Sword Art Online - Volume 18 - Chapter 21.6

Chapter 21.6 – Awakening (continued)
7 July 2026 / Eighth Day1 of the Eleventh Month of the Human Empire Calendar, 380

“Only… YOU…! Never… forgive…”

Crack!!

A second sword pierced straight through Klein’s body with a dull sound.

Tears, never running dry all this time, flowed uncontrollably from Asuna’s eyes.

Even while pinned heavily to the ground, Klein clawed at the earth with his right hand as the inciter in the black poncho — PoH, the former leader of the murder guild «Laughing Coffin», viewed him from above with a look of deep disgust.

“Ahh, I can’t watch this anymore. Nobodies like you should just get out of the way like the nobodies you are. This is what happens when you butt in and play the hero.”

PoH shook his head while spreading his arms, and then, in a language Asuna couldn’t understand, indicated something to the crimson knight players standing behind Klein. One of them nodded and raised another sword.

Just as the third gleaming blade was about to blast away what had to be the last of Klein’s HP—

“Hajimaaaaaaaaaa!!2”

One of the crimson knights exploded from the rear of the human wall and with a scream that sounded Korean, used his own sword to block the blade about to fall upon Klein.

***

—You’ve gotta be kidding me… How does it hurt this much?

Jo Wol-saeng/Moonphase remained prone on the ground, enduring the pain on his back where the man in the black poncho had slashed him.

The AmuSphere he was using should only be able to generate a very weak sensation of pain. As a matter of fact, even if his avatar’s head were crushed in the jaws of a colossal dragon in the game he played so much, «Silla Online», he would only feel a jolt akin to numbness.

And yet, Wol-saeng was experiencing an excruciating agony as if he had been scalded with a torch.

No, if he were injured the same way in the real world, he wouldn’t be feeling just this. That man in the black poncho had swung his fiendish, thickset Chinese cleaver-like weapon so fast that not even Wol-saeng, who thought himself a veteran player, had time to react. He would probably die instantly if he were attacked like that in the real world, and if not, he would experience pain so intense that it would be difficult to remain conscious. That was why this pain could only be a virtual sensation.

But despite his awareness of this, an unbearable sensation was still unbearable. Wol-saeng almost wanted to abandon the scene before him and log out of the game as fast as he could.

But even as he curled up pitifully atop the black dirt, he kept enduring the pain, because he could not accept the situation playing out right before his eyes no matter what.

Japanese hackers have «attacked» the closed beta testing server of a new VRMMORPG jointly developed by American, Chinese, and Korean volunteers, and are killing the developers in the game world. We hope that everyone can fight to stop the barbarity of these Japanese.

This social media appeal was what the Korean players, Wol-saeng included, and the Chinese players were responding to before diving into this VRMMO. They then bore witness to a group of Japanese players annihilating another group of players, supposedly Americans.

But — did that scene really fit the explanation by whomever had sent out the appeal?

As Wol-saeng saw it, it seemed instead that the Japanese were the more desperate ones, while the Americans looked more like they were playing a game. This impression had not changed, not even when the tide of battle had been turned by the «rescue» from tens of thousands of Korean and Chinese players, and even now, with most of the Japanese incapacitated. Even with their equipment shattered and their HP bordering on running out, they were putting their lives on the line to… Yes, they were trying to protect something, not destroy it.

Before Wol-saeng was slashed by that man in the black poncho, a female player from the group of Japanese had made a plea in native Korean that went like this:

—You’ve all been lied to. This server belongs to a Japanese company, we’re not hackers, we’re the rightful users. You were all tricked by false information into coming here to interrupt its development.

Something about the voice and expression of that female player calling herself Siune had greatly moved Wol-saeng. So he had endured hell and high water to get close to her in that free-for-all, to ask her “Do you have a way to prove what you are saying?”, and just as Siune’s partner was about to respond in Japanese, Wol-saeng was attacked by a slash from the man in the black poncho and was unable to get back up.

The developments that followed went blindingly quickly and were completely one-sided. The Japanese players were crushed by the crimson legion. A large portion of them lost all of their HP and were forcibly ejected from the game while the surviving half, numbering less than 200, were stripped of their weapons and rounded up in one place.

At that point Wol-saeng thought that the man in the black poncho, appearing again at the very front lines, was going to declare their victory, but instead he did something odd.

