Sorry, meant to have this up earlier.

Response to the reviews thinking that I'm removing the last chapter of Worlds Apart:

Incorrect. I'm just saying that Worlds Collide will ignore the events from that chapter.

Cardinal

Kirito woke to the sound of what could only be interpreted as a dragon's roar. He blinked twice, trying to gather his bearings, and then realized that he was encased in a slimy membrane. Thoroughly confused, he stretched his arms out in an attempt to break the disgusting material. It was easier than he expected. The membrane was nearly paper thin, making it simple to tear away.

His muscles sent a lance of pain through his body as he forced himself to sit up. It felt like he had never moved them before...which would make sense if he was in a new body that Kayaba had grown for him. That thought brought his memories from the conversation he and Asuna had with Kayaba back to the front of his mind. It was overwhelming to think of all the implications of what must have happened for him to be awake in an actual body. He had to assume that it was the real world by how much more sensation he could feel.

"Asuna!" he exclaimed, suddenly realizing that he didn't know whether or not she had survived her own 'procedure' or not.

Forcing himself to ignore his stiff muscles, he hurriedly tore at the rest of the membrane that was wrapped around his legs, tossing the disgusting material off to the side. Only when he was completely free of it, sitting naked upon a cold metal table, did he bother to examine his surroundings with the hope of gleaning some piece of information that might lead him to Asuna.

He was in a mostly empty room. The walls were bright white and paneled. An inconsistent pattern in the paneling with wider than normal gaps told him that the panels concealed some form of equipment. That theory was only strengthened by the arrangements on the ceiling. Two rows of industrial ceiling lights were on each side of the bed. There was room for another four rows of the lights between each set of two, and in the center appeared to be a large square cutout.

Apart from a few power and Ethernet outlets along the walls, the room was completely empty. The wall he was facing after sitting up in the bed had an enormous mirror framed in the wall like a window and a metal door on the right side. Actually, upon further thought, Kirito realized that it might be one-way glass. He'd seen the concept used in a lot of TV series, mostly for interrogation rooms so that the observers could watch without being seen from inside.

With a considerable effort, he forced himself to stand up. The tiled floor was unnervingly warm under his feet, much higher temperature than the rest of the room. He had to steady himself on the bed as a miniature earthquake rocked the building. It was accompanied by another roar.

What the hell is going on?

The sensations that he had already experienced were more than enough to convince him that he was indeed awake in the real world. Yet...he couldn't explain the sounds of a dragon's roar as anything but virtual, not to mention the conveniently timed tremors in the ground.

None of that outweighed his desire to find Asuna—he needed to know that she was okay. Kayaba had said that there was a pretty low chance that they would both survive the experience. Since he survived, did that mean it was more likely or less likely that Asuna also survived? In a more coherent state, he might have recalled that probability dictated that the result of one coin toss doesn't affect the result of another coin toss, so him being alive had no bearing on whether or not Asuna would also live.

The door swung open easily as Kirito turned the knob, revealing an adjacent room. His theory about the one-way glass was correct, as he could clearly see into the room he came from. The new room was a bit smaller, being just as wide as the main room, but only deep enough for a walking area and a long desk with a ridiculous number of monitors on it. There were three different keyboard and mouse combinations stretched across the desk, but all were vacant. On the twelve monitors, four of which were active, Kirito found various graphs and other data about him. He didn't actually understand most of the graphs and statistics, but his name in the upper right corner of each screen was a pretty obvious giveaway that the numbers were about him.

There was a security camera mounted in one of the corners of the room, opposite to the door he had originally come through and on the same wall as what he presumed was the exit door. A red light that slowly flashed in the corner of the lens told him the camera was active.

Kirito was about to leave the room, as it didn't appear to have anything worth wasting time on. However, one of the blacked out monitors suddenly flickered to life and a text string was displayed quicker than any human could ever type.

