022-02: The Day After: Alfheim June 2025
"Have you gotten used to that avatar yet?"
The sudden question caused Asuna to look up from the window with her
English homework on it.
She twirled the long blue undine hair resting on her right shoulder and
replied, "Ummm…I think I need more time. It's strange…My face and figure are
still the same as they were in Aincrad, with only the hair and eyes different. But
there are moments when it just feels weird. Like my body isn't entirely
connected to my mind…"
"Hmm…"
Looking concerned was a spriggan boy with his black hair standing on end.
She thought of him as a boy, but the player inside of him was just one year
younger than Asuna, who was going to be eighteen this year. But the avatar
looked so much more youthful and mischievous than the real person that she
couldn't help but think of him as a boy.
The spriggan, who was sitting next to her on the sofa, pushed his own holokeyboard back, then rested his elbows on the table and stared at her.
"That might be a different problem than just getting accustomed…You said
there was no problem with the AmuSphere's BSIS level and response, right?"
"Yes. I checked the log, and both were above average."
"Okay…"
He reached out with his left hand and squeezed her right.
"Uh, wh-what is this?" she asked, her heart skipping a beat at the surprise
attack. But he looked entirely serious as he spread her palm open and drew his
index finger down it, touch just barely there.
A tiny tickling in the center of her palm ran all the way up her back, and Asuna
couldn't help but yelp a little bit. The spriggan still looked perfectly solemn,
however, and stared at her palm.
"I'm getting a sensation of making contact. You can feel that, too, right?"
"Yes…I can," Asuna admitted.
The boy scowled. "Then I'm going to move my finger and slowly pull it away
from your skin. Tell me when you feel the sensation vanish. So…do you still feel
it?"
He slowly, slowly slid his finger across her palm, and the fainter sensation
stimulated her virtual nerves. Her avatar twitched, and she whispered, "Yes…
I'm still…feeling it."
"All right…Then how about this?"
"Mmm…Yeah…I can…"
"Haaah…Then it seems like your BSIS level really is normal…"
"Ah, I'm…I…"
At last, Asuna recognized that what she was saying might potentially be
misconstrued.
Immediately, a fiery heat covered her face. She yanked back her hand,
clenched it into a fist, and bellowed at the stunned spriggan:
"What were you making me say?! Kirito, you…you jerk!!"
The right hook that smashed into his face did no numerical damage, because
they were in a room of an inn in the central city—but it did succeed at blasting
the little spriggan over the back of the sofa to the far wall.
*
It was eight thirty PM on Saturday, June 21st, 2025.
Asuna Yuuki was in a room on the outer edge of Yggdrasil City inside the
VRMMORPG ALfheim Online (ALO), doing her school homework with Kazuto
Kirigaya—Kirito.
A venture capital company called Ymir had taken over running ALO from the
now-dissolved RCT Progress. This change had brought a number of
revolutionary tweaks to the game, one of which was more (if still limited)
connection to the Net from within ALO. If you opened a browser tab in your
menu, you could search the Net just like on a computer or smartphone and
access your homework files from their online server. Even if a malicious player
attempted to run some kind of nasty program, the Cardinal System could
instantly detect it and stop any hacking attempts. So the fairy city enjoyed
peace and security.
Asuna's mother did not look kindly on her decision to resume using full-dive
machines, and she often said, "At least do your homework with your own two
hands," but Asuna felt that her physical body and her virtual avatar were both
herself. Plus, it was more efficient to do homework in a full dive, because she
could open as many windows as she wanted (up to a limit), and she didn't have
to worry about tired eyes or stiff shoulders. And most important of all, online
she could study side by side with Kirito, whereas in real life, they were located
far apart, in Miyasaka in Setagaya Ward and Kawagoe in Saitama Prefecture…
although that might count as an impure motive.
At any rate, she had been typing away at her holo-keyboard as a fairy, lost in
her homework, when Kirito suddenly started testing her senses.
The spriggan sat up from the floor, groaning. Asuna, no longer on the couch,
loomed over him, hands on her hips in the scolding position.
"Look, if you want to test my sensitivity to stimuli, there are better ways to do
it!"
"…But that was the simplest way to do it…Besides, you were the one who
started making eroti—er, funny sounds…," Kirito mumbled in his defense. She
fixed him with an even sharper glare.
"Oh…? What was that? What were you going to say? You can tell me; I won't
be angry."
"Th-that's a lie! Besides, you're already angry…"
"I am not! But if Yui wasn't out at the time, I really would have let you have
it," she threatened. Kirito straightened up and trembled.
Yui was a sophisticated top-down AI playing the role of a navigation pixie
within ALO—and was their daughter. At the moment, she was out attending a
monster hunt with their friends Klein and Lisbeth. The thought of her beloved
daughter witnessing that embarrassing scene brought another wave of heat to
Asuna's cheeks.
Kirito started smiling for some reason, and he remarked, "Asuna, your face is
red."
His smile turned to panic when he saw her clench an iron fist again. She
strode in his direction with disciplinary intent, when—
"…Aah…"
She came to an abrupt stop.
It was that sensation again. A strange feeling, like her soul had momentarily
slipped out of her virtual avatar. Like she didn't know where her arms and legs
were or how they were moving…Like the present was no longer present.
Kirito sensed the change in her and instantly leaped to her side to help hold
her up. He looked her in the eyes, concern clear on his features.
"Are you okay?"
"Y…yes, I'm fine. I'm better now," she replied, still allowing him to support
her weight. "It's just…just the tiniest bit of an odd feeling. It's not like I can't
move my avatar, so I could probably ignore it…In fact, maybe it's all in my
head…"
"No…we ought to look into this. It's not a sensation you felt in Aincrad, right?"
"Right. I never felt it once…At least I don't think so…?"
Kirito easily lifted Asuna into his arms and took her to the bedroom next door.
Their room was a penthouse suite, so the view from the wide windows showed
them the dazzling night profile of Ygg City and the landscape of Alfheim far
below. The young man ignored the sight, however, laying Asuna on the large
bed and sitting next to her. He caressed her pale-blue hair.
"Asuna…I'm sure it's not something you want to remember, but…"
She could tell just from the tone of his voice what he wanted to say. She
smiled at him and shook her head. "I'm fine…I never felt this way when I was
Titania. It's not because of the server changing."
"Okay…"
Kirito turned his head and looked out the window at last.
He'd defeated the deadly Sword Art Online and freed 6,149 players from
Aincrad on November 7th, 2024. But roughly three hundred players, including
Asuna, were not freed from their virtual prison. A man in a principal position at
the electronics manufacturer RCT Progress, Nobuyuki Sugou, had held their
minds prisoner in his virtual lab in ALO as subjects in his illegal experiments.
Asuna had not been treated as a test subject, however; instead, he'd locked
her inside a giant birdcage hung from the branches of Yggdrasil, the World Tree.
He'd given her the name Titania and called himself Oberon, king of the fairies.
That torment had lasted until Kirito had succeeded in rescuing her on January
22nd, 2025. It was two months of time that felt just as long as the two years in
Aincrad, but at no point in that time had she felt something wrong with her
bodily sensations.
"…I think…the first I felt this…well, dissociative sensation…was about a month
ago…," she murmured.
Kirito's eyes flared a bit. "You remember the first time it happened?"
"Yes. Because it was when we were fighting the boss on the first floor of New
Aincrad."
His black eyes blinked a few times.
"Back then, huh…? That's right—you fumbled on your magic spell once. Was
that it…?"
"I'm amazed you remember that," she remarked. Her partner had a strangely
accurate sense of recall.
"While I was chanting the spell words, I felt like my bodily sensations were
growing distant, and I stopped talking. Then it came right back, and it only
happened the one time in that battle, so I assumed it was just a fluke of my
mind…but ever since, it happens from time to time…"
"Which would mean it's not just something you're getting used to. I mean,
that boss fight was at least three weeks after you first dived into ALO with that
avatar, right? If the avatar being unfamiliar was the cause, it would have been
frequent right after you started."
"Yeah…exactly. But then what could it be…?" she wondered, thinking as she
lay on the bed.
Kirito considered this for a while before asking, "This never happens in VR
spaces aside from ALO?"
"Um…that's right. I don't often dive into places other than here, but I don't
remember feeling the separation anywhere else."
"Then it's not just because of a difference between NerveGear and the
AmuSphere, either. And…hmm…I assume you don't feel this in the real world,
either…?"
