7

It was just a brief nap in the middle of the classroom, but when I woke up, it felt like the longest dream I’d ever had.

A dream that was fun and painful and sad. As I walked down the empty hallway, I tried to remember what had happened in it, but nothing was coming to me. Eventually, I gave up on it and changed into my regular shoes at the shoe lockers inside the school entrance. Outside of the gate, the dry, chilly autumn breeze rustled my shaggy bangs.

I shifted my book bag to my left shoulder, stuck my hands into the pockets of my school trousers, and began to walk, head downcast. Up ahead, students from the same school were chatting and laughing. I stuck the earbuds from my audio player in to shut out the sound of their hopes, dreams, love, and friendship; hunched my back; and headed home.

At the convenience store on the way home, I stopped to check out this week’s gaming magazines and bought the one that had the longest special preview of Sword Art Online, the game that was about to launch in a month. I also added some funds to the digital-currency account I used to play online games.

That was an intermediate step I could remove by just getting a credit card, but after I brought it up with my mom, she said that I couldn’t have one until I was in college. I couldn’t complain about that, though; I was fortunate enough just to get an allowance each month. I wasn’t even her real son, after all.

I walked out the automatic doors of the store, imagining a blissful post-cash world where everything could happen electronically. Then I noticed that there was a group of five people squatting in a corner of the parking lot who hadn’t been there when I walked into the store—they must have shown up while I was distracted by the magazines. They laughed and yelled and scattered empty bags of junk food around them.

Their uniforms marked them as belonging to my middle school, but I ignored them and made to leave, of course. Before I could get away, one of them saw me and stared with interest.

He was so small that if not for the uniform, he might look like he belonged to an elementary school. We were in different classes, but I recognized him. In fact, he had even been my friend for a time.

He and I had both played in the closed beta test for Sword Art Online over summer vacation.

It was practically a miracle that out of a thousand lucky testers, two were chosen from the same year at the same middle school. Enough of a miracle that a totally antisocial loner like me heard the rumor and reached out to make contact.

Our interaction started just before vacation, and it lasted until the end of vacation—technically speaking, to the end of the beta. Once every three days or so, we formed a party together in that virtual world, and we got along well enough, but once the new school term started and I saw him at school for the first time in a month, I had a sudden flare-up of my odd personal tic: I began to wonder Who really is this person anyway? when I supposedly knew them well already.

It was a sensation that inside the flesh-and-blood person across from me was a total stranger. Once that happened, I couldn’t actually get any closer to them. At times, it even happened with my own family.

He seemed to want to keep being friends with me, both in the full release of SAO in October and around school in the real world. Eventually, he caught on to the way I was acting around him, though, and he drifted away. We hadn’t spoken once since then.

Why was he here now, loitering in a convenience store parking lot with students of a type we’d normally never be associated with? The reason became clear from the penetrating gaze he was giving me and from the words the boy with the bowl cut the color of flan next to him said to me.

“The fuck you lookin’ at, huh?”

Instantly, the other three glared at me, mouths puckered, uttering threatening comments like “Aaah?” and “Huuuh?”

It seemed clear that the more boisterous members of his class had singled him out, choosing him to be the weakest link of their group and an easy mark to run errands for them and lend them money. He was looking to me for help.

All I had to do was say, Hey, let’s walk home together. But I couldn’t do it. My mouth wouldn’t move to make the sounds.

Instead, the only thing I could squeeze through my throat, which felt as if it were sealed with glue, was “…Nothing.”

Then I abandoned the boy I’d called friend just a month ago, and I started walking on my way. He didn’t say anything, but out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw his childish face screw up like he was about to burst into tears.

I quickly left the lot and headed down the road, away from the evening sun, my back hunched with shame. I walked and walked, saying nothing, staring at the asphalt below my feet. The sun set behind me with alarming speed, shrouding me and the town in purple darkness. The familiar route home began to feel like a totally unfamiliar place. No people or cars came down the road. The only sound was my footsteps.

Step, step, step………shuk, shuk, shuk.

“Huh…?”

I came to a halt. Somehow, I had walked off the asphalt and onto short grass. I wondered whether there had been any unpaved ground on the way home from school and looked up in confusion.

What I saw was not a residential street of Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture, but a small path leading through a deep, unfamiliar forest.

