"Don't die, Mitsuki."
"Yeah, and you as well."
The boy standing beside him spoke these brief words. Then, the heroes of the Dual Blades and the Double Spear assumed their combat stances, baring their steel against destiny.
At that same moment, the Holy Paladin in red and the Black Swordsman drew their blades in a blur of motion.
The surrounding air grew heavy. My thoughts sharpened like a blade's edge, and every detail vanished from my sight except for the four figures about to clash.
This was no ordinary regulated duel. It was a raw struggle for survival with no rules, a fight where lives were the currency. The condition for victory was stark and simple: one side must die for the other to live. More precisely, we only needed to defeat one of them to claim victory. Yet, focusing on just one opponent—or one of us merely defending while the other fought—was an illusion. We faced the strongest Holy Paladin and the most formidable beast in the game. Any lapse or retreat would mean immediate death.
We had to cast aside such weak thoughts and focus on one goal: taking them both down... killing that man!
"I will kill him!!"
"Ooooooh!!"
Kirito lunged like an arrow with his twin swords to breach the enemy's line. Graphite, that black entity, charged with equal ferocity, wielding two blades.
Each aimed for the other's counterpart: Kirito toward Kayaba, and I toward Graphite. In the instant their black shadows crossed and their eyes met, their movements suddenly halted. Their four blades collided with a deafening metallic roar. The two black swordsmen, Kirito and Graphite, stood locked in a clash, their backs to their respective enemies as if time had frozen. In that critical moment, Kayaba and I lunged simultaneously toward the stalemate.
I leaped high over Graphite, bypassing both of them, and drove my right spear toward Kayaba, who waited on the far side.
The momentum of my fall empowered my thrust, yet he parried it with his shield with staggering ease. He countered with a swift sword strike that nearly caught my back. I blocked it with the shaft of my left spear, which I had raised in a flash, then relaxed the tension in my left arm as I dropped my weight. The spear that took the blow slid aside, its downward-pointing blade shifting to aim directly at Kayaba's chest. In that split second, I adjusted my grip and delivered a deep thrust toward his arm.
This man created every Sword Skill in this world. Although the Double Spear skills were the sole exception to his rules, I had already revealed the high-tier skill, "Bright Storm Meteor," in our previous duel. He surely understood the nature of the major Double Spear techniques by now—that they, like the Dual Blades, left the user in a state of motion rigidity and exposed openings based on the number of consecutive strikes. Relying on the system's auto-assist would be pure folly. We had no choice but to fight with raw, manual skill.
I poured two years of hard-won experience into every movement, letting instinct guide my spear. Kayaba, in turn, adapted to my patterns, weaving sharp counter-attacks that probed the gaps in my defense. The longer the battle lasted, the more he acclimated to the Double Spear style. I had hoped to defeat him quickly, but he was a masterful combatant, and things rarely go as planned.
Still, I was not so foolish as to let him wear me down slowly. This was a lawless fight, and I would use a weapon the opponents lacked!
Kayaba, fighting alongside a programmed monster that did nothing but hunt its target, could never match the human coordination between Kirito and me. In the heat of the battle, my eyes met the Black Swordsman's for a fleeting second as he fought a fierce struggle behind me. I flipped backward, dodging Kayaba's sword. In that instant, a "Vorpal Strike" tore through the space beneath me like a red flash, roaring like a jet engine, and struck Kayaba with complete surprise.
Kirito and I swapped opponents in mid-air. I twisted my body and pulled back my left spear, gripping it in a reverse hold over my shoulder. I unleashed the projectile skill, "Meteor Impale," wrapped in a crimson light, toward Graphite. But, as expected of the Ninety-Ninth Floor Boss, he batted the spear aside with a strike from his twin blades.
That was fine; it was exactly what I wanted. Dual Blades skills relied essentially on high-speed consecutive strikes. I might parry two or three hits, but I wouldn't survive five in a row, even with two spears. Fighting this monster required a style that integrated Sword Skills, unlike my fight against Kayaba.
Now, having lost one of my spears and using both hands on the remaining one, my maneuverability increased. I engaged in a violent clash while maintaining a distance that kept his blades from reaching me. Despite knowing his strength beforehand, his ferocity was truly terrifying. While he wasn't as massive as the Skull Reaper or the Fatal Scythe, every blow was incredibly fast and heavy—to say nothing of his masterful use of Sword Skills.
