There was no shock or agitation in Kazuto’s voice. After all the hurtful things she’d said to him, he must have internalized it.
He’s so strong. I can’t be like him…
She thought of that painful night several days ago. Like Suguha now, Kazuto had been curled up on his bed. Just like her, he’d been crying for the sake of someone he couldn’t reach. He’d been like a helpless child with no solution to his problem.
The next day, she’d met Kirito. That meant that Kazuto had somehow found information that his sleeping beloved was in ALfheim Online—on the top of the World Tree—and thrown himself into that quest. He’d wiped his tears aside and grabbed his sword.
And I told him to hang in there. Not to give up. And yet here I am, still crying…
Suguha slowly opened her eyes. There was a shining crown ahead of her.
She reached out, lifted it, and set it on her head.
The pale sunlight falling through the wispy clouds seemed to soften the ancient stone architecture of Alne.
Kirito was not at the log-in location. She checked the map to see that the entrance to the dome was on the south end of the World Tree, while the north side featured a large terrace for events. He would be waiting for her there.
Now that she’d come this far, she was afraid to see him. She didn’t know what she ought to say, and had no idea what he might tell her. Leafa took a few dejected steps forward and sat on a bench to the side of the square.
How many minutes did she spend looking at the ground? There was a sensation of someone landing nearby, and Leafa froze, shutting her eyes.
But the person who called her name was not who she expected.
“Arrrgh, I was looking all over for you, Leafa!”
Despite the whiny tinge to the voice, it was energetic and familiar. She looked up with a start to see a sylph with greenish-blond hair.
“R-Recon?!”
The emergence of this surprising face made her forget the pain for a moment. When asked why he was there, Recon put his hands on his hips and bent over confidently.
“Well, I noticed that Sigurd had left the sewer, so when my paralysis wore off, I took my shot and poisoned both of the salamanders dead. Then I went off to find him and make him taste some poison, but he was no longer in sylph territory, so I decided to just head for Alne myself, and the only way to get through the mountains was to keep drawing aggro from all the monsters and foist the trains off on other people until I made it here this morning. It took all night!”
“So you’re saying…you PKed people with monsters…?”
“Look, don’t sweat the fine details!”
Recon excitedly plopped down next to Leafa, totally unconcerned with her observation. Then he must have realized that she was alone, and looked around curiously.
“Where’s that spriggan? Did you split up already?”
“Well…”
Leafa chose her words carefully, inching away to put more space between them. Despite the diversion, there was still a lump of pain in her chest, and no convenient excuse came to mind. The next thing she knew, she was baring it all.
“I…I said some awful things to him…I love him, but I said such hurtful things. I’m an idiot…”
The tears nearly came flooding out again, but Leafa kept them in. Shinichi Nagata was her classmate in real life, and this was only a virtual world, so she didn’t want to burden him with a flood of raw emotion. She turned away and spoke quickly.
“I’m sorry for being weird. Forget about it. I’m not going to see him anymore…so let’s just go back to Swilvane…”
No matter how hard she tried to run, in reality they were only a matter of feet away from each other. But Leafa was still afraid to see Kirito. She decided she’d ignore his summons, go back to Swilvane, greet the few people she liked there, then let Leafa go into a long hibernation. At least until her pain had faded.
Her mind made up, Leafa looked over at Recon, then abruptly flinched backward.
“Wh…what?!”
Recon’s face was as red and puffy as if it had been boiled. His eyes bulged and his mouth worked soundlessly. For a moment she forgot they were safe in town, and thought he might have been hit with a suffocation spell. Recon suddenly darted forward to grab her hands and held them to his chest.
“Wh-wh-what’s happening?!”
“Leafa!” he shouted, so loudly that other players were turning to look. He leaned over Leafa and stared into her eyes, despite her best efforts to pull back as far as possible.
“Y-you shouldn’t cry! You’re not Leafa if you’re not smiling all the time! I…I’ll always be with you, in real life or in the game…L-L-Leafa—I mean, Suguha…I l-love you!”
The words poured out of him as though he were a broken faucet. Rather than wait for her answer, he shoved his face even closer. There was a mad gleam in his normally weak eyes, and his nostrils were flared wide as his lips closed in on her.
“U-um, hang on…”
Ambushes were Recon’s specialty in battle, but this was beyond even that. Leafa couldn’t move for the shock that possessed her body. Recon must have taken that for assent, and loomed even closer, his body practically covering hers.
“W-wait…stop…”
When he was close enough that she could feel the warmth breath of his nostrils, Leafa’s stun effect finally wore off, and she clenched a fist.
“I told you…to stop it!!” She tensed and delivered a short but powerful blow to his solar plexus.
“Gwufh!!”
There was no damaging other players in the safe zone of town, but there was still a knock-back effect. Recon flew several feet into the air and crashed down onto a bench. He held his stomach, writhing in agony.
“Hrrrgh…Th-that was messed up, Leafa…”
“Which part?! Learn to control yourself, you dingus!” she ranted, finally feeling her face flush. The rage and shame of almost having been kissed roared within her like dragon breath. She grabbed Recon by the collar and gave him a few more good punches with her other hand.
