Shinkawa Kyouji

Shinkawa Kyouji (新川 恭二), known as Spiegel (シュピーゲル) in «Gun Gale Online» (GGO), is one of the antagonists during the Phantom Bullet Arc, alongside his brother Shinkawa Shouichi. Kyouji is Asada Shino's friend and the one who introduced her to GGO. His avatar is an AGI-build character. Kyouji also makes an appearance in Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, playing Sword Art: Origin (SA:O) with an avatar named Richter (リヒター).

Real Life
In real life, Kyouji is a small and skinny boy who wears jeans and a dark yellow, nylon pullover, with a dark green backpack over his shoulders. A black baseball cap sits over his little, round face. Although he looks like a middle school student, the dark shadows beneath his eyes betray his youthful visage.

Gun Gale Online Avatar
Kyouji's avatar in Gun Gale Online had a tall and skinny body with long, silver hair. He wore a grey-patterned, streamlined camouflage with a somewhat large machine gun slung over his shoulder.

Background
Kyouji is the second son of the director of a hospital. Kyouji was bullied at school and was also being pressured by his parents to succeed them, therefore he gave up on reality and turned to the virtual world. He believed that being strong in virtual world would cover his weakness in the real world. He later developed a hatred towards XeXeeD, as well as other STR-oriented players, for suggesting players to focus on raising their AGI parameter, which later turned out to be a bad choice as a STR focused build turned out to be better in the long run due to such players being able to wield heavier guns, thus destroying Spiegel's development.

Phantom Bullet Arc
Kyouji was mentioned to be the one who introduced Shino to GGO in a bid to help her overcome her fear of guns. He was also the one who persuaded Sinon not to quit, even though she did not get the avatar she had wanted.

Kyouji made his first appearance in the Phantom Bullet arc by saving Shino from Endou and her group of bullies who wanted her to withdraw money for them from an ATM on her way home. He scared them off by pretending to be bringing a police officer to the scene. Later, he brought Shino to a cafe and there, he offered to be Shino's protector by accompanying her from school everyday. Shino declined, but thanked him before parting ways.

After the Bullet of Bullet (BoB) tournament was concluded, Kyouji went over to Shino's apartment to congratulate her. During their conversation, Kyouji mentioned the scene at the desert cave and asked whether she was threatened by Kirito then asked to confirm that she had no feelings for him. Kyouji then confessed his love to her, but Shino nudged Kyouji away from herself.

Shocked by Shino's actions, Kyouji claimed that only he could save her and she could not be attracted to other men. Kyouji then took out a needless syringe from his jacket and placed it on Shino's neck, warning her not to move or scream. He revealed his plan to slowly inject a drug that would paralyse her muscles, causing her heart to stop. This made Shino recall the Death Gun plot, thus she asked whether Kyouji was a part of it. The amazed Kyouji confirmed this and revealed he was the one who shot XeXeeD in-game but would not allow anyone, including his brother, to touch her, thus he chose to be active in the real world on this occasion.

Before Kyouji could kill her, Shino used an opportunity to grab the cylinder of the syringe. Shino attempted to pull the syringe out of Kyouji's hands but failed. After being punched in the shoulder, Shino hit her writing desk with her back and one of the drawers opened, with its contents scattering on the ground. While trying to get up, Shino realised that she had touched the model Procyon SL gun that she had won from the previous BoB tournament. Shino grabbed the gun and pointed it and Kyouji, tricking him into believing that she could kill him with it.

While Kyouji showed no signs of consciousness, Shino ran to the door and unlocked it, but Kyouji recovered, grabbed her ankle and pulled her back. Just then, Kirigaya Kazuto ran into the apartment and kicked Kyouji. During their struggle, Kyouji managed to punch Kazuto in the face, then took out his syringe and seemingly injected it into Kazuto's chest. Several moments later, Shino swung her stereo at Kyouji's head, knocking him out.

During Kazuto and Shino's conversation with Kikuoka Seijirou several days later, the Death Gun incident was summarised. Kyouji, along with his brother, Shinkawa Shouichi, and another Laughing Coffin member, Kanamoto Atsushi (Johnny Black), planned to kill players in the real world, allegedly by killing them in the virtual world. As nobody believed in the deaths of XeXeeD and Usujio Tarako, his brother entered the Bullet of Bullets tournament under the name «Sterben» to make the rest of the world believe in their supposed killing ability, while in reality, Kyouji and Atsushi would inject the players in the real world with a syringe filled with succinylcholine, which stopped the heart. They had obtained the address by watching players type in their real addresses, while hiding under a «Metamaterial Optical Camouflage mantle», during the BoB registration process.

Hollow Realization
In the aftermath of the Sword Art Online incident, Kyouji encountered Shino in the library. They began talking to each other and once joined the same party in ALfheim Online.

During the beta of Sword Art: Origin, Richter began stalking Sinon and once attempted to purchase information on her from Argo, until he was exposed when Sinon and Kirito faked a date. He quickly identified himself to Sinon, who recognised and briefly introduced him to Kirito. He apologized for his actions, explaining that he had meant to greet Sinon for a while but found it difficult when she was surrounded by her friends. He was chided for his actions but invited to converse normally with her.

Some time later, Richter met with Sinon in the Town of Beginnings to complete a delivery quest. Just as he returned from finishing it, the two encountered Kirito. Discomforted at Sinon's casual banter with Kirito, Richter reminded the former of her plan to travel to the convenience store in the real world. After she logged off, Richter questioned Kirito on his relationship with her, remarking that Sinon seemed more open to Kirito than with him, and thus he threatened Kirito to refrain from bothering Sinon or being friendly with her, before leaving.

As Kirito ignored his warning, Richter confronted him in front of Sinon and, without a second thought, revealed that Shino had killed a man who tried to rob a post office in the real world, causing Sinon to become overcome with fear and guilt, which resulted in her eventually avoiding to log into SA:O.

After Sinon returned to SA:O, Richter made contact with her again. Despite Sinon's attempts to convince him otherwise, Richter refused to accept that she was different from his preconceived image of her, and thus assumed that she had been brainwashed. In an attempt to provoke her memories, Richter suggested portraying the robbery again, which led to him receiving an orange cursor. At that moment, Richter was interrupted by Kirito and forced to retreat. Before Richter logged out, he mentioned his older brother to Kirito.

Gallery

 * See Shinkawa Kyouji/Image Gallery

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