2

“…!!”

Vassago Casals sucked in a sharp breath and bolted upright.

He shook his long ponytail out and took a quick survey of his surroundings.

Dully reflective metal walls. Floors with a special resin finish to prevent slippage. Many, many monitors and indicator lights, glowing dimly in the darkness.

Only when he saw the tall, skinny bald man sitting in the chair in front of him did Vassago finally process that he was in the main control room of the Ocean Turtle.

The bald man, Critter, snorted and said in a high-pitched voice, “Well, well, rise and shine, sleeping beauty. Thought your brain cells had been fried already.”

“…Shut the fuck up.”

Vassago looked down at his own body. He was lying on a thin mattress along the wall, with a jacket draped lazily over his stomach. He shook his head hard to drive out the cobwebs, wondering what was going on, but felt a sharp pain in the middle of his skull.

He swore again, then called out to the circle of men engaged in a game of cards on the other side of the room. “Hey, someone get me some aspirin.”

One of the soldiers, the grizzled Brigg, dug in his pocket and tossed over a small plastic pill bottle. Vassago caught it in one hand, twisted off the cap, poured several pills into his mouth, and chewed them.

The tongue-numbing bitterness finally brought his hazy memories back into clarity.

“That’s right…I fell into that bottomless hole…,” he murmured.

Critter smirked. “How’d you die over there, huh? You were knocked out for eight damn hours.”

“E-eight hours?!” Vassago repeated, forgetting his headache and jumping up. The G-Shock on his left wrist said it was six thirty in the morning, Japan time. That meant they had only twelve hours left until the time limit was up, when the Nagato cruiser full of armed sailors would rush the Ocean Turtle to restore order.

But more importantly—if he’d been passed out for eight whole hours, then months must have passed in the Underworld, with the way its time was accelerated. What had happened in the battle between the two armies…and the mission to capture Alice?

Critter seemed to know what Vassago was worried about already. He clucked his tongue and lectured, “Don’t bug your eyes out at me. At the point you died in there, the acceleration ratio was already one-to-one.”

“What…? One-to-one?”

So that meant things couldn’t have changed that much on the inside. But in fact, that was a major problem on its own…

“Hey, Four-Eyes, you know what that means?! Those JSDF troops are gonna come charging in here in just twelve hours!” Vassago said, briskly rubbing the man’s bald head.

Critter slapped him away with annoyance. “Yeah, no shit. This is all on Captain Miller’s orders.”

He went on to explain the plan, which stunned even Vassago, the veteran VRMMO player.

The assault team’s leader, Gabriel Miller, had given Critter secret orders through the system console in the capital city of Obsidia in the Dark Territory before he had to travel away from the palace.

He’d told Critter to set up a simple client program and a teaser site for the beta test for a new “hardcore VRMMO” that would ignore all the legal regulations of other games—meaning the Underworld, of course. He wanted the acceleration rate slowly lowered to real time by around midnight of July 7th and for Critter to go onto the Internet to rustle up beta testers among American sites.

“…With the console locked down the way it is, all I know is your coordinates and some vague unit placements. All of this was just some insurance in case the Human Empire’s resistance was fiercer than anticipated.”

Critter’s long fingers danced over the keyboard, bringing up a map of the Underworld on the screen. The world was like a triangle with rounded corners. Two red lines ran from the east edge toward the west.

“This is the movement history for you and the captain. So you wandered around the Eastern Gate of the empire, and here’s where your dumb ass died.”

One of the red lines moved south from the Eastern Gate until it ended in an X.

“But the captain went farther south, past the location of your death. All alone, in fact, leaving the rest of the Dark Army behind to the north. As for what this could mean…”

“Either he’s chasing Alice, or he’s already caught her,” Vassago growled.

Critter nodded. “The original plan said that if we got down to eight hours left or wiped out the entire Human Empire, we’d put the time-acceleration ratio back to a thousand to one. That would be an entire year inside the simulation. Bumping the acceleration back up would log out all the American players, but as long as we win the war, it’s all good.”

