A/N: Please note that this follows the same format as the light novels. When the story is told from Kirito's POV it will be in first person. Everyone else will be written in third person. Thank you.

I stood there surrounded by rubble and destruction. After the battle that had raged through the early hours of the morning, the silence was almost deafening. The Administrator, Quinella, was gone and so was the clown. While it wasn't an outright win—I hadn't been successful in dealing a killing blow and she had almost escaped to the real world where her alleged human contact from Rath would do God only knew what with her—it was still a victory. Finally…

"It's over," I whispered to the empty air. I turned to my left to see what was left of the flaxen haired boy whom I had called my best friend for the last two years. With a shuddered sigh and a voice like that of a small child, his name involuntarily escaped my lips.

"Eugeo."

I stumbled over to where he was, vaguely aware that the black leather coat of Kirito, The Black Swordsman of Aincrad was dissipating into the black woolen tunic of Kirito, citizen and criminal of the Underworld. The pink and red stained ice created from the Blue Rose Sword shattered into nothing, leaving a bisected body and a pool of blood in its wake. As I reached him my knees buckled and without thought I summoned the luminous elements necessary to heal him. The glow from my hand was so faint I had to squint to see it, but I pressed on, determined to save someone after my failures of the last twenty-four hours.

"Please, work. Stop bleeding! Heal damn it, C'mon! You can't die! Eugeo!"

The more desperate I became, the less it seemed to work. The red liquid that represented Eugeo's life continued to poor from the split in his body. I could feel the panic rising and rational thought leaving me. My sacred arts priority level was definitely too low to deal with a wound like this. To fix this would require something stronger, something more absolute, something requiring a—

A hand laid itself over my wrist stopping not only my train of thought, but also the ineffectual healing arts I had just barely managed to produce. With a startled gasp I turned to look at the face of my friend. His eyes were glassy and obviously struggling to stay focused on my face. I hadn't realized that he was still conscious. He must have been in a world of pain, unless the shock had kicked in….Did shock even exist in this world? I mentally slapped myself for that thought. It was something to contemplate later. There were far more pressing matters at the moment. He opened his mouth, and with a stuttered intake of breath he started to speak.

"Stay cool…Kirito."

"…!"

I felt my eyes widen with the implication of that phrase; my words from that night slamming into me with the full force of a bullet train.

I know I told you that phrase is like saying "bye", but it's not something you say to someone going to bed.

Why not?

'Cause you don't. You use it when you're really saying good-bye to someone.

My denial quickly set in after that.

"Eugeo…let go. I'm trying to heal you."

He smiled at me with a sort of macabre amusement. It was a smile fully accepting of his fate.

"Don't bother. It's fine. Really. Leave it."

His every breath seemed to be a struggle. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes. This couldn't be happening. Not to Eugeo. Not to sweet, naive, gentle Eugeo who only wanted to rescue his childhood friend. I was the one who dragged him into this war with the integrity knights and Administrator. I was the one who made him want to be a hero. From the very beginning I was the one who preyed on his dream of wanting to be a swordsman. This was my fault and I had to fix it.

"What are you saying?! I'm not gonna let you die!"

"No. This is for the best," he said. He seemed to contemplate that for a moment, then said, "It has to be. Otherwise, you and I, we would have fought over Alice. Me, to get back the memory of the Alice I knew. And you, to save Alice the knight's soul."

I breathed in a slow gasp at that revelation. He wasn't wrong. While I had made that deal with her involving Selka when we were stranded on the side of the cathedral, I wasn't actually sure if I would have been able to go through with it. In the end it would have to be her choice. I knew that in a calmer, more logical time and place Eugeo would completely agree with my assessment. But this wasn't a calm or logical circumstance, and Eugeo needed a reason to keep going. To hang on and live to fight—or fight to live—another day. He needed a fire lit under him, so I threw his words back at him.

"Then get up and fight! I'm gonna heal you, then we'll fight. You're way stronger than me now. Do it! Do it for the old Alice's sake. Fight me."

