Alkaid couldn't say that she was exactly happy with her current circumstances.

At that moment, she was sitting inside of her room, looking at it for all its familiarity, legs crossed as she leaned against the bed inside of her room, it withholding a tall lamp that emitted an orange glow around the room.

To her right stood a shelf, it being filled with nothing but books, and to her left, a desk with a book light that she'd often use when either doing homework, or reading one of her many books, and a PC, used only for playing "The World".

Under normal circumstances, she'd be either reading or working at her desk, or online playing in "The World" (or at least the latter used to be the case).

But, needless to say, her situation was more stressful than what could ever be considered normal by most.

The game of Sword Art Online having been beaten four and a half weeks ago, she and countless others were left to rejoin their daily lives after everything that happened.

That wasn't to say everyone was doing such things.

Alkaid could vividly remember the events that had transpired two weeks ago.

On that day, she'd been taking the train to Tokyo after getting a letter from a woman named Reiko Bunsyoya in the mail, it stating that she was an ally of hers who's PC had been named Pi in the time they'd known each other.

After convincing her parents to let her go to Tokyo after reading what Haseo's own situation was, which ended up with her telling them that she'd gotten a boyfriend in her time there, as she wasn't sure how'd they'd take the marriage (especially considering the fact that Atoli was involved in it), she followed the directions the letter specified and soon ended up going into Haseo's own hospital room, expecting to see that he was still laying with his NerveGear attached to his head.

Upon entering it, she found that she wasn't the only one in there.

She recognized Atoli and Pi/Reiko in the room immediately, them looking over a boy with a gaunt face and long, flowing white hair, another lanky, brown haired man standing in the room as well.

"Is this Haseo?" Alkaid asked after greeting them and staring down at him for a moment.

"Yes." Pi responded simply, arms crossed as she leaned against the wall.

Alkaid didn't know what to say to that, so she simply shrugged, finding a chair next to Atoli, her looking up at Pi again, "Why did you want us to come here?" Alkaid asked her.

Pi looked at her, then uncrossed her arms, pushing herself off the wall, "It seems like there shouldn't be any real reason to keep you waiting any longer," She looked at the man, "Would you care to tell these two what you plan to do, or should I Mr. Misaki?"

"It's fine for you to explain. I tend to try avoiding repeating myself a number of times."

"Very well." Pi looked at the two girls sitting next to Haseo, her pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, "This is Haseo's father," she gestured the man in the room with them.

Atoli blinked in surprise, then stood up quickly, facing him, "It's nice to meet you!" She bowed her head.

He looked at her with an expression that someone would take when taken aback by something, him speaking somewhat awkwardly, "Same to you."

"He was talking about the situation with Haseo with the doctors," Pi continued, "And despite the doctors opposition, Mr. Misaki has decided that if Haseo isn't to wake up from this state in a week's time, that they'll have to forcibly remove his NerveGear headset."

Alkaid looked up at that, "Why would you decide to do that? That could severely damage his brain."

"From what he says," Pi gave a rather faint but noticably dark side glance to the man near her, "The "financial situation" is becoming too great. So therefore, he decided to make the doctors go on with it."

Atoli looked up from her bow, "But... that's no reason to do that to Haseo!"

"Regardless, that was his final decision. However, it was only a few days ago that I was first told this. It was scheduled to happen in two days, but I told them to wait for his spouses response before doing that."

"Our response is no!" Atoli yelled, voice almost hysterical at this news.

Alkaid couldn't even find it in herself to respond to this news, even if she did agree with Atoli.

This man, Haseo's own father, was willing to do that, just for...

"There you have it then." Pi looked over at Haseo's father.

"Their input on the matter doesn't change what's going to happen." He responded, his voice not cold, but merely indifferent.

Alkaid found her voice then.

"Why can't you just wait for a little while longer to see if he wakes up or not?" Alkaid tried to reason.

"It's been two weeks since the game he's been playing has been beaten. So unless he's somehow managed to get himself stuck there, when it seems everyone else hasn't, then I don't understand why I should keep him alive in this state." Seeing the looks he was getting, he only elaborated futher, "This is actually much worse than the last time he was in a coma, and it doesn't look like he'll be getting up soon with everyone else, unlike last time."

"But what if he does?" Atoli asked, "There's always the chance that he'll wake up."

"Can you garuntee that chance?" He looked at her, eyes skeptical.

"Just give it another month and I promise that he'll wake up!" Alkaid swore, speaking quickly, her sounding much more certain that her words were a solution rather than a desperate attempt for getting more time for Haseo to live.

"Then I'll give him that much more time." He had said, walking out of the room to show that the conversation was over.

