SAO A Different Story

AN: Now we're done with SAO, and we're only left with ALO. Then it's off to the land of the ice and snow, with the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.

Disclaimer: I don't own SAO, or Led Zeppelin, wish I did.

A Different Story

Chapter 6- The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Again, Kirito's response was rather unremarkable.

He watched as Asuna dove in front of Kayaba's blade, and her form shattered into pixels. Then as he stood staring at where one of his beloved wives had vanished, the man responsible for all the deaths in that virtual hell got tired of waiting for a response from the broken and beaten swordsman in front of him, and ran him through as well. As the clearers watched in shock and cried out in vain as two of the unstoppable Diamond Blades, two of the best players in the game, were cut down by the evil mastermind responsible for everyone's suffering, a round of sarcastic clapping could be heard coming from the entrance to the 75th floor boss room.

Clap, clap, clap.

"Well done, Kayaba-san. You managed to best the strongest player in the game. Albeit while he was exhausted, half-dead, and it was with a combat system that you know backwards and forwards; but really, what's the difference?"

Oddly enough for the theatric moment, every single player present had a perfect view of the entrance, despite being paralyzed and being unable to turn their heads. What they saw utterly shocked them.

Standing there as if he hadn't just been killed and deleted was Kirito, with a small girl riding on his shoulders. Arrayed about him were the rest of the members of the Diamond Blades, who were somehow un-paralyzed and at full health. Even Asuna was there, smirking defiantly at Kayaba, also looking surprisingly not-dead. The look of utter confusion on Kayaba's face would be laughed over for days, but it quickly morphed into one of anger and determination as he swiped his hand to bring up his command menu.

And swiped his hand to bring up his command menu.

And swiped again.

And again.

All the while the little girl sitting atop Kirito's shoulders grinned triumphantly, before she stuck her tongue out at the man in a cute and childish fashion. Kirito laughed again as Kayaba grew more and more incandescent with rage at his inability to access and control the system. When he looked up with hate filled eyes at Kirito, Asuna decided to take pity on the man and explain to him the new truths of the world.

"It's rather ironic, really, that it was you who paved the way for your own defeat. It was quite simple really. Our precious Yui here has administrator access over all of Aincrad, but she lacked the ability to affect you. You both shared equal levels of access, and she couldn't forcibly remove your power. But you could. When you accessed the command menu to paralyze us and deactivate your immortality, Yui copied and stole your login credentials. You now have the same access level as a regular player, and the stats and reflexes to match. No more System Assist for you," she said as she grinned ferally.

"And no more playing God either," added Sinon. "You claimed that this was your world, and you were its God. Well, it appears that one deity has just been dethroned, and replaced with a Goddess."

Yui cheerily waved at Kayaba with a cheeky grin. The man's face had reached a rather remarkable purple color at this point. Wanting to end things quickly and finally get back to the real world, Kirito decided to finish the explanation.

"It's really quite simple, Kayaba. Yui has, for the past two weeks, been renaming random mobs with the names of players who were about to die and then teleporting the players to the black iron palace. Nobody looks there, and she made sure the accommodations were superior to those of its usual occupants. Then the system would delete the mob instead of the player, and nobody would be the wiser." Asuna had been the one to come up with that trick, recalling how it had been used against them during their brief murder investigation. "It was a simple matter to rename the players' files with a simple '1' at the end to fool Cardinal into deleting the mob instead of the player. And since the mob had no brain to fry, every death within the last two weeks has been faked, and all the players are still alive."

The players who had originally been furious with the Blades for taking such a long time away from the front lines and totally blowing off the preparations for the boss fight until the clearers had practically demanded that they show up, suddenly realized why the game's top guild had been acting so carefree. They had successfully hacked the game, and had totally emasculated Kayaba.

"The only thing we couldn't do was release the players from the game; for that we needed your credentials specifically, which you have just recently so graciously provided. And now that we are in control, or more precisely Yui is, it's time to say goodbye and return to the real world," came Lisbeth's voice.

"Yui, if you would do the honors?" asked Kirito. While they had debated who should do the deed, it had eventually been Yui who had demanded the right. As she so simply put it, 'He tried to hurt my mamas and papa, I want to do it.' Between the combined force of her puppy dog eyes and newly emerged bloodthirst, she convinced her parents to let her get the final swing at Kayaba.

The last thing Kayaba saw was a large and fiery Object Eraser swinging straight for his face.

After the resulting pixel explosion subsided, the players in the room could be seen slowly fading into particles as Aincrad started to come apart at the seams around them. Kirito turned and gave Kizmel a hug and a kiss on the lips after settling Yui on her shoulders.

"See you soon," she said, as she and Yui waved goodbye to their family as the strongest guild in the game, the Diamond Blades, the heroes of Aincrad, dissolved into particles. As the floor under their feet cracked and crumbled, they, too, faded away.

Kirigaya Kazuto awoke to an incessant beeping noise and an utterly parched throat. He slowly and painfully raised his arms to remove the NerveGear from his head, his eyes following the cord attached over to his computer. He smiled happily as he saw a small window pop up in the lower corner, showing a smiling and waving Kizmel and Yui. He hadn't known his computer was still attached to his NerveGear until he had tried moving Yui's data files into it. His hard drive had shown up as an extension of his headgear.

As it turned out, the medics that moved him to the hospital had been reluctant to disconnect the computer, worried of any unforeseen consequences it may or may not cause in doing so. The doctors had agreed, and had instead left it plugged in and ensured that it stayed charged by connecting it to the wall outlet.

