Llenn
"It's over."
She shot Pitohui square in the forehead. No hesitation. She lined up the Bullet Line, pulled the trigger, and watched that bitch's avatar fall off the wrecked ship. Now all there's left is Kureha, currently dueling Devesta above her, M and Jaymes if they're still alive. That last part bothers her, that the captain of Crimson Squad had not shown his face since she last saw him going up the stairwell.
And the blade Kureha's wielding and the gauntlet on her left hand...that has to be his, right? Is Jaymes...eliminated? Wow...woah... Did Devesta do it? She has so many questions when she sees him later on.
Standing up, she walks along the back of the vertical chairs, careful not to lose her footing. Peering over the edge, she attempted to calculate just how long she has until the ship is claimed completely by the sea...and gasps. "Eep! Ugh!" Between her and the sea is the demonic asshole herself, climbing back up by jamming daggers into the surface of the vertical courtyard. Her KTR-09 is implanted in the wall too, ten feet below the annoying ship climber. Beyond that is five hundred feet of ship left.
"Take thiiiiis!" Llenn aims P-chan again, but before she can get a shot off, her right wrist glows red for damage. Pitohui had abandoned stability to shoot Llenn with a XDM pistol. The shot caused Llenn to let go of P-chan, but not lose it completely as the strap around her back kept it from falling into the ocean.
Then Pitohui fires again, hitting close to the muzzle of the swinging P-90 seemingly on accident. It saves Llenn from a headshot, but it comes at the cost of the pink gun becoming detached from the sling. Llenn tries to recover it, but another bullet, grazing her nose, prevents her from repaying P-chan's sacrifice. As Llenn scrambles backward for safety, she hears a scream from above - Kureha.
Llenn remains out of Pitohui's sight as she ascends the vertical theater. On route, she catches a glimpse of Devesta and Kureha's situation. Devesta stands tall, staring down a one-armed Kureha who has her foot caught between the seats. She wonders why Devesta was insistent on battling Kureha and why Jaymes was insistent on leaving Devesta to him and later Kureha. Whatever Kureha knew, she didn't share it when she returned to Deck 5 after chasing Jaymes down. It's another concern for later.
Once she gets to the top of the seating area, the row of seats closest to the stage, she peeps down at Pitohui, who made it to the currently lowest row of seats. There's no chance Devesta or Kureha will interfere after a victor is declared in their duel, but like them, all there's left is a final close-up confrontation. Pitohui had discarded all of her guns, the combat vest, and the helmet that saved her life. All she had were her pouches around her back...and the probable contents within.
"Come, Pito!" Seeing no other option, Llenn brandishes her combat knife, in which Pitohui responds with the production of her red lightsword. No, two blue lightswords. What the hell?
"Here I go! Shaaaa!" Pito steps forward, rushing up the seats like they're normal stairs with both her blades ignited.
"Yikes!" Llenn zips away to the left.
"Whoa! What? Huh? Huhhhhh? Are you seriously running away right now?"
"Of course I am! Why do you have two lightswords?! It's not fair!"
"D-don't be an idiot! It's a strategic choice!" As Pito slashes her way through the seats to try to catch up to the speedster, Llenn makes it to the damaged left side of the stage. Once there, she jumps to the side of the ship and scales the railing to ascend to the stern. She turn back to Pitohui, who continues the chase.
"What happened to our battle?! Lleeeennnnn!"
"You can't beat me! I have the high ground!"
"Wha—?! You're going to win by making me drown?! And you're happy with that?! Is that how a real woman fights?!"
"Yes, it is! I changed my mind!"
"Shut up! I'll kill you for that!"
"You've been trying to kill me this whole time!" As Pitohui starts to climb, Llenn stabilizes herself on one knee and turns her attention to the other fight. Kureha dislodges herself from the seats, flips over in the air, then strikes Devesta with the sword skill Jaymes uses a lot. More time passes, then Devesta's body is pushed off the boat by Kureha.
At that moment, Pito arrives at the bulging stern, standing thirty feet away. To the right, on the outer hull of the ship reads "There Is Still Time." Ironic, considering time is quickly running out in one hundred and sixty feet. Beyond that, about sixty feet below, are the swirling propellers, and Llenn didn't need to question what would happen if someone fell on them.
Pitohui outstretches her blades to threaten Llenn while the smaller woman holds her knife up and in a backhand grip. "I'm sorry for misunderstanding, Llenn... You just lured me up here to the only flat space where we could fight. Of course. It's not fun to fight when there are no good footholds."
"To be honest...I was hoping with all my heart that you would slip while climbing and fall into the water."
"I noticed that along the way. It's how I was able to stay calm... What we've got in our hands are our only weapons now. The dry ground we're standing on will sink in moments. Kureha has won her battle, but she won't be coming up here, and M will not intervene. Let's finish the fight with the next blow, little traitor. This is the end between LPFM and Team Betrayers." While Llenn remains silent, Pitohui picks up her feet to close the distance. "Anything you want to say at the end?"
"..."
"Then let's begin."
