That wasn’t sacred arts—it was a “secret form” passed down within each style of swordsmanship.
“…Zakkarite-style secret technique—Bluewind Slash.”
The stands rumbled again with surprise, including the eastern half this time. The judge onstage looked toward the judging tent for help, but they didn’t know what to do, either. As the name secret form suggested, these were the deepest secrets of the style and not meant to be thrown about at a moment’s notice. But that was entirely up to the user’s discretion, not encoded in law, so if Egome decided he wanted to use it, nobody could stop him.
The problem was, these secret techniques were far more powerful than ordinary forms, and once started, they could not be stopped. A power apart from the user’s will, something similar to yet different from sacred arts, would largely possess the body. In other words, if Kirito failed to block the attack, Egome would not be able to stop himself from cutting flesh and spilling blood—a fact that he knew full well. If he was using the attack at all, he must believe it would be the fault of his target if bloodshed ensued.
In that case, there was a way to halt Egome’s form.
Kirito had to lower his sword and leave himself completely defenseless. In that instant, Egome’s rationale would collapse, and his use of the secret form would be a clear violation of the Taboo Index. Even the noblest blood could not override the authority of the Axiom Church. It was an absolute boundary etched into the existence of every human unit.
Put down your sword, the observer wanted to command Kirito. Of course, Kirito would realize this himself. Go on, put it down…
“…Secret technique, huh?” Kirito whispered, quietly enough that only the being atop his head could hear.
Like Egome, he released his doublehanded grip, but rather than setting it down, he held it at his left side. The moment he paused, his blade flashed a brilliant purple.
Again, the entire crowd and team of judges held their breath. The only exception was Eugeo, who had already won his fight on the other stage and was now shaking his head in disbelief.
Egome’s face trembled and warped, and he exposed his teeth.
“Kyieaaaa!!”
He screeched like a large avian object, and his form lurched into motion. His left foot stomped forward, and the sword on his right shoulder swung forward on a diagonal path.
For an instant, the observer contemplated interfering. But it was too late for sacred arts now. It would have to leap down from Kirito’s head and expose its true form. It would be a complete violation of its orders—but even punishment from Master would be preferable to losing this surveillance target…
But then—
“Nshh!!” Kirito hissed, and shot forward.
He plunged straight toward the pale-blue slice. His right hand flashed, tracing a bold purple curve through the air. Left to right. At the same time, right to left.
A tremendous, ringing clash echoed beyond the walls of the central grounds, perhaps even to every corner of the town of Zakkaria.
A silver light shone high in the sky, catching the reflection of Solus at its peak, before falling back to earth. It landed and sank upright into the red-marble stage—a blade snapped at its base.
Kirito’s move was so fast, even the observer couldn’t catch all the details. But it certainly saw enough.
The sword had swung from left to right, then immediately turned back to go right to left. It was so quick that it was as though two swords were swung at once. But in truth, there was only one metallic reverberation. The doubled swings caught Egome’s sword precisely at a point, like the jaws of a wild beast, and crushed it—a dueling sword, half-damaged, destroyed a finer blade five levels its superior in priority.
Egome stared down at the remaining handle of his weapon, his eyes as wide as saucers, trembling slightly. From his own finished position to the left, Kirito murmured into Egome’s nearby ear.
“That’s the two-part Aincrad-style attack…Snakebite.”
The instant it heard that, all of the observer’s fine hairs stood on end.
This Kirito unit was so far beyond expectations that he was unnerving, alien. In the 378-year history of the Underworld, he was an extremely rare case…Possibly even as noteworthy as Master or the Great One…
It did not know the nature of what was racing through its mind. It did not even register that presence. It just repeated one thought.
I must see Kirito and Eugeo’s journey to its end.
Surely, that will lead me to…
The Zakkaria Swordfighting Tournament in the year 378 of the Human Era was won by two youngsters with no calling from a tiny northern village, earning them entrance into the Zakkaria garrison. It was an unprecedented result.
In the end, Kirito only (briefly) struggled in that first fight and did not need to use his two-part attack after that. It should come as no surprise that the following spring, Kirito and Eugeo earned the recommendation needed to test for the Imperial Swordcraft Academy.
CHAPTER FOUR
IMPERIAL SWORDCRAFT ACADEMY, MARCH 380 HE
1
Hopefully we won’t have to worry about fighting girls until the Four-Empire Holy Unification Tournament.
I once said something like this to Eugeo, just before the Zakkaria Tournament. That was a year and a half ago.
It was two years ago that we’d felled the Gigas Cedar blocking our way out of Rulid Village. Six months later, we joined the Zakkaria garrison, then ascended to Centoria six months after that, making it one year since we’d knocked on the door of the academy.
They were long, long days that happened in a blink, but thinking back on them made my head spin. Two years was the same amount of time that I had spent in Aincrad, after all.
Fortunately (if you could call it that), this virtual realm called the Underworld, which I was diving into through circumstances unknown, worked on some nearly unimaginable super-tech.
