Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-88.0.101.31-20160810215834/@comment-9595671-20161229041902

I can agree with you on the volume 9-17 memories (and possibly 18) for the reason I just mentioned with Alice, losing them would probably do more bad than good for Kirito and Asuna, as well as completely confuse them over a lot.

So it's implied, but not confirmed, maybe this time the process is more gradual than instantaneous. I kinda like that direction since it seems like it helps Yui's evolution into one a lot more.