A single player wearing black clothes, sitting in a wheelchair and hugging two swords in his lap, was removed from a group of what appeared to be Japanese reinforcement players, and then the man in the black poncho began accosting him nonstop in Japanese.

This is getting weirder and weirder, thought Wol-saeng.

What on earth was a wheelchair doing in a virtual world — a VRMMO?

In the game he played frequently, «Silla Online», if one’s feet were injured or suffered otherwise abnormal status effects, free movement on foot would be restricted. But you would be able to fully recover with the use of magic, medicine, or simply waiting until time was up. If your ability to walk was so impeded that you needed a wheelchair to get around, then at that point it couldn’t just be an in-game punishment.

What was more, that young man in black seemed to have some sort of impediment to his consciousness; he did not react to anything the man in the black poncho said, and even when the man shook him he offered no resistance. One might think that if he wasn’t an NPC, then he was probably an empty character uninhabited by an online player.

Finally, as though he could not bear it anymore, the man in the black poncho delivered a merciless kick at the wheelchair’s silver wheel and knocked it over. In a flash, Wol-saeng forgot the pain on his back and held his breath. The Koreans around him let out noises of confusion, unable to grasp the situation.

At last, the young man sprawled on the ground displayed a reaction of his own accord: he reached his left arm towards the white blade out of the two swords he had been hugging so preciously until a moment ago. When Wol-saeng saw this he finally realized that there was nothing past the boy’s right shoulder.

But his hand was still unable to touch the sword, because the man in the black poncho had picked it up first, and was holding it somewhat high out of reach as if he were taunting a child. The young man scrambled on the ground, desperately reaching for the sword, trying to get it back. The man in the black poncho seized the boy’s left arm and violently yanked him to his feet. Loud words came from his mouth while his right palm struck the boy’s cheek twice, three times.

All of a sudden, a new scream shattered the scene.

One of the captured Japanese players, wearing samurai-styled armor and a bandanna on his head, tried to grab the man in the black poncho.

But in the next instant a Korean player’s sword thundered from behind and buried itself deeply into the samurai’s body. Clearly enduring agony much greater than Wol-saeng’s, he attempted to keep advancing forward but then a second sword stopped him.

The man in the black poncho sneered at the male samurai pinned to the ground. Then he delivered an order in Korean to the crimson knights.

“He’s a nuisance. Kill him.”

One of the crimson knights nodded and raised a third sword.

He just could not silently watch this happen anymore. He had not seen proof of what Siune claimed, but at the very least he despised the black poncho man’s act of kicking over the wheelchair. On the other hand the samurai’s desperate act gave Wol-saeng a strong impression that he was trying to protect his comrade.

Wol-saeng didn’t hold much goodwill towards the country of Japan. Putting aside historical and territorial problems, their insular, scornful attitude made it seem like they thought they were the most superior nation in all of East Asia. The best proof of that was the fact that they had released The Seed Nexus to western nations, but specifically excluded connections from Korea and China.

—However.

The whole country of Japan did not equate to every single Japanese person living within it. There weren’t many of them, but in the few international servers that did exist in the computer games before VRMMOs, he did have some unpleasant memories of certain Japanese players there, but of course he also had warm, amiable experiences of playing together with them.

Wol-saeng now loathed that man in the black poncho. He wanted to believe Siune and that samurai. It had nothing to do with them being Japanese or Korean. The simple reason was that a voice was screaming to him in his heart to do so.

The instant he acted, another wave of blinding, dizzying agony pierced through his back, racing up to his head, but he clenched his teeth and got up. He drew out his longsword and inhaled a chest full of air—

“……… Hajimaaaaaaaaaa!”

Roaring furiously as loudly as he could, Wol-saeng kicked off the ground.

The system granted very average stats to the crimson knight avatars; Wol-saeng’s movements were a good deal heavier than that of his usual speed-type character «Moonphase» in Silla Online. But because of the effect of some unknown force, only in this moment did Wol-saeng fly across the wilderness like a gale and just barely manage to block with his own blade the sword about to steal the samurai’s life.

“You… What’re you doing?!”

The crimson knight right in front of him bellowed in Korean, with shock — and much more, rage — in his voice. Had it been a Chinese, he would have been done for, so Wol-saeng did not waste this tiny stroke of luck and desperately tried to persuade the player.

