It was hard for them to enjoy a cheerful dinner given the situation, so they shared a brief meal of simple soup and bread, at which point Kirito opened up the newspapers he’d bought earlier.
The “newspapers” were not like the large sheaves of paper sold in the real world, but rather a single sheet of parchment the size of a magazine. The surface of the sheet was a screen, like a system window, its information fully scrollable as though it were a website.
The contents of the paper were just a wholesale copy of a player-run strategy site, complete with not just news but a simple manual, FAQ, lists of items and equipment, and so on. Among those lists was a wanted persons classified section, and that was what Kirito and Asuna were examining. Perhaps someone was searching for this girl. But…
“…Nothing…”
“Nothing.”
After many minutes of searching, they gave up and slumped their shoulders. At this point, they had no choice but to wait for the girl to wake and tell them her story directly.
Normally, they spent their night hours on idle entertainment—chatting, simple games, even going on a nighttime stroll—but it was hard to get into the mood on this particular evening.
“Should we just go to bed?”
“Yeah.” Kirito sighed.
They turned out the living room lights and headed into the bedroom. The little girl was using one of the beds, so they’d have to snuggle together in the other one—which they ended up doing every night anyway, as a matter of fact. They changed quickly into their nightclothes.
With the lamp extinguished, they slipped into bed.
Kirito had many odd skills, one of which was his ability to fall asleep instantly. When Asuna turned to her side to say something, his breath was already slow and steady with sleep.
“Sheesh,” she muttered, then turned in the other direction, toward the girl’s bed. In the pale blue darkness, the little black-haired girl was still fast asleep. Asuna had been avoiding thinking about the girl’s past, but staring at her in the darkness like this, she inevitably began to ponder.
It was one thing if she’d been together with some kind of guardian, perhaps a parent or older sibling. But if she’d come to this world all alone and spent the last two years in fear and solitude, it would be a horrifying ordeal for an eight- or nine-year-old child. It was hard to imagine she could stay mentally healthy.
And what if…? Asuna imagined the worst. What if she’d been wandering around that forest and fallen into a coma because of some deep scarring to her mind? Aincrad had no psychological therapists, nor system managers to aid a person in need. It would be at least another six months until the game might be beaten, and it would take more than Kirito and Asuna’s hard work to make that happen. In fact, one of the reasons they were taking this hiatus from the front line was that their levels were so much higher than the rest of the game population, it made it difficult to form a balanced party.
And no matter how deep the girl’s suffering was, Asuna could not save her from it. That thought sent an unbearable pain through her heart. Before she knew it, she had left the bed and moved to the little girl’s side.
Asuna brushed the girl’s hair for a moment, then pulled back the covers and slipped in next to her. She hugged the tiny body close. The girl did not move, but Asuna felt as though she saw her expression ease.
“Good night. I hope you wake up tomorrow,” she whispered.
2
A gentle melody flowed through Asuna’s mind as she dozed in the white light of morning. It was her wake-up alarm, a soft oboe tune. She let herself drift through the familiar melody in the weightlessness of sleep. In time, light strings joined the song, clarinets echoed the primary melody, and a faint humming came in…
Humming?
It wasn’t her singing along. Asuna opened her eyes.
The black-haired girl in her arms, eyes still closed, was humming along to the sound of Asuna’s wake-up alarm.
She wasn’t missing a beat. But that was impossible. Asuna had set her alarm to be audible to no one but herself, so it shouldn’t be possible for anyone to hear the song playing inside her head.
But there was something more important than that at the moment.
“K-Kirito! Kirito, wake up!” Asuna called out to her husband, still sleeping in the other bed. Eventually, she heard him rise, murmuring sleepily.
“Morning…What’s up?”
“Come quick!”
The floorboards creaked. Kirito craned over Asuna to peer into the bed. His eyes went wide.
“She’s singing…?”
“Y-yeah.”
Asuna gently rocked the girl in her arms. “Wake up, sweetie…Open your eyes.”
The girl’s lips stopped moving. Her long eyelashes fluttered, then her eyes slowly came to be fully open.
Wet black pupils trained directly on Asuna’s at close range. After several blinks, the girl’s pale lips began to open.
“Ah…uh…”
Her voice was fragile and pristine, like the ringing of delicate silverware. Asuna helped her up to a sitting position.
“Thank goodness you’re awake! Do you know what happened to you?”
The girl clammed up for several seconds, then shook her head.
“I see…What’s your name? Can you say it?”
“Na…me…My…name…” She tilted her head and a lock of that shining black hair fell over her cheek. “Yu…i. Yui. That’s…my name.”
“Yui! That’s a nice name. I’m Asuna, and this is Kirito.”
Asuna turned her head to indicate her partner, and Yui’s eyes followed her lead. She flipped back and forth between Asuna and Kirito, who was leaning over to get a closer look.
“A…una. Ki…to.”
Her lips moved hesitantly, struggling with the sounds. Asuna felt last night’s anxiety return. The girl looked about eight years old, and based on the amount of time since she must have logged in, she would actually be closer to ten now. But the halting way she was speaking was more akin to a toddler learning how to talk.
