Phantom Bullet 1

by Reki Kawahara

  But what made me nervous wasn’t that sight, nor the quiet strains of heavy-metal BGM playing.

  It was the sensation coming from the many silhouettes lounging at the tables and leaning against the pillars that lined the outer half of the dome.

  Despite being inside a video game, not a single one seemed to be excited or enjoying himself. Everyone was either whispering in small groups or sitting alone in silence. They were clearly the other participants in the BoB Prelims, and they were also clearly VRMMO veterans, hardened players with virtual marrow in their bones.

  On the other hand, I probably had more sheer playing time than anyone else in this room. After all, I’d spent about two years stuck in a game without a second of interruption.

  But each player had his own play style. I was almost exclusively a PvE (player vs. enemy) type, yet I could tell these grubby bastards were all tried-and-true PvPers. I could sense it from the sharp, seeking gazes sent my way from under their darkened helmets and thick hoods—they wanted every piece of information they could glean.

  Since ALO transferred to its current administrators earlier this spring, I had essentially experienced no man-to-man combat. There was no way that much time away hadn’t dulled my PvP instincts. The way I wilted under their piercing stares was proof of that.

  This job is looking harder and harder by the minute, Mr. Kikuoka.

  Something nudged my right elbow. I looked over to see the blue-haired girl staring at me curiously.

  “…What’s wrong?”

  “Uh, n-nothing…” I stammered. She gave me a reassuring nod and kept her voice low.

  “Let’s go to the changing room. You’ll want to equip the fatigues you just bought, after all.”

  She started walking through the midst of the players, completely at ease. There was no sign of tension in her stride. But it wasn’t as if she was being ignored, either. As a matter of fact, the men around us seemed to be pouring even more antagonism on her than they were on me. One of them even menacingly expelled an empty round from the terrifying gun sitting on his knees.

  She had to have nerves of steel to ignore pressure of this kind. I followed the sand-colored muffler, more surprised at her than ever.

  At the back of the dome, there was a space that traded the tables for a few simple steel doors. She opened one with a blinking indicator, showed me inside, then fiddled with the control panel on the backside of the door when it closed. The lock clicked shut and the indicator turned red.

  On the inside, it looked like a cramped locker room. We were the only ones in the space, of course.

  “…Whew,” she sighed, once she was in the middle of the room. “They’re all such ditzes.”

  “Uh…ditzes?! You mean all those terrifying-looking people out there?!” I asked, picturing the fearsome soldiers who filled the dome. She nodded, as if it was perfectly clear who she meant.

  “Of course. Showing off their main weapons a half hour before the event even begins? It’s like they’re asking us to work up a plan to deal with them.”

  “Ah…I see…”

  “You should wait to equip your lightsword and Five-Seven until just before your match,” she said, smiling gently. I nodded in understanding and she turned her back to me.

  What she did next shocked me ten times more than what she’d said just a moment ago.

  She swung her right hand to call up the main menu and hit the UNEQUIP ALL button on her equipment mannequin.

  The sand-colored muffler disappeared, then the khaki jacket, the loose-fitting cargo pants, and the plain T-shirt.

  All she was left wearing was a skimpy set of underwear that gleamed like some kind of multipurpose textile.

  “Wh-wha—?!” I yelped, covering my face with my hand. Between my fingers, I saw her give me a quizzical glance.

  “What are you doing? You’d better get changed.”

  “Er, yes, b-but…”

  My mind raced, even as it grappled with by far the greatest shock it had received since the dive into GGO began.

  There weren’t many options available to me in this situation. One: I could find an excuse to escape the changing room. Two: Pretend to be a woman and just equip my body armor. But neither choice was in any way fair or honest to the girl who had given me so much help.

  So I plunged headlong into option three before she could take off any more clothing and cause a true catastrophe.

  My head shot down at maximum speed and I produced my namecard from the menu, then held it out to her with both hands.

