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A Showdown With a Faker

(EP 24)

The hallway Yui deposited them into was very Spartan, with no distinguishing features whatsoever aside from the archways supporting the roof. And even then, they were all colored with the same uniform white as the walls – when combined with the fact that the doors blended seamlessly into the wall panels, their design turned what would otherwise have been a normal series of hallways into a barren labyrinth.

"This is the fabled Palace of Oberon?" Leafa scoffed in an attempt to hide her annoyance. "First they make it so that nobody can even get up here, and then they throw another challenge at you by trying to get you lost?"

Obviously, her attempt had failed.

Kirito looked around at their surroundings, nodding in agreement as he did so. "Well, that's just further proof that Sugou's got something fishy going on up here. Yui, what's the fastest way out of here?"

Yui's eyes glowed green as she accessed her Navigational abilities – only to widen in shock an instant later. "There is no Map data for this area!" she gasped, grabbing hold of Kirito for support. "I can feel Mommy above us, but I can't sense anything else about this level!"

"Can you try to open all the doors at once, even for just a couple of seconds?" Ash asked her, materializing a Pokéball. "If you do that, then Noivern can use his echolocation to generate his own map of the area."

Yui shook her head sadly. "No, I can't open a door without touching it first. I need direct access in order to transmit the code."

Ash frowned as he digested this information. "Well, let's see what he can figure out from here, at least." He released Noivern with the signature effect of an equipped Item, instructing the adolescent dragon to gather what information he could about the tunnel-like hallway system they were in.

"Ooh, swanky digs." Noivern commented, ears twitching as they registered the irregularities in pitch and volume produced by the echoes. "Bit too chill for me, though – dude could use some pizzazz to give it that last little bit of umph."

The two Pokémon trainers facepalmed almost in sync. Please tell me this is just a phase… Serena thought in exasperation.

I wish I could, Ash replied, but I don't want to lie to you, no matter how unintentionally. As he was doing so, a little twinge appeared in his Aura Senses, and he instinctively turned his attention to it. "Hey Noivern, can you try and see what's below us, too?"

"Sure, whatevs." He pressed his ears to the floor, initiating a low-powered Boomburst to stimulate vibrations in said material. "Aw, dude, not cool!"

"What? What is it?"

"Whichever dude designed that cave down there gave it loads of stalagmites, but they totally flaked on the stalactites! I mean, what kinda lame-o does that?"

Serena's eye twitched. "Maybe someone who doesn't belong to a species that lives in caves?"

"Pfft – nah. Everyone knows these things are made by nerds who spend their whole lives cooped up with their computers in small, dank crevices."

Kirito blinked. "Why do I feel like I was just insulted?"

Ash ignored him, focusing instead on the first detail Noivern had mentioned. "Hold on, you said there were a bunch of stalagmites down there? They wouldn't happen to be evenly spaced out in rows, would they?"

"Yeah, why? Izzat important? I thought you'd be more interested in the elevator at the end of the hall…"

"That's all we need to hear." Ash said, returning Noivern to his Inventory and garnering a look of thanks from Serena. "Looks like we were right, Kirito – whoever trapped Asuna has the other 300 players trapped on the floor below us too. Noivern says there's an elevator over this way, so let's get going."

Kirito nodded resolutely before walking quickly in the indicated direction, his stride lengthening until it turned into a run. He had to wait for Yui to catch up to actually enter the elevator, though, and each additional second seemed to stretch out into an eternity. As he waited, though, a thought struck him. Wait, Ash said that the players were trapped in a cave underneath us, but Asuna's in a cage out on the branches, which means we can't get to both of them at the same time! I don't want to ignore them, but I also don't want to waste any time rescuing Asuna either…

He was shaken out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder, and a glance told him that he had been moved into the elevator with the rest of his friends. There were three lights lit up on its control panel: the one signifying their position, the one for the cavern beneath them, and the one leading to the top. "You three go find Asuna." Ash told him as the elevator began moving down. "Serena and I will try to rescue the others while you get her."

Kirito mentally facepalmed. Of course – I forgot we could split the party and still have safety in numbers. He clasped Ash's hand thankfully, locking eyes with the Undine. "Got it. We'll come find you as soon as we can." He retrieved the GM access card from where he had replaced it in his pocket and handed it over as the elevator came to a stop. "Yui's got the code from this, so you should keep ahold of it just in case you find a console in there."

