That point was at the southern tip of the world…
…at the end of the pitch-black sword raised on high near a little floating island called the World’s End Altar.
Alice was finally seeing the end of the staircase up ahead as she ran—but then she noticed that her own shadow on the white stone underfoot suddenly melted into a much larger shadow.
She looked up on the run and witnessed a sight that beggared belief.
An enemy with six black wings, wielding a sword of emptiness without clear form.
Ice vines binding the man dozens of times over.
Clutching the shining white longsword that was the source of the ice, a swordsman in black with dragon wings.
The swordsman’s body was missing below the chest. His life should have instantly been obliterated, but unfathomable willpower kept him fighting.
The real miracle, however, was in the sky above them.
From the black longsword held high in the swordsman’s other hand, a surge of darkness shot straight upward into the sky and from there blanketed the entire world.
But it was not utter void.
Countless little lights sparkled in the sky to the north, swarms of stars twinkling in every color, painting the sky…the night.
And suddenly—they began to move.
With pure, delicate melodies like bells or harp strings, the stars gathered toward the very southern end of the world. They trailed lines of white, blue, red, green, and yellow, forming a vast rainbow across the night sky.
With a burst of intuition, Alice knew that these stars represented the hearts and minds of all the people living in this world.
The lightlanders.
The darklanders.
The humans.
The demi-humans.
All were joined as one in prayer.
“Kirito!!!” called out Alice, throwing her hand into the air.
Take my heart, too. I may have a heart of scant months and years, in this artificial life as a knight, but this feeling I have—the emotion that surges from my chest—must be real.
A brilliant golden star was hurled from her fingertips and flew straight for Kirito’s sword.
Asuna did not turn back.
The one way that she could live up to Kirito’s battle to the death was to not waste a single second of the time she had and to head directly for the system console.
So Asuna pulled Alice by the hand and expended every ounce of her concentration on running up the staircase.
Still, she could not stop the burning feeling that filled her lungs. That emotion turned into two droplets that slid down her eyelashes and cheeks before dripping off. The drops were borne on the night breeze and melted into one, becoming a star that sparkled in every color.
For just an instant, Asuna looked up at the star, which left an aurora trail behind it, then she refocused on the ascent. She held on to faith.
Gabriel Miller was in disbelief that he could be bound by mere ice.
A moment earlier, he had rebuffed magic attacks of every kind, and he had even nullified a slash attack from a sword.
Yes, the dozens of razors that the boy had implanted in his own heart had damaged him. But that was only because his mental image of chewing had given him a solid, physical mouth. At this point, his entire being was covered in a thick layer of defensive darkness.
I am the one who reaps. The one who steals all heat, all life, all existence.
I am the abyss.
“NULLLLLLL!!” he growled, but it was not so much a word as it was an inhuman sound that tore through his suggestion of a throat.
The three pairs of black wings on his back all transformed into blades of emptiness, just like the one in his right hand. They beat violently, tearing the space around them. The pale vines of ice were severed, giving him freedom of movement again.
“LLLLLLL!!” he howled, an openmouthed discordance, arranging his seven empty swords—hand and wings—in every direction.
He thrust his one empty hand before him to release wires of darkness that would bind the boy instead so he could see how it felt.
It was only then that Gabriel noticed the red color was gone from the sky—and that thousands of shooting stars were soaring just over his head.
In the moment that I released the memory of the Night-Sky Blade, I was actually unable to summon a concrete image.
All that I held was the distant echo of what Eugeo had said when the sword that I’d referred to as “the black one” for so very long was finally given a name.
In fact, I think your black sword should be called the Night-Sky Blade. What do you say?
Envelop……this…little world…as gently…as the night……sky……
The darkness that surged from the sword turned day into night and created the very night sky it was named for.
When the thousands of stars came from the north and flowed into the sword in a rainbow cascade, I could sense what had happened.
The power of the Night-Sky Blade was to absorb resources from a vast range of space. And the greatest resource in this world was not the sacred spatial resource that the system itself designated, like the sun and the earth. It was the power of the human heart. The power of prayer, of wishes, of hope.
Finally, the last of the seemingly endless waterfall of stars shot into my sword.
When two additional lights came up from the surface, golden and iridescent, and melted into the weapon, too, the Night-Sky Blade shone multicolored with the wishes of all humanity.
The light flowed from the hilt into my arm, filling my body. The bottom half of my body, which Gabriel had destroyed, instantly regrew itself with the warming glow of the brilliance.
The starlight gathered in my left arm, too, causing the Blue Rose Sword there to shine as well.
“Yaaaaaah!!” I bellowed, pulling back the swords.
“NULLLLLLL!!” screeched Gabriel, who bore down on me, free from his icy prison.
There was nothing human about him now. His form shone and gleamed like some eerie liquid metal, coated in a black aura, while violet-blue light like the fires of Hell licked from his eye sockets.
The mammoth sword of pure void in his hand pulled back, and the similar blades coming from the ends of his wings stretched toward me from all directions. A second later, his other hand sent out a tangle of dense black wires that leaped at me.
