"It's a small place, so forgive the poor hospitality."
Satoru opened the door and invited Rinko inside. He was currently living in the small room Ken had rented before. Not long ago, his uncle had been hunted down all the way from Kyoto by a young woman who, for the moment, could be called his future aunt, and dragged by the ear onto the train. She was still a dignified, beautiful woman.
But that future aunt had grinned at Ken with a vacant little heh-heh, wiping some suspicious liquid from the corner of her mouth, her eyes glowing with an ominous green light. And when Satoru saw his uncle's eyes go suddenly dull and lifeless as he was dragged onto the train like a corpse, he felt a pang of pity.
It was as if he had sold his uncle off as a slave, and his conscience hurt.
Fortunately, they had stayed in contact. His uncle's voice over the phone was weak and listless, but at least he was still alive.
"All I have is canned coffee. Sorry."
Satoru dug a can of coffee out from among the beer cans in the refrigerator, placed it in front of Rinko, and sat down cross-legged himself.
Rinko clearly did not care about any of that. Aside from a basic look around the room, she had been waiting for the right moment to speak. After symbolically pulling the coffee he had given her a little closer, she could no longer hold back.
"Being able to... see him again. What do you mean by that?"
Her intelligent face was filled with deep anxiety.
Satoru folded his arms and studied her carefully.
"Now that you mention it... you weren't present when he died, were you?"
"He drove me out. Perhaps he sensed that the game was about to be cleared. After that, I continued observing the inside through SAO's servers, but the permissions he had given me were blocked as well," Rinko said, lowering her head.
"You couldn't break through?"
"I am not familiar with cyberdefense. At most, I know a little. I can't compare with someone nearly omnipotent like him. The most I could do was make him a cup of coffee when he woke up." Rinko smiled bitterly.
"When I found out you two were a couple, I even had my doubts about the fact that a man like him could have a girlfriend. But now, setting aside whatever he may have thought, at least you really do care about him," Satoru said before he could stop himself.
"Does that make me look foolish?" Rinko asked with a wry smile.
"Not at all." Satoru smiled. "Let's continue from before, Ms. Koujiro. You should know about ALO by now. It really does have countless ties to SAO. Its current person in charge is even an old acquaintance of yours, Nobuyuki Sugou. I suspect that ALO retains traces of SAO to some extent."
"I have two goals," Satoru said openly. "The first is to recover the artificial intelligence program Sheeta, whose whereabouts became unknown when SAO was liberated. That is my main goal. The second, while I am at it, is to bring back the several hundred players who still have not awakened, and give this incident a more complete ending."
"As for you, Ms. Koujiro... if my guess is right, and ALO was built on the ashes of SAO, then traces belonging to Kayaba must still be there as well."
"That is a very unequal return," Rinko said softly.
"It is," Satoru admitted. "Uncertain information, uncertain results, uncertain reward, and yet I am asking you to put in a great deal of effort. It really is unfair."
"But I think it is worth trying. Whether it is you or me, we both have someone we want to see again."
Rinko's delicate brow furrowed, and she hesitated for a moment.
"But you... could do this alone, couldn't you? Why do you need my help?"
"At the end of the day, I am only a player. I cannot step outside that identity. That is my limitation. Walking into a game world someone else created means fighting on their home ground, and that is far too difficult. Besides, I do not think there is any creator other than Kayaba who would give players a chance just because he felt like it."
Satoru laughed at himself.
"All my effort is worth less than one command from someone else. My only chance at survival depends on someone else's tolerance. Even if I really could reach that person as a player, I would not be able to turn the tide."
"That is why I want to fight him on equal footing. In the end, what I am after now is no longer some victory inside a virtual world. I only want to find one person. And when you are looking for someone... using every possible method to speed things up is normal, isn't it?"
"The enemy you are talking about is Sugou?" Rinko asked.
"If he really has imprisoned hundreds of players who should have returned, then whether it was intentional or not, he is an enemy who has to be dealt with," Satoru said quietly. "And he has all the conditions. He is the head of the FullDive Division at ALO's operating company. Before that, he was entrusted with maintaining the SAO servers. He is connected to RECT, the Yuuki family's company, and he is a scholar who once worked alongside you. He has both the ability and the opportunity."
"If I am going to suspect someone, he is naturally the first candidate... A friend of mine also told me that he is not the kind of person whose outside matches his inside. That guy has a pretty good nose for things too."
Satoru looked straight at Rinko.
"Thinking any further than that, he is a high-ranking executive at a major corporation, an intellectual in a suit. I do not have the authority to investigate him or the power to fight him. All I can do is look for help... and the person who can help me most, and who has reason to, is you, Ms. Koujiro."
"That is everything I am thinking right now."
"I will do everything I can. If my abilities only have value in the virtual world, then I will enter ALO and find every piece of information you need."
"I still do not know what Fluctlight is. But if it helps, I will tell you everything these eyes see, exactly as I see it. I only hope... that you and I can both find the people we want to see."
"Please."
Satoru shifted back a little, lowered himself into a formal dogeza bow before Rinko, and made his request with his head bowed.
Rinko looked at the young man in surprise. She had not expected him to think this far ahead. On nothing more than conjecture, he had already begun to act.
"Your logic is sound too," she said softly.
"It's only about the same level as playing a game and fighting a boss."
"I see... Then Kayaba, who once disguised himself as one of you, must have spoken in this same tone and manner as well."
"Many times, yes. That man acted as a commander like that."
"Yes... He had that side to him too. He did." Rinko's expression softened a great deal, and she smiled gently. "Perhaps the version of him I knew was smaller than the one you knew."
"To throw everything into action for one possibility, whether as a scholar or as a player, perhaps only that quality was something he was born with. Thinking of it that way, I really am inadequate. All I know is burying myself in books, deepening my research into theories that have already been proven. But he... he kept moving forward, into unknown territory. That is why I could never catch up to him."
"But this time, if I act like him and ignore all those other factors, if I give up everything for a single thought, would I be able to get a little closer to him...?"
"Ms. Koujiro..."
"I accept."
"..."
"I want to see him. I want to see him again." Rinko pressed her lips together. "I want to hit him. I want to curse at him. I want to... hold him."
"He ran off into the mountains on his own, sank into his fantasy on his own, and pushed me out on his own. He did not even give me the chance to be his accomplice."
She spoke with sorrow.
"In the end, he would not leave me a single last word."
"If the world you mentioned still holds traces of him, I truly want to see it."
Rinko stepped forward and gently pressed a hand to Satoru's lowered shoulder.
"I am asking you too, Suzuki-kun."
"At least, let me see what he left behind."
The strict, serious woman's hand was trembling.
Satoru paused for three seconds. Then he placed his palm over the back of her hand.
He raised his head and looked at Rinko, whose eyes were bright with tears.
"I understand."
He said it steadily, with certainty.
"That guy really does owe a lot of debts to a lot of people. If he is hiding in some corner, I will drag him out."
"And if anyone gets in the way, we kick them aside."