Instantly, a shock like a bolt of lightning shot through me.
That color. I’d lived for two years in the Underworld with that hair color right nearby.
It can’t be. But. How…
I was caught flat-footed, locked in extreme confusion. At last, the knight raised his head, and his green eyes looked at me through heavy lids. There was no longer any room for doubt. The young man in the Integrity Knight armor was…
“………Eugeo………”
The name left my mouth as barely more than a moan.
I would never mistake him for anyone else. He was my partner and my best friend; we’d been inseparable since our meeting in the forest two years ago. The only thing that kept me going for so long in this alternate world was Eugeo’s presence at my side. I would never, ever see his features in someone else’s face by accident.
But this expression in Eugeo’s eyes and mouth as he stared at me was one I did not recognize. In fact, it was not an expression at all—the word implied that something was actively being expressed. This youth was all inanimate ice, even colder than when we’d first met Alice at the practice hall of Swordcraft Academy.
“Eugeo,” I repeated, my voice normal this time. The cold glare did not falter or break in the least. But he wasn’t ignoring me. He was measuring me, testing me…to see whether I was worthy of the bite of his weapon.
“…No…it’s too soon,” Alice mumbled.
Desperate for anything to cling to, I asked, “Soon…? Too soon for what…?”
“For the completion of the ritual,” the golden knight said, glancing at me only briefly before she announced, “Your partner…Eugeo has already been synthesized.”
The Synthesis Ritual. Direct manipulation of the fluctlight, a process only Administrator was capable of. Stealing memories, inserting loyalty…raising him into an Integrity Knight.
“…No…no way…You said it took three days and nights,” I protested, shaking my head like a stubborn child.
“The prime senator said that was because I refused to recite the necessary sacred arts commands. If I had simply repeated them, that three-day process would not have been necessary…But even still, this is too soon. Barely hours have passed since Eugeo fought Uncle…”
“That’s right…This isn’t possible. Eugeo couldn’t…just…It has to be some kind of illusion art or something…”
I took an uncertain step forward, not even fully comprehending what I was saying anymore. I was jolted to attention by Alice reaching out to grab my right arm. “Get a grip!” she hissed. “If you can’t stay calm, we’ll lose any chance we might have to save him!”
“S…save…?”
“That’s right! You yourself said it: There is a way to restore the knight’s original memories! So there must be a way to return Eugeo to normal! We must overcome this challenge in order to take advantage of that!!” she spat out, her palm burning with pure willpower against my wrist and pouring life back into my numb flesh. I’d nearly been about to drop my sword; I gripped it harder than ever.
Alice was right. Eugeo’s memory and persona weren’t lost forever. They just couldn’t come to the surface, due to the manipulation of a single part of his fluctlight.
All I had to do was take back the Memory Fragment that Administrator stole from him and have Cardinal reintegrate it, and then Eugeo would return to the gentle, mild-mannered swordsman I knew. The first step to achieving that would be dialogue and information gathering. Whatever personality was running Eugeo, I had to convince it to let us pass…or perhaps even help us. I’d been completely helpless against Alice, and somehow I had won her over with words—there must be a way to repeat that success.
“…Let me handle this,” I whispered to Alice, who was still clutching my wrist. Hesitantly, she acquiesced and let go.
“All right. But don’t take him lightly. That knight is no longer the Eugeo you knew.”
“Right,” I said. Alice took a step back.
To be honest, no matter how powerful Eugeo was as an Integrity Knight, as long as Alice used her Perfect Weapon Control—transforming the Osmanthus Blade into a storm of petals that tore the enemy to shreds—we could easily neutralize his strength. Such was the power of Alice’s ability. But that was truly the last resort, after all other options had been exhausted. I wanted to avoid harming him if at all possible, and it seemed the height of cruelty to make two childhood friends fight when their memories of each other were stolen.
I stepped forward and took the full brunt of Eugeo’s cold stare.
“Eugeo,” I said for the third time, completely firm, “do you remember me? I’m Kirito…your partner. Remember how we’ve been together for the entire past two years?”
The young man in blue-and-silver armor said nothing for several moments, until…
“I’m sorry, I don’t know you.”
That was the first thing Eugeo the Integrity Knight said to me. His soft voice was as I remembered, but it had the same icy quality as his eyes. Clearly he had no access to his pre-synthesis memories, but surely the quick process meant there wasn’t time to insert the usual false memories about being summoned from Heaven, either. There must have been a huge blank space in Eugeo’s self-conception at the moment. If I could just take advantage of that…
“But thank you,” he continued, to my surprise.
Suddenly full of hope at that non-hostile response, I asked, “For what?”
“For bringing me my sword,” he said.
“Uh…”
I looked down to my right side. There was the Blue Rose Sword, a Divine Object wrapped in its white leather sheath. I looked up and asked, “What are you…going to do with it?”
Eugeo’s green eyes blinked, and he said, quite simply, “I’m going to fight you. That’s what she wants.”
“…”
Then it was true—he had come down into this room to defeat Alice and me. Because it was what she wanted.