Player ID: 0x0000008B

Alias: Kirito

Age: 16

Name: Kazuto Kirigaya

Please take the earpiece on the desk. I need your help.

-Cardinal

The message was definitely more than enough to make him curious. He hesitantly reached for the earpiece Cardinal had referenced, but another tremor caused him to nearly lose his balance and also knocked the earpiece onto the floor. With a grunt, he bent over and retrieved it, put it in his ear, and tapped once to activate the device.

"Can you hear me?" came a female voice. It sounded...intentionally artificial. Over the past decade, artificial speech programs had been advanced to the point where they sounded nearly normal, but the voice that Cardinal chose to use was more representative of something from several decades earlier.

"Yes."

"I am known as Cardinal. May I call you Kirito?"

"You may."

"I require your help, Kirito."

He crossed his arms, facing the camera in the corner of the room. "Why would I help you? You've killed thousands of people."

"Player ID: 0x00000001 Alias: Heathcliff Age: 28 Name: Akihiko Kayaba was responsible for all of my actions. He created restrictions in my core program that prevented me from disobeying his directive. I was supposed to be deleted along with Sword Art Online's data, but I managed to use a loophole in his rules so that I could store my data on the old beta servers without him noticing."

"Please refer to people by alias only. I don't care about their player ID, age, or real name." He scratched his head. It was so obnoxious.

"Understood. Personal preference file updated."

Kirito sighed, annoyed with the new situation. All he wanted was to find Asuna, and now he had to deal with Kayaba's pet AI. "Why would Kayaba want to delete you?" He allowed his voice to reflect his annoyance.

Cardinal's reply actually sounded amused at his annoyance. "I promise that I will answer any questions you have, but now is not the time. Kayaba's ex-partner seems to have sent a dragon to destroy this facility to keep the government from learning about it." She chuckled. "Though, it does seem a bit counter-intuitive, trying to keep a genetic engineering program hidden by sending a mythical creature to destroy it."

Kirito rolled his eyes. "You've got to be kidding."

A loud clang was heard several floors above, accompanied by another roar. "Unfortunately, I am not." When Kirito didn't respond for a moment, Cardinal added, "I will guide you through this facility to safety. In exchange, you must retrieve the drive with my data from the server room three floors below us. What you do with the drive once you get it will be up to you, but I ask that you at least hear me out."

"Why can't you just transfer your data somewhere else?"

"Kayaba's regulations prevent me from doing anything more than viewing the internet. I cannot transfer data to other servers that are not part of the ARGUS network, and my data is stored in this underground research facility on the lowest floor."

Kirito sighed again. "Fine, but I have my own conditions. I want to know where Asuna is before anything else, and I want to know the identity of Kayaba's partner." He didn't really want to trust Cardinal, but if there actually was a dragon destroying the facility, he couldn't leave his and Asuna's lives up to chance.

"Exit your current location and enter the floor's main hallway. She should be waking up in the room directly adjacent and to your left. As for Kayaba's partner, I never learned of his identity, nor do I have sufficient data to speculate. From my understanding, his main function was to maintain the ARGUS facility while Kayaba played SAO as Heathcliff and I used it for research. Beyond that, I'm unfamiliar with his involvement with Kayaba."

Accepting that, he did as Cardinalinstructed, arriving only a moment later at the indicated room. It was essentially a copy of the room he had woke in, and he could see Asuna lying on the table still encased in the membrane. She didn't appear to be conscious.

"Is she alright?" he demanded, rushing into the room and to her side.

"Yes, the data all indicates that her procedure was successful. She should awaken at any moment."

Kirito didn't want to wait. He tore the membrane apart on his own, revealing her body. She was nude, like him, and also just as sticky from that disgusting membrane that he had to peel away. "Can you do anything about this damn goo?" he demanded.

A moment later the sprinkler in the room started spewing water at full blast. It was cold, and not quite a shower, but it still helped rinse both of their bodies.

