Higa, who was observing the delete button, said coldly.
- "Your stubbornness is pointless, Kirito. You are a data pattern in a Buffer. You don't even have hands to struggle."
Kirito, with the serenity he gained from 200 years of pain (not counting the time he was recently trapped), replied.
- "I know."
And without losing his rhythm, he added.
- "But I also know you won't delete me... not yet."
Higa had a slight tremor in his brow, a microgesture, imperceptible to any human. And knowing that he couldn't see it, he said nonchalantly.
- "Oh? And why not?"
Kirito, with a colder calculating demeanor than Higa's, continued.
- "Because if you wanted to do it, you would have done it already. You need my data. You need to see 'how much' my Fluctlight can endure before it breaks."
- "..."
Higa did not deny it. His silence was confirmation.
Kirito continued, taking advantage of the mental space he opened.
- "So this is what I'm going to do, my decision: I will accept Underworld. But not out of surrender. It's... for the relocation."
Higa did not fully understand.
His gloved fingers paused for a millisecond above the keyboard, his brown eyes—cold as the glass of a microscope—analyzing every pixel of the trapped Fluctlight.
(- "Relocation?")
He thought, dissecting the word.
(- "Does he think Underworld will free him? Pathetic. There he will only change cells: from a Buffer to a simulation. But...")
A nearly imperceptible smile formed on his lips.
(- "If he wants to believe that a digital avatar will give him an advantage, let him try. It will be a fascinating experiment: measuring his resistance while realizing that even with a 'body', he is still my lab rat.")
For Higa, Underworld was another controlled variable. A maze with walls of code that he had helped build.
But what he did not calculate—what his scientific mind could never quantify—was that Kirito was not seeking freedom at that moment.
He was looking for 'a foothold'.
And a prisoner with only 'one hand free' was more dangerous than one completely chained. For Kirito, it was the first broken link of his chains.
Since Kirito was thinking in the logic of the escapist.
Kirito did not say "I will escape." He didn't even think of it in concrete terms. But in his Fluctlight, there was already a plan forming.
(- "A body...").
He reflected.
(- "No matter how limited it is. A body means levers. Pressure points. Contact surfaces with the world.")
Here, in the Buffer, it was the perfect prison: without limbs, without a real voice, without anything that could twist or break. But Underworld... Underworld offered possibilities.
In Underworld, he would have 'fingers'. And with fingers, he could make 'knots', 'cracks', 'signals'.
Higa thinks he is in control.
But by giving him 'options', however minimal, he has already made a mistake. Kirito knows this. And he will wait.
(- "Down there, seconds stretch like molasses.")
Kirito calculated.
(- "One real day will equal weeks, months, or like in the Underworld War, where days there were seconds in the real world... Higa cannot watch every microsecond. He will let his guard down. He will make mistakes.")
- "Alright, hero. I accept your wordplay. After all, even a mouse needs to believe that the maze has an exit to run excitedly."
Higa raised a gloved finger and, with the coldness of someone deleting an unnecessary file, made the ominous red warning disappear.
[WARNING: COMMAND_DELETE_FLUCTLIGHT? Y/N].
The bloody hologram dissolved into agonizing pixels, revealing again the two cold technical options:
[1. RESTORE_AVATAR: KIRITO_UNDERWORLD_200YR].
[2. CUSTOMIZE: PARAMETERS_MOD].
But instead of proceeding, Kirito said in surprise.
- "I only have one question regarding all this about sending me to Underworld... And I want a sincere answer from you."
Higa unconsciously adjusted his posture in the ergonomic chair of Rath. His latex gloves crinkled as he clenched his fists.
- "What would that question be?"
He replied, forcing his tone into clinical neutrality.
- "And my answer will depend on it."
- "By sending me to Underworld..."
Kirito paused strategically, letting the words resonate in the silicon like drops of acid.
- "I will be exposed to eyes that exceed your authority range in Rath."
A heartbeat of silence.
- "Don't you fear that someone will see the truth?"
In the control room, the LED lights flickered. Higa observed the reflection of his face on the screen: his eyes, behind the glasses, shone with something that could have been... 'amusement'?
- "That is also calculated."
His laughter was a whisper of overheated fans.
- "That's why I took the time to talk to you up until this moment."
He leaned forward, and the bluish monitor glow cast predatory shadows on his face.
- "I am in charge for a week. My superior, Director Kikuoka, went on another of his... 'business trips'... and this time it's 'recovering investments' in Hong Kong."
Higa made imaginary quotes with his fingers.
- "About two or three days would have been enough for the experiment. But a week..."
The smile that stretched his lips did not reach his eyes.
- "It's a luxury I will take to ensure that not even the ghosts of Rath snoop where they shouldn't... I will have 'absolute control' over what is seen and what is not in Underworld."
He declared, his voice as cold as the metal of an autopsy table.
