Alicization Rising

by Reki Kawahara

  “Central Cathedral grows by the years, so I would guess…that it is close to a hundred floors by now…”

  “A hund…”

  My breath caught. True, the white tower was so tall that from any angle in Centoria, the top was always hidden from view…but I didn’t think it would actually have more floors than some real-life skyscrapers. The thought of potentially having a fight on each and every floor was a bit much, so I whined, “Um, couldn’t you start us at, like, the fiftieth floor instead…?”

  “It’s all in your perspective, Kirito,” interjected Eugeo, who between the two of us was always the optimist by a factor of ten. “The longer it takes us to get there, the more spread out our enemies will be.”

  “…Uh, well, maybe that’s true, but…”

  I let my back slide farther down the side of the shelf until I was sitting on the ground. I mumbled, “Well…I did climb the outside stairs of the old Tokyo Tower once…”

  “Huh?”

  “Er, sorry, nothing. Anyway, I guess that decides our plan. First, we get the swords from the armory. Then we ascend the tower, defeating any Integrity Knights we encounter along the way. If we come across Alice, we put her to sleep with the knife and send her to the library. Once we reach the hundredth floor, we stab Administrator with the other knife and find Alice’s memory fragment.”

  At last, I was feeling like we had a mission blueprint in place. Then Cardinal said, “I’m afraid there is one more thing you must do.”

  “Uh…wh-what’s that?”

  “Your swords are indeed powerful, but they will not be enough to beat the Integrity Knights. They have a means of amplifying the abilities of their weapons to many times their original value.”

  “Oh…you mean the Perfect Weapon Control thing…?” Eugeo asked hoarsely.

  Cardinal explained, “Divine weapons take on significant qualities of the objects used as their foundation. Eldrie’s Frostscale Whip was once a two-headed white serpent that ruled the largest lake in the east, until Administrator took it alive and converted it into a weapon. But even as a dormant whip, it has the speed of a snake, the sharpness of its scales, and the accuracy of its aim. Perfect Control is the state of unleashing the weapon’s memories and bringing about attacks that would normally be impossible.”

  “Great, so his whip turning into a snake wasn’t some kind of illusion magic…” I groaned and rubbed the mark on my chest where Eldrie’s whip had hit me, hoping that the white serpent didn’t have some kind of slow-acting venom.

  Cardinal continued, “All the Integrity Knights have Perfect Control over the weapons Administrator gave them—including mastery over the lengthy, speedy sacred arts commands to make use of them. You won’t have much time to practice the chants, but at the very least, you must learn how to unlock Perfect Control of your swords, or our chances of victory are fleeting.”

  “But…my black sword wasn’t even a living thing, it was just a huge tree…Is there even any memory to be unlocked there?”

  “There is. Even that dagger I gave you harbors the memory—or nature—of my hair, so it can open a route to me when it lands, utilizing the same process as Perfect Control. Your sword, forged from the Gigas Cedar, and Eugeo’s Blue Rose Sword, based on the eternal frost of the cave, are no exception to this pattern.”

  “Y-you mean…it’s just…ice?” Eugeo gaped. I couldn’t blame him; the only special property of ice that came to mind was that it was really, really cold. I puzzled over that one a bit and then decided if one of the two gods in this world said so, then it had to be true.

  “Well…if you’re going to teach us how to do it, then I’m assuming that this Perfect Control technique will work with our swords, too. I’d be happy to get some killer ultimate attack. What’s it like?”

  Once again, I was not expecting her response. “Don’t be naive! I will describe how to unlock the technique, but what sort of attack style you make with it is entirely up to you.”

  “Uh…what?! How come?!”

  “The core of Perfect Weapon Control is the Memory Release technique, but just chanting a sacred art alone is not enough. You must use your mind to imagine the unleashed form of your trusty weapon. In fact, it is this mental process of recall that is more crucial to your success than the Perfect Control technique itself. For it is the power of the imagination that forms the fundamental basis of the world—the ability to incarnate what you envision…”

  I started losing track of the meaning of Cardinal’s rapid-fire explanation partway through. In particular, I was uncertain whether the word incarnate was meant to be from the sacred or common tongue, but before I could ask her to elaborate, something prickled in the back of my memory.

