Priestess of Light, Eight PM, November 7th, 380 HE

The dust cloud kicked up by the march of the army of darkness was gray

against the night sky of the Dark Territory and its red stars.

Commander Bercouli took his eye away from the simple eyeglass made from

crystal elements and growled, "Well, this certainly looks like Vecta's got an

obsession with you. He's sending their entire army."

"I suppose we should be happy. It's certainly a much better outcome than

being ignored entirely," Alice muttered, washing away her nerves with a swig of

lukewarm siral water.

After proceeding about five kilors directly south through the uncharted—at

least by inhabitants of the human realm—wastes of the Dark Territory, the

guardian army's decoy force took its first break on a small hill.

The guards' morale was high. The dreadful magic the enemy had used on

them had been briefly terrifying, but the sacrifice of a single Integrity Knight had

both relieved them and filled them with determination to succeed in his

memory.

But Alice had still not fully registered the fact of Eldrie's death. The time

they'd spent together at Central Cathedral had not been long, to be sure, but he

had given Alice tastes of his favorite wines and sweets; he'd told silly, charming

jokes; and there had never been an entirely dull day with him around.

There had been times when she'd wondered whether the young man really

wanted to learn sword techniques and sacred arts, or whether he just wanted

to make merry. But only now, in his passing, did she realize how much his

presence had lightened her heart and kept it fresh.

…I took him for granted such that I barely noticed when he was around, and

it's only after he's gone that I finally realize what he meant to me. Pathetic.

She gazed up at the End Mountains to the northwest jutting up against the

stars and touched the coiled whip now fastened behind her waist. Now she

understood how Kirito felt, the way he never let go of Eugeo's sword.

Alice closed her eyes, and as if waiting for that very cue, the knights'

commander said, "So shall we assume that our plans for now are to continue

leading the enemy army onward, chipping away at their numbers until the last

of the four remaining Integrity Knights have fallen?"

She turned to the commander, who stood next to her on the northern end of

the hilltop, and nodded. "That's what I am thinking. We've eliminated half of

the fifty thousand members of the invasion army already, and the dark mages,

the most vexing of them all, are essentially wiped out. Next, we fatigue the dark

knights and pugilists who make up the bulk of their strength…and if we can

topple Vecta, the god of darkness, I think it is highly likely that those who

remain will enter stalemate negotiations. What do you think?"

"Yes…the only problem is who the enemy leader will be at that time. If only

that Shasta boy were still alive…"

"So is it true, Uncle? The dark general is…gone?"

"From what I could see of the battlefield earlier, he's not around. No sign of

Shasta or of his apprentice knight, the woman you fought before…"

He sighed heavily. Alice knew that Bercouli had secretly had high hopes for

the general and his disciple. The eldest of knights shook his head and muttered,

"All we can do is hope that whichever dark knight took over Shasta's position

has inherited some of his mind-set. Though I wouldn't bet on it…"

"You think it unlikely?"

"Aye. The people who live out here in the Dark Territory have no book of laws

like the Taboo Index. All they have is an unwritten rule to follow the mighty.

And sadly…Vecta's Incarnation is overwhelming…No buffed-up knight will serve

as a true counterweight…"

True, when she had announced herself to the enemy army earlier, Alice had

keenly felt some terribly cold and unfathomably dark presence reaching and

tangling itself around her. She had never felt that sensation since awakening as

an Integrity Knight. If the Incarnation of Administrator was fierce lightning, this

felt more like an endless black void.

The memory of the sensation brought goose bumps to Alice's biceps. She

rubbed her arms and nodded. "You're right…I can't imagine that there are many

who would desire to fight back against a god."

The commander chuckled and patted Alice on the back. "And yet, we had

three on our side: you, Kirito, and Eugeo. Let's hope that there are some folks

with similar backbone on this side."

There was a powerful beating of wings overhead, and they looked up.

Kazenui, Renly's dragon, was descending toward them. The boy knight leaped

off even before the dragon's talons touched the ground, and he rushed to

report to Bercouli, the words practically ejecting themselves from his mouth.

"Report for you, Commander, sir! About one kilor south of this point, there is

a shrubland area that might serve for an ambush."

"Good spotting. Get all units ready to move again. And…your dragon must be

tired, so give it plenty of food and water."

"Yes, sir!" The small figure saluted and raced off. Alice noticed that there was

a faint smile on the commander's lips.

"…Uncle?" she prompted. Bercouli scratched his chin, bashful, and shrugged.

"Just thinking…It's an awful thing to steal someone's memories and freeze

their life for the Synthesis Ritual to make them into Integrity Knights…but it's

also a shame that we won't get any more young fellows like him anymore."

Alice thought this over and smiled back. "I don't think there's any rule that

says you can't be an Integrity Knight without having your memory altered and

life frozen, Uncle." She reached back and brushed the Frostscale Whip again.

"Even if every last one of us is defeated, our souls…our wills find themselves

taking root in fresh minds. This I believe."

"It's about damn time!!" shouted Iskahn, the young leader of the pugilists

guild, as he smacked his right fist against his other palm.

They'd been so close to the fighting but forced to sit and wait for what felt

like an eternity. The fearsome pillar of light that had burned the demi-human

battalions, the freakish worm things that the dark mages had created, and even

Emperor Vecta's mysterious order to pursue the Priestess of Light had had no

effect on Iskahn's readiness to fight.

The world was split into two things: his body and everything else. Meanwhile,

the entirety of Iskahn's interest was in strengthening his own flesh and nothing

else. So confident was he in his own ability that if facing down one of those

massive dark arts, he was certain he could beat it back with his fists and fighting

spirit alone.

His bronzed, muscular body was fixed with leather straps, shorts, and sandals,

and that was it. He glanced at the five thousand men and women following his

lead and at the dark knighthood behind them. They'd been running for not even

five minutes, but the gap between the pugilists and the knights was nearly a

thousand mels already.

"For riding horses, those knights sure are damn slow!" he spat.

A large man right next to him, standing a full head taller than Iskahn, opened

his cave-like mouth in a pained smile. "They cannot help it, Champion," he said,

using the dark-tongue word for that generation's strongest of pugilists. "They

and their horses are outfitted in armor that is equally heavy."

"Even though it's not doing them any good!" snapped Iskahn. He looked

ahead and curled the fingers of his right hand into a tube, then placed it against

his eye. In the middle of his fiery iris, his pupil expanded.

"Oh, they're moving again. But…not this way. They're still running," he said,

clicking his tongue.

In other words, Iskahn had just accurately read the enemy movements from

five thousand mels away, using nothing but starlight. He thought it over and

said, "Hey, Dampa. The emperor's orders were simply to chase and capture her,

right?"

"That's what he said."

"Okay…" He scratched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and grinned.

"Guess we'll try poking the bush. Rabbit Team, move forward!!"

There was an immediate roar at his order. Leaping forward out of the ranks to

line up were about a hundred fighters of slim build—not weak, but whip slender

and hard. They had matching white string decorations tied around their

foreheads.

"We're going to pay our respects to these Integrity Knights! Get pumped!!"

"Yah!"

"Begin Combat Dance Seventeen!!" shouted Iskahn, thrusting his right arm

and pounding the ground with both feet. His confidant Dampa and the hundred

members of Rabbit Team repeated the motion in perfect synchronization.

