2
Eiji & YUNA
Tokyo: 13:02
Hot summer air blows through as couple's laugh on walks down the sidewalks in the shopping district downtown. I watch families stop inside pastry shops and boutiques. So much chatter, even over the rumbling engines in the streets or the squeals of the rails in Shibuya. The atmosphere of smiles, sunlight, and laughter breathe life here, but so much of it feels—detached. I've never experienced the family atmosphere—the one thing everyone agrees on is staying hands-off with me, and I'm not sure I'd call today a couple's outing either. I can feel the sagging weight behind my eyes with a yawn coming on. Caffeine is calling. I continue people watching as I cross by stopped traffic, and I notice very other person wearing Dr. Shigemura's augmented reality headset, the Augma. If they knew-
"Eiiiiiji."
I follow that wandering voice in my head. On my left: Yuna's AR avatar, white-hair in twin braids, searching ruby eyes, and wearing a white top and single-buttoned black overalls. Her new ability to change outfits helps her blend in with reality almost too well. If I weren't the only one that could see her through my Augma, anyone would mistake her for a real pedestrian. She's blurred that line for a while now—not being physically here, but I'm not sure I can call her just an A.I. either—
"Eiiiiji." Her digital avatar tugs on my jacket sleeve in AR. I can't tell if she wants the attention or doesn't want to watch me get lost in my head. "Where are we going?" She asks.
"Just to grab some coffee, Yuna." The café shouldn't be too much further, just another block and a crosswalk.
"In the middle of the day?" She probes.
"You might not get tired, but we stayed up really late farming for gear upgrades in ALO last night." Just thinking about it makes me yawn. I'd like to blame some of my rabbit-hole thoughts today on sleep-deprivation.
"It wouldn't have taken so long if you hadn't tried to go it alone." Yuna pouts. Her red eyes shimmer in the sunlight when she gets riled up.
"What do you mean? I had you." I shrug. Her language capabilities are getting more complex too. She almost feels like—
"You know that's not what I mean, Naut." She plops her hands on her hip and leans into my space. None of the pedestrians by me would understand my sudden jerk back as I stop in the middle of the street. Footsteps and bodies move around me.
Naut, short for Nautilus, my SAO name, old memories of Yuna when she was alive, of our time together in SAO. Sometimes they resurface in phrases this Yuna says, or full-on nostalgic trips, like she's the same. Even her determined gaze meeting my eyes reminds me of the way she would—the intent is exactly the same as if she's lingering behind this avatar, still here. Those SAO memories her A.I. has are real; they fused with the programming after the Ordinal Scale incident, but—is it fair to say they're the same person still? Who is the real Yuna?
"Eiiiiiji." The A.I. in her again.
"Hmm?" I keep walking forward before stopping in front of a crosswalk and the flashing red stop.
"You're doing it again." She means thinking too loudly.
"Sorry, Yuna." I stare at the stoplight. I can't look at her when I'm confused like this; I don't want to confuse her either.
"When are you going to reach out to Kirito and the others?" She says as her face pushes into my periphery. She'll never let me bullshit out of a talk. She continues: "You really should drop in on them and say hi someday, ya know, be friendly?"
That's—complicated. True, Kirito, SAO's Black Swordsman, did help me save the Yuna standing here now, and he probably knows I came to help his side against PoH in the Underworld, but should I reach out? If I'd had my way, every SAO survivor, he and his friends included, could've died. I didn't know the extent of Dr. Shigemura's plans, but I helped. One good act couldn't possibly put me in their graces. The crosswalk light flicks green. Yuna and I move through the walking crowd. A small rose-colored café wedged between boutiques is up ahead.
"You might be overestimating my relationship with them." I sigh.
"Naut!" Yuna groans. The change startles me again.
"Sorry," I chuckle instinctively. Lost in my head as always. I reach for the handle to the glass entrance door when another hand beats me to it. I look to my left past Yuna. A man dressed in suit and tie adjusts his clear-rimmed glasses. He nervously chuckles and pulls the door open.
"Sorry, sorry! After you?" He smiles.
"Uh, right, thank you." I step in. Yuna's avatar vanishes in front of the door in blue-pixel light then appears inside the café with another flash. She swings her legs back and forth while sitting at the edge of a table. The café walls look freshly painted in the same rose color as outside. I walk past Yuna and up to the marble counter up front to order. A barista comes around from the back and posts behind the register.
"Hello! What can I get you?" She smiles.
"I'll have—"
"A regular coffee with a cream and a sugar, and a chocolate mousse for me, please." The clear-rimmed glasses man speaks up behind me. "It'll be on me." He steps up to the counter and draws yen from his wallet. I won't object to a free drink.
