HOT NOVEL UPDATES

Accel World - Volume 22 - Chapter 3




Hint: To Play after pausing the player, use this button

3

Upon his return, the sky of the Accelerated World was an unsettling yellowish-green. The group of buildings he could see off in the distance shone with a metallic luster, organic gills and protrusions sprouting from all sides, while small insects halfway between creature and machine crawled along on the similarly metallic ground. Chk-chk-chk.

This was a Purgatory stage, classified as a dark type.

“I suppose it’s not quite as bad as a Cemetery or a Plague, but I am hard pressed to say this stage is particularly suitable for a meeting,” a young lady avatar with semi-lustrous chocolate armor remarked from next to Haruyuki. Chocolat Puppeter.

He froze for a second at her slightly formal speech, quite unlike the way the real world’s Shihoko Nago spoke, before nodding in agreement. “Y-yeah.”

Just as she’d said, the terrain gimmicks of a Purgatory stage did little damage compared with other dark types, but they were still fairly unpleasant. If you stepped on one of the metal bugs, insects would swarm, drawn in by the scent of bodily fluids, and earthworm-like tubes would pop up out of the ground every so often and emit a terrible-smelling smoke.

“But it’s only hard for the starters, Cobalt and Manga,” he noted. “We’re the Gallery, so no big really.”

“Oh reaaaalllly? Is that how it is then? I’m totally telling Coba-Manga when the meeting’s over!” a magical girl avatar in vivid yellow-green armor shouted from behind. Lime Bell.

“Y-you can’t!” Haruyuki whirled around and made a large X with his arms. “They’ll lop my head off!”

“No, you were in the wrong here, Crow,” Black Lotus said, appearing after Lime Bell when he had just parted with her minutes earlier in subjective time, all black quartz semitransparent armor and greatsword limbs.

“You were, Corvus. You need to sympathize more with girls,” Fuko agreed. She was back in her white dress and wheelchair with Gale Thruster safely stored away now.

Haruyuki was about to argue that he had a theory that girls were actually the stronger ones in the Accelerated World, something he’d always felt. In fact, of the Seven Kings, over half—red, purple, black, white—were F types. But before he could speak, he heard someone shouting.

“’Suuuuuuup!”

And then a red lump slammed into him. After delivering a cross chop to his neck, the lump landed nimbly on the ground: a girl-type avatar in ruby-red armor with eye lenses reminiscent of jade.

They were both part of the Gallery, so the hit didn’t generate any damage, but it did cause him to grumble inwardly about how his theory of feminine superiority was obviously true before he returned the greeting. “’Sup, Rain. You get a good sleep last night?”

“Hey! What’s that about? You calling me a kid?!” the Red King barked, steel in her voice, and he hesitated about whether or not he should remind her that elementary school kids are in fact kids.

“OFC. Kids that sleep grow,” the crimson avatar with the leopard head interjected abruptly after approaching on silent feet from the same direction as Rain. She picked up the Red King from where she sat slumped on bent knees and hoisted her up onto her shoulders.

“H-hey, Pard! You’re deliberately treating me like a kid now,” Rain started to complain, but then gave up, the strength sliding out of her. She looked down on Haruyuki from Blood Leopard’s shoulders. “Finally the moment of do or die.”

Her words held an increasing amount of kingly gravitas, and the other king responded.

“Mmm. But for us, the battle against Seiryu at the Castle east gate, against Metatron at Tokyo Midtown Tower, and against Black Vise and the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, at the Eternal Girls’ Academy, along with the battles against Great Wall in Shibuya Area Three and against Oscillatory Universe yesterday, were all do-or-die moments. And it’s not as though the fight will end with today’s meeting. We will simply do everything we can, as we always have. I’m counting on all of you.”

The Black King looked at all six of the faces before her and stopped finally on Chocolat. “And Choco, the replay card you have will be the key to today’s success or failure. I know we are placing a terrible burden on you at your first meeting of the Seven Kings, but I know you will come through for us.”

“Y-yes, I understand. As a member of Nega Nebulus, I will carry out my role to the best of my abilities,” Chocolat declared, although her voice shook just a little.