"Doom, dah, doom-dah."

"Ooh, rah, ooh-rah."

Amid the rhythmic pounding of feet and chorus of cries, Iskahn's bronze curls

began shining with beads of sweat, and his sunbaked skin began flushing a

redder shade. His followers were exhibiting the same symptoms.

When the minute-long combat dance was complete, a hundred and two

fighters came to a stop, steam pouring off their bodies.

In fact, that was not all of it. In the darkness, their skin was actually faintly

glowing that red shade.

The pugilists were a tribe of people who had spent centuries attempting to

learn just what makes up the body.

Swordsmen and mages both ultimately made their pinnacle the use of

Incarnation to affect their target. In other words, they used the power of

imagination to overwrite external phenomena and information.

But the pugilists were the opposite—they used Incarnation to power up their

own bodies. They surpassed their original limitations, making their naked skin

stronger than steel and giving their fists the strength to crush boulders.

And their feet, the strength to outrun horses.

"Ooooo, raaaaah!!" bellowed Iskahn, beginning to run. Dampa and the

hundred fighters followed close behind.

In their wake, the air split, and the earth shook.

"…?!"

Alice took several steps forward, intent on catching up to the guardsmen who

had headed toward the shrubland area that would help them set an ambush,

then she sensed something off and turned back.

Something was coming.

And fast.

Upon closer examination, the enemy forces that should have been slowly

following near the horizon were sending forth a unit of about a hundred that

was closing the gap at astonishing speed. It was faster than any cavalry. She

almost thought they were dragon knights, but there were too many of them,

and they were clearly marching on foot.

"…Those are the pugilists," Commander Bercouli grumbled next to her.

"They are…?"

She'd heard the title before but had never actually seen them for herself. It

was usually goblins and orcs that harried the regions around the End Mountains

—and very rarely a dark knight. Never before had the pugilists even attempted

to invade the human lands.

But as was typical for the eldest of the Integrity Knights, Bercouli had

experience with them, and there was a note of concern in his voice. "They're a

real pain. They'll happily take an injury from naked fists, but they absolutely

refuse to be cut by a sword."

"Huh…? Refuse…?" It seemed to Alice that when it came to a steel blade

against flesh, refusal and acceptance shouldn't even enter into the picture.

Bercouli just shrugged. "You'll see when you fight them. It's probably better if

the two of us go together."

"…"

Alice swallowed hard. If Bercouli alone wasn't enough for the task, the

pugilists had to be dangerous, indeed. But whatever resolution and intensity

she had built up was totally wiped out by what the commander said next.

"Uh, by the way…I'm guessing you've got a problem with stripping, Little

Miss?"

"What?!" she yelped, crossing her arms in front of her body before she

realized it. "Wh-why would you ask that?! Of course I do!"

"No, I didn't mean it like…Well, yes, I suppose I did…but my point is, armor

and clothes don't really do anything against their fists, except maybe slow you

down, so…," he stammered, rubbing his chin. Finally, he gave up his explanation

and shook his head. "At any rate, if you're going to fight dressed like that, you'd

better have Perfect Weapon Control ready to go."

"Um…okay."

She felt her nerves creep up her spine again. From what she could see, there

were around a hundred enemies approaching. If she needed to use every bit of

power she could muster with the Osmanthus Blade to beat them, they were

dangerous foes, indeed.

But there was one problem.

She had already used Perfect Weapon Control twice—when she had activated

the reflective cohesion beam and when she had wiped out the dark mages—so

the life of the Osmanthus Blade was already severely drained. Normal swinging

attacks would be fine, but she didn't know how many more minutes it could

withstand its own swarming attacks.

The same was true for the commander's Time-Splitting Sword. She had

witnessed at close range his wide-ranging trap that instantly dispatched

hundreds of minions at once. Both of their swords would normally need to be

returned to their sheaths until daybreak to recover.

But even over the seconds of conversation, the pugilists had come close

enough that she could make out the details of their imposing bodies. The

soldiers weren't done preparing for their ambush. She had to keep them away

from the ranks.

Alice nodded to the commander, her lips pursed, and readied herself to slide

down the north side of the rock face—until a woman's quiet voice interrupted

the two of them.

"I shall go."

Alice turned around in shock and saw that Bercouli was doing the same, eyes

wide.

Standing there, to their complete surprise, was the last of the four elite

Integrity Knights in the decoy group, after Bercouli, Alice, and Renly.

She was tall and thin, with a dull and drab set of gray armor. Her dark-gray

hair was split evenly over her forehead, practically plastered tight to it, and tied

into a ponytail behind her neck. Her features were clear and, while not

unattractive, utterly emotionless. Like Alice, she appeared to be around twenty

years of age.

Her name was Sheyta Synthesis Twelve. The divine weapon at her side was

the Black Lily Sword.

But she was almost never referred to by the moniker of her weapon. There

was a different nickname that the other knights used on the rare occasion that

they spoke about her.

She was known as Sheyta the Silent.

It wasn't Sheyta's volunteering to fight the enemy pugilists alone that had

shocked Alice.

It was that she had just heard Sheyta the Silent speak for the very first time.

Iskahn and Dampa and their hundred followers leaped easily over ditches and

brooks and even kicked their way through boulders here and there as they

raced on. Very soon they would get to fight the Integrity Knights, who were

feared as much as demons. The young pugilist felt the corners of his mouth curl

with a possessed smile.

As a matter of fact, until the topic of this battle came about, Iskahn had never

felt particularly interested in the Integrity Knights of the human lands. He saw

them as nothing more than cowards who hid behind swords and armor. The

only knight in their own dark tribes whom he truly respected as a gladiator was

the now-dead General Shasta.

But the spirit of the enemy knights that he'd sensed while meditating before

they got their orders had been no joke. At the very least, they were not just

scrubs who relied on fancy weaponry to get themselves out of trouble.

Iskahn placed a bet that if he smashed those ugly swords and suits of armor,

he'd find pristinely muscled bodies underneath—and the anticipation of fist

meeting fist at full power got him pumped up and ready for battle.

So when he did finally catch a glimpse of one of the knights standing before

the hill at which the enemy had been waiting earlier, the pugilist was stunned.

He was too thin.

No, not he—it was a woman. So it wasn't surprising that she would be

thinner, but this was too much. Even covered in metal armor from head to toe,

she was skinnier than any of the female pugilists under Iskahn's lead.

Underneath the armor, this woman would look more like a mage. Even the

sword at her side looked more like a meat skewer than a weapon.

Iskahn held his troops back with a motion and came to a skidding stop, dust

swirling. His eyebrows, which curled up at the ends like flames, rose as he said,

"Who the hell are you? What the hell are you doing there?"

The knight inclined her head the tiniest bit, her straight gray hair swaying. It

looked as though she was considering how to answer—or more likely, whether

there was any need to answer at all. The bridge of her nose was as smooth and

small as if it had been carved in a single motion by a very sharp knife, and she

betrayed no emotion whatsoever in saying, "I am here to prevent your

advance."

Iskahn snorted tremendously, though it wasn't clear whether it was out of

mirth or anger. He shrugged. "You couldn't stop a single child from getting past

you. Or let me guess…Are you a knight who also casts arts?"

