Trio (A Sword Art Online Fanfic) ✔

Epilogue

Of course, no matter what I had said that night, we did play more games. But, no matter what we played, we always managed to stay away from any more psychotic killers, thankfully.

Years past, and Rikimaru and I got married. Katsu was my maid of honor. We had never been happier.

At least, that was until I got pregnant.

Babies are horrible.

I never realized how much I disliked children until I had my own. It cried all night and puked all day. The entire thing was a smelly, gross experience.

Rikimaru was the only one who managed to keep me sane during those early days.

Though, despite everything gross part, I didn't regret having him.

He had his dad's dark hair, and my brown eyes. He looked like the perfect mix of the two of us.

Katsu had wanted us to name our child after him, but eventually we found the perfect name: Sao.

After the very game that started all of this.

Years past, and eventually it was his time to discover the great world of games.

His very first MMO was ALfheim Online. He chose to be a Cait Sith, just like his mother. Kuro and Gurē love him.

While I wasn't a big fan of children, it turned out Kirito and Asuna loved them. At least, they loved them enough to create their own army of their offspring. Not all of them enjoyed gaming, but each and every one of them were absolutely brilliant.

Katsu and his girlfriend ended up getting married as well. They never got the chance to have children, before she died of cancer. Katsu never remarried, and instead spent all his time being the best godfather he could be to Sao.

To our dying days, every single one of us would get together every year -- on the anniversary of SAO -- and talk about everything we had been through.

The bosses and the battles, the heartbreak and the deaths, the love and the happiness --- we got together and talked about it all.

And every year, we managed to create a new story to tell the next year.

Because that is what we became. We became stories. We went down in the history books as the survivors of SAO. We became the heroes of children books and novels.

We became legends.

And I doubt I would change any bit of our story.

It would be years later, when we finally talked to the public about what had happened in Sword Art Online.

It was the year before Agil died, the year after the Sword Art Online revival came out (this time with a logout button), and the same year that Katsu broke the record of most-times-killed-in-one-hour in ALO.

It was the last year all of us would be together.

Kirito was the one to do it. He was 50-years-old then, when the TV station asked for an interview once more and he finally accepted.

We were all gathered around the TV in his and Asuna's house. Every single one of us were there -- including our children and grandchildren.

And I will never forget that moment. The moment that filled our eyes with tears and our hearts with joyous nostalgia.

"So tell me, Kazuto." The interviewer had asked, "What happened in Sword Art Online?"

Kirito had looked straight at the camera, as if he could see us. And then, he uttered the only two words that could have described what had happened in that game:

"We lived."