15

Sinon was teleported off of ISL Ragnarok, the island on which the event happened, and returned to a temporary waiting zone. She stared at the results board before her, complete with log-out timer, and tried her best to cool down her racing mind.

The event was over at last, but the Death Gun incident was not. His accomplice might still be lurking nearby when Shino returned to reality. Kirito said that he would have the police dispatched to her place at once, but given that he was logging out at the same time she was, and then had to contact his employer, it would easily take more than ten minutes. She would have to defend herself in that time.

First she’d check the safety of her apartment, then call Kyouji Shinkawa and have him come over. He might encounter the accomplice, but their weapon in the scheme—according to Kirito, at least—was a syringe full of poison, not guns or knives, so they wouldn’t possibly try to jam a needle into a conscious person in the middle of the street. Still, she would tell him to be careful on the phone, of course.

The large countdown ticked away with astonishing speed. Only ten seconds until she was logged out.

She checked the results screen one last time. At the top, Sinon’s and Kirito’s names were sparkling. It was the ultimate goal of any GGO player to be listed in that spot, but sadly, she was certain that the honor would be stripped from her. Too many fishy things happened to reach that point. She’d have to wait until the fourth tournament to reach her goal.

Stuck in third place was Death Gun’s registered name, Steven. Oddly, he spelled it “Sterben,” which perhaps meant it was supposed to be pronounced slightly differently. The cloaked man’s true identity, of course, was “Death Gun,” and his character name was nothing but a piece of camouflage.

In fourth place was Yamikaze. No doubt many players had bet on him to be the champion, which meant the betting market had to be in a state of chaos now. A list of famous names stretched down from fifth place onward, including Dyne and Xiahou Dun—ending with twenty-eighth place.

At the very end were two players who’d been disconnected: Pale Rider and Garrett.

So Death Gun had claimed two victims after all. That probably meant he had two accomplices. What kind of a group had to come together in a VRMMO, and what did they need to go through, for three people to undertake such a horrifying crime spree?

When the countdown reached zero, Sinon was feeling not the elation of victory, but a deep, freezing chill.

A momentary floating sensation came and went, and Sinon was Shino again, lying alone on her real bed.

But in fact, she might not be alone. She reminded herself not to open her eyes or move all of a sudden. She kept herself utterly still and her eyelids closed, trying to sense her surroundings through other means.

There were a few different sounds she could hear. First, her own breathing. Next, the quick thumping of her heartbeat.

The low thrum near the ceiling belonged to the heating cycle of her air conditioner. The dripping was from the tank of her humidifier. Outside the window, the gentle rumble of street traffic. A stereo subwoofer from some other apartment in the building.

That was it. No other sources of unfamiliar noise in the apartment.

She took in a slow, long breath. The only smell her nose picked up was the gentle scent of the herb soap on top of the dresser she used as an air freshener.

Nobody else is in my room, Shino thought, but she couldn’t open her eyes quite yet. She couldn’t eliminate the fear that someone might be standing just on the left side of the bed, staring down at her.

In fact, it didn’t even need to be in the room. There was the kitchen, the bathroom…the veranda…Even in her tiny apartment, there were plenty of places one could hide if they wanted. In fact, he might even be hiding under her bed. It was awful. She didn’t want to move.

Meanwhile, Kirito—Kazuto Kirigaya—should be calling the police through his government contact. In another fifteen minutes, she’d hear the police siren. If that was the case, it might be smartest just to stay put and wait.

She had just shut her eyes tight, prepared for the long wait, when her old-fashioned heater ran out of juice and spit out a burst of unheated air that brushed Shino’s exposed thigh. A chill ran across her skin, and she suddenly felt an ominous itch deep inside her nose.

She was only able to resist for two seconds. The space between her eyebrows and the bridge of her nose crinkled up, and her traitorous respiratory system emitted a small but undeniable achoo! Shino froze up, waiting for a reaction from somewhere else in the room.

Still, nothing moved.

Shino slowly, carefully lifted her right eyelid. The dimmed room glowed dully from the streetlights coming in through a crack in her curtains. She checked the state of the room, first within range of her eyeball, then with the turning radius of her neck.

For now, she didn’t see any human figures. She gingerly, silently took off the AmuSphere and placed it next to her pillow. She sat up with nothing more than her stomach muscles and took a quick look around the room.

It seemed like everything was exactly as she’d left it when she full-dove a few hours earlier.

The mineral water bottle was on the table. Next to it was a large stereo. Her schoolbag was on the floor. None of them had been moved.

Shino pushed off the sheets and moved to the edge of the bed, swallowed, then leaned over to look under the bed. Nothing there, of course.

She looked up through the crack in the curtains to confirm that the lock on her window was firmly in place.

Next, Shino set her feet on the floor and craned her neck as far as it could to peer into the kitchen. But it was far too tiny of a space for anyone to be hiding in it.

She stood up and walked over to the wall, stifling her footsteps without realizing it, and hit the light switch. The room was suddenly full of white light that spilled down to the entranceway on the other side of the kitchen.

If she squinted her eyes, she could see that the lock on the door was still horizontal. She stayed right where she was, trying to sense anything from the one place in the apartment that was separated by a wall—the bathroom. There was no sound coming from it. She tiptoed from the main room to the kitchen.

The door to the bathroom across from the sink was shut tight. It wasn’t locked, and the lights were off. Her sweaty hand gripped the aluminum doorknob.

With a deep breath, she flipped the light switch with her free hand and opened the door.

“…”

Shino stared at the interior.

