Chapter 13: Secret Identity Time

"How about that play, huh?" Nagisa asked. "Talk about fun."

It'd been a day since the play, and most people in the class were still talking about it. Case in point, Nagisa's words during our break between classes; a few of us had gathered around the star of the play's desk to discuss it. Karma and I were standing off to the side, while Kanzaki leaned against the desk on the other side of Sugino.

Who, as it turned out, wasn't a huge fan of how his character made him act, if his moans, groans, and head planted firmly on the desk were any indication. Sugaya grinned. "Sugino gave the performance of a lifetime," the artist said.

"Didn't know you had it in you to make such an evil face," Hazama said.

Sugino just looked up at us, eyes dead. "The whole time, all I could think about was how it must have looked to Kanzaki..." His forehead hit the desk again. "I was hideous. She probably hates me now."

The gamer girl just smiled gently. "That's not true, silly," she said to him. "I... actually thought it was cool you could be so believable in the role."

"Seriously?!" Sugino yelped, shooting up and staring at her. His cheeks were a little red. "Wow, maybe I should retire from baseball and pursue acting!"

"And here we see a traditional example of the desperate male flirting in the wild," I muttered to Karma. He just grinned slightly.

Seriously, that kid was so incredibly desperate it was almost painful to watch Kanzaki smile at him. Poor guy... and poor girl, come to think about it. She was just too nice to hurt his feelings.

"No need to pick one over the other," Korosensei said. "Pitchers need to act. Ah, what a pleasure to see unexpected talent on full display."

I twitched suddenly and glanced over at the door; I must have just barely noticed it out of the corner of my eye, but Kayano was waving from the doorway. It wasn't for me - she was looking at Nagisa, who'd made eye contact with her - but I followed the blue-haired kid out of the classroom anyway out of curiosity.

Kayano just smiled. "Can you help - oh, hi Nick," she said as I poked my head around the corner.

"Asking for Nagisa's help?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. Oh, actually this is perfect. You can help out too."

I Just shrugged. "Sure, whatever," I said.

After Kayano showed us exactly what we'd be helping her with, I regretted my decision. "Oh man," Nagisa sighed as we looked at the floor of the equipment shed. It was totally covered in little blue beads of varying colors and shapes; they were the ones we'd used in the play, only, uh... last time I saw them, they weren't everywhere. "That's gonna be a pain to clean up."

"Yeah, I was putting stuff away and my hand slipped," Kayano sighed, fidgeting in place. "Sorry. These are the beads we used for the river in our play. I got 'em on loan from a prop supply store, and if we don't give all of them back we'll have to pay for replacements."

Nagisa smiled. "No worries. We'll tackle it together - you too, Nick."

I sighed from where I'd been trying to silently sneak away. "Backstabber," I muttered as I joined them. Still, I said I'd help out, so I needed to help out; I'd given my word, so it was inviolate.

"Thanks, you two!" Kayano chirped.

We got started cleaning up the beads Kayano had spilled everywhere. I grabbed a broom and started sweeping the beads into large piles, while Nagisa and Kayano scooped them up and poured the piled beads into the buckets she'd already brought over. It was tedious, mind-numbing work, but it wasn't any worse than when I helped Sugu clean the dojo.

"I didn't want to get in the way of everybody's assassination plans," Kayano said, "so, y'know..."

I just chuckled. "I don't really have a job to do until they lock down the location," I said absently. "I'm just not creative enough to do a good job when things are that open-ended, I guess."

"Ah-hah!" Korosensei said, from behind us. I whirled, automatically holding the broom as if it were an actual blade, before realizing it was just Korosensei and going back to the sweeping. Kayano and Nagisa turned around with curious noises as Korosensei walked in. "I was wondering where the three of you suddenly disappeared to."

"Hehehe..." Kayano laughed.

Korosensei smiled. "I'm glad to be of assistance if needed!"

"Oh!" Kayano said, smiling. "That'd be wonderful, sir." She must be embarrassed that Korosensei caught her in the act of cleaning up after her spill. Her words were a little hesitant. "I think some got in between the furniture. So could you-?"

"Of course," Korosensei said, kneeling down without a second question. "I see quite a bit of it is broken, so I won't use my Mach speed to clean up instantly."

Still, he was cleaning at a good pace faster than we were, tossing handfuls of beads into the bucket. "Hup hep hiyah hep!" He was still blurring around back and forth, scooping up beads from those hard to reach places. Hey, at least I don't have to do it, now.

Beside me, Nagisa reached into his sweater pocket. A faint tinge of bloodlust curled around him as he gripped the pistol there and partially drew it out of the inside pocket. I was about to lightly bop him on the head with the broom handle - you idiot, there's no way it'd be this easy, or we would have graduated in May - when he obviously came to the same conclusion and put the gun away. Kayano, Nagisa, and I shared a sheepish grin.

Suddenly, Korosensei came to a dead halt. Did he sense the bloodlust, or... "Something smells fishy," he declared.

I sniffed a few times myself, and blinked. Huh. He's right. There is the faint smell of wood smoke and fish.

"Oh," Kayano said. "During the school festival, we used this place to smoke fish." Makes sense. It's a tight, enclosed place with nowhere for the smoke to go once the door and single window is closed, so everything would cook properly. "So many different school events," she said as she kneeled on the ground, holding a dust-bin for Nagisa to sweep beads into.

"Uh huh, no kidding," Nagisa said. "Feels weird. Once this is all cleared up, it'll all be behind us."

He wasn't wrong. Right now, everyone would be concentrating on the assassination, but we weren't always assassins. During the school festival, and the sports festival, and the field trip... I almost felt like a regular student.

