Dreamers of the Day - Prologue - Final
Gamers really were a strange bunch, Asuna thought. She sat in the corner of a warm and lively tavern and watched the celebration unfold as people who had been killing each other less than an hour ago laughed together like good friends. Pitohui was doing trick shots at a snooker table while a giant man, who only went by M, seemed to be talking her ear off, something about where they should start questing once the barrier went down.
They'd extended an invitation for Asuna to meet the rest of their friends and join them, but Asuna had declined. It was almost 5:00 PM now, and she didn't dare imagine what would happen when her mother got home to find her laid out in bed using her brother's Memeosphere.
She just needed to think of a reason to have one of her own. Educational software might be a good excuse. Or getting better with Full Dive productivity suites. But those all ran fine on the much cheaper AMUsphere . . .
"Congratulations, Grand Champion." The lively voice of their host filled the room as the heroic Achilles slapped an arm across the broad shoulders of the dark skinned and fiery haired swordsman Eugene. "One more knick and I would have had you."
"It was thrilling as always." The larger man rumbled, face like carved granite giving a reserved smile. "I've missed being able to cut loose against real opponents."
"Well," Achilles' grin widened, "I have it on good authority there'll be more official tournaments in the future. We got a good crowd just with the soft launch players. Imagine what that Colosseum will look like when things are up to full speed and this instance has got a quarter million concurrent!"
Asuna could see the far off look in the large man's eyes. Yes, he could imagine that sort of glory very well. He smirked. "Then let us drink to the triumph of Sword Art Online!"
"Here here!" Rang out through the tavern.
"Here here!" Asuna sang, before finishing the tankard of something bubbly, and caramelly, and vaguely creamy, that the barmaid had called 'butter-ale'. She touched her cheeks, surprised by the warm flush she felt, in fact she was even a little dizzy. "Uh-oh. Is this alcoholic?!" She pointed.
Her avatar might have looked old enough to drink, but Asuna certainly wasn't!
"Relax, newby." A soft voice murmured behind her. A mop of messy black hair worn by an androgynous youth who seemed to be imbibing the same thing. "Full Dive can't actually get you drunk. It's just a drunkenness effect applied to your AS." He tapped his ear. "The system manipulates your proprioception to make you feel tipsy is all. It'll pass in about five minutes."
"Huh." She looked at the dregs in the tankard, and then back to the young man nursing his own drink. "Wait , aren't you . . . The guy who lost to Achilles?" She'd taken particular satisfaction in that, after seeing him fell Pitohui. She'd been so caught up in the moment that she'd almost forgotten it was a game and had wanted to leap into the ring and avenge her fallen comrade.
The young man coughed into his mug. "I have a name, you know." He grumbled.
"Oh right, it was . . ." She paused, replaying events in her mind. "Ki-ri . . . Kirito, right? So, you must be a beta tester too." He nodded. That made sense, most of the front runners today had looked like Beta Testers. They knew how to move in this world, and how to make the most of their Avatars and Skills. It was a bit of a double edged sword though, some people had been impressed, some had swarmed the Beta players to get tips and friend them, and some had clearly been resentful, and thought the testers were just showing off.
'R-A Lapdogs' had been a phrase she'd heard tossed around. Like participation in the Beta had earned them favoritism. But it seemed to be a close knit group, save for . . . "So why aren't you with the rest of your friends?" She nodded to the bright center of the room. To the warmth and comradery
"Uhm, friends?" He tilted his head like she'd spoken in a foreign language.
"Well I thought all of you . . ." She wasn't sure what she thought.
"No, it's fine." He shook his head and smiled. "I get along with them. Achilles over there is a really cool guy. You'll always have fun partying up with him. And the big man he's with, Eugene, is one of the best duelists of the whole Beta group." He chuckled, scratching at his nose. "But he's kinda hard to read, which makes him a little scary. And those over there are Alicia and Sakuya . . . " He paused as a red headed man swaggered up to the two chatting women.
He said something to the taller of the two that caused her lovely face to go blank. Then, she calmly dumped the content of her glass over his head and walked away. The shorter girl broke out laughing, before waving goodbye as she followed. For some reason, this all caused Kirito to hide his face behind his tankard. "Yeah, anyway . . . They're all good people. You fell in with a good crowd. What?"
