Kirito took a deep breath and settled in after the encounter in a hollow where some rubble was on the way to the north. She would be going to the heart of the destroyed city environment they were using for the tournament. There were a dozen people in the city after the first scan, and the second scan was coming up shortly. She contemplated sitting out in the hollow until the scan would go off, but after checking the map, it would take a few minutes still for it to pass overhead. She wanted to get to the last of her targets before he got to them.
She took a quick hidden glance at her surroundings and muffled her movements before removing the hidden effect and moving on through the rubble of the ruined city toward the middle, using every bit of cover she came across while paying attention to the map timer for the next scan. When the scan timer ticked passed, she wasn't recorded on the map since she had managed to get into a basement not seen from the sky through a collapsed building.
Before she had the chance to relax, she heard gunfire deafening loud in the surroundings. The collision of bullets sprayed dust and debris around her and she realized she got lucky. She almost went to hide herself but a second glance at the surroundings showed she was in a room with three other people. She had a grim feeling she had already lost.
"Bind her."
She looked at the three in surprise and wondered why they wouldn't just shoot her. Why they would say to bind her. She noticed as the other two aside the one who gave the command drew closer that there were a couple of drones in the area, cameras to show the audience of the tournament high activity locations.
They wouldn't do terrible things, but three people in one spot might have been enough to attract the attention of the drone.
"Why are we binding her?"
Kirito noticed something she had blocked out just as the second person chimed in. She was only taking in small details about her surroundings, not the more obvious information she could pick up after a bit of observation. The leader of the trio was someone familiar. One of the people who helped her and Shiro with the material run just before the tournament started.
"I owe her a lot and it would really kill our popularity to gang up on her. We haven't worked so hard on building up on our own efforts to throw it away by ganging up on the new fan favourite."
Of the other two on further observation, only one wasn't familiar in the end. One of them was a potential target of the criminal, one was an acquaintance of hers, and the third was someone she was totally unfamiliar with. They were all Japanese in their appearances, around the same age but different appearances otherwise. She had a feeling she understood that they were friends, maybe classmates from school and were planning on teaming up for the tournament.
"Is it really a good idea to go with it like this though? We did make you the leader, but shouldn't we just kill her?"
She sighed and stood up. The third member of their party she didn't know of was very ready to shoot her but she felt the pressure die before she so much as moved.
"Can I propose something?"
Her words brought a little of the tension back but got the attention of the target and Russ, the one who had been in the material party.
"How about we move out from cover, check if anyone's there and we have a little firefight. You're worried about your reputations so it wouldn't be a good idea to just shoot me here, so we might as well give you a chance to prove yourselves and I can fight my way out."
Russ shook his head fast enough she worried it would fly off.
"I know how natural and scary of a fighter you are. That's why I suggested binding you. You'll be able to get out of the bind shortly after we leave and we'll be able to retreat."
She sighed, thinking about another way to convince them. She had two more points she could counter with.
"If people see you came out from here, they might check if there was a useful item to use during the tournament. I would be a sitting duck until the bind is over and you would have sentenced me to death by their hands instead of fighting me honorably. The only other thing that would go over well here is that you let me run. This is a free for all tournament, which means not working with other participants. I understand working together temporarily but I think you might have forgotten this from the rules. I have someone in here with me and we temporarily helped each other already, but we're not continuing it. You might want to consider those rules especially with a drone watching us right now."
She pointed to the drone behind them when she spoke of it. They couldn't ignore her points. She made too much logical sense to them.
"One last option."
This was suggested by the last of her potential targets of the criminal.
"You join us temporarily and we beat another pair who have been hunting us before we split off or have a fight between all of us."
"Seriously? None of you are going to question how long the drone has been there? It could have been here long before she arrived and we might already be disqualified! We need to move NOW!"
The third in their party was panicked. He was very in it to win it, and wanted to leave to hopefully preserve that they weren't disqualified. In the rules it was stated that disqualified people might not be informed of their disqualification right away and might be left until the last few participants left. It was a real reason to be worried if they had put real money into their characters which might be very possible.
As he moved the tip of his gun's muzzle to her forehead, she knew the stalemate was immediately over. And not in their favor. She had the upper hand in melee combat with these people. She had already been inching closer bit by bit while she was standing to them, and now she was in arm's reach of the nearest opponent.
