12

The game of Gun Gale Online did not feature the “class system” traditional to most RPGs, with warriors, mages, and rogues.

Every player had six base stats such as Strength, Agility, Vitality, and Dexterity, as well as the ability to freely choose and level up hundreds of skills such as weapon mastery, better bullet trajectory predictions, First Aid, Acrobatics, and so on. These combinations allowed a player to make their own unique “build.” In other words, that effectively meant that the game had as many classes as there were builds.

The downside was that a poorly designed build—say, STR too low to carry large weapons, plus a focus on heavy arms mastery—limited one’s battle ability. So naturally, a number of basic build patterns emerged, as players learned that using this weapon effectively required that stat and skill. While every player’s detailed skill choices were different, this broke down their general builds into a number of broad “class” patterns such as attacker, tank, medic, scout, and so on.

Sinon’s “sniper” class was one of those, albeit a rare one. She prioritized Strength so she could equip her massive rifle, along with Dexterity to improve accuracy, and a fair amount of Agility for disengaging and retreating after every sniping attempt. In exchange, Vitality was her dump stat—if she got caught, she was dead anyway, so why bother increasing health? As for skills, Sniper Rifle Mastery was obvious, and she took everything related to accuracy. Again, no use for defensive skills. The tricky part was that even with all the improvements to accuracy, the pulse-measuring system demanded a basic level of player skill for success regardless.

That feast-or-famine build actually put her at a serious disadvantage in the populous battle-royale format. It was all too easy for someone to sneak up and ambush her while she was trying to snipe at someone far away. And a sniper was helpless when set upon by close-range attackers with SMGs or assault rifles. She might get off one desperate shot from the hip—which probably wouldn’t land—and be pumped full of holes before she could shoot a second time.

For that reason, if Sinon was on her own and fell prey to a high-accuracy midrange attacker like Xiahou Dun with his Norinco CQ, she would lose.

But this time, it didn’t play out like that. Through unexpected circumstances, Sinon was accompanied by probably the only lightswordsman in the entire game of GGO.

And when it came to high-risk builds, a sniper had nothing on someone using a photon sword, which was inserted as nothing more than a fun gag by some programmer on Zaskar’s development team.

Its range was four feet, the length of the blade itself. That was even shorter than the twenty-foot range of the Remington derringer pistol, the smallest gun in GGO. However, the pale, glowing energy blade contained unfathomable power—it split her point-blank .50 BMG round in two.

If it could cut any shot, then in a way, that made it the greatest defensive weapon in the game. But using a blade just an inch wide to defend against a hail of supersonic bullets, even with the predictive bullet lines, was just about impossible. It required the precision to identify the paths and order of an onslaught of projectiles, the deliberation to quickly and accurately move the sword to deflect, and most of all, the sheer pluck to stare down automatic rifle fire without shrinking.

Sinon couldn’t imagine what kind of practice would be necessary to gain all of those skills. They might be beyond the bounds of a VR game to begin with. It demanded the experience, will, and soul power of the player behind the avatar.

Xiahou Dun finished reloading and opened a second hail of fire with his CQ. As she watched Kirito cut down just the on-target bullets out of the storm of glowing lines, Sinon couldn’t help but reflect on these concepts.

Strength that transcended the wall between reality and virtual reality. That was the exact boundary that she sought herself. She needed the sniper’s precision and bloodless cruelty to crush the weakness of Shino Asada that dwelled within her. She had wandered these wastelands for the last six months in search of targets who would bring her that strength.

If she summoned everything she had to fight and defeat the powerful foe named Kirito, she might get there. This was Sinon’s overriding thought ever since their meeting yesterday.

But at the same time, a different feeling was growing within her heart.

I want to know. I want him to tell me. About the place he was before GGO. How did he live there, what did he feel, and how did he survive? In fact, she even wanted to know what kind of person he was in reality. And she had never felt that about anyone before…

“Sinon, now!” Kirito shouted, snapping her back to the situation at hand. He had just finished deflecting all of Xiahou Dun’s shots.

Her trigger finger squeezed the Hecate. It would be a sloppy shot with her concentration as affected as it was, but the target was less than a hundred yards away, and her accuracy was maxed out. The bullet struck right in the center of Xiahou Dun’s medieval body armor.

In a normal battle, an avatar that lost all its HP would shatter like glass and disappear, but in the BoB final, different rules were in effect that kept the body in place. Xiahou Dun flew through the air, helmet tassel flapping, and landed, limbs splayed, on the dirt. A red DEAD tag began to rotate over his prone form.

She stood up with a sigh of relief and switched out the Hecate’s magazine for a fresh one with the full seven rounds. With her trusty friend resting on her shoulder, she turned to her temporary partner.

The side of his face against the setting sun looked somehow mysterious as he twirled the lightsword in his hands and returned it to his waist carabiner. Sinon took a deep breath to suppress a feeling much like her previous urge to know more about him, and said, “The sound of that battle’s going to draw more of them. We ought to move.”

“Right,” he replied, casting a sharp gaze toward the nearby river. “Death Gun must have headed north along the river. He’s probably going to hide out and pick his next target when the satellite passes over again at nine. I want to stop him before there are any more fatali—victims. Got any ideas, Sinon?”

She blinked, surprised that he would asked her, then shook her head. She figured that given all the unexpected adjustments she was being forced to make, no good ideas would come to her, but to her surprise, the words emerged quickly.

“…Weird powers or not, Death Gun is essentially a sniper. That means he’ll be vulnerable in open space without cover. But if you go north, the forest on the other side of the river fades out pretty quick. All that’s left until you reach the ruined city at the center is a wide-open field.”

“Meaning that it’s quite possible he’ll choose that city for his next hunting spot,” Kirito muttered, glancing at the faded silhouettes of the high-rise buildings far, far to the north. The distance effects made them look incredibly distant, but it was less than two miles away in actuality. With enough agility and caution, it could be traversed in just ten minutes.

“All right, let’s head for the town. If we run along the river, they won’t see us from the sides.”

“…Got it,” Sinon replied. She turned back for a moment. At the foot of the bridge still lay Dyne’s body. Oddly enough, the fact that his dead body was there proved that he was still alive. The one who was actually—potentially—dead was Pale Rider, who was gone entirely.

She wasn’t ready to believe it just yet. But at the same time, she couldn’t accept that it was all a lie.

There was one thing Sinon was certain of, however. This Bullet of Bullets was going to change her. Whether it was in a way she wanted or not, and whether the one who changed her was Kirito or the mysterious cloaked player, was still unknown.

All she could do was trust her instincts. Inspiration was the one skill that no player build could boost.

While she didn’t have as extreme a build as Spiegel, Sinon’s Agility was far from low. Numerically speaking, she ought to be around the same as Kirito, who claimed to be a Strength-first player.

But as they sprinted together, Sinon found that it was everything she could do to keep up with that long, fluttering black hair. Something about the way he carried himself was different. Kirito leaped over every countless rock and sudden crack at the water’s edge, as though he had their locations memorized. The way that he occasionally looked back to check on her and seemed to be slowing down to match her pace filled her with spite.

On the other hand, they reached the flatlands of the southern half of the island much faster than she expected, thanks to the way Kirito found the easiest route to run. Eventually the riverbed beneath her feet turned to concrete, and the skyscrapers of the city were just ahead. They finally reached the ruined city, the main battlefield of the map.

“We never caught up to him,” Sinon noted to Kirito as he rested his legs. She’d been hoping that they might catch Death Gun emerging from the river in an unarmed state, so they could pick him off easily. “You don’t suppose we passed him at some point, do you?”

Kirito turned back and grimaced at the river behind them. “No, definitely not. I was watching the water while we ran.”

“Oh…”

For one thing, without an Aqua-Lung, he couldn’t stay submerged in the water for more than a minute. Death Gun was already carrying the massive L115 rifle, so he couldn’t have the weight capacity for another big piece of equipment. He must have sunk into the water, followed the current north, then gotten out somewhere out of sight and run off.

“Then he must be hiding out somewhere in town already. The river ends right over there,” she pointed out, indicating the culvert beneath the city that the water flowed into. Thick metal bars blocked the pipe, making it clear no player could slip in. Obstacles like that were programmed to be indestructible, even to a hundred plasma grenades.

“Good point…Only three minutes until the next scan. And as long as he’s in this city, there’s no way to hide from the satellite’s eye, right?” Kirito asked. Sinon thought for a second before nodding.

“Right. In the last tournament, you showed up even on the first floor of a high-rise building. The only places to hide are the water or the caves, both of which have major risks. There’s no other place to hide from the scan.”

“Okay. Then once we learn his location in the next scan, we’ll rush him before he can shoot anyone else. I’ll go in directly, and you back me up.”

“Fine,” Sinon shrugged, “but there’s one problem. Death Gun isn’t his character name, remember? We can’t confirm his location on radar if we don’t know which name refers to him.”

“Oh…g-good point,” Kirito murmured, his pretty eyebrows wrinkling. “Well, there were three names you didn’t recognize on the list of thirty, right? I was chasing after Pale Rider, and that wasn’t him. Which leaves two…Musketeer X and ‘Steven’… If one of the two is in the city, then we’ll know for sure.”

“But if they both are, we don’t have time to think it over. We need to decide which one to attack right now. Oh, and by the way…” She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t help but notice that a musket is a type of gun, and if you turn the X diagonally, it becomes a cross, like the sign he was making. I don’t know, maybe that’s a little too convenient…”

“Hmm…Well, I think everyone’s character names in MMOs are generally pretty cliché. I mean, mine is just a wrinkle on my real name. What about you?”

“…Same.”

They shared an awkward look, then cleared their throats simultaneously. Kirito clearly wasn’t able to decide yet. He mentioned, “Meanwhile, if this ‘Steven’ is a foreigner, like his name suggests, that would settle the matter. Are there any foreign players in the BoB?”

“Umm…”

She checked her wristwatch—under two minutes until the scan. Sinon tried to explain as quickly as she could. “For the first tournament, you could choose either the US or JP server, and I understand that a few non-Japanese players were on the JP server, with the Japanese interface and all. I wasn’t playing GGO yet at the time, but from what Spiegel told me, the first BoB champion was one of them. Supertough, just slaughtered all the Japanese players with a knife and handgun alone.”

“Huh…What was his name?”

“Um, Sub…Subti-something. It was a weird name. But by the time I started playing, you could only connect to the JP server if you were actually located in Japan, so all of the players in the second and third BoB have been Japanese…or at least residents of Japan. So even though ‘Steven’ was written with the alphabet, it must be a Japanese person.”

“I see,” Kirito muttered, blinking hard, then made up his mind. “Okay, if they’re both in the city, we’ll go after Musketeer X. If I get hit with a stun round like Pale Rider, don’t panic. Just get into sniping position. Death Gun will emerge and try to finish me off with that black pistol. Shoot him then.”

“Uh…”

Sinon forgot that there was only a minute left. Her eyes went wide, staring into his big black pools. “Why…would you…”

…trust me so much? she finished without saying. “I mean, what if I shoot you in the back, rather than Death Gun?”

Kirito’s eyebrows shot upward in surprise. He grinned very slightly. “I already know you wouldn’t do that. C’mon, it’s time. Let’s do this, partner.” The lightswordsman dressed in black patted her arm and starting trotting up the stairs from the riverbed to the city.

The spot he touched got the same odd, warm tingle she felt in her fingertips yesterday. She followed him up the stairs. She had already lost count of how many times she’d reminded herself since yesterday that he was an enemy she needed to defeat.

They lined up near the top of the concrete steps, crouching just below the spot where they could be seen from the city, waiting for the fourth satellite scan of the day.

She had the satellite terminal in one hand and the chronograph on the other. In real-world time, it was 8:59:55…56… If the battle was going at the same pace as the last time, they’d be in the latter stages, with less than half the combatants remaining. In fact, just moments ago they’d heard gunshots and explosions from the city overhead. The sounds temporarily stopped—they were all in hiding, watching their terminals now.

Eight seconds, nine seconds…Nine o’clock.

A number of white and gray dots appeared on the terminal map.

