Sword Art Online - Volume 6 - Phantom Bullet

by Reki Kawahara

  She shook aside the right hand that was being held and forcefully clenched her fist to slam at Kirito’s chest. Twice, thrice, she exerted all her strength onto Kirito’s body.

  “You don’t know anything at all… couldn’t do anything, so stop acting like you know what’s going on! This… this is my battle, only mine! Even if I lose, even if I die, no one has the right to lecture me! Or rather, are you going to bear this responsibility with me? Can you…”

  The right hand Sinon was just holding reached out in front of Kirito. This hand once squeezed the trigger of a gun that was dyed in blood and took someone’s life. Looking closely at the skin on it, she could only see that this hand that once killed before still had the little black dot that was caused by the gunpowder particles.

  “Can… CAN YOU HOLD THIS HAND THAT KILLED SOMEONE BEFORE!”

  Lines of curses awakened from deep within Sinon’s memories. In the classroom, she would hear ‘Don’t touch it, you murderer! You’ll stain it with blood’ when she accidentally touched other people’s personal belongings. Ever since that incident, Sinon never let anyone touch her, not even once.

  Sinon used the last of her strength to swing a punch. As the entire island was in a battlefield that wasn’t protected, every single time Kirito got punched, his HP would decrease little by little. However, he didn’t do anything to evade.

  “U…uu…”

  Sinon’s tears fell like rain, and she couldn’t control them. She immediately lowered her head to prevent others from seeing her crying face, and in the end, her forehead ended up hitting Kirito’s chest.

  Her left hand was still grabbing onto Kirito’s collar, leaning her forehead onto Kirito’s chest with all she got, letting out a crying sound from between the gritted teeth. Sinon was crying like a kid, but she found it inexplicable that she actually had the ability to do this. She couldn’t remember the last time she cried in front of someone.

  Soon after, Kirito placed his hand on her right shoulder. However, Sinon immediately clenched her fist and swept his hand aside.

  “I HATE YOU… I HATE YOU THE MOST!!”

  As she screamed, the imaginary tears continued to float, and they were finally absorbed by Kirito’s thin chest.

  It was unknown how long they maintained this position—

  Sinon’s tears finally went dry, and she felt weak all over as if her soul was scattered, and could only rest her entire body on the lightsaber warrior’s slender body.

  After having exposed the feelings she would definitely not allow herself to reveal, the slight pain that came with it felt extremely soothing. She then continued to put her head on the other person’s shoulder and continued to pant.

  After a while, Sinon broke the silence.

  “…You’re really irritating… but at least let me lean on you.”

  After she said that, Kirito merely answered ‘un’. Sinon then moved her body and laid down horizontally on the legs Kirito stretched out. As she was still embarrassed about letting Kirito see her face, Sinon turned her back to Kirito and saw the bullet scar that was still left on the rear right side of the three-wheeler buggy’s rear bender, and the last trace of sunset that crept in from outside the cave.

  Her mind was still confused, but it was different from how her mind stopped when she was attacked by Death Gun; it was a seemingly relaxed feeling. Unknowingly, she let out a sentence,

  “I… I’ve killed someone before.”

  Sinon continued without waiting for Kirito’s response,

  “Not in the game… but in the real world. I really killed someone. The cause was the robbery that happened in the suburb in the northeast 5 years ago… the news reported that the culprit shot a mailman and died after the gun chamber exploded. But in fact, that wasn’t true. I was at the scene. I snatched the culprit’s gun and shot him.”

  “…5 years ago…?”

  On hearing Kirito mutter his question, Sinon nodded her head.

  “Un. I was 11 then… maybe I could do that because I was a kid then. I had two broken teeth, two sprains on the arms, a back injury and a dislocation of the right shoulder, but had no other injury. The damage my body took could be healed… but there was a place that couldn’t be healed.”

  “…”

  “After that, I would vomit or faint once I saw a gun. Even on the TV, in the manga… or a fake pistol won’t do. Once I see a guy… my eyes will immediately remember the face of that guy I killed… it was scary. Really scary.”

