Chapter 9

I touched down on a street corner close to the regent's tower at

the north end of SBC Glocken, the hub city of GGO.

Crowded neon holo-signs floated against a backdrop of the

gloomy sunset sky. Most of them were advertisements for real

companies; in ALO, such advertising tie-ins would be protested

for ruining the immersion of the world, but in the setting of a ruined, futuristic city, it seemed oddly appropriate. But most visible

of all the neon signs was the one for the Bullet of Bullets final,

which was just about to start. The instant I saw the thick red font,

a shiver ran through my body. I told myself that it was a shiver of

excitement, not fear.

With a puff of breath, I faced forward and unconsciously

pushed the long hair resting on my shoulders toward my back.

When I was finished, I realized what I'd done and felt disappointed, then chalked it up to growing familiarity with my new

avatar.

I figured I would get registered for the final first, and headed

for the regent's office. It wasn't long before I attracted stares from

both sides of the main street. I only barely resisted the urge to

glare back.

They weren't trying to intimidate me. The avatar I inhabited

now looked just like a girl—a very pretty one, in fact. If I were in

their position, I'd be staring, too.

You'd figure that a few of them would extend past staring and

call out to me, too, but as I approached, the men scurried away to

keep their distance. I thought I knew why—stories must have

spread about my berserker nature after the mad charging strategy

I used against my opponents in the prelims.

Only the names and prior tournament appearances were made

public in the contestant listings, not gender. Kirito could be taken

for male or female. If I had to guess, my reputation in GGO was

"the psycho-killer girl who went out of her way to use a blade,

rather than a gun."

I wasn't taken with that categorization myself, but it would be

helpful if it meant that some of the other contestants in the upcoming final avoided me during the fight. I wasn't trying to win—

I just wanted to make contact with Death Gun again, the man in

the tattered cloak.

There was no "Death Gun" among the thirty finalists. But he

had to be there. If his goal was to display his strength within

GGO, there wasn't a better chance to do that than the Bullet of

Bullets. All eyes would be trained on it. Death Gun's real name—

or at least, his character name—had to be something different.

I needed to find out that name, speak with him again during

the tournament, and figure out what his SAO name was. From

there, I could gain his real name, via Seijirou Kikuoka, who had

access to the confidential player account data from SAO. Once we

had his real name, we'd be able to tell if he killed Zexceed and

Usujio Tarako—if he was able to, that is.

But in the process, I'd have to face my own sin again.

The fear hadn't left me. But it was a necessary emotion. I had

to make sure I didn't choose the escape route of forgetting again.

I strode down the street with clenched fists, my assault boots

clacking against the pavement. The enormous tower of the regent's office was up ahead.

In ALO, and even in SAO, I fell prey to the excitement of a

good PvP tournament. To think that I'd enter into one with nothing but dread…

I snorted at my own timidity and headed up the long stairs toward the tower. Just outside the glass doors of the entrance, I

spotted a familiar sand-colored muffler waving like the tail of a

cat.

I didn't need to see the pale blue hair or the legs extending

from the hem of her jacket to know that it was Sinon the sniper,

my opponent in yesterday's preliminary block final. She was the

only person I knew in GGO, but I wasn't sure if I should approach

her or not.

After all, when I got lost right off the bat upon logging in to

GGO for the first time yesterday, I brazenly asked the bystander

Sinon for help, chose not to correct her obvious assumption that I

was a girl like her, acted like a newbie girl to elicit all kinds of advice and explanation about the game's systems and what equipment to buy, then took a trip into the changing room to get a solid

look at her underwear.

And that wasn't even everything.

After an unexpected encounter with Death Gun himself in the

middle of the preliminary round, I was stunned by the revelation

that he was a fellow SAO survivor, and a member of the killer

guild Laughing Coffin. In my shock, I abandoned the final round

against Sinon. As soon as the battle started, I simply walked forward without a strategy, ready to receive her fatal shot so I could

lose on purpose.

But Sinon didn't shoot me.

She shot six rounds of pale, burning fury, all of which missed

me. When she abandoned her advantage and came face-to-face

with me, she screamed, "Screw you, die on your own time. Don't

get me involved in your view; that this is just a game, just a single

match."

Those words tore deep, deep into my chest.

Much, much earlier, I'd spoken very similar words to someone

else.

It was nearly four years ago. Just as I started my second year

of middle school, to my incredible fortune (or misfortune) I was

selected to join the Sword Art Online closed beta test. At the end

of each school day, I plunged into the still-free world of Aincrad

until the next morning.

