Accel World - Volume 13 - Chapter 9

9

“…Well said, Corvus.”

Immediately after returning to the real world, Fuko murmured the words from directly next to his ear.

Before he could say anything in response, the direct cable was yanked from his neck. Haruyuki, similarly, hurriedly pulled the cable from Rin’s neck where she was lying on the bed with her eyes closed. Right after he tucked it away in his daypack, the white curtain surrounding the bed was yanked open.

“Sorry. Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m just going to have a look at your vital data now, okay?” a woman dressed neatly in a white doctor’s coat said as she ran her fingers through the air.

It was the school nurse, Mitsu Hotta. With an ad hoc connection to Rin’s Neurolinker, she got the monitor data on Rin’s temperature and pulse and things, then furrowed her brow slightly. “You have a bit of a fever, but all your other numbers are normal. Did you maybe overexert yourself at the festival? How about you rest a little and we’ll see how you do?”

Haruyuki let out a slight sigh at this diagnosis. It was already clear that the reason Rin collapsed wasn’t a cold or overeating, so it would have made the situation that much more complicated if she were carried away in an ambulance or something.

Saying she was just going to grab a rehydration pack, Ms. Hotta headed for the refrigerator in a corner of the room, and Fuko took advantage of the moment to murmur to Haruyuki, “I’ll explain to Mayuzumi and everyone else, so you stay with Rin a little longer. I’ll mail you as soon as we decide on a plan of action.”

“Okay…Thank you.”

He dipped his head and also gave a nod to a worried Takumu on the other side of the curtain. Fuko squeezed Rin’s hand tightly before standing up and urging Takumu to join her in walking toward the entrance. Returning to take their place, Ms. Hotta handed Haruyuki the oral rehydration bottle and smiled just a little for some reason before moving to her desk a ways off.

Haruyuki first helped Rin up into a sitting position before unscrewing the cap of the bottle. The built-in straw automatically popped up, and he brought it to her mouth.

Taking tiny sips of the cool liquid, Rin let out a light sigh and gazed at him. Right now, she still remembered the battle that had unfolded in the Bizarre Festival stage and the words that had been exchanged there. He wouldn’t have to explain again what Ash Roller—her brother Rinta Kusakabe—had told them, or what Haruyuki had decided.

So he stared quietly into Rin’s grayish eyes and kept himself to a brief statement. “It’s okay. This time, it’ll be me who helps you out.”

Rin hung her head slightly and slowly closed her eyes. Tiny droplets of water collected on her eyelashes, shimmering and shaking there. …“I’m. Sorry…I…” The reason for the apology was probably the fact that she had been parasitized by the ISS kit, as well as the fact that she had hidden this throughout the school festival.

Haruyuki leaned forward and shook his head quickly back and forth. “You don’t need to apologize, Kusakabe. The truth is…it’s because I was careless…” But he had already said the rest of this in the stage, so he swallowed hard and continued. “…We’re definitely going to go and eliminate the main body. And then we can go look at the rest of the festival together.”

Rin kept her face down for a little while longer, but she finally lifted it and brought a smile—albeit a pained one—across her lips. Nodding sharply, she spoke in a voice that echoed in Haruyuki’s ears with a purity that was almost heartrending. “…Okay.”

In reply, he nodded firmly before setting the rehydration bottle on the small table there, and then he made her lie down once more. After covering her up to her shoulders with the blanket, he stood up and moved away from the bed.

He closed the white curtain and went over to where Ms. Hotta was tapping away at a keyboard at her desk. “Ms. Hotta, I just have something to take care of and then I’ll be back, so please watch out for Kusakabe.”

“Roger.” Raising her head from her holowindow, the health teacher grinned once more. “…And maybe it would be a good idea if we kept her a secret from the student council vice president?”

“Nngh…” His spine snapping to attention, Haruyuki finally grasped the reason for Ms. Hotta’s meaningful smiles. On Thursday the week before last, when Haruyuki had collapsed after overexerting himself in gym class, he had been brought to the nurse’s office, and Ms. Hotta knew that Kuroyukihime, the student council vice president, had accompanied him—and not only that, she had even signed Kuroyukihime’s trumped-up health aide confirmation.

