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Accel World - Volume 14 - Chapter 2




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2

What was the true nature of an Enhanced Armament?

Posed with this question, the majority of low-level Burst Linkers would likely respond that they were an enhancement of attack power. And that was certainly not wrong; gun- and sword-type Enhanced Armaments dramatically increased the attack power of a duel avatar and expanded the range of battle tactics.

But for Burst Linkers who had reached midlevel or higher, who had built up experience through wins and losses in countless duels in the Accelerated World, the true advantages of Enhanced Armaments were seen in defense.

And this was because a defensive Enhanced Armament was not a mere enhancement of defensive ability. In fact, there was one very simple factor that made this so, but because of that simplicity, it was not so easy to recognize:

While an Enhanced Armament was taking the enemy’s attacks, the health gauge of the user did not decrease.

To look at it another way, this was equivalent to doubling or tripling the health gauge. In the Accelerated World, where, as a general rule, the means to recover health did not exist, hit points were not particularly remarkable, but they were the most important parameter.

Of course, that said, just because someone had strong additional armor didn’t necessarily make them the strongest. Armor-type Enhanced Armaments were heavy and interfered with movement, so without mastery of it, its use only made that person a target. They needed either the power to be able to move lightly while wrapped in armor or the firepower to shoot and win even when motionless.

The ultimate example of the former was the armor that had introduced Haruyuki to overwhelming battle power, the Armor of Catastrophe, aka Chrome Disaster. And the ultimate example of the latter was the Immobile Fortress, Scarlet Rain.

“Here we…gooooooooo!!”

The Red King’s roar, replete with her indomitable spirit, fired the first shot of the mission to rescue Aqua Current, which finally started at 12:20:10 PM, June 30, 2047, real-world time.

The twelve wheels of the re-summoned Enhanced Armament, the armored Dreadnought, spun fiercely, leaving burn marks on the road of the Century End stage. The treads of the tires finally bit into the pavement, and the massive vehicle lurched forward, tearing up the asphalt as it went.

For their starting point, they’d decided on a place about three hundred meters from the entrance to the bridge in front of the east gate of the Castle. They’d cleared away the oil drums and chunks of concrete beforehand, so there were no objects to get in the way of driving. Moving forward in a straight line, the massive crimson carriage picked up speed along the improvised long jump track.

Niko was, naturally, in the cockpit, but the seven other members of the team were not on the roof. Rather, they were standing on the barrels of the laser guns mounted on both sides of the vehicle, holding on tightly. On the left: Kuroyukihime, Haruyuki, Takumu. On the right: Pard, Chiyuri, Fuko, Utai.

And the reason they were not all riding on the roof was…

“Missiles prepaaaaare to fire! ” Niko yelled again, and the armor plating on the top of the vehicle popped open in four places. From inside, countless missiles steadily rose. The tank/truck continued to accelerate fiercely as it moved into attack position, and the black steel bridge grew closer with every breath.

The thirty-meter-wide, five-hundred-meter-long bridge spanning the bottomless ravine was territory guarded by the God Seiryu. The battlefield was too small for the massive body of the Super-class Enemy. It went without saying that siege attacks would have been difficult, but even just slipping around to get behind it was likely impossible. Thus, when they went to rescue Ardor Maiden, the strategy they came up with had Haruyuki flying at super-high speed with a boost from Fuko’s Gale Thruster, to shoot past the God Suzaku immediately after it appeared. Although things had gone well up to that point, he had been flying so fast that he hadn’t been able to turn around, leading to his and Utai’s plunge into the Castle.

Learning from this experience, they had decided to charge forward on the ground this time, but the Dreadnought was similarly unable to turn on a moment’s notice. In fact, the armored trailer didn’t even have any brakes. But Niko continued to fearlessly stomp on the accelerator, and just as they were about to cross onto the bridge, a loud voice rang out for a third time.

“Hold on tight! Thrusters, ooooooon!!”

Hrrum! An explosive sound echoed through the air, and a remarkably intense sense of acceleration came over Haruyuki. The rocket motors equipped at the rear of the trailer had been ignited.

And then the front tires crossed the boundary between the asphalt road and the steel bridge.

It felt to Haruyuki like the color of the air had changed. Even though he still couldn’t see anything ahead of them, an excessively concentrated sense of presence—probably what Niko called information pressure—bounced off the armor of his entire body.

“…Here it comes!” Kuroyukihime shouted from her position directly in front of him.

Up ahead on the other side of the bridge, in the air above the square altar that stood in front of the Castle’s east gate, a swaying blue light was flickering. Almost like the shimmering of water, it grew larger and larger with each passing second. Finally, several ripples spread outward from two clear, foreboding lights shining in the center. Then he heard the pounding rush of water, and a massive figure danced up from the surface of the phantom lake.

A head with countless fangs and four horns. A neck covered in diamond-shaped scales followed, while front legs writhed in space. The long torso twisted, claws appeared on its back legs, and a sharp whiplike tail drew out in a large arc. Bristles with a golden luster stood on end upon its back, all the way from its head down to the tail. Lastly, from there, four pairs of small, evenly spaced wings stretched out.

Neither Western- nor Eastern-style but still a magnificent dragon. Perhaps because of the phosphorescence enveloping its body, even in the gloom of the Century End stage its massive form shone a deep, vivid lapis lazuli. And the two eyes all the more so, like polished eternal ice.

Having finally taken form, the God Seiryu opened its maw wide and let loose a howl like thunder. The air trembled, and Haruyuki had to grit his teeth to withstand the pressure.

Of the eight people riding on the tank, the six members of Nega Nebulus had experience with another Super-class Enemy, Suzaku. But this was the first encounter for the two members of Prominence.

Haruyuki couldn’t see Niko in the cockpit or Blood Leopard on the opposite side of the vehicle, but with this terrifying figure before them, for a few moments at least, he was sure they would both be stunned—

“Take this, you snake jerk! Missiles! Launch aaaaaallll!!”

A shout rang out as if to dispel all of Haruyuki’s concerns, and the area above the trailer was suddenly filled with light and sound. The flames of countless shots fired lit up the gloom, and the small missiles whistled through the air one after the other. They ascended for a time before changing angles and plummeting toward the massive body of the Enemy.

Orange balls of fire blossomed in succession and swallowed up the patrolling Seiryu. Multiple explosions shook the bridge and the tank racing along on top of it.

“Everyone! Move to the roof!” Kuroyukihime shouted without waiting for the exploding flames four hundred meters ahead to subside.

The group kicked at the guns and leapt to the top of the vehicle. The missile pods were still open, so their footing was a bit uneven, but not to the point where they couldn’t stand up.

“Long distance attack, start!”

“Right!” Haruyuki called, readying himself alongside everyone else. He thrust his right hand forward over the missile pod cover and braced it with his left.

But the very first to launch was Cyan Pile’s special attack. “Lightning Cyan Spike!!”

The iron spike, now in the form of superheated plasma, shot forward with incredible speed and was quickly swallowed up by the silhouette blinking in and out of view within the flames of the explosion. It had only cut a small hole in the Shinjuku bridge girder, but against the armor of a Super-class Enemy opponent, its proud penetrating power should have produced real results.

Hot on his heels, Haruyuki pulled back the silver overlay in his right hand. The instant the light lance was produced, he drew it back as far as it could go and shouted the technique name: “Laser Javelin!!”

For Haruyuki, who had no flying weapons, this Incarnate technique was his sole means of long-range attack. It was an adaptation of his midrange attack, Laser Lance, but because it had been formed with fairly coercive logic, its accuracy was a little off. As the lance whistled through the air, its trajectory was a faint spiral rather than a straight line. He was just lucky the Enemy was so huge; it looked like the lance would hit somewhere on the tail.

Here, the missile launch was finally finished, and on the other side of the curtain of black smoke, Haruyuki felt Seiryu starting to move once more. But not about to let that happen, Utai turned her longbow Flame Caller toward the sky. “Flame Torrents!!”

