances parallel to each other. Asuna, standing habitually tall and regal in a fencing pose, was radiating fire with her eyes; Kirito showed no sign of giving the slightest quarter, summoning his second sword immediately. "No more tricks... Kayaba."

"Good luck." He swiped once and a notification appeared.

[MORTAL OBJECT]

All three players immediately kicked up showers of dust; Kirito's left-handed swing bounced off the shield, Kayaba slid a foot backwards and leaned back from Asuna's piercing jabs at his face. His longsword forced her retreat, ploughing through the air where her arm had just been, the massive shield came to his front to reflect an overhanded volley from Kirito, and he charged forwards. Asuna had no choice but to leap to the side, turning the motion into a pirouette on landing. She thrust out at his arm as he passed, scoring a small gash; Kirito pursued him as she shifted her balance, attempting to force an opening past the wall with heavy blows.

The trio gradually circumvented each other, racing along a complicated overlap of circles; none dared use a sword skill, lest they be left behind. They flowed out of the knot of littered players, towards a darker corner of the arena, casting lingering arcs of coloured light with every move.

Asuna and Kirito converged in front for a window of opportunity; with both swords pressed up against Kayaba's shield, he dug his feet in and used the entirety of his strength stat to push all three instruments above their heads. Asuna's rapier surged into the gap to take a chunk of Kayaba's health, then the shield returned to shut the way.

He went on the defensive, snaking backwards, sword facing Asuna and shield to Kirito. As they were not in an official duel, they could not see his HP; just the numerous small cuts they'd left on him so far.

Asuna sprang forth, looking to keep the pressure up. Kirito's own speed was increasing but Kayaba's new strategy and range of protection from such a shield was too wide and adaptable. She had to find a weak point, get a critical hit in, while he was distracted. There were no gaps in his armour, however, not even to a narrow blade like hers. Launching attack after attack, to her dismayal, none of them landed. Kayaba was fast; Kirito may have been taking his attention, but he was no longer bothering to fend Asuna off. He just kept moving, avoiding her rapier, taking the fight... backwards?

'Straight into the wall!'

If they could pin his back to it, he'd have no manouverability. They'd overpower him quickly.

Kirito must have caught on too, hence his change of pace. Asuna could taste their victory coming. She had to keep up. With an unfamiliar eagerness for battle, she moved like a cobra, snapping at her prey's heels, once, twice -

Kayaba staggered, a powerful spinning double swing imparting more force than he was ready for.

They had him. It was an instinctual decision, Lambent Light gaining a familiar white glow; she unleashed Star Splash, penetrating and leaving a net of glaring red incisions over the side of her targets' torso.

'How does THAT feel!' She spat at him mentally.

Waiting for the cooldown to let her move, it was only then that she heard Kirito call out in fear.

"ASUNA!"

Kayaba looked at her, unresponsive to his wounds.

'Oh.' She'd overextended.

Funny... she never did consider how high his stats and HP may be.

He dropped onto one knee, shield angled downwards, forcing Asuna's blade arm into the ground; she followed along with it, unable to resist while frozen by game mechanics, bashing her head on the stone flooring and sprawling helplessly. Kayaba span in place, bringing the shield back up to bash away Kirito's furious hurried cross strikes; Asuna heard the impact of it colliding with Kirito's body and knocking him off-balance.

Rolling onto her stomach, vision blurring, she stabbed at his legs as well as she could.

Flashing above her, she saw his own sword positioned in a dagger-like grip to punch straight through her midriff.

Instinctively, she sought out Kirito; he howled gutturally, and with only one sword left to hand from their last exchange, lunged and sliced downwards with a sword skill of his own, taking Kayaba's sword arm off cleanly at the shoulder.

Kayaba tossed away his shield, snatched the blade from mid-air and twirled, delivering a retaliatory line across Kirito's midriff.

Asuna truly froze. Kirito's eyes had shot to his own HP bar... had wandered back to hers. In slow motion, she threw out a hand to grab him.

"I must congratulate you for putting me below half my heal–"

Kirito exploded into a shower of glass.

Kayaba paused, staring blankly; then looked at his weapon. "Oh. I must not have turned off the auto-critical option. How regretful."

