Sword Art Online Extra Edition

Sword Art Online Extra Edition (ソードアート・オンライン Extra Edition) is a special episode that aired on December 31, 2013 on Tokyo MX, BS11 and Niconico Douga and streamed worldwide two hours after on Crunchyroll, Daisuki, and other streaming sites. . Most of the episode is a recap with some swimsuit scenes mixed in, while the remaining 20 minutes of the episode shows an original new story about the characters' quest in the Underwater Temple of ALfheim Online. This episode features a new ending theme song called Niji no Oto, sung by Aoi Eir.

Teaser Summary
To fulfill Yui's wish of seeing a whale, Kirito accepts an underwater quest, but they find out that Leafa - Suguha has a difficult time dealing with water. Therefore, Asuna, Keiko (Silica) and Rika (Lisbeth) start swimming training for Suguha. Meanwhile, Kazuto goes to the counselors office for an "emergency meeting", which was later revealed to be a trick by Kikuoka Seijirou to meet him and talk to him about his time in Sword Art Online and ALfheim Online.

Story
The episode begins with Kazuto (Kirito) and Suguha arriving at the SAO Survivor School on his motorbike. After meeting up with Asuna, Rika and Keiko, Kazuto left to attend emergency counseling, while the girls headed off to use the changing rooms to change into swimsuits.



In the locker room, the girls compared their respective styles. Meanwhile, Kazuto arrived at the office to find the counselor and Kikuouka Seijirou waiting for him. The counselor left and Kikuouka dumped a pile of snacks onto the table and placed a recorder to discuss Kazuto's experience in Sword Art Online to determine why Kayaba Akihiko did what he did. Kazuto started explaining at the part when Akihiko first announced that the true nature of Sword Art Online was to create a setting of a «Death Game», and how Kirito later left Klein in Starting City to become a solo player.



At the swimming pool, the girls played in the water, with Suguha getting in with a buoyancy ring, which Rika released the air out of it and teased Suguha about her breasts being able to keep her afloat. However Asuna stopped her and then told Suguha that they would start teaching her how to swim by having her hold her head underwater. Back at the counselor's office, Kazuto recounted the fight with Illfang the Kobold Lord and the reason as to why he became a solo player and taking on all the hate towards beta players by becoming a «beater» so that the beta testers would not be discriminated by other players. Seijirou concluded that living a life of a beater should have been painful, but Kazuto assured him that the true pain was losing someone he cared the most about, with a flashback shown of Kirito mourning for Sachi's death.



At the pool, Asuna guided Suguha along the pool as she slowly learned to swim with her head underwater. The girls then took a break, when Suguha asked them how they had all met her brother. Silica told them how Kirito saved her, and then helped her bring Pina back. Lisbeth told them that her first meeting with Kirito was not as dramatic as Silica's. A flashback occurred, starting where Lisbeth met Kirito in her blacksmith shop. Rika then recounted to the girls how Kirito had jumped into the Frost Dragon's nest to save her, and later got them out of there.

As she finished telling them, both Suguha and Asuna apologized for Kirito's actions. At the counselors office, Kazuto explained to Seijirou about boss raids and how dangerous they were to the players, which had him recount the battle with The Gleam Eyes and how he had defeated it with his Dual Blades skill. Kazuto then explained about how players were even more dangerous than the monsters, due to them coming up with more ways to kill other players. Then a flashback of when Kirito was with Godfree and Kuradeel on the 55th Floor and Kuradeel paralysed both Kirito and Godfree, almost killing Kirito, was shown. Kazuto then recounted his duel with Heathcliff, and stated that this duel gave him the clue to his true identity.



Asuna then recounted to the girls how she first met Kirito on the 1st Floor after the boss raid meeting, and stated that he showed her that there was joy in living in Aincrad. Back at the counselors office, Kazuto told Seijirou about his battle with Healthcliff and how he defeated him as well as recalled what had happened after he defeated Kayaba Akihiko. A flashback then happened, showing Kirito's battle with Heathcliff, and his meeting with Akihiko after he defeated the game prematurely. After Kazuto finished explaining about his experience in Sword Art Online, he got a message from Asuna which contained a picture of her with Suguha, Rika and Keiko at the pool. This then started a talk about Kazuto joining ALfheim Online to find and rescue Asuna.



