It was as though she and Kirito were one. All of her nerves and brain cells were connected and racing with pale electronic pulses. She knew where Kirito was moving behind her without seeing him. As they spun together, Leafa struck the head off the guardian knight Kirito had been sparring with, while he sank his sword directly into the wound she’d made in the enemy she’d just left.
Kirito, Leafa, the sylphs, and the dragoons all formed one being of pure energy that melted, gouged, and burst through the limitless flood of knights. Though the enemy might be endless, the spatial limits of the dome were fixed. As long as they kept proceeding forward, their moment of victory would come.
“Seyaaa!” Leafa cried, splitting a guardian’s body straight down the middle. For an instant, through its crumbling corpse, she saw the ceiling.
“Raah!”
Kirito broke away from Leafa’s back and plunged through the gap in the wall of flesh like a bolt of black lightning. The last line of guardian knight defense roared with hatred and closed in on all sides. There were at least thirty of them.
“Kirito!!”
On pure instinct, Leafa pulled back her sword and hurled it with all her might at Kirito’s left hand. The light green hilt of the spinning katana fit right into his palm, as though it were being pulled to it.
“Rraaaahh!!”
With a bellow that seemed to shake the entire dome, he alternated swipes of the blades, greatsword in his right hand and katana in his left.
A slash down from the right. A slice up from the left. The two shining swords traced slightly different angles each time, until they formed a glowing circle of white like that of the corona around a solar eclipse. The guardian knights were torn to ribbons by dozens of light-speed slashes, their remains littering the air.
Beyond the quivering ring of End Flames, she could see it clearly now. Right in the center of the vine-crossed ceiling of the dome was the round door, split into four sections. The final gate of Alfheim, leading through the trunk of the World Tree to the palace seated at its crown.
The black figure left a trail of light as he raced for the gate. He was through at last.
Before Leafa’s eyes, countless layers of guardian knights surged forward and buried the hole that had been there just an instant before. Sakuya had seen Kirito break through the line of defense and shouted an order:
“All units, turn back and disengage!”
Leafa joined the sylph squad and headed into a dive as the dragons’ fire breath protected their backs. For an instant, she looked back at the ceiling. She couldn’t see Kirito for the wall of guardians, but in her mind’s eye, he flew higher, ever higher, toward the heights that no one had yet reached.
Fly—fly—fly as far as you can! Through the tree, through the sky, to the center of the world!
I closed the final distance so fast, I thought my brain cells would fry.
Before my eyes was the final round gate. Four stone slabs met in the center to form a cross shape. And beyond them—Asuna. Along with the half of my soul that had been left behind in that fateful realm.
From behind me came a scream of hatred from the guardian knights. I looked back, sensing their pursuit. There were fresh knights being born without end from the glowing apertures around the gate, and they flew down to intercept me.
But I was faster. I could reach out and touch the gate now.
And yet…
“It won’t open!” I exclaimed with shock.
The gate would not open. I’d assumed the heavy, evil-looking door would simply slide open once I got close enough, but the intersecting cracks showed no signs of budging.
It was too late to slow down. I held my right sword at my side, preparing to smash my way through the stone wall if it came to that.
The next instant, I slammed into the gate with astonishing force. The tip of the sword sent sparks flying with the impact, but there wasn’t the slightest sign of a scratch on the stone surface.
“Yui, what’s going on?!” I screamed in the chaos. Was it not enough just to break through the guardian knights? Did I need a special item or some other condition?
I prepared to swing again out of instinct, until Yui popped out of my shirt pocket with a jingle. She touched the stone door of the gate with her tiny hand.
“Papa,” she turned to me, speaking quickly, “this door isn’t locked with a quest-related conditional! It’s controlled by a system admin switch, nothing more.”
“Wh-what does that mean?!”
“It means…nothing a player can do will open this door!”
“Wha…”
I was at a loss for words.
The grand quest at the center of the game—to reach the city atop the World Tree and be reborn as true fairies—was nothing more than a giant carrot, endlessly dangled out of reach of the game’s player base? So not only was this battle’s difficulty set to the extreme, the door was locked by nothing more than the will of the game manager…?
I felt my body go limp. The roars of the guardian knights bearing down washed over me, but I didn’t even have the will to swing my sword anymore.
I was so close, Asuna, so close…I almost reached you…Will that little sliver of warmth you dropped to me be the last time we ever touch?
No, wait. Wasn’t that…?
My eyes flew open. I stuck a hand in my waist pocket. Yes! The little card. Yui had called it a system access code…
“Yui, use this!”
I stuck the silver card in her face. Her eyes went wide and she nodded.
Yui brushed the card with one of her little hands. A few lines of light ran across the card and into her.
“I’m copying the code!” she shouted and slapped the surface of the gate with both hands.
I had to squint at the flash. Blue lines of light spread out from the spots Yui touched, and in moments, the entire gate glowed blindingly bright.
“It’s copying! Grab hold, Papa!”