Ash nodded, taking the card and pocketing it himself. "Stay safe." He and Serena exited the elevator, almost immediately disappearing from Kirito's perception as they did so.

Why did I have my hand up as if waving again? the Spriggan wondered as the doors slid shut. Oh well, not my problem. He clenched his fist resolutely. "Hang on Asuna, we're almost there."

The passageway Ash and Serena found themselves in appeared identical to the one they had just come from, the only differences being length and direction. Rather than a long, gently curving hallway, it was straight and relatively short. At the end opposite the elevator, there was a plain white door that, as before, blended perfectly into the wall. If not for the fact that they knew something was on the other side, they might have dismissed it as an area still waiting to be uploaded – but that knowledge allowed them to detect the hairline cracks outlining the door.

There was also a subtle flow of energy traveling from the door to a small area of the wall, which (as a bit of prodding revealed) served as a concealed set of door controls operated via touch. Attempting to activate it, however, resulted in the message [Warning: Area restricted to authorized personnel only. Present Access Code to abort lockdown sequence.] A 15-second countdown appeared, presumably to allow any GMs or Admins to materialize their access cards while simultaneously unnerving any would-be intruders.

Of course, that whole security measure hinged on the assumption that any access cards that weren't ID-locked remained inside the locked rooms, requiring the intruder to already have access if they wanted to gain access. However Asuna had gotten ahold of the card she threw down to them, she had unintentionally thrown a massive wrench into Sugou's plans. (His involvement was basically a foregone conclusion by now, since a cover-up as large as the one they faced would be all but impossible without help from someone at the top.) One tap of the card, and the doors slid soundlessly open to admit them.

They were halfway through the doorway when a voice rang out off to their left. "Hey, what's goin' on?" the giant Muk/Slugma hybrid-esque creature that had been fiddling with one of the "stalagmites" asked, eyestalks swiveling to stare at the entryway.

Another voice answered him from across the room. "The door opened, nimrod."

"Yes, I can see that." the first creature shot back. "What I don't see is anyone coming through – but why would someone open the door and not come through? The boss is in a meeting, so it couldn't be him…"

The second creature scoffed, turning back to his own work. "That means it's just the hacker Noboyuki hired to idiot-proof security after that girl escaped yesterday. Finding loopholes and fixing them is his problem, not ours. Our job is to finish the research so the boss can sell it and we can get paid, end of story."

Creature #1 sighed. "And how much do you think he'll keep for his own share? Probably a lot more than we're getting, that's for sure."

His partner didn't even blink at the accusation. "Welcome to the world of business, rookie. Now get back to work."

Ash and Serena were, quite justifiably, incensed by the scientists' callousness. Even if they hadn't been able to sense the scientists' goals, the mere fact that they were experimenting on live humans without their consent violated the basic standards of human decency. Unfortunately, though, the scientists' semi-solid avatars made it so that they could not be easily incapacitated – rendering direct confrontation inadvisable.

Thankfully, Serena's Notice-Me-Not served the two of them well in terms of stealth. Neither of the creatures so much as glanced their way as they snuck through the field of pillars, even when they were close enough to almost touch them. And soon enough, a large black cube came into view, spinning slowly as it hovered above the ground.

I recognize that pattern – it looks just like the System console down in that dungeon below Floor One! Ash realized, eyes flashing blue as he located the surface irregularity that corresponded to the Access Card's slot. Let's see what all we can do now that we've got an actual console to use this with.

Not that much, as it turned out. While living in SAO for two years had given the two of them an ingrained familiarity with Cardinal's Menu system, the simple fact that neither of them was Akihiko Kayaba meant that they had only ever interacted with player-oriented Menu dialogs; as such, the feedback from the console was just as indecipherable to them as the glimpse Clemont had given them of Clembot's custom OS. And without the ability to navigate the Menu, they had almost no chance of figuring out how to free the trapped players.