“…I feel really stupid,” she muttered. The beige interior of the bathroom was, of course, empty. At long last, from her neck to her shoulder and further on down, she felt the tension drain away. She made a half turn, leaned back against the wall, and slid down to a seated position.

There was no one else in the apartment. Nor were there any signs of a break-in so far. Naturally, that did not preclude the possibility that someone had hacked her old electronic lock, watched the progress of the GGO tournament on a cell phone, then left just after Death Gun’s defeat.

If that was the case, the intruder should still be in the area. As long as the possibility of a return visit was greater than zero, she ought to call Kyouji Shinkawa for help at once—but Shino didn’t have the strength to stand at the moment.

She glanced up at the kitchen alarm on top of the refrigerator. The digital readout said that it was 10:07.

What an incredibly long three hours that was. Eating the yogurt out of this empty container here before I dove in feels like ancient history at this point.

She felt like something inside of her had changed, and also that nothing had changed.

But at the very least, the hasty panic that Shino felt dwelling within her for a very long time seemed more distant now. Perhaps she had learned that the haste to be strong, to get stronger, was an empty thing. It all started with a single step.

“All…right!” she told herself, then realized that she was ravenously thirsty. Shino walked over to the sink, filled a glass with tap water, and drank it down in one go.

Just as she was about to fill up another cup, she heard the old-fashioned ding-dong of her doorbell.

She tensed up, staring at the door. Her breath caught in her throat as she imagined the lock turning all on its own.

Perhaps it was the police already. But when she looked at the clock, it had only been three minutes since she logged out. It was much too quick for them.

She stood there long enough for the doorbell to ring again. Stifling her breathing, she approached the door without making a sound. She reached out hesitantly to put the chain on the door, but just as her fingers were about to touch it…

“Asada, are you there? It’s me, Asada!” came a familiar, high-pitched boy’s voice through the electronic lock’s intercom.

She felt the tension drain out of her shoulders and stood on her sandals as a footstool to look through the peephole, just in case. Through the fish-eye lens was the very person she was just about to call—her former classmate and GGO friend, Kyouji Shinkawa.

“Shinkawa…?” she asked through the intercom.

He immediately responded, though he didn’t sound quite sure of himself. “Um…I just wanted to celebrate with you…I bought this for you—sorry, it’s just from the convenience store.”

She looked through the peephole again to see him hold up a small box that looked like it contained a piece of cake.

“Th…that was really quick,” she blurted out. Even counting the time she spent in front of the results screen, it was less than five minutes since the tournament ended. Perhaps, instead of being at home, he’d been watching in a nearby park and rushed to the store on the way here. That hastiness was appropriate for the AGI-heavy Spiegel, she had to admit.

But at least it saved her the trouble of having to call him. She breathed a sigh of relief and put her hand on the knob. “Hang on, I’ll open up.”

She looked down as she reached over and noticed that she was still wearing the baggy sweater and short pants, which wasn’t much, but she didn’t feel in the mood to change. Shino turned the knob ninety degrees.

The door opened to reveal Kyouji Shinkawa, grinning away. He was heavily outfitted with jeans and a fleece-lined military jacket, but it was cold enough outside that even that seemed inadequate.

Shino hunched her neck at the chill against her bare legs and said, “Ooh, it’s freezing. Quick, come in.”

“Uh, sure. Thanks.”

Kyouji bowed and stepped into the foyer, squinting as he looked at Shino, as if she was glowing.

“Wh-what? C’mon, shut the door before it gets cold inside. Oh, and make sure to lock it,” she said, feeling a bit self-conscious about Kyouji’s gaze. As she turned back into the apartment, she heard the heavy click of the door lock behind her. Back in the main room, she picked up the remote off the table and turned the heat on higher. With a heavy groan, warmer air flooded into the room, driving away the chill.

Shino plopped down onto the bed and looked up to see Kyouji standing at the edge of the room, looking uncomfortable.

“You can sit wherever you like. Oh, need anything to drink?”

“Uh, no, I’m fine.”

“Listen, I’m tired, so unless you really don’t need anything, speak up,” she teased.

Kyouji finally smiled weakly, set the cake box down on the tea table, and sat on the nearby cushion. “Sorry for barging in like this, Asada. But…like I said earlier, I wanted to help you celebrate as soon as possible,” he said, clutching his knees like a child. “Um…congrats on winning the BoB. It was incredible, Asada…Sinon. You’re finally the greatest gunner in GGO. But…I always knew this would happen someday. You’ve got true strength, the kind nobody else has.”

“…Thanks,” she said, hunching her neck at the ticklish feeling the compliment gave her. “But my victory was only a tie at the top…plus, as I’m sure you noticed watching the feed, there was a bunch of weird stuff that happened in this one…I have a feeling that the entire tournament might get nullified.”

“Huh…?”

“Um…listen…”

Shino wasn’t quite sure how to bring up the topic of Death Gun to Kyouji. She herself didn’t know enough about the incident to explain it all logically; plus, at this point, it almost felt to her like all of those events were some kind of strange hallucination.

Perhaps…

Could this all have been the product of sheer coincidence? Was it even possible to have someone poisoned at the same time they were shot in the virtual world? The only thing Shino actually saw was the scene of Pale Rider losing connection. If he and the other victim really did die, then Death Gun and his crimes were real, but nothing about that was certain until this was revealed.

In either case, the police would arrive within another ten minutes. She could explain it all to Kyouji then. Shino made up her mind and changed the topic.

“No, never mind. Just some weird players involved. Anyway, you really showed up here quick. It was barely even five minutes after the event finished.”

“Um, well…the truth is, I was watching on my phone nearby. So I could congratulate you as soon as possible,” he said hurriedly.

