Kuh-tun, Kuh-tun, Kuh-tun, Kuh-tun.

I felt the iron wheels of the train car trod over minute gaps in train tracks under my feet, going just under 100 kilometers an hour. Watching buildings whizz by depending on distance wasn’t a view I’d get to see often, especially not in real space. Because I usually just traveled to school with Kazuto via hitching a ride on the back of his bike.

The train car was empty, as well as the next one and the one after that, all the way down to the opposite side of the train. In summary, it was just me and a few railmen on board.

This site wasn’t often, but what was even less often was getting on this rail line, the Chiyoda line, headed towards the Setagaya ward, southeast of where I lived.

Aside from my heading, I was leaning my weight on my left shoulder on an ad board displaying bright colors that lit the left side of my face as I stared out into Tokyo’s cityscape.

Over the past six months, things have been improving to a degree. The friendships I had gained from meeting Kazuto–including Lizbeth, Silica, Klein, Agil, and arguably most importantly, Asuna–had been strengthened from just a sort of ‘people I talk to’ status, moving up into ‘actual friend’ territory. My mood was raised almost to a new record within the past year: a very, very slight smile of happiness, seen in part only by Asuna.

As I kept myself in ponderance, something jumped out at me as the entire interior train wall flashed with color. Circling a sleek object designed to go around a left ear and behind a head. Under the item was the word "AUGMA" and a release date of late Winter, which, coincidentally, was just a couple of months from now.

After getting off the train, I took a brisk walk through Chiyoda, making lefts and rights, crossing crosswalks, and glancing at the walls displaying a fresh new product, but as a massive captivating screen, drawing others in. It was hard for me to pull my eyes away at first, but after kicking my brain back into gear, I was on my way again.

The entire walk took upwards of fifteen minutes, but before I knew it, I was face to face with a large building plastered with glass walls and pearl-colored concrete to fortify the structure.

Two sliding doors opened for me, letting the scent of disinfectant nearly shatter my sense of smell upon the first whiff. The light breeze from the door made my coat sway a little bit, but it was nonexistent inside the building. Looking around the hospital brought back memories of my rehab almost a year back, not to the hundred-or-so interactions of a certain nurse taking good care of me at my most vulnerable point.

I had a requirement to be grateful to this facility. If not, I felt as if the particular nurse would hunt me in my sleep.

After consulting the front desk for a minute or so, I was instructed to go up an elevator, down the hall, and swipe the card in a specific room.

As the door slid open with mechanical ease, my eyes met with those of a beautiful woman. Plump features where it mattered most, a face gentle yet like one of a panther, all wrapped neatly into a nurse's scrubs.

"You're late," commented a male voice that was lying on one of the two gel beds. "Which is a surprise."

I recognized it instantly as Kazuto and shot back.

"Whoo. Let's get this over with.."

"Hold on, Trey!" I stopped, hearing my middle name commanded to me by a pretty voice.

My full name is–or rather was–"Thomas Trey Trenor," a trope carried down throughout my family history. For upwards of 300 years, naming the men of the family with three T's as their initials was a common tradition. As unromantic as the middle and last names "Trey" and "Trenor" were, the initials were easy to jot down. Only taking one horizontal line and three vertical lines underneath to complete all three initials. This was the only perk.

Aside from that, my name wasn't easily pronounced by those who spoke only Japanese. To compensate, I personally translated it to "Tamasu Tarei Torenoru," which definitely rolls off the tongue well. Not to mention my in-game name, which was usually pronounced "Shineffu."

The nurse with fine features walked up to me, a great smile framing just above her chin.

"Look at you! You've gotten taller!"

Or she got shorter, considering the fact that my height hadn't wavered from around 174 centimeters since I was 15.

"Can't complain," I simply said before jolting slightly as she felt my right forearm.

"Damn, kid! You've got some muscle on, too!"

I instantly glanced down at the nametag on her scrubs and recognized the name. Hell, I knew who it was before she even walked up to me. It was my former rehab nurse and caretaker before I got taken in by the Kirigaya family, Nurse Aki. Despite my resilient nature to emotions, she has this weird power to pull me in and get me affectionate for no apparent reason.