A single shard of her partner drifted past her face, touched the floor directly next to her hand, and vanished.

The world shrank incredibly fast.

'No... You promised...' She picked up her rapier.

It was like moving in a dream; she blinked, then absently regarded the force with which she was wildly and haphazardly battering on Kayaba's upheld sword. The Asuna on-screen was a dervish of rage, slashing, kicking, slapping; she was viewing herself in a theatre, and she felt nothing; no stimuli, no emotion. No hope.

"Asuna, listen!"

His still alive, still speaking voice mocked her so. Shuffling onwards, she continued lashing out; many bolts of lightning to stun, to kill.

'We were so close.'

"Please!"

'This is my fault. I'm sorry.'

"Wait-"

She'd stopped moving now. Disarmed at some point, her fist opted to punch at Kayaba's face.

Then dropped to rest on his sword, running through her stomach.

Idly, she ran her fingertips along it. Memories of times before Kirito had saved her from suicidal indifference flashed by; was this really how empty she had been back then...?

No. She wasn't empty this time. She had to kill him.

"I apologise, Asuna." He almost managed to deceive her with that piss poor impersonation of remorse.

Kirito's sword caught a stray beam of sunlight, signalling to her. Ultimately it struck her now, in a morbidly ironic sense, just how hyper-realistic this fake world could be.

How unfair. How unjust, how unforgiving. And how malleable.

Laughing softly to no-one in particular, she wrapped her fingers around the freezing metal and held out her opposite hand. "I apologise too."

Kayaba's grunt of surprise was enough. She had the advantage now.

Asuna's head snapped up, her face a marriage of sorrow and ire.

"Game over."

The black blade flew into her awaiting palm, and with a shriek worthy of a thousand banshees, she rammed it straight through his heart.

Trembling together, she and the weapon found solace. Two prolonged beeps signified two deaths.

'We did it.'

One last tear splashed against Elucidator. The world turned white.

—+++++++—

A delicate breeze skirted around her, coming from all directions, carrying waves of her hair with it.

Whether or not that was a sign of good fortune, that she might yet survive, she did not know. But she knew what it meant - it was the familiar not-quite-real wind that she had learned in the last two years to love and despise equally. In spite of all she– they– had achieved, escape from this nightmare still eluded her.

And the worst thing about that revelation is how she then recalled she didn't fucking care anymore.

He'd be disappointed if he saw her like this.

"It's not fair." Since their paths had crossed in a commonplace dungeon she barely recalled, they'd been through so much. They'd fought together, fought with and against others, fought each other; they'd danced, sparred, joked, sung, laughed, cried, campaigned, affiliated, bartered, raided, and lived throughout all of Aincrad. They'd solved crimes together, led factions and small armies, saved hundreds of lives, owned a home, fought serial killers, and run their own business without even reaching 18. Alongside their fellow players, their friends, they'd become virtual legends.

One last hurdle and it had fallen apart. He was gone.

'We were supposed to escape together too.'

Deep down, she knew she would never forget him, always would cherish these memories they had both forged.

But what had been lost?

There was a new emotion, a blurry message to herself that she couldn't quite read properly, rising inside. Shuddering, balling her hands into fists, clenching them so hard her fingers nearly shattered, Asuna opened her eyes. "I..."

Aincrad, the skylocked castle that held all that history, saluted her from afar up on her solitary plateau of cloud and glass. If it had not been for such a sight, she might've believed she was in the afterlife.

'Kirito... I...'

A feeling, that until now, had only delegated itself to family. It would always be with her, luminous, but hiding a dulled sense of loss.

The words defined themselves.

"I love you."

She allowed her soul to saturate in the bittersweet shades of belated admission, initally unreactive when someone walked up next to her, also facing outward into the skies.

"I love you too, Asuna."

"We had so much to look forwards to, and now you're gone." Trying to not let her throat hitch up on her subdued exhalations, as their fingers intertwined, she made to wrap herself around his arm. "I don't kno- I do..." Her voice trailed off.

Kirito and an agape Asuna locked eyes. "Don't cry." He spoke, with all of the sagely intellect she knew him for.

She slapped him hard.

