“Stop…stop, stop-stop-stop-stop-stoppppp!!” screamed Gabriel. “Critter, get in here! Wake up, Vassago!! Hans!! Brigg!!”
But his subordinates did not burst in. The door to the main control room remained cold and silent. And Vassago, who was in the STL next to him, was not getting up.
By now, his translucent body had sunk into the floor to the waist. Alicia was visible only from the shoulders up as she dragged him down. Before her face disappeared entirely, it smiled with glee.
“Ah…aaah…Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!” wailed Gabriel. Over and over.
White hands grabbed his shoulders, his neck, his face.
“Aaaaa…aaaa……a………”
With a tiny splashing sound, he saw nothing but darkness.
Gabriel Miller understood the fate that awaited him, and he unleashed a scream that would last for eternity.
The flow of time in the Underworld began to accelerate again.
The moment that time was no longer perfectly synchronized, the hundreds of Japanese players connected to the Underworld with AmuSpheres were kicked off, returned to their bedrooms or Internet-café booths, and left with nothing but whatever they’d been feeling moments before.
None of them spoke in the immediate aftermath. They all reflected on what they’d experienced in that strange world, committing it to their innermost memories. When any tears they’d shed had been wiped away, they went to their smartphones and AmuSpheres. They had to tell the friends who had logged out first exactly what had happened.
Just before the reacceleration began, Sinon and Leafa left the Underworld due to loss of life. The two woke up in Rath’s Roppongi office, feeling the last traces of their pain fading away. They looked into each other’s eyes and bobbed their heads.
Neither Shino nor Suguha had any doubt that Kirito had returned to life, had defeated the final enemy, had saved the world, and would return before long.
And the next time they saw him, they would express how they felt in words—whether he was capable of hearing them or not.
Each sensed this determination in the other girl, and they shared a secret little smile.
However…
With the safety limiter off on the Fluctlight Acceleration function, the pulse of time in the Underworld sped toward a level it had never before reached.
Over a thousand times as fast. Over five thousand.
Heading toward the far side of the chronometric wall, five million times as fast as time in the real world: the maximum-acceleration phase.
When the light of the stars vanished, so did the energy that was filling my being, and I floated in an exhausted state, face up to the sky.
The left arm that had been cut off and disintegrated was back on my shoulder. I squeezed the Blue Rose Sword in that hand with whatever strength I had left, and I fought back the tears that threatened to fall.
When Eugeo’s soul had infused the Blue Rose Sword, saving me and pushing me onward yet one more time, I could sense intuitively that his act of stopping Gabriel’s sword had consumed him at last.
In the real world and in the Underworld, the dead did not rise to life.
That’s what made memories so precious and beautiful.
“…Isn’t that right, Eugeo…?” I murmured.
There was no answer.
I lifted the two swords and slowly slid them into the sheaths affixed to my back. Within moments, the night sky overhead began to fade. The darkness melted away, returning the atmosphere to its normal color.
……Blue.
This time, for some reason, the sky over the Dark Territory was not its usual bloodred color. There was just pure crystal blue as far as the eye could see.
Was it the effect of the maximum-acceleration phase underway, or was a miracle caused by the prayers of tens of thousands of people at once?
There was no definite answer, but whatever the reason, the clear-azure color was so beautiful it made me want to cry. Longing and sentimentality threatened to tear me apart, so I simply let a lungful of the beautiful blue into my body.
Afterward, I closed my eyes, let out a long breath, and slowly turned.
When I opened my eyes again, I was looking at the white staircase far below, which was crumbling without a sound. I beat my wings and slowly descended along the collapsing staircase. My target was the little island in the sky.
The round floating island was covered with a wild bloom of flowers in all colors. A white stone path ran through the field and into a templelike building at the center of the island. I landed in the middle of that path, returned my coat from its current winged state to its usual hem, and looked around me.
A sweet, gentle scent like honey tickled my nose. A number of little lapis-blue butterflies fluttered about, and songbirds trilled from the branches of the few trees growing in the area. The clear-blue sky and soft sunlight made me feel as if I were in the midst of a pastoral painting.
The island was devoid of human presence.
I did not see anyone on the path or in the temple with its circular pillars, either.
“…Oh, good. They made it in time,” I murmured.
After Gabriel had been sucked into the spiral of light and had vanished, I could feel the FLA function kicking in. The timing was such that I couldn’t be sure whether Asuna and Alice had safely escaped to the real world through the console. Now I knew that they’d crossed the lengthy staircase and reached their goal in time.
Alice—the very reason this world was created, a soul like no other, the knight whose fluctlight broke through its boundaries—had traveled to the real world at last.
There would be many tribulations awaiting her after this. A world with completely different laws and common understanding, a limited mechanical body, and a fight against the forces who wanted to use true artificial intelligence for military purposes.
But Alice would be capable of handling it. She was the most powerful Integrity Knight in existence.
“……Hang in there……,” I prayed, thinking of the golden knight I would never see again and looking up at the blue sky.
