Sword Art Online Alternative – Gun Gale Online - Volume 3 - Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19 
Save the Last Battle for Me 
On the screen in the bar, the pink shrimp tore off her disguise and stood up, exposing her presence in heroic fashion. 
“There she is! The defending champion!” 
“So that’s where she was!” 
“Yeah! Go!” cheered her fans. 
“You dummy! Why would you pop up there?!” 
“You took off the poncho too early!” 
“Oh no, she’s gonna die…,” groaned those who felt despair. 
In response to both categories of spectators, the little player in pink began to sprint, making full use of her prodigious agility stat…straight to the northwest. 
“Huh?” 
In other words, directly away from the log house. 
“Theeeerrrrre!” shrieked Pitohui with delight. 
Her scope was zoomed in for better searching, and she was now using it to follow the pink blur among the grass. 
“I spotted her, too. That’s Llenn,” said M, M14 EBR at the ready in the window. 
“Well, she’s mine! If you kill her, I’ll kill you!” she warned him. “Now come to me!” She glared through the scope, all thoughts on battle, until she saw Llenn in full flight mode. “Huh?” 
The girl’s tiny back was growing even tinier. 
“Hey! What?! She’s running away! I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!” 
Llenn was fleeing so quickly, she was no longer visible from the hole in the building. Pitohui pulled away from the Savage 110 BA and stood up. Then she grabbed the KTR-09 assault rifle nearby, her actual gun, and ordered the dumbfounded M, “Let’s follow! Come with me!” 
“Er, right… What about her partner?” 
“We can worry about that later!” 
“But once she gets her limbs back, those grenades will be a pain.” 
“Shut up!” 
Pitohui swung a black boot directly up into M’s crotch. 
“Frngk!” he exclaimed, falling to his knees. 
“Come on! Let’s go!” she demanded, a request that was now impossible. 
“Grrrng… B-but…,” M grunted, out of either pain or delight, elbows and knees on the floor. “If she’s running away… There’s no way…we’ll catch up…,” he pointed out. 
“I know that. She runs like she’s a car.” 
M’s pain-or-pleasure had worn off, and he lifted his head. “Well?” 
“We’re going to chase her down in a car, obviously!” 
Llenn’s desperate escape from the final battle was entirely caught on camera, of course. The floating eye followed her back as she whipped through the grass at tremendous speed. 
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Boss bellowed in the waiting area, just a dark space without a ceiling or walls, only a monitor before her. 
Next to her, Tanya said, “Not bad!” 
Tohma cheered, “You got this, Llenn!” 
And Rosa declared, “We’re all counting on you!” 
They sat around on the black floor, watching the proceedings with excitement. 
A grin rested across Boss’s menacing face. She muttered, “Right. That’s the Llenn I wanted to beat.” 
Llenn paused in her dash across the plains and turned back. She tucked the P90 on its sling against her body with her left hand and put the monocular she’d been holding on the right up to her eye. 
In no time at all, she was nearly two-thirds of a mile from the log house. At its western edge, she could see the three four-wheel-drive vehicles. Two figures were getting into one of them now. Soon it began to move. 
“Heh-heh-heh-heh.” She grinned evilly. “Now follow me!” 
She changed direction—and headed east. 
“There! She’s running to the east!” cried M from the driver’s seat of the Humvee, clutching the thin wheel and driving it through the grass of the plain. 
“I can see herrrr!” Pitohui was standing in the middle of the vehicle’s four seats, sticking her face out of the protected sunroof area. She had one hand on a rail and the other on her KTR-09. 
“Hang on!” M called out as he turned the Humvee to the right. The shift in momentum pressed Pitohui against the edge of the sunroof area. 
“Kya-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” 
She seemed to be having fun. 
“Taaaaaaa!” 
Llenn ran and ran and ran for all she was worth. She was making the absolute most of her character’s abilities. 
Because it was a grassy field, she couldn’t actually see where she was stepping. If there happened to be a large rock on the ground, she would immediately trip over it and roll for a good distance. 
