Sword Art Online - Volume 22 - Chapter 4.6

6 

“This place is so dreary. You could at least put in some walls and a ceiling,” Ran commented upon visiting Yuuki’s private VR “room.” 

The data for this space was contained in the main memory of Medicuboid Test Unit Two, and only Yuuki and Ran could access it right now. There were no features in the room aside from the flat, artificial floor. That was if you considered an endless dark space with nothing but a few windows floating in the air to count as a “room” at all. 

Half the windows displayed various status updates from the Medicuboid, while the rest offered an assortment of news sources and TV channels. The largest window, right in front, held a real-time stream of the clean room from the camera on Test Unit Two. It was her window from the virtual world out into the real one. 

Yuuki was lying on the hard floor in her pajamas, looking up at Ran, who was wearing the same thing. “It’s fine like this! If I spruce this place up like our home in Serene Garden, I’m going to have a hard time remembering if I’m in the real world or the virtual world.” 

She patted the empty space next to her and pleaded, “C’mon, Sis, sing to me. Like old times.” 

“Oh, fine. You’re so needy, Yuu,” her sister said with a smile and knelt down on the ground. Yuuki placed her head on Ran’s lap and closed her eyes. She relaxed, letting the tension leave her limbs. She felt gentle hands caressing her head and heard a whisper-soft singing voice in her ear. 

It was a Mother Goose lullaby called “Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word,” which their mother had often sung to them. It was a strange song about buying a baby all kinds of gifts to make them stop crying, such as a looking glass, or a billy goat, or a horse and cart. But that was what they liked about it. 

Their avatar voices, like their faces, were synthesized from samples of their real-world voices, but it didn’t feel off at all. Ran’s singing was as soft and enveloping as a gentle wave at the shore, filling the infinite space that surrounded them. 

So hush, little baby, don’t you cry. 

Daddy loves you, and so do I. 

Daddy loves you, and so do I. 

After Ran finished the last repeated line of the song, she continued caressing Yuuki’s head for a while. Yuuki was just starting to drift off to sleep—it was after ten at night—when a finger flicked her forehead and took her by surprise. 

“Don’t go to sleep here, Yuu. We haven’t talked about what we need to yet.” 

“Unyu…Oh, right…” 

She did her best to lift her heavy eyelids and sat up. Once she was facing her sister, she folded her arms and muttered, “So…what should we do, Sis?” 

Even Ran, who was normally so decisive, didn’t have an answer ready. 

Earlier in the evening, Merida had a very sudden suggestion. She said that two days later, on the twenty-third, she wanted to pay Yuuki and Ran a visit to celebrate their birthday. Not in a virtual world, of course, but at Yokohama Kohoku General Hospital. 

Merida’s hospital was in Shinagawa Ward in Tokyo, which was less than an hour away by car. Of course, she’d have family escorting her, so it probably wasn’t the biggest problem on her side. 

But Yuuki and Ran couldn’t tell her she was welcome, not right on the spot, at least. For one thing, Yuuki’s test usage of the Medicuboid was confidential, so she couldn’t meet with Merida. She couldn’t even tell her why. 

Even if they couldn’t meet in person, the idea of Merida coming to the hospital was wonderful. Yuuki knew that she would be very happy just hearing about the experience from Ran after it happened. 

But what if Merida didn’t take well to the answer that she couldn’t see Yuuki…? What if she was so hurt by it that Yuuki lost this precious friend she’d finally made…? 

“…Let’s trust Merida,” Ran said at last, breaking the silence. 

“But…Sis…” 

“I’m sure Merida will understand you have reasons why you can’t see her, even though you want to. I can’t imagine she’d be mad about it. Besides…if she brings her AmuSphere and dives from my room with me, we’ll be able to come here together, won’t we?” 

“Y-you’re going to bring her here?!” Yuuki shouted, though she didn’t mean to. 

Ran gave her a mischievous grin. “I’m sure Merida would be very happy to throw a birthday party for us in your room.” 

“Ummm…W-well, maybe I can try to decorate it to make it a bit more girlie,” she murmured, looking around the dark void that screamed virtual. 

Ran patted her on the shoulder and said, “Better be quick, then. It’s in just two days. And let me be clear: I’m not helping you.” 

“Awww…” 

“Just do what you want, Yuu. Whatever that is, it’s bound to delight Merida. Well, I’ll be leaving now. I’ll tell her we’ll be happy to see her, okay?” 

“…Yeah!” Yuuki agreed vigorously, getting to her feet. Better to just go full steam ahead, rather than worrying about hurting others or being hurt. That was the lesson Merida had taught her, wasn’t it? 

Ran waved good night and left the space, which Yuuki surveyed with fresh eyes. If they were going to have a birthday party, they’d at least need a table and chairs. But first, walls and a ceiling. 

Even if it was going to get reset in a day, this was a makeover meant to host their good friend. She was going to put all her energy into customizing the space, she decided. Yuuki headed toward one of the status windows hanging in the air. 

