Episode Two – Chapter One – The Steel Hearts
Asuna felt a wave of horror flush through her at the Doctor's words… or more accurate, his lack of words.
The man was a talker – he was the type to hold a conversation with himself, because the person he was actually talking to had completely zoned out as they tried to follow the information presented to them with the cadence of a machine gun, he spoke that fast and with that much knowledge…
For someone like the Doctor to fall silent at discovering the origin of the technology used in the Soul Translator, though?
Well, it didn't bode well for any of them. "Doctor? What does that mean?" She asked.
"Kikuoka, where did you get this from?"
"It came from a company in London. There was an incident with the Wi-Fi back in 2013, and we found these, terminals I suppose, when we were cleaning up afterwards. I thought you'd have known that, Doctor, it was you who tipped us off back then?"
The Doctor simply looked blankly at him before he continued. "Our chief scientist spent years working on the technology, developing it to a working prototype. Of course, when we discovered what he was using said prototype for, it was rather too late to do anything much." At that point, Asuna caught onto exactly what he was talking about.
"Yer telling us it was yer lot responsible fer the entire SAO Incident!?" Tomo was one of the hardest people to get a rise out of, she'd realised that much only days after meeting her. The revelation that, not only was Aincrad alien technology, but that Kayaba had been working for these people beforehand... well, that was clearly enough to do so. In fact, she'd go so far as to say that was the angriest she'd ever seen her, whether that was as Argo or as Tomo...
"Kayaba was a rogue actor, Miss Hosaka, do remember that." Kikuoka... not necessarily defended them but used a tactic she'd seen regularly - that being to distance themselves from a "bad actor", someone who they had absolutely enabled, but knew that the blame should never fall on them, so they pretended, obfuscated, made bad faith arguments; whatever could be used to discredit anyone who tried to pry further than they should.
"Yeah, well, keep telling yerself that, an' maybe one day some sap might believe ya."
Tomo walked over to the Doctor, himself engrossed in looking over the Soul Translator. He'd also pulled a pair of glasses from his coat pocket and put them on. "So, Doc, this Matrix thingy, what even is it? Some kinda virtual world, I get that bit, but why'd the... Galifreyans, if I said it right, build such a thing?"
"Time Lords." The Doctor explained. "A shared system, detailing the entire history of them. Think the largest library in the universe... wellll, second largest, anyway."
"Wait, so this ain't some kinda virtual world?"
"It could be used that way, but not by design, no. Oh, that's interesting!" The glowing blue probe he held nearby gave off a series of beeps and whistles, before the Doctor bounced back up onto his feet, a look of anger in his eyes. A fury that filled her with fear, despite it being aimed nowhere near her... "Kazuto isn't the first person you've put in there, is he?"
"Doctor?"
"See, the Matrix can't write data, not like that. It can fill in blanks, sure, and sometimes, it was used for producing a world around a Time Lord to... extract information, but that wasn't like that. It was a bespoke world for a single person, usually pretty small and self-contained." The Doctor said to them, his tone grim, and it clicked to both of them what that reminded them of...
"Like Aincrad, right?" Asuna pointed out.
"Yeah, kind of. A prison for them - a Confession Dial, they called it."
"Definitely Aincrad." She added.
The Doctor carried on, the Time Lord standing taller than before and with an edge of someone who wasn't to be trifled with… "But this? You've created an entire ecosystem in there, Kikuoka! There's hundreds of thousands of life signs on the Sonic, and that was only the ones it could actually read! Hundreds of thousands of people, living in there... blissfully unaware that they are living a life in two worlds."
"That can't be right, Doctor. Only twelve people have ever been to the Underworld. All bar Kazuto are staff members here! I know, I supervised every single one of them!" Kikuoka defended.
"Well, Kikuoka, I'd suggest you work that out very quickly, as the Underworld's sending you a message... or someone in it is."