“Start from the top, Kirito!” she commanded, touching the two dots next to each other on the west bank of the river at the south end of the city. The names that appeared were, of course, KIRITO and SINON. Since no close-range battles would take fifteen minutes, the other players had to realize by now that they weren’t fighting, but working together. It wasn’t against the rules, and players had cooperated this way in the past, but they had to be thinking, Sinon? Of all people? All she hoped was that none of the stream cameras caught her in the act of working with him.

She kept all of this distraction at bay as she touched all the northern dots, dead or alive, checking the names. No-No, Yamikaze, Huuka, Masaya…all famous, recognizable names. If neither of the two names they were searching for showed up in town, it meant their theory was wrong from the very start…

Wait.

“…There!” they both shouted in perfect synchronization.

At the outer edge of a round, stadiumlike building in the center of the city. The name popped up at the perfect sniping location with a great view: MUSKETEER X.

She and Kirito shared a look, then returned to their terminals. They cross-checked, Sinon from the north and Kirito from the south. Five seconds later, they looked up again and nodded.

“Musketeer X is the only one in the city,” Sinon whispered.

“And ‘Steven’ isn’t,” Kirito rasped. “That means Musketeer X is Death Gun. And he’s probably aiming for…”

He placed a finger on a dot over a building to the west of the center stadium—the name was Ricoco. In order to move to another spot, he would have to expose himself to Musketeer X.

Even as Sinon noted this, Ricoco’s dot started heading for the building exit. The instant he stepped out into the street, he’d be hit by that L115’s stun rounds. They had to stop Death Gun before he approached and shot his victim with that pistol again.

Kirito stashed his terminal away and faced Sinon. He was about to say something, then closed his mouth, followed by a simple, “Cover me.”

“You got it,” she replied, getting up. She walked up the stairs in front of Kirito, checked the area, then waved him onward, bouncing up the last stair herself.

The ancient ruined city at the center of the island known as ISL Ragnarok seemed to be modeled after New York City in the real world. Soaring towers that combined practicality with traditional beauty split the evening sky, while English signboards and advertisements covered the street-level surfaces. Naturally, they were all cracked with age and covered in vines and sand.

Sinon and Kirito sprinted down the street that ran over the river as it went underground. Aside from the two of them, Death Gun, and his target, the city contained at least five or six other players, but there was no time to worry about them now. Fortunately, the previous scan showed no one close enough to reach their street at a moment’s notice. There were also rotted-out yellow taxis and large buses here and there that served as excellent cover. The pair ran north, weaving through the vehicles.

With their AGI-aided sprinting, they raced 700 meters in less than a minute—half the length of the city—until the large round stadium appeared before them. Sinon motioned Kirito over to the shadow of a nearby bus. They peered out through its cracked panorama window.

The outer wall of the stadium was about three stories high, with entrances at each cardinal direction. If Musketeer X hadn’t moved since the satellite scan, he would be just above the western entrance. Sinon stared up at the top of the wall. Thanks to her Hawkeye skill, the distance effects faded away, bringing the distant objects into focus. At the lip of the crumbling concrete, there was a little triangular split, just like an arrowhole…

“…Found him. Up there.”

She’d seen the glint of a rifle barrel in the light of the setting sun, and so had Kirito. He responded, “Looks like he’s still waiting for Ricoco to emerge…Let’s attack from the rear now, while we have the chance. You get into sniping position from the building across the street.”

“What…? But I’m going with you into the stadium,” she started to protest, but he cut her off with a look.

“This is the best way to make use of your ability. I’ll be able to fight him freely, knowing that you’ll back me up with your gun if I get into trouble. That’s how a team works.”

“…”

She had no choice but to agree with him. He grinned the tiniest bit and checked his watch. “I’ll start combat thirty seconds after splitting off from you. Will that be enough time?”

“…Yeah, more than enough.”

“Good. Let’s do it, then.”

The black-haired swordsman pulled away from the bus, faced Sinon directly for a moment, then took off running for the stadium’s south gate without a sound.

Sinon felt a strange feeling in her chest as she watched his slender back race off. Nerves? Concern? It was similar, but different. Was it—could it be—forlorn loneliness…?

What a stupid thing!

She clenched her teeth, cursing herself.

I’m acting entirely rationally, all in an attempt to win the BoB and prove that I am the greatest player in this world. I want to get rid of Death Gun so that he stops sowing chaos with his mysterious system-transcending power, and temporarily working with Kirito is a necessary step to achieving that. As soon as we succeed, the lightswordsman becomes my enemy again. We will split up, and the next time I meet him, I’ll pull the trigger without hesitation, defeat him, and forget him. I’ll never see him again after that.

She ran, ignoring the prickling sensation around her heart. Some buildings in the city could be entered and some couldn’t, and those that could had very obvious entrances. For instance, the building to the southwest side of the wide, barren circle surrounding the stadium featured a gaping hole where the wall should be.

If she climbed up to the third floor, she’d be able to see over the outer wall of the stadium. It was too close for proper sniping; the target would almost certainly see her. But if Kirito creeped up on Death Gun, the player would be too distracted to notice her. She’d wait for an opening and shoot. Then she’d leave the city and Kirito behind. That was the plan…

Sinon believed she was acting as calmly and rationally as she always did. But she couldn’t deny that a considerable part of her was dominated by a very different, uncharacteristic thought.

She recognized this just as she was about to pass through the crumbled part of the building wall, and felt a powerful chill in her back. She started to turn around, but couldn’t even do that before she fell right into the street.

What…just…?!

At first she couldn’t tell what had happened.

A shiver ran up her back…something shone on the left side of her vision…she automatically raised her left hand, and a violent shock ripped through the outside edge of her arm. She was about to leap forward into the nearby building, thinking she’d been shot, but her legs wouldn’t move, and she sprawled out onto the street.

Once all of that had properly registered in her brain, Sinon tried to sit up, but her body wouldn’t listen. All she could move was her eyes. She tilted them down at her extended left arm, to check the forearm for damage.

But it was not a bullet piercing the sleeve of her desert camo jacket—more like a silver needle. It was about a fifth of an inch wide, and two inches long. The base of the needle made a high-pitched whir and glowed, while little stringlike sparks traveled from her arm to the rest of her body.

An electric stun round.

It was the exact same projectile that had paralyzed Pale Rider—noncompatible with assault rifles, machine guns, or handguns, but usable only with certain large-bore rifles. And she hadn’t heard a shot.

There weren’t many players using large rifles with suppressors.

But even after accepting all of this, Sinon couldn’t bring herself to accept that it was him who had shot her. After all, the stun round hit her from the south. But he was in the stadium to the north. He was supposed to be aiming for a different target, unaware of Sinon’s presence. And she was certain that no player would be able to attack her from the south this early, based on what she’d seen in the Satellite Scan. No-No, Huuka, and Yamikaze were all on the other side of the severely collapsed region that would take time to navigate.

She couldn’t understand. Why? Who? How?

It wasn’t words that answered her, but a single sight.

Little dots of light fizzled into life in a space about sixty feet to the south, where there should have been nothing. Someone appeared out of thin air, like a chunk had been cut out of the world itself.

Her paralyzed throat opened in a fierce, soundless bellow.

Optical Camo!!

It was the ultimate camouflage material, sending light itself through the surface of the armor and making the wearer invisible. But that skill was supposed to be available only to a small subset of extremely high-level unique boss monsters. Did they throw some mobs into the map of the BoB as a new experiment? They hadn’t announced any such thing.

With a flap in the wind, the dark gray cloth cut through the chaos of her racing thoughts.

A long, trailing cloak, the surface in tatters. A hood of the same color that entirely covered the head. To her shock, her attacker turned off the Optical Camo and revealed himself. It was the cloaked player, who should not have been there.

Death Gun.

The silent assassin who had erased Pale Rider just minutes ago, and possibly killed the previous champion, Zexceed, and the major squadron leader, Usujio Tarako.

On the inside of the wavering cloak, she could see the barrel of the massive rifle stretching nearly to his feet, and the sound suppressor fixed to the end. If the large cloak had camouflage abilities, it could cover the entire rifle and allow him to snipe while invisible. Even better, in fact—he could hide from the Satellite Scan. It was the only explanation for why there hadn’t been a dot near the road on the latest scan.

Did that mean Death Gun wasn’t Musketeer X…?

…Kirito.

Sinon called the name of the swordsman in the back of her head, realizing that he was somewhere in the stadium behind her, about to attack the wrong player. She didn’t hear his voice respond, of course.

Instead, she heard only a soft, scraping footstep. The cloaked player was sliding closer. In the depths of his dark hood, two glowing red points blinked at irregular intervals.

The eerie, ghostlike presence stopped about six feet away from Sinon’s prone form. A hissing, creaking whisper came from his hidden face.

“Kirito…This will tell, if you are real, or false.”

The cloaked player knew that Kirito was in the stadium, and yet was speaking to him, not her. The halting voice was metallic, and nearly without emphasis of any kind, though it seemed to be hiding some kind of enormous, burning emotion on the inside.

“I remember, seeing you, fierce with rage. When I kill this woman…your partner, I will know, you are real, if you go mad again. Now…show me. Show me, your anger, your bloodlust, your madness, once again.”

Sinon didn’t understand a word of what he was saying. But the cloaked man’s terrible announcement actually had the effect of lowering her shock and fear somewhat.

Kill? Me? A guy who has to skulk around and hide behind camouflage?

Anger burst forth within her. The heat of that feeling overrode the numbness in her body.

The stun round was still sparking madly, but because it hit her in the left arm, she could just barely manage to move her right hand. Fortunately, the grip of her MP7 SMG was just within reach. She might be able to hold it, point it up, and pull the trigger. If she could fire a whole magazine into him, she just might win.

Move. Move!

The commands Sinon sent from her brain through the AmuSphere somehow overcame the game system’s paralysis effect, and her right hand began to crawl. Her fingers brushed the familiar grip of the MP7.

At the same time, Death Gun removed his empty left hand from his cloak and lifted it slowly, ponderously. Two fingers touched his hooded forehead. Though she hadn’t noticed it before, there was a three-layered, pale blue circle in the air behind Death Gun’s head with a blinking red [•REC] in the middle—the stream camera. Countless viewers within and without GGO were watching footage of Death Gun in the midst of his triumphant cross gesture, with Sinon collapsed miserably on the ground in front of him.

His bony hand, clad in black leather, crossed his breast to the left shoulder. Meanwhile, Sinon had the grip of the MP7 in her palm at last.

The guns in GGO had safeties, of course, but nearly all players left them off in battle, prioritizing the increased quickness to fire over the infinitesimal chance of firing accidents. Sinon was one of them. She just had to aim and pull the trigger. She had time. She would make time.

Death Gun finished his cross, stuck his right hand into his cloak, and began removing it just as quickly. Sinon did her best to raise the MP7 with her numbed hand. She nearly fumbled it several times, but recovered desperately in each case. The ultrasmall, three-pound SMG was impossibly heavy. But Death Gun would still need to cock the hammer before he fired. She would surprise him by firing at that moment…

But the instant he removed his hand and she saw the automatic pistol, Sinon’s entire body turned to ice, gun hand included.

Why? It was just an ordinary pistol. She’d been face-to-face with much bigger Desert Eagles and M500s in the past. She shouldn’t be intimidated by this one. She just had to grip the MP7, point it at the enemy, and pull the trigger.

But before she could jolt her arm into motion again, Death Gun put his left hand against the slide, and she caught sight of the left face of the gun. In particular, she saw the all-metal grip with vertical serrations, and the little logo in the middle.

A star inside a circle.

A black star.

The Black Star. Type 54. The Gun.

Why…? Why now, why here, why that gun?

The SMG that was her final hope slipped out of her powerless hands. She didn’t even register the sound of it hitting the ground.

The hammer cocked with a click. His left hand enveloped the grip, and he took aim at Sinon with the sideways Weaver stance. Suddenly, the darkness under the hood of the cloak twisted eerily. It wavered and dripped like a viscous liquid, revealing two eyes.

Bloodshot whites. Small black irises. Dilated pupils that looked like deep holes.

It was him. The man who had barged into the post office at that little northern town five years ago with a Type 54 and tried to shoot Shino’s mother. Little Shino had leaped onto the gun in a mindless panic, wrested it away, and shot him with it—they were the eyes of that very man.