But she didn’t let up at all. She ran pell-mell, checking behind her to see that the brown car was coming closer, and continued on her way. “You won’t catch me! Not yet!” 
She was running straight east at this point, but the log house was no longer visible on her right; it was well over her shoulder by then. The only thing in front of her was the valley between the snowy mountain and the rocky one—field, ponds, and rivers. 
A tiny pink person sped through the plains like a ferocious horse. About five hundred yards behind her was a Humvee giving chase. 
“C’mon, M! Pedal to the metal! I can’t get a good enough shot!” 
Llenn was not as fast as the automobile. They’d been slowly closing the gap, but with the rocking of the car, even Pitohui couldn’t land a shot at this distance one-handed. 
Behind the wheel, M protested, “I can if you want, but the extra turbulence is going to buck you off! I don’t know how rough the terrain will be ahead of us.” 
“Like I give a shit! Just do it!” she yelled, swinging her leg forward to kick the back of his head. 
“Gfhk! Fine… Suit yourself!” M jammed his heavy foot on the gas. 
The 6.5-liter V6 diesel turbo engine roared, and a moment later, the Humvee jolted harder. It hurtled Pitohui backward, and it took her considerable arm strength to keep her upright. 
“Hi-yo, Silverrrr!” she shouted, like some televised cowboy hero, ponytail whipping, eyes sparkling above the roof of the Humvee. “Let’s go, Llenn! Show me how you want to fight!” 
The audience in the bar got chills watching Llenn run with the car chasing after her. 
“I wonder what Llenn has planned!” 
“She’s got to have something up her sleeve. I can’t wait!” 
“Llenn has no ideas,” said Tanya in the waiting area. 
“Yeah. She’s just winging it on a prayer,” replied Boss. “But that’s the best part.” 
On the north side of the log house, Fukaziroh was waiting for her hands and feet to reappear, but she did manage to successfully administer a healing kit with just her arms and mouth. 
As her hit points slowly filled up, she noted that Llenn’s gauge was still in perfect green condition. 
Hang in there, she silently prayed. If you keep trying, you never know what will happen. 
What do I do, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?! 
It was like a mantra, repeating over and over in Llenn’s head as she ran. 
She rushed off with all the momentum of anger and frustration, but there hadn’t been a plan behind it. At the very least, she had avoided the impossible task of trying to rush a building where incredible snipers waited to shoot her, but that was it. 
She turned back for a peek. 
Ugh. 
The boxy vehicle was much closer than before, perhaps three hundred to four hundred yards away now. She could even spot a smile on Pitohui, who had her top half leaning out of the vehicle’s roof. In her hand was a long black rod. She didn’t know what it was, except that it definitely wasn’t a rug beater. 
Shit! she swore to herself again, out of however many times it had been that day. You know, ever since I started GGO, I’ve been swearing like a sailor. 
But now was the time for coming up with a plan. Should she turn and fire back with the P90? She’d landed a hit from this distance earlier, so maybe she could hope for another stroke of luck. 
“No way! At that distance, they’ll be shooting at us, too! As soon as we stop moving, we’ll get shot!” P-chan argued. 
It was true. That was probably an assault rifle in Pitohui’s hands. She was certain to win in a shoot-out. 
So Llenn kept running. 
Ahead on the left, about a hundred yards away, was something that looked like a pond. It was a circle of standing water at least thirty yards across. The surface reflected the dull-gray sky, and there was no way to tell its depth from there. 
“…” 
Llenn decided to head toward it. 
On the screen, the audience at the bar saw Llenn changing course. 
“Hang on! That’s toward the pond!” 
“Is she gonna jump in and swim away?” 
“It might not be the worst plan. Even a Humvee isn’t going to do much good submerged in water.” 
“What if it’s shallow? It might just be a puddle in a marsh! If it’s only eighteen inches deep, it’ll drive right across!” 
“But they’re not gonna be able to tell unless they get really close, right?” 
