Mother's Rosary

  In November 2022, the winter of her last year of middle school, Asuna fell prey to SAO and wasn’t rescued until January of 2025, exactly one year ago. That made this her first visit to the family gathering in four years. The main family house was a massive mansion in the Kyoto teahouse style. She was put into a tight, long-sleeved kimono and forced to greet countless relatives, starting with her grandparents, until she began to feel like an NPC whose only purpose was offering formal pleasantries.

  Still, she enjoyed seeing her cousins again, but there was something in their eyes when they rejoiced at seeing her alive and well that she did not like.

  They all pitied her. They showered her with sympathy: the first competitor to fall off the track in the race they’d all been in since the moment they were born. She wasn’t just overthinking this; ever since she was a child, Asuna had known how to read what people were thinking from their demeanor.

  Naturally, she was now a completely different person than she had been before. That world, and more important, that boy, had reborn her into someone else, whether she wanted it or not. So the pity of her cousins, aunts, and uncles passed through her mind without raising so much as a ripple. She was a swordsman above all else, someone who fought with her own strength—a belief that still remained firm within her heart, even after the passing of the world that taught her that.

  But she knew that her cousins, who only saw VRMMOs as an evil influence, would never understand her philosophy. Neither would her mother, who was irritable during the entire stay in Kyoto.

  There wasn’t a shred left of Asuna’s former belief that she had to get into a good college to land a good job. She liked her current school very much, and over the next year, she would spend her time finding what she truly wanted to do. Her ultimate goal in life, of course, was to start a family with a boy one year her junior, but in the real world this time.

  Such was the thought Asuna kept in her mind as she grinned her way through her relatives’ prying questions, but the one event that finally got to her occurred on the day before she returned to Tokyo, when she found herself isolated in a back room of the main mansion with a second cousin who was two years her elder.

  He was the son of some kind of executive at the family’s bank, and he went on and on endlessly about his major in college, the bank where he was already promised a job out of school, what his position would be, and how he would rise through the ranks. Asuna kept her smile plastered on her face to feign interest, but in the back of her mind, all she sensed was some kind of underhanded scheme on the part of the adults, in the way they had isolated the two of them like this…

  “Are you listening, Asuna?”

  She came back to her senses when Lisbeth poked Asuna’s foot beneath the table.

  “Oh! S-sorry. Just thinking about some unpleasant stuff.”

  “Oh yeah, what’s that? Did they try to set you up with a husband in Kyoto?”

  “…”

  “…Why is your face twitching? Wait…are you saying I was—”

  “No, you’re wrong! It was nothing!” Asuna protested, shaking her head furiously. She tapped the lip of her empty mug and chugged down the oddly purple tea that appeared. Once done with that, she was ready to change the subject by any means necessary.

  “So…this really tough player. Is it a PKer?”

  “No, a PVPer—proper duels. You know how, north of the main city on the twenty-fourth floor, there’s a little tourist island with a huge tree on it? Every day at three o’clock, the duelist shows up at the foot of the tree and duels challengers one by one.”

  “Oooh. Is it someone from a tournament?”

  “Nope, totally new face. But the skill numbers must be off the charts, so maybe they converted from another game. At first, there were just posts on MMO Tomorrow’s forum looking for opponents. So about thirty people got together to show ‘this ALO newb’ a lesson about running your mouth…”

  “And they got whooped?”

  “Every single one. Not a single person managed to score more than thirty percent damage, so it was legit overkill.”

  “I don’t know if I can believe this.”

  Silica butted in, chewing on a fruit tart. “It took me almost half a year to learn how to handle air battle, and this person was just zipping around right after conversion!”

  “Conversion” was the system for transferring characters between all the VRMMOs created from the Seed platform, which included ALO. A character could be taken from one game to another relatively easily, keeping a similar level of base stats. However, no money or items could be transferred. Naturally, the finer points of mastering a new game had to come from experience.

