"Close in from the left! Kirito you go in through the middle!"

A mission commander directed a full defense team for a supply run. The supplies were being collected for Kirito. She was seeking to gear up herself and her partner Shiro for the BoB which would start in roughly an hour. The commander had been floored at first being tasked with helping on a supply run because of the rising star of Japan's GGO community asking for help, and doubly so when she asked for them to just support her. She was spending a huge sum of in game money on the supply run so he felt he couldn't refuse, no matter how much it made him think it might be a setup.

He couldn't get used to seeing the short figure of Kirito launch at blinding speed into a group of enemies, throw off any balance they might have and hack at least two apart every time he gave directions. Shiro was impressive as well. No matter which direction he was sent to cover Kirito, he was able to pick off anyone she didn't defeat before they could level any decent amount of aim at her. His team built purely on such missions could hardly keep up and cover the other side. He was a sniper and tactician while the rest of his usual team was ambushers. He wasn't used to melee fighters considering they were in a gun game. He never saw Kirito wield anything other than a crafted sword, and he nor anyone else could deny the efficiency and ability she had with it. It probably didn't matter what kind of game she was in, she could make a sword work in her favor and absolutely wreck any foe who would stand in her way.

Kirito dashed apart the first two enemies of the current group of ambushers who were camping, and immediately disappeared from view, suddenly showing up back in the group a second later. He wasn't allowed to ask about her skills, but he was allowed to speculate on what he saw. He still didn't know how she disappeared at those times. He wondered if it was cheating, some skill from another game she played that stuck to her account.

Shiro had a ridiculous approach to acrobatically wielding his guns, totally unnecessary. Being Kirito's combat partner, the commander assumed Shiro might just feel very underwhelming in performance compared to Kirito and trying to add unnecessary flare to his movements. It would be considered useless if it made him slower, made him more visible to enemies so they could react, but it wasn't. It made him move a little faster, like he was trying to mimic Kirito's blinding speed launching into a battle. He also kept close to the ground and had totally muted gear colours so flashiness was totally out of the question.

Shiro's handguns were deadly even from a distance, blowing a gaping hole through wherever they connected with another player. It was always a single shot because of the power behind the weapons. Both of them were absolutely overpowered and didn't truly need help with handling the campers and competition in the zone, but they needed speed and efficiency so they could have their new equipment ready for the BoB.

Thankfully, the group were fans of Kirito. Some had become fans of Shiro as well since partying up for the material run had given them a unique perspective on the two most popular newcomers to the BoB rankings. There was one more person in the group going into BoB, but the gloves were off when it came to going in the tournament. No teaming up, no working together. It was going to be free for all. Except Kirito and Shiro would of course keep in touch and avoid each other so they could collect all the information they could on their suspect.

There hadn't been a death since the last BoB, so they were confident that they would catch the murderer during the BoB. Only an hour until they could finally put to work all the preparation they made. They only wanted to make a few last upgrades to their equipment. They were closing in on the cavern where the colossus hydramech nested. The monster with the highest level metal and leather materials in the game so far. They had killed it three times already. It was a daily spawn monster so they had been defeating it since the day Kirito had joined GGO.

"Get down Shiro!"

Shiro dodged in front of himself, turning to see where he was receiving an attack, and he heard Kirito tell him where more to move. A hatchet gouged into the ground beside where he dodged to after Kirito relayed further information to dodge. A clean unharmed dodge and the group were now facing down...a veritable army of soldiers.

"Well, guess some people aren't fans of you two?"

Shiro shrugged and walked up beside the commander of the group.

"Ready to earn your pay? These people are the reason we were recruiting you. We've...kinda been kill stealing from them. They had reserved the hydramech for this week, but the only way to reserve a daily server spawned monster is to talk down the campers and ambushers from getting in the way. So, we've been sneaking there and beating it shortly after it spawns. Needed to do something else today before it spawned, so we're a little late. On being early, so to say."

"Now it makes sense. I had a feeling until now we were pretty useless to you and Kirito. Finally a challenge. So we're going with no upper hand...Kirito, can you use whatever it is makes you invisible and prepare to hit them in the middle of their group?"