Shino smiled. “I had a feeling that was the case. You’ll catch a cold in this weather. Maybe I should make some tea after all.”

But Kyouji shook his head and stopped her. The smile was waning from his face, replaced by an expression more of desperation. Shino blinked in surprise.

“Um…Asada…”

“Wh-what?”

“I saw you…inside the cave, in the desert…”

Together with the look in his eyes, Shino understood what he was trying to say at once. She recalled what happened in the cave and felt heat burst along her face from cheek to ear.

“Oh…That was, uh…”

She’d completely—perhaps intentionally—forgotten about how she’d laid down on Kirito’s knees and cried and wailed. Kyouji had witnessed the whole thing. It was so careless of her that she hadn’t considered this possibility.

She looked down in sheer discomfort, while Kyouji continued. She was sure that he was going to ask what the connection was with that man, but his statement took her by surprise.

“He was…threatening you, wasn’t he? He blackmailed you into doing that stuff, right?”

“H-huh?”

She looked up, stunned. Kyouji was leaning forward in a slight crouch, an odd look in his eyes. His lips trembled irregularly as he gasped, “He threatened you, and forced you to snipe his target…but in the end, you caught him off guard and blew him up with that grenade. But…that’s not enough, Asada. Like I told you before, you need to make him pay…”

“Uh…err…” Shino was at a complete loss for words. She scrambled around for something to say. “Listen…no, he wasn’t threatening me or anything. I realize it’s not something you’re supposed to do in a free-for-all competition…but I nearly had one of my spasms while in the dive. I lost control, and I…I took it out on Kirito. I said some horrible things to him.”

“…”

Kyouji’s eyes were wide as he listened raptly.

“But…while I did find him obnoxious, I thought…he was like my mom. Maybe that was why I cried like a little girl again…It’s embarrassing, really.”

“But Asada…it was because of the spasm, right? You wouldn’t have done it otherwise? He doesn’t…mean anything to you, does he?”

“Huh…?”

“You told me to wait, remember?” Kyouji said, eyes full of desperation as he leaned forward on his knees. “You did. You said that if I waited, you would be mine someday. So…so I…”

“…Shinkawa…”

“Say it. Say he means nothing to you. Say you hate him.”

“Wh-what’s going on…?”

She did remember telling Kyouji to wait before the tournament, in the nearby park. But that was meant in the sense of wait for me to overcome my obstacles. Only when she did that could she be a normal girl.

“But…you won, Asada. You’re strong enough now. You won’t have any more attacks. So you don’t need him. I’ll be with you forever. I’ll…I’ll always be around to keep you safe,” he mumbled, getting to his feet. He stumbled a few steps closer—then suddenly threw his arms wide and embraced Shino with all his strength.

“Wha…?!”

Shino was too stunned to do anything but tense up. Her arms and ribs creaked, and the air leaked out of her lungs.

“Sh…in…ka…wa…”

The shock and pressure drained her breath away. But Kyouji only squeezed harder, pushing heavily enough to knock her backward onto the bed.

“Asada…I like you. I love you. You’re my Asada…my Sinon,” he croaked, less a passionate confession than a chanted curse.

“Stop…it…!’

Shino thrust her arms against the bed to support herself. She put her strength into her legs, leaned her shoulder her against his chest, and…

“Stop it!!”

It came out as nothing more than a desperate whisper, but she was able to knock Kyouji back. She gasped for air.

Kyouji, stumbling backward, fell onto his bottom when his leg hit the cushion behind him. The cake box fell off of the table and splattered wetly onto the floor. But the boy barely noticed. He just stared at Shino in pure surprise, unable to believe that she would reject him.

His round eyes eventually faded, and his lips trembled harder and harder. “No, Asada. You can’t betray me. I’m the only one who can save you. You can’t look at any other men.”

He stood up slowly, approaching again.

“Sh…Shinkawa,” she mumbled, unable to recover from the attack.

It was true that when she invited him in once before for dinner, and when he hugged her in the park, there had been a glimpse of this kind of impulse within Kyouji. But she figured that as he was a boy, this kind of action was somewhat of a given, and that weak-willed, reserved Kyouji would never lose control of himself like this.

But as he stood silently over Shino, who sat helplessly on the bed, there was something insane that gleamed in his eyes, something she’d never seen before.

Shinkawa isn’t actually…going to…

The fragmented thoughts crossed through her brain bit by bit, until fear spread over her, greater than her shock. But Shino’s imagination, while working in the right direction, was woefully inadequate in predicting the measure of his response.

Mouth parted, panting restlessly, Kyouji reached into the front pocket of his military jacket. He grabbed something inside of it. When the hand emerged, it was holding something strange: a shiny, plastic, cream-colored object about eight inches long.

The tapered tube was about an inch wide on average, with a grippable protrusion sticking out diagonally, which Kyouji used to hold it. There was a green button where the grip met the main tube, and he had his index finger placed against it.

A silver-metal part was affixed to the very end of the tube, a bit spiked, with a hole at the very end. All in all, it looked like a child’s toy laser gun, but the very lack of any decoration gave it the look of a tool, a device designed for a specific purpose.

He slowly and simply moved the tip to Shino’s neck. The chilly touch against her skin made all the hair on her body stand on end.

“Shi…k…wa…?” she gasped, but he cut her off before she could say anything further.

“Don’t move, Asada. Don’t speak. This a high-pressure needleless syringe. It’s got a drug called succinylcholine inside. If it gets into your body, it’ll render your muscles useless and stop your lungs and heart at once.”

If her mind could be said to have an outer shell, this shock would have caused the bottom of it to give out. Even Shino couldn’t keep track of how many times that had happened today.

