Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-209.112.218.20-20150405021257/@comment-110.140.26.140-20170104115521

CountryStrong106 wrote: He didn't 'let him win', Kirito killed him and Kayaba kept his end of the deal. He couldn't bring the dead ones back since they'd been dead for awhile [Asuna hadn't been dead for to long, I'm guessing that the Chip didn't kill their True bodies until 10-20 seconds after they died in SAO (Going off Unique Item from the Christmas Episode) so she was able to live]. Asuna never truly died, although Asuna's avatar died Kayaba had already stopped the NerveGear from killing her (don't question it, it is mentioned on this wiki somewhere) and also stopped it from killing both Kirito and himself so that they final confrontation was possible. Kirito technically didn't kill Kayaba as his avatar died before he was able to kill Kayaba. It's a long explantion and not worth questioning