But was Ash ever the type to give up when faced with insurmountable odds? (Actually, thanks to his time spent at Boss Strategy meetings in Aincrad, he had learned how to tell when the odds *were* actually insurmountable and it would thus be safer to escape. That was not so much giving up as it was a tactical withdrawal, though – and thanks to the variation of Future Sight that Serena used in battle combined with the 'danger alert' of Ash's Aura, the two of them together could jointly sense which actions would maximize their odds of success, minimizing the likelihood that they would ever reach that point. They had actually used said strategy in a Double Battle against Olympia, who commented that it seemed more like the way an Absol would fight, what with the Dark-type's ability to sense impending disaster. She also mentioned something about a metaphor being taken too far during a flashback, but neither of them had any idea what the Gym Leader was talking about.)

Disregarding the narration's extended tangent, Ash paged randomly through the menu's different options, tapping the 'confirm' button whenever any kind of dialog box appeared. Even if he didn't know what all the different abbreviations meant, he was bound to run into some sort of positive result, right?

Wrong. After about ten seconds, Serena froze his hands in place. Don't you feel it? You're hurting them! she scolded him, drawing his attention to the consciousnesses trapped in the pillars. Sure enough, his latest set of button presses had activated whatever brain stimulus program the scientists were using – specifically the settings that simulated pain and terror.

A wave of dread washed over the Undine. He had been so confident that trial-and-error would work that he had forgotten the very nature of the experiments being run, and now innocent people were paying for his mistake. If not for Serena, he might have even continued blindly onwards, no better than the scientists who were harming the trapped players deliberately. It would have been a lie to say he was more grateful than *ever* for her presence, but his gratitude definitely came close to that status.

"Allow me to take care of that for you." a disembodied voice suddenly announced from behind them, and the console screen began changing faster than a normal human could track. Immediately, all the captives' stimuli turned completely off and they began vanishing. "I never intended for my technology to be used this way – frankly, this perversion disgusts me."

"Hey, what's going on over there?" the senior of the two researchers yelled, Serena's SEP field insufficiently strong to account for the newest development. "Rookie, contact security while I investigate!"

"Oh no you don't." the newcomer announced. His intense (one might almost say knightly) delivery drowned out a weak protest of "My name's not 'rookie,' it's Steve…" before the console flashed and both creatures were immobilized. "No help will be coming, I'm afraid."

There was a brief pause, and then he spoke again. "Well, no help for the two of you." With another flash of the screen, he opened the door to admit Kirito, Asuna, Leafa, and Yui. "Hello again, all of you – and you as well, newcomer."

The younger scientist's eyes swiveled around frantically on his frozen eyestalks. "What's going on? Nobody has the System Authority to do this except the Boss, and there's no way this is him!"

A small smirk grew on Kirito's face as he surveyed the situation. "I think you're forgetting one thing." he announced, equipping his Traced Elucidator and pointing it at the creature imposingly. "You guys built this game from a copy of the Cardinal System – the brainchild of Akihiko Kayaba himself. And you know how mad a creator gets when you try to play God, don't you?"

"But… but he's dead! We saw the news reports!" the creature he was focused on stammered.

His partner's tone of voice indicated that if they hadn't been frozen, he would have smacked him silly. "Idiot. Just because he's dead doesn't mean his login information is gone – the suits probably salvaged it when they were 'confiscating confidential evidence.' That girl we caught sneaking in here must have been a plant, sent to open a backdoor so they could shut us down."

"…Sure, let's go with that." Kayaba's virtual consciousness replied. "But now that you know, I can't just let you leave. Not that I would anyways, with what you've been doing here." His focus drifted to the pillars jutting from the floor, now dull and lifeless. "I believe it's time you had a taste of your own medicine, if only for a short while. Imagine: total sensory deprivation, unable to see anything, sense anything, do anything." His next words sounded as if he was smiling wryly. "Oh wait, you won't need to imagine it. You'll be living it." A short manipulation of the console later, and both avatars had vanished as two solitary pillars whirred back to life.

Leafa blinked, shaking her head as if to clear it. "Okay, I have to ask. What the heck just happened?"

The virtual image of a man in a white lab coat materialized in front of the group. "Did your friend not already explain? Those men were perverting my life's work to achieve a dishonorable end. Exploiting every last facet of the NerveGear's potential to simulate a new reality, for the sole purpose of learning to control people's thoughts."

Leafa was understandably repulsed. "They trapped people here for mind control experiments? They deserve way worse than what you did to them!"