“Why don’t you boost the acceleration back up, then? There’s barely any forces left in the Human Guardian Army.”

“It’s not that simple. Take a look at this.” Critter tapped a key to expand a portion of the map.

A few miles south of the Eastern Gate, which separated the human lands and the dark lands, there were stripes of flatland, hills, and forest, stacked vertically. The human army was in hiding in the forest…where Vassago had died.

But at some point, a massive fissure had opened up running east to west, between the forest and flatland, stretching at least thirty miles. Along the edges, tiny clumps of colored dots were split into red, white, and black groups.

“The ones in red are the US players we guided into the Underworld. Still about twenty thousand of them down there, though it used to be a lot more. The black dots half surrounded by the red ones are the Dark Army. About four thousand, I think.”

“H-hey…why does it look like the red ones are attacking the black?”

“All I wrote on the fake beta test promotion was that you could kill all the hyperrealistic NPCs you want. The people diving from the States have no idea what the difference between the two sides is. But I will say…the black dots are holding up longer than I expected. It doesn’t make sense, because the Dark Army’s completely subservient to the emperor, so they shouldn’t be resisting against the American players that he summoned.”

“I bet those players are just having the time of their lives killing ’em.”

“Well, let’s assume those four thousand black dots will get wiped out eventually. The problem is you’ve got a little white group right there.”

Critter moved the cursor. Sure enough, behind Miller in his southward movement, a small group of white dots was in pursuit.

“That’s the human army. They look small on the map, but there’s seven hundred of ’em. We don’t want ’em causing trouble if they catch up to the captain, so we need to stop ’em somehow.”

“Stop them…how, exactly?” Vassago asked.

Rather than answer him, Critter just giggled and hit some more keys. A new window opened on the map. On it, a huge red cloud swarmed and writhed against a black background.

“This is the second wave of US players, who didn’t make it in time for the first batch. Once it reaches twenty thousand, I’m gonna dump these guys onto the human army’s coordinates. That’s twenty-eight soldiers for every one of theirs. Complete slaughter. We can wait until after that to bump the acceleration up to a thousand, and that should leave plenty of time for the captain to catch Alice and get down to the system console at the south end.”

“…Let’s hope it goes that well,” grunted Vassago, rubbing his chin. “The human side’s army is tougher than you’d think. Those Integrity Knights are crazy, man. They wiped out the entire front lines of the Dark Army. That was the only reason I got killed…so…bad…”

He trailed off midsentence.

Vassago finally recalled who killed him—and how it happened.

He sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes wide. Flooding into the back of his mind came the image of a goddess staring down at him from a great height in the sky. Without realizing it, Vassago spoke in Japanese, rather than English.

“The Flash…!! That’s right…I know it was her, no question about it!!”

“Huh? What’d you say?” Critter wondered.

Vassago grabbed his bald head and switched back to English. “Hey, geek! Rath’s doin’ the same goddamn thing we are in the second control room!! There are Japanese VRMMO players on the human army’s side!!”

“What?!” Critter looked skeptical.

Vassago ignored him and let a fierce smile curl one cheek. “If Asuna the Flash is here, then he might be in a dive, too…Damn, I can’t be wasting my time here…Hey, get me back in there! Drop me on the white dots with those twenty thousand players!!”

“You wanna go back? We don’t have that dark knight account you wasted anymore. But I can give you one of the basic soldier accounts like the other guys.”

“Oh, I’ve got an account…One I’ve been saving for a rainy day.”

Vassago chuckled from deep in his throat and picked up an empty energy-bar wrapper off the console desk. He yanked the pen out of Critter’s chest pocket.

“Here, use this ID and password to log in to Japan’s Seed Nexus portal and convert the character I’ve got saved in there to the Underworld. I’ll dive in with that one.”

He took a few quick steps toward the door to the STL room—but came to a stop just as quickly.

