I looked at him, filled with disbelief. I think I must have had my mouth wide open at this moment. "You spent… FIFTEEN YEARS playing minesweeper?" Beyond the fact that someone could spend fifteen years on the same game, it was the sheer ludicrousness of the situation that took me aback. "And all that because you were afraid? You, the man who created SAO? I can't believe it."

- “Well, I did kill myself in the middle of SAO and became entirely virtual at this point. Take into account the fact that I was ready to have my data deleted along the game. The only reason I didn't is because Nobuyuki had transferred it on his own servers, and was using it for the beta release of ALO. I am not a hero, Kirito. I am not like you, in many ways. I do not have the courage to face my own actions, I do not have the courage to withstand what I did.”

- “But it was fifteen years ago! I bet most people have forgotten you, by this point. So many games came and went by, so many things happened. Also, if you don't have enough guts to face what you did, why did you do it? Why did you turn SAO into a lethal game?" I was yelling at Kayaba, at this point. I was angry at him. I understood why he stayed in the shadows this whole time; I think I'd have done the same in his situation. But I couldn't accept it, not like that. I waited for him to answer. I saw him sigh, and scratch his head. I just hoped that he did have an answer. I wouldn't accept something like "I forgot" or "I don't know." Not after all the consequences of SAO. Four thousand people died there, and I barely made it alive, thanks to a bug. I think I deserved to know the truth, to know why this wonderful world inside Aincrad turned into a deadly trap for ten thousand people, why did a game turn into a world of fear.

"Why, you ask? Heh. I had just finished building the Aincrad. It had always been my dream, since I’d been a kid. A castle of steel, flying in an endless sky, containing a hundred worlds… I just had built a hundred worlds; I thought of myself as a god, for this. Perhaps even did I believe I was God himself. The fact is that I wondered how things would go, if I actually were God. So, ten thousand lives were picked randomly, to see how godly I was. And then, as I was getting bored, I joined the game. It was a mistake on my part. Perhaps it was one I had to make. The rest is history."

He stared at me, looking more bored than one could possibly be. There was no trace of sarcasm on his face, no hint of untruthfulness, no relent of bastardry. He was telling the plain, honest brutal truth. Kayaba Akihiko was a man who thought of himself as equal to God, superior, even, due to his personal works, and acted as such in a fit of madness. No wonder he did not want to show himself in public anymore. He feared his own actions, he was afraid of himself. But fifteen years were enough, I thought. It was enough, and on the other side, it'd never be nowhere as near as enough to repay what was lost in SAO.

But four thousand lifetimes spent playing minesweeper definitely sounded like torture. It would be way worse than anything that ever happened in SAO. Images of Sachi flashed through my mind. Perhaps… No. Not even her death was worthy of such punishment. As that raced through my mind, I thought that it was thinking like someone superior to others. Who was I to decide what judgement should the guilty receive? I had no right to do so. Kayaba's faults were his own, and it was none of my business to decide how he should atone for them. That in mind, it didn't forbid me from criticizing him.

"Nobody will ever be God. Look at me. I defied death, and am the most famous – and infamous – gamer in the world. I control the SEED; I have a Root account for the Internet itself. I can have the world in the literal palm of my hand. Yet I never, ever thought of myself as godly. There are things I cannot do. If I were God, I'd be able to go on the moon. I'd be able to bring back everyone who died in SAO. I cannot go to the moon. I cannot resurrect the dead. I am not God." I told him flatly. I think he deserved those words. So, I gave him my final words.

"So, get a damn hold of yourself, Kayaba, come back to this life, stop wasting time on minesweeper and enjoy all the games with everyone else." It looked like my words had hit him in the heart. He looked at me with a surprised glare, and spent like, a whole minute blinking. "Alright, alright. I will. I'll play a game with you. I guess you want me to join in ALO?

- “Yeah”, I said, with a half-smile. “Plus, that’s where Asuna is the most likely to go right now, to reassure everyone, tell them we’re OK. So, let’s go.” <I also want to see what I can do now, in that state, but I’ll wait a little bit. Asuna matters more> I also thought in the back of my mind.

Kayaba looked at me, the corners of his mouth slightly upturned. “I can tell what you’re thinking right now. You’d like to test yourself further, but at the same time you want to go and meet up with your friends. And you’d also like to stay here and keep chatting with me, but your obvious conclusion is that you cannot be in two places at the same time. Am I right?”

