24

The entire sky was ablaze with the setting sun.

I suddenly realized I was in a very strange place.

A thick crystal slab was under my feet. Beneath that transparent floor, strings of crimson-splashed clouds flowed past. I looked up and saw nothing but infinite evening sky. An endless expanse, sprayed with gradient colors from brilliant orange to bloodred to deep purple. I could hear the sound of a slight breeze.

Aside from the red and gold clouds floating by, there was nothing in the air but this small circle of crystal, and I was standing at its edge.

Where am I? I remembered my body shattering into countless pieces and dissipating into nothing. Was I still somewhere inside SAO…or had I actually gone to the afterlife?

I looked down at my body. The leather coat and long gloves were the same equipment I had been wearing when I died, but everything was ever-so-slightly translucent now. And it wasn’t just my clothes. Even my body itself had turned into a partially see-through material like colored glass, and it was sparkling red with the light of the sunset.

I stretched out my hand and waved the fingers. The game window popped open with the same sound as ever. I was still stuck in SAO.

But there was no equipment mannequin or menu readout on the window. It was simply a featureless box that read [EXECUTING FINAL PHASE: CURRENTLY 54%] in small letters. The number ticked up to 55 percent as I watched. I’d thought that dying and disintegrating happened at the same time that the device fried the brain. What was happening here?

I shrugged and closed the window, then jumped as someone called out to me.

“…Kirito.”

It was like the song of angels. A shock ran through me.

Please let it be real; please don’t let it be an illusion, I prayed, and turned.

She was standing there, set against the burning sky.

Her long hair was rippling in the breeze. Her smiling face was close enough that I could cup her cheek if I reached out, but I couldn’t move.

If I take my eyes off of her for just an instant, she’ll disappear, I thought. Instead, I stared silently. Like me, her body seemed made of a delicate crystal. As it sparkled and gleamed with the light of the sunset behind it, it seemed to me that the sight was more beautiful than anything in the world.

I desperately tried to hold back the tears, and finally I cracked a smile. When my voice came out, it was barely a whisper.

“Sorry…I guess I died.”

“…Dummy.”

A large tear rolled down her cheek as she smiled. I opened my arms and called her name.

“…Asuna.”

She jumped to embrace me, tears sparkling, and I held her tightly. I’d never let her go. No matter what happened, I would never release my grip.

After a long, long kiss, we finally extricated our faces and looked at each other. There were so many things to say about that final battle, so many things to apologize for. But words were no longer necessary. Instead, I turned to look at the endless sunset and asked, “So…where are we?”

Asuna silently looked down and pointed. I followed her finger.

Far, far away from our little floating crystal platform was a point in the sky—and there it floated. It was like a cone with the tip chopped off. The entire structure was made of countless thin layers. If I squinted, I could see little mountains, forests, lakes, and even towns in the spaces between the layers.

“Aincrad…”

Asuna nodded. That had to be Aincrad. A giant castle, floating in an endless expanse of sky. The world of swords and battle that had played host to our painful two-year struggle. And now it was below us.

Before I came here, I’d seen pictures of the structure in promotional material for Sword Art Online. But this was the first time I’d ever actually seen it like this in person. My breath caught in my throat; I felt something like awe.

The floating fortress of steel…was collapsing.

As we watched, a chunk of the lowest floor broke off, spilling away into countless smaller pieces. If I trained my ears, I could hear the heavy crumbling sounds beneath the wind.

“Ah…”

Asuna murmured. A larger piece of the bottom broke away, and this time there were trees and cascades of lake water among the structural rock as it plummeted through the red sea of clouds. That was where our little log cabin used to be. Floor by floor, the place that had consumed two years of our memories peeled apart like tiny membranes, and I felt grief well up in my heart.

I slowly sat down on the edge of the crystal platform, still holding Asuna.

My heart was oddly calm. I didn’t know what had happened to us, what would happen to us, or why, but I felt no fear. I’d done what I needed to do, lost the life I had been given, and now sat with the girl I loved, watching the end of the world. Nothing mattered anymore. I felt fulfilled.

