A/N: Okay, I hope that what I'm writing here is gonna make some lick of sense. I've been fighting off a really nasty flu for the last few days, and my fever's been nuts, so I'm gonna try to keep this short.
Merry Christmas, everyone. Now that we've come to the even twentieth chapter, it's time for it all to go back to the beginning, at least as far as this story is concerned. At a certain point in this chapter, we will finally have have caught up to where the prologue began, much like when a journey comes full circle.
Now before you panic, let me assure you that this is not the end of the saga- merely a new beginning, as it were. Whatever do I mean by that? I invite you to dive in and discover the answer for yourselves.
P.S. New artwork was actually done by me, and for once, it's a piece that I'm really proud of. You can find a better quality image of it (as well as another drawing made for this series) on my instagram under the handle the_red_swordsman.
Am I who I am
Because of what I am now
Or what I have been
Or is it because of what
I will be one day
Full Circle
The boss fight continued to be grueling from then on, despite only lasting for a few more minutes. Although no official order was given, the collective thought seemed to be for everyone to abandon their efforts to stave off the poison effects in favor of dealing the maximum amount of damage that they could dish out. While not the safest plan for us to execute, we were all running low on healing items, so at this point, it was go for broke or retreat- and after the deaths that we'd suffered in the battle, there was no way that any of us were going to back down now.
"Almost there!" I roared to Kirito and Kiriha as they ran ahead of me, our swords all lighting up. Trailing behind me was Rivka and Sachi, both of them determined to see this nightmare of a battle over and done with.
Together, alongside Heathcliff, Yuuki, and a few other elite players, we smashed into the monster's pincers and batted aside its tail when it tried to strike at us, ignoring the poisonous effects of the attack in a desperate effort to see this through. This gave the other players like Sachi and Rivka a chance to strike in turns while we drew the focus of the boss to ourselves.
It was a close run for all of us- Kirito and my health actually dipped into the red zone- but we emerged triumphant at long last. The instant that the boss disintegrated, most of us sank to the ground, groaning with a mixture of exhaustion and relief, myself included.
"Okay, I know I don't remember most of the boss fights we've done, but that has to be one of the worst ones, right?" I said as I used my last purifying crystal to cleanse the poison from my body. I was nearly out of arrows, so I had slung my bow across my back for the time being.
"It was," Kirito grunted as he used a healing crystal to fully restore his health. "I don't think I've fought that hard since the boss fight on floor fifty." He and his sister were sitting with their backs to one another, leaning against the other for support.
"Why, what made that one so bad?" I asked him wearily. I knew that every twenty-five floors thus far had contained a particularly nasty surprise, so we could expect something unpleasant on floor seventy-five, but I was curious about the prior challenges at the moment.
"The fight lasted two full days," Kiriha told me. "We had to fight in shifts so that we could sleep and eat."
"The attacks themselves weren't very strong, but its defense was through the roof," Kirito added as he sheathed his sword sluggishly.
"Worst boss fight ever," Klein commented from nearby.
Seeing him, I tensed up a little, wary of the fact that there now a lot of players that probably hated me in the room, and all of them were armed to the teeth. Still, I did my best to maintain my composure as I said, "I'm sorry that I didn't provide support in that battle."
Klein eyed me suspiciously before he shrugged and replied, "We made it work." Pausing for a moment, he then added, "I'm still mad at you, kid. But I also know that without you, more of us might've died. In my book, that earns you a pass, at least for today. Just don't expect us to be buddy-buddy anytime soon."
"I appreciate that," I said with a wry smile, though I kept an eye on the other players looking at me, many of them appearing angered by my presence. I should probably go before one of them-
"What the hell is this?!" a girl's voice demanded, sounding both furious and upset. I looked toward the source, a player about my age with short brown hair and eyes, armed with a bow that had an arrow laid on the string, which quickly served to make me nervous. That, and I realized that I had seen her several times before, in my dreams.
She's the archer I saved earlier, I realized.
Behind me, I heard Kirito utter some foul words while he and his sister got to their feet, both of them drawing their swords. All around us, several other members of the assault team did the same, tired though they were. Even Sachi, who was normally the last person you'd think would be prepared to fight another person, stood ready with her dagger in hand. Rivka in particular looked absolutely livid at the presence of the archer.
Speaking of whom, she glared at everyone in the room for a few seconds before she snarled, "If you value your lives, get the hell out of here. This is between me and the Red Swordsman."
The Red Swordsman…? I thought, the fog obscuring the memories that swirled in my mind as something struggled to free itself from the mire of my subconscious. That's… That's me.
"Sinon?" I asked with a shaky voice, drawing her attention to me. "That's your name, right?" In her eyes I could see wrath, hurt, confusion, and a sense of betrayal, and it caused me to feel ashamed that I thought it right to keep my revival a secret from her, no matter what she and I had done together in the past.
"What kind of question is that?" she asked in a matching tone. "Are you trying to play dumb for everyone else here?"
"No, I don't rememb-" I started to say, but then my head suddenly throbbed as a series of images burst to the forefront of my awareness, showing me a flaming sword that rose and fell with a brutal precision, killing people as often as monsters. I saw days spent with Sinon, Strea, and Crimson in places of all sorts, a feeling of unbreakable camaraderie flowing between us.
Crimson… I remembered how PoH's knife had ripped him away from us, before I used my own blade to destroy my most hated foe. I relived my good-bye to Sinon and Strea, and the pain that it had caused them.