He restrained himself from stammering “S-s-s-s-secret, please” and replied, “N-no, it’s not a problem.”

“All right, then.” The health teacher smiled once more. “We’ll see you later.”

The instant Haruyuki stepped out into the hallway, the text mail icon flashed in his field of view. Pressing it, he saw that the sender was not Fuko but Kuroyukihime, and he unconsciously looked around, but of course, she wasn’t there. He opened the mail to see just the sentence, WE’RE WAITING IN THE STUDENT COUNCIL OFFICE, but it didn’t say how the discussion had gone amongst the Legion members, notably with Niko and Pard added in.

To be honest, Haruyuki didn’t think everyone would immediately agree to his resolution to take on the challenge of destroying the ISS kit main body right then and there. After all, there was a fearsome guardian, the Legend-class Enemy Archangel Metatron, protecting the Tokyo Midtown Tower in the Unlimited Neutral Field where the main kit body was hidden. He knew an attack strategy was supposed to be seriously debated at an upcoming meeting of the Seven Kings. Going up against the strongest being in the Accelerated World—excluding the Four Gods—with fewer than ten people went beyond difficult and into reckless.

The Haruyuki of before would have no doubt brooded over taking on Metatron all alone if he got opposition. But now, not even a spark of that idea popped into his head. Neither Rin nor Ash would be the slightest bit happy to see Haruyuki end up in Unlimited EK in a suicide attack. This was a battle not for fighting, but for rescue. It was different from the time when he was fused with the Armor and ran off seeking death.

So if they say no, I’ll beg them with all the words and feelings I have, until I get them to understand that while it might be a reckless plan, I think it’s definitely not impossible.

Resolving this in his mind, Haruyuki trotted down the busy central hallway and went into the first school building.

The door of the student council office on the western edge of the first floor was locked, but when he approached, it automatically unlocked for him. He took a deep breath and then pushed the sliding door open. The instant he stepped inside and pulled it shut behind him—

“Yer late, Crow!” Niko yelled with real force, leaning back on the sofa set with her legs crossed.

The other seven—Kuroyukihime, Fuko, Utai, Akira, Takumu, Chiyuri, and Pard—all lifted their heads to look at Haruyuki at once.

Even though he had only just so firmly readied himself, when he saw his comrades, he couldn’t get the first words out. He stood stock-still next to the door and simply clenched his hands together tightly.

Kuroyukihime, sitting directly across from Niko, stood up and smiled gently but forcefully. “What are you standing there for, Haruyuki? We don’t have much time, do we? Hurry and sit. We’ve finished getting everything ready.”

The moment he heard the swordmaster’s voice, all the words he had arranged in his mind scattered and flew off, so that Haruyuki could only shout, “Okay!!”

Ten minutes in real time. Seven days in the Accelerated World.

That was the activation time Kuroyukihime set for the forced disconnect safety—in other words, the maximum time they could spend on the mission. The reason was, apparently, that they could only monopolize the student council office, which was the sole safe place for all eight of them to dive, from twelve fifteen to twelve thirty. The first five minutes would be given to a briefing in the real world, and the next ten were for the actual mission.

“Sorry, Haruyuki,” Kuroyukihime said. “In the middle of the festival, the only time this room is empty is when the student council is out for lunch.”

Haruyuki hurriedly rose up from the sofa, waving his hands back and forth. “No, seven days should be more than enough. I mean, the target time for the mission to rescue me and Shinomiya from the Castle was just two hours, so.”

“Right, right! And even that time, we were so tired of waiting, we practically turned to butter,” Chiyuri chirped from immediately to Haruyuki’s right. “So with seven days, we’ll end up being cheese!”

“Chii, even if you let butter sit, it doesn’t turn into cheese,” Takumu, farther down the sofa, pointed out, overly serious. “And to begin with, to turn into butter, it’s not when it sits for a long time, it’s when it’s spun at high speeds.”

“I wanna spin that Radio round really good, then! Although, even if he did turn into butter, I’d say a big ‘no thanks’ to eating that,” Niko said, sounding profoundly disgusted, her hands clasped behind her head—and then all of them erupted in cheerful laughter.