At the time, I was a Kirito with an almost embarrassingly typical hero look, and I made a bit of a name for myself by placing

highly in PvP events. Because I was even feebler at personal skills

back then, I didn't have any real friends. One of the few who I

thought I might one day be friends with was a person I saw often

in duel tournaments, a swordsman with plain brown hair.

He possessed both a logical mind and an innate talent for

swordsmanship. I secretly hoped that I might cross swords with

him at an event, and when that moment finally came, I was in for

a shock. At the very end of a pitched battle, he intentionally chose

to take an attack that I knew he could avoid. I suspected that he

threw the match for the sake of a huge payday from the oddsmakers running the market, and I confronted him about it—using the

same words that Sinon said to me just yesterday.

It was the pain of being shamed by myself from four years ago,

and I immediately apologized to Sinon. Though we faced off in a

classic duel to settle the fight, I was sure that Sinon had to be unhappy about the result. She was a sniper, and her strength lay in

firing an unstoppable single round from long distance. No doubt

she was burning with the desire to place that bullet between my

eyes in tonight's final competition.

Thanks to the above complications—almost entirely my own

fault—I wasn't sure if I should approach Sinon, even though she

was just a few feet away. After a few seconds, I made up my mind

and raced up the stairs to greet her.

"Hey, Sinon. Good luck today."

The tail of the muffler came to a stop and the blue hair seemed

to arch just like a cat's. The sniper girl spun around on her right

heel with a tremendous glare on her face. She snorted, "What do

you mean, good luck?"

The dangerous glint in her dark blue eyes told me immediately

that this was a mistake, but I had a reason to talk to her. I had to

choose my words carefully so that she didn't shut the door in my

face before I could get to that point.

With my best serious face, I said, "I just mean, let's both do

our best and see what happens."

"You're shameless."

Right off the bat, I was not doing good. I soldiered onward.

"Anyway, you're sure diving in early. We've got three hours

until the event."

"Gee, I wonder whose fault it was that I nearly failed to register on time yesterday," she shot back, turning away even as she

shot me a sidelong glare. A cold sweat broke out on my face. "And

besides, you're here early, too. Don't act like I'm some kind of

loser with nothing better to do."

"Sh-shall we find a meaningful use of our time? While we're

waiting for the event to start, maybe we could get some tea…er,

trade some intel…"

I could never say this to her in the real world. In fact, given

that I had Asuna, I shouldn't even be saying it in the virtual

world. But this was, cross my heart, hope to die, not a VR comeon, but a necessary step for not just my own duty and fate, but

Sinon's safety as well.

Naturally, Sinon couldn't have known all of this, but after several seconds of a very probing look, she snorted and made the

smallest of nods.

"Fine. It'll probably end up with me giving you all the advice

again, anyway."

"Th-that's not my plan…Well, not entirely," I mumbled, hurrying after Sinon as she strode away.

After we concluded our tournament check-in process at the

ground floor terminal with plenty of time to spare, Sinon took me

to a large tavern zone on the first-basement level of the tower.

The gamma levels were so low that the faces of the players milling

at the countless tables were nearly indistinguishable. The only

light in the room came from the large panel monitors hanging

from the ceiling, spitting out bright, primary colors.

Sinon slid into a booth in the back and examined the metal

menu placard, eventually pushing a small button on the side corresponding to an iced coffee. A hole opened in the center of the

metal table, and a glass filled with a black liquid emerged. It certainly wasn't as warm and friendly as the Aincrad system, where

NPC waiters took orders and brought the food themselves, but it

suited GGO's general atmosphere better.

I pressed the button for a ginger ale and downed half of the

glass in one go when it appeared. Once the virtual carbonation

stopped tickling my throat, I initiated the conversation.

"Tell me if I have the battle royale straight: Thirty players are

placed randomly on the same map and open fire once they find

each other, until the last remaining survivor is crowned the winner?"

Sinon glared at me over her coffee glass and said, "I knew you

were just trying to get me to explain things to you. All of these details are laid out in the e-mail the developers sent to the contestants."

"Y-yeah, I read it, but…"

In truth, I skimmed through it once, intending to read it in detail once I was in the game. But when I saw Sinon the veteran

right in front of me, it seemed that asking her in person would be

quicker…not that she wanted to hear it. I coughed uncomfortably.

