Sword Art Online Light Novel Volume 06

Phantom Bullet (ファントム・バレット) Part 2 is the 6th book in the Sword Art Online Light Novel series, published on December 10, 2010.

Summary
Kirito enters the finals of the Bullet of Bullets tournament to find the truth about the mysterious Death Gun. Assisted by the sniper Asada Shino (a.k.a. Sinon), he fights for his life and others to stop a mysterious but lethal force.

Chapter 7
Kazuto is woken up by his sister Suguha, who immediately interrogates him about a new competitor on the Bullet of Bullets competition named Kirito. With clever maneuvering, she catches Kazuto in his lies and tells him that she knows that he converted his ALO account into Gun Gale Online (GGO). She then confesses her worries about Kirito going away, but Kazuto reassures her he will come back. Kazuto is unable to tell Suguha about his real reason for converting to GGO - he has unfinished work to be done, especially since he met someone from the PK guild named Laughing Coffin from «SAO». Kazuto heads over to the hospital where he first woke up after clearing SAO. Nurse Aki was waiting for his arrival. Kazuto confesses to her that he feels guilt for killing people in SAO, but Nurse Aki assures him that sometimes, a minority has to be sacrificed to save the majority.

Chapter 8
Asada Shino is hanging out with Shinkawa Kyouji, as she reminisces about the preliminaries the day before. Kirito, the absolute amateur to GGO, had surprisingly made it to the finals, and to top that, he actually beat her. Shino is irritated by everything that is Kirito, his mannerisms, the fact that he disguised himself as a girl, his overwhelming ability in game, and him telling her that he would prefer to not hit a girl. Kyouji grabs Shino and tells her that he "wants" her, Shino responds saying that she does not have that sort of feelings for him but that if he was willing to wait for her, she might one day accept. Spiegel meets up with Sinon in game, after he leaves, Kirito calls Sinon from behind.

Chapter 9
Kirito recollects his memories of the previous day; «Laughing Coffin», «Death Gun», Sinon, Bullet of Bullets, 30 finalists, and finally, fear. He sees Sinon and asks her to guide him through today's tournament. The map is ten kilometers in diameter, every 15 minutes a satellite probe is sent into the air to map the location of each contestant. The goal of course is to be the last one standing. Kirito hints to Sinon about his previous life in SAO and about the «Laughing Coffin» guild. They head off to the arena, Kirito promising Sinon that he will stay alive until she kills him.

Chapter 10
Sinon eliminated 2 people in the first 30 minutes. She sees «Pale Rider» chasing «Dyne» and decides to stay and watch. Kirito sneaks up on her while she is distracted, instead of killing her, he sits down next to her. Pale Rider was a prime suspect. Dyne is defeated and suddenly a bullet pass by Pale Rider. He is immediately paralyzed. Kirito and Sinon are shocked; they hadn't noticed a hidden enemy. «Death Gun» steps into the clearing and kills Pale Rider, both in-game and in reality. He then disappears after dodging Sinon's bullet. Sinon and Kirito team up to chase after the murderer.

Chapter 11
Spectating the game are Kirito's friends from ALO: Asuna, Klein, Lisbeth, Yui, Silica, and Lyfa. They witness the death of Pale Rider as it is being streamed LIVE. Klein and Asuna immediately notice that the voice sounded strangely familiar as if it was a player from the Laughing Coffin guild. Asuna immediately leaves ALO to contact Kikuoka Seijirou.

Chapter 12
Sinon notices a longing feeling for Kirito. «Gunner X» and «Sterben» were the last two suspects. Sinon and Kirito target Gunner X first. Kirito goes to attack Gunner X and leaves Sinon behind for the sniping, suddenly she is stunned by a bullet from her blind spot. Death Gun was using «Metamaterial Optical Camouflage» to hide from the satellite probe. Kirito quickly kills Gunner, who is really called Musketeer X, and heads back towards Sinon, noticing that she was in trouble. Sinon notices that the Death Gun item was a Blackstar type 54 gun, the gun that she had used years past to kill a dangerous man. Kirito jumps in to save Sinon and then they hurriedly find a buggy and drive off. Death Gun chases after them while riding a horse. Sinon was too scared to press the trigger and couldn't shoot. In a last moment effort, Kirito forces her to make the shot. She misses but hits an oil tanker behind Death Gun which causes a large explosion. Sinon confesses that she has murdered lives in the real world before, to calm her down, Kirito explains his situation while he was in SAO. A short while later, Kirito figures out the secret behind Death Gun. It was not only one person. There had to be somebody in the real world that timed the kills perfectly with the kills in-game. He postulates that by using the invisibility cloak, Death Gun could have waited at the BoB registration place and stolen character information such as their street address and later giving the address to his accomplices to kill in the real world.

Chapter 13
Chrysheight logs into ALO. He tells the group of everything that had transpired and the reason as to why Kirito was in the death game. Asuna immediately rushes over to the hospital that Kirito linked from. She would wait by his side until he woke up.

Part 1
Kirito and Sinon hide in a cave, avoiding the satellite scan. It seemed that nobody was around them. By counting the screen, Kirito noticed that only 28 out of the 30 participants were visible, whether dead or alive. That would either mean that somebody was hiding or another person was killed by Death Gun - 1 hour and 45 minutes into the game. They come up with a plan to take out both «Yamikaze» and Death Gun, then they will have their 1v1 fight.

