Kirito took a deep breath and looked around the lobby room for the participants of BoB and shivered when she saw some people. As much as she was confident in her abilities, seeing some of the massive people from other countries was intimidating to her. If any were as agile as her, she might be in trouble, needing to outsmart them. But she was younger and had less experience than a potential soldier from another country who had years of experience.
They weren't just playing a game anymore. It wasn't just a fun gaming tournament. It was a tournament with real money on the line and skilled people who poured hundreds of hours minimum into the game. It was daunting. Her confidence needed to be kept in check so that she wouldn't underestimate her enemies.
She considered the option of just hiding the entire time and waiting for most of the enemy to pick each other off, but she needed to find the criminal who was killing people in real life.
Up to date on what the situation was regarding the criminals, it turned out they had given themselves certain rules. The first rule was that they would only kill in real life if they were the ones to kill the target within the game. It would synchronize up so that the death in the game happens at the same time, so they had accomplices outside. The second rule was that the kill had to appear as if they were killed by the game, so it would have to be some internal damage that kills them. The third and final rule, was up in the air at the moment but Ela suggested paying attention to the weapons that the fighters use. To pay attention for something personal when they clearly have easier options.
Kikuoka's team had watchers at every participant's dive location they could find. There were a few people who couldn't be tracked down in time but in that case, Kirito and Shiro just needed to track six of the participants. One of the participants would likely be the killer, while the other five would be potential victims. They had to keep in mind that the criminal had time to plan it out.
Kirito was keeping herself as sharp as possible in her observation, trying to figure out if she could find the person who had already revealed themselves to her. The most likely criminal who had revealed himself to her during the preliminaries wasn't visible. He could be taking another appearance though. She was paying attention to the six participants who were potential targets or the criminal for height or size, but she wasn't sure of herself because there was avatar modding. She had to hope that the criminal had pride in their avatar to not change it for the tournament. She couldn't imagine someone altering their size at all for a tournament though. They would want to perform at their absolute best.
The countdown started. Five minutes worth of seconds in the countdown. It was a little overkill. It blinked after a few seconds and it was only sixty seconds until they would be thrown into the BoB battlefield. Every participant was already there. Perhaps they were giving some time to make last minute mental preparation. Not much else could be done in the room within a minute.
"Who are we scouting?"
Kirito sent a private message to Shiro for the answer. She was going after three targets. A tall man about the right height with a German name. She had given it some thought and there might be the possibility that someone might change their account name. The other two targets were a slightly different height Asian man with mixed heritage from his appearance, and another man with the same height but was covered head to toe in sleek silver armour.
Shiro nodded and responded to the private message.
"I'll take the other three then. Let me know if you find one of mine and I'll tell you where yours are if I find yours before you."
With a nod back and forth, they were whisked away to the battlefield. Kirito found herself placed into a spot between a river and a forest. She ducked and dove into the river when she almost immediately felt eyes on her from somewhere high up. Her intuition was incredible. A bullet barely missed her, gouging a huge chunk of the ground out where she stood. She splashed into the water and churned the soft muddy riverbed to obscure herself from view further. It would be a waste of bullets to keep firing at her so she was safe for a bit at least.
She hurriedly unequipped her gear minus short clothes, basically underwear so she could swim uninhibited, and equipped her oxygen mask so she could breathe while under the water for a few minutes safely and continued along the river, checking her map for where everyone spawned. She made her way along the river in the direction of the man with the German name. She doubted he would be there, but as she was getting closer, she decided she should enter hidden status just in case the German named person was also using the river for travel. She emerged from the water and equipped her dry equipment to remove her wet status. She checked the ground for movement. Like a hunter, she was tracking her prey.
The person with the German name had moved to the east, away from the river after spawning in. That also put him going after her other target aside the one with the full body of silver attire. Optimal situation for her, she could determine two people's positions right away. Whether they were the criminal or not.
