The instant Shino's eyes flew open, she came back to reality.
Kyoji still had the injector in his right hand, its tip pressed against her neck as he tried to pull open her tracksuit top.
Shino moved with him.
The hard metal tip slid away from her neck and drove deep into the bedsheet.
With a strength she could hardly believe was hers, Shino grabbed the injector barrel with her left hand and shoved Kyoji's chin upward with her right.
His upper body reeled back. The crushing weight on her stomach and chest lifted, and Shino dragged air into her burning lungs as she desperately tried to tear the injector out of his hand.
But Kyoji still had the advantage. His fingers were locked around the grip, and as they struggled, he suddenly wrenched the injector back and swung his left hand down.
"...!!"
The blow struck Shino's right shoulder.
Her whole body rolled off the bed. Her back slammed into the desk, and the drawer tumbled free, spilling everything inside across the floor.
She took one ragged breath.
On the bed, Kyoji clutched his jaw for a moment before slowly raising his head and staring at her.
His eyes were wide. Saliva clung wetly to his lips, and blood had smeared across his tongue and mouth. His voice came out hoarse.
"Why...? Why would you do that to me? Asada-san should need me. I'm the only one who understands you. I was helping you. I was protecting you."
A memory flashed through Shino's mind.
Only a few days ago, Kyoji had appeared and saved her when Endou and the others were cornering her.
Maybe that had not been a coincidence at all.
Maybe he had followed her after school, learned the route she took home, watched her apartment, then logged into GGO and waited for Sinon there.
That obsession had already been pressing in around her. She had sensed the danger, but she had failed to recognize what he really was.
Realizing that made her chest ache.
"Shinkawa-kun... this is hard for me too. But I still like this world. I'm going to keep liking it. So..."
Shino forced the words out.
"I won't go with you."
As she tried to stand, her fingertips touched something heavy and cold on the floor.
She looked down.
It was the model gun she had hidden at the back of the drawer, the symbol of the fear she had never been able to face.
The Procyon SL.
The prize she had received for placing well in the second BoB.
Shino gripped it with shaking fingers and raised it toward Kyoji.
It was cold.
Ice-cold.
Numbness crept up from her palm to her shoulder.
But now she understood.
This was the cold of the real world.
It was nothing like what she had felt inside GGO. As long as she did not let herself be swallowed by fear, it could not overwhelm her.
Even so, something dark began spreading in the depths of her chest.
The wallpaper, the floor, the window, even Kyoji's face blurred and warped. The room melted into the old post office. Kyoji's face twisted into the robber's, and the injector in his hand became an old black automatic pistol.
The model gun in Shino's hand changed too.
It became the Black Star she knew all too well.
Of course she was afraid.
Her stomach turned, and her back went rigid. She wanted to throw the gun away and run.
But if she ran now, everything she had done would mean nothing.
As Shino fighting her own fear, and as Sinon fighting stronger opponents, she might never reach the place she wanted to reach.
Strength was not something proven only by the result.
It was proven in the way you kept moving toward it.
Shino clenched her teeth and pulled back the hammer.
The hallucination vanished.
The old post office, the gunman, the automatic pistol, and the Black Star all disappeared.
Kyoji was kneeling on the bed, slowly backing away as he stared at the Procyon SL in Shino's hand.
"Do you really think you can stop me with a model gun?"
"You said it yourself," Shino said, forcing herself upright. "You said I have real strength. No other girl would point a handgun at someone and pull the trigger, right?"
She kept the muzzle trained on him and edged toward the kitchen.
"So this isn't a model gun. If I pull the trigger, a bullet will come out, and you will die."
"Die...? Me?"
"Yes."
Shino's voice shook, but she did not lower the gun.
"Go to your next world alone."
"No... no. No. I don't want this. I hate this..."
Kyoji's eyes went blank. His shoulders sagged, and he collapsed facedown on the bed.
The injector slipped out of his right hand.
For a moment, Shino thought of rushing in and grabbing it, but if she startled him, he might spring up again.
She kept the gun raised and moved carefully toward the kitchen.
The bed slipped out of her line of sight.
The moment it did, Shino turned and ran for the front door.
But her foot caught on the rug.
She fell hard. The model gun flew from her hand and clattered into the sink. Pain shot through her knee as it hit the floor, but she ignored it and reached for the door.