  “…But.”

  “Un. But it’s alright in this world. The relapse wouldn’t happen… and I even liked…”

  Sinon moved her eyes away, looking at the elegant figure of the Hecate II that’s lying on the sand,

  “…A few guns. So I felt that if I became the strongest in this world, I would become strong in the real world and could forget about those memories… but… when Death Gun attacked just now… I nearly relapsed… that, that was really scary… Unknowingly, I wasn’t the «Sinon» in the game but the me in the real world… so I have to fight with that guy. If I can’t beat him… Sinon will vanish.”

  She hugged her own body tightly.

  “Of course I’m scared of death. But… but if I continue to live in fear, I’ll be scared even when I’m dead. If I run away without fighting against Death Gun and those memories, I will definitely become weaker than before, and I will never be able to live an ordinary life again. So… so…”

  Suddenly, a chilly air struck, causing Sinon to tremble violently. At this moment…

  “I…”

  Unknowingly, Kirito started stammering like a weak kid who didn’t know what to do,

  “I…I killed people before.”

  “Eh…”

  Sinon, who was leaning tightly onto Kirito, felt his body tremble for a split moment.

  “…I did mention it before, right? That mantle guy and I… Death Gun, we met in another game before.”

  “…U, un.”

  “That game was called… «Sword Art Online». Have you heard of it… before?”

  “…”

  Sinon already guessed the name of the game, but couldn’t help but look up at Kirito’s face. The lightsaber warrior leaned his back on the wall of the cave, and his eyes that lost all glow were looking above.

  Of course, Sinon knew the name of that game. Or rather, there was not any VRMMO player in all of Japan who would not know about that game. That terrifying game trapped the consciousness of 10,000 people inside the game world for more than 2 years, and even took the lives of 4,000 people.

  “…Then, you’re…”

  “Un, in terms of internet speak, I’m a so-called «Survivor of SAO». That Death Gun’s the same too. Both him and I fought each other, and we tried to kill each other.”

  Kirito’s eyes looked like they were looking afar in the distant past, moving about in mid-air.

  “That guy was part of a Red guild called «Laughing Coffin». In SAO, we designate colors and call criminals «Orange Players», and thief guilds would be «Orange Guilds»…amongst them, those who revel in killing were called «Red Guilds». Those guilds…have a lot of people who enjoyed killing people.”

  “Bu, but…in that game, wouldn’t it mean real death if your HP becomes zero…?”

  “That’s right, but they killed because of that reason…to certain players, killing was their greatest pleasure. Laughing Coffin was such a group. They killed other players in unprotected battlefields or mazes, took their money and equipment before killing them mercilessly. Of course, the ordinary players started to be wary of them, but these people still continued to think of new ways to kill, causing the number of victims to continue to rise.”

  “…”

  “Thus, the ordinary players finally formed mass-crusades against them…and I was one of them. It was a crusade, but we didn’t really need to kill them. We just wanted them to be unable to resist before sending them to jail. We tried all we could to find their base, gathered many high-leveled players w
ho would not have any problems and launched our raid at midnight. However… I don’t know how the info was leaked. The enemy had already set traps in the base and waited for us to enter…we finally managed to regroup ourselves, but in this abnormally chaotic battle…I…”

  Kirito’s body trembled violently again. He widened his eyes, and his breathing became harder.

