The bike rolled to a stop at the entrance of the grandiose city. Just ahead, blazing lights covered my vision–advertisements from this game's past and the current reality. It was a magical sight, even if it was a cruel mirror of the other side. This was the far-north city of Damsgate, which was reinstated just before Bullet of Bullets tournaments were held on ISL Ragnarok.
"Sinon." I called out behind me. I heard a light whimper in response.
"We're at Damsgate. I'll find us a spot to lay low."
"Okay…"
I twisted the throttle again and kept going down the strip of road. Soon enough, I saw a container filled port, and pulled off the highway in order to get inside.
After opening a gate and riding near a large warehouse, we went underground, and we were soon in a large ballroom dancing with holograms.
"This was here all this time?" Sinon asked with her usual stoic curiosity, like a kitten in a way.
"I guess, either way, it's a place we get to lie low in. So, get comfy; we're going to be here for the next half-hour."
"Are you sure about that..?"
"Yeah. We're below ground level, we'll be fine."
I paced around for a minute, then decided it would be better to relax for the time being, and planted myself onto a large circular bench. The seat was just as uncomfortable as the ones in the City Hall's waiting area. A few moments later, Sinon joined me, opting to only sit on the opposite side.
"I don't bite," I teased her, pulling the right side of my mouth into a grin.
"Oh, shut up!" She snapped back, causing me to laugh.
After a moment, I cleared my throat, and went back to my usual tone. "Okay, so… I assume you and Kirito have been working together in this tournament for a while now. What all have you said, or… theorized?"
Sinon's eyebrow furrowed, but she leaned a little bit closer and explained.
"For around the past 30 minutes, Kirito and I have been trying to hunt down the "Death Gun" guy. You saw him in the east city and while he chased us–the guy in the baggy cloak…" She seemed to shiver in her seat just thinking about those moments.
Her description of Death Gun matched up with my encounter with the player that occurred within the City Hall yesterday. It also matched with what I saw not 10 minutes ago, riding on mechanical horseback. Not to mention, the multiple player testimony I had gathered from forums regarding the two Death Gun killings prior to this weekend. Needless to say, this was in fact Death Gun. Everything lined up, but didn't at the same time.
"Yeah, makes sense," I started, looking down at the table. "How'd he get to you, anyway? It doesn't make sense how we checked the map but he just.. appeared right next to you."
Sinon looked at me with the same stoic face that I was giving her, but I could tell there was discomfort hiding behind her features.
"He has an optical camo ability because of that cloak, which I thought was exclusive to monsters…"
“Optical Camo?” My throat instantly spit out. “How the hell did he get that? That shit must have cost him hundreds of hours of his time to get, or mega-credits, if not billions…”
After letting the idea churn in my head, I shook it of and noted, “Well, it’s good that we know that. But… we still have the problem that we don’t know how he’s doing it; the killing part.”
“Well, there’s a million possibilities out there, and the one person we had to help us think is now not here.”
I just rolled my eyes and placed my head in my hand, leaning on the table.
“Look, I’m not all brawn, alright? There’s a method to my madness, even Kirito knows that.”
I quickly adjusted myself in the seat, preparing myself for a returning argument, but was pleasantly surprised.
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“Well, that’s fair… You do have technique…”
I said yet another silent affirmative before rising from my seat and checking the battery level on my light-sword.
“W-wait, where are you going, Zenith?” Sinon asked, with the slightest hint of terror or dread in her voice.
“I’m going to take out the damned monster.”
“Death Gun? All on your own, are you insane?!”
“I can fight him,” I contested back, feeling a fire light in my eyes as I combated Sinon with my gaze alone. “I fought him then, I can fight him now, I’ll rip his goddamn heart out if I need to! I’ll get rid of him and then we can all move on!”
The look that I saw in Sinon’s eyes told me immediately that I shouldn’t have said that, let alone done that. “Why are you being so cryptic?” Sinon grabbed my wrist and shoved it to the ground.
“Hey! Why are you being so clingy?!”
“That’s not the topic, get it together, Zenith! What the hell do you mean “move on,” it’s not like you have any semblance of trauma!”