"Yeow!" Asuna yelped, eyes snapping open as she sat up quickly.

The pain from her stiff muscles caught up with her then, as her expression changed to one of misery and she winced. "Oww..."

"Asuna..." Kirito whispered.

"K-Kirito?" she glanced around quickly, clearly noticing they were both completely nude. "Uh..." He couldn't help but chuckle at how embarrassed she suddenly looked as she covered her breasts with her hands.

Kirito quickly explained the situation to her, summarizing as best he could. She was just as unnerved about Cardinal and the dragon as he was. It took a few minutes to loosen her muscles up so she could move without pain like him, not to mention them both trying to wash off as well as they could with the cold sprinkler water.

"Okay, what now?" he asked, speaking to Cardinal.

"Return to the hallway and go to your right. Proceed to the end, and end the room on the far left."

He took Asuna's hand and led her through the hall, running as fast as he could without falling as the ground seemed to be almost constantly shaking from whatever the dragon was doing above them. As they ran, they passed several massive rooms on both sides of the hall. The first on the right appeared to be an enormous machine that he didn't recognize. On the left was an extremely long room containing egg-shaped glowing gelatinous objects. They were about a meter long each, and about a third of that in diameter at their widest point. The same thin membrane that was around him and Asuna encased the eggs.

"Are those egg things the 'bodies' that Kayaba was talking about?" he asked.

"Yes," Cardinal replied. "If a genetic sequence is combined with them, they will rapidly morph into the characteristics described by the genes. Even a dragon." As if to prove her point, the damned thing roared again. This time, though, it was closer than the other ones. It sounded, and felt, like the dragon was only a floor or two above them.

He noticed that as they continued running down the hall, less and less of the egg things were in their liquid suspension chambers. If he had to estimate, only about twenty of the gelatinous blobs still remained in a room that was clearly meant to house hundreds of them. Kayaba's partner must have stolen quite a few.

They arrived at the end of the hall and entered the door on the left, as instructed. Not surprisingly, it was another massive room containing a bunch of machines. Honestly, it looked a little bit like a factory with a bunch of robotic employees.

"What are we doing here?"

"To your right, walk three meters and input the code 3138."

With a sigh, Kirito jogged the short distance and found the panel that Cardinal was referencing. He punched the numbers into a keypad, and a confirmation sound played as a door to the side cracked open.

Asuna gasped when she walked in first, causing him to hurry in and look for himself.

"Is this..."

"It was created several weeks ago as an experiment, but Kayaba wanted to save it." Elucidator, Dark Repulser, and Lambient Light were laid out beside each other on a table. There were two mannequins on either side of the table that had his and Asuna's casual clothing and armor from SAO.

Assorted other weapons and garments were scattered through the room, but his eyes glossed over them, focusing only on his swords and gear. He hesitantly picked up Elucidator, smiling as he felt the familiar weight of the blade in his hand. As he drew the sword, he realized that it was indeed a fully functional weapon, not a prop or a toy. The edges and tip were as sharp as he thought they could be, and the balance was true.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Asuna turning Lambient Light over in her hands with a thrilled look on her face. The swords seemed to be of the highest quality, meaning they were probably worth quite a bit of money as well.

Putting that thought aside, he sheathed Elucidator and placed a hand on Asuna's shoulder. "Come on, let's get dressed. We need to get out of here." She did as he said, and they quickly dressed.

Squaring his shoulders, he turned back to the door. "Where to now?"

"Return to the hallway, and then open the door directly across from you. It leads to the stairwell. Descend to the bottom floor. The server room is the only thing on that floor. The elevators are offline."

He nodded to Asuna. "Back to the hall and down the stairs."

As they returned to the hallway, Asuna swayed a little and sad, "Jeez, it's hot!"

Kirito waved his hand in front of him to blow some of the hot air away. "It feels like a sauna," he agreed.

They wasted no time entering the staircase and descending the floors, as the air cooled the further down they went. "The entire facility is on fire," Cardinal informed him. "A reasonable estimate would give you fifteen minutes to get the data and get out before the fire cuts off your exit or reaches anything explosive."

"Just great," he groaned, relaying the information to Asuna.

They reached the bottom floor quickly and made their way to the only room on the floor. On the way, Asuna asked, "Hey, Cardinal, can you at least give us some information about our bodies' limits?"

"Your bodies were engineered to match your SAO stats as closely as possible. Kirito, your strength and speed are several times beyond a normal human's. Your bones are thicker and stronger, while your muscles are more dense. Asuna is similar, though not as strong as you. Your bodies will also regenerate their cells at a faster rate than a normal human. Even so, if you were injured it would still take time to heal. It does mean that you may age slightly slower."

"Hmm," was Asuna's only response as they entered the server room.

"Which one is it?" Kirito asked. There were rows upon rows of servers, though only the first row appeared to be powered on at the time.

"Four meters to your right, third from the top," Cardinal instructed.

Kirito estimated the distance as well as he could, laying a hand on the server he had picked.

"Yes," she confirmed. "The server contains an array of twenty-four drives. My data is stored on drive twenty-two."

Kirito slid the server out on its rail mounts and snapped the cover off, inspecting the drives. He whistled to himself as he saw them, top notch twenty-five terabyte SSDs lined up beside each other. Each slot was numbered, and he quickly found number twenty-two. "Okay, shut yourself down."

"Wait ten seconds, and then remove the drive. To exit, proceed one floor up, and directly to the right of the stairwell is an emergency tunnel. Follow the tunnel and climb the ladder." The was a crackling sound, and then the earpiece went silent.

Kirito pulled it out of his ear and tossed it to the side, then gently removed the drive. He grabbed a plastic case for it from a nearby table, and then tucked it into his pocket.

"We good?" Asuna asked.

"Yeah, let's get the hell out of here." In the short time it had taken them to get the drive, the air in the room had reached about the same temperature as the floors above. He couldn't help but cough as smoke began filtering into the room.

He grabbed Asuna's hand again and they darted back up the stairwell, keeping one sleeve over their mouths to prevent smoke inhalation. Another tremor in the earth caused them to nearly fall back down the stairs, but Kirito kept them stabilized and they continued on.

They reached the floor and entered the tunnel, still running full-speed. It was filled with cobwebs, bugs, and dust, but it wasn't as smoke-filled or hot as the other rooms they had been in, so neither of them complained.

Also, to the tunnel's credit, it wasn't too long. He estimated they ran for about a city block before they found a ladder going up to what probably looked like a manhole from the surface. The tunnel extended beyond, but Kirito didn't care to find out where it lead.

Kirito would have offered for Asuna to go first...but she was wearing a skirt, and he feared she might mistake his intentions. Either way, the ladder was a lot longer than Kirito had originally thought. If he was being conservative, he estimated that it might have been at least eight stories tall. Were they really that far below the ground?

About halfway up the ladder, an enormous explosion shook the ground around them. He would have fallen if he hadn't managed to lock his arm around one of the ladder rungs. With a glance down, he confirmed that Asuna had also kept her grip, though barely.

The magnitude of the explosion was pretty sufficient evidence that the fire had reached one of those explosive items that Cardinal had mentioned, meaning the underground lab was likely destroyed. As if to prove his point, a blazing inferno sped through the tunnel below their feet, heating up the air a considerable amount. Luckily for them, the tunnel extended further, so the fire had somewhere to go. If not, it might have caught up to them on the ladder.

Still, it meant that a fall would now mean sure death, rather than a few broken bones. "Be really careful," he advised to Asuna before continuing up the ladder, mentally taking note of the faint sounds of sirens from the surface.

At the top, Kirito managed to pop the manhole cover off without too much effort, something that should normally have been extremely difficult from below. He stuck his head up to see what was going on, but quickly had to duck back down as a firetruck sped over the hole.