The clear call was accompanied by a flame arrow winding its way upward. At the peak of its arc, it split into dozens of arrows that became a torrential downpour of flames raining down on the Enemy. The countless small explosions that immediately popped up didn’t compare to the missiles in range, but the burn time was longer. The massive blue dragon writhed in irritation within the blaze.

“Aaaaaah!” A powerful battle cry sounded over the roar of the tank, echoing through the air. Kuroyukihime, standing a row ahead of Haruyuki, brought a crimson overlay into a hand brandished high above her. The long sword turned from onyx to ruby as she braced it above her shoulder. “Vorpal Strike!”

Her right hand shot forward at nearly light speed, and a ray of light the color of blood jetted out. Instantaneously piercing a distance of over two hundred meters, it plunged into Seiryu’s chest, still caught up in flames. Hit hard, the massive body shuddered, and the creature’s metallic shriek echoed through the field.

“How about thiiiiis! ” Niko shouted once more. “Heat Blast Saturatiooooooon!!”

Klank! The main guns on both sides of the vehicle turned upward, and a faint ruby-red light leaked from the wide barrels. This quickly increased in brightness before becoming a cross-shaped beam, and—

Knnrrrkeeeee! The sound of resonance was earsplitting as the hugely thick laser fired.

Likely double the scale of the normal shot that had evaporated Silver Crow a week earlier during his special training to acquire the Theoretical Mirror ability, and released simultaneously from both left and right guns, the lasers merged a few dozen meters out to produce a massive energy lance that was more like a pillar of light. Haruyuki had once witnessed this technique blow away the government building in Shinjuku with one shot.

The Red King’s second special attack, currently considered the most powerful long-range attack in the Accelerated World, dug into the spot in Seiryu’s chest that the Black King’s special attack had pierced and swelled up into a bright-red ball of light, before bringing about an explosion so large it nearly shook both heaven and earth. The pillar of flames stretched up higher and higher, reaching the distant sky and coloring the bottoms of the hanging black clouds red.

Counting the initial missile attack, the six successive shots had all been powerful blows—special attacks and Incarnate techniques. Seiryu might have been one of the strongest Enemies in the Accelerated World, but it had to have taken at least that much damage. And maybe it would even be stunned for a while. With these thoughts rolling around in his mind, Haruyuki peered into the flames and smoke.

Displayed above the massive silhouette was a five-tier health gauge the same as Suzaku’s. With their approach, the first tier was shaved down by nearly 30 percent. But.

“Unnh.” A low groan slipped out of Haruyuki. The gauge they had worked so hard to decrease was recovered from left to right before his eyes.

This was something they had run through in the advance simulation. The Super-class Enemies that guarded the four gates of the Castle were, in a certain sense, four creatures as one. One was injured, and any of the other three not engaged in a fight would heal it. Which meant that if you wanted to defeat the Four Gods, the only thing to do was attack all four simultaneously and defeat them simultaneously. The difficulty of this was clear, even without bringing up the tragedy of the former Nega Nebulus.

Thus, their current strategy didn’t even pay lip service to the idea of subjugating Seiryu. The attack was, at most, a means of drawing its ire—which Haruyuki knew in his mind—but even so, he was still mildly shocked that the damage induced by a team that included two Kings giving it everything they had could be so easily erased.

“That attack didn’t even take out one gauge,” Takumu muttered in a strained voice from beside him.

“We don’t have time for disappointment, Crow, Pile.” It was Fuko behind them who spoke. Her voice was normally soft and gentle, but of course, at that moment, it was sharp and tight. “The counterattack’s coming. Everyone, hide behind the armor panels!”

This instruction was joined by a roar like thunder. From the black smoke lingering in the air above the altar now two hundred meters ahead, a blue mass shot forward, ferocious. The sapphire eyes seethed with rage, and the long jaw was wide open.

Krshk! From beyond the countless fangs came a pale beam of light—no, a stream of water. It was one of the specialized attacks Aqua Current had warned them about in advance: Water Breath. The power that lay in that super-high-pressure jet of water would dig into even the superior armor of green-type avatars.

Haruyuki ducked down and hid behind the iron plate in front of him—the open cover of the missile pod. Kuroyukihime, Takumu, Chiyuri, and the others all did the same, while Fuko alone continued to stand resolutely behind them.

She raised the palm of her right hand in front of her and shouted, “Wind Veil!!”

The sound echoed deeply, and the green wind that began to swirl in the center of her palm enveloped the entire tank.

And then Seiryu’s Breath attack, which was expanding in diameter to similarly swallow the tank, slammed into them. Still kneeling, Haruyuki turned his gaze upward.

The green dome given shape by the swirling wind knocked the countless jets of streaming water away, scattering them as white mist. But the defensive wind’s force and speed were weakening, and Fuko let out a small grunt behind him. Her raised palm shook as though it might not be able to withstand the pressure, her body itself was pushed back, and she finally dropped to her knees.

Haruyuki’s field of view was dyed white. The dragon’s attack had broken Fuko’s Incarnate shield and was pouring down onto the trailer.

The high-frequency vibration nearly shattered his virtual eardrums. The vehicle shook and shuddered. Several hundred jets of water dug into every part of Dreadnought’s thick armor. If it were an avatar’s body subjected to this attack, their health gauge would have dropped with terrifying force.

However.

“Heh! Giving me a high-pressure wash for free, pretty generous, you snake in the boot!!”

The tank did indeed slow down, but even still, it pushed valiantly forward against the gale while Niko taunted Seiryu.

Her voice was not colored by any kind of pain.

Because, while an Enhanced Armament was taking an attack, its owner’s health gauge did not drop.

It had been Niko herself, the owner of the vehicle, who had proposed this strategy of using the armored truck as an assault vehicle to get as close as possible to the altar, leaving the armor to bear the brunt of Seiryu’s attacks. Nega Nebulus had hesitated about a battle strategy that was the equivalent of using a trailer and then tossing it aside, but the Red King had been nonchalant. “You guys don’t get the true nature of Enhanced Armament, you know?”

—Thank you, Niko. We’re not going to waste this spirit of yours! No way! Haruyuki cried in his heart as he held up the cover of the missile pod with both hands. The thick steel shuddered, telling him that Seiryu’s Breath attack was still digging holes in it.

But perhaps, thanks to Fuko’s Incarnate technique deflecting some percentage of the force, his impromptu defensive wall withstood the entire attack without being pierced. The trailer once again picked up speed, and the Super-class Enemy plunged forward in the sky above. The distance between them finally was pushed below a hundred meters.

According to their advance information, the flip side of Seiryu having the most diverse specialized attacks of the Four Gods was that the frequency of physical attacks was low. Naturally, that didn’t mean it was zero, and a blow from those sharp fangs or claws or tail was a threat, but the armor of the trailer was still holding, albeit full of holes. It would protect the team a little longer.

But above all else, the most terrifying thing once they crossed into the midrange distance was—

Haruyuki’s brain had made it this far when Kuroyukihime barked from the front, “It’s time! Five seconds to go…Two, one, zero!”

A mere three seconds after the countdown.

A faint sky-blue light shuddered into existence in the center of the altar, which he could now see clearly up ahead.

The duel avatar appearance effect.

Blue light expanded and then coalesced, producing a slender silhouette.

A clear, watery film enveloping the entire body. Four streams of water, like plumes carving out arcs through the air. One of Nega Nebulus’s Four Elements, water, Aqua Current.

She matched their timing with fearsome accuracy, yet was standing in the Unlimited Neutral Field for the first time in two years and ten months.

Haruyuki forced himself to pull his gaze away from the avatar glittering so beautifully in the light of the watch fires that sat on the four sides of the square altar. What he needed to be looking at now was the God Seiryu. During the mission to rescue Ardor Maiden, the God Suzaku had turned around at this point and swooped in to attack Utai on the altar.

