4

Alice and I were slowed down for less than five seconds.

We shared a glance, then I took the lead down the narrow hallway. Thankfully, the red smoke I inhaled wasn’t toxic—if it had been, something would’ve happened to Chudelkin, given that his clothes were filled with the stuff—and the coughing indeed soon wore off.

The hidden passage was built for Chudelkin’s size, and I had to duck down to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling. The occasional scraping noise I heard from behind had to be Alice’s shoulder guards hitting the walls. The sheath of the Blue Rose Sword on my right waist was also banging against the wall as I shuffled along uncomfortably.

Eventually there was an ascending staircase ahead, so I stopped and made sure there wasn’t an ambush before charging upward. Chudelkin’s footsteps were long gone, darkness and cold air the only things coming down the passage ahead.

The staircase was much longer than I had anticipated and seemed to cover a good three floors’ worth of height. I’d estimated that the chamber filled with what Chudelkin called the automated senators covered the space from the ninety-sixth to ninety-eighth floors, so this path was probably leading us up to the ninety-ninth.

The battle with the Axiom Church that had begun in the basement—two years before, when Eugeo and I left Rulid—would be over in two floors. My partner wasn’t at my side, but if Bercouli’s words were accurate, I would see him again in Administrator’s bedchamber. Then I’d give him the Blue Rose Sword, and the three of us would defeat Chudelkin, then the pontifex herself. And then…

I shook my head, focusing on a faint light up above. I could think about what to do afterward when we got there. This was the final battle: Concentration was everything, and the present was more important than the future and the past.

From up ahead, I heard the distant screech of the prime senator.

“System Caaaaall! Generaaaate…”

That would be an element-based sacred art. My hackles rose, but there was no stopping now. The light ahead grew closer and closer.

“The stairs are ending up ahead!” I warned Alice.

“Watch out for a surprise arts attack!” she replied.

“Got it!”

I held my black sword out front as I ran. Given the measure of control a caster had over the possession of a generated element, magic in this world was well suited to ambush attacks. You could form a flame element, keep it on standby, then discharge it when the enemy came into sight, almost like a firearm.

On the other hand, the power of the magic was dependent upon the number of elements being expended. If it was just one little orb, the attack power would be the same, whether cast by a student in their first year at school or a master with a lifetime of experience. Discipline allowed one to increase the number of elements at once, but each one required a finger to maintain it, so the upper limit of simultaneous elements was ten. My black sword had the capability to absorb energy, so I could defend against even a tenfold heat or frost element attack.

If Chudelkin was going to attempt a surprise attack, it would be safer to plunge through the exit of the stairway, rather than lean out carefully. I sped up through the last leg and leaped high in the air on the final step.

But there was no storm of fireballs or deluge of icicles. I did a full three-sixty turn in midair to survey the room, but I did not see Chudelkin or anyone else. I landed on the marble floor on one knee and listened carefully. The only sound was Alice running toward me.

She appeared through the exit of the staircase as I got to my feet, then she took her own turn examining the place. “I thought I heard him chanting, but there’s no one here…Perhaps Chudelkin gave up on laying a trap and fled to the hundredth floor above…,” she murmured, glancing up at the ceiling.

“But that’s Administrator’s room, right?” I asked. “Is the prime senator allowed to just burst in there?”

“I doubt it…Where are the stairs up anyway?”

Once again, I looked around the round room that composed the ninety-ninth floor. It was quite large, probably a hundred feet across. The floor, ceiling, and curved walls were the same familiar white marble, but there was nothing in the way of decoration or ornamentation. At most, there was a series of large lamps fixed to the walls, but only four were lit, leaving the interior dim. Everything in the room was pure white, so it would probably be blinding in here if all the lamps were on at once.

The staircase we’d taken opened directly into the floor near the wall. There was a marble hatch above, and I was certain that if lowered, it would fit seamlessly into the floor.

Perhaps there was a similar hidden drop-down door in the ceiling somewhere. I looked around for a pull cord or handle, but saw nothing. Perhaps a good sword skill might punch a hole in the ceiling…

“This room,” Alice suddenly murmured. I turned and saw that the knight’s left eye was open wider than usual.

“What about it?”

“I’ve…been in here before. This is where I woke up…on the day I became an apprentice Integrity Knight…”

“W-wait…are you sure about that?!”

