Quick note: This fanfic takes place in a universe where Kirito and Asuna only remained as friends, hope you enjoy!
Thud. The bullet coming from my sniper rifle landed 10 meters from its desired target causing the monster to panic and flee. I quickly pulled the bolt on my bolt action sniper back and forth to reload in order to get another shot, but by the time my eyes were back on the field the monster had disappeared into the horizon.
"Good job," Sinon teased as she observed my skills with a sniper rifle. Looking backwards I could see her with a thumbs up and a sly smile on her face. I was lying down on my stomach in prone position on top of a desert cliff looking out into a large field of plains in front of me. The plains were mostly barren except for small patches of vegetation that were placed strategically in order to attract low-level monsters for beginners to practice on.
"This isn't exactly easy," I muttered, already scanning for my next target. I had bought a real beginner's sniper rifle to practice; it didn't deal a lot of damage, but that compensated by it being one of the easiest snipers to manage in the game. The price also made it impossible to make any profit on.
"Keep trying, you'll get the hang of it," Sinon commented as she sat down not too far away from me. Was she trying to break my concentration? This whole thing was her idea to begin with. One day she told me that she needed a spotter to help her with missions and I agreed since the job sounded easy enough. All a spotter needs to do is look for targets, right? Sadly not.
"How long will that take?" I grumbled still waiting for either a respawn or for a monster to wander into one of the patches of vegetation.
"That depends on how comfortable you get with the rife and how you handle it. You need to remember the basics: adjust your scope, compensate for how the bullet drops, be mindful of the wind and no matter what keep your cool," Sinon suggested, repeating the words she had already covered a few times. It sounded so easy when she said it, but it felt impossible to actually do. Somehow my respect for her had been gradually increasing throughout this entire trip.
"There!" I sharply whispered and, maintaining my calm, pulled back the trigger making sure to follow through. The unsuspecting monster that had suddenly appeared in my line of sight was the perfect target. Thud. Kicking up sand, my bullet landed about 8 meters from the target. I was improving.
"That's better, but you still need to get a lot more practice before I can use you in combat," Sinon once again commented, her face almost devoid of emotion at the moment.
"I think I'm doing okay for my first day of training," I told her, my focus remaining on the field.
"That would be true to someone who was normal, but you're special so you should be able to pick up on these things faster. We've already almost spent the entire day training," Sinon sighed. She seemed dissatisfied at how fast the day had gone by.
"No one ever decided I was special. Besides, you can't complain about my progress since you spent the entire morning discussing sniper rifles with me so we were late getting out into the field," I reminded her. Going with Sinon anywhere that had guns, especially sniper rifles, could become dangerous since she was such a gun fanatic. The entire morning and first hour that we were supposed to be training was spent with her going over the many statistics and history of sniper rifles. These kinds of things tended to go in one ear and out the other with me, not to say it was annoying or anything. It was great to see her so happy and with the same smile that I saw on her when I first met her in this land of oil and sweat.
"I-It's not my fault that I get excited when it comes to guns," Sinon said and swiftly turned her head to its side. It was kind of cute looking at her like this.
"I think it's time to take a break," I sighed getting up and falling back on my hands which created small puffs of dirt and dust behind me.
"Already?" Sinon questioned. I looked over to my side where she was sitting and saw that she had raised an eyebrow at me like she was genuinely surprised at me not wanting to continue.
"What do you mean 'already'? We've been training all day! My arms already hurt from sniping so much," I complained, trying to make up some excuse to cover my unwillingness to continue.
"With that sniper rifle and the pain absorption level in this place that should be impossible," Sinon commented matter-of-factly.
"Well they're still tired," I continued.
"Okay, okay. I'll let you off easy today," Sinon sighed, but failed to suppress the smile that came immediately afterward. She then joined me by falling back on her hands, too, creating similar, miniature clouds of dirt and dust behind her.
"Thank you," I replied, breathing an air of peace.
"Tomorrow we'll start your actual spotter training," Sinon told me, already undoubtedly formulating a new training plan in her head.
"Then what was this?" I asked Sinon. I thought this was the spotter training.
"Well a spotter and sniper need to both be able to exchange roles in case one gets tired or if the situation calls for it, so you could say that part of being a spotter is being a sniper and vice versa. I had you train as a sniper before teaching you about spotter responsibilities because I wanted you to be familiar with the sniper rifle and how it works so spotting would be easier or at least seem more comfortable," Sinon lectured. In through one ear and out the other.
"So what does a spotter do, then?" I asked her. Maybe I could at least get the basics down before we got into more training tomorrow.
"To put it simply a spotter detects, observes, and assigns targets for the sniper. Afterward he watches for the results of the shot and makes corrections accordingly. With the sniper he'll make calculations for distance, angle shooting, mil dot related calculations, corrections for atmospheric conditions and leads for moving targets. You might also want to bring a notepad or something with you," Sinon said like she was trying to explain basic math to me.
"Just two questions. What are mil dot related calculations and do you really expect me to be able to do this?" I asked Sinon and hoped I didn't sound too stupid to her.
"Are you good at math?" Sinon replied with her own question.
"I would rather not talk about my skills in math," I looked away and muttered prompting Sinon to giggle. I can only imagine the look that was on my face.
"Don't worry, I can tutor you if it comes to that. You know I don't expect you to know all of this right away, right? I wouldn't be surprised if it took you a week or longer to learn this," Sinon reassured me. A week of this…I'm not sure how to feel about that.
"I hope it doesn't come to that," I honestly replied. I don't think I'm bad enough at math to need a tutor.