But the massive lapis lazuli dragon didn’t slacken its pace as it closed in on the tank. It was fairly angry about the sudden succession of six massive attacks that had carved away its health gauge and the fact that its Breath had been defended—or rather, its aggression had increased.

But that was exactly what they wanted. The success or failure of the plan rested on whether or not the attacking team, with Kuroyukihime at the center, would be able to continue to lure Seiryu in until the very end.

The massive dragon had gotten close enough that it almost covered the sky, and now its four horns shone with a pale light.

Several sparks raced through the black clouds in the sky above. Coming together in a number of places, they flashed with remarkable brightness—

“Splash Stinger!!” Takumu shouted, throwing his head back. Needle missiles were launched one after another from the holes that opened up in the armor on his chest.

At nearly the same time, purple bolts of lightning zigzagged down from the sky with a thunderous roar. This was Seiryu’s second specialized attack—Thunder Blast. The vertical missile pod covers on the tank that had been their shields thus far wouldn’t shelter them from a lightning strike from above.

But all of the lightning was drawn into Takumu’s missiles, bringing about countless explosions overhead.

However, they couldn’t completely negate the lightning’s energy, and purple light pierced the flames of the blasts, stretching out toward the team of avatars. But perhaps knocked off course, the purple streaks fell onto the steel bridge instead. One bolt made a direct hit on the tank and traveled through the surface of the armor, causing one of the tires to burst—but the members of the strike force were all still uninjured.

Once Seiryu carried out a specialized attack, there appeared to be a brief charging time before the next one. If they could slip directly under it during this opening, Haruyuki was sure they could reach the altar where Current was waiting.

The Enemy howled as if to negate this hope, and its massive body bent abruptly to build up power. The tail twisted into an S and came down so fast, it almost couldn’t be seen. The tip scraped the steel bridge’s surface, sending sparks flying, and then kept going to slam into the front of the tank.

If Niko hadn’t yanked the wheel to one side, the cockpit might have been crushed. They just barely managed to avert that tragedy, but the tail, like an iron pillar, came down hard on the front right of the vehicle, and the tires on the right side began to spin helplessly as they rose into the air.

“Dammit.” Cursing, Niko tried desperately to rally, but the vehicle tilted farther and farther to one side with each breath, leaving Haruyuki and the others on the roof unable to stand and scrambling to grab hold of the armor plates. If the trailer fell onto its side, more than a few would get pulled in and take some fairly serious damage.

Niko was probably thinking the same thing. From the speakers came a regretful voice. “It’s no use. I’m gonna send it back for now! Everyone, get ready to jump off! …Enhanced Armament, release!!”

Simultaneous with the voice command, the trailer, on the verge of toppling over sideways, started to break apart. It hadn’t been destroyed, but rather returned to storage on Niko’s orders. The ease of bringing it in and out was a significant advantage of Enhanced Armaments, but once it was released, it couldn’t be summoned again until a cooldown time set for each armament had passed.

The disassembled laser guns and missile pods and all the other parts faded and disappeared, melting into the air. The team members on top lost their foothold and Niko was ejected from the cockpit, all of them thrown onto the steel bridge’s surface.

“Aaaah!” —Chiyuri.

“Whoa!” —Takumu.

Haruyuki instantly deployed his wings. He scooped up Lime Bell with his right hand and Cyan Pile with his left before carefully decelerating in midair and setting them down on the road surface. The others managed to land without difficulty or damage on their own. The deft grace displayed by even Utai, a total long-distance type, was no doubt because of her experience with Fuko throwing her mercilessly through the air.

The commander of the mission, Kuroyukihime, had no sooner confirmed they were all okay than she was shouting in a stifled voice, “Raker, go! I’ll hold things down here!”

“Understood. I’ll leave this to you then.” As if pushing back a momentary hesitation, Fuko nodded and jumped into the wheelchair she had summoned at some point. The silver wheels glittered faintly, and then her elegant Enhanced Armament set off like a rocket toward the altar a hundred meters ahead. Her speed—accelerating using Incarnate—far surpassed normal running. The tracks left on the surface of the bridge burned red, thin trails of smoke rising up.

In the previous mission, Sky Raker’s role had been to catapult Haruyuki, but this time, she was charged with rescuing Aqua Current on her own.

Master, we’re counting on you! Haruyuki shouted in his mind as he took just a moment to watch the wheelchair race off. Up ahead, Current had already stepped down from the altar and broken into a run. Only a few seconds before they made contact.

Then.

Haruyuki heard a sonorous voice directly in the center of his mind. Or he felt like he did anyway.

—Tiny transient creatures.

—For what purpose do you disturb my sleep?

Reflexively, he flung his head back. His eyes were drawn to those of the Super-class Enemy cruising through the sky—almost covering it—glittering like sapphires. For a moment, he braced himself, thinking that attack was finally coming, but he was wrong.

A cold halo gushed forth from the eyes of the massive dragon, in which he could feel an unfathomable intelligence and will.

Suddenly, Haruyuki’s entire body stiffened—no, froze. A snowy-white frost fell onto Silver Crow’s metallic armor, and he could no longer move even a fingertip, much less his wings. Panicking, he flicked his eyes from side to side, but the others were similarly frozen.

He didn’t have to think back to the strategy meeting; this was a completely unknown attack. He had been aware their advance information wouldn’t necessarily cover all of Seiryu’s abilities, but it was entirely unexpected that they would get hit with such a powerful technique to hinder movement. Not only could Haruyuki not move, he couldn’t even speak—meaning it was impossible to break the ice with a special attack. And the frost cage showed no sign of shattering, no matter how much he pushed against it.

Above them, Seiryu barely bothered to give its new ice sculptures a cool glance before it turned its head, as if having lost interest. Turned—toward the west side of the bridge and the altar there.

Looking as far to the side as he possibly could without shifting his head, he saw the figures of Fuko and Akira about to touch hands. In their plan, once Sky Raker had recovered Aqua Current, she would use Gale Thruster and escape to the sky. She would then ascend to an altitude of three hundred meters, near her flight maximum, overtake Seiryu, and land on the other side of the bridge.

But that strategy was possible only as long as the attack team continued to draw Seiryu’s fire. Recharging Gale Thruster’s energy gauge took a long time, so if they were beat back shortly after taking off, it wouldn’t just be Akira; Fuko would also end up in Unlimited EK on the far side of the bridge.

Almost as though tracing Haruyuki’s fretful line of thinking, Seiryu open its jaw wide.

The Water Breath attack. If they took a direct hit from those super-high-pressure water jets—essentially diamond needles—Raker with her thin armor, and probably Current as well, would not be able to avoid instant death.

…I will not let you do that!!

Once more, a shout echoed in the back of his mind. But this time, it was not the Enemy, but rather the intense willpower of Utai Shinomiya—Ardor Maiden, shrine keeper of the conflagration—shooting forth.

A ring of red flames expanded out from her body to envelop them all. The fierce heat instantly melted the frost that bound their avatars. An Incarnate technique—wait, no, not a technique. The overlay from the manifestation of a powerful imagination had itself turned into flames.

Naturally, a fine tuning of that temperature seemed impossible, and at the same time as they melted the frost, the flames sliced away a tiny bit of Haruyuki’s health gauge. But he forgot both the heat and the pain. Freed from his icy state, Haruyuki thrust his right hand into the air with all his might.

“Laser Lance!!”

“Radiant Beat!!” Niko’s voice rang out at exactly the same time.

The lance of light from Haruyuki’s right hand and the fist of fire from Niko’s shot upward, striking Seiryu’s lower jaw while it was just about to shoot its Water Breath. The damage they did was paltry, but they succeeded in closing its mouth with the impact, just barely interrupting the attack. White water vapor spurted out from the gaps between fangs clamped forcibly together.

And then a pale-blue light flashed ferociously right in front of the altar:

The firing of the boosters.

Aqua Current in her arms, Sky Raker ascended, carving out a brilliant arc in the night sky. With an intense acceleration befitting her nickname of ICBM, they immediately plunged through the black clouds of the Century End stage and dyed them blue for an instant before disappearing.

