I have about five billion other stories I should be writing and yet I chose to write this instead. All of the first movie is done and broken into chapters I'll put up at the same time. Hope you like. Remember that I like reviews and stuff.

Kirito did it. He beat the Game. He defeated Sword Art Online and its psycho creator, Kayaba Akihiko.

But of the 10,000 people who had been stuck in the game, just over 4,000 of them had died. Both in the game and IRL.

Among them, was both Kirito and Asuna.

Or so everyone thought. Kirito discovered Akihiko's ruse, and agreed to fight him despite his friends screaming for him not to. It didn't go to well.

In the last second of the final battle, the final duel between Kirito and Kayaba Akihiko, Asuna somehow managed to overpower and break the paralysis Kayaba had placed on her and put herself between Kirito and a blow that would have ended Kirito's life, ending her's instead.

For a while after her death, Kirito was completely numb in shock.

"Hmm, I don't think I programmed a way for players to overcome paralysis," Kayaba had mused to himself, "Oh well, things happen sometimes."

He didn't even seemed phased by the fact he had just killed a girl who interrupted his duel. In fact, he had the nerve to be amused by the situation. That pissed pretty much everyone in the room off.

After that, Kirito had numbly picked up Asuna's sword she dropped after her avatar shattered and took a few clumsy swings at the creator.

And then Kirito died. A sword straight through his heart. His HP was completely depleted. His health bar disappeared, the "You are Dead" sign flashed in his vision, then his avatar shattered into a million pieces, just like everyone else's did when they died.

But Kayaba Akihiko had made a mistake in his plan to keep the players in his world. He bound their consciousness into the game, and therefore, to an extent, their souls. Under normal circumstances, this would never happen, but after being in the game for more than 2 years now, all players were strongly bound to the game.

Especially someone like Kirito. And for someone like Asuna. And for someone like Klein.

And that's what allowed one last anomaly within the game to happen.

Kirito didn't die when his avatar shattered. Instead, he came right back, through sheer force of will and stubbornness and determination, and stabbed Kayaba Akihiko in the chest with Asuna's blade –well many still believe it was through sheer force of will. But the truth, Klein never used the revival item Kirito had so numbly handed over to him during their first Christmas in the game. Not until that moment.

Seconds after, Kirito and Akihiko disappeared from the boss room, seemingly, they both shattered- for a second time in Kirito's case. The announcement was made that "On November 7th at 2:55 PM, the game has been cleared," reverberated on all the levels for all the players to hear and rejoice. The players were all released from the game. They were free.

It was over.

The next thing Kirito knew, he woke up on a glass-like platform floating an evening sky, overlooking the metal castle that had been their home and prison for over 2 years, falling apart into nothing. Supposedly like an end credits scene.

Asuna was there too. Together, they watched the castle fall apart, including their little cabin they had bought together as a temporary home. It was sad, yet happy at the same time.

Kayaba was there too, but he was no longer in the disguise of his avatar Commander Heathcliff, but a simple man with brown hair in a simple white lab coat.

He explained that the SAO database was deleting everything and the world would disappear forever and the 5,947 players who had survived up to that point had been logged out. He couldn't explain why he did this to them though other than a dream he's had since he was young. He congratulated them on clearing the game.

Then, he just disappeared.

The two of them didn't know what was going to happen next; wake up or die. No one else was up there, just the three of them who had been the last to die in the game.

They had already told each other their full real names and ages long ago, though Asuna had the same name IRL. They exchanged heartfelt apologies and goodbyes and said I love you and promised to find each other if they woke. Then they shared a kiss and hugged and cried on each other's shoulders until their time also came to disappear as the SAO world was finished delating itself.

With one last explosion of white light, it was all over.

And this is where the next story begins….

When Kirito finally lost consciousness after the SAO universe self-deleted, he expected to either die then go to whatever afterlife existed, hopefully alongside Asuna, or wake up from the 2 year long full-dive death gaming experience and take off his nerve gear and then go find Asuna.

When he did wake up, he felt tired. In the corner of his eye, he could see his health bar was just below the green zone, but would be all the way up soon.

Wait, his health bar?

He looked at his hands and body and realized he was still wearing his black coat and clothes he had been in Sword Art Online, and his black sword was safely in its sheath on his back.

He looked around himself. It was dark, the sun had just set, and the light he had came from the full moon and stars above him, which looked refreshingly different that the skies of SAO. He appeared to be right next to some sort of ruined watchtower.

