A reason, a purpose.
A road forward. A way back.
Those were probably the things he should have brought into this battle. But once he started fighting Satoru, all of that fell away. What remained in his heart was something much simpler.
Thrill.
It was not only toward the man in front of him. It was also toward the man preserved in his memories. This person, both enemy and friend, made him feel alive simply by crossing blades and bullets with him.
He realized he still had this much strength left.
And he accepted it.
That feeling was gentle, almost forgiving, and all the harder to break. Perhaps that was why it had tempted him to keep running.
But what was so wrong with that?
If this was what Shouichi Shinkawa's life had come to, if he had already buried his last way out beneath stone, if all he could do now was lower his head and charge toward a future that no longer existed...
Then let him release every stupid thing he had carried right here, in this place.
"Satoru..."
The soul beneath the ragged cloak and skull mask let out a rising roar.
"This time, I'm going to win!"
Then let this miserable victory be the only memorial Shouichi Shinkawa would ever get.
"Then give me everything you've got!" Satoru answered, his voice burning with the same emotion. "See if you can finally take one win from me!"
Their words seemed to collide in the air.
In the next instant, uninterrupted gunfire tore through the murky space between them. The two men roared as if trying to cough out every last false breath left in their avatars, then slammed into each other.
Night had deepened. Under the pale moonlight, everything seemed veiled in dull, ashen gauze.
Their guns fired almost directly in front of each other's faces. Both snapped their heads aside in the same instant, dodging the bullets that thundered from the muzzles. At this range, waiting for the Bullet Line would mean having a bullet in your skull already. All they could do was read the muzzle and trust instinct.
The hands holding their guns smashed forward, using the grips like pommels to knock the other's weapon aside and break his balance, then twisting back in the next breath to pull the trigger again.
The Black Star pistol and the Peacemaker revolver became clubs in their hands, while the bullets scattering sparks between them became blades that never came back.
Rounds powerful enough to tear huge chunks from an HP bar were fired again and again at point-blank range. Yet each one only scraped past a sleeve, a cheek, the edge of a coat. Bullets burst outward at vicious angles around the two laughing men, and red damage effects sprayed from both their bodies.
Shinkawa was giving everything he had.
Satoru was holding nothing back either.
They poured every bit of strength and experience they had gained in GGO into the fight.
A full magazine fired at point-blank range could erase an HP bar even from a handgun. But after several lightning-fast exchanges, both health bars only crept downward, neither giving way. Most of the damage came from glancing hits caught at the very edge of a dodge.
Satoru's Peacemaker emptied first.
No matter how well he handled it, a revolver only held six shots.
Shinkawa had been waiting for that moment. The instant the sixth round left the cylinder, he swung his left arm and brought the Black Star in front of Satoru's forehead.
Rip.
The metal katana in Satoru's right hand slashed toward Shinkawa's neck at the same time.
He was trading life for life.
That cut had already begun before the sixth Peacemaker round fired. A thin rapier, with no broad edge to turn into a shield, could not block it properly.
Shinkawa jerked backward, bending his neck out of the way. The katana passed only a few centimeters in front of his throat, and because his balance broke, the Black Star's bullet tore past the space beside Satoru's ear.
Offense was defense.
If the enemy showed no opening, then attack until one appeared. Force the chance to turn the fight around.
That was this man's style.
Shinkawa gritted his teeth.
Satoru closed in at once and swung the katana. A blade could not match the speed of a bullet, so he would not keep fighting from two or three body lengths away while Shinkawa still had ammunition. He had to force him into close-quarters combat, where the rapier mattered more than the gun.
The gun smoke had not yet scattered in the night wind before the flashing silver katana cut through it again and again.
But Shinkawa did not take the bait. He retreated as Satoru advanced, still firing the Black Star. Two bullets checked the katana's forward momentum, and Satoru barely knocked the shots away by staring into the muzzle and judging the line of fire.
He was not the same as the man Shinkawa had faced at the beginning.
He could no longer swing that terrifying, unbreakable blade as freely as he pleased.
At this range, stopping those two bullets had taken every bit of game experience he had as the gunman Samuro, every scrap of concentration in his body. Even then, he only just managed it.
In raw strength, he could not compare to the man from a dozen minutes ago.
But this version of him, the one whose thoughts ran ahead of his movements, building victory step by step while still attacking with mad aggression...
This was the one Shinkawa truly wanted to defeat.
Shinkawa fired a third round, and his rapier struck like a venomous snake.
"Tch...!"
Satoru's movement caught for an instant. His katana barely stopped the shot, and he could already feel the cold of that carefully prepared rapier thrust closing in.
He threw away the empty Peacemaker with his left hand and reached for his waist.
He still had Blue Rose. He had maxed Quick Draw too. He could draw and fire in the space of a heartbeat.
But.
A numbing sting shot through his left wrist.
GGO was not designed with real pain, but there was still sensation when an attack landed. Maybe it was only psychological, but the numbness carried a burning ache with it.
