Chapter 9: Five Percent
The following afternoon Sachi returned to visit Kazuto in his private room. She had already been there that morning with Midori before going out on her mission to try to find Asuna. Suguha was at school and said she would return as soon as school let out.
Sachi knocked once and then quietly entered Kazuto's room. It was nearly 3 p.m. Midori had already left. Sachi looked tired.
Kazuto sat up. "Hey, did you find anything about Asuna like I asked?"
The petite girl sat wearily in the chair next to him. "Yes, I did."
"Well?"
"Hmm. Are you sure she was still in the game yesterday?"
"What? Of course. I told you yesterday that we died together on Floor 75, remember?"
"Uhm, yeah, about that..."
"Well, what did you find out? And why did you take so long?"
It was because the government had stopped publicly reporting on the number of remaining sleepers after the initial batch of 2000 had woken up two years ago. Earlier that morning Sachi had gone out to try to meet with Kikuoka but his assistant said he was unavailable. Sachi then left a message, saying that she was asking him to fulfill his debt to her. The assistant said that she would forward the message, and after an hour's delay Sachi finally received via e-mail a spreadsheet with the names and hospital locations of the players who had woken up.
She looked at her tablet. "I'm sorry, Kirito, but her name is not on the roster of the remaining players."
Kazuto sat up sharply. "What!? That's impossible."
"Kirito, I scanned the whole list several times, all 5848 names are on this spreadsheet on my tablet, including yours, see?" She showed her tablet to him. "Asuna is not listed. Are you sure you got the name right?"
"Yes! The name is Asuna Yuuki. And that list has 6149 names, not 5848."
"How do you know that?"
"Kayaba told me. He said 6147 players were logged out as soon as I cleared the game. Asuna and I then woke up about two minutes later. That makes 6149."
"Uh, no, it's 5848. I double-checked the list myself."
"Kayaba told me that 6147 other players logged out!"
"Well, he lied then. It's 5847."
"But why? He told me that everyone had logged out. Why would he lie about something like that?"
"Maybe he had a reason to mislead you?"
Kazuto was thinking hard. "No, he didn't. Kayaba was a creep but he always played fair. He wouldn't lie about something like that. Especially not to me."
Sachi asked, "Why not to you?"
"Because I was his favorite lab rat. No, something else must be going on..."
Sachi leaned forward in her chair. "Kirito, I'm sorry, but this is the whole list. These are all the players who woke up yesterday. Are you are saying that.." She did the math in her head. "... 95% of them woke up and 5% didn't?"
Sachi had a bad thought.
What if 5% of the helmets were defective? Oh no..
Kazuto's train of thought came to the same conclusion. He suddenly grabbed Sachi's wrist. "Tell me, has anything like this ever happened before? Did anyone who was confirmed killed in the game ever fail to wake up?"
Sachi frowned and looked down. "Hmm, let me think.."
Kazuto's eyes grew desperate.
His grip on her wrist tightened. "Please! Tell me!"
Sachi tried to pull her arm away. "Kirito, let go. You're hurting me."
He released his grip on her wrist. "Oh, sorry... Just please.."
She gently picked up his own hand and held it in her own. Her small hands were warm and soft. "Kirito, they all woke up. I've worked with hundreds of VRDP cases and talked with a dozen other case workers, and I know that they all woke up."
"All of them?"
"Well, in a few instances there was a short delay before they were noticed, but yeah, they all woke up."
He asked, "A few instances? Like 5%?"
"No, just a handful. In rare cases the VRDP response to the death trauma is so severe that it results in catatonia, which can be difficult to distinguish from the normal in-game dive state. The only indication is that the WAN LED stops blinking. With 6000 patients to watch it sometimes doesn't get noticed by the staff right away."
Sachi thought of Keita, who was still sitting listlessly on his porch every day watching nothing.
She kept trying to reassure Kazuto. "I really doubt that is the case here. When you died and cleared the game you woke up with zero symptoms, so I expect that Asuna should have no symptoms either."
"Then why have 5% not woken up?"
Sachi grew frustrated. "I don't know!" She tried to think. "The game never logged out so many people at once before. Maybe there is a backlog or something?"
Kazuto nodded. "Maybe. It could a temporary hiccup in the system with the logout process. Still, I'm worried about Asuna. Sachi, I know this is asking a lot, but can you please pull some more strings try to find out what happened?"
Sachi stood up. "I will. I'll contact Mr. Kikuoka again. He and I have a good relationship so I think that he would be more than happy to let me know what had happened to her. I haven't been able to reach him yet today, only his assistant."
Kazuto leaned back. "I bet it's because he's interrogating Kayaba right now."
Sachi looked thoughtful. "Hmm, you might be right." She knew of Kikuoka's Javert-like obsession with tracking down Kayaba.
Kazuto crossed him arms. "Good. He'll drag it out of him, by hook or by crook."
