"Risa. Risa!"

Risa jumped as something swatted the back of her shoulder. She blinked as hard as she could and turned to face the source of the impact, a thoroughly cross-looking Anzu who sat on the bench beside her, arm raised to deliver another blow should she not respond to the first.

They were in the courtyard, their go-to spot for lunch, and which was mercifully empty of other people for once. Risa's mother had packed a little more than usual for her lunchbox – most of which consisted of leftovers from last night's dinner, neglected by Risa because "online games couldn't be paused" – but Risa, in her reverie, had left most of it untouched. A bite mark in one of the meatballs and a small gap in the rice was the only indication any of it had been consumed at all.

"What?" Risa instinctively raised her own arm to shield herself, though she quickly relaxed when Anzu returned her hands to her lap. "What'd you hit me for?"

"You were ignoring me for like a full three seconds," Anzu huffed as she plopped a chunk of asparagus into her mouth, her irritation manifesting in every heavy, crunchy bite. "What was I supposed to do?"

"Not hitting me would be a start. What were we talking about again?"

"What else do we talk about nowadays?"

"…Hover-ball?"

"True, that too. Which reminds me, the invite to join our team is still open – I asked President Tamako this morning, and she said yes. Did you have a think about it?"

Risa frowned. "I'm considering it, but surely you guys can't be that low on potential recruits that you'd need to ask someone like me. Also, like I said before, doing all those stunts and trick shots in VR is way different from actually doing them physically. I don't wanna end up in a cast just because I tried doing a somersault on a hover-board and ended up falling off."

"You basically never have to worry about falling off if you install your foot catches properly – the board knows how to orient itself if you tip over. Plus, to be completely honest, it's not about how good you are at VR games or real-life games or whatever." Anzu smiled, though not without letting out a barely audible sigh first. "I really just wanna play hover-ball with you. I think it'd be fun to do something together outside of Bullet Dance. You know?"

"I… guess," Risa mumbled. Of course that was the reason. Why else would Anzu be so insistent on it, especially given she knew from PE classes how thoroughly average Risa was at sports in general? "Sorry. Wasn't really thinking about it like that."

"You're alright. I get you're worried about getting injured, or how well you'll do in the team, and stuff like that. Not gonna press you if you don't wanna do it, but… yeah. At least come watch the pre-tourney tryouts next week."

Risa nodded. "Will do. Thanks, Anzu."

"Anytime, buddy." Anzu gave her another slap on the back, this one much lighter yet much warmer than the last. "Anyway," she cleared her throat, "speaking of tournaments, you remember there's a team deathmatch coming up in a couple weeks, right? Gonna be tough juggling hover-ball practice with training, but Zuki wants to give this a proper shot. We made the round of 32 last time, but he thinks we can go at least one better."

"I bet." Zuki, the leader of their Bullet Dance squad, was known for two things: his zeal for the game, and the skills he had to back up that enthusiasm. It certainly helped that he was a security officer in the real world, which allowed him to put his weapons training and trigger-happy instincts to good, if not very productive, use. "Didn't he make the final eight in the solos last round?"

"Think so. The solos are rough, though. I just kinda start panicking whenever I'm PvP-ing on my own." Anzu laughed. "You'd have a much better time than me – at least, if you ever actually tried going for the solos. I know you don't really like them either."

"Solos, huh." Hearing that brought Risa back to what she'd been daydreaming about to begin with. Musketeer X had requested – read "ordered" – her to meet up for a sparring session three days after the last outing, which so happened to be today. As far as Risa could tell, time seemed to move at the same pace both inside Gun Gale Online and outside, though that made her wonder what exactly had gone on with the server in the intervening eighty years between the closure of the original game and the isolated incarnation she now inhabited. Most likely it had gone into some form of stasis, with everything remaining exactly the way it had been at the end of the previous cycle, before Risa's arrival had reawakened the whole system and gotten it running again.

In any case, the more pressing issue had to do with the game-wide contest aptly named the 'Bullet of Bullets', or 'BoB' as it was usually referred to by the SBC Glocken's denizens. From what Musketeer X had divulged, the BoB was separated into two parts: a preliminary sudden-death tournament where contestants would duke it out in 1-v-1 battles and the winner would move on to the next round; and the finals, where the remaining players would be placed randomly in a giant map, and a free-for-all battle royale would commence until only one player remained standing.

