PREVIOUSLY, ON SHARED STRENGTH:

And then Kirito thrust forward, the final blow of the Sword Skill, and the tip of his Dark Repulsor shattered. He'd failed. He closed his eyes as he accepted that. He'd failed. And he was about to die. "Game over, Kirito!" Kayaba exclaimed, raising his sword high. The first words he'd spoken all fight. Guess he really was thinking I'd be the hero after all... I'm sorry, Shino, Asuna. Please keep living...

"Kirito!" Asuna screamed.

Chapter 37: Checkmate

He'd closed his eyes, expecting to die. His rage at seeing Sachi hurt had taken over for just long enough to trigger «Eclipse», and then there was nothing he could have done to survive. The Dark Repulsor had shattered at the tip, and Kayaba had raised his sword to end his life swiftly. He knew that was the price for failure.

So when he was bodily shoved out of the way, his eyes snapped open as he gasped in shock.

And so he watched Kayaba murder Asuna instead.

The final boss's blazing red sword fell and ripped through Asuna's body with a meaty 'shnk' sound. She screamed in pain, falling to the ground - the slash ran from shoulder to hip. As he scrambled to hold her, mind whirling in horror, her health dropped rapidly. Too rapidly for her to be surviving the blow. "Asuna..." he whispered, eyes wild. "Asuna! You can't... you can't be..." Not again! God damn it, not again!

She smiled softly, her health reaching zero and her health bar disappearing. "I'm sorry... Goodbye." Asuna! She closed her eyes and shattered in his arms. And this time he didn't have a way for her to come back.

And Asuna died.

Kirito staggered back, swaying drunkenly as the weight of his loss finally hit him. From where he was standing, he could see the other girls; Silica was bawling her eyes out, clinging to a pale-faced and shaking Sachi. And Sinon... Sinon had just collapsed, her bow slipping from her hands to land on the ground with a clatter. Her face was bone-white, and she was staring without seeing. Another wave of grief crashed over him as he realized that no matter how much pain he was feeling, how horrible and sick to his stomach he felt losing Asuna, Sinon was experiencing that pain many times over. ...Sinon... Slowly, he stepped forward to keep fighting. But his heart wasn't in it - how could it be, when half of it had just died, the other half catatonic?

Kayaba easily and almost contemptuously ignored his feeble, weak swings. Kirito stumbled as he swung Elucidator, his foot scraping the ground and nudging Asuna's Wind Fleuret by accident as he fell to his knees. At the sight of the beautiful weapon, Kirito just stopped and hung his head, staring at it. Asuna... She loved that weapon... "Hmph," Kayaba muttered. Kirito raised his head, gripping the Wind Fleuret before forcing himself to his feet and dully tried to swing again, out of a lack of anything better to do. Silently, Kayaba batted his blade away with the flat of his own, sending it flying, and drew back before thrusting forward, running Kirito through fully. The pain burned, but he was too far gone to really care at that point. His health was draining slowly as the red polygons floated away, and he could hear Sachi and Silica screaming something, but he couldn't care what. Asuna was dead, Sinon was deep in the throes of a meltdown, and he was just so tired.

His health reached the red zone as he looked up at Kayaba; the boss was standing there, an emotionless look on his face. Kirito couldn't bring himself to feel that it mattered. All that was left was to close his eyes and let go. He'd never asked Asuna what it was like to die in-game; he wasn't sure it was something he'd wanted to know. Sorry, Shino... he thought as his health hit zero. I love you, both of you. I never wanted this to happen...

"Kazuto!" His eyes snapped open at Sinon's scream. "Don't you dare leave me! You promised forever and ever! You have to win and come back!"

Shino... "Not yet..." he growled, lifting his head. His body was starting to fade and break apart with static, but he wasn't done.

Kayaba almost seemed surprised as Kirito stepped forward. "Ah?" the man murmured, voice smooth as ever.

"Not yet!" Kirito lifted his hand, knuckles white under his gloves from the grip on Asuna's rapier. With a roar of pure rage, he forced his screaming muscles to obey him as he lifted the rapier and thrust forward. It was almost not enough to pierce Kayaba's armor until he felt someone standing behind him, helping him fight. He knew that strength and determination; Asuna was giving him the power to end this. With another shout, he pushed through the pain and armor and everything to impale Kayaba through the heart.