  It was…yeah, two and a half months ago. As I kneeled before the loose petals of the tattered zephilia flowers in the garden of Swordcraft Academy’s primary dorm, someone—Cardinal’s familiar, the little black spider Charlotte—whispered to me. She too had mentioned that all sacred arts were nothing but a tool to refine and collect the power of imagination.

  I’d followed her suggestion and used my mind to envision the life energy of the four holy flowers in the nearby beds flowing into the severed plants. I didn’t say a single word aloud, yet green light ran through the air, enveloped the buds…and brought the zephilias back to life.

  That must have been the “process of recall,” as Cardinal called it. In that sense, it would indeed seem to be impossible to express everything that phenomenon represented within the form of a sacred art command.

  Cardinal gave me a serene, knowing nod and then turned to Eugeo, who still seemed to be struggling with this.

  “Come with me. Let us take a break and then construct the arts.”

  We passed through the hallway of historical records, descended a number of staircases, and returned to the round room on the first floor of the library where we first appeared. On the table in the center sat the plates stacked with dumplings and sandwiches. Despite being at least two hours since they were served, the food was still steaming. In addition to healing the wounds of anyone who ate them, they apparently were also subjected to a spell that kept them from cooling off.

  The sight inevitably rekindled my hunger, but knowing now that all this had originally been books from the library made it difficult to act. Cardinal noticed us grappling with our inner conflict and said indifferently, “If you will not eat more, I’ll get rid of them. They’ll only interfere with the mental process.”

  “W-wait, at least just put them somewhere that we can’t see them. We’ll take some to go when we leave,” I pleaded. The girl shook her head, lifted her staff, and rapped the edge of the table. The huge plate sank directly into the surface, food and all.

  Following that, three chairs pushed their way up out of the floor, which Cardinal motioned toward. I sat down in one and stared at the now empty tabletop.

  Since the dumplings weren’t going to be summoned again, I decided to focus my mind on the image of my absent sword—the temporarily named Black One—but found that, given the few times I’d actually used it, I could not imagine all the fine details.

  Eugeo tried the same thing and had a similarly frustrating result. He wondered, “Cardinal…can we really do this? How am I supposed to imagine my weapon’s unleashed form when it’s not even here…?”

  On the other side of the table, Cardinal said, to my surprise, “Its absence is better for the process. If you can see the weapon before your eyes, your imagination stops there. Your hands and eyes are not necessary to touch the hidden memory in the sword, guide it, and unleash it. You merely need the eye of the heart.”

  “The eye…of the heart,” I repeated, recalling the moment when the zephilias came back to life. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t touched either the holy flowers or the dying zephilias. I hadn’t even focused on them. I just believed and envisioned—the life overflowing, gathering, moving.

  Eugeo was nodding, as if he had found his own understanding. The black-robed sage grin
ned faintly and commanded, “Now, you must envision your swords resting on the tabletop. Do not stop until I say so.”

  “…All right.”

  “I’ll give it a try.”

  We straightened up in our seats and focused on the empty table. Before, I’d tapped out after five seconds, but this time I kept staring; no need to rush. I started by emptying my mind.

  The Black One. Thinking about it now, I realized that it was rather cruel of me to have referred to it by such a lazy temporary name all this time.

  It took the craftsman Sadore an entire year to whittle the top branch of the Gigas Cedar down to the shape of a sword. He finished on March 7th. This was May 24th, so I hadn’t had it for even three months yet. Excluding polishing and practice, the only times I’d pulled it from its sheath were in the battle against first-seat disciple Volo Levantein, and the true combat against this year’s top student, Raios Antinous. That was it.

  And in both cases, the black sword had helped me with stunning displays of power that seemed to come from nothing but its very own will—even though it was I who had cut down the Gigas Cedar from which it was made. Our history together was short, but when I gripped its handle and executed a sword skill with it, the sense of oneness and elation easily rivaled that of any other sword I’d used.

