Fairy Dance 1

by Reki Kawahara

  Copyright

  SWORD ART ONLINE 3: Fairy Dance

  REKI KAWAHARA

  Translation by Stephen Paul

  Cover art by abec

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  SWORD ART ONLINE

  ©REKI KAWAHARA 2009

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by ASCII MEDIA WORKS

  First published in Japan in 2009 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2014 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Yen On

  1290 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at yenpress.com

  facebook.com/yenpress

  twitter.com/yenpress

  yenpress.tumblr.com

  instagram.com/yenpress

  First Yen On eBook Edition: May 2017

  Originally published in paperback in December 2014 by Yen On.

  Yen On is an imprint of Yen Press, LLC.

  The Yen On name and logo are trademarks of Yen Press, LLC.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-56087-0

  E3-20170501-JV-PC

  Three lights, deep blue, arranged like a whispering constellation.

  Suguha Kirigaya reached out to trace those lights with her fingertips.

  The LEDs on the front rim of the NerveGear VR headgear indicated its current status.

  From right to left, they represented power, network connection, and brain interface. If that leftmost light ever switched to red, it meant that the user’s brain had been rendered nonfunctioning.

  The NerveGear’s wearer was resting on a large, soft gel bed in the midst of an off-white hospital room, deep in an un-waking sleep. But no, that wasn’t quite right. His soul was actually in a far-off world, battling day and night. Battling to free himself and thousands of other players held prisoner.

  “Big brother…” Suguha softly called out to Kazuto. “It’s been two years already. I’m going to be in high school soon…If you don’t come back to us, I’ll shoot past you…”

  She dropped her fingers down to trace his cheek. His flesh had sunk over the long course of this comatose state, as though it had been carved out. Kazuto’s facial profile was already soft and androgynous to begin with, and now it looked more feminine than ever. Their mother had even jokingly called him “our Sleeping Beauty.”

  It wasn’t just his face that was gaunt; his entire body was painfully thin. Athletic Suguha, who had been actively training in kendo from a young age, almost certainly outweighed him at this point. Lately, she was gripped with the terrible thought that he might just wither away into nothing.

  But for the past year, she’d made certain not to cry while in his hospital room with him. Not since she’d heard the news from the member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs team in charge of handling the “SAO Incident.” The man with long bangs and black-framed glasses spoke with a note of respect in his voice: Her brother was currently among the very top players within the game when measured by level—one of the capable few pushing the forward progress of the game, despite considerable personal danger.

  Even now, he was probably facing death within the other world. Which meant that Suguha couldn’t sit here crying over him. She had to take his hand and give him her full support.

  “Hang in there…You can do it, big brother.”

  She clasped Kazuto’s bony hand in both of hers, praying fervently, when a voice from behind caught her by surprise.

  “Oh, you’re already here, Suguha.”

  She hastily spun around. “M-Mom…”

  It was their mother, Midori. The sliding doors on the hospital room were so quiet that she hadn’t noticed they were no longer alone.

  Midori put the bouquet of cosmos into the vase at the side of the bed and took the seat next to Suguha. She must have come on the commute home from work, as she was wearing a rough leather blouse over a cotton shirt and slim jeans. Her light cosmetics and carelessly tied ponytail did not suggest a woman who would be in her forties next year. She had the energy of a much younger woman, perhaps due to her job as the editor of a tech magazine. Suguha often thought of her more as an elder sister than a mother.

  “I’m surprised you had time to visit, Mom. Isn’t the print deadline coming up?”

  Midori flashed her a grin in response.

  “I pushed my way free this one time. I don’t usually manage to visit, so I wanted to make time today.”

  “That’s right. Today’s his…birthday…”

  The two stared in silence at the bed and its sleeping Kazuto. The sunset breeze pushed the curtains and sent the smell of the cosmos wafting under her nose.

  “Kazuto’s already sixteen,” Midori murmured. “I remember it like it was yesterday. Minetaka and I were watching a movie in the living room, and Kazuto snuck up on us and said, ‘Tell me about my parents.’”

  Suguha saw a brief, nostalgic smile play across her lightly rouged lips.

  “He caught me completely by surprise. He was only ten. We were going to keep the secret until you were in high school, Suguha…another seven years. But somehow he realized that certain parts of his citizen record were deleted.”

  She’d never heard this story before. Suguha’s initial reaction was not shock, however, but the same wry smile on her mother’s face.

  “Geez…that’s so him.”

  “He caught us so flat-footed that we weren’t able to deny it very convincingly. That must have been by design. Minetaka even agreed that he got us good.”

  They laughed aloud together, only to return to watching the sleeping Kazuto in silence.

  Suguha’s brother, Kazuto Kirigaya, had been living with her for as long as she could remember, but in reality he was not her brother—he was her cousin.

