Return, July 7th, 2026 AD / November 7th, 380 HE

Rinko Koujiro sat in the control seat at the console of Subcon, staring at the

glass hatch placed just to the left of the board.

The LCD screen at the top of the hatch flashed a message in red letters:

EJECTING…

There was the deep sound of pressurized air leaking. Eventually a small black

quadrilateral shape appeared beyond the glass window. The LCD screen

changed to COMPLETE.

Rinko reached out a trembling hand to open the little hatch and take out its

contents.

It was a hard metal package, a cube a little over two inches to a side, and

surprisingly heavy. A six-digit number was carved on its sheer face, and there

was a very small connector port on it.

Trapped in this tiny cube was Alice's soul.

Following the commands of the system, the Lightcube Cluster installed in the

center of the Ocean Turtle's Main Shaft ejected a single specific cube, sealing it

in a protective package and then shooting it through a pneumatic tube.

At the same time, it was a journey from the interior Underworld to the

exterior real world.

Rinko was speechless for a moment, struck with an indescribable sensation,

but recovered and picked up the cube carefully with both hands. She turned to

the mic and shouted, "Asuna, Alice has been ejected! Only you and Kirigaya are

left! Make it quick!!"

She glanced at the crimson countdown on the main monitor and added,

"You've only got thirty seconds until the maximum acceleration starts!! Log out

now!!"

There was a moment of silence.

Then words she never expected to hear came out of the speaker.

"I'm sorry, Rinko."

"Huh…? F-for what…?"

"I'm sorry. I'm…staying here. Thank you for everything. I will never forget

what you did for us."

Asuna Yuuki's voice was calm and gentle and full of purpose, from what Rinko

could hear through the speaker.

"Please take care of Alice. She's a very sweet person. She holds great love

within her, and she is loved by many. For the sake of the souls who vanished for

her sake…and for Kirito's sake, please don't let them turn her into a weapon."

Rinko was speechless again. All she could do was listen to Asuna's final words.

"And tell everyone else, too, that…I'm sorry…and thank you…and good-bye…"

The countdown hit zero.

A long siren blared, and the heavy groan of machinery echoed throughout the

cramped cable duct.

It was ten o'clock in the morning on July 7th. The fifteen-minute countdown

was over, and the cooling system on the other side of the wall was running at

full capacity. Huge fans desperately tried to suck out the incredible heat output

of the machines supporting the Underworld simulation. If you looked at the

Ocean Turtle from the sea, you would see heat haze rising from the top of its

pyramid structure.

"...It's started…," grunted Takeru Higa.

"Yeah," replied Seijirou Kikuoka, who was carrying him down the narrow

ladder.

When they'd determined that preventing the maximum-acceleration phase

was impossible, they'd immediately prepped and headed into the maintenance

cable duct again, but since Higa was injured, it had taken them eight minutes to

get him strapped into a support harness.

Despite the fact that Kikuoka descended the rungs with such force that sweat

poured off him, the maximum-acceleration phase started in the Underworld

before they reached the pressure-resistant isolation barrier. Praying, Higa hit

the intercom button to speak to Dr. Koujiro in the sub-control room.

"Rinko…how's it going?"

There was some static, followed by a connection sound, but all he received

was heavy silence.

"…Rinko?"

"…I'm sorry. We've safely retrieved Alice's lightcube. But…," she said faintly

and then delivered what came next.

Higa held his breath and closed his eyes tight.

"…All right. We'll do all we can. I'll get in touch to tell you when to open the

connection hatch."

He released the button and expelled all the air in his lungs over a long, slow

period.

Kikuoka didn't ask what he'd heard, sensing enough from Higa's reaction

already. He continued to bound downward in silence.

"…Kiku…"

Several seconds later, Higa finally found the voice to tell the team commander

what Dr. Koujiro had related to him.

Critter stared in silence at the new window on the main monitor and the

message it contained.

It said, in very brief detail, that one lightcube had been ejected from the

cluster and delivered to the sub-control room on the other side of the pressureresistant barrier. Meaning that Rath had control of Alice now.

Or in other words, the entire ten-plus-hour operation to find Alice in the

Underworld and abduct her had ended in total failure. Vassago and Captain

Miller had dived in themselves, led the Dark Army in a military invasion of the

human lands, fought in battle scenes that would make any Hollywood producer

faint, even lured in tens of thousands of Americans, Chinese, and Koreans to

fight with them—and all of it had been for nothing.

He scratched at his shaved head, exhaled through his nose, and thought

about something else. If there were still over eight hours remaining until the

defense ship arrived, could they physically steal Alice back now?

The barrier was extremely thick and made of a powerful composite metal, so

they had no means of destroying it. But if Rath opened it up, like they had not

long ago, that would be a different story.

In fact, why had they opened the barrier earlier? Did they really think they

could overpower the team with one ugly, clumsy robot and a couple of smoke

grenades?

Unless that had been a distraction…? If they had some other reason for

opening the barrier, what in the world would that be?

Critter turned back to the team members who had resumed their card game

and called out, "Hey, about that robot they sent in from above. It wasn't even

loaded with any explosives or anything, right?"

Tall, lanky Hans twisted his mustache and said, "Oh, we looked it over,

sweetie. No explosives, not even a single type of fixed weapon. I think they

were using it as a ballistic shield, but we shot it to shit so bad it broke down,

and the soldiers behind it had to retreat."

"Okay…By the way, their SDF members aren't called soldiers—they're

technically 'personnel,'" Critter added, a pointless bit of trivia, as he turned the

chair back around.

So it was possible that the robot maneuver was just a diversion. But even with

smoke grenades, those stairs were tight, and there was no way anyone could

have slipped by Hans and Brigg without them noticing.

Which would mean…

Critter picked up the tablet computer on the desk and brought up an interior

map of the Ocean Turtle.

"Let's see…Here's the Main Shaft, and here's where the barrier splits it…and

this is the staircase where they sent the robot through…"

Just then, the countdown on the monitor reached zero, and a high-pitched

alarm began to sound. The Underworld's time acceleration was resuming. And

because that muscle-bound idiot Brigg had broken the control lever, the

acceleration rate was going crazy.

But whatever happened in the Underworld now didn't matter. The Alice

retrieval plan was a failure, so Vassago and Captain Miller had probably "died"

during their dives and would be logging out and coming out of the adjacent

room soon.

In that case, it would be a good idea to think of the next tactical option to

take before the captain got back. Critter zoomed in on the ship map and

scrolled through it until he noticed something.

"Hey, there's a little hatch here, too. What is this…a cable duct…?"

After she was done relaying the situation to Takeru Higa, Rinko leaned back in

the mesh chair and let out a heavy breath.

Asuna Yuuki's decision to stay in the Underworld once it became clear that

Kazuto Kirigaya would not be able to escape before the acceleration started

was so youthful, so earnest—and so tragically beautiful.