When he turned around, Vassago wore a smile so cold, cruel, and vicious that Critter, a hardened cybercriminal, felt his skin crawl. It was as though the vulgar, cheerful, boisterous mercenary was only one persona that this man wore.

Vassago returned to the console with the silent prowl of a cat and whispered a short extra command into Critter’s ear. A few seconds later, Vassago disappeared through the STL room doorway for good, leaving the stunned hacker alone with just a small piece of paper in his hand.

It contained three capital letters and an eight-digit number. Critter did not know what S-A-O or the numbers signified.

When Asuna rushed for the supply wagon through the crowd of men-at-arms preparing to leave, she found a metal wheelchair on its side, its black-clad rider feebly waving his left hand, and hovering over him, two girls.

Ronie looked up at the sound of footsteps, her cheeks tear streaked, and when she recognized Asuna, broke into a shout. “A…Asuna! Kirito…he keeps trying to leave…”

Asuna nodded, biting her lip. She knelt down and squeezed his left hand with the only hand she had left. “Yes…Alice…was abducted by the enemy emperor. I think Kirito must have sensed that.”

“What—Miss Alice?!” yelped Tiese. Her already white cheeks went even paler.

The only thing that broke the resulting silence was a weak, wordless grunt from Kirito.

“Ah…aa…”

His hand moved, trying to touch Asuna’s wounded arm.

“Kirito…are you…worried about me?” she mumbled. When Ronie noticed her injured arm, she shrieked.

“M-Miss Asuna! Your arm—!!”

“I’m all right. This is really only a kind of temporary wound for me,” she said, lifting the arm, which was severed a bit below the elbow.

Rath’s Takeru Higa had given her a broad explanation of the technology behind the Mnemonic Visualizer that gave shape to the Underworld. Every object was generated by the Seed program, just like in ALO, but to Alice and Kirito, who were diving through The Soul Translator, and to the artificial fluctlights like the girls here, everything in the world was a kind of “shared memory” loaded from the simulation’s Main Visualizer. It was another reality, materialized with the power of imagination.

The life (hit points) given to the Stacia super-account was vast. It was practically at the maximum number that could be designated, so not even a hundred swords piercing her with normal attacks would reduce her life to nothing.

But when the red soldier had hit her arm with that huge battle-ax, Asuna had felt true, pure terror. She’d imagined that massive ax easily chopping her arm off, and her imagination had turned it into reality.

Kirito’s right arm was the same thing. His numerical life had recovered already, but the arm wasn’t restored. It was because Kirito continued to punish himself.

Asuna put her good hand over the place where her bandaged left arm was severed. She focused her mind on it, internally chanting.

I will not be afraid again. I will not give in to anything…not until I’ve protected Kirito and the rest of this world.

A little glow appeared inside her wound. The warm light extended silently in front of her, re-creating her lost left arm. She smiled at the girls, who stared at her with the wonder of having witnessed a miracle. Asuna caressed Kirito’s head with her new hand.

She whispered to her paramour, “See? I’m fine. I’m sure we’ll rescue Alice, too. So when you’re ready…you don’t have to blame yourself anymore…”

She didn’t know if he understood her, but she could feel the tension in his skinny body begin to ease, bit by bit. She hugged him again, stronger this time, and lifted her head.

“We’re going to chase after the enemy emperor. Bercouli is in pursuit of the dragons now, so I’m sure he’ll catch up at some point. Until then…take good care of Kirito, Ronie and Tiese.”

“W-we will!”

“Don’t worry, Miss Asuna!”

She smiled at the girls, then left Kirito to Ronie and jumped off the wagon, holding back tears. Just then, she was accompanied by the tall knight who’d joined Asuna and Ronie in the previous night’s recollection of memories in the tent. The woman’s silver armor was stained with blood and dust, and there was a bandage around her forehead, but she did not seem to be badly wounded.

“Oh good, Sortiliena, you’re all right,” Asuna said.

