Sinon tightened her finger on the trigger.
Click.
The trigger refused to move, and her eyes widened.
She could not pull it. Had she somehow switched the safety on? She checked the side of her beloved rifle, but that was not it.
She tried to squeeze again, and the same hard resistance ran through her right hand, as if the trigger had been welded in place.
"Huh...? Why...?"
Click. Clack.
No matter how many times she tried, nothing changed. She stared at her own finger in shock.
It was impossible, but her finger could not touch the trigger. There was a gap of several millimeters between her pale fingertip and the smooth steel, and no matter how much force she used, the distance would not shrink.
"I... I can't pull it... Why...? Why can't I pull the trigger...?"
The small, broken sound that slipped from her throat did not belong to Sinon, the composed sniper.
It sounded exactly like Shino Asada in the real world.
Then it happened.
A black figure appeared from the smoke still lingering on the east side of the stadium.
The ruined cloak fluttered in the wind. The long, massive rifle in his right hand marked him as Death Gun, or rather, the man borrowing that form.
Suddenly, her vision went dim. Strength left her legs. Her whole body turned cold.
No... how?
This was the warning sign of an attack. Not once had it happened in this world since she became Sinon. Even when she first entered GGO and suddenly grabbed a handgun, she had stayed calm.
A violent sound rang out.
Sinon clung to Satoru's waist in terror as an old fossil-fuel engine roared. The front wheel lifted, and the motorcycle leaped onto the road.
The sudden acceleration dragged Sinon's consciousness back. Before panic could swallow her completely, she barely managed to hold on. She curled her slender body as tightly as she could, and the faint question rising in her mind kept her, for the moment, from being pulled under.
Did we... get away...?
Before long, the motorcycle hit its top speed, screaming down the main road through the ruined city.
She thought it timidly, but she did not have the courage to look back. Only then did she realize her body was trembling. She moved her stiff fingers, trying to sling Hecate II back over her shoulder.
"Oh? He's catching up?"
That was Satoru's cold laugh.
Without thinking, Sinon turned around.
From the now-distant parking lot, a damaged mechanical horse came charging into view. Her eyes widened in disbelief, but there was no need to confirm who was riding it.
Like an ominous bird spreading black wings, the rider's cloak flared wide. The L115 was slung across his back, both hands gripped the metal-fiber reins, his feet were planted in the stirrups, and his hips rose and fell with the movement of the horse. He looked exactly like an experienced rider.
Clop-clop-clop. Clop-clop-clop.
The dull hoofbeats seemed to pound directly inside her skull.
"Why...?"
Leaving aside the fact that he had probably never ridden a horse, Sinon had heard that even people with real-world riding experience could not handle mechanical horses well in GGO. Yet the black rider wove through overturned cars with practiced ease, sometimes leaping over them, and was closing in at nearly the same speed as the motorcycle.
He no longer looked like another player on the same level as her.
He looked like the shape her fear had taken.
She should have been able to look away, but her eyes locked onto the rider's face two hundred meters behind them and would not move. At that distance, she should not have been able to see him clearly.
But to Sinon, the two eyes beneath the dark brim and the huge mouth twisted in a cold smile were perfectly visible.
"He's going to catch us...! Go faster... run... hurry up and run!"
Sinon shouted in a thin voice mixed with a scream.
Satoru turned slightly, puzzled.
The ruined highway seemed determined to kill them, throwing one obstacle after another into their path. The motorcycle was already at top speed, making every turn difficult. On top of that, thin layers of sand covered the road in places. The moment the tires touched one, they lost grip, and the motorcycle slid slightly sideways, stopping Sinon's heart for an instant.
The conditions should have been the same for the pursuer, but this obstacle-filled road seemed to favor a four-legged mechanical horse. It avoided the abandoned vehicles smoothly and kept gaining.
And beyond that, the enemy had one absolute advantage.
Both the three-wheeled motorcycle and the mechanical horse were two-person vehicles, but one was carrying two people while the other carried only one. As things stood, the motorcycle's acceleration was clearly weaker.
