Hall Kervean
Two Thousand Club
The bar was filled with both regulars and newcomers. The regulars continued their typical chatter, picking up where they’d left off with other regulars from the day before, or entertaining themselves with a low-stakes game of pool. Most of the newcomers stayed to themselves, either nursing a drink or talking with others. When the owner of the bar switched the television screens over to the MMO stream, many of the newcomers and regulars turned aside from their idle chatter to watch the stream. A very important guest was airing that day. One of GGO’s top players, in fact. The man was XeXeed, the winner of the previous year’s Bullet of Bullets, the annual contest to determine the best player of the game. That game was, of course, Gun Gale Online. XeXeed had announced earlier in the week that he had a bombshell announcement, and so people were ready to hear it. The first few questions were the typical interview questions; what’s your name, why are you here, would you mind telling a little about yourself. Many of the patrons of the bar gave their undivided attention to XeXeed when the interviewer announced it was time for his announcement. He didn’t give any pleasantries or fluff, immediately saying that anyone who though agility was the only stat that mattered had another thing coming. Many in the bar rolled their eyes; while it was true, it was also obvious. But agility was widely recognized as the most important stat in the game.
“Sure, agility is an important stat. Firing speed and dodging… Very important! And in the past, if you were good at those two things, you were good. Until now, anyway. And if you were one of those guys who never left your house, raising just that stat… well, sucks to be you.” He finished with a wag of his finger. The bar erupted in boos. Most of them had worked their butts off to get their agility, and if they were told it didn’t even matter, well, that just couldn’t be left alone, now could it?
“That’s what we’d expect to hear from the top player of the most hardcore VRMMO, GGO.” The interviewer, a female just identified by the name “Presenter,” said. “Pretty hardcore.” XeXeed nodded, hints of excitement entering his voice.
“Yeah, well, I may only get one shot at going on MMO Stream, so, might as well make it memorable!”
“Oh, don’t say that… So, are you aiming for the next Bullet of Bullets?” Presenter asked, curiously. The patrons began losing interest again. A quiet, excited shout emerged from one corner as a newcomer beat a regular at pool, but he was quickly quieted by the death glares given to him by other players. Upon hearing the voice of the second man on MMO Stream, Dark Wind, a few players looked up again.
“BoB is a random tournament, with one on one encounters randomly selected from a pool. Doing the same doesn’t guarantee the same result.” A few players raised their glasses to that. XeXeed was widely, though quietly, discredited as more of a pay-to-win type of player than Dark Wind, who most agreed should have won. Only XeXeed’s superior weapons had won him the victory. “Don’t chalk your one victory up as a permanent status.”
“No, the results were indicative of a wider trend in GGO.” XeXeed announced. At this, more patrons perked up. Dark Wind raised an eyebrow. “You’re an agility-based character, Dark Wind-san, so I can understand why you don’t want to deny it.” A couple hisses of laughter erupted from near the bar. The mechanics for making someone drunk in game were well-developed. XeXeed stood, addressing anyone watching.
“Oh, it’s certainly true that, up until now, the best strategy has been to boost your agility and fire a powerful physical weapon as fast as possible. But, as some of you old WoW or EvE Online players may know, the balance of an MMO changes often. In GGO, you can’t re-apply your stats from one category to another. So, you need to constantly predict not only what the next balancing update will contain, but the one after, and the one after. It only takes a second for treasure to turn to trash, as Hisoka once said. Necessary minimum strength and accuracy requirements only grow as new, more powerful content is introduced. The recent plasma saber, I know, was impossible for Dark Wind here to get when it was first introduced!” XeXeed laughed, tossing his hair to the side. A man in the bar rose from his seat, perking up “Mani.” The man wore a black cloak that concealed the rear of the man’s body. The man’s front was easily visible as a black shirt and black pants, sealed with a belt. The man pulled out a bandaged hand, and Mani saw a pistol in it. The man cocked it and pointed it at the television screen, causing a scene. People started snickering quietly, and one started recording. Someone was going to get very humiliated on the internet that night.
“XeXeed! False victor!” He shouted, through a voice scrambler. A mist appeared in front of his face, adding an imposing air about the man. Mani was… interested. “You will now be judged by true power!” The regulars had already started snickering, and even the newcomers were getting wind that this wasn’t normal. If the man didn’t provide a reason to fear him, and soon, the whole place would be in an uproar. Mani snickered, but for a different reason. He began writing a highly-publicized name. The real name of the winner of the most prodigious contest in VRMMOs, XeXeed. He snickered as he saw how perfectly this could work. He finished writing the name, and heard a gunshot, looking up to see a bullet hole in the television; which, though cracked, did not shatter. It was, after all, virtual, and would refresh in a few minutes. However, for the present, XeXeed’s image was distorted.
“So you see, in the end, what’s really important is a player’s ability to-” XeXeed continued onward, as the others could barley contain their mirth.
40.
XeXeed stopped talking, instead choking behind the television screen. The cloaked man’s arm was raised, and Mani’s pen lowered. However, all eyes in the bar were drawn to either the television or the man. XeXeed grabbed his chest, apparently in agony, and fell to the ground, the disconnection icon appearing where he had stood moments prior. Those in the bar stared at the television, before slowly gazing at the man holding the pistol at the television screen. The man lowered the smoking barrel, instead holding it outward. It may not have been his intention, but he pointed it straight at the bartender, who instinctively ducked.
“This is true power!” The man shouted. “True strength!” He pointed his gun around, randomly. “Fools. Remember this name, and fear!” The man raised his gun again, his cloak billowing upwards and his entire body becoming visible. The cloak lowered back down, draping over the man’s body and framing it. “The name this gun and I share! Death Gun!” The man announced dramatically, eyes flashing red. Mani could barely hold in a laugh. He rushed out of the bar, in what most other patrons assumed was fear. Once outside, though, he laughed uproariously.
“Death Gun. Death Gun!” He snickered, his fist hammering against the doorway. “Oh dear, help me please.” He quickly logged out, leaning against the doorway. Light Yagami awoke on his bed, his AmuSphere on and Ryuk perched over him.
“Well, I guess it worked.” The Shinigami said. Light looked down and smiled. On his Death Note, which he held in one hand, the words “Shigemura Tamotsu” were written. In his other hand was a pencil. It had been a dangerous endeavor. If he’d been found while in game with those in his hands, he would be undeniably guilty. Of course, he’d taken steps. He’d moved away from his family and lived alone in a high-security apartment, still killing the unjust by night and attempting to catch them by day. His task force had perished, along with the SPK, under mysterious circumstances, leaving Light Yagami unsurprisingly distraught; having lost all his friends and his father to the mysterious Kira. He’d lived alone for months now, and was still no closer to actually catching Kira. That was, of course, because he wasn’t searching very hard. He put the Death Note away and tapped on his computer, which hummed awake. He pecked away until he found the MMO Stream, where they were trying to stall for time while waiting for XeXeed’s return. Light smiled. It certainly had worked.
He’d learned that the only serious opposition left after Near had been a small child who’d left Wammy’s House at a young age named “K.” He’d only picked up on the Kira case after the Sword Art Online case had finished, but in the time since he had come nearly as close as Mello had. He was more like L, Light had realized, than either Mello or Near, but he wasn’t as good as either of them in either the field of intelligence or initiative. Kira realized that the only way to finally become the god of the world was to remove K, and he’d received an anonymous tip that K had actually been an SAO survivor. Light knew the best way to bait K would have to do with MMOs, especially VRMMOs, so he’s come up with an idea to hack into his AmuSphere. Whenever he wrote on a certain in game item in GGO, his brain’s signals would activate, letting him actually write the name he was writing in the actual Death Note. This trial run had proven adequate, and a cover had even been given to him by the mysterious man. Light snickered, and Ryuk looked up.
“What is it, Light?” He asked, curiously. Light sighed.
“Well, I suppose it would get it off my chest just to tell you…”
"Welcome.” The attendant said, bowing towards Kirigaya Kazuto as he entered the fine restaurant. He left his spot from behind the counter to show Kirigaya the way in, but he found it on his own anyways.
“Hey, Kirito-kun!” A voice called out. He looked around to see where the noise was coming from, and turned with nearly every other head in the restaurant to a man sitting at a table for two with a suit and tie on, waving his hand. “Over here!” The man attending the youth stood patiently next to him before Kirigaya walked towards the man, his cheeks flushed. The man followed, and when Kirigaya sat across from the man, the man helped I'm sit down.
“I’ll pay, so order whatever you’d like.” The man said, to Kirigaya’s surprise. He nodded in gratitude.
“I’ll do that, then. Thank you very much.” He said, gratefully, but with a hint of animosity.
“Oh, don’t be so formal…” The man said, with a wave of his hand. Kirigaya panned through the menu quickly, deciding on a random selection of cakes. He had a sweet tooth like L, but like his detecting skills, he fell short. “Please, just talk to me like we were in ALO together.”
The man meant Alfheim Online, a game that was similar to SAO in its basic formatting, having been copied off the game. It was a sword-fighting game at heart, with elements of other weapons and magic within the game. Like EvE Online, there were multiple set factions with their own backgrounds and goals within the game, and like EvE Online, you could fly. Unlike EvE Online, however, there were no player-made factions. Instead, all your actions either strengthened yourself or your faction, which was also indicated by your avatar’s race. The game was one Kirigaya had had experience with in the past, and he returned to it whenever he could to hang out with his friends; although oftentimes he would use the time to quietly pore over case details.
“A-Alright…” Kirigaya said, taken aback by the man’s generosity. “I’ll have…”
The man attending them brought back the tray, filled with eight different types of cake. Kirigaya took the first, a minty-chocolate cake with a mint leaf placed atop, and took a forkful. He brought it to his mouth and began chewing, before thoughtfully putting the fork down and taking out an American half-dollar. Like all the good students in Wammy’s House, Kirgaya had a quirk. He would occasionally flip a coin off-handedly, though unlike Two-Face, he didn’t require it to make decisions. He caught the coin effortlessly and put it back in his pocket. The man who he was sitting with leaned forward, looking into Kirigaya’s eyes.
“Sorry to being you all the way here, Kirito-kun.” He said, not very apologetically. Kirigaya took another forkful of the mint cake and put it in his mouth, before speaking.
“I don’t mind a bit. But what I do mind is calling me a username I use in a VRMMO in real life.” He said, pointing his empty fork at the man.
“You’re so cold…” The man sighed. “After you awoke in the hospital a year ago, I was the first person to visit you.”
“Yeah, because you were in the hospital at the time.” Kirigaya swallowed, before taking another forkful. The cake was half gone. “But you, being the leader of the specially-designated SAO task force, needed to be there; where over half of the SAO players were kept. Am I incorrect, Kikuoka Seijirou-san?” He asked. With a flourish, his fork penetrated the mint leaf atop the cake and brought both it and another forkful of the small cake to his mouth. The man sighed.
“You’re not incorrect. Of course, I did tell you all that at the time of your reawakening. Being the leader of the Virtual Division as a whole, though, I was still surprised when over three thousand people began awakening and requiring attention from the one hundred and fifteen nurses and doctors.” He began laughing. “You would think such a miracle would be celebrated. Not a kind word left their mouths for hours!” Kirigaya didn’t laugh with him.
“Well, you didn’t call me out here to treat me. It hasn’t quite been three years, so it’s not an anniversary celebration.” Kirigaya said. He finished the mint cake and pushed the plate aside, grabbing a blueberry one. “I already told you everything I knew about SAO, so what else is-” Seijirou slapped his menu shut, surprising Kirigaya.
“I have something else I need to discuss today.” He said, his tone making a sharp shift from one of polite pleasantry to one of cold necessity. He reached down and dug into his satchel, which was laying on the ground next to him, and pulled out a sixth-gen iPad Air. “Look at this.” He held it out towards the boy dressed in black across from him, who took it and looked at it. There was a picture of a man prominently displayed, with his name below it.
“Who’s this?” Kirigaya asked, and the man sighed.
“I guess you aren’t as smart as I thought. The name’s below his picture.” He said. Kirigaya rolled his eyes, taking the blueberry off the cake with his fork and putting it in his mouth.
“I meant what significance does this man hold.” He sighed, handing the iPad back.
“Well, on November 14th, which was last month, the landlord of a Nakano, Tokyo apartment smelled something burning while he was cleaning the hallways outside the rooms. She got worried and unlocked the electronic lock on this man’s door, only to find him dead in bed. His AmuSphere was still plugged in, and it looked as though he’d suffered a heart attack.” He stopped talking when Kirigaya paused, forkful of blueberry cake halfway to his mouth. When Kirigaya noticed Seijirou had stopped, he wolfed down the cake and gestured with the fork for him to continue.
“He’d been dead five and a half days. His house, while messy, didn’t appear ransacked. An autopsy told us what I just told you. His heart had suffered an acute heart failure.” The man stopped as Kirigaya sighed.
“That happens. Many people pull days-long full-dive marathons, and a small percentage of them never take their AmuSpheres off again.” Kirigaya said, chewing on the last bit of blueberry cake. He stacked the plate atop the one that had held the mint one and brought towards him a cookies and cream cake with an oreo nestled atop it. “Why is this significant?”
“Given the time of death, and the low probability of a crime, a thorough autopsy wasn’t conducted.” Seijirou continued. Kirigaya had stopped eating, waiting for the hook. “But he’d been logged in for two whole days, without eating.”
“Again. All the time. Some people are luckier than others.” Kirigaya groaned. If it wasn’t for the cake, he’d be gone by now.
