Project Alicization, July 2026 Part 3

"The problem was that there were no problems. It was all too

peaceful. The operation was too neat, too tidy. We should have

realized the issue when those first sixteen children ended up surprisingly obedient to their parents…It's normal for humans to

fight and compete. In fact, that's one of our defining natures. But

there's no strife in this virtual world. There have been no wars in

our simulation—not even any murders. That was part of the reason for our startling population growth. We set up the world to

practically eliminate disease and natural disaster, so people only

die of old age…"

"It sounds like a utopia," Rinko remarked.

Higa smirked and asked, "Has there ever been a utopian story

that actually turned out to be a utopia?"

"…Well, it's not much of a story that way, is it? And the goal of

your virtual society isn't to be entertaining, is it?"

"Certainly not. But we are looking for realism," Kikuoka said.

He walked away from the console and toward the giant screen,

wooden sandals clacking. "Those artificial fluctlights should have

the same desires as us, so why is there no conflict? We studied

the way they live, and we realized that there was one ironclad rule

system built into the world. A massive book of laws, created in excruciating detail by the priests of the Axiom Church, called the

Taboo Index. One of those laws forbids murder. Of course, we

have that law in the real world, too. But all you need to do is

watch the morning news to find out how closely we actually follow that law. Yet the fluctlights follow the law…to a troubling degree. Put another way, they are incapable of breaking the law.

Something built into them prevents it."

"…Isn't that a good thing?" Rinko wondered. "Based on that, it

almost sounds like they're superior to us."

"You might argue that is, in fact, the case. Higa, put the camera back on Centoria."

"Sure."

Higa tapped a key on the console. The footage of that foreign

city that had been on the screen when Rinko and Asuna entered

the room came back. People dressed in simple but pristine clothing walked to and fro among chalky white buildings adorned with

tree roots.

"Oh…! You mean this is—?" Rinko asked, staring at the screen

in wonder.

Higa nodded proudly. "Yep, this is Centoria, the capital of our

artificial fluctlights' world. Of course, what we're seeing is the

polygonal data rendered on the lower server, so it's nowhere near

as detailed, and the display speed is at a thousandth of the speed

it's actually happening."

"Centoria…So they're actually capable of coming up with their

own proper names, too? Does the world itself have a name, according to them?" Rinko wondered idly.

Kikuoka looked a bit embarrassed and cleared his throat. "Actually, it does have a name…but it's not originally from the fluctlights. We had our own project code name for our virtual world,

and it seems to have stuck inside the simulation. The name of this

realm is the Underworld."

"Under…world…"

Rinko had already heard this name from Asuna, but she didn't

know it was also used within the world itself. She supposed that

Higa and the others had chosen it out of Alice in Wonderland not

to refer to a subterranean realm but a world that existed under

reality itself. Yet the beautiful city on the monitor looked more

like heaven than anything.

Kikuoka seemed to have read her mind. "Yes, this city is beautiful. We, too, are impressed that our humble little wood-built village has led to architecture of this scale and complexity. But if

you ask me, this city is too neatly contained. There's not a single

piece of litter on the streets, not a single pickpocket, and most

certainly not a single murderer out there. And it's all because no

one dares to violate the extreme laws handed down by that Axiom

Church in the distance."

"And what's the problem with that?" she asked again, but

Kikuoka didn't respond. He seemed to be searching for the right

words. Higa was suspiciously avoiding her gaze. He wasn't about

to speak up.

Asuna, who had been listening all along, eventually broke the

silence in Control Room One. The youngest person present said,

with cold, quiet precision, "Because that's not what they want, Dr.

Koujiro. The ultimate goal of this massive project isn't to simply

create a high-functioning, bottom-up AI…It's to create an AI that

can kill enemy soldiers in a war."

"Wha…?"

Rinko, Kikuoka, and Higa were all speechless. Asuna stared at

each of them in turn. She continued, "The entire time coming

here, I wondered why Mr. Kikuoka—the military Self-Defense

Force—would be trying to create an adaptive AI. For a long time,

Kirito and I suspected that you were interested in VRMMOs as a

means to assist police and military training. So at first, I wondered if the AIs were meant to model enemy soldiers for training

purposes. But the more I thought about it, there's no actual danger in doing VR training exercises, and if you need to emulate real

soldiers, just have the trainees work against one another in

teams. We've done mock battles like that ourselves."

She paused and looked around at the array of machines and

the giant monitor. "And this project is far too huge to be for a

training program. At some point, you started thinking about the

next phase, Mr. Kikuoka. You started contemplating using a VRtrained AI to fight real wars."

The military officer's poker face broke for just a second, betraying a look of shock. Then he smiled. "I was always thinking of

that."

His voice was mild but covering a core of solid steel. "Using

VR technology for military training was being tested back in the

days of head-mounted displays and motion sensors, well before

full-dive tech came along. Some of those artifacts are on display

at our Ichigaya R&D facility at this very moment. When the

NerveGear was announced five years ago, we and the American

military immediately decided to work on a training program for

it. But once I witnessed the SAO beta test for myself, I changed

my tune. That world held greater possibilities. Something that

could change the very concept of war itself. When the SAO Incident arose later that year, I volunteered to join the Ministry of Internal Affairs and take a position on the incident task force so I

could monitor the situation directly. It was all to get this project

off the ground. And five years later, look how far we've come."

"…"

Rinko had no words. Things were going in a very different direction than what she had anticipated. It was hard even to collect

her thoughts into some kind of logical statement.