Kayano smiled. "Yeah, lots of memories, though. Makes me think of the first time Korosensei showed up here."

"Nue-heh-heh-heh," Korosensei laughed smugly. "You children were complete amateurs back then."

I rolled my eyes. "Bah," I grumbled.

Nagisa just smiled. "I know," he said in good humor. "I couldn't get anywhere near you." Except when you blew yourself up? "Neither could Sugino."

"Remember how when Karma came, he grilled you about Korosensei, and even then nothing happened?" Kayano asked. I remember that, yeah. Karma got completely dunked on back then.

"Or how jealous I was of Itona?" Nagisa continued. "I was so sure he was gonna get him first."

I grinned. "I remember you not being Professor Bitch's biggest fan when she first showed up, Kayano," I said. "Or, uh, maybe just the biggest fan of a certain part of her."

Kayano muttered, "Yeah, for good reason."

Nagisa and I moved on to sweeping near the entrance of the shed while Kayano put the full bucket away. Behind us, Korosensei exclaimed, "Oh-ho! Another of Okajima's hidey-holes apparently." I rolled my eyes and didn't bother looking. Seriously, does that kid do anything other than look at porn?

As I absently swept, I sighed. This really was fun, I guess. Of course, I obviously missed my family. I loved every single one of them, more than words could really say, and Kana most of all. Every day I didn't get to see her was just another ache in my heart. But, at the same time, I'd managed to make... well, friends in this class. People that I could laugh and joke with. Go swimming with. Talk about ridiculous things like jello blades.

Weird sentences like that, honestly, should probably never be spoken out loud, but we'd said them in this classroom.

I turned to say something to Kayano, since we were all reminiscing. I wanted to tease her about being Forever Flat that day when we all called each other by code names. But as I turned, something felt wrong. The air was moving strangely. There was an extra presence in the room.

My eyes widened when I finally saw the cause.

Tentacles.

Green tentacles.

Growing out of Kayano's neck.

"What..." I breathed, feeling a shiver run down my neck and through my body. It was the same chill I felt when I faced Death Gun, last December.

"A true blade... I have more than one," Kayano said. "Didn't you notice?"

Her normally cute voice was dark and menacing.

"Nueh?" Korosensei exclaimed, jolting in surprise.

Kayano struck, her tentacles slamming into him - no, the ground beneath him.

The wall shattered, the ground cracking under the tremendous force of the impact. I grunted and shielded my eyes from the cloud of dust and wood, wincing as slivers of wood rained over me and sliced at my hand.

"Guah!" Korosensei shrieked as he toppled. "A pitfall!"

The concrete floor had been pulverized under Kayano's initial strike, but it should have just been dirt underneath. Instead, it was a massive pit, so dark I could barely see anything.

Kayano plunged after him seconds later. "Oh, Korosensei," her voice floated up towards us. "How I love you. Please die."

To my right, Nagisa had fallen to his knees from the surprise of the sudden blow - and probably because of the shock of seeing Kayano with tentacles. I'm not sure how I managed to stay upright. "Kayano..." he whispered, staring blankly at the hole in the ground.

It's one of those weird moments, where I know for a fact I didn't have time to think of everything that I remembered thinking about, when looking back. Out of curiosity, later that day I measured the depth of the pit, to get an idea into how long Kayano had been planning this, and at the speed Kayano and Korosensei were falling, I would have had seconds at best before they hit the bottom. But still, my mind remembered clearly going over the plan that Kayano had set up in secret.

We'd seen assassin after assassin pick up the gauntlet Korosensei had thrown down, and ultimately fail. A sniper, ultra-high technology, hostages, the Reaper... They all failed. But, in the end, the most effective, and the one that would have succeeded without the help of Mr. Karasuma, was the Reaper's plot, with the pitfall trap.

Kayano would lure Korosensei over to the pitfall and bait the trap with porn magazines stolen or bought from Okajima; we all knew Korosensei's tastes in women ran in line with the E Class pervert's, so Kayano probably didn't try to reinvent the wheel. Then, while Korosensei was plunged into the pit, she'd use her tentacles to stop Korosensei from escaping - we all knew how to do that, of course, and with the physical boosts granted by tentacles Kayano was more than able to intercept Korosensei's attempts to escape. This would be easier because Korosensei would be rattled by Kayano's reveal of owning tentacles.

Then, at the bottom, a pool of Anti-Korosensei pellets would seal his doom.

I couldn't have put all of that together in the two seconds since Kayano attacked, but that's what I remembered.

I was just about to run over to the pit to see if I could do... anything, really, when a white glow started emanating from the depths. My eyes widened; I recognized that glow. Immediately, I turned and bolted, roughly tackling Nagisa to keep him down on the ground. Pain flared up one of my legs but I didn't have enough time to pay attention

For the second time the earth heaved. The ground shuddered, and the light died away.

Wait, so he... Doesn't matter.

Outside, I heard something burst from the ground, so I scrambled to my feet. After helping Nagisa stand, the two of us ran outside to see Korosensei on his hand-tentacles and knee-tentacles, panting for breath. Behind him was a massive hole in the dirt. The rest of the class was standing outside, probably attracted by the series of explosions.

"Korosensei, are you alright?" Nagisa asked. I tried to take a step towards our panting teacher, but my knee buckled as fire raced through my leg and I started to topple with a muted grunt of surprise. Isogai grabbed my arm, though, and put his arm around my back to keep me upright.

Shit... must have hurt something when I had to turn and bolt from the light.

"What in the world..." Isogai said. "What just happened?"

