7

Sinon squinted, feeling a slight itch in her trigger finger.

She tried to rub the sensation loose against the side of her thumb, but the prickling feeling that plagued the core of her finger did not ease up. And she knew why.

It was Kirito. That rude, arrogant, insolent newcomer had squeezed her hand too hard.

Her common sense told her that this was impossible. Sinon was in the midst of a full dive through her AmuSphere, and no matter how hard anyone squeezed her hand, it could not possibly affect the flow of blood or the pressure on her nerves in real life. Every physical sensation she felt in this world was false, a machine-created signal sent directly to her brain via electronic pulses.

But…

The fact remained that Sinon still felt the pressure and warmth of the black-haired swordsman’s grip. And that was two hours ago.

She gave up on trying to eliminate the sensation and put her hand back on the antimateriel rifle, secure on its stand. Her index finger traced the trigger, its springs set to light sensitivity. The grip of the Hecate II, which had accompanied her through countless battles, melted into her hand like an extension of her arm. Even then, the itching continued.

Sinon was crawling on her stomach beneath some bushes at the lip of a short cliff, waiting for her chance to snipe.

The map was “Crossroads of the Wilds”: an intersection of two straight roads in the midst of parched highlands. The name of her opponent was Stinger. Roughly twelve minutes had passed since the start of their fifth-round battle, the first of the Block F semifinals.

If she won this, then no matter what happened in the final, she would gain entrance to the BoB battle royale tomorrow, Sunday night. But Stinger had won the same number of matches as she had—this would be no walk in the park.

Just because he shared a name with the portable Stinger missiles did not mean he had them at his disposal. His main weapon was the FN SCAR carbine rifle, which was quite dangerous on its own. With a high-functioning ACOG scope, the gun’s bullet spray was much tighter and deadlier. If he could get within naked visibility range, Sinon wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Fortunately for her, the two roads split the map into four quadrants, and it was impossible to pass from one to the other without traversing the center intersection. Since the two players started at least half the map away from each other, there was no way they could be placed in the same block.

So Stinger knew that he had to pass through the intersection in order to get Sinon within his SCAR’s range, and she knew that she had to succeed at sniping him when he did.

Therefore, she expected that Stinger would delay his charge until the last possible moment, hoping to catch her when her concentration was exhausted. On the other hand, she couldn’t deny the possibility that he would defy that expectation and charge early, so ultimately, her only choice was to keep staring through the scope, every nerve at full attention.

At the present moment, over half of the fifteen tournament blocks from A to O had finished their entire lineup of matches, and there were only about ten other battles currently in progress. Back in the dome and the first-floor hall, as well as pubs around the world, her match was being broadcast without interruption—and anyone watching Sinon vs. Stinger had to be bored out of their minds. Twelve minutes, and not a single shot had been fired yet.

On the other hand, the other Block F semifinal currently in progress had enough excitement to make up for the tedium of this one, with change to spare. That match featured a close-range specialist with two SMGs against an even closer-range fighter—one swinging a lightsword.

She couldn’t lose concentration. But even still, Sinon couldn’t help but think about the mysterious black-haired girl—er, boy.

When she finished her first-round fight in about ten minutes and returned to the waiting dome, Spiegel—Kyouji Shinkawa—greeted her with a rousing celebration. She thanked him briefly and returned to the original box seats, only to be surprised by Kirito beating her there. She hadn’t expected him to win before she did, and she was striding over to offer a bracing compliment when she was hit with a different kind of shock.

Kirito, who had been so consistently impudent before the match, had his head in his knees and his hands around them, his downturned black head and slender shoulders trembling.

Poor thing. Fighting against a proper gun put that much fear in him, even after he won the match.

She reached out and patted the night camo jacket the boy was wearing.

Kirito jumped in surprise, and slowly, fearfully raised his head to look at her.

The pretty, delicate features that anyone would have assumed were feminine were painted with deep, terrible fear—like he had just peered over the abyss into Hell.

“…You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Sinon muttered. Kirito blinked several times in rapid succession and put on an awkward smile.