“…All right!” Haruyuki quietly cried out, clenching his right hand into a fist.

Although they had been in danger several times already, this was an infinitely smoother rescue than Ardor Maiden’s had been. But given the team they were fighting with, Haruyuki could say that the success of the first half of the mission was a foregone conclusion. The problems started now—Whether or not Fuko and Akira could safely escape to the other side of the bridge while the rest on the ground occupied Seiryu’s attention. It would all be for nothing if they came out of this with another person sealed away while they were pulling out.

“Good! Everyone! Fall back!”

At Kuroyukihime’s instruction, the group started running to the east, all the while keeping the Enemy overhead in their field of view. Despite the fact that they had so far defended against the God Seiryu’s specialized attacks three times, it still silently twisted its long body above them, maintaining its hate at a fixed value. Or so it looked.

…Is it letting us get away? Maybe the Four Gods have personality differences…Fiery Suzaku was easily angered, but watery Seiryu is surprisingly calm…Or something?

This thought suddenly popped up in Haruyuki’s mind as he ran.

It was immediately after this that he heard once more what seemed to be the Enemy’s voice. A voice that was quiet like the calm surface of a pool, reminiscent of a woman somehow, and cold like the polar regions.

—I tire of this sport.

—Small ones, may you fall into a long sleep in our garden.

The God pulled its long tail back as forcefully as it did when it knocked the armored truck over. But Haruyuki and his friends had already put more than twenty meters between themselves and the Enemy. No matter how he looked at it, they weren’t close enough to be hit by a direct physical attack.

The tail was brought down so quickly, it blurred, and what it hit was not the seven Burst Linkers, but rather the iron bridge itself. Gwaaaan! The howl of the impact roared through the air, and the hard plates of the bridge heaved and surged. The shock wave rippling outward instantly swallowed up the running Burst Linkers and made even the hovering Kuroyukihime stagger.

No one fell, but for about half a second, they were all immobile, stunned. Not letting this chance slip away, Seiryu’s horns glittered brilliantly, calling up ominous sparks in the black clouds above.

“Ngh…” Takumu intently braced both legs and threw his upper body back. But an instant before the missiles that served as lightning rods could be launched, several streaks of the accumulating electrical energy turned into purple lightning and shot out of the sky.

—No!

Reacting instinctively, Haruyuki vibrated the wings on his back with everything he had. They had to at least prevent everyone there from being struck by lightning. While Seiryu’s specialized attack Thunder Blast did do damage, it also contained a de-buff that caused the entire body to go numb; a direct hit rendered the target unable to move for a period of time. According to their plan, Cyan Pile’s Splash Stinger was supposed to knock the lightning off course, but if their luck was bad and someone did take a direct hit, then the others were to pick up the slack until that person recovered. But if they were all paralyzed, then of course that wouldn’t work. In the worst case, they might even all be wiped out in the next attack.

—Better just me than that!

With his wings, Silver Crow was the only one who could jump after being thrown off-balance by the shock wave. Mustering all the propulsive force he could to take off, he threw both hands out, and the five bolts of lightning shooting down from the sky were all drawn to Crow’s metallic armor.

“Ngah!”

The instant the bolts struck his body, a pure shock that went beyond the sensations of heat or pain pierced Haruyuki’s consciousness. The world was dyed solid white, and he could no longer see the stage or the Enemy. All that existed within his field of view was his own health gauge. It had been basically full, but it was now dropping with alarming speed. Given that his armor was silver, the most conductive of the metals, Crow had always been weak to electrical attacks, but even allowing for that, the force with which his gauge was decreasing was impossible. No, this was on the level of instant death damage—

“Citron Caaaaaall!!”

From off in the distance, he just barely heard the resolute voice of his childhood friend. Glittering green particles danced through his vision and burned white. The steep drop in his health gauge slowed and stopped just barely before it disappeared completely. Then it jumped back up to the right, and he returned to the state he’d been in before being hit with the lightning bolts. Lime Bell’s special attack, Citron Call Mode I, had rewound Silver Crow’s status a few seconds and healed the damage—or rather, made it as though it had never happened.

He’d avoided sudden death, but that didn’t take away the stunning shock of the lightning, and Haruyuki dropped out of the sky, white smoke trailing from his entire body. Cyan Pile’s sturdy arms caught him and grabbed hold tightly. The bolts of lightning Haruyuki hadn’t been able to completely draw into him had apparently all missed the mark.

“Pile!” It was, of course, Black Lotus yelling. “Keep running! Everyone else, cover Pile!”

Doing as he was told, Takumu started to run, still with Haruyuki in his arms. Blue eye lenses shone ruefully on the other side of the face mask in front of Haruyuki. “Sorry, Haru. I was supposed to be taking care of the lightning.”

“It’s…oka…not so ba…” Haruyuki somehow managed to make his numb mouth move.

Then, in the sky above, Seiryu lurched forward. Chasing after the seven Burst Linkers, it raised its tail up high once more. It was going for another hit with the attack-plus-shockwave combo.

“As if we would fall for the same trick twice!” Kuroyukihime’s voice was uncompromising.

Haruyuki hurriedly lifted his head, wondering what she was planning to do. He saw her plunge the tip of her right leg into the bridge as a pivot to whirl around and charge at Seiryu behind them.

“Y…you can’t, Kuroyukihime!” Haruyuki cried, finally able to move his mouth again, and jumped out of Takumu’s arms without thinking. Staggering, he spread his wings and was on the verge of taking off when a small palm stopped him.

“Trust her,” Niko murmured. “She’s your parent.”

With no choice, he put a halt to his flight and followed the dashing path of the Black King with his eyes. Ahead of her, the tail of Seiryu high in the air disappeared, leaving a blue afterimage.

The blow, moving so swiftly it couldn’t be seen, would knock her feet out from under her, and that was if she managed to avoid it. And even if she did defend against it, the Green King himself would have been hard-pressed to take a blow from this tail unscathed when it was so powerful that it flipped Niko’s tank with one hit.

But Kuroyukihime spread out the swords of both arms boldly toward the tail closing in on her, so fast that it couldn’t be seen.

Haruyuki gritted his teeth, fully expecting the slender, black-crystal avatar to be blown away like a doll.

Kuroyukihime wrapped both her swords around the tail, almost as if to hug it gently—even though that tail concealed so much power it could have been called the ultimate physical attack.

—Death by Embracing!

Klink! A beam of light flashed, and all sound disappeared from the world. Haruyuki silently watched the slow-motion replay as the giant whip that should have shattered the Black King slipped right through her.

No, that wasn’t it…Black Lotus’s Terminate Sword had cut Seiryu’s lapis lazuli scale-covered tail clean in two, about a meter from the end. This was the insta-kill technique Lotus had once turned on the level-nine Red Rider, the first Red King, to push him to total point loss with a single blow. It was the technique that backed up her nickname of World End.

As the tip of the tail fell to the ground, a blue pillar of water shot up into the sky and scattered.


Here, at last, Seiryu exploded with an angry roar. Writhing in the sky, it dug at the air with the claws on its four limbs. Perhaps in response to the God’s quaking rage, the cloudy sky was filled with the rumbling of thunder.

Having succeeded in taking out the tail shock-wave attack, Kuroyukihime whirled around and dashed toward Haruyuki and the others, shouting, “The tail will regenerate soon! We have to get to the other side of the bridge before it does!!”

Haruyuki had already whirled around and started to run by the time her voice reached them. It was still another three hundred meters to the border between the iron of the bridge and the ground’s asphalt. In a normal duel, he would have been on the other side before he even knew it, but in this situation, the distance seemed ten times that long.

If Silver Crow flew with two people in his arms and Blood Leopard ran with someone on her back, they could increase the speed of their retreat, but that was a last resort. They had to save Crow’s special-attack gauge to deal with Seiryu’s most powerful and brutal attack.

