Alicization Dividing

by Reki Kawahara

  Again, I sensed a subtle little twinge in my chest as I mechanically walked on.

  The only sounds on the late-night staircase were two echoing pairs of feet. After five repetitions of landings with bright-red carpets, the descending stairs came to an end, revealing a very large set of doors. We’d passed the ninety-fourth through ninety-first floors, and there were no marks of battle anywhere.

  Alice came to a stop, and I sent her a questioning glance.

  “Yes…this is it. The Great Bath on the ninetieth floor. I would assume that Uncle wouldn’t choose such a place as his defense point…but then again, knowing him…” She trailed off as she put her hand to the door. Just a light push, and the thick slab of marble rotated without a sound. Instantly a wave of thick white mist pushed out, and I turned away on instinct.

  “Whoa…that’s some major steam. How big is this bath? I can’t even see inside.”

  Although it obviously wasn’t the time, it was very tempting to strip off my sweaty clothes and jump into that hot cleansing water. Only when I took a step inside the cloudy air did I realize it was not hot steam but freezing mist.

  Alice wasn’t expecting this, either—she sneezed daintily, and I promptly unleashed a percussive blast of my own. The veil of white air hovering in front of me gave way, but not because of the force of my sneeze. When I saw the state of the bathing chamber, I stood still in shock.

  It had to take up the entire floor of the tower, because the far wall was foggy in the distance. Almost the entire chamber was a bathtub, split in two around a long straight walkway right in front of us. Each bathtub was practically a fifty-meter Olympic pool on its own.

  But the truly shocking detail was that the bath-pool on our left was completely frozen white. Even the animal-head faucet in the corner of the bath, pouring water in, was frozen into a curved pillar of ice, indicating that the freezing process had happened in an instant. That would be not a natural effect but the work of sacred arts, of course.

  Whatever froze this much water at once was no laughing matter. You’d need at least ten expert casters utilizing ordinary sacred arts with ice elements to achieve this effect.

  I headed to the left and descended the stepped lip of the tub so I could rest my foot on the surface of the hard ice. It didn’t creak, even with my full weight and heavy sword resting on it. I guessed that the water was frozen all the way to the bottom of the baths.

  “Who did this…and why?” I wondered. After a few steps over the wispy surface, my boot landed on something hard. It crumbled delicately. Upon closer examination, I saw a number of the small round objects on the surface of the ice. I reached down and broke one off, then lifted it up.

  It was a rose of ice, with many layers of blue, translucent petals.

  “…!!”

  I’d seen these before on multiple occasions. In the Great Hall of Ghostly Light on the fiftieth floor, when we fought Vice Commander Fanatio Synthesis Two; and in the Cloudtop Garden on the eightieth floor, when we fought Alice Synthesis Thirty. Eugeo utilized his Perfect Weapon Control to immobilize his targets in those situations, producing ice roses just like these.

  It wasn’t sacred arts that froze this mammoth bathtub solid…

  “…It was Eugeo…”

  Alice lowered herself on the ice next to me. Her working eye was wide as she gasped, “By the Three…You’re saying Eugeo did this…?”

  “Yep, no doubt about it. It’s the Perfect Control effect of his Blue Rose Sword. But I’ll be honest…I didn’t think it had this much potential…”

  Eugeo claimed his Perfect Weapon Control was designed for slowing down opponents. He was dead wrong—anyone trapped in this hell of ice would lose their life before long.

  Perhaps he really did defeat the legendary hero Bercouli. I looked around, desperate for information. The darkness element had indicated that the Blue Rose Sword would be around here, and that meant Eugeo was here, too.

  Just then, I heard Alice gasp.

  “…!”

  I sucked in a sharp breath, too. About twenty yards away was a rather large silhouette. It was unmistakably a human head and shoulder. Someone buried in the ice.

  Alice and I shared a glance, then we raced over, scattering ice roses.

  I soon realized the person trapped in the ice was not Eugeo. His shoulders and neck were at least twice as thick as my partner’s.

  I slowed down out of disappointment and caution, but Alice only went faster. “Uncle!” she cried, racing for the frozen silhouette.