He muttered that he was all right, it was nothing, and Sinon asked him if the battle was really that bad. But the boy merely hid his face under that long black hair and sighed, offering nothing else.

She had no further obligation to be involved with him.

Kirito had intentionally utilized her misunderstanding about his avatar’s gender to take advantage of her directions, shopping advice, and even followed her into the same changing room.

Of course, Sinon bore some fault for not requesting his name card and for assuming he was a girl. So more than half of her anger was really at herself for being careless.

After she’d been used like a tool by her classmates, Sinon swore she’d never rely on another person, she’d never need friends again. And yet she forgot that oath the instant the rare female GGO player asked her for simple directions.

It was fun, going shopping in the market and riding on the back of that three-wheeled buggy. She realized that she’d been smiling and laughing in GGO for the first time in ages. Sinon wasn’t really angry that Kirito was a man. She was angry because she couldn’t forgive herself for letting her defenses down around him.

Which was exactly why she was so pleased to see that Kirito won his first-round fight.

She needed to split that pretty face with a bullet from her Hecate to prove that she could be stronger than when she met him. And yet he had become a prisoner to his terror, a different person completely.

Before she realized what she was doing, Sinon hissed, “You’re never going to make it to the final if that’s how you’re feeling after one fight. Get it together—I’ve got to collect what you owe me, remember.”

She had clenched her fist and pounded his shoulder again.

But the next moment, his white hands clenched hers. He pulled it down to the breast of his fatigues.

“Wh-wh…what are you doing?!” she yelled, trying to pull away, but Kirito held her hand tightly, with a strength that didn’t seem possible from his delicate body. His hands were cold as ice, and the breath that touched her skin was just as freezing.

At that point, an icon started blinking in Sinon’s view, advising her to issue a harassment warning. If she touched the icon with her left hand or said the word, Kirito would be banished to Glocken’s prison zone for a fair amount of time.

But Sinon couldn’t move or speak.

She felt a strong sense of déjà vu from the sight of that fragile avatar trembling in fear and clutching her hand. She’d seen a girl suffering in this way before. It didn’t take long before she realized that it was herself.

Not Sinon the sniper, but Shino Asada. Curled up in her bed, terrified of her memory of the scent of blood and gunpowder, whispering for someone, anyone to help.

The instant she recognized this, all the strength went out of Sinon’s arm.

“…What’s the matter…?”

He did not answer. But Sinon could feel it.

The black-haired character clinging to her hand—no, the nameless, faceless player behind the avatar—was plagued by the same darkness that Shino knew.

Sinon wanted to ask what happened. But just before the words could leave her mouth, his body was enveloped in pale light and disappeared. His next opponent had been determined, and he was whisked away to his second-round battle.

She knew he couldn’t put up a decent fight in that state. Sinon sighed.

The loser was returned not to the underground dome, but back to the hall of the regent’s office. So if Kirito lost, she would likely not see him again today—if ever.

And that was fine. He wasn’t a friend, just a person she ran across and accompanied to the office. She would forget his face and name by the day’s end, and that was that.

Or so she told herself, as Sinon pulled her dangling hand back up to her chest.

And yet, Kirito defied her expectations and won the second-, third-, and now fourth-round fights with just his lightsword and handgun.

Just once, during the waiting period between her own fights, was Sinon able to catch a glimpse of Kirito on the monitor. His style was that of reckless suicide strikes, all desperate fury and ferocity. He shot back at the assault-rifle-toting AGI type with the Five-Seven handgun Sinon had picked out for him as he charged headlong, ignoring any bullets that hit his extremities and using that lightsword to block the fatal shots in a display of mad bravado. Once he’d closed the gap entirely, he sliced clean through the enemy and his rifle.

Not a single player had fought this way in either the first or second Bullet of Bullets. Sinon could only watch, wide-eyed, amid the murmuring surprise filling the dome.

At that rate, Kirito was quite capable of reaching the final of Block F. But how to fight someone with such an extreme style?

Even after her next match started, Sinon continued to mull over her strategy. At the same time, she couldn’t help but wonder about Kirito the player.

