November of 2024

"God damn it!", the desk was violently shaken by the impatient Misaki, watching the attempt at modifying the SAO code fail for the 4th time in a row. "What the hell are we doing wrong?"

"We're not doing anything wrong. It just goes to show Akihiko baked some real protection into this game.", Saruhiko was calmer, albeit slightly irritated at the notion that his brother would consider such high security for a game meant to kill people.

Initially, they thought maybe the backdoor Misaki opened up into the servers wasn't properly established, but on deeper inspection, it was the contrary. A backdoor would only allow the 2 to see the logs and data in real time, but not make and inputs themselves.

"Most likely, we'll probably need some for of authority within the game to make changes on the deeper level such as introducing a respawn function...", Kayaba pondered, trying to devise a plan to proceed.

"Deeper level? What can we do now besides just observing?"

"In theory, if we could find a vulnerable spot, maybe an npc malfunctioning or another bug in the code, we could use that as a hole in the wall to gain access to the main core of the game...does that make sense?"

"Kind of...", the blond nodded. "But considering how large this game is, that will eat up a lot of time, wouldn't it? Can we afford it?"

"If there's no other way to go in, we have to afford it. I told you before. This whole thing has slim chances of being 100% successful, Misaki. If it's out of our hands, that's game over."

"...Sorry. I've been getting ahead of myself after pinpointing the trouble. I shouldn't expect the solution to be this easy, otherwise other people would have fixed the game by now.", the teen hung his head low, having constant thoughts of whether or not his sister would hold on until this whole thing reaches its end. Perhaps the one saving grace is that, now with access to the servers, he can always be aware whether Asuna lives or not through Saruhiko.

"I'll start looking through the files and see whether I find a vulnerability in the mean time. You head home, it's getting late anyway."

"You're going to sleep here?", Misaki questioned, seeing the state in which the room was in. Less than stellar that is.

"Of course not, genius. I'll take the SSD home and connect it to my laptop there. I don't high end specs to browse some files.", the raven punched his friend's shoulder in jest, partly to improve his mood, as the blond had a sour expression.

"I am sorry I can't help more, even though I roped you into this whole mess. If only I was better with-"

"You did your part, I am doing mine, Misaki. Besides, if it's anyone's fault for me getting stuck in this fiasco, it's my brothers. Now go home. I'll call you if I find anything."

Regardless of how much more it would take to crack the nut open, it was clear the doors would soon close on this tragedy. Whether from the inside or the outside, people were making strides to pull the plug on Kayaba Akihiko's project. The sooner the better.

In fact, how to do that was the subject on Saruhiko's mind for the duration of his walk home. To think that just a year ago he wanted nothing to do with whatever his brother created and now he's purposely looking for a way to kill it. The world sure works in mysterious ways. This past year has actually been quite the turnaround for his life. Besides the fact that his knowledge of technology progressed due to studying his brother's notes, the number of people looking to vent their anger on Saruhiko also dwindled. The incidents are far from over entirely, don't get me wrong, but at the very least the boy would stand his ground more often than before. That's also in part thanks to Misaki openly retaliating then it would happen in public. Quite ironic the 2 befriended each other when the blond initially planned to hurt the raven as well.

Eventually, the boy reached his apartment complex, shuffling inside his pockets to get the key to his own. Passing by the other doors, he noticed someone else walk close behind him up the stairs. That's one way to see a familiar face. It was one of his neighbors, a gray haired highschool girl by the name of Asada Shino. In fact, the 2 of them went to the same school as it happens.

"It's rare for you to come this late home, Asada-san.", the boy opened up the conversation before the girl slipped away inside her own room.

"Not as rare as you coming home without your friend throwing a fit, Kayaba-senpai.", she returned.

As it happened, she was one year below Saruhiko, therefore any sort of relationship they'd have for the moment was of neighbors and nothing more. They would barely interact at school, especially after seeing the negative attention surrounding the boy in the first place.

"Had to send him home for once. Can't risk his own family knocking on my door one of these days."

He's never met his parents, but that can wait until after their daughter gets out of this death trap called Sword Art Online.

"Maybe that would improve your mood further, don't you think?"

She didn't hang around to hear and answer to her question. Either way, quite the cheeky underclassman to have in school.

"Was I really that deplorable before Misaki...?"

With SSD plugged in and VRS running on his laptop, it was time for a white night and numerous cups of coffee... and maybe skip school tomorrow. Just don't tell mom and dad. The seconds turned to minutes. The minutes turned to hours, going from top to bottom on what wasn't even a quarter or a fifth of the entire code. If the files took 2 months to cross over with Alfheim, god knows how long inspecting each line would take. Maybe even another year. The more he dug, the slimmer the chances of success seemed to be and the more the nightmare of SAO would prolong for both the unwilling participants and their loved ones waiting for them to recover.

One empty cup of coffee soon turned into 3, with the teen constantly shifting positions as his back was beginning to hurt from being hunched over for so long. The dark spots under his eyes that made their presence known after so much investigating were looking forward to darkening their color. Only the backpack with school supplies remained forgotten in the corner of the bedroom, as it had no chances of being picked up.