  “Did you try, Silica?” Asuna asked. Silica shook her head, eyes wide.

  “No way! I watched the duels, but I knew I couldn’t win. Liz and Leafa tried, though. They’re both the bold type, I suppose.”

  “Oh, shuddup,” Liz quipped.

  “It was a learning experience,” said Leafa. Asuna smiled at the banter but was surprised on the inside. Lisbeth was one thing—she was playing a combat-weak race, and she prioritized her blacksmithing skills. But anyone who could defeat Leafa—probably the best air warrior of the sylphs—was a force to be reckoned with. And fresh after conversion? It was nearly unthinkable.

  “Sounds like the real deal to me. I’m starting to get intrigued.”

  “Heh! I figured you’d say that, Asuna. The only ones in the monthly tournaments who haven’t tried their hand yet are big shots like Lady Sakuya and General Eugene, and they aren’t really in a position to engage in street duels.”

  “But if you keep overwhelming everybody, won’t you just run out of opponents eventually? Unlike the tournaments, a street duel has really stiff experience penalties for dying, right?”

  “You’d think so, but no—the draw is what’s being wagered,” Silica interjected again.

  “Oh? Are they betting some kind of superrare item?”

  “It’s not an item. It’s an Original Sword Skill. A supertough mega-attack.”

  Asuna just barely managed to keep herself from mimicking a classic Kirito move and ended up shrugging with a whistle of amazement instead.

  “An OSS, huh? What kind? How many hits?”

  “Um, from what I saw, it’s an all-purpose, one-handed sword attack. The thing is, it’s an eleven-hit combo.”

  “Eleven!”

  This time, she couldn’t help but purse her lips and let out a high-pitched whistle.

  Sword Skills were the signature gameplay system of the old Sword Art Online. Each category of weapon had its own preprogrammed skills, from deadly single-blow attacks to furious combinations. What set them apart from ordinary weapon attacks was a particular initial motion that the game recognized, at which point it would automatically “assist” players by moving them through the entire attack at maximum speed. Each Sword Skill had unique visual and audio effects that distinguished it, and using them made the player feel like an invincible superwarrior.

  As part of the massive update that added Aincrad to ALO, the game’s new administrators undertook the bold decision to reinstate the Sword Skill system almost exactly as it had existed in SAO.

  In essence, the very fundamental battle system of New ALO underwent a revolution. Naturally, it led to major debates among the player base, but once the dissenters had a chance to experience Sword Skills for themselves, they were all entranced.

  Until that point, all the flashiest effects of ALO were the sole province of magic spells, and magic was also superior in accuracy and range, which left close-combat physical fighters in a small minority. The advent of Sword Skills helped even out that balance. Even more than half a year since the update, the combination of air battle and Sword Skills was producing heated commentary and debate among the game’s community.

  But the adventurous new developers were not content just to borrow the Sword Skill system they’d inherited from those who came before them.

  They developed a
nd implemented a new addition to the system called Original Sword Skills. As the name suggested, these were user-created skills. Unlike the preexisting skills that had specific motions and details already created by the devs, these were Sword Skills that players could create and register for themselves.

  As soon as it was unlocked, countless players pulled out their weapons in town and wilderness, envisioning their own supercool finishing move—and were instantly plunged into deep despair and frustration.

  The method to register an Original Sword Skill (OSS) was extremely simple.

  Just open the menu, go to the OSS tab and, from there, into the “skill entry” mode. Hit the skill-recording button, swing your weapon to your heart’s content, then hit the stop button when done. It was as simple as that.

  However, for the user-created ultimate attack to be recognized by the game as a Sword Skill, it had to fulfill certain extremely stringent requirements. Nearly all variations of simple slashes and thrusts already existed in the game as Sword Skills. That meant that any OSS had to be a combination attack, by necessity. But there had to be absolutely no waste in the movement, trajectory, balance of weight, and so on, and on top of that, the action had to match the speed of the finished Sword Skill.

