A/N: Hello, I am not dead woohoo.

However, after you read this chapter, there is an important note to read at the end. Please enjoy the chapter first though :)

I do not own Sword Art Online or any of its characters.


The next morning, Kazuto woke up a little earlier than normal since today was going to be a long day of boss fighting and he wanted some time to himself before leaving home.

After having a shower and changing into some comfortable clothes, he picked up his phone and sent a carefully worded message to Asuna. It was the message about meeting up privately so he could ask her permission to show affection to the other girls in their group, which he dreaded because he was terrified of what might happen if she had a bad reaction.

"This is for the best…right?" He asked himself as he slowly pressed the send button. He honestly wasn't sure what the right thing to do was. He knew the other girls always got jealous about how much time he spent with Asuna, even Sinon used to regularly try to win over his affection until yesterday when Toran haphazardly revealed that they were dating during the reunion with his sister. But he never felt like he was doing any wrong until recently, he started to feel like he was almost hurting them in a way by constantly ignoring their honest feelings.

Either way, it didn't matter what the right answer was, he had already set this path in motion after kissing Lisbeth during the Wizard of Oz quest and confessing his desire to acknowledge them more.

At that moment, he heard Suguha walking with heavy and drowsy steps down the stairs, and she arrived in front of the bathroom door looking somewhat like a mummy who had just woken up after a couple thousand years. However, all the drowsiness seemingly vanished the moment she opened the door as the inside was already wet and condescended.

She almost jumped back in surprise and quickly whirled her head around to see Kazuto sitting comfortably in the sofa with an empty bowl in his lap. Neither of them said anything, which kind of made the situation more awkward as they stared at each other so after a few seconds, Suguha swung into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

Kazuto didn't know what to make of that weird little encounter, so he just shouted at her. "Easy on the door frame there, Uncle Slam !" as he giggled to himself, though she probably didn't hear him because the shower had turned on halfway through his joke.

DINGGGGG…

He suddenly heard a familiar tone that immediately wiped his smile away. It was a message notification from Asuna, which was a little odd because he didn't think she had woken up yet. Perhaps everyone else had the same wake-up-early idea as him. Regardless, he slowly pressed on the messenger app to show the message he was sent;

It seems important if you want to talk to me privately about it, considering the amount of time we'll be spending together with everyone else today. So just let me know when and where you want to chat. I'll be there.

Oh, and please don't wait to tell me if you're in trouble or if anything's bothering you. I will never fail to be there for you as soon as you need it 3

Her words were so innocent and so caring that it almost made him feel like a total douche for doing this, but he held out hope that it would all work out in the end and sent her the details for their private meet up, along with letting her know not to tell anyone else either. After that was sent, he turned his phone off and sat outside to watch the rest of the sun rise over his suburban paradise.


Around that same time, Shino Asada was also just starting to wake up from a peaceful slumber in her lonely apartment.

Not of her own volition though, her infuriatingly loud alarm clock was the reason for her waking, and she had intentionally put the clock just far enough away from her bed so she couldn't just reach out and put it on snooze which is always a great idea until the moment it's going off. But of course, she set that alarm for a reason, so she pulled herself out of her warm comfy bed and switched the alarm fully off before dragging herself to her shower and undressing before having a short wash.

Because she lived in a small, shared apartment complex, everyone within the building including herself had to pay such fees like water, and this specific landlord liked them to pay a specific amount according to the percentage of water usage they accumulated over a fortnightly period. As such, she always made sure her showers were no more than four minutes maximum and only allowed one hot water shower per week which she usually used on Saturdays.

This meant that her shower for the day was cold as it was a misty Thursday morning, not that it bothered her, she eventually got so used to having cold showers that even her weekly warm showers could hardly be considered warm.

Once her four minutes were up, she retreated out of the bathroom and dried off before quickly changing into something both comfy and practical. After the rest of her morning routine went by smoothly, she looked at the clock and found she had about twenty minutes before her bus arrived.

This was always the best part of her morning, to get up slightly earlier than needed and speed through everything so that she had a solid couple of minutes to chill before needing to leave.

So, in the small lounging time she had, she sprawled out on her bed (but not under her covers because that's just a little too tempting) and thought about the only thing she ever thinks about nowadays, her new boyfriend.