"I hope you don't mind, you just seemed like the type to stick to a safe bet." He says.
Our booth against the window overlooks the street view and pedestrian traffic. I let the man who bought the coffee join Yuna and I. It's being chivalrous; I'm just not any good at small talk with strangers. Yuna brightly smiles at me as I take a hot sip of the fresh brew, both of them warm up my mood. She's probably thinking I made a friend. If I did, I wouldn't pick someone so much—older. The man rolls over his slice of cake with a fork. As he scoops in a bite, he leans over the table, and the sunlight glares across his glasses to hide his eyes.
"It's easier to have a good conversation with a satisfied pallet, so I'll get right to the point, Eiji." The man adjusts his glasses as I tense up under the table. He knows my name.
"Is Yuna still with you?" The man asks simply.
I shoot up from the booth as the coffee mug chinks and rattles on the table. The café stays silent. It's just us and the barista here, so no onlookers. Was this planned? A trap for Yuna? How does he know? "Who are you?"
"Officially," The man frowns. "I'm no one, not anymore, but you'd probably know me as the former head of the SAO incident task force, Seijirou Kikuoka."
I stay on my toes. Yuna gazes up at me with a frown; I'm not sure she's fully gauged the potential danger we're in. "What do you want with me, or with Yuna? What do you know? Did Kirito tell you?!"
Kikuoka calmly puts down his fork. He reaches for a napkin on the table and wipes the corners of his lips with an ambiguous smile. "No. The debriefs after what happened in the Underworld gave me some interesting suspicions, how the two of you were sighted defending Kirito's comatose body from PoH himself, and you yourself just confirmed it."
Kikuoka takes a moment to read me. Now I can see his black eyes behind the glasses, analytical, unknown. He shifts his body language by taking in another piece of cake. "I promise you're not in any danger, but I do need to talk about something important with you. To be frank, I need your help."
"Why should I help you?" I ask, holding my breath at his mercy. This all feels too much like when Shigemura roped me into using Ordinal Scale to revive Yuuna.
Kikuoka reaches inside his suit pocket and pulls out a small black book with the white imprint of the castle Aincrad as a silhouette for the cover. "I believe you're familiar with this book?" Kikuoka slides across the SAO incident, a published account from survivors of the death game. "There may now be a dedication to survivors like yourself and the fallen like Yuuna, but there's still so much more that's missing from it." Kikuoka adjusts his glasses. "For example, the truth: That although Akahiko Kayaba fried his own brain with the NerveGear at the close of the game, his consciousness still exists, and, that it's now running freely across the net. I should know. He saved everyone on the Ocean Turtle during the Underworld incident."
Of course the Commander dodged death. If anyone could, it'd be him. I grit my jaw, but with Yuna watching, with her concerned furrowed brow, I let it go. I'm trying to move on from SAO; it's taken enough.
"Forget it. I'm not interested in a digital ghost hunt." I grab my mug off the table and gulp down the bitterness. I slam it down. "Go ask Kiriguya for help. I'm sure he'd be eager to play hero."
"Unfortunately, he's indisposed at the moment." Kikuoka reflects out the window. His body language says I'm free to go. I start for the exit.
"What if finding Kayaba could help resolve your dissociation within Yuna?" Kikuoka calls out across the empty café.
I pause by the door. He read me. I clinch the exit doorway handle. Just walk away, do it! Leave! I twist around. "What do you mean?"
"She is listening too, isn't she?" Kikuoka keeps his eyes on the window. He hasn't shifted.
"There's no dissociation. That Yuuna is gone." I try to close the topic with a lie.
"Then why keep what remains of her?" Kikuoka calls my bluff. Yuna's avatar watches me from the other side of the door, waiting out on the street. People phase and walk through her digital form, flickering in blue pixels.
"You want answers, don't you? What's real, what's not? I'm sure you'd get the closure to move forward at least on her dilemma. Who better to ask than the man who now shares her same source-code?" Kikuoka's voice rattles deep. Outside I see Yuna's brilliant red eyes, watching me with wonder and then a warm smile. It's both hers, and a distant memory's.
"There's more." Kikuoka sighs.
"More?"
"Yes," Kikuoka motions for me to come back to the booth. I indulge. Yuna suddenly appears at the other end of the booth. I slide in beside her and take her hand under the table. What's coming next?
"We now also know that there's a 3rd party, someone besides us, hunting for Kayaba as well." Kikuoka leans on the table again, facing his full attention towards me. "If someone wanted to use an A.I. to track Kayaba's digital signature to either capture or kill him, where do you think the easiest place to go would be?"