I touched her little hand with my fingertips. The lines of light passed through Yui and flowed into me.
Suddenly, I heard the scream of the guardian knights right behind me. I had barely even time to flinch before several of their massive swords bore down. But they passed right through me, as though the swords had no physical form. But in truth, it was I who was dematerializing. My body was fading away, blending with the light.
“—!!”
I felt a sudden tug pulling me forward. Yui and I became a flow of data, melting into the glowing white screen that had been the gate.
My mind was blank for only an instant.
I shook my head and blinked a few times, fighting off the aftereffects of teleportation. This was similar to the symptoms of a teleport crystal back in Aincrad, but unlike the ever-present bustle of any city’s teleport square, I had landed in the midst of absolute silence.
I slowly rose from a kneeling crouch. Yui greeted me, looking nervous. She was not a pixie anymore, but her original ten-year-old form.
“Are you all right, Papa?”
“Yeah. Where are we…?”
I looked around. It was a very…strange place. Unlike the detailed and beautiful environs of Swilvane and Alne, which fit into the expectations of what a modern game looked like, this location was nothing but flat white surfaces with no details or textures whatsoever.
We seemed to be in the middle of a long hallway. It was not straight, but curved gently to the right. I looked behind me and saw a mirrored bend in the other direction. We were in a very long curve, or perhaps even a circle.
“I don’t know. This place doesn’t fall within the map info Nav Pixies have access to,” Yui said, troubled.
“Can you tell where Asuna is?” I asked. She shut her eyes, and then almost instantly nodded.
“Yes, she’s close—very close. Above us…this way.”
She ran off silently, her bare legs flashing out of the familiar white dress. I put my greatsword over my back and hurried after her. The katana I’d been holding in my lef
t hand was gone. When I teleported, it must have been automatically returned to Leafa, its proper owner. If she hadn’t thrown it to me when she did, I would never have made it to the gate. I shut my eyes and said a silent word of thanks to the physical memory of its hilt in the palm of my hand.
After most of a minute running after Yui, a square door came into view on the left, the outer side of the curve. It, too, had no visual features whatsoever.
“We can go up from here.”
I stopped next to Yui and took a glance at the side of the door—and froze.
There were two triangular buttons on the wall, one pointing up and one pointing down. I’d never seen their like in the game, but they were a familiar sight in the real world: elevator buttons.
I grimaced, suddenly feeling as though my battle armor and massive sword were completely out of place here. Except…it was this place that was strange. If these buttons meant what they appeared to signify, we were not within the game world. In that case, where were we?
That question left my mind as quickly as it formed. It didn’t matter. Asuna was here.
I reached out and hit the upper arrow button without hesitation. The door binged and slid open, revealing a small, box-shaped chamber. Yui and I walked inside and turned around to find that there was indeed a panel of control buttons on the wall. Assuming the glowing one marked our current location, there were two floors above us. After a brief moment of indecision, I pushed the top button.
The chime sounded again and the door closed. I felt the unmistakable rising sensation of an elevator.
It stopped just as quickly. The door opened to reveal another curved hallway, identical to the one before. I turned to Yui, who was squeezing my hand.
“Is this the right level?”
“Yes. We’re very close…She’s just over there,” Yui replied, pulling me onward.
We raced down the hallway for another minute, my heart beating faster and faster. Eventually we came to a door on the inner wall of the hallway, but Yui ran right past it without a glance. After a few more moments, she stopped at a nondescript point in the middle of the hall.
“…What is it?”
“There’s a passage…through here,” she murmured, rubbing the featureless outer wall. Her hand stopped still, and just as with the stone gate, blue lines of light began to run through the wall where she touched, wriggling away at right angles.
Thicker lines suddenly cut out a square piece of the wall, and with a brief buzz, it disappeared completely. Just as Yui had said, there was another plain white hallway extending out from the intersection.
The little girl headed down the new hallway silently, then sped up and broke into a run. Her young face was dark with desperation and haste. Asuna had to be near.
Faster, faster. It was the only thing on my mind as we raced down the corridor. Eventually it came to an end, a square door blocking our progress. Yui didn’t bother to slow down, extending a hand to shove the door open.
“!!”
We were greeted by a massive setting sun.
The world was surrounded by endless sunset. I had trouble processing what I was seeing at first, until I realized that I was standing at an unfathomably high altitude. The horizon was clearly curved from this vantage point. The wind howled in my ears.
I couldn’t help but remember a similar moment, another view of infinite sunset as I sat side by side with Asuna, watching the end of Aincrad. Her voice echoed in my ears.
We’ll always be together.
“Yeah—that’s right. I’m back,” I muttered, looking at my feet. It wasn’t a platform of crystal, but a frightfully thick tree branch.
Finally my vision regained its proper sense of scale against the endless field of deep red. Overhead, leafy branches stretched out in all directions, as though supporting the very heavens above. Below were more and more branches, and past them was a thin layer of clouds. Far, far beyond that, I could see the faint reflection of a river surface as it wound through rolling fields.
