It took three days to find a way within the palace. There was no obvious entrance, and the walls had been immortal objects. They tried anyways and eventually found the panel that was destructible. Like an old school game the entrance was marked by cracks in the surface and a slightly corroded look. When struck the surface shattered like glass.
In that time Asuna noticed that Klein never returned from leave. As an unauthorized absence he could have been thrown in jail. Out of respect of the friendship they once shared she accepted his desertion. Besides, it would waist manpower needed for their final push.
The interior of the Ruby Palace was a maze. The walls were made of the same red material as the exterior had been. Almost transparent, but not quite. An attempt to break through instead of following the maze's predefined paths had ended predictably. They were all immortal objects just as they had been outside. When attempted to go on top of the wall they had encountered the most frustrating thing any gamer could find: an invisible wall.
That left finding the way through exactly as Kayaba had designed. A day of following just the left wall made it clear how large and complex the maze was. After three days it was clear that if the assault team stayed together it was possible it would take months to reach the end.
In those three days they had traveled no monsters had been encountered, so it was deemed safe to split up the fighters to cover more ground.
To ensure they did not cover the same area repeatedly, causing little or no progress, the army would split evenly at each fork. This was to continue for five hours, then they were to return. If a team reached a dead end or were reduced to a set number they were also to return.
Slightly over five hundred fighters remained in her army, mostly because the numbers had continued to be bolstered by warriors coming under her banner after her many victories.
Considering that number, on the first day thirty was the smallest Asuna felt comfortable with and still make the area covered worth the effort.
Fewer monsters meant stronger monsters when they were encountered. This was especially worrisome on the final floor where they were logically going to be the hardest.
On the troops return they stopped at each fork and marked their path. They then would wait until all teams returned, then go down the unmarked tunnel, repeating the process. This not only showed all routes passed the mark had been checked, it insured the teams did not get lost.
They would cover a lot of ground this way, allowing them to find the boss's layer in days instead of months.
That was the plan anyways.
On the second day, with no monsters discovered still, Asuna reduced the final amount of warriors to fifteen. On the third it was reduced further to five.
On the third day Asuna's team was returning from another dead end, the last stretch of corridor being unusually long. Asuna felt a sense of foreboding as she looked at the ruby walls, though she could not put her finger on why.
Then they came across Lancelot, who appeared to be waiting for them. He quickly dispelled that foreboding. "You have done well Asuna," he congratulated, to Asuna's brief confusion. "You have surpassed all of my expectations. I do believe this will be well worth the wait."
What a child! "Kayaba!" she screamed, rage instantly suffusing her as she realized that the very first foot soldier to return to the Knights was the man she wanted to kill more than her own considerable need to die. The madman had posed as a grunt, just as he had once posed as Heathcliff.
The man chuckled, ignoring the blows as "immortal object" appeared over his head. The hex square never had a chance to disappear in the face of the unparalleled speed of Asuna's continued blind attacks.
He ignored them all. "Yes," he said casually. After bring up his menu and pushing two buttons his avatar returned to Heathcliff, looking just as he had been the day he shattered her world. "I preferred this avatar so much more," he said with nostalgia. Looking at Asuna he casually continuing the conversation as if she wasn't in a berserker fury. "As Kirito had pointed out watching an RPG is very boring. I thought the life of a fighter, as apposed to a leader, would be entertaining this time."
Asuna's temper burned further out of control when her husband's murderer mentioned his name. He had no right to say it so casually!
Her men were terrified, realizing their leader had gone insane, and their opponent was undefeatable even if all their numbers had been there. They hid, or tried to, behind Asuna and prayed for her to regain her senses so she could issue orders.
"You really should work at achieving calm. I realize you wish me dead. I can sympathize. I had feared killing Kirito would make the rest of the game uneventful, but watching you has been much more enjoyable than I had expected of your husband."
Her attacks, which had started to wane with fatigue, regained purpose. Until that point Kayaba had remained unmoved by her attacks. For the first time he was forced to take a step back. Regardless on if he was immortal he could still be pushed just as players could be pushed in no-kill zones. That he hadn't been moved before was proof his stats were better than any player she had yet seen.
But the attacks, in the end, were useless. After several minutes Asuna did regain some calm, mainly because she was too tired to continue. Kayaba waited it out taking an occasional step back as necessary. He was still talking casually throughout, but she gave his words no heed.
At last spent, she spoke breathlessly. It did nothing to hide her anger, "Why are you here now? Shouldn't you be waiting inside the boss room?"