They stood there, impaled on each other's swords for a moment; Kayaba's health drained to zero just as Kirito's had a few seconds before. With a small beep, the final boss's health bar disappeared. Kirito gasped at the sight, not truly comprehending it. He'd won. He'd defeated Kayaba and cleared the game. We did it, Asuna, he thought. Didn't we? The jewel in the hilt of her Wind Fleuret twinkled in the light.

"Kazuto!" Sinon screamed.

He turned to smile at her. "Be strong, Shino," he whispered, knowing she could hear him in the stunned silence. "I know you can..." His body finally gave out as his ten seconds ran out; his vision filled with white as both he and Kayaba started glowing before the world went dark. A shattering sound filled his ears as he lost the sense of touch, of smell, of taste.

And Kazuto died.

She wasn't sure what the afterlife was supposed to be, but she was pretty sure this wasn't it. Asuna stood on a translucent, staring off into the sky; it was a wonderful view, with the setting sun coloring the clouds gold. After she'd sacrificed herself for Kazuto, she'd accepted her death and apologized to both Shino and Kazuto profusely... only to wake up here, high in the sky. The warm breeze moved the clouds, trailing over the skin her battle equipment didn't cover. She hugged herself, staring out into the distance. She'd tried, when she first woke up, to access her menu and find some way to escape; the menu opened, confirming her fears that she was still trapped in the virtual world, but only showed a large counter, slowly rising. It had been at 36 when she first woke up, but that had been a minute ago.

A soft ringing sound, the kind that only accompanied someone opening their menu, caught her attention. Almost terrified of what she'd see, she turned around - and her heart broke when she saw Kazuto, his back turned to her. Oh, Shino... I'm sorry... I'm so, so sorry. Quietly, she stepped over to him. "Where am I?" she heard him murmur.

"Kazuto..." she said, her voice filled with pain. If he's here, then... that means...

He turned around and looked at her. "I'm sorry," he said, giving her a weak smile. "I guess I ended up dying too."

She stood there, staring at him, until a tear rolled down her cheek. "Dummy..." You were supposed to live! To make Shino happy! That's why I did that... Giving in to her desires, she rushed toward him, pressing herself against his chest and rising up so that her lips met his. That familiar electricity passed through them, and she whimpered slightly as he pulled away. Then a horrible thought struck her. "What about..."

"Shino's fine," he murmured as he rubbed her back in soothing circles with one hand, the way she liked it, while holding her hand tight with his other. "I think... I think she'll be okay." She just clung to him, feeling his warmth seep into her; she'd felt cold when she died, and this was an excellent way to warm back up. "Even if we're not there... she's strong. She'll find a way to move on." He sighed before looking around, stepping out of the embrace without letting go of her hand. "Do you know where we are?"

After subtly wiping away the trail left by her tears, she pointed down at the only real landmark she could see. It was the floating castle of Aincrad, seen from the outside; a dark swirl of clouds below the castle was the single mar on the beautiful scenery. Aincrad was slowly breaking apart, chunks falling off of it and disappearing below the clouds. The lower chunks had already vanished by that point, revealing small bits of the first floor. She was almost nostalgic; that was where she'd met Kazuto and Shino for the first time. Where they'd fought together for the first time. Where they'd almost died for the first time, but she tried not to think about that part. Then more of the floors started breaking, and she felt her heart clench with fear as the floor holding their home shattered, the log cabin sliding off into the abyss. Yui...Alice... Please be safe...

"A stunning view, isn't it?"

Asuna and Kazuto jerked and looked to the side. She didn't recognize the man in the lab coat, but Kazuto clearly did, by the way his hand tightened around hers. He was staring off into the sunset, his hands in his coat pockets, and she had the strangest feeling she'd seen him somewhere before. Maybe at one of Dad's dinner parties, maybe... "Akihiko Kayaba..." Kazuto whispered, and her eyes widened with horror as she realized what that meant.

