December 9th, 2025

SBC Glocken

GGO

Sinon let out a small grunt as her fist hit the solid metal wall she was leaning against. Her face a crimson red. She had first been surprised to find out that Yuuto lived in a complex so close to her own, but then upon her asking him why he decided to tell her of all people about Death Gun he had simply kissed her. Sinon slammed her palm against the wall as she relived the moment, normally she would have pushed him away, but reasons she couldn't comprehend she had leaned into it.

"Sinon-san?" A familiar voice called to her. Sinon glanced back at the taller male avatar, his grey hair rivalled hers in length, his features were close to hers in femininity along with his voice. Her only indicator that this was indeed a male avatar was the fact that the player was the only friend she had and the other person who had met Yuuto earlier that day, Kouji Shinkawa.

"Spiegel," she replied pulling up her muffler to hide her blush. "You just had to leave early, didn't you?" Her eyes pierced into Spiegel indicting a genuine annoyance.

Spiegel immediately rushed closer to her gripping her shoulders. "Did he do anything, did he hurt you?!" His voice was frantic, almost deranged.

Sinon raised her hands defensively and shook her head. "No, well- No he didn't just- Ugh, you made things awkward." She understood how protective Spiegel's player was over her, telling him what had happened probably would cause her more trouble than she'd like. Besides that, Yuuto had told her quite a lot about himself, his compulsive nature, the effect the SAO incident had had on his relationship with his sister, all kinds of things she felt he wouldn't tell anyone else. Spiegel would be better off not knowing.

he gave her friend a slightly forced smile. "Ready to do some major grinding?" She asked using her left leg to push off the wall with Spiegel matching her brisk walking pace.

"Really After all that Death Gun talk?" His voice was slightly shaky at the mention of Death Gun, the notion of dying in a game was terrifying to him, as it would be to most people. But Sinon was completely unfazed, in fact, she seemed to enjoy the added tension of it.

Sinon simply walked into the transporter and sent Spiegel a party invite, which he accepted immediately. She scrolled through the locations and selected a dense woodland area: The Forgotten Woods.

Sinon gave a sinister smirk as she equipped her Hecate II and Glock 18C sidearm. Spiegel gave a sigh as he equipped his MP7 submachine gun and the two were dropped into the area. The faint sounds of gunfire could be heard in the distance. Sinon immediately slung her Hecate over her shoulder and drew her sidearm placing an earpiece over her right ear.

Spiegel followed her lead by equipping his own headset. The two separated with Sinon heading towards a small hilltop with just enough cover to keep her mostly hidden whilst Spiegel, ever the decoy, headed towards the gunfire.

Spiegel slowly advanced through the jungle equipping a woodland camouflage hood as he began his advance, hopefully the hood would prevent his distinct white hair from revealing his position too early.

He dashed between the trees, his high Agility allowing him to move faster than he could ever dream of moving in real life. He could hear the gunshots getting closer as the forest edge came into view, a crackle came over his headset shortly followed by Sinons' voice "Spiegel hold position in 100 metres, I'll take my shot and reposition into the forest, whilst I reposition you push forwards whilst firing. I count three of them so, provided I down one, you should be able to down a second whilst they try and figure out where I am."

Sinon lined up her shot with one of the three enemy players, they were engaged in a fight with an area boss, a large mechanical spider, Sinon was hoping that herself and Spiegel would be able to kill not only the players but the boss too. She could be satisfied with that much experience gained, perhaps she could level up more than once. 'If I can out level him, Death Gun doesn't stand a chance.' That was her plan. Yuuto had warned both her and Shinkawa that Death Gun would potentially be partaking in the Bullet of Bullets tournament, but Shino had refused his suggestion to avoid taking part, or even logging into GGO. 'He doesn't get it, I need this.' She lined up her shot as she saw the cursor indicating Spiegels' position stop, exactly where she told him to. She took a deep breath to steady her aim before slowly exhaling the moment her lungs emptied and her aim was at its steadiest, she began to squeeze the trigger, however before she could fire a loud bang rang out from behind her.

She spun round as an avatar faded into view. He was holding an M14 EBR fitted with a long scope. His equipment was woodland camouflage and looked, at least to Shino, relatively basic.

Sinon struggled as a series of gunshots from the players rang out. She saw Spiegels health bar empty. 'That idiot, can't he tell the difference between a seven point six two and a fifty?' She still wasn't sure how what she referred to as a 'GGO Boomer' could be so incompetent.

"Looks like your pal didn't fair too well on his own." The player who hovered over Sinon murmured. His voice was familiar to her, but she couldn't quite place it.

Sinon settled down. "If you're gonna kill me, just be quick about it." She cursed herself for not checking the area she'd set up at beforehand. Adaptive Camouflage, the effect that caused him to fade into her view, it wasn't quite invisibility more of his armour adapting to the environment round him, where he was before the woodland camo would've kept him concealed amongst the dense foliage on the floor, however the contrast between himself and the sky above the two made him perfectly visible.

"If I was planning on offing you, I would've done it by now. Nah, I'm here for a drop that the boss here tends to give." He loosened his grip slightly on Sinon, she immediately threw him off reversing the pin with herself on top and reaching for her sidearm once more, as she did so she felt a cold metal pressing against the exposed side of her abdomen.

Sinon immediately knew that this player was holding a handgun against her, 'A knife in the left and a gun in the right, not bad.' She cursed herself complimenting her attacker. She knew that the moment she gripped her own weapon she would be shot; at this range the damage would be significant, and it was debatable whether she could even fire a shot herself before her health hit zero.

