Fairy Dance 1

  Suddenly, Suguha’s last words before I fell asleep echoed in my ears.

  Don’t just give up…

  “Yeah…you’re right,” I muttered, leaning forward to poke Suguha’s cheek. “Get up, Sugu, it’s morning.”

  “Nng,” she grunted unhappily, trying to pull the blanket over her head. This time, I pinched her cheek and pulled it.

  “Wake up. You’re wasting valuable morning practice time.”

  “Muhh…”

  Suguha finally open a bleary eye.

  “Oh…good morning, big brother,” she murmured, sitting upright.

  She peered at me quizzically for a moment, then began looking around the room. Eventually, her tired eyes bulged wide. Her cheeks grew redder and redder.

  “Ah—! Um—! I didn’t—!”

  Suguha was red to the ears, her mouth working soundlessly. She finally leaped to her feet and exploded out of the room with a massive crash.

  “Sheesh.” I scratched my head, getting to my feet. I opened my window and took a deep breath, letting the cold air flow over my lethargic limbs.

  I was laying out a fresh outfit to change into after an impending quick shower when I received The Notice.

  An electronic ding sounded behind me, and I turned to my desk. The e-mail indicator on the upper frame of my panel PC was blinking. I sat down in the chair and brushed the mouse to activate the monitor.

  Computers had changed quite a bit in the two years I’d been “away.” The final nail had been driven into the coffin of classic hard-drive storage, and even its successor, the solid-state drive, had been phased out for high-speed MRAM. This meant that there was no longer any discernible lag time of any kind while computing. The instant I activated the mail program, my inbox was fully refreshed, descending in chronological order. The sender of the latest message at the bottom of the screen was someone familiar: Agil.

  Agil the ax warrior had run a general store in Algade, the main town of the fiftieth floor of Aincrad. I’d met up with him in Tokyo about three weeks earlier. We’d traded e-mail contacts at the time, but this was the first message I’d actually received from him. It was titled, “Look at this.” Perhaps he’d been in a hurry when he sent it, because there wasn’t a single word in the body of the message, only a picture attachment.

  Curious, I opened the picture in the viewer. The next instant, I rose from the chair and craned closer to the screen to get a better look.

  It was a mysterious image. The bold coloring and lighting told me it was not a photograph but a screenshot of a virtual, polygonal world. In the foreground were blurry, unfocused golden bars. Behind them was a white table and chair. Sitting in the chair was a woman wearing a dress in the same shade of white. But the glimpse of her side profile through the bars looked just like—

  “Asuna…?”

  The resolution was rough; it seemed to be a section of a much larger picture zoomed in considerably. But I would recognize that long chestnut hair anywhere. Her hands were folded on top of the table, and her face looked lost in grief. Upon closer examination, she seemed to have translucent wings sprouting from her back.

  I grabbed my portable terminal off the desk and scrolled through my phone listings impatiently. The few seconds of dial tone seemed interminable. After a click, I heard Agil’s deep voice.

  “Hel—”

  “What is this picture?!”

  “…Normally it’s good manners to say who’s calling first, Kirito.”

  “No time! Just tell me!”

  “Look, it’s a long story. Can you come to my place?”

  “I’ll be there. I’m leaving now.”

  I hung up without waiting for a response and picked up my clothes. After the world’s fastest shower, I slipped on my shoes and hopped onto my bike, hair still dripping. The familiar route to the train station had never felt so long.

  Agil’s café-and-bar was located in a crowded alley in the neighborhood of Okachi, in the Taito ward of Tokyo. The storefront was made of sooty black wood, and only a small metallic sign affixed over the doorway indicated that there was a business there at all. The sign was decorated in the shape of two dice, reading DICEY CAFÉ.

  A dry chime sounded when I pushed open the door. The large bald man behind the counter looked up and grinned at my entrance. There was no one else inside.

  “Hey, that was quick.”