The tears started to get the better of me in the end and the wind left my sails. So much for my attempted great call to action. That wouldn't have inspired even the most aggro heavy mob to attack. I was guessing that the wheezing sound that escaped his lips was supposed to be an exasperated sigh.

"I can't fight. With a broken sword. Besides, I was weak. And gave into Administrator. I tried to kill you. This is how I can pay for that sin."

That's what this was about?! That was his entire reasoning? He was willing to die over some perceived failure? My emotions exploded. "Like I care! You weren't in your right mind anyway! You fought back and snapped out of it like the badass you are! If it wasn't for you, we couldn't have beat Administrator. So you got nothing to feel guilty about! You got nothing to pay for!"

He became quiet for a moment, then, almost like a man at confession, he whispered, "I wish that were true….You know, I always wished that I could be more like you. You're so brave and everyone loves you….I bet Alice does, too."

I certainly hoped not. For the briefest second there was a flash in my mind of a beautiful strawberry blonde woman bent over at her waist laughing hysterically. My wife, Asuna, always seemed to find endless amusement in the unfortunate affections I forever seemed to receive from the female sex. I wondered how amused she would be if any of those girls ever actually decided to act on those feelings.

With what appeared to be a great feat of strength, Eugeo lifted the purple iridescent crystal containing an eleven year old Alice Zuberg's memories to my hand.

"Now I know love isn't something you get. It's something you give. Alice taught me that."

The world filled with light.

I no longer felt the hardness of the floor nor the pain of my severed arm. A gentle flow carried my soul somewhere distant. Even the terrible sadness engulfing my heart simply melted away in that warm light.

And then…

I looked up at the sunlight filtering itself through the leaves of the trees. There was a warm breeze causing the soft grass to sway to and fro, and for a moment I thought I was back in Aincrad with an irate Asuna about to ridicule me for not scouting the labyrinth with everyone else. That was until I heard the voice of a different girl next to me.

"Your hands are idle, Kirito."

I looked to my right to see a young Alice sitting cross-legged next to me. A wave of nostalgia hit me in my chest, but that was not unusual. During my two years trapped in the Underworld I had experienced something not unlike deja vu many times before. The only difference this time was the lack of frustration that usually came with it. The girl with the long braided cornsilk hair had a mischievous glint in her eye as she smiled at me. Then, she started to speak again.

"I don't see you working. Look!" She held up a sheath for a short sword. The fine brown leather had obviously been polished with some oil and a rag, and stitched into the surface was what looked like an elongated dog. It's supposed to be a dragon, my subconscious whispered to me. The tail wasn't finished and a sharp silver needle was hanging from the leftover length of sturdy looking white thread. "I'm almost done making my part of it. How far did you get?" She sounded so smug. Before I could ask her what was going on, my mouth opened seemingly all on its own and started speaking words I had not consciously thought.

"I'm way further along than you. The guard's all that's left." I held up my left hand which was gripping something and tapped at it with my right index finger. I looked to see what it was I was holding. I held in my hands a toy wooden sword carved from a branch of platinum oak. How I knew that, I wasn't entirely sure. And, as proclaimed, it seemed finished except for some detail work on the guard.

"Then let's stay here and keep working until we finish it."

"Hmm…But what if he comes looking? Let's go back."

The only 'he' I could think of would be Eugeo, so the sword must have been for him, then. That was when I remembered.

Eugeo. He was dying and he wanted to show me something.

A memory. He had said that the integrity knights were not the only ones to have their memories stolen.

Rath. They had lied to me only once, but it was an absolutely unforgivable lie. During my three day dive—which felt like an eternity ago—they had told me that the Fluctlight Acceleration (FLA) feature would be set at 3.3 to 1, or 10 days in total. At the end of the dive they had blocked all my memories in order to "protect company secrets".

But, by my estimation, it had to have been at least 300 times that. I had lived in this world for ten years. I had experienced an entire second childhood from infancy until age eleven. Eugeo and Alice were my best friends, and I had been in the square the day she was taken by the integrity knight. More than that, I was the one to convince those two the go into the cave that day. And Eugeo had been left all alone to carry the burden of those memories because Rath had pulled me out and blocked my memories as a means so that I wouldn't—couldn't—know any different.

