In exchange for everything she knew about the inner secrets of SAO, Nezu worked his magic to create an actual identity for Yui.
Officially, her new name was Midoriya Yui, adopted daughter of Izuku. Her birth father was listed as Kayaba Akihiko, with an unknown mother. Her quirk was listed as "Digital Conversion" and it allowed her to enter the internet through any open source, though her body was left in a coma-like state.
What Nezu found out in the process of helping to create her identity was that Kayaba had apparently left her the sole inheritor of his estate...roughly an hour before people started to wake up from their induced comas on SAO.
Which made sense...it had taken that long to begin the long process of releasing everyone, and his will was digital. Yui hadn't even messed with it...she had been too busy transferring her data over to Eri's NerveGear to keep an eye on her sister at the time.
Under normal circumstances, people might have targeted Yui for being Kayaba's daughter.
Except thanks to the fictional backstory they created, it became very obvious she was one of his main victims in his mad scheme, as she lost her body by mistake.
Instead of anger, Yui received public support from the heroes who were given the fake background.
Inko was rather surprised, and once she got over the shock of a little girl calling her son "daddy", delighted at the idea of having a granddaughter to spoil early. Sure, it was a tad awkward talking to her through the TV, but it was only a temporary thing until they were able to fix her situation.
Outside town...
Toshinori looked at their secret base with some approval. It was somewhat well constructed and he understood why they had to go outside town to make it.
"So you're saying you wanted to recreate your guild in real life, but the alert said you had to be a pro hero first?" he asked.
"Apparently the Gamer quirk registers Pro Hero agencies as something close to guilds, and attempting to buy a building and use it was impossible because our levels are too low and we didn't have the right job class. In MMO's players usually have to complete a specific series of quests to earn a job class or the titles that go with it," explained Izuku.
Toshinori nodded, as it made the whole "Gamer" quirk more credible. It made perfect sense that Izuku couldn't access the guild system if it was tied to the pro hero class. For one thing there was an age limit on acquiring a pro hero license and you had to go through a specific series of tests to be qualified for one.
"Luckily for us, the system does allow for a secret base to be established instead. Problem is we couldn't make one in town because it would register as an 'illegal guild' and the pro heroes would come after us again thinking we're vigilantes," said Kirito in annoyance.
Toshinori nodded, then his mind registered the wording.
"Wait, again?"
"We were trying to level up our stats and earn a few skills, and we kept running into pro heroes who started telling us off for using our quirks in public. They accused us of trying to be vigilantes, or worse starting on the path of villainy," said Izuku annoyed. "After a while we gave up and stuck to the more difficult methods of increasing our stats."
"Hence why you were cleaning the beach," said Toshinori.
"It increased our strength and vitality stat, plus we got decent EXP for each section we cleared. We're still working our way up to parkour, which would increase our Dexterity since we looked ridiculous doing Yoga all the time. Besides, that method capped out way too quickly," said Kirito. "Plus side our health bar has gone up quite a bit from cleaning the beach."
"Too bad SAO never had any magic..." joked Izuku.
"Did you keep any of your SAO skills when you logged out?" asked Toshinori, honestly curious.
"Actually, we did," said Kirito.
"But only ones that could have real world applications. Special skills that would only work in a game were dropped, but the normal ones like archery or dual-wielding stayed," said Izuku.
"I didn't think SAO had archery as an option," said Toshinori.
"It was a pain in the ass to unlock, but so worth it," said Izuku grinning. "You had to do an unholy amount of grinding, spend hours upon hours on a chain of really annoying or downright irritating quests, and you had to get certain skills that would lead to the chain that unlocked the archery skill set. But since we were trapped in there anyway, I figured why not?"
"He's literally the only player in the game who kept it up until he gained the archery skill set," said Kirito. "The chain of quests was seriously annoying and even I had to admit the amount of grinding wasn't worth it."
"This coming from the only other dual-wielder in the game," said Izuku.
"Hey, I got that skill by complete accident!" said Kirito.
"How good are your remaining skills?" asked Toshinori.
Izuku looked at Kirito.
"Two of three?"
"Deal," he said.
The two of them lead Toshinori outside the base to a decently sized clearing. Hard to believe the two had the capital to actually pay for the surrounding land for the next five miles. Their base wasn't even that big.