“I wanted to ask you whether you think this is weird?! The battle is over! Why are we doing still doing things that basically amount to lynching?!”

Hearing him say this, his fellow countryman was forced to fall silent, and turned his gaze to the samurai collapsed at his feet and the wheelchair boy sprawled on the ground behind Wol-saeng. The eyes behind the visor blinked, seeming to hesitate. He had to have been growing confused too as the frenzy of battle cooled down. The grip on the sword he was pressing against Wol-saeng’s slowly relaxed.

But before Wol-saeng could speak again, a sharp voice flew out of the human wall surrounding the scene.

“Baesinja!3”

“Kill him too!”

As though he were being spurred on by the fury of his comrades, the crimson knight before him renewed his grip on the longsword.

But what Wol-saeng heard next completely exceeded his expectations.

“Wait! Hear what this guy has to say!”

“That poncho guy’s taking it too far!”

At a glance, Koreans all over the wall of players had also begun to argue. The embers of discussion spread instantly, dividing the players into the radicals — who wanted to kill every last one of the surviving Japanese — and the moderates — who wanted to wait until the situation was properly explained before taking any action. Fierce arguments erupted between the two factions, and this dichotomy even spread to the Chinese: one could hear unintelligible roars rising and falling on the wilderness.

How was their only leader going to handle this situation?

Just as Wol-saeng was pondering this, he turned to look—

Standing beside the one-armed boy lying on the ground, the man in the black poncho was twirling his thick cleaver-like dagger, a great, great sneer curving the mouth hidden deep under his hood.

It took Wol-saeng only a moment to understand that he was not looking at anger, but suppressed laughter. A shudder, cold enough to offset his pain, ran down Wol-saeng’s spine.

This man had absolutely nothing to do with a game jointly developed by Chinese, Korean, and Americans or whatever. Whether such a game even existed was highly doubtful. He wasn’t clear on the details, but it was just for the sake of pitting players from every country against each other in a fight on this battlefield with real blood and real suffering… No, pitting them in a massacre against each other. That was his only goal.

“……Agma4……”

Wol-saeng heard the hoarse word slip from his own mouth.

***

Vassago Casals was born in San Francisco, in the slum district of the Tenderloin. His mother was of Spanish heritage and his father was Japanese.

The US birth certificate agency refused names that clearly caused harm to a child. So his mother named him Vassago, instead of Devil, or Satan. The functionary was not aware that Vassago was a minor demon named the «Prince of Hell», and approved the application.

There was only one reason a mother would give a demon’s name to her own child. She had not wanted him to be born — putting it more extremely, she hated this child with every fiber of her being.

Vassago did not know the details on how his parents met, nor did he want to know. Put simply, it had probably been a «monetary transaction». The pregnancy had been an unexpected development. His mother wanted to abort him, but gave birth to Vassago under his father’s orders. In that sense, did it mean that his father had wanted him? That was not the case. His father only occasionally checked on the child’s health without so much as bringing him a toy for a gift. The only thing he left with Vassago was his knowledge of Japanese.

It was not until he reached the age of fifteen that Vassago finally knew why his father had refused to allow his mother to abort him, and even put in the least amount of child-rearing expenses possible.

A child with a congenital kidney defect had been born into his father’s side of the family, and Vassago had been ordered to become his donor. He was completely unable to refuse, but he raised one condition: he expressed his desire to live in his father’s home country, Japan. After completing his donation duty, Vassago lost all value as an existence to his father, so he did not know how much longer he could stretch his allowance. The only future awaiting him if he stayed in the slums was as a drug dealer, so he decided to simply leave the country and begin anew in a new world.

His father accepted his condition and exchanged a passport and plane ticket for Vassago’s left kidney. Without saying goodbye to his mother, Vassago left for Japan, but what awaited him there was an even crueler fate.

Japanese law required a complicated procedure and strict review for international adoptions, and even if Vassago were successfully adopted, the authorities did not grant residency permits to children above the age of six. So from the very beginning, the only thing he had was a life in the criminal underworld.

Vassago was taken in by a Korean criminal syndicate, who granted the English, Spanish, and Japanese-speaking teenager a counterfeit ID and trained him into an assassin.