By my estimation, the Fluctlight Acceleration function, which sped up the user’s mind and shrank perceived time to a fraction of its regular speed, was working at a factor of around a thousand to one. That meant that for all this time I’d experienced, only eighteen hours had passed for Kazuto Kirigaya in the real world since the start of the dive in the Soul Translator.
The thought that the two years I’d spent—from waking up in the forest near Rulid until reaching Norlangarth’s Imperial Swordcraft Academy in Centoria—had actually happened in less than a day was a mind-bending concept but also a saving grace. It meant that at worst, the amount of time I’d been missing wasn’t actually that long.
I didn’t want my parents, Suguha, my friends, and certainly not Yui nor Asuna to worry about me. On top of that, I knew that they would never be content with just worrying, which was what weighed on my mind.
At any rate, given the possibility that I would cause them distress by doing so, I had vowed to avoid unnecessary feminine contact whenever possible here. I’d sworn it when I left Rulid—thank goodness that Eugeo was male—and it was my intent to honor the pledge that made me say those words in Zakkaria.
How could I have guessed that in the year since coming to Centoria, I would be doing most of my swordfighting against a woman?
“This is a recap of the entire year, so treat it that way.”
That cool order came from an older student in a customized uniform, mostly purple, with her dark-brown hair tied into a long ponytail—my upperclassman.
“Understood, Miss Liena,” I answered, and drew the wooden practice sword from the leather holder on my left waist. Yes, it was only a wooden sword, but it was made of polished platinum oak, the very finest of materials, shining as though it were metal. It had no edge, meaning that it wouldn’t cause any life damage if it brushed clothes, but in terms of item priority, it was far higher than the crude metal swords we had received at the Zakkaria Tournament.
Once I had readied my blade in a normal stance, my opponent smoothly drew hers. Her stance was a bit unorthodox, a sideways lean with
her right side forward and the sword held diagonally so that it hid her left arm. While it was strange, this was actually the basic stance for her family’s own sword school, the “Serlut Battle Style.”
“…Since it’s the last time, you can even use your left hand,” I offered with a cheeky grin. She murmured in the affirmative, totally serious, and reached behind her back and under a large ornamental sash. I had no idea what she would pull out until the duel started.
Despite my aforementioned oath about women, I couldn’t deny that the girl standing ten mels ahead was beautiful.
She was even a little bit taller than me, and I was currently five foot six in real life. Her tied-up hair flowed in waves down her back, and the long lilac ribbon that bound it up complemented the dark-brown color well. Her beauty combined the fierceness of a warrior with the pride of nobility. Her dark-blue eyes put me in mind of an evening sky.
She wore a crisp, fitted jacket and a billowing long skirt, both of which were glacial purple. It wasn’t a flashy color but, mysteriously enough, on her the uniform looked more dazzling than any dress. Of course, due to my position, I also knew full well how the muscles underneath it were hard as steel.
“…This will be the last one,” said Sortiliena Serlut, child of Norlangarth nobility and second-seat elite disciple at the Imperial Swordcraft Academy.
As a primary trainee at the academy and her page, I nodded silently and dropped my center of weight.
My everyday schedule of study and practical exercises lasted from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, when I began my hour-long duties as her page. I was always mentally and physically exhausted by this point, but when I faced off against Sortiliena, all the fatigue vanished. As it was now after five o’clock, we were the only two people in the training hall of the elite disciples’ dorm that stood on high ground within the academy campus.
Right about now, Eugeo would be fretting to himself about the fact that I was breaking the curfew of the common room at the primary trainees’ dorm, but he was also serving as a page for another disciple, so he would understand.
I focused on the task at hand and let my sword become an extension of my mind. The color of Liena’s eyes darkened, and the air seemed to crackle with tension. The flame in the lamp that lit the wide training hall flickered, unable to stand the pressure.
We moved in unison, our breathing unified, even without a judge there to signal the start.
Liena was called the “Walking Tactics Manual”; tricks and feints would not work on her. I crossed the span between us in a straight line and thrust forward a vertical slash without any warm-up.
If I tried this in the practical exercise portion of the day, the instructor would give me an earful, but in this duel, using a wimpy Norkia-style form was a surefire way to lose. As far as I had experienced, Liena’s Serlut style was the most practically suited to battle in all of the Underworld.
She blocked my quick strike with the wooden sword in her right hand. I hardly felt any impact; her wrist, shoulder, and back curved gently to slide the blow along the surface of the blade and disperse the shock. This secret art of the Serlut style was called “Flowing Water,” and while I’d been studying it under her tutelage for a year, I still hadn’t mastered its use.
As an aside, the written language used in this world was straightforward Japanese (with a few foreign loanwords), but the number of kanji they used was rather small—about a third of the JIS first-rank characters, or only about a thousand in total. Given those limitations, the creativity that the Underworldians utilized to name their skills was impressive. For now, they had only fairy tales of the sort told to children, but in another century, they could be writing full-blown novels. If those were pulled out to sell in the real world and became a hit, how crazy would that be…?
I cast aside this mental detour and leaped forward and to the right. I’d learned through hard experience that if I tried to fight the direction of her Flowing Water, I would suffer a painful counter.
I reversed in midair and landed near the wall of the training hall, then launched my right foot off the gleaming black paneling for another charge—when she finally moved her left hand.