The horse vanished behind obstacles and reappeared, its form growing larger and larger. The rider had not reached them yet, but a presence like shrieking metal seemed to brush the back of Sinon's neck.
Just as she thought the distance had dropped to a hundred meters, Death Gun's right hand left the reins and pointed straight at her.
In that hand was the black handgun.
The Type 54 Black Star.
Her whole body froze. She could not even look down at the footboard. All she could do was stare at the gun. Her molars chattered irregularly.
Then, without a sound, a red Bullet Line fixed itself on her right cheek.
Sinon tilted her face left.
It was not a choice born from thought, but an automatic movement.
Then, as if a demon had opened its jaws, an orange-red flash bloomed at the muzzle.
Bang!
A piercing impact cracked through the air as the lethal bullet passed ten centimeters from Sinon's right cheek.
The bullet overtook the motorcycle and struck an abandoned vehicle ahead. Particle effects filled the space and brushed against her cheek. In that instant, Sinon felt a cold pain, as if she had pressed her face against dry ice.
"Nooooo!!"
This time, Sinon screamed. She tore her eyes away from the death god behind them and buried her face deep in Satoru's back. Immediately after, the second bullet slammed into what seemed to be the motorcycle's side fender, sending a hard vibration up through her feet and into her entire body.
"No... save me... please, save me..."
She curled up like a baby, repeating those weak words over and over.
Death Gun might have switched tactics, abandoning gunfire while chasing. The shots stopped, but the hoofbeats only grew louder.
"Hey... what's wrong with you?"
She heard Satoru call to her, but Sinon could not answer. She only stared down at the footboard and made a tiny sound.
"Sinon!!"
The sharp voice struck through her whole body. She finally stopped screaming and moved her neck slightly, looking up at Satoru's face as he turned back toward her. He was staring at her while the motorcycle kept accelerating, and she saw the strange color in his eyes.
"He's trying hard to kill you first. Snipe him."
Satoru had said you.
In other words, he was coldly telling her to save herself.
"I... I can't..."
Sinon shook her head desperately. The heavy weight of Hecate II still pressed against her right shoulder, but the weight that had always steadied her now felt like nothing but dead metal.
"You don't have to hit him. Just disrupt him."
Sinon only kept shaking her head.
"I can't... That guy... that guy is..."
That man was a ghost resurrected from the past. Even if she shot him through the heart, it would not matter.
But then Satoru turned his head. The pale gold in his black eyes grew stronger, and he laughed softly.
"Then I'll do it. I'll bury him right here."
Those words stayed in Sinon's mind for a moment.
Perhaps they brushed against her pride, just slightly.
Hecate II... is my other self.
No one but me... can use it...
Those broken thoughts moved through her like a faint current running through a damaged circuit, and Sinon's right hand began to move.
Slowly, she removed the huge rifle from her shoulder, braced it against the rear frame of the motorcycle, raised herself with trembling effort, and pressed her eye to the scope.
The magnification was at its lowest, but because the distance was less than a hundred meters, more than thirty percent of Death Gun's body and the mechanical horse filled her view. To aim precisely at his centerline, she began to raise the magnification, but her hand stopped.
If she zoomed in any further, she would clearly see the face beneath the brim.
The moment she thought that, her fingers stopped moving. She moved her right hand to the grip instead and entered a sniping posture.
Death Gun must have noticed what she was doing, but he showed no intention of dodging. Both hands stayed on the reins as he charged straight toward them.
One shot.
She only needed one shot.
At this distance, even if he could see the Bullet Line, he might still fail to evade. Gathering that negative, fragile sliver of will, Sinon guided her index finger through the trigger guard and toward the trigger.
But her finger was blocked again by that same strange stiffness.
No matter how much strength she poured into it, she could not touch the trigger.
It was as if her one true partner, Hecate II itself, was rejecting her.
"...I can't shoot."
Sinon whispered.
"I can't shoot. My finger won't move. I... can't fight anymore."
"Then I'll do it."
That strong, restrained voice came from behind her again.
If she chose not to fight, then it would not hurt.