Having completed nine «jobs» in his past five years upon turning twenty, Vassago received his tenth job, with rules of engagement entirely different from any job he had received before.

It involved killing a target in a virtual world, one who would normally be completely unapproachable in the real world.

The meaning of that directive downright escaped him at first, but he finally understood after hearing the gist about the «SAO incident» taking place a few days before. Vassago’s target, having been enfolded into the incident, was currently holed up in his heavily guarded residence and would never set foot outside. Leaving it to the death game was unreliable, since he couldn’t be sure on which day he would die, and there was even the possibility of him escaping without dying at all. But if Vassago dived into the same game as him and removed all of his HP, the NerveGear in the real world would help take him out.

But there were three big problems with this method.

First, as an assassin, Vassago himself would also be unable to logout of the game before it was completely cleared. Second, if he died in the game, he would lose his life in the real world as well. And third, Vassago could not directly attack the target on his own, because if player-on-player violence was logged, that would become evidence of an assassination.

Faced with such an impossibly difficult mission, the syndicate offered him an astronomical sum in reward money. Vassago was not too sure whether the group could even pay out such a sum in the event that he successfully completed the mission, but he didn’t have the right at all to refuse anyway.

Almost all unused NerveGears had been confiscated by the police, but the syndicate managed to obtain one through unknown means. All they needed now was a copy of the SAO game software and the willpower to enter the death game of one’s own accord; neither the police nor the game’s development company possessed a way to stop him from doing the latter. Finally, he encountered unexpected difficulty in choosing his character name, but eventually decided on adopting a moniker akin to the original name his mother gave him: «PoH».

Vassago’s first experience in a true virtual world changed, or rather, liberated his personality. The Japanese players surrounding him reminded him of his father and relatives, whom he had forgotten for many years, and it was then that he finally realized how much he loathed them — all East Asians.

He had to take out his target because it was his job. But he also wanted to kill as many other players as he could.

Steeling his determination, Vassago founded the largest murder guild in SAO, «Laughing Coffin», and stole the lives of a great many players other than his original target. Eventually, after getting fed up with leading an overly large organization, he orchestrated a clash between his guild and the Progressors, letting them kill each other off. Just as he was preparing to personally take out the ones he viewed as his greatest, most prized prey, the «Flash» and the «Black Swordsman», the game was cleared.

The first thing Vassago felt upon returning from the death game to the real world was not joy, but despondency and disappointment. Although he knew that there was no way he was going back to that dreamlike world, he decided to return to America to pursue the same experience. The syndicate boss was unwilling to fork over the reward money, so Vassago killed him and took the cash. Upon returning to the US he entered the cyberoperations department of a private military contractor headquartered in San Diego.

In VR combat training he sparred against servicemen of the National Guard and Navy, and after flexing the skill he had honed within SAO, Vassago was immediately singled out and promoted to an instructor. But even with a stable life utterly incomparable to what he had before, there was no satisfaction in his heart.

Again. He wanted to go back to that world again. That true virtual world where all was digital and humans displayed their true nature, that true world tainted with lies.

Having maintained this wish for so long, it had to have been not a miracle, but fate that he would encounter the «Flash» and the «Black Swordsman» once more in a frighteningly realistic virtual world named Underworld.

The Black Swordsman’s mental state seemed currently altered for some reason, but if Vassago killed all of the players around him, he would awaken for sure. It was because the Black Swordsman reacted in such a manner that Vassago — PoH was more drawn to him than anyone he had ever met. He even felt that as long as he got to kill this boy with his own hands, he would be indifferent to committing suicide afterwards.

First, he instigated a mutual massacre between the Chinese and Koreans he had tricked with false information into entering Underworld, and plunged them into a bloodbath. He had never expected an off-the-cuff fib to hold for too long. Quite a number of people felt off about it and began arguing with the firmly hot-blooded patriots. When things grew just tense enough, all they needed was one spark.

The man who had just delivered a blow towards him was a slight distance, currently attempting to persuade his fellow countryman and showing no intention of losing hope. Vassago only needed to cleave the man’s head from his shoulders and yell at everyone to kill all cowards, and the overzealous patriots would draw their swords just as easily.

