Sword Art Online Light Novel Volume 03

Summary
Kazuto returns from SAO, only to find Asuna still asleep, and her appearing in a new game Alfheim Online.

Prologue
The story introduces Kirigaya Suguha, the younger sister/cousin of Kazuto (AKA Kirito). While he was trapped in «SAO», Suguha and his family watch over him and waited for his return. Suguha's parents reveal that Kirito is actually her cousin, and he had found out at an early age. On the day of Kirito’s 16th birthday, she attended the hospital that held the body of her sleeping brother; who was still trapped in the death game for nearly two years. A month later, Kirito reawaken, the day was 7th November of 2024.

Chapter 1
Two months have passed since Kirito have returned back to the real world; after watching Suguha performing her daily exercises with her shinai, he challenges her for a match at their family dojo. Despite displaying the amazing skills that he had acquired from his imprisonment, the body of the former black swordsman was still inferior to the well-trained body of his cousin, and thus resulted with his lost.

After considering about re-practising kendo alongside with Suguha, Kirito remembers he had to visit Asuna, who had still not awoken after the events of SAO. At first when Kirito awoke from SAO he stumbled out of the hospital bed searching for Asuna, he found her with the help of a man claiming affiliation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs - SAO Countermeasures Division. He told Kirito that Yuuki Asuna has been admitted to another medical institution in Tokorozawa, along with 300 SAO players who have not awoken yet. Initially it was to believe that it was a lag spike, the 300 some players still did not awake. Upon visiting Asuna, he met Yuuki Shouzou, Asuna's father who is also CEO of the electronics company RECTO, and Sugou Nobuyuki, Asuna's Groom.

Over the next few days, Kirito received an email from Agil with an in game screen shot of Asuna in a golden cage. Upon viewing the photo, Kirito went to Agil's cafe: «Dicey Café», to talk about ALfheim Online, the game which Asuna was trapped in. Agil gave Kirito the game and some booklets about it. After adjusting the game to his requirement and created his new online persona: the «Spriggan» race «Kirito». The game should’ve brought Kirito to the Spriggan hometown, however it freezes and to his surprise, the game suddenly drops him to the unknown void.

Chapter 2
In ALfheim, two elfs rested after learning to fly; Lyfa and Recon with friends in real life who just started playing ALfheim Online. Earlier, Lyfa had formed a party with four players to go into a dungeon, however when returning to their homeland in ALfheim, they were ambushed by Salamanders. In ALO, there is always fighting with the other races.

After the free fall ended, Kirito found himself in a forest. After checking his surroundings he made sure the game had a logout feature. Upon checking his character stats, he noticed that he had all the skill levels were the same as his SAO character. Remembering he had packaged Yui, he frantically look in his inventory, and found MHCP001, the package he stored Yui in. Upon using the item, Yui appear as a small «Navigation Pixie», who then began to explain that ALO was a copy of SAO, which explained the reason of his high leveled skills.

Lyfa was attacked with a magic casted by the Salamander. Knowing her energy was running out she called out to the Salamanders to come at her if they weren't afraid of the Death Penalty. At that moment, she met Kirito, at first she thought was a noob, turned out saving her life and defeating the Salamanders. Afterwards Lyfa taught Kirito how to fly, and then watch him crash landed into the Sylph's capital Sylvian, the "Tower of the Wind". After Lyfa reunited herself with Recon, Kirito explain to her that he needed to get to the top of the World Tree to see someone.

After Logging out, Suguha sat in her room, thinking about Kirito-kun, and how she wanted to duel him. As it turns out when her cousin Kazuto was imprisoned in the death game for over a year, she grew curious about the illusionary world; she ask her mother for an Amusphere, as well as assistance from her classmate: Nagata Shinichi to show her the appeal of the game world, which then brought her to the world of « ALfheimOnline».

Chapter 3
About sixty days had passed since Asuna awakened in this place. She had felt no fear in the golden cage. All she thought was 'Quickly...quickly come and save me, Kirito-kun...'

In ALO, Lyfa was in shock by the fact that this player, Kirito, had such shabby equipment. After buying better equipment with the money that was transferred from SAO, they ran into Sigurd, Lyfa's ex-party member. He was enraged because he learned that Lyfa had decided to quit his party. As soon as Lyfa confirmed it, Sigurd declared that she'll regret it and left, Recon stayed in the party until more evidence of what Kirito was looking for was found.

Sugou, in game as Oberon, told Asuna about his meeting with Kazuto in her ward and his reason for trapping Asuna here was to secure a position in RECTO. However unbeknownst to Sugou, Asuna had been watching him punch in the code to her cage; all she needs is a few more numbers to unlock the cage and access a terminal after which, she would be able to logout.