SAO A Different Story
AN: This is what should've happened when you give a computer genius access to a command console.
Disclaimer: I don't own SAO, wish I did.
A Different Story
Chapter 5- Who's got the Hax? HE's got the Hax!
Kirito's response was rather unremarkable.
"Eh?" was the only noise he could make, as he wasn't entirely sure he'd heard them right. The collection of serious looks he received made him believe that he actually had. "Just to make sure I heard you right, you want me to marry all of you?" he was answered with a mass of nods, which were oddly synchronized. "O-kay then. First question, is that even possible? Secondly, why? I was under the impression that girls didn't share their guy, and society probably wouldn't agree with it either."
"Oh, it's definitely possible. There's no rules or anything against it, it's just that nobody had reason to try," said Argo.
"As for the sharing thing," Silica added, "it's not so much of a sacrifice as it is a collective bonus. You hadn't done more than hug any of us. You're a healthy teenage boy surrounded by cute girls and hadn't tried to start a deeper relationship with any of them. Either you were oblivious, which we doubt, you couldn't decide between us so decided on none of us, or you're secretly gay. You're not gay, are you?"
"NO! Most definitely not!" shouted Kirito, then he realized how quickly and vehemently he had defended himself. He sheepishly sat back down, adding, "Not that I have anything against people who are, a few of my acquaintances were and they were perfectly nice people, but I am perfectly straight, thank you very much."
"See? We all had agreed that it was almost certainly case number two, so we came to an agreement," informed Asuna. Argo nodded and continued,
"Instead of all of us getting none of you, each of us gets some of you. A win-win all around, especially for you. And quite honestly, we were all sick and tired of waiting for you to make your choice, so we made it for you."
"Don't I get any say in this?" whined Kirito.
"No," came the chorused reply.
Kirito wisely did the thing he had been doing much too often in his opinion. He gave a defeated sigh and nodded his head in acquiescence. The group squeal and tackle-hug actually drained his HP slightly, as the force of six players and one very life-like npc landing on him was not inconsiderable.
Spending time to find an npc priest to wed them wasn't even necessary, as Argo led the way to the nearby town's church. It seemed they had everything planned out ahead of time. Since they had shown that they had anticipated every other problem with the situation up to that point, Kirito wasn't even mildly surprised when Lisbeth handed him a set of matching rings that she had forged. Each ring was made of braided Crystallite and high quality steel, the gem of each one colored to match the hair of one of the girls, and each was sized appropriately for its corresponding girl. Kirito was more than a little impressed by how in depth they had planned this, but when he stopped to consider that two of the girls responsible were Aincrad's top strategist and information broker, he decided that it was par for the course, all things considered.
Now, the game itself only had programming for two people in the marriage ceremony. But it didn't actually limit the number of times one could be married, oddly enough. It was decided that Kirito would wed the girls in the order that he met them: Argo first, followed by Asuna, Lisbeth, and Kizmel- who at this point the group treated as another player, as npc or not she acted like a real person. After that were Sinon and Yuuki and, last but certainly not least, Silica. The marriage was quick and simple, and it ended with each girl coming up and kissing Kirito on the cheek, before giggling and scurrying back to join the rest of the girls. They weren't ready to do more than that yet, but they were in no rush as they had already laid claim to their man, and they planned on taking several days off from clearing the front lines to spend time exploring their new relationships.
Despite the strangeness of it all, Kirito wouldn't have changed a thing, he decided, as he sat back and watched his girls fussing over Yui. The newly-weds had been strolling through the woods around their home, simply enjoying the amazing scenery of Aincrad's 22nd floor, when Asuna had spotted a shimmer of white from her peripherals. Further observation revealed the form of a young girl in a white one-piece dress. She apparently suffered from amnesia, as she couldn't recall who she was or what she was doing on that floor all alone in the woods in the first place. What made it stranger was that the diminutive girl had no player or npc icon. While it baffled them all, the girls- minus Argo- didn't spend too much time worrying about it. Because come on, their guild included an npc who was married to Kirito. They had dealt with stranger things than a missing character marker.
Asuna, Lisbeth and Yuuki had been smitten at once with the young girl's cute and innocent look, and had declared that the group was going to take her in and take care of her until they could find out whom she belonged to. The shy little girl had been overjoyed by the attention that Kirito's collection of females gave to her. She was doted on as if she were their real daughter, which Argo found incredibly ironic as the girl looked as if she were actually Kirito and Asuna's child. She had Asuna's hair and face with Kirito's eyes and hair color. When Argo pointed out those entirely coincidental facts to the group, it had led to them jokingly referring to Asuna and Kirito as Yui's mother and father. Yui had immediately proclaimed her approval of that idea, which led to more sighing from Kirito and the group more or less 'adopting' the girl.
After two days of smothering the dangerously cute girl- Kirito swore her pouty face and smile were lethal weapons- in affection, the group agreed that even if they planned on keeping her, they should probably check to see if they could find out more about her past and missing memory. A trip to the Town of Beginnings to visit the matron of the orphanage was put in the schedule.
Walking through the starting city with Yui riding on his shoulders and gazing about in awe at the sights, Kirito led the party towards the orphanage. Their journey was interrupted when they came across members of the Aincrad Liberation Force trying to forcibly recruit several kids into the guild.
"Papa," Yui asked innocently, "what are those mean people doing? They look like they're scaring the other kids."
"Don't worry, Yui. Asuna and the girls will take care of it. Why don't you and I continue our walk while they teach these bad people some manners?"