"Eat heavy, lift heavy, I guess. Sooner or later, I'll be as big as "The Wall." What do you think, bro? Think I could take Agil?" I pounded from Aki to Kazuto, only him knowing who "The Wall" was. I heard a brief moment of laughter before a cough interrupted him, then it was back to silence.

After mumbling to myself for a moment, I looked at Aki.

"Have you been told what we're in for?"

"Oh, just some network research thingy. As far as he knows, your brother said he would be in for a few hours. You, though…"

"We'll be in for the same period of time. We've got a little bit of a plan sorted out."

Said plan was light on preparation, but it would be for the time being until we could get more information about our target.

Aki took a step back from me, beaming with a smile.

“Well, it’s good to see you again, kid!”

“You too,” I replied, stepping deeper into the hospital room, finally noticing that the door had closed long ago.

With the upper half of my body stripped to bare skin, Aki briefly admired how far her patient had come from being some scrawny kid–that kid being me. I snapped her back to reality, asking her to hurry with the setup.

Before I knew it, I was lying down on a gently cooled gel bed with a dim tint over my vision. I had the Amusphere that Kikuoka had prepared for me on my head. A soft chime sounded in my ears, signaling to me that it was ready to begin.

After my eyes briefly danced at the ceiling, I took a deep breath and then gazed at Aki.

By now, Kazuto had turned into Kirito on the other side. Knowing him, he was probably faffing around with the fact that his avatar was heavier than it was in The Land of Fairies.

“Anything else I need to know?” My monotone asked, probing any last details I could get out of the only woman in the room.

“Nope, that’s everything! And just like Kazuto, don’t worry about over here!”

That statement just made me worry. Kazuto had legal protections because he was a minor, but me, on the other hand? Being 18 meant I was basically fair game if my basic understanding of Japanese Intercourse Law was anything to go by.

Brushing that aside, I stared at the ceiling tiles again and said the command that severed the link from my real body.

“Link Start.”

Rain clattered against every surface it could get to. Path traced light reflected and refracted in hundreds of ways per second across my vision, spanning almost every possible color. Every step I took crashed into a shallow puddle, spilling a little bit of water around the bottom of my combat boots.

Tens of people passed me by every few seconds, talking to nobody in front of them. Most of these people were in voice chats with their squadrons. Chatter wasn’t the only thing in my ears, though. All around me, I heard multiple genres of music at one time, as clubs, bars, and street vendors were collectively competing for my attention with catchy music and blazing lights.

This was CCD Glocken, or the Cyber City District. Every square inch of this area was coated in a dystopian undertone as if the city hated you. For some, the world alone drew them in. For others, it was the gunfights in other districts. And for very few, it was a combination of every single possible element of this world. For them, it went on to create intoxication and addiction to Gun Gale Online.

My eyes had no interest in engaging with virtual gentlemen's clubs, so they stayed on a black menu in front of me.

I had walked out of my avatar's apartment building, which was more like societies in itself. Scattered around Glocken, large vertical structures erected from the street, with a primary color for the exterior. There were six in total planted in each primary district.

Inside each of these massive buildings–known as Vertically Integrated Cities, or VICs–were well over 500 apartments and countless street vendors. They were effectively doing the same as vendors on the main streets of Glocken.

I owned a penthouse atop the second VIC within the entirety of Glocken. I had the credits to do so because of my placement in the previous Bullet of Bullets. Not to mention my consistent revenue stream from hitting major player bounties.

Within 15 minutes, I reached the center of Glocken, the general's office. I knew that Kirito would spawn here, as it was his first time within GGO, but to my surprise…

"Where the hell is he?" I wondered to nobody. All around me were well over 100 people, which would make this significantly more difficult.

After probing questions to a couple of people, I had no leads. They mentioned this girl with black hair, but it wasn't Kirito. The Seed Package wouldn't allow for players to have the opposite sex of which they actually were. This was determined with a brainwave scan, in which the system decided whether the user was male or female, and rarely ever failed. If it did, the user was one of two things: a tomboy or a straight-up trap, in the scenarios only I experienced.

I scratched the back of my head, still confused about where Kirito could have wandered off to, and decided to start walking again.

If I were going to find Kirito, I would have to think like Kirito.

I wandered around city streets for well over thirty minutes. Not a single person I saw resembled anything close to Kirito. By now, I had walked almost all of the streets within a quarter mile of the center of the general's office. I had managed to spot a girl with alluring blue hair framing the sides of her face. After asking her about Kirito, using the description of "wears all black" and "has short hair," I got nothing more than a shrug before she went on her way.

