Sword Art Online - Volume 19 - Chapter 3

3 
After the conclusion of the spontaneous tea party, Ronie returned the dishes and silverware to the kitchen, but all the while, she continued to think about what Kirito had said. 
Not about the other side of the Wall at the End of the World, or the world being a sphere, or the trip to the moon. She thought about the first thing that had come up in the conversation: the possibility of another war. 
She agreed that the wealth of the human lands would continue to breed discontent among the demi-human races. But in all honesty, she found it difficult to see that actually translating into another armed conflict. 
That was because of the Peace Pact of the Five Peoples in the Dark Territory, an agreement that bound all the various races of the dark realm. The law was much more primitive there than in the human lands, but at the very least, it did clearly forbid murder and pillaging. 
Of course, for hundreds of years, the only law observed in the Dark Territory had been the Law of Power, so even this much was an earthshaking, revolutionary change for them. As a means of reducing the shock in this transitionary period, they were allowed to duel freely so long as life was not taken in the process. If it came to war, that kind of self-restraint would go out the window. 
And the darklanders were no different from regular humans when it came to the soul seal that prevented criminality. That was how, just a few years after the last war, the human realm peacefully accepted so many visitors from the dark realm… 
“…Ronie. Are you listening to me, Ronie?” 
Her head rose with a start as someone poked her on the shoulder a few times. She’d been practicing her Incarnation in a corner of the training hall on the fourth floor of the cathedral, and at some point, she had fallen deep into contemplation. Today’s exercise was Seated Meditation, and unlike maintaining sacred elements or balancing atop poles, it was very easy to become distracted by worldly thoughts during this practice. 
Her partner nearby was going straight past worldly thoughts into worldly chat, however. Just to be certain, Ronie glanced over at the training master—Deusolbert of the Conflagration Bow, today—who was giving sword instruction to the lower knights in the center of the hall, and confirmed that he was occupied before whispering to her best friend: 
“Sorry, I was spacing out.” 
She quickly realized that it didn’t make sense for her to apologize, but her redheaded partner puffed her cheeks out in indignation and whispered back, “What, you didn’t hear any of that? I was saying that I want your advice on something.” 
“Advice?” Ronie repeated, looking her friend over. 
Tiese Schtrinen, the apprentice knight who had been her friend ever since the Swordcraft Academy days, nodded at her seriously. “Yes…See, the thing is…I received a proposal.” 
“What, to spar?! No, you can’t duel!” Ronie hissed back immediately, but Tiese just glared at her with her dark-red eyes and said, “No! Just the opposite…Not a duel…but more of a…a family-type…proposal…” 
Ronie couldn’t figure out what she was implying for several seconds. She just stared with a blank expression until it clicked in her mind. It took all her Incarnation power to prevent herself from screaming out loud in disbelief. She took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled long and low. 
Then she inhaled again and asked, very carefully, “You…you mean…marriage…?” 
Tiese looked down at the floor before her and nodded almost imperceptibly. Again, Ronie had to stop herself from letting instinct take over and asking who had popped the question. But there was only one possible man who might ask Tiese for her hand in marriage at this point in time. That was the elite Integrity Knight and wielder of the Double-Winged Blades, Renly Synthesis Twenty-Seven. 
It had been clear ever since the War of the Underworld that he held affection for Tiese. So it wasn’t surprising that he would ask; if anything, it had taken too long. 
Ronie envisioned the face of the small knight who always wore that shy smile, and she started to congratulate her friend. 
But Tiese shook her head quickly before she could get the words out. “I…I still haven’t decided what my answer will be,” she whispered. 
That was a surprise. “Huh…? But why? You don’t dislike him. In fact, I thought you liked Sir Renly, too. You’re together so often…,” she prompted, but Tiese’s face grew even more downcast. It was completely unlike the bright and lively girl to look so pained. 
“I do like him. But I know why I like him. And it’s because…Sir Renly reminds me a little bit of my mentor.” 
“…!” Ronie inhaled sharply. 
Tiese wasn’t talking about Swordsman Delegate Kirito, of course. When they’d been primary trainees at Swordcraft Academy, Ronie had served as Kirito’s page, while Tiese had attended to another Elite Disciple. His gentle manner and soft smile had hidden a talent for swordfighting and a willpower just as indomitable as Kirito’s. Ronie knew that Tiese had admired him with all of her being. 
But he was no longer among the living. 
Ronie had believed that her red-haired friend had moved past that sadness. She’d come to assume that Tiese had locked those memories away like treasured jewels in her heart and resumed the walk along her path in life. 
The tears dripping from those auburn eyelashes told Ronie that this was not the case. 
“Tiese…,” Ronie said, biting her lip with hesitation. Then she steeled herself and got to her feet. She turned to Deusolbert, who was currently giving orders in the center of the training hall, and shouted, “Instruction Master! Please allow us to conclude today’s training session on account of Apprentice Schtrinen feeling under the weather!” 
The stern, short-haired man shot her a look like steel arrows, but he did nod without a word to the contrary. Ronie got Tiese to her feet and helped her bow in thanks so that no one could see her face, then left the hall with her. 
She put an arm around Tiese’s shoulders and quickly descended the stairs with her toward the Rose Garden out behind the cathedral. They gave a little bow of greeting to the large gardener—according to rumor, he had once been a prison guard—and headed blindly through the mazelike paths until they found a little bench far in the back where no one would find them. 
In February, even the earliest-blooming breeds of roses in the garden were only starting to bud. The plants shivered in the chill breeze, just leaves and thorns. 
Tiese’s wet maple-red eyes looked at the rose plants without truly seeing them. After a while, she mumbled, “I believed that…if I was with Sir Renly, I would finally be able to forget about him…I mean, I wished that I could.” 
“Tiese…” Ronie put her arm around the girl’s back. Tiese leaned over limply and rested her head on Ronie’s shoulder. 

