Sinister Future

shailyesshadow:

Okay, honestly I am loving the concept of Sword Art Online: Project Alicization. Let me first say this. I called it!!! I always had the theory that someone from Laughing Coffin who had survived the game would come back and attack Kirito! I’ll admit that I forgot a third perpetrator had escaped from the Gun Gale attack. However, I did not imagine that they would try to get revenge on Kirito. I still wonder for what reason Johnny Black attacked Kirito. Was it because he caught his partners, or that he was part of the group that eliminated his guild in Sword Art Online?

I tried to give a little evidence to my theory, to try to lean toward a side. I haven’t caught up on all of the episodes, I still have about four episodes left to catch up. So these questions may yet to be answered. Okay, so we know that Black knew Kirito personally, in that knowing that the young sword-fighter seriously kicked his ass and got him imprisoned. In the midst of attacking Asuna, when Kirito rushed in and defended her. But for sure, Black remembered those faces. Now, from what we saw of the Gun Gale attack, the people who were attacked alongside Sinon, were not SAO survivors. Just people that they did not approve of. But I wondered, two of the three perpetrators were SAO survivors, while the other was a heavy GGO player. It made me wonder, did the Laughing Coffin members ever actually consider SAO players to be targets as well? We saw that Death Gun had a personal drive to kill Kirito in Bullet of Bullets, but since Kazuto’s body was actually protected unlike the other targets, maybe they just couldn’t make him one as well. 

When we saw Shinkawa declare his love for Asada, yet still threatening her, it was in the nick of time that Kazuto came to save her. But because he interfered in Shinkawa’s intended actions, the syringe was buried into him instead of Asada. Incidentally missing him because an electrode had been left behind. I guessed that he would be attacked in the same way at some point in the future. There were SAO survivors who carried their grudge from the virtual world into the physical world. But we saw Kirito being targeted more often than Asuna, who was there at the same time that they acquired that grudge against the Black Swordsman. 

Just want to put this out there, but I feel that Johnny Black looks like Shigaraki Tomura from My Hero Academia, with a few differences lol. Okay moving on. It also brings me to wonder why it took a year (it seems a year because Asada is enlisting Kirito’s and Asuna’s help for the next BoB, and then with Eugeo saying he was eleven when Alice was taken, suggesting that both he and Kirito are 17), for Black to find Kirito. And he could clearly see that it was both the people he harbored hatred for, and the same thing occurred. Black dove forward, and Kirito shoved Asuna aside to take on the full brunt of the attack. 

We can also see that a Death Gun still existed from the first episode, when we see that the group of friends are fighting off player killers in GGO. Those few scenes, when a man looks through the drone’s camera, and sees two kids who are unmistakably Kirito and Asuna, and asks his boss if he can join his comrades in the field. He’s refused, but when we see him pull up his hood, we see the distinct appearance of Death Gun. 

Interestingly, the injection came to play in with the other side of the plot. In the first episode I was confused, because seeing a younger Kirito made my eyes widen. When I was introduced to Alice, I instantly thought, Alice in Wonderland. And she’s dressed really similar to her! We were also given an almost immediate sign that it was a virtual world of sorts, and you could tell that Kirito had really bonded with Eugeo and Alice. Also something that was crystal clear was the fact that you could tell Kirito was different than the others. I mean, he was the one to push them into exploring the cave. He was the one who tried to fight the Integrity Knight so they wouldn’t take Alice. He was the anomaly. 

Yet when Kazuto talked about it in the real life, you could tell that he didn’t recall his actions, or have access to his real life memories when inside the virtual world. When watching the Project Alicization episode, I did get some answers and evidence, but some questions still lingered. At the moment that Black injected Kazuto, it was in the same area where he had said earlier that there was an electrode. So for a while I thought that it was a repeated event, just like with Shinkawa, that maybe Black had miraculously missed. However, when we see him collapse to the ground, unconscious and clutching his shoulder, we see that unfortunately, Black struck true. 