"At Argus headquarters, the SAO mainframe is in a room, five floors below street level," he said without looking away from the horizon. "And right now it's deleting all the data from its drives. In about ten minutes, everything in this world will disappear forever. Aside from the two programs you managed to copy to local storage, Kirito. Those are safe - the Cardinal system cannot access data on a player's NerveGear."

Asuna almost went limp at the confirmation that Yui and Alice were safe. Thank God... "And all the players?" she whispered. "What happens to them?"

"You don't have to worry about them," Kayaba replied, swiping open his menu. "The three thousand, nine hundred, fifty-two players who cleared the game were logged out a few seconds ago." Asuna felt cold; not even forty percent of them had survived. All those people...

"And what about the six thousand people who died?" Kazuto demanded. "What about them?"

Kayaba was silent for a second. "They're dead. They will never come back, in this world or any other. But their lives were given to become a part of something greater."

"All of those people, you killed them…" Asuna whispered. "Why? Why would you do something so horrible?"

"…How strange. It's been so long I've forgotten the reason why," replied Kayaba. He glanced up, and Asuna looked up to see several birds flying overhead. "For a long time, though, before the FullDive system and before this game, I dreamed about this castle. A castle in a world that was governed by a different set of laws and restrictions. And so I poured everything, my work, my life, into making that world a reality." Kirito and Asuna watched him silently. "I created this world, and I got to be a part of the story. This story that you created, that I was a part of…" He trailed off as another breeze kicked up. Kayaba turned slightly to gaze at the lovers, or perhaps he was staring at Aincrad. "My steel castle, floating in the sky. I don't remember how old I was when I became obsessed with the story it would tell. I wanted to leave the earth, fly to that castle… I wanted that more than anything else. For as long as I can remember." He looked almost sad. "You know what, Kirito? I want to believe that it's still out there. That somewhere, in some other world, the castle is still standing, taller than ever. I think it still has more story to tell."

"Yeah…" Kazuto said slowly. "Maybe it still is."

Asuna squeezed his hand as she looked back over at the crumbling world they'd spent three years in. It was falling apart piece by piece, the progressively larger chunks being destroyed by the system before they could fall beneath the clouds. "Before I forget," Kayaba said suddenly, "congratulations on clearing the game, Kirito. Asuna." The two lovers blinked and looked at each other. The confused look on Kazuto's face was exactly how she felt, and she was about to say something when Kayaba turned to face them. "Well then, I should probably get going now." Ignoring the looks Asuna and Kazuto were giving him, Kayaba turned and walked away, coat fluttering in the wind.

Out in the distance, the top of Aincrad crumbled at last, the Ruby Palace at the top of the world cracking apart.

Kazuto and Asuna sat down at the edge of the platform and kissed again. "Guess this is goodbye," he murmured after they separated from their embrace.

She shook her head. "This isn't goodbye at all. We're gonna be together when we finally disappear. So, we're gonna be together forever." She smiled as a strange thought occurred to her. "You know something, Kazuto? We never really introduced ourselves." After all that, we're just now learning each other's last names.

"Kazuto Kirigaya," he said with a smile. "And last month, I turned seventeen."

"Kazuto Kirigaya," she repeated, tasting it. It felt... nice. "So you're younger than me, huh..." Blushing slightly at the thought, she smiled. "My name is Asuna Yuuki. I'm eighteen now."

"Asuna Yuuki..." Kazuto bent forward, hiding his face. "I'm sorry..." he whispered, tears starting to fall on his hands. "I swore... I promised I'd save you. Get you back to the real world. But I... I couldn't..."

Asuna covered his hand with hers and smiled. "It's okay. It's okay..." she murmured, tears in her own eyes. "I'm happy I got to meet you, Kazuto. And to be with you, and to live with you. This is the happiest I've ever been in my whole life. Thank you for that." She smiled. "And I love you."

Through muffled sobs, Kazuto embraced Asuna. A bright light started glowing, filling her vision, and with a sigh she let the light swallow her up. We'll wait for you, Shino. No matter how long it takes.

Just don't come too soon, okay?

Slowly, Shino opened her eyes. Her body felt strange. Heavy. Too heavy. And the world was... bright. She was staring at a ceiling, with bright lights that hurt her eyes. And there was a constant beeping sound too.

