Some of you might be surprised by how agreeable I made Asuna's mother in this chapter. Thing is, you need to move past the "I hate that bitch" mentality from watching the anime, as she didn't turn out to be so bad in the end. She had a really strong prejudice against the virtual world because she thought it was both a waste of time & because it had stolen her daughter from her. When Asuna finally stood up for herself at the end of the Mother's Rosario arc, her mother came around to understand that the virtual world wasn't so bad, and she began to accept that it was an important part of Asuna's life. The existence of Kirito's stream basically made her come to that realization sooner.

As for Sugou, I left it extremely open-ended. I don't really plan on continuing this story past the end of the Aincrad arc, so he wouldn't really come into play anyway. The possibility is still there for him to be an evil bastard, though.

Also, no chapter specifically for Yui. Seemed a little dumb to make one when I actually tried to write it.

Kirigaya & Yuuki

I'm in an alternate reality right now.

That was the only thing that Suguha could come up with to explain the last week of her life. She had legitimately thought that the internet might break from the sheer volume of discussion that people wanted to have over Kirito and Asuna getting married. Yes, married.

She hadn't believed it at first when she heard it. They were married already? To her knowledge, Asuna had been trying to get Kirito to date he for a good six months, and they had only been a couple for a much shorter time. Yet, apparently they got married the night the stream went down. Even more confusing, it was Kirito that proposed to her, after only accepting her advances for about a week. Her brother was weird.

When she realized it was true, she had thought that it was only some in-game thing—maybe a different way of defining your relationship with someone, which was partly accurate. However, as if the two lovebirds had heard her thoughts, Kirito had asked Asuna that very day whether or not their relationship was only virtual.

It wasn't.

Wasn't her brother just a little young to be running off and getting married? He was only fourteen when the game started, which meant he was sixteen now. She knew that if she had slept with someone at that age or gone off to get married her mother would have been furious. It confused her that her mother seemed so happy for Kirito.

She finally summoned the courage to ask, and her mother's reply was surprisingly simple. "Kazuto was always a bit mature for his age. Also, this experience in SAO has aged him many more years than normal. The least I can do for him is to be supportive of what he chooses when he's already had it so difficult."

Reflecting on the statement, it made a lot of sense. She wondered what would happen if SAO was cleared and then her brother woke up to a disapproving family. What would he think? Hey guys, I busted my ass for two years, nearly dying at least once a week, so it seemed, and you can't even accept the girl I like? It was that reasoning that had finally forced her to accept Asuna. That, and her unwavering dedication to her brother, even during the times that he didn't seem to share her feelings.

As if all of that wasn't enough to deal with, a little girl named Yui appeared after a few days on their honeymoon.

That was when the world truly broke and she had to lock herself in her house, skipping kendo and school for the last two days. Everyone, and that's not an exaggeration, literally everyone was going insane about the cute little girl they had found in a forest. Yeah, some people, including herself, had thought it was more than a little bizzare that the couple already had a kid, but Yui's 'cute factor' pretty much won everyone over. Even Suguha couldn't deny that the little girl was beyond adorable.

All that excitement about her led to an insane day of rage-threads being posted when it was revealed what Yui really was—an AI.

To some people, it made the new couple's attachment to the child seem fake, and they dismissed the child. Others still were shocked by how human the little girl seemed and were heart-warmed by how accepting Kirito and Asuna had been even after learning the truth. Regardless of people's opinions towards the AI, the already existing universal hatred towards Akihiko Kayaba must have been multiplied by a pretty massive number when it was revealed that his directives directly led to her deletion.

The only thing that tempered the rage, even slightly, was that Kirito had somehow managed to effectively hack the system console that deleted Yui and use it to save her program data to his local Nerve Gear. Had he not done that, Suguha had wondered if there would have been riots in the streets calling for Kayaba's head.

That was a full day ago, and now she was aware that her brother and his new wife were back to enjoying their honeymoon at the house they had bought.

She sighed. Even when people and monsters weren't trying to murder him, her brother still managed to cause a bunch of trouble. Actually, she had to remind herself that her last thought wasn't quite true. He had almost gotten himself killed by that scythe boss he found. She had just tuned it out because Yui's deletion happened right after, and it was a much more emotional experience.

There was a gentle knock on her door, and then her mother entered. "Hey, Sugu. Do you want to go out for dinner tonight?"

"Huh?"

Midori scratched her head. "Uh...well...Asuna's family invited us to dinner."

"You have got to be kidding me," she whined.

Her mother smiled. "Oh come on, it'll be fine! They seem really nice."

"Fineeeeee," Suguha said, more surprised than anything else. How the hell had Asuna's family managed to find them?

"Dress your best," her mother instructed before leaving the room again.

"We're eating here?" Suguha demanded without bothering to hide the shock as her mother pulled into the parking lot of a very high end restaurant. It was certainly out of their normal price range.