The wood of the shed roof exploded outwards as a dark figure soared in the air, shadowed as we looked up. I exhaled briefly and Isogai gasped as the person landed lightly on the roof.

Kayano stared down at us, eyes cold and harsh. Her tentacles twisted and squirmed in the air, her hair out of its usual pigtails and falling to her back in waves. "You destroyed the wall with your beam and escaped that way? ...Clever," she said. "I just instinctively put up a guard. Then again, you'd never kill your own student."

Okuda gasped, and Kanzaki murmured, "Are those what I think?"

"Since when does Kayano have tentacles?" Kataoka asked.

Kayano ignored the cries of her classmates and just shook her head in disappointment. "Aw, damn it. And I attacked you with everything I had. You're slipperier than I thought, clearly."

It didn't sound like Kayano. It sounded like someone pretending to be Kayano, or at least playing at being an evil version of her; the same way that my voice dropped in pitch when I was being serious, or when I was truly mad, her voice had lowered too. It sounded full of bloodlust.

"Kaede," Korosensei said, straightening up. His voice was ragged. "What is the meaning of this?!"

"Oh yeah," Kayano said casually. "Sorry. FYI, my real name's not Kaede. I'm Aguri Yukimura's little sister." Whoever Aguri Yukimura was, Isogai seemed to recognize the name, because his shoulder went tense. "You get it now, don't you? Murderer," Kayano growled.

Hara frowned. "Yukimura... Wait!"

I quietly slipped my arm off of Isogai's neck; as long as I didn't try to move, my leg was fine, and it seemed like the pain had gone down. Probably just a strain from reversing direction so quickly.

Kayano's face looked cruel and grim, and I barely recognized her.

"Oh well," the girl said, sighing. "No point crying over spilled milk. I'll just have to reset. Let's give it another whirl tomorrow, Korosensei," she said, glaring at the octopus before loosening the tie around her neck. She seemed flushed. "Don't worry, I'll tell you where. Now that we've fought, tentacle to tentacle..." She smirked. "I'm feeling pretty good about this. Like I can kill you."

Her tentacles whipped out, latching onto the tree branch nearby, before she flung herself off into the distance.

Korosensei and the rest of the class stared at the distance, where Kayano had disappeared into the forest, silently. "It's unthinkable," Itona said, breaking the silence first. "If she grew those tentacles without a maintenance regimen, the pain would've been beyond hellish. There's no way she could have powered through... not with a straight face."

"Yeah, whatever," Maehara said. "I'm stuck on her being Yukimura's little sister."

I glanced around, gingerly shifting so that I could see the whole class. "I don't even know who that is," I said. "Mind enlightening me?"

Sugino glanced at me. "Oh yeah, you came in April, right? She used to be our homeroom teacher, before Korosensei..."

Everyone seemed shaken. What happened to her?

To my right, Mimura was scrolling through his phone. "Oh man, unbelievable!" he exclaimed. "I thought I recognized Kayano from somewhere. Seeing her with her hair down and that evil look on her face jogged my memory."

Our phones all lit up as Ritsu kindly loaded the page he was showing Isogai, and I glanced over it. "Do you remember Haruna Mase?" Kimura asked. I looked at the image, and yeah, that's definitely Kayano. The face and eyes were right, at least, even if the hair was black instead of green and she wasn't wearing the school uniform. "The acting prodigy, who'd disappear into any role they threw at her? She turned her back on the business years ago. She looks and acts so different now, I-I didn't even make the connection!"

This was... all just a role to her?

Then... which was the real Kayano? Was this one all just a lie? Had she been lying to me, to us the whole time? Had this all just been an act so she could betray us in the end?

My heart started pounding as a shiver ran down my spine.

...No.

No, that can't be the whole story. No actor can pull off a role that convincingly for so long without some part of it being true. This might have been a surprise, but I don't yet think it was a betrayal.

I just... didn't know what to think.

The example, as Kikuoka so blandly named it, was horrifying. Higa had apparently successfully cloned his own soul - but at first the clone demanded to be let out of the dark environment it had been trapped in, and then when confronted with the truth that it was a clone it imploded in on itself, breaking down in terrifying fashion after just four minutes and twenty-seven seconds after creation. My thumb tapped at my index finger, where Nick had mentioned that ring of his; that was so that he could avoid panicking like that, I realized. To accept the truth of his reality.

Asuna was covering her mouth in horror, and Kikuoka was kind enough to kick a chair over to her gently. She immediately took it and sat down. "Are you alright?" the agent asked.

"Ahh..." Asuna nodded firmly. "I'm sorry. I'm fine now."

"Don't force yourself," Koujiro said, softly patting Asuna's shoulders. "It's better to close your eyes and relax. And you, Kana?"

I jumped slightly, but shook my head. "I'm fine, really. It's... Something Nick said helped me feel okay. His little trick to knowing reality."

Kikuoka smiled faintly. "That ring of his, I take it. It's very clever."

"There has to be a limit to the lengths you're going to, Kikuoka," Koujiro scolded the agent.

"I'm sorry, but I suppose you understand why I can't explain this without letting you see it," he sighed and shook his head. "Higa is a genius with an IQ of nearly 140, but when we made a clone of him, it couldn't stand the realization that it was a clone. We made more than ten different Artificial Fluctlights, including mine, but the results were always the same. After about three minutes, their train of logic would start to run rampant without exception." He smiled faintly. "Rythin was one of them, for what it's worth. Although he acknowledged and accepted he was a clone, the Artificial Fluctlight broke down at the realization that he wouldn't see you again, Miss Kana."