"Dammit…" I cursed under my breath, pinching the bridge of my nose.

I saw the cold black street stricken with water and my avatar as I looked down. I had personalized my face to resemble my own, but not by much. Someone who compared me and my avatar would only see the occasional similarities, as my appearance was significantly more Japanese. Not to mention, my hair was red, the color the same as my eyes. Running theme, blah blah blah. My clothing and armor were nothing short of sub-par. It was top-grade but light in weight.

Most, if not all, players had extremely stylized clothing to go along with the dystopian setting. The motto for battle-fashion for GGO was–above all else–"Substance over Style," and took heavily after neo-militarism. It was a game set in an age of horrid conditions for conventional life. It just made sense that most went with a sharp, futuristic look.

I was no exception but with a greatly reversed approach. Most of my clothing was black syn-leather. Across multiple surfaces in my clothing, diagonal red light strips were stretched across the shafts of my limbs. Under the jacket was thin, bullet-resistant armor and a plain black shirt.

As I looked back up around the crowds, I noticed a few people staring at me. I felt like I knew why they were staring for a variety of reasons. Still, I decided to walk away anyway, not to attract any more attention.

“Hey, Zenith!” Called a female voice.

I whipped around to see a girl with long brown hair running towards me. She had the friend indicator next to her name. She also had the same fashion sense as me but decided on a heavier armor-based look as opposed to my leather. It was based more on an edgy orange than black and red.

“It’s been forever since I’ve seen you! Where have you been?!”

I scoffed, “Life.”

This was Leona, my only friend who played GGO regularly. Real name: Oyogu Sakana–or “swimming fish.” Apart from playing the same VR-MMO-RPG, we shared a few things. Firstly, we were trapped in Sword Art Online, dubbed “SAO Survivors,” just like the rest of my friends. This also meant that we went to the same school together and had quite a few classes with one another. She was also the same age as me, almost down to the day, but she was a little older. The final similarity was, surprisingly, our interest in music. I played drums, she strummed guitar and sang.

"You know that was a serious question!"

"Yeah, yeah," I swiftly replied, pulling the edge of my right lip into a soft grin.

"Anyway, I've just been busy. Sifting through apartments, school work, columbarium visits, the youzhe." I kept walking as a slightly shorter Leona walked beside me.

"Right, right- Anyway! You're gonna sign up for the BoB, right!?" Leona asked with anticipation. She was excited to see if I would enter into the Bullet of Bullets 3 tournament.

"'Course I am. Placed third last time, might as well shoot for first this round."

She jumped a little bit, getting the answer she was hoping for.

At this point, our avatars were soaked in virtual rain. We felt biting cold seep into our fingers and stuffed our hands in our respective jacket pockets. Our hair was slightly soppy as if it were a mop. We quickly made haste for a short glass overhang next to the city street, a bus stop.

Our conversation went on for longer than I expected. Leona and I had talked for long enough that an NPC-operated bus had come to pick us up. We noticed it was going for City Hall, which was lucky.

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Speeding streetlights came to an abrupt stop. The bus parked itself on the side of the road, allowing the doors to splay open. We had made it to City Hall just within the nick of time, too.

City Hall was an intricately designed building. The exterior was covered in intersecting lines marking its glass sides as it stretched miles into the sky.

The buildings within a mile of city hall stretched almost as high but quickly tapered off. Each one was seamlessly integrated with displays that spanned from street corner to street corner. From asphalt road to asphalt road, even. It was dangerously calling back to real life, of visuals I had seen not an hour ago.

I wiped the thought away as soon as it came to me. It was a useless detail but all the more coincidental, in a way.

“Whatcha thinkin’?” Leona probed me, leaning forward to get a better look at my face as we stepped out of the bus, side by side.

“Nothing, nothin’. Those boards in ‘RL’ are getting damned close to this setting.” I glanced around one more time, catching a glimpse of two girls standing together.

One had blue hair, while the other had black hair, but neither of them was particularly meaningful. I shrugged at a non-existent thought, making my way to some of the same terminals that the two girls were at.

