I had this massive panic attack, and it sparked this. I'm not exactly happy about the attack, but what can you do?
In this AU, Kirito never faced off against Heathcliff on Level 75. They continued on for the next year and a half, reaching level 100, where Kirito, Klein, and Asuna defeat Heathcliff and end the game. Less then five thousand players are alive at this point. Kirito turns 18 the day they finish the game.
Also, Kirito managed to hack the game (after a lot of practice) and create a character for Yui, using his and Asuna's NerveGear to house their daughter to avoid deletion. Yui lived with them the entire time. But, on completion of the game, it became impossible to communicate with Yui, and Asuna became stuck in an un-game-related coma.
"Kazuto."
He doesn't look up, hands fiddling with the internal hard drive of yet another computer. Remains of several others lay around him, cluttering his small room. Some sort of massive computer, one he'd been building for weeks now, rested next to the bed.
"Kazuto!"
That gets his attention. His head snaps up, eyes zeroing in on the source of the interruption. "What?"
Sugu flinches at the tone. "Mom says dinner is ready, and after that you need to go to bed. You have to keep your strength up-"
"No." The one word answer is harsh, clipped, and he goes right back to the computer.
The years of pain, the joy of his waking and the disappointment in his withdrawal from the world around him- it's too much. "Brother!" she cries, grabbing the door frame. "It's been two months! What are you waiting for?" She falls to her knees, tears threatening to fall.
A snapping noise breaks Kazuto's concentration. He looks at his hands, frozen inside of the computer shell. "No... Not now..." Slowly, ever so slowly, his hands retract from inside of the wired mess and cover his face.
She continues, as if nothing had stopped him. "What are you trying to accomplish? Two months! Nearly three years! You barely talk, you eat just enough to get by, you've told us nothing! We're hurting too!" she sobs, tears now a reality. "Please! What are you waiting for!"
He stands- she's quick to rise to her feet, hoping for any sort of contact, but no- and throws the computer at the wall. It breaks, shattering into a million pieces. "Dammit!" he cries, sinking to the floor, hands returning to his face. "Yui... Asuna... I'm sorry..."
The names- it's more information then he's let out in the past two months, and she clings to it. "Who are they?" she asks, taking a tentative step into the room. She's careful to avoid the shards of computer scattered on the floor.
His hands sink, slowly, then all at once, clenched tight. Then, a whisper. "I beat the game."
Sugu freezes, one hand inches from his shoulder. "What?" she chokes. She had always assumed he'd spent his time in the game much as he had in real life, locked away behind closed doors, meeting few and befriending less. Not playing. Not winning.
"I beat the game," he repeated. His hands clutch at his face. "I spent three years fighting on the front lines for something I lost the moment I got here. I lost everything!"
Her hand moves down, touching his shoulder. "No, you didn't. You still have me and Mom. Isn't that enough?"
His shoulder moves out from under her hand, and he looks up into her face. Despair is the only word that fits the emotion in his eyes. "I- It's not, Sugu. I got m-" He pauses, as if searching for the right word. "It's like- I lived there. To me, everything was real. And I lived every day to its fullest." A thick swallow. "Every day. You had to cherish everything when you fought on the front lines, because the next day it could be all gone. I joined a guild in the early days. They were all dead within a few months. You don't just recover from that."
"We're here! You don't have to be alone!"
"No!" he snaps, looking away. "I know I'm not alone, okay? But I lost everyone. My best fried died at the last fight, sacrificed himself for me." Silence, for just a moment, and then- "I was married."
Sugu lets out a small cry of shock, but it is ignored.
"Asuna and I took a small break after floor 75 and bought a small cottage on 22, next to a lake," he continued, eyes glued to the wall. "The forest was beautiful... We found and adopted an AI program that had developed a conscience separate of central program Cardinal. We fought hard for her to avoid deletion. She's smart, and sometimes it's hard to remember that she's only five..." His hand reaches for the shards scattered on the floor. "She's stored on my NerveGear now, but I can't access her until I finish constructing a hard drive powerful enough to handle her data. And I just broke the last piece I needed..."
He picks up one of the large plastic shards, and when it becomes clear that Sugu is too shocked to speak, continues. "I know it was just a game. But it was my reality for three and a half years. I'm still married, even if she's in a coma, even if her parents won't let me see her. I still have a daughter, and I can see her, I'm so close..." His voice trails off into silence.
Inspiration strikes Sugu, and she lets out a small gasp. "Wait here," she breathes, before turning and running out of the room. She didn't get far, running directly into someone standing outside of the door and falling to the ground. "Mom."
Their mother stands there, braced against the wall, tears in her eyes. "I heard him yelling, and I thought-"
Sugu doesn't wait for more. She scrambles to her feet and dodges around their mother and into her own room. On the table rests her own VR headset and laptop computer. Quickly snatching them up, she races back to the hall, around her mother, and into Kazuto's room. "Use these," she pants, and shoves them towards him.
He doesn't hesitate, grabbing both and setting them on the desk. A fire has been lit under him, and he works carefully but quickly, unscrewing the outer plate and getting his hands into the hardware.
Their mother walks into the room and sets her hand on Sugu's shoulder. They watch in silence as Kazuto assembles the last few pieces of his massive computer, and then hooks it up to a monitor. His hesitates for a moment, but only just, before plugging the entire thing into the wall.
They all hold their breath as the screen lights up. A few seconds, and then- "Papa?" The screen lights up, the image of a small girl filling the screen.
Kazuto chokes back a sob. "Yui," he murmurs, one hand reaching out to touch the screen. "Are you okay?"
The image nods. "Where's mama? Is she there?"
"No, she's sick," explains Kazuto, giving a gentle smile. "A coma. But I promise I'll take you to her when she wakes, okay?"
The small girl smiles, her whole face lighting up. "Okay! Papa, who are they, behind you?"
Kazuto smiles again, and pushes back from the computer. "Yui, I'd like you to meet your Auntie Sugu. You remember the bedtime stories, right?"
Yui began to jump up and down, eyes growing wider. "Yes! Hello, hello!"
Sugu felt herself moving towards the computer, her mothers hand falling off her shoulder. "Hi..."
Yui- her niece- smiles up at her. "Papa told me so much about you! Do you really play kendo, like he said?"
"I-" She swallows, clearing her throat. "Yes. I do."
Sugu vaguely registers that Kazuto goes on to introduce his daughter to their mom, the consequently tear filled conversation that proceeds almost without her. Her brother is back. And, although he isn't whole, not by a long shot, he's getting there.
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Wryder