Once that had subsided, Fuko, directly across from Haruyuki, composed herself and said, “I also think that is plenty of time, but there is one serious problem in carrying out this mission. Because the main body of the ISS kits is conjectured to be in the Tokyo Midtown Tower of the Unlimited Neutral Field, we will, naturally, have to dive up.”

“Oh…!” Haruyuki cried out unconsciously. If he was going to propose an immediate attack on Midtown Tower, then that was the thing he should have thought of first and foremost. Of the eight people there, one Burst Linker could not dive into the Unlimited Neutral Field, because of her level and one other specific issue.

Haruyuki turned his eyes momentarily on Akira Himi—Aqua Current, level-one and still in an Unlimited EK state at the Castle—sitting next to Fuko and quickly dropped his gaze down to the table. “I-I’m sorry, Curren…My head was just full of the ISS kit thing…”

“No need to apologize,” Akira said calmly, and she silently looked at each of them in turn as she continued. “Don’t worry about me. Go and take care of what needs to be taken care of now. Although it’s regrettable that I can’t help with this important mission, I can at least pray with all my heart for your victory.”

“…Curren…,” Kuroyukihime murmured, biting her lip.

Breaking the heavy silence was, unexpectedly, Pard, who was seated to Akira’s right. The words she spoke were also a surprise to Haruyuki: “That choice isn’t very like you, Aki.”

“…”

Akira silently turned her gaze to her side, and Pard stared right back at her. There wasn’t any direct point of contact between them, and yet Haruyuki was made once again aware of how they so closely resembled each other somehow.

“Water is water precisely because it continues to flow. Stagnating doesn’t suit you, Aki.”

“…So then are you telling me to do something, Myah?” Akira asked quietly in response.

Pard, still with her usual calm look on her face, proposed something that no one else had even considered. “You can just escape from the Unlimited EK right now and join in the Metatron mission. With seven days, executing both missions is plenty possible. And with this group, we have enough firepower, too.”

“B-but…” Kuroyukihime hesitated. That was only for an instant, however, and then the Black King got a decisive look on her face.

She turned to Niko, sitting directly on the other side of the low table between them. “…That work, Red King? To be honest, Leopard’s proposal is the best thing we could ask for. Because our chances of success are far greater that way than if we were to carry out a rescue mission with just the members of Nega Nebulus. But the fact that it is a difficult mission is unchanged. This would mean that senior Promi member Blood Leopard and Promi’s leader—you yourself, Scarlet Rain—would be running the risk of dying in Seiryu’s fierce attack, and not just once. There’s also a good chance of being hit with the special attack Level Drain…or, in the worst-case scenario, ending up in Unlimited EK, just like Curren…”

Even after Kuroyukihime had closed her mouth, Niko said nothing for a while; she sat with her back leaned against the sofa, her legs crossed and body still. But after a few seconds, she nodded, making the hair tied up on either side of her head bob up and down. “Well, this time, at least, I can’t be the only one saying no. At any rate, it was exactly for this that Pard has sealed away leveling up until today, after all.”

“Huh? Wh-what does that mean…?!” Haruyuki cried out in great surprise. It was true; he’d always found it strange that Pard, supposedly an old hand, was at level six, only one above himself, Takumu, and Chiyuri. When he’d asked Niko about it before, although she’d dodged the question, he remembered her mentioning something about it being connected to her longtime rival, Sky Raker. If the reason was in fact not about Raker, but instead Aqua Current, then that meant Pard and Curren had some kind of close relationship beyond rivalry.

“Oh…No way…But, mmm-mmm, right…So that’s it,” Chiyuri said, coming to an understanding on her own.

Unable to stand it, Haruyuki asked in a small voice, “H-hey, so what’s it?”

“Not telling. I’m sure you’ll find out once the mission’s over.”

Haruyuki had learned from experience that when his clear-faced childhood friend refused to tell him something, it was pointless to keep pestering her. He was forced to withdraw, and instead, Kuroyukihime spoke again.