At two o’clock on Thursday, May 23rd, Merida arrived at Yokohama Kohoku General Hospital in her mother’s car. 

She was sitting in a wheelchair because the brain tumor had rendered her unable to use her legs. But after leaving her mother to wait in the hospital’s café, she made it all the way up to the eighth floor of the sick ward to Ran’s room on her own. She brought a large tote bag containing two wrapped birthday presents and her AmuSphere. From there, the plan was for them to dive to Yuuki’s private VR room from Ran’s bed. 

But neither Yuuki nor Ran realized what lurked in Merida’s heart of hearts. 

Ran used the restroom before her dive and came to her room to find a handwritten note on the bed. Next to it lay Merida, already in a full dive. Her head, bald from chemo, donned not the AmuSphere she’d brought but Ran’s NerveGear. 

The note simply said, Ran, Yuuki, I’m so sorry. And in the slot of the NerveGear was a game card with the title Sword Art Online. 

“What…?!” 

It took Yuuki several seconds to grasp what this meant after Ran showed up in her decorated VR room and explained what had happened. 

Merida hadn’t used her AmuSphere; she’d used Ran’s NerveGear. And that was because the AmuSphere couldn’t play SAO, presumably. Merida’s stunt wasn’t on a whim. She had brought the SAO card with her to do this from the start. She’d made an intentional choice to leap into the game where virtual death meant real death. 

Ran’s NerveGear was modified with safety features, like a smaller battery and output limitations. But the NerveGear still used a power cable. The power that SAO used to destroy the wearer’s brain when the avatar’s HP reached zero came from the wall outlet. They couldn’t let Merida be the test case to find out if those safety features worked or not. 

“S-Sis! We have to take the NerveGear off Merida!” Yuuki shouted, suddenly feeling the virtual temperature drop. Ran, who was diving here with Merida’s AmuSphere, just shook her head. 

“We can’t…I’m not going to pull it off her head—just in case the worst happens.” 

“Why not?! Your NerveGear has a smaller battery, right? If you turn off the power and then take it off her, it shouldn’t be able to emit those deadly waves…” 

“Merida has a brain tumor. If she’s exposed to any kind of abnormal EM waves at all, there’s no telling how that might affect her. We can’t pull it off her on our own.” 

“Then we need to tell the doctor at once…,” Yuuki protested, feeling even more childish than usual in the presence of her ever-calm sister. 

But Ran didn’t agree to this, either. Instead, she placed her hands on Yuuki’s shoulders in a calming gesture. “I think we should do that, too,” she whispered, “but before that, give me five minutes…well, three.” 

“What…? What are you going to do in three minutes?” Yuuki asked. 

Ran just stared her right in the eyes and replied, “I think there’s still time. Come with me, Yuu.” 

They brought up the door that acted as the app launcher from the VR room hub and walked through it into a blinding curtain of sunlight that made Yuuki squint. 

It was Leute, the village in the eastern region of Serene Garden. A band of NPC musicians played cheerful background music while players sat on the benches in the center of town, chatting happily. Ran rushed through the scene, her dress making her appear as a blue blur. Yuuki hurried after her. 

She had no idea where her sister was going or why they were in Serene Garden at all. Merida was already in Aincrad, the setting of Sword Art Online, wasn’t she? And there wasn’t going to be any teleport gate that would take them from Serene Garden to SAO. 

But Ran’s path was absolutely determined. She took them through the village gate and out into the undulation of Teal Hills. They ran along the brick road for a while but eventually curved left off the path and across the green, grassy fields. 

Yuuki only realized where her sister was taking them once they had crossed a number of hills and come within sight of a small pond glittering in the sun. 

The water was only sixty feet across or so, and the bank was lined with short pegs that stuck up out of the surface. A solitary tree stood near the edge. 

This was the place where Yuuki had caught the royal triton stag beetle. 

The place where they’d first met Merida. 

To Yuuki’s shock, there was also a small figure crouched at the roots of the tree. The breeze rustled a green ponytail that shone in the sun. 

Lost in emotion, Yuuki sped past her sister, running along the edge of the pond and shouting the figure’s name, right as it got to its feet. 

“Meridaaaaa!!” 

There was shock on her friend’s face when she turned around and then a strange smile that seemed likely to turn into tears. She spoke their names, and her voice sounded more fragile than any they’d ever heard. 

“…Yuuki…Ran…” 

Yuuki slowed and came to a stop a short distance away from Merida. Within moments, Ran was there, too. 

Merida had put the NerveGear on to go into SAO, so why had she dived into Serene Garden instead? The answer was at her feet. 

Resting on the ground was a bug cage with its door open, and sitting on top, a lapis-lazuli-blue stag beetle. The insect was larger than when they’d first seen it, and its antennae were waving about, as though asking its owner for answers. 

Merida followed Yuuki’s gaze and looked down at the beetle, smiling like a child trying to hold back tears. 

