Why is she always so depressed? I mean...I get it. She went through a traumatic event and even had to kill a man but how long is she going to let that affect her? It was years ago and she still comes to class, every day, and just sits in her seat, quietly, looking depressed. It's so off-putting and not a surprise that nobody wants to talk to her. No one wants to talk to someone, who's that gloomy. I know that what she went through was horrible but why can't she just get over it and show some actual strength, for once? I have so much more respect for people, who go through traumatic experiences, but end up moving past it and becoming stronger from it. Why can't she just do that, instead? She's just letting that one event ruin the rest of her life, instead of doing anything about it. It's pathetic...and sad, really. Why can't she just be stronger?
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As soon as the voices from students at her school disappeared from her mind and she regained her awareness of the situation she found herself in, Shino felt that she was on the hard, street, of the city that her and Asuna both had fought the mini gun player in. They were both on the ground, recovering from what seemed like a grenade blast that interrupted the two's brief and heartfelt reunion. As Shino regained her vision and hearing, a figure began approaching her...another female player, it seemed...a female player, who seemed to have her sights set on taking out Asuna and Shino both. Shino squinted her eyes at the female player, to get a better glimpse of her physical characteristics. The player had long, dirty, blond hair, camouflaged body armor and combat pants and black combat boots. The weapon she was holding seemed to be a grenade launcher which made sense, considering the situation that Shino found herself in. Shino couldn't make out the exact model of the grenade launcher from the distance she was from her enemy. It could have been Shino's imagination but, even from how far away she was from the player, she thought that she could see a wicked smile on the female player's face as she, briefly, pulled up her menu screen to unequip her grenade launcher and, instead, equipped a much smaller item, that materialized into her right hand. It didn't even look like a sidearm of any kind and the player pulled back her arm, almost like a baseball pitcher, and threw the small item right at where Shino and Asuna were still on the ground. As the object got closer to her, Shino was able to observe that it was C4 explosives, causing her to panic and, immediately, begin shaking, Asuna, who was still struggling to regain her own senses, after the grenade attack.
"Asuna, we have to move, now!" Shino shouted; just in case Asuna's hearing hadn't returned all of the way.
Luckily, Asuna nodded her head in understanding and the two girls forced themselves up, the best they could, sprinted a small bit and dove out of the way of the impending danger, in the form of the C4 explosive that landed on the exact spot, where they were just lying in. In less than a second, the C4 explosive, went off, causing another massive explosion, that just, barely, missed Shino and Asuna both and, once again, damaged their hearing, immensely. The ringing in Shino's ears, slowly, disappeared and she looked through the smoke that had formed from the explosion and a figure, that matched the girl, who had thrown the C4 at them, walked through the smoke, almost like it didn't faze her at all. As soon as Shino observed that the girl was pulling up her menu screen, she began checking on Asuna to see if she had recovered from the blast. Luckily, she had, and was sitting up in a similar position to Shino and had her eyes fixed on their enemy, in concern.
"She's about to reequip her grenade launcher," deduced Asuna, from the fact that the player's main menu screen was open.
Sensing impending danger, Asuna and Shino both quick selected their weapons by using the corresponding hand motion and, before they knew it, both of their respective weapons had materialized in their hands. In Asuna's case, it was her Uzi submachine gun and in Shino's it was her Hecate sniper rifle.
"Let's take her out, before she even equips her weapon," stated Shino, getting in a crouching position, and taking aim at her target, through the scope of her weapon.
Before Asuna could even agree with Shino, her friend pulled the trigger, and a bullet blasted out of the weapon and shot through the air, right towards' their opponent's head. To both of their surprises, though, something large materialized in the girl's right hand and it didn't look like a weapon to them. All they could make out was that it almost looked rectangular in shape and was pitch black in color.
Thunk!
The sniper bullet bounced off of the rectangular device like it was nothing and, it was at this point, that Shino figured out that the girl had equipped her secondary weapon but...calling it a weapon wasn't entirely correct. It was a riot shield, something that could be used to block bullets and, if the player wanted, a pretty powerful melee weapon as well. While Asuna and Shino remained shocked at what they had just witnessed, their opponent made her way towards the two girls, holding the riot shield up in front of her face.
