Kirito arrives at the hospital where Asuna is recovering. Before he can make it in, however, he is accosted by Nobuyuki Sugou, wielding a knife and visibly deranged as a result of the pain he suffered when he was hacked apart by Kirito in ALO while his pain inhibitor was off. Still suffering from that pain and enraged that Kirito thwarted his plans, he tried to murder Kirito, but Kirito manages to use skills he learned in VRMMOs to disarm Sugou. With memories of Sugou's near-rape of Asuna in ALO still fresh in his mind, Kirito only barely manages to restrain himself from slitting Sugou's throat, instead leaving him in the hospital's parking lot, passed out in a pool of his own urine after screaming in fear.
With Sugou dealt with, there is nothing to stop Kirito from seeing Asuna. Finally, Kazuto Kirigaya and Asuna Yuuki meet in her hospital room, Asuna having finally regained consciousness after being released from ALO. The two embrace and share their first real-world kiss.
In the months that followed, Kirito starts attending a new school specially made for SAO survivors, with Asuna recovering well in therapy. Not all is well, however: as a result of the scandal following the experiments carried out in ALO, Asuna's father resigned as the CEO of RECT. Sugou was arrested: although he tried to pin the blame for everything on Akihiko Kayaba, he folded and confessed to his role in the experiments when other employees stepped forward to testify. Thankfully, the 300 SAO survivors who were trapped in Sugou's experiments suffered no ailments and appeared to not even remember what happened when they were being experimented upon, but with the scandal of those experiments coming fresh off of the SAO incident that had trapped 10,000 players in a virtual world and killed many therein, RECT's stock took a crippling blow. RECT Progress eventually closed its doors, and with its closure, service for Alfheim Online was terminated. The other VRMMOs that were running at that time were speculated to shut down not long after, and it would seem that the Virtual Reality MMO industry would ultimately die a slow, painful death...
As for Akihiko Kayaba, the mastermind behind the SAO incident: he was found dead, his death being ruled a suicide. When SAO shut down, he performed a high-output scan on his brain that, in the one in 1,000 chance that it succeeded, would make a digital copy of his consciousness and release it into the internet.
That afternoon, Kirito and Asuna visit Agil's bar with Suguha in tow, where they throw a party to officially celebrate Kirito clearing SAO. At the party, it is revealed that after receiving the World Seed from Kayaba's digital ghost in ALO, Kirito disseminated it across the internet. Once the program unlocked, the Seed revealed itself to be a development kit for VRMMOs: anyone with a sufficient server could download the Seed and use it to create their own VRMMOs. As an added bonus, player data in games made with the Seed is transferable across any game that runs on the Seed, allowing one player to travel to potentially infinite virtual worlds. For the icing on the cake, another company acquired the rights to Alfheim Online, leading to the game's revival and everyone agreeing to meet up in-game at Yggdrasil City that evening.
Suguha, however, feels left out. While playing ALO that evening, Leafa sets out flying alone. Kirito meets up with her, and the two perform a dance in the sky as Kirito encourages Leafa.
The two fly to Yggdrasil City, but stop at the World Tree as Kirito shows Leafa a wondrous sight: a castle floating in the sky, New Aincrad. Kirito explains to a surprised Leafa that he only stopped partway through Aincrad while he was in SAO, and this time, he was going to conquer it in its entirety. With his old friends from SAO, his new allies in ALO, and Asuna (now using an Undine avatar) by his side, Kirito sets off for New Aincrad.
Tropes in this episode:
- Bittersweet Ending: Sugou is sent to jail, and Asuna is safe. However, Kayaba is dead and RECT Progress has been shut down. But after that, thanks to the World Seed, the VRMMOs have been revived.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Kayaba performs a high-output scan of his brain to upload a digital copy of his consciousness after SAO was shut down.
- Eye Scream: Sugou is left with visible eye damage because Kirito injured him in the game.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Thanks to his SAO skills, Kirito manages to disarm and beat a knife-wielding Sugou barehanded.
- Not Worth Killing: Kirito decides Sugou isn't worth killing and leaves him to be turned in to the police.
- Laser-Guided Karma: RECT Progress shuts down when the experiment scandal carried out in ALO is revealed to the public.
- Sanity Slippage: Sugou has gone crazy thanks to Kirito killing his avatar in SAO.
