This is being published only three days after the last update because it won't really fit into the next chapter but I REALLY wanted the 'Big Bads' thoughts thrown out there. Please review!
Kayaba Akihiko leaned back into his chair and smiled, things were getting interesting, and as much as he hated to admit to succumbing to that far too human emotion, he was amused.
Kirigaya Keiko had come to his attention a year ago when Argus first announced the full dive equipment, also known as NERVE gear, not a day after the site servers went up all administrative staff had received an e-mail from an unknown source. This person referred to themselves as 'Kirito' and had pointedly explained every fault in their security software and had even bothered writing some of the code to cover the faults on their own vocation.
The reason why? Well, Kirito said it best themself, "You have something amazing here, don't let amateurs muck it up because you decided to cut costs and hired idiots". The reaction of the board had been obvious, and they cracked down on security firing everyone involved with writing the company's firewalls in the process.
A week later he'd received a simple e-mail in the company intranet filled with a few strings of code displaying how they'd broken in yet again.
The message above the code was brief, "Way better, you guys are good. Try a bit harder though, only reason it took me this long is because I had to go practice with my sister. Tournament week and all."
It was at this point Akihiko became fully interested in this mysterious hacker. They were good, damn good actually but they had a flair for the dramatic that reminded him of an emotionally neglected young boy who taught himself how to work with computers through trial and error.
Someone who didn't have formal training yet made up for it with skill and guile.
Much to his surprise it took him two weeks to finally find his query, one Kirigaya Keiko, age thirteen, gender female, grades slightly below average. Going through her files he found that she was only...just below average in everything, from history, mathematics, creative writing, to PE, she was completely unremarkable. Scoring between 75's and 85's in all her school work, nothing jarring, nothing important, just another below average person for the world to absorb and throw away.
That was until he'd hacked directly into the school's mainframe, and found something interesting.
One Kirigaya Keiko had been scoring between 95 and 100 in all her classes outside of history and creative writing, which hovered between 80 and 85. The thing was, the grades had all been altered to reflect that of a sub-par student; and while she was a damn good amateur hacker, much better than what one expect for her age, she was still just a young teenager playing with experienced adults.
He'd tracked the alterations back to her with little issue. Now hadn't that been interesting? This little firecracker had been breaking into the schools mainframe to drop her grades while also hacking into a high end game company's servers for what amounted to her own personal amusement.
Why?
He'd dug deeper, and my hadn't he been surprised at what he'd uncovered?
Kidnapping victim at the age of ten, wasn't that fun? While trying to draw attention to herself as her kidnapper dragged her along she eventually decided that none of the staring idiots watching her frantic attempts to escape were going to do anything, so she helped herself and struck back.
She tazed the perpetrator, who then fell onto the street and was soon ground into hamburger by a passing bus.
The psychologists assigned to the case were concerned about her due to feeling no remorse for the mans death, the only thing she felt was a sense of grim satisfaction that he couldn't hurt anyone else now. That coupled with her newly developed, and entirely understandable, fear of crowds had the doctors worried about her mental health and suggested counseling and medications.
Her mother and grandfather were proud of her though, and while they agreed to counseling, they refused to drug her for anything but the enochlophobia.
The father, well, he never made a statement, and since he was currently in America and had been the past four years, not necessary to reach out to for input regardless.
Keiko threw herself into the digital world and video games to bury her emotions, be they shame, fear, satisfaction, she hid them from view while doing her best to portray the image of a lackluster student to avoid attention.
So very, very interesting.
Sword Art Online beta test starts, Kirito wins the draw due to Akihiko's curiosity. She dominates over her fellow testers further proving his theory that prior combat experience in the real world expands what is learned in the digital.
Kirito becomes one of the most well known beta testers in the game, to the point where Akihiko had truly not been sure if she managed to mod the game without anyone noticing or not. Out of honest paranoia he looks into it and discovers no, she is quite seriously that freaking deadly and the game simply translated it to the digital realm.
He is now past intrigued, he is enamored.
The beta comes to a close, out of all the players that stuck with the buggy mess Kirito is the top ranking participant, and is sent a message that at some point she will receive a specialty bonus that only she can use.
Young miss Keiko makes no effort to respond to this and shrugs the entire incident off, she spends the next three months playing Pokemon, Final Fantasy, and Dynasty Warriors while having daily spars with her sister to keep her skills honest.
Sword Art Online launches, and the young lady who breaks into her schools computers to drop her grades and hacks into multi-layered firewalls of major game publishers to point out security flaws logs on.
She hides behind her regular false name, and Kirito creates her avatar.
She meets a young man, he's amusing and she decides to help him out.
She tries to exit the game, and finds that she cannot
She finds out she is trapped in a death game, and grabs the only friend she's made thus far to try and get out the only way she knows they can.
What follows is a month of quite interesting human interactions, that eventually leads to a rather stellar boss battle, and the creation of true, legitimate heroes.
He couldn't be happier.
The Queens, the Black, and the White Queen respectfully, how interesting, how intriguing.
The masses reaction is so enthralling, he'd initially planned on plugging this hole, ending the transmission. Now though? This was too much fun, Keiko, and her new friend Asuna were simply too endearing and amusing to let go like that.
Would they resent being used like this?
Most certainly, they were human after all.
It would just be such a waste to throw away this opportunity for the world to fall in love with the girl he'd decided would be his successor. Because, really, if anyone could possibly understand his motivations, it would be Keiko.
Thankfully, for all of them, the general populace was borderline retarded, and no one important would look into why a dangerous sociopath had so much interest in a single teenage girl. It would be a very long time before the public at large realized that Kayaba Akihiko had decided to tutor their hero, the ever endearing Kirito, to take his eventual place.
It was...a truly marvelous setup, and he couldn't have hoped for anything better.
Edit-Tweaked a few this and thats, nothing big.