So when Kirito discovered that he could access his computer through the console, he had spent an entire day coding in his little plan to outsmart Kayaba. Yui retained her administrator access, and Kirito recoded several lines to ensure that it wouldn't be revoked and she wouldn't be deleted or attempted to be again. He then moved both Yui and Kizmel's files onto his laptop, as he had found in the code while searching for a way to end the game what Kayaba had planned for after the game was cleared. Aincrad would self-destruct, which would have terminated Yui and Kizmel, but not anymore, as they were safely in Kirito's computer. When it was determined that it was impossible for them to escape without Kayaba's admin access, they decided to switch out dying players with renamed mobs until the game could be cleared. They hadn't expected to have Kayaba practically hand them the keys to the kingdom as he had.

The fact that Yui had been observing her parents through the system from a newly installed command console in their 22nd floor house's living room, and that she just happened to notice Kayaba use the command console, was simply a streak of good luck. Yui had immediately inserted a line of code to intercept and copy Kayaba's credentials, which she used to remove the admin access from those credentials, but not before granting the same level as he had to herself and her parents. Then she merely had to teleport in during the distraction of Kirito and Kayaba's duel and free her parents while informing them of her accomplishment. Asuna and Argo came up with a plan immediately, and Sinon added in the theatricality aspect. All in all, the day had been a massive success, all because Kayaba foolishly believed that he still held the power.

Kazuto couldn't help but give a small smile as he beheld the two forms in the screen on his computer. He managed to struggle to his feet, before walking to his computer. He typed a message to the two that he would be back soon, that he had to find the girls, before he performed one more protection measure for his two virtual family members. Kirito's computer had access to the hospitals free wireless connection, so Kirito started an upload of Yui and Kizmel's files to his cloud server. No self-respecting computer fanatic relied simply on hardware anymore. Physical things could be broken. The cloud storage he used would only be terminated if the server's physical structure, which was housed somewhere deep underground near Tokyo, was somehow damaged. The likelihood of that happening before Kirito could find an even safer way to protect the two's files was virtually zero.

With the upload started and his mind at ease, Kirito struggled back to his feet, before leaning against his IV pole as he shuffled off down the hall towards the nurse's station.

"I understand that you want to see your friends as soon as you can, Kirigaya-san, but patient confidentiality is just that, confidential. I'm sorry, I can't help you," said the nurse as Kazuto was led back to his room by the flustered nurse. Several thousand patients suddenly awakening from comas added a significant amount to her workload.

Kazuto was sitting sullenly on his bed when his grumbling was interrupted by a very weak "Kiri-bou". He turned to the doorway and saw a short statured girl with brown hair and eyes being led by a tall man with short black hair and spectacles. While it was a bit difficult to recognize her physically with her frail and emaciated form, there was only one person who called him by that name. Kirito graced her with a small smile.

"Argo-chan, good to see you IRL. I tried asking the nurse to let me see the others, but she turned me away." As he said this, Argo gained her usual smirk, which though subdued, still let Kirito know that she had a solution.

"Kirito, meet my dad, Kikuoka Seijirou. He used to work in the JSDF, and was recently put in charge of the Sword Art Online Case Victims Rescue Force. He's the one who was in charge of moving everybody into hospitals and ensuring we weren't disconnected. He has access to the files of where everybody is."

"But how did they get their real names from their player names?" Kirito asked with a smile. It was fitting that Argo seemed to have a father that shared a similar set of skills as her own.

"They didn't. Nobody can make those two lists line up. But some people were easy to find. A few searches on the syllables 'ki-ri-to' eventually led to one Kirigaya Kazuto. You're actually attempt number twelve, but the fact that you look so familiar as well as the fact that you answered to your nickname means that it's you. And I've already got leads on Asuna, Yuuki, and Sinon. Asuna told us her last name was Yuuki's first name, and it turns out that Asuna used her real first name. Yuuki Asuna is on another floor of this hospital, as are Konno Yuuki and Asada Shino. As for Lisbeth and Silica, we really should have exchanged names before we left, but we got so excited of suddenly toppling Kayaba that we completely forgot."

Kirito nodded and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly at that. It was true, they hadn't exchanged names because they hadn't expected to suddenly be free, but they had taken the opportunity Kayaba accidently gave them and ran with it before thinking things through.

"Don't worry though," the senior Kikuoka spoke up. "There are plans to have all of the SAO victims that were high school level attend a special school that's opening in a few months to help them all catch up on the two years they've missed. Your friends will most likely be there, and I'm sure that you'll be able to recognize each other."

"Not that you'll have to wait that long," Argo jumped in. "I'll have the forums linking names to players before you know it. Just because we're in the real world doesn't mean I'm not still an info broker."

"Now Alice, there's no need for that. I understand that you enjoy it, but I can easily put some agents on finding the information for you," said Kikuoka-san. But Kirito didn't hear that. He had stopped listening at the second word. Argo gave him a worried look as she saw his shoulders shaking, before she saw him smiling as a giggle slipped through his clenched lips.

"Hehehe. The infamous Argo the Rat, Aincrad's ruthless and most skilled information broker, the Scissoring Claws of the Diamond Blades, is named Alice? Ahahaha!" Kirito was unable to contain his mirth, and Argo may have managed her way to the bed and attempted to punch him several times, though they were all ineffectual.