Phantom Bullet 2

by Reki Kawahara

  “Maybe it was part of a rebellion against his father, the doctor. But I don’t know if the reason is simple enough to sum up like that,” Kirito lamented.

  Seated diagonally from him, and directly across from Shino, Asuna said clearly, “You shouldn’t search for anything more than a name in a VRMMO avatar’s handle. It’s more about what you’re missing than what you’re learning.”

  Next to her, Rika smiled. “Yes, that sounds very convincing from someone who just uses her real name.”

  “Hush!” Asuna said, jabbing Rika with her elbow. Her friend feigned terrible pain. Shino grinned at the lighthearted display, then noticed Asuna was looking right at her. There was a brilliant gleam in her bright brown irises which suggested an inner strength lay behind her reserved nature.

  “So…Miss Asada.”

  “Er, yes?”

  “It might be strange of me to say this, but… I’m sorry you had to be put through that horrible event.”

  “Uh…I’m fine,” Shino said hastily, shaking her head. “I think part of this whole incident was something I brought upon myself. Something about my personality, or my play style…or my past. And because of those things, I panicked in the middle of the tournament…and needed Kirito to calm me down. That’s what you saw on the broadcast…”

  Kirito shot upright again and quickly added, “R-right, I forgot the most important part. That was an emergency evacuation, you might say. We were being chased by a murderous madman. So don’t get any funny ideas about it.”

  “…Well, we can leave it at that. But I’m not sure about what will happen in the future,” Rika grumbled, throwing Kirito a very skeptical glance. Then she clapped her hands together and put on a big smile. “At any rate, it’s great to meet another VRMMO girl in real life.”

  “That’s right. I’d like to hear more about GGO, too. Can we be friends, Asada?” Asuna asked with a gentle smile, extending her hand across the table. Shino looked at the white, soft hand…and shrank.

  The instant the word friends sank into her heart, she felt a burning craving well up there, as well as a painful sense of unease.

  Friends. That was something that she had desired countless times since the incident, only to be horribly betrayed, and swear that she would never seek them again.

  I want to be friends. I want to take the hand of this girl named Asuna, who exudes mercy and benevolence, and feel her warmth. I want to be around her, talk about silly things, and do whatever normal girls do.

  But if that happened, at some point she would learn that Shino had once killed a person. She would see the blood that stained Shino’s hands. The disgust that would appear in Asuna’s eyes terrified her. Touching others was something she could not experience. Not now, not ever.

  Shino’s hand was frozen hard beneath the table, immobilized. Asuna’s eyes grew questioning, inviting an explanation, but Shino just looked down. She thought of just leaving. For the moment, she could at least keep her heart warm with the offer of being friends. She would just apologize and be on her way.

  “Sinon.”

  The whisper jolted Shino’s frightened, timid wits. She flinched and looked over at Kirito. When their eyes met, he gave her a brief, but clear nod. His eyes were saying it was okay. She turned back to Asuna.

  The girl’s smile never wavered, and neither did her outstretched hand. Meanwhile, Shino’s arm felt like it was tied down with lead weights. But she fought against the shackles and slowly, slowly, raised her arm. For the first time since the incident, she decided she would rather bear the pain of trusting others than the bitterness of keeping them at bay so they couldn’t betray her.

  The distance to Asuna’s hand was unfathomable. The closer she got, the more dense the wall of air became, as if it was actively repelling Shino’s hand.

  But at last, their fingers touched.

  The next instant, Shino’s hand melted into Asuna’s. The warmth of it couldn’t be put into words. The gentle conduit of heat passed through her fingers to her arm, shoulder, then her whole body, melting her frozen blood.

  “Ah…” Shino gasped, without realizing she had done so. It was so warm. She had forgotten that the human hand could shake one’s soul in this way. In that moment, she felt reality. No longer was she running away from the world in fear, but was connected with true reality at last.

  She stayed that way for seconds. Nearly a minute.

  Shino noticed that even as she kept smiling kindly, there was a bit of hesitation and uncertainty in Asuna’s expression. She started to automatically pull her hand away, but Asuna squeezed even harder. The other girl spoke slowly and carefully, finding each phrase as it came to her.

  “Listen, Asada…Shino. There’s another reason that we had you come here today. We thought you might find it unpleasant…that it might make you angry, but we just…wanted to tell you something.”

  “Another reason? That would…make me angry?”

  It made even less sense now. To her left, Kirito spoke up in a surprisingly tense voice.

  “First, Sinon, I need to apologize to you.” He gave her a very deep bow, and caught her gaze through his bangs with the black eyes he shared with that feminine avatar. “I told Asuna and Liz…about what happened in your past. I needed their help with this.”