They enjoyed speculating over the various possibilities. 
Llenn ran and ran toward the pond, praying the whole while, Please don’t let Pito shoot me! 
She glanced back. The car’s distance was just over two hundred yards now. 
She looked forward. Thirty yards to the pond. 
Okay! Here we gooooo! 
Her brain gave the signal to stop. Those machine legs, pumping like pistons, instantly came to a halt. The soles of her boots slid and scraped the soil of the field, slowing her progress. 
It was a preposterous way to stop, but she held her weight backward, bearing the deceleration, keeping her legs perfectly balanced, until she came to a full stop without falling over. 
It took her just five yards of space to perform this feat. 
“What was that?!” 
“That was wild,” the audience in the bar marveled. 
“Hyaaa! What in the—? How did she do that?!” said Tanya. 
“Khorosho! If Llenn did virtual gymnastics, she would be very good at it!” exclaimed Tohma. 
Now that she had stopped and turned herself around, Llenn ignored P-chan, saying, “I get it, we’re gonna shoot back from here!” and pushing the gun on the sling to hang over her back instead. 
“Huh? Aren’t you going to shoot me? Aren’t you going to shoot me? Aren’t you going to shoot me?” her gun prattled. She ignored it and put her hand behind her waist. 
“Hmph!” 
She drew a dark, gleaming combat knife backhanded, then held it up before her eyes like some kind of gladiator. 
“Come, Pitohui!” 
“Fweh?” Pitohui squawked. 
They’d been gunning it so hard to catch tiny pink Llenn, and she’d just screeched to a halt like a jet landing on an aircraft carrier at sea. Then she turned around to face their car with nothing but a knife in her hand. 
Pitohui’s expression of shock quickly turned to a smile of wild joy. 
“Hyaaa! This is lovely!” she screamed from the top of the Humvee. 
Rather than continuing to take aim with the KTR-09 rifle, she tossed it into the back seat of the Humvee with a dull thud. 
One hundred and sixty yards to go. 
“Press on, my noble steed! It’s a joust!” Pitohui commanded M. “Hya-hoo!” She drew a different weapon and created a beam of light. 
Pitohui made a quick rotation with the Muramasa F9 photon sword held out level. The glowing sword severed clean the protective material that surrounded the rooftop perch of the Humvee. The parts toppled off the vehicle to either side. 
Now there was no structure above the sunroof of the Humvee, just Pitohui’s upper half and a blade in her hand. 
She held the sword high overhead. 
“I shall be thy opponent!” she barked, like a samurai of the past. 
M did not ease off the gas. 
Yes! 
Llenn grinned. The Humvee was just a hundred yards off now, racing straight toward her, with Pitohui and her glowing sword on top. 
“Hey, c’mon! You can shoot the lady on the top of the car now! This is your big chance, Llenn! Lift me up and shoot me!” 
“Shut up, or I’ll pawn you off,” she silently threatened her gun. She glared over the black blade before her at the enemy knight on her giant steed, bearing down. 
“It’s a duel! The shrimp’s gonna jump up and slash at her!” 
“What’s gonna happen?!” the bar roared. 
“Awesome!” 
“Get ’er!” 
“Stab her!” 
The waiting area boomed with voices. Llenn could hear none of them. 
On the monitors, the pink shrimp stood and waited while the Humvee closed in, engine roaring. 
Fifty yards. 
Forty yards. 
Thirty yards. 
“Raaaah!” 
Llenn started running. Twenty yards. 
The woman atop the car pulled her right arm back, holding the photon sword, preparing herself for a thrust with perfect form. She put her left arm in front of her, a defensive move meant to sacrifice her own limb. 
Everyone watching the video understood. 
This fight would last all of an instant, leaving no time to blink. 

In just two or three seconds, Llenn would use her running start and incredible agility to leap into the air at her target, and the woman would strike back with the photon sword. 
So whose head was going to fly off? 
The distance between the charging vehicle and the accelerating girl was just ten yards. 