She started getting more and more excited about the day ahead of her because all that was on the schedule was slaying big monsters with Toran right by her side, as well as all her closest friends. Of course, there's always the possibility of absolute devastation where they all perish and lose all their levels and progress, but with Kirito and Asuna with them to provide prior knowledge of the bosses, it didn't seem like that much of an issue.

It seemed like no time had passed at all but as she looked over at her alarm clock, the time read 7:40am, which meant her bus was no more than five minutes away, the perfect time to put on her shoes and head out to the nearest bus stop which was three minutes away at walking pace. Once on the bus, she did as usual, plug in her headphones and get whisked away to music land.


Toran could only dream of waking up in a comfy bed on a real morning. In fact, the only thing on his mind these days was whether he remembered what a real morning felt like or not.

Same thing with sleeping, had he been in the virtual world for so long that he forgot what actual sleeping was like? Probably not but still, he would never find out if he stayed in the virtual world forever. But that's exactly what this day was for, to get as close to the top of Aincrad as possible to finally log him out and access the blueprints to the Medicuboid.

Late last night, Toran approached the info broker, Argo, to access information as to whether the 23rd floor boss was still the same as it was in Old Aincrad or not. It was a little costly but the info he received was well worth it, and he anticipated the arrival of all his fellow fighters so he could explain it to them. However, the in-game clock only showed 8:20am so he still didn't expect them for another half hour or so.

He waited around in the village of Coral on the 22nd floor where the home base of their operations was, though he didn't know whether the gathering was going to be in the log house in the forest or in the village base next to the pier.

"Maybe I should go see if I can find that wandering trader in the woods again," Toran spoke audibly to himself. The wandering trader he was referring to was the one that handed out the puzzle cave quest that he and Sinon did a little bit ago.

Once the quest is done, that NPC just turns into a trader that wanders the forest paths of the floor at random. His spawn rate was one in four meaning that he has a twenty five percent chance of spawning and that he will at the very least spawn once every four days but could possibly spawn sooner.

The main reason Toran wanted to find the old trader was because earlier in the morning, he had dived to the bottom of the 22nd floor lake in an attempt to find the ring that he had given Sinon that she threw in but after searching for around twenty minutes, determined that it had despawned, and the only way to get a similar skill ring was from the wandering trader.

So, he departed on a mini adventure to find said trader and to his surprise, he found him within a few minutes just a little to the east of the village. "Score!" Toran shouted as he ran up to the old man.

"Ah, adventurer! A mighty fine day for some hunting, don't you think?" The trader asked. Toran was, in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on, a little confused because he had never heard that line of dialogue before, but stranger things had happened recently, so he paid it no mind.

"It sure is, I'm about to hunt some bosses with a bunch of good friends shortly," Toran answered with a chip in his step.

"Well, that's very good. Would you like to see some of my wares? They could help you in battle," The old trader asked further, another piece of dialogue that Toran had never heard before.

"Uh, y-yes I would," Toran replied, to which the old man clapped his hands together.

"Well then, let me just reach into my bag here and...," The old man turned to pull something out of his bag. At that exact moment, a dreadful chill ran through Torans spine, and he didn't know what it was, but something told him to back away immediately, and he tried to do exactly that, but it was too late.

"GOTCHA!" The old man suddenly shouted in a voice that was completely different to the one he was speaking with just before and stabbed Toran with an unusual looking knife that looked as if it was made with some form of ghost material.

Toran stumbled backwards into a tree as the figure of the old man started to change and take the shape of something more sinister and familiar. As Toran felt his body seemingly lose all its senses, he coughed out one last word.

"K-K-Kayaba?" He muttered as he grabbed the knife to pull it out of his shoulder but the moment he touched it, he vanished without a trace.


"Link Start!" Shouted everyone in the hospital room, those words transported them from the real world and into the world of swords and monsters they know so well. In the blink of an eye, they were thrust in the shoes of their high levelled avatars in the living room of their trusty log house located in the middle of the woods. They all took a second to get their bearings and make sure everyone had made it safely.

"Alright, looks like everyone's here," Kirito announced as he confirmed the numbers.

"Where's Toran?" Sinon asked very quickly after, to which Leafa and Lisbeth silently giggled to each other over.

"He'll probably be waiting for us in Coral Village close to the teleport gate," He reassured.