If we focused only on pure strength or speed, other monsters might surpass him. But in terms of overall combat power and tactics, he was undoubtedly the strongest enemy I had ever faced.
The first strike of his "Double Circular" knocked my spear upward. Before the second, lethal blow could pierce my exposed body, I struck his sword with my spear tip, which glowed with an orange light, shattering his attack.
His artificial intelligence seemed remarkably complex; for a moment, I thought his red mask-like eyes widened in shock.
This was one of the Double Spear skills I inherited from the "Infinite Spear" skill, as Kayaba had explained. When I held only one spear, the motion rigidity following a Sword Skill was canceled, provided the skill was a single-hit type. The price was the inability to use ultimate techniques and a fifty-percent reduction in critical hit power, but the benefit in such a fight was priceless.
Given the enemy's overwhelming strength, a standard exchange of blows would inevitably lead to my defeat. But by integrating Sword Skills into my defense and offense, I could nullify his strikes, using the system's auto-recovery to snap my spear back into position. More importantly—
"Ooooooh!!"
I lunged with a "Fatal Thrust." When I saw him evade it, I used my lead foot as an axis to spin my body, pulling my spear to the right. Instantly, a different light flared, signaling the activation of "Helical Scythe," a wide-range horizontal skill. Graphite, who had dodged to the side, tried to block it with his sword. I checked my rebounding spear with a calculated move, and a purple light ignited. "Edge Fall"—a vertical strike. The blade crashed down. He met it with crossed swords, but I withdrew the spear with lightning speed. "Swift Lunge"—a straight thrust that grazed the Black Swordsman's side with a minor wound.
This was the true power of the "Infinite Spear": a chain of connected Sword Skills made possible by canceling motion rigidity.
It wasn't just about activating skills in succession. The longer the gap between movements, the greater the risk of a counter-attack. I had to choose the most appropriate skill in a fraction of a second from a massive pool of techniques, linking them with the shortest, fastest possible movement while accounting for trajectory and power. It was an indescribable mental and physical challenge.
But Graphite was no ordinary opponent. Despite taking damage, he bathed his twin swords in a green light—the rotating Dual Blades skill, "End Revolver." I arched my body back to the limit to avoid a direct hit, then retreated with a backflip to create distance.
Suddenly, my back hit something. Without turning, I knew who it was, and we shouted together:
"Switch!"
With a synchronized signal, I swapped places with Kirito again. I snatched up the black spear embedded behind me in one swift motion and stood once more against Kayaba with two spears.
From that moment, the battle's tempo intensified into madness. Kirito and I swapped opponents repeatedly after every brief engagement. Facing this violent dance between the Dual Blades and the Double Spear with their differing lengths, Graphite—unlike Kayaba—began to lose the initiative, and his attacks faltered. I felt victory was near... and at that moment, to break the siege, Graphite bathed his swords in a brilliant light. That stance... it was the ultimate Dual Blades skill, "The Eclipse"—twenty-seven consecutive strikes!
Kirito, who was facing him, recognized the danger and took the same stance to retaliate in kind.
"The Eclipse" is incredibly powerful, but it leaves the user stationary and exposed during and after execution. If Kirito could match the enemy's strikes with the same skill, and I could pierce Graphite from behind, the battle would be decided. But the opponent thought the same way. Thus, my duty was to snipe that tiny window that would appear after the twenty-seven strikes, provided I could completely suppress Kayaba until then. Before I could finish the thought, he had already moved.
His speed wasn't the madness required for "System Over-Ride," but his full-power lunge and modified attributes were enough to catch me in a lethal surprise. The Holy Paladin shoved the Black Swordsman aside and raised his cross shield directly before Kirito's eyes, obscuring me from him.
Graphite, meanwhile, had not completely lost his balance despite the shove, and the light continued to envelop his swords. Kirito was in certain danger!
Without thinking, I threw myself instinctively between Kirito and Graphite. At that moment, a storm of flashes erupted like searing solar flares.
It goes without saying that Kayaba created the Dual Blades skill. Having accompanied Kirito in his training to level up the skill, I had memorized the attack paths by heart. I saw the blade's path, yet...