The knight gave her an Underworld-style salute. “I’m glad you are well, too…But from what I overheard, the enemy general abducted Lady Alice…”

“Yes. I was just telling Ronie and Tiese: Emperor Vecta left his army behind and kidnapped Alice on his own. We didn’t expect him to put himself at that much risk…”

“I…I can’t believe it…,” Sortiliena muttered, aghast.

Asuna reached out with her newly healed hand and squeezed the other woman’s shoulder. “But it’s not over yet. Bercouli’s chasing after Vecta on the dragons. We’re going to catch up to them before too long.”

“All right.”

Satisfied, the two rushed back to the main bulk of the Human Guardian Army’s decoy force. The seven hundred guards were prepared to move out on Integrity Knight Renly’s orders. The sacred arts healers were done with their task, and they and the supply team assumed the center position in the midst of the rows of troops.

When Renly came to announce they were all ready, Asuna said, “You’re the only Integrity Knight left among the force, Renly. You’re the commander; you give the order.”

“R…right, I’ll do it,” the boy said, nodding nervously. He lifted his right arm and called out, “Lady Alice protected us in the battle at the gate! Now it is our turn to fight for her sake! Let us take her back from the enemy’s grasp and return with her to the human realm!!”

The guards responded with a powerful shout. Renly swung his arm down. “All troops, depart!!”

At the head of the marching formation, Renly’s dragon Kazenui began to run. Four hundred front guards followed on horse and on foot. After that came eight wagons with supplies and three hundred rear guards.

One unit, Integrity Knight Sheyta’s dragon, did not move from its spot. They had no choice but to undo its reins, at which point the creature, scaled the same gray as its master’s hair, trilled briefly and flew off in the opposite direction, heading for the battlefield at the ravine to the north, where Sheyta still fought.

In the wagon line, Asuna rode the same horse as Sortiliena and let her mind touch upon the situation.

Our only enemy is Emperor Vecta, no one else.

Like her, he was a real-world human, and his life here was temporary. So she would put an end to him, even if it meant they both had to die. She had to do it for the sake of Sheyta, who’d stayed behind in a deadly battle to prevent the red soldiers from pursuing, and for the one-eyed pugilist and his four thousand followers.

Some time later, the forest of dead trees gave way to a huge mortar-shaped sunken space ahead. A thin path led directly south through the craterlike deformity.

Going by RPG rules, any path would lead to a special location, like a town or dungeon. But supposedly, the southern portion of the Dark Territory did not feature any homeland for the nonhuman races. In other words, if this path led to anything, it could only be the World’s End Altar, and somewhere along its length would be Emperor Vecta and Alice.

There was no sign of the emperor’s dragon, nor of Bercouli’s dragons in pursuit. But the dwindling army of seven hundred raced, footsteps rumbling, across the dusty earth with as much speed as they could muster.

They had crested the rim of the crater and rushed down the side and were heading into the center of the mortar-shaped space when something rumbled, low and heavy. It was a buzzing vibration, like the beating of insect wings.

“…?”

Asuna glanced up. Her head swiveled left and right. She turned to look over her shoulder.

Only when she faced forward again did she see what was causing the sound.

Thin red lines.

Strings of text in a small font, flickering on and off at random, descending to earth from the sky, hundreds at a time.

“………No………”

Her lips quavered.

No, it can’t be. Not more. Not again.

But—

Zshaaaaa!!

A sound like a sudden downpour burst upon them. The red lines extended to the left and right, falling without end. They formed a high-density screen along the rim of the crater, completely trapping the armed formation in the middle.

Just minutes after swearing an oath that she’d never give in to fear, Asuna felt her legs going weak.

Where the lines fell, more of those vicious crimson soldiers appeared—the VRMMO players summoned here from the real world.

“N…no stopping!!” Renly commanded the rest of them. “Charge!! Chaaarge!!”

The rattled human army regained its poise and roared back, picking up its pace. The formation began to rush straight up the far slope of the crater.

But as though anticipating that eventuality, the new red troops were most densely clustered along the southern edge. There were at least a thousand soldiers directly blocking their way…if not two.

