The ship continues to tilt forward while moving at full speed as Llenn sprints up the final steps to Deck 17. Between the holes put in the side by the passengers, the hole in the prow by Fukaziroh, and the damage to the prow from crashing into the building, the ship is taking on an immeasurable amount of water. It's only a matter of time until the ship sinks.
They have to defeat Pitohui, Eva, and Annihilator before that happens.
Having left her four teammates behind long ago, Llenn skitters to the mostly dark open space of Deck 17 alone. Across the area are several load-bearing pillars placed around for future construction, and to her surprise, she points her P90 towards one after being startled.
"Hi there! Long time no see!"
"Eek!" The muzzle of the P90 has Pitohui smirking face at the other end, leaning against a pillar a hundred feet away, her KTR-09 strapped to her side. She doesn't reach for it at all as seconds passed; at the same time, Llenn couldn't shoot her. Not until she asks Pitohui a question.
"Oh? You aren't going to shoot me? you're so nice, Llenn."
"Pito!"
"Whoa! There she is. Oh, hey! Been a while!" The carefree voice of Fukaziroh trots up to the deck behind her, followed by M.
"Hey again, Fuka!" Pito says to the grenadier with a wave. To M, she greets, "Yo! You survived. That's some good fighting, well done." She glances at the staircase, but seeing that neither Jaymes or Kureha aren't coming, she lifts off the pillar and walks in the direction of the tilt. Dramatically spreading her arms, the singer-maniac declares, "Well, here we are. LPFM versus Betrayers, but now it's three on one. What do you say, Llenn? Shall we?"
"Three on one... I knew it! I knew! I...I knew it!" Llenn screams.
"You knew it?"
"You knew what?" Fukaziroh and M ask at the same time.
"Oh, I get it. So this is what you were thinking the whole time, Llenn. What if the betrayers team actually got two members from our squad?" Llenn doesn't reply as Pitohui walks back towards them, crossing the red carpet on the floor. "Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Well, Llenn, I'll admit, the possibility is higher than zero... But this possibility is much more likely: that I was just a huge liar.
Fuka lets go of her launchers, allowing them to hang from her shoulders. She slams her fist in her palm and says, "I see! And that's why it's three on one! Meaning that Pito and M and I are on LPFM, and Llenn is on Team Betrayer!"
"So are you saying you weren't actually chosen, Pito?" M interrogates.
"Did you see the evidence?"
"Hmm?"
"Did anyone actually see the message on my device that clear stated 'You are the betrayer?'"
As M shakes his head, Fuka adds, "You know, you're right. I didn't see it."
As Pitohui stands by her true teammates, Llenn turns to face them. The false traitor continues to say, "At first, it was mostly a joke. I mean, it had to be, right? I had no idea that the weird flying thingy was going to let a person who wasn't picked ride it anyway. If I wasn't allowed to get on, I'd stick out my tongue and go 'Whoopsie, turns out I wasn't picked after all!'"
"But you were able to ride it."
"That's right, Fuka. It gave me the room to just barge my way right into the betrayers' team. Was it a loophole in the game system? Or was that another intentional feature of GGO, the game where participants can even kill their own squadmates? I met up with the other betrayers, and we started our own party. I was able to fight alongside them."
"Other members of BTRY died on the ship. Did you do that, Pito?"
"I did, M. In fact, I sliced one of them into ribbons earlier!"
"Wow, Pito! That sounds like a major accomplishment!"
"Thank you! Though one of them figured me out, but she didn't care. All she wanted was Jaymes, so I sent her to him. Wished her luck against him and Kureha."
While Pitohui goes on and on, Llenn stands in place, trying to figure Pitohui out. Because of her confusion of the special rule and Pitohui's rapid response, Llenn never read the message on her terminal, so she cannot say if Pitohui is lying or not. But if she looks back at the battle, there may lie an answer to everything.
Llenn is only here in SJ3 is because of her promise to combat challenge SHINC once again in an SJ1 rematch, which has failed twice now. Then she joined Pitohui so they wouldn't have to fight, yet it happened anyway because of the special rule.
All of this could be her fault, and the old Llenn would have agreed, but the battle-hardened version of her denied that thought immediately. There's only one person responsible, and their name starts with P and ends with I.
"Gosh, have I just been teh star of this whole event? Tell me more! Sing my praises!"
"Y-you...asshole..."
"Exsqueeze me? Did you say something, Llenn?"
"Yes, I did."
"What was it?"
"Pito, you're an asshole! Why would you do such a thing?"
"Well, uh...Pito shrugs her shoulders with a performance, then grins. "Wouldn't you say this is your fault for being fooled that easily?"