"Damn it... can I hold out until the end?!"
There was no room for a counter-attack. My entire focus went into evading what I could and using my spear with everything I had to deflect the twenty-seven relentless strikes. With every collision, the metallic shock rattled my body and slowly drained my HP. I was in a weakened position; a single mistake in parrying even one strike would mean my certain end.
By my estimation, Graphite had started the skill first by a hair's breadth. This meant his skill would end first, and I would be freed before Kayaba. The moment Graphite's attacks ended, if I could land a blow on Kayaba's back—exposed while he focused on defense—it would be our victory!
The chance would last only for a heartbeat. Any failure would cost Kirito his life. To win together, I could not fall first.
"Yes... we will all go back... to our original world!!"
Suddenly, color drained from my vision. Sound faded, and nothing reached my ears but the faint echo of clashing steel behind me. This state, which I called the "Ash Realm," accelerated my senses until the lunging blades appeared strikingly slow.
19... 20, 21... only six strikes remained.
That slow speed existed only in my perception. I didn't have the luxury of counter-attacking, but I could adjust my spear's angle to meet the blade. With extreme speed and precision, I placed the spear parallel to the sword's path to minimize the damage.
24, 25, 26... one strike left!
The final left thrust that concludes the twenty-seven hits lunged forward. I drove my left spear into the side of the blade to knock it off course. With that same momentum, I spun my body and pulled my right spear back with force.
Kayaba was still busy blocking Kirito's attack. From this distance, I would surely finish him!
With that certainty, I unleashed the heavy Double Spear skill, "Converging Stab." But before my attack could complete, I felt something strange pierce my vitals. I looked at my chest to see a gleaming black blade protruding directly from it. In that moment, color returned to my vision, and a sharp, dull pain flooded my head.
"Wh—"
What happened? How? I had parried all twenty-seven of Graphite's strikes; he should have been in a state of rigidity. No... could it be... that he has the same ability?! Can he also cancel motion rigidity after a skill?! It doesn't matter now! I must finish him quickly!
In a fraction of a second—less than a single tick of the clock—it was enough time for Kayaba, who had finished blocking the attack, to raise his sword high.
"Farewell... Kirito."
A blade descended, bathed in a brilliant red light. Before it could hit its mark, a white shadow leaped into the middle.
A white shadow spread its arms to protect Kirito with its body. Kayaba drove his sword deep into Asuna's body, from her shoulder through her chest. Light fragments flew with the red glow of the sword, appearing like a fountain of blood erupting from her.
Kirito caught Asuna's body as it fell back. Her HP began to drain with insane speed... until it hit zero.
"This is a lie... impossible... how..."
With a trembling voice, Kirito choked out the words, while Asuna whispered one last thing. Then, her body shattered into countless digital shards. Kirito reached out, trying to gather the shards that once formed her body, but his hand caught only empty air.
"This is truly remarkable. There shouldn't have been a way to recover from paralysis through willpower alone. It seems such miracles actually happen."
Before Kirito, who had fallen to his knees after losing everything, Kayaba opened his menu and whispered those words, his face showing signs of surprise and admiration.
"And now, Kirito. If you still wish to fight, take your sword and stand."
There was no answer. The shock of Asuna's death had stripped Kirito of all will to fight. Yet, as if something moved him mechanically, Kirito rose slowly. He gripped his black sword, "Elucidator," in his right hand, and in his left, he held Asuna's precious "Lambent Light" instead of his own shattered white sword. But he began to swing them weakly, with strikes that couldn't even be called an attack.
Kayaba sighed softly, knocked the black sword from Kirito's hand, and drove his sword into the center of his chest without hesitation.
"Kiri...to...!"
With a mechanical movement of his sword, Graphite threw my body aside. I slumped to the ground, surrendering to my fate. My HP bar had turned a deep crimson, with only a sliver remaining. In ten more seconds, I would follow Asuna.
I couldn't even strike him before my death. If I had maintained my consciousness at that moment no matter what, could Asuna have been saved? And would Kirito have lived?
I let them both die... damn it, I can't gather my thoughts...
Mist began to invade my mind, and my consciousness sank into deep darkness. In the center of that vanishing vision, my HP hit zero.
"Mitsuki!"