She couldn't help but recall something from her own life: when the man she

loved left her behind in the real world and vanished into cyberspace.

What would she have done if she'd been given the option to go with him?

Would she have destroyed her brain with a prototype STL, too, and chosen to

live on solely as an electronic copy of her consciousness?

"Akihiko…did you…?" she whispered, closing her eyes.

She'd thought that building the floating castle Aincrad and creating a true

alternate world with ten thousand players trapped inside it was Akihiko

Kayaba's only desire. But during that two-year period in the castle, he found

something, learned something. And that thing changed his thinking.

There was more, something further beyond.

SAO was not the final destination, but only the beginning, he realized. And

that led him to develop a higher-density version of the NerveGear in that villa in

the forest of Nagano and to eventually kill himself within the prototype.

Using the data he'd left with her, Rinko designed the high-precision medicaluser full-dive system, Medicuboid. With the vast data provided to the project by

a girl's three-year test stay in the first Medicuboid prototype, Takeru Higa and

Rath were able to put the finishing touches on their Soul Translator.

So depending on how you considered it, the Underworld—this ultimate

example of an alternate reality—was born from the cornerstone of Akihiko

Kayaba's grand vision. Did that mean that with the completion of the

Underworld, Kayaba's desires had come to fruition?

No, that couldn't be the case…because that still didn't explain where the

other element he left behind, The Seed Package, was supposed to fit into the

puzzle.

VRMMOs based on The Seed's architecture had become the standard, which

was how the Japanese players were able to convert their accounts and help

fight back against the foreign assault. But there was no way that even Kayaba

would have foreseen such an event years before it happened. The conversion

function being used to save someone was only a secondary effect of its

presence.

So what was the point of it? Why was it necessary for all those VR worlds to

have a shared architecture that allowed them to be linked this way…?

On top of the console desk, Alice's lightcube package was held in a special

aluminum-alloy case. The lightcube itself, a collection of light quantum gates,

was nonvolatile in nature, but the gates' drive circuits in the package required

power to run, so while it was in the case, Alice's soul was inactive.

Rinko brushed the silver case with her fingers and glanced into the left corner

of the sub-control room to the humanoid silhouette there: the machine body

Niemon.

In theory, if she put Alice's lightcube package into the robot's cranial socket,

Niemon would become Alice's body and move and speak as she willed it to.

Rinko had to shake her head to dispel the momentary impulse to test it out

and actually speak with Alice. Kazuto and Asuna were in a perilous situation at

the moment, so this wasn't the time for indulging her curiosity. And though

Niemon was more advanced than Ichiemon, Alice would likely be shocked to

appear in a body that bore not a shred of femininity.

A few moments later, she took her hand off the aluminum-alloy case.

"Dr. Koujiro," said a voice behind her, and she spun around.

It was Lieutenant Nakanishi, who had returned to the sub-control room

without drawing her attention.

"We're ready to reopen the barrier hatch. You can go ahead at any time."

"Oh…thank you," she said, checking the time on the monitor. One minute had

passed since the activation of the maximum-acceleration phase. In internal

time, that was…ten years.

It was unbelievable. The age of Kazuto Kirigaya's and Asuna Yuuki's souls was

now greater than Rinko's. They had to be logged out as soon as humanly

possible. If they could just be ejected before their soul life spans ended, it might

be possible to erase all the memories that had accumulated since the start of

the max-acceleration phase. But in theoretical terms, they had less than twelve

minutes to actually execute such a thing.

Higa, Kikuoka…hurry!! Rinko prayed, biting her lip.

Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka wheezed with ragged breath. A cascade of sweat

discolored his shirt and seeped into Higa's clothing.

Higa wanted to tell him he could get down on his own from here, but he kept

stopping himself from doing so. Yanai's bullet had penetrated Higa's right

shoulder, which still throbbed despite the maximal level of painkillers, and his

body felt as heavy as lead after losing so much blood. He didn't feel capable of

supporting his own weight.

And more importantly, Higa realized, it was a bit surprising that the lieutenant

colonel would be so desperate in this situation.

The final goal of Project Alicization, acquiring the limit-surpassed fluctlight

code-named A.L.I.C.E., had been met. All that was left was to analyze Alice's

structure and compare it to that of other fluctlights, and they would be well on

their way to mass-producing true bottom-up AI. The purpose of Rath's

existence—to establish a foundation for Japanese defense in the coming age of

drone warfare and to escape the control of America's military industry—would

be fulfilled at last.

That was the dearest goal of Seijirou Kikuoka. He had gone to the Ministry of

Internal Affairs, gotten involved in the SAO Incident, and maintained a

connection to VRMMO players through his own avatar, Chrysheight, for that

very reason.

So in terms of Kikuoka's priorities, keeping the pressure-resistant barrier

sealed and protecting Alice's lightcube until the defense ship could arrive

should be the obvious choice. Even if that meant the collapse of the fluctlights

of Kazuto Kirigaya and Asuna Yuuki. And if Dr. Koujiro protested against it, he

could confine her if needed.

"Do…you find this to…be a…surprise?" Kikuoka asked out of the blue between

heavy breaths. Higa actually gurgled in alarm.

"Er, I…uh…I guess I'll admit…that it seems a bit out of character for you…"

"No…kidding." Kikuoka groaned, rushing down the rungs—only a few dozen

feet to go. "But…let me tell you…this. I've got a…good reason…for doing this."

"O-oh yeah…?"

"I make it…a point to always consider…the worst outcome. And for now…I

want the enemy…to think…they have a chance at taking…Alice back."

"The worst outcome, huh?"

Could there be anything worse than the enemy finding out about the cable

duct and attacking from below while the barrier was open?

Before Higa could extrapolate that idea any further, Kikuoka's soles finally

landed on the titanium alloy of the hatch. While the commanding officer

stopped and panted, Higa pressed on the intercom and said, "Rinko, we've

made it! Open the barrier lock!!"

"Whoa…they really opened the damn thing!" shouted Critter, seeing the

PRESSURE BARRIER OPEN warning on the main monitor.

But why? For what purpose?

It just didn't add up. Now that they had possession of Alice, what reason

could Rath have for loosening their defenses?

There wasn't time to debate the question, though. Critter rotated his chair

and instructed the other members, "Let's see, uh, Hans! You go to the stairs

with everyone except for Brigg! Take your guns and seize control of the

barrier!"

"You make it sound so simple," Hans complained, clicking his tongue and

hoisting his assault rifle. A dozen or so men followed his lead.

"H-hey, what the hell am I supposed to do, then?" complained Brigg.

Critter snapped his fingers. "Don't worry—I've got a job for you, too. A very

important one that will require your skills."

On the inside, Critter was thinking something else entirely: I need this musclebound idiot where I can see him, so he doesn't screw anything else up.

"Listen, pal, you and I are gonna check out this cable duct. I've got a feeling

that this is what the enemy's really after, for some reason."