She tried to turn her head, lift her arm to paw at her eyes, but there was something keeping her head from moving. And when she lifted her arm, her hand was thin and bony; nothing like what her body had looked like in SAO. So it's true. We made it out. But... not all of us... Her eyes started burning as the memories flooded back. Kazuto attacked Kayaba with a Sword Skill... Then Asuna sacrificed herself for him... and then Kazuto got the final blow after...

The tears finally broke and started streaming down her face. Kazuto... Asuna... Damn it, you promised that you wouldn't leave... Gingerly she lifted her hand and felt cold plastic. Revulsion rose in her stomach to mix with the grief as she carefully lifted the NerveGear from her head and set it to the side. Her black hair, something she always took care to keep short, had grown long and tangled; she ran her fingers through it, trying to work some of the tangles out. The action reminding her of the way Asuna would occasionally brush it for her, and the memory kicked off another wave of grief at her loss. Why? she wailed as she sobbed. Why did you have to leave?

Sooner or later, her grief lessened, though it was still present and causing a sick feeling in her stomach, and she looked around. The room she was in was a typical hospital room, though she didn't recognize the room itself. A table was off to the side, but it was empty. She wasn't sure where her glasses were; she didn't feel the need to get them, though. Her surroundings examined, she curled up into a small ball and let the grief surge back, washing over her. Kazuto... Asuna... I'll be strong. For you. I promise, I'll be strong. And then one day, we'll meet again.

The door to her room slid open, but she didn't bother turning over. It's just a nurse, anyway, she told herself. Checking on all the SAO players that woke up. Just leave me alone... Still, she listened to the sounds the nurse made out of habit. The beeping of her heart monitor made it hard to listen, but she could hear the soft padding of feet accompanied by a quiet rattling. Then there was silence, only broken by the beeping of the monitor. "...Shi...no..."

Her eyes widened. She recognized that voice. "Ka...zu...to...?" she croaked, turning over carefully and struggling to sit up. It...It can't be. He's dead. Kazuto died. I WATCHED him die! But if Kazuto was dead, her eyes were playing tricks on her. A boy in a hospital gown had staggered into her room, supported only by the mobile IV drip he was clutching in one thin, emaciated hand. His hair was long and ragged, falling to his mid-back and covering parts of his face, and what she could see of his body was thin and gaunt. But his eyes... his eyes were still Kazuto's. Those wonderful eyes, filled with life and affection and other emotions she couldn't place.

Slowly, Kazuto staggered toward her, his steps slow and faltering. Every time he took a second, she was worried he'd collapse - but somehow, he had the determination to make it to her bed and sit on the side. She lifted one hand and pressed it to his cheek, tears streaming down her cheek. He's... alive. Kazuto is alive. Whoever is watching over us... thank you thank you thank you...

It took their bodies a small amount of time to remember how to speak, and their voices were still hoarse after they'd regained speech, but Kazuto was able to haltingly explain what happened. The whole time, he rested his hand on hers, reminding her that he was safe. A nurse came into the room with a wheelchair after a few minutes, taking Kazuto away - but she promised that he'd be able to visit her soon. The naked fear Shino felt, and probably displayed, when he was about to be wheeled away might have contributed to that fact.

As he left, he whispered, "I love you, Shino."

"Love you, Kazuto," she whispered back. Thank you... for everything.

Now, let's find Asuna…

And that's the end of this story!

…Wow. That… that took a year and a half. Wow. I can't believe it's over, actually. It's kind of a rush, but at the same time I keep looking at my empty notepad file and think, 'shit I need to write the next chapter of Shared Strength'. It's a little jarring.

Anyway, you people aren't here to listen to me whine about missing this story, you're here to listen to me whine about this story. …Wait.

First off, this story was a HUGE learning experience for me. This was really the first time I tried (well, 'tried' in massive air quotes the size of my ego – or more accurately, the size of that oxymoron) writing a new plotline. And as such, I learned a lot while doing this little project. (I like writing out the shit I learned – it lets you, the reader, see what I think I learned, and let me know if you think there was something else I should pay attention to.)

LESSON: Pacing

...

I know. I know. I'm bad at it. I lost readers over it.

