"No way... How could this be..."
Kyoji stood dumbfounded before the truth he had arrived at through his search results.
"An executive of a murder guild? An enemy of all players? My brother was... that..."
But no matter how many times he searched, or where he looked, the results did not change.
"Then, the reason Dad started leaving Brother alone..."
Kyoji intuitively realized that the government official named Kikuoka must have told their father everything. On that day, his father had flown into a rage downstairs, and then again in Shoichi's room. Considering how his father's attitude changed after that, the answer was clear.
Essentially, his father had been told the truth, became furious, and tried to deny it by confronting Shoichi directly. But when Shoichi confirmed it, his father had likely flown into a rage once again before giving up entirely.
"Ah, I see. Asada-san's mother must have felt like this... This is definitely hard..."
Kyoji thought this, desperately resisting the crushing weight of the fact that his own flesh and blood was a mass murderer. Since Shoichi hadn't been arrested, he likely couldn't be charged with a crime legally. But there was no doubt he had driven a large number of people to their deaths.
(Brother said I wanted to kill people. He, who was in a murder guild and interacted with those kinds of people, said that about me. Maybe I looked that way to him, but I have absolutely no intention of doing that. How can I prove him wrong? How...)
Kyoji drank the bottled tea he had bought earlier that afternoon and lay down on his bed.
(Let's change my thinking. If Brother says so, I must have had that look in my eyes. But doesn't everyone think things like that, more or less? Besides, can I even kill a person? How? I'm not physically strong, and I don't carry any weapons. Inside a game is different, but... wait. A game?)
Thinking that far, Kyoji realized something.
(That's right. SAO was one thing, but in GGO, no matter how many enemies you kill, players can't die. That was a truly special case. So, if I kill enemies like crazy alongside Brother in GGO, and he realizes that no one dies regardless... surely Brother's heart will return to normal, like it used to be? Yes, even if it was a murder guild, he climbed all the way to executive. He must know a lot of combat techniques. If I learn how to fight from him, maybe even I could beat Shana. Yes, that's it! It's too early to give up. There's a way to solve everything!)
Kyoji spoke his plan aloud.
"I'll have Brother train me, and I will defeat that Shana with my own hands. And I'll make Brother clearly understand that people no longer die in games. If I do that, everything will be solved."
Intent on conveying his idea, Kyoji headed for Shoichi's room once again.
At this point, Kyoji still maintained a relatively sound mind—or rather, while idealistic, his thoughts were comparatively normal, except for the parts involving Shino.
Yes, except for Shino. Kyoji's words just now revealed everything. He wanted strength surpassing Shana's in order to possess Shino, and he only desired his brother's power for that end; the most important thing was himself. That was why his first thought was: I will defeat Shana with my own hands.
But the world is not so sweet. Do things ever proceed exactly as planned? If he couldn't beat Shana no matter how much he trained, what would Kyoji do then? What if Shoichi wasn't satisfied by merely killing enemies in a game?
Kyoji didn't consider these possibilities at all. Intoxicated by his own idea, he convinced himself this was the righteous path.
"Brother, do you have a minute?"
"Kyoji? Come in."
Answering the knock, Shoichi invited him inside.
"Did you look it up?"
"Yeah."
"And?"
"I'm going to make you understand reality, Brother."
Shoichi, usually unflappable, was taken aback by that answer.
"I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say."
"Brother, I'm currently playing a game called GGO."
"Listen to people when they talk... I know that. And?"
"About GGO... won't you play it with me?"
"Hah?"
"I've been thinking. You definitely killed people in the game, right? And because of that, players in the real world might have died as a result. But whatever the result, all you did was kill people inside a game, right?"
"I still have no idea what you're getting at."
"So, I want you to kill, and kill, and kill people like crazy inside GGO."
"What?"
Shoichi couldn't grasp Kyoji's intent at all and spoke with a hint of irritation.
"If you do that, I thought you might realize that, in the end, no matter how many people you kill in a game now, no one is going to die... Of course, I also have the selfish motive of wanting you to teach me how to fight against people so I can get stronger..."
"In short, are you trying to say that to stop me from killing people in reality, I should learn to be satisfied with a game?"
Faced with that summary, Kyoji replied awkwardly.
"Ah... yeah. If you put it bluntly without any sugarcoating, I guess that's it..."
"Is that really your goal? The truth is... No, never mind."
Because Shoichi looked visibly disappointed, Kyoji thought he had asked for too much. Deciding to think of a different proposal, he apologized and returned to his room.
"Sorry... that was too selfish of me. I'll go back to my room then. Goodnight, Brother."
"No, it's not that... Well, whatever. Goodnight."
After Kyoji left, Shoichi cursed to himself. It seemed that when talking to himself, Shoichi was quite articulate.
"Good grief. Just when I thought Kyoji was going mad in a promising way, it ends up being this? I guess there aren't many guys like the Leader who can understand their own madness and turn it into showtime. Well, there's still a chance he'll transform. Obsession with a woman is the best spice for growth, after all."
The "growth" Shoichi referred to here was, of course, growth in a bad direction. To Shoichi, it might be the "right" direction, but generally speaking, it was definitely a turn for the worse. Shoichi was convinced that the seeds of madness were definitely sprouting inside Kyoji.