This time, the knight paused just long enough to be irritating. "I am not skilled

at sacred arts."

Getting irritated that his finely honed spirit for battle was beginning to wilt,

Iskahn spat, "Okay, fine. Whatever." He gestured to one of his followers. "Yotte,

deal with her."

"Here we go!!"

Bounding forward out of the formation was a pugilist of slightly smaller build.

But while she was smaller, she was at least twice the size of the enemy knight.

Her firm muscles bounced and stretched as she stepped forward, light on her

feet. If the enemy was without expression, she was the opposite, bearing a

fierce, proud smile.

"Hah!"

From five mels away, the pugilist punched the empty air. The wind this

movement created rippled the knight's bangs.

Even after this, the knight's thin features betrayed no intention to fight.

Instead, she looked almost disappointed and mumbled, "Only…one…?"

"That's what I'm sayin', string bean!" shouted Yotte, her thick lips curled back

in scorn. "After I've beaten you down, but before I kill you, I'm gonna stuff that

tiny mouth of yours full of dried meat! Now draw your damn weapon!!"

The knight gripped the hilt of the sword, looking as if she thought even the

idea of replying to that taunt was a waste of time. She pulled her weapon loose

without much fanfare.

"…What is that?!" shouted Iskahn from his vantage point farther away, arms

crossed.

It wasn't just thin. If the sheath itself was as thin as a meat skewer, the blade

when drawn was barely even a cen across, no thicker than a child's pinky finger.

And it was as thin as a sheet of paper and matte black in color, such that with

no light brighter than the stars around, it barely seemed as though there was a

weapon there to begin with.

Scarlet fury rippled across Yotte's face.

"…Think I'm some kinda joke…?"

Her feet beat a brief combat dance, more of a tantrum, and the pugilist

crossed the gap at once. To Iskahn's eye, it was an excellent lunge. Despite the

name Rabbit Team, the pugilists that made up the squad not only were agile

but had sharp, deadly fangs, too.

Yotte's fist lunged forward, audibly tearing the air around it. Rather than

dodging the punch headed for her face, the knight made to block it with her

slender sword.

The resulting sound was high-pitched, like two pieces of metal striking.

Orange sparks flashed around them.

Then the needlelike weapon bent, easily and pathetically.

Iskahn smirked. That flimsy little sword would not even split the skin of a

hardened pugilist.

When the children of the pugilist clans turned five, they were sent to the

guild's training ground. The first training exercise they were assigned there was

to break a cast-iron knife with their bare fists.

As they grew, they graduated from cast iron to tempered, from knives to

longswords. Not only did the students break the weapons, the instructors

swung the blades down on them. It impressed upon the youngsters that they

need fear no blade. Their bodies were an inviolable temple to any sharp edge.

And that certainty—that Incarnation—turned their bodies to iron, in fact.

Iskahn, the guild leader, could stop a two-cen metal needle with his eyeball.

As a member of the guild, Yotte was not at that level, but she was one of the

ten group leaders of Rabbit Team, and no sword could possibly stop her fist.

Certainly not a flimsy, paper-thin sword like that one.

Every pugilist there could see it coming next: the black needle bending until it

broke with a pathetic snap, then a steel fist driving itself into the knight's face.

But what they heard was an odd pwipp, like a leather whip cracking on empty

air. Yotte was still, the follow-through of her punch clean. Her fist had just

barely grazed the knight's right cheek, and that knight's right hand was fully

extended as well.

From where he stood, Iskahn could not see what the black blade was doing.

C'mon—you shouldn't be missing a target that big, he grumbled to himself.

Assuming Yotte won this fight, he would send her to start over from the thirdclass waiting rooms at the coliseum. Who cares how strong your punches are if

you can't hit the target…?

Without a sound, a split appeared between the middle and ring finger of

Yotte's clenched fist.

"Wha…?"

Before his shocked eyes, Iskahn saw the tear extend from her lower arm to

her elbow, then to her biceps and the top of her shoulder. The cut was pristine,

absolutely preserving the bone, muscle, and narrow capillaries along its length,

until the outer half of Yotte's right arm toppled to the ground. Only then did hot

fountains of blood spray like mist from the wound.

"Aaaaaaah!!" shrieked Yotte. She fell to the ground, clutching her arm.

The knight stood straight again. A brief sigh escaped her lips.

Sheyta the Silent did not maintain her silence during her stay in Central

Cathedral out of some kind of introverted personality or dislike of interacting

with others. Instead, she was utterly focused on avoiding the attention of the

other Integrity Knights—ensuring that none of them thought to ask her to train

or duel with them.

In fact, it was the fear that if she crossed swords with anyone, even

Commander Bercouli himself, she might accidentally cut off his head that made

Sheyta choose to live out her time at the cathedral, over a hundred years, in

absolute silence. The only people she spoke to were the personal attendant

who saw to her needs and the girl in charge of operating the levitating disc.

Sheyta was a true savant of the sword, synthesized following her victory in

the Four-Empire Unification Tournament.

But the results of that year's tournament had been struck from the record. It

had been covered up, because instead of stopping at the last possible moment,

as custom dictated was most appropriate and graceful, Sheyta had slain every

last opponent she'd fought.

In a sense, Integrity Knight Sheyta Synthesis Twelve had a very similar

mentality to Iskahn, head of the pugilists guild.

If all Iskahn thought about was punching people, Sheyta had no interests

outside of cutting. But it was not something that she enjoyed in the least. It

simply happened. Whether it was a person or an object, whenever Sheyta faced

off against a target, she had a clear vision of the cross section of what she was

meant to cut. At that point, there was no choice but to make the foreshadowing

a reality. Against an immobile training dummy, she could even slice it to a

smooth edge with the side of her hand.

Sheyta had always suppressed the side of her that desired the sheer slice; she

considered it to be distasteful. It was Administrator who'd first recognized that

hidden impulse within her.

Over two centuries ago, Administrator had attempted to master the theory of

spatial sacred power, which all who wielded the sacred arts now considered to

be common sense. What piqued her interest most of all was the great and final

battle that brought about the end of the Age of Blood and Iron in the Dark

Territory. At a spot in the wilderness halfway between Obsidia Palace and the

human realm, the five tribes of darkness fought to a stalemate, unleashing a

nearly infinite amount of spatial power. She desired to use that power for

herself.

But being cautious, she could not travel to the Dark Territory. Instead, she

summoned Sheyta the Integrity Knight. The pontifex called for Sheyta the Silent,

as she was already known, and gave her a tempting message.

You will go to that place alone and look for something in the battlefield. Some

kind of living magical beast that would have avoided the slaughter that

unfolded there. If not magical, then some kind of large animal. A bird or an

insect at minimum. I just want something that has absorbed that spatial power.

If you find it for me, I will create a divine weapon from it, just for you.

The highest-priority sword you could imagine. Capable of cutting anything…

Sheyta could not resist the temptation—not that the Integrity Knights could

refuse an order from the pontifex to begin with. She scaled the End Mountains

on foot, without a dragon, crossed thousands of kilors of charred landscape,

and finally reached the gruesome site of that terrible battle.

Nothing moved in the place where the five tribes had so desperately killed

one another. No magical beasts, not a mouse, not a single crow lived there. But

Sheyta did not give up. The idea of a sword that could cut anything had seized

her mind and would not let go.