In a flashback, it was shown that Yui had talked with Kirito and Asuna about seeing a whale, and Yui in the end said that she wanted to ride one. Thus, after the training at the pool and Kazuto's meeting with Seijirou, the group met up on Turtle Island in ALfheim Online before going on a quest rumored to end with a whale. Kirito then leads the party to do the «Deep Sea Invaders» Quest, which he started by talking to an NPC, named Nerakk. Kirito and Klein were talking as they traveled through the Underwater Temple, but fell into a trap due to not watching where they were going. As soon as they managed to barely swim out of the trap, an Armachthys swam out of the trap. Kirito, Klein, Agil, Silica and Lisbeth all attacked the Armachthys, which caused Leafa to also attack it, however she got sucked into a whirlpool that the Armachthys created. Kirito jumped into the whirlpool to save Leafa, defeating the Armachthys at the same time. As Kirito saved Leafa, she had a flashback to when she was a young child, and had fallen into the water and almost drowned if it weren't for Kazuto saving her.



After obtaining the pearl, which was the item required to complete the quest, Kirito and the others headed back to Nerakk to give it to him. As Kirito was handing the pearl to Nerakk, Lisbeth commented on not seeing the thieves at all during the quest, which caused Asuna to call out to Kirito to stop him from handing Nerakk the "pearl" and, after inspecting which, Asuna discovered it was actually an egg. Nerakk then transformed into his true form, Kraken the Abyss Lord, who Yui stated was much stronger than the floor bosses from New Aincrad. As Kraken the Abyss Lord was about to defeat the party and take the egg, they were saved by Leviathan the Sea Lord. Kraken the Abyss Lord left soon after, stating that he would meet them again. Leviathan then took the egg from Asuna, which caused a Quest Completion box to open up. Leviathan then sent them up to the surface on the top of a white humpback whale.

In the epilogue, Seijirou once again tries to get in contact with Kazuto.

New Characters

 * Kikuoka Seijirou
 * Counseling teacher

Known Monsters

 * Giant crab
 * Whale

Named Monsters

 * Armachthys

Named Bosses

 * Kraken the Abyss Lord

Named NPCs

 * Nerakk (Kraken's NPC form)
 * Leviathan the Sea Lord

Spells

 * «Water Breathing»
 * Unnamed Sylph Buff

Locations

 * «SAO Survivor School»
 * «Turtle Island»
 * «Yggdrasil City»
 * Underwater Temple

Errors

 * When Kirito accepted the quest from Nerakk, Nerakk's quest icon mispells "Quest Accepted" as "Qest Accepeted" and after when they listen to Nerakk, "Quest In Progress" is mispelled as as "Qest Progress"
 * Nerakk's quest icon showed a "?" when the quest was not yet accepted and a "!" when the quest was accepted, even though it should have been vice versa.
 * On Kirito's phone screen, Asuna's name is written as Yuuki Asuna (結城 明日菜) instead of Yuuki Asuna (結城 明日奈).
 * Leafa is still being written as Leefa in ALO's menus in this episode.
 * The phone Leafa using is shown as having an earphone jack cap when viewing from the back of the phone, but that is not drawn when viewing from the front of the phone.
 * The ring of words that appeared at the end of Leafa's buff spell only showed "hogg margr illt", instead of the full incantation.

Adaption Note

 * Kazuto's tandem was Honda's Thailand-made Dash125 in the novel, but it was changed to a Yamaha DT125R at Mr. Kawahara's suggestion. While it is still 125cc, its length is more than 25cm longer.

Trivia

 * The reason why there were swimsuits in the episode was because Reki Kawahara misread the original requirement and wrote four times the amount of script as originally intended.

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