I was on top of the World Tree. The peak of the world. The place that Leafa…that Suguha had dreamed of for so long.
But…
I slowly turned back. The giant wall that was the trunk of the tree stretched up and far away until it finally separated into more branches.
“There’s no city in the sky…” I murmured. There was only those bland white corridors. They were not meant to be the city atop the tree, obviously. And if the setup for the main quest was correct, there would have been an in-game event after breaching the dome. But I didn’t even get a musical fanfare, much less any explanation.
It was all an empty gift box. Past the enticing wrapping paper and ribbon, it was empty lies. How could I explain this to Leafa, after all of her dreams of being reborn as a high fairy?
“This is unforgivable…” I muttered at the unseen force or person overseeing this world. Something pulled at my right arm. Yui was looking up at me with concern.
“Oh, right. Let’s go.”
We could settle this once Asuna was safe. It was the only reason I was here, after all.
The large branch stretched ahead toward the sunset. An artificial path was carved into the center of the wood. What lay ahead was obscured by the growth of leaves, but through them I could see something gleaming and golden catching the light of the sun. We took off running toward it.
Several minutes of incendiary haste and desperation passed, driven by the thought that my long-awaited moment would arrive in just a matter of seconds. It seemed as though my sense of time was lengthening, each tick of the clock an eternity.
We pushed through the colorful, oddly shaped leaves and onward down the path. Little staircases went up and down each vertical undulation of the branch; I impatiently fluttered my wings and leaped them in a single bound.
Eventually the source of the golden light became clear. It was a grid of golden bars—no, a birdcage.
It was the classic round birdcage shape, tapering up to connect to a different branch overhead that ran parallel to ours. The only difference was its massive size. This was much too large to hold even a bird of prey, much less little songbirds. No, the cage was meant for something else.
I thought back to what Agil had said in his café, in a scene that felt like years ago at this point. Five players rode on each other’s shoulders in an attempt to scale the World Tree, and they took a screenshot at the height of their flight. The picture showed a mysterious giant birdcage with a girl inside. There’s no doubt. Asuna—Asuna’s in that thing.
There was a strength and an urgency of certainty in Yui’s tugging. We practically ran on the air, leaping down the final staircase.
The branch grew much thinner as it approached the cage, coming to a tapered end where it reached the floor level. The interior of the golden birdcage was clearly visible now. The tiled floor was decorated with one large tree planter, along with a number of small pots with flowers of various types. In the center was a large canopy bed. To its side, a white table with a tall-backed chair. And seated on that chair, her hands folded and head lowered to the table in apparent prayer, was a girl.
Long, straight hair. A thin dress much like Yui’s. Elegant, slender wings growing from her back. All shining red with the light of the sinking sun.
Her face was shrouded in shadows, but I knew who it was. I’d never mistake her. The magnetism of our souls was so strong it was practically visible, sparking with light in the space that separated us.
In that moment, that girl—Asuna—raised her head.
My deep, unending love had turned that familiar image into one beaming with sublime radiance. Her face was sometimes as finely beautiful as a sharpened blade, sometimes friendly with a mischievous warmth, but always at my side during the tragically short days we spent together. A look of shock ran through that familiar face, and her hands rose to her mouth. Her large hazel eyes rippled with a light that quickly turned into tears sitting upon her eyelashes.
I bounded forward
the last several steps and whispered with a voice so weak it could not be heard.
“…Asuna.”
At the same time, Yui cried, “Mama…Mama!!”
The very end of the branch intersected the cage, and there stood a door made of a tighter pattern of golden bars than the rest, complete with a small metal plate that appeared to be the lock. The door was closed, but Yui did not bother to slow down as she pulled me forward, swinging her right hand across her body. It was soon infused with a blue glow.
She swung her glowing hand back to the right, and the entire metal door and its plate blew off, vanishing in a flash of light.
Yui let go of my hand and threw her arms wide. “Mama!!”
She raced into the open cage.
Asuna leaped up so fast she knocked the chair backward. She had opened her arms as well, and the words came clearly from her trembling lips.
“Yui!!”
The little girl leaped and buried her face in Asuna’s chest. Their long hair entwined, brown and black, glittering in the setting sun.
Yui and Asuna shared a fierce embrace, rubbing cheek to cheek, calling each other’s name just to be certain it was truly the other.
“Mama…”
“Yui…Yui…”
The tears spilled from their eyes, sparkling like fire with the light of the sun before disappearing into the air.
I eased out of my run and walked over, stopping several steps away from Asuna. She raised her head, blinked a few tears away, and looked right at me.
Just like the other time, I couldn’t move. If I approached any closer, reached out to touch her, she might vanish into thin air. And I didn’t look anything like I did back then. My tanned spriggan skin and spiky hair were not at all like the old Kirito. All I could do was stare at her, trying to hold in my tears.
But just as she did before, Asuna spoke, calling my name.
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