Accel World - Volume 16 - Chapter 6

6

Rin said that she was fine to get up, so the three said their good-byes to Ms. Hotta and left the nurse’s office. For a while, they walked silently down the empty hallway.

“Um.” Haruyuki stopped in front of the small hallway that led to the main entrance and looked up at Fuko. “I’m sorry for butting in, Master.”

“No need to apologize, Corvus.” Even the ever-calm Fuko had a hint of tension playing on her lips as she turned them up in a faint smile. “In fact, I should be thanking you for stopping a fight with the White King. Although, when the battle does commence at some point, I will of course expend every effort…But even as it was presented to us just now, I wouldn’t say we had even a thirty-percent chance at victory.”

“What?” Haruyuki gasped in surprise—it was ten against one, and the one was a dummy avatar.

“That person…” Rin clung to the hem of his shirt on his left side. “I can’t believe she’s a Burst Linker…like us. Maybe it. Was because. She wasn’t a duel avatar. But…more than that…it was…almost like…” Rin fumbled for the words, and Fuko explained in her stead:

“Almost like she’s in a different time flow.”

“Oh…Yes. It was. Like that.”

Now that she mentioned it, the White King did indeed have an air like that about her. While she proposed changing to Battle Royale mode, it was almost like she was talking about someone else—she seemed like an observer looking down on the duel field from somewhere far, far away.

“What on earth did she show up for?” he asked, half to himself, as he remembered her mysterious words. “I don’t feel like her end goal was to eavesdrop on our meeting or anything like that. I mean, she seemed to know so much more than we do. She even knows why AA and CC ended…And how did she get to the stage in the first place?”

And then Haruyuki finally landed on the one thing he should have noticed and dealt with right away. “Oh! Th-this is bad, Master! That duel was via the local in-school net, right?!”

“It was.” Fuko’s expression was troubled.

“And you can only connect to the local net from inside the school. Wh-wh-which means th-th-the White King’s real self is somewhere in this school right now…”

He had just disclosed the most dangerous and deeply critical idea possible, but Fuko and now even Rin simply looked more troubled. He cocked his head to one side. “Huh?”

“Come, come. You’re saying that now, Haruyuki?”

He heard a voice from off to his left and turned to find Kuroyukihime, Akira, Niko, Pard, and the others stepping into the second school building from the entrance hall. They’d apparently been on their way from the student council to meet them.

“Look here, Haruyuki,” Niko said with a look of pure exasperation, on the heels of Kuroyukihime’s stunned question. “You gotta notice that stuff the second she shows up in a duel stage like that. And then ya check the matching list the second the duel’s done.”

“…R-right. But—so then, you already checked?”

“Mmm. And we were the only Burst Linkers on the list.” Kuroyukihime walked over to Haruyuki and the others and scrunched up her face.

“She wasn’t there? So then, that means she cut her Neurolinker connection?” But Haruyuki’s guess was quickly shot down:

“No, that’s not it. She was connected remotely from her own Legion territory.”

“What?! To our local net from outside?! Can you even do something like that?!”

“It’s not that you can’t, it’s that we don’t allow it…Normally, that is,” the vice president of the student council, who had control over the core systems at Umesato Junior High, added regretfully, leaning back against the wall. “But today, when the school’s opened up for the festival, we have no choice but to lower the firewalls so visitors can connect. With her skill and privileges, it’s possible that she dug a hole somewhere in the network and slipped through…Naturally, I absolutely will not allow such things to happen again.”

Privileges. Maybe she meant that her family in Minato Ward had some connection with the company that managed Umesato Junior High, but he couldn’t exactly ask about that now.

Instead, he dipped his head in front of her. “Um, Kuroyukihime? I’m sorry for suddenly butting in back there.”

“Mmm. No, you don’t have to apologize.” Her response was basically the same thing as Fuko’s, a faint smile playing on her lips. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I was utterly undecided about whether to push the button to switch to Battle Royale. And if I’m uncertain, then now is still not the time to fight.”

Haruyuki felt a bit surprised and very delighted at how surprisingly normal the swordmaster’s demeanor was. The appearance of the White King had to have been completely unexpected for Kuroyukihime. He couldn’t believe she maintained her composure when faced with her older sister who had manipulated her, betrayed her, and chased her away.

Eight months earlier, when Haruyuki had only just become a Burst Linker, Kuroyukihime had said to him:

That person was once…the person closest to me. I believed this Linker would shine brightly forever at the center of my world and keep all kinds of darkness and cold at bay.

However, one day…one incident, one instant, I realized that this was an ephemeral illusion. Now, you could go so far as to say that, for me, this person is my archenemy.

Ever since, she had been unable to speak of the White King without getting upset. But today, when she finally encountered her mortal enemy again, she had pushed aside all fear and terror to stand tall and boldly declare the fight that was to come. A level-nine king herself, Kuroyukihime definitely wasn’t standing still, either. She trained and kept moving forward, seeking to grow stronger.

She had also once said the White King, her real-life older sister, was able to exert the greatest influence on her in the real world, and that if they were to fight, this fact would become a curse and bind her swords. But the Kuroyukihime of today would definitely be able to get past this almost absolute obstacle for a Burst Linker. He had no doubt that she would stand at the head of the Legion to boldly lead them.

Haruyuki gently wrapped his hands around the hand of hers that was still resting on his shoulder. “I’ll get much, much stronger before then. Strong enough to have your back in the field of the decisive battle.”

“…Mmm. I’m counting on you, Haruyuki.”

This would normally be the time when Chiyuri or Niko said something snarky, but even they had gentle smiles on their faces. In the center of the circle, Kuroyukihime gripped Haruyuki’s hands tightly in return and nodded deeply before looking around.

“Now then, everyone. After all that fighting, you must be hungry. Let’s get some food at the booths and have lunch in our secret box seats.”