After three days and three nights of searching, she finally found a single black

lily waving limp in the wind. It was the only object that had the ability to absorb

spatial resources that had survived the battle.

Administrator generated a sword with the thinnest and smallest of blades

from that flower and gave it the name of the Black Lily Sword.

The next year, Sheyta was challenged to a duel by another Integrity Knight,

whom she killed with that sword. By her own request, she was put into a long,

long sleep.

Sheyta could not tell whether the breath she exhaled upon slicing the

pugilist's arm in two was one of lament or of exultation.

For that matter, she also didn't know why she'd broken her long vow of

silence minutes earlier, when she'd elected to stay behind and defend this

position. She didn't even know what had driven her to raise her hand when the

call went out to join the guardian army half a year ago at Central Cathedral.

Did she want to protect the realm, as the other knights did? Or did she just

want to cut enemies? Perhaps she really wanted them to cut her?

It didn't matter now. At this point, there was no stopping her sword. All she

could do was pray that the number of lives she snuffed out was small.

Sheyta raised her head and glanced at the frozen, shocked pugilists.

The gray knight raised her slender black sword and plunged into the midst of

a hundred enemies without a moment's hesitation.

"…She fights with great fury," Alice noted hoarsely.

"Yes…," Commander Bercouli hummed. "Just between you and me, when we

pulled her out of Deep Freeze six months ago, I was actually a bit scared."

"I had no idea that Sheyta was capable of such things…"

Below them, Integrity Knight Sheyta was battling a hundred pugilists.

Technically, it was less battling than simply severing. Her sword, so thin its

shape was almost difficult to make out, whipped left and right, each highpitched zip easily cutting off another arm or leg of whatever enemy happened

to be nearby.

Despite her wonder at the sight, Alice couldn't help but feel concerned about

something she sensed emanating from Sheyta's slender form. There was no

hostility coming from her. She didn't seem to be feeling anything at all. So what

was it that drove her to fight so fiercely?

"Don't think about it. I've known that girl for more than a hundred years, and

I don't understand a single thing about her," the commander grunted. He

turned his back. "I think we can leave this to her. The enemy's main force

should catch up soon, and we ought to prepare to fight them off."

"…Yes, sir," Alice said. She tore her eyes away from the battle below and

hurried after him.

About a kilor south of where Bercouli and Alice were descending the hill, the

wasteland of blackened gravel finally began to give way to a region covered in

oddly shaped shrubs, where the decoy group was hiding.

The group consisted of a thousand guards, two hundred priests, and fifty

supply team members. They would have to fight back five thousand enemy

pugilists.

Renly and the guards and priests, split into twenty groups, were hiding among

the plants and waiting. There were fresh wheel ruts on the single narrow path

winding through the woods, dug by the supply wagons. The enemy would

follow the tracks as far as they could lure them in before the ambush pounced

from either side.

The commander had already warned Renly that the pugilists would be highly

resistant to sword attacks. But he'd also described their weakness: Pugilists

were very bad at defending against sacred arts.

To the north, where there was not even a patch of moss growing, there was

not enough sacred power to use a higher-level art, but the air was thicker here

in the shrubland. The priests hiding in the shrubs would unload sacred arts on

the enemy lured into the trap, then evacuate south, protected by the soldiers.

With the enemy in disarray, the five dragons would burn them from above.

In the hopes of a speedy escape, the eight supply wagons were situated at the

very southern end of the shrubland. Renly decided that the farther they were

from the fighting, the safer they'd be. He believed that there was almost no

chance that the enemy would slip into the darkness and attack the supply team

directly.

But even as Renly busied himself with the coming ambush, the five guards he

had placed on the carriages, just in case, were in the process of dying without a

sound.

A shadowy figure moved silently, despite the full-body metal armor in

unreflective black and the helmet with demonic horns.

It headed for a young guardsman from the Human Guardian Army who was

ceaselessly glancing left and right—but never over his shoulder. There should

have been other guards looking in that direction.

The shadow slid closer, remaining in the guard's blind spot. There was an

excellent longsword hanging from its waist, but it remained there as the figure

lifted a tiny dagger.

The figure's left hand reached forward, a black serpent, and covered the

guard's mouth and nose. The right hand flashed as the blade slid across the

guard's exposed throat.

The body bled out the flicker of life it still contained in absolute silence, then

slumped over dead, and the shadow pushed it beneath a nearby shrub.

Through the black fabric that covered its face, the shadow muttered "Five

down" and chuckled. It was speaking not in the ancient sacred tongue but in

modern English.

This shadow was none other than one of the three current inhabitants of the

Underworld who were actually from the real world—subordinate officer to

Gabriel Miller, one Vassago Casals.

About an hour before this, Vassago had been chugging yet another glass of

red wine in the huge carriage at the rear of the Dark Territory's army when the

dark mages' attempt at a grand magic spell had failed. At last, he'd needled

Gabriel.

"Hey, Bro. Don't you think we've delegated enough of the work? Why don't

we get our own hands dirty already?"

Gabriel glanced at Vassago, a golden eyebrow raised. "You can go first, then."

He ordered Vassago not to invade the ravine that the other army was

defending but to move to an empty place far to the south of the battlefield.

From the moment that the nonhuman troops had been zapped by that sci-fi

laser attack, Gabriel had predicted that a portion of the enemy forces would slip

through into the Dark Territory. Vassago wondered why he guessed they would

go south, rather than north, and when Gabriel explained that "there was more

room that way," he nearly fell off his seat. But now that the enemy had indeed

come this way, he didn't have much choice but to give up and do his job.

No matter how high functioning the human units were, they would come to a

stop if their supplies were lost. For the first time since diving into this world,

Vassago had a chance to kill time with "killing time." He stared into the dark

woods, hoping to make the moment last.

He soon found several wagons camouflaged with branches and leaves. Under

his mask, the assassin licked his lips and continued moving.

There was movement at one of the wagons. He froze, hiding behind a tree

trunk.

From out of the wagon canvas poked the face of a young woman with darkbrown hair and the kind of pale skin that none of the darklanders had. She was

looking around the area nervously, clearly sensing something was amiss.

As Vassago waited, immobile, the girl carefully stepped down from the

wagon, whispered something to someone inside it, and began to walk slowly

away. The girl wore gray clothes that looked like a high school uniform with just

the flimsiest bits of armor added, and she was heading straight for the place

where Vassago was hiding.

He had to stifle the urge to whistle with excitement. His fingers gripped the

handle of the dagger, which was still slick with blood.

"Don't…think…"

Iskahn boiled with rage at the sight of the fighters he had personally trained

being chopped to pieces before his eyes.

"…you're going…to get away with thiiiis!!"

He barreled forward, his legs working so hard they put cracks in the ground.

Flames covered his right fist, a manifestation of the burning fury that consumed

him.

Iskahn thrust that fist at the base of the gray Integrity Knight's neck. Sparks

spilled over the sides of his hand, leaving a brilliant trail in the air. The knight,

who had just finished swinging her sword, made to catch Iskahn's punch with

her gauntleted free hand.

Your armor is just paper against my fist!!

His punch, brimming with pure Incarnation, collided with the knight's palm

and sprayed a huge wave of sparks outward in all directions. There was an

explosive ripping sound, and the gray gauntlet shattered, followed by the metal

pieces up to her shoulder.

