Asuna shivered as she slowly got out of bed. She stretched her finger toward the controls on the buried control panel and tapped the touch sensor. With just that motion, following a short motor sound, the curtains closed, hot air blew out of the air conditioner and the LED lights on the ceiling released a pale orange light.
The packaging interior technology developed by RECTO had been installed in Asuna’s room. The room was renovated while she was in hospital, but for some reason Asuna couldn’t like this convenient system. Everything in the room being controlled with a window was a matter of course in the virtual world, but for some reason it feels a little cold when it appears in the real world. It felt like she was always in the inorganic line of sight of the sensors installed across the walls and floors.
Perhaps the reason she felt like that was because she visited Kirito so many times, that is saying Kirigaya Kazuto’s home. The warmth of the traditional Japanese house contrasted her own’s coldness. The house of her grandparents on her mother’s side felt the same way. When she went there to play during the summer, she always sat on the sunny porch and swung her legs while eating the shaved ice her grandmother made. However, her grandparents on her mother’s side had passed away a long time ago and that house had also been torn down quite a while ago—
Sighing softly, Asuna put on her slippers and stood up. She suddenly felt slightly dizzy, so she looked down for a while, strongly aware of the heavy weight pulling at her body in reality.
Of course, a sense of weight is also simulated inside the fantasy world. However in that world, Asuna’s body and soul could soar in the sky with just a light stomp on the floor. The real world’s weight was not simply physical, it also contained too many aspects which could not be gotten rid of no matter how much you tried. Although she wanted to lie down on her bed, dinnertime wasn’t far off. If she was even a minute late, her mother would have another thing to complain about.
As she trudged towards the closet, the door slid open without waiting for her to move her hand. Taking off her comfortable sweater, she reluctantly threw it towards her bed. She changed into a dark, unblemished, cherry-colored skirt and sat down at the adjacent dressing table. The three-sided mirror opened and the lights above automatically turned on as well.
Even at home, Asuna’s mother wouldn’t let her dress slovenly. Asuna picked up a comb and quickly tidied her hair which got disheveled while in FullDive.
Asuna suddenly remembered a scene she saw at the Kirigaya house in Kawagoe.
Lyfa/Suguha said that she and Kirito were responsible for preparing dinner that day. A blurry-eyed Kazuto was forcefully dragged downstairs by Suguha. The two of them stood side by side in the kitchen, Suguha cutting the vegetables while Kirito roasted the fish. Their mother returned at that time, and enjoyed a beer while watching TV. They lively chatted on one hand while the dishes were being prepared and when dinner was ready, the three of them said “Let’s eat” together.
Shakingly letting out a long sigh, Asuna held back her tears, put down her comb and stood up.
The lights behind her extinguished without waiting for her to close the door as she walked out of her room towards the dark corridor.
The maid Sada Akiyo just opened the front door as Asuna walked down the semicircular stairs and reached the first floor. She had prepared dinner and was about to head home.
Asuna faced the short 40 year old woman and greeted her.
“You’ve worked hard, Sada-san. I’m very thankful for your work everyday. I’m sorry I’ve waited until now to say this.”
At this, Akiyo’s shook her head with eyes widened as though there’s no such thing and immediately greeted her back.
“It, it’s nothing, miss. This is work.”
Over the past year, Asuna already understood that it was useless however she said it. So she just approached her and quietly asked.
“Have mother and brother returned yet?”
“It seems like Kouichirou-sama won’t return till later. Mistress is already in the dining room.”
“… Is that so, thanks. I’m sorry for bothering you.”
Asuna nodded at her, and Akiyo bowed once again before reopening the door and hurrying home.
Asuna recalled that she has two children in junior high and primary school. Even though she also lives in Setagaya, it’d be 7:30 by the time she got home after buying groceries. It was a tough time for children with good appetite. Asuna once told her mother to let her just leave the completed dinner here, but her mother just ignored her.
Hearing the metallic noise of the three doors locking, Asuna turned around and crossed the entrance hall to reach the dining room.
As soon as she pushed open the thick oak door, a quiet yet strict voice reached Asuna’s earddrums.
“You’re late.”
Looking at the clock on the wall, it was exactly 6:30. Just as Asuna was about to say this, her voice came once again.
“Please arrive at the dining table five minutes earlier.”
“… Sorry.”
Muttering quietly, Asuna stepped on the carpet, approached the table and sat down on a high back chair with eyes downcast.
In the center of the 20 tatami dining room was a long table surrounded by eight chairs. The second chair from the northeast corner is Asuna’s seat. Her brother Kouichirou sat to her left and her father Shouzou sat at the east end, but these two seats were currently empty.
Asuna’s mother Yuuki Kyouko sat diagonally to her left, reading a book on economics with her favorite sherry in one hand.
She’s fairly tall for a woman. Even though she’s thin, her solid frame removes any sense of slimness. Her hair which was dyed a rich, brown color parted to the sides, neatly cut along her jaw.