"I was just hoping that you might, um, confirm my understanding…"

"It's all in how you say it," she noted in an exceedingly chilly

voice that froze my spine. Fortunately for me, she was nice

enough to launch into a quick explanation of the rules once she'd

returned her glass to the tabletop. "Basically, as you said, it's a

battle between thirty finalists on the same map. The starting locations are random, but you're guaranteed to be at least a kilometer

away from any other player, so you don't have to worry about

spawning right in front of someone."

"A k-kilometer? So the map must be pretty huge, then," I interrupted. Her blue lasers cut me off.

"Did you really read the message? It says right at the very top.

The battle takes place on a circular map ten kilometers across. It's

a composite stage with mountains, forests, and valleys, so there's

no overall advantage or disadvantage to any one loadout or character build."

"Ten kilometers?! That's huge…"

It was the same size as the first floor of Aincrad. In other

words, an area that ten thousand people were able to comfortably

inhabit and hunt in was now the exclusive domain of just thirty,

spaced entirely apart.

"Will we…even find each other? What if the entire event

passes without anyone seeing anyone else?"

"First of all, it's a shooting game—you need that much space. A

sniper rifle's range is close to a kilometer, and an assault rifle can

hit a target nearly half that distance. If you had thirty people in a

tiny map, they'd start firing the moment it started, and half the

group would be dead in moments."

"Ahh, good point…"

She continued her patient explanation. Behind the gruff posturing, it seemed like there really was a helpful, considerate girl—

one who would be furious if I ever let on that I was realizing this.

I shut up and listened.

"But as you say, there's no point if nobody manages to make

contact. On the other hand, someone's going to get the idea to

hide until the very end, right? So all of the contestants are given

an item called a Satellite Scan terminal."

"Like…a spy satellite?"

"Yes. An observational satellite passes overhead every fifteen

minutes. At that point, it sends locational data on all players to all

of the terminals. If you touch the blip on the map, you can even

see their names."

"Hmm… So you only get fifteen minutes at best to camp out in

any one location. Once your location is shown to the others, they

could sneak up on you anytime."

"Exactly," Sinon nodded.

I grinned and asked, "But doesn't that rule hurt a sniper? Isn't

it your job to hide in the bushes like a potato with your rifle held

still?"

"Enough about potatoes," she snapped, tossing navy-blue

sparks in my direction before snorting confidently. "Fifteen minutes is more than enough time to fire a shot and kill a target, then

move a kilometer."

"Oh…I see."

I took her word for it. Anyone trying to use the satellite data to

ambush Sinon would end up sniped from long distance anyway. I

committed that warning to memory and cleared my throat, hoping to sum up everything I'd learned.

"So basically, once the match starts you stay on the move,

spotting enemies and trying to stay alive until you're the last one

standing…right? And every fifteen minutes, each player learns the

locations of everyone else on their map. Which means that you

also know who's still alive at the time. Is that correct?"

"Essentially, yes." Sinon downed the rest of her iced coffee and

set it down on the table with a high-pitched clank. She got to her

feet. "Well, that's all. The next time I see you, I'll be pulling the

trigger without—"

"Hey, hang on! I'm just getting to the point," I yelped, reaching out to pull on Sinon's sleeve in a gesture that reminded me of

a certain government official I knew.

"…There's more?"

She shot me the dirtiest glance and checked the military watch

on her wrist, but I was too close to back down now. Sinon sighed

heavily and sat down again. She put her elbows on the table,

rested her chin on her folded hands, and prompted me to continue with her eyebrows.

"W-well, um…this might be an odd question, but," I prefaced,

waving my left hand to bring up the menu window. All VRMMOs

built on the Seed's engine shared nearly identical menu systems,

so I knew exactly how to make my window's contents visible to

her.

After flipping through a few tabs, I showed her the message

from the devs containing the list of names of all thirty finalists for

the BoB. Around the middle was Kirito, first-place finisher in

Block F, and Sinon, second-place in Block F.

Sinon looked at my window. The bridge of her nose wrinkled

up like a cat's—a jaguar's, if anything.

"What is this? Are you bragging to me again about the results

of yesterday's prelims?" she hissed.

I took a deep breath and shook my head, trying to sound as

grave as possible. "No, absolutely not."

She sensed the change in my attitude and squinted with her

shapely brows. "Then…why are you showing this to me?"

"Are there a few names on this list that you don't recognize?"

