“Let go!! Let go!! Let me out of here!!” she screamed, but the slug’s grip did not weaken.
“I can’t do that; the boss would kill me. Listen, don’t you get bored just being stuck in here with nothing to do? Have you ever tried fooling around on electrodrugs? I’m getting bored of just playing with dolls.”
Asuna felt a cold, clammy tentacle brush her cheek.
“S-stop it!! What are you doing?!”
She tried to resist, but the slug sent more and more tentacles after her. They wrapped around her limbs and trunk and even began to slip into her dress.
Stifling her urge to shiver at the disgusting crawling sensation, Asuna let the strength drain out of her body, feigning the loss of will to fight. One of the eager tentacles approached her mouth. The instant it touched her lips—
Asuna raised her head and bit the ropy feeler as hard as her jaws could snap.
“Gak!! Yeowww!!” the slug screamed, but she only bit harder. “S-stop—ow! Okay, okay!!”
Only when she felt the tentacle under her clothes retreat did Asuna open her mouth. The injured probe slithered out pitifully.
“Damn, I forgot the pain absorber ran out…” it moaned to itself, eyestalks retreating. A white pillar sprang up next to it, and the other slug popped back into place.
“…What are you doing?”
“N-nothing. What did the boss say?”
“He was freakin’ furious. Told us to put her back in the birdcage on top of the lab, change the door passcode, and keep her on twenty-four-hour watch.”
“Damn. I was hoping we could have some fun with her first…”
Asuna’s sight seemed to grow dark with despair. Her one-in-a-million chance was trickling through her fingers.
“Let’s at least walk her back, rather than teleporting. I want to enjoy the sensation of her skin.”
“You’re such a weirdo.”
The slug holding Asuna prisoner started turning slimily toward the entrance of the storage chamber. When both creatures looked away for a moment, Asuna quickly stretched out her right leg and deftly gripped the keycard stuck in the console’s slot, pulling it free with her toes.
The window shut down with the removal of the key, but the slugs didn’t seem to notice. Arching her back like a shrimp, Asuna managed to transfer the key from her toes to her hands, which were bound tight behind her back.
“C’mon, no struggling.”
The slug hoisted her up and began slithering toward the exit.
The door of the birdcage slammed shut. The slug fiddled with the number pad and waved at Asuna.
“So long. Let’s hang out if you manage to break loose a second time.”
“I hope I never see you again,” she said coldly, walking to the far side of the cage. They watched her regretfully, but eventually turned away and proceeded back along the branch.
Night had covered the land while she was inside the lab. As she watched the twinkling of the city lights far, far below, Asuna murmured under her breath.
“I won’t let this stop me, Kirito. I won’t give up. I’m going to break out of here.”
She looked down at the silver card in her hand. It was probably useless without a console, but at the moment, it was her only hope.
Asuna strode over to the bed, and, pretending to stretch and lie down, she slipped the card beneath her large pillows.
She shut her eyes and felt the veil of sleep slowly envelop her exhausted mind.
7
Out in the yard dusted with snow, the embrace of the chill morning air was biting, but even that did not drive all of the fogginess from my head.
I shook my head a few times and headed resolutely for the wash station in the corner of the open space. I twisted the old-fashioned silver faucet and held out my hands to catch the falling water.
It was so cold, it seemed like the pipes should be frozen. But I splashed water on my face nonetheless, an attempt to force all of my nerves into activity. They screamed in protest, but were splashed a few more times before I tilted my head down and drank directly from the spigot.
As I was drying my face with the towel around my neck, the glass door to the house opened, and Suguha stepped out in her tracksuit. She was normally an excellent morning person, but today she looked as miserably half-asleep as I felt.
“Morning, Sugu,” I said. She tottered over to mumble a greeting, blinking heavily.
“Morning, Big Brother.”
“You look sleepy. When did you get to bed last night?”
“Umm…around four, I think.”
I shook my head in disappointment. “C’mon, kids shouldn’t be staying up all night. What were you doing?”
“Ummm…the Internet…and stuff…”
This took me by surprise. The old Suguha would never have stayed up until all hours on the Internet. She really must have changed in the two years I’d been gone.
“Just don’t overdo it. Not that I have room to talk…”
The second half of that came out as a quiet mumble. Remembering something from last night, I said, “Hey Sugu, turn around.”
“…?”
She did a half turn, her face confused and still half-asleep. I put my hand under the faucet to get it nice and wet, then grabbed the back collar of her suit and shoved a half-dozen freezing-cold drops down her unprotected back.
“Pyaaaaa!!”
Her screech echoed throughout the yard.
Suguha was still in a huff throughout all of our morning stretches and swinging practice, but her mood improved instantly when I promised to buy her a raspberry cream parfait drizzled with green tea and sweet-bean syrup from our local diner.
We’d both slept in a bit this morning, so once we’d finished our showers after training, the clock said it was already past nine. As usual, our mom was fast asleep, so Suguha and I cooked our own breakfast.
I was washing and cutting tomatoes into sixths, and Suguha was dicing lettuce, when she leaned over and asked, “What’s your schedule for today, Big Brother?”