"No, I told you. That would be an actual out-of-body experience."
After she said it, she was hit by a wave of dread, and she reassessed her
memories, but still there was nothing that resembled that feeling in real life.
But now that they'd run through the options, the cause was a true mystery. She
had tried looking for information online, but she didn't see any AmuSphere
users complaining of similar problems, and her symptoms were too vague and
mild for her to seek specific help from RCT Progress or Ymir.
When it happened, it lasted for only a moment. As long as she didn't let it
bother her, it wasn't a big enough problem to ruin her fun—but after spending
this much time thinking about it, there was no way she could just forget about
the whole thing.
Kirito sat on the edge of the bed, offering her a profile view of his face as he
grumbled and hummed. Eventually, he seemed to reach a conclusion.
"The only thing we can do at this point is talk to Yui, I think."
"…Yeah…"
That was an option Asuna had considered after the fourth or fifth instance of
dissociation but had hesitated to do yet. Yui would be terribly worried if she
learned about Asuna's problem, and if Yui's abilities weren't enough to find a
solution, she might only be left with the mental burden of failure.
Yui was an artificial intelligence created to offer mental counseling to SAO
players. But when the game was locked down and turned deadly, all her
abilities were frozen, leaving her helpless to do anything but monitor the
negative emotions of thousands of players. That incredible burden had built up
until it shattered her core program. By the time she'd met Asuna and Kirito, she
was barely capable of speech.
That was why Asuna felt so desperate not to burden Yui with this news, to
keep her little heart safe from pain.
But Kirito just nodded, seeing right through his partner, and reached out
again. He caressed her hair with gentle but firm strokes—few players could
perform such delicate motions—and said, "I know how you feel, Asuna. But…if
Yui learns that we chose not to ask her for help and advice, that would make
her just as sad."
"But it really isn't that bad. I'm sure I'll get over this thing and stop thinking
about it altogether."
"…I'm not sure…You're very sensitive, Asuna…," he said, trailing off. Then he
clamped his mouth shut and shook his head in a panic. "Uh, I mean, not in a
weird way."
"Oh, I know that's not what you meant. So…?"
"So…erm, the more sensitive a player is, the more you can't afford to ignore
little anomalies with what you can feel. Especially in the midst of battle. I want
you to be able to enjoy this VRMMO for what it is, not being some high-stakes
death roulette. And that means eliminating any kind of impediment to your
experience, no matter how small. Maybe that's just a stubborn desire of
mine…," he finished in a whisper, causing Asuna to reach for him.
Her hand landed on the shoulder of his tight-fitting black shirt, and she pulled
him close. The high Strength stat she'd inherited from her time in SAO made
him lose his balance, and the skinny spriggan yelped and fell onto Asuna's
chest.
She held him tight with both arms, squeezing for all she was worth.
"Thank you, Kirito," she whispered. "I'm having so much fun right now. It's so
wonderful being here with you and Yui and everyone else, traveling all over
Alfheim and New Aincrad to the different towns and places, shopping together,
going on adventures…I just want to travel all over this world with you forever."
As she talked, Kirito eventually stopped struggling. In time, his hands snuck
their way around her back.
In a sense, they hadn't held each other like this since the SAO days. From
January to late April, she'd been busy rehabilitating after being freed from the
virtual birdcage. After that, she'd been trying her best to get accustomed to the
real world again, new school included, after two years stuck inside a virtual
experience. There had barely been any time for them to be alone in either
place. The only reason they were like this today was because they both had
more homework than the others. The usual study sessions were much more
crowded.
But right now, Asuna was working on a little project deep in her heart—a
promise to herself, one could say.
At some point in the future, New Aincrad would be opened beyond the tenth
floor, which was the current limit. When that happened, she wanted to be the
first to reach the twenty-second floor and buy that little log cabin deep in the
woods. The log cabin where she had shared a brief but brilliant period of bliss
with Kirito.
Of course, there were subtle differences in monsters, items, and even
landscapes between Aincrad and New Aincrad, so there was no guarantee the
same house would be in the same place. But Asuna felt certain the cabin would
be there, waiting for them. She was less sure if they would need to finish the
flying-house quest again before they'd be allowed to buy it.
"…Maybe…," she murmured.
In her arms, Kirito craned his head a tiny bit in response, but she changed
course and said, "Nothing. Never mind," keeping her thoughts to herself.
Maybe the strange dissociative sensation was happening because her heart
longed for that cabin too strongly. Because for just a moment, her mind was
leaving her avatar behind and leaping to those woods on the twenty-second
floor…
Her train of thought was interrupted by Kirito's voice. "Let's talk with Yui
tomorrow. I'm sure she'll find some kind of issue we wouldn't have known
about."
"Yeah…I'm sure she will," Asuna agreed, releasing her hold on him.
Their cheeks separated, and they pulled back until they were gazing into each
other's eyes. Asuna felt something beginning to rise within her, but after a
moment, Kirito broke contact and sat up, returning to his previous position on
the side of the bed.
"So…what should we do now? Go meet up with the others?" he asked.
She grimaced and shook her head. "No. We're not nearly done with our
homework."
"Oh…y-yeah, right…"
"And it'll be nearly ten by the time we're done with it all, so playing will have
to wait for tomorrow. Agil and Leafa said they'd be available then, so we'd have
more fun with everybody there."
"Fiiine," he said like a sulking child and dropped his chin to his chest. "Man…
Ten o'clock was just when the hunting got good in SAO…"
"Don't reminisce about the bad old days! Besides, you were known for not
joining in the night activities. And yet you kept popping off level-ups—they
treated you like one of the Seven Great Mysteries of the frontline group,"
Asuna said, sitting upright.
Kirito gave her a funny look and said, "Uh…what were the other six
mysteries?"
"Let's see…There was the legend of the Black Swordsman fighting with a onehanded sword and no shield…The legend of how the Black Swordsman took way
too many Last Attack bonuses…"
"H-hang on, hang on. Are these all about me?"
"Don't worry—the seventh one is the legend of how the KoB commander is
too uptight…But that one wasn't a real mystery…"
She was thinking of eight months ago, when the black-haired swordsman saw
through the "mystery" of Commander Heathcliff, better known as Akihiko
Kayaba. Kirito patted Asuna on the head.
"I didn't have any mysterious powers, either. I only kept my level up because
of the encouragement and help of others…including you, of course."
He rubbed her head a few times, then stood and stretched.
"Well, let's get back to that homework…and if you could see your way to
helping me here, too…"
"Oh, fine," she said, rising to her feet and flashing him a smile. "But when
we're done, you owe me dinner at the restaurant on the ground floor!"
Upon returning from the virtual world to the real one, the first thing she felt
was the weight of her physical body.
Or to put it another way, the presence of true gravity. In SAO, she played a
speed-first fencer, so the overall feel of gravity on her avatar was light. She
raced through Aincrad as a gust of wind, leaping over obstacles like a young,
powerful filly. Since she had inherited that character data for ALO, the feeling
was still light. In fact, she probably felt even lighter because of the fairy wings.
So when she opened her eyes in the darkened bedroom, the feeling of weight
that covered her body was stifling. When she was trapped inside that deadly
game, she'd wanted a log-out button for so long, but now the sensation of that
transition was very unpleasant. She'd probably get used to it over time, she
decided.
After another ten seconds of letting herself get accustomed to the new
sensations, Asuna slowly rose. She took the AmuSphere off her head—the fulldive machine felt stunningly fragile compared to the NerveGear. The sensors on
the ceiling detected her movement and upped the indirect lighting to provide
enough to see by.
Her feet hit the floor, and she carefully got to a standing position, but she felt
woozy. It was similar to the mysterious dissociative sensation she felt in her
virtual body, but unlike the feeling of her mind slipping out into the sky, the
real-world sensation was like being dragged to the ground. This one was much
more unpleasant.
She shook her head, driving off the dizziness, and stuck her toes into her
slippers before heading to the window on the south side of her room.
Through the crack in the curtains, she could see the neighborhood at night,
shrouded in the heavy, damp air of June. There were white halos around the
streetlamps, perhaps because of some light rain. It reminded her of the light
effects from the virtual world.
"…?"
Suddenly, a part of her memory was stimulated, knotting her brows.
A city at night. Lights shrouded in mist. Flowing water nearby. She was
squatting near it, holding her knees to her chest. Lonely, terrified, but with
nowhere to escape…
For the life of her, she could not remember where and when she'd
experienced this. She tried to capture and clarify that vague mental image, but
it slipped out of her mind as abruptly as it appeared.
