Bercouli had swung to deflect Eugeo’s weapon. If the sword had been proper steel instead of ice, the impact would have knocked him back on his heels. But because the ice simply gave way without resisting, it allowed Eugeo to keep speeding forward, past Bercouli’s defenses.
“Yaaaah!”
He turned his body and rammed his left shoulder into the commander’s stomach. This was an unarmed attack of the Aincrad style called Meteor Break—it supposedly referred to a rock from the sky that breaks through anything in its way. It didn’t technically activate, because he wasn’t holding his sword, but when combined with the man’s unexpected overswing, it succeeded in knocking the large man off balance, disrupting his center of gravity.
Normally Eugeo would continue with a level swipe on the right. But instead, the boy spread his arms and grappled around the commander’s waist.
“Nwah…”
This impromptu push knocked the hefty fellow back, loosening his upper half. This would be the first and last opportunity.
“Yaaaah!!” Eugeo bellowed, disguising the pain of his wound as a masculine roar, and hurled the commander and himself with all his strength toward the bath on the right. Bercouli tensed with his left leg in an attempt to resist, but his bare sole slipped on the icy stone. After he was airborne, the sting of landing in water punched his chest.
But that sensation was nothing compared to the blinding, all-enveloping chill.
“What the…?!” Bercouli exclaimed yet again, with Eugeo clinging to his waist. The bathwater had been scalding just minutes ago, and now it was nearly freezing. No wonder he was shocked.
Eugeo held down the man with his left hand and used his right to search around on the floor of the bath. It should be just around here…
Half by meticulous design, half by luck, his fingers grazed the familiar hilt of his sword.
Soon after, Bercouli threw Eugeo off him by brute force and started to rise, but not before Eugeo thrust the Blue Rose Sword into the base of the bath and commanded, “Freeeeeze!!”
This was the battle’s crucial juncture.
The Blue Rose Sword froze only a small percentage of the vast bath. There was still plenty of hot water around it. In order to freeze it all, you’d need ten sacred arts casters generating ice elements for most of an hour. But there was no other choice here.
Perfect Weapon Control unleashed the memory of the sword, bringing forth power that would be impossible otherwise. It was the wise, mysterious Cardinal who’d said that. She’d made Eugeo and Kirito travel the path of their swords’ memories to put together the Perfect Control arts for each.
Eugeo’s Blue Rose Sword was a Divine Object that originally came from the chunk of ice that sat at the very top of the End Mountains’ tallest peak in the north. It was cold there even in the middle of summer, and because the ice failed to melt all year long, it kept all creatures away. For decades and decades, that eternal ice passed a solitary existence.
One spring, there was a breeze that carried over the mountains and dropped a tiny seed right near the eternal ice. Day by day, the ice let a bit of itself melt, providing a small amount of water to The Seed. Eventually, it found root and budded despite the freezing cold, and when summer arrived, it bloomed a small but beautiful flower. It was a rose, even bluer than the northern skies.
Delighted to have a friend at last, the eternal ice spoke to the flower at every opportunity. But one day, as autumn was coming to a close, the flower said, “I won’t be able to survive the cold of winter. We’ll be parting soon.”
The ice lamented. It cried and cried at the loss of its only friend, which shrank its body. The flower said, “Before I shrivel up and wither away, will you lock me inside you? That way, even after I die, my body will remain forever.”
The eternal ice granted the blue rose’s wish. From its own tears, it carefully formed a pool of water around the blue rose and prayed, Freeze, freeze, freeze forever. The prayer was so strong, it even froze the ice’s own heart.
When the blue rose froze within the ice, the frozen ice no longer spoke or thought for itself. It had shed so many tears that the only thing left on the mountaintop was a piece of ice that had elongated into the shape of a sword, with a single blue rose trapped inside.
It could have all just been a dream that Eugeo had inside that enormous library. He had no idea how that rough ice approximation of a sword had turned into a real weapon and moved from the peak down to the cave underneath, where the white dragon hoarded it. And of course, it was impossible that a chunk of ice and a rose could have minds and feelings.
And yet, if it was supposed to be just a dream, how could he still tangibly feel that prayer from the hunk of ice inside him? The wish for all the sadness, the pain, the life, even time itself to freeze forever…
Give me your strength, Blue Rose Sword! he prayed, letting loose a shout.
“Release…Recollection!!”
This was the second stage of Perfect Weapon Control: the command for Memory Release, fully unlocking the weapon’s hidden power. Cardinal had said they weren’t advanced enough to use it yet, but maybe now he could—and if not now, then when?
In his hand, the sword shook.
Then there was the stunning sound of countless panes of glass shattering all at once throughout the bathhouse. A ring of bright-blue light spread quickly out of Eugeo’s hand. All the water it touched froze so fast, even the ripples were preserved.
In mere seconds, the enormous bath was frozen white. The terrific, incapacitating chill forced a moan from Eugeo’s lips. You would never feel a temperature that cold, even standing naked in the Rulid forest in midwinter. If he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t be able to tell whether it was ice on his skin, or burning iron.