Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online. SAO is the property of Reki Kawahara, Dengeki Bunko, A-1 Pictures, Aniplex USA, ect. Is this the right way to go about disclaimers?

The image for this story was found on the blog Random Curiosity in their review of SAO Episode 9. Check them out. They have some good reviews.

One More Side

Prologue

As I held him with all my strength, I called out his name.

I love you, Kirito-kun. I'll always love you. Please….Please remember that.

I will..I will...I love you, Asuna.

Our last moments came quickly. A bright light enveloped us as our bodies disappeared. Finally, we merged together, scattered, and disappeared.

It was dark. The air on my face felt strangely cool. My hearing and sense of smell felt muddled. My body felt really heavy, as if something was pushing down on it. I felt liquid on my face, which I soon realized were tears. Why? Why am I crying? It's strange, but I felt I lost something very dear to me. After some time, I tried opening my eyes, very slowly, and the light that penetrated them felt like the sun. Nevertheless, I kept on until I had a slightly clear view of my surroundings.

The room felt very modern and clean. Tiles covered the ceiling in an elegant pattern. My gaze eventually fell upon my body, where I noticed two very skinny arms and a thick blanket covering my lower body, which felt wrapped in a gown of some sort. An IV line fed into my left arm.

As my hearing slowly came back, I noticed the very faint sound of machines beeping beside me. But how? It was impossible for anything mechanical to exist in Aincrad.

It couldn't be...

With that thought, I realized..I was home. But that can't be. I was dead, we both clearly died. I recalled the leader's last words:

"Congratulations on clearing the game, Kirito-kun, Asuna-kun"

I then realized that this must have been his reward to us, for defeating him at that moment. My thoughts began to wander towards my partner, my husband.

The one I saw the end of the world with

"Ki…ri…to.."

My voice was dry, and very weak. Just moving my lips made my entire throat ache, yet I still persisted in calling out his name.

Kirito-kun

If I was alive, then surely he was too. The leader never went back on his word, not that he had any reason to do so. Suddenly, I felt a rush of feelings envelope my soul. I wanted to hear him, I wanted to be in his arms. I wanted to hold him tight and never let him go.

As I picked myself up with all the strength I had in my feeble arms, I felt a weight on my head. Slowly, I felt a headset and took it off which required intense effort on my part and laid it on my lap.

NerveGear.

This machine trapped my soul for two years, preventing me from seeing my family, making me miss out on school and other important events. Despite the animosity, I felt eternally grateful to it for letting me meet him, as well as other friends. I'll find him somehow. Starting with this hospital, I won't rest until I find my husband.

I slowly made my way off the bed, the IV line ripping from my arm leaving a thin line of blood. Ignoring the pain, I gritted my teeth and held onto the nearby IV stand.

There's nothing I can do but to find him; no…I must find him, no matter what it took.

With that thought, I took my first shaky steps towards the door to the outside world.

"Sir, it seems that something…unexpected has happened."

Sugou felt his patience wear thin. After spending the last few weeks preparing for this very moment, those words were the last he wished to hear.

"What is it? What happened?"

"I apologize sir, but we failed to contain the avatar of the profile you requested."

Those words irritated him to no end. A year of planning could not be derailed by the failure of capturing Asuna's avatar. She was essential in his plans to gain power over RETCO and further his experiments. Having her free can cause his ambitions to come crashing down.

"How could this have happened? Weren't you monitoring the channels properly?"

"We did sir, but…I'm not sure what happened. We saw her name and moved to extract it. However, it seems that someone detected our intrusion and rerouted our directive to another avatar nearby. Something involving the data size of the player must have messed up our intrusion somehow."

Calm down, he thought. An unexpected situation has developed. Being frustrated will just cause more problems. There's gotta be something we can salvage from this situation.

Why, though? Why did this happen? Incompetent programmers. Were they not essential to this experiment, Sugou would've had then fired right there on the spot.

"Boss, while we didn't get her, we did manage to get someone else. Apparently, based on the stats, we got a really high-ranking player, someone named Kirito."

"And how is this good? I need her, not some random player."

According to his character profile, he is married, and it looks like his partner matches the name that you gave us, the one you wanted us to get. Looking at player records…yup, her avatar image definitely matches up"

So he's married to Asuna in game….You…you took her place and ruined my plans. This will not go unpunished. This line of thought sprouted various ideas.

"If I may, sir, we are getting countless requests for new content in ALO, and the simulation models are kind of inconclusive regarding our pain model. It'd be good to have a control subject so that we can make sure that the results are authentic."

Sugou thought carefully of how to approach the situation. A control for his studies would definitely be helpful. Also, if nothing else, he can use him as a guinea pig to test new features to keep players busy and other parties off his back.

"Very well, I may have a use for him. Set him up in the beta area, run him through the tutorial sequence, and have his old profile automatically generated. Make sure that he transfers to the holding area once he's finished the content testing."

As his subordinates scrambled to carry out his order, he sat back down into thought about how to proceed with this character.

Hm...if I play my cards right, perhaps my plans aren't lost after all. I'll observe the situation and see how Asuna reacts. In any case, this will be interesting...

Author's note: So, here's the prologue. This isn't much, but if you like it, leave a review. I know that the idea has been spread around this site for a while. So far, I only saw one complete story with this theme of Asuna saving Kirito, and I figured, why not try my hand at it. I have an idea on how to proceed, but as of now, I'm struggling to see how this will work. Honestly, I'm a new writer here on and compared to other writers, I'm just not sure if I'm good. Nevertheless, I'll try and update as best as I can. As a new writer, I welcome any and all reviews and criticisms, even suggestions on how to make the story better. If you leave a review or PM me, I'll do my best to reply as soon as I can. Special thanks to Queen of Corners for helping me out.