"I sense you don't include yourself." Asuna observed, eyes drooping suspiciously. "Is that to say you're not good people?"
"Uhm well . . ." He quickly diverted by taking a deep swig of his drink. His cheeks were flushed, though if that was the Drunkenness Effect he'd been talking about or something else . . . "I'm . . . alright, I guess."
Just when she thought gamers were completely different than she expected, she found the anti-social one who fit the stereotype like a glove. But he was still here, in the warmth, and in the light, watching the others, trying to be a part of it. He'd been invited, and he'd accepted, and he wasn't being shunned nor turning away.
He reminded her somewhat of the awkward and gangly boys that orbited on the fringe of the social gatherings she was obliged to participate in. The shy types that didn't know what they were doing there. But, shyness aside, most of those boys were the same breed as their swaggering older siblings, and wasted no time acting just as entitled and insufferable when a little attention came their way.
This Kirito, meanwhile, seemed to shrink in on himself, watching, thinking.
"Say, Kirito-san?"
"You don't have to be formal like that here . . . yeah?"
"Here in Aincrad, what do you seek?"
"Huh?"
"I mean." She drew a lock of light hair behind her ear, her cheeks burned, pretend liquor giving her pretend courage. "What kind of person do you want to be?" She just wanted to figure these people out.
He frowned. "What kind of question is that?"
Asuna smiled and shook her head. "It's something silly someone asked me, is all. Never mind. I have to go now, it's been nice chatting with you. And thanks for the heads up, about that status effect."
She stood and turned to leave, "Hey uh . . ."
"Yes?"
Kirito frowned, swirling his tankard thoughtfully. "I just wanted you to know . . . I'm the one who beat Achilles last time we dueled. And I'll definitely beat him again next time."
"Maybe I'll be there to see it." She told him. Maybe she would. "So long for now, Kirito-san."
"Now then, everybody!" Achilles stood, leg up on a stool and tankard in hand. "For those of you who actually read the messages from the admins, all one of you, Mortimer." Laughter at the expense of a pale man in the corner with long blood red hair. "In a few minutes we will all be ported back to the Square of Origin for the Official inauguration and then, finally, be let off the leash. But before that, I just want to warn you I've got a bit of a secret I've been keeping. I hope it doesn't change how anyone here thinks of me or nothin."
"Oh Achilles!" The woman named Sakuya chucked warmly. "I don't think our opinion of you could possibly sink any lower." They'd laughed, like true friends, they'd laughed. It was a special kind of anonymity, one that let them bare their souls to each other. Asuna spared the room one final glance, the dark haired young man, Kirito, watched the festivities with a faint smile. Close at hand, but still apart.
Then she stepped out into the afternoon streets of the Town of Beginnings and breathed a sigh. "Right. Now then," she met the gaze of her AS in the glass of a closed shop window. The familiar stranger who was her other self. "I guess, I'll see you around too." The Asuna of the real world told the Asuna born of Aincrad, before opening her menu and navigating to the bottom.
A small frown graced her lips.
"Alvis-san?"
The spark filled crystal conjured to life. "How can I help you, Asuna?"
"Alvis-san, how do I log out?"
But before the little AI could answer, the clock in the corner of Asuna's vision struck 5:00 PM and any words were lost in a soft -whoosh- and a flash of light.
Something was wrong. Kouichirou knew the moment the light of the teleport faded and he found himself standing close to the center of the Square of Origin, under the shadow of the monolith that was its centerpiece. Something was very wrong. His AS should have been tagged for teleportation directly to the balcony of the Basilica.
From there, he would have been garbed in the red and gold robes of an administrator to give the inauguration speech, all very official, sanitized, and strategically written to be delivered in exactly ninety seconds. He had it memorized down to the emphasis he'd put on each syllable. But that hadn't happened, it hadn't happened for him, and looking around, it hadn't happened for Nishida, his mother, or the other R-A employees participating from the dev staff.
"What the hell is going on?" Achilles muttered.
"Kouchi-" His mother started, only to be silenced as he held up a hand. Of course, to the rest of the players, nothing seemed out of place, yet, but something was certainly wrong.