The knight's exposed left arm showed off a lattice of tiny cuts across the

smooth white skin that promptly burst forth with a misting of blood. But to his

surprise, he did not register the feedback of breaking bones.

He knew she had to be in intense pain regardless, but the only thing the

knight did was lower her eyebrows a bit. With her left hand squeezing his wrist,

she whipped the narrow sword with the other.

There was a ringing metallic sound, and sparks shot out from the pugilist's

elbow area.

The source of the pugilists' strength was the belief and understanding that it

was impossible for any blade edge to violate their bodies. They wore only scant

leather straps, leaving the rest of their skin bare, to help feel the certainty of

this belief. The moment a pugilist relied on any armor, he revealed the

weakness of his heart.

So Iskahn attempted to rebuff the black blade with willpower alone before it

could slice through his arm. But the chilling bite of this weapon as it dug into his

skin was unlike any blade he'd taken before.

The ultrathin, ultranarrow blade was not simple steel, either, but another

manifestation of will. It desired not victory but the sheer thrill of cleaving in

twain anything it touched.

On sheer instinct, Iskahn punched with his other arm. It rippled through the

air, bursting into the place the knight had stood just an instant before. She was

incredibly nimble but did not evade it entirely; his hand made slight contact

with her gray breastplate. It cracked and split as she jumped away, just like her

gauntlet had.

But Iskahn was not unharmed, either. The inside of his right elbow, which the

sword had touched for less than a second, had a very thin cut on the skin. A tiny

bead of blood bloomed in the center of the line. One drop of blood—just one.

The young pugilist licked it off and grinned fiercely at her. "Woman…your

appearance and what lies underneath it are very different things."

The gray knight did not respond in the way he'd expected.

"But…I'm older than you…"

"Huh? Of course you are. You Integrity Knights are monsters that live for

decades without any sign of aging, right? Should I call you Grandma instead?"

"…" The knight's eyelids twitched through her cool gaze. That was all the

reaction she showed, however. "I will allow it. You are very hard. I almost

cannot find a place to cut."

"Tsk…What's that supposed to mean?"

Iskahn was getting irritated; he could sense that her off-putting attitude was

throwing off his will to fight just the tiniest bit. A quick glance at his fellow

pugilists defeated around him was enough to rekindle that rage.

Over twenty men and women moaned on the ground, arms and legs severed

by that eerie sword. What was worst of all was not that she had hurt them but

that she was probably doing her best to hold back and keep from killing them.

Not a single pugilist had lost their head. She should have been eminently

capable of that, given her knight's training and the excellence of her weapon.

"…How dare you treat us like training dummies. You'll pay for this…I will find a

way to crush you!!"

Stomp, sto-stomp!!

The fighters around kicked out a brief combat dance to indicate their ability to

fight. They crowed in rhythm with their feet.

"Ooh, rah, ooh-rah-rah! Ooh, rah, ooh-rah-rah!"

With each pounding of the earth and battering of the air, the pugilists'

Incarnation strengthened. Sweat began to pour from their bronzed skin, the

droplets flying loose and turning into sparks.

The Integrity Knight did not budge. It was as though she was waiting for

Iskahn to reach the height of his fervor.

Fine, then.

The king of brawls stopped his combat dance. His dark golden curls stood up

with fire, and light began to blaze around his arms. In contrast, the knight was

quiet. The narrow black blade in her right hand exuded a frosty cool.

"Here…I…come…womaaaaan!!"

Iskahn closed the gap, the air burning around him. The woman lazily swung

the sword up.

Piuw.

Just before the whipping black sword could touch Iskahn's left shoulder, the

pugilist hit her left leg, when her sword should have won the battle of distance.

He had kicked her, not punched. The toe of his right foot swung low off the

ground and hit her gray shin guard directly.

With extraordinary reflexes, the knight stopped her sword and lowered her

waist, keeping her from tumbling, but the guard protecting her left leg

immediately shattered. The impact ripped the skirt wrapped around her waist,

exposing thin but chiseled legs.

"Don't assume that because I'm a pugilist, all I do is punch!" Iskahn smirked.

He whipped his left leg into a high kick. The knight turned her wrist so that her

sword would meet the kick.

The instant shin and blade connected, a shower of sparks appeared with a

roar. The chief of the pugilists felt a piercing pain in his hardy shin and pulled his

leg back, throwing a punch instead.

The flaming blow caught the knight directly on the breastplate.

Gagaaang! The resulting explosion threw them in opposite directions. Iskahn

did a backflip in the air and landed on his feet. The pain ran through his left shin

again, and he glanced at it.

His shin, which was strong enough to break a steel stake in half, had a brilliant

line cut right into the skin. Bright-red blood gushed from the wound and

dripped onto the black ground.

He snorted—it was only a scratch—and examined the state of his foe.

She had held strong this time, too, but she had her hand to her chest and was

coughing quietly. The impact of his fist had completely shattered her

breastplate, leaving only the gauntlet on her right arm and the gray cloth

around her chest. On her lower half were just the torn skirt and the armor over

her right leg.

Iskahn looked at the way her snow-white skin, a feature of the Human

Empire, glowed bright even in the dark of night, and he snorted again. "You're

looking much more like a gladiator now. But you don't have anywhere near

enough muscle. You ought to eat more and train more, woman."

The pugilists around them jeered and taunted, but the knight's expression did

not change. She merely grabbed the scrap of cloth hanging from her left

shoulder and ripped it loose, then whipped her flexible sword around.

"And I've noticed that you've grown softer."

"…The hell did you just say?" growled Iskahn, the bridge of his nose wrinkling

as he exposed his canines. But despite his menacing look, he could tell that his

own breathing had gotten just a bit shallower.

It didn't make any sense that his will to fight would weaken just from seeing

some bare skin. The women of his tribe exposed their flesh all the time in much

greater degree, and only a little kid freshly entered into the training hall would

let that unnerve him.

The only thing the world held was opponents waiting to be crushed by a

clenched fist. Even if they were exotic foreign women so thin they could snap in

the wind, with blindingly white skin.

"You're going to pay for this…I'm going to show you what I'm like at full

power," howled Iskahn, wolflike, jabbing a finger at the knight. "So give me all

you've got!! Quit lookin' like you're gonna fall asleep from boredom!!"

She looked somewhat troubled by this, brushed her cheek and forehead with

her free hand, and tilted her brows just a bit downward. "Then that's what…

you'll get."

"…G-good. That's good."

It was these pauses in the action that kept filling his head with strange

thoughts. Iskahn sucked in a deep breath, tensing the power in his gut and

lowering his center of gravity. He posed with his left fist at his waist and his

right fist pointed at the enemy, and he exhaled loudly. With each forceful

breath, his firmly planted legs sucked up power from the earth, glowing red,

until the heat traveled through his body to gather in his fist.

The glowing flames went from red to yellow, then reached white with blue

ends. Iskahn's right fist contained enough heat to char the very atmosphere. It

emitted high-pitched pinging sounds.

The knight met this challenge by taking a sideways stance. She extended her

left hand straight forward, the fingers lined up, and stretched her ultrathin

sword straight backward. The way that her arms were extended straight made

her look like a stone-throwing tool that was taut at maximum pressure.