They went around the refreshment booths in the courtyard and stocked up on the usual offerings—yakisoba, okonomiyaki, baked potato—added in some more unusual treats—tacos, falafel, samosas—and threw in churros and taiyaki for dessert, with enough drinks for them all, of course, and then Kuroyukihime led the party to a place no one expected—the roof of the second school building.

For Haruyuki, this was a space with no good memories. Up until the second term of grade seven, he had been called up here over and over by three boys in his class and forced to buy them snacks or juice, and he had been beaten up for no reason at all. After he was finally freed, he would hide until the end of lunch in a stall in the boys’ washroom in a part of the school where no one ever went and distract himself from his empty stomach in a one-person squash game on the local net.

With Kuroyukihime’s help, that bullying had ended abruptly, and he’d barely thought of it since then. But it wasn’t as though he’d forgotten those hellish days. That small, hard lump of memories was buried somewhere deep in his heart; he just pretended it didn’t exist.

Following everyone up to the roof, Haruyuki hung his head and came to a stop when he spotted a familiar rain stain on the concrete at his feet. Back then, too, he had always stopped here for a moment on the days that gang called him out. Beyond this shadow was territory that was out of range of the social cameras. Once he took a step forward, all the rules against irrational violence would go out the window.

Why had Kuroyukihime chosen this for her box seats? And what on earth were they supposed to see from here anyway?

“Haruyuki.”

He hurriedly lifted his face.

Kuroyukihime, who had been walking a little ahead, was now standing on the other side of the rain stain and smiling as she offered him her hand. Half unconsciously, he took it, and she pulled him forward, so Haruyuki was forced to jump over the gash and take a step forward.

What he saw first was a large plastic tarp spread out next to the solar power–generating nano-wire panel. Was this the place she was calling box seats? Sitting down, about all they’d be able to see was the trees of the inner courtyard and the northern wall of the first school building. But then Haruyuki realized that the tarp wasn’t the only thing near the solar panels.

A slim metal pole stretched up from the floor. He looked up and found not a floodlight at its tip, but rather a black sphere about fifteen centimeters across with a bluish luster. A social camera.

“Huh? …How…? There didn’t used to be a camera there,” Haruyuki muttered.

Kuroyukihime stood alongside him. “It took quite a bit of time. But there is no longer a single square meter of this school that is in the blind spot of a camera, and that includes the rear yard and the inner courtyard. I wanted to tell you that.”

“………”

He couldn’t say anything in reply at first.

The other eight had probably guessed there was something going on between Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime at the moment. They took off their shoes and slippers and stepped onto the tarp, chattering excitedly as they started to set out lunch. Haruyuki watched them absently.

The social cameras were set up and operated so that the government could strictly monitor the citizenry, including inside elementary and junior high schools, and no one would have said it was a perfect system. In fact, more than a few teachers hated the idea of cameras in schools. Such teachers insisted they shouldn’t rely on social cameras to prevent bullying, but rather give the students the independence and power to fight back on their own; i.e., deal with it if you’re dragged into a camera blind spot. But practically speaking, the camera blind spots themselves were what produced bullying, this denial of humanity through malice and violence. Haruyuki thought that not having any students bullied right from the start would be much more meaningful than the independence of the school that the teachers fixated on.

“Now no one will ever have to go through anything like that again, huh?” he said finally.

“Yes.” Kuroyukihime nodded firmly. “This was the one thing I felt I absolutely had to do while I was a member of the student council…Now, let’s have lunch. We can’t keep everyone waiting forever.”

“…Right!” As he walked over to rejoin their friends together with Kuroyukihime, Haruyuki’s voice was full of the emotions welling up inside him.

The seemingly plentiful lunch they had prepared vanished without a trace from the plastic tarp in a mere twenty minutes.

“Aaah, I’m stuffed.” Both legs stretched out in front of her, Niko patted her stomach, which was so slim you had to wonder where all that food went. “Eating outside’s pretty great. Let’s have a picnic in the park one o’ these days. There’s that big one over by the government building, yeah?”

“Th-there is, but that’s right in the middle of Leonids territory,” Takumu noted hurriedly.

“Listen, Professor.” Niko glared at him out of the corner of her eye. “We can cut the net off for a picnic, at least!”

Utai ran her fingers through the air. UI> IT WOULD BE FUN TO HAVE A PICNIC ON SATURDAY AND ATTACK THE BLUE TERRITORY ALL TOGETHER AFTER EATING.

“H-hang on, Uiui. That would leave Suginami area empty.” Kuroyukihime was quick to interject, and the other girls laughed cheerfully. Rin Kusakabe’s smiling face was also among them, naturally.

While on the one hand, he felt another wave of relief at how great everything had turned out, he also felt several thorns stabbing into the depths of his heart. One of these concerns was just as he had blurted out in the confrontation with the White King: the fact that they hadn’t been able to get all of Niko’s Enhanced Armament back. White Cosmos had called the thruster block still in Cerberus’s possession Armor and said it was a “precious hope.” Which meant the Acceleration Research Society’s scheming still wasn’t over. They were probably going to use Cerberus’s Armor to try to produce a new—and maybe even more massive—problem than the ISS kits.

“You’re not having a good time?” Akira had come to sit next to him at some point, and she offered him a paper cup as she spoke.

“Oh! No, it’s…Thank you.” He accepted the cup at any rate and took a sip of oolong tea. He brought his upturned face back down and found all eyes suddenly on him, so he unconsciously started to drop his head.

“Haruyuki, we still have some time. If you have something to say, you can say it, you know?” Kuroyukihime urged.

He nodded, although he did wonder exactly how much time until what. “Um. The thing that’s just really bothering me…is that we couldn’t get one of Niko’s Enhanced Armaments back.” He looked up at the girl in question, and the Red King merely blinked rapidly in response. This was unexpected, and Haruyuki unconsciously kept going. “I—I mean, Prominence has Territories, too, and all. And you can’t summon Invincible without the thrusters…?”

Niko exchanged a look with Pard to her left, and then they both looked at Haruyuki. Tugging on one of her red pigtails, Niko said, just the slightest bit apologetically, “Nah, I can.”

