After that, she’d checked in to the nearest inn, rubbed her fatigued eyes, and then rolled into bed. She fell asleep immediately, logging out of the game automatically. She didn’t even have the strength to bother with reserving a second room.
Leafa sat up and went over to the edge of the bed. The bustle of town, the smell in the air, and even the color of her skin were different, but that stabbing pain deep in her heart had not vanished. She stayed hunched over, waiting for the pain to turn into liquid so it could drip from her eyes.
After a few dozen seconds, a smooth tone announced the appearance of another person next to her. Leafa slowly raised her head.
The boy in black’s eyes went wide when he saw her, but he recovered quickly and asked, “What’s wrong, Leafa?”
Something about that gentle smile, like a breeze in the night, reminded her of Kazuto. As soon as she saw it, tears sprang into her eyes and fell through the air like glittering beads of light. She tried to put a smile on her face.
“Well, Kirito…I…I’ve got a broken heart.”
He stared at her with his midnight eyes. She was struck by the urge to tell this strangely old boy with the very young features everything—but she clenched her teeth and held it in.
“S-sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you this personal stuff. I know it’s against the rules to talk about real life here,” Leafa hastily added, trying to keep the smile on her face, but the trail of tears did not stop.
Kirito reached out and put his gloved hand on top of Leafa’s head, tenderly rubbing it back and forth a few times.
“You’re allowed to cry when it’s hard—there or here. There’s no rule that says you can’t express your emotions in a game.”
There was always a bit of awkwardness around moving and speaking in the virtual world. But Kirito’s soft, sympathetic voice and gentle hands were smooth as butter. They enveloped Leafa’s senses and made her comfortable.
“Kirito…”
She gently laid her head against his chest. As each of the tears silently dripped onto his clothes, they evaporated with tiny glimmers of light.
I love my brother, she told herself, as if just confirming what she already suspected. But I can’t speak this feeling aloud. I have to keep it trapped deep in the deepest part of my heart. That way I might actually forget about it one day.
Even if they really were cousins by birth, Kazuto and Suguha had been raised as brother and sister for years and years. If she revealed her feelings, Kazuto and her parents would be shocked and troubled. Not to mention that Kazuto’s heart belonged to that lovely girl…
She had to forget everything.
Suguha, in the form of Leafa, let herself sink into the chest of this mysterious Kirito, and hoped that day would come soon.
They stayed that way for quite a while, Kirito rubbing Leafa’s head without a word the entire time. Eventually, a bell began ringing in the distance, and Leafa straightened up, looking at Kirito. This time she was able to give him a proper smile. Her tears had stopped.
“…I’m fine now. Thanks, Kirito. You’re very nice.”
He scratched his head and smiled shyly. “I’ve heard just the opposite plenty of times. Gonna log off for today? I think I can manage on my own from here…”
“No, I’ve come this far. Might as well finish the job.”
She leaped up off the bed, did a spin and a half to face him, and extended her hand. “C’mon, let’s go!”
Kirito nodded and took it, that usual slight smile playing across the corner of his mouth. Then, as though remembering something, he looked up toward the ceiling. “Yui, are you there?”
Before the words had finished leaving his mouth, the familiar pixie appeared with a sparkling of light between them. She rubbed her eyes with a tiny hand, yawning majestically.
“Fwaaaa…Good morning, Papa, Leafa,” she said, plopping down on his shoulder. Leafa took a good look at Yui and greeted her with a question.
“Morning, Yui. I’ve been wondering…do Nav Pixies sleep at night like everyone else?”
“Oh, of course not. But when Papa’s gone, I shut off my input systems and organize and analyze my collected data, so I suppose you could consider that a form of sleep.”
“But the way you were just yawning…”
“Isn’t that a part of the human start-up sequence? Papa does it for an average of eight seconds every time he—”
“Enough of that nonsense.” Kirito jabbed Yui’s cheek with his finger, then opened his item window and placed the large sword over his back. “All right, let’s go!”
“Okay!” Leafa agreed, slinging her blade across her waist.
As they left the inn side by side, the sun was just reaching its apex overhead. Most of the numerous NPC businesses were open, and the nighttime bars and mysterious item shops had CLOSED signs hanging from their doors.
It was just after three o’clock on a weekday, but because monsters and items were particularly well replenished after weekly maintenance, there were plenty of players active.
Leafa had been too tired this morning to notice, but with fresh eyes now she saw a score of surprises among the crowds.
The variety of races and players strolling around and chatting happily was stunning anew—she saw short, squat gnomes covered in metal armors and lugging huge battle-axes; tiny, harp-carrying pookas that barely reached her waist; and even mysterious Imps with purple skin under black-enameled leather. At one of the stone benches throughout the city, she found a red-haired salamander girl and a young, blue-haired undine man staring deeply into each other’s eyes as a cait sith with a massive wolf meandered past.
The sight was much wilder and more chaotic than the uniform green theme of Swilvane, but that liveliness was full of a buoyant cheer. Even Leafa momentarily forget the throbbing in her heart and let a smile steal across her face.