“Yui, why were you all alone on the twenty-second floor? Is your daddy or mommy around?”
Yui cast her eyes down and said nothing. After a moment of silence, she shook her head.
“I don’t…know. I don’t…know anything…”
They carried her over to one of the chairs at the table and handed her a warm cup of sweetened milk, which she took in both hands and started to sip. Asuna pulled Kirito off to the side to confer, checking on Yui out of the corner of her eye.
“What do you think we should do, Kirito?”
He bit his lip, glaring as he thought, then eventually hung his head.
“Looks like she’s lost her memory. But more worrying is the way she’s acting. She might have suffered some brain damage…”
“Yeah…I was thinking the same thing.”
“Dammit!” His face twisted, as though on the verge of tears. “I’ve seen a lot of awful things in this world…but this has to be the worst. It’s so cruel…”
When she saw his eyes moistened, Asuna felt something rise into her chest. She put her arms around him.
“It’ll be okay, Kirito. I’m sure we can do something to help her.”
“…Yeah. Yeah, you’re right…”
He looked up, placed his hands on her shoulders, then approached the table. Asuna followed him. Kirito rattled the other chair next to Yui and sat down.
“Hey, Yui, honey. Is it okay to call you Yui?” he asked brightly. She looked up from her cup and nodded.
“Good. Then you can call me Kirito.”
“Ki…to.”
“It’s Kirito. Ki-ri-to.”
“…”
Yui scrunched up her face in silent concentration.
“…Kiito.”
He grinned and patted her on the head.
“I guess it’s a bit too hard to say. You can call me anything you like. Whatever’s easiest for you.”
Yui sat in heavy thought.
Asuna picked up her empty cup, refilled it with more milk, and placed it back on the table, but Yui still hadn’t moved.
In time, she slowly raised her head to look at Kirito, and spoke hesitantly.
“…Papa.”
She turned to Asuna.
“Auna is…mama.”
Asuna shivered unconsciously. It wasn’t clear if Yui had confused them for her real parents or was simply seeking those roles from the closest thing she could find in Aincrad, but Asuna wasn’t thinking about that. She desperately tried to hold back the emotions that were bursting upward through her.
“That’s right…it’s Mama, Yui-chan,” she said, beaming.
Yui finally showed off the first smile of her own. Those expressionless eyes finally flashed beneath her even bangs, and for an instant, she was like a doll that had come to life.
“Mama!”
Asuna’s heart throbbed when she saw the little hand extended toward her.
“Uhk…”
She barely stifled the sob that threatened to rip from her throat, but she did manage to keep her smile. Asuna lifted Yui from the chair and clutched the girl to her breast, feeling a tear of many mixed emotions welling up and falling down her cheek.
After another mug of hot milk and a little bread roll, Yui was apparently tired again. Her head began to sway wearily back and forth.
Asuna watched Yui from across the table, wiping her eyes. She turned to Kirito.
“I…I…”
She couldn’t put her feelings into words.
“I’m sorry. I just…don’t know what to do…”
Kirito gazed at her with sympathy for a time. Eventually, he said, “You want to stay here and take care of her until she regains her memory, right? I know how you feel—I feel the same way. But it’s a real dilemma…It just means it’ll be that much longer before we can return to advancing the game, which is that much longer before she’s freed from this prison.”
“Yeah…that’s a good point.”
Asuna’s level was one thing, but Kirito was, without exaggeration, one of the most powerful forces advancing the game. As a solo player, he had contributed more labyrinth mapping than several major guilds combined. Their honeymoon was only meant to last a few weeks, but Asuna couldn’t shake a feeling of guilt that she was monopolizing Kirito for such a long time.
“We should start by doing what we can,” Kirito said, watching Yui as she began to snooze. “We’ll go to the Town of Beginnings to see if her parents or siblings are around. She’s obviously pretty unique within the game, so if anyone knows her, we should be able to find them.”
“…”
His idea was sensible. But Asuna realized with a start that she did not want to leave this little girl. She’d dreamed of this life alone with Kirito for so long, but somehow, she had no resistance to growing that number to three. It was almost as though Yui was their daughter. When Asuna thought about what that meant, she turned red all the way to her ears.
“…? What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing!!” She shook her head furiously. “A-anyway, we should visit the Town of Beginnings when Yui wakes up. We can take out a notice in the classified section of the newspaper, too.”
Asuna spoke rapidly, clearing the table while pointedly avoiding looking at Kirito. Yui was now solidly asleep in her chair, but in comparison to last night, her sleeping face somehow seemed to be at peace.
They moved Yui to the bed, where she slept for the rest of the morning. Asuna began to worry that she might have fallen into another comatose state, but the little girl woke again just as lunch was being prepared.
Asuna baked a fruit pie—not one of her standard dishes—just for Yui, but she seemed more interested in the mustard-slathered sandwich that Kirito was chowing down.
“Are you sure, Yui? It’s really spicy.”
“Uhh! I want the same thing as Papa.”
“Well, if you’re ready for it, go ahead. It’s important to experience new things.”