That natural, curious smile when they were shopping for gear. The cool, aloof attitude once she learned that he was a man. The weakness he showed as he clung trembling to her. And now, the demonic savagery of the blue blade he used to slay his foes.

Which one was the real Kirito? And why couldn’t she keep herself from thinking about him?

Plagued by irritation without a reason, Sinon bit her lip and kept her eye pressed to the high-power scope.

On the left side of the crossroads a kilometer away, a large shadow leaped out from the profile of the cliff. Sinon adjusted the Hecate’s crosshairs automatically. The wind was coming at 2.5 meters from the left. Five percent humidity. She pulled the center of the glowing reticle just a bit above the shadow and tugged the trigger on the very first contraction of the bullet circle.

A blast.

Through the scope, she saw the .50-caliber bullet tear a tunnel of heat haze through the air. Its gentle spiral down and to the left connected with the upper half of the shadow.

“…Oops,” she muttered, yanking the Hecate’s bolt handle. The empty cartridge popped out and the next round fit into the chamber.

The shadow that crumbled away did not belong to her opponent Stinger, but a simple mass of stone about three feet across. The next instant, an even larger silhouette emerged from the same direction, spitting up dust.

It was a High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), better known as a Humvee. Vehicles were not the personal property of either player, but left somewhere in the map as a bonus awaiting whoever found it first. Sinon immediately noticed that despite the fact that the cars in the stage appeared in pristine condition, this one’s front bumper was already dented. That meant he had rammed that first rock out into the open with it.

Stinger, sitting in the driver’s seat, must have known that Sinon’s weapon was a bolt-action rifle that couldn’t fire consecutively. He also knew that she would be camping out, watching the intersection he needed to traverse.

Therefore, he set up a plan to use the Humvee to knock the boulder into the crossroads and cause her to fire, then race through the empty space before she could get off her second shot.

It was a good plan. In the space of time that Sinon pulled the handle, the car was already halfway through the intersection. She had time for one more shot, if that, and no time to focus on aiming.

But Sinon did not panic.

Although Stinger had stolen the sniper’s best weapon—the first shot without a warning bullet line—he had given her valuable intel. The trajectory that her first shot traveled was now burned into her mind. If she kept her wits about her, the second would move the same way. If she made use of that information, she could fire with much greater precision on the second shot.

Sinon shifted the barrel and quietly pulled the trigger. Another blast.

The bullet honed in on the Humvee’s small side window as if sucked into it, easily piercing the heavy bulletproof glass.

The next moment, the vehicle shot sideways, rolling up against the rocks at the shoulder of the road. It stuck against the far cliff, and dark, reddish smoke billowed out of the hood.

“If you’d jumped out of the car and run, you might have been able to avoid the bullet line,” she admonished, loading her third bullet. With her eye still stuck to the scope, Sinon kept the burning Humvee in her reticle. Stinger did not appear for several seconds, which suggested that he might have died right in the driver’s seat. She did not ease herself out of firing position.

Sinon crawled out of the bushes and got to her feet only after the Congratulations! message appeared in the sunset sky.

The match time was nineteen minutes and fifteen seconds. She had cleared the semifinals.

Now she had her ticket for tomorrow’s BoB main event. But Sinon didn’t even crack a smile, much less pump a fist. Her mind was already on the Block F final match coming up in moments.

She had no doubt that the mysterious newcomer Kirito had won his semifinal match in shorter time than she did. His opponent was a close-range fighter who held an SMG in either hand. No matter how many bullets you could produce, once the swordsman got within range, he would slice his foe with that fatal energy blade before you could carve his HP away. Kirito’s reaction speed was so quick that he could predict the bullet prediction line. If you wanted to beat him in close combat, you needed one of those M134 miniguns.

So Sinon kept the Hecate secure in hands, frozen in place until the teleporter carried her to the next battle. A few seconds later, she was moved not to the domed waiting room, but the preparatory space before the final. As she expected, the name of her opponent displayed above the hex-panel floor was Kirito.

When she opened her eyes after the next teleportation, Sinon saw an elevated bridge, arrow-straight, and a bloodred sun in the process of setting.