"Well then, I see we're at an impasse, you want the boss drop and I want the Exp. I'd advise we resolve this quick before those guys figure out where your shot was from." Sinon spoke with a hint of arrogance, she knew that this player would serve as acceptable bait, or at least a competent replacement for Spiegel. She merely needed to convince him to do it.

"You're asking for a truce, fine by me, as long as I get that drop, I really don't care." He removed the pistol from Sinons' abdomen and holstered it, he retrieved the rifle he had dropped when he had pinned Sinon and heard a series of noises from the treeline around three hundred metres away. "Not exactly stealthy guys." A loud explosion went off and the woodland clad player chuckled. "Ah, I love claymores." He opened his menu and sent Sinon a party request.

She promptly accepted. "Ryuji…huh?" 'Ryu as in Dragon?' She stopped questioning his name as she realised hers was a result of an interest she held in Greek mythology.

"Sinon, the azure sniper. Lucky me." His combat helmet covered almost all his face, except the eyes, that were visible through the ballistic lenses that Sinon was all too familiar with, a few strands of white hair were visible along with his emerald eyes. He must've noticed her investigating him, as his words hinted. "Like something you see?"

Sinon moved back to her prior sniping position, the area boss was at around half the last of six health bars. She sighed, it was heavily armoured and all too easy to hit. "You have any Explosive rounds for that rifle? If so, don't be stingy, hit the joints should be able to- "

"-damage the servos and hydraulics, keep it in place. If its still for long enough I could plant an explosive under it. Between the two of us the Exp yield should be around a hundred thousand each." He finished her thought before pulling out a small single shot tube style grenade launcher and loading a 'High Explosive' (H-Ex) grenade into it.

'Ah, the noob tube, a suitable compensator for tragically small manhood.' Sinon internally mocked her new ally. She switched her standard magazine for one she had marked with orange tape, indicating it contained explosive rounds, eight of them to be exact, she lay down aiming down to scope, before she knew it Ryuji was already running, at an impressive pace directly at the boss, his SIG Sauer P226 Pistol in one hand and his M230 handheld grenade launcher in his other hand.

She had half a mind to shoot him there and then, but she thought it preferable to see how he fought in a situation that he hadn't prepared for. Honestly it was probably blind luck that she hadn't set his claymores off herself. Otherwise he manually detonated them. If he was to participate in the BoB then she would need to be careful.

Ryuji closed in on the boss and with a solid thump sound the grenade launcher was fired, one of the boss eight legs began to crackle and spark, an energy cannon charged a shot and fired at him in retaliation but Ryuji's Agility skill made it nearly impossible for such a slow firing weapon to target him. He loaded a second shot into the break action launcher as Sinon began to target the joints on the legs as best she could herself. The two 'arms' the arachnid had flailed as two more legs were hit and began to crackle and spark as the first had, a clear indictor the servos were damaged. As Ryuji targeted a fourth, the boss slumped to one side the central, spider like body finally being low enough to climb onto. Ryuji pounced onto the 30-foot-tall mechanical creature and found its single blue glowing eye; he grasped his as best he could and used all his strength to yank the object out. The beast let out a robotic screech as Ryuji claimed his prize, an orb barely small enough for him to carry in both hands. He spun round to walk away, he clearly gestured Sinon to fire at where the eye had been. She took aim and in the space the eye should have been was a small cuboid explosive charge. A shot rang out throughout the forest, followed by a huge explosion. Ryuji's health certainly dropped by a quarter. And Sinon ran down to where the boss had once been. She found Ryuji slumped against a tree, his light combat armour singed and blackened by the explosion.

"Man, that sucked. Really need to remember that without my usual gear those charges pack a real punch." He mumbled as Sinon helped him to his feet. "Well at least we both levelled, and I got my drop."

Sinon nodded, noting the number next to her name had gone from 207 to 209. And Ryuji's had jumped from 236 to 237. She found it odd he would use any other gear than his 'usual' but she thought it better than to question him about it. Besides, it was getting late and she was starting to feel slightly tired.

"Well, well I figured I'd find you out here." A short blue haired female appeared as if from nowhere.

"Mina-san." Ryuji growled; his annoyance apparent. "You sent me out here. I got the item by the way." He made a series of gestures, sending the item to the short female.

Sinon assumed that the two knew each other outside the game, she thought for a moment to ask, however she had no intention of making the brief partnership with Ryuji any sort of regularity, besides there was a sort of unspoken rule that the real world was not to be discussed outside the game.

"Your equipment won't be ready in time for the event ya' know?" Mina spoke with a slightly disappointed tone. "The timer is around 3 days and I still have to find some of the other parts to fully modify it."

Ryuji sighed, "I guess I'll just have to make do. As long as it's ready for the final." He removed his tactical helmet and scratched the back of his head.

At that moment Sinon knew exactly who she'd been partnered with, the eyes gave it away and Mina's words only confirmed it.

"I'll do my best but ya' might need to find a new strategy, Tachibana-san." She gave a smile before walking away.

"Tachibana…Yuuto...?" Sinon whispered. Clearly loud enough for Ryuji to hear.

He flinched slightly as he heard his real name muttered by the azure haired sniper. His mind raced as he tried to figure out who this girl could be, someone who knew him obviously. He scanned his mind for an answer his answer came with her making an ever so subtle gesture, she brushed over her lips with two fingers.

"Asada Shino-san."