Mother's Rosary

by Reki Kawahara

  She was getting into the habit of thinking about life nowadays.

  How many decades ago had it been that the world was shaken by the assertion that life was nothing more than the carrier of genetic code, a mission to reproduce one’s own information and leave it behind to thrive? From that perspective, the HIV virus that had tortured Yuuki for all those years was a terrific example of pure life. But the virus within her, which had run rampant and successfully reproduced over and over, only succeeded in taking the life of Yuuki, its host, causing itself to die as well.

  Depending on your point of view, mankind had been doing the same thing for millennia. At times, we took many lives in the search for personal gain, and our countries sacrificed other countries for the sake of safety. Even now, as she looked up, fighter jets taking off from Atsugi Base for some destination or another were leaving exhaust trails in the hazy spring sky. Would the time come that mankind destroyed the very world we lived in, just like a virus? Or would we fall prey to a different type of intelligent life in the competition for survival…?

  Some of Yuuki’s final words still echoed in Asuna’s ears: I can’t create anything or provide anything. In that sense, she did indeed leave the mortal plane without leaving her own genes behind.

  But, Asuna thought as she touched her uniform ribbon, inside her heart, thanks to the briefest of encounters, Yuuki had succeeded in etching her existence in a deep and unforgettable way. The gallant figure of the Absolute Sword, standing brave and tall against impossible odds without backing down—Yuuki’s very soul—was alive and breathing. It was true of all hundred-plus youngsters here today. Even if time slowly broke down the memories bit by bit, crystallizing what remained, it meant that something was staying behind.

  That meant that life wasn’t just a genetic code written in four nucleobases, but also contained memories, mentality, and the soul. Not in the vague conceptual sense of a meme or imitation. One day in the future, when there would exist a medium that could accurately, easily record the mind itself, perhaps that would be the one big key to protect against the obliteration of the imperfect human species…

  Until that day comes, I will continue to spread Yuuki’s heart in whatever ways I can. And when I have children, I’ll pass on the story—the story of the sparkling, miraculous girl who fought between the borders of the real world and the virtual, Asuna thought to herself. She slowly opened her eyes again.

  She noticed a figure coming around the front corner of the building toward her and hastily rubbed at her eyes to wipe away the tears.

  It was a woman. For a moment, Asuna thought she recognized her, but the facial features were unfamiliar. She was tall, wearing a simple black one-piece with a shawl. She had straight black hair that fell to her shoulders, with a thin silver necklace hanging over her chest the only accessory. She seemed to be in her early twenties.

  The woman walked straight toward Asuna, then stopped a little ways away to bow. Asuna quickly stood and returned the courtesy. When she looked up, she was caught off guard by the blinding white of the woman’s skin. The bloodless look of that skin reminded Asuna of how she herself had looked when she woke up from her long, long sleep. And now that she got a better look, the neck and wrists were thin enough to break with a simple brush of the hand.

  The woman stared at her for a while, and then her beautiful, date-shaped eyes softened. A gentle smile appeared on her lips.

  “You must be Asuna. You look just the same as over there, so I recognized you at once,” she said, and Asuna realized who it was immediately, based on the clammy tone of voice.

  “Oh…are you…Siune?”

  “Yes, that’s right. My actual name is Si-Eun Ahn. It’s nice to meet you…and been a while.”

  “It’s n-nice to meet you, too! I’m Asuna Yuuki. I suppose it’s been a week, hasn’t it?”

  Their greetings were somewhat contradictory, a phenomenon that made them giggle when they realized it. Asuna motioned to the bench and joined Si-Eun.

  At that point, Asuna belatedly realized something. The Sleeping Knights were supposed to be patients fighting incurable diseases, and at the terminal care stage of treatment. Was it safe for her to be walking around outside and alone like this?

  Si-Eun perceptively sensed Asuna’s concern and nodded very slightly. “It is all right. They finally gave me permission to venture outside this month. My brother is here attending to me, but I asked him to wait around the front.”

  “Then…you mean…your body is already…?”

