Phantom Bullet 2

  “It’s fine. We had three targets today, after all. My brother brought in another helper to carry it out. A guildmate from SAO, he said. So he’s already got a replacement for my position. Plus, I’d never let you get lumped in with scum like Zexceed and Tarako. You belong to me, not Death Gun. We’ll go somewhere on vacation…I’ll carry you all the way into the mountains where nobody is, and then I’ll follow right after you. So wait for me once you’re there, okay?”

  Kyouji’s left hand touched her midsection through the sweater, as timidly as if he were frightened of her. He tapped a few times with his fingertips, then slowly began to rub her with his entire hand.

  Shino tried her best to ignore the revulsion that crawled along her skin and keep talking. If she made any sudden moves or shouted, the harmless-looking boy with her would press the button on the syringe without hesitation. Sadly, there was something in Kyouji’s voice and face that made that very clear.

  As quietly and gently as possible, Shino continued, “Th-then…you’re saying you haven’t used that syringe before in real life? Then, we…we can still do it. We can start over. You shouldn’t think about dying…Aren’t you going to take the high school proficiency test? Aren’t you going to a cram school? Aren’t you going to be a doctor…?”

  “Proficiency…?” Kyouji repeated, as though he’d never heard that word before. After a moment, he murmured in understanding, and his hand lifted off of Shino and went into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a long, thin sheet of paper. “Want to see?”

  He thrust it into Shino’s face with a sardonic smile. The printout was something very familiar to Shino: the results sheet of a mock exam. But all the scores, in every subject, were almost unbelievably poor.

  “Sh…Shinkawa. How…?”

  “Isn’t it funny? Bet you never thought people actually got percentile scores this low.”

  “B-but…your parents…” she said, unable to believe that Kyouji’s parents would allow him to keep using his AmuSphere with grades like that. He picked up on what she meant.

  “Heh…as if I couldn’t make a sheet like this in any old printer. Besides, I tell my parents that I get online tutoring through the AmuSphere. Sure, they wouldn’t let me set up an autopay for the GGO subscription, but I was able to earn that much in the game…I could have managed…”

  Suddenly, the smile vanished from his face. The bridge of his nose wrinkled, and he bared his teeth in a snarl. “I decided…I don’t care about this stupid reality anymore. My parents…the people at school…They’re all idiots, every one of them. If I’d become the strongest in GGO…I would have been happy. And I should have been. That’s what should have happened with Spiegel…”

  Shino felt the tip of the syringe trembling against her neck and held her breath, expecting him to push the button at any time.

  “And then…that piece of crap Zexceed…lied about the AGI build being the best…and thanks to that cheating coward, Spiegel can barely even equip an M16…Dammit…dammit!”

  The loathing in Kyouji’s voice completely surpassed the bounds of a mere video game.

  “Now I can barely even make back the subscription fee…GGO was everything to me. I sacrificed everything in real life for it…”

  “And that’s…why you killed Zexceed?” Shino asked, shocked and horrified. He clamped his eyes shut for a moment, and the drunken smile returned.

  “That’s right. Is there any better sacrifice to make to create a legend about Death Gun being the greatest player in GGO—no, in all of VRMMOs? I killed Zexceed, Tarako, and now Pale Rider and Garrett. Even the idiots playing this game have to realize that Death Gun’s power is real now. I’m the greatest alive…”

  Kyouji’s entire body shook with uncontrollable pleasure. “Now I have no need for this worthless reality anymore. Come, Asada…Come with me to the next stage.”

  “Sh-Shinkawa,” Shino stammered, shaking her head. “You can’t do this. You can still turn back. You can start over. Come with me to the police…”

  “…”

  But Kyouji only shook his head, staring off into the distance. “Reality doesn’t matter anymore. Now become one with me, Asada,” he said emptily, bringing his hand up to brush her cheek and run it through her hair. “Oh, Asada…You’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful…”

  His fingertips were scaly and dry. Each time the cracked skin at the base of his nails scraped the fine skin around her ear, an unpleasant pain ran through her face. But she made no show of it, and Kyouji continued absently.

