Shino's skin prickled with revulsion and fear, but she forced herself to keep talking to him. If she made any sudden movement, or even raised her voice a little, the harmless-looking boy in front of her would probably press the injector's button without hesitation.
She did not want to believe that.
But the madness hidden in Kyoji's voice and expression made it impossible to doubt. So she made herself stay calm.
"Th-then... you haven't used that injector in the real world yet, have you...? Then there's still time. You can still start over. You can't just throw your life away... Didn't you take the high school equivalency exam? Weren't you going to prep school? You were going to become a doctor, weren't you...?"
"Equivalency...?"
Kyoji tilted his head and repeated the unfamiliar word several times. At last, he murmured, "Oh... that," took his left hand off Shino, and reached into the pocket of his jacket.
What he took out was a long, narrow slip of paper.
"Want to see?"
With a self-mocking smile, he held it up in front of Shino.
It looked like a printout, and it was something Shino knew very well: a mock exam score report. But the scores and ranking numbers lined up on it were so disastrous in every subject that she could hardly believe her eyes.
"Shin... kawa... what is this...?"
"Go ahead and laugh. My scores really are that pathetic."
"But... your parents..."
How could they keep letting you use the AmuSphere after seeing grades like this?
Before she could say the rest aloud, Kyoji's sharp nerves seemed to catch the meaning.
"Heh. Something like this... I can print out as many copies as I want. And I told my parents I was using the AmuSphere for distance learning. The money they give me still isn't enough to cover GGO's subscription fee, but in-game, I can earn as much as I want..."
Suddenly, the smile vanished from Kyoji's face. His nose wrinkled, his teeth clenched, and his canines showed.
"It's so much better than this filthy reality. My parents... the people at school... every one of them is hopelessly stupid. If I could become the strongest player in GGO... that would be enough. That's all I needed. That's why Spiegel existed."
The tremor in Kyoji's hand passed through the injector and into Shino.
Is he going to press the button now?
The thought made her hold her breath.
"And yet... it was all that scum XeXeeD's fault... saying AGI builds were the strongest... because of that lie... Spiegel couldn't even equip an M16... damn it... damn him..."
"And Samuro too. So many top players acknowledged his strength, but he still never shared how to make AGI work. No pride at all. They made me... they made me feel myself getting weaker every day!"
"Even the brother I respected lost it the second he heard me complaining about it. What was that? What the hell was that?!"
Kyoji's words carried a resentment too deep to measure. It was all supposed to be about a game, yet his hatred had clearly crossed a line.
"Now... I can't even earn enough to renew GGO... GGO was... everything to me... I sacrificed everything in reality for it..."
"...So... so that's why you killed XeXeeD...?"
Could that really be the reason?
Shino wondered even as she asked.
Kyoji blinked, and that blissful smile returned to his face.
"That's right. To make Death Gun the strongest legend in GGO... no, in every VRMMO, there couldn't have been a better sacrifice. If we killed XeXeeD and Usujio Tarako, then killed Pale Rider and Garrett in today's tournament, even the stupidest players would understand that Death Gun's power was real. The strongest... I am... the strongest..."
The pleasure he could not suppress made Kyoji's body tremble.
"I couldn't kill Samuro... but this filthy real world has no use for me anymore. Let's go, Asada-san... let's go to the next place together."
"Shin... Shinkawa-kun."
Shino shook her head desperately.
"No. You can still... still turn back. You can still start over. Come with me. Let's go to the police..."
"..."
But Kyoji's eyes seemed fixed somewhere far away. He only kept shaking his head.
"...Forget the real world. Come on. Become one with me, Asada-san."
His hollow, flat voice came out as his left hand stroked Shino's cheek and his fingers toyed with her hair.
"Ah... Asada-san... you're beautiful... so beautiful..."
Kyoji's fingers were rough. Whenever they brushed the delicate skin near Shino's ear, a faint sting ran through her, but he did not seem to notice her expression. He only kept speaking as if he were dreaming.
"Asada... my Asada-san. I've always liked you, you know. Ever since I heard at school about the incident you were involved in... ever since then."
"Huh...?"
Kyoji's words reached Shino's ears with a slight delay. When she understood them, her eyes widened on their own.
"Wh... what... does that mean...?"
"I liked you... admired you... all this time..."
"...Then... you..."
Could it be?
Shino thought it, then asked in a frail voice.
"You... knew about that incident... and that's why you talked to me...?"
"Yes, of course."
Kyoji stroked Shino's head with his left hand as if soothing a child, nodding over and over as his excitement swelled.
"A girl who shot a bad guy with a real handgun. You're the only one like that in all of Japan, Asada-san. It's amazing. I told you, didn't I? You have real strength. That's why I chose the rumored Type 54 pistol as Death Gun's weapon. I admired you, Asada-san. I love you... I love you... more than anyone..."