And then the spectators had to doubt their very own eyes. 
Splat. 
She dropped to the ground. 
The tiny girl in pink just flopped to the grass. One moment she’d been racing at the Humvee, and then she had stopped and dropped. 
She was so flat against the ground that the Humvee’s sets of tires passed right over and around her, the chassis easily clearing her head and body. 
“Whaaaaaat?!” screeched Pitohui, who saw her opponent flatten herself under the vehicle. “Llenn, you little bastard!” 
She spun around atop the Humvee. A pink figure emerged from behind the car and stood up, P90 in her hand, aiming at Pitohui. 
“And you call yourself a samuraaaaai?!” yelled Pitohui. 
The gunfire was her way of answering, No, I do not. 
“Llenn! Was this the plan the whole time?” P-chan wondered as it spat fire. 
Inside her head, Llenn replied, “Who would get into a physical fight with a person riding a car?! I’m not Pito!” 
Her aim wasn’t particularly steady with just one hand holding the gun, but this moment, when the target was so close, would be her best chance. She held the trigger, intending to empty all fifty shots. 
“How dare youuuuu!” roared Pitohui. 
Red bullet lines surrounded her, fanning out in great number. Realizing that Llenn had completely tricked her put such a ferocious look on Pitohui’s face, any child would have burst into tears upon seeing it. 
“Raaaah!” 
She blocked one of the lines that pointed to her face with the pale light of the photon sword. All around the car, bullets pinged and thwacked against the body. Fzhk! Something evaporated. 
Llenn’s P90 magazine had fifty rounds. Her onslaught continued. 
Pitohui gave up on striking back. She clicked the photon sword off right as she kicked both legs forward, so she fell with a thump back inside the Humvee. A few more bullets nearly grazed her head in the process. 
“The pond! I’m braking!” M warned from the driver’s seat. 
“We’re fine! Keep going!” Pitohui commanded. 
As she fired one-handed, Llenn thought, This is going to work! 
The car that passed over her plunged into the tiny lake without dropping in speed. At the rate it was going, they wouldn’t be able to stop it from submerging. It might look tough, but it couldn’t possibly be an amphibious vehicle. 
She used the opportunity to switch out the P90’s magazine and approached the edge of the water. This time, she brought up her right hand to aim properly. When the two of them came gasping to the surface, she would slaughter them without mercy. 
With all the heavy gear they wore, they’d have to struggle mightily to keep from sinking, so they wouldn’t be able to fight back. Of course, if they just drowned all on their own, that would be even better. That way, she could conserve ammo, and all she’d need to do was wait and watch, wondering whether they had drowned yet. 
“This is some really grotesque stuff to think about, Llenn!” 
“Shut up! As long as I win, that’s all that matters!” she told her gun. Meanwhile, she’d run through another fifty-round magazine already. She put the knife in her other hand back into its sheath and switched the P90 to the empty hand so she could pull out the empty magazine. 
Sploooosh! 
There was a tremendous impact in the water. 
“Go, M! Keep it moving!” 
“You got it!” 
The Humvee hit the pond and kept going. 
“Whaaaaat?” 
Llenn froze in the act of attaching a new magazine to the gun. 
The vehicle was riding across the top of the pond just ahead of her. The large tires were churning up gobs of water, and while it was much, much slower now, it was still moving. 
It looked like a water strider. 
At first, Llenn wondered whether the tires were somehow outfitted with some special capabilities. Then she realized that the answer was much more mundane. 
Holy crap! The water’s shallow! 
She clicked the new magazine into the P90 and pulled the loading lever. 
The car driving across the pond—no, the large puddle—turned briefly to the right, then swung around to the left. It was clearly making a U-turn to come back for her. 
“What now, Llenn?” asked P-chan. She began to sprint again, straight for the vehicle. 
“It’s shallow here! You just can’t tell by looking at it!” Pitohui said, reaching over for her gun inside the Humvee as it roared across the huge puddle. 
“How did you know?” M asked, pulling the Humvee into a big left turn. 