Aw... That's so sweet. ...And a little messed up. Is there a word for that? Adorifying, maybe. Maybe if I made my own Fluctlight? ...No, probably not. I don't think the same way he does, so my Fluctlight would probably break down. That's a little depressing...

Apparently, they had some theory about why it happened - humans couldn't accept that they weren't unique existences, and so they break down when confronted with the truth. 'There are some things man was not meant to know' or something like that. Asuna whispered, "...I suppose Kikuoka's met her before in ALO. Yui said that... that she's scared of being cloned. If some accident caused her backup copy to be activated and allowed to take action, they'd most likely fight..."

"How interesting," Higa immediately leaned forward. "Kiku is the only one to meet her? Sneaky, sneaky. Allow me to meet her next -"

"Get near our kids and I'll break you," I declared flatly. Or get Nick to do it. One of the two.

He raised his hands in surrender and leaned back. "But as expected, it's impossible to clone intellect... or rather, the only way to clone intellect is if it's undeveloped..."

"Leaving that aside for now," Koujiro said, "doesn't that mean you failed? Using all of this money, just for these results, is..."

"No, no, no," Kikuoka smiled bitterly. "If that was the extents of our developments, they would have already declared, 'Off with his head!' along with several of the big shots supervising us. In fact, this could be what you call the start of the project. It's impossible to clone a developed soul. So, if that won't work, what do you think we have to do?"

While Koujiro murmured ideas to herself and Higa explained why they wouldn't work, I mulled the problem over myself. If they couldn't clone a developed soul, then that would suggest that maybe an undeveloped soul would be cloneable? But in that case, how would we go about getting an undeveloped soul? Removing all the data, like wiping a hard drive, wouldn't work - adults just didn't learn as well as kids did. It was like how even though Nick and I could both speak English, he was bilingual when I wasn't because he'd been learning from... birth...

"Babies," I whispered, suddenly horrified as the path made itself clear and connected, one node to the next. "You're cloning babies, the human tabula rasa."

At the same time, Asuna stood up suddenly like she'd been scorched. "D-don't tell me, you... you did that? You cloned infants to get flawless Fluctlights?"

Kikuoka smiled, and though it was pure admiration it felt dirty. "You two... Really, such amazing perception. Though, I suppose you did clear that death game of Akihiko Kayaba's, Asuna. It would stand to reason, wouldn't it?"

Asuna glared. "Do you think that... the Self-Defense Force, the country can just do whatever they want? That the ends justify the means?"

"Of course not," Kikuoka shook his head. "But it worked out for you, didn't it? We were able to save Kirito and Rythin because of the extreme measures we took..." I snarled at him. Bastard. "...But, on the other hand," he admitted, "I'm trying my best to keep things civilized, unlike many research enterprises in the world. We obtained permission from the parents of the newborns to scan their Fluctlights, and we gave them ample thanks. Now, granted, we did claim were only obtaining brainwave samples, but that's hardly a lie. Fluctlights are, after all, electric waves inside the brain."

He was right, damn it. It was a trick of language Nick used from time to time - couching his words in vague terms and letting his audience misinterpret. "Don't make excuses," I hissed. "What you're doing is like taking DNA samples from kids that don't know any better and cloning them."

Surprisingly, Higa stepped in at this point, making a large timeout sign with his arms. "Time out, I suppose. While there is the question of morality in secretly cloning newborn Fluctlights, Kiku, Miss... Izawa, was it? You're a little off-base. The Fluctlights don't have any physical differences in them like genes, especially when they're born."

"Like stem cells?" I asked archly.

"Exactly," he said with a small nod. "They're identical to begin with, but after enough time they'll be changed into something completely different. In the end, we managed to clone Artificial Fluctlights of twelve children, and after comparison we found that the brain capacity was no different. Over 99% of the Fluctlights were identical constructs. In other words, the human's thinking ability and personalities are all determined after they're born, completely repudiating the theory that abilities and personalities are inherited by genetics! I can't wait to pierce holes in the eugenics -"

"You can poke holes in it once the plan is complete," Kikuoka sighed with a tired expression. Try as hard as I might, I just can't seem to muster any sympathy for him. Jerk took Nick without telling me. "Anyway, if we carefully eliminate the small difference remaining from the samples, what we're left with is what we call... the Spiritual Prototype, or the Soul Archetype."

Koujiro quirked an eyebrow. "You're dressing it up, but it's really just the 'self' from Jung's Psychology, right?"

Kikuoka just shrugged. "Well, not to get into the details of it, but that's the simplest explanation. Now, what do you think would happen if we just cloned the Spiritual Prototype from the very beginning and placed it in the virtual world?"

I frowned, clicking my teeth in thought. "It would grow up, just like a human child would, wouldn't it? But to imitate growing up in today's society... that's just not possible, is it?"

"Sadly, no," Kikuoka admitted. "It'd still be a virtual world created by the STL. We tried it once already, using Cardinal to duplicate the world's technological advances, but we came to a point where it was either slow down the STL acceleration, or risk the advances not matching up properly, which would..." He shook his head. "Ah- Asuna, Kana, have you ever seen an old movie, made before you were born, where a man's life was aired as a TV show from birth? The perfect city, built in a large domed city designed solely for that purpose, to keep his prison a secret. But eventually the man grew up and found peculiarities and learned the truth, that he was just the star of his own reality show..."