  Midori and Minetaka Kirigaya were Suguha’s parents, but Kazuto was the son of Midori’s sister, Suguha’s aunt. Kazuto’s parents died in a tragic accident when he was not even a year old. He survived, though with significant injuries. Midori then took in her nephew as her own.

  Suguha had only known the truth for the past two years—since the winter after Kazuto had been taken prisoner by the virtual world called Sword Art Online. Already traumatized by the awful circumstances, she turned on her mother, demanding to know why the truth had been kept from her for so long.

  Even now, two years later, she still felt a deep, simmering discontent that she’d been the only one excluded from the knowledge. It was only recently that she’d finally begun to understand her parents’ line of thinking.

  The reason they’d sped up their schedule and told Suguha the truth before she entered high school was a bitter one: They wanted to ensure she knew while Kazuto was still alive. The SAO Incident resulted in an alarming number of deaths—more than two thousand in the first month alone. Under those circumstances, her parents had no choice but to face the very likely possibility that Kazuto would die. They wanted
to ensure that Suguha wouldn’t regret something she’d never known until it was too late.

  Suguha visited Kazuto’s hospital room often, searching for some kind of answer, conflicted by an array of clashing emotions. If her brother wasn’t really her brother, what was it she was losing?

  The answer she arrived at was: nothing.

  Nothing was changing. Nothing was damaged or lost. Before and after the truth, Suguha’s only course of action was to pray for Kazuto’s life and safe return.

  Two years later, one of those two prayers was still working.

  “Hey, Mom,” Suguha said softly, still watching his face.

  “Yessum?”

  “Do you think that has anything to do…with why he got really into online games right around the time he started middle school?”

  She didn’t say the stuff about not being a real member of the family, but Midori understood and shook her head immediately.

  “No, that had nothing to do with it. He built his own rig from some spare parts I’d left around the place when he was six. Did you know that? If anything, he managed to remotely inherit my computer obsession.”

  Suguha giggled and elbowed her mother’s arm. “Grandma told me once that you were addicted to video games when you were a kid.”

  “That’s right. I was playing games online when I was in elementary school. Kazuto had nothing on me.”

  They laughed together once again, and Midori cast a loving glance at the figure on the bed.

  “But I was never one of the top players in any of the games I played. I didn’t have the force of will or patience for it. That’s the part he shares with you, not me. Kazuto’s alive now because he has the same blood of yours that’s kept you in kendo classes for the last eight years. He’ll be back one day, mark my words.”

  Midori patted her daughter on the head and stood up. “I’m going to head on home now. Don’t stay too late.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t,” she replied.

  Midori took another look at Kazuto and murmured, “Happy birthday.” After a few rapid blinks, she turned and swiftly left the hospital room.

  Suguha placed her hands in her lap, took a deep breath, and stared at the LEDs on the surface of the headgear that covered her brother’s head.

  The blue stars that represented the network connection and brain status were blinking rapidly. Somewhere beyond that connection, Kazuto’s mind was within the world of SAO, sending and receiving countless tiny signals through the NerveGear.

  Where was he now? Wandering through a dim dungeon with map in hand? Browsing items at a shop? Or swinging his sword bravely at some horrible monster?

  She reached out and held his pale white hand again.

  The NerveGear blocked the sensations on Kazuto’s actual skin at the spine, and the feelings did not reach his brain. But Suguha believed that the fervent support she sent him through their skin would find its way to him.

  She could feel it. Her brother’s soul—her cousin’s soul—was emitting a powerful heat. A sign of absolute will to survive and return to the real world.

  The golden light filtering through the white curtains turned to deep red, then purple. The hospital room sank into the gloom of night, but Suguha did not budge. She sat perfectly still, listening to each and every fragile breath her brother took.

  She received word from the hospital that Kazuto had awakened one month later, on November 7th, 2024.

  1

  Clak, clok.

  The unfinished rocking chair rattled pleasantly on the porch.

  Gentle late-autumn light filtered through the cypress branches. Off the distant lake blew a slight breeze.

  She was dozing gently, her cheek resting on my chest. Her breath was slow.

  Time passed drip by drip, golden with serenity.

  Clak, clok.

  As I set the chair to rock, I stroked her soft chestnut hair. Even in her sleep, a faint smile played across her lips.

  A few juvenile squirrels frolicked in the front yard. A pot of stew was bubbling back in the kitchen. Life in this tiny house deep in the woods was so tranquil and easy. I wished it would last forever, but I knew it couldn’t.

  Clak, clok.

  With every creak of the rocking chair, another grain of time fell.

  I clutched her tighter to my chest, trying to resist that inevitable passage.

  My arms embraced nothing but empty air.

  My eyes flew open with a start. An instant earlier, our bodies had been touching, but she’d disappeared like a lie. I rose and looked around.

  The sunset was growing radically darker moment by moment, as though it were a stage effect in a theater. The creeping night turned the forest black.

  I stood up into the wind, blowing colder than before, and called out her name.

