No.

The face in front of me wasn't the one I'd gotten used to.

The armor made of metal plates laced together, the bandana, and the spiky red hair were all the same. But the face had changed into another shape altogether. His long, sharp eyes had become sunken and shone brighter. His delicate and high nose had become hooked, and a slight beard now appeared on his cheeks and chin. If the avatar had been a young and carefree samurai, this one was a fallen warrior-or maybe a bandit.

I forgot about the situation for a moment and muttered.

"Who... are you?"

The same words came out of the mouth of the man in front of me.

"Hey... who're you?"

Then I was gripped by a sudden foreboding and realized what Kayaba's present, the "hand mirror", meant.

I raised the mirror in a rush, and the face stared back at me.

Black hair lay neatly over the head, two weak-looking eyes could be seen beneath the slightly long hair, and a delicate face that made people mistake me for a girl even now when I go out in casual clothes with my sister.

The calm face of a warrior that "Kirito" had even a few seconds ago was no longer there. The face that was in the mirror...

Was my actual face that I had tried so hard to escape from.

"Ah... it's me..."

Klein, who had been also staring at his mirror, fell backwards. We both looked at each other and shouted at the same time.

"You're Klein!?" "You're Kirito!?"

Our voices had changed too. Perhaps the voice modulators had stopped working. But we didn't have time to spare on things like that.

The mirrors fell from our hands and hit the ground. Then were destroyed with a soft, smashing sound.

When I looked around again, the crowd was no longer filled with people who looked like characters from a fantasy game. A bunch of normal looking young people had now taken their place. It was like something you'd see if you gathered a bunch of people in real life at a game show venue and dressed them up in armor. Distressingly, even the s.e.x ratio had changed greatly.

How on earth was this possible? Klein and I, and most probably all the players around us, had changed from the avatars that we'd created from nothing to our real selves. Of course, the texture itself still seemed like a polygon model and it still felt slightly strange, but it was almost frighteningly accurate. It was as if the gear had a full body scanner on it.

-Scan.

"... ah, right!"

I looked at Klein and forced the words out.

"There are high density signal sensors in the Nerve Gear covering our whole head. So it can tell not only how our brains look, but our faces too..."

"B-But, how can it know what our bodies look like.... Like how tall we are?"

Klein said more silently glancing from side to side at our surroundings.

The average height of the players, who were now looking at their own and others' faces with various expressions on their faces, had been noticeably reduced after the "change". I, and most probably Klein too, had set the height to equal that of my height in the real world to prevent my extra height from hindering my movements. But most players seemed to have made themselves taller by about ten to twenty centimeters.

That wasn't all. The actual build and the girth of the players had become larger too. There was no way that the Nerve Gear would have been able to know all this.

Klein was the one who answered this question.

"Ah... wait. I bought the Nerve Gear just yesterday so I remember. There was a part of the set-up... what was it called, calibration? Well anyway, during that bit you touched your body here and there, maybe it was that...?"

"Ah, right... that's what it was..."

Calibration was where the Nerve Gear measured "how much you had to move your hand to reach your body". This was done to reproduce the sense of kinetic accurately within the game. So to say, it was almost as if the Nerve Gear had data about our exact body shapes saved inside itself.

It was possible, making all the avatars of the players an almost perfect polygon replica of themselves. The purpose of this was also almost too clear now.

"... reality," I muttered. "He said that this was reality. That this polygon avatar... and our HP was our real body and our real life. In order to make us believe this, he's produced a perfect copy of us...."

"But... but y'know Kirito."

Klein scratched his head roughly and the eyes beneath his bandana shone as he shouted.

"Why? Why the h.e.l.l's he doing something like this...?"

I didn't answer that and pointed upwards past our heads.

"Wait a moment. Most probably, he'll answer that in a bit anyway."

Kayaba didn't let me down. A few seconds later a voice, sounding almost solemn, sounded from the blood red sky.

'You will all most probably be wondering, "Why." Why am I-the creator of both the Nerve Gear and SAO, Kayaba Akihiko-doing something like this? Is this a sort of terrorist attack? Is he doing this to ransom us?'

It was then that Kayaba's voice, which had been emotionless up to now, seemed to show some signs of emotion. Suddenly the word "empathy" pa.s.sed through my mind, even though there was no way that would be true.

'None of these is the reason I am doing this. Not only that, but now for me, there is no longer a reason or a purpose in doing this. The reason is because... this situation itself was my purpose in doing this. To create and watch this world is the only reason I have created the Nerve Gear and SAO. And now, everything has been realized.'

Then after a short break, Kayaba's voice, now emotionless again, spoke.

'... now I have finished the official tutorial for "Sword Art Online". Players-I wish you luck.'

