But no sooner was there a twenty-cen space between the floor and the disc than two pale, clammy hands grasped the edges of the aperture.
“Hohhhhh!!” he screeched, and his round head appeared. The perfectly hairless skin was bright red now. The prime senator squeezed and pulled until his body popped through and landed on the floor.
His clothes hadn’t changed since he’d left the room earlier, gloating. But now, the puffed-out red-and-blue clown outfit was torn and sliced all over and slightly deflated. He plopped down on the carpet, wheezing and puffing.
Administrator gazed at him coldly. “What happened to your clothes?”
Meanwhile, Eugeo was stunned. The arms and torso that were visible through the ends of the prime senator’s tattered clothing were as thin as gnarled branches. And yet his head was as puffed up and round as ever—like a child’s drawing of a stick figure with a circle head.
So what did it mean that the first time he’d seen the man in the great bath, the clown’s outfit was puffed up to bursting? As Eugeo wondered, Chudelkin got to his feet, seeming not to notice the presence of the young man, and tried desperately to plead his case.
“Y-Your Holiness, I am certain that my appearance must be most displeasing to you, but I assure you, it is the result of a ferocious battle in which I endeavored to punish the rebels and protect the glory of the great Axiom Church!”
At that point, Chudelkin must have realized the pontifex was completely nude, because his crescent-shaped eyes went full moon. He slapped his hands over his face, giant head turning even redder.
“Hohhh! Oh-hoooo!! Oh, you mustn’t! Your Holiness, I am entirely unworthy of your visage! My eyeballs shall explode! I shall turn into stoooone!!” he wailed, but despite his protestations, the gaps between his fingers were wide, and his beady eyes gleamed through them.
Administrator covered her cheek with her hand and threatened, “If you don’t state your business, I really will turn you to stone.”
“Hohhh! Hwaaaa…ah…aaah!” screeched Chudelkin, immediately stopping his contortions and freezing in place. His burning-red head promptly went pale. The prime senator suddenly spun on his heel and hopped like a frog toward the hole he’d just climbed through. The platform was still down on the ninety-ninth floor and hadn’t returned yet.
“W-we must seal this place at once! They’re coming! The devils!!”
“…You mean you didn’t eliminate the rebels?” Administrator asked.
Chudelkin’s back twitched. “W-w-w-well, I fought valiantly and with great sacrifice, as you can see from my condition, but these rebellious devils are most foul and treacherous and sadistic…,” he screeched.
In the back of his mind, Eugeo considered this information. The “rebels” Chudelkin spoke of were obviously Kirito and Alice, whom he’d left trapped in ice down there. No matter that the prime senator was the second-greatest user of sacred arts in the Church or that the others were trapped in ice—Eugeo couldn’t imagine them being defeated. Sure enough, they’d put up a fierce fight that apparently had sent him running wounded.
However, that meant…
Eugeo subconsciously retreated a few steps from the platform hole. He must’ve caused some slight rustling of fabric, because Chudelkin paused in the midst of his excuses and glanced his way.
Those thin, beady eyes were wide again. The prime senator thrust his finger at Eugeo, instantly forgetting his own miserable failure, and screamed, “Hwaaaa! Y-you! Number Thirty-Two! What in the world are you doing there?! H-h-how dare you draw your sword in the Chamber of the Gods, where Her Holiness dwells! You will crawl upon the ground, this instant!”
“………”
But Eugeo barely heard anything Chudelkin said anymore. His ears were fixed on a faint vibrating sound coming up from the floor below. The sound of the thick levitating disc rising through the power of sacred arts.
Belatedly, the prime senator noticed it, too, in between his seething insults, and he fell silent. Then he turned around, got down on all fours, and peered into the hole in the carpet.
“Hwaaaaaa!!” he screamed, his loudest yet, and turned back to Eugeo. “N-N-N-Number Thirty-Two! What are you doing?! Go! Go now! This only happened because you failed to rough them up enough! This isn’t my job! Y-Your Holiness, surely you must know th……”
Chudelkin was crawling toward the bed, babbling furiously the entire time, until a hand reached up through the hole in the floor and grabbed his right foot.