  That’s Commander Bercouli?! Then where’s Eugeo…?!

  Confused, I increased my speed again. When I caught up several steps later, Alice was on her knees before the burly man, clenching her fists and screaming, “Uncle…! Commander! What happened to you?!”

  Alice had seen Eugeo’s ice power on the eightieth floor, so she should have understood what the Blue Rose Sword’s effect was; when I got closer, I realized what she meant.

  The man wasn’t simply frozen up to his chest. His rippling, muscular shoulders, trunk-thick neck, and fierce, proud features were all colored in a drab, inorganic gray.

  “That’s…not part of Eugeo’s…Perfect Control effect…,” I murmured, stunned.

  Her back to me, Alice said, “I…I agree with you. Long ago, Uncle told me…the prime senator has the authority to turn all human beings into stone…even Integrity Knights. I believe the name of the ability is…Deep Freeze.”

  “Deep…Freeze,” I repeated. “Then this old guy—er, I mean, the commander—got turned this way by the prime senator? Aren’t they on the same side? Why…? I mean, he should be a valuable force in fighting off intruders, right?”

  “I think Uncle secretly questioned the senate orders handed down to him…but like I did, he believed peace was impossible without the rule of the Axiom Church, and he spent countless days battling for that purpose. No matter what powers the prime senator has, there is no call…no reason for him to do such a horrid thing!!”

  Tears dropped onto Alice’s knees from her left eye. She reached out, not bothering to wipe her cheeks, and clung to the petrified Bercouli. One of the teardrops landed on the commander’s forehead and vanished into little sparkles of light.

  A sharp crack split the scene.

  Alice leaped up to her feet, staring at Bercouli’s neck. There was actually a small split there, as though the mild warmth of her tear had melted the stone effect. The fissure widened and grew, throwing off tiny shards of material.

  We watched in amazement as the gray statue continued splitting, very gradually changing the angle of its neck. Soon the face was pointing toward us, and the stone around the mouth began to crack. Shards of stone that would have been flesh and blood just hours ago continued to fall away.

  Based on the name Deep Freeze, I assumed the command would completely pause an Underworldian’s state, body as well as mind. It wouldn’t be like spreading liquid plaster over someone in the real world. Through the orders of Stacia, the god of all, his every movement was forbidden—and he was trying to overcome it through willpower alone.

  “Uncle…stop, stop it! You’ll tear your body apart, Uncle!!” Alice pleaded tearfully. But not for an instant did Commander Bercouli stop his defiance of the gods. With an especially loud crunch, he lifted his eyelids. The eyes revealed were as gray as his skin, but the irises rippled like the surface of water, and they began to regain a very faint bluish color. The absolute strength of will they exuded was so overwhelming, it gave me goose bumps.

  He grinned, throwing off another shower of shards, and opened his mouth to emit a hideously raspy but powerful voice.

  “…Hey…little Alice. You shouldn’t cry…that hard. It ruins…your pretty face.”

  “Uncle…!!”

  “Don’t…worry…A single art isn’t going to kill a guy like me. Besides…”

  Bercouli paused, taking in Alice’s tear-streaked face and the impromptu bandage that covered the right side. He gave her a smile full of fathe
rly love and said, “Oh, I see…little Alice, you made it over that wall…You broke through…the right eye…like I never could…in three centuries…”

  “U-Uncle…I…I’m…”

  “Don’t look at me…that way…I’m…happy for you…Now there’s…nothing left…for me to…teach you…”

  “That’s…that’s not true! There are so, so many things…I still want to learn from you, Uncle!!” she cried, not even trying to hide her childish sobs, flinging her arms around his neck.

  “You can do it, little Alice,” Bercouli whispered into her ear, beatific smile on his lips. “You can…correct the mistakes of the Church…and help guide this world…to its proper…state…”

  I could tell that the strength was rapidly draining from his voice. The remarkable willpower coming from the knights’ commander’s fluctlight was reaching its end at last. His eyes suddenly turned to me; they were losing their focus and turning gray again. He worked stiffening lips and croaked, “Hey…kid…Take care of…little…Alice…”

  “…You bet,” I said simply, and the hero of old nodded back, creating a fresh crack in his stony neck. What I interpreted as his final words emerged as white, frosty mist. “Prime Senator Chudelkin…took your…partner ’way…I bet it was…to ’ministrator’s…chamber…Better hurry…before he gets trapped in the labyrinth…of his memories…”

  And with that, Bercouli the Integrity Knight Commander returned to silent stone. There was something truly appropriate about the heroic figure he struck, buried to his chest in solid ice, neck and face covered in fine, tiny cracks.

