"So what now, Llenn,? If we keep running towards the stern and find a hiding place, of if we protect the stern and keep them at bay, we could force them to drown instead."
"Yeah. If we kill them, we win."
"So she said," M relays to the others as he removes his comms device from his ear. As of now, Llenn is still in their party, so every word she said up to now, he heard.
"Uh-oh, did we wake the sleeping child?"
"A little late for that, Pito," Fuka responds to the seated woman. "Was that a joke? Besides, we can just put her to bed permanently on this ship instead."
The trio just finished preparing for the final battle. Pitohui's arsenal included the KTR-09, fully loaded with a seventy-five round drum magazine and as many more magazines that she can hold on her person. The two lightswords lie on her side to be easily accessed by her hand. The M870 Breacher shotgun lies on the ground.
Fuka's twin MGL-140s are fully stocked, with Leftania containing the remaining two plasma grenades. Discarding her backback, she has the spare grenades in pouches of her bulletproof vest. Her secondary weapon, an M&P pistol, is holstered on her thigh.
"I wasn't hearing Llenn's voice anymore. They must have noticed and rearranged the team over there... Are you sure you don't want me to take part in this?"
"Stop asking, M. Who wants to win a fight with a three-on-two advantage? Would you rather die right here?" She pretends to point the KTR-09 at him, because if she actually did, LPFM would have finally lost a team member. She also ignores her own hypocrisy; she did send Devesta out on a two-on-one, but she was asking for it. "If you mess with Llenn, I'll kill you. Got that? It's an order. All you have left is the job of crowning the 'true winner' at the end. Now give me that."
On the other side of the ship, Llenn and Boss found shelter in a private cabin to prepare for the final confrontation. Holding up the P90, she tells Boss, "I'm going with this and the knife only. No grenades. You?"
"Vintorez and Strizh. And a combat knife, in imitation of you. I didn't have much time to practice with it, though. A few grenades, too."
"Ohh. Any plasmas in there.
"Yes. I've got twelve, since I was carrying for my team. I just had them in my item storage before, because I was afraid of them getting set off."
"Any grand grenades?"
"Same. Half a dozen. They're pretty much unusable inside the ship." Grand grenades are nickname for hand-thrown plasma grenades with the aptitude for destruction equal to launcher-shot plasmas. As the standard for ultrapowerful arsenal with major drawbacks, in the wrong hands — such as Fukaziroh's — a grand grenade could be catastrophic. As a matter of fact, Fuka's launcher grenades are safer in that those grenades would only go off at a certain distance from the shooter.
At this moment, Llenn had to plan to two variables: Pitohui and Jaymes. The latter and Kureha are distracted with this Annihilator that seems to gone off on her own, so she has to contend with the wild nature of Pito and whatever she might do with Fukaziroh. If they're defeated, dealing with Jaymes and Kureha will be much easier — if the ship doesn't take them out first.
""With this firepower... If we want to make sure we beat the two of them... Don't have much time... How do we win, how do we win, how do we...? How do we win? How do we...?" A lightbulb goes off in Llenn's head. Turning to Boss, she says, "Give me a grand grena— No, all your plasma grenades."
Kureha leaped for the nearest stairwell the moment Devesta finished her sentence and shot at her again. She hit the ground with a roll, felt damage inflict on her lower body, but ignored it until she slides up to the wall beside the doorframe. Red pixels bleed out of her right scapula, but the bullet grazed her, leaving with less significantly damage than if it had penetrated her.
Calming her nerves, she holds the Draque Shamai up and blindly shoots back from cover, She doesn't know what happens, but she unloads about ten shots before retracting the gun, then checking the scene for herself.
Devesta is gone. Not dead and gone, but gone gone.
Flipping her comms unit on, she shouts, "Jaymes! Are you okay?"
"For now. Just hanging around."
He must be using the tether line of the Ultra Fiber Gauntlet to remain with the ship. "Where's Devesta? And did you see that?"
"I did see it. Believe me, that was shocking too. But after you shot back, she retreated to the pool, so I dropped off. Don't worry, I got enough feeling in my left arm to shoot a line to the ship. Though..."
He didn't need to say it. The ship's incline is increasing steadily, to the point it won't be long until it will impossible to stand on a flat surface as stable as they have been. For Jaymes, now hanging somewhere off the front of the ship, it means he may not have a way to return to the ship. His only option will become dropping into the sea or slowly descending to the sea with the ship.
"Kureha. Don't try to save me. Don't fight Devesta alone. With that ability and her skills, a one-on-one is not in your favor. Regroup with the others and fight the betrayers together."