Kirito frowned. Why was he here?

He couldn't be in SAO still, he had watched- had been in the game himself as it self-deleted. SAO was gone. But this wasn't home, a hospital or what he imagined an afterlife would be like. It was just some rocky plains and a tower of ruined rocks.

Out of curiosity, he swiped his right hand down, and his game menu appeared. Where the title of Sword Art Online used to be in the game title slot, there was nothing. He went into settings and opened it.

His frown deepened.

There was a button where the Logout Button was supposed to be.

But it said Login instead of Logout.

That couldn't be right. You can't log into anything from inside another game. He would have to be in the nerve gear start up screen, right after loading a game, right after staying "Link, Start," to log into anything.

And yet, the button said Login.

He pressed it out of pure curiosity.

A screen appeared that said;

"Unable to Login. Please correct 2 errors first."

The only button he could push from there was the Okay button and the screen disappeared.

"What errors?" Kirito wondered aloud.

He tried the Login button once more, but with the same results. He wasn't getting anywhere with that. He sighed and closed it.

Then he went into his item storage and found that he had almost all the items had had in SAO, well, except his teleportation crystals- those were all missing, probably because any of the places they could have been programmed to go had been deleted along with SAO.

His blueish-green long blade, Dark Repulsor that had broken in his fight with Kayaba was there too… he brought it out temporarily. It was still broken. At least half of the blade was shattered into several small pieces.

He sighed again. He didn't have the skill nor materials to fix swords and even if he did, it was beyond repair. He was surprised it hadn't just shattered into polygons yet like most broken swords did. But he would keep it still for the metal was rare and could come in use some day.

He put the broken sword back in the item storage. He was about to close the item menu when he noticed something else in there. It was…

… Asuna's Rapier. Why would-

Oh. Of course. They entered a relationship in SAO. They had access to each other's item inventories.

(BTW, because I feel like it, I'm changing SAO's marriage function to relationship because I think it fits better to Kirito and Asuna's relationship and doesn't seem as rushed if they are in a romantic relationship rather than full out marriage, Sorry to those who disagree.)

But if he had access to her inventory through his that meant that her nerve gear was still functioning and hadn't killed her. Maybe she was somewhere in this world too.

"Or," Kirito suddenly thought pessimistically, "All her items just transferred into my storage when she died… no! She's not dead! She's either in here with me or logged out and has woken up!" He reprimanded himself. Asuna was NOT dead.

Once again, he was about to close his menu, when he noticed a "2 new" icon over his skills.

He opened his skills menu.

He still had all of his SAO skills. The Duel Blade, his normal sword skills and everything else, but all the numbers seemed to be glitching out. And at the end of the list were two skills that hadn't been there before and Kirito had never heard of either of them.

The first was called "Shock Resistant." He clicked it and found himself frowning again.

"This skill is designed to prevent the injured player from going into shock due to physical injuries. Pain will still be felt, but to a lesser extent and the player has a next to nothing chance of falling into shock due to physical pain levels. Also increases healing ability."

Why would he need a skill to prevent him from going into shock from feeling pain? He was still in a full-dive. The closest he could get to feeling pain while wearing nerve-gear was fatigue from lack of rest or low HP and on super bad "injuries" gotten in game would sometimes give the area of injury that tingling feeling like you got when a limb fell asleep, and only until your HP restored itself, and it was easy to ignore once you got used to it with all the injuries Kirito had taken while fighting on SAO's frontlines.

With a start, Kirito realized he hadn't actually felt real physical pain for more than two years now.

Out of curiosity-and a bit of stupidity- Kirito reached back for his sword, but instead of drawing it, he purposely pricked his finger on the sharp part of the decorative/probably has a purpose but the author dost know it part of the sword above the hilt and pricked his finger on it.

He flinched.

It had hurt a little.

Damn. That was going to take some getting used to. But at least he had something that would prevent him from going into shock. But it also looked like a slash to the side would mean a lot more in this game that it would have in SAO. He'd have to be more careful.

He looked at his slightly bleeding pointer finger. Blood was something he hadn't seen in a while. Though if he looked very closely, he could barely make out the red mesh like material that was what would usually be the only thing in sight with an open wound in the SAO world. It was harder to see than normal.

"Wherever I am, it must have some gore graphics in it then too in order make the pain more realistic," Kirito thought. He would deal with this later. For now….