Ah! I actually like that movie! So does Nick - we watched it once, curled up on the couch together. "So... So you need to let them create their own world," I murmured, before glancing at Kikuoka. He gestured for me to continue. "Because if you just plop them down in a copy of our world right now, they'd figure out that it was just a copy. But if they build their own prison... But how would you recreate all the technological advances that -" I cut myself off as the path led from one thing to the next. "Of course. You wouldn't try that. You'd just give them limits and certain customs drilled into them from birth, and then resolve everything else with what could be called divine miracles... or maybe magic." I looked at him. "A VRMMO world."

Higa snapped his fingers. "Wow! Nick was right, you really are brilliant!" When had he spoken with Nick? Nick said he was working on something different, not... whatever this is. "I tried a few of those, but I kept running into walls. There was something that let you create new VRMMOs, right? The Seed, or something like that?" Nope. No idea what you're talking about. None at all. Nope. Nothing springs to mind. Beside me, Koujiro lightly tapped Asuna's shoulder and Asuna shook her head. They weren't going to say anything either. "Anyway, we used that Seed to create a small village and surrounding landscape. Then we transferred that in, and presto!"

"After many setbacks," Kikuoka cut in smoothly, "we finally managed to reach our first milestone. The first village had sixteen Prototypes in two farming families... in other words, we raised the AI children grow for eighteen years."

"Raised them?" Koujiro asked. "Who were the parents? Surely it couldn't have been an AI?"

"No, it couldn't be an AI. They just simply don't have the ability to raise children. The first generation parents were humans that spent eighteen years in the STL. Of course, they don't remember the time spent - the memories needed to be erased. But thanks to the four volunteers, the sixteen young Artificial Fluctlights grew quickly. They grew up, fell in love, and finally were old enough to raise their own children. The researchers 'died' of an epidemic and were logged out from the STL. Then, once the technicians were logged out, we were able to increase the FLA rate to 5000 times the rate of our reality. The couples each had ten children, which grew up into adults and formed their own families, so on and so forth." Were they raising children, or rabbits? "After about three weeks of reality, the inside world has spent three hundred years of simulation, and there's now eighty thousand people living in the Underworld."

"Eighty thousand?" Koujiro gasped. "That's... that's a civilization, not the creation of AI."

I narrowed my eyes. "But that's what you wanted, isn't it? Your goal isn't the creation of AI. It's more than that. You wanted... You wanted soldiers. People to fight in place of humans." That's why they couldn't slow down the simulation, because they wouldn't be able to produce the AI soldiers fast enough otherwise. But... I don't see how three times speed would be any better...

Kikuoka and the other adults seemed flabbergasted by my sudden jump, but that didn't mean I was wrong. "See, Asuna and I were wondering why you needed to create such a high-level AI. If you were trying to make something like this to train soldiers against enemy forces, it wouldn't have the same impact. There wouldn't be any danger in reality." I couldn't exactly say that I figured that out because Nick let slip that he was working on a side project related to just that. "So... Since this plan is so huge, you had to have another goal in mind. When did you think of that next step, creating AIs in the virtual world and using them for real wars?"

"Since the beginning," he admitted in a gentle voice.

"Kirito doesn't know, does he?" Asuna asked suddenly. "He doesn't know you want to use the AIs as soldiers. There's no way he does, or he wouldn't be working with you!"

"Why would you say that?" Kikuoka asked.

"Because you're planning to just sacrifice Artificial Intelligence without thinking of them as people, as though they have no rights." Asuna stared Kikuoka down. "You want to use AIs as drones, right? To shoot down human pilots, placing themselves in danger instead. Kirito doesn't think like that. To him, life is life - that's why no matter where he is, that's reality for him. That's why he cleared SAO."

"I don't understand," Kikuoka admitted. "Artificial Fluctlights don't have bodies. Why aren't they false lives?"

Asuna shook her head, her eyes filled with pity for the adults in front of her. "I asked him the same thing, once. While we were on the 56th level of Aincrad, there was a boss monster we had to beat no matter what, and our best plan was to lure the boss to the village and beat it there. But Kirito protested, saying that the NPCs were alive and that it was wrong to sacrifice their lives." Asuna nodded resolutely. "That's why, even if they're Artificial Fluctlights, just mass produced copies, Kirito will never help if they're just tools of war."

"It's not like I don't understand," Kikuoka said patiently. "The Artificial Fluctlights have the same cognitive abilities as humans. But, this is a question of priority. To me, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Artificial Fluctlights are worth less than the life of one Self-Defense Officer."

Asuna shook her head, probably - and rightly - thinking that Kikuoka would never understand. I started to add my two cents, talk about how Nick would never stand for something like that, but then I realized that... he would. He would do that in a heartbeat, because to him Artificial Fluctlights and human lives were worth the same thing. Nothing. So strange, really... Both Kazuto and Nick believed in the equal worth of human lives and Artificial Fluctlight lives, but on wildly different ends of the scale.

But I still love him.

"Does Nick work on the Artificial Fluctlights too?" I asked instead. I know he's not on the Underworld team, but maybe he's involved some other way. Besides, I was curious what he spent so much time on.

"Hm? Oh, that's right. Rythin isn't part of the Underworld team," Kikuoka said. "He works on the first version of the simulation - he was a big help in reworking it to train soldiers. Even if it's not perfect, it's still useful - a soldier can drill and drill and drill and then wake up the next day with all the muscle memory still in their brain. All that would be left to do in the real world would be to condition the physical body." He laughed. "If the Artificial Fluctlights work out, then that shouldn't be necessary, but the idea itself has merit, so we're working on that with a reduced team on the side." He grinned. "Mainly to justify our budget."

I nodded. "Makes sense. But back to the Underworld..." I narrowed my eyes. "Something's wrong, isn't it? Your AI soldiers aren't working out. Or otherwise, you wouldn't need Kirito. What's he got to do with this?"