Iskahn grinned. He felt as nervous as if his body had already been split from

head to belly.

I've never fought someone like this before. I feel so fired up.

They moved at the same moment.

The knight's sword made a black semicircle.

The pugilist's fist created a bluish-white comet. An ultra-dense shock wave

erupted when they met, cracking the earth as it spread. Every last one of the

pugilists standing around the duel was thrown backward.

Sword and fist shook for control over an intersection point the size of a

needle's eye. Power compressed beyond its limit raged into a pillar of light that

burst upward into the night sky.

In terms of Sheyta's skill, she could have defeated her foe without having to

rely upon a straightforward contest of strength like this.

The young pugilist's Incarnation was as tough as an elite Integrity Knight's,

which was a mild surprise to her, but she could also see that when he

concentrated it all into his right fist to attack her, his other parts looked much

softer. She could have dodged his straightforward punch and cut off his head,

just like that.

But Sheyta did not do that. She chose to stand put and block the shining fist.

It was not a conscious decision—it was what her body and sword wanted.

Even Sheyta found her decision surprising. For over a hundred years, she had

known that she had nothing in common with the knightly ideals of pride and

duty and honor. The only thing she wanted was to cut, because she enjoyed it.

One might as well say that she killed because she wanted to. Only when she

was on a guard mission over the End Mountains did Sheyta allow herself to be

free. Countless dark knights and goblins had lost their heads and their lives to

her sword.

She felt her peculiar nature to be distasteful and chose to live in silence

instead. So why did Sheyta choose not to kill in this one battle, out of all the

battles she'd been in? It was a mystery.

It was also a waste of time to think about it. The only things that existed in

this moment were her, the Black Lily Sword, and the fist before her.

It's so hard and tough. I wonder if I can cut through it.

This is fun.

The enemy knight's small, thin lips actually curled into a tiny smile. Iskahn

already understood that she was not mocking him—or this fight. He knew

because his own lips formed the exact same smile.

Y'know, for lookin' like a scrawny little wimp from the prissy, soft human

lands, you're just like me deep down.

A small crack ran through the inside of his clenched fist. It was not the sound

of the enemy's black blade chipping but the sound of a bone in his own hand

fracturing, he knew.

Dammit. She's still gonna overpower me, even with this punch? Oh well, then.

If she cut through his fist, that thin black sword would split his entire body in

two, his instincts told him. But Iskahn felt no fear. He would never get another

chance to face an opponent of this quality. So he supposed it wasn't a bad way

to die.

He started to close his eyes, to accept his fate. But then the pressure on his

fist gave a little.

All at once, the incredible pent-up force between them was unleashed, and

Iskahn and the knight blew backward like leaves in a storm. He understood at

once why her Incarnation had weakened. There was a huge figure breaking

between the two of them.

Iskahn fell onto his backside and yelled at the man who toppled nearby.

"What the hell was that for, Dampa?!"

"Time's up, Champion."

His second-in-command sat up, his normally slit-narrow eyes actually opened

wide for once. Dampa lifted a burly arm and pointed to the north. Iskahn

followed his gesture and saw the main force of the pugilists and the dark

knights behind them, within visual range now. With a full group battle about to

begin, it wasn't the time for their leader to be engaged in a personal duel. And

yet…

He clicked his tongue and looked forward again. Beyond the swirling dust

devils, the enemy knight, nearly all armor and clothing gone, slid her sword into

her sheath, seemingly unbothered by any of it.

"Woman! Don't think you've won this fight!!" crowed the young pugilist,

momentarily forgetting that he had been expecting to die just a moment ago.

The knight glanced at Iskahn, her gray hair shifting, and seemed to search for

the right words to say.

"I wish…you would stop calling me 'woman.'"

"Oh yeah? Well…how do you even plan on escaping from this…?"

At that moment, a gust of wind hit them from the south, so powerful that all

the pugilists attempting to surround the knight turned their faces away. Iskahn

blinked and saw the knight raising her hand high into the sky, and the shape of

a huge monster descending rapidly from above. It was a dragon, gray scales

glistening in the moonlight.

She threw a leg over the creature, and the dragon swept back up into the sky.

Furious, the king of fighters couldn't help himself from shouting, "At least name

yourself before you run away!!"

He could barely hear her voice descending through the beating of the

dragon's wings. "I'm…not running away. I am…Sheyta Synthesis Twelve."

Dampa grabbed Iskahn's arm and pulled him away, but he did turn back to

stare at the flying dragon as it vanished into the night, and he clicked his tongue

again.

If possible, he wished to have a rematch with that mighty foe after another

year of training.

He had learned that there was still room to grow. But Iskahn was not so

immature that he thought this kind of selfish desire could pass on a battlefield.

Once they rejoined the rest of the pugilists, they had to work with the dark

knights to wipe out the enemy army. It wasn't clear if there would be another

chance to battle that woman.

If I capture that Priestess of Light or whatever…, Iskahn thought for a

moment, then clicked his tongue one more time. How stupid can I be? Asking

the emperor to spare that woman's life as my reward? Every last member of my

tribe will assume I've gone mad.

Iskahn spun on his heel and gestured to a subordinate for a jar of ointment to

spread on the cut on his leg.

2

That's right.

Keep coming. Straight this way.

Vassago savored the experience of the ambush, rolling the flavor of it on his

tongue like a piece of candy. His hiding ability was flawless. Even the negative

concealment of his metal armor didn't have an effect on the way he melted into

the darkness of the shrubbery.

The dark-brown-haired girl was being cautious, but even her piercing gaze just

passed right over his hiding spot. Seven more yards…five…

Nice. Very nice. Oh, it's been too long since I did this.

When she was within ten feet, the girl suddenly turned to her right, moving in

the direction of the body Vassago had hidden. He'd been hoping to draw her

even closer, but this would have to do.

He slid, silent, out of the darkness, closing in on her, hand reaching for her

back. He would cover her mouth, and when her throat convulsed with fear, he

would draw his sharp dagger right across it…

The premonition, the anticipation of the moment was so strong and real that

Vassago failed to react immediately to the blade that flashed before his eyes.

"…Whoa!"

He darted backward just as the tip of the blade grazed the exposed skin under

his chin.

The girl shouldn't have been aware of him at all, but she'd drawn and swung

her sword from an away-facing position. It was a brilliant swing—if he'd been

one step closer, she would have slit his throat.

When she faced him, sword held in two hands, the girl's navy-blue eyes were

full of fear and hostility but not surprise. Vassago had to reluctantly admit that

she had seen through his attempt at hiding quite a while ago.

He spun the dagger in his fingers and said "Hey, baby" in English, then

recalled that it wasn't spoken here, so he switched to perfectly accentless

Japanese instead. "How did you know, Miss?"

The girl kept her sword up, not letting her guard lapse, and said harshly, "My

mentor taught me not to rely on my eyes…but to feel with my entire being."

"Y-your mentor…?" Vassago repeated, blinking. He felt some distant memory

being triggered, a quote he'd heard years ago…

But before he could travel back to the source of that memory, the girl sucked

in a deep breath and shouted, incredibly loud, "Enemy attack!! Enemy

attaaack!!"

He clicked his tongue and stashed the dagger at his side. Playtime was over.

Vassago raised his left hand and shouted, "All right, boys…Time to go to

work!!"