"I hope so," she attempted to put her mind at ease, but couldn't for some reason "I just got this weird eerie feeling the moment I logged in,"

"Yeah, so did I," Klein butted in to announce, "Though, that might be because I had a definitely off milkshake on the way to the hospital,"

"Well regardless, let's not keep Toran or these bosses waiting any longer," Asuna motivated as they all agreed in unison and headed out for Coral Village together. The very first thing that happened after they left the cabin was a brief argument about whether to take a left or a right out of the cabin's gate as both paths took roughly the same amount of time to reach the village. This occurred between Lisbeth and Klein and ultimately, Lisbeth won out and left was the direction that was victorious.

Then another weird thing happened not too long after where the group ran into an old trader on the path who was completely motion-less and unresponsive, yet standing up normally as if they were simply frozen in time. Sinon recognised the trader as the old man who gave Toran that ring which he passed on to her and which she passed on to the bottom of the lake. They all surrounded the old man trying to get his attention, but he was solid as a rock and about as responsive as one too.

Eventually they agreed it must've been a bug in the game that would be fixed within the day and continued. Then came the last unusual thing, as the arrived at Coral Village, they couldn't help but notice that Toran indeed was nowhere to be found. Kirito could almost feel the change in Sinon's mood when they discovered this and gave her the privacy of not staring at her to confirm his suspicion.

"Well, what do we do now? Do you think he forgot?" Silica questioned as they looked around once more.

"Well, what's he gonna do, log out? If he's not here, he's definitely somewhere else within in game," Klein replied with a sigh, unaware of how slightly disrespectful that could've been. "Should answer a message pretty quickly,"

"Probably the best idea," Asuna agreed as she turned to Sinon who immediately understood the intention without needing words. Without showing her worry, she summoned her menu and sent a brief message to Toran to hopefully remind him of their scheduled battle. She pressed the send button and awaited a quick reply, but the minutes ticked by, and no reply came. Now her worry was becoming a bit obvious.

"I…think somethings happened to him," Sinon claimed as the others pondered what could possibly have happened to someone stuck in a video game.

"Sinon, I'm sure he's fine," Leafa reassured. "We've known him long enough to know that it's common for him to seemingly vanish from time to time. He'll show up soon enough but for now, we should start without him, and he can join when he's finished with whatever he's doing," Leafa put her hand on Sinon's shoulder for further reassurance as Kirito added to her words.

"She's right, it's a lot better if we start now and Toran can join in when he's ready. Let's go get those bosses," Kirito announced as the team agreed in unison excluding Sinon who's mind was still in a slightly anxious state.

After traversing through the teleport gate to the main settlement of the 23rd floor, they hastily made their way to the labyrinth while only stopping to show the non-veterans among the group some of the good scenic spots on the way.

They also luckily didn't run into any surprise field bosses which Kirito was worried might happen, only the occasional Earth Hound and Raging Boar stood in their way from time to time. Then came the labyrinth which had Draugrs, Lizardmen, and sometimes even humanoid animals wielding weapons. Those didn't pose much of a challenge though, the real threat come in the boss room, the first of what would hopefully be quite a few bosses that they would be fighting today.

As they entered the boss room, Kirito momentarily prayed that the boss was the same as it was in the original game so that they didn't have to develop all new techniques and strategies. Luckily for him, the enemy that spawned was The Snake Prince, Serperius as it was originally. Quite a few players in the raid party died in the original game as it took them quite some time to work out the best methods of attack, but once they got it down, it got super easy, and this time was no different.

"Now, this one can be tricky if you don't know what to expect, but as long as you stay out of its direct line of sight, you shouldn't have to worry." Asuna announced to the group.

"Don't forget, try to get as far away from it as possible when it's tail shakes. That's the sign of its big AOE attack," Agil added before they dove in. This was Agil first time joining the team for a battle in a while as his café had been taking priority much more recently, but he finally had some time off to fight bosses with them and boy did it pay off as this snake boss had no answer for his specialised greataxe.

They started off rusty, Leafa even took a hard hit from the AOE attack after realising the tail shaking too late but was healed just in time by Silica. Sinon stayed as far away as possible and provided ranged damage and Kirito used the classic switch strategy with Asuna to maximise damage during its hurt phases.