This last sentence trailed off with a faint echo.

The huge robe rose soundlessly and started sinking, hood first, into the system message that covered the sky, as if melting.

Its shoulders, then its chest, then its two arms and legs merged into the red surface, and then a final red stain spread briefly. Right afterward, the system message that had covered the sky disappeared as suddenly as it appeared.

The sound of the wind blowing above the plaza and the BGM that the NPC orchestra was playing came softly to our ears.

The game had returned to its normal state, apart from the fact that a couple of rules had been changed.

Then-at last.

The crowd of ten thousand players gave a proper reaction.

In other words, countless voices started resounding loudly through the plaza.

"It's a joke right...? The h.e.l.l is this? It's a joke right!?"

"Stop kidding around! Let me out! Let me out of here!"

"No! You can't! I've got to meet someone soon!"

"I don't like this! I'm gonna go home! I want to go home!!!!!!"

Yells. Clamors. Shouts. Curses. Begging. Screaming.

The people that had changed from game players to prisoners in a matter of minutes crouched clutching their heads, waved their arms about, grasped each other or started to swear loudly.

In the midst of all this noise, my mind became strangely cool again.

This... is reality.

What Kayaba Akihiko had declared was all true. If that was the case, this was all to be expected. It'd be strange not to expect it. This genius was one side of Kayaba that made him alluringly attractive.

Now I can't return to reality for a while-perhaps a few months or maybe more than that. During this time, I can't see my mother or sister nor talk to them. It was possible that I would never get the chance. If I died here- I died in reality.

The Nerve Gear, once a game machine, is a lock to this prison and a tool of death that will fry my brain.

I breathed slowly in, then out, and opened my mouth.

"Klein, come over here for a sec."

I grabbed the warrior's arm, who seemed to be much older than me in real life, and made my way through the raving crowd.

We made it out of the crowd quite quickly, maybe because we were near the edge. We entered one of the many streets that led out of the plaza in a radial pattern and I jumped into the shadow behind an unmoving carriage.

"... Klein," I called his name again.

He still had a somewhat blank expression on his face. I continued talking, trying my best to sound serious.

"Listen to me. I'm going to get out of this city and head over to the next village. Come with me."

Klein opened his eyes wide under the bandana. I kept talking in a low voice, forcing the words out.

"If what he said was true, in order to survive in this world we have to strengthen ourselves. You know that MMORPGs are a battle for resources between the players. Only the people who can acquire the most money and experience can get stronger.... The people who've realized this are going to hunt all the monsters around the "Starting City". You'll have to wait forever for the monsters to resp.a.w.n. Going to the next village right now would be better. I know the way and all the dangerous spots, so I can get there, even if I'm only level one."

Considering that it was me, that was quite a long speech. But despite that, he stayed silent.

Then a few seconds later, his face scrunched up.

"But... but y'know. I said before that I stood in line for ages with my friends to buy this game. They would have logged in and most likely they'd be in the plaza even now. I can't... go without them.

I let out a sigh and bit my lip.

I could understand all too well what Klein was trying to tell me through his nervous gaze.

He... was bright and was easy to get along with, and he most probably took care of other people pretty well. He was most definitely hoping that I'd take all his friends with him.

But I just couldn't nod.

If it was just Klein, I could get to the next village while protecting us from aggressive monsters. But if there was even two more-no, even one more person coming along-it would be dangerous.

If somebody died along the way, they'd die as Kayaba had announced.

The responsibility would undoubtedly fall on me, who suggested setting out from the safe "Starting City" and failed to protect my comrade.

To bear such a heavy burden, I could never do that. It was just simply impossible.

Klein seemed to read all these worries that flashed through my mind. A smile appeared on his slightly bearded cheek and he shook his head.

"No... I can't keep relying on you. I was a guild master in the game I used to play. It'll be fine. I'll just make do with the techniques that you've taught me till now. And... there's still a chance that this was just a bad joke and that we'll all be logged off. So don't worry about us and go to the village."

With my mouth closed, I was wracked by an indecision that I'd never felt before in my life.

Then I spoke the words that would gnaw at me for two years.

"... OK," I nodded, stepped back, and said with my dry throat.

"Well, let's part here. If anything comes up, send me a message.... Well, see you later, Klein."

Klein called me as I turned my eyes downwards and turned to leave.

"Kirito!"

I sent him a questioning glance, but he didn't say anything; his cheek only trembled a little.

I waved once and turned northwest, the direction of the village that I'd use as my next base.

When I had taken about five steps, a voice called out from behind me again.

"Hey, Kirito! You look pretty good in real life! You're quite my style!"

I smiled bitterly and shouted over my shoulder.

"Your look suits you ten times better too!"