This time, there was real shock in the girl's eyes.

A hundred or so feet behind Vassago, the brush rustled as people stood up—

thirty lightly armored scouts handpicked from the dark knights. A second girl,

who'd jumped out of the wagon after the warning, and the ten or so soldiers

who'd rushed down from the north all froze in unison.

"Wha—? Enemies in the rear?! Dozens of them?!" Renly shouted back when

he received the report from the supply team.

Oh no…Oh no!

If they attacked the wagons and burned all the supplies, the army would be

immobilized. Not to mention those three children were in the back. He had

sworn to protect the two student girls and the young man they watched over.

He had to send a hundred men—no, two hundred. But if he started sending

the main forces now, the enemies approaching from the north might pick up on

the ambush being set for them. If that happened, his side would be utterly

crushed before the numerical superiority of the enemies.

Or should he assume that they'd seen through the ambush already? Would it

be better to send everyone south and hope for another chance to strike back

later?

Renly couldn't come to an immediate decision with what he knew.

But just then, he heard a deep voice ask, "So they knew we would be heading

south and had forces in place and on the lookout for us…?"

It was Commander Bercouli and Alice, returning from the hill to the north.

From Renly's perspective, they might as well be legendary figures, far beyond

his level, but they both looked near desperate. Alice in particular seemed ready

to rush to the supply team's aid.

Over Bercouli's shoulder, Renly could see the faint outline of a dust cloud to

the north, kicked up by the pursuing army beyond the hilly region between

them.

The commander briefly closed his eyes, then opened them, the gray-blue

portals piercing. "Renly, have the troops retreat. Little Miss, go help the supply

team at once. I'll hold off the enemies to the north."

"Hold them off…? But, Uncle, there are over five thousand pugilists among

them! And you said that swords don't work on—"

"Look, I'll manage. Just go! Remember that it was your idea to use up every

last man to whittle down the enemy's numbers, Little Miss…I mean, Alice!"

And with that, Bercouli spun to the north. His gnarled right hand reached

across his body to draw the Time-Splitting Sword. The faded color of the aged

blade made it clear at a glance that there was very little life left in it.

Three bursts of sparks lit the darkness in succession.

The dark-brown-haired girl had blocked each of Vassago's swings the first

time she saw them. And he had used continuous sword techniques. So when

the third blow knocked the sword loose from her hands and caused it to stick

into the trunk of a nearby tree, the assassin couldn't help but whistle in

appreciation.

The girl bravely put up her fists, but he dropped her to the ground with a

sweep kick. She landed hard on her back and grunted in pain.

"Ronieeee!!" screamed the second girl, racing closer.

Vassago put the tip of his sword against the throat of the girl on the ground,

forcing the red-haired one to stop. Her skinny legs halted, trembling.

"Heh…heh, heh," he chuckled through his mask, unable to help himself.

This is it. This is the feeling.

The pleasure of having someone's life and everything they possessed

balanced on the point of his sword. It was the ultimate pleasure of player killing

and why he would never be able to give it up.

"…I'm not going to kill you as long as you stay there and behave," he

whispered to the other girl, then leaned over the girl whose name was

apparently Ronie. Behind them, thirty blood-starved scouts drew ever closer.

Ronie's big eyes began to fill with tears of fear and humiliation. All the

determination that had rippled through her was turning to despair…

…?

Suddenly, her eyes were focused not on Vassago's face but on the sky above

him. Something was reflecting in those wet irises.

Light.

Motes of milky-white light, falling from above. They drifted downward as soft

as snowflakes. Vassago looked up slowly, feeling an eerie thrill of dread down

his spine.

Black sky. Stars the color of blood.

And floating against them, a small silhouette—but one that radiated an

immense power.

A person. A woman.

A breastplate that shone as though made of pearl. Gauntlets and boots of the

same color.

Her long skirt was stitched together from countless fine fabrics that hung

loose and flapped like wings. Her long hair, trailing in the night breeze, was a

shining chestnut brown.

"Lady…Stacia," Ronie mumbled from the ground.

Vassago never heard her say it. The instant that he caught a glimpse of the

woman's face descending from the starry sky above, the assassin rose to his

feet, drawn to the sight of her.

Free from his threat, Ronie scrambled back to her friend, but he did not even

look back at her.

The figure floating in the air reached out her right hand.

Five slender fingers lightly swiped sideways.

Laaaaaaaaah.

A tremendous, rich harmony shook the world, like a chorus of thousands of

angels bursting into song. A curtain of light, like the aurora borealis, shot from

the figure's fingers and rained down behind Vassago.

Rumbling ensued—and screams.

Vassago spun around to see a yawning, bottomless ravine in the earth—and

his thirty followers being swallowed up by it.

Dumbfounded, he turned bulging eyes to the sky. The woman lifted her right

hand again and this time waved it toward the north.

There was another angelic chorus. The aurora that shot down was dozens of

times larger than the first, and the effect it had on the ground below was

beyond the capacity of his mind to envision.

Lastly, the floating woman looked directly down upon Vassago. Her index

finger flicked empty air.

Laaaaaaah.

Rainbow light enveloped him. The ground beneath his feet vanished.

As he plunged into endless darkness below, Vassago thrust his hand upward,

trying to grab the tiny figure.

"No way…You gotta be kidding me," he said, his voice tremulous.

That face.

That hair.

That presence.

"Isn't that…the Flash from the KoB?"

Commander Bercouli stood in place, sword dangling from his hand.

An enormous fissure, at least a hundred mels across, yawned before him in

the earth. It continued as far as he could see at a glance to his right and left, and

it was impossible to gauge its depth. Pieces of rock continually spilled over the

lip of the fissure, but he never heard any of them strike the bottom.

And the fissure had not existed just seconds before this moment.

Rainbow light had shone down from the heavens with a tremendous

harmony, splitting the earth in two where it touched. Not a thousand—or ten

thousand—sacred arts masters working together, not even Administrator

herself could achieve the altering of creation itself like this.

It was divine. It was godly power.

First Vecta, and now another god had come to Earth.

Such was Bercouli's first thought, with a deathly chill down his back, but he

soon reconsidered.

On the far bank of the massive gouge in the earth, five thousand pugilists

stood dumbfounded, their access blocked.

If an all-powerful god with the ability to give and take life had decided to side

with the Human Guardian Army, she would have dragged all those pugilists

down into the fissure in the earth, too. But she had placed it so they had just

enough room to safely come to a stop, despite their sprinting speed.

The knights' commander sensed an emotion in this, a hesitation to take many

lives.

He sensed that this was human will at work.

3

Hurry.

Hurry down to the surface. To Kirito.

When Asuna Yuuki had logged in to the Underworld using Super-Account 01,

"Goddess of Creation Stacia," she'd floated downward in the slow-fall function

enabled only on your first login, as the name of her lover echoed repeatedly in

her head.

In the real world, nearly an hour had passed since the marine research

megafloat known as the Ocean Turtle had been attacked by an unidentified

armed group. Asuna had elected to go into the simulation and entered a full

dive with Soul Translator Unit Five. According to Takeru Higa's reassurances, he

would spawn her directly over Kirito's present location. She knew that where

she fell, her beloved would be waiting.

