I forgot to make note of this on the last update, but I have a side project in the works, The Troubles of Jaymes and Kirito. Basically its the side stories of the first three games, Hollow Fragment, Lost Song, and Hollow Realization, the former two which I didn't write (but referenced Lost Song). The writings follow the games, so they're not part of this storyline, but they're something fun to write/read. Especially seeing how troublesome Yui can be, hehe.

But back to the story at hand. One mystery is about to end, but others, in the Underworld and Real World, are about to unfold...

Reind Lakeshore, Sothercrois Empire

"So this is the Southern Corridor," I say as we walk up the steps to the structure in the middle of the lake. I don't see how it connects to the End Mountains, so there must be subterranean pathways between here and the Dark Territory. Eh, too much to consider, not enough time to think about it. "What a giant gate."

"First time here," Alice asks.

"Yeah. I stuck close to human civilization all that time ago. Centoria's size now used to be the extent of human occupied territory, with villages just beginning to be settled."

"Well, we won't find the giants gawking at the gate," Eydis states. "We'll have to go inside and confirm Eldrie is safe. Medina too, as well. The Southern Corridor is a labyrinth to prevent invasions from the Dark Territory. We'll have to navigate those first...and hope nothing is between us and them. This is my first time here as well as Alice's."

"Careful and cautious, got it. We'll find the both of them."

"RRRRAAAAAAARRRRRRHHHHHH!"

"Giant," Eydis says as she removes her sword from a dead giant bat. "It must be fighting something or someone!" Alice and I grab our swords and follow Eydis through a hallway that ends in an open area. There is a giant here, so green you could call it a goblin. But what stops us in our tracks is the humans surrounding it.

"Don't back down! It's all of us against one! Surround it and beat it to a pulp!" Medina, along with her wayfarers, charge the giant. It swings its massive club, knocking one wayfarer out and causes the others to step back. Medina grunts as she regains her footing. "It won't be so easy, I guess."

"Never is it easy," I say as we show ourselves and walk down the steps to the battle.

"Jaymes? Alice? Eydis… This is MY target!"

Eydis rolls her eyes as she faces the giant. "Yeah, but you killed most of the monsters leading here. I'm getting bored."

"We can worry about that later. We're helping, whether you like it or not."

Medina sighs and faces the giant. "You are just like Kirito, but somehow more annoying." I take that as a compliment and join Medina and the wayfarers in battle. Powerful as the giant may be, it is nothing against our numbers. My experience in raids also proves helpful, so in just a few short minutes, Green Giant is no more.

With that matter resolved, I eye Medina and the wayfarers behind her. "If I may continue to be an annoyance, I bet you knew what I was talking about this morning."

"Even so... We would have won without your help."

"I have little doubt of it."

"I will not stand for this disrespect," Alice states. "We came in search of you out of genuine concern for your safety."

"Yet none of us are injured. We had the numerical advantage. We would have won."

"I see. So you refuse to admit any fault of your own."

"Alice." Alice looks to me, then drops the matter altogether and steps over to Eydis on the sidelines. Facing Medina again, I acknowledge her thoughts. "Yes, you are right, victory was assured. Numbers do matter...but Kirito and I once lived a life where numbers meant nothing against the power of a single enemy. I watch many fall around me despite those numbers. So call me annoying if you want, I will accept it, but do not be reckless. After all," I turn around, joining the Integrity Knights in delving deeper in the Southern Corridor, "I do care about you."

"...I didn't ask you too."

"Neither did he… Now are you coming? There are more giants and we could use your followers."

Eydis looks to Medina pleadingly. "Medina, our top priority right now should be the safety of the realm, not accolades."

"Fine. You win."

"What the hell?"

"So there were still more of them after all."

"Why are they attacking each other, though?"

Medina bumps her elbow against me, gaining my attention from the duel between two giants. "Look, around them." My eyes travel to the far side of the platform, where not one, not two, but six Clamps line the outer circumference of the platform.