  “Asada, my sweet Asada…I’ve always, always loved you. Ever since…I heard about what happened to you…at school…”

  “…Wha…?” Belatedly, what Kyouji said registered in Shino’s mind, and her eyes went wide. “Wh…what do you…mean…?”

  “I loved you. I wanted to be like you…always…”

  “Then…you…” she squeaked, praying that what he was saying wasn’t true. “You mean…you only talked to me…because of what happened to me in the past?”

  “Yes, of course,” he stated, stroking her head like she was a little child, nodding fervently. “You won’t find another girl in Japan who got to shoot a bad guy dead with a real gun. It’s incredible. Didn’t I tell you that you have true power? That’s why I picked the Type 54 to be central to Death Gun’s legend. You’re what I want to be. I love you…I love you…more than anyone…”

  “You…can’t…”

  What an incredible gulf. What an incredible separation between them.

  She had once believed that this boy was the only human being not related to her by blood whom she could trust. But his mind did not belong to the same world as hers. From the very first step, he had been incredibly, unfathomably distant.

  At last, Shino’s heart was full of black, deep despair. Sight, sound, hearing—all of her senses began to lose meaning, and the world slowly faded away from her.

  Shino lost all strength.

  In her faded, unfocused vision, Kyouji’s two eyes floated like black holes. Like passageways connecting her to a world of darkness.

  They were that man’s eyes.

  He had returned at last. The man who had bided his time, lurking in the shadows—in the gloom of the night streets, between the furniture, within the hood of Death Gun.

  The warmth drained from her fingers. The connection between her body and consciousness began to peel away at the edges. Her soul was contracting. In the warm, cramped darkness at the very center of her mortal shell, Shino shrank into a little ball. She didn’t want to see anymore. She didn’t want to feel.

  The world she’d lived through for sixteen years was too cold, too cruel. It stole the father she’d never recognize, stole her mother’s mind, and with great malice, took away a part of Shino’s soul.

  The stares of adults, reflecting the curiosity of viewing some rare creature in a zoo, and even more ill-concealed loathing. The merciless taunts of the children her age.

  The world decided that wasn’t enough, and wanted to take more from her now. She didn’t want to accept this as the one and only “reality” that existed.

  That was right—it wasn’t reality. It was just one particular combination of events, out of the countless worlds that existed and overlapped. Somewhere out there was another world where none of this had happened.

  Somewhere out there was a world in which Shino Asada didn’t meet Kyouji Shinkawa, the post office wasn’t attacked, the accident that killed her father never happened, and she lived an ordinary, happy life. As she curled smaller and smaller into a compressed, inorganic ball, Shino’s soul sought a version of herself that was smiling in the warm sunlight.

  In what little rationality remained to her, Shino caught a tiny whiff of irony. In her inability to withstand the cruelty of life, she was escaping into the realm of dreams, which made her just like Kyouji Shinkawa.

  Kyouji was bullied at school, pressured by his parents’ expectations, and flattened by the difficulty of tests, so he abandoned reality
and sought salvation in the virtual world. If he could earn the title of the strongest in the virtual world, that would have more than enough value to fill the emptiness of his real life, he believed. But when that hope was taken away from him, he fell apart.

  Shino, too, sought the same kind of strength in Gun Gale Online. And at one point, she thought she had realized something, had found her way. But the chilly hand from the swamp of memory had caught Shino, dragged her back with it, and she never tried to resist. She couldn’t even open her eyes. It was all pointless in the end.

  As the thoughts trickled up, bit by bit, like tiny bubbles from the bottom of the sea floor, she wondered, What about that other boy?

  He had been trapped in a virtual prison for two long years, and ended up taking the lives of several people. He probably lost others who were important to him in that long, long battle for survival. Did he regret that, too? Did he hate the virtual world that stole so many things from him?