“The game he had installed was Gun Gale Online.” Seijirou announced. “Do you know it?”
“Yes, I do. GGO is the only VRMMO in Japan with non-competitive pro gamers.” Kirigaya grabbed a larger forkful than usual of cookies and cream cake, trying to get out of listening to the man talk to him about his concerns over a natural death.
“He had won a tournament there, the Bullet of Bullets, or BoB. It was held in December of last year, and, being an annual tournament, hype was raising. He, being the winner, was riding on a tide of publicity that was only rivaled by right after he won. His character name was XeXeed.”
“So, I’m assuming he was playing that game when he died?” Kirigaya asked, taking the last forkful of the cake up to his mouth and slurping it off his fork.
“No. As you know, other applications can be installed on AmuSphere, and at the time, he had an app installed called ‘MMO Stream.’ He was appearing there as his XeXeed avatar.”
“Oh! I’ve watched a few of their streams. They cover all MMOs, don’t they?” Kirigaya asked. Seijirou nodded.
“The stream was apparently about an important announcement by XeXeed. From the time logs and from footage from the stream, XeXeed lost connection with the stream within around five minutes of his death.”
“Alright. So, other than his death being viewed by thousands, what’s so unusual?” Kirigaya was curious, and so his bite of chocolate cake was smaller.
“Well, while unconfirmed, we have a bit of a lead. A player in a bar recorded audio of a man doing some interesting things. It’s on YouTube and has around seventy thousand views. with a background picture of Darth Vader. The man announced that XeXeed was a ‘false victor’ and ‘would face true judgement,’ before a shot can be heard. The person recording began laughing and muttered how the man was crazy. After a few seconds, XeXeed began talking again, and everyone else in the bar started laughing at the man. XeXeed then started choking and holding his chest, before disconnecting. The timing lined up.” He slid the iPad back across the table. Kirigaya tapped the audio and read the description.
“‘Man then started flicking the pistol around wildly, before saying his name was ‘Death Gun.’’” Kirigaya had to stop talking and lowered his fork full of cake. He couldn’t hold it in, though, and he began laughing. The other people in the restaurant stared at him in anger, before turning back to their respective meals and conversations. He wiped a tear from his eye and continued reading.
“‘I’d like to say that if the man hadn’t just forced a disconnection, everyone would have been rolling on the floor.’ Well, that’s certainly true.” Kirigaya finished with a chuckle. “Still. What’s to say this isn’t mere coincidence?” He lifted the fork back to his mouth and consumed the cake greedily. The director sighed.
“There was another one.” He said. Kirigaya coughed. His cake hadn’t gone all the way down anyway, and this surprise made him choke a little.
“Alright. Fill me in, then.” Kirigaya said, his attention finally fixed on him.
“This one was on the 28th, same month. Somewhere in Saitama City, Saitama. Another body, another apartment. This one was a two-story, but it was fairly low-security, comparatively. A newspaper salesmen peeked in when he tried to insert a newspaper, only to find it couldn’t fit because he hadn’t read any of the others. There was a man with an AmuSphere on, lying on a futon. Dead as a doornail.” An elderly woman coughed loudly and gave the two of them a death stare. Kirigaya flipped a coin and caught it in his hand. Looking around, he could see that a lot of the patrons had gone silent and were staring at him.
“Skipping any, ah, particulars, about the corpse…Yet another heart failure. Another GGO player. His character name was… Lightly Salted Taco. Off tangent, it was apparently an avatar to mess around with until he got the hang of the game, but when he found a rare weapon, he was forced to keep it. Back on track; he was actually playing the game at the time. He was in one of the plazas in GGO, having a meeting with other executives in his squad, the, ah, Tequila Domingos. Another player from across the plaza shot him in the back of the head with a pistol. The person disappeared soon after, but Lightly Salted Taco disconnected.”
“Same guy?” Kirigaya asked, taking a sip of complimentary tea, before finishing his chocolate cake and grabbing a strawberry one.
“Same guy. Said the same things, had the same outfit, called himself Death Gun again. Of course, this is all off of glances and anyone close to him at the time.” Seijirou stopped talking as Kirigaya stared at him.
“You’re… sure it was… heart failure, right?” He asked firmly. He set his fork down and leaned in.
“What do you mean?” Seijirou asked.
“There wasn’t any damage to the brain?” Kirigaya asked. Eliminate every other possibility first.
“I wondered that as well, of course. I asked the coroner who did the autopsies. Nothing. And while the NerveGear could do that, the AmuSphere was specifically designed to be unable. It was one of their major selling points.”
“You’ve done a lot of homework, Kikuoka-san.” Kirigaya said. “All this for something that’s no more than coincidence and rumor? Everything digital can be changed.”
“Well, I am 90% sure it’s either coincidence, rumor, or straight-up lies. But I can’t rule out the other 10%.” Seijirou said. Kirigaya was briefly reminded of one of his encounters with L.
“Do you believe that a bullet, fired from within a game at an in game avatar, could somehow stop the heart of a person outside of the game?” Seijirou asked. Kirigaya’s head whirled. There were so many possibilities.
“Unlikely, but assuming this Death Gun could send some sort of signal to both men’s AmuSpheres… it could be possible. But, as you said, it was designed for the explicit purpose of preventing that possibility. Unless… it was a different signal. Some sort of sense or touch that made their hearts stop. A combination of nerve information sent from the AmuSphere to the brain. Or some sensory information of some kind…” Seijirou sighed and smiled, stopping Kirigaya.
“Hey, wait. You’ve already looked into all this, haven’t you? If your experts had already considered all that, then what do you need me for?” He rose quickly. “My conclusion is that it’s impossible.” Kirigaya stood and began walking away.
“W-Wait! You haven’t finished your cake!” Seijirou said, desperate. Kirigaya turned back towards him, but didn’t move either way.
“All I need you to do is finish your cake and answer a single question.” Seijirou was pleading, and he knew it. “Will you log into GGO and try to make contact with Death Gun?” Kirigaya huffed.
“Why not just say it? You want me to get myself shot, for testing purposes.” He said.
“Well…” Seijirou smiled awkwardly and rubbed his head.
“No way in heaven or on earth! What if something happened to me!?” He turned around quickly, and Seijirou dived for him, grabbing his shirt.
“I thought we’d agreed it was impossible!” He shouted. A diner decided they’d had enough. They put a sum of money on the table and left. Kirigaya pulled to get away from the man. “It looks like Death Gun has strict criteria for his targets!” He added. Kirigaya sighed.
“Criteria?”
“Sit down, please.” He said, and Kirigaya obliged. He pulled a forkful of strawberry cake, before adding the strawberry atop it and shoving it in his mouth.
“Indeed.” Seijirou acknowledged. “The two victims were renowned players. He won’t shoot you unless you’re good. Probably. Kayaba-sensei recognized you as the strongest player-”
“That’s impossible.” Kirigaya muttered, fork in his mouth. “You see, GGO isn’t an easy game. It’s filled with pros, ACTUAL pros, who work for in game cash that can be turned into real cash. As it’s their livelihood, they need to ensure they’re good enough at the game to sustain themselves. It’s their job, and their entertainment, so they can afford to play the game for hours on end. And, for some, days.”
“I-I see. So, comparatively, you’re unlikely to have much of a chance against any good players…” Seijirou stopped as Kirigaya raised a finger.
“Well…” He stopped chewing his cake for a moment. “There is the small possibility that I could transfer my ALO stats over to GGO. But… I’d like compensation. I’m very busy…” Seijirou nodded quickly and smiled.
“Of course. Three hundred thousand yen. Per week.” Kirigaya smiled. That would more than pay for the new equipment he needed to bug his suspect’s apartment.
“It’s just another internet horror story. Why are you willing to pay this much?” He asked outwardly, hiding his inward feelings. On the subject of his suspect, his mind had wandered to the cause of death…
“You see, my bosses are worried about this. If the cause is the AmuSphere in any way, VRMMOs won’t be able to take the hit. They need to know, so they can know what sort of reaction to expect. Full-dive tech is the single biggest subject right now, and if it takes a hit, companies may go bankrupt, people will lose jobs. A lot is resting on your shoulders, Kirito-kun. Excuse me, Kirigaya-kun.” Seijirou corrected himself. Kirigaya simply nodded.
“Can you not just ask the administrators?” Kirigaya asked. Seijirou shook his head.
“The company that operates GGO is headquartered in the United States. Everything about it is confidential, and even the Japanese government doesn’t have access to any information about it, at least not yet. So the only way to contact them is within the game. Of course, every safety precaution we can take will be taken, and I won’t ask you to get shot. Just meet with him, give me your impressions, and your judgement. Will you do it?” Seijirou asked. His pleasantry was all but forgotten, and he had reverted back into director-for-the-government mode.
“Final question. Why not just ask L?” He asked. The man stuttered before realization dawned on him.
“Ah. You haven’t heard. You were in SAO at the time.” Seijirou sighed. Kirigaya raised an eyebrow, taking a bite of the final piece of cake.
“Eh?” He asked.
“L… is dead.” Seijirou said. Kirigaya choked and spat the cake onto his plate. He’d thought it might be, since the only other person seriously investigating Kira seemed to be Light Yagami, but he’d hoped L was just hiding in the shadows again. He knew Near and Mello were dead, but L…
“Alright. I’ll do it.” Kirigaya sighed. He left his final bite of cake on the plate as he stood and grabbed his bag. K smiled and bowed toward Seijirou before leaving the restaurant. He didn’t feel it necessary to tell his suspicions to Seijirou: Somehow, Death Gun was Kira.
“Kirito-kun! You’re quitting ALO?” Asuna asked, her tone sharp and accusing. The two were high up on a grassy mesa together in Alfheim Online, admiring the sunset. It was shaped like a mushroom; with a thin base that spread out into a large, flat, grassy top. At some points, the grass spilled over the side and hung over, taking on the appearance of vines. Kirito had hoped the beautiful view combined with the lovely setting would offset the surprise of his announcement. It hadn’t in the least.
“N-No no!” He said, raising his hand and shaking his head rapidly. “It’s just for a few weeks. I’ll reconvert my account soon.”
“Really?” She asked. She knew it wasn’t the whole truth that he’d “just needed a break.”
“A-actually, there is a reason.” Kirito muttered. He very, very briefly considered telling her about his conversation, but changed his mind. “I have to go check out another VRMMORPG.” That was natural. He’d done it more than once.
“You’ve always made new accounts when you did that, Kirito.” Asuna said. Shoot. Well, that wasn’t gonna fly. “Converting resets your items. Why do that?”
“Well, um…” Kirito glanced away. She’d cornered him. “Remember the guy from Internal Affairs?” Recognition flared in her eyes.
“Well, if he asked you to do it, there’s no way you could refuse.” She paused, and Kirito sighed. “I’m not sure you can really trust that guy fully.” She’d accidentally given him an out. And, as with many, many opportunities, Kirito took it.
“Actually, I feel the exact same way.” He said, snickering nervously. He really hoped she wouldn’t probe further. To his astonishment, she completely dismissed her prior line of questioning and instead scooted closer, putting her hand on his.
“Come back as soon as you can.” She whispered, smiling sadly. “This place is our home.” Her implied meaning was that he had better not permanently change VRMMOs. As she spoke, Yui fluttered towards the two elven-looking beings before landing on their intertwined hands. She took a seated position and smiled up at the two of them. The couple looked down at the tiny pixie they both knew and loved. The silence was broken by the clattering of footfalls. Kirito and Asuna looked away from Yui and out past the edge of the mesa, where they could see three people. Two were their friends Liz and Silica. Liz had been the two’s go-to blacksmith during Sword Art Online, and had become known game wide. Silica was someone Kirito had met a year into the game and helped out. In return, she had assisted the two on a few endeavors in SAO. The third female, Leafa, was Kirito’s sister. She hadn’t played SAO, so she had only met Kirito’s friends after the game had ended, but while Kirito had been trapped she had tried out a VRMMORPG herself called Alfheim Online. Through the course of the game she had accidentally helped out Kirito in his quest to save Asuna, who had been kidnapped by the game’s owner and held against her will.
The three females were standing together and waving at the two, beckoning them to come down and help collect the seventeen rabbit ears the villager had requested. Kirito waved back, somewhat dismissing their request. A shadow was cast on the six beings, and Kirito looked up to see castle Aincrad, the place where all of SAO had taken place, had made a full rotation and was blocking the sun. Kirito smiled. His memories of Aincrad were good, simply because he had suppressed the bad ones. He hadn’t participated in any of the Aincrad quests, all of which had failed, but he had managed to clear the fifth floor alone.
“Of course I’ll return to ALO soon.” He said, sighing. “I’m just doing some research on what’s going on in Gun Gale Online.”
“You’re going to GGO!?” Asuna asked, voice raising. Kirito cringed. “No wonder you wanted to convert your account! Without converting it, you wouldn’t be able to do anything.” Kirito nodded his head rapidly. He would still certainly be outmatched by the players in GGO, even if he had better stats, simply because they’d used firearms before. Kirito stood.
“Well, tomorrow is my first day in GGO. I need to convert my account online and then cram tutorials. See you later, Asuna.” Kirito sighed. Asuna grabbed his hand suddenly and pulled him down.
“Promise me, even if you love the game, you’ll stay in ALO.” Asuna begged. Kirito smiled and nodded.
“I wouldn’t leave. Yui’s here, after all.” Yui fluttered onto Kirito’s shoulder and smiled.