Asuna's mind was racked with almost crazed longing and lovesickness, as well

as a sensation like stabbing needles. She winced against the pain.

The admin privileges given to the Stacia account included unlimited landscape

manipulation, the side effects of which she had been warned about ahead of

time. The massive amalgamation of mnemonic data that made up the

landscape, traveling between Asuna's STL and the Main Visualizer, which

contained all of the Underworld's data, placed a great amount of strain on her

fluctlight.

Higa, the chief engineer of Rath, warned her not to engage in too much

manipulation of terrain—and if she felt a headache, to stop doing it at once.

But as soon as Asuna could see about a thousand humans directly below and

a huge number of darklanders approaching from north and south, she

immediately began reciting the command for altering the landscape.

She stopped the army coming from the north by carving a very long ravine

into the ground. But to eliminate the thirty or so in the act of approaching

Kirito's location, she had to remove the ground itself.

They were people with real souls. True bottom-up AIs whom Kirito had spent

two and a half years in this world fighting to protect. Perhaps it was the fear

and hatred from those dying souls that was surging back through her STL and

inflicting this pain on her.

She shut her eyes briefly, then yanked them open again, dispelling her

moment of hesitation. Her order of priorities had been set in stone years ago.

She would commit any sin to protect Kirito—Kazuto Kirigaya. She would accept

any punishment.

At last, the few dozen seconds that lasted an eternity came to an end, and the

tip of her pearl-white boot touched black earth. She was in the middle of woods

featuring oddly twisted shrubs. There was no moon, just eerie red starlight

twinkling faintly down.

She shook her head several times to dispel the last bits of her lessening

headache, then stretched her back. Directly nearby was the hole that she had

created to swallow up the darklanders and their knightlike armor. It was a

danger, left that way, but she couldn't bring herself to alter the land again

anytime soon.

A horse whinnied nearby. She glanced in the direction of the sound and saw

several large carriages parked among the woods in a way that was meant to

conceal them.

Where…? Where are you, Kirito?

She was about to shout out the name of her beloved in sheer haste when she

heard a quavering voice behind her ask, "Lady…Stacia…?"

Asuna spun around and saw two girls huddled together, dressed in gray

jackets and skirts that resembled high school uniforms. Their looks were curious

—neither Japanese nor Western. Their skin was smooth and cream-colored,

and the girl on the right had red hair like maple leaves, while the girl on the

left's was a dark coffee brown.

And on each one's belt, a well-used sword…

The red-haired girl's lips parted, and again she breathed, "Are you…the

goddess…?"

It was perfect Japanese—and yet, there was just the slightest bit of

foreignness to the pronunciation. Asuna felt as if she were brushing up against

three hundred years of the Underworld's own history and cultural evolution,

right in that moment.

Mr. Kikuoka, Mr. Higa, what have you created? Maybe this was all just a

simulation to you, but this world and the people who live in it are undoubtedly

alive.

"…No…I'm sorry. I am not a god," Asuna said, shaking her head.

The girl with the dark-brown hair clutched her hands to her chest and

protested, "But…but you worked a miracle and saved my life. You saved

everyone from the horrible soldiers of the land of darkness…The soldiers, the

priests…and even Kirito."

Asuna gasped at the pulse that tore through her heart at the mention of that

name. She struggled to regain her balance before she fell, and while her lips

worked to speak, the most she could eventually produce was a whisper.

"I…I only came here…to see him. To see Kirito…," she pleaded, desperately

holding back tears. "Please…where is he? Let me see him…Take me to where

Kirito is."

The girls seemed stunned by this, but they soon glanced at each other, then

nodded together. "Of course…Right this way."

They guided Asuna ahead through the distant circle created by swordsmen

wearing matching armor. They soon reached the rear end of one of the

carriages. A canopy made of heavy canvas hung over the bed, hiding its

contents from view.

"Kirito's in—"

Before the red-haired girl could finish her sentence, Asuna opened the canopy

with both hands and leaped into the bed of the wagon, stumbling farther inside.

A small lantern hanging from the canvas ceiling provided dim light, revealing

stacked boxes and barrels. She made her way through them, farther and farther

back. A familiar scent wafted out.

It smelled like the sun. Like the breeze traveling through forests and

meadows.

As her eyes got used to the gloom, they caught sight of light reflecting off

silver. The source of the light was a wheelchair built of a metal frame and

wooden parts.

And hunched over the seat like a living shadow was a figure dressed in black.

"...!"

A storm of irresistible emotion rooted Asuna to the spot. All the words of

reunion she had thought and thought about caught in her throat, refusing to

come forth.

Here was the soul of the man she loved more than any other, whose body in

the real world lay prone in STL Unit Four on the Ocean Turtle.

Battered, incomplete, but living and breathing.

Surely when Kirito had seen Asuna again at the hospital in Tokorozawa, freed

from deadly SAO at last but still unwaking, he must have felt the same pain, the

anguish, and made the same vow that she did now.

It's my turn to save you, to do whatever it takes, pay whatever price to bring

you back.

Asuna let out the breath she was holding and whispered, "Kirito…"

His body was painfully thin, and his right arm was missing. His left arm

clutched two swords, white and black, and it twitched when she spoke. His

downcast face and empty eyes began to tremble and ripple.

"Aa…," his faint voice croaked through a cracked throat and dry lips. "A…aaa…

ah…"

The wheelchair began to rattle quietly. His arm was incredibly tense. The

tendons in his neck stood out. Two tears tracked down his cheeks and dripped

onto the scabbards he clutched to his chest.

"It's all right, Kirito…It's all right now!!" shouted Asuna. She knelt and

tenderly, powerfully embraced her beloved.

Hot droplets were spilling from her own eyes now, flowing without end.

It would be a lie to deny that she'd been hoping the moment of their reunion

would miraculously heal Kirito's soul and return him to consciousness.

But Asuna was aware that the damage to Kirito's fluctlight was not so easily

undone. His subjective sense within the fluctlight, his self-image, was shattered.

Unless it was rebuilt somehow, no informational input from the outside was

going to restore his proper output.

She recalled what Higa had said: It turned out that he had a number of helpers

—artificial fluctlights, of course…He had friends. Most of them died in the battle

against the Church, but when he finally succeeded in opening the circuit to the

outside, he was strongly blaming himself. In other words, he was attacking his

own fluctlight.

A massive source of loss, regret, and despair had torn a deep and terrible hole

in Kirito's heart.

But I'm going to fill that hole, even if it's a bottomless void. If I can't do it

alone, I'll borrow the help of all those people whose hearts he touched. I refuse

to believe there's a sense of loss that no amount of love can fill.

Asuna could feel fresh, powerful determination fill her being. She would not

let him feel a single further ounce of sadness.

I'm going to protect this world that Kirito loved and lived in. I'll protect it from

these mysterious invaders…and from Rath itself.

She hugged her boyfriend tight once more, then got to her feet. When she

turned around, the two girls were watching them, tears in their own eyes. She

gave them a smile. "Thank you. You must have been keeping him safe."

The girl with the burnt-brown hair let her face droop a bit and asked, voice

trembling, "Um…may I ask something…? If you are not Lady Stacia, then who

are you…?"

"My name is Asuna. I'm a human being, just like you. Like Kirito, I came from

the 'outside world'…to fulfill the same purpose that he did."