Chapter 7

"Big Brother!"

That a cheerful smile from my beloved sister—at a lunch table

on a beautiful Sunday afternoon—would cause me to sense impending disaster should tell you just how guilty I felt about my

present actions.

I stopped my fork just before the cherry tomato reached my

mouth. "Wh-what's up, Sugu?" I asked, only to find the premonition come to fruition when my sister—nay, cousin—Suguha Kirigaya picked up something from the seat next to me.

"Listen, I found this article on the Net this morning."

She shoved a full-sized A4 printout into my face. It was a hard

copy of the news column from the nation's biggest VRMMO gaming website, MMO Tomorrow, typically abbreviated to M-Tomo.

The bold headline proclaimed: THIRTY FINALISTS ANNOUNCED FOR

3RD BULLET OF BULLETS BATTLE-ROYALE FINAL IN GUN GALE ONLINE.

After a short lead, the article ran the list of names. Right beneath Suguha's neatly clipped index nail, it said "F Block, 1st

Place: Kirito (Debut)." I tried an empty bluff.

"W-well, well, funny that someone else is using a similar

name."

"Similar? It's the exact same name."

Under Suguha's trimmed bangs was a grinning face with

forthright, crisp features, the very image of a healthy, athletic girl.

In real life, she was a talented kendo practitioner, who helped her

team reach both the high school nationals, known as the InterHigh, and the Kendo association tournament nationals at the

high school level, striving for what was known as the Gyokuryuki

prize—all in just her first year of high school. In comparison, my

spindly, scrawny figure was no match for her physical stamina. In

the virtual world of ALfheim Online, where skill reigned supreme,

she was the fairy warrior Leafa, whose graceful, hardy sword occasionally overpowered my own self-taught style.

So I'd have to give up and apologize immediately if I ever got

into a fight with Suguha in real life or VR, but fortunately for me,

that never had to cross my mind. In the year since I'd come back

to the real world, we were closer than we were before we'd grown

apart. Even my dad, who temporarily returned during summer

vacation from his transfer to America, was jealous of us.

So for lunch today—Sunday, December 14, 2025—with my

mother stuck in the editor's office, Suguha and I went out shopping for groceries so we could fix poached egg Caesar salad and

seafood pilaf. We sat across from each other at the table to eat

our lunch in blissful peace—until the article entered the picture.

"Uh…yeah. So it is," I noted, tearing my eyes away from the

printed "Kirito" and tossing the tomato into my mouth. As I

chewed, I mumbled, "B-but it's not such an uncommon name. I

mean, in my case, it's just an abbreviation of my real name,

Kazuto Kirigaya. I bet this Kirito in GGO has a name like, um…

Tougorou…Kirigamine. Yeah."

The baldfaced lie to my trusting sister prickled at my heart.

After all, the Kirito that Suguha was singling out was 100 percent

me, without a doubt.

The reason I had to hide that fact was that in order to enter the

Bullet of Bullets tournament in the first-person shooter MMO

Gun Gale Online, I had to convert my Kirito avatar from its home

world of ALO into the world of GGO.

Character conversion was a feature made possible by the Seed

platform, the engine on which all VRMMOs ran, which allowed a

player to move a character they'd built up in one game to another

game while maintaining the same level of strength—a system that

was unthinkable just a few short years ago.

There were limitations, of course. The biggest one was that

only the character itself transferred, not any items or money. Because of that, conversion was useful only for permanent transfers,

not for the tourist desire to check out a different game for a week

or two.

I knew that if I told her I was leaving ALO for a different game,

Suguha would be terribly shocked; she loved the fairy realm with

all her heart. Not to mention that I very much did not want to explain the reason that I had had to convert Kirito to GGO. The

seedy underbelly of the VRMMO world was deeply involved with

the move.

Seijirou Kikuoka, a government official, had asked me to investigate something in GGO. He was once a member of the government's SAO Incident Team, and was currently situated in the

"Virtual Division"—the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Virtual Network Management Division.

The previous Sunday, Kikuoka summoned me for a meeting

and described a very odd event that had happened.

In the main city of GGO, an avatar shot at another avatar,

claiming the work of some kind of "judgment." It would be unremarkable, a simple stunt, if that was all that happened. But the

two players whose figures were shot by the avatar in question

both died of heart attacks at the very moment they were shot in

the game.