The chill at the nape of her neck spread to the tips of her limbs, and as she felt them throb with numbness, her brain worked overtime to put the words that Kyouji said into an understandable thought.

Kyouji had just said that he would kill Shino. If she didn’t listen to what he said, he’d use that toylike injector to pump her full of a drug with a long and confusing name, stopping her heart for good.

But in parallel to this thought, a voice in the corner of her mind kept stating, This is a joke, right? Shinkawa wouldn’t do something like that, would he? But her mouth was now as immobile and brittle as dried-out wood. And the sensation of the metal tube pressed a few inches below her left ear was chillingly, mercilessly cold, a phenomenon that brooked no possible humor.

Shino was unable to see Kyouji’s face due to the reflection, but she stared at him all the same. His young, rounded chin moved, emitting a voice devoid of feeling or inflection. “It’s all right, Asada. There’s nothing to be afraid of. We’re about to become one. I’m about to give you the feelings I’ve been saving up ever since we first met. The injection will be very soft and gentle…It won’t hurt a bit. Don’t worry. Just let me handle everything.”

Shino had no idea what he meant. It sounded like Japanese, but it might as well have been a foreign language. Two phrases stood out, echoing over and over in her head.

This is a high-pressure needleless syringe. I’ll stop your heart at once.

Syringe. Heart. She’d just heard those two words very recently…somewhere else.

At this point, it felt like something from an imaginary fantasy. On a moonlit desert, in a tiny cave, from the mouth of a boy with the face of a girl. Zexceed and Usujio Tarako had been injected with some kind of drug, and their hearts failed…

But did that mean—could it be?

Her lips trembled and spasmed, and she heard her own voice leak out like it belonged to someone else.

“Then…are you…the other…Death Gun?”

The tip of the syringe pressed to her neck twitched. She saw Kyouji’s mouth take on the admiring smile that she so often saw when she spoke with him.

“Wow…incredible work, Asada…You figured out the secret of Death Gun. That’s right, I’m part of Death Gun. But in fact, until the BoB started, I was the one playing Sterben. I hope you saw that video of me shooting Zexceed in the pub in Glocken. But for today, I got to play the real-life role. After all, I can’t have any other man touching you, Asada. Even if it is my brother.”

Her body stiffened.

She had only once heard him mention that he had a brother. But aside from the fact that he’d been sickly since birth and in and out of hospitals, Kyouji said nothing about him, so Shino never bothered to ask further.

“B…bro…thers? So the one in the killer guild in SAO years ago was…your…brother?”

This time, Kyouji’s eyes bugged out in true shock.

“Wow, you knew? I didn’t think Shouichi would reveal that much during the tournament. Maybe he decided he liked you, too. But don’t worry, I won’t let anyone else touch you. In fact, I wanted not to inject you with the drug today, though I knew my brother would be mad…I mean, in the park, you said you would be mine.”

He stopped briefly. The drunken smile on his lips faded, replaced by another empty expression.

“But…then you were with him…You’re being fooled, Asada. I don’t know what he said to you, but I’ll drive him away. I’ll help you forget him.”

He clutched her right shoulder, still pressing the syringe to her neck with his other hand. He pushed her down onto the bed, then got onto it with her, straddling her thighs, mumbling as he did.

“…Don’t worry, I won’t let you be alone. I’ll come with you very soon. We’ll be together, just like GGO…No, let’s do a more fantasy-themed one. We can be reborn in that world and live together as husband and wife. Going on adventures…having kids…It’ll be a blast.”

Kyouji was completely off the rails now. Somewhere in Shino’s paralyzed brain, she was able to cling to just one thought: The police will be here soon, so keep him talking.

“But…without his partner, your brother will be at a loss…a-and…I didn’t get shot by Death Gun in the game. So if I die, then everyone will start to doubt the legend of Death Gun you spent so long crafting,” Shino said, taking great pains to keep her desiccated tongue moving. Kyouji pressed the tip of the syringe under her exposed collarbone, a twitching smile on his face.

“It’s fine. We had three targets today, after all. My brother brought in another helper to carry it out. A guildmate from SAO, he said. So he’s already got a replacement for my position. Plus, I’d never let you get lumped in with scum like Zexceed and Tarako. You belong to me, not Death Gun. We’ll go somewhere on vacation…I’ll carry you all the way into the mountains where nobody is, and then I’ll follow right after you. So wait for me once you’re there, okay?”

Kyouji’s left hand touched her midsection through the sweater, as timidly as if he were frightened of her. He tapped a few times with his fingertips, then slowly began to rub her with his entire hand.

Shino tried her best to ignore the revulsion that crawled along her skin and keep talking. If she made any sudden moves or shouted, the harmless-looking boy with her would press the button on the syringe without hesitation. Sadly, there was something in Kyouji’s voice and face that made that very clear.

As quietly and gently as possible, Shino continued, “Th-then…you’re saying you haven’t used that syringe before in real life? Then, we…we can still do it. We can start over. You shouldn’t think about dying…Aren’t you going to take the high school proficiency test? Aren’t you going to a cram school? Aren’t you going to be a doctor…?”

“Proficiency…?” Kyouji repeated, as though he’d never heard that word before. After a moment, he murmured in understanding, and his hand lifted off of Shino and went into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a long, thin sheet of paper. “Want to see?”

He thrust it into Shino’s face with a sardonic smile. The printout was something very familiar to Shino: the results sheet of a mock exam. But all the scores, in every subject, were almost unbelievably poor.

“Sh…Shinkawa. How…?”

“Isn’t it funny? Bet you never thought people actually got percentile scores this low.”