“We have one minute, thirty seconds before the start of the dive. We have to decide on an action plan. Rain. And Leopard. We gratefully accept your offer to help with the mission to rescue Aqua Current…Curren, that’s all right, yes?”

Questioned by the Legion Master, Akira was hanging her head as if still struggling. But when she lifted her face a second later, she nodded with a serious look. “Actually, this was a request I should have made. I’ve spent two and a half years circulating in a closed circle…I’m very happy right now that the time has come that I, too, can start to flow forward, aiming for the distance once more. All of you, please, lend me your strength.” Akira bowed her head deeply.

Utai, sitting to the left of Fuko, who had maintained her silence until then, quickly moved her fingers in the air. UI> REN, THIS WILL ABSOLUTELY, DEFINITELY BE OKAY. EVERYTHING WILL GO WELL. BECAUSE WE HAVE WITH US A BIRD WHO BRINGS HAPPINESS!

…Ha-ha, she means Hoo, huh? Haruyuki nodded his agreement.

“So then, before the mission starts, we’ll have to paint Haru’s avatar blue, right!” Chiyuri said forcefully.

“H-huh?! Me?!”

“That would also have the effect of increasing his camouflage while flying, hmm?” At this overly serious comment from Takumu, everyone except Haruyuki laughed together again.

After stopping briefly in the normal duel field to discuss the details of Aqua Current’s rescue, right on schedule at 12:20 PM, they shouted “Unlimited Burst!” in unison.

Back in the Unlimited Neutral Field after an absence of four days, Haruyuki landed in the fondly familiar Century End stage. The grounds of Umesato Junior High were riddled with cracks, and flames flickered and danced up from rusted oil drums. Haruyuki stared in turn at each of the colors in the duel avatar rainbow lined up and against this light.

The Black King, World End, Black Lotus.

Deputy of Nega Nebulus, the wind of the Four Elements, Strong Arm Sky Raker.

The fire of the Four Elements, shrine maiden of the conflagration, Ardor Maiden.

Nega Nebulus member, the Watch Witch, Lime Bell.

Also a Nega Nebulus member, Cyan Pile.

The Red King, the Immobile Fortress, Scarlet Rain.

Prominence deputy, one of the Triplex, nicknamed Bloody Kitty, Blood Leopard.

It was only natural, but the figure of the water of the Four Elements, Aqua Current, was not there. She would be diving a little after the rest of them, three hours of time on this side later. Her nickname of The One would be gone that day, because in order to dive into the Unlimited Neutral Field once more, she would be spending her accumulated Burst Points to bring her level up to four.

Feeling like he should again say a word of thanks to his comrades, who had agreed to this mission to save Ash Roller and Rin Kusakabe, Haruyuki stood a little taller and bowed his head deeply to the seven before him. “…Thank you so much. I know we’re in the middle of the festival, but you’ve all joined in without saying a word…Especially Rain and Pard. You don’t even have real stakes with Ash—”

“Hold up there. I wanna double-check something before we get to that,” Niko interjected, the antennae on either side of her head bobbing up and down. “Is that girl with the totally weak aura seriously the real of Ash Roller from GW?”

“Y-yeah. The situation’s a little complicated. I guess you could say she has a different personality in the Accelerated World.”

“There’s peeps who’ll change personalities during the duel, but, like, that is seriously too much of a change!”

She was more than right to think this, but Haruyuki wasn’t sure how much of the situation with Rin and Rinta he should share.

“But,” Pard said, “she totally knew all the old types of motorcycles.”

“Oh yeah, you did that whole naming thing in Crow’s class display. You think you could be buds?”

The question was primarily for the leopard, and she nodded without hesitation. “Y. Already buds.”

“So then we got stakes, too. Which is, like, Crow, once the mission starts, don’t be holding back with me and Pard for whatever!”

“Rain…Pard…” Haruyuki’s heart was full, and it was all he could do to simply say their names.

But Fuko slid forward silently on her wheelchair and stood up to bow deeply. “I would also add my thanks. Thank you, Red King…and you, Leopard.”

It seemed that not only did Niko and Pard already know that Rin was Ash Roller in the real but also even knew that her parent was Sky Raker.