Even though her face’s handsome, her high nose and jawline, as well as the deep wrinkles near her mouth created a severely cold impression. Perhaps that was the impression she wanted to create. With her sharp tongue and acrimonious political stance, she defeated all her competitors in the school and became a professor at the age of 49 last year.
As Asuna sat down, Kyouko closed the hard-covered book, placed her napkin on her knees and picked up her knife and fork before finally looking at Asuna.
Asuna looked down, muttered “Let’s eat”, and picked up a spoon.
For a while, the only sound in the dining room was the clanking of silverware.
The menu was vegetable salad with blue cheese, scafata di fave, fried fish with herb sauce, whole wheat bread… things like that. Every day’s food was determined by Kyouko’s nutrition calculations, but of course she didn’t cook it herself.
While eating, Asuna wondered since when did meals with just the two of them became so tension-filled.
No, perhaps it had been like that since a long time ago. She remembered being severely reprimanded when she spilled her soup or didn’t eat her vegetables. It was just that in the past, Asuna didn’t know that meals could also be lively.
As she mechanically ate, her thoughts wandered off to her house in the other world. Kyouko’s voice suddenly pulled her back to reality.
“… Were you using that machine again?”
Asuna glanced at her mother, and nodded.
“… Yes. Since everyone agreed to meet up and work on our assignments together.”
“Things like assignments, you won’t learn anything if you don’t work on it yourself.”
Kyouko wouldn’t understand even if she told her she worked on it on her own. Asuna lowered her head and changed the topic.
“Everyone lives really far apart. Over there, we can meet at any time.”
“Using that type of machine isn’t considered meeting. From the very beginning, assignments are things meant to be done on your own. You’re just playing around if you’re doing it with friends.”
Tipping her glass of sherry, Kyoko spoke faster.
“Listen well, you don’t have any time to play. Since you’re already two years slower than the other children, you natur
ally need to work hard enough to make up for those years.”
“… I’ve been studying well. Isn’t the second semester’s report card already printed and placed on your desk?”
“I’ve looked at it, but evaluations from that kind of school can’t even be considered.”
“That kind… of school?”
“Listen well, Asuna. In the third semester, you will also be tutored outside of school. Not the recently popular type which is done over the internet, they would come over to this house.”
“Wait… Wait a moment, why are you suddenly…”
“Look at this.”
Kyouko stopped Asuna’s protest without leaving any room for explanation and picked up a Tablet PC from the table. Asuna frowned as she glanced at the screen of the Tablet PC which her mother passed her.
“… What is this… An outline for a… test for transfer students?”
“It’s a test for transferring into the third year of a high school directed by one of your mother’s friend, it’s a chance I only managed to get by persuading her in every way possible. This is not like that patched together school, it’s a proper school. It’s credit-based there, so you only need to go there for half a year to fulfill the requirements for graduating. That way, you can start attending university in September.”
Asuna looked at Kyouko dumb-founded, placed the Tablet PC on the table and lifted her left hand to cut off her mother who was getting more and more passionate.
“Wait, wait a moment. I’m really bothered that you decided this on your own. I really like this school. There are plenty of good teachers there, I can learn properly even if I stayed. There’s no need to transfer.”
At those words, Kyouko exaggeratedly sighed, closed her eyes, tilted her gold-rimmed glasses and sat up straight. This action was unique to Kyouko, and was a speaking technique often used to let her opponent know her superiority. Even men cowered when she did this action on the teachers’ room’s sofa. Even her husband Shouzou tries his best to avoid opposing Kyouko’s views while at home.
“… Mother has researched properly.”
Kyouko spoke with a didactic tone.
“The place you’re going to can’t even be called a school. The curriculum is sloppy and the lessons’ standard are also low. The teachers are patched together, hardly any of them have a proper history. Rather than an academic facility, that place is more of an asylum.”
“That… That kind of statement…”
“They make it sound nice and call it a facility for educating students delayed by the incident, but in reality, that school is just a place for them to monitor all the children who might cause problems in the future. This type of facility is necessary for those children who’ve been killing each other in that bizarre world, but you don’t need to go as well.”
“…”
Asuna can’t even respond to this overly one sided speech.
The school she had been attending since the beginning of last spring was in Nishitokyo, and it really was urgently built within two months of the project’s announcement. It’s purpose was to help the children who’s education was delayed by 2 years as a result of being trapped in the death game «Sword Art Online». All SAO players under the age of 18 had free admission, and if you graduate you could apply for university entrance exams. That extremely good treatment received criticism for a while.
However, Asuna herself understood while attending the school that it wasn’t simply a safety net. All the students were obligated to participate in a consultation once a week, involving answering questions which are blatantly tests for anti-social behaviour. According to your answers, you might be sent back to hospital for diagnosis or even asked to take drugs. So Kyouko calling it an «Asylum» wasn’t completely baseless.
Even so, Asuna loved that school. No matter what the government and ministry of education were thinking, the teachers are all people who volunteered and candidly face their students. There was no need for students to intentionally hide their past, and more importantly, she could be together with close friends. With Lizbet, Scilica, some of her companions from the front lines, and also — Kirito.
