Through A Scope (Sinon X Reader)

Chapter 13 - Fluctlights?

"Now if you don't mind me, I'm going back to sleep. See you, Shino, Y/N."

"Bye." You both say in unison. You hear a beep from the phone.

"I guess we need to wait until Monday." Shino sighs.

~ Monday, 29th June 2026

"Y/N, over here," A voice calls. You enter the Dicey Cafe and spot Shino and Kazuto sitting at a  table. You close the door and give Agil a wave before walking over and taking a seat. 

"Sorry I'm late." You apologize. "The taxi driver got a bit lost." 

"That's alright. Shino and I were just doing a little catchup. So, what did you want to talk about? Is it about BoB?"

"Yeah," Shino begins. "I think Y/N should explain it. It happened to him after all."

"Alright. Long story short, I was in the semi-finals of the preliminaries. My opponent was one of the Laughing Coffin members that escaped from containment, Shinigami Sugawara. He told me to warn you to watch yourself. The end."

"How did the escaped member grab an AmuSphere?" Kazuto asked. 

"I don't know, and to be frank I don't care at the moment. All I know is that this guy, or perhaps all of them, is going to do something to take you out because you cleared SAO. Just be careful."

"Did he say anything else?"

"He said that it was you and your friends that were in trouble, but Shino and I are guessing that you're their main target." Kazuto places his hand on his chin, thinking over the information you had given him.

"Alright, thanks for the heads-up. I'll be careful."

"We haven't been here long, and I don't want this to dampen anyone's evening, so how about you tell us about this new job you have?" Shino suggests. "Is it for a new VRMMO?"

"Actually, it's not about a game. I'm testing a new machine interface designed for a full-dive system. Remember RATH? I mentioned them to you over the phone."

"Yeah, I remember. So are these RATH guys releasing some next-gen full-dive rig for gaming?"

"I... don't know. This machine is totally different from the full-dive equipment we have now."

"Okay," You said. "What about the world inside? What's it like?"

"I have no idea. They wipe all of my memories of the VR world to keep things confidential. Everything I do in that world, everything I see, the people I meet, I remember nothing about it."

"What?! How's that even possible?" You grow ever more curious by the second.

"Is it like the Augma?" Shino asks with concern. 

"Augma? Isn't that the Augmented Reality thing that was released not long ago?"

"Yeah. Basically, there was a game on the Augma called Ordinal Scale. If SAO players' health were to drop to zero when playing that game, then their memories of SAO would disappear. It's stopped now, though." Shino explains and you nod along. These guys get into a lot of trouble sometimes.

"To answer your question, no it's not like the Augma. I didn't lose my memories, I just can't access them from my Fluctlight."

"Your what?" Shino seems just as confused as you were.

"First of all, the machine I'm testing is called a Soul Translator. Where in your body do you think your soul is?" Kazuto asks.

"Your brain?" You throw out a random answer. It seemed to be right, as Kazuto continues with his speech.

"We all know that the brain is made up of cells. But where in those cells do you think the soul is?" Both you and Shino don't answer, puzzled by Kazuto's question. "If you look at a brain cell you can see that it has things in it that support the cell's structure called microtubules. As the name implies, they're like hollow pipes, but they're not empty. They have something inside them. Light. That's it, fluctuating lights. The building block of the human soul, according to RATH."

"The Soul Translator also has another feature that the AmuSphere doesn't have. You can accelerate time in the virtual world while the real world time stays the same. Say you feel like you've been diving for one hour, well the Soul Translator has a function called Fluctlight Acceleration. It makes it feel like you've been in the virtual world for longer than you actually have. It turns that one hour in the real world into two, three, four times that. Sometimes even longer."

"That's amazing!" You shout, astonished. "This really seems like it's going to be a great full-dive system."

"You were diving for about a week. How long was that in the Soul Translator?" Shino asks.

"They never told me. They did tell me the name of the world I was diving in, though. They called it the Underworld."

"You mean that place from Alice in Wonderland?" You ask.

"Alice..." Kazuto mumbles. "I feel like I'm forgetting something, but I don't know what."

"Is it about the Underworld?" Shino questions.

"I don't know..."

~

It was the next morning. You were sitting down and eating a bit of breakfast when you got a text from Shino.

Shino: Kirito was attacked last night!

You spit out the piece of food in your mouth and begin choking. You down a chug of water and reply.

You: What?! But we were with him for a while last night. What happened?

Shino: Apparently Kirito got into a fight with Jonny Black, one of the Death Guns and a member of the Laughing Coffin. Someone saw it from their window. Kirito struck his leg with an umbrella but was injected with a deadly drug in the process.

You: Is he alright?

Shino: They've taken him to hospital. He's being treated there.

This is bad. I didn't think they'd act so fast! 

Sorry this was such a short chapter. I did this for a reason, though. This next chapter (as most of you have probably guessed by now from the title) is about the Alicization arc, so I made this chapter short for the build-up going into the new arc. I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret about the layout of this story. Consider it an apology for not updating for a month. This story will contain four main arcs. The first one was the beginning and getting to know the characters, the second was the BoB arc. The third one, which I have just mentioned, is going to be about the Alicization arc. And the fourth... Well, I wouldn't want to spoil you (I'm definitely not making an excuse because I haven't fleshed out that arc yet). So if anyone is looking to know, I'd say that this story is about halfway finished.

(Also, yes I know I just copied from the first episode of Alicization. Don't hate on me. More original chapters coming soon)

***THE NEXT FEW CHAPTERS WILL HAVE SPOILERS FOR THE ALICIZATION ARC AND THE WAR OF UNDERWORLD ARC. READ OR WATCH THEM IF YOU HAVEN'T BEFORE CONTINUING THIS STORY. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED***