Awakening (Cont.), July 7th, 2026 AD / November 7th, 380 HE
"I…will never…! For…give…you..."
Krsh!!
A second sword pierced Klein's back.
More tears flooded from Asuna's eyes. It was a wonder that she had any left.
Despite being pinned to the ground by the blades, Klein continued to scrabble
at the soil. Over him loomed the one-time agitator in the black poncho—the
former leader of Laughing Coffin, PoH.
"Oh, man, I can't watch this. You should've stayed put like the small fry you
are. This is what happens when you mess with the big dogs," he chided,
spreading his hands and shaking his head. In a moment, he spoke to the red
knights standing behind Klein in a language Asuna couldn't recognize. One of
the players nodded and raised yet another sword.
The third blade gleamed, ready to eliminate the last of Klein's remaining HP.
"Hajimaaaaa!!"
A scream that sounded like Korean emerged from a lone red soldier who
raced through the crowd from the rear. He made it just in time to block the
downward strike with a blade of his own.
No way…Why does it hurt so much?
Wol-Saeng Jo, under the player name Moonphase, slumped to the ground
and braced himself against the agony of having his back sliced by the man in the
poncho.
Wol-Saeng's AmuSphere was supposed to be able to transfer only a tiny
amount of physical pain signals to the brain. In Silla Empire, the game he was
used to playing, even an enormous dragon crushing your avatar's head in its
jaws produced nothing more than a slight numbing shock.
But Wol-Saeng felt like stove burners were being pressed against the skin of
his back. And yet, the pain of suffering the same physical blow in reality would
probably be even worse. Wol-Saeng considered himself somewhat of a VRMMO
veteran, and even he could barely react in time to the black-poncho man's
speedy attack with the thick, heavy kitchen knife. If he suffered that kind of
blow in real life, it would probably be instantly fatal or, at the very least, painful
enough to knock him unconscious. That meant this was still nothing more than
virtual, simulated pain, but that realization didn't help him very much.
Unbearable pain was still unbearable, no matter the source. He wished he could
log out immediately, circumstances be damned.
Instead, Wol-Saeng curled into a ball on the dark earth and endured.
After all, he couldn't accept the story he had been told:
Supposedly, Japanese hackers had attacked a test server belonging to a new
VRMMORPG under development by a team of American, Chinese, and Korean
gamers and were killing the testers within the server. And now those testers
needed help from outside players to stop the Japanese barbarism.
At least, that was the message going around on social media to get them to
dive in. They saw scenes of a group of Japanese players attacking another group
of what appeared to be Americans.
But was the video really depicting what the messages claimed it did?
To Wol-Saeng's eyes, the Japanese players were the desperate ones, and the
Americans looked more like players in a game. Thanks to thousands upon
thousands of Chinese and Korean "reinforcements," the tide of battle had
turned, and now the Japanese were powerless—but the discrepancy of their
attitudes remained the same. Even with their gear destroyed and HP nearly
gone, they were desperate to do something…Not to destroy, but perhaps to
protect something?
Indeed, just moments before, a woman speaking fluent Korean had emerged
from the pack of Japanese players and said: You are being lied to!! This server
belongs to a Japanese company! We are not hackers! We are connected
legitimately!! …Those were Americans, who were brought here under false
pretenses, just like you! You're the ones who are being used as tools of
sabotage!!
She had called herself Siune. Something in her tone had resonated with WolSaeng; he had made his way over to her through the combat and asked, Do you
have any means of proving what you've told us?
One of Siune's companions was about to say something in Japanese when the
man in the black poncho slashed Wol-Saeng across the back, knocking him to
the ground.
Everything after that happened in the blink of an eye, and it was entirely onesided. The Japanese group was overwhelmed by the crimson soldiers, the
majority of the former logging out from HP loss, with less than two hundred
survivors being stripped of their weapons and rounded up.
The man in the poncho appeared at the front line again, seemingly to make a
victory speech—but instead, he did something quite unusual: He had one
player, who was sitting in a wheelchair and clutching two swords, wheeled
forward from the Japanese rear guard and began to speak to him in fluent
Japanese.
Once again, Wol-Saeng felt that something was wrong.
What did it mean for someone to be in a wheelchair in a virtual game?
In Silla Empire, which Wol-Saeng was most familiar with, localized leg damage
could cause a Crippling Debuff, which affected your ability to walk, but you
eventually recovered with magic, medicine, or time. If a player couldn't walk
long enough that he needed a wheelchair, it wasn't really a game anymore.
Plus, the young man in black seemed to have some kind of mental disability.
He gave no reaction to the poncho man's speech and simply sat there when the
wheelchair was shoved. He almost seemed like an empty husk of an avatar, like
a rag-doll body belonging to a player who wasn't logged in.
Eventually, the man in the black poncho grew annoyed, put his foot on one of
the wheels, and kicked the chair over. Wol-Saeng gasped, forgetting the pain in
his back. Even the other Koreans around him seemed a bit stunned by this.
The young man toppled onto the ground, where he finally performed some
kind of voluntary action: He reached for the white sword, one of the two he'd
been cradling. He used his left hand, because his right arm was missing from the
shoulder down, Wol-Saeng now realized.
But he couldn't reach it. The aggressor had lifted the sword up, just a bit out
of reach, the way an adult might pick on a helpless child. The young man
strained, not getting off the ground, reaching for the object, but his tormentor
grabbed his arm and yanked him upward. He yelled something at the helpless
young man and slapped him a few times on the face.
Suddenly, there was a new voice shouting. One of the apprehended Japanese
players, a man wearing samurai-like armor and a bandana around his head,
attempted to grab the aggressive man in black.
But one of the Korean players behind him raised his sword and drove it deep
through the samurai's body. That had to have hurt even more than Wol-Saeng's
injury, but the Japanese warrior tried to keep crawling forward until a second
sword prevented his advance.
The man in the black poncho gave the skewered samurai a twisted smile. He
issued an order in Korean to the red knights: "Kill him. He's just in the way."
One of the knights obeyed and raised a third sword.
It was impossible to sit back and watch any further. There was no guarantee
that Siune's explanation was the truth, but at the very least, the way this man
would kick over a wheelchair was revolting—and the earnest desperation in the
samurai's actions carried the conviction of one trying to protect his friends.
Wol-Saeng didn't have a particularly positive image of Japan. Beyond the
history and territorial arguments between the countries, there was an insular
nature to the island nation, a derisive kind of arrogance, as if to say that they
were the only East Asian country worth caring about. The fact that The Seed
Nexus was open to Europe and North America but closed off to Korea and China
was an excellent example of that attitude.
But…
Japan as a whole did not represent every single individual from Japan. Going
back to pre-VRMMO PC-gaming days, there were a few titles with international
servers where you could play with people around the world. He'd had bad
experiences with Japanese players, but also many good ones.
Wol-Saeng felt disgusted by the actions of the man in the black poncho, and
he wanted to believe in Siune and the samurai man. Not because they were
Japanese or Korean. It was just his personal conscience telling him this was
right.
The instant he moved, more blinding pain stemming from his back shot
through his head, but he gritted his teeth and got to his feet. Then he drew his
sword, took a deep breath, and…
"…Hajimaaa!!" ("…Stoppp!!") …rushed forward, yelling with as much force as
he could muster.
Wol-Saeng's default avatar had average stats and felt slow and heavy
compared to his agile Silla Empire character, Moonphase. But throughout
whatever bonus effect it was, he now raced across the wasteland like the wind
and just barely succeeded in blocking the sword meant to end the samurai's
life.
"What…what are you doing?!" demanded the Korean attacker, his voice a
mixture of shock and, much more so, anger. Wol-Saeng wouldn't have been
able to communicate if it had been a Chinese player, so he knew he had to
make use of this good fortune and state his case.
"Don't you think there's something strange about this?! The battle is already
won! What reason could there be to torment and torture these people?!"
