I do not own SAO, and all credit is due to Reki Kawahara.

Thanks for subscribing/faving/reviewing since my last chapter:

InvasableTarget, Jkpkmn,Madgunner75, Orihara alice,laughingspider

Hi everyone…. Sorry about the delay. I couldn't get into the chapter. To make it up to you guys, I tried to make it longer than usual! Hope you enjoy.

Sugou wasn't just angry. He was fuming.

Upon returning form his duties at Recto, in the Full dive division to find that somehow, a few of his scientists made a terrible, irreversible mistake.

Said employees cowered underneath the thread of his impending verbal onslaught. While Sugou towered over them, pupils dilated, cool mask thrown aside and orderly appearance torn asunder. Spittle flew from his lips as furious curses and phrases were flung at the grown men were huddled as if to protect themselves from the growing proverbial storm. He employees of the full Dive division are normally used to the 'quirks' of their boss. They both joke and warn others about his temper this was on a whole other level. Normally, all they received was an insult, he threatened them, and then they were brushed aside like leaves floating in the wind. But now. Now they were in trouble; none of those present had ever seen him so angry. He was livid.

"You fools!" He ground out, unable to hold himself still, and so he threw his arms out in front of him in exasperation, trying to control himself. "You absolute imbeciles! You incompetent buffoons! How can I expect to get anything done with people like you working under me?!"

Huffing and puffing, looking very much like the big bad wolf about to snuff out the lives of some very unfortunate human sized piglets. Just as he said that, one of the less brave men (but really, none of them were very brave) practically horizontal face nearly touching the floor in an extreme doges a pose, with his hair a faded dirt color, big gut jutting over the belt, eyes to the floor, much like the rest of them, let out a small, pathetic, whimper of absolute terror. This gave Sugou reason to pause. While amusing, it would not be good if word of this incident were to spread. Better to either make them disappear, or to make them fear for their lives and get out of the public eye.

That seemed to knock the man off of his tirade. He immediately froze, and as if realizing how unbecoming his actions made him appear, calmed, at least outwardly. Rubbing wearily at his eyes, and pinching the bridge of his nose, he took a deep breath and slowly breathed out. This in turn, made the men on the floor relax, and one even felt comfortable enough to raise his eyes from the floor. Maybe the ability to do so came not from a sudden easing in the pressure aimed at them, but in attempt to be able to act appropriately to whatever was coming of an instinct to be able to dodge what was coming at them than any kind of planned move.

His eyes were met with the burning gaze of Sugou Nobuyuki. He immediately dropped his gaze back to the floor. The entire group showed signs of anxiety. Sweat beaded on more than one of their foreheads, and drops plip plopped onto the floor, darkening the material. You could just see the gears in their heads working, trying to figure a way out of the situation with both their lives and their jobs.

But there was no way they'd get both.

Carefully removing a small cloth from his pocket, he proceeded to clean his glasses. He did it all without a single word. He let them stew in the silence, until he finished cleaning his glasses, not a speck in sight and calmly replaced his them on his nose.

"Get up." He stated. He then proceeded to stroll back and forth in front of the assembled group, shoes clacking ominously, before coming to a stop in front of them. "If I ever see any of you again, it better be at your funerals. I would recommend leaving the prefecture (1).Even better" he looked straight into their eyes, one at a time, "get out of the country."

Their terrified faces were changing his mood in a positive way; he allowed himself a small smile. He looked like a snake. Sinister and cruel. Voice never changing in tone, eyes pools of smothering brown-black.

"Now, get out of my sight."

And without further prompting, they scrambled to reach the door first before the last one turned and slowly, carefully closed the door behind him as if expecting a particularly volatile explosion.

Moving to a mantle, he grabbed a glass of amber liquid, as brandy usually calmed him. This time it failed to do so.

"Aaaaaargh!" and the glass met the wall, the pieces falling like a sparkling waterfall, the liquid sliding slimily down the surface before pooling on the floor.

"Sir,"

Someone was here?! Quickly turning he found his ever present assistant standing close behind him, close to his face, Akiko Mayaba. She was a severe woman. Hair dark green, eyes a dusky black. She was dressed in a dark red suit, skirt short with a slit running up to the thigh, white shirt buttoned loosely just above the collar bone, allowing cleavage to show.

Moving forward, she moved until they were face to face. Reaching forward she grasped his glasses in her manicured hands, before straightening them on his face. "Your glasses are askew." Her lips pursed, sweet and pink in his field of view.

He barely spared a glance at her, saying, "Call someone to clean up that mess, I've got a prisoner to take care of." And strode from the room, leaving her staring at his back as he left. No one saw how her hands tightened and she gritted her teeth before she turned away from the doorway and whipped out her phone already speaking in rapid Japanese.

-Line Break—

He entered the wing of the building in which he had his full dive equipment. It was all sterile and steel. Computers glittered along the walls, with a scientist for each. It had a clinical feel. Everything but the bed in the center. It was made of materials most people could only dream of. It was beautiful and the epitome of luxury.

Sugou made his way toward it, snapping orders to the orderlies "Fulldive start up, Oberon initiative, location: Floating city." Shrugging off his shirt, which he handed to a waiting orderly before reclining into the bed. Sinking slightly in, nurses rushed forward to attach various electrodes that would monitor his health signals, heartbeat, temperature etc… "Ready?" Upon confirmation he dove in, speaking the verbal command that would start the transfer. "Link Start".

