Author's Note

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everybody, hope the season has been treating you well!

So this release really came down to the wire, if I'm being honest. I wanted to release something on Christmas, but this chapter was stuck in revision hell until the 23rd, so it was really close.

Not releasing any rewritten Part I chapters with this one, partly because I didn't have time and partly because this chapter itself is pretty heavy and I think it deserves to be released as its own thing.

Anyway, see you below!

Gun Gale Online: The Swordswoman

Part Two, Chapter Six: Faith

A chill ran down my spine as I remembered what she'd told me mere minutes ago.

"After all the blood that's ended up in my hands in a history of constant struggles to survive… even though no one else held any of those sins against me in the end, it was only through forgiving myself and moving forward that I found atonement."

She told me in no uncertain terms that she had killed people before. So what if…

My hand went limp and dropped the photon sword to the floor with a clattering noise, the blade of light dispersing using emergency functions from the shock of the landing. But as it rolled away, my hands slowly curled into fists as a realization hit me like a bullet train.

What if one of the people she killed… was Kiriko?

An alarm buzzed in my ear. That was it. I'd waited long enough. It was time to enact my plan…

Time to avenge Kiriko… even if it meant losing any hope I had of reviving Pina.

Kamiko had told me that the familiar revival item is on zone twenty-four, the Murder Zone. If she was Kiriko's killer, she probably just said that because going to that zone would allow her to meet up with her murderer friends. I couldn't risk going there. All I could do was cut my losses, and kill Kamiko while I had the chance.

I got up and left my room, one hand gripping my… or rather, Kiriko's Photon Sword, ready to unclip it when the time was right. I moved through the hallway, towards the door at the end of the hall. It had to be this one… the only other door in the hallway was an open door to a spacious bathroom.

My free hand inched closer and closer to the doorknob, until a loud noise coming from the front of the house caught my attention. It sounded like… knocking?

The knocking was pretty loud… if Kiriko woke up because of it, I wouldn't be able to do anything. Hopefully they'd think no one was home and leave…

Tap, tap-tap-tap

Whoever it was just knocked again! They weren't just gonna go away… I'd have to put on my old gear and let them in. If I stayed in Kiriko's gear, they'd think I was the killer instead of Kamiko. Hopefully they'd leave soon, so I could do what I needed to do.

After requipping my old gear, I walked through the halls, passing through the front room and into the foyer before opening the door. Before even looking at the person on the other side, I couldn't help but take a stab. "What is it at this hour? You know it's almost midnight, right?"

"Sorry, I just— wait, who are you?"

I gave an indignant sigh. Of course this lady wouldn't know who I was… "I'm Silica the «Dragon Tamer», and I…"

At around this point, I finally got a good look at the person I was talking to. She was only a little taller than I was, but she looked much older. Her short brown hair, matched the color of her leather clothes, and she had reddish brown whisker marks on her cheeks. This look was unmistakable… she was—

"Argo… the leader of «Thousand Eyes»?!" I squeaked, just barely managing to keep my voice down. "What are you doing here…?"

Argo didn't seem fazed by my initial disrespect, nor did she seem to notice how shocking her presence was to someone like me. I may have been something of a celebrity among the middle zones, but there wasn't a single player in the game who didn't know who Argo of Thousand Eyes was!

"I'm here to see Kamiko," the informant said simply, sounding kind of… timid, in a weird way. "But considering who answered the door, I think I might've gotten the wrong house…"

She knows Kamiko…?

Here I was faced with a choice. Either I could tell the truth and let her in, and buy some information on Kamiko to make sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that I hadn't made a horrible mistake assuming she killed Kiriko, or I could say it was my house to get her to leave and allow me to continue my plan uninterrupted.

As easy as it would be to lie…

"This is Kamiko's house…" I admitted with a sigh. Before I did anything reckless, I had to be sure. "She should be asleep right now, though. I was barely awake when you knocked, myself."

Her gaze fell as I spoke. "I see… I guess I should've expected as much."

