Sword Art Online - Volume 22 - Chapter 4.4

4 

May 12th was a Sunday. 

There was no outpatient service on Sunday, so the hospital felt quieter than usual as a whole. Of course, the only time Yuuki would even be aware of that was when she was out of the Medicuboid for tests or to wash up. 

Yuuki couldn’t stay in a shared room in the hospital ward due to the high risk of infection, so there was a special pod-type bathing apparatus installed in the sterilizing room adjacent to the clean room. The tub was extremely cramped, so she felt more like she was being washed than bathing. Still, it felt very good to be able to dunk her body and head in hot water. 

Serene Garden had its own huge bathhouse that was more of a spa resort. But the sensation of the hot water wasn’t quite the same, and she felt resistance to the idea of getting naked around other people, even if it was just a virtual body. Ran always laughed it off and said, “You’re too sensitive!” 

Feeling nice and fresh after her Sunday afternoon bath, Yuuki sterilized her body and put on the examination outfit she used for pajamas, then returned to the clean room, where she lay down on the high-density gel bed of Medicuboid Test Unit Two. Unlike Test Unit One, which was known only by the appellation MFT1, this had the proper name of Medicuboid because it was a cubical structure with medical applications. The body of the device was shaped like a huge box. Test Unit Three, which was in production now, was even larger, apparently. Yuuki didn’t know if she would ever see it. 

She was lying on her back and pondering this when a little voice sounded in the back of her head. 

I suppose that would mean I found a reason to live… 

A reason to live. 

Most of the elderly players in Serene Garden were shockingly active in the game, which shouldn’t have been a surprise, because they were choosing to come and experience the VR world. Still, there were times when she heard them say things that sounded regretful or negative. 

If I can’t get better, then I’d rather just die. 

Nothing good’s going to happen. There’s no point to living. 

Every time she came across one of those people, Ran did her very best to cheer them up. But Yuuki couldn’t do what her big sister did. She felt that same kind of emptiness in her core, too. 

Until half a year ago, she could have fought through the sorrow, just because she didn’t want to make her parents sad. No matter how bad things got, she could always be cheerful in front of them. She would do anything she could to put a smile on her mom’s and dad’s faces. But now they were gone. 

She still had her big sister at her side for now. She never wanted to say or do anything that would make Ran sad. But if—on some small chance—Ran took the journey to see their parents before Yuuki did, she couldn’t imagine how she would find a reason to keep going. 

But no. Ran would never leave her behind like that. As long as she was alive, Ran would be, too, and vice versa. 

This was pointless. Merida was going to show them a new game, and she didn’t want to go into the experience with dark feelings. 

She installed the client for the VRMMO Asuka Empire with Dr. Kurahashi’s approval—and his stern reminder that she must not tell anyone that she was a Medicuboid test subject—and created her avatar. After checking the time, she placed her head against the headrest and pulled down the headgear. 

Yuuki closed her eyes and heard a faint machine whirring, then spoke the start-up command that the Medicuboid shared with the NerveGear and AmuSphere. 

“…Link Start!” 

In the app launcher, instead of her usual Serene Garden, she chose the new icon belonging to Asuka Empire. Yuuki’s mind plummeted into digital darkness. 

A glowing ring appeared below her feet and rose upward. When she passed through it, there was suddenly light all around. 

She blinked as her feet touched ground. Yuuki looked up and experienced a rich color palette filling her vision. 

Red, yellow, crimson, and orange: The square space was surrounded by a breathtaking tapestry of leaves rustling in a light breeze. 

The sky was so blue, it seemed crystal clear. There was rounded white gravel on the ground, so each step caused light skittering sounds. Before her was a huge torii gate, painted a shade of red even deeper than maple leaves, through which the gravel path led. 

“Yes…there’s nothing like this in Serene Garden,” said a nearby voice. She turned to see a girl wearing a simple but cute kimono. Her face was slightly different from how it looked in the real world and in Serene Garden, but the hair, voice, and general demeanor instantly told her it was Ran. There were no other players around. 

Yuuki looked down to see that she was wearing the same kimono in a different color pattern and said, “Yeah. It feels so…traditional!” 

“It really does. I think I’m looking forward to this now.” 

“Looking forward to the oshiruko, you mean?” 

“Of course!” 

Suddenly, there were quick, light footsteps running toward them from the far side of the gate. It was another girl, this one with a long ponytail, running with an extreme forward slant. 

Once through the gate, she jumped high in the air, doing multiple flips before landing directly in front of the sisters. 