Asuna must have felt the same. She hugged me close, watching Aincrad fall to pieces, her lids half lowered. I slowly stroked her hair.

“That’s a fine sight.”

The voice from my right took me by surprise. Asuna and I looked over to see that a man was now standing at the edge with us.

Akihiko Kayaba.

The developer of Sword Art Online, not the paladin Heathcliff. He wore a white shirt and tie underneath a long white lab coat. The contours of his face were fine and sharp, but the metallic eyes and the way he placidly observed the disappearing castle were the same as his prior incarnation. Like us, he was partially transparent.

Less than an hour ago, I had been locked in a battle to the death with this man, but I felt at peace now. It was as if I had to leave all my rage and hatred behind to reach this world of endless sunset. I pulled my eyes away from Kayaba and back to the castle, then spoke.

“What’s happening to Aincrad?”

“You might call it a visual metaphor.” His voice was quiet. “At this moment, the SAO mainframe, stored five levels underground at the Argus building, is deleting all data saved on its server. In another ten minutes, nothing will remain of this world.”

“What happened to all the people who were there?” Asuna murmured.

“Don’t worry about them. Just moments ago…”

He waved a hand, then glanced at the window that popped up.

“…all 6,174 surviving players were logged out and regained consciousness.”

So Klein, Agil, and all the other people we’d met there, the ones who had lived through those two years with us, were all back in the real world, safe and sound.

I shut my eyes tightly, warding off the emotion that threatened to seep out.

“…And those who died? We both ‘died,’ and we’re here right now, so isn’t it possible that you could bring the other four thousand back to consciousness?”

He closed the window, his face unchanging, then placed his hands in the pockets of his coat.

“Life is not meant to be treated so lightly. They will not come back. In every world, the dead must disappear. You two are a special exception. I wanted a bit more time to speak with you.”

That is what a man who killed four thousand people has to say for himself? But for some reason, the anger did not come. Instead, I had another question. A very simple question that every player in the game—every person who was aware of what happened here—wanted to know.

“So why…did you do this?”

I thought I detected a pained smile cross his face. He was silent for a while.

“Why, you ask? For a long time, even I had forgotten. Why did I do this? When I learned about the development of the full-dive system—in fact, long before that moment—I dreamed of creating that castle. Creating a world that surpassed all the rules and laws of reality. And finally…I even saw the laws of my own world eclipsed.”

He turned the serene light of his eyes upon me, then back again.

A slight gust picked up, rustling Kayaba’s lab coat and Asuna’s hair. The castle was more than half gone by now. Even memorable Algade had crumbled into nothingness, swallowed by the clouds. Kayaba continued.

“Children experience a great variety of dreams and fantasies. At a young age, I was gripped with a vision of a castle of iron floating in the sky…Even after I grew older, that vision never left my mind. In fact, with every year the picture grew larger and more real. For years, my one and only desire was to leave the surface and travel to that castle. You see, Kirito, a part of me still believes that castle really exists…in some world, somewhere…”

Suddenly, I felt the illusion that I had been born there, too, a boy who dreamed of being a swordsman someday. One day, that boy would meet a girl with hazel eyes. They would fall in love, be bound as one, and live out their days in a little cottage in the woods…

“Yeah…I hope it does,” I murmured. Asuna nodded softly in my arms.

The silence returned. As I gazed far away, I noticed that the process of entropy was now affecting more than just the castle. In the far distance, the supposedly infinite sea of clouds and red sky were being visibly swallowed by white light. The light was bleeding through here and there, slowly approaching.

“One last thing. Congratulations on beating the game, Kirito and Asuna.”

We both turned to look up at him. He was gazing down at us, a beatific smile on his face.

“And now, I should be going.”

The wind blew, and suddenly he was gone, as if erased from existence. The crimson sunset was sparkling subtly through the crystal platform. We were alone again.

Where had he gone? Back to the real world?

No—that was unlikely. He must have deleted his own mind and traveled off in search of the real Aincrad.

