Sword Art Online II: Sheik's Story

Beginning Anew

Welcome back, readers. This is the first part of the second installment to my story. It's been a few months, and officially became the anniversary of the SAO Incident, which is what the press calls it now. And to start off my day, I had received a message from Seijiro Kikuoka asking to meet at this French cafe. I inform my parents of this meeting, since they have a positive opinion of the man from keeping my past in Aincrad and...torture session of ALO's previous owner...a secret from the public. And I am thankful for that. However, I really don't want to his obedient little dog at his beck and call forever. But for right now, I'll work with him.

I arrive at the venue in about an hour of driving my new car. Tesla model S. A pretty good model, and it works, and that's what matters. After entering the cafe, I look around for Kikuoka, and spot him waving to me.

"Over here, Sheik!" He calls, using my avatar's name.

I walk over with my eyes narrow. "I thought I told you to call me by my real name while, you know, in the REAL WORLD?" I groan and take a seat across from him.

"Ah, right right! Sorry." He sighs. "Well, order whatever you want."

"Fine." I say and look over the menu. "Chou à la Crème, Assorted Ice Cream, Strawberry Parfait, and a slice chocolate cake." I say as the waiter bows to fetch my order of sweets. "So, what's up? Did you get lonely and miss me, or something?" I ask with a grin.

"Hah! As if. No, that's not it. It involves a VRMMO that came up recently. Gun Gale Online. Ever heard of it?" He asked.

"I have. I hear it's pretty intense." I nod.

"Last month, November 19th, an apartment complex in Tokyo was doing a routine cleaning, and smelled a foul oder. So they disabled the lock and let ourselves in and found this young man dead in his bed with an Amusphere still over his head. The cause of death seemed to be heart failure."

"What? But why?"

"I'm not sure. Frankly, none of us conducting the investigation is. But, we do know one thing about him. His name in GGO is XeXeeD, and he was the winner of a tournament that decides the best player on the server, called the Bullet of Bullets, or BoB for short."

"Okay. So he's a big shot. What else can you tell me? Anything of note that happened the day he died?"

"When it happened, he was appearing in an interview livestream held on MMOSTREAMS using XeXeeD's avatar. According to another player's blog, during the livestream playing at a bar in GGO, there was a person in a cloak and a mask who started acting erratically. Said something about judgment and power, fired his handgun at the stream at XeXeeD. Seconds later, XeXeeD disconnects."

"Hmm... I dunno. Could be a coincidence." I say and take a bite out of my parfait.

"Yes, but there was another death."

"...go on..." I nod.

"November 28th. Same setup as before. Found dead in their apartment with an Amusphere rig. There was said to be a horrible—"

"AHEM!" An old lady clears her throat loudly.

"Ahem yourself. We're TRYING to solve a murder mystery here. Don't like? Go home." I sass the old lady, and turn back to Kikuoka. "Continue."

"We'll skip the condition of the corpse for now. Anyway, heart failure was the cause of death again. And he was also a top ranking GGO player. But either way, don't you find this strange?"

"I mean, yeah. If I had a nickel for every time a top ranked GGO player died of heart failure, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice." I say.