But if the journey where she had tried to find hope was stolen from her and destroyed, if even the idea that she could grow stronger in this world was nothing but a fantasy, then she would spend her whole life trapped under that man's hatred and her own fear of guns. She would only be able to keep her head down, erase her presence, see nothing, and feel nothing.
Suddenly, a fierce heat closed around her frozen right hand.
Sinon opened the eyes she had squeezed shut.
Satoru, who had been in the driver's seat, had turned his body around and pressed himself against Sinon's back where she stood on the rear footrest. His right hand reached out, covered her right hand just as it was about to slip from Hecate II's grip, and held it tight.
He seemed to have locked the motorcycle into acceleration. It was still racing at full speed, which meant they would eventually crash into an obstacle. He acted as if that did not matter.
"I told you. I'll do it."
Satoru whispered low beside Sinon's ear. The roughness and rudeness in his voice made him sound like a different person.
But the next words, one second later, sounded like the person she knew again.
The coldness left his tone. The savage smile disappeared from his mouth.
"When courage isn't enough, let fear become your wings. Watch me. Like this."
Could the system even allow two people to fire one gun?
She did not know.
Even so, the places touched by Satoru's palm were filled with heat like fire, and her frozen fingers seemed to melt. It was as if he were releasing a will strong enough to burn through her hesitation.
Her index finger trembled. Then the joint moved, and her finger touched the metal of the trigger.
A pale-green bullet prediction circle appeared in her vision, but it was huge, larger than Death Gun's body, and it moved irregularly with her pulse. Her heartbeat was in chaos, probably because of the violent shaking of the moving motorcycle. Before she could even think about the enemy's evasion ability, she first had to make sure the bullet would fly straight.
"N-no... With this shaking, I can't aim..."
Beside Sinon's weak groan, the answer came at once, calm and certain.
"All you have to do is fire. Wind direction, humidity, trajectory, everything else, leave it all to me. You only need to fire."
His words carried a confidence that allowed no doubt.
His hands were also gently adjusting the body of Hecate II.
Pressed against Sinon's back, Satoru could clearly feel the girl's tense, frantic heartbeat. In her vision, the shooting circle must have been a complete mess, but because her heartbeat was so strong, he could perceive it with startling clarity.
Begin simulation.
In eyes stripped of color, reduced to simple lines, one flickering shooting circle after another appeared before him.
This was Sinon's aim, reproduced through her pulse.
As long as he felt the heartbeat of the girl beneath him, he could simulate and reproduce it inside his accelerated thoughts.
It was no different from shooting it himself.
"Fire."
As he said it, a tremendous force of will flowed through Sinon's entire body.
Why could this person stay so calm in a situation like this?
Let fear become your wings.
Sinon did not think she could do what Satoru did.
But at least now.
Just this once.
She pressed down with all her strength on the finger touching the trigger.
Even though the trigger spring had been adjusted, it felt impossibly heavy. Even so, it was finally overcome by the heat of their two hands. As her finger slowly squeezed, the prediction circle in her vision shrank in response to her easing heart.
But the enemy's silhouette still did not even fill half of it.
I probably won't hit.
For the first time in all her years as a sniper, Sinon thought that and pulled the trigger anyway.
As if it had been waiting impatiently for that shot, Hecate II roared. The sound was more violent than ever before, and dazzling fire scattered from the muzzle.
Because her posture was unstable, the recoil was not absorbed. Sinon was thrown backward hard, but Satoru held her tight. She opened her eyes and searched for the bullet.
It spun through the dusk, driving forward along its path.
It hit Death Gun.
Her eyes widened.
The tremendous kinetic force knocked Death Gun off the galloping mechanical horse, and the dried-up body wrapped in that ruined cloak tumbled four or five times across the ground behind them.
"We did it...!"
"No. The wide cloak threw off the damage judgment. It probably only grazed him and knocked him off balance. That mechanical horse isn't that easy to control."
Satoru's voice came slowly. His tone now carried a hint of heavy breathing.
He turned forward again, stabilized the motorcycle, and accelerated once more.
Sinon slumped weakly into the back seat and stared blankly at the black smoke rising into the purple evening sky.
Right now, she could not think about anything.
Her body simply shook with the motorcycle as it raced on.