“Eeeeeeeek!!” he squealed, eyes bulging, and kicked his legs. The pointed clown shoe popped off, and the momentum caused his little body to roll. The prime senator leaped to his feet, bounded for the bed, peeled the hanging canopy curtain aside, and wriggled into the darkness between it and the floor.
The pontifex, who was standing on the bed, stared down at the hole in the floor with a smile on her face, all thought of the prime senator’s miserable state banished. Eugeo was prepared to attack at once if she showed hostility, but for now she seemed content to wait for her guest to appear.
Eugeo glanced back at the levitating platform. The hand that had grasped Chudelkin’s shoe was still fully extended. The black sleeve slid downward, revealing an arm that was thin but finely muscled.
How many times had those arms saved Eugeo?
In fact, for as long as he could remember, he’d been led around by that hand. Even now, after Eugeo had gone the wrong way and turned his sword on the owner of that arm, the advance continued.
The disc continued rising.
Next to appear was black hair, still tousled from battle. Then two eyes darker than the night sky beyond the windows and yet brighter than the stars. Lastly, a mouth curved into a cocky grin…
“………Kirito…”
Eugeo’s voice was trembling. It wasn’t loud enough to be audible over ten mels away, but his friend glanced toward him along the wall anyway and nodded, smile never wavering.
It was a gesture that was warm and heartening, just like all the ones he’d made since the moment they’d met. The disc finally came to a heavy, grinding stop.
Kirito…there you are…
Something deep inside him throbbed with an emotion he couldn’t even name.
But that pain wasn’t an unpleasant one. It was certainly much gentler than the suffering he’d felt when the Piety Module was jammed into his head—and more wistful and sweet.
As he watched, frozen in place, his partner and teacher dressed in black smirked and said, “Yo, Eugeo.”
“……I told you not to come,” he murmured.
His partner hurled Chudelkin’s silly shoe and beamed even harder.
“When have I ever followed the instructions you gave to me?”
“……Good point. You’ve always………been like……”
He couldn’t find the words.
He meant to pay for the crime of attacking his friend by sacrificing his life. He was going to use that secret weapon from Cardinal to pierce Administrator’s skin, even if he had to get torn to pieces to do it. And now he was reunited with Kirito again, without having completed this duty.
But no. It was Kirito’s own will that had brought him here.
He’d broken through Eugeo’s Perfect Control art, defeated Prime Senator Chudelkin, and reached the hundredth floor while Eugeo was still alive.
Yes, I’m still alive. And I still have the dagger hanging from my wrist. Which means now is the time to fight. That’s the one thing I can do.
Eugeo turned away from his partner and looked to the center of the chamber. Administrator waited on the massive bed, an enigmatic smile playing across her lips. Her mirror eyes caught the moonlight but, as usual, did not reveal any emotion of their own. All that was clear was that she was watching this new visitor and thinking about something.
He had to explain to Kirito before the battle resumed. He had to tell him that her flesh was protected by a barrier that blocked all metal—and that it wasn’t infallible.
Without
taking his eyes off the pontifex, Eugeo began moving toward his partner.
Just then, there was the sound of metal shifting from the direction he was moving. He had to break his gaze to look over.
To Kirito’s right, another figure strode forward from the thick shadow cast by the pillar between the windowpanes.
Golden hair and armor sparkled in the light of the moon. At the left side of the figure’s waist was the Osmanthus Blade, a Divine Object with a hilt fashioned like flower petals. A white skirt billowed below.
The Integrity Knight Alice Synthesis Thirty.
Eugeo had seen her working with Kirito already on the ninety-ninth floor. But seeing them standing together like this made his chest throb even harder. His legs stopped moving toward Kirito of their own accord.
Alice stared at the pontifex, then at Eugeo.
The right side of her face was covered in the dark bandage still. Integrity Knights were known for being excellent arts casters, so she should have been able to heal her eye in an instant. Perhaps she was leaving it as it was in order to feel the pain.