"Final option, and you won't like this-"
She tripped the third member of the party who had his gun to her head and pulled him into a choke hold in one smooth and swift movement. She followed it up by placing her free hand on the butt of one of her short swords on her back.
"I could be the only one to walk out of here because you stalled too long on making what could have been a very easy decision. I'm sorry Russ, but I'm in this tournament on business and the rest is confidential. I can't be losing here and I don't plan to."
Russ dropped his gun when he saw the serious expression on her face. She hid herself very well, using their teammate as a meat shield very well. Even in close proximity she could dodge a shot no matter how well they would aim. Their teammate in her grasp was already forfeit as far as ability to free himself.
The second the target of the criminal moved to defend him, she drew the sword she had a hand on in a smooth single arc, slicing the barrel off his gun. He shot the broken gun and the result was an explosion of powder which killed the teammate she held onto and severe damage to himself. She shoved the both of them to the ground and gave them a disappointed expression. Russ still hadn't picked up his weapon and he appeared to be in a state of shock.
"Shall I put you out of this pain?"
They shivered in fear and against the very realistic pain the virtual environment was putting them through and managed to nod. She measured herself and closed her eyes before slicing through their necks. The next she opened her eyes, where they were was only two notifications that showed it was where they died and their consciousness was still logged in. They were on the verge of logging out though because shortly after the body disappears in GGO, the after death viewing window closes.
"How would you like to finish this? Sorry about offing your teammates by the way."
He shivered some more and stared at her. Seeing her so unfazed after easily defeating his friends was terrifying. She was a fan favourite, but she was also brutal in a sense, and so easily able to go from looking sweet and innocent to hacking a person apart in the span of a second. He knew she was better than that type of monster, but at that moment she might as well be a serial killer.
"Please...just end it."
She sighed and looked at him in disappointment. She was hoping he'd pull himself together and give her a decent fight before going off to spectate the rest of the tournament, but apparently she was just too much for him to handle. She looked to the space where she entered from and sliced across his chest swift enough that he remained whole a moment as she sheathed her sword, and he fell apart as she left the cover. The drone left after she finished executing the last of the team and she wondered just how it would look to the spectators of the tournament as she continued on to eliminate more of the tournament participants.
Asuna sighed in relief after seeing the camera watching Kirito's encounter reveal she made it through the encounter safe. Her and the rest of their friend group were spectating from their shared server. Shiro was also proving quite capable. Shiro was picking off opponents fairly quickly in small firefights. He wasn't as skilled at hiding so he was spotted by enemies he encountered along the way.
Shino was worried about Shiro, but she was also relieved when Kazu got out of her situation with the trio of rule breakers. A giant of an American looking man pulled out from his cover and fired at Shiro with a minigun. He countered it with a Kirito-made barricade and stepped back. There were a few barrel sized holes in the barricade and after putting the tip of his rifle into a hole that lined up with the minigunner he fired a single shot which landed square in his forehead. The minigun kept going for a little longer, but the death notification window over his body was there so Shiro collected himself, stood up and sighed in relief.
"Why is that game so intense?! And why again are they playing a war game?"
Shino's questions were answered by Suguha.
"A job from the team who were responsible for overseeing the survivor patients from SAO. Apparently a participant of the tournament is a Laughing Coffin member from SAO and has been working with people to keep killing people in real life through their gaming. So they might be removing the targets of the murderer from the tournament before they can do the killing themselves."
Ela was among the group and was managing a lot of windows. She had been busy since the big encounter where Kazu and Shiro met up before. They already had an idea she was messaging law enforcement and doing work on making sure Kazu and Shiro stayed safe. She was doing what she could without disrupting their tournament participation to make the environment feel a little more natural to them. GGO didn't translate sensation as accurately for the environment normally, so she was applying the filter to the environment around them as they went. They were used to feeling things accurate to real life within the virtual environments. She was really taking care of them in a way that they wouldn't know about unless she already told them.
"Why does it have to be with guns...? They're both so used to fighting in close combat and they keep fighting close combat, especially Kirito! What was with that close encounter there?! And Shiro keeps getting seen by others and needing to hide and fight from cover! What was all that training they were supposedly doing for?!"
Shino's loud exclamations were jarring for the others, but they all felt the same way that it was quite dangerous for a job even if it was just a game on their end. It didn't change the fact that they were fighting to save the lives of other people playing in the tournament and they needed to be careful to not lose the tournament before they removed the people who could be killed by the criminal.
