Blood and flesh, bone and organ, all went flying.
Gabriel thrust his left hand into the midst of that precious ruby-red splatter. He grabbed the largest pulsating jewel of all—the heart hanging from the boy’s chest—and tore it free.
In his palm, the bloody mass continued beating in resistance. Gabriel lifted it to his mouth and, with no expression whatsoever on his face, whispered to the dying boy.
“I will now devour your feelings, your memories, your mind and soul…your everything,” said the Angel of Death. I could barely keep my eyelids open to see.
Gabriel Miller’s colorless lips opened wide, and as if biting into a ripe apple, his sharp teeth touched the heart he’d stolen from me.
…Creshk.
It made a horrible, bloodcurdling sound.
His mouth gaped and gushed with blood. It wasn’t my blood, however.
And there could be no faulting him for his reaction. He’d bitten down on countless tiny razors that I’d generated with steel elements inside my heart.
“Urgh,” Gabriel grunted, bringing a hand to his mouth and backing away.
Ragged, I said, “As if you would find…the mind or memory…in there. The body is just…a vessel. Memories…are always…”
…in here. Blended together with my consciousness, fused into one, never to be separated.
The pain of having my heart torn out was so great that I couldn’t even call it pain anymore. But this one moment was going to be my last and greatest chance. I would not get another one.
Even Eugeo had continued fighting with his body split in two. I spread my swords to either side, my blood spraying everywhere, and shouted, “Release Recollection!!”
Pure white and pitch-black exploded together.
The Blue Rose Sword, pointed straight ahead, emitted many vines of ice, which wrapped themselves dozens of times around Gabriel’s body.
And the Night-Sky Blade, pointed straight up, formed a great pillar of darkness that stretched to the heavens.
The beam of black light extended with a tremendous roar, splitting the bloodred sky to go even beyond it, as if colliding with the sun itself, and spread in every direction.
The sky was covered.
That bloodred color was painted over with stunning speed, and the light of day was drowned out.
The darkness soon reached the horizon, then spread even farther beyond it.
But this was not the darkness of emptiness. It had a smooth texture and a faint warmth to it.
Infinite night.
At the base of the eerie, looming rocks that dotted the empty wasteland, Sinon lay alone, quietly waiting for the last of her HP to run out.
The wounds where her legs had been blown off itched and stung endlessly, clouding her thoughts. She clutched the chain around her neck as though it were her lifeline, but she could tell that her arm was going steadily more numb.
As her thoughts faded, she began to wonder whether this was a sign of her log-out approaching or whether she was approaching actual unconsciousness—and that was when the color of the sky changed.
At noon, the eerie bloodred sky began to turn totally black with astonishing speed, starting in the south. The light of the sun was blotted out, the gray clouds vanished—and in a blink, the darkness enveloped Sinon.
But in fact, this was not total blackness.
There was a faint, ever-present source of light trickling onto the rocks overhead, the barren tree trunks, and even the chain around her neck. A gentle breeze blew past, rustling her bangs.
It was night. The curtain of night, gently embracing the world to heal it.
Suddenly, Sinon found herself recalling a scene from her distant past.
It was a desert night in a different world. Racked with the pain of an incident that had happened to her as a child, Sinon had hurled her agony at Kirito and bawled. The strength and tenderness he’d shown her by hugging and accepting her seemed to fill the starry sky above them.
That’s it. This night…it’s Kirito’s heart.
He wasn’t the blazing sun. He wasn’t the sort to stand above everyone else and lead them with his radiance. But he would support you from behind when times were tough. He would ease your sadness and dry your tears. Like the stars that shone delicately but constantly. Like the night.
Kirito was engaging in combat with Subtilizer—Emperor Vecta—to protect this world and all the lives within it. He would be fighting back against a vast enemy, fighting and fighting and wringing every last ounce of strength he possessed.
Then please—let my heart reach him, too, Sinon prayed, gazing up at the night sky with teary eyes.
Directly overhead, a single pale-blue star flickered.
Leafa lay amid the throng of orcs and pugilists, also awaiting the end.
She no longer had the strength to stomp her foot and make use of Terraria’s healing power. Her body, lacerated and pierced by countless blades, was as cold as ice. She couldn’t move a finger.
“Leafa…don’t die! Yoh not supposed ta die!!” howled Lilpilin, the chief of the orcs, who knelt at her side. Tears filled his beady eyes.
She gazed at him with a little smile and whispered, “Don’t…cry. I know…I will come…back.”
When he responded to this by hunching over further, shoulders trembling, Leafa thought, I couldn’t save Big Brother directly, but this was still for the best. I fulfilled my role. Didn’t I…?
That very moment, as if in response to the voice of her heart, the color vanished from the sky.
The red atmosphere of the Dark Territory suddenly plunged into darkness. Cries of shock and alarm arose from the orcs and pugilists. Even Lilpilin lifted his soggy face to stare in disbelief.
But Leafa was neither shocked nor afraid. She could sense the scent of her brother in the gentle night breeze from the south that followed the darkness and caressed her cheek.
