Chapter 8
"So irritating—"
Thunk.
"—that guy!"
Shino Asada seethed, kicking the steel support beam of the
swing set with the toe of her sneaker. She was in a small playground fairly close to her apartment. The navy-blue sky above
stretched over a single sandbox and two pieces of equipment; it
was a lonely little place, especially without any children on a
weekend as it was.
Next to Shino, Kyouji Shinkawa was sitting on one of the
swings, his eyes wide.
"I-it's strange to hear you speaking so…forcefully."
"Well, I mean…"
She shoved her hands into the pockets of her denim skirt and
leaned back against the sloped beam, pouting.
"He was such an arrogant, harassing, show-off loser…I mean,
who goes into GGO just to fight with a sword?"
With each grumbled insult, she kicked a little pebble at her
feet. "On top of that, he pretended to be a girl at first, and convinced me to guide him to the best shop and pick out his equipment for him! I almost lent him money, even! Ugh, and I even
gave him my personal card…'Would you mind resigning,' in-
deed!"
She had to stop grousing when there were no more stones of
the right size to kick. When she glanced over, Kyouji was staring
at her with an odd expression, somewhere between surprise and
concern.
"…What, Shinkawa?"
"Nothing… I've just never seen you talking about someone else
like that…"
"Oh…really?"
"Yeah. Most of the time you don't seem to have any interest in
other people, period."
"…"
Perhaps he was right. On any given day, she made no proactive effort to interact with others. When people came to contact
her, such as Endou and her gang of bullies, Shino found it irritating, but didn't think anything more of it. She believed it would be
a waste of her emotional energy.
In fact, Shino already had her hands full with her own problems, so she didn't spend any time worrying about others. And
yet somehow, that one guy had gotten under her skin. Even now,
over twenty-four hours after their first contact on Saturday afternoon, he ruled over a significant portion of her mind.
But that was only natural.
It had been half a year since Shino started playing the VRMMORPG Gun Gale Online. But not a single player there had approached her as directly as he had. And that wasn't all. When he
clutched her hand in his vulnerable state after the first round of
the tournament, she was so shocked that she missed two easy
shots at medium range in the second round.
"You might be surprised to learn that I get angry easily."
She stretched out a leg to scrape more pebbles into range so
that she could kick them toward the planter.
"Oh…is that so?" Kyouji murmured, examining Shino. Eventually he thought of something and hopped up off the swing. "So…
will you camp out in an open area and hunt him? If you want to
snipe, I can be a decoy. But if it's for revenge, you'd probably prefer a direct battle. I can get us two or three good machine gunners. Or you could use a beam stunner to arrange an MPK…"
Shino blinked in surprise. She eventually raised her right hand
to interrupt Kyouji's fanatical PK planning.
"Um…hang on, it's not like that. He's irritating, but he fights
very honestly. I want to crush him in a fair fight. I might have lost
yesterday…but now I know his style, and I'll get a chance for a rematch."
She pushed up the bridge of her noncorrective glasses and
pulled her cell phone out of her skirt pocket to check the time.
"The BoB final starts in just three and a half hours. I'm going
to blow a giant hole in that misleading avatar while everyone's
watching."
She pointed a finger into the eastern sky. The red rising moon
was right in her sights.
The preliminary tournament for the third Bullet of Bullets, GGO's
championship tournament, began on the evening of December
13.
As Sinon, Shino had easily advanced through Block F until a
supposed beginner appeared before her—and yet, despite "that
man" being a beginner, it was a confrontation she felt had been
inevitable, somewhere deep in her heart.
His name was Kirito. He was a player who had used the Seed
platform's unique conversion function to transfer from an unfamiliar VRMMO over to GGO.
On her way through the city of SBC Glocken to the regent's office to enter the preliminary tourney, Sinon had run into Kirito
the moment after his initial dive. When he had asked the location
of a gear shop, she had rather surprisingly offered a personal
tour, instead of her typical style—an unfriendly point in the right
direction.
The only reason she did that was because she had thought Kirito was a girl.
From what she learned later, GGO's male avatars contained a
series called the M-9000s that on first glance looked like F-models instead. They were very rare, so many people who won them
sold their entire accounts for huge sums. At any rate, Kirito's
avatar was quite beautiful, with lustrous black hair, big eyes like
the night sky, wintry smooth skin, and a delicate build. He looked
much more feminine than Sinon's actually female avatar.