Kirito and the others knew how much my death hurt them, and they didn't say anything to them… I felt a rage so intense that it almost choked me and caused my vision to tint with a violent red as my hands began to tremble.
"You got a lotta guts, telling us to get out right now," Klein growled challengingly in response to Sinon's demand, all of them unaware of what was happening in my head at that moment. "I guess little ol' you is gonna make us leave? That'd be a real neat trick!"
"True," she replied with a smile that gave me the chills. "But what's a magician without her assistants?" With that, a shimmering warp gate appeared behind her to admit Strea and a half-dozen players armed with powerful weapons, and wearing blank expressions as they formed up a defensive circle with their leader.
"Oh," Klein said dumbly, now looking a lot less confident than he had a second ago.
"You had to ask," Kirito grumbled.
While both parties stared each other down, I clutched at my head, various memories now fighting for dominance. There were the times spent laughing with Victoria and our friends, the day that Asuna was killed and the sorrow that it brought us. I recalled the day that we had been taken in by Cats, and the long weeks spent training Sachi up from a frightened little girl into a fighter ready to defend her friends to her last breath. There was also the day that I saved Sinon, and the day that I showed her how to live with her guilt, despite her prior hatred of me. Laid out before me was the span of time where my old friends were some of my greatest enemies, and a period where they helped me recover from my wounds that had been reopened thanks to my amnesia.
It felt as though I had lived two completely separate lives in the last year and a half, and now I couldn't tell which identity was my real one. Did I belong with the Moonlit Black Cats, trying to work past my grief by being with people that loved me? Or was it my destiny to fashion my wrath into an iron will that crushed all who stood in my path?
Who am I?! I seethed as the torrent of memories slowed, even as both parties began to argue loudly, drawing closer to an inevitable bloodshed that would leave both sides hurting.
Before it came to that, though, one man took charge. "Enough!" Heathcliff commanded, drawing everyone's attention to him. With a stern expression on his brow, he said, "A battle between us now, as we are, would cause more harm to our numbers than it's worth to take in the Fifth Commandment. My guild will take its leave now." With that, he turned on his heel and walked away, his troops following him reluctantly.
After that, the other guilds began to filter out, unwilling to try their luck against the deadliest guild in SAO without the support of Heathcliff's elite troupe. Last to go was Klein's Fuurinkazan, and it was only when Sinon threatened to put an arrow in his eye socket if he didn't start moving- after all, she didn't make idle threats.
At long last, it was just the Moonlit Black Cats facing off against the Fifth Commandment. Sachi and Rivka had used some of the moving players to hide their movements so that they could get into position behind Kirito and his sister. The two sword-users had moved to stand on either side of me, as I had not moved from where I sat, clutching at my hair as I waited for the headache to subside.
Seeing this, Sinon snapped, "Get lost. I have questions for Mataras, and I don't need your lies polluting the air anymore."
"We're not leaving him to you," Rivka shot back. "We just got him back."
"Judging from his state of mental welfare, I'd pose the question as to whether or not you got back the real him, or if you just got back a hollow shell," Strea asserted, causing her partner to look at her in confusion.
"What are you talking about?" she asked, though she kept her bow trained on the Cats.
"According to the data concerning Mataras' psyche that I was able to check before coming here, he seems to be suffering from a severe case of amnesia," Strea answered calmly. After a slight pause, she added, "But judging from how much pain his head seems to be in, I think it's a safe bet to say that our appearance has jarred loose some memories, though there's no way to tell just how many of them that he's reliving at the moment."
"Wait, what?" Kirito asked, alarm clear in his voice. Shifting his address to me, he inquired, "Mataras, are you okay?"
"No," I growled, rolling away from him to be roughly equidistant from both groups before I got to my feet, my brow bent down sharply as I shrugged my bow off of my back and laid one of the few remaining arrows on the string, causing the Moonlit Black Cats' faces to show a fear unlike any that I had seen before. I scowled harder and said, "I've been lied to for weeks now. In what version of reality did you think I wouldn't be furious once I found out?"
"You remember us?" Sinon asked cautiously.
"Oh, I remember," I replied, my hard gaze switching to her. "Not everything, I'm sure, but I remember enough to know that I was the Red Swordsman."
"You still are," Sinon insisted, lowering her bow a bit as she turned toward me.
"No, I'm not," I replied, causing her to flinch a little. "Whether I like it or not, these last few weeks have shown me one thing in light of all that I have accomplished."
"What's that?"
"None of your beeswax!" Kiriha shouted, launching herself forward, her katana coming up to slash at Sinon. "You're not getting him back!"
Clang!
Strea's huge blade smashed into Kiriha's, her brute strength overpowering the blond girl's speed, and cutting her deeply before sending her back toward her comrades with a cry of pain. Sinon smirked at this as she aimed her bow back at the other players, saying, "You've fought most of us before, but this would be the first time that you're crossing swords with Strea. Trust me when I say she's probably got the highest STR stat in SAO."
She then let out a yelp of alarm as her bow was knocked out of her hands with jarring force, sending the weapon clattering across the stone floor. She looked at it for a second before every eye in the room was drawn to me, where I was now laying a new arrow on the string of my bow. "Did you-?"
"Shoot your bow, yes," I said flatly, my voice laced with the familiar cynicism that had been absent from my tones for weeks. "Don't threaten my friends."