It was the “Transcontinental Highway” stage. The size of the map was the same as the others before it, but there was no way to scale down the hundred-yard-wide highway that crossed the map from east to west, so it was actually quite a simple, narrow area to fight in.

On the other hand, with all the countless cars, trucks, downed helicopters, and bulging chunks of pavement, there was no way to see from one end to the other with the naked eye.

Sinon spun around and confirmed that she was on the eastern edge of the map. Which meant that Kirito, her opponent, was at least five hundred yards to the west.

She glanced at her surroundings and started running. Her target was the double-decker sightseeing bus ahead on the right. Sinon raced inside the ajar rear door and climbed the stairs to the second deck. She threw herself belly first onto the floor of the center aisle and deployed the bipod, pointing the gun straight ahead—out through the panoramic viewing window at the front of the bus. She was in firing position, the front and rear flip covers on the scope open.

The sun was directly ahead. That meant that no matter where she was hiding, there would always be the danger that the sunlight would catch the lens of her scope and tip the enemy off. There was no easier target than a sniper exposed.

But the mirror-coated windows of the bus would help hide the reflection of her scope. It was also tall enough that she could see over nearly all of the impediments below.

Kirito was probably making his way over at high speed, flitting from cover to cover. With his skills, there was no way she’d be able to snipe him with the bullet line visible; Sinon would only have one chance: while he was unaware of her location.

I can hit him. I know I can, she told herself, and pressed her right eye to the scope.

Even she couldn’t fully explain what drove her to desire this victory so badly. Yes, she had helped him with directions and shopping advice while he was hiding his gender from her, and he had watched her change clothes.

But that was all that happened. She hadn’t suffered any item or monetary loss, and the only underwear he’d seen belonged to her avatar. They’d spent less than an hour together from meeting on the streets of Glocken to separating in the domed auditorium. She could easily forget something that brief.

Yet Sinon wanted to beat Kirito with such a fiery passion that all the countless other battles she’d fought in GGO paled in comparison. Yes, even Behemoth, the terrible minigun user. Why was she so fixated on someone who’d just shown up here today, and who insisted on being a minority lightsword fighter rather than a gunner…?

…No.

No, maybe she already knew the reason why.

Because somewhere in my heart, I haven’t fully accepted him as my enemy. When his frozen hands clutched mine as he trembled atop that hard, uncomfortable seat, an emotion without a name was born in my heart.

Sympathy? No.

Pity? No.

Empathy…? Definitely not.

I don’t empathize with anyone. There is no human being alive who can bear the darkness that plagues me. I’ve had that hope and been betrayed before, over and over and over and over.

Only my own strength can save me now. I’m in this spot because I’ve learned that fact.

I don’t want to know Kirito’s problems, and I don’t need to. One emotionless bullet will destroy his bewitching avatar and bury it among the countless other targets I’ve reduced to dust. Then I’ll forget him.

That’s all I need to do.

Sinon stared through the scope and traced the trigger with her finger.

Which was why, when she saw the black silhouette stand against the red of the setting sun, Sinon forgot her sniper’s instincts for a moment and gasped.

“Wha…?”

Long black hair rippling in the breeze. Slender limbs in nighttime fatigues. A lightsword handle hanging from his belt. It was Kirito.

But he wasn’t running. He didn’t even seem to care about hiding. He was walking, very leisurely, down the center of the highway on a slightly raised bulge in the road. It was a completely defenseless maneuver, absolutely unlike the last match.

Does he think that he can dodge my shot, even without the bullet line?

The challenge sparked her mind like an explosion. Sinon trained her scope’s crosshairs right over Kirito’s head. Just as she was about to put her finger to the trigger, she realized that her conjecture from a second ago was mistaken.

Kirito wasn’t facing forward. His face was downcast, his body devoid of strength. He was simply moving his legs one after the other. It was a lifeless plodding, the polar opposite of his possessed charge in the clip she’d seen earlier.

He could not possibly dodge Sinon’s shot in this state. The Hecate II fired bullets far faster than the speed of sound, so he wouldn’t hear the gunshot until it was too late. With his face to the ground, he wouldn’t even notice the flash of the muzzle.