He waving his arm to indicate the entirety of the maze. "This is the boss room," he replied simply.
That was low, even by Kayaba's standards. There had been no door to the boss room, which had been identical for every floor until then. Actually there had been no door at all. They had to break through a wall to reach the interior.
"Naturally I could not challenge your army directly without being overwhelmed. This maze was a perfect solution. There is no end to it. The walls simply change configuration as you explored 'deeper' within.
"It was inevitable that you would come to the conclusion to divide your army to cover more ground," Kayaba continued. "With no monsters found you would make the squads divide until a number that would be fair to both sides was reached. I thought ten would be good, but you moved beyond that in your last reduction."
The plan was logical, as most everything was with this man, and she had performed her part perfectly. She had fewer soldiers than he had planned, so how even would their fight prove to be? She was nervous about their chances.
"I'm curious. Have you tried to open Kirito's Resolve?" he asked conversationally.
She had tried once, though it had taken her months after receiving it. The fear of what she might find, given its name, had overwhelmed her on each failed attempt. When she finally overcame that fear it would not leave her inventory, giving her a message instead stating that it could not be accessed until after the game was cleared. After that it was left in her inventory, purposely forgotten.
This man, naturally, knew what the item was. Slowly she nodded as she continued to pant.
"Kirito is not dead exactly," Kayaba informed her, his voice still showing little emotion beyond confidence and amusement. "His body is, however I saved a copy of his consciousness moments before the system killed him. That copy has been a dormant file ever since."
Asuna's mind could not understand what Kayaba had just told her. No, it refused to understand. There was no way it was possible, and even if it was true there would be no way to see him, to touch him. The game would end today and destroy him forever. What was the point of this? She could not accept his words because it would be the same as seeing her husband die a second time.
Kayaba wasn't done however. "Using that file made creating a double much simpler. All I had to do was copy it and then alter his consciousness slightly."
A copy of... Of ... That boss was... He really was... Before her mind could lose itself to the implications it rebelled instead.
No, no, no, no NO!!! He was lying! She would never kill the real Kirito. She would eviscerate herself before doing such a thing. Her lover would do the same. She would doubt the sky was blue before doubting that fact!
"That wasn't him!" she screamed with renewed anger.
She was holding herself back despite her need to kill. Her anger for the moment was controlled, barely, allowing her mind to calculate. She already had found attacking him would do little good until he took off his immortal status. She knew he would do that when he finished talking himself out. He wanted an entertaining fight. She could rest and regain her strength while he monologued. Then he would die, as she had planned from the start.
She would destroy every last shred of him!
"You are partially right." he confirmed, his voice still steady. "His programming had been tampered with making him little more than a puppet. But think back. Didn't he react to you as the real Kirito would? Certainly you could sense his love."
She felt the rage continue to build, but now she tempered it with the anticipation of making it a reality verses the frustration of her previous impotency.
As if reading her thoughts an amused smile crossed his face, which only pissed her off more. "Please give me one moment," he asked politely, knowing she had no choice.
As Kayaba began typing on his virtual keyboard, Asuna started deciding on a plan to use when the true fight began. Would her men have any chance against him? No. They would simply be fodder for his shield and blade. Could she use them as a distraction? Maybe. Perhaps she could have them attack as one while she fell back for a moment? They would die, but their deaths would give her an opening to end him. It would free everyone else of this game. It was a fair trade.
Once his typing was done he held out his hand and a the small sphere appeared in his hand. "Kirito's Resolve" blinked above it for a second then was gone. It was unimpressive. A simple black sphere, dull as paint primer and no larger than a baseball.
"This is the game's representation of Kirito's file, unedited," he told her. "Let's turn it into something more suitable, shall we?" Putting the sphere between his hands, it began to morph into something so familiar it might have been a piece of her: a rapier identical in shape to Lambent Light. In color however it was reminiscent to Kirito's Elucidator: black with silver embellishments.
Her husband was a sword? Did that even make sense? Kayaba was the creator of their world. He was, in a very real sense, a god here. Naturally he could do anything he wanted. That he had made a copy of Kirito's consciousness was proof of that.
Almost recovered, she was shocked when Kayaba attacked without warning. The sword passed through her as if she wasn't impossible to kill. She saw her own blood for the first time since entering the game, and she felt fear for the first time since Kirito's death.
She had not felt any form of pain since the nightmare had begun. Her senses were over-sensitive now as her skin in that time had tried to adapt to its lack. That made the pain from the wound the worst she could remember. And that was despite the cardinal system's pain dampening functions.
