No one's POV

Rinko Koujiro sat in the control seat at the console of Subcon, staring at the glass hatch placed just to the left of the board. The LCD screen at the top of the hatch flashed a message in red letters: EJECTING... There was the deep sound of pressurized air leaking. Eventually a small black quadrilateral shape appeared beyond the glass window. The LCD screen changed to COMPLETE.

Rinko reached out a trembling hand to open the little hatch and take out its contents. It was a hard metal package, a cube a little over two inches to a side, and surprisingly heavy. A six-digit number was carved on its sheer face, and there was a very small connector port on it. Trapped in this tiny cube was Alice's soul.

Following the commands of the system, the Lightcube Cluster installed in the center of the Ocean Turtle's Main Shaft ejected a single specific cube, sealing it in a protective package and then shooting it through a pneumatic tube. At the same time, it was a journey from the interior Underworld to the exterior real world.

Rinko was speechless for a moment, struck with an indescribable sensation, but recovered and picked up the cube carefully with both hands. She turned to the mic and shouted.

Rinko: Kotone, Alice has been ejected! Only you and Sora are left! Make it quick!!

She glanced at the crimson countdown on the main monitor and added.

Rinko: You've only got thirty seconds until the maximum acceleration starts!! Log out now!!

There was a moment of silence. Then words she never expected to hear came out of the speaker.

Kotone(com): I'm sorry, Rinko.

Rinko: Huh...? F-for what...?

Kotone(com): I'm sorry. I'm...staying here. Thank you for everything. I will never forget what you did for us.

Kotone Takemiya's voice was calm and gentle and full of purpose, from what Rinko could hear through the speaker.

Rinko: Wh-What are you...?

Kotone(com): Please take care of Alice. She's a very sweet person. She holds great love within her, and she is loved by many. For the sake of the souls who vanished for her sake... and for Zora's sake, please don't let them turn her into a weapon.

Rinko was speechless again. All she could do was listen to Kotone's final words.

Kotone(com): And tell everyone else, too, that...I'm sorry...and thank you...and good-bye...

The countdown hit zero.

(Timeskip)

A long siren blared, and the heavy groan of machinery echoed throughout the cramped cable duct. It was ten o'clock in the morning on July 7th. The fifteen-minute countdown was over, and the cooling system on the other side of the wall was running at full capacity. Huge fans desperately tried to suck out the incredible heat output of the machines supporting the Underworld simulation. If you looked at the Ocean Turtle from the sea, you would see heat haze rising from the top of its pyramid structure.

Higa:......It's started....

Takeru Higa grunted.

Kikuoka: Yeah.

Seijirou Kikuoka replied, who was carrying him down the narrow ladder. When they'd determined that preventing the maximum-acceleration phase was impossible, they'd immediately prepped and headed into the maintenance cable duct again, but since Higa was injured, it had taken them eight minutes to get him strapped into a support harness.

Despite the fact that Kikuoka descended the rungs with such force that sweat poured off him, the maximum-acceleration phase started in the Underworld before they reached the pressure-resistant isolation barrier. Praying, Higa hit the intercom button to speak to Dr. Koujiro in the sub-control room.

Higa: Rinko...how's it going?

There was some static, followed by a connection sound, but all he received was heavy silence.

Higa:...Rinko?

Rinko(com):...I'm sorry. We've safely retrieved Alice's lightcube. But... Kotone chose to stay behind with Sora.

She said faintly and then delivered what came next. Higa held his breath and closed his eyes tight.

Higa:...All right. We'll do all we can. I'll get in touch to tell you when to open the connection hatch.

He released the button and expelled all the air in his lungs over a long, slow period. Kikuoka didn't ask what he'd heard, sensing enough from Higa's reaction already. He continued to bound downward in silence.

Higa:...Kiku...

Several seconds later, Higa finally found the voice to tell the team commander what Dr. Koujiro had related to him.

(Elsewhere)

Critter stared in silence at the new window on the main monitor and the message it contained. It said, in very brief detail, that one lightcube had been ejected from the cluster and delivered to the sub-control room on the other side of the pressure-resistant barrier. Meaning that Rath had control of Alice now.

Or in other words, the entire ten-plus-hour operation to find Alice in the Underworld and abduct her had ended in total failure. Vassago and Captain Miller had dived in themselves, led the Dark Army in a military invasion of the human lands, fought in battle scenes that would make any Hollywood producer faint, even lured in tens of thousands of Americans, Chinese, and Koreans to fight with them—and all of it had been for nothing.

He scratched at his shaved head, exhaled through his nose, and thought about something else. If there were still over eight hours remaining until the defense ship arrived, could they physically steal Alice back now?

The barrier was extremely thick and made of a powerful composite metal, so they had no means of destroying it. But if Rath opened it up, like they had not long ago, that would be a different story.

In fact, why had they opened the barrier earlier? Did they really think they could overpower the team with one ugly, clumsy robot and a couple of smoke grenades?

Unless that had been a distraction...? If they had some other reason for opening the barrier, what in the world would that be? Critter turned back to the team members who had resumed their card game and called out.

Critter: Hey, about that robot they sent in from above. It wasn't even loaded with any explosives or anything, right?

Tall, lanky Hans twisted his mustache and said.

Hans: Oh, we looked it over, sweetie. No explosives, not even a single type of fixed weapon. I think they were using it as a ballistic shield, but we shot it to shit so bad it broke down, and the soldiers behind it had to retreat.

Critter: Okay...By the way, their SDF members aren't called soldiers—they're technically 'personnel.'

Critter added, a pointless bit of trivia, as he turned the chair back around. So it was possible that the robot maneuver was just a diversion. But even with smoke grenades, those stairs were tight, and there was no way anyone could have slipped by Hans and Brigg without them noticing.

Critter: Which would mean...

Critter picked up the tablet computer on the desk and brought up an interior map of the Ocean Turtle.

Critter: Let's see... Here's the Main Shaft, and here's where the barrier splits it... and this is the staircase where they sent the robot through...

Just then, the countdown on the monitor reached zero, and a high-pitched alarm began to sound. The Underworld's time acceleration was resuming. And because that muscle-bound idiot Brigg had broken the control lever, the acceleration rate was going crazy.

But whatever happened in the Underworld now didn't matter. The Alice retrieval plan was a failure, so Vassago and Captain Miller had probably "died" during their dives and would be logging out and coming out of the adjacent room soon. In that case, it would be a good idea to think of the next tactical option to take before the captain got back. Critter zoomed in on the ship map and scrolled through it until he noticed something.

Critter: Hey, there's a little hatch here, too. What is this...a cable duct...?

(Elsewhere)

After she was done relaying the situation to Takeru Higa, Rinko leaned back in the mesh chair and let out a heavy breath. Kotone Takemiya's decision to stay in the Underworld once it became clear that Sora Yatagami would not be able to escape before the acceleration started was so youthful, so earnest—and so tragically beautiful.

She couldn't help but recall something from her own life: when the man she loved left her behind in the real world and vanished into cyberspace. What would she have done if she'd been given the option to go with him? Would she have destroyed her brain with a prototype STL, too, and chosen to live on solely as an electronic copy of her consciousness?

Rinko: Akihiko...did you...?