"Huh…?" She glared at me with open suspicion. I ran a finger

down the short list.

"Please, tell me. This is important."

"…Oh, all right…"

Sinon looked down at the purple holo-window floating over

the table, though she was still clearly suspicious. Her navy-blue

eyes flicked right and left.

"Let's see, this is the third BoB, so I would recognize most of

these people. The ones that I don't recognize, aside from a certain

cocky lightswordsman…are three."

"Three. Which names?"

"Hmm… There's Musketeer X, Pale Rider, and…I think that's

supposed to be 'Steven'?" Sinon read awkwardly. I checked the

names for myself. "Musketeer X" was displayed in kanji, while the

other two names were in the Western alphabet. I closed my eyes

and repeated the three names to myself.

Sinon turned to me with equal parts suspicion and irritation.

"So what's your point? You keep asking me these questions, but

you're not explaining what's going on."

"Yeah…um…"

I let the moment drag out, thinking frantically. She had singled out three names…

One of them, if my hunch was correct, was the character name

for Death Gun—the reason that I was here, a survivor of SAO and

former member of Laughing Coffin, related to two unexplained

deaths.

This suspicion stemmed from the fact that Death Gun must

have taken considerable care to hide his true identity. He probably wanted to go with "Death Gun" for a character name, except

that it would open him up to all kinds of spam messages, and he

would have gotten involved in trouble during the preliminaries.

On the other hand, if his actual character handle was spread

around, it would dim the "Death Gun" image he'd gone to so

much trouble to build. Instead, he'd kept his identity a secret

from everyone. It was no wonder Sinon didn't know it.

The problem was, which of the three was Death Gun?

A white hand passed through my view as I pondered. The nail

of the index finger tapped on the tabletop. I looked up to see

Sinon glaring at me through narrowed eyes.

"…I'm really getting mad now. What's going on? Is this an

elaborate setup to irritate me and get me off my game in the bat-

tle?"

"No…no, it's not that…"

I bit my lip in the face of that ultrahot stare. I wasn't sure if I

should explain everything or not. In the world of GGO, most people knew the rumors that there was a player calling himself Death

Gun who performed public shootings in crowded places, and the

people who were shot hadn't logged in since. However, very few

of them seemed to actually believe that he'd really killed them.

Sinon was in the majority on that one.

In truth, I wasn't completely convinced, either. In my recent

conversation with Kikuoka, we determined that no matter what

logic was used, killing a player in real life with virtual bullets was

absolutely impossible.

But at the same time, I couldn't just laugh off Death Gun's

power. If he was indeed a central member of Laughing Coffin,

that made him a homicidal player who had actively conspired and

acted to end the lives of multiple people in Aincrad. I couldn't

discount the possibility that someone with such an extreme background could find some logic that transcended the common sense

that Kikuoka and I followed.

If I confessed everything that I knew to Sinon, told her that

Death Gun's power might be real, that she might die if he shot

her, and that she should cancel her appearance in the final, would

she accept my word for it? Absolutely not. I thought of the desperation in her face yesterday, when we were racing against the

clock to get to the entry desk in time after she helped me with

shopping. She had to have her own very serious reason for competing in this tournament…

The dark blue eyes stared holes in me as my silence continued

—but eventually, they softened. Her thin-colored lips barely

moved as she spoke.

"…Does this have something to do with the sudden change

that came over you during the prelims?"

"Huh…?"

I looked up, straight into Sinon's eyes, lost for words. Within

seconds, I forgot all the logic and calculations running through

my head, and simply nodded. The words were whispering out of

my throat before I knew it.

"…Yeah… That's right. I was greeted out of the blue in the

waiting dome by someone who played the same VRMMO as me,

years ago… I'm sure he's going to be in tonight's match. One of

the three names left has to be his…"

"Was it a friend?" Sinon asked.

I shook my head violently, hair spinning. "No. Just the opposite—an enemy. I'm pretty certain that we tried to kill each other

once. And yet…I can't even remember his original name. I have to

remember. I need to make contact again during the battle…and

find out why he's here, what he's doing…"

At that point I realized that Sinon was not going to understand

anything I was saying. In a normal VRMMO, even rivals in competing guilds were still comrades in a way, fellow enthusiasts of

the same game. Calling him an "enemy" was a bit dramatic.