Kuroyukihime joined them again soon enough, and the seven ran as a single group once more. The heavyweight-type Cyan Pile was using a technique to accelerate by shooting the pile of his right hand at the ground in order to keep up with them all.

Even without turning around, Haruyuki knew by the sensation of the air around them that the massive angry dragon was hot on their heels in pursuit. Most likely, it would get one more major attack in. If they could make it through that, they’d be able to get to the other side of the bridge.

Now that they didn’t have to worry about the tail’s shock-wave attack anymore, Takumu would definitely be able to block Thunder Blast. And Utai’s Incarnate flames had melted the unknown freezing attack. If Niko summoned her Enhanced Armament again, that should defend them from Water Breath if that was what was coming next. The problem was…

—Our wound shall be healed with your lamentations.

—Sacrifice your many glories to us.

The voice reverberated deeply inside his mind. Holding his breath, Haruyuki looked back over his shoulder and saw it.

Seiryu’s front leg was held high, a black sphere growing in the center of the four talons. Semitransparent, the object wobbled and swayed into an irregular shape, like a heavy liquid pushed into a sphere by some minuscule source of gravity. Purple sparks flickered and crawled across the smooth surface.

“Here it comes!!” Kuroyukihime shouted, her voice tense. “Level Drain!!”

Seiryu was finally activating it. Of the God’s great many specialized attacks, this one was enormously powerful and perhaps its most brutal. A divine blow that beat down the former level-seven high ranker Aqua Current to level one in a single battle.

Haruyuki took a deep breath and pushed back his fear. “Leave it to me!” he shouted. “You guys keep running!” He spread the silver wings on his back and kicked hard against the bridge surface to take off. As he flipped around to face Seiryu once he had gained a little altitude, he heard voices coming at him from behind:

“Haru, be careful!” Chiyuri cried.

“Don’t go flying in the wrong direction!” Niko warned.

He gave a thumbs-up in response and then cleared his mind.

The jet-black sphere was launched with a wet pop from the Enemy’s talons. The ball flew along slowly at first, but the instant it caught Haruyuki in its sights, it accelerated rapidly and came charging at him.

Haruyuki held his breath and drew it in as close as he dared. Once the 1.5-meter ebony sphere was practically on top of him, he shot upward. With a cumbersome movement, the black sphere curved in the same direction to chase after him.

In the former Nega Nebulus’s Castle mission, Aqua Current, the leader of the Seiryu attack squad, stayed alone deep on the bridge to allow her comrades to escape and was hit with this black spherical body any number of times. According to her, the black ball didn’t disappear with a direct hit, but instead swallowed the avatar up and began to first eat away at their burst points. Once these were down to zero, it took a level from the Burst Linker, stunning them in the process, and then, finally, the black ball would disappear. That alone was plenty threatening, but what was even more terrifying was that, by the time the level drop came, all the Linker’s points had been completely wiped out, so the next time they were hit with the black ball, there would be no grace period; their level would immediately drop down one more.

Put another way, if you could quickly destroy the black ball in the initial point-draining stage, you wouldn’t lose a level. But that was a fairly difficult task. The sphere was made out of a highly viscous fluid, and close-range physical attacks were essentially useless. Long-distance attacks, bullets, and lasers all passed through it, and it was quite resistant to fire as well, so there was a strong possibility that the avatar would die before the ball evaporated. Current thought the only tactic that might work was basically to freeze and break the ball.

Unfortunately, none of their current party could use ice techniques. And dying immediately after getting hit with the black ball would have almost been a better choice, but if they died in the God’s territory, there was the risk of not being able to make it out and getting stuck in Unlimited EK. In the end, the best countermeasure was…

“…Shake it off…!” Haruyuki cried in a strained voice. He turned once more, and the end of the bridge came into view. The dark sphere again followed, trailing a tail of sparks.

The orb accelerated without limit when moving in a straight line, so you had to force it to slow down by making it change direction over and over. This was no easy feat above the bridge when it was only thirty meters wide, but if you could also turn up and down and not just left and right—in other words, if you were Silver Crow and had the ability to fly—you might be able to keep running for long enough to get away entirely.

This was the reason Sky Raker had been assigned the role of rescuing Aqua Current, while Haruyuki had stayed with the attack team: to keep his special-attack gauge full and deal with Level Drain.

“Hnn…ngaaah…” He gave his everything to fleeing from the nihilistic lump of liquid, which vibrated unsettlingly as it pursued him. He would fly straight ahead for a few seconds, and then as soon as he sensed the black ball accelerating, turn on a dime. He had trained a fair bit with this zigzag technique during his regular duels with Ash Roller, but the stakes were much higher now. At all costs, he had to avoid turning the wrong way toward Seiryu, or flying out to either side of the bridge. Mustering whatever scrap of spatial awareness there was in his mind and whipping around with dizzying speed, he inched steadily toward the other side of the bridge.

Below him, his comrades were also running full tilt for the border. And although he couldn’t see them, Sky Raker—Aqua Current in her arms—would have been on a landing course beyond the black clouds in the sky above. Twenty seconds left until the completion of the mission…

—Small transient ones.

—You do well to struggle.

Haruyuki heard the faint splashing of water, and then a fierce cold wrapped around his entire body. As the world whirled around him, he caught a glimpse of Seiryu launching a second black ball, which quickly began to accelerate in a straight line. And not at Haruyuki. Greedily vibrating, the nihilistic lump charged toward his comrades on the bridge.

“You have to run…!” Haruyuki squeezed out a shout that was more like a shriek as he continued his desperate and random flight.

Running, Kuroyukihime glanced back and saw the black ball closing in. But it was too late. With no twists or turns to navigate, the black ball picked up speed like a bullet shot from a gun and was on the verge of swallowing one of his friends up.

A crimson shadow shot out like lightning—Blood Leopard, who had transformed into Beast mode at some point. The animal avatar fluidly leapt forward from a sharp turn and threw herself at the black sphere. The others stopped in their tracks, radiating shock.

The ball caught Leopard, and the sparks on its surface began to pulsate. Waxing and waning cyclically, it reminded him of the peristalsis of certain blood-drinking creatures— No, it actually was sucking, drinking. All the burst points Leopard had accumulated over such a long time. And when it had finished sucking those up, she would be plunged into the nightmare of level drop.

“Pard…!” A cry shot out of Niko. She raced over to Leopard, crouched inside the black ball, and moved to thrust her hand into the sparking liquid. Kuroyukihime stretched a sword hand out to try to stop her, but couldn’t reach her. The small, slender fingers were very nearly touching the ebony sphere.

But before they could, Leopard howled, ferociously. The claws of her four paws dug into the iron bridge surface, and the crimson cat pulled away from Niko and began running. The sphere enveloping her body continued to pulsate, so her points had to have been dropping with terrifying speed. Those points could have fallen to zero at any moment, allowing the ball to steal a level and stun her into a motionless state, but the leopard’s hard run did not stop. The edge of the bridge was just over a hundred meters away.

Even as he zigzagged above their heads, Haruyuki kept an eye on Leopard racing ahead and the others chasing after her. Staring at the ferocious beast avatar, beautiful even with her torso swallowed up by the black ball, a voice abruptly came back to life in his mind.

—At any rate, it was exactly for this that Pard’s sealed away leveling up until today, after all.

Niko had said this in the student council office at Umesato Junior High before the dive into the Unlimited Neutral Field. Blood Leopard was a fairly senior Burst Linker and a soldier who had made a name for herself at the dueling mecca of Akihabara Battle Ground, and she had alluded to having a reason for still being at level six, but Haruyuki hadn’t understood what she meant at the time.

“For this”—for the mission to rescue Aqua Current, Leopard had stayed at level six. She had built up a stock of burst points acquired in duels and Enemy hunting without spending them. The years of effort and endurance had all been for this moment. So that even if the black sphere hit her, she could keep running without losing a level. Using her vast cache of points as cushioning, she would have been able to hold on against Seiryu’s most brutal attack for a while. All of it was for the moment someday when she would rescue Aqua Current from the God’s altar.