Thinking back on that moment, Alkaid, or Chika Kuramoto, hugged her knees even more tightly.

It had been two weeks since she'd made that promise, but sadly, no matter how much help she got from Pi and her acquaintances, they couldn't even find what had caused him to be stuck in that state to begin with, let alone how to get him out of it.

With the help of Zelkova, his technical mentor Helba, and another boy who referred to himself as Yata, they attempted to hack into the server for Sword Art Online.

Only to find it completely destroyed.

After realizing this, everyone who was trying to wake Haseo up was left to ponder things from square one again.

They considered using a similar process to what had happened 7 years prior to then, and what also seemed to happen not so many months ago, by using Chika's Alkaid PC's Eu powers to Data Drain all the Epitaph Users' Avatars, then try to activate the Rebirth program that had woken all of the comatose from "The World" up.

However, as this had caused a Network Crisis the last time this happened, and considering that there was no telling whether that would do Haseo more harm than good, what with each Network Crisis making electrical appliances go haywire and him still being connected to his NerveGear, Chika wasn't exactly the most willing to do this.

Not that they could even if they tried.

Kayaba had rewired all the servers so that everyone playing in "The World" would automatically become Lost Ones, a term for people who had become comatose in "The World".

To add insult to injury, he had also set the servers on fire based off what some of the camera footage of CC Corp.'s main building said after business hours. And with the servers for Sword Art Online being all but accessible, they weren't left with very much to work with.

So there went that idea.

Since they were left without any other options to use, the whole effort was at a complete standstill.

She sighed heavily.

She only had a few weeks left.

And from the look of things, it wasn't going to be looking up anytime soon.

She lightly cursed under her breath, wishing to herself that this didn't happen.

But of course, nothing came to help her in this situation.

Damn it...

She was broken from her train of thought by the sound of a person singing along to a tune.

I wish to hear your voice one final time Before I'm covered in this web of sleepless night

Looking to her left, she saw that it came from her phone.

Trying to make herself sound more composed as compared to worried, she prepared herself to talk as she reached over and looked at it, finding the caller ID to say that it was Kirito.

She blinked at the realization.

She could remember having met with him once during one of her visits to see Haseo (or Ryou depending on how she called him), and he'd given her a number saying that if that she was called by it that it was him calling her via his sister's cell phone.

But he'd only said that he'd call if he needed to talk to her...

Picking it up, Chika brought the phone to her ear after answering it, "Hello?"

"Hey, is this Alkaid?" Kirito's voice asked in a somewhat awkward way.

"It's me." Chika answered.

"I need to show you something." He said quickly.

"What is it?" She questioned, her already being curious about what he'd called her for.

"It's a picture that I got from a friend of mine. He said that it's from another MMORPG."

Chika mentally sighed.

She really didn't have time for something like this.

But, just to humor him...

"Alright. Send me the picture."

"Okay. Give me a second."

After that, Kirito hung up, and Chika lowered her phone from her ear, soon feeling it vibrate briefly in her hand after another moment of waiting.

Lifting the device up, she looked at the picture sent to her phone.

All she could see was a picture of what looked like a cage hanging around some type of tree.

She could feel her patience thinning quickly, and she had started to type up a reply by text ("Sorry but I don't have time for something like this right -"), only for another picture to be sent to her phone.

Looking at it then, it looked like a much more zoomed in version of another picture, as from her view it seemed as though it'd become slightly pixelated.

Before she could even comprehend what she was looking at, Kirito sent her another message.

"Sorry, I sent you the regular picture instead of the one I wanted to show you. It looks insignificant at first. But look closely at the second picture."

She did as she was told, and looking at it, Chika found herself blinking, seeing what looked like an image of a somewhat pixelated girl there.

Trying to find the defining features of the girl, Chika looked deeply into the screen, realizing who it was not too soon after.

"Asuna...?" She whispered to herself.

She remembered her.

She was a close worker with Haseo back in Sword Art Online.

So, she was still playing games so soon after everything that happened...

Some people never learned.

Not like she was anyone to talk. She'd already been put into a coma from playing "The World" and logging in was one of the few things she'd immediately done after recovering.

Typing up another response as she thought this, she questioned him on it just to be sure.

"What exactly is this a picture of?"

"It's a picture of Asuna. Like I said, my friend showed it to me, and I thought that you'd like to see it."

Despite the probably kind-hearted gesture, Chika herself didn't care much for it.

Who's business was it besides Asuna's if she wanted to keep playing games?

The genuine significance of this picture was as large as that of finding a specific character in a page of a "Where's Wally?" book, if she really thought about it.