"...How... could..."
How absurd.
How painful.
The boy in front of her had once been the only person in the real world, aside from her family, whom Shino had thought she could trust. But his mind had never lived in the same world as hers.
From the very beginning, the distance between them had been enormous.
Something dark and cold rose inside Shino until it filled her completely.
Her sight, her hearing, all five senses slipped away. The world began to recede from her.
Her strength left her.
In her unfocused, hazy vision, only Kyoji's eyes remained, floating there like black holes, dull and lightless, as if they were passages leading straight into the darkness.
Those eyes...
They were that man's eyes.
So he had come back after all.
From the shadows of the night road, from the gaps in cabinets, and then from beneath Death Gun's hat brim, that man had been hiding in every kind of darkness, waiting for his chance.
Her fingers went cold, starting at the tips. The connection between her body and her mind began to fray.
Somewhere deep inside, Shino curled inward, smaller and smaller, until even her fear felt distant.
She could no longer see anything.
She could no longer feel anything.
The sixteen years she had lived so far had unfolded in an unbearably bleak and cruel world. It had taken the father whose face she had never even seen, taken her mother's heart, and now, out of pure malice, it had even taken part of Shino's soul.
Adults hid the way they looked at her, their eyes full of something worse than curiosity, worse than disgust. Children her own age had hurled merciless insults at her too.
And as if that were not enough, this world still wanted to take more precious things from her.
Shino would never accept it.
This could not be the only reality.
Yes.
This was not reality.
This was only one of countless parallel worlds, one where more than one terrible thing had happened by chance. Somewhere, surely, there had to be a world where nothing had happened.
A world where she had never met Kyoji Shinkawa.
A world where the post office incident had never happened.
A world where her father had not died in an accident.
A world where Shino had been allowed to live an ordinary life.
Curled up in the darkness, shrunken into a small, frozen, lifeless thing, Shino's soul searched for the version of herself who could still smile warmly.
With the tiny piece of reason she had left, Shino suddenly felt a faint irony.
Unable to endure the cruelty of reality, she had fled into a dream.
In that sense, she was not so different from Kyoji.
Scolded at school, crushed by his parents' expectations and the pressure of exams, he had abandoned that reality and thrown himself into the virtual world in search of salvation. If he could become the strongest there, then maybe the self buried deep in the empty, despairing abyss of reality would still have some value.
But even that wish had shattered.
He was already broken.
In the world called Gun Gale Online, Shino had also searched for the same kind of strength Kyoji wanted. For a time, she had thought she had found a way forward.
But in the end, the cold arm reaching out from the swamp of memory had caught her and tried to drag her away.
Why couldn't she resist at all?
She could not even open her eyes.
It was no use anymore.
None of it.
Then, like a bubble rising from deep water, one thought surfaced among the broken pieces.
What about him?
The man who had been imprisoned in a virtual world for two years.
The man who had taken several human lives.
The man who, over that long battle, must have lost people important to him too.
He must have felt frustration. He must have hated the virtual world that had taken so much from him.
No.
That was not all.
Even under that weight, he had not abandoned what he carried. Only someone like that could fight Death Gun at that level and win.
You really are strong, Satoru.
At the bottom of the deep darkness, Shino murmured to herself.
I'm sorry.
You helped me, and I let all your effort go to waste.
She no longer knew how many minutes had passed. It was probably too late now. If Satoru learned that she had been killed, what would he think?
Only that still bothered her.
As soon as she thought it, that feeling became a faint light, pushing back a little of the darkness.
Was he hurrying toward the apartment now?
Even if he was, he would probably be too late to save her.
But when Satoru met Kyoji in this room, what would Kyoji do?
Run?
Give up?
Or would he thrust the injector in his hand into him?
Considering the hatred Kyoji had just shown toward Satoru, toward Samuro, that was entirely possible.
She might die here.
Maybe that was a fate she had to accept.
But if Satoru got dragged into this...
That was different.
...So she had to do something.
Deep inside her, a small Shino crouched with her arms and legs drawn in, her ears covered and her eyes shut, whispering to herself.
Beside that child stood Sinon, the girl with the pale-yellow scarf, one hand resting on her thin shoulder.
...We've only ever looked at ourselves. We only fought for ourselves. Maybe that's why we never noticed what was happening inside Shinkawa.
But even if it's late, at least this once, at the very end...
Let's fight for someone else.
At the bottom of the darkness, Shino slowly opened her eyes.
A pale, slender, but strong hand reached out to her. Trembling, Shino opened her own hand and took Sinon's.
Sinon smiled and pulled Shino to her feet.
Her pale lips moved, and a short, clear word reached her.
Let's go.
Together, they kicked off from the bottom of the dark abyss and leaped toward the wavering light above the water.
...