"...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Llenn bites her lip and eyes her knife, muttering it an apology. She bought the black knife prior to Squad Jam 2 and it had aided her on many occasions since. Now, in order to survive, she's going to have to sacrifice it. "I'm so sorry, Knife."
In her mind, the knife responds by saying, "All is well. I wouldst gladly give mine life for the noble goal of ensuring your survival, good Llenn. Just one humble request. Would you be so good as to give me a name before the end?"
"Thank you. And good-bye...Kni-chan." Llenn looks up at Pitohui as the larger woman closes the distance to fifteen feet, then bounces up to her feet. She swings her right arm in an upward slash, but the knife flies out of Llenn's hand towards Pitohui's face.
"Shaaaa!" Pito swings her left blade, smelting the knife in midair. She continues onward until she reaches Llenn, then raises her right arm high. "Goodbye, Llenn." She swings down for Llenn's left shoulder with a great amount of speed, certain of victory."
In the amount of time it would have take for Llenn to be slashed, the pink girl moved her hand to her side and back forward. She dodged under Pitohui's diagonal slash, and attacked Pitohui's right wrist. It is severed, and along with the hand goes the right lightsword down the backside of the ship.
In shock and confusion, Pitohui still attacks with her left blade. Llenn doesn't dodge this time — she leaps up and drives her weapon into Pitohui's shoulder, disabling the left extremity. As she falls backwards, Pitohui gets a good look at what Llenn had armed herself with.
A small, angular combat knife that Llenn doesn't own. As Llenn stands on top of her, Pitohui gasps, "H-how?"
"I got it from Boss! My teammate! I had it hidden in my empty magazine pouch the whole time!"
"Of course! Brilliantly done!" As she yells that, Pitohui twists her left wirst, forcing the blade to slice through Llenn's shin and Pitohui's knees. As the severed lower extremities topple to the sea and the women shriek in pain, Pitohui attempts to end the match.
Llenn's hit points falls down to twenty-five percent, the red zone, while Pitohui's combined damage in the previous moments tops her off at forty percent in the yellow.
"Just one more —Aaagh!" Before her opponent could act, Llenn twists the blade in Pitohui's shoulder. Where there was once numbness is now agonizing pain. Pito's grip on the remaining lightsword slips, leaving the only weapon between them Llenn's borrowed knife.
Still straddling Pitohui, Llenn squeezes the knife. "This time, I'll stab you in the face! And win!" However, as she tries to pull out the knife, Llenn's wrist is held down by Pitohui's vise-like grip with the left hand. The handless right arm also crosses over and traps Llenn's arm at the elbow. "Wha—?"
"There, I've got you now…"
"Arrgh!"
"I can't believe you came to me, Llenn… How proactive of you… I love it!"
"Daaaaah!" No matter what, Llenn couldn't overcome Pitohui's strength and break the hold. She couldn't lean her torso forward to crunch down on the devil's neck either. But she had to do something, time is running out. The waves have reached the propellers, which meant the level of the sea was sixty feet away and diminishing.
Joy blooming on her face, Pitohui says, "You're incredible, Llenn… This is the Llenn I was afraid of… It's an honor to fight you. Now that we're here, locked together in this embrace, shall we drown as one?"
"No! I'm not into the romantic-double-suicide thing! I'm gonna kill you and win!"
"Oh? How?"
"Remember what you said before? 'The one who uses their head in battle wins!'" Llenn takes it literally as she extends her head back as far as it will go, then swings it downward, landing a satisfying crunch on Pitohui's head.
"Gahk!" Llenn lifts up, a red mark on her head glowing for sustained damage; meanwhile, Pitohui has two marks for her head being hit by Llenn on the front and slamming against the ship on the back. "More! More! More!"
Llenn gives Pitohui what she wants, headbutting her faster and faster than it looks like a woodpecker's bill against tree bark. Pitohui's grunts start to sound like a machine gun going off. However, she's not losing much damage - she still retains over thirty percent. Llenn's strategy, however, isn't to deplete Pitohui's greater amount of health.
VR games are perfectly capable of reproducing bodily damage as they would occur in real life. So just like anyone who hits their head enough times in real life, a virtual person could suffer the effects of a concussion.
So after so many headbutts, Pitohui's grip loosens enough for Llenn to flip away from Pitohui. Without her feet (and nearly falling off because she forgot she can't stand), she crawls back to Pitohui and reaches for her severed legs.
With her brain rattled, Pitohui finds it hard to speak as she grunts, "Ll…enn… You really…want me…to…die…by…drown…ing…? You…coward…"
"No, Pito. That would be an insult to you, to the warrior who fought to get to this point."
"Ex…actly… Ah, it finally feels, like my head, is clear… In a moment, I'll get up…and be able to kill you. I can fight…with one hand…"
"Hey, Pito."
"What is it, Llenn…?"
"Before that— Die." With all of her power, Llenn pushes Pito off the side of the ship.