“Yes…All the lamps were on at the time…and the room was extremely bright and shining…The pontifex herself stood in the center, and she commanded, Wake up, child of God…”

Alice realized that a note of reverence had crept into her voice, and she scowled. “The pontifex removed all my memories up to that point, gave me a false past and a knight’s duty, then left me with Uncle…with Commander Bercouli. Then a part of the floor, similar to the elevating disc in the middle part of the cathedral, took Uncle and me down to the ninety-fifth floor. I have never been back here since.”

“The floor…sank?” I repeated, stomping on the marble with my boots. The only sensation I felt was thick, unmoving stone. It would be hard to find a hidden elevator in a room this size, and we didn’t need to go down.

“Do you remember how Administrator went back to her chamber then, Alice?” I asked.

She lifted a finger to her lips and thought. “I think…that the moment the disc sank into the floor…she looked up…and another small disc descended from above…”

“That’s it!” I shouted, staring greedily at the white ceiling. It wasn’t a pull-down hatch but an elevator hidden above us. Even still, I couldn’t spot anything like a switch. There wasn’t an operator like on the elevator between the fiftieth and eightieth floors, so there had to be some mechanism to work it automatically. But what was it…?

“Oh…perhaps it was what the prime senator was chanting…,” I wondered aloud. Alice latched onto it.

“So it wasn’t an ambush but an art to make the disc move…? Kirito, what did you hear Chudelkin say after ‘Generate’? Do you remember?”

I really, really didn’t want to tell her I wasn’t listening, so I frantically replayed the moment from a few minutes before in my head. His needle-pitched voice had cried, Generate, and then…

“L…Lu…something…,” I said, struggling to remember. Alice’s glare was even colder than usual.

“That should be enough. The only element that starts with lu would be a light element.”

My face lit up, and I nodded to show that I did understand after all, but Alice was already turning and putting away her sword. She thrust her open hands toward the ceiling.

“System Call! Generate Luminous Element!”

To my amazement, she created a full ten light elements, the theoretical maximum. She then sprayed the floating white orbs outward without further modification. They landed at various points on the ceiling and burst without a sound. One flashed brighter than before—and then a circle of light a few feet across appeared where it had landed. It wasn’t in the center of the room, but close to the wall.

Alice lowered her arms, and I walked up to her side, watching cautiously. The circle of light faded quickly but did not disappear, and before long, the ceiling within its perimeter slid smoothly down toward us.

The stone platform was at least eighteen inches thick and looked tremendously heavy, yet it floated as if it were nothing. The light element had merely been a switch, and something else was powering the movement, but I couldn’t begin to guess what it was. It was on the level of some of the “miracles” I saw Cardinal perform in the Great Library—in fact, that must be exactly what it was. The source of this elevator’s movement was doubtless some tiny piece of Administrator’s boundless power.

The elevator landed on the floor with the slightest of vibrations. The top was not bare marble but was covered in bright-red carpet that glowed faintly in the light coming down from the circular hole in the ceiling.

The way to the top floor of Central Cathedral was open.

When Alice and I rode that elevating disc to the hundredth floor, the last and biggest battle of all would begin.

The original plan was that I’d use my secret-weapon dagger on Administrator while she slept and let Cardinal handle the rest. But with Chudelkin hiding from us on the floor above, she would likely be awake already—and more importantly, I’d already used my dagger to save Fanatio, the vice commander of the Integrity Knights.

Fortunately—if you could call it that—Alice the knight had agreed to return to being the original Alice already. That meant Eugeo didn’t need to use his dagger on her. When we got up there, I’d have to rescue him from his frozen state, I suspected, and find a way to use his dagger before Administrator started taking me seriously. I couldn’t imagine another way for us to win.

Alice was reaching a final moment of determination as well. We stared at each other and nodded in unison.

“…Let’s go.”

“Here goes nothing.”

And thus the elite disciple Kirito and Integrity Knight Alice Synthesis Thirty started walking toward the elevating disc that awaited just ahead.

One, two, three steps—and the pale light coming from the hole in the ceiling, probably moonlight, abruptly shaded over.

I stopped and stared into the hole, where I caught sight of a number of bright glimmers of light.

It was, in fact, moonlight—reflecting off a beautifully designed suit of armor. Whoever it was leaped down through the hole, a good twenty feet above, long cape trailing behind.