I heard a voice calling me from afar. Her voice... yes, it was Alice's voice.
"Ali...ce..."
The name I spoke with my final breath cleared the mist from my consciousness and ignited a small flame within me.
"I will never accept this. Didn't we decide to win together? To all go back?"
I pressed down hard on my trembling arms and lifted my body. My body felt suspiciously heavy, and the pain squeezing my head grew sharper.
"Even if I am destined to die here... that is not reason enough to give up."
My body was still moving. I wasn't dead yet. And then, I realized it. In the upper left corner of my vision, my HP bar was flickering unnaturally. It was as if it were rebelling against the system's inevitable judgment of deletion. At the final moment, that single remaining pixel was vanishing and then reappearing, dying and then living, in a vicious cycle of resistance.
I picked up the spear lying beside me and stood. Graphite lunged toward me to finish the job. He raised his gleaming black sword, the blade that bore the name of "Graphite," to extinguish my small, stubborn flame of life. I raised my spear with everything I had.
"Ooooooh!!"
The two blades lunged at once.
In that moment, a golden shawl fluttered lightly before my eyes.
My spear pierced Graphite's body with precision. As for his sword, which had launched a moment before my spear—it didn't hit me. Instead, it pierced the chest of Alice, who had leaped in front of me. As Graphite's HP dwindled, her HP also began to drain quietly.
"Truly... you are such... a fool."
"Those words... are meant for you too. I told you—I won't leave you alone. I'll stay by your side. That was my promise."
"Yes... that was the promise."
The flame that protected us finally went out, and the last pixel of my life vanished. Simultaneously, the HP of the two swordsmen before me hit zero. Our bodies all shattered into beautiful shards that faded into the air.
"November 7, 14:55, Game Cleared."
"Game Cleared."
As the automated announcement sped away from my ears, I surrendered to my consciousness as it quietly shut down.
So this is what a burning sunset looks like. After a moment, I found myself in a mysterious space.
A vast, open place, broken only by the glowing sunlight of a sunset that filled the sky. Despite the simplicity of the place, the brilliant sun and drifting clouds made it a majestic sight. Terror gripped me for a moment when I looked beneath my feet and saw the void, but seeing the reflection of the sunset, I realized I was standing on a massive crystalline platform and breathed a sigh of relief.
"It doesn't matter anyway. I am already dead."
In that moment, my HP had certainly hit zero. I tasted that indescribable feeling of a virtual body shattering, a sensation I hadn't felt since the beta test days. By the laws of the system, I was among the dead. I thought the end of the game meant immediate death in reality, but...
As I was lost in thought, I heard the sound of footsteps behind me. The sounds grew steady until they stopped directly behind me.
"I'll say it again: you really are a fool."
"I told you those words were meant for you too... you big fool."
"I'm sorry."
I directed my apology to Alice, who was standing behind me.
"I am truly... sorry. I promised to protect you... and to return together to our original world, but I..."
"It's true that we can no longer fulfill the promise to meet in the original world... However, we can fulfill another promise."
Alice moved to stand beside me and took my hand.
"I will stay by your side. I will always be with you, until the final moment of our lives."
"Ah..."
I pulled her toward me as she smiled. After a kiss that felt as long as an eon and as short as a flash of lightning, Alice looked around in surprise.
"But... where are we now?"
"I don't know either... wait."
I tried waving my right hand vertically. The menu window appeared with the familiar bell sound.
"At least it doesn't seem we're in the world of the dead yet."
At the top of the menu, instead of the equipment icon, the phrase "Final Phase in Progress" appeared, with a percentage below it showing the progress. If this final phase was the "brain destruction sequence" Kayaba had mentioned, it meant we would officially die once the percentage reached 100%. If that were the case, we should enjoy this view one last time.
"Mitsuki, look at that."
Alice pointed her finger toward the conical castle collapsing above the clouds below—Aincrad.
"At first, I saw it as a prison—and it was. But seeing it shatter now gives me a strange feeling."
"Yeah... it's a sad feeling, in a way."
"I am glad to hear that, as the creator of this world."
Alice and I looked beside us at the sudden voice. A thin man in a white lab coat stood there quietly.
"Akihiko... Kayaba."