My mind makes me think something else happened. That Black injected right next to the electrode, and somehow it caused him to enter the virtual world once again, but this time maintain his memories of the real life and not be the boy who had been only eleven. Kirito himself said he didn’t remember anything from when he dived into the virtual world at his job. Who knows how many times they had Kirito dive and maintain that same Kirito persona, the boy who had grown up with Eugeo and Alice. They also don’t mention just how long Kirito had been at this part-time job. From what I can predict, as well as blocking Kirito’s own memories, the ones in the virtual world had their memories altered as well. So that history had passed, like Kirito had never existed. The memory block went both ways. Affecting Kirito as well as those in the virtual world. 

Let’s add the new input of information. Kikuoka confesses to Asuna how Kirito was actually being used in the experiment. One of the three crucial people needed for the AI experiment. Kirito was effectively put into a world as a corruption, where he would be the one who would change things. But when he was pulled out of that world after he caused Alice to be taken away, history was changed like he had never existed. Eugeo never says it, only says that he and Alice had ventured to the caves and that she’d placed the tips of her fingers into the Dark Territory. But he didn’t know, that if he had remembered properly, it was Kirito’s fault for what happened to Alice. Eugeo could come to hate Kirito for what he had done. 

Things have changed now. A 17-year-old Kirito has now stepped back into the world, with no one knowing who he was. He is effectively, the Kirito from another reality, not the one Eugeo had grown up with. Yet still the corruption he had once been. He’s still inspiring a spur of movement. Kirito once again gained a friendship with Eugeo, and made the other boy look at Kirito in awe. Even though Eugeo did not remember Kirito, you could see that some of the younger Kirito’s influence still lingered subconsciously. The fact that Eugeo returned to get the Blue Rose sword, that he remembered the story of the hero Bercouli, and that Kirito was still the drive that pushed him to fight. 

Kirito is still a corruption, because he hastened a Calling that had been in place since the beginning of time. Using the sword instead of the axe, and chopping the demon tree that had been there and chopped at for over 300 hundred years. The goblin attack had changed both Kirito and Eugeo, made them stronger so they now had authority over the Blue Rose sword. The reason why they had to undergo the attack, was because they went looking for Selka. Another sign of corruption, no one had ever told Selka what had happened to her older sister, and hence Kirito did, having no idea of what would come of the consequence. She went to the cave, and almost got herself kidnapped. Eugeo was almost killed, because of a newcomer who was an anomaly. 

The idea with the injection is just a theory. The episode Project Alicization did provide some insight in what the virtual world actually is and what role Kiritio plays in it. The fact that he’s the anomaly that will bring the AI’s to commit murder so they can be put to military use. Think about it though. Kikuoka confesses that they had to lie to Kirito so they could employ him. Rath is a straight-up sinister organization. For me, it’s still not crystal clear whether or not Kirito was incidentally placed into the virtual world, or as part of the “treatment program”. Because at the same time, there is evidence to support either option. Kikuoka admits that Kirito was put into Underworld as a young child, of the anomaly to be raised as a young child. So that covers the first time around, what we see in the first episode, and how Rath sees that Alice is someone they could get to deviate from the system. But Kikuoka doesn’t mention the second time, where Kirito is as of that moment. 

I also believe, that if they did place him in the virtual world for a second time, why leave him with his real life memories this time around? They took complete advantage of the injection. I’m going to say it again, Rath is STRAIGHT-UP SINISTER. They employed a 17 year old boy, one who has several years of experience with VRMMO worlds, and who is an SAO survivor. A boy who was completely ideal, because aside from him and his other friends, we aren’t given the implication that other SAO players are still playing video games. However, they recruited a boy whose past still haunts him even after all those years. Lying to him in the process, because if he knew Rath’s true intentions he would never have agreed to take on the job in the first place.

I mean, but look at the other side of this. The reality. Asuna found Kirito, and she told the other girls. But what about Mrs. Kirigaya? She receives a call that her nephew, the boy she practically raised, was attacked and injected with a killing poison. She arrives to the hospital, to discover that they managed to save him in time, but there’s a high probability that he will never awaken, and that he requires further treatment that the hospital cannot provide. She is then approached by a man who has worked with Kirito, told that her nephew can be transferred to another facility that had the proper treatment needed. Give him a more likely chance of awakening from a poison that was supposed to leave the victim for dead, their heart stopped and damage irreversible. She consents, and then arrives at that facility to see the condition of Kirito, only to be turned away. Lied to, when in truth her son was transferred to a remote island, in the middle of the sea. Maybe Suguha told her after she found out from Asuna, but that still doesn’t make matters better. It’s basically a repeat of the Sword Art Online incident, a long period of Kirito asleep, unknown if he would ever awake, but at least at that time his family had access to him. 