Kikuoka took a deep breath, then let it out slowly before bringing up something on the monitor. It was the city we'd seen at the beginning. "Take a look, Kana, Asuna," he said. "The city is peaceful. There's no crime, no fighting, there's not even any littering. The citizens are bound so tightly by their laws and regulations that they literally cannot break them. How could an existence like that be a soldier, how could they kill?"

"That soft sound you're hearing in the background is the violin track called 'My Heart Bleeds for You'," I grumbled. "It's a fairly common track."

"They couldn't," Asuna said quietly.

"Of course they couldn't," he sighed. "But this is where Kirito comes in. The residents of the Underworld can't disobey the Taboo Index, their codex of laws... Another experiment placed eight more technicians in the Underworld, reverted back to young children, but none of them broke the Taboo Index even once. They were actually more subdued than the Artificial Fluctlights. It's because the instinct that tells the body how to act prevented the researchers from getting used to Underworld. To get around that, we needed someone used to the virtual world to spend several years inside it."

"...Hold on a moment," Asuna interrupted him. "Are you talking about the three days of Diving Kirito talked about? But he said that it was just ten days. Are you lying to him, or to us?"

Kikuoka lowered his head slightly. "Sorry... That was an error on the Roppongi branch's side. I told them to hide information on the acceleration rate..."

"Wait." I held up my hand. "So Kirito spend ten years inside the STL? That's..." 10 over 3 times 365... "That's over a thousand times normal speed. Isn't that dangerous?"

"Well..." Kikuoka sighed. That's why this is still the hypothetical stage. Simply put, the Artificial Fluctlights have a limited capacity, and if we pass that limit the construct will degrade... We haven't tested it out for fairly obvious reasons, but we set the FLA maximum limit at 1500 for safety purposes. Don't worry, Kirito is fine," he assured Asuna. "We estimate that the soul's life is about 150 years. That is, if we never had problems with our health, and our brain was never damaged, our intellect would last approximately 150 years before breaking down. Of course, it's very unlikely we'd live that long, so with plenty of safety we can spend about thirty years inside the STL.

"Regardless of all that, Kirito was... remarkable. He displayed an unseen exuberance of curiosity and activity, that verged on the edge of breaking the Taboo Index multiple times, though he never did. However, after about seven years in Underworld, we noticed something strange. We have a method of determining the likelihood of a resident breaking the Taboo Index, and two Artificial Fluctlights, a boy and a girl that had been interacting with Kirito, had been increasing their Taboo Breaking Index."

I smiled. "Of course... Kirito managed to infect them with his brand of insanity, just like he infected Nick."

"In the end, we did find one exception. The girl that was closest to Kirito finally disobeyed the Taboo Index, committing the very severe crime of 'Entering the Forbidden Zone' likely in an attempt to save a life. The girl must have valued other people's lives more than the Taboo Index, which is the very adaptability we've been looking for. You can appreciate the irony, of course."

Higa sighed. "Unfortunately, because time passes so quickly in Underworld, we weren't able to stop the servers and eject the Fluctlight before something shocking happened. The Integrity Church, the system that protects the Taboo Index, managed to bring the girl to their capital and apply some strange form of correction to the Fluctlight. We had no idea they could do that... Perhaps they found a backdoor into the system and were able to modify Alice that way."

"Alice?" Asuna muttered.

Kikuoka nodded. "Yes. That was the name of the girl in question. The names are all randomized pronunciation, so imagine our surprise at the coincidence. That girl's name, Alice, just so happened to be the name of the main concept our entire plan revolves around."

"Concept?" I asked, curious.

"The Highly Adaptive Artificial Intelligence Self-Existence, or Artificial Labile Intelligence Cybernetic Existence. If we take the first letter of each word, we get ALICE. That's the goal - to let the photon clouds within the Lightcube become Alice. We call it Alice-ing."

He spread his arms, his incomprehensible smile still on his face, and said, "Welcome to Project Alicization."

"..." I stared at him, mouth open. "Nick said that you people really loved your acronyms, but wow that's a stretch."

Kikuoka laughed. "I suppose it is, isn't it?"

"I'll kill you!" the poor orphan girl shouted, clutching at the leering man's jacket. "You'll die like the animal you are! Give me back my mother now!"

"Uh huh," Karma muttered. "Definitely Kayano."

We were all in the classroom at this point. We'd split up into small groups so we could sit back and watch a clip from that video Mimura had shown us; I was watching on Ritsu's big screen, perched on Hara's desk, while the others were standing around in clusters of two and three and watching on their phones.

"That's crazy," Maehara said. "It's like she's a split personality or something!"

Sugino said, "That'd explain how she was able to keep her identity a secret."

The golden glow of the setting sun filled the room, but it didn't feel warm like it usually did. Everything just felt strange and a little bit tilted. Uneven, I think. Had Kayano just decided I was a good blind, with my leaking bloodlust disguising the little she gave off? And Nagisa... she'd been friends with him too, right? She was the one that originally gave him the little wing pigtails to begin with. Had that just been so she had someone to hide behind, the protagonist in the revenge story she was live-performing?

...I remember something Asano said to me, a while back. It had been just a throwaway line to intimidate me, so I hadn't given it much thought, but... 'I don't know the particulars, but some poor fool broke one of his trophies and was sent straight to E Class'. Kayano had transferred in right before me, right? She was clearly intelligent, if she could act this well... so that means she must have been the one to smash the trophy. Hah. Dedicated, isn't she?