I saw her start to turn to leave, and realized I was about to miss my chance. Acting on instinct, I blurted out, "You can come in… if you want. I mean… the knocking probably woke her up."

It was a lie so transparent I almost immediately thought she'd pick up on it. In the first place, noise couldn't wake people up in GGO… but to my surprise, she walked right in. She nearly bumped into me because I forgot to move out of the way, even.

She walked to the right almost immediately, as if she knew where to go already. I followed her into the living room, where she stopped and put a hand to her chin. "It's… the same…"

The same? The same as what? And what was the same?

She seemed to be under a spell as she looked around the living room, eyeing each piece of furniture for a good few seconds before her eyes lit up. "No… it's a perfect mirror…"

She said that after looking around the whole room… so the room was a mirror of a different room she knew of? Anyway, I needed to buy some info on Kamiko. "Um, Argo?"

"Yeah?" She turned back to look at me, yet barely seemed to notice I was even there. Her eyes had this vacant look in them… like her head was somewhere else.

"You know Kamiko, right?" I asked her, pausing until I saw her nod. "Could you please sell me whatever info you have on her? She saved my life and is helping me do something I never could on my own, but… I know almost nothing about her."

Argo's eyes snapped back to life, and she shook her head. "Shame, but I don't have anything on her worth charging for. I'll still tell you what little I do know, though. It's scary to go on an adventure with someone you barely know, right?"

It annoyed me that she was treating me like a kid, but… since I was getting some free info, I'd let it slide this one time. She walked over to one of the couches in the living room and took a seat, so I took the seat in the reclining chair facing her as she began to talk again.

"Kamiko is… really strong. Both as a player and as a person," Argo said, smiling a faint smile that didn't reach her eyes. "She's endured a lot of suffering to get where she is, but she never let it slow her down. She seems to have an answer for everything, no matter what it is. And when she sees someone in trouble or in pain, she won't hesitate to reach out her hand and help them."

With the way Argo was talking about Kamiko… instead of Kamiko killing Kiriko, it sounded like—

"Kamiko's tale is a true spiritual successor to the legends surrounding Kiriko, if there ever was one."

That confirmed it. Kamiko having all of Kiriko's old gear… it probably didn't mean what I'd originally thought. But it probably wasn't a coincidence, either. I'd have to confirm it when Kamiko and I left to revive Pina.

But wait a second… I met Argo's eyes with my own as they narrowed. "The way you talk about Kiriko, you make it sound like the "legends" about her aren't true."

"Legends are legends, and reality is reality," Argo diverted her gaze to the ground as she spoke. "And the reality is that Kiriko was a reckless, foolhardy girl who pushed past her limits to defy the odds over and over, until she decided she was done fighting and left this world for good."

I shook my head in disgust, trying to keep my anger in check. "So you had no faith in the game's strongest clearer right up until the end, huh? Some leader of the frontlines you are."

After spitting those words out in a bitter, dry voice, I left her standing there and returned to my bedroom, not caring what she did or where she went now that I was gone. Argo was the leader of Thousand Eyes, the legion which led the charge to clear the game more than any other. If even she wouldn't show faith in the people whose weapons her intel guided, then who would?

If that was the kind of place the front lines had become, then it was no wonder the PKers could take over the frontier zone so easily. An Assault Team with no resolve to push forward and no faith in their own comrades…

Is worthless.

Argo stood there, stunned.

I had… no faith in her?

Those few words, Silica's childlike remarks, echoed in the back of Argo's head in a constant, endless loop.

Why had she reacted so strongly, so quickly, to what Argo had said about Kiriko, and why had she thought of those words specifically?

It wasn't like the words were new, or that the notion of them was foreign to her.

She was stunned… because someone else made that same exact claim before, when Kiriko was still alive.

At the time, she'd shrugged it off and deflected the focus away from her trust in Kiriko. It was easier that way with everything going on. The accuser had just been jealous, simple as that. It was easy to dismiss her because of her potential motives.

