At 9:45 p.m., the seventh Satellite Scan since the start of the Bullet of Bullets main tournament arrived.
Sinon seemed about to pull out her terminal by reflex, but Satoru shook his head.
"After this much time, anyone unrelated has probably already been dealt with. That was the whole point of pushing things this far."
The result was exactly as he had said. Sinon looked at the floating screen and saw only one light point remaining, surrounded by a cluster of gray ones. Even she could not help feeling shaken.
"Even Yamikaze lost...?"
The runner-up from the previous tournament had an extreme AGI build, just like Satoru beside her. He was even called the Run-and-Gun Demon, and in terms of player skill, he was probably the strongest player most people recognized. It would not have been strange to call him the favorite to win this tournament.
But what she saw on the screen was a pile of famous players' bodies gathered around Death Gun.
"Can we really win...?" Sinon murmured.
"I will win," Satoru said quietly beside her. "And speaking of that, you've gotten stronger. You're calm now."
"Not really. When I'm scared, I close my eyes. I've been good at running away like that for a long time." Sinon gave a bitter smile and shook her head.
"We're all running away, really. Some people just run farther in, so they look strong. But they're still fragile." Satoru spoke with steady certainty. "Looking at you is like looking at who I used to be. I didn't want to face the problems waiting for me in reality, so I threw myself into the virtual world instead."
"But you went into the virtual world to build confidence, to become stronger and return. I was only mocking myself and drifting through it on my own."
"Then how did you endure it in the end?" Sinon asked, looking at him.
"A trigger. I was lucky. I met someone, and that person dragged me back to reality in a way that was a little unfair, almost forceful. Then, when I finally faced the things I had never wanted to face, I suddenly realized I could already bear them." Satoru smiled faintly. "Maybe, without noticing it, I had already become a little better than I thought."
"If you turn back and visit your past again, maybe you can do it too."
"Can I really?"
"Of course. The person standing in front of you is one example. And I am still enduring too. That is why I will not lose the next fight."
Satoru thought for a moment.
"Besides, aren't you in danger in reality right now? I really can't afford to lose."
"Am I not allowed to save myself?" Sinon shot back.
"Yeah. That would be best."
After saying that, Satoru stood and walked out of the cave.
"Hey."
Sinon looked at his back and could not help calling after him.
"What is it?"
"Don't lose... You promised. You're my example."
"Right."
...
Death Gun was there.
He had not moved at all. He was waiting for him.
Satoru thought that calmly as he walked step by step across the gravel dyed blue by moonlight. As long as he kept walking and thought of that person as Morte, as Red-Eyed XaXa, memories from the past came surging back like a tide.
But it had not begun that late.
They had known each other far earlier.
Shinkawa.
Yeah.
It was strange that he had realized it so late.
He should have understood long ago.
When you called yourself Morte. When you found me. When I fought you. When I heard you say those words.
I should have understood then.
You were Shouichi Shinkawa.
It was almost as if we had never truly met. We had both placed our consciousness and our thoughts inside the virtual world, communicating through networks and cables.
You chose the saddest possible way to ask me your question.
And now you have nowhere left to retreat.
Tying your life to a virtual battle and giving it the weight of reality may be the only way you and I know how to communicate.
But it is not the right way.
Sorry.
The me who exists now may only know how to answer this kind of battle by crushing straight through it with violence.
The Satoru you want to question, the Satoru who once existed as a player, is someone even I can no longer find.
I am still far from being free of Aincrad. Far from surviving the Thousand-Mirror Gate, from Didos, from the battle with Makoto Kaizuka. The rope of death is still around my neck, more vicious than ever before.
It was poison.
A seed that lifted him higher and dragged him lower at the same time.
Satoru's steps began to quicken, and a smile of anticipation quietly appeared on his calm face. Without thinking, he flexed the bony fingers of his virtual hand and felt the reality of this avatar.
The pity and sorrow he had felt for that person changed as well.
What spread through his limbs and bones now was nothing more than hunger for a violent fight.
His soul leapt. It leapt beyond control, spreading mad arrogance and an irritation that wanted to crush anything ordinary. Gold suddenly flashed through his eyes, but it was no longer the pale yellow from when it had first appeared, nor the bright gold from his battle against Kaizuka's surging conviction.
