Accel World - Volume 18 - Chapter 7

7

“So then, Coba and Manga agreed to take on the observer role on Saturday?” Chiyuri asked over the voice call.

“Yeah, basically,” Haruyuki replied. “They kept asking about the Metatron mission, though, which was some rough going. But they’ll be on standby at the Institute for Nature Study in Minato Number Three, and they said they’ll check the matching list as soon as the Territories are over.”

“Good. That’s great. Nice work on that mission, Haru. Now all we have to do is pray that at least one member of the Society is connected globally at that time.”

He nodded and set his arms on the balcony railing as he looked out in the direction of Koenji. The temperature didn’t drop that much even at night, but his condo was up high, so the breeze blowing past felt good. White headlights and red taillights flowed slowly down Kannana Street below his eyes. As he took in the flickering lights, he listed in his mind the known Acceleration Research Society members.

First, the president—the White King, White Cosmos. It was only natural for her name to be on the list in Minato, so that wouldn’t be any kind of proof.

Next was the vice president, the formidable Black Vise, who had pushed Haruyuki and his friends up against the wall any number of times. But given that there had been no instances of a double color name in the Accelerated World up to that point, the possibility remained that the name Black Vise was simply what he called himself. In that case, it wouldn’t show up on the list.

Then there was a similarly experienced veteran, the Quad Eyes Analyst, Argon Array. But only Haruyuki and his friends knew she was a member of the Society, and they didn’t have a shred of evidence to prove it. So her name was also weak in terms of evidential power.

In short, of the three members of the executive, only Black Vise had any possibility. Otherwise, all they could do was hope for lower-ranking members.

But they faced problems here, too. Dusk Taker had already lost all his points and retired, and Wolfram Cerberus was unprovable like Argon Array, which just left Rust Jigsaw, who had charged into the Hermes’ Cord race, and Sulfur Pot, whom Kuroyukihime had encountered in Okinawa. Pot, a veteran Burst Linker who had belonged to the Purple Legion in the past, would likely testify for them.

“In the end, only Vise, Jigsaw, or Pot will be any kind of proof,” he muttered with a sigh.

“Yeah.” Chiyuri also sighed heavily. “If only we could get some evidence that Argon’s a Society member.”

“Ash saw that time when Argon jumped into the Battle Royale in Suginami. She blew up his motorcycle with her lasers, so Ash knows she’s not just some analyst. But even that isn’t proof that she’s an ally of the Society.”

“And Ash’s a member of GW.”

“Yeah…”

They sighed together once again.

If there was actually some way to prove Argon Array was a Society member, Kuroyukihime or Fuko would have come up with it a long time ago. This wasn’t a nut Haruyuki and Chiyuri could crack at this stage.

“Mm!” Chiyuri shouted on the other end of the line, as if switching gears, and continued in a slightly cheerier voice. “So anyway, did you decide what to take as your level-six bonus?”

“Oh. No, not yet. The more I think about it, the harder it is to decide…”

“Ha-ha-ha! I figured. But the Territories on Saturday are gonna be way fiercer than the fight against Great Wall the other day, so better to have all the weapons we can.”

“I guess you’re right.” Haruyuki nodded deeply at Chiyuri’s warm advice.

It was important to select a level-up bonus after careful examination of his actual needs over the course of countless duels, but during this investigatory period, he was denying himself a considerable boost in power. It would be his Legion comrades paying the price for that. This kind of softness would not be allowed in the fight against the Oscillatory Universe.

“I’ll definitely decide before the Territories,” he announced firmly.

“Level six is still a little far-off for me,” an equally serious voice chimed in. “But I’ll fight hard on Saturday, too.”

“Yeah, I’m counting on it. How much longer ’til you hit it?”

“I only just went up to five a little while ago. So a lot further still.”

“Huh. Okay, so let’s invite Taku and go Enemy hunting now,” Haruyuki proposed enthusiastically. “We might get one that G—I mean, we might get someone the Green King fed points to.”