"I aimed for the hand you'd draw with!"
Shinkawa's rapier drove straight through Satoru's left palm.
He was not rushing for victory. He was eating away at his opponent's resistance, shaving down every chance of a reversal bit by bit, then pushing his own victory as close to certain as possible.
For a moment, Satoru saw his past self in front of him.
"There!"
Shinkawa's low roar followed as he raised the Black Star in his left hand.
One bullet remained.
"I finally got past you!"
The fourth bullet.
This time, the odds of blocking it were far too low. Without Fluctlight, at this distance, and without knowing whether Shinkawa would adjust the shot, even a hit anywhere on his body would tilt their remaining HP so far apart that the fight might as well be decided.
Even if the sword duel stayed even after that, finding an opening would be nearly impossible.
Trying to draw Blue Rose later would probably be used against him too. If he made the intention too obvious, he would only create another gap.
Or what if this shot went for his forehead?
Satoru's eyes widened as every factor tangled together in his mind.
If those eyes of his had still been open, his brain might have sorted every line clearly and offered the best countermeasure. He might not even have needed to think. Just seeing the bullet's slow speed would have been enough.
Seriously...
Was I always this strong?
A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Then he kicked the Peacemaker he had just dropped up from the ground.
When things get troublesome, throw a little nonsense at them and leave the rest to luck.
That was another lesson he had learned long ago.
Bang.
The Black Star fired.
But the bullet veered off course, missing Satoru's hair by a hair's breadth.
"..."
Shinkawa froze for an instant. His gaze was dragged toward the Peacemaker, which had bounced up, struck his hand, and fallen back to the sand.
"Looks like you still haven't learned all my moves."
Satoru thrust the katana straight at him.
"You really are stubborn..."
Shinkawa drew his rapier back, parried several katana strikes, and retreated without hesitation.
Under Satoru's gaze, his retreating figure became almost ghostlike. Faint electromagnetic sparks flickered across his whole body, and then he vanished silently into the air.
"That ragged cloak has a concealment effect...?"
Satoru froze for a moment, then looked at the ground.
The soft sand took a footprint from even the lightest step. In this environment, hiding made little sense. At most, it could conceal the motion of an attack.
But the footprints were racing away from him.
Satoru jolted.
He immediately picked up the Peacemaker from the ground, reloaded it with practiced ease, and aimed at the scattering tracks moving away at high speed.
Following footprints alone made accuracy uncertain. So that was why Shinkawa had triggered the concealment item.
In the end, Satoru pulled the trigger with more luck than confidence. The Peacemaker fired precisely in the direction he had chosen and hit nothing.
But Shinkawa's figure appeared on its own.
He had already leapt forward, picked up a jet-black firearm from the ground, rolled across the sand, and dropped directly into a prone firing stance.
"I... am a sniper in this world, after all."
Shinkawa pressed his eye to the scope.
The pitch-black weapon beneath him, Silent Assassin, seemed almost eager.
Satoru immediately kicked off and sprinted toward him at full speed.
As he was now, he could just barely deal with handgun bullets.
But a sniper round from that weapon, fired at something close to the game's speed limit, was different.
There was no way he could block it.
Satoru gritted his teeth and drove every point of AGI in his avatar to the limit.
He had to reach him before Shinkawa fired and pierce him through.
...
Samuro...
Sinon called that name silently.
Their exchange had been so fierce that attack, defense, advantage, and disadvantage all shifted in a single thought. She could not fully follow the details. But watching him race like an arrow toward Death Gun, who had Silent Assassin raised toward him, she understood that this was the final instant.
To keep his speed at its highest, he was not even dodging.
He was charging straight at Death Gun like the edge of a blade.
One of two things would happen.
Either his lightning-fast rush would drive the katana through Death Gun and pin him to the sand, or Death Gun's sniper shot would destroy him outright.
There were only those two outcomes left.
Nothing else could change it now.
But Death Gun, that skeletal man in the ragged cloak, had reached a height as a sniper that even Sinon felt she could never touch. Against an enemy charging straight toward him at high speed, he would almost certainly hit.
If it were him, though...
If it were the man who could even cut down Hecate II's bullets, surely he could cut down a straight-on sniper shot too.
And yet, for some reason, Sinon's body stayed tense.
When had that arrogant man, the one who had forced his way all the way into the finals, lost that unstoppable pressure?
He was already giving everything he had, wasn't he?
Before she even realized it, she had worked the bolt.
Hecate II answered with a steady, reliable weight. Her muzzle was already trained on Death Gun where he lay prone. In the darkness, she could see those flickering red eyes.
This time, there was no suffocating fear.
No hallucination of that man's shadow of death.
Her finger was already on the trigger, and she thought she could hear Hecate II cheering faintly.
A sniper's first shot was supposed to be unseen.
But inside Sinon's widened field of vision, Death Gun, who had been staring straight ahead, suddenly froze. His crimson eyes lifted, locking onto Sinon atop the distant tower.