It was too tall to be Chudelkin. Then I wondered whether Administrator was coming down to this floor, but the figure’s stature was male. I couldn’t make out a face against the light.

“Are there more Integrity Knights left?” I muttered.

“That armor belongs to…No, wait…,” Alice whispered, right as the descending knight landed atop the disc. He bent his knees to absorb the impact and slowly straightened back up.

The armor was silver tinged with blue. The metal plate looked almost a bit translucent, collecting the moonlight and bouncing it back beautifully. The cape was deep blue, and I did not see a sword on his waist. His downturned face was hidden behind a large gorget covering his neck, but the wavy hair was…a soft flaxen color.

Instantly, a shock like a bolt of lightning shot through me.

That color. I’d lived for two years in the Underworld with that hair color right nearby.

It can’t be. But. How…

I was caught flat-footed, locked in extreme confusion. At last, the knight raised his head, and his green eyes looked at me through heavy lids. There was no longer any room for doubt. The young man in the Integrity Knight armor was…

“………Eugeo………”

The name left my mouth as barely more than a moan.

I would never mistake him for anyone else. He was my partner and my best friend; we’d been inseparable since our meeting in the forest two years ago. The only thing that kept me going for so long in this alternate world was Eugeo’s presence at my side. I would never, ever see his features in someone else’s face by accident.

But this expression in Eugeo’s eyes and mouth as he stared at me was one I did not recognize. In fact, it was not an expression at all—the word implied that something was actively being expressed. This youth was all inanimate ice, even colder than when we’d first met Alice at the practice hall of Swordcraft Academy.

“Eugeo,” I repeated, my voice normal this time. The cold glare did not falter or break in the least. But he wasn’t ignoring me. He was measuring me, testing me…to see whether I was worthy of the bite of his weapon.

“…No…it’s too soon,” Alice mumbled.

Desperate for anything to cling to, I asked, “Soon…? Too soon for what…?”

“For the completion of the ritual,” the golden knight said, glancing at me only briefly before she announced, “Your partner…Eugeo has already been synthesized.”

The Synthesis Ritual. Direct manipulation of the fluctlight, a process only Administrator was capable of. Stealing memories, inserting loyalty…raising him into an Integrity Knight.

“…No…no way…You said it took three days and nights,” I protested, shaking my head like a stubborn child.

“The prime senator said that was because I refused to recite the necessary sacred arts commands. If I had simply repeated them, that three-day process would not have been necessary…But even still, this is too soon. Barely hours have passed since Eugeo fought Uncle…”

“That’s right…This isn’t possible. Eugeo couldn’t…just…It has to be some kind of illusion art or something…”

I took an uncertain step forward, not even fully comprehending what I was saying anymore. I was jolted to attention by Alice reaching out to grab my right arm. “Get a grip!” she hissed. “If you can’t stay calm, we’ll lose any chance we might have to save him!”

“S…save…?”

“That’s right! You yourself said it: There is a way to restore the knight’s original memories! So there must be a way to return Eugeo to normal! We must overcome this challenge in order to take advantage of that!!” she spat out, her palm burning with pure willpower against my wrist and pouring life back into my numb flesh. I’d nearly been about to drop my sword; I gripped it harder than ever.

Alice was right. Eugeo’s memory and persona weren’t lost forever. They just couldn’t come to the surface, due to the manipulation of a single part of his fluctlight.

All I had to do was take back the Memory Fragment that Administrator stole from him and have Cardinal reintegrate it, and then Eugeo would return to the gentle, mild-mannered swordsman I knew. The first step to achieving that would be dialogue and information gathering. Whatever personality was running Eugeo, I had to convince it to let us pass…or perhaps even help us. I’d been completely helpless against Alice, and somehow I had won her over with words—there must be a way to repeat that success.

“…Let me handle this,” I whispered to Alice, who was still clutching my wrist. Hesitantly, she acquiesced and let go.

“All right. But don’t take him lightly. That knight is no longer the Eugeo you knew.”

“Right,” I said. Alice took a step back.

To be honest, no matter how powerful Eugeo was as an Integrity Knight, as long as Alice used her Perfect Weapon Control—transforming the Osmanthus Blade into a storm of petals that tore the enemy to shreds—we could easily neutralize his strength. Such was the power of Alice’s ability. But that was truly the last resort, after all other options had been exhausted. I wanted to avoid harming him if at all possible, and it seemed the height of cruelty to make two childhood friends fight when their memories of each other were stolen.