Her mother smiled at her as she parked. "Yup. They said it was their treat."

"Generous..." she couldn't help but admit.

They made their way inside, and were greeted by a waiter immediately. He bowed, then said, "Hello, you are Mrs. Kirigaya, correct?" Midori nodded. "Right this way please."

He led them through the restaurant to a table towards the back that was a bit more isolated than the others. As they passed, Suguha's mouth began to water as she saw all of the beautiful plates of food that people were eating. It was going to be her first time eating somewhere this high-end.

They stopped at a rectangular table with three adults seated on one side. There was an older man, a woman who appeared to be in her forties or fifties, and a younger twenty-something looking man. All of them wore fine suits and carried that sort of vibe that Suguha always felt around rich people.

They stood to greet the new arrivals as the waiter bowed and walked away, saying that he would return shortly to take the orders.

The older man stepped forward and shook both of their hands first. "Hello. It's a pleasure to meet you both. My name is Shouzou Yuuki." He gestured to the woman. "This is my wife Kyouko, and my son Kouichirou." He motioned to the younger man.

"It's nice to meet you as well," Midori said, bowing to them as she shook their hands. "I'm Midori Kirigaya, and this is my daughter, Suguha."

When at last all of the introductions were done, the three Yuuki family members returned to their seats on one side of the table while Midori and Suguha took their places opposite them.

"Please order anything you like," Shouzou said, indicating the menus sitting before each person at the table. "Dinner is on me."

"That's very kind of you," Midori said thankfully. Suguha dipped her head as well, internally seething at how formal it seemed the dinner was going to be.

The waiter returned a couple minutes later and took everyone's order. When he left, there was an awkward tension as each person waited for someone else to speak. Eventually, Shouzou took the lead and said, "Where shall we begin, then?"

"Perhaps you could tell us how you found out that we're Kirito's family," Midori suggested, clearly trying to come off as non-confrontational.

"Indeed. I am the CEO of RECT Progress, and my son works with me at the company. We took over responsibility for maintaining the Sword Art Online servers after Argus went bankrupt. As such, we are aware of the in-game and real life identities of all players inside SAO."

"It appears that I must thank you, then, for keeping my son alive."

"Nonsense," Kouichirou said, waving his hand dismissively. "If it wasn't us, someone else would have done it. There was never a chance of the servers being shut down with so many lives depending on them."

Midori dipped her head. "Even so, we're grateful."

"As we are grateful for your son," Shouzou replied with a smile. "If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have gotten to see our Asuna for the last two years. It was truly a sight for sore eyes when she first appeared in his life."

"Also, very surprising," Kouichirou added. "She had never even tried an MMO before SAO. I was called away on business right at the release time of the game, and while I was gone she borrowed my Nerve Gear to try out the game." He shook his head. "I still feel guilty that she is the one trapped there instead of me." He chuckled. "Admittedly, I think she's become a better player than I would have ever been, though."

"I've been trying out Alfheim Online," Suguha volunteered. "I watched my brother for a long time first, but I really wanted to experience that kind of a world for myself. It's very impressive that Asuna is a strong as she is when SAO is her first game. I think it's taken me a bit longer to become competent at it."

Kouichirou scratched his head. "Well, our game logs indicated that she met with Kirito at the first floor's boss fight. It's hard to say what kind of an influence he had on her, but it's possible that he taught her how to play. Also, your life isn't on the line when you play the game, so you probably don't have the same desperation to improve that she and all the others did."

"True."

Kyouko spoke up for the first time then. "Let's focus on the topic we are here for. Our daughter has decided to marry your son in the game."

Midori smiled slightly. "My husband and I both support the two of them. Kazuto is actually my sisters child, but she and her husband were killed in a car crash when he was a baby, so we took him in. It's been our general position to let him make his own choices, as he always seemed to be a bit beyond his age when it came to maturity. If he had decided that he loves your daughter, then we'll happily support him."

"Is he aware of his parentage?" Kyouko asked, seeming to be a bit surprised by what Midori had said.

So she hasn't watched all of SAO, Suguha realized. If she had, she would know that Kirito spoke to a girl named Silica about him finding out that he was adopted.

"He is," Midori confirmed. "Actually, the story is a bit amusing. I'm actually not really sure how he did it, but when he was ten years old he sort of hacked the national registry of citizens and found his deleted records. He learned how to write code at a really young age."

"Hmm," Shouzou mused. "Perhaps that explains what he did the other day with Yui."

"Pardon?"

"When Yui was deleted by the Cardinal system, Kirito—do you mind if I call him Kirito? I've known him by that name longer than Kazuto." Midori shook her head. "Well, Kirito used the access terminal that Yui had unlocked to convert her program into an in-game item. It was really smart, because a player's item data is stored on their Nerve Gear's internal hard drive to save space on the actual servers."