Meaning…Kirito had no intention of dodging at all. He would take her shot and lose on purpose to bring an end to the match. After earning the right to appear in the final battle tomorrow, he didn’t care about the battle with Sinon at all. That was all it meant.

“…Why…you…” she rasped.

She put her finger to the trigger again and tightened it. The green bullet circle appeared and rapidly pulsed over Kirito’s head. Its frantic rate indicated the wild state of her heartbeat, but the wind was weak and the target was only four hundred yards away. If she fired, the shot would land.

Beneath her index finger, the trigger spring squeaked. But her finger relaxed again. She tensed it, and the spring squeaked. Then back.

“…Screw this!” she yelped, the wailing of a crying child.

At the same moment, Sinon squeezed the trigger. The roar of the .50-caliber rifle filled the tourist bus and the large front window cracked cloudy white and exploded outward.

The bullet split the crimson sunset sky and passed well over a foot away from Kirito’s right cheek to slam into the belly of a car on its side far behind him. A pillar of fire erupted, followed by billowing black smoke.

Kirito stumbled a bit at the air pressure from the 12.7 mm bullet passing by his head, then stopped and looked up. The only readable thought on his feminine features was disbelief that she would miss. Sinon stared at that face through the scope, pulled the bolt handle, and fired a second round without missing a beat.

This one flew far over Kirito’s head and disappeared into the far distance.

Reload. Pull trigger. The third shot gouged a huge hole into the asphalt to the left of his black boots. Reload. Fire. Reload. Fire. Reload, fire.

The sixth cartridge clattered next to Sinon briefly, then disappeared.

Through her scope, the unharmed Kirito continued to stare at her questioningly. Sinon got to her feet unsteadily, cradling the Hecate in her arms, and walked up the aisle of the bus. She made her way through the frame of the missing windshield and hopped down onto the street.

After a few dozen steps, when she was just fifteen feet away from Kirito, Sinon stopped. She stared down the unmoving swordsman dressed in black.

“…Why?”

Kirito understood the question and the accusation behind it. His black eyes wavered and returned to his feet. Eventually he spoke, but his voice was as bland and lifeless as an NPC’s.

“…My goal is to appear in tomorrow’s final—that’s all. I have no reason to fight now.”

She expected that answer, but couldn’t stand to hear it. That disgust flooded her chest and pushed out her next sentiment.

“Then you should have taken that gun and shot yourself the moment the match started. Did you not want to waste the ammo? Or did you think that standing still so I could rack up one more on the kill counter would satisfy me?!”

She took another step toward the silent man.

“It’s just a single match in a stupid VR game—you can think whatever you want! But don’t force me to play along with your stupid philosophy!” she shouted, her voice shaking. Even she knew that she didn’t really believe what she was saying.

If anything, Sinon was forcing him into her philosophy. If what he did was unacceptable, she should have hit him with the first shot and forgotten it ever happened. Instead, she wasted six shots trying to intimidate him, and now she was hurling all her emotions at him up close. If anyone was acting irrationally, it was her.

But…

She still couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t stop the arms cradling the Hecate from trembling, the muscles of her face from scrunching up, or the teardrops that spilled over the rims of her eyelids.

The silhouette of Kirito against the setting sun across the horizon still had its eyes shut tight. His mouth was clamped down.

Eventually, the tension drained out of the delicate avatar, and he spoke in a weak voice with just a hint of emotion behind it.

“…I…I once blamed someone the same way you did, just now…”

“…”

Kirito glanced at Sinon and dipped his head briefly.

“…I’m sorry. I was wrong. It’s just a game, just one match, but that’s exactly why I need to do everything I can…Otherwise, I don’t have a reason or the right to live in this world. I should know this already…”

The swordsman from abroad raised his head and stared into Sinon with those black eyes.

“Will you give me a chance to make it up to you, Sinon? Will you fight with me?”

In her surprise, she momentarily forgot her anger. “Right now…?”