"Higa, what exactly is that message!" Kikuoka almost sprinted out of the room before anyone had chance to follow the soldier.
"It simply says, Alice is mine." Higa answered, himself confused, though whether that was from the fact that the Doctor knew about the message before they did, or the contents of the message, she wasn't sure.
"Huh?" Answered Kikuoka, Tomo and herself, whilst The Doctor looked over the console being used to control the Underworld. "Who's Alice?"
"No idea, I mean there's Project-" Asuna wasn't stupid, nor was she oblivious to the look of absolute fury on Kikuoka's face as his subordinate spoke. "Umm, ignore me. Nothing relevant at all." She exchanged a look with Tomo, a look that simply meant "sure."…
"Interesting, you actually managed to salvage the time dilation system!" Despite how furious he'd been, Asuna saw the strange man snap back into an almost childlike curiousity at what he was looking at. Come to think of it, if she squinted, she could absolutely see some of him in Kirito, and vice versa, especially when it came to technology! "How long has it been running for?"
The man sat at the console, Higa, was not what she'd have expected from a soldier either - spiky blonde hair, a pair of glasses with thick rims around them, and all kind of small objects around his desk, whilst he leant back on his seat, a pencil hanging from his mouth before he spoke. "In linear time? About 6 months. For them? About 380 years."
"380 years?!" Herself and Tomo exclaimed in shock - the Underworld had existed for the better part of four centuries for its residents, and for them, that four centuries... covered all of six months.
"Kikuoka, you have administrator accounts for this, right?" The Doctor asked, as he scanned the console. "Are any of them in use right now?"
"Of course we do. You wish to take a look Doctor?"
An eyebrow raised on his face, above the glasses. "That's interesting. One of the administrators has been in charge for the past 300 years in there..."
"What?!" Kikuoka seemed genuinely surprised by that, the first genuine reaction he had had since they arrived… "But that-who-how?!"
"Don't know, but I'd say that hands off approach has gone a bit wrong. Someone's being playing god in there, and… after three hundred years, where would you say they should be in human development?"
"Stone Age?"
"Umm, it depends what knowledge the first generation had, I suppose?" The Doctor paused and quirked his lips as he thought about what she said.
"Good point. What did they know when they went in?"
"Modern farming techniques, all you'd need to start a civilisation pretty much."
"And nearly 400 years later, nothing much has changed for the past three centuries. It's like someone's suppressing the entire human race down there…" The Doctor rubbed his temple, tussling his hair as he did so. "Or using them. For what though? Some kind of big machine? No, the sonic would pick it up. An army? Maybe, but there's no signs of fighting on the human side… why though?"
"Doctor, if one of us went in, we could-"
"Miss Yuuki, I can promise you that Kazuto is safe. There is no need for anyone else to-"
"She's right. One of us should go. I will."
"Err, Doctor, shouldn't you…"
"Nah, I've been in much worse scrapes than this." The Doctor told her confidently. "Besides, someone needs to keep an eye on Kikuoka."
"That we can do, Doc." Tomo faux saluted, earning her a roll of the eyes from the Doctor. "Just mek sure Kii-bou's safe, will ya?"
"I promise I'll get him out safe."
And with that promise, the Time Lord placed his head inside the Soul Translator, as the machinery whirred and beeped, the flashing lights signifying the progress it was making towards logging him in. Asuna could only hope that the Doctor could find Kirito – after all, the "Human Empire" didn't exactly sound like a small place… and if it had been going for 380 years, then who knows how long the Doctor would be in there?
It could be minutes, hours… days. If they were very unlucky, it could even be weeks!
Until he got back though, it was their job to make sure Kikuoka was kept on the straight and narrow – something all three of them were sceptical about. After all, the man had been behind Aincrad as it turned out, and who knows what else he had done in his career…
"The Doctor is logged in."