Shino had a stronger connection to a specific part of the game they were playing. She hadn't faced the reality of guns existing since she used one to defend her mother when she was younger. She almost needed to look away because she saw the face of the man she shot back then with his eyes rolling back into his head with the bullet hole and blood dripping out. It was gruesome, and even though she had gotten stronger, hearing the fire of handguns especially was something that triggered the PTSD. She wondered if Kirito had completely moved on from what happened with her back then. She didn't directly go through something as traumatic, but she lost her birth parents on the same day.
Suguha moved from her lone seat next to Shino and hugged her from the side. They were very sisterly since they did spend at least a few years living together like siblings. She had a feeling she knew why Shino was especially vocal for once.
"It will be okay, Kazu spent the whole week getting strong and getting used to playing in that game. She'll be fine. Let's just cheer her on."
Shino looked at her and the barely noticeable tears at the edges of her eyes told her she hit it right.
"You don't need to be facing that kind of thing. Just because guns are becoming more and more common in even fantasy games, doesn't mean you can't avoid them. We were clear of them entirely in SAO and ALO. We don't have any in here, and they're banned here in Japan. It's entirely possible to avoid them for the rest of our lives. If you want, we could go do something else and have everyone just update us with how things are going in the tournament whenever something happens."
Shino closed her eyes and gave it a few seconds to consider.
"Yeah...that might work best for me."
Keiko stood up and walked up beside them, Pina in her arms yawning.
"I'll join you. I'm not a fan of shooter games anyway, even if it is Kirito and Shiro we're watching play. I don't have trauma, but they're just so loud and violent."
Ela had two of her AI children with her during the gathering and they were watching the tournament screens intensely. Ela gave a tap on the boy's shoulder and he stood up to join them just after Keiko joined.
"I'll join too, since it could be more fun this way and Ena has detailed observation covered. Plus she'll be able to relay the information to me really well and I can tell you everything that happens."
Eqri had similar traits to his mother and sister, but he just had the kind of feeling he wasn't quite female. He was a beautiful boy and had green eyes which were so light in colour and so pure they were captivating. Paired with their mixed blond hair, fair skin and face type and being slim in shape. He might attract just about anyone if people outside of them knew about him. That didn't mean he wasn't attractive to them, either.
"Thank you."
He gave Shino a smile that made all of them feel calm and safe.
"How about we go try out my game's tutorial? Since mom has all of us making our own games and I haven't had anyone try it yet. I've managed to finish making the tutorial and plenty past it at this point but the tutorial I tried to make as fun as possible. I'm not sure my judgment for fun would be the same as all yours though so that would be valuable."
Shino returned his smile from before and nodded.
"Let's get going then, here's an invite to the test server for it."
He disappeared not even a second after the invite popped up in front of them. They followed him and arrived in an area which seemed to be somewhere in outer space. He was in a different outfit from his casual shirt and pants before, now wearing an outfit which gave a futuristic mechanical body suit feel. The girls looked down and saw they were wearing the very same outfit except also having a robe draped over their shoulders which could be pulled over to cover what might feel exposed to them. All pulled it over them a little shy.
"This is a mecha game. We fight space monsters and liberate planets from being overrun or destroyed by them. You should all have a few prompts for your tutorials. You can customize your starter mecha suit right now or go with the mecha suits as they are and try fighting the first tutorial fight. There are several space monsters you can fight in this tutorial to get used to some of the different things they can do and what your mecha suits can do with their starting load outs."
As he finished explaining, the girls appeared in their customized mecha suits. He got an update that was significant enough to mention from Ena so he froze the tutorial and grabbed their attention with a cough.
"Latest update on the BoB tournament. Shiro-kun has eliminated another two of the opponents and no more of the suspected targets of the criminal remain in the tournament. Now the two can proceed without the worry for their job on their minds to the end of it. On the same note, Kazu-chan has eliminated another of the participants. Kazu-chan has the most kills in the tournament out of all who remain, one person has camped and not killed a single person to this point and the rest have less than five kills. 8 people remain."
The girls faced each other in their mecha suits and expressed their excitement, the suits having a window in the torso which showed them in a small treadmill area. It was basically like they were controlling the mechas with their movements, and they had windows/monitors inside which let them see outside. The mechas were initially human shaped, but they could be any number of shapes. Human shaped was to fit the players as they started out. Other mecha types would be more efficient in different situations or against higher difficulty monsters but.
