Sword Art Online: Faithful Hymn

Chapter 43: Like Father, Like Daughter

"That's enough!" shouts the female voice from the end of the long hallway. My eyesight is getting all fuzzy and black, though my ears won't deceive me yet. I can clearly hear a diva's beautiful voice. Has she come to my rescue? But how, I did not tell her I would confront Tetsuhiro today, so why is she here?

Tetsuhiro, who still holds Kirito against the wall, looks at the girl's direction. While he keeps Kazuto steady against the wall with one hand, he uses the other one to signal at the girl, requesting for her aid.

"Give me a hand here Yuna. Use that phone to call the police." orders Tetsuhiro. He appeared to have completely ignored Yuna, who walks towards me, trying to get me on my feet again. He seemed furious to know that Yuna disobeyed his wishes, but what would he have expected?

"The fuck..." Tetsuhiro lets go of Kazuto, who falls on the ground, barely being able to breathe. I can barely hear him approach us, but I can definite see his shadow approach us.

"Have you forgotten your duty or something? You know you're destined to be a part of something great, and not to be this boy's girlfriend!" yells the father to his 'daughter'. Once Yuna positioned me better, my view became slightly clearer and I felt somewhat better already. Yuna stood up, standing face to face with the tough man.

"You don't care shit about me, or about Shoji, Kirito or anyone else." she says with fire in her eyes. She takes a step forward, showing that she is not afraid at all of Tetsuhiro, despite him nearly succeeding in murdering me.

"You created me so that I could be the big face of Ordinal Scale, and did I have a say in that?" Yuna takes another step forward. She forces the man to step back, who clearly can't absorb her comments into strength. Neither can he backfire any of it.

It's all true after all.

"And you attempt to mentally hurt us by wanting me to betray Shoji, and now you already get viole..."

"You're not Yuuna." Tetsuhiro cuts her off. The power Yuna felt, resonating from her, dropped to zero value right when Tetsuhiro started to find the words to say something again. "My daughter died two and a half years ago. You're just a machine, who has a few resemblances."

Tetsuhiro is not only angry, but he also starts to get more emotional. Yuna allows him to talk, because she can read the emotion off of his face. The man then points at me, while I still sit against the machine, with blood flowing from my forehead.

"He.. may think that you are her replacement... but I know you're not..." says the man. Yuna has no idea to say, even though she knows that I started to see her as an entirely seperate person. I even told her that a bunch of days ago. The two pause for a moment, while I watch Kazuto gasp for air while he crouched into my direction.

"Tell me, you were programmed to follow my every command, not talking about the candies. How did you separate yourself from me... becoming a deviant?" Tetsuhiro asks her. Even though she appears to require some time to think, I can feel within her that she has the answer already. It's something that automatically started to develop within her, way before I asked her what its definition was.

Love.

"You programmed me in such a way that I would not be able to fully love Shoji. But your programming could not withstand my heart. I might be an AI, but I master every thing that a human being has to offer."

Yuna gazes at me, revealing a smile like the sun.

"Heart and soul beat anything." she tells the man.

Out of the blue, I could softly hear the former father sob. By now I would wonder whether that's a hallucination due to my possible concussion, or I start to see Tetsuhiro in a new daylight. Clearly I'm not the only one who notices it. Yuna steps a way a little, while Kazuto looks surprised at the man while he treats my wound.

"How could I have been... so stupid...?" the man sobs, holding his hands in front of his face. None of us decided to intervene with his breakdown, since that would be the inhumane thing to do.

"I've broken promises, I've hurt people, only because I was selfish... and did not honor my daughter rightfully." he continues to sob. No one blamed him for blaming himself so much. After all, he really screwed everything up. I then could vaguely see Yuna approaching me, who helped me to get on my feet. Kazuto stood up next to me, without anyone's help. I'm pretty sure that I have not received a concussion, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to stand up so easily. Luckily the wound stopped bleeding after a little moment had passed. I then approach Tetsuhiro, who did not see me approach him. Yuna kept supporting my movements, because she did not want to risk me falling through my knees, again.

"I forgive you." I say softly. No one would've thought I'd ever say that to Tetsuhiro, not after everything he made Yuna and I go through. But I know when someone is in dire need for aid, having in mind when someone is faking it or not.

He clearly is not faking it, at all.

"Y...You forgive me, despite everything I've done to you three?" It sounds stupid to forgive him for his actions. An outsider wouldn't understand my call. Even though Kazuto has not experienced what I've had to overcome to get to this point, he knows that forgiveness was the right call.

"Yeah." is the only thing I managed to say to the man. Honestly, I wouldn't know what else to say to him except for confirming my forgiveness. What I would know however, is that I've got questions for him. Not a single of those questions are regarding to why he led me astray like this, since he already confirmed it was about the money.

"How... do you know Eiji?" I ask him. He looks at me with a strange face, giving me the vibe that he has no idea why I'm asking him this question. "It's around the gaming news. A boy named Eiji is on a rampage throughout ALfheim Online, that VRMMO game. Why are you so concerned about him, if I may ask..?" Tetsuhiro asks me, still having trouble to maintain his sobbing accent.

"I knew him from SAO. We were great friends, but your daughter's death made us go separate ways." I don't know if it was wise to tell him this, because it may be able to backfire sooner or later. But Eiji is rather essential to Yuuna's growth, so it was only humane to tell him. "Although, why did you threaten us with his name?" I still wonder.

"I honestly had no other material to force you here with. I did not know you and him knew each other, so I didn't expect it to be such a threat. I'm deeply sorry..." He then stopped talking, and I also didn't know what to say in response. Then, I could hear Kazuto approaching the man, asking about something I completely forgot: Yuna's situation.

"I also forgive you. But what about Yuna, because there is no way that you will take her from Shoji." Kazuto demands. Harsh words, but that is also exactly what Tetsuhiro deserved. Yuuna's father was irritated by Kazuto's command, although he did not expect the youth to let him have Yuna like this. After all, he's not planning on breaking any more of his promises.

"There might be another solution that will benefit us all. We can copy Yuna's data, and remove her memories of Shoji." says Tetsuhiro. I try to imagine what Tetsuhiro was saying with this:

His idea, would be to copy Yuna's memory into another AR Idol. Yuna's clone would be exactly the same, but in order to make this clone work, she has to forget everything she knows about Shoji. The current Yuna however, will maintain everything and cut every connection she has with Tetsuhiro. In general, there will be a Yuna that will be the popular face of Ordinal Scale, and a Yuna that would be my eternal love.

Only an idiot would reject that idea.

With Yuna's en Kazuto's eyes all on me, it's time for me to make that decision. And of course, I would gladly accept. After all, if Tetsuhiro still was planning on playing games with me, as well as lying about his whole idea, he wouldn't be able to live with himself.

Tetsuhiro raises his hand into my direction, awaiting a firm handshake. With no doubt in my mind, I accept his idea. I move towards the man, raising my hand, proudly shaking his hand.

"Let's do this!"