Nearly a minute passed while they both regained their composure.

"I got you ki... you... died." She managed, equally as poetically. He stepped closer, his arms navigating around her waist.

"That's okay. I knew you'd win."

"Idiot."

For the first time since their story had begun, they kissed.

—+++++++—

"Ninety-four percent."

"So it really is over..."

Kirito dismissed the percentage window he'd been counting along with when Asuna murmured into the crook of his neck. In the distance, Aincrad's last two floors slid apart and disintegrated like a titanic failed game of spinning plates.

"I guess he stuck to his word."

Neither of them had really paid attention to it until interrupted, when said pop-up gatecrashed their suddenly rather physical reunion. As it turned out, that had been just in time to catch sight of their little log cabin tumbling into the void; he hadn't missed her sigh of resignment.

With its passing, the two had sat down, feet dangling in endless sky, together. Indeterminate time passed by, as they sporadically relived old memories, sorrows and joys in a new light, the disparateness of this final backdrop allowing them to uncover the true depths of their relationship. It was only now, after two years of having faced and accepting death, they had found themselves admitting their feelings.

The breeze had ceased to be, likely deleted, when he thought of the most important topic of all.

Their real lives.

"Asuna... what's your real name?"

Just as the words escaped his mouth, and she had already turned towards him, her eyes widening in fear, he figured out how rude an enquiry that was -

'Fear?'

"It was beautiful, was it not? Kirito... Asuna."

Bold as brass, over Kirito's shoulder stood Kayaba himself, remaining in the guise of the paladin. The atmosphere changed rapidly.

"Why are you here." Kirito enquired, fully prepared to fight again.

"To thank you. And to talk." Kayaba's shoulders rolled at nobody in particular, visible now under the monotone grey casual clothes that had replaced his armour. "I originally planned to be asking you this question another twenty-five floors from now... forgive me for behaving so anomalously. Such exhilirations asides, though; why do you two think I created Sword Art Online?"

"It doesn't matter, let us go."

Every single time he heard another word out of Kayaba, every time he felt Asuna's trembling, his patience was getting just that little bit thinner.

"It was always a dream of mine, to crea-"

"ENOUGH talk Kayaba! You've finished your little psycho experiment!"

The psycho raised a hand in supplication. "I need you to hear this."

Asuna spoke out at this, in a tone Kirito had not heard before. "Hear what?"

"...I want to see a logout menu. One that fucking works.Then I'll listen. If we don't like it, we're leaving."

"Sword Art Online is a fully encompassing illusory world." Kayaba continued and conceded in sequence, painting a new menu in the air and sweeping it across to Kirito. "A training grounds of sorts, within which one grows accustomed to occupying and manipulating the quanta and qualia of data in all forms."

'I already don't like it.' Prodding at the menu in various places, Kirito noted only two things. It was titled 'TLS-OC', and it was otherwise useless; several unactivatable options were laid out in a single column. With his knowledge in networking, he assumed TLS-OC indeed stood for what was obvious to him, and that it was a nonsensical gimmick to distract them. "What the hell is this?"

"When I'm done, I will enable safe passage for you through that interface, should you so choose." Kayaba took one step closer as he said this. "However, I must implore you to not act without consideration when that time comes."

"And what would make us do that?" Kirito couldn't close the menu himself, so he swatted it to the side of his vision, keeping the bigger threat centre stage.

Sword Art Online's creator lined up his gaze with his feet.

"You cannot go home."

'Motherfucker!'

Asuna all but wailed and started trying to pull them both towards the opposite end of the platform. Kirito intermittently complied, keeping himself positioned as a defensive wall whilst taking an occasional step backwards with her.

"You want some kind of trade, I bet. That's what this menu is for, probably to set up your next stupid game, right?" He was desperately grasping at straws now and he knew it. But he had to try. "If you let her wake up, I'll stay behind." They had no options left. As he finished his impromptu offer, she very nearly dislocated his arm with a sharp yank. That deceit of an escape menu followed him like a vulture diving on a carcass.

"I mean no further harm to either of you. And you will be free of this place, soon. There will be no more games. But I must have you understand this... your lives prior to entering SAO are over. In a manner of speaking, they did not occur for you at all."