Kuroyukihime nodded deeply and tapped Chocolat’s arm with the side of the sword of her right hand before whirling around.

The seven of them were gathered in the southwest of the area positioned to the north of the Castle, Kitanomaru Park. In the real world, the site of the Imperial Palace was a roughly oblong hexagon, but in the Accelerated World, the Castle was situated on a perfect circle. Kitanomaru Park, the east gardens, and the outer garden were lined up from the north to the southeast, and as a general rule, meetings of the Seven Kings were held in one of these.

There were plenty of museums and galleries where they could’ve met in the south of Kitanomaru Park, the location selected for this meeting by the Blue Legion’s Dualis, Cobalt Blade and Manganese Blade, but the guide cursor that told them the location of the duelers was pointing to the north of the park. They moved forward through the thick, drifting fog, and the silhouette of a strange building appeared ahead.

Large octagonal roof with sharp overhangs. A knotted, veiny onion-like object sitting on the peak like a monster’s chrysalis. Several sinister thorns twisted out from the walls, and the wide entrance looked like a gaping maw replete with razor-sharp fangs.

“That’s the Nippon Budokan…right?” Chiyuri stopped in her tracks and stared up at the onion. “That’s a serious coincidence— No, I guess it’s maybe not a coincidence at all.”

“Whoa, whoa!” Niko yelled. “Time to sound the alarms here! Does this mean Leos cracked the professor in the real?”

“Well, I doubt that.” Chiyuri quickly turned her gaze toward Haruyuki.

The professor aka Takumu Mayuzumi was currently competing in the Tokyo Metropolitan Junior High School Summer Kendo Meet, and the venue was the very Nippon Budokan towering up before them now. Hence Chiyuri’s cry of a “serious coincidence.” Haruyuki had known that the meeting would be taking place in the vicinity of the Imperial Palace, so he’d wanted to go over and cheer for Takumu once it was over, but as the Animal Care Club president, he couldn’t exactly take a day off from looking after Hoo. So he’d entrusted Chiyuri with the very important task of cheering for Takumu for both of them.

Takumu was competing in both the group and individual divisions, so unless he lost his first match, he would still be competing after the meeting of the Seven Kings was over. The lunch break should have been ending at that moment and the afternoon matches starting.

If Takumu was in the top six in the group division—the best four plus the two winners in a competition among the losers—and the top four for the individual division, he would get to compete in the Kanto meet at the same Budokan in the middle of August. The Umesato Junior High boys’ kendo team was in a tough position, having squeaked by in the best eight in the metropolitan meet preliminaries, but Haruyuki knew only too well how much effort Takumu had put into the team every day ever since he had transferred to the school in January of that year.

Taku, you got this.

After sending this thought toward his best friend fighting at the real-world Budokan, Haruyuki answered Chiyuri, “I know I’m out in the real to Coba-Manga, but it’s the same for them. I don’t think they’d actually go to the trouble of looking up Pile’s real and having the meeting venue in the same place as the meet. For one thing, there’d be no point in it.”

“That’s true.” Kuroyukihime spread the sword of her right arm out to one side. “The Chiyoda area is not split up, so if they wanted to fight Pile, they wouldn’t have to come all the way to Budokan. It’s possible to challenge him from anywhere within the area. It’s a coincidence just as Bell said. Or if they do have a reason, it has nothing to do with Pile. Now, let’s get inside already.”

“Aaawright! This is it!” Niko slapped her fist into the palm of her other hand, and Fuko, Pard, Chiyuri, and Haruyuki all nodded as one.

They went up the wide stairs and slipped through the tooth-laden entrance. When they proceeded down the gloomy hall, they soon came out into the vast arena. In the real world, would-be swordmasters ruthlessly competed on a cool, clear wooden floor, but in the Accelerated World’s Purgatory stage, disturbingly sinuous gills were carved out of the floor, and the surrounding spectator seats resembled a bizarre insect species.

Haruyuki was the first to set foot in the foggy arena.

“You’re late!!” someone shouted ferociously, and he reflexively shrank back into himself.

