Alicization Uniting Page 3

“…Kirito,” he said, and a moment later, “Alice…”

  I heard it clearly this time. Eugeo spoke our names out loud.

  It had worked. My sword…reached him…crossing the boundaries that separated his heart from mine.

  “Eugeo…”

  The thin smile that rested on his lips deepened. He spun the Blue Rose Sword around in his hand to hold it in a reverse grip. His arm lowered until the tip of the sword landed on the marble floor. It crackled, and the slightly misty weapon sank in about an inch.

  I saw that as a sign that the battle was over, and I lowered my sword. The breath I’d been holding escaped, and I took a step forward with my right leg.

  But the next moment was just the start of a series of events I failed to predict.

  “Kirito!”

  That was Alice, calling me over my shoulder. I hadn’t sensed her coming; her left arm circled around my torso and lifted me up straight.

  Then more words escaped from Eugeo’s lips.

  “…Release Recollection.”

  That was the phrase. The initiation of the greatest of battle abilities in the Underworld, calling forth the memory of the weapon and unlocking the true heart of superpowered Perfect Weapon Control—the secret of Memory Release.

  Bright blue-white light shot from his sword.

  I couldn’t dodge or defend against it. Absolute cold spread from the blade, instantly freezing the entirety of the vast chamber. The mouth of the descending staircase in the corner of the room, the levitating disc that went up to the top floor, and both Alice and I were frozen solid up to our chests in thick, immobilizing ice. If Alice hadn’t straightened me up, the ice would have swallowed my head.

  When we came across Bercouli Synthesis One in the great bath on the ninety-fifth floor of the cathedral, he had been frozen up to his neck like this. Eugeo’s Memory Release power was strong enough to freeze an entire pool of hot bathwater so fast that even the oldest of the knights wasn’t able to escape. I hadn’t forgotten or overlooked that, but there wasn’t even any water to freeze on this floor. And he hadn’t generated a huge number of ice elements to make use of—where had all this ice come from?

  But even that wasn’t the shocking part.

  Why did Eugeo do it? He just got his memory back; why would he need to lock me and Alice in ice?

  Against the all-consuming, piercing chill, I just barely had the strength to make my mouth form the words “Eugeo…why……?”

  About fifty feet away, Eugeo got back to his feet easily and favored me with a sad little smile. “I’m sorry, Kirito…and Alice. Please don’t come after me…”

  And then my best friend, and Alice’s childhood companion, pulled the Blue Rose Sword from the floor and headed for the levitating disc in the center of the chamber.

  The large marble platform, like the staircase and us, was covered in thick ice, but the knight simply walked over it and jabbed the end of the sword down lightly. It began to rise, ice shards cracking and sprinkling off.

  As the disc ascended, I saw that smile stay on Eugeo’s face, an expression attempting to withstand a whole host of conflicting emotions, until he eventually vanished through the hole above.

  “…Eu…ge…oooooo!!” I screamed, but it was drowned out by the hard, heavy sound of the disc fitting seamlessly back into the ceiling.

  2

  “Remove Core Protection.”

  Just three command words, a phrase he’d never heard before in his life. But the moment that he finished repeating them, Eugeo came to realize that he’d just unlocked a door that was never meant to be opened.

  Just one hour before that unthinkable duel against Kirito, Eugeo had barely managed a painful draw against Bercouli, commander of the Integrity Knights and wielder of a blade that cut into the future. By utilizing the Memory Release feature of the Blue Rose Sword, he had been able to freeze them both in place, until a strange man named Prime Senator Chudelkin had taken his unconscious body up to the hundredth floor of Central Cathedral.

  It was there that Eugeo had met a girl with silver hair and mirror eyes, the otherworldly beauty that was Administrator, pontifex of the Church. Through a mental haze that refused to lift, he’d listened to her speak.

  You are a flower in its flower bed, deprived of the water that is love.

  But I am different. I will love you, and only you.

  However, only if you love me just the same.

  It was like they were sacred arts commands in and of themselves, binding his will to them. He’d felt himself repeating the three command words as she’d bidden him.

