Accel World - Volume 18 - Chapter 8

8

“It’s been quite some time since you and I got to talk just the two of us, hmm, Corvus?” Fuko Kurasaki said as she came into the living room, smiling gently. “And that you would invite me over to your house alone. I’m looking forward to hearing this story of yours.”

“Uh. Um. P-please have a seat there. I’ll bring something to drink.” Haruyuki awkwardly indicated the sofa before scurrying into the kitchen. He poured chilled green tea into two tea bowls, set them on a tray, and carried them out.

He placed the tea before Fuko, who was sitting on the window side of the love seat, and then set himself down across from her on the chair and took a deep breath.

Three months had passed since he met Fuko, but he always got a little nervous when it was just the two of them. Perhaps it was the memory of her pushing him off the top of the old Tokyo Tower right after their first meeting, but ever since then, he couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by her presence.

It wasn’t just external factors like her beauty, on par with that of Kuroyukihime, or her proportions and their secret destructive power. It wasn’t her abilities as a Burst Linker, either, the source of many legends in the Accelerated World. It was the way she could contain all this and more.

In fact, as the Submaster, Fuko was the central pillar supporting the current Nega Nebulus. He didn’t need to go so far as to remember what a huge role she’d played in the final stages of the battle with Great Wall the other day; there was no doubt that everyone in the Legion felt like as long as they had “Strong Arm” Raker with them, they’d be all right. Given how they all relied on her, Haruyuki always ended up being stiffly respectful when they were alone together, but today he had to ask this very Fuko for an outrageous favor.

“This tea is quite good.”

Fuko’s words brought Haruyuki back to himself with a gasp. “Thank you. My mother hates bottled tea, so we always make chilled tea in the summer.”

“Are you the one who does that, Corvus?”

“Oh, well, basically,” he said. “Although, all I do is put tea leaves in the bag and then fill a glass container with water.”

“But it takes time, doesn’t it? And that time gives it a sweetness. It’s very good,” Fuko said as she drained her cup. Haruyuki started to stand up to pour her another, but she raised a hand to stop him. “Thanks, but that can wait. First, please tell me what you wanted to talk about.”

“Right.” Haruyuki resettled himself on the sofa.

Thursday, July 18th. With the closing ceremony for the first term and the decisive battle with White closing in two days out, Haruyuki had gotten in touch with Fuko and asked her to come over after school. She had readily agreed, and he’d gone to meet her at the bus stop on Kannana to show her to his house, but he still couldn’t really put together the words to express the throbbing that had started in the depths of his heart the previous day.

“Um. That’s…” He sat up straight and clasped his hands above his knees, then acknowledged to himself that there was no other way than to dive right in. He bowed his head deeply. “Master, I have a favor to ask!”

“And what would that be?”

He felt sure that even his master would be surprised or angry as he lifted his face and shouted, “Please loan me Gale Thruster just one more time!”

“Sure.” Fuko answered immediately, a smile on her face, neither angry nor surprised, and Haruyuki was the one left stunned.

“…Huh? Um. A-are you sure?”

“Of course. I just want you to tell me why.”

“Of course! …But you might get angry.” Haruyuki took a gulp of chilled tea to calm himself and then looked straight into Fuko’s eyes, clear and deep like the stratosphere. “I actually want to go to the Castle again.”

This time, her eyes did grow round in surprise.

It took around ten minutes to explain his motivations in detail.

There was the fact that Kuroyukihime might go far away after graduating from Umesato. And that, if possible, he’d like to reach the ending of Brain Burst before then. And to that end, he wanted to investigate in detail The Fluctuating Light, thought to be one condition to clearing the game.

“I see. So that’s what’s going on…” Leaning back on the sofa, Fuko turned her gaze to the window.

The Arita living room faced south, so the Castle, which was due east, wasn’t visible from there. But Fuko narrowed her eyes as though she could see a vision of the enormous, impenetrable structure beneath the summer sky and its gradation from navy to gold.

“The only Burst Linkers in Nega Nebulus to ever enter the Castle and come back alive are you and Maiden, Corvus,” she deliberated quietly. “If you can do it once, you can do it again. I’m sure that’s what you’re thinking. But the Castle and the Four Gods are no joke. You run a real risk of being trapped in an Unlimited EK.”

“I know.”

Her tone was soft, but her words held weight, and all Haruyuki could do was agree. But he hadn’t expected her to accept the idea right from the start, so he tried desperately to put into words the things he’d spent the whole day thinking about. “But…from my experience getting into the Castle the last time, if I charge into the altar area at super-high-speed without trying to fight the God, I think I could reach the gates. My flight speed’s gone up a fair bit since last time.”

“I see. But if I recall correctly, the gate didn’t open just because you reached it, yes? The door is sealed from the inside, is it not?”