She removed her hidden status and muffled her footsteps so she could save more hidden time later as she progressed through forest. She followed the footsteps of her prey until she found a good sniping location. She didn't use a sniper rifle, but her bow would be more than enough to guide her vision. She drew her bow without an arrow and followed the edge of it with her eyes. After a few seconds, she saw the movement of the person who spawned into the area as he moved around. He was using defensive, evasive patterns. He was zigzagging and shooting at certain points. She followed where he was aiming and saw the trajectory for where he was aiming showed the german named player in prone aiming a sniper rifle. He was well hidden but apparently not well enough. She didn't want either to die right away, so she readied an arrow and loosed it so it would throw both of them off.
After her arrow both sent the runner scurrying and the sniper running out of his hiding place, she took a deep breath and went into hiding. She knew they would try and get her for her interference. She bled into the surrounding dark forest and waited for the right time. She held her bow down with another arrow in hand, but she watched them. The sniper got further away but she saw him slowing down. She swiftly brought her bow up, aimed for a second and loosed an arrow sure and true into the back of the sniper's elbow, blowing the bottom part of his right leg off. The runner started firing blindly in her direction as he got closer, only to get close enough to her melee range that she dismembered his right leg. She left them debilitated and waited for some kind of reaction other than screaming. She bled back into the shadows and noticed that there were drones flying in the area, likely broadcasting the spectacle of the tournament's fights to any audiences. She didn't want to leave a bad impression, so she left the drones alone. Leaving them debilitated and scaring them would be enough. She wouldn't be seen by them, that she was confident. Enough that she wouldn't be seen by the opponents in the area. She didn't need to use her hiding ability.
She wondered what kind of commentary there would be on the current situation. Perhaps she was being called a villain of some sort, slinking off after leaving her enemies temporarily crippled. Their bodies wouldn't be fixed during the duration of the event, so they might just cut themselves off because such wounds were absolutely unable to be worked with. Especially the leg injury. The runner who had been getting closer to her revealed that the second option for the situation was very much possible. He screamed and cussed and pointed his gun at his neck before pulling the trigger. She looked away to the sniper to avoid seeing the gruesome sight and as the explosion of the rifle ended him she was surprised to see he was gone.
She kept her footsteps muffled and moved on to a new location. She wanted to go after the other target she had, hoping that she would come across the sniper who had escaped. But she wanted to check if she could hide herself from the next update of the map. Along the way to her third target, two of Shiro's targets were in the path. She would look out for them as well to notify him.
The forest had a lot of obstacles and ruins she could make use of. She wondered if there was a cave within the forest she could duck into in order to avoid being caught by the satellite. She was closer to the river than any visible caves to hide in, so she went back to the river. She hoped the river would hide her from the satellite scan like a cave might, so she got back down to her underwear and hiding herself so anyone nearby wouldn't be able to sense her if there was anyone nearby. She heard footsteps as she was slipping into the water and she looked around as her head was the only part of her not submerged. There was a tall American man with short hair who wasn't one of their targets.
"You think I can't tell you're here."
She ducked into the water the rest of the way and watched both him and the map as the satellite passed overhead. She was able to confirm that the satellite scan did in fact not pick up her presence. She watched as the big man checked his map only to not see her picked up on the map. He walked to the river and shot several bullets in a spray into the middle. Thankfully she was still right up against the bank of the river. The bullets passed by her and sunk to the bottom of the river harmlessly.
The man stared with dead eyes into the water, sensing that she was still there. It was also possible to tell if she moved by the movement of the river. She had to stay still enough to convince him that she wasn't there for long enough. She had about three minutes left with the oxygen mask, and she knew she could hold her breath for a little under two minutes. She hoped she wouldn't need to exhaust her air supply waiting for him to leave, but then she was relieved to hear his muffled voice through the water.
"Maybe I'm seeing things. Nobody could be still enough for that long to escape me seeing them move. I need to make up for lost time."