“Yay! I’m so happy for daddy!” She shouted, ever-optimistic.
Shinkawa Shouichi heard a knock on his door. Surprised, he peeked out the eyehole on his apartment door. While his brother, Shinkawa Kyouji, lived with his parents at their house, Souichi lived alone in an apartment. He saw there was a man at his door with brunette hair, a dress shirt, jeans, and a surprisingly nice-looking face.
“Shinkawa-san? Are you home?” The man asked with an innocent tone. Souichi didn’t like the looks of him, but decided it wouldn’t hurt. He ran back to his computer and turned it off to ensure he couldn’t find out about his target list before opening the door.
“I am Shinkawa. What do you need?” He asked, suspicious. The man smiled.
“Ah, good. May I come in? We have much to discuss.” His tone shifted fluidly from optimistic innocence to a tone which commanded obedience. Souichi was intrigued.
“Yes. Please, sit anywhere.” He said, gesturing throughout the room. The only place to sit was a couch, facing the television. The man bowed towards him.
“You are too kind, Shinkawa-san!” He said, with breathless reverence. He straightened, before walking in and seating himself on one of the couches. Souichi closed the door and, unbeknownst to the man, locked it. He sat on the couch next to him and turned to the fair-haired stranger.
“Now, what did you want to discuss?” He asked, ominously. He tried to imply that the man would regret wasting his time. The man simply smiled and chuckled.
“Where do I start? Ah, that’s a good place.” He pulled out his iPhone and tapped in the password, before showing Souichi the video. Unfortunately, an advertisement for ALO popped up, so they had to wait five seconds before they could begin the video. When they did, Souichi’s eyes widened. The video was partway through already.
“Remember this name, and fear! The name I and this gun share! Death Gun!” A man in a cloak ranted. Souichi’s eyes narrowed, and the man paused it.
“So who came up with that horrendous excuse for a villainous title? You or Kyouji?” He asked, smirking. Souichi’s eyes continued their exercises and widened again.
“How did you know?” Souichi asked, curious now. If the man didn’t have anything constructive to say he swore mentally that he would cut him where he sat.
“Red-eyed XaXa.” He said, sighing, as if it were obvious. “Death Gun’s eyes are a beautiful shade of lavender, wouldn't you say? Oh wait, my bad. That’d be red. And what does this article have to say?” He swiped across the screen, and an article showed up. The audio played another ad for ALO, but the two ignored the squealing female voice excited about the “adventures of the outdoors from the comfort of the indoors!” Instead, they focused on an article written by an SAO survivor.
“Only a few of them had any distinguishing features.” The article read. “One, red-eyed XaXa, tended to have a lot to do with reversed crosses. Another, PoH, di-” He swiped back when he saw Souichi had finished with the highlighted portion. In it was an image of Death Gun.
“Hmm, what’s that on the arm? Could that be a logo?” The man said, smugly proud with himself. The picture, taken from behind the hooded figure, showed the arm raised up as Death Gun did a reversed cross. On his arm was an image of a laughing coffin.
“That’s enough clues to have you arrested, Shinkawa-san.” The man said. Souichi tensed but smiled.
“Are you planning to?” He asked. His hand crept towards the sheath he had hidden beneath his shirt. The man began laughing with such a cold and cruel laugh that Souichi felt chills run up and down his spine. He paused his motion.
“No. So how did you do it?” The man said, abruptly halting his laughter. Souichi was surprised by the sudden shift, so he had to stumble to get the words out.
“W-Well… Kyouji was in GGO as Death Gun. I’d, uh, well, we stole some drugs from a hospital that, while not lethal, had the potential to be. You know how difficult it is to obtain lethal drugs?” The man didn’t answer, so Souichi continued. “Anyways, I would watch a livestream from Kyouji’s footage, and when he shot the person with a bullet, I would inject them. They would have heart failure right afterwards.” Souichi sounded proud of this. The man smirked and leaned back in a relaxed posture.
“Not quite.” He said. Souichi started, shocked at his denial. “Let’s watch that clip again, shall we?” He swiped to the right, then to the right again before replaying the video from the beginning. There were no ads this time. However, as soon as the video started, the man paused it. Souichi looked up at him in confusion.
“Why’d you…” The man pointed at the phone, and Souichi looked down. He saw a man in the background with a pen on something. When he played the video, Souichi saw the man was writing a something. When he finished, Death Gun shot the television. It took forty seconds between the end of the writing and the point where XeXeed started choking. The man paused the video.
“Well, that’s interesting.” The man said. “So, I’ll ask you again. Who made that awful name, you or Kyouji?” Souichi gulped.
“I recommended Pale Bullet, since the pale horseman is the Biblical symbolism of death, but Kyouji said it was too confusing and to go with Death Gun.” Souichi said. The man nodded.
“Interesting, interesting. Well, I have a better name. It really suits that man…” He pointed at the man who was writing. “…well. Want to know what that is?” Souichi sighed and nodded. Wouldn’t hurt, for sure. But this man better have a point.
“Kira.” The man said. Souichi’s heart stopped just long enough to notice before continuing on at a much more rapid pace. The man began to smile.
“Kira started his campaign before you entered SAO, correct?” The man asked, a hint of something sinister in his tone. Souichi swallowed and nodded. “Do you have any idea how close he is to being caught?” Souichi did the opposite of the prior reaction by shaking his head. The man leaned back and sighed.
“Not very. There are only two people actively investigating anymore; me and a young man named K.” Souichi interrupted.
“What has this got to do with me!? I didn’t even notice the guy. I don’t think you should be interviewing me about where he went.” Souichi said, frustrated now. d
“You’ve met K.” The man continued, staring at Souichi. “Isn’t that right, Red-eyed XaXa?” Souichi stared back blankly. He was obviously thinking the man was crazy. Especially when the man turned around and muttered something to an invisible being. When he turned back and saw that Souichi had no idea what he was talking about, he sighed.
“K is know by another name. Does this ring any bells: Kirito?” The man pronounced each syllable of the final word individually. Shinkawa’s eyes widened, before narrowing.
“I’ve heard of him. I’ve met him. I’ve fought him. I lost.” He said, anger creeping into his voice. The man grinned.
“The investigation is getting nowhere. K hasn’t found much, and I haven’t either. Do you know why?” He was asking so many leading questions that Souichi was beginning to get irritated.
“No, I don’t. Did you assume I did?” He asked, frustrated at the man.
“You sound rushed. I’ll get straight to the point th- oops!” He said, dropping a piece of notebook paper on the ground. “Could you get that for me?” Souichi growled, but bent down to lift it. When he looked back up to hand it to him, he saw something behind the man. Souichi shouted, dropping the piece of paper and leaping off the couch.
“Can you see that? What is it? How long has it been standing there?” Souichi asked. He pulled out his sheathed knife and tensed. The man stood.
“Don’t bother. Shinigami cannot be killed by any weapons you have.” He said. Souichi dropped his knife in shock, and it embedded itself in the floor.
“Shi-Shinigami?” He asked, mesmerized. The man nodded and smiled.
“Ryuk is forced to accompany me wherever I go. But to the point, the reason I wanted to talk to you is because… I’m Kira.” He said. The shadows in the room were well-aligned and the effect was that Light Yagami’s face was draped in shadow. Souichi’s knees gave, and he fell to the ground, accidentally bowing before the god of the new world. Light smiled a small, yet sadistically cruel smile.
“Normally, because you’re a murderer, I would kill you where you stood. But you have a use to me, so I won’t.” Souichi’s eyes were teared up. His life hung in the balance. Light crouched and snatched up the piece of paper from the Death Note that Souichi had dropped.
“I’d like to clear something up before we start, however. Your drugs weren’t just possibly nonlethal; they are completely nonlethal. I killed XeXeed and Lightly Salted Taco.” Light paused, letting it soak in, before standing continuing.
“I need you to draw Kirito out. I need his name and face.” Souichi nodded, his strength returning. “I also want you to hold the gun, so to speak. Have your brother continue to drug the bodies in order to throw off suspicion.” Souichi interrupted.
“Our next move was going to be at the BoB next month. We had three in mind, and we need more people to drug them.” Light paused before nodding.
“Feel free to contact them. But don’t tell them about me. If anyone learns about me from you, you will die in the worst way I can come up with. And I’m a very creative young man.” Light smiled a wicked smile at the man, who shuddered.
“Alright. Anything else?” He asked, curious.
“K may well suspect that you are, in fact, Kira. If it comes to that, don’t react. Don’t act as though you are, don’t act as though you aren’t.” Light instructed him. “Furthermore, you should certainly speak with K if you see him in game as Kirito. It would certainly be natural, and may bait him further. That’s all I have to instruct you on right now.” Light turned his back to the sinner and walked out of his house. He dropped a piece of ordinary notebook paper, once again intentionally, and walked out of the man’s dwelling. When Souichi opened the folded note, he found on it a phone number and instructions telling him to use it only when he was planning to report anything. It also mentioned to not let Kyouji know about the meeting.
Kirigaya pulled up in front of the hospital on his motorcycle. He knew this probably was his best shot at finding Kira, so he was ready to get his investigation underway. He’d gotten the text a few minutes earlier that everything was ready, so he had hopped aboard his motorcycle and rode straight to the building. As he walked down the now-familiar halls, waving at now-familiar nurses and now-familiar doctors, he pulled out the piece of paper he’d been given at the front hall and read it over, but his mind was elsewhere.
There’s only a one percent chance Death Gun is even real. And there’s only a seven percent chance out of that that Death Gun is Kira. Killing people from the virtual world is impossible. I can’t accept that. But the zero point zero seven percent chance remains, and that’s better odds than anything else I’ve come up with. He paused his thoughts to flip a coin, before stopping before room 7025. He put up his fist and knocked softly, before rolling the door aside. It didn’t open up like typical American doors, but rather slid like traditional Japanese doors would.
“Excuse me.” He muttered, stepping inside. His eyes glazed over as he saw who the director had put in charge.
“Hey! It’s nice to see you again, Kirigaya-kun!” One of the most cheerful and optimistic nurses in the building said to him. Why did the director choose her.
“H-Hello, uh, it’s nice to, uh, see you to, Aki-san.” He bowed towards her, so he couldn’t see when she moved up close to him. She tapped his butt, and he jumped away. He nearly slapped her, but he knew why she’d done it.
“You’re getting more meat on you, Kirigaya-kun!” She squealed, rubbing his arms. “But not enough, certainly not enough!” He was sputtering. Aki had been his rehab nurse, and he had really, really not liked her. “Are you eating enough? What about exercising? I hope you exercise more than you play that silly game, ALO!”
“Yes! Of course! And what are you doing here?” He asked. He hoped she was checking equipment and he’d get some hot babe of a nurse to-
“The bureaucrat with glasses informed me of what you’ll be doing, so of course, I just had to make sure you were ok throughout the whole process!” She sighed. No dice. She had been rubbing his arms the entire time, and Kibrigaya decided he’d had enough and broke out of her grip. For a woman, she was strong. And especially considering she was right. He hadn’t built any muscle for two years, so he was behind most men his age. It was tough, but he managed to get away.
“They gave me the nod simply because I was your rehab nurse! How lucky is that?” She added. Kibrigaya’s eyes drooped. “I guess we’ll be working together a lot more, Kirigaya-kun!” She put her hand forward, expecting him to shake it. It took him a moment to overcome his life flashing before his eyes before he could.
“Right. I guess so.” Kirigaya sighed. “So, what do I need to…”
“Not so fast, turbo mcspeedster!” She said, smiling. “I have instructions for you from the bureaucrat!” She grabbed a note out of her pocket and held it out towards him. It gave instructions on how to send reports, how he would be compensated, and…
P.S. Just because you’re in a private room with a pretty nurse, don’t get any ideas.
That… that… She was placed there just to irk him. That had to be it. Kirigaya crumpled the note in his hands and shoved it into his pocket, to the surprise of the nurse.
“Was there anything I need to be aware of on…” She started, but Kirigaya interrupted her.
“No. Probably standard procedure is ok. I’ll go hook an AmuSphere up to the network now. Did he set everything how I asked?”
“Yes.” She answered. She moved over towards the table, but Kirigaya didn’t move an inch. She turned back to him.
“As per standard procedure, please remove your clothes, Kirigaya-kun!” She exclaimed with a cheerful demeanor. Kirigaya stepped back, blushing.
“Wh-what was that?”
“I need to plug in some electrodes.” She was trying to be reassuring, but it wasn’t working out well.
“Um, can I just take off my top?” He asked. For some reason, she seemed to lose her cheerful demeanor, before she sighed and nodded, seemingly defeated. Kirigaya did as she had requested and took off his jacket and long-sleeved shirt. He folded them neatly and placed them carefully on the chair placed for any visitors or observers. He took off his shoes as well before stepping into the hospital bed and tucking his lower body under the covers. He waited as the nurse attached seven electrodes to various specific points on his upper body and upper arms. When she placed the final one, Kirigaya sighed.
“Ok, that’ll do it!” She said, grabbing the AmuSphere and putting it onto Kirigaya’s head. Kirigaya sighed, and lay down on the bed. “I’ll tell you when you’re good to go, ok?” Kirigaya nodded, and she turned back, tapping a monitor. She activated the electrodes one at a time, since they caused a bit of pain when they activated. Kirigaya inhaled sharply after the first electrode’s activation, but by the last one he wasn’t giving any reaction. Aki turned and gave Kirigaya a thumbs up, who sighed.