“……What?”

“Even without the thrusters, I can summon just the other parts.”

“……Y-you can?” Haruyuki gaped.

Her slightly contrite look disappeared, and the Red King puffed out her cheeks. “So, like, that knockoff Dusk Taker stole my Enhanced Armament and managed to equip just the four parts without the missile pods, y’know?! Normally, a person’d figure it out then! Listen. Invincible’s an attachment Enhanced Armament with the cockpit block at the center. So long as I got the cockpit, doesn’t matter if the rest is one piece or four pieces!”

“…R-really…?” Now it wasn’t just his mouth; Haruyuki’s eyes were also opened as wide as they could go.

“Well, I guess I’ll say thanks for lookin’ out fer me, at least.” Niko’s puffed-out cheeks deflated as she scratched the back of her head. “And it’s true; just ’cause I can equip the four pieces doesn’t mean I can forget about the thrusters or whatever. Just…I think that’s a problem I need to take care of myself.”

“What—? I’ll help! I mean, you went to the Unlimited Neutral Field to aid us, so we have a responsibility for what happened there.” Haruyuki unconsciously leaned forward toward Niko on the opposite side of the circle he and his friends sat in.

But the Red King curled her lips up in a faint smile, her face a mix of emotion, and then she looked up at the partly cloudy sky as she spoke slowly. “When that Vise jerk had me captive in that school, I was still conscious, still feelin’ stuff. I mean, it was kinda hazy, but I was there. So I was thinkin’ all kinds o’ stuff when that monster took my Enhanced Armaments one piece after another. Like I was gonna hafta give up being Promi’s LM now. Or like, maybe Pard’ll step up and take the reins as LM. But that wasn’t all. Surprised even me, but I was ready to give up, but also the opposite, too.”

She dropped her gaze down to her own small hand and clenched her fingers together tightly. “Level-wise, sure, I’m at nine, but my power doesn’t begin to compare with the other kings. Not in battle or in leadership or mentality.” Kuroyukihime opened her mouth to interject, but Niko shook her head lightly with a faint smile still visible. “I was half going with the flow when I became Promi’s LM…I’ve actually always thought that I don’t got the right to call myself the second Red King. In my heart somewhere, I was like, I should walk away from the whole mess before the chrome plating peels off and everyone sees how awkward I really am. But then my Enhanced Armament got stolen. Plus, my back was up against the wall, like maybe this is it—maybe I’m lookin’ at total point loss here. I finally had a reason to throw in the towel, y’know? But I didn’t want to, suddenly. What I really felt was regret. I didn’t want it to end there…Like, I didn’t want to betray Promi, not when it’s come so far after all that chaos three years ago. I mean, the Legion’s stuck with me all this time.”

Pard pursed her lips tightly together as if to keep the words that bubbled inside her from spilling out. Niko didn’t dare look in her direction, either, but rather looked at Haruyuki and Chiyuri in turn, her hands still clenched into fists on the slender legs that stretched out from her cutoffs.

“I seriously thank you from the bottom o’ my heart for taking down the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, and gettin’ back three pieces of my Enhanced Armament. But I think I need to spend some time really thinkin’ about what it means that the one piece is still gone. I hafta learn something from this. Just like you’re always doing, Haruyuki. So…don’t panic. As long as my thrusters are out there somewhere in the Accelerated World, I know I’ll get the chance to get ’em back. Until that chance comes along, I’m gonna rebuild myself so I can really call myself Legion Master—and maybe even the Red King. Also, I gotta pay back Metatron somehow, after she disappeared right next to me there.” Having finished this long, resolved speech, Niko gulped down the orange juice in her paper cup, looking embarrassed.

The thorn that had stabbed at Haruyuki’s heart melted away at her words, but something hot welled up in its place, and he had to blink repeatedly. He didn’t think he could speak, so he nodded his head silently over and over.

Sitting on her knees to the left, Kuroyukihime rose to her full height and unexpectedly said, “Niko—no, second Red King, Scarlet Rain. I have something to say to you on behalf of a certain friend.”

The tale she then told was a shocking truth. It hadn’t just been Dusk Taker that the Acceleration Research Society’s necromancer brought back. The memories of the first Red King, Red Rider, had also been revived to produce massive quantities of the ISS kit terminals and had been made to parasitize the kit main body.

“We fought the Rider that appeared from inside the main body. Naturally, it was not the real Rider I forced to total point loss, but rather a reproduction of his memories…But because of this, now, he himself is the lone true BBK.” Kuroyukihime looked directly at Niko. “When he was on the verge of disappearing, Rider said to tell his successor his last words…” She paused very briefly. “‘Say thanks to number two. She took over Promi for me. Tell her it’s up to her now.’”

The second Red King stayed silent.

And then, abruptly, clear droplets rose in her large reddish-brown eyes, flecked with a green that shone brilliantly depending on the light. Her tears soon spilled over, slid down her freckled cheeks, and fell onto the front of her red T-shirt. Perhaps noticing a little too late, Niko wiped furiously at her eyes, but the large tears just kept falling. Finally, she dropped her hand and pressed her face into the chest of Pard next to her. The Legion deputy, who’d long protected her Master, also blinked repeatedly as she held the girl tightly.

As he listened to the youthful wailing, tears sprang up in Haruyuki’s own eyes, too. But this time, at least, he wasn’t alone in his sympathetic tears. Chiyuri, Utai, Rin, Fuko, Takumu, Akira, and even Kuroyukihime all had watery eyes as they watched over the second Red King, now finally the official heir after more than two years.

A minute, then two, then three passed. Lifting a finger to the corner of her eye, Kuroyukihime called out loudly, “Now, it’s getting to be time. It’s starting!”

Reflexively, Haruyuki glanced at the clock in the lower right of his virtual desktop. The display was clear, unaffected by the tears filling his eyes, and showed 13:59:50. He wondered what exactly was supposed to start at two PM before he remembered. He felt like Kuroyukihime had said something about the student council’s festival exhibit starting at two before they dived into the Unlimited Neutral Field. But no matter what class or what gym it was in, they’d never make it in time now—

Clang, clang!