Rath places Kirito back into the Underworld simulation, so that even while he’s unconscious yet still receiving treatment and staying alive, he’s fulfilling what they recruited him for in the first place. So his role as a corruption would bring the concept of murder into the simulation. They aren’t giving the treatment as a benefit for Kirito, it’s for themselves. It’s like,” Hey this kid was injected with a really lethal drug, his brain was damaged, and he might never wake up. Let’s put him back into the Underworld, but he can have his memories this time. It won’t matter, probably won’t wake up anyway, and he still won’t know what we’re using him for. How convenient for us, that the boy we’re using for this operation was attacked.”

Sword Art Online: Project Alicization is following this basic timeline. Kirito is given a part-time job for an organization that is seeking to use beings with Artificial Intelligence for military use, but to do that they must be willing to commit murder, and not have to worry about facing a consequence. The first trial is proving to be successful, but then a real-life event occurs that takes away any restrictions the trials previously had. Kirito stands almost to no chance of ever awakening because of the lethal injection, and is trapped in a virtual world. And the biggest problem is, there is no ending to this. I mean sure, we could get the happy ending where Kirito does wake up in his reality, but it doesn’t seem likely. The world he’s placed into only has one ending, should Kirito not achieve what he was placed in for. (which he most definitely will, judging by the later episodes) Kirito can’t log out, he can only grow old, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that once he’s killed or dies naturally he’ll wake up in the real world. 

The events of Season 3 weigh on Kirito being exploited and his friends not being able to do anything to stop it. All because a man hell-bent on revenge succeeded in injecting his final victim with a lethal injection.

But hey at least Kirito is being paid for his service for the malicious organization of Rath. Or wait, the treatment could be his “payment”.

I think you need to re-watch some of these episodes, because you have a pretty skewed understanding of what is happening.

Laughing Coffin and Kirito have a standing grudge going back to before the former was even officially formed. He’s thwarted their plans multiple times in the anime and novels, killed several members and is latest responsible for XaXa going to prison. That Johnny Black wants to kill him needs no more explanation than that. Death Gun’s targets were all people they believed had slighted them. You’d better believe that would have included Kirito if they were able to get to him. XaXa was trying to kill him because he was in the way of their plans.

Alicization is about 6 months after the events of Phantom Bullet. Black even mentions it took him that long to find the location of the cafe and then to stake it out long enough for Kirito and Asuna to show up. Remember the meet their friends in game more often than not. He’s also a wanted man at the federal level in Japan.

There are still Laughing Coffin members at large most notably the leader of the entire guild that Asuna and Klein mention in season 2. PoH.

An electrode is a removable sticky applicator used in hospitals. If you’ve ever had one on you you know that generally when they hospital or you remove them you miss one and find it a day or so later. It’s not something kirito would still have six months later.

Kirito was only placed in the Underworld an extended period of time once. His 3 day dive he talks about. They did not do that multiple times.

They didn’t put kirito in as a corruption. Your entire line of thinking on this is incorrect. They put him into Underworld to ascertain if a person from the outside was capable of breaking the rules. Or if their entire simulation was flawed. The fact that he rubbed off on the other fluctlights was a benefit but not an intended one.

They’re not trying to get the AIs to specifically commit murder. They’re trying to get the AIs to break any rule that exists in the world. The only reason the AI do not kill is because they have rules against it in Underworld. Any AI the Japanese government used in combat would be a fresh fluctlight not from Underworld, and not bound by it’s laws. An AI that cannot deviate from a set plan is not going to be able to adapt to combat like they want.

Kikoua does not put Kirito back into Underworld for any purpose other than to heal him. Normal medical treatments would not heal his brain, but the STL can. They’d already found the anomaly of Alice, which was their sole purpose of the project. They’re not in anyway monitoring what Kirito is doing inside in real time. As far as Kirito’s parents know he’s still in the hospital and because of the time acceleration in Underworld very little time has passed.