Sword Art Online - Volume 22 - Chapter 4.1

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“Ah…!” cried Ran. 

The sound roused Yuuki from the hillslope where she’d been napping. 

“What’s wrong, Sis?” 

“Oh…I didn’t mean to wake you, Yuu. I just saw a news article that surprised me…” 

Her sister was holding a thin, partially translucent board that looked like carved crystal fitted into a silver frame. That was an information screen used for browsing the external Net while you were inside Serene Garden, the VR hospice program. 

“What’s the article?” Yuuki asked, leaning forward. Ran hesitated, then offered her the crystal. 

The moment she read the article at the top of the daily news for May 11th, 2024, Yuuki yelped with surprise. In a large font, it said, Police department looking into forced rescue of SAO Incident victims. 

Already a year and a half had passed since the start of the Incident, an unprecedented situation in which ten thousand people were trapped inside a virtual world. Initially, the government led a plan to free the victims through software means, but they found no way through the comprehensive trap set up by the incident’s perpetrator. It had seemed there was nothing they could do but helplessly watch. 

“Forced rescue…how?” Yuuki murmured, reading the article. She couldn’t go to middle school, but she was able to continue her studies in the virtual world, and she always liked reading, so news articles like this weren’t out of her ability to understand. 

“Hmm…the police are investigating the possibility of externally destroying the NerveGear that the seven thousand surviving victims are wearing…?” 

At that point, she paused and let out a wordless exclamation. Yuuki looked up from the tablet to her sister and asked, “But the perpetrators made it so that if you try to destroy the NerveGear, it electrocutes the brain, right?” 

“Not electricity—electromagnetic waves,” Ran corrected in a teacherly tone. Still, her face was grave. “Based on this article, they’re hoping that instantly destroying the battery might prevent the device from creating a pulse strong enough to damage the wearer’s brain…but…” 

“Hmm…” 

Yuuki gazed at the photo of the NerveGear attached to the article. The bulky headgear that Medicuboid Test Unit One used was modeled after the NerveGear, so the resemblance was rather close. 

She was currently using—no, inside—Test Unit Two, which was very different in size and shape, but the thought of physically destroying VR headgear that someone was wearing gave her the chills. 

“…How do they instantly destroy it, physically speaking? They can’t just blow it up or smash it with a hammer, I assume,” she said. 

“Good point…Maybe they’re using a precision drill to open a hole in the exterior shell, then hoping to snip the positive electrode line? But knowing how thorough the culprit was, I bet there are secret backup circuits that would still work.” 

“Uh-huh…” 

“Plus, I seem to recall that in the culprit’s message, there was something about how if we tried to destroy the NerveGear to save a player, it might compromise the safety of the others. Meaning the plan to free them all would have to be done absolutely simultaneously with seven thousand different NerveGear units. I’m not sure that’s possible.” 

“It sounds…difficult,” murmured Yuuki, although the truth was that she didn’t understand what her sister was saying anymore. 

Usually, she’d stop trying to process what Aiko was saying and think, She’s so smart. This time, however, Yuuki looked back at the crystal tablet. She’d heard that some of the SAO Incident victims were being kept in their hospital, under the same roof, so she couldn’t help but be curious. 

“…Ran, why do you think this Kayaba guy did this?” Yuuki asked. 

Aiko’s avatar, Ran, just looked ahead without answering. Yuuki looked up, too, out toward the ridge of the horizon, faded and blue with distance. 

The two girls were sitting in a place on the eastern side of the spacious Serene Garden called Teal Hills. The hills themselves were gentle and covered with greenery. Blue lakes and delicate little villages were nestled between them. It was so beautiful, she could sit here and watch forever. 

Beginning in September of 2023, Serene Garden was a VR hospice, a virtual world meant to provide palliative care to terminally ill patients. The majority of the system resources went into creating a beautiful and pleasant world. When the AmuSphere was released in June of that year, all its games revolved around adventures or shooting things, but Serene Garden replaced the concept of combat with carefully and intricately designed landscapes with striking views. The eastern part of its large map was full of green hills; the north, snowy fields; the west, tall mountains; and the south, deep woods. Sitting in the center of the map was a capital city designed to look like a European-style town. If you wanted to walk to see every part of the world, it would take you an entire week. 

Yuuki and Ran’s parents died at the end of last year, one after the other. The direct cause of death in both cases was pneumonia, but they’d suffered from a number of opportunistic infections and had to be given powerful pain suppressants to ease their suffering. By the end of the fall, they were asleep around the clock. 

There was one single time in which their parents used AmuSpheres to visit “the garden.” 

The pain-canceling function of the AmuSphere wasn’t powerful enough to eliminate their suffering entirely, so they could be together for only about an hour. But that hour took them on a stroll from the center of town to the grassy fields outside, a precious memory that would forever remain in Yuuki’s and Ran’s hearts. Their father ate the lunch they prepared and marveled over how delicious it was. Their mother’s eyes brimmed with tears at the sight of the beautiful landscape, and she sang the children’s songs and hymns the sisters loved so much. 

If not for full-dive technology and virtual reality, this experience could never have happened. 

And this technology was almost entirely created by Akihiko Kayaba, the man behind the horrible SAO Incident. 

The precious memory with their parents wasn’t the only thing he enabled. Yuuki was using a Medicuboid developed by a medical company, but Ran had to use a modified version of the NerveGear, one with a smaller battery and other safety limitations. So it was thanks to the worst criminal of the century that the two sisters were able to interact in the virtual world. 

Ran rubbed Yuuki’s back, sensing there were some conflicted feelings to be smoothed out. 

“I don’t know, either. But you don’t need to worry about that, Yuu. You’re testing the Medicuboid so that it works right and helps as many patients as possible in the future.” 

“……Yeah…” 

Yuuki leaned against her big sister’s shoulder. 

Ran (Aiko) was Yuuki’s “big” sister, but the truth was that they were twins. However, for as long as Yuuki could remember, she’d always looked up to her sister and relied on her for help. Ran had always doted on her and protected her. 

The reason Yuuki was the test subject for the Medicuboid was because of her sister’s strong insistence. The Medicuboid, a very delicate and complex piece of machinery, was installed in a biological clean room at Yokohama Kohoku General Hospital, where the girls were hospitalized. The interior of the room had far fewer germs and viruses than outside, meaning it minimized the risk of opportunistic infections—the greatest danger to a person with AIDS. 

Being a tester meant going into the clean room, extending your time to live. Ran knew this and withdrew from candidacy to let Yuuki take it. A year and three months had passed since then, with Ran staying in an ordinary long-term hospital room. Her condition had deteriorated slightly more than Yuuki’s in that time. Even now, Ran was living with the fear of disease that the NerveGear couldn’t prevent. 

When Dr. Kurahashi proposed going into the clean room to be a Medicuboid test subject, Yuuki could have said, “I’m fine. You go in, Sis,” but she didn’t. Ran said that instead, and she said it without a moment’s hesitation: “You take it, Yuu.” 

Yuuki bit her lip and squeezed hard with her teeth. Suddenly, Ran shot to her feet. 

The wind blew her long hair as she stretched her limbs. Their avatars were automatically generated by the game based on photographs, but even still, Ran’s avatar was surprisingly accurate to her real self. The girlie shirtdress she was wearing looked great on her. 

She grabbed Yuuki’s hand with a smile and exclaimed, “C’mon, Yuu, let’s pick some herbs. I have a feeling we’re going to find that ultrarare one today.” 

“……Okay!” 

Yuuki squeezed her sister’s hand back.