Sinon shifted, then lay down with her head resting on his outstretched legs. Maybe because she was embarrassed to let him see her face, she turned her back to Satoru and looked instead at the motorcycle, at the bullet marks left on the right rear fender, and at the last smear of sunset coming in from outside the cave.
Her thoughts had gone a little hazy, but it was different from the way her mind had stopped when Death Gun attacked her. This felt more like setting down a heavy burden, a floating sensation rising quietly in her chest. Before she knew it, her mouth had opened.
"I... killed someone."
"Not in a game. In the real world. I really killed someone. Five years ago, during that post office robbery in a small town in the northeast. The reports said the robber shot a clerk with a handgun, then died after being shot with his own gun. That is what they said, but it was not true. I was the one who took the robber's gun and shot him dead."
"Five years ago?"
"Yeah. I was only eleven then... Maybe because I was still a child, the news never reported it. Two of my teeth were broken, both my wrists were sprained, my back was bruised, and my right shoulder was dislocated. Other than that, my body was not seriously hurt. The physical injuries healed quickly... but there were places that never healed."
"..."
"Ever since then, whenever I see a gun, I throw up. It does not matter if it is on TV or in a manga... I cannot even touch anything shaped like a handgun. The moment I see a gun, the face of the man I killed appears right in front of me... It is terrifying. I am so scared."
"...But."
"In this world, I am fine. It does not happen here... even when I look at all these guns."
Her eyes moved to the beautifully shaped Hecate lying on the sand nearby.
"So I started thinking that if I became strong in this world, then the me in the real world would become strong too. I thought I would definitely be able to forget that memory. That was how it was supposed to be... But just now, when Death Gun attacked me, it felt like it happened again. I was so scared... At some point, I stopped being Sinon and turned back into my real self... That is why I have to fight him. If I do not fight him... Sinon will disappear."
She hugged herself tightly.
"I am afraid of death. But... but living while barely clinging on is painful too. If I do not fight, if I run from Death Gun... from that memory, I will end up weaker than before. If that happens, I will not even be able to live an ordinary life anymore. So... so..."
A sudden chill ran through her, and she began to tremble. Then Satoru spoke.
"So that was all."
After hearing such a painful past, Satoru did not recoil from her. He did not pity her either. He simply said it.
"If we are talking about killing, I have killed too. Not just destroying an avatar. I killed the real person connected to it, maybe even the soul itself. And not just one. Compared to that, even Death Gun cannot match me."
This time, Sinon let out a confused sound. Even she had not expected that answer.
"Before, I told you I had met that tattered cloak, Death Gun, in another game."
Though she had already half guessed it, Sinon still lifted her head and looked at Satoru's face.
Of course she knew. Anyone who played Japanese VRMMOs had heard of it: that cursed game from the year before last to last year, where the consciousnesses of ten thousand people had been trapped, and six thousand lives had been taken.
"SAO."
"In online terms, I am an SAO survivor. Death Gun is too. He and I once fought seriously, with our lives on the line. I also swung my curved sword and straight sword with real intent to kill him."
Satoru's eyes looked upward, as if he were seeing the distant past.
"He belonged to the red-player guild Laughing Coffin. In SAO, you could tell a player's status from their cursor. Orange meant the player was a criminal. Thief guilds were orange guilds... but among them, there were also players who killed constantly and enjoyed it. They were called red players. There were a lot of people like that."
"B-but... in that world, if your HP hit zero, you died, right...?"
"Of course. That was exactly why. For those players, killing was the greatest pleasure. Laughing Coffin was a gathering of people like that. They attacked other parties in unprotected areas or inside labyrinths, stole money and items, then brutally killed them. Naturally, ordinary players stayed heavily on guard, but they kept inventing new methods for ambush and robbery, and the number of victims never stopped falling."
"They alreadyhated me by the early stages of the game. Once, they captured someone I... someone precious to me, and used her as bait to draw me out."
He gave a faint, humorless smile.
"I went, of course. I didn't even hesitate. In the end, I fought one of them in a duel. I lost. He died."
"..."
"And after that, I left the front line."
Satoru's voice stayed quiet, but something in it had gone distant.
"I started hunting orange players and red players on my own. Laughing Coffin, especially. I kept telling myself it was necessary. That I was stopping them before they could hurt more people. But back then... I don't even know how many players died because of what I did."
He paused for a moment.
"Later, the front line organized a raid against Laughing Coffin. The plan wasn't to kill them. It was supposed to be an arrest operation. Incapacitate them, bind them, send them to prison. That was the idea."
"But Laughing Coffin's leader had leaked the hideout himself. He wanted them to come. By the time the raid began, they were already waiting inside with a trap."
Satoru lowered his eyes.
"It turned into a bloodbath."
Sinon said nothing.
"I wasn't with the main raid. I went after their leader alone."
Only then did Satoru open his eyes again.
"Death Gun was one of the red players in that battle. I was the one who sent him to prison."
"And what happened between us wasn't limited to SAO. We may have been connected even before the game began."