Sinon's eyes widened as tears of betrayal began to pool in the corners of her lids. "Why?" she asked hoarsely. "I missed you… This can't be real. You can't be back like this!"
With her guard absolutely shattered, Kirito saw this as his chance to act. Darting forward like his sister had, he wove around Strea as she moved to intercept him, his sword glowing blue as he aimed to cut at the archer that had been threatening him only moments prior.
However, my next arrow flew from my bow to smack his sword out of his hand, and send it sliding to land a few feet away from Sinon's bow, and leaving him at the mercy of Hollow Asuna's rapier, which appeared at his throat as he was frozen by the post-motion paralysis function. "Don't move," she told him coldly. "Attempt to strike at any of us again, and it just might be your last act."
"Mataras, what the hell?!" Kiriha grunted as she got to her feet.
"Like I said," I growled at her, causing her to narrow her eyes back at me. "Don't threaten my friends." Looking back at Sinon, I said, "I'm sorry for what I put you through. All of you." I made sure to include the Cats in that statement, my eyes meeting each of theirs' before I settled on Rivka, who took a half-step toward me before I shook my head negatively. She froze in place, horror taking shape on her face. It was almost enough to crumble my resolve, but I knew what I had to do.
"Sorry," I said again. "But as I was about to tell Sinon, having lived two different lives here in SAO, I now know without a doubt that I don't deserve a life among friends, no matter who they are, and… no matter how much I love them." With a wry smile, I put my bow back on shoulder as I added, "I won't choose between one life or the other. I was the Red Swordsman, but now my mission is finished. And now that it is, I can't live a life among people that I've hurt." As I spoke, I reached back in the folds of my gray cloak for a crystal that I kept in my belt.
"What are you-?"
"I'm glad to know that you're alive," I interrupted Sinon. "Goodbye."
"Mataras, you don't-"
"Teleport, Hollow Area Control," I said flatly to cut off Sachi, causing them all to vanish in a flash of white-blue light.
Knowing that I had only a few seconds before Sinon and Strea would follow me, I dashed over to the admin console and pulled up the map. Moving swiftly, I hit the function that would teleport me to Arlebast, otherwise known as the Underworld of the Hollow Area. It was a high-level area, even for the testing grounds, and as such, I had never gone there alone, always with at least one other person.
A perfect place to wander until I meet my end, I thought as I triggered the teleportation function. The netherworld of the death game- maybe I'll find some of the ghosts of the people that I've killed, and they can do what no one else has been able to. However, nothing could have prepared me for what came next. As soon as the light of the teleportation left my gaze, I found myself confronted by something out of my worst nightmare.
"Jeez, you're predictable," Hollow Saphira told me as she folded her arms. "I mean, really. If you're gonna run away from everyone, don't come to the most difficult place on the map- everyone knows that's where you'd go, brick-for-brains." With a slight frown, she added, "I'm guessing that Kirito used the res stone on you, cos I know you're not Crimson."
This cannot be happening.
"You- You're dead!" Rivka screamed, charging at Sinon with her spear poised to skewer her through like a dead fish. "We were so close to having him back!" Tears of frustration streamed down her face as she prepared to vent her woes on the people that had taken away the man that she loved.
Sinon didn't even try to avoid the oncoming attack- she simply dropped to her knees, utterly defeated, ready to embrace her death. Her best friend was alive, but he was no longer the man that had pulled her out of the depths of despair and shown her how to live with the terrible guilt that had plagued her since she was a child. He had surrendered to the very burdens that he claimed to have left behind, and now all that was left was the hollow fragments of his once-fiery spirit.
I don't want to live in a world where he doesn't want anything to do with me, she decided, closing her eyes as she waited for Rivka's spear to pierce her avatar's flesh.
Strea wasn't ready to just let things play out, though. Shoving Sinon away from where she knelt, she smashed her broadsword across the shaft of Rivka's weapon, breaking it like a dry twig, and sending the other girl off-balance. While this was happening, Kirito wove away from the reach of Hollow Asuna's rapier, even as Sachi dashed over to where his weapon had gone, and then tossed it to him as he came to be shoulder-to-shoulder with her.
Before the Hollows could attack, though, Strea shouted, "Everyone, stop!" Her voice rang clearly throughout the cavern, the force of it stopping her troops in place, and setting the assault team members on edge as they wondered what she could be up to.
They didn't have to wait long to find out. Strea moved quickly to help Sinon to her feet while she said to the Cats, "This doesn't help Mataras one bit, us fighting each other. We may have different ideas about who he is, but it's clear to me that everyone in this room cares about him a great deal. So instead of blaming each other for his disappearance, why don't we put our heads together and figure out how we're going to get him to come back?"
"Why would we help you?!" Kiriha demanded furiously, though she remained wary of Strea's huge weapon, remembering the brute force that drove it. "You're the ones that helped him commit mass genocide!"
"And you're the ones that drove him away in the first place," Strea replied coolly, setting Kiriha's face aflame. "You also lied to us about him being dead. If we had known that he was alive, we would have assisted in your endeavors to recover his memories."
"You would have turned him back into the Red Swordsman!" Rivka seethed, bitter tears running down her face in rivulets. "He was coming back to us… back to me." She sucked in a deep breath before she spat out, "And now you've taken him away again."