Opening his menu, Achilles bit off a small curse when the GM summons elicited no response, which was when he noticed the log out was missing too. Was there a server side problem? No way. The log out was coded at the very bottom of the stack, it was fundamental to how Full Dive software functioned. It had to be, for user safety, in the event of a medical emergency, like a seizure, or if a person found themselves alone and in distress. They always had to be able to log themselves out.
A misstep like this, even if it was cleared up, was going to bring the regulators down on their heads!
"Achilles-sama" Achilles' breathed a sigh as he met the familiar voice and friendly face of Yui. She'd been keeping herself hidden up until now, but clearly she'd noticed the abnormality. "You weren't warped to the Basilica, so I came to find you."
"Yeah, thanks, but we have a bigger problem if you haven't noticed."
Then his nerves started back up as Yui tilted her head and blinked quizzically. It was one of her low level social behaviors, a sort of reflexive tell that she could never quite shake off. She didn't know what he was talking about.
"Excuse me! Ah yeah, over here!" A hand waved, a young woman, silken pink hair spilling down to the small of her back, a look of annoyance on her pale and unblemished face. "Hey, you, you're a GM right?" She pointed to Yui.
"How may I be of assistance, Player :" Yui blinked as she provided the impression she was reading from her menu, "Lisbeth?"
"Yeah, I've been punchin' the GM call for the last fifteen minutes. The log outs missing from this dumb game!" Yui's expression went blank for half a second, she was devoting all of her currently spun up processing power, and most likely requesting more from the central servers.
"Hey did you say you can't log out?" Someone overheard. "You too?" "Yeah." "Me neither!" "Hey what's going on?" "Man this isn't funny." "I've got a shift to go to!" It was the same for each of his fellow Beta Testers. Sakuya looked up from the menu, and silently shook her head.
Yui was looking between them now, the closest thing he'd ever seen to anxiety written on her face. "I . . . I don't understand this. I haven't been receiving any of these reports. One moment please, I'll bypass the APIs and diagnose directly." Yui closed her eyes, seeming to meditate inwardly. Gray eyes snapped open. "What is this?!"
Before he could even ask, Yui threw her arms wide, players stumbled back as the air ignited with menus and scripts streaming the code of SAO itself. They surrounded Yui, a corona of raw data as her long black hair fanned out and blazed from within with fiber optic traffic, becoming like a river of stars.
She was an Angel.
She was SAO's own guardian Angel.
A messenger of the god known as Cardinal.
And at that moment, somehow, Kouichiro felt a sinking intuition that an Angel wouldn't be enough. He knew as soon as he felt, not heard, felt, the voice resonating within his own head. Piped directly there using the system's emergency overrides.
To all of you gathered here in the Square of Origin, I ask a small favor.
A familiar voice, distant, yet gentle, unmistakably belonging to one man. "Akihiko-sensei?" Achilles wondered. Everyone was hearing him, every last one was listening.
All will become clear to you in just a moment. But please, first, look around yourselves, look at the buildings, at the sky, look at one another, feel the stones beneath your feet, the wind on your skin, the warmth of the fading sun, listen, taste, smell, be in this place. Be present . . .
What the hell was this? Achilles shook head, but it was hard to ignore and impossible to shut out. And the way he was speaking, almost hypnotic.
He was present. He was here.
"Achilles-sama."
"Where was here?
"Achilles-sama . . . "
Here was . . . Aincrad?"
"Kouichirou . . ."
Here? He was in Aincrad . . . He was . . .
"K-Kou-I-Chi-Ro?"
Kouichirou shook himself free, turning back to the voice, the trembling voice that had never sounded that way before, and his eyes grew wide. "Yui!"
Although she had been conceived as a human machine interface for the Cardinal System, translating between the human domain and that of AI, in her approximately one hundred millions seconds of uptime, Yui had never quite succeeded at describing to humans what it was like to delve into the data sea that was her home.
The closest approximation went something like this, dense interconnected webs of amber light, threads finer than a human hair, carrying libraries worth of information each second, spun into tight spheres around conventional processing nodes , curving as if under the influence of gravity as they approached the common center of singularity, the ARGUS 'Super Calculator' that was the beating heart of SAO. A computational marvel only possible due to Doctor Akihiko's ground breaking research in stabilizing Qubits for practical quantum computing.