He let out a slow breath.
"That's what those two years were for me. I'm not telling you this to make my crimes sound tragic or justified. I wasn't clean from the start. It wasn't as simple as someone precious to me being threatened and me losing myself to revenge."
"Even near the beginning, when I was just trying to survive and get ahead, I dragged an elite boss toward other players out on the plains. I waited until they wore down its HP, then stole the kill."
His voice remained terribly calm.
"The players I used as bait died under that boss."
Satoru's voice was terribly calm.
"...Samuro."
Holding back her shock, Sinon leaned closer, forcing herself to look into his eyes as she spoke in a hoarse voice.
"...After telling me all that, I know I have no right to ask this. Maybe I am being selfish and thoughtless. But please, tell me just one thing. How did you... get over those memories? How did you defeat that past? How did you become as strong as you are now...?"
It was too heartless, too self-centered, to ask such a thing of someone who had just confessed his crimes to her. Sinon knew that. But she still had to ask.
Satoru blinked two or three times and stared at her. Then he shook his head.
"I did not. I only took all of it on."
"You have to bear the consequences of what you have done. That is only natural, because guilt and self-loathing do not vanish just because your sentence ends. I also received the punishment I deserved for that cruel, rational choice I made on the nighttime plains. The leader of Laughing Coffin saw what I had done."
"That was what led to them deciding to toy with me afterward. Even then, I still did not repent. I kept rationally thinking about the future. I embezzled guild funds to strengthen myself, started thinking I would clear the game alone... and because of that, I could not spend even a few more happy days with her."
"By the time she was captured, I had no choices left. I faced it alone, lost alone, and alone... took the Fluctlight's curse onto myself."
"When it was exposed that I had embezzled guild funds and was a criminal too, I was forced out of the guild and away from her side. Back then, my heart was full of nothing but the consequences I had brought on myself and the pain of it. I turned that into anger. By the time I returned to her side... a very, very long time had passed."
"I never really got over anything. I never defeated anything. I only carried all of it."
"H-how... how can that be...?"
Sinon froze.
"Then... what... what am I supposed to do...? I... I..."
Was this the only way her life could be?
The declaration was far too frightening.
Was there nothing she could do? Even if she left this cave now and fought Death Gun, even if she somehow won, would the real-world Shino still have to suffer forever? Was that what it meant...?
"Still, my life did change. Even though I had made more mistakes than before, I did not become more broken or more alone than before. That was because I found a new conviction, and a promise."
"Someone asked me to live happily in the real world too. I cannot disappoint her. I may have always acted according to what I convinced myself was correct rationality, but after that, I gained a sense of responsibility."
He placed his right hand over Sinon's hand, the one gripping his shoulder.
"That might be the right answer. I think people keep struggling in this world because they have some wish they want to fulfill."
"I... I cannot do that..."
"No matter how distant it becomes, the past will not disappear. Memories will not fade away either. If that is true... why not face it directly and accept the battle you have to bear?"
Sinon's hands lost their strength and slipped down beside her legs. She tilted her head back and looked up at the ceiling of the cave.
She still could not face that memory directly and fight it. That was his road alone. She would have to search for her own. But talking to him had still solved one thing inside her. She turned her eyes back to Satoru's face.
"Death Gun."
"Of course. He is one of the former Laughing Coffin executives. I have even guessed his real identity. But before the law deals with him, I want to settle things with him myself."
"...I see."
In that case, at least that tattered cloak was not a ghost resurrected from Sinon's own past.
She frowned and spoke while thinking it through.
"Then he did not forget what he did back in SAO. He came to GGO because he wanted to keep PKing... right?"
"I do not know. But whether it was when he attacked XeXeeD and Usujio Tarako, or when he made Pale Rider disappear, he always chose a place with a large number of people. That cross gesture was meant to draw attention. Probably... to him, he wanted everyone to believe he had the power to kill people from inside the game."
"But how exactly is he doing it...? The AmuSphere is different from the first-generation NerveGear. It was designed so it cannot emit dangerous electromagnetic signals, right?"
"This... Is he killing them with a curse or some kind of psychic power...?"
The instant she said it, Sinon thought he would definitely laugh at her, but Satoru only looked at her.
"Psychic power...? Maybe there really is something to that. Sometimes people do have powers that go beyond common sense. But I do not think that is what this is."
Satoru thought for a few seconds.
"Back there in the ruins, Death Gun did not shoot me with the black handgun. He deliberately switched to a rifle. If that handgun really had lethal power, he would not have needed to change weapons. I know he wants to leave me for last, but if we are talking about who he wants to kill, no one in this tournament is a more desirable target than me."
The fact that he could calmly analyze that he might actually have been killed earlier left Sinon a little stunned. Then she said what she was thinking.
"What if he cannot do it without crossing himself...? With the Black Star... that gun called the Type 54 Black Star..."
The moment she said the name, Sinon's breathing grew painful, but she endured it.