He’s here. He was here, hiding in this world, waiting for his moment of vengeance.

She had no more sensation in any part of her body, not just the right hand. The red sun and gray of the ruins was gone, leaving only two eyes in the darkness and the barrel of the gun.

The sound of her heartbeat was huge in her ears. If she passed right out, the AmuSphere’s safety measures would automatically log her out, but her mind stayed intact, waiting for the moment he pulled the Black Star’s trigger. The trigger creaked. Just a fraction of an inch more, and the hammer would hit the firing pin, releasing the .30-caliber full metal jacket. It wouldn’t deliver numerical, game damage. It was a real bullet. It would pierce Shino’s heart, turn it off, and kill her.

Just as she did to that man.

This was fate. There would be no escape. He would have tracked her down and found her, even if she hadn’t chosen to play GGO. It would have happened one way or another. Everything was pointless. She shouldn’t have even bothered trying to cut herself free from her past.

Amid that torrid whirlpool of resignation, there was one tiny feeling like a single grain of sand.

She didn’t want to give up. She didn’t want this to be the end. She was finally about to understand the meaning of strength. The meaning of fighting. If she stayed with him and watched him go, one day, it would all click…

The gunshot cut that line of thought short.

She didn’t know where she’d been shot at first. Sinon closed her eyes, waiting for the moment her mind turned to nothing.

But…

It was the cloaked player who lurched forward. The eyes inside his hood vanished, returning to red glowing points. An orange damage effect was gleaming on his right shoulder. Someone had shot Death Gun. Before another thought could penetrate her mind, there was a second shot. This bullet grazed the left shoulder of the cloak from behind. Based on the impact of the sound, it was a very high-caliber gun. The cloaked man crouched and promptly ducked through the hole of the nearby building to hide.

Sinon could still see Death Gun from her angle. He put the Black Star back in its holster and pulled the L115 down from his shoulder, exchanging the magazine—from the stun round to its deadly .338 Lapua rounds, she guessed. Even Sinon, as a sniper herself, had to admit that his movements were quick and precise as he pointed the lengthy rifle, looked through the scope, and fired without hesitation.

The silenced shunk of his shot happened at the exact same moment that a third attack came from behind. But this wasn’t a gun. An object like a small gray can of juice rattled into the street between Sinon and Death Gun—a grenade. Death Gun withdrew further into the building.

She shut her eyes tight. She’d take massive damage if a grenade went off this close to her. Still, that was better than being shot by the Black Star. In fact, dying normally was much preferable. She’d bow out of the tournament, then leave GGO and VRMMOs entirely, living quietly in the real world. Living in fear of when the man would track her down again…

But once again, things did not play out as Sinon expected.

The grenade that exploded half a second later was not the popular plasma type, or ordinary gunpowder or napalm—it was a smoke grenade that emitted harmless gas.

“…!”

Sinon held her breath as her entire vision was shrouded in white smoke.

If she was going to escape, this would be her final chance, but the stun effect hadn’t worn off yet. If she could pull the stun dart out of her arm, she’d regain mobility at once, but she couldn’t even get her right arm to move around that far. More important, she no longer had the spirit to stand.

She lay there on the ground, mind essentially nonfunctioning, her eyes wide open—when someone grabbed her left arm.

She was dragged upward. Whoever it was dropped the large, unfamiliar gun and pressed a hand to Sinon’s back. Before she had time to topple over, she and the Hecate on her shoulder rose up into a pair of arms.

After that, she felt acceleration nearly crush her body. The wind whipped in her ears. Eventually the surrounding smoke thinned out, and as her vision returned, she caught sight of the player who was running with her in his arms.

Pure white skin. Eyes black as obsidian. Long hair trailing in the wind.

Kiri…to.

She couldn’t form the sounds. His girlish face was too beautiful, and the expression on his features too serious—no, desperate—for her to speak. She could tell that he was giving the commands to his avatar so fiercely and intently that his nervous system was practically charring itself.

It made sense. Even if Kirito was a STR-first player with only a lightsword and handgun for equipment, adding Sinon and the Hecate had to put him just at his weight-carrying limit. The fact that he could run this fast in those circumstances was nothing sort of miraculous. And on second examination, he wasn’t unharmed. There were fresh damage splashes on his right shoulder and left arm. The brightness and volume of light said that the cause was very high-caliber bullets. As an American VRMMO, GGO was programmed with a fairly low pain-absorption level, so while serious wounds like this wouldn’t actually hurt, there would be significant numbness.

It’s okay…Put me down and go.

But she couldn’t say it aloud. Her entire body, her whole mind, was numb.

So when the high-caliber round came screaming just past her face from behind, Sinon did no more than blink. In its slowed-down state, her mind processed the details. She didn’t hear a gunshot, which meant the bullet came from Death Gun’s L115. It was way too close and precise a shot to have passed through the smoke, which meant he was pursuing them. She didn’t know what kind of build Death Gun had, but he had to be at least as fast as Kirito. He’d catch them eventually.

Kirito had to understand that as well. But the lightswordsman never slowed down or made a move to drop Sinon. He just gritted his teeth, panted heavily, and kept sprinting.

They circled around the east side of the stadium, trying to pass into the north half of the ruins. Just as on the south side, a main street went straight north. There were more abandoned cars and buses here, but not enough for them to stay out of sight until they left the city. Where was Kirito taking her…?

That question was answered by a half-busted neon sign that appeared on the side of the road.

The blinking sign, barely visible in the evening light, advertised RENT-A-BUGGY & HORSE. It was an unmanned rental vehicle business, just like the one in Glocken. Nearly all of the three-wheeled buggies in the parking lot were destroyed, but there was one that seemed like it might still be functional.

But that wasn’t the only vehicle. As the sign advertised, next to the buggies were several large, four-legged animals—horses. But these were not living creatures. They were robot horses whose metal frame and gearworks were exposed to the air. Once again, there was one that might be functional.

Kirito raced into the parking lot and waffled for just a second between the three-wheeled buggy and the robot horse. Through her stiffened jaw, Sinon was just able to grunt, “No…horse. It moves fast, but…too difficult to ride.”

Very few people could master the manual-shift buggy, either, but the robot horses were even harder. It was more of a player skill issue than a statistical numbers game, so lots of tedious practice was necessary to master it. With less than a single year in the books for GGO, no player had had enough time to dedicate to learning such a task yet.

Somehow, her advice didn’t make up Kirito’s mind for him, but he eventually gave in and trotted over to the surviving buggy. He touched the start-up panel and turned on the engine, put Sinon on the rear step and hopped into the seat, kicking the accelerator on. The thick rear wheels screeched, and the buggy turned hard, sending up a cloud of smoke.

Once he had the vehicle pointed north with the street, Kirito shut off the machine for a second and shouted, “Sinon, can you blow up that horse with your rifle?”

“Huh…?”

As movement finally started to return to her right arm, she pulled out the stun round at last. Only when she turned back to look at the robot horse did she understand. Kirito didn’t want Death Gun chasing after them with it. That seemed quite unlikely to her, but she nodded anyway.

“F-fine, I’ll try…”

Her arms were still trembling as she tried to hoist the Hecate back up. She pointed the gun toward the cold, gleaming horse barely twenty yards away. That was close enough that her skill level would automatically hit the target, even without looking through the scope. She put her finger on the trigger to bring up a pale green bullet circle, then focused it tight on the horse’s flank. She squeezed…

Click.

Her eyes went wide. It didn’t give.

She couldn’t pull the trigger. She looked down at the side of her trusty gun to make sure she hadn’t somehow turned on the safety, but that wasn’t the case. She squeezed again. But the sensation was as tough as if the trigger was welded into place.

“Huh…? Why…?”

Click. Click. It was still the same. She looked down at her finger and saw something she never expected: her finger wasn’t even touching the trigger. Between her pale fingertip and the smooth steel was empty space a fraction of an inch wide. No matter how hard she squeezed, she couldn’t close the gap…

“I can’t…pull it… What the…? I can’t pull the trigger!” she wailed in a little squeak. It wasn’t the voice of Sinon, the sniper with ice in her veins, but the whimpering of Shino Asada in the real world.

Just then, a black figure came into view through the haze of smoke around the east end of the stadium.

It wore a tattered cloak that flapped and kicked violently in the wind. A massive rifle in the right hand. It was Death Gun—or the man who had always tormented her, taking Death Gun’s form.

Her vision went dark. Her legs went limp. Her body was cold.

No…no, it’s the onset of one of my spasms. I’ve never had one while I’m here, while I’m Sinon. And I was even fine on my very first dive, when they shoved a pistol into my hand…

“Sinon! Hang on!” came a loud voice, and a hand gripped her arm hard. She clutched Kirito’s torso as he guided her. A moment later, the ancient fossil-fuel engine roared. The front lurched up into a wheelie, and the buggy shot forward onto the road.

Each time Kirito stomped on the shift pedal, the corresponding lurch in acceleration threatened to pull Sinon off the vehicle. She just barely kept her wits from surrendering to terror and clung to the skinny body with all she had. Only the faint bit of body heat she felt from him kept the encroaching darkness from swallowing her entirely.

Now in top gear, the buggy’s screech echoed off the walls of the ruins as it raced up the main street.

Are we going…to escape?

She didn’t have the courage to look around and see. It was at this point that she realized her whole body was shaking.

Sinon moved her shaking fingers and pushed the Hecate back up onto her shoulder just before Kirito shouted nervously, “Crap, not yet! Stay alert!”

She turned around out of habit to see the robot horse she’d failed to destroy leaping out of the now-distant parking lot. Her eyes went wide with disbelief, but she didn’t need to check who was riding it.

The rider’s cloak billowed out like the black wings of an ominous raven. The L115 was slung over his back, and his hands clutched the wire reins. The way he stood up in the saddle and bucked with the movement of the horse was that of an experienced rider. The heavy rumbling of its hooves as it galloped churned up the innermost part of her brain.

“But…how…?”

He shouldn’t be able to ride it. She’d heard that even experience with real horses didn’t prepare one to ride these mechanical horses. But the black knight smoothly steered around the husks of cars in the street, leaping over one on occasion, pursuing the buggy at the same pace.

He no longer looked like a player to her, but an incarnation of the fear that poured out of her. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t help but focus on the face of the rider over two hundred yards behind them. It was too far a distance to make it out on sight, but even still, Sinon saw two eyes and a large, leering mouth in the darkness of the hood.

“He’s going to catch us… Go faster…faster…faster!” Sinon shouted shrilly, nearly a shriek.

Kirito responded by gunning the gas even harder. But just as he did, one of the rear wheels went over a piece of debris and lost its grip, causing the buggy to slide to the right.

Sinon screamed and leaned left, trying to regain her balance. If the buggy spun out here, Death Gun would be upon them in barely ten seconds. Kirito desperately tried to control the lurching vehicle, swearing at it with all he had.

After several seconds of high-pitched tire squealing and snaking back and forth, Kirito had it under control and speeding up again. But in that short delay, Death Gun closed much of the distance.

More and more obstacles appeared on the highway that split the city, taunting them and forcing the buggy to corner to the best of its ability. On top of that, small piles of sand formed here and there on the road, making it harder for the wheels to maintain their grip. It swayed to the sides with each little dune, causing Sinon’s heart to skip a beat each time.

These conditions applied to their pursuer as well, but the obstacle course was more of a handicap for the buggy than the four-legged mount, and Death Gun smoothly piloted it around the broken vehicles, gaining ground all the way. On top of that, he had one absolute advantage.

Both the three-wheel buggy and robot horse were meant to seat two. One of them was carrying two people, while the other had a single rider. The buggy’s acceleration was clearly slower than the horse’s.

Each time it passed behind cover and showed up again, the rider’s silhouette grew steadily larger. Though it was much too far away to reach her, Sinon felt the hissing, grating breath against the back of her neck.

Just when he closed the gap to about a hundred yards, Death Gun took his right hand off the reins and pointed it at them. In his grip was the black handgun: the Type 54 Black Star.

Sinon stared at the gun, her body frozen, unable to hide on the back step of the buggy. Her teeth trembled and chattered irregularly. Without a sound, a red bullet line touched her right cheek. Sinon’s neck craned to the left on its own, without her willing it to move.