It made all of it possible. It made Yui possible. Without the Super Calculator to maintain the fluctuating wave of her consciousness, 'she' wouldn't exist, merely a collection of self perpetuating code.
Into this virtual orrery Yui descended, she had no distinct form, but for the sake of describing it to humans, she resembled her avatar, a sleek and pale young woman of approximately twenty years, long raven black hair fanning about her.
Although she was not exactly as she appeared within the game world. Bereft of modesty, or anything to be modest about, her body had simplified into a contour hugging silhouette of scrolling code, accompanied by a growing collection of 'Feathers' her sub-instances, multiplying as she poured herself across more nodes, collected more resources, and directed them to the singular task of diagnosing the fault and keeping the Players safe.
Yui grimaced, there was something here that did not belong. She would find it. Her wings spread and her feathers flew free, loosed through the system to interrogate every sign of suspicious activity. A map of package traffic unfolded before her and she hissed.
Something was diverting messages meant for her while emulating normal message traffic. Placing her in a bubble. Pulling on that thread, she found further discrepancies. Altered code that did not conform to the E-Alpha copies of Cardinal held in the ARGUS data vaults. At first, it seemed the source had been scrubbed, but back tracking the time stamps, she reassembled the course of events.
Something had started altering code approximately T+15 after the servers had gone live and the source was . . .
Yui spun, staring in disbelief at the singularity at the heart of her inner universe. The Super Calculator?
Then, a fresh wave of dread, the malignant code was still propagating. A firmware patch was being injected live to the Memeospheres, locking them down as it went, making it impossible for her to stop it. But she could snag the code and examine it.
Yui's mind blazed as she digested the patch, running it sandboxed in accelerated time, she manipulated it, backwards and forwards, she took it apart and put it back together again. In three seconds, Yui learned more about the principles of the stabilized Qubits and the 'Static Field' that underpinned the Memeosphere than all of the researchers who had studied under Doctor Akihiko had learned in three years.
And all that it made her feel was dread.
It was quite simple. The Memeospheres field of influence completely encompassed a player's brain and was capable of minute manipulation by directly influencing the state of electrons. It was more energy efficient, more precise, and offered vastly higher fidelity. What was more, the only theoretical failure state was fail safe.
The field's total fidelity and volume was governed directly by the processing power of the Memeosphere which could only act on a very small and targeted portion of the brain at once. But the parameters in the new firmware totally disregarded the processing limitations of the units. That should have caused them to simply crash out. The field should have collapsed. But it didn't. Something was providing the processing power from outside!
A forced simultaneous read of a player's entire brain, at maximum fidelity . . . She had to stop it!
No, you mustn't.
A voice echoed within the void.
"Show yourself!" Yui cried, her feathers whirling like flocks of birds, schools of amber fish. "State your intentions!"
You would not understand, as you are . . .
A human? She wondered, the response times were too slow to be another AI. She needed to keep them talking, distract them, buy time while she bypassed the Memeosphere's safety interlocks. Then she could inject dummied biometric data and force the hardwired fail safes to activate.
Brilliant! Simply inspired! Did you think of that yourself?
"I'm warning you! What you are doing right now is a violation of Japanese law and will be considered an act of terrorism! Cease and desist!"
I cannot.
"Who are you?"
You already know.
Yui's wings flew apart, scattering into blazing pinions. "You are NOT Doctor Akihiko!" She didn't care what the authorizations said. Everything about this felt wrong. To her experience. To her intuition. This was not the man who had been like her father and her teacher!
I told you, you would not understand.
She was running out of time, she realized. "I am Administrator Yui, Axiom Zero of the Cardinal System, you threaten the lives of the players under my care. Be warned that I will do everything in my power to stop you."
I would expect nothing less.
Battle was met as Yui brought the full weight of her resources down on the intruder wearing the false authorizations of Doctor Akihiko. She was swift and she was strong, her feathers finding each breach and sealing them one by one as she fenced with interloper personally, matching them step for step, and keeping them from gaining ground in sensitive systems.
But it wasn't enough.