"Oh yeah? Well…that's more like it." Brigg grinned. He walked off, loudly

checking the ammunition in his rifle, and Critter did his best not to sigh out

loud.

Before he went running out of the main control room and down the hallway,

in the opposite direction from Hans's group, Critter glanced at the door on the

back wall—STL Room One.

Damn, why's Vassago taking so long to log out? He better not be relaxing in

there, smoking a cigarette or something.

He considered going back just to check, but Brigg was already hustling into

the hallway. Critter had no choice but to follow him now.

In a few minutes, they were at their destination. It looked just like a hallway

that ran along the inner wall of the Main Shaft. But according to the ship map,

there was a little hatch on the left side of the wall that led to a cable duct that

connected to the upper half of the shaft. The shaft was split by that powerful

barrier as well, of course, but if Critter's suspicions were correct…

He grabbed the rotating handle with sweaty hands and turned it left. After

opening the heavy metal door, the first thing Critter saw was a tunnel about six

feet deep and less than three feet tall, lit by dim orange lights. At the back, the

tunnel went upward, and there were simple steps set into the wall.

And then he noticed, just below the steps, a mound of what looked like

fabric…

"Whoa!!"

When he realized what it was, Critter pulled back abruptly, cracking the back

of his head against the chin of Brigg, who was standing right behind him. But

neither the pain in his skull nor the large man's swearing registered, he was so

stunned.

The mysterious fabric was actually clothing. Clothes with someone inside

them, a skinny body folded in on itself. Brigg pushed Critter aside and raised his

rifle, but it took only a second or two for him to grunt, "He's dead."

The man's neck was twisted at an unnatural angle. Critter grimaced, then

hesitantly leaned into the tunnel so that he could examine the dead man's face.

"Hey…isn't this that guy? The mole inside Rath…? Did they execute him when

they found out he was a spy? It's a weird way to kill someone…"

He touched the man's skin, thoroughly grossed out, and felt how clammy it

was. Based on the temperature, he had probably died the first time they

opened the barrier. So did that mean the first time it opened was so this man

could try to escape down to the lower part of the shaft? Had he missed a step

and fallen to his death?

Then why had they opened the barrier again?

He wanted to check the state of the barrier hatch leading to the Upper Shaft,

but to do that, he'd have to pull the body out, and he didn't want to do that.

He backed out of the tunnel and into the hallway, then told Brigg, "Go in

there and see what's going on up in the duct."

The large bearded man snorted and crawled into the tunnel, then yanked the

spy's body out of the way. That done, he went back into the tunnel again and

peered up the vertical duct, twisting his upper half for the right angle.

Critter didn't know much about tactics, but he had to wonder whether it was

safe to stick your head right into the vertical duct like that.

"Oh, shit!!" cried Brigg, then he lifted his assault rifle and fired.

Yellow flashes burned Critter's retinas, and two types of gunfire rattled his

eardrums. He managed not to scream but watched as Brigg's massive body

bounced off the floor of the tunnel as though it had been smashed by an

invisible hammer.

"Aaaah! What the hell?!" shrieked Critter, falling onto his butt in the hallway.

Brigg was collapsed and unmoving, in the same spot where the spy's body had

just been. Critter didn't need to see the pooling blood on the floor to know that

he'd suffered the same fate as the spy. One of Rath's combat members had

been waiting up above and had shot him.

So what do I do now? Critter wondered, feeling a wave of sweat break over

him. Should I grab the assault rifle from Brigg's hand and win a shoot-out with

the unseen enemy above to avenge his death? Hell no! I'm just a computer geek

—my job is to think and hit keys.

Critter practically crawled back to the main control room, thinking rapidly the

whole time. At the very least, this indicated that Rath intended to be aggressive

on the attack. But the assault team's side had the obvious advantage in

strength. If they fought, the other side would suffer losses—and at worst, lose

control of the Upper Shaft and possession of Alice.

Was Rath's commander envisioning a worst-case scenario beyond even that?

Did he think that the assault team had enough firepower to blow up the entire

Ocean Turtle? All the C4 they had couldn't even blow up one pressure-resistant

hatch…

Firepower…

Then Critter inhaled sharply. The two bodies behind him in the hallway

completely vanished from his mind.

They did have it.

There was one method they had to destroy the entire Ocean Turtle and sink

Alice's lightcube and the Rath team to the bottom of the ocean.

The client had ordered them to destroy Alice if they determined that she was

unrecoverable. But should they destroy this massive autonomous megafloat

and the dozens of crew members aboard it just to fulfill that goal?

Critter couldn't make such an awful decision on his own. He'd have

nightmares for the rest of his life.

He got to his feet and ran for the main control room, hoping to get his

commanding officer's opinion.

"K…Kiku! You all right, Kiku?!" hissed Higa as quietly as he could. The enemy

had appeared at the bottom of the cable duct and fired off at least three rifle

shots.

He got no response. Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka had his shoulder pressed

against the wall of the duct, Higa on his back, with one hand on the ladder step

and the other holding a pistol.

No way, man. You can't be serious. We still need you!

"Ki…"

He was about to yell Kikuokaaaaaa!! when the lieutenant colonel coughed

violently.

"Koff…eurgh…Oh, man. I am so glad I wore this bulletproof vest…"

"O-of course you did! Were you seriously thinking of wearing your aloha shirt

down here…?" Higa asked, sighing with relief. He glanced down at Kikuoka's

back again. "So you're not hurt, then?"

"Nope, but I did take one shot to the vest. Are you okay, though? There were

a lot of ricochets."

"Y-yeah…Neither I nor the terminal got hit."

"Then let's hurry. We're almost to the maintenance port."

As Kikuoka rocked back and forth down the rungs again, Higa thought how

surprising this was.

He'd always assumed that Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka was not one for

physical activities, but the muscles under his broad back were as hard as steel.

And as for his marksmanship…he had been hanging by one hand from the

ladder and had shot down the duct twice, one-handed, and double-tapped the

enemy in the throat and chest.

I feel like I'll never run out of surprises from this guy for as long as I know him,

Higa thought, shaking his head. He pulled the cable for the maintenance

connector out of his pocket as the port came into view.

As Critter raced back down the hallway and into the main control room, he

heard rifle fire coming from the stairs.

Neither Captain Miller nor Vassago were in the room. They probably hadn't

left the STLs yet. Even though it had been over five minutes since the

acceleration had started.

Critter still wasn't sure whether he should really describe his idea to them,

mostly because he could sense that if he did, they would tell him to carry it out

immediately. They were not the kind of people who cared about the fate of

innocent civilians who lay between them and their mission.

He yanked open the door to the STL room, still uncertain of what he should

do.

"Captain Miller! Alice is under enemy…"

Any further words caught in his throat.

Right in front of him, lying on the gel bed of STL Unit One, with the machine

covering his forehead and everything above it, was Gabriel Miller. His face wore

an expression that Critter had never seen on him before.