It was just a coincidence—I was 90 percent sure of that.

But that last 10 percent possibility in my mind was something

I just couldn't shake. So I agreed to Kikuoka's bothersome, dangerous request: that I log in to the world of GGO and make contact with the mysterious shooter myself.

I didn't have the time to build up a new character from

scratch, so I converted Kirito from ALO and entered the BoB preliminary competition yesterday in an attempt to catch the

shooter's eye. While I struggled mightily with learning to adapt to

the unfamiliar gun battles, the good fortune of finding an extremely helpful player right off the bat got me through the preliminary round somehow—and I even made first contact with the

gunman I believed to be my target.

Whether the man calling himself Death Gun truly had the

power to kill players from within the game was unknown still.

But one thing became very clear. There was a completely unexpected connection that tied me and Death Gun together:

Just like me, Death Gun was a survivor of Sword Art Online,

the game of death. And beyond that, we had crossed swords in a

battle for our lives—

"Big Brother, you look scary."

My body jolted with surprise. My eyes focused on a single

point again to see Suguha's face, her eyes full of concern. She put

the hard copy down on the table, clasped her hands together, and

stared at me.

"Um, listen…I'll be honest. I already know that you converted

Kirito from ALO to GGO," she admitted out of the blue. My eyes

bulged. There was a grown-up, understanding smile on my

younger sister's lips. "Do you really think I wouldn't notice that

you were gone from my friends list?"

"B-but…I was going to convert back once this weekend was

over…and people don't check their list every day…"

"I don't have to look to be able to feel it," she stated confidently. There was a strange light in her big eyes. Oddly enough, I

was struck by her femininity in that moment. I looked away with

the shyness of that realization and the guilt at trying to hide my

conversion.

Suguha said softly, "I noticed that 'Kirito' was gone last night,

and logged out so I could barge right into your room. But you

wouldn't leave ALO without telling me for no good reason. I realized there must have been a reason, so I contacted Asuna."

"Oh…great," I muttered, wincing.

I had only related my secret conversion from ALO to GGO to

Asuna Yuuki and our "daughter," the AI named Yui. That was because Yui had limited access to the game's system and would

know if I disappeared from ALO for two measly seconds, let alone

two days. There was no hiding it.

Yui didn't like it when I kept things from Asuna. She might

have accepted it if I explained that I had a very good reason for it,

but I certainly couldn't cope with the thought of placing undue

stress on Yui's core programming.

So I told Asuna and Yui—and only them—that I was leaving for

GGO at Seijirou Kikuoka's request, explaining that it was "to investigate the Seed Nexus." I just couldn't tell them what that investigation actually entailed: contact with Death Gun, and the

connection between his in-game shootings and two real-life

deaths…

It was all preposterous, but its absurdity was eerie enough to

eat away at me. That was the biggest reason that I hadn't told

Suguha or my other friends about the conversion.

I looked down and didn't explain any further. I heard the

sound of a chair scraping. Soft footsteps. Then hands on my

shoulders.

"…Big Brother," Suguha whispered, leaning onto my back,

"Asuna told me, 'He's going to go on a little rampage in GGO like

he always does, and then he'll be back.' But I think she was secretly worried about it. I am, too. I mean…when you came back so

late yesterday, you had this terrible look on your face."

"Oh…I did?"

Suguha's short hair brushed my neck. She breathed out directly beside my ear.

"You're not…doing anything dangerous, are you? I don't want

you to wind up someplace far away again…"

"…I won't," I said, loud and clear this time. I put my hand on

the one pressing my left shoulder. "I promise. When GGO's tournament ends tonight, I'll come back. Back to ALO…and to this

home."

"…Good."

I felt her nod, but Suguha's weight stayed on me for a while.

For the two years I was trapped in SAO, my sister had been

stricken with terrible grief. And now I was putting her through

the possibility of something similar happening. It was unconscionable.

I had the option of messaging Seijirou Kikuoka and canceling

the whole operation. But after having been through yesterday's

prelims, two reasons made that choice very difficult now.

For one, I promised a rematch to Sinon, the sniper with the

preposterously huge rifle who kindly taught me all about the

game while I let her assume that I was a female player.

For another, there was a score to be settled between me and

Death Gun.