At least, that was what usually happened. There had been one single instance where two joint winners had been announced, and to Risa's surprise, those joint winners had turned out to be Sinon – her current in-game persona – and Kirito, that enigmatic, intangible black-clad figure who somehow managed to pop up in every other conversation she had with anyone in the SBC Glocken. The mystery of who exactly that was only grew with every mention, to the point that the truth behind his identity took up as much of Risa's thinking as Sinon's did.

By the sound of it, many of the people in 'the Glocken' clearly thought of them as much more than just friends. Whether they really were more than that, though, was another question in a veritable sea of them.

"Hey, Earth to Risa." A hand appeared in Risa's vision and snapped its fingers, jolting her awake and causing her to almost drop her lunchbox. "You're spacing out again."

"Sorry, sorry."

Anzu puffed out her cheeks and pouted, but said no more of the matter. Risa knew she was probably used to it by now – as Anzu often liked to say, Risa was a thinker, and Anzu was a doer. Still, she didn't want to test the patience of her best pal, and she attempted in vain to mentally push her curiosity about everything to do with Gun Gale Online to one side, picking a topic of conversation that was as close to home as she could immediately think of.

"So, what'd you think about the new update yesterday?"

"It was okay. Don't really like the new meta, but you know I'm a sucker for…"

Risa never heard the rest of Anzu's sentence. It took another hefty whack, this time over the head, for her to return to her senses.

The landscape beyond the cold comforts of the SBC Glocken was an endless wasteland, a sea of sand stretching from one horizon to the other, fading into the whirling plumes of smog and dust that blanketed the air, a testament to the unceasing potential of human technological folly. As the lore went – according to Musketeer X, anyway – a nuclear war had torn the planet asunder centuries ago, and what remained of humanity had taken to the stars in hopes of finding a miracle, in great spaceships known as space battlecruisers, or 'SBCs' – of which the SBC Glocken, to Risa's bewilderment when Musketeer X had told her, was one such specimen. Yet they had soon realized that there was only one place they could call home, and before long they had returned, hoping to weather the literal and figurative storms of their birthplace, desperately clinging on to life in the harsh and barren wilderness of their once-familiar abode.

Now, only two things wandered the Earth's surface proper, aside from the occasional human vagabond or raider. There were creatures such as the swamp rat or Juggernaut, warped and transformed by the strong vestiges of radiation that lingered, struggling for survival and primacy in a beast-eat-beast world. Then, there were the automatons, humanoid robotic weapons that had fought in the war on behalf of all sides, left to their own devices once the fighting was done, their identification systems corrupted and corroded so that they now recognized all non-automatons as their enemies. Including, of course, their erstwhile masters.

The creatures were dangerous in their own right, but simple enough to deal with if a hunting party knew what to do. The automatons, however, were thinking machines, programmed to utilize basic tactics in combat and to react quickly to new information. They could be unpredictable on the best of days, and a downright lethal menace if given enough time and space to calculate their next move. Above all, they were abundant in numbers, roaming the wastes in army-sized numbers. Yet another reason for humanity to remain on the SBC Glocken, which hovered in the atmosphere high above, a final bastion of life and hope among the death and decay.

It was in the midst of the ruins of humanity's discarded civilization, behind a stack of rusty shipping containers, that Risa now knelt in wait. There were few worse vantage points for a sniper, given that she could be set upon from essentially any direction before she could even lift her finger to the trigger, but that mattered little in the circumstances – instead of her trusty Hecate, Risa now held in her hands a Prosti, a reimagining of the Type 54 'Black Star' pistols used by, amongst others, yakuza groups throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Musketeer X had insisted on the change, advising her that only a handful of the randomly picked maps in the BoB offered places for one to lie in wait for extended periods of time without risking a summary shot to the back of the head following an opportunistic flank by an enemy player. Unlike in Bullet Dance team matches, BoB maps had no-go zones and set boundaries, meaning that one couldn't simply clamber up the nearest building, set up claymores and mines around the perimeter, and camp out to their heart's content. Instead, players had to constantly be on the move and on the lookout, especially since every so often, a map-wide satellite scan would reveal each player's location to their opponent or opponents, forcing them to relocate yet again.

Given that her go-to secondary weapon in Bullet Dance was a pistol as well, Risa was at the very least decently proficient in its use, though she much preferred being the one who sprung the trap rather than having to defend against one. But she wasn't at all familiar with the terrain, and in a place where every nook and cranny could house an unpleasant surprise, that would be fatal to her chances.