"Damn it," cursed Shino. "She's heading right towards us with that stupid shield of hers. I'm not sure how many shots it can absorb but we can't just stand here and do nothing."
"Agreed," muttered Asuna, pointing her Uzi submachine gun at the girl, despite her holding a shield.
Asuna recalled how Shino had taught her to fire her weapon and chose to hold it with two hands since her intended target was still a little far away. Asuna took a deep breath and began firing her weapon at the girl, using the riot shield. Just like Shino had predicted, all of the bullets that were coming from Asuna's sub machine gun, simply, just bounced off the riot shield like it was nothing but an idea did form inside of Shino's head.
"Asuna, keep firing at her," commanded Shino. "Don't let up."
Shino left Asuna's side and made her way to a building , that was positioned to the side of the girl, who was heading towards Asuna, down the street they were on. Asuna's continual fire of bullets at the player, forced her not to turn to face Shino because if she would have, then all of Asuna's shots would have hit her. Shino used this to her advantage and entered the building she had in her sights, climbed all of the stairs of the building until she was on the roof, headed to the edge of the roof, crouched down and put the scope of her Hecate to her eye, preparing to take a shot from on the roof. The player was getting a little bit closer to Asuna but Shino observed that her friend was still not letting up. She was still firing her submachine gun, just like Shino had told her to. She positioned the reticle of the scope over the side of the girl with the dirty blond hair's stomach which wasn't protected by the riot shield. Shino took a deep breath, just like she always did, before firing the Hecate, and wrapped her finger around the trigger of her Hecate, not wanting to waste this opportunity.
"Don't move another inch," threatened a voice, coming from behind Shino.
Shino felt something resting against the back of her head and judging by how it felt, there was no mistaking that it was a gun of some kind. Just as Shino had found an opening, another player had taken advantage of the situation and was, most likely, going to finish off Shino, with ease. This meant that Asuna was going to be all by herself, fighting both the explosives maniac with the riot shield and the player that was threatening Shino, now.
Why can't she just get stronger?
One of the voices that Shino had heard during the initial explosion resurfaced inside of her mind.
T-That's a good question, thought Shino to herself, sadly. Why can't I be stronger? I mean, look at me. I'm about to let this player kill me and simply leave the rest to Asuna and Kirito, if he's still in the tournament, right now. I-It's not that I don't want to be stronger. I do. More than anything. It's not like I want the trauma that occurred at the post office to ruin the rest of my life. What kid would want something like that...to have to experience that every single day of their life? It's exhausting, mentally. But, being stronger doesn't come so easily for some people. It requires...work...so much work...and...I've put in that work, right? Asuna and I both have worked so hard to overcome our traumas and to just give up, here, and accept my death...it would make all of that work meaningless. I'm...not going to let myself regress...not after I've come so far...I'm...not...giving...up!
In one single motion, Shino dropped her Hecate rifle and elbowed the weapon that was pointing at the back of her head, before the other player could pull the trigger to finish Shino off. The gun was revealed to be a pistol of some kind, that flew out of the player's hand from the impact of Shino's elbow, and landed on the roof. The player was taken aback so much that Shino followed up with another elbow to the player's jaw sending them to the surface of the roof as well. Shino wasted no time in getting on top of the player, who, now that Shino had gotten a good look at her face, looked exactly like the other player with the grenade launcher. The same dirty blond hair...and the same wicked grin.
"Haha, don't look so surprised," the girl mocked. "My twin and I are going to win this tournament. I mean...there's two of us, after all. That means that our chances are doubled. Mei down there has always been obsessed with blowing shit up so her grenade launcher and C4 explosives are a perfect match for her. Although, for me, personally, I prefer a less...bombastic approach, haha."
Shino used a hand motion to quick select her secondary weapon and, in an instant, her Hecate disappeared and, in its place, materialized a photon saber in her right hand. Shino pressed the button on the side of the weapon and blue photon energy shot out of it. Shino thrusted the weapon down, hoping to deal a final blow to the girl she was on top of but the other player grabbed Shino's hands that were holding the saber, holding her back from doing so. The girl's strength exceeded Shino's...there was no doubt about that.