I freeze. This is why he's here. The Commander would be diligent to cover his tracks. The only way to spot him and his activity across the SEED Nexus or the net would be to have intimate knowledge of his source code, SAO source code with enough complexity to process human conscious levels of thought–Yuna. Someone with the intent would dissect her.
"Is that a threat?" I grip the hand of Yuna's avatar, tight. For the first time her avatar produces fear behind her red eyes, beading between me and Kikuoka.
"It's the reality of your situation. Which is why, at least with us, you wouldn't have to protect her alone. We'd even allow you to hold on to her data personally." Kikuoka bows his head to us. "We're not asking you to surrender her to us; we're asking the two of you to work with us."
"Who is we?"
Kikuoka lifts his head and waives a finger towards the counter. The barista from earlier comes to our booth.
"I'll take that other order please, today's special." Kikuoka remarks.
I watch the barista bow to Kikuoka and return to behind the counter. She kneels below then lifts a suitcase over it.
He planned out this entire encounter.
The barista tows the suitcase to our booth, presents it, and lays it on the table. Kikuoka smirks as he unlatches the suitcase, and, inside, reveals a diamond-shaped processing chip, glowing bright red in circuit lines. An exo-suit, just like the one Dr. Shigemura built to enhance my physical abilities.
"Interested?" Kikuoka smiles.
I'm looking up to the steel bedframe of our bunks in the barracks. It's a rare hour to lounge between cleaning, physical training, and catching shit from CI's. Dad should be calling from his trip in Tokyo soon. Synching the time zone difference has been a bitch.
A buzz on my bedspread. I pick up asap and hold the phone camera up to my face to chat. His freckled brown skin and warm bearded-smile appear on my phone screen. He twisted one of the curls of his hair before he realized I picked up, but stayed composed.
"What's up, pops?" I asked.
"Ugh, you know how these suits be. All talk about nothing and everything at the same time. Do yourself a favor, son, never jump into politics."
"You got the perks though, right?"
"You already know it." Dad flipped the phone camera. Sitting on the hotel room sofa: two NerveGear helmets. "These are ours."
"Shoot, if you get paid in exclusive VR gear for talking and traveling, I'll take on your ambassador role for a few as long as you can clean my barracks."
"Those days are weeeeell behind me, and It's not all glam being away from home." My dad sighs. "I'm sure your mother's missing her boys right about now."
"When you heading back?"
"I should be on the first flight out tomorrow. We're squared away here, so until then-"
"Nah-uh! You better not be getting online before me! I'm the one who needs the escape here."
"Relaaaax. I'm going to ship yours, and then I'm going to hop on. I need my escape too."
"You're just tryna get that early XP; Ima let mom know that you're gaming while she's holding it down at home."
We laughed.
Mylo
Tokyo: 14:45
"Don't!" I lunge out of bed with a throbbing headache, dizzying. The room tumbles and spins after my stomach. Deep breaths. Breathe. I rub my temples to get a bearing of the room. Focus. Five things: Kanji characters over the sliding doorway, ocean-painted covers in my hands, incense holder on the corner dresser; breathe, the pulse is dropping-two more things: Glossy Oak bookshelf, the banzai beside the bed. Good. Good. Now there's just the ringing from last night, but it's peripheral. Placing a hand over my heart to feel it slow down—yeah, that helps. My last panic attack was dad's funeral; last night triggered something new.
A knock on the sliding door. I see Ari-sensei's silhouette behind it.
"Come in."
Ari walks in wearing a black turtleneck, slacks, and a well-fitted blazer. His sandy hair is slicked back, and he adjusts his horn-rimmed professor glasses. Truly more distinguished than my nappy bed head. Bun. I grab a hair tie and bun my hair twists in the back—to look presentable.
"You slept-in pretty hard." Ari leans against the doorway. "Even through your morning classes."
"Last night was a lot physically." I sit up-right, but even then, I feel burning stiffness from my right thigh all the way up to my shoulder. Ari crosses the room and kneels beside me.
"Here, let me see." He checks my arm first. Ignited red undertones in my brown skin, purple discoloration, intense bruising. Ari scoffs at the sight. He grips my shoulder blade. "Rotate."
I twist my upper arm in a circle. Some stiffness and pops, but no grinding. He lets go, and I cross my arm over my chest, then swing behind my back.
"Sheesh, good news, looks like it's just heavy bruising." Ari stands back up. "And don't get me wrong, I like you, but you can pull your own pants down to check your leg later, right?"
"Really, sensei?"
Ari chuckles. "Can you stand up ok?"
