Sword Art Online - Volume 3 - Fairy Dance

  Suguha whispered in his ear.

  “Cheer up. If she really is the person you love, you shouldn’t give up so easily. “

  These words did not come easily, and speaking them, her heart felt like it had been cut with a sword. A feeling from deep within her heart gave rise to this pain. I like Kazuto onii-chan, was the feeling that strongly came to Suguha at this time.

  — Me too. I can’t lie to myself anymore.

  Suguha supported her brother, gently lowering him onto his bed. Taking hold of his bed-covers, she tenderly pulled them over his body.

  How long she held him, she didn’t know, but Kazuto’s muffled cries had become the peaceful sound of sleep. Suguha closed her eyes, her heart quietly whispering to itself. — My only choice is to give up. All I can do is bury this feeling, deep, deep within. Because within Kazuto’s heart, she’s already there. Tears silently flowed down Suguha’s cheeks, then onto the bed-covers, before quickly disappearing entirely.

  My sweet, gentle sleep was broken by a sudden burst of warmth.

  I wasn’t yet fully awake, but there was an odd warmth floating over me, like sunlight through tree branches, caressing my cheek.

  My eyes closed, and I hugged her sleeping form. We were close enough for me to feel her breath, so I opened my eyes a little to-

  “Uwwah!?”

  I uttered a cry, and jumped back about fifty centimeters. My body sprung up to a sitting position, and quickly looked around.

  This is what I’ve always seen in my dreams. Aincrad, twenty-second floor of the forest home – impossible. Parts of reality are here, my room and my bed. However, apart from me, there is another person.

  I was speechless. Fully awake, I quickly got up and set the blanket back in place. With her short black hair, her prominent eyebrows, Suguha lay in her pajamas, asleep on my pillow.

  “How…how is this…”

  After some careful thinking, I finally remembered what happened last night. That’s right, last night after returning from the hospital, it seems I had some words with Suguha. Amid despair and pain which had brought me to tears, she’d comforted me, and eventually, I’d fallen asleep.

  “Honestly, just like a child.”

  After feeling a bit shameful, I looked over at Suguha, fast asleep. She shouldn’t be doing this.

  I suddenly remembered that something similar to this happened in ‘that’ world. Suguha is very similar to that beast tamer girl I encountered on the fortieth floor. She, too, crept into my bed, which gave me similar troubles.

  I smiled as I remembered. My encounter with Asuna and Sugou Nobuyuki continued to fill me with concern, but the piercing pain in my heart slowly disappeared last night.

  My memories in that world – the floating city of Aincrad – are important treasures to me. Happy memories, sad memories - too many to count - but all of those memories are real, and I will not treat them otherwise, including the agreement between Asuna and I to meet together in this world once again. There must be something I can do.

  Just as I was thinking that, from before me, Suguha’s murmured sleep-talk entered my ears.

  “Giving up…is not allowed…”

  “What you said is absolutely right,” I whispered back. Then, sitting up, I poked Suguha’s face with my finger.

  “Hey, wake up. It’s morning already.”

  “Hmmph.”

  She let out a dissatisfied groan. I reached under the blankets and pinched her cheeks.

  “Get up, it’s already pretty late.”

  Suguha finally opened her eyes.

  “Ah. Good morning, Onii-chan,” she mumbled, as she lazily climbed up out of the blankets.

  Then, she looked at me with surprise and quickly glanced around the room. Her half-closed, sleepy eyes suddenly opened wide and her cheeks flushed red.

  “Ah! Um, I…”

  Her ears turned red, her body stiff, and she suddenly jumped up and ran from the room as fast as she could.

  “Honestly.”

  I shook my head and stood up to open the window, taking a deep breath of cold air to drive the fatigue away.

  «News» arrived as I grabbed a change of clothes to take a bath.

  There was an electronic-sounding tone and I could see the e-mail alert flashing, so I sat down and played around with the EL terminal.

  Since the past two years I’ve been asleep, the computer’s structure has undergone many changes. The nice, old HDD (Hard Disk Drive) disappeared without a trace, and was replaced with the more modern SSD (Solid Storage Drive), which has become the new standard and does not produce ultra-high volatile MRAM. There is no lag time during transfer; it happens instantaneously. The e-mail sent has been updated, and the name under ‘sender’ is «Egil».

  On the 50th floor of the main block of Aincrad lived Egil, the owner of the grocery store in ‘Algate.’ We’d met for the first time on the 20th in Tokyo and exchanged e-mail addresses, but this would be our first time actually contacting one another. The message title read, “LOOK AT THIS.” When I opened it, there was no text, only a single attached image.

  I scrolled down and opened the picture on the monitor, then stared closely at the image being displayed.

  The composition was incredible. You could see from the characteristic color and light that it was obviously not the real world but rather a computer generated, illusionary world. In the picture’s foreground stood a golden cage with a white table and a white chair. A girl, draped in a white gown sat within. Looking carefully through the cage at her face—

  “Asuna!?”

  The image was very rough, but that girl, with her long chestnut hair was undoubtedly Asuna, her face desolate and her hands folded on the table. A closer look showed transparent wings stretched out behind her.