But the strange note of loneliness remained, deep in her chest.
For a while after that, Asuna found herself staring out the window at the dark
vista of the real world.
2
It was four thirty PM the following day, Sunday, June 22nd.
Asuna was on the top floor—the boss chamber—of the eighth-floor labyrinth
tower in New Aincrad, the giant floating castle that hovered over Alfheim.
There was only one thing to be done in a place like this: fight against the boss
monster.
"Kyurrrrrr!" A high-pitched warning chirped from Pina, a tiny dragon covered
with light-blue down. Its master, the cait sith Silica, shouted, "Asuna! We've got
more minion summons!"
"Got it! Everyone, group up!" Asuna called out, holding her staff aloft. Then
she began to chant spell words.
"Ek kalla hreinn brunnr, andask brandr og eitrid!" (Come forth, sacred spring,
and stop the breath of flame and poison.)
With the end of the last syllable, she stamped the bottom of the staff against
the black marble floor. Ripples of faint blue light extended from the spot, and a
great volume of water sprang up behind them until it formed a surface nearly
thirty feet across.
"Appreciate it, Asuna!"
"Thank you very much!"
Lisbeth the mace-wielding leprechaun charged onto the water, followed by
Silica with Pina resting on her head. Elsewhere, the ax-warrior gnome Agil and
the katana-bearing salamander Klein followed—other friends from the SAO
days. A moment later, Kirito the spriggan, clad in black, and his real-life sister,
Leafa the magic fighter sylph, returned from the front line.
This seven-man team was the upper limit for a single party, but they weren't
the only ones fighting in the boss chamber. They were in a raid with four other
parties, which put the total number of players in the circular chamber at thirtyfive. The only reason it didn't feel cramped was because the chamber itself was
much larger than it had been back in Aincrad.
Kirito jumped onto the water's surface, which had a healing effect and
increased resistance to poison and fire, and heaved a sigh of relief. On his
shoulder, Yui the tiny pixie waved at Asuna.
"Mama, you're really getting good at those spell incantations!"
"Ah-ha-ha…Thanks, Yui!" she replied, just before a number of pillars of fire
erupted through the water. They quickly formed spinning maelstroms, and
humanoid figures that turned into little fire elementals, each about three feet
tall, emerged from the middle.
Individually, they weren't so tough, but in great numbers, it was a different
story. Over thirty fire elementals had just appeared in the spacious chamber.
On top of that, they were just adds—additional minions that fought alongside
the primary threat: the boss monster of the eighth floor.
The boss's name was Wadjet the Flaming Serpent.
From the research they'd done after the first attempt at the fight, they'd
learned that Wadjet was the name of a fire-snake god in Egyptian mythology. It
looked the part, too; the creature resembled a four-armed goddess and had a
massive cobra for a head. Its black body was wreathed in flames, causing a firebased damage-over-time (DOT) effect if you were within range.
At the moment, two other parties were dealing with the boss itself. It was
imperative that the rest took care of the helpers while those fourteen players
still had enough HP left.
Asuna held her staff against the ground and swiftly scanned the area around
her.
Wadjet and the two parties were locked in fierce battle on the far side of the
huge chamber. Of the other two parties, one was led by a salamander woman,
and they had retreated to another water field that a fellow undine mage had
created. The other party did not have any members capable of using the
Purified Surface spell. Asuna raised her free hand and called out to them.
"Kite as many of the minions as you can and get into the water over here!"
Their sylph leader acknowledged her advice with a wave.
In the meantime, the sylph's six companions were busy turning the advancing
fire elementals into ash. They were secondary to the actual boss, of course, but
on their own, they were tough foes that neutralized half of all physical damage.
Thankfully, entering the magical water field instantly weakened them
significantly, so even a party with little magic ability could fight them off if they
got inside.
Once they'd beaten all the nearby fire elementals, the other party jumped
into the water, bringing a train of enemies with them. The thirty-foot-diameter
circle was cramped with fourteen players inside, but Kirito and Klein jumped
back out, taking half the extra fire elementals with them and making it possible
to fight across the entire surface.
The sight of all that flashing metal made Asuna want to switch out her staff
for a rapier, but she had to keep the staff pressed to the ground to maintain the
circle of magic. Asuna chose to be a healing-focused mage in ALO because she
thought it would be fun to try a support role, but also because, by the time she
had returned to playing, the party was already well supplied with physical
attackers.
Leafa could sense Asuna's frustration, and she came closer to say, "I'm sorry
you always have to hang back and play support, Asuna."
"Oh, it's not like I'm doing it against my will. It's fun to say the spell words."
"Yes, of course! Big Br—Kirito still feels shy about that part. You should
explain it to him sometime." Leafa grinned briefly before she lifted her free
hand. "Thú fylla heilagr austr, brott svalr bani!" (I heal thee with holy water,
staving off cold death.)
She enunciated the healing magic spell loudly and smoothly. Once she was
done, blue droplets showered the area from her left hand, helping recover the
damage that the water field's healing-over-time (HOT) effect could not cover.
Eventually, all the fire elementals were defeated, so Asuna lifted the staff off
the ground. The water vanished with a splashing spray, and one of the many
Buff icons underneath her HP bar vanished.
To their right, one of the other parties fighting fire elementals had finished up
as well. Once Klein saw that all the fire elementals were gone, he shouted over
to the fourteen players fighting the boss, "Okay, we took care of the adds! We
can switch in at any moment!"
A large imp who seemed to be the leader over there shouted back, "Got it!
Take over at the next break!"
The snakelike boss raised its flared cobra head high. The dark goddess had a
wide sword in one of its four hands, which it raised high.
Purple lightning bolts shot through the space around the boss, and more of
the giant, semitranslucent blades appeared. The bunched-up players in front of
the boss scattered; those with shields held them up, and those with twohanded weapons prepared to block the attack.
"Shugyaaaa!!" screeched the boss, Wadjet the Flaming Serpent, and it swung
down its weapons. Eight phantasmic swords smashed down upon the players.
Four of the players successfully blocked the blows, while the other four found
themselves knocked backward by the impact against their shields and weapons.
But the effect of using such a powerful attack tamped down the flames
surrounding Wadjet. Without missing their opportunity, the mages in the back
unleashed the movement-binding spells they had queued up.
Nearly all bosses had high resistance to Debuffs, but if you timed it right, you
could usually stop them for about ten seconds. Debuffs generated spiderwebs,
silver chains, and sticky swamps, depending on the spell. When the boss was
stuck, the imp team leader waved an arm.
"Fall back!"
With a guttural roar, the human players burst into motion. The four who'd
been knocked back by the swords regained their footing and hurried after their
companions, wailing, "Don't leave me behind!"
"Okay, we're up!"
Klein leaped first with his katana at the ready, followed by Kirito and Agil.
As she ran with the team, Asuna thought, Everyone's having so much fun.
It held true with the four other parties, too, not just Kirito and Lisbeth and her
friends.
The majority of the twenty-eight players from the other parties were total
strangers. They found the group looking for raid partners in the teleport square
of Frieven, the main town of the eighth floor. After a brief round of
introductions, they headed off to the labyrinth tower and rushed right into the
boss chamber. In Aincrad, you could never act that fast.
In the old days, you had to do reconnaissance runs over and over before the
real fight, hold strategy meetings, weigh all the risks, and go into battle with as
much power as possible. In SAO, you couldn't afford a single casualty in battle.
That was unthinkable in ALO, but even still, Asuna couldn't help wondering, Are
we really just going to jump right into it? before the battle. The eighth floor of
New Aincrad was the current front line, and that meant Wadjet the Flaming
Serpent had not yet been defeated. If they were going to fight an unbeaten
opponent, shouldn't they at least discuss strategy and formations first?
But now, nearly thirty minutes after the battle had started, she was starting
to understand.
The important thing was not actually beating the boss itself but enjoying the
process of the struggle.
If they did beat the boss, it shouldn't be because of the unilateral leadership
of a powerful in-group, like the Knights of the Blood, of which Asuna had been
the vice commander. The entire group of players had to act as one, thinking and
fighting and rejoicing together…or perhaps lamenting. That was the true fun of
online RPGs, and as long as you got a good helping of that, you were having fun,
even if you lost.