His compatriot was briefly silent. His eyes traveled to the samurai below, then
to the youngster tossed from the wheelchair nearby. Behind his visor, his eyes
blinked frequently in surprise. Now that the fervor of battle was waning, this
player, too, was slowly realizing the wrongness of what was happening. The
force pushing against his blade began to soften.
But before Wol-Saeng could say anything else, a sharp cry issued forth from
the crowd around them.
"Baesinja!!" ("Traitor!!") "Kill him, too!!"
With the anger of his fellows spurring him on, the red knight put more
strength back into his sword arm. But the next words to be spoken came as a
surprise.
"Wait! Let's hear him out!"
"He's right—the guy in the poncho's going too far!"
Other Korean players in the crowd were arguing on Wol-Saeng's behalf now.
Those little fires spread across the mass of players, dividing the crowd into
hard-liners who demanded the slaughter of the remaining Japanese and
moderates who preferred to wait for a proper explanation before any action
was taken. That same dynamic spread to the Chinese players, too, and even
more angry shouts—these indecipherable to Wol-Saeng—echoed across the
wasteland.
How was the one man seemingly in charge going to contain this chaos? Wol Saeng spun around to find out.
The one who'd started all this was standing over the one-armed youth from
the wheelchair, spinning his large, thick dagger in his fingers. Shaded beneath
his hood, his mouth was wide and twisted.
It took a while for it to be apparent that he was not gnashing his teeth in
anger but stifling laughter. A cold sensation ran up Wol-Saeng's back, strong
enough to numb his pain.
There was no way the man in the black poncho had anything to do with any
game made by Chinese, Korean, or American developers. In fact, the existence
of such a game seemed suspicious at this point. Whoever he was, there was real
blood and pain in this battle, and he was trying to get players of various
countries to fight…and kill one another. That was his only goal.
Though it sounded as if it came from another person's mouth, Wol-Saeng felt
the Korean word for "demon" pass through his lips.
"...Angma..."
Vassago Casals was born to a Hispanic mother and a Japanese American
father in the Tenderloin, a lower-class neighborhood in San Francisco.
In America, baby names that seemed likely to limit the opportunities of the
child, who didn't have a choice in the matter, were often rejected at the stage
of the birth certificate. That was the only reason his mother had named him
Vassago instead of Devil or Satan. Vassago, the prince of hell, was a name with
only minor recognition, so the city clerk accepted the name, none the wiser.
There was only one reason a mother would give her child the name of a
demon, and that was because she never wanted him—because she hated him.
He didn't know how his parents had met, nor did he want to, but as far as he
understood, it was a monetary relationship. The pregnancy wasn't planned, and
his mother wanted to abort him, but his father forced her to go through with it.
That didn't mean that he loved the son who was born; he checked in every now
and then on the child's health but never even brought so much as a gift. About
the only thing he ever gave Vassago was the ability to speak Japanese.
It was only when Vassago was around fifteen years old that he finally
understood why his father had forced his mother to give birth and then had
made only the bare minimum of child support payments.
That was when he was told that there was a child with congenital kidney
failure on his father's side of the family—and they wanted him to be a donor.
He had no choice in the matter. But Vassago gave his own condition: He wanted
to live in his father's country, Japan. Once he had donated a kidney, his father
would have no use for him, so the status of his financial support would be in
limbo. If he had to stay in the slums and deal drugs to survive, he knew where
that story would end—so he preferred to start over in a new country entirely.
His father accepted, and in exchange for his left kidney, Vassago received a
passport and airfare. He left for Japan without saying good-bye to his mother.
When he arrived, fate was even crueler than he could have realized.
By Japanese law, international adoption involved complicated paperwork and
stringent requirements, and even if the adoption process was successful,
children above the age of six were not automatically given the right to stay in
the country. Vassago had no choice but to live outside of the law from the
moment he arrived.
So he wound up in the care of a Korean crime syndicate. Because he could
speak English, Spanish, and Japanese, they provided Vassago with a fake ID and
trained him to be a hit man.
Vassago completed nine successful jobs in the five years before he turned
twenty. The tenth job was something he could never have imagined.
His job was to reach and kill a target that could never be found in the real
world—the target was in a virtual world instead.
When it was first described to him, he didn't know what it meant. Only when
he was given an explanation of the SAO Incident, which had arisen just a few
days earlier, did it make sense to him. The target was a victim of the Incident,
stuck at home under strict security, never to emerge. If they waited for the
deadly game to kill him, there was no telling when that would happen or if he
might survive and escape eventually. But if they could get into the same game
and kill his character, the NerveGear would kill him in real life.
That still left three major problems to solve.
For one, Vassago the hit man would not be able to leave the game until it was
beaten. If he died in the game, he was dead for real. And Vassago himself could
not attack the target. If anyone got their hands on a game log of who attacked
whom, they could potentially trace back the assassination attempt.
The price the syndicate offered to complete this near-impossible mission was
astonishing. Vassago thought it unlikely that he would actually get it, even if he
succeeded, but he didn't have the right to refuse either way.
Nearly all the unused NerveGears had been confiscated by police, but
somehow, the syndicate acquired one. As long as he had the SAO software and
the will to go in there, neither the police nor the software company could
prevent him from logging in. The only real question after that was his character
name. Vassago had never played a video game, and he wasn't sure what to go
with at first. Deciding to keep it in-line with the name of the prince of hell his
mother had given him, Vassago chose the handle PoH.
Vassago's first experience with virtual reality altered his personality—it set
him free. He saw his long-forgotten father and distant relatives in the other
Japanese players and was keenly reminded of just how much he loathed all
Asian people.
He would kill his target, since that was his job. And along the way, he'd kill as
many other people as he could.
It was with this thought in mind that Vassago founded the biggest guild of
murderers in SAO, Laughing Coffin, and took many, many lives in total, not just
that of his original target. When the guild got too big and he grew tired of
running it, he had it clash headlong with the game's elite players to wipe it out
so he could engage directly in the job of killing those he'd identified as the
greatest targets of all: the Flash and the Black Swordsman. Not long after that,
the game was beaten, releasing them all.
When he returned to the real world from the game of death, Vassago felt not
joy but emptiness and disappointment. He knew that he would never again
experience the dream come true that was Aincrad, so he chose to return to
America in search of a similar experience. He murdered the boss, who was
reluctant to pay what he'd promised, made off with the money, and crossed the
Pacific. Over in San Diego, he found a place in the cyber-operations wing of a
private military contractor.
In VR combat training against the National Guard and the Marine Corps,
Vassago's SAO-honed skills shone brilliantly. He was promptly chosen to be an
instructor, but the stable life and income that came along with it did not satisfy
him.
One more time. I want to go back there, just one more time. Back to that false
world of truth, where everything is digital, bringing true human nature to the
surface.
For all his wishing, Vassago finally found himself in the Underworld, a
terrifyingly real virtual world, where he came across the Flash and the Black
Swordsman again. It wasn't a miracle; it had to be considered fate at this point.
For some reason, the Black Swordsman had undergone some kind of change
in mental state, but Vassago knew that if he killed enough people around him,
he'd wake up again. It was exactly because the Black Swordsman was that kind
of man that Vassago was drawn to him in the first place. It was such a singular
desire that Vassago would be happy to kill himself once he'd killed the
swordsman.
First, he'd lure the Chinese and Koreans in with false information, then have
them slaughter one another en masse. He'd never expected that impromptu
story to hold up under scrutiny for very long anyway. More than a few of them
were skeptical of the situation already and were arguing with the more
fervently patriotic members of the crowd. Once that tension reached its peak,
all he needed to provide was a little spark.
Not far away, the Korean he'd given a good punishing was still stubbornly
trying to argue with his compatriots. If he shouted to them to cut that man's
head off and slaughter all the cowards, the patriots would surely be driven into
a bloodlust and draw their swords.
"Just you wait, man…I'll get you up and on your feet in no time," Vassago
whispered to the empty-eyed swordsman in black on the ground nearby.
Belatedly, he realized that something in the young man's profile reminded him
of the glimpse he'd gotten of his half brother just before the kidney-transplant
surgery. Something sharp surged in his chest.