The excited movements of the mechas as they mimicked the girls was comical to him and he let out a cute chuckle.
"Alright, let's resume the tutorial."
He floated back and watched them as they proceeded on to the tutorial. It was fascinating to him to see how they adjusted to the environment with the gravity taken away when it got to that stage. There was an artificial room effect for certain parts which allowed them to stand like normal, but it was basically invisible barriers to give them a rest from using all their movements to control themselves. They adapted slower than his mother and siblings, but they were fast enough that he had confidence it wasn't such a bad tutorial after all, that it might work with normal human players.
They continued on and fought small space monsters which were shaped like whales, dolphins and sea lions. It was interesting how they adapted to the aquatic based monsters moving so freely in space like it was water. They adapted like they were in water as well, seeing how the monsters resembled the real life equivalent and used that to guess how they would move next and use their laser swords or beam rifles. He was interested to find that Shino wasn't having any adverse reactions to the mecha rifles. She was in fact having fun. He was glad he could observe her reaction to it. He wondered if a specific gun type was more what triggered her ptsd or the realistic sense of firearms. Using lasers and beams instead of bullets might take a bit of the edge away, and the weapons themselves weren't shaped much like real guns. They only acted similar in that you could aim and shoot them. She didn't end up using that weapon type much, but she seemed to be having fun otherwise. He wondered if his game could help her get used to firearms, but remembered his mother saying that sometimes fighting PTSD to get stronger than it was counter productive when it's easier to avoid the trigger altogether.
He sighed and smiled as they made it to the end of the tutorial, each having a sea serpent ten times their size chasing them. Suguha was the first to deal with hers, stopping herself and propelling back into the serpent chasing her with her laser sword drawn and slicing through the side of the mouth as she went in. It probably wasn't as frightening to go into the space monsters with the mecha suits covering them so he wondered if that was how Suguha was treating it.
In the end, only Suguha defeated her sea serpent before the battle timer ran out on the final boss of the tutorial. Just as he was about to suggest they try the first chapter of the game as well to give him some more information, he got an emergency alert from Ela.
"Can you log everyone out of your game and return them to the main server here? I want you to get into Shino's home security system. There isn't anyone but her home at the moment and someone who shouldn't be there is messing with the door lock."
He nearly felt panic take over him but he brought it under control.
"Thank you all for your assistance in providing me data. I hope you enjoyed it! Mom just gave me another job to take care of so I'll just send you back to a safe area of the main server so the tournament doesn't cause further distress to you. Another of my siblings will join you shortly."
He swiftly logged them out and moved through the network to her home security system and scanned the video. When he noticed that there was indeed someone still messing with the door, he sent an electric current through it to sabotage him. He was one of the people that was suspect to be working with the murderer. Shinkawa Shouichi. He was the younger brother of the Laughing Coffin member who was suspect to be doing the in game work. If he was there, then Eqri needed to do what he could to protect Shino.
"Dammit...!"
He muttered under his breath and cursed as his hands received the shock. He looked up at the camera and Eqri wondered for a moment if he would be able to be seen but the extent of course would be the lens of the camera.
"Let's hack this place then...I brought along Tetsu's device for a reason after all. It's a good thing her parents won't be home until late because of their date~ I can be in and out even if it takes another 30 minutes. Without anyone noticing. I need to delete the data of me ever being here though..."
He pulled a box-like device out of his backpack and reached to plug it in to the terminal beside the door. Eqri reinforced the firewalls and jammed the device immediately before it got to work. He fought with everything he had and the device burst into flames and caught Shouichi's gloves on fire. He screamed and ripped the hacking device out of the terminal, throwing it in the snow and wiping his sleeve which was also swallowed in flames before finally rolling to extinguish it. Just as Eqri thought his work was done, police sirens blared passing into the neighborhood. He observed a little longer until he saw the police apprehend Shouichi. He was about to return to the server and report to Ela but then she had another message for him.
"How are things there? If you were able to sabotage him in time and get him caught by the authorities I need you to go help Escha fight off an intruder at Kazu and Suguha's home right away. I didn't have her go there in time to stop him from getting in but if I can get you to help her slow him down there's authorities on their way to that house as well. I'm going to get her to move as well so she can defend herself, but I need you both to help her."