What Kazuto and Sachi did not know was that, after the three JSDF assault teams had tossed in the flash-bang grenades and had barged in to the mountain villa, that they had found that the villa was empty. A thick layer of dust was on the furniture and window sills and it was obvious that no one had been inside it for at least a year. The assault teams had then proceeded to methodically demolish the villa, tearing out the ceiling tiles, pulling out the wall plaster, and ripping up the floorboards, until eventually they found a small electronic box hidden within an outer wall in a second floor bedroom. A coaxial cable ran through the wall to the outside and went up along the side of the villa. The cable was painted the same color as the exterior making it invisible from a distance. The cable ran up the side of the villa to a small microwave dish that was carefully hidden under an eave that was not visible from either the ground or from the air and that was pointed towards another villa on an adjacent mountainside that had a similar microwave dish four kilometers away.
Kikuoka had then exploded with a stream of curses while the JSDF commander tried to reassure him, explaining that Kayaba was now on the run and that it was only a matter of time before they caught him.
Sachi stood up. "Let me check some more. I'll be back as soon as I find out something."
Kazuto nodded, "Thank you." Then he held her hand again. "Really, Sachi, thank you so much. You are such a life saver. I don't know how I can ever repay you for this."
She gently moved her own hands to wrap hers around his. She smiled, "Like I said, you already have."
Kirito, I have a plan for you.
She kept gazing into his eyes for several moments.
Eventually Kazuto cleared his throat, causing her to shift out of her reverie.
She blinked her eyes. Ugh, no daydreams! I need to focus!
She quickly made her apologizes and got up to leave.
Kazuto then looked down, lost in his own private thoughts.
As Sachi walked down the hall toward the main nursing station she began to think again of her plan for him. It looked like one step of her plan, Kirito's psychological VRDP rehabilitation, would not be necessary. Mentally he seemed to be just fine.
She was not particularly worried about Asuna. Sachi knew of Kirito's tendency to worry about his teammates. It was classic Kirito. No doubt he had promised to protect Asuna, just like the promise that he had made to herself, but he had failed to keep his promise, just like he had failed with her. Asuna died right in front of him like she herself did in the treasure room with the rest of the Moonlit Black Cats. After that terrible experience he had withdrawn from everyone and everything and became obsessed with reviving her, going so far as to engage in a mad solo quest to seek out a rare resurrection item just to try to bring her back.
No doubt this was the same thing. His concern for Asuna was to be expected. It was natural, really. Kirito's obsessive personality had caused him to latch on to her death, one that he blamed on himself, and so he felt that he had to see her alive again, to reassure himself that she was in fact okay. Sachi felt that his obsessiveness would cause him to become focused, laser-like, on the object of his failed promise until he was satisfied that she was safe and out of danger.
But was his teammate okay? The other SAO victims who had awakened on S-F Day seemed to be doing just fine, so Asuna was probably just fine too, right?
But where was she? And why was she not on the list of awakees?
Sachi spotted Nurse Aki standing at the counter of the nursing station. She was looking down at a monitor screen and frowning. Sachi ran up to her.
The tall nurse glanced up and smiled at Sachi's approach. "Oh, hello, Sachi. I was looking for you."
"You were?"
"Yes, we are transferring the remaining sleepers to a secure facility. We could use some help getting them loaded downstairs."
Sachi sighed. "So it's true then. Some of them didn't wake up..."
"Yes, we have fifteen cases so far. They weren't noticed right away because of all the commotion. I spotted the first one yesterday, a young boy who wasn't waking up. His WAN LED on his helmet was dark like all the rest. But then something strange happened."
"Which was?"
"I saw the WAN LED start to blink again, but more slowly. The boy remained unresponsive. I gave orders to search the remaining wards and the others were soon found. It looks like they are still somehow connected to the mainframe in some kind of semi-conscious dive state."
"But why?"
"Nobody knows. My guess is that bastard Kayaba has something to do with it."
Sachi recalled what Kirito had said, that Kayaba had told his favorite lab rat that all 6147 had indeed been released. She said quietly to herself, "I'm not so sure about that.." She made a mental note to inform Kikuoka. Then she looked up at Nurse Aki again. "Do you know where they are taking them?"
"No, the government won't say where."
"Why not?"
Aki looked a bit exasperated. "I think it must be political. Look how happy everybody is." She pointed at the throng of visitors and patients still milling about the hallway as the release process continued. "I think the government does not want to throw a wet blanket on all the happy celebrations."
Sachi understood. Then she pleaded, "Please, I need to know where they are going. I promise won't tell anyone."
Aki sighed, "Like I said I don't know. Why don't you go downstairs and help with the loading? Maybe you might find out something?"
Sachi's eyes brightened. "Good idea. Thank you!" Sachi ran to the elevator.
Later that day Kazuto was officially discharged from the facility into the care of Midori. Suguha had arrived from school just in time to ride with them back home. Sachi was still missing.