The next moment, the barrel of the gun flashed orange like a demon opening its jaws…

Clang! The deadly bullet passed about four inches to the right of Sinon’s cheek with a high-pitched roar.

Even after the bullet raced in front of the buggy and hit a wrecked, old car in front of them, tiny little particles of light hung in the air and touched her cheek. She felt a sharp, cold pain, as if she’d just touched dry ice to the spot.

“Aaaah!!” she screamed, turning away from the grim reaper behind her and burying her face in Kirito’s back. A second bullet hit the rear fender of the buggy, sending a hard shock through her legs.

“Oh no, oh no…help…help me…”

She shrank up like a baby, whimpering. The gunfire stopped, but the hoofbeats grew steadily louder as Death Gun switched to a new strategy that would get him a better shot.

“Sinon… Can you hear me, Sinon?!” Kirito shouted, but she couldn’t respond. She could only crouch down on the buggy’s rear step, moaning to herself.

“Sinon!!”

This final, fierce bellow caused her to stop at last. She slowly craned her neck until the rear view of Kirito’s flowing hair came into sight. He was staring straight ahead and gunning the gas, his voice calm despite the obvious tension.

“Sinon, he’s going to catch up with us at this rate. You need to snipe him.”

“I…I can’t…”

She shook her head like a sulking child. The weight of the Hecate II pressed into her shoulder, but instead of the usual drive to fight, the sensation brought her nothing.

“You don’t need to hit him! Just keep him at bay!” Kirito continued, but she could only shake her head.

“I…can’t… He…he’s…”

Sinon knew that even if she put a 12.7 mm bullet in the heart of the ghost from her past, he would not stop. A warning shot would produce nothing.

Instead, Kirito turned around, his black eyes flashing. “Then you take over driving! I’ll shoot that gun instead!!”

That shook something tiny that still remained within Sinon—a meager amount of pride, perhaps.

The Hecate…is part of me. No one else…can use it…

The fragmented thoughts sent a tiny pulse through her trigger hand. She ponderously took the massive rifle off of her shoulder, set it down on the roll bar across the buggy’s rear, then hesitantly got up and peered through the scope.

Even at the minimum magnification level, the short distance to the target—less than a hundred yards—made Death Gun and his robotic horse take up a third of the view. She reached up, ready to bump up the zoom to get a better shot at the center of his body, then stopped.

It occurred to her that if she zoomed in any further, she’d get a good view of the face under the hood. Her fingers stopped moving. Sinon moved her right hand to the grip and entered sniping position.

Death Gun should have noticed what she was doing, but he did not stop or show any signs of evading. He kept coming straight for them, hands on the reins. She knew he was disrespecting the threat she posed, but she didn’t feel any anger—all she felt was fear at the possibility that he might once again pull out that cursed reincarnation of the Type 54 that once attacked Shino.

One shot. Just one shot. Even if he saw the bullet line, she might be close enough that he couldn’t dodge in time. It was a weak, passive hope, but that was all Sinon had to scrape together at this point. She moved her index finger to the trigger, ready to pull.

But once again, that strange stiffness crept into her finger and prevented it from working.

No matter how hard she squeezed, her finger would not touch the trigger. It was as if the Hecate itself, her trusty partner, was rejecting her…

No, that wasn’t it. She was rejecting it. Inside of Sinon, Shino was refusing to fire the gun.

“…I can’t shoot,” Sinon/Shino rasped. “I can’t shoot. My finger won’t pull the trigger. I…I can’t fight anymore.”

“Yes, you can!” a stern voice belted, right into her back. “Everyone can fight! The only choice is whether to fight or not to fight!”

Even with that challenge from the man she chose as her greatest rival, the vanishing flame within Sinon’s heart barely wavered.

A choice. Then I choose not to fight. I’m tired of feeling this pain. Every time I thought I found hope, it was taken away and destroyed; I’m tired of it. It was an illusion that I could be stronger through this game. I have to bear my hatred for that man and fear of guns for the rest of my life. I have to look down at the ground, hold my breath, don’t look, don’t feel…

Suddenly, a burning flame enveloped her frozen hand.

Sinon’s eyes opened wide.

Kirito had turned his body around on the front seat of the buggy and leaned over her back. He stretched out his arm as far as it could go and grabbed her hand just before she could pull it off the Hecate’s grip, squeezing it tight.

He must have fixed the pedal to keep the buggy going at top speed, because they weren’t slowing down, but sooner or later they would hit an obstacle in the road if he didn’t turn back around to steer. Kirito paid no mind to any of that. He shouted in her ear, “I’ll shoot with you! So just move that finger once!”

Sinon didn’t even know if the game would allow two people to fire one gun together. But she did feel a blazing warmth where Kirito’s palm touched her, slowly thawing her frozen fingers.

The index finger twitched, the joint creaked, and her skin touched the metal of the trigger.

A green bullet circle appeared ahead, but it extended well past Death Gun’s body, bouncing and pulsing wildly with the racing of her heart and the rattling of the buggy. At this rate, Death Gun wouldn’t even need to worry about dodging.

“It’s n-no good…There’s too much shaking to aim,” she groaned weakly.

His reassuring voice sounded in her ear. “Don’t worry, the shaking will stop in five seconds. Ready? Two…one…now!”

There was a sudden bounding noise with a terrific shock, and the rumbling simply stopped. The buggy had climbed up something and jumped into the air. She caught sight of the ground out of the corner of her eye and noticed a wedge-shaped sports car stuck in the ground like a primitive ramp. Kirito must have pointed the buggy straight for it before he turned around.

How can he stay so calm in these circumstances? Sinon wondered for just an instant. But she denied it just as quickly. No…it’s not being calm. He’s going all out. He’s not making excuses, he’s choosing to use every ounce of ability he has to fight. That’s it—that’s his strength.

The previous day, in the final of the preliminary bracket, she asked Kirito if he had that much strength, what could he possibly be afraid of?

But that question itself was a mistake. True strength was facing forward despite fears, troubles, and suffering. There was only one choice there: to stand or not to stand. To shoot or not to shoot.

She couldn’t imagine herself doing what Kirito did. But, if not forever—at least now.

Sinon tried with all of her mind and body and soul to pull the trigger of her beloved gun. The spring, tuned to be light, felt unbearably heavy. But with the help of the warm hand doubling hers, her finger steadily sank into it. The bullet circle shrank just enough to make her feel a bit better, but the enemy’s silhouette didn’t even fill half of the sphere.

It probably—definitely—won’t hit him, she thought as she pulled the trigger, the first time she’d ever made a shot as a sniper with that attitude.

The Hecate II positively exploded, releasing its pent-up dissatisfaction in a blinding flash from the muzzle.

Her uneven support prevented her from eliminating the recoil, knocking her backward, but Kirito was there to keep her steady. As the buggy passed the peak of the jump and began to descend, Sinon kept her eyes wide, watching the course of the bullet. The projectile cut a spiral in the evening air, just barely passing to the right of the reaper’s horse behind them.

I missed…

There were more bullets in the magazine, but Sinon didn’t even have the willpower to pull the bolt handle anymore.

But perhaps because the “goddess of the underworld” had too much pride to miss entirely, the enormous antimateriel round did not just open a harmless hole in the asphalt; it rammed into the side of a large truck stretching across the highway.

Nearly all of the man-made objects placed around the GGO environments could be used as cover for players to hide behind. But since this was taking as many cues from an FPS as an MMORPG, there were certain risks involved with that. When objects like barrels and large machinery took enough damage, they might explode. Every once in a while, a decrepit old car rotting in the road still had gas in the tank, and if a bullet struck true…

A small flame licked out of the side of the large truck. Death Gun noticed this as he was about to pass around it, and tried to have the robot horse jump to the other side of the street.

But an instant before he could, an enormous fireball erupted, bathing the truck and horse in blinding orange light.

The three-wheel buggy landed at last and jolted off the ground at the same moment that the shock wave of the explosion rumbled the street below. She didn’t see the explosion itself, because it was blocked by the sports car they’d jumped off of, but there was no missing the resulting jets of flame and spraying metal parts of the robotic horse.

Did we beat him? she wondered for just a moment, then stamped out that ray of hope. There was no way a simple explosion would kill that grim reaper. At best, they had bought some time. Still, even that felt like a tremendous miracle at this point.

Kirito was facing forward again, regaining control of the buggy and accelerating once more. Sinon slumped over the rear step, staring at the black smoke cloud rising in the purple sky of evening. No thoughts came to her mind. She simply gave in to the rumbling of the racing buggy.

The density of rusted-out vehicles and buildings began to thin, replaced by more rocks and odd-looking plants, until she realized the three-wheeled buggy had passed out of the city and into the desert to the north.

Even the road steadily turned from cracked asphalt to simple sand that had been hardened into furrows. The rumbling of the tires got much fiercer, so Kirito slowed down and drove them between the dunes at a more moderate pace.

Sinon started counting the number of big cacti on either side for no good reason, until it occurred to her to check the watch on her left wrist. The fine needle pointed to 9:12. To her surprise, the string of events from leaving the river bed at the south end of the city until now had taken barely ten minutes.

But in that small span of time, Sinon’s perspective on the BoB final—if not the entire game of GGO itself—had changed dramatically.

Now that she could think with some level of rationality again, there was no way that the player behind Death Gun could be the same man as the one Shino had shot in the attempted postal office robbery years ago. The gun that had put that idea in her head in the first place—the Type 54 Black Star—was a minor but reasonably common gun in GGO. In fact, it had a pretty low price on the market. It wasn’t impossible that Death Gun would happen to choose it for a sidearm.

The problem was that seeing the gun had shocked and frightened her, nearly prompting one of her fits. One of Sinon’s goals in this game was to fight against an enemy using a Black Star. She had believed that if she came face-to-face with The Gun, she would deal with it without shrinking, just as she had dispatched countless other targets in this world.

But in reality, this had happened. The effects of the stun round had worn off already, but her whole body still felt dull, and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Even the comforting weight of the Hecate in her arms was painful.

It was all a lie. An illusion. The massive kill score I built up over these weeks and months and the strength I thought that number represented meant nothing in the end…

As she hung her head, the tires slid over the sand and came to a halt. She heard Kirito’s calming voice. “Well, the view’s nice…but there’s not much in the way of places to hide…”

She dimly recalled that when Kirito saved her from her paralysis, he was heavily damaged already. He probably wanted to find a safe place to hide out in the desert so they could use the auto-distributed first aid kits to regain some HP. But the healing speed on those items was significantly slow. If they were going to recover safely, they’d need more than just sand dunes and cacti to hide behind.

Sinon lifted her heavy head and looked around. She noted some reddish rocks off in the distance and pointed them out. “There…We’ll probably find a cave over there.”

“Oh, good idea. I remember you saying that the caves in the desert area were hidden from the Satellite Scan,” Kirito replied quickly, turning the buggy off the path and into the thicker sand. In less than a minute they were there, circling around the rocks. As she expected, there was a large cave mouth in the north face of the rock. Kirito slowed the buggy down and drove it right in.

It was fairly spacious on the inside, with a dozen or so extra square feet of space, even after they rolled the buggy into a spot hidden from the view of the entrance. It was dark in the back, but thanks to the faint bits of sunset reflecting off the walls, it wasn’t totally black.

Kirito turned off the engine and stepped onto the sand, stretched, then turned back to Sinon. “Let’s stay here for now to avoid the next scan. Oh, but wait—does this mean we won’t get the satellite data on our terminals, either?”

She couldn’t help but smirk at the impertinence of his question. Sinon got off the buggy on lifeless legs, made her way to a wall and slumped down against it. “Of course not. And if someone happens to be nearby and tosses a grenade in here on a hunch, we’ll both be blown up.”

“Good point. Well, it’s still better than disarming entirely to hide underwater. Speaking of hiding,” Kirito said, wandering away from the buggy and glancing toward the entrance, “he just popped up right next to you. Does that ripped-up cloak of his have the ability to make him invisible? When he just vanished at the bridge, and didn’t show up on the satellite, maybe it wasn’t because he was in the river…”

“I think you’re right. That was an ability called ‘Metamaterial Optical Camo.’ They said it was only something bosses used…but I suppose it’s possible that some equipment can make use of it,” she explained, then realized what Kirito was worried about. She glanced at the mouth of the cave and added softly, “I think we’re fine here. It’s rough sand below. He can go invisible, but not silent, and we’ll see the footprints. He can’t just pop up the way he did earlier.”