Her fingers traced an arc of white light from behind her back around to the front. Naturally, it was not a light element produced from sacred arts. It belonged to a whip of finely braided white leather: her favorite weapon aside from the sword.
The practice whip made of soft uru goat leather did not cause much life damage on a direct blow, but it was painful enough to bring tears to the eyes. If I tried to parry with my sword, it would wrap around the blade the moment it made contact and render my weapon essentially useless. But if I stepped back, I would have to continue retreating to avoid a second blow, then a third.
I twisted as hard as I could to the left to avoid the whip. It grazed my right cheek and passed, and I hurtled forward. The end of the whip snapped in midair behind me and curled like a snake as it pulled back. I had to close the distance before her next attack. I determined that an ordinary dash wouldn’t cut it, so I pulled back instead, holding my sword parallel to my right leg. I leaned low, low, low, and my blade began to glow a sky-blue.
Liena’s eyes narrowed. Her left hand snapped open, tossing the whip aside so she could brace the pommel of her sword.
My body shot forward as if struck by a giant invisible hand. It was the Aincrad-style—which was, of course, just a name I had given to the original sword skills of SAO—one-handed low-thrust attack Rage Spike. I turned into a gust of wind, closing the twenty feet between us.
For her part, Liena pulled her sword behind her right side and stepped forward with her left foot. The wooden sword glowed a jade-green—the Serlut-style secret technique Ring Vortex.
My sword jumped up from the right, while hers rotated on a level plane, until they connected with a tremendous clash, briefly illuminating the dim training hall with blue and green.
I pushed upward, jamming our swords at the hilt, so that Liena’s face was just inches away. Her expression was cool; there wasn’t a drop of sweat on her pale forehead. But if I let up on the forward pressure just the tiniest bit, she would easily topple me backward.
Human abilities in this world—our “character stats,” if you will—were a bit tricky.
On a Stacia Window, the only numbers listed were the current and maximum life points, an object control (OC) authority level, and a system control (SC) authority level.
My first working theory, which was admittedly simplistic, was that OC level involved manipulating weapons, while SC level involved sacred arts—in other words, physical strength and magic intelligence. But actual physical strength did not correspond directly to OC level. A number of variables affected it, such as age, physique, health status, and long-term experience.
Upon reflection, if OC authority was really all there was to strength, then if a young child’s level rose abnormally through some particular event or circumstance, he or she would suddenly be an extremely hardy youth. Based on the reason for this world’s existence, such an irregular occurrence would be undesirable.
I hadn’t actually checked for myself, but I was pretty certain that my OC level was well above Liena’s. The fact that we were at a total standstill spoke to the tremendous amount of training she’d undergone. Eugeo and I hadn’t missed our morning practice once in two years, but the word possessed didn’t even begin to describe her level of self-discipline. That hard work both increased her physical prowess statistic and gave her a different kind of “strength” that could not be expressed with numbers.
But most frightening of all was that out of the twelve elite disciples at the academy, she was still the second seat—meaning there was someone else even greater.
Next month, Eugeo and I would take the test to be secondary trainees. The twelve who scored highest would be placed in the ranks of elite disciples—what you might call “scholarship students.” We wanted to join their ranks, of course, but ultimately we nee
ded to occupy the first and second seats (essentially the top two ranks of the yearly class). Otherwise, we wouldn’t get to participate in the post-graduation tournament in the presence of the emperor—the Norlangarth Imperial Battle Tournament.
In the two-year Swordcraft Academy, there were exactly 120 students in the first year. That meant we had to exceed all 118 other classmates—but the thought that even nearly invincible Liena wasn’t the top of her class was honestly making me nervous, if not downright frightened…
“You’ve grown, Kirito,” she said, right next to my ear. It was as though she had read my mind. Pushing back to counter the unrelenting pressure, I managed to shake my head.
“No…I’ve still got a long way to go.”
“Don’t be modest. You’ve at least figured out how to handle my whip.”
“And no idea how to use one, myself.”
Her shining lips formed a little smile. “You don’t need to. And here at the very end, I have a question…There’s more to your Aincrad style than what you’ve shown me, isn’t there?”
Words caught in my throat. The distraction caused my sword to falter just an inch or two, so that she was looking down at me.
The lady swordsman’s dusk-blue eyes stared into me as she said, “The reason I chose you as page a year ago was because I sensed something like a fresh breeze within your sword. Something fundamentally different from the official Norkia style the academy teaches…A type of swordfighting meant to win, not for show. I believe that the Serlut style is also practical, but the last year has taught me that it’s still quite stiff compared to yours.”
My eyes bulged; I had no response to this confession.
It was only natural that we used our swords differently. I was not from the Underworld. As the name suggested, my Aincrad style of swordsmanship was brought here from that floating castle. From a game of death, where every battle risked the ultimate price.
Here in the Underworld, there was essentially no battle. All fights were competitive “matches”—in the regional tournaments, they ended short of impact, while the higher events in Centoria were finished after the first solid blow. If there was no risk to the combatant’s life, it was only natural that their swordplay tended toward the demonstrative.