Should I risk logging out and use Stacia’s terrain-alteration power one more time? If I’m not careful, it could end up blocking our army’s path, too…

Asuna hesitated for a moment, but her thoughts were interrupted by a dragon’s roar. At the front of the formation, Renly’s mount, Kazenui, was charging ahead, flames flickering from the sides of its jaw.

“Ah…! Renly’s going to sacrifice himself to tear the way open!” shrieked Sortiliena.

As if he heard her, Renly glanced back toward them. The boy’s lips formed the words The rest is up to you.

He faced forward and removed the pair of beautiful boomerangs from his waist, holding them up.

Just before he could throw them, however, the sky directly over the crater abruptly changed color. The bloodred of the Dark Territory sky was split by a cross, revealing brilliant azure blue beyond it.

The mass of red soldiers preparing to charge from the crater rim, the rushing human army, even Renly at their lead—all looked up at the sky in unison.

It was an infinite blue. It seemed to reach out into space.

And from its vast reach came falling a bright, shining star.

No, a person. She was wearing armor the same blue as that sky and a skirt as white as a cloud. The figure’s short, wind-whipped hair was light blue. In her left hand was a massive longbow. But the shining was so bright that her face was not visible.

Who…? Who are you? Asuna wondered silently.

In answer, the descending figure raised the bow, which was as tall as she was, up to the sky as she fell.

Her right hand pulled on the string, which glowed faintly as well.

There was a brighter flash. Between the bow and the string appeared an arrow of fire that shone pure white.

Both the Human Guardian Army and the red infantry had come to a stop. In the resulting silence, Asuna heard Sortiliena whisper, “S…Solus…?”

Seemingly in response to her name being invoked, the brilliant arrow of light shot directly up into the sky.

Instantly, it split apart into many pieces that flew in all directions.

They curved and hurtled at tight angles, plunging down to the surface as blazing laser beams.

Sortiliena Serlut was only half-correct.

The figure who appeared in the air over the crater was indeed Super-Account 02, the Sun Goddess, Solus. But she was being played by a real-world human logging in to the system.

And the ability she’d been given was a Wide-Ranging Annihilation attack.

Sinon, aka Shino Asada, viewed the absolute destruction she had caused with a thrill of horror and recalled the conversation she’d had with the engineer who called himself Higa.

“Okay, um, Sinon, this super-account is really strong, but it’s not all-powerful. If you have to perform a major operation in the Underworld, it has to take a form that the residents of that world will be able to process and understand. So your given abilities will reflect that.”

“Um…meaning that I’m not actually a GM, I’m just a really, really strong player?”

Shino was resting inside an STL machine—which was as huge as some kind of first-generation experimental full-dive system—within the Roppongi office of a shady tech firm named Rath. Higa’s voice was coming through the speakers. She heard the sound of him snapping his fingers.

“Yes, that’s exactly right. So the Solus account I’m giving you isn’t immune from the general principles that govern resource usage in the Underworld. To attack with your bow, you will have to expend spatial resources. You have an automatic recharging ability, so you’ll never run out of power entirely during the day, but you basically can’t shoot rapid-fire at will.”

As Higa had said, the white bow in Sinon’s left hand was noticeably duller after she executed the massive attack. The glowing effects were coming back to the tips of the bow, but it would probably take two or three minutes before she could use a max-power attack like that again.

Can’t shoot it rapid-fire? Fine. I’m used to single-shot weapons more than automatics anyway.

She used this moment to survey the explosions she had caused on the ground below.

The crater was about two-thirds of a mile across, and along its rim, charred bodies were disintegrating back into light. This single attack had destroyed over five thousand of the enemy. Fortunately, those were not true residents of the Underworld, but American players who had logged in from the real world, just like Sinon had. They believed they were getting a free beta test and got burned to death the moment they logged in. They were all fuming back in the real world by now, she could only assume.

In the center of the crater, a group that was tiny in comparison to the red forces had begun forward progress again. There were well over ten thousand enemies left, but close to half were frozen in place, watching Sinon in the sky in preparation for another bombardment. They might actually be able to break the blockade.

