From the time Emperor Kanmu moved the capital to Heian-kyo until Tokyo became the capital in 1868, Kyoto had remained the heart of Japan for over a thousand years.
That long history had left the city with an extraordinary number of historic sites, as well as a deep connection to traditional Japanese culture. In 1994, several of its old temples, shrines, and buildings had even been registered as a World Heritage Site under the name Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto.
Satoru did not have many personal feelings about the city beyond facts like that. He had been born in Tokyo and had spent most of his life there. As a game-obsessed shut-in, he rarely traveled far, and he had long since grown used to Tokyo's dense, oppressive pace, along with the endless sight of high-rise buildings.
Coming to Kyoto for the first time made the contrast feel even sharper.
The photos and messages Kenna had sent him had let him build a vague image of a simpler way of life, but some things had to be seen in person.
Especially the thing Kenna had so often called the beauty of Japan.
The beauty of Japan, huh...
It did not seem to be the childlike fun of Disney, nor the electronics and fashion of Akihabara.
It was late winter, so he could not see the spring cherry blossoms from the photos, nor the red maple leaves of autumn. Still, every so often, a woman in kimono would pass quickly along the stone-paved road. There were no crowded streets, no rushing pedestrians, no familiar high school girls in short skirts, and no girls dressed in Shibuya fashion.
There was only quiet simplicity, along with groups of foreign tourists smiling brightly as they looked around.
Kyoto felt like a place where the modern and the ancient existed together. In other cities, ruins and old buildings were often used as decoration. Here, it felt almost the opposite. The clean lines of modern buildings seemed to exist as supporting scenery for the older world around them.
No wonder his uncle always said this was the perfect place to retire. He had even joked that if Tokyo ever became too suffocating, he would move here.
Even Satoru, who was used to pushing hard on the road, found himself easing off the accelerator. He did not want to make unnecessary engine noise. The industrial growl of the car felt as if it might disturb the peace of the place.
"Are we here?" Shino asked, unable to help herself as she tilted her head and looked out at the streets.
"Yeah," Satoru answered softly.
The drive had taken two and a half hours. It was not exhausting exactly, but it had not been easy either, especially when he still had the odd feeling that he had been in a real high-speed duel with someone on the way.
The strange part was that the memory felt blurry, almost as if that stretch of space and time had been deliberately set aside for them. A national road with only two cars on it should have been impossible in the first place.
Right?
But he still remembered how fast he had been going, and thinking about it made him feel a little troubled.
Hopefully, no one came looking for him over it.
Before that, when he had rushed to Shino's apartment, he had driven straight through Tokyo at an outrageous speed. If not for Seijirou Kikuoka's help, his license might have been revoked not long after he got it. Even so, he had seen the unhappy looks from the traffic officers. Three police motorcycles had eaten his exhaust the whole way there, after all.
"You'd never been to Kyoto either, Shino?" Satoru asked curiously.
The girl in the passenger seat glanced at him. At some point, she seemed to have stopped caring that he called her by name so directly.
"...No. Because of everything that happened before, all I ever thought about was getting away from my hometown. Then, after I came to Tokyo, I got swept up in how busy everything was and never had much time left over."
Her eyes lifted slightly.
"If you mean trips, the most I usually do is go alone to some park a little farther away. This is a pretty rare outing for me."
Then she added, with a faint edge in her voice,
"Especially with someone who's practically an old man."
Satoru chuckled and did not object to the old man part. Or rather, he seemed to accept it as a fair way of looking at him.
"Then since we're already here, relax and enjoy yourself. Don't worry. I invited you, so I'll cover whatever we do."
"Oh? Very generous of you, old man."
Shino gave a small huff.
"But you still haven't explained why you brought me here. Just so you know, I have pepper spray in my bag."
She did not, actually.
"Very cautious of you..."
"Of course. An old guy invites a current high school girl on a trip out of town. That sentence alone is enough to make people imagine all kinds of bad things, right?"
"But you still agreed, and you got in the car. Generally speaking, if the other person really were that kind of man, a little pepper spray wouldn't help much. You should be more careful in the future, Shino."
Satoru thought it over for a moment, then said it with complete seriousness.
I was teasing you. Why are you turning it into a lecture?
Shino could not help sighing.
This person really is...
"So? What is the real purpose of this trip? We're not actually just here to play, are we? You wouldn't have gone this far for that."
"Because both of our destinations are here," Satoru replied, only smiling.
Shino tilted her head in confusion, while he kept that same smile and slowly drove deeper into the city.
...
According to Satoru, this was his first time in Kyoto too. But after parking the car, he led Shino forward with surprising certainty. He did not stop at snack shops or linger near the shopping streets. He showed no interest in sightseeing at all, as if he were heading straight for a specific place.
That was a little strange.
Shino watched his back as she walked behind him. He did not seem to have brought many clothes. He was still wearing that thin jacket and jeans, and there probably was not much in the way of warm layers underneath. The wrinkles in his clothes made his gaunt frame stand out clearly. The late-winter wind was still cold, and each time it blew past, his shoulders hunched slightly.
Every eight or nine seconds, he turned his head to check on her, as if afraid he might lose her in a city unfamiliar to both of them.
If they held hands, that would solve the problem and save him the trouble.