Two years ago, when I had just woken up in this place, I saw a vision of that sunset at the bank of the river in the woods. When fighting against Eugeo, I had a sensation of kids sword fighting. And right now, with Eugeo on the brink of death, I was experiencing this scene about the platinum oak sword. These things weren't illusions. They were fragments of memories that had been deleted, things I had really experienced.

I let myself fall completely into the memory. Eugeo had wanted me to see it for a reason. I turned my attention back to Alice and watched as it had played out exactly as it had all those years ago.

"But we're almost finished! Let's stay. Just a little bit longer. Please?…"

Even with the 'please' tacked onto the end I knew I didn't really have a choice. There was a determined look in her eyes and I begrudgingly accepted that we would sit in this clearing all afternoon if that's what it took to finish the sword and matching scabbard. Little Alice Zuberg loved Eugeo more than anything in the world. Definitely more than me, and maybe even more than her little sister Selka.

"Hmm, okay, you win. But we should still hurry it up."

She enthusiastically nodded in agreement (with a squeaky hum to match) and we turned our attention back to our individual tasks. Not even twenty minutes later I removed the last sliver of wood from the groove I had created. However, Alice still managed to beat me with the stitching of the tail on her dog/dragon.

"All done!"

"So am I!"

We held out our handy work in front of us, proud of the accomplishment. There was no doubt in either of our minds that these were even finer than Eugeo's wooden toy sword that had broken a month ago. We were so distracted that we had failed to notice that the boy in question had actually joined our party.

"Wait….You've been here this whole time? What are you two doing?"

With a startled gasp I clutched the platinum oak sword to my chest.

"Um, nothing?"

Alice and I looked wide eyed at each other. Alice pursed her lips and grabbed the sword from my hands. I was reluctant to let it go and almost fell over when she finally wrestled it free from my grasp. She slid the sword into its sheath as she stood up, and with a large smile on her face she turned to face Eugeo.

"It's three days too early, but…Oh, well! Happy birthday, Eugeo!"

As she presented the sword to Eugeo, his face went slack in surprise. The young boy who so desperately wanted to be a heroic swordsman carefully reached out a small hand to run his fingers over the white stitching.

"Is…is that…for me?"

I pushed myself to my feet. "It's no match for the real thing—like your big brother's got." I slapped the dirt and grass off the back of my britches as I turned to face him. "Still, this one's better than any the shop in town carries!" I flashed him cheeky a smile while giving a big thumbs up with my left hand to emphasize my point.

Eugeo's eyes became misty as he reached out to take the sword from Alice. He held it reverently in his hands, almost as if he were afraid it would disappear. "It's wonderful! It…It's beautiful! I'll take good care of it. Thank you, both. I never got a birthday gift that made me so…so happy!"

The tears finally leaked out of the corner of his eyes and glided down his chubby pre-teen cheeks. Sure, we had put a lot of time and effort into it, but still….

"Hey! What are you crying for?!"

"I wasn't!"

Then, immediately contradicting his words, Eugeo brought up his left arm and started to furiously rub at his eyes—wiping away the traitorous tears.

"See?"

He smiled larger than I had ever seen before, or since. I felt my own lips begin to curl up before the world shimmered and became dark around the edges. We were no longer in the meadow, no longer in the memory. Instead, the three of us stood on a cobblestone road with a fork splitting it. I stood before one path and them the other. I felt panic rise within me and took a step forward, determined to follow after them. My best friends.

"Wait!"

But it was almost as if I had hit a wall. My limbs were no longer mine to command and I stood frozen, staring at them. Never before had I fully comprehended how difficult it must have been for Eugeo to overcome the Seal-of-the-Right-Eye. He must have felt so frustrated and useless in that square all those years ago. And he must have come to possess a will power rivaling that of my own in order to have saved Tiese and Ronye.

"The three of us grew up together and were the best of friends," Eugeo said.

Alice smiled and continued, "We're going different ways now, but our memories will live forever."