“Link start!” He shouted. This was actually his first time using an AmuSphere, and he wanted to try out all the options it came with, like streaming television shows and movies, the infinite exploration mode where it would spawn a random environment that you would do nothing with but explore, and, of course, MMO Stream. But there wasn’t time for that, and besides, those apps had been removed. Kirigaya went through the typical transition between reality and the virtual world before entering a blocked-off dark menu.
“Please select your username!” A female announced. Kirigaya quickly typed Kirito into the options given. It took a moment and he was worried it wouldn’t go through. Luckily for him, it dinged, and an option came up to create a character. He selected a Level-1 black trench coat with a dark grey undershirt and black pants. For his starting weapons he was given the option of a dagger or a pistol. He knew it was called Gun Gale Online, but found himself drawn towards the knife. He selected it, and waited for the option to select his appearance to come up. Instead, a purple flash enveloped his vision and he was teleported to a gazebo on a plaza, high above the streets.
From what he could see in his first sight was that GGO itself was a massive, massive city, at the center of which was one enormous building with a sphere floating in the center of it. For some reason, his mind flashed to his memories playing through all the Halo games, and specifically, Halo 4. He was on one of the taller buildings, and so he could see out beyond the enormous, high-tech wall surrounding the city. There were large mountains out in the distance, but surrounding the city itself was a barren grey plains region. It was obvious that any of the grinding he’d seen in the tutorials would be done out in the boonies. A pair of fighters flew overhead, and as he looked up, he saw an enormous battleship making a pass just above the city and out into the boonies. Looking around, he could see that on the level just below him were a few players, sitting around and talking to each other. There were many, many buildings surrounding them, giving it an appearance of a mall. He turned around quickly to see a man smiling with a knife. Shoot. A spawnkiller. The man ran at Kirito, who couldn’t do anything in time and fell to the ground, dissipating.
I could actually feel that. It registered as pain!? He was surprised. He flashed purple again and saw that he’d respawned on the level below. He whirled around again, but there were no spawnkillers this time. What he was surprised to see, though, was a mess of hair flap over his eyes. He felt his hair and realized he had an incredibly long head of hair. He saw in the glass of a nearby window that his hair stretched past his shoulders and down his back. It was past the point of being a heavy metal fan and to the point of being female. He started sweating, but calmed down when he remembered that there were, in fact, barber shops in GGO. He sighed and turned around, only to see a man right in his face. He jumped backwards into the window, which wasn’t damaged in the least. Kirito, on the other hand, was, and he grunted in pain.
“You got an F-1300 type, didn’t you!” The man shouted, exclaiming. “That’s really, really rare!” So it was unusual for a boy to have long, black hair? Interesting. “I’ll buy your whole account for two mega credits, miss!” Two mega credits, huh? That was the equivalent of seventy thousand yen, each. If he’d done his research, that was honestly a pittance for… wait, miss? Kirito gasped and grabbed at his chest, but sighed when he found out it was flat.
“Sorry, I’m a guy.” He said. The man gasped.
“Why are you playing as a girl, then?” He asked. Kirito knew that if the man didn’t get the idea, he’d be subject to ridicule for the next few minutes.
“I’m not. I’m a guy, and so is my avatar.” Kirito sighed. The man sucked in a breath.
“Then that’s an M-9000 type. Not quite as rare. I’ll trade you one Mega credit.” Also a pittance. But Kirito wasn’t interested.
“Sorry, this is a converted account. I play a different VRMMO, but wanted to check out GGO. If you could…” The man stepped aside.
“Right. Sorry. Contact me if you change your mind.” He said. Kirito stopped, before smiling in his head.
“Actually… could you do me a favor?” He asked. The man nodded. He hoped getting chummy would get the young man to give him the account. “Do you have a map of the city?” The man nodded.
“I’ll sell you one for fifteen credits.” Kirito checked his account. He had seven hundred and fifty. One would normally start out with one thousand, but the spawnkiller had taken the other two hundred and fifty.
“Alright. I’ll send you a trade request.” The man nodded. In a few minutes, his inbox beeped as an inbound trade request registered. He opened it and saw that Kirito had offered fifteen credits for the map. He smiled a little before accepting. Kirito could have gotten the map for a single credit in a store. Kirito waved at him before leaving the area. According to the map, there was an information terminal three hundred meters away. When he reached it a half hour later, he had learned things already, including the fact that certain doors are locked and inaccessible because they are privately owned and that the numbers on the corner of the map referred to what level he was already on. After accessing the information terminal, he received another five hundred credits, a “first quest: access terminal: completed!” GUI that didn’t go away for ten seconds even though Kirito was slamming the X, and the information he was looking for: Where the training grounds and gun shops were. He would need more stuff and better gear if he planned to attend the BoB, or even more importantly, attract Death Gun’s attention.
It had been nearly four hours, and he was completely lost. He had accidentally gone away from the city’s center, so the areas he was entering were owned by NPCs and thusly pretty clear of players. He had been consistently flirted at, but he’d been so focused on ignoring that that he’d also ignored his directions. He looked around, but the only thing other than the same grey, repetitive buildings was a girl. She had some ocean-blue hair, black jeans, a green, long-sleeved shirt, and a white scarf. Kirito smiled and ran over to her, accidentally breaking one of the biggest rules of manliness and asking a woman for directions.
“Um, excuse me…” He shouted. His voice came out higher than he expected. The girl stopped walking, and Kirito caught up with her. “I’m kinda lost and, uh…” His eyes popped out as he realized it looked like he was hitting on her. She looked him over with a cold expression, before giving her full attention to him.
“What?” She asked. Kirito paused, unsure what to say, and she took up the slack. “Is this your first time playing the game?” She gave him a small smile, and Kirito gasped inwardly. It didn’t look like he was hitting on her; it looked like he was a girl! “Where do you want to go?” She was voicing it softly, almost pitifully and compassionately, definitely thinking she was having a girl-to-girl talk.
“Yes, it is. I’d like to find a place to get cheap weapons, but I have no idea where that’d be at. I tried looking at the map, but I think I went the wrong way…” He stopped as the girl started giggling.
“Not only did you go the wrong way; you went one hundred eighty degrees from your destination!” She exclaimed, laughing her head off. Kirito didn’t find it quite as funny and shouted.
“Curse you, Siri!” He shouted, waving his fist at his GUI and making the girl laugh harder. “May your crops fail!” The girl’s laughter slowed before stopping entirely.
“Alright. I’ll take you there.” She said, smiling softly and beginning to walk away. Kirito gulped. He didn’t know what to think of her. She was obviously a professional at this.
“So, you converted that account?” The girl, Sinon, asked. Kirito nodded again.
“It’s converted from ALO. I-”
“The pixie game!?” She asked. ALO didn’t have the reputation as the most manly of games. “Do I even want to touch you?”
“I don’t really feel to eager to have you touch me.” Kirito said, before realizing how bad that sounded. “Besides, I only got into it because it was really similar to the first VRMMO I played.” Sinon looked over at him.
“What game was that?” She asked. Kirito walked into a shadow of a nearby building, so he looked intimidating.
“Sword Art Online.” He muttered. Sinon looked at him in surprise.
“You’re an SAO survivor? What was it like?” She asked, rather insensitively. She had her own traumatic incident, so she wasn’t very good about being sympathetic to others’ traumatic incidents.
“Well… It was hard the first few months, but after that, it became rather monotonous. In fact, some people liked the game enough to not even feel very driven to leave. There were experiences there no VRMMO can replicate for me. Tastes one can never taste again, smells one can never breathe in again. Everything was more real in a way, since, like real life, you could actually die. Here, there’s not as much risk. It may be your income, sure, but not your life.” He stopped. She was staring away from him. It wasn’t just a game to her, but it sounded like this man knew exactly what “not just a game” meant. He looked at her and smiled.
“So what brings you here, from the pretty fantasy of ALO, to a gritty city of guns?” She asked. He sighed.
“I… uh… wanted to try something more cyberpunk. I was kind of interested in gun fights. And, uh, one of the videos I watched said there were lightsabers. It all sounded so cool.”
“Alright. Well, let’s get you off to a good start. The fifth district gun market is just ahead. They have guns, gambling, firing ranges, and more.” Sinon smiled, and a track from Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare played over the loudspeakers nearby. When they reached the building conveniently labeled “Market,” Sinon walked past most of the cheapest weapons. Kirito looked confused; they were all in his price range, but she was walking past them.
“H-hey, what about all these? This one looks neat.” He pointed towards a spiked M16. Sinon looked over her shoulder, before snickering.
“You’re such a noob. Those spikes aren’t decoration. That’s the metal peeling.” She said. What little Kirito knew about guns told him it wasn’t good to have the metal peeling away from the gun itself. He closed his eyes, face palmed himself, and followed Sinon towards… well, wherever she was going.
Mani opened his eyes and looked out over the gun world. He smiled, before sighing. It was a long walk from the bar he was at to the governor’s office, where the BoB signups were taking place. You had to sign up early to get a spot, and signups would close soon. He wasn’t particularly interested in winning, but he knew that Kirito would probably attempt to participate. He groaned and stretched, before walking away from the bar before which he was standing. The buggies were just that: buggy. Since the buggy provided few advantages aside from speed, its wonky controls made it too much of a hassle to control without taking damage. Someone thought it’d be funny to add an easter egg where if it took too much damage, which was honestly a tiny amount, it would fly off to the right and explode. It was a terrible game mechanic, and everyone knew it. They tended to take jeeps and armored vehicles everywhere, though a select few who had mastered the buggy were able to drive it at far higher speeds than could be attained by most other land vehicles. It was most unfortunate, then, that nearly every in game vehicle rental only had buggies or the occasional metal horse. The metal horse was rare because it was even worse than the buggy, simply because it operated like an ordinary horse. Its speed was the only land speed higher than the buggy, and it came at the cost of even worse mechanics. The horses were so few because nobody wanted to ride them, and even NPC owners would eventually scrap it.
Buggies were the only thing rented because people would occasionally try buggies out just to see if they were as bad as people thought they were. However, nothing else was, since inevitably the renter of anything armored would take it into combat and destroy it, and anyone who rented a jeep would be loathe to return it. So in the end, buggies were the only thing rented out regularly. Mani was not one of the elite who had mastered the buggy, and if he tried to ride it, he knew he would only waste precious time. He began his brisk walk towards the governor’s office, knowing he had only three hours to reach the building that was over five miles away.
“GGO has two major weapon types: energy and physical.” Sinon said.
“Like Halo!” Kirito shouted, excited he could understand that bit. Sinon paused before half nodding.
“Yes. But unlike Halo, energy weapons do more physical damage. There are shields in the game to halve the damage of energy weapons, but they don’t work against physical ones. Physical guns are the kind you want to bring to a firefight.” She informed him. That was honestly very helpful information. Kirito would have applied his Halo knowledge and used energy weapons in a fight to take down the shields. Thanks to Sinon, he wasn’t going to make that goof-up. The two stopped near the backroom, next to a wall of assault rifles.
“What kind of stats do you have?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s important to pick a gun that goes with your stat type.”
“Well, uh, mostly strength. Then some speed. And charisma, then luck, the-” “Thank you.” She interrupted. “Charisma doesn’t help you pick out a gun.” Kirito blushed.
“So… a strength-agility build, huh? About mid range. So your main would be a heavy assault rifle, like the M18A2 or the AK-109.” Kirito was staring blankly at her. The only words he recognized were strength, agility, and assault rifle. “Or maybe a midsize machine gun with an SMG sidearm. Or maybe a double machine pistol main with a small shotgun subslot… Hey, what’s wrong?” Kirito was sweating heavily. He knew he should chime in with his style of play, but he didn’t know what most of those meant.
“Oh, sorry. You converted, right?” Sinon quickly reverted back to more simple terminology. “So you don’t have much dough?”
“Well, uh, I have about twelve hundred and thirty five.” He said, checking his menu. Sinon’s eyes widened.
“What did you spend it on!?” She asked, surprised. Kirito smiled an awkward smile.
“Uh… I got spawnkilled, and then some kind man offered me a map for fifteen credits.” Sinon facepalmed and sighed.
“Well, the best gun you can buy is a small energy pistol. With your cash, you couldn’t even buy a decent pistol.” Kirito lowered his face. He really didn’t want to have to spend the usual hundreds of hours grinding monsters to get a half-broken LMG.
“If you don’t mind…” Sinon muttered. “Would you like me to lend you some?” Kirito’s eyes shot up.
“How much do you even have, to be able to lend anyone anything?” Kirito asked. Sinon gave him a small smile.
“Over eight hundred million.” She said. Kirito backed away and waved his hands.
“Please don’t lend me any!” He said, to Sinon’s surprise. “I don’t want you to lend money to someone you’ve just met. Is there any way I can earn lots of many in another way?” He was pleading with her now. She sighed.
“Well… there are casinos and gambling in the back, but I can’t recommend… Hey, wait!” Sinon shouted after him as he ran off towards the glowing and flashing sign labeled “casino.” She found him in front of the “Untouchable!” game. She grabbed his arm before he started it.
“Kirito! You idiot! Do you even know what it is!?” She shouted, attracting the attention of a few people close by. Kirito grinned sheepishly, and she sighed.
“You enter from the gate and dodge the NPC’s bullets. Your goal is to touch him. If you do that, you get the default two hundred fifty K and whatever other cash players have put in.”