““Ooh!”” 

Yuuki and Ran applauded as the girl, dressed in a very ninja-esque light-green outfit, gave a very theatrical bow. After Yuuki focused on her for a few moments, the character name Merida appeared over her head. That was a feature that didn’t exist in Serene Garden. 

“Thanks for waiting! Welcome to Asuka Empire!” Merida explained, lifting her head. Her avatar, which looked a little bolder than the one they saw yesterday, leaned back slightly to assess their appearances. “You’re both very good at avatar creation! You look so cute, and you’re still very similar to your SG avatars.” 

“Y-you think so…? I just took what was on the default setting and tweaked it a little bit…,” Yuuki mumbled. It was at this point that she noticed something new in the upper left corner of her vision. 

There was a narrow blue bar resting above a narrow green bar, below which was the name Yuuki. If she looked at it long enough, letters floated inside the bars, with LP 350/350 inside the green one and SP 100/100 inside the blue. 

Merida could tell what she was looking at from the direction of Yuuki’s eyes, and she held up a pointer finger to explain. “This is probably your first time seeing that, since you’ve only played SG before. The green one is your life points, which is your health, and the blue one is your soul points, which you use to do jutsu and techniques and stuff. You’re still neophytes, so you have the same numbers, but when you do an initiation quest in town and select a class, one of them will shoot way higher.” 

“Uh-huh…And what’s your class, Merida? Well, I can guess based on your clothes,” Ran said. 

Merida grinned, then clasped her hands together and ran them through a series of complex arrangements. They looked very familiar. 

“Hah!” she shouted, and suddenly, her body was surrounded in pale smoke, then was gone. Yuuki and Ran looked around, but there was no sign of her anywhere. The only thing they could hear was the faint sound of footsteps on gravel. It seemed to be in the distance behind them—and then instantly, someone hugged Yuuki from behind. 

“Gotcha, Yuuki!” 

There was another puff of smoke, and she saw arms grabbing her around the midriff. 

“Aaah! I’m not a stag beetle!” Yuuki protested, struggling. Merida grinned, let go, and returned to where she was initially standing. 

Ran stated, “So you’re a ninja?” 

“Bingo! Technically, ninja is the advanced version of the thief class. Every neophyte has to pick from either swordsman, thief, or mage, and from there, you rank up into advanced classes like samurai, archer, ninja, shrine maiden, monk, and so on.” 

“Ooooh…What should I be, then?” 

“Making that decision is part of the fun of playing MMOs!” Merida said with a dimpled grin, then pointed toward the torii gate. “C’mon, let’s go! The capital of Asuka is up there!” 

The setting of Asuka Empire was a fantastical, fictionalized version of the ancient Yamato court that ruled over the central and western regions of Japan, if it had lasted for over a thousand years. The capital, Kiyomihara, was a castle city laid out like an enormous Go board and was at least three times larger than Serenity, the central city of Serene Garden. 

The number of concurrent players was second only to ALfheim Online, the most popular of all the VRMMOs. On a Sunday afternoon, the city was packed with players dressed in traditional garb. Yuuki and Ran had never seen this many players in a virtual space, so after they passed through the great southern gate, they simply stood there in silent awe. 

It wasn’t just the numbers. It was the activity, the chaos, the energy in this place that was unlike anything they’d experienced before. The main street was no less than a hundred feet wide and full of groups of people engaged in lively chats, gangs arguing and itching for a fight, and even item sellers setting up shops on the sides of the path. 

“Wow…there are so many people,” Yuuki marveled. 

“Right?” said Merida. 

She began walking and motioned for the sisters to follow. As they moved forward, she lowered her volume and explained, “Right after the SAO Incident started, everyone was afraid of VR games, and they were talking about outlawing full-dive technology…but I think there’s something to this world that isn’t found in traditional video games. Once you get hooked, you’ll never be able to go back to a monitor and controller again…” 

Yuuki understood what she was talking about. She didn’t know if they were going to keep playing Asuka Empire after this, but she knew that if they couldn’t go back to Serene Garden, life would feel much blander. Having a place to visit with Ran where they could eat good food, search for items, and study together was a joy she got to experience on a daily basis. 

While their world might be different, thousands of people in Asuka Empire had to feel the same way. It wasn’t a simple time waster or an escape from reality for them. And Merida was one of that group. The fact that she’d worked her way up to an advanced ninja class was evidence that she’d found something important here. 