Though it irks her that he doesn't trusts her skills, he understands. With every plan she and Jaymes thought of turned to ash, she needs to retreat and form a — "Ahoy there, Kureha and Jaymes! I missed you both!"
"...Pitohui?" Shaking her head, she looks at the accessory health bars on the side of her HUD. M, Jaymes, and Fukaziroh's are there, Pitohui's back on the list, and Llenn's disappeared.
"Wh-wh-what the hell?"
"Long story short, I lied. Llenn was the true traitor,, we switched teams, now I go kill her and the brute. How's the present I sent you two?"
Checking the coast is clear again, Kureha hooks her MG to her back, gets up and races down the stairs. "She has a Hyper ability. But it's not like Hyper Awareness. Whatever it did, she became a dead shot in a manner of seconds."
"So there's more than one of those skills?" M ponders.
Fuka groans. "And I though Jaymes' ability was cheating... Wait, does that mean she shot you earlier? Back before we boarded the ship?"
"...That's a scary possibility. She didn't have a sniper on her, right, Pito?"
"Nope. The little lady has a rifle and a pistol along with her lightsword."
"Well, whatever the truth is, she's —- Waaaah!" Kureha's face meets the wall near the entrance to Deck 18. She was on the stairs when a blue-green light flashed before her eyes, grabbed her to left shoulder, and whipped her down to the wall. That, of course, had to be a Ultra FIber Gun...great, she has one too.
And of course Devesta used the adjacent staircase, ran down two levels, and came to intercept Kureha. Kureha totally forgot there are two sets of stairs.
Holding her nose while facing the red-eyed annoyance, Kureha murmurs, "You know what, you better hope I don't ultimately wear your ass like a shoe." Devesta answers with a grin and tugs on the white gun in her hand, pulling the glowing tether line and the still-attached Kureha towards her. At the same time, she kicks the door, causing it to swing back and slam into Kureha. Stunned again, Kureha stumbles back to recover, but not before the line detaches from her.
Devesta reaches for Kureha's shoulders and slams her against the railing. attempting to push her off. Taking a quick glance, down the winding stairwell, that's a least a twelve-story drop to the rising ocean water., in which she'll instantly drown. That won't do, not for someone of her caliber.
So Kureha does the next best thing: instead of fighting Devesta, she grabs onto the girl's waist with her legs and presses their bodies against each other.
Kureha momentarily becomes Momiji, and she starts comparing their virtual forms. Devesta is taller and slimmer, which earns Momiji's jealously. Then reason hits: this is a virtual body, and not everyone matches their real body. Of course, one can't play as the opposite gender, but size and shape can be different. Take her teammates: Karen and Llenn are totally different height wise, so is Elsa and Pitohui, Miyo and Fukaziroh. Gyouji is a handsome hunk of a man while M is...well, rough looking. Joshua and Jaymes have a small difference in height, but it's not as drastic as the women's.
Devesta could be a fat and ugly broad in real life...but something tells her she's equally as beautiful.
In any case, Kureha's move surprises Devesta enough for her to partially relent on throwing Kureha over. That allows the pink girl to lift her head and bring them closer, their heads centimeters apart from making forehead contact. "Wh-what are you doing?"
"Giving the crowd something to be excited about. You watched the last SJ when Llenn was kissed by that other player? Why not repeat it with some girl-on-girl action?" As if to emphasize her point, Kureha licks her lips suggestively.
"Wh-what?"
"M...Momiji?"
"Captain, Kureha's become a deviant! Were you unable to adequately fulfill her needs?"
"Oh, part of me wants to see this, part of me wants to go kill Llenn! What should I dooo?"
Devesta looks absolutely mortified, and that's enough for Kureha to counter her opponent. Hands holding tight to the railing, Kureha flips herself over the rail. Devesta, locked between her legs, come with her, yelping as she's lifted over and thrown to the opposite side of the circling stairs halfway to Deck 17. Her back slams into the wall, crumbling her down to the stairs. When Kureha straightens out again, she congratulates herself with a grin.
That hurricarana move is definitely going in someone's highlight reel. No time to revel in glee right now, they have a game to win. "Pito, dropping in hot."
"Okayyy!" Kureha lets go of the rail, letting gravity take her down the center of the stairwell. She falls until a pair of hands grabs her by the arms. "Gotchaaaa—aaaahhhhh! Fuka, grab me!"
"I'm trying! You two need to lose some weight! Hummphhh!" Fukaziroh's little body somehow lifts Pitohui's enough to pull her back, thus allowing Pitohui to lift Kureha over the rail. With the three women together, Kureha feels better about her chances now against Devesta.