“……Roy just won’t fly away. I wanted to give it back to you, Yuuki, but once an insect has an owner, you can’t give it to someone else. So I thought…maybe if I let it go free here, you would catch it again someday…” 

Her voice cracked. When Yuuki saw the large tears pooling in Merida’s eyes, she felt something hot and painful surge up within her chest. Ran sounded like she was going to cry, too. 

“Roy’s not going to fly away, Merida,” she said. “You took such good care of him every day. He’s going to win the big tournament, too—I just know it. Please, Merida…come back home with Roy and us. Me and Yuu are the only ones who know for now.” 

At last, Yuuki understood why her sister didn’t go straight to Dr. Kurahashi to tell him. Assuming he made the decision to take off the NerveGear and it actually worked, he still had a responsibility to tell Merida’s parents. And she would be forbidden from using an AmuSphere for VR care from that point onward. They would never see her in Serene Garden or Asuka Empire again. Ran made a bet that they’d find Merida here and be able to convince her to be reasonable. 

Yuuki took a deep breath and followed up with everything she could say to her friend. “Please, Merida…don’t go to SAO. I want to go on so many more adventures with you. I want to go to different places and see different things. Please…don’t go…!” 

But Merida looked at the ground rather than meet her eye. Bit by bit, she said, “I’m sorry, Yuuki…I’m sorry, Ran. I’ve ruined your special birthday with all of this…I’m so sorry. I can’t ask you to forgive me. But I…I just had to…” 

Her shoulders tensed beneath her shirt and trembled. Her voice was as frail and tense as thin glass, trickling over the afternoon fields. 

“I saw in a news article a while ago…that the police are setting up a plan to remove the NerveGear from all the victims of the SAO Incident. But I don’t feel like that plan can possibly work. It’s going to cause so many deaths…” 

It was just over ten days ago that Yuuki’s sister had shown her that article, on the hillside nearby. Ran had been concerned about it in the exact same way as Merida. 

“…I told you about how there were several people in the guild I joined during the SAO beta test. I was supposed to be there when it launched. And then I was spared from that because they found my tumor…but the truth is, that was really, really hard for me. If I…if I could go to Aincrad right now, I could use the rest of my life to help them, I thought. At least then…my life might have added up to something meaningful…” 

“…Merida…” 

Yuuki took a step forward. But Merida shook her head and backed away. The motion cast her tears aside, shining golden with the reflected light of the sun. 

“Please, Yuuki, Ran…Let me go to Aincrad. There are SAO victims in this hospital, so I can get through the IP filter. I’m sure my parents will be sad, but they’ll understand. I just…I just want to find it. To find the reason I was born this way…” 

Her painful confession melted into the breeze blowing across the meadow and dispersed into the virtual atmosphere. 

Merida said the same thing the day they’d first met her. And like that day, Yuuki was unable to find the right thing to say. Finding a reason to live, a positive meaning in life—that was something Yuuki wished she could do as well. 

Ran silently came forth to stand next to Yuuki. She crouched and gently plucked Roy from the top of the cage. The stag beetle was calm and obedient in her palm. She lightly traced its brilliant carapace with her fingertip and said gently, “There are many, many reasons for you to live, here in Serene Garden, in Asuka Empire, and in reality. Look how well you’ve raised Roy. You brought me and Yuu to a brand-new world. There will be so many other wonderful things for you to do.” 

“……” 

Merida’s eyes, brimming with large tears, fixed on the stag beetle resting in Ran’s hand. Eventually, a tiny smile appeared on her lips, and the girl who was just a bit older than the twins said, “If I’ve managed to give you anything, then I’m happy to hear that. But…what I really want is something I won’t find here or in Asuka or in the real world. I want…to fight. I don’t want to wait in my hospital bed for the end to arrive. I want to use my own two hands to fight against something bigger than disease—like fate or the world itself—and burn up what life I have striving against it. Please, Ran…just let me go.” 

“…Merida…,” Yuuki heard her sister whisper. And then she understood. 

Ran—Aiko—had a much stronger ability to empathize than Yuuki did. She could bring herself closer to another person’s pain and sadness, understand it, and accept it. 

And that was why Ran could feel and empathize with how Merida felt right now. She felt it so keenly that she wanted that desire to be made real. 

But. 

But… 

If she let Merida go, Ran would regret it immensely later. She would be pained by what she said and the choice she made and bear that decision on her back like a sin that could never be cleansed. 

It was crucial for Yuuki to speak up now. She couldn’t let her sister handle everything this time; she had to use her own words and her own will to hold Merida back. 

She clasped her hands, squeezing so hard, she felt the very core of her being trembling, and shouted, “Merida!!” 

The girl’s eyes bolted open in surprise. Yuuki stared into those emerald-green pools and continued, “I’ll find it for you! I’ll find something that will make you want to burn up your life for it, Merida! Please…just please don’t go!!” 

Merida blinked again and put on the faintest hint of a smile. 

“…And how are you going to find that, Yuuki?” she asked quietly. 

Yuuki didn’t know why she gave the answer she did. But they were words that would determine her own fate. 

“Go into Asuka Empire and fight me, Merida. I’m sure you’ll understand after that.”