4

There was a sudden falling sensation, like she’d been hurled into a bottomless pit.

Suddenly, her sense of up and down shifted ninety degrees, and she felt a powerful pressure on her back. Next, Asuna tensed against the shock of each of her five senses violently reconnecting and resuming.

After a few eyelid twitches, she was able to pry teary eyes open to see the ceiling of her room. At last, the familiar softness of her bed registered on her skin. As she breathed, quick and short, the chaos of her senses finally began to subside.

What had happened? It could have been a momentary power outage or an issue with the AmuSphere. She took a deep breath at last and sensed the scent of a perfume that did not belong to her. She sat up, suspicion sinking in, and her mouth fell open.

Standing right next to her bed with a stern expression, holding a thin gray power cord in her hand, was Asuna’s mother. She had pulled the power directly out of the AmuSphere Asuna was wearing.

In other words, the abnormal disconnection was the result of Kyouko powering off the AmuSphere. “Wh-what was that for, Mother?!” Asuna protested.

But Kyouko only glanced silently at the north wall, her expression severe. Asuna followed her gaze and saw the hands of the wall clock indicating that it was about five minutes past six thirty. Her mouth twitched in surprise.

Kyouko said, “I told you when you were late to dinner last month—the next time you’re late because of this game, I’m going to pull the plug.”

Her tone was beyond cold, almost gloating. Asuna nearly shouted back at her. She looked down to stifle that urge and managed to emit, low and trembling, “It’s my fault for forgetting the time. But you didn’t have to pull out the cord. If you shook my body or shouted at my ear, it would send a warning inside to me…”

“The last time I did that, it took you five minutes to wake up.”

“That’s because…I had to travel, and say good-bye, and…”

“Good-bye? You’re prioritizing simple pleasantries in that nonsensical game over actual arrangements in real life? Don’t you care about the hard work that our help put into the meal, only for you to let it go cold?”

A number of arguments ran through Asuna’s head. Even in a game, they’re still real people. Besides, when you go work at your school, you routinely waste an entire day’s worth of cooking with a single phone call. But she only looked down again, sighing a trembling breath. Her eventual response was short and simple.

“…I’m sorry. I’ll be careful next time.”

“There won’t be a next time. The next time you let this thing ruin your actual responsibilities, I’ll take it away. Besides.” Kyouko sneered, glaring at the AmuSphere still attached to Asuna’s forehead. “I just don’t understand you anymore. That bizarre contraption has cost you two precious years of your life, don’t you understand? Why doesn’t it make you sick just to look at it?”

“This one isn’t like the NerveGear,” Asuna mumbled. She took the double-ringed circle off her head. After the lessons of the SAO Incident, the AmuSphere was constructed with several safety mechanisms to prevent that from happening again, but Asuna recognized that it would be pointless to say so. Besides, it was true that, different device or not, Asuna had been in a vegetative state for two years because of a VRMMO game. Her mother must have been worried sick during that time, and both of her parents probably steeled themselves for her eventual death. She understood why the woman would hate the device.

Her mother sighed in response to Asuna’s silence and turned for the door.

“It’s time to eat. Get changed and come down at once.”

“…I’m not hungry today.”

It wasn’t fair to Akiyo the housekeeper, who cooked dinner, but she was in no mood to sit across from her mother and eat now.

“As you wish,” Kyouko responded, shaking her head as she left. When the door clicked shut, Asuna reached for the room control panel and set it to vent, hoping to drive out the scent of her mother’s eau de toilette. Instead, it persistently hung in the air.

The excitement she’d felt about meeting Yuuki the Absolute Sword and her wonderful friends, and the anticipation of a new adventure with them, had melted like a snowball in the hot sun. Asuna stood up and opened the closet, slipping on a pair of damaged jeans with ripped knees. Next was a thick cotton parka and a white down jacket on top of that. They were some of the few clothes in her possession that weren’t chosen for her by her mother.

She straightened her hair and grabbed a bag and her cell phone before leaving the room. She got down the stairs and slipped on her sneakers at the front door when the security panel at the door screeched, “Asuna! Where are you going at this time of night?!”

Asuna ignored her and opened the door before her mother could remotely lock it. The instant the double doors opened, metal security bolts shot out from both sides, but Asuna slipped through them just in time. The damp, cold night air struck her face.

Only once she had crossed the driveway and escaped the property through the walk-in entrance to the side of the front gate did Asuna let out the breath she’d been holding. The vapor turned white before her eyes before dissipating into the air. She pulled the jacket zipper up to her neck and stuck her hands into her pockets, then started walking for the Miyanosaka station of the Tokyu Setagaya line.

She didn’t have a destination in mind. She’d run out of the house in an act of rebellion against her mother, but even Asuna knew it was just a pointless bit of childish posturing. The phone in her jeans pocket had a GPS tracker, so her mother knew where she was at all times—not that Asuna had the courage to leave her phone behind. That frustration with her own weakness only amplified the feeling of powerlessness in her chest.

Asuna stopped in front of a children’s park at the end of a row of large mansions. She sat down on the reverse U-shaped piece of metal pipe blocking the entrance of the park and pulled her phone out of her pocket.

She traced the screen with a finger, bringing up “Kirito”—Kazuto’s contact info from her address book. Her finger hovered over the CALL button, but Asuna held it there, shutting her eyes.

She wanted to call him and tell him to come pick her up on his motorcycle with an extra helmet. She wanted to sit on the back of that tiny, noisy, oddly speedy vehicle with her arms clenched around his midsection, riding straight along the major roads empty in the wake of the holiday. Just like flying at top speed in Alfheim, that would certainly clear the cobwebs out of her mind.

But if she saw Kazuto now, she would lose control of her emotions and break down into sobs, revealing all the things she wanted to keep secret from him. Her forced transfer from their school. The possibility that she might not be able to play ALO anymore. The cold reality that pushed her in a direction that had been erected for her since birth, and her inability to fight against it—in other words, her own weakness, which she had tried to keep hidden.

She moved her finger away from the screen and held the SLEEP button instead. After a brief squeeze of the phone, she put it back into her pocket.

Asuna wanted to be stronger. To have the strength of will to never waver in her decisions. The strength to proceed in the direction that she desired, without relying on someone else to take care of her.

But at the same time, a voice screamed that it wanted to be weaker. The weakness to not hide her true self, to cry when she wanted to cry. The weakness to cling, to cry out for protection and help.

A snowflake landed on her cheek and melted into water. Asuna looked up, silently watching the faint blots of light as they descended from the pale gloom of night.