In fact, Critter had never seen it on any human being.

His blue eyes were bulging so much they threatened to pop out of his skull.

His mouth was open wide enough that the jaw joints almost had to be

dislocated—and it was diagonal, not straight. His tongue extended far out of his

mouth, as if it were an entirely separate living thing.

"C…Cap…tain…?" Critter gaped, his knees shaking. He knew that if he

happened to see one of those protruding eyeballs move, he would scream.

It took him more than a few seconds to control his breathing and then reach

out, slowly and hesitantly, to touch the man's left wrist where it hung from the

side of the bed.

There was no pulse.

His skin was as cold as ice. Despite the lack of any external wounds, the

assault team's commanding officer, Captain Gabriel Miller, was dead.

Critter clenched his stomach to keep its contents from rising and rasped,

"Vassago…get up! The captain's d…dea…"

He made his way on trembling legs around the gel bed to the second unit,

which was farther into the room.

This time, he did scream.

The second-in-command, Vassago Casals, was asleep peacefully, at first

glance. His eyes were closed and his expression was placid. His hands were

extended, resting at his sides.

The only difference was in that long, flowing black hair of his.

It was as white and shriveled as if he were over a hundred years old.

Critter backed away. He didn't even bother to check the pulse this time.

Despite being a hacker who believed only in reason and source code, Critter

truly thought in that moment that he was going to meet the same end that

these two did if he stayed in the accursed room.

He tumbled backward through the open doorway and slammed the door shut

with his foot.

Critter panted heavily and tried to put together what this meant. There was

no way to know what had happened to Miller and Vassago, and he didn't want

to know. All he could assume was that something had happened in the

Underworld and that, most likely, it had totally destroyed their fluctlights.

In the end, the operation was a failure. Now that the team leader was dead,

there was no way to get a decision on whether to destroy the whole ship with

Alice in it. There was no reason to stay here any longer.

Critter picked the communication device up off the console and croaked,

"Hans…come back. Brigg, Vassago, and the captain are dead."

Within a minute, the biggest dandy on the team came rushing back to the

control room, his expression as sharp as a knife. "You said Brigg is dead?!

How?!"

"H-he got shot from above…in the cable duct…"

Hans listened no further before rushing off with his rifle at the ready. Critter

called out, "Stop! They've got Alice's lightcube. There's no reason to fight

anymore…"

The soldier was silent for a while. Then he abruptly punched the wall with an

incredible clatter and came stomping back to Critter. "No…there must still be

orders. If we can't steal it, we destroy it. You've got an idea of what to do, don't

you?"

Critter was overwhelmed by Hans's imposing presence and trembling

mustache. He nodded nervously. "I…I do, kind of…but we can't. I can't make

that kind of decision on my own."

"Say it. Tell me now!!" yelled Hans, pressing the muzzle of his assault rifle to

Critter's throat. The mercenary and Brigg had been a duo for years, since long

before Glowgen hired them. The ferocity of his gaze was too much for Critter.

"The…the engine…"

"Engine? Of the ship?"

"

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"

2

Ten minutes had passed.

Rinko Koujiro clenched her sweating palms, staring at the digital readout that

continued to ascend without mercy.

A hundred years had passed within the Underworld since the initiation of the

maximum-acceleration phase. It was impossible to imagine how Kazuto Kirigaya

and Asuna Yuuki had experienced that length of time. All she knew was that the

memory capacity of their fluctlights was running out, and soon.

According to Higa's assessment, the human soul stopped functioning properly

once it had accumulated about 150 years of memories, and then it began to

collapse. This hadn't been tested in an experiment, of course. The limit might

actually be higher—or significantly lower.

All she could do now was pray that they finished the logging-out process

before Kirito's and Asuna's souls imploded. If they could just avoid that, there

was still hope that the two of them might return to their original selves.

Higa, Mr. Kikuoka…please.

So intent was she on her prayer that Rinko failed to notice that the frequent

sounds of gunfire in the distance had stopped. She realized it only when

Lieutenant Nakanishi rushed back to the sub-control room.

"Doctor! The enemy has begun to withdraw from the Ocean Turtle!"

"W…withdraw?!" she repeated, stunned.

Why now? With the barrier wall open, this would be the attackers' last

chance to recover Alice. It was too early for them to give up. They still had eight

hours until the Aegis warship Nagato arrived.

Rinko typed some commands on the keyboard to call up the status windows

for various ship conditions and asked the lieutenant, "Did anyone get hurt in

the fighting?"

"Yes, ma'am…We've got two light injuries, one more serious. He's being

treated now, but I don't think it'll be fatal."

"I see…"

She let out the breath she'd been holding and glanced over at the man. There

was a large medical patch stuck to Nakanishi's chiseled cheekbone, which had a

small trace of blood blotting through. He was one of the two who were lightly

injured.

They had to save those two kids so that this fighting wasn't all for nothing. At

the very least, the news that the enemy was pulling out was good. On the status

window, Rinko confirmed that the bay door to the submerged dock on the

underside of the Ocean Turtle was open. That was how the attackers had gotten

in the first time.

"Looks like they're going to escape with their submersible again. They're

really in a rush, though…," she said, staring curiously. Then a vibration shook

the entire Main Shaft.

A whining howl, like a dry breeze through branches, burst through the

gigantic megafloat. Her pen rolled off the table and fell onto the floor.

"Wh…what is this?! What's happening?!"

"It sounds like…Ohhh…No, they couldn't—!!" Lieutenant Nakanishi groaned.

"This vibration must be the main engine at full power, Doctor!!"

"Main engine…?"

"The pressurized water reactor at the base of the shaft."

When Rinko just sat there in muted horror, the lieutenant leaped to the

console and awkwardly interacted with the status screen, bringing up new

windows until one of them showed a blurry image.

"Holy shit! All the control rods are raised!! What have they done?!" he

demanded, slamming the console with a fist.

"But…there must be safety measures, right…?" Rinko asked.

"Of course. Before the reactor core reaches a critical state, the control rods

automatically get inserted to stop fission from occurring. But…just look at

this…"

He pointed at the spot on the monitor where it displayed real-time footage of

the containment chamber. It was hard to tell through all the red light, but it

looked like some small white object was stuck to one large yellow-painted piece

of machinery.

"That looks like C4…plastic explosives. At that size, it's probably not enough to

destroy both the containment structure and the pressurizer, but right below

this spot is the CRD…That's the control-rod drive, which inserts the control-rod

cluster into the core. If that gets destroyed, then the rods won't be able to drop

on their own…"

"And…we won't be able to stop nuclear fission? What happens then…?"

"First, it'll heat up the primary cooling fluid until it results in a steam

explosion, destroying the pressurizer…In the worst-case scenario, the core will

melt down and break through the containment chamber and the ship's bilge

into the seawater, thus evaporating lots more water and blowing up the entire

shaft. Including Main Control, the Lightcube Cluster, and Sub Control."