“B-but…your parents…” she said, unable to believe that Kyouji’s parents would allow him to keep using his AmuSphere with grades like that. He picked up on what she meant.

“Heh…as if I couldn’t make a sheet like this in any old printer. Besides, I tell my parents that I get online tutoring through the AmuSphere. Sure, they wouldn’t let me set up an autopay for the GGO subscription, but I was able to earn that much in the game…I could have managed…”

Suddenly, the smile vanished from his face. The bridge of his nose wrinkled, and he bared his teeth in a snarl. “I decided…I don’t care about this stupid reality anymore. My parents…the people at school…They’re all idiots, every one of them. If I’d become the strongest in GGO…I would have been happy. And I should have been. That’s what should have happened with Spiegel…”

Shino felt the tip of the syringe trembling against her neck and held her breath, expecting him to push the button at any time.

“And then…that piece of crap Zexceed…lied about the AGI build being the best…and thanks to that cheating coward, Spiegel can barely even equip an M16…Dammit…dammit!”

The loathing in Kyouji’s voice completely surpassed the bounds of a mere video game.

“Now I can barely even make back the subscription fee…GGO was everything to me. I sacrificed everything in real life for it…”

“And that’s…why you killed Zexceed?” Shino asked, shocked and horrified. He clamped his eyes shut for a moment, and the drunken smile returned.

“That’s right. Is there any better sacrifice to make to create a legend about Death Gun being the greatest player in GGO—no, in all of VRMMOs? I killed Zexceed, Tarako, and now Pale Rider and Garrett. Even the idiots playing this game have to realize that Death Gun’s power is real now. I’m the greatest alive…”

Kyouji’s entire body shook with uncontrollable pleasure. “Now I have no need for this worthless reality anymore. Come, Asada…Come with me to the next stage.”

“Sh-Shinkawa,” Shino stammered, shaking her head. “You can’t do this. You can still turn back. You can start over. Come with me to the police…”

“…”

But Kyouji only shook his head, staring off into the distance. “Reality doesn’t matter anymore. Now become one with me, Asada,” he said emptily, bringing his hand up to brush her cheek and run it through her hair. “Oh, Asada…You’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful…”

His fingertips were scaly and dry. Each time the cracked skin at the base of his nails scraped the fine skin around her ear, an unpleasant pain ran through her face. But she made no show of it, and Kyouji continued absently.

“Asada, my sweet Asada…I’ve always, always loved you. Ever since…I heard about what happened to you…at school…”

“…Wha…?” Belatedly, what Kyouji said registered in Shino’s mind, and her eyes went wide. “Wh…what do you…mean…?”

“I loved you. I wanted to be like you…always…”

“Then…you…” she squeaked, praying that what he was saying wasn’t true. “You mean…you only talked to me…because of what happened to me in the past?”

“Yes, of course,” he stated, stroking her head like she was a little child, nodding fervently. “You won’t find another girl in Japan who got to shoot a bad guy dead with a real gun. It’s incredible. Didn’t I tell you that you have true power? That’s why I picked the Type 54 to be central to Death Gun’s legend. You’re what I want to be. I love you…I love you…more than anyone…”

“You…can’t…”

What an incredible gulf. What an incredible separation between them.

She had once believed that this boy was the only human being not related to her by blood whom she could trust. But his mind did not belong to the same world as hers. From the very first step, he had been incredibly, unfathomably distant.

At last, Shino’s heart was full of black, deep despair. Sight, sound, hearing—all of her senses began to lose meaning, and the world slowly faded away from her.

Shino lost all strength.

In her faded, unfocused vision, Kyouji’s two eyes floated like black holes. Like passageways connecting her to a world of darkness.

They were that man’s eyes.

He had returned at last. The man who had bided his time, lurking in the shadows—in the gloom of the night streets, between the furniture, within the hood of Death Gun.

The warmth drained from her fingers. The connection between her body and consciousness began to peel away at the edges. Her soul was contracting. In the warm, cramped darkness at the very center of her mortal shell, Shino shrank into a little ball. She didn’t want to see anymore. She didn’t want to feel.

The world she’d lived through for sixteen years was too cold, too cruel. It stole the father she’d never recognize, stole her mother’s mind, and with great malice, took away a part of Shino’s soul.

The stares of adults, reflecting the curiosity of viewing some rare creature in a zoo, and even more ill-concealed loathing. The merciless taunts of the children her age.

The world decided that wasn’t enough, and wanted to take more from her now. She didn’t want to accept this as the one and only “reality” that existed.

That was right—it wasn’t reality. It was just one particular combination of events, out of the countless worlds that existed and overlapped. Somewhere out there was another world where none of this had happened.

Somewhere out there was a world in which Shino Asada didn’t meet Kyouji Shinkawa, the post office wasn’t attacked, the accident that killed her father never happened, and she lived an ordinary, happy life. As she curled smaller and smaller into a compressed, inorganic ball, Shino’s soul sought a version of herself that was smiling in the warm sunlight.

In what little rationality remained to her, Shino caught a tiny whiff of irony. In her inability to withstand the cruelty of life, she was escaping into the realm of dreams, which made her just like Kyouji Shinkawa.

Kyouji was bullied at school, pressured by his parents’ expectations, and flattened by the difficulty of tests, so he abandoned reality and sought salvation in the virtual world. If he could earn the title of the strongest in the virtual world, that would have more than enough value to fill the emptiness of his real life, he believed. But when that hope was taken away from him, he fell apart.

Shino, too, sought the same kind of strength in Gun Gale Online. And at one point, she thought she had realized something, had found her way. But the chilly hand from the swamp of memory had caught Shino, dragged her back with it, and she never tried to resist. She couldn’t even open her eyes. It was all pointless in the end.