But now…

"Either you don't trust Kiriko, or you don't trust yourself. Either way, if you actually want your relationship to last, it will have to be addressed."

Sinon's claim, the same claim Argo wrote off as clear jealousy, rooted itself with the same sentiment expressed by a child who had just met her and had no reason to be disingenuous. No motive, no jealousy, no reason to say such words unless they held some semblance of truth to them.

Was it really so simple even a child could understand it? Were both of them actually right? Did Argo really have no faith in Kiriko?

Argo was an informant. It was her job to know all the information available about anything. She knew how likely Kiriko was to die at every step of the way, every chapter of the story of her life. And Kiriko only survived as long as she did by making miracle after miracle, ready to throw everything away to accomplish every task before her no matter the risk. So for someone like Argo, who knew just how low Kiriko's chances of survival were at every turn, an existence like hers was…

No…

Argo bit back a portion of her mindless stun and shook her head.

Doesn't matter.

She could make excuses all night, but in the end, nothing would change. The truth in those claims still remained. It didn't matter why she had made the choices she did anymore, because her intent wouldn't magically change reality. If she lacked faith in Kiriko so blatantly that a child could not just figure it out after a single exchange of words, but throw it in her face like it was the most obvious thing in the world, then denying it was pointless. But even so…

If I really haven't been able to put my faith in Kiriko in all this time… then that explains why she's no longer by my side.

As much as it hurt to even think that, she had to admit that it made perfect sense. Whether Kiriko really died that day or not, she must've gotten tired of being with a lover who couldn't trust her, let alone have faith in her. That was why she left. But now that she knew...

Argo took a deep breath she hadn't realized she needed until now.

Now that I know why she left, if she really is still alive… I have to reach out my hand.

With thoughts like these going through her head, Argo walked past the front room and into the hall, stopping at the bedroom which must've been Kamiko's, going by position. She took another breath, more focused this time, before she slowly turned the knob and opened the door to find—

"Oh. So you're the one she let in," a familiar voice said from the bed.

A different kind of stun froze Argo's body in the illumination of the door frame, holding her in place.

Kamiko… was awake? Why didn't she answer the door, then? Argo couldn't see her face clearly through the darkness, but those unmistakable blue eyes staring back at her seemed… off, somehow. Those weren't the same eyes which calmly gazed up at her from the fishing pier. Those weren't the same eyes which shone with compassion when she saw Argo at her most vulnerable.

Those were pained, weak eyes which seemed almost defeated in their listless, lifeless gaze.

"... Something happened," Argo thought out loud.

Kamiko closed her eyes and looked away, hiding her face in the fleeting shadows of the room. "Nothing I need to bother other people with. A ghost from my past came back to haunt me, that's all anyone else needs to know."

It was unsatisfying to hear, but Argo's new resolve bit back her urge to press for anything else.

By the time the blonde looked the informant's way again a few moments later, all traces of the previous emotion gone from her face as she gave a welcoming smile in its place. "So, what's up? Why'd you come here this late at night?"

That little switch right there, to cover up what's really going on...

Argo took a final deep breath, then slowly let it out. This was it. Now or never. She had to lay it all out there and hope for the best. It made her uneasy that Kamiko could go from looking that vulnerable to looking like nothing was wrong at the drop of a hat, but Argo couldn't forget why she came here in the first place.

"When I got home after the strategy meeting, the day we met…" Argo started, looking Kamiko dead in the eyes. "Yui said I had Kiriko's scent on me. The only person I'd even touched that day… was you."

Kamiko blinked, looking back into her eyes with a blank, impregnable stare. "Stranger coincidences have happened in my life before."

Kamiko was unfazed. But if she thought Argo's data ended there, she was sorely mistaken.

"You also have the same battle gear she did, right before she died," Argo kept pressing, thinking back to Kiriko's fight with Thor that she saw through Yui. But she wasn't stopping with just that, either. "And this house is designed and arranged as a perfect mirror to mine. I didn't realize it the first time I was in here, but this time, it's obvious to me."