  It must’ve been some kind of forbidden art. Something that hurled open the door meant to protect truly precious things—memories, thoughts…the soul.

  With that perfect smile, Administrator had peered into Eugeo’s mind, looked around, and inserted something deep inside it, something colder than ice.

  Then he’d lost consciousness again.

  When he awoke, it was as though he were being dredged up from the bottom of a deep, dark blackness, answering someone’s distant call.

  Bright sparks. Silver steel. And a young man with black hair, furiously fighting against him.

  That was when Eugeo recognized that he was clad in the armor of an Integrity Knight and that he was using his sword on the friend he trusted more than anyone in the world and the childhood sweetheart he’d cared for more than any other soul.

  But even that realization did not remove the icy thorn jabbing into the center of his mind. It bound his thoughts to its will, ceaselessly ordering him to strike down these foes for the glory of the supreme Administrator. Helpless to stop himself, Eugeo activated the Blue Rose Sword’s Memory Release art, locking those two precious souls in ice. He resisted in vain, but it was the only way to stop the fight.

  …I gave in to her temptations and destroyed something that should never have been destroyed. But even still, there are things I can do…things I must do.

  “…I’m sorry, Kirito…and Alice,” he managed to say.

  Eugeo stepped onto the levitating platform to return to the hundredth floor of the tower—to Administrator’s bedchamber.

  When it came to a heavy stop, the moonlight coming through the enormous windows reflected off Eugeo’s armor and sword, sending sheets of pale light through the room.

  It was about two o’clock in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the fifth month of the year.

  Just three days ago, at this hour of the night he was in his bed in the elite disciples’ dorm. He always slept like a rock after a full day of lessons and training and never awoke before the morning bell.

  Thinking back on the last few nights, he remembered that he’d spent the twenty-second in the school’s detention cell and the twenty-third in the underground jail beneath the Axiom Church’s grounds—hardly the best conditions for sleep. After the early-morning escape on the twenty-fourth, he’d been through battle after battle, a thought that made his body go numb with the weight of fatigue, but that pulsing, throbbing thorn of ice stuck in his head kept him from being sleepy.

  Give your everything to the pontifex. Fight to protect the Axiom Church, the thorn commanded, both as stern as a steel whip and as sweet as the finest honey. In reality, the “thorn” was probably the same purple crystal that had been stuck in Eldrie’s forehead. And Eugeo got the feeling that if he gave in and tasted that honey again, his mind would never return.

  The only reason he had any consciousness at the moment was because of Kirito’s desperate appeal and the ferocity of their swordfight. And the reason he could return largely unharmed was thanks to Alice watching them fight, rather than getting involved.

  Alice Synthesis Thirty’s skill with the sword and the Perfect Weapon Control version of her Osmanthus Blade, a storm of golden petals, was a combination far beyond Eugeo’s current ability to counteract. If she had drawn her weapon and fought alongside Kirito, Eugeo would have fallen before he could have ever regained his own mind.

  He didn�
��t know exactly why Alice would have pledged herself to rebellion against the Axiom Church. Perhaps, as he imagined while ascending the staircase, Kirito had managed to convince her. Perhaps it was something even more impressive than that.

  There had been a bandage over Alice’s right eye that appeared to be fashioned from Kirito’s ripped clothing. Eugeo guessed that whatever had happened had been the same as when Eugeo himself had attacked Humbert Zizek at the academy. Her right eye must have exploded when she committed the crime of declaring war against the Church. Both the first time they’d seen her at the academy and later in the Cloudtop Garden of the eightieth floor, they’d been totally unable to stop Alice. And it wasn’t Eugeo who had brought her to that momentous decision, but Kirito…

  But I don’t have the right to complain about that now. I gave in to Administrator’s honeyed words. I cast open the door to my heart. It was a betrayal of Kirito and Alice. Of Tiese, and Ronie, and Frenica, and Golgorosso and Sortiliena, and Miss Azurica the dorm manager, and Sadore the craftsman, and everyone on Walde Farm, and Selka and Old Man Garitta back in Rulid, and Elder Gasfut, and the little sage Cardinal in her hidden library.