  I grabbed the phone off the table, and hurriedly dialed in the number I found in the phone book. The ringing must have lasted but a few seconds, but it felt like hours. Finally, the line connected and a deep voice answered the phone.

  “Hello-“

  “Hey!! What was that picture all about!?”

  “Look, Kirito, at least introduce yourself first .”

  “I don’t have the time! Hurry up and tell me!!”

  “It’s a long story. Can you come over?”

  “Right away. I’ll be there right away.”

  Not bothering to wait for a reply, I hung up the phone and grabbed a change of clothes. I have never showered, dried my hair and worn my shoes so quickly in my life, and in no time I was on my bike heading out. Nor has this road ever seemed so long, even though I have used it countless times.

  Egil’s café and bar business is located in Taito Okachimachi. I soon saw the black dashboard and metal sign decorated with two dice, thus the name, «Dicey Café».

  I opened the door and was met with the ringing sound of the bell on the door. The bald man at the counter looked up at me and laughed. Not a customer to be seen.

  “Oh, you’re quite fast.”

  “Business is poor as usual. Just how on earth did it survive these last two years?”

  “Sure it’s slow now, but it picks up during the night.”

  The lighthearted conversation calms me a little, as if I were back in that world.

  Our meeting was something that had happened at the end of last month. At the time, I’d received the real names and addresses of certain players from members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Cline, Nishida, Scilica, and Lizbet, among others. Even though there were many players I wanted to see again, but they’d all returned to the real world, and keeping in touch was a difficult thing. The first place I visited would be this store.

  “So, what is it you want me to tell you!?”

  The store’s owner looked a little unhappy.

  His real name is Andrew Gilbert Mills. I find it awesome that he runs a shop in the real world as well.

  Although African-American by ethnicity, his parents took a liking to Japan, and he opened his coffee shop-bar here, in Okachimachi a
t the age of 25. Moreover, from among his customers, he’d found a beautiful, virtuous wife. Afterwards, he too, had been trapped in the world of SAO for two years. Upon returning, the shop he’d fully expected to have closed long ago had been saved by his wife’s efforts. Truly a touching story.

  To be truthful, it’s odd that there weren’t many customers. The shop had a compact layout, with but four chairs and a counter, a bright and colorful place that was both attractive and relaxing.

  I sat on a leather stool, ordered a cup of coffee and started questioning Egil about the picture.

  “So, what’s the deal with that picture?”

  The store’s manager didn’t answer right away. Instead, I watched as he brought out a rectangular package from under the counter, and pushed it to me.

  The packaging was clearly that of game software. I took particular notice of the clear print «Amusphere» on the upper right corner.

  “I haven’t heard of this kind of hardware before.”

  “«AmuSphere». It came out while we were still in that world. It’s the next generation of FullDive technology, NERvGear’s successor.”

  As I looked at the logo with mixed feelings, Egil gave a simple explanation.

  After the incident, NERvGear was dubbed ‘a devil’s machine’, and so no manufacturer dared to involve themselves in the FullDive genre of gaming technology. However, 6 months after the SAO incident, a new company was founded, with a slogan of “absolute security.” It released the NERvGear successor models, and as we were trapped in Aincrad at the time, we had no knowledge of this.

  That helped me understand the situation a little better, but because I didn’t pay too much attention to games following what had happened, I still didn’t have a clear understanding of things.

  “So, this is a VRMMO as well?”

  I held it in my hand and carefully inspected it. The picture showed a deep forest with the full moon hanging high, in front of it a girl clad in fantasy garb. Sword in hand, she flew through the sky on a pair of transparent wings. Below the illustration, a heading – «ALfheim Online».

  “ALfheim…Online? What does that mean?”

  “Just as the name sounds. It means ‘Elf Home.’”

  “Elf? I’m still a little unclear. This game isn’t very serious, is it?”

  “That, huh, maybe so. I’ve heard it’s quite difficult, though.”

  Egil placed a steaming cup of coffee in front of me, laughing. I raised up the cup, enjoying the fragrance, as I continued to question him.

  “What’s the difficulty like?”

  “The SKILL system is on Extreme, and the game focuses on the player’s skills. PKing is encouraged.”

  “Extreme…?”

  “«Levels» don’t exist anymore in this game. All skills will only increase in level through repetition. The battle system relies on the player’s athletic ability, instead of Sword Skills like in SAO. But regardless of these minor differences, the technology is pretty much the same as SAO.”

  “Ah. That does sound pretty impressive.”

  I let out an appreciative whistle. The creation of Floating City Aincrad had taken the full efforts of that mad genius Akihiko Kayaba. That someone else could create a VR world of the same degree is a little hard to believe.

  “PKing is encouraged?”

  “At creation, players can select from a variety of fairy races, and it is only between opposing races that this is possible.”

  “That’s ridiculously difficult. Regardless of the high level of technology, it feels more like it was made for fanatic gamers. I doubt it would be very popular,” I said with a frown.

  As Egil listened to me, he dropped his serious look and smiled.

  “I used to think that way too, but now I’m thinking it’ll be very popular with the current crowd, the main reason being that in this game, you have the ability to «Fly».”