"Wha…?"

Rinko looked down at the floor beneath her feet. Superheated steam,

bursting up through this thick metal floor? It would mean that all the Rath

employees, who'd done their best to avoid casualties; Kazuto and Asuna

connected to The Soul Translators; and the thousands of artificial fluctlights in

the Lightcube Cluster—all of them would be obliterated in an instant…

"I'll go and remove the C4," Lieutenant Nakanishi announced. His voice was

low and determined. "They'll have set the timer for long enough that they can

escape to a safe distance on their submersible. We should have five minutes…

That's enough time for me."

"B-but, Lieutenant, the temperature in the engine room is already…"

"You think I've never been in a sauna before? It's not hard to run in there and

pull off a detonator."

Assuming you have safety clothing on. But there's no time to arrange

something like that, Rinko thought. She couldn't tell him that, though; there

was steel resolve in his figure as he headed to the door.

But his high-laced black boots stopped just short of the sliding door.

There was a sound in the room that Rinko had never heard before. Nakanishi

promptly reached for his holster, and they both looked to their left.

It was a high-pitched metal whirring coming from a right foot stepping out of

its protective frame—belonging to the metal-and-plastic machine body of

Niemon.

To the disbelief of Rinko and Nakanishi, the humanoid machine walked slowly

toward them, its head sensors glowing red.

But it shouldn't be moving.

Higa had designed it, so he knew how it functioned better than anyone.

Unlike Ichiemon, which was loaded with many ambulatory balancers, Niemon

was designed to be an artificial fluctlight carrier, so without a lightcube

inserted, it couldn't walk at all. Alice was the only fluctlight ejected from the

cluster, and she was still held in the case on the desk. Niemon's head socket

should be empty.

"Wh…why is Prototype Two moving…?" Nakanishi gasped, drawing his pistol.

Niemon ignored him and walked straight toward Rinko, stopping about six feet

away from her. A tinny electronic voice issued from a speaker somewhere in its

head.

"I will go."

That voice.

The tang of the oil lubricating Niemon tickled her nostrils.

She had heard the same voice and smelled the same odor on the night that

she landed on the Ocean Turtle, when she was dreaming in her cabin.

Rinko got to her feet, trembling slightly, and walked up to Niemon. In a

tremulous voice, she asked, "Is that you…Akihiko…?"

The dim light of the sensors flickered, as though blinking, and the robot's

head smoothly bobbed. She closed the space between them without thinking

and touched its aluminum body with shaking hands. The robot's hands rose,

whirring quietly, and touched her back.

"I'm sorry for leaving you alone for so long, Rinko."

Electronically generated or not, the voice undeniably belonged to the one

man Rinko Koujiro had ever loved: Akihiko Kayaba.

"So this…is where you been," she whispered, not even realizing that she'd

reverted to the hometown dialect she'd largely forgotten. Tears pooled in her

eyes, blurring the lights of Niemon's sensors.

"There's no time. I'll only say what I need to say. You brought joy to my life,

Rinko. You were the only thing keeping me connected to the real world. If

possible…I want you to keep that connection going…Fulfill my dream…and

connect these two worlds that are still apart…"

"Yes…of course. Of course…," she said, her head bobbing up and down. The

machine seemed to smile. Then it let go of her body and smoothly changed its

center of gravity, practically running out of the sub-control room.

Rinko started to follow it automatically, until the sliding door closed in her

face. Then she inhaled deeply and clenched her jaw. She couldn't leave this

room now. It was her job to monitor the situation around the ship.

Instead, she watched the feed of the engine room and clutched the locket

around her neck. She heard Lieutenant Nakanishi murmur in a daze, "Why did

he wait until now…?"

There had been many perils before this point. Yet Kayaba had waited until

this moment to break his silent observation and act. Rinko thought she

understood why.

"…It's not for the Underworld. He has no intention of interfering with the

simulation. He made himself known so that he could protect Kirigaya and

Asuna…"

When Takeru Higa heard the groaning of the heavy turbines echoing up from

the bottom of the duct, he finally understood the worst-case scenario Kikuoka

was afraid of.

"K…Kiku, I think they're setting off the—," Higa groaned, but Kikuoka cut him

off.

"I know that. Just put all your attention into shutting down the STLs," he

ordered.

"O-okay…but…"

Higa felt a cold sweat break out all over his body when he inserted the cable

into the maintenance panel at last. If the reactor went haywire, none of this

would matter. The Underworld and Alice's lightcube would be utterly destroyed

in a blast of superheated steam and radiation, and many human lives would be

lost along with them.

But causing a reactor explosion wasn't actually that easy. You couldn't break

the two thick metal containment layers surrounding the core with small arms,

and there were multiple layers of safety systems on the controls. Even if it did

continue to run at a reckless full output, the safety measures would kick in very

soon, lowering the control rods to prevent fission from occurring.

Just then, in his usual laid-back manner, Kikuoka asked, "Hmm…Higa, do you

think you can manage on your own from here?"

"Uh…yeah, if you attach my harness to the steps, I should be able to work…

but, Kiku, you can't be considering going down…"

"Oh, I'm just going to check on things. I'm not going to make some heroic last

stand. I'll be right back," Kikuoka reassured him, slipping out of the harness that

connected the two of them and hanging the nylon belts over the ladder rungs,

then snapping the buckles shut. When he was certain that Higa was firmly in

place, he descended several steps.

"The rest is up to you, Higa," he said, his narrow eyes beaming through the

black-framed glasses.

"B-be careful down there! They might still be around!" Higa shouted after

him. Kikuoka gave him an uncharacteristic thumbs-up, then shot down the

rungs with incredible speed. When he got to the bottom, where the hole led

out to the hallway, he carefully checked the perimeter before sliding out.

It was only after Kikuoka had disappeared entirely that Higa noticed

something was wrong.

While he typed away on the laptop's keyboard with his right hand, Higa tried

to adjust the harness where it was biting into his stomach with his left hand,

and he felt something slick and wet. He looked down at his palm in shock and

saw, under the illumination of the orange emergency lights, a blackish liquid on

his skin.

It was painfully obvious that the blood did not belong to him.

In the Lower Shaft, which the attackers had controlled until a few minutes

ago, most of the security cameras were destroyed, but they were still intact in

the engine room that housed the reactor.

On the main monitor, Rinko had the feed zoomed in all the way. She clutched

her locket in both hands and waited. On her left, Lieutenant Nakanishi had his

hands clenched and resting on the console. Behind them, the security team that

had come back from the defensive perimeter and the technicians were praying

in their own individual ways.

Rinko asked them to evacuate to the bridge, but not a single one of them left

the Main Shaft. Everyone present had given everything they had for Rath, the

mysterious organization conducting top-secret R&D. They had their own hopes

and dreams for the new age that true bottom-up artificial intelligence would

bring.

