Mother's Rosary

  “I’ve learned something very precious from you, too, Yuuki: There are some things you can’t get across without confrontation.”

  Yuuki went wide-eyed with surprise, but Siune and the others instantly understood what Asuna was saying. Behind the smiling, nodding fairies, the final guiding flames burst into life, louder than the others.

  “This is our last chance! While we’re fighting in here, that guild’s going to regroup and reunite in the hallway. We’ve got to hang in there so that when the doors open, all they see is our triumphant faces!”

  When she was the vice commander of the Knights of the Blood, Asuna was often the one to deliver fiery speeches like this before a boss fight. But back then, her statements caused more tension in the ranks than morale boosting. She got them to clutch their swords but did not reach their hearts. Asuna was only thinking of effective strategic leadership and wasn’t connecting with her emotions.

  Hey…Yuuki. When this battle is over, tell me more about yourself. I want to know what worlds you’ve traveled, what adventures you’ve led.

  She squeezed Yuuki’s shoulders one last time, then took a step back. The rapier was in its sheath and stashed away, the tree-branch wand back in her hand and held high.

  Where it pointed, a low, bass-heavy rumble heralded the arrival of angular, boulderlike polygons. The boss was materializing. The bulky, humanoid clump burst into countless shards, revealing a two-headed, four-armed giant.

  “All right…Time for a rematch!”

  Yuuki’s clear voice, the shouts of the group, and the roar of the dark titan all overlapped.

  7

  Asuna flipped the cap off the bottle with her thumb, chugged the blue liquid inside, then checked the remaining amount.

  Over the forty fierce minutes of battle, the waist pouch that had been stuffed with potions was now down to just three. The other healer, Siune, had to be at a similar point herself.

  The attackers making up the front line were fighting as hard as anyone possibly could. They were successfully evading every one of the dark giant’s attacks that were dodge-able. But both the wide-ranging poison breath that the creature’s two mouths periodically emitted and the wild double-chain swings reached the entire battlefield and were extremely hard to counteract. Whenever either of them came into play, Asuna and Siune had to begin casting their most powerful heal spell, so they couldn’t possibly get enough mana points.

  Nori’s staff, Talken’s spear, and Yuuki’s sword were all scoring countless clean hits, but something was wrong; it felt like they were striking an utterly impassable steel wall. The boss would sometimes cross its four arms in front of its body in a defensive stance, turning as hard as iron and deflecting all attacks, which only made the task more tiresome.

  Asuna tried to swallow as much of her impatient frustration as she could with the mouthful of potion, and she strained to shout, as loud as possible, “We’re almost there, guys! Almost there—we can do it!”

  And yet, she had said the same thing five minutes earlier. The boss monsters in New Aincrad had no visible HP bars, so they could only estimate their success by the enemy’s actions. The dark giant, which was slow and plodding at the start of the fight, was now raging in a berserk state, so it had to be getting to the end of its stamina, but that was still nothing more than an optimistic hope.

  In a lengthy battle without a visible end, the backup rank only had to worry about the draining of their MP, but the forwards who were up close and personal with the enemy’s furious attacks were draining their own willpower and concentration to fight. In a typical boss strategy, the tanks and damage dealers in the front line were supposed to switch out every five minutes at the most, according to orthodox theory. In that sense, the effort of the Sleeping Knights was extraordinary.

  But their fatigue was impossible to ignore now. The only energetic response to her appeal came from Yuuki. Somehow, the little imp girl had managed to nimbly leap out of the way of the giant’s hammers and chains, delivering steady damage with her sword, for dozens of minutes, without showing a single sign of exhaustion.

  Until now, Asuna had believed that the source of Yuuki’s strength was her unbelievable reaction speed, but now she had to consider a different answer. The strength of her mentality, her ability to keep swinging without losing concentration, might rival even Kirito’s.

  As she cast the umpteenth healing spell of the battle, Asuna compared the sight before her eyes to those in her distant memories.