He headed north along the river, away from her and she waited until he was far enough away she would be safe to emerge. She was careful about it, drawing her bow while in the river, gaining footing in the water by burying her bare feet in the slick, sticky mud at the bottom of the river. She took aim and readied her arrow, lining her finger and the tip of the arrow just right that it would land in the back of his head. She had a premonition just before she was about to unleash her arrow that he would be able to dodge. The idea in her mind that he would just dodge it so easily made her do one last preemptive action. She moved so that she would silently be able to poke her whole arrow above the water and used her silencing skill on her arrow before loosing it. The arrow flew true, piercing straight through his head from the back. His head suffered an exploding animation and he body slumped down gruesomely. He was too much of a risk to leave to Shiro. He was skilled, but in a head on fight she knew Shiro wasn't up to it. She could tell from that small encounter just how dangerous some people's intuition and skills were. If she wasn't as careful, she might have been seen more obviously in the water and he might have gone until he saw the death notification from her body. If his gun was aimed closer to her though, she would have sliced his legs off. She imagined that she only had the one chance to get him for certain though, the one she took.
Kirito emerged from the water, steadied her breathing as she moved for cover again and switched back to dry clothes. She was on the other side from where she had been and was moving west, toward her third target but also kept in mind that Shiro's targets were spotted by the satellite still in the same line. One of her targets had committed suicide. It was possible that the one who offed himself was the criminal, but she had to hold out hope that the other five targets were possibilities.
Kirito suddenly had a thought as she heard another gun shot from nearby. She ducked and hid and whispered to herself silently enough that if Ela was listening, only she would be able to hear her.
"What's the chance that our criminal would be not one of our 6 targets? That he was just someone else in the tournament?"
"Low."
Kirito smirked.
"So not impossible. How do names translate in other languages. I know English enough thanks to your classes, but how about the other languages?"
Ela took a minute and Kirito moved on to another hiding spot, spotting Shiro's targets fighting each other. She sent him a message telling her position and continued forward so they wouldn't meet.
"Have the list for you. I'm guessing your messaging won't accept anything from outside right now?"
"If it will send it might ping me for cheating so let's not. Read it out for me please."
Ela began reading off the names of all the translated foreign names. One of her targets, the one with a German name, translated to "medical death" essentially. Kirito trembled in anger at herself as she heard the rest of the names being listed off. None of the rest of the names hit like that one. The name didn't mean anything to her personally and wasn't used by an SAO player, but she was convinced that he was the one.
"Thank you for that. Wish me luck."
Ela was whispering into her ear some more, frantically asking what Kirito figured out.
"I let him go. He was the sniper in my first encounter. The German name translating to medical death."
Ela sighed.
"You can get him, he's fighting again right now. Want me to tell you which direction?"
She shook her head.
"No cheating. Thanks for the help."
That's where the connection cut off and she looked back at where Shiro's targets were fighting each other, only to see her target jump in, aiming a handgun at the head of the taller of Shiro's targets.
She didn't even think, seeing him approach. She charged in swiftly, drawing her bow and readying an arrow, loosing it at the man's shoulder. He fired off a shot which missed thanks to her arrow popping the man between them in the shoulder. He fell over and she sprinted over, slicing a sword through his neck and continuing on to her true target.
"Not yet."
The familiar voice chilled her to the bone. She froze for a second. It was long enough to kill her on a battlefield, but she thankfully shook herself from the freezing before the other of Shiro's targets placed a bullet in her.
Semi automatic rounds blared out from behind Kirito, ripping Shiro's target in half along the waist.
"Are you okay, Kirito?"
She nodded, hearing the comforting sound of Shiro's voice.
"Don't let this other guy get away. He's our culprit. If we don't get him here, please tell Ela-san to inform the police on who it is."
Shiro nodded when she took a glance to him.
"Not yet!"
Their culprit threw down a smoke bomb and escaped. Kirito didn't want to give up on him, but after slicing everywhere he could have escaped with her blade, not meeting her blade against anything solid, she gave up.
"Guess we're going to thin the numbers. He didn't leave foot prints, didn't leave anything to track him with."
Logically he would have headed to another participant of the tournament, and the nearest on the map was to the south.
"I've updated Ela-san. So, are we splitting up again? Fighting each other? Or are we teaming up?"
Kirito took a deep breath and thought about it for a few seconds.
"We'll split up. We should be in the final three with him. We'll go after him when there's less than ten people left and trail him. If we can't find him, we'll lure and camp him together. I'll have more of a plan when we team back up."
Shiro nodded and waited for Kirito to head off in another direction. Kirito headed to the north and Shiro nodded before heading to the south.