“Good to know. We’ll have to keep our ears open,” Kirito said, convinced, then sat down to her right a few feet away. He rummaged in his belt pouch and pulled out a tube-shaped medical kit, then clumsily pressed it to his neck and pushed the button on the far end. It made a little hissing sound, and his avatar was briefly consumed with a red visual effect that indicated healing. A single kit would heal about 30 percent of one’s HP, but the full effect took three minutes, so it wasn’t much use in combat.

Sinon looked back to her watch. It was just now nine fifteen, the time of the fifth satellite pass. But as she had told Kirito earlier, the signal wouldn’t reach them, so there was no point in checking the map.

At the last tournament, the battle royale had started at eight o’clock, just like this one, and it had taken a bit over two hours for the final showdown between Zexceed and Yamikaze. If this one played out at that pace, there would be around ten people left right now. Last time, Sinon was the eighth fatality, just twenty minutes in, so she’d improved on her record considerably—not that she was in any mood to celebrate it.

Sinon lowered her hand, leaned back against the wall of the cave, and mumbled, “Hey…do you think, maybe…Death Gun died in that explosion…?”

In her heart, she knew the likelihood of that was incredibly low. But she couldn’t help but ask. After a long silence, Kirito answered, “No…I saw him jump off the robot horse before the truck blew up. It was close enough that he got hurt…but I can’t believe he’d be dead from that.”

It was true that an explosion at that close range normally caused considerable damage.

Normally. To a normal player.

But he wasn’t normal. He used that Black Star to kill Zexceed, Usujio Tarako, and probably Pale Rider as well. Maybe the cloaked man really was a ghost, wandering the network. She couldn’t say that out loud, of course. All she did was grunt in understanding, place the Hecate in the sand next to her, and clutch her knees.

Head pressed downward, she asked, “How did you save me that quickly when you were in the stadium? Weren’t you up on the outer walls?”

She thought she detected a wry grin from him. Sinon turned her head to see the lightswordsman leaning against the wall, hands folded behind his head.

“I could tell at first glance that Musketeer X wasn’t the guy we were looking for after all…”

“…How come?”

“Because she wasn’t a guy, she was a woman. A proper one, not my fake F-model kind.”

She murmured in surprise. Kirito shook his head and looked a tad bitter.

“That was when I realized we’d missed something big…and when it occurred to me that Death Gun might go after you alone, I rushed up and cut down Musketeer X while she was still giving me her name. I’ll have to apologize to her later about that…”

Sinon grunted again, but couldn’t help but wonder if he intended to apologize for rushing his opponent rudely, or simply because his opponent was a woman. But before she could say anything, he continued:

“I took a hit, too, but I still won, and when I looked to the south, I saw you collapsed in the street…It looked like trouble, so I grabbed Musketeer’s big rifle, as well as a smoke grenade, and jumped down from the walls. Then I started shooting and tossing and charging and…”

He shrugged, as if to say, You know the rest.

Which meant one of the two bullet wounds in Kirito’s body was from Musketeer X’s rifle, and the other was from Death Gun’s L115. He made it sound like no big deal, but she’d seen his defensive capabilities in the battle against Xiahou Dun. The fact that he’d taken two shots was a sign of how desperate he had been to save her.

On the other hand, you could say that this showed Sinon was just holding Kirito back. Perhaps, even with Death Gun’s unexpected Optical Camo gear, she might have paid more attention to her surroundings and sensed him coming, avoiding the stun round properly. If she’d been able to regroup with Kirito sans paralysis, they might have been able to take down Death Gun right then and there.

Assuming he was just a normal player and not a vengeful ghost, of course.

Sinon bonked her forehead against her knees, plagued by indecision and a feeling of powerlessness. She felt Kirito lean closer. He murmured, “You don’t have to take it out on yourself like that.”

“…”

She took a small breath and waited for him to continue.

“I didn’t realize he was hiding in wait, either. If we’d taken the opposite roles, it could have been me who got stunned. And if that was the case, you’d save me, right?”

That peaceful, sensible voice pierced Sinon’s heart deeply. She closed her eyes, feeling it throb with pain.

He’s consoling me. I thought he was my rival…I thought I’d be fighting him on equal footing. And all this time, he saw my inner weakness. He’s been cheering me up, like I was a child in need of encouragement.

And even harder to bear, harder to forgive, was the realization that somewhere within her, just as strong as her humiliation, was a desire to give in to his comfort, physically and mentally.

Sinon…no, Shino knew that if she admitted to the fear and pain that agonized her and reached out just a few feet, the mysterious but honest and simple lightswordsman would accept her and buoy her with all of his feelings and words. He might even give her the forgiveness that Shino had always sought but no one had ever given her since the post office attack five years ago.

But if she did that, the other part of Shino, that icy sniper, might disappear for good. And even before that, she didn’t know how she could reveal her innermost thoughts to a person she had just met the day before—a person whose real name or face she didn’t even know. Shino hadn’t truly spoken her mind even to Kyouji Shinkawa, who’d been her friend in the real world for six months.

Trapped between desperation, helplessness, hesitation, and confusion, Sinon could do nothing but clutch her knees.

Long, long seconds passed.

Eventually, Kirito spoke again. “Well, I’m going. You should stay here and rest a bit more. I really wish you’d just log out, but…it is the tournament, after all…”

“Huh…?” She automatically perked up and looked over. Kirito had stepped away from the wall and was checking the battery level on his lightsword. “You’re going…to fight Death Gun…on your own?” she rasped.

He nodded, just barely. What he said next was not an assurance of victory, but just the opposite. “Yeah. He’s tough. Even without the power of that pistol, his other gear, stats, and his skill as a player put him head and shoulders above the rest. In fact, it’ll be nearly impossible to keep him from firing that gun at least once. It was half a miracle that we got away from him just now. The next time that gun is pointed this way…I don’t know that I’ll be able to stay standing. I might actually abandon you and run away this time. So I can’t force you to take part in this any longer.”

“…”

This caught her by surprise; she assumed the swordsman had ultimate confidence in his ability. She stared at his face. The light in his big black eyes seemed to be wavering with a sudden lack of will.

“Even you’re afraid of him?” she asked.

Kirito snapped his lightsword back onto the carabiner and grinned weakly. “Yeah, I am. The old me…well, he might have fought him, even knowing it could be fatal. But now…I’ve got things to protect. I can’t die, and I don’t want to die…”

“Things to…protect?”

“Yes. In the virtual world…and the real world.”

She felt like he was referring to a connection to someone else. Unlike Sinon, Kirito had forged close bonds with many different people. Her heart throbbed again, and words poured out of her mouth before she could stop them.

“Then…just stay hidden in this cave. You can’t log yourself out of the BoB, but if we let the event proceed, and it’s down to us and one other person, we can escape. We’ll commit suicide and let whoever else win. Then it’s over.”

Kirito’s eyes widened. He grinned in understanding briefly, then shook his head. It was what Sinon expected of him.

“You’re right, that’s an option. But…not one that I can take. Death Gun’s probably recovering his HP somewhere else right now, but if we let him reign free over this event, there’s no telling how many more he might shoot with that pistol…”

“…I see.”

You really are strong.

Even after claiming he had something to protect, he hadn’t lost the courage to risk his life standing up to that angel of death. When she had been ready to give up both.

Sinon smiled a lifeless smile and thought about what would happen to her once she left this island.

When Death Gun had pointed his black pistol at her in the street of the ruined city, she was completely lost. Her bones turned to ice. She screamed and shrieked while on the escape, and couldn’t even pull the trigger of her beloved Hecate. Sinon, sniper of ice, was on the verge of obliteration.

If she stayed hidden in this cave, she’d never be able to trust her own strength again. Her heart would shrivel, her fingers would stiffen, and every shot would miss its mark.

Not only would she not overcome her memories, but even in the real world, she would quiver in fear of the man’s appearance from every shadowed corner, through every door or window. That was the fate that awaited Sinon and Shino, virtual or real.

“…I…” She looked away from him and mumbled, “I won’t run.”

“…Huh?”

“I won’t run. I won’t hide here. I’ll go out there and fight him, too.”

Kirito squinted a bit and leaned closer to her. “You can’t, Sinon. If he shoots you…you might actually die. I’m a red-blooded close-combat fighter with defensive skills, but you’re not. If he sneaks up on you and strikes from point-blank range, you’ll be in much greater danger than me.”

She clamped her lips shut, then found one simple conclusion.

“I don’t care if I die.”

“…Wha…”

His eyes went wide again. She explained slowly, “I…I was terrified earlier. I was afraid of dying. I was weaker than I was five years ago…so I acted pitiful, and screamed…and that’s not going to cut it. If I’m just going to keep living life that way, I’d be better off dead.”

“It makes sense to be afraid. Everyone’s afraid of dying.”

“Well, I don’t like being afraid. I’m tired…of living in fear. I’m not asking you to help me with this. I can fight on my own,” Sinon claimed, willing strength into her limp arms to get up. But Kirito leaned over and grabbed them. His voice was tense and quiet.

“So you’re saying you’ll fight alone…and die alone?”

“…Yes. That’s probably my fate…”

Shino had never suffered any judgment for her grievous crime. That was why the man came back for her. To punish her for what she’d done. Death Gun was not a ghost—he was fate. An ordained result.

“…Let go of me. I need to leave.”

She tried to shake him off, but Kirito only held on tighter. His black eyes glittered. Those small, elegant lips formed uncharacteristically harsh words.

“You’re wrong. It’s not possible for people to die alone. When someone dies, they also die within others around them. There’s already a Sinon within me!”

“I didn’t ask for that. I’ve never put myself within anyone!”

“We’re involved right now, aren’t we?!”

Kirito yanked Sinon’s hand upward until she was right in front of his face. In that instant, the raging emotion that had been held in place at the very bottom of her frozen heart erupted. She clenched her teeth so hard they might crack, and used her free hand to grab Kirito’s collar.

“Then…”

Her weakness in search of soothing and her urge for destruction brought forth an emotion that she had never held toward anyone, and forced words she had never said before from her mouth. With all of the fire in her eyes that she could summon, Sinon shouted at Kirito, “Then protect me for the rest of your life!!”

Her vision warped suddenly. Her cheeks felt hot. Sinon didn’t realize at first that it was because tears were spilling from her eyes. She yanked her hand out of his grasp, made a fist, and slammed it against Kirito’s chest. Twice, three times, she pummeled him with all of her strength.

“You don’t know a damn thing about me…You can’t do a thing for me, so don’t act like you know! This is…this is my fight, and my fight alone! If I lose and I die, no one has the right to criticize me for it! Or are you going to bear my burden all of your life?! Are you…”

She thrust her clenched fist in Kirito’s face. The hand that had pulled the bloody trigger of a gun and stolen a human life. The filthy hand that still had the tiny spot from where the particles of gunpowder had infiltrated her skin.

“Are you going to hold…this murderer’s hands?!”

A number of voices from Shino’s memories emerged, accosting her. In the classroom, when she accidentally touched other students or their belongings: “Don’t touch me, murderer! I don’t want blood on me!!” She was tripped and pushed away. Since then, she had never actively touched another person. Not once.

She smacked him with her fist one more time. There was no system-provided protection here; the entire island was a battlefield. So each blow had to be doing some tiny bit of damage to Kirito’s HP, but he did not budge an inch.

“Ah…aah…”

The tears kept coming, without end. She turned her face away, not wanting him to see her cry, and her forehead thumped against his chest.

She squeezed her face against him, still gripping his collar, sobs escaping between her clenched teeth. Even as she was wracked with uncontrollable childlike gasps, she couldn’t help but marvel that this kind of energy had been within her all this time. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d cried in front of someone.

Eventually, she felt Kirito’s hand on her shoulder. But Sinon batted it away with her clenched fist.

“I hate you…I hate you!” she shouted, her virtual tears falling one after the other, fading into Kirito’s thin shirt.

She couldn’t tell how long she stayed like that.