This color was deeper and darker.
It had settled far down, gray mixed with gold, closer to the black of his pupils. Quieter. More restrained.
Pale gold.
His field of view began to change. His thoughts were already racing in a way he could not reverse or control. Beautiful colors were stripped away, leaving only black and white. Then even that dull white was abandoned, leaving only deep darkness and the basic outlines from which things were built.
Everything before him became simple and clear.
That overwhelming exhilaration, that burning in his nerves, made a sound escape his throat.
Clear.
Transparent.
Nothing could hide beneath these eyes now. No attack existed that these eyes could not see through. No enemy existed that could not be beaten. And if one did, then that enemy was already dead.
His compatibility with Fluctlight had never been better.
His whole body trembled. Even the occasional crawling sting no longer felt unpleasant or unbearable. It felt like being tempered and reborn.
Good.
Good...
Before this point, memory had been clear, like flipping through files stored inside his own brain. Beyond this point, massive amounts of information connected, predictions unfolded, and all of it became power.
The power to calculate his way, step by step, into a state no one else could reach.
The temptation to sink even deeper teased his soul.
Was that not exciting?
Was it not worth going mad for?
After this step, what would come next?
What would he be able to see?
Satoru laughed under his breath and slowly reached the center of the battlefield, where the ragged cloak had been waiting for him all this time.
The one in my way...?
You.
Satoru casually drew his katana and walked toward the ghostlike figure. But to his eyes, that virtual body was only a rough outline.
Shinkawa looked at the man walking toward him with his head lowered and a bright katana in hand. Then he slowly set the Silent Assassin down and drew a thin, needle-like rapier from the gun's body.
"Heh... heheh."
Satoru watched that ugly, laughable humanoid draw its rapier.
Just something ordinary.
Something beneath him.
Satoru roared, as if trying to release the searing emotion inside him.
"I will destroy you!"
He stamped hard into the sand and tore forward like a raging demon with a blade.
...
There was no gunshot. No muzzle flash. No smell of smoke. Only clean, sharp shadows and dazzling sparks bursting between metal.
On that distant, lonely battlefield, all Sinon could see were two figures invading each other's space, and the red light of damage effects scattering outward again and again.
It was not a fight someone who used guns could understand.
They had only a plain rapier and a katana, yet the arcs they drew were dizzying. They were nothing more than ordinary weapons, but every swing seemed sharp enough to cut apart the pale moonlight pouring over them. The sounds of their battle could never compare to the roar of bullets, and yet simply watching those two human shapes tear into each other at close range brought a deep shock.
Tiny red points gradually drifted in from every direction.
Live broadcast cameras.
They circled the two slashing figures like muzzles, sending every moment clearly across the network.
Those were Sword Skills.
Not real-world kendo, and not any school that existed in reality. Sword Skills. The rapier and katana were clean. Shinkawa's hands and Satoru's hands were clean too. But the weapons crossing and trembling with cicada-like ringing, and the arms of the two men moving so violently, were probably already soaked in blood.
There was no need to beautify it, and no need to hide it.
Both of them were deeply stained red players.
Both of them were orphans too.
The death game had been cleared, but the two people who had sunk into that world were still under Kayaba's shadow.
Perhaps they could not feel pain. Each time a blade pierced an avatar or cut across a cheek, there was no true pain. But that cold sensation, cold enough to reach the bone, still sank all the way down. It was not something produced by the system, nor something felt in reality.
It was only an echo from the depths of memory.
Even without assist acceleration, they could still unleash the skills they had once relied on to survive.
The instincts for attack and defense had been carved deep into their reflexes.
But.
However shocking, however spectacular, this could not be called top-tier.
Shinkawa roared as if trying to force everything in his chest out through his throat, swinging the rapier in his right hand. What that blade carried was the twisted darkness of his obsession from the prison at the very bottom of the Black Iron Palace.
There had been no food there. No water. But even without those things, an avatar would not die. As long as the body in the real world remained alive, an avatar would not die unless its HP reached zero.
But the hunger and thirst had been real.
They never disappeared.
A year? A year and a half?