I stepped in front of the terminal, greeted with rain-slicked black topped by thin white text. It was in perfect Japanese, likely because of the interpreters that ZasCar had hired for the Japan server of GGO.

My hand nearly instantly went for a small box in the top right of the panel. As I tapped it, I received confirmation that an action had been taken and began to sign up for the BoB. What I had just done was disable the visibility of the terminal to everyone other than myself. Despite not being a techie like Kazuto, I enjoyed my privacy to its fullest. As much as I was surrounded by electronics these days, I took precautions to lessen snooping without my informed consent to do so.

In fact, within the past ten years, internet traffic has been researched throughout all the primary ISPs of Japan. Around 2015, every residence with an internet connection faster than standard broadband received a notice in the mail informing them of a study. Upon receiving the letter, customers were given the option to opt out of the study online or over the phone, but those who stayed would learn some valuable information.

Over the next year, internet traffic was monitored throughout thousands of buildings in Tokyo and well over two hundred smaller towns farther inland. At the end of the study, it was found that over 75 percent of internet traffic was solely dedicated to “Personalized Advertisement.” These personalized packets contained significantly more data than anyone had ever imagined, going as far as estimating weight, sexual orientation, and even predicting when pregnant women were going into labor.

As soon as the study was published, regulators were concerned with consumer safety and quickly enacted multiple privacy laws. Those within the political tech space determined that Japan had made its privacy laws significantly tighter than America’s or Canada’s overnight.

Once my information was entered into the terminal, I tapped a button and saw the screen turn into nothing but a check mark. It then went back to the normal home page.

“Are ya done?” Leona probed me, smiling.

“Yep, I’m gonna head inside. Are you coming?”

“Well, of course! I gotta see you whoop some ass!”

Leona continued to smile as she replied with excitement and followed behind me into the City Hall into an elevator inside.

After a short ride of a virtual dropping sensation, I was in the main room of the Block D tournament bracket. Within my immediate vision, it was dim. The only sources of light were vertical neon strips along the walls and the hologram TVs. Said holograms proudly displayed the BoB tournament logo, as well as a friendly reminder of what tournament bracket this room was dedicated to.

We walked in, immediately feeling the gazes of well over thirty burly men probing us. They all had futuristic military outfits, guns splayed on their chest, back, or hip, and an aura that said, “Go away.”

Aside from the rain and neon, this felt like the true GGO. They are just a bunch of idiots trying to make it to the top. Thankfully for me, I was already there, but I had also topped many others who tried to stop me. In the end, they had every right to hate me.

Leona and I decided to take a seat in the middle of a lonely booth. Just above the back of the seat, red neon lights contrasted with the purple as we sat down, surrounding us in a blood-like light. In front of us sat an A4-sized metal sheet with a glass front. It was a menu with a display on it. After scrolling through it, I decided on a costly beverage to soak my tongue with. The drink immediately popped out of the table after a hole opened and something lifted it.

In front of me sat a bourbon glass with an inch of brown whisky at the bottom and a helpful scoop of white ice cream. Leona surprisingly already picked out the same thing and was mushing the ice cream down with a titanium spoon, mixing it with the whiskey.

I glanced at her for just a second, before grabbing a spoon from the middle of the table and doing the same as her. At the same time, I waved my left hand down to open my menu and fiddled around for a bit to check the tournament bracket.

After selecting the D-Block bracket, I quickly skimmed for my handle. After finding it, I checked who I was up against first.

“Never heard of that… Nor does it match.”

“Hm? What doesn’t match?” Leona asked me with innocent curiosity.

I looked at her momentarily, unsure if Kirito had told Leona–or rather, Oyaga–about the Death Gun assignment today.

“Nmm.. It’s nothing. Just fresh names on the bracket.”

“Oh, well, I don’t doubt you’ll kick their behinds. Besides, you got third in the last royale anyway!”

“Yeah, but you can never know with the new tech people use these days. I’m a speed-strength build, everyone knows that. I’m just waiting for the day some guy finds a way to get some stupid infinite VIT glitch and get in here.”

I rolled my eyes, not wanting to consider the thought any further.