…What was the other skill he had gotten?

Scanning In.

"This skill is designed to allow the player to scan objects not compatible with current software into their inventory. Error items cannot be scanned. Large items may not be scanned in either. Must be within parameters."

What?

Shouldn't he just be able to put any object or item in his inventory that was inside parameters without scanning?

The questions were piling up too quickly.

Why hadn't he woken up or died? Where was he? Why did the button say Login? What errors did he need to fix? How could he feel pain and bleed while he was wearing nerve gear? Why would he need a skill to scan incompatible items into his software when he was already inside software? Why are all his numbers on his stats glitching out? Why would he even be here if there were things incompatible with the software? Where did he even get those skills from? Why was Asuna's sword in the inventory instead of by her side? Was Asuna even in whatever world Kirito was? And what about Kayaba Akihiko, what happened to him?

He pulled up his friend list and his few friends' icons and names he had were still there, but he found that the messaging and chat buttons were non-existent. He could still make recorded messages, but he couldn't contact anyone.

"Damn it, what the hell is going on?" Kirito muttered to himself.

He was so looking forwards to getting back to reality, but it looked like he left one game he couldn't escape from and managed to go into another- except now he could feel pain.

And at least in SAO he knew the objective to get out. Here, he didn't even know what the errors he had to fix were, and if he did manage to fix them, what would logging in even do? There was no Aincrad to return to.

He needed answers, but his player scans weren't showing any players or NPCs in sight. He was in the middle of nowhere.

He closed the game menu and looked over to the ruins. Maybe he could find some answers there.

Suddenly, there was a blade at his throat. Someone was right behind him. They must have had really good stealth skills for Kirito not to detect them.

On instinct, Kirito's hand shot up and grasped the hilt of his sword but the blade at his throat got closer to his skin and the person behind him grabbed his wrist in a strong grasp, preventing him from drawing his sword more than a millimeter.

"What is a boy doing out by the ruins of Weathertop alone?" a male's voice asked him.

"Depends on what you're doing out here alone," Kirito replied on autopilot.

The grip on his wrist tightened painfully, causing Kirito to wince, then the voice said angrily, "Do not play games with me, boy."

"Well, you know, I'd probably be more open if you weren't holding a sharp object so close to my neck," Kirito said sarcastically, though he knew he had to be more careful now that he could actually feel pain and bleed.

Because where there's blood in a full-dive game, there's usually the possibility of bleeding out, no matter how good his healing skills were.

His captor stalled for a moment, probably not expecting such a sarcastic tone form his captive, before the sword against his neck was lowered and the grip on his wrist was removed. Immediately after, Kirito turned around and backed up a few steps.

Kirito looked at the weather beaten man. He was an adult, obviously, and had long and unwashed brown hair and stubble on his chin and a rather weather beaten look. He wore mostly worn black clothes and boots that also looked well-worn and he had a small bedroll and pack for food and other provisions on his back, though he did seem to be traveling light. His sword scabbard at his side was currently empty and the blade was in his hand, ready to be raised at a moment's notice and beside him, a torch was planted in the ground, providing some extra light.

There was no warning that this was an NPC, quest giver or player. No player cursor or identification, but Kirito could see an HP bar if he focused on the man, though no accompaning numbers or level could be seen. Strange. All games are supposed to have some form of player ID or cursor though anything 'alive' that wasn't (MOST) plants had a health bar, plus Kirito actually had to focus on him to see it.

"So, who are you?" Kirito asked.

-POV change-

Strider looked at the boy who couldn't be older than 16 before him. He didn't look like he had been traveling for days even though the nearest town was Bree, an eight day journey through the wilderness where no road had existed for quite some time. His hair was cut short like how most male hobbits had their hair, but it was straight rather than curly and naturally messy with some strands hanging in his face and he had the darkest colored onyx – not dark brown – eyes Strider had ever seen on someone of his own race.

His dark eyes also betrayed that he had seen a lot more things he shouldn't that most 16 year olds ever should. Strider hated it when children had eyes like that. It pained him to think that a child had to go through trauma of any sorts. His response to Strider's ambush proved the theory even more.

He wore all black clothing with white trim, and while he did look comfortable in it as if he had been wearing it a while, it didn't look extremely old and torn, but it wasn't brand new either. He had a simple black shirt and black pants tucked into ankle high black boots. Over that, he wore an open long black coat with white trim, with some straps that were also black with white trim and a pair of black fingerless gloves. All of which were made out of materials Strider couldn't ID exactly.