  On the seventy-fourth floor of the old Aincrad, Kirito had carried on a heroic solitary stand against a similar giant humanoid boss. He had evaded the enemy’s furious onslaught with desperate parrying and leaping, his swords hurtling through the air with machine-gun speed, devastating the enemy’s weak flanks with endless Sword Skill combos…

  “Oh…”

  An idea hit Asuna like a bolt of lightning. The resulting gasp caused her spell chant to fizzle out, producing a little puff of black smoke. She tensed in guilty surprise, but Siune’s spell activated just in the nick of time. The HP bars of the fighters up front in the midst of a cloud of poison breath refilled to the safe zone.

  When Siune looked over to see what had happened, Asuna held up her hand vertically in a sign of apology. “I just thought of something, Siune. Can you handle the healing for thirty seconds?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. I’ve got mana to spare,” replied Siune. Asuna motioned to her again, then raised her wand. She took a sharp breath and began to chant a different spell this time, as fast as she could manage.

  As her spell words stacked up, glittering shards of ice appeared before her, coalescing into four sharp icicles. When the knives of ice were ready, a blue point of light appeared in the center of her vision: the aiming reticle of a nonhoming attack spell.

  Asuna carefully moved her left hand, fine-tuning the location of the blue point, lining it up with the throats of the giant’s two heads. As it stomped closer, it began to raise its two upper arms with their hammers for a massive strike.

  “Yaah!!”

  She swung her wand straight down. The four icicles flew forward, leaving pale blue trails behind them, striking true right into the necks of the two heads.

  “Guohhhh!!”

  The giant issued a tremendous scream, its hammer attack forgotten, and crossed its four arms in front to protect its body. It held that defensive position for five seconds, then raised its arms again, slamming the war hammers into the cobblestones.

  An earthquake rumble ran through the floor, and Asuna had to focus hard on her feet to avoid losing her balance. “As I thought,” she murmured.

  Siune gave her a questioning look, so she explained. “I thought that defensive stance was a random effect, but it’s not. The base of the neck is its weak point. I never gave it much thought, because I figured we wouldn’t have time to search for it…”

  “So we can beat it if we attack there?!”

  “At the very least, it’ll be more efficient…I think. But it’s too high up.”

  The giant was a good thirteen feet tall, so even Talken’s long spear was just short enough not to reach. Out in the open, they could fly up to attack it, but not inside the dungeon.

  “We might need to use Sword Skills and expect a counterattack,” Siune said. Asuna agreed. In order to extend airtime in nonflight areas, the only choices were charging Sword Skills or jumping first before starting a combination attack. Either option would end with a delay, which was likely to result in getting smashed as you fell defenseless to the ground. They could attempt resurrecting a dead player with spells, but the success rate wasn’t perfect, and the casting time was exhaustingly long. In the meantime, they might fall behind on healing and end up dooming the entire party anyway.

  But Yuuki would volunteer to do it without a second thought. Siune, who possessed an iron will at odds with her delicate undine features, nodded firmly.

  “I’m going to go up and tell them the plan. Keep up the healing,” Asuna said.
>
  “Don’t worry about it!”

  Asuna pulled out two of her remaining potions, handed them to Siune, then raced to the front row. She covered the fifty feet in an instant, and as she approached the giant, a chain hurtled toward her from the side. She ducked her head to avoid it, but the sinker at the end caught her on the shoulder, taking HP with it.

  Undeterred, she kept running until she was just behind the party leader. “Yuuki!!”

  The imp girl turned around midswing, her eyes wide. “Asuna! What is it?!”

  “Listen! It has a weak point. If you aim for the base of its necks, you can do major damage.”

  “Weak point?!” Yuuki turned back to the giant and stared at its heads. A hammer like a giant barrel came bearing down from above, so they had to dodge out of the way, then leap straight upward to avoid the shock wave through the floor.

  Yuuki shouted, “It’s too high…I can’t jump up that far!”

  “Good thing we’ve got the perfect stepping stone.” Asuna grinned, glancing over at Tecchi, who was protecting Nori from the swinging chains with a shield the size of a door. Yuuki grinned back instantly, catching on.