Ultimately, Agil got the last attack bonus as he chopped off the tail and got a rare eyepatch item which doubles ranged accuracy while aiming, which he subsequently gifted to Sinon.

"Alright, congrats everyone! One boss down, a handful more to go," Kirito praised the efforts of everyone as they ignored the congratulations' theme playing in the background. Sinon didn't say anything but her worry only grew as Toran had still yet to show up, but ultimately, she shook her head as if to shake the anxiety off her and commanded herself to stop thinking about it, knowing that he would eventually show up.

They continued onto the next floor, the 24th floor, which was like the previous floor but this one had even more water and even more islands dotting the landscape.

This floor also had special meaning to some of them, mainly Asuna, as this was the floor where they both met and said goodbye to Yuuki, who unfortunately couldn't live to see the medicuboid work at its full potential which was to fix terminally ill patients. The sight of this floor reminded them why they were doing all of this in the first place, as Kirito took Asuna's hand as if to say what she needed to hear without using words.

They eventually ended up spending a bit more time enjoying the 24th floor than they would've liked but they got to the boss eventually and killed it as quickly as well. Then came the 25th floor, which was one of the bigger challenges as it signalled the end of the first quarter of this new Aincrad.

Here they fought Gherphia the Ghost, she was an interesting one because, due to her transparent form, she could only be hurt with sword skills or special attacks. Like before though, Kirito and Asuna knew the most reliable strategy and carried everyone through the fight with only a few setbacks.

After a brief celebration of a quarter of the way through the game, they went on to the 26th floor, then the 27th which very nearly went awry when Silica came dangerously close to dying, and then finally onto the 28th floor.

At this point, boss burnout had really started to show, and Klein even had to tap out prior to the 27th boss as he had a dentist appointment Irl. So, they were now down a member and still, even now, were awaiting the much-needed help of Toran. At this point, Kirito was just the slightest bit annoyed.

As they emerged onto the surface of the floor from the previous boss room, they were reminded of the sombreness of the 28th floor. It was a floor with a dark tone and a seemingly endless twilight scene to it. Most of the floor was very grassy and hilly, without too much unique features to it apart from the fact that most of the field areas were littered with stone ruins that had no real context.

It was also a floor without any big hub, the main village of Orvia was very far to the west and it was fairly small, not too populated in terms of shops and trader posts. Most people in the original game only ever came to this floor for grinding as the big flat field in the middle of the floor, known as the Wolf Plains, was constantly booming with decently levelled wolves that weren't too difficult to defeat and made for quick levelling up.

There was also a field boss that would spawn there that always dropped super rare items but was extremely hard to beat. One of the more dangerous but unique parts about it was the fact that when it spawned, the field would lock itself within an invisible wall which wouldn't go away until either the boss was killed, or all the players within the walls had died. But alas, as with the previous few floors, they weren't here to take in the scenery. They were here to fight the floor boss.

"How about it guys, one more and then call it?" Kirito asked everyone.

"If you're good to go, then so am I," Asuna assured, seemingly having not broken a sweat.

"A part of me wants to call it now, but I don't really like this floor so let's get to twenty-nine," Lisbeth laughed as she reminisced that one time that she got trapped within that field boss battle. Everyone else pretty much agreed in unison and they headed to the floor's labyrinth which was easy to find considering how flat the floor was. It was also a simple labyrinth as well, a right, two lefts, and another right and there was the door.

"Anyone need any potion or item top ups?" Asuna asked around.

"I could probably use some more stuff," Silica answered with a little embarrassment.

"Guess someone was a little too busy to help out after all," Sinon sighed in annoyance.

"I'm sure you'll have a lovely talk with him when you see him again," Kirito laughed, despite his own distaste to the lack of cooperation. Once Silica had her items refilled, Kirito went to open the boss door. "Now, make sure you keep a sharp eye on this one. He doesn't do much damage but he's very quick," Once Kirito had opened the door and entered, he was followed by Agil, then Sinon and then…

"Ow" Lisbeth grunted as she suddenly stopped in her tracks. Kirito's danger sense immediately sharpened and whipped around.

"You alright?" He asked quickly.

"Yeah, must've just whacked the door on my way in," Lisbeth reassured, "Coming in no-" She almost finished saying, but then was stopped again. "Uh oh,"

"What's wrong, Liz?" Asuna asked before realising what was going on. "Wait, did it seal itself off?" This caused Kirito, Agil, and Sinon to rush back over.