The distance was far too great for their eyes to meet.
And yet through the scope, it felt as if they were looking at each other face-to-face.
Instinct?
Coincidence?
He should not have had any way to notice her.
But in the next instant, Death Gun had already turned sideways and raised Silent Assassin's barrel toward her position.
Fine.
The blood-red Bullet Line extending from his muzzle touched Sinon's forehead.
Then we settle it as snipers.
Before her reticle had even finished closing, she pulled the trigger.
Boom.
At the exact same moment, Death Gun's rifle flashed too. Sinon pulled her face away from the scope and watched with her own eyes as the bullet she had fired and the enemy round flew toward each other, their paths almost perfectly overlapping.
For a split second, she thought the bullets might collide.
Instead, something like a miracle happened.
The rounds, about to touch, slipped apart by the slightest margin and passed each other on paths separated by only a hair.
Clang.
A heavy impact rang in her ears. The large scope mounted on Hecate II shattered into fragments. If her right eye had still been pressed to it, she probably would have died. Death Gun's bullet grazed her right shoulder and vanished behind her.
At almost the same time, Hecate II's round also missed its killing line and smashed into Silent Assassin's receiver.
A small flame burst from Death Gun's wrist. Silent Assassin exploded into polygon fragments that scattered through the air. Its stock, scope, and other parts spilled across the sand. Even if some pieces could be reused, the destroyed mechanical components would never return.
That rare Silent Assassin sniper rifle was destroyed.
From far away, Sinon watched with delayed anxiety and a strange ache in her chest as Satoru, now only a stretched shadow, leapt high into the air.
Like a predator striking, he drove the katana in his hand straight through Death Gun's chest.
The impact sent both of them tumbling several meters backward.
...
The skull mask had long since shattered on the ground, revealing the boy's still-delicate face.
Only gentleness remained on those features. The determination and ferocity that had always lived in his eyes slowly faded together with the blade through his chest, leaving a calm as still as water.
He was pinned to the sand, the katana run straight through him.
Shinkawa silently looked up at the stars directly overhead, paying no attention to his steadily falling HP bar.
"It really is a beautiful night sky..."
He spoke slowly.
Footsteps sounded beside him, and Satoru crouched down at his side.
"You won... Satoru," he said.
"I should have lost," Satoru murmured.
"Heh. Haha... Hahaha."
Shinkawa laughed softly at that.
"Even if it wasn't entirely your doing... that extra shot, that decisive sniper round from nowhere, may be something I could never learn or imitate no matter what."
"So this is the end. Eventually, I'll be tried and sent to a real prison. When I think about that, the Black Iron Palace almost feels more comforting."
Shinkawa kept gazing at the night sky.
"Shinkawa..."
"Don't look at me like that. If you make a mistake, you face the punishment. We're not kids anymore. We can't keep lowering our heads and running into dead-end alleys like we used to."
"It's strange. I lost to you before too, so why... why do I feel relieved this time?"
"Sorry. I don't know what to say." Satoru looked down at the man on the ground with a complicated expression. "I don't know how to answer that either."
"You already did," Shinkawa said calmly. "We just have to go home, don't we?"
Satoru placed his hand over the back of Shinkawa's.
"Yeah. Let's go home and sleep properly."
"Didos," Shinkawa said suddenly. "Even after he died fighting you, I never deleted him from my friend list. Not even when you ended the world."
"With people like you, even I don't know whether, in my heart, you were friends or opponents."
"I feel the same," Satoru said after a pause.
"Looking at all of you is like looking at my past self."
Maybe we were all the same.
I was simply the only one she chose.
The Mental Health Counseling Program had originally been created to care for and support every surviving player in Aincrad.
But in the end, for some reason, she chose only me.
For me, of course, that was an enormous blessing.
But in another sense, I may have taken your salvation from you.
Didos.
You.
Both of you were like...
Satoru, if he had never met her.
Shinkawa had already closed his eyes.
"The sound of the waves at Santorini... and gentle sunlight."
He smiled quietly, as if seeing something, or hearing it.
It was almost as if he could see that shameless old man on the beach with his arm around the girl.
"If that's so, then I can make that my road too."
Under Satoru's gaze, Shinkawa, Death Gun's virtual body, slowly broke apart.
It was not only the avatar that died.
Shinkawa himself forcibly severed the connection.
He was going to face Shouichi Shinkawa, the person behind the avatar, head-on.
He was finally stepping out of the alley Satoru had spoken of, even if no future waited outside.
Satoru stood in silence. He glanced at his HP bar, now down to a quarter, and walked west across the desert with his avatar covered in bloodstains.
After a few hundred meters, a slender figure entered his sight.
A light-blue-haired girl holding a large rifle with its scope gone.
For the first time, she smiled at him.
A smile with every defense stripped away.
The purest smile.
It felt so familiar.
Like that day, when he returned and saw the girl who had waited all night for him beneath the inn.
The corner of Satoru's mouth twitched.
In the end, he could not stop himself from smiling.