The shouter was half of a duo encamped on the right side of the entrance Haruyuki and his friends had just stepped through. A tall, F-type avatar in a military cap with a long brim, whip bundled on her back at her waist. Next to her, a queenly avatar clad in vivid purple armor sat on a cylindrical seat, holding a long staff in one hand. The Purple Legion’s Submaster Aurora Oval, as well as Aster Vine and the Purple King, Purple Thorn.

Aster Vine snapped the sharply pointed index finger of her left hand at Haruyuki. “It has been more than three minutes since the start of the duel! How dare you dawdle in last when you were the ones to convene this meeting?!”

He quickly looked around and saw that four small groups joined Vine’s at evenly spaced intervals to create a circle in an arena that was the same octagonal shape as the roof. The Green King, Green Grandé; the fifth seat of that Legion’s executive Six Armors, Iron Pound; and its fifth seat, Suntan Chafer. The Yellow King, Yellow Radio, and the girl avatar balancing on a ball who was apparently called Lemon Pierrette. The Blue King, Blue Knight, and the starters for this meeting, the Dualis Cobalt Blade and Manganese Blade. And the magician avatar clad in his ivory costume sitting all alone on the opposite side of Haruyuki and his comrades, the full proxy of the White King, Ivory Tower.

“He really did come, calm as ever,” Kuroyukihime murmured, not bothered in the least by Aster Vine’s rebuke.

Fuko brought her wheelchair up beside Haruyuki and pushed her wide brimmed hat up slightly. “I do apologize for our tardiness, Vine. But we appeared in the southern edge of Kitanomaru Park, so it took us some time to get here.”

“Then why didn’t you run?!” Vine snapped in return, hands on hips, more schoolteacher than soldier.

When Haruyuki thought about it, the sisters Coba-Manga had created the meeting venue’s normal duel space, and he and his comrades were part of the Gallery, so they should have appeared somewhere they could see the sisters. Why had they materialized so far away? He cocked his head to one side, curious.

“Don’t be so angry, Vine. We set scattered positioning.”

“We thought some Legions would want to talk before the meeting.”

Cobalt Blade and Manganese Blade, respectively, spoke from the east side of the arena.

Scattered positioning was an option when starting a duel that basically made Gallery contact impossible. Rather than appearing near the duelers, the spectators appeared some distance away. This setting was used when duelers wanted to avoid any possibility of being cracked in the real that came with appearing in a particular location in the Accelerated World or to move the battlefield before the spectators assembled. But the Gallery would teleport once the fighting started, so almost no one actually used this setting.

But in the case of the meeting of the Seven Kings, the two starters didn’t fight, so there was no automatic movement, and the scattered spectators needed a few minutes to come together. It was true that Haruyuki and his comrades had spent a bit of time in discussion, though, so this was a nice calculation on the part of the twins. He was impressed.

However.

“Pointless consideration, Dualis. It is only natural that consultations and the like would be taken care of before the meeting. Raker, you will be more careful next time!” Aster Vine’s attitude was essentially unchanged, but she seemed satisfied at getting to tell off Sky Raker, who had apparently been a rival for some time. She snorted haughtily before stepping back behind the Purple King.

Haruyuki glanced up and saw that the remaining time had already dropped down to twenty-five minutes. Perhaps also thinking that the time was right, the meeting chair the Blue King stood, his heavy armor clanking. He looked at Cobalt Blade, and she nodded before opening her Instruct menu, most likely to scroll through the Gallery list.

“All eighteen scheduled participants are here,” she informed him. “There are no unexpected intruders.”

“Good. Let’s get started.” The Blue King announced the beginning of the meeting, as plainspoken as ever. At the same time, Kuroyukihime stepped ahead of Haruyuki and Fuko and sat down gracefully on the stool likely created by the Dualis cutting the pillars of the arena.

A total of seven chairs had been prepared, one of which sat empty in between Kuroyukihime’s seat directly to the north and the Blue King’s directly to the east. Naturally, this was meant for the Red King, but Niko took up position behind Kuroyukihime and crossed her arms across her chest to indicate that she would not, in fact, be using that chair.