  “Umm…I’m sorry! I haven’t introduced myself until now…Um, this is my name…man!”

  “Huh? M-man?”

  I felt her take the card from my fingers.

  “Kiri…to. Hmm, that’s an interesting name………wait………”

  Because I didn’t belong to any guild—known as “squadrons” here—the only other information on the card aside from my name was a sex indicator.

  “Male…? What…? But, you’re……”

  She trailed off in confusion. Within my field of vision, which was pointed straight down at the floor, I noticed one of her cute little feet take a step back.

  “No way…You’re……a man? With that avatar………?”

  Silence.

  Unable to bear the tension that filled the locker room, I started to raise my head a tad.

  The next instant, something white flashed in my face with incredible speed and exploded on my left cheek. Purple splash effects covered my eyes.

  It wasn’t until after I spun around like a top with the force of the impact, then slumped to the floor with little stars blinking in and out around my head, that I realized it had been the palm of her hand.

  “Don’t follow me.”

  “B-but I don’t know what to do after this…”

  “Don’t follow me.”

  “B-but I don’t know anyone else here…”

  “Don’t follow me.”

  I tried my best to keep up with the blue hair as she strode away, hissing back at me.

  The girl had switched to a military jacket and bulletproof armor in a desert-colored scheme, with combat boots to round it out. The only thing that was the same as her in-town outfit was the muffler around her neck. As she warned me against earlier, she did not have a weapon out for show.

  My equipment was similar in look, but mine was in a much darker, almost black shade—night camo, I guessed. I was prepared to abandon my usual style and go for something more ordinary, but when she told me it would take too much money to get enough styles to blend in to all of the randomly selected map types, I went with my usual fashion sense.

  The very person who gave me that advice was now several feet ahead of me, determinedly not looking back. While her anger was quite justified, I also hadn’t identified myself as a woman, nor had I used any specifically feminine speech. Maybe I unjustly profited from that confusion, but she also could have said something about changing clothes before she launched into it…

  I shook my head to keep my thought process from getting too whiny, and stubbornly followed that waving muffler. Abruptly, she came to a stop. We had gone halfway around the dome.

  I stopped as well, and she turned around to face me. Her deep blue eyes looked directly into mine. They had struck me as catlike before, but now she was more of a panther. Her tiny lips sucked in a harsh breath, and I tensed in preparation for a proper shout. What emerged was only a brisk sigh.

  She thudded down into the box seat beside her and turned her head away from me. Hesitantly, I took the seat across from her.

  Up on the holo-panel, the countdown to the first preliminary matches was now under ten minutes. I had no idea what to do after this. Was I supposed to move somewhere else once the countdown hit zero? Was there some extra registration step? I didn’t even know where to look to find this kind of information.

  I hunched my shoulders and fidgeted nervously. She shot me another look. Another deep, deep sigh.

  “…I’l
l give you the bare minimum of information. After that, we’re enemies for real,” she growled. I felt the tension leave my face.

  “Th-thanks.”

  “Don’t get the wrong idea; I’m not forgiving you. Anyway, once that countdown hits zero, every entrant in here will be automatically teleported to a private battlefield with their first-round opponent.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “The battlefield’s a square arena, exactly one kilometer to each side. The terrain type, weather, and time of day are all randomized. You’ll be spawned at least half the distance of the arena apart. When the battle’s finished, the winner comes back here to the waiting area, while the loser is teleported to the first-floor hall. None of your gear drops at random if you lose. If you win and your next opponent has already won, the second round starts immediately. If their match isn’t over, you wait. There are sixty-four players in Block F, so if you win five times, you’ll be in the block championship and thus in the tournament finale. No more explanation needed or offered,” she finished brusquely, though her explanation was quite helpful. The general flow of the tournament made sense to me now.

  “Okay, I think I get it. Thank you,” I replied.

  She sent another look my way and turned to the side yet again. I could barely make out the words she said next.

