On November 6, 2022, Kirigaya Kazuto logged in to the hottest new video game on the market: Sword Art Online. The game was the first full-dive VRMMO–meaning the players could control their avatar with only their mind, and without moving their body in the real world. What started out as an exciting new adventure quickly turned into a living nightmare.

Just a few hours after the launch of Sword Art Online, the game’s creator, Akahiko Kayaba, teleported all of the players to the inner courtyard of the first town. Here, he announced that there is no longer any way to log out of the game, and if anyone on the outside world attempts to remove their VR helmet, it will emit microwaves into the user’s brain–ending their life. The only way to leave the game now is to clear all 100 floors of Aincrad castle, the massive floating structure encapsulating the world of Sword Art Online. However, if any player’s life points reach zero, the VR helmet will destroy the user’s brain.

Kazuto–better known by his username, Kirito–begins grinding to get as strong as he can in order to preserve his life and one day clear the game. While evading the constant threat against his life, Kirito fell in love with a girl named Asuna, a talented and beautiful rapier-wielder whose speed Kirito could never match. At first, both Kirito and Asuna lived their lives mostly in solitude. Sure, they interacted with people at times (some more than others), but both of them hid fears of losing themselves or someone they cared about to the game. When Kirito and Asuna both chose to fight for and protect each other, they discovered a newfound sense of purpose that gave them a reason to keep fighting.

After Kirito and Asuna cleared the game, they promised to reunite with each other in the real world. Sadly, that reunion was delayed when 300 of the SAO survivor, including Asuna, remained trapped in their VR helmet. Kirito, who had woken up, visited Asuna’s hospital room where he learned that her father was wedding her off to a man named Sugou Nobuyuki, a perverted predator who values Asuna’s body more than her character. Kirito returned home feeling helpless until Agil, one of his friends from SAO shows him a picture of Asuna taken from within another VRMMO game called Alfheim Online, at the top of a place called The World Tree. Invigorated to rescue his beloved Asuna, Kirito returns to the world of virtual reality one more time.

When Kirito was ten years old, he found out that the people he thought were his mother and father were actually his aunt and uncle, and the person he thought was his sister was actually his cousin. This caused Kirito to lose his sense of identity. He began indulging himself in the world of virtual reality to, in a sense, find a new identity and escape the harsh realities of real life. Sadly, this meant he grew more distant from his family, including the person he once thought of as his sister. When Kirito finally returned to the real world after being trapped for two years in Sword Art Online, he saw his sister again and remembered how much she meant to him. At that point, Kirito promised himself he would make up for the distance that had grown between them.

Shortly after entering the world of Alfheim Online, Kirito meets a player called Leafa, who he rescues from a pack of rogue players. After earning her trust, Leafa promises to show Kirito the way to the World Tree. What Kirito doesn’t know is that Leafa’s true identity in the real world is none other than his sister/cousin, Suguha. What Kirito also doesn’t know is that Sugu is growing a stronger desire to be closer to him that she seems to be confusing with falling in love with him. When Leafa journeys with Kirito to the World Tree, she thinks she has finally found someone she can fall in love with besides her brother. Hence the tragedy that befalls her when she learns the truth. After a dramatic confrontation in the real world, Kirito and Leafa return to Alfheim Online, where they have a duel, in which both players plan to surrender to the other. Here is where they finally reunite with each other after their seven long years of growing separation.

One more thing Kirito doesn’t know is that Asuna is being held captive at the top of the World Tree by none other than Sugou himself, who has assumed the role of Fairy King Oberon in Alfheim Online. Will Kirito manage to free Asuna before she is wedded off to Sugou? Find out now!

The Top of the World Tree

At the end of Episode 23, Kirito and Leafa, along with a host of other players finally break through the Guardians of the World Tree, and allow Kirito to reach the top. Yui transcribes a code from an access card that Asuna dropped down to them in order to open the stone door that was blocked by the System Administrator. Yui tells Kirito to grab her hand, and the two of them teleport out of the dungeon.

After they get teleported, Kirito and Yui find themselves in a long, bright tunnel, the same one that Asuna was running down three episodes ago (or at least one that looks just like it). They begin running down the hallway. Yui, who has returned to her original size from SAO, uses her newly acquired admin powers to break through every door and wall until they finally find themselves on the enormous branches at the top of The World Tree. Kirito sees a birdcage gleeming in the distance. He takes Yui’s hand and begins rushing towards it.

The time of day rapidly changes to sunset when Kirito and Yui first appear outside Asuna’s birdcage. Yui uses her powers to break through the entrance to the cage and gives her mama a hug.