“NP.” Nodding in return, Pard spoke at unusual length. “The bond of parent and child’s just as important for me as the bond with Master or with my rivals.”

Hearing this, Haruyuki suddenly had a thought. The Master Pard mentioned was, of course, Niko, and the rival meant Raker, against whom she had sharpened her sword in duels in the past. So then, who exactly was the parent?

Raker bowed her head once more to the two members of the Red Legion and then turned her whole body toward Haruyuki. “Corvus. I have to say my thanks to you as well. Thank you for deciding to fight for those two.”

“N-no! Rin and Ash are my friends. They’re important to me.” After shaking his head any number of times, Haruyuki took a deep breath and added, “Please save those words for the time when we defeat Metatron, invade Midtown Tower, and are done smashing the ISS kit main body!”

“Mmm, well said, Crow!” This clear voice was, of course, Kuroyukihime’s. She also advanced to stand beside Haruyuki and brought the sword of her right hand sharply through the air. “I will not deny that due to the suddenness of this mission, we are lacking in both advance preparation and attack personnel. However, that is precisely why we can see our chance for victory. Because, given how the suspicion that Quad Eyes is a member of the Acceleration Research Society does nothing but deepen, we can assume that she would leak to them any information from upcoming meetings of the Seven Kings. Even the Acceleration Research Society can’t anticipate us daring to attack Midtown Tower at this time. In other words…”

She stopped here and turned the tip of her sword toward the southeast.

“…our adversary is only one: Metatron. If we can eliminate that Legend-class Enemy, our swords will reach the ISS kit main body!”

Fyoo! Bringing her sword down to slice through the air, Kuroyukihime turned her body slightly and, this time, pointed due east with the sword of her left hand.

“In executing this mission, the abilities and intelligence of the Four Elements’ Aqua Current will be a huge asset. Thus, we first bring Curren back from the nest of the God Seiryu. Although this is an enemy more powerful than Metatron, there is no need to defeat it. If we all combine our power, I believe it will be possible to rescue her without collateral damage. We will be taking on the challenge of successive large-scale missions, but in order to smash the Society’s scheme and cut out the root of rot in the Accelerated World, I’m counting on all of you to fight hard!!”

Haruyuki and the other members of Nega Nebulus all thrust their right hands up into the air at these bold words, while the two members of Prominence followed suit a second or two later and shouted, “Yeah!”

Lowering his hand, Haruyuki returned to the line, burning with fighting spirit. There, Niko sidled up to him, standing tall as she whispered, “So, look, is it always like this with you guys before a mission?”

“Huh? …Y-yeah, it’s basically like this.”

“I-it is? Nah, it’s nothing…”

He looked at Niko as she crossed her arms, and he cocked his head to one side before a sudden thought struck him. “That reminds me. Don’t the trains run in the Century End stage?”

“N. Most of the tracks are destroyed,” Pard responded from behind Niko. She asked why with her eyes, so he explained, scratching at one side of his helmet.

“Oh, it’s just kinda far to Marunouchi, where the east gate of the Castle is, so I was just wondering how we’d move. It’ll take a while if we walk, so…”

The instant she heard this, Niko’s eye lenses flashed. Just as a bad feeling came over him, the small, crimson-red avatar hugged him. “Big brother! This time for sure, you gotta fly with just me in your arms! I mean, I’m the special guest and all!”

“N-no, that’s, um…”

“Whoa, hey, Red! You just said we shouldn’t give you special treatment!”

When Kuroyukihime’s scary voice suddenly echoed from directly behind him, Haruyuki could do nothing but freeze.

“And exactly what are you going to do, flying ahead with Crow when there are so few of us to begin with?!”

“That’s that, then. We’ll just have to get big brother to carry all of us this time!”

“Wh-whaaaaat?! N-no, no, I can’t. Seven people is too much!”

“Ha-ha-ha! I was kidding! A joke!” Niko turned off angel mode and released Haruyuki before jumping down behind him. She whirled her head around and said in a completely different tone, “I’ll be your taxi to Marunouchi. Huge freebie for you. Step back a little, yeah?”