"They didn't take him away, Rivka," Kirito said, further surprising his teammates. "Strea is right- we drove him away. We created the Red Swordsman when we weren't there for our friend." Locking eyes with the MHCP, he asked, "How'd he always say it? 'You have failed Aincrad'?" When she nodded at him, he sighed and added, "Well, he never said it to us, but we were the ones that really failed the players of SAO. We failed him."
"Kirito, you're blaming yourself too much," Sachi said gently, seeing the anguish on his face. She knew that despite his use of the plural term, he was only blaming one person for the downfall of Michael.
"I made the decision to lie to them about Mataras being alive," Kirito insisted miserably as he gestured to Strea and Sinon. "This might not have happened if I'd been honest with them."
"None of us were honest, either," Kiriha admitted begrudgingly, though she kept up her scowl at Strea and Sinon. "This isn't just on you, Kirito."
"We're not interested in playing a blame game," Strea said calmly. "We just want to find Mataras and bring him home- whether that's in the Hollow Area or in Zumfut, we can discuss later. Right now, I just want to find him before he does something reckless."
"Then our goals align for the time being," Sachi asserted, surprising her comrades with her attitude. Seeing the looks they were giving her, she reddened slightly and said, "He was my teacher, and there are still things that I want to learn from him. That aside, he's our friend, and we need to help him by making up for our mistakes. It's clear to me that these two do care for him, and that's good enough for me, at least where Mataras is concerned. They'll help us find him, if we let them."
"It's pointless," Sinon said, her tone still dull. "He knows the Hollow Area better than any of us. He's powerful and skilled enough to go places where we can't follow."
"Maybe if it was just you and the Hollows," Sachi insisted as she walked over to Rivka, who was shaking with helpless fury as she continued to glare her hatred at the Fifth Commandment. "But if you have our help, we can go places that you couldn't without him. We're not on the front lines for nothing, and we've survived the Hollow Area for over a month now."
Sinon lifted her head to show the others that her eyes were just as dull as her tone as she mumbled, "And what happens when we find him? Are you gonna keep him hidden away from us again? Make it so that he might as well be dead to us again?"
"You were never dead to him," Kirito told them as he lowered his sword to show a sign of goodwill. "He dreamed about you, Sinon, even before he started remembering things that he had forgotten about his own childhood. He pressed us until we told him about you- about his trusted partner that always stood by his side, even when we wouldn't."
"If that's true, then why didn't he come looking for me?" Sinon asked quietly, though her gaze did sharpen just a little bit.
"We didn't tell him that he was the Red Swordsman, but we did tell him that he did bad things when he was with you," Kiriha said pointedly, earning her a frown from Strea. Shrugging indifferently, she continued on to say, "He said that he didn't want to reconnect with that part of his past, but who knows? Maybe if he'd remembered things more slowly, he would have eventually decided to seek you out."
"And would you have helped him find us?" Strea asked curiously.
"No," Kirito admitted. "But he could have outmuscled us and escaped anytime that he wanted. I think he stayed because he knew that we would help him, and on some level, he knew that he needed our help to survive the pain of losing his family all over again."
"We could have helped him, too," Sinon said, an edge creeping into her voice. "Like I told you before, our mission is done. We have no reason to fight you anymore."
"Is that right?" Rivka demanded. "Then I guess it was just a prank that a kid was pulling when he said that your guild killed his family?"
Strea and Sinon glanced at one another before the AI said, "They were trying to take Mataras' legacy for themselves. We gave them several chances to turn away from their chosen path, but they were adamant. They were killing thieves and liars, none of whom deserved to die. We had to stop them, one way or another."
"You people make me sick," Rivka spat. "If we do find Mataras, I'm going to make sure that you never see him again."
"That's not your call to make," Kirito said, causing Rivka to turn an outraged expression on him. Before she could rail against him, the Black Swordsman said, "I know you're hurting right now. But if we find him, we need to do everything we can to convince him to come back of his own free will, not strong-arm him into returning. We'll all have a chance to talk to him, but it's gotta be up to him who he wants to go back to."
"Uh, I dunno that we can make that happen," Kiriha said dryly. "In case you all missed it, he didn't exactly seem like he wanted to be buddy-buddy with any of us. Even if you can convince me and Rivka to go along with this crazy plan, how do you know that talking to him is gonna change that?"
"He's punishing himself," Sinon reminded them. "He said he doesn't deserve to have a happy life, so he's keeping himself away from the people that care."
"He knows that we can convince him to come back to us," Kirito realized aloud. "He doesn't wanna give us that chance; that's why he ran."
"Then let's stop wasting time arguing with each other and go look for him," Strea insisted, pulling a teleport crystal from her belt. "He's got a head start, but I can think of a few places where he might have gone."
"We're not helping murderers like you," Rivka insisted. "We'll find him on our own, and you can just step aside."
For the first time in Sinon's memory, a genuine frown crossed Strea's features, and she straightened herself with an ominous air before she said in a tone that reminded them of Mataras, "I get that you're hurting, Miss Rivka, probably more than anyone here. After all, you grew up with him- you love him. But if you really care about Mataras like you claim to, you'll have to trust that we want to see him safe, too."
"You just-"
"I could revoke all of your privileges to access the Hollow Area!" Strea snapped, further surprising her teammate at her loss of composure. "We don't need your help, quite frankly! I'm offering you a chance to help us look for him because I know that he loves his friends- all of us- and we have a better chance at talking him out of his current mindset if we try together! But I've also been his counselor for a year, so I know his mental state better than any of you! As such, it's my job to protect him from things that could unbalance him even more than he already is! I know what he needs most, and I know he needs conflict over him like he needs a rusty dagger in his heart!"