  “This place is as empty as the last time I visited. I’m amazed it stayed open for the last two years.”

  “Shut up, we do a brisk night business.”

  Our lighthearted ribbing was just as it had been in the other world.

  I’d tried reaching out to Agil late the previous month. An agent from the Ministry of Internal Affairs had succeeded in getting me a list of the names and addresses of as many in-game friends as I could remember. No doubt plenty of players were seeking to reunite with Klein, Nishida, Silica, and Lisbeth, but I’d decided to give them more time to get back to regular life before contacting them. When I’d brought up the topic on my first visit, Agil had retorted, “Oh, so I don’t merit that kind of consideration?”

  When I learned that Agil—real name Andrew Gilbert Mills—also ran a business in real life, it made perfect sense. He was pure African-American but also a second-generation native of Tokyo, and he’d opened his combination café-and-bar in the familiar neighborhood of Okachi when he was twenty-five. He had been blessed with a steady clientele and a beautiful wife, and just when everything seemed poised to take off, he fell prisoner to Sword Art Online. When he finally returned after those two years in the game, he’d expected the business to be gone, but his wife had rolled up her sleeves and kept the store running the entire time. The story warmed my heart.

  It was the type of place with plenty of regulars. The wood fixtures had the deep luster of polish and care, and the cozy intimacy of the interior, with only four tables and a counter, made it a comfortable visit.

  I pulled up a leather-seated stool, impatiently called for a coffee, and launched into the topic at hand.

  “What did that mean?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached under the counter and pulled out a rectangular package that he slid over to me. I stopped it with a finger.

  The package fit in the palm of my hand, clearly a video-game box. I scanned it for a platform and noticed a logo in the upper right corner that said AMUSPHERE.

  “Never heard of this console…”

  “That’s because the AmuSphere was released while we were on the other side. It’s a successor to the NerveGear.”

  “…”

  Agil gave me a quick explanation as I eyed with suspicion the logo of two interlocking rings.

  After the disaster it had caused, the NerveGear was vilified far and wide, a demonic machine of enslavement. But apparently the market had spoken, and there was still a demand for full-dive VR gaming. Barely half a year into the SAO Incident, a different hardware company unveiled its own model, “but safe this time,” to such resounding success that traditional TV consoles were now a minority share of the game industry. This AmuSphere was a major force in gaming, thanks in part to many titles in the same genre as SAO.

  It all made sense to me, but I was in no rush to learn more. I didn’t ever want to relive that particular experience.

  “So this is another VRMMO, then?”

  I took another look at the case. The front cover was an illustration of a large full moon rising above a deep, deep forest. A boy and girl holding swords were caught in silhouette, flying across the golden disk. They were dressed in typical fantasy garb, and large, translucent wings sprang from their backs. An ornate logo adorned the bottom of the cover: ALFHEIM ONLINE.

  “ALf…heim…Online? What does it mean?”

  “It’s actually pronounced more like Alv-heym. Means ‘land of the fairies,’ apparently.”

  “Fairies, huh…? Sounds pretty laid-back. One of those casual MMOs?”

  “Believe it or not, just the opposite. It’s actuall
y pretty hard-core.”

  Agil placed a steaming cup in front of me and grinned. I lifted it up and breathed in the scent before inquiring further.

  “What makes it hard-core?”

  “Totally skill-based. Player skill is rewarded, PK-ing is encouraged.”

  “Meaning…?”

  “You don’t have a ‘level.’ You can only power up skills through use, and your HP barely increases as you play through the game. Battle depends on the player’s actual athletic ability. It’s like SAO with magic and no sword skills. People say the graphics and animation are almost on par with SAO, too.”

  “Wow…sounds impressive.”

  I puckered my lips into a soundless whistle. The floating castle Aincrad was the creation of the genius Akihiko Kayaba’s fanatic obsession. It was hard to imagine that another developer could create a VR world with the same fidelity.