"Okay, papa! Bye, mama! By other mamas! See you later!"
The girls smiled and waved at the adorable girl as she and Kirito disappeared around the corner, before they turned to the suddenly not-so-confident 'soldiers'. The beating that ensued was not fit for reading, and the screams for mercy would never be forgotten by those who were close enough to hear. It was only by the grace of the Safe Zone that the recipients of the beating didn't lose a point of health, despite the utter thrashing they received. Whether they were damaged or not, the sight of seven angry women charging them with deadly weapons had caused the players to temporarily forget they were in no danger of dying. It would be a while before they remembered that little tidbit.
Meanwhile, Kirito and Yui had arrived at the orphanage and talked with Sasha, but unfortunately found no information which revealed anything about Yui's past. When Kirito and Yui met back up with the girls, they found them discussing a rescue mission with a woman named Yulier, who had seen them rather brutally beat the Aincrad Liberation Force members. Rather than be upset over her guild mates fates, she requested their help in rescuing a man named Thinker, who had been trapped by everyone's favorite Cactus Head in a hidden high-level dungeon. It was unanimously decided that they would rescue the man, as Argo and Silica easily deduced that Yulier held affection for Thinker. The girls were extremely happy with how their own romance was doing, and were sold on the idea of reuniting a lost love.
The initial journey went rather smoothly, with the only enemies being more annoying than anything else. When they were within sight of the Safe Room that Thinker was trapped in, a massive reaper-like boss named The Fatal Scythe appeared. Kirito sent Yulier on a run to the Safe Room with Yui in her arms, telling her to use the teleport crystal he'd given them to escape with Thinker. Despite the teamwork and skill shown by the Diamond Blades, even their trademark Spinning Diamond formation was unable to defeat the monster. Its health and stats were too great to overcome, and it pushed the Blades back until most of them were in the red. Just when it looked like they weren't going to make it out and Kirito prepared to tell his wives to run while he held it off for a few final moments, their fate was changed.
Little Yui, who had escaped the grasp of Yulier and refused to teleport back without her Mamas and Papa, stepped in front of the fallen warriors, and raised a massive fiery sword that she had conjured. As she blocked the almost assuredly fatal blow, a small dialogue box popped up and informed the group that Yui was somehow an Immortal Object. One swipe from the Object Eraser sword later, The Fatal Scythe was no more, and a tearful Yui was hugging her adoptive parents and explaining to them how she had regained her memory. After the shocked group had moved to the safe room and collected their bearings, they were shocked again as Yui started to say her goodbyes, as she informed them that Cardinal was about to delete her for breaking from her programming and she was now considered a corrupt program.
While the girls were crying and embracing the girl they had all come to love as a daughter, Kirito was busy typing away on the command console that Yui had used to restore her memory. He had found to his delight that Yui was still logged in with her admin credentials which, as a piece of Cardinal, were on the same level as Kayaba's. His fingers were flying furiously, swiping windows and typing characters. A short while later, he smiled smugly and sat back to observe his family, for that's what they were now, as they continued to hug Yui and cry. It was almost five minutes later when one of the girls, nobody was sure who mentioned it first, wondered aloud why Yui hadn't been deleted yet. Not that they were complaining, but they had all been bawling their eyes out for quite some time, and it was rather anticlimactic now if something was going to happen. Then Yuuki looked over to Kirito, who she couldn't recall seeing in the group farewell hug, and noticed his superior and smug smile. She was just about to yell at him for being heartless and not worried about his daughter being deleted, when she realized that he in fact really wasn't at all worried about her being deleted. Suspicious, she gave him The Look, and asked,
"Kirito-kun, what exactly did you do?" Because to Yuuki, it was obvious by now that Kirito had indeed been responsible for Yui's non-disappearance. The girls slowly came to the same realization, and collectively looked to Kirito with hope shining in their eyes.
"Well, as you are all aware by now, I was very much into computers and programming before this entire thing happened. I may not have done any programming since this started, but knowing your way about a computer is very much like riding a bike," Kirito said. He was tempted to skirt around the bush a bit, but the looks he was getting told him to get to the point and explain himself. "Fine, fine. Sheesh, don't give me that look. I basically took Yui's files and moved her to a new location in the system. Cardinal was looking to delete the MHCP001 program files, so I made sure that it did. The fact that a random mob on the 33rd floor was recently renamed MHCP001 wasn't a fact that Cardinal was aware of. Yui's files are now backed up on my NerveGear, which is directly connected to my computer, and she had been renamed KY001, or Kirigaya Yui zero-zero-one."
The smug smile on his face as he said all of this was quickly replaced with horror as he was subjected to another mass tackle-hug, this time with one additional smaller body added in.
On a separate and entirely unrelated note, Klein and his guild Fuurinkazan stumbled their way into a random bar on the 33rd floor, loudly bantering and insulting each other. They had just returned from a long night slaying mobs, and could use a drink and some rest. They had been fighting several packs of wolves at once when the alpha wolf had leaped at Klein and knocked him down. The animal's jaws were descending towards Klein's vulnerable throat when its name bar blurred and shifted, and it suddenly dissolved into pixels. Klein had at first boasted about some new power he must have had, before one of his guild mates loudly proclaimed that the wolf had been killed by Klein's extreme body odor from being in such close contact with him. This had led to increasing jokes against Klein's state of cleanliness and manliness, as well as completely distracting the guild from the event that had started the joking in the first place.