“…Haaah!!” I shouted, deploying a wall of light to deflect them.
The wing-flap ends of my coat beat hard. With my left sword held before me and my right sword behind me, I leaped off the empty air.
There was hardly any distance between us, so a full-speed charge would take less than a second. But I felt a ripple in time, like the moment was being extended indefinitely.
On my right, a figure appeared.
It was a knight in black armor, with a mustache and an enormous sword. His arm hugged a tan-skinned female knight close to him. He said to me, “Young man, cast aside your urge to kill. His empty soul cannot be cut with an Incarnation of murder.”
To his left appeared a powerful man with short hair. A steel longsword hung from his casual blue clothes. A broad grin creased his hearty features: Integrity Knight Commander Bercouli.
“Don’t give in to fear, boy. The weight of the world itself rests upon your sword.”
To Bercouli’s side was a girl with perfect white skin and long silver hair. Administrator’s mirror eyes and enigmatic smile were followed by a whispered message. “Show me now. Exhibit all the holy power that you received from me.”
Lastly, right in front of me appeared a young girl wearing a robe and a scholar’s cap. On her shoulder, next to the hanging brown curls of her hair, was a small spider. It was the other pontifex, Cardinal.
“Kirito, you must believe. Believe in the hearts of all the people you loved and who love you.”
Behind her tiny spectacles, her dark-brown eyes glinted kindly.
Then all of them disappeared—and my last and greates
t foe, Gabriel Miller, entered sword range.
With more power in my arms than I’d ever possessed before, I executed the Dual Blades sword skill that I had practiced more, and relied upon more, than any other in my repertoire.
Starburst Stream. A sixteen-part combination attack.
“Raaaaaaaah!!”
Swords brimming with starlight left behind stunning trails in the air.
Gabriel’s six wings and one blade roared toward me from all directions.
With each clash of light and emptiness, giant flashes and explosions shook the world itself.
Faster.
No, faster.
“Raaaaaaah!!” I howled, speeding up my body, fusing it with my consciousness, accelerating the swords.
“NULLLLL!!” screamed Gabriel, striking back with seven swords.
Ten strikes.
Eleven.
With each clash, the energy released dispersed outward into space, crackling off in search of equilibrium as bolts of lightning.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
There was no anger, no hatred, no murder in my heart anymore. Only the endless strength of countless prayers was fueling me now.
It’s time for you…
Fourteen.
…to feel the brilliance…
Fifteen.
…of all the hearts in this world, Gabriel!!
The sixteenth and final swing was a full overhead slash from the left, delivered after climactic pause.
Gabriel narrowed his inhuman eyes, certain of his victory. An instant faster than my devastating final blow, the black wing from the enemy’s right shoulder severed my left arm at the root.
The arm brimming with light burst, leaving behind only the Blue Rose Sword in the air.
“LLLLLLLLL!!” crowed Gabriel as the empty sword in his right hand came crackling downward, wreathed in black lightning.
Fwap.
With a reassuring sound, two hands that did not belong to me grabbed the hilt of the Blue Rose Sword.
Bursts of white and black flashed with a tremendous cracking sound.
The Blue Rose Sword stopped the empty blade firmly in place.
Eugeo turned to me, his flaxen hair swaying. “Now’s the moment, Kirito!!”
“Thank you, Eugeo!!” I shouted back. “Raaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
I drove another slash from the right, the seventeenth in the sequence, directly onto the top of Gabriel’s left shoulder with all my strength. That black liquid metal sprayed as the sword dug in deep and came to a stop right where his heart should be.
And then…
All the starlight that filled Eugeo and me, the Night-Sky Blade and Blue Rose Sword, flowed into Gabriel’s heart as a rainbow surge.
Gabriel Miller could feel a deluge of unlimited color and energy pouring into the empty abyss within himself. His vision was covered with every shade of color, and a chaotic chorus of voices passed through his hearing.
Dear God, please…
Let him be safe…
End the war…
I love you…
The world…
Please…
Please save the world!
“…Hah, hah, hah.”
Despite the boy’s sword through his heart, Gabriel spread his arms and wings wide and laughed.
“Ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”
It is pointless.
You cannot fulfill my hunger, my endless emptiness, with mere light.
It would be as pointless and arrogant as attempting to warm the universe itself with human hands.
“I will drink every last drop and devour every last morsel!!” shouted Gabriel, black lightning shooting from his eyes and mouth.
“You can’t! Not when the only thing you feel about the strength of the heart is fear!!” the boy shouted back, a golden surge pouring from his being.
His sword blazed even brighter, sending infinite heat and light into the enemy’s frozen heart.
Gabriel’s vision turned sizzling white, and his ears were saturated with sound. But it did nothing to stop his gales of laughter.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, haaaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”
I had no fear.
The void that filled my enemy was nothing short of a black hole, but I had swirling galaxies born of a multitude of prayers within me.