“Just wait… I’ll wake you up in no time…”

Vassago murmured towards the blank-faced black swordsman sprawled on the ground. It was then that he noticed that the young man’s profile looked a bit like his brother from a different mother, whom he had caught a brief glimpse of before their kidney transplant surgery. Stinging pain stabbed him in the chest.

He’d kill the «Black Swordsman» and the «Flash» in this world first and force them to logout, and then he would follow suit. Then he would find them, hidden somewhere on the Ocean Turtle, and kill them again, with extreme prejudice.

The thought of that moment alone seemed enough to slightly alleviate the pain in his left abdomen, which had never once vanished since his kidney had been stolen from him at age fifteen.

Deep underneath his hood, Vassago grinned and murmured again towards the young man lying at his feet:

“If you keep sleeping like this, everyone’s gonna die. Come on, wake up. Please.”

Vassago began to walk again, his right hand playing with his favorite weapon, the «Mate Chopper».

***

Crunch.

Her soul deprived of strength, Asuna listened to the sound of someone’s shoe stepping against the arid ground.

Crunch, crunch. A cold, robotic sound, yet rhythmic at the same time, like there was a jig in their step.

It was the sound of the footsteps of the reaper, a sound she had heard many times before, within the now-gone floating castle.

Looking up, she watched as the black poncho silhouette walked towards her from beside Kirito, lying about twenty meters away.

No, he was not walking towards her. He was walking towards her right, towards Klein, who had been pierced by two swords in his right side. Probably to personally deal with that samurai, who seemed to be struggling against death with willpower alone.

But after a moment, she quickly noticed that she had been wrong again.

Close to Klein, who was lying on the ground, two knights in crimson armor were arguing fiercely in unintelligible Korean. It was then that Asuna realized that the gigantic legion numbering tens of thousands of knights surrounding the surviving Japanese players and Underworld troops, was also locked in turbulent opposition left, right, and center.

This had to be the confrontation between the players who had realized PoH’s lies and the players who still believed him. At this rate, the slightest sign of trouble would cause the latter to turn their swords against the former, which would expand the chain reaction of hate onto the Chinese-Korean allied players. And PoH was trying to prevent that…

———No.

No. No.

That man intended to personally ignite this all-new conflict spreading gradually across the battlefield.

Just as he had intentionally leaked the location of the headquarters of his own murder guild, «Laughing Coffin», so as to allow the Progressors to engage them in a bloody crusade.

Asuna could not understand the benefit behind allowing one’s own troops to be halved. But she was certain that something extremely vile was about to happen.

PoH advanced at a leisurely pace, indicating something in Korean.

As though they were casting away their momentary doubt, the two men who had stopped Klein seized a different person, then each of them grabbed one of his arms and robbed him of his freedom.

With a whip, the reaper in the black poncho renewed his grip upon his thick cleaver.

He meant to personally execute this «traitor», then raise his head high, using that to incite the Chinese and Korean players who still believed him now and spur them to attack their own comrades.

She must not allow that to happen. Although her ultimate goal was to protect the Underworld residents, she really ought not to stop the crimson knights from killing each other. Even if their number was halved there would still be more than ten thousand of them. Moreover, at that time their hearts would be boiling with deeper rage and hostility than before, and those negative emotions would be directed at the Japanese and Underworld residents.

On top of that, the halved number of Chinese and Korean players incited by PoH and about to be murdered, were slowly realizing the truth behind this world… They were beginning to believe the Japanese players who had spoken out to them. She simply could not watch them be murdered.

She had to act. She had to stand up and swing her sword to stop PoH’s execution.

But neither her hands nor her feet had any strength left in them. Every time she took a breath, the countless wounds that laced her body would throb, weakening her fading consciousness.

………No……… I can’t get up.

Asuna exhaled feebly, remaining knelt on the dry ground.

She slowly curled her back. Her filthy, disheveled hair fell from her shoulders, obscuring her vision.

Just then.

It’s all right.

You can do it, Asuna. Stand up.

Someone’s faint, yet firm voice entered her ears.

Someone’s arm gently, yet powerfully encircled Asuna’s shoulders.

Warm light flowed into her body — into her soul. A refreshing breeze blew away all of pain in her body.

Come on, Asuna. Stand up.

To protect what’s important to you.

Asuna’s right hand twitched, crawled across the ground, and grabbed what had fallen on the ground.

The hilt of «Radiant Light», the rapier of Stacia, the Goddess of Creation.

