Accel World - Volume 16 - Chapter 8

8

The Unlimited Neutral Field he returned to after three and a half hours in real-world time was dyed a pure white. He touched the crystals of snow falling soundlessly from the ashen sky with an outstretched palm, and they immediately melted and vanished. The skyscraper condo that rose up at his feet had transformed into an enormous mass of ice.

An Ice stage. Given that the stage did not allow entry into buildings, he had appeared on the roof of the condo.

“So there was a Change, huh?” he muttered, but that was only natural. Three and a half real hours was equivalent to about 146 days in the Accelerated World. He slowly lowered himself onto the ice block, covered in about twenty centimeters of snow. Metal-color avatars did have resistance to ice damage, but that didn’t mean they didn’t feel the cold. But right now, he felt fond of even the chill that pricked at his nervous system.

“You said you hated the Hell stage, but I wonder what you thought of the Ice stage,” he spoke to himself as he pulled up a lump of snow with both hands. There was no voice in return, but this was Metatron. Her entire body was a snowy white. He was sure she had liked this pure-white world. Still sitting on the edge of the roof, he stared to the southwest.

The falling snow obstructed his view, so he couldn’t even see the government building in Shinjuku. But in that direction lay Tokyo Midtown, where they had fought a fierce battle with Metatron’s first form…and farther beyond that was the old Tokyo Tower and Shiba Park.

“I wanted to see what your Castle was like…”

Now that he thought about it, although he’d been to the old Tokyo Tower where Fuko had set up her hermitage any number of times, he’d never even seen the entrance to the dungeon below Shiba Park. But he probably wouldn’t visit it now. The masterless Castle would only make his sadness grow.

And then Haruyuki suddenly realized. Maybe he didn’t need to get Chiyuri to use Citron Call? When an Enemy was defeated, it came back when a Change happened. Metatron’s true body—her second form—had not once been defeated in eight thousand years, but the same rule had to apply to her, too, didn’t it? In other words, it was possible that, at that moment, the master had come back to the lowest level of the Shiba Park dungeon.

“……”

He scattered his momentarily rising hope with a sigh into the chill air. Even if she had come back, it was undoubtedly a “new” Metatron. Not the Being who fought her own destiny and longed to see the edges of the world, but an Enemy who simply and faithfully executed its orders to attack any visiting Burst Linkers.

“…Why?” Haruyuki muttered hoarsely. “Why…did you…?”

The person he spoke to was not Metatron. It was the unknown developer who had created the Accelerated World—Brain Burst 2039, along with Accel Assault 2038 and Cosmos Corrupt 2040.

“Why did you give Metatron a mind? For what reason did you give her the power to think…the ability to worry, feel pain, have hope? Why did you give her the courage to save a speck of dirt like me…a soul…? Why did you give her love?!” He beat his clenched fists against the ice. The large, strong building of the Ice stage didn’t so much as shudder. He brought it down again and then a third time, and a sharp pain ran through his fist, but he paid it no mind and kept punching. “Why…why…why?!”

A small crack ran across the armor of his right fist. An agony like he was being stabbed with ice needles raced along his virtual nerves. But it was not enough. Not by a long shot.

That moment, back then.

He’d only watched at that moment, when Metatron transformed her own self into energy and fired Trisagion. He’d only felt her dedication and annihilation from close-up. Wasn’t there actually something he could have done?

Incarnate energy if there wasn’t enough sunlight. His own spirit when his imagination was used up. Hadn’t there still been a way he could have fought alongside her rather than just being protected by her, even it meant he totally fried his nervous system?

“But…But I…!!” He beat down on the ice as hard as he could. Concentric cracks raced outward in the blue mass of ice, and minute fragments of his silver armor scattered. His health gauge decreased, and an intense pain pierced his head.

Again. And again.

The armor on his hands peeled away to reveal the dark gray of his avatar’s naked body. If he kept hitting the ice, his arms themselves would shatter and scatter. But he didn’t care. He would keep tasting this pain until he himself was gone.

As if in response to Haruyuki’s feelings, a strong wind started to blow, and a snowstorm fell upon the stage. Wrapped in swirling white flakes, he moved to bring his peeling fists down hard on the ice again.

…still…there.

He felt like he heard someone’s voice from far off in the distance somewhere. He stopped breathing. Hands still in the air, he cleared his ears. In the middle of the roaring snowstorm, he desperately sought out the voice.

…you’re…still…there.

It was calm—a silky-smooth mezzo-soprano. A female voice…but different from Metatron’s sweet, clear soprano. It wasn’t Kuroyukihime’s or Fuko’s or the voice of anyone Haruyuki knew.

“Who are you…?” he asked hoarsely, slowly lowering his hands. “What’s still there…?”

…am…terasu. Meta…sworn friend.

Like tuning an old radio transmission, the voice gradually grew louder and clearer. Haruyuki forgot about the pain in his hands and focused his mind intently.

…The link to…Meta…core is…still inside y…

…It depends on you whether the core can be recovered. On the strength of this power you all call Incarnate.

…There’s not much time left. Before the core vanishes…

…Reach out your hand. If you…then…surely…

The voice receded rapidly and disappeared.

No matter how hard he listened, all he could hear was the roar of the blizzard. He almost believed it had been an auditory hallucination brought on by his endless regret, but it couldn’t have been. The link with Metatron was still inside Haruyuki. The mysterious voice’s proclamation had been entirely unexpected.

“Inside…of me…,” he muttered, dumbfounded, and then clenched his hands together tightly. Metatron’s core could be recovered if he had enough Incarnate power…That’s what the voice had said. And also that there was no time.

