SAO: Beyond the Digital Sea // A Sword Art Online Fanfiction

Aincrad Arc: Ch3

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.