Pitohui popped up with the KTR-09 in her hand and said, “There was that poster about eruption times and places on the wall of the room! Didn’t you bother to read it?” 
The Humvee completed its 180-degree turn, kicking up buckets of water. It got a bit slower again. 
The windshield wipers busily cleaned off the wet glass, hanging from the top of the frame rather than the bottom as was typical. Through the motion, M saw Llenn standing at the edge of the pond, P90 at the ready. She was about fifty yards away. 
“What now?” 
Pitohui leaned her face up from the back. “Do you need to ask?! We’re charging her again. But this time, yank on the wheel right before we get there! Crush her under the tires!” 
“…” 
M grimaced briefly, but Pitohui was very much enjoying herself. “So far, I’ve killed by beating, shooting, grenades, and swords, but not running anyone over yet. This is the perfect opportunity to do so. Now get her!” 
She smacked M on the shoulder, and he slammed on the gas. 
Llenn lifted her P90 to point at the boxy brown beast that came charging at her again. She aimed above the roof—if Pitohui popped her face out, she would be ready to blast her with the highest possible rate of fire. 
The tires sloshed and tossed the water as the vehicle pushed forward. 
Pitohui did not appear. 
“…” 
Llenn backed up, still holding the P90 at the ready. 
“All right! Go!” 
Pitohui stared at Llenn through the windshield, keeping herself low and most decidedly not popping her head out of the sunroof. 
When Llenn took a few steps back, she commanded, “Crush her! Even if she starts running away!” 
M said nothing, but he maintained his pressure on the accelerator. 
Three seconds before she was going to get squished, Llenn started running. 
Forward. 
She leaped. Her superhuman agility gave her air beyond the ability of any mortal, and she pointed the P90 down into the gaping hole in the roof of the Humvee. 
Ka-ka-ka-kang! 
The bullets caused sparks as they hit various metal features within the chassis, right as Pitohui shouted, “Gah!” 
Llenn leaped into the air, rather than dropping to the ground again, and fired into the roof of the car as it passed beneath her. She had an afterimage of Pitohui’s face turning toward her and a few glowing bits of damage, but they had all been on her legs. 
Shit! I missed! 
She swung her legs forward to prepare for her landing in the water. 
“What now? What’s the next plan?” her gun asked. 
This time, Llenn’s answer was “No choice but to run!” 
M kept the Humvee going to put distance between them and Llenn. “You okay?” he asked, looking over his right shoulder. 
“Wow, she’s done it! Oh, she’s done it now!” snarled Pitohui happily, flipping over the back seat. “You’ve gone and done it now, Llenn!” 
There were two bullet effects on her right thigh, but she still had 80 percent of her HP. M looked forward and spun the Humvee into another U-turn. 
Llenn splashed her way across the shallow water, taking distance from the vehicle. While it was slower than on the grass, her speed was still tremendous. 
“Stop! Fine, I’ll just shoot her!” Pitohui popped her head out of the Humvee’s roof as it scraped to a halt, set the KTR-09 against her shoulder, and flipped the selector to full auto. She was aiming at Llenn as she ran across the puddle. The distance was about eighty yards and growing. 
“This…should…do it.” 
The KTR-09 barked rapidly. A number of large jets of water appeared from the surface of the pond. They rose around Llenn, gushing nearly six feet into the air, as she ran, almost like spontaneous fountains. It was actually kind of beautiful. 
The line of jets caught up to Llenn, obscuring her from view, but the bright-red glow of damage indication shone through them. 
Just gotta run just gotta run just gotta run! 
It was the only thought on Llenn’s mind as she raced unsteadily across the puddle, until water seemed to block her vision. By the time she realized it was a plume of water from a bullet, she was surrounded by them, too late to drop down. A dull pain ran through her right knee. 
Ah… 
She spun as she fell, and she landed on her back in the water. 
The cloudy sky was overhead, and much closer, the rising plumes of water, and closer still, the glimmering bullet lines. 