The imp in the back line of the two retreating parties lifted his arm as Asuna
passed, calling out, "We'll be regrouped and ready in three minutes! Give us
that much time!"
She slapped his palm as she went and replied, "We got this! Handle the adds
when they appear!"
As the group thudded off, armor clanking, she heard retreating voices saying,
"Why are you chatting her up in the middle of the fight?!"
"No, you dummy, it's not like that!"
Nearby, Lisbeth couldn't help but giggle. "Some things never change, Asuna."
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"I remember in Aincrad when we used to walk around together, every now
and then, some guy would—"
"Th-that's not important right now, is it?! Look, the boss is about to attack!"
she said in a mild panic. Wadjet broke through its binds and began moving
again.
Compared to the Deviant Gods that lived in Jotunheim, the subterranean land
of ice below Alfheim, the boss monsters of New Aincrad were smaller but much
more powerful. As evidence of that, over a month had passed since the first ten
floors of the floating castle were implemented, but they'd beaten only the first
seven floors so far. Full forty-nine-man raid parties (seven parties of seven) had
attempted Wadjet many times in the past week, and every last one of them had
ended in defeat.
With that in mind, the human-faced, snake-bodied monster whose curved
neck reached almost to the ceiling was a nerve-racking sight, but she could put
on a smile and suck it up. The important thing wasn't winning but having fun. To
do her best fighting without worrying about losing…
"Jruuah!!" shrieked Wadjet, swinging a bishop's staff with its lower left hand.
In synchronization with that motion, the pillars lining the edge of the chamber
rotated, revealing large mirrors that had been hidden on their back sides.
Instantly, the two parties that had just retreated from the boss broke apart into
smaller groups without waiting for orders and took places by the mirrors, which
numbered eight in all.
The tip of Wadjet's staff had a crystal in it that emitted a light beam with
lethal power. That was frightening enough, but to make matters worse, the
mirrors on the edge of the battlefield would deflect the beam in complex ways
that made it impossible to guess the trajectory it'd take.
When the boss fight was first available, the players tried destroying the
mirrors when they appeared. It was possible if you struck them enough times
with your weapons, but it took way too many hits, and by the time they got rid
of all eight, the light beam would have eliminated several combatants already.
But now that a week had passed, they were working on a more effective
tactic. The players next to the mirrors held the surface and pushed to rotate
them, then promptly leaped away. Within moments, the staff in Wadjet's hand
fired a dark-green beam.
It struck the mirror on the west side of the room and would normally have
bounced toward a different mirror, killing any player caught in its path. But
because the player had turned the angle of the mirror, it bounced back straight
—directly at Wadjet. Damaged by its own light attack, Wadjet screamed and
lost much of one of its seven HP bars. That only put it at halfway on its second
bar, but there had been no player deaths so far. For an impromptu group that
was two parties short of a full raid, they were doing quite well.
Klein, who was acting as party leader this time, seemed to agree. He whipped
his katana around and called out, "We're doing well! We can do this! Everyone,
charge!!"
Agil, with his two-handed ax, and Kirito, with his longsword, bolted forward,
followed by Leafa and Lisbeth. They surrounded the boss's long torso with the
two other attacking parties and began to slice, pummel, and thrust into it.
This time, Asuna did not hang back. But rather than whacking at it with her
staff, she used magic attacks. With her skill at high-speed recitation, she put
together spells and waved her staff at Wadjet's upper half. Sharp spears of ice
rained down and stuck between its black scales. The self-inflicted light-beam
damage had caused its flame to temporarily disappear, so a full complement of
ice magic took advantage of its weak element and, combined with all the
physical attacks, gouged large chunks out of the HP gauge.
Wadjet flailed with the damage, and its long body began to coil like a spring.
With a better vantage point thanks to her extra distance, Asuna recognized
what was happening and called out, "Tail attack! Everyone, ready to jump!"
Immediately, the attackers wailing on the boss jumped away and prepared
themselves. Wadjet was more of an elemental-damage boss, but its physical
attacks were also powerful, and the three-part rotation with its long tail just off
the ground meant that if you didn't dodge the first one, you'd fall over and get
hit with the second and third.
Asuna bent her knees in preparation for the jump along with her comrades.
With its tail fully wrapped around itself, the goddess's eyes shone deep red.
And…jump!
But then, at that very moment—
Asuna felt her mind being pulled upward, just before her avatar could jump. It
was the dissociative sensation again.
Not now! she thought, waiting for her senses to recover. It lasted for only a
moment, but in this situation, it felt like an eternity. The power coiled in every
inch of the boss's body unleashed, and its tail came whipping around. It was no
good…She wouldn't make it.
Just before the massive whip swept her legs out from under her, the
conversation she'd had before the fight returned to her mind.
An hour before their meeting time with Leafa, Klein, and the rest, Asuna and
Kirito had logged in to the same room in the inn as the day before, summoned
Yui, and explained the situation to her.
Yui had switched from her more recent navigation pixie look to her original
appearance. She sat between the two of them on the sofa and listened intently
to what Asuna said. When the story was over, she murmured, "Your mind…
dissociates…"
The little girl's eyes were wide. Asuna said, "That's right. It's hard to describe
in words…but I think there's undoubtedly something wrong with my connection
to my avatar."
"I had no idea you were having this problem…I'm sorry, Mama. If only I'd
realized earlier…"
"No, Yui. It's not your fault." She cupped the little girl's cheeks in her hands.
"I'm sorry. For not telling you about it earlier. At first, I thought I just wasn't
used to my new avatar. But after talking with Kirito yesterday, I'm starting to
think there's a different cause…"
On the other side of Yui, Kirito said, "What do you think, Yui? Anything that
seems to be a likely cause…?"
"Well, let's see…"
The AI's long eyelashes pointed downward as she adopted a thinking
expression, her face still cradled in Asuna's hands. After just three seconds, her
face rose, but it was still clouded.
"Based on what you told me, I'm afraid I cannot specify a cause for your
reaction…And with my current privileges, I'm not able to do a direct
examination of the packets being traded between your AmuSphere and the ALO
server. Although, if it happens when I am nearby, I might be able to glean some
kind of data…"
"No…I understand. I'm sorry, Yui, I didn't mean to ask the impossible of you,"
Asuna said, attempting to apologize. But Yui grabbed her hands and squeezed.
She pulled the hands off her cheeks and brought them down between the two.
"But I can make some conjectures."
"Huh…? You can?"
"Yes. First of all, I hypothesize that the cause of your phenomenon does not
exist with your AmuSphere or with you. Which means the first possibility is a
server problem, but as of this moment, the Cardinal System does not detect
errors, and no errors on the human side are reported, either," the little girl said
crisply, still holding Asuna's hands. This put a strange feeling in Asuna's chest.
Yesterday, she and Kirito were worried that this might put a terrible strain on
Yui's psyche. But that concern was apparently unnecessary. Yui admitted that
she did not have the ability to solve the problem right away, and she was still
trying her hardest to help. She was growing, day by day.
"But I can surmise that something on the ALO server, something within
Alfheim, is creating some kind of abnormal interference with you, Mama. I just
can't determine at the moment whether that is a player or an object, or if it is
intentional or incidental."
"Abnormal…interference…," Asuna repeated.
If it was a human being causing Asuna's dissociative episodes, it couldn't be
just any player. There was no magic spell or item that caused such a thing, so it
would inevitably have to be something with a higher authority level…a hacker
or a GM, perhaps.
That line of thought caused Asuna to envision a face she never wanted to
think about again. The man who had kept her locked in a birdcage for over two
months. Oberon, king of the fairies—Nobuyuki Sugou.
But he was locked up in Tokyo Detention House, and it would be impossible
for him to interfere with the ALO server. Kirito's face went hard, too, as he
momentarily considered that idea, but then he shook his head. When he looked
at Yui again, he was back to his usual self.
"Hey, Yui. You said that what was interfering with Asuna could possibly be an
object…What do you mean by that? Is it possible that some specific item or part
of the landscape can surpass the boundaries of the game system and have a
direct effect on the player…?"
The young girl tilted her head, appearing to ponder how to explain. Slowly,
she said, "As I'm sure you both know, I was originally developed as a test
version of a mental health counseling program meant to assist SAO players.
That would indicate that the NerveGear can read not only the wearer's senses
and kinetic movement but also their emotions. The old Cardinal System
monitored and collected data on the mental state of all its players…"
None of this was new to Asuna. When she first met Yui, the program was like
a toddler barely capable of speech, because her core program was broken,
staggered by the weight of so much negative emotion that she could not ease.