  “I personally killed two Laughing Coffin members. One by hacking him on the head with my sword…the other was a stab right in the heart. I only planned to lock them inside jail, but I forgot all about it and just lost myself…no, that was just an excuse. If I really wanted to, I could definitely stop my sword…but I could only continue to swing my sword in fear and anger, and to be honest, I’m no different from those guys. No, in a certain sense, my guilt’s greater than them because…”

  Kirito forcefully took a deep breath before exhaling, and silently continued,

  “Because I forced myself to forget what I previously did. I killed another member a long time after I killed those two people…and once I returned back to the real world, I never thought of them. That was until I met Death Gun at the presidential area waiting dome…”

  “…Then, Death Gun’s part of that group you fought against…«Laughing Coffin»…”

  “Un. He should be one of the members who survived in the raid and was locked up by us. I still remember his presence and how he spoke. Just a little…a little more, and I can remember his name back then…”

  This time, he forcefully closed his eyes and used his right fist to press against his forehead. Sinon, who was lying on Kirito’s knees, stared at him for quite a while.

  This boy called Kirito was once a player of «Sword Art Online».

  He gambled his real life in that world and continued to fight for two years.

  Sinon herself could guess this already, but it was still strangely heavy-hearted to hear him say this. She could still remember Kirito’s question yesterday from deep inside her ears.

  —If your bullet can really kill a player in the real world…and he would kill you or someone else close to you if you don’t kill him, can you still squeeze the trigger without hesitation in such a situation?

  Kirito was a person who went through that. In a certain sense, this was extremely similar to the post office robbery incident where Sinon was attacked 5 years ago—

  “…Kirito.”

  Sinon supported her body and forcefully grabbed Kirito on the shoulders. The boy’s eyes looked somewhat lost as if he was looking somewhere distant in the past. However, Sinon still brought her face close to force the other party to look at her, and said with a hoarse voice,

  “…I can’t judge what you did in the past…and I don’t have the right to. So actually, I don’t have the right to say this…but please tell me…how did you overcome those memories? How did you beat it? How did you become so strong…?”

  This was really a rather cruel and selfish thing to say to someone who just revealed his own guilt. However, Sinon really couldn’t stop herself from asking. Though Kirito was so self-loathing that he ‘forced himself to forget’, she couldn’t do that.

  However—

  Kirito blinked twice, thrice, a few times and stared at Sinon’s eyes, and he then shook his head and said,

  “…I didn’t overcome it.”

  “Eh…”

  “Last night, I continued to remember that battle against Laughing Coffin and the 3 people who died under my blade, and I nearly couldn’t sleep at all. Those people, when they were about to disappear…their expressions, voices, last words, I guess I wouldn’t be able to forget about them…”

  “How…how is it…”

  Sinon could only mutter blankly,

  “Then…wha…what am I supposed to do…I…I…”

  ‘—Am I going to be like this for the rest of my life?

  This declaration was really too cruel to her.

  Was all her hard work wasted? Wouldn’t that mean that even if they leave this cave, beat Death Gun and win, Sinon in the current world would have to continue to live in pain—was that it…?

  “However, Sinon—”

  Kirito moved his right hand and covered one of Sinon’s hands that were grabbing his shoulders.

  “I feel that it’s normal. I lost my sanity and killed with my own two hands, but I got praised instead of being punished. Nobody wanted to judge me, and nobody taught me a way to redeem myself. Up till now, I had never really looked at what I did, and just forced myself to forget. But I was wrong. The fact that I did that, I personally slayed them with these hands of mine…I should accept them directly, consider the significance and seriousness. Right now, I feel that this is the least I could do to compensate within my abilities…”

  “…Accepting…and reflecting on them…I can’t do that…”

  “No matter how you try to distance yourself from it, the past will never disappear, and our memories will never really vanish. Even so…we can only face it head on and work hard so that we can one day accept it.”

  “…”

  Sinon’s arms lost their strength and she collapsed onto Kirito, who was lying down. She leaned her back and head onto Kirito and looked up at the roof of the cave.

  To face that memory head on and fight; Sinon didn’t think that she could do that. The path Kirito found belonged only to him, and she need to find another way to settle her own problems. Even though Sinon thought of these, Kirito’s words finally broke through one trouble of hers. The sniper girl turned her eyes to the face that was rather pale in that slightly dark place, and then said,

  “…«Death Gun»…”

  “Hm?”

  “So that guy under the mantle was a real person after all.”