  “…Uncle…,” Alice whimpered, still clinging to his shoulder. I turned away, considering what the man’s words meant.

  This Prime Senator Chudelkin was the one who’d placed the Deep Freeze command on Bercouli and taken Eugeo away. That much was certain, because, in a spot not far from the frozen Bercouli, there was a square shaft carved out of the ice all the way down to the floor, as though cut by an electric saw. Eugeo must have used his ice roses’ power expecting to go down and take the commander with him, but then the prime senator came along, cut him entirely out of the ice, and took him up to Administrator’s chamber at the top of the tower.

  I had to wonder what this “labyrinth of memories” meant, though. I didn’t like to think about Eugeo being handily brainwashed, but I also had no idea what sort of methods Administrator would use to manipulate his fluctlight directly.

  I peered down the square hole and saw, just through the perfectly smooth sides, something shining. I crouched down to see a longsword plunged into the floor of the bath. Even through several inches of ice, I would never mistake that beautiful curve. It was the Blue Rose Sword.

  That striking weapon was practically a part of Eugeo; the sight of it left behind under thick ice only made me more worried. I glanced back at Alice, who was still clinging to Bercouli, then drew my black sword and stuck the tip into the ice directly above the Blue Rose Sword. For just an instant, I pushed down.

  The ice cracked, split vertically, and crumbled into the shaft nearby. I knelt and squeezed the exposed handle of the Blue Rose Sword, then pulled, wincing against the sensation of well-below-zero-degrees metal on my skin. It resisted a bit, then slid out silently, scattering ice fragments.

  I stood up, black sword in my right hand and Blue Rose Sword in my left, and felt my joints buckle with the extra weight. No wonder, since I was holding two very high-priority Divine Objects, but I wasn’t going to complain. Ronie and Tiese, our trainee pages, had worked their palms bloody carrying these swords to Eugeo and me before we were taken to the cathedral.

  Now it was my turn to take this sword to Eugeo.

  A familiar white leather sheath was on the frosted ice surface nearby. With my sword at my side, I picked up the sheath and placed Eugeo’s sword in it. After a little more thought, I then attached the second sheath to my belt on the right side, balancing the weight so I could still move reasonably well.

  I exhaled and turned around to find Alice up on her feet. She rubbed the moisture on her cheek with her sleeve and, to hide her embarrassment, grumbled, “The only person mad enough to carry two swords would be some peacock of an elite noble…but oddly enough, it seems to suit you.”

  “Hmm? Oh…”

  I couldn’t help but grimace. During SAO, my lifeline as a solo player was my flashy Dual Blades style, but I’d hidden that skill for so long, I still felt anxious about showing off a two-sword approach in front of others.

  Or maybe that wasn’t entirely it. Perhaps I was somehow afraid—even sick—of the ostentatious description of Dual-Bladed Kirito, the hero who’d beaten the Game of Death. I never wanted to take on that particular role again, no matter what anyone said about me.

  “…Yeah, but I can’t actually swing two swords at once,” I told her with a shrug.

  Alice nodded as if this were obvious. “If you swing two swords, there is no way to execute a proper ultimate technique. In that sense alone, there is little reason to ever wield two swords at once. Anyway, if the sword is still here, then we ought to assume that the pontifex has apprehended Eugeo already. We ought to hurry; she is not bound by typical logic…”

  “Have you…spoken with Administrator before?”