"Of course. Just give me a signal."

Like a ninja, she disappeared in a cloud of smoke. It was different than how she did it before, but she did it. He then signaled for everyone to fall back. They were in a ruined village, so there were a lot of stone walls they could hide among.

"Alpha through Gamma, take up ambush positions around the tower in the middle of the village. Get up if you can. Shiro, we'll support them from the ground. Kirito, you also take the tower. Check when in position.

The whole dozen people that the group was made of including Kirito and Shiro were off like perfectly trained soldiers. They expertly made their way through the village ruins, killing off enemy soldiers along the way to their destination. They didn't move together for that purpose. When all of them had sounded off their "checks", the commander asked how the enemy were positioned from an above viewpoint. Their number had thinned from several dozen to only a few dozen and they were closing in on Shiro and the commander.

"Perfect. Get ready to light them up in 10."

After that announcement, the commander got ready with equipping a grenade launcher, and swiftly loaded another grenade into the launcher after firing one off, totaling 8. The enemy forces were announced to be closing in. Shiro had been protecting him, shooting enemies that got close during that ten seconds directly. After the ten seconds, the commander shouted the command and put up an upward barricade so him and Shiro would be protected from the onslaught of their team from above. The sudden loud assault of gunfire rang out. The commander put in some sound dampening plugs to his ears and gave some to Shiro.

"It'll be noisy for a little!"

Shiro took them and nodded while putting the plugs in his ears as well.

"What about Kirito's signal?"

The commander was watching his wristwatch and as soon as the onslaught has lasted 15 seconds, he jumped up with a thumbs up. Kirito plunged down, seemingly from the sky since she wasn't close enough to the tower for her to have trajectory which made sense. She was wielding a new weapon none of them had seen yet. What looked like a giant drill covered her as she plummeted down and when it struck down against the ground in the middle of the group of enemies, the weapon exploded outward, turning into three turrets after deleting the two her drill had made contact with. The turrets gunned down toward her in three directions and she dashed out toward the few remaining enemies who were closing in on her, easily dispatching them from their limbs and ending in a flourish, making it obvious to her team mates that she had been dancing more than intentionally attacking. Shiro wasn't surprised anymore, having realized that Kirito was a dancer at heart when she was fighting. A sword dancer.

"Thank you for the help with this part. We did pay you for there and back so please accompany us the rest of the way."

The commander sighed watching Kirito walk on toward the cave entrance as if she hadn't just done something absolutely insane. Jumping off of a tower over thirty feet high with turrets disguised as a drill and then proceeding after landing unharmed dancing like she did the most unimpressive thing in the world, dashing the remaining enemies to pieces.

"Did you really need us?"

Shiro tapped him on his shoulder.

"We just took out a group of several dozen soldiers with your strategy in less than a minute. Have a little more confidence. Would have taken much longer if we didn't have your help and we need to save as much as possible. Let's keep going!"

He jogged ahead, catching up with Kirito and excitedly talking to her.

"You revealed it! Why would you reveal that there?! You could have used that in the BoB but now there's a chance someone could counter it!"

Kirito gave an innocent smile to Shiro that could melt the hearts of anyone who saw it and said it outright.

"I welcome anyone to try and counter an attack from above like that. I bet our help didn't even notice how I got where I plunged down from. And the turrets with the disposable drill shell. We might need to find someone seriously crazy to try the same thing without my actual secret."

Her confidence was absolutely breath taking. Between her physical beauty which was hidden well under her combat attire to provide a sense of mystery to the onlooking outsider, the elegance of her movement during battle and the youthful cuteness when she was excitedly talking to someone she was close. The only thing that could tie it all together to make her very presence intoxicating was seeing her confident smirk knowing that people couldn't keep up with her. It was like she was always leagues beyond what anyone else could achieve. Those who were in the group honestly thought at that point that anyone else who had a chance in the BoB just paled in comparison to her.

When a person is so fast and skilled and unpredictable, it's difficult to make a plan for hitting her. The only thing that would work would be sniping her from far enough away in one go that she wouldn't be able to react. At that point it wouldn't be considered fair to them but snipers were still very valid. They just weren't as entertaining as someone as active as her or someone else who charges into battle, guns blazing.