  Perhaps the reason I hesitated to give this sword a proper name was due to its contrast with Eugeo’s divine Blue Rose Sword.

  White and black. Flower and tree. Two swords that were similar, but opposites in many ways.

  Though I had no evidence for it, I’d been possessed by a certain foreboding ever since I’d left the village of Rulid two years ago. A vision of Blue Rose and black swords fated to cross one day.

  My logical side told me it wasn’t true. There was absolutely no reason that Eugeo and I, as the owners of the swords, would ever fight. But I got an intuitive sense that the same might not hold true for the swords themselves. For one thing, it was the Blue Rose Sword that actually cut down the Gigas Cedar…

  Rather than emptying my mind, I was filling it with memories and reflections—but still I envisioned the black blade lying on the table. A simple, rounded pommel. The black leather wrapped around the grip. The bold curve of the guard. The blade, on the thick side, black and a little translucent, like crystal, and totally unlike any wood I’d ever seen. It collected the light inside and glinted along the edge and point, which were as fine and sharp as a razor…

  The illusion of the sword, which had wavered uneasily in spots at first, began to grow firmer and more stable as my intruding thoughts gradually faded. Eventually it had a toughness, a weight, even a temperature. It exuded a powerful sense of presence on the table.

  As I gazed into the shining flat of the blade, I heard a voice from somewhere say, “Deeper. You must dive deeper, until you can touch the memory hidden in the sword, its true essence.”

  The black of the sword expanded without a sound. It covered the table, the floor, the bookshelves and lamps, and then the world. Only the sword and I existed in this infinite, lightless space. It rose up and came to a halt in the air, handle down and point up. My form rippled and melted, and I felt my mind getting sucked into the sword.

  The next thing I knew, I was a cedar tree rooted in cold ground.

  It was a deep forest, and yet there wasn’t a single tree growing around me. I stood alone in a rounded clearing. I tried to call out to the moss and narrow vines crawling along the ground at my feet, but there was no answer.

  …Solitude.

  I was racked with desolate loneliness. With each breeze, I stretched my branches desperately, hoping to rustle against the others, but I came up short every time.

  Maybe I could reach them if I stretched farther. So I sucked in ground energy through my roots and light energy through my leaves. My trunk thickened, and my branches extended. My needlelike leaves stretched, grasping toward the shining green leaves of the closest oak.

  Alas! Just before I could finally make contact, the oak leaves turned brown, wilted, and fell all at once. The moisture drained out of the branches and even the trunk; it weakened and died, then toppled over from the base. And it wasn’t just the oak. All the trees at the rim of the rounded clearing were dying and crumbling. Soon their remains, too, were covered by the carpet of moss.

  I lamented my solitude in the now larger clearing, then sucked strength from the ground and sun again. My trunk swelled, creaking, and my branches expanded. This time I reached for the next closest tree, a laurel.

  Once again, its leaves wilted before I could touch them, the dead trunk rotted, and it toppled. So did the tree next to it. And the one after. More and more trees fell, and the empty space grew larger.

  Because I was sucking up power to stretch my branches, the other trees were dying. But even understanding this, I did not stop trying to touch them. How many times did I repeat the same thing? Eventually, I was dozens of times the size of the other trees, and the clearing itself was dozens of times its original span. The same could be said of my loneliness.

  No matter how hard I reached, the day would never come when my pointed needles made contact with the leaves of another tree. But by the time I realized this, it was too late to turn back. My leaves and branches gobbled up incredible amounts of sun, regardless of my wishes, and the vast lattice of my roots devoured the power of the earth. The cold empty space grew by the day as the trees fell over dead, one after another after another…

  “That is enough,” said a sudden voice, freeing me from the cedar.