“Well, I’ve got something to do in the afternoon…so I’m thinking of visiting the hospital before then.”
“I see…”
Once I’d learned of Asuna’s plight, visiting her in the hospital every other day was my most important custom.
As a sixteen-year-old in real life, there was very little I could do for Asuna—basically nothing, actually. Holding her hand and praying was the best I could manage.
The screenshot Agil had sent me flashed through my mind. Thanks to that picture, I’d made my way into the virtual world of Alfheim and, after two days, was very close to the location of the girl in the photo, but I had no proof that it was Asuna. I could be searching for her in the wrong place entirely.
But there was something to that world—that much was certain.
Sugou wanted Asuna to stay under forever. His company was involved in running ALfheim Online. The character data for Kirito and Yui the mental-care AI, both from SAO, fit right into the server…I didn’t know how all the pieces added up, but there was something there.
When the ALO server maintenance finished this afternoon, I would be challenging the World Tree in that land of fairies. Just the thought sent shudders of impatience down my back. It would be nearly unbearable to sit in my room, waiting for the maintenance to finish, wondering to myself if I was any closer to Asuna than when I started.
So before I did any of that, I wanted to touch the real Asuna, to feel her warmth. Sugou had warned me to stay away from her, citing her condition, but there was nothing he could do to stop me from visiting.
Once they were cut, we tossed the tomatoes, lettuce, and watercress in a bowl and stirred in some dressing. Suguha was quiet throughout, but she eventually gave me a serious look and asked, “Hey, Big Brother. Can I go to the hospital with you…?”
“Huh…?”
I paused, bewildered. Suguha had never actively tried to learn more about my experience in SAO before. I’d told her a b
it about Asuna a while back, but nothing beyond that, not even my character’s name.
I panicked slightly when I remembered that two nights ago, shocked by the story of Asuna’s engagement, I’d broken down and cried in front of Suguha, but this time, I managed to keep my expression cool.
“Yeah…okay. I’m sure Asuna would like that.”
Suguha nodded happily, but there seemed to be a shadow behind her smile. I gave her a close look, but she only turned around, carrying the bowl to the table.
Nothing odd happened after that, and I soon forgot about Suguha’s awkward reaction.
“What’s up with your school situation now?” she asked, crunching her veggies across from me at the table.
It was a reasonable question. At age fourteen, the fall of my second year of middle school, I’d been taken prisoner by SAO and had not escaped for two years, making me sixteen now. This April, I should have been starting my second year of high school, but I hadn’t taken any entrance exams, and even if I wanted to, most of my memory was now stuffed with a vast amount of data related to SAO. It would take a long, long time just to forget all those item prices and monster attack patterns so that I could replace them with historical dates and English vocabulary words.
The fellow with glasses from the Ministry of Internal Affairs had actually mentioned something about this, but I’d been so concerned with Asuna that I didn’t take in most of that information. I strained to recall the fragments that remained.
“Let’s see…I think they said they were going to use an old school campus that was left empty after some recent consolidation to make a special temporary school for the students that came back from SAO. No entrance tests to worry about, and if you graduate, you’ll qualify to take a college entrance exam.”
“Ohh, I see. That sounds nice…right?” Suguha smiled for a moment, then scowled and mumbled, “I guess it does seem a little too convenient and unified, though…”
“Well spotted,” I said, smiling. “I think that’s exactly what the government wants. We were locked inside a game for two years with the threat of death. They’re worried about the effect that might have had on our mental health. So I’m guessing it’s easier for them to manage the situation by putting us all together like that.”
“Aw, I dunno,” Suguha mumbled, scrunching her face up.
I hastily added, “Well, regardless of any overmanagement, at least they’re offering a safety net. If I tried to get into a regular old high school now, I’d have to spend the whole year studying all over again at a cram school. Of course, they’re not going to force us to attend this temporary school, so I have the option of trying on my own, if I want…”
“I’m sure you could do it. You have very good grades.”
“Had, past tense. I haven’t done any schoolwork in two years.”
“I know! I could be your tutor!”
“Oh? Maybe I should have you teach me math and information processing.”
“Umm…”
I grinned at her look of awkward hesitation and popped the slice of buttered toast into my mouth.
In truth, I hadn’t been in any state to think about school recently. With everything that had happened and Asuna’s current plight, it was hard to think of myself as an ordinary student.
Even now, two months back into the real world, I sometimes felt lonely and vulnerable without my beloved swords at my back. There were no more monsters lurking, waiting to pounce, but I still felt that sense of anxiety. It would take a while to get rid of the sensation that I was actually Kirito the swordsman, while Kazuto Kirigaya—who attended school, took tests, and grew older—was only a persona.
Or perhaps it was because inside my head, I still hadn’t seen the ending of SAO. I couldn’t hang up my swords until I’d seen Asuna returned to this world. I had to get her back. Nothing could start until then.
I paid for two tickets at the terminal and we stepped off the bus, into the street. Normally I rode my bike to the hospital, but today I decided to give the workout a rest and take the bus instead.
Suguha blinked as she stared up at the hospital.
“Wow, it’s so big!”
“You should see the interior. It’s like a hotel.”