“Geh! Agh! O-okay, okay, I’m sorry!!”
He fell off the bench and propped himself up on the paving stones with his right hand, shaking his head frantically. When Leafa relaxed her attacking stance, he sat up, cross-legged, and hung his head.
“Dang it…It doesn’t make sense…I thought it was just a matter of me having the guts to go ahead and tell you…”
“You…” she sighed, “are an idiot.”
“Aww…”
He looked like a scolded puppy dog. It was such a ridiculous expression that Leafa passed straight over exasperation into laughter. She let out a deep breath, half sigh and half giggle. Her heart felt as though some of the weight had left it.
Leafa suddenly wondered if she’d been internalizing everything a bit too much. She’d been gritting her teeth the entire time, afraid of being hurt. Because of that constant backward pressure, when the dam broke all those feelings poured out in a flood. She’d hurt someone very important to her.
It might be too late—but she at least wanted to be honest to herself. Once she realized this, the tension went out of her shoulders. She looked up and murmured, “But that’s the part about you that I don’t mind.”
“Huh? R-really?!”
Recon hopped up on the bench again and grabbed Leafa’s hand—no lesson learned.
“Don’t get cocky, buster!” She slipped out of his grasp and floated up into the air.
“I’m going to follow your example from time to time. I need you to wait here, though. And if you actually trail me, you’ll get worse than this!” She brandished her fist menacingly under Recon’s shocked face, then spun around, beat her wings, and flew up toward the trunk of the World Tree.
After several minutes of flying around the frighteningly massive tree, a wide terrace came into view below. The space was apparently used for flea markets and guild events, but it was empty today. There was little else on the north side of Alne, so t
here weren’t even any tourists wandering by.
A small black figure waited at the center of the wide-open space. It had sharply angled gray wings, and a massive sword slung diagonally between them.
Leafa took a deep breath, collecting her nerves, and descended to him.
“…Hey.”
Kirito gave her an easy grin, though there was some tension behind it.
“Thanks for waiting,” she replied. Silence followed. The only sound between them was the whistling of the wind blowing past.
“Sugu,” Kirito eventually said. His eyes were shining with serious intent, but Leafa cut him off with the wave of a hand. She beat her wings and took a step back.
“Let’s have a duel, Big Brother. To finish the one we started the other day.”
She put a hand on her katana and his eyes went wide. He opened his mouth briefly, then shut it.
Kirito’s dark eyes stared at her, the deep glimmer the only feature he shared with his real-life counterpart, and he eventually nodded. He flapped his wings and stepped back.
“All right. No handicaps this time,” he said, still grinning, and put his hand on his sword hilt.
They drew at the same time, the clear, crips sounds overlapping. Leafa held her familiar blade dead still at medium height, staring at Kirito. He lowered his stance, just barely keeping the giant sword off the ground. Just as he had the other day.
“You don’t have to hold back at the last second. Here goes!!”
They leaped forward as one.
In the instant they closed the gap, Leafa had an epiphany. That stance of his she’d thought so preposterous during their duel must have been perfected in this virtual world. After all, he’d spent every day of those two years fighting for his life.
For the first time, she wanted to know. Wanted to know what he’d seen, what he’d felt, and how he’d lived in that other world, that death game that had never been anything but the target of her hatred.
Leafa brought her katana straight down from overhead. In Swilvane they’d said her slashes were unavoidable, but Kirito evaded it with just the slightest of motions. His greatsword came howling up at her. She brought the katana forward to deflect it, but the heavy shock left her hands numb.
They each used the backward momentum of the deflection to leap. Beating their wings, they became two opposing spirals, traveling upward to strike again in midair. There was an explosion of light and sound, and the earth shook.
As both a fairy warrior and a kendo athlete, Leafa had to admire Kirito’s ability. He was equally adept at both offense and defense, as smooth and beautiful as a dance. The longer she matched his rhythm of strikes and sways, the more Leafa felt that she was ascending to new heights she’d never experienced before. None of the duels she’d ever taken part in here had ever truly satisfied her. She’d lost before, but it was always due to some special quality of the opponent’s weapon, or a spell. No one had bested Leafa through sword skill alone.
Now that she’d finally found someone who was even better, and he was her beloved, Leafa was filled with something like joy. Even if they never shared their hearts again, this special moment was enough for her. In time, she noticed that there were tears pooling in her eyes.
After several bracing clashes, Leafa let the momentum push her into a backward leap for some distance. She spread her wings wide to come to a halt, and raised her katana high, high over her head.
Kirito seemed to understand that this would be her final attack. He twisted, notching his sword even farther back.
For a moment, all was as still as the surface of a pond on a windless day.
The tears fell down Leafa’s cheeks without a sound, dripping off her chin and sending ripples through the silence. They moved together.
She raced downward, as if to set the air on fire. Her long katana traced an arc of pure light. Kirito was dashing up to meet her head-on. His sword also burned white, cutting the air in two.
Just as her beloved’s blade passed by her head, Leafa let go.
The masterless sword flew forward, an arrow of light. But she did not follow it with her eyes. She spread her arms wide, ready to embrace Kirito’s blade.