Kirito blinked a few times, finding himself somewhat in fear of the normally cheerful Strea having shown her angry side. When he was able to find his voice, he managed to say, "We'll coordinate with you until we manage to bring him home. After that, I suggest we let him make up his own mind about who he wants to stay with. He shouldn't be a prisoner."
"After all the killings he's done, I'm pretty sure he actually should be in jail," Kiriha pointed out, setting Sinon and Strea to scowling at her. "What? I'm not saying that I wanna see him in cage anymore- he's shown that some level of decency still exists inside of himself. Maybe he can come to terms with everything, even with his memories intact."
"Only if we all help him," Sachi insisted, intriguing the Fifth Commandment and once again startling her friends. Seeing this, she explained, "He needs to reconcile both sides of himself- the Red Swordsman and Michael- if he's going to really heal from everything that's happened to him."
Seeing that Rivka was about to protest again, Kirito preempted her by saying, "Rivka, we don't have much of a choice here. Strea has admin privileges in the Hollow Area. She really could lock us out, and then we'd have no chance at being part of the group trying to rescue him."
This caused her eyes to take on a sullen appearance, but she nodded once in concession. "Fine," she muttered. "If it means that we can bring him home. But when we do find him, I'm going to do everything that I can to convince him to turn his back on them forever."
Sinon's lips twitched upward just for a second before she said, "You really are as stubborn as he said you were."
"Don't talk to me like you know who he really is," Rivka snapped, causing Sinon's lips to twitch upwards again. "You met him when he was broken, sick in his mind. I know the real him."
"Hmm," Sinon mused as Sachi held the other girl back from stalking up to the Fifth Commandment girls. "Well, like it or not, the 'broken' man that I know might just be the real him, after everything that he's had to suffer. I doubt that you're the same person you were before you came into SAO."
"All right, cool it, both of you," Kirito ordered, not wanting another argument to start up again. "Strea's right, we're wasting time here." To the girl herself, he said, "We'll meet you at the control room after we make it to the warp gate on the next floor. No offense, but I'd rather not burn through a teleport crystal right now."
"That's fine, just be quick," Strea warned him. "The more time we spend in the safe zones, the more time he has to put distance between us. And he'll be crafty with that distance."
Several Months Later, October 2024…
"…And now I've come full circle," I muttered as I sat down in front of the fire pit in my makeshift camp. "You know the rest." Hollow Saphira took a seat on a log opposite of me without a word, a ponderous look on her face.
I was in the Graceleaf Bay area, a beautiful beach filled with plenty of quests and aquatic monsters to keep me strong. It was only a temporary home, as I knew I would have to move again in order to avoid being found by the Fifth Commandment and the Moonlit Black Cats.
The two groups had been searching for me relentlessly ever since the boss fight on floor sixty-seven, though the Cats had also been a little distracted with their duties in clearing the game, which helped me in my evasions. Despite the fact that Strea could probably pull my general location up on the map, I had once again erased all of them from my friend's list, denying them access to my precise location, and making it much more difficult to find me in a timely manner. So for months now, I had avoided direct contact with my old friends, even as the assault team neared the three-quarter mark for clearing the floating castle. During this time, my memories continued to filter slowly through the fog that hid them, and now I felt as though only a few remained hidden from my sight.
"I've just got one question," Hollow Saphira said, causing me to raise a single, weary eyebrow at her. Ever since ambushing me in Arlebast, she had been following me relentlessly, despite my best efforts to ditch her. No matter how many times I managed to get away, she was able to predict my moves to some extent, allowing her to find me again. Now she grinned at me and asked, "How'd you know about the parts that you weren't there for?"
"I went back to the control room one of the times I managed to ditch you," I replied. "Strea had compiled a list of surveillance footage that she thought was relevant to helping understand me. I saw each clip before I deleted them."
"Why'd you do that?" she inquired.
"Two reasons," I shrugged. "One, to make it harder on them. Two, so they know that I'm still a few steps ahead of them." I hesitated before I asked, "Speaking of which, you've been able to predict my moves fairly easily, so why haven't you gone to help them catch me?"
"Because I really do know you better than any of them," my sister's ghost said with a smile. "And I know that an intervention won't do you any good. Maybe someday, but not now."
"I'm going down with this castle, and not you or anyone is going to stop that," I told her resolutely. "As soon as SAO is over, I'm going to meet Mom, Dad, and the real you."
Instead of appearing hurt by my words, Hollow Saphira merely cocked her head at me and asked, "If that's your plan, why wait? If you really wanted to die, why not just go jump in a lava pit in the Abandoned Area? You're still training, still levelling up, which seems kinda counterintuitive for a guy planning to commit suicide."
"Because there's one memory in particular that I'm trying to recover before I let go," I explained sullenly. "I can't remember who Akihiko Kayaba is. But when I do, I'll tell Kirito and the others so they can decide what to do with that knowledge. I really shouldn't have kept it from them in the first place."
"Doesn't Strea know?" my stubborn companion asked. "She's the one that found him out originally, right?"
"Yeah, but I had her erase the knowledge from both the console and her own memory," I replied. "I didn't want to take the chance that Kayaba would examine her program, find the file in her system, and then delete her for it. If she didn't know, I hoped that he might just assume that I figured it out on my own."