In a flash of insight, Haruyuki understood the relationship between Aqua Current, one of the Elements, the senior executive group of the Black Legion, Nega Nebulus; and Blood Leopard, one of the Triplex, the senior executive group of the Red Legion, Prominence. Although they belonged to different Legions, the two had a similar air about them—they were parent and child.

“…Pard! You can do it…!!” Haruyuki shouted, as he made one sharp turn after another.

Perhaps hearing him, perhaps not, Leopard kicked even more ferociously at the ground and leapt high, high up into the air. At the peak of her trajectory, a faint rainbow rippled outward through the air. Leopard pushed through this, and the ebony sphere that had engulfed her torso broke, scattering into countless droplets. The crimson leopard spun around once in the air before touching down smoothly, the claws of her four paws biting not into dull steel but cracked gray asphalt.

Right behind her, Haruyuki also crossed the dividing line between bridge and earth. And behind him, the black sphere smashed into an invisible wall and flew apart. The instant he felt the crisis averted, all the strength drained from his body, and Haruyuki half-fell from the sky. Unable to really stick the landing, his legs crumpled beneath him when he contacted the earth, and he ended up on all fours.

But it was too soon to collapse just yet. Seiryu might come at them with another attack before Kuroyukihime and the others broke free. He tried to stand up, he tried to put strength into his trembling legs when—

“…It’s okay” came a quiet voice beside him.

Lifting his head, he saw Blood Leopard. Following the gaze of the entirely graceful and brave animal avatar—even as she was, like him, on all fours on the ground—Haruyuki turned around.

Ardor Maiden, leading the group, was at that moment about to leap off the bridge. Then Lime Bell and Cyan Pile. Lastly, Black Lotus and Scarlet Rain. It seemed that the God Seiryu had abandoned its pursuit when both of its black Level Drain orbs were scattered in all directions.

Still on his hands and knees, Haruyuki looked up at the Super-class Enemy hovering a mere hundred meters away. He could no longer read any emotion in the cold shine of the sapphire eyes. Perhaps because he had left its territory, he also couldn’t hear the voice that had echoed in his memory several times. But even so, Haruyuki felt it, the dark, massive, lapis lazuli dragon sneering as if giving them advance notice of their eventual reunion.

Long body undulating, it began to lumber about, changing direction. Its four limbs and their talons, alongside the four pairs of small wings, cut across his vision one after another. Then, the tip of the tail—cut off in Kuroyukihime’s Incarnate attack—finally reappeared with soundless regeneration.

The group watched without a word as the massive dragon leisurely flew away and slowly faded out of existence. Finally, the Super-class Enemy, the God Seiryu, vanished as though sucked into the altar five hundred meters away. The watch fires at each corner of the altar then disappeared in turn, and the Century End stage was returned to silence.

—No.

He could still hear some kind of sound. A high-pitched resonance, like the howling of the wind, like a reed pipe. Hands once planted on the ground, Haruyuki staggered to his feet and turned his head to the sky. Gradually getting closer, the sound was coming from the other side of the thick layer of black clouds hanging above them.

A few seconds later, a tiny blue light flickered inside the clouds. Glittering like a shooting star, it fell gently down like a bit of fluff. While they held their collective breath and stared up at it, the source of the light finally pushed through the clouds and revealed itself—the flames of boosters, narrowed down to minimum output.

As the light came closer, the figures of the sky-blue avatar with the booster-shaped Enhanced Armament on her back and the light-blue avatar she held in her arms popped up in the night sky. Reflecting back a pale light, the pair descended ever so slowly. A mere five meters or so from the ground, the jet propulsion flames shuddered irregularly and disappeared. The booster’s energy gauge was empty.

Haruyuki immediately leapt up and caught the falling avatars in his arms. Before his eyes were two smiling face masks. One of those mouths moved, and a gentle murmur reached his ears:

“Thank you, Corvus.”

The other avatar was silent, but the blue eye lenses on the other side of the flowing-water armor blinked softly.

Haruyuki set them down on the ground and took a few steps back to stand alongside Chiyuri and Takumu. A single sentence kept playing over and over and over in his mind:

…She’s back. She’s back. She’s. Back.

…For over two and a half years, she had been sealed away on Seiryu’s altar. One of the Four Elements, the bouncer who had saved Haruyuki when he was facing total point loss eight months earlier, The One, Aqua Current. In the true sense of the word, she had finally come home to Nega Nebulus—to the Accelerated World.

As he stared, moved to tears, the flowing-water avatar gave them all a meaningful glance before finally facing the crouching crimson leopard a little ways off. Accompanied by the babbling of a brook, she walked over, knelt down, and wrapped both arms around the leopard’s neck. She brought her face in close and hugged tightly, so tightly.

“Welcome back, Aki.” The fang-filled mouth opened, and Pard offered a brief greeting to her parent.

Current nodded softly. “I’m home, Myah,” she replied, as brief as her child. The others watched as the two soundlessly brought their faces together.

After a few seconds, once Current got back to her feet and Leopard returned to human form with the Shape-Change command, Niko slapped her left hand against the fist of her right and shouted, “Allll right! That is mission complete!”

The instant he heard this, the tension in him was suddenly released, and Haruyuki very nearly slumped to the ground again on weak legs. Someone supported him from behind, and convinced it was Takumu, he leaned back without restraint and let out a long breath.

But it was an unexpected voice that he heard:

“You did well, Crow.”

Jumping, he looked back to find the mirrored goggles of the Black King. Flustered, Haruyuki tried to stand up on his own, but Kuroyukihime had turned toward everyone else and begun to talk, so he missed his chance to pull away.

“And all of you, you really did well. You withstood the fierce attacks of the God Seiryu and brought Current back to us. Not to mention that not only did no one else get sealed away, but we didn’t see a single death. This is nothing short of a miracle made real by the hard struggle of everyone here. However.”

Kuroyukihime stopped for a moment to look at Niko and then Leopard.

“Unfortunately, we did not escape unscathed. First of all, Rain, I apologize for essentially destroying your Enhanced Armament, and I thank you. If we had not had that armor, we would never have been able to make it so deep into the Enemy camp.”

“W-well, it was just, you know, you throw me another curry party, and we’ll call the whole thing even.” The Red King bobbed the antennas on her head as if embarrassed. “Oh! But actually, curry three times in a row, it’s, you know…Maybe hamburgers next time? Nah, more Japanese-style, an okonomiyaki party.”

“…Mm? Hasn’t it been two times?”

“What are you talking about? Yesterday—” The Red King abruptly cut herself off, and Haruyuki jumped and stiffened, too.

After the Territories the previous day—June 29—not only had Niko barged into the Arita house and made curry with Haruyuki, but she had stayed over, on top of that. And most likely, the only other person who knew that was Pard.

Kuroyukihime stared suspiciously at the unnaturally silent Niko and Haruyuki, the latter of which was still frozen in place with her support from behind, but she resumed her speech soon enough. “…Well, I don’t care if it’s hamburgers or okonomiyaki or Buddha Jumps Over the Wall…It’ll be after all of this is over.”

“R-right, right. Basically, my Enhanced Armament recovers when I dive again, y’know? …But…” The Red King stopped and turned green eye lenses on her deputy, the person she likely trusted more than anyone else.

Kuroyukihime also looked over at Blood Leopard standing alongside Current and nodded slowly. “…Yes. While there is Rain’s loss, we cannot even begin to imagine the damage Blood Leopard took…”

“…What do you mean, Lotus?” Fuko asked, cocking her head to one side. She had been flying through the sky high above, so she hadn’t witnessed the scene.