Sensing that my hopes were growing further and further away, I still clung on. “Eugeo, are you just going to follow orders…to fight without knowing who you are or even the meaning of that fight? We are not your enemies. You came all this way to fight Administrator and take back your precious—”
“It doesn’t matter what the meaning is,” he said, and for the briefest of moments, he wore the first true expression I had seen. “She is going to give me what I want. And that is all I need.”
“What you want…? Is it something more precious than Alice?”
The moment he heard that name, supposedly the most important thing in his world, I thought I sensed a flicker of emotion in his pale features. But again, he covered it up with that icy visage.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. About you…or anyone. I’m just sick…of…already…,” he mumbled, the words too faint for me to make out. He stepped off the disc and held out his hand. “I have nothing more to say to you. Let’s fight…That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“…Not to fight with you, Eugeo. I can’t give back this sword,” I warned him in hushed tones, switching my black sword over to my left hand and pulling out the Blue Rose Sword with my right. With my eyes trained on Eugeo, I reached toward Alice behind me and—
“I don’t need it transferred by hand.”
The white sheath was ripped from my hand. But it wasn’t Alice. The sword shot through the air, as though pulled by invisible strings, and landed right in Eugeo’s grasp, over thirty feet away.
Sacred arts?! Did I miss him chanting…?!
Then I heard a voice behind me spout, “Incarnate Arms…!”
“What’s that?” I asked, face still forward.
“It’s an ancient art taught to the Integrity Knights,” she explained quickly. “It is neither sacred art nor Perfect Weapon Control. It simply moves objects with the force of will alone. I’ve heard that only a few knights aside from Uncle can use it.”
“You mean you can’t?”
“I…I trained in
it, but I can’t even move a pebble, much less a Divine Object. There’s no way a brand-new knight could master it so quickly…”
All the while, Eugeo was examining the Blue Rose Sword, and he hung the sheath on his left side. He grabbed the hilt and promptly drew it. The faintly translucent blade gave off a white mist of frosty air.
I had no choice but to put my normal sword back in the proper hand and hold it up. Eugeo and I had faced off many times over the past two years. But that was always with wooden practice swords; we had never once used the black sword and Blue Rose Sword against each other.
And yet, the only feeling that filled my chest was the realization that the time had finally arrived. I’d sensed this moment might come, on the very day we left Rulid. But that vision was only to the point that our blades clashed. The outcome of the fight was still unwritten. And no one else—not even Administrator—could decide that for us.
“Eugeo,” I said, considering this to be our final conversation, “you might not remember this, but I was the one who taught you to use the sword. And I can’t afford to lose to my own pupil.”
He didn’t say anything back. He merely lifted the Blue Rose Sword and assumed the pose to initiate a sword skill: the one-handed charge attack, Sonic Leap.
Slightly pleased that he still remembered the Aincrad moves I’d taught him, even after he’d forgotten his own name, I made the same stance.
Two swords glowed the same shade of light green.
One second later, Eugeo and I launched off the marble floor in unison.
(To be continued)
AFTERWORD
Hello, this is Reki Kawahara. Thank you for reading Sword Art Online 13: Alicization Dividing.
This is now the fifth volume of the Alicization arc, and with the introduction of the big bad, I can finally heave a sigh of relief…which I probably shouldn’t be wasting my time with. Like the previous volume, there’s a lot of going up and down here. I chose different kanji for climbing a wall and climbing stairs, which made my own proofing efforts very difficult to keep track of—not to mention the poor proofreaders!
Sorry, got off track there. We’ve been having difficulty just getting to the big boss fight, and this volume is finally where we get a good up-close look at Alice Synthesis Thirty, the third protagonist and the inspiration for the series subtitle. How she faces the systems that bind her and how she attempts to create her own fate are major themes of this story, so I hope that you can get behind her the same way that you do for Kirito and Eugeo.
Speaking of Eugeo, he got a sudden class upgrade at the very last moment, didn’t he? Can Kirito defeat him as a mere swordsman, or will he need to look into a class change of his own? My usual apologies for ending us right at that cliffhanger! We will finally be fighting Administrator in Volume 14—the wait is nearly over!
…And this is where I must sadly admit that the next SAO book will be Progressive, Volume 2. If you’ve grown tired of Kirito and Asuna being split up between the Underworld and real life, you’ll be able to read about them tackling the third floor of Aincrad in that one. Please check it out.
And now, a brief advertisement. As of this writing (2013), there will be an end-of-year TV special for the SAO anime. It’s going to be a recap of the Aincrad and Fairy Dance arcs from the 2012 TV series, but there will be some new animation included. It’s the first time in a year that Kirito has graced the screen in motion, so be sure to tune in.
Lastly, to my illustrator abec, who had to deal with my usual lateness, my editors Mr. Miki and Mr. Tsuchiya, and everyone who’s read this far, thank you so much. See you in the next book!
Reki Kawahara—June 2013
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Yen On.
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Alicization Dividing Page 17