Kirito handed Yui a sandwich, and she opened her tiny mouth as wide as possible to take a huge bite. They watched her closely. Yui chewed, a look of stern concentration on her face, then swallowed and smiled.
“Yummy.”
“You’ve got guts!” Kirito laughed and rubbed her head. “We’ll have to go with an ultra-spicy entree for dinner tonight.”
“Let’s not get carried away! That’s not on the menu.”
But if they found Yui’s guardian in the Town of Beginnings, they’d be alone again when they returned. Asuna felt loneliness brush her heart once more.
Yui had helped finish the rest of the sandwiches and was happily sipping milk tea when Asuna asked her, “Want to take a trip outside this afternoon, Yui?”
“Trip?”
She looked confused. Kirito considered how best to explain it.
“We’re going to look for your friends, Yui.”
“What is…friends?”
Kirito and Asuna looked at each other. Many things about Yui’s “condition” were a mystery. It wasn’t so much that her mental age had somehow regressed, but that her memory had vanished in places.
In order to fix that, the best solution would be to find her true guardian, someone who could watch over her, Asuna told herself.
“A friend is someone who will help you, Yui. C’mon, let’s get ready.”
Yui looked skeptical, but she nodded and stood obediently.
The white, puffy-sleeved dress she wore was made of sheer material, nowhere near proper for the early winter weather outside. Being cold wouldn’t cause you to catch the flu or take damage—though there were no guarantees if you went streaking through the snow—but it was certainly unpleasant.
Asuna scrolled through her inventory and pulled out items of thick clothing, then found a sweater that suited the little girl. Suddenly, she stopped still.
In order to put on equipment and clothing, you needed to attach it on the mannequin in your status menu. SAO had difficulty modeling soft objects like cloth and liquids, so clothes were treated less like distinct objects to be interacted with, and more like an extension of the player’s body.
Kirito picked up on Asuna’s hesitation and asked Yui directly.
“Can you open your window, Yui?”
As they suspected, she only looked at them, uncomprehending.
“Okay, just trace your finger down in the air. Like this.” Kirito swung his finger, and a rectangular purple window appeared beneath his hand. Yui clumsily mimicked his action, but nothing happened.
“That’s what I was afraid of. The system must be bugged somehow. And what a horribly fatal bug to have, not being able to check your status. You can’t do anything.”
Kirito bit his lip. Yui had been waving her right index finger to no avail, so she tried it with her left hand. A glowing purple window popped up immediately.
“There!”
Yui giggled in delight, while Asuna and Kirito shared a shocked look over her head. What was going on?
“Can I take a look, Yui?”
Asuna crouched over to look at her window, but the status screen was only visible to the player herself by default, so there was nothing but a blank purple slate there.
“Here, let me see your hand.” Asuna took Yui’s little hand and moved her pointer finger over the spot where she thought she remembered the visibility mode checkbox would be.
Her aim was true, as familiar-looking information abruptly sprang onto the window with a beep. Despite the situation, it was incredibly rude to sneak a peek at another person’s status screen, so Asuna did her best to avoid looking at anything but Yui’s item list.
“Wh-what is this?!” she exclaimed in surprise as her eyes moved over the window.
The top screen of a player’s menu in SAO is divided into three basic areas. At the top is the player’s name in the English alphabet and two thin bars representing HP and EXP. The right half of the screen below that is the mannequin displaying the player’s equipment. T
he left half of the screen is a list of command buttons. The icons can be customized from countless sample designs, but the basic layout is unchangeable.
But for some reason, the top of Yui’s menu just featured the eerie name “Yui-MHCP001,” with no indicators for HP, EXP, or even level. There was an equipment mannequin but only two buttons on the left side: ITEMS and OPTIONS.
Kirito noticed Asuna freeze and came over to see for himself, then held his breath. Yui seemed to have no idea of the significance of her menu, and she stared up at the two quizzically.
“Could this be…another system bug?” Asuna wondered, but Kirito grunted deep in his throat.
“I don’t know…This looks less like a bug than it does something that was designed to be this way. Damn! I don’t think I’ve ever been this frustrated that there are no GMs around.”
“I’ve never even thought about wanting a GM, since SAO barely even has any lag, much less major bugs. I guess there’s no use wracking our brains over this…”
Asuna gave up and moved Yui’s finger to touch the ITEMS button. She placed the sweater on the surface of the window and it glowed for a second before vanishing into the inventory list. Once it showed up there, Asuna dragged the name onto the equipment figure in the window.
With a chime, Yui’s body flashed for an instant, and she was suddenly wearing a light pink sweater.
“Wow!”
Her face shone. She held out her arms and examined herself. Asuna then added a skirt in the same color, black tights, and red shoes, before returning Yui’s original one-piece to the window.
Yui was giddy over her new outfit, rubbing her cheek on the soft fabric of the sweater and pulling on her skirt hem.
“Well, shall we go?”
“Papa, carry me.”
She held up her hands, and Kirito picked her up with one arm around her side, smiling shyly. He looked to his wife.
“Asuna, make sure you’re prepared with your regular equipment in case anything happens. We’ll be staying in town, but it is the Army’s territory.”
“Yeah…we can’t be too careful.”