But the blue-haired sniper didn't laugh at me, or do anything

other than widen her eyes a bit. She spoke with the bare minimum of vocalization, just loud enough for the system to recognize

it as speech. "Enemy…tried to kill…each other…"

She continued by asking me a question that shot deep into my

mind, despite the same nearly silent volume. "Do you mean…your

play styles didn't match? Or you had a falling out in your party,

that kind of in-game thing? Or was it—"

I interrupted, shaking my head. "No. An actual fight to the

death, with both of our lives on the line. He…his group did something unforgivable. Peace and understanding weren't an option.

We had to settle it with the sword. I don't regret that part. But…"

I knew that the more I revealed, the less Sinon would believe

me, but I couldn't stop. I clutched my hands together on the

table, stared into those navy-blue eyes across from me, and urged

the words out of my choking throat.

"But…I've tried to hide from the responsibility I bear. I haven't

been thinking of the meaning of my actions. I've been trying to

forget them. So escape is no longer an option. This time, I have to

face it head-on."

These words were meant for myself. Sinon couldn't have understood. I shut my mouth, and she looked down. No doubt she

was cursing herself inwardly for getting involved with such a head

case.

"Sorry for being weird. Forget about it. Basically, it's an old

score," I summed up, trying to put on a wry smile. But Sinon interrupted.

" 'If that bullet could actually kill a player in real life, could you

still pull the trigger?'"

"…!"

I sucked in a sharp breath. She'd just quoted an emotional

question I'd posed to her in the final battle of the preliminary

tournament block last night. Even now, I didn't know why I asked

her that. I'd shot that question back to her when she asked me

how I'd gotten my strength.

An attack in a virtual game that could kill a real-life player.

Common sense said this was impossible—it was why no one really

believed the rumors about Death Gun. There was only one world

where that statement was true, and it didn't exist anymore.

I held my silence as Sinon stared into me with her sharp eyes.

Her mouth finally opened. "Are you saying, Kirito…that you were

in that game…?"

The question, barely more than a breath, melted into the dry

air of the tavern. Her navy-blue eyes wavered and looked down,

and she shook her head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

"…No, it's okay," I responded to her surprising apology. A

hard, uncomfortable silence settled between us as we maintained

eye contact.

I hadn't planned to reveal my background as a Sword Art Online survivor to Sinon. But she would never understand what I

was talking about earlier if I didn't explain that part.

Sinon understood what I meant now. When I said the word

"enemy." When I spoke of a "battle to the death."

I waited for her eyes to fill with fear and loathing. But…

Sinon never looked away, and didn't stand up to leave. Instead, she leaned over a bit and stared right into me. Those sapphire eyes were filled with something. Was she…seeking help

from me, or was my mind playing tricks on me?

The next moment, she squeezed her eyes tight. Her lips trembled, and she bit them hard. Before I could even marvel at this

change, her tension loosened. The sniper girl let out a long

breath, then smiled wanly.

She whispered, "We ought to move over to the dome. We're

going to run out of time for checking gear and warming up."

"Uh…yeah, good idea," I agreed, and stood up after her. According to the simple digital watch on my wrist, it was nearly

seven o'clock already. There was only an hour left until the event

began.

Sinon pressed the DOWN button on the unremarkable elevator

in the corner of the massive tavern. The mesh door creaked open,

revealing a metal box. We filed inside, and I pressed the bottom

button.

As we stood in the cramped elevator, surrounded by metallic

sounds and a virtual dropping sensation, Sinon mumbled, "I understand that you have your own baggage."

I sensed her take a step closer to my backside. Something

poked me in the center of my back. Not a gun barrel—but a finger.

A little bit louder, she said, "But our agreement is a separate

matter. I'll get you back for what happened yesterday. You're not

allowed to get shot by anyone else."

"…Understood," I agreed.

My greatest reason for diving into GGO was to contact Death

Gun and solve a mystery. Not only was I hired by Seijirou

Kikuoka for the job, it was now personal to me. So thinking rationally, I knew it was in my best interest to avoid the dangerous

sniper Sinon and prioritize my primary goal.

But in coming here, meeting, and fighting with her, I'd forged

a new personal connection. I couldn't just ignore that now. No

matter which virtual world I was in, "Kirito" always had to be a

swordsman. Even if that sword happened to be made of light

without substance.

"…I'll survive until I run across you again," I announced. The

fingertip left my back.

"Thanks."

Before I could ask what she meant by this, the elevator came

to a violent halt. The door opened onto a darkness that surrounded me with the odor of steel and gunpowder—the smell of

battle.