  No, he probably didn’t. No matter what challenges came his way, he wouldn’t abandon the things he bore. He seized that desperate, unlikely victory from Death Gun because that was what kind of person he was.

  You are strong, Kirito, Shino muttered from the deep dark. You went to the trouble of saving me…and now I’ve let it go to waste. Sorry…

  Kirito said he would send the police over as soon as he logged out. She didn’t know how many minutes had passed since then, but it was clear that they wouldn’t arrive in time. What would he feel when he learned that she’d been killed? That was the only thing that weighed over her mind…

  Then, like a chain reaction, another fear lit up within the darkness of her heart.

  Would Kirito just call his employer and call it a day? Or would he rush over to Shino’s apartment himself, just to be sure? He would still be late, she figured, but what would happen if he came here and encountered Kyouji Shinkawa? Would Kyouji run away, give up…or turn his syringe on Kirito next? The last option was quite possible, after the way he seethed in hatred of Kirito earlier.

  She might be able to accept her fate, to acknowledge that she was meant to die here. But getting him involved, that innocent boy…

  That was a different matter.

  But it won’t change a thing, young Shino said to herself, curled into a ball on her side, blocking her eyes and ears.

  Kneeling at her side, hand on the girl’s slender shoulder, Sinon whispered through her sand-yellow muffler, We’ve only ever watched ourselves. We’ve only ever fought for ourselves. That’s why we didn’t notice the voice coming from Shinkawa’s heart. But while it might be too late for us now, we can at least fight for someone else, here at the very end.

  Shino slowly opened her eyes in the darkness. Right before her was a white, fragile, but somehow powerful hand. She timidly reached out and grabbed it.

  Sinon grinned and helped Shino to her feet. Her pale lips opened, speaking briefly but clearly: Let’s go.

  The two leaped off the floor of darkness and began to rise up to the light far above, glimmering like the surface of water.

  Shino blinked hard, connected again to the real world.

  Kyouji was trying to pull the sweater off of her, keeping the syringe pointed to her neck with one hand. But with only one hand to work with, the process was not going easily, and he was visibly frustrated. He started pulling on the fabric as hard as he could, attempting to rip it off of her.

  Shino leaned to the left with the momentum of his pulling, pretending that he yanked her too far. The tip of the syringe slipped off of her neck and landed on the bedsheet next to her.

  She did not miss the opportunity. She grabbed the syringe cylinder with her left hand and struck upward at Kyouji’s chin with the heel of her right.

  He grunted and lurched backward. The weight on her body lifted. She smacked him over and over, pulling desperately on the syringe. If she couldn’t wrest it away from him, she would never get another chance.

  But the tug-of-war between Kyouji’s hand on the syringe handle and Shino’s hand on the smooth barrel did not favor her. When he had regained his balance, he pulled hard, screeched, and swung his free hand.

  “…!!”

  The fist pounded Shino’s right shoulder. As the syringe came free from her grip, she toppled over the head of the bed, hitting her back hard against the writing desk. One of the drawers jarred loose with the impact, spilling its contents onto the floor.

  Shino gaped, trying to will the air back into her lungs. Kyouji was clutching his bruised chin atop the bed, but he recovered and stared at her straightaway. His eyes were wide, and his lips quivered, shining with saliva. She could see a trail of blood from his bitten tongue.

  Eventually those lips parted to croak, “Why…?”

  His head shook slowly, clear disbelief on every inch of his features. “Why…would you do this? You don’t have anyone but me, Asada. I’m the only one who understands you. I’ve been helping you all along… Watching over you…”

  Shino recalled what happened several days ago, when Endou’s group ambushed her on the way home from school. They demanded money, and Kyouji coincidentally happened by and scared them off…

  But that wasn’t a coincidence.

  Kyouji must have followed her home from school for days in a row, watching to ensure she got home safely, then turned to go home and log in to GGO to wait for her there.

  It was nothing short of obsessive delusion. She had a hint of his dangerous nature, but no idea of its true depth. Even in her endangered state, a part of Shino couldn’t help but feel a bitter element of punishment for not taking him seriously.