Glitches and bugs in VR games were ridiculously hard to find for various reasons. I didn’t know the exact reasons as to why, but I had my speculations and good enough inference from Kazuto. First is the human factor. God only knew how many overseen bugs there were within the code of a human programmer. As opposed to a programmer assisted by an AI of some sort who was able to catch these bugs early on, human programmers alone would have to go through trial and error to resolve issues. That wasn’t to say that AI assistance was perfect, either. There were numerous occasions in which AI didn’t catch obvious bugs and caused major problems for developers.

The second was rarity. Within VR games, so many variables are going on with the player at one time that are difficult to control. The variables were nearly endless: height, weight, build, inter-pupillary distance.

And third, very few had the time to glitchhunt.

“I doubt anyone is going to find anything. They’re American devs, so they triple-check themselves! And they’re the same blood as you!”

I just gave her this look that said: "Are you kidding me?” She nearly immediately retracted her comment.

At the same moment, a woman's voice came across the sound system.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the time is now. Soon, the third Bullet of Bullets will begin.”

After her final word, hundreds of shots were fired within the same moment. Cheers and jeers from those within the room also made their notice but were soon drowned out again by the loudspeaker.

“All participants will be teleported to their respective battlegrounds within thirty seconds. Prepare yourself!”

More shots were fired over the next thirty seconds. I simply scoffed and looked at Leona, who gave me a confident smile.

“You got this, Zenith!”

I thanked her, then saw as my vision turned blue, then black.

Nothing surrounded me upon first inspection. Upon my second, I discovered a hologram floating in front of me. The details on it were brief, but it contained useful information: a countdown of when I and my first combatant would be teleported to a randomly generated battlefield, the type of said battlefield, and my opponent.

I waved my menu open and selected a gun, a sidearm, and another weapon to be equipped on my character.

The rifle I had selected was an H&K416, specced with an iron sight removal, a shorter stock, and a highly skeletonized exterior made of 16 gauge titanium plating. There was one specific reason for me to choose these frankly bizarre quote-unquote “upgrades:” speed. With the removal of weight comes the increased ability to handle weapons, which was true both here and in real life. Titanium added to this benefit, being denser than standard iron steel.

The iron right removal was also preferred since my playstyle was more often seen to be berserk. This is to say that I would shoot while I ran: run’n’gun if you will. The shorter stock was also taken off by preference since I wanted a snappier feel to waving the gun around while it was pressed against my shoulder.

The pistol I had equipped was a simple G17. Semi-square design, easy to move around, and small enough to fit into my side holster. I like this pistol a lot, not solely because of the ease of use but also because of how many hours I had put into this gun alone. It had to be well over 500 hours, not to mention the skeletonization mod I had also put onto this gun.

I also (surprisingly) had a third weapon, but it was merely a backup item in case my rifle or pistol failed me. It was holstered on the inside of the right holster of my jacket, out of sight from even the nosiest of players. I rarely ever heard of people talking about the third weapon, despite me having pulled it out a couple of times in normal combat as a final resort.

I stared up at the countdown again. It was just 10 seconds until I would be teleported, and the battle would soon commence. I read the name of another player on the hologram in front of me.

“Killtaker…”

It's an ironic name, simply enough.

As the number slowly ticked from five to four, I readied myself for what would come next.

Three.

Two.

One.

Teleport.

I opened my eyes to a wide field. The sky was blue, but an orange haze sat around everything. The place I had spawned in was randomly generated by the system, being of the “Fielded Plain” variety. This type of terrain existed outside of Glocken, but this specific area did not.

Directly behind me stood a transparent red wall indicating the border of the playing field. This wall extended a kilometer either way, both in the way I currently saw it and perpendicular to it, creating a box that was a square kilometer in size. The only reason I knew this was from my last experience in the previous BOB, having been caught off guard by the strange barrier.

I looked back towards the open field and began sprinting. I knew that the player going by the alias of Killtaker had to have already been on the move. Getting the jump on someone was a valuable token in any world, meaning you had the immediate advantage of surprise and getting the first shot in.

I continued my full sprint, checking my 9 and 3 every couple of seconds for a bullet line. But out of nowhere, from my back right, a pale red line zipped across open air, and immediately after…

Whoo-achyoo!

A bullet the size of a pinky finger divided the air into two. I was forced to immediately stop and drop into a prone position on my back. Many more pale red lines were chased by bullets, burning the open air with the scent of lingering gunpowder mixed with burning metal.