Through her six months of GGO, Sinon had never met a true
female beginner to the game. She knew other women in the game,
of course, but they were all veterans with more experience than
she had. She'd traded more gunfire with them than words.
So when Sinon saw the lonely, confused girl—secretly a man—
she remembered the girl she had been when she started, and she
volunteered to act as a guide.
She had outfitted him with weapons and armor at a major
shop, had taught him about bullet lines and other GGO features,
and had even explained how the tournament worked at the regent's office. Then they had gone into the underground waiting
area beneath the tower and had entered a changing room to put
on their battle gear. Just at the moment Sinon had unequipped
all of her gear except for underwear, Kirito finally, and extremely
belatedly, revealed his name and gender.
In her shame and rage, Sinon had slapped him across the face
and made an ultimatum: Win your way through the prelims and
face me. The last thing I will teach you is the taste of the bullet
that spells your defeat.
But at the time, she hadn't thought it would actually happen
that way.
Kirito was a newbie who had just converted to GGO. For whatever reason, he didn't choose a rifle or machine gun for his main
weapon, but the ultra-close-range lightsword.
But a sword couldn't possibly beat a gun, Sinon sensed. She
had been on the verge of forgetting all about Kirito.
But somehow, he had kept his word to her. He had made his
way through the sixty-four-player Block F from the first to fifth
round with nothing but his lightsword and a small-caliber handgun, proceeding toward the block final against Sinon.
On the sunset highway that served as their stage, Sinon had
witnessed Kirito's terrifying ability for herself. He had blocked
her Ultima Ratio Hecate II's deadly .50-caliber bullet—an antimateriel sniper rifle round—with his narrow energy blade; he had
cut the round in half, in fact.
Kirito had charged through the trajectories of the two halves of
the bullet and pressed the blade of the lightsword to Sinon's
throat.
"Would you mind resigning, then? I'd prefer not to slash a girl
in two."
"~~~~!!"
Just remembering it brought the humiliation back as fresh as
when it happened. She swung her fist down away from the direction of the moon. Shino looked around on the ground for more
rocks to kick, but she'd already booted all of them toward the
planter. She smacked the metal pole behind her with her heel instead.
"Just you wait. I'll pay you back twice over for this," she
vowed. Kyouji stood up from the swing and examined her, an
even more concerned look wrinkling his brows.
"…Wh-what?"
"Is everything…okay? That isn't going to, y'know…"
Kyouji looked down at her hand. She noticed that her clenched
fist had the index and thumb extended to form the shape of a
gun.
"Ah…"
She quickly straightened out her hand and shook it. Normally,
the action would have recalled the image of a gun in her head and
caused a panic attack. For some reason, that didn't happen this
time.
"Uh, yeah. I guess…I was fine because I was so mad."
"Oh…"
Kyouji raised his head and looked Shino right in the eyes. He
reached out and grabbed her right hand in both of his. She automatically looked down at his warm, slightly sweaty palms.
"Wh…what's this about, Shinkawa?"
"I'm just…worried. You're not acting like the usual you…If
there's anything I can do to help, I want to do it. I can't do anything but cheer for you on the monitor tonight, but if there's anything else…just say the word…"
For just a moment, she glanced back at Kyouji. While his face
was delicate and naïve, the eyes in the center of it burned with
smoldering emotion.
"I…I don't know what you mean by the 'usual me,'" Shino
mumbled. She couldn't even picture what her ordinary self was
like.
Kyouji squeezed harder, the words tumbling out of his mouth.
"You're always very cool and reserved…and in control, and never
fazed by anything…You've suffered the same things I have, but
you didn't stay home and refuse to go to school. You're strong; really strong. I've always admired that about you. You're…you're
my ideal."
Alarmed by Kyouji's enthusiasm, Shino tried to pull back, but
the solid metal support of the swing set blocked her way.