  They sprinted forward, swinging around about ten feet behind Tecchi. Yuuki put her free hand to her mouth and bellowed in a way that her tiny body was never meant to. “Tecchi! Next time he swings the hammers, duck down right away!!”

  The large gnome turned back, his small eyes full of surprise, but he nodded his understanding. After the dark titan had finished swinging its chains, it pulled back its boulderlike torso to suck in a huge breath. It held it momentarily, then blew out a black gas from both mouths. They were surrounded by the stench of sulfur, and the HP of everyone in front began to drop.

  But with perfect timing, as soon as the breath attack was over, blue light descended from above, healing their damage. The giant followed up by raising its hammers high overhead in its upper arms. Yuuki tensed, preparing to sprint. Asuna quickly called out to her. “This is our last chance! Good luck, Yuuki!”

  Without turning back, Yuuki said, “I’ve got it, Big Sis!!”

  Big…Sis?

  Asuna blinked in surprise at the unexpected title, but the girl was already off and running. Up ahead, the giant slammed the hammers against the ground, strong enough to break through the earth. Heavy sound rattled around the room, and a circular shock wave spread out from the landing points. Tecchi crouched down to defend.

  Then Yuuki leaped, her left foot landing on Tecchi’s broad left shoulder, then her right on the top of his thick helmet.

  “Uraaaah!!” she screamed, and leaped high into the air, so high that she might have had invisible wings. As she approached the giant’s chest, she drew back the sword in her right hand.

  “Yaaah!!” she shrieked again, thrusting forward with tremendous speed at the base of the two necks. The circular chamber was momentarily lit with blue and purple.

  When a Sword Skill was activated in midair, the user would not fall to the ground until after the skill was entirely finished, even in nonflight areas like the labyrinth tower. Yuuki hovered before the black titan, her right hand flashing like lightning. Five thrusts from upper right to lower left. Another five in an intersecting line. With each jab of the sharp point to the enemy’s critical spot, the giant’s arms twitched, and it howled in pain.

  Ten thrusts in the shape of an X finished, Yuuki twisted hard to the right, placing her left hand against the flat of her blade.

  Asuna had to squint against the flash that erupted from the sword. It was as if Yuuki’s obsidian sword had momentarily turned to diamond. The now pure-white sword plunged into the connecting point between the two necks, the very center of the X, with the ringing of a bell. The sword plunged all the way in to the very hilt.

  The giant’s scream halted, and it froze at an unnatural position. Asuna, Jun, Tecchi, and even Yuuki herself, with her arm outstretched, all sat motionless in the midst of a silent pause in time.

  Eventually, around the sword’s point of entry, myriad white cracks formed in the giant’s black skin. The cracks gave way to the sheer pressure of the light from within, growing longer and thicker. They slowly engulfed the creature’s torso and limbs.

  With a sound like a dead, dry tree cracking, the dark titan split into two, right along the joint of the two necks. Like a glass sculpture being crushed under pressure, the thirteen-foot-tall body burst into pieces of all sizes. The blast of white light blew outward with physical force, ruffling Asuna’s hair. A mixture of deep bass and screaming treble bounced off the walls of the dome and eventually trailed away in a sound of hard metal.

  The blue guide flames that lit the circular dome in eerie light shook briefly, then turned to the ordinary orange. Suddenly, the boss chamber was lit with bright, natural light, driving away the last remnants of spookiness.

  With a heavy clank, the door on the far end, which led to the next floor, unlocked itself.

  “…Ha-ha…We…did it…” Asuna rasped, falling to the floor. When she looked back at the spot where the boss had disappeared, she met the dazed gaze of Yuuki.

  The small imp girl blinked quickly for several seconds, then a faint smile spread over her lips. Eventually it grew into a more familiar full smile, until it reached a level of radiance she had never before shown.

  Yuuki rushed toward Asuna, thrusting her sword noisily back into its sheath. When she was still a good distance away, she leaped, arms wide, and crashed right into Asuna.