“Sweet.” Kirito said, moving towards the gate. Sinon pulled him towards her.
“You idiot. Once you pass the eight meter line, he starts doing cheap speed draws and fires all six bullets at once with a faster reload time. By the time you see the prediction lines, it’s too late.” Sinon sighed. Kirito raised an eyebrow.
“Prediction lines?”
“Just watch. Someone’s gonna try.” She pointed as a man in a blue U.N. uniform and beret put his hand on a terminal next to the gate. It beeped and opened, and two people nearby pumped their fists in the air and shouted his username over and over again. It would have been dramatic if his username wasn’t Edgmasteh224.
“Sure, agility is an important stat. Firing speed and dodging… Very important! And in the past, if you were good at those two things, you were good. Until now, anyway. And if you were one of those guys who never left your house, raising just that stat… well, sucks to be you.” He finished with a wag of his finger. The bar erupted in boos. Most of them had worked their butts off to get their agility, and if they were told it didn’t even matter, well, that just couldn’t be left alone, now could it?
“That’s what we’d expect to hear from the top player of the most hardcore VRMMO, GGO.” The interviewer, a female just identified by the name “Presenter,” said. “Pretty hardcore.” XeXeed nodded, hints of excitement entering his voice.
“Yeah, well, I may only get one shot at going on MMO Stream, so, might as well make it memorable!”
“Oh, don’t say that… So, are you aiming for the next Bullet of Bullets?” Presenter asked, curiously. The patrons began losing interest again. A quiet, excited shout emerged from one corner as a newcomer beat a regular at pool, but he was quickly quieted by the death glares given to him by other players. Upon hearing the voice of the second man on MMO Stream, Dark Wind, a few players looked up again.
“BoB is a random tournament, with one on one encounters randomly selected from a pool. Doing the same doesn’t guarantee the same result.” A few players raised their glasses to that. XeXeed was widely, though quietly, discredited as more of a pay-to-win type of player than Dark Wind, who most agreed should have won. Only XeXeed’s superior weapons had won him the victory. “Don’t chalk your one victory up as a permanent status.”
“No, the results were indicative of a wider trend in GGO.” XeXeed announced. At this, more patrons perked up. Dark Wind raised an eyebrow. “You’re an agility-based character, Dark Wind-san, so I can understand why you don’t want to deny it.” A couple hisses of laughter erupted from near the bar. The mechanics for making someone drunk in game were well-developed. XeXeed stood, addressing anyone watching.
“Oh, it’s certainly true that, up until now, the best strategy has been to boost your agility and fire a powerful physical weapon as fast as possible. But, as some of you old WoW or EvE Online players may know, the balance of an MMO changes often. In GGO, you can’t re-apply your stats from one category to another. So, you need to constantly predict not only what the next balancing update will contain, but the one after, and the one after. It only takes a second for treasure to turn to trash, as Hisoka once said. Necessary minimum strength and accuracy requirements only grow as new, more powerful content is introduced. The recent plasma saber, I know, was impossible for Dark Wind here to get when it was first introduced!” XeXeed laughed, tossing his hair to the side. A man in the bar rose from his seat, perking up “Mani.” The man wore a black cloak that concealed the rear of the man’s body. The man’s front was easily visible as a black shirt and black pants, sealed with a belt. The man pulled out a bandaged hand, and Mani saw a pistol in it. The man cocked it and pointed it at the television screen, causing a scene. People started snickering quietly, and one started recording. Someone was going to get very humiliated on the internet that night.
“XeXeed! False victor!” He shouted, through a voice scrambler. A mist appeared in front of his face, adding an imposing air about the man. Mani was… interested. “You will now be judged by true power!” The regulars had already started snickering, and even the newcomers were getting wind that this wasn’t normal. If the man didn’t provide a reason to fear him, and soon, the whole place would be in an uproar. Mani snickered, but for a different reason. He began writing a highly-publicized name. The real name of the winner of the most prodigious contest in VRMMOs, XeXeed. He snickered as he saw how perfectly this could work. He finished writing the name, and heard a gunshot, looking up to see a bullet hole in the television; which, though cracked, did not shatter. It was, after all, virtual, and would refresh in a few minutes. However, for the present, XeXeed’s image was distorted.
“So you see, in the end, what’s really important is a player’s ability to-” XeXeed continued onward, as the others could barley contain their mirth.
40.
XeXeed stopped talking, instead choking behind the television screen. The cloaked man’s arm was raised, and Mani’s pen lowered. However, all eyes in the bar were drawn to either the television or the man. XeXeed grabbed his chest, apparently in agony, and fell to the ground, the disconnection icon appearing where he had stood moments prior. Those in the bar stared at the television, before slowly gazing at the man holding the pistol at the television screen. The man lowered the smoking barrel, instead holding it outward. It may not have been his intention, but he pointed it straight at the bartender, who instinctively ducked.
“This is true power!” The man shouted. “True strength!” He pointed his gun around, randomly. “Fools. Remember this name, and fear!” The man raised his gun again, his cloak billowing upwards and his entire body becoming visible. The cloak lowered back down, draping over the man’s body and framing it. “The name this gun and I share! Death Gun!” The man announced dramatically, eyes flashing red. Mani could barely hold in a laugh. He rushed out of the bar, in what most other patrons assumed was fear. Once outside, though, he laughed uproariously.
“Death Gun. Death Gun!” He snickered, his fist hammering against the doorway. “Oh dear, help me please.” He quickly logged out, leaning against the doorway. Light Yagami awoke on his bed, his AmuSphere on and Ryuk perched over him.
“Well, I guess it worked.” The Shinigami said. Light looked down and smiled. On his Death Note, which he held in one hand, the words “Shigemura Tamotsu” were written. In his other hand was a pencil. It had been a dangerous endeavor. If he’d been found while in game with those in his hands, he would be undeniably guilty. Of course, he’d taken steps. He’d moved away from his family and lived alone in a high-security apartment, still killing the unjust by night and attempting to catch them by day. His task force had perished, along with the SPK, under mysterious circumstances, leaving Light Yagami unsurprisingly distraught; having lost all his friends and his father to the mysterious Kira. He’d lived alone for months now, and was still no closer to actually catching Kira. That was, of course, because he wasn’t searching very hard. He put the Death Note away and tapped on his computer, which hummed awake. He pecked away until he found the MMO Stream, where they were trying to stall for time while waiting for XeXeed’s return. Light smiled. It certainly had worked.
He’d learned that the only serious opposition left after Near had been a small child who’d left Wammy’s House at a young age named “K.” He’d only picked up on the Kira case after the Sword Art Online case had finished, but in the time since he had come nearly as close as Mello had. He was more like L, Light had realized, than either Mello or Near, but he wasn’t as good as either of them in either the field of intelligence or initiative. Kira realized that the only way to finally become the god of the world was to remove K, and he’d received an anonymous tip that K had actually been an SAO survivor. Light knew the best way to bait K would have to do with MMOs, especially VRMMOs, so he’s come up with an idea to hack into his AmuSphere. Whenever he wrote on a certain in game item in GGO, his brain’s signals would activate, letting him actually write the name he was writing in the actual Death Note. This trial run had proven adequate, and a cover had even been given to him by the mysterious man. Light snickered, and Ryuk looked up.
“What is it, Light?” He asked, curiously. Light sighed.
“Well, I suppose it would get it off my chest just to tell you…”
"Welcome.” The attendant said, bowing towards Kirigaya Kazuto as he entered the fine restaurant. He left his spot from behind the counter to show Kirigaya the way in, but he found it on his own anyways.
“Hey, Kirito-kun!” A voice called out. He looked around to see where the noise was coming from, and turned with nearly every other head in the restaurant to a man sitting at a table for two with a suit and tie on, waving his hand. “Over here!” The man attending the youth stood patiently next to him before Kirigaya walked towards the man, his cheeks flushed. The man followed, and when Kirigaya sat across from the man, the man helped I'm sit down.
“I’ll pay, so order whatever you’d like.” The man said, to Kirigaya’s surprise. He nodded in gratitude.
“I’ll do that, then. Thank you very much.” He said, gratefully, but with a hint of animosity.
“Oh, don’t be so formal…” The man said, with a wave of his hand. Kirigaya panned through the menu quickly, deciding on a random selection of cakes. He had a sweet tooth like L, but like his detecting skills, he fell short. “Please, just talk to me like we were in ALO together.”
The man meant Alfheim Online, a game that was similar to SAO in its basic formatting, having been copied off the game. It was a sword-fighting game at heart, with elements of other weapons and magic within the game. Like EvE Online, there were multiple set factions with their own backgrounds and goals within the game, and like EvE Online, you could fly. Unlike EvE Online, however, there were no player-made factions. Instead, all your actions either strengthened yourself or your faction, which was also indicated by your avatar’s race. The game was one Kirigaya had had experience with in the past, and he returned to it whenever he could to hang out with his friends; although oftentimes he would use the time to quietly pore over case details.
“A-Alright…” Kirigaya said, taken aback by the man’s generosity. “I’ll have…”
The man attending them brought back the tray, filled with eight different types of cake. Kirigaya took the first, a minty-chocolate cake with a mint leaf placed atop, and took a forkful. He brought it to his mouth and began chewing, before thoughtfully putting the fork down and taking out an American half-dollar. Like all the good students in Wammy’s House, Kirgaya had a quirk. He would occasionally flip a coin off-handedly, though unlike Two-Face, he didn’t require it to make decisions. He caught the coin effortlessly and put it back in his pocket. The man who he was sitting with leaned forward, looking into Kirigaya’s eyes.
“Sorry to being you all the way here, Kirito-kun.” He said, not very apologetically. Kirigaya took another forkful of the mint cake and put it in his mouth, before speaking.
“I don’t mind a bit. But what I do mind is calling me a username I use in a VRMMO in real life.” He said, pointing his empty fork at the man.
“You’re so cold…” The man sighed. “After you awoke in the hospital a year ago, I was the first person to visit you.”
“Yeah, because you were in the hospital at the time.” Kirigaya swallowed, before taking another forkful. The cake was half gone. “But you, being the leader of the specially-designated SAO task force, needed to be there; where over half of the SAO players were kept. Am I incorrect, Kikuoka Seijirou-san?” He asked. With a flourish, his fork penetrated the mint leaf atop the cake and brought both it and another forkful of the small cake to his mouth. The man sighed.
“You’re not incorrect. Of course, I did tell you all that at the time of your reawakening. Being the leader of the Virtual Division as a whole, though, I was still surprised when over three thousand people began awakening and requiring attention from the one hundred and fifteen nurses and doctors.” He began laughing. “You would think such a miracle would be celebrated. Not a kind word left their mouths for hours!” Kirigaya didn’t laugh with him.
“Well, you didn’t call me out here to treat me. It hasn’t quite been three years, so it’s not an anniversary celebration.” Kirigaya said. He finished the mint cake and pushed the plate aside, grabbing a blueberry one. “I already told you everything I knew about SAO, so what else is-” Seijirou slapped his menu shut, surprising Kirigaya.
“I have something else I need to discuss today.” He said, his tone making a sharp shift from one of polite pleasantry to one of cold necessity. He reached down and dug into his satchel, which was laying on the ground next to him, and pulled out a sixth-gen iPad Air. “Look at this.” He held it out towards the boy dressed in black across from him, who took it and looked at it. There was a picture of a man prominently displayed, with his name below it.
“Who’s this?” Kirigaya asked, and the man sighed.
“I guess you aren’t as smart as I thought. The name’s below his picture.” He said. Kirigaya rolled his eyes, taking the blueberry off the cake with his fork and putting it in his mouth.
“I meant what significance does this man hold.” He sighed, handing the iPad back.
“Well, on November 14th, which was last month, the landlord of a Nakano, Tokyo apartment smelled something burning while he was cleaning the hallways outside the rooms. She got worried and unlocked the electronic lock on this man’s door, only to find him dead in bed. His AmuSphere was still plugged in, and it looked as though he’d suffered a heart attack.” He stopped talking when Kirigaya paused, forkful of blueberry cake halfway to his mouth. When Kirigaya noticed Seijirou had stopped, he wolfed down the cake and gestured with the fork for him to continue.
“He’d been dead five and a half days. His house, while messy, didn’t appear ransacked. An autopsy told us what I just told you. His heart had suffered an acute heart failure.” The man stopped as Kirigaya sighed.
“That happens. Many people pull days-long full-dive marathons, and a small percentage of them never take their AmuSpheres off again.” Kirigaya said, chewing on the last bit of blueberry cake. He stacked the plate atop the one that had held the mint one and brought towards him a cookies and cream cake with an oreo nestled atop it. “Why is this significant?”
“Given the time of death, and the low probability of a crime, a thorough autopsy wasn’t conducted.” Seijirou continued. Kirigaya had stopped eating, waiting for the hook. “But he’d been logged in for two whole days, without eating.”
“Again. All the time. Some people are luckier than others.” Kirigaya groaned. If it wasn’t for the cake, he’d be gone by now.
“The game he had installed was Gun Gale Online.” Seijirou announced. “Do you know it?”
“Yes, I do. GGO is the only VRMMO in Japan with non-competitive pro gamers.” Kirigaya grabbed a larger forkful than usual of cookies and cream cake, trying to get out of listening to the man talk to him about his concerns over a natural death.
“He had won a tournament there, the Bullet of Bullets, or BoB. It was held in December of last year, and, being an annual tournament, hype was raising. He, being the winner, was riding on a tide of publicity that was only rivaled by right after he won. His character name was XeXeed.”