And so it proved. A red circle flashed before her eyes, its origin tracing a long crimson trail from her location to a battered-looking car several hundred meters away. Before Risa could leap away, the circle vanished, and in its place came the impact, a throbbing sensation that buried itself into her forehead, spreading a brief wave of pain across her face and causing her to clamp her eyes shut.

It did not hurt that much physically, but it sure hurt psychologically. Not least because this was her sixth consecutive loss.

"What's wrong, fake Sinon?" came the mocking query of Musketeer X, who made her way over to Risa. She leaned against the shipping container, a punchable grin plastered across her features. "You're slacking. The real Sinon would never have been gazumped by something like that."

"No shit," Risa muttered through gritted teeth. "Sorry for being a 'fake', okay? You don't have to remind me of that every time."

"Apology accepted."

"Fuck off. Also, why are we moving to a different place every time we start a new training match? Shouldn't I be trying to get used to one place at a time, rather than having to keep figuring things out on the fly?"

"Like I told you, the BoB prelims cycle through a couple hundred different possible regions on the land within a fifty-mile radius surrounding the Glocken. I'm not about to sit here and babysit you while you memorize every little tiny detail about every single location we go to." She eased herself onto the ground and returned her own weapon, a Lightning MK2 handgun modified to accept and fire holographic laser 'ammo', to her belt holster as she sat. Clearing her throat, she continued, "Listen up, Risa. You gotta learn to look for patterns, not details. There's only so many urban areas we can visit before you should start noticing similarities between street layouts, subway entrances, building types and so on."

"Everything looks different to me every time, though," Risa grumbled.

"That's 'cause you're missing the desert for the dunes." Musketeer X jabbed a finger towards Risa's nose. "Quiz time. How did I sneak up on you just now?"

Risa's eyes crossed as they stared at the dirt-ridden fingernail hovering inches away. "Because I wasn't looking in your direction when you shot me?"

"And why weren't you looking in that direction?"

Risa frowned, incredulous that Musketeer X would ask something so seemingly obvious. "How the fuck was I supposed to guess where you were gonna be coming at me from?"

"What do you mean, 'how'?" Musketeer X pulled a disbelieving face to match Risa's own. "Well, to put it simply, you were hiding in probably the absolute worst place to be hiding in. Rule number one: close off as many lines of sight as you can. If an enemy can only shoot you from one direction, then all you gotta do is watch that direction. But if you're gonna go full exhibitionist and hide out here in the open, then expect people to start staring."

Musketeer X would know all about exhibitionism, Risa quietly thought to herself as she eyed her racy-looking outfit. Of course, when Musketeer X explained it like that, it made perfect sense. It just never seemed like there were any such convenient places to hide, especially since Risa was forbidden by Musketeer X from entering any of the surrounding buildings, leaving only the obstacles of varying sizes littered around the street for Risa to huddle behind. Again, not something she'd ever really have to worry about in Bullet Dance, particularly as she was her squad's designated sniper.

"Anyway, I think I've had my fill of kicking your sorry ass for the day." Musketeer X reached down and grabbed Risa's arm, dragging her to her feet despite her groans and complaints. "We have to get out of here before the bandits show up."

"Wait, bandits?!" Risa exclaimed. "You didn't tell me there were bandits here! Isn't this place supposed to be safe?!"

Musketeer X shot her a withering look, obviously unimpressed by the unending naivety of her companion. "Everywhere outside the Glocken is fair game, princess, and even the Glocken itself isn't that safe either. Night-time is when the bandits get the itchiest fingers, though. We should get our butts off this dust heap before the sun sets." She flipped open her menu and peered at the clock. "An hour and a half until dusk. We have more than enough time."

Risa looked up at the sky, where the same gray mass of impenetrably thick fog and smoke clogged the air as always, preventing just about all and any visible sunlight from piercing through. "Didn't know daytime and night-time was even a thing here," she said.

"It matters 'cause of the radiation – something about the ultraviolet rays from the sun interacting with the particulates in the air and making it bad for your insides if you're exposed to it for too long. I'm not a scientist, so I don't really give a shit, but either way, we have decontaminating showers on the Glocken and those rat bastards don't. And thank fuck for that, or we'd never get to come down here at all." Musketeer X slid her paintball gun back into her inventory and pulled out an actual pistol; Risa quickly followed suit with the live-ammo version of her Prosti. "Let's get a move on back to the teleporter."

