Sword Art Online Ii Episode 7 ◆

He had promised Asuna he wouldn’t go this deep again.

Kirito.

The scout ran. He made it six steps before Kirito’s blade found his back.

Sinon didn’t move. She counted her heartbeats. One. Two. Three. She had one shot before he closed the distance. Sword Art Online II Episode 7

She crouched behind a collapsed pillar, her Hecate II’s scope pressed to her eye. Through the crosshairs, she watched the last two opponents on her team move up: a burly machine-gunner and a jittery scout. They were bait, and they knew it. The enemy sniper was somewhere in the western rafters.

“Don’t get in my line of fire.”

He smiled—a thin, broken thing. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He had promised Asuna he wouldn’t go this deep again

The machine-gunner opened fire. A wild, panicked spray. Kirito didn’t dodge. He flowed —a blur of black and silver. The saber wasn’t drawn; it was simply there , deflecting rounds in a singing arc of sparks. In two heartbeats, he was behind the gunner. One silent slash. The man burst into polygons.

“You’re not on my team,” Sinon said, her Hecate’s barrel now fixed on his chest.

The GGO arena was a ghost of its former self—a shattered coliseum of rust and dust under a dying red sun. For most, it was a death trap. For Sinon, it was home. He made it six steps before Kirito’s blade found his back

Sinon’s hands trembled. Then steadied. She thought of the real gun in her father’s closet. The echo of a childhood mistake. The bullet she’d been running from for years.

She pivoted just as a figure stepped from the shadows of a nearby archway. No. Not stepped. Materialized. As if the darkness itself had given birth to him.

No—not the Kirito she’d met in the Bullet of Bullets preliminaries. This one was different. His avatar was leaner, sharper. And his eyes… even through the hood’s shadow, they burned with a hollow, predatory light.

“Sinon, I’ve got a visual on—wait. Who’s that?” The scout’s voice cracked.