She whispered, closing her eyes. She'd thought that building the floating castle Aincrad and creating a true alternate world with ten thousand players trapped inside it was Akihiko Kayaba's only desire. But during that two-year period in the castle, he found something, learned something. And that thing changed his thinking.

There was more, something further beyond.

SAO was not the final destination, but only the beginning, he realized. And that led him to develop a higher-density version of the NerveGear in that villa in the forest of Nagano and to eventually kill himself within the prototype.

Using the data he'd left with her, Rinko designed the high-precision medical-user full-dive system, Medicuboid. With the vast data provided to the project by a girl's three-year test stay in the first Medicuboid prototype, Takeru Higa and Rath were able to put the finishing touches on their Soul Translator.

So depending on how you considered it, the Underworld—this ultimate example of an alternate reality—was born from the cornerstone of Akihiko Kayaba's grand vision. Did that mean that with the completion of the Underworld, Kayaba's desires had come to fruition?

No, that couldn't be the case...because that still didn't explain where the other element he left behind, The Seed Package, was supposed to fit into the puzzle. VRMMOs based on The Seed's architecture had become the standard, which was how the Japanese players were able to convert their accounts and help fight back against the foreign assault. But there was no way that even Kayaba would have foreseen such an event years before it happened. The conversion function being used to save someone was only a secondary effect of its presence.

So what was the point of it? Why was it necessary for all those VR worlds to have a shared architecture that allowed them to be linked this way...? On top of the console desk, Alice's lightcube package was held in a special aluminum-alloy case. The lightcube itself, a collection of light quantum gates, was nonvolatile in nature, but the gates' drive circuits in the package required power to run, so while it was in the case, Alice's soul was inactive.

Rinko brushed the silver case with her fingers and glanced into the left corner of the sub-control room to the humanoid silhouette there: the machine body Niemon.

In theory, if she put Alice's lightcube package into the robot's cranial socket, Niemon would become Alice's body and move and speak as she willed it to.
Rinko had to shake her head to dispel the momentary impulse to test it out and actually speak with Alice. Sora and Kotone were in a perilous situation at the moment, so this wasn't the time for indulging her curiosity. And though Niemon was more advanced than Ichiemon, Alice would likely be shocked to appear in a body that bore not a shred of femininity.

A few moments later, she took her hand off the aluminum-alloy case.

Nakanishi: Dr. Koujiro.

It was Lieutenant Nakanishi, who had returned to the sub-control room without drawing her attention.

Nakanishi: We're ready to reopen the barrier hatch. You can go ahead at any time.

Rinko: Oh...thank you.

She said, checking the time on the monitor.

Rinko: One minute had passed since the activation of the maximum-acceleration phase. In internal time, that was...ten years.

It was unbelievable. The age of Sora Yatagami's and Kotone Takemiya's souls was now greater than Rinko's. They had to be logged out as soon as humanly possible. If they could just be ejected before their soul life spans ended, it might be possible to erase all the memories that had accumulated since the start of the max-acceleration phase. But in theoretical terms, they had less than twelve minutes to actually execute such a thing.

Rinko(mind): Higa, Kikuoka...hurry!!

Rinko prayed, biting her lip.

(Elsewhere)

Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka wheezed with ragged breath. A cascade of sweat discolored his shirt and seeped into Higa's clothing. Higa wanted to tell him he could get down on his own from here, but he kept stopping himself from doing so. Yanai's bullet had penetrated Higa's right shoulder, which still throbbed despite the maximal level of painkillers, and his body felt as heavy as lead after losing so much blood. He didn't feel capable of supporting his own weight.

And more importantly, Higa realized, it was a bit surprising that the lieutenant colonel would be so desperate in this situation.

The final goal of Project Alicization, acquiring the limit-surpassed fluctlight code-named A.L.I.C.E., had been met. All that was left was to analyze Alice's structure and compare it to that of other fluctlights, and they would be well on their way to mass-producing true bottom-up AI. The purpose of Rath's existence—to establish a foundation for Japanese defense in the coming age of drone warfare and to escape the control of America's military industry—would be fulfilled at last.

That was the dearest goal of Seijirou Kikuoka. He had gone to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, gotten involved in the SAO Incident, and maintained a connection to VRMMO players through his own avatar, Chrysheight, for that very reason.

So in terms of Kikuoka's priorities, keeping the pressure-resistant barrier sealed and protecting Alice's lightcube until the defense ship could arrive should be the obvious choice. Even if that meant the collapse of the fluctlights of Sora Yatagami and Kotone Takemiya. And if Dr. Koujiro protested against it, he could confine her if needed.

Kikuoka: Do...you find this to...be a...surprise?

Kikuoka asked out of the blue between heavy breaths. Higa actually gurgled in alarm.

Higa: Er, I...uh...I guess I'll admit...that it seems a bit out of character for you...

Kikuoka: No...kidding.

Kikuoka groaned, rushing down the rungs—only a few dozen feet to go.

Kikuoka: But...let me tell you...this. I've got a...good reason...for doing this.

Higa: O-oh yeah...?

Kikuoka: I make it...a point to always consider...the worst outcome. And for now... I want the enemy... to think... they have a chance at taking... Alice back.

Higa: The worst outcome, huh?

Could there be anything worse than the enemy finding out about the cable duct and attacking from below while the barrier was open? Before Higa could extrapolate that idea any further, Kikuoka's soles finally landed on the titanium alloy of the hatch. While the commanding officer stopped and panted, Higa pressed on the intercom.

Higa: Rinko, we've made it! Open the barrier lock!!

(Elsewhere)

Critter: Whoa...they really opened the damn thing!

Critter shouted, seeing the PRESSURE BARRIER OPEN warning on the main monitor.

Critter: But why? For what purpose? It just didn't add up. Now that they had possession of Alice, what reason could Rath have for loosening their defenses?

There wasn't time to debate the question, though. Critter rotated his chair and instructed the other members.

Critter: Let's see, uh, Hans! You go to the stairs with everyone except for Brigg! Take your guns and seize control of the barrier!

Hans: You make it sound so simple.

Hans complained, clicking his tongue and hoisting his assault rifle. A dozen or so men followed his lead.

Brigg: H-hey, what the hell am I supposed to do, then?

Critter snapped his fingers.

Critter: Don't worry—I've got a job for you, too. A very important one that will require your skills.

Critter(mind): I need this muscle-bound idiot where I can see him, so he doesn't screw anything else up.

Critter: Listen, pal, you and I are gonna check out this cable duct. I've got a feeling that this is what the enemy's really after, for some reason.

Brigg: Oh yeah? Well...that's more like it.

Brigg grinned. He walked off, loudly checking the ammunition in his rifle, and Critter did his best not to sigh out loud. Before he went running out of the main control room and down the hallway, in the opposite direction from Hans's group, Critter glanced at the door on the back wall—STL Room One.

Critter(mind): Damn, why's Vassago taking so long to log out? He better not be relaxing in there, smoking a cigarette or something.

He considered going back just to check, but Brigg was already hustling into the hallway. Critter had no choice but to follow him now. In a few minutes, they were at their destination. It looked just like a hallway that ran along the inner wall of the Main Shaft. But according to the ship map, there was a little hatch on the left side of the wall that led to a cable duct that connected to the upper half of the shaft. The shaft was split by that powerful barrier as well, of course, but if Critter's suspicions were correct...

He grabbed the rotating handle with sweaty hands and turned it left. After opening the heavy metal door, the first thing Critter saw was a tunnel about six feet deep and less than three feet tall, lit by dim orange lights. At the back, the tunnel went upward, and there were simple steps set into the wall. And then he noticed, just below the steps, a mound of what looked like fabric...

Critter: Whoa!!

When he realized what it was, Critter pulled back abruptly, cracking the back of his head against the chin of Brigg, who was standing right behind him. But neither the pain in his skull nor the large man's swearing registered, he was so stunned.

The mysterious fabric was actually clothing. Clothes with someone inside them, a skinny body folded in on itself. Brigg pushed Critter aside and raised his rifle, but it took only a second or two for him to grunt.

Brigg: He's dead.

The man's neck was twisted at an unnatural angle. Critter grimaced, then hesitantly leaned into the tunnel so that he could examine the dead man's face.

Critter: Hey...isn't this that guy? The mole inside Rath...? Did they execute him when they found out he was a spy? It's a weird way to kill someone...

He touched the man's skin, thoroughly grossed out, and felt how clammy it was. Based on the temperature, he had probably died the first time they opened the barrier. So did that mean the first time it opened was so this man could try to escape down to the lower part of the shaft? Had he missed a step and fallen to his death?

Then why had they opened the barrier again?

He wanted to check the state of the barrier hatch leading to the Upper Shaft, but to do that, he'd have to pull the body out, and he didn't want to do that. He backed out of the tunnel and into the hallway, then told Brigg.

Critter: Go in there and see what's going on up in the duct.

The large bearded man snorted and crawled into the tunnel, then yanked the spy's body out of the way. That done, he went back into the tunnel again and peered up the vertical duct, twisting his upper half for the right angle. Critter didn't know much about tactics, but he had to wonder whether it was safe to stick your head right into the vertical duct like that.

Brigg: Oh, shit!!

Brigg cried, then he lifted his assault rifle and fired. Yellow flashes burned Critter's retinas, and two types of gunfire rattled his eardrums. He managed not to scream but watched as Brigg's massive body bounced off the floor of the tunnel as though it had been smashed by an invisible hammer.

Critter: Aaaah! What the hell?!

Critter shrieked, falling onto his butt in the hallway. Brigg was collapsed and unmoving, in the same spot where the spy's body had just been. Critter didn't need to see the pooling blood on the floor to know that he'd suffered the same fate as the spy. One of Rath's combat members had been waiting up above and had shot him.

Critter(mind): So what do I do now?

Critter wondered, feeling a wave of sweat break over him.

Critter(mind): Should I grab the assault rifle from Brigg's hand and win a shoot- out with the unseen enemy above to avenge his death? Hell no! I'm just a computer geek—my job is to think and hit keys.

Critter practically crawled back to the main control room, thinking rapidly the whole time. At the very least, this indicated that Rath intended to be aggressive on the attack. But the assault team's side had the obvious advantage in strength. If they fought, the other side would suffer losses—and at worst, lose control of the Upper Shaft and possession of Alice.

Was Rath's commander envisioning a worst-case scenario beyond even that? Did he think that the assault team had enough firepower to blow up the entire Ocean Turtle? All the C4 they had couldn't even blow up one pressure- resistant hatch...

Critter(mind): Firepower...

Then Critter inhaled sharply. The two bodies behind him in the hallway completely vanished from his mind. They did have it. There was one method they had to destroy the entire Ocean Turtle and sink Alice's lightcube and the Rath team to the bottom of the ocean.

The client had ordered them to destroy Alice if they determined that she was unrecoverable. But should they destroy this massive autonomous megafloat and the dozens of crew members aboard it just to fulfill that goal?

Critter couldn't make such an awful decision on his own. He'd have nightmares for the rest of his life. He got to his feet and ran for the main control room, hoping to get his commanding officer's opinion.

(Elsewhere)

Higa: K...Kiku! You all right, Kiku?!

Higa hissed as quietly as he could. The enemy had appeared at the bottom of the cable duct and fired off at least three rifle shots. He got no response. Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka had his shoulder pressed against the wall of the duct, Higa on his back, with one hand on the ladder step and the other holding a pistol.

Higa(mind): No way, man. You can't be serious. We still need you!

Higa: Ki...

He was about to yell Kikuokaaaaaa!! when the lieutenant colonel coughed violently.

Kikuoka: Koff...eurgh...Oh, man. I am so glad I wore this bulletproof vest...

Higa: O-of course you did! Were you seriously thinking of wearing your aloha shirt down here...?

Higa asked, sighing with relief. He glanced down at Kikuoka's back again.

Higa: So you're not hurt, then?

Kikuoka: Nope, but I did take one shot to the vest. Are you okay, though? There were a lot of ricochets.

Higa: Y-yeah...Neither I nor the terminal got hit.

Kikuoka: Then let's hurry. We're almost to the maintenance port.

As Kikuoka rocked back and forth down the rungs again, Higa thought how surprising this was. He'd always assumed that Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka was not one for physical activities, but the muscles under his broad back were as hard as steel. And as for his marksmanship...he had been hanging by one hand from the ladder and had shot down the duct twice, one-handed, and double-tapped the enemy in the throat and chest.

Higa(mind): I feel like I'll never run out of surprises from this guy for as long as I know him.

Higa thought, shaking his head. He pulled the cable for the maintenance connector out of his pocket as the port came into view.

(Elsewhere)

Gabriel:—Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!

Gabriel Miller sprang upright, laughing uproariously. The first thing that he saw was a wall of gray metal panels. Warning labels written in Japanese corresponded to cables and ducts all over its surface.

Gabriel: Ha-ha-ha, hah, hah......

As his laughter subsided, replaced by heavy breathing, Gabriel blinked and blinked. When his breathing normalized, he looked to the sides. He was in STL Room One on the Ocean Turtle. Apparently, some unforeseen factor had booted him out of the simulation.

Gabriel(mind): What...a disappointing conclusion! I was just about to gobble up the entirety of that vast flood of light and finish the job of devouring the boy's heart. Perhaps there was still time to dive back in.

Gabriel grimaced and turned around to check. Resting on the seat of the STL was a tall white man with his eyes closed.

Gabriel(mind):...Who is that?

He thought momentarily.

Gabriel(mind): Is there a member like this on the assault team? And what is he doing on my machine anyway?

But then he realized something.

Gabriel(mind): That's my face.

Chief technical officer of Glowgen Defense Systems, Gabriel Miller.

Gabrile(mind): Then who am I, looking down at me?

Gabriel lifted his hands to examine them. All he saw was a hazy translucent light instead.

Gabriel(mind): What is this? What happened?

And then he heard a quiet voice over his shoulder.

Alicia:...You've finally come to this side, Gabe.

He spun around. Standing there in a white blouse and a dark-blue pleated skirt was a young girl. Her face was downcast, so he couldn't see it past her airy golden hair. But Gabriel knew at once who this girl was.

Gabriel:...Alicia.

He said, for the first time in nearly twenty years. His face broke into a smile.

Gabriel: So this is where you've been, Allie.

