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Accel World - Volume 12 - Chapter 6




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6

A bright June 27. That day, too, the sky had been sprinkling them with rain since morning, as though the seasonal rain front was stubbornly sitting in the sky above Tokyo.

Having finished getting ready for school ten minutes earlier than usual, Haruyuki left the house with the slightly too-large umbrella that his father used to use in one hand. He headed south on the sidewalk of Kannana Street, slipped under the Chuo Line Bridge, and set his sights on the usual Koenjirikkyo intersection. It was Thursday, the day of the routine Ash-Crow duel.

According to rules that had been set at some point, the winner of the previous duel had to use a Burst Point to accelerate and challenge his opponent. But in the duel two days before, on Tuesday, Silver Crow and Ash Roller had both been struck by the lightning of the Thunder stage and had their gauges sent flying simultaneously.

In the case of a draw, the rule was they changed the challenging side, and according to this, it was Crow’s turn to be the challenger. However, even after he had climbed up the pedestrian walkway at the lights, Haruyuki did not connect to the global net, but rather kept going to descend on the inner-loop side of Kannana and come to a stop in front of a convenience store on the corner.

About two minutes later, a green EV bus stopped at the bus stop nearby. Only one passenger got off. After opening an off-white umbrella, she approached him at a trot, the pouch slung across her body, swinging from side to side.

“K-Kusakabe, don’t run. It’s—” The moment he hurriedly started speaking, a brown loafer slipped on the wet road. The girl lost her balance and listed first to the left, then the right—somehow, mysteriously, not falling down—until she managed to just barely bring herself to a stop right in front of Haruyuki.

He quickly pulled back arms he had started to stretch out to support her in case of the worst and said his greetings. “Morning, Kusakabe.”

“Good. Morning, Arita.” Bowing deeply along with her umbrella was, of course, Ash Roller in the real: Rin Kusakabe. Like Haruyuki, she was in eighth grade, but she attended a girls’ school in Sasazuka in Shibuya Ward; she commuted from her home in Egota in Nakano.

Sasazuka was on the Keio line, and the station a mere four stops farther out was the very Sakurajosui which they had visited the previous night. As the crow flies, they weren’t even four kilometers apart, but since the borders between Suginami, Shibuya, and Setagaya wards got complicated in that area, in the Accelerated World sense, the distance was greater than this small number. In fact, during the dive the previous day, Haruyuki had not once realized that Sasazuka station was fairly close by.

That said, there was no mistake that Shibuya Area No. 3, where Rin’s school was, was immediately adjacent to Setagaya area on the east. This fact caught at his thoughts for some reason, but Rin’s smile appearing from beneath the edge of her white umbrella instantly pushed the question away.

“Um. I’m sor-ry for being selfish.” With this, Rin went to lower her head once more, so Haruyuki shook his free hand and his head back and forth at the same time.

“N-not at all! It’s fine! The only difference is the duel coming first or after.”

The selfishness Rin was referring to was the extremely modest request to talk at the intersection before their usual duel. Haruyuki had intended to talk with her after the duel, like they had two days before, but he couldn’t believe there would be any issue in just changing that order.

However, in that case, why did Rin want to put the duel off on that day alone?

“Um.” As if intuiting Haruyuki’s question, Rin pulled her head back into herself with an embarrassed air. “If the duel’s first, I thought my brother might. Say something unnecessary to you.”

“Unnecessary? Like what kind of thing?”

“Um, like ‘A million years too early to invite my baby sis to the school festival, you damned Crow’ or something.”

“…R-right. I get it. I totally get that.” It was a realistic concern. Haruyuki involuntarily burst out into a sweat.

It was a fact that Rin Kusakabe was Ash Roller in the real, but the personality—or rather, the spirit that lived in the duel avatar that fought in the Accelerated World—was not hers. Rin’s older brother, the former ICGP racer, Rinta Kusakabe, operated the fin de siècle rider—or that’s how Haruyuki understood it, although the logic wasn’t clear.

Ash Roller adored his little sister, and although he lost it whenever Haruyuki got near her, if Haruyuki didn’t invite her to event-type things, he would get angry about that; he was truly an irrational figure. Haruyuki had invited Rin to the Umesato school festival after the duel the day before yesterday, so he assumed that Ash also shared that memory—in other words, there was a strong possibility he would be in Mega Heat mode in that day’s duel.

Huh? Wait? But then does that mean that talking to Kusakabe now before the duel will make Ash’s anger go beyond Giga and up into Tera Heat?

