Unaware of where I was until just before reaching the door, I stopped moving my feet before colliding with it.
Beyond that, was Asuna -. It was the only thing I could think of at that point.
Lifting my trembling right hand, the card slipped out of my hand due to sweat. I picked the card back up and inserted it into the slit in the metal plate this time. Holding my breath, I quickly slid it all the way down.
The indicator light color changed, and the door opened with the sound of a motor.
Softly, the scent of flowers poured out.
The indoor lighting had been dimmed. A faint white light was coming through the window, reflected off of the snow outside.
The center of the hospital room was covered by a big curtain. There was a gel bed on the other side.
I could not move. Could not continue. I could not make a sound.
Suddenly, an unexpected voice whispered in my ear.
‘Hey - she is waiting for you.’
I felt a hand gently push my shoulder.
Yui? Suguha? In the three worlds, it was the voice of someone who helped me. I took a step with my right foot. Then another step, and another step.
I stood in front of the curtains. I reached out, grasped the ends.
And pulled.
With a faint sound, like the wind across the prairie, the white veil shook and drifted.
“…Ah.”
A small sound leaked from my throat.
A girl in thin medical examination clothes which resembled a light snow-white dress, sat up in the bed with her back to me, looking out the dark window on the other side. Her long lustrous hair was fluttering in the light from the dancing snow. Both of her hands lay in front of her body, holding a shining, deep-blue egg-shaped thing.
NERvGear. The crown of thorns that bound the girl had finished its duty and fallen silent.
“Asuna.”
I whispered in a voice that was barely a sound. The girl’s body greatly shook - moving the flower scent filled air, and turned around.
Still waking up from a long slumber, her hazel eyes were filled with a dreamy light as she looked straight at me.
How many times had I dreamed of this? How many times had I prayed for this?
Out of her light-colored, wet lips, emerged a gentle smile.
“Kirito-kun.”
This was the first time I heard it, that voice. It was very different from the voice I heard everyday in that world. However, shaking the air, shaking my sense of hearing, that voice that reached my consciousness, was many times, a great many times more wonderful.
Asuna removed her left hand from the NERvGear and held it out. That alone took considerable strength and she trembled.
Like touching a statue of snow, I gently, gently took that hand. It was painfully small and thin. However, it was warm. Like trying to heal every wound, the warmth seeped through that contact. The strength left my legs unexpectedly, and I entrusted my body to the edge of the bed.
Asuna reached out her right hand, gently touching my injured cheek, she tilted her head in question.
“Ah… the last battle, really last battle ended just a little while ago. Finished…”
While saying that, from both of my eyes, tears overflowed at last. Drops fell on my cheek, flowing to Asuna’s finger, and shining in the light from the window.
“…I’m sorry, I can’t hear properly yet. But… I understand, Kirito-kun’s words.”
Asuna stroked my cheek with care and whispered. My soul trembled as I heard that voice.
“It’s finished… finally… finally… I meet you.”
Tears which shone silver streamed down Asuna’s cheeks. Eyes wet, staring into mine as if she was conveying her feelings, she said:
“Nice to meet you, I am Yuuki Asuna. - I’m back, Kirito-kun.”
I answered, stopping the crying in my throat.
“I am Kirigaya Kazuto… Welcome back, Asuna.”
Our faces came together and our lips came in contact. Lightly. Then again. Strongly.
I placed my arms around her delicate body and embraced her.
The soul went on a journey. From one world to another world. From this life into the next life.
And, longing for someone. Strongly calling to each other.
In the past, in the big castle floating in the sky, a young man dreaming of being a swordsman, met a girl who cooked wonderful food, and fell in love. Although they no longer existed, their hearts after an endless journey, finally met again.
While I stroked Asuna’s back as she cried, I looked with tear covered eyes through the window. In the increasing fluttering snow, I thought I saw two shadows side by side.
One, with two swords on his back and dressed in a black coat.
The other a girl dressed in the red and white of a knight, with a rapier hanging at her waist.
They smiled, holding hands as they turned around and slowly moved far away.
Chapter 9
Part 1
“Ok class, we’ll stop here for today. Assignment files 25 and 26 have been sent to you, please complete and upload them by next week.”
With the chime of the bell´s chime declaring an end to the morning period, the teacher turned off the large panel monitor and left the room, after which a relaxed atmosphere drifted across the vast classroom.
I manipulated the old-fashioned mouse connected to the terminal and open the downloaded assignments for a quick glance. After sighing at the lengthy questions that were likely to be both plentiful and mind numbing, I unplugged the mouse and closed the terminal, tossing both into my backpack.
Still, that chime was quite similar to the sound of the chapel at the starting city on Aincrad’s 1st floor. If they had designed the tone knowing this fact, the designers of this school building have quite a dark sense of humor.
Of course, none of the students wearing a matching uniform seemed to worry about that. They were chatting happily while leaving the classroom in groups of three and five to the cafeteria.