“So, I’m assuming he was playing that game when he died?” Kirigaya asked, taking the last forkful of the cake up to his mouth and slurping it off his fork.
“No. As you know, other applications can be installed on AmuSphere, and at the time, he had an app installed called ‘MMO Stream.’ He was appearing there as his XeXeed avatar.”
“Oh! I’ve watched a few of their streams. They cover all MMOs, don’t they?” Kirigaya asked. Seijirou nodded.
“The stream was apparently about an important announcement by XeXeed. From the time logs and from footage from the stream, XeXeed lost connection with the stream within around five minutes of his death.”
“Alright. So, other than his death being viewed by thousands, what’s so unusual?” Kirigaya was curious, and so his bite of chocolate cake was smaller.
“Well, while unconfirmed, we have a bit of a lead. A player in a bar recorded audio of a man doing some interesting things. It’s on YouTube and has around seventy thousand views. with a background picture of Darth Vader. The man announced that XeXeed was a ‘false victor’ and ‘would face true judgement,’ before a shot can be heard. The person recording began laughing and muttered how the man was crazy. After a few seconds, XeXeed began talking again, and everyone else in the bar started laughing at the man. XeXeed then started choking and holding his chest, before disconnecting. The timing lined up.” He slid the iPad back across the table. Kirigaya tapped the audio and read the description.
“‘Man then started flicking the pistol around wildly, before saying his name was ‘Death Gun.’’” Kirigaya had to stop talking and lowered his fork full of cake. He couldn’t hold it in, though, and he began laughing. The other people in the restaurant stared at him in anger, before turning back to their respective meals and conversations. He wiped a tear from his eye and continued reading.
“‘I’d like to say that if the man hadn’t just forced a disconnection, everyone would have been rolling on the floor.’ Well, that’s certainly true.” Kirigaya finished with a chuckle. “Still. What’s to say this isn’t mere coincidence?” He lifted the fork back to his mouth and consumed the cake greedily. The director sighed.
“There was another one.” He said. Kirigaya coughed. His cake hadn’t gone all the way down anyway, and this surprise made him choke a little.
“Alright. Fill me in, then.” Kirigaya said, his attention finally fixed on him.
“This one was on the 28th, same month. Somewhere in Saitama City, Saitama. Another body, another apartment. This one was a two-story, but it was fairly low-security, comparatively. A newspaper salesmen peeked in when he tried to insert a newspaper, only to find it couldn’t fit because he hadn’t read any of the others. There was a man with an AmuSphere on, lying on a futon. Dead as a doornail.” An elderly woman coughed loudly and gave the two of them a death stare. Kirigaya flipped a coin and caught it in his hand. Looking around, he could see that a lot of the patrons had gone silent and were staring at him.
“Skipping any, ah, particulars, about the corpse…Yet another heart failure. Another GGO player. His character name was… Lightly Salted Taco. Off tangent, it was apparently an avatar to mess around with until he got the hang of the game, but when he found a rare weapon, he was forced to keep it. Back on track; he was actually playing the game at the time. He was in one of the plazas in GGO, having a meeting with other executives in his squad, the, ah, Tequila Domingos. Another player from across the plaza shot him in the back of the head with a pistol. The person disappeared soon after, but Lightly Salted Taco disconnected.”
“Same guy?” Kirigaya asked, taking a sip of complimentary tea, before finishing his chocolate cake and grabbing a strawberry one.
“Same guy. Said the same things, had the same outfit, called himself Death Gun again. Of course, this is all off of glances and anyone close to him at the time.” Seijirou stopped talking as Kirigaya stared at him.
“You’re… sure it was… heart failure, right?” He asked firmly. He set his fork down and leaned in.
“What do you mean?” Seijirou asked.
“There wasn’t any damage to the brain?” Kirigaya asked. Eliminate every other possibility first.
“I wondered that as well, of course. I asked the coroner who did the autopsies. Nothing. And while the NerveGear could do that, the AmuSphere was specifically designed to be unable. It was one of their major selling points.”
“You’ve done a lot of homework, Kikuoka-san.” Kirigaya said. “All this for something that’s no more than coincidence and rumor? Everything digital can be changed.”
“Well, I am 90% sure it’s either coincidence, rumor, or straight-up lies. But I can’t rule out the other 10%.” Seijirou said. Kirigaya was briefly reminded of one of his encounters with L.
“Do you believe that a bullet, fired from within a game at an in game avatar, could somehow stop the heart of a person outside of the game?” Seijirou asked. Kirigaya’s head whirled. There were so many possibilities.
“Unlikely, but assuming this Death Gun could send some sort of signal to both men’s AmuSpheres… it could be possible. But, as you said, it was designed for the explicit purpose of preventing that possibility. Unless… it was a different signal. Some sort of sense or touch that made their hearts stop. A combination of nerve information sent from the AmuSphere to the brain. Or some sensory information of some kind…” Seijirou sighed and smiled, stopping Kirigaya.
“Hey, wait. You’ve already looked into all this, haven’t you? If your experts had already considered all that, then what do you need me for?” He rose quickly. “My conclusion is that it’s impossible.” Kirigaya stood and began walking away.
“W-Wait! You haven’t finished your cake!” Seijirou said, desperate. Kirigaya turned back towards him, but didn’t move either way.
“All I need you to do is finish your cake and answer a single question.” Seijirou was pleading, and he knew it. “Will you log into GGO and try to make contact with Death Gun?” Kirigaya huffed.
“Why not just say it? You want me to get myself shot, for testing purposes.” He said.
“Well…” Seijirou smiled awkwardly and rubbed his head.
“No way in heaven or on earth! What if something happened to me!?” He turned around quickly, and Seijirou dived for him, grabbing his shirt.
“I thought we’d agreed it was impossible!” He shouted. A diner decided they’d had enough. They put a sum of money on the table and left. Kirigaya pulled to get away from the man. “It looks like Death Gun has strict criteria for his targets!” He added. Kirigaya sighed.
“Criteria?”
“Sit down, please.” He said, and Kirigaya obliged. He pulled a forkful of strawberry cake, before adding the strawberry atop it and shoving it in his mouth.
“Indeed.” Seijirou acknowledged. “The two victims were renowned players. He won’t shoot you unless you’re good. Probably. Kayaba-sensei recognized you as the strongest player-”
“That’s impossible.” Kirigaya muttered, fork in his mouth. “You see, GGO isn’t an easy game. It’s filled with pros, ACTUAL pros, who work for in game cash that can be turned into real cash. As it’s their livelihood, they need to ensure they’re good enough at the game to sustain themselves. It’s their job, and their entertainment, so they can afford to play the game for hours on end. And, for some, days.”
“I-I see. So, comparatively, you’re unlikely to have much of a chance against any good players…” Seijirou stopped as Kirigaya raised a finger.
“Well…” He stopped chewing his cake for a moment. “There is the small possibility that I could transfer my ALO stats over to GGO. But… I’d like compensation. I’m very busy…” Seijirou nodded quickly and smiled.
“Of course. Three hundred thousand yen. Per week.” Kirigaya smiled. That would more than pay for the new equipment he needed to bug his suspect’s apartment.
“It’s just another internet horror story. Why are you willing to pay this much?” He asked outwardly, hiding his inward feelings. On the subject of his suspect, his mind had wandered to the cause of death…
“You see, my bosses are worried about this. If the cause is the AmuSphere in any way, VRMMOs won’t be able to take the hit. They need to know, so they can know what sort of reaction to expect. Full-dive tech is the single biggest subject right now, and if it takes a hit, companies may go bankrupt, people will lose jobs. A lot is resting on your shoulders, Kirito-kun. Excuse me, Kirigaya-kun.” Seijirou corrected himself. Kirigaya simply nodded.
“Can you not just ask the administrators?” Kirigaya asked. Seijirou shook his head.
“The company that operates GGO is headquartered in the United States. Everything about it is confidential, and even the Japanese government doesn’t have access to any information about it, at least not yet. So the only way to contact them is within the game. Of course, every safety precaution we can take will be taken, and I won’t ask you to get shot. Just meet with him, give me your impressions, and your judgement. Will you do it?” Seijirou asked. His pleasantry was all but forgotten, and he had reverted back into director-for-the-government mode.
“Final question. Why not just ask L?” He asked. The man stuttered before realization dawned on him.
“Ah. You haven’t heard. You were in SAO at the time.” Seijirou sighed. Kirigaya raised an eyebrow, taking a bite of the final piece of cake.
“Eh?” He asked.
“L… is dead.” Seijirou said. Kirigaya choked and spat the cake onto his plate. He’d thought it might be, since the only other person seriously investigating Kira seemed to be Light Yagami, but he’d hoped L was just hiding in the shadows again. He knew Near and Mello were dead, but L…
“Alright. I’ll do it.” Kirigaya sighed. He left his final bite of cake on the plate as he stood and grabbed his bag. K smiled and bowed toward Seijirou before leaving the restaurant. He didn’t feel it necessary to tell his suspicions to Seijirou: Somehow, Death Gun was Kira.
“Kirito-kun! You’re quitting ALO?” Asuna asked, her tone sharp and accusing. The two were high up on a grassy mesa together in Alfheim Online, admiring the sunset. It was shaped like a mushroom; with a thin base that spread out into a large, flat, grassy top. At some points, the grass spilled over the side and hung over, taking on the appearance of vines. Kirito had hoped the beautiful view combined with the lovely setting would offset the surprise of his announcement. It hadn’t in the least.
“N-No no!” He said, raising his hand and shaking his head rapidly. “It’s just for a few weeks. I’ll reconvert my account soon.”
“Really?” She asked. She knew it wasn’t the whole truth that he’d “just needed a break.”
“A-actually, there is a reason.” Kirito muttered. He very, very briefly considered telling her about his conversation, but changed his mind. “I have to go check out another VRMMORPG.” That was natural. He’d done it more than once.
“You’ve always made new accounts when you did that, Kirito.” Asuna said. Shoot. Well, that wasn’t gonna fly. “Converting resets your items. Why do that?”
“Well, um…” Kirito glanced away. She’d cornered him. “Remember the guy from Internal Affairs?” Recognition flared in her eyes.
“Well, if he asked you to do it, there’s no way you could refuse.” She paused, and Kirito sighed. “I’m not sure you can really trust that guy fully.” She’d accidentally given him an out. And, as with many, many opportunities, Kirito took it.
“Actually, I feel the exact same way.” He said, snickering nervously. He really hoped she wouldn’t probe further. To his astonishment, she completely dismissed her prior line of questioning and instead scooted closer, putting her hand on his.
“Come back as soon as you can.” She whispered, smiling sadly. “This place is our home.” Her implied meaning was that he had better not permanently change VRMMOs. As she spoke, Yui fluttered towards the two elven-looking beings before landing on their intertwined hands. She took a seated position and smiled up at the two of them. The couple looked down at the tiny pixie they both knew and loved. The silence was broken by the clattering of footfalls. Kirito and Asuna looked away from Yui and out past the edge of the mesa, where they could see three people. Two were their friends Liz and Silica. Liz had been the two’s go-to blacksmith during Sword Art Online, and had become known game wide. Silica was someone Kirito had met a year into the game and helped out. In return, she had assisted the two on a few endeavors in SAO. The third female, Leafa, was Kirito’s sister. She hadn’t played SAO, so she had only met Kirito’s friends after the game had ended, but while Kirito had been trapped she had tried out a VRMMORPG herself called Alfheim Online. Through the course of the game she had accidentally helped out Kirito in his quest to save Asuna, who had been kidnapped by the game’s owner and held against her will.
The three females were standing together and waving at the two, beckoning them to come down and help collect the seventeen rabbit ears the villager had requested. Kirito waved back, somewhat dismissing their request. A shadow was cast on the six beings, and Kirito looked up to see castle Aincrad, the place where all of SAO had taken place, had made a full rotation and was blocking the sun. Kirito smiled. His memories of Aincrad were good, simply because he had suppressed the bad ones. He hadn’t participated in any of the Aincrad quests, all of which had failed, but he had managed to clear the fifth floor alone.
“Of course I’ll return to ALO soon.” He said, sighing. “I’m just doing some research on what’s going on in Gun Gale Online.”
“You’re going to GGO!?” Asuna asked, voice raising. Kirito cringed. “No wonder you wanted to convert your account! Without converting it, you wouldn’t be able to do anything.” Kirito nodded his head rapidly. He would still certainly be outmatched by the players in GGO, even if he had better stats, simply because they’d used firearms before. Kirito stood.
“Well, tomorrow is my first day in GGO. I need to convert my account online and then cram tutorials. See you later, Asuna.” Kirito sighed. Asuna grabbed his hand suddenly and pulled him down.
“Promise me, even if you love the game, you’ll stay in ALO.” Asuna begged. Kirito smiled and nodded.
“I wouldn’t leave. Yui’s here, after all.” Yui fluttered onto Kirito’s shoulder and smiled.
“Yay! I’m so happy for daddy!” She shouted, ever-optimistic.
Shinkawa Shouichi heard a knock on his door. Surprised, he peeked out the eyehole on his apartment door. While his brother, Shinkawa Kyouji, lived with his parents at their house, Souichi lived alone in an apartment. He saw there was a man at his door with brunette hair, a dress shirt, jeans, and a surprisingly nice-looking face.
“Shinkawa-san? Are you home?” The man asked with an innocent tone. Souichi didn’t like the looks of him, but decided it wouldn’t hurt. He ran back to his computer and turned it off to ensure he couldn’t find out about his target list before opening the door.