  “What…?!”

  She didn’t even register the latter part of his statement.

  They know?! About what happened in the post office? Asuna and Rika already know what I did when I was eleven years old?!

  This time, Shino tried to pull her hand out of Asuna’s with all her strength.

  But she couldn’t. Asuna gripped her hand with a power that seemed impossible from those delicate arms. Her eyes, expression, and body heat were trying to tell Shino something—but what? What could she possibly want to tell her, knowing about the blood that could never be washed from those hands?

  “Shino, as a matter of fact…Liz, Kirito, and I took school off yesterday and went to the city of…”

  “!!”

  It wasn’t even shock. For several seconds, Shino couldn’t even process what Asuna had said to her.

  The girl’s plump, shining lips pronounced the name of a place. The very town that Shino had lived in through her middle school graduation. The place where the incident happened. The place she wanted to forget and never visit again.

  Why? How? How?

  The questions swirled around her head and escaped her mouth at last.

  “But…why would…you…?”

  She stood up to escape this place, shaking her head back and forth all the while. But before she could get all the way to her feet, Kirito held her shoulder down. His voice was stern, desperate.

  “Because Sinon, you haven’t met someone you ought to meet…You haven’t heard something you ought to hear. I thought it would probably hurt you—I knew it would—but I couldn’t let you stay the way you are. So I went to study the newspaper database about your incident…and I knew the post office wouldn’t understand if I called them, so I went in person to ask for someone’s contact information.”

  “Someone I ought…to meet…? I ought to hear…?” she repeated, dazed. Rika caught a look from Kirito and stood up, walking to a door in the back of the room with a PRIVATE sign on it. She opened the door and a person walked out.

  It was a woman of about thirty years. Her hair was semilong, her makeup was slight, and her clothes were relaxed. She looked more like a housewife than an office lady.

  Little footsteps behind her bore that impression out. A little girl of preschool age trotted out after the woman. They bore a strong resemblance—clearly mother and daughter. But this only increased Shino’s confusion. She had no idea who these people were. She hadn’t met them in Tokyo, and not even in her hometown.

  The woman looked at the stunned Shino, beaming with that strange crying look, and bowed deeply. The little girl next to her bowed, too.

  It stayed that way for a long time until, prompted by Rika, the family crossed the ro
om to the table where Shino sat. Asuna stood up and allowed the woman and her daughter to sit down on the other side of the table. The bartender, who had been watching the entire scene in silence, swiftly brought out a café au lait for the mother, and a glass of milk for the girl.

  Even up close, Shino still didn’t recognize them. Why had Kirito claimed this woman was someone Shino ought to meet? Was he mistaken somehow?

  No.

  Somewhere deep in her memory, a little spark flashed. This woman was a stranger, so why…?

  At that moment, the mother bowed again. She spoke at last, her voice trembling slightly.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Asada…Shino, is it? My name is Sachie Oosawa. This is Mizue, age four.”

  Once again, the names were unfamiliar. There was no connection between Shino and this family. But her memory continued its faint prickling.

  She couldn’t bring herself to respond, or do anything other than stare. Sachie took a deep breath and began to explain.

  “I didn’t move to Tokyo until after she was born. Before then, I worked in the city of…”

  And then, Shino understood everything.

  “…at the Sancho-me Post Office.”

  “Ah…”

  That was the post office. The place it happened. The little, unremarkable, completely ordinary local post office that Shino and her mother visited five years ago, where she encountered the event that completely changed her life.

  The bank robber shot and killed the male employee at the window first, then hesitated, unsure whether to shoot the two female employees behind the counter next, or her mother. Shino interrupted him in a mindless, desperate rage, yanking his gun away and pulling the trigger.

  That’s right… Sachie was most definitely one of the two women working in the office at the time.

  So that was what it meant. Yesterday, Kirito, Asuna, and Rika went to the post office. They found the address of this woman, who had quit her job and moved to Tokyo, called her, and set up this meeting with Shino today.

  She understood that much. But the biggest mystery was still left: Why? Why would they skip school to do this?

  “…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Shino,” Sachie blurted out, the corners of her eyes getting teary.

  Shino had no idea why she was receiving an apology. But her voice trembling, Sachie continued, “I’m so, so sorry. I…I should have met you sooner. But I just wanted to forget about what happened…and when my husband got a transfer, I took the opportunity to leave for Tokyo… I should have known that you would be tormented this whole time…and I never apologized…or thanked you…”

  The tears fell now. Next to her, Mizue looked up at her mother with concern. Sachie stroked the girl’s braided hair.