Just by the smell alone, I could tell he was close, likely less than fifteen meters out, not to mention the immediate shouting that followed.

“Fuck, how could I miss?! He’s fucking glowing!”

I smirked a little and waited a bit longer. The tall grass around me acted as a good hiding cover, but I knew it wouldn’t last for long.

I shortly heard the snap, clatter, and thud of a magazine releasing from a gun and falling onto the ground.

It was time for action. Within half a second, I was already back on my feet and running. I grabbed the H&K from my back, pressing the stock against my right shoulder, and took approximate aim. It wasn’t going to be perfect shooting, but it was all I needed to get the job done.

When I was within ten meters of Killtaker, I opened fire, continuing my sprint with a murderous thousand-meter stare. He was immediately punctured by a bullet in his shoulder but already had the gun ready to fire again by the time I was just eight meters away.

I had to make a hard decision within half a second, but intuition already took over. My left hand was magnetized to the inside of my jacket, and I grabbed a cold metal rod. I pulled the rod halfway out of the jacket when my index finger flicked a switch.

By this time, two bullet lines were already pointing straight at me. By my estimation, it seemed that Killhunter hadn’t yet registered my move into my jacket, which was exactly what I needed.

The two bullet lines faded as bullets themselves finally trailed them. With one flash at the end of my hand and an arc commanded by my entire arm, both of the bullets disintegrated with a loud electronic growl.

A blade composed entirely of electricity extended from the rod in my left hand. The blade measured three feet in length and was what is known as a Photon Sword. Many had wiped the idea of the use of a sword in a world of guns completely out of existence, but others, such as myself, saw the immaculate potential for builds like no other.

“No fuckin’ way, man!” Killhunter cried out before his avatar dropped to the floor with a glowing red hole in his forehead. My H&K had fired the final shot on the battlefield.

After holstering my equipment, a large holographic sign of congratulations appeared above me, along with synthetic fanfare. I sighed, letting out a breath that I hadn’t noticed I was holding in. After I cursed under my breath, I noticed my vision going blue again, indicating that a teleport was imminent.

When I opened my eyes again, I noticed people chattering about a sword. I was initially clueless about what it was for when I immediately realized it was about me.

“Wasn’t that Zenith?”

“I-I think it was! You hear about that girl over in the F-block?! She was doing the same thing!”

“No way, man! They’re crazy!”

All I did in response was slowly slide down the seat just to where only my eyes peaked above the table.

Out of nowhere, in particular, I heard a cold, deep voice.

“Are you the one?”

The voice was deep, deeper than any voice I had ever heard, even mine. My eyes instantly darted towards two red dots across the table. Connected to the red dots like eyes was a metal mask. The mask entirely covered the face of the supposed avatar behind it, who was illuminated by purple and red lighting. A black cloak surrounded him.

“I said, are you the one?”

“The one who what?”

I felt myself sit up. My body was challenging this mysterious masked player, probing him for more detail. Another couple of seconds of silence passed as he carefully chose his words.

“Are you the one, known only by his sword?”

I slid out of the booth and stood directly before the masked player. He was shorter than me by a fair amount. I’d peg him at 5’2” if I had to.

“What does it mean to you?”

“More… than you could ever surmise. I also know… that the ‘Black Swordsman’ is here.”

“Then why the fuck are you probing me, huh?”

The player’s eyes only blinked irregularly as he lifted his left wrist. He pulled the sleeve of his cloak back to his elbow, which was as black as night.

Within the skin on the elbow, I saw symbolism that would shake any player of that game to the core.

An old western-style coffin opened ever slightly. Outside of the darkness within the coffin, an arm without flesh or muscle reached out, pointing down. Only an ugly face with a grin of pure malice sat on the lid.

P.T. Adamczyk - I'm a Netrunner | Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (Original Score)

I was stunned, but my face was unmoving. I blinked a couple of times as I managed to hold myself together with splinters and spit.

I had surmised something ever since I heard the voice of this same alleged player screaming of judgment and foolish actions. I never thought that my speculation would be true.

This player- no, this person was a member of the first unofficial red guild from Sword Art Online:

Laughing Coffin.

During my time within SAO, I had gained an amass of memories, like framed pictures dripping with blood. The two years that over 6,000 former players of that game of death took its toll with very few exceptions. Among those exceptions were those who actively took part in the sin of murder. The murderers with the highest profile throughout all of SAO was the non-official red guild, named Laughing Coffin.