Kirito enters next and says, “I’m sorry I’m late.”

“No, I knew you’d come to save me,” says Asuna.

Kirito asks Yui if she can log them out, but Yui says Asuna’s status is locked down by complicated codes and they will need a system console to dispel them. Asuna mentions the one she saw in the lab.

Suddenly, a humming noise appears. The three of them fall through a vortex and land on a glass floor surrounded by black void. Some sort of gravity magic has been activated that forces Kirito and Asuna to the floor. Purple static appears around Yui as she says, “Be careful…Something bad is coming,” and disappears.

Kirito and Asuna try to reach each other, but the gravity magic gets stronger.

“I didn’t expect to see a cockroach in my little bird’s cage,” says a voice. Kirito instantly recognizes that voice as Sugou’s and turns to see him standing in his Fairy King Oberon form.

“How did you get up here?” he asks as he picks up Kirito’s sword, “I saw a strange program running.”

“I flew with these wings,” bluffs Kirito.

“It doesn’t matter, I can just ask your mind directly.”

Sugou reveals his evil plan to Kirito before he tries to kill him. (These evil villains really can’t help themselves, can they?) With the snap of his fingers, two chains fall from the sky. Sugou attaches the chains to Asuna’s wrists and raises them until Asuna is completely restrained. Kirito fights the gravity magic, but Sugou stabs Kirito’s sword into his back to pin him down. Then, Sugou adjusts Kirito’s pain absorber from 10 to 8.

Sugou returns to Asuna and…you know what, if you want to know, you’ll have to watch the episode yourself.

The Seed

As Sugou sexually assaults Asuna, white light fades in around Kirito. He wonders if this is his punishment for thinking he was the game’s strongest hero.

Suddenly, he hears another voice say, “Are you going to run away?”

“No, I’m going to accept reality,” says Kirito.

“Then you give into it, to the power of a system you once denied.”

“I don’t have a choice. I’m a player, and he’s a GM.”

“Those words make a mockery of our battle. Our fight showed me the power of the human will. And the possibilities held by the future.”

Kirito looks up to see a man in a white lab coat standing above him, before he and the world of light around him disappear. He returns to the world of black void and fights the gravity magic to stand up.

“Your attacks have no soul,” Kirito says to Sugou, “The blades in that word hit harder.”

Sugou says there must be some bugs in the system as he turns away from his business with Asuna and moves towards Kirito. Sugou tries to swat at him, but Kirito blocks it.

“System login,” says Kirito, “ID Heathcliff. System command. Enable administrator privileges. Set ID Oberon to Level 1. System command! Generate object ID Excalibur!”

The legendary sword Excalibur appears before him. Kirito grasps it and tosses it to Sugou. Then, Kirito picks up his Elucidator (or the sword he bought in ALO that resembles it).

Kirito then calls another system command to set Sugou’s pain absorber to Level 0. (Savage.)

“Sugou, I understand how you feel a bit,” says Kirito, “I also lost to him, and then I had to work for him. However, I never wanted to be him. Unlike you.”

Sugou furiously swings his sword at Kirito, but he deflects all of them. Kirito cuts him on the cheek, which causes Sugou to lose his poise (if he ever had any to begin with). Then, Kirito slices Sugou completely in half. He grasps Sugou’s top half by the hair, tosses him into the air, and stabs his face with this sword. Then, Kirito uses the sword to cut Asuna’s chains.

“It’s finally over, isn’t it?” says Asuna, “We can return to the real world.”

“That’s right,” says Kirito. They give each other a hug as Kirito logs Asuna out of Alheim Online. Then, Kirito stands up and calls out, “You’re there aren’t you, Heathcliff?”

Sure enough, Akahiko Kayaba appears before him.

“You’re alive?” asks Kirito.

“You could say that,” explains Kayaba, “or you could say I’m not. I am an echo of the mind that was Kayaba Akihiko.”

Kirito thanks Kayaba for helping him, but Kayaba says they aren’t close enough that he would do him a favor for free. Suddenly, a bright golden egg-shaped object descends from the sky and lands in Kirito’s hands.

“It’s called The Seed,” explains Kayaba, “Once it buds, you’ll understand what it is. I’ll leave what to do then up to you. You can delete and completely forget it. However, if you have any feelings left for that world besides hatred…”

Kayaba cuts off there and bids Kirito farewell. The world of black void disappears and Kirito finds himself back in the birdcage. He calls out to Yui, asking her if she is okay. Suddenly, the girl in the white dress appears before Kirito and wraps her arms around him.