Another wry grin made it onto Kayaba's face. "You do know you're saying that to the man who imprisoned 10,000 people to fulfil his own childish fantasy of ruling a floating castle, right?"

Leafa froze. "But wait – the news reports… they said your brain was fried by the NerveGear! There's no way you could have survived that!"

Kirito chuckled. "Remind me to introduce you to the MCU when we get out of here. Maybe we could have a family movie night or something." He turned to Kayaba. "Not that I'm calling you an evil neo-Nazi scientist who plans to eradicate anyone who could cause trouble for his organization in the future. Even though you may have overstepped your principles when you trapped everyone in Aincrad, at least you never completely abandoned them."

Kayaba bowed. "Your candor is appreciated, as always." He then grew a smirk. "And anyways, didn't said organization end up revealing that the whole Nazi thing was just a front while they tried to rescue their mutant idol from an alien planet?"

"In the tie-in TV show of debated canonicity, maybe." Kirito shot back. "Depends on whether or not you're willing to accept a character who was seen dying by massive audiences being revealed alive again thanks to some kind of Deus ex Machina that ends up becoming an important plot point later on…"

Kayaba cleared his throat, prompting an awkward silence as Kirito realized how similar his statement was to the ex-designer's situation. It was soon broken by an impatient Leafa, however. "Enough with the nerd-fest already – let's get Asuna out of here before somebody finds us!"

"I think it might be a bit late for that." Serena told her. "Someone's headed through the door right now, and he appears to be incredibly furious."

Almost as soon as she finished speaking, the door slid open and a regally-dressed fairy rushed in, muttering to himself. "Useless morons. Two months of work, and then they lose it just like that! They had better have a" – whatever words he tried to say here appeared to be incompatible with ALFheim's language engine – "legitimate explanation for this, or else they'll wish they were the ones trapped…"

His tirade ground to a halt as he turned the corner and spotted the group. Asuna immediately interposed herself between Oberon and Yui, grabbing Kirito's hand as she did so. The Fairy King immediately drew the connection between the Spriggan in front of him and the bratty weakling he had seen at the hospital and growled. "You little brat, thinking you can steal my prize out from under my nose. But no matter how many friends you have with you, there's no way you can best the King of the Fairi–"

"Sudo REVOKE admins FROM Oberon." Kayaba cut in, drawing an odd look from Kirito.

"You wrote your emergency backdoor access in Linux?" he questioned as Oberon frantically tried to access his administrative Menu (to no avail). "After creating a whole new programming language for Cardinal because you thought all the ones available were too restrictive?"

Kayaba nodded. "Not the most obvious decision, I must admit – but that was exactly why it worked. After all, who would think to look for an access point that ran on a completely different language? By the way, I have something I would like you to take a look at once this is all over that I've been working on in my spare time. Once word of ALFheim's involvement gets out, it could potentially save the VRMMO genre from dying in the fallout." In the background, Oberon gave up on the Admin Menu and tried to log out via his Player Menu, but Kayaba cut off that attempt with a couple of taps on the console.

Kirito winced when he realized the sociopolitical ramifications that two massive scandals in a row would have for VRMMOs, and he could tell that Kayaba genuinely wanted the genre to do well on its own merits. "I'll have to run it by some of my friends before committing, but I'll at least look at it." he agreed. "We probably ought to do something about that evil jerk first, though."

"Why, you –" Oberon abandoned the menu, deciding to attack with words instead. "You think you're so high and mighty, don't you? It's easy for you to be smug when you're the one with all the power – I bet you're afraid of a fair fight!"

Ash crossed his arms from the sidelines. "And how fair would it have been if you had all the GM access, huh? I wouldn't call that 'equal standing,' would you?"

"He's right." Kirito interjected. "Those abilities are meant to be used for balance, not as the crutch you've turned them into." He gestured to the console behind Kayaba. "You mind?"

The man in the lab coat moved aside. "If you're planning what I think you are, go on ahead."

"System Trace: On. Object: Excaliber." Kirito announced, confirming his command with a tap of the screen. As the golden sword from Jötunheim fell into his grasp, he tossed it to Oberon. "Go on, challenge anyone you like. If you really want, we could even lower the Pain Absorber level to make it more like a real-world fight. Winner takes all."

