Hello there. Thanks for reading this fic. You might know me from stuff like Triple Birthday Week, which was also a birthday celebration fic I did three years ago. And now I'm back with a fic of a more grandiose level that I'll probably never reach again.

I tried my best to emulate Kawahara-sensei's style in writing this fic, but I'm not him, so this afterword will be in my own style XD.

So anyways, let's talk about this story. I mostly wanted to write this as an experiment to tie Sword Art Online and Accel World together. After 25 volumes of both series and their forward and backward development, I figured it was finally time to tear open the veil between them.

Let me repeat, this is not a crossover in the traditional sense, but an expanded look into the AW timeline using Kirito and Asuna (and Yui as well, oops). Which is the reason this was titled 'Beyond the Nexus', as it is about the causality that links both series, as well as a reference to the eponymous 'The Seed Nexus' that Kayaba left behind.

With all the clues left behind from different material, I attempted to write something that would make sense and tie in with the overarching development, sorta like putting part of a puzzle together. And the result is what you see in front of you, though I may not have really done a good job at it myself, but I digress, you be the judge.

There was another reason I wrote it this way, as it was a birthday fic dedicated to my #1 that I fully resonate with. Yes, you guessed it, it's none other than Kuroyukihime. While Asuna embodies perfection in everything she is and does, Hime is the complete package that I have yet to see for any other character in the world of anime.

An extremely irresistible beauty with lustrous black hair and snow-white skin, a super-cool girl with a quirky personality, and a web of mysteries (some tragic) all rolled into one. Really amazing, she is. That's also why this story was written, to explore the different stages of her life and offer her a path to salvation.

First is her 'birth' as the Star Princess Yuuki. A really cute and energetic princess born from the overflowing love of Underworld's Star King and Queen, she was eventually captured by KAMURA and synthesised as Sayuki-chan, while her brother Yuuji was transported safely, who you might know now as Graphite Edge, though I'll spare the details for another time.

The second is her avatar in Cosmos Corrupt, Black Princess, created from who she once was, yet colored in black to represent the sorrows she'd been in, similar to her Papa. She desired someone who would set her free from her darkness, and soon found her appropriately named 'white knight' (definitely did not name it like this on purpose, lol). However, tragedy ensued and she ended up losing him for a while.

As a result, she had given birth to her greatest avatar, Black Lotus. An avatar born from the fear she felt that day of losing everything. Her blades, though they looked like a symbol of rejection from the outside, were actually her way of protecting those close to her without having to feel regret at her own helplessness. In a way, she embodied the warm, loving spirit of Asuna through her gentle hands and the broken, yet inextinguishable fighting spirit of Kirito through her blades.

However, due to the seemingly negative influence of White Cosmos, her blades became a permanent part of her, a sign that she was afraid of touching other people for a while. Perhaps, her reason for reaching Level 10 was to find out who she truly was. She leveled up with the belief that she would forever be alone in her path of conquest.

Yet she formed a legion that was drawn together by the strange unexplainable emotion we call 'love', as exemplified in the tale of the maple tree that she told Haru. She wanted to help them however she could, and she did so by alleviating their sadness and taking it on herself. Unfortunately, she had already been labelled a traitor by the other Kings and even betrayed by her sister.

She'd been struggling since then, but Haru, Fuuko and Megumi got through to her and gave her something valuable, the strength to keep going, unlike Cosmos who only gave her superficial hope dangling from a fishhook. It's scary to think, but if she hadn't received kindness from the aforementioned three, she would've truly become a monster similar to Chrome Disaster as shown here.

Haru, on the other hand, wore his metal color as a shield that deflected the kindness of even Chiyu and Taku, because he was in a way more broken than Hime.

Despite this, she did everything she could, like declaring her love for him, and even subconsciously entrusted her wishes to him. Yes, Silver Crow's wings arose thanks to her. Though the Brain Burst system read Haru's own desire to fly, it had not granted him wings just yet. He acquired them himself only after deciding to be at the same place as his senpai, whom he first saw as a butterfly out of anyone's league, unable to be touched.

This is why, in spite of Haru being seen as the hope of the accelerated world, he cannot fly without Hime at his side. As Chiyu points out, she is the heart of the entire Nega Nebulas that keeps everyone together, including him. Though Haru was the one who wanted to make friends with Niko despite being from a rival legion, it was ultimately Hime who saved her in the same way she once did for Haru, eventually forming a new sisterhood with her.

She needlessly grounds herself because of her past guilt, but Haru reassures her that there's nothing to fear and offered his hand to her. This leads to her final evolution as the butterfly she'd always desired to be, unshackled by any chains, ready to fly to the horizon. This is the ultimate proof that Haru and Hime are two halves to each other like their predecessors and cannot be easily separated.

Oh dear, I think I've rambled on too much, hahaha. I'll just say happy birthday to the two heroines that are irreplaceable in my heart.

I would like to thank my mates in the AW Discord for reviewing this fic, and also the RATH Observation Group (or as I like to call, the Kunori Research Society – Chinese branch, lol) for providing me some hints in the overall direction of the story.

As for the behind-the-scenes details like the history of the three games, the SSS Order, the exact circumstances surrounding Haru and Hime, etc., I have some ideas that I would like to explore in a continuation, but I would rather wait for Kawahara-sensei to expand the combined story a little more, so you'll probably have to be patient for a while.

Oh right, I almost forgot, I felt bad not really dedicating anything to the queen this time, so I wrote a special omake for her as well. And just for the lulz, I wrote yet another short story about Sayuki-chan's 13th birthday, when she transformed into 'Kuroyukihime'. Have fun reading both :P.

A Certain Day in August

EMI