April 29th, 2026
If things couldn't have gotten worse with Daisuke's addiction to Yuna, Kaito was dead wrong. He held onto two pieces of paper and read the words.
"You got tickets to the concert?" Kaito asked earnestly, "How much did this even cost you?"
Daisuke opened his wallet and all of his paper bills were missing. If Kaito remembered correctly, he had around 125-thousand yen inside of his wallet. Daisuke smiled with glee while Kaito looked at him in disappointment.
"You spent over a hundred-thousand yen for two tickets to the concert..." Kaito sighed, "Don't you realize how stupid it sounds while I'm sounding it out for you."
Ignoring the comment, Daisuke said, "It doesn't. Besides, this is a good thing to use my money for."
"We have to pay rent in two days..."
"Yeah, but that's not as cool as going to a concert."
Kaito groaned because none of his protests would get through Daisuke's thick skull. He then asked if he was going to the concert. Daisuke did buy the second ticket just for Kaito much to the latter's chagrin. Also, Kaito had to drive Daisuke to the venue on his bike. After the short drive, he pulled into the entrance to the underground parking structure. The guard at the front requested their tickets, which they promptly showed. The guard raised the bar to let them in. Thankfully, bike parking was in the upper levels of the structure. Kaito turned off his bike and waited for Daisuke to dismount before Kaito. In the corner of his eye, he saw a blue Yamaha DTR125 with a pine-green "9-30" as its license plate.
"So he's here," Kaito thought.
Daisuke gave Kaito his ticket before rushing off to his seat. Kaito stepped outside and noticed a large fleet of drones hovering nearby. Without skipping a beat, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Kikuoka. His voice came in.
"What's wrong Kaito?" he asked.
"There's a large drone fleet approaching New National Stadium," Kaito relayed, "Judging from the markings and builds, they're Ordinal Scale drones."
"What's so important about that?"
"I don't get why they need so much for a single concert. How's it going with the memory loss cases? Most of the victims are SAO victims. That would make it fall under your jurisdiction."
"I contacted the Augma creator and they mentioned that the Augma was a simplified NerveGear. The memories are taken by using microwaves emitted by the Augma. Be careful how you proceed for now."
"Understood."
Kaito closed the call and walked into the venue. Fans were moving into the stadium through multiple entry points. He followed the directions to his seat. He took a seat and noticed a girl with chestnut-colored hair. Next to her were a few other people. One turned their head and revealed their glasses and the ribbons tied in her hair. Her appearance looked like Shino, but he didn't want to mistake her for someone else.
"Shino?" Kaito questioned.
He took out his phone to text Shino's cell. When he asked if she was at the concert, she confirmed his suspicions. Kaito told Shino about the concerning amount of drones to which she said not to worry about.
"Don't worry about it?" Kaito thought.
Kato ended the conversation since the concert was about to start. Daisuke had a separate seat from Kaito, but he took the time to check in with him. Daisuke handed him a couple of glowsticks before going back to his seat. When the concert started, you could hear the excitement in everyone's voice. Kaito joined in the festivities but kept an eye out for anything suspicious. When the concert ended, Kaito felt a chill travel up his spine. He noticed the facial recognition kick in, the first step in starting Ordinal Scale. All of a sudden, he was engulfed in light. When it ceded, he noticed his combat gear from Ordinal Scale. In his hands was a highly modified M14 EBR. He checked the 20-round magazines and the battery pack.
