Sword Art Online - Fairy Dance Volume 01 (manga)

Sword Art Online - Fairy Dance (ソードアート・オンライン フェアリィ・ダンス) is a manga adaptation of the light novel series by Kawahara Reki. This manga covers Volume 3 and Volume 4 of the light novel series and is illustrated by Hazuki Tsubasa. The first volume includes Stages 1-4.

Summary
Kirito returns from «Sword Art Online», only to find that Asuna (along with 300 people) is still asleep, and is witnessed in another game, called «ALfheim Online».

Stage.001
Two years ago the next generation VRMMO, Sword Art Online (SAO) was launched. On its launch day its creator, Kayaba Akihiko trapped 10,000 players inside the game and claimed that if the player died in the game, they would die in the real world.

Among those trapped was Kirito, who found Kayaba's disguise as a comrade in arms and fought with him on the 75th Floor of Aincrad, defeated him and cleared the game.

Two months after finally logging out of SAO, Kirigaya Kazuto decides to have a kendo match with his sister, Kirigaya Suguha, he doesn't wear protection, but is able to keep up with her. After the practice, he tells her that he might take up kendo again, if she teaches him. She considers telling him a secret, but at the last moment she decides not to. As Kazuto leaves for the hospital, his sister remembers how she discovered that they were cousins rather that siblings while he was trapped in SAO.

In the hospital, Kazuto thinks about his beloved, Yuuki Asuna, who is still trapped in the SAO servers with another three hundred players. In Asuna's room he encounters her father, Yuuki Shouzou, and meets her fiance, Sugou Nobuyuki. After Shouzou leaves, Sugou confesses that Asuna hates him, but he can do as he pleases because he has the right due to his department maintaining the server that keeps Asuna alive. Kazuto wishes to pierce him with a sword when he announces that the ceremony will be held a month later and asks him not to approach Asuna or her family.

Back at home Kazuto is depressed due to his inability to do anything to help Asuna. At that moment, Suguha enters his room and cheers him up before both of them fall asleep on his bed. Kazuto wakes Suguha the next morning and she runs away, then he notices a mail from Agil (Andrew Gilbert Mills), a friend from SAO with a picture of an avatar that resembles Asuna.

At Andrew's restaurant, he tells Kazuto about a game called ALfheim Online and its basics, before explaining that the picture was taken from a place in the game. Kazuto notices that RECTO is the company that designed the game and decides to investigate, in order to find out whether Asuna really is trapped within the game.

At home, Suguha is ashamed and in pain because she likes Kazuto, but he cherishes Asuna instead. Kazuto enters the game and creates his character. Two characters are preparing to fly again, while Kazuto, in his avatar, Kirito, finds himself in a forest instead of the starting city of his race.

Stage.002
After logging in, Kirito looks for the Log Out button. Relieved after finding that it exists, he checks his stats and finds out that they're the same as his avatar's from SAO. He then looks in his items and finds an item called "MHCP001", which he takes out and activates. The item transforms into Yui, an AI that he took as his daughter in SAO. She tells him that they are in a copy of the SAO's server, thus, his stats data was overwritten, but as long as a human GM doesn't checks it, he'll be fine.

Yui transforms into a Navigation Pixie, Kirito tells her that Asuna may be in the game and Yui interrupts by notifying about the presence of other players, three chasing another one. Kirito intervenes and beats two players at once while the other decides to leave. Kirito talks to the female player who was being chased and Yui pops out, so Kirito has to invent excuses.

The player presents herself as Leafa and takes Kirito to Sylvain, where she explains the game basics and talks about the World Tree. Kirito stands and decides to go to the World Tree while Leafa decides to accompany him. They decide to meet up at a tavern the next day and Log Out for the night. When Leafa logs out, in the real world she's revealed to be Suguha, who is trying to decide whether tell Kazuto about her playing ALO.

Stage.003
On her way back to her house, Suguha was remembering why she started playing ALO, when she was interrupted by Nagata, who asks her if she planned to leave the party. She replied affirmatively and then left. At her house she entered ALO and found that Kirito was shopping and bought a huge sword. After reuniting, Leafa took Kirito to the Tower of Winds, where they met Sigurd, and after an argument they left. Recon managed to reach them before they took off and said that he had found something interesting, so he was staying. He gave some words to Kirito but was cut off by Leafa before Leafa and Kirito departed.

In a cage, Asuna was talking to Sugou, who held her captive. He presented himself as the King of the Fairies Oberon and Asuna as Titania. After scaring her, he declared that the game was just a facade for an experiment in looking for a way to control the human brain. He revealed that he took three hundred players from SAO and they were experimenting on them. Asuna argued back, but Sugou just threatened her before leaving.

Stage.004
After Kirito and Leafa defeated some monsters, Leafa told him off for his style being too reckless for battle, as he would be shot down by magic if they encountered a player party. After some time of flying, a big mountain, which they could not fly over, entered their sight. Leafa told Kirito about the tunnel passing through the mountain and that there was a neutral town in the middle of the tunnel. Since both still had time, Leafa suggested taking turns to log out for a short break while the other protected their lifeless avatar. Suguha ate a sandwich, left one for Kazuto and took a bath before returning. When Kirito logged out, Leafa talked to Yui about love, but they stopped when Kirito suddenly returned. Kirito suddenly felt as if they were being watched and Leafa informed him about tracers, but since Yui could not detect anyone, they decided to continue.

Back in the cage Oberon was teasing Asuna, but she endured it because she realized that she needed free movement. Just before leaving, Oberon told her that he had met Kirito in her hospital room, telling her this with the intent of breaking her will, but instead he accidentally gave her hope and motivated her to memorize the number sequence to open the cage's door.

Meanwhile, Leafa and Kirito finally reached the cave. Leafa notified Kirito that it was called the Lugru Corridor because of the mining town at it's center, Lugru. With Yui's assistance, Kirito activated his night vision magic, which helped them see in the darkness. After 2 hours of navigating the cave and battling with orcs, Leafa suddenly received a message from Recon, warning her to be careful. Just then, Yui sensed 12 players coming their way. Although Leafa attempted to use concealment magic to hide from them, after realizing that they were followed by Salamanders with a high-level tracer, she immediately destroyed the tracer and urged Kirito to run towards the town.

As they were about to reach the gate to the city, the Salamanders blocked off the path to the city with an earth wall spell. As they could not destroy the wall with physical attacks, nor retreat via the lake due to a lake monster, they were left with no alternative but to fight the incoming Salamanders.

Adaptation Notes

 * In the Light novel Sugou's wedding was supposed to be a week after talking to Kazuto, in the Manga it was going to be a month later.
 * In the light novel, Leafa logged in to ALO before Kirito and she did some potion shopping before he arrived. Later, Kirito and Leafa went shopping together to get new equipment for him.