“No way!” Chiyuri immediately rejected the idea. “You already fought in Naka-two today! Go to bed early tonight!”

He frowned slightly. But Chiyuri wasn’t done lecturing.

“And, Haru, there’s one other thing you have to decide before the Territories on Saturday, isn’t there?”

“Huh? Th-there is?”

“Don’t tell me you forgot!”

Just as his childhood friend was on the verge of sending a lightning bolt to strike him, he remembered the critical matter unrelated to the Accelerated World and shook his head furiously. “Oh! No! I didn’t forget. I didn’t! The student council election, right?”

“Right. So what’re you going to do?”

Haruyuki turned around and leaned back against the balcony railing. Last week, eighth-grade class C representative Mayu Ikuzawa invited him to stand in the next-term student council election. He said he’d give her an answer this week, so just as Chiyuri said, he would have to make a decision before Saturday.

“What’d Taku say?” Takumu had also been invited to run, and Haruyuki thought Chiyuri might know his plans.

But her answer was the same. “No way! Ask Taku about Taku if you want to know!”

“R-right.”

“Oh! Mom says I should hurry up and get in the bath, so I gotta go, okay? G’night, Haru. See you tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh. See you tomorrow. ’Night, Chiyu.” He disconnected the voice call and let out a long breath as he looked up at the summer’s night sky from under the balcony. The sky, lit up by the illumination of the city center, was gray, but even so, several stars shone in silent splendor. He admired them for a while before stretching and going back inside.

The time was nine thirty. His mother still hadn’t come home. He would have to talk to her soon about the trip with his friends to his grandparents’ house in Yamagata over summer break, but their lives had as little overlap as usual. Not long ago, when he’d stayed up until she got home to show her the results of his final exams, she only said, “Work hard for next time, too.”

Well, at least it was “next time, too” and not just “next time.” Finding solace in the distinction, he tumbled into bed.

What would his mother say if he did decide to run for student council? Would she root for him? Tell him to give it up? Or just say he should do what he wanted?

From what he’d heard from his grandparents in Yamagata, his mother had also been involved in student council during her school days. He was curious to know what on earth had made her run for council, but she’d probably just be annoyed if he asked her. And wanting his mother’s attention was not a good reason to decide to try for a council position.

Mayu Ikuzawa said her reason for running in the election was because she admired the current council vice president Kuroyukihime, so she wanted to try to get just a little closer to emulating her. He could totally understand that feeling, but that was Ikuzawa’s motivation and not Haruyuki’s. If he was going to run, he had to find the reason for it and his own objectives within himself.

So what’s my goal then? he wondered idly, staring up at the gloomy ceiling.

If it was about his goal as a Burst Linker, he had an immediate answer: reach the ending of Brain Burst with Kuroyukihime. He didn’t know if the road that led there was Kuroyukihime reaching level ten or undoing the seal on the final Arc in the Castle, The Fluctuating Light. But Haruyuki believed that if he kept fighting alongside Kuroyukihime, the end of the game would come at some point, and all its mysteries would be revealed.

But what goal did real-world Haruyuki Arita have as he lived his daily life?

Back when he was being bullied by a group of hoodlum students, simply going to school every day had been an almost unendurable torment. But Kuroyukihime had saved him, and now he even had people in his life he thought of as friends. It was no longer a struggle to get up in the morning or walk down the road to school.

But given precisely that, when he asked himself if he was fighting for something now, he couldn’t say yes right away. He wasn’t burning with passion for a sport the way Takumu and Chiyuri were. He definitely couldn’t say he was studying hard. And while he was serious about his work in the Animal Care Club, he was actually only Utai’s assistant.

If he cut away all the things connected with the Accelerated World, maybe the current Haruyuki was just passing the days aimlessly. He was simply staring at the days sliding by, with no vision for the future, and no goals for the next month or half a year, much less after graduation.

Was it a lie when I said I wanted to go to the same high school as Kuroyukihime?

This seed of doubt caught him off guard, and Haruyuki turned toward the wall and hugged his knees as it took root. A gloomy voice in his head responded:

It wasn’t a lie. But…some dreams just don’t come true, no matter how hard you try.