But yesterday at the crepe shop in Leute, Merida intimated that she wanted to go back to Sword Art Online. She said she might find a reason to live there—and shed tears. That probably meant Asuka Empire didn’t have what Merida was really searching for. So what was different between Asuka Empire and Sword Art Online? They were both VRMMOs… 

“Look! There’s the initiate hall!” Merida cried out, rousing Yuuki from her thoughts. Up ahead on the right side of the street was an especially large building with three separate entrances. 

“Okay, you two. Which do you want to be: swordsman, thief, or mage?” 

“What’s the difference?” asked Ran, who didn’t know that much about video games. 

“A swordsman goes in front, fighting with weapons or martial arts and getting hit by enemy attacks,” Merida explained. “A thief zips around quickly, confusing the enemy and doing lots of other activities. A mage stays in the back and casts magic to attack enemies or back up their friends.” 

“Uh-huh. I see,” muttered Yuuki, giving this some thought along with Ran. After five seconds, she said, “Then I’ll be a swordsman!” 

“And I’ll be a mage.” 

Merida chuckled when she heard their answers. “I had a feeling that’s what you’d pick. In that case, Yuuki, you go in the middle entrance, and, Ran, take the right. Inside, you’ll be able to accept a quest. I’ll help you finish them, so let’s take care of these initiation quests!” 

“Yeah!” 

Yuuki pumped her fist into the air and glanced over at Ran before running for the doorway. 

The act of holding a weapon in her hands and swinging at realistic monsters was a major shock. 

At first, she ran and screamed whenever the dog-sized rats charged at her. But once she learned their bites didn’t hurt (it was just mildly unpleasant) and that there was no blood when she slashed them (just a spray of red light), she stopped being afraid and was able to fight. Ran showed no fear of the rats at all, though, and dispatched them easily from the start. 

With the help of their experienced ninja friend, they spent two hours finishing the five-part initiation quests. Yuuki was now a swordsman, and Ran was a mage. When Merida invited them to get something to eat in celebration, Ran immediately requested oshiruko, of course. 

“Fwaaaah…,” Ran moaned the moment the steaming, lacquered cups were brought out. “It’s amazing, Merida. It’s perfect. The grilled crisp on the chewy mochi, the texture of the mashed beans, the contrasting taste of the salted kombu, the style of the establishment—it’s all perfect.” 

“I…I’m glad you like it.” 

“If I’d known they had such delicious oshiruko here, I would have come much sooner,” Ran said, lost in reverie. She brought her hands up in prayer, then lifted her painted chopsticks. 

Yuuki waited for her sister to start eating first, then lifted her oshiruko to her lips. The gentle sweetness and flavor of crushed red beans filled her mouth, followed by the scent of the mochi. She wasn’t as obsessed with sweet red beans as her sister, but this was very delicious. 

The trio ate in almost total silence until they exhaled in blissful satisfaction at the same time. Ran set down her chopsticks and took a sip of tea. 

“…That was wonderful. Thank you for bringing us here, Merida.” 

“I’m glad you liked it.” 

“Anyway…is this Kiyomihara place supposed to be set around the real-life Asuka region?” 

“That’s right. Why?” Merida asked. Ran pointed at the menu on the table. 

“When this dish is made with chunky beans rather than blended, only the Kanto region around Tokyo calls it oshiruko. In the actual Kansai area where Asuka is, the ones with whole red beans are called zenzai. They only call the thinner soup with fine bean paste oshiruko.” 

“Ohhh! Does that mean they call the finer bean paste zenzai in the Kanto region?” 

“Actually, they call it oshiruko whether it’s chunky or smooth. Zenzai is used to describe solid crushed red beans without any liquid, like the kind you dollop over mochi or rice dumplings.” 

“Oh, wow! I’m from Tokyo, but I had no idea about the difference. Well, we ordered oshiruko and got something with the beans crushed, so I guess this restaurant must be Kanto style,” Merida narrated, fascinated. 

Ran grimaced and shook her head. “Actually, not necessarily. They might have simply reversed it, like you guessed…” 

Yuuki suddenly realized what was going on, gave her sister a piercing look, and shouted, “Oh, I get it! You keep talking about different regional styles—but you just want to order the zenzai, too!” 

“Heh-heh-heh, you got me.” Ran stuck out her tongue, and Merida laughed. 

When they ordered the zenzai, they received neither a bowl of finely filtered sweet bean paste nor a solid mash but another soup of crushed beans with chestnuts in it. Despite the confusion, however, it was delicious, too, so the trio ate with gusto. By the time they left, the sun was much farther down in the sky. 