I closed my eyes and shook my head back and forth as I clenched my fists. I didn't want to believe what they were saying. When I opened my eyes Eugeo was his nineteen year old self again, and my eye line was noticeably higher as well. I looked down at myself and saw I was back in the wool tunic I had lifted from the armory on one of the lower floors of the cathedral. My gaze trailed back up to Eugeo and Alice as they clasped hands and took a small step backwards. Then, they opened their mouths and spoke as one.

"We'll be with you. Forever. You see? It's fine."

And with another flash of light—this one much harsher than the last—I was back on the hundredth floor touching Eugeo's right hand with my left. Somewhere in the back of my mind I registered that the pain caused by my missing right arm had returned, but the sorrow within my breast was gone. As Eugeo's hand, still clutching Alice Zuberg's memory crystal, fell away to the cold marble floor a new resolve was solidifying in my mind.

"You see? It's fine. So don't cry, Kirito," Eugeo brokenly whispered in a raspy voice.

As carefully as I could, I scooped up his torso and cradled his head under my chin. This inadvertently pushed his two halves back together causing a slight groan of pain to escape his lips. I barely heard it. My mind was moving far too quickly now. He only had minutes left, if that.

I whispered to him in return, "I won't. Like you said, a person is never really gone. His memories live on in other people. In their hearts and souls…forever."

"Forever and ever…"

He continued to say more, but it was drowned out by the two words bouncing around my head like the tiny silver balls in a pachinko machine.

I Refuse.

"Eugeo, I won't lie. What comes next is going to be harder than anything either of us have ever gone through…but with your memories intact now, I think you'll be able to handle it until I get back."

I pulled his head away just in time to see his now unfocused eyes widen in confusion. I knew that time was up. If I was going to do anything, then it had to be right now. I gingerly lowered Eugeo back to the floor and grabbed his right wrist once more.

"Kirito, what are you—"

"System Call: Transfer Human Unit Durability, Self to Right."

I ignored his choked gasp as he pitifully attempted to pull his arm away from me. But right now, I was the stronger of the two of us. Obviously, my Life wasn't at 100 percent, but there was enough left to save him. It wouldn't heal him completely and it was definitely going to kill me, but Alice could finish fixing him up when she re-awoke.

I had already started to consider this course of action before when normal healing arts clearly wouldn't be enough. To fix this would require something stronger, something more absolute, something requiring a true sacrifice. And if sacrificing all my Life would save Eugeo, then I would gladly do it.

A high pitched whir followed the echos of my voice. It swelled, and then a pillar of blue light surrounded the two of us. I remembered that day in the End Mountains when Selka had performed this same art to save a gutted Eugeo two years ago. And that night before graduation day at the sword craft academy when Charolette guided me on using the Life of the other flowers to regrow my own. The same shining blue light had appeared both of those times as well.

It felt like my body itself was melting into the light and flowing out of my hand causing a sort of numbing sensation. In fact, little motes of light were visibly passing from my body through my left arm and into Eugeo's hand. With blurred vision I recalled the enormity of what it meant for pain to be the payment in this world.

Pain, suffering, and sadness. Clearly, these things were unnecessary in a virtual world, but Rath's engineers were hoping to find a breakthrough by tormenting the residents' fluctlights. And my unexpected presence and salvation of Eugeo would be unwanted interference with their project. They could all go to Hell as far as I was concerned. Soul without a physical body or not, Eugeo was my friend. I would not let him die. Not like this.

As the life flowed out of me, a terrifying chill began to descend. My vision grew darker and darker, but I still tried desperately to keep track of Eugeo's condition. His two halves had rejoined and what was now just a wound across his stomach was slowly getting smaller, but it was no where close to being fully healed, not by a long shot. His complexion was still ashy. Even the bleeding was still ongoing. I kept going. I wasn't anywhere near being done, yet.

When I lost my life in this world, it wouldn't bother me a bit. As long as I saved Eugeo's life, I could withstand twice the amount of pain I had experienced earlier. I could tell very clearly, despite my fading senses, that the life was draining out of me. Soon Kirito would, once again, die and Kazuto Kirigaya would wake up on the other side in his place. And once that happened, I would expose Higa and Kikuoka to my seething, white hot rage. I could only hope that they wouldn't be able to block my memories again before that happened. After all, I came into this world without a blocked memory. Surely, I would leave without it blocked, too.

