Winter nights came early. By eight in the evening, darkness had already settled over Tokyo. Once the sun disappeared, the cold seemed to lose all restraint, riding the wind through the streets as lights flickered on across the city.
Living by the sun might have been healthier, but modern young people preferred the freedom that came after dark.
Tokyo Tower rose from Shiba Park in Minato. It had been modeled after the Eiffel Tower, but after so many years, the red-and-white structure had become a symbol of Tokyo in its own right.
The colors had once been required for aviation safety. Even after those restrictions changed, the familiar pattern remained. Its illumination, designed by Motoko Ishii, shifted with the seasons: a crisp white in summer and a warm orange through spring, autumn, and winter.
Tonight, the 333-meter tower glowed against the cold sky like a beacon. Aircraft lights occasionally crossed the darkness above it, while rivers of neon moved through the city below. The human world no longer stopped simply because the sun had gone down.
Festive banners already hung throughout Shiba Park. Workers from the Environment Bureau had left a half-finished Christmas tree behind, its bells and ribbons chiming whenever the wind passed through them.
The year was nearly over. Christmas and New Year's waited just ahead, and at midnight on Christmas Eve, the park would surely fill with couples admiring the view.
Tonight, however, something far stranger occupied the grounds.
A flying insect the size of a cargo truck thrashed in front of Tokyo Tower. Its enormous wings vibrated like blades, and its powerful hind legs bent backward like a reptile's. Data streamed across its compound eyes. Metal plates covered its muscles and protruding joints, while orange fluid like machine oil leaked from its wounds.
It looked like the unfinished creation of a scientist who could not decide between machine and living creature.
The monster opened its vertical jaws and released a shriek that drove the gentle ringing of the Christmas bells into the background.
Then it lunged at the players facing it.
"Seiji! Another wave is coming!"
The man with the great shield charged forward without hesitation. One huge wing slammed into his guard. Behind him, two teammates raised their guns and opened fire, laserlike rounds bursting into sparks across the insect's armored shell.
Seiji Mizuki drew a deep breath. Cold air filled his lungs as he sprinted around the shield bearer and drove his longsword straight into the creature's mouth.
The hit found a weak point. The monster staggered, beat its wings, and began hauling its enormous body back into the air.
"We finally got you down! You think we're letting you fly away again?"
One of the gunmen hurled a heavy grenade. The blast rolled through the park in a cloud of smoke, and the insect crashed to the ground with a shrill cry, its legs folding beneath it.
Seiji's focus sharpened. He rushed in low and buried another precise thrust between its jaws.
The insect screamed. Light as bright as day erupted from its body, then the entire monster shattered into pale fragments and dissolved into the air.
The spectators burst into applause. Several younger onlookers added whistles as the heroes who had defeated the monster caught their breath.
"That thing was ridiculous."
The shield bearer checked the panel floating before him and grinned.
"It moved me up eighteen places. That's a huge payout."
"We fought it for two whole hours. I'm dead."
One of the others dropped into a crouch, too relieved to care how he looked.
Seiji checked his own ranking.
[172]
The number made the two-hour fight feel worthwhile.
"It's almost nine, and I'm soaked in sweat. Let's grab something to eat, then go home and take hot showers. I know a great ramen place nearby. They're running an event too, and our rankings should get us a serious discount."
"Works for me."
"What about you, Seiji?"
The shield bearer and the others turned toward him.
"I'll pass. Another monster seems to have spawned nearby. I've been lucky today, so I might be able to climb quite a few more places."
Seiji gave them an easy smile.
"That is some brutal grinding..."
"I don't think this is about the grind," someone said with a knowing laugh. "He's trying to buy his girlfriend a present."
"Oh, that's it? For Kinatsu-chan, right? Lucky bastard. She's an athletic girl from the tennis club, she's gorgeous, and that figure... I wish I had a girlfriend like her. Then I could visit the courts with a perfectly innocent excuse to admire girls in tennis skirts."