Yes, now that the maximum-acceleration phase had begun, I had completely lost the ability to voluntarily log out from within the Underworld. All three system consoles had stopped functioning, and even if I lost all my life now, I would have to wait in darkness without sensation for the phase to finish.
In the outside world, Kikuoka and the Rath team would be trying desperately to shut down my STL, but that would take at least twenty minutes. And in that time, two hundred years would pass in this world.
Would I lose consciousness with the end of my soul’s life span first, or would the acceleration rate of five million times prove to be unbearable over a long period, causing me to disintegrate sooner?
All I knew for certain was that I could not return to the real world again.
My parents. Suguha. Sinon. Klein, Agil, Liz, Silica.
My friends at school and in ALO.
Alice.
And Asuna.
I would never again see the people I loved.
I fell to my knees on the white stones.
My hands flew forward to keep me from toppling face-first.
My vision blurred. Light sparkled and wavered, then fell and burst against the marble paving stone. Again and again. Over and over.
This time, at least, I knew I had the right to cry.
I cried for the precious things that I had lost and would never regain. Sobs leaked through my gritted teeth, and a stream of liquid dripped down my cheeks.
Drip, drip-drip.
The only sound was the droplets hitting the stone.
Drip.
Drip.
…Tek.
Tek, tek.
Suddenly, another sound overlaid it, a sound of a different density.
Tek, tek. It was coming closer. I could feel the vibrations through my fingertips.
The air rustled. There was something faint and familiar amid the rich scent of the flowers.
> Tek.
…Tek.
The sound came to a stop just before me.
Then someone called my name.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
RETURN, JULY 7TH, 2026 AD / NOVEMBER 7TH, 380 HE
1
Rinko Koujiro sat in the control seat at the console of Subcon, staring at the glass hatch placed just to the left of the board.
The LCD screen at the top of the hatch flashed a message in red letters: EJECTING…
There was the deep sound of pressurized air leaking. Eventually a small black quadrilateral shape appeared beyond the glass window. The LCD screen changed to COMPLETE.
Rinko reached out a trembling hand to open the little hatch and take out its contents.
It was a hard metal package, a cube a little over two inches to a side, and surprisingly heavy. A six-digit number was carved on its sheer face, and there was a very small connector port on it.
Trapped in this tiny cube was Alice’s soul.
Following the commands of the system, the Lightcube Cluster installed in the center of the Ocean Turtle’s Main Shaft ejected a single specific cube, sealing it in a protective package and then shooting it through a pneumatic tube.
At the same time, it was a journey from the interior Underworld to the exterior real world.
Rinko was speechless for a moment, struck with an indescribable sensation, but recovered and picked up the cube carefully with both hands. She turned to the mic and shouted, “Asuna, Alice has been ejected! Only you and Kirigaya are left! Make it quick!!”
She glanced at the crimson countdown on the main monitor and added, “You’ve only got thirty seconds until the maximum acceleration starts!! Log out now!!”
There was a moment of silence.
Then words she never expected to hear came out of the speaker.
“I’m sorry, Rinko.”
“Huh…? F-for what…?”
“I’m sorry. I’m…staying here. Thank you for everything. I will never forget what you did for us.”
Asuna Yuuki’s voice was calm and gentle and full of purpose, from what Rinko could hear through the speaker.
“Please take care of Alice. She’s a very sweet person. She holds great love within her, and she is loved by many. For the sake of the souls who vanished for her sake…and for Kirito’s sake, please don’t let them turn her into a weapon.”
Rinko was speechless again. All she could do was listen to Asuna’s final words.
“And tell everyone else, too, that…I’m sorry…and thank you…and good-bye…”
The countdown hit zero.
A long siren blared, and the heavy groan of machinery echoed throughout the cramped cable duct.
It was ten o’clock in the morning on July 7th. The fifteen-minute countdown was over, and the cooling system on the other side of the wall was running at full capacity. Huge fans desperately tried to suck out the incredible heat output of the machines supporting the Underworld simulation. If you looked at the Ocean Turtle from the sea, you would see heat haze rising from the top of its pyramid structure.
“……It’s started…,” grunted Takeru Higa.
“Yeah,” replied Seijirou Kikuoka, who was carrying him down the narrow ladder.
When they’d determined that preventing the maximum-acceleration phase was impossible, they’d immediately prepped and headed into the maintenance cable duct again, but since Higa was injured, it had taken them eight minutes to get him strapped into a support harness.
Despite the fact that Kikuoka descended the rungs with such force that sweat poured off him, the maximum-acceleration phase started in the Underworld before they reached the pressure-resistant isolation barrier. Praying, Higa hit the intercom button to speak to Dr. Koujiro in the sub-control room.
“Rinko…how’s it going?”
There was some static, followed by a connection sound, but all he received was heavy silence.
“…Rinko?”
“…I’m sorry. We’ve safely retrieved Alice’s lightcube. But…,” she said faintly and then delivered what came next.