It was locked.
She fumbled with the lock.
Just as she heard the click, something cold closed around her ankle.
"Ah...!"
Kyoji had crawled after her. With his left hand locked around her ankle, he dragged her back across the floor.
Shino stretched for the doorknob with everything she had, but her fingers could not reach.
In the next instant, Kyoji lunged over her from behind.
She twisted and tried to swing at him, but he caught her right wrist in a viselike grip. Pain flashed up her arm.
"Asada-san... Asada-san..."
Foam gathered at the corners of Kyoji's mouth. His unfocused face lowered toward her, mouth hanging open, as if he meant to bite into her flesh.
Then he caught her left wrist as well.
Both her hands were pinned.
If he came any closer, maybe she could bite his neck.
That was the only thought left in Shino's mind.
Cold air brushed across her shoulder where the tracksuit had been pulled loose.
Then Kyoji suddenly looked behind her.
Someone rushed through the open door.
A knee slammed straight into Kyoji's face.
Shino watched him roll away, then stared at the person who had burst into the room.
It was a young man she had never seen before. He grabbed Kyoji's arms and forced him down with practiced movements, then muttered in a voice full of grief.
"You're... Shouichi's little brother?"
His black hair was longer than it had been in GGO. He wore a gray-black coat. His face looked a little older, with the faint shadow of stubble on his chin.
Shino finally understood who he was when he shouted over his shoulder.
"Run, Sinon! Go get help!"
"Satoru..."
She pushed herself up.
The police should be here soon, she thought.
She had to warn him. Kyoji still had a lethal weapon.
But when she turned back, Kyoji, pinned to the floor, had lost whatever remained of his reason.
"You... youuu!! Don't go near my Asada!!"
With a roar, Kyoji threw Satoru off him and climbed on top. His fist slammed into Satoru again and again.
Then he reached down, pulled out the gun-shaped injector, and aimed it at Satoru.
"Satoru!!"
"Die!!"
"Then you'll need a little more practice!"
A pale-gold light flashed in Satoru's eyes.
The moment he saw the injector, he drove his knee into Kyoji's unguarded stomach.
Kyoji folded, and Satoru threw him aside. He immediately pried the injector from Kyoji's hand, hurled it across the room, pinned him down again, and struck him in the throat.
Satoru knew exactly what a hit like that could do.
After his parents had left, isolation and ugly rumors had followed him for years. His body had always been thin, but his childhood had still left him with more fights and scars than he liked to remember.
A blow to the Adam's apple could steal the breath in an instant.
Against someone untrained, even one or two seconds were enough.
Satoru had learned that the hard way.
He also knew not to use too much force.
Kyoji choked, and that was all the opening Satoru needed. He twisted Kyoji's arms behind his back and locked him to the floor.
The impact made the floor thud beneath them.
"These hands might not have much muscle," Satoru said under his breath, "but neither do yours, right?"
He held Kyoji's arms fast.
The joint lock was another thing someone had once used on him.
"Aaaah! I'm going to kill you!! Asada-san! Asada-san would never be with someone like you!!"
Kyoji thrashed on the floor, but all he managed to do was hurt his own pinned arms. His strength drained away, and soon all he could do was lie there, pressed to the floor, screaming curses.
Satoru did not relax.
He kept holding Kyoji down until the last of his strength ran out.
For a long time.
Then he glanced at Shino, who still could not move.
"Looks like... she isn't your Sheeta after all."
He let out a long, exhausted sigh.
"In the end, I didn't manage to do anything for either of you brothers... And I'm sorry I was late. It took forever to explain things to Kikuoka, the civil servant, before he finally understood."
His voice softened.
"You're not hurt, are you?"
Shino nodded.
Suddenly, tears spilled from her eyes.
"Wh... why...?"
Her mind felt like a sponge soaked through with water. She could not think about anything. The tears ran down her cheeks and fell to the floor.
Shino pressed her lips together and stayed still, letting them fall.
If she tried to say anything, she knew she would break into sobs.
Satoru said nothing.
He only kept Kyoji pinned beneath him.
At last, police sirens sounded in the distance.
The sound seemed to drown out Kyoji's endless curses, but Shino's tears would not stop.
Large drops kept falling, one after another.
Only then did she understand what the hollow place in her chest was.
It was grief.
Loss, so deep it had changed shape.