  “You’d better get to the final. After all the things I’ve taught you, I want to be able to give you the final piece of information you need.”

  “Final?”

  “The taste of that bullet of defeat.”

  I had no choice but to smile. Not sarcastically or ironically, but a true smile. I couldn’t help but like people with that kind of mentality.

  “…Looking forward to it. Are you sure you’ll be all right, though?”

  She snorted. “If I actually lose in the prelims, I’ll retire. This time—”

  Those lapis-blue eyes cast a fierce gaze out at the sea of rivals filling the dome.

  “—I’ll kill every last one of them.”

  Those last few words had no volume to them, and reached my ears as nothing but tiny vibrations on her lips. Those lips then curled into the smile of a predator. A chill like ice that I hadn’t experienced in ages ran down my back.

  Clearly, she did not feel an ounce of the pressure all the men in the dome were putting on her. She was undoubtedly far more powerful than they were. She had the skill as a VRMMO player—and the underlying mentality to support it.

  I held my breath and stayed quiet. The smile vanished from her face, and her eyes traveled off in thought for a moment. She waved her menu open and within seconds had produced a little card.

  She slid it across the table and waited for me to pick it up before saying, “This will probably be the last time we speak like this, so I’ll introduce myself here. It’s the name of the one who will defeat you.”

  I looked down without comment. The card read Sinon. Sex: F.

  “Sinon,” I muttered, and her blue hair waved as she nodded. I tried introducing myself properly this time.

  “I’m Kirito. Nice to meet you.”

  I extended a hand over the table without thinking, but Sinon completely ignored it and turned aside. Chastised, I retracted my hand.

  After that, she said nothing.

  The monitor at the top of the dome showed there were still five minutes left. Either I could sit in my chair and cross my legs, or I could try talking to her again. Approaching footsteps co-opted my decision.

  I looked up to see a tall man with long silver hair hanging over his forehead coming straight for our table.

  He wore an outfit of dark gray and slightly lighter gray in a camo pattern that was all right angles. Slung over his shoulder was a slightly larger gun—probably an assault rifle rather than a submachine gun. His sharp features matched up well with his slim figure. There was only a bare minimum of armor on him, and he looked very capable of traversing the battlefield with speed and agility. He gave off the air of a special forces agent rather than a hardened veteran soldier.

  The man did not spare a single glance for me in the shadows, but looked directly at Sinon instead with a smile on his lips. Suddenly, those hawkish features took on a boyish roundness that surprised me.

  “Hey, Sinon. You sure got here late—I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

  His tone of voice was so casual and familiar that I couldn’t help but wince, expecting her to hurl more of her withering vocal fire in his direction. But to my surprise, the veil of iciness that surrounded the pale-haired girl softened, and she almost seemed to smile.

  “There you are, Spiegel. I got distracted by some stuff that I didn’t expect to come up. Wait a minute…I thought you weren’t going to compete.”

  The man named Spiegel smiled shyly and brushed his head with his hand in embarrassment.

  “Actually, I’m here to root you on—hope you don’t mind. You get to watch the matches on the big screen from here.”

  These two were at least friends, if not guildmates. Sinon scooted over, and Spiegel sat down right next to her without even asking.

  “So what was it that distracted you?”

  “Oh…Well, I was guiding that person over there around,” Sinon answered, signaling me with a short, cold stare. I straightened up reluctantly and gave a brief bow to Spiegel, who had finally noticed my presence.

  “Hi, I’m ‘that person.’”

  “Oh, er…nice to meet you. Are you a…friend of Sinon’s?”

  Spiegel had an air about him, to be sure, but he turned out to be more courteous than his appearance suggested. Either that, or he was also confusing my gender.

  I was figuring out which answer would be the most entertaining when Sinon cut off my fun.

  “Don’t be fooled. He’s a man.”

  “Huh?”

  Spiegel went wide-eyed. I had no choice but to introduce myself normally.