"Those eyes he had earlier... those were definitely the eyes of a pig mired in desire. It's probably about a woman. If he had just honestly asked me to help him get the woman, I would have gladly helped him... But the whole time we were talking, he completely convinced himself that he was worried about me from the bottom of his heart and making that proposal for my sake. I can't have any fun playing with a fool who doesn't even understand himself."
That was Shoichi's analysis of Kyoji. It might sound harsh, but in Shoichi's eyes, that was exactly what Kyoji was. And since the analysis was correct, there was no helping it.
"Still, GGO, huh...? I did think about trying it for the money a while back and contacted a few people, but I never ended up doing it. The more I looked into it, the more it seemed like child's play. Well, in the end, all other games are child's play too, but I guess this one is the better of the lot..."
It seems the information that reached the guild "Rose" about Laughing Coffin potentially starting GGO had stemmed from those initial inquiries.
After speaking, Shoichi began aimlessly trawling the net for GGO-related videos. Finally, he arrived at a specific video.
"BoB? This is a battle between the top players? Hah, looks like a game after all."
Shoichi muttered derisively as he watched the intro, but the moment Shana bisected XeXeed, the look in his eyes changed.
"Oi, oi. Cut in half from the head down? I guess there are strong guys everywhere."
Then, watching the battle between Satellizer and Shana, Shoichi's expression shifted again.
"No way... Is this Satellizer guy the Head? No, something feels different... Unlike the Head, I don't feel much madness from him. And this Shana... looking at him pisses me off to no end... Could it be Hachiman? Hmm... My opponent was that shithead Kirito, so I'm not entirely confident."
Shoichi searched again using Satellizer's name, but no other relevant videos appeared. Instead, he found a post explaining that Satellizer had disappeared because he could no longer log in to the Japanese server from North America.
"I see. So meeting this Satellizer guy directly is impossible now."
Next, Shoichi searched for Shana's name. This time, many results came up, but most were essentially paparazzi footage—worthless to Shoichi. However, among them was a single video of immense value to him.
"There's no mistaking her. It's Asuna the Flash. Which means it's safe to assume Shana is Hachiman. This is getting interesting... Alright, change of plans. I'll go along with Kyoji's proposal. Instead of waiting for Kyoji's growth, I'll force it. Yeah, I might as well invite him too."
Shoichi picked up his mobile phone to make a call. But, as if realizing something, he stopped.
"Wait, wait. I confirmed recently that the government stopped surveillance on me, but leaving a call record from my phone to his still feels risky. Can't be helped. I'll call from a payphone somewhere..."
Shoichi managed to find a payphone and contacted the only man he could call a friend—a former comrade.
"Who is this?"
"It's me. Shoichi."
"Oh, been a while. But the fact that you're going out of your way to call me... did you realize the surveillance is gone, too?"
"Yeah."
"As usual, you don't talk much unless you're alone, huh?"
"Sorry, Atsushi."
The person on the other end, Kanamoto Atsushi—also known as Johnny Black—gave a wry laugh at Shoichi's unchanging demeanor.
"Nah, if you suddenly became chatty, that'd be more shocking. So, what's up today?"
"There's something I want you to see."
Shoichi asked Atsushi to watch the video he had just seen. After watching it, Atsushi spoke excitedly.
"Oi, isn't that Hachiman and Asuna?"
"I thought so. What about Satellizer?"
"Ah? Yeah... you thought Satellizer might be the Head, didn't you? But that ain't the Head. The quirks are different. And honestly, this guy might be stronger than the Head."
"Is that so."
"So, what about this video? Are you asking me to play GGO with you?"
"Yeah."
"Hmm, but you know, sure those guys are annoying bastards, but practically speaking, killing them in GGO doesn't mean anything anymore, right?"
"They are just the spice. They're the trigger, sure, but the actual objective is different."
In his clumsy way of speaking, XaXa told Atsushi that he had a younger brother, and that he wanted to try awakening that brother's madness.
"Doing that to your own flesh and blood? Alright, I like it. I'll help."
"I appreciate it."
And just like that, the curtain rose on a stage of madness that would last until the end of the third BoB.
When Shoichi returned home, he visited Kyoji's room and told him he had decided to start GGO. Kyoji was simply happy. Shoichi then told Kyoji he would invite one more friend, and gave him strict instructions: when meeting them in the city, Kyoji must create a new character and use that avatar for contact. He was absolutely not to use his current character to meet them.
"Um, why do I have to do that?"
"There are guys in GGO who know me. It's insurance against that."
"...I see. Okay, got it."
Shoichi figured that without at least this level of precaution, they couldn't fight properly against an opponent like Hachiman (Shana).
His thinking was correct. Because, unbeknownst to them, Spiegel was already under surveillance by Rosalia on Shana's orders. Thanks to Shoichi's instruction, although Shana realized the presence of XaXa's group immediately, it would take a little more time to identify exactly who XaXa was and to uncover his connection to Spiegel.
Next time, Laughing Coffin begins their invasion! "On That Day, Fate Smiled Upon Evil"
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