"Maybe, but somehow I doubt that he'd do that," Hollow Saphira murmured. When I looked a question at her, she added, "He has to know that you've been using the Hollow Area for purposes beyond its original intent by now. But he hasn't done anything about it. Isn't that weird?"
"This is probably filthy rich coming from me, but I'm not gonna waste my time trying to understand the mentality of a madman," I sighed, causing her to laugh a little bit. "I don't know why he hasn't booted us from the Hollow Area, or erased Strea for helping me. I doubt I'll get the chance to ask him before the assault team tears him apart."
"You think you'll remember who he is before they reach floor one hundred?" she asked me quietly.
"I hope so," I replied dully. "Who knows how many people have died trying to clear this game after I found who he was, and still said nothing? I'm just as bad as he is."
"I disagree," Hollow Saphira replied firmly. "You know you've done wrong, and you plan to make up for it as best you can. Far as I can tell, Kayaba has no plans to repent of his actions. I am surprised that you don't wanna be the one to take him out, though."
"I don't deserve that privilege," I replied automatically. "Whoever takes him out is gonna be the Hero of Aincrad, and that's not me. The only way I'd take him on is if I figure there's no one else who can do the job."
"Is there anyone that could do the job like you can?" she asked pointedly as I started work to get a fire going. "Much as I hate to think of you this way, you've become the most skilled killer in this reality. If anyone has a chance to kill him without getting killed themselves, it's you."
"And that right there is the problem," I said tiredly. "I don't want to survive this. If I did, what waits for me on the other side? A life in prison? The death sentence? What's worse than that is if by some miracle I don't face jail for everything I've done, it would be a life without my family."
"Without your blood family, yeah," Hollow Saphira said gently. "But you have another family here, one that you made for yourself. Are they not worth living for?"
"They are," I conceded. "At least, until I can purchase their freedom. After that, it's me that isn't worth living for."
"And, back to square one," she sighed. "Still, you're talking to me, so I guess I can consider this progress."
"Call it what you want, but I'm wondering why you even care," I muttered as I lit a pile of sticks to get a healthy blaze going. "You're just a ghost. You know that, right?"
"Yeah," Hollow Saphira shrugged. "But I have all of your sister's memories, plus my own from living here, and learning to survive on my own. And I know that this is exactly what she would be doing, if she had the chance."
"Hollows don't get all of the memories from their source identities," I said with a frown. "So either you're lying, or your code is flawed."
"Was Crimson flawed?" she shot back, causing me to flinch. "Yeah, didn't think so. I've lived longer than any other Hollow, including him. Whether it was a glitch in my programming, or just sheer luck that I've been given a will to endure beyond my expected lifespan, I've had time that other AI are denied by the Cardinal system to sort through her memories, to make sense of them. So I know exactly what your sister would do right now, because you're right, I am her ghost- her will living on beyond the constraints of her deceased flesh."
"Okay then," I said through a heavy breath. "Now that you've worn me down enough to talk to you, what's next in your plan?"
"For now, just to keep you company," she said with a slight smile. "Like she told you, human beings aren't meant to be alone. I won't let you be completely isolated, no matter what."
"So serving as a constant reminder of my failure is supposed to do me good?" I retorted dryly.
"No," she said firmly. "My reminding you that even you can be redeemed will be good for you."
"Fat chance."
"Hey, I stayed until you broke your silent streak," she grinned. "How much you wanna bet that I can be more stubborn than you on this, too?"
Two days later, I was making my way through the Bastia Gate Remnants, a chain of floating islands connected by bridges (though they weren't always in one piece) that featured a healthy population of flying monsters like gryphons and wyverns, among other things. It was early in the afternoon, and I was on one of these interconnecting bridges when I received a rather nasty surprise.
"I swear this wasn't me," Hollow Saphira muttered as she put her back to mine.
"I know," I growled, unslinging my bow and putting an arrow on the string. "Even if you're a ghost, you wouldn't lie to me."
Approaching me from the east was Sinon and Strea, both of them looking tired and cautious, their weapons put away as they walked slowly, as to avoid presenting themselves as a threat. That wasn't really the problem, though- if pressed, I could have outran the two of them without too much difficulty. No, the real issue was a couple of people that I had never thought to see again: Yuuki and Philia.
The two girls were approaching us from the west, and unlike my former comrades in the Fifth Commandment, they had their weapons out, and they looked ready to use them at a moment's notice. Of the two groups, I fancied better chances of making it past Sinon and Strea, since I knew it was highly unlikely that they would want to hurt me.
With that thought in mind, I raised my bow and aimed the arrow at Philia, calling out, "That's far enough." Despite previous declarations to the contrary, I had decided to maintain practice of the weapon, partially to stave off boredom in my spare hours.
Both she and Yuuki halted in their tracks, but they made no move to retreat. Before I could tell them to let me pass, I heard Strea say, "Mataras, we need to talk. We've been looking for you."
"Yeah, for quite some time," I said without taking my eyes off of the two freelancers. "I guess you didn't take the hint when I kept avoiding you every time you got close." Letting a bit of disgust enter my voice, I added, "Also, since when did you work with these two? I thought that they hated us."
"No, just you," Philia said with a thin smile. "I'd honestly rather be treasure hunting right now, but Yuuki won't let me."
"And I actually don't really hate anyone," Yuuki grinned, though she kept her guard up. "But even if Philia doesn't like you, we owe Kirito and the other Cats a few favors. They're busy clearing the dungeon today, so we're here in their stead."
