It took Sinon about ten minutes to defeat her opponent in the first battle.
When she returned to the waiting room, she let out a breath out of habit. It was not because the fight had been especially difficult. For a sniper, hanging the chance of victory on a single bullet required an immense amount of focus.
Predicting the opponent's route.
Finding an ambush point.
Lying in wait without ever being one hundred percent certain.
Then, in the end, deciding it with one shot.
For a sniper, ten minutes was already a respectable solo time.
After all, even in the preliminaries, the people who entered were all fairly skilled, experienced gunmen.
It was the same cold, silent hall as before. Now, however, the screens floating overhead were broadcasting many of the battles still in progress. Every so often, gasps and bursts of noise rose through the room, sounds that had not been there during the earlier wait.
The first person Sinon saw was Spiegel, standing beneath one of the screens.
She started to walk straight over and greet him, but when she got close, she noticed the shock on his upturned face. In the dim indoor light and shadow, it even looked a little eerie.
"Shinkawa-kun...? Is something wrong?"
If she had to describe it, it was the kind of expression that belonged on someone watching a horror movie.
"Ah, oh... Sinon."
Spiegel answered as if her voice had startled him awake.
"What's wrong? Your face looks strange. Is the air conditioner in your real room too cold?"
"No, that's not it," Spiegel said quietly.
He pulled his gaze away from Sinon and looked back up at the screen.
Out of curiosity, and almost by reflex, Sinon followed his gaze.
On the screen was a desert world under the light of the setting sun. The camera looked down from above over a rocky wasteland, placing the two people currently fighting in the center of the image.
A desert map.
It was one of those rare maps simple enough to force players to compete on raw strength. There were no extra obstacles, nothing to interfere with sightlines. The lighting was excellent, the atmosphere stable, and the whole place felt rough, like an old Western stage for a duel between gunmen.
The map was a terrible match for Sinon as a sniper, so she had always paid attention to it.
Those thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant.
Then, when she looked more closely, she finally realized.
"Samuro...?"
"This is his third fight."
Spiegel's voice drifted in from beside her. His avatar's naturally gentle voice sounded unusually low.
"His third?!"
Sinon froze.
In other words, he had taken at most a third of the time she had. One or two minutes.
And since the preliminaries all started at the same time, his opponents had to be the sort of players who could end fights quickly too. Otherwise, he would not have been matched into the next round this fast.
But in a major tournament like BoB, everyone should have been careful.
Was he using his extremely high AGI to sweep the battlefield from the start, lock onto his target in the shortest possible time, and win with a quick-draw tactic?
"There he goes again," Spiegel muttered.
On the screen, Samuro and his enemy had already spotted each other and were about to engage. On a desert map like this, players could usually see their opponent as soon as they spawned.
What Sinon could not understand was that, even with his opponent already raising his gun, Samuro stood completely still. He looked almost as if he were lagging because of a bad connection.
"This time, I suppose he can spare himself the trouble of firing into the sky to give away his position," Spiegel said with a sigh.
Sinon could not understand what Kyouji meant.
What made her frown was that Samuro's opponent had already opened fire on him.
Using the high performance of a rare assault rifle, the man sent out more than a dozen, maybe twenty rounds in only a second or two. He was clearly a veteran. Instead of simply aiming at Samuro's body, he deliberately shook the muzzle, spreading the bullets all around him.
It locked down Samuro's options for evasion, and on a map with no cover, that tactic had the greatest possible effect.
After losing the initiative, how was Samuro supposed to handle that attack?
Sinon watched him stand there in silence, head lowered.
Then, suddenly.
The trench-coated gunman, who had done nothing until now, raised his head.
Brilliant sparks of steel burst open in front of him. Under the fierce gunfire, his HP did not drop by even the smallest amount.
Sinon's eyes widened despite herself.
A breeze thinned the gunsmoke. A clear, snow-white blade hung from Samuro's left hand, and the ground around his feet was littered with shell casings and bullet fragments beginning to turn into crystals.
His opponent must have felt the same way Sinon did. Neither of them could properly understand what they had just seen. The enemy froze for two or three seconds.
The nearby players watching the screen broke into startled murmurs as well.
"He... blocked every bullet?"
"Judging by the movement, he sliced them all down," Spiegel said with a bitter laugh.
"But how could he...?" Sinon asked, hesitant.
"I don't know. But he did it. And not just this time. He's been doing it since the first battle," Spiegel said. "After he enters the arena, he doesn't do anything else. He fires a shot into the sky, stupidly gives away his position, and then stands there waiting. When the enemy attacks, he blocks everything with that blade."
