This story is based on my other story called Worlds Apart. You don't exactly have to read it in order to understand this story, but I will summarize it briefly.

Kayaba set up a stream to monitor Kirito's gameplay, as he was the highest ranked beta tester. The government found the video feed about six months into the game, and they broadcasted it publicly so that people could see what SAO was like, and so that some people might be able to see their family members that were trapped in the game.

Worlds Apart followed Suguha as she watched her brother struggle through SAO. The only things that happened in Worlds Apart that weren't a major part of the SAO canon were Midori & Suguha Kirigaya being able to watch Kirito inside SAO, and the Kirigaya & Yuuki families met to discuss and approve of their children's marriage. (See Worlds Apart for details of that, obviously.)

Note: Worlds Apart can act as a prequel to this story, but the final chapter of Worlds Apart, entitled 'Worlds Collide', must be omitted.

The Truth About Sword Art Online (Prologue)

Kirito's eyes opened and he was greeted with the sight of his own hands illuminated by golden rays of sunshine. He looked up, taking in the view of the clouds and the sun before him, realizing that he was actually floating amongst those very clouds.

Where am I?

He opened his menu, and a window labeled 'Initiating Final Phase' appeared. There was a percentage indicator slowly increasing from just over fifty percent. Uninterested, he closed the menu.

"Kirito?" came a voice from behind him.

He froze. There was no way it could be her. She had died in his arms. Still, he had to know whether or not he had imagined that voice. He slowly turned around to face it, and there she was, standing right before him as if nothing had happened and they hadn't both died.

She had the most confused look on her face as they stared at each other for a long moment, the only sound that of the wind rushing past them. Then, he remembered her last words.

Glancing down, he said, "Sorry, I guess I died too."

"You idiot," she replied before running to him and falling into his arms. Their lips met in a kiss for a long moment as they held each other.

Then, the moment had passed, and Kirito broke away, moving to stand beside her. "Where are we?"

Asuna pointed down, to what appeared to be a miniature Aincrad floating below them. But no, it wasn't miniature. The transparent platform they stood on was so high up above the castle that it just looked small, even from the outside.

Even more interesting, rubble was falling from the bottom of Aincrad, disappearing into nothing as it crashed down to whatever was programmed into the world Aincrad was set in.

Asuna gasped as they saw the ground beneath their house on floor twenty two crack and fall away as well.

"Quite a view, isn't it?" someone said from off to the side.

They glanced over to their right and saw a man standing a few feet from them, watching the same thing they were. He wore a long white coat, and his face appeared to be neutral as he watched the world he had created descend into nothingness.

"Akihiko Kayaba..." Kirito said, shocked to see him.

Abruptly, he said, "The SAO mainframe, located in the fifth level basement of my corporate headquarters, is deleting all data on its storage devices. In ten minutes or so, everything in this world will vanish."

"What about the people down there?" Asuna gestured at the crumbling castle.

"You needn't worry about them." Kayaba opened his menu and a list of player names popped up, entitled 'Logout List'. "The remaining six-thousand-one-hundred-forty-seven players were logged out moments ago." He closed the menu.

"And the ones who died?" Kirito had to ask. "What about the four thousand who died?"

"They will never return. No matter what world you're in, if you die, you're gone."

"Why...why did you do this?"

"Why?" Kayaba repeated, seeming to ponder the question. "One of my greatest dreams even back when I was a child was to create a world that surpassed all of our laws. And now, I've seen someone surpass even the laws of my own world."

"All of this was just for a dream of yours?" Asuna demanded.

Kayaba shrugged nonchalantly. "At first, yes, that was the idea. However, as I developed SAO, I began to realize that I could use it for much more than just my own personal fantasy." His white lab coat flapped in the wind as he turned to glance at Kirito and Asuna. "I respect the two of you greatly, and I truly wonder what the future might hold for you. For that reason, I will tell you the actual truth about this death game."

He paused for a long moment, as if he was debating whether or not he really wanted to tell them. "I'm sure you're aware, Kirito, that the Americans have been making a lot of progress in the field of transferring virtual objects to the real world."