“I am Shinkawa. What do you need?” He asked, suspicious. The man smiled.
“Ah, good. May I come in? We have much to discuss.” His tone shifted fluidly from optimistic innocence to a tone which commanded obedience. Souichi was intrigued.
“Yes. Please, sit anywhere.” He said, gesturing throughout the room. The only place to sit was a couch, facing the television. The man bowed towards him.
“You are too kind, Shinkawa-san!” He said, with breathless reverence. He straightened, before walking in and seating himself on one of the couches. Souichi closed the door and, unbeknownst to the man, locked it. He sat on the couch next to him and turned to the fair-haired stranger.
“Now, what did you want to discuss?” He asked, ominously. He tried to imply that the man would regret wasting his time. The man simply smiled and chuckled.
“Where do I start? Ah, that’s a good place.” He pulled out his iPhone and tapped in the password, before showing Souichi the video. Unfortunately, an advertisement for ALO popped up, so they had to wait five seconds before they could begin the video. When they did, Souichi’s eyes widened. The video was partway through already.
“Remember this name, and fear! The name I and this gun share! Death Gun!” A man in a cloak ranted. Souichi’s eyes narrowed, and the man paused it.
“So who came up with that horrendous excuse for a villainous title? You or Kyouji?” He asked, smirking. Souichi’s eyes continued their exercises and widened again.
“How did you know?” Souichi asked, curious now. If the man didn’t have anything constructive to say he swore mentally that he would cut him where he sat.
“Red-eyed XaXa.” He said, sighing, as if it were obvious. “Death Gun’s eyes are a beautiful shade of lavender, wouldn't you say? Oh wait, my bad. That’d be red. And what does this article have to say?” He swiped across the screen, and an article showed up. The audio played another ad for ALO, but the two ignored the squealing female voice excited about the “adventures of the outdoors from the comfort of the indoors!” Instead, they focused on an article written by an SAO survivor.
“Only a few of them had any distinguishing features.” The article read. “One, red-eyed XaXa, tended to have a lot to do with reversed crosses. Another, PoH, di-” He swiped back when he saw Souichi had finished with the highlighted portion. In it was an image of Death Gun.
“Hmm, what’s that on the arm? Could that be a logo?” The man said, smugly proud with himself. The picture, taken from behind the hooded figure, showed the arm raised up as Death Gun did a reversed cross. On his arm was an image of a laughing coffin.
“That’s enough clues to have you arrested, Shinkawa-san.” The man said. Souichi tensed but smiled.
“Are you planning to?” He asked. His hand crept towards the sheath he had hidden beneath his shirt. The man began laughing with such a cold and cruel laugh that Souichi felt chills run up and down his spine. He paused his motion.
“No. So how did you do it?” The man said, abruptly halting his laughter. Souichi was surprised by the sudden shift, so he had to stumble to get the words out.
“W-Well… Kyouji was in GGO as Death Gun. I’d, uh, well, we stole some drugs from a hospital that, while not lethal, had the potential to be. You know how difficult it is to obtain lethal drugs?” The man didn’t answer, so Souichi continued. “Anyways, I would watch a livestream from Kyouji’s footage, and when he shot the person with a bullet, I would inject them. They would have heart failure right afterwards.” Souichi sounded proud of this. The man smirked and leaned back in a relaxed posture.
“Not quite.” He said. Souichi started, shocked at his denial. “Let’s watch that clip again, shall we?” He swiped to the right, then to the right again before replaying the video from the beginning. There were no ads this time. However, as soon as the video started, the man paused it. Souichi looked up at him in confusion.
“Why’d you…” The man pointed at the phone, and Souichi looked down. He saw a man in the background with a pen on something. When he played the video, Souichi saw the man was writing a something. When he finished, Death Gun shot the television. It took forty seconds between the end of the writing and the point where XeXeed started choking. The man paused the video.
“Well, that’s interesting.” The man said. “So, I’ll ask you again. Who made that awful name, you or Kyouji?” Souichi gulped.
“I recommended Pale Bullet, since the pale horseman is the Biblical symbolism of death, but Kyouji said it was too confusing and to go with Death Gun.” Souichi said. The man nodded.
“Interesting, interesting. Well, I have a better name. It really suits that man…” He pointed at the man who was writing. “…well. Want to know what that is?” Souichi sighed and nodded. Wouldn’t hurt, for sure. But this man better have a point.
“Kira.” The man said. Souichi’s heart stopped just long enough to notice before continuing on at a much more rapid pace. The man began to smile.
“Kira started his campaign before you entered SAO, correct?” The man asked, a hint of something sinister in his tone. Souichi swallowed and nodded. “Do you have any idea how close he is to being caught?” Souichi did the opposite of the prior reaction by shaking his head. The man leaned back and sighed.
“Not very. There are only two people actively investigating anymore; me and a young man named K.” Souichi interrupted.
“What has this got to do with me!? I didn’t even notice the guy. I don’t think you should be interviewing me about where he went.” Souichi said, frustrated now. d
“You’ve met K.” The man continued, staring at Souichi. “Isn’t that right, Red-eyed XaXa?” Souichi stared back blankly. He was obviously thinking the man was crazy. Especially when the man turned around and muttered something to an invisible being. When he turned back and saw that Souichi had no idea what he was talking about, he sighed.
“K is know by another name. Does this ring any bells: Kirito?” The man pronounced each syllable of the final word individually. Shinkawa’s eyes widened, before narrowing.
“I’ve heard of him. I’ve met him. I’ve fought him. I lost.” He said, anger creeping into his voice. The man grinned.
“The investigation is getting nowhere. K hasn’t found much, and I haven’t either. Do you know why?” He was asking so many leading questions that Souichi was beginning to get irritated.
“No, I don’t. Did you assume I did?” He asked, frustrated at the man.
“You sound rushed. I’ll get straight to the point th- oops!” He said, dropping a piece of notebook paper on the ground. “Could you get that for me?” Souichi growled, but bent down to lift it. When he looked back up to hand it to him, he saw something behind the man. Souichi shouted, dropping the piece of paper and leaping off the couch.
“Can you see that? What is it? How long has it been standing there?” Souichi asked. He pulled out his sheathed knife and tensed. The man stood.
“Don’t bother. Shinigami cannot be killed by any weapons you have.” He said. Souichi dropped his knife in shock, and it embedded itself in the floor.
“Shi-Shinigami?” He asked, mesmerized. The man nodded and smiled.
“Ryuk is forced to accompany me wherever I go. But to the point, the reason I wanted to talk to you is because… I’m Kira.” He said. The shadows in the room were well-aligned and the effect was that Light Yagami’s face was draped in shadow. Souichi’s knees gave, and he fell to the ground, accidentally bowing before the god of the new world. Light smiled a small, yet sadistically cruel smile.
“Normally, because you’re a murderer, I would kill you where you stood. But you have a use to me, so I won’t.” Souichi’s eyes were teared up. His life hung in the balance. Light crouched and snatched up the piece of paper from the Death Note that Souichi had dropped.
“I’d like to clear something up before we start, however. Your drugs weren’t just possibly nonlethal; they are completely nonlethal. I killed XeXeed and Lightly Salted Taco.” Light paused, letting it soak in, before standing continuing.
“I need you to draw Kirito out. I need his name and face.” Souichi nodded, his strength returning. “I also want you to hold the gun, so to speak. Have your brother continue to drug the bodies in order to throw off suspicion.” Souichi interrupted.
“Our next move was going to be at the BoB next month. We had three in mind, and we need more people to drug them.” Light paused before nodding.
“Feel free to contact them. But don’t tell them about me. If anyone learns about me from you, you will die in the worst way I can come up with. And I’m a very creative young man.” Light smiled a wicked smile at the man, who shuddered.
“Alright. Anything else?” He asked, curious.
“K may well suspect that you are, in fact, Kira. If it comes to that, don’t react. Don’t act as though you are, don’t act as though you aren’t.” Light instructed him. “Furthermore, you should certainly speak with K if you see him in game as Kirito. It would certainly be natural, and may bait him further. That’s all I have to instruct you on right now.” Light turned his back to the sinner and walked out of his house. He dropped a piece of ordinary notebook paper, once again intentionally, and walked out of the man’s dwelling. When Souichi opened the folded note, he found on it a phone number and instructions telling him to use it only when he was planning to report anything. It also mentioned to not let Kyouji know about the meeting.
Kirigaya pulled up in front of the hospital on his motorcycle. He knew this probably was his best shot at finding Kira, so he was ready to get his investigation underway. He’d gotten the text a few minutes earlier that everything was ready, so he had hopped aboard his motorcycle and rode straight to the building. As he walked down the now-familiar halls, waving at now-familiar nurses and now-familiar doctors, he pulled out the piece of paper he’d been given at the front hall and read it over, but his mind was elsewhere.
There’s only a one percent chance Death Gun is even real. And there’s only a seven percent chance out of that that Death Gun is Kira. Killing people from the virtual world is impossible. I can’t accept that. But the zero point zero seven percent chance remains, and that’s better odds than anything else I’ve come up with. He paused his thoughts to flip a coin, before stopping before room 7025. He put up his fist and knocked softly, before rolling the door aside. It didn’t open up like typical American doors, but rather slid like traditional Japanese doors would.
“Excuse me.” He muttered, stepping inside. His eyes glazed over as he saw who the director had put in charge.
“Hey! It’s nice to see you again, Kirigaya-kun!” One of the most cheerful and optimistic nurses in the building said to him. Why did the director choose her.
“H-Hello, uh, it’s nice to, uh, see you to, Aki-san.” He bowed towards her, so he couldn’t see when she moved up close to him. She tapped his butt, and he jumped away. He nearly slapped her, but he knew why she’d done it.
“You’re getting more meat on you, Kirigaya-kun!” She squealed, rubbing his arms. “But not enough, certainly not enough!” He was sputtering. Aki had been his rehab nurse, and he had really, really not liked her. “Are you eating enough? What about exercising? I hope you exercise more than you play that silly game, ALO!”
“Yes! Of course! And what are you doing here?” He asked. He hoped she was checking equipment and he’d get some hot babe of a nurse to-
“The bureaucrat with glasses informed me of what you’ll be doing, so of course, I just had to make sure you were ok throughout the whole process!” She sighed. No dice. She had been rubbing his arms the entire time, and Kibrigaya decided he’d had enough and broke out of her grip. For a woman, she was strong. And especially considering she was right. He hadn’t built any muscle for two years, so he was behind most men his age. It was tough, but he managed to get away.
“They gave me the nod simply because I was your rehab nurse! How lucky is that?” She added. Kibrigaya’s eyes drooped. “I guess we’ll be working together a lot more, Kirigaya-kun!” She put her hand forward, expecting him to shake it. It took him a moment to overcome his life flashing before his eyes before he could.
“Right. I guess so.” Kirigaya sighed. “So, what do I need to…”
“Not so fast, turbo mcspeedster!” She said, smiling. “I have instructions for you from the bureaucrat!” She grabbed a note out of her pocket and held it out towards him. It gave instructions on how to send reports, how he would be compensated, and…
P.S. Just because you’re in a private room with a pretty nurse, don’t get any ideas.
That… that… She was placed there just to irk him. That had to be it. Kirigaya crumpled the note in his hands and shoved it into his pocket, to the surprise of the nurse.
“Was there anything I need to be aware of on…” She started, but Kirigaya interrupted her.
“No. Probably standard procedure is ok. I’ll go hook an AmuSphere up to the network now. Did he set everything how I asked?”
“Yes.” She answered. She moved over towards the table, but Kirigaya didn’t move an inch. She turned back to him.
“As per standard procedure, please remove your clothes, Kirigaya-kun!” She exclaimed with a cheerful demeanor. Kirigaya stepped back, blushing.
“Wh-what was that?”
“I need to plug in some electrodes.” She was trying to be reassuring, but it wasn’t working out well.
“Um, can I just take off my top?” He asked. For some reason, she seemed to lose her cheerful demeanor, before she sighed and nodded, seemingly defeated. Kirigaya did as she had requested and took off his jacket and long-sleeved shirt. He folded them neatly and placed them carefully on the chair placed for any visitors or observers. He took off his shoes as well before stepping into the hospital bed and tucking his lower body under the covers. He waited as the nurse attached seven electrodes to various specific points on his upper body and upper arms. When she placed the final one, Kirigaya sighed.
“Ok, that’ll do it!” She said, grabbing the AmuSphere and putting it onto Kirigaya’s head. Kirigaya sighed, and lay down on the bed. “I’ll tell you when you’re good to go, ok?” Kirigaya nodded, and she turned back, tapping a monitor. She activated the electrodes one at a time, since they caused a bit of pain when they activated. Kirigaya inhaled sharply after the first electrode’s activation, but by the last one he wasn’t giving any reaction. Aki turned and gave Kirigaya a thumbs up, who sighed.
“Link start!” He shouted. This was actually his first time using an AmuSphere, and he wanted to try out all the options it came with, like streaming television shows and movies, the infinite exploration mode where it would spawn a random environment that you would do nothing with but explore, and, of course, MMO Stream. But there wasn’t time for that, and besides, those apps had been removed. Kirigaya went through the typical transition between reality and the virtual world before entering a blocked-off dark menu.
