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List of Volumes
List of Episodes
- "The Forest House"
- "Zekken"
- "The Sleeping Knights"
- "The Monument of Swordsmen"
- "The End of the Journey"
- "The Dream Begins"
- "Mother's Rosario"
Plot Summary
Rumors swirl around Alfheim Online of a player known as "Zekken", the Absolute Blade. Every day, Zekken would take on anyone wishing to duel them on the 22nd floor of New Aincrad and offering their signature 11-hit Original Sword Skill as a reward for besting them in combat. To date, no one has been able to defeat Zekken. Not even Kirito...Asuna decides to try fighting Zekken, discovering that the legendary player is, in truth, a spirited and highly skilled young woman named Yuuki. When Asuna and Yuuki duel, Asuna comes close to defeating Yuuki. Yuuki's reactions, however, are so quick that she is able to quickly turn the tables. Before Yuuki can land the final blow on Asuna, however, she stops and asks for Asuna's help: she and her guild, the Sleeping Knights, want to clear a floor boss on their own. When multiple parties defeat a floor boss, the names of the party leaders become inscribed into the Monument of Swordsmen; but if only one party clears the boss, the names of every player in the party are recorded instead. Yuuki and the Sleeping Knights would have to quit playing after winter break, so they wish to clear a floor boss and make their marks on the game before they have to go their separate ways. Asuna readily agrees.
In the real world, however, Asuna is having difficulties with her mother, Kyoko, who disapproves of her playing VRMMO games and her relationship with Kirito, trying to arrange a marriage instead. Asuna must convince her mother not to pull the plug on her hobbies in order to aid the Sleeping Knights.
Although the battle is fraught with difficulty, both from trying to take on a multi-party boss with only one party and unscrupulous players trying to sabotage their efforts, Asuna and the Sleeping Knights succeed in felling the 27th floor boss, earning them their place on the Monument of Swordsmen. During the battle, Yuuki unwittingly calls Asuna "Sis". When she realizes this after the battle, she becomes distraught and logs out.
After several days, Yuuki doesn't log back in. With Kirito's help, Asuna goes to a hospital where Yuuki is staying, and learns that Yuuki is actually a patient. On the day she and her twin sister were born, Yuuki's mother received a tainted blood transfusion that resulted in the entire family contracting HIV. Yuuki's entire family, including her sister, had passed away while her own condition advanced into full-blown AIDS. For the last several years, Yuuki had been using an experimental FullDive device called a "Medicuboid" to improve her quality of life, allowing her to journey through virtual worlds without being shackled to her failing body.
Asuna and Yuuki reunite in ALO shortly thereafter, where Asuna proposes a plan to allow Yuuki to fulfill her dream of getting to experience school life once more: she enlists Kirito's aid in building a bidirectional communications probe, a shoulder-mounted device that let Yuuki see more of the real world alongside Asuna with cameras and microphones while communicating with everyone around her using a speaker. With inspiration from Yuuki, Asuna has Kyoko log into ALO using her alternate character, so she could show her the beauty of the virtual world, convincing her to allow her to pursue her own future.
For the next several months, both in ALO and in the real world with the probe, Asuna and the Sleeping Knights share their lives and experiences together. Sadly, in the spring, Yuuki's health begins to fail her. She logs into ALO one last time and uses the last of her strength to give Asuna her Original Sword Skill, "Mother's Rosario". Other players from across ALO, from Asuna's friends to the Sleeping Knights and hundreds of others, gather around to pay their respects to Yuuki as she considers herself thankful that she could spend the last few months of her life with her friends, and with a woman whom she grew to love like a sister.
After Yuuki passes away, it is discovered that the Medicuboid that Yuuki had been using was an invention of Akihiko Kayaba, the selfsame mastermind behind the SAO incident.
This arc provides examples of:
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Kyouko who came from humble beginnings spent her whole life trying to forget her origins and pressures Asuna for her to succeed. When she sees how Asuna would prefer to lead a simple life over the wealthy high society one Kyouko values after she convinced her to look into the virtual world herself through the AmuSphere, she's remorseful that it worked out all too well.
- Bittersweet Ending: Yuuki is dead, but Asuna is given the "Mother's Rosario" sword skill, and Asuna reconciles her differences with Kyoko.
- Peaceful in Death: Yuuki dies surrounded by all her friends and hundreds of other players who came to honour the passing of the greatest swordsperson in ALO and finally realises that their was meaning behind her life after all.
- The Reveal: By the end of the arc, it turns out that the Medicuboid is actually an invention made by Kayaba.
- Title Drop: "Mother's Rosario", the name of the arc, is also the name of Yuuki's Signature Attack which she eventually gives to Asuna as a parting gift right before she dies.