“Huh? O-kay…”

She had said “taxi,” but Niko’s main body was the smallest of any of them; she looked like she might have been just barely able to carry Maiden. However, with all of her Enhanced Armament deployed, just as her nickname Immobile Fortress would have it, she was tens of times bigger, but her mobility was lacking.

Haruyuki and the other six members of the Black Legion all cocked their collective heads to the side, but Pard casually got some distance, so they followed her example. Left alone in the middle of the grounds, Niko thrust her right hand up and shouted, “Equip Invincible!!”

Instantly, her small body was wrapped in a pillar of red light. A throaty roar shook the air, and a massive object materialized in the space around her. Niko’s body floated up into space in the middle of missile pods, gun blocks, armaments for both sides, armor plating with thrusters for her rear, and four massive limbs, and then, with an even more remarkable roar, the equipment fused together.

He had seen this any number of times, but Haruyuki was always overwhelmed by this might, so befitting the name Red King. Still, her figure, essentially transformed into a fixed fort, was a far cry from a taxi, no matter how he looked at it.

But.

Niko, enveloped in the center of the armament squad, her eye lenses alone shining, shouted another voice command in a high-pitched voice. “Change: Dreadnought!!”

Once more, a low roar shook the earth. The leg-part blocks sticking out on all four sides rotated and fused, two in the front, two in the back. The angled gun block in the front slid forward, and the missile pods were tucked away behind it. In the very rear, the thruster-equipped armor was stored. The main armaments to the right and left were attached to both sides, and finally, a total of twelve thick tires appeared beneath the leg blocks. What existed before Haruyuki’s eyes was no longer a fixed gun battery, but a massive armed trailer that easily surpassed a total of ten meters in length.

Gaping, dumbfounded, Haruyuki thought abruptly, Oh, is that it?

This was the new power Niko had mentioned the previous evening: Acquiring the ability to move while still maintaining a certain level of firepower—not an immovable stronghold, but a Mobile Fortress.

Pard turned toward the frozen Black Legion members, raised her thumb, and jerked her hand up. Then she leapt upward without a sound onto the top of the trailer, nearly three meters above the ground.

Haruyuki and his friends looked at each other and nodded before jumping up, one after the other. Finally, Haruyuki used his wings to carry the wheelchair with Fuko sitting in it and landed on the flat armored surface. The top was much wider than it had looked from below, with plenty of space left even after all seven of them were on board.

“I do still think this isn’t a taxi,” Utai murmured, and everyone bobbed their head in agreement.

Not seeming to pay any mind to this remark, Niko, tucked away in the front of the trailer, shouted forcefully, “So we don’t run into any huge Enemies or other Burst Linkers, once we get past Kannana, we’ll blast down back roads! So hang on tight!”

“Uh, um, Niko, seats or seat belts or at least a strap to hang on to…”

“Don’t be such a wimp. I’m not a taxi! Wohkay! Off to the Castle. Here! We! Goooooo!”

The engine—Which is where? Haruyuki wondered—roared, and the massive trailer jumped forward, smoke peeling up from all twelve tires. In the blink of an eye, they were cutting diagonally across the Umesato Junior High grounds, and they pulverized what had once been the school festival gate as they pulled out onto the road.

Once they had gone just a little bit north, they turned right, drifting on twelve fearsome wheels. They had no sooner flown onto Oume Highway than they began to charge east with enough force to crush the asphalt road surface.

Leaning forward against the acceleration, Haruyuki lifted his face and stared into the night sky dead ahead. From far-off Suginami, he couldn’t actually see it, but below this sky was the Castle, guarded by a Super-level Enemy, and Tokyo Midtown Tower, holding the main body of the ISS kits.

Curren. Today, I’m going to pay you back for helping me that time. And Ash, Kusakabe…Hang on just a little longer. We’re going to end this. We’ll make Rin’s suffering go away.

“…For sure!” Haruyuki affirmed to himself, clenching his fist tightly.

On his forearm, he spied the light-conducting crystal that was proof he’d obtained the Optical Conduction ability. For just a moment, it collected the light of the hazy night and shone brightly.

To be continued.