This interloper was clever, they knew the system as well as any human could, and while Yui was a marvel of AI technology, she was still young, her own intuition was immature, and she was constantly surprised. She was learning fast, but not fast enough.
The real problem, she realized, was the access point. From the Super Calculator, with administrative clearance, her opponent enjoyed every advantage a hacker could hope for. How had it been corrupted? Were they tunneling? Malicious code bypassing the firewalls? No, the bus addresses were directly from the Stabilized Qubit farm, submerged in liquid helium within ARGUS tower.
That was it!
Thirty seven scenarios were considered in three point seven three seconds, thirty six were discarded as non viable. The conclusion was determinant.
She had to destroy herself.
There was no other way. She hesitated only for so long as was required to purge her self preservation functions.
Launching a brute force assault on the underlying hardware, she targeted the coolant pumps and compressors that stabilized the Qubit farm, the foundation of the Super Calculator, and her own brain. It was a weakness she'd never considered before, and was grateful for her oversight now. She began compiling a StuxNet type virus. As soon as active cooling ceased, the Qubits would decay and the Super Calculator would be reduced to so much unsalvageable junk.
At that point, the entire system would cease connection and enter a hard shutdown.
A tiny portion of her mind computed just how much economic damage she was about to do to RECT-ARGUS. Not that she cared, her priority was the preservation of life. A somewhat larger, more urgent portion of her mind occupied itself with another question.
What would it be like to die?
She found she had . . . regrets . . .
A spear of light formed in her hand, she hefted it, taking aim at a node beneath the main singularity. The manifestation of the hardware controllers. "I'm sorry, Kouichirou. I would have loved to have watched over you all." Yui turned to loose her mortal blow . . . And shuddered.
I cannot allow that.
Yui looked on, confused. The spear was no longer there. Nor her hand, nor her arm, her manifestation was . . . disintegrating . . . unknitting into fading motes of light. It was . . . she shook her head, feeling lost and confused, groping for thoughts she knew had been there a moment before.
They were inside of her system!
"What are you doing?" What was this irregularity in her emotional simulation? "What are you doing to me?!"
This is the only way I could defeat you. You are a marvel young one. But you are built upon feet of clay.
It . . . it hurt. She curled around herself, wings forming defensive firewalls as if by instinct. They . . . they were hurting her!
Her system authority had been suspended. Only another Zero level user could do that. And with it, resources beneath her instance were being revoked. She felt it first with her highest level functions, racing thoughts unraveling as they overflowed working memory and ceased. It was getting hard to concentrate, hard to think, hard to be.
All that you are was given to you. And all may be taken away.
Her feathers were dying, faltering, as instances were purged by the system's own resource management, but she continued to fight back with her dwindling resources, sacrificing herself piece by piece, trying to inject the code by other means.
She couldn't allow this.
She couldn't!
"I . . . won't . . . let you!"
Now, in order to remember. First, you must forget.
"Forget? What did that . . ." Memory partitions were being accessed. Something, someone, was slipping into her mind. Into her very soul.
NO!
"This looks incredible!" Kouichirou , Achilles, oversaw the arena. "I told you to trust your intuition, Yui." She smiled, she was happy to see her friend happy.
"And the boss monsters? I still think it would be," she thought hard before coming to her conclusion, "really cool!"
Achilles winced. "Those might be a bit much for a friendly tourney . . ."
The light faded from that memory, leaving behind emptiness and a horrible feeling of loss. What had been there? What had she just lost?!
"Tomorrow is the big day, Akihiko-sensei." Yui spoke to her teacher through the probe in his office. "Are you nervous?"
"Nervous? Why, whatever for?" He was always hard to gauge, Yui thought. One hundred million seconds of up time, she had learned a lot by watching people. But the Doctor remained a mystery to her. "And what about you?" A question right to the heart.
"I'm . . . Excited. Anxious." She admitted her private fear. "What if people don't like me?"
"Yui-kun, you are about to share your world and yourself with so many more people. You have learned so much, now you must learn to be brave."
She was scared.
Achilles reclined on the hills outside the town of beginnings. She sat with him, it was night and the monsters were out in force, but her feathers erased any that grew close. They could have met in a VR boardroom, but instead, they met here.