"It's winter. They practice indoors, and the facility doesn't admit obvious creeps."
"You're still too young. I saw Seiji and Kinatsu-chan going to the pool two days ago."
"What a sinful man."
"All right, that's enough."
Seiji tried to look stern as he glared at his friends.
"Fine, fine. We'll stop teasing the happy couple. Our dear Mizuki is the brilliant new star of the kendo club. Push him too far and he'll punish us with the Kuzu-ryusen."
They waved and began walking away.
"You should head home soon too. It's cold, and you'll need to save some energy for Kinatsu-chan."
Seiji's face warmed. He raised the bladeless controller hilt in his hand and settled into a stance.
"He's using the God-Slaying Iai Strike! Run!"
His shameless friends scattered with exaggerated screams.
Seiji watched them go, shook his head, and laughed despite himself.
He checked the virtual map again. After a short rest, he lowered his head against the wind and jogged toward the next location.
Fresh prey had just spawned there.
Ordinal Scale was the first game Seiji had ever worked this hard at. Truthfully, he had never been much of a gamer.
His family owned a kendo dojo, and his grandfather had trained him harshly from childhood. The old man was painfully traditional and claimed to believe in the heart of a warrior. By the age of five or six, Seiji was already swinging a child-sized shinai at empty air.
After practice, grandfather and grandson would sit together, soaked in sweat, and drink green tea. His grandfather often stroked his beard while explaining the nature of the sword.
A sword was a weapon.
Swordsmanship was the art of killing.
No matter how beautifully people dressed it up, that truth would never change.
The old man's voice would deepen, and his gaze would grow distant, as though he had seen through every illusion in the mortal world.
Meanwhile, young Seiji would be thinking about the tiny turtles splashing around the garden pond.
Only when he grew older did his father explain the truth. The supposedly ancient style passed down from the Warring States era, Mizuki Ippuu-ryu, was something his grandfather had invented himself.
The old man really did own a dojo, but it was closer to a children's music school with Mozart or Beethoven in the name. It offered beginner lessons for kids. No dust-covered wanderer had ever arrived carrying a family blade to challenge its master, and the dojo possessed no bloody legends.
Seiji's father had discovered the truth much earlier. He avoided Mizuki Ippuu-ryu entirely and went into the transportation business instead, leaving the old man to pin his absurd dreams on his grandson.
Unfortunately, Seiji caught on early too.
His grandfather kept rambling about the sword until the day he died. Seiji's father immediately declared that they could finally sell the children's dojo.
Then, while sorting through the old man's belongings, Seiji found a battered copy of Rurouni Kenshin hidden at the bottom of a chest.
Every story his grandfather had told with the haunted expression of a man remembering blood on his blade had come directly from that manga.
Even the speech about swords being weapons had been copied almost word for word.
Seiji finished the manga unsure whether to laugh or be angry. In the end, he convinced his father not to sell the dojo. Whenever he had time after school, he took his shinai to the children's class and helped the instructor his grandfather had hired keep the kids entertained.
Later, that instructor told him the rest of the story.
His grandfather had been a hopeless otaku in his youth. One burst of passion had driven him to learn kendo, but when he discovered that no amount of practice would produce a sword beam, he became furious and decided to quit.
Then he walked outside and met the dojo master's daughter.
One look at her sent him obediently back inside. His motivation could not have been more obvious.
The girl smiled and told him, "Defeat me, and I'll go out with you."
The old man attempted a Doryusen.
He ate dirt instead.
When Seiji first heard the story, he thought he understood where it was going.
"So Grandpa trained until he could defeat her, and the dojo master's daughter became Grandma? Is that why he cared so much about this place? Because it was where they fell in love?"
The instructor took a drag from his cigarette and shook his head.
The old man did devote himself to training after that. Unfortunately, the dojo master's daughter fell in love with a French merchant and moved overseas before he could challenge her a second time.