  “Oof!” Asuna grunted theatrically and flopped onto the floor with Yuuki. After a brief moment of staring into each other’s eyes at point-blank range, they shouted in unison.

  “Aha-ha-ha…We did it…We won, Asuna!”

  “Yeah, we did it! Aaah…I’m exhausted!!”

  They fell back onto the floor, limbs splayed, Yuuki resting on top. Around them, their five companions got up from similar positions of fatigue and assumed bold victory poses, cheering raucously.

  Suddenly, Asuna realized that she was hearing a heavy sound from the direction of her head. She craned her neck and saw, upside down, that the entrance doors were slowly opening. Countless silhouettes were crammed into the space.

  It was, of course, the raid party that had attempted to block their way, plunging in through the doors with angry bellows. Their attitude and momentum slowed quickly when they recognized the bright orange light filling the chamber. They looked around in surprise.

  The long-haired salamander at the very head of the fifty-man team met Asuna’s gaze. His face evolved from shock to understanding to frustration, which brought a savage thrill to her heart.

  “Heh-heh…”

  Asuna, Yuuki, and the others all smirked, flashing the V-sign as they lay on the floor.

  After the guild moved on—but not before several dozen warnings and parting remarks—Asuna and the Sleeping Knights opened the door in the back of the chamber. They climbed the spiral staircase and emerged from a little pavilion into the unexplored twenty-eighth floor. They flew straight to the nearby city, where Yuuki activated the portal gate in the town square, thus completing the boss quest.

  They used the glowing blue gate to immediately return to Rombal, where they formed a circle in a nook of the plaza and exchanged high fives.

  “Good job, everyone! It’s finally over!” Asuna said with a smile, but she felt a pang of sadness. As a simple hired sword, the completion of their quest meant a farewell was coming.

  But no, they could still be friends. There was plenty of time for that, she considered. At that moment, Siune clapped her on the shoulder. Her delicate features were deadly serious.

  “No, Asuna. It’s not over yet.”

  “…Huh?”

  “Something very important is still left.”

  The look on her face reminded Asuna about the Monument of Swordsmen in Blackiron Palace. That was right—their goal wasn’t explicitly to beat the boss, but to leave all of their names on the monument, as proof of their guild’s existence. It was to
o early to celebrate, then.

  But Asuna was not expecting Siune to say, “We need to have a party.”

  Her knees buckled and she shook a fist in mock outrage, then set her hands against her waist. “Yes, you’re right! We need to celebrate.”

  Jun smirked and said, “After all, we’ve got the budget for it now! Where will we hold it? Should we rent out a fancy restaurant in some big city?”

  “Oh…”

  Asuna looked at the rest of the group, steepling her fingers with a sudden idea. She’d only known these people for two days, but she was absolutely certain that her old friends would get along with them just fine.

  “Well, if that’s what we’re going to do…why don’t you come to my player home instead? It’s a bit small, though.”

  Yuuki’s face suddenly burst into sunshine. But for some reason, her smile melted away like snow under heat. She bit her lip and hung her head.

  “Um…Yuuki? What’s wrong?” Asuna asked, surprised. But the normally cheerful girl would not raise her head. Siune spoke for her instead.

  “…Well…I’m sorry, Asuna. I hope you won’t take offense, but…you see, we…”

  But she never finished that sentence. Yuuki sucked in a sharp breath, face still downcast, and grabbed Siune’s hand. The girl’s lips were shut tight, and there was a painful look in her eyes as she stared at the older woman. Her lips twitched a few times, ready to say something, but no sound emerged.

  Siune seemed to understand what she meant, however. A faint smile played over her lips. She patted Yuuki on the head and turned to Asuna. “Thank you, Asuna. We will honor your invitation and pay a visit.”

  Asuna gave them a quizzical look, uncertain of what their little exchange meant. However, Nori scattered the odd atmosphere with a hearty cheer. “First thing we gotta buy is booze! A whole barrel of it!”

  “You won’t find your favorite distilled sweet potato liquor here, Nori,” Talken interjected, pushing up his glasses.