Oberon snatched the sword greedily. "Foolish boy. I accept – set the Pain Absorber to zero! Perhaps when I win, you all will learn to respect your betters!" When Kayaba complied, the Fairy King grinned wickedly. "I challenge the girl."

"…Which one?" Kirito deadpanned. "There's, like, three of them here."

"The one standing behind you right now." Oberon's grin turned smug, as if he had somehow outwitted them.

"What are you talking about? There's no one…" Kirito's voice trailed off as he looked behind him and saw Yui standing there. The tension in the room immediately skyrocketed. "…So planning to violate my fiancée and actually violating the minds of three hundred players wasn't enough for you?" the Spriggan seethed, barely able to keep himself civil. "And now you want to bring my daughter into it too?"

Oberon's mouth was obviously running ahead of his brain, as his next words proved. "You say she's your daughter? Even better – it'll be so much more devastating when her injuries translate into reality as well! And you did say I could challenge anyone…"

Contrary to his expectations, this actually calmed Kirito down. After all, Yui had no physical body to injure, which removed the advantage Oberon had hoped to gain with the Pain Absorber. The other reason he was able to calm down was Yui's own confidence.

"Don't worry, Daddy." she reassured him, grabbing his hand with one of hers while equipping a pair of black and white falchions with the other. "This turn of events was only to be expected, considering his fractured psychological state. And with as much sword practice as all of you have, I'm probably the closest to his skill level. Besides, my original purpose was to fix hurt minds – it only makes sense that I defeat the person responsible for hurting them."

That should have triggered warning bells in Oberon's mind, but he was so focused on ruining the lives of those who had ruined his work towards ruining others' lives that he paid no attention to little things like rational thought. "C'mon, girlie. Let's see where the brat's confidence goes when someone he cares about is in danger and he has nothing he can do about it!"

Serena spoke up then, though she knew it would be useless. "Um, sorry to burst your bubble, but isn't that exactly what you thought was going on when you first met him at the hospital?" Speaking of which… She flicked her eyes over to Kayaba, indicating Asuna with a jerk of her head and projecting police in his direction. The former paladin nodded imperceptibly, whispering a set of commands that dispelled Asuna's avatar in a flurry of particles that everyone else agreed was Somebody Else's Problem.

Meanwhile, Yui walked forward and took an open stance in front of Oberon, swords held loosely in her grasp. Kirito almost called out to correct Yui on her stance, but when he saw that the Fairy King had set himself up in an even worse fashion (and realized that any form of advice would probably be decried as 'unfair cheating'), he held his tongue.

As soon as they were signaled to begin, Oberon charged in recklessly, swinging Excaliber to aim for Yui's exposed wrist. Said wrist was not actually as exposed as it seemed, though; a slight shifting of her feet brought the black sword in her other hand right into the path of Oberon's blade, deflecting it to the side as the white one flowed past her opponent's own wrist in a carefully controlled miss.

And flowed was the only word that could really describe the motion of the white sword – the gracefulness of its motion and the wavelike etching on the blade left no other options. While the red tortoise-shell etchings on the black blade suggested a tendency toward defense, its partner would, like a real wave on the ocean, flow through any chinks in its opponent's defense, eating away at it slowly.

As the fight progressed, Oberon growing cockier as Yui's attacks failed to connect, Kirito realized that she was actually leaving the openings in her defenses on purpose, allowing her to control the fight by predetermining the locations of Oberon's strikes. The scene was almost comical: a grown man unable to land a hit on a girl half his size (and, technically, less than a tenth of his age). Where did she learn to fight like that? he wondered, unable to stop the niggling suspicion that he had seen that style of fighting somewhere before.

Kayaba chuckled nostalgically under his breath. "I am the bone of my sword…" he muttered as the one-sided fight continued on. "It's nice to see that some series are still classics even now."

Kirito turned to ask him what he had said, but was interrupted before he could start by a meaty thud. He looked back to see Oberon laying limply on the ground, Yui standing above him with the pommel of a sword where his neck had been. The Fairy King was still conscious, but he appeared to be unable to move his body.

"You cheated!" he howled defiantly. "There's no way you could have paralyzed me without using magic or Admin privileges!"