  I blinked once, and instantly I was back in the Great Library, surrounded by an endless array of bookshelves lit by orange lamplight, resting on polished stone floor. Before me was a round table, upon which sat two swords. My Black One and Eugeo’s Blue Rose Sword. They both looked totally real, but this could not be true. Both of them were gone, confiscated when we were thrown into the cells.

  As I sat gazing emptily at the white and black swords, a small hand reached out from the other side of the table and grabbed the handle of the black sword first. It wavered, then vanished in silence. Next, she brushed the Blue Rose Sword. Again, it blinked away as though sucked up into her palm.

  “……Aye. I’ve received the memories of the swords that you have brought forth,” Cardinal said with satisfaction. I looked into the eyes of the black-robed girl across the table—and only then did I realize I had fallen into a kind of trance. Next to me, Eugeo’s green eyes wandered dully, then he suddenly jolted and blinked.

  “…Huh…? I was just…on the highest peak…of the End Mountains,” he murmured.

  I couldn’t help but smirk. “You were all the way up there, man?”

  “Yeah. It was incredibly cold and extremely lonely…”

  “Do not relax yet,” scolded Cardinal. I sat upright, realizing we’d been getting into chitchat mode. The little sage had her eyes closed. Her brows drew together slightly in concentration, and then she nodded.

  “Aha…I believe that simplifying the command is preferable to tweaking the technique itself. I shall start with your sword, Kirito.”

  She tapped the table with her left hand, silently producing a sheet of blank parchment. She then brushed the sheet with her other hand, sliding from top to bottom.

  That simple action produced at least ten lines of command text. She spun the sheet around and slid it over to me, then repeated the process for Eugeo. The two of us shared a look and then glanced down to examine our sheets.

  The text, written in blue-black ink, was entirely in the sacred script (meaning the alphabet), with no commands in the common tongue (Japanese). In orthodox sacred arts format, the list was numbered down the left, with each entry’s command to the right. Starting from System Call at the top and ending with Enhance Armament on line ten, there were at least twenty-five command words in the list.

  That was shorter than the Perfect Control that Eldrie used on his Frostscale Whip, to be sure, but it was still a major task to memorize it all.

&n
bsp; “Ummm…I don’t suppose I could keep this as a cheat sheet…”

  “Of course not. Not even a fresh-faced new student at the academy would be allowed to peek at the text when demonstrating their practical skill,” Cardinal chided. “For one thing, if you removed any object connected to this library and it fell into enemy hands, that might lead to the unraveling of my spatial isolation.”

  “B-but…those knives…”

  “Those are linked to me personally—that’s different. Now get to memorizing and stop whining. Eugeo’s already working on his.”

  My head whipped around, and to my shock, goody-two-shoes Eugeo was already gazing intently at the list, his lips moving soundlessly. I gave up and looked back at my own list, just as Cardinal added a cruel condition to the exercise.

  “You have thirty minutes to memorize this list.”

  “Aw, come on…,” I protested. “What is this, an exam? At least give us more time to—”

  “Fool!” she thundered. “Listen to me: Your swords were confiscated when you were locked up at eleven o’clock the previous morning. Your ownership of the items will reset after twenty-four hours, which means you will no longer be able to utilize this Perfect Weapon Control at all!”

  “Oh…r-right. And what time is it now…?”

  “Well after seven o’clock. Even allowed a full two hours to recover the weapons, you have very little time left.”

  “……Um, okay,” I admitted, giving the command list my undivided attention this time.

  Fortunately for me, the sacred arts of the Underworld, unlike magic spells in ALfheim Online, used familiar English terminology. The format was similar to programming language, so my memorization was aided by understanding the words, not just the sounds.

  The command list Cardinal wrote out was split into three major processes: (1) Accessing the object’s deep data (the sword’s memory) stored in the memory module; (2) selecting and molding the necessary portions alone; and (3) applying them to the current form of the sword to expand attack power. The methodology was similar to the “image buffer overwriting” experiment I tried out on the zephilia flowers back at the dorm, but none of the terms used were from the academy’s textbooks, meaning that only Cardinal would be able to come up with this combination, due to her knowledge of the entire command list.