The hue of the dark-purple lightning shooting from Gabriel’s eyes and mouth gradually began to shift.
From purple to red. To orange. To yellow—and then to white.
Crack, went a faint noise, and a tiny fissure ran through the liquid-metal body surrounding the Night-Sky Blade.
Then another. And another.
More white light poured from the cracks. The base of the six wings extending from his back began to glow with fire. Where his mouth opened wide with laughter, it began to crumble and lose definition. Holes appeared in his shoulders and chest.
Beams and curtains of light were shooting out of every crack running all over Gabriel’s body, and still he did not stop laughing.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…”
His voice grew higher and higher pitched until it was nothing more than a metallic whirring vanishing from hearing range.
The great dark angel’s form was entirely covered with white cracks—and in a single instant, it compressed, imploded…
And released.
An explosion of light on a gargantuan scale formed a spiral that shot upward to the heavens.
“—Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”
Gabriel Miller sprang upright, laughing uproariously. The first thing that he saw was a wall of gray metal panels. Warning labels written in Japanese corresponded to cables and ducts all over its surface.
“Ha-ha-ha, hah, hah……”
As his laughter subsided, replaced by heavy breathing, Gabriel blinked and blinked. When his breathing normalized, he looked to the sides. He was in STL Room One on the Ocean Turtle. Apparently, some unforeseen factor had booted him out of the simulation.
What…a disappointing conclusion! He was just about to gobble up the entirety of that vast flood of light and finish the job of devouring the boy’s heart.
Perhaps there was still time to dive back in. Gabriel grimaced and turned around to check.
Resting on the seat of the STL was a tall white man with his eyes closed.
…Who is that? he thought momentarily. Is there a member like this on the assault team? And what is he doing on my machine anyway?
But then he realized something.
That’s my face.
Chief technical officer of Glowgen Defense Systems, Gabriel Miller.
Then who am I, looking down at me?
Gabriel lifted his hands to examine them. All he saw was a hazy translucent light instead.
What is this? What happened?
And then he heard a quiet voice over his shoulder.
“…You’ve finally come to this side, Gabe.”
He spun around. Standing there in a white blouse and a dark-blue pleated skirt was a young girl. Her face was downcast, so he couldn’t see it past her airy golden hair. But Gabriel knew at once who this girl was.
“…Alicia,” he said, for the first time in nearly twenty years. His face broke into a smile. “So this is where you’ve been, Allie.”
Alicia Clingerman. The childhood friend of Gabriel Miller, and the very first person he’d killed on his noble quest in search of the human soul.
The fact that he had failed to capture Alicia’s soul despite seeing it so clearly was an extremely sore spot for Gabriel for years. But apparently, he hadn’t completely lost her. She had stayed with him after all.
Gabriel momentarily forgot the bizarre situation he was in and reached out to her. Alicia’s hand snapped forward in a blur of movement and snatched his, hard.
She was cold. Cold as ice. A freezing sensation prickled his flesh through the skin like needles. Gabriel instinctually tried to pull away. But Alicia’s tiny hand was as firm as
a vise. His smile vanished.
“…It’s cold. Let go of me, Allie,” he murmured.
Her golden hair shook back and forth. “I won’t, Gabe. We’re going to be together forever. Come—let’s go.”
“Go…? Go where? I can’t—I still have things to do,” Gabriel protested, pulling back with all his might. But he did not move. In fact, he was slowly being pulled down toward her.
“Let go. Let go of me, Alicia,” he said, more sternly this time.
Just then, she lifted her head. And the moment he saw her face below those neatly trimmed bangs, Gabriel felt his heart shrinking in his chest.
His guts surged upward. His breathing grew faster. Goose bumps rose on his skin.
What is this? What is this sensation, this feeling?
“A…a-a-ah…,” he croaked, shaking his head in disbelief. “Let go. Stop. Let go.”
He lifted his other hand to push Alicia away, but she grabbed that one just as fast. Fingers as cold and hard as metal dug into his skin.
Alicia giggled at him. “That’s fear, Gabe. That’s the real emotion you wanted to understand, right there. Isn’t it lovely?”
Fear.
The source of the expressions he’d seen on all those people in their final moments when he’d killed them for his experiments, to satisfy his curiosity.
But now that he was experiencing it himself for the very first time, it was not a pleasant feeling. In fact, it was tremendously unpleasant. He didn’t want to know this thing. He wanted it to be over.
But…
“You can’t leave, Gabe. It’s going to continue forever and ever. You are going to feel nothing but terror for the rest of eternity.”
Her little shoes sank into the metal floor. So did Gabriel’s feet.
“Ah…n…no. Let go…stop,” he murmured absentmindedly, but the sinking sensation did not stop.
Suddenly, a white arm emerged from the floor and clung to Gabriel’s leg. Then another. And another. And even more.
Gabriel could sense that these were the hands of people he had preyed upon. His fear escalated higher and higher. His heart was hammering at an incredible speed, and sweat beaded thick on his forehead.
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