  He clenched the pommel of his sword, withstanding the chilling throb as it steadily grew worse. There wouldn’t be much time left for him to maintain his wits like this. He had to atone for his sins before he vanished for good.

  There was only one way to do that.

  Eugeo raised his head and looked around. The placement of the ninety-ninth and hundredth floors had to be unbalanced, as the disc had put him on the south side of the room here. The only thing beyond the glass windows that surrounded the room was a full blanket of stars. The massive sword decorations on the pillars between the windowpanes gleamed with the light of the moon and stars.

  Suddenly, he got the sense that someone had called for him, and he looked up.

  The pure-white domed ceiling over ten mels above featured a mural, which he’d seen the first time he’d come here, of the story of the gods. Among the gods and dragons and human beings in the image were embedded tiny crystals that shone with their own light.

  …Is it that light that’s calling me…?

  He squinted, focusing on one of the crystals. Then he heard an actual voice from a different direction and hastily looked forward.

  In the middle of the vast chamber was a circular bed that had to be ten whole mels across. The drapes were down around the sides, blocking the interior from view. But if he focused, he could hear a faint voice on the other side of the sheer material. A voice that sang as much as it whispered, threaded with sweet, dulcet tones.

  The voice of Administrator.

  It sounded like she was chanting a sacred art, but it didn’t have the fierce rigor of an attack spell. If she was performing some typical, everyday kind of housekeeping art, now was his chance.

  He put the Blue Rose Sword in its sheath and laid it on the floor, then removed the armor that had been damaged in the fight with Kirito. Off went the gauntlets, the boots, and the cape, until he was dressed in his usual shirt and trousers. Eugeo brushed at his chest with his fingers, just to make sure that what he needed was still there.

  He took one step toward the canopy, then another.

  A squat figure tottered closer from farther within the bed. It produced an unpleasant chortle.

  “Hoh-hee, hwee-hee-hee…I figured buying me a good five or ten minutes would be about right. I didn’t actually expect you to come back alive. Perhaps you’re a better find than I realized!”

  The instant he saw the figure in the moonlight, Eugeo’s breath caught in his throat. It was all he could do not to grimace.

  He wore hideous clothes, bright red on the right half and bright blue on the left. The middle of his balloon-like chest was an ugly patchwork. His face was pale white, with narrow eyes like slits in his face and a long, upturned mouth. The gold cap he wore atop his bald pate was gone, but Eugeo would never mistake the remaining features as belonging to anyone else.

  This was Prime Senator Chudelkin. He had shown up at the end of Eugeo and Bercouli’s fight, cast a Deep Freeze art that had turned the commander to stone, and then transported the unconscious Eugeo up here to the top floor.

  While he looked just like a short, silly clown, he was almost certainly the most powerful sacred arts user after the pontifex herself, and a cruel inquisitor in the extreme. If he found out that Eugeo was (temporarily) back in his right mind, he would use that petrification art without missing a beat. The only way Eugeo could fulfill his final duty was if he managed to get past this man without suspicion.

  Chudelkin cast a glance at the armor Eugeo had set on the floor, and his nearly hairless eyebrows shot upward theatrically.

  “Oh, my, you certainly did a number on the armor that Her Holiness gave to you. I sincerely hope you did not receive this beating from those brazen rebels and come running back with your tail between your legs, Number Thirty-Two…?”

  Her Holiness had to be Administrator, those brazen rebels would be Kirito and Alice, and Number Thirty-Two was his own designation as an Integrity Knight. He felt like he’d give away the game no matter what he said, but he had to answer the question one way or another.

  Eugeo steeled himself and kept his face as devoid of emotion as he could. “I locked the two rebels in ice, Prime Senator.”

  Chudelkin’s eyes curved as though he were beaming with all his might, but the pupils themselves glittered with cold, hard malice. “Hoh-hoh. You locked them in ice…? All very well, all very good…but you did finish the job, didn’t you, Number Thirty-Two?”

  “…”

  Throughout that moment of silence, Eugeo’s mind raced.

