Asuna finally found the strength to lift herself up, getting to her feet with the aid of her sword. Moments later, Kirito stood as well. They took a few wobbling steps to the little girl’s side.
“Yui…” Asuna croaked. Yui turned to her without a sound. The tiny lips were smiling, but those big black eyes were brimming with tears.
Yui looked up at Asuna and Kirito and softly spoke:
“Papa, Mama…I remember everything.”
The safe haven in the deepest stretch of the dungeon beneath Blackiron Palace was a perfect square. There was only one entrance, and a polished black cube pedestal sat in the middle of the room.
Asuna and Kirito silently stared at Yui, who was seated on top of the stone. Yuriel and Thinker had already teleported out, so it was just the three of them.
Yui was silent for several minutes after announcing that her memory had returned. She looked sad for some reason. After a long while, Asuna overcame her hesitation and spoke up.
“So, Yui…you remember everything? About what happened to you…?”
She was still facedown, but the little girl eventually nodded. Her tiny lips opened, her face still caught between a smile and tears.
“Yes…Kirito, Asuna—I will explain all of it.”
As soon as she heard those formal words, Asuna felt a terrible foreboding in her chest: the knowledge that something had come to an end.
Yui’s words slowly trailed through the square room.
“The world of Sword Art Online is controlled by an enormous computer system. That system is named Cardinal. Cardinal tweaks the balance of the game world of its own accord. It was designed in such a way that it doesn’t need human maintenance. Two core programs work together to correct errors, and countless sub-programs maintain every little thing in the world. Monster and NPC AI routines, drop balance of items and currency—everything is undertaken by programs under Cardinal’s supervision. But there was one area that had to be left to human hands: trouble stemming from the player’s mental health. Such issues could only be solved by another human being, and to that end, several dozen staff members were supposedly hired to address this issue.”
“GMs,” Kirito muttered. “Yui, are you saying you’re a game master? An Argus employee…?”
Yui was silent for several seconds, then shook her head.
“But Cardinal’s developers created another program, one that would allow the system to even address players’ mental care. A program that would closely monitor the players’ emotions through the NerveGear, then pay a visit to those who were experiencing severe problems…The Mental Health Counseling Program, MHCP001, codenamed ‘Yui.’ That was me.”
Asuna held her breath in shock. She couldn’t immediately process what she’d heard.
“A program…? You’re…an AI?” she gasped. Yui nodded, still smiling sadly.
“I’ve been given emotion simulation processes in order to make me more acceptable to human players. It’s all false…even these tears. Forgive me, Asuna…”
Large drops spilled from Yui’s eyes and evaporated into points of light. Asuna took a step toward Yui. She reached out to touch her, but Yui shook her head. As though saying she wasn’t worthy of Asuna’s comfort.
Asuna squeezed out more words, still disbelieving.
“But…why didn’t you have any memories? Is that even possible for an AI…?”
“Two years ago, on the day this game began…”
Yui looked downward and began to explain.
“Even I do not know exactly what happened. Cardinal gave me an order I wasn’t expecting. It told me not to interfere with any players whatsoever. Forbidden to interact directly, I had no choice but to sit back and monitor the players’ mental health, nothing more.”
Asuna instantly understood that the “unexpected order” was a directive from Akihiko Kayaba, SAO’s supreme GM, but Yui would likely not possess any information about him. Even so, her young face was fraught with silent pain.
“The situation was about as bad as I could have expected…Nearly the entire player population was ruled by negative emotions: fear, desperation, rage. Some even fell into madness. And all I could do was watch them. My duty was to attend to their emotional issues as soon as possible…but I was prevented from doing so. Trapped in the contradiction of duties without rights, I self-destructed, errors piling up in infinite loops…”
In the quiet dungeon, Yui’s frail voice was like the plucking of delicate silver threads. Asuna and Kirito listened in silence.
“One day, in the midst of my usual monitoring, I noticed two players with vastly different mental parameters from the average values. Your brain waves were different than anything I’d detected before. Joy…Peace…Not only that, but something I could not identify. I had to keep monitoring you. Every time I came into contact with your conversations, a strange type of desire was formed within me…When such a routine should have been impossible: ‘I want to be near them. I want to meet them. I want to speak with them…’ So I took a physical form at the system console nearest to your home and wandered in search of you. I was most likely in a shattered and fragmented state at the time, though…”
“And that was within the forest on the twenty-second floor…?”
Yui nodded slowly.
“Yes. Kirito, Asuna, I’ve always wanted to meet you. You can’t understand how happy I was…when I saw you in the forest…It’s strange, isn’t it? I shouldn’t be able to think this way—I’m only a program…”
More tears spilled out, and her mouth clamped shut. Asuna was struck with an indescribable emotion. She clutched her hands to her chest.
“Yui…you really are an AI. You have true intelligence,” she whispered.
The little girl’s tiny head inclined slightly. “I don’t…understand…what happened to me…”
Kirito had been silent the entire time, but he stepped forward now.
“You’re not just a program being manipulated by the system anymore, Yui. That’s why you can put your desires into words,” he said gently. “What is your desire?”