Just as the clock hit two, a light peal of bells rang through the air. But of course, there were no actual bells in the Umesato Junior High school building. Which meant only those connected to the local in-school net could hear this sound via their Neurolinkers. The bell, which sounded very much like Lime Bell’s Choir Chime, rang fourteen times and then stopped—its echo lingering in the air.

“Guests of the twenty-eighth Umesato Junior High School festival and school students,” the gentle, cadent voice of a female student—probably student council secretary Megumi Wakamiya—announced. “The student council executive will now unveil their project ‘Time.’ Please ensure your Neurolinkers are connected to the network for use at this school. The exhibit area is outside the school buildings. Those of you already outside, please remain there. Those of you inside, please go to a nearby window. Now then, let’s begin.”

The exhibit area’s outside the school? Haruyuki looked over at Kuroyukihime. But the student council vice president said nothing—a faint smile lingering on her lips. Takumu, Akira, and the others also looked around dubiously, while Niko lifted her face from Pard’s chest as though she hadn’t spent the last ten minutes wailing.

Fwssh! He felt a refreshing breeze on his skin. Since the Neurolinker’s augmented reality mode could only produce sound and images, this was just a real wind that came along at just the right time. But almost as though it were a signal of some kind, afterward, the back of the tall building he could see beyond the first school building to the south disappeared entirely.

“Ah!” Hurriedly getting to his feet, Haruyuki started to move toward the railing of the roof, but Kuroyukihime pulled him back.

“Haruyuki, everyone, it’s easier to see on the other side.”

“O-other side?” He turned around as he was told. The roof was only ten meters or so wide, so he should have been able to see Oume Highway and the neighborhood of 3-choume Minami Koenji over the railing on the opposite side.

But the familiar town wasn’t there, either. What spread out before him instead was a ocean of grass as far as the eye could see. It was almost like the Accelerated World’s Grassland stage, but it was dotted with low bushes, and he could see an enormous river about two kilometers to the north. From the location, he assumed it was the Myoshoji River, but that river was at most ten meters across. The one he saw now looked to be a kilometer to the opposite shore.

They all moved to the railing on the north side and opened their eyes wide in amazement, when, once again, they heard Megumi’s voice.

“What you are seeing right now is the view from eight thousand years ago in the early Jomon period. At that time, the end of the Musashino Terrace was a shoreline, and what is currently Suginami was in the center of a peninsula that jutted out into an enormous bay.”

“J-Jomon period?!” Haruyuki cried out in surprise and peered directly down over the railing. The grassy plain started immediately to the north of the animal hutch where Hoo, the northern white-faced owl, lived; Umesato was like a ship floating in a massive green ocean.

“Master. So does this mean then…that a video of a grassland is being AR–projection mapped over everything outside the school premises?” Takumu asked, showing off his professorial side.

“Mmm.” Kuroyukihime nodded. “Well, basically, yes.”

Genre-wise, it resembled the “Koenji Thirty Years Ago” that Haruyuki had unveiled with his own class, but the scale and difficulty were orders of different magnitude. To simply overlay AR images onto the classroom wall, they only had to set up markers in the corners. He had no idea what you would do exactly to overwrite an entire town. Sighing in admiration, he shifted his gaze from east to west, and further explanation came from Megumi.

“In this era, the Musashino Terrace was an important place for the people who lived in Tokyo in the Jomon period. They built pit-style homes near the water and went hunting and gathering in the vast grasslands. Earthenware and stone tools have been excavated in nearly every area of Suginami, and large-scale ruins have also been discovered in the southern area of the ward.”

Abruptly, a throaty howl rang out across the grassy plain.

“Ah! Over there!” Chiyuri jabbed a finger into the air.

He followed it with his gaze and saw ancient humans with simple lances and bows in their hands, clad in garments made from pelts and coarse cloth, chasing an enormous boar, large enough to be a Wild-class Enemy. They then disappeared, and several cone-shaped residences appeared in the grasslands. In the plaza, women worked together cooking, while children frolicked around them.

“It was eight thousand years ago. But those children. Looks like they haven’t. Changed so much from us…now,” Rin murmured.

“I suppose not,” Fuko said. “Actually, it’s not only the Jomon people from eight thousand years ago; even the first Homo sapiens who appeared two hundred fifty thousand years ago were basically the same as modern humans in their brain structure. If you gave those children Neurolinkers and a modern education, they’d probably grow up just like us. Although happy or not is another question.”

UI> THAT LAST BIT IS VERY YOU, FU.

Chiyuri and Kuroyukihime and the others laughed at this, with even Niko guffawing loudly, her eyes still swollen and red. As he joined them, Haruyuki quietly puzzled over the meaning of it all.

This exhibit was indeed amazing. It must have taken an enormous amount of time and effort to prepare. But why the Jomon period? Because it was easier to create a video of grasslands? But he found it hard to believe Kuroyukihime and the student council would choose their topic for a reason like that.

“Now then, let’s move the era forward a little,” Megumi said, surprising him. The number −8,000 appeared in the lower part of his field of view and began to drop with intense speed.

The exhibit from then on was nothing short of stunning. All at once, several thousand years passed to bring them to the Yayoi era twenty-three hundred years earlier. Wetland rice farming had begun, and the green plain was transformed into a golden-yellow rice field.

Seventeen hundred years ago—the Kofun period. The ancient state formed, and the control of the Yamato royal authority reached Musashino. The tools for working the fields and hunting, along with weapons for humans to fight humans, were now metal.

Fifteen hundred years ago—Asuka to Nara eras. Powerful regional clan chieftains known as kuninomiyakko appeared, and Musashino Province was established in the Kanto region by Chieftain Musashino. This was when the regional name Musashi appeared for the first time.