I lean on my left side—too much weight on my right thigh might be too much. Straightening my right side has a delay, but once I'm standing, the pain's bearable, just throbbing. I nod to Ari-sensei.
"Good. Are you planning on skipping my class today too by the way?"
"Actually, I was thinking about visiting mom today."
Ari looks down and nods. "Yeah, I think she'd like that."
Mylo
Tokyo: 15:10
I inch downstairs. In the living room, Arimoto-sensei sits at a modern dinner table, square and hardwood with three seats around it. He jots down notes on a pad in one hand while reading Julius Caesar in the other. He must be reviewing for today's lesson plan or pleasure-reading—although, for him they're the same.
"Good Morning, Mylo!" Julia's cheery voice calls as she peruses around the kitchen surrounded by greenery and open sunlight across the living room from the windows. She ties her jet-black hair in a ponytail and ties a purple apron around a pregnant belly. She methodically chops veggies on the block. The knocking rebounds through the kitchen—I fight back remembering the door knock from last night.
"Can you check the pot for me?" Julia asks, brown eyes bearing over the chopping block. Onion scents perforate. Miso soup? I step into the kitchen behind Julia and lift the pot top. Savory spices waft through my soul, mellow, warm; my stomach roars. This'll heal everything.
"Don't let the water from the broth evaporate!" Julia looks over her shoulder.
"Sorry!" I wave a hand as I slowly put the lid back down. "It looks great!"
"Good! I've already strung and boiled the noodles, so if you could set a few bowls on the kitchen counter and we should be ready." Julia smiles. "I figured you boys would be hungry after last night. I heard you both jumped out a window."
I reach for a top cupboard and pull out three bowls best for Ramen. "Arimoto-sensei just dropped; I jumped after dodging a couple shots."
"It was still hard on the knees though, ya know? I'm only getting older" Ari groans without looking up from his book.
You're, like, 30 man.
"Kind of you to let him go first." Julia sets the knife down. She reaches for a bowl and settles a bundle of noodles inside. She grabs the ladle and pours the soup on next; the drip, the explosion of spices in the air, oh man, the Japanese know how it's done. She finishes by adding the onion and a garnish before handing me the bowl. "Please pass that to my husband first."
"Yes ma'am."
I saunter over to the table and lay the bowl in front of Ari-sensei, nose burrowed in his book.
"You're welcome," I whisper.
Ari-sensei raises a thumbs up to Julia. "Thanks honey!"
"No problem." Julia comes around with the last two bowls. She nods at me to take a seat.
"Thank you." I have a seat at the table. "Speaking of last night—Arimoto-sensei, something's been bothering me."
Ari-sensei finally lowers his book. "Hmm?"
"I mean, Sanji, even though Kikuoka said he had information, he seemed pretty low on the ladder, right? I'm sure whatever intel he had was pretty inconsequential to whatever their goal is."
"You're wondering why someone would risk exposure to silence him, is that it?" Julia says as she casually stirs her noodles in the broth and blows at the hot steam in her scoop.
"Yes ma'am." I nod. "I mean, why bother going after Sanji alone?"
"Those shots were meant for us, not necessarily the kid." Ari-sensei mulls over his ramen bowl. "Someone knew we'd be there, that we're on Kayaba's trail."
But how? "A leak of intel?" I ask.
"Kikuoka-dono wouldn't allow it." Ari-sensei leans back in his chair and sighs.
"I think you put too much faith in that man," Julia pouts. "When we all worked together at the ministry after the JSDF, he'd take all kinds of gambles and backroom deals to accomplish a goal. There's no reason he wouldn't now at your expense if it was for the greater good, in his mind anyway."
"I know you're right, but I need to be able to trust my comrades in a situation like this." Ari-sensei stares directly at me. "If we start doubting each other now, everything falls apart, and with a new body count starting, that's not an option. Besides, Kikuoka isn't with the ministry anymore. He doesn't have those resources; he needs us."
Julia slurps up noodles. "He's shtill nawt inbited tew the baby schower."
Ari sighs in acceptance.
"What do we do now then?" I ask.
"Trust our partner." Ari crosses his arms. "You brought up some good points last night. If I were Kikuoka, I'd be finding ways to expand our limited resources, not just to raise our chance of success, but to keep this little team safe." At that, Ari reaches over and rubs Julia's belly. "Ooo! Mylo! Come feel her! Quick!"
"Huh?"
"She's kicking!" Ari glows.
"Honestly." Julia sighs with a smile.
Watching them, that warmth, I wonder how long ago my family looked the same.