Her curiosity kept her from telling him the same she'd meant to say from before however.

"Why did you think I'd want to see this?"

A few moments of stillness from her phone.

"I didn't tell you?" He asked.

"Told me what?" She responded.

"Asuna is just the same as Ryou. She's still been wearing her NerveGear, even after Sword Art Online was beaten."

"You mean her character was put into another RPG involving the NerveGear?"

"I think so."

"Why is it that she's in another RPG like that?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

That still left one question unanswered.

"Why did you want to show me this?"

Another few moments of stillness from her phone.

"I was just thinking that since Asuna was still stuck inside of another RPG, while being under the same circumstances as Ryou, I just thought that maybe he could be in there too."

Chika stared at the cellular device, finding interest in his use of the word "stuck", but ultimately shrugging it off, mentally nodding to herself nonetheless.

"Thanks for telling me. I'll try to tell everyone else trying to bring him back that this might be a good place to start."

"Alright." His response was.

Chika was already trying to contact Pi when another message popped up.

"Actually, there was something else I wanted to ask you."

She read it quickly, and with a new bout of curiosity driving her, she replied, "What is it?"

"Would you mind checking out the RPG itself with me to make sure that Asuna really is in there?"

He wasn't already certain it was her?

Why even send the picture to her in the first place?

Looking at his words, Chika thought those two things.

"Why send the picture to me if you didn't already know?"

"I'm just kind of worried about her." His response came simply.

Seeing him say that, she couldn't resist writing her response.

"Awwww, has good old Kiri gotten a crush on the Vice-Commander?"

She couldn't help shortening his character's name of "Kirito" just for the purpose of teasing him. As she wrote it out she could even imagine herself speaking with a mixture of a slightly higher pitched voice and a mock-lovey-dovey tone.

"It's not like that."

"That text came a bit quicker than the other ones."

"Does it matter?"

"You're hiding something."

"No I'm not."

"So you're already dating then?"

"I just said it's not like that!"

"Was that anger I read in that text? That's definitely a good sign. I'll have to look into hooking you two up when this is all over."

"It's not like that Alkaid."

"That's what they all say... but then next thing you know you're being pinned down on a bed by someone else, both of you breathing hot and heavy, saying things you'd never would've thought you'd ever say to them, and before you know it, there's this curdling that builds up from deep within you. And then... and then...!"

"I don't want to know anymore!"

Deciding she'd teased him enough, she became serious again, "Okay. But I'm not sure that I'll be able to go into the RPG that easily."

"Why's that?"

"Well, to be honest, I can't because my parents don't necessarily want me playing those kinds of games."

"Why would they think that for an RPG?"

Well, other than the fact that she had fallen into a coma from recieving a shock so severe she got an actual heart attack from playing "The World"...

"After the whole "Sword Art Online turning out to be a death trap" thing, they weren't very keen on the idea of me playing RPGs anymore."

She got a moment of still silence again.

"Oh yeah, that makes sense." She could vividly imagine the sheepish expression on Kirito's face then.

"I'll definitely try to find a way to go with you. Can't promise anything though." Chika half-lidded her eyes as she wrote that to him.

"That's good enough for me. You don't have to come, I'd just feel better with someone else there."

Chika sighed to herself, leaning her head back against her bed, not replying to his last text.

She'd have to at least try to see if Asuna were really inside of that RPG.

Because if she was, then that'd be all the more proof that Haseo himself could be inside of there.

With that thought, Chika opened her now closed eyes, lifting the phone over her face and going through her contacts, finding the name labeled "Pi" there, texting what she'd just been told to her.

A/N: Oh how the past year has been...

I can't believe it's been so long since I started writing this thing...

Extra: His hair...

In the aftermath of the ultimatum that she'd made with Haseo's father, Chika looked at Reiko just as she was going to leave to head back home after exchanging contact information with her, "Hey... Miss Reiko?" She said, hoping to be polite.

"Yes?" She looked at her through her glasses.

She looked at Haseo, voice shedding a good amount of confusion, "Why is his hair white?"

Reiko looked calm at that, as though she'd expected the question, "I'm not entirely sure. I believe it may have something to do with Skeith giving him his power back in the server for Sword Art Online. The doctors said that he suddenly looked like that one morning, as though his entire head had been dyed that way. This is just a guess on my part, but I think that the power transfer triggered a Data Drain type effect on his real body and drained him of all his melanin." She shrugged, "But again, its just my own guess."

"Well, at least you tried." Chika responded.

"I'll contact you when there may be a chance for either of you to help him." Needless to say, the two Reiko was referring to were Atoli and herself.

"You do that." She responded, walking out then.