"B-but…I'm not strong. You know that. I have panic attacks
just from looking at guns…"
"But Sinon doesn't." He took a half step closer. "Sinon uses an
enormous gun without a problem…She's one of the greatest players in GGO. I think that's your true self, Asada. Someday, you'll
be like that in real life. Which is why this worries me, when I see
you raging and losing composure about this guy. I…I can help
you…"
The problem is, Shinkawa, she thought to herself, looking
away from him, even I laughed and cried like a normal person
years ago. I didn't turn the way I am now because I wanted to.
Yes, it was Shino's deepest wish to be as strong as Sinon in real
life. But that was only in the sense of overcoming her fear of guns.
She didn't actually want to eliminate all of her emotions.
Maybe, deep down in her heart, she just wanted to talk and
laugh with friends, like anyone else. Maybe that was why she felt
such a strong connection to the unfamiliar girl who needed a
helping hand in SBC Glocken, and was so angry when it turned
out to be a man instead.
Kyouji's confession made her happy. But she couldn't help but
feel that something was slightly out of focus within her heart.
What…what I really want is…
"Asada," came a sudden whisper in her ear. Shino's eyes went
wide. She hadn't noticed that he had wrapped his arms around
her and the steel pole behind her.
The empty park was almost completely dark now, but there
were people passing in the street on the other side of the barren
trees. Anyone who saw Shino and Kyouji in the park like this
would assume they were young lovers.
She instantly, instinctively pushed Kyouji back.
"…"
He looked at her, hurt in his eyes. She came to her senses and
apologized.
"I-I'm sorry. It's very nice of you to say these things…and I
think you're the only person in this city who actually understands
me and who I can share these things with. But…it's not like that
for me, not yet. This is a problem that I have to overcome on my
own…"
"…Oh…"
He slumped sadly, and guilt filled her breast.
Kyouji must have known about her past, and the incident that
shaped her present. Before Kyouji had stopped attending school,
Endou's group had informed the entire campus of Shino's background. It occurred to her that if Kyouji knew that and still
opened himself up to her, she ought to accept his affection and
return it. If he grew disheartened and left her…that would make
her very lonely, indeed.
But for some reason, the face of Kirito crossed a corner of her
mind. His extreme confidence. His utter belief in his own
strength. She wanted to fight him and beat him, to wring out
every last ounce of her own power in the process.
She wanted to break out of the thick dark shell of her terrible
memories so that she could be free. That was all she wanted. And
she would fight in the sunset wasteland and win for that sake.
"So…will you wait until then?" she asked timidly. Kyouji stared
back at her with silent eyes swirling with emotion. Eventually, he
nodded and smiled. He mouthed a word of thanks, and Shino
smiled, too.
She left Kyouji at the entrance of the park and rushed home, stopping at a convenience store on the way for some mineral water
and the aloe yogurt she would eat for dinner. Normally she
cooked for herself, trying to keep her meals balanced, but for a
variety of reasons, it wasn't a good idea to stuff herself before a
long dive of three hours or more.
Shino trotted up the steps, plastic bags rustling, and entered
her apartment. She impatiently relocked the electronic lock,
crossed the kitchen, and headed for the back room, checking the
clock on the wall.
There was still plenty of time before the BoB final at eight
o'clock, but she wanted to log in soon so she could check her
equipment and ammo, and get in plenty of meditation to focus
her instincts.
She ripped off the denim skirt and cotton shirt she was wearing, placing them on hangers. She hurled her underwear top into
the hamper in the corner and changed into a more comfortable
tank top, a loose sweater, and short pants, shivering at the chill in
the room.
Shino set the AC to a reasonable temperature and switched on
the humidifier before leaning back onto the bed with a sigh. She
grabbed the plastic bottle out of the grocery bag, twisted the cap
and downed a small gulp of its cold water.
Through experience, she had learned that while the AmuSphere's sensory interruption feature shut out 99 percent of real
stimuli, there were still things a user could do to maintain a comfortable dive for optimum game play. One needed to hold off on
big meals and take care of the bathroom before the dive, of
course, but also manage the temperature and humidity, and wear
comfortable, loose clothing. She once drank a huge cup of freezing water in midsummer, and found herself afflicted with terrible
stomach pain in the midst of battle. The AmuSphere picked up
abnormal signals and engaged in an emergency extraction. Once
she had settled her stomach and logged back in, her avatar had
died in battle and spawned back in town.