“Ahhh, here I’ve gone and eaten two bowls of oshiruko at this hour. Will I have any appetite for dinner?” Merida grumbled, rubbing her stomach. “It’s so strange how this virtual food really makes you feel full.” 

“Yeah, seriously,” Yuuki agreed. “From what I hear, when you’re eating, the full-dive machine stimulates the chewing centers of your brain, and it’s so tightly related to your fullness centers that they feel the illusion, too.” 

“Ooooh! …Hey, why am I the one gushing over everything? You guys are too knowledgeable about stuff!” 

“No, I’m just repeating what was explained to me,” Yuuki said with a shrug. For a brief moment, Merida looked like she was waking up from a dream. She must have understood that Yuuki wasn’t talking about a teacher at school but the doctor at the hospital. 

They left the sweets shop, which was a special hole-in-the-wall place just like the crepe shop yesterday, and headed out into the lonely backstreet. Ran’s wooden geta sandals made sad little clacking sounds on the stone pavement. 

After a little while, Merida murmured, “So…your doctor knows about how full-diving works.” 

“Yeah…” 

After all, it was Dr. Kurahashi himself who had recommended that Yuuki be a test patient for the Medicuboid. The young doctor had high hopes for the use of full-dive tech in improving terminal care. But Yuuki was sworn to secrecy, so she couldn’t tell Merida about that. 

“What about your doctor?” she asked. 

The other girl shrugged, the ash-green fabric of her ninja outfit rising and falling. “My doctor…doesn’t think very highly of it. I had to ask a bunch of times before I got approval to register for SG. He doesn’t seem to think that VR-based palliative care improves QOL.” 

QOL was an abbreviation for quality of life. Palliative care was meant to improve the patient’s quality of life by focusing on easing physical, mental, and social pain caused by their condition. The AmuSphere had a function that canceled bodily sensations up to a point, meaning it could ease a sick person’s pain and therefore might be a useful substitute for painkillers, which had side effects and dependency problems. 

On the other hand, patients in the midst of a full dive were essentially just lying prone on a bed, so there was a strong counterargument that it wasn’t improving the patient’s actual life. Merida’s doctor had to share that opinion, then. 

Yuuki didn’t know which side was right. Serene Garden and Asuka Empire were both enticing worlds, and the time she spent with Ran in them felt extremely valuable, but at this point, she spent no time together with Aiko in the real world. Every now and then, she thought that being able to interact with her sister all day in the virtual world, rather than being stuck in her clean room, was the happier option. 

While Yuuki was lost in these heavy thoughts, Ran said, “I don’t think you can blame anyone for being negative about full-diving while the SAO Incident is still ongoing. But…I want to believe in the possibilities of this place. We met you because of Serene Garden, and I think we’ll meet many more people after this. Even if the connections are only online…I think the things we’re feeling are real.” 

“Yes…that’s right,” Merida agreed, putting a hand to her chest. “I’m so happy I met you two. The memories we’ve made together will always be here…not in my avatar’s heart but in my heart.” 

Her tone of voice was light, but the word memories felt heavy and sad in the lonely evening alleyway. She’d said that a year and a half had passed since starting treatment for her brain tumor. She must have spent all that time thinking about how much she had left before the end. That was why Merida was searching in the virtual world for a meaning to her life. 

“…I’m happy, too,” Yuuki murmured, grabbing Merida’s hand as they walked side by side. “Since starting in Serene Garden, I never got too close to anyone other than Sis. I was afraid of hurting them or getting hurt myself…But yesterday, you gave us everything you have. And that’s how we were able to become friends so quickly.” 

Merida’s eyes briefly widened. Then she beamed for all she was worth and squeezed Yuuki’s hand back. 

“Thanks, Yuuki! It makes me feel good to hear that! But that enthusiasm yesterday might have been because I was thinking about the beetle so hard…” 

“Turnabout is fair play. Yuuki and I have just been thinking about crepes and oshiruko,” Ran said, laughing and reaching for Merida’s other hand. The three girls laughed and laughed and laughed. Yuuki could feel a comfortable breeze blowing through her heart that made her feel light and warm. 

If she could laugh like this, then maybe it didn’t matter whether this was a real world or a digital one. 

She wanted to laugh and smile as much as she could in the time she had left. She wanted to hurl all of her being at someone else the way Merida had done for her. 

It was the first time since she’d been hospitalized—since she transferred elementary schools, even—that Yuuki had felt something so strongly.