A part of me felt annoyed, another felt insulted, and another felt… sympathy. What kind of trauma was this girl trying to beat into me? What was she doing yelling at me in the first place? In all honesty, I originally pictured that she was the type of girl to be bullied whenever she said that, but the longer I think of it, the longer I think she was forced into something far worse. Something like fate, maybe even like…
“If you’re going to spew all that talk of “moving on,” then help me move on, too!”
“What the hell are you talking about, I barely even know you, let alone what you’ve seen or been through,” I barked in return, trying to force her to let go of me. Her grip was as tight as an iron cuff, unable to release me.
“Then you clearly have no idea what it’s like to have your hands stained in someone else's blood!”
My brain shattered. At first, I thought that maybe she accidentally cut one of her classmates with some sort of apple-peeling knife, maybe then their hand got too close to hers, but the next thing she said blew that idea out of the water, and into the stratosphere.
“How does it feel to hold the hand of a murderer?!” Sinon blurted out, sending a frail hand to my chest in an attempt to rid me from this tournament, and probably her life if she had the power to do so. For the next minute that felt like an eternity, this helpless girl in a video game tried to pummel me into nothingness. Her fists tried to pound my body, but were met by a solid block of steel sitting on my chest and stomach, so she went for the arms instead, which did basically nothing.
Once two minutes had passed, I caught one of her hands and twisted her wrist about 180 degrees to force her to stop. “You need to calm down,” I consoled her, but I could see in her teary eyes that she didn’t like hearing my voice, so I let go, and simply sat on the floor, next to one of the elongated benches.
Sinon joined me, but ensured that there was no physical contact between us, rolling herself into a ball next to me. With her face digging into her knees, she looked as fragile as an autumn leaf, preparing to wilt away for a season of what often felt like eternity. I mulled over what combination of words would be the most comforting to her. Should I reveal what I’ve been through in that floating castle, or rather what I’ve done to people that never deserved it? Either way, my mouth began to talk faster than I could think about it.
“I did the same thing you did,” I barely muttered, my voice as husky as a smoker’s trying to whisper. “I killed, laughed when their bodies fell over and shattered into glass. I wasn’t a member of the same group he was in, dedicated to the ravenous cycle, but…” My eyes glanced at Sinon to see if she had heard me at any point during my spill, but when it looked like she didn’t, I looked away and kept talking.
“But it stains my hands… My mind is caked in their blood… My family- I don’t even know what happened to them. But here I stand… fighting, for no one but myself.” I felt my eyes get warmer, and two warm tears ripped at my skin.
“To be honest with you, almost a year ago, I was at the lowest of my life, but I’m still fighting, even if I am so lonely.”
I then turned to Sinon, who was now staring at me like I was a god from the heavens. So I kept speaking.
“You can do it- do anything. People will try to tell you that you’re worthless, scum, but… You just have to keep going, even if you can’t do it by yourself.”
“Zenith?”
“Yes?”
Sinon looked at me with deep intent to know more about me, even the tiniest little detail.
“What… Did you do? What game did you play before?”
At this point, I had already given her my spiel, so it wouldn’t hurt to add a little bit more.
“I played Sword Art Online, I know you’ve probably heard of it because of Kirito, but he hasn’t given you the full story, so we’ll save that for another time. Right now, we need to come up with a plan to stop the sonuvabitch, and we need to make this right.”
I rose to my feet, grabbing my light sword from the floor and stuffing it into my inside jacket pocket, ensuring that it was off before I even put it in so I didn’t miraculously cut myself. It emberasses me to say that this exact situation has happened multiple times–accidentally skewering myself…
“C’mon, we’ll make a plan while we walk. I’m already thinking that we need to know who’s left.”
Gigantic red doors emblazon themselves on my vision. I can hear faint voices, but they’re practically background noise with the sheer power standing in front of me. These doors that stretched one hundred feet above me were those of the Ruby Palace, designed and planted by either a developer who didn’t know any better, or by Akihiko Kayaba himself.
Either way, this was the ultimate challenge. Defeat whatever’s on the other side, and my soul would be set free, maybe, maybe…maybe... With one swipe of a menu, and a press of a holographic button, the doors opened. I could already smell the time and patience that monster on the inside had spent waiting for my arrival, not to mention the stench of the blood on its hands. I breathed in, sighed out, and muttered as I pulled my sword from my hip.
“You’re mine.”