I think…maybe…this is…it. 
She could see her hit points dropping rapidly—but only to about halfway, when the rapid drop from being shot came to a stop. But since almost her entire body was submerged in water, she was still losing a little trickle of continuous health, as was the custom in GGO. 
If she stayed here, she would eventually die. 
But if she stood up and took a single good shot, she would also die. 
It was at the exact moment of that thought that the gunshots and water jets came to an abrupt halt. 
“Did I get her?” Pitohui wondered, pausing her fire so the splashes of water could subside. She spotted the bit of pink bobbing in the water. There was no DEAD tag floating over her. 
“Not yet, huh? Did I only hit her with one shot? Damn, she’s so lucky! Or is it just because she’s tiny? Or is it both?” 
“Shall I bring us closer, Pito?” M asked. 
“Huh? Why should you? I’ll hit her the next time.” 
“No, I just thought you might want to see your target’s face when she dies.” 
“Ooooh… Now you’re starting to get it.” 
“So what’s the call?” 
“Y’know what? Never mind. Llenn creeps me out enough. I’m afraid she might pop up and kill me if I get too close.” 
“Ahhh… So you can feel fear…” 
“Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of monster. It’s scary. This is fun precisely because I’m scared of dying! I think I need to have a talk with you about this. Have a seat.” 
“I am sitting.” 
As Llenn floated faceup, she had to wonder, Why isn’t she shooting at me? 
Her body was above the surface just enough that she could still breathe, perhaps because her gear was so light. It didn’t feel so bad, just floating there like that. 
She wasn’t completely helpless to shoot back, but if she stood up, she’d get shot right away. “Almost zero” was barely any different from “zero.” 
She had decided to blow off steam and had gotten this far on sheer willpower, but it seemed like this was going to be the end of things. A sudden idea caused her to lift her arm and check her watch. 
2:27. The last event had ended on the twenty-eighth minute of the hour, at around this exact time. 
“Llenn! Don’t give up now!” 
“Shut up, P-chan. I don’t care.” 
“Llenn! There’s still a chance!” 
“It’s not zero, but it might as well be.” 
“Hey, Llenn! You still alive? I’m on my way over!” 
“You don’t have to bother.” 
“Llenn! I know you’re alive! Where are you?” 
“Oh!” 
She was so shocked that her jaw dropped, allowing muddy water to flood into her mouth and nose. 
“Gblarkh!” 
“Uh-oh. Is Llenn suffering? Is she drowning?” wondered Pitohui, who was peering from the sunroof of the Humvee. 
“She might be. You lose hit points in the water, so if we ignore her long enough, she’ll die.” 
“Yeah, that wouldn’t be bad, either…,” Pitohui said, conflicted. M took his foot off the brake pedal and hit the acceleration instead. The diesel engine’s pitch rose, and the Humvee began to slowly move forward. 
“Um, excuse me?” 
“I’m not going to get right up next to her. I’m just moving us about thirty feet closer.” 
“Hmph… Well, fine. I’m going to shoot her. I don’t like the idea of letting her drown.” 
Pitohui took aim with the KTR-09 at the small pink target floating on the water. The Humvee slowly inched closer, up to the lip of the puddle, then stopped. 
Then she and M witnessed Llenn’s right hand thrust toward the sky, holding the P90. 
“Oh?” 
Pitohui crouched, but the muzzle of the gun was not pointed toward them. It started firing right into the air. 
“Pardon?” 
Pa-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra, it rattled, to Pitohui’s confusion. “What is that? Some kind of ritual?” 
“Beats me.” 
Pa-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra. The long string of fifty consecutive shots came to an abrupt end. 
“Maybe that was her just making sure she left no feelings behind? In that case…” 
Pitohui raised the KTR-09 and took aim, straight at Llenn. 
She inhaled, exhaled a bit, and held her breath. 
Right as she was about to fire— 
Kaboom! 
A geyser of water about five yards across erupted in the pond between her and Llenn.