Well, we finally have a new chapter! And before the due date as well so I don't have to worry about anyone storming into my house and beating me with a chair, right?

Ok seriously though, I was so damn busy this past month that for about a week I completely forgot about this story. Don't worry though, I did make a decent amount of progress before and after. I didn't do a huge amount but it's most I've done in a while so at least it's something. Gotta stay positive about these things.

I do hope you enjoy this next little arc, it's a relatively important one as far as character development goes. Some may say I'm doing it too soon but honestly, I'd rather do it now than make you wait years and never get any real answers like some mangaka do these days.

Enough about that though, enjoy the chapter.

Since logging out, Kazuto had been doing a bunch of things in the real world, such as buying groceries for home, running small errands for his parents (who were currently unaware of his and Sugu's involvement with the government and the new SAO), and washing his bike.

He was currently at his house having a bath after getting permission from Doctor Kurahashi to leave for the day. For the most part, his mind drifted off to what his friends might currently be doing in SAO. Doing quests, grinding field monsters, or maybe even attacking the second-floor boss. But every time, these thoughts would be interrupted by the strange thing that happened to him when he tried to log out earlier in the day.

~FLASHBACK STARTS~

"Until then, there's something I needed to do in the real world so I'll probably log off for now," Kirito said as Asuna and Yui waved him off. As he pressed the 'Log Out' button, his vision went black after a flash of blue light and then…

.

.

.

Nothing happened. His vision stayed black. Upon realizing that something weird had just happened. Kirito looked at his hands and body, which were visible, meaning that he was somehow stuck in a space between the game world and the real world. He looked around for a moment and went to call out someone's name before he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Long time no see, Kirito," The voice said. Kirito whipped around only to see nothing. But he knew whose voice that was. He would never mistake it.

"K-Kayaba?" Kirito replied in a bit of a shout.

"Nice to see you too," Kayaba's voice said in a sarcastic tone. "Though I am very interested, for what reason have you restarted Sword Art Online? I didn't realize you enjoyed playing my death game,"

"Well first of all," Kirito said after he had regained a fair amount of composure "It's not a death game anymore, they managed to take that out of it. Secondly, the reason we're doing this is to get information out of you,"

"Out of me eh? Sounds intriguing. What for?" Kayaba asked once more.

"The government wants to mass produce the medicuboid and since you're the one who created it? We need you to tell us how to use it basically," He said with a firm voice. "I had previously thought that we would have to get to the one-hundredth floor in order to have this conversation but looks like you can tell me right here and now,"

"Aw, come now. Where's the fun in that though?" Kayaba said with a hefty laugh.

"Don't fuck with me Kayaba, I beat you once before and I can beat you again if I need to," Kirito said in a threatening voice. If there was a chance to finish their mission this early then he wouldn't hesitate to take it.

"Okay okay, calm down," Kayaba said, hoping to defuse Kirito's fire. "To be honest, I would love to fight you, but my physical body is in the ruby palace on the hundredth floor, so I can't right now," As he said this, he could sense Kirito's rage building. However, his next words saved the current situation. "But what I can do is give you a little help. Call it a speed boost if you will." Kirito went to ask Kayaba's voice what he meant by this but at that moment, a bright light blinded his eyes and after blinking for a moment, he was back in the real world.

~FLASHBACK END~

"What did he mean by speed boost?" Kazuto thought aloud as he scrubbed his arms with a sponge. After his bath was done, he had made a quick ham and salad sandwich before getting on his bike and riding back to the hospital in which their dive was taking place. There were many times when he wondered why Kikuoka wouldn't let them dive from their homes but he always arrived at the conclusion that since it was a government mission, it needed government surveillance.

As he rode, the sun began to set. This was good as he could finally speak to Doctor Kawahara about Toran, and also apologize for missing him the previous night. After about a fifteen minute drive, he parked in the spot that Kikuoka had reserved for him and made his way inside. Upon seeing Nurse Aki a.k.a Natsuki and Doctor Kawahara, he happily greeted them. "Hey Aki, Hey Doctor Kawahara,"

"Ah, Kazuto, I was wondering where you were, I was starting to get lonely," Natsuki teased as she pulled off a sarcastically sexy pose.

"By the way, sorry I didn't catch you last night Doctor Kawahara," Kazuto said, completely ignoring Natsuki's teasing, causing her to pout.