"I-I don't know what happened," She exclaimed as she tried to put her hand through the door but was stopped, as if pushing on a piece of glass. "It won't let me in," Asuna reached out her hand from behind and found that she couldn't enter either.

"Well, that's a little worrying," Leafa anxiously added from the back of the line. "Judging from you guy's reactions, I assume this didn't happen last time,"

"Definitely not," Agil replied from within the boss room.

"There's got to be a way to open it," Kirito wondered aloud, but after he finished speaking, a malevolent laughter echoed throughout the room. Most of them had no idea what it was, but Kirito and Asuna perked up instantly.

"Kirito!" Asuna warned loudly.

"Yeah, I know, it's him again," Kirito spat angrily as he readied his weapons.

"Who again?" Sinon asked with curious anxiety.

"Kayaba," Kirito scoffed as the Agil and Sinon both hurriedly retrieved their weapons.

"Oh, come on Kirito, what's with the attitude?" Kayaba asked from seemingly everywhere at once. "I just want to make your journey more interesting, after all, I'm still over the moon that you decided to play my death game again,"

"Shut it Kayaba! You going to send another one of your pitiful creations or are you going to stop hiding and fight us," Kirito shouted. "Hand over the blueprints to the Medicuboid and give up," His threat was seemingly ignored with another disgusting laugh.

"And take away all the fun of seeing you make it to the top of my castle this time? Not a chance," The evilness in Kayaba's voice was very apparent. This was not the same Kayaba that Kirito had seen at the end of the original game, nor the one that gave him the Seed.

It almost seemed like this was a version of Kayaba that stayed with the game when it got deleted. A version that become twisted by his vision instead of learning from it. "I've been watching you beat my bosses one by one today, you seem to be getting pretty good at it,"

"Oh yeah, is that why you've been changing it up occasionally? Just to try and trip us up?" Kirito asked with no less anger than before. The veins in his neck being an obvious indication that he was at his boiling point.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Maybe I'm just trying to have a bit of fun with this new world of mine!" Kayaba shouted as he finished that sentence. Kirito was ready to find out wherever this voice was coming from and strangle it until it bled from every pore. "But I see that the approach I've been taking hasn't hindered you at all quite yet, so I'm going to reward you and give you your friend back,"

"You sure love the sound of your own voice, you scum!" Kirito retorted, ignoring the words of the creator.

"He's dying to see you all again I'm sure, have fun with him," Kayaba finished with one last laugh and then disappeared.

"Get back here Kayaba!" Kirito shouted, but the voice was gone. He almost started frothing at the mouth until words from his companions snapped him out of it.

"It's okay Kirito, we're going to get him soon enough, let's focus on the here and now," Agil responsibly assured as Kirito took a breath and apologised.

"Hey Kirito," Sinon asked with worry. "What was he talking about, giving a friend back?" It was now that Kirito thought about the words.

"He better not have," Kirito growled, but there was no time for any more words as a teleportation light started to appear on the other side of the room, and from it came a very familiar face. "That scumbag," Kirito's anger started to come back, while to his right, Sinon's fears became real.

"Toran!?" She exclaimed, though she knew full well that wasn't the Toran she knew, not anymore at least. She could tell judging from Kayaba's words that this Toran was not their friend, especially considering the malevolent expression he was wearing. Behind them, beyond the invisible wall, Asuna and the rest gathered the situation and shouted out to him, but to no avail.

"Seems there's no point in hiding behind a façade," Evil Toran said, though it sounded much more sinister than how he normally sounds. "I can't be Heathcliff anymore of course; you defeated that version of me. So, I found that I was able to access the code of this young individual here and brought him up to the ruby palace to…let's say, adjust him,"

"GET OUT OF HIS BODY! RIGHT NOW!" Kirito shouted in rage.

"My goodness, let me finish please," Evil Toran chuckled, but Kirito wasn't having it and rushed in with shining swords. He activated his Cresent Moon skill on both swords and swung down on Evil Toran. It was a cracking swing that would've broken many a sword, but Evil Toran summoned his own Elucidator seemingly out of nowhere and connect with a horizontal block and sent a shockwave around them.