Sinon narrowed her eyes and stared at the human army’s formation. At once, she identified a brown-haired girl sitting on a white horse in the center of the formation, staring up at her.

Allowing a smile to creep over her features, Sinon attempted to control another of the unique powers gifted to the Solus account, Unlimited Flight. When Higa had told her that she could fly with the power of her imagination, it had sounded crazy to her, but once she tried it, there wasn’t much difference from the “voluntary flight” of ALO. She flew straight downward, heading for the wagon just behind the girl.

When her ultramarine boots touched down on the canvas hood of the wagon, she held up her hand in greeting.

“Sorry it took so long, Asuna.”

The girl in the pearl-gray dress-style armor looked up at her, wide eyes welling up with tears. Nimbly, she stood atop the running horse and leaped onto the hood, too.

“Shino-non…!!” she cried, wrenching the words out, her arms wide open. She enveloped Sinon in an embrace, and the girl patted Asuna’s back and whispered, “You did so well. It’s all right…I’ve got it from here.”

With the slightly taller Asuna still clutching her, Sinon readied her bow, which was about 20 percent recharged, and pulled the string back.

The GM equipment given to the Solus account, a bow called Annihilation Ray, controlled its power by the force exerted on the string, and its attack range by the angle of the bow. By stopping her hand just four inches back, she produced a much smaller, thinner arrow of light. Sinon pointed it at the group of enemies in the path of the large dragon that led the pack.

It shot quietly and unassumingly, with the bow at a twenty-degree incline to the right. The light beam split apart, the pieces landing within a diameter of about ten yards from one another.

The resulting explosions would put a TOW missile to shame. Red armor blew sky-high and disintegrated. The dragon charged right through the space the blast created. It bowled over the other dozen-plus soldiers with its head and raked them with its claws. They didn’t stand a chance.

At last, the rest of the soldiers had recovered from the shock of the laser attack and realized that their prey was in the process of getting away. They rushed along the slope of the crater, a red tsunami that howled and swore.

Sinon hung the bow on her arm and put her hands on Asuna’s shoulders, pushing the girl away.

“Asuna. About three miles south of here, I saw something that looked like a historical ruin. This path runs right through the middle of it, and there are a bunch of huge statues on either side of it. I think we can fight the enemy off there without getting surrounded. Let’s beat the rest of them from that spot.”

Asuna was an experienced fighter herself, of course, and as she recognized the wisdom of this advice, her expression tightened up at once. She rubbed the tears away and opened her mouth. “All right, Shino-non…I mean, Sinon. America might have a lot of VRMMO players, but surely they can’t get many more than this right away. If we can beat that ten-thousand-plus, the enemy won’t have another move…I think.”

“All right, let me handle this. Now…with that settled…”

Sinon glanced back to confirm that the very rear line of the human army had cleared the enemy blockade, then she continued in a quieter voice, “Is, er…is Kirito in this group?”

Asuna had to grimace at that. “Look, you don’t need to ask me so awkwardly. Kirito’s right in here,” she said, pointing down at their feet to indicate the wagon they were standing on.

“Oh, he is? Then, um…I’ll just go say hi to him.”

Sinon cleared her throat and moved over to the rear edge of the canopy that covered the huge wagon, then she used her flight powers to easily slide into the interior of the vehicle. She waited for Asuna to come down next, then headed past the stacks of boxes.

The first thing that came into view was two girls wearing armor over what looked like school uniforms. They both looked back at Sinon with wide-eyed wonder.

“S…Solus…?”

Sinon glanced down at her fanciful outfit and shrugged. “Hello, it’s nice to meet you. I might look like Solus, but not on the inside. My name is Sinon,” she said with a forced smile.

The girls reacted with surprise, but when they looked over her shoulder at Asuna, they seemed to understand.

Sinon gave them a gentle nod and said, “That’s right—I’m from the real world, like Asuna. And I am Kirito’s…friend.”

