Sword Art Online - Phantom Bullet

Chapter 8

"Onii-chan~!"

It was a bright and clear Sunday. I was sitting at the dining table eating my lunch, and I suddenly had an «ominous feeling» rush up between my eyebrows after seeing my beloved imouto giving me her brightest smile. This proves how I, Kirigaya Kazuto, was not a good person.

However, I still stopped myself from putting the cherry tomato into my mouth and said,

"Wha...what's wrong, Sugu?"

Once I finished asking, I saw my imouto—or rather, my cousin, Kirigaya Suguha sitting across me. She picked up something that she had put down on the chair beside her, and at this moment, I immediately knew that my premonition was spot on.

"Erm...did you see this news on the net this morning?"

As she said that, a large A4-sized printing paper was pushed to me. It seemed that she printed the news bulletin of the largest VRMMO gaming info website «MMO Tomorrow», or 'M Tomo' for short.

The headlines had the words 'The list of 30 players taking part in the 3rd «Bullet of Bullets» Royal Rumble for the title of the strongest in 'Gun Gale Online' has been revealed' written in thick font.

Below it, there's also a brief report of the namelist of all the participants.

The finger of Suguha, who cut her fingernails neatly, pointed to a line 'Ranked 1st in Group F: Kirito 'First' ' I glanced at those words and weakly tried to cover things up.

"Heh, heh— so there's someone with a name similar to mine—"

"What do you mean similar? It's completely the same."

Under the bangs, Suguha showed a smile on the clean face befitting that of a sports-girl.

In this world of reality, she could take part in the national High School kendo tournament and the Gyokuryuuki group kendo tournament. Someone weak like me who could only hide at home can't match her physically. Also, Suguha's controlling the fairy swordsman «Lyfa» in this completely technical VRMMO «ALfheim Online». Those proper and sturdy sword techniques far surpass my sword skills where I merely swung my sword wildly.

No matter whether it's the real world or virtual world, I could only apologize immediately once I get into an argument with Suguha, but normally, I wouldn't need to worry about that. That's because during the past year ever since I returned back to the real world, we cleared all the alienating feeling we had when we were young, and even had quite a good relationship. Even dad would feel jealous after coming back from America during summer vacation.

Today—Sunday, year 2025, December 14. As mom was at the editorial department like usual, Suguha and I had to buy our own ingredients for lunch. We had Caesar salad with boiled eggs and seafood paella, and so we faced each other at the table and started to tuck in happily...until Suguha took out that piece of paper.

"...Ye-Yeah, it's the same, hm."

I barely looked away from the paper that had the name Kirito on it and put the cherry tomato into my mouth. I chewed on it and said with a vague voice,

"Bu-But, that's a pretty common name, right? I just cut my name short. This Kirito in GGO may be called, Kiri... Kirigamine Tougorou. That could be his real name, yup."

The reason why I would feel such a sharp pain after saying such a blatant lie must be because I said a huge lie to my beloved imouto. Yes, the Kirito that Suguha was talking about was my character in the game.

As for why I had to hide this fact, it was because I had to «convert» my avatar Kirito from ALO to the shooter MMO «Gun Gale Online», a game with lots of problems, so that I could take part in the «Bullet of Bullets» tournament.