Kamiko replied to the first point, unflinching. "The Valkyrie Set is the best in slot gear right now. It's not unheard of for more than one person to have a copy."

She appeared to think about Argo's second point for a few seconds. But when she finished pondering the issue, she simply shrugged her shoulders and offered a somewhat sheepish smile.

"As for the house layout, it wasn't my first choice, but all the other layouts I wanted apparently couldn't be done due to tech restrictions," she said, like that somehow made it less suspicious. "Dunno why it'd be a mirror of yours, though. That is a pretty weird coincidence."

Argo's breath hitched. It was time. Time to make a leap of faith.

"That's just it, Kamiko," Argo said, shaking her head before looking into those blue eyes she'd almost taken for granted. "I'm starting to think these aren't just a bunch of coincidences. And I know you must understand why."

Kamiko's eyes flashed for a brief glimmer of a moment. Recognition. She knew where this was going.

"Kamiko… are you really Kiriko?"

Argo's heart was racing like it hadn't in a very long time. She finally said it. But this was where her own role ended. That was it. Everything she came here to do, everything on her mind recently, all her sleepless hours came to this. All she could do now was hear Kamiko's response and wait in that suffocating silence leading up to it. There was too much evidence for it to all just be a series of coincidences… right?

There was too much backing to this hunch. She had too much riding on it to be wrong.

Right?

Kamiko closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and when she opened her eyes again, they seemed dulled with disillusion.

"If Kiriko really was alive, I have no doubt in my mind that the first thing she'd do…" these words left Kamiko's lips in a dry, unfaltering voice. "Would be to return right to your side."

A flat-out refusal. But Argo had been expecting that. If Kiriko really was alive, and had returned in disguise, then she must've had her reasons to be in hiding. All the more reason Argo couldn't stop pressing here. She had to break through somehow.

The informant took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. "Then answer me this. Why did you build this house and start living in a community I created with my own hands within a week of Kiriko's supposed death?"

Kamiko shook her head, a wry smile dancing across her features. She didn't seem ready to crack under pressure, if nothing else.

"Kiriko symbolized hope. With Kiriko out of the picture, the clearers would lose a lot of drive to push forward, and «Laughing Coffin» would be able to take over zone twenty-four unchallenged," Kamiko replied, undeterred by Argo's line of questioning. "I built a house here because I knew how to counteract PoH's advances, and I knew the best way to make that information readily available was through you and your «Thousand Eyes»."

So that's why she showed up…? If Argo was to believe what the blonde just said, then it was a purely strategic move on Kamiko's part. Which meant that once she had achieved her objective to break through PoH's chokehold of the frontier zone, Kamiko would likely disappear without a trace. She said herself that she didn't want to be in the spotlight as she worked to clear the game.

Somehow…

Argo didn't like the thought of Kamiko just vanishing, whether she was really Kiriko or not.

Argo couldn't give up just yet. She had to break through that shell, no matter what it took. "Then why is your main weapon a sword, the same as Kiriko's? The PvP meta of GGO is dominated by machine guns at mid-range, sniper rifles at long-range and daggers at close-range. So why do you use a sword?"

Kamiko shrugged. "Aside from wanting the maximum «Valkyrie Set Bonus»? For fun, frankly. I'd rather fight the way I want to than let my playstyle be ruled by whatever works best for the average player."

That was something Kiriko would say… but Kamiko sat on the bed before her, undeterred by any of Argo's questions. If she really was Kiriko, then it seemed clear by now that she wouldn't let her emotions get in the way of her reasons to stay in hiding. So nothing Argo said would get through. Which meant…

I can't just use my words…

Argo took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. Whether Kamiko was Kiriko or not, she was about to pass an event horizon. There would be no returning to the way things were before after this. And yet it was a risk she couldn't not take.