"Fully understanding psychological health involves understanding the electrochemical reactions in the nervous system that result in certain behaviors, right?" Yui stated matter-of-factly. "All I did was temporarily prevent your brain from communicating with your spine using a precisely placed impact. It wouldn't have even worked if you hadn't turned off the Pain Absorber."

"But… but nerves don't work like that!" Oberon sputtered. "Even I know that much!"

Kirito waved his hand in a dismissive manner. "Chalk it up to the fuzziness of suspension-of-disbelief if you have to – the fact is, Yui won and you lost. And since I don't see Asuna here, I'm guessing she's already woken up and told the authorities about your involvement. Your game's up, Sugou."

The executive ground his teeth together (the only things he could actually move aside from his eyes). "You'll pay for this, dog." he threatened in an attempt to still feel superior. "And your little girl, too."

Before he could say anything else, his avatar vanished and a dialog box reading [DISCONNECTION] appeared in its place.

"It's gonna be kinda hard to back those words up from behind bars, isn't it?" Kirito snarked at the space where Sugou used to be. "And good riddance. C'mon, Yui – let's go see Mommy for real."

"Not so fast." Kayaba interrupted as the Spriggan opened his Menu. "You agreed to discuss something with me once the vice-commander was freed, did you not?"

His statement sparked a memory in Leafa's brain. "Wait a minute, you two still owe me an explanation for all that stuff earlier too!"

Ash chuckled mareepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "Yeah, I guess we do. You see…"

Kirito tuned him out as he began explaining. "So, this 'project': What is it? You said it could be the life or death of VRMMOs – what do you mean by that?"

Kayaba murmured a series of indecipherable commands, materializing a small egg-like object. "I call this the World Seed, and it is an open-source platform for companies to create their own VRMMOs from scratch. I want you to find a way to make it freely accessible, so that anyone with a dream of creating their own world has the chance to do so – no matter how rich or poor they are. It does not have the same capacity as Cardinal, in order to prevent others from repeating my mistake, but if properly used it could keep the genre from dying."

Kirito glanced over at Leafa, thinking back to how alive his sister seemed when soaring through the sky. If he had the chance to prevent her from losing that feeling, he would eagerly grab onto it with both hands. On the other hand, he also knew the value of not rushing blindly into things. "Like I said, I'll have to run this by my friends first, but if they don't have a problem with it I'll definitely upload this for you." He accepted the Seed and slipped it into his pocket. "Can I go see Asuna now?"

Kayaba nodded, beginning to fade away into particles. "Until next time, Kirito."

"Until next time." As his friends disappeared one by one, having finished their explanation and exchanged farewells, Kirito opened up his Menu and stared at the Logout button. I'm going to actually get to *meet* Asuna in reality! he thought excitedly, and the world faded to white with the simple twitch of a finger.

Omake: An Epic Anti-Climax

As soon as they were signaled to begin, Oberon charged in recklessly, swinging Excaliber to aim for Yui's exposed wrist. Said wrist was not actually as exposed as it seemed, though; a slight shifting of her feet brought the black sword in her other hand right into the path of Oberon's blade, deflecting it to the side as the white one flowed past her opponent's own wrist in a carefully controlled miss.

And even that miss was a ploy – as Oberon's eyes attempted to track the white blade against the laboratory's off-white tiling, she threw the black sword in his direction. It grazed his cheek as he sloppily dodged, but he ignored the pain in favor of taunting the girl in front of him. "You just lost one of your weapons, and now you're mine!"

The smirk on Yui's face disoriented him slightly, and he stumbled in surprise. Why was she so smug? The only reason her low-level sword had survived a blow from Excaliber was because he had held his strike back to avoid opening himself up to a strike from the other (and he completely ignored the fact that he had failed to do even that). She should be quivering in her shoes right –

Kanshou struck him in the back of the head, the pommel knocking him unconscious before returning to Yui's empty hand. She turned away, her (red and black?) dress swirling epically around her as her two swords vanished with the sound of shattering glass. The only thing that would have made it more epic was a snarky one-liner, and Yui did not disappoint.

"Do you have enough pain, King of Zeroes?"

A/N: Yes, it's another Fate/Stay Night omake. In my defense, I had just started watching Fate/Zero when I wrote this chapter. Bet'cha never saw Yui vs. Oberon coming, though. Also, this is the penultimate chapter - just one more, and then this installment is finished.