Part 2
Kirito drives the buggy into the center of the desert. He then uses it as a shield. Coming in from opposite directions were Death Gun and Yamikaze. Sinon was waiting to snipe Yamikaze from a high area. She gained the courage to shoot her Hecate II again, waiting for the perfect moment to take out Yamikaze. She only had one chance, because after that first shot, there would be a shot line that would make the shot easy to dodge.

Part 3
Kirito remembers faintly about the night where Laughing Coffin was destroyed and captured. The person that was Death Gun was most likely the player that had held the «Estoc», he just could not remember the name of the player though. Kirito nearly dodges a bullet.

Part 4
Sinon snipes Yamikaze and he immediately dies. She then points her Hecate II toward Death Gun. He quickly reacts and shoots a bullet straight back at her. Her scope was destroyed, but she was able to destroy Death Gun's sniper rifle, the L115A3 «Silent Assassin». Death Gun pulls out a weapon that seemed to be like a sword. Sinon was shocked as she had never heard of another blade in GGO other than the one Kirito was wielding. Kirito is damaged in the left shoulder.

Part 5
Asuna enters the hospital, very worried. She immediately rushes to his room with Yui (she is connected by voice speaker) and was worried after seeing Kazuto's heart rate rise and also him being stabbed by Death gun.

Part 6
Death Gun was definitely part of the Laughing Coffin guild. Kirito reveals to Death Gun that he had solved the mystery behind the in-game and real world killings. He also reveals that after he remembers Death Gun's SAO name, he will be able to track him down. Sadly, Death Gun informs Kirito that he will never know his name because Kirito did not spend the time to even hear it while Death Gun was being dragged off the prison in SAO.

Part 7
Kirito is stabbed into the side and left with only a sliver of HP. He immediately does a backflip and retreats. Sinon, no longer able to support from a long distance due to her missing scope, charges into the battlefield hoping that Kirito could hold off long enough until she got there.

Part 8
Worried, Asuna screams out Kirito's name as she notices the SAO sword skills being used. Kirito was gravely injured and his face was pale and skin was cold. Yui tells her to grab his hand. Even in game, Kirito would be able to feel her radiating warmth.

Part 9
In his last moments, Kirito remembers the name of the Estoc user. «Red-Eyed XaXa». At the same moment, Kirito feels warmth envelop his hand. He remembers that he still has his gun by his side. By using the gun, Kirito is able to perform «Double Circular», the two hand sword skill he had mastered in SAO. The avatar was sliced in half, Death Gun's final words was that it was not over.

Part 10
Kirito tells Sinon to immediately call the cops when she exits the virtual reality. He will also contact with Kikuoka and tell him to send police immediately over to her house. They knew that somebody in the real world was or had been in Sinon's room, waiting to kill her. Then, to finish off the game since they didn't wanted to fight more, the two decide to commit a double suicide by using a grenade. This would allow both of them to be crowned as the victors of BoB.

Chapter 15
Shino did not notice anything strange after getting back to reality. It didn't seem that anyone had been in her room. The doorbell suddenly rang, and outside was Kyouji. She let him inside noticing how quick he was, it had been only a matter of minutes since she exited GGO. Kyouji recounted what he saw in the tournament when Kirito and Sinon were very close together while in the cave. He demanded a reason for it, he "loved" Shino. Kyouji pushes her onto the bed, screaming that he loves her. The fear of being raped flashed through her brain, but that was not what Kyouji wanted. He wanted to kill her by injecting her with «Succinylcholine», a poison that could stop her heart if given in generous amounts. Attempting to stall for time, Shino talks to Kyouji, asking him the reason behind Death Gun, he reveals that the person that had been in SAO was his brother and that there were actually three people in this plot. Shino fights her way out of his grasps and reaches for the model gun that was in her drawer. She is not able to shoot so she runs for the door instead. Right when she reaches it, Kyouji grabs her leg. Suddenly, Kazuto bursts through the door and attacks Kyouji. Kyouji stabs Kazuto with the syringe. Luckily, Kazuto had accidentally forgot to remove one of the plates that he had been attached to while at the hospital; it had been used to monitor his homeostatic levels. The syringe stab was blocked by the metal plate. Police car sirens could finally be heard from a distance.

Chapter 16
A few days later, Endo and her gang team up on Shino again. This time, they ask for 20,000 yen from her; Endo also brought a real gun in hopes to scare Shino. Knowing that she had to stand up for herself, Shino finally faced her fear of holding a gun. She takes the gun from Endo's hand and shows her the ability of Sinon. Endo, scared, is speechless while Shino walks off. Kazuto was waiting for her in front of her school. They go to meet Kikouka. Shinkawa Shoichi writes a note to Kazuto stating that "it" was not over. After clearing things up, Kazuto and Shino go to Dicey Cafe where Asuna, Lisbeth, and Agil were waiting. Although Shino has a secret passion for Kazuto, she realizes that Kazuto and Asuna were a couple and decides to step down a little. Soon, the veteran SAO players confesses to her the true reason for bringing her here. A former female worker from the post office where Shino saved many beings faces her with her four year-old daughter. The worker apologizes to Shino for not attempting to find her and thank her, but now the elder woman, along with her daughter, thanks her whole-heartedly for the heroic deed she had done that day.

Volumen 6