“Big Brother…,” she murmured, taking a deep breath.
Kirito was the person Suguha was closest to in her life—and also the most distant.
Before he discovered the truth on his own, he must have subconsciously sensed that all was not as it seemed—that his mother and father weren’t his real parents. From the moment Suguha was old enough to understand, Kirito was plagued by a shadow of loneliness and isolation. He didn’t try to form close ties with anyone else, and the moment it seemed like friendship was about to bloom, he destroyed it himself.
That tendency led him into an online-game obsession, and the fact that his obsession gave him the role of “the hero who saved SAO” didn’t seem like an ironic coincidence to Suguha. She didn’t think it was preordained salvation for him, either.
It was a path that her brother chose for himself. One that he would not run away from, but strive to bear as best he could. That was the strength Kirito possessed.
This night sky was nothing less than proof that Kirito chose to shoulder the burden of the world and everyone who lived in it. And that was because…
Big Brother’s far more of a swordsman than I could ever be.
With the last of her strength, Leafa reached out her unfeeling arms and made a kendo grip above her chest.
Then she prayed, Let the strength of my heart reach his sword.
High overhead, a single green star flickered to life.
Lisbeth clutched Silica’s hand, staring at the sunless sky.
The stunning sight of the red color turning into blackberry darkness reminded her of another unforgettable day.
The afternoon in early winter when SAO had been running for two whole years.
Lisbeth had rushed out of her shop to see the message plastered across the bottom of the floor above announcing that the deadly game had been defeated. Instantly, she knew it had been Kirito. Kirito beat the final boss with the sword I forged.
After they got back to the real world, Kirito once told Lisbeth, The truth is I actually lost. Heathcliff’s sword went through my chest, and my HP went to zero. But for some reaso
n, my avatar didn’t vanish right away. For just a few seconds, I could still use my right hand, and I managed to score a dual kill. I think it was you and Asuna and Silica and Klein and Agil who helped give me that extra moment. So in a way, it wasn’t I who beat SAO. All you guys are the real heroes.
At the time, she had just laughed it off and slapped him on the back, asking why he was being modest. But that was probably exactly how he felt. What he really wanted to say was that true power was found in the connections between people.
“…Hey, Silica,” she murmured to her friend nearby, taking her eyes off the stars. “I think…I really do love Kirito.”
Silica grinned and said, “So do I.”
They returned to gazing up at the softly shining night sky.
Before she closed her eyes, she could see Klein in the distance, raising a fist, and Agil muttering to himself with his hands on his hips.
Lisbeth listened to the voices of all the Japanese players, who were praying and hoping in their own way.
We’re diving into this world through our AmuSpheres…but I know you can hear us anyway, Kirito. Our hearts are connected.
Up above stretched a carpet of hundreds of stars.
Renly the Integrity Knight placed one hand on the neck of his dragon, Kazenui, as he held Tiese’s hand with his other. He gazed up at the abrupt night overhead, nearly forgetting to breathe.
Changing the day into night was a frightful feat not found in any of the Church’s records. But Renly was not afraid.
When he had been run through with two spears and had accepted his imminent death, light had rained down from the sky and healed his fatal wounds without a trace. This night contained the same nurturing warmth that the healing rain had.
As the weakest of the Integrity Knights, Renly found it very curious, and also unforgivable, that he had survived all the way to the end. He believed that dying bravely in battle, like Dakira and Eldrie had, was the only way to bring redemption to the late friend whose name he could no longer remember.
But as the rain of light had healed him, Renly had been able to feel something different. The black-haired swordsman who couldn’t get up from his wheelchair had lost his only friend, too. He had closed off his heart in the pain and anguish of blaming himself for that death.
However, that swordsman had risen to his feet again. And like Renly’s Double-Winged Blades, the weapon he used was a memento of his lost friend, and he sent the thousands of enemy soldiers back to their outside world with incredible skill. The sight of his back taught Renly something.
To live. To live, fight, and connect hearts and lives. That, and only that…
“…Only that is the proof of strength,” Renly muttered, squeezing Tiese’s hand a bit harder. The redheaded girl’s other hand held Ronie’s, and Sortiliena was on Ronie’s other side. Tiese looked up at Renly. Even in the darkness, the deep red-brown of her eyes was visible. Those eyes softened, and she bobbed her head.
The four of them gazed at the black sky overhead and offered up their prayers.
Four powerful lights formed a constellation in the midst of hundreds of other stars.
Iskahn the champion pugilist watched from a short distance as the girl in green armor was caught in the throes of death, surrounded by kneeling orcs and pugilists. He was filled with an indescribable emotion.
There was a ferocity in the way she fought that went beyond even words like demonic. Iskahn felt like he understood now why the orcs had disobeyed the emperor’s orders and rushed to the pugilists’ aid. Chief Lilpilin and his three thousand troops had judged her to be more powerful.
But that wasn’t true.
There was only one reason the orcs obeyed her—gave her their allegiance—and that was because she had told them they were human, according to what Lilpilin had said. When he’d proudly revealed that to Iskahn, his one eye had shone with a stunning purity, completely devoid of the hatred of humanity that had twisted it so much.