As the thoughts trickled up, bit by bit, like tiny bubbles from the bottom of the sea floor, she wondered, What about that other boy?

He had been trapped in a virtual prison for two long years, and ended up taking the lives of several people. He probably lost others who were important to him in that long, long battle for survival. Did he regret that, too? Did he hate the virtual world that stole so many things from him?

No, he probably didn’t. No matter what challenges came his way, he wouldn’t abandon the things he bore. He seized that desperate, unlikely victory from Death Gun because that was what kind of person he was.

You are strong, Kirito, Shino muttered from the deep dark. You went to the trouble of saving me…and now I’ve let it go to waste. Sorry…

Kirito said he would send the police over as soon as he logged out. She didn’t know how many minutes had passed since then, but it was clear that they wouldn’t arrive in time. What would he feel when he learned that she’d been killed? That was the only thing that weighed over her mind…

Then, like a chain reaction, another fear lit up within the darkness of her heart.

Would Kirito just call his employer and call it a day? Or would he rush over to Shino’s apartment himself, just to be sure? He would still be late, she figured, but what would happen if he came here and encountered Kyouji Shinkawa? Would Kyouji run away, give up…or turn his syringe on Kirito next? The last option was quite possible, after the way he seethed in hatred of Kirito earlier.

She might be able to accept her fate, to acknowledge that she was meant to die here. But getting him involved, that innocent boy…

That was a different matter.

But it won’t change a thing, young Shino said to herself, curled into a ball on her side, blocking her eyes and ears.

Kneeling at her side, hand on the girl’s slender shoulder, Sinon whispered through her sand-yellow muffler, We’ve only ever watched ourselves. We’ve only ever fought for ourselves. That’s why we didn’t notice the voice coming from Shinkawa’s heart. But while it might be too late for us now, we can at least fight for someone else, here at the very end.

Shino slowly opened her eyes in the darkness. Right before her was a white, fragile, but somehow powerful hand. She timidly reached out and grabbed it.

Sinon grinned and helped Shino to her feet. Her pale lips opened, speaking briefly but clearly: Let’s go.

The two leaped off the floor of darkness and began to rise up to the light far above, glimmering like the surface of water.

Shino blinked hard, connected again to the real world.

Kyouji was trying to pull the sweater off of her, keeping the syringe pointed to her neck with one hand. But with only one hand to work with, the process was not going easily, and he was visibly frustrated. He started pulling on the fabric as hard as he could, attempting to rip it off of her.

Shino leaned to the left with the momentum of his pulling, pretending that he yanked her too far. The tip of the syringe slipped off of her neck and landed on the bedsheet next to her.

She did not miss the opportunity. She grabbed the syringe cylinder with her left hand and struck upward at Kyouji’s chin with the heel of her right.

He grunted and lurched backward. The weight on her body lifted. She smacked him over and over, pulling desperately on the syringe. If she couldn’t wrest it away from him, she would never get another chance.

But the tug-of-war between Kyouji’s hand on the syringe handle and Shino’s hand on the smooth barrel did not favor her. When he had regained his balance, he pulled hard, screeched, and swung his free hand.

“…!!”

The fist pounded Shino’s right shoulder. As the syringe came free from her grip, she toppled over the head of the bed, hitting her back hard against the writing desk. One of the drawers jarred loose with the impact, spilling its contents onto the floor.

Shino gaped, trying to will the air back into her lungs. Kyouji was clutching his bruised chin atop the bed, but he recovered and stared at her straightaway. His eyes were wide, and his lips quivered, shining with saliva. She could see a trail of blood from his bitten tongue.

Eventually those lips parted to croak, “Why…?”

His head shook slowly, clear disbelief on every inch of his features. “Why…would you do this? You don’t have anyone but me, Asada. I’m the only one who understands you. I’ve been helping you all along… Watching over you…”

Shino recalled what happened several days ago, when Endou’s group ambushed her on the way home from school. They demanded money, and Kyouji coincidentally happened by and scared them off…

But that wasn’t a coincidence.

Kyouji must have followed her home from school for days in a row, watching to ensure she got home safely, then turned to go home and log in to GGO to wait for her there.

It was nothing short of obsessive delusion. She had a hint of his dangerous nature, but no idea of its true depth. Even in her endangered state, a part of Shino couldn’t help but feel a bitter element of punishment for not taking him seriously.

“Shinkawa,” she said, her lips tense, “I know it’s been nothing but pain…but I still love the real world. And I think…I can love it more. So I can’t go with you.”

She put a hand on the floor to push herself up, and her fingers touched something heavy and cold. Shino instantly sensed what it was. It was what she kept hidden within the drawer that just fell out: the real-life symbol of all her fears. The Procyon SL model she won for participating in the second BoB.

She found the handle by touch, lifted up the heavy gun, and pointed it at Kyouji. It was as cold as if it had been carved directly from a block of ice. The feeling in her right hand began to drain away as the numbness crawled up her arm.

Even she knew that this sensation was not actual cold. It was her mental rejection of it that caused it to feel that way, but understanding how the sensation worked didn’t make it go away. A fear she couldn’t describe began to well up in the depths of her heart, like black water.

The spotless white of her wallpaper began to waver, like the surface of water, and cracked gray concrete floated up from behind. Her floor tiles turned to faded green linoleum, the window to a wooden counter. Shino was back in the rickety old postal office.

Kyouji’s face, caught in her crosshairs, suddenly warped and melted as well. His skin turned oily and ashen, deep lines appeared, and crooked, yellow teeth jutted from his cracked lips. The syringe in his hand had turned into an old-fashioned automatic pistol, gleaming dully. And so had the gun in her hand.