“Yes, that’s exactly right.” He nodded his assent, admiring Fuko’s powers of recollection.

The gates of the Four Gods that stood to the north, east, south, and west of the Castle were all sealed by a plate with a carved relief of their respective guardian beasts. If a Burst Linker defeated the guardian, the seal would also break, and the door could be opened. But the last time, the south Suzaku gate had opened at the mere approach of Haruyuki and Utai. And that was because the mysterious young samurai Trilead Tetroxide had destroyed the plate from the inside.

The plate regenerated each time the gate opened and closed. The southern gate plate Lead destroyed with the Arc of Infinity and the Incarnate technique Heavenly Stratus would have returned the moment Haruyuki escaped.

“When we left the Castle, I promised Lead I’d be back. So I’m sure he broke the seal plates for me again. On all four gates.”

“……”

Fuko furrowed her brow and crossed her right leg over her left. Underneath her thin tights, her legs were composed of bionanopolymer skin, biometal fiber muscles, and titanium alloy bones—and had lines so lovely and complex it was hard to believe they were artificial. He watched wordlessly as her slender fingers stroked the area around her knees where the servo motors were housed. “And if the gate doesn’t open?”

Haruyuki blinked rapidly a few times before hurrying to answer. “R-right. In that case, I’ll do a sudden vertical ascent in front of the gate, spin around, and escape.”

“I see.” Fuko fell silent once again. Perhaps reflecting the speed of her thoughts, the tips of the toes on her right foot carved out an incremental rhythm in the air, and a faint engine sound stroked Haruyuki’s eardrums with each tap.

After a full two minutes, Fuko lowered her right leg to the floor, fixed her long, straight hair with both hands, and then smiled directly at Haruyuki. “In the end, it comes down to whether you believe or you don’t, hmm?”

“Huh?”

“Corvus, you believe in Trilead, right? You believe he would overcome great difficulties to break all the seals just to meet in the Castle again?”

“Yes.” He nodded without the slightest hesitation.

Fuko returned the nod. “And Trilead believes in you. That you’ll come see him again, even if it means courting the risk of Unlimited EK. In which case…I shall also believe in the Corvus who believes in Trilead.”

“Huh?” Haruyuki asked, unconsciously leaning forward. “S-so then, you’ll lend me Gale Thruster?!”

Fuko leaned forward as well and just barely poked at Haruyuki’s cheek with the outstretched index finger of her right hand. “I said yes right from the start, didn’t I? I was undecided about another matter.”

“Huh? Wh-what does that mean?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” With the smile full of affection that Haruyuki had dubbed Vacuum Smashing Raker Smile rising up on her face, Fuko declared in a tone that promised to brook no objection, “I will come, too. I will lend you Gale Thruster together with the Sky Raker package.”

“Wh-whaaaat?!”

“Listen, Corvus. Anyone planning to go alone into the Castle without talking to anyone else has no right to be that surprised.”

“W-well, I guess that’s true, but…” Haruyuki twisted his index fingers together, and Fuko’s smile took on a hint of bitterness.

“Well, it’s not that I don’t understand how you feel.” She shrugged lightly. “You can’t tell Sacchi, and if you said anything to Uiui or Akira, or Chiiko or Mayuzumi, they’d obviously all say they would come, too.”

“Yeah. They totally would. But if things go wrong, there’s the risk of Unlimited EK…”

“You’re not exempt from that, though?” She stared at him, her smile vanishing.

Haruyuki shook his head, both hands on his knees. “No, I’m definitely going to the Castle and coming back.”

The smile returned to Fuko’s face, and she nodded deeply.

It took them about ten minutes to rehydrate, take turns using the washroom, sit down beside each other on the love seat, and set the automatic disconnect safety.

“Um, so I’ll put the circuit disconnection for seven seconds from now in real-world time.”

“That’s about right. Inside, that’ll be one hour, fifty-six minutes, and forty seconds. Even if we do end up in Unlimited EK, we’ll die, at most, twice.”

“No, let’s make that zero!” Haruyuki declared, connecting the XSB cables stretching out from his and Fuko’s Neurolinkers to the network terminal of his home server. He checked that the global connection icon flashed again and then glanced at Fuko, sitting to his right. He wanted to apologize for having dragged her into this plan of his, but before he could, she squeezed his hand.

“Corvus, I’m going because I want to. Now then, countdown, please.”

“Okay!” He manipulated a holowindow with one hand and brought his finger toward the OK button of the other, which was set to cut off their global connection in twelve seconds. Like that, Haruyuki took a deep breath. “We dive on the count of five.”

He pressed the button and started the count.

“Five, four, three, two, one…”

““Unlimited Burst!””