"Kirito!" Agil and Sinon shouted from behind as they prepared to run in and join him.

"Skipping the pleasantries then? Awfully rude of you," Evil Toran growled as the sparks between their swords flew before Kirito jumped back to avoid giving Evil Toran an attack advantage. "If you want to save your friend from me, then you must kill me! Which funnily enough, will also kill him, you can't win no matter what!" Another laughter came after that.

Kirito was really getting sick of that laugh. He almost started speaking again but, in a flash, Sinon loaded an electric arrow with the use of her Shock Gem and fired at Evil Toran. Though he saw it coming, there was not time to dodge, so he summoned a shield from seemingly nowhere and hit the arrow away. Sinon cursed that fact that she still hadn't reached proficiency for her Shock Gem, so she still took damage from every use.

Suddenly, an electric charge started to fill the hand of Evil Toran and in the same fashion, he shot a lightning bolt at Sinon, who had no choice but to use the power of her Shock Gem again just to dodge out of the way in time. This time, Kirito gave Evil Toran no room to react and charged back in with a flurry of dual blade techniques.

Agil also ran in to support Kirito with a switch strategy. Evil Toran twisted around and blocked Agil's first attack while simultaneously using a sword skill to knock away both of Kirito's swords, and of course because Evil Toran was possessed by Kayaba, he suffered no post-skill delay. Agil used brute force to slide the shield out of the way and slammed the ground for a special AOE axe attack, which caused Evil Toran to jump backwards in avoidance, but as he wasn't focusing on Sinon, she used the opportunity to shoot a glowing black arrow at Evil Toran.

Though he saw it coming and stopped it with his shield, he was shocked to find that the moment it connected with his shield, Sinon teleported right beside him and, as her dagger shone yellow, activated her Savage Thrust skill and drove the dagger right into his neck. Evil Toran let out a hearty grunt before whacking her away with the shield.

Then, in a flash, Kirito jumped in from his other side and launched a Horizontal Climax attack with both swords, which saw him swing his swords from right to left. Evil Toran braced the attack with his shield, but the attack still pushed him backwards, right in Agil who cut right into Evil Toran's back with a hearty swing, nearly cleaving him in half. Evil Toran cascaded into the wall due to the force of the impact as the trio of adventurers gathered, ready for what came next.

"Sorry for trying to cut your boyfriend in half by the way," Agil half-jokingly, half seriously apologised to Sinon.

"That's not Toran so don't hold back," Sinon reassured as she sheathed her dagger and resummoned her bow. Evil Toran then emerged from the cloud of dust while holding his back.

"Hehe, you'd rather kill your own friend than find a way to save him from me?" Evil Toran scoffed angrily at the trio.

"Gladly," Sinon and Agil said in unison.

"You said so yourself that there's no way to win. That we must kill him to stop you," Kirito reminded his possessed friend as he pointed his Elucidator at him. "Unless you were lying and have something to say to us, that is," Evil Toran cursed under his breath for a second before looking closely at Sinon.

"You…you have quite the relationship with him, don't you," he said creepily. Sinon nearly shivered at the thought of Kayaba peeping in on her personal life. "To know that you would kill him without a second thought would surely make him hate you,"

"Kirito was right, you do love the sound of your own voice," Sinon fired back at the distasteful possessor of her lover. "And no, I'm sure he would be most impressed with our ability to beat the crap out of him," Evil Toran mumbled under his voice at these words, before summoning a menu and typing some sort of code into something.

"What are you planning?" Agil asked as he pointed the tip of his axe at Evil Toran.

"Well, since you seem so dead set on killing me, what's the problem with brining actual death into the mix, eh?" Evil Toran said as he pressed a button on his menu and a red wave of code rushed over everyone. Kirito looked over to his two friends with worry before looking back at Evil Toran.

"What…what did you just do!?" Kirito stuttered in worry.

"You heard me," Evil Toran said with a wicked smirk. "You know who I am, you know what power I hold. I could've done this whenever I wanted,"

"What kind of sick person are you! Death is not something to be toyed with!" Agil angrily yelled but didn't charge at him due to the sudden change in situation.

"I am the god of this world; I can do what I want. But anyway, back to where we were," Evil Toran chuckled as he held the point of his own elucidator up to his chest, "You guys still wouldn't mind if went ahead and died, right?"