  “How is PK-ing encouraged?”

  “When you create your character, you choose from a number of fairy species, and you’re allowed to kill the other kinds.”

  “Wow, that does sound hard-core. But a game like that won’t sell big, even with great production values. Not if it’s designed for such a niche market,” I opined critically, but Agil’s wide mouth grinned again.

  “That’s what I thought, too, but it’s been selling like gangbusters. The thing is, you can fly in the game.”

  “Fly…?”

  “Everyone’s a fairy, so they have wings. It’s got some kind of in-game flight engine, and once you get used to it, you can fly around freely without a controller.”

  At this, I couldn’t help but exclaim in fascination. Plenty of flying games had come to market after the release of the NerveGear, but all of them were flight simulators that involved manipulating a device of some kind. The reason no games offered players the ability to fly directly was simple: Human beings don’t have wings.

  In a virtual world, players’ actions are faithfully translated to mirror their real bodies. But this meant that what was impossible in life was still impossible in the game. The developer might slap some wings onto your model, but what human muscles are supposed to work a pair of wings?

  By the end of SAO, Asuna and I had raised our jumping power high enough that we could mimic “flying” in a way, but this was simply an extension of a jump trajectory, not true flight.

  “That sounds incredible. How do you control the wings?”

  “Dunno, but it’s apparently pretty hard. They say new players have to control it with a flight stick in one hand.”

  “…”

  For an instant, I was actually eager for the chance to try it out. I quickly downed a hot swig of coffee to extinguish that fire.

  “Okay, so that’s the game. But more to the point, what was that picture?”

  Agil reached under the counter again and pulled out a sheet of paper that he placed on the bar. It was glossy with printing film. The same picture.

  “What do you think?” Agil asked. I stared at it for several moments.

  “She looks…like Asuna.”

  “So you agree. It’s a screenshot from the game, so I can’t blow it up any larger, unfortunately.”

  “Just tell me, where was it taken?”

  “In there. Inside ALfheim Online.”

  Agil took the game box from me and flipped it over. In the center of the back cover, surrounded by the game description and screenshots, was an illustration of what appeared to be the game world. The round map was split into territories for each of the fairy races, extending radially outward from a massive tree in the middle.

  “They call it the World Tree,” Agil said, tapping the image. “The player’s goal is to reach the land atop the tree before the other races can get there.”

  “Don’t they just fly?”

  “Seems there’s a limit on your flight time. You can’t fly forever. In fact, you can’t even reach the lowest branch of the tree that way. But there’s always some idiot who wants to try. I heard about a group of five who stood on one another’s shoulders, lightest to heaviest, and tried to reach the branches like a rocket with fuel tanks.”

  “Ha-ha! I see…That’s pretty smart, for being so stupid.”

  “Well, their plan was good, and they got real close to the branches. They didn’t quite reach the lowest one, but the fifth and final person took some screens as proof of the altitude. One of the shots showed something strange: an enormous birdcage hanging from one of the branches.”

  “A birdcage…”

  My eyebrows knitted at the ominous implications of that word. Trapped in a birdcage.

  “And after the screenshot was zoomed in as far as it could go, that’s what was left.”

  “But this is a legitimate game, right? Why would Asuna be in there?”

  I grabbed the box and took another look. I scanned the bottom of the rectangular case. The name of the developer was RCT Progress.

  “Kirito, what’s with the glare?”

  “Nothin’. Got any other pictures, Agil? Anything that might show others like Asuna, who never returned from SAO, held captive within this ALfheim Online game?”

  The shopkeeper’s heavy brow furrowed as he shook his head. “Haven’t heard of anything. But we’d know for sure if I did—you bet your ass I’d have called the police instead of you.”

  “Yeah…I’m sure you would have…”

  But as I nodded, my mind was racing back to Nobuyuki Sugou’s words.