The fact that Nega Nebulus and Prominence had merged would have been displayed system-wide if anyone attacked Suginami or Nerima during the Territories, so the Kings with their powerful information collection capabilities had likely long known about it. To be more precise, the two Legions were currently in the middle of the thirty-day merger deferment period, with provisional Legion Master Black Lotus, provisional Submaster Scarlet Rain, and provisional name Nega Nebulus, but it was clear to all that the two Legions had become one.

Neither Blue Knight nor Purple Thorn reacted in any way when Niko remained standing. The agenda for that day’s meeting was how to handle the Acceleration Research Society, so the kings likely had no intention of touching on the merger between red and black. Or so Haruyuki had thought.

“Before we get to the main item, may I be permitted one question?” Although serious in tone, the high-pitched voice contained a laugh somehow as it echoed through the arena. An odious yellow avatar stood slowly between the Purple King and Ivory Tower on the southeast of the arena.

Although he was as tall as the Blue King if the jester’s cap on his head was included, his limbs and torso were thin like Rose Milady’s and he slouched quite a bit, so at first glance, he didn’t seem very intimidating. But this caricature of a Pierrot emitted an aura on par with the other kings, and Haruyuki was seized by the sensation of sweat breaking out on the naked body of his avatar beneath his armor.

“He doesn’t miss a beat,” Fuko muttered.

“That’s fine, but be quick about it,” the Blue King, the meeting’s chair, responded, sounding slightly annoyed.

“Of course, of course. I’ll be done in three minutes.” Bobbing his head in the jerky motion of a doll, the Yellow King sounded like he was about to burst out laughing, as always. “I simply wished to confirm a teensy issue. What are we to call that faded red wee one now?”

“Weeee ooooone noooow!” the girl on the balancing ball parroted.

“What exactly is that supposed to mean, Radio?” the Blue King asked doubtfully.

Radio spread his skinny arms out to either side. “The little one there has never been a pure…red, hmm? And now at long last, she’s no longer even a Legion Master, yes? Must we really continue to call such a person the Red King?”

“The Reeed Kiiiing!”

“What?!” Haruyuki shouted instead of Niko, the king in question, or her deputy, Leopard. He had been bowed by the Yellow King’s information pressure, but the instant he heard Radio speak, he felt a bomb go off inside his head and he lashed out without thinking.

Immediately, every king but Black had their eyes on him, together with king proxy Ivory Tower. But his indignation was even greater than the intensity of their combined gazes.

“The Red King agreed to the Legion merger in order to settle things with the Acceleration Research Society!” Haruyuki shouted even more loudly at the Yellow King. “You don’t get to talk to Rain like that, not after she cleaned up your mess when the Society had you dancing to their tune with the whole Armor of Catastrophe thing!”

There might have been a world of difference between level-six Haruyuki and level-nine Yellow King in terms of actual power as Burst Linkers, but Radio nevertheless pulled back, daunted; maybe Haruyuki’s words had hit a little too close to home.

“My goodness, this little boy has no manners, hmm? I was not discussing the Armor or anything of the like. I simply wondered whether one who was no longer Legion Master was qualified to be King?”

“You of all people! You do nothing for the sake of the Accelerated World—” Haruyuki wanted to keep going, but Kuroyukihime gently raised the sword of her right hand ahead of him, while Niko smiled wryly at him, a signal that he should let it go.

Given that both his Legion Master and Submaster had admonished him, he couldn’t exactly keep kicking up a fuss, so he closed his mouth and took a few steps back. Instantly, the awareness that he’d gone too far welled up within him, and he broke out in a cold sweat beneath his silver surface.

“O-oh my goodness, Corvus,” Shihoko whispered behind him, clinging tightly to Chiyuri. However, Haruyuki’s entire body was now so stiff, he couldn’t turn around to look at her.

“Crow goes off sometimes and gets hotheaded,” Chiyuri offered with a similar whisper-hiss. “Even though the switch never gets flipped when it comes to his own well-being.”

“Aah.” Chocolat nodded. “That does seem very like him.”

He listened to the two girls without really paying attention, and ahead of him, Kuroyukihime’s calm voice rang out.

“Radio, the title of king itself has always been organic in nature, yes? It has never been strictly defined, so those who wish to continue to call Rain the Red King are free to do so. And if you do not want to refer to her by that title, then go ahead and do not. I, of course, have absolutely no intention of changing what I call her.”

