Chapter Text
The SAO players thought that waking up from the game would be a simple affair.
Wake up in the real world, take of the [NerveGear], reunite with their loved ones, recover in the hospital for a month or two, get discharged, and resume their old lives.
Maybe catch up on whatever anime or other media releases that had come out in their absence.
Also get back to, ugh, work and school.
Simple enough, right?
Of course, between grinding to level up, exploring the floors, levelling up their skills, doing quests, upgrading their equipment and armor, getting new equipment and armor, guild management, exploring, mapping & clearing dungeons, beating field bosses, beating floor bosses to reach the next floor, etc., most of the players (the members of the [Assault Team] in particular) didn't have that much time to think about that stuff with their busy lives in [Aincrad].
But whenever they did, they usually imagined generally the same thing.
That they'd all wake up in the real world, tearfully reunite with their families, find the friends they made in the game, and that it would all work out in the end.
They were wrong.
So, so very wrong.
After going waking up from [Aincrad], all surviving SAO players reunited with whatever family or friends they have.
While the families are overjoyed, the survivors feel strange having woken up to reality. The real world feeling alien to them -especially the spotless white surfaces of the hospital- and the weakness of their bodies, sickly and frail from 2 years of inactivity, had them missing the strength and power that they (the members of the [Assault Team] in particular) possessed in [Aincrad].
But they didn’t dare to vocalize those thoughts, knowing that their families probably would not appreciate hearing them.
So, they kept their discontentment to themselves, and just sort of… went through the motions.
With some ... difficulties.
Due to the lack of the [Ethics Code], survivors had to deal with the un-ending paranoia of other people being able to enter their rooms without their express permission.
More than a few of them told to suck it up because 'that’s just how it is in the real world', which led to more than a few arguments breaking out.
Then there was the fact that the survivors simply weren't the same people they used to be when they first logged in on Day One. All the death, murder, combat, and survivor's guilt made sure of that.
Some families were able to empathize, and promised to help them through it every step of the way.
Some families weren't able to understand the weight of what they'd gone through, but were still staying by their side, not wanting lose them again.
Some families were scared out of their minds. They had wanted their children back, not these… monsters wearing their skin.
A select few didn't care for their trials and tribulations. They simply told them to forget everything that happened in 'that death game', and refocus on the future that was set out for them.
Another problem was that the SAO Incident was the worst tragedy in recent Japanese history that didn't involve war or a natural disaster. And unfortunately, the common habit of blaming the survivors for the incident itself, or seeing them as irrevocably tainted by it, was still a common reaction in a lot of people, even ones that should be smart enough to know better.
The looks the various doctors and nurses gave them when they thought they weren't looking got old real fast.
When it came to the nature of their recovery, most of the survivors--the teenagers more than the adults--kept being told repeatedly to "not worry about it and just rest" by their parents/guardians/people in charge of making medical decisions for them whilst they were trapped in the game. It wasn't until arguments broke out that they learned just how bad their conditions actually were.
See, they already knew that their bodies were in shit shape and were understandably down in the dumps about it.
Their brains still believing that they had physical abilities beyond those of Olympic athletes didn't exactly help matters.
But hearing the full details from their doctors, turned their bad mood into existential horror.
First was the Muscle Atrophy.
According to their doctors, early on they had been losing around 1 - 1.5% per day due to immobilization.
The loss plateaued after a few months, but their strength, coordination and endurance were basically gone.
They couldn’t stand without help, and their fine motor control (i.e. hands and fingers) was nonexistent.
Then was the loss of Bone Density.
Apparently, bearing the weight of the body was really important for the maintenance of the skeleton.
Going two years without putting weight on it and then suddenly putting weight on it apparently puts them at significant risk of fracturing their bones just by trying to stand up.
Not only would the rehab for that require assisted standing frames and constant monitoring for stress fractures, but full recovery would take 1 - 2 years.
And even then, they might never recover fully.
On top of all that, their cardiovascular systems were so badly fucked up, that their blood pressure was completely unstable, and they couldn't even walk across a room without getting exhausted to the point of fainting.
And that’s just the basic stuff; it got worse when it came to their internal organs.
So, yeah. On top of all the trauma and death they'd gone through in the game thanks to the machinations of Kayaba AKA Heathcliff, the knowledge that they may never fully recover from the state that their bodies had spent 2 whole years in, that had pretty much everyone depressed all to hell.
Many would-be athletes cried at the full knowledge of what was taken from them. It would be years before they were well enough to train to get back to the level they were, if ever.
Honor students who prided themselves on their academics were horrified. Not only had they missed on 2 years of education while trying to stay alive, but they were now terrified of the damage they could do to their emaciated hands just by trying to write or type. Or how they might keel over from heart problems during the next stressful test or exam.
Then there were the adults. Whether self-employed, business owners, or employees, most of them were screwed. Some went into SAO having job opportunities that had were no longer there when they came out. Some were loyal and long-standing employees who woke up to their positions being held by someone else. A scant few were lucky enough to avoid this fate thanks to their family and friends in the real world, but most of them had to worry about money and where they'd live after they got out of hospital.
But for some of them, that wasn't even the worst part.
It wasn’t the loss of their ability to function that hit most of the teenage players the hardest—it was the realization that they had no way to contact the friends they’d made in [Aincrad].
Most players had followed an unwritten rule: never talk about real life. As a result, those friendships existed only under player names, with no connection to the world outside the game.
Only those who had known each other before SAO—friends, classmates, siblings—could reconnect easily.
Everyone else was left with nothing but names that meant everything in one world… but nothing in this one.
Though they tried not to show it, more than a few of them despaired at that knowledge.
A pig-tailed Tamer bawled her eyes out, missing the comfort of her beloved Dragon's feathers against her flesh, and of being surrounded by her friends.
A formerly pink-haired former blacksmith sobbed in the arms of her parents. She couldn't bare it, the knowledge of what Kayaba had taken from her. The hands with which she planned to create machines that would improve lives, couldn’t even hold a pencil now.
A formerly whiskered Rat curled into a ball on her bed and silently cried, missing the friends she'd made, wanting nothing more than to wake up in her apartment and for all of this to be a dream, and despairing at what she knew came next for her.
If a brown-haired fencer were awake, she'd be in pieces. Not just at her current state, but more so at the separation from her husband and daughter. But even with floating castle having collapsed, her troubles in the virtual world were not over just yet.
And last but not least, a black swordsman was broken.
Completely and utterly broken.
Though he had wanted so badly to survive and escape the death game, he'd come to like who he had become in SAO.
[The Black Swordsman] was everything he wanted to be. He was strong, he was fast, he couldn’t be pushed around by someone bigger or stronger than him.
And he had friends too.
Real, actual friends, instead of just people he'd diss in game lobbies before killing in under a minute.
Or classmates who thought he was weird for spending all his time alone on browsing game wikis for lore, or looking for interesting new mods to add to his games to spice up gameplay.
But it was all gone now.
The world where he'd become someone he was proud of?
The one, singular place in existence where he had the social leverage to make anyone like him?
Gone.
The friends he'd made and could say confidently that he would die for?
The girl he'd fallen in love with?
Cut off.
But the real life that he'd been trying so hard to avoid?
Back in action, and shittier than ever before!
The only other people in the world who could ever understand how they felt, and they were cut off from them "for their own good".
What bullshit.