Her deep-blue left eye was full of conflicting emotions as she looked over Eugeo. It wasn’t at all like the impassive, cold gaze she’d had down on the eightieth floor. This time, it was full of human emotion.
She hadn’t recovered her Alice Zuberg memories yet, but there had been massive change within Alice the knight in a short amount of time. And the obvious cause of that was the black-haired swordsman standing next to her. Kirito’s words had pierced the unmeltable ice that surrounded her heart.
And if, somehow, they could recover the memory fragment that Administrator was hiding somewhere in this room and return Alice to her old self, then Alice the knight would go back to being Alice Zuberg, Eugeo’s childhood friend.
And it meant that Alice the knight, the one who had spoken to Kirito, sheathed her sword, and withstood the pain of losing her eye in order to fight back against the Axiom Church, would vanish.
That was Eugeo’s greatest wish and the reason he had fought so hard to get here. But how did the present Alice understand this? And Kirito…He had fought to the death against Vice Commander Fanatio, only to save her life afterward. Did he really desire for Alice the knight to be eliminated forever…?
Eugeo took a deep breath, let it out, and forced himself to stop thinking about it. He had to focus on this, the final fight. He’d been able to let his mind wander because Administrator was passively letting the situation play out, but she could resume attacking at any time.
He tore his eyes from Alice and looked back at the center of the room, resuming his march. He sidled across the moonlit floor until he was next to Kirito at last. Then he pressed the Blue Rose Sword into the floor again with a sharp exhale, resting his weight on it.
“Are you hurt?” Kirito whispered. “It’s not…my fault, is it?”
“…”
The fact that his partner was willing to let that simple statement cover everything that had happened on the floor below them brought an unexpected smile to Eugeo’s lips.
“You never hit me with your sword, not once. I had a run-in with a pillar.”
“You could’ve waited until we got up here.”
“…I was the one who trapped you to keep you down there, Kirito.”
“As if I was weak enough that something like that would stop me.” Kirito snorted.
Bantering with him like this reminded Eugeo of before they’d split apart at the eightieth floor…like the times back at the dorm of the academy. The throbbing in his chest lessened just a bit.
But what happened had happened and would never go away. He had given in to Administrator’s temptations and attacked his best friend, a crime that no amount of words would lessen.
Eugeo pursed his lips and gripped the hilt of his sword. Kirito stared at the middle of the room until eventually he muttered, “Is that Administrator? The pontifex of the Church?”
“That’s right,” came the answer from Kirito’s other side. “She hasn’t changed at all in the last six years,” Alice stated.
After this direct mention, Administrator finally broke her long silence.
“Oh, my…I’ve never had so many guests in this chamber at one time. Do I recall, Chudelkin, that you insisted I leave the fate of Alice and the irregular boy to you?”
The curtains hanging around the side of the bed parted from the inside, and a very large head popped out. Prime Senator Chudelkin rubbed his forehead nervously and craned his neck at an angle that suggested he’d made some kind of mistake.
“Hoh, hoh-hee! W-w-w-well, I assure you, Your Holiness, I fought as bravely as a lion for your sake…”
“You mentioned that already.”
“Hwaaaa! I-it is not my fault, oh-hooo! Number Thirty-Two was sloppy and only half encased them in the ice…And Number Thirty, that hideous gold knight, had the gall to utilize her Memory Release ability on me! Though I’m not so flimsy as to let that gaudy little princess’s secret technique put a single scratch on me, hoh-hee-hee-hee!”
“Anyone but him,” Alice muttered darkly.
Chudelkin didn’t notice—he spun around and looked up at Administrator, who was standing upon the bed, and screeched, “In fact, it was Number One and Number Two who started it by going mad! I can only assume that their idiocy has now infected Number Thirty!”
“Ah…now be quiet,” Administrator commanded. Chudelkin shut his mouth and froze where he lay on the floor. But he kept his eyes wide open, which he seemed to be doing in order to drink in the sight of the pontifex’s nakedness.