  “Uh, I’m Kirito. Male.”

  “M-male…Which, um…means you’re, uh…”

  He still looked confused. Sinon and I shared a glance. It looked like he was having trouble processing the fact that Sinon had been working with another male player.

  Intrigued by this reaction, I decided to toss a little fuel onto the fire.

  “Actually, I’ve got a lot to thank Sinon for, in a variety of ways.”

  Sinon turned her blue lasers on me and growled through pursed lips. “I…I haven’t done any such thing. And you’re in no position to call me by name…”

  “What’s with the cold shoulder all of a sudden?”

  “Cold?! We’re complete strangers!”

  “Even though you helped me coordinate my outfit?”

  “Th…that was because I thought you were—”

  Suddenly, our bickering was interrupted by the quiet BGM in the dome fading away, to be replaced by a blaring electric guitar lead. Next, a soft, electronically generated voice boomed over the heads of the hundreds in attendance.

  “Thank you for your patience. The preliminary blocks of the third Bullet of Bullets tournament will now begin. All players registered will be automatically teleported to the first-round field map at the end of the countdown. Best of luck.”

  A great cheer chose from the room. The rattle of automatic fire and the screech of lasers followed, the various types of gunfire shooting up to the ceiling like fireworks. Sinon quietly got to her feet and jabbed a finger at me.

  “You’d better make it to the final. I need to blow your head off.”

  I rose in turn and grinned. “Well, I was never one to turn down an invitation to a date.”

  “Wh-why, you…”

  The twenty remaining seconds of the countdown trickling away, I waved to Sinon and faced forward in preparation for the teleport. As I did so, I met Spiegel’s gaze.

  When I saw the wariness and hostility in his eyes, I was briefly struck by the idea that I’d gone too far, and its accompanying regret.

  But the next moment, my body was surrounded by a pillar of blu
e light that flooded my vision.

  When I could see again, I was atop a hexagonal panel floating in the midst of darkness.

  There was a pale, red holo-window in front of me that loudly proclaimed Kirito vs. Uemaru. Unlike SAO, in which all players had to spell their names in the Western alphabet, GGO allowed proper Japanese characters, so his name was spelled in actual kanji. I didn’t recognize the name, of course. At the bottom of the window it said, Preparation time: 58 secs. Field: Lost Ancient Temple.

  I interpreted the minute of prep time to be meant for optimizing equipment for the chosen map, but that meant nothing to me without any backup gear or knowledge of GGO’s terrain. I called up the menu and switched to my equipment window—which resembled that of ALO’s—and set the Kagemitsu G4 lightsword as my main weapon, and the Five-Seven as my sidearm. Once I’d ensured that none of my armor was forgotten, I closed the window.

  As the remaining time slowly counted down, a sudden possibility struck my brain.

  That ferocious smile I’d seen Sinon wear for just a moment. It was like pure, distilled lethality, a rifle bolt that could pierce any armor or shield.

  Her voice sounded inside my head so clearly that it could have been telepathy.

  This time, I’ll kill every last one of them, she’d said. The words were trite, even childish, but they succeeded in delivering that familiar chill I’d experienced so many times since the SAO days that I couldn’t count. It was as if real, tangible will, transcending any kind of in-game role-playing, was radiating out from her tiny body.

  I’d met few players who could make me feel that sort of willpower within the virtual realm. And as far as female players went, the only one who had reached this level was Asuna, and at her most extreme. Actually, even Asuna the Flash, previously known as the Mad Warrior, had never given off such a fierce energy.

  Was it possible? Could this blue-haired girl in fact be the very Death Gun I was seeking?

  The ugly, metallic rasp of Death Gun’s voice in the recording that Kikuoka played for me was completely unlike Sinon’s pure, crisp tones. But unlike SAO, GGO was a normal game. A single player could easily have multiple characters that she could switch between at the log-in screen.