"More Clamps?"

"And there's another one behind it, larger than any we've seen before."

"Something's wrapped in it too," Eydis notices. "It looks like a person."

"It's Eldrie!" Alice steps forward, almost as if she's about to run from our side of the room to the other, but stops before taking a step down. "We must free him!" At that moment, the larger of the giants, a red one, crushes the skull of his green brother with his club. Alice takes the lead towards the giant.

He takes notice of us and bares his fangs. "My name...is Ziczi… I am… THE STRONGEST IN THE WORLD!" Ziczi charges and Alice slides under his club, heading straight for Eldrie. Figuring I'll let her go, I take charge and harden my blade with the Metallic Element, blocking his club. I feel two light feet leap off my shoulders, Eydis' shadows slashing Ziczi's face. As the giant growls and holds its face, Medina and her wayfarers cut Ziczi's knees.

Ziczi, however, is not going down easy.

He swings his club, killing Eydis' clones and grabbing the real Eydis as they attempt to kill the giant. He throws her back to the stairs we came down. "Eydis! You three, go to her!" Medina directs the wayfarers to Eydis while I take the fight to Ziczi. Having played a support role against the Zacza, I cannot say Ziczi is more skilled than his younger brother, but if Alice and I are of similar skill, Ziczi is definitely the strongest. I can't find a hole in his offense or break his defense by myself.

Of course, once Medina joins in, the balance shifts in our favor, yet Ziczi is still a formidable opponent. While we manage to put him on the defensive, it is still unbreakable, even with his wounds and our arts. I guess we brought the berserker out of him. I guess the only thing now to do is use my Perfect Weapon Control. I leap back and extend my blade laterally. "The seven elements, hear my call--"

"Enhance Armament!" Eydis appears out of nowhere, breaks through Ziczi's defense, and just barely slashes him again in the face. Ziczi steps back, grunting at the wounds upon his ugly head.

"Me...and me alone… Lend me your strength, my brothers! You swore to me! That together we would show the world the giants' strength by defeating the lums!

"Ziczi," I call, "your brother are gone!"

"Lies! We vowed to fight together! Destroy our enemies together! And die together!"

I'm happy to oblige the latter. "Maybe that's how it was suppose to happen, but you killed your brothers. Look around you, giant!"

Ziczi looks around, and I can see the confusion set on his face. "How… My brothers… This cannot be… We are the strongest… Yet I… I killed them…"

"Jaymes," I hold a hand to Eydis' concerns. I know exactly what's going to happen, but he's too strong for us to beat conventionally. Maybe we could, but if I can collapse his Fluctlight, so be it.

"I am the strongest in the world… Did I…trULY KILL...my brOTHers? ImpossiBLE… I AM… STRongESt… I AM...stRONG… WOR...LDFL…"

"Jaymes!"

"Go ahead." Eydis brandishes her blade and impales Ziczi. The giant gasps and, as Eydis removes her sword, drops down on the grown. With the fight over, I step up to Ziczi as he takes his dying breaths. "Why did you kill your brothers, Ziczi?"

"Together, my brothers and I sought strength. To show our strength, I believed I had to show my own strength by subjugating them. Yes, that subjugation was the bond that kept us together."

I nod. "I understand showing strength to lead others. That's not unfamiliar to me. But your desire grew so strong it led to their deaths by your hands."

"So it seems… Please forgive me, my brothers. Indeed… We are the strongest in the world… I will join you soon, my brother."

As Ziczi becomes sacred energy, I stare around the shrine at the other Clamps, a bad feeling forming in my gut. "The giants weren't from the Dark Territory, but created from the Clamps like the magical beasts. Yet… Ziczi and Zacza both have souls."

"Is that bothering you," Eydis asks.

"Them having souls, no, but every beast we faced thus far...don't have one. Logically, if the Clamps can produce life with souls, why is it the ones here the only one doing so? Even more, Ziczi, Zacza, and all the other giants had memories that seem to stretch beyond the two weeks since we first found a Clamp."