A thousand years ago—the Heian era. In Kansai, the nobles exulted in the height of their glory, but in Kanto, the warrior clans—the so-called bandomusha—rose to prominence a little earlier, and large domains took shape. Although the Musashino provincial government had been set up in the city of Fuchu, not so far from Suginami, antagonism among nobles on appointment from the capital and local warriors deepened, eventually leading to the insurgency of Tairo no Masakado, the most well-known of the bandomusha.

“All we ever study in school is the stuff that happened in the west in the Asuka and Heian eras, but there was stuff happening here, too, huh?” Haruyuki murmured as he watched the warriors cross swords on horseback.

“You’re totally right.” Takumu tilted his head so his glasses shone in the light. “We live in Tokyo, so we should really take up more of the history of the east in class. For instance, the Musashi Shichito, warrior groups that sprang up here in Musashino, were assigned important positions in the Kamakura bakufu. It wasn’t just Kiyomori and Yoritomo establishing the samurai government; these eastern warriors were in there, too—”

“Come, come, Takumu. I know that as a samurai, you get excited about these warriors, but don’t go getting on ahead of the show,” Kuroyukihime interjected with a wry smile, and Takumu dropped his head, embarrassed. All the while, the times continued to flow past with Megumi’s smooth narration.

Eight hundred years ago—the Kamakura era.

Six hundred years ago—the Muromachi era. With the formation of medieval samurai society, several small villages appeared in what was currently Suginami Ward. The area around Umesato Junior High was a village known as Ozawa, and the temple at the center was called Koenji.

And then they passed through the warring-states era to four hundred fifty years ago—the Edo period. Many tough laborers were transforming the narrow path to the immediate north of Umesato Junior High into the broad town road. The narration informed them that the Oume highway they came to school on every day had been built for the construction of Edo Castle, and they all cried out in surprise.

A large, imposing procession appeared on the highway. This was the procession of the third shogun, Iemitsu Tokugawa, who was said to have enjoyed falconry in Ozawa. Because Iemitsu would sometimes stay at Koenji, the name of the village eventually changed to Koenji. Looking ahead of the falconry procession on their way home, Haruyuki saw the majestic figure of Edo Castle’s tenshukaku tower keep rising, looming above the streets of Edo.

“The Castle,” Akira murmured, and they all nodded, each weighed down with their own thoughts.

But finally, the Great Fire of Meireki burned Edo up. The tower keep was also burned down, and the night sky was dyed a brilliant red. In the present year of 2047, the social cameras would no sooner catch the signs of a fire starting than they were sending the information to the fire department network, so there were basically no large-scale fires, and the fearsomeness of the great blaze of Edo left them all at a loss for words.

But the gutted town was immediately rebuilt. The development of the relay station that opened to the immediate east of Koenji, Naito Shinjuku, continued, and they could clearly see the bustling streets of town from the roof of Umesato Junior High. There were any number of great fires after that, but the city continued to develop at a speed that far surpassed the fires. The culture was overripe, and the wind of a new era finally blew in the town of Edo, which boasted the largest population in the world at that time.

One hundred seventy years earlier—the Meiji era. This was the start of the Westernization movement, and the tree-and-paper-town streets changed to stone. The light of gas lamps bled into the night fog, and horse-drawn carriages passed on the cobblestone lanes. Finally, the laying of railroads began, and Kobu Railways started operation between Ochanomizu and Hachioji. A British-made K1 steam train raced along an open field a little way from the highway, puffing black smoke, and children chased after it, cheering. At the end of the Meiji period, Kobu Railways was nationalized and became the Chuo Line.

One hundred thirty years earlier—the Taisho era. Koenji Station was built between Nakano and Ogikubo stations, and a new town sprang up around it. Of course, this wasn’t yet the overhead rail line, and the station building was surprisingly small, but it was in exactly the same place as the current Koenji Station. The steam locomotive ran ahead of other lines and turned into a train.

And then, a hundred years earlier. The Showa era. In place of carriages, automobiles began to race down Oume Highway. Naturally, the cars were gasoline engines, and Japanese models like Datsun were mixed in with the Fords and GMs. Airplanes and biplanes appeared in the sky.

Before Haruyuki knew it, the wild warriors who raced on horseback across the plains of Musashino were a distant vision. Over a period of a thousand years, civilization had made surprising progress, with the feudal system becoming a democratic system to give shape to a peaceful modern society. The sun sank, and the gentle lights of incandescent lamps shone in the windows of houses.

Suddenly, however, an ominous formation of airplanes cut across the sky high above. Black objects fell from the bellies of the machines, and several explosions erupted in Ogikubo before his eyes.

“Huh?! Is this the Pacific War?” Chiyuri cried out, shaken. “There were air raids in Suginami?”

“Yeah.” Haruyuki nodded and gripped the railing tightly. “There was a factory in Ogikubo that made warplanes, so it was targeted straight off.”

“You’re quite knowledgeable, Haruyuki,” Kuroyukihime said quietly, holding down hair that fluttered in the breeze with one hand. “I had no idea until we were putting together the materials to make this exhibit. And it only happened a hundred years ago.”

“Oh! Uh, I never actually thought about it in relation to where I live, though.”

While they were talking, the sound of engines roared above their heads once more. This air raid was a large one. Firebombs fell from countless bombers, and the town of Koenji was enveloped in flames.

“Ah!” Rin cried out weakly.

The Koenji Station building crumbled in the blaze. The shops and houses in the area were burned up one after the other, the night sky dyed a bright red. And it wasn’t just Suginami; all of central Tokyo was ablaze. The narration informed them that in over a hundred air raids, including the one of the night they were watching, a third of the area of Tokyo’s twenty-three wards had been burned to ash.

In the summer of 2045 when Haruyuki was in sixth grade, a large ceremony to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the end of the war had been held in Tokyo. Bored by himself at home, Haruyuki had watched the broadcast of the ceremony, but he hadn’t been able to feel anything, apart from an understanding that there had been a war a hundred years earlier. That was no doubt because he’d thought wars from long ago were events from different worlds, different times. But that wasn’t the case. One had happened a mere hundred years ago in the town of Koenji, where he lived.