  “Of course. He’s definitely one of the top players of the ex-«Laughing Coffin». If I can remember his name in SAO, I can find his real name and address in the real world. To be honest, this is the real reason why I came to this world.”

  “…I see…”

  At least she knew that the mantle guy wasn’t a lingering dead soul that awoke in Sinon’s memories. She frowned, thought and continued,

  “So that guy couldn’t forget about what happened in SAO, wanted to PK and came over to GGO…?”

  “I don’t think that was merely the case…that guy chose to take action when many people were looking, no matter whether he was shooting «Zekushiido», «Usujio Tarako» or eliminating «Pale Rider». That exaggerated Cross sign was performed to an unspecified lot of audience. He should be indicating…that he had the ability to kill in the game…”

  “…But how did he do it…between the AmuSphere and the first generation…NERvGear, was it? The AmuSphere was different from the first generation, right, so it was designed not to let out dangerous electromagnetic waves, right?”

  “That should be the case…but, according to the person who requested me to come to this world, the cause of death on Zekushiido and Usujio Tarako wasn’t brain damage, but heart failure…”

  “Eh…heart…?”

  On raising this question, Sinon felt a chill brush past, making her tremble slightly. Even though she felt that it wasn’t really possible, she wanted to say out what she thought.

  “…You’re saying that…he used some curse or supernatural power…to kill them…?”

  Sinon felt that she would be laughed at if she said it, but Kirito merely looked back at her with a tense expression.

  “To be honest…I don’t know how he killed them without knowing the player controlling the mantle avatar in the real world and investigate him. I don’t think that randomly shooting in the virtual world would make a player’s heart in the real world stop…no, wait…speaking of which….”

  This may be a habit Kirito had as he used his fingers to stroke his slender chin and shut up. On seeing Sinon giving him a puzzled look while lying on his knees, he said with an ambiguous expression,

  “…That’s really strange…”

  “What’s strange…?”

&
nbsp; “In the ruins just now, why did Death Gun not use that black handgun to shoot me and use that sniper rifle instead? We were really close just now, and the handgun should be more powerful, right? Beside, it could kill the enemy in one shot. To be honest, I couldn’t even dodge a sniper shot. If that guy used the black handgun, I should be killed by him already…”

  Though it was somewhat shocking to see him have the courage to consider the possibility of his own death, Sinon still said her thoughts,

  “Maybe it’s because there was no time to draw the Cross…? Before shooting the Blackstar…ah, that handgun’s called «Type-54 Blackstar»…”

  Feeling suffocated the moment she said this name, Sinon continued,.

  “…Does he have to draw the Cross before firing the Blackstar, or was it that he couldn’t kill if he didn’t complete the Cross…?”

  “Un…but when we running away, that guy did use the Blackstar to shoot you, right? How could he draw the Cross on the horse?”

  The moment Kirito said that, Sinon glanced at the three-wheeler buggy beside her. The bullet scar on the rear fender wasn’t the .338 Lapua Magnum, but the smaller 7.62mm bullet. Speaking of which, Sinon herself did see Death Gun pull the Blackstar and shoot without drawing the cross.

  “That’s true…it did happen.”

  “In other words, Death Gun did have the chance to kill me, but didn’t shoot at me. No, he doesn’t have any reason to let me go. I won in the preliminaries…to be honest, I’m the more eye-catching one…”

  “Sorry for not being so attractive looking.”

  Sinon gave a left elbow jab at Kirito’s abdomen and made him cough dryly.

  “Then, let’s make it that both of us are eye catching. But anyway, it’s not that the guy didn’t shoot me, but that there was a reason why he didn’t do so…”

  “Un…”

  Sinon moved her body and slumped on Kirito’s legs, putting her cupped hands onto her head. Even though the annoyance she had with the boy never decreased, right now, she needed the heat transfer between avatars to chase the black fear away from her. Feeling somewhat safe now, she slowly gained back her peaceful mind and continued to think.