Author’s note: This review contains major spoilers for the Aincrad arc of Sword Art Online.

It has now been 2 weeks since Kirito and Asuna began their honeymoon. Today, Kirito is sitting at the edge of a lake trying to catch a fish, but it seems that his fishing skill isn’t high enough to catch anything. A local fisherman sits down next to Kirito and fishes along side him. He introduces himself as Nishida and explains that in real life, he was the head of the network security division for Toto High Speed Internet, which oversaw the network security for Sword Art Online.

Nishida manages to catch a big fish, but he explains to Kirito that he can’t cook them because his cooking skill isn’t high enough. Kirito hesitates, but eventually he admits that he knows someone who can cook.

The Guardian

Kirito brings Nishida to his cabin where Asuna cooks up the fish he just caught. Asuna says Nishida’s fishing skill must be high since Kirito as never brought anything home. Nishida explains that Kirito was fishing in the hardest lake.

“Why design it like that?” asks Kirito.

“In that lake, there’s a guardian, you see,” explains Nishida, “I’ve had it strike several times myself, but it was so powerful it dragged my pole away altogether. And so, I’d like to ask something of you.”

Nishida asks if Kirito can help him catch the guardian fish. If Nishida uses his fishing skill to snag the fish, then Kirito can use his strength skill to pull it in. Kirito isn’t sure if it is possible to switch with a fishing pole, but he’s willing to give it a try.

The next day, Kirito and Asuna head to the edge of the lake, where a crowd of spectators have gathered to watch the event. Nishida hooks a purple lizard to his fishing pole as bate and tosses it into the river. As soon as he feels a snag, Nishida passes the pole to Kirito.

Kirito says, “Switch!”

The strength of the fish almost pulls Kirito into the lake, but he manages to regain his footing. The black swordsman reals in the fish, but it breaks the line. Kirito runs towards the lake to find the fish, but the fish finds Kirito first. It jumps out of the lake, standing at about 5 meters high and 10 meters long. Oh yeah, and it has 4 legs.

Kirito runs and cowers behind Asuna. (Not sure why.) Asuna decides to step in and slices the guardian fish right down the middle, longways. Everyone in the crowd surrounds Asuna and congratulates her.

Kirito is about to congratulate her too, but he suddenly receives a message from Commander Heathcliff, asking for both of them to return to the front lines.

After a few minutes of moping, Kirito and Asuna don their uniforms and prepare to leave. (Kirito wears his usual black attire.) They head to the teleport gate where they bid farewell to Nishida. The fisherman explains how he initially thought that those working to clear the game were in a completely different world, and that he’s not sure if he will be able to return to his job if he gets out, so he told himself that spending his time with a fishing rod in his hand would be the best thing for him.

“Me too,” says Asuna, “At first, I though the same thing. I cried alone every single night. It felt like every day that passed here stole another piece of my real life away. After I cried, I’d go and fight as hard as I could. My only thought was of winning, moving forward, and getting stronger. But then, I saw someone napping in the shade at the plaza. It made me so mad. I told him to stop wasting his time. And he replied that it was Aincrad’s best season, and its best weather setting, too. So entering a dungeon would be a waste. Then I tried laying down, as well, and I slept like a baby. When I awoke, it was evening, and he looked a bit annoyed. But as we partied up together…Even in a world like this, he was really living. He wasn’t losing a day in the real world. He was gaining a day here. The one who taught me that was Kirito-kun. When I began thinking of him as I fell asleep, I stopped having nightmares. I began to look forward to seeing him. For the first time since I arrived here, I was happy. To me, Kirito-kun is the meaning of my two years here…and proof that I’m alive. The reason I tried the Nerve Gear that day was so that I could meet him. I’m sure there’s also something important to you here.”

Nishida agrees and bids them farewell.

The Skull Reaper

Kirito and Asuna return to the headquarters of the Knights of the Blood Oath where Heathcliff informs them that the first party they sent to the boss room on the 75th floor has been wiped out. He announces they will prepare the largest party they have ever formed.

As they prepare for the battle, Kirito asks Asuna if she would wait at HQ.

“Why would you ask that?” says Asuna.

“We can’t know what will happen when we can’t use teleport crystals. I’m scared. If anything happened to you…”

Asuna approaches Kirito and says, “So you want to go yourself, while I wait here, where it’s safe? If you didn’t come back, I would kill myself! I’d have no reason to live anymore. And I wouldn’t forgive myself for not going.”

“I’m sorry…I’m panicking. Honestly, I’d rather run away with you. We don’t have to return to the real world. We can just live in the house in the forest!”

“It’d be nice if we could…We could be together every day, forever.”

Asuna ask if Kirito has ever considered what’s happening to their real bodies.

“When several weeks passed, after the game began, there was a point when most players went offline for several hours, right? At that point, all the players were probably moved to hospitals. If our bodies are just barely kept alive on hospital beds, I can’t imagine that will work for too long.”