I had to face the gray-cloaked man again and be sure. I needed

to know his former name within the game—and those of his two

comrades who I killed with my own sword. That was my primary

responsibility, after coming back to the real world…

I patted the hand on my shoulder and reassured Suguha:

"Don't worry, I'll be back. Now let's eat, before this food gets

cold."

"…Okay."

Her voice was a little more forceful than before, and she

squeezed my shoulder tight for a moment before letting go. When

she trotted back around the table to her chair to sit down, Suguha's face was wearing its usual energetic smile. She shoved a

huge spoonful of pilaf into her mouth and chewed for a moment,

twiddling the spoon.

"By the way, Big Brother…"

"Hmm?"

"From what Asuna tells me, the job you're doing this time is

going to pay you really well."

"Urk."

In the back of my brain, the image of the 300,000 yen

Kikuoka promised me, and the cutting-edge PC it could build,

sprang to life, complete with an old-fashioned cash register sound

effect. I told myself that a slightly smaller hard drive wouldn't be

the worst compromise for Suguha's cooperation, and thumped

my chest clear.

"Y-yep! A-and I'll buy you whatever you want with it."

"Yay! Well, you see, there's this nanocarbon kendo shinai I've

always wanted…"

…Maybe I'd have to make do with less RAM, as well.

I left the house on my crappy old motorcycle during at three PM,

to avoid rush hour traffic. Making my way east along the Kawagoe Highway, I passed through Ikebukuro and headed down Kasuga Street for the center of the city. I turned south at Hongo to

go from Bunkyo Ward to Chiyoda Ward. In minutes, the general

hospital that was my destination appeared ahead.

I was here only yesterday, but my memories of that trip

seemed so distant now.

The reason was obvious. When I slipped into my bed last

night, I couldn't fall asleep. I lay there in the darkness, eyes wide

open, thinking about the past. Reliving the memories that had

been dormant in my mind so long—the destruction of the PK

guild in SAO known as Laughing Coffin.

Just before four in the morning, I gave up on sleep and put my

AmuSphere on to dive into a local VR space. I called up my

"daughter" Yui from her PC, which was hooked up via LAN, so we

could have a chat that would eventually get me to fall asleep. It

worked, but I never hit truly deep sleep, and the dreams I found

instead were long.

Fortunately, I didn't remember most of them, though there

was a voice that had been continually ringing in my ears from the

moment I woke up until now.

Are you Kirito?

It was what the player I took to be Death Gun whispered to me

in the midst of the BoB preliminaries yesterday. And it was also a

question from a member of Laughing Coffin, two comrades of

which I killed with my own sword. Three, if you included the man

who was Asuna's sworn guard.

Is it you? Are you the Kirito who killed us?

Whether it was in the BoB waiting hall or in my dreams, my

only answer could be "yes."

At today's final, which began at eight, I was sure I would come

face-to-face with that ghost of a man again. If he asked me the

same thing, I had to respond in the affirmative. But at this point

in time, I didn't have the confidence to do that yet.

"If I'd known this would happen…"

…I wouldn't have converted Kirito from ALO. I'd have started

a brand-new GGO character from scratch.

I grimaced at my own stubbornness to accept what had happened to me as I stopped the bike and headed for the inpatient

lobby.

I made sure to message before I left the house, so Nurse Aki

was already set up in the same room as the previous day. Her hair

was adorned with the same braids, but there was a pair of rimless

glasses on her nose this time. She was sitting on the chair next to

the bed, long legs folded as she read an anachronistic old paper

book. When I opened the door, she looked up and shut the book

quickly with a smile.

"You're here early."

"I'm sorry to put you through this chore again today, Miss

Aki," I said, bowing. The clock on the wall said it wasn't even four

yet. That meant I had over four hours until the BoB started, but it

would be foolish to wait until the last second and rush to the

event in a panic again. It would be a much better use of my time

to log in early and get some shooting practice in.

As I hung up my jacket on a hanger, I told Nurse Aki, "My

event doesn't start until eight, so you don't need to monitor my

heart signals until then."

The nurse, dressed in her white uniform, shrugged. "It's fine,

I'm on the graveyard overtime shift tonight. I'll be here as long as

needed."

"Uh…i-in that case, I feel even worse…"

"Oh? Well, if I get sleepy, I might just borrow your bed here,"

she remarked with a wink. As a VRMMO addict with zero real-life

skills, all I could do was mumble and look away. She laughed at

that. She'd seen what a pushover I was during my post-SAO physical therapy. There was no winning against her.

