Abyss of the Shrine Maiden

A Father's Advice

Kyoto, Japan, just after Koharu and Tia's battle…

After Momiji got comfortable, we continued watching anime together while she caught me up with the current situation at RoboTelligence. When I last checked in, Project ALICE and RATH were under government oversight, but Momiji told me the project is slowly coming under RoboTelligence's control. The company, for the time being, has been given authorization to continue with the project the company aims for, a commercialized true AI like Alice. The current director of RATH, Dr. Rinko, has been cooperative with Jaymes' mother in the matter. However, Dr. Rinko has been given full authority on the project as long as it aligns with RoboTelligence's aim.

As for STL dives, nothing has been decided yet. I do want to dive in and see the world Kazuto, Asuna, and I developed for two centuries again. Still, deep down, I want to see Eydis again and visit Medina's grave properly, not as the former emperor but as the guy she knew before for six months before my entrapment. But before I do that, I want to speak with my fluctlight, which should have remained after my awakening. If anyone should know anything about me, it should be the other me: the Jaymes that became the Crimson Emperor of the Dark Territory.

Right now, it's close to midnight. Momiji sleeps soundly on my left side as we share the couch. Being childhood friends, sleeping together is not weird to us, though we were kids back then. Yet that didn't stop us in GGO over the last year, and maybe a few times when we lived together and stayed up late watching movies. As for me, I hold her with my left arm while reading a light novel on my phone and listening to some music.

For some reason, I feel more at peace with Momiji right beside me than I have the entire week. I hadn't realized how apprehensive I've been until now. And no, it's not the comfort of a beautiful girl laying at my side. Well...for some reason, that's not the feeling of comfort. Spending two hundred years in the Underworld must've matured me, and it lingered onward. It's the only reason I can explain why the first girl I've ever held romantic feelings for and who I was a hair away from starting a relationship with invokes little feelings within me.

And unfortunately, she's one of two victims of the maturity of the Crimson Emperor. I am sure that, if Koharu were not present in my life, I would have listened to Shino's demand to give her a shot. No, I'm sure of it. She's was--no, is--the closest person I have to what I once had with Koharu, and then more. Shino might be two years my junior (and yet, at the same time, she's (and Suguha) my education senior, weirdly, as this is her third year and us SAO Survivors' second year, but she's much more mature than I am. And I feel I thought about her a lot in the initial years of those two centuries, yet those probable feelings that slowly surfaced since January are gone.

And if you're wondering why Rika is not forgotten...for some reason, it's the same feeling I have that I (or the Crimson Emperor side of me that remains in me) for Medina. It's not regret, I think, but a sensation I cannot pin down. I guess it boils down to the one thing that separates them from her and Rika from Koharu too. After all, how can I forget the person who, still to this day, remains as important to me as Kazuto and Asuna?

And right now, said person is calling me in the dead of night. I let my phone vibrate three times, not to answer as if I was anticipating a phone call from her or am eager to answer, but while I can't remove my feelings for Rika, I haven't been able to really be around her. Ever since the Ordinal Scale incident, it's been difficult for me to speak to her, and not because we broke up. If anything, those two hundred years did not resolve my guilt of hurting her. My display of affection to her, holding her until she disappeared, was in the moment. The bridge between us is still uncrossable, at least from my end.