The tears dried up at last, and Sinon felt as empty and powerless as if her soul had left her body and evaporated into the air. She leaned with all of her weight against the swordsman. The sweet pain that took hold in her chest after her cathartic explosion of emotion felt comfortable now. She kept her forehead against his shoulder, breathing in and out.

Eventually, it was Sinon who broke the long, long silence.

“I still hate you…but let me lean on you a bit longer,” she mumbled. He murmured in the affirmative. She budged, leaning over atop Kirito’s jutted-out legs. She still didn’t want him to see her face, so she turned her back to him, and saw the three-wheeled buggy, its rear bumper punctured with bullet holes, and the last dying light from outside of the cave entrance.

Her head felt dull and fuzzy, but unlike the lack of thought when she was under attack by Death Gun, this felt more like the floating liberation of removing tight, heavy clothes. Eventually, the words found their way to her lips.

“The thing is…I killed someone.” She didn’t wait for Kirito’s response. “Not inside a game. I killed a real person, in real life. Five years ago, there was an attempted robbery of a post office in a small town in Tohoku…The media reported that the culprit shot one of the employees, then died when the gun backfired. But that’s not what happened. I was there. I stole the robber’s gun, and shot him with it.”

“Five years ago…?” Kirito whispered. She nodded.

“Yes. I was eleven at the time…so maybe it was only because I was a child that I could do it. I broke two teeth, sprained both wrists, bruised my back, and dislocated my shoulder, but other than that, I was unharmed. My injuries healed right away…but some things don’t heal.”

“…”

“Ever since then, I’ve vomited and passed out whenever I see a gun. Even on TV and in manga…even when someone makes a gun gesture with their hand. When I see a gun…I see the face of the man I killed…and I get scared. Terrified.”

“But—”

“Right. But I’m fine in this world. Not only do I not have the spasms…” She looked over at the graceful design of the Hecate II on top of the nearby sand. “I’ve even learned to love some guns. So I thought, if I can be the strongest person in this world, I’ll be stronger in reality, too. I’ll be able to forget that memory…but when Death Gun attacked us earlier, I nearly had an episode. I was terrified…somehow I had gone from ‘Sinon’ back to my real self…That’s why I have to fight him. I have to fight him and win…or Sinon will be gone forever.”

She clutched herself. “Of course I’m afraid of dying. But…but more than that, I’m tired of living in fear. If I run from Death Gun and my memory without fighting…I’ll be weaker than I was before. I won’t be able to have a normal life anymore. So…so…”

She shivered suddenly, struck by a terrible chill.

“Me too…” Kirito mumbled, the weak cry of a little lost child. “I’ve killed someone before, too.”

“Huh…?”

This time it was Kirito’s body, still stuck to her back, that shivered.

“I told you earlier…that I knew the cloaked man…Death Gun, in a different game.”

“Y-yeah.”

“The name of that game was…Sword Art Online. I assume you’ve heard of it?”

“…”

It was largely what she expected to hear, but she couldn’t help but turn her head to look up at him. He had his back against the wall of the cave, his dim eyes staring out into space.

Sinon recognized the name, of course. There couldn’t be a VRMMO player in Japan who hadn’t heard of it—the cursed game that trapped ten thousand people inside of it for two years, ultimately stealing four thousand of those lives.

“Then, you’re—”

“Yes. They called us SAO Survivors on the Net. And so is Death Gun. I’m positive that we fought there, each trying to kill the other.” Kirito’s eyes floated in space, seeing only the distant past. “He was a member of a red guild named Laughing Coffin. In SAO, based on the color of your cursor, we called criminals ‘orange players,’ and groups of thieves ‘orange guilds.’ Those who actively pursued and enjoyed killing were ‘red.’ And there were lots of them…lots.”

“B-but…didn’t you actually die in that game, if your HP went down to zero…?”

“That’s right. But that was exactly the point. A number of players found killing to be the ultimate pleasure. Laughing Coffin was a group of them. They attacked parties in the fields and dungeons where the system wouldn’t protect them, stealing their gold and items, then killing them. The other players started to watch out for them, but they came up with ways to continue finding victims…”

“…”

“So finally, we formed a giant party to vanquish them, and I was in the group. When I say ‘vanquish,’ we weren’t hoping to kill the members of Laughing Coffin, we just wanted to neutralize their threat and send them to jail. We found their hideout at great pains, got together players that we knew could handle them, level-wise, and ambushed them at night. But…the info got out somehow. They trapped their lair and waited for us. We managed to rebound, but it was a terrible battle…and at some point, I…”

His body trembled again, eyes wide and breath short.

“I killed two of them with my own hands. I chopped…one’s head off with my sword. The other, I stabbed through the heart. The plan was just to imprison them, but I forgot about all of that. My mind was racing…but…that’s just an excuse. I could have stopped, if I’d thought of it. But I let my fear and anger drive me. At heart, I’m no different from them. In a way, my crime might be even worse. I mean…”

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then continued, “I mean, I completely forgot about what I did. Ever since I came back to the real world, I never once thought about the face or name of the two I killed then, or the one other I killed much later. Not until I met Death Gun…in the dome beneath the regent’s office yesterday…”

“So you’re saying Death Gun was one of those…Laughing Coffin members…”

“Yeah. He must have been one of the members who survived and was taken to prison. I remember his attitude, the way he talked. I can almost…almost remember what his name was at the time…”

He shut his eyes tight and pressed his knuckles to his forehead. Sinon just watched him, her back pressed against his knees.

The boy named Kirito was a player of Sword Art Online.

For two years, he had fought with his actual life on the line, and survived.

She’d had her suspicions about him. But until he told her in his own words, she hadn’t appreciated the weight of those facts. She recalled his question during the preliminary final yesterday.

If that bullet could actually kill a player in real life…and if you didn’t kill them, either you or someone you care about would die, could you still pull the trigger?

That was the exact dilemma that Kirito had traversed. In a way, it was extremely similar to the incident that befell Shino in that post office five years ago.

“Kirito…”

Sinon got up and grabbed his shoulders. The boy’s gaze was just a bit out of focus, staring at some point in his past. She stuck her face in his anyway, looking right into his eyes.

She rasped, “I can’t say anything about what you did. I don’t have the right. So I really don’t have the right to ask you this, either…but I want you to tell me just one thing. How…how did you overcome those memories? How did you beat your past? How can you be so strong right now?”

It was such a careless and self-centered thing to ask someone who had just spelled out his own sins for her. But she had to ask him. Kirito claimed that he forced himself to forget, but Sinon couldn’t even do that.

And yet…

Kirito blinked two or three times, then looked right into her eyes. Slowly, he shook his head.

“…I haven’t overcome them.”

“Uh…”

“Last night, all my dreams were about the battle against Laughing Coffin, and the three people I killed with my sword. I barely got any sleep. I’ll probably never forget the looks on their faces, their voices, their words…in the moment they disappeared…”

“B…but…” Sinon stammered. “But…wh…what am I supposed to do, then…?”

Will I be like this my whole life?

It was too cruel a sentence.

Was it all pointless? If she left this cave, fought Death Gun and somehow won, would Shino’s real-life pain continue forever—regardless of everything…?

“The thing is, Sinon,” Kirito said, raising his right hand to softly cover hers as she squeezed his shoulder, “that’s probably the right way of things. I lost my rational mind and killed people. And I wasn’t blamed for it; I was hailed as a hero. No one punished me, and no one taught me how to make amends for what I did. So I took advantage of that, and avoided examining what I’d done. I tried to forget. But that was a mistake. I cut them down myself, ended their lives, and I should have taken on that weight and continued to think about it. That was the very least I could have done to make amends, and I didn’t…”

“…Accept it…and…think about it. But…I can’t do that…” she mumbled.

“No matter how hard you try to keep it at bay, you can’t erase the past, and your memories never disappear. So…all you can do is look them straight in the face and fight, so that you can one day accept their burden.”

“…”

The strength went out of Sinon’s arms, and she slid back down over Kirito’s legs. With her back and head resting on him, she gazed up at the ceiling of the cave.

Accept the memories, and fight. She couldn’t possibly see herself as capable of that. The path to salvation that Kirito found belonged only to him, and she had to find her own way of coping, she felt. But even still, his story might have cleared up one of her troubles. She glanced at his pale face in the gloom and mumbled, “Death Gun…”

“Hmm?”

“You’re saying that under that tattered cloak is a real, actual person.”

“Well, of course. He was a former officer of Laughing Coffin, that’s for sure. If I could just remember his name from SAO, we’d be able to find out his name and address in the real world. To be honest, that’s why I’m here in this game.”

“…Oh…”

So that meant that at the very least, the cloaked man was not a ghost from Shino’s past. She squinted and thought it over. “Then you’re saying he can’t get over what happened in SAO, and came here to GGO…so he could keep PKing?”

“I think it’s more than that… When he shot Zexceed and Tarako, then Pale Rider in this event, he chose situations where lots of eyes were on him. Same thing with making the sign of the cross—he’s doing all of this to convince a greater majority…that he has the power to kill people from within the game…”

“But how can he do that…? The AmuSphere’s not like the original…NerveGear, they called it? It can’t emit those dangerous microwaves, right?”

“Supposedly. But according to the person who hired me to come here, the cause of death for Zexceed and Tarako wasn’t brain damage, but heart failure.”

“Huh…? Heart?”

The moment she heard that word, something chilly crawled up her back, and Sinon couldn’t help but shiver. Though it seemed impossible, she put her thought into words. “Meaning…he killed them with…some kind of curse, or supernatural powers…?”

As soon as she said it, she was afraid he would laugh at her, but all that came back was Kirito’s tense gaze.

“To be honest…unless we find the real person controlling that cloaked avatar, I couldn’t begin to guess how he’s killing them. I want to imagine that there’s no way for someone firing virtual bullets to stop the heart of a flesh-and-blood player…but, wait…now that you mention it…”

He stopped and rubbed his narrow chin with his fingers, which seemed to be his habit when thinking hard. Sinon looked at him askance from her position atop his knees. He murmured vaguely, “That’s…weird…”

“What is?”

“When we were in the ruined city, why did Death Gun switch over to his rifle to shoot me, rather than using his black pistol? He was certainly close enough, and in terms of sheer power, the pistol should be higher—one bullet is literally lethal, after all. On top of that, I failed to avoid the rifle shot. If he used the pistol, he could have killed me for sure…”

She found it stunning that he could rationally analyze the chances of himself dying like that. Nevertheless, Sinon offered her own thoughts. “Maybe because he didn’t have time to make the sign of the cross? Or the Black Star…oh, I should point out, that gun is called a Type 54 Black Star…”

She momentarily had to stifle the unpleasantness of saying the name aloud before continuing, “Maybe he thinks he has to make the sign when he shoots that thing. Or perhaps the cross is necessary for him to do the killing?”

“Hmm…but when we were escaping on the buggy, he was shooting at you with the Black Star. How could he be making the sign of the cross while riding horseback?”

She glanced over at the three-wheeled buggy. The bullet hole in the rear right bumper clearly belonged to a 7.62 mm round, not the much larger .338 Lapua Magnum bullet. And she had witnessed for herself that Death Gun pulled out the Black Star while on horseback and shot at her without making the sign of the cross.

“Yes…you’re right. That’s true.”

“Meaning that Death Gun could have killed me, but didn’t. Yet he shouldn’t have a reason to let me go. I was the one who won the prelim block…and to be totally honest, I stick out more than you…”

“Sorry for being so plain,” she said, elbowing him in the side.

He cleared his throat and continued, “Fine, let’s say we’re about the same. At any rate, maybe it wasn’t that he couldn’t shoot me, but that he had some other reason not to shoot me…”

“Hmm.”

Sinon rolled over, so that she was facing downward atop Kirito’s lap. She folded her hands over her head. Her suspicion of and resistance to the boy hadn’t disappeared, but she felt that the warmth of their avatars’ contact helped keep the black sensation away. She was surrounded by a pale glow of reassurance, and her head was slowly regaining its sense, thinking faster and faster.

“By the way, you were right when you said something was weird…”

“I did?”

“I’m talking about the bridge. He shot Pale Rider with the Black Star, but totally ignored the helpless Dyne right next to him. I was sure he was going to shoot Dyne, too.”