"Kirito, stop! If you keep going, you'll die!" Eugeo's voice was much stronger now. Good. That meant it was working.

"Trust me; it's fine," I barely managed to gasp out.

Was this death? A pretend death of the soul within the Underworld…or could the death of my soul kill my physical body, too? It was cold enough to make that idea plausible to me. Somewhere in the back of my mind there was a glimmer of a thought about a series of books from England about mages in a castle with ghost-like creatures that would suck out your soul. The thought ended there. Everything was numb now and it was getting harder to think.

I needed to focus. I couldn't lose my mind just yet. I forced my frozen lips apart. There were a final few things I needed to say before I disappeared completely.

-WoU-

Eugeo stared on in disbelief. The bleeding had stopped and he was able to mostly sit up on his own now. The pain had settled at a manageable level and his vision had returned. This, of course, allowed him a crystal clear view of his best friend and what was happening to him as a result.

Kirito was shining ever so slightly. At first, Eugeo thought that it was the blue light that was giving him that effect, but, with a start, he realized that the black haired boy had actually turned ever so slightly translucent. Eugeo once again tried to pull his arm away, but Kirito's grip remained impossibly firm. He had lost nearly all color now, except for his eyes. Those were now shining a strange gold.

"…Listen," Kirito's lips trembled as he pushed the word out. It was obvious to Eugeo that it was taking every ounce of strength he had left in order to speak. "It's going to be okay. You just have to trust me. I'm going to come back. I don't know exactly how long it will be before I do, but eventually I will. And, while I'm gone, there are a few things I need you to do."

Eugeo shook his head. He was the one who was supposed to die. Not Kirito. Kirito was going to save the world. He was going to be its hero. What was the world going to do without its hero?! All except for those unnerving golden eyes, Kirito had gone completely white. His lips were barely moving and as a result his voice was getting fainter, too. Eugeo strained to hear, not wanting to miss a single word.

"I can feel you shaking your head at me. Stop it. I need you to listen to me. While Alice and I were climbing the outside wall of the cathedral we made a deal. She wanted me to take her back to Rulid Village so that she could see Selka. What happens after that the two of you can work out for yourselves."

Selka?! The sudden manic nature of Eugeo's thoughts wouldn't allow for him to focus on any one thing for an extended length of time on account of the fact that his best friend was actually dying right in front of him, and he couldn't conjure up a single thing he could do to stop it. The ravenette was becoming more and more see-through by the second, and the blue light was fading now, as well.

Kirito continued, "The other thing I need you to do is look after my sword for me. I've been a disgraceful partner, always just calling it 'the black one' and never actually giving it a real name. After all, when I was fighting the integrity knight version of you, I made a promise that I would. So if you could do that for me, I would appreciate it."

Eugeo was fairly certain that Kirito would have smiled at the last bit if he could have, but he was nothing but faint bits of glowing golden specs of light now. The blue shine surrounding them before had completely faded away. Eugeo managed to sit up fully on his own. He ignored the pain and the woozy head rush that followed.

"And the last thing I need from you is this: don't mourn me. I know that it's hard to believe right now, but this is only temporary. I'll be back. I promise. Just try and stop me!" Kirito made a sound of triumph when he finished. He was gone. The sound of his ghostly laughter bounced off the marble walls of the empty hall, giving it a more eerie quality than a reassuring one.

Eugeo sat there, stunned. He was alive. His partner was not. He had never understood what deafening silence was before that moment. It was ringing in his ears. He looked around at the rubble and destruction that surrounded him. The battle before was long and hard, but the real fight was only just starting.

Then, Eugeo looked to his right. The only things left of his best friend—his brother—were the obsidian colored sword made of a cedar wood stronger than steel and a flouncy pink handkerchief, covered in some kind of black gunk, with an olive branch and the letter 'A' embroidered on the corner.