"I was only in elementary school during the Iraq War, but I remember it well. There was lots of footage of the American military sending in unmanned drones and miniature remote-controlled tanks to attack the enemy. Is that what you're talking

about? Putting AIs into those to create autonomous weapons capable of killing the enemy on their own…?"

"I wasn't the only one with that idea. This sort of research has

been underway in many nations around the world, especially

America. I'm sure that the memories are painful to you, Asuna,"

Kikuoka said, pausing to make sure that she wasn't visibly upset,

"but I believe you're aware that when Nobuyuki Sugou had you

and other SAO players trapped in that virtual world, he was trying to use his research data as a bargaining chip to sell his efforts

to an American company. His contact was with GrowGen Microelectronics, a top company in the VR industry. It goes to show

how lucrative the military applications of full-diving are that even

a leader in the field would make an illegal deal to get something

like that. Like you just mentioned, Dr. Koujiro, unmanned

weapons are the top interest of the American military-industrial

complex at the moment. Most particularly, UAVs—unmanned air

vehicles, or drones."

Higa considerately switched the monitor over to a new visual.

This one was a small aircraft with a long, narrow body and several sets of wings. There were little missile-like tubes under the

wings and no windows at all.

"This is an American reconnaissance drone. It doesn't need a

cockpit, so they can shrink it down quite a lot, and they designed

the body so that it doesn't show up on radar for stealth purposes.

The previous generation of drones had a pilot watching a monitor

at a remote location and controlling it with foot pedals and a joystick. But this one is different."

The screen shifted again, showing a soldier who was presumably the operator. But he was sunk deep into a reclining chair, his

hands resting limply on his legs. On his head was a helmet very

familiar to Rinko: a NerveGear. The exterior coloring and fine details of the shell were different, but it was clearly a device of that

type.

Next to her, Asuna's expression was frozen in a wide-eyed

stare. Rinko looked back at Kikuoka, and he continued his

speech.

"In this state, the operator is inside a virtual cockpit, controlling the craft as though he is actually inside it. This allows him to

perform reconnaissance of enemy forces and fire his missiles. The

problem is that because our remote control relies on radio signals, it renders us very vulnerable to ECM, or jamming. Over ten

years ago, there was an incident where an American spy drone

was hit with jamming signals over a country in the Middle East,

made a crash landing, and was recovered by the enemy. It nearly

sparked another conflict."

"So you're going to try AI instead? So the craft can act on its

own without human input?" Rinko asked. Kikuoka looked away

from the monitor toward her and nodded.

"Ultimately, we want it to be capable of winning a dogfight

against a human-piloted jet fighter. I believe that even our current artificial fluctlights, if given a proper training program, are

capable of this. But there's one big problem. How do you teach

these bodiless soldiers the concept of war? Murder is fundamentally evil, but in war, the enemy soldiers must be killed. Our current fluctlights are incapable of assimilating that paradox. To

them, the law is something that does not allow for the slightest

exception."

He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose again, a

crease forming between his brows.

"In order to test the law-abiding nature of the Underworld residents, we gave them a kind of stress test, if you will. We chose

one isolated village in the mountains and killed off two-thirds of

their crops and livestock. In other words, it would be impossible

for the entire village to survive the winter. For the village to last

as a whole, they would have to cut off some of their number and

distribute the food unfairly—thus defying the rule outlawing murder in the Taboo Index. Instead…they chose to distribute that

meager harvest equally among all the villagers, including the elderly and babies. They all starved before the spring. They are fundamentally unable to turn their backs on laws and rules, no matter how unfortunate the outcome. In other words, for them to

serve as pilots in their current state, they would need a primary

directive that states 'human beings are meant to be killed.' And

even I can imagine what sort of result that would produce…"

He crossed his muscular arms over his chest and shook his

head helplessly. Rinko couldn't help but envision that outcome. A

swarm of drones, looking nothing like traditional aircraft, slaughtering soldiers and civilians alike with missiles and machine guns.

She rubbed her prickling forearms.

"…You must be joking. Why would you risk such incredible

danger to put AI on a weapon? Why can't remote control be good

enough, even with its limitations? In fact, just the concept of an

unmanned weapon is unacceptable to me."

"I'm not saying I don't understand your point of view. The first

time I saw an American drone tank carrying a large-caliber sniper

rifle, I honestly thought it was grotesque. But there's no fighting

it…unmanned weaponry is simply a fact of life in the developed

nations," he said, holding up a finger like a history teacher.

Kikuoka continued, "Let's take America as an example—the

largest military in the world. They suffered four hundred thousand casualties in World War Two. Despite all that death and

loss, President Roosevelt enjoyed incredible support from the

populace, and he served as the commander in chief for an unprecedented thirteen years in four terms, until he died of a stroke.

I hate the phrase the spirit of the times, but let's be honest:

Eighty years ago, the spirit of the times said that any amount of

loss was justified as long as the country was victorious."

A second finger extended from his thick fist.

"Later, in the Vietnam War, there were widespread protests

against the war, led by students. While President Johnson was

unpopular enough not to seek reelection, there were sixty thousand dead soldiers under his watch. They still sent soldiers off to

die in war for the cause of anti-Communism. But under that long,

tentative peace of the Cold War, the sentiments of the people

began to change…and then that era came to an end with the fall

of the Soviet Union. Without the threat of Communism, the only

way that America could support its massive military-industrial

complex was to find a new enemy to fight: terrorism."

He held up a third finger.