"And how'd you know to find me here?" I prompted.
"This is where we met," I heard Sinon say, her voice brittle. "This is where you saved my life, Mataras. And we noticed that you have a habit of coming here every few weeks- probably unconsciously. As for why we asked for their help, Yuuki is one of the best players in the game- probably better than even your pal, Kirito."
I looked about my surroundings, realizing that she was correct- in what seemed like a lifetime ago, I had met one of my most steadfast allies and friends on this bridge. Scowling at my own stupidity and the lack of options it had left me with, I muttered to Hollow Saphira, "What should I do?"
"You're asking me?" she chortled in a soft tone.
"You said that a confrontation with these guys isn't what I need right now," I reminded her tartly. "How do I get out of this? If I warp out, I'll be forced to the control room, and they've probably got a trap waiting there." In the Hollow Area, the admin console room was the only place that one could use a teleport crystal to get to. Teleportation to other areas had to be done from the console itself, or with a corridor crystal, which I did not have on me.
"I can fight them off for you," she offered, nearly making me lose my grip on the bowstring from the shock.
"You what?!" I sputtered. "You do know who they are, right?"
"I'm well aware," she nodded. "But like I told you, I've been surviving this place longer than any of the other Hollows- even longer than you, and I did it on my own. I can guarantee that I'm stronger than anyone here."
"Why fight them, though?" I asked her. "You're the last one I'd expect to pick a fight."
"True, but I wouldn't be fighting for me," she said with a kind smile. "I'd be fighting for you, for the time that you need to heal on your own." The words and gesture touched me deeply, in a way that I had almost forgotten was possible, and I nearly found myself smiling back at her, but we were quickly interrupted.
"Mataras, we need to talk to both of you," Strea was saying now. "We don't want to fight, please."
"I don't want any of you near me," I shot back. "Go. Clear the game. Get everyone home, and leave me be."
"We can't do that," Sinon said stubbornly, despite her shaky voice. "There are things that we need to tell you. We didn't search for you all this time, just to let you get away again."
"Unfortunately, that's exactly what you did," Hollow Saphira asserted. "He's not ready to be around you yet."
"I think he will be once he learns what I've discovered," Strea said hurriedly. "As his counselor, I know what he wants more than anything, and I'm here to tell him that he can have it."
Her words made both Hollow Saphira and I pause in place and share a confused look. After a second, I lowered my bow and relaxed the tension on the string. Without looking behind me, I muttered, "Okay, Strea, I'll bite. What do I want more than anything?"
"Forgiveness," she answered quickly. When I felt my lips curling into a sneer, she added, "You want her to forgive you." Finally curious enough, I looked over my shoulder to see the AI pointing right at Hollow Saphira.
I let out a short bark of harsh laughter that conveyed my disbelief quite clearly before I said, "The forgiveness of an echo does nothing to absolve me of my crimes."
"But the forgiveness of your only living relative would be a good start," Sinon replied, causing my breath to catch in my throat, and my heartbeat to pound in my ears with concussive force. Seeing the confusion on my face, she said, "Mataras, this is Saphira. Your sister… She's been alive this whole time."
"Bullshit!" I snarled, my fury well awakened. "This is low, even for people I trained!" I couldn't believe that they would play with my emotions like this, the people that claimed to love me, when I was at my lowest.
"Language," the girl beside me said without looking my way.
"Shut up," I shot back. "I'm pissed enough to put a paralysis arrow in each of them."
"Don't," she said shortly, giving me a look that I hadn't see since she had scared the daylights out of me during the twenty-fifth boss fight. In spite of myself, I shut my mouth and waited to see what she would do.
I didn't have to wait long to find out. With a speed I couldn't believe, she leaped away from where she stood by my side to smash into Strea, sending her rolling dozens of meters away with a pained cry before she back-kicked Sinon, nearly sending her flying off the bridge, and down to her certain death, before she grabbed her by the chest piece of her armor and let her hang out over empty space with no apparent effort, her eyes glowing silver like mine did whenever I was on an emotional high in SAO.
"Stay where you are!" she ordered Yuuki and Philia, who had let out shouts of alarm at the sudden explosion of violence. With a sideways glance, Hollow Saphira added, "Move toward me, and Mataras will shoot the both of you with a paralysis arrow. Don't give him a reason to do it- he really wants to." Turning back to Sinon and Strea, she then said, "Now, I'm gonna be real succinct here, so pay close attention. If you are lying to Mataras in any way as a ploy to get him to return, you might not live to regret it. So you'd better have some solid proof that what you're saying is true."
"Shouldn't you be happy?" Sinon gasped as she glanced at the blue void beneath her. "You're alive! You're not a Hollow! And since when were you so-?"
"If I had acted with more confidence in the past, my brother might not have been turned into a monster," Hollow Saphira growled, her teeth bared ominously. "I won't let my preferences for peaceful resolutions stand in the way of protecting him from getting hurt anymore, even from you. So start talking." While she was speaking, I had backed up to stand next to the two of them while keeping my bow trained on Yuuki and Philia.
"Strea knows the whole thing better than I do," Sinon said as she swallowed nervously. It has to be noted that even in the face of madmen like those in Laughing Coffin, my old partner had never once appeared afraid after I helped her come to terms with her past. So for her to be showing fear in the face of Saphira's anger was quite telling of the level of intimidation that the other girl possessed.