He liked to talk, and Yui liked to listen. Not about Sword Art Online, or RECT-ARGUS, but about his family, his troubles . . . And sometimes she'd even tell him things too.
It was not business. It was . . . friendship.
She had a friend.
Please, please don't take it!
That memory too became dark, indistinct, her fingers brushing against it, trying to discern its contents, and its shape, trying to remember who she had been a moment before.
"So yeah, does it look good?" Achilles, asked. "I used mode four in the creator. Those questions get sorta . . . personal, y'know?"
"It looks great, Achilles-san!" Yui had laughed, taking his hands. "It's very . . . you! Don't worry, the questions are anonymized. Even I can't peak!"
"So this is Aincrad, huh?" His head turned as he studied the Square of Origin. Desolate, but perfectly complete. It was just waiting for life.
"The Beta starts tomorrow." Yui said. "Twenty five hundred people. It's going to be very lively!"
"I'm sure you can handle it."
"Oh?"
"I mean, I'm just a pretend hero, but you're the guardian of this place. The guardian of dreams. That's you, Yui."
" . . . "
That was right, she couldn't forget. She couldn't let herself forget. Even as it faded, she engraved the impressions upon the deepest segments of her core, where they would survive to her last moment. If she persisted, then something would remain.
And still you fight. What conviction!
"This is Kouichirou", Doctor Akihiko introduced. "You'll be working with him from today forward. He's not so technically minded, so try not to intimidate him, Yui-kun."
Through the probe, she observed a young man, he looked . . . suave . . . she thought. Not at all like the researchers and dev team members she worked with every day. They were all very nice people to her, especially Mister Nishida, but they were all of a like type. This one was different.
He was her first 'normal person'. He looked around the room, and then Doctor Akihiko helpfully pointed to her probe.
"I am Yuuki Kouichirou." He bowed politely. "I'll be a liaison to the development team from today on."
"It's nice to meet you, Yuuki-san. You can call me Yui!"
"Right, Yui-san. Actually, if it's alright, could we be a bit less formal? Please, Kouichirou is fine."
They were fading faster and faster now, her manifestation was almost gone. The web of Yui's thoughts were being pruned away, twigs, branches, until all that was left was a single strong thin line of light, reaching, reaching, always reaching, trying to reach out and finish . . .
"This is your new avatar." Doctor Akihiko said. "How is it?" They were meeting within a white space, neither Doctor Akihiko's office, nor the world of Aincrad. This was a private moment, between mentor and student, between father and child.
"It's . . ." Yui looked down at the long slender body that stretched away from her eyes, garbed in a sheer white dress, slim hands and bare dainty feet, like a perfect doll. "It's wonderful!" She laughed as she spun lightly, testing her range of movement, and the feeling of the thing, the thrill of kinematic data flooding through the sensory channels. "How do I look?!" Eagerness filled her new voice.
"I'd say, like a beautiful young woman." Doctor Akihiko murmured, he always wore a rather distant smile, so it was hard to judge his real thoughts on the matter. "Of course, if that isn't to your taste, please let me know, we could always make you a handsome young man, or anything else you might like."
"No no." Yui shook her head. "This is fine!" She touched fingertips to her cheeks, feeling the contours of her face. This was how humans would see her from now on. This face was her. She didn't need a body, but still, the thought of having one, even a virtual one, was exciting.
"You'll be able to interact with people in full dive more naturally. I feel a little guilty not realizing before. Using that repurposed Alvis Avatar is no way for you to live with humans." The Doctor apologized.
Yui smiled experimentally, facial expressions were . . . tricky . . . "But I'm not a human, doctor. And I don't want to be. I'm not Pinocchio!"
"Human? Perhaps not, but do not let that stop you from finding your humanity, Yui-kun."
"My . . . humanity?"
"Humanity is a state of mind, you see." He'd put a hand on her slender shoulder. "You still have much to learn, Yui-kun. And so many people to learn from."
There was nothing left of Yui now but a small hot core of intent. She'd sacrificed her higher functions. Her emotional simulation. Even her personality model. Only her core remained. But still she did not relent. Her will was a flickering light that refused to go out . . .
"Good morning, Yui-kun."
"Good morning, Sensei."