First, he'd kill the Black Swordsman and the Flash to log them out, then
disengage himself. The next step would be to find wherever the two of them
were on the Ocean Turtle and kill them again with the utmost relish.
Only imagining that moment could temporarily ease the dull ache in his left
side that had been with him since having his kidney stolen when he was fifteen.
Beneath the hood, he grinned and muttered to the young man, "If you keep
spacing out, everyone's gonna die. C'mon—you gotta wake up soon."
He took slow, deliberate steps, twirling the Mate-Chopper around in his
fingers.
Scritch.
Asuna heard the dry sound of boot soles scraping on parched ground, even as
her soul threatened to leave her ears.
Scritch, scritch. It was mechanical, artificial, and yet rhythmic, almost dancing.
That was something she'd heard several times before in the old floating castle:
the footsteps of Death.
She moved her head to the side and saw, twenty yards away near where
Kirito lay, the silhouette of the man in the black poncho stalking toward her.
But it wasn't actually Asuna he was walking toward—it was Klein, two swords
stuck through his back. The samurai seemed to be staving off death through
willpower alone, and now the man was going to finish the job himself.
Or so she thought at first, but soon she sensed this wasn't correct, either.
Near Klein, two knights in red armor were squabbling in Korean. In fact, all
around the army of thousands surrounding the surviving Japanese players and
Underworld warriors, violent arguments were breaking out.
It was probably the players who still believed PoH laying into those who had
figured out it was all a lie. At this rate, it was going to take only a minor trigger
for the former to draw their swords on the latter. Once that happened, the
built-up hatred between the Chinese and Korean players would probably be the
next thing to explode. PoH was heading over to stop them from…
No…
No. Oh no.
He was heading over to start the fire himself.
Just the same way he had when he leaked the location of his own murdering
guild's hideout to the frontier group so they could launch a bloody battle to
wipe the guild out.
It wasn't clear what he stood to gain by halving the power of the force at his
command. The only thing she knew for sure was that something terrible would
happen.
As he strode forward, PoH gave instructions in Korean. The two knights
holding Klein down turned on the one who'd failed to execute him, sweeping
aside their momentary hesitation and grabbing his arms.
The Grim Reaper in black flipped his knife and snatched it out of the air again
with a loud smack.
He was going to execute the "traitor" and display his head to the crowd,
driving those Chinese and Korean players who believed him to betray their
skeptical companions.
She couldn't allow him to do that. In terms of the ultimate goal of protecting
the Underworlders, preventing the red knights from killing one another
probably wasn't what she should worry about. But even half of them was still at
least ten thousand—and when they were done, they would be even more
furious and hateful and would be seeking to channel those feelings toward the
Japanese and the Underworlders.
More importantly, the Chinese and Korean players who were in danger of
being killed were the ones who were beginning to see the truth…the ones who
believed what the Japanese players told them. She couldn't give up and allow
them to suffer this painful fate.
She had to move. Had to stand, draw her sword, and stop the execution
ordered by PoH.
But her hands and feet wouldn't obey. With each breath she took, the
plethora of wounds all over her body ached and sapped her willpower.
...It's no use...…I can't get up.
Asuna could only exhale weakly, her knees stuck to the dusty ground.
Her back arched slowly. Dirty, bedraggled hair slid down over her shoulders,
blocking her vision.
Tears filled her eyes, and she tried to shut them against the approach of
Death's footsteps.
And then…
It's all right.
You can make it, Asuna.
Someone's voice was in her ear, soft but clear.
Someone's hands squeezed her shoulders, gentle but strong.
Warm light flooded into her body—into her heart. A fresh gust of air blew all
her pain away.
Stand up now, Asuna.
Stand to protect what you truly care about.
Her right hand twitched, slid across the surface of the earth, and grabbed
what lay there: the handle of Radiant Light, the rapier belonging to the Goddess
of Creation.
When she raised her head, the Grim Reaper in black had a blade that gleamed
bloody crimson held high above him. The pinned-down red knight tensed with
terror. The furor around them seemed to vanish momentarily, all eyes trained
upon that merciless edge.
Asuna held her breath, gritted her teeth, and put all the strength she still had
left into her legs.
She pushed off the ground.
"Raaaaaaaaah!!"
With a bloodcurdling scream, she drew back the rapier. Brilliant-white light
shone from its tip. The basic fencing sword skill Linear was one she'd performed
thousands of times, if not hundreds of thousands.
PoH's reflexes were sharp enough that he noticed the surprise attack.
"Oh—," he grunted, leaning backward. She thrust her hand straight for the
darkness of the hood, which was now moving away from her.
There was a small bit of feedback in her arm. One lock of curly black hair flew
into the air, and a few droplets of fresh blood sprayed from dark skin.
He dodged it!
The Underworld was no different from Aincrad in that there was an
unavoidable pause after a sword skill. Asuna was frozen for a brief, fatal instant
—and PoH's knife came rushing straight for her torso.
But at the same time, she focused her mind on the ground under PoH's feet.
A faint rainbow of light glowed there and vanished. She used the power of
Stacia to generate a little bump of earth, just inches tall, under his feet.
Despite being the smallest possible manipulation of the terrain, it felt like
lightning struck her brain. And for that heavy price, the dark reaper lost his
balance, and his knife did nothing but rip her dress a little.
"Rrgh…!"
Free from her paralysis, Asuna pulled back the rapier again.
"Whoa!" PoH's poncho swung up into the air as he raised his knife to block it.
The divinely quick thrust and the powerful slice met in midair, creating a
mixture of white and crimson sparks. Asuna put all her strength behind her
weapon, trying to push through PoH's blade.
"What…do you want?" she demanded, her voice hoarse.
With a smirk and a snarl, PoH said from beneath his hood, "Isn't it obvious?
The one in black…the one I first tried to kill on the fifth floor of Aincrad and
never could. He's the only one I really want."
"…Why do you hate Kirito so much? What did he ever do to you?"
"Hate?" PoH repeated, affronted. He leaned in closer and whispered, "I
thought you, of all people, would understand how much I truly love him. In this
world full of assholes, he's the only person you can unconditionally believe in.
He never broke down, no matter how much I tormented him. Never gave in to
temptation, no matter how much I invited him. He always brought me hope and
joy. That's why I can't stand that he ended up like that…while I wasn't around.
I'm gonna be the one to wake him up. And I'll kill anyone I need to in order to
make that happen. Thousands…Millions."
As the personification of death exhaled these words, they became a black
miasma that clung to Asuna, sapping her will to fight.
"Hope…? Joy…? As if you had any idea…of how much he had to endure
because of you!" she snapped back, but the point where their weapons met
and scraped sparks into being was slowly, slowly tilting back toward her.
In fact, it wasn't just that Asuna's willpower was weakening. PoH's wicked
Mate-Chopper was trembling like a living creature in his hand, growing slightly
thicker and larger with every passing second.
PoH noticed her shock. A smile emerged from the darkness beneath his hood.
"I finally figured out how this world works, too. In here, spilled blood and
spent life converts straight into energy. Just like how the Priestess of Light
burned up the Dark Army with that huge-ass laser beam."
Asuna had been given an explanation of the core system of the Underworld,
too, before she dived in. These "spatial resources," as they were called, couldn't
be used without complex commands or weapons that absorbed them from the
air. But even if the Mate-Chopper's enlargement was an effect of spatial
resources, PoH hadn't spoken any commands, and the knife itself had to be a
converted item from his SAO character data. It couldn't be equipped with the
Underworld's resource-absorption function.
PoH continued, reading Asuna's thoughts.
"This dagger, the Mate-Chopper, was designed so that every time it kills
monsters in Aincrad, its stats go down, and the more you slice up players—
other people—the higher its stats get. But if you kill an obnoxious number of
mobs, eventually the curse is supposed to wear off, and the weapon transforms
into some special katana with a similar name. Obviously, I wasn't interested in
that. The point here is that the way its strength grows as it slashes human
beings still works in the Underworld. The lives of the Americans you people
killed, and the Japanese the allied Chinese and Koreans killed, swirl around this
battlefield. If the Chinese and Koreans kill one another after this, there will be
even more life in the air."