Yui looked at each of them in turn and continued, her voice professional.
"But compared to the signals for senses and movement, the ability to analyze
emotional signals was slower to develop. All that could be identified was that
which appeared most often in the aggregate data: anger, sadness, fear, despair.
At the time, neither Cardinal nor I, its subordinate program, could analyze
anything else. So when Cardinal received an input of a particularly extreme and
anomalous emotional pattern, it would save that as raw data, including
everything else present. That means the ID of the player who emitted the
emotional pattern, of course, but also the time, place, and even items
possessed."
"…!"
Asuna sucked in a sharp breath and looked at Kirito.
This was news to them. It was difficult to grasp Yui's explanation, but it
probably came down to this: When it found an interest in a player, the Cardinal
System, which managed the SAO server, would store not compressed
information that had been pattern-analyzed but the raw emotional data itself.
But in a sense, that might as well be copying the player's soul—or at least, the
uppermost layer of it.
Asuna was wondering if current full-dive technology was actually capable of
such a thing when she suddenly remembered: She and Kirito might have
witnessed this firsthand.
"…Oh yeah…Kirito, do you remember? Ages ago, when you and I were
investigating a murder inside the safe haven of town…"
Kirito nodded immediately; he must have been thinking of the same thing.
"Yeah. After we solved the case on that hilltop on the nineteenth floor, we saw
Griselda, the murder victim, standing next to the grave. Maybe that wasn't just
a vision…but the heart of Griselda, stored in that grave—or in the ring buried
under the soil there…"
There was no way to determine the truth of that now. Yui did not have any
comments to add. When she didn't say anything, Kirito lightly placed his hand
on the small of her back. Quietly and gently, he said, "What you're telling us is
that inside SAO, when players exuded powerful emotions, those emotions
tended to get stored and attached to places or objects associated with them. Is
that right?"
The pixie nodded.
"Then like you said, could the object or objects that are causing this
dissociative phenomenon be those?" he continued. "Like…a player's feelings
are residing inside an item and interfering with Asuna…?"
Again, Yui did not react. But her silence, Asuna could feel, was less about
choosing the right words and more about wondering if it was right to speak her
conjecture aloud at all.
"At the present moment…I cannot bring myself to answer in the
affirmative…," Yui said, her voice frail. Then she looked up and, much more
firmly, said, "But through talking and adventuring with you two, and Lisbeth and
Silica, and Leafa, and Klein, and Agil, and all the others, I think I've learned. I've
learned that the human heart and the full-dive system possess far greater
possibilities than I understand. So I cannot say that the answer to your question
is no. As I first told you, I believe this supposition is a possibility—that is all."
So the cause of the mysterious phenomenon was a player—or some part of a
player's mentality that resided in an item or an area of land…
That was the possibility that Yui had raised just before they fought the boss.
Then it was time to meet up with the group, so they couldn't discuss it in any
further detail, but on the way to New Aincrad, Asuna mulled over Yui's
statements, and she came to an interpretation she could be okay with.
Perhaps someone was calling to her. Someone playing ALO right now—or
someone who had once played SAO—was calling Asuna. And because of that,
her consciousness was being pulled away from her avatar. If true, then he or
she was probably not doing it maliciously. The phenomenon just couldn't
choose the time or place, and as a result, it interfered with her gameplay. Just
like at this moment.
Right as the phantom floating sensation arrived, it brought change to
everything else around her.
The black marble boss chamber grew faint and distant, and a completely
different room appeared much closer to her, hazy and uncertain.
There were walls of light-brown blocks placed in random arrangements, and
the floor was the same color. Monsters completely swarmed the space—ore
elementals (blackened rock carved into humanoid shapes) and dark dwarves,
squat and menacing, with sharp pickaxes for weapons. The flickering sight was
definitely familiar to her somehow, but she could not remember the time or
place. The feeling was exactly the same as what she'd felt when looking out the
window last night.
So did this memory belong to someone who was calling her…?
The sight of the room and its monsters lasted for only a moment. When it
vanished, her mind returned to her avatar. Her eyes opened wide, just in time
to see the powerful tail of Wadjet the Flaming Serpent whipping across the
floor toward her.
All her teammates in striking range jumped straight upward in unison. Only
Asuna failed to match the right timing—just barely, but it was costly all the
same. She wasn't going to make it—
"Asuna!"
The impact came not from the front but from the side. Suddenly, her body
was being lifted upward, and only the toe of her boot grazed Wadjet's tail.
Forgetting to even check her HP bar, Asuna just stared into the face of the
spriggan holding her.
"K-Kirito, how…?"
She was going to ask "How did you know the timing of my slipping?" but Kirito
cut her off. "Yui sensed it before it happened."
The pixie sitting on Kirito's shoulder added gravely, "Eight seconds ago, I
picked up a signal being sent to you. It will take a bit more time to analyze it."
"…So it's true. Someone is doing this to me…"
Stunned, Asuna only realized after several seconds that she'd been airborne
the entire time. The gray wings extending from Kirito's back exuded a faint
glow.
All nine fairy races of Alfheim, even the less air-centric ones like leprechauns
and gnomes, had the power of flight. In the game's May update, the limitation
on flight time from the RCT Progress days was gone, so you could fly as much as
you wanted. But there were exceptions: the underground realm of Jotunheim
and the various dungeons of the game. The labyrinth towers of New Aincrad
were included in that designation, of course.
But even then, there was a counter to that rule. Only the spriggans, who
excelled at treasure hunting, had a special high-level ability to fly for a brief
time underground. It didn't last long, though you could extend it with extra
proficiency, so you could use it only in emergencies. To Kirito, this situation
counted as one.
"Th-thank you, Kirito…"
She wanted to apologize, but he just shook his head.
On the ground, the tail attack continued through its second and third swings.
Nearly twenty players evaded it with perfectly timed jumps. Once Wadjet's
wide-area attack was over, Kirito landed with his partner in his arms. The skill
had worn off, and his gray wings vanished without a sound. The cooldown timer
for that one was around five or six hundred seconds, so he wouldn't be able to
fly again for a good long while. If she experienced the dissociative phenomenon
again, he wouldn't be able to save her.
Yui hopped off Kirito's shoulder and onto Asuna's, leaned toward her ear, and
whispered, "Mama, I've memorized the broad pattern of the signal, so I will be
able to warn you earlier."
"Thanks, Yui. Please do," she replied under her breath, then turned to her
teammates and called out, "Sorry, I just tripped! I'll make sure to avoid it next
time!"
Lisbeth waved back and said, "It's cool!" Meanwhile, Kirito rushed off toward
the boss, which had paused after its big attack.
"Ryaaaa!" bellowed Klein and the others, while Kirito rushed behind them
without a word. That struck Asuna as odd.
During this entire battle, Kirito had been quieter than usual. In fact, he was
acting reticent even before the fight, when he allowed Klein to be party leader.
She was going to ask Yui about that but changed her mind before the words left
her mouth. Focusing on the fight was more important.
The assault from the team that had just evaded the tail attack unharmed
managed to knock the second of Wadjet's seven HP bars into the red zone. The
snake-bodied goddess issued a snarl of rage, then lifted a bronze torch with its
bottom right hand.
"More minions coming!!" Klein called out.
Even before he did, Asuna stepped back and started chanting the spell words
for Purified Surface again. The two parties in the back would not be enough to
take care of the fire elementals that would appear throughout the chamber.
The salamander's team and the sylph's team should stay to deal with the boss
while Asuna's party pulled away to help with the adds.
Klein reached the same conclusion, and when he turned to give Asuna the
order, he grinned upon seeing that she was already casting the spell.
"Okay, let's pull back and knock out these elemen—Hey! Kiri!"
Drawn by the consternation in his voice, Asuna followed Klein's gaze to where
Kirito was mingling with the other two attacking squads. After a few moments,
he seemed to recognize Klein's voice and came to a stop.
When he lifted his free hand in apology and returned to the group, Asuna
paid close attention to his face as she continued her spell. Normally, he would
never make this kind of mistake in the midst of a boss battle.
Was he so concerned with Asuna's out-of-body experiences that he was
losing his focus on the fight…?
She finished her quick chanting of the spell, held the staff high over her head,
and slammed it into the ground. The chill of the holy water flooding up from the
floor seeped through her boots. Unable to resist, she decided to speak to Yui
again; there was nothing else for her to do while she was maintaining the spell
effect.
