While I was making groundbreaking changes in ALO, Kazuto fought Sugou in the hospital where Asuna was staying's parking lot. Thanks to our eye stabbing in ALO, Sugou's eyes were blurry, thus Kazuto's life was saved. When I freed the remaining SAO Survivors from my computer at home, I purposely let the police track me, so I didn't have to haul my ass over to the police station. After a long night of explaining, I was on my umpteenth cup of joe, working on a new version of the Cardinal System that was compatible with the Seed when I felt two soft, squishy things press against my back. Turning around, I was greeted by the lovely face of Suguha Kirigaya, the girl who I had met IRL, then in VR, then fell in love with in VR then fell in love IRL. I know, long story.

"How's it going?"

"Alright, I guess. Man, is it hard updating a self-learning AI but restraining it so that anyone can use it!"

"Huh?" She gazed at the mess of code sprawled about my various monitors, five in total, but I still have twenty more. Just need to find the space to put them.

Yawning, I handed her my mug. "Coffee, please. Creamer and uh, three small cubes of sugar."

Sugu laughed. "Sure thing, Mr. Bigshot!"

"Please don't call me that; Sugou called my father that before I owned him."

"Oh, sorry."

"It 'kay, ye deedeent know."

"Oh my god, how long have you been up?"

"Uh, ten days now?"

"Living off pure caffeine."

"Not just coffee. I had breakfast, lunch, dinner and a one hour nap... here and there."

Sugu simply shook her head and went to fetch my coffee. Thanking her for it when she gently slipped it into my hands, I resumed coding and she sat on my bed, watching me.

"Aaannnddd..... Done."

Tapping the last character, I sat back in my chair and let Cookie do a scan of my work.

"......... Wow, Daddy! This is incredible! If anything, it's better than Grandpa Heathcliff's coding!"

I slumped into my chair. "Yeah, okay, coolios. Sugu, Ima use you as a pillow."

"Wait, WHAT?!?!"

Getting out of my chair, I stumbled into her, causing the two of us to lay down on the bed. I rested my head on her wonderful pillow of a chest and I could feel her get fairly hot, but she didn't resist. Sliding up, I gave her a kiss on the lips (albeit sloppy from sleep deprivation) and fell asleep.

------------------------

Sugu's PoV:

I watched as my boyfriend, Cardinal Kayaba, rested peacefully on my chest.

Man, he's such a dork when it comes to coding. But, he does love VRMMOs as much as me, if not more.

"Mmmm. Alchemy..."

"Huh?" Is he sleep talking?

"The science of understanding, deconstructing and reconstructing matter. However..."

"Is he reciting the opening to some show?"

"... it is not an all-powerful art. If one wishes to obtain something, something of equal value must be given. This is the Law of Equivalent Exchange."

"Man, is he one heck of a sleep talker."

"In accordance with this law, there is a taboo amongst alchemists. Human transmutation is strictly forbidden, for what could equal the value of a human soul?"

"... Is he-?"

He then began to sing a song. Pulling out my phone, I found out it was the Japanese version of "Again", the opening song for Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Once all that was done, I sighed.

"Man, he takes 'sleep talking' to a whole new record."

"Uh...." Cookie (who had accepted me as her mother, now) spoke from my boyfriend's array of monitors.

"What?"

"I recorded Daddy and submitted it to the Guinness Book of World Records and they made a new record for him."

"And what would that be?"

"'Most amount of anime openings sleep talked in a single period of sleep.' Quite the mouthful, eh, Mommy?"

I nodded. "It sure is. Say, when does he go back to school?"

"He technically should be in school right now, but they gave him a special grant due to his beyond genius intelligence. Also to work on The Seed."

I nodded. "I see. Welp, when is that SAO meet-up?"

"This afternoon."

I looked at the clock and saw it was 8:00 AM. "If I recall, the meeting's at three, right?"

"Yep! Don't forget to brush your teeth!"

We both laughed, then yelped when Cardinal lept from the bed.

"Alrighty, time to get to school. Thanks and bye, Sugu!"

I watched as he left the house and made his way to the SAO Survivor School. "What the heck?"

----------------------

SAO Survivor School

Cardinal's PoV:

Dozing off in English, I was elbowed awake by Kazuto. "Dude, you okay? Why weren't you at school for ten days?"

"Ten all-nighters. Ten full days and ten all-nighters are what it took to update this muthafuka." I pulled up an overview of The Seed on my phone. Thanks to Agil, The Seed was spreading across the world and VRMMOs were popping up like wildfire.

"Whoa."

"Mr. Kayaba?"

I looked up. "Yes, sir?"

"No phones during class. This is your first warning."

"Right, sorry." I yawned and those around me began to chuckle.

----------------------------------

On the way to the Dicey Cafe.

I was half-sleeping walking with Sugu to support me when we suddenly stopped. "Huh?"

"Sugu, I forgot to ask before. Did you ever meet Agil?"

"You mean the guy who sells you paper mache?" Kazuto and I chuckled.

"Yeah, we went hunting together a couple of times in ALO. His avatar's ginormous!"

"Get ready, cause he's that big in real life, too. Prepare to have your mind blown!"

She laughed. "I think I've already had that blown by a certain someone here." She began shaking me back and forth.

"Me? What did I do?"