Raising her face, she saw the reaper in the black poncho raising his cleaver high, high in the air, as it emitted a blood-red gleam. The captured crimson knight had frozen to the spot, as if out of fear. The commotion all around had ceased and all eyes were concentrated on the blade, devoid of mercy.

Holding her breath, clenching her teeth, concentrating the very last bit of strength she had…

Asuna kicked hard off the ground.

“Ooh… AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”

She pulled back the rapier in her right hand with a scream that felt like she was spitting out a mouthful of blood. The sharp tip ejected a white flash. A basic Sword Skill she had used many thousands, even tens of thousands of times in the past: «Linear».

PoH noticed Asuna’s surprise attack with astonishing reaction speed.

“Ohh…”

Emitting a grunt she threw her upper body backwards. Asuna frantically thrust her right hand towards the darkness deep within the hood far away.

She felt some resistance. A lock of black curly hair flew towards the sky and droplets of blood slipped from gray skin.

—He dodged it!

Whether it was in Underworld or in Aincrad, activating a Sword Skill would create a large opening with it. Instantly Asuna was plunged into a fatally rigid state and PoH’s cleaver was already thundering towards her, slicing the air as it came.

But at the same time Asuna concentrated her imagination under PoH’s feet.

Variegated light blossomed slightly from the ground and vanished. Asuna used the power of Stacia the Goddess of Creation to raise the ground under PoH, with his feet as the center, a few centimeters into the air.

It was only a slight bit of geographical manipulation but her head was stabbed by a thunderous pain like a bolt of lightning. After she had paid such a price, the black reaper’s body lost balance and the cleaver only slashed a hole into Asuna’s clothes.

“Gur… rgh!”

Released from the rigid state, Asuna pulled back the rapier again.

“Rrgh!”

PoH raised his cleaver straight ahead of him, poncho whirling.

A jab with godlike speed clashed ferociously with an unyielding slash, spitting pure white and crimson red sparks.

Asuna summoned all of her strength to force back the sword clash while demanding hoarsely:

“What the hell… do you want?”

The corner of PoH’s exposed mouth under his hood lifted silently, and he responded in an coarse voice:

“Do I have to spell it out for you? I want that «black» guy… Ever since I first tried to kill him on the fifth floor of Aincrad he’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“…Why do you hate Kirito-kun so much? What’s he ever done to you?”

“Hate…?”

PoH repeated, sounding very disappointed. He brought his face slightly closer and murmured:

“I thought you, of all people, would understand how much I love him. He’s the only guy I can trust unconditionally in this whole shit-ridden world. No matter how much pain I put him through he doesn’t break, and no matter how much I tempt him he doesn’t sink. He brings me hope and joy no matter what time of day it is. So… I can’t allow him to become like this when I’m not there. You bet I’ll make him wake up. For that, I don’t care who or how many thousands… tens of thousands I have to kill.”

Those petrifying words exited the reaper’s mouth, transforming into a black miasma that encircled Asuna’s body, trying to rob her of her will to fight.

“Hope…? Joy…? What you did, do you know how much Kirito-kun has… has………!”

She wanted so much to refute him, but the point of intersection where the cleaver and rapier clashed suddenly and explosively ejected sparks, pressing closer and closer to Asuna.

No — Asuna’s will to fight didn’t move an inch. The demonic blade Mate Chopper clenched in PoH’s right hand was vibrating and increasing in thickness like a living organism.

PoH seemed to notice Asuna’s shock: he sneered deep within his hood.

“I finally understand how this world works. Here, spilled blood and lost lives are directly converted into energy. Like when the «Radiant Medium» shot that laser and torched the Dark Territory army.”

Before Asuna had dived in, she too had listened to an explanation of the system that comprised the foundation of Underworld. They were «Spatial Resources», but they either required a complicated incantation or equipment capable of absorbing them. Even if the Mate Chopper’s expansion in size was due to Spatial Resources, PoH had not recited the command, and the Mate Chopper should be merely a remnant of a converted SAO account, so it ought not to have the ability to absorb Resources in Underworld.