"Um, Yui, does Kirito seem…?"
The pixie was practically waiting for her to bring it up. "Yes, Papa is not acting
like himself."
"Right…I wonder what's up with him…"
"I don't know, either…"
In a sense, Yui had much more accumulated information about Kirito than
Asuna did, so if she said so, he really was acting different from usual today. And
she couldn't believe that it was unrelated to her recent issue.
When this battle is over, I need to have a proper talk with him. About the
strange sights I saw last night and just now. About everything.
With that determination planted in her mind, Asuna gripped the staff and
focused on the battle around her.
About thirty minutes later, Kirito and Klein, the last two left struggling on their
own, finally teleported back to the save point on the bottom floor of the
labyrinth tower. As soon as their avatars materialized, the samurai clutched his
fists and wailed.
"Kaaaaah! Dammit! We had barely more than a single bar left to goooo!"
Agil, who had died and returned to the save point along with Asuna, just
smirked and noted, "That last bar would have been the worst. They say
Wadjet's like the other bosses; once you get to the last bar, there are all new
mechanics."
"Yeah, I know, but once you're down that far, it always feels like you can just
power your way through, ya know?"
"No! That's not how it works! It's not how it worked for you, at least!"
This little comedy routine elicited laughter not just among the friends but
among the other four parties in the raid.
After that one time, there had been no more dissociative episodes, and Asuna
fought to the best of her ability, but the group ultimately failed to defeat the
eighth-floor boss. Their faces were bright, however. The sylph party leader who
had invited them to the group walked over, steel greaves clanking, and spoke to
Klein with a smile.
"I've gotta say, I thought we were onto something. We probably would have
done it with a full raid."
"Yeah, I agree! We had some good teamwork going. If only the fire-elemental
placement hadn't ended up all lopsided…"
"Well, if it weren't for your group, the lasers would have wiped us out. You
guys were amazing," said the sylph, extending his right hand. Klein chuckled and
grabbed it.
After their handshake was over, the raid leader thought for a moment and
looked toward Agil and Lisbeth. "Say, if you're up for it, why don't we go back to
town and give it another shot? Maybe we can find another two parties to fill us
out."
"Yeah, I'm down! What do you say, Boss?" Klein asked Agil, who replied "Why
not?" in English. The four girls in the group gave them positive answers, too.
The samurai in red grinned and started to speak for the group but paused
first, one eyebrow raised. The one player who would normally be the most
enthusiastic about this had remained silent. Klein looked over at Kirito, who was
standing a little ways away, and said, "Hey, are you in or not, Kiri?"
The spriggan's head shot upward. He had been listening after all. He put on a
smile that seemed awkward to Asuna's practiced eye and said, "Uh, y-yeah, of
course…"
But his gaze wavered in empty space. His lips pursed tight and eventually
opened again.
"...Actually…I've got something to do after this. I hate to let you down, but
I've got to drop out here."
"Uh…sure. No problem, but…"
Klein was poised to say something else, but he stopped himself and rubbed
his whiskered chin. Then he grinned and nodded. "Okay, we'll handle it from
here! I'll send you a pic when we get to the ninth floor!"
Nearby, Agil offered a line that seemed oddly familiar: "I'll give you a write-up
on Wadjet's loot, in under eight hundred characters."
"Looking forward to it," Kirito said with a wry smile. He bowed to the sylph
leader, then turned away. For a brief moment, he met Asuna's eyes but merely
blinked in apology and started hurrying off toward the exit of the tower to the
south.
Asuna could feel Yui tensing on her right shoulder. She extended her foot to
walk after him on autopilot but stopped herself there. She was the only magic
user in the party. She couldn't just leave them now…
"Go on, Asuna," said a voice. She turned in surprise and saw Leafa behind her,
smiling. She lifted a hand and pushed Asuna on the back. "I'll find two others to
invite. We'll be fine. Take care of my brother."
"...But…"
She looked to her sides and saw Lisbeth, Silica, Agil, and Klein all smiling and
nodding for her to go. So she took a deep breath, summoned her courage, and
bowed in apology. When she rose again, she said to the other raid members,
"I'm sorry! I've got to leave now, too!"
The others they'd been playing with called out things like "Thanks!" and "Let's
play again sometime!" and "Good luck with whatever you're doing!" Asuna
bowed once more to their kindness, then spun around to leave.
Kirito was already nowhere to be seen in the hallway of several dozen yards
leading out of the tower. But Yui was on top of it.
"Papa's flying toward the southern rim of New Aincrad!"
"Thanks, Yui," she whispered back, putting her staff away into her inventory.
Then she sprinted for the exit of the labyrinth tower.
3
The outside was now wreathed in night.
The day-night cycle of Alfheim was sixteen hours total, so it was not
synchronized with real-world time. Outside the game, it was after five PM; being
just past the summer solstice, there was still plenty of light at this hour—but in
the fairy realm, the sun was long gone.
The eighth floor of New Aincrad was a forest-themed floor. The third floor
had the same motif but included grassland and rocky areas, whereas the eighth
floor was utterly dedicated to thick mangrove forests. For one thing, there was
no actual ground. The surface of the floor was covered in deep water that you
couldn't walk across. Instead, there were massive trees (far smaller than the
World Tree, Yggdrasil, of course) all around, with a complex layout of hanging
bridges connecting the elevated platforms that players had to travel across.
In the SAO days, if you fell off, you had to wade through the water until you
found a tree with a ladder to climb, but that was no longer a concern here.
Asuna left the giant, blackened tree that contained the labyrinth tower, ignored
the spiral staircase nearby, and buzzed the wings on her back instead.
The reason the labyrinth tower and its surrounding trees were charred like
this was explained as the work of the new boss, Wadjet the Flaming Serpent.
The boss in Aincrad was completely different, and the trees around here had
been perfectly green. Ymir's designers had put a lot of work into redecorating
this area for their new take on the original.
She levitated directly upward for about fifty yards, only transitioning to
horizontal flight once there was a decent amount of visibility below. The huge
trees of this floor ran all the way up to the bottom of the ninth floor, so there
was no way for her to get above the canopy. In the SAO days, this was one of
the few floors where an intrepid climber could touch the bottom of the next
floor up. Of course, no one could actually dig a shortcut hole through the rock.
Yui made her way from Asuna's shoulder to the front of her shirt as the fairy
girl soared and wove around huge trunks dozens of feet across.
"Where is Kirito now?" she asked the pixie.
"He'll be reaching the outer aperture any moment now. If he gets any farther
away, I won't be able to detect him anymore!"
"Got it! Geez, he's so fast…"
She tucked her arms to her sides and focused on speed. She'd gotten
accustomed to the unique flying system of ALO quickly and no longer needed
the flight controller after just a few days of practice, but in terms of really
pushing the limits of flight, she was still inferior to Kirito and Leafa. She did her
best to avoid the obstacles, flying by the light of the lanterns hanging from the
bridges connecting tree to tree.
In time, blue light appeared ahead of her. It was moonlight; she was nearly at
the edge of New Aincrad. Kirito had already left the floating structure, she was
sure.
Yui chose that moment to report, "Papa's rising along the outside of New
Aincrad!"
"Huh…?"
Asuna's eyes went wide. Kirito had said he had something to do, so she'd
assumed he was heading for Yggdrasil City atop the World Tree. But thinking
about it now, if he just needed to log out, he could do so in any inn on the
eighth floor, and if he was going to Ygg City, he could get there immediately
from the teleport square in the Town of Beginnings on the first floor.
This meant Kirito's destination was somewhere else in ALO—well, higher up
in New Aincrad.
But as of now, June 22nd, the eighth floor was as high as you could get in New
Aincrad. The outer apertures of the ninth floor and up were entirely closed off.
You couldn't just fly through them onto the terrain of the floors. Asuna had
once gone with Kirito and their friends to fly up to where the Ruby Palace
should have been on the hundredth floor, but they'd hit the altitude limit on
flight at around the fiftieth floor. The only thing they could see from there was
an endless slope of steel.
Kirito knew he couldn't get inside on a higher floor. So where did he think he
was going…? This question filled Asuna's mind as she burst out from the
southernmost tip of the eighth floor into the open expanse.
She turned back and saw an enormous full moon in the sky behind her. It was
gleaming off the enclosed surface of the flying castle. Against it, just off the
steel face, rose a tiny silhouette.