"First, here is the report. Currently, all data in the memory storage devices at Argus Headquarters on the fifth basement floor is being erased. The collapse of that castle is merely a visual representation of that deletion."
"Erased... and what will happen to the people who lived in that world?"
"No need to worry. A short while ago, the logout sequence was completed for all 6,147 surviving players."
"No, that's not what I meant!"
"Ah, right. I remembered that Miss Alice treated NPCs as human beings. Unfortunately—"
"The floating castle of Aincrad is the fortress that rose from the earth to embrace the sky through the 'Earth-Rending.' Now that the Final Boss is defeated, surely the inhabitants of that castle will return to the land from which they came—isn't that right, Kayaba?"
"Yes. That's right."
What I said was the myth of Aincrad's origin—or simply the game's "lore." But Kayaba didn't deny my words; instead, he nodded with a very slight smile appearing on his lips.
"I wanted to ask plainly. Why did you do all this? You said your goal wasn't killing or imprisonment, but observing this world, yet you actually lived among us. What does that mean?"
"Why... I forgot the reason for a long time."
The moment I began developing the FullDive system... even long before that, I dreamed of creating a world that transcended all frameworks and laws of reality. Yet, even in that world, laws of its own existed, different from reality. Everyone living there was bound by those laws. Perhaps the moment I realized that, my old dream began to wither.
But in the midst of it all, I was able to see things that surpassed my expectations as a creator. Those boys and girls rebelled against the laws of the world in every sense of the word.
It began as a simple, naive childhood fantasy carried in a young boy's heart.
One day, I would fly from this earth to reach that castle... That dream, which grew more detailed as the years passed, remained hidden in the depths of my heart with a brilliance that never faded. It was the driving force for the man named Akihiko Kayaba.
"I still believe even now... that there is another world, somewhere... where that castle truly exists."
"I hope so. If such a world exists, I want to see it too."
"Akihiko Kayaba. What you did by imprisoning innocent people in this castle and forcing them to fight is a crime that can never be forgiven. However—the Aincrad where I spent these two years was a genuine reality for me. This world, which contained pain and sorrow in equal measure to happiness and joy... was undoubtedly a real world."
"I see. That is good."
After hearing Alice's words, a clear smile appeared on Kayaba's face for the first time.
"The time has come. I will take my leave now. In closing—congratulations on clearing the game. Mitsuki, Alice. This is a small reward from me to you."
Having said his piece, Kayaba vanished. Silence fell over the two of us once more. No doubt, very little time remained. We would only be able to speak for a few more moments.
"Right, I should tell you something at last."
"What is it?"
"Mishima Suigetsu—that is my real name, the one I wanted you to call me when we met in the original world."
"Suigetsu... it has a beautiful ring to it."
"Really? I thought it was a bit old-fashioned and traditional."
"I love it. I love the name Mitsuki, and I love the name Suigetsu as well. And since you've revealed your name, I must do the same... though I don't have much to tell."
Alice stepped toward me with the sunset in the background, her sapphire eyes looking directly into mine.
"I am Alice—and that is the name of the human who loves you more than anyone else in this world. Please, remember this always."
"Yeah. I won't forget. I will never forget..."
I carved her name into the depths of my heart, a name that would remain even after this soul overflowed.
I hope with all my heart that we meet again even if we are reborn—and that we walk the paths of time together next time.
With that wish in our hearts, we embraced as our bodies began to melt into a brilliant light and vanish.
An electronic hum annoyed my ears. I opened my eyes with difficulty to see an ivory-white ceiling stretching before me. I turned my gaze to the side, and the sunlight streaming from the window burned my eyes. I lifted my hand with effort to block the light and saw a thin, skeletal hand that was terrifying to behold.
Is this... my hand? When did I take off my gloves? With a hand like this, I could never control a spear.
Those thoughts appeared and disappeared in my mind. I saw tubes connected to my arm, and when I followed their path, I saw IV bags hanging from a metal stand. Was such a thing... in Aincrad? No... it wasn't there. That meant this place was not Aincrad?
Breathing with difficulty, I placed my hand on my head with great struggle. I felt a smooth texture, and after much suffering, I pulled off the helmet-like object... to see the old, worn-out NerveGear before my eyes.
No doubt about it... this is reality.
I have returned at last.
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