Zipping up my backpack, I slung it over my shoulder and was going to stand up when the boy that I got along with in the next seat looked up and spoke to me.
“Ah, Kazu, if you are going to the cafeteria, save me a seat.”
Before I could answer, another student who sat next to him answered with a grin.
“Don’t bother, Kazu has an audience with the «Princess» today.”
“Oh, I see. Damn that’s nice.”
“Yea, well, that’s how it is. Sorry.”
I put up my hand to forestall their usual complaining and slipped out of the classroom.
I walked briskly through the pale green hallway and out into the middle courtyard through an emergency exit, feeling relief as the sounds of lunch time faded away, I took a breath. Brand-new bricks painted a path surrounded by trees. The school building that I could see over the top of the trees was bare concrete with a cold appearance, but it was such an excellent campus that I could hardly believe it was a reused building left vacant by overall consolidation.
I followed the trail for a few more minutes, passing through a tunnel of greenery found myself in a small round garden. Along the edge of the garden, surrounded by flowers, were plain wooden benches, one of which had a female student sitting while looking at the sky by herself.
Long brown hair hung straight down the back of her uniform’s dark green blazer. Her skin was still pale white, but a tinge of red like that of roses had recently started returning to her cheeks.
Her long, slender legs were covered by taut black tights. Her figure, staring intently at the sky with the toe of her loafer making a pitter-patter sound as it tapped on the ground, was indescribably lovely. I stopped at the entrance of the garden, leaning on the trunk of a tree, continuing to watch the girl in silence.
She unexpectedly glanced over to where I was and broke into a smile as soon as she saw me. Then her face changed to a prim expression and she closed her eyes, with a ‘Fuun’, turning her h
ead away.
I approached the bench with a wry smile and called out to her.
“Sorry for the wait, Asuna.”
Asuna looked at me for an instant, pouting.
“Oh, why does Kirito-kun always try to watch from the shadows whenever he sees me?”
“My bad, my bad. Perhaps, I might have what it takes to be a stalker.”
“Eh~……”
I sat down next to Asuna who was making an unpleasant face while leaning away, and stretched hugely.
“Ah… I’m tired… and hungry…”
“You sound like an old man, Kirito-kun.”
“Actually, it felt like I’ve aged five years this month… Also -“
Putting my hands behind my head, I gave Asuna a sideways glance.
“It’s not Kirito, but Kazuto. It’s a breach of manners to use character names out here after all.”
“Oh, I see. Just… then what’s going to happen to me! Aren’t I all exposed?”
“The reason is because you made your character name the same as your real name. …Well, It seems I am exposed too…”
In this special «school», the students were players who had been in middle or high school before the SAO incident. Those orange players with a serious history of murder were undergoing more than one year of counseling that included treatment and observation. People like me who attacked others for self-defense, were inquired without leaving a criminal record like theft or blackmail.
People avoid using their names from Aincrad, but our faces are basically the same as in SAO. Asuna was apparently identified immediately after her admission, and I was recognized because I was well known to some upper level players, and in our long history I revealed my name and other things to them.
It was basically impossible to say that it had never happened and just forget it. It wasn’t a dream, and our experiences in that world were a reality that we each had to settle in our own way.
I took Asuna’s left hand, which was holding a rattan basket on her knees, in both of mine. It was still very thin, but it had recovered a lot since the day she woke up.
In order to meet the school admission date, she had been going through severe rehabilitation. Only till just recently was she able to walk without crutches, but running or rigorous exercise still seemed to be forbidden.
After her awakening, I frequently visited the hospital, seeing Asuna grit her teeth while tears flowed as she struggled through her training to walk, it pained me like my body was being cut. I quietly stroked her fingers again and again as I remembered those days.
“…Kirito-kun.”
Hearing the shocked voice, I looked up to see a slight blush on her face.
“Don’t you know? We are clearly visible from the cafeteria.”
“Say what…”
Looking up, above the trees, I did indeed see the huge glass windows at the top floor of the school. I let go of my hands in a panic.
“Oh really…”
Asuna gave a shocked sigh and again mincingly turned away.
“I won’t give lunch to such a scatterbrain.”
“Ah, please spare me.”
After desperately apologizing for several seconds, Asuna finally laughed, she opened the basket on her knees. She took out a round bundle wrapped in paper towels, and handed it to me.
Cheerful, I took it and opened it, inside I found a large hamburger with lettuce sticking out. The aroma immediately made my stomach growl, and I quickly took a large bite.
“This… the taste is…”
My eyes went wide and I turned to look at Asuna as I greedily chewed and swallowed. Asuna smiled as she said:
“Ehehe. You remembered?”
“How could I forget. This is the hamburger I ate on the 74th floor…”
“Well, it was hard to reproduce the sauce. It is an unreasonable story… struggling to death over there to imitate the taste of reality… and now that I´m back I find myself struggling to reproduce that world´s taste here.”
