Chapter 339 - 40: Am I About to Die?

Chapter 339: Chapter 40: Am I About to Die?

A weakness he hadn’t felt in ages—even before he moved, he could sense it; even just lifting a hand took extra effort.

Kirito removed the helmet that had imprisoned him for over a year, and in the reflection on the window he could see himself, thin as a rail, along with the long hair the helmet had kept him from trimming.

The hospital bedding was designed to address metabolic issues as much as possible, so he didn’t look as wretched as he’d expected.

At this hour there was no caretaker at his side; even having only just woken, he could roughly guess that the outside world would gather the nearer NerveGear victims together to be cared for.

"Asuna..."

Kirito—in reality his name was Kirigaya Kazuto, though by now he’d grown more or less used to the name Kirito.

He gripped the IV pole, not because he felt he still needed the thing, but simply because he needed something to lean on as he moved.

"Hey, are you all right?!"

After a couple of steps down the somewhat empty hospital hallway, Kirito slumped as though his strength had given out, sliding slowly down along the pole he was leaning on, and a nurse who had finally noticed him hurried over to support him.

In the eyes of the rest of the Clearers, it was perhaps he himself who had gone off to solo the final boss and won—but he and Asuna knew just how cruel the truth really was.

’You can thank that virus girl.’

These were the last words Kayaba Akihiko had spoken to them; clearly, that vile man had already met with Yimi, and thanks to her they had slipped free of that man’s clutches.

But there was only one condition for clearing SAO, and before all this, that child had asked them, thoroughly baffled, why they had suddenly stopped wanting to go back.

"What is this supposed to be?" Kirito laughed—certainly not out of any happiness.

Compared with that game, tears in reality could be hidden.

But he couldn’t hide them.

"Somebody, come quick—there’s a patient here having an emergency!"

This emergency wasn’t referring to Kirito; heedless of the rule against making noise in the hospital hallway, the doctor who’d received the alert strode swiftly off in that direction.

Even a commotion this large still couldn’t pull Kirito out of his own grief.

By the time the alerted doctor reached that hospital room, all he saw was a certain man clutching a heavily bleeding groin and wailing in agony—the man had been perfectly fine, yet the instant he woke, an inexplicable amount of blood welled up from an unmentionable place.

...

The Medicuboid—this was a medical-use FullDive machine, its developer naturally none other than Kayaba Akihiko, creator of the NerveGear, and after the incident it had been donated by his lover and junior, Koujiro Rinko.

This device’s electromagnetic pulses were several times stronger than the NerveGear’s, so after FullDiving a patient could feel no pain—yet the illness itself still went uncured, which was why it was mostly used for the palliative care of the terminally ill.

Konno Yuuki, thirteen years old.

A little girl unfortunate from birth: when she was born, her mother had a difficult labor and opted for a cesarean section, only to hemorrhage badly due to an accident, and during the emergency transfusion she came into contact with infected blood and became an HIV carrier—this layer of misfortune passed directly onto her two newborn daughters.

Whatever the cause of contracting AIDS, it was by its very nature an illness that would, as a matter of course, draw strange looks from others; so after her status as an HIV carrier was accidentally made public, she lost all her friends and suffered the verbal slander of teachers and her classmates’ parents.

Perhaps for psychological reasons, it was precisely then that her symptoms began to show.

Destined from birth to end in tragedy—if that was so, why be born into this world at all?

As for the answer to that question, their mother would always find some passage of scripture with which to comfort them. Even if she hadn’t understood it then, she ought to understand now: the Bible was only a stretch of cold text, yet her mother’s love had been conveyed to her, genuine and true.

Because it let her flee reality and dull the pain, once she accepted the Medicuboid she no longer wished to return to the real world—but the girl she was now had no other choice.

Inside the cleanroom.

"Meow meow?"

Lying on top of Yuuki was a weight she couldn’t bear.

"A panda?"

She wanted to try touching it, yet feared some germ might spread over and shorten her lifespan even further.

She’d been promised she wouldn’t feel any of reality’s pain at all, and yet, in this sealed space, she’d been knocked awake by a kitty that had dropped on her from who knows where.

Yimi hopped down off her and looked around.

A strange place.

Having logged out using Kayaba Akihiko’s menu, she had naturally appeared in the real world right beside Kayaba Akihiko; after running off, she’d meant to follow Asuna’s or Kirito’s scent to try to find the two of them, but she couldn’t catch a whiff of them at all.

So Yimi took out a whole bunch of Teleport Crystals she’d bought and stored away, meaning to give them a try; but the Teleport Crystals, which had been fairly precise for positioning back in Aincrad, returned a blank fix here, so the teleport destinations were naturally just random coordinates.

"Meow."

Yimi sniffed at the smells in the air and sensed something off. Apart from there being no other animal scents mixed in, this place smelled exactly like a spot she’d been to before—the kind where they gave you shots.

While Yimi was warily sizing up this danger zone, Yuuki finally won her inner struggle: leaning back in a posture as if to keep her distance from a virus, she reached out and, ever so carefully, gave Yimi’s back a single stroke.

In truth, petting a cat was something you could enjoy through the Medicuboid too, but compared with the real thing it did, after all, lose a little something.

There was no resistance—Yimi even cooperatively arranged herself into a pose for the petting.

The horror of the hospital had already clouded Yimi’s judgment, so much so that she forgot to first sniff Yuuki for any smell of food.

Just as Yimi suddenly recalled that back when she’d been taken for vaccinations the doctor would likewise pat her first to soothe her, Yuuki’s attending physician had already walked in.

Seeing that hospital-issue white coat through the transparent glass, Yimi took fright and scrambled to hide behind Yuuki—though, sadly, those legs of hers, which could only be called frail, plainly couldn’t screen Yimi’s body.

Still, Yuuki took the initiative to crouch down and shield Yimi, though the sudden act of crouching, after so long without moving in reality, nearly made her black out.

"Is something the matter? Why did you suddenly remove your equipment today?" the doctor asked, puzzled.

Yuuki shook her head and smiled guiltily. "It’s nothing. I just wanted to breathe a little of reality’s fresh air."

Only after speaking did she realize what she was doing; life inside the Medicuboid had steadily worn her guard away.

An animal of unknown origin bursting into the cleanroom was, for her, quite literally life-threatening—and all it would take was one glance at the monitors for the doctor to spot this cat; besides, there was no way she could keep it.

Seeing the cat so frightened, she’d acted on reflex.

"Is that so? Getting a breath of fresh air now and then isn’t bad at all. It’s been quite a while since we last spoke face to face like this."

"I’ll go check on Aiko first—she’s the one who asked me to look in on you."

Aiko was Yuuki’s twin elder sister, in the same condition as her; a moment ago, it was right in front of her sister that she had abruptly gone offline.

The attending physician left.

Yuuki hurriedly stood and shook her hands, as though trying to fling off germs and viruses.

"What am I even doing?!"

She had to call the doctor back at once and have him get the cat out of here!

The motion of crouching and then suddenly standing left Yuuki a little dizzy; steadying herself against the bed and clutching her head, she cast a glance at the cat.

Realizing that Yuuki had been helping her, Yimi rose up on her hind legs and thanked her. "You’re a hero-person."

"..."

Was she already about to die?