Kirito realizes what Asuna is trying to say is that whether or not they clear the game, there’s still a time limit. They have to clear the game before their bodies can no longer be kept on life support.

Asuna becomes frightened that they will never meet each other in the real world, that’s why she has to fight.

Kirito and Asuna arrive at the teleport gate of the 75th floor where they reunite with Klein and Agil, as they and their guilds have come to join the boss fight. Commander Heathcliff arrives and uses a large teleport crystal to open a portal directly to the boss room. The players follow him through. Before opening the door to the boss room, the Commander reminds the players of their strategy.

“The Knights of the Blood Oath will take the majority of damage on the front line. While we do, I’d like the rest to discern its attack patterns, and prepare to change tactics as necessary. It will be a difficult battle, but I have faith that we can prevail. For our day of liberation!”

The players wish each other well as Heathcliff opens the doors, They rush inside, but the boss is no where in sight. The doors close behind them, but there is still no sign of the boss. Suddenly, they hear the sound of something crawling, but they still do not see the boss. Then, Asuna gets a sudden, shocking realization.

“Above us!” cries Asuna.

The players look up and see a massive skeleton-centipede monster crawling on the ceiling. It’s name is The Skull Reaper, and it has a total of five health bars. Heathcliff commands them to spread apart. The monster comes down in the middle of them and slices two players with its scythe. They both instantly die.

The Skull Reaper charges towards Heathcliff, who blocks its attack with his shield. Kirito rushes in and clashes his dual blades against the monster’s scythe arms. All of the players charge in and attack. With all of their blades clashing at once, they successfully defeat the monster. (Kind of quick for a boss battle.)

The Demon King

Kirito checks the stats and announces they lost 14 players. They start to wonder if they will actually be able to clear the last 25 floors before they all perish.

As Kirito rests, he looks over at Heathcliff who is standing in the middle of the crowd, seemingly unfazed by the battle. Suddenly, something clicks in Kirito’s mind. He slowly picks up his Elucidator, and charges full speed at Heathcliff. Kirito’s high speed stat manages to catch him off guard. He doesn’t have enough time to block the attack, so Kirito’s sword goes right past his shield, but before it makes contact with his armor, a wall of static-y purple hexagons appear before him along with a message that reads “Immortal Object”.

“Something has always bothered me ever since I arrived here,” explains Kirito, “Where does he hide while he watches us and adjusts the world? But I’d forgotten a simple piece of psychology. Something any kid knows. There’s nothing as boring as watching someone else play an RPG. Isn’t that right, Kayaba Akihiko?”

All of the players gasp.

“Would you be so kind as to tell me how you figured it out?” asks the Commander.

“The first time I felt something was wrong was during the duel. In that last instant, you were far too fast.”

“I suspected as much. That was an unfortunate mistake. You overpowered me to the point that I needed to engage the system’s over-assist mode.”

The Commander pauses, and then says, “Yes, I am Kayaba Akihiko. And if I may add, I am the game’s final boss, who would have awaited you at the top floor.”

“That’s pretty bad. The strongest player betrays us to become the last boss?”

“Not a bad storyline, is it? I always thought that you would be the one to stand before me at the end. Dual-wielding is the skill given to the player with the fastest reaction time, who will then act out the part of the Hero that challenges the Demon King, but your power exceeded my expectations. Well, these unexpected events are part of the fun of an MMORPG.”

A player filled with rage tries to attack the Commander, but Heathcliff uses the system to paralyze him. He does the same for the other players, except Kirito.

“Very well, then, I shall await you on the top floor within the Ruby Palace,” Kayba says to Kirito, “But first, Kirito-kun, I must reward you for deducing my identity. I shall give you the chance to fight me one-on-one. Naturally, I’ll deactivate my immortal status. Defeat me, and you beat the game, and all the players will be able to log out. How about it?”

Asuna tells Kirito to back down, but Kirito thinks about all the players who have perished at the hands of Kayaba’s death game.

“That’s fine,” Kirito says to Kayaba, “Let’s finish this.”

Kirito draws his dual blades and approaches Heathcliff. Before the duel begins, Kirito asks Kayaba to make it so Asuna can’t kill herself if he dies. Kayaba grants it to him and deactivates his immortality, then he draws his sword.

The duel begins. The two warriors begin clashing their swords and shield. Kirito realizes Kayaba will be able to block all of the pre-programmed combos, so he has to beat him with his own power. Kirito tells himself he has to go faster again. He keeps slashing, but can’t get through the shield. Kirito sends his Dark Repulsor right into Kayaba’s shield, but his sword breaks in two.

“Farewell, Kirito-kun,” says Heathcliff as he raises his sword. The Commander is about to finish him off, but Asuna breaks free of her paralysis and stands in the way. The sword slashes right through her chest. Kirito holds Asuna in his arms as he watches her HP bar drop to zero.