"I'm...not going...down that easily," said the girl, using all of her strength to keep Shino from finishing her off.
The girl loosened her grip on Shino's hands, allowing the energy weapon to slice, downward, but she moved her head out of the way so the most it cut was some of her hair. Having missed, this left Shino open to an elbow to the face from her opponent. After pushing Shino off of her, the girl did a backward somersault into a standing position, smiling, confidently, at Shino.
"That elbow hurts like a bitch, huh...well, you know what they say about payback," she joked as Shino recovered from the strike and stood up as well, still holding her blue photon saber.
Shino swung her photon saber at the girl, again, and this time, her opponent sidestepped her and rammed her right fist right into Shino's side and followed it up with a spinning round house kick to her jaw, sending Shino to her knees. The last strike that the girl performed was a brutal chop right to Shino's throat. After the physical beat down, Shino fell onto her back, exhausted. Shino was in shock that her opponent was able to do all of that without even having a weapon equipped.
"Like I said, earlier, my twin was always into explosives; I had a different passion, though. I loved martial arts so I had to build my character in this game around that."
Shino's opponent opened her menu screen and selected her secondary weapon. They materialized in the girl's hands. A pair of ballistic knives, one for each of her hands. Shino wasn't too familiar with this type of melee weapon but had seen other player's use them in first person shooters, in the past. Essentially, they could be used as regular knives or they could shoot out of their bases at the enemy for a deadly distance attack. They were, in fact, a perfect fit for a player, who had a martial arts background. Despite parts of her body feeling numb from the onslaught of strikes, Shino picked herself up off of the roof of the building she was on, still holding her saber. She, instinctually, checked her health and saw that it was at about 50% still, most of the damage being from the two explosions and some of it coming from the martial arts strikes she had just suffered. Still, she had half of her life left. That was something. Shino craned her neck to check on her friend and saw that not only was Mei, the girl she was fighting's sister, close to Asuna, she had just struck Asuna right in the face with the riot shield, sending Shino's friend onto her back, hard, resulting in her dropping her Submachine gun, in the process.
"Asuna!" Shino shouted in concern, horrified by seeing her friend struck in such a way.
She had been so preoccupied with fighting the other twin, that she hadn't even considered how much trouble Asuna might have been in.
Shunk!
Shino's eyes widened in horror as she felt a new-found numbness, right in the center of her chest and when she looked down, Shino saw a knife sticking out of it. In the corner of her eyes, she could see that this shot her health down to 30% and all her opponent could do was laugh at her, cockily.
"Awfully stupid of you to take your eyes off of your opponent, especially in a tournament like this," claimed the girl, who was already slashing her other ballistic knife at Shino's throat.
In desperation, Shino held up her right forearm and the blade pierced right through it, sending a numb sensation down her entire right forearm and dropping her health down to 10%.
T-This isn't good, dreaded Shino. B-But...I can't give up...A-Asuna...she needs my help!
Not knowing much in the way of martial arts, Shino pulled back her right hand, closed it into a fist and rammed it right into the girl's nose not once but twice, until the girl stumbled, backwards, leaving both of her ballistic knives, still inside of Shino. This left the enemy player without a weapon but she, immediately, pulled up her menu screen to equip her primary weapon which was the pistol that Shino had elbowed out of her hands earlier in the fight. As the knives that had pierced her flesh dematerialized because of her opponent equipping a different weapon, Shino pushed all of the numbness from the knives that were inside of her to the back of her mind and rushed her opponent as the pistol began to materialize. As soon as it did in the girl's right hand, Shino ducked down and shouted at the top of her lungs, emitting a strength that she had never felt in her entire life. Shino speared herself right into her opponent, wrapped both of her arms around her, and both of the girls ended up flying off of the roof of the building, falling to the hard, street, awaiting below them. Shino, frantically, positioned herself so she could use her opponent to break most of the fall damage and her opponent, smashed onto the street, back-first.
Uck!
That was the only noise that left the girl's mouth, in addition to a mix of blood and spit from the impact. Shino, despite still being shielded from some of the impact of the street still lost some health from fall damage but it wasn't enough to send her health to 0%. Luckily, when she turned her head, exhausted, to check how much health she had remaining, while still lying on top of her opponent, it read 2%. Shino let out a combination of a sigh of relief and just a sigh of pure tiredness from the encounter...a tiredness that felt so real that it almost didn't seem like she was in the VR world, anymore.