Alicia Clingerman. The childhood friend of Gabriel Miller, and the very first person he'd killed on his noble quest in search of the human soul. The fact that he had failed to capture Alicia's soul despite seeing it so clearly was an extremely sore spot for Gabriel for years. But apparently, he hadn't completely lost her. She had stayed with him after all.

Gabriel momentarily forgot the bizarre situation he was in and reached out to her. Alicia's hand snapped forward in a blur of movement and snatched his, hard. She was cold. Cold as ice. A freezing sensation prickled his flesh through the skin like needles. Gabriel instinctually tried to pull away. But Alicia's tiny hand was as firm as a vise. His smile vanished.

Gabriel:...It's cold. Let go of me, Allie.

Her golden hair shook back and forth.

Alicia: I won't, Gabe. We're going to be together forever. Come—let's go.

Gabriel: Go...? Go where? I can't—I still have things to do.

Gabriel protested, pulling back with all his might. But he did not move. In fact, he was slowly being pulled down toward her.

Gabriel: Let go. Let go of me, Alicia.

He said, more sternly this time. Just then, she lifted her head. And the moment he saw her face below those neatly trimmed bangs, Gabriel felt his heart shrinking in his chest. His guts surged upward. His breathing grew faster. Goose bumps rose on his skin.

Gabriel(mind): What is this? What is this sensation, this feeling?

Gabriel: A...a-a-ah...

He croaked, shaking his head in disbelief.

Gabriel: Let go! Stop! Let go!

He lifted his other hand to push Alicia away, but she grabbed that one just as fast. Fingers as cold and hard as metal dug into his skin. Alicia giggled at him.

Alicia: That's fear, Gabe. That's the real emotion you wanted to understand, right there. Isn't it lovely?

Fear. The source of the expressions he'd seen on all those people in their final moments when he'd killed them for his experiments, to satisfy his curiosity. But now that he was experiencing it himself for the very first time, it was not a pleasant feeling. In fact, it was tremendously unpleasant. He didn't want to know this thing. He wanted it to be over. But...

Alicia: You can't leave, Gabe. It's going to continue forever and ever. You are going to feel nothing but terror for the rest of eternity.

Her little shoes sank into the metal floor. So did Gabriel's feet.

Gabriel: Ah...n...no. Let go...stop,

He murmured absentmindedly, but the sinking sensation did not stop. Suddenly, a white arm emerged from the floor and clung to Gabriel's leg. Then another. And another. And even more.

Gabriel could sense that these were the hands of people he had preyed upon. His fear escalated higher and higher. His heart was hammering at an incredible speed, and sweat beaded thick on his forehead.

Gabriel: Stop...stop, stop-stop-stop-stop-stoppppp!! Critter, get in here! Wake up, Vassago!! Hans!! Brigg!!

But his subordinates did not burst in. The door to the main control room remained cold and silent. And Vassago, who was in the STL next to him, was not getting up.

By now, his translucent body had sunk into the floor to the waist. Alicia was visible only from the shoulders up as she dragged him down. Before her face disappeared entirely, it smiled with glee.

Gabriel: Ah...aaah...Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!

Gabriel wailed. Over and over. White hands grabbed his shoulders, his neck, his face.

Gabriel: Aaaaa...aaaa......a.........

With a tiny splashing sound, he saw nothing but darkness. Gabriel Miller understood the fate that awaited him, and he unleashed a scream that would last for eternity.

(Elsewhere)

As Critter raced back down the hallway and into the main control room, he heard rifle fire coming from the stairs. Neither Captain Miller nor Vassago were in the room. They probably hadn't left the STLs yet. Even though it had been over five minutes since the acceleration had started.

Critter still wasn't sure whether he should really describe his idea to them, mostly because he could sense that if he did, they would tell him to carry it out immediately. They were not the kind of people who cared about the fate of innocent civilians who lay between them and their mission. He yanked open the door to the STL room, still uncertain of what he should do.

Critter: Captain Miller! Alice is under enemy...

Any further words caught in his throat. Right in front of him, lying on the gel bed of STL Unit One, with the machine covering his forehead and everything above it, was Gabriel Miller. His face wore an expression that Critter had never seen on him before.

In fact, Critter had never seen it on any human being. His blue eyes were bulging so much they threatened to pop out of his skull. His mouth was open wide enough that the jaw joints almost had to be dislocated—and it was diagonal, not straight. His tongue extended far out of his mouth, as if it were an entirely separate living thing.

Critter: C...Cap...tain...?

Critter gaped, his knees shaking. He knew that if he happened to see one of those protruding eyeballs move, he would scream. It took him more than a few seconds to control his breathing and then reach out, slowly and hesitantly, to touch the man's left wrist where it hung from the side of the bed. There was no pulse.

Critter: D...Dead!

His skin was as cold as ice. Despite the lack of any external wounds, the assault team's commanding officer, Captain Gabriel Miller, was dead. Critter clenched his stomach to keep its contents from rising and rasped.

Critter: Vassago...get up! The captain's d...dea...

He made his way on trembling legs around the gel bed to the second unit, which was farther into the room. This time, he did scream. The second-in-command, Vassago Casals, was asleep peacefully, at first glance. His eyes were closed and his expression was placid. His hands were extended, resting at his sides. The only difference was in that long, flowing black hair of his.

It was as white and shriveled as if he were over a hundred years old. Critter backed away. He didn't even bother to check the pulse this time. Despite being a hacker who believed only in reason and source code, Critter truly thought in that moment that he was going to meet the same end that these two did if he stayed in the accursed room. He tumbled backward through the open doorway and slammed the door shut with his foot.

Critter panted heavily and tried to put together what this meant. There was no way to know what had happened to Miller and Vassago, and he didn't want to know. All he could assume was that something had happened in the Underworld and that, most likely, it had totally destroyed their fluctlights.

In the end, the operation was a failure. Now that the team leader was dead, there was no way to get a decision on whether to destroy the whole ship with Alice in it. There was no reason to stay here any longer. Critter picked the communication device up off the console and croaked.

Critter: Hans...come back. Brigg, Vassago, and the captain are dead.

Within a minute, the biggest dandy on the team came rushing back to the control room, his expression as sharp as a knife.

Hans: You said Brigg is dead?! How?!

Critter: H-he got shot from above...in the cable duct...

Hans listened no further before rushing off with his rifle at the ready. Critter called out.

Critter: Stop! They've got Alice's lightcube. There's no reason to fight anymore...

The soldier was silent for a while. Then he abruptly punched the wall with an incredible clatter and came stomping back to Critter.

Hans: No...there must still be orders. If we can't steal it, we destroy it. You've got an idea of what to do, don't you?

Critter was overwhelmed by Hans's imposing presence and trembling mustache. He nodded nervously.

Critter: I...I do, kind of...but we can't. I can't make that kind of decision on my own.

Critter: Say it. Tell me now!!

Hans yelled, pressing the muzzle of his assault rifle to Critter's throat. The mercenary and Brigg had been a duo for years, since long before Glowgen hired them. The ferocity of his gaze was too much for Critter.

Critter: The...the engine...

Hans: Engine? Of the ship?

Critter: Yeah...this huge thing runs on a nuclear reactor...

(Elsewhere)

When Takeru Higa heard the groaning of the heavy turbines echoing up from the bottom of the duct, he finally understood the worst-case scenario Kikuoka was afraid of.