And dedicated is right. She's smart. Clever. She knew it'd be suspicious if she didn't try to kill Korosensei in some elaborate plot, so she set up the pudding assassination plot to throw us off the trail. Just another layer in the facade, right? The harmless, ditzy Kayano was just a performance, right?

...No. No. I refuse to believe that. There's no way she could have pulled it off that long and that thoroughly without at least some part of her persona being true. The Kayano we all knew and cared about wasn't just a performance.

"Excuse me, sir," Mimura said to Korosensei, "why did Kayano, well... Why did she call you a murderer?"

Isogai asked, "Does it... have to do with your past?"

"Talk to us, Korosensei, please!" Kimura begged. "What happened? We trust you... so just be honest with us!"

Kataoka nodded. "He's right," she said. "We deserve to know the truth. Please..."

"It's unacceptable to stay quiet," Hayami said. By the back of the room, Karma leaned against the wall and folded his arms. I just rested my arms on my knees, watching Korosensei intently.

"You understand," Isogai added, "unless you tell us something, we're done here. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is."

Karasuma and Professor Bitch were at the front of the class too, but neither of them had said anything. Now, I'm curious how much of Korosensei's past Karasuma actually knows.

Silence echoed through the classroom as we all watched Korosensei, waiting for his response. If he refused to tell us anything... I'd do it. I'd walk away with the rest of them, walk away from the most fun I'd had in my life since, well, since Aincrad.

Korosensei didn't reply for a long time, and I could feel my heart beginning to race. "I don't blame you," he finally said, leaning forward. I let out a breath I'd been unconsciously holding, and forced myself to breathe normally. "Very well then... It's time my past came to light." Ah. "I'll tell you on one condition," he said, raising a tentacle. "You hear my big secret as a class. Meaning, of course, that we must find Kayano." He paused, as his phone vibrated. He pulled it out, and stared at the message.

Hm... Judging by the look on his face, it's the message we were waiting for. Kayano had finally contacted him and set the time and location of their next - and final - conflict.

...

At seven, after the sun had set, Korosensei led us to the grassy fields in the back hills. The wind blew fiercely, rustling the long blades of grass. We stood behind Korosensei, all of us watching the back of the green-haired girl, tentacles waving against the wind.

Kayano had changed out of her school uniform, marking the final severance of her old identity. Instead, she was wearing a simple sleeveless sweater, with a red scarf wrapped around her neck. With a small noise of satisfaction, she turned. "So you showed up!" she called out, her voice harsh. "Great!" she said, smiling innocently. Was... she sweating? "Let's end this."

Korosensei didn't move.

With a slicing sound, something cut the tops of the grass. Kayano's tentacle had moved quickly enough to cut even the wind. "I gave you your name," Kayano said. "Practically makes me your mother. What's the old joke? I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it?" she asked sardonically.

"Listen to me," Korosensei said, ignoring her taunts. "It's too dangerous for you to keep using those tentacles! They have to be removed, your life is in jeopardy!"

"What are you babbling about?" Kayano asked. "They're in peak condition! You're not gonna break my composure with a bluff."

"Kayano!"

She almost looked surprised Nagisa had spoken up.

"I thought we were your friends," the boy said. "But this whole time... you were acting? All the stuff we've done, all we've been through together?"

Kayano smiled. "It's what I do. I'm an actor. I act. Watching Nagisa take that beating from Takaoka... it took everything I had not to step in. When I was kidnapped by thugs, kicked in the ribs by the Reaper... I was pissed enough to have killed them! But I maintained. Never once let the mask slip. Poor, pitiful, Kayano. The frail girl everybody loved."

Fuwa asked, "You did all this... for your big sister?"

"Korosensei murdered her," Kayano said softly. "She never hurt anyone. All she wanted to do was teach," she said, her voice trembling. "She used to brag about all of you..."

Takebayashi pushed at his glasses. "Kayano, we... we know. We only had her a couple of weeks, it was March of last year. But that was long enough to see she was a passionate teacher."

"Could Korosensei murder someone?" Sugino asked. "I mean like, actually in cold blood? I just don't see it. Nothing we know about him remotely jives with that."

"Yeah!" Kurahashi said desperately. "Maybe you're wrong, maybe you don't have the whole story yet! Give him a chance!"

Kayano didn't react.

"C'mon, Kaede," Karma said calmly, "you've been here a year. You should know what kind of person he is by now. I get it, we have to deal with him eventually. But you can't think he murdered your sister. This shouldn't be about revenge. It's not how this works."

Kayano's hands were trembling.

Itona asked, "Feel like you're overheating? But the nape of your neck is ice cold? It's a good indication your metabolism is shot, which means those tentacles have just about taken the wheel." So she is sweating. "If you fight in that condition, you'll sap your life force. Trust me, I have experience. Worst case scenario, you die."

With a sudden fwoosh, her tentacles erupted into flame. I jerked back, eyes wide as the sudden increase in heat washed over me. "Shut up!" Kayano snapped. "I don't recall asking you for a prognosis!" She didn't seem phased by the brands on the end of her tentacles. "Every weapon comes at a price, but if it's the least bit usable you polish it. Guess who taught me that, Korosensei? If my body overheats, so much the better!" she said, eyes wide and staring. She seemed almost manic with glee. "I'll use it to my advantage. Flaming tentacles can do a lot of damage!"

"No!" Korosensei exclaimed, reaching out towards her. "I-I must insist-"

Kayano's tentacles snapped out, sending a ring of fire around the two to create their arena. Takebayashi yelped and stepped back from the flames; I gave the ring of fire a careful berth, but I stared hard, focused.

This wasn't the time to talk Kayano down.