The thought crossed his mind, but he didn’t have the time for indecision right then and there. According to the bus information transmitted from the sign pillar at the bus stop, the next bus for Rin to catch had already arrived at the third stop back.

Putting aside the question of the big brother for the moment, Haruyuki manipulated his virtual desktop. The document file he called up was an invitation to the school festival, coming up in three days. Each student was given three invitations, but since it was assumed that the invited guests would be close relatives, there was a restriction that did not allow them to be transmitted over the global net.

Haruyuki turned toward Rin and transmitted the invitation, which he had gotten his mother’s stamp of approval on from her bed that morning through an ad hoc connection between their two Neurolinkers. The number of files remaining dropped to two, but he didn’t have anywhere to use those anyway.

“If this is in your Neurolinker, you’ll be able to pass through the gates of Umesato,” Haruyuki said. “If you let me know a little before you arrive, I’ll come meet you.”

Rin rested her umbrella on her right shoulder and wrapped both hands carefully around the invitation file displayed in her virtual desktop. A huge smile popped up onto her face, a face with thin lines reminiscent of a boy’s somehow. “Thank…Y-ou. I…M. Very happy. I’ll definitely, definitely come.”

“R-right. Although I’m basically not doing anything except helping with my class exhibit.”

After a quick bit of research the other day, he had learned that the kendo team that Takumu belonged to was going to present in the dojo a “cosplay martial arts demonstration,” the true nature of which was unknown, while Chiyuri’s track team was going to do a crepe booth. When he additionally heard that the student council, on which Kuroyukihime served as vice president, was planning to open a secret program on the local net, his mouth inevitably turned down slightly at the corners.

Haruyuki had also been officially appointed to the important role of president of the Animal Care Club, but it had only been ten days since the launch of the club itself. Even so, he had thought about borrowing a classroom somewhere, decorating it like a jungle, and displaying the lone animal they were caring for, the northern white-faced owl, Hoo. But in addition to being a nervous type, Hoo had only just moved to Umesato from Matsunogi Academy, so Haruyuki had determined that the burden of having so many people traipse by him would be too much and had given up on the whole idea before getting to the stage of proposing it to the “super president,” Utai.

The exhibit by the seven students in grade-eight class C, who were not participating with a team or club, was “Koenji Thirty Years Ago,” a fairly cultural and inoffensive topic. When people entered the classroom, static images of the Koenji shopping street in the 2010s would be displayed in their field of view, and if visitors followed the path laid out, the images were set to scroll automatically. At first glance, it seemed elaborate, but they had actually adopted the basic program from something extant, so Haruyuki and the others working on it simply had to find and load pictures from the period from the Umesato archives and individual websites. They planned to finish this task in just one day, on Saturday, and regrettably, these were not details he was particularly proud to share with Rin.

But Rin’s smile was not clouded in the least. She took a step toward Haruyuki and gripped her umbrella tightly with both hands again. “Um, I am looking forward to your class exhibit. But. I. I’m just so incredibly happy. That you invited me to your school festival. Arita. I mean.” Here, she brought her face even closer and lowered her voice as much as possible. “Bringing Burst Linkers from other Legions. Into your school. Is like the most taboo of taboos. In the Accelerated World.”

It could be said to be something of a miracle that Haruyuki, who had a tendency toward a direct link between his inner heart and the look on his face, managed to maintain his smile upon hearing this. Because he hadn’t discussed inviting Rin to Umesato’s school festival with anyone in the Legion, much less its master, Kuroyukihime. He had simply decided on his own that it wouldn’t be a problem, since Rin and everyone in Nega Nebulus were already cracked in the real to each other. But what if it was actually a huge problem? And if it was, what kind?

“I-it’s fine.” Concealing the sudden apprehension, Haruyuki bobbed his head up and down. “Everyone in the Legion’s looking forward to seeing you, Kusakabe. So. O-of course, I am too.”

“…Thank. Y…ou,” Rin murmured, her eyes tearing over, and closed the distance between them with another step. The fronts of their umbrellas overlapped, and the gray-and-white water-repellent fabrics created a modest shelter, cutting the two of them off from the outside world for a moment.

The sound of the rain and even the noise of the EV motors coming and going on the main road right next to them grew distant, and in the mysterious quiet that was born, Rin’s voice came, faltering.