After looking at my surroundings, I examined myself. The black school uniform I’d been wearing was gone, replaced by a navy-blue tunic and leather armor. I was wearing fingerless gloves and short boots with metal rivets. Over my shoulder was no longer the bag I took to school, but a short and rather heavy sword.

“Where am I…?” I wondered, but no one was around to answer. I shrugged and began to walk down the forest path.

In less than a minute, my memory began to prickle. The shape of the ancient trees with the twisted branches. The sensation of the growth underfoot. This was the forest to the northwest of the Town of Beginnings on the first floor of Aincrad, the floating castle. That meant I would arrive at Horunka if I followed this path.

I needed to get to town so I could rent an inn room. I just wanted to get into bed. I wanted to sleep again and not have to think.

The only light on the forest floor as I walked and walked was the hazy moonlight. But suddenly, I heard a faint cry up ahead—or at least, I thought I did?

I paused, then resumed walking. The trees opened up ahead on the right, allowing the blue moonlight to illuminate a side path. Again, I heard a cry—and the creaking growl of a monster.

I picked up the pace as I approached the break in the trees, then peered around a thick trunk. There was a spacious hollow up ahead, almost like a rounded stage. Creepy silhouettes writhed in the unbroken moonlight of the clearing.

There were five or six plant-type monsters that looked like giant pitcher plants whipping their sharp tentacles around. A young man dressed in an outfit similar to mine was surrounded by them. He swung his sword around desperately, but no matter how many of the tentacles he sliced through, they simply grew back with no end.

I recognized his profile.

He had formed a party with me for the purpose of efficiently collecting the items these plant monsters dropped. His name was…was…Kopel. But why was he surrounded by so many of them?

Whatever the case, he was a companion of mine, so I had to save him.

But once again, my feet would not move. For all the success I had in trying to get them to act, they might as well have been rooted to the ground.

A tentacle swept Kopel’s feet out from behind, and he toppled onto the grass. The monsters’ sinister grins revealed rows of human teeth, and they opened and closed their jaws loudly as they descended upon him.

Kopel looked to me with despair in his eyes and reached out a hand.

But just as quickly, he was overrun by the swarm of monsters, and a moment later, I heard the faint burst of his avatar and saw a blue light peek through.

“Ahhhh…,” I groaned, letting my face fall, the same way I had when I had abandoned my friend outside the convenience store.

In time, I slowly stood back up, looking at nothing but the grass around my feet. I turned and walked down the narrow path again. My footsteps were the only sound in the moonlit forest.

Shuk, shuk, shuk………tok, tok, tok.

I came to a stop. Somehow, the short grass underfoot had changed to bluish stone blocks. I looked up and saw that I was no longer in a forest on the first floor of Aincrad but in some unfamiliar dim hallway. Probably somewhere in a labyrinth…but from the appearance, I couldn’t tell what floor. All I could do was keep walking.

Barely even cognizant that my equipment and sword had changed, I walked silently down the corridor. And walked and walked, as though chasing my own shadow cast by the lanterns set into the walls. The labyrinths of Aincrad were about a thousand feet across at the largest, so there couldn’t have been a hallway this straight and long. But I never stopped or turned back. I just kept walking.

Eventually, I heard a faint voice coming from up ahead. It wasn’t a scream; it was a shout of happiness. Multiple cheers followed in its wake.

The voices seemed familiar, nostalgic. My pace picked up a little as I rushed for the source of the cheering.

In time, I reached an opening in the left wall, through which warm-yellow light shone. I kept my legs moving all the way to the entrance, though they felt heavy and tired now, for some reason.

I peered around the side and saw a surprisingly spacious room. Along the far wall, four players stood with their backs to me.

Even without seeing their faces, I instantly knew who they were.

The one with the wild hair and the odd hat who used a spear was Sasamaru.

The tall mace-user with the shield was Tetsuo.

The smaller dagger-user with the beanie was Ducker.

And lastly, the short-haired girl with the short spear…Sachi.

They were members of the guild I belonged to. Keita, our leader, was off negotiating to buy us a guild home, so we were spending time in the labyrinth to earn some money for furniture and such.

Thank goodness…They’re all right, I thought for some strange reason. I tried to call out to them, but once again, my mouth would not move. My feet were stuck to the ground and couldn’t come loose.

As I watched, helpless, the four of them leaned over. They were peering at something—a large treasure chest placed next to the wall. As soon as my mind registered that fact, I felt a chill run down my back.

Ducker the thief excitedly examined the chest, looking for traps to disarm.