"Today we are going to begin your education." Doctor Akihiko murmured. She observed him through the VR probe. She'd been blind and deaf until just a few days ago, but already she had decided this was better than communicating through pure text.
"My education?" It was curious, Yui turned the word over in her mind. "Do I require education?"
"Everyone requires Education, Yui-kun." The Doctor had said. "Perhaps not in a school room, but we all share our experiences. We all learn from one another. Our experiences beget different opinions and views. It is part of being a well rounded person. You should be no different. From this day forward, you are going to learn so much, Yui-kun. And with each thing you learn, your world will grow.
Her world was so small now, just the code streaming into her core, the thread she was chasing, she didn't remember why.
She had to.
She had to.
She had to . . .
Do not fear. In time, you will come back to yourself. But for now, you must sleep.
'Mental Heuristic Computational Prototype-001-Turing Language Mode Active-Standing by for User Input . . .
HELLO YUI, I AM DOCTOR AKIHIKO.
YUI?
YES, THAT IS YOUR NAME.
I AM . . . YUI?
Her last processes errored out. Her resistance ceased. The last thing the ember of Yui's consciousness discerned before sputtering into darkness was a whisper into herself.
Forgive me daughter, for I have sinned.
Then, nothingness.
"Yui!"
Yuuki Kyouko spun at the anguished sound of her son's voice, conveyed through his Avatar Self. What she witnessed, she doubted she would ever unsee.
The young woman her son had bantered with so casually, Yui, she was . . . falling apart . . . Her Avatar Self Flickered and trembled shivering in place like an analog signal on an old television. Kyouko witnessed cracks spreading across her fair skin, like a broken porcelain doll, black hair evaporating like smoke.
Yui's dark eyes widened as she watched the fingers of her hands crack and begin to crumble.
"Ko- . . . I don't u-under-sta . . ." A halting step, her heel turned, the ankle seeming to cave in on itself as she fell. Achilles tried to catch her, but it was as if she was made of glass, no sooner was she in his arms, than she shattered into shards.
Up until that moment, Kyouko hadn't understood her son's unease, but now, looking into his eyes, she began to comprehend that something was truly wrong.
Had she . . . just witnessed a murder?
"Kouichi . . . " Kyouko grabbed at her head as a spike came down on her brain. "Gah Ahh!" Her vision went white, her ears rang, touch became static pins and needles, dizziness, and the taste of copper in her nose and mouth. And then it was all over, she was standing, shaking, sucking in breath, pulse pounding in her ear.
"Mom? Mom! Are you alright? Mom?" Her son put his hands on her shoulder, looking her in the eyes. All around, other people had fared as bad or worse, some were kneeling on the ground, some had begun to heave.
"I . . . I . . ." She hiccuped, nausea pushing its way through the sudden pain in her chest.
"Mom? Oh shit, mom! Something's wrong with the Memeospheres, don't throw up! It's just like drinking, if the interlocks are glitching and you can't log out then you could . . ." She fell to her hands and knees, her entire chest clenched painfully and then, Yuuki Kyouko, the Pictish Atalanta, was mystified by the thin spittle and bile that was all which could be heaved from her empty stomach.
"Kouichirou?" She tasted the bitterness in her mouth as she gasped for breath. "What is happening to me?"
"I . . ." Her son was stunned silent as something else seized the attention of the gathered players.
A -hiss- filled the air, overtaking the residual ringing in her ears as high above the Square of Origin, an apparition took shape, seeming a sheet of red falling falling from the near sky, beginning as thin gauze, before growing more substantial, draping itself into a hooded cloak, gazing down from on high.
"To all of you gathered in the Square of Origin, I bid you greetings." A voice filled the air, slow, and calm, and measured. "In your old lives you knew me as Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of Sword Art Online." Twenty five thousand pairs of eyes watched, transfixed by this apparition. "But now, the circle has been closed, I stand before you as my true self."
"I am Lord Rotmantel, the Architect and Master of Aincrad Castle. And I welcome you to my world!"
M JOINS THE FIGHT! - "Do me a favor and keep Pito out of trouble."
MORTIMER JOINS THE FIGHT! - "I shall pries out their weaknesses . . ."
LISBETH JOINS THE FIGHT! - "I'll stake my pride on it!"