I hid my embarrassment by plopping down on the bed and

looking at the imposing monitoring equipment and the silver,

double-ringed AmuSphere headgear lying on the pillow.

The unit Kikuoka prepared for me was still brand-new; the

aluminum polish and the artificial leather interior were spotless.

Compared to the crude helmet that was the NerveGear, the AmuSphere was much more refined and resembled a fashion accessory more than a piece of electronics.

In keeping with its promise of "absolute safety," it didn't even

look like a machine capable of the lethal microwaves that the

NerveGear produced. It was designed to send only the faintest

possible signals.

So common sense said that it wasn't at all necessary to be

strapped to a heart-monitoring device in a hospital with electrodes on my chest and a nurse on watch around the clock. No

matter what anyone tried to do, the chances of anyone being able

to harm me through this AmuSphere were zero. Nil.

But.

Zexceed and Usujio Tarako, two of the best GGO players

around, were dead.

And I knew that Death Gun, the man who fired virtual bullets

at their avatars, was once a red player in SAO—someone who

knowingly, intentionally, killed other players.

What if there was still some unknown, dangerous effect of fulldive technology?

What if a player who had committed murder in the abnormal

realm of SAO learned how to unleash murderous intent and hatred in a digital form that could be transmitted through the AmuSphere as data, traveling online and eventually reaching the

nerve center of the target…with the signal to stop his heart?

If that hypothesis were true, it might be possible for Death

Gun's virtual shooting to have real, fatal effects. And at the same

time, it could be possible for Kirito's virtual sword to kill Death

Gun or someone else.

After all, I had killed other players in Aincrad. And my kill

count might have been higher than most of the red players who

partook in the activity.

Until this point, I'd been trying to forget about the lives that I

ended with my sword. But yesterday, the lid that sealed those

memories away had been opened.

Then again, I'd never be able to forget those things anyway. All

I did for the past year was look away, pretending I couldn't see

them. I tried to hide from the weight of the sin I ought to bear

and pay the price for…

"What's wrong, kid? You look like hell."

The toe of a white slipper poked my knee. My shoulders

twitched and I looked up to see the gentle gaze of Nurse Aki

through her rimless glasses.

"Uh…er, nothing," I muttered, shaking my head, but I couldn't

stop myself from biting my lip. Just a few hours earlier I'd made

Suguha uneasy for the exact same reason, and now I was doing it

to Nurse Aki, who was stuck at this annoying duty for my sake. I

felt pathetic.

She gave me that same grin that had cheered me up so often

during physical rehab and got up from her chair to sit next to me.

"C'mon, this is your big chance for some free counseling with a

pretty nurse. Lay it on me, kiddo."

"…I'm guessing I'll be in trouble if I don't take you up on that,"

I noted with a long sigh. I looked down at the floor for a bit and

asked, "Um, Miss Aki, you were in the surgical department before

rehabilitation, right?"

"Yes, why?"

"Well, this might be a rude or completely insensitive question,

but…" I glanced quickly to my left and mumbled, "How much do

you remember about the patients that…didn't make it?"

I was expecting to be scolded or get a dirty look. If I was in her

position, I'd be annoyed having to listen to the opinion of a kid

who thought he knew what it was like to work in medicine.

But the gentle smile never left Aki's face. She looked up at the

white ceiling and said, "Well, if I actually sit back and try to remember, I can see the names and faces, all right. Even the patients who were only in the same surgery room for an hour…It's

strange, given that I only saw them while they were sleeping

under anesthesia."

She must have meant that patients had died during operations

where she was present. I knew it wasn't something I should touch

upon lightly, but I couldn't keep myself from asking.

"Have you ever wished you could forget?"

I don't know what she saw when she looked into my face. She

blinked twice, but the smile never vanished from her lightly reddened lips.

"Hmm…good question. I don't know if this answers it for you

or not, but," she prefaced, her voice husky, "when people are

meant to forget something, they will forget it, I think. They don't

even have to want to forget it. After all, the more often you think

you want to forget something, the stronger you're making that

memory, aren't you? It means that deep in your heart, in your unconscious, you believe it's something you shouldn't forget."

I took in a short breath. It wasn't the answer I expected.

The more I wished to forget something, the less I was meant to

forget it…?

The words sank into my chest and brought a bitter taste to my

mouth. Eventually that turned into a sardonic smile.