In that lonely darkness, he could see no light and hear no other voices. Only his own breathing. The hollow emptiness of his half-dead stomach. The burning pain in his throat.
It had been like the depths of hell.
All he could do was count the seconds one by one and wait for liberation to come without warning.
Then he would swing his empty right hand and release attack after attack into the air.
Starting from low-level skills, rising to the highest, then cycling back and repeating it all again.
He no longer knew how many times he had done it.
Only that he had become faster.
More vicious.
More lethal.
This was the sword he had sharpened through that torment. The last thing left to him after all that agony. Whether that strength was meant for revenge or for asking a question, even he did not know.
"Aaaaah, Satoru!"
His rapier tore through the air with his hoarse roar. Its speed had already surpassed his avatar's AGI value. For an instant, perhaps it even surpassed the bullets of this world. If he wanted, he might have been able to thrust straight through an incoming round.
But he could not hit the man in front of him.
His rapier screamed with a piercing sound, yet it could not land on Satoru. Each hard-to-track path was knocked down, opened up, and smothered by the katana cutting toward him. Almost every attack was wasted.
For a moment, disbelief overtook him.
Then he was swallowed by the shadow of the blade before him.
Looking at that sealing katana, he could not tell what Sword Skill it was.
Or perhaps it was not an Aincrad Sword Skill at all.
Perhaps it was only something this man had swung out on a whim.
He was forced back. Five or six dark red wounds flared across his body.
"What's wrong? You're slowing down." He heard that cold, mocking voice. "At this rate, you won't even be able to keep up. Move again. Give me Howling Octave."
"...!!"
The crimson-stained eyes beneath the hood shone with pure focus. Shinkawa forced himself to stop his instinctive retreat and charged forward. His rapier cut through the air with a whistle, but it was not the Howling Octave Satoru had demanded. It was another high-level Sword Skill: Stardust Trail.
This man's terror lay in calculation. A fight with him was also a psychological game. That was the conclusion Shinkawa had reached after so long as the challenger.
He acknowledged Satoru's strength. That was why he was already thinking about which Sword Skill Satoru would use to counter Stardust Trail.
But he was wrong.
Satoru simply swung his katana with a motion so solid it could not be broken, made Shinkawa's rapier tremble, then stepped in and cut horizontally.
That still was not a Sword Skill.
A line of blood opened across Shinkawa's chest. His HP had already dropped by one third.
Only when he felt that cold illusion across his chest did he realize it.
He looked up.
From Satoru's darkened eyes, the only emotions he could understand were contempt, mockery, and playfulness.
"..."
He retreated several steps in a row and stopped attacking.
Satoru did not pursue him either. He only frowned.
"What's wrong? Keep fighting."
"That isn't... your power," Shinkawa said in a daze.
"What did you say?"
"That is... like Didos. A genius's method. That isn't you. That isn't Yurnero's power."
He paused.
"Heh..." Satoru laughed. "Hehehe. Hahahahahaha!"
He burst into laughter.
"The fact that you understand proves you're an excellent ordinary man!"
Satoru said it with malice.
"This is exactly what I gained after fighting him! This is transformation. This is true strength. Calculation? Judgment? Mind games? No. Under these eyes, all of that is as fragile as a blank sheet of paper."
"No. No, that's wrong."
Shinkawa shook his head hard.
"This isn't what I wanted to challenge..."
"What did you want to challenge? Did you want me to play those little Sword Skill versus Sword Skill games with you like before?"
Satoru looked at him from the corner of his eye.
"No. Better yet, how about this? Carry through the style I once used. Think of yourself as Yurnero, and then... think of me as Didos."
"Because that was the most brutal battle Yurnero ever faced."
He was still smiling.
"Good. Swing your sword. Until I drive you to your death, or until I am satisfied. Until then, you are not allowed to stop."
"Bring all that insecurity, all that confusion, all those clever little tactics of yours, and try to beat someone stronger than you with that weakness of yours."
"Hahahahahaha!"
Before Shinkawa's eyes, the friend who had always left only his back for him to see had disappeared completely.
The only companion he had found on this road was gone.
Then who was he supposed to turn to now?
Now that he had become a murderer.
He let out a heart-rending howl and charged at Satoru, who was still laughing madly.