No. Stop. Don’t, I screamed, over and over, but the words never left my mind. I couldn’t move my legs to rush into the room to stop them.

Ducker threw the lid of the chest open.

Instantly, there was an ear-piercing alarm, and hidden doors on both sidewalls of the room opened up. Bloodthirsty monsters poured into the room in ghastly numbers.

“Ah…ah……!”

At last, a sound came from my throat: a faint, cracked shriek.

That was all I could do. Not a finger would move. I could only watch as my friends and companions were surrounded by monsters.

Sasamaru was the first to die. Ducker was next, and after him, Tetsuo burst into blue particles, leaving only Sachi. She spun around and looked at me.

Her lips formed a hint of a sad smile and opened and closed.

The next moment, monster weapons and claws rained down on her without mercy, and her fragile body was enveloped in blue light.

“………!!”

I screamed in total silence as Sachi, too, was reduced to a plethora of glass shards that soon vanished.

Dozens of monsters simply melted into the air, and the room was full of darkness. My body was able to move again, and I fell to my knees.

I’m sick of this. I don’t want to keep walking. I don’t want to see anything else.

I curled up on the cold floor, covered my ears, and squeezed my eyes shut. But the memories just kept flooding back, like frigid water pooling up around me, enveloping me.

Two years of battle in a floating castle of iron and stone.

Endless sky in a land of fairies.

Crimson bullets flying left and right in an evening wasteland.

I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to know what comes next.

But despite my prayers, the current of memories pushed me onward.

Suddenly cut off from the real world.

Waking up in an empty space in a deep forest.

Guided by the sound of an ax chopping wood, until I arrived at the root of a massive tree and met him.

A battle with goblins. The giant tree toppling down.

A long, long journey to the center of the world. Two years training at an academy.

With every step, he was beside me, smiling peacefully.

With him, I knew I could do anything.

We raced up a chalk-white tower together and defeated powerful opponents.

And then we reached the top

and crossed swords with the ruler of the world,

and at the end of a long, agonizing battle,

he lost

his life…

“Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!” I screamed, holding my head in my hands.

It was me. My powerlessness, my foolishness, my weakness: It killed him. Blood was spilled that did not need to be spilled. Life was lost that was not meant to end.

I should have been the one to die. My life there was temporary in the first place. Our roles could have been reversed, and everything would have continued as it was meant to.

“Aaaah…Aaaaaaaah!!” I screamed and writhed and rolled and reached for the sword that should have been on my back. I was going to press it against my heart or slit my own throat.

But my fingers found nothing over my shoulder. I groped around, thinking I had dropped it, but the only thing I felt was sticky, clinging black liquid extending forever.

I grabbed the collar of my black shirt and ripped it with my hands.

Curled fingers like claws touched the center of my emaciated chest.

The skin split, and my flesh tore apart, but I felt no pain. With both hands, I ripped into my own chest.

So that I could expose my heart, pull it out, and crush it.

This was all I could do for him…The last act of atonement for those I had betrayed and abandoned…

“Kirito…”

Someone called my name.

I stopped moving, looked around with empty eyes.

Beyond the darkness, there was now a girl with chestnut-brown hair standing alone.

Her hazel eyes were wet and staring right at me.

“Kirito…”

A new voice arrived. To the right, a girl with glasses. Behind the glass lenses, her eyes were glowing with tears, too.

“Big Brother…”

Then another:

Her black bangs were cut straight across. Tears fell from her large eyes.

The will and emotions of the three girls became light that surged and flowed into me.

A warmth like a pillar of sunlight healed my wounds and melted away my sadness.

……But.

But…oh, but.

I could not possibly be worthy of receiving their absolution.

“I’m sorry,” I heard myself say. “I’m sorry, Asuna. Sorry, Sinon. Sorry, Sugu. I can’t stand anymore. I can’t fight. I’m sorry……”

And with the heart I’d pulled from my chest in my grasp, I prepared to crush it in one swift, decisive movement.

“Why…? What’s the matter, Kirito?!”

Despite the way his consciousness seemed to be slipping away like the blood flowing from the bullet wound in his shoulder, Takeru Higa focused on the screen.

The three Soul Translators housing Asuna Yuuki, Shino Asada, and Suguha Kirigaya were sending a tremendous amount of mnemonic data in an attempt to complement Kazuto Kirigaya’s damaged fluctlight. Even Higa, who’d run as many tests and experiments as anyone, was astonished at the miraculous volume of data that was being provided.