"Please, just call me Reki," The computer doctor said, Kazuto made a mental note to remember that while simultaneously getting a weird feeling that something meta had just happened. "And don't worry about last night, I wasn't actually here. I had urgent business in Roppongi,"

"Mean old Reki made me hold down the fort all by myself that night," Natsuki said sarcastically before glaring at Kazuto. "If only I had someone to comfort me all night lo-"

"So anyway, about what we talked about," Kazuto said to the computer doctor, completely ignoring Natsuki once again. The female doctor heaved a sigh of defeat and Kazuto continued his talk with Doctor Kawahara.

"Ah yes, I did some digging regarding your friend 'Toran' and found something rather…interesting," Reki's pause made Kazuto a tad concerned as he pulled up a window with all the players currently playing. "As you said, I went through and found that he wasn't on the player list at all, not even on the past player's list," he then switched the window to a screen full of the game's code. "I then went into the game's data and after digging up some lost code, I found this," Reki proceeded to zoom in on a specific piece of code and upon seeing what he had found, Kazuto's eyes grew wide. Right in the middle of a line of code, there read this line;

[-Playable_Character:I.D_7992-Toran_Gender:Male_Status:Deceased-]

Kazuto was dumbfounded, unaware of what this meant. Noticing this, the computer doctor explained. "The only thing I can get from this is that your friend is supposed to be dead but, for whatever reason, isn't," Reki scratched his head at the predicament but found no absolute answer.

"I'm sorry son, but I'm afraid I really don't know what's happening here. My only advice for you is to ask him yourself. Surely he knows what he is," Kazuto didn't really understand what he had just been told, but clearly Toran had been keeping a secret from him all this time. And as much as he wanted to rip the info out of Toran right here and now, he didn't know how to approach the subject.

It was as if some paranormal phenomena was causing him to have doubts about asking Toran about it. Then, Kazuto took a moment to analyze the rest of the screen before him. It wasn't just random code they were looking at.

"These are for the new SAO, right?" He asked with a slight expression of worry.

"Well, seen as the max amount of players that logged into this new game was just under seven thousand, and the exact amount of names on this list are ten thousand and forty-six, it would be safe to assume otherwise. Though, I don't know where they came from," Mr. Reki said obliviously. However, Kazuto knew exactly where they came from.

"That would mean that these…are the codes lines for all ten thousand players of the old SAO," He stuttered as his eyes darted around the screen. Names such as Kimmy, Risinger, Alphie, and Kunori, whom he had encountered in one of the boss raids, popped up around Toran's name, and all of which had deceased as their statuses. He even saw Silica's name with the I.D of #8003, thought her statuses was obviously tagged as alive.

Realizing this, Kazuto had an idea. "Hey, Mr. Reki, can you search for Asuna's name?" Reki seemed confused for a moment but followed through with the request and entered Asuna's name into the 'search all' bar. After barely a second of waiting, the page automatically scrolled downwards until it arrived at a highlighted word in the middle of a code line.

[-Playable_Character:I.D_9151-Asuna_Gender:Female_Status:Alive-]

Seeing this allowed Kazuto to completely confirm his suspicions. However, he soon found himself making another search request. "Can you try searching for someone by the name of…Sachi?" He barely managed to get the words out properly as the reminder of his first genuine friend in SAO attacked his emotional well being. The computer doctor followed the request once again and after pressing the search button, the screen once again scrolled downwards towards another highlighted name.

[-Playable_Character:I.D_10031-Sachi_Gender:Female_Status:Deceased-]

He didn't know why he had said it or wanted to see it. Perhaps some stupid part of him wanted confirmation that she was dead, just in case. "Thanks," was all he said before he lay back down on his hospital bed before returning his old NerveGear back to its seemingly rightful place on his head. Though, he didn't log on immediately. He sat there with the helmet on his head and just stared at the ceiling for a while.

"Y'know, you really should talk to your friend," A voice suddenly came from his left, which turned out to be Nurse Aki after Kazuto lazily turned his head.

"The answer is going to be painful, it always is," Kazuto said in reply. To be honest, he could probably guess most of the answer already, but he didn't want to accept it. He could tell that all it would do cause hardship from both sides of the table.

"I can't say you're wrong, Kazuto. But if he is as you say, if he is a true friend, then I'm sure he'll understand you," She said as she held his slightly trembling hand. "It doesn't matter what comes between two friends, a bond of that caliber will never break. Not even through the toughest of hardships. Yes, it will be difficult to face the truth, but a friend is a friend, no matter who or what they are," As Kazuto sat back up, Natsuki embraced him in a calming hug. "You're one of the people who helped teach me that, Kirito," She admitted.

Normally no one except Asuna was allowed to mention his avatar's name IRL, but considering the moment, Kazuto completely ignored it and leaned his head on Natsuki's shoulder. He didn't cry, but he definitely needed someone to support him at that moment, and Natsuki was perfectly fitting the bill.