Later on, Llenn would be inform of how Pitohui's demise came: she slid down the rear end of the ship, then hit the air between the ship and the water, only to be minced into a million pieces by a propeller.
xxxxxxxx
The rest of the ship soon succumbed to the sea, but Llenn hadn't drowned completely. She's light enough to float and have her health points sap away in that manner. Worse, the game was not over - she had not been declared the winner. With Pitohui gone, that left two possible people - Kureha, who was alive when the finale with Pitohui began, and M, who hadn't been seen since Llenn and Pitohui "traded" teams. Considering Kureha's damage, it is unlikely she survived.
Disappointed that she has no choice but to die in the next twenty seconds, she murmurs, "Must be M, then. I wonder if he found a boat to ride in."
"No, there were no boats."
"Hweh? Uh, whaaa—?"
"Don't struggle, or you'll fall." She was lifted out of the water, with two percent of hit points remaining. With her face towards the sky, she can't see what holds her above the sea. But she knows it is M, the heavy man treading on the surface of the sea.
"H-hey, M! Damage! Damage!"
"Yeah, I'll run out soon. I'm glad I made it in time."
"But…the championship!"
"I don't care which team wins. Even Pito said it: This part is my duty."
"B-but Jaymes-"
"He told us all to finish the fight. But he only told Kureha to win. At that point, I think all he wanted was Devesta to be eliminated, no matter what... And Kureha did not rescind my orders from Pitohui. Anyway, thank you, Llenn."
"Huh? What did I do to deserve thanks? It's the other way around, M! It's because I couldn't be clear and direct that Pitohui jerked us around and kept me from properly joining the betrayers' team!"
"That was Pito's fault," he remarks so decisively that Llenn found no ground to argue.
"Then…then I don't get it. What am I being thanked for?"
"Thank you for taking the fight against Pito seriously." A moment later, Llenn's body is back in the water. She drops underwater for a moment, but not long enough to kill her. When she returns to the surface, she can see a message over the grey sky that reads, "Congratulations! Winner, BTRY!"
After one hour and fifty-nine minutes and 68,029 shots fired, the Third Squad Jam had come to a close.
Kureha
Before the sea swallowed her, Kureha chose to drop out of the tournament and had returned to the bar, welcomed by celebratory cheers from the audience for her fantastical defeat of Devesta - to them, Annihilator. That time had passed, and it was Llenn's turn to receive the cheers as the winner of SJ3. But at this point, Kureha was not in the bar, but outside of it with Sinon.
The young sniper asked for a private conversation after the tournament came to a close, and Kureha knew why. One, Jaymes would have logged out after his elimination as he said he would, so Sinon hadn't gotten the chance to talk to him face to face. Kureha is the next best thing...or maybe for Kureha, Sinon is that person.
Once they were out of earshot, Sinon spilled all that had transpired in the bar since SJ3 began. A loudmouth man in a red beret had convinced most of the teams into joining forces to eliminate LPFM, SHINC, MMTM, and T-S, but the true target was LPFM and its captain. Then when the final stage was revealed, she received a text from Philia that Annihilator was a former SAO red player named Devesta and to find a way to inform Jaymes. Of course, Jaymes would find out on his own inside the There Is Still Time, and the rest is history.
"So there were others as she said. The man in the red beret, where did he go?"
"He left after Annihilator's defeat...but the entire time, he looked...exhilarated, especially when Jaymes was eliminated. And there was one other person to join him, but I never saw their face. I think that could have been a member of her team, though."
Kureha closed her eyes, pondering what she should say. She should inform Jaymes, but he's probably busy right now...and he'll be mad at her later. "...Let this be for now. Once we get some time with Jaymes, we'll have him explain everything. For now, let's celebrate." Kureha turn back to the bar's entrance, but Sinon's voice stops her.
"Aren't you scared, Kureha? If Kirito, Asuna, and myself could be attacked by former members of Laughing Coffin, what makes you think you're safe? That Jaymes is safe? What if..."
Looking back at the girl over her shoulder, Kureha says, "Sinon. You care for him a lot, don't you?"
The sniper's face bursts red like a cherry. "H-huh? N-no, I... Well..."
"Hehe, it's okay. I feel the same way, always have. And he cares for you a lot too, you know. Just as he does for Kirito, Asuna, even Lisbeth still. Right now, he's overcome with guilt with what happened to Kirito, and...by tonight, that guilt will grow. He already lives with the guilt from SAO."
"I know."
"All our lives, he's always protected me. From the moment I met him to this day, he's been whatever I needed him to be, but not once have I thought about what I haven't been for him. When have I been his shield? His sword? His shoulder to cry on? Never, because he always internalized it. But today, for the first time, he asked me to help him, then to fight for him." She raises her fist and clenches it tightly. "You, me, Zel, all of Crimson Squad... If Devesta and her remnants of Laughing Coffin are coming after our captain, it is our responsibility to protect him. It is our duty to back up our friend. It is our duty to back up the boy we love and admire. It's that simple, right?"
"...You're right. Yes, you're right."
Kureha smiles and waves her hand forward. "Now come on, let's congratulate Llenn before Fukaziroh gets her wasted."
"I didn't see M and Pitohui come. Wonder what's up with them."
"Pito's probably throwing a fit and punching M in the stomach."