As he stood there watching, time continued its endless flow.

Reduced to a barren landscape in the war, Suginami was rebuilt in the blink of an eye. A new Koenji Station building was also built, and a brand-new 101 series train began to run along the silver rails. Finally, the era of rapid growth came, and the buildings gradually got taller while traffic on Oume Highway continued to increase.

Fifty years earlier. Forty years earlier. Thirty years earlier. The town steadily approached the form it had been in Haruyuki’s memories. The combustion engine cars moved through hybrids to eventually become electric and fuel cell vehicles, while the people coming and going on the sidewalks gripped portable terminals in their hands.

“Ah,” Chiyuri gasped. “The social cameras.”

He looked closely and saw that black spheres—the social cameras—had appeared all over town at some point. The introduction of the cameras had actually happened with similarly little fanfare.

Another significant change that didn’t look like much happened right away. The terminals disappeared from people’s hands, and in their places, wearable transmission terminals—Neurolinkers—began to appear on their necks. The counter in the bottom of his field of view read −0015.

On the other side of Koenji Station, a large skyscraper condo with a shopping mall appeared. Haruyuki’s parents had bought No. 2305 in this building, and Haruyuki had been born the following year. Even though he knew it was only a reproduction, he stared at the windows in the area of his house. He imagined his mother and father, back when they still got along, and himself as a baby living together happily in the gentle light shining through the glass. But the timer quickly passed the year his parents had divorced.

The time it took for the exhibit to move from the Jomon era eight thousand years earlier to the present day was a mere twenty minutes. A rough calculation showed that the scale of acceleration was about two hundred million times. The exhibit seemed to decelerate as it grew closer to the present day, but even still, the fourteen years since Haruyuki was born were equivalent to a tiny spark in the long history. A time so short and insignificant that he couldn’t find any meaning in it.

But this exhibit, “Time,” was not trying to make that point. History was a series of human activities. Perhaps even time itself was. They were alive right now in the midst of the flow of vast time. The time in which all people had lived was spun into thread and woven into fabric to create the long picture scroll that was history. And that flow would continue on from now. Forever. Endlessly. This was what the exhibit was telling Haruyuki and his friends.

“Our long historical journey is approaching its end,” came the quiet announcement to bring the exhibit to a close. “Please look to the sky now.”

Haruyuki and company all turned their heads skyward. Although the actual time was not yet two thirty, the sky was dyed the bright red of twilight.

The counter finally reached 0000, but the digit on the right end went just a little farther ahead and stopped at +0005. A series of glittering lights approached from the distance of the twilight sky. They stretched out—perpendicular and endless—into silver threads. A ladder that continued up to the Heavens. It was…

“Hermes’ Cord!” Haruyuki shouted, unconsciously throwing himself backward, losing his balance, and very nearly falling down. But Kuroyukihime grabbed his right arm—and Chiyuri his left—to keep him on his feet.

Wordlessly, Fuko took Kuroyukihime’s right hand—and Takumu Chiyuri’s left. Rin, Akira, and Utai similarly held hands. Finally, Niko and Pard joined in, and the ten formed a large circle on the roof.

The space elevator, Hermes’ Cord, was classified as a low-earth orbit type, but since it flew along at the supersonic speed of Mach 10 at the super-high altitude of 150 kilometers above the ground, to the naked eye, it was nothing but a small point of light. But the threads of this god of flight reproduced as an AR image approached slowly, low enough in the sky that they could clearly make out the details of the bottom station, and stopped directly above Umesato Junior High. The tip of the 40-kilometer-long elevator—made principally of carbon nanotubes—melted into the sky where madder-red changed to indigo blue and disappeared from view. A silver transport ship piled with some kind of cargo ascended from the station.

“Five years from now, in 2052,” the narration recommenced, “the world’s first international manned Mars mission will begin. The parts for the spacecraft will be carried to Hermes’ Cord’s top station, and the ship will be assembled in orbit. People who once ran through the grasslands of the Jomon era with stone lances in hand will step onto the soil of Mars eight thousand years later. But this doesn’t mean we will stop there. Humanity will continue to move forward for hundreds, thousands more years. Our parents’ generation, our own, that of our children—we will all walk that path.”

The transport ship, having reached the edge of the sky, flickered brightly and disappeared. Hermes’ Cord started to move again and receded, swallowed into the large twilight sun.

“This concludes the student council executive’s exhibit ‘Time.’ Thank you for joining us.”

With Megumi’s announcement, the counter disappeared, and the red of twilight faded until the cloudy sky returned. But that was the only change that happened in his field of view. Because the view spreading out beyond Umesato Junior High had already become one with the AR image.

There was a slight pause, and then an enormous applause swelled up from inside the school. Haruyuki also let go of Kuroyukihime’s hand and slapped his hands together enthusiastically, and his friends quickly joined him.

Niko had supposedly stopped crying, but something bright rose in her eyes once again. Without bothering to try to hide this, the second Red King said, “I’m glad I came today. I can really feel the meaning in me being born, becoming a Burst Linker, and making friends with you guys.” Wiping roughly at her eyes with a fist, she continued jokingly, “Buuut, Kuroyukihime, you know you got high school exams, yeah? Can’t believe you had the free time to make something huge like that!”

“Y-you don’t have to mention that now,” Kuroyukihime retorted, her face grim, and everyone laughed out loud. Soon, she was smiling, too, as she shrugged lightly. “And it’s not like I made it by myself. The president’s surprisingly good at this sort of thing…Well, I did use up thirty points, though.”

“Ah, no fair!” Chiyuri yelped.

“It is not ‘no fair’!” Kuroyukihime argued immediately. “There is no more just use of Burst Points than this!”

Everyone raised their voices in laughter once again.

Watching over this cheerful back-and-forth among his comrades, Haruyuki made one hard decision in his heart. When Lime Bell took apart the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, in the Unlimited Neutral Field, he’d had the thought that Citron Call might be able to rewind the extinction of Metatron, too. That hope—or regret—was still there. If there was even a 0.1 percent chance, he felt compelled to try it.