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Again, thought Asuna to herself, feeling nothing but shame. That girl...with the grenade launcher...she would have eliminated me if Kirito hadn't shown up to save me. Why? Why do I always have to be the one, who needs saving? I-It's not like I'm ungrateful...of course, Kirito saving me makes me happy and reminds me of why I love him so much but...I can't help but think when will I, finally, be strong enough to not only save myself but save him, as well? For just once in my life, I want to be the one to save Kirito, when he needs me the most...when he's at his lowest. He's always so strong...so dependable...I know it wears on him, even though, he, rarely, shows it. It would wear on anybody. When Kirito does, one day, find himself in a position that he can't get out of, will I be strong enough to save him or...will I still be too weak to do a damn thing to help? It's so frustrating! I-I'm sorry, Kirito. That you always have to be the one, who ends up saving me, like this.
"Asuna?" asked Kazuto, noticing that Asuna was lost in her thoughts.
She looked at him, still on her knees, recovering from the blow to the face that the other player was responsible for and forced a reassuring smile to put Kazuto's mind at ease. Despite her own disappointment in herself, she didn't want to worry him so she figured pretending like everything was okay was the best course of action.
"S-Sorry about that," apologized Asuna, picking herself up off of the street. "I was a bit lost in thought there, for a second. Thanks, Kirito, for saving me. You always did have the best timing."
Before either of the two could talk, anymore, they both heard a scream and when they turned to look, where it was coming from, they saw Shino and another female player falling off of the roof of a building, towards the hard, street, below.
"S-Sinon?"
Asuna couldn't believe what she was seeing and the two girls made contact with the street, creating a small crack in it, from the impact. Both Kazuto and Asuna headed towards the two girls to check to see the condition they were in. When Asuna was close enough, she breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that because Shino had used her opponent's body to break her fall, her friend still had an, incredibly, small amount of health left. Although, it wasn't more than her opponent's, who was a girl that looked nearly identical to the one that Kazuto had just defeated, in order to protect Asuna. The girl Asuna wasn't familiar with had 1% health left while Shino had 2%. Asuna observed that Shino looked exhausted and was, lazily, using the hand technique to quick select a weapon. Shino's photon saber equipped into her right hand and she pressed the button on the side of it, causing a bright blue light to emit from the weapon. At this action, all the girl with the dirty blond hair could do, was chuckle, defeatedly.
"Shit, that was a hell of a fight," she praised, accepting her defeat. "I thought...for sure my twin and I had a clear advantage in this fight, with there being two of us. Although, we never anticipated that a group of three players would team up like this."
The girl turned her attention to Kazuto and Asuna, being able to determine that they defeated her twin sister since she wasn't around, causing a ruckus, any longer.
"Three strong players on top of that."
Strong?
As soon as the word left the girl's mouth, Asuna couldn't help but fixate on it. She decided to herself that the girl must have been referring to Kazuto and Shino, who were the ones that actually defeated the two players while Asuna did nothing but almost get eliminated. However, the girl was, in fact, counting Asuna as one of those strong players because of how she had kept her sister distracted for so long, allowing Shino to defeat her.
"Go ahead and finish this."
The girl had turned her attention back to Shino, who was preparing to deal the final strike.
"You've earned it, after all. No hard feelings."
It could have been Asuna's imagination but she could have sworn that she saw Shino smile, slightly, almost like she had enjoyed her encounter with her opponent as much as her opponent seemed to have. A single slash across the girl's face with the photon saber was enough to result in the girl shattering into tiny, red polygonal shards. Having finished off her opponent, Shino forced herself to stand up, ignoring her body's fatigue. After unequipping the weapon from her menu screen, Asuna, Kazuto and Shino stood in an awkward silence, for a moment, waiting for someone to speak up.
Kazuto was the first to speak, "Sorry, it took me a while to find you guys...I got a bit held up...by...something."
The vagueness of what Kazuto had just said worried Asuna and she couldn't help but question, "W-What do you mean by something? Did you run into trouble with some other players?"
