Prismatic colors

prismatic colors (プリズマティック・カラーズ) is a short story written by Kawahara Reki that was released as part of abec Art Works Wanderers, the second Sword Art Online art book by the Sword Art Online series's light novel illustrator, abec. It is a sequel to the side story of the first art book, chromatic colors, and takes place in the alternative Alicization timeline where Eugeo and Kirito never broke the Taboo Index. This short story chronicles Kirito's surprising reunion with a character from chromatic colors during the events of the If You Were Here side story.

Summary
Three weeks after Humbert Zizek and Raios Antinous were hospitalised with paralysis due to being bitten by a venomous crab, Eugeo and Kirito were cleaning the room when the former wondered whether they should follow the example of the other Elite Disciples by visiting the two bedridden nobles at the hospital out of courtesy. When Kirito attempted to argue against the idea by claiming that the other Elite Disciples' visits were obligated due to their status as nobles, Eugeo suggested that his argument was flawed, as they were the only commoners among the Elite Disciples. Refusing to believe that Eugeo's claim was true, Kirito attempted to list all the Elite Disciples to verify whether there were no other commoners among them. With Eugeo's help, Kirito managed to name eleven of the twelve disciples, yet the name of the final twelfth disciple eluded him despite his utmost effort.

To his surprise, however, even Eugeo and their valets, Ronye Arabel and Tiese Shtolienen, could not recall the identity of the enigmatic disciple. Finding it strange that no one could remember the person, Kirito decided to visit the disciple's room with Eugeo to investigate. There, the boys discovered that the twelfth-ranked disciple was a girl named Ceba, though neither of the boys could recall ever seeing the girl before. However, after exchanging a handshake with the girl and discovering some oil paint on his hand afterwards, Kirito suddenly recalled that Ceba was a girl he had previously encountered during an adventure in ALfheim Online. Just then, the boy realised that time had frozen for everyone but him and Ceba, who revealed that she was actually a being travelling between worlds to introduce her art to them, disappearing from the world and the memories of those she encountered in it once her art was done. Before leaving the room and losing his memories of Ceba again, Kirito learnt that the girl was planning to paint her art on the Central Cathedral next.