"Given the Pontifex's involvement, the truth must be far beyond our imagination." I look at Eydis, wondering why she would speak of the Pontifex like that in front of Medina, but the Orthinanos noble is far back with her wayfarers. Eydis looks away from me and the decomposing body to the large plant structure behind Alice and a freed Eldrie. "I bet this is the stalk you theorized."

"Looks like it, it's the biggest Clamps we've seen. With it cut, Sothercrois should be Clamp-free soon."

"Mhm. Alice, how is Eldrie?"

"He's fine, besides being frozen. Thankfully the commander taught us how to unfreeze. Before I do that, here, Jaymes." Alice hands me a spiky red seed. "It came from the Clamp after I cut Eldrie free. Might be worth investigating."

I place it in my pocket. "I'll get Cardinal to check it, and bring her a small part of the tree for extra credit. For now, we wake Eldrie." I make my way to the remains of the tree, find a branch that looks viable, and make my way back down to the Integrity Knights. By that time, Eldrie is back on his feet, enjoying a reunion with Alice and Eydis.

"Well, now that that's out of the way, could you tell us what happened here?"

"Right. As you know, I was dispatched here to investigate a report we received."

"And then you found that giants had breached the End Mountains."

"Fortunately, it seems the Southern Corridor was not actually breached, but the giants were, unbelievably, created by the Clamps."

"We reached the same conclusion," I state. "So, what'd you do when you found them?"

"I engaged the giants in order to prevent them from exiting the Southern Corridor. My plan was to lead them deeper in, then collapse it and trap them. However, before I could, someone interrupted me."

"Who," Alice inquires.

"I don't know. They were wearing a riding hood and I couldn't see their face. Surrounded by giants, I did battle with the hooded intruder."

"How strong were they?"

"Their swordcraft was on par with and Integrity Knight. Additionally, there seemed to be an invisible barrier around them which deflected all of my attacks before they reached my mark."

"Some kind of Sacred Art or magic armor? An Incarnation, maybe."

"In any event, I grew quite weary from my battles, and at some point I passed out."

"That is probably when the Deep Freeze art was used on you."

Eldrie blinks twice in surprise. "Wait, Deep Freeze? I thought only the Pontifex and the prime senator could use that art?"

"I can think of one possibility."

"The unknown individual who was seen flying from Central Cathedral on a dragon," Eydis answers.

Alice nods. "So whoever stole the dragon is skilled enough in the arts to use Deep Freeze."

"Don't forget Eldrie was bound to the Clamp," I remind Alice. "That hasn't happened before to me or you, and we'ev been in close contact with the Clamps as the only two capable of cutting them."

"So the hooded rider is also capable of commanding Clamps, and had it bind Eldrie?"

"So we're up against someone who can use Deep Freeze and control Clamps." Eydis sighs and walks away from the group. "We got all this to report, and Jaymes owes me dinner. We should go."

I agree. "Yeah, being here is creeping me out and--hold on, what was that, Eydis?"

Upon our return to the capital, I let Alice and Eydis report to Bercouli while I report to Cardinal and gave her the branch and seed. Since she wasn't around the other day, I explained my theory about the Clamps and my newly dubbed Clamp Core. From analyzing the branch, it didn't take her long to confirm my theory, so we devised a plan to prioritize cutting Clamp Cores over Clamps Plants whenever we came across them.

Cardinal also manages to explain another phenomenon to me; Medina's "powers" are the result of a module being installed, and, to dumb down the explanantion, it functions similar to how NPCs could function in Sword Art: Origin (in which a player could recruit NPCs as party members) but that's exclusively betwen Medina and the Lost Children. The module requires a specific target, that being AIs with data (besides memories) from the real world implanted in them acting as NPCs. Despite Kirito and I being the only "players" no human in the Underworld is a true NPC, so the distinction between who Medina can bring under her control is quite clear to me.