“In the very end, Seiryu attacked with Level Drain.” Kuroyukihime lowered her eyes and explained in a tense voice. “Just as planned, Crow managed to draw the sphere out of the area for us with his desperate flight, but…I never dreamed it would attack again in quick succession…”

“…! So then, Pard was…”

“Mm. Leopard risked her life to defend us against the second orb. She ran out of the area still in the drain status, and although she managed to avoid a level drop, she must have lost an incredible number of points…”

None of them could say anything to this; they simply stared at Blood Leopard.

“NP.” The crimson leopard-person shrugged as though it was seriously no big deal. “Points I saved for this anyway. Can just earn more.”

The very first to react was Aqua Current.

“I told you.” Akira brought the palm of her hand to Leopard’s cheek with a muttered sigh. “You were supposed to forget me.”

“Can’t forget your parent.”

“Stubborn as ever, Myah.”

Removing her hand and taking a step back, Akira bowed her head deeply first to Pard and then to Niko. “Thank you, Blood Leopard and the Red King, Scarlet Rain. I will take responsibility for the points Leopard lost in rescuing me and replenish them in full. It might take a little time, but I will absolutely do this.”

“I’ll help, too.” Fuko jumped in before Pard or Niko could react. “Target period of a week, yes?”

“I shall also assist.” Utai also raised her right hand without a moment’s delay. “I do feel bad for the Enemies, but I’ll hunt and hunt and hunt and hunt!”

“In that case, I’ll get serious myself. I will give you an ample demonstration of the skill of the hunter they used to call the Genocider in the Shibuya area.” When even Kuroyukihime put her name forward like this, the three junior members of Nega Nebulus couldn’t stand by in silence.

Takumu, Chiyuri, and Haruyuki all took a step forward together and declared in unison:

“Of course, I’m not that strong, but I’ll do what I can!”

“I—I—I mean, it’s not much, but I have this search function called Enemy Detector—”

“Detector, schemector. We can just call them with my Acoustic Summon!” Chiyuri cried out forcefully, waving the large bell of her left hand around. “I’ll go calling all the Enemies and healing all the dama—” Both voice and movement stopped abruptly, so Haruyuki looked at his childhood friend questioningly.

The yellow-green witch avatar was completely still, as though a time-stopping spell had been cast on her. But an infinity of stars was swirling around, glittering deep in her eye lenses, reminiscent of a cat’s eyes. Chiyuri had a surprisingly intellectual side, and this was the sign that the gears in her head were going full speed.

Haruyuki peered at her face, wondering what exactly she had come up with.

“Oh…Ohh! …Ooooooh!!” Lime Bell suddenly let out a wild cry and whirled her head around, looking at their surroundings.

“Wh-what’s going on, Chii?!” a dumbfounded Takumu asked.

No sooner had her eyes locked onto him than Chiyuri was shouting again. “G-gauge! Gimme your special-attack gauge! Right now! Now!!”

“Huh? O-okay, so then smash some ob—”

“There’s no time for that! Aah, come on, Haru! Taku! Sit down!!”

Snap! The index finger of her right hand shot out toward the ground, and instantly, Haruyuki and Takumu were seated alongside each other. Standing imposingly before them, Chiyuri brandished the Enhanced Armament of her left hand, Choir Chime, high in the air.

Gong, gong, boooong! With a solemn sound, the bell smacked the heads of the two on the ground from right to left and then back to the right again.

About 20 percent of Haruyuki’s health gauge was instantly carried away, and in his field of view, visions of yellow chicks hopped around. Other people’s gauges weren’t visible in the Unlimited Neutral Field, but Takumu had probably taken about the same amount of damage.

Paying no mind to Kuroyukihime and the others gaping at the sudden violence, Chiyuri glanced up to check her gauge and then shouted again, “Can you go one more time?!”

“Y-y-yeah, I guess,” Haruyuki nodded.

“O-of course, Chii!” Takumu puffed his chest out.

Gong, gong, boooong!

The Choir Chime, at first glance a musical instrument, was actually a pretty great weapon. It induced a stun state at the same time as it did damage with a striking attack. After a total of two round trips, and blows to the head on top of that, Takumu and Haruyuki were half-comatose; their upper bodies swayed and wobbled.

Fortunately, Chiyuri’s special-attack gauge was apparently full now, and she yanked Choir Chime above her head. “Leopard! Please trust me!!”

She makes a big show of this violence, and then is all “trust me,” Haruyuki thought, cradling his head in his hands.

But Pard was nothing if not brave. “’Kay.”

“Okay, here we go! Citron—” Fwm, fwm! Chiyuri swung the bell of her left hand around twice and then called in a high-pitched voice, “—Caaaaallll!!” She brought Choir Chime down sharply, and a green light gushed forward to swallow Leopard.

Here, finally, Haruyuki—and probably Takumu, too—grasped the intentions of his childhood friend: a recovery measure that was so simple and thus had not occurred to anyone there. Chiyuri was trying to rewind the damage Blood Leopard had taken—not her health gauge, but the burst points Seiryu had stolen.

Lime Bell’s special attack, Citron Call, had two modes. Mode I rewound the status of the target avatar in units of time. And Mode II rewound in units of status change. In other words, with Mode I, an emptied health gauge or special-attack gauge could be replenished, while with Mode II, Enhanced Armament summoned by an enemy could be returned to storage. Either ability brought a fearsome advantage in tag team matches and the Territories, earning her the nickname the Watch Witch.

Chiyuri was using Mode I now. But the witch herself had told Haruyuki something once: that neither mode could rewind changes related to level-ups. Meaning, it was impossible to cancel a level promotion and recover the spent points, or cancel a special attack or ability gained as a level-up bonus so that one could make a new selection.

In which case, it seemed to Haruyuki that she wouldn’t be able to rewind the burst points stolen by Seiryu. Level increases were saved in the avatar data in the Brain Burst central server at the time they were generated, putting them out of reach of a Burst Linker’s individual ability to interfere. It should have been the same for level drops…

—Wait.

That wasn’t right. Although Blood Leopard had had her points stolen from her, it hadn’t gone so far as a level drop. She hadn’t gotten anything in exchange for the deduction of points, so maybe it was possible to rewind that? The points the God Seiryu had sucked up and tucked away in a bag might disappear, but why would they care about that?

“…Chiyu!!” Lost in his thoughts, Haruyuki stood up and supported the shoulders of his childhood friend from behind, as she continued to release light from the bell. “You can do it! You, for sure, I know you can do it!! Keep fighting!!”

Since Citron Call was a special attack and not an Incarnate technique, Haruyuki’s encouragement probably wasn’t particularly helpful. Even so, he put all the energy he could muster into his hands and tried to support his friend.

Chiyuri had thought and acted on her own before, too, when the twilight marauder, Dusk Taker, had stolen Haruyuki’s flight ability, and she eventually got his wings back for him. She was that sort of person. Seemingly willful and selfish, she actually paid more attention than anyone else to the things around her. Most likely, more than half of her motivation for becoming a Burst Linker was for the sake of Haruyuki and Takumu.

…Thanks, Chiyu.

A faint silver light grew in the hands of Silver Crow gripping Lime Bell’s shoulders, pouring through his armor where they touched. But neither Haruyuki nor Chiyuri—and probably not Kuroyukihime or any of the others, either—noticed this phenomenon.

Before them, wrapped in layers of green light effect, Blood Leopard abruptly stretched her hands toward the sky. Almost as though she were accepting something invisible.

No— Haruyuki could see it, too. White droplets of light pouring down from the night sky. Ephemeral like snowflakes yet somehow warm, the light particles danced down one after another into Leopard’s open hands, flashing and disappearing when they touched the armor of her palms.

The strange snow continued to fall for a time and then finally stopped. Chiyuri’s special-attack gauge was exhausted.

Lime Bell slowly lowered her Enhanced Armament, and Haruyuki pulled his hands away from her shoulders and took a step back. But Leopard didn’t move right away. As the others held their breath and watched over her, the crimson avatar with the leopard head moved just her left hand, opened her Instruct menu, and flickered around on the page. She quickly found what she was looking for and closed the window, a faint smile lingering on the mouth modeled after a ferocious animal.