"Thank you Aki," He said after a minute or two of silence.

"Not a problem, I'll always be there to support you if you need it," She said as she lightly pat him on the back. After another minute or so, Kazuto finally felt his swelling emotion dissipate and separated himself from Natsuki. She probably thought long and hard about teasing him for this but decided it wasn't the time for that kind of thing, to which Kazuto silently thanked her for before shouting the usual command and getting whisked away to the virtual realm.

When Kirito woke up on the same couch he had logged off on, he found almost everyone sitting around seemingly talking about something. Though in their eyes, he had just interrupted a discussion.

""Kirito?"" They all said with the exception of Leafa who obviously used his real name.

"Did I…interupt something?" He said awkwardly as he looked around to see everyone staring at him.

"No, not at all," His in-game wife said to break the silence "But we were just about to get off and take a day off tomorrow, are you going to as well?"

"Well, I spent the entirety of today off so I don't think I'll be allowed sorry," Kirito replied back with a silly smile. They all gave him a sigh of annoyance to this. After waiting for their small discussion to finish, he finally noticed a real change in someone. "Sugu, since when did you have the Anneal Blade? And how did you level up so much in one day?" His comments caused both Leafa and Asuna, for other reasons, to blush slightly.

"Oh this?" Leafa said as she turned to her new Anneal Blade was more visible "Me and Asuna did the medicine quest on the first floor where we had to get a red flower from a Little Nepenthes," she briefly explained.

"Well done, and unscathed as well," Kirito said, oblivious to the near death experience that she went through. Leafa and Asuna had both promised each other that they wouldn't mention that to Kirito to avoid him worrying about her or something like that.

"Yeah…something like that," She replied awkwardly, and that was the end of that conversation.

"So anyway, I feel like I'm asking this more than I should be but, do you guys know where Toran is?" Kirito asked them, but the way they all looked at each other with confusion gave him his answer. "I really need to talk to him, he's…got something to tell me," He thought about telling them, but felt it would be best to confirm everything with Toran before saying anything about him behind his back, if at all. Everyone shared looks of slight concern, especially Sinon and Leafa.

"Well, you tell us how that goes the day after tomorrow. I'm going to go home and have some well-deserved pizza. Laters," Klein said as he departed from the virtual world. Everyone else slowly started to follow suit and eventually, it was just Kirito and Leafa in the room.

"Kazuto, what's happening with Toran?" Leafa asked in a serious tone. Clearly, he wouldn't be able to lie his way out of this one. So he decided to say the truth, but not all of it.

"Toran's been hiding something from us, and I need to hear it straight from him," He admitted. Leafa's eyes widened a little at his words but for the most part remained relatively calm. It was more her reply that was the most surprising.

"Can I come with you then?" She asked as she tilted her head slightly downwards in sorrow. "Please?" Kirito was momentarily lost for words at this and thought long and hard about whether or not to let her come, but eventually, he decided that there wasn't any harm in bringing her along.

"Okay, but please let me do that talking," He said in an unreasonable request. Luckily though, Leafa understood his intentions and nodded. They proceeded to teleport to the Town of Beginnings as Leafa said she had last seen him there.

"How are we going to find him here? They don't call this the biggest town in Aincrad for no reason," Kirito complained as they headed towards the last known location of Toran; the Chamber of Resurrection. Upon arrival, they split up and looked in and all around the monument but to no avail.

"Do you think he's logged out?" Leafa asked as they met back up.

"No," Kirito replied in a slightly serious tone. "If my judgment is correct, he'll still be here somewhere," They spent the next ten or so minutes scanning the surrounding areas but still saw no sign of him.

"Are there any places he likes to visit regularly?" Leafa asked as the boredom started to set in her. Then, at that moment, Kirito received a message from an Unknown username. He opened it and read it aloud for his cousin to hear.

Head to the small colosseum where the first-floor raid meeting was originally held, He'll explain things there.

That was all it contained, no name except for three question marks and he couldn't even reply to it. In fact, when he closed the message, it completely deleted itself from his virtual message folder.

"Guess we're headed to the western meeting colosseum," Kirito said as they turned left down the nearest street and headed to the west of the Town of Beginnings.

The truth about Toran is finally being revealed...

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Yes, i know it was a tad short but i wanted to end it on a cliffhanger and this was the only decent place to do it.

What do you think will happen when Kirito and Toran meet next chapter? I'd be interested to hear your theories.

Remember to Follow/Favorite if you enjoyed it and leave a review telling me what you think, 'till next time.

pls excuse all grammar mistakes, proof-reading ain't my strong suit.