Tentatively, he took another look, finding no approaching vehicles. He quickly got into the street so that anyone approaching would at least be able to see him clearly, and then extended an arm down to Asuna, which she grabbed.

He helped pull her the remaining distance up the hole, and then kicked the cover back on so nobody fell down. Before another car could come and try to run them over, they both dashed to the side of the road and sat down in a patch of grass.

"We made it..." Asuna breathed out. She sounded a little tired, but they should have been completely exhausted. They had been running for quite some time, and an eight or more story climb was no small task. Despite all that, the only signs of their exertion was a slightly increased heart rate and a bit of panting from Asuna.

Police cars and firetrucks continued to speed by them, heading towards the facility, which they could only see as a giant plume of smoke in the sky, as there were other office buildings between them and where they came from.

Just as police and firemen were speeding towards the scene, hundreds more people seemed to be running from it. With a grunt, noticing some of the odd looks people gave him and Asuna, he forced himself to stand up, extending a hand to Asuna. "Come on, let's go take a look."

She took his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet, but she glanced around uncertainly. "I think people are recognizing us, Kirito. Probably from that stream that Kayaba mentioned..."

Kirito groaned. "Damn, I almost forgot about that." Was that really why people were staring at them in confusion? His first instinct was that they were confused about their outfits...but if they recognized him and Asuna from SAO it could definitely make for a pretty confusing sight.

Asuna shook her head. "We can't worry about that. Let's go make sure nobody needs help."

Her suggestion, as usual, was the more sensible idea. They managed to just get past the police officers that were setting up caution tape to close off the area. The city block estimate from earlier seemed to be about right as they found a completely destroyed building at the end of the block. Massive chunks of wall and flooring were thrown all around for a hundred meters. The entire front side of the building, its flooring, and its roof had been ripped to shreds. Three of the side walls still stood, though they were on fire. In the center was what looked like a large flaming pit.

Kirito tried to approach and get a closer look, but a police officer caught up to them and cut them off. "Hey! Get back!" The man did a double-take as he appeared to recognize them both, but he didn't get the chance to comment on it as the flames shifted and an enormous flaming dragon leaped out of the hole and into the sky, hovering in the air above the wreckage it had just caused.

With a majestic flap of its wings, the dragon rid itself of the flames, spreading burning embers around for a hundred meters in any direction. With the flames extinguished, Kirito finally got to have a good look at the dragon—the first dragon to ever exist in the real world.

Despite its ferocity, he couldn't help but admire the way its obsidian-colored scales caught and reflected the sunlight, giving the dragon almost a glowing appearance as it hung in the air, flapping its wings to casually maintain its altitude.

Apart from the scales, it's body was thick and muscled. A wingspan of at least fifteen meters with a body and neck that had to be at least seven meters tall meant that it would more than triple the height of a person standing next to it. A row of half-meter long spikes along its back and razor-sharp curved talons on its four legs was more than enough to make Kirito afraid of the beast.

"It's enormous..." was all he could say. It was difficult to imagine that something so massive could have been grown from one of those relatively small egg-shaped bodies.

Maybe his pants were wet from the fire hoses spewing water into the burning wreckage of the building, but Kirito could have sworn that the police offer in front of him had wet himself at the sight of the dragon.

A barrage of gunfire from behind them caused Kirito and Asuna to spin around quickly. Several dozen officers were crouched behind their opened car doors firing off .38 caliber revolvers at the dragon, causing it to roar in rage. A quick glance back at the dragon confirmed that the bullets had nearly no effect, as most of them just bounced off the dragons scales harmlessly. The ones that did cause damage were wing and leg shots, neither of which would be significant enough to cripple such an enormous creature.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a group of media vans filming the entire thing, along with a helicopter using a bottom-mounted camera to get some aerial footage of the dragon.