She noticed that part of her was hoping the two of them would look like a natural couple here, then hurriedly squashed that feeling. Looking ahead down the street, she was greeted with a sight that beggared the imagination.
“Wow…”
Alne was a many-layered city, jutting up out of the ground in a conical shape. Leafa was only in the outermost ring, far from the center, but she was still able to see virtually all of the city in its many-ringed wonder.
Looming over the exterior of Alne, and made of something obviously different from the light gray rock of the city, were numerous incredibly thick, moss-green cylinders. Each one was nearly as wide around as a two-story building was tall.
These giant cylinders snaking all over the center of Alne were actually tree roots. Headed downward, they pierced all the way through the thick surface layer of earth to the underground world of Jotunheim. But as seen upward from Jotunheim, they wriggled into fatter and fatter lines until, at last, breaking free of the surface, they all met at a single point hanging above the center of Alne. In other words, the city of Alne aboveground and the giant ice crystal jutting from the ceiling of Jotunheim were in symmetrical locations, with similar designs.
Leafa looked farther up, her back shivering with electricity as she did.
The roots met to make up the base of a tree so large and thick that any attempts to capture its essence with mere words would fail. From that confluence, the trunk shot straight upward, its bark gleaming a golden green from colonization by moss and other flora. And yet, the entire tree seemed to grow more and more bluish as it stretched deeper into the sky. Even higher than the sky’s blue, the branches were shrouded in a white haze—not mist, but clouds. Said clouds were a visual representation of the flight altitude limit, but the branches shot straight through them and far above.
Just before they turned invisible against the blue and white of the sky, the limbs could be faintly seen sprouting into a wide radial pattern. Each branch grew thinner and thinner until lace seemed to cover the sky, all the way over to the outer edge of the city where Leafa now stood. Based on the width of the lower limbs, the canopy of th
e tree had to extend through the atmosphere and into space—if such a thing even existed here.
“So that’s…the World Tree,” Kirito said beside her, his voice faint with awe.
“Yeah…It’s amazing…”
“And there’s another city on top of the tree? Which is where…”
“We’ll find the fairy king Oberon and the alfs, spirits of light. Supposedly, the first race to have an audience with him can be reborn as them.”
“. . .”
Kirito stared silently up at the tree, then turned to her with a hard look on his face.
“Can you climb the exterior of the tree?”
“The area around the tree is off-limits, so apparently not. Plus, if you tried to fly, your wing power would run out long before you got up there.”
“I thought you mentioned some people who stood on each other’s shoulders in an attempt to reach the branches…”
“Oh, that,” Leafa chuckled. “Apparently they got pretty close, but the GMs panicked and put in a fix to prevent it from working. Now there’s a hard-coded barrier just above the cloudline.”
“Oh…Well, let’s go see the roots.”
“Roger!”
They nodded in agreement and headed down the main thoroughfare.
After several minutes of weaving through the mixed parties on the road, a large stone staircase leading up to a gate came into view. Through it lay the center of Alne, which made it, in turn, the very center of the world itself. From here, the view of the World Tree towering above was nothing but a giant wall.
They were climbing the steps with awe, about to walk through the gate, when suddenly Yui’s face appeared from the top of Kirito’s pocket. She was gazing upward with an unusually intense expression.
“H-hey…what’s the matter?” Kirito muttered, trying not to tip off anyone around them. Leafa watched the little pixie curiously. But Yui simply stared silently toward the top of the tree, her eyes wide. After several seconds, her tiny lips parted and croaked.
“It’s Mama…Mama’s there.”
“Wha…?” Now it was Kirito’s turn to stare. “Really?!”
“I’m sure of it! That’s Mama’s player ID…Her coordinates are directly overhead!”
Kirito turned a burning stare up to the sky. His face was pale, and his teeth were clenched so hard, Leafa could practically hear them grinding.
Suddenly, his wings spread. The clear gray surface flashed white for an instant, and with an explosive bang! he disappeared from the spot he was standing.
“Hey—wait, Kirito!” Leafa called out hastily, but the boy in black was rocketing upward and accelerating. Leafa hurriedly spread her wings and took flight after him, completely bewildered.
Vertical zooming and diving were Leafa’s forte, but even she couldn’t catch up to Kirito, who seemed to be equipped with rocket boosters. The black shape grew smaller and smaller before her eyes.
It took only seconds to thread through the countless spires that towered over the center of Alne and into the sky above the city. Players lounging on the high terraces followed the sight with curiosity, but Kirito merely darted past their noses on his way ever higher.
Eventually there were no more buildings in sight, only the greenish-gold cliff that was the trunk of the tree. Kirito raced parallel to the surface like a black bullet. The white clouds enshrouding the trunk were growing closer and closer. Leafa chased desperately, bracing herself against the wind pressure on her face.
“Be careful, Kirito! The wall’s coming up!”
But Kirito didn’t seem to hear. He was like an arrow attempting to split the sky, flying with enough force to tear a hole in the fabric of this virtual world.
What drove him to do this? Was the person atop the World Tree really this important to him? Yui had mentioned a “Mama.” Was it a woman, then? Was the person Kirito sought so desperately actually his—?