Some wealthy, hardcore MMO gamers set up their own isolation tanks to completely remove all outside stimuli from their experience. The luxury net cafés equipped with relaxation facilities
were already offering tanks as part of their service. Kyouji had
even treated Shino to a visit to one of them last month.
They had their own private chambers where you logged in. It
had its own shower, after which the user stripped naked and entered a capsule that took up half the room. The interior of the
capsule was surprisingly spacious, and it was filled with about
sixteen inches of a dense, slimy liquid.
Once she was lying down, her body floating in the liquid and
her neck supported by the gel-based headrest, there was almost
no skin sensation. She put on the AmuSphere connected to the
wall and closed the heavy hatch. The interior of the tank was
filled with dark silence.
In truth, just that experience alone was extremely fascinating
to her, but she was supposed to be meeting up with Kyouji in
GGO, so she had to log in to its VR space.
Upon diving, she was surprised to find that the VR signals she
received did seem clearer than usual. Because there was an absolute minimum of bodily feedback going on, Kyouji claimed that
the experience blocked out the signal noise that occasionally
leaked through the interrupter. In any case, it was such a pristine
experience Shino felt like she could even hear the fine scraping of
enemy boots in the sand. Maybe it was worth its high cost, after
all.
But at the same time, Shino felt an unease that she couldn't
quite put into words.
Being completely removed from her real flesh made her worry
about her body on the other side. Going inside a VR world carried
a faint feeling of danger, knowing that one's actual body was a
helpless rag doll at that moment—and the tank only amplified
that sensation.
Compared to the NerveGear, the "tool of the devil," the AmuSphere was almost absurdly safe. That the isolation tank method
had any effect at all was a result of the AmuSphere disallowing
real-world signals to dampen at a full 100 percent. It was built
with safety systems that could easily pull the user back to reality
if a level of light, sound, or vibration was reached.
Still, a diver's body was defenseless. It wasn't far off from
being asleep, but when Shino was in the isolation tank, she
couldn't shake the prickling fear in the back of her neck. In the
end, she decided that even if the signal noise was higher, the best
place to dive was in her own room, the place where she felt safest
in the world.
The spoon dipped repeatedly into the yogurt while her mind
mulled over these concepts, until she realized the carton was
empty. She washed it out in the sink and tossed the container in
the recycling bin. After a quick teeth brushing, she washed her
hands and face and returned to her room.
"Here we go!"
She smacked her cheeks and rolled onto the bed. Her cell
phone was set to blink-only mode, she'd locked the door and windows, and she'd already finished Monday's homework earlier in
the day. She was ready to purge all thoughts of her real life from
her brain.
Her AmuSphere was on and the lights were dimmed. The faces
of the players she would defeat flashed against the darkened ceiling before disappearing.
The last one to appear was the lightsword user with the shiny
black hair and red lips: Kirito. He had a handgun on his left side
and a photon sword on his right, and a cocky smirk on his face as
he stared at her.
The flame of competition grew within Shino. This had to be
the ultimate foe, the one whom she crawled the deadly wasteland
to find. The one who would grant her the power to destroy that
awful past—in a way, the one who was her final hope.
She would fight with all of her being. And she would crush
him.
A deep breath in, then out. Shino shut her eyes. When she said
the phrase that shifted her soul into gear, her voice was stronger
and clearer than ever.
"Link start!!"
The gravity that tugged her body downward disappeared, replaced by a floating sensation. Next the world rotated forward
ninety degrees so that she was no longer lying down. Like descending from a soft slide, her toes touched down on hard floor.
Sinon waited for all of her senses to adjust before opening her
eyelids.
The first thing she saw was an enormous neon holo-sign floating under a starless night sky. The crimson letters read BULLET OF
BULLETS 3, burning down through the gaps between buildings.
She was in the square before the regent's office, at the north
end of the main street that ran through the center of Glocken. It
was normally a rather secluded area, but players were packed
cheek by jowl today, carrying on with food and drink. This was
only natural, as, thanks to the excitement around the BoB, a majority of the currency in GGO was actively being wagered on the
tournament results.
The oddsmaker, with his flashy holo-window displaying the
current odds (who was, surprisingly, not a player but an official
system-controlled NPC), and the shady information venders selling hot tips were both swarmed with eager visitors. She wandered
over to the NPC bookie and checked out the window to see that
her own odds were quite low. That defeat in the preliminary final
yesterday must have done it. But when she looked for Kirito's
name, he was also considered quite a long shot.