As the Grim Reaper whispered, his Mate-Chopper creaked and groaned,
growing larger. Asuna's Radiant Light, top-level GM equipment, seemed unable
to withstand its pressure. All the sound in the background faded away, leaving
Asuna with only her breath and her pulse in her ears.
PoH's very presence seemed to weigh on Asuna, as though the evil weapon's
effect also applied to his height.
"Once I suck up every last one of those lives, I'm going to kill all the artificial
fluctlights in this entire world, from end to end. I'm not just talking about those
pathetic people trembling behind you—I mean all of them: the monsters in the
dark lands and the humans from the dark empire. However many thousands of
people that is, I'm sure he'll wake up in response to it. If he is the Black
Swordsman I believe in."
A cold gust of wind rustled his leather hood, revealing the eyes underneath
for a brief moment. They were red and dimly glowing.
A devil. He was not human, but a true devil.
That was the true nature of PoH. The mask of the cheerful agitator he wore in
Aincrad and the mask of the harsh commander he wore here were both just
that: lies. In truth, he was a cold, cruel agent of vengeance who sought only to
inflict pain, to torment, and wipe out all traces of humanity…
The strength went out of Asuna's knees. Her rapier creaked in its struggle,
and the knife's blade edged closer to her throat.
"Don't worry. I won't kill you yet. I'm just going to make sure you can't
interfere anymore. You need to be around to watch…when he wakes up and
dies in my arms."
The Mate-Chopper was close to twice its original size now. Radiant Light
issued a high-pitched scream, and a fine crack ran through its length.
With her right knee having fallen to the ground, Asuna watched a black mist
spilling from the hood covering her eyes. Through the darkness shone only the
thick steel blade and her crimson eyes.
Just before Asuna completely lost all strength, someone's small hand touched
her back, providing support.
It's all right.
I'll always be at your side.
A pure-blue light shot from the center of Asuna's chest, piercing the darkness.
In the reflection of the flat surface of the Mate-Chopper, Asuna could see
pristine white wings extending from her own back.
All the sound came back—the clamor and chaos of the battlefield mixing in
again, along with the voices of her friends.
"Asuna!! You can do it, Asuna!!"
"Asuna!! Asunaaaaaa!!"
"Get up, Asuna!!"
"Asunaaaaa!!"
Lisbeth. Silica. Agil. Klein.
And not just her closest companions. She could also hear the surviving ALO
players, like Sakuya, Alicia, and Siune and the other Sleeping Knights, as well as
the soldiers from the Human Guardian Army, like Renly, Tiese, Ronie, Sortiliena,
and the many other guards and friars, all chanting her name.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you, Yuuki.
I can still fight. Your hearts united give me strength.
"I won't give in…I will never allow myself to succumb…to someone like you…
who is only capable of hatred!!" she screamed. A surge of white light issued
from her being, jolting PoH backward.
Asuna returned to her feet and drew back her rapier hand. Waves of palepurple light reminiscent of the color of thyme flowers emerged from the
weapon, coloring the entire world.
"Hrrrng…!!"
The reaper attempted to stand his ground, but that just left him wide open to
attack.
Asuna activated the Original Sword Skill she'd received from Yuuki, the
Absolute Sword.
Five attacks from the upper right, lightning-fast thrusts in a diagonal line.
Five attacks from the upper left, another line of glowing points intersecting
with the first.
"Gaaah…" PoH gasps were flecked with bright blood, but his giant knife still
glowed red. If he caught her flush with a direct counterattack, it would easily
wipe out what health she had remaining.
But Asuna's onslaught wasn't over.
"Raaaaaaah!!"
She focused all her remaining energy into the tip of the rapier for the last—
and biggest—attack, right at the intersecting point of the two lines.
It was the end of the eleven-part OSS, Mother's Rosario.
A purple flash like a shooting star penetrated PoH's chest. The black-clad
personification of death flew high into the air and came crashing down heavily a
good distance away.
Asuna fell to a knee again, having spent all her mental strength. Inside her
head, she said once again, Thank you, Yuuki.
She did not hear a response this time. Perhaps it was only ever a phantom
hand and phantom voice created from Asuna's memories. But given that this
was a world built out of memories, that meant it was no illusion.
Normally, the OSS Mother's Rosario shouldn't be usable. Even if Higa and
Kikuoka implemented the sword-skill system from the original SAO, it was
Asuna the undine from ALO who'd inherited Mother's Rosario. Stacia-Asuna
hadn't been converted from that character and wouldn't contain the data of
that skill.
Yet, the OSS executed properly, visual effects and all. If that was the power of
Asuna's imagination bringing it to life, then the encouragement from Yuuki
coming back from her memory was real, too. Memories never vanished.
PoH's avatar was still lying prone on the ground. But it was impossible to
imagine that he had taken an eleven-hit combo skill with GM equipment and
survived. Unlike the other players, he was connecting with the STL, so even if he
died, his body wouldn't disintegrate. It would remain here for a time, like those
of the humans and the darklanders from the Underworld.
She got to her feet, using her rapier for support, then turned to check on
Klein. He still had the swords in his stomach, but the three players keeping him
captured had taken their distance, and like the fourth knight who'd rushed to
intervene, they watched her in disbelief.
Asuna wanted to go to Kirito as soon as possible, but first she headed for Klein
to remove the swords and heal his wounds. But no sooner had she taken a step
or two than she sensed a faint rumble through the earth.
She held her breath and turned around again.
PoH was on the ground, completely immobile. But the Mate-Chopper, still in
his hand, emitted an eerie light with swirls of red and black. In fact, it seemed
that the air of the entire battlefield was slowly rotating around the knife.
"Oh no…it's absorbing the sacred power!!" shouted Sortiliena, who stood at
the front of the human army.
Asuna gritted her teeth and started to move toward the malignant blade so
she could destroy it once and for all. But before she could get there, the Grim
Reaper in black rose to his feet, as though pulled upright by the floating
weapon.
The front of the poncho was greatly damaged, exposing his figure and his
tight leather suit. There was a huge hole in his chest where the final blow of the
OSS had struck, through which the background behind him was visible.
The Underworlders exclaimed in fright when they saw PoH standing despite
his entire heart having been blasted out of his chest. Even the Chinese and
Koreans were unnerved by it, and they assumed this was just another VRMMO
world.
Most likely, the Mate-Chopper was absorbing the tremendous amount of
spatial resources in the air and converting them into HP for PoH. But even with
that assumption in mind, Asuna couldn't stop herself from trembling.
PoH was diving through The Soul Translator. He had to be feeling the exact
same level of pain as he would in the real world. Asuna felt mind-obliterating
pain from being pierced through the side with a spear. She couldn't imagine
what it would feel like to have an enormous hole blasted through the middle of
her chest.
But the god of death just grinned with blood dripping from his lips—and
bellowed in a voice loud enough to shake everything within hearing distance:
"My brethren! This is the true nature of our foe! Kill every last one of your
feeble traitors…and every filthy Japanese, too!!"
He spoke in Korean, but somehow Asuna was able to accurately recognize the
meaning of his every word.
PoH's Mate-Chopper shot its dark-red aura from its raised position to the
ends of the wasteland.
Ohhhh…
Ohhhhhhhhh!!
Half of the combined Chinese and Korean army raised their swords in similar
fashion and roared with ferocious gusto. There was nothing Asuna could do
now to stop them from attacking the more peaceful faction…or from attacking
the few Japanese survivors and the remaining Underworld soldiers.
Suddenly something pushed her, and she fell to the ground. The damaged
rapier came loose from her grip and tumbled onto the dry soil.
Far, far ahead, a black-haired young man reached his one arm toward her,
struggling with every fiber of his being.
"...Kirito," she whispered.
Asuna reached out to her beloved in return and awaited the end.
7
It was just a brief nap in the middle of the classroom, but when I woke up, it
felt like the longest dream I'd ever had.