Higa: K...Kiku, I think they're setting off the—

Higa groaned, but Kikuoka cut him off.

Kikuoka: I know that. Just put all your attention into shutting down the STLs.

Higa: O-okay...but...

Higa felt a cold sweat break out all over his body when he inserted the cable into the maintenance panel at last. If the reactor went haywire, none of this would matter. The Underworld and Alice's lightcube would be utterly destroyed in a blast of superheated steam and radiation, and many human lives would be lost along with them.

But causing a reactor explosion wasn't actually that easy. You couldn't break the two thick metal containment layers surrounding the core with small arms, and there were multiple layers of safety systems on the controls. Even if it did continue to run at a reckless full output, the safety measures would kick in very soon, lowering the control rods to prevent fission from occurring.

Just then, in his usual laid-back manner, Kikuoka asked.

Kikuoka: Hmm...Higa, do you think you can manage on your own from here?

Higa: Uh...yeah, if you attach my harness to the steps, I should be able to work...but, Kiku, you can't be considering going down...

Kikuoka: Oh, I'm just going to check on things. I'm not going to make some heroic last stand. I'll be right back.

Kikuoka reassured him, slipping out of the harness that connected the two of them and hanging the nylon belts over the ladder rungs, then snapping the buckles shut. When he was certain that Higa was firmly in place, he descended several steps.

Kikuoka: The rest is up to you, Higa.

He said, his narrow eyes beaming through the black-framed glasses.

Higa: B-be careful down there! They might still be around!

Higa shouted after him. Kikuoka gave him an uncharacteristic thumbs-up, then shot down the rungs with incredible speed. When he got to the bottom, where the hole led out to the hallway, he carefully checked the perimeter before sliding out.

It was only after Kikuoka had disappeared entirely that Higa noticed something was wrong.

While he typed away on the laptop's keyboard with his right hand, Higa tried to adjust the harness where it was biting into his stomach with his left hand, and he felt something slick and wet. He looked down at his palm in shock and saw, under the illumination of the orange emergency lights, a blackish liquid on his skin.

It was painfully obvious that the blood did not belong to him.

(Timeskip)

Ten minutes had passed. Rinko Koujiro clenched her sweating palms, staring at the digital readout that continued to ascend without mercy.

A hundred years had passed within the Underworld since the initiation of the maximum-acceleration phase. It was impossible to imagine how Sora Yatagami and Kotone Takemiya had experienced that length of time. All she knew was that the memory capacity of their fluctlights was running out, and soon.

According to Higa's assessment, the human soul stopped functioning properly once it had accumulated about 150 years of memories, and then it began to collapse. This hadn't been tested in an experiment, of course. The limit might actually be higher—or significantly lower. All she could do now was pray that they finished the logging-out process before Sora's and Kotone's souls imploded. If they could just avoid that, there was still hope that the two of them might return to their original selves.

Rinko(mind): Higa, Mr. Kikuoka...please.

So intent was she on her prayer that Rinko failed to notice that the frequent sounds of gunfire in the distance had stopped. She realized it only when Lieutenant Nakanishi rushed back to the sub-control room.

Nakanishi: Doctor! The enemy has begun to withdraw from the Ocean Turtle!

Rinko: W...withdraw?!

She repeated, stunned.

Rinko(mind): Why now? With the barrier wall open, this would be the attackers' last chance to recover Alice. It was too early for them to give up. They still had eight hours until the Aegis warship Nagato arrived.

Rinko typed some commands on the keyboard to call up the status windows for various ship conditions and asked the lieutenant.

Rinko: Did anyone get hurt in the fighting?

Nakanishi: Yes, ma'am...We've got two light injuries, one more serious. He's being treated now, but I don't think it'll be fatal.

Rinko: I see...

She let out the breath she'd been holding and glanced over at the man. There was a large medical patch stuck to Nakanishi's chiseled cheekbone, which had a small trace of blood blotting through. He was one of the two who were lightly injured.

They had to save those two kids so that this fighting wasn't all for nothing. At the very least, the news that the enemy was pulling out was good. On the status window, Rinko confirmed that the bay door to the submerged dock on the underside of the Ocean Turtle was open. That was how the attackers had gotten in the first time.

Rinko: Looks like they're going to escape with their submersible again. They're really in a rush, though...

She said, staring curiously. Then a vibration shook the entire Main Shaft. A whining howl, like a dry breeze through branches, burst through the gigantic megafloat. Her pen rolled off the table and fell onto the floor.

Rinko: Wh...what is this?! What's happening?!

Nakanishi: It sounds like...Ohhh...No, they couldn't—!!

Lieutenant Nakanishi groaned.

Nakanishi: This vibration must be the main engine at full power, Doctor!!

Rinko: Main engine...?

Nakanishi: The pressurized water reactor at the base of the shaft.

When Rinko just sat there in muted horror, the lieutenant leaped to the console and awkwardly interacted with the status screen, bringing up new windows until one of them showed a blurry image.

Nakanishi: Holy shit! All the control rods are raised!! What have they done?!

He demanded, slamming the console with a fist.

Rinko: But...there must be safety measures, right...?

Nakanishi: Of course. Before the reactor core reaches a critical state, the control rods automatically get inserted to stop fission from occurring. But...just look at this...

He pointed at the spot on the monitor where it displayed real-time footage of the containment chamber. It was hard to tell through all the red light, but it looked like some small white object was stuck to one large yellow-painted piece of machinery.

Nakanishi: That looks like C4...plastic explosives. At that size, it's probably not enough to destroy both the containment structure and the pressurizer, but right below this spot is the CRD...That's the control-rod drive, which inserts the control-rod cluster into the core. If that gets destroyed, then the rods won't be able to drop on their own...

Rinko: And...we won't be able to stop nuclear fission? What happens then...?

Nakanishi: First, it'll heat up the primary cooling fluid until it results in a steam explosion, destroying the pressurizer...In the worst-case scenario, the core will melt down and break through the containment chamber and the ship's bilge into the seawater, thus evaporating lots more water and blowing up the entire shaft. Including Main Control, the Lightcube Cluster, and Sub Control.

Rinko: Wha...?

Rinko looked down at the floor beneath her feet. Superheated steam, bursting up through this thick metal floor? It would mean that all the Rath employees, who'd done their best to avoid casualties; Sora and Kotone connected to The Soul Translators; and the thousands of artificial fluctlights in the Lightcube Cluster—all of them would be obliterated in an instant...

Nakanishi: I'll go and remove the C4.

Lieutenant Nakanishi announced. His voice was low and determined.

Nakanishi: They'll have set the timer for long enough that they can escape to a safe distance on their submersible. We should have five minutes...That's enough time for me.

Rinko: B-but, Lieutenant, the temperature in the engine room is already...

Nakanishi: You think I've never been in a sauna before? It's not hard to run in there and pull off a detonator.

Rinko(mind): Assuming you have safety clothing on. But there's no time to arrange something like that.

She couldn't tell him that, though; there was steel resolve in his figure as he headed to the door. But his high-laced black boots stopped just short of the sliding door.