“Oh…I see,” said the red-haired girl. But the one with dark-brown hair narrowed her eyes just a bit and murmured, “They’re all women…”

Sinon had to smirk to herself—I’m not even the last one. She walked past the girls on her way to the back of the wagon space.

Sitting there in a simple wheelchair, clutching two longswords with just one arm, was a young man dressed in black.

Takeru Higa had described Kirito’s condition to her already. But seeing him broken like this in person filled her chest with emotion and brought tears to her eyes.

“…Aa…”

His empty eyes could not focus directly on Sinon, but he did produce a slight croak when she came into view. Sinon took a knee before her one-time rival, then friend, then savior.

The swordsman’s body, sunken into the back and armrest, was so skinny that she hesitated to touch him. Sinon placed her longbow on the floor of the wagon and reached out to gently enfold his shoulders with her hands.

Kirito’s soul, his fluctlight, was deeply damaged down in the core of its being, his self-image. Higa had told her in hushed tones that they had not yet discovered a method of healing him. But Sinon just closed her eyes, sending the welling tears down her cheeks, and thought, That’s easy.

Many people had countless irreplaceable memories of and strong feelings for the young man named Kirito. They just needed to collect those feelings up, bit by bit, and return them to him.

There, can’t you feel it? That’s the you that exists in me. A sarcastic prankster, stubborn, naïve…and stronger and kinder than anyone I know.

For a moment, Sinon forgot that Asuna was there, and she turned to brush her lips against his cheek.

Shino Asada had no idea that, at that very moment, her fervent emotions were almost, almost encroaching on the one method that could actually heal Kazuto Kirigaya’s soul. If Shino had known more about the nature of the Underworld and fluctlights, she might have landed upon the answer. But the advance knowledge she’d been given just before her dive covered only the current state of the world and the capabilities of the Solus account.

So when Kazuto’s body twitched a little and rose in temperature after her lips brushed him, she did not think further of it.

Sinon let go of Kirito at once and stood to face the three behind her.

“It’s all right. Kirito will be better before you know it. Just when we need him the most.”

Asuna and the two girls nodded back tearfully.

“Well…I’m going to fly down to the ruins south of here to get an idea of the lay of the land. You take care of Kirito for the time being,” Sinon said, turning toward the back exit of the wagon—only for Asuna to grab her shoulder.

Sinon held her breath when she saw the fierce look in the other girl’s eyes. “A…Asuna, what is it…?”

For a moment, she was afraid that Asuna would be angry that she’d kissed Kirito, but that was not the case, of course.

“H-hey, Sinon, did you just mention flying?! Can…can you fly?!” she demanded.

“Um…yes,” Sinon replied, startled. “It’s a special feature of the Solus account. I heard it doesn’t even have a time limit…”

“Then we’re not the ones you should be saving! Go get Alice…She was captured by the emperor!!”

Asuna went on to explain the situation in fuller detail; it was more desperate than Sinon could have imagined. Emperor Vecta was another super-account with a real-world player in it, and he had abducted Alice the Integrity Knight, the key to everything. Now he was flying far to the south with her on a dragon, and only Commander Bercouli of the knights was giving direct chase.

“Even for the commander, facing a super-account alone is too much of a burden. If we can’t save Alice before the emperor reaches the World’s End Altar, he’s going to destroy this entire world. Please, Sinon…help Bercouli!”

Once she’d grasped the situation and had a description of Bercouli driven into her mind, Sinon jumped straight out of the wagon into flight.

The seven-hundred-strong human army headed south, raising a trail of dust behind it. The army of red charging after them from the north was at least twenty times their number.

I’ll head right back as soon as I get Alice. Just hold out until then, Asuna.

Sinon swung to the south and added as much acceleration to her flight as her imagination could allow. She became a comet with a white tail, splitting the red sky in two as she streaked across it.

As she stared down at the landscape below, another thought passed through her mind.

Hang on…if she logged in at the same moment I did, then where is Leafa?