I shot him a weird look. Yes, that was exactly what I was thinking. How he did guess was a complete mystery, however. I bet he had time to think about psychology when playing minesweeper. Uh. That sounded really strange, didn’t it? Anyway…

“Yeah. You’re right. How did you guess, though? Because if you hacked my head, I’m gonna file a breaking and entering complaint.”

He deadpanned at me and said in a flat yet amused tone “Dead men tell no tales.”

- “Oh, come on! You’re quoting Pirates of the Caribbean at me now? Dude. Give me some respect.” The man had some good references, but this one was pretty bad. Quoting Pirates of the Caribbean in a non-comical context was distasteful. I mean, even Jack’s one-liners are too silly to fit seriously in a conversation. I shook my head.

“That aside, which race are you gonna pick? With ten options, you’ve got a lot of possibilities. Want to go towards a tank archetype?”

- “I need time to think about that. How about we have a cup of coffee while you expose me all the options? I think it’s the perfect way for you to discover what you are capable of.”

- “Excuse me? How can we have coffee? It’s not like there’s any kind of coffee shop on this side of the internet, isn’t it?”

- “Why, yes there is one. The Starbucks website makes excellent cappuccinos. You’ll love them.”

- “Say what? You’re shitting me at this point, right? I don’t even…”

- “Looks like you haven’t kept yourself up to date with the recent browsing technologies. It’s called VBN, for Virtual Browsing Network. It’s a SEED world made to be a poster place of the firm owning the website, or simply to be pleasant to the visitor, with of course the possibility to use the website’s usual features.”

- “I never heard about that. I’m too used to the classic browsing, I guess. Anyway, Starbucks made their website like a coffee shop, you say? I shouldn’t be surprised.”

- “Yeah. So now that we’re here, I suggest that we go there and have a cup while we play.”

- “How? It’s not possible to be at two places at the same time, innit?”

- “How do two people manage to play the same game at the same time, then?” He asked me with a slight smile. “The game can’t be at two places at the same time, can it?”

I looked at him blankly, then I asked. “Double instance?”

- “Exactly. We CAN be at two places at the same time. We only need enough CPU power to run both instances at the same time till one is stopped.”

- “How does that even… Nevermind. Let’s go.” I sighed, pinching the edge of my nose, and stopped to care any longer. I felt the information flow through my mind as Kayaba mailed me the program, and it was quite a pain to take it all in. It was a very complex code, that I assumed wasn’t meant to ever be processed.

I saw the information flash before my eyes, bits of code, long silvery threads of logic operators, shards of raw data flying around… It was hypnotizing, and troubling at the same time, to have all those fragments come one by one, meaningless alone, and yet that made so much sense together.

I learned it all. It’s hard to describe how it felt, understanding the code. It wasn’t at all like reading it while sitting in front of a screen, and you could say, “Ah yes I get how it works.” It was entirely different, alien even. I knew intrinsically how it worked, but I would be at a loss if I had to explain it with words. The closest thing I could say would be, “I’m alive because my heart beats - My heart beats because I’m alive.” It was like becoming something more, yet remaining the same.

And just like that, I was ready to go. Letting out a small sigh, I closed my eyes and ran the program. I don’t know why I did that - closing my eyes, I mean. I guess it’s because it helped me concentrate on what I was doing. I imagined myself as being there… and also THERE, if you see what I mean.

The code within me came to life as I called upon it, and slowly but surely, I felt myself divide, and I felt myself be whole again. I felt I was here, and I was also there. It was akin to pulling a marionette’s strings while also being the marionette, like moving water around you while swimming.

“So that’s how it feels, to be in two places at the same time…” I mused; what was weird was that I heard echo from both sides. Surprised, I opened my eyes, and saw my double’s lips moving in the same way I felt mine - ours, mine, same thing… - move. It took me a second to realize.

Oh.

I thought it would act as a remote puppet, not that I’d really be in two bodies at the same time; my mouth... sorry, my mouths quirked, and from what I saw, I apparently had raised two or three eyebrows in total. There was one thing, though…

Even there?! Why was my avatar always androgynous? Damnit, even the internet itself was trolling me… I know it - I looked beautiful when using it, but still, I’d prefer if the system respected me a little…