  In other words, the player had to prove the nearly paradoxical: that he could replicate his combination at superhuman speed already, without any help from the system.

  The only way to overcome this hurdle was a blinding amount of practice and repetition. The movements had to be burned into the synapses of the brain.

  Almost everyone who tried it gave up on the dream of his or her own super–combo attack, unable to handle the endless slog of so much practice. But a few hardy souls managed to develop and register their own OSSs, earning them an honor much like the classic sword schools of the feudal era. Indeed, some of them went on to start guilds titled the “ School,” effectively running their own in-game dojos.

  It was the “skill inheritance” function of the OSS system that made it possible for such schools to exist. Anyone who successfully created an OSS could pass a first-generation copy to other players through an item called a Skill Tome.

  An OSS was devastating against monsters as well as other players. Everyone wanted one. Soon the asking price for secondhand skills grew astronomical, with Skill Tomes of combinations of more than five hits ranking among the most expensive items in ALO’s economy. The strongest widely known OSS at present was General Eugene’s eight-part “Volcanic Blazer,” but he had no need for money and hadn’t taught it to anyone yet.

  For her own part, Asuna had successfully created a five-part OSS after months of practice, but the process had drained her so completely that she didn’t feel like working on a new skill anytime soon.

  So it was within this context that the mysterious “Absolute Sword” appeared, wielding an unprecedented eleven-hit skill.

  “Well, that would explain why everyone wants a duel, then. Has everyone seen this Skill for themselves?” Asuna asked. All three of them shook their heads. Lisbeth spoke for the group.

  “No, apparently it was displayed for all to see on the very first day of these street duels but hasn’t been used since…I guess you could say that no one’s been able to even pressure the Absolute Sword enough to elicit the use of the OSS.”

  “Not even Leafa?”

  Leafa’s shoulders slumped. “It was a close fight until both of us were at about sixty percent…and it took nothing more than default moves to finish me off the rest of the way.”

  “Wow…Oh, that reminds me, I’m missing some basic details. What race, what weapon are we talking about?”

  “Oh, an imp. And the weapon was a one-handed sword, but one almost as thin as Asuna’s rapier. Basically, they were superfast. Even the normal attacks were about as quick as a skill…You could barely follow it with the naked eye. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “A speed type, huh? If even Leafa couldn’t keep up with it, then I don’t stand a chance…Oh!” Asuna suddenly remembered something important. “When it comes to speed, the most ridiculous person of all is sleeping right over there. What about Kirito? I bet he’d be interested in this.”

  Lisbeth, Silica, and Leafa all shared a look, then burst into laughter at once.

  “Wh-what? What is it?” Asuna stammered.

  To her shock, Leafa giggled. “Hee hee. Oh, Big Brother already tried. He was very cool in defeat, though.”

  “Def…?”

  He lost. Kirito lost.

  Asuna’s mouth fell open and stayed there for several seconds.

  To Asuna, Kirito as a swordsman had become a stand-in for the concept of “absolute power.” In both SAO and ALO, as far as Asuna knew, the only person to ever beat Kirito in a one-on-one duel was Heathcliff, commander of the Knights of the Blood, and that was only due to his unfair advantage as the (secret) game administrator.

  Though she’d never told Lisbeth and the others about it, Asuna herself had once crossed blades with Kirito in a deadly serious duel in SAO. It happened around the time that Asuna had assumed the lead of the KoB forces on the front line as the vice commander of the guild, just after she first met Kirito.

  There was a face-off about the strategy to defeat a particular field boss, with the split happening between the KoB’s speed-prioritizing faction and Kirito, who spoke for a number of other solo players. There was no compromise to be found between the two sides, so it ended with a virtual coin flip: a duel between the leader of each faction.

  At the time, Asuna already had an interest in Kirito as a person, but the rest of her was trying to snuff out that desire. She believed that personal sentiment could not be allowed to override the duty of beating the game.