LC was known for their maniacal methods of torture, then murder. Their leader, PoH–better known as Vasago Kazarusu to the Virtual Division–had a history both within Japan and the United States. Overseas, he was a troubled kid, but that’s about as much as I could hear, due to NDAs that Kazuto had signed, but not me.

All in, PoH was a nasty individual, both then and now. It was only a matter of time before LC came back to bite me after what “we” had caused them.

One night, just over thirty players from top guilds, as well as a few solos–including myself–banded together to form a raid party that would bring the end of Laughing Coffin. All in, the raid achieved our final goal of either imprisoning or having members change their ways was a success, though barely. Over 20 of Laughing Coffin’s members were dead after the fight, leaving just eight to be imprisoned at the Black Iron Palace on the first floor of Aincrad. I killed three of them. Their blood still stains my hands and my mind. Caked, dried, then bonded with super glue. Never to be the same.

“Wow,” I muttered huskily. “You must be stupid to show me that.”

“This… was to show you what you’re up against.”

“Yeah, right. Try me, asshole.” I snarled back, keeping a low voice.

The man in the cloak just snarled.

“We’ll see, Zenith.”

The cloak just turned around and walked away, disappearing into the dark crowd. I was surprised that I didn’t follow after him.

I took a moment to sit back down, only to notice that I hadn’t breathed for that entire time. I looked down at the floor, breathing heavily as my eyes trembled. I had to put my fingers up to my neck to ensure that my heart was still beating, but this was just a false sensation.

Taking a moment to reason that if my heart had stopped, I wouldn’t be in GGO, let alone still registering information given to me by the Amusphere. Only then did I manage to control and calm myself, returning to normal–or something close to normality.

“Hey, I’m back!” A cheery voice rang out to me on my left. I whipped my head over to see that Leona had logged in again, and her body stopped flashing blue.

“I had to take a leak. Woah, what happened to you?”

I didn’t account for the fact that I didn’t control my facial expression yet. After shaking my head and returning to a neutral expression, I looked at her again questioningly.

“Why, what’s up? What do you think happened?”

“Y-.. you looked scared. That’s rare, even for you.”

She wasn’t wrong. The only emotion I regularly displayed was none at all, meaning that she had every right to be concerned about my well-being.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Just forget about it.”

She stammered, then agreed to do so.

As she fell silent, I leaned back in the seat, looking over at her with my head cocked to the side and arms resting on the top of the seat on either side.

“How long do you think it’s gonna take me? To get to the prelim-final, anyway.”

She made an “mmm” of thought, scratching her chin as she had a thinking look on her face.

“Maybe half an hour, considering your speed?”

“Maybe,” I simply responded.

“What do you think?” I asked Kazuto, leaning on the side of a doorway.

“Think about what? Death Gun?”

I nodded to his question back at me.

Kazuto and I were logged into a virtual environment being run on his desktop computer. At first, it was just an ordinary white room, but I had taken the time to log in on a few occasions and spruce up the atmosphere with models and assets available for free on the internet.

As of right now, the environment looks like a clean, modern apartment with an air of traditional Japan in central Tokyo. Not too big, but not too small, either. It was good enough to host a party of five.

Kazuto was lying on the couch, scrolling through a menu that was invisible to me. He had a full view of his dual monitor setup back in his room in this virtual environment, making most collaboration between him and me a breeze. Not to mention, Yui was here, too, sitting with Kazuto on the couch.

I exited the doorway and made my way over to a window facing outside the virtual room, which was connected to a live three-sixty-degree view of Tokyo. It was a little bit blurry but easily lit up the room with multi-colored advertising that contrasted with the warm whites of the room.

“I don’t know, man. All I do know is that we’ve got to find out who it is.”

“We have to remember who it is. Not too many people within Laughing Coffin line up parallel with what Death Gun gives off.”

“And it’s not any of the dead, that’s for sure.”

I just made a small grunt, questioning if Kazuto believed in ghosts before wiping it away as nonsense.

“We’ll find out tomorrow, Thomas. I know we will.” Kazuto looked at me with a smile of reassurance. I didn’t see it, though.

“I guess,” I sighed, looking out the window as my eyes narrowed.