Effort without results is meaningless. Is that it?

Exactly. I mean, who’s going to high-five you for something like that? No one’s going to tell me how great I am if I fail the entrance exam, no matter how hard I studied. And if I run for council and lose, I’ll be miserable and pathetic. Are you trying to tell me there’s some kind of meaning in that?

Haruyuki interrogated himself, sinking into a thick swamp of misery.

But suddenly, in the back of his mind, a refreshing breeze blew. Something Kuroyukihime had said to him a few days earlier was replayed with a deep echo. “Is there any meaning in work without results…? That’s what you’re thinking right now, yes?”

His eyes flew open, and he stretched out his curled-up body. He spread his arms and legs on top of the bed and took a deep breath, then exhaled.

When Kuroyukihime had posed this question, Haruyuki hadn’t been able to say it, but he had indeed felt his answer was no. If you fought, something of that had to remain inside you.

He wanted people to say nice things about him. He didn’t want to be laughed at and he didn’t want to feel small. There was something more important than such small motivations. These wouldn’t change the Accelerated World or the real world. To fight for himself, for the sake of someone else. To fight because you just wanted to fight. The memories of having done that would gradually build up and someday become incredible power.

“Aaall right!” Haruyuki thrust his hands out toward the ceiling and clenched them into tight fists.

He brought one hand down and manipulated his virtual desktop with the index finger of the other. He sent a short message to the person at the top of his contacts list and got a swift reply. He quickly switched the settings on his home server and murmured a command.

“Direct Link.”

Now a pink pig avatar, Haruyuki touched down on a terrace jutting out from the tower of a European-style castle. A chain of snowcapped mountains rose up in the distance, and the railing was cut into a cliff so high up he couldn’t see the bottom. A small table, two chairs, and a tea set had been arranged on the terrace, the full-dive environment data he’d downloaded from overseas a little while ago.

A few seconds later, he heard the tinkling of bells on the edge of the terrace, and a slender human figure appeared, a beautiful fairylike avatar in a long black dress with black spangle butterfly wings on her back.

“Sorry for the wait, Haruyuki. As in love with heights as always, I see,” Kuroyukihime remarked as she looked out at the scene.

“Good evening, Kuroyukihime.” Haruyuki scratched his head with one hoofed hand as he greeted her. “I’m sorry for calling you all of a sudden.”

“No, I was due for a break anyway.”

“Were you studying?”

“Well, you could call it studying. I was compiling all the information we have about Oscillatory Universe. I’ll send the file when I’m finished, so be sure to study it.”

“Oh! That’s really helpful. Thank you. Please, have a seat.” He urged her toward the white wooden chair, and Kuroyukihime obediently sat down. He took the chair opposite and was about to pour the tea when a pale hand checked him.

“……?”

“Is the tea the environment data default flavor?”

“Y-yes, it is.”

“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind trying something I put together recently? I’m a little bit proud of it.”

“Of course. That would be great!” He offered her the white porcelain teapot, and Kuroyukihime tapped the lid with her fingertip, pulled up the control window, and loaded a new flavor. Then she held the pot up high and poured a narrow stream into the two cups without spilling a drop.

“Here we are.” Kuroyukihime placed a cup in front of him, and he picked it up and thanked her before taking a sip. A luxurious flavor like a brandy cake with fruit filled his mouth, but when he swallowed, it disappeared, nothing more than a fleeting moment. All that lingered in the aftertaste was the faint aroma of refreshing mint.

“Whoa,” Haruyuki said. “This is delicious. It’s like a cake or something.”

Kuroyukihime grinned. “The cakes Petit Paquet made for us were so good, well, I was a little inspired. But I can only really fiddle with the parameters of the virtual tea.”

“That’s amazing. I’m sure Chocolat and the others would be super-happy to try your tea.”

“Well then, should the opportunity present itself, I’ll serve it to them, too.”