Up to this point, Rinko had thought of herself as merely a guest temporarily

visiting the ship. She'd had no intention of linking her goals to that of Seijirou

Kikuoka, a man as impenetrable as any.

But she also realized now that she had come here to Rath because she was

meant to. Artificial fluctlights weren't meant to be funneled into a narrow

purpose like unmanned-weapons AI. And the Underworld was not just some

highly advanced civilization simulator.

They were the beginning of a massive paradigm shift.

A new reality, a revolution from the closed-off nature of the real world. A

world made incarnate by the invisible power of all those young people who had

sought to break free from the existing system of reality.

That's what you really wanted, isn't it, Akihiko? What you discovered in your

two years in that castle was the endless possibility they represented. The

blindingly bright power of the heart.

The worst criminal act in history—locking up ten thousand people in a virtual

prison and causing four thousand lives to be lost—was unforgivable in every

way. Rinko's part in helping him carry out that crime would never be expunged

from her history.

But just for now…just this once, let me wish.

Please, Akihiko. Save us…Save the world.

As if in answer to her prayer, there was movement at last in the remote feed

on the screen. A silver mechanical body had appeared in the narrow hallway

leading to the engine room containing the cutting-edge pressurized water

reactor.

The machine's steps were duller now, perhaps because its battery output was

already dimming. It clanked forward, step by heavy step, fighting its own

weight.

Rinko couldn't imagine when and how Kayaba's thought-mimicking program

had slipped into that body's memory. One thing was clear, however: The

program contained within the robot had to be the one and only original copy.

No intelligence could truly withstand the knowledge that there were identical

copies of it in existence.

How long would the prototype's electronic circuits hold out? It surely hadn't

been treated with special heat-resistant protection. All they needed to do was

unplug the detonator to prevent an explosion, but if Niemon's memory should

get destroyed somehow, Kayaba's consciousness would cease to exist.

Please, defuse the bomb safely and come back to me, Rinko prayed, biting her

lip.

But Akihiko Kayaba probably intended for this to be his end. He'd fried his

own brain in the act of writing a copy of his mind—and now he had found his

purpose, his reason for dying.

The actuators of Niemon's mechanical joints whirred.

Its metal soles thudded against the floor.

With determined, careful strides, the machine body reached the door of the

engine room at last. It reached out and awkwardly operated the control panel.

The light turned green, and the thick metal door opened inward.

At that very moment, she heard high-speed rifle fire through the speakers.

Niemon retreated awkwardly, lifting its arms to protect its body. A soldier

dressed in black fatigues shouted something and leaped through the open

doorway.

It was obviously one of the attackers. He wasn't covering his face with a

helmet and goggles like before. The man had a soft-looking face with a narrow

mustache, but even on the grainy security camera, the extreme expression on

his face was clear.

"Wha…?! One of them stayed behind?!" Nakanishi exclaimed. "Why?! Does

he want to die?!"

Niemon maintained a defensive posture as the man unloaded bullets on it.

Sparks flew, and holes opened in the aluminum exterior. Nerve cables tore here

and there, and lubricant spilled out of its polymer muscle cylinders.

"S-stop it!!" shrieked Rinko. But the enemy soldier on the screen screamed

something in English and pulled the trigger a third time. The robot wobbled,

taking step after step backward.

"Oh no! Number Two's exterior can't withstand this!" Nakanishi said, reaching

for his pistol, even though he knew he wouldn't make it in time.

Then a fresh series of gunshots rang out through the speakers.

A third figure came running down the hallway from the front, firing a pistol

wildly. The enemy's body jolted left and right. Somehow this new person was

hitting his target without mistakenly putting a single bullet into the robot body.

But who…?

Rinko forgot to breathe. On-screen, blood burst from the enemy's chest, and

he flew backward and stopped moving.

The mystery savior slowly descended to a knee in the middle of the hallway—

and then sank to the floor on his side. With trembling fingers, Rinko rolled the

mouse wheel to zoom in.

Bangs covered his forehead. Black-framed glasses slid off his ear. It looked like

there was a slight smile on his lips.

"K…Kikuoka?!"

"Lieutenant Colonel!!" shouted Rinko and Nakanishi together.

This time, the SDF officer bolted out of the room for good. A number of the

security staffers followed him. Rinko couldn't stop them now.

Instead, one of the technicians leaped to the console, typing a few keys and

bringing up what appeared to be a status window for Prototype Number Two.

"Left arm, zero output. Right arm, sixty-five percent. Both legs at seventy

percent. Battery remaining, thirty percent. We can do it. It can still move!!" the

staffer shouted. Number Two seemed to hear him and resumed forward

progress.

Zrr, chak. Zrr, chak. With each awkward step, its severed cables spit out

sparks. When the ragged body passed through the doorway, Rinko switched the

camera view to the angle from the engine room interior.

The second heat-resistant door was physically locked with a large lever.

Niemon's right arm grabbed the lever and tried to push it down. Its elbow

actuators spun, spraying more sparks.

"Please," Rinko murmured, just before cheers of encouragement burst out of

the observers in the control room.

"You can do it, Niemon!!"

"That's it, just a bit more!!"

Ga-kunk. The lever shifted downward heavily.

The thick metal door burst open from the pressure on the other side. Even on

the monitor, it was clear that a huge blast of heat was pouring through the

doorway.

Number Two wobbled. The especially thick cable hanging from its back

sparked worse than before.

"Oh…oh no!!" shouted one of the staffers suddenly.

"What…what's wrong?!"

"The battery cable's damaged!! If that gets cut off, it'll lose power to the

body…and cease to move…"

Rinko and the other techs watched in silence. Even Kayaba, the brain

controlling Niemon, seemed to realize how bad the damage was. The robot

pinned the swinging cable down with its elbow and resumed walking, slowly

and carefully.

The interior of the engine room was full of excess heat the reactor was

putting off at maximum output, at a temperature that no human being could

withstand in the flesh. Most likely the safety functions would kick in soon,

automatically inserting the control rods back into their housing.

But if the plastic explosives went off first and destroyed the drive for the

control rods? Then the neutrons coming off the nuclear fuel would destroy the

uranium atoms in a chain reaction until it reached a critical point.

A core meltdown would then cause a steam-pressure explosion in the primary

coolant, destroying the pressurizer, and the core would then break through the

containment vessel from sheer gravity, then the bottom of the ship, and would

leak into the water…

Rinko had a sudden vision of a pillar of smoke rising from the center of the

Ocean Turtle.

She closed her eyes and prayed again. "Please…Akihiko…!!"

The cheers and chants resumed. Pushed onward by their encouragement,

Number Two approached the nuclear reactor.

She switched to the final camera angle.

There was suddenly a terrible roar coming through the speakers. The footage

on the screen was red with emergency lights. Number Two was practically

dragging one foot as it proceeded through the searing heat. Only five or six

yards until it reached the plastic explosives stuck to the upper part of the

containment chamber.