  The SAO servers are currently under my control, he had said. But “under control” was a misleading description. The server itself was still a black box, impervious to any outside interference, as I understood it.

  It suited his ends to have Asuna asleep inside the machine. And now a girl who looks like Asuna was sighted in another VRMMO, run by the publishing arm of RCT…Could it truly just be a coincidence?

  For an instant, I thought I might contact the rescue team in the Ministry, until I realized just how little proof I had to show them.

  I looked up, into the face of the burly café owner.

  “Agil, can I have this game?”

  “Be my guest. You going in?”

  “Yeah. I need to see it for myself.”

  Agil briefly looked concerned. I understood how he felt. Part of me felt it was crazy, but there was no denying the tendrils of fear I could sense licking at my feet— there was something going on here.

  I shook off the foreboding and gave him a grin.

  “A game where death isn’t permanent? People these days are spoiled. Guess I’m in the market for a new game console.”

  “Don’t worry, AmuSphere games will run on a NerveGear. It’s basically just the same unit with strengthened security.”

  “Great, that saves me some money,” I quipped. This time it was Agil’s turn to give me a wry grin.

  “If you’ve got the guts to put on that helmet again, that is.”

  “I’ve done it a dozen times already.”

  That was the truth. I had put on the NerveGear multiple times, just with a net connection, not booted into a game. My vain hope was that Asuna would have sent me a message of some kind. There was nothing, of course. No voice, no text.

  But I was done with waiting. I downed the last of my coffee and stood up. The establishment wasn’t fancy enough for any kind of electronic money-exchanging systems, so I had to reach into my pocket for some coins to slap on the counter.

  “Well, I’m off. Thanks for the coffee—and let me know if you learn anything else.”

  “I’ll put that tip on your tab. Just make sure you rescue Asuna. Otherwise our fight isn’t over.”

  “Yeah…we need to have an offline meet-up here someday.”

  We bumped fists, and I turned to head out the door.

  Suguha was lying facedown on her own bed, face buried in her pillow, as she kicked her legs in anguish for minutes at a time.

  It was nearly noon, but she was still wearing her pajamas. It was Monday, January 20th, well past the end
of winter vacation, but Suguha’s middle school made attendance optional just before the end of the school year for graduating students. They were all busy with entrance exams for high school, and if she went to campus, it would only be to pop her head into the kendo club.

  She replayed the memory inside her mind for the umpteenth time.

  She’d curled up beneath Kazuto’s covers with him last night, trying to warm up his freezing body by snuggling close, and then fell asleep. It was the first time she’d ever truly cursed her ability to zonk out ten seconds after lying down.

  I’m so stupid, stupid, stupid! she wailed soundlessly, beating her pillow with both hands.

  If she’d just woken up before Kazuto, she could have made a silent escape before he noticed. Instead, he had to wake her up and point out that she was in his bed. There was no way she could look at him again.

  Embarrassment, shyness, and an undeniable feeling of his sweetness raced around inside of her, gripping her chest so painfully she couldn’t breathe. If she folded her arms around her head, she thought she could smell her brother on her pajamas. That only made things worse.

  I need to swing my shinai and clear my head, she decided, and finally got to her feet. Suguha liked practicing in the dojo because it put her mind in the right state, but she decided the most important thing was to get outside as soon as possible, so she slipped into her tracksuit.

  Kazuto was off on some personal business, her mother, Midori, always left for work in the morning, and her father, Minetaka, went back to America after the holidays, so she was alone in the house. She grabbed a cheese muffin from the basket on the dining table downstairs, stuffed it crudely into her mouth, and grabbed a box of orange juice on her way out to the backyard.

  Just when she had taken her first big bite, Kazuto walked his bike around the side of the house. Their eyes met.

  “Mmfg!”

  A piece of muffin caught in her throat, and she coughed. She scrambled to take a swig of orange juice and wash it down, then realized she hadn’t popped the straw through the foil on top yet.