"But in this battle, there was no flag under which the populace

would accept the death of soldiers. The number of American casualties in the Iraq War at the start of this century was just

around four thousand, but that number was enough to significantly destabilize the Bush administration. For that reason,

among others, he ended his term with the worst historical level of

support. You could say it was inevitable that his Republican nominee successor, John McCain, suffered defeat at the hands of the

Democrat Barack Obama and his pledge to withdraw forces from

Iraq. In other words…"

He lowered his hand, took a breath, and concluded his long

lecture.

"It is no longer an era in which it is acceptable for people to

fight in wars. But that country cannot stop fighting wars—or, in

more accurate terms, it cannot stop allotting an enormous slice of

the pie to its defense budget. As a result, future wars will be

fought drone versus human or drone versus drone."

"…I understand the American quandary. Not that I necessarily

agree with it," Rinko admitted. She found the idea of using drone

weapons to fight war cleanly to be horrifying. She glared at

Kikuoka and pressed him again. "But why is a defense officer of

Japan trying to jump into that ridiculous arms race? Or are the

Americans leading all this Rath research?"

"Certainly not!" Kikuoka shouted, a rarity for him. But then

his smile returned, and he spread his arms theatrically. "If anything, we're floating out here in the open sea to hide ourselves

from the American military. They've got perfect tabs on all our

bases on the mainland, of course. But as for why I'm going to

such lengths to pursue autonomous drone weapons…it's not an

easy thing to explain. Would it be appropriate to say that it would

be similar to asking Dr. Kayaba why he created SAO?"

"No, it wouldn't," Rinko said brusquely. Kikuoka smirked and

shrugged.

"Pardon me. That was insensitive to ask. Let's see…The biggest

reason is that the current foundation of our self-defense capabilities is extremely lacking."

"Self-defense…foundation?"

"Let's call it the ability to develop and produce weapons from

scratch. In a sense, this is completely natural, as Japan cannot export weapons. And given that any weapons manufacturers can

only make deals with the SDF by law, all that development cost

has no chance of being recouped. As a result, we either have to

import or codevelop with the Americans any cutting-edge tech.

But this 'codevelopment' is only in name; it's really a much more

one-sided deal."

He fixed the sleeves of his yukata, crossed his arms, and proceeded bitterly. "For example, we currently use aerial support

fighters 'codeveloped' with the Americans. But in fact, they kept

their secrets close to their chest, took the cutting-edge material

we came up with, and ran off with it. The weapons that we buy

from them are even worse. We just imported some state-of-theart fighter jets, and they came with no system control software—

the actual brains of the vehicle. The American military thinks we

should get their leftovers and be grateful for the scraps. Oops,

pardon me…I'm getting sidetracked into my usual griping."

He smirked again and crossed his legs atop the console desk,

dangling his sandals from the ends of his toes.

"A small number of military officers and some younger techs

from the smaller defense contractors have been feeling like this is

a dangerous state of events. It's not good for us to rely on the

Americans for the core of our defensive capability. That anxiety

was the force behind Rath's founding. We wanted to create a

technology that was truly Japan's. That's all we really want."

Rinko wasn't sure how seriously to take this lofty statement.

She gazed at those narrow, shining eyes behind his black-rimmed

glasses. But, as usual, they only reflected back at her like mirrors.

Instead, she addressed Higa. "Is your motive for participating

in this the same? I had no idea that national defense was such a

concern of yours."

"Well," Takeru Higa mumbled, scratching his head shyly, "my

motive is more personal. I had a friend from a Korean college

when I was a student. When he did his mandatory service, he was

deployed in Iraq and killed by a suicide bomber. So I thought…if

we can't erase war from the world, maybe we can at least stop

people from dying in it…It's childish reasoning, I know."

"But your military friend over here thinks that your unmanned

weaponry will be for the JSDF only."

"Well, if we're being honest, and with all respect to Kiku, technology never stays unique for long. He knows that, too, I suspect.

He doesn't want a monopoly on the tech; he just wants to stay a

step ahead…Isn't that right?"

Kikuoka grimaced yet again; it was a brutally frank assessment. Just then, the beautiful, cold voice of Asuna interrupted the

adults.

"And you did not speak a word of these laudable beliefs to Kirito, did you?"

"…What makes you say that?" Kikuoka asked in surprise.

She met his gaze without flinching. "Because if you had, he

would not have helped you. Your ideas are completely missing

one very important aspect."

"…Which is?"

"The rights of the AIs."

Kikuoka raised an eyebrow at that. "Well, you're correct in that

I did not tell him what I just told you, but that's only because I

didn't have the opportunity. He's a stone-cold realist, isn't he? He

couldn't have beaten SAO otherwise."

"You don't get it. If Kirito understood the true nature of the

Underworld, he would be furious at the developers. To him, reality is wherever he is. He doesn't think of anything as 'virtual,'

worlds or lives. That's how he could beat SAO."

"You're right, I don't get it. Artificial fluctlights have no flesh

bodies. If that isn't virtual life, what is?"

Asuna looked mournful. In fact, she looked pitying.

"Well, this might be pointless, since I doubt you'll understand

anyway…But I'll tell you that on the fifty-sixth floor of Aincrad, I

said something similar to him. There was a boss we just couldn't

beat, so our idea was to use NPCs—AI villagers—as bait. We'd

draw the monster into the village and jump on it while it was attacking the villagers. But Kirito was absolutely dead set against it.