"NO!" Sinon shouted unintentionally, but couldn't hold it in. In this moment, Evil Toran used his own Shock Gem power and almost teleported over to Sinon with his Elucidator raised above her head.

"Try and stop me!" He shouted as he brought his sword upon her head and the rest watched on in horror.

*CLASH*

Sinon was thrusted backwards and collapsed on her back, but not because of a sword attack. Evil Toran had his sword raised just above just where Sinon's head was, and surrounding it, a shockwave of sparks that came from what looked like nothing.

"What?" Evil Toran exclaimed in confusion before being launched backwards, though he kept his footing. By now, what used to be empty space now stood a vague and transparent figure that could hardly be seen.

"Try to touch my friends again. I dare you," The figure said, and while their body was still very unclear, the voice was unmistakeable.

"Toran!" Sinon shouted from a small way behind the rest of them. Meanwhile, in front of them, Evil Toran eyed Toran's figure, seemingly baffled.

"How!?" He shouted angrily.

"That doesn't matter, what matters is-" Toran started saying but was interrupted by Evil Toran.

"I'm not talking to you," Evil Toran spat at Transparent Toran. "How are YOU here? This is my world!" He started shouting at no one and got no reply. "Gah! Whatever, it seems like you aren't fully here yet, I will make sure you stay away from this,"

"You okay, Toran?" Kirito asked the transparent figure that was his friend.

"Yeah, guess I got lucky," He laughed briefly. "Sorry about not helping with those bosses, was going through a bit of a rut,"

"That's alright, at least we know you're okay now, I think," Kirito said before turning back to Evil Toran. "Not much we can do now though, Kayaba's activated perma-death, so I'm…not really sure what to do," Kirito tried to look his strongest, but he was shaking, anyone could tell. The hesitation on Agil was also noticeable. But Toran just pat Kirito's shoulder in reply.

"Trust me, the situation sounds dire, but remember I'm already dead according to the game. I can't be any more killed than I logically already am," Toran reassured as he readied his transparent weapon. "So don't hold back, we can end this right now,"

"Alright," Kirito exhaled and then prepared to charge. Meanwhile, Sinon made her way up to her transparent boyfriend's side.

"You'll be okay, right?" She asked with concern.

"For sure," Toran replied with a smile. Suddenly, Evil Toran charged at the two of them with a glowing red elucidator.

"Perish for me!" He shouted, but Kirito was quick on his feet and blocked the attack with a skill out of his own arsenal, Rock Solid, a blocking skill that makes the sword completely immovable for two seconds. He didn't bother with words either as Agil was quick from the side to knock Evil Toran with the side of his Axe and then quickly brought it above his head to bring it down for an AOE attack as it shone a brilliant blue colour.

"Earth Spear!" Agil shouted the name of the skill he was using and slammed his axe on the ground. Suddenly, a sharp rock exploded from the ground and hurdled towards Evil Toran who dodged to the left just in time to block a horizontal swipe from Transparent Toran. To get the upper hand, Evil Toran kicked Transparent Toran in the groin to push him away before grabbing a flying arrow from Sinon out of mid-air and using it to attempt a stab on Toran.

Toran jumped backwards to get out of range and there was a moment of everyone catching their breath. The plan that everyone seemed to recognise without it being spoken was using their numbers advantage to overwhelm Evil Toran with constant attacks and it seemed to work well enough.

"Time to end this," Kirito then said after a moment as his swords started to shine a sort of orange gold and he approached Evil Toran who had but a moment to prepare himself and Kirito unleashed a very rare skill called Ragnarok. This was a series of fifteen rapid fire attacks that came special as a dual blades skill that used each blade after the other.

Evil Toran perfectly blocked each one, though it became clear that it was not an easy task. Kirito put more and more effort into ever swipe and thrust and slowly started to push Evil Toran back.

As it came to the final attack of the skill, Evil Toran slide just to the side to make a lunge for Kirito, but Toran caught his sideswipe and used the flat of his blade to knock Evil Toran to the side, where he was then caught by Sinon who latched onto his back, brought her blade up to his neck, and started a dagger skill that cause her blade to shine yellow.

After a split second of dead silence, she sliced her dagger clean all the way through his neck and cut it straight off using the skill Cutting Edge. Evil Toran had no time to say anything before his head flew away from his body, but before the head hit the ground. The entire body exploded in a shower of crystal shards, indicating that their hit points had reached zero, and that he had died.

