The location was the café's main dining area.
Leaning against a wall, Kikuoka Seijirou took a deep drag from the cigarette offered by the special operations commander.
He exhaled and surveyed the café.
Judging by the traces left behind, the soldiers had been knocked unconscious before they had any chance to react.
No, one soldier had managed to fight back. He had been the farthest away when the first man went down, giving him a little more time to respond.
"What would it cost us to take down that woman?" Kikuoka asked.
The special operations commander was an old comrade from the Self-Defense Forces who held the same rank as him—lieutenant colonel.
"With the weapons we brought and in an environment like this… Assuming she could maintain that level of speed and physical performance for ten minutes, we'd lose at least two hundred men."
In a different environment, the casualties would be even worse. The café's tables and chairs had restricted her movements. In a more open area, she could move far more freely.
More importantly, the commander's estimate only accounted for the woman fighting with a sword.
At that moment, Kikuoka's phone rang.
The call was from one of his superiors, but after he answered, the voice on the other end didn't belong to his direct commanding officer. It came from someone much higher up—the head of the Self-Defense Forces.
"Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka Seijirou, how did you know something had happened to the joint fleet?"
The stern question extinguished Kikuoka's last faint hope that everything he had witnessed might have been some elaborate deception.
Immediately after Kain departed, Kikuoka had contacted his superiors to learn what had happened to the joint fleet participating in the exercise.
Now, the head of the Self-Defense Forces was personally questioning him about it.
That proved everything had been real.
The joint fleet had nearly been annihilated.
"Because I witnessed the truth with my own eyes," Kikuoka answered with a bitter smile.
What kind of day was this?
The trapped SAO players had finally escaped, which should have been wonderful news. Yet behind that miracle lurked a third-party power that exceeded anything they could have imagined.
Kain possessed the ability to dominate networks as well as overwhelming military technology.
With that kind of power, he could go anywhere and do practically whatever he wanted.
Just thinking about it made Kikuoka feel as though his head was going to explode.
...
Yuuki Kyouko had noticed something unusual happening at the café beside the hospital.
She had seen the customers being "asked" to leave, followed by fully armed soldiers rushing inside.
Something appeared to have happened after that, and then Kain and 2B walked out.
Soon after they returned to the hospital, Kyouko saw nurses hurrying out of the building toward the café. Soldiers were carried out one after another on stretchers.
One of them had suffered particularly severe injuries. An entire arm had been severed.
A violent confrontation had clearly taken place.
Kyouko initially worried that the clash might escalate, but then several more people emerged from the café. They appeared to be government personnel, yet they showed no intention of pursuing the "guests" from another world.
It seemed that the two sides had somehow "reached an understanding."
Most likely, that understanding had only been reached after the other side demonstrated its overwhelming power.
Kyouko turned her attention back to her daughter.
Asuna was watching Operator 6O nervously as the android attempted to rescue a child named Yui.
No, Yui wasn't actually a child.
She was an AI from the virtual world of SAO.
Yet they treated an artificial intelligence like a real child?
"Okay. She's ready to be transferred."
6O pressed a virtual confirmation button, beginning the process of downloading Yui from the virtual world.
"W-Where am I? It's so dark… I'm scared…"
Yui's trembling, tearful voice came from the FullDive headset Asuna had used to enter SAO.
"Yui?"
"Asuna? Where are you? I can hear your voice, but I can't find you."
"I'm right beside you. Don't be afraid."
Asuna gently comforted Yui, whose voice was already breaking into sobs.
"There's a woman named 6O helping us. She isn't a bad person, so please cooperate with her. If you do, we'll be able to see each other."
They needed to transfer Yui into a new vessel, but they had encountered compatibility issues.
Different types of computers used different operating systems. Installing one computer's system onto another model required adjustments to make them compatible.
Yui wasn't a simple program incapable of thought. She was a living being.
That meant she needed to actively cooperate with the procedure before she could enter her new vessel—a piece of hardware from 6O's world.
Hardware from Asuna's world could also become Yui's new home and serve as a vessel for her consciousness, but the technology from 6O's world was far superior.
"O-Okay."
"All right, little Yui. This time, don't resist the transfer," 6O coaxed in a soothing voice. "Be a good girl and cooperate with me. Then you'll be able to meet your big sister Asuna in the real world."
6O spoke to the artificial intelligence as though comforting a frightened child.
The little girl was rather timid, reminding her of some of the shy young machine life-forms from the peaceful faction.
It was time to transfer her into the new vessel.
A progress bar appeared in one of the windows, its percentage steadily rising until it finally reached completion.
"Move into your new home complete! Commander, you can bring out this little cutie's body now."
6O's words snapped Asuna out of her intense concentration.
She looked away from the small metal module and turned toward Kain, who had returned to the room at some point without her noticing.
"Asuna, take out Yui's body," Kain said.
Rather than retrieving it himself, he asked Asuna to do it.
At the moment, Kain was using his personal storage space as a passage between worlds, leaving it unavailable for storing objects.
Before they logged into SAO, he had arranged for A2 to transfer Yui's body into Asuna's personal storage space instead.
"Oh, right."
Asuna had almost forgotten. Yui's custom-made body hadn't been delivered to Kain—it was stored in her personal space.
In the next instant, she placed the body of an adorable young girl on the hospital bed amid a puff of white vapor.
Her mother stared at her, dumbfounded.
How was Asuna supposed to explain this?
Then again, the greatest problem probably wasn't explaining how she had pulled Yui's body out of thin air. It was figuring out how to get her mother to accept Yui as her child.
Asuna turned her attention back to Yui.
6O sat the artificial body upright, carefully lifted the back of its dress, and opened a concealed panel along its spine, revealing the mechanical components beneath the synthetic skin.
She placed the metal module containing Yui's consciousness into a fitted slot.
The panel sealed shut again without leaving so much as a seam. The artificial skin appeared completely unbroken.
There was no visible indication that this body was mechanical. It looked exactly like a real human child.
"You can wake up now, little one."
Yui's body responded to 6O's voice.
She moved slightly. A faint expression appeared on her little face as her eyebrows furrowed with uncertainty.
When her brow relaxed, her closed eyes slowly opened. She raised one small hand and rubbed them sleepily.
She looked exactly like a drowsy child who had just awakened from a long nap.
Yui blinked several times and studied her surroundings.
Her gaze finally locked onto Asuna.
"Asuna!"
Overcome with joy, she tried to throw herself into Asuna's arms.
However, she hadn't adapted to moving through the real world in a physical body. Her legs became tangled beneath her, and she stumbled forward, landing face-first with her bottom sticking up in the air.
The sight was so adorable that Asuna burst out laughing.
She hurried forward, helped Yui up, and gathered the child into her arms.
"Commander, I want a hug too!"
6O didn't wait for Kain to answer. The blonde android deliberately put on her cutest expression, launched herself at him, and clung to his body.
An ordinary person could never withstand being tackled like that.
6O weighed more than three hundred pounds. If she threw herself at a normal human with that much enthusiasm, she could easily injure them.
"Commander, I think I sensed some malicious thoughts from you," 6O said with an exceedingly sweet smile. "That means I'll have to punish you."
With that, she boldly leaned in and planted a loud kiss on him.
(End of Chapter)
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