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The hills outside Centoria were a beautiful place in the middle of summer and made a pleasant change from the lessons at the Academy, Kirito thought to himself as he devoured the sandwich in front of him. It definitely made a nice change for Tiese and Ronye too, their valets that came with the title of Elite Disciple.
It had been several years now since Kirito had woken up in the forest with little memory of how he'd gotten there, or more importantly... where ''there'' was. If this had been a virtual world, it was at a level he couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams, with everything feeling real to the point that he'd wondered if he actually had found his way into a new world...
The fact that this world still had some kind of menu; the Stacia Window, had bought him back to the working theory that this was some kind of VR world, although that raised far more questions than it offered answers when he started to talk to people in the village, and later, in the rest of the Human Empire, where everyone felt real.
Not real in the way that SAO had, where everything felt realistic, and some NPCs, like Kizmel had been, could be conceivably have been said to be real, but actually real. Every single person he'd encountered had felt as if they were truly human; they had their own hopes, their own dreams, their own personalities and their own fears! Not even once had he felt as if he were in a game anymore, but rather an entirely new world, albeit a virtual one with its own history, cultures and laws.
That thinking was made all the more confusing when he started to remember Eugeo as a child, remembering himself, Eugeo and a young blonde girl playing around as children; picnics in the woods, random expeditions into said woods... the young girl being carried away for some reason, and unfortunately for him, that was where the memories ended, before they were incomprehensibly merged into his own memories, forming a tangled weave of memories that he struggled to decipher between two very different lives... that of Kazuto Kirigaya, and that of Kirito.
''I don't know, Eugeo, but Frenica said that she hadn't seen or heard from Humbert in almost a week. Same story with Raios, too.'' Kirito briefly wondered whether that was such a bad thing. Raios and Humbert may have been second class nobles, but they were far from the most pleasant of people, to put it politely.
One thing he'd learned about this new world was that status was important, above all else, but no matter your status, you always came second to the Taboo Index. Either way, status didn't make the nobles good people; for every Sortiliena, his teacher at the Swordcraft Academy, there were multiple Raios and Humberts. People who abused their rank to make other lives miserable, and to indulge in whatever whims they felt like at that time.
The pair had an unpleasant streak to them, one hidden behind faux politeness, and how they hadn't been expelled from the academy for the way that Humbert treated Frenica, his valet, he would never understand. That was an understatement, actually - how he hadn't been taken for violating the Taboo Index, he would never understand...
It was just one of many mysteries that he'd found in this new world - how people like Raios and Humbert hadn't been punished for some of their actions. No, he thought, it wasn't a mystery at all, it was purely down to the absolute system that was the Taboo Index, and how conniving creeps like the two second class nobles could find and exploit loopholes to get away with almost anything they felt like.
''I think she's genuinely worried for him.'' Tiese finished her conversation before taking a bite from the tart in front of her.
After the stunt they'd pulled in their first year in destroying his flowers, Kirito, as bad as it sounded, was far from concerned about them. Considering the two were known to indulge in their vices, he reckoned they'd gone to a tavern in Centoria, gotten as drunk as could be... and were probably still wandering around Centoria now. Either that, or had committed some indiscretion, and got thrown in a gaol somewhere.
"Can't imagine why." He muttered under his breath.
Centoria was a big place after all - two more drunks in a drunk tank somewhere would barely be noticed, even if they were nobles...
''We'll have a look around town. Someone has to know something, right Kirito?'' Eugeo asked, interrupting his vaguely wishful thinking that Raios and Humbert were being taught a lesson in karmic retribution for their actions.
''Huh? Oh, right. We'll see if anyone knows anything. Maybe they saw them wandering around drunk...'' He thought aloud.
''Kirito!''
''Oh, uhh, just thinking it was a possibility...''
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That evening, once they had returned to the Academy, Ronye and Tiese had been dismissed, and they had eaten, Kirito and Eugeo had sat down to piece together what they knew about Raios and Humbert's disappearance, and soon discovered something much grimmer…
They weren't the only ones.