Suddenly, Leafa’s chest twinged. It was a similar but distinct pain to the one Kazuto made her feel.
She lost her concentration, and her ascending speed dipped. Leafa shook her head to clear her thoughts, and put all of her mind into her wings.
A few seconds behind Kirito, she reached the thick cloud layer. Her vision went white. If the story she’d heard was correct, the unbreachable altitude was set just above the clouds. She raced through them, slowing only a little.
Suddenly, the world went blue. There was endless sky above in a perfect cobalt-blue shade that just wasn’t visible from the ground. Overhead, the World Tree stretched its branches as though supporting the heavens. Kirito was going even faster than before, heading straight for a branch.
An explosion of rainbow color erupted around him.
Just a few moments later, a shock wave ripped through the air like a peal of thunder. Kirito had slammed into the invisible wall and now plunged lifelessly through the air like a black swan hit by a hunter’s shot.
“Kirito!” she screamed, rushing in his direction. If he fell all the way from this height, not only would he lose all his HP, the ill effects would plague him in the real world for quite a while after logging out.
But before she reached him, Kirito seemed to have snapped out of it. He shook his head a few times and began rising again. Another collision with the barrier, and another impotent burst of light.
Finally at his level, Leafa grabbed Kirito’s arm and shouted, “Stop, Kirito! It’s impossible! You can’t get any higher than this!”
But his eyes were filled with a mad light, and he attempted to charge yet again.
“I have to do it…I have to go!!”
A thick branch of the World Tree split the sky in the direction he was looking. It was certainly in much clearer view than it would be from the surface, but the system’s level of detail made it clear the object was still quite far away.
Yui darted out of Kirito’s pocket. She sped upward on her own, leaving a trail of sparkling light behind.
Of course! A Nav Pixie’s part of the system, Leafa thought momentarily, but the invisible barrier repelled even her tiny body. The spectrum of light rippled outward like the surface of water, pushing Yui away.
But with a sense of desperation that seemed totally unlike a programmed object, Yui pushed against the surface and shouted, “I might be able to reach her with a warning mode alert…Mama! It’s me! Mama!!”
“…!!”
A faint shout reached Asuna’s ears, and she lifted her head from the table.
She looked around frantically, but there was no one else in the golden cage. The sky-blue birds that came to frolic at times were nowhere to be seen. There was only sunlight shining through the bars of the cage, casting shadows.
She put her hands back on the table, certain it was a figment of her imagination.
“…Mama…!”
That time it was clear. Asuna leaped to her feet, kicking the chair backward.
It was the voice of a young girl, as delicate as the plucking of a fine harp. The sound struck Asuna’s distant memories and reverberated throughout her mind.
“Y…Yui, is that you?” she whispered, then raced to the wall of the cage, clutching the golden bars and frantically searching the vicinity.
“Mama…I’m right here…!”
The voice seemed to echo directly inside of Asuna’s head, so she couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from. But, instinctively, she could sense that it was coming from below. No matter how hard she stared, she could see nothing through the white cloud layer surrounding the tree below, but that was the source of the voice.
“I…I’m up here!” Asuna shouted with all of her lungs. “I’m up here, Yui!!”
If Yui, her “daughter” from SAO, was here, then he must be, too…
“…Kirito!!”
She had no idea if she was loud enough to reach them. Asuna looked around the cage, desperate to find something aside from her voice that would signal her presence.
But she already knew that every object in the birdc
age was positionally locked into place and couldn’t be thrown out of the cage. Long ago she’d attempted to send a message to the players below about her presence using teacups or cushions, but it hadn’t worked. She clutched the bars in frustration and desperation.
No…
There was one thing—one object that hadn’t existed here before. An irregularity in the otherwise pristine prison.
Asuna ran back to the bed and reached under the pillows, pulling out the small silver keycard. She returned to the edge of the cage and hesitantly reached out, clutching it in her hand. Previously, she’d been rebuffed by an invisible wall that refused to let anything through.
“…!!”
Miraculously, her right hand felt no resistance as it passed out of the cage. The clear silver card glittered as it caught the sunlight.
Kirito…please notice me!!
She opened her hand without hesitation. The card dropped through the air silently, glinting as it fell straight toward the clouds.
I slammed my fist against the invisible wall, writhing in frustration. My hand shot back as though rebuffed by a powerful magnetic field, and a rainbow ripple extended through the air from that spot.
“Damn…What the hell is this!” I rasped through gritted teeth.
I’d come so far—I was so close. The cage that held Asuna’s soul prisoner was just beyond my reach. And now my way was blocked by the unfeeling, unassailable wall that was the system’s programming.
A terrible, destructive urge pierced straight through my entire being, and then burst forth like white-hot fireworks. Two days of logging in to ALfheim Online, religiously following its rules in my quest to reach Asuna…It was as though all the frustration and panic I’d built up exploded at once. I bared my teeth and reached over my back, intent on the handle of my sword.
That was when it happened.
Through the rage burning up my vision, I saw a small light, flickering above.
“…What’s that…?”
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