"That's what you get when you underestimate us, Kayaba," Kirito claimed with assertiveness as the shards slowly vanished and the congratulations' theme played in the background. Shortly after, the invisible wall that stopped the rest of them from entering the room disappeared.

"Kirito!" Asuna shouted as she ran into the room and hugged her in-game husband. Sinon turned to mimic the gesture with her own partner, but very quickly realised as she looked around, he was nowhere to be found.

"Toran?" She called out softly but had no reply.

"Seems like his consciousness was still attached to his actual body," Agil deduced from behind as he lifted his greataxe over his head and placed it within the sheath on his back. "But I wonder how he even managed to separate himself from his own body like that in order to help us,"

"I don't know about that, but I can safely assume that something is stirring in the background of this game, unbeknownst to any of us. We can only hope that we don't run into that Kayaba again," Kirito gathered while remaining within Asuna's embrace.

"You say there's two of those bastards now?" Lisbeth heaved with a defeated sigh.

"Only one of them appears to be evil, at least I think so," Kirito hoped. Though if that was true, he'd have thought the 'nicer' Kayaba would've done something to help by now. "But anyway, let's call it a day there. I couldn't fight another boss if I tried. Let's go see if Toran's respawned and see what we can do from there," The entire group nodded in agreement, especially Sinon who was the first one out the door and ready to use a teleport crystal.

Once they had arrived in the Town of Beginnings and headed for the Chamber of Resurrection, they quickly spotted Toran lying down within the walls of the open chamber. However, they quickly found that he seemed to be unconscious for some reason.

"Is that normal?" Sinon asked the group for urgent clarification. Luckily, Kirito was on hand to have a small laugh.

"Yeah, it's not the first time he's found himself knocked out like that. He seems to have made a habit out of it, though it probably has something to do with his…situation," It wouldn't have made sense to anyone else, but now that they all knew about his troubled life, it only seemed right that he had some time to get some rest.

"It's quite a feat that he hasn't lost his mind yet, considering all he's been through," Asuna thought aloud, followed in agreement by Leafa and Silica. After a short moment, Sinon sat by his side and announced that she would wait for him to wake up so everyone else could enjoy the rest of their day.

After some thanks and a small toast to the day's accomplishments, the parted ways to do their own things for the rest of the day. Some logged off; Leafa and Agil returned to the real world to do some studying and business work, Asuna teleported back to the log cabin to play with Yui, and Silica went to help Lisbeth with her new blacksmith workshop that she was building on the outskirts of Taft on the 11th floor.

This left Kirito all by himself for once and he had the option to hang around with Sinon and wait for Toran to wake up, or just walk around the Town of Beginnings and take a moment to enjoy the serenity of the virtual world. Considering the kind of person that he was, neither of those options sounded super great, but he eventually decided on the latter and decided to see if he could find any secrets within the Town of Beginnings that he didn't already know about.


Well, now it's time for an unfortunate announcement...

Thank You All for Reading the FINAL Chapter of SAO - Re:Start

To absolutely no one's surprise, I have not uploaded a chapter since January last year, so we nearly hit TWO whole years without an update here, and frankly, that is shameful, and I hate the idea of leaving this story in some sort of purgatory like that again.

As much as I would like to get back to writing this story, and as much as I promised I would finish it no matter what. I need to make the hard choice to either leave it in a no-update stasis again, or just pull the plug on it. So, that is what I'm doing.

As much as it sucks to say, I am ending Sword Art Online Re:Start here. This final chapter is simply to upload to what was left of what I had already written. I will not write any more of this. 'Tis the end of an era.

HOWEVER, I'm sure no one wants to just be left there with no idea what happens next. So, I will be posting one last page to this shortly after this releases that will essentially explain what the general storyline for the rest of the story was and tell you what was going to happen in the ending, because you deserve to know that much at least.

But other than that, I really hope you enjoyed reading this, or if you're just seeing this story now thanks to the new upload, I'd love it if you gave this story a read and let me know how it was. And know that you will be getting some sort of ending, just not the long and fleshed out one I really wanted you to have.

But well, that's it from me. It's been real everyone.

DxDBourne, signing off.