I pulled a blank sheet of paper from the printer tray and scribbled on it with the pen. Alice went over to Suguha’s room to get her uniform. We turned our backs to each other to get dressed, then snuck out of the room.
When we got down to the living room, I left my note on the table. Then I carefully, quietly slid open the old-fashioned door, and the two of us headed out into the chilly air of early morning.
To avoid causing too much noise, I pushed my 125cc motorcycle a good distance away from the house before straddling the seat. Suguha’s helmet went onto Alice’s head, and I put my own on before starting the engine; it kicked to life nicely for having been abandoned for three months.
Then I revved it a little and called out to my tandem rider, “Hold on tight! I’m gonna gun this thing like a dragon!”
Alice put her hands around my stomach and said, “Who do you think I am?!”
“Ha-ha, of course, Miss Integrity Knight. Then…let’s go!!”
The note I left in the living room said, Dad, Mom, Sugu: I’ve got one little adventure left. I’ll be back right away. Don’t worry about me.
The roads were empty before dawn. We headed down Kawagoe Highway, then Kannana-Dori Avenue, then Route 246 in quick order. When we got to Rath’s Roppongi branch, Asuna had already arrived via taxi.
She started to wave with a big smile, then froze when she noticed that Alice was riding behind me.
“…Kirito…what exactly does this mean?”
“W-well, uh…To put it briefly, some things happened…but nothing happened…The end…”
“Define ‘some things’ and ‘nothing.’”
I’d known this was going to happen. I’d known it would, but I’d shown up here without a plan anyway. There was no innocent way to explain the situation.
“I’ll explain everything later, I promise! We’ll have plenty of time…when we’re old and sipping tea…,” I murmured, parking my bike in the employee lot.
When I turned around, what I feared was already coming to pass.
There was Asuna, hands on her waist. Alice had her arms folded. The air crackled like lightning between the two of them.
Very, very carefully, I said, “Pardon me…but I thought you two were past that…You know, at the Human Guardian Army’s campsite…”
“It was only a cease-fire, nothing more!”
“And a cease-fire signals an intent for the battle to resume!” the two women said before glaring at each other again.
I observed the two warriors, their hostility and rivalry blazing—and did the one thing that I could do in this situation.
I made myself as small as possible, backed away, and tried to evacuate into the building. But when I submitted my ID card, fingerprint, and retinal scan at the door’s security terminal, it let out a high-pitched beep, drawing their attention.
“Ah! Hey! Kirito!!”
“You shall not run from us!!”
But I was already rushing into the building. Asuna and I arrived at the STL room sweating and out of breath, and while Alice had no respiratory system to speak of, her mechanical body was giving off more heat than usual. Dr. Koujiro looked at us with alarm.
“I understand that you want to hurry, but you didn’t have to sprint here. The Soul Translators and Underworld aren’t going anywhere in the next few minutes,” she said, a bit annoyed.
I flashed her a very snarky smile. “Oh, gosh, we just wanted to get connected without a moment to waste! After all, whether or not we can successfully dive will have a huge influence on the future security of the Under-wuaaa!!” Asuna pinched me hard on the side.
After that, I retreated to the nearby changing room so I could get into the sterilized robes for diving with the STL—and not just so that I could avoid a follow-up attack from Alice.
As a matter of fact, what I’d told the scientist was my honest opinion. The Ocean Turtle was still anchored out at sea in the Izu Islands, and its future was uncertain, to say the least. At the moment, there was only one strategy for ensuring its operation and independence.
We had to promote exchange between the artificial fluctlights of the Underworld and humans from the real world and breed friendly relations. If we could get a majority of people in the real world to accept the Underworlders as human beings, countries and corporations would not be able to simply have their way with the tech.
But…while it was extreme, there was another way as well.
Seizing actual defensive power. Arming the Ocean Turtle with the lightcube-bearing unmanned fighter drones that the nation was already developing, so that it could go independent as its own nation.
For now, that was just a pipe dream. How would the Ocean Turtle get the UAVs? How would they fund basic functions and be self-sufficient? How many months—if not years—would it take for Underworlders to transition from flying their dragons to properly operating supersonic jets? There were just too many challenges to overcome.
In either case, one absolute requirement for continued existence would be a high-capacity wireless connection aside from government-owned communication satellites. Only then could the Underworlders dive into the brand-new world of The Seed Nexus and allow people of the real world to understand them. Whether this would be possible depended entirely on the IP address written down on the paper in my pocket.
I finished changing, left the room, and held the memo out to Dr. Rinko. She hesitated for a moment, then lifted her hand and took the piece of paper.
“…I’m guessing he has something to do with this,” she murmured. I gave her a little nod.
I didn’t know how he knew about the names of the various floors of Central Cathedral. But there was only one man who could have set up a secret connection to the Internet from the Ocean Turtle.
Akihiko Kayaba…Heathcliff.
In a sense, my battle couldn’t end without a direct confrontation between him and me. Heathcliff had passed very close by the STL where I slumbered, then vanished back into the darkness of the network. He would show himself again, though. He would gather all the fragments born of that floating steel fortress to one place and bring a conclusion to it all.