  “That’s right…I have acute lymphoblastic leukemia…I contracted it about three years ago. Chemotherapy knocked it into remission…meaning that the cancerous white blood cells disappeared from my body, but it returned last year…After the recurrence, they said a bone marrow transplant was my only effective treatment. But no one in my family had the right HLA match for me…They couldn’t find a donor at the bone marrow bank, either. I made my peace with this a long time ago and decided to live what time I have left to the fullest, but…”

  Si-Eun paused, looking up at the cherry trees over her head. A tiny whirlwind sent up a spout of pink petals that flurried like snow.

  “If a marrow transplant can’t be attempted after recurrence, they can seek remission through a combination of drugs in what’s called salvage therapy. They use new drugs, test drugs—anything they can come up with—so the side effects are severe…It was so painful that I wanted to give up many times. I wanted to tell the doctors that if there was no hope, I wanted to switch to a treatment that would make my remaining time easier…”

  When the storm of cherry petals brushed at Si-Eun’s hair, Asuna realized that it was a wig.

  “But…whenever I saw Yuuki, I remembered not to give in. She was fighting the same suffering for fifteen years, so what was an older woman doing crying about a measly three? At least, that’s what I told myself. Then, my medications started waning off in February…and the doctor said that my numbers were getting better, but I could tell that it was my time. They must have switched me from salvage therapy to QOL. That was scary, of course…but also a relief. I had heard about Yuuki’s condition…so I knew that I could go anywhere with her. That no matter where we went, she would keep me safe…It’s really quite silly of me to be so dependent on a girl much younger than me—”

  “No…I understand that feeling,” Asuna interjected.

  Si-Eun smiled and continued. “And yet…a week ago, the day after we said good-bye to Yuuki, the doctor came to my hospital room…and said that I was in full remission, meaning all of my cancerous white blood cells were gone, and I could leave the hospital. I wondered what he meant. Was it just a temporary leave so I could spend time with my family? I was still confused when I was discharged from the hospital the next day. It was only yesterday that I considered that maybe my illness was cured. It seems that one of the test drugs worked wonders…”

  Si-Eun paused and scrunched up her face into what looked like a combination of smiling and crying. “It just doesn’t feel real yet. When your lost time is just handed back to you, you don’t know what to do. Plus…there’s Yuuki…”

  Her voice trembled, just barely. Asuna felt a lump in her throat when she noticed there were little tears hanging in the corners of Si-Eun’s eyes.

  “Is it right for me to stay behind like this…when Yuuki is waiting up ahead…? Yuuki, and Ran, and Clovis, and Merida…We all made that promise together, and yet…here I am…”

  She seemed to have run out of words. Si-Eun dropped her head, shoulders trembling.

  Ran was probably Yuuki’s older sister, the original leader of the guild. Which meant the other two unfamiliar names were Sleeping Knights who had already passed away. The fact that they came together by sharing the cruelest of fates seemed to bind them even tighter than family or lovers. Asuna wondered what she could possibly say about something like this, but she couldn’t just stay silent.

  She reached out with her left hand and engulfed Si-Eun’s right as it grip
ped the edge of the bench. Through her palm, she could feel the thin, bony fingers and their undeniable warmth.

  “Si-Eun, I’ve been thinking lately…that life is a tool to transport and relate the heart. For a long, long time, I was scared. I was scared to tell people my feelings and scared to learn theirs. But Yuuki taught me that you can’t think that way. That nothing will come about unless you reach out to touch another. I want to tell many people about the strength Yuuki gave me. For as long as I’m alive, I want to carry Yuuki’s heart with me, wherever I go. And…when I see her once again, I want to return all of the heart I’ve received,” Asuna said, carefully, haltingly finding the words as she went. She didn’t feel like she’d said even half of what she wanted to, but Si-Eun let her head dip in understanding from its downturned position, and she moved her other hand on top of Asuna’s.

  When Si-Eun raised her head, her beautiful black eyes were wet with tears, but there was a clear smile on her lips.