Although Haruyuki savored the tea carefully, he soon drained his cup. When he did, a small black butterfly fluttered up from the bottom and cut in front of him.

“Ah…Ahh!” Momentarily stunned, he tried to catch it, but his short pig avatar arms swung through the air, and the butterfly flew off away from the terrace. “Aww. I never dreamed you’d incorporate butterfly points into the tea.”

“Hee-hee. Never let your guard down. How about a refill?”

“With pleasure!”

“The butterfly comes out or doesn’t at random, though,” she said with a straight face as she poured the tea with tremendous skill once more.

Ruby-red liquid rippling in his cup, Haruyuki looked up again at the blue sky into which the black butterfly had flown off. “Um, Kuroyukihime?”

“Mm. What is it?”

“Um. I think I’m going to do it. Run for student council, I mean…”

Kuroyukihime burst into a wide smile and then nodded once, twice, her black eyes trained on Haruyuki. “You are? I’m glad to hear it. Just let me know if there’s anything I can do. Of course, I can’t do anything fraudulent, but I won’t begrudge you any honest help.”

“Okay, I appreciate that! So I actually wanted to ask you…”

She encouraged him with a gesture. “Go ahead.”

“Um.” Haruyuki wriggled his pig nose as he began awkwardly. “Okay, right. I know this is kinda curious when I said I was gonna run. But I don’t have any kind of vision or anything, like I want to change Umesato like this or make whatever better. Like, at the school festival, you said you increased the number of social cameras in the school so there were no more blind spots. That was superhard, wasn’t it?”

“Mm. Well, it took a bit of work.” With a faint wry smile, Kuroyukihime wet her lips with tea before continuing. “I put in reports all over the place with the school administration, the corporate owner, the ward, the city, but it definitely wasn’t painful. It was something I wanted to make happen, whatever I had to do.”

“I still haven’t found that something that I want to make happen, that thing I just have to do. I don’t know if I should really run when I’m still so unsure like that.”

“It’s fine,” she responded immediately, standing up. High heels clacking against the stone floor, she walked to the edge of the terrace and looked at the mountains off in the distance. The gentle sunlight caught her spangle butterfly wings and made the rose-red pattern glitter.

“Listen, Haruyuki. We’re still young. We’re only just starting to walk on our own two feet, see with our own eyes, think with our own brains. We do what we want to do; we do what we can do; we do what should move us forward…The roads stretch out in all directions. If you curl up in one place and plug your eyes and ears, you can’t go anywhere; if you start to walk, the road will most certainly open up before you. It’s all right. I’m sure you’ll find it as I did—whatever objective it is that you want to realize as a member of the student council.”

Haruyuki also jumped down from his chair and moved to her side. But his avatar was too short, and his face didn’t come up above the railing. Crap, I should’ve at least tinkered with this bit.

And then Kuroyukihime crouched down and picked up his pig avatar.

“Ah, gah!” He panicked, but she pulled him close to her chest regardless.

As she brought his round head up against her cheek, Kuroyukihime murmured heavily, “I’m graduating from Umesato in eight months.”

“……!!”

The instant he heard this, his pig avatar stiffened, reflecting his mental agitation.

Kuroyukihime gently stroked his back with one hand. “My family has been told that I want to go to high school in Suginami. But this is not something I alone can decide. It’s possible they’ll use my graduation as an opportunity to send me even farther away.”

“Do you mean…somewhere…outside Tokyo?” He somehow managed to ask the question, albeit in a shaky voice, but the answer shocked him even further.

“Or outside of Japan, perhaps.”

“Nngh! I-if that happens, then…!”

“Mm. If I’m not connected with the social camera network, I won’t be able to accelerate. Which would be the same as no longer being a Burst Linker.” Kuroyukihime’s voice was utterly calm. Most likely, this was not something that had only come up the day before. As she caressed Haruyuki’s avatar, she continued.