Her father eventually followed her to France. He did not bother selling the dojo. Its standards were terrible, and his only remaining student was a miserable young man with questionable motives, so he simply handed the place over to him.
It was partly a gift to his student.
It also helped that the Frenchman appeared to have plenty of money.
Seiji covered his face.
"Isn't that supposed to be a painful memory? Why was Grandpa still so obsessed with her?"
The instructor took another drag and continued.
Many years later, the old man traveled to France to find the dojo master's daughter and challenge her again, hoping to settle the unfinished wish of his youth.
After a long search, he found her grave instead.
She had died in an accident not long after moving to France.
The old man stood before the grave for a long time with two bamboo swords in his hands. Then he returned to Japan and quietly devoted himself to that little children's dojo.
No one knew whether he had spent the rest of his life thinking that if he had won their first match, she would never have gone to France or died so young.
Whatever the truth, he never abandoned the place.
That lively young swordswoman must have left something precious in the heart of the foolish boy he had once been.
Seiji suspected there was more to it than regret.
His grandfather loved stories about wandering swordsmen who never knew what the next day would bring, men who borrowed a bowl of sake today and might repay it with their lives tomorrow. Perhaps the otaku who had dreamed of firing sword beams truly admired that kind of life, and the girl's sudden death had struck the softest part of him.
Either way, the old man had guarded the dojo until the end.
Seiji and the instructor were still reflecting on the story when a pretty girl from the cram school across the street walked through the door.
Seiji's eyes immediately found her long, slender legs.
He was the acting master of the dojo, however, so he gathered his courage and greeted her properly. She had come to check on her younger brother, who was busy striking poses with a bamboo sword.
The girl seemed interested, so Seiji offered her a shinai too.
She accepted it with surprising enthusiasm. Her voice rang clear as she brought the sword down in a vertical cut. Her ponytail lifted, color warmed her pale cheeks, and the clean motion tightened the young muscles in her arms and legs.
Then her short skirt flared with the swing, and every useful thought left Seiji's head.
At last, he understood why one sword strike had captured his grandfather's heart.
A beautiful girl holding a sword was one of the world's greatest treasures.
Seiji spent the rest of the afternoon with her. The first trace of adolescent attraction in the air left him painfully shy.
After that, he often spoke with the girl whenever she came to visit her brother. He even borrowed several of his grandfather's grand speeches, which only made her cover her mouth and laugh.
Perhaps the old man had never stayed at the dojo for some profound reason.
Perhaps he had simply hoped to see another beautiful girl pick up a sword.
For the first time, all that childhood training became useful. Seiji's form really was impressive, and the girl's admiration gave him more confidence than years of his grandfather's lectures ever had.
Their friendship grew, and this year, Seiji and Kinatsu Miki finally began dating.
For Christmas Eve, Seiji wanted to give her the La Mer skincare set she had always admired. As far as he was concerned, Kinatsu's skin was already fairer than snow, almost unhealthily pale, but there was nothing wrong with making something beautiful even better.
The problem was the price.
Then he discovered that Ordinal Scale rewards could be exchanged for it.
Players climbed the rankings by participating in events. Higher ranks unlocked real-world benefits from sponsors: online shopping discounts, store vouchers, even cheap beef bowls.
The amount of money behind the game was astonishing. Seiji could not imagine what the player in first place might receive.
To claim the skincare set, he needed to reach at least rank seventy.
Fortunately, years of physical training and a solid foundation in kendo let him climb quickly. Fighting virtual monsters felt strange because his sword met nothing but air, but it was still close enough to real combat to be exciting.
If his grandfather were alive, he would have loved it.
Seiji stood with his hands on his hips, trying to catch his breath. He had just defeated another monster and was checking the area when a message appeared in his field of vision.
It was from Kinatsu.
The sight of his girlfriend's name put a foolish smile on his face.
"Mizuki-kun, are you asleep?"
"Almost. I just finished my shower."
"Christmas Eve is almost here. I'm really looking forward to it."
