Sword Art Online's Assassin

Returns and Confusion

(y/n) POV

August 1st 2026

Me, Kazuto, Asuna, Suguha, Asada, Rika, Keiko, Sachi, Andrew, and Ryoutarou were watching TV at Dicey's with a few other people and we were watching the press conference that Rinko was doing.

Rinko: Thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here. Today, the institute is announcing the birth of the world's first true Artificial Intelligence.

Rinko pauses for a moment and a lot of people are taking pictures.

Rinko: I'd like to introduce you to Alice, Eugeo, Ronye, Tiese, and Selka.

All 5 of them walk about and the amount of photos people are taking increases to a ridiculous degree.

(y/n): That's just way too many pictures.

Sugu: Yeah.

All 5 of them were dressed in school uniforms. Alice walked forward and moved her arm so that her fist was on her chest. She moved her other hand so that it was on her waist and bowed and the others copied her.

Alice: People of the real world, good day to you. My name is Alice, Alice Synthesis 30.

Eugeo: I'm Eugeo.

Ronye: My name is Ronye.

Tiese: And my name is Tiese.

Selka: And I'm Selka.

Keiko: Wow, they're wearing our school's uniform.

Rika: I heard they asked for it specifically. They said they wanted to wear "the same uniform as the knights who helped and saved them". Though that was not their first choice. Alice wanted to wear the blue and gold armor that (y/n) mentioned and the others wanted to wear, what was it?

(y/n): *chuckles* Eugeo wanted to wear his blue outfit from when we invaded Centoria, Ronye, and Tiese wanted to wear their page outfits from the sword academy and Selka wanted to wear her nun outfit.

Sugu: I bet Rath saw how much it'd cost to make gold-plated armor and were like nope.

Everyone laughed at the joke, even (y/n).

(y/n): You're probably right.

I looked back at the screen and looked over all 5 of them.

(y/n): They sure didn't skimp on getting their looks just right. It's like a one-to-one copy.

Kazuto: Yeah.

Rinko: We'll  take your questions. *pause* Yes?

Reporter 1: I'd like to start with what we're all wondering, how are Alice, Eugeo, Ronye, Tiese, and Selka different from any other programmable robots that have been developed so far?

Rinko: Their brains actually. I'm referring to the mind, not the organ. Their conciseness, which is stored in their photonic brain in their skulls, isn't a program made up of binary code. Essentially it functions the same as a human brain, that's what makes them different from the robots we have currently.

Reporter 1: Perhaps you could show what you meant with a demonstration, I'm sure my colleagues here and the viewers at home would appreciate it.

Rinko: If you look in the handouts we provided you'll find their touring test results there.

Reporter 1: I was hoping for something more, a visual example say, opening one of their skulls and showing us what this photonic brain looks like.

My hand instantly turned into a fist and if I was there I would have decked him.