After returning to the academy grounds from the Cathedral's hidden library, in place of Eydis I come across Medina who stands inside my tent. I guess Cardinal relayed her results to Medina and the others as she said she would on my walk back, but why is she here? "Um...hey?"

"Took you a while to come back."

"Are you scolding me for making you wait when I had no idea you were here?"

"May I ask something, then?"

She moved the topic along quite readily. Sighing, I turn towards the flaps of my tent and recite a command that freezes them in place like a closed door. And much like a closed door, it drowns out the sound of what's outside. I then take a seat on my bed. "Yeah, absolutely. Ask away."

"You've mentioned you came here from the same world as Kirito, but you never said why. Considering you've been here before, I can hardly even imagine what it's like traveling to an entirely different world, but I don't expect it would be an easy task, so why dd you do it?"

I shrug. "Well, this is not the first time I've travelled to other worlds. I've been to a world much like this one, and the future version of the same world, but it was a floating castle of 100 landmasses. There's a world where creatures called fairies dominate and fly like birds. There's this world of ruins and weapons called guns. And there are many others I haven't been to, but if I so wanted to go, it is possible. It's leaving the other worlds that's hard. But as for why I'm here...simply put, it's to save Kirito."

"To save Kirito… Wait. Is that really ALL it took for you to go to another world?"

"You may think it's stupid, but...the reason he was here the last two years is because of me. Something happened in my world that I...feel partially responsible for, and it's only gotten worse. I have no involvement with his current state, but I am the only one who can help him right now, if that's possible. If it was the other way around...and it has been...he'd come for me."

"But still, you must have deliberated on the decision for quite some time?"

She has a point. "Well, Kirito's state was not the reason I didn't think much about it. Let's just say the complication that caused Kirito to enter his current state is the reason I'm here. There's something else I have to protect until… But once I heard Kirito was affected, it became my priority over my other goal. It's not just for my benefit I have to bring him back. It's kinda like you with your family name. You didn't waste a second going into the Southern Corridor believing it would help put your name in good standing."

Medina hides her face behind her hair. "You didn't have to bring that up… But don't you miss your world. You've been here half a month, surely you want to go back?"

"Time operates differently here. I bet it hasn't been more than a couple of minutes in the Real World. So I haven't missed too much, if anything. Plus… I'm enjoying it. This is the first time in four years of my time that I'm here without anyone I know from my world, so it is a new experience. Of course, that comes with...new troubles, so I have to do what I can to make this fun."

"Do what you can, you say…" Medina looks to the floor, her brow lowered. "There are things I know I should do as well. But sometimes, I'm unsure of what I can do to lend a hand. I feel like you always do the right things without so much as a second thought. Whether in battle or day-to-day life, you're always doing the right thing. I need to push myself harder if I ever hope to be like that."

"I'm far from the good person you envision. I've done things to hurt others, either knowingly or not. I do so believe it is the right thing, but who knows what the right thing is? That's what I learned while being trapped for two years, one person's right is another's wrong. And we're going to come across many versions of right and wrong before this is over. The giants, believing they were stronger individually or as a unit, which is right or wrong? The wayfarers and you… Who knows."

"...Sorry," Medina apologizes as she stands up. "I didn't mean to bring the mood down."

I wave it off. "No worries. I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to talk to me about it. As...downing the conversation turned, I did enjoy the conversation."

Medina nods and sits back down. "I… I did as well. You're much...easier to talk to than he is."

"So I've heard. But don't be fooled by the air of righteousness around Kirito, he has a similar past to me. We just grew from it differently."

"Righteousness, you call it? I find that annoying… There's something I want to tell you. I've asked you to help me, but I feel like I'm asking you without giving you any details. Why I must restore the Orthinanos name. It's...for my father."

"Your father, huh?" I sigh in empathy. "Fathers really do put their dreams on their children, huh?"