  “Thank you…Asuna,” she whispered, then suddenly held out her arms and circled them around Asuna’s back. Asuna embraced her fragile body in return. The words continued at her ear.

  “We’re all so grateful to you, Asuna. After her sister, Ran, died, Yuuki took her place in cheering us onward and upward. We got so dependent on that…Whenever it was tough or we felt ready to break, we all clung to Yuuki to share in some of her strength. However—and you’ll think this is an obvious thing to say—I was worried about her. I wondered who was keeping her heart upright. She was always smiling and never let anyone see the pain…but there were so many things resting on that back of hers that it made me afraid her poor heart would collapse under the weight…And that’s when you appeared. When you were around, Yuuki was full of so much natural enjoyment and life, it was like watching a little bird that just remembered how to fly again. And she flew higher and higher…until she went to a place…where we can’t reach her…”

  Si-Eun stopped there for a while. On the screen within her heart, Asuna saw Yuuki for an instant in the shape of a bird, flitting through the foreign skies of an unfamiliar world.

  They let go, and Si-Eun smiled bashfully, using a fingertip to brush away her tears. She took a deep breath and clearly, forcefully resumed. “To tell the truth, it’s not just me. Jun has…a very tricky form of cancer, but the drug he just started using is working miracles on him, shrinking the tumors. We were talking about it, saying that Yuuki was telling us it wasn’t our time to join her yet. It seems like the full reunion of the Sleeping Knights won’t be for quite a while.”

  “…Of course it won’t. And you’re supposed to be accepting me as an official member next time.”

  Asuna and Si-Eun shared a look, then a chuckle. Then they looked upward into the pale pink sky. A gentle breeze blew past, rustling their hair. Asuna thought of Yuuki, clutching their shoulders before she beat her wings and flew off into the sky, and closed her eyes.

  How many minutes passed? The serene silence was broken by the sound of approaching footsteps. Asuna looked over to see a boy wearing the same color uniform as hers—Kazuto Kirigaya—and Dr. Kurahashi, who was in black mourning garb.

  Asuna and Si-Eun stood up together and bowed in greeting. When his own bow was finished, Kazuto said to Asuna, “So this is where you were. Are we intruding?”

  “No, it’s fine. But…did you always know Dr. Kurahashi, Kirito?”

  “Well…only recently. We’ve been exchanging e-mails about that communication probe.”

  “That’s right,” Dr. Kurahashi continued. “That camera really caught my interest. He’s been helping me brainstorm how it might be used for medical full-dive purposes.”

  “Oh, I see. Actually, speaking of which,” Asuna said, remembering something, “what will happen to the Medicuboid tests? Is someone else going to take over the monitor…?”

  The doctor’s cheeks softened in a grin, and he said, “Actually, no, we got more than enough data from the test. The next step is working with the manufacturers to turn it into an actual, viable product. Perhaps Miss Ahn and others like her will be able to use their own Medicuboids soon…”

  He said this last part in Si-Eun’s direction, then looked shocked when he realized what he was doing. “Oh, pardon me. I really should have said this first: Congratulations on leaving the hospital, Miss Ahn. I’m certain that Yuuki is…very happy about it all…”

  Si-Eun took his outstretched hand and shook it. Next, she shook hands with Kazuto, whom she already knew well from the game.

  “Thank you. I don’t think I’ll be allowed to use the Medicuboid anymore…but the thought of Yuuki’s data helping others who are fighting disease is…a wonderful thing,” she said.

  The doctor’s head bobbed up and down eagerly. “Yes, indeed. Yuuki’s name will remain in history as the first person to test that machine. Along with the external provider of the initial design…she deserves some kind of prestigious award…”

  “I don’t think that Yuuki would be very excited about something like that. She’d complain that you can’t eat it,” Si-Eun said.

  Everyone laughed. When the pleasant sound subsided, Asuna realized that something Dr. Kurahashi said was still sticking with her. She asked him, “Doctor…you mentioned an…external provider? Wasn’t it the medical appliance manufacturer who designed it?”

