Sword Art Online - Phantom Bullet

Chapter 2

She checked the watch on her left wrist as she exited the C10 exit of Chiyoda Line's Otemachi Station.

There was more than five minutes left before the agreed time of 3:00 pm. As Yuuki Asuna was about to lower her wrist, her eyes paused casually at the small calendar window in the watch's dial.

Sunday, December 7th, 2025.

It may not be a special anniversary, but within Asuna's chest, the seed of a certain strong emotion had sprouted. As she began to walk along Eitai Street, she looked up, facing the main gates of the Imperial Palace and murmured without letting her voice out.

—Soon, it will have been one year...

Left unspoken were the words, "since my return to the real world."

After the floating castle of steel (SAO), to the bird cage in the treetops (ALO), she was subsequently rescued and returned to the real world in mid-January of this year. The fantasy world was gradually becoming a memory, but even so, she still occasionally felt strange about herself living like this in the real world.

The wide walkway paved with stone, the roadside trees shaking in the cold air and pedestrians walking with their faces buried beneath the collars of their coats or mufflers. Walking slowly in the midst flow of the crowd, was Asuna herself.

Everything around her was not digitally coded 3D objects, but real minerals, plants and creatures.

But how do we interpret what «real» is? If it's just made with atoms and molecules, then it would be the same as virtual polygons. Because those polygons' real identity are electrons contained in a server memory element. That is not much of a difference in elementary particles.

Saying that, the only problem probably comes from reversibility. The objects that exist in the real world, whether biological or non-living; if they were destroyed, it was impossible to recover them to the original state. But in the virtual world, then it is easy to regenerate the original object without a single byte of bad information.

...No.

That's not it. In that world – in Aincrad, what you lost and what you could not recover really existed. The two years spent in that floating castle, what Asuna touched, felt, obtained and lost were without a doubt all «real».

If that was the case.

"....The differences between the real world and the virtual world... what are they....?"

She unconsciously whispered, and to her question -.

"Just the quantity of information."

Came an answer from beside her, its unexpectedness caused Asuna to jump.

"Wa, waa!?"

She hurriedly looked for the source of that voice and noticing a boy's face, blinking in surprise.

Slightly long front hair. A very thin profile, but it made him look sharp. Dressed in a black shirt with a black jacket over it and faded black jeans.

His appearance is very similar to the avatar he used, the fact that there wasn't a sword hilt on his back felt very unnatural. Asuna took deep breaths to dissolve the sweet ache of longing arising from deep within her heart; she opened her lips and said.

"...I was surprised because you appeared so suddenly, did you use a transfer crystal?"

After hearing this, the boy— Kirigaya Kazuto revealed a bitter smile.

"It's not suddenly. Is this not the agreed time and place?"

"Eh...."

After being asked, Asuna looked around again.