"Y-Yeah, but that wasn't all. POH showed up and, instead of fighting me, he helped me defeat the players, who were teaming up to fight against me. I...still can't believe I accepted that bastard's help. It makes me sick, especially after seeing that look of satisfaction on his face as he, brutally, eliminated that player in the same wicked way he used to kill back in SAO."
Asuna was disturbed by the image of Kazuto teaming up with such a sinister man but realized that he was already feeling guilty enough about it so she didn't say anything to make him feel worse. Plus, he wasn't the only one, who had an encounter that they would like to be able to forget about.
"Death Gun showed up, again," explained Asuna. "As soon as I spawned in, he attacked me."
"W-Wait, is that what you were trying to tell me, before we got attacked by those twins?" asked Shino, recalling that Asuna had wanted to talk to her about something.
"Yeah, I tried to fight him the best I could but he was just too tough. He made me look so weak...I couldn't even land a damn strike on him, same as when I fought him, before."
"Was he still using that teleportation ability?" asked Kazuto and Asuna nodded her head, yes.
"Hm, one of the players I fought against used an ability that allowed him to turn invisible," brought up Kazuto. "I can't help but wonder if that teleportation ability of Death Gun's is some kind of variation of that ability or if it's a whole different skill, entirely? On top of that, I'm curious as to whether the ability is something that can be earned through an in-game mission or if there's a different prerequisite to earn it? I'll have to look into that when we get back."
"To be honest, I've read tons of information about GGO, online, and have even looked at all of the different abilities that have been unlocked but I never saw anything that allowed players to teleport like that," claimed Shino, sadly. "Maybe, something about Death Gun is different than the casual player, who has this game?"
"That's a good point," agreed Kazuto, folding his arms across his chest in contemplation. "He may be using means outside of the base coding of the game to use that damned ability of his. There's no telling what him and POH are hiding and are still planning to do for the remainder of the tournament. I shudder at the thought."
Startling all three players, was their main menu screens opening on their own and displaying a loud, celebratory message in big letters, congratulating them on the fact that they had survived the second round of the Bullet of Bullets tournament and were part of the remaining ten players that were left in the tournament.
"S-Seems like we did it," said Asuna, trying to sound cheerful, despite the grim atmosphere. "I know...there's a lot of uncertainty about what's going on and what's to come but all three of us are still in this tournament. That means, all three of us can still fight and make sure that POH and Death Gun don't cause any more damage through this tournament."
"Yeah, you're right, Asuna," said Kazuto, smiling. "We should focus on the positives, for the time being. All three of us kicked a lot of asses in this second round, especially you two girls. We should rest easy for tonight and then meet up at Agil's bar, tomorrow, to discuss everything we've learned so far."
"Haha, I feel like I might not even wake up, tomorrow, considering how tired I feel, right now," admitted Shino, jokingly.
Even though the mood was lighter, now, as a countdown timer appeared in the three's menu screens, showing how much time they had until they were returned to the dark room, something still didn't feel right to Asuna. She couldn't tell if it was Kazuto's encounter with POH, her encounter with Death Gun or...something else, entirely. Regardless, she pushed this to the back of her mind, as she continued to talk with Kazuto and Shino until the counter on their menu screens reached zero.
Author's Note: Hello, thank you for reading this week's chapter and the conclusion to the second Round of the Bullet of Bullets tournament. Since for the first round, I focused a lot on character building in terms of the antagonists or other players that the main group had to fight, I thought for the second round, I would focus more on the action and development of the main three characters, instead. I know that the players that the main group fought against weren't as developed in this round but, hopefully, you all enjoyed some of the action scenes and I apologize, again, for them not being the best. Also, in this chapter, we got a small glimpse into Shino's past and we got to see Asuna's perspective on always being saved by Kirito. In the anime and books, I always noticed that Asuna, typically, is the one being saved by Kirito, at least, until Alicization, so I thought it would be interesting to explore how this actually makes Asuna feel. These next couple of chapters will be a bit slower and more character focused, before the final round of the Bullet of Bullets starts. We are well past the half-way point of the series and I hope I'm able to finish off this series in a semi-satisfying way. See you next week!