Only the tip of the virtual fortress was left now. We were seeing the seventy-sixth floor and above for the very first time, but only in a state of rapid self-destruction. The curtain of light that swallowed the world was growing close. As the rippling aurora touched everything in its path, even the clouds and sky itself shattered into those familiar, fragile shards.

An enormous red palace with a fragile spire sat atop the very tip of Aincrad. If the game had proceeded according to plan, we would likely have crossed swords with the wicked overlord Heathcliff there.

Even as the top floor fell, the master-less castle continued to float, as if defying its fate. The deep red gleam of the structure stood out against the red backdrop, like the heart of the castle, left behind after all its flesh had fallen away.

Eventually, the wave of destruction swallowed it as well. It disintegrated into countless rubies from the bottom up, spilling down into the clouds. The tallest tip of the castle burst into pieces just as the curtain of light swallowed all of it. Aincrad ceased to exist, and the only things left in the world were clouds, the little floating platform, and Asuna and me.

There wasn’t much time left. We were in the midst of a brief stay of execution, courtesy of Kayaba. When the world was completely gone, the NerveGear would execute its final procedure, and then it would truly be over.

I cupped her cheek with my hand and slowly met her lips. It was our final kiss. I took my time, trying to etch her entire existence into my soul.

“Well, this is good-bye.”

She shook her head.

“No. It’s not good-bye. We’ll disappear as one. So we’ll always be together.”

It was almost a whisper, but firm. She turned in my arms to face me head-on, tilted her head slightly, and gave me a gentle smile.

“Hey, tell me your name. Your real name.”

I was momentarily stunned. Then I realized that she was talking about my name in the life I’d left behind two years ago. The fact that I’d led a different life under a different name seemed like a story from the distant past, a world long lost. I spoke the name that floated up from the depths of my memory, grappling with the strange sensation.

“Kirigaya…Kazuto Kirigaya. I lost count, but I probably turned sixteen last month.”

In that instant, I felt like the life that had paused so long ago started ticking once again. Kazuto slowly began to surface from deep within Kirito the swordsman. The heavy armor I’d gained in this world began to fall off, piece by piece.

“Kazuto…Kirigaya…”

She sounded out each syllable, then gave me a conflicted laugh.

“So you’re younger than me…As for me, I’m Asuna Yuuki. Age seventeen.”

Asuna…Yuuki. Asuna Yuuki. I repeated the most beautiful sounds I’d ever heard, committing them to my heart.

Suddenly, I felt something hot spilling out of my eyes.

The emotions that had been frozen in the endless twilight churned into motion. Incredible pain that ripped my heart in pieces. The first tears I’d shed since being taken prisoner in this world came flooding out of me. Sobs caught in my throat like a little child, my hands balled into fists.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry I said…I would bring you back…I promised to do it…but…”

I couldn’t finish the rest. In the end, I couldn’t save the most important person in the world to me. The regret that I had let her shining future come to a premature end turned to tears that flowed out of me without cease.

“No…it’s okay…”

Asuna was crying, too. Her tears were like glistening jewels in all the colors of the rainbow, particles of light that dripped and evaporated.

“I was so happy to have met you and lived with you, Kazuto. It was the happiest time of my life. Thank you…I love you…”

The end of the world was at hand. The giant fortress of metal and the endless expanse of sky had vanished into the light, and only the two of us remained. The air around us was sucked into the vacuum, fragmenting into dots of light.

Asuna and I embraced, waiting for the end.

In the midst of the incandescent light, it felt like even our emotions were being burned away. Only my yearning for Asuna was left. Everything disintegrated and evaporated, but I kept calling Asuna’s name.

My vision was filled with light. Everything was covered in a veil of white, dancing into microscopic motes. Asuna’s smile dissolved into the light that filled the world.

I love you…I love you so much…

A voice like a ringing bell sounded in the last bit of my consciousness.

The boundary that made Asuna and me separate beings vanished, and we crossed into each other.

Our souls mingled, became one, scattered.

Disappeared.