But as though he had read her thoughts, PoH continued:

“In Aincrad, the «Mate Chopper» got weaker the more you killed monsters with it, but the more you killed players… humans, the stronger it became. Yeah, it seemed that this curse would break after killing a lot of mobs, turning the blade into a katana with a similar name, but I’m not interested in that. What’s important is that its original ability to absorb human life and increase in power works in Underworld as well. The lives of all those American troops you killed and the Japanese killed by the Chinese and Koreans are circling around this battlefield. If the Chinese and Koreans start killing each other next then even more lives will seep out.”

While the reaper murmured, Mate Chopper began emitting growls of gigi, gigi and was swelling nonstop. Asuna’s GM equipment «Radiant Light» screeched against the blade, as though it were unable to withstand the opposition anymore. All surroundings gradually faded as her ears were filled with the sound of her own breathing and the hammering of her heartbeat.

As if even the owner of the demonic blade was growing taller himself, PoH pressed against Asuna while saying:

“After I absorb all of their lives, I’ll kill every last one of the Artificial Fluctlights in this world. Not just those guys cowering in the back over there… the monsters in the Dark Territory and the humans in the Human Empire as well. I don’t know how many tens of thousands there are but at that point, he’s gonna wake up. If he’s the «Black Swordsman» I trust.”

Cold wind blew against the black poncho, exposing for an instant the eyes deep within the darkness. They were eyes glowing dull red.

He was a demon. Inhuman. A true demon.

This was the true nature of the man called PoH. No matter whether he wore the false mask of a «Cheerful Inciter» in Aincrad, or the false mask of a «Stern Commander» on this battlefield, all of it was fake. The true PoH was a cold avenger, desiring the torture and torment of humanity, desiring only to kill…

Asuna’s knees gave way. Her rapier screeched again and the cleaver’s blade pressed towards her throat.

“Relax. I’m not going to kill you. I’ll just make sure you don’t keep bothering me. Because I gotta let you watch… watch him wake up, and watch him die by my hand.”

Mate Chopper had now swollen to twice its normal size. Radiant Light let out a piercing, crisp scream as hairline cracks appeared on its body.

With one knee now against the ground, Asuna’s vision was blocked by the black miasma gushing from the hood. In the darkness, the only things that existed were the monolith steel blade and his eyes glowing crimson.

Before she was about to collapse, someone’s small hands…

Pushed Asuna’s back one more.

It’s all right.

I am always by your side.

Clear, azure light burst from Asuna’s chest and tore apart the darkness before her eyes.

Reflected in Mate Chopper, she saw pure white wings expanding wide behind her own back.

All sound returned, and she heard her comrades’ voices mixed among the hubbub of the battlefield.

“Asuna! Keep at it, Asuna!”

“Asuna-san! Asuna-saaaaaaan!”

“Get up, Asuna!”

“Asunaaaaaaa!”

Lisbeth. Silica. Agil. Klein.

Not just her comrades. The voices of the surviving ALO group, including Sakuya and Alicia, Siune and the Sleeping Knights, Renri and the rest of the Human Empire Defense Army, Tiese, Ronye, Sortiliena and many other Guardians and Ascetics all went into Asuna’s ears.

—Thank you, everyone.

—Thank you, Yuuki.

—I can still fight. You all have given me strength.

“……I can’t lose…… I can never lose to… someone like you, who only knows how to hate!!”

As Asuna screamed, white ripples erupted from her entire body, throwing PoH backwards off his feet.

She stood up, pulling back the rapier in her right hand with all of her might. Lavender flashes discharged and ran the length of the blade, resembling bulbs and petals of thyme flowers, dyeing the world in the same hue.

“Nurgh…!!”

Directing it at the body of the reaper trying to regain his footing, now greatly exposed.

Asuna activated the Original Sword Skill she had received from «Absolute Sword» Yuuki.

Starting from the upper right she thrust five ultra-fast jabs, imprinting five points of light diagonally downwards.

Five jabs starting from the upper left intersected with the path of her blade just now, imprinting another five points of light.

“Guaagh…”

Even as he spat air mixed with blood, the gargantuan cleaver in PoH’s right grip remained glowing crimson. If Asuna were hit by his large counterattack, her remaining HP would be exhausted for sure.

But Asuna’s attack was not over yet.

“WOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!”

Concentrating every last bit of her remaining energy at the tip of the rapier, and releasing it at the center of the crisscrossed sword paths — the final, strongest attack.

Eleven-hit combo OSS, «Mother’s Rosary».