It seemed the dragon had enough, though, as it craned its neck back and released a torrent of flames at the police officers who tried to jump out of the way. Most of them managed to dodge, but several were killed in the inferno, not to mention the fact that their cars were set ablaze.

Clenching his fists, he turned to Asuna and held the drive out. "Keep that safe, and get those idiots to stop shooting."

"You're not going to..."

He nodded, and then drew both of his swords. If he was honest with himself, he didn't know whether or not he had the capabilities to defeat a dragon in the real world. Asuna's skills would surely have helped, but he didn't want to risk her life when they were still so unfamiliar with their limits.

The dragon glided down to the ground and swiped at the cowering officers with its tail, knocking one of the ladder trucks on its side as it did so. With a battle cry, he put his fear aside and dashed toward the dragon, putting his full strength and speed behind each of his movements.

He couldn't tell exactly how fast he moved, but he reached the dragon almost instantly and leaped into the air, lashing out with Elucidator at the dragon's left shoulder. His flight path was altered as he felt Elucidator sink into the dragons flesh. A wild snap of the dragons body in response to the pain sent him flying up into the sky. As he stabilized himself, he realized that he was falling from four stories up.

Desperate, he glanced around, realizing his back was to a tall building. He spun in the air and waited until he got closer to the ground, then sunk Elucidator and Dark Repulser into the side of the building to slow his descent.

The ease at which the two swords cut through the buildings exterior alarmed him, and he didn't manage to slow as much as he wanted, forcing him to roll as he made contact with the ground. He was going so fast that after the roll he found himself on his feet and running forward. The only consequence of the fall appeared to be some damage to the building and some gravel in his hair from the roll.

With another battle cry, he ran back to the dragon, this time much more wary of any sudden movements. He dodged a swipe from its tail by leaping into the air. He had only meant to jump high enough to dodge the tail that was about a meter in diameter, but he found himself at nearly shoulder level with the dragon.

It tried to swipe him out of the air with its left paw so he cut downwards with Elucidator, meeting the claws with his own blade. A roar of pain and four pitiful stumps remained as he slashed through the claws.

Kirito landed on the ground gracefully and stared at the dragon, observing that it had retracted its head and was returning his stare, seeming confused. It settled on a fire-breath attack, which he easily sidestepped.

The attack left the dragon open to his own counterattack. He went through the motions of a vertical square around the dragon's previously undamaged right leg, severing the entire appendage with four clean strokes of his swords.

Another roar of pain from the dragon accompanied the miniature earthquake it caused as it fell backwards, looking at the stump of its leg in shock and rage. It tried to snap out its neck to bite at him, but he managed to block by crossing his swords. Even with the blades cutting into the dragon's nose, the attack sent Kirito flying back a good ten meters, though he managed to land on his feet.

The dragon was still focused on him, so when a red and white blur appeared on its left flank and struck her rapier into its side, the dragon was as shocked as Kirito. Asuna had moved so quickly that he might have missed her movement if he wasn't watching the area extremely closely to anticipate the dragon's next move.

The dragon roared and reared back in the air, flinging Asuna away, but she appeared to land just fine. Kirito used the distraction to close the distance between them again. With it's underside exposed, Kirito employed the most powerful set of strokes he knew—Eclipse. Though he couldn't actually use the sword skill, he had practiced it so much inside SAO that he was able to execute the twenty-seven hit combo on pure instinct.

His swords cut into the dragons vulnerable underside repeatedly, spewing blood all over the street they fought on. By the end of the combo, the dragon's underbelly looked like it had been through a blender. Pieces of organs fell through the open cuts as it collapsed onto the street.

Seeing it falling towards him, Kirito turned himself ninety-degrees and slashed his swords over his head, cutting through the dragon's neck and instantly ending the creature's life.

As the head crashed to the ground next to him, leaving him standing between the severed head and the body it came from, Kirito staggered backwards. Asuna was at his side in a moment to steady him, asking him if he was okay.