“I. Always. Always. Imagined it. If the Burst Points. System disappeared. From the Accelerated World. If the whole of the duel. Was just being happy when you win. And being frustrated when you lose. There’d be no need to worry. About being cracked in the real. Anymore. And all the Burst Linkers. All of us could just. Be friends in the real world, too.” Her voice stopped momentarily here, and lovely, glittering droplets sprang up in her gray-flecked eyes. Her lashes caught them as they were on the verge of falling, and Haruyuki stared as he listened wordlessly to her murmured voice. “But. Even with the system now. I thought that day. Would probably come. That you. Would change. The world, Arita.”

“Huh? Oh, I— That’s—”

Totally impossible, his mouth wanted to say, but Rin’s left hand pressed against it gently. His heart leapt and jumped at the sensation of her slender, smooth fingertip touching his lips.

“Right now. It’s enough. That you fly in the sky. Of the Accelerated World. People who see you. They all, they all feel something. They should. A precious something. Like me.”

She pressed the fingertip she pulled away from his mouth up against her own lightly, and then grinned. The expression on her face was so innocent and transparent that Haruyuki didn’t realize that her finger had brought about an “indirect kiss.”

Still smiling, she took a step back and their umbrellas separated, and the noise of the world returned at once. Mixed in with it was the heavy engine of the bus approaching from the north.

“The bus. Is here,” Rin said, blinking rapidly, and gently stroked the metallic-gray Neurolinker equipped on her slender neck. The machine, with its lightning bolt crack on the exterior, was the one her brother, Rinta, had used during the fateful race. “I’m looking forward. To the festival. And I’m sure. My brother is, too.”

With these last words, she bowed together with her umbrella and then turned around and ran—splashed—away. She slipped again on the wet pavement, but she didn’t almost fall this time. She made it safely to the bus stop and got on the bus that arrived a few seconds later.

She waved slightly through the closed door, and finally coming back to himself, Haruyuki hurriedly returned the wave with his left hand. The bus departed with a low hum, passed through the Rikkyo intersection, and disappeared to the south.

Replaying her words over and over in his head, Haruyuki started to walk. He climbed the pedestrian bridge and stopped when he was somewhere in the middle to connect his Neurolinker globally. No sooner had the confirmation dialogue appeared than he was murmuring, “Burst Link.”

Skreeeee! The sound of impact roared, and the world was frozen blue. Haruyuki appeared in the blue world of the initial acceleration space in his pink pig form and opened the Brain Burst matching list. From the dozen or so names listed there, he of course selected Ash Roller.

If the whole of the duel. Was just being happy when you win. And being frustrated when you lose. Murmuring this in the back of his mind, he pressed the DUEL button.


Instantly, the blue world began to transform. At the same time, his pig avatar also started to change into his silver duel form. After passing through a faint floating sensation, his metal feet came down on the thick trunk of a tree on its side. The scene around him had also changed completely; the road surface was now a valley covered by green grass, while the clusters of buildings had turned into enormous, mossy trees. A natural-type, wood-affiliated Primeval Forest stage.

As the timer dropped to 1,799, the throaty roar of a V-twin engine came to him from the south side of the valley. The bus Rin was on could have only gotten about two hundred meters away, and that distance was the blink of an eye for the American motorcycle Ash Roller rode.

Haruyuki spread the wings on his back and flew gently from the tree that had been the pedestrian bridge down into the middle of the valley and waited for the approaching motorcycle. The emotion he felt at Rin’s words lingered in his heart, and he decided he wanted to have a few words with Big Brother Ash, too, before the duel.

Mere seconds later, the hooded headlight shone yellow from the other side of the plain. Time in the Primeval Forest stage did actually change, and it felt like it was currently a little before evening, but Haruyuki could still clearly make out the rider straddling the bike.

It was a familiar figure, clad in a leather jacket with metal armor, a skull-faced helmet on his head. But something was different than usual. Quickly taking a closer look, Haruyuki realized that red flames were burning in the eye sockets of the skull. And a tail of white steam appeared to be stretching out from the slit of a mouth.

“Uh, um, Ash—” Haruyuki had gotten that far when a leather boot kicked the shift pedal violently. At the same time as the accelerator roared to life, Ash crushed the clutch and yanked the tough front wheel up. The bike charged forward, ripping up the green grass.

“Yooouuuu goddaaaaaamned croooooooooooow!” A roar of anger shook the stage, loud enough to compete with the howling of the engine.

“Eee!” Haruyuki jumped a little. “Eeeee?!” Reflexively, he tried to fly, but his special-attack gauge was empty. He turned and started to dash away, but the glow of the headlight got closer with each breath he took.