"Normally a spotter would also need an assault or battle rifle like an M-16 or M-4 to deal with any close range fighting but-" Sinon started to explain, but was interrupted by me.
"-But I have my photon sword so I don't need to carry any extra weaponry," I said finishing Sinon's sentence for her.
"Exactly," Sinon said, seemingly slightly miffed at me cutting her off.
"So why does the best sniper in all of Gun Gale Online need a spotter? I've never seen you working with one before and you seem to do more than okay without one," I asked her, making sure to compliment her so she would forgive me for cutting her off. At my question the atmosphere seemed to change a little to a darker, more uncomfortable tone.
"My last spotter was Spiegel…" Sinon trailed off, staring into the distance. Shinkawa Kyouji, a.k.a. Spiegel, was a major contributor in the Death Gun plot. He was someone who had hurt Sinon and therefore he was someone I could never forgive, no matter how hard I tried.
"Oh…" I simply said and mentally scolded myself for not being able to say something else, anything else that might've helped. We sat in a small eerie silence after that for about half a minute until Sinon spoke up again.
"You're actually really good with rifles so you should pick this up really soon. Remember when you saved me from Death Gun in the BoB?" Sinon asked, already changing the tone back to what it was before, but keeping a serious undertone at the same time.
"That was different. I was under a lot of stress and those were lucky shots," I argued.
"That still shows that you have the capability to be really skilled with a sniper rifle. There is no such thing as lucky shots in Gun Gale Online," Sinon counter-argued.
"Maybe I'll live up to your expectations one day," I joked, but Sinon seemed to be elsewhere. She was staring really hard into the sky now.
"Have you noticed?" Sinon asked, seemingly mesmerized by the sky at this point.
"Noticed what?" I asked pointing my gaze toward the area she was staring at. All I saw was an empty sky; not a cloud in sight. At first I thought she might've been taking about something flying through the air or suspended in the air, but her tone dismissed the possibility. She was calm and relaxed, not surprised or focused.
"There's a sunset happening right now," Sinon pointed out. She was right. The sun had set the sky and world alight in a brilliant yellowish-orange hue. I had somehow failed to notice this before. I wonder how long she's seen it for? As I looked toward her direction I noticed that she was proudly smiling into the sky with a look of peace on her face.
"It looks amazing," I said, also captivated by the sunset. Sunsets weren't a foreign concept to me at all, but this one seemed to be. This was a sunset unlike every other one I had ever seen before. It just felt…different. The feeling was one that I couldn't describe as anything other than a weird sensation in my gut. For some reason it made me nervous.
"The reason I brought you out here wasn't just because I needed a new spotter," Sinon admitted. While talking her eyes never left the sky and the gradually sinking ball of fire.
"What do you mean?" I asked her. What other motive could you have for bringing someone along for training other than to train them? At first she hesitated to speak, but eventually words came out of her mouth.
"I wanted some time alone with you, away from all the others," Sinon admitted, almost stopping herself halfway, but continuing on with some difficulty. After speaking she turned to face me, probably to check my reaction to her words, and I noticed that she still had the look of peace on her face. I also noticed that her eyes had the smallest glimmer to them. Suddenly I became aware of the fact that we were close enough to be touching shoulders. I could feel a tinge of red top my cheeks.
"Why?" I simply asked. My head had blanked out on me and that was all I could muster to say. As we looked at each other I realised just how close her face, a girl's face, was to mine. Instead of being captivated by the still ongoing sunset I found myself entrapped by her face in front of mine. My cheeks were now fully flushed and I could feel my heart heavily pounding against my chest. Even my feet started to feel colder as I started to become even more nervous.
"Because I love you," Sinon, without any hesitation, answered my simple question with four equally simple words, but her words carried a million things at once. As opposed to what some people might believe there was no yelling, crying or anything else happening. Only silence as her words left to hang in the air. They were words that left me speechless, but at the same time filled me with a new type of joy that I had never experienced before. Slowly she moved her hand and held it against my cheek. After she didn't feel any resistance from me she slowly started moving her head towards mine and guiding my head towards hers with the hand firmly held against my cheek. Slowly both of our eyes closed and our lips met. It was a strange sensation to be kissing someone. The entire act was just two people placing their lips against each other, but what happened was so much more. The kiss spread warmth throughout my body and caused my head to go completely blank. It was something unimaginable. After a while our lips parted and we both slowly pulled our heads backwards and opened our eyes. The kiss had lasted anywhere between a second to eternity. The sunset was now close to over, but I could see in what light remained that Sinon's face was also red and she appeared to be as shocked as me at what had just happened.
"W-Was that your first kiss?" Sinon asked now quickly looking away in embarrassment. I guess now that the rush of the moment was over she couldn't believe what she had done.
"Y-Yeah. You?" I asked quickly looking down in embarrassment of the words that had just come out of my mouth.
"T-The same." Sinon muttered still keeping her gaze away from mine. What happened afterwards was probably as you would expect. We stayed quiet taking comfort in each other's company until we both had to log out to go to sleep in real life. Throughout the entire period of silence, though, one thing was clear in my mind: sniping spots make the best places to watch sunsets.
After notes: After writing this I realized that my build up was probably too short and ineffective, the same mistake as my previous SAO fanfic, but this was how the scene played out in my head so I chose to keep it. An explanation from Sinon's point of view: Her original intent was to get closer to Kirito and since she also needed a replacement spotter she decided to kill two birds with one stone. The situation was going as planned until she became entranced by the sunset, which she took as a sign to make a move forward in her relationship with Kirito. Trapped by the ever escalating moment she kissed him before even she knew what was happening. Once again a big thank you to Agent 94.