He already seemed to be at about the fifteenth floor. There was something
desperate about the directness of his path, and it made Asuna wonder if it was
right for her to follow him.
"Kirito…," she murmured, while Yui peered out from the collar of her short
robe.
"Papa…"
When Asuna heard that tiny voice, she made up her mind. She bent her knees
and pushed off the air as hard as she could, stretching in a straight line toward
the sky, an arrow of blue.
She and Kirito were separated by the width of seven floors—about seven
hundred yards. In the SAO days, this would have been worlds apart, but that
was all in the past. Now Asuna had four radiant blue wings.
On she flew, chasing after her beloved, but she had a premonition. Wherever
Kirito was heading, it had to contain the answer to the mysterious sensation
afflicting her. He must have come to some hypothesis based on talking with Yui
and was now trying to see if he was correct.
Kirito tore through the virtual atmosphere of the sky far above. He was past
the twentieth floor and showed no sign of slowing. He didn't even stop at the
twenty-second floor, where their precious log cabin would be found. In a blink,
he was past the twenty-fifth floor, where the Aincrad Liberation Squad had
collapsed in battle against the boss. Where was he going?
Then the black shadow suddenly flew in a sharp loop. He plunged right for the
steel exterior next to him.
"Oh…!" Asuna gasped, expecting a collision, but Kirito spread his wings to
slow down just before the wall. He didn't hit the surface hard enough to cause
HP damage, but Asuna could detect the impact of his hands slapping the metal
all the way from her location.
It was…the twenty-seventh floor.
The name of the main town on that floor was Rombal. It was a place covered
with craggy rocks and boulders, where the towns and dungeons were carved
right out of the mountains. It had been very popular with crafters in the SAO
days, because many ores were available there, but Asuna did not remember it
well. They'd struggled a bit with the metal-elemental boss, but from what she
could remember, they'd been on the floor for only a few days in total.
That information would be the same for Kirito, who was part of the same
group of players. So why was he focused on this floor in particular?
As she watched with bated breath, the black silhouette stayed still, hands
pressed against the steel surface. Almost as if, by sheer force of prayer, he
could will a hole to open in the wall.
But of course, the impervious, indestructible wall did not change in any way.
Asuna slowed her ascent as she reached the twenty-sixth floor, until she was
coasting on momentum and upward draft and arrived at the space just behind
Kirito.
She didn't say anything. Yui was silent as well, sitting inside her shirt. Almost
no flying monsters would appear at this altitude, so the only thing in their
vicinity was moonlight, the breeze, and the fortress of steel.
At last, Kirito let go of the wall of the twenty-seventh floor. He lowered his
hands, beat his wings a little, and turned around.
"…Asuna. Yui."
There was the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. It was an expression she had
hardly ever seen on him in the two years and eight months she'd known him.
"Kirito…," she whispered, closing the gap a little. But she was hesitant to get
any closer. There were so many things she wanted to ask, but she didn't know
what to say.
He looked away from her and took in the view, then pointed down and to the
right. "Let's talk there."
There was a bridge-like protrusion extending from the surface of the structure
below. It was only about ten feet long, but it would serve as a bench. Asuna
nodded and flew down with him, then sat on the sideways spike of steel.
Kirito sat to her left, then lifted his right hand and rubbed Yui's head where it
popped out of Asuna's collar. The smile on his face seemed to contain a hint of
pain.
"I'm sorry, Yui," he said. "Sorry, Asuna…I must have worried you."
In response, Yui flitted out of Asuna's clothes and sat on Kirito's right
shoulder. Her big black eyes looked right at Asuna's, saying, Go on, Mama.
Asuna nodded back and summoned her courage.
"Kirito…what's here on the twenty-seventh floor?" she asked. After a
moment, she corrected herself. "What…was here…before?"
But just saying those words was the key to opening the door to her memories.
Asuna's eyes went wide.
Something did happen. On this floor. In fact, she had heard this story right
from Kirito. The number of the floor itself hadn't come up, but at this point,
there was no denying it. This had to be the floor…where Kirito experienced the
tragedy that led him to resist grouping up in guilds and parties and stick to
being the only solo player in the frontier group…
"Yeah…that's right," Kirito said with a little nod, sensing from her expression
that she had figured it out. "The twenty-seventh-floor labyrinth tower…is where
my first-ever guild, the Moonlit Black Cats, fell into ruin…"
Kirito had told Asuna the tragic story of the Moonlit Black Cats just two days
before their marriage in front of their forest home. That was October 22nd,
2024.
They initially met Yui in the forest on the twenty-second floor a week after
that, but Yui knew the general details of the story by now. This time, Kirito
didn't speak about the past again, but the present.
"When Yui said that a player's powerful emotions could be saved on the SAO
server as an attachment to a place or item, I had an idea," he said, his voice
soft. "Maybe the emotions of everyone from the Black Cats are saved, too…
Recorded in that hidden room in the twenty-seventh-floor labyrinth tower,
their terror and despair when the ore elementals and dark dwarves trapped and
surrounded them…"
!!
That brought back the image she saw in the midst of the Wadjet battle with
distinct clarity.
The pattern of random sandstone blocks on the wall—that was definitely
from the labyrinth tower of the twenty-seventh floor in Aincrad. The room had
been packed with ore elementals and dwarves. It was exactly like Kirito just
said.
"...Kirito," she squeaked, the only thing she could say. When Kirito looked up
at her, she tried to explain what she'd experienced. The vision she saw in the
midst of the boss battle, the room that had to be the place where the Black Cats
fell—and the sight of the city at night that she saw in her room after logging out
yesterday. Of a flowing waterway and lights in the fog…
"..."
Even Kirito was at a loss for words after hearing about this. Eventually, he
nodded and said, "Then…that settles it. The night vision was probably…the
memory of one of them…Which means the phenomenon you're feeling is from
her…"
He paused, then continued even more quietly, "From Sachi…calling you…But
why would it be you…and not me…?"
It was more a question to himself than to Asuna. But the reply came from the
one person who had been silent thus far: Yui.
"I think…it's because you're using a different account than the one you had in
SAO, Papa…A different avatar."
"…!"
Kirito bolted up straight. He looked down at his hands, clad in black leather
gloves. Asuna was aware that his palms and fingers were subtly different than
they had been in SAO.
In starting up a new, normal online game life in ALfheim Online, Asuna,
Lisbeth, Silica, Klein, Agil, and the many other survivors of SAO transferred their
SAO account data to ALO as is. Kirito was the only exception, using the spunky
young spriggan he created from scratch when he was trying to rescue Asuna
from the birdcage.
If Kirito had brought back his old avatar, then the emotions of this Sachi girl
located somewhere on the twenty-seventh floor of New Aincrad would be
affecting him, not Asuna. If anything, he would have been the one affected by
the dissociative sensation.
But why had Sachi chosen Asuna as a replacement for Kirito? And how had
she?
She had passed away over a year before Asuna and Kirito got married. At the
time, Asuna was an executive officer of the new Knights of the Blood. She'd
been focused on building up the guild and conquering new floors. She saw Kirito
at strategy meetings and during boss battles, but nothing more. She hadn't
known that he had joined a guild called the Moonlit Black Cats or that they had
been wiped out, leaving him as the only survivor. By that token, Sachi would
never have even known Asuna's name.
Again, it was Yui who had an answer.
"Mama, the avatar you're using now, technically speaking, is still married to
Papa's old avatar. There's no marriage system in ALO at the moment, so it's not
shown on your character status…but it's still connected to Papa somewhere in
your data."
"R-really?!" she exclaimed, despite everything.
Kirito's eyes bulged, too. After a moment, he murmured, "I see…When Sachi
died…I was there. Her emotions at the moment of her death are probably saved
on the server, not just in the labyrinth tower of the twenty-seventh floor, but
also linked to my avatar. But since I changed to a new avatar, the signal Sachi's
memories are sending could only go to the next closest thing…and that's Asuna,
because of her link to the old me…?"
That all made some kind of sense, at least. But it didn't explain everything.
"…Why is it happening now, though?" she wondered, looking at the exterior
of the floating castle to her left. "The dissociative phenomenon first happened
three weeks after my initial dive into ALO. And they've been happening more
often lately. Plus, there's more detail to them, like memories mixed in. That
didn't happen at first…"
"...That's because…"
Kirito paused, then checked his window. After staring at the time readout, he
took a deep breath, and in a tense voice, he said, "Sachi died…on June 22nd,
2023…That's two years ago today. And it happened at…five forty-five PM. Three
minutes from now…"
"…!!"