  Of course he hadn’t killed either Kirito or Alice. The Blue Rose Sword’s advanced ability was designed only to imprison its targets, not to harm them. As long as their faces were exposed, they wouldn’t lose much life despite being stuck under thick ice.

  Would it be better to not mention that and to just say they were done for? If Chudelkin went down below and saw for himself, he’d uncover that lie in short time. This was the sort of situation where Kirito would use his intuition and courage to come up with the perfect answer on the spot.

  All I ever did was hide behind him. Whenever there was trouble, I looked to my partner for help. Every big decision was his to make.

  This time, I have to think, and I have to decide. Kirito didn’t just leave all of the big calls up to his gut. He thought his hardest, picked out the right answer, and got me all the way here.

  I have to think like he would.

  Eugeo thought so hard that for a moment, he actually forgot about the cold throbbing in the center of his head. His lips parted, and he spoke with the absolute minimum of volume.

  “No, I did not finish them off, Prime Senator. The pontifex ordered me to ‘stop’ the rebels.”

  He didn’t actually know whether that was the order he’d been given by Administrator. But from what he could vaguely remember, the first time he had awakened in this chamber, the man had not been there. If Chudelkin hadn’t been around when Eugeo was turned into an Integrity Knight, he couldn’t judge the content of any orders—and if Administrator had said it, this man couldn’t possibly override that.

  Of course, if Administrator herself was listening from the bed just ten mels away, then all was lost. But she seemed to be in the midst of chanting some kind of sacred art through the layers of hanging canopy. There was a good chance that as long as they whispered, she wouldn’t hear.

  Eugeo waited for Chudelkin’s response, desperately controlling his expression to keep his nerves from showing. The little clown man’s huge lips twisted, and he scowled.

  “Very poor, Number Thirty-Two, very poor indeed!”

  He jabbed a finger at Eugeo’s face. “When you refer to me, you must call me ‘Lord Prime Senator.’ Understand that? Lord! The next time that you forget that, you’ll be my steed! I’ll ride around on your back, digging my heels into your sides�
��hi-hoh, hi-hoh! Hwe-hee-hee-hee!”

  He cackled in falsetto, then clasped his hands over his mouth and peered toward the bed. Once he was sure that Administrator’s sacred art was continuing without interruption, he made a grand gesture of calming himself down, then beamed.

  “…Well, I ought to carry out Her Holiness’s orders for me now. That miserable, corrupted knight must be put in Deep Freeze at once. Oh, and you’ll wait right here, Number Thirty-Two. It’s no fun if others are around to interfere, you see. Hoh, hoh-hoh-hoh.”

  Eugeo nodded, stifling the sickening lurch rising in his chest.

  Chudelkin tottered over to the levitating platform on the south end of the room. Like he did to Commander Bercouli, he likely had all kinds of humiliating treatment in mind for Kirito and Alice while they were stone.

  But there shouldn’t have been any concern for them. The prison of ice the Blue Rose Sword created was nothing compared to Alice’s Perfect Weapon Control. In the Cloudtop Garden, Eugeo had locked Alice’s entire body in ice. But the Osmanthus Blade had turned into countless tiny shards that had carved the ice into nothing.

  Either they were already out of the ice by now, or Alice would use that merciless power of hers as soon as Chudelkin showed up. For his part, the fat little man hopped onto the platform, huffing and wheezing, and headed downward. Eugeo watched and waited as the platform returned empty, fusing into the floor like always. The prime senator must have let the platform go back up so that he could enjoy himself in peace. It left no way to know what was happening on the ninety-ninth floor.

  It’s all right. The stupid man can’t beat them.

  Eugeo took a deep breath to steady his nerves and returned his gaze to the center of the room. He lifted his left hand and pressed down on the shirt over his chest.

  I just have to fulfill my role.

  He steeled his resolve, picked up the sword, and started walking forward. He was just three mels away from the bed, then two, then one.

  Just then, the endlessly droning sacred arts chanting came to an abrupt stop, like it had been snuffed out. Eugeo automatically froze, mind racing.