“Where’s Mommy?” she asks.

“She’s back in the real world,” explains Kirito, and logs out of the game.

The Final Boss

When Kirito wakes up, he finds Sugu hovering over him.

“You didn’t come back, so I got worried,” she says, “Is it all over?”

“Yeah, it is. Thank you so much, Sugu. If it hadn’t been for you, I couldn’t have done anything.”

“I was happy that I was able to help you in your world,” says Sugu as she gives her brother a hug.

Kirito leaves the house in the freezing cold middle of the night. He hops on his bike and heads towards Asuna’s hospital. When he finally gets there, he parks his bike outside the gate and runs toward the building, but as he runs through the parking lot, he suddenly feels a sharp pain cutting through his arm. Blood starts running down as he uses his other hand to try and stop the bleeding. A man wielding a knife steps out from behind a van and says, “You’re late, Kirito-kun.”

When the man steps into the light, Kirito instantly recognizes him as Sugou.

“That was a horrible thing you did, Kirito-kun,” he says, “I can still feel the pain.”

He also has blood vessels bulging out of his right eye. Kirito encourages Sugou to turn himself in. Sugou refuses and says there are plenty of companies that would still want him and his research.

“But first, I’m going to kill you, Kirito-kun.”

Sugou lunges at Kirito and swings his knife at him. Kirito falls to the ground. Sugou kicks him and tells him to stand up, but blood keeps coming out of Kirito’s arm. Sugou raises his knife above him, and sends it down, straight into Kirito’s cheek, but it only cuts him slightly.

“Huh? My right eye is all foggy, so I missed,” says Sugou. (It’s snowing outside.)

He tries to stab Kirito again, but Kirito fights back and grabs Sugou’s wrist. Kirito uses his other hand to strangle Sugou’s neck. Sugou falls back, and Kirito manages to swipe his knife. Sugou tries to run away, but Kirito grabs him by the hair again and bashes his head into the van nearby. He holds the knife to Sugou’s neck and thinks about all of the terrible things he has done. He cuts him a little bit and causes him to pass out. He drops the knife and heads up to Asuna’s hospital room.

When he gets to the room, he pulls back the curtains and sees Asuna sitting up…awake! He gives her a hug, but then, Asuna notices the blood on his cheek.

“The true final battle just finished,” says Kirito.

“I still can’t hear properly,” responds Asuna, “but I can tell what you’re saying. I finally got to meet you. My name is Yuuki Asuna.”

“I’m Kirigaya Kazuto,” says Kirito, “Welcome back, Asuna.”

Four Months Later

The date is now May 16, 2025. Four months have passed since Asuna woke up. It seems that Kirito decided to attend the school for SAO survivors after all.

Kirito meets Asuna outside on the bench in between classes and asks how her rehab has been going. Asuna says she can finally walk without a cane, but the doctors say she still shouldn’t run. Then, Asuna pulls out the basket beside her and reveals a set of freshly-made sandwiches.

Kirito asks Asuna about her father. Apparently, he resigned as CEO (of RCT Progress) and retired, so now he’s not sure what to do with his life.

The episode cuts to Kirito narrating what has happened since Asuna woke up. On “that snowy day,” Sugou was arrested, and the remaining 300 SAO survivors finally woke up. Unfortunately, the VRMMO industry took a fatal blow. RCT Progress was disbanded and ALO was shut down.

The episode returns to Kirito and Asuna on the bench. Asuna asks Kirito what happened to the Commander (she means Commander Heathcliff, who is Akahiko Kayaba). Kirito says rumor has it that Kayaba committed suicide. Before SAO collapsed, he performed a high-output scan on himself and uploaded his consiousness to the internet.

Asuna scoots closer to Kirito and rests her head on his shoulder. Little do they know, Lizbeth is watching them from the cafeteria. Silica, who is sitting at the table, tells her she shouldn’t be watching. Liz sits down and asks Silica if she’s going to the meeting later that day.

“Of course!” she says.

Later that day, Kirito and Asuna head down an alleyway with Sugu trailing behind them. They arrive at Agil’s pub, but to Kirito’s surprise, everyone else is already there.

“The stars of the show always turn up last,” says Lizbeth, “So we told you a slightly later time.”

Liz pulls Kirito onto a step box. The entire crowd ignites party poppers and cries, “Congratulations on beating SAO!”

The attendees of this party are all SAO survivors…and then there’s Sugu.

Kirito sits at the bar with Klein and Thinker. He asks Agil how the seed has been.

“Amazing,” says Agil, “There are around fifty mirror servers. A hundred thousand downloads. And three hundred major servers that actually run it.”