Asuna gasped. On Kirito's shoulder, Yui sat frozen, her big black eyes widened
in shock.
Kirito closed his window and looked up into the night sky, which was now full
of twinkling stars. He began to speak.
"…In SAO…I saw…many players die. Some of them met their end by my own
sword. So…I didn't want to see the deaths of the Black Cats, and of Sachi, as
being special anymore. When we were in Aincrad, I used the tree growing
outside the inn the Black Cats called home as a grave marker of sorts. I would
go visit it from time to time…but right now, I can't visit the eleventh floor,
where the inn was, or the twenty-seventh floor, where they died. So my plan
was, while we were playing today, to just observe a moment of silence when
the time came and have that be the end of it…But after what Yui said, I realized
it was probably Sachi's emotions saved on the server that were causing your
dissociative sensation, and I had to be sure…"
He placed his arms on his knees and clenched his fists. His head hung low, and
he continued his story through obvious pain.
"...If what Sachi felt at that moment…the terror, the despair, the sadness…
are still saved on the server, trying to reach someone…then it should be my
responsibility, as the sole survivor. But I changed my avatar and cut loose my
past…and because of that, Sachi's emotions had nowhere else to go…but to
you..."
"...…Kirito," Asuna murmured, shaking her head over and over. There were
so many things she wanted to say that she couldn't speak a single one. She felt
so powerless, it was hard even to breathe.
"You're wrong, Papa!" cried Yui. She leaped off his shoulder and flitted right
in front of his face, clutching her tiny fists in umbrage. "The only thing the
Cardinal System saved was special emotional outputs that it couldn't classify
with the patterns it knew. This might be inappropriate to say, but the kinds of
fear and despair that dying players felt in SAO were not unique. Just two weeks
after the system began recording, it stopped saving despair-based raw data. So
if Sachi left an emotional record on the server…it would not have been despair
or terror!!"
Kirito's head lifted just an inch. His voice was raspy.
"…Then…what Sachi left…was…?"
Asuna did not hear the end of that sentence.
At five forty-five and thirteen seconds on June 22nd, she experienced the
largest dissociative episode yet.
The hardness of the steel spike they were sitting on, the chill of the highaltitude winds, the texture of her mage's equipment—all these sensations
faded. She felt like she was floating. Her virtual weight vanished.
Then Asuna's mind separated from her avatar entirely. The floating black
structure beside her, the starry sky, everything was overwritten by bright light.
Her soul was sucked down a corridor of light to somewhere else…
The next thing she knew, she was standing in an unfamiliar room.
It was not large. The only fixtures were a simple bed and a wooden desk. The
single window provided a view of a rustic, European-looking town. Instead of a
sky overhead, there was just a lid of stone and metal. This was not the real
world…It was some place in Aincrad. She recognized the style of the roofs and
walls of the buildings. It was probably the main town of the eleventh or twelfth
floor. Neither of them was available at the present time.
It was night, and the room was dim because there was only a single lamp on
the wall. This was probably a room in an inn, not a player home. Asuna circled
the bed and approached the door. She tried to turn the knob, but her hand
slipped through; she couldn't grip it. She looked down at herself, and to her
surprise, she was not an undine mage anymore. She was wearing a knight's
uniform of white and red. She had long gloves and boots in the same colors.
There was no rapier at her side, but it was undoubtedly the equipment from her
time in the Knights of the Blood. Her entire body was translucent, though, like a
vision.
What was happening? She looked up again—and saw the space above the
bed flicker, revealing a vague outline.
It was a female player, skinny and frail. She was sitting on the white
bedsheets with her back to Asuna. She wore a light-blue tunic and miniskirt. No
armor. The hair cut just above her shoulders was black with just a tinge of blue.
It was clear even without seeing her face that she was around the same age as
Asuna.
The girl was shaking her torso left and right. She seemed to be singing—and in
fact, at that very moment, a gentle song graced Asuna's ears. It was a famous
Christmas song. She was singing the chorus slowly and tenderly.
As she listened, Asuna found her vision beginning to blur and sparkle with
motes of light. Her eyes brimmed with tears. Powerful emotion gripped her
chest. The girl's feelings were flowing into her through the melody. There
wasn't a single ounce of fear or desperation. It was pure warmth, like the
sunlight of spring filling her heart…
One large teardrop spilled down Asuna's right cheek as the song came to an
end.
The girl stood and turned around without a sound, facing Asuna across the
bed.
Because of the quavering light that filled her eyes, Asuna could not make out
her face. The only detail she could see was a smiling mouth that opened to
speak.
There was a voice.
You tell him for me.
Tell him I was happy.
The brilliant light surrounded Asuna again. She was being pulled away from
the girl, the room, the town.
As she felt the floating sensation drag her away, Asuna understood innately
that this was the final out-of-body experience she would be having.
Slowly and carefully, she opened her eyes.
Countless stars glittered in a black sky tinged with indigo. The steel castle
loomed over her, with a large full moon at its tip.
Not far away, she found Kirito's and Yui's faces watching her with concern. His
hand was propping her up in a sitting position.
"…Thank you. I'm fine now," she whispered, regaining her balance and
glancing at what she was wearing. It was the regular blue robe again, of course.
"Asuna," he said, concerned and plaintive. She looked at him again. She was
uncertain of how to proceed but then realized that what she needed to say was
already in her mind.
"Sachi was smiling," Asuna said. Kirito's eyes went as wide as they could go.
She could see the stars reflected in his black eyes grow more numerous.
Asuna used all her heart to impart the words that had been entrusted to her.
Just as heartfelt as Sachi's Christmas song had been.
4
The next day: Monday, June 23rd, at nine o'clock at night. Asuna was back in
Frieven on the eighth floor of New Aincrad.
The second attempt on the boss, after she and Kirito had left the raid party,
had once again ended in a painful, last-minute defeat. But they also reported
that after getting the boss to its final HP bar, they were able to devise a winning
strategy; thus, everyone present had promised to come back together the next
day for a rematch.
This time, Asuna and Kirito would be taking part, as well as the best teams
from General Eugene's salamanders and Lady Sakuya's sylphs. There was twice
as much heat and excitement in the teleport square as there was last time.
Klein, who was again playing the role of raid leader, said to the sylph warrior,
"It's kinda freaky, right?" The man had seemed intimidated to be remaining in
the leadership position when there were two fairy leaders in the mix, but with
Sakuya herself giving him furtive glances and requests to take over, he couldn't
possibly back down now.
"You called up Sakuya and General Eugene together? Who are you?" the
sylph leader asked.
Klein just chuckled awkwardly. "Aw shucks, I'm nobody special, ha-ha."
Agil, meanwhile, interjected, "They weren't your connections," while Asuna
just shook her head in exasperation.
Behind her, she could hear Kirito and Yui talking.
"Wh-what? My hair?"
"Yes!"
She turned around and asked, "What's going on, you two?"
"Well, the thing is," said the spriggan, pinching a lock of his spiky black hair in
demonstration, "Yui's saying I should change my hairstyle because it's hard to
sit on my head…Even though changing your hair is actually pretty expensive…"
From his shoulder, Yui put her hands on her hips and argued, "You could
stand to spend your money on something other than the weapons store and
the casino! Plus, the higher I can sit, the more efficient my information
gathering will be!"
"I'm sorry, Yui—what did you say after 'weapons store'…?
"Aaah! Fine, fine! All right! I'll change it right after this boss fight!" Kirito
suddenly exclaimed, having changed his mind very quickly.
But Yui shook her head. "You still have ten minutes until the gathering time!
That's more than enough time to go over to that barbershop and have your hair
changed!"
"Fine, fine…Well, sorry, Asuna. I've got to get this taken care of right now."
"Um, sure. Have a nice trip," Asuna said, waving as they headed off.
It occurred to her that while his avatar's face and hair were different than
what he'd had in SAO, if he flattened his hair, he might actually look a lot like his
old self.
She wasn't necessarily hoping he would go back to his old SAO look, but the
idea seemed kind of fun, so she waved to Lisbeth, Silica, and Leafa as they came
out of the teleport gate.
"Hey! Come quick!"
"What? What's up?" asked Lisbeth as the trio came over, curious.
Asuna beamed and shouted, "Listen, Kirito's about to…!"