"Then I guess I'm a real bastard…"

I looked down at the floor between my feet so I didn't have to

see the questioning look in Aki's eyes. My arms squeezed together

around my knees, pressing the words out of my chest.

"Inside of SAO, I…killed three players."

My dry, croaking voice echoed off the white walls, sounding

distorted when it reached my ears. Maybe it was actually the inside of my head producing those echoes.

Aki was my personal nurse when I attended this hospital for

physical rehabilitation—November and December of last year. So

she knew that I'd been trapped in a virtual world for two whole

years, but I'd never told her a word about what happened in there

until now.

Her job was to save people's lives; there was no way she'd be

happy to hear about someone taking them, no matter the reason.

But I couldn't stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth

now. I hung my head and let the dry cracking voice flow.

"They were all reds—murderers themselves. But I had the option to pacify them without killing. And I killed them anyway. I

let my anger and hatred and vengeance do the dirty work. And for

the past year, I forgot all about them. Even as I'm telling you this

now, I don't remember the two men's names or faces. So you

see…I'm a guy who can even forget the people he's killed himself."

A dense silence filled the room. Eventually, I heard the

rustling of clothes and felt the shifting of the mattress. I figured

Aki was standing up to leave the room.

But she didn't. I felt her hand reach around my back to my

shoulder and squeeze me close. I froze with alarm as the left side

of my body was pressed against her white tunic. Her gentle whisper hit my ear.

"I'm sorry, Kirigaya. I know I said that I would give you counseling, but I can't erase the weight on your shoulders, or bear it

with you." She lifted her hand off my shoulder and ruffled my

hair. "I've never played any VR game, much less Sword Art Online, of course…so I can't measure the weight of this 'killing'

you're talking about. But…I do know this much. You did that—

you had to do it—to save someone, didn't you?"

"Uh…"

Again, I hadn't expected that answer.

To save someone. Yes, that might have been part of the equation. But that didn't mean…

"In medicine, there are times when you have to choose lives.

To abandon the baby to save the mother. To abandon the braindead to save those who are waiting for organ donors. When there

are huge accidents or disasters, we have to set up a triage to determine the priority of patients. That doesn't mean that we can

kill people if we have the right reason, of course. The weight of a

life that's lost never changes, no matter the circumstances. But

the people involved have the right to consider the lives of those

who were saved. So do you. As long as you think about the ones

you're saving, you have the right to be saved as well."

"The right…to be saved?" I repeated in a husky voice. I shook

my head fiercely with Aki's hand still resting on it. "But…but, I

forgot about the people I killed. I abandoned that weight…my responsibility to them. So I don't have the right to be saved…"

"If you really forgot about them, you wouldn't be agonizing

like this now," she stated firmly. She put her hand on my cheek

and forced my face in her direction. Beyond the rimless glasses,

her sharp eyes were glowing.

When her neatly trimmed thumb brushed the outer corner of

my eye, I realized that I had been crying.

"You do remember. When the time comes to remember, it all

comes back. And when that happens, it all needs to come back,

including the people you fought to protect and save."

Aki bumped her forehead against mine. The chilly contact

seemed to quell the raging weight swirling around my head. I let

my shoulders drop and eyelids close.

A few minutes later, with my bare midriff covered in sticky electrodes for the heart monitor, I laid back on the bed with the AmuSphere in my hands.

Fear and self-condemnation, a cold weight in my stomach that

had plagued me since last night, felt distant now. But I was certain that if I ran into Death Gun again in the world of Gun Gale

Online, it would rush back in moments.

The VR interface felt as heavy as cast iron in my hands as I

slipped it over my head and turned it on. It made a soft ping to

indicate it was out of standby. I turned to where Miss Aki stood

on the other side of the monitoring equipment, and spoke.

"Thanks for watching over me. And also for…well, just

thanks."

"Of course, dear," she said kindly, tossing a thin blanket over

my body. I breathed in the clean, soapy scent and shut my eyes.

"I don't think you'll see anything until after eight o'clock…and

I should be out by ten. Here goes… Link start!"

A dazzling rainbow array appeared before my eyes and swallowed me whole. Just before all of my senses were shut out entirely, I heard Nurse Aki's voice:

"Have a good time then, Kirito the Hero."

...What?

But in the next moment, my mind was ripped from reality and

transported into a wasteland of sand and gunpowder.