He was still a lunatic. And he was going to keep them imprisoned. They had come dangerously close to the precipice; nowhere else to run.

"FUCK YOU! If you touch her, I'll kill you and watch your brain fry, see how you like it, I FUCKING SWEAR!"

A new option, cast in miraculous white, appeared on the menu. 'FDX - 18:65:9...'

Kayaba's shift to an expression of surprise gave it away. It lay at arms length from Kirito. Asuna's hands were scrabbling at his back, had she noticed too?

He had no idea what it was, where it led or what would happen to them. But it was unexpected.

He punched it.

—+++++++—

The last spare cable was looped up and slam dunked into the spare cables box.

"Oh, what a wild crowd!"

Seijirou was very bored.

You wouldn't have thought that was possible, if you had happened to get drunk with him one night and have him tell you where he worked. The man himself, it would have hypothetically turned out, was very much a bonafide twenty-first century 'cyber-warfare commando', with more credentials, confirmed kills and notches on the bedpost than ten digitalised double-O sevens.

Naturally, on top of such a feat, he was required to cloak himself by day inside the shoes of a nobody. In this particular case, a network server technician knee deep in the most ANAL job the JGSDF could ever hire a freelancer such as himself for; stuck inside a grand total of four rooms, at the mercy of several hundred non-disclosure contracts, on some stupid 'ocean turtle' of JAMSTEC's.

Today was his third day in Hell. He'd only been back in his personal quarters for an hour and was already straying to thoughts of using those spare cables for more exotic displays.

Thankfully, this day, he could actually enjoy Hell. Because, in a joint operation with other techies, they'd liberated the wifi password.

Well, he wasn't actually involved. Chinese whispers and all that. He pulled out his phone and started connecting. He had to see if there were any good pokemon around to catch, around here they'd probably be rarer fire types after all, 'Ha ha ha, get it?'

He paused to reflect on his madness, then continued.

Normally, he'd be worried about being hauled away and interrogated for breaking seventeen of his agreements to not make any use of personal phones away from supervision, but as luck would have it, this wifi access point was for VIP's only. Seeing as that probably only consisted of higher ups from the agency, the forces and actual affiliated cyber-spies, it wouldn't be monitored internally. And even if they took issue with it, he'd done no more than play a game where, in spite of it having been released exactly twenty years ago, you couldn't communicate with anyone.

Which is why, two minutes down the line when a strange notification for a wifi data transfer request popped into view over the Charmander he had just been about to tap on, he didn't panic.

'[v+pzY]w'. The sender name was a little bizarre though. Was he being firewalled?

He swiped up to dismiss it, closed the game just in case, then locked the screen and put the phone on his table. And watched it.

It exploded into flames.

"HELL! I knew it!"

—+++++++—

Heathcliff had no time to waste.

At this vital moment, he'd presented himself too honestly. Too calculated, too detached. Too uncaring. Now there were two new recruits on the loose with no knowledge and no training, and no experience in discreetness or defending themselves.

"I'm sorry. I hate to ask this of you, knowing the heightened risks we all face in the field currently. There is no alternative, sadly." He paced back and forth briskly, having not yet left his solitary post in the clouds. "If they were to be lost, I dread to think who could take responsibility or gain from it."

"As Knights, we will not allow this to pass. We're ready, Commander." She was eager as ever.

He stood to attention, and his subordinates followed suit. "Alicia. Kibaou. I grant you indemnity to act as necessary, to ensure the safe return of Kazuto and Asuna."

"Aye, Sir!" The two saluted, and Heathcliff returned it.

"Safe travels."

They swiftly disembarked in a flash of light, leaving Heathcliff to contemplate his decision. He had not yet lost a Knight, contrary to his sociopathic demeanour.

He could only hope it continued to hold true.


poor chrysheight. i guess his battery was no match for dragon claw. or something

jokes aside though, hopefully this chapter gives enough clues as to where this story is headed - i'd like to use that chance to say now that i have done my research, and will try not to make reki kawahara's techno blunders. buuuuuut i'm also nowhere near an IT specialist in any field, so if i get something obvious wrong, please tell me off

thanks for reading :)