"...this won't work...", his hands froze above the keyboard, as the realization of futility slowly crept over him. The game was just too big, with too many lines of code to be able to spot something as small as a vulnerability. He had to hand it to his brother. If nothing else, security was indeed one of the strong suits of the game, as far as data theft was concerned. "You just had to turn this game into a death trap..."

There were many questions the boy would like to ask, but they would surely receive no answer soon. Perhaps the only thing he'd want more than those answers would be a miracle or a sign in the right direction...

And when you ask, you shall receive...

"What?!"

Looking across the board of the cardinal system, the engine the game was running on, described in detail in the notes studied this past year, the boy's eyes lit up, with a twisted smile creeping on his lips.

"Someone's stupid enough to try hacking the game from within?"

The laugh that followed was more out of pity than joy, but, nonetheless, this was a chance. For whatever reason, despite its futility what this peculiar player has decided was to avert the deletion of an AI/NPC from the game.

"Why in the hell would try that at the risk of being removed from the game yourself? And where the hell did you get console access?!"

The questions flew through his mind on their own accord, but even faster than those were his fingers moving on the keyboard to assist this player. There was no vulnerability to exploit, but this deletion while the game was running opened up one. The NPC had privileges inside SAO, privileges Saruhiko could make us of.

"Yui-MHCP001... you're now withing my authority!", with the final press of a button, the cardinal system automatic deletion sequence was halted and the AI and its privileges were saved. "Your in-game body, whatever it was, might not be present anymore, but your presence withing SAO is good enough."

Perhaps the only other thing puzzling the teen was the intention of this player to stop the deletion. Sure, Saruhiko was thankful they attempted it and therefore opened up a window of opportunity for himself, but it's stupid to think you could hack the game from within without breaking it in the process. "...and even if you could, why not log out the others safely...?"

He glanced at the logs, at the player's name in special. "...Kirito...", the boy rubbed his chin, not fully sure what to think of this encounter. "Well, stupid or not, you've made my job a lot easier."

Perhaps the pair won't need another whole year to crack the game. Perhaps... it could be done sooner than they'd think. For now, thankful he'll manage to salvage some sleep today, he wrote a message to his partner in crime.

'I'm skipping school tomorrow. Come to the usual place as fast as you can!'

The next day

The following morning, as soon as he was ready, the boy dashed outside the door, startling his neighbor Asada in the process and perhaps inducing some questions regarding his lack of school uniform. But there was something more important than school. He had tests to run. Speaking of running, his was interrupted by a phone call.

"Hello?"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SKIPPING SCHOOL!?", Misaki yelled at the top of his lungs at the other end of the line. "What happened?!"

"I think I found it!"

"Found what?"

"The hole in the wall we needed. What we talked about yesterday?"

"ALREADY!? HOW!?"

"Look, I'll tell you all about it after you come from school. I'll be upstairs."

"No, we're talking about it in 10 minutes!"

"What about school?"

"FUCK SCHOOL! If you can skip it, I can too. See you upstairs."

Ah! The spring of youth! What a splendid thing to see!

For now, aside from the cleaning that was about to take place in the hideout of this operation, there was also the matter of seeing how deep the privileges of this newly acquired puppet ran and how useful they'll be.

It wouldn't be a stretch to say the only 2 people inside the cafe at this hour where the 2 teens that were missing from their classrooms. The blonde in particular had no patience to see just what dumb luck has struck Saruhiko while he was torturing himself with coffee. As a side note, those 3 cups didn't make salvaging sleep an easy task.

"Who's stupid enough to try that?", Misaki's voice echoed throughout the main hall after hearing the much awaited explanation.

"I don't know. I don't care. The fact of the matter is, it made pinpointing an AI much easier and shaved literal months off our work. Now come on. I can't wait to see what it can do."

Running up the stairs, connecting the SSD back to the main PC and booting up the VRS, throughout all this cold sweat ran across Misaki's back. He didn't want to raise his hopes too high just to meet a disappointing end afterwards, but he couldn't help but share Saruhiko's enthusiasm either.

The blond watched the raven type out words here and there, closing and opening tabs one after the other. He didn't understand what most of those lines did, but he could trust his hunch that they were important. Saruhiko himself didn't utter many words and just watched curiously for the results till eventually he erupted in laughter, but not the pity kind from last night. No. This one was overjoyed.

"What? What happened?", Yuuki stood dumbfounded, as whatever the result was, it didn't speak to him at all. "You're killing me here, man...Come on!"

"This AI has access to a lot of GM privileges.", Kayaba shared the good news with his friend, whose legs just gave in at this point.

"...you've gotta be kidding me...game master privileges...", he fell on his butt to the floor, cupping his face with his palms, as a sensation he would usually feel only after visiting his sister in the hospital enveloped him. "YES!", he shouted. That sensation was relief. Relief that this past year hasn't been in vain. Relief that he might see his sister healthy again. "When can end this?"

"Easy there. I have to find where does the cardinal system stores the data for player entities and write the respawn function there. But that will take me just one or 2 days. While logging out will maybe take a while longer to figure out-"

"No one else will die."

"...you're looking like a crazed maniac again, Misaki."

"Last time I made this face was a year ago, wasn't it? Do I look happy, Saruhiko?"

...

"...the happiest I've ever seen you so far."

And so the fated day has come...