I faced away from Dr. Koujiro, who was setting up for the dive, and booted my smartphone. “Yui, have you figured out anything about that address?”
Her cute little face shook side to side on the screen. “The location of the server is in Iceland, but I think it’s only a relay point. Its defenses are very strong, and I can’t search for any route beyond that.”
“I see…Thanks. Were you able to trace the source of the message to Alice?”
“Well…I spotted traces that resembled it on Node 304 of The Seed Nexus, but I lost the signal there, too,” she said, drooping her shoulders.
I rubbed the touch screen with a fingertip. “No, you’ve done enough. If it’s in the three hundreds, that would be the United States…You don’t need to search any further. Even for you, making direct contact would be dangerous. He’s essentially the same kind of being as you now.”
“Well, I’m better!” she protested, puffing out her cheeks.
I smirked and poked her. “At any rate, I’m going now. This time it’s not going to involve all these dangers…I think.”
“If anything happens, I’ll come to help you at once!”
“And I’m counting on that. So long.”
She held up a tiny hand on-screen, and I brushed it with a finger, then turned off the device’s power. Alice and Asuna were just emerging from the women’s changing room at that moment. Fortunately, they seemed to have forged a second cease-fire; their faces were shining with expectation.
I shared a look with each of them in turn and said, “Remember, two hundred years have passed. We can’t begin to guess what the human and dark realms look like at this point. That’s shorter than the three centuries Administrator ruled over things, of course, so it probably won’t be dramatically different, but…”
Alice’s head bobbed. “At the very least, it seems certain
that Central Cathedral will still be standing. So I think we can assume that the Human Empire will be the same.”
Asuna brushed Alice’s arm and grinned. “And we have to go and wake up Selka first thing.”
“That’s right!”
We shared a moment of firm resolution—then headed over to the two STLs and one reclining seat. I lay back against the chilly gel bed. Dr. Rinko operated the control that lowered the large headblock down over the top of my head.
“All right…here we go,” she said.
The three of us replied in unison. “Right!”
The enormous machine began to hum. My fluctlight—the light quantum network that constituted my very consciousness—split off from my flesh, removing me from my bodily senses and gravity.
My mind was translated into electronic signals and thrown into a vast network without boundaries.
I flew at ultra-high speed down a high-capacity optical line, soaring toward another familiar world I considered home.
Into a new adventure.
Into the next story.
First, I saw a light.
A tiny little speck of white that stretched and grew into rainbow gradient, until it covered my entire vision—and beyond.
Within it a space of pure dark appeared.
I dived straight through the tunnel of light toward the darkness.
But it was not, in fact, total darkness.
Black was only the background, with a frightening number of colored dots that quietly flickered against it.
They were stars. A night sky……
But not quite. No, because…
“…Aaaaah!!”
I screamed when I looked down at my feet.
Because there was no ground beneath them.
I flailed and swung my legs, but the bottoms of my boots touched nothing. The boundless starry sky continued in every direction—sides, top, bottom. Stars, stars, stars.
“Eeeeek!!”
“Wh…what is this?!” said other voices to my sides.
Other hands grabbed my outstretched ones. On my right floated Asuna, dressed in the clothing of the goddess Stacia: pearl-white half armor and skirt and a beautiful rapier.
On my left, Alice was in her golden breastplate and long white skirt, with a white whip and a golden-yellow longsword at her sides.
Both of them were in a panic, gazing wide-eyed at the endless sky of stars before us.
But in truth…this was not even a sky.
“…Outer space…?” I mumbled, hardly daring to say it.
Suddenly, I was aware of a ferocious chill. Alice and Asuna both sneezed spectacularly. The temperature was so low here that I could easily feel the rapid decline of my life value by the moment.
The fact that I could hear their voices meant that we weren’t in the actual vacuum of space, but it must have been very close. And we were simply floating there, without protection.
I focused hard, generating a defensive wall of light elements in a sphere large enough to surround all three of us. Once the thin shining layer was enveloping us, that piercing chill finally began to subside.
Once the immediate danger was behind us, I looked around at the stunning sight before me again. A tight belt of stars ran from the upper right of my field of view to the lower left. It was like the Milky Way—but no matter how I tried to connect the brightest stars, I couldn’t find a single familiar constellation.
This was the Underworld.
But in that case, where was the land…and where was the sky over it?
I felt a terrible chill steal over me and shivered.
It couldn’t have…vanished, could it?
After two hundred years, had the very earth that made up the human realm and the Dark Territory simply run out of its own life? Had the tens of thousands of people who lived on it all ceased to exist when it happened…?
“No way…It can’t be…,” I murmured in a trembling voice.
Suddenly, Alice squeezed my hand so hard it creaked. “Kirito…look there.”
I turned to my left. The golden knight had turned herself around to look behind us. Her arm was outstretched, gesturing toward a single point.
Breathlessly and oh so slowly, I turned to see.
There was a star.
Not a true stellar star, like those twinkling in the great distance—but a planet, vast and close, taking up a large part of our view.