Higa held his breath and closed his eyes tight.
“…All right. We’ll do all we can. I’ll get in touch to tell you when to open the connection hatch.”
He released the button and expelled all the air in his lungs over a long, slow period.
Kikuoka didn’t ask what he’d heard, sensing enough from Higa’s reaction already. He continued to bound downward in silence.
“…Kiku…”
Several seconds later, Higa finally found the voice to tell the team commander what Dr. Koujiro had related to him.
Critter stared in silence at the new window on the main monitor and the message it contained.
It said, in very brief detail, that one lightcube had been ejected from the cluster and delivered to the sub-control room on the other side of the pressure-resistant barrier. Meaning that Rath had control of Alice now.
Or in other words, the entire ten-plus-hour operation to find Alice in the Underworld and abduct her had ended in total failure. Vassago and Captain Miller had dived in themselves, led the Dark Army in a military invasion of the human lands, fought in battle scenes that would make any Hollywood producer faint, even lured in tens of thousands of Americans, Chinese, and Koreans to fight with them—and all of it had been for nothing.
He scratched at his shaved head, exhaled through his nose, and thought about something else. If there were still over eight hours remaining until the defense ship arrived, could they physically steal Alice back now?
The barrier was extremely thick and made of a powerful composite metal, so they had no means of destroying it. But if Rath opened it up, like they had not long ago, that would be a different story.
In fact, why had they opened the barrier earlier? Did they really think they could overpower the team with one ugly, clumsy robot and a couple of smoke grenades?
Unless that had been a distraction…? If they had some other reason for opening the barrier, what in the world would that be?
Critter turned back to the team members who had resumed their card game and called out, “Hey, about that robot they sent in from above. It wasn’t even loaded with any explosives or anything, right?”
Tall, lanky Hans twisted his mustache and said, “Oh, we looked it over, sweetie. No explosives, not even a single type of fixed weapon. I think they were using it as a ballistic shield, but we shot it to shit so bad it broke down, and the soldiers behind it had to retreat.”
“Okay…By the way, their SDF members aren’t called soldiers—they’re technically ‘personnel,’” Critter added, a pointless bit of trivia, as he turned the chair back around.
So it was possible that the robot maneuver was just a diversion. But even with smoke grenades, those stairs were tight, and there was no way anyone could have slipped by Hans and Brigg without them noticing.
Which would mean…
Critter picked up the tablet computer on the desk and brought up an interior map of the Ocean Turtle.
“Let’s see…Here’s the Main Shaft, and here’s where the barrier splits it…and this is the staircase where they sent the robot through…”
Just then, the countdown on the monitor reached zero, and a high-pitched alarm began to sound. The Underworld’s time acceleration was resuming. And because that muscle-bound idiot Brigg had broken the control lever, the acceleration rate was going crazy.
But whatever happened in the Underworld now didn’t matter. The Alice retrieval plan was a failure, so Vassago and Captain Miller had probably “died” during their dives and would be logging out and coming out of the adjacent room soon.
In that case, it would be a good idea to think of the next tactical option to take before the captain got back. Critter zoomed in on the ship map and scrolled through it until he noticed something.
“Hey, there’s a little hatch here, too. What is this…a cable duct…?”
After she was done relaying the situation to
Takeru Higa, Rinko leaned back in the mesh chair and let out a heavy breath.
Asuna Yuuki’s decision to stay in the Underworld once it became clear that Kazuto Kirigaya would not be able to escape before the acceleration started was so youthful, so earnest—and so tragically beautiful.
She couldn’t help but recall something from her own life: when the man she loved left her behind in the real world and vanished into cyberspace.
What would she have done if she’d been given the option to go with him? Would she have destroyed her brain with a prototype STL, too, and chosen to live on solely as an electronic copy of her consciousness?
“Akihiko…did you…?” she whispered, closing her eyes.
She’d thought that building the floating castle Aincrad and creating a true alternate world with ten thousand players trapped inside it was Akihiko Kayaba’s only desire. But during that two-year period in the castle, he found something, learned something. And that thing changed his thinking.
There was more, something further beyond.
SAO was not the final destination, but only the beginning, he realized. And that led him to develop a higher-density version of the NerveGear in that villa in the forest of Nagano and to eventually kill himself within the prototype.
Using the data he’d left with her, Rinko designed the high-precision medical-user full-dive system, Medicuboid. With the vast data provided to the project by a girl’s three-year test stay in the first Medicuboid prototype, Takeru Higa and Rath were able to put the finishing touches on their Soul Translator.
So depending on how you considered it, the Underworld—this ultimate example of an alternate reality—was born from the cornerstone of Akihiko Kayaba’s grand vision. Did that mean that with the completion of the Underworld, Kayaba’s desires had come to fruition?
No, that couldn’t be the case…because that still didn’t explain where the other element he left behind, The Seed Package, was supposed to fit into the puzzle.
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