A dream that was fun and painful and sad. As I walked down the empty
hallway, I tried to remember what had happened in it, but nothing was coming
to me. Eventually, I gave up on it and changed into my regular shoes at the shoe
lockers inside the school entrance. Outside of the gate, the dry, chilly autumn
breeze rustled my shaggy bangs.
I shifted my book bag to my left shoulder, stuck my hands into the pockets of
my school trousers, and began to walk, head downcast. Up ahead, students
from the same school were chatting and laughing. I stuck the earbuds from my
audio player in to shut out the sound of their hopes, dreams, love, and
friendship; hunched my back; and headed home.
At the convenience store on the way home, I stopped to check out this week's
gaming magazines and bought the one that had the longest special preview of
Sword Art Online, the game that was about to launch in a month. I also added
some funds to the digital-currency account I used to play online games.
That was an intermediate step I could remove by just getting a credit card,
but after I brought it up with my mom, she said that I couldn't have one until I
was in college. I couldn't complain about that, though; I was fortunate enough
just to get an allowance each month. I wasn't even her real son, after all.
I walked out the automatic doors of the store, imagining a blissful post-cash
world where everything could happen electronically. Then I noticed that there
was a group of five people squatting in a corner of the parking lot who hadn't
been there when I walked into the store—they must have shown up while I was
distracted by the magazines. They laughed and yelled and scattered empty bags
of junk food around them.
Their uniforms marked them as belonging to my middle school, but I ignored
them and made to leave, of course. Before I could get away, one of them saw
me and stared with interest.
He was so small that if not for the uniform, he might look like he belonged to
an elementary school. We were in different classes, but I recognized him. In
fact, he had even been my friend for a time.
He and I had both played in the closed beta test for Sword Art Online over
summer vacation.
It was practically a miracle that out of a thousand lucky testers, two were
chosen from the same year at the same middle school. Enough of a miracle that
a totally antisocial loner like me heard the rumor and reached out to make
contact.
Our interaction started just before vacation, and it lasted until the end of
vacation—technically speaking, to the end of the beta. Once every three days or
so, we formed a party together in that virtual world, and we got along well
enough, but once the new school term started and I saw him at school for the
first time in a month, I had a sudden flare-up of my odd personal tic: I began to
wonder Who really is this person anyway? when I supposedly knew them well
already.
It was a sensation that inside the flesh-and-blood person across from me was
a total stranger. Once that happened, I couldn't actually get any closer to them.
At times, it even happened with my own family.
He seemed to want to keep being friends with me, both in the full release of
SAO in October and around school in the real world. Eventually, he caught on to
the way I was acting around him, though, and he drifted away. We hadn't
spoken once since then.
Why was he here now, loitering in a convenience store parking lot with
students of a type we'd normally never be associated with? The reason became
clear from the penetrating gaze he was giving me and from the words the boy
with the bowl cut the color of flan next to him said to me.
"The fuck you lookin' at, huh?"
Instantly, the other three glared at me, mouths puckered, uttering
threatening comments like "Aaah?" and "Huuuh?"
It seemed clear that the more boisterous members of his class had singled
him out, choosing him to be the weakest link of their group and an easy mark to
run errands for them and lend them money. He was looking to me for help.
All I had to do was say, Hey, let's walk home together. But I couldn't do it. My
mouth wouldn't move to make the sounds.
Instead, the only thing I could squeeze through my throat, which felt as if it
were sealed with glue, was "…Nothing."
Then I abandoned the boy I'd called friend just a month ago, and I started
walking on my way. He didn't say anything, but out of the corner of my eye, I
thought I saw his childish face screw up like he was about to burst into tears.
I quickly left the lot and headed down the road, away from the evening sun,
my back hunched with shame. I walked and walked, saying nothing, staring at
the asphalt below my feet. The sun set behind me with alarming speed,
shrouding me and the town in purple darkness. The familiar route home began
to feel like a totally unfamiliar place. No people or cars came down the road.
The only sound was my footsteps.
Step, step, step...…shuk, shuk, shuk.
"Huh…?"
I came to a halt. Somehow, I had walked off the asphalt and onto short grass.
I wondered whether there had been any unpaved ground on the way home
from school and looked up in confusion.
What I saw was not a residential street of Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture,
but a small path leading through a deep, unfamiliar forest.
After looking at my surroundings, I examined myself. The black school
uniform I'd been wearing was gone, replaced by a navy-blue tunic and leather
armor. I was wearing fingerless gloves and short boots with metal rivets. Over
my shoulder was no longer the bag I took to school, but a short and rather
heavy sword.
"Where am I…?" I wondered, but no one was around to answer. I shrugged
and began to walk down the forest path.
In less than a minute, my memory began to prickle. The shape of the ancient
trees with the twisted branches. The sensation of the growth underfoot. This
was the forest to the northwest of the Town of Beginnings on the first floor of
Aincrad, the floating castle. That meant I would arrive at Horunka if I followed
this path.
I needed to get to town so I could rent an inn room. I just wanted to get into
bed. I wanted to sleep again and not have to think.
The only light on the forest floor as I walked and walked was the hazy
moonlight. But suddenly, I heard a faint cry up ahead—or at least, I thought I
did?
I paused, then resumed walking. The trees opened up ahead on the right,
allowing the blue moonlight to illuminate a side path. Again, I heard a cry—and
the creaking growl of a monster.
I picked up the pace as I approached the break in the trees, then peered
around a thick trunk. There was a spacious hollow up ahead, almost like a
rounded stage. Creepy silhouettes writhed in the unbroken moonlight of the
clearing.
There were five or six plant-type monsters that looked like giant pitcher
plants whipping their sharp tentacles around. A young man dressed in an outfit
similar to mine was surrounded by them. He swung his sword around
desperately, but no matter how many of the tentacles he sliced through, they
simply grew back with no end.
I recognized his profile.
He had formed a party with me for the purpose of efficiently collecting the
items these plant monsters dropped. His name was…was…Kopel. But why was
he surrounded by so many of them?
Whatever the case, he was a companion of mine, so I had to save him.
But once again, my feet would not move. For all the success I had in trying to
get them to act, they might as well have been rooted to the ground.
A tentacle swept Kopel's feet out from behind, and he toppled onto the grass.
The monsters' sinister grins revealed rows of human teeth, and they opened
and closed their jaws loudly as they descended upon him.
Kopel looked to me with despair in his eyes and reached out a hand.
But just as quickly, he was overrun by the swarm of monsters, and a moment
later, I heard the faint burst of his avatar and saw a blue light peek through.
"Ahhhh…," I groaned, letting my face fall, the same way I had when I had
abandoned my friend outside the convenience store.
In time, I slowly stood back up, looking at nothing but the grass around my
feet. I turned and walked down the narrow path again. My footsteps were the
only sound in the moonlit forest.
Shuk, shuk, shuk...…tok, tok, tok.
I came to a stop. Somehow, the short grass underfoot had changed to bluish
stone blocks. I looked up and saw that I was no longer in a forest on the first
floor of Aincrad but in some unfamiliar dim hallway. Probably somewhere in a
labyrinth…but from the appearance, I couldn't tell what floor. All I could do was
keep walking.
Barely even cognizant that my equipment and sword had changed, I walked
silently down the corridor. And walked and walked, as though chasing my own
shadow cast by the lanterns set into the walls. The labyrinths of Aincrad were
about a thousand feet across at the largest, so there couldn't have been a
hallway this straight and long. But I never stopped or turned back. I just kept
walking.
Eventually, I heard a faint voice coming from up ahead. It wasn't a scream; it
was a shout of happiness. Multiple cheers followed in its wake.
The voices seemed familiar, nostalgic. My pace picked up a little as I rushed
for the source of the cheering.
In time, I reached an opening in the left wall, through which warm-yellow
light shone. I kept my legs moving all the way to the entrance, though they felt
heavy and tired now, for some reason.
I peered around the side and saw a surprisingly spacious room. Along the far
wall, four players stood with their backs to me.