But.

Chocolat Puppeteer, who he’d met in the Setagaya Area, had explained to him that when a dead Enemy is restored, it’s at best the same species of Enemy; the exact same individual is not reproduced. The bond that took long hours to build was gone forever.

Even if he could bring Metatron back, there was no guarantee it would be the proud Archangel who fought Haruyuki, helped him, spoke to him, and was destroyed protecting him. If she regenerated as a completely new Legend-class Enemy Archangel Metatron, that individual would immediately kill Haruyuki and Chiyuri on the spot.

He wasn’t afraid of being attacked. But Metatron’s essential nature was a “soul” that had lived in the Unlimited Neutral Field the vast amount of time of eight thousand years—in terms of human history, from the Jomon era to the present day—cultivating knowledge and deepening her thinking. To revive her as a soulless Enemy was a desecration of his Metatron. Above all else, she herself would not want that.

“What’s. The matter…Arita?” Rin had come up beside him at some point, and now she tugged on his sleeve, and Haruyuki came back to himself, hurriedly shaking his head.

“Uh, oh, no, it’s nothing. I was just, um, thinking about stuff.”

“I’ve. Thought a lot. Too. Like. I have to cherish. The time I spend with you. Like this…Even more than. I have…”

“Uh, oh, y-yeah, right.” Haruyuki started to nod, and Kuroyukihime grabbed his collar; Fuko, Rin’s sleeve.

“Haruyuki, I’m very happy that the student council exhibit caused you to think about a number of things, but I didn’t intend the takeaway to be that you should deepen your relationship with any particular girl.”

“That’s right, Rin. I would appreciate it if you would also cherish your special training with me as much as the time you spend with Corvus.”

““R-right…”” Haruyuki and Rin replied together.

“The message I got was there’s no time to waste,” Pard commented coolly. “There’s thirty minutes left until the school festival ends at three.”

“Oh yeah. Anything you wanna recommend that we haven’t seen yet?” Niko asked, having completely wiped her tears away.

Haruyuki thought a minute, the collar of his shirt still gripped from behind. He’d already shown them his own class’s exhibit, and anyway, after they’d all been knocked out by the student council’s super-junior-high-student-level AR display, he would be too embarrassed to show them the work he’d finished up in a single night. Did any of the other classes do something that might be fun…?

Pard was apparently headed for even greater impatience in life, because she said, as though she just couldn’t wait any longer, “Then we show Kuroyuki, Chiyu, and the professor Haru’s class’s exhibit, too.”

It appeared that the two members of the Red Legion had decided to call Kuroyukihime “Kuroyuki,” Chiyuri “Chiyu,” Takumu “the professor,” and Haruyuki by his full name or “Haru” in the real world. This kind of nickname normally came into existence spontaneously at some point, but his heart couldn’t help but skip a beat at Pard suddenly calling him Haru after going with Crow all this time. He coughed to hide his surprise.

“B-but it’s totally nothing compared with the student council’s display…”

“What are you talking about? I’ve really been looking forward to it. As have Takumu and Chiyuri,” Kuroyukihime said, letting go of his collar.

Chiyu-Taku also chimed in enthusiastically.

“Of! Course! It’s our class display, and if we didn’t have time today, I was going to get you to let me see it after the festival closes to the public.”

“Same here. I’ve been hearing good things about it.”

“…O-okay then, just for a sec…” He nodded slightly, although he was actually happy to hear Kuroyukihime and the others say that.

“Right.” Fuko clapped her hands together and smiled brilliantly. “We’re all together at last, so after that, why don’t we go to the Animal Kingdom again? Sacchi and the others haven’t tried it yet.”

“Huh?” Haruyuki stiffened instantly, and Pard, Niko, Akira, Utai, and Rin looked away awkwardly. But when the still-smiling Fuko went so far as to wink exaggeratedly at him, Haruyuki couldn’t refuse. He turned back toward a doubtful Kuroyukihime, Chiyuri, and Takumu. “Uh, um. Okay then, let’s get going to eighth-grade Class C…”

The last thirty minutes of the festival actually saw a number of exciting developments.

Fortunately, the three who hadn’t yet seen “Thirty Years Ago in Koenji,” the class exhibit Haruyuki had worked so hard on—although his hard work was about a hundredth of the efforts of Kuroyukihime—appeared to enjoy it. This era passed by in the blink of an eye in the student council exhibit, but if you looked closely at the recent past of around 2017, it did make you think about all kinds of things…was Kuroyukihime’s comment.

Then they headed toward the problematic eighth-grade Class B’s Café Animal Kingdom. Reina Izeki, the project producer and fellow member of the Animal Care Club, grinned as she led them to a table. “So you’re back, Pres?” Just like the last time, they ordered drinks with animal names. Chiyuri, on her first visit, chose the Kitten’s Prank, and similarly inexperienced Kuroyukihime ordered the Twilight Crow.

When they were done with their drinks, they moved to the stage at the rear of the class, and the eight girls took a commemorative photo by themselves in the normal AR animal costumes. Then, at Fuko’s instruction, everyone except Kuroyukihime and Chiyuri left the stage. Without a moment’s delay, the truly frightening Master Raker looked at Haruyuki and said with another wink, “Okay, go ahead, Corvus.”

This is an order. I can’t exactly go against my master’s orders. Haruyuki dug deep into the costume program menu and, abandoning all hope, changed the current selection of ANIMAL FUR SUITS to ANIMAL FUR SUITS S (aka sexy).

Onstage, Chiyuri and Kuroyukihime stared blankly for about two seconds, but the instant they realized that the surface area of the fur covering their bodies had decreased by 90 percent, they let out shrieks he’d never heard before.

“So, Haru.” Takumu turned toward Haruyuki at the tail end of their party as they headed for the entrance after leaving Animal Kingdom and pushed up the bridge of his glasses. “Did you get the photo?”