“But…then I realized that I’m always looking for signs of him in Renly’s smiles and words and gestures…And Renly knows that I’m not able to forget about him, either. He said it was fine. And he still chose to ask me to marry him. It made me so happy…so happy…but…” 
The tears collected on her long lashes again and fell off. This time it wasn’t just one pair of droplets, but a steady stream that came and came, seeping into their simple training garb. 
“It made me happy, but I really don’t want to forget. Deep in my heart, I know that I want to remain with my memories of him forever. And because I’m aware of that…I just can’t…” 
She sucked in a trembling sob, pressed her face into Ronie’s chest, and shouted, “I want to see him…I want to see Eugeo again!” 
Ronie held Tiese tightly as she sobbed. Ronie felt her eyes grow hot as well. 
Their experience as trainee pages at Swordcraft Academy had lasted for only a month. But to the girls, that time was fate itself—a miracle that would happen only once in their lives. 
Long ago, Ronie had sworn to live by that miracle and never love another person in her life. That was probably why she had hoped that Tiese would be able to move on and find that happiness for the both of them—a hope that she now realized had been incredibly selfish of her. 
Because unlike Ronie, Tiese would never again see that love of her life. She would never again get to touch his hand or speak with him or even gaze at him from afar. 
Ronie didn’t have the words that would comfort her best friend as she wept. Instead, she rubbed her back and stroked her hair for as long as the moment lasted. 
When Tiese’s tears finally abated, the darkness of sunset was encroaching upon the Rose Garden. Her head rested atop Ronie’s shoulder, and she was clearly wrung out and exhausted. Together, they watched Solus’s slow descent in a dull daze. 
“……Sorry. Thanks,” Tiese offered at last, her voice a miserable croak. 
Ronie shook her head. “It’s fine. In fact, I’m sorry, Tiese. I…I completely failed to understand how you felt. Here I was, just hoping on my own that you would move on and be happy with Sir Renly…” 
“It’s fine. There’s a part of me that does want to do exactly that,” Tiese agreed. She took a deep breath; the strength was coming back to her voice now. “I’m going to ask Sir Renly to wait a little bit longer. Maybe additional time isn’t going to make any difference…but I just have a feeling.” 
“A feeling…?” 
“Yes. From the moment I saw Kirito’s dragoncraft…I had a feeling that something was about to happen. Something was going to change.” 
Tiese’s words forced Ronie to recall that unforgettable moment. A silver light rising endlessly against the blue-sky background. It had filled her with an elation so sharp it had been painful. There was indeed something about that image that was a portent of revolutionary change. 
“……Yes. I feel it, too,” she murmured. Tiese nodded. 
The two apprentice knights sat on the stone seat for a while longer. Eventually, the five-o’clock bell rang. Tiese got to her feet, glanced at Ronie, and said, to the other girl’s surprise, “What about you, Ronie?” 
“Uh…what about what?” 
Her friend’s maple-red eyes blinked, and she even seemed to smile the faintest bit. “Have you told Kirito how you feel? Even a little bit?” 
“N…no, of course not!” shouted Ronie. She hunched her shoulders and looked around, then shook her head and hissed, “You know I…I couldn’t do that. I’m fine with things the way they are.” 
“If you feel like you have to hold back on account of me, there’s no need to do that,” Tiese said, with all seriousness. 
“No, honestly, it’s fine,” Ronie insisted. “After all…he has Lady Asuna. And there’s Lady Alice, who’s bound to come back to this world eventually, and General Serlut, and…and even Lady Fanatio, perhaps…” 

“Oh, Ronie,” Tiese lamented with a sigh. “Kirito isn’t married to any one of those people. And he outranks even emperors at this point, so if you wanted to go by Basic Imperial Law, he could have…three wives? Four…?” 
“Y-you know he would never do something like that!” Ronie said, shouting again, and stood up quickly to avoid letting Tiese see the redness in her cheeks. “Honestly, I’m fine! Just worry about yourself, Tiese!” 
She turned on her heel to face away. Her friend sighed audibly once again, then walked over to her. “Well, I guess Kirito himself would never say it…C’mon, Ronie—let’s head back. Shimosaki must be hungry by now.” 
“Yes, I was going to mention that, too. But,” Ronie said, glancing left and right at the hedges, “do you know the way back, Tiese?” 
“…I was crying. How would I know which way I was going?” 
They shared a look. Deep in the midst of the massive rose maze, the two girls sighed heavily. 
That night, Ronie lay in her bed on the twenty-second floor of the cathedral but found it difficult to fall asleep. 
You just had to go and bring that up, Tiese, she thought, glaring at the thick stone wall that separated her bedroom from the adjacent one. Then she felt bad, realizing that her friend was likely also having trouble falling asleep. 
Tiese, of course, was grappling with her first-ever marriage proposal. 
I wonder where in the building he did it. What did he say to her? she imagined, finding her thoughts quickly wandering astray. What if…what if Kirito were to propose to me? What sort of venue would he choose for the proposal? The Morning Star Lookout on the ninety-fifth floor…? Or maybe the rear yard at Swordcraft Academy, where we shared so many memories…? Actually, he might even use his flying arts to take me to the top of the clouds… 
Ronie took a deep breath and pulled the blanket up over her head to knock those thoughts right out of her mind. She told herself that she shouldn’t even imagine that possibility. There was only one thing she could hope for: that the peace would persist. She could ask for nothing more. Nothing. 
She rolled over onto her stomach, buried her face in her pillow, and allowed the fairy of sleep to approach, close her eyelids, and keep them like that.