AN: This was spawned from a discussion between my beta Merlenyn and myself about a potential plot hole, which I thought of an in fic fix for a few seconds later. But I mentioned it to her and we were joking about how it could've played out, so. It's coming out now because the potential plot hole has been discussed in the main fic, which... is why I've been sitting on this, and two vaguely related ones since August 13th.


He narrows his eyes, calculations have been running through his head since Marzanna was taken to the hospital. Finally, coming to a conclusion, Nero nods firmly and stands up before striding forward to Marzanna's hospital bed.

Behind him, he hears his uncle ask in a rough voice, "Nero? What are you-?"

That's as far as he gets before Nero activates Quicksilver, and fast as lightning his hands dart out to grab the NerveGear and yank it off of Marzanna to the panicked shouts of his family. Almost immediately he hears a microwave-like hum from the electromagnetic pulse going off, but with Quicksilver, by the time it does its well away from his little sister in all but blood.

Her eyes flutter open as he deactivates the Style, immediately silencing his family's shouting. He grins down at her, "Took a bit to crunch the numbers in my head before I decided that Quicksilver is faster than this thing would be for its sensors to pick up it being removed, send the kill signal, and then the electromagnetic pulse to go off." He tosses the NerveGear onto the stand off to the side, "But there you go. No NerveGear trapping you in a death game."

His aunt and uncle squeeze past him to clutch at Marzanna who looks at him with wide eyes. After a moment, her face pinches, "The other players-"

His dad steps forward, relief outright visible, "Can also be pulled out, after we get in touch with the magical governments and explain, they and their non-magical counterparts can make their own excuses about what we're doing, but all they need to do it get non-magical family and medical staff out of the room for us."

She looks relieved at that, and his dad narrows her eyes, "But you've had a rather trying day after that close call. Leave it to Dante and Nero and just relax. I'm going to go find that magical government official that came to touch base with us, tell him to make their excuses as to how you're out and figure out who to get in contact with once the excuse of how we're doing it is made."

He glances at grandpa as he grabs the privacy curtain, "Make sure no one comes in until our excuse is made, we don't need the freak out from non-magical medical staff."

Grandpa nods firmly, even as he refuses to look away from Marzanna.

She abruptly speaks up before his uncle can leave, "Uncle Vergil." He pauses, "Nero or dad need to get to Japan ASAP. You know I'm a 'prepare for the worst, hope for the best' kind of person. I met someone else there with a similar mindset. Last I saw, the vast majority of the players were freaking out in the plaza after Kayaba teleported us all there to explain his new rules, but the person I met made a two person party with me and left the safety of town. They'll be in even more danger without someone backing them up."

His dad nods curtly, then finishes leaving.


She scrolls through the forum for SAO, as it still hasn't been taken down. It was mostly dead after the close call everyone had experienced, but there were a few posts. She was currently reading through an absolutely maddening post from some ass called 'Kibaou' ranting about how the beta testers should have warned everyone, like any of them had any idea what that psycho had been planning.

She's about to hit the back button to go to the listing of post pages when she pauses at a reply below of someone tearing into Kibaou. However, what really interests her is the name attached.

Kirito.

After hesitating a few moments, she clicks on his name and selects the option to open up a private message to him.

A few moments more of hesitation as she tries to figure out what to say, she switches her phone keyboard to Japanese and finally settles on keeping it simple, "Hey, it's Hanna, we met just before Kayaba's insane announcement. I saw your screen name in reply to that irritating asshole Kibaou's post, so I just wanted to send you a message. I didn't exactly plan to leave you without backup out of the blue, so I hope you aren't mad at me disappearing out of nowhere. Anyway, I'm glad they got to you quick enough that you're OK."

It's only a few minutes before she gets a reply, "Hanna! When he came to pull me out, that guy who introduced himself as Dante, your dad, said you were fine and told them to prioritize me since I wasn't in the town. Rather than being mad you disappeared on me, I wanted to thank you for that actually, but with how the forum basically went dead as soon as Kayaba tried to turn Aincrad into that crazy death game, and how basically no former players were coming back to the forum, I didn't know if you'd get the message even if it would've been easy to contact you since we exchanged a friend request back before we got pulled out."

She quickly types her own reply, "Yeah, that was basically the same reason I didn't try to contact you either."

She gets a reply back in a beat, "Isn't it a bit late there?"

She snorts, "No, it's only 9pm here. Though I guess it's 10am there."

The reply comes in after a bit, "Ah. I hadn't realized. Well, still, I'm glad to hear from you. Klein got in touch within a day, I guess he wanted to express gratitude that we were willing to take him with us when we were leaving, asked me to pass it on if I heard from you. Actually. Well, I guess it's a little weird since we hardly know each other, but it's a bummer you live in America, since I kinda wanna see you with my own eyes. Some dumb part of my brain wants to see you to be sure you're actually OK. Which is ridiculous, since you're literally massaging me."

She smiles slightly before typing back, "No, I get it, I kinda wanna see you too. And actually, my family does a bunch of international work, and with all that craziness they've been running all over, so I'm sure they'll end up heading over to Japan again relatively soon. I could tag along and come see you?"

The reply she gets is almost immediate, "Really?"

Another comes in before she can answer that, "I'd like that. When you get more details from your family, just give me the date and we'll set up a meeting."

Her smile stretches a bit further, "Cool. When I've got a more solid idea I'll let you know."

She gets a smiley face in reply, so she exists out of the messages as her smile turns into a grin.

She was already looking forward to it.


End AN: Just a few notes of how this would play out over time, I personally imagine Marzanna and Kazuto meeting up a few times, them joining ALO together with Marzanna purposefully going for the Japan server to be able to play with Kirito, since I see it as the company who made SAO still going bankrupt, but due to the close call with his daughter, Asuna's father angrily seizing as many of their assets as he can take as retribution which would mean Sugou would still have the assets needed for ALO. The two of them would end up dating in due time, likely much faster in this scenario, since there wouldn't be the death game causing Marzanna to pull away which kicks of the cycle of 'Hanna looks over during a moment, grimaces as she looks away because it's not a good time when they're fighting for their lives on the daily, Kirito looks over, sees the grimace, awkwardly pulls away in an attempt to not make her uncomfortable, Hanna notices and think he's uncomfortable with the possible romance, que growing misunderstanding, repeat until dramatic kiss' thing. Flipside, the only SAO people they know are Argo, Diabel, and Klein, there's also no Yui, and given Asuna was originally only in the game to try VR/games in general out, I can basically guarantee you that she'd be firmly in the anti-VR camp with the speedy save stopping her from seeing past Kayaba's abuse of it and growing to love it.