“Yeah. But it was erased in the forced direct connection…”

“It was…? What about recovering the data?”

“Not very likely. But I intend to try.”

“…Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“Got it. I’ll be in touch.”

As they talked in low voices, Chiyuri turned around and stared at them. “What’re you whispering about?”

““Nothing.”” The two male members of Nega Nebulus shook their heads in perfect unison.

Three o’clock.

Haruyuki and his friends heard the announcement of the end of the school festival in a corner of the front yard. Once again, applause rose from within the school and then faded out like the tide. The invited guests—mostly students’ friends and family—slipped through the front gates and chatted about the festival with smiles on their faces.

The next day, Monday, was cleanup, and the day after that, Tuesday, was a day off in lieu of Sunday. Once that was over, the special atmosphere of the school festival would disappear without a trace. He’d experienced this in seventh grade as well, but he didn’t think he’d be able to return to regular life so easily this year.

“Aaah, it’s over, huh?” Niko said, stretching both arms out, and then added as if a sudden thought had occurred to her, “You guys don’t have an after-party or anything now?”

Whaaat?! Haruyuki nearly shouted, but Kuroyukihime commented before he could.

“That’s a good idea…I’d like to say yes, but unfortunately, I have a number of things to take care of and won’t be leaving anytime soon. It’s impossible.”

“You don’t gotta come or anythin—”

“It’s. Im. Possible! Anyway, everyone’s tired today. If you don’t go home and get a good night’s sleep, tomorrow will be painful.”

“Tch! Whatevs.” Although Niko looked disgruntled, she followed this with a serious yawn.

Pard awkwardly picked up her Legion Master from behind. “We’ll head back to Nerima now. Thanksy. Stuff happened, but it was fun.”

“Pard, once again, congratulations on reaching level eight.” Longtime rival Fuko celebrated Pard’s leveling up and then asked, “So what should I call you in the real, I wonder?”

“Myah’s fine, Fu.”

“…Understood. Well then, I look forward to dueling you, Myah.”

“K.” Pard nodded.

“M’kay, next time, come to us!” Niko waved, and the two members of Prominence disappeared into the throng of people passing through the gates.

Fuko tugged on Rin’s hand and moved forward. “I’ll thank you one last time. Corvus, thank you for saving Rin and Ash.” She bowed her head deeply.

“Th-that’s— It wasn’t just me,” Haruyuki hurried to reply. “All of us worked hard to make it happen…And it was you and Kuroyukihime and the others who destroyed the main body and all.”

“But that all began because of your desire to help Rin.” Fuko smiled.

“Um.” Rin arranged her hands in front of her and bent deeply at the waist. “Me. And my brother. We both really, really. Really appreciate what. You did, Arita. I’ll do whatever. I can to pay you. Back. First, I want to. Materialize as soon. As possible, like. Master said.”

What? He was confused, but Rin bowed her head once more with watery eyes, so he simply said, “Me too. I’m really happy that you and, of course, Ash came back to us, Kusakabe. Tell your brother I’m looking forward to our next morning duel.”

“Yes. Of. Course!” Rin nodded.

“I have to thank you, too.” Akira stepped forward and turned to Haruyuki and the others. The ever-cool eyes beyond the red frames of her glasses softened as she continued. “Thanks for freeing me from the Castle. It’s like a dream to be able to fight with everyone in that world again. We still have mysteries and problems to solve. But we can take them one by one. We’ll figure it out.”

At last, Fuko, Rin, and Akira all bowed together once more and headed toward the side gate. Fuko would probably give them a ride in her car. Once they disappeared from view, Utai’s fingers flashed.

UI> NOW THEN, I WILL GIVE HOO HIS SUPPER BEFORE I ALSO GO HOME. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR INVITING ME TODAY.

“Oh, I’ll help you,” Haruyuki naturally offered as president of the Animal Care Club.

UI> NO, I WILL BE FINE ALONE TODAY. ARITA, YOU MUST BE MORE EXHAUSTED THAN YOU THINK. YOU REALLY MUST HURRY HOME, EAT A BIG SUPPER, TAKE A LONG BATH, AND GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP. Utai rebutted him like an older sister even though she was the much younger one, and Haruyuki tried to argue with a “B-but”; however, he was cut short by the words that flowed across his field of view. UI> THAT’S AN ORDER FROM THE SUPER-PRESIDENT! Utai tapped out with a grin.

“That’s right, Haruyuki.” Kuroyukihime’s smile was slightly wry. “Go home and rest. Otherwise, the cleanup tomorrow will be rough.”

“Yeah, Haru!” Chiyuri immediately chimed in her own encouragement, and Takumu was not far behind.

“They’re right, Haru.”

So he was forced to nod in agreement. Thinking that those two had to be just as tired as he was, he asked if they could walk home together, but Chiyuri had track and Takumu, kendo. He felt like he was forbidden to even offer to wait, so he simply said, as a good-bye, “Um. Okay, then, Shinomiya, say hi to Hoo for me.”

UI> I’LL MAKE SURE TO DO THAT!

“And, Kuroyukihime, I really was impressed by that exhibit. The crepes at your booth were delicious, Chiyu, and Taku, your samurai dance was amazing. Thanks for a great school festival, everyone.”

Kuroyukihime and the others all exclaimed, “Thanks, everyone!”—with Utai via chat, of course.

In that moment, Haruyuki felt keenly that that year’s school festival was over. They still had to clean up, but for eighth-grade class C, at least, all they had to do was take down the panel boards and put the desks and chairs back. They could probably finish that in the morning the next day.

And so the long June finally ended. Morning would bring the start of July. They’d have finals and the closing ceremony, and then it would be summer holidays. No one could stop the flow of time. The future kept pushing in, changing the present to the past. At the very least, he wanted to spend each and every day—each minute, each second without regret, if possible. To pay back all the people who had guided him so far.

Haruyuki waved a big good-bye at his friends and slipped through the clock-shaped gate and out of the school.