She snorted and wondered if she should place all of her money
on herself, then changed her mind when she realized that this
would tarnish the purity of her goal. She left the crowd. Naturally,
people recognized her as a regular BoB finalist, so the stares followed her as she went. No one bothered to approach her, however. Sinon was known as a wildcat girl, someone who would
mercilessly rip anyone to shreds once she'd identified them as a
foe.
She started toward the regent's office, planning to get into the
waiting dome early and hone her mind, when a voice called out to
her from behind.
"Sinon!"
There was only one player in GGO who dared to address her
this way. Just as she expected, when she turned around she saw
Spiegel, the avatar of Kyouji Shinkawa, whom she'd just left minutes ago in the real world, waving and racing up to her. His tall
male avatar, clad top to bottom in urban camo, was red-faced
with excitement.
"Took you long enough, Sinon. I was worried. Is…something
up?" he asked, noting the faint smile on her face.
"No, nothing. Just thinking, it's weird to run into someone
here that you just saw in real life less than an hour ago."
"Yeah, sure…I'm not as cool as this in real life. More important, how's your plan coming along? Got any good strategies?"
"Strategies? Nothing aside from doing my best…It'll probably
just end up being a cycle of searching, sniping, and moving."
"Ah, good point. But still…I believe that you'll win."
"Uh, thanks. What are you going to do now?"
"Hmm…I figure I'll watch the match from a pub nearby…"
"Then after it's done, you can buy me a round there in celebration or commiseration," she said with another weak grin. Spiegel
looked down for a brief moment. Suddenly, he grabbed her arm
and dragged her away to the corner of the plaza. Just when they
were out of sight of all the other players, Spiegel faced her in a
huff, his face desperate. She blinked.
"Sinon…I mean, Asada."
She was stunned. He'd been playing MMOs long enough to
know what a taboo it was to refer to a player by their real name.
"Wh…what?"
"Can I trust what you said earlier?"
" 'Earlier' meaning…?"
"You said to wait, didn't you? If you manage to confirm your
own strength, will you…y'know…"
"Wh-what are you asking?!"
She felt her cheeks growing hot, and buried her face in her
muffler. But Spiegel took another step forward and clutched
Sinon's wrist again.
"I…I really mean it when I say that I lo—"
"Stop it, not now," she said, firmly this time, and shook her
head. "I want to focus on the tournament. This isn't a battle I can
win unless I wring out every last ounce of strength I have…"
"…Oh. Good point." His hand pulled away. "But I believe in
you. And I'll be waiting."
"Th-thanks. Well…I should be getting ready now. Bye."
She pulled away, thinking that if she spent any more time
around him, that confusion would carry over into the event.
"Good luck. I'm rooting for you," he returned fervently. She
smiled awkwardly and turned away, leaving the shadow of the
building and hurrying over to the entrance of the regent's office.
All the way, she felt his gaze burning into her back.
Only when she passed through the glass doors and into the
suddenly empty, quiet interior did she finally feel the tension
leave. She leaned back against a large stone pillar and wondered
if she'd been leading him on too much.
She did like Kyouji, she thought. But she was too busy handling her own matters for now.
Due to the accident that took his life, Shino had no memories
of her late father. The most memorable male face inside her mind
was the culprit of the post office shooting from five years ago that
still caused her to go into panic attacks when she relived it. Those
lightless eyes so like bottomless swamps lurked everywhere in the
darkness around, watching her.
She was like any other girl—she wanted to have a boyfriend
that she could talk to on the phone every night and visit on the
weekends. But if she went out with Kyouji, she might one day find
those eyes within him. That terrified her.
What if it wasn't just guns that triggered her panic attacks?
What if she started feeling fear of men in general? That would
make it almost impossible for her to live, period.
She had to fight. That was all she could do for now.
Sinon strode across the entrance hall to the elevators, her
boots smacking against the floor. But once again, someone called
out to her. Not Spiegel's smooth baritone, but a cool, husky voice
that called her name. She closed her eyes.
When she reluctantly turned around, she saw the hated man
himself.