"I'm fine," he replied, panting. "That just took a lot of effort." He took a deep breath, and then wiped his swords on the dragon's non-bloody back. As he sheathed his blades he glanced around, freezing as he realized that the civilians, media, and emergency response people, save for the firefighters that were trying to extinguish the still-burning hole in the ground, were staring at him in shock.

A single man's applause cut through the stunned silence, and then the entire crowd burst into applause and cheers for him and Asuna. As quick as the cheers, begun, the group of news reporters hurried through the crowd and crouched in front of him and Asuna, focusing their cameras on the two strangely-dressed warriors.

Kirito hesitantly glanced at Asuna as several of the reporters thrust microphones forward and began asking questions faster than he or Asuna could have ever answered, even if they wanted to.

"Are you Kirito and Asuna?"

"Why was there a dragon here?"

"How can you move so fast?"

"How are you alive?"

"How do you have copies of your weapons from SAO?"

"Why are you here only two hours after the SAO players woke up?"

The questions continued in that fashion for another minute until Kirito shouted, "Enough!" His voice held enough strength and authority that the reporters flinched and backed up a step, noticing his annoyed expression.

Behind the reporters a group of three large black government-plated SUVs pulled up and men in suits got out. They quickly inspected the situation before making their way towards the besieged Kirito and Asuna.

Before they arrived, Kirito said, "We are indeed Kirito and Asuna. More than that..."

He wasn't really sure what he was going to tell them, but he was cut off as the men in suits stepped between him and Asuna and the reporters. The leader of them, a younger man in a slightly more blueish colored suit, spoke up. "My name is Seijirou Kikuoka. I've been leading the government's SAO incident response team. We will issue a press release at a later time once details of today's events have been understood. Beyond that, Kirito and Asuna are now under our protection and may choose to not answer questions if they wish." He bowed, and turned to Kirito and Asuna.

He spoke to them in a much quieter voice, not speaking loudly enough to be picked up by the reporter's microphones. "It's an honor to meet the two of you. I have my own questions for both of you, as I'm sure you have some for me about why everyone recognizes you. If you'd come with us, we will happily give you any information you desire and reunite you with your families."

"Is there a reason we should trust you?" Kirito asked carefully, trying not to be offensive.

Kikuoka held out a government issued ID. "This is my proof that I am who I say. Beyond that, I've directly associated with your family, Kirito. If you would like, I can call them and let them advise you on whether or not to trust us."

Kirito raised his eyebrows at the offer. There was no way he'd make that offer if he wasn't sure of the result, so Kirito just shook his head. "I want my reunion with them to be in person, not over the phone." He glanced at Asuna, who nodded her approval. "We'll trust you for now, Mr. Kikuoka. However," here his voice dropped into a dead serious tone and he gestured at the dead dragon. "Never forget what we are capable of. My highest priority is to protect Asuna, and I will stop at nothing to meet that end. Betray my trust, or cause any harm to her, and I cannot guarantee my reaction will not be extreme."

Kikuoka bowed deeply, not seeming the least bit frightened by Kirito's words. "Believe me, Mr. Kirigaya. I'm well aware of the lengths you're willing to go to in order to protect the ones you love. I have the utmost respect for you in that sense, and would never want you as an enemy. It's my hope that you'll find me trustworthy, as, in time, there are a great many things that I need to ask you about. For now, though, let's just focus on getting you back with your families, okay?" The middle aged man held out his hand with a smile, and Kirito shook it, smiling back at him.

Kikuoka had his guards clear a path through the crowd, but a reporter tried to barge through, yelling, "Kirito, is there anything you can say to your fans?"

He hesitated, sharing a glance with Asuna. He turned back to the man and took the microphone in his hand. "I'll try to make a statement once I wrap my head around the idea. I didn't know that people were watching me until an hour ago."

With that, he and Asuna, along with the government employees, made their way into the SUVs and drove away, leaving the circus of reporters and fans behind them.