Kirito nodded. What Kayaba referred to was really just a glorified 3-D printing project, capable of picking the correct materials to recreate any somewhat realistic virtual object. American companies had nearly fully developed the program, and he was aware that they had begun to try to find a way to recreate organic things from the virtual world.

"You see, their progress in the field was astounding, but they seem to have hit a barrier in the organic department. Sure, they can generate some leaves and the like, but they're nowhere near being able to actually transfer a conscious life form from the virtual world to the real world."

"What does any of this have to do with SAO?" Asuna asked, tapping her foot impatiently, causing a surprisingly loud thumping considering that they appeared to be standing on an invisible platform in the clouds.

"Patience, my dear." He returned his gaze to the crumbling Aincrad, not noticing the angry expression Asuna's face took at the words. Kirito gently squeezed her hand to calm her down.

"We do only have a few minutes before this world disappears, so I'll try to cut to the chase. Basically, I discovered that we're unlikely to ever be able to transfer a person or animal from virtual reality into the real world as long as we play by the laws we've set for ourselves in the other world."

"So you created SAO..." Kirito muttered, catching on.

Kayaba smiled. "Exactly. SAO made that process so much easier. I developed an artificial intelligence, Cardinal, to run the game and to function as my own army of researchers for the subject. She's the first of her kind, a fully intelligent and self-aware AI, with more processing power and intelligence than even the largest of supercomputers. I tasked her with maintaining SAO, governing the game as she saw fit. More importantly, though, was that I had her spend every available bit of computing power on researching how to take someone and turn them into an AI, and how to bring an AI from the virtual world back into a real body."

Asuna and Kirito were both shocked by the idea of such a thing. In the back of his mind, he realized that might be applicable to their little girl, Yui, as well. "Go on," he encouraged.

"Without any legal restriction, it took Cardinal only a short while to create host 'bodies' that could be genetically altered to whatever specifications we chose. Thank all of the advancements in the field of biology for that, I suppose. It took a lot longer for her to learn how to properly transfer a human's consciousness into an AI program that could run independently of the body. Fortunately, she had thousands of possible test subjects—the players who died."

Kirito clenched his free hand into a tight fist, but didn't interrupt. The thought sickened him, but he was willing to overlook how morally terrible the process was if it had indeed produced something that might save Asuna or Yui.

"Anyway, about a year ago, Cardinal finally got her first successful human-to-AI procedure to work. From there, she's nearly perfected the art, though its success seems heavily determined by the biological qualities of the individual. At that point, she's been focused solely on trying to transfer that artificial intelligence back into one of the host bodies we grew. That process...hasn't been so successful. She had her first success about a month ago, and she says she thinks she could replicate the feat roughly one out of four attempts right now."

"What happened to those test subjects?" Asuna demanded, not sharing Kirito's own willingness to overlook the morality.

Kayaba grimaced. "They're all dead, as I told you earlier. The ones that existed as AI's were queued for deletion the moment you stabbed me through the chest, Kirito. As for the one player who managed to get back to the real world, he was terminated shortly after."

"You bastard..."

"Science requires sacrifice," the older man said simply, seemingly unfazed by the immorality of his actions. "We have less than five minutes left. Would you like to insult me for the rest of that time, or would you like to hear what I have to offer?"

Kirito shot a hand over Asuna's mouth as he could tell she was about to shout at him. "Continue, but it better be worth it."

"I had a partner..." Kayaba admitted. "A person in the real world that facilitated all of Cardinal's research. I'd tell you his name...but that would be no fun." He shook his head, amused with himself. "Regardless, he seems to have betrayed me. A week ago he stole a bunch of backup drives containing Cardinal's research about transferring artificial intelligences into bodies. He also took about a hundred of the host bodies we had grown. With those things, and the resources already available to him, he could turn those host bodies into practically any virtual creatures. Interestingly, he didn't take the information about how to create an AI from a human, so I can only assume his intentions are malicious or narcissistic. What is the point of creating a bunch of animals, except for your own benefit?"

Kayaba fully turned to face Kirito and Asuna. "This is my offer. Cardinal has already executed the kill sequences for your Nerve Gear. Your bodies are dead, and you exist as AI's here in SAO. If you agree, I'll let you bond with two of the remaining host bodies at my laboratory. Cardinal has already begun modifying them to match the physical characteristics of your SAO avatars, in case you were to agree."