Administrator’s silver eyes were fixed on Alice and totally unconcerned with whatever the prime senator was doing. She inclined her head in curiosity.
“It was about time for me to reset Bercouli and Fanatio anyway…but I’ve only had you for six years, yes, Alice? You don’t seem to have any errors in your logic circuits…So is it the influence of that irregular unit next to you? Fascinating.”
Eugeo didn’t understand anything of what she was saying. But there was something in the silver-haired woman’s tone of voice that made him shiver—like a shepherd speaking about a sheep or a craftswoman about her tools.
“Well, Alice? Do you have something you want to say to me? I won’t be angry. Go ahead and speak your mind,” Administrator said with a faint smile, taking a step forward atop the bed.
Alice took a similar step backward, as though pushed by an invisible wall. To his surprise, Eugeo saw that the knight’s profile looked even paler than the moonlight, and her lips were clenched shut. But Alice stood firm and reached up with her bare hand to touch the bandage over her right eye. Then her withdrawn leg took a step forward instead, as if the scrap of cloth had given her strength.
Tak.
The sound of her foot was sharp and crisp, as though there wasn’t any carpet underneath. The golden knight, instead of kneeling before her master, thrust her chest forward and declared, “Holy Pontifex, the proud order of Integrity Knights has been shattered. It was defeated at the hand of the two rebels beside me…as well as the boundless obsession and deceit that you have built with this tower!!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
FINAL BATTLE, MAY 380 HE
1
Ooh, well said.
Given the weight of the situation, I suppose my own reaction was a bit less than totally serious. But if I didn’t treat it that lightly, the freezing tone would have overwhelmed me and caused me to back down.
When we arrived at the hundredth floor of Central Cathedral at last, it was a circular chamber well over a hundred feet across. In the middle of the room was a massive circular bed, and that seemed to be the only piece of furniture.
And atop the bed, without a stitch of clothing covering her body, was a breathtakingly beautiful woman.
She was, without a doubt, the absolute ruler of the Axiom Church and thus of the human race as a whole: Administrator. But her sense of presence was so great that just by standing there, she made me insta
ntly lose sight of the fact that this was actually a virtual world called the Underworld and that she and all the other people here were “artificial fluctlights,” AI routines saved on an artificial medium in the real world.
But in fact, I didn’t need to see her brilliant silvery hair and mirrorlike eyes first. From the moment I’d first stepped onto the platform that would take me up to this floor, my palms had been sweaty, and cold fear had gripped my spine. As I had looked through the hole in the ceiling directly above me and into the darkness that awaited, I had felt an aura of death more thick and cold than in any of the boss chambers in the original Aincrad.
The real me—not Kirito the elite disciple but the actual Kazuto Kirigaya—wouldn’t die inside The Soul Translator if I lost all my life value here in the Underworld. But the entity known as Administrator had the ability to inflict suffering on me that far surpassed death.
In fact, hadn’t Cardinal said that Administrator wasn’t bound by the Taboo Index she herself had created but instead was still restricted by the conceptual taboos that she’d been raised with? That murder was the one thing she couldn’t commit?
But because of that limitation, she could inflict pain that was far more horrible than logging out of the Underworld—I could wind up like those senators, living like a machine hooked up to a feeding tube, forever.
Of course, just because I understood more about the underlying situation than Alice or Eugeo did didn’t mean that my fear was greater than theirs.
Administrator had removed Eugeo’s Piety Module herself, but Alice’s was still embedded in her fluctlight. I couldn’t begin to imagine how frightening it must have been for her to face off against her absolute ruler.
And yet the golden knight held her head high and proud as she declared, “My ultimate duty is not the protection of the Axiom Church! It is to protect the peaceful labor and rest of the unarmed multitudes! And your actions, more than any other thing, threaten the peace and safety of the people of the world!!”
Alice’s golden hair shone, lit with righteous purpose. Her voice cut crisply through the heavy, cold gloom, keeping it at bay.
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