Sword Art Online ALICIZATION- Reversal

Chapter 72- Superposition

I know I picked an odd name for this chapter, but you'll understand by the end. Anyways, you boys (and girls) know what time is! It's Terminator time!!

-cut-

"Rinko." The voice spoke again. As the familiar voice spoke her name, Rinko felt her world turn upside down. How? How was she hearing this, was this a dream... no, if it was a dream, she wouldn't question it. Then, was it a fake? It... it had to be, right? There was no way... it couldn't be him, it couldn't possibly be him. Yet, despite telling herself that, she couldn't stop her eyes from watering. Nor could she stop her mouth from uttering the word, "Akihiko?" 

The droid stopped shielding its 'face' and turned its beady, glowing, blue eyes upward- directly to her. "I'm sorry for leaving you alone for so long." Akihiko said apologetically. Rinko felt tears welling up in her eyes as she looked at the screen in front of her. She remembered how shortly after the project on the Ocean Turtle began, she'd heard his voice from beyond her room. However, when she opened it, she had found no one. So she assumed she had just imagined it, yet here she was, hearing that same voice again. It was him... it was Kayaba. "So this is where you've been the whole time." She realized, but why? He could've rushed in to save the Underworld at any moment, so had he only chosen to reveal himself now?

"Rinko, I was blessed to have met you. You were the only thing keeping me connected to the real world, I want you to be the one to keep it connected. My dream... to connect the two worlds that are still divided." Kayaba told her. "Yes... of course." She said, tears rolling down her cheeks. At last, it became clear to her. Akihiko hadn't revealed himself before because he had no intention of interfering until his dream was in jeopardy, he only made himself known to save that dream. He wanted the virtual and real worlds to be connected, and he was protecting the only two people who wanted that dream realized as much as him: Asuna and Kirito. Then why had he tasked her with connecting the two worlds? 

Rinko pondered this for a moment, and came to a conclusion she thought was accurate. Her husband knew she was in a position of more government authority than Kirigaya and Asuna, and due to her reputation because of her scientific career and expertise, she could make more legal change than Asuna and Kirigaya could hope. She gripped her necklace and shirt tightly, "Of course!" She said with conviction.

With that, Kayaba started to march torwards the reactor. He shielded his face to protect the area that housed his primary sensors and the primary computer systems. Rinko watched with increasing anxiety as Kayaba took more and more damage. Suddenly, Kikuoka charged in and fired off a shot to subdue the enemy, much to Rinko's relief. Yet, her husband (or ex?) continued his methodical march as he couldn't run in the robotic prototype. He started to open the vault door, the heat so intense that even from so far away from the reactor, Rinko felt the temperature rise slightly. Rather it was real or an illusion didn't matter, it made her realize something. 

"Akihiko..." She trailed off,  knowing it was too late. The heat within the core would cause Kayaba's robotic body to break down due to the heat damaging the circuits and increasing strain on the batteries and hindering their efficiency. Kayaba started sparking and leaking oil as he approached the plastic explosive, his systems beginning to fail. "No way." Rinko whispered. "Please..." She begged, quietly, her eyes watering even more. "Akihiko!" She exclaimed in fear as Kayaba's battery exploded, resulting in his systems failing completely. 

'No....' Rinko whimpered silently as she heard the sound of a flatline, imagining the day her husband had fried his brain all over again. He was.... Akihiko... was leaving her, again... and this time it wasn't even his choice... she had nothing to distract herself from the overwhelming despair and grief she felt within her chest and gut. Suddenly, on instinct alone, she turned her head to the ceiling. "Akihiko!" She shouted up to the heavens. "You're Heathcliff of the Divine Blade, aren't you? You Kirito the Black Swordsman's greatest rival, aren't you? So show us..." Rinko gripped her necklace was again, as if desperately clinging to Kayaba's hand. "That you can perform at least one miracle?" She screamed as she dropped to her knees, tears hitting the floor.

Although her pleas and cries should've fallen upon deaf ears, as Niemon's body was without power, they did not. From within the Ocean Turtle's systems, or the afterlife... perhaps, Kayaba heard Rinko's begging. If the man had teeth, he would've grit them. If he had eyes, they'd be watering and narrowed. He wanted to help her, he HAD to make her smile at least one more time... and he had to protect Kirito and Asuna. And, by coincidence or by his own Will, the electrons that made up the electrical current were not behaving as normal. Almost like a glitch in a video game, something had gone awry at a fundamental level with the universe. 

The subatomic particles that no longer left the power supply unit had opted to take on a quantum state, called Superposition. They existed around the body and within the wires, the gap being bridged by an electrical current of particles that weren't supposed to be there. And this restored power to his systems, MAXIMUM function restored! 

Rinko looked up in shock, unable to believe what she was seeing. Kayaba knew he didn't have long, and he was determined to see the task through. His cybernetic face showing he was angry about something, his body sparking and leaking more oil, as his servos creaked and whined. Possibly angry about the pain or that he'd almost failed, Kayaba reached out for the timed detonator, despite his body's protests! He tore out the detonator away from the main explosive, lifting it into the air with his right hand. It blew up, but his body bore the brunt of the small explosion which preventing it from setting off the main device. And, with that, Kayaba, having finally pulled off a miracle himself, cracked the smallest smile in his mind as his body collapsed and lost power. 

Though he had done it, he'd done it based off of what could best be described as a 'glitch'. Electrical currents normally didn't exist in so many places at once with superposition, and typically observing them caused them to revert to normal positions. Why this one case had been different, no one could say. But it had happened, and Rinko, crying tears of joy, was willing to bet that Kayaba's last moments in the robotic body were overflowing with theories, questions, and hypotheses about his body reactivating. Such was her husband's way, such was the way of the inventor of Fulldive VR and the creator of a prototype Soul Translator. 

"Akihiko..." She whispered, utterly dumbstruck and shell-shocked as everyone cheered. She didn't know, nor did she care, how or why Kayaba's body had reactivated.  However, he'd done as she'd asked of him. He'd shown that he could, in fact, perform a miracle... and now, it was her turn. She had to keep her word to him.