“Hey, woman…I mean, Sheyta,” said Iskahn to the gray knight standing beside him. “What is power…? What does it mean to be strong…?”
Sheyta, now a knight without a sword, tilted her head with curiosity, causing her long ponytail to sway. Her cool eyes looked at the dragon behind them, then at Dampa, the stout warrior with both shoulders bandaged, and then to Iskahn. Her lips curled into a little smile.
“You already know the answer. You know there is a power greater than anger and hatred.”
In that instant, the familiar bloodred sky of the Dark Territory was plunged into darkness.
Iskahn gasped and looked upward, where he saw a single green star twinkling silently.
Sheyta reached up and pointed at it. “That…that is true strength. True light.”
“…Yeah…yeah…that’s it,” Iskahn murmured. Something entered his good eye, causing the green light to blur.
For the first time in his life, he squeezed his wounded fist not to punch, and he prayed for something other than victory.
In the green star’s proximity, a deep-red one appeared, burning like a flame. Right beside it was a gray light.
Within moments, the surviving pugilists began to chant one of their war songs as a chorus, and a carpet of hundreds of stars came into view.
Three thousand orcs gazed into the night in the same way and added their own prayers. So did the dark knights in their close-knit group in the back. Some of them had joined the orcs in protecting the pugilists from the mystery army.
Soon the number of stars was over a thousand, and then ten thousand.
The members of the main force of the Human Guardian Army at the Eastern Gate—the Integrity Knights Fanatio and Deusolbert, the apprentice knights Linel and Fizel, and a number of the lower knights—were all speechless, looking up at the untimely night sky.
The thoughts each cradled to his or her breast were different, but the strength in their prayers and wishes was equal.
Fanatio prayed for the world that the late Commander Bercouli had loved and the world in which the new life within her would live.
Deusolbert clenched the tiny ring that matched the one he wore on his left hand, and he prayed for the world in which he’d lived with the person whose finger he’d placed it on.
Linel and Fizel prayed that they would once again meet the swordsman who’d shown them what true strength was.
The other knights and men-at-arms prayed that peace would return to their beloved home and last forevermore.
In the mountainous region of the northeastern Dark Territory, the mountain goblins prayed, and in the wasteland to the west, the flatland goblins prayed.
In the central wetlands, the orcs waiting for the return of their husbands and fathers prayed, and in the highlands to the southwest, the giants prayed.
The dark-skinned humans in the city outside the Imperial Palace of Obsidia closed their eyes to pray, as did the ogres in the southeastern grasslands.
The blanket of night crossed the End Mountains, too, and instantly covered the Human Empire.
At the church in Rulid, a remote village at the northern end of the Norlangarth Empire, Selka the apprentice nun paused in the act of drawing water at the well for clothes washing and was stunned to see the pure-blue sky transitioning to blackness, starting in the southeast and heading in the opposite direction. The rope slipped from her palms, and the wooden bucket slapped back down into the water, but she didn’t hear it.
Her voice escaped in a tremulous whisper.
“Sister…! Kirito……!”
On the night breeze, Selka could sense that, at this very moment, the two people she loved more than anyone else in the world were fighting for their lives.
That meant Kirito had opened his eyes again. He had recovered from his despair over the loss of Eugeo and stood on his own two feet once more.
Selka knelt in the short grass, crossed her hands over her chest, closed her eyes, and murmured, “Eugeo. Please…please protect my sister and Kirito.”
When she looked up again, a little blue star flickered to life above her head. A number of colored stars sparked up around it within moments. She realized that all the children who had been playing in the church courtyard were now kneeling on the ground in silence, clutching their hands together in prayer.
So were the traders and housewives in the clearing in front of the church.
And the farmers in the pastures and barley fields.
Alice’s father, Gasfut, prayed in his office. Old Man Garitta prayed at the edge of the forest. Not a single soul quaked in fear at this phenomenon.
The sky over Rulid was blanketed in sparkling stars.
In the same way, stardust covered the sky over the larger town of Zakkaria to the south. At Walde Farm on the outskirts of town, the farmer and his wife and their twin daughters, Teline and Telure, prayed at the windows.
All the people in the villages and towns across the four empires offered silent prayers.
So did the residents of the massive city of Centoria in the middle of the human realm. Including the students at Swordcraft Academy and the teachers.
The many monks and bishops of the Axiom Church were no exception.
The girl who operated the levitating platform that connected the fiftieth to eightieth floors of Central Cathedral did something for the first time in her long, long life. While on duty, she removed her hands from the tube for generating wind elements and clasped them together as she gazed up at the endless starry sky beyond the windows.
She knew nothing of the world outside the cathedral. The death of the pontifex and the invasion of the Dark Army had effected no change in her life.
So she prayed for just one thing.
I pray that I might see those two young swordsmen again.
The midday night that covered the entirety of the vast Underworld glittered with well over ten thousand stars of every color.
With a chorus of sound like bells ringing, they began to shoot across the sky toward a single point, starting from the most remote location and moving inward.
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