Well, this was my first (serious) attempt at using my own storyline. In other words, this was the first time I was going off of my own script rather than adapting someone else's; and it shows. Good gods it shows. One reviewer called it 'running through concrete' and that's pretty much it in a nutshell - some developments came and went in a blink of an eye, while other chapters did absolutely nothing for character development or plot progression. Near the end I started kinda figuring it out, but even then there were dull chapters where nothing of interest happened and I definitely regret that. I'm not dissatisfied with the quality of the chapters, and I definitely liked writing them, it's just that they added nothing of value to the story.

In other words: I need to figure out how to make sure the plot keeps going even when the characters are taking a break. This is vital because otherwise the story is a slog and nobody wants to read something that's boring. Maybe if I'd had longer chapters I could have pulled it off by combining relaxation and progression into one chapter (bookends, or switching halfway through for the extra factor of the whiplash) but since I didn't, I didn't. Alternatively, figure out how best to show off/add the important plot points from the slower chapters like the ones from the Proof chapters. I needed them in there so I could justify the upgrade on the mid-floors, but something like what I did with Gancanagh would have been best. Show them entering, show them leaving, have them talk about what they did, but don't actually show the dungeon. Or the Redcap dungeon, which got a few jokes here and there in Chapter 29 that mentioned what happened but left the details to the imagination.

I need to figure out a way to be in-depth without letting the story drag. Which is surprisingly hard – since I'm not, y'know, professional about this shit, I don't have the same level of expertise in the craft. It's pretty clearly more a sign of my general inexperience writing rather than any particular problem I'm having, I think. This whole writing thing started out as basically therapy for me, a way to just… vent, and then you all seemed to like it, and, well, here we are. As it stands, I seem to have these three options – match the general flow of the canon episodes, have things happen, or be in-depth. Choose any one. Ugh. Hopefully my next foray in writing my own stuff will be less terrible.

LESSON: Character Development

Holy shit. Maybe not quite as bad as my pacing, but it's pretty high up there in terms of things I need to work on. The girls definitely needed a more defined character arc past what I gave them - I had vague ideas in mind, but they never quite panned out. Except Sachi, and even then she finished her character arc with about eight chapters to spare. What I'd intended was for Shino to stop depending on Kazuto for everything, Asuna to stop being so selfish, Sachi to come to terms with the death of her team and conquer her fear, Silica to get a little bit more mature, and Kazuto to realize that maybe it's okay to let the people you care about help you. Of those, Sachi was pretty much the only one to get there. Fuck.

Basically, I need to plan out their character development in a lot more depth than what I ended up doing. Not, 'this event happens', but more 'they start out like this, halfway through the story are like this, and at the end are like this'. Then sprinkle in little blends here and there that show them growing as people, and we're good. Having them react differently to similar situations is a good way to show that, and I'll keep it in mind.

LESSON: Characters in general

Err. By themselves, Shino and Kazuto were great. Adding Asuna was a good idea because it gave them someone to play off of. Sachi was pushing it, and Silica was just too much. With four people I could swing it (everyone partners up, for example) but Silica just tipped the balance towards too many characters in the scene at the same time. It's not really a shocker that I feel the stronger scenes in this story were when it was just two or three characters. I tried to keep everyone balanced in screentime, but that just led to nobody having much of a personality. I can handle three characters pretty well, more than that if I'm writing based on a scene in the source material, but more than that is risking letting the other characters fall flat.

I think this problem was partially because I hadn't fully figured out the final pairing when I was writing it, and I was waffling between just Kirito/Sinon, Kirito/Sinon/Asuna OT3, and the Harem ending; which just goes to show how important it is to have a well-defined end goal in mind. Something I usually have, but this time I tried writing without planning everything out ahead of time to see how it went. Spoiler: it went pretty damn bad. I got arrogant and said 'I don't need to plan this shit out, I can make it up as I go along' and then hahaha nope.

The style of this story was kinda uncertain, and that was my fault; part of the problem with that is because I wasn't really sure how the characters were going to play off each other and interact. Someone (can't remember their name, sorry) likened it to a reality TV show with SAO characters and setting. That was actually on purpose, believe it or not, since SAO (at least to me.) drifted in that direction once Kirito and Asuna got together in canon and all that was sorted out. I think the problem was that I didn't make it clear enough that this was the result of him being friends with Shino first, which ties back into my problems above.