“I want…I want…”
She stretched her thin arms out wide to the both of them. “I want to be with you forever…Papa, Mama!”
Asuna didn’t even bother to wipe away the tears. She rushed over to Yui and clutched her little body tight.
“We will be together forever, Yui!”
A moment later, Kirito’s arms enveloped the both of them.
“That’s right…you’re our daughter. Let’s go home and live as a family forever…”
But within Asuna’s arms, Yui shook her head.
“Huh…?”
“It’s too late,” she said.
Kirito pressed her for more information, confused. “What do you mean, too late?”
“It was touching that stone that allowed me to regain my memory.”
She turned and pointed to the black cube that sat in the center of the room.
“When you sent me into this safe haven, I just happened to brush past the stone, and that’s when I learned everything. It’s not just a decorative object…that’s a command console designed to give the GMs emergency access to the system.”
As though Yui’s words contained some kind of command, several paths of light suddenly traced their way across the surface of the black stone. A soft hum sounded, and a pale holo-keyboard appeared, floating above the stone.
“I believe the boss monster was placed here to keep players away from this console. I was able to access the system through this terminal and generate an Object Eraser to delete the monster. When I made contact, the speech abilities that Cardinal’s error-correcting processes had destroyed were restored in full…but it also means that after being ignored for so long, Cardinal is finally aware of me again. The core system is searching for my program at this very moment. It will consider me a foreign process and delete me, I suspect. I do not have much time left…”
“But…no!”
“Isn’t
there anything we can do? Maybe if we leave this area…”
Yui simply smiled softly at their exclamations. Tears dripped down her pale cheeks once again.
“Papa, Mama…thank you. We must part ways here.”
“No! This can’t happen!” Asuna screamed, desperate. “This is where it all starts! We’re supposed to live together…as a family…”
“All that time in the darkness and pain, never knowing when the end might come…it was you two who kept me together,” Yui said, staring right at Asuna. It was then that her body began to glow with a faint light.
“Yui, don’t go!”
Kirito gripped her hand. Her tiny fingers softly squeezed his.
“But being with you meant that everyone had a smile…That was enough to make me happy. Please, take on my role…and help others be happy, too…”
Yui’s hair and dress began trailing frail little drops of light, delicate as morning dew. They were slowly disappearing. Her smile grew transparent, her weight vanishing.
“No, Yui! You can’t go! I’ll never be able to smile without you there!”
Yui smiled, wreathed in overflowing lights. Just before she disappeared, she reached out and traced Asuna’s cheek.
Smile, Mama…
Asuna heard the voice inside her head, just as the lights pulsed and burst outward. In the next moment, her arms were empty.
“Aaaaahh!!”
Asuna slumped to her knees, unable to hold back the sobs. She crumpled over the stone floor, wailing like a child. The teardrops she shed spilled onto the floor, mixing with the remains of Yui’s light before they evaporated.
4
As though the cold snap from yesterday had never happened, a warm breeze brushed the grass. Drawn by the pleasant warmth, several birds were perched in the garden trees, watching the humans below with apparent interest.
They’d moved a large table out into the spacious front yard of Sasha’s church for an unseasonal garden party. Each time food was produced from the grill—as though by magic—the children cheered with delight.
“To think there was food in this world that could actually taste so good…”
Thinker, the highest-ranking officer of the Army, was tearing into Asuna’s special barbecue with a look of sheer bliss. Yuriel sat next to him, beaming. On first meeting, she’d appeared to be an icy lady warrior, but seated next to Thinker, she had transformed into the image of a cheerful young wife.
They hadn’t had time to sit around and get a good look at Thinker with all the commotion yesterday. Now that he was seated across the table, they saw a gentle, good-natured man quite at odds with his position leading a massive military guild.
He was just a tad taller than Asuna but quite a bit shorter than Yuriel. His slightly pudgy build was clad in drab clothing, and he wore no armor at all. Yuriel was not in her Army uniform today, either.
Thinker held up his empty glass to accept Kirito’s offer of more wine and inclined his head to indicate thanks.
“Asuna, Kirito, you’ve done me an incredible favor here. I don’t even know how to thank you…”
“Trust me, I’ve gotten plenty of help from MMO Today over the years.” Kirito grinned.
“There’s a name I haven’t heard in ages.” Thinker’s round face beamed widely. “At the time, those daily updates were a huge burden. I used to think to myself, ‘Doing a news site ain’t what it’s cracked up to be’—but I’d take it in a second now over running a guild. I should have just gotten into the SAO newspaper business.”
The table echoed with laughter.
“So…what happened with the Army?” Asuna asked. Thinker’s smile vanished.
“Kibaou and his followers have been expelled, something I should have done a long time ago…My distaste for confrontation let the situation grow out of hand. I’m actually thinking of disbanding the Army entirely.”
Asuna’s and Kirito’s eyes widened. “That would be quite a bold move.”
“The Army just got much too large for its own good. I’m thinking of dissolving it so I can build a more peaceful, cooperative organization. After all, it would be irresponsible to get rid of it and just abandon everything we worked for.”