  “Shinkawa,” she said, her lips tense, “I know it’s been nothing but pain…but I still love the real world. And I think…I can love it more. So I can’t go with you.”

  She put a hand on the floor to push herself up, and her fingers touched something heavy and cold. Shino instantly sensed what it was. It was what she kept hidden within the drawer that just fell out: the real-life symbol of all her fears. The Procyon SL model she won for participating in the second BoB.

  She found the handle by touch, lifted up the heavy gun, and pointed it at Kyouji. It was as cold as if it had been carved directly from a block of ice. The feeling in her right hand began to drain away as the numbness crawled up her arm.

  Even she knew that this sensation was not actual cold. It was her mental rejection of it that caused it to feel that way, but understanding how the sensation worked didn’t make it go away. A fear she couldn’t describe began to well up in the depths of her heart, like black water.

  The spotless white of her wallpaper began to waver, like the surface of water, and cracked gray concrete floated up from behind. Her floor tiles turned to faded green linoleum, the window to a wooden counter. Shino was back in the rickety old postal office.

  Kyouji’s face, caught in her crosshairs, suddenly warped and melted as well. His skin turned oily and ashen, deep lines appeared, and crooked, yellow teeth jutted from his cracked lips. The syringe in his hand had turned into an old-fashioned automatic pistol, gleaming dully. And so had the gun in her hand.

  Shino shrank, predicting the scene she would see next. Her stomach convulsed, leaping into her throat, and all the muscles in her back stiffened.

  No. I don’t want to see. I want to toss aside the Black Star and run away.

  But if she ran now, everything would go to waste. She’d lose both her life and something else just as important. Perhaps fighting the terror of the spasms as Shino, or fighting countless powerful foes as Sinon, would never bring her the results she sought. But…all strength was found in the process.

  Shino clenched her teeth hard enough to crack them and clicked the hammer of the gun with her thumb. The hard, dense sound tore through all of the illusion at once.

  Kneeling on the bed, Kyouji shrank back slightly at the sight of the Procyon SL pointed right at him. He blinked rapidly in terror, rasping, “Wh-what do you think you’re doing, Asada? That’s just?
??a model gun. Do you really think you can stop me with that?”

  Shino put her hand on the lip of the desk, putting as much strength into her quavering legs as she could to stand up. “You said it yourself. I have the true power. There’s no other girl like me who’s shot someone with a gun.”

  “…”

  Kyouji’s face went as white as a sheet. He scrambled back further.

  “So this isn’t a model gun anymore. When I pull the trigger, an actual bullet will come out and kill you,” Shino said, inching backward toward the kitchen with the gun still pointed at Kyouji.

  “Y…you’re going to…kill me…?” he mumbled, slowly shaking his head. “Asada’s going…to kill…me?”

  “Yes. You’re the only one going to the next world.”

  “No…no…You can’t do that to me…”

  The willpower drained out of Kyouji’s eyes. His absentminded features stared into space, and he took a proper sitting position on top of the bed.

  When she saw his hand relax and the high-pressure syringe start to slip out of his fingers, Shino was briefly arrested with the choice to snatch it away from him at that exact moment. But she had a feeling that if agitated, he would lose all reason whatsoever and attack her. She continued her steady retreat into the kitchen instead.

  The moment Kyouji disappeared from view, Shino bolted back for the front door. It was only five yards, but it felt unbearably long. She raced with wide strides, trying to keep her footsteps quiet.

  But right as she reached the big step down into the foyer, the mat slipped beneath her feet, and she fell. When she swung her hand to regain balance, the model gun flew out and landed in the kitchen sink with an incredible clatter.

  Though she hadn’t fallen completely, Shino’s left knee hit the floor painfully. Still attached to the ground, she reached out as far as she could and snagged the doorknob.

  But the door didn’t open. She noticed the lock was horizontal and frantically twisted it vertical, her teeth clenched. At the same moment that the lock clicked open, a cold hand grabbed her ankle from behind.