He said that the NPCs were alive, too, and there had to be another way. The people in my guild laughed at him…but he was

right. Even if your artificial fluctlights are all just copies produced

en masse on storage media, Kirito would never support your idea

of using them as tools of war. Never."

"Look, I understand what you're saying. Yes, the artificial

fluctlights have the same ability to think that we do. In that sense,

they are alive. But this is an issue of weight and priority. To me,

the lives of one hundred thousand artificial fluctlights are worth

less than a single soldier's."

Rinko sensed that there would be no consensus in this debate.

The issue of whether or not artificial intelligence had rights could

be argued for years after the announcement of a true bottom-up

AI, without any definitive answer.

She didn't even know how she felt about the issue. The rational, scientist side of her said that a copied soul was not a true life.

But at the same time, part of her wondered what he would say.

The man who had always wished for another place, far, far away,

eventually created it and left, never to return…

She had to cut off that line of thought before it threatened to

drag her into the past. She had to break the silence.

"Why did you need Kirigaya, anyway? Why him, to the extent

that you endangered your most sensitive secrets…?"

"Ah, yes. I started up this long discussion to answer that question. It took so long that I nearly forgot," Kikuoka said, smiling

and clearing his throat to escape Asuna's magnetic, accusing gaze.

"We had our own debates on staff: Are the Underworld residents

unable to disobey the Taboo Index because of a structural issue

with fluctlights and their lightcube storage, or is it a factor of the

growth process? If it's the former, we'd need to redesign our storage format, but if it's the latter, we might be able to fix it. So we

did a little test. We took a staffer, blocked all of their real human

memories, then raised them in the Underworld as a child. That

way we could see if they turned out the same as all the artificial

fluctlights."

"And…and was the test subject's brain unharmed? You're basically making them relive life from childhood…Wouldn't they run

out of memory space?"

"Not a problem. Remember how I told you that fluctlights can

hold about one hundred and fifty years of memories? I don't

know why the margin is so much larger than our life span…but

after all, the Bible claims that people in Noah's era lived for centuries. At any rate, I'm only speaking of raising to the age of ten.

That should be an old enough age to see if they can break the

Taboo Index or not. Naturally, they exited the STL in the exact

state they entered it, since we blocked all those memories upon

leaving."

"And what happened…?"

"We recruited eight test subjects from the staff and had them

raised in the Underworld in various environments. To our surprise, all the way until the test ended when they turned ten, not a

single one of them broke the Taboo Index. In fact, contrary to expectations, they were all less active on average than the fluctlight

children, avoided going outside, and showed an inability to integrate with others. We surmised that this was due to discomfort."

"Discomfort?"

"Having their original life memories blocked doesn't mean

they're gone. If that were true, we couldn't bring them back to

real life in the same state. In other words, it's the instincts and

fundamentals of things like body movement, not the knowledge,

that prevented the test subjects from feeling at ease in the Underworld. The virtual world might seem real, but it's still a product of

The Seed. If you dove in, you'd see that the sensations are just

slightly different from those in real life. It's the same kind of

slight, alienating discomfort I felt the first time I tried on a

NerveGear for the SAO beta test."

"It's the sense of gravity," Asuna said.

"Gravity…?"

"The research on our sense of gravity and balance lags behind

our understanding of visual and audio sensory signals. Most of

our visual signals are complemented by the brain's sense of gravity, which is why people who aren't used to it have trouble moving."

"Exactly. It's getting used to it," Kikuoka noted, snapping his

fingers. "We did all those tests until we finally realized that what

we needed were test subjects accustomed to the virtual environment. Experience not in terms of weeks or months but years. You

understand now? I needed the help of the person with the most

virtual experience in all of—"

"Hang on," Asuna interrupted, her voice hard. "Was that the

three-day continuous dive Kirito was talking about? But he said

the maximum acceleration rate of the FLA was three, so it was no

more than ten days on the inside. Did you lie to him? Was it really ten years…?"

Kikuoka and Higa wilted guiltily under her fierce gaze.

"I'm sorry; that was a mistake of the Roppongi branch. I ordered them to keep the acceleration rate completely under

wraps…"

"That makes it even worse! You got ten years of Kirito's soul

for your own purposes—if you fail to recuperate him, I will never

forgive you for what you've done."

"This is not an excuse, but both Higa and I have already dedicated over twenty years to the experiment. But the ten years we

got from Kirito provided us with results far, far greater than the

sum of all our staff fluctlights together."

"Meaning that as he grew inside the Underworld, he took actions that defied the Taboo Index?" Rinko asked despite herself.

Kikuoka grinned.

"Technically, he did not. But ultimately, the result was much

greater than we had hoped for. From a young age, Kirito displayed a boundless curiosity and agency not seen in the other test

subjects and was punished on many occasions for very nearly

breaking the Taboo Index's laws. Of course, this is not entirely a

thing to celebrate, as his success would have indicated a structural flaw in our artificial fluctlights. Still, we watched him

closely. At around seven years of internal time…Higa here noticed

something quite fascinating."

Kikuoka paused there, allowing Higa to take over the story.

"Yup! I was originally against putting Kirigaya into the experiment for both ethical and security reasons, but when I saw what

happened, I had to be impressed with Kiku's insight into the kid.

We assign numerical weights to the individual laws within the

Taboo Index and measure the numbers of each individual according to how close they get to a brush with the law. It turned out

that a fluctlight boy and girl who were particularly close to Kirigaya—or Kirito, as he was known in the test—also saw their numbers explode."

"Huh? Meaning…?"