This was a boss fight. I needed... I needed to determine how to defeat her.

Fire... Her body is burning itself up for fuel. She's on a timer. Delay long enough and we win - but Kayano dies. Unacceptable. We need to defeat her before the tentacles destroy her body permanently. She's surrounded by a ring of fire, but that won't stop us from entering the arena if necessary.

Korosensei removed the tentacles from Itona's neck when he gave up the will to fight. But Kayano's will isn't to become strong, but to avenge her sister's death and kill Korosensei. How do we break that will without letting Korosensei die?

"See?" Kayano asked. "I'm in the best shape of my life. Every cell in my body is on high alert. All your weaknesses are mine to exploit."

"Stop it Kayano!" Nagisa shouted, lunging forward. He was immediately grabbed by Nakamura and Sugino, the two of them holding him back. "This is insane! Even if you win, it's suicide! If I've learned anything in this class, it's that no target is worth sacrificing yourself for!"

"Aw, that's so sweet of you to be concerned," Kayano cooed. "Still, though... If you think I care..." She looked up, and her eyes were filled with bloodlust. "You're dead wrong!" She lunged into the air, tentacles spinning around her. "When my mind's fixed on something, I just keep on rolling!"

Her tentacles lashed out, slamming into the ground and attacking Korosensei. She laughed madly as she soared over him, her arc extended by the tentacles.

Her abilities are on par with Korosensei. Physically, we're not going to be able to defeat her without sacrificing one or both of the combatants. And mentally, she's fixated on killing Korosensei. Of course... if we break that fixation, would she be disoriented long enough to remove the tentacles? Should we replace it? She's not listening to anything we say, so words are meaningless.

...I hate that I'm planning how to truly defeat one of my friends. It wasn't the playful challenge I would levy against Kazuto, or Asuna, or Shino; these were brutal, cold calculations. I was doing my best to break Kayano and bring her to her knees. Destroy her.

I hate myself sometimes.

"Holy crap, it's like a meteor shower!" Okajima yelped. Sparks were flying in the air, but there wasn't enough exposed skin to be injured; I didn't bother stepping aside.

I stepped over to Itona. "Itona," I said without preamble, "how bad is it? What's her chances?"

The silver-haired boy stared up at the spectacle. "...She's stronger than even I was," he said. "Out of everyone here, she has the best chance of killing Korosensei. But... look at her face."

"Hahaha!" Kayano laughed after a particularly brutal strike landed just beside Korosensei. Her eyes were wide and staring, the sclera becoming dark and clouded. Just like Itona's, back when he was rampaging out of control. As she drew her tentacles back, I realized she was clutching part of Korosensei's leg tentacle in her tentacles. "I ripped off a chunk! Look at that, it's still all wriggly!"

"She's been in boss battle mode for maybe fifteen seconds," Itona said, "and already the tentacles have gotten a foothold on her brain. The burden the tentacles place on their host is dangerously high. Her body is extremely weak, so the mental fortitude it took to endure having them for a full year must be incredible..." Itona shook his head. "But that's probably only because she hasn't been using the tentacles until now."

So because she's finally letting herself go, the corruption and damage is spreading at an alarming rate. Not good.

Kayano laughed as her tentacles attacked again, resembling a volcano erupting with the speed and ferocity of the flaming strikes. "Aw, what's the matter, Korosensei?" she mocked the octopus. "The headaches aren't an issue anymore! Woah, the pain's starting to feel good!"

She's becoming damaged. Too much longer, and her brain will be eaten away by the tentacles. "If she's that far gone," Itona told me, "it's too late. Whether she gets her revenge on Korosensei or not, another few minutes of this... and she's dead."

To my left, Nagisa startled at the flat declaration of Kayano's inevitable end and stared at the flames.

This is not how Kayano is going to die. I refuse to let her be taken from me.

"Come on!" Kayano snarled, her eyes filled with pulsing red and black veins. "It's high time for you to die! Die! Die! Die!" she shrieked.

Somehow... I could hear her calling out. In her heart...

She wants someone to save her.

Ho shit! Plot twist!

And yes, the signs were all there before. Go back and take a look. Kayano averted her eyes from Yanagisawa. Kayano can't swim – because her tentacles would swell up. She said it herself; 'I can't show anybody my true blade'. Did you really think pudding was her true blade?

But yeah, holy shit this was a twist. I did NOT see it coming the first time I read the manga. My reaction was essentially 'wat.' Just like that. Flat wat. It's a huge shift, since she's always been so incompetent before this. (Hopefully you all thought the title was referring to Nick's secret, not Kayano's…) I tried to capture the chaotic thoughts flashing through Nick's mind at the moment of revelation, but hopefully it worked?

And then we have the Argo interlude. It's mainly the second part of her confrontation of Kikuoka, where he anime-villain monologues his master plan. He's kind of a jerk, but at the same time he kinda has a point? They aren't really human if they're just AI, but at the same time they think they're human. Well, that's not Nick's problem, in the end, and Kana knows it. She knows and accepts that he just doesn't care about people. (Also today I learned that Shiori Izawa, Argo's Japanese voice actor in her one appearance and in the games, also voices Pina. Neat.)

Finally, we come to the beginning of the Kayano confrontation. She's all about killing the shit out of Korosensei, to the point that her burning heart is now burning everything. Heh. And the other problem is, uh… Nick is shifting into Tactician mode and considering her a threat, now. Sure, it's to save her, not kill her, but this is the first time he's treated one of his friends like that.

(and yes, they are his friends at this point.)

Many thanks to everyone that favorited, followed, or reviewed.