Shino shrank, predicting the scene she would see next. Her stomach convulsed, leaping into her throat, and all the muscles in her back stiffened.

No. I don’t want to see. I want to toss aside the Black Star and run away.

But if she ran now, everything would go to waste. She’d lose both her life and something else just as important. Perhaps fighting the terror of the spasms as Shino, or fighting countless powerful foes as Sinon, would never bring her the results she sought. But…all strength was found in the process.

Shino clenched her teeth hard enough to crack them and clicked the hammer of the gun with her thumb. The hard, dense sound tore through all of the illusion at once.

Kneeling on the bed, Kyouji shrank back slightly at the sight of the Procyon SL pointed right at him. He blinked rapidly in terror, rasping, “Wh-what do you think you’re doing, Asada? That’s just…a model gun. Do you really think you can stop me with that?”

Shino put her hand on the lip of the desk, putting as much strength into her quavering legs as she could to stand up. “You said it yourself. I have the true power. There’s no other girl like me who’s shot someone with a gun.”

“…”

Kyouji’s face went as white as a sheet. He scrambled back further.

“So this isn’t a model gun anymore. When I pull the trigger, an actual bullet will come out and kill you,” Shino said, inching backward toward the kitchen with the gun still pointed at Kyouji.

“Y…you’re going to…kill me…?” he mumbled, slowly shaking his head. “Asada’s going…to kill…me?”

“Yes. You’re the only one going to the next world.”

“No…no…You can’t do that to me…”

The willpower drained out of Kyouji’s eyes. His absentminded features stared into space, and he took a proper sitting position on top of the bed.

When she saw his hand relax and the high-pressure syringe start to slip out of his fingers, Shino was briefly arrested with the choice to snatch it away from him at that exact moment. But she had a feeling that if agitated, he would lose all reason whatsoever and attack her. She continued her steady retreat into the kitchen instead.

The moment Kyouji disappeared from view, Shino bolted back for the front door. It was only five yards, but it felt unbearably long. She raced with wide strides, trying to keep her footsteps quiet.

But right as she reached the big step down into the foyer, the mat slipped beneath her feet, and she fell. When she swung her hand to regain balance, the model gun flew out and landed in the kitchen sink with an incredible clatter.

Though she hadn’t fallen completely, Shino’s left knee hit the floor painfully. Still attached to the ground, she reached out as far as she could and snagged the doorknob.

But the door didn’t open. She noticed the lock was horizontal and frantically twisted it vertical, her teeth clenched. At the same moment that the lock clicked open, a cold hand grabbed her ankle from behind.

“…!!”

She turned back, breath stuck in her throat, to see Kyouji’s soulless face. He was down on all fours, clutching her leg with both hands. She didn’t see the syringe.

She shook her leg wildly, trying to break free, even as she lunged to get the door open. But while she could reach the knob, she couldn’t get a grip on it. Kyouji was pulling her back with astonishing strength.

He dragged her backward a few feet into the kitchen, but Shino resisted by grabbing the lip of the foyer step and clinging to it.

She tried to scream, thinking that it might be audible from outside, but her throat was constricted, unable to suck in air. All that emerged was a weak rasp.

Kyouji’s strength defied understanding. He was the same height as her, so where was he getting so much power? She lost her grip on the step as he continued pulling, and slid quickly through the kitchen.

His weight was immediately pressed onto her. She clenched her fist and tried to aim for his chin again, but only grazed it before he caught her wrist. The bones creaked as he squeezed like a vice, setting off sparks of pain in her head.

“Asada-asada-asada,” he rushed, the sounds only recognizable as her name after several seconds. Excited, bubbling white froth spilled from the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were unfocused. His mouth opened wide as he leaned in, teeth exposed as he made to bite her skin. She tried to push him back with her free hand, but he easily caught that one as well.

Though her hands were immobilized, she could still use her own mouth. Her jaw tensed as she prepared to bite at his throat.

Suddenly, cold air rushed over her shoulders. Kyouji looked up with a start over Shino’s head. His eyes and mouth went wide.

Somehow, the door was open, and something—someone—rushed through like a black gale of wind and kneed Kyouji in the face. Shino stared in shock as Kyouji and the mystery intruder tumbled past her, further into the apartment.

Kyouji was being pressed down to the floor by an unfamiliar young man. Blood was flowing from his mouth and nose.

The boy had longish black hair and a riding jacket of the same color. At first she thought he might be another resident of the apartment building, but the identity of the man—no, boy—became clear to her when he turned and shouted, “Run, Sinon! Call for help!”

“Kiri…” she mumbled, then bolted upright. She wanted to get to her feet, but they wouldn’t listen. She was only able to rise at all by pulling herself up against the side of the sink. He really had come from wherever he was diving in Ochanomizu. That meant the police should be coming soon. She lashed her weak legs into motion, hopping the few steps to the door.

But then she remembered something crucial.

Kyouji had a lethal weapon. She had to warn Kirito.

She turned around to shout, and saw Kyouji roar like an animal, all self-control lost. Kirito’s body flew backward, and the two switched positions.

“It was you…it was youuuuu!!” Kyouji screamed, so deafening that she practically heard speaker feedback in her ears. “Stay away from my Asadaaaaa!!”

Kyouji’s fist thudded heavily into Kirito’s cheek. His other hand went into the jacket pocket and pulled out the horrible gun-shaped syringe.

“Kirito!!” Shino screamed, right as Kyouji howled, “Dieeee!!”