Even without seeing their faces, I instantly knew who they were.
The one with the wild hair and the odd hat who used a spear was Sasamaru.
The tall mace-user with the shield was Tetsuo.
The smaller dagger-user with the beanie was Ducker.
And lastly, the short-haired girl with the short spear…Sachi.
They were members of the guild I belonged to. Keita, our leader, was off
negotiating to buy us a guild home, so we were spending time in the labyrinth
to earn some money for furniture and such.
Thank goodness…They're all right, I thought for some strange reason. I tried
to call out to them, but once again, my mouth would not move. My feet were
stuck to the ground and couldn't come loose.
As I watched, helpless, the four of them leaned over. They were peering at
something—a large treasure chest placed next to the wall. As soon as my mind
registered that fact, I felt a chill run down my back.
Ducker the thief excitedly examined the chest, looking for traps to disarm.
No. Stop. Don't, I screamed, over and over, but the words never left my mind.
I couldn't move my legs to rush into the room to stop them.
Ducker threw the lid of the chest open.
Instantly, there was an ear-piercing alarm, and hidden doors on both
sidewalls of the room opened up. Bloodthirsty monsters poured into the room
in ghastly numbers.
"Ah…ah...!"
At last, a sound came from my throat: a faint, cracked shriek.
That was all I could do. Not a finger would move. I could only watch as my
friends and companions were surrounded by monsters.
Sasamaru was the first to die. Ducker was next, and after him, Tetsuo burst
into blue particles, leaving only Sachi. She spun around and looked at me.
Her lips formed a hint of a sad smile and opened and closed.
The next moment, monster weapons and claws rained down on her without
mercy, and her fragile body was enveloped in blue light.
"...…!!"
I screamed in total silence as Sachi, too, was reduced to a plethora of glass
shards that soon vanished.
Dozens of monsters simply melted into the air, and the room was full of
darkness. My body was able to move again, and I fell to my knees.
I'm sick of this. I don't want to keep walking. I don't want to see anything else.
I curled up on the cold floor, covered my ears, and squeezed my eyes shut.
But the memories just kept flooding back, like frigid water pooling up around
me, enveloping me.
Two years of battle in a floating castle of iron and stone.
Endless sky in a land of fairies.
Crimson bullets flying left and right in an evening wasteland.
I don't want to remember. I don't want to know what comes next.
But despite my prayers, the current of memories pushed me onward.
Suddenly cut off from the real world.
Waking up in an empty space in a deep forest.
Guided by the sound of an ax chopping wood, until I arrived at the root of a
massive tree and met him.
A battle with goblins. The giant tree toppling down.
A long, long journey to the center of the world. Two years training at an
academy.
With every step, he was beside me, smiling peacefully.
With him, I knew I could do anything.
We raced up a chalk-white tower together and defeated powerful opponents.
And then we reached the top
and crossed swords with the ruler of the world, and at the end of a long,
agonizing battle,
he lost
his life…
"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!" I screamed, holding my head in my hands.
It was me. My powerlessness, my foolishness, my weakness: It killed him.
Blood was spilled that did not need to be spilled. Life was lost that was not
meant to end.
I should have been the one to die. My life there was temporary in the first
place. Our roles could have been reversed, and everything would have
continued as it was meant to.
"Aaaah…Aaaaaaaah!!" I screamed and writhed and rolled and reached for
the sword that should have been on my back. I was going to press it against my
heart or slit my own throat.
But my fingers found nothing over my shoulder. I groped around, thinking I
had dropped it, but the only thing I felt was sticky, clinging black liquid
extending forever.
I grabbed the collar of my black shirt and ripped it with my hands.
Curled fingers like claws touched the center of my emaciated chest.
The skin split, and my flesh tore apart, but I felt no pain. With both hands, I
ripped into my own chest.
So that I could expose my heart, pull it out, and crush it.
This was all I could do for him…The last act of atonement for those I had
betrayed and abandoned…
"Kirito…"
Someone called my name.
I stopped moving, looked around with empty eyes.
Beyond the darkness, there was now a girl with chestnut-brown hair standing
alone.
Her hazel eyes were wet and staring right at me.
"Kirito…"
A new voice arrived. To the right, a girl with glasses. Behind the glass lenses,
her eyes were glowing with tears, too.
"Big Brother…"
Then another:
Her black bangs were cut straight across. Tears fell from her large eyes.
The will and emotions of the three girls became light that surged and flowed
into me.
A warmth like a pillar of sunlight healed my wounds and melted away my
sadness.
...But.
But…oh, but.
I could not possibly be worthy of receiving their absolution.
"I'm sorry," I heard myself say. "I'm sorry, Asuna. Sorry, Sinon. Sorry, Sugu. I
can't stand anymore. I can't fight. I'm sorry..."
And with the heart I'd pulled from my chest in my grasp, I prepared to crush it
in one swift, decisive movement.
"Why…? What's the matter, Kirito?!"
Despite the way his consciousness seemed to be slipping away like the blood
flowing from the bullet wound in his shoulder, Takeru Higa focused on the
screen.
The three Soul Translators housing Asuna Yuuki, Shino Asada, and Suguha
Kirigaya were sending a tremendous amount of mnemonic data in an attempt
to complement Kazuto Kirigaya's damaged fluctlight. Even Higa, who'd run as
many tests and experiments as anyone, was astonished at the miraculous
volume of data that was being provided.
But the 3-D graph on the remote monitor of Kazuto's fluctlight activity
remained in stasis just below the recovery line.
"Even this…still isn't enough...?" Higa groaned.
Kazuto's recovering self-image wasn't on pace to bring him back to reality. It
was linking only to painful memories that tormented him, preventing him from
breaking free. All that awaited him in that case was an eternal nightmare
refrain. Even being shut down entirely would be preferable to that hell.
Just one more person.
If only there was one more person with deep ties to Kazuto who had an
accumulation of powerful memories!
But according to Lieutenant Colonel Seijirou Kikuoka, the three girls currently
connected were the three people in the world who loved him the most and
knew him the best. And there were no more Soul Translators available to use
either in the Roppongi office or on the Ocean Turtle.
"Dammit…it's not fair…"
Higa gritted his teeth and clenched his fist to slam it against the side of the
duct. But as soon as the thought entered his mind, he let his hand uncurl.
"...What's…this…? Where is this connection from…?" he muttered, leaning
closer to peer at the monitor through blood-and sweat-stained lenses.
He had previously failed to notice, on Kazuto's fluctlight-status window, that
in addition to the three connected lines indicating the girls in the STLs, there
was one more—a very thin, faint gray line coming from the bottom of the
screen.
Fascinated, he lifted his finger to the touch-panel screen and flicked it
upward. The display scrolled in that direction, revealing the source of the gray
line.
"From the…Main Visualizer?! But why…?!" he shouted, momentarily
forgetting his gravely injured state.
The Main Visualizer was a massive piece of data storage at the core of the
Lightcube Cluster, where the souls of all the Underworlders were kept. The
Main Visualizer was where the information about the Underworld's terrain,
buildings, and objects was stored—but not any human souls.
"Objects…objects from memories…," Higa repeated to himself, thinking on
overdrive. "Fluctlight memories and Underworld objects are treated the same
when it comes to data formatting…So if someone was able to burn their mind,
their will, into an object…would it then function as a kind of…simulated…
fluctlight...?"
He could only half believe the idea he was suggesting. If it was possible, then
every nonliving thing in the Underworld could be controlled solely by its
owner's will.
But at this point, even this faint little connection seemed like the only hope
remaining.
Higa couldn't begin to guess whether this would help the situation or only
make it worse, but regardless, he opened a connection from the Main Visualizer
access to Kazuto's STL.
"Kirito."
Right before I crushed my own heart, a new voice called my name. A voice
that was powerful, warm, and enveloping.
"Kirito."
Ever so slowly, I raised my head to see.
Where endless darkness had been just a moment ago, he now stood on two
solid legs.
Spotless blue clothes. A flaxen cowlick that shone even in the darkness. A
gentle, subtle smile on his lips.