Eqri didn't hesitate and took the server shortcuts to get to the house. The lights were on throughout, all the appliances were on and running hot and Escha was struggling to stop the intruder. The house had a lot of augmented reality and server control because Kazu had laid it out during her practice with augmenting. Eqri used the projection of the augmented reality to trap the intruder in a steel container barely more than his size. Thankfully the intruder was stupid enough to be wearing an AR device at all. It was helping them slow him down. They could force his device to stay on and keep him trapped. The greatest benefit of a criminal wearing an AR device was that security programs like them could use it to capture criminals in heavily augmented areas like Kazu and Suguha's home.
"I need to keep that box stable, can you make sure to keep his AR device on so he's trapped?"
Escha shouted a yes in response and the two did their best to keep their functions going. A smoke alarm started going off and Suguha arrived stomping down the staircase at a speed they were surprised possible outside of virtual spaces.
"Suguha-chan, can I get you to turn off the kitchen appliances Escha accidentally turned on? And please turn off the smoke alarm as well. We have the intruder secure. After you finish turning those things off can you wait outside for the police to arrive and lock the door so in case we fail to keep hold of him here he can't use the door to escape?"
Suguha nodded and frantically ran cooperating with Eqri's commands. She was swift and quickly turned everything off. One unfortunate bit of news however.
"There's a fire in the kitchen!"
"Nearest dousing machine is next to the criminal. I will unlock the dousing machine terminal so you can take it without needing to input the code. That means I will need to inhibit the intruder physically through the augmented environment and hold him back. Prepare yourself!"
Suguha nodded when she was ready and Eqri unlocked the dousing machine for a second. That second had the intruder leaping at her but Eqri grabbed him around the neck and pulled him to the ground. He flailed and kicked trying to stop Suguha from getting to the kitchen. She managed to make it over him and sprayed the fire out of existence just as the police arrived. The interesting sight of two American looking people holding a Japanese intruder down or looking on as Suguha held the extinguisher in the kitchen at the stove had the police officers baffled.
"Hands up! Don't move!"
Both police had their taser guns at the ready. Eqri held the intruder down with his legs and raised his hands. It was infinitely strange to him that he was able to react as such without having a physical body. Real people aside those in the shared server were really seeing him. It made him excited.
Escha fled from the scene disappearing from the augmented environment which made the police even more baffled. It didn't matter if they didn't have AR on, the surroundings were augmented and had projections to keep Eqri there. However Eqri's hold on the intruder slipped as soon as Escha fled as he managed to turn off his AR device. He wasn't physically interacting with the augmented environment anymore and Eqri was counted in that. The police officer closer to him shot the taser off into the intruder's back and he flailed there a moment before stopping, unconscious.
"What are you doing here?"
Eqri was asked the question, since it was probably obvious to them Suguha wasn't out of place.
"I am a security officer of the augmented reality services sent in by AR technologist Ela. I was assisting Kirigaya Suguha here with fending off the intruder. It appears your intervention scared off my partner and that gave the intruder the ability to turn off his AR device, which is the only way I can interact with physical people."
The police officers just stared in surprise as Eqri walked over to Suguha, disabled her AR device momentarily and brushed his hand through her arm.
"See? Not physically here. I will stay for questioning until you don't require my presence further."
The police continued with questions but after the second question they asked him, it was totally based on their curiosity toward Eqri and the augmented environment and nothing relevant to the intruder. They cuffed the intruder and took him away after about ten minutes had passed.
"Are you okay?"
Eqri's question to Suguha caught her off guard. It seemed she was in a daze after what happened.
"I'm...okay. What a crazy thing to happen..."
He turned her AR device back on and pulled her into a hug.
"I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner to stop him from so much as getting into the house. I was more successful at Shino-chan's house, but it's no excuse. I should be able to do better as someone not bound to physical rules."
She shook her head and gave him a smile.
"No, thank you for protecting me. I'm just surprised is all. You're really here. And so was Escha. You were able to do so much, and I was just...helpless, to be honest. How are you here like this though?"
He gave her a big grin.
"Your oneechan has been doing a lot of practice with augmenting real space and has turned this house into a fully augmented space. This gives me the ability to appear here as if I had a real body. If you have your AR device turned on, you can feel my presence as well like that hug. Anyways, now we shouldn't need to worry about further intrusions and it sounds like it's down to the final three contestants in the BoB final. Let's not make the others worry any longer."
He accompanied her to her room and he didn't return to the main server before she logged back into it, laid safely in her bed.