They began to jog at a brisk pace, Risa hanging just slightly behind Musketeer X, who led the way down the street. As they ran, Risa took the time to observe and admire the infrastructure of the settlement they were in, dilapidated and well-worn by the sands of time, yet charming in an inexplicable, sentimental kind of way, the twisted steel and shattered glass speaking of an era that had never been Risa's past, yet might well become her future if the wrong buttons just happened to be pressed. It also spoke volumes of the attention to detail by the creators of this game, whoever they had been – there was no denying this was a labor of love. All the more a shame, then, if there was no longer anyone around besides Risa to experience this work of art for themselves.

As they darted past a pair of indistinguishably similar office buildings, something briefly caught Risa's eye in the gap between them. She backpedaled a few steps and peered through the slit, though the sheer size of the buildings and relative narrowness of the gap made it hard to pinpoint whatever was behind them.

"Hold on," she said.

Musketeer X skidded to a halt and turned. "What's up? We haven't got all day."

"We won't have a day to get if that's what I think it is." Risa pointed up at the gap. "Right there. See that?"

"See what?"

"On the huge sand dune behind the buildings." Risa jabbed her finger upwards and looped it downwards, gesturing over the great obstacles standing in the way of their vision. "There's a little dark spot near the top of it."

"Okay…?" Musketeer X scratched her head as she squinted, bobbing her head from side to side to get a better view. "Looks like a piece of debris to me. It's not moving around at all."

"Yeah, but what if it were a bandit?" Risa pressed.

"Bandits don't come out at this time of day. Didn't I just tell you that?"

"Just give me a sec." Risa had plenty of practice looking at – or looking for – people from considerable distances away, and if there was one thing she'd learned from all those countless hours spent playing Bullet Dance, it was to listen to her gut. And her gut was now telling her to take a closer look, so what else could she do but obey?

Pulling out her binoculars and peering through them, Risa fiddled with the lenses until the sand veered into sharper focus. And sure enough, near the zenith of the massive dune, there it was – a humanoid figure, standing upright, a rifle barrel jutting out diagonally from its side. It was impossible to tell exactly whether it was a human or automaton from this distance, but again, Risa just had a feeling she knew which one it might be.

"You see anything?"

Wordlessly, Risa handed the binoculars to Musketeer X, who reluctantly put them to her own eyes, muttering annoyedly as she did so.

"I swear, if it's just a pile of rubble or something, I'm gonna-"

Her voice trailed off, her jaw hanging slightly agape. For the first time since they'd met, Risa could detect a twinge of concern tugging at Musketeer X's features.

"…Shit."

"What is it?" Risa asked, though she already had an inkling of what Musketeer X might say next.

"I'm ninety-five percent sure that's a bandit. And where there's one bandit, there's many. You were right, surprisingly enough." Musketeer X frowned in confusion. "Well, this seriously sucks. They're a little early on the schedule."

"I don't think bandits really follow a schedule. Doesn't sound like any bandits I know, anyway."

"Shut it, you know what I meant. Either way, we're boned unless we find some cover. The teleporter's fifteen minutes away, and it's out in the open desert, so making a run for it is out of the question. You and I stick out like a sore thumb; we'd be sitting automatons for their snipers."

"It's not like I wanna be wearing this, exactly," Risa retorted, though she knew that was partly her own fault for not dyeing her hair or changing into something less flashy when she had the chance, including the prominent rat whiskers she'd left equipped. Too late for such lamentations now. "Should we just hole out in one of these buildings?"

"Negative. They've got proximity sensors as well – if one of them catches us on the upper floors, we'll be cornered with nowhere to escape." Musketeer X flicked her thumb towards a nearby structure, where a flight of stairs could be seen leading underground. "We take our chances in the subway. Easier to run, harder to spot. Then, we find an exit close to the teleporter and scram." She brought up her menu and tapped it a few times. "I've sent a distress text to Yami – he'll rendezvous with us once we get there. For now, let's head on down."

"Sounds good to me," Risa said, and they moved over to the entrance. Peering down into the gloom, they saw that the glow of the sky aboveground pooled down to just about half the stairwell, but beyond that meager illumination, the rest of the way was shrouded in pure, unabating black.

It would be a long way back to the SBC Glocken, assuming they made it out alive. Not that that was something Risa was necessarily worried about, but she certainly didn't want her partner, AI or not, dying on her watch. Despite her better judgment, she'd grown attached to the bra-clad, brash-mouthed riflewoman, and there was something strangely endearing about the no-nonsense and direct way in which Musketeer X approached things.