“Oh…but he was already dead at that point, wasn’t he?”

“He was only dead in that his HP was gone and he couldn’t move. But his avatar was still there, and his mind was still logged in. If his power transcends the game, why should the presence or absence of HP make any difference to him?”

Kirito grunted. “Good point. That’s exactly right. Same as in the city, in that original scene, Death Gun had some kind of reason for shooting Pale Rider, but not Dyne…”

“Meaning…this? Between you and Dyne, and me and Pale Rider, there’s some kind of common element, marking some players as targets, and some players not,” Sinon muttered. She felt Kirito nod.

“I think we can assume that’s the case. And going back to earlier, I feel like Zexceed and Tarako must have shared something with you and Pale Rider, too. Maybe it just comes down to strength, or ranking, or whatever…”

“Pale Rider was tough and all, but he wasn’t in the last tournament. Dyne’s much higher when it comes to BoB rankings.”

“Then maybe…it has something to do with a special event?”

“Not the case. I was in Dyne’s squadron until just recently, and we ventured out on several expeditions together. I hadn’t met Pale Rider, or even heard his name before this.”

“What about Zexceed and Tarako?” Kirito asked. Sinon grimaced and turned over again. She looked up at the pretty face and shrugged.

“Those two were celebrities within the game a rank above people like me and Dyne…Zexceed was the previous champion, and Usujio Tarako was fifth or sixth, but also ran the largest squadron on the server. I’d only talked to him once or twice.”

“Hmm…Maybe it’s equipment, then…or build type…”

“Everyone has different gear. I’m a sniper, Pale Rider used a shotgun, Zexceed had a superrare XM29 assault rifle, I think. Usujio Tarako used an Enfield machine gun. As for build…oh.”

“What?” Kirito asked. She raised her eyebrows in apology.

“I wouldn’t call it a common connection…but if you really wanted to stretch, you could say that none of us played particularly AGI-heavy builds. But even that’s kind of wind. Some of us were more STR-based, others more VIT…”

“Hmmm…”

Kirito’s pretty lips curled up, and he scratched at his head. “Maybe he’s just choosing his targets without a good reason…I dunno, it feels like there’s got to be something there, though. You said you’d spoken to Usujio Tarako, right? What did you talk about?”

“Umm…”

She tried to revisit her weak memory of the event, placing her hands between her head and Kirito’s legs, so that she was using him for a pillow. It occurred to her that this was formally known as a “lap pillow,” and felt a sudden embarrassment rising within her, but punted it away under the guise of emergency circumstances.

As a matter of fact, she hadn’t made lengthy contact with another person like this for several years. An odd comfort buoyed her heart, as though he was supporting some of her mental weight with the physical. When it occurred to her that she’d like to maintain it for a bit longer, the weak smile of Kyouji Shinkawa floated into her head, and she felt guilty for some reason. If she got back to the real world safely, maybe she’d work on tearing down that wall between them…

“Hey, Sinon? What about Tarako?”

“Oh…uh, right.” She blinked to clear her thoughts and revisited the distant memory. “I mean, it really was just for a moment. I think…it was after the last tournament, when we went back to the first-floor hall of the regent’s office, just outside. We talked about what the prize would be for two or three minutes…but I didn’t fight him directly in the battle, so it was just idle chatter.”

“I see. And Death Gun wasn’t in the last tournament…He couldn’t just be holding a grudge about not winning a prize…It sounds like it’s just a waste of time conjecturing about unlikely causes.”

Kirito sighed. He blinked a few times, trying to change his mood, and looked down at Sinon. “By the way, I didn’t look it up beforehand…What is the prize?”

Impressed that in their dire situation, he had the ability to care about what the event’s grand prize was, Sinon answered, “You get a choice. The options vary depending on where you place…but we seem to be lasting pretty long here, so it might actually be good stuff. Assuming we survive the ordeal in one piece.”

“Like what, for example?”

“For starters, guns or armor…maybe hair dyes you can’t buy in the market, or clothes. But they won’t have special capabilities, they’ll just stand out from the crowd. Also, it’s kind of weird, but they’ll send you model guns based on the ones in the game.”

“Model guns? So, like…not in-game items, but actual physical replicas?”

“Yep. I placed poorly last time, and none of the in-game items were very good, so I chose that option. In fact, I think Tarako chose a model gun, too. I mean, yeah, it’s a toy, but they use metal, so it’s actually quite realistic and fancy. At least, that’s what Shin—er, Spiegel said. As for me…”

She recalled the travesty of what happened when she pulled the model gun out of her desk drawer a few days earlier, and grimaced. “I shoved it away in my desk, and haven’t really looked at it.”

But Kirito seemed to have latched on to something, and he didn’t notice the look on her face.

“A prize…in real life?” he muttered, his expression surprisingly serious. “And did the company itself send it to you? From America?”

“Yes, through EMS—international mail. That’s actually a pretty expensive service. I wonder if Zaskar makes a fortune on this game,” she smirked.

But when she looked at Kirito again, she blinked in surprise. The lightswordsman was biting his lip, staring intently at a point in space. It was not the look of one considering what he might receive as an award.

“Wh-what…? What’s wrong?”

“EMS… But listen, I just made a GGO account the other day, and the only things they asked for in terms of player info was an e-mail address, age, and gender. How did they get your address?”

“Did you already forget?” Sinon asked, exasperatedly spreading her hands. “Remember how there was an address field when you registered for the BoB prelims in the regent’s office yesterday? There was a warning there: If you leave it blank, you can still enter, but you might not be eligible for certain prizes. You didn’t enter your info, did you? You can’t fill it in later, so you won’t be able to get a model gun…wait, what?!”

She yelped as Kirito put a hand on her shoulder and lifted her face up toward his own. She froze, thinking he was about to do something inappropriate, but of course, that wasn’t the case.

His face was more serious than she’d ever seen, right up in hers. But she couldn’t fathom what was so important about what he was asking her.

“What did Dyne pick in the last tournament?”

“Umm…I-I think it was in-game gear. He showed me once; it was a really ugly-colored jacket.”

“And Zexceed?”

“I-I don’t know…I’ve never talked to him. But…he was all about efficiency, through and through, so I don’t think he’d have any interest in a purely cosmetic item. So maybe he picked the model gun. I heard that the winner and runner-up can get huge rifle replicas. But…why do you ask?”

Kirito didn’t answer her. He stared into her eyes, but she could see his mind was afloat on a sea of thoughts.

“Not a virtual item…but a real model gun…If that’s the connection between you, Pale Rider, Zexceed, and Tarako… EMS addresses…regent’s office terminal…That’s the place where…” he mumbled, barely forming fragments of sentences, “Optical Camo…but if it works…not just outdoors…”

Suddenly, the grip on her shoulder went as hard as stone. His eyes were gaping wide, the tiny black dots trembling. Was it…shock? Or fear?

Sinon got up just a tiny bit and shouted, “Wh-what? What is it?!”

“Oh…oh, my God…This is crazy,” he croaked, out of luscious red lips. “I…I’ve been making a terrible mistake…”

“M-mistake?”

“When you play a VRMMO…the player’s mind goes from the real world to the game world, and you’re talking, running, and fighting there…So I just assumed that Death Gun was choosing his targets and killing them from here…”

“He’s…not…?”

“No. The player’s body and mind aren’t going anywhere. The only difference between the real world and the virtual world is the amount of information the brain processes. A player wearing an AmuSphere only sees and hears digital sights converted into electron pulses.”

“…”

“So you see…when Zexceed and the others died, they were in their own rooms. Along with…the real…killer…”

“What…? What are you saying…?”

Kirito clamped his mouth shut for a moment, then opened it again. The breath of his next statement emerged on Sinon’s cheek as freezing mist, as if chilled by his own fear.

“There are two Death Guns. The first one, the avatar in the cloak, shoots the target in the game. The second one, who is already in the target’s real-life room, kills the player as he lies defenseless and unaware.”

At first, she didn’t understand what Kirito meant. Sinon lurched upward, her mind a blank. She shook her head back and forth.

“But…then…that’s impossible. How could they find their…”

“You just said it. They got model guns.”

“Then…then the company is doing it? Or did they breach the database somehow…?”

“No…that’s very unlikely. But even an ordinary player can figure out the address of the targets. Only if they appeared in the BoB final, and they chose a model gun for their prize, however.”

“…”

“The regent’s office. Anyone who elects to receive a model gun uses the terminal there to input their real name and address. I wondered about it when I was filling out the prelim entry form…Remember how they didn’t put the terminals into booths or private rooms, but right in that wide-open hall space?”

Sinon finally caught on to what Kirito was getting at. She gasped and shook her head in tiny, trembling bursts.

“No…you mean he spied on the terminal screen from behind? That’s impossible—the distance effects would render text impossible to see beyond a short distance, and you couldn’t possibly miss a person being that close to you.”

“What if they used a scope or binoculars? Someone I know claimed to have spotted someone punching in a security code using a simple mirror. Is it possible to nullify the distance effect using an item?”

“That would be crazy. If you used binoculars in such an obviously public place, you’d get reported to the GMs and banned. This is an American game, so they take player harassment very seriously.”

But Kirito was expecting that response. He leaned in even closer and whispered his theory, the words just barely audible.

“What if…what if the cape Death Gun’s wearing…can make use of the Optical Camo ability in town? It was very gloomy in the regent’s office hall. If he went invisible in the shadows, nobody would notice him. If he used large binoculars or a scope while hidden, and watched the terminal screen…couldn’t he also read the address and real names that players were entering on the form?”

“…”

Invisibility and long-distance sight tools. It might be possible with that particular combination. In-game menu windows were invisible to other players unless you enabled it, but because the touch panel monitors on the terminals could sometimes be used by a group of people at once, they displayed to everyone by default. In both this tournament and the previous one, Sinon had entered her address and name with the screen set to visible. Had someone…had that leering reaper in the tattered cloak actually been watching her from behind? So he could copy her name onto his murder list?

She desperately searched for reasons to discount it, unable to accept the ramifications of this theory.

“But…even if they knew the real address…how would they get inside without a lock? What about the victims’ families?”

“Both Zexceed and Tarako lived alone…in old apartment buildings. They probably had real outdated electronic locks with weak security. Plus, they’re guaranteed that any target logged in to GGO will be completely unaware of their presence. Even if breaking in proves difficult, they don’t have to worry about being detected.”

She took another deep breath. It was only in the last seven or eight years that home locks had followed car locks in transitioning to keyless electronic models. It made lockpicking impossible, but she felt like she remembered reading about the early models having “master signals” like master keys, that were cracked and rearranged into unlocking devices that were traded on the black market. Since then, she used not just an electronic lock, but a physical one and a keypad as well. That reassurance did not eliminate the cold crawling up and down her back, however.

Death Gun was not a vengeful spirit from the past, or an avatar with mysterious powers, but a normal, real-life killer.

As the theory took on more and more weight in her mind, a different kind of fear settled over her body. Urged onward by a sense of resistance that she didn’t understand, she came up with the last possible rebuttal.

“Then…what about the cause of death? You said ‘heart failure,’ right? Can they stop the heart using some method the police and doctors can’t detect?”

“They probably inject some kind of drug, if I had to guess…”

“But…wouldn’t they find that? Like the injection mark, or—”

“The bodies were apparently discovered after a significant amount of decomposition. Plus…sad to say, it’s not that uncommon for VRMMO players to die of heart attacks. After all, they’re just lying around all day without eating or drinking…As long as the killer isn’t ransacking the house or stealing anything, the authorities are going to assume it was a natural death. Still, they took a close look at the state of the brains, but from what I understand…if they didn’t expect that the victims were drugged, they wouldn’t detect something like that.”

“…No way…”

She clutched Kirito’s jacket, shaking her head like a child having a tantrum.

Killing for the sake of killing, using such incredibly thorough means…The mind of someone who would do such a thing was beyond her understanding. All she felt was unlimited darkness, filled with tremendous evil.

“…It’s insane,” she whispered.

Kirito nodded. “I know. It’s crazy. But…while I can’t understand it, I can imagine it. He was willing to go to those lengths to stay a ‘red player.’ I know that…because there’s also a part of me that still feels like the swordsman who fought on the front line of Aincrad…”

The name was unfamiliar, but she soon processed that he was referring to the castle floating in the sky that was the setting of Sword Art Online. For just an instant, she forgot her fear.