Violet radiance bore through PoH’s chest like a meteor.

The reaper in the black poncho flew high into the air and crashed dully onto the ground far away.

Now, having exhausted the last bit of energy she had, Asuna dropped to one knee again, calling out in her heart.

—Thank you, Yuuki.

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She could no longer hear a response. Perhaps the hands and voice had all been mere illusions borne from Asuna’s memories from the very beginning. But even so, in this world where everything was borne of memories, they definitely could not have been fake.

Yes — she should never have been able to use the OSS Mother’s Rosary in Underworld to begin with. Even if Higa and Kikuoka had imported the old Sword Skills from SAO along with The Seed, the one who had inherited Mother’s Rosary had been Asuna the Undine in ALO. Having not converted her character and instead using the Stacia account, Asuna ought not to have that data on her.

But the OSS had still activated with that special lighting effect. If this was the power of imagination, then the Yuuki who had temporarily awoken from Asuna’s memories and encouraged her had been undeniably real. Because memories never disappeared.

PoH’s avatar remained prone on the ground. But having been directly struck by an eleven-hit combo from a GM weapon, there was no chance of him surviving. Unlike other players, he ought to be using an STL, which meant that even if he died, his body probably would not burst apart and remain temporarily intact at the scene like a resident of the Human Empire or Dark Territory.

Leaning on her rapier and expending significant effort to stand, Asuna then turned to look back at Klein. His abdomen was still pierced by swords, but the three players holding him down had all left his side and were watching Asuna speechlessly along with a fourth knight who came trying to help stop the execution.

Although she badly wanted to get to Kirito’s side as quickly as possible, she first had to pull out the swords from Klein’s body and treat his wounds, and just as Asuna wak about to walk towards him—

She felt the ground tremble slightly.

Asuna held her breath and looked behind her again.

PoH remained motionless on the ground. But a deviant reddish-black glow blossomed from the cleaver Mate Chopper gripped in his right hand. Looking more closely, Asuna realized that the air on the battlefield was forming a slowly spinning vortex, concentrated at the cleaver.

“No… It’s absorbing Sacred Power!!”

Guardian Leader Sortiliena shouted from the very front of the Human Empire army.

Asuna clenched her teeth and ran forward to destroy the demonic blade.

But a step faster than her, the black reaper’s body rose up from the ground as though it were being dragged up by Mate Chopper, which had floated into the sky.

A huge rip had appeared in the very front of the poncho, exposing his bare body behind tight-fitting leather clothing. There was a large hole in the chest where he had been hit by the final strike of the OSS, and the space behind him was visible through it.

Watching PoH stand even as his entire heart had been blown away, the Underworld residents let out moans of fear. A violent stir even ran through the Chinese and Koreans who thought this was a normal VRMMO world.

It seemed that Mate Chopper had absorbed a great deal of Spatial Resources and converted it into HP for PoH. Even as she made this guess Asuna found herself trembling uncontrollably all over.

PoH was diving with an STL.

If that were the case then he ought to be suffering the same level of pain as he would in the real world. Asuna had already tasted pain almost enough to make her faint when the lances had penetrated her; it was impossible to imagine what sort of agony would come from having a huge hole opened in one’s chest.

But the reaper’s lips, dripping blood, grinned wordlessly — and then shrieked in an utterly deafening roar loud enough to shake the entire battlefield:

“Comrades! This is the true nature of the Japanese! Kill every last one of the weak traitors… and the filthy Japanese too!!”

He had clearly shouted in Korean but for some reason Asuna understood what he meant.

Reddish black aura spurted from PoH’s highly raised Mate Chopper, spreading all the way to the ends of the wilderness.

Ohhhh….

OHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Half of the Chinese and Koreans also raised their swords high, emitting a ferocious roar.

They began to attack the moderates who had attempted to persuade them… and some of them began to attack the remaining Japanese players and Underworld troops as well. But Asuna had no way of stopping them.

All of a sudden, someone shoved her roughly from behind and Asuna collapsed to the ground. Her heavily damaged rapier flew out of her hand and rolled away onto the dry dirt.

Far away ahead, the black-haired young man was desperately reaching his left arm towards her.

“……Kirito-kun.”

Asuna murmured, reaching her own right hand towards her lover, awaiting their final moments.