Medina half-smiles back. "I guess so… My father was a good man. He taught me everything I know. He always told me that as long as my heart was strong and just, I'd have nothing to be ashamed of. But as I grew older… You know of my family's current standing since the fifth head, as I am told. I hate being belittled by others for being born an Orthinanos, so I blamed him for it. Then...the last time I spoke to him, I cursed our name. From that day forward, I never did it again. My sword is his sword. I swore to one day become an Integrity Knight and clear our name, but now, if I can save the realm, that should be enough for the Pontifex to give my family back its honor… Several times, I thought I'd never come within an inch of my dream. Last year, during my first year here at the academy… That bastard I was engaged to really pushed me to the end, and for better or worse, Kirito and Eugeo helped me through it all. Because of them I am here now, and now I can redeem House Orthinanos." Medina looks over to me, and I take notice of her messy hair, with part of it covering her right eye completely. It's different from what I'm used to, but it looks...cute.

I clear my throat and mind. "Not many people know this, but… I used to hate my family's name too. I had the polar opposite upbringing, but with it comes the responsibility. I hated it so much having to be a certain way because of it. I hated being treated so high and mighty by most of my peers. Then the one true friend had left, so I was alone, and to sit on a throne alone is not as comfy as it may seem. Then I moved to my father's homeland, unfamiliar to me, but there, my family name held more weight, and with it, the crown became heavier. Then...came the first world I traveled to, and I was equal to everyone around me for the first time. I was no one, and I loved it. Not much longer after, I was not alone. I rescued a girl from some monsters, and in turn got rescued by that heroic jackass. Those two years we were trapped in that world, we made other friends, occasionally went on different paths, but would always reunite whether by chance or arrangement. Not all of us made it out, The girl didn't, but most of our friends did, including the ones dear to me. When I returned to my world...all I wanted to do was honor my family's name. Even now, that's one of my goals."

"The nobility must disgust you, then?"

"So far, you, Sortiliena, Ronie, and Tiese are the only ones I can stand. The rest can go fuck themselves… Alice sometimes as well. I thought Kirito was too righteous, but seems there's someone even more so." I stand and wink at Medina, undoing the spell on the flaps of the tent. "That stays between us, Eydis will castrate me if she hears about it."

Medina nods. "That would be unfortunate, for you, that is. Too bad, though."

"What do you…" I pause mid-sentence as I walk outside my tent and come face to face with the Integrity Knight we speak of, along with Alice, Sortiliena, Ronie, and Tiese. I am confident they could not hear what was going on inside, but I am certain she heard the last thing I said after undoing the spell, and that makes me nervous. "Hey, girls, how are you all?"

"What did you do that I might castrate you for?"

I rather not lose my virtual valuables, so on the grace of an earlier memory, I grab Eydis' arm and head for the exit of the academy grounds nearby. "You know what, are you hungry? C'mon, let's go eat, all of us! Let's celebrate all that hard work we did!"

The Ocean Turtle, 5 minutes after Jaymes entered the Underworld.

There are boarders on the Ocean Turtle, Kirito lost his sense of "self", and Jaymes has re-entered the Underworld earlier than expected. In the last half-hour, everything has gone in the opposite direction Kikuoka intended.

Yet not all hope for the success of the project is lost. Jaymes may have made contact with Alice and Kirito, probably searching for a solution to the latter problem. Extraction of Alice is impossible for now, until the Eastern Gate falls. Hopefully, by then, the boarders haven't figured out how to get in the Underworld.

If Jaymes cannot figure out how to help Kirito regain himself, he knows Asuna will be the next best bet. But that will have to wait until Jaymes makes his report on the situation. Then, when Asuna arrives, depending on how long the pre-dive diagnostics take, she might make it until close to the Final Load Test...and she won't go alone.

Taking out his phone, he sends a message to the team at the Rath Roppongi Branch. "Prepare Subject Lunaria for full-dive on my command..."