“Asuna…”
I clearly remembered those happy days, and while feelings of sentimentality swept through me I once again looked directly at Asuna.
Looking straight back at me, Asuna whispered with a smile.
“Mayonnaise is sticking to your mouth.”
By the time I had finished eating my two large hamburgers and Asuna her small hamburger, lunch break was almost over. Asuna poured herbal tea from a small thermos, and spoke while holding a paper cup with both hands.
“Kirito-kun, what are your afternoon classes?”
“Today there are two classes left… Really, they do not write on the blackboard but an EL panel, we write not in notebooks but on a tablet PC, and homework is sent over wireless LAN. If it’s like this then it’s like having lessons at home.”
Asuna laughed with a ‘fufu’ looking at me complaining.
“It is only now that you can use the panel or PC. Soon, schools will use holographic projectors… Also, thanks to this school, we can meet here like this.”
“Well that is true but…”
Although Asuna and I were taking the same electives, because we were in different grades, there was a difference in curriculum, so we could only meet three times a week.
“And it seems this school is also a model for future generations. At least, that is what my father said.”
“Hehh… Shouzou-shi, is he doing well?”
“Yes. He was very depressed for a while. He thought he had a bad eye for people. He resigned as CEO and half-retired, after letting off some of the burden on his shoulders, he might have lost his way. Well, if he finds a hobby, he will get well soon.”
“I see…”
I sipped my cup of tea, looking up at the sky along with Asuna.
To Asuna’s father, Yuuki Shouzou, that man was supposed to be the future husband of his daughter – Sugou.
On that snowy day, even after being arrested in the parking lot of the hospital, Sugou keep struggling in an ugly way. Silence after silence, denial after denial, eventually trying to put all the blame on Kayaba Akihiko.
However, one of his underlings confessed everything immediately after it was revealed that there was a major witness. When the fact that 300 SAO non-returnees were being kept at a server installed at the RECTO Progress Yokohama branch office and subjected to inhumane experiments was brought to light, Sugou’s escape routes disappeared. It seemed that the trial started just recently, but Sugou applied for a psychiatric re-evaluation. Though the primary charge was assault, whether or not the crime of abduction and confinement would be established somehow attracted the public attention.
What that guy was working on, the evil research on brainwashing through Full Dive technology was, in the end, proven to be a technology impossible to reproduce outside of a first-generation NERvGear. Besides, nearly all NERvGears should have been scrapped, it could be said that the results from Sugou’s experiments made it possible for countermeasures to be developed.
What was fortunate, was that the 300 non-returnee individuals had no memory of being in the middle of human experimentation. There was no harm to their brains, and none of the return players had mental breakdowns. After enough medical treatment, it was said that it would be possible for all members to rehabilitate into society.
However, RECTO Progress and ALfheim Online… No, the genre of VRMMO games itself, suffered an irreparable blow.
Originally, the SAO incident alone fostered a significant amount of social unrest. That was concluded to be a freak occurrence of an exceptional crime committed by a lone madman, and this time… the incident caused by Sugou in the world of ALO that was previously hailed for its safety as a VRMMO game, drew attention to the possibility that all VR worlds could be exploited for crime.
RECTO Progress was eventually disbanded, but the main RECTO office also bore considerable damage, and all the members of management team below the CEO were changed, even then, they were lucky to somehow survive this crisis.
ALO operations were suspended. Of course, the five or six other VRMMO that were still operating, though indirectly, received a huge blow in the form of a reduction in the number of users. It might still be impossible to escape the fate of shut down with the little income they were left with.
In that situation, something that could change the weakened and almost pulled out root was -
The «World’s Seed» that Kayaba Akihiko had entrusted to me.
I must find out about Kayaba.
At the same time as the collapse of SAO in November 2024, Kayaba Akihiko had also died, that became clear two months ago - it was March 2025.
While Kayaba was Heathcliff in Aincrad for two years, he was in hiding at a mountain cottage built in the depths of an out-of-the-way forest in Nagano prefecture.
Of course, Kayaba’s NERvGear did not trap him in the «Bonds of Death», so he was free to log out, but as the head of the KoB guild, he seemed to have logged on continuously for up to a week at the longest.
The person who helped him was a female graduate student who was with him in the same course of studies in the industrial department at the University of Tokyo, and was registered as having assisted the Argus Development Division.
It seemed that Sugou also worked in the same laboratory during his school days and harbored a burning rivalry for Kayaba while superficially pretending to adore his sempai[5]. It seemed that this woman was also repeatedly courted by Sugou - I heard all this directly from the woman in person when she was released on bail last month.
I received her e-mail address by forcefully asking an agent from the emergency rescue headquarters, and after a lot of hesitation, I sent her an e-mail saying, ‘I don’t want to talk about resentment, I just want to know the details.’ It was a week later that a reply came. She took the express from her current residence of Miyagi prefecture and came to where I live, her name was Koujiro Rinko. We went to a coffee shop near Tokyo station, where I heard the story she falteringly told.