And in those dark-green eyes was a kind but powerful light, just as there had
always been.
I lifted my hands away from my chest, which was now perfectly whole again,
extended them toward him, and stood up.
I heard myself whisper his name through trembling lips.
"…Eugeo."
Once more.
"You're alive, Eugeo."
My best friend, and the greatest partner I could ever have, just tinged his
gentle smile with sadness and shook his head.
"This is the memory of me that lives inside you," he said. "And the fragment
of memory I left behind."
"Mem…ory…"
"That's right. Have you forgotten already? We were so sure of what we
declared. Memories," Eugeo said, opening his right palm and pressing it to his
chest, "live here."
Like looking in a mirror, I made the exact same action. "Forever in here."
As Eugeo grinned happily again, Asuna strode forward to join him. "We are
always connected to you through our hearts."
Sinon walked forward on Eugeo's other side and nodded, causing the hair tied
at the sides of her head to wave. "No matter how far apart we might be…no
matter when the time comes for us to part."
Then Suguha hopped forward next to her and said happily, "Memories and
feelings are connections that last for eternity. Isn't that right?"
Hot, clear liquid burst from my eyes at last. I took a step forward and gazed
desperately into the eyes of my eternal friend.
"Are you sure, Eugeo…? Can I really…move forward again?"
His answer was swift and unwavering.
"Yes, you can, Kirito. Many, many people are waiting for you. Come…Let's go.
Together. To wherever this takes us."
Two hands reached out from opposite directions and made contact. Then
Asuna, Sinon, and Suguha added their own.
Instantly, the four people turned into waves of pure-white light, flowing into
me.
And then…
8
Asuna reached and reached for Kirito—until a red armored boot stomped
down on her hand.
She looked up to see a red knight, whose eyes were burning with hatred
through the slit in his helmet, raise a sword up high with both hands in a
backhand stabbing position. He issued some fierce insult and started to thrust
downward.
Asuna didn't have the strength to fight back, but she was determined to at
least keep from shutting her eyes. She focused on the steel tip.
Ting.
There was a sharp, metallic noise and a resulting shower of orange sparks.
The knight's sword jolted back up into the air, as though it had been deflected
by some other, invisible sword.
"Uh…?" the knight grunted in confusion and swung the sword down again.
That created more sparks and did not get him any closer to killing Asuna. A third
and fourth attempt achieved the same result.
There was no fifth try. Sortiliena raced over to Asuna and used the knock-back
skill Torrent to push the red knight backward with the pommel of her
greatsword.
As she helped Asuna up, Sortiliena asked her, with undisguised shock, "Was
that…your Incarnate Sword, Asuna?!"
"Incar…?" Asuna repeated, unfamiliar with this word. She shook her head.
"No, it wasn't me."
"Then…perhaps Renly…," Sortiliena suggested, turning to look. Asuna
followed her gaze, but the young wounded knight was giving directions to his
squad to fight back the approaching horde of red warriors and wasn't in any
state to be paying attention to Asuna.
This wasn't the time to be searching for the source of the phenomenon,
however; they had to save every last Underworld life they could. Asuna got to
her feet with Sortiliena's help, willing whatever shreds of concentration she had
left to help her take in the state of the scene around her.
Promptly, she felt fresh despair steal over her heart like cold black water.
Over 80 percent of the twenty thousand remaining Chinese and Koreans were
launching into battle with their own kind. But the difference in morale was stark
—the players seeking to continue the fight overwhelmed those who didn't.
Little blue pillars of avatar destruction dotted the battlefield, accompanied by
fierce war cries.
Also, a small percentage of the knights—but still over two thousand in
number—were moving in on the Japanese players and the Underworlders, who
were clumped in one place. The Japanese players barely had any strength left,
and Renly and the rest of the Underworlders were gravely wounded. Despite
the advantages of sacred arts and sword skills, there was very little they could
do to vanquish their enemy.
Asuna couldn't even think of what to say. All she did was cling to Sortiliena's
arm.
Elsewhere, PoH's echoing laughter rang out long and loud. The Grim Reaper,
who still had a huge hole in his chest, stood over the prone form of Kirito. His
hands were spread wide, massive Mate-Chopper in one hand and his fingers
spread out on the other, and he leaned backward with majestic laughter. Dark
clouds above swirled into an enormous vortex as the life resources spilled on
the battlefield hung down in a whirlpool that ended directly in PoH's body.
Technically, it was the cursed blade in his hand that was absorbing the
resources. If they could destroy that, the energy flow to its owner would stop,
and the heartless reaper would die instantly.
But the situation was so bad that even the defeat of the enemy commander
would not bring it under control. PoH's inflammatory words and evil aura were
pushing the war hawks onward. If they lost their commander now, that would
only give them more fuel to slaughter all the Japanese and Underworlders in a
blind rage.
What can we do? What can I do…?
Asuna hung her head, racked with panic and desperation—but then she
noticed a strange phenomenon around them.
Where the ground was visible, the blackened gravel was now covered by a
trail of faint-white mist. It drifted past her feet, rippling like a length of ribbon
made of finest silk, and spread out as it continued past. A sweet, gentle scent
tickled her nostrils.
Is that…the smell of roses…?
Asuna and Sortiliena followed the ribbon of mist back to its source with their
eyes. And when they saw where it was coming from, they both let out little
gasps.
"Oh..."
And again.
"Ohhh."
The source of the mist was a skinny young man lying on the ground many
yards away.
Technically, it was the bluish-white longsword in his left hand. The blade was
snapped off halfway up, but it looked like the mist was surrounding the entire
weapon and even glowing a little bit.
"Kirito…," called out Asuna, her quavering lips forming the name of the
person she loved more than any other.
"Then that Incarnation…was Kirito's…" Sortiliena gasped, voice thick with
emotion.
The white mist reached the position of the allied Chinese and Korean soldiers
who were standing all around, and it continued to expand beyond them. They
were too occupied with the battle to notice that everything from their knees
downward was enveloped by a layer of white ribbon.
Only at this point did PoH notice what was happening and stop laughing. He
stared at his feet, then sprang around to look at Kirito. His tall, lanky frame
jolted once, then he flipped the Mate-Chopper around for a better grip and
strode forward.
One step. Two steps.
But he did not finish the third step.
Someone whispered…chanted…in a quiet but sure voice that seemed to carry
across the entire battlefield.
Enhance Armament.
Asuna heard it inside her head, too. It was Kirito's voice, but it sounded like
there was some other, unfamiliar voice speaking in chorus with him.
The next moment, the entire battlefield was enveloped in a vast, stunning
phenomenon on the scale of Stacia's terrain-altering powers.
From the mist emerged vines of crystal clear ice, binding the bodies of the
twenty-thousand-plus Chinese and Korean players, as well as PoH. They looked
extremely fragile, likely to shatter the moment you touched them, but the
furiously battling soldiers were immobilized so completely that time might as
well have stopped by magic.
After a brief silence, shouts of surprise and anger arose, but they too died
down in time. Every avatar wrapped in the icy vines was soon covered in a
shroud of frost and frozen solid in moments.
Asuna briefly glanced over her shoulder toward the red knight who had tried
to save Klein. He, too, was an ice sculpture now. But he didn't seem to be in any
pain; his eyes were peacefully closed, as far as she could see through his helm
visor. The technique wasn't meant to destroy or inflict pain, just to stop those it
touched.
She faced forward again to see that PoH was frozen white as well. She looked
at Sortiliena and nodded to indicate her state. "Thank you, Liena…I'm fine
now."
The chief guard let go of her, and she rushed toward Kirito, crunching the
frost on the ground underfoot. Behind her followed Sortiliena and Ronie, who
came running up from the Human Guardian Army's forces.
Kirito was still facedown on the ground, clutching the broken sword in his left
hand. But Asuna could tell that at this very moment, his mind was coming back
to him. If she could touch his hand, cradle him, call out to him, he would
respond. He would surely respond.
The span of a few dozen yards felt like it continued to the ends of the earth.