"Meaning that despite his own memories and personality from

the real world being blocked off, Kirito exhibited a strong influence on the actions of the artificial fluctlights around him. Or, if

you want to be more frank, his boisterous nature rubbed off on

the other kids."

Rinko noticed a small grin tug at Asuna's mouth. She must

have been able to picture it for herself.

"We still haven't actually figured out the reason the artificial

fluctlights don't ever break their rules," Higa continued, "and it's

probably something to do with the structure of the lightcubes we

store them in. But we don't consider identifying that our top priority anymore. We don't need to solve the problem; we just need

to find an exception. If we can produce a single true adaptive AI

that has integrated the concept of priority rankings, we can just

reproduce that instance to achieve some measure of success in

our experiment."

"I'm not a fan of that way of thinking. But it's true that most

breakthroughs happen through methods like that," Rinko had to

admit. "And did you get that exception?"

"We did have it in our hands once. Just before the end of the

experiment, the girl who Kirito was closest to actually did break a

taboo. And it was a serious one—access to a restricted address.

According to the log, she witnessed another artificial fluctlight die

within that restricted area; I'm guessing she thought she could

save it. Do you understand? She put another person's life over the

Taboo Index. That's the adaptive ability we're looking for. Of

course, it's ironic that this particular action was our breakthrough, given that we're hoping to develop them into military

tools."

"…You said, 'We had it in our hands,' though."

"Er, right. It's kind of embarrassing to admit…but that little

gem slipped right through our fingers…"

Higa slumped his shoulders, shook his head. "Like we said

earlier, the Underworld simulation happens at a thousand times

the speed of the real world. It's pretty much impossible to monitor that in real time, so our process basically works by slowing

down already recorded events so that multiple operators can examine them. Inevitably, there's a major lag from us to the internal time. When we spotted that the girl had violated the Taboo

Index, we paused the server and tried to physically eject the

lightcube storing her fluctlight…but two days had already passed

in internal time by then. To our amazement, in those two days,

the Axiom Church had already taken her to the central city and

performed a corrective measure on her fluctlight."

"C-corrective? You gave your experiment subjects the ability to

do that?"

"Of course not. Or…we thought not. For the sake of maintaining order, we designated all the Underworld residents with certain authority levels. The individuals with higher levels have the

ability to perform certain system commands in the form of 'sacred arts.' But even the high priests of the Axiom Church, who

have the highest authority levels of all, can do little more than

manipulate the length of a life span. Somehow, they found some

kind of loophole in the system…Actually, I can show you the

recorded data we have. Here's Alice's past and present taboo violation numbers."

"Alice…?" whispered Asuna. Her head shot up. Rinko had

heard about the significance of that name, too. It was the code

name for the bottom-up AI that Kikuoka and Higa were trying to

create.

Kikuoka nodded, recognizing the reactions of the two women.

"That's right. Alice is the name of the girl who spent all her

time with Kirito and another boy in the simulation. Nearly all of

the Underworld residents' names are odd and seemingly random

syllables. So when we found out that the girl's name just happened to be Alice, the coincidence was stunning. After all, it's the

name of the very concept that was the foundation for Rath and

everything we are doing in this experiment."

"Concept…?"

"Our highly adaptive and autonomous artificial intelligence.

Artificial Labile Intelligent Cybernetic Existence. Or in acronym

form, ALICE. Our ultimate goal is to turn the clouds of photons

trapped in those lightcubes into a single Alice. In other words, to

Alice-ize them."

Lieutenant Colonel Seijirou Kikuoka had revealed his deepest

secret, yet that strange smile of his still harbored mystery.

"Welcome…to Project Alicization."

3

What an unbelievable thing they've built.

The machine was created with data she'd provided herself, and

yet Rinko Koujiro couldn't help but marvel at it.

On the other side of the thick glass wall, two massive cuboid

shapes loomed, nearly tall enough to reach the ceiling. Their exterior was plain aluminum sheeting, but that dull gray shine only

accentuated their mechanical nature. They were several times

larger than even the Medicuboid, to say nothing of the NerveGear

apparatus.

Naturally, there were no manufacturer logos, just a simple

English font on the side reading SOUL TRANSLATOR, as well as large

numerals designating unit numbers. The machine on the left was

4 and the one on the right was 5. The soul-reading devices were

right there in view at last, and Rinko gazed at them for nearly half

a minute before she finally spoke.

"Four…? So that's the fourth one? And the other is Unit Five?"

It was the only way to interpret the numbers, and yet there

were only two machines in the clean room on the other side of the

glass. A hushed voice on her right began to explain.

"Test Unit One is at our Roppongi branch office, utilizing a

satellite connection. Units Two and Three are also on the Ocean

Turtle, but as you can see from their size, there isn't enough room

here. They're located in the lower shaft. Or, more accurately,

Units Four and Five couldn't fit down there, which is why they're

here in the upper shaft."

The voice belonged to the person who had guided Rinko and

Asuna here, but it was not Kikuoka, Higa, or Lieutenant Nakanishi. It was not even a man. She wore a white uniform over her

tall, shapely body, flat-soled slip-on shoes, and the distinctive hat

of a nurse.

It was strange to imagine a nurse in a place like this, but given

the sheer size of the ship, there would naturally be an infirmary

somewhere and medical staff to operate it.

The nurse, who sported braided hair and rimless glasses,

tapped her tablet device and turned it to show Rinko. It displayed

a cross-section map of the Ocean Turtle. Her finely trimmed nails

traced a vertical line through the center of the craft.