"Here we are. Last chance to step out. Or do you want to negotiate for the loot we won't be using?"

Kirito was standing at the ledge above where the hydramech had just spawned in and shouted back to the rest of the group who had slowed down on the approach.

"Count us in! Any extra we can get would make it more believable that we escorted you today!"

The commander ran in while shouting his response to Kirito.

Kirito waited for the rest of the group to get in before telling them how her and Shiro usually handled it.

"So as long as you keep the heads of the hydramech concentrated on you I will be fine to attack the base of their heads. It works a lot easier than you might think. Shiro was able to keep it occupied enough for me to handle the main before today. Just means I'll have the fleshy part underneath more available to hit today since there's more people for the heads to concentrate on while I'm down there."

There was a hidden mechanic that people who wouldn't go down until the monster was already dead. If you used a bladed weapon, you could easily slice off the heads of the hydramech because there was a large gap in the mech armour between the base of the necks and the main body. Sending her down and not having to dodge as much as she usually did would make it immensely faster than usual. Her plan had them space out along the outer edge, each get the attention of a head of the monster, and then she can go in and immediately lop the heads off of the monster and finish it off all in one go. Less than a minute.

It was so clean and fast that the escort group were stunned silent from the victory tune.

"A world boss...so fast..."

Kirito climbed up the wall like it was nothing and opened a trading screen with the commander of the escort group, plopping all the loot besides the material drops she and Shiro actually needed from the fight.

"A-all of this?!"

She nodded and gave a confused expression the commander could only think of as adorable.

"This is everything we didn't need. I only need the materials from this boss to make the gear I'm making. I can't break down existing equipment in this game which is unlucky so I've just been selling equipment drops here so far. Consider it all an investment to gearing up."

"Did we even really earn this?"

Kirito shrugged.

"It doesn't matter if you think you earned it or not. Your presence and assistance before was enough to shave about five minutes off of our time for this trip, and you shaved off another five minutes just now with the boss monster. Now I have plenty of time to make my and Shiro's best possible equipment currently. Dropped equipment just doesn't really cut it for us. We're used to wearing and using stuff made specifically for us. We can't be replicated."

The commander shook his head in disbelief and pressed the accept prompt for the trade.

"Anyways, let's port back now. When we're back in town we'll part ways for today. Maybe we'll work together again in the future!"

She got ready to start the teleport and she was stopped.

"Thank you. You hired us to help you but you also immeasurably helped us. I hope to one day return this kindness."

"Let's get to town before someone else gets here. I appreciate your thankfulness but we should really go-!"

She tossed him to the side and dodge on top of him as a sniper bullet whizzed passed them and crashed into the wall behind them.

"Everyone, teleport out now!"

Shiro and the rest of the group ported out. Kirito waited until the commander of the escort group ported before returning. She arrived in a blink back at the main plaza of the capitol building and heaved a big sigh of relief.

"Those guys really have no chill..."

"No kidding. That's why I was urgent to get out of there. If there's unbound loot on people after they beat a world boss, they might as well consider you the new world boss. You need to be more careful."

Kirito's words stung.

"Anyway, I need to get to the workshop and make our gear. Thanks again! Will talk to you again another time. Wish us luck with the tournament."

She took off and Shiro followed behind her. The escort group meekly responded with saying their good lucks to them.

Kirito and Shiro rushed to the workshops and got to Kirito's rental space for the server and she got to work immediately. The last of the equipment she was making, was leg armor to cover for her one final exposed weakness. She wouldn't consider her open head a weakness since she needed full access to all the sensations she could get from her head to perform optimally in any situation. She finished the padded leather leggings, and then got to work on refining the last few pieces of equipment which didn't have the upgraded materials and sighed in relief. She had enough materials left for Shiro's requested binoculars since his long distance sight wasn't leveled enough to match hers, and one final thing.

She took a half hour making everything, which was cutting it very close to the entry time for the tournament. Her final piece of equipment was a matching second sword. After all, she was most adept and deadly with two swords instead of just one.