Asuna clenched her fork and bit her lip, and fought against the impulse in her heart to tell her mother everything from beginning to end.
She fought with the impulse to tell her: “I’m one of those people «who’ve been killing each other» that her mother mentioned. I’d been living by killing with my sword everyday, and I do not feel a shred of remorse for those days.”
Kyouko continued to speak, unaware of the struggle in Asuna’s heart.
“Even if you attend that kind of place, you couldn’t get into university properly. Think about it, you’re already eighteen years old. However, where you are now, you don’t know when you’d be able to go to university. You have to go to the examination centre for an examination next week. Are you not worried at all?”
“Things like going to university… There aren’t any major problems even if you go a few years later. Besides, going to university isn’t the only path in life…”
“No.”
Kyouko coldly rejected Asuna’s words.
“You have the ability. You know how much trouble your mother had gone through in order to draw out that ability. Yet you wasted two years in that strange game… Mother wouldn’t say this if you were a normal child. However, you’re not like that. Not making full use of your talent and letting it rot is a sin. You have the qualifications and ability needed to go to an excellent university and receive top-class education. So you should do so. You can stay at university and continue learning or make use of your ability in the government or an enterprise, your mother wouldn’t interfere to that extent. However, I will not allow you to give up the chance to receive higher education.”
“I do not have things like innate talent.”
Asuna finally managed to get a word in during Kyouko’s long speech.
“A person’s way of living should be decided by herself, right? In the past, I also thought that going to a good university and finding a good job was everything in life. However, I’ve changed. Even though I can’t answer you right now, I’m sure I can find something I want to do. I want to stay at my current school for another year and find out what that is.”
“That’s just limiting your own choices. No matter how many years you stay at that kind of place, you wouldn’t have any roads to take. Things are different if you changed schools though. The university above is also a famous one, so if you get good results there, you can transfer over to mother’s university. Listen well, Asuna. Mother doesn’t want you to walk down a miserable path. I want you to have a career which you can proudly show to anyone.”
“My career… Then, what was with that person introduced to me in January? … Even though I don’t know what he was told, that person talked as though he was already my fiance. Isn’t mother the one who’s limiting my lifestyle?”
Asuna couldn’t muffle the quiver in her voice. Even though she put all her strength into her stare, Kyouko just unmovingly drank from her glass.
“Marriage is also a part of your career. If you do not marry someone who isn’t materially free, you’ll regret it in a few years. The things you said you want to do will also become impossible. In that aspect, Yuuya is perfect. These days, a local bank run by our family is much more reassuring than large banks with constant struggles between factions. Also, mother really likes Yuuya. Isn’t he a really straightforward boy?”
“… It seems like you didn’t reflect on it at all. The one who started the incident which caused me and many other people pain and placed RECTO in financial crisis, was Sugou Nobuyuki who was chosen by mother.”
“Shut up.”
Kyouko’s countenance changed, and she waved her left hand as though to drive away an annoying aphid.
“I don’t want to hear about that person… Originally, the one who was fond of him and wanted to adopt him as a son was your father. From the very beginning, he was ne
ver any good at judging people. It doesn’t matter, although Yuuya isn’t really imposing, but that way we can rest assured.”
Indeed, Asuna’s father Shouzou never really paid much attention to the people around him. He put all his energy into running the company, even now after having stepped down from his position as CEO, he still disregarded his family in order to adjust their cooperation with oversees capital. Shouzou himself only said that he thought highly of Sugou’s aspirations, developing and managing abilities, that it was due to his own incompetence that he didn’t notice Suguo’s inner personality.
However, Asuna understood that one of the reasons Sugou Nobuyuki kept getting more and more aggresive since junior high was due to the harsh pressure from the people around him. Moreover, a portion of that pressure definitely came from Kyouko’s words.
Asuna swallowed her complaints and stiffly said.
“Anyways, I absolutely do not want to go out with that person. I will choose my own partner.”
“It’s alright, as long as he matches you, anyone who is outstanding is fine. However I’m saying this in advance, that kind of kid — students from that type of facility are not included.”
“…”
From that sentence, she felt that Kyouko was hinting at a certain person, Asuna was once again dumbfounded.
“… Could it be… You investigated? About him…”
She muttered with a quivering voice, but Kyouko didn’t deny or confirm it, instead she just changed the topic.
“You have to understand, your mother as well as your father wish for your happiness. We’ve hoped for this since you were in kindergarten. Even though you encountered a small setback, you can definitely recover. As long as you seriously work hard. You can accumulate a brilliant career.”
It’s not mine, it’s yours, Asuna grumbled to herself.
Asuna and her brother Kouichirou are both an aspect of Kyouko’s «brilliant career». Kouichirou entered a first rate university and got solid results at RECTO, satisfying Kyouko. Asuna should have followed, but was involved in an incomprehensible thing like the SAO incident, followed by a drop in RECTO’s corporate image due to Sugou’s case, causing Kyouko to feel as though there was a blemish in her life.