"Do you think he'll be able to bring her back if SAO gets cleared?" Suguha asked, intrigued. She hadn't known the bit about item data being stored on the Nerve Gear. It made her brother's split-second decision making even more impressive.

The two men seemed to hesitate there. "It might be possible..." the younger one said. "It's hard to say exactly without knowing the contents of that file he saved. Also, we don't know how dependent Yui's program was on Cardinal, so it's possible that without the central system she wouldn't operate properly."

"If you don't mind," Midori interjected. "I'd like to hear what your thoughts on their relationship are. I've given you our position, but we have gotten side-tracked."

"Ah yes, I apologize," Shouzou said. "In general, we are in favor of accepting your son as a husband for our daughter. I like him quite a bit, and so does my son. It took quite a bit of convincing for Kyouko, though."

She dipped her head. "I had a strong dislike for the virtual world, especially after it took my daughter from me. When I heard that she was on the stream everyone was always talking about, I eventually had to force myself to get an Amusphere and see her for myself. I still don't have the best opinion about the entire virtual reality business, but I can't deny that living in that world has made my daughter stronger than I could have ever hoped. I always wanted Asuna to grow up and marry someone with a bright future that could take care of her, and I doubted that a video game player would meet those requirements."

"For context," Shouzou added lightly. "Before, we had planned for Asuna to eventually marry one of the higher-ups at the company, Sugou Nobuyuki. He isn't so pleased by our decision to let her marry your son instead, but I'm sure it'll all be fine. After all, sometimes the heart changes even the best laid plans."

Kyouko nodded. "As I was saying, I was doubtful that Kirito would impress me. I hate to admit it, but I was wrong. His work ethic is something that will carry him very far, and he is clearly intelligent. Also, he's an international celebrity at this point, so he has that going for him." She hesitated. "This may be presumptuous, but when he and Asuna get back to the real world, we'd like to make sure he can go to whatever university he wants."

"You are very generous," Midori said, bowing her head again. "I think he'd be grateful for that." She hesitated, then added, "What is your opinion of Yui? We have spoke of her program, yes, but not her as the daughter that our children seem to view her as."

"I have yet to decide," Kyouko said simply. "That will be a matter to discuss later on." Her family seemed to share her reserved view towards the AI.

Their food arrived and the conversation was cut as everyone eagerly ate the delicious meals. Suguha had ordered a cut of prime rib with mashed potatoes and assorted vegetables. She hardly paid attention to the other meals as she savored the juicy steak.

She surprisingly finished second to last out of their table—only Kyouko ate slower. Granted, her plate had probably been a bit larger of a serving than the others. With a contented sigh, she leaned back.

"That was absolutely delicious. Thank you again, Mr. Yuuki."

"You're more than welcome," he said with a smile. She felt a little strange as he regarded her for a moment, and then his eyes widened. "Oh! That's why I recognized your last name at first. I read an article about you a year or so ago when you reached the national quarterfinals for kendo."

Her cheeks took on a tinge of pink as she blushed and looked down. "That's very impressive for your age," Kouichirou complimented.

"Thank you." It actually meant a lot to her, despite her shy acceptance of the praise. The Yuuki family were clearly extremely successful. It was one thing when they complimented her brother, but it felt even better when someone truly successful approved of something she had worked hard for.

"Do you still do kendo?" Kyouko asked, having now finished her meal.

"I do. My brother did it for awhile as well, but he stopped after like two years."

"That's odd. I would have thought he'd be a natural at it, given his skill with a sword."

"He was pretty good when he did it, but it was never his passion. My grandfather was really harsh on us when he trained us, and I don't think my brother liked that very much." She shrugged. "Maybe he just never had the right motivation for it."

"Like being trapped in a death game," her mother commented lightly.

An idea occurred to her. "Sooo...you guys developed Alfheim Online, right?" The two men nodded. "Any way I could get you to tell me whether or not the guardians at the tree are even beatable? Everyone's trying really hard to get to the top, but the boss fight seems straight up impossible, and nobody can find a quest that helps out."

Kouichirou smiled at that. "Well, it's supposed to be difficult. The prize for getting to the top first is pretty huge. As for hints, sorry. There's nothing we can tell you, as we aren't actively involved in the game balance or the direct management of it. The man we mentioned before, Sugou, manages pretty much everything to do with the game now that it's out of development."

"Ah."

"Maybe you could get Kirito and Asuna to help you when they get back," Shouzou added with a wink.

"Hah...I doubt either of them would want to go back into the virtual world after being trapped there for years. I'd feel guilty just asking them."

The rest of the evening proceeded similarly as the two families got to know each other a bit. Suguha walked away from the experience feeling much happier than she had expected. Also, the food was so damn good that it would have been worth going even if Asuna's family had turned out to be awful.