But that obviously was not appropriate.
They could also keep talking, but the man in front of her was not exactly the type who could keep a conversation going forever.
Still, even as she complained about him in her head, it did not feel wrong.
This was the Satoru she knew. They had not known each other for long, yet she felt as if she already understood him completely, because he really was that simple.
And she did not dislike simple people like that.
Unlike Kyoji and those so-called friends, this person had ended up beside her before she even realized it. They had already come this close, even though they had been enemies at first. A month ago, could she ever have imagined herself walking through an unfamiliar city with that powerful player from the wasteland?
Kyoto did not have Tokyo's endless stream of cars, nor the flood of people waiting at traffic lights. Walking one ahead of the other, the two of them had already covered quite a distance.
"Car coming. Be careful."
The car ahead was moving slowly. From the look of it, there was no reason to worry that it would suddenly accelerate, turn, and hit them.
Even so, Satoru gave the warning. He reached a hand back toward Shino, but stopped a few centimeters short of her down jacket without touching her, guiding her toward the inside of the road while he stayed on the outside.
"Thanks."
"No problem."
That was the tiny exchange they had managed over the past few minutes.
It was not a long time together, and it was not some deep conversation. Even so, he made her feel safer than the people she had known before. This guy, sharp one moment and painfully straightforward the next, would probably warn her in advance even if he did betray her one day like the others had.
Shino, I'm going to betray you now. Watch out.
Imagining Satoru saying that in a completely serious tone made Shino laugh under her breath.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. I just thought someone like you would definitely warn the victim before doing something bad."
Satoru froze for a moment.
"It just popped into my head," Shino said, quickening her pace until she was walking beside him instead of behind him. "Don't think too hard about it."
He still looked surprised. Then, noticing the girl now at his side, he hesitated.
"This just popped into my head too, so I'm asking. Do girls usually prefer walking beside boys instead of behind them?"
"Huh? Even if you ask me that... it was just a few extra steps. I don't think there was any special reason."
"...Ah. Right. That makes sense."
And so the second round of conversation ended with neither of them understanding the other's thought process.
"Are you cold?" Shino asked, starting another round herself.
It was the kind of line that would usually come from a boy who had no idea how to keep things moving. Shino, however, was simply asking.
"No," Satoru replied, giving the perfectly standard answer.
"...You look cold."
"I'm actually better with cold than I look," he said with a smile.
"Mm. But I heard Kyoto has a pretty big temperature difference between day and night. If you really get cold tonight, say something."
"It wouldn't be very appropriate for me to use the clothes in your bag, would it...?"
Satoru sounded genuinely troubled.
"Idiot! Who would lend you those clothes? They probably wouldn't even fit you. I meant, at most, I could lend you the scarf around my neck in an emergency! If you didn't bring enough clothes, buy something here!"
Shino's voice rose. She was still rather small compared to him, and from Satoru's angle, her fluffy hair bobbed slightly as she nearly hopped in frustration.
"I've thought this before," Satoru said. "Shino and Sinon really are similar. Back in SAO, avatars matching the real person was something the system forced on us, but GGO is a normal game, right? Usually, the player and the avatar look completely different."
"Well... I wanted to become stronger, so I made her design a little closer to how I really look. What, is that weird?"
"No. I just think the cool, sharp aqua-blue sniper and the Shino bundled in layers with half her face buried in a scarf are both cute."
Satoru paused, then said exactly what he thought, with no defenses at all.
"Especially because of the contrast."
Satoru might be hopelessly dense.
"...Are you an idiot?"
Shino snapped the words out, then refused to look at him.
Satoru, meanwhile, looked at her for a few seconds.
"Shino, your face is a little red. Are you cold after all? You're wearing a lot, so maybe you don't handle cold well. And you're still wearing a skirt..."
He seemed to realize something.
"Come to think of it, I've always wondered about this. When I see schoolgirls walking around in freezing weather, they're wearing short skirts with maybe a pair of tights at most. Does that mean girls can feel cold, but their legs have built-in frost resistance?"
Satoru was definitely hopelessly dense.
"Yes. Exactly. Girls are like that," Shino said with a low huff. "From an evolutionary standpoint, why do boys have leg hair? Because they're afraid of the cold, obviously. Girls don't, so naturally, that means we're born cold-proof."
Satoru stared at her, stunned.
Two seconds later, he let out a long breath.
"So that's how it works... I didn't go to school much, so I had no idea science had already explained it."
Shino, who had covered her small burst of panic with total nonsense, had now given up on this man's common sense.
And then...
"In that case, Shino, if girls wearing socks are still a little cold in the legs, then... do they grow a little fine hair there too?"
As expected of the Sword Saint who had stood at the top in countless games, the former power leveler instantly applied what he had just learned and drew a fresh conclusion from it.
With pure, innocent curiosity, he looked at Shino's slender legs, covered by two black thermal layers.
"You idiot!!"
Feeling that innocent gaze on her, the girl's normally cool voice rang through the street in a loud, furious shout.
Passersby turned to look.
An elderly couple walking together watched the young man and woman, the petite girl looking like she was one step away from jumping up and hitting him. Perhaps reminded of themselves in the past, the two of them exchanged a nostalgic smile.
Satoru himself, unfortunately, really did take a critical hit to the head.