He carried nothing but the sword on his back, rather than his side, which wasn't something seen often. Not even a bedroll or blanket was in sight unless it was somehow tucked away in his coat, but there was nothing to indicate that. If he carried nothing but a sword, how did he get out here, an 8 day journey from Bree? He didn't look like he was hungry or sleep deprived.

At the moment, all Strider could tell about the boy was that he was on high alert. But upon a closer look, he seemed… confused, maybe a little scared. But not of Strider. But he also didn't have the fear levels of the Black Riders or any other predator, lesser or greater, either. So he was either ignorant of them or just foolishly downplaying the creature's abilities.

"So, who are you?" the boy asked.

"I am known as Strider. And you?" he asked, deciding to earn the boys trust at least somewhat before drilling him about the strange magic he had seen the boy preforming before he approached him.

"I'm known as Kirito."

Strider couldn't identify what culture the name sounded like it was from. Obviously he was a foreigner, but from which land?

The broken sword he had made appear and disappear was also an indication of a fight. It was broken- shattered. That meant it had to have been in use. Of course, the sword had disappeared moments after it had appeared so…

But it wasn't the time yet. Strider needed to figure out what do to with the boy-err Kirito, then he needed to get back from Frodo and the other Hobbits as soon as possible. Because knowing them, they were likely to get into trouble even with him just next to the ruins.

These suspicions were proven to be correct a moment later.

Strider had just opened his mouth to say something to Kirito when a blood curling screech filled the air. And annoyingly familiar blood curling screech.

The Wraiths had found them.

"What the hell was that?" Kirito asked, sensing the danger.

Strider didn't answer. Instead he took off running towards the ruins at full speed, not caring that Kirito was not only following him, but easily keeping pace with him despite the break neck faster-than-normal-people-could-go pace Strider was going.

Strider bounded up the steps of the ruins to the top where the Hobbits were.

And he was met by a horrifying sight. Sam, Merry and Pippen had been thrown against the rocks and pillars, and were barely conscious. He couldn't see Frodo, but the wraiths were surrounding an empty area, which meant Frodo had that cursed ring on his finger. One of them had their sword pointed down and there was a cry of pain.

Frodo was hurt. Sam managed to recover and went to his aid.

Strider leapt into battle. He knew he couldn't win against these things, but he had to drive them off, just long enough to make an escape.

Luckily he had a torch with him.

He swung the torch back and forth, the creatures screeched and backed up, but then attacked. He only had three of the five in his vision. One of them stepped forwards and swung at him with its sword.

Then he sensed one right behind him, but his sword was busy blocking another's attack. The once-man raised it's sword to strike Strider down, but instead there was another screech as it's sword connected to another sword that was not Striders.

It was Kirito. For the first time, Aragorn noticed that Kirito had followed him up and had drawn his sword, which much like his clothing, eyes and hair, was black. He had never seen a sword of that metal. And not only that, Kirito was wielding it completely one-handed despite how heavy it seemed to be.

Strider didn't have much time to marvel at Kirito's appearance, there were still enemies to be fought.

Together, they fought off the devils. Strider managed to light one on fire, and Kirito kicked a second into that one, igniting them both and forcing them to retreat.

Kirito fought well. He did lean towards fighting on his own, but at times, he clicked in very easily with Strider for a combo move to combat the monsters in ways Strider never would have thought of. One by one, they were driven away.

The final one finally left after Kirito pushed it into Strider's path for him to ignite it with the torch. With one last screech, they disappeared into the night.

But Strider knew that wouldn't keep them away forever. They had to move quickly.

Both swordsmen put their swords away and rushed to an injured Frodo's side when Sam called for them.

Frodo was moaning and gasping in pain, he had been stabbed in the shoulder.

"Help him Strider," Sam said.

Strider then noticed the sword on the ground next to Frodo and picked it up.

"He has been stabbed by a Mogul Blade," he said, the sword disintegrated down to the hilt a second later, and Strider just knew that the very tip had probably been broken off in Frodo's shoulder.

"This is beyond my skill to heal, he needs elvish medicine," Strider said and lifted Frodo into his arms, trying to ignore his pained cried, "Follow me. All of you."

That last bit was mostly directed at Kirito.