Cookie's voice came from Sugu's phone. "Playing recording." It was a recording of me sleep-talking/singing the opening of FMAB along with its opening song.

"Oh."

We walked a bit further and stopped right in front of the door. Kazuto opened the door and we saw everyone was already inside. My friend narrowed his eyes.

"Hold on a sec. Were we supposed to get here earlier?" I was fully awake now.

Rika stood before us. "We gave you a later time to make sure everyone else got here first. It wouldn't be right for the Guests of Honor to show up before all the guests." She grabbed our hands. "Don't just stand there, c'mon."

"Uh, hey..."

I simply blinked. "Why you dragging me, Liz?"

Next thing we knew, Kazuto and I were propped up on a makeshift stage.

"Okay let's get this party started. You all know what to do!" I gazed at the various party poppers aimed directly at my head. "Ready and-!" Rika pointed the mic at the crowd.

"Congratulations on beating SAO, Kirito and Eagle!"

The poppers went off, a simple "Congratulations!" banner unraveled behind us and the Heroes of SAO were standing in shock, as if shot by a cunning sniper. Or just bonked over the head by a certain mace toting blacksmith.

Feeling something cold in my hand, I looked down to see a glass of orange fizz. When did that get there?

"Cheers!"

And with that, everything was underway. Having our girlfriends clean our hair of confetti, Kazuto caught up with his old friends while I made my way to the bar with Sugu.

"Bartender? Bourbon on the rocks." Hearing a glass get slid over to me, I opened my eyes to Agil's smirking face. I refuse to learn his real name. Warly, I tasted the drink before me, then widened my eyes. "Holy crap, this is oolong tea!"

Suddenly, Klein sat down next to us and thankfully didn't try to hit on Sugu. He must have sensed she was mine. "Agil, slide me a big boy drink."

I narrowed my eyes. "Really, Klein. You've got work still."

He took a swig of his drink. "Ah. Alcohol makes the overtime go by faster. Uh oh, chick alert." He turned and smirked at all the girls.

While we were turned, Thinker sat on our other side with his own drink. I turned to meet him. "Oh, hey Thinker. Sorry for the trouble I put you through back there in that dungeon, drawing The Fatal Scythe's attention and all."

Thinker waved it off. "Oh, don't worry about it."

"Anyways, how've you been? I heard you and Yulia are married now. We both know it's a bit late but," Sugu and I raised our glasses, "congrats."

We dinked and Thinker rubbed the back of his neck. "Thank you. But ever since we got back, it's been taking everything we've got to adjust to life here. The good thing is, I'm settling into work mode again."

Klein stood up. "Congratulations on getting that far. Hey, I've been reading the new MMO Today. Nice job!"

Thinker played it down. "Yeah, I wish it were better. It could of used a bit more content."

I yawned, my sleep deprivation slowly getting to me. "Well, if you want, go ahead and interview the teen who spent 240+ nonstop hours on updating The Seed." I pointed my thumbs at me.

Thinker laughed. "Maybe. Either way, with the way MMOs are now, who needs walkthroughs and news? Those things are going to be irrelevant anyways."

I chuckled. "You know what they say about the birth of the universe. First there was chaos. By the way, Agil, how's my updated Seed doing?"

Agil smirked and walked over to a laptop he set up monitoring the progress of The Seed. "It's been doing amazing. Only positive comments."

"Phew!"

"We've got fifty mirrors set up. It's been downloaded a hundred thousand times. And check this out, it's got three hundred big-ass servers actually runnin' it!"

I smiled at my work. "Incredible."

"You can say that again."

I watched the number of downloads grow for a bit after which, I handed Agil a small amount of money. Not much, but it was something.

"Huh? What's this for?"

"For putting up with my caffeine deprived rants. And for helping me keep my father's dream alive."

Agil shook his head. "We're pals, this is what we do."

I looked at his smiling face before I smiled, too. "Right. We're the Leaders of the Beaters."

Thinker tilted his head. "Wasn't that term used for Betas who were also cheaters?"

"Yeah, but I adopted it because it sounded like I beat the Floors into submission. Welp, I'm absolutely burnt. Can't go to the 11 o'clock party, sorry. Oh, but everyone's invited to my castle."

Sugu sat quietly, but jumped when I pulled her off to the side.

"Sugu, I know you feel you don't belong, but you do. You are a survivor, just like us. We survived the game, you survived the shit storm surrounding it. I watched the news feeds while in SAO. It was a gift from my dad. I know about the rampant killings. Don't worry, you can go as far as you want. Wanna know why?"

She nodded her head.

"While I have wings of wax, molded by the hands of Man, your wings are from God himself."

She chuckled. "Didn't take you as religious."

"My religion is Fairy Tail, FMAB, and anime."

"What about me?" She gave me puppy eyes.

"You're the goddess at the top of the religion."

Sugu laughed and then we shared a quiet, passionate kiss.

Hello! It me, the author! So, I've been watching FMAB for a while now and the opening soliloquy has been burned into my mind so much, I'm able to recite it from memory! NEat, huh?

Anyways, should Cardinal go into GGO with Kirito or should he stay in ALO with Leafa?

Also, how the hell is the RP still going in Turned to Dust? It started from a frickin' question and now it's a 70+ comment thread, probably 80+ by now! (As of the time of 8:57 AM, 4/17/19)