She knew this would not satisfy him. But she didn’t have the right words to apologize for the foolishness of her hurtful statement.
So this was her means of making amends: She’d offer this other version of herself to his sword.
Arms wide and eyes half-closed, Leafa waited for the moment to come.
But as her vision melted into white, Kirito flew toward her, his hands—empty.
“…?!”
She went wide-eyed. In the corner of her vision, she noticed that, like hers, his sword was spinning off through open air. He’d discarded his own weapon at the same moment she’d thrown hers.
Before she had time to ask herself why, they crossed in midair. Kirito collided with her, his arms also open wide. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, and all she could do was cling to him.
Unable to cancel out the momentum, their bodies spun off through the air. The world turned into a blurry smear of blue sky and brown tree.
“Why would—” It was all she could manage get out, somehow.
At the same time, staring into her face from just inches away, he said, “Why did—”
They both fell silent and let inertia carry them through the Alfheim sky, staring deeply into each other’s eyes. After a while, Kirito spread his wings to catch the air and slow their rotation.
“I-I wanted to apologize, Sugu. But…I didn’t have the right words…so I was going to let you hit me instead…”
She suddenly felt Kirito’s arms tighten around her back.
“I’m so sorry, Sugu. After all that time away…I haven’t been seeing you for who you are. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own affairs that I didn’t try to hear what you were really saying. I’m sorry…”
The tears poured out of Leafa’s eyes as she in took his words.
“No…I’m the one who…”
But she couldn’t continue. Leafa sobbed audibly, burying her face in his chest.
She was still thinking she wanted the moment to continue forever when the two of them came to a soft landing on the grass. Kirito continued stroking her head as she sobbed and hiccupped, but a few minutes later, he began to speak in hushed tones.
“To tell you the truth…I still haven’t really come back from there. It’s not over yet. My real life won’t start again until she wakes up…so I still don’t know what to think about you, Sugu…”
“…Okay,” she murmured, nodding. “I’ll be waiting. Waiting for the moment you truly do come back to our home. I’m here to help. Tell me…about her. And how it was you came to this game…”
8
After they recovered the two discarded swords, Kirito and Leafa flew back to the landing before the guardian statues at the tree gate. To Leafa’s surprise, Recon had been obediently waiting there. His face ran through a blinding series of emotions upon seeing the black-clad spriggan next to her until, finally, he inquired, “So…how did it go?”
Leafa beamed and said, “We’re going to conquer the World Tree. Me, you, and him.”
“Oh…Wait—what?!”
He faltered backward, face pale. She patted him on the shoulder, wished him luck, and turned to look at the massive stone doors. They seemed to be emitting a freezing chill to intimidate all comers.
However, after having seen a warrior as great as Kirito mercilessly crushed by those guardian knights not long ago, Leafa didn’t think that adding two more to the party would make a difference. She looked over and saw that Kirito was biting his lip, his face tense.
But suddenly he looked up, as though pondering a sudden idea.
“You there, Yui?”
Before the words had finished coming out of his mouth, a light coalesced in midair and the familiar pixie was there. She put her hands on her hips and pouted, clearly furious.
“What took you so long? I c
an’t appear until you call me, Papa!”
“Sorry, sorry. Things were busy.”
He grinned apologetically and offered his palm to the pixie, who sat down on it. In a flash, Recon craned his neck over to examine her with rabid curiosity.
“W-wow, is this a Private Pixie?! I’ve never seen one before! Holy cow, she’s so cute!!”
Yui pulled back in concern, eyes wide. “Wh-who is this person?!”
“Come on, you’re scaring her,” Leafa scolded Recon, pulling him away by the ear. “You don’t have to worry about him, he’s not dangerous.”
“Um…okay,” Kirito said, blinking in surprise. He turned back to Yui. “So, did you learn anything from that battle?”
“Yes,” she replied, an adorably serious look on her little face. “Those guardian monsters aren’t all that impressive in terms of stats—it’s their appearance patterns that are dangerous. The closer to the gate you got, the faster they spawned. At the closest point, they were appearing twelve per second. I can only assume it was designed to be impossible…”
“Hmm.” Kirito nodded, his face severe. “You wouldn’t notice because each individual guardian goes down in a hit or two, but as a total, they add up to an unbeatable, titanic boss. They’re going to tantalize the player base and make it virtually impossible, but just easy enough to keep them interested. That’ll make this very tough…”
“But, Papa, your skill levels are also off the charts. With your instantaneous bursts of strength, it might be possible.”
“. . .”
Kirito lapsed into silence again, then looked at last to Leafa.
“I’m sorry. Can I ask you to indulge me one last time? I know it would be easier to find more people or search for another way, rather than attempting this madness again. But…I just have a bad feeling. Like we’re running out of time…”
His suggestion gave Leafa the momentary idea to send a message to the Lord’s Mansion in Swilvane. Lady Sakuya might be able to send the highest-level sylphs to assist their battle.
But she bit her lip and quickly abandoned the idea. The image of the undine party down in Jotunheim early that morning flooded into her mind. They’d tried to hunt an unresisting Deviant God against Leafa’s pleas, prioritizing efficiency and safety.
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