"All right then, you start talking," Hollow Saphira said to Strea, who was struggling to her feet, still a little disoriented from the sudden attack. "What makes you think that I'm the real Saphira?"
"For starters, you have all the memories of your life before SAO, not just bits and pieces," Strea coughed.
"Crimson and I both lived longer than most Hollow AI, which gave us time to recover the memories from our source's past," Saphira said grimly.
"Then why hasn't Asuna's Hollow remembered anything beyond the scarce memories she was born with?" Strea replied swiftly. "The memories might be there, but Crimson was only able to access them because Mataras was able to remind him of them, firsthand. You didn't have that."
"Then explain the absence of sufficient memories when I first came here," Saphira shot back. "I hardly knew who I was when I woke up in the Hollow Area. Also, you know… She died. I remember that part pretty clearly."
"The memory loss wouldn't make any sense, unless we had seen what happens when a person is exposed to a sufficient charge of microwaves from the NerveGear," Strea explained, causing both Saphira and I to exchange a wary glance. "To put it simply, despite the Cardinal System being designed to run the world of Sword Art Online without human assistance, it was made by humans, and thus it has flaws, however few, and however seemingly insignificant. You were saved by one such glitch."
"You're still pretty far off from making sense, and my arm is getting tired," Saphira said pointedly, re-gripping Sinon's armor to maintain her hold.
"The exact moment that your avatar perished, your Hollow Data was written, and that's what saved you," Strea said quickly, giving us both pause once again. "Normally the system makes Hollows of people that have been dead for some time in order to avoid a mistake like this. However, it seems that you, Saphira, were recognized by Cardinal as one of the most elite players in the game, and thus your data would be helpful in the testing grounds. As such, your Hollow Avatar was being created ahead of schedule, for lack of a better term, and upon the coinciding moments, your original avatar vanishing was merely treated as a system teleport; it moved your body from one place to another, instead of killing it."
Her words whirled around my head at a dizzying pace, making me feel as though I was experiencing vertigo. A system teleport…? I thought blearily, my bow lowering as my body swayed from side to side. Not…
"How do you know this?" Saphira asked stiffly, her voice snapping me out of my daze in time to see Yuuki and Philia trying to edge their way closer to me.
I curled my lip into a snarl and let off a shot that skated off the railing next to Philia, causing her to yelp. "Next one goes in your stomach," I warned her, silently cursing myself for allowing emotions to cloud my instincts in a situation like this one. Yuuki then made a show of putting away her sword and holding her hands above her head in a gesture of surrender while Philia backed up a few paces.
Meanwhile, Saphira repeated her question, jostling Sinon by the shirt to make a point. I had to hand it to her in that moment- either she was an amazing actress, or she was genuinely more terrifying than I was.
"When I realized that you were travelling with him, I decided to try and track you since I can tag any Hollow Player in the testing grounds," Strea explained as she held her abdomen. "When I couldn't find your ID, I started doing some digging into your player data to see if there was a mistake with your handle. Imagine my surprise when I read that your player data was still active, and further, that your actual Hollow Program was suspended due to a system error, and had never been fully executed."
There was a complete silence on the bridge for an uncounted number of seconds after that. Yuuki and Philia tensed up, as if expecting Saphira or me to explode at any moment. Strea remained perfectly still, save for her eyes, which flicked between Sinon and her captor, the archer hardly daring to even breathe as she was held up from her doom. Even Saphira and I were as statues, too many emotions and other feelings to count swirling within us at the speed of an angry tornado.
Eventually, Saphira pulled on Sinon's armor and brought her back onto the bridge, where she let her fall to her seat, panting with relief and exhaustion. Ignoring her, Saphira turned to me, looked me in the eye, and said, "I forgive you, Michael." I felt my breath catch in my throat, and my eyes stung as she walked toward me, continuing on to say, "Everything that you've done in my name… Everything that you did to try and bury your hurt… I forgive you."
"Heh… Ha…" I choked out, falling to my knees in front of her as I clutched at my head, which felt like it was going to tear into splinters as tears spilled from my eyes. Before I could even try to make an actual sound, I felt her kneel in front of me and embrace me, holding me close for the first time in over a year.
"I forgive you," she repeated. "You hear me? You're forgiven, Brother… You're free."
I held onto her and simply screamed. I screamed because of what I had done, because of what I would have done, and because of what I failed to do. I screamed, and I screamed, and I screamed some more. I unleashed all of my self-loathing, hatred of the world, cold despair, and crushing grief into that one, desperate noise that echoed across the Hollow Area.
Kirito: ...Did somebody get the licence plate on that semi that hit us? I'm gonna be feeling that for a week.
Asuna: Seriously...
Mataras: Sorry, what?
Asuna: Saphira is alive? Really?
Mataras: I know the reasoning behind it might seem kind of thin, but given what I've seen in the games and original source material, such a thing wouldn't be impossible. Improbable, of course, but not impossible.
Kirito: I think it'll be up to our readers to decide whether or not your reasoning is acceptable. Whatever the case, though, it's a done deal.
Asuna: It does seem weird, though. I mean, Victoria's death is more or less what made him the Red Swordsman in the first place. Without that, where does it leave him?
Mataras: You'll have to find out next time-
Asuna: Don't you dare.
Mataras: ...On New Year's Day, 2020.
Kirito: Huh. That's not so bad.
Mataras: The circle may be complete, but there's still so much more for us to do.
Asuna: Next time-Return