Toshinori could only watch in shock and disbelief as the two seemed to flow around each other in a dance of death. Kirito somehow managed to create a pair of swords using his phone, and Izuku brought out a pair of odd curved short swords from his phone.
"Is there any particular reason you used such odd phrases?" he asked.
Kirito and Izuku looked at each other.
"For fun, I guess? It's not like we really need them," said Kirito. Izuku nodded in agreement.
"Besides, it gives us an advantage against any future villains. If they think we need to say a certain phrase then they won't know we can bring them out without it," said Izuku.
"Not to mention this'll give us a chance to warm up before we hit the dungeon today," said Kirito cheerfully.
"Dungeon?" said Toshinori.
"Well yeah, since the pro heroes get really snippy if people without a license interfere against villains, the only time we really get to practice our remaining skills is through the sub-dimensional dungeons that keep popping up," said Izuku, as if it were obvious.
"There's never any human villains inside, because that would clash with the 'no challenging villains' issue, but there are plenty of easily spawned monsters in them that are great for leveling," said Kirito.
"Best of all, they have a rising difficulty level, so every time we up the difficult the dungeon completely resets and the bosses respawn," said Izuku.
That relaxed Toshinori some.
"I would like to see this dungeon of yours, once you're done sparring."
The two agreed to a short spar, mostly to get the kinks out for the day. From what he could see the boys were skilled, but their main motivation was to clear the 'downloadable dungeon' that Izuku's youngest was still trapped in.
Izuku's face twitched.
"What is it?" asked Kirito. They were planning to hit one of the higher end dungeons they had avoided because they were way too low level to hit it.
"According to the system, the only way we're going to be allowed to clear the dungeon is if all three of us are in 'Easy' mode, and we'll have to work up to the free mode."
"Yeah, and?"
"And it means Yagi-san would be stuck in All Might form for several hours," said Izuku. "It also means that the number of levels we're likely to get from this are going to be nonexistent."
Kirito blinked, before he twitched.
"Yeah, that's really annoying," agreed Kirito. It wasn't much fun if they could clear the dungeon in a matter of hours, rather than make it last.
"Well, nothing for it. At least this way Yagi-san will get a better idea of what a dungeon is like," sighed Izuku.
It was a miracle that the system let them party up with All Might in the first place, but it only allowed it when they were in "SAO-form", as Izuku had dubbed it. Which meant they were practically near the same level he was in the real world anyway.
They spent the next seven hours clearing the dungeon, and if anything All Might's respect for the two went up.
"You two do this regularly?"
"It's not like we have to deal with school, and this way the truant officers leave us alone," said Izuku.
"What."
"Apparently Kayaba left an opening for people to interact with the outside world...including online schooling. Add in the fact that the Intelligence stat came back even to those who weren't part of Izuku's party, and well... Izuku's already a qualified lawyer and I'm currently in the middle of my second degree in computer programming and analysis," said Kirito.
"Wait, what?" said All Might, gobsmacked.
"Well it's kinda pointless to take up the free tutors the government hired when I was able to prove I had already completed not just college, but law school..." said Izuku embarrassed. "Man, Bakugo was pissed finding out that I was still surpassing him even after we finally logged out."
Pissed was an understatement. Not only did he have to work extra hard to regain his ability to use his explosions, but he was also behind on two years of schooling, and Asian schools held their students to ridiculously high standards just for graduating. Which meant he was at a further disadvantage...add in his decreasing mental state, upon learning that the one he had mocked as "weak and worthless" was now superior to him in practically every way, and that his prized quirk was 'unusable', and it was a recipe for a complete mess.
Bakugo was currently under strict psychiatric watch, and Izuku had been vindictively pleased learning that his previous teachers were all under a rather painful investigation for letting his ego and bad habits to go on for so long.
Several of them had been fired and outright banned from the teaching profession, and his former middle school had been closed pending further investigation because they had been giving their students some very bad habits regarding quirk use and a disregard towards dangerous quirks in public settings.
Best of all, the only thing Izuku had to do was give his truthful statement about Bakugo's behavior before they were in SAO, and the hothead had basically dug his own grave.
"By the way, did you notice what sort of dungeon that was?" said Kirito, grinning. The two looked at him oddly. "It was a robot dungeon. If we were fighting cheap droids on 'Easy' for mob fights..."
"Then there's a high chance we might be able to get one Yui can use for her real world interface in the hard or free levels later. Kirito, you're a genius," said Izuku.