There was a sound in the room that Rinko had never heard before. Nakanishi promptly reached for his holster, and they both looked to their left. It was a high-pitched metal whirring coming from a right foot stepping out of its protective frame—belonging to the metal-and-plastic machine body of Niemon.

To the disbelief of Rinko and Nakanishi, the humanoid machine walked slowly toward them, its head sensors glowing red. But it shouldn't be moving. Higa had designed it, so he knew how it functioned better than anyone. Unlike Ichiemon, which was loaded with many ambulatory balancers, Niemon was designed to be an artificial fluctlight carrier, so without a lightcube inserted, it couldn't walk at all. Alice was the only fluctlight ejected from the cluster, and she was still held in the case on the desk. Niemon's head socket should be empty.

Nakanishi: Wh...why is Prototype Two moving...?

Nakanishi gasped, drawing his pistol. Niemon ignored him and walked straight toward Rinko, stopping about six feet away from her. A tinny electronic voice issued from a speaker somewhere in its head.

???: I will go.

That voice. The tang of the oil lubricating Niemon tickled her nostrils. She had heard the same voice and smelled the same odor on the night that she landed on the Ocean Turtle, when she was dreaming in her cabin. Rinko got to her feet, trembling slightly, and walked up to Niemon. In a tremulous voice, she asked.

Rinko: Is that you...Akihiko...?

The dim light of the sensors flickered, as though blinking, and the robot's head smoothly bobbed. She closed the space between them without thinking and touched its aluminum body with shaking hands. The robot's hands rose, whirring quietly, and touched her back.

Akihiko: I'm sorry for leaving you alone for so long, Rinko.

Electronically generated or not, the voice undeniably belonged to the one man Rinko Koujiro had ever loved: Akihiko Kayaba.

Rinko: So this...is where you been.

She whispered, not even realizing that she'd reverted to the hometown dialect she'd largely forgotten. Tears pooled in her eyes, blurring the lights of Niemon's sensors.

Akihiko: There's no time. I'll only say what I need to say. You brought joy to my life, Rinko. You were the only thing keeping me connected to the real world. If possible...I want you to keep that connection going...Fulfill my dream... and connect these two worlds that are still apart...

Rinko: Yes...of course. Of course...

she said, her head bobbing up and down. The machine seemed to smile. Then it let go of her body and smoothly changed its center of gravity, practically running out of the sub-control room.

Rinko started to follow it automatically, until the sliding door closed in her face. Then she inhaled deeply and clenched her jaw. She couldn't leave this room now. It was her job to monitor the situation around the ship. Instead, she watched the feed of the engine room and clutched the locket around her neck. She heard Lieutenant Nakanishi murmur in a daze.

Nakanishi: Why did he wait until now...?

There had been many perils before this point. Yet Kayaba had waited until this moment to break his silent observation and act. Rinko thought she understood why.

Rinko:...It's not for the Underworld. He has no intention of interfering with the simulation. He made himself known so that he could protect Sora and Kotone...

In the Lower Shaft, which the attackers had controlled until a few minutes ago, most of the security cameras were destroyed, but they were still intact in the engine room that housed the reactor.

On the main monitor, Rinko had the feed zoomed in all the way. She clutched her locket in both hands and waited. On her left, Lieutenant Nakanishi had his hands clenched and resting on the console. Behind them, the security team that had come back from the defensive perimeter and the technicians were praying in their own individual ways.

Rinko asked them to evacuate to the bridge, but not a single one of them left the Main Shaft. Everyone present had given everything they had for Rath, the mysterious organization conducting top-secret R&D. They had their own hopes and dreams for the new age that true bottom-up artificial intelligence would bring.

Up to this point, Rinko had thought of herself as merely a guest temporarily visiting the ship. She'd had no intention of linking her goals to that of Seijirou Kikuoka, a man as impenetrable as any.

But she also realized now that she had come here to Rath because she was meant to. Artificial fluctlights weren't meant to be funneled into a narrow purpose like unmanned-weapons AI. And the Underworld was not just some highly advanced civilization simulator.

They were the beginning of a massive paradigm shift. A new reality, a revolution from the closed-off nature of the real world. A world made incarnate by the invisible power of all those young people who had sought to break free from the existing system of reality.

Rinko(mind): That's what you really wanted, isn't it, Akihiko? What you discovered in your two years in that castle was the endless possibility they represented. The blindingly bright power of the heart.

The worst criminal act in history—locking up ten thousand people in a virtual prison and causing four thousand lives to be lost—was unforgivable in every way. Rinko's part in helping him carry out that crime would never be expunged from her history.

Rinko(mind): But just for now...just this once, let me wish. Please, Akihiko. Save us...Save the world.

As if in answer to her prayer, there was movement at last in the remote feed on the screen. A silver mechanical body had appeared in the narrow hallway leading to the engine room containing the cutting-edge pressurized water reactor.

The machine's steps were duller now, perhaps because its battery output was already dimming. It clanked forward, step by heavy step, fighting its own weight.

Rinko couldn't imagine when and how Kayaba's thought-mimicking program had slipped into that body's memory. One thing was clear, however: The program contained within the robot had to be the one and only original copy. No intelligence could truly withstand the knowledge that there were identical copies of it in existence.

How long would the prototype's electronic circuits hold out? It surely hadn't been treated with special heat-resistant protection. All they needed to do was unplug the detonator to prevent an explosion, but if Niemon's memory should get destroyed somehow, Kayaba's consciousness would cease to exist.

Rinko(mind): Please, defuse the bomb safely and come back to me.

Rinko prayed, biting her lip. But Akihiko Kayaba probably intended for this to be his end. He'd fried his own brain in the act of writing a copy of his mind—and now he had found his purpose, his reason for dying. The actuators of Niemon's mechanical joints whirred. Its metal soles thudded against the floor.

With determined, careful strides, the machine body reached the door of the engine room at last. It reached out and awkwardly operated the control panel. The light turned green, and the thick metal door opened inward.

At that very moment, she heard high-speed rifle fire through the speakers. Niemon retreated awkwardly, lifting its arms to protect its body. A soldier dressed in black fatigues shouted something and leaped through the open doorway.

It was obviously one of the attackers. He wasn't covering his face with a helmet and goggles like before. The man had a soft-looking face with a narrow mustache, but even on the grainy security camera, the extreme expression on his face was clear.

Nakanishi: Wha...?! One of them stayed behind?!

Nakanishi exclaimed.

Nakanishi: Why?! Does he want to die?!

Niemon maintained a defensive posture as the man unloaded bullets on it. Sparks flew, and holes opened in the aluminum exterior. Nerve cables tore here and there, and lubricant spilled out of its polymer muscle cylinders.

Rinko: S-stop it!!

Rinko shrieked. But the enemy soldier on the screen screamed something in English and pulled the trigger a third time. The robot wobbled, taking step after step backward.

Nakanishi: Oh no! Number Two's exterior can't withstand this!

Nakanishi said, reaching for his pistol, even though he knew he wouldn't make it in time. Then a fresh series of gunshots rang out through the speakers. A third figure came running down the hallway from the front, firing a pistol wildly. The enemy's body jolted left and right. Somehow this new person was hitting his target without mistakenly putting a single bullet into the robot body. But who...?