I waved at the guard as we passed through the gate. The walk up the tree-lined hill to the hospital itself was surprisingly long, and it took several minutes for us to finally make our way into the dark brown building. Suguha, the very picture of good health, looked around curiously at the unfamiliar setting, so I had to drag her over to the desk for our visitor passes before making my way to the elevator. We got off on the top floor and walked down the empty hallway to the last room.
“This is it…?”
“Yeah,” I nodded, sticking the passcard into the lock on the door. Suguha stared at the metal nameplate next to the door.
“Asuna…Yuuki…So her character name was her real name? Most people don’t bother to use their own name.”
“I’m surprised you know that. As far as I can tell, Asuna was the only one using her real name…”
I slid the card back out, and with a quiet beep, the orange LED turned green and the door opened. Instantly, the thick scent of flowers flooded out. I stifled the sound of my breath and walked into the chamber of the serene, sleeping princess. I could feel the tension in Suguha’s body as she stayed right next to me.
I put a hand on the white curtain and said the same quick prayer I always did.
Then I slid it aside.
Suguha forgot to breathe when she saw the girl sleeping on the spacious bed.
For a moment, she thought it wasn’t a person. It must be a fairy—one of the Alfs, the true fairies that lived on the top of the World Tree. Such was the otherworldly beauty of the sleeping girl before her.
Next to her, Kazuto watched in silence, until he finally took a short breath and whispered, “Let me introduce you. This is Asuna…Asuna the Flash, vice-commander of the Knights of the Blood. Even at the very end, I could never match her speed and precision with a blade…”
He trailed off and looked down at the girl.
“Asuna, this is my sister, Suguha.”
Suguha stepped forward and said timidly, “It’s nice to meet you, Asuna.”
The sleeping girl did not respond, of course.
She looked at the navy-blue headgear stuck to the girl’s head. It was the same NerveGear that Suguha had looked at nearly every day, often with hatred. Only the three glittering lights on the front face of the apparatus gave any sign that Asuna was alive.
The deep, terrible pain that Suguha had nursed while Kazuto was locked in the game for those two years was something he was grappling with now, she realized. Suguha’s heart quavered like a leaf floating on water.
It was too cruel that this inhumanly beautiful person’s soul should still be locked away in some other, hidden world. She wanted to bring this girl back to Kazuto’s side—to bring a true smile of joy to his face.
But at the same time, she couldn’t stand to see the look on his face as he silently gazed down at Asuna on the bed. She was starting to regret having come here.
When she had asked to tag along today, Suguha had wanted to know what her true feelings were, once and for all. Ever since Midori told her the truth, an itch had developed within Suguha, underneath all of the regret and longing of the last two years. Was it the close love she felt for her brother, or the romantic love she felt for her actual cousin? What did she want from Kazuto?
I just want to be with him forever…as a close sibling.
But was that really all there was to it? Could she truthfully claim that she wanted nothing more than to train with him and eat at the table with him every day?
These were questions she had asked herself over and over since Kazuto’s return two months ago.
She’d thought that by meeting the person who owned the innermost part of his heart, she might discover the answers. But as she stood in the golden, quiet hospital room, Suguha felt herself
growing scared. She was afraid to learn those answers.
She was about to say that she’d just be waiting out in the hallway, trying not to look at Kazuto’s face, when he suddenly took a step forward and she lost her opportunity to excuse herself. He circled around the bed and sat down in the chair on the other side. Now he was front and center in her field of vision.
He grabbed up Asuna’s small hand, which was poking out of the white sheets, and stared silently at her sleeping face. When Suguha saw the look on his face, a sharp pain pierced her heart.
“. . .”
That look in his eyes. It was the look of a weary traveler in search of his fated lover after many long years…perhaps a journey that had begun in his previous life and that would continue into the next. Behind the gentle, caring light in his eyes, she sensed a deep, mad longing. Even the colors of his irises seemed different.
In that moment, Suguha realized what her heart truly desired, and that it was in a place she could never reach.
She couldn’t even remember what she and Kazuto talked about on the way back home.
The next thing she knew, Suguha was lying on her bed, staring at the blue sky in the poster on her ceiling.
Her cell phone was beeping happily atop the headboard. It wasn’t an incoming call, but an alarm she’d set last night before bed. The time was three o’clock, the end of the ALO server maintenance. The gate to the other world was open again.
She didn’t want to shed any real tears. If she cried here, she knew she’d never be able to give up on this. Instead, she’d cry a bit in the fairy world. Leafa was always peppy and energetic; she’d be back to laughing in no time.
Suguha stopped the alarm and picked up the AmuSphere sitting next to it. She put it on, lay back down again, closed her eyes, and sent her soul soaring.
When the sylph girl awoke, she was in an inn room on the edge of Alne, central city of Alfheim.
Last night—actually, early this morning—Leafa had at long last escaped the underground realm of Jotunheim. When she’d climbed the stairs carved into the roots of the World Tree, she was right in Alne where she’d hoped to be. The knothole she’d climbed out of closed up behind her in seconds, and there would be no turning back.
Fairy Dance 2 Page 7