“Yooooooouuuu! In-indirect—Indirect kiss with my siiiiiiiiis! Whaaaaat the hellllllll?! Yooooouuu! Shall! Craaaaaaash!!”

“N-no thank yooooouuu!!” Haruyuki sprinted desperately, and the front wheel of the bike—spinning with inertia—scraped his back lightly. His health gauge dropped the tiniest amount, while his special-attack gauge increased by a mere hint. Haruyuki immediately took this and poured it into thrust for his wings. He couldn’t take off, but somehow he managed to avoid a crash with a long jump, waving his arms about in the air, as he fled to the north.

However, a few seconds later, a massive wall appeared ahead of him for an unknown reason, and Haruyuki opened his eyes wide. Since this valley had originally been Kannana Street, it should have continued all the way to the edge of the stage. Which meant the wall was not a real wall, but something big enough to look like a wall.

“Ah! Crap! Ash, you can’t—!” Haruyuki shouted, flustered as he finally realized what the wall actually was.

But the big brother was burning with an unprecedented rage and showed no signs of letting up on the throttle. If Haruyuki slowed even slightly, he would definitely be pressed flat by the rear tire after being pulled down to the ground by the front tire, so he had no choice but to keep charging forward. Once they had broken the twenty-meter mark to the dark, wetly illuminated, reddish-brown wall-like thing, the small mountain shuddered and began to move.

The most significant feature of the Primeval Forest stage was that large creatures lived there, on scale with the Wild-class Enemies in the Unlimited Neutral Field. And without a doubt, lifting its thick head ahead of Haruyuki and Ash Roller at that moment, having been disturbed in its nap and in a foul mood, was the most powerful identified among these creatures: Tyrannosaurus rex.

“I’ve never seen anyone wake a sleeping Tyranno in this stage before!” one of the members of the Gallery following on the branches of the trees around them cried out, dumbfounded.

“Just like an Ash-Crow fight, giving us the goods!”

Immediately after someone offered this in response, Haruyuki and Ash and the motorcycle became a single lump that slammed into the side of the Tyrannosaurus.

“Ahhhh.” Haruyuki leaned back on the bench and expelled a long sigh as he looked upward.

The rain that had been falling in the morning stopped during third period, and the gray coloring in the sky had increased considerably in brightness. Many students were seizing this chance to go out into the courtyard, and a slightly chilly breeze brought the tumult of the lunch break up to the roof.

“You think you’ll make it in time for the class exhibit?” Takumu asked from beside him as he opened the package of his sandwich.

Haruyuki brought his head back up and nodded. “Yeah, we’ve basically got all the photos we need. All that’s left is to put them into the display program on Saturday, and we’re done. So, like, what kind of cosplay are you doing?” he asked in return, likewise ripping open the package containing his bun with yakisoba noodles.

“The boys’ kendo team is in charge of the choreography for the performance.” Takumu grinned wryly, almost shrugging his broad shoulders. “The girls’ team is doing the costumes. They were super careful about measuring our sizes, so I kind of have a bad feeling about it.”

“Ha-ha! Can’t wait to see it. I’ll definitely be there.” After a brief laugh, Haruyuki took a big bite of his bun, and for a while, the pair simply moved their mouths, taking yogurt drink packs in hand at the same time and slurping them down.

“So? Didn’t you have something you wanted to talk with me about, Haru?” Takumu asked as Haruyuki was on the verge of going for a second bite; his teeth clamped down on empty space. Haruyuki lowered his yakisoba bread, and an awkward smile spread across his face.

“Y-you saw through me, huh? Just like you, Professor Mayuzumi.”

“Well, you know, when Professor Arita is kind enough to invite someone as humble as me to lunch, I figure something’s up.” His friend grinned before resuming a straight face. “So? What’d you do this time?”

I feel like I’ve heard that line really recently, Haruyuki thought, but he gave up on thinking too deeply about it. After quickly confirming there were no other students around, he put out a slightly circuitous question. “Uh, so, like, Taku. I was just thinking. Isn’t the school festival pretty risky? In terms of Burst Linkers.”

“Oh. Yeah, it’s an event we need to be careful at. I mean, twice a year, students from other schools can legitimately connect with the in-school net, after all.”

“T-twice a year? What’s the other time?”

“The entrance ceremony, of course. But current students aren’t at school on the day of the entrance ceremony, as a rule, so the risk is a little greater at the school festival.”