Rinko forgot to breathe. On-screen, blood burst from the enemy's chest, and he flew backward and stopped moving. The mystery savior slowly descended to a knee in the middle of the hallway—and then sank to the floor on his side. With trembling fingers, Rinko rolled the mouse wheel to zoom in. Bangs covered his forehead. Black-framed glasses slid off his ear. It looked like there was a slight smile on his lips.

Rinko: K...Kikuoka?!

Nakanishi: Lieutenant Colonel!!

Rinko and Nakanishi shouted together. This time, the SDF officer bolted out of the room for good. A number of the security staffers followed him. Rinko couldn't stop them now. Instead, one of the technicians leaped to the console, typing a few keys and bringing up what appeared to be a status window for Prototype Number Two.

Staff: Left arm, zero output. Right arm, sixty-five percent. Both legs at seventy percent. Battery remaining, thirty percent. We can do it. It can still move!!

The staffer shouted. Number Two seemed to hear him and resumed forward progress. Zrr, chak. Zrr, chak. With each awkward step, its severed cables spit out sparks. When the ragged body passed through the doorway, Rinko switched the camera view to the angle from the engine room interior.

The second heat-resistant door was physically locked with a large lever. Niemon's right arm grabbed the lever and tried to push it down. Its elbow actuators spun, spraying more sparks.

Rinko: Please.

Rinko murmured, just before cheers of encouragement burst out of the observers in the control room.

Staff 1: You can do it, Niemon!!

Staff 2: That's it, just a bit more!!

Ga-kunk. The lever shifted downward heavily. The thick metal door burst open from the pressure on the other side. Even on the monitor, it was clear that a huge blast of heat was pouring through the doorway. Number Two wobbled. The especially thick cable hanging from its back sparked worse than before.

Staff: Oh...oh no!!

Rinko: What...what's wrong?!

Staff: The battery cable's damaged!! If that gets cut off, it'll lose power to the body...and cease to move...

Rinko and the other techs watched in silence. Even Kayaba, the brain controlling Niemon, seemed to realize how bad the damage was. The robot pinned the swinging cable down with its elbow and resumed walking, slowly and carefully.

The interior of the engine room was full of excess heat the reactor was putting off at maximum output, at a temperature that no human being could withstand in the flesh. Most likely the safety functions would kick in soon, automatically inserting the control rods back into their housing.

But if the plastic explosives went off first and destroyed the drive for the control rods? Then the neutrons coming off the nuclear fuel would destroy the uranium atoms in a chain reaction until it reached a critical point.

A core meltdown would then cause a steam-pressure explosion in the primary coolant, destroying the pressurizer, and the core would then break through the containment vessel from sheer gravity, then the bottom of the ship, and would leak into the water... Rinko had a sudden vision of a pillar of smoke rising from the center of the Ocean Turtle. She closed her eyes and prayed again.

Rinko: Please...Akihiko...!!

The cheers and chants resumed. Pushed onward by their encouragement, Number Two approached the nuclear reactor. She switched to the final camera angle.

There was suddenly a terrible roar coming through the speakers. The footage on the screen was red with emergency lights. Number Two was practically dragging one foot as it proceeded through the searing heat. Only five or six yards until it reached the plastic explosives stuck to the upper part of the containment chamber.

The robot's right hand rose toward the detonator. Sparks were flying in streams from all over its body, and pieces of its exterior fell to the floor.

Rinko: You can do it...You can do it...You can do it!!

One simple statement echoed around the control room. Rinko balled her hands into fists and screamed with them, nearly losing her voice.

Four more yards.

Three yards.

Two yards.

Then there was a veritable explosion of sparks from Number Two's back. The black cable split and hung loose, like some exposed entrails. All the sensors on the robot's head went out. The right arm slowly lowered. Its knees shook and bent—and Number Two went silent. On the monitor, the output graphs that had been bouncing up and down now sank to the bottom and turned black. One of the techs whispered.

Staff: It's...lost all power...

(Flashback)

Akhiko: I don't believe in miracles.

Akihiko Kayaba had said to Rinko on the day he'd woken in his bed in the mountain villa after SAO had been cleared earlier than expected and all its players had been released at last. His eyes were gentle and shining, and there was a faint smile playing around his scraggly, overgrown jaw.

Akihiko: But you know what? I saw a miracle today, for the first time in my life. My sword went through him and destroyed the last of his hit points, but it was like he refused to obey the system and go away...and he stuck his swords into me instead. Maybe it was that moment I've been waiting for all this time...

Rinko: Who...?

Akohiko Kayaba smile.

Akihiko: The very same boy who's parent I accused for stealing money from our company.

(Present)

Rinko:...Akihiko!!

Rinko shouted, not even noticing that blood was dripping from the hand that clenched her locket.

Rinko: You're Heathcliff, the man with the Holy Sword!! You're the ultimate rival of Zora the Night Sky Swordsman!! You've got to have one miracle of your own in you!!

Flick. Flick-flick. Red lights flickered. The lateral sensors on Number Two's head. Exposed muscle cylinders jittered. A faint, purple light bobbed at the very bottom of the blacked-out status window. Then all the bars on the graph displaying limb and core output shot upward. Sparks flew as the robot's joint actuators spun into life.

Staff: N...Number Two's active again!!

A staffer shrieked, right as the utterly ragged machine stood upright. Tears poured from Rinko's eyes.

Rinko: Gooooo!!

Staffs: Keep going!!

Shouts filled the sub-control room. One foot stepped forward, slick with oil that ran like blood. The other foot dragged forward next, and it reached out its arm. One step. Another step. The battery compartment popped. Its body lurched—but it took another step. The fingers of its fully extended arm made contact with the plastic explosives strapped to the containment vessel.

The thumb and index finger pinched the electric detonator. Sparks erupted from wrist, elbow, and shoulder like death screams. Number Two pulled the detonator loose, timer and all, and raised its arm high. The screen flashed white.

Number Two's fingers blew off where the detonator had burst. Then the robot tilted to the left and, like a lifeless puppet, dropped to the floor. The sensor lights blinked and went out, and the output graph on the monitor blacked out again. No one said anything for quite some time. And then the sub-control room rocked with raucous cheers.

(Elsewhere)

The whining of the engine turbines weakened and grew distant. Higa let out the breath he'd been holding. The nuclear reactor was finally starting to lower its output instead of continuing at a disastrous full-power clip.

He wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve and squinted at the laptop screen through dirty lenses. The shutdown process for the two Soul Translators was about 80 percent finished. Over seventeen minutes had passed since the maximum-acceleration phase had been initiated—that would be over 160 years in the Underworld.

By Higa's conjecture, that was over the theoretical life span of the fluctlight. In simple logical terms, it was highly likely that the souls of Sora Yatagami and Kotone Takemiya had disintegrated.

But at this point, Higa also admitted to himself that in truth, he knew nothing about fluctlights in the Underworld. He had planned the simulation, constructed it, and operated it. But within the machine, the alternate world that had been built up by artificial souls had apparently reached heights that no one in Rath could have envisioned.

Right now, the real-world person with the deepest understanding of that world was undoubtedly Sora himself. Just a eighteen-year-old high school student, hurled into the Underworld without any preparation. And he had adapted, evolved, and exhibited power greater than that of the six super-accounts meant to be gods.