  “Only once,” she answered, lips pursed. “It was six years ago, after I woke up as an apprentice Integrity Knight with no memory, facing my summoner, and God’s proxy in the mortal world, the church pontifex. She was very beautiful and fragile, not the kind of person who has ever held a sword…but her eyes…”

  She clutched her own shoulders. “Her eyes were silver and reflective, like a mirror…I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I do: I was terrified of her. It was an absolute kind of fear, the sort that told me I should never defy her or doubt a word she said, and instead I should offer her my everything.”

  “Alice…,” I murmured, feeling momentary disquiet.

  But she sensed what I was thinking, took a deep breath, and raised her head to look at me. “I am fine. I’ve made up my mind. For the sake of my sister living in the far north…for my unfamiliar family, and for all the citizens of the realm, I must do what I believe is right. Uncle knew about the eye seal that we all bear. That tells me that Bercouli Synthesis One, leader of the Integrity Knights, did not blindly believe that the Axiom Church’s reign was entirely good. Our trek down here to get your partner was a failure, but I’m glad that I saw Uncle…I know that my heart is firm and in the right place now.”

  She crouched and caressed Bercouli’s stone cheek, lingering no more than an instant before she turned away, striding purposefully over the ice in the direction we had come. “Let’s hurry. We may need to battle the prime senator before we have a chance to face the pontifex herself.”

  “W-wait…are we just going to leave the commander like that?” I asked, trotting to catch up.

  Alice glared at me with her good eye and snapped, “Either we will truss up Prime Senator Chudelkin to make him undo the sacred art…or we will cut him in two and solve the matter that way.”

  As I struggled to walk with the weight of two swords, I realized I never wanted to make an enemy of this knight again.

  We raced back up the five flights of stairs, dealing with extra gravity this time, and stopped when we made it back to the Morning Star Lookout. I was wheezing with the effort of lugging the Blue Rose Sword, but the Integrity Knight was largely unaffected, despite wearing so much armor that her weight couldn’t be far from mine. With her frosty-blue eye and snow-white skin, she faced the next staircase with determination.

  “Listen to me as you catch your breath. The senators are not much more than simple civilians when it comes to using weapons in short-range combat, but their sacred arts authority is higher than ours. Even in this resource-scarce environment, they can use the catalyst crystals from the Rose Garden to unleash practically unlimited long-range attacks.”

  “Enemies like that…you need to…sneak up, then stick close,” I wheezed
between breaths.

  “We can’t be bothered with personal dignity now,” Alice agreed. “If we can successfully approach without detection, that would be best, but there is no guarantee of that. If that plan fails, I will use my sword’s Perfect Control to block their sacred arts, and then you can charge them.”

  “So I’m the suicide-charge guy…,” I lamented, recalling how much I hated dealing with mage-type enemies.

  Alice arched her eyebrow and offered sarcastically, “We can switch roles, if you prefer. But you will be in charge of blocking their sacred arts.”

  “Fine, fine, I’ll do it.”

  My black sword was still recovering its life value, and I wasn’t sure whether it had enough for a good Perfect Control use. If possible, I preferred to save that for a fight against the pontifex. My sword’s ultimate power was a fairly simple one—summoning a giant spear of darkness—that excelled in power, but it didn’t have the varied effects Alice’s flower storm did.

  “If I feel like it, I might favor you with a recovery art from behind,” Alice said generously. “You may cause as much damage as you wish, but make sure that Prime Senator Chudelkin survives. If my memory is accurate, he will look like a small man in bright-red-and-blue clown clothes.”

  “…That…does not sound very…dignified.”

  “But you must not underestimate him on account of it. In addition to his powerful Deep Freeze ability, he has a number of speedy and powerful arts. He is likely the most powerful caster in the Church, after the pontifex.”

  “Yeah, I get it. It’s pretty much a quest cliché that the little silly-looking guys end up being the toughest enemies.”

  Alice briefly shot me a suspicious look, then turned her face to the staircase and announced, “Let’s go.”

  We raced up the flight of steps as fast and quiet as we could, and we came upon a cramped and dark hallway, which ended at a black door. The hall was maybe five feet across and lit by eerie green lamps. It was just tight enough to force you to move out of the way if someone was coming from the other direction. The door at the end of the hall was small, too. Alice and I could just walk through without bumping our heads, but a man as large as Bercouli would have to crouch down quite a bit.