  “Fly…?”

  “With fairy wings. Unlike previous games, the controller’s equipped with a flight engine, enabling users to fly freely.”

  I’ve never thought on the possibilities of flight before. After NERvGear was developed, many VR flying games were developed, but those were all controlled through vehicular control. Flight through human means was not introduced simply because the player would have no experience flying and therefore be unable to control the power of flight.

  In these imaginary worlds, the things a player can do are the same as those you can do in the real world. Conversely, those things that real world humans can’t do here, they can’t do there either. Sprouting wings is no difficult task, but the muscle movement associated with moving said wings isn’t nearly as simple.

  In SAO, Asuna and I had incredible jumping ability, through which we could imitate flight, but this and free flight are still inherently worlds apart.

  “This whole concept of flying is amazing and all, but how exactly does it work?”

  “Who knows, but it’s gotta be real troublesome. For starters, you have to operate it with a one-hand joystick controller.”

  “…”

  All of a sudden, I had the desire to challenge this game, but it immediately left me, and I returned to sipping my coffee.

  “Alright. I have a broad idea of what the game’s like now. Back to the main topic, what’s the case with this picture?”

  Egil brought a piece of paper out from under the counter, placing it in front of me. It was specifically for photos.

  “What do you see?”

  After hearing his question, I stared at the picture for a bit, before finally answering.

  “So similar…to Asuna…”

  “Figures you’d think the same way. It’s a game screenshot, the resolution is pretty bad.”

  “Hurry up and explain.”

  “That’s a screenshot from this game, ALfheim Online.”

  Egil handed me the game and pictures. There was a screenshot of the game, with an overview of the world map as well as territories, and in the central area was a giant tree.

  “This is the World Tree, or Yggdrasil.”

  Egil pointed to the tree.

  “The goal of players is to be the first race to reach the city atop this tree.”

  “Are you not allowed to simply fly up, then?”

  “Regardless of how much endurance and stamina they have for flight, it’s not without limits. To even reach the lowest of these branches is already impossible. However, there are still people who come up with crazy ideas, such as a group of five people who use their flight like a multi-stage rocket that propels themselves up.”

  “Hahaha, is that so. Even if you call it a crazy idea, it’s still quite creative.”

  “Ah, apparently it was a success. However, the branches were very weak, and so their accomplishment can only be regarded as so much. To prove that they managed to do this, they took a lot of photos as evidence. One of them was of a cage hanging from a huge tree branch.”

  “Birdcage…”

  My words carried with them an indescribable feeling, which caused my brow to furrow. To be trapped…this thought immediately entered my mind.

  “This photograph was taken just as they reached it.”

  “But why is Asuna there?”

  I picked up the game again, and stared at it.

  I focused on the print on the bottom of the box. «RECTO Progress».

  “What’s the matter, Kirito? Your face is a little pale.”

  “Nothing… No other pictures? For example, «others from SAO», besides Asuna, who have yet to return?”

  At my question, the manager frowned deeply and shook his head.

  “No, though I’ve heard things to that effect. But these pictures from «ALFheim Online» can’t be used to explain anything. Don’t go cry wolf just because of this.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  I looked down, thinking of what that man - Sugou Nobuyuki - had said to me.

  The manager of the SAO’s servers was now him, he had definitely said. Speaking of whi
ch, he’d mentioned that the servers were like a black box, and couldn’t be manipulated externally. At the time, it’d made sense to me.

  However, if Asuna continued to sleep, this would be quite favorable for him. Moreover, a girl who looked just like Asuna was trapped in a VRMMO designed by none other than a RECTO subsidiary. There’s no way it’s just coincidence.

  I considered contacting the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but immediately changed my mind. My concerns would be too vague, and I had no concrete evidence.

  I looked up, facing him.

  “Egil, can I have this?”

  “No problem…You want to go take a look?”

  “Yes, I want to confirm this myself.”

  For the first time, Egil let himself show a doubtful expression. We both understood the dangers of VR.

  I shrugged my arms, and laughed.

  “I guess if I want to try this I’ll have to buy the new console.”

  “NERvGear can run it as well. AmuSphere is simply a version with enhanced performance.”

  “That’s really great.”

  I shrugged. Egil let out a slight smile.

  “Well, this isn’t the first time you’ve rescued someone who’s trapped in her own consciousness.”

  “It does not matter how many times she is trapped or imprisoned or how many times I have to do this.”

  And that was it. Asuna and I hadn’t had any other contact except through the Internet via NERvGear. Neither voice nor letter had I received.

  But those days of waiting were over. Finishing my coffee in one go, I stood. Egil’s counter was old fashioned, similar to his shop in SAO, completely devoid of any electronic cash registers and the like. I fished out several coins and placed them on the counter.

  “Then I’ll head back now. Thank you for having me, and for the information.”

  “You can pay me back in other ways for the information. You must rescue Asuna, so we can finally put an end to all of this.”

  “That’s right. One day, this will be over.”

  I hit my palm with my fist. Then I opened the door, and left.

  Part 5

  Suguha lay on her bed, before rolling over to bury her face in her pillow, kicking her bed for a few minutes.