''I checked with the constable whilst we had our free period. They aren't in a gaol somewhere, in fact, no one's seen them in the past two weeks. Raios and Humbert, they aren't the only people to go missing.'' Eugeo said with a sad tone. ''It's been going on for nearly two months now.''
''And no one noticed? Not even the Axiom Church?''
''Clearly not.'' Eugeo said. ''And it isn't just people they may not notice going missing, but nobles as well. You'd think that would raise the alarm more.''
"Maybe we should take a look round tomorrow, when we go to into town. Doesn't hurt to ask people if they've seen anything strange…"
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The next afternoon, the pair of Elite Disciples had gone out into Centoria for their shopping and other errands, and whilst their swords had some work done at the affiliated blacksmith, they began to sleuth around, agreeing to meet back at the blacksmiths in an hour.
Naturally, he'd managed to find something far sooner than he'd have liked – that something being a pair of humanoid creatures that towered over him by well over two feet, covered in cloth and metal, held together with bits of equipment that looked as if it were either controlling them or, worse still… keeping them alive. Needless to say, that discovery had led to him sprinting off at top speed as far away from them as he possibly could.
He was no expert in the traditions of the Underworld, but from everything he'd learned so far, those things should not have existed. Hell, whatever they were shouldn't have existed in their world either! They looked as if they'd been the results of some horrific experiments, and Kirito really didn't want to know exactly what had been done to them, because he would be struggling to keep his dinner down.
"Kirito?" Eugeo interrupted his running by standing right in front of him, with the results being as one can probably imagine.
"I think I found something!" Kirito explained, picking himself up off the floor.
"DELETE… THE… INTRUDER…" A voice called, its speech broken and barely human, as if someone had damaged the voice box and given them an artificial replacement…
"Kirito…" Eugeo gave him a disbelieving look before he caught a glance of the creatures, and did what any sane person would've done in the situation – that being to turn on his heels and utter the words of any person stuck in a situation like this… "I think we should run!"
He didn't need to be told on that one, as his legs already started moving into a run… "Way ahead of you partner!"
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After a brief run, the two Elite Disciples had found a place to rest, that being a dark alley in the trader's district with their only escape being a ladder up to the roofs and the entrance they'd came in from. It wasn't a very good place to find themselves, Kirito had realised, but he thanked their graces and the goddesses that, whatever they were being chased by, they weren't quick on their feet…
"Wh-what even are those things, Kirito!" Eugeo wheezed, leaning against the wall.
"Beats me. I just saw them stood there, then they started chasing me." He admitted, leaning on a bin before a strange beeping noise caused him to around in surprise, knocking the bin over in the process… "Huh, could've sworn I heard something…"
He turned back around, and the look of absolute horror on Eugeo's face as he did. Now scattered across the floor were dismembered parts of human beings; mostly arms, legs, hands and feet, the skin stripped away and replaced with some kind of plate metal on most of them. He assumed they were failed experiments, given the metal looked close to coming off on most of them, if it hadn't already… "Maybe those things are zombies of some kind?"
"What are zombies?" Eugeo asked, and Kirito mentally slapped himself – of course Eugeo didn't know what zombies were.
"The undead. Killer robot zombies, but zombies nonetheless?" He thought aloud.
"Good guess, but not quite. They're Cybermen. Cybernetically enhanced beings, out to turn the universe into their image; no emotions, no pain, just… an eternity like that." The man stood before them was certainly different to anyone else that he'd met in the Underworld. He was quite clearly from the West, his hair slicked back with hair gel, and his fashion sense was a bizarre mix of smart and casual – smart in that he was wearing a blue pinstripe suit and burgundy tie, casual in that he was wearing bright red Converse sneakers.