Less than twenty seconds felt longer than eternity. But with each stride of her
aching legs, the form of her beloved grew larger and larger in her view. Almost
there. Almost within reach…
In the instant that her outstretched hand was going to touch that familiar
black hair, she heard a tremendous, earsplitting crash.
The women looked up and saw, very close by, the figure of PoH breaking
through the ice vines and frost to take one violent step forward.
"I've been waiting my whole life for this!! C'mon, Kirito…Let's dance!!"
As far as Asuna knew, this was the first time, going all the way back to their
SAO days, that PoH had actually spoken that name. He readied the MateChopper and leaped like some monstrous bird.
The frighteningly thick blade descended, exuding an evil red-black aura. And it
was aimed not at Kirito but at Asuna and the other two women.
"No—!"
Sortiliena rushed forward, raising her damaged longsword over her head to
block the reaper's blow. But the enlarged dagger, nearly three times its original
size now, didn't even need to touch her blade directly; its wicked aura alone
split Sortiliena's sword in two.
The shock knocked the chief guard backward. Asuna and Ronie stood behind
her in an attempt to keep her upright. The three of them ended up clumped
together, with the wicked blade coming down in a lethal swing…
Claaaaang!
There was a tremendous ringing just above them, knocking them onto their
behinds.
But the knife hadn't touched them. It was vibrating, like it had struck some
invisible barrier hanging in the air. The exact same thing that had prevented the
red knight from hitting Asuna earlier.
This time, she definitely felt it. She was being protected by warm, strong,
familiar arms. Just before the invisible barrier, she could see something faintly
glowing. Painted in the air in little golden motes of light was a hand with fingers
outstretched—a right hand.
Then she heard a scraping sound.
Asuna's head turned automatically to the left.
Though Kirito's face was still against the ground, his left hand had the broken
white sword pointed into the soil. And with that as a base, his frail, emaciated
body was slowly, slowly rising up off the ground.
The empty right sleeve of his black shirt swayed in the breeze. No—not quite.
It was gradually filling out, moving closer to the place where the illusionary
hand supported the barrier.
When the sleeve made contact with the hand, it created a golden brilliance,
dispersing the evil miasma that lurked on the other side of the wall. The barrier
slammed PoH's body, knocking him far backward.
When the brilliance faded, Asuna was looking at a perfectly whole—if still
slightly emaciated—hand and arm. Her eyes followed his arm upward, past his
shoulder.
And then she saw long bangs waving in the breeze. Lips forming a gentle
smile. And two black pupils gazing back at her from the same level.
His lips moved, and his voice emerged:
"I'm back, Asuna."
Tears burst from her eyes, never-ending, and she couldn't stop a high-pitched
peal from leaving her throat. She clenched her hands before her chest and
channeled her wave of emotion into words.
"...Welcome home, Kirito."
Next, Sortiliena and Ronie called out his name in unison. Kirito nodded to
them with a smile and faced forward again. There was a stern quality to his
expression.
Over thirty feet away, PoH got back to his feet with a smoothness that
seemed to ignore the power of gravity.
The Chinese and Korean players that had been about to kill one another were
still entirely frozen by the ice vines, which should have stopped the generation
of fresh spatial resources, but the swirling black clouds were still on the move
overhead, and PoH's knife was still absorbing power. The Grim Reaper wasn't
going to stop unless his weapon was destroyed.
Kirito stood up a second later. He faltered but kept his balance. Asuna had to
stifle the urge to rush to his side and keep him stable. She barely had the
strength to stand herself, so throwing herself into the situation would only
make her a liability. Now was the time to believe in Kirito. Just believing would
be a source of strength in itself.
Kirito lifted his regenerated arm and drew the black sword from its sheath,
right from where it lay on the ground. Then he rose again and felt its weight in
his palm.
It was a different shape from his old sword, Elucidator, and the other sword
was broken in half—but the image of him dual-wielding black and white blades
belonged to none other than the Black Swordsman, who had protected, guided,
and granted strength to Asuna from the day they had met.
The white longsword in his left hand sparkled like diamond dust, exuding its
frosty aura. The superpower that was immobilizing over twenty thousand
soldiers at once was still being maintained, but there was no hint of effort or
concentration on Kirito's face. It was as though someone else was standing at
his side, sharing his burden.
Kirito trudged forward, holding two swords at once, staring directly into the
two red eyes shining from PoH's hood. The man spread his arms in a welcoming
gesture, exposing the giant hole in his chest.
"…So, you're awake at last. How long has it been since we stared each other
in the face and had a conversation in person?"
The reaper's voice was harsh, like rusted metal scraping together. Kirito
channeled his Aincrad days; his voice was aloof but with a sharp edge at its
core. "You know, I've lost track. But I know this time will be the last."
PoH whistled in admiration. "How nice…You're the best, Kirito. C'mon…Let's
pick up where we left off. We haven't really cut loose since Aincrad."
He lifted the Mate-Chopper—which was more of a machete now that it was
three times its usual size—as though it were as light as a feather. The black
clouds overhead swirled even harder, and dark-red sparks danced around the
thick slab of metal.
Kirito, meanwhile, lifted his black sword straight back.
But the moment the sword reached a vertical angle, his weakened body
faltered, unable to support the full weight of the weapon.
Asuna already knew that the Underworld wasn't the same as any other
VRMMO world built under The Seed's specifications. Every object that existed
here was a mnemonic visual created solely through memory and was subject to
the influence of the brain's power to envision and imagine.
According to Alice, Kirito had been in an unresponsive state for nearly half a
year in this time-accelerated world. He might not have any memory of that span
of time, but he would know that his body had been inactive for all of it. So the
weakened image of himself in his mind was actually physically crippling him.
But as a matter of fact, that might not have been all of it.
Takeru Higa of Rath had given her an explanation of why Kirito's self-image
had been damaged like that.
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. Just then, our shady
attackers cut the power line, and the momentary power surge caused an instant
spike in the STL's output. The result was that Kirito's self-destructive impulse
was actualized…and his ego was deactivated.
She'd found it difficult to absorb at the time, but in summary, Kirito had lost
someone important to him here, and his sadness had been so great that it had
destroyed him. Asuna knew this person's name, because it had come up over
and over again during the night she'd spent trading stories in the tent with
Alice, Ronie, and Sortiliena: Eugeo the sword disciple.
Through some miracle, Kirito had recovered, but he still was not accepting of
Eugeo's death. An unending sadness was casting its pall over his mind…and
even his physical body.
Kirito, Asuna thought, watching him hold the black sword aloft, I can't
imagine what kind of horrible, heartbreaking things you went through. But I can
tell you this: Your friend still lives on inside you. The same way that Yuuki still
lives inside me. And that memory will bring you strength. Strength to pick up
your sword and fight again.
And, as if her thoughts had become words in his ears, Kirito held the broken
sword to his chest, even as the black sword was on high.
Sensing this was a chance to strike, PoH moved. His slender form tilted
forward, then burst across the wreckage-strewn ground, closing thirty feet in a
blink. His thick machete slid forward, seemingly weightless.
Rather than sidestepping it, Kirito struck with his right sword to deflect the
blow. But Asuna could see that his attack had lost its usual bite.
When the longsword made contact with the machete, it fortunately avoided
being knocked aside, but Kirito could not bring enough momentum for an even
stalemate; the power of the knife pushed his sword straight down. His knee
bent, and his back arched like a bow. His boots slid a foot along the dirt.
"…Come on—don't disappoint me. I've been waiting almost two years for this
moment…," growled the reaper in the black poncho. Like its blade, the MateChopper's handle was enlarged, too, and he added his other hand for leverage.
The point of contact creaked, and Kirito's knee sank even lower. If only he
could switch to a two-handed grip, like PoH…but he had the white sword
clutched in his left hand. It was split in two, so it could not be used to attack.
Within Death's hood, thick lips curved sadistically. Slowly but surely, the blade
of the machete approached Kirito's neck.
"Kirito…!" gasped Sortiliena. She made to stand, holding her broken sword.