  There was no answer. She was not in the front yard, now devoid of any critters, nor was she in the kitchen.

  Somehow, the house was completely surrounded in darkness now. Like a children’s pop-up book, the walls and furniture of the little cabin fell flat against the ground and vanished. Soon, the only things around me were the rocking chair and the night. The chair kept rocking back and forth, without anyone in it.

  Clak, clok.

  Clak, clok.

  I shut my eyes, covered my ears, and screamed her name with every ounce of strength I had.

  That scream was so powerful and real that even after I bolted awake, I couldn’t be sure if I’d screamed aloud or if it was only in my dream.

  I closed my eyes again in the vain hope of returning to that dream’s happy beginning, but eventually I had to give up the dark and open my eyes.

  It was not the white panels of a hospital room but walls with narrow wooden boards that came into my vision. The bed, too, wasn’t made of an advanced gel material, but a mattress with cotton sheets. There were no IV drips stuck into my arms.

  This is my—This is Real World Kazuto Kirigaya’s bedroom.

  I sat up and looked around. The room had authentic wood flooring, a rarity in this day and age. There were only three pieces of furniture: a simple computer desk, a wall rack, and my pipe-frame bed.

  The rack was the kind that tilts to lean against the wall. Sitting on the middle shelf was a piece of headgear in a faded navy blue. A NerveGear.

  This was the full-dive VR interface that had trapped me in a virtual world against my will for two whole years. It was only after a long and terrible battle that I was released to see, touch, and feel the real world again.

  I was back.

  But the girl who’d swung her sword at my side, who’d shared her heart with mine…

  I squeezed my eyes shut, turning away from the NerveGear, and got to my feet. I looked in the mirror placed on the other side of the bed. The electroluminescent panel embedded in the mirror placed the date and time just above the reflection of my face.

  Sunday, January 9th, 2025, 7:15 AM.

  Two months had passed since I’d returned to the real world, but I still wasn’t used to my appearance. My old form as Kirito the swordsman and my real self, Kazuto Kirigaya, bore the same face. But I still hadn’t regained the weight I’d lost, and the bony body beneath my T-shirt was frail.

  I noticed in the mirror two shining tear tracks on my cheeks, and I reached up to wipe them away.

  “Look at me, Asuna. I’m such a crybaby now.”

  Muttering, I walked to the south end of the room and the large window there. With both hands, I cast open the curtains and let the wan sun of a winter morning dye the room’s insides pale yellow.

  Suguha Kirigaya strode across the frosty lawn making pleasant crunching sounds.

  Yesterday’s snow had almost entirely disappeared, but the mid-January morning air was still cold enough to bite.

  She stopped at the bank of the pond, frozen over with a thin film of ice, and let the shinai—her bamboo kendo sword—rest against the trunk of a black pine. Suguha inhaled deeply to banish the last remnants of sleep from her body, then put
her hands on her knees to begin stretching.

  She gently, slowly loosened the muscles resisting the call to wake. Toes, Achilles tendons, calves—the blood flowed faster into each in turn, bringing forth telltale prickling.

  She put her hands together and stretched them straight down, and when her waist was fully bent over, she stopped dead still. As she arched over the pond, the smooth surface of the morning’s fresh ice reflected her figure.

  Suguha had cut her hair straight across, just above the eyebrows and the shoulders. It was so black that it almost had a bluish tinge. The ice showed her a girl with brows equally black and thick and large, confident eyes that gave her a boyish air. Particularly when you considered her outfit: an old-fashioned white dogi with black hakama bottom.

  It’s true…He and I really don’t look alike…

  It was a thought that occurred to her often these days. It popped into her head every time she looked in the mirror in a bathroom or the foyer of their house. She didn’t hate the way she looked, and she wasn’t particularly disposed to caring about such things, but now that her brother, Kazuto, was living at home again, she couldn’t help but compare them.

  No use thinking about this.

  Suguha shook her head and resumed stretching.

  When she was finished, she grabbed the bamboo sword off the pine tree. She gripped the old, familiar handle, letting it sink into her hands, and then straightened her back, hands at stomach height.

  She held her breath and pose—and, with a sharp cry, swung the blade straight downward. Several sparrows took off from the branches over her head, startled by the disturbance of the morning air.

  The Kirigaya home was an old-fashioned Japanese house in the southern region of Saitama Prefecture, a former castle town that still featured many of its archaic sights. Their family line could be traced back many generations, and Suguha’s late grandfather, who had died four years ago, was a strict man of the old ways.

  He had served on the police force for many years and was said to be quite a kendo practitioner when he was young. He was hoping for the same from his only son—Suguha’s father. But her father only swung the shinai until high school before transferring to an American college. Once out of school, he went straight to work for a multinational securities company. He met her mother, Midori, after getting a transfer to the Japanese branch, but his work still took him back and forth over the Pacific constantly. As a result, her grandfather’s fierce passion was typically directed at herself and Kazuto.