"Me too. I have a surprise for you."
Seiji grinned as he sent the reply.
"Really? I actually have one for you too!"
"Huh? For me?"
"Hehe. You'll have to wait and see."
The conversation ended there, almost like a playful ambush.
Seiji scratched his head, then slapped his cold, reddened cheeks and pulled himself together.
Just a little more.
He had to reach rank seventy before Christmas Eve.
...
Elsewhere, a girl in a hat and scarf breathed warmth into her hands as she walked through the city. Every few steps, she checked nearby shops for Augma events. Clearing their minigames awarded points, and since she could not fight, this was the only way she knew to earn them.
A smile from her conversation with Seiji still lingered on her face.
Kinatsu wanted to give him a good bamboo sword. They had met in a kendo dojo, after all.
She would have preferred something even better, but minigames awarded points too slowly. She had no choice but to settle for what she could reach.
It was not quite true that Kinatsu could not fight.
She was afraid of the virtual monsters.
Kinatsu Miki was an SAO survivor.
Whenever she saw creatures built from digital data, memories of Aincrad returned before she could stop them.
She had never been a fighter. After watching one of her companions die in a Labyrinth Tower, she had never left the safety of town again. She survived the rest of SAO as a crafting player.
The flawless skin Seiji admired was nothing more than proof of the two years she had spent motionless in a hospital bed.
Kinatsu continued down the street but found no suitable events.
Then a bright blue arrow appeared in her field of vision, pointing left.
A random side quest?
After a moment's hesitation, she turned the corner.
The markers guided her to a nearby construction site. A fresh gust of wind made her pull her clothes tighter around herself. Her body was still weak, which was why she had joined the tennis club and forced herself to exercise.
As Kinatsu approached the site, she caught the sharp smell of alcohol in the air.
She looked around.
A man sat on the cold dirt between the steel and concrete. Dressed entirely in black, he nearly disappeared into the shadows. His head hung low, and a white glass bottle rested in one hand.
The smell came from him.
Was he drunk?
Kinatsu had seen exhausted salarymen passed out on the street before. If this man fell asleep outside in weather like this, he would be lucky to escape with nothing worse than a serious fever.
She decided to call the police. Through her Augma, she contacted an officer and sent the exact address. Only then did she move a little closer.
"Sir...?"
The man looked up immediately.
"A girl...? It would've been easier if you were a man, like the one a few days ago."
He did not sound drunk.
If anything, his voice was too calm.
Kinatsu stopped.
"It's difficult to control my strength," the man murmured. "You touched something just now. Did you contact the police?"
"Yes. An officer will be here soon to help you."
Wariness crept into her voice.
"Good."
The man rose slowly.
"That saves me some trouble."
Kinatsu's eyes widened.
The man exploded forward like a hunting cat. Before fear could force a scream from her throat, a cold hand clamped over her mouth.
He held her close and stared directly into her eyes. His breath carried the reek of strong liquor. A white wool turtleneck covered the lower half of his face, leaving only his eyes exposed.
"Keep it on."
His free hand adjusted the Augma against the side of her head with almost gentle precision.
Flames erupted behind him.
The head of a nightmarish monster emerged from the fire.
Kinatsu froze.
The Twenty-First Floor.
The Azrael Labyrinth.
The Flame Nightmare.
The monster that had killed her companion.
W-why was it here...?
Pure terror filled her eyes.
No.
Stay away...!
The man's hand sealed every sound inside her mouth. Kinatsu fought to escape, but his grip locked her in place.
He watched without expression as panic scattered her thoughts and drained all color from her face.
Thirty seconds later, Kinatsu lost consciousness.
The man lowered her carefully onto the ground. Then he withdrew beneath the steel framework and disappeared into the construction site's shadows.
A few minutes later, two police officers arrived. They spotted Kinatsu, rushed to the unconscious girl, and immediately began reporting the situation over their radios.
Only after seeing that did Satoru look away.
Then he left without a sound.
...
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