"Thanks. What's the plan?"
Pitohui shrugs as she and Fukaziroh picks up an item they discarded to catch Kureha and the girls hurriedly make their way down the stairs. "Well, it was one thing when it was me and Fuka versus Eva and Llenn, but now its the three of us versus the three of them... A royal catfight... Do you think you can handle the wench alone while we take on the man-woman and the little devil?"
"...I'll try. No promises, not with that newfound ability. Without knowing what it does..."
"Excuse me, that's not the Crimson Princess talking, is it?" Fukaziroh says, though for the first time ever in the time Kureha has known the girl, there isn't a hint of playfulness in her voice or eyes. "That's not the lieutenant of my squadron talking that way. The Kureha I know takes on any challenge, win or lose, right?"
"...Fuka..."
"Besides, if she's from SAO and fought Jaymes, she must've lost many times and barely got away with her life. You know he's a murderer who spares no one, man, woman, or child."
"Hey."
"Oh, he's still listening. Hahaha! But you get the point, right? There's only one person who can stand at his side, after all."
Leave it to the person who teases her the most to be the one who sets her straight. Kureha returns the smile. "You're right, Fuka. Okay, Pito, I'll deal with Devesta. But I'm going to need something from you first. My...special request."
Pito's lips bares her teeth and turn upward. "Hehehe! Got it! Let's go, girls! Let's leave the boys behind, kill everyone in sight, and paint this sinking ship crimson!"
"...I feel as if we've been left behind, M."
"Indeed."
To the audience watching, the stage for the final battleground couldn't have been more exciting.
On the screens, the There Is Still Time races forward at an incredible speed, the stern raised currently somewhere between thirty and fifty degrees off angle from the top of the water. Half the prow is underwater, which spells doom for the player hanging on that side by a glowing thread. However, it didn't seem the ship wouldn't sink for at least another ten minutes, if not longer.
When the camera switched to the tenth deck, where the courtyard is, their first sight is of Pitohui, Fukaziroh, and Kureha. Instead of weaving through the empty stores and amusement rides, the trio marched through the courtyard's center, chatting, armed and shielded.
Literally shielded, as Fukaziroh and Pitohui each carry a shield in their off-hand made of four thick plates of armor. They originated from M's eight-plate shield, made smaller for personal use and ease of carry. Three feet tall and eighteen inches across, Pitohui could defend a sizable portion of her body and Fukaziroh could almost fit completely behind it.
The only weapon on the field that could penetrate that armor might be the lightsword Pitohui, Annihilator, and Jaymes carry.
Kureha eventually stops moving, just short of the center of the area where the path becomes hilly. She says something to Pitohui — only Crimson Squad members would know what she said based on the mouth movements — and turned her attention towards the prow of the ship, putting her Shamai Draque L in her item storage. The audience understood who the girl in pink would be facing, just not how.
But the video footage lacked in telling the whole story. It couldn't capture the trembling hand of Pitohui. Only Fukaziroh, walking beside her up the hill.
"Pito?"
"What is it, Fuka?"
"I can tell, you know."
"Tell what?"
"That you're scared of Llenn."
If Fukaziroh wasn't facing forward, she would have caught Pitohui smirking. "In all my time playing VR games, there are only three times I've thought 'This person is stronger than me. Not just in terms of skill, but mentally, too.'"
"Only? That's happened at least twenty times for me. Sorry, I mean two hundred. So when was the first time, Pito?"
"Right after I started playing games. When I was a beta tester for Sword Art Online. It was the first real VR game in the world, so everyone was starting from the same conditions. But there were plenty of people there who were better than me. I ended up dueling one of them over the right to fight a monster that dropped a specific piece of loot. It was some beta-male pretty boy who thought he was so cool."
"And you lost and got killed?"
"No. When my hit points were almost gone, the guy said, 'It's impressive that you can do that well, two levels below me. You can take the boss here. Let's fight again once we're the same level, heh, swish-sparkle.' And then he put away his sword."
"My goodness."
"And if you'll allow me to brag, he took a lot of damage, too. But in the midst of this fight to the death, he goes and acts all cool and cocky. At the time, all I thought about was powering myself up. I was ashamed of how weak I was. I reflected on my faults and realized I wasn't good enough."
"Yep. Reflection makes you stronger."
"So I thought, when the game launches in full, I'll fight that guy again and totally PK his ass..."
"But you just missed out on playing the full game, didn't you, Pito? That probably saved his life."
"Or...maybe mine...and the captain's. I bet he met that asshole... What do you say, Kureha?"