"There is a reinforced tube at the center of the pyramid that we

call the 'main shaft.' It's about sixty feet across and over three

hundred feet deep. Not only does it support each of the floors of

the ship deck, it's also the barrier that separates and protects our

most sensitive and crucial capabilities. That includes the control

system for the ship itself and the core of the Alicization project—

the four STLs and the Lightcube Cluster that serves as its mainframe."

"Ah…So what makes them upper and lower shafts, then?"

"A barrier wall made of the same titanium alloy as the vertical

walls splits the main shaft horizontally. So the space above the

barrier is the upper shaft, and the space below is the lower shaft.

We're currently in Control Room Two, located in the upper shaft.

The staff calls this one Subcon for short."

"I see. So I'm guessing that Control Room One down in the

lower shaft is normally called Maincon?"

"Very perceptive, Dr. Koujiro," the nurse said with a smile.

Rinko turned to her left toward the silent girl. Asuna Yuuki

had her hands pressed to the glass as she gazed intently at Unit

Four. Specifically, at the boy lying on the gel bed connected to the

base of Unit Four.

There were a number of monitoring electrodes under his white

hospital wear and a micro-injector placed in his left arm. His face

was out of sight, swallowed above the shoulder by the STL. But

Asuna could tell that he was Kazuto Kirigaya, the boy she sought.

She had eyes only for Kazuto, showing no sign that she noticed

Rinko's attention. Eventually, her long eyelashes lowered, and

her lips moved without sound. A little drop grew at the corner of

her eye, trembling in place without falling.

Rinko tried to say something, anything that could comfort

Asuna, but to her surprise, the nurse spoke first. "It's all right,

Asuna. I'm sure that he will come back to us."

She strode forward to Asuna's side and reached out to the

girl's shoulder, but Asuna turned to avoid the touch, brushed

aside her tears, and put on a confrontational attitude.

"Of course he will. But…why are you here, too, Ms. Aki?"

"What…? You know each other?" Rinko asked, surprised.

Asuna nodded. "Yes, she was the nurse at the hospital in Chiyoda. I don't know what she's doing out here on the open sea,

though."

"I'm taking care of Kirigaya, of course."

"What about your job? Or was the nurse thing just a front, like

with Mr. Kikuoka?" Asuna accused. The nurse named Aki grinned

and shrugged, totally unfazed.

"No. Unlike his little disguise, I really am a nurse with national

credentials. It just so happens that I graduated from SDF Tokyo

Hospital Nursing School."

"…That explains many things," Asuna said.

Rinko was still unsure. "Umm, I'm afraid I don't quite understand…What kind of person is this Ms. Aki?"

"Well, it's true that she's a nurse. It's just that there's more to

the story than that," Asuna explained. "As a basic rule, nurses

who graduate from the school attached to the SDF hospital then

go on to work at SDF hospitals. Yet she was looking after victims

of the SAO Incident at the hospital in Chiyoda. Which means that

Mr. Kikuoka had something to do with that. Correct?"

"Very perceptive, Asuna," Aki said, repeating the compliment

she had given Rinko just a minute earlier.

Asuna glared at the tall nurse and added, "One more thing. I

read in the school's career guidance materials that registering at

the SDF hospital's nursing school is essentially treated like joining the SDF itself. So doesn't that mean that in addition to being a

nurse, you're also—?"

Nurse Aki slashed her hand out, cutting off Asuna's question.

She then lifted it to her forehead in a crisp salute.

"Sergeant First Class Natsuki Aki, on duty! Kirigaya's physical

health and general well-being are under my jurisdiction! Teehee…" she said with a little wink.

Asuna stared at her, half in shock and half annoyed. She

sighed and bowed her head. "Please be good to him." Then she

turned back toward STL Unit Four and gazed at the boy lying on

the gel bed, just ten feet away, yet out of reach behind the glass.

"You'll come back…won't you, Kirito?" she mumbled.

Nurse Aki bobbed her head and actually got a hand on Asuna's

shoulder this time. "Of course he will. His neural network is repairing as planned, so it won't be long before he wakes up. Plus…

he's the hero who beat SAO, after all."

Those words brought a sharp, prickling pain to Rinko's chest.

She took a deep breath to numb the sensation, then walked forward to Asuna's other side and looked up at the massive machine.

Eight o'clock PM.

Rinko looked up from her wristwatch and summoned the determination to press the metal button marked CALL. Within a few

seconds, the speaker next to the door replied, "Yes?"

"It's me, Koujiro. May I talk with you for a bit?"

"Hang on, I'll open the door."

The intercom panel's light changed from red to green, and the

motorized door slid open.

Rinko walked into the room. Asuna bowed in greeting from

her position next to the bed; there was a remote control in her

hand. The door shut behind Rinko, and the lock clicked into

place.

The cabin interior was exactly the same as Rinko's across the

hallway. The standard-size room was lined with off-white resin

paneling and contained only a fixed bed, table, and sofa, plus one

small computer for accessing the ship's network. While escorting

them here, Lieutenant Nakanishi had described them as "firstclass cabins," so Rinko had envisioned some kind of luxury cruise

suite, but apparently the only thing that defined these as firstclass was the presence of a small private bathroom.

The one difference in Asuna's room was a narrow window on

the other side of the bed, meaning it was positioned along the

outer edge of the Ocean Turtle, where the generator panels were.

They had climbed several floors on the elevator, so the sunset

view through that window would have been gorgeous, but it was

now pitch-black outside. The cloud layer hid even the stars from

view.

"Please, sit down," Asuna said.