I stepped forward and took the full brunt of Eugeo’s cold stare.

“Eugeo,” I said for the third time, completely firm, “do you remember me? I’m Kirito…your partner. Remember how we’ve been together for the entire past two years?”

The young man in blue-and-silver armor said nothing for several moments, until…

“I’m sorry, I don’t know you.”

That was the first thing Eugeo the Integrity Knight said to me. His soft voice was as I remembered, but it had the same icy quality as his eyes. Clearly he had no access to his pre-synthesis memories, but surely the quick process meant there wasn’t time to insert the usual false memories about being summoned from Heaven, either. There must have been a huge blank space in Eugeo’s self-conception at the moment. If I could just take advantage of that…

“But thank you,” he continued, to my surprise.

Suddenly full of hope at that non-hostile response, I asked, “For what?”

“For bringing me my sword,” he said.

“Uh…”

I looked down to my right side. There was the Blue Rose Sword, a Divine Object wrapped in its white leather sheath. I looked up and asked, “What are you…going to do with it?”

Eugeo’s green eyes blinked, and he said, quite simply, “I’m going to fight you. That’s what she wants.”

“…”

Then it was true—he had come down into this room to defeat Alice and me. Because it was what she wanted.

Sensing that my hopes were growing further and further away, I still clung on. “Eugeo, are you just going to follow orders…to fight without knowing who you are or even the meaning of that fight? We are not your enemies. You came all this way to fight Administrator and take back your precious—”

“It doesn’t matter what the meaning is,” he said, and for the briefest of moments, he wore the first true expression I had seen. “She is going to give me what I want. And that is all I need.”

“What you want…? Is it something more precious than Alice?”

The moment he heard that name, supposedly the most important thing in his world, I thought I sensed a flicker of emotion in his pale features. But again, he covered it up with that icy visage.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. About you…or anyone. I’m just sick…of…already…,” he mumbled, the words too faint for me to make out. He stepped off the disc and held out his hand. “I have nothing more to say to you. Let’s fight…That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“…Not to fight with you, Eugeo. I can’t give back this sword,” I warned him in hushed tones, switching my black sword over to my left hand and pulling out the Blue Rose Sword with my right. With my eyes trained on Eugeo, I reached toward Alice behind me and—

“I don’t need it transferred by hand.”

The white sheath was ripped from my hand. But it wasn’t Alice. The sword shot through the air, as though pulled by invisible strings, and landed right in Eugeo’s grasp, over thirty feet away.

Sacred arts?! Did I miss him chanting…?!

Then I heard a voice behind me spout, “Incarnate Arms…!”

“What’s that?” I asked, face still forward.

“It’s an ancient art taught to the Integrity Knights,” she explained quickly. “It is neither sacred art nor Perfect Weapon Control. It simply moves objects with the force of will alone. I’ve heard that only a few knights aside from Uncle can use it.”

“You mean you can’t?”

“I…I trained in it, but I can’t even move a pebble, much less a Divine Object. There’s no way a brand-new knight could master it so quickly…”

All the while, Eugeo was examining the Blue Rose Sword, and he hung the sheath on his left side. He grabbed the hilt and promptly drew it. The faintly translucent blade gave off a white mist of frosty air.

I had no choice but to put my normal sword back in the proper hand and hold it up. Eugeo and I had faced off many times over the past two years. But that was always with wooden practice swords; we had never once used the black sword and Blue Rose Sword against each other.

And yet, the only feeling that filled my chest was the realization that the time had finally arrived. I’d sensed this moment might come, on the very day we left Rulid. But that vision was only to the point that our blades clashed. The outcome of the fight was still unwritten. And no one else—not even Administrator—could decide that for us.

“Eugeo,” I said, considering this to be our final conversation, “you might not remember this, but I was the one who taught you to use the sword. And I can’t afford to lose to my own pupil.”

He didn’t say anything back. He merely lifted the Blue Rose Sword and assumed the pose to initiate a sword skill: the one-handed charge attack, Sonic Leap.

Slightly pleased that he still remembered the Aincrad moves I’d taught him, even after he’d forgotten his own name, I made the same stance.

Two swords glowed the same shade of light green.

One second later, Eugeo and I launched off the marble floor in unison.

(To be continued)