The Spriggans are trapped in ALO for the duration.
No-one wants the Spriggans to log out before their own faction. Luckily for him, he gets to stay with Asuna, the Undines are just as unlikely to be in either the first or second waves because they would be leaving the remaining players without high-level healing.- As Kirito is destined by canon to be the one who confronts Kayaba, and Asuna is tied to him by a Red String of Fate, this neatly justifies Narrative Causality, too.
- Or he could choose to stay in the game. You log out by using unlimited flight to fly to the log out portal, Nothing says you have to actually leave when your race gets the LAB, I could see a handful of each winning group staying behind to help everyone else escape.
At some point in the story, Kirito will become the Spriggan faction leader.
Maybe he'll put his name in the hat for faction leader as a result of losing a bet, maybe putting his name in the hat is the whole point of the bet with a character who claims Kirito could get elected faction leader purely on his reputation without doing any campaigning at all. Either way, he probably won't be faction leader for long, either voted out in the next election due to his attempts to establish order not going over well with a faction of anarchists or Kirito getting fed up with the hassle and resigns so he can go back to clearing. Leafa/Suguha is in the game.
- I guess no-one noticed Recon popping up in chapter 24?
- Jossed by Word of God as Suguha wasn't a gamer before the start of the story.
Kayaba is not in complete control of the virtual world.
Perhaps in this version of the death game, its creator is just as trapped as the rest of the players. With artificially intelligent "god" NPCs such as Loki and Hél driving the plot, seemingly of their own volition, and a Heathcliff character who is far more vulnerable than his SAO-canon counterpart, Kayaba appears to be much more player than GM this time around. The question may be whether he simply scripted Heimdal (the AU's Cardinal) and certain bosses to behave as they are and is biding his time, or willingly surrendered control to better participate in his own social experiment.