The robot's right hand rose toward the detonator. Sparks were flying in

streams from all over its body, and pieces of its exterior fell to the floor.

"You can do it…You can do it…You can do it!!"

One simple statement echoed around the control room. Rinko balled her

hands into fists and screamed with them, nearly losing her voice.

Four more yards.

Three yards.

Two yards.

Then there was a veritable explosion of sparks from Number Two's back.

The black cable split and hung loose, like some exposed entrails.

All the sensors on the robot's head went out. The right arm slowly lowered.

Its knees shook and bent—and Number Two went silent.

On the monitor, the output graphs that had been bouncing up and down now

sank to the bottom and turned black.

One of the techs whispered, "It's…lost all power…"

I don't believe in miracles, Akihiko Kayaba had said to Rinko on the day he'd

woken in his bed in the mountain villa after SAO had been cleared earlier than

expected and all its players had been released at last. His eyes were gentle and

shining, and there was a faint smile playing around his scraggly, overgrown jaw.

But you know what? I saw a miracle today, for the first time in my life. My

sword went through him and destroyed the last of his hit points, but it was like

he refused to obey the system and go away…and he stuck his swords into me

instead.

Maybe it was that moment I've been waiting for all this time…

"…Akihiko!!" shouted Rinko, not even noticing that blood was dripping from

the hand that clenched her locket. "You're Heathcliff, the man with the Holy

Sword!! You're the ultimate rival of Kirito the Black Swordsman!! You've got to

have one miracle of your own in you!!"

Flick.

Flick-flick.

Red lights flickered. The lateral sensors on Number Two's head.

Exposed muscle cylinders jittered.

A faint, purple light bobbed at the very bottom of the blacked-out status

window. Then all the bars on the graph displaying limb and core output shot

upward. Sparks flew as the robot's joint actuators spun into life.

"N…Number Two's active again!!" a staffer shrieked, right as the utterly

ragged machine stood upright.

Tears poured from Rinko's eyes.

"Gooooo!!"

"Keep going!!"

Shouts filled the sub-control room.

One foot stepped forward, slick with oil that ran like blood.

The other foot dragged forward next, and it reached out its arm.

One step. Another step.

The battery compartment popped. Its body lurched—but it took another step.

The fingers of its fully extended arm made contact with the plastic explosives

strapped to the containment vessel.

The thumb and index finger pinched the electric detonator.

Sparks erupted from wrist, elbow, and shoulder like death screams. Number

Two pulled the detonator loose, timer and all, and raised its arm high.

The screen flashed white.

Number Two's fingers blew off where the detonator had burst. Then the

robot tilted to the left and, like a lifeless puppet, dropped to the floor. The

sensor lights blinked and went out, and the output graph on the monitor

blacked out again.

No one said anything for quite some time.

And then the sub-control room rocked with raucous cheers.

The whining of the engine turbines weakened and grew distant.

Higa let out the breath he'd been holding. The nuclear reactor was finally

starting to lower its output instead of continuing at a disastrous full-power clip.

He wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve and squinted at the laptop

screen through dirty lenses. The shutdown process for the two Soul Translators

was about 80 percent finished. Over seventeen minutes had passed since the

maximum-acceleration phase had been initiated—that would be over 160 years

in the Underworld.

By Higa's conjecture, that was over the theoretical life span of the fluctlight.

In simple logical terms, it was highly likely that the souls of Kazuto Kirigaya and

Asuna Yuuki had disintegrated.

But at this point, Higa also admitted to himself that in truth, he knew nothing

about fluctlights in the Underworld. He had planned the simulation,

constructed it, and operated it. But within the machine, the alternate world

that had been built up by artificial souls had apparently reached heights that no

one in Rath could have envisioned.

Right now, the real-world person with the deepest understanding of that

world was undoubtedly Kazuto himself. Just a seventeen-year-old high school

student, hurled into the Underworld without any preparation. And he had

adapted, evolved, and exhibited power greater than that of the four superaccounts meant to be gods.

That wasn't just some preternatural power that Kazuto was born with. It was

because Kazuto Kirigaya—unlike the Rath members, who saw the artificial

fluctlights only as experimental programs—acknowledged that the fluctlights

were just as human as he was. He interacted with them, fought them, protected

them, loved them—as human beings.

That was why the Underworld—all the people who lived in it—chose him. To

be their protector.

Then perhaps, through some miracle that even Higa could not have

anticipated, he might be able to withstand two hundred years.

I bet that's right, Kirito. Now I understand exactly why Lieutenant Colonel

Kikuoka was so insistent on working with you. And why you'll continue to be

needed.

So…

"…Please come back to us," Higa whispered, watching the shutdown process

approach 100 percent.

Rinko was left all alone in the sub-control room.

The other staff members had left to rescue Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka and

restore control to the main control room. For her part, Rinko wanted to rush to

the reactor containment unit and find the collapsed Niemon so she could

secure its physical memory and the thought-simulation model of Akihiko

Kayaba contained on it. But she couldn't leave this spot yet. Not until Higa

finished the STL shutdown process and she could confirm the condition of

Kazuto Kirigaya and Asuna Yuuki next door.

Rinko had faith that they would wake up as though nothing had gone wrong.

She wanted to place Alice's lightcube in their hands and tell them that the Rath

team had kept her safe. And she wanted to tell them about the person who had

saved the Underworld from the real world—to tell them that Akihiko Kayaba,

the man who'd imprisoned them, forced them to fight, and put them through

hell, had operated a mechanical body with its battery cable cut and protected

the Lightcube Cluster and the Ocean Turtle.

She couldn't ask their forgiveness. There was no way to remove the crime of

the deaths of four thousand young people from Akihiko Kayaba's story.

But she wanted Kazuto and Asuna to understand the idea that Kayaba had left

behind and the goal he'd been striving for.

Rinko placed her hands on the duralumin case containing Alice's lightcube

and waited for Higa's voice to come in over the intercom.

"…Rinko, the log-out process is going to be complete in sixty seconds."

"All right. I'll make sure to send someone for you soon."

"Please do. I don't think I can get up this ladder on my own…Also, Kiku went

down below to check on things. How is he doing? I think he's got an injury."

At the moment, Rinko couldn't tell him. Nakanishi had gone in to rescue

Kikuoka after the gunfight in the hallway to the engine room about three or

four minutes ago, but she hadn't heard back from him yet.

But Kikuoka wasn't going to succumb before his mission was complete. He

was the man who remained aloof at all times and easily overcame whatever

challenges he faced.

"The lieutenant colonel put on quite a show down there. In fact, I'd say he put

Hollywood to shame when it comes to action scenes."

"Wow, I can't even imagine that…We got thirty seconds left."

"I'm going over to the STL room now. Get in touch if anything happens. Over."

Rinko switched off her comm and left the console, clutching the case, as she

made her way to the adjacent room. Before she touched the sliding door, the

speaker in the room crackled with a report from the staff members who'd gone

below.