“Of course, nothing’s set in stone yet. But if, hypothetically, I was forced to study abroad, the deadline for applications is October. So that is when I will find out the conclusion to all this. I’m exerting maximal effort to ensure my wishes are respected but…I’m sorry, I can’t make any promises.” Her voice had been calm, but now, at the last second alone, it trembled slightly.

Haruyuki unconsciously clung to her slender avatar as hundreds of chaotic thoughts raced through his mind.

No. I don’t want that. I haven’t even started to work on going to the same high school as Kuroyukihime. I used the idea that it would be impossible as an excuse, averted my eyes since it was still so far in the future. But now I’m finally ready to try moving forward. And yet…

“Kuroyukihime… If…? What if…?” Haruyuki managed to squeeze out, before desperately swallowing his words. He couldn’t say the rest. If she swore allegiance to her sister—to the White King—and helped her achieve her objective, then she could get her to persuade their parents not to send her abroad. But he couldn’t say that. He closed his eyes tightly and gritted his teeth.

“It’s all right.” He heard a gentle voice beside him. “Don’t worry.”

“Huh?” Opening his eyes again, he saw Kuroyukihime’s smile.

“Whatever happens, the bond between us isn’t changing. Even if I end up leaving Japan, we can meet anytime we want in a full dive like this. I am a Burst Linker, I am your parent, and you are my child, but that is not the only bond connecting us. Even if we are separated by physical distance, or we both are no longer Burst Linkers…”

She paused briefly before starting to speak again, choosing her words very carefully. “I promise you. I will be by your side. Forever and into the future.”

Instantly, a powerful electric jolt pierced Haruyuki’s body. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard these words. Kuroyukihime had announced the same thing, word for word, after the battle with Dusk Taker three months earlier.

“Kuroyuki…hime…” His hoarse voice trembling, Haruyuki pressed his avatar face tightly against Kuroyukihime’s chest.

What if she couldn’t escape going abroad to study, and her Brain Burst effectively ended next March? What was there that Haruyuki could do before then?

It was obvious. He could see her to the end of the Accelerated World. The system message to those who reached level nine had informed them that Burst Linkers who got to level ten would meet the developer and learn the real meaning and ultimate objective of Brain Burst. He would find the truth of this message with her.

But to reach level ten, Kuroyukihime had to take the heads of four other kings. That was a path of carnage, drenched in blood. Even if, hypothetically, she did defeat the White King at the end of the decisive battle against Oscillatory Universe set to open in three days, she would still be a long way from clearing that condition.

And…

…recently, Haruyuki had started to feel something that was hard to explain even to himself. If this was a game, then trying to beat it was only natural. He’d said this to Kuroyukihime before, and it was no lie. But through his interactions with the Six Armors of the Great Wall and the Dualis of the Leonids, he had grown reluctant about the idea of a bloody massacre with them over a simple duel.

Kuroyukihime couldn’t get to level ten by taking the head of the Green or Blue King. But once she set out on that path to rule, the modest fellowship he felt between himself and Koto and Yuki Takanouchi a mere five hours earlier would be shattered without question. And anger and hatred, fist and sword would take its place.

That was the future of the game Brain Burst. The developer had set it up like that. If they had their sights set on clearing the game, then that was a path they would have to go down at some point.

But.

But…

As he took in the hazy warmth and softness transmitted to him from Kuroyukihime’s avatar, Haruyuki had the sensation of his self being ripped in two.

It was at that moment. The thought he’d had before he sent Kuroyukihime that e-mail became a tiny spark and flamed back to life.

There might be another path. Unlike the level ten stated in the system message, there was no evidence for it, so this was nothing more than a simple hypothesis. But it was also the path that the members of the first Nega Nebulus had tried to walk down three years earlier for the sake of their beloved Legion Master.

“Kuroyukihime,” Haruyuki said, the slightest bit of force in his voice. “I…I’m going to fight. For my own sake. And for yours, I’m going to do everything I can. So… So…”

The rest wouldn’t take shape in words. But Kuroyukihime tightened her arms around his avatar.

“Mm. I’ll fight, too. I’ll expend every effort so I am able to keep walking together with you forever.”