Something snaps in Llenn's mind, causing her body to tremble in anger. After a deep breath, she roars, "Pitooooo! I'm gonna kill you! This si the perfect chance! You're my enemy, so I don't need to show you mercy! Or forgiveness! Just defeat!"
"Ooh, scary! So scary! Gimme all ya got! That's what I want—it's why I tricked you like this! It's true!"
"I really will beat you! I'll seriously beat you! I'll beat you right now! I'm gonna make you cry!"
"Come on and do it, if you can! You're welcome anytime! Oh, but three on one is kind of unfair, don't you think? What should we do?"
"Urgh..."
"No, it's three on two," another voice outside of LPFM says, followed by a flash of yellow light in the darkness. The four blinded by it, Llenn can't see who threw whatever caused the light — probably a flare — but hears their voice again. "Turn around and run!" Without hesitation, Llenn pivots and sprints away from the others.
Signal flares are bright enough to bee seen from a distant and in cloudy weather. Imagine having something that bright pass by ten feet in front of your eyes. Or in Pitohui's case, have two as another is shot at her before she can fire the KTR-09 at the retreating Llenn.
While PFM were assaulted by flares, the L in the team's name blindly dashed down the long and vast cabin-lined hallway, not sting until she collided with a pilar and rolled along the floor into a wall. She remained there on the ground, dizzy and numb.
"Come! Grab hold!"
"Okay..." The voice was familiar enough for Llenn to trust it. Her eyes were recovering too, so she could make out a large, blurry hand reaching out to her. She grabs it and follows after the hand's owner until her vision came back.
"I can see fine now. I'll be all right. Thanks, Boss."
"There we go."
After that, Eva let Llenn's hand go and the two kept moving. They were heading towards the stern side of Deck 17, which is the higher side of the inclining ship.
"We want as much distance as possible. Then we'll wait for the scan. It's about one...forty-four right now. We might not get the chance to see the next scan in time."
Following behind Boss to remain with her, Llenn mutters, "I'm sorry for...all kinds of stuff." Checking the Satellite Scanner, she scrolled along the screen until it showed the fateful message she missed listening to Pitohui: You are a betrayer. "I'm...so sorry."
"Look, it's fine," Boss states.
"But—"
Boss look at Llenn over her shoulder, sporting a smile on her rough face. "We're on the same team now, aren't we?"
"So you're Kureha."
"That's me."
Deck 20 is an open-spaced observation deck with a crescent-shaped pool at the prow end of the deck. Being the highest accessible level of the ship, it takes Kureha immense discipline to not gaze around in amazement. But she's definitely begging to go on a luxury cruise ship in the near future.
At the other end of the deck, on the low end of the incline, stands Annihilator...excuse her, Devesta. The girls stand about ten yards apart, probably a lttle more if Kureha accounts for the slope. The dark-haired woman twirls the gray cylinder in her hand, hair drifting over her left shoulder, crimson irises honed in on Kureha. Her avatar is unbelievably beautiful, with an aura that says "I'm the girl your mother tells you to stay away from." Or, in Kureha's case, "I'm the girl who can steal your boy with a single glance."
If this was an romantic comedy anime, Devesta would be the silent, initially mean girl that the male protagonist softens over time and eventually falls for. Kureha, beautiful in her own right, would be the jealous, eager to win childhood friend who suffers the fate of the majority of girls in that category.
Fortunately, the relationships are different than that imaginary show, but that doesn't make Kureha happier. Just the thought of it pisses her off, and it takes more discipline not to punch Jaymes for merely existing to her right side. She directs that undeserving rage rightfully to Devesta as she points the Draque Shamai L at the former red guilder. "You're outnumbered. Your team is split. This ship is going to sink eventually. At the least, you can preserve your dignity and not have me waste bullets on you."
Kureha and Jaymes had her beat. Their plan is simple and certain to work — shoot her. The number of GGO players using lightswords are few in number, but only two have mastered an unreal ability to deflect bullets. Since no one else has displayed the genius swordsmanship like Kirito and Jaymes, it can be deduced Devesta will fall.
Of course, they were ready for the unexpected. They've had too many surprises in their lives together not to expect something they hadn't accounted for.
Kureha didn't expect Devesta to give up, and she didn't disappoint as the enemy player clicks her tongue. "You might as well shoot me. After all, murder seems to run in your circle of friends. But I don't see that killer instinct in you, Kureha. Not like in him."
"Oh, stuff your complaints elsewhere! You're part of Laughing Coffin — a damn founder of it from what I hear. How many have you deliberately killed? And for what reasons?"