"Why?"

Crossing his arms impatiently, he said, "I told you already...I respect the two of you, and I want to see what the future has in store for you. Also, I'm concerned about what my partner might do with what he stole from me. No matter how misguided you may think me, I never did anything with the intent of being evil or ruining someone's life. My partner is...less reserved in that sense."

Kirito shared a glance with Asuna. "If we agreed..." he said hesitantly. "What are the chances that we would both survive? And if we did...what would it be like for us?"

Kayaba consulted a screen in front of him briefly. "Every person's chances are different. Statistically, Cardinal estimates a thirty-one percent chance that you both survive, which is actually a bit higher than I'd have imagined." He scratched his head. "As for what it would be like...well, Cardinal took your SAO avatar's proportions and capabilities and created a body that matched that. So, in theory, it should be about the same as what you feel like right now. Obviously you wouldn't have an inventory, or sword skills, so if you fought it would be with your own skill. So, what do you say? Time is running out."

"We'll do it," Kirito replied simply.

"Kirito!" Asuna demanded. "That's exactly what he wants us to do. We're playing right into his plans. Are you really okay with that?"

"I don't care, if it means you'll survive. You are what matters to me, not his plans." He pulled her into a tight embrace, and he felt her sigh against him.

"Okay..." she agreed, relaxing in his arms.

Kirito allowed himself to relax a bit as well as he felt the relief of knowing that Asuna would go along with the plan, no matter the chances of success that it had. Off to the side, he heard Kayaba manipulating his menu, and then he said, "Okay, done. Your programs have been saved onto the local servers in my laboratory, and the process will automatically merge you with your bodies as soon as they finish growing. The process normally takes around an hour."

"And what of you?" Kirito asked, turning on his feet as he still embraced Asuna so that he could see Kayaba clearly.

Kayaba smiled at him. "I'm going to become an AI. Perhaps I'll return to the real world someday, but I look forward to the opportunity to push the limits of my mind when I'm no longer burdened by the limits of my flesh. Oh!" he exclaimed suddenly. "I almost forgot to mention it...how silly of me."

"Huh?"

"Nothing to worry about," he assured quickly. "Well, maybe it is. You were the top ranked beta tester, Kirito, so I set up a terminal to monitor your gameplay directly. The government found it about six months into the game and they've been broadcasting that stream to the world since then."

Kirito's face had gone blood red. "Y-you're saying that the entire world has been able to watch me for the last year and a half!?" he shouted, pulling away from Asuna and taking a step towards Kayaba, fists clenched.

The wide grin that Kayaba had only served to infuriate Kirito more. "Hah...yeah. Sorry about that, I suppose. Cardinal tells me that the average viewer count when you fought a boss was in the tens of millions. You'll be a national celebrity!"

Kirito was about to dash over to the scientist and beat him into whatever invisible floor they were standing on, but Kayaba's menu pinged an odd sound and disappeared abruptly. "Ah! It appears our time has come to an end. I wish you both the best, Kirito and Asuna. Perhaps one day we'll meet again..."

He turned on his heel and began walking away...then vanished. A tug on his arm brought his attention back to Asuna, and he found her looking out at Aincrad with a small smile on her face. The ruby palace at the top had crumbled into millions of polygons and disappeared, leaving no trace of the world that had captured the last two years of their lives.

"It's gone..." she whispered, turning back to him and wiping a tear from her eye. "Hey...Kirito, we never shared our names, did we?"

"Huh? Oh...yeah that's right." He shook his head. "Kazuto Kirigaya. I'm sixteen, I think."

"So you're younger than me...I'm Asuna Yuuki, and I'm seventeen."

"Asuna...Yuuki," he replied, letting the name linger in the air for a moment, savoring it.

They had the same urge as they both embraced each other. Asuna whispered. "Just know...no matter what happens, that I'm glad I met you, Kirito. I love you."

He felt tears fall from his eyes as the world around them faded—the final phase of SAO's shutdown. "I love you, Asuna."

The sensation of a kiss on his cheek was all he felt as the world went black around him and he lost consciousness.