The BoB prelims were more like encounters, battles that began without knowledge of the enemy’s location. Now that they had come face-to-face without fighting, there was no way to return to the starting conditions.

But Kirito smiled weakly and pulled the Five-Seven from his waist holster. She tensed up automatically, but he held out a hand to stop her, and pulled the slide. The cartridge flew out and he caught it in midair, then returned the gun to the holster.

Twirling the 5.7 mm bullet in his fingers, Kirito said, “You’ve still got ammo, right?”

“…Yes. One shot.”

“Let’s have a duel, then. How about…we separate to ten yards. You use your rifle, I’ll use my sword. I’ll toss this bullet up, and the fight begins when it hits the ground. How’s that?”

Sinon was less surprised by this than exasperated. She did not realize that her anger from moments ago had somehow dissipated away.

“Are you thinking that’s going to make for a proper fight? There is no way I can miss at ten yards. Between my skill proficiency, my base stats, and my gun’s specs, the game will guarantee a bull’s-eye. You won’t even have time to swing your lightsword. It would be the same thing as committing suicide.”

“You don’t know unless you try,” Kirito sassed, his red lips curling into a grin.

The moment she saw that look, a buzz ran up Sinon’s spine.

He was serious. The swordsman actually thought he could beat her in a serious, Old West–style duel.

Yes, there might only be one more bullet in the Hecate II’s magazine, which made him feel that if he could somehow dodge that shot, he could win. But that was foolish. You couldn’t “somehow” do anything to a bullet that was guaranteed to hit. The speed, accuracy, and power of her gun was miles ahead of that antique revolver in the shopping mall’s bullet-dodging game.

But—what if there was something to Kirito? She couldn’t help but want to see that.

Sinon nodded and said, “All right. That will settle this.”

She turned around and took ten paces to the east along the center divider, then turned back to the sun.

They were exactly ten meters apart. She raised the Hecate, set the stock against her shoulder, and spread her feet to brace against the recoil.

In the real world, even the strongest man could not accurately fire an antimateriel sniper rifle from a standing position, but with enough strength in GGO, it was possible. The blowback would knock her off her feet, of course, but with only one bullet, that didn’t matter.

She pulled the bolt and popped the last remaining bullet into the chamber.

With her cheek pressed to the receiver, Kirito’s figure filled the entire scope, even at minimum zoom.

There was none of the lifeless emptiness in his girlish beauty anymore. His obsidian eyes sparkled and flashed, and a confident smile played across his lips.

With the bullet from the Five-Seven held between the fingers of his extended left hand, Kirito removed the lightsword from his waist. He flicked the switch on with a thumb, and the pale blue energy blade buzzed to life.

At this point, anyone watching the Block F final had to wonder what the hell these two were doing. But that wasn’t their concern. One bullet against one blade. It shouldn’t have been a proper fight, but the prickling tension that curled the hairs on the back of Sinon’s neck was real.

There is something to him.

The Hecate’s sights slipped just a little bit. On the other end of the scope, Kirito’s lips moved.

“…Here goes, then.”

He flicked his thumb. The bullet went spinning, spinning, high into the air, glittering in the evening sun like a ruby.

Kirito dropped into a crouch, his left side leaning forward and the lightsword in his right hand drooping downward. It was an easy stance, not a hint of tension from his toes to his fingertips. Yet there was an invisible pressure exuding from that fragile avatar, the pressure of one whose heart is in the sights of a gun.

Sinon could tell that her own senses were heightening as well. The 5.7 mm bullet spinning through the air was moving far too slow. All sound disappeared, leaving only her body and the Hecate II. In fact, even the boundary between those two things was gone. Shooter and gun became one, a precision machine designed to hit a target with a high-speed bullet.

The white reticle and green circle vanished from her view. The bullet dropped in slow motion, tumbling, turning, before the silent swordsman. It passed through the field of her scope and vanished, but she could still feel it: It spun end over end as it approached the pavement; its pointed head touched the asphalt; the game system determined that two objects had collided, generating the appropriate sound effect; the sound echoed through the AmuSphere as an electronic pulse, into the auditory center of Sinon’s brain, and—