Rinko set down the bottles of oolong tea she had bought from

the vending machine next to the elevator and sat on the stiff sofa.

She very nearly let out a "Hoo-boy!" when she bent down. Rinko

considered herself to be young, but in the presence of the dazzling

beauty of Asuna in her T-shirt and short pants, she felt acutely

conscious of her approaching thirties.

"Go ahead, have some tea," she offered, pushing one of the

bottles forward.

Asuna tipped her head and smiled. "Thank you, I was just feeling thirsty."

"Did you give the tap water a try?" Rinko smirked. The girl

rolled her eyes.

"It made the water in Tokyo taste good."

"Well, it's made from desalinated seawater, so at the very

least, you don't have to worry about those carcinogenic disinfectants. It might even be better for you than those bottles of deepsea water they sell at the store. Still, one mouthful was enough for

me."

She twisted off the cap of the tea bottle and took a deep swig of

the cold liquid. She would have preferred a good beer, but she'd

have to travel down to the cafeteria for that.

Rinko exhaled and glanced at Asuna again. "It's too bad you

couldn't get a look at his face."

"Still, he seemed like he was doing well to me. Maybe he was

having an enjoyable dream," Asuna said with a smile. It was as

though the panic that had gripped her the last few days had finally run its course.

"You've got a real headache of a boyfriend, kid. Going ghost on

you, popping up on a cruise in subtropical seas…You'd better get

a collar around his neck."

"I'll look into it." Asuna chuckled. She inclined her head

deeply toward Rinko. "I'm so grateful to you, Dr. Koujiro. I can't

believe you indulged this crazy request of mine…There's no way I

can ever properly thank you."

"Oh, stop it. Just call me Rinko. Besides, this is just a drop in

the bucket for what I did to Kirigaya and you," she said, shaking

her head. She summoned her courage and stared Asuna right in

the eyes. "There's something…I need to tell you. Not just you…

Everyone who was stuck in SAO…"

"…"

Rinko made certain not to break away from Asuna's direct

gaze. She sucked in a deep breath, exhaled, and undid two buttons on her cotton shirt. She lifted a silver necklace out of the way

of the gap to expose a diagonal surgical scar to the left of her sternum.

"Do you know…what this scar is from?"

Asuna stared unflinchingly at the spot directly above Rinko's

heart. Eventually, her head bobbed. "Yes. It's the spot where the

remote-detonation micro-bomb was implanted, wasn't it? That's

how the guild leader—Akihiko Kayaba—was able to keep you in

line for two years."

"Correct…That's how he forced me to participate in his awful

project and manage his physical body while he was in that longterm dive…At least, according to the rest of society. That's how I

avoided prosecution or having my identity made public, and I got

to escape to America…"

Rinko put her necklace and shirt back in place, then summoned the courage to continue. "But the truth is different. The

explosive they detected at the police hospital was real, and it

could have gone off. But I knew that it wouldn't. It was just camouflage. He put that weapon inside me as a bluff, to ensure that I

wouldn't be tried for my part in the scheme after it was all said

and done. It was the only present he ever gave me."

Asuna's expression never changed. Her pure, clear eyes

seemed to penetrate to the deepest layers of Rinko's heart. Staring, ever staring.

"Kayaba and I started dating my first year of college, and we

were together for six years, until I finished my master's. But…I

suppose I was the only one who believed that. I was older than

you are now but far, far stupider. I had no idea what was going on

in his mind. I never, ever realized the one thing that he really

wanted."

She glanced out the window at the endless night sea and

slowly, bit by bit, began to utter the things that she'd been holding in for the last four years. The name that had brought a sharp

pain to her chest just at its recollection slid out of her mouth with

surprising ease.

Akihiko Kayaba was already in charge of Argus's third development team when he went straight into one of the most prestigious

engineering schools in Japan. As a high schooler, he had sublicensed a number of game-creation programs that had launched

Argus from being a third-tier company to an internationally

renowned one, so it wasn't hard to believe that he'd be placed in a

management position there soon after beginning college.

Kayaba's income at age eighteen was said to be in the hundreds of millions of yen, and the sum total of all his licensing fees

thus far had to be astronomical. Inevitably, a number of female

students on campus had gone after him in their own ways, but

none of them could withstand the liquid-nitrogen gaze that he

turned upon anything that did not pique his interest.

So even now, Rinko didn't understand what it was about a

plain, boring, younger girl from the mountains that Kayaba did

not reject immediately. Because she was totally unaware of his

fame? Because she was smart enough to take part in the Shigemura seminar as a first-year, when he was a year older than her?

It was obvious it wasn't just a physical attraction.

Rinko's first impression of Kayaba was of a malnourished bean

sprout. His face was pale, he wore a ratty old lab coat, and he was

almost never seen without observation devices of some kind attached to him. The memory of the day that she'd dragged him to

the beaches of Shonan in her little beater car was so vivid, it

might as well have been yesterday.

"Some ideas won't occur to ya till ya see the sun!" she had

scolded him in her accent from back home. Kayaba just stared at

her in a daze from the passenger seat. Eventually, he had muttered something about needing to emulate the skin sensation of

natural sunlight. She had groaned.

It wasn't until later that she learned about Kayaba's celebrity,

but she wasn't socially skilled enough to be able to treat him differently because of it. To her, he was just a scrawny guy who

needed more nutrition, and every time she visited his apartment,

she made sure to feed him some home-cooked food.