“Please select your username!” A female announced. Kirigaya quickly typed Kirito into the options given. It took a moment and he was worried it wouldn’t go through. Luckily for him, it dinged, and an option came up to create a character. He selected a Level-1 black trench coat with a dark grey undershirt and black pants. For his starting weapons he was given the option of a dagger or a pistol. He knew it was called Gun Gale Online, but found himself drawn towards the knife. He selected it, and waited for the option to select his appearance to come up. Instead, a purple flash enveloped his vision and he was teleported to a gazebo on a plaza, high above the streets.
From what he could see in his first sight was that GGO itself was a massive, massive city, at the center of which was one enormous building with a sphere floating in the center of it. For some reason, his mind flashed to his memories playing through all the Halo games, and specifically, Halo 4. He was on one of the taller buildings, and so he could see out beyond the enormous, high-tech wall surrounding the city. There were large mountains out in the distance, but surrounding the city itself was a barren grey plains region. It was obvious that any of the grinding he’d seen in the tutorials would be done out in the boonies. A pair of fighters flew overhead, and as he looked up, he saw an enormous battleship making a pass just above the city and out into the boonies. Looking around, he could see that on the level just below him were a few players, sitting around and talking to each other. There were many, many buildings surrounding them, giving it an appearance of a mall. He turned around quickly to see a man smiling with a knife. Shoot. A spawnkiller. The man ran at Kirito, who couldn’t do anything in time and fell to the ground, dissipating.
I could actually feel that. It registered as pain!? He was surprised. He flashed purple again and saw that he’d respawned on the level below. He whirled around again, but there were no spawnkillers this time. What he was surprised to see, though, was a mess of hair flap over his eyes. He felt his hair and realized he had an incredibly long head of hair. He saw in the glass of a nearby window that his hair stretched past his shoulders and down his back. It was past the point of being a heavy metal fan and to the point of being female. He started sweating, but calmed down when he remembered that there were, in fact, barber shops in GGO. He sighed and turned around, only to see a man right in his face. He jumped backwards into the window, which wasn’t damaged in the least. Kirito, on the other hand, was, and he grunted in pain.
“You got an F-1300 type, didn’t you!” The man shouted, exclaiming. “That’s really, really rare!” So it was unusual for a boy to have long, black hair? Interesting. “I’ll buy your whole account for two mega credits, miss!” Two mega credits, huh? That was the equivalent of seventy thousand yen, each. If he’d done his research, that was honestly a pittance for… wait, miss? Kirito gasped and grabbed at his chest, but sighed when he found out it was flat.
“Sorry, I’m a guy.” He said. The man gasped.
“Why are you playing as a girl, then?” He asked. Kirito knew that if the man didn’t get the idea, he’d be subject to ridicule for the next few minutes.
“I’m not. I’m a guy, and so is my avatar.” Kirito sighed. The man sucked in a breath.
“Then that’s an M-9000 type. Not quite as rare. I’ll trade you one Mega credit.” Also a pittance. But Kirito wasn’t interested.
“Sorry, this is a converted account. I play a different VRMMO, but wanted to check out GGO. If you could…” The man stepped aside.
“Right. Sorry. Contact me if you change your mind.” He said. Kirito stopped, before smiling in his head.
“Actually… could you do me a favor?” He asked. The man nodded. He hoped getting chummy would get the young man to give him the account. “Do you have a map of the city?” The man nodded.
“I’ll sell you one for fifteen credits.” Kirito checked his account. He had seven hundred and fifty. One would normally start out with one thousand, but the spawnkiller had taken the other two hundred and fifty.
“Alright. I’ll send you a trade request.” The man nodded. In a few minutes, his inbox beeped as an inbound trade request registered. He opened it and saw that Kirito had offered fifteen credits for the map. He smiled a little before accepting. Kirito could have gotten the map for a single credit in a store. Kirito waved at him before leaving the area. According to the map, there was an information terminal three hundred meters away. When he reached it a half hour later, he had learned things already, including the fact that certain doors are locked and inaccessible because they are privately owned and that the numbers on the corner of the map referred to what level he was already on. After accessing the information terminal, he received another five hundred credits, a “first quest: access terminal: completed!” GUI that didn’t go away for ten seconds even though Kirito was slamming the X, and the information he was looking for: Where the training grounds and gun shops were. He would need more stuff and better gear if he planned to attend the BoB, or even more importantly, attract Death Gun’s attention.
It had been nearly four hours, and he was completely lost. He had accidentally gone away from the city’s center, so the areas he was entering were owned by NPCs and thusly pretty clear of players. He had been consistently flirted at, but he’d been so focused on ignoring that that he’d also ignored his directions. He looked around, but the only thing other than the same grey, repetitive buildings was a girl. She had some ocean-blue hair, black jeans, a green, long-sleeved shirt, and a white scarf. Kirito smiled and ran over to her, accidentally breaking one of the biggest rules of manliness and asking a woman for directions.
“Um, excuse me…” He shouted. His voice came out higher than he expected. The girl stopped walking, and Kirito caught up with her. “I’m kinda lost and, uh…” His eyes popped out as he realized it looked like he was hitting on her. She looked him over with a cold expression, before giving her full attention to him.
“What?” She asked. Kirito paused, unsure what to say, and she took up the slack. “Is this your first time playing the game?” She gave him a small smile, and Kirito gasped inwardly. It didn’t look like he was hitting on her; it looked like he was a girl! “Where do you want to go?” She was voicing it softly, almost pitifully and compassionately, definitely thinking she was having a girl-to-girl talk.
“Yes, it is. I’d like to find a place to get cheap weapons, but I have no idea where that’d be at. I tried looking at the map, but I think I went the wrong way…” He stopped as the girl started giggling.
“Not only did you go the wrong way; you went one hundred eighty degrees from your destination!” She exclaimed, laughing her head off. Kirito didn’t find it quite as funny and shouted.
“Curse you, Siri!” He shouted, waving his fist at his GUI and making the girl laugh harder. “May your crops fail!” The girl’s laughter slowed before stopping entirely.
“Alright. I’ll take you there.” She said, smiling softly and beginning to walk away. Kirito gulped. He didn’t know what to think of her. She was obviously a professional at this.
“So, you converted that account?” The girl, Sinon, asked. Kirito nodded again.
“It’s converted from ALO. I-”
“The pixie game!?” She asked. ALO didn’t have the reputation as the most manly of games. “Do I even want to touch you?”
“I don’t really feel to eager to have you touch me.” Kirito said, before realizing how bad that sounded. “Besides, I only got into it because it was really similar to the first VRMMO I played.” Sinon looked over at him.
“What game was that?” She asked. Kirito walked into a shadow of a nearby building, so he looked intimidating.
“Sword Art Online.” He muttered. Sinon looked at him in surprise.
“You’re an SAO survivor? What was it like?” She asked, rather insensitively. She had her own traumatic incident, so she wasn’t very good about being sympathetic to others’ traumatic incidents.
“Well… It was hard the first few months, but after that, it became rather monotonous. In fact, some people liked the game enough to not even feel very driven to leave. There were experiences there no VRMMO can replicate for me. Tastes one can never taste again, smells one can never breathe in again. Everything was more real in a way, since, like real life, you could actually die. Here, there’s not as much risk. It may be your income, sure, but not your life.” He stopped. She was staring away from him. It wasn’t just a game to her, but it sounded like this man knew exactly what “not just a game” meant. He looked at her and smiled.
“So what brings you here, from the pretty fantasy of ALO, to a gritty city of guns?” She asked. He sighed.
“I… uh… wanted to try something more cyberpunk. I was kind of interested in gun fights. And, uh, one of the videos I watched said there were lightsabers. It all sounded so cool.”
“Alright. Well, let’s get you off to a good start. The fifth district gun market is just ahead. They have guns, gambling, firing ranges, and more.” Sinon smiled, and a track from Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare played over the loudspeakers nearby. When they reached the building conveniently labeled “Market,” Sinon walked past most of the cheapest weapons. Kirito looked confused; they were all in his price range, but she was walking past them.
“H-hey, what about all these? This one looks neat.” He pointed towards a spiked M16. Sinon looked over her shoulder, before snickering.
“You’re such a noob. Those spikes aren’t decoration. That’s the metal peeling.” She said. What little Kirito knew about guns told him it wasn’t good to have the metal peeling away from the gun itself. He closed his eyes, face palmed himself, and followed Sinon towards… well, wherever she was going.
Mani opened his eyes and looked out over the gun world. He smiled, before sighing. It was a long walk from the bar he was at to the governor’s office, where the BoB signups were taking place. You had to sign up early to get a spot, and signups would close soon. He wasn’t particularly interested in winning, but he knew that Kirito would probably attempt to participate. He groaned and stretched, before walking away from the bar before which he was standing. The buggies were just that: buggy. Since the buggy provided few advantages aside from speed, its wonky controls made it too much of a hassle to control without taking damage. Someone thought it’d be funny to add an easter egg where if it took too much damage, which was honestly a tiny amount, it would fly off to the right and explode. It was a terrible game mechanic, and everyone knew it. They tended to take jeeps and armored vehicles everywhere, though a select few who had mastered the buggy were able to drive it at far higher speeds than could be attained by most other land vehicles. It was most unfortunate, then, that nearly every in game vehicle rental only had buggies or the occasional metal horse. The metal horse was rare because it was even worse than the buggy, simply because it operated like an ordinary horse. Its speed was the only land speed higher than the buggy, and it came at the cost of even worse mechanics. The horses were so few because nobody wanted to ride them, and even NPC owners would eventually scrap it.
Buggies were the only thing rented because people would occasionally try buggies out just to see if they were as bad as people thought they were. However, nothing else was, since inevitably the renter of anything armored would take it into combat and destroy it, and anyone who rented a jeep would be loathe to return it. So in the end, buggies were the only thing rented out regularly. Mani was not one of the elite who had mastered the buggy, and if he tried to ride it, he knew he would only waste precious time. He began his brisk walk towards the governor’s office, knowing he had only three hours to reach the building that was over five miles away.
“GGO has two major weapon types: energy and physical.” Sinon said.
“Like Halo!” Kirito shouted, excited he could understand that bit. Sinon paused before half nodding.
“Yes. But unlike Halo, energy weapons do more physical damage. There are shields in the game to halve the damage of energy weapons, but they don’t work against physical ones. Physical guns are the kind you want to bring to a firefight.” She informed him. That was honestly very helpful information. Kirito would have applied his Halo knowledge and used energy weapons in a fight to take down the shields. Thanks to Sinon, he wasn’t going to make that goof-up. The two stopped near the backroom, next to a wall of assault rifles.
“What kind of stats do you have?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s important to pick a gun that goes with your stat type.”
“Well, uh, mostly strength. Then some speed. And charisma, then luck, the-” “Thank you.” She interrupted. “Charisma doesn’t help you pick out a gun.” Kirito blushed.
“So… a strength-agility build, huh? About mid range. So your main would be a heavy assault rifle, like the M18A2 or the AK-109.” Kirito was staring blankly at her. The only words he recognized were strength, agility, and assault rifle. “Or maybe a midsize machine gun with an SMG sidearm. Or maybe a double machine pistol main with a small shotgun subslot… Hey, what’s wrong?” Kirito was sweating heavily. He knew he should chime in with his style of play, but he didn’t know what most of those meant.
“Oh, sorry. You converted, right?” Sinon quickly reverted back to more simple terminology. “So you don’t have much dough?”
“Well, uh, I have about twelve hundred and thirty five.” He said, checking his menu. Sinon’s eyes widened.
“What did you spend it on!?” She asked, surprised. Kirito smiled an awkward smile.
“Uh… I got spawnkilled, and then some kind man offered me a map for fifteen credits.” Sinon facepalmed and sighed.
“Well, the best gun you can buy is a small energy pistol. With your cash, you couldn’t even buy a decent pistol.” Kirito lowered his face. He really didn’t want to have to spend the usual hundreds of hours grinding monsters to get a half-broken LMG.
“If you don’t mind…” Sinon muttered. “Would you like me to lend you some?” Kirito’s eyes shot up.
“How much do you even have, to be able to lend anyone anything?” Kirito asked. Sinon gave him a small smile.
“Over eight hundred million.” She said. Kirito backed away and waved his hands.
“Please don’t lend me any!” He said, to Sinon’s surprise. “I don’t want you to lend money to someone you’ve just met. Is there any way I can earn lots of many in another way?” He was pleading with her now. She sighed.
“Well… there are casinos and gambling in the back, but I can’t recommend… Hey, wait!” Sinon shouted after him as he ran off towards the glowing and flashing sign labeled “casino.” She found him in front of the “Untouchable!” game. She grabbed his arm before he started it.
“Kirito! You idiot! Do you even know what it is!?” She shouted, attracting the attention of a few people close by. Kirito grinned sheepishly, and she sighed.
“You enter from the gate and dodge the NPC’s bullets. Your goal is to touch him. If you do that, you get the default two hundred fifty K and whatever other cash players have put in.”
“Sweet.” Kirito said, moving towards the gate. Sinon pulled him towards her.
“You idiot. Once you pass the eight meter line, he starts doing cheap speed draws and fires all six bullets at once with a faster reload time. By the time you see the prediction lines, it’s too late.” Sinon sighed. Kirito raised an eyebrow.
“Prediction lines?”
“Just watch. Someone’s gonna try.” She pointed as a man in a blue U.N. uniform and beret put his hand on a terminal next to the gate. It beeped and opened, and two people nearby pumped their fists in the air and shouted his username over and over again. It would have been dramatic if his username wasn’t Edgmasteh224.