If there was even a chance, he had to take it. But he didn’t know what he should do. To activate the Incarnate System, a focused imagination was necessary. But he had absolutely no idea what the shape of the image would be or its target…

He was on the verge of looking around to try to find the someone who had told him this, but he restrained himself. There’s no one but me here. The only one who can reach out to Metatron is me. This is a time when I have to think by myself, work by myself, and make it happen by myself. My promise to Metatron…the promise to see the end of the world together, it’s now.

If he still had a connection with Metatron, then the key to it was the wings. The Enhanced Armament, Metatron Wings, that the Archangel had loaned him—the wings that had saved Haruyuki from a crashing death in the final moments of the battle with Mark II.

He knelt on the ice, clasped his hands together in front of his face, and imagined them. Elegant, sharp, pure-white wings stretching out a little above his shoulder blades. Metatron had warned him of danger any number of times through those wings. That sensation…that connection, one more time.

He closed his eyes. The raging storm, the pain in his hands, the cold enveloping his body—it all receded. In the darkness, the image of transient wings stretching out. The image of rising up higher and higher until he reached the end of this world. The image of breaking out of the Mean Field, the Unlimited Neutral Field…Flying to the Highest Level…

“Metatron.

“Can you hear me, Metatron?

“I’m here. I’ve spread the wings you gave me, and I’m flying through the world you loved.

“And I’m reaching a hand out to you.”

Shik!

A small star flickered in the distance in the infinite darkness. A white light so ephemeral, so weak it looked like it would disappear at any second…but from it came a hazy warmth.

Flapping his wings as hard as he could, Haruyuki reached out. Fwnk, fwnk. The flickering light was so far away, and his arms were far too short. But distance wasn’t the problem. If he believed he could reach…If he changed all the energy his mind produced into the power of belief—if he could just reach out a little farther, a little bit more…See?

Gently, softly, he wrapped the light up in the palms of his hands. And opened his eyes.

The dancing snowflakes. The smashed ice floor. And icicles hanging from his hands, frozen hard—still clasped together. Slowly, he pulled his hands apart. Icicles dropped off, hit the ground, and shattered. Bit by little bit, he opened his hands up.

But there was nothing there. The whirling snow stuck to his gray palms and colored them white. Was it all an illusion? A brief dream he’d had in the freezing storm?

No. A tiny point of light, smaller than a single ice crystal, shone faintly in the center of his palm.

Shik, shik. It flickered on a definite cycle, like a beacon to guide travelers through the blizzard. Or like the pulsing of a heart.

Curling up his hand to protect the spot of light from the cold, Haruyuki gently exhaled. The flashing gradually grew faster. The cycle of once per second became three times…and then ten. Finally, Haruyuki’s eye was no longer able to perceive the amplitude as it stabilized into a state of continuous light.

The light puffed out to become a ring about two centimeters across. Below the ring, a long, slender spindle appeared. And then two small wings stretched out from either side of that. The entire thing was tinged with a milky-white light.

There was no way he was seeing wrong. This was the three-dimensional icon of Metatron that had guided Haruyuki in the Acceleration Research Society headquarters. Was it the real thing? Or a momentary vision produced by his imagination?

Ever so timidly, he moved his hand to gently stroke the spindle with his index finger. He touched it. It had substance. And a hazy heat that penetrated the core of his body.

“…Meta. Tron…,” he said in a shaking voice, going to touch the icon again.

“Such…insolence!!”

A powerful scolding voice slammed into the center of his brain, and Haruyuki reeled, landing on his backside. The icon slipped from his palm and began to hover about ten centimeters above his head, vibrating its wings.

“Do you think a servant such as yourself is permitted to touch me in such a fashion, Silver Crow?! As punishment for this rude act, I shall extend your period of service to me by five hundred years!!”

“……”

For a moment, he stared up at the icon, dumbfounded. And then abruptly, his field of view warped. Beneath his goggles, he felt hot liquid spilling from his eye lenses. These fell from the bottom of his face mask and instantly melted the snow piled up on his avatar’s armor. The hot tears welled up one after another.

It wasn’t a vision. Just as the mysterious voice had told him, she hadn’t vanished. The details of the logic weren’t clear, but the link with Haruyuki had remained, and on the brink of extinction, Metatron’s spirit had been revived by his activation of that circuit.

Unable to speak, he simply let the tears spill from his eyes, and Metatron’s tone softened just a little.

“At any rate, it should have been possible to guess that I had evaded complete extinction at the point when the wings I loaned you remained even after the link was cut. To begin with, it’s quite impossible for me to disappear in a battle with an enemy on that level. You are my servant; understand at least the scale of your master’s power. However, that said, I shall commend you on being able to reestablish the link with me. Unfortunately, at the moment, I am unable to bestow a proper reward…”

That was the limit. Unable to hold back the emotions that swelled up in him, Haruyuki reached out, wrapped his arms around the icon, and hugged it to his chest.

“Ah! Come now! What are you doing?!”

Feeling fond of the vibration of the small wings and the hazy warmth of the light, he murmured, “Welcome back, Metatron. I’m so glad that you’re…you’re…” He managed to get that far somehow, but his sobs got in the way, and the rest of his sentence failed to become words.

As the storm started to calm, he curled into a ball on top of the ice and wept. He sobbed out loud like a small child. The vibration in the palm of his hand changed to a gentle pulsation, as if she had resigned herself to this indignity or to soothe him, and the spindle got a little hotter. The gentle warmth eased the pain in his injured hands.

Without noticing that the snow had stopped at some point, the sun shining through gaps in the thick clouds, Haruyuki continued to cry for a long time.

(The End)