  “When it happened…I was pregnant with her. So you didn’t just save my life, Shino…you saved hers, too. Thank you…thank you so much. Thank you…”

  “…I saved…your lives?” Shino repeated.

  Eleven-year-old Shino had pulled the trigger three times in that post office, and took a life. That was all she had done. That’s all she ever thought she’d done. But now, at long last, this woman had given her a different answer.

  She had saved her.

  “Sinon,” came Kirito’s uncertain whisper. “Sinon. You’ve always blamed yourself. You’ve punished yourself. I’m not saying that was a mistake. But at the same time, you have the right to think about those you saved. You have the right to forgive yourself because of that. That’s…what I can give you…”

  He shut his mouth tight, unable to find anything else to say. Shino looked away from him and back at Sachie. She knew she ought to say something, but the words would not come. In fact, she didn’t even know what to think.

  There was a small tap of feet.

  The four-year-old girl hopped off of her chair and came walking around the table. The braids Sachie tied for her shone in the light, and her puffy little pink cheeks and huge eyes were filled with the greatest innocence to be found in the world.

  Mizue reached into the pochette slung over her kindergarten uniform blouse and rummaged around for something. It was a piece of drawing paper folded into quarters. She awkwardly unfolded the paper and gave it to Shino.

  It was a crayon drawing. In the center was the face of a woman with long hair, beaming. That had to be Sachie, her mother. To the right was a girl with braids—Mizue. The man with glasses on the left was obviously her father.

  And at the top, in letters that she’d probably just learned recently, was written “To Miss Shino.”

  Mizue held the drawing out with both hands, and Shino accepted it the same way. The little girl smiled and took a deep breath. In an awkward, halting way, she delivered a message that she’d clearly done her best to memorize.

  “Miss Shino, thank you, for saving Mama and Mizue.”

  Everything she saw was full of rainbow light, blotted and blurred.

  It took a bit of time before she realized she was crying. She had never known that there could be tears so gentle and pure and cleansing.

  Shino held the drawing tight, big tears dropping from her cheeks one after the other. Suddenly, a tiny, soft hand reached out, hesitantly at first, then eagerly, squeezing her right hand, right on the very spot where the traces of gunpowder had left a permanent mark.

  It’ll take a long, long time for me to fully accept everything in my past. But I still love the world I live in now.

  Life is painful, and the road ahead is treacherous.

  But I can still keep walking down it. I’m sure of that.

  I know this, because this hand in mine, and the tears on my cheeks, are warm enough to tell me so.

  AFTERWORD

  Hello, this is Reki Kawahara. You’ve just finished Sword Art Online 6: Phantom Bullet, my final book of 2010.

  Since February 2009, I’ve had an alternating schedule of SAO and Accel World, publishing a new book every other month, twelve books in total. Of course, the only reason this insane plan was even possible was the fact that the SAO series already had been written. If all I did was just some minor retouching of what I had previously published on my website, that shouldn’t be too hard, I thought.

  However, upon rereading the material, I found not just tweaks to make, but entire passages to rewrite. For the first two volumes, I was able to keep it to just “fixes,” and for the next two, it was more like “additions.” The fifth volume ended up being more of a “rewrite”…and for this sixth volume, it was essentially “written from scratch.” (laughs) Not only that, it ended up being far longer than any of the previous books…it’s actually a slight miracle that I survived (debatable) to write this afterword. I can’t help but scream at myself: Why! Did this! Happen?!

  So with the help of that inexplicable effort, I managed to put together a book that I hope readers of my published edition and web version alike will find fresh and new and exciting. The next volume should be focused on Asuna instead. I hope you’re ready for our main heroine, after she barely appeared in the fifth and sixth volumes! (I won’t be rewriting it—I think.)

  And now, for this year’s final apology section…

  As I’m sure some of you know, in October of this year, I attended a signing event in Akihabara called the “Dengeki Bunko Autumn Festival 2010” with my illustrator, abec. And yes…I showed up late! Extremely late! Thirty minutes after the event began! Due to a data block malfunction in my brain, I processed “12:30” as “2:30”!

  From what I understand, in the four-thousand-year history of Dengeki Bunko, I was the first writer to ever show up late to his own autograph signing. I don’t even know how to apologize to those people who applied to the event and waited in line for long hours…I’m so sorry. I won’t do it again. (Then again, maybe they’ll never ask me to do another signing event after this!)

  So, to my editor, Mr. Miki, who I troubled so very much with my lateness in both events and manuscripts, and my illustrator, abec, I hope the next year will be a good one. And to
you readers, if you’ve read this far, I hope you have a good 2011! And to me—stop being late!

  Reki Kawahara—October 2010

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Yen On.

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