“I’m sorry, Goodbye,” says Asuna as she disintegrates into thousands of sparkling polygons.

Kirito panics and grasps at the air for her, but it is too late.

“That was a surprise,” says Heathcliff, “I don’t believe I programmed a way to neutralize paralysis on your own. I guess these things happen sometimes.”

Kirito picks up Asuna’s rapier and starts slashing his swords at Kayaba again, but as he has lost his will to fight, Kirito’s sword swings are void of energy. Heathcliff knocks Kirito’s Elucidator away and sends his sword right through Kirito’s chest.

Kirito watches his HP bar slowly deplete until it reaches zero…followed by the message “You are dead”.

Kirito’s avatar disintegrates, but suddenly, it reconstructs in a dazzling array of golden sparkles. He appears as a static-y hologram. His eyes glow yellow as he sends Asuna’s rapier into Heathcliff’s chest. The Commander’s HP bar depletes to zero. Kayaba and Kirito both disintegrate into a plethora of polygons.

As their pieces scatter across the world of Aincrad, a voice is heard over the PA system saying, “As of 14:55, November 7, the game has been cleared.”

The End of the World

When Kirito wakes up he realizes he has been transported to a platform high up in the sky. He is surrounded by clouds painted with the orange tint of sunset. Suddenly, Kirito hears a voice call out to him from behind. He turns around, and to his surprise, he sees Asuna.

“Sorry, I ended up dying too,” says Kirito.

Asuna runs to him, and then they both kiss. They look down, and below them, they see the castle of Aincrad disintegrating into rumble.

“Quite a view, isn’t it?” says another voice.

Kirito and Asuna turn to their right and see none other than Kayaba Akahiko himself.

“The SAO mainframe, located in the fifth-level basement at Argus HQ, is deleting all data on its storage devices,” says Kayaba, “In 10 minutes or so, everything will vanish.”

“What’s happened to the people down there?” asks Asuna.

“You needn’t worry about them. Just a moment ago, the remaining 6,147 players were logged out.”

“And the ones who died?” asks Kirito, “What about the 4,000 people who died?”

“Their minds will never return.”

“Why did you do this?”

“Why you ask? It’s been so long I’ve forgotten myself.”

Kayaba talks about obsessing over his dream of a castle in the sky and says he believes that in some other world, that castle truly exists.

“Congratulations on clearing the game, Kirito, Asuna,” says Kayaba, “Now then, I must be going.”

He walks away and disappears in a puff of smoke.

Kirito turns to Asuna and says, “I guess this is goodbye.”

“No, this isn’t goodbye,” says Asuna, “We’re going to disappear as one. So we’ll be together forever. Before we do, tell me your name. Your real name, Kirito.”

“Kirigaya. Kirigaya Kazuto.”

(This is actually the first time we, as the viewer, have herd Kirito’s real name.)

“I think I turned 16 last month,” continues Kirito.

“So you’re younger than me?” says Asuna, “My name is Yuuki Asuna, I’m 17.”

Kirito starts breaking down because he promised to send her back to the real world. Asuna tells him it’s alright because she is happy to have met him. Then, the star-crossed lovers disappear along with the rest of the world around them.

Kirito soon wakes up in a hospital room. His hands are shriveled as he has not had a proper meal in 2 years. He removes the NerveGear from his head, causing his long, uncut hair to drop down to his shoulders. He struggles to get up, but he carries his IV with him as he walks down the hospital hallway…looking for Asuna.

To Be Continued…

Thoughts

I plan to write a general review of the entire Aincrad arc in the near future, so I will keep my thoughts in this review brief.

I’ve stated before that the main theme of Sword Art Online is that people can find happiness in life no matter how dark things may get. This theme was stated by Yui in episode 12, but in episode 13, this same theme was stated again by Asuna as she was bidding farewell to the fisherman, Nishida.

At first, Asuna was hellbent on clearing the game because she thought she could never be happy in this world. To her, every day spent in SAO was a day lost in the real world. Then, one day, she saw someone taking a nap under a tree. It mad her so mad that someone was wasting time, but the boy under the tree said it was Aincrad’s nicest season, so Asuna decided to lay down and find out for herself. She ended up sleeping like a baby. As she partied up with the boy, she realized he wasn’t losing a day in the real world, he was gaining a day here. The one who taught her this was Kirito. To Asuna, meeting Kirito is the reason for why she entered Sword Art Online.

In my general review of the Aincrad arc, I plan to dive deeper into the relationship between Kirito and Asuna, as their relationship is central to the main theme of Sword Art Online. After that, I will begin reviewing the next arc where instead of playing a game in a world of swords, our heroes will play a game in a world of…fairies?

What do you think about the conclusion of the Sword Art Online Aincrad arc? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!