“Thank you, Lime Bell.” Leopard said actual words of appreciation and not just her usual “Thanksy” and followed it up with a deep bow. “They’re back. The points Seiryu stole, all of them.”

After a brief silence, they all erupted in cheers. Niko and Haruyuki both did double fist pumps, Takumu and Akira bobbed their heads up and down, while Raker and Utai clapped in unison. Amidst all this, Kuroyukihime hovered lightly over to Chiyuri.

“Bell—no, Chiyuri,” she murmured, thick with emotion. “I am eternally surprised by you. I thank you. Because of you, we are able to end the mission to rescue Aqua Current in no better way. In the future, too, help me and our comrades with your inventiveness and your ability to take action…Thank you.”

The sword of her left hand was raised softly, and Chiyuri lightly touched Choir Chime to the flat front of it. “I—I just always charge forward with my hunches,” she said, as though embarrassed. “But I’m really glad I was able to rewind in time. While I was doing it, I thought maybe there was just barely not enough in my special-attack gauge, though.”

“…You did?” For some reason, Kuroyukihime glanced at Haruyuki here, but then quickly returned her gaze to Chiyuri. “No, it’s all thanks to your quick-wittedness. I’m truly glad you made it in time…”

“You say that, but aren’t you reeeeeally thinking that you’re super-lucky to not have to go through the hassle of Enemy hunting?” Niko jeered, putting an end to the tender moment.

“A-and why would I think that?!” Kuroyukihime whirled around. “Once this entire mission is finished, I couldn’t care less if we spent whatever time’s left hunting our hearts out!!”

“Oh, now you’ve said it, Black One! ’Kay then, it’s been a while since I took a tour of the four great dungeons—”

““Gah! P-please no!””

Haruyuki and Takumu cried in protest as Niko started laughing in a way that was not clear if she was serious or joking about the whole thing.

“I’ll add my own thanks to that pile, Bell.” She straightened up again and bowed her head to Chiyuri. “For how you recovered the points for her, but also for how hard you worked for Pard’s sake.” She patted Chiyuri’s arm lightly and took a few steps to face Blood Leopard. “So, Pard? Whatcha wanna do?”

What does she mean, what do you want to do? Haruyuki cocked his head to one side as he watched the red pair with the other black group members.

Pard appeared to think it over for about half a second before nodding slightly. “Go up, right now.”

…Go up? Where? Haruyuki cocked his head to the other side, but Pard’s left hand was already in motion, opening the Instruct menu. She tapped at the window several times with the tip of her short claw, and after a brief pause, she pressed firmly on some button.

A rainbow circle of light appeared at the avatar’s feet, and from it, a similarly rainbow-colored pillar of light rose up to engulf Leopard’s entire body. At the same time, a cool and exciting melody played, a sound Haruyuki had heard about four times in the past—the fanfare of a level-up.

“Wh-what?!” he cried out, stunned, and everyone else present, with the exception of Niko, similarly showed varying degrees of surprise.

But Pard’s left hand didn’t stop there. She brought her index finger up once more and pushed the button again. And so again, the celebration of light and sound swallowed the slender avatar.

“Wh…whaaaaaat?!” His head already thrown back as far as it could go, Haruyuki was unable to withstand the additional shock and ended up falling backward onto his butt.

Chiyuri to his right and Takumu to his left managed to stay upright, but they were frozen in curious poses. Even Kuroyukihime and the senior Linkers lined up across from them simply stood there, speechless.

And it was no wonder. Blood Leopard had, in mere seconds, gone up two levels. Simply going from a level-one newbie to a level three was an immense improvement, but at the moment she’d opened her menu, Pard had been level six. Which meant that she’d gone up one to seven, and then another one—to eight.

Level eight. A true high ranker, with only the Seven Kings of Pure Color being at a higher level. Haruyuki could count on one hand the number of Burst Linkers he knew who had made it that far: only the current deputy of Nega Nebulus, Sky Raker.

In the silence, the rainbow light effect vanished, and Blood Leopard casually let her hand fall back to her side. Since she didn’t go through the process of acquiring level-up bonuses or Enhanced Armament, appearance-wise, nothing about her had changed, but Haruyuki definitely felt something like a pressure in the way Pard stood that hadn’t been there a minute earlier.

Her long tail swishing, the crimson avatar started to walk soundlessly. She cut past Haruyuki and stopped in front of the sky-blue avatar next to Kuroyukihime. Bloody Kitty, aka Blood Leopard, faced the Nega Nebulus deputy Strato-Shooter, aka Sky Raker, and said briefly in a quiet voice, “Sorry for the wait, Raker.”

“You finally made it this far, hmm, Leopard?” Fuko responded with similar brevity.

Haruyuki intuitively understood the meaning of this exchange. He’d heard that Leopard and Raker were rivals, and they had fought any number of fierce battles in the Territories and normal duels. Pard had no doubt made incredible efforts to level up in lockstep with Fuko. But in the summer three years earlier, the former Nega Nebulus had been destroyed, and their duels had ended. Leopard had stopped leveling up in order to rescue Aqua Current sealed away at the Castle, and Raker had determined that the responsibility for the destruction of the Legion was her fault and thus retired from duels.

And then today, two years and ten months after the Castle Fight. Aqua Current had been rescued, and Blood Leopard had used the points she’d been saving that whole time to become level eight—to reach the same height as Sky Raker. That was what their exchange meant.

As they faced each other, their bodies were wrapped in a hazy overlay. It wasn’t that they were trying to activate any Incarnate technique; it was simply that the fighting spirit and delight building inside their avatars had become an aura and leaked out. The pair simultaneously raised their right hands and clenched them into fists—and then slowly touched them to each other. The concentrated auras bounced off each other, sparking sky-blue and crimson.

Naturally, not now, but at some point in the near future, the two would fight. The techniques they’d polished and perfected, the experience they’d accumulated, their pride as Burst Linkers, they would put all of it into their fists and tell each other so, so much. Haruyuki didn’t know whether he’d get to watch that fight or not, but even if he couldn’t, he was certain of just one thing: After the fight, the bond between the two would be that much deeper, and only stronger.

Taking his gaze off the two level eights, Haruyuki unconsciously looked over at Cyan Pile standing next to him. Takumu happened to turn his face at the same time, and their gazes intersected for a moment.

Even if he couldn’t put it into words, his childhood friend’s thoughts came across loud and clear. He was remembering again the promise to duel that they had confirmed with each other while they were moving on the armored truck from Suginami to the Castle. Once they were both level seven, they would duel for real, with the fullest extent of their abilities. Whatever they gained or lost as a result—

“…!” Surprised by his own thoughts, Haruyuki opened his eyes wide beneath his mirrored mask. If Silver Crow’s goggles hadn’t been half-mirrored, he would have been getting some raised eyebrows from Takumu, but fortunately, his childhood friend appeared to have noticed nothing. He nodded and then turned his face forward again, but his mind was locked as it had been a few seconds before.

…Lose? When Takumu and I duel, whoever wins or loses, we won’t actually lose anything. The way we’ve been…I’m sure it’s the way we’ll be, Haruyuki told himself, brushing away the baseless premonition.

Fuko and Pard lowered their fists at basically the same time. The crimson, humanoid leopard whirled around and returned to her place, just behind Niko’s right.

The Burst Linkers, now numbering nine since they’d welcomed one more person, rearranged themselves spontaneously into a large circle.

Their commander, Kuroyukihime, nodded briefly and raised the sword of her right arm. “Mission number one, Operation Aqua Current Rescue, is now complete,” she announced firmly. “You all performed wonderfully. In conclusion, once again, welcome back, Curren.”

“Welcome back!!” Niko and Pard also sang out.

“…I’m home, everyone,” Akira said, enunciating each syllable, slowly blinking eye lenses beneath the flowing water that covered her face mask.

Haruyuki had to have been seeing things to imagine that even through the film of water, Akira’s eyes looked warm and damp.



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