Afterward, Rinko often asked herself if the reason he never re-

jected her was because he wanted her help, and she just never realized it. But every time, she decided the answer was no. Akihiko

Kayaba was a man who never sought anything from anyone else.

All he wanted was a "world away from here," the door to a realm

that mere mortals could not reach.

Kayaba spoke a few times about a gigantic flying castle in his

dreams. That castle was made of countless floors, with each floor

containing its own towns, forests, and fields. If you climbed up

the long staircases that connected floor to floor, you would eventually reach the top and a dreamlike, beautiful palace…

"And who is there?" Rinko had asked.

Kayaba had smiled and said he didn't know. "When I was very

small, I went to that castle every night in my dreams. Each night,

I would climb a different set of stairs, getting closer and closer to

the top. But one day, I was no longer able to go there. It was a

stupid dream; I almost forgot all about it."

But the day after Rinko finished her master's thesis, he left on

a journey to that castle in the sky and never came back. He made

the castle real with only his own hands, taking ten thousand players up with him and leaving Rinko alone on earth…

"When I found out about the SAO Incident on the news and saw

Kayaba's name and face on the report, I still couldn't believe it. It

wasn't until I drove past his apartment and saw all the cop cars

there that I understood it was real."

Rinko felt an ache in her throat; it had been ages since she had

talked continuously for this long.

"He never said anything to me, all the way to the end. Not a

single e-mail when he left. I guess…I was just stupid. I helped

with the basic design of the NerveGear, and I knew about the

game he was building at Argus. And somehow, I never realized

what he was thinking about…When he went missing, and all of

Japan was going crazy searching for him, it took a miracle for me

to remember. Somehow, I recalled that I had once noticed a

strange set of coordinates in the mountains of Nagano in his car

nav history. Instinctively, I knew that was the place. If I'd told the

police about it right then and there, the SAO Incident might have

played out differently…"

Perhaps, if the police had stormed that cabin, Kayaba would

have killed all those players with him, as he had originally threatened. But Rinko sensed that it wasn't her place to say that aloud.

"I evaded police detection and went to Nagano alone. It took

me three days to reach the cabin itself, using nothing but my own

memory. I was completely covered in mud by the time I found it…

But I wasn't going to those desperate lengths so that I could be

his accomplice. I…I was going to kill him."

Kayaba had greeted her with a look of total bewilderment, the

same expression he wore when they had first met. She could still

recall the sensation of the heavy, cold survival knife in the hand

she held behind her back.

"But…I'm sorry, Asuna. I couldn't kill him."

Her voice trembled despite her best efforts, but at least she

managed not to cry.

"I feel like anything I say after this will only sound like a lie, no

matter how I phrase it. Kayaba knew I was holding a knife. He

just said, 'What am I going to do with you?' like he always did,

put the NerveGear back on, and returned to Aincrad. He'd been

in his dive all along, so he was filthy and unshaven, and I saw several IV marks in his arm. I…I…"

Rinko couldn't go on. She could only breathe, over and over.

Eventually, Asuna said, "Neither I, nor Kirito, have ever once

hated or blamed you."

Rinko looked up with a start into the face of the girl ten years

her junior. There was a faint smile there.

"In fact…while I can't speak for Kirito in this regard, I'll

admit…I don't even know for certain if I truly hate the guild commander…er, Akihiko Kayaba."

Rinko recalled that Asuna had been a member of Kayaba's

guild in that fantasy world.

"Yes, it's true that four thousand people lost their lives in that

event. Imagining the sum of all their fear and despair before they

died…makes it clear that his actions were unforgivable. But…if I

can voice my own very selfish opinion, I think of the short time I

spent with Kirito in that world as the very best memories of my

life," Asuna said. Her left hand moved to her waist, making a

squeezing motion. "Just as he is guilty of his sin, so am I; and Kirito; and even you, Rinko…And it is not a sin that can be absolved

through someone else's idea of punishment, in my opinion. There

might never be a day of forgiveness for them. And that means we

must continue to face those sins and acknowledge them."

That night, Rinko dreamed of that long-lost time—when she was

just an ignorant student.

Kayaba always slept lightly and got up before Rinko. He had

slipped out of bed to read the morning paper with a cup of coffee.

Once the sun was up, Rinko awoke at last. He gave her the exasperated look of a parent to a child who slept in.

"What am I going to do with you? I can't believe you came all this

way."

The sound of that gentle voice caused Rinko's eyes to peel open.

She got the sense that a tall figure was standing next to her bed in

the dark.

"It's still the middle of the night…" she grumbled with a grin,

and closed her eyes again. The air shifted, and crisp footsteps

proceeded toward the door, which she heard open and shut.

Just before she could slip back into sleep, Rinko gasped and

shot up to a sitting position.

" !!"

Her pleasant slumber was gone in an instant, her heart pounding away in her chest like an alarm. She couldn't tell where the

dream ended and reality had started. She reached around for the

remote to turn on the lights.

The windowless cabin was empty, of course. But Rinko could

sense the last vestiges of some human scent.

She got out of bed and hurried barefoot to the door, smacking

the control panel hastily to disengage the lock and rush through

the opening to the hallway.

The interior corridor, bathed in dim orange light, was empty

as far as she could see in both directions.

Was I just dreaming…?

But she could still hear that low, soft voice in her ears. Without

realizing it, Rinko clutched the locket she always wore around her

neck.

Brazed and sealed inside the locket was the micro-bomb that

they'd extracted from above Rinko's heart. The pendant felt hot

against her hand, as if it were giving off a heat of its own.