  Asuna thought that a duel was the perfect opportunity to quash the weaker side of her heart. By defeating Kirito and efficiently dispatching the boss after that, she could regain her logical, bloodless side.

  But she did not know about the hidden strength behind the otherwise lackluster-looking swordsman.

  Their duel was a truly ferocious battle. With each collision of their blades, Asuna felt her troubles escaping from her mind, leaving only the delight of fighting against a worthy foe. For nearly ten minutes, they exchanged brain pulses on a level that she had never experienced before, but she didn’t even register the passage of time.

  Asuna lost that fight. She reacted to Kirito’s desperate feint—he reached for the second, unequipped sword on his back, for reasons she learned later—and he made use of that opportunity to land a clean hit on her.

  Against her rational desire, Asuna’s romantic leanings became impossible to ignore after this duel, and in addition to that personal sentiment, Kirito’s freewheeling sword style put another impression into her mind.

  He was the strongest swordsman alive. Even now that the Black Swordsman of SAO was no more, that image remained as fresh and vivid as ever.

  So the revelation that this “Absolute Sword” had beaten Kirito was so unthinkable, so shocking, that shivers ran across her skin.

  Asuna looked from Leafa to Lisbeth and rasped, “Was Kirito…fighting his hardest?”

  “Hmmm,” Lisbeth mumbled, crossing her arms. “I hate to say it, but when you get to fighting at that level, I can’t tell what’s serious and what’s not…I mean, Kirito wasn’t using two swords, so in that sense, I guess he wasn’t fighting at his best. Besides…”

  She trailed off and looked over at the sleeping Kirito, ruby eyes glittering with the reflection of the fire. There was a faint smile curling the sides of her mouth.

  “I get the feeling that in a normally functioning game, Kirito won’t ever fight with all of his strength again. Meaning that, the only time he fights his hardest is when the game is no longer a game, and the virtual world becomes real…Which means it’s for the best if he never feels he needs to fight his hardest again. He’s already got a knack for getting involved in trouble.”

  “…”

  Asuna stared
at the sleeping black-haired warrior herself, then nodded. “Yeah…you’re right.”

  Leafa and Silica bobbed their heads as well, each bearing expressions of their own understanding. Leafa, who was Kirito’s sister in real life, eventually broke the silence.

  “Well, as far as I could tell…he was taking it completely seriously. At the very least, he definitely was not going easy on his opponent. Plus…”

  “…What?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, but just before the duel finished, they were locked to the hilt for a moment, and I think I saw him speaking with the Absolute Sword about something…After that, they took their distance again, and he wasn’t able to dodge away from the next charge attack…”

  “Hmm…I wonder what they were talking about.”

  “Well, I asked, but he wouldn’t tell me. I feel like there’s something there, though.”

  “I see. In that case, he probably won’t tell me, either.” Asuna looked down at her hands and mumbled, “I guess the only way to find out is to ask this Absolute Sword directly.”

  Lisbeth raised her eyebrows. “You gonna fight?”

  “Well, I doubt I’ll win. It sounds like this Absolute Sword person came to ALO for a purpose. Something more than just challenging people to duels.”

  “Yeah, I get the same feeling. But I bet you won’t learn the answer unless you put up as good a fight as Kirito did. Which character you gonna go as?”

  Asuna thought over Lisbeth’s question. In addition to her undine fencer Asuna, converted from her old SAO player data, she also had a sylph named Erika whom she’d started from scratch. She decided to try out a different character for the simple reason of wearing a different face now and then.

  Erika’s build was a dagger-based close-combat fighter, which made her better suited for duels than Asuna, who was half healer. But she shrugged immediately.

  “I’ll go with the one I’m more familiar with. If the opponent’s a speed type, it’ll be more about reaction time than pure DPS numbers. Will you guys be coming along?”