It was Monday after the tournament and the first time Kazuto would be seeing Asuna after finding out she was Snow Princess. They were married in SAO and now dating in real life. It was terrifying for someone who never had a lot of friends before. He also had all the information he spoke with his sister about the night before. It was disconcerting that something that large of scale could occur without the creators of the game doing anything about it. It was the reason he sent an email to talk to Kayaba since Alfheim Online is owned by the same company as SAO. This morning Kazuto got a message back from Kayaba agreeing to a meeting. They would be meeting at a local café not far from school after school was over.

Kazuto left for school and came across Rika and Asuna. Asuna and Kazuto both blushed instantly while Rika just laughed at their shyness.

"Hey." Said Kazuto while he awkwardly rubbed the back of his head.

"Hi." Said Asuna as she looked at her feet.

"Seriously! Just hold hands and walk to school! We are going to be late." Said the unnecessary third wheel.

The two did just that as they grabbed each other's hand and blushed even more if that was possible. They walked to school which was noticed by every single person in the building. There had been rumors before about the two of them dating but this just confirmed what everyone had been thinking.

During the walk Kazuto had to think of something to talk about so he told Asuna about everything going on with Alfheim Online. There was something fishy with it.

"Why hasn't the game creators or the GMs stepped in to do something?" She asked.

"I am not sure. It seems that they are waiting for someone to beat it. It could be some huge event that the creators came up with but that doesn't seem to make sense. It feels like a hacker." He responded.

"I would agree with that." She though pensively.

He figured he should just ask her. "Since there is a skill transfer option would you be interested in switching over to help the party. They are looking for the best fighters and my sister asked me invite you."

"Sure. It sounds fun." She smiled beautifully at him. "I didn't know your sister was that good of a gamer though. She seems more like someone focused on the real world."

He chuckled. "That would be true normally as she did try out SAO and she said it wasn't really for her but she does enjoy ALO. While SAO has skill assist and is more like a video game ALO is all based on the person's actual skill. There are no sword skill prompts it is your own movement so for a skilled Kendo user ALO is an ideal practice tool while having fun with her friends. She seemed quite distraught about the possibility of the game being closed down."

"Well I will help out with it. I can transfer over tonight and get any necessary information we need. "

They both went to class. They tried to learn from the lessons Agil was teaching but everyone in the class was more interested and celebrating the victory from the tournament this weekend so not a lot happened for the rest of the day. Unless something happening included some relentless teasing from Ryoutarou. He didn't leave the two love birds alone the entire lunch break talking about how he knew all along.

Finally the end of school came and everyone left to go home except Kazuto who went to a café to meet with Kayaba. When he arrived at the café he saw the man sitting a table sipping from a cup of coffee. He was wearing a lab coat for some reason. When Kazuto thought about it though it seemed Kayaba was always wearing one. It is a weird fashion statement but to each their own.

"Kazuto. It is nice to see you." Said the programmer as Kazuto sat at the table.

"It is nice to see you as well." He stated calmly back.

"I didn't expect this from you. Are you here to gloat that you beat me or try to blackmail me for better perks with your knowledge." The older man glared at him.

Kazuto was taken aback by this reaction. He did only ask to meet him to talk about something urgent. He never mentioned specifically what he wanted to talk about. So his reaction did make sense. "I apologize if you were under that impression. I wanted to talk about something else. Specifically ALO."

That surprised him. "What do you want to talk about?" He asked calmly.

"ALO is your game. You do know a player has taken it over." Kazuto asked.

"Yes of course." He said with a slight smirk. "It is my game."

"That wasn't you was it?" he asked dubiously.

That he got a full laugh from. "No of course not I like to sit back and watch. What happened with the tournament recently was because you were interesting and I wanted to see you up close. The reason I made ALO was to put everyone in their own races and set everyone on an equal playing ground. I wanted to see how the lack of levels and the identification of a fairy race would change how the world was played."

This confused Kazuto. "So your games are more of a social experiment to you. How people react to being set up in different ways."

"Sort of. And in ALO something interesting happened. Even if it was a hack a group of players took over some monsters and the entire game. It is quite an interesting event and I want to see how it plays out. I want to see a reaction to the actions that he did and how this will play out. And as you have already learned something interesting has occurred. 8 races that dislike each other and work against each other are coming together against a common enemy. Isn't that interesting?" He had a weird gleam to his eyes.

"So you are going to let a player take over your game just to see what happens?" Kazuto asked.

"Yes but it won't be for long. His little cheat triggered something with the monsters he aligned with. The king of the Frost Giants wanted to destroy the Fairy realm and now he gave them the opportunity to succeed. Without the cheat it would never have been possible."

That shocked Kazuto. "You mean that if something isn't done fast that ALO will crash and be destroyed because of the hacking and the Frost Giants?"

"Yes. From what I have noticed the last time I checked the Frost Giants are doing something that is contaminating the tree. It is freezing over and will get to a point where the temperature drops so far that fairies won't survive the environment and it will kill all the trees that are the spawn points for the players destroying the homes of the races." He stated calmly while taking a sip of coffee.

"And you have no intention of getting involved." Kazuto more stated than asked.

"Nope."

"Do you know how long the game has until it will be destroyed?" Kazuto asked.

"If I had to guess I would say that it would take a week or so. Just to be sure if he isn't defeated by Sunday night. Are you going to try and stop him? Just so you know if any character that is inside the game at the time of destruction will be destroyed as well. If you switched over and don't succeed you will lose Kirito." He looked intently at the high schooler sitting across from him.

Slowly it dawned on Kazuto exactly what he was. Kayaba wanted to see what he would do. He was just another thing Kayaba was watching like his games. How Kazuto would react to this threat of losing everything in the game.

"Then I have a week." He got up and walked away from the game creator.

"I look forward to watching your progress." The man gave as a final remark.

Kazuto got back to the house ready to try and fix what was going on. He sent a message to Ryoutarou about the situation asking him to meet in ALO which he readily agreed.

"It's time." Said his sister from a doorway and they both jumped into the game. Klein, Snow Princess, Kirito, and Leafa all met together in Swilvane. After a quick tutorial of learning how to fly the four of them arrived at a meeting point for the 12 people that are going to take the quest.

Leafa introduced everyone in the group. Besides the three of them there was the leader of the group Eugene. A powerful general from the Salamanders that apparently is considered the most powerful player in the game and is undefeated. Then there was Sakuya. The leader of the Sylphs and quite skilled with her Katana. Another Salamander named Kagemune who is their top lancer was also chosen. Sigurd of the Sylphs was also chosen as one of the top fighters. Alicia Rue, the leader of the Cait Sith was chosen with her close combat claws. Those five with Leafa, Asuna, Klein, and Kirito were the strong fighters chosen to be front line warriors. Then there was Recon who was small with green hair and he was skilled with dark magic apparently. Gtacs, was a powerful mage and leader of the salamander mage group. And finally the outsider that was brought in by Alicia was her friend Sinon. She had blue hair and carried a bow and is said to be the most skilled long distance shooter in a game called Gun Gale Online. She sometimes helped her friend Alicia and would switch into ALO.

With everyone there the planning began.

AN: There is going to be a lot less focus on the love story between Asuna and Kazuto. There will still be some but personally I always enjoyed more of the point of getting to dating. It will come up and will have moments for the two of them but I will be focusing more on the story. Yui will be involved but I think her role will be quite different than canon. I hope you enjoyed the latest chapter. Let me know what you think.