That wasn't just some preternatural power that Sora was born with. It was because Sora Yatagami—unlike the Rath members, who saw the artificial fluctlights only as experimental programs—acknowledged that the fluctlights were just as human as he was. He interacted with them, fought them, protected them, loved them—as human beings.

That was why the Underworld—all the people who lived in it—chose him. To be their protector. Then perhaps, through some miracle that even Higa could not have anticipated, he might be able to withstand two hundred years.

Higa(mind): I bet that's right, Zora. Now I understand exactly why Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka was so insistent on working with you. And why you'll continue to be needed. So...

Higa:...Please come back to us.

Higa whispered, watching the shutdown process approach 100 percent. Rinko was left all alone in the sub-control room. The other staff members had left to rescue Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka and restore control to the main control room. For her part, Rinko wanted to rush to the reactor containment unit and find the collapsed Niemon so she could secure its physical memory and the thought-simulation model of Akihiko Kayaba contained on it. But she couldn't leave this spot yet. Not until Higa finished the STL shutdown process and she could confirm the condition of Sora Yatagami and Kotone Takemiya next door.

Rinko had faith that they would wake up as though nothing had gone wrong. She wanted to place Alice's lightcube in their hands and tell them that the Rath team had kept her safe. And she wanted to tell them about the person who had saved the Underworld from the real world—to tell them that Akihiko Kayaba, the man who'd imprisoned them, forced them to fight, and put them through hell, had operated a mechanical body with its battery cable cut and protected the Lightcube Cluster and the Ocean Turtle.

She couldn't ask their forgiveness. There was no way to remove the crime of the deaths of four thousand young people from Akihiko Kayaba's story. But she wanted Sora and Kotone to understand the idea that Kayaba had left behind and the goal he'd been striving for. Rinko placed her hands on the duralumin case containing Alice's lightcube and waited for Higa's voice to come in over the intercom.

Higa:...Rinko, the log-out process is going to be complete in sixty seconds.

Rinko: All right. I'll make sure to send someone for you soon.

Higa: Please do. I don't think I can get up this ladder on my own...Also, Kiku went down below to check on things. How is he doing? I think he's got an injury.

At the moment, Rinko couldn't tell him. Nakanishi had gone in to rescue Kikuoka after the gunfight in the hallway to the engine room about three or four minutes ago, but she hadn't heard back from him yet. But Kikuoka wasn't going to succumb before his mission was complete. He was the man who remained aloof at all times and easily overcame whatever challenges he faced.

Rinko: The lieutenant colonel put on quite a show down there. In fact, I'd say he put Hollywood to shame when it comes to action scenes.

Higa: Wow, I can't even imagine that...We got thirty seconds left.

Rinko: I'm going over to the STL room now. Get in touch if anything happens. Over.

Rinko switched off her comm and left the console, clutching the case, as she made her way to the adjacent room. Before she touched the sliding door, the speaker in the room crackled with a report from the staff members who'd gone below.

It wasn't from Lieutenant Nakanishi or from the technicians who'd gone to Main Control. It was the security officer who had gone to remove the plastic explosive itself, now that the temperature was dropping in the reactor containment chamber.

Nakanishi: Engine room, coming in! Do you read me? Dr. Koujiro!

Rinko felt her heart leap in her chest and switched the intercom channel. She shouted.

Rinko: Yes, I read you loud and clear! What is it?!

Nakanishi: W-well, ma'am...I removed the C4 safely, but...it's gone.

Rinko: Gone...? What's gone?

Nakanishi: Number Two. I'm not seeing Niemon anywhere in the engine room!

The timer on the cheap digital watch reached zero and beeped.

(Elsewhere)

Critter huddled in a corner of the submersible's passenger bay, listening intently for sound from outside. After many seconds without hearing the death-scream explosion of the megafloat, he exhaled a long and heavy breath. Even he couldn't say whether it was out of relief or disappointment. All he knew was that the C4 he'd placed on the Ocean Turtle's reactor had not exploded for some reason, and thus the control-rod drive was not destroyed, and there was no meltdown.

If Hans was still okay back in the engine room, he'd be able to set off the device on his own, so the fact that it hadn't happened meant that he'd been eliminated.

Critter was stunned that a mercenary working for money would choose to stay behind rather than get on the sub. Hans had nearly lost his mind when he'd heard that his partner Brigg was dead; apparently they'd been close enough that he'd chosen to die in the same place.

Critter: People always have a longer history than you think...

He muttered to himself, placing his watch back on a time readout. In fact, Captain Miller and Vassago, who died before Hans did, had their own motives and circumstances outside of money. And it was those complicating factors that killed them.

In that sense, Critter and the other team members on the submersible had really gotten screwed over by this operation ending in failure. Glowgen DS, their client, had gotten to its current size by undertaking wet works for the NSA and CIA, and they wouldn't think twice about hanging personnel out to dry. They might even be silenced to the very last man the moment they stepped on US soil again.

As a bit of personal insurance, Critter snuck a micro–memory card out of the Ocean Turtle, taped to his chest with skin-colored waterproof tape. He had no idea how much good that would do him, but at the very least, if they were going to kill him, they'd just put a bullet in his brain, which was a much better way to go than whatever gruesome fate Vassago and Captain Miller had suffered.

Critter: Good grief.

He snorted and glanced unhappily at the two body bags at the back of the passenger section. The sight of Miller's horrible death rictus flashed into his head, and he shivered.

Critter:...Huh? Two?

He squinted into the darkness at the rear of the craft—there were only two body bags. But that didn't add up. Hans had stayed behind, but there had been three casualties on the team: Captain Miller, Vassago, and Brigg.

Critter:...Hey, Chuck.

He said, elbowing a nearby man chewing on an energy bar.

Chuck: What?

Critter: Your team collected the bodies, right? Why are we down one?

Chuck: Huh? We got Brigg from the corridor and Captain Miller in the STL room. Who else died?

Critter: But...there was another one in the room there...

Chuck: Nope, only found the captain. Gonna remember that goddamn face in my nightmares.

Critter:......

Critter pulled back and looked around the little cargo section. There were nine men sitting in the cramped space, all of them looking exhausted. Vice-Captain Vassago Casals was not among them.

Critter had definitely confirmed Captain Miller's death in the STL room, but he'd only looked at Vassago. His skin had been totally pale, though, and his hair had been bone white. He couldn't have been alive. If he was alive, why wasn't he on the submersible?

Critter's brain refused to consider this topic any longer. He wrapped his arms around his knees. The loquacious hacker did not say a single word until they returned to the Seawolf-class sub Jimmy Carter many minutes later.

(Timeskip)

Nineteen minutes and forty seconds after the start of the maximum- acceleration phase, the shutdown of Soul Translator Unit Three and Unit Four in the Ocean Turtle's STL Room Two was complete.

Three minutes later, the acceleration process itself finished, and as the cooling system wound down, quiet returned to the ship interior again. Dr. Rinko Koujiro and Sergeant First Class Natsuki Aki released the boy and girl from the STLs—but Sora Yatagami and Kotone Takemiya did not open their eyes. It was clear that their fluctlight output was nearly at a minimum and their mental activity was all but lost.

But Rinko clutched their hands, tearfully calling and calling out to them. There were the faintest of smiles on Sora's and Kotone's faces in the midst of their deep, deep sleep.