"Then how does he attack?"
"He doesn't attack... He just walks toward his opponent. The opponent shoots, and he blocks it with his blade. When the opponent gets confused, he fires one shot. Not at a vital point, but somewhere like the thigh, almost as if he's urging them to hurry up and continue."
"Then he repeats that process until he reaches them. Once he is right in front of them, he kills them with the blade, or with a headshot from his revolver."
Spiegel could not help adding one more thing.
"From the beginning until now... he hasn't run a single step."
What is this...?
Sinon stood frozen, unsure whether to start with the reckless fighting style or the arrogance of treating his opponents like toys.
On the screen, Samuro began to move.
Just as Spiegel had said, he simply lifted one foot and started strolling toward the flustered man, slow and casual. The enemy fired a second time. This time, as if refusing to believe what had happened, he did not shake the muzzle. Every bullet was concentrated on Samuro's upper body.
But the sound of gunfire almost overlapped with the crisp ringing of steel. In front of Samuro, all Sinon could see was the vivid, blinding glint of his blade catching the sunset.
Every bullet came to nothing.
All of them were cut down by that katana, which looked fragile enough to snap with a little force.
Samuro kept his slow pace. Beside him, the remains of the bullets burned into crystal shards.
He stepped over the corpses of those wailing bullets and closed in on his enemy without hurry.
"That's how he does it... slowly drains the enemy's bullets and resolve," Spiegel said, frowning. "Like a predator one level above its prey, playing with something already doomed just because it finds the game interesting. It corners the prey with a cruel smile, waits until every means of resistance is useless, and then pounces once it is satisfied."
"..."
Sinon stared at Samuro as he strolled across the screen.
This arrogance, this recklessness, was completely different from the person she had spent time with before. He did have exceptional technique. But in her mind, he was more of a practical combat type, the kind of person who would hide behind a trench and throw grenades all day if that was what worked.
She could not connect that image of him to this ritualistic, almost mocking style of combat.
The man on the screen, the one holding the rare assault rifle, could do nothing but keep shooting. It was the only method he had left.
Soon, he ran out of bullets.
And by then, Samuro had already walked to within fifty meters of him.
Just as Spiegel sighed, the enemy did something that surprised even them.
He drew a dagger from his waist. It was probably an item he had equipped on impulse, the kind of tool that might be the most useless of all in a game where gunfire could settle a battle quickly. Now, though, it had become his last thing to rely on.
He charged out with the dagger in hand, like a furious bull that had been toyed with for too long.
Samuro abandoned his mocking stroll.
He planted one foot on the ground and lunged forward.
His terrifying AGI showed itself in full. It should have been like a bow that had not been fully drawn, yet he shot forward like an arrow, his gray coat spreading like vicious wings.
The two of them collided almost instantly.
But it was a one-sided crush.
At a speed that left no room to react, the hand gripping the dagger had already left the desperate man's body.
Then Samuro spun in front of him, and the katana cut horizontally across the man's body. Like a ghostly shadow, Samuro drew the blade back and circled behind him. The katana turned with elegant precision, stabbing into his back.
They stood back-to-back.
The katana had already pierced through the man's chest from behind.
The man froze there.
Leaving the blade inside his body, Samuro finally raised Blue Rose in his other hand and casually fired into the meat he had skewered.
Samuro Win.
Low murmurs passed through the players gathered beneath the screen as the victor's close-up appeared.
Under the Western-style desert and the reddening glow of the setting sun, an unpleasant smile hung on the gaunt gunman's face. Just as Spiegel had said, it was the malicious, satisfied smile of someone who had toyed with another person until they were cornered.
When Sinon met that frozen gaze, a sudden chill ran through her for no clear reason.
After the deep doubt brought by that contrast, what filled her heart next was:
--Strength.
The astonishing strength of this teammate who had once fought alongside her.
With a presence so confident it bordered on arrogance, there was no doubt he would make it into the finals. And Sinon, who intended to defeat everyone there, had to ask herself how she was supposed to face such a reckless opponent.
Her brow furrowed, and she clenched her hand.
It was no longer just technical skill.
His mood during the battle, and the expression on his face afterward, made it painfully clear that he was enjoying this.
This was the most prestigious tournament, a stage where the strongest gunmen gathered. And there he was, playing around, ignoring the focused shots his opponent fired one after another.
I have to... defeat him.
Back on that plain long ago, he still had not gone all out.
Defeat the him in front of me.
This version of him.
That would probably mean surpassing what I can do now, wouldn't it...?
But surpassing is what she seeks.
To surpass is to say goodbye to cowardice.
Sinon's gaze sharpened.