"So boys, what are you going to do with the cash we kept picking up?" asked All Might. He thought they'd spend it or something.
The two looked at each other.
"Give most of it to Yui, then put the rest aside for anything that catches our interest," said Izuku.
"It's a good thing you're setting aside money for her future," said All Might approvingly.
"No, it's because Yui plays around with the stock market as a hobby and she said she wanted to be prepared for when her daddy actually starts using his law degree to make even more money. Though personally I think he's too damn nice to be a lawyer."
"You're never going to stop with the evil lawyer jokes, are you?"
"Not a chance in hell. For one thing there's way too many and I'm still surprised you picked that one over the rest," said Kirito flatly.
"It was literally the only high paying profession that had online courses and didn't require any real world experience. So long as I had the money to pay, the Bar Association didn't care one bit I was still a minor or that I was still trapped in SAO at the time. If anything they were probably amused. And besides, at least I chose lawyer over a bureaucrat," said Izuku.
"True."
A few days later, they geared up to try again. Since they had already beaten the 'Easy' mode, this time they were doing the 'Intermediate'.
There was, however, one slight snag.
"Who is this?" asked Izuku.
"My little sister Suguha. She wanted to know what I was doing since I wasn't attending school and wanted in," said Kirito embarrassed.
"I'm not about to lose my brother twice," she said flatly. "Especially since whatever he's doing has him using some rather flashy sword moves."
"Can she keep up?" asked Izuku honestly.
"Hey! I've won national championships with my sword skills, thank you!" she said defensively.
Izuku looked to Kirito. He nodded slightly, which made his sister more irate.
"You're a kendo user, right? What's your sword preference?"
"There's no way you're carrying a sword around. The heroes wouldn't allow it," said Suguha.
"I'm not. But I can get one from the 'Store' option rather easily. I just don't use it because my own gear is better than what they have available."
"You can buy weapons?" said All Might alarmed.
"Again, I don't bother with it because I get better from drops. Beside, my Strength attribute is high enough that a simple punch or even a kick would be sufficient to take down most thugs trying to rob me," said Izuku.
"What's the limit on the weapons you can get?"
"Only what I can physically handle at my current level. Which, again, is not worth the time or effort to bother with. It's primarily bladed weapons and archery equipment since I have the skills for them," said Izuku.
"So guns and other firearms?"
"Not available," said Izuku. "I can't even buy poisons, for crying out loud. Only healing items I can craft myself."
That calmed the hero down considerably. The idea of a teenager with a gun that wasn't already in training for the pro hero class with strict supervision was a terrifying one.
Especially considering Izuku's past history...forget SAO, the idea of a gun in the hands of someone who had been bullied extensively sent alarms ringing in his head!
Suguha pouted, but told him her general preference. Izuku made it very clear that it would be 'loaded' from her phone, which was inaccessible once they were in the dungeon. Which made sense...you couldn't get a signal out from a dungeon anyway, and they weren't too clear what happened if you died in one. They hadn't been foolish enough to test it out just yet.
Once they were in the dungeon, Suguha summoned her shiny new toy. She was shocked to find it worked.
"So what's this Intermediate setting about anyway?"
"Easy mode is set to SAO stats, Hard is set to 'Real World' stats, and Free lets you choose which version you want to play as. Intermediate, as far as we can tell, is based on your character in ALO, mostly because we recently got accounts on it," said Kirito.
"Apparently my quirk treats the VRMMO games I play as 'update patches', and adjusts accordingly. Non-physical stats tend to stay as they are once you're out, but physical ones have to be built up the same as in real life. Hence why we aren't muscle-bound after SAO, despite having really high Strength stats," said Izuku.
If the boys had been paying attention, they would have seen Suguha pale considerably hearing that. All Might saw it though.
"What?!" she said in shock, but it was too late. The door to the dungeon was closed to the real world until it was cleared, because that was how they had set it beforehand. Izuku wasn't expecting Kirito to bring an extra after all, and he didn't want to chance any of the monsters getting loose and causing havoc.
"Don't worry Princess Leafa...your secret is safe with us!" chirped a young female voice.
Suguha turned...and saw the sprite known as Yui.
"Wait, Leafa?!" said Kirito, turning in shock.
The boys turned to see Leafa from another guild behind them.
"Look at the bright side! You have all the time in the world to figure this out!" chirped Izuku. Suguha, or rather Leafa, glared at him.