Sword Art Online Light Novel Volume 05

Summary
A year has passed since Sword Art Online «SAO» was cleared. «Kirito» is asked by Kikouka to investigate Gun Gale Online, specifically «Death Gun», a weapon which seemed to link deaths in the virtual reality (VR) world to those in the real world. Upon entering the game, Kirito meets Sinon who teaches him the ropes around the game. They both enter the Gun Gale Online tournament, Bullet of Bullets (BoB). Kirito displays his amazing skill although he is only a newcomer to the game. As the story continues, Kirito finds out that the mysterious deaths were linked to a red guild named Laughing Coffin in «SAO».

Prologue
In a bar Zenkushiido is on television explaining the failings of AGI types. Most of the people at the bar are grumbling at Zenkushido's speech and end up complaining about how he was cheap in the Bullet of Bullets. A cloaked man then walks in, then makes the sign of the cross, and opens fire on the TV, most people disregard this action until Zenkushiido disconnects suddenly. The cloaked man then makes a proclaimation "I am Death Gun and this is Death pistol soon I will come to bring true death to you."

Chapter 1
Kirito arrives downtown at a high class sweet shop after being called up by Kikouka to discuss a certain incident. He first implores Kirito to order anything, Kikouka begins to explain the situation behind the game Gun Gale Online. Recently, there had been two murder cases within the VR world that seemed to be linked to the real world. The two players that were murdered both showed heart failure after being shot by «Death Gun». Kikouka asks Kirito to investigate this situation further by connecting to GGO and confronting «Death Gun».

Chapter 2
The chapter beings with Asuna recalling the events of the past year as she waits for Kirito to celebrate their anniversary since confessing their feelings for each other. Following the meeting, Asuna and Kirito explore the Imperial Palace and the Edo Castle ruins. It is there that Kirito reveals the reason behind choosing the Imperial Palace as the location for their date because it was basically the Imperial Palace stands as the representation of the floating castle Aincrad. After the date, Kirito reveals to Asuna that he is going to temporarily convert his avatar to Gun Gale Online.

Chapter 3
The chapter begins in the middle of an ambush that included Sinon, Ginrou, Dyne, and his squadron. As Sinon describes the Dyne and his squadron, she mentions how they appear to be a PvP (Player versus Player) team but in reality, they are a disgusting group of individuals who target weak opponents in groups in order to ambush them and take their items. As Sinon mention, they are "just a bunch of people without pride." The chapter moves on to describing Sinon's first impressions of GGO and how she wished her character to be as a rough emotionless male prior to discovering that you couldn't pick the opposite gender than your gender in real life. Coming back to the ambush scene, they ambush a group of seven that included a cloaked individual known as "Behemoth" whom Sinon asked Dyne to take out first. Dyne declines Sinon's suggestion, ulitmately leading to a disaster. Chapter 3 also describes the two types of guns in GGO, the live ammunition, and the optical as it mentions the pros and cons of each type. In addition, it includes how Sinon obtained her "Ultima Ratio Hecate II." During the ambush, Ginrou's avatar is killed after not listening to Sinon's suggestion of taking out Behemoth first as Ginrou is quickly disintegrated from high speed shots from the Behemoth's minigun. The scene moves on to Sinon running for cover from Behemoth's minigun as she tries desperately to find a way to defeat Behemoth. The chapter closes as Sinon jumps out of a window sill as she fires a final, powerful round at Behemoth, blowing an enormous hole through Behemoth's face and body, and defeats him.

Chapter 4
The chapter starts with Sinon thinking of how many days of school she has left and that she felt that the school was more like an asylum. Sinon walks into a bookstore where she meets her old "friends" Endou and company who had used her in the past and abandoned her and even resorted to call upon her fear of guns to make Sinon do their bidding after they parted ways. Sinon recalls how Endou and the other two were her first friends but after some time, she discovers Endou and her friends in her room without her along with some men she didn't know. From then on, Sinon decided to sever the friendship between her and Endou and company. As Sinon tries to leave Endou behind, Endou calls upon Sinon's weakness of guns as she makes a gun with her fingers and says "Bang", driving Sinon into a state of fear and convulsion. Sinon however, is saved by her classmate Shinkawa Kyouji who pretends that he is leading cops to the scene where Endou is bullying Sinon. The scene changes to introducing Kyouji and describing how Kyouji had introduced and described Gun Gale Online to Sinon in order to help her overcome her fear of guns. This part describes how the avatar "Sinon" was created, a ruthless sniper who became famous in the wasteland of GGO. Kyouji asks Sinon about the ambush (chapter 3) and Sinon describes the failure and how Behemoth slaughtered four of their six members. The chapter moves on to describing the types of players in GGO namely the AGI (Agility) and STR (Strength) types and how the newer guns are inaccessable to AGI types because of the lack of STR in the previous AGI types is needed to wield the newer guns that are more powerful than their predecesser. After splitting ways with Kyouji, Sinon returns to her apartment and takes out the gun she had obtained from the previous Bullet of Bullets as a prize, the Procyon SL classified as an optical gun in GGO. It is revealed that Sinon initially wanted to choose in-game money over the gun since she couldn't stand anything related to guns in real life but had decided to recieve the gun instead in order to overcome her fear. The scene moves on to describing the death of her father in a car crash while Sinon was a child and how her mother regressed into when she was a teenager. It describes how Sinon's mother wished for peace and quiet and began to love Sinon like a little sister. Sinon recalls how the persistent salesman when she was 9 years old may have led to the incident when she was in fifth grade. Sinon was at a post office and a burglar burst into the post office she and her mother were at, and threatened to shoot her mother. To protect her mother, Sinon took the gun from the burglar and pulled the trigger on him, eventually killing him. This is the event that eventually led to Sinon's great fear of guns. The chapter closes with Sinon back in her room trying to think of how GGO and looking at pictures while killing monsters online with guns can heal the scars and help her overcome her fear.

Chapter 5
The chapter starts from the narrator (implied to be Death Gun because later in the chapter it discusses the plan to kill two more people ) viewing the Gun Gale Online news and reading a conversation between players discussing the deaths of Zekushiido and Usujio Tarako regarding their deaths at the hands of Death Gun. After moving away from the web browser, Death Gun recalls his plan to kill two more people in the Third Bullet of Bullets and how his power and identity are unquesitonable unlike «The Black Swordsman » and that no one would ever find out who he is aside from his other half. The chapter closes with death gun viewing Sinon and her "Ultimate Ratio Hecate II" on his hitlist and thinking of how "her mind and body could become his" as he strokes the photo of Sinon.