Mylo
Tokyo: 15:50
A hummingbird darts between lavender flowers. It's unpredictable: a shimmering olive blur of wings and then, fixated and feeding on another white bud with gentle precision. It's the most precious memory from my mother and I's garden, watching the bird dance. It's a snapshot of my youth and the beauty of what her heart and hands could make. I see her veined brown hands rested on the glass table between us now, all under the shadows of an awning, in the open space of our backyard. Her brown eyes fix on her lap, freckles over her nose hiding, hiding the freckles she passed on to me. Spring warmth breezes between us and the wind chimes overhead. A soft chime. Curls from her fro twitch in the wind, and, when she looks up at me for the first time, there's a shade in her eyes, a specter of herself.
"How are you hun?" She cups my hands in her frail ones. The warmth still feels real.
"I'm doing all right ma. Had a busy night."
She exaggerates her frown because she's fighting back a smile. She can never stop glowing, even out of the sun. "Well, you look tired. When's the last time you got to meditate?"
"Been a minute."
"C'mon." She frees up a hand, asking for mine. "Take my hand."
I do. I know her mantra.
"First, close your eyes. Now, listen to all the sounds around you without focusing on any one sound."
The wind, the swaying shrubs and trees sounding like an ocean, the chiming, my heartbeat.
"Good, now, can you feel your arms, your fingers, your toes? Can you feel your butt up against the chair?"
We snicker like children, but I know what she means. I'm aware, aware of the weight my body carries in each individual part, the muscles, the pulse through each.
"Now, are you present?"
I open my eyes. Hers glow again; the veil's lifted from them. Heat spreads under my cheeks. Tears come next. "Hey, mom."
"I missed you." She smiles. We hug.
"I'm sorry. My new job's just been keeping me busy lately." I wipe the tears away.
"I do wish I'd get to see you more, but it's ok. I know you're doing something important." She nods to herself.
"I'm working hard so I can get you out of here ma."
"I know, I know. I just don't want my baby thinking he has to take on everything himself." She pinches my cheek like I'm four, but I miss it, the warmth in her hands; I let her hold on. I even cup my own around hers.
"I'm trying not to." My smile fades as fast as I felt it. What's coming next—
"You speak with your dad?" She lets go and leans back in her chair. The glass table rattles with that. The shade captures her brown eyes again, fixing on the bush of lavender in the sun.
"I—" I choke, holding in my wringing chest and then more tears. Maybe she won't remember seeing me like this, but— "I will, ma."
Frozen, she watches the hummingbird, looped in this virtual reality. She turns back to me and cups my hands in hers. "How are you hun?"
Mylo
Tokyo: 16:00
The sanitized white walls of the hospital room close in as halogen light bulbs buzz overhead. Back in Yokohama North General Hospital, out of Mom's personal VR space. I gaze at the next bed over. She rests in a hospital gown with steady vitals on the monitors around her, and over her eyes and covering her head, the medicuboid headset, connected to a wide array of wires plugged into the massive computer behind and looming over her.
"How'd it go?"
I follow the voice. Dr. Kurahashi smiles as he adjusts his oval glasses and stuffs his hands into his white coat.
"Same as last week." I sigh. "There are moments though." Moments where her eyes look clear, like she's truly behind them, not lost and forgetting from her past trauma.
Kurahashi grips his chin. "It's hard to determine what the right stimulus might be to induce reconnecting old pathways and inspire neuron growth, but the fact that she is having moments of clarity is promising."
I nod to that optimism. Full-Dive technology works by sending sensory signals to the brain, in turn, creating the VR worlds gamers love. So, with the right stimulus from a machine as powerful as the medicuboid, and the right drug cocktail, maybe she'll finally wake up with her memories intact, maybe she'll come back to reality.
A text-bubble notification on my Augma flickers in the upper right corner of my periphery. I reach out to drag it and open:
Arimoto: New orders, meeting a new contact, 22:30, GGO.
I close the message and drag out of the hospital bed.
"I'll be going now, thank you for all your help Dr. Kurahashi." I bow.
"Of course." Kurahashi follows behind me.
Above the sliding exit door, I spot the bronze plaque, a dedication:
We hereby dedicate this machine to Konno Yuuki:
Zekken and Medical Pioneer
Dr. Kurahashi and I bow at the threshold, and then I turn. Mom's arms and legs look thinner than when Kikuoka transferred her here per our agreement. And seeing her plugged in—it reminds me of Dad. He never made it out of SAO. Mom fell apart after, in a different way from me.
We walk out of the patient room.
I won't let Kayaba collect more collateral.
I need to catch him.
Then, I can focus all of my energy here.