  “Ahh…w-well,” the doctor stammered, his eyes narrowing as he consulted his memory, “the actual creation of the prototype itself was done by the manufacturer, of course. But the base design of the ultra-high-density signal nodes, which is the very heart of the device, was provided pro bono by an outside source. It was a woman…a researcher at a major university overseas. She was Japanese, though. Let’s see, her name was…”

  The name Dr. Kurahashi mentioned was totally unfamiliar to Asuna. Si-Eun had no reaction, either, but when she glanced over at Kazuto and saw the expression on his face, Asuna’s breath caught in her throat.

  His gaze was blank, the look of one who couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His bloodless lips twitched twice, three times.

  “Wh-what’s wrong, Kirito?!” she asked, but he did not answer.

  Eventually, in a hoarse, cracking voice, he said, “I…I know her.”

  “Huh…?”

  “I’ve…met her before…”

  Kazuto looked into Asuna’s eyes. The dark pupils were breaking through the barrier of space-time and staring into a far-off world.

  “She’s the one who…took care of Heathcliff’s body while he was in-dive. She was part of the same research team and studied full-dive capabilities with him…So that means the true provider of the Medicuboid’s basic design was…”

  “…”

  Asuna couldn’t find the words, either.

  It meant that, just like the Seed Nexus, the Medicuboid was the offshoot of the seeds planted by that enigmatic figure.

  Si-Eun and Dr. Kurahashi looked at them in confusion but received no answer. All Asuna could do was follow the path of the cherry blossom petals as they fell before her eyes.

  Suddenly, she sensed a great flow in the world.

  This place we call “reality” was just one individual face.

  There was a greater construct made up of many, many worlds, as countless as flower petals.

  And a tremendous force that enveloped, shook, and trailed through all the worlds was slowly coming into shape…

  Asuna clutched her sides with both hands. A bracing gust of wind picked up the falling petals, carrying them high into the distant sky.

  AFTERWORD

  Hello, this is Reki Kawahara. Thank you for reading Sword Art Online 7: Mother’s Rosary. (Please be warned that the following will contain major spoilers for this book!)

  Nearly a decade ago, before I seriously began to write, I became acquaintances with a professional novelist and had the opportunity to chat about writing on a number of occasions.

  I am still grateful for all of that advice and encouragement, but the strongest memory I have of e
verything I heard was, “Even in a novel, if you’re going to write about someone’s misfortune, you have to know exactly why it is that you’re writing it.”

  I will admit that I have a bad habit of ignoring improbability in order to prioritize certain plot developments—some might call it “plot convenience.” In particular, I often saddle a character with terrible misfortune in order to provide them direction in terms of personality or motivation. For example, Kirito, the protagonist of the SAO series, lost his parents in an accident as a child, but I have not revealed anything about that accident yet. In other words, in order to give Kirito a reason to distance himself from others, I decided to kill off his parents through the statistically improbable traffic accident death. (The same might be said of Sachie, the heroine of the “Red-Nosed Reindeer” story in Volume 2.)

  Recognizing that this was a bad writing habit of mine, I decided that when it came time to publish this seventh volume, I needed to do some rewriting of the original material. This gave me a lot to think about: Just because this book has a theme of VR technology and medical science, does that still mean that Yuuki has to die? Could I have gone with an alternate ending? Was that conclusion nothing more than a cheap attempt at soliciting tears from the reader?

  But while I did agonize over these questions, a part of me also believes that a story can only be written in the way it is meant to be. It’s absolutely nothing more than an excuse, but my own habit of making light of a character’s misfortune is part of the story; in which case, all I can do is think very hard about all of the characters (including villains) who meet with misfortunate events in the story. As long as the readers are able to imagine something of what Yuuki’s fifteen years in the world gave to Asuna and the others, I couldn’t ask for more.

  My heartfelt thanks to my editor, Mr. Miki, who had to deal with my complex and confusing holiday schedule, to my illustrator, abec, for rendering so many new and unfamiliar characters, to my friend Vag for the medical expertise and advice, and of course, to all you readers! Hope you stick with me throughout 2011! Thank you so much!