The man certainly had a style, he'd give him that much. If Asuna were here, she'd probably say he had a style, but not a sense of style…
Though one thing stood out immediately – the man was speaking like this was just a day in his life, rather than a life changing event, like he'd seen this all before and knew exactly what he was doing…
Whilst he was busy sizing up this strange man in a pinstripe suit and sneakers, Eugeo was paying more attention to the rather large and metallic elephant in the room… "Those things, the Cybermen… did they murder those people? Everyone who went missing…"
"I didn't get your names, sorry?" The stranger asked, not answering his partner's question he noticed.
Regardless, they introduced themselves anyway. "Elite Disciple Eugeo, sir."
"Elite Disciple Kirito."
"Nice to meet you lads, I'm the Doctor." The stranger – the Doctor, even – introduced himself, before spotting the body parts behind them on the floor. "Ah. Those missing people, were any of them your friends?"
"We knew two of them; Raios and Humbert. If they're dead, then…" Eugeo asked, a sense of horror dawning in his voice. If those things were once Raios and Humbert, now cybernetically enhanced, then those parts in the bin hadn't been failed experiments, they were…
Oh.
Oh.
He felt sick to his core at the realisation that the Doctor now explained. "They're the bits they didn't want. Spare parts."
"So what actually is left of them, Doctor?" Eugeo asked, and the Doctor grimaced.
"You really don't want to know." The Doctor told them, the tone of his voice telling his that the man was clearly cursed with the knowledge of what was actually left underneath the cloth and metal of the Cybermen…
CLUNK. CLANG.
THUD. THUD.
"I think they're coming!"
The man almost grinned, as if he were looking forward to this. Just who the hell was he?! "Well, let's meet the neighbours, shall we?"
At the entrance to the alley, the two Cybermen stopped, and Kirito got a closer look at them, a look that revealed the level of horror and depravity on display with the creatures. The cloth that covered them was old and stained with the dirt of the years they had been enclosed in it. The metal that covered them was jagged and unrefined, rust seeping in in areas, whilst the face could almost pass for human, but there was something just inherently wrong about it…
The handlebars instead of ears didn't help that image either, and if he wasn't mistaken, it looked as if area beneath its eyes had been worn away by tears, leaving just a teardrop shaped gap.
"Mondasian Cybermen. Can't say I was expecting that!" The Doctor almost beamed. "Mind you, whoever's been looking after you hasn't been doing it properly, have they?"
"YOU… ARE… THE DOCTOR. YOU… WILL… COME… WITH US."
"You know me?" He asked, surprised.
"THE… ADMINISTRATOR… DEMANDS YOUR… PRESENCE… DOCTOR."
"Well then, we shouldn't keep the head honcho waiting, should we?" The Doctor looked at both boys with a grin on his face, as if he were enjoying this... "Take me to your leader… I've always wanted to say that!"
For once, Kirito looked towards Eugeo as if to ask him what the hell he had gotten them into this time. Cybernetic creatures, an invitation to the Central Cathedral and a madman in a pinstripe suit… never did he think he would be nostalgic for Aincrad, but at least that was simple!
This was only going to get more complicated, Kirito knew that much, and whoever the Doctor was, well… life wasn't going to be the same ever again.
How could it be when you knew creatures like the Cybermen existed?
{Author's Comments}
I only missed the entire Fourteenth Doctor's era between updates... whoops.
So in brief: This chapter really didn't want to come together, and I had no real plan for where I was going with this. Yeah, that took over a year to work out... the joys of overcommitting yourself.
So going forward, this won't really have a set release schedule, like ACES and An Englishman. It'll be more like An Englishman in the Glocken, in that it'll get an update whenever I finish one - so I'm hoping that'll be every few months for now.
If you're enjoying this, and don't want to miss 2025's update (I seriously hope that'll be a joke, but just in case...), following and favouriting always helps, and if you want to talk to me about this, or any of my other stories, I'm on the SAO Fanfiction Central Discord - link: https: double slash discord dot gg / SrsdNgJPVR (replace the words with the symbols for the invite.)