"...What if, when he uses that gun, he has to cross himself? Or rather, what if he cannot kill unless he crosses himself...?"
"But when we were escaping on the motorcycle, he used the Black Star to attack you. He was on horseback, and he did not cross himself, did he?"
"Yes... that's true."
"In other words, Death Gun should have been able to kill me, yet he could not. And he had no reason to spare me."
"Sorry we supporting characters are nothing but set dressing for you two."
Sinon rolled over and lay on her stomach across Satoru's legs, folding her arms under her head. Her resistance and wariness toward him had not disappeared, but only when she felt the warmth of his avatar did that dark figure seem to move away from her. Wrapped in that warm sense of safety, she desperately thought with a mind that was slowly regaining calm.
"At the iron bridge, he shot Pale Rider with the Black Star, but ignored Dyne even though Dyne was lying right there with no way to resist. I thought he would shoot Dyne too."
"If being dead only means your HP hits zero and you cannot move, then the avatar is still there, still connected to the person's consciousness. If he... really has power that goes beyond the game's framework, then whether the target has HP left or not should not matter."
Satoru gave a short response to that analysis.
"Right. It seems his targets have to meet certain conditions. Going further, there should be some shared condition between XeXeeD and Usujio Tarako, who were killed before, and you and Pale Rider. Is it simply strength? Ranking?"
Sinon shook her head.
"Pale Rider is definitely strong, but he did not appear in the last tournament. If we went by BoB ranking, Dyne would be above him. And before I teamed up with you, Dyne and I were in the same squad for a while. We went out to the battlefield together several times. I never ran into Pale Rider. I did not even know his name."
Hearing her answer, Satoru asked again.
"What about XeXeeD and Usujio Tarako's rankings?"
Sinon smiled wryly, rolled over again, looked up at Satoru's serious face, and shrugged.
"Those two are not famous players only one or two ranks away from Dyne and me... XeXeeD won the last tournament, and Usujio Tarako placed fifth or sixth, but he was also the leader of the largest squadron on the server. I only spoke with him once or twice."
"What about their equipment and character builds?" Satoru asked again.
"Their equipment was all different. I use a sniper rifle, Pale Rider uses a shotgun, XeXeeD apparently had an extremely rare XM29 assault rifle, and Usujio Tarako used an Enfield light machine gun. As for stats... ah."
Satoru looked puzzled, and Sinon's eyebrow twitched before she continued.
"I would not exactly call it a shared trait... but if I had to say, all of them were AGI-specialized builds. Still, that cannot be it. Some leaned a little toward STR, others toward VIT..."
"Right. Earlier you said you had spoken with Usujio. What did you talk about?" Satoru continued asking.
"That..."
While searching through her vague memory, Sinon placed both hands between Satoru's legs and her head, using them as a pillow. In a way, this counted as a lap pillow. Just thinking that made her feel unbearably embarrassed, but the situation was too urgent, so she shoved that thought aside.
Now that she thought about it, she had not stayed in contact with another person like this for years. As if she had entrusted both her weight and the burden in her heart to someone else, a strange sense of calm spread inside her. Maybe she could let it last a little longer. The thought had barely crossed her mind when Kyouji Shinkawa's timid smile suddenly rose in her mind, and for some reason she felt a little guilty.
If she made it safely back to the real world, maybe she could try lowering that wall with him, even if only a little...
Blinking, she shook off that momentary thought and found the distant memory.
"That said, we only talked for a little while. I think it was after the last tournament ended, when we returned to the first-floor lobby. Near the exit, we talked for two or three minutes about the prizes. Since we had not fought directly on the battlefield, it was only small talk."
Satoru was still rapidly searching for a flaw. He looked down at Sinon.
"Until now, I had not investigated that point. What kinds of prizes can you get?"
Sinon answered while wondering why, in this situation, he still had room to care about prizes.
"Guns, armor... or hair dye and clothes you cannot buy in the city. But none of them are especially high-performance. They just stand out visually. There was also one strange prize: a model gun from the game."
"Not an in-game item, but something you receive in the real world?"
"Yes. My ranking in the last tournament was not very good, so the game items I could choose from probably were not worth much. That is why I chose that. And according to Tarako, he may have chosen the model gun too... It is only a toy, but it is made of metal and looks pretty good. Sp... Spiegel said that, and I..."
Sinon remembered the awful state she had been in a few days earlier when she tried to hold that model gun, and she gave a bitter smile.
"I put the gun in a drawer and left it there. I hardly looked at it."
"A real-world... prize..."
It sounded almost like he was talking to himself.
"That model gun was sent by the operating company, right? Shipped all the way from America?"
"Yeah. International postage must cost a lot. Pretty generous of Zaskar, honestly."
As she said that vague answer, Sinon blinked and looked back up at Satoru. His gaze had focused on a point in the air. That sudden unfamiliarity appeared again. It felt as if he had suddenly moved very far away from her.
"W-what is it?"
"When I created my GGO account, the only real player information required was an email address, gender, and age. How did they get my address?"
"Did you forget?"
…