Yuriel squeezed Thinker’s hand and continued for him.
“We’re thinking of redistributing the Army’s resources not just among the members but among all the people here in this town. They’ve suffered because of us, after all…I’m so sorry about what happened to you, Sasha.”
Sasha’s large, bespectacled eyes blinked in surprise at their sudden apology. She hurriedly waved her hands in protest.
“N-no, not at all. The good people in the Army have helped out some of the children in the field, too.”
Her easy acceptance brought the warmth back to the table.
“By the way,” Yuriel asked hesitantly, “what about the girl from yesterday—Yui, was it…?”
Asuna shared a look with Kirito, then smiled reassuringly. “Yui is…back home.”
She brought her right hand to her chest. A thin necklace was sparkling around her neck, one that hadn’t been there the day before. A silver pendant hung in the center of delicate silver links, and in the center of that pendant was a large, translucent stone. When she traced the teardrop shape, she felt as though a slight warmth flowed into her fingertips.
After Yui had vanished amid those tiny lights and Asuna wailed against the cold stone floor, Kirito suddenly shouted at her side.
“Cardinal!!”
She raised her teary face to find him screaming at the ceiling.
“Don’t assume you’ll keep getting away with everything!”
Kirito gritted his teeth and leaped onto the black console at the center of the room, tapping at the holo-keyboard that was still visible above the stone. For an instant, the shock made her forget her grief.
“K-Kirito…what are you—?”
“I might still be able to crack into the system using the GM account,” he muttered, his fingers flailing wildly. A large window popped open, and the room was lit by the glow of text rapidly scrolling past. Asuna watched silently as Kirito attempted several different commands. A small progress bar appeared, filling from left to right. Just as it was about to finish—
The entire stone console flashed a cold white, and Kirito was blasted backward as an explosion ripped the air.
“K-Kirito!!”
She rushed to help him up.
Kirito sat up shaking his head, but there was a faint smile on his exhausted face. He held out his right fist to her, clutched tight. Confused, she extended her open palm.
When he opened his fist, a large crystal in the shape of a teardrop fell into Asuna’s hand. A white light beat steadily in the center of the complex, glittering jewel.
“What is it…?”
“Before the access privileges that Yui used to start up the console expired, I was able to separate Yui’s program files from the system and materialize them as an in-game object. It’s Yui’s heart…She’s right in there.”
And as though his willpower were entirely drained, Kirito flopped back down on the floor and closed his eyes. Asuna peered closely at the jewel in her hand.
“I know you’re in there, Yui…my sweet little Yui…”
The tears rushed forth again. As though to answer Asuna’s call, the soft light at the center of the crystal beat once, brighter than usual.
After waving a mournful good-bye to Sasha, Yuriel, Thinker, and the children, Asuna and Kirito walked through the teleport gate to the twenty-second floor, where they were greeted by a chilly wind carrying the scent of the forest. Their journey had only lasted three days, but as Asuna sucked in a deep breath, it seemed like they’d been gone for much longer.
What a great, wide world…
She pondered the mysteries of this strange floating realm. Each of the virtually countless floors had its own residents, laughing and crying and carrying on with their lives. Well, to be fair, the majority of them were probably suf
fering more than enjoying themselves. And yet they still continued their own personal battles.
And where do I belong?
Asuna looked up at the base of the floor above as they trudged down the path to their home.
I have to return to the front line, she suddenly realized. Very soon, I’ll have to take up my sword again and return to battle. I don’t know how long it will take, but I have to keep fighting until I’ve ended this world and brought back a smile to every living person in this game. I have to bring them joy…It’s what Yui wanted.
“Hey, Kirito.”
“Hmm?”
“If we beat the game and this world goes away, what happens to Yui?”
“Good question…I’m probably cutting it close on memory space. I have my NerveGear’s local memory set up to cache a portion of the client program’s environment data within the unit. It’ll probably be tricky to extract it in a form that’s recognizable as Yui, but…I think it’ll work out.”
“Great.”
Asuna leaned over and squeezed Kirito.
“Then we’ll be able to see Yui again in the real world. Our very first child.”
“Yeah. I’m sure we will.”
Asuna looked down at the crystal that sparkled between them. Good luck, Mama, she thought she heard faintly.
(The End)
Red-Nosed Reindeer
46th floor of Aincrad December 2023
1
The bloodred Vorpal Strike split the darkness and reduced the two giant insects’ HP to zero.
I caught the bursting of their polygon shells out of the corner of my eye, and as soon as the post-skill cooldown had worn off, I spun around to deflect the jaws that had been bearing down on my back. The giant ant flipped backward with a hideous, ear-rending screech, and I dispatched it with the same move.
Just three days ago, I’d learned this single heavy attack when my One-Handed Sword skill reached 950, and I was amazed at its versatility. The pause after the move was a bit on the long side, but that shortcoming was made up for by the skill’s reach, twice as long as the blade itself, and power rivaling that of a two-handed lance. Spamming it like this against another player would allow him to read your timing pretty easily, but there was no issue with the simple monster AI routines. I used it over and over, carving an easy crimson path through the oncoming horde of foes.