"Sounds like it's him you're speaking of...so yeah, Jaymes knows him well."
"And speaking of the captain, my first time meeting Jaymes was the second time."
"Jaymes is skilled, yes... But the first time you met him? He had just joined the game that day, right?"
"Yeah. Llenn and I were playing in that special dungeon together, and somehow we came close to capturing the prize, the Arfa-Sys. But lo and behold, a boy got there first. A boy with a low-level pistol and starter gear. I though to myself 'He's a lucky noob, let me take him out real quick.' But the moment I was ready to take him out, I looked into his eyes."
"And?"
"I saw someone who had more experience than he let on. Someone who wouldn't freeze up at the moment and die easily. Someone who...was daring me to confront them. But most of all, he didn't move away from the Arfa-Sys he had just freed. He remained in front of her as if he was protecting her life and could end mine. A protective nature and a killer instinct."
"I see. I remember that look he gave Itsuki later on. Pretty scary."
"Yeah. And when I joined that duel to become leader of the squadron, I didn't care to win. Most likely I would have given it to Kureha or Jaymes. I wanted to test myself against him. I wanted to see if what I felt before was true or a misjudgment on my part."
"And true it was, though we didn't know how true until he told us about SAO."
"As good as I thought myself to be here, I was already surpassed. In truth, I'm glad to follow such a guy. And I'm happy to see he's scared of at least one person, someone else who might be more than my match too. If only I had a childhood friend like that, haha."
"Pito..."
As they crossed the wet cobblestone path, where Pitohui electrocuted MMTM minutes earlier, they had two minutes until the 1;50 scan. They had 250 yards until they reach the rising stern of the side and Llenn's team were nowhere to be found.
"The third person, of course, was Llenn. The first time I saw her, I was mostly stunned at the way her core was rock-solid. She's got an astonishing sense of balance."
"I see. Well, since we're here, I might as well tell you that before Kohi grew like a weed, she was really athletic. I heard it from her older sister. Whenever the two of them did some kind of exercise together, she always wanted to copy her big sister, and she learned how to do things right away."
"I can tell. If she didn't have a thing about her height and really worked hard to learn a sport under an excellent coach, she could have been an Olympic athlete for Japan right now."
"When I heard Kohi say she was going to play VR games, I was really looking forward to what kind of character she would grow into...but it seems like she 'grew too much' over here, too."
"Ha-ha-ha. Well, I always wanted to have a real, honest duel with Llenn, so when it came true last time, I was extremely happy about it."
"And you lost."
"Thanks to someone's very precise help."
"Ohhh? Who could that be?"
"When she bit down on my throat, I thought I was going to die. I thought I'd actually die. That it was all over for good. I thought it was a worthy end for me. And in the end...I didn't die."
"Like you sucked it up and jumped in front of a train, only to fall flat and have it pass over your head?"
"Kinda. Some other stuff happened around then, too, but in short, I decided that if I wound up alive anyway, I might as well take good care of that life... I'll admit, Jaymes is scary, but I'm more scared when I see that little pink shrimp."
The duo stops at the apex of the courtyard, right beside a information board with an huge i mark for identification. The pair squats next to a bare flower planter, setting their shields behind them. Fukaziroh takes out her terminal while Pitohui scans the area. If they looked back a couple hundred yards at the base of the hill, they could see Kureha pacing back and forth in the open.
One minute to the scan remains.
"I see. So, to you, she's kind of like a source of trauma that you have to beat and get past."
"Oh, it's not nearly as noble as that. It's just a grudge. Hatred. She's someone I want to beat the crap out of, that's all."
"Ooooh. Well, I'm here for you, Miss Pito, Miss Elza."
"Thanks. You sure, though? She's your good friend, right? I'd be pretty sad if you ended up fighting over this in real life."
"If we were going to break up over something like this, we would have run the rivers of northern Japan red with blood already. The truth is we're bound by such tight friendship, I don't even want to point a gun at Llenn. How often do you think we fought at the all-girls high school we went to?"
"I couldn't guess, but it sounds like a good story. You'll have to tell us later."
"You could probably write a song about it."
"Well, what a delight."
"And you'll invite me to your concert, as the provider of the original song inspiration, of course. With airfare paid and all."
"As long as you bring Llenn with you, you're welcome anytime. You come too, Kureha."
"I'll be there."
"But Llenn's so uptight, I don't know..."
"What, are you assuming that I'm going to try to sleep with her?"
"You wouldn't try, after what you did last time?"
"After what you just did, I don't think you have room to talk."
"Hahaha, true... Okay, Fuka, scan's almost up. Let's end this...and win."