ALfheim, the Floating City

He appeared in his guise of Oberon, steadily walking forward as soon as he was in. Blonde hair down to his shoulders, wrapped in a cloak of forest green; clasped together with a shimmering emerald. Moss green eyes glared ahead as he walked down the cold stone hallways. The crown on his head declared his identity to those who were aware of it. He had to visit the prisoner who had taken the spot of his Titania, the one who wasn't supposed to be here. It was wrong. He was Oberon and he needed his queen, not some Fool. His men were currently keeping the individual asleep, and they had gathered information on who he was. The only way that he could conceive a possible mistake is that Titania and the other player were extremely similar in how their data was stored, they were the only two people that were even remotely similar to how player data is normally compiled. Even then, they were not in the same area as the other players in the game.

He came to the end of the hallway before coming to a door. It was made of a dark wood, standing out against the rock walls. Upon opening the door he came upon a very similar scene as the one he left behind. The only exception was that the scientists were now slugs, with large bulbous eyes and slimy tentacles.

"How are the players?" he demanded as soon as he walked through the door.

One slug stepped forward, indistinguishable from the others except for a name tag identifying him as the one in charge of the larger scale project. "Sir" he replied in a squelching voice "they are responding to the various stimuli as expected. Should we continue?"

"Hmm. Yes, continue with alpha plan, but I want you to work on that other plan that we worked on that was supposed to be used for those NPCs we were working on. There is something I might have in mind. At the very least it might be amusing."

He paused, regaining his train of thought before being distracted by the welfare of his more 'enterprising' project. "Who did we pick up?"

The slug lead the way to a screen that flickered before showing an image. It blurred a bit as it came into focus on a dark haired young man. "Player id; Kirito, name: Kirigaya Kazuto. There are a multitude of accomplishments that have been recorded by the servers, the most important of which includes defeating various opponents. He won the holiday drop, but there are no records of him ever using it."

Sugou glared at the figure, who had innocently managed to disrupt so much while appearing so unassuming. "Continue."

"Let's see." The slug whistles "He defeated Kayaba Akihiko in combat and cleared the game."

Sugou turned sharply to look at the man turned slug. "Really? Doesn't exactly look like a warrior."

"That's what the information says sir. Oh, and it seems that there is something else that you might find interesting. "Here he paused. "It seems Mr. Kirito was married."

Sugou looked at him in disbelief "How is that supposed to be of any interest to me?"

"Well, the girl he was married to went by the name… Asuna."

"My Titania?!" He whipped his head to around to glare at the figure on the screen. Without bothering to wait for a response he stomped to a door that was sunk into the surface of the wall, rendering it invisible to someone not already aware of its existence. It popped silently out and slid along the wall to reveal a doorway. An entrance into the room that had appeared on screen. Not even bothering to be quite he stalked right up to the boy before grasping his face in his hand. He turned it from side to side, noting the effeminate features, and long tapering ears and ashen eyes flickered in sleep, eyelashes fluttering. He stood there gazing at the figure, plotting,panning.

"I think I have a way to use him…" he mused turning the face aside once more. "We could use the character modification that we created for the NPC's in that quest we didn't use." He turned to look at the scientist. "We could even work on that project we created… and he makes a good hostage for my little hime-san~".

The scientist looked thoughtful before approving the plan "It would work… but you'll have to be a bit more…. manual about it." Sugou agreed, but first…. "Wake him up." He said nodding at the people behind the cameras directed at the group.

For a second, nothing happened then suddenly the muscles in his arms strained and the boy couldn't seem to find his breath. The black tipped head turned wildly trying to find someone, anything before settling on Sugou. Sugou looked into the teenager's eyes, as his forehead wrinkled in confusion and his eyes widened in fear.

"Pain absorption level: 5" he said making it so that any damage he would receive would feel like pain instead of discomfort. "And so…" He pulled out a small dagger and said aloud a stream of numbers.

"164984613216…6…5...1...2" and the more numbers he listed the brighter the glow. When he finished the dagger glowed a deep burgundy, and as he had been speaking he walked behind the player until he was directly behind him. The poor boy's head was turning trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on behind him, so Sugou easily put a paralysis buff on him. "You might want to stay still." He muttered gleefully, readying his blade just as the body beneath him went still. In the boys struggle to get away earlier, he had inadvertently activated his wings. The flight or fight response; perfect. In the center of the wings was the symbol that defined what race the player belonged to. On his back was the Spriggan symbol. The sleek contemporary arrow head design centered in the middle of his wings.

Sugou admired the design for a second before bringing the dagger down without any preamble. He grinned when he felt rather than heard the muffled scream underneath him. He began to carve a new symbol over the previous, overwriting by line the new symbol was created, after every slice a new glowing line appeared overwriting the previous one. He drew one that was jagged, and feral. That insinuated a monster and a beast. Who knows how long he sat there carving, ignoring any calls, just marking the once-upon-a-time hero.

The boy wasn't even screaming any more by the time he sat back to enjoy his work, idly wiping his dagger on the cloth of the boys vest. It left a stain of red. Walking around the front, he got to view the sight of the boy writhing in pain on the floor as golden tribal designs snaked across his body, across every piece of skin. When it was over, the boy had gone back to being unconscious, while the changes to his body were rather obvious. When the tribal tattoos settled on his skin it flashed from the deep gold to crimson and back, before settling on the ethereal golden hue. The eyes flashed open once, the yellowish golden glow of an animals in the dark, before the closed. His fist clenched, and he thought he saw a sparkle, but it was gone.

"If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended: That you have but here, While these visions did appear; And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend. If you pardon, we will mend."(2)

He said softly and smiled.

The boy just lay there.

Well, I hope everyone is willing to see this through. This isn't going to be just a straight up Asuna trying to get Kirito back, just with them switching places. There are going to be some changes to some events, and some new ones. Bear with me. Thanks for reading.

Prefectures are currently how the country is divided up. For more info.

wiki/Prefectures_of_Japan

"A Midsummer Nights Dream" by William Shakespeare.