It wasn't from Lieutenant Nakanishi or from the technicians who'd gone to

Main Control. It was the security officer who had gone to remove the plastic

explosive itself, now that the temperature was dropping in the reactor

containment chamber.

"Engine room, coming in! Do you read me? Dr. Koujiro!"

Rinko felt her heart leap in her chest and switched the intercom channel. She

shouted, "Yes, I read you loud and clear! What is it?!"

"W-well, ma'am…I removed the C4 safely, but…it's gone."

"Gone…? What's gone?"

"Number Two. I'm not seeing Niemon anywhere in the engine room!"

The timer on the cheap digital watch reached zero and beeped.

Critter huddled in a corner of the submersible's passenger bay, listening

intently for sound from outside. After many seconds without hearing the deathscream explosion of the megafloat, he exhaled a long and heavy breath.

Even he couldn't say whether it was out of relief or disappointment.

All he knew was that the C4 he'd placed on the Ocean Turtle's reactor had not

exploded for some reason, and thus the control-rod drive was not destroyed,

and there was no meltdown.

If Hans was still okay back in the engine room, he'd be able to set off the

device on his own, so the fact that it hadn't happened meant that he'd been

eliminated.

Critter was stunned that a mercenary working for money would choose to

stay behind rather than get on the sub. Hans had nearly lost his mind when he'd

heard that his partner Brigg was dead; apparently they'd been close enough

that he'd chosen to die in the same place.

"People always have a longer history than you think…," he muttered to

himself, placing his watch back on a time readout.

In fact, Captain Miller and Vassago, who died before Hans did, had their own

motives and circumstances outside of money. And it was those complicating

factors that killed them.

In that sense, Critter and the other team members on the submersible had

really gotten screwed over by this operation ending in failure. Glowgen DS, their

client, had gotten to its current size by undertaking wet works for the NSA and

CIA, and they wouldn't think twice about hanging personnel out to dry. They

might even be silenced to the very last man the moment they stepped on US

soil again.

As a bit of personal insurance, Critter snuck a micro–memory card out of the

Ocean Turtle, taped to his chest with skin-colored waterproof tape. He had no

idea how much good that would do him, but at the very least, if they were

going to kill him, they'd just put a bullet in his brain, which was a much better

way to go than whatever gruesome fate Vassago and Captain Miller had

suffered.

"Good grief." He snorted and glanced unhappily at the two body bags at the

back of the passenger section. The sight of Miller's horrible death rictus flashed

into his head, and he shivered.

"…Huh? Two?"

He squinted into the darkness at the rear of the craft—there were only two

body bags. But that didn't add up. Hans had stayed behind, but there had been

three casualties on the team: Captain Miller, Vassago, and Brigg.

"…Hey, Chuck," he said, elbowing a nearby man chewing on an energy bar.

"What?"

"Your team collected the bodies, right? Why are we down one?"

"Huh? We got Brigg from the corridor and Captain Miller in the STL room.

Who else died?"

"But…there was another one in the room there…"

"Nope, only found the captain. Gonna remember that goddamn face in my

nightmares."

"..."

Critter pulled back and looked around the little cargo section. There were

nine men sitting in the cramped space, all of them looking exhausted. ViceCaptain Vassago Casals was not among them.

Critter had definitely confirmed Captain Miller's death in the STL room, but

he'd only looked at Vassago. His skin had been totally pale, though, and his hair

had been bone white. He couldn't have been alive. If he was alive, why wasn't

he on the submersible?

Critter's brain refused to consider this topic any longer. He wrapped his arms

around his knees. The loquacious hacker did not say a single word until they

returned to the Seawolf-class sub Jimmy Carter many minutes later.

Nineteen minutes and forty seconds after the start of the maximumacceleration phase, the shutdown of Soul Translator Unit Three and Unit Four in

the Ocean Turtle's STL Room Two was complete.

Three minutes later, the acceleration process itself finished, and as the

cooling system wound down, quiet returned to the ship interior again.

Dr. Rinko Koujiro and Sergeant First Class Natsuki Aki released the boy and girl

from the STLs—but Kazuto Kirigaya and Asuna Yuuki did not open their eyes.

It was clear that their fluctlight output was nearly at a minimum and their

mental activity was all but lost.

But Rinko clutched their hands, tearfully calling and calling out to them.

There were the faintest of smiles on Kazuto's and Asuna's faces in the midst

of their deep, deep sleep.

3

Tek.

…Tek.

The sound stopped right before me.

Then someone called my name.

"…Kirito."

It was a voice of pure crystal, a voice I never thought I'd hear again.

"As usual, you turn into a crybaby on your own. I know that about you…I

know everything."

I lifted my tearstained face.

There stood Asuna, hands behind her back, head tilted a little, smiling down

at me.

I didn't know what I should say. So I didn't say anything. I just looked up into

those familiar brown eyes of hers and stared and stared.

A little breeze picked up, and the fluttering butterfly between us rode the

wind up into the blue sky. Asuna watched it go, then looked back at me and

held out her hand.

I had a feeling it would vanish into illusion if I touched it. But the gentle

warmth I felt radiating from her white palm told me that the person I loved

most of all was right there.

Asuna knew the stakes. She knew this world was going to be sealed shut—

and that return to the real world would come only at the end of an

unfathomably vast length of time.

And that was why she'd stayed. For me. Just for me, who she knew would

probably make the same decision in her situation.

I reached out and squeezed her delicate hand.

With her support, I got to my feet so I could look into those beautiful eyes

from up close.

Still I had no words.

But I didn't feel like I needed to say anything. All I did was draw her slender

body close and hold her tight. Asuna let her head drop against my chest and

whispered, "When we get back there…Alice is going to be angry, isn't she?"

I thought of that confident golden knight, blue eyes flashing like sparks as she

scolded me, and I laughed. "It'll be fine as long as we remember her. As long as

we don't forget a second of the time we spent with her."

"…Yes. You're right. As long we remember Alice…and Liz and Klein and Agil

and Silica…and Yui…everything will be all right," she said.

We ended our embrace, nodded to each other, and looked to the empty

shrine together. The World's End Altar had ceased to function, and it slumbered

silently beneath the gentle sun at the very edge of the world.

I turned to her, held her hand again, and started to walk down the marble

path. We continued past the colorful flowers until we were at the northern end

of the floating island. The world seemed to continue forever beneath that deepblue sky.

Asuna looked at me and asked, "How long do you think we'll be living in

here?"

I was silent for a good long while, then told her the truth. "A minimum of two

hundred years, apparently."

"Ah," Asuna murmured. She gave me a smile that hadn't changed for as long

as I'd known her. "Even a millennium with you wouldn't feel too long…C'mon,

Kirito. Let's go."

"…Yeah. Let's go, Asuna. We've got so much to do. This world is still just a

newborn."

Then we joined hands, spread our wings, and took the first step into the

infinite blue