The upper half of the sphere was sunk into thick darkness. But around the middle, the black transitioned to navy, then to ultramarine and azure. And on the lower half of the sphere, right at its lip, the planet shone bright blue.
The blue was steadily growing brighter and brighter. A white orb bulged from the center of the curve, spraying rays of light in a straight line.
It was dawn.
The sun—Solus—hiding on the far side of the planet was coming into view.
I shielded my eyes from its brilliance and examined the surface of the planet again. The parts of the curve that had been deep navy blue before were transitioning into brighter hues already.
Through scraps and trails of white cloud, I could see the outline of a continent.
It was shaped like an inverted triangle, wider across than it was from top to bottom.
At the upper right of the continent was a concentrated mass of lights. At the top left, an even larger spread of light.
This was a clear sign of civilization. And upon further examination, there were several glowing lines extending from those two central sources, grids stretching farther downward.
From the locations of the cities on the continent, I instantly knew exactly what I was looking at.
The city on the right was Obsidia, capital of the dark world.
The city on the left was Centoria, capital of the human realm.
That continent—the planet it was on—was the Underworld where I’d lived and fought for so long.
I tore my eyes from the planet and looked over at Alice. The only thing I saw in her face was deep shock and profound awe.
Then her eyes bulged. She let go of my hand and rummaged in the small pouch attached to her sword belt, then drew out two eggs small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.
One was faint green, while the other shone blue. The light they gave off pulsed stronger and weaker in two-second cycles. Like breathing. Like a heartbeat.
Alice clutched the two eggs to her chest and closed her eyes. Tears ran silently down her cheeks and fell free, floating as little droplets.
I could feel tears coming to my own eyes. I looked over to the person still holding my right hand and saw that Asuna’s eyes were damp, too.
As the two of us watched, Alice took one step forward across the sea of stars. She held the two eggs in her left hand and reached toward the vast planet with her right.
Her eyes the same color as the dawning star and sparkling with unlimited brilliance, the golden Integrity Knight called out in a voice pure and crisp and regal, “Hear me, land!! Underworld where I was born and land that I love!! Is my voice reaching you?!”
The stars in the endless universe trembled, and the blue planet below briefly shone brighter, as though taking a breath.
I closed my eyes and listened well.
I listened to the words that ushered in a new era, carving them into my memory for all eternity.
“I have returned to you! ……I am here!!”
PROLOGUE III
STELLAR YEAR 582
“This is Blue Rose 73. I have confirmed atmospheric escape. Transitioning to interstellar cruising speed,” said Integrity Pilot Stica Schtrinen into the voice transmitter near her mouth, pushing the control rod forward with her left hand.
The dragoncraft’s silvery form shuddered. Its widespread wings began to shine a faint blue. It was collecting the scarce resources of the vacuum of space and transferring them to the drive mechanism.
The eternal-heat elements locked in the core of the mechanism screamed in response, sending white flames from t
he primary thrust apertures on either side of the craft’s long tail. She felt her body being pressed back against the pilot seat. The sensation of powerful acceleration was something she couldn’t experience within the planet’s atmosphere, and it put a smile on her face.
“Blue Rose 74, affirmative,” came a brief response from the transmitter. She looked at the auxiliary visual board on the right. Her number two was following to her side, jets burning bright.
The pilot of the second craft had been Stica’s partner since they’d been ordained together, Integrity Pilot Laurannei Arabel. She was silent most of the time, and when piloting her dragoncraft, she was even less chatty.
But even Stica’s addiction to speed paled in comparison to hers. Stica grimaced and warned her, “You’re going too fast, Laura.”
“You’re too slow, Sti.”
Oh yeah?
The rules of the Underworld Space Force were absolute, but even their drill instructor couldn’t see them out beyond the atmosphere. And it was a whole three-hour journey to reach the companion star of Admina. That meant there was room for a little error.
Stica gave the control rod another push, pulling away from the second craft just a tiny bit. She leaned back in her seat, grinning.
When her eyes drifted upward, she caught sight of the detailed art relief on the canopy of the cramped pilot’s chamber.
Two vertical swords, white and black. Blue roses and golden osmanthus flowers entwined around them. The insignia of the Star King, a figure now turning into legend.
Thirty years had passed since the Star King and Queen left their palace of Central Cathedral on the main star, Cardina.
Stica and Laurannei were only fifteen years old, and four years into their service as Integrity Pilots, so they never had the chance for a royal audience. But they’d grown up on the stories their mothers, also pilots, had told them about the royal couple. And those mothers had heard plenty of stories from theirs, and so on.
The Schtrinen and Arabel families had served as Royal Pilots—originally called “knights”—for all two hundred years of the Star King’s long reign. Seven generations ago, the knights Tiese Schtrinen and Ronie Arabel protected the Star King before he was king, and they achieved great deeds in the battle against the four emperors who sought power on Cardina’s First Continent. The imperial families and higher nobles’ corrupt and abusive power was stripped from them, and the common people enslaved on their private property were freed.
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