Besides, there was also the question of whether Risa herself would respawn if she were to die in this game, or if she would be barred from ever logging back in again. There was still so much to learn, so much to do. It would be the regret of a lifetime if it were all to end here, in the forgotten dirt of the dying world.

The two of them withdrew their night vision goggles from their inventories and looped them over their heads. Then, together, they slowly descended into the darkness.

As expected of an underground tunnel that had lain in disuse for centuries, the footing under Risa's shoes was nothing short of treacherous. If not for the thick rubber soles that guarded her feet, she would have long since stabbed herself on the shards of broken glass and metal littering the floor or the snapped tiles jutting upwards like stalagmites in a cavern. Once every so often, they would have to clamber over a fluorescent light tube, a segment of pipe, or whatever had happened to fall from the ceiling over the years. Not that they could see everything that might lie in the way, of course, and Risa winced every time she inadvertently kicked something and sent it clattering into the dark, the sound of its dislodgement echoing deafeningly in her ears.

Eventually, the passageway hollowed out into a larger concourse, where only a single blue emergency light installed on top of a nearby door remained operational, casting the entire space in shades of azure and navy. That the light worked at all was in itself a surprise, but not of the pleasant variety. If there was electricity running here, someone – or something – had to be maintaining it. Smarter and better-equipped versions of the standard automatons existed, and it was certainly possible a number of them might have retained the knowledge required to fix and activate a generator.

The more obvious answer, however, was that the human scavengers and raiders who sustained themselves on the misfortune of others had kept this light on. And if they were nearby, that could only spell bad news for the two intruders.

The light also had the unwanted effect of saturating the view through their goggles, so Musketeer X yanked hers off and exchanged it for a torch, which she attached to her pistol. Risa once again did the same – by now, she'd learned that it was far less stressful to match whatever Musketeer X was doing than to have her bark orders at her later on.

"I'm gonna set up a scanner," Musketeer X whispered as she went over and knelt beside a nearby pillar. "Cover me for a bit."

Risa nodded, and Musketeer X took out a projector-like apparatus similar to the one Yamikaze had used a few days earlier. She tapped a button on its side, and it began emitting a faint whirr, punctuated rhythmically by a quiet thump once every so often. A dim hologram shot out of a projector installed atop the machine, generating a three-dimensional map of the surrounding environment.

Musketeer X pointed at a pair of red glowing dots in the center of the hologram. "That's us here. Takes a while for the other sensors to calibrate, so we're gonna have to wait a few minutes before we can find anyone farther away."

Risa studied the holographic map. The concourse where they were located was the topmost floor of a network of pathways that extended down several stories, before bottoming out in a single long tunnel stretching beyond the map's boundaries that she surmised was the subway system's train shaft. At the far end of that shaft, the tail end of an exit leading upwards could be seen, though its destination was obscured by virtue of its distance from their position. If they wanted to find out where that went, they would have to get closer.

Risa pointed the exit out to Musketeer X, who pulled a doubtful face. "From experience, that's probably a dead end," she said. "Most of these smaller tunnels have caved in by now. Better to just keep following the train shaft until we're smack bang under the teleporter, then look for the nearest way back up to the surface." She patted the scanner, then turned the dial back to its starting position. The hologram dissipated into thin air, and with a few flicks of her menu, the scanner followed suit. "No hostiles within a klick. Let's go."

They inched carefully through the concourse, sweeping their torches across the expanse, swiveling them towards any noise they heard – which, most of the time, emanated from under Risa's feet as she somehow contrived to come into contact with everything that might possibly make a noise when touched.

"Watch your fucking step," Musketeer X hissed after the third booted piece of scrap metal in a row.

"Yeah, yeah. My bad." Risa sighed. "Why's there so much trash around? People really live here?" A clearly rhetorical question, given what Risa now knew about the human population outside the SBC Glocken, but she felt the need to get it out of her system anyway.

Musketeer X snorted, obligingly replying with a muttered, "You think? We can't all be so lucky." She pointed her torch at a nearby passageway, one that led down yet another set of stairs. "This way."

Down they went, step by step, stairwell by stairwell, until after several minutes of nonstop tiptoeing that left a cramp in Risa's calves – albeit a purely illusory VR cramp, though that didn't make it hurt any less – they arrived at the train station proper. It was a far cry from the modern examples Risa was used to, which were spick and span from top to bottom, chrome and concrete lining the surfaces, the tracks guarded by tall glass barriers to prevent people from falling in, accidentally or otherwise. Here, every inch of the rugged asphalt floor was marred by dust, dirt and disrepair, and only the gaping maw of the pitch-black shaft awaited beyond the lip of the platform.