Kirito explains (to the audience, through narration) that he gave the Seed to Agil and asked him to analyze it. He learned that the Seed is a program package that ran a full-dive MMO eponomously called the Seed, made by Kayaba. Anyone with a good enough server could download it and create their own online world. (Sounds like Linux, but for VRMMO games.) He asked Agil to upload it to servers across the world for anyone to use, and this revived the dying VRMMO genre. Alfheim Online was transferred to a new company, where it was reborn. VRMMOs became so compatible with each other that anyone could transfer their character to another game.

“Hey, we’re still going to the same place for the after-party, right?” asks Kirito.

“Yeah, at eleven tonight,” responds Agil, “We meet in Yggdrasil City.”

Meanwhile, Sugu is sitting by herself, far away from the other party-goers.

The Return of the World

Later that evening, Sugu (now as Leafa in ALO) is flying fast and high above the clouds, near the World Tree. She flies a bit too recklessly and reaches the altitude limit, then she starts plummeting towards the ground. Fortunately, Kirito is there to catch her.

“I was worried you’d go too high up,” says Kirito, “It’s almost time, so I came to get you.”

Leafa asks him why he isn’t using his avatar from SAO.

“The job of that world’s Kirito has ended,” he explains.

Leafa asks Kirito if he wants to dance. She explains this is an advanced technique they just developed and explains how to do it. She pulls out a small bottle that spreads sparkles around them. Then, they dance. (A Fairy Dance!)

After the dance is over, Leafa says she will be going now, because she says Kirito is “too far away.” (I think she means she doesn’t connect with Kirito and his friends because she wasn’t in SAO.)

“I can’t go that far,” says Leafa.

“That’s not true,” says Kirito, “You can go anywhere you want!”

Kirito grabs her hand and pulls her towards The World Tree. The sound of a grandfather clock can be heard in the distance.

“It’s coming,” says Kirito, as he points toward the moon. They wait for a moment, then suddenly, a shadow appears in front of the moon. A very large object descends from the sky.

“That’s right,” says Kirito, “That is the floating castle Aincrad. This time, I’m going to beat all one hundred floors, and conquer that castle. Leafa, my stats were reset, so I’m a lot weaker now. You’ll help me, right?”

Leafa lights up and says, “Yeah, I will. I’ll go anywhere with you.”

They turn around and see all of their friends from Sword Art Online and Alfheim Online flying towards the castle. Asuna, now clad in an outfit of white and blue, with blue hair to match, stops in front of Kirito and Leafa.

“Let’s go, Kirito-kun…Leafa-chan,” says Asuna, as she extands her hand.

“Okay, let’s go!” says Kirito, as the three of them head towards the castle.

THE END
…
for now

Thoughts about Asuna

I’ll save most of my thoughts about this arc as a whole for my general Fairy Dance arc review. For now, I will focus mainly on the one aspect that most people seem to have a problem with: Asuna’s treatment.

In Aincrad, Asuna was a powerful swordswoman, but in the Fairy Dance arc, she was reduced to a mere damsel in distress. I think most people these days are overly critical of female characters when they get captured. Anyone can get captured, but what determines a character’s strength is whether or not they accept their fate. Despite being held captive in a birdcage by a man who views her as an object, Asuna cleverly used the mirror to read the code as Sugou typed it into the keypad, and eventually used that information to escape. Since she didn’t accept her fate, this still maintains Asuna’s fighter characteristic, however, a lot of her dialogue is basically reassuring Kirito that he did a good job and that “she always knew he would come.” This contrasts Asuna’s stubbornness in the Aincrad arc, along with her recurring banter with Kirito.

The other part of the controversy is that Asuna was forced to wear a sexualized outfit. Again, this wasn’t her choice, but it was technically the choice of the writers. For those who were able to tolerate Asuna’s outfit, the other shoe usually falls in this episode during that cringy SA scene. However, if it makes you cringe, that is a good thing because it means you find this situation uncomfortable. Was this scene needed? Probably not, but you don’t have a story if you don’t have conflict, and this episode at least provided a highly drastic conflict that Kirito was able to rise above.

Anyway, that’s it for this episode. Coming up next for SAO will be my general review of the Fairy Dance arc, followed by a review of Extra Edition, and then I will begin reviewing the Battle of Bullets arc in SAO II (not necessarily in that order). If you want to stay up-to-date, be sure to follow my blog for more anime reviews!

What are your thoughts on Asuna’s treatment in the Fairy Dance arc? Let me know in the comments below!