Devesta turns her alluring body to the left, her cloak and hair hiding her form in the wind. The red-hot hatred in her eyes cool down, giving way to a distant, somewhat somber expression. "All I knew growing up was sadness. At a young age, I lost my parents to some asshole drunk driver, so it caused me to be...distant, so to speak. At school, I was the odd one left out by the girls, jested because my interests were vastly different from them. Because I wasn't a boy, I was excluded from them as well. And no matter what happened, no matter how hard I tried to change myself to be included, I was seen as a bad, weird, to be kept in a dark corner. No matter what, all I knew was loneliness. But the ones who had parents and friends, I could see their happiness. It reeked the air around them. To the world, those are the people who become heroes, while people like me become villains. I hated that more than anything. But them I met my one and only friend, someone who shared my loneliness, and I was never truly alone again. Our only freedom from this disgusting world was video games, and SAO promised to deliver a new world. A world for us to be something other than the ugly ducklings. Maybe we could be the hero for once... But then when Akihiko Kayaba trapped us, there was despair everywhere. It made sense, of course. The light in the world had been clouded with darkness, and you know what I thought about that?"
The wind stops, and the girl's eyes flare with hatred as her brow lowers.
"How dare they. How dare they try to share my lifetime worth of pain in a single night. How dare they scream in terror and hide in the shadows when I've done that for as long as I could remember. But most of all, how dare they lose hope so fleetingly. That's not right...but as weeks passed, it was so delicious, so appetizing, so beautiful that everyone was despairing. I wanted it to last forever. But then the heroes came." Her right eye cut to Jaymes, maliciously glaring at him. "The light was starting to rise the moment Illfang the Kobold Lord fell, and that spark of hope sickened me. And that's when he found us...and allow us to accept that all heroes need villains."
"PoH." The way that word rolls off Jaymes tongue overflows with his hatred. This PoH must've led Laughing Coffin, which makes him responsible for every atrocity committed by the guild.
"...You wondered why Anni and I came after you and Koharu, Jaymes? It's as simple as hope clashing with despair. It is true, we've both taken someone special from each other, but I simply cannot forgive or forget what you've done. I hated the hope you gave to everyone in SAO. I hate the fact you continue to inspire hope. And this hate I have for you will not rest until I feast on your despair. So why did I kill in SAO, Kureha? For that reason alone — to consume my victims' despair. To watch them suffer as I had, and each and every time, it brought a smile on my face."
"Oh, what a grand monologue," Kureha retorts. "I thought this would be some pathetic 'woe is me' tale that would get me to sympathize with you. I'm glad it's anything other than that." Eyeing her partner, she asks in English, "Can I end this now?"
"Please," he replies, in which Kureha returns her gaze to Devesta with a cheerful grin.
"Gladly."
Pow-pow-pow!
Those shots didn't come from the Draque Shamai L. It originated from Devesta, now with a pistol in her left hand, pointing towards Jaymes. He gasps in pain and drops to the deck. The incline of the ship isn't steep, but it is angled enough to cause him to slide towards the pool. "Jaymes!" Kureha attempts to reach out for him, but another shot strikes the top of her left ear. Feeling some pain from that, that stops Kureha long enough for Jaymes to slide past Devesta and on further into the pool.
Thankfully, the pool had been emptied by the angle of the ship, so Jaymes was able to grab onto the lower edge of the pool with his right hand — the only extremity Devesta hadn't shot.
Somehow, she unnaturally shot both his thighs and his left bicep from the hip and without a Bullet Line. The latter part takes skill, but the first part is physically impossible at the speed Devesta fired and with the accuracy she hit him with. Then the shot to the ear — that wasn't a missed headshot, but done on purpose.
Kureha shakes her head and retraces her thoughts. Forget the speed, it might be doable to shoot someone that fast, like in the cowboy western shows. Heck, on a good day, she can fire her SMG from the hip pretty fast. The accuracy, though? That's insanely good, and unless Devesta put a tremendous number of skill points into DEX... No, even then, the ear shot might still be inaccurate or hit other structures. It missed her the hair close by.
She looks at Devesta again in an attempt to figure out the mystery. She finds her answer in the most unlikely way possible: a aura of wavy air surrounding Devesta, which would go unnoticed to the untrained eye. But to anyone who has seen it so many times it could be ignored due to the familiarity, it sticks out like a sore thumb.
And until this moment, Kureha has only known one person — and most likely two other people — to have a Hyper skill granted to them by the special player-owned Artificial Financial Advisor Systems. Rei's Master, Daisy's Mistress, and Lievre's missing Master...and now Devesta.
"Come, Kureha." Devesta invites as she smirks behind her pistol. "Let's play a game. The winner gets Jaymes. I'll be his ultimate despair, and you can be his ultimate hope..."