"I'm going to try something stupid, then," the informant said as she walked over to Kamiko's bed. "If it doesn't work... I'll stop pressing you."

Before the blonde even had the time to reply, or the informant have second thoughts, Argo closed the remaining distance between them and silenced Kamiko's lips with her own.

If Kiriko was keeping herself so under lock and key that even Argo couldn't break her, then… she had to find a way to get through to her that only Kiriko could react to.

Not Kamiko.

Words were a specialty of Kiriko's, but Argo found her home in the physical contact they shared when they were together, even if it was rare. If there was a single thing she could use to pinpoint Kiriko's presence more than anything else… it was the feeling of her kiss.

Something Argo felt she'd never forget.

But… that warm, hopeful, fleeting feeling in her when her lips made contact with Kamiko's dwindled the longer that lasted.

Kamiko… didn't react. Didn't start kissing her back. Didn't pull away, either. She just sat there, as if stunned by Argo's sudden move. Argo pulled away in an instant, eyes snapping open to get a look at the other girl's face.

Even before she spoke, Argo immediately knew she made a mistake…

"People really do grasp at illusions when they're desperate for miracles, don't they?"

That breath she was holding came out in an involuntary hitch under the unmoved words.

In her turmoil of thoughts and connecting dots, she'd been getting her hopes up somewhere they never should have been in the first place…

She knew better than this. She should've known better than this. But despite that, and all her confidence in everything she believed had to be true…

She… she was wrong...

Argo's vision began to blur as she felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach take her voice and tug it so far out of reach, she dreaded it might've been gone forever.

Kiriko… was really dead after all. If Kamiko really were Kiriko, she wouldn't have been able to lie about it over and over, much less keep herself from reacting at all to being kissed. It was against her nature. So this person really was someone else entirely.

"Sorry I got your hopes up for nothing," the blonde said with a sad smile and a sigh. "My reaction just now was probably a bit insensitive, all things considered."

Just as the informant realized she was about to start crying in front of Kamiko for a second time, the tall, blue-eyed woman caught her by surprise. Argo found herself wrapped in the blonde's tender embrace, face buried in her chest, rocking from side to side in a soothing rhythm.

"There, there," Kamiko gently replied, voice as warm and soft as her body as she lulled Argo into a state of tranquility. "Let it all out. Big sis Kamiko will be your rock tonight, staying with you no matter the storm you face inside yourself."

As Argo's tears began to flow freely and soak into Kamiko's white nightshirt, she realized she hadn't felt this safe since she and Kiriko were living under the same roof. Hadn't felt this cared for since before she even logged into GGO's official service.

Kamiko's calm, gentle presence was something she hadn't realized she'd needed so badly until now. In spite of how little time they'd spent with each other, Kamiko's presence in her life felt almost eternal, like she'd be here for a long time to come in a way that made even her time knowing Kiriko seem fleeting and trivial.

But… it wasn't right.

As Kamiko eased her under the covers and lied her down, Argo couldn't help but feel… guilty. And as she drifted off in Kamiko's warm embrace, in the back of her mind, she knew exactly what she was doing wrong.

Author's Note

So honestly, I expect a lot of people to get pissed because of what happened this chapter. Our MC is showing her moral ambiguity a bit, which tends to piss off a certain segment of my readers every time it happens. She's always been a morally gray character, but the narrative usually doesn't present her as such, so I don't blame people for getting upset when it becomes obvious.

Also, as a quick aside, this chapter's Argo was written with assistance by Xera Stark, as usual, and if I'm being honest, the way this chapter progressed in the Argo scene made me feel even worse for her than I already did. Such is the power of Xera's narrative style.

So, last chapter, I mentioned I started a [insert crowd-funding platform name here] in the bottom author's note. And like, basically nobody joined. I would be hurt if not for the fact the page I set up was so barebones. So I'll be thinking about how to revise it and make it more rewarding in the future. In the meantime, my one actual patron will be listed in the credits.

Ciiao!

Credits:

Yakosh