They shone their torches down to make sure they wouldn't sprain an ankle when they landed on the tracks, then made the jump.

"That wasn't so bad," Risa said as they started walking down the shaft. "It's only a fifteen-minute walk, right? Plus, it's not like there's anything to steal here, so hopefully that means no more bandits."

If she was trying to reassure herself, the lump lodged in her chest told her it wasn't quite working. It certainly wasn't working on Musketeer X, who chuckled and shook her head. "Wish I shared your optimism," she replied. "If there's one thing you need to learn about the outside world, it's that you're not safe until you're safe. And in the outside world, you're never safe."

A moment of silence followed, with only their footsteps to break the quiet. Then, Risa spoke again, cutting loose a question that had lingered at the back of her mind for some time.

"How'd you get to know me – Sinon, I mean?"

"Is this really the place to be asking something like that?" Musketeer X asked bemusedly, though she ended up acquiescing anyway. "Well, long story short, we met during the finals of the third BoB. My memories of that are kinda fuzzy for some reason, but there was something about an outlaw who you – Sinon – and Kirito had to hunt down. He was called Death-whatsit, or some other corny ass name."

"Death Gun?"

"Yeah, that's it. Hold on, how'd you know that?"

"I… heard about it from someone. Somewhere. Some time ago." Risa couldn't exactly say that she'd read about the Death Gun incident from an encyclopedia article during her search for more information on Gun Gale Online, so that would have to do for now.

The article had neglected to mention the names of those ultimately responsible for catching Death Gun – perhaps deliberately, in order to protect them from potential reprisals – but having heard what Musketeer X had just said, Risa suspected she now had an idea of who they might have been. Yet any crime involving both the real and virtual realms was bound to be serious business, and if Sinon and Kirito had been chasing after criminals dabbling in such nefarious activities, then they were a lot ballsier than she'd expected them to be. Evidently, they hadn't been your average, run-of-the-mill teenage gamers.

To top it all off, given that Risa's prevailing theory was that Sinon was either her great-grandmother herself or at least had some kind of close ties to her, this revelation certainly cast her memories of her late ancestor in a very different light. The notion that the person to whom that wizened, smiling face and creaky voice had belonged could have been a sniper-toting, boldly-dressed crimefighting gunslinger in her youthful prime was… amusing, to say the least, if not a tad bizarre.

"What the hell were you up to back then, Great-grandma?" Risa murmured under her breath.

"What's that?"

"…Nothing."

"Hmm." Musketeer X rapped her temple with her knuckles. "Either way, not sure why, but I just can't remember what crimes he'd actually committed for the two of you to be going after him. Something about another world…? No, that can't be right. Whatever, doesn't really matter now – that was eight years ago. Death Gun was gunned down in the BoB finals like the degenerate he was, and you and I have been best buds ever since." Her voice took on an annoyed tone. "Which is why I'd like the real Sinon back sooner or later if you don't mind, 'Risa'."

"I'll… see what I can do. No promises, though." Risa checked her clock. "Oh, we're halfway there already."

"Still quite a ways to go," Musketeer X warned. "A lot can happen in seven or eight minutes."

As if on cue, the ground beneath their feet started to shake. It was barely tangible at first, and Risa, thinking – or hoping – it was merely some sort of tremor, anticipated it would go away after a couple seconds. It did not, and a spike of panic abruptly shot through her heart.

"You feel that?" Risa asked nervously.

Musketeer X flicked her torch around, searching for the source of the reverberation. "Would be hard not to," she said. By now, the vibrations had blossomed into a full-blown rumbling, and plumes of dust began to descend from the ceiling, bathing their torchlight in a cloud of particles and causing Risa to cough. If the tunnel were to collapse now, they could only curse their bad luck for being down here right at this very moment. Just about anything would be preferable to being trapped down here, doomed to whittle away the rest of her playing days in these abandoned depths.

At the same time, however, Risa noticed that the rails they were walking alongside appeared to be shaking visibly… as though something heavy were riding atop them. Something like…

And then, suddenly, realization struck – as did confirmation of that realization.

The sound of metal scraping against metal made them turn, and in the not-so-far distance, they saw a pair of tiny pinpricks of light, rapidly expanding in size. To Risa's horror, it was a sight, though never seen from this particular angle, that she was very familiar with – as was Musketeer X, whose face went stark white in the burgeoning glow.

"A train…?"