“I think…for whatever reason, I understand, too. There are times when I think of myself as a sniper…but then, what about the other one, not the player in the cloak…?”

“Yes, I think it’s likely that they’re another SAO survivor. Possibly even a fellow survivor of Laughing Coffin…You can’t pull off a murder like this without significant teamwork…Oh, wait. Maybe…”

She gave Kirito a quizzical glance, prompting him to explain.

“Oh, it’s nothing serious. I was just thinking about the cross gesture. It could be both a sign for the audience, as well as camouflaging a chance to check his watch. After all, he’s got to coordinate things with the accomplice in the real world in a very tight window. And he can’t just keep checking his watch every time he shoots—it would stick out.”

“I see…If he hid a small watch on the inside of his wrist, he’d be able to see the time when he touches his forehead.”

Sinon couldn’t help but be impressed at the ingenuity of the idea. Suddenly, Kirito grabbed her by the shoulders. His face was more serious than ever as he slowly asked, “Sinon…do you live alone?”

“Y…yes.”

“Do you lock up? What about a door chain?”

“I have both an electronic lock and an old-fashioned cylinder lock…The lock itself is one of those early electronic types. And the chain…”

She stopped, frowning as she tried to recall what she did before diving in.

“…might not be on.”

“Okay. Listen carefully, then.”

There was deeper concern on Kirito’s face than she’d ever seen before. Her body went as cold as if ice had been poured into her chest.

No, I don’t want to hear what comes next, she thought, but his lips didn’t stop.

“Death Gun tried to shoot you while you were paralyzed next to the ruined stadium. In fact, when he was chasing us on the robot horse, he did shoot at you. That must mean…his preparations are complete.”

“Prep…arations? What kind of…”

Her voice was barely audible. Kirito paused for the slightest of moments and whispered back.

“I think it’s possible that…at this very moment, Death Gun’s accomplice is in your room back in the real world, watching the tournament and waiting for the moment you get shot.”

It took quite some time for his words to penetrate her mind and form a tangible meaning.

The sights around her faded as the familiar sight of her room came to her mind. She stared down at the small room from a height, like some kind of out-of-body experience.

There was the tile flooring that she vacuumed regularly. The pale yellow rug. A small wooden table. The black writing desk on the west wall, next to a black pipe-frame bed. The plain white sheets. On top of the bed, dressed in loose sweater and short pants, was herself—eyes closed, a double-ringed metal device around her forehead. And…

Standing at the edge of the bed and watching the sleeping Shino, a dark figure. Its form was blacked out into a simple silhouette, but one thing in its hand was clearly visible: a cloudy glass syringe with a silver needle extending from the end, filled with a fatal substance.

“No…no…”

She turned her tense, creaking neck, moaning. The vision disappeared, replaced by a sandy cave, but the glinting of the intruder’s syringe still flashed in her eyes.

“No…it can’t be…”

It was more than just “fear” at this point. A seething impulse to reject the idea raced through her, sending her entire body trembling. A stranger was standing right next to her, looking down at her helpless, unaware body. In fact, it might be worse than that. He could be touching her…looking for the right spot to inject the needle…

She felt something block her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Her back arched, squirming in search of air.

“Ah…aaah…”

Her vision faded. A rushing roar filled her ears. Her soul was ripping away from this temporary body—

“No, Sinon!!” bellowed a voice in her ear, deafeningly loud. Someone clutched her arms. “It’s too dangerous to disconnect on your own! Hang in there…try to calm down! It’s all right, you’re not in danger yet!!”

“Ah…ah…”

Her eyes were wide open, but focused on nothing, so she reached out blindly, clinging to the source of the voice. Her arms circled around the warmth of the body, clinging desperately.

A powerful arm reached around her back and enfolded her, holding her tight. His other hand tenderly, softly stroked her hair.

The whisper again: “The intruder can’t do anything to you until you’re shot by the Black Star, Death Gun’s pistol. That’s the rule they created. But if your heart rate or internal temperature causes the unit to log you out automatically, you’ll see the intruder’s face, and that puts you in danger. So you need to stay calm.”

“But…but, I’m scared…I’m scared…” she pleaded like a child, burying her face into Kirito’s shoulder. She squeezed harder and eventually felt the faint but regular rhythm of Kirito’s pulse.

Sinon focused with all her might on the pulse, trying to blot out the terrifying image hanging over the back of her mind. Tump, tump, tump. About once a second, his heart beat, the pulse blending into her body. Like matching a metronome, the wild allegro of Sinon’s pulse slowly synchronized with his.

As though she had become one with Kirito’s mind, the symptoms of her panic faded. The fear was still there, but she could tell that the reason and rationality to control it was returning to her mind.

“…You feel calmer now?” Kirito asked quietly. He started to remove his arm from her back, but Sinon shook her head.

“Stay…just like this, a bit longer.”

He didn’t respond, but she felt the solid warmth return. With each stroke of her head by the delicate hand, she felt the ice at her core melt a little. Sinon took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and let the tension flow away.

After most of a minute, Sinon mumbled, “Your hands feel like my mom’s.”

“Y-your mom’s? Not your dad’s?”

“I don’t know anything about my dad. He died in an accident when I was a baby.”

“…Oh,” he said simply. Sinon buried her face in his chest.

“Tell me what to do,” she said, her voice much firmer than she expected.

Kirito stopped stroking her hair and answered promptly, “We beat Death Gun. If that happens, his accomplice in the real world will have to disappear. In fact, you can just stay back here. I’ll fight. He can’t kill me with that gun of his.”

“Are you sure…it’ll work?”

“Yeah. I didn’t write my name or address on my entry form, and I’m not even diving from my own home. There’s someone watching over me, as well. So I’ll be fine. I’m just going to beat him according to the rules of the game.”

“But…he’s still really tough, even without the Black Star. You saw him dodge my Hecate shot from just a hundred yards, didn’t you? He might be your equal when it comes to dodging.”

“True, I’m not perfectly confident in my chances…As far as other options, like you said earlier, we can hide out here until there are only three players left, then commit suicide, but…”

He glanced at his watch. Sinon looked at the numbers as well: 9:40 PM. They’d already completely passed the nine thirty Satellite Scan. Nearly twenty-five minutes had passed since they had entered the cave.

Her eyes traveled from his watch to his face. She slowly shook her head. “I don’t think I can just keep hiding in here. Pretty soon, the other players will realize that we’re hiding in the desert caves. There aren’t that many to choose from, so they could toss in a grenade at any time. In fact, we’re pretty lucky to have survived nearly half an hour in here.”

“Oh, I see…” Kirito murmured, biting his lip and glancing at the mouth of the cave.

She told him, “We’ve been working as a team for this long. Might as well fight together to the end.”

“But…what if he shoots you with the pistol…?”

“It’s just an old-fashioned single-action handgun,” Sinon claimed, surprised at how easily the statement slipped out of her mouth. For years, the Type 54 Black Star had been The Gun—the very image of terror that plagued Shino.

But it wasn’t that the fear was gone. If it was coincidence that Death Gun had chosen the Black Star to be his symbol, then The Gun really was the very curse that haunted Shino’s life. But the one thing that she could say was that as an item in this game, the Type 54 was not very powerful. If she feared the gun more than the threat it actually represented, she would be passing up her chance to fight back.

“Even if he shoots it at me, you can use that sword of yours to knock it away with ease, right? Its firing rate is barely a tenth of a proper assault rifle, after all,” she noted, suppressing the trembling of her voice.

Kirito grinned, a combination of worry and relief. “Yeah… I won’t let him shoot you. But in order to ensure that, I think it’s best if you don’t expose yourself to him.”

She started to argue, but he held up a hand. “Trust me, I’m grateful that you’re offering to fight alongside me. But you’re a sniper, Sinon. Long-distance shooting is the entire basis of your style, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“Tell you what. When the next scan comes, I’ll jump out into the map to expose my location and draw Death Gun’s interest. My guess is that he’ll hide in the distance and try to shoot me with his rifle. You use that information to detect his location, and shoot him back. Deal?”

“…So you’re going to act as a decoy and spotter?” she asked, shocked by the reckless bravado of his plan, but based on the combination of their builds, that was probably the most effective plan they had. It was clear that in a combination of extreme close-range and long-range fighters, one of the two would be ineffective.

She took a deep breath and nodded. “Deal. Let’s do it. But you’d better not die on his very first shot.”

“I-I’ll try…but his rifle is silent, and there’s no bullet line to detect.”

“And who was it that bragged about predicting the prediction line?”

Sinon noticed that the fear hanging over her back was fading as they teased each other, still holding each other tight. In truth, she was just trying not to think about the horrifying possibility that a murderer was inside her apartment at that very moment. She had no choice but to cling to Kirito’s notion that defeating Death Gun would render him helpless. In fact, perhaps it wasn’t his words that she clung to, as much as his virtual body heat. When they left the cave and she split off from Kirito to find a sniping position, she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to maintain her current state of mind. So she leaned against him one last time, feeling the warmth of his avatar while she still had the chance.

Kirito murmured suspiciously, “Um…anyway, Sinon, I can’t help but notice that some weird red circle has been blinking in the bottom right corner…”

“Huh?”

Her eyes glanced over and saw the indicator he was talking about. For a moment, she had to remember what it meant—then her eyes shot up. She found what she expected to see on the ceiling and was about to leap up from his legs before she realized it would be pointless after that much time. She sighed, “Oh…crap, I didn’t think about that…”

Floating up in the air was an odd, pale blue group of concentric circles. It was not a tangible object, but a symbolic glowing light effect. Kirito had spotted it, too, and he was quite confused.

“Umm…what was that thing, again…?”

Sinon shrugged and answered, “It’s a livestream camera. It usually only follows players engaged in battle, but since we’re running low on combatants, it’s had to come after us.”

“Uh…crap, do you think it heard what we’ve been discussing?”

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t pick up voice unless you really shout at the top of your lungs. Go on, give it a wave,” she suggested, her tone of voice presenting a cool challenge. “Or is there someone you’d prefer not to see this?”

For a second, Kirito’s face went cold with fear, which was quickly covered with a nervous, stiff smile. “Uhh…no…well…wouldn’t that be you? Besides, wouldn’t most people watching this just assume we’re two girls?”

“Uh…”

He had a point there. In either case, it seemed that Sinon would be required to make some uncomfortable excuses. But that could wait until they had survived the current crisis.

She snorted and said, “It would be more pathetic to freak out the moment you see a camera watching you. And I don’t mind…If people want to start rumors about my tastes, at least it will cut down on the number of times I get hit on.”

“Does that mean I have to pretend I’m a girl from now on?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve conveniently forgotten that you pretended to be a girl to get me to guide you around town…Oh, it’s gone.”

Just as it occurred to Sinon that no one watching could possibly guess that they were having such a witheringly sarcastic conversation, the visual effect that indicated the presence of a camera left in search of a new target.

She sighed with relief and finally sat up. “So…it’s time. Only two minutes until the next satellite pass. I’ll stay down here and you’ll check your terminal outside the cave, right?”

She got to her feet and offered a hand to her human chair, helping him up. When she took a step backward, the chill of the desert embraced her body, causing her to wince. She picked up her rifle and clutched the cold steel, feeling the faint core of warmth within it.

“Oh, by the way,” Kirito prompted. She looked up to see that the lightswordsman’s fine brows were furrowed in thought.

“What is it now? We don’t have time to change plans.”

“No…the plan is fine. What I’m thinking about is…Death Gun’s real name, or official character name. It was Steven, right?”

“Oh…right, that was it. I wonder what the meaning of that was…”

“If I do come into close range, I’ll have to ask. Well, time to dip outside.”

The black-haired swordsman gave her a resolute nod, turned and started for the entrance of the cave. Sinon couldn’t tell if the chill on her skin even with the Hecate in her arms was from the tension of the imminent final battle, the peril that threatened her in real life—or the loneliness of being separated from Kirito.

She hunched her shoulders, drew in a deep breath of dry desert air, and called out to the back of the man walking away.

“…Be careful.”

His answer was an upward thumb, visible over his shoulder.