Hearing this smooth explanation, Haruyuki nodded in understanding. “S-so then…it’d be pretty bad to give a student from another school an invitation when you know they’re a Burst Linker…I guess?” Ever so timidly, he put forth this question, circling in on the heart of the matter, but fortunately, Taku appeared to be thinking of it in general terms. A broad, wry smile crossed his face.

“Actually, I think that would be safer. I mean, that means that you’re both cracked in the real to each other, right? Like the Red King or Leopard. We could invite those two to the festival, and I expect there wouldn’t be any security risk. But there would be other kinds of risks,” he added in a quiet voice, though this did not reach Haruyuki’s ears.

Instead, the boy secretly felt a rush of relief. If Niko or Pard was okay, then Rin Kusakabe—similarly mutually cracked in the real—would naturally be okay as well. In which case, he could assume that there was no need to obtain the understanding of his Legion members in advance.

Right. I still have those two other invites. Maybe I should ask Niko and Pard, too. No point in wasting the invitations. Okay! After school, I’ll send them a quick message—

“What we should actually be careful about is the relatives and friends the other students invite. There’s definitely a nonzero possibility that one of them is a Burst Linker, you know.”

After a time lag, Takumu’s increasingly serious voice reached Haruyuki’s brain, and he blinked rapidly. He thought for a moment and then nodded; that was true. “If one of them checked the matching list just once during the festival, they’d know at a glance that Umesato here is the headquarters for Nega Nebulus, I guess.”

“Yeah. But the invited guests all have their real info on the register, so they’re carrying a certain amount of risk themselves. For a Burst Linker, a school festival is an event that requires caution, but that goes both ways. Students at the school hosting the festival, don’t let your guard down. And don’t just stop in on other schools’ festivals. Right? I think Master’ll probably talk to us about it soon.”

“Right…I guess so…” As Haruyuki digested this information together with his yakisoba bread, Takumu grinned once more, pushing up the bridge of his glasses.

“So who’re you inviting, Haru? Or did you already invite them?”

“Huh? O-oh, that’s, I mean…”

“The number of Burst Linkers from other schools you know in the real is fairly limited. Master’s probably inviting Raker and Maiden, so then there’s the two in the Red Legion, and—”

“Uh, um, a-a-a-anyway, we should talk about what to do if there really is some strange Burst Linker mixed in with the invited guests—”

What saved Haruyuki, as he flapped his right hand clutching what little remained of his yakisoba bread, and his left hand, still holding the yogurt drink pack, was an icon informing him of the arrival of a text message. Takumu appeared to get one at the same time, and he turned his gaze away.

Together, they opened the message, which was a brief missive of two lines in a light-purple font against a black background: I APOLOGIZE FOR THE SUDDENNESS, BUT I’D LIKE TO HAVE A MEETING IN FIVE MINUTES. YOU’LL COME INTO THE STAGE THROUGH THE LOCAL NET AS AUTOMATIC SPECTATORS, SO PLEASE MAKE YOUR PREPARATIONS. IF THERE’S A PROBLEM, REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE. At the end of the message, there was a butterfly mark as a signature.

When the two boys closed their windows, having finished reading the message, the mail deleted itself, which erased the “mail arrival” mark as well. Haruyuki and Takumu exchanged a glance and cocked their heads to one side in sync.

“I know she’s impatient, but even for her, this is sudden. And I mean, a meeting in a duel stage—you think something happened?”

“Hmm. If it was about how to respond as a Legion on the day of the school festival, she wouldn’t have to be so urgent about it, right?”

Since there was no way Haruyuki was going to be able to understand something Takumu didn’t, he stopped thinking about it. “At any rate, let’s eat. Like they say, you can’t accelerate on an empty stomach.”

“They don’t say that. But yes, let’s.”

They made what was left of their yakisoba bread and sandwich lunches disappear in one minute, and then for dessert, Haruyuki polished off a chocolate cornet and Takumu a package of milk pudding before they nodded at each other, finished. Chiyuri was having lunch with her girlfriends in the cafeteria, but if the meeting was through a normal duel, then at most, it would take 1.8 seconds. As long as she pretended she was on a full dive in the local net, she wouldn’t have any problems.

By the time they had thrown their garbage down the chute in a corner of the roof, they had one minute left. Haruyuki and Takumu got ready to accelerate on the bench. Not even a second past the time they had been warned of, a cold thunder roared in their ears, and their consciousnesses were cut away from the real world.



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