If I had to rewrite the story, I probably wouldn't include Silica. Definitely not in the guild, and maybe not in the story at all. She's a sweetie, yes, but she didn't really contribute anything to the story. It doesn't help that she's a minor supporting character in the show/light novels, and I don't really have a lock on her character. Even Liz is easier to write than Silica, and I screw up writing Liz SO MUCH. Fun fact: she didn't have any chapters from her point of view after joining up with Kirito et al. This is because the chapters I had written from her POV were later scrapped and shifted to the Lost Chapters pile. I think, uh, I think that says something. Sorry, Silica. Yui and Alice were planned from the beginning, but looking back on it I probably would only introduce one of them, and a lot earlier in the story. Make it a little mystery, or make the Shining Blades balance clearing the game and taking care of an amnesiac girl. ...Man, now I get these ideas? Once the story is over? Argh.

LESSON: Trolling my readers

I learned it's fucking hilarious. That's good, right?

Honestly a lot of the things in my A/N were meant to poke and prod at people just to get a reaction. It was all true, of course, but I deliberately phrased things to mess with people.

Yes, some of you people say 'Man, KnightEstoc, that's fucked up' or 'You have issues' or 'You're a bastard, y'know that?'. All of which are true. (Except that last one, my parents were married then thank you very much. Personality-wise, though, I'm an asshole.) I stand by my statements, though, and some of them were controversial (notably the Laughing Coffin one, which generated plenty of reviews disagreeing with me. Some that called me a nutcase, to which I laughed, agreed, and then moved on. The ones that provided their own points of view, though, I paid attention to. Some interesting thoughts out there) but that's part of the fun.

Like I said, I learned a lot. Hopefully, my next major story can improve off of everything that I learned here…

Anyway, on to the next subject. In terms of a sequel to this story:

Yes, I left a lot of threads un-pulled, to coin a phrase rather poorly. What exactly is Alice's purpose? What was with the NPCs? Why could they feel pain? Does anyone care? (probably not) Honestly, I have my own thoughts about that, but I'm leaving that up to you people to come to your own conclusions. It's real life (in a sense, after all); not everything revolves around the main characters. They don't find out all the answers. Not every mystery is solved. And to be honest? Now that Aincrad is gone, they don't really care all that much. Asuna, Shino, and Kazuto are just happy to have their daughter.

That being said! I'm marking this down as a complete story. There'sprobably not going to be a sequel to it; probably being code for '95% probability'. It was fun to write about these wacky kids, but… if I'm going to continue anything from this story, it'd have to explore some of the things I deliberately left open-ended, and that takes the fun out of it. Besides, as much as I like Sugu as a character, she… really wouldn't work in this story-verse. (Mainly because I think cousin marriage is technically legal? Don't ask me, I've got no interest in having that as part of my search history). To be frank, the Alfheim arc just doesn't really interest me all that much, since a lot of it is based around poor communication on Sugu/Kazuto's part, and this Kazuto is a little bit better about things like that. Also, it'd more or less be a straight rehashing of the canon ALO arc; Shino and Kazuto are out, and they'd have to rescue Asuna, but… well, you get the picture.

All in all, I had a lot of fun writing this story (up until the end); especially because I got to A) save Sachi :3 (girl's adorable.) B) mess with my readers and C) get a little bit of relationship writing practice, though I need a hell of a lot more before the story I'm planning is more than smoke, mirrors, and hopes and dreams.

So, a HUGE thanks to everyone that enjoyed the story; I'd name you all, but HOLY SHIT that's a lot of names and this A/N is getting absurdly long already. You guys are fantastic and I'm glad you like this – and to whoever recced this fic on TVTropes, thanks a lot! It feels… weird to know that people enjoy my writing, but there ya go. Honest-to-gods proof.

And a special thanks to one reader in particular: Tesseract, thank you for everything. As usual, just knowing you read this makes it all worth it.

…As for the rest of you, you people are nuts, you know that? Thanks for sticking around.