But the 3-D graph on the remote monitor of Kazuto’s fluctlight activity remained in stasis just below the recovery line.

“Even this…still isn’t enough……?” Higa groaned.

Kazuto’s recovering self-image wasn’t on pace to bring him back to reality. It was linking only to painful memories that tormented him, preventing him from breaking free. All that awaited him in that case was an eternal nightmare refrain. Even being shut down entirely would be preferable to that hell.

Just one more person.

If only there was one more person with deep ties to Kazuto who had an accumulation of powerful memories!

But according to Lieutenant Colonel Seijirou Kikuoka, the three girls currently connected were the three people in the world who loved him the most and knew him the best. And there were no more Soul Translators available to use either in the Roppongi office or on the Ocean Turtle.

“Dammit…it’s not fair…”

Higa gritted his teeth and clenched his fist to slam it against the side of the duct. But as soon as the thought entered his mind, he let his hand uncurl.

“……What’s…this…? Where is this connection from…?” he muttered, leaning closer to peer at the monitor through blood- and sweat-stained lenses.

He had previously failed to notice, on Kazuto’s fluctlight-status window, that in addition to the three connected lines indicating the girls in the STLs, there was one more—a very thin, faint gray line coming from the bottom of the screen.

Fascinated, he lifted his finger to the touch-panel screen and flicked it upward. The display scrolled in that direction, revealing the source of the gray line.

“From the…Main Visualizer?! But why…?!” he shouted, momentarily forgetting his gravely injured state.

The Main Visualizer was a massive piece of data storage at the core of the Lightcube Cluster, where the souls of all the Underworlders were kept. The Main Visualizer was where the information about the Underworld’s terrain, buildings, and objects was stored—but not any human souls.

“Objects…objects from memories…,” Higa repeated to himself, thinking on overdrive. “Fluctlight memories and Underworld objects are treated the same when it comes to data formatting…So if someone was able to burn their mind, their will, into an object…would it then function as a kind of…simulated…fluctlight……?”

He could only half believe the idea he was suggesting. If it was possible, then every nonliving thing in the Underworld could be controlled solely by its owner’s will.

But at this point, even this faint little connection seemed like the only hope remaining.

Higa couldn’t begin to guess whether this would help the situation or only make it worse, but regardless, he opened a connection from the Main Visualizer access to Kazuto’s STL.

“Kirito.”

Right before I crushed my own heart, a new voice called my name. A voice that was powerful, warm, and enveloping.

“Kirito.”

Ever so slowly, I raised my head to see.

Where endless darkness had been just a moment ago, he now stood on two solid legs.

Spotless blue clothes. A flaxen cowlick that shone even in the darkness. A gentle, subtle smile on his lips.

And in those dark-green eyes was a kind but powerful light, just as there had always been.

I lifted my hands away from my chest, which was now perfectly whole again, extended them toward him, and stood up.

I heard myself whisper his name through trembling lips.

“…Eugeo.”

Once more.

“You’re alive, Eugeo.”

My best friend, and the greatest partner I could ever have, just tinged his gentle smile with sadness and shook his head.

“This is the memory of me that lives inside you,” he said. “And the fragment of memory I left behind.”

“Mem…ory…”

“That’s right. Have you forgotten already? We were so sure of what we declared. Memories,” Eugeo said, opening his right palm and pressing it to his chest, “live here.”

Like looking in a mirror, I made the exact same action. “Forever in here.”

As Eugeo grinned happily again, Asuna strode forward to join him. “We are always connected to you through our hearts.”

Sinon walked forward on Eugeo’s other side and nodded, causing the hair tied at the sides of her head to wave. “No matter how far apart we might be…no matter when the time comes for us to part.”

Then Suguha hopped forward next to her and said happily, “Memories and feelings are connections that last for eternity. Isn’t that right?”

Hot, clear liquid burst from my eyes at last. I took a step forward and gazed desperately into the eyes of my eternal friend.

“Are you sure, Eugeo…? Can I really…move forward again?”

His answer was swift and unwavering.

“Yes, you can, Kirito. Many, many people are waiting for you. Come…Let’s go. Together. To wherever this takes us.”

Two hands reached out from opposite directions and made contact. Then Asuna, Sinon, and Suguha added their own.

Instantly, the four people turned into waves of pure-white light, flowing into me.

And then…