Her men reached for their swords and shields, scared now that their ultimate shield was downed, probably dead. Their fight or flight reactions kicked in at the sight. Fight won as they realized they had nowhere to run with the dead end behind them.
The pain didn't last long. Kayaba typed in a command and she was Instantly healed, but she could still feel, indicating that her immortality was at an end.
She could not say the same for her men, their blood joining hers on the floor, on the walls, and on herself. As if to show he was above them Kayaba remained un-mired by the grotesque display.
"This sword can pierce anything, including immortal objects," he told her as an explanation. Casually he tossed the blade to her, which she caught with practice ease. "I thought going so long without fear, a display of your mortality might motivate you and create the final battle I hoped for."
In her HUD "Item received: Lambent Shadow," appeared. A horrible name. A mockery of both herself and of Kirito.
In a single motion she caught the new blade, adjusted for its balance, identical to Lambent Light, as she brought the tip up and struck. If she had hoped to feel any kind of connection to her husband holding this blade, she would have been disappointed. All that she got was cold steel beneath her fingers.
Though their fighting styles were drastically different, connections between this fight and her husband's against Kayaba played out. Both were fighting to win with all they had. Both wore black. Both wielded two weapons, one of which was black, the other blue and silver. Both started out using their sword skills to keep Kayaba on his heals, at least at first. Both knew that to lose was to die. Neither wanted that end.
At least for now. Not until it was over.
For his part Kayaba was in an unusual situation. His shield was largely useless against Asuna's new blade, several holes punched through it within the first seconds of the fight.
He had not been taken by surprise when she had attacked though. Far from it. How could it have been any other way?
After the initial attacks his shield was used more effectively. He did not block the unstoppable point, instead deflecting the blade itself with swipes from both his sword and the edge of his shield. Her second blade, unable to wound the still immortal Kayaba, was largely forgotten by him in favor of stopping the real threat.
It was a mistake he would not live long to regret.
Taking advantage of his confidence in the system, she reversed the blade of her parrying dagger and used it as a hook on his shield. Wickedly she pulled to make an opening as his shield blocked his own sword from attacking. He spun to avoid her killing blow, but lost his shield in the process; crippling his ultimate defense.
"I'm sure I didn't program that move into the game," he commented, eyeing where his shield had landed.
That was all the time she gave him as she capitalized on her advantage. He blocked quickly, but not fast enough. The Sword-Skill sytem he had created was now going to be the cause of his death. He relied on it to defend himself against a fully trained opponent using original moves he had never seen before. The system could not compensate for that originality.
With three consecutive shots she pierced his right hip, mid abdomen, and finally his throat as each attack worked it's way up his body. Falling to the ground, already dead, his clothing was no longer a pristine white. The red cross of the Order of the Blood Oath on his cloak gradually lost its shape as the red patches slowly grew beneath them.
Soon Kirito. Just wait for me a minute longer..," She thought with long held tears forming at last. Tears of relief at her coming freedom, tears of horror from what she'd seen, tears of loss she had never acknowledged, and tears of shame at all she had done.
Was she worthy of standing in front of Kirito? Would he be able to see her with love, or with disgust?
With a violent shudder beneath her feet she felt the floating castle begin to break up, then saw a white light as she was teleported out.
A man in a white lab coat waited for her, floating above the clouds of the crumbling castle. She had never seen him before, not like this, but Kirito had once described him in great detail. Akihiko Kayaba.
"You're going to die now?" she asked coldly, her anger threatening to explode again if he had cheated death.
"My nerve gear has already sent the pulse that ended my life. This is just a shadow that will disappear in moments."
With that her anger washed away. It was over.
"That was unexpected of you," he commented. "When did you begin practicing to use a sword without assistance?"
It felt surreal to be casually talking to a man she had just killed. "In the last dungeon before the castle, when I knew I would finally face you. Sooner and you might have found out. Later and I wouldn't be skilled enough to pull it off." She had thought hard on that. She remembered with horror how the assist system had been Kirito's death. She wasn't going to do the same.
There had been the risk that despite how she had timed it he would see her learning. It was the only chance she had however. Lucky for her he had been in the encampment with the rest, unable to watch remotely.
"Well done." He smiled, seeming oddly happy. "Go find your husband among the clouds. He'll be waiting."
Among the clouds? What..?
And the world went black as her body... her avatar ceased to exist.
Waking up, Yuki Asuna reached immediately to pull the nerve gear off her head, only to find long hair, and longer ears.
"Good morning Titania."
Continued in Book 2: Broken776Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuj80Rb7FSp