"You will be nothing more than a lost specter in the recesses of the system... Because no one will know you are there."
His smile showed no signs of disappearing as he continued.
- "I just need to speed up Underworld's time during your stay. By the time the seven days pass here outside and Director Kikuoka, your Fluctlight will no longer be in any database. A few modified files, a few altered records... and everything will return to 'normal'."
Higa, looking at the screen where Kirito's digital essence floated.
- "How about?"
He asked, with the condescension of a teacher examining a student.
- "Are you satisfied with the answer, or do you want me to detail 'every step' of my plan?"
Kirito needed no more.
- "No."
He replied, his voice a distorted but firm echo.
"That's enough for me. I can already imagine the rest."
Higa nodded, almost 'approving' his intelligence.
- "I knew you would understand. You are an exceptional young man, Kirito. Your studies, your research, your analytical ability... it all shows."
His words sounded like praise, but there was something 'dangerous' in his tone, as if he admired a well-polished weapon.
"I enjoy conversing with intellects like yours."
Kirito felt a surge in his Fluctlight, an anger he could not contain.
- "But I 'detest' talking to people like you."
He replied, his voice laden with a contempt that pierced through the digital.
"People who play with lives as if they were 'disposable data'."
Higa remained unmoved.
- "I understand that perfectly."
He said, and for the first time, there was a glimmer of something 'almost human' in his gaze.
- "But I do not share it."
With that response from Higa, that glimmer also disappeared.
And then, 'silence'.
A silence that weighed more than any word. Because it was 'the weight of two worldviews colliding' with no possibility of reconciliation.
- "It's clear that our moral scales are not calibrated in the same unit... then I will continue with my selection."
Kirito concluded, cutting off the dialogue.
A final doubt made its way through his thoughts, emerging as a cautious whisper:
- "I assume you won't try to erase my memories before the transfer..."
He asked, keeping his tone deliberately neutral, though deep within his Fluctlight, a current of anxiety throbbed strongly.
"Right?"
Higa let out a slight snort, almost offended by the insinuation.
- "Of course not."
He replied with the exasperation of a scientist being asked something obvious.
- "What use would I have for an amnesiac test subject? I need your cognitive patterns intact, every memory, every trauma, every victory... It is precisely those experiences that make your Fluctlight so exceptionally resilient."
Kirito felt a knot of tension he didn't know he was carrying begin to unravel within him.
- "I'm glad to hear that."
He admitted.
- "Then... let's proceed."
And he decided to touch option 2 to modify his body.
Higa said mockingly.
- "Do you want to change something? Perhaps... perhaps be more masculine, taller, or have blue eyes? Such trivial and superficial details."
- "..."
Kirito remained silent. Not out of lack of response, but because something more powerful than words had caught him: a memory.
*...*
'The lake of Underworld shimmered under an infinite sky.' The breeze played with Asuna's hair as their hands intertwined, warm and alive despite being pure data.
- "Even though this world is artificial..."
Kirito whispered, his brown eyes reflecting the blue of the water.
- "My feelings are not."
Asuna looked at him, and in that instant, time ceased to exist.
- "No matter how much time passes, or in what world we are..."
He continued, feeling his digital heart beat strongly.
"I want to stay by your side. Would you accept to be my wife... again?"
Tears sparkled in Asuna's eyes before the brightest smile Kirito had seen in two centuries illuminated her face.
- "Yes."
- Her voice was a whisper laden with promises.
- "In this life, in the next, and in all the ones that followed."
*...*
Kirito returned to the present with a bittersweet pain in his chest.
(- "I need something to tie me to her... even if it's just a symbol.")
The determination that flooded him then was stronger than anything else. Stronger than fear, stronger than rage.
- "You are right."
His voice sounded clear, without a trace of the irony Higa expected.
"It doesn't seem like a bad idea... to have that eye color."
Higa raised an eyebrow, surprised not by the change itself, but by the firmness in Kirito's tone.
- "Blue."
The young man added, and this time he couldn't help but let his voice crack slightly.
"Like the sky over the lake where I pledged my life to her."
For a moment, just a moment, Higa seemed to lose his balance. His fingers paused over the keyboard, his eyes (always so calculating) blinked. He had understood: it was not a whim. It was a 'reminder'.
- "Useless sentimentalism."
He murmured, shrugging off with affected indifference.
- "But I will allow it... After all... what harm can a color do?"
Kirito did not respond. Because he knew something Higa ignored: 'symbols have power'. And those blue eyes would be his silent oath, his promise to return to her... no matter how many worlds he had to traverse.
- "Do you also plan to modify your age and remove those... 'illustrative scars'?"
His tone dripped with sarcasm, as if he were discussing a restaurant menu rather than the fate of a human soul.
Kirito remained unfazed.
- "Who would reject eternal youth when given the opportunity?"