The high-pressure, needleless syringe stuck in the T-shirt between Kirito’s jacket and chest and made a small, sharp, but unmistakable pshht!

Terrifyingly enough, it was strikingly similar to the sound of a gun with a high-quality silencer attached, though Shino only recognized it by virtue of Gun Gale Online, not from a real-life experience. But no matter the source, the sound represented a threat that needed to be dealt with. The next thing she knew, she was racing forward.

Shino crossed the kitchen and went into the room, searching for the most effective weapon without consciously realizing what she was doing. She chose the stereo atop the table, picking it up by the handle with her left hand. It had served her quite well, but it was old and much larger than the newer wall-mounted stereos—a block of metal weighing well over five pounds. She hauled it with her waist and swung it around backward.

The half turn of her body and the momentum of the heavy stereo carried it straight into the left side of Kyouji’s head, the drunken smile plastered across his face once again. She barely even felt or heard the impact. But she did hear the sickening thud of Kyouji’s head slamming backward against the corner frame of her bed.

Battered on both sides of his head within the span of half a second, the boy groaned and flopped forward. His grip loosened and the syringe started to slip out.

She didn’t know if the device was made for administering multiple doses in succession, but she clawed it out of Kyouji’s hand regardless. Its owner’s eyes were rolled back into his head and he kept groaning, but he wasn’t likely to move anytime soon.

Shino thought about getting a belt or something to tie up his hands, then remembered that there was something more important first. She turned and shrieked Kirito’s name, then crouched over his fallen form.

There was a softness to the boy’s face that she thought she recognized from his online character. He gazed up at her with barely-parted eyes and grunted, “He got me…I didn’t realize…that was a syringe…”

“Where? Where did it get you?!”

She tossed the syringe aside and tore down the zipper of Kirito’s jacket. Her thoughts were a jumble of half-formed impulses: Call ambulance—emergency care before that—but how to remove the poison? Her fingers trembled.

There was an ominous dark stain right above the heart on his faded blue T-shirt. She didn’t know how strong the piercing power of that syringe was, but it didn’t seem likely that a thin cotton shirt would have stopped it.

“Don’t die…You can’t die like this!” she shrieked, yanking the bottom of his shirt out of his jeans and pulling it upward. The skin of his chest and stomach was white and scrawny, as if someone had carved it down from its proper size. Just to the right of the center, in the very spot where the stain had been—something was stuck to his chest.

“…?!”

She stared at it, confused.

It was a small circle, about an inch across. There was a thin silver disc, surrounded by what looked like a yellow rubber suction cup. A socket-like protrusion emerged from the metal disc, but it wasn’t connected to anything.

The whole surface of the metal was wet; a single drop hung from it. The clear liquid had to be the fatal “succinylcholine” Kyouji had spoken of.

Shino looked around the floor for her tissue box and pulled two out, carefully wiping the liquid away. She leaned in closer to examine the skin around the odd patch to ensure that the high-pressure stream hadn’t broken into his flesh.

No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find any marks on Kirito’s skin. The tip of the syringe must have hit this inch-wide metal disc through his T-shirt and been absorbed by the stiff object. She touched the skin above the patch just to be sure, and felt his pulse racing away healthily.

Shino blinked a few times and looked up at Kirito. His eyes were closed and he was moaning and groaning.

“Um…hey.”

“Ugh…it’s too late…It hurts to breathe…”

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Dammit…now that the moment’s finally here…I don’t have any good final words…”

“What’s this thing stuck to your chest?”

“…Huh?”

Kirito’s eyes opened again, and he glanced down. His eyebrows furrowed and he brought up a hand to trace the metal disc.

“Are you saying…the injection went into this?”

“Um, I think so. What is it?”

“Uh…I’m pretty sure it’s…an electrode from the heart monitor…”

“H-huh? Why would you have one of those? Do you have a bad heart?”

“No, not at all…It was a safety measure against Death Gun…Oh, I get it. I was in such a rush to get disconnected, I must have pulled the cord out of this one by accident,” he muttered, sighing heavily. “Damn…You really had me going, there.”

“That’s—” Shino started, grabbing him around the neck with both hands and squeezing violently “—what I was going to say! I…I thought you were dead!!”

All of the tension and nerves suddenly drained out of her, and her vision darkened. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs and looked back at the collapsed Kyouji.

“Do you think…he’s okay?” Kirito asked. She reached out and picked up his limp wrist. Fortunately, there was a pulse there, too. She wondered again if they ought to tie him up, but with his eyes closed like that, Kyouji’s face was too innocent looking. She had to turn away. She didn’t want to think about him right now. Her chest was full, not of rage or sadness, but plain emptiness.

For several seconds, she just stared over at the high-pressure needleless syringe—the true “Death Gun,” in a way. Eventually she opened her mouth and said simply, “Thanks…for coming to help me.”

Kirito gave her a familiar one-cheeked smirk and shook his head. “Nah… I didn’t end up doing anything for you in the end…Plus, I’m sorry I was late. Kiku—my employer wasn’t getting the picture fast enough. You aren’t hurt, are you?”

Shino shook her head. Suddenly, she noticed something was flooding out of her eyes. “Ah…what the…”

Her head was as fuzzy and useless as if it were stuffed with cotton, but the tears streaming out of her eyes only picked up momentum, dripping off her face.

Shino closed her mouth, stayed still, and let the tears flow. She knew that if she tried to say anything, she would only start bawling at the top of her lungs. Kirito didn’t move, either.

Eventually, she sensed the howl of distant sirens approaching, but her tears were not going to dry up anytime soon. Secretly, as the big drops fell one after the other, Shino understood that the source of the void that filled her heart was deep, deep loss.