The hospital had offered Kazuto a medical transport to send him home, but he insisted he didn't need one. Instead Suguha pushed his wheelchair to a waiting taxi that Midori had called. Midori and Suguha both helped transfer Kazuto in to the back seat of the taxi while the attendant folded up the wheelchair and stored it in the trunk.
Suguha sat in the back of the taxi with her step-brother. Midori sat up front. Kazuto was exhausted and was soon snoring softly in the back seat, sitting up with his head down against his chin.
Suguha glanced forward and saw Midori looking out the taxi window, so she took a chance. She gently pulled Kazuto's sleeping form towards herself until he was propped against her side. He shifted slightly but did not wake up. Then she leaned against him and put her head on his shoulder, and she closed her eyes in peaceful bliss.
And she began to daydream.
The next morning Kazuto awakened in his own bed.
He sat up groggily, then turned to look at his alarm clock. Why didn't the clock's alarm go off? Ugh, I'm late for school. Gotta hurry and get dressed...
He tried to stand up when a shooting pain ran up his right leg. The leg buckled out from under him and he crashed to the floor.
His memories came flooding back with the searing pain:
SAO.
Heathcliff.
Death.
Clouds.
A kiss.
As he tried to sit up someone quickly opened his bedroom door and ran over to his fallen form.
He saw that it was a girl.
That's right, Sachi..
"Kirito! You okay? No, don't stand up."
"My name is Kazuto..."
"I know. Be quiet and let me check your leg." Sachi palpated his thinned right calf and right thigh. "Hmm, looks okay."
She bent over him. "Let me get you back in bed." She crouched down further behind him and began to lift him up by his armpits. He was so thin and emaciated that it was not difficult for the petite girl to haul him in to bed. She re-fluffed his pillow and tucked it under his head.
It was only when she began to pull the bed covers over his prostrate form that Kazuto had finally realized that he was completely naked.
"Gaaahh!" He grabbed the bed sheet and pulled it up to his chin like a shield.
Sachi sighed complacently, "Don't worry, Kirito. It's nothing that I haven't seen before."
"Uh, really?"
Sachi finished tucking him in. "Relax. I inspected your catheter for infection just about every day."
"You did?"
She sat next to him on the bed. "Look, I'm training to be an LPN, remember? This goes with the territory. I checked your catheter and dozens of other guys every day, not just you. I'm quite used to it."
Kazuto tried to absorb the information. "Oh.."
Sachi decided that now was probably not the best time to also tell him about the weekly sponge baths that she had given him.
She stood up. "I'll make you a nice breakfast and bring up a tray. You want anything else in the meantime? Something to read maybe?"
He looked at her shyly from under his blanket. "Uh, no, thank you."
She turned to leave.
Then he remembered something.
He sat bolt upright. The bed sheet flopped down to a precarious position but he didn't care.
"Sachi, stop! Wait!"
"Yes?"
"Tell me about Asuna! Did you find her?"
Sachi paused, then she turned. She sat on the bed again.
Her face was carefully composed.
She said softly, "Yes."
The previous day she had bluffed her way onto one of outgoing the medical transports that carried the remaining sleepers from the facility. She road inside the vehicle to a private secure hospital that was about 20 miles away in the city of Tokorozawa in Saitama prefecture.
When she got out of the vehicle she saw several over medical transports and ambulances offloading other victims in the fenced-in parking area. She checked that nobody was watching her as she walked away from the parking lot, then she changed course and headed to the main entrance of the secure building. She quickly waved her hospital ID at the guard as she marched through the checkpoint. With all the commotion she was able to successfully slip past the distracted guard without getting caught. Once inside she found and grabbed an unattended vase of flowers and walked up to the nursing station to inquire about Asuna Yuuki, claiming that she was making a flower delivery.
Kazuto prompted her. "And you saw her..?"
Sachi's composure started to fail. "Kirito, I'm so sorry..."
He saw the tears forming on her face.
A minute later.
He was crying in her arms like a baby, naked and inconsolable.
Three days later.
Sachi pushed his wheelchair out of the elevator and on to the 18th floor*.
No visitors were allowed in the private hospital except for immediate family. It was because no one in SAO had died, and so the government had become embarrassed about the remaining 300 sleepers – who had perhaps 6 to 18 months left – and so they were kept out of the public eye.
With Aki's help Sachi was able to push through the paperwork to get herself transferred over to Tokorozawa Hospital. Her resume was impeccable with her long experience with handling SAO victims and her government clearance. It made it a relatively easy task, and three days later she had her official credentials and keycard as a volunteer at Tokorozawa.
Asuna was in a private room on the secure 18th floor (South Hall).
Sachi pushed Kazuto's wheelchair up to the pale green door.
There was a dully glowing nameplate on the wall, 'Yuuki, Asuna'.
Sachi swiped her keycard.
The door unlocked.
They went inside.
A/N:
* LN Vol 3. In the anime Asuna's hospital room was on floor 12, but Kazuto had stated in LN Vol 3 that the elevator doors opened on floor 18 so I am assuming that for this story.