Kirito replied calmly and logically.
- "Set at twenty years. Permanently. No matter how much time I have to endure afterward."
Higa let out a cutting laugh, the metallic echo bouncing off the steel walls of the laboratory.
- "Self-imposed lies, nothing more."
He adjusted his glasses with a finger, the lenses reflecting the screen.
- "You have more years accumulated than any Fluctlight in Underworld. But if you need 'psychological toys' to survive, that is 'your' choice."
A pause. Then, with a dark humor that would chill the blood:
- "Although, to be fair... it's a pretty common desire. Women would 'kill' to keep their youth, don't you think?"
Kirito felt how hate—a cold and precise fire—coiled within his Fluctlight.
- "But not to the point of 'losing their bodies'."
He replied, each word sharp as the edge of Elucidator.
'Nor to become 'unwilling experiments'."
Higa leaned forward, and a genuine smile—sharp as a scalpel—appeared on his face.
- "That's why I have 'you', my brave guinea pig."
The air thickened. Kirito 'knew' that every second in that digital hell was calculated torture.
- "Hurry up."
Higa glanced at a clock that did not exist.
"Our 'precious time' is running out."
(- "Precious? I just want to disappear from here faster than you can blink.)
Kirito thought.
The hate within Kirito was a black hole in his chest, devouring everything but his determination.
- "I'm done."
Higa scanned the parameters with a clinical gaze.
- "Let's see... blue eyes, eternal youth, scars removed..."
He made a sound of approval, like a chef satisfied with his recipe.
"I accept these 'little indulgences'. You will return to your Underworld avatar with all its capabilities intact."
Kirito held back sarcasm that burned his tongue.
- "I am 'immensely grateful' for your 'magnanimity'."
But then...
Higa's voice changed.
Suddenly, all mockery disappeared, replaced by a 'calm and chilling' tone, like the edge of a steel blade pressing against the jugular.
- "This will be our last conversation..."
His voice, now devoid of all mockery, resonated with a funeral solemnity.
- "I will send you to Underworld and patiently wait until your Fluctlight consumes itself over time. Meanwhile, I will be here... Collecting the data of your last breath with my still steaming coffee."
The scientist continued, indifferent to Kirito's presence, his tone adopting an almost hypnotic cadence:
- "Let me give you a piece of advice, 'hero'..."
The invisible quotes around the word were audible.
- "Don't waste your insignificant time thinking about escaping, just enjoy it... Marry, have a wife... or several. After all, weren't you the King of the Underworld World and do you have those privileges? Father a dozen children and die satisfied surrounded by your numerous family and your subjects."
It sounded like the devil's temptation.
- "Doesn't that sound like a perfect ending?"
Kirito replied with a voice that trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the strength of his conviction:
- "I will not choose any woman but Asuna. How could I—?"
- "Would you do that 'to her'?"
Higa interrupted him with the abruptness of a scalpel opening flesh.
His voice dripped with false compassion.
- "Wake up, Kirito. Right now, Asuna is in the arms of 'another man'... Or should I say, in 'your' arms? Ironical, don't you think?"
A loaded silence. Then, with cruel deliberation:
- "Most likely, you are still thinking that she will notice that something is wrong, right? Tss, tss..."
Higa shook his lips while clapping his gloved fingers together.
- "Time will only prove me right... Humans are very adaptable to minor changes in a person and when we least expect it, we no longer remember the importance of the previous ones and accept the new ones... How long did you live with her, not counting those 200 years that 'erased due to her own stupidity'? The copy will spend more time at her side, and your memories... your 'precious' memories... will be replaced by new ones."
Kirito felt how each word was a dagger twisting in his soul. Higa continued with a voice that enjoyed his suffering.
- "They will marry surrounded by their friends and family with big smiles, receiving their congratulations... Including mine, and you? Where will you be when she says 'yes, I do'? I'll tell you..."
A calculated pause.
- "You will be dead. Erased from existence in this supercomputer in a mountain of 0s and 1s. No one will know the truth that you were ever here, 'not even her', the person closest to you."
"So I recommend you take my advice: 'Make the most of your time'."
There was no uproar, a scream, or a curse like the last time. But when Kirito spoke, his voice was the whisper of a glacial wind:
- "I will do that. I promise you I will do that... and I will never forget."
A slight shiver ran down Higa's spine at that moment, but he only mocked that ridiculous feeling—something he hadn't felt since his first failed experiment—.
- "Then I'm glad about it..."
His hand hovered over the final key.
- "This is the eternal goodbye 'hero' Kirito... Kirigaya Kazuto."
His last words were as cold as the void of space.
- "Yes... Goodbye."
Two words Kirito said. Two words that contained
universes of pain, of rage, and above all... of an unbreakable determination.
**Click**
With that sound of a key, his fate was decided.
A fate neither could foresee—one that would shatter their calculations.