“T’be honest, I don’t care two bits about titles and stuff,” Niko remarked. “A new level niner’s gonna show sooner rather than later anyway, an’ there’s basically a zero percent chance they’re gonna be this ‘pure color’ you keep goin’ on about, yeah? No matter which way you look at it, it’s pretty dumb to get all nitpicky about callin’ ’em King or not every single time.”

“H-however,” Radio replied, pained, Kuroyukihime and Niko’s curt reactions clearly contrary to his expectations. “It is a fact that we Seven Kings of pure color have expended great effort for many years to keep the Accelerated World safe, yes? It is precisely because you recognize the authority of this council that you have convened us here today, hmm? Isn’t it entirely too selfish to say that we should break this framework down with no discussion whatsoever and simply do whatever we want?”

“We waaaaant!” Lemon Pierrette sang out the end of Radio’s question.

Niko glanced at the girl on the balance ball and shrugged lightly. “So, like, are you trying to make a big deal out of me stepping down as LM or about the merger between Negabu and Promi? Make that clear before you start whining.”

“That is— Of course, I include all of it? If you are going to call yourself the Red King, then there’s a little thing called pride that goes along with that—”

“Aah, enough! We’ve already wasted three minutes on this!” Kuroyukihime stood tall, cutting off the Yellow King. She snapped the sword of her right hand out at Radio and made her resolute voice echo through the large arena. “This is annoying, so I will spell it out here and now! Radio, it is not the fact that Rain stepped down as Master that you dislike, but rather our merger with Prominence. More precisely, the fact that Promi did not merge with Crypt Cosmic Circus! Am I wrong?!”

“Huh?” Haruyuki said, baffled.

Yellow Radio also groaned, his voice growing increasingly shrill. “Wh-what are you talking about, you? Such a rash remark with no basis whatsoever! To say I had my eye on the territory of Prominence—”

“No! What you wanted was not the territory, but Rain herself! Yellow Radio, you have a weakness for super-small F-type avatars with round forms. Were you not planning to take advantage of the current chaos to annex Promi and get Rain in your grip?!”

Kuroyukihime’s accusation caused a silence of more than three seconds to descend on the Budokan arena.

And then Niko groaned. “F-for real?!”

“That definitely puts a damper on things,” Aster Vine sighed.

“…Is that true?” Even Lemon Pierrette, most certainly an SS-size, F-type avatar, wobbled away from him on her balance ball, and the Yellow King, Radioactive Disturber Yellow Radio, took unexpected action.

Bomf! A cloud of colorful smoke erupted and enveloped Radio.

Although the smoke quickly dissipated, by the time it was gone, the chair was already empty. The Blue King shook his head slowly from side to side, while the Green King maintained his silence even now. To his rear, Iron Pound and Suntan Chafer exchanged dumbfounded murmurs.

“How did he use an ability when he’s in the Gallery?”

“It can’t be Incarnate, can it?”

“Nah, nah, you can’t use that either…”

“Honestly.” It was the Purple King, Purple Thorn, who brought this unanticipated tangent to a close, breaking her own silence. “It doesn’t matter either way if Radio has a Lolita complex. Neither myself nor Aster are on his radar in any way.”

“And what about me?” Niko grumbled.

Thorn ignored her. “No doubt, he’s hiding somewhere nearby and listening in. If he has something he wishes to say, poof! He will no doubt appear, so let’s leave him be and get to the main item on the agenda. We’re already down to twenty minutes.”

“Yes, right.” Blue Knight hit the metallic floor with the tip of the scabbard of the Arc Impulse to shift the mood in the meeting venue. “Now then, I’d ask Lotus for an overview of the battle that took place during the Territories yesterday.”

“Understood.” Kuroyukihime stayed on her feet. “It’s all quite simple, however. At the previous meeting, we proposed that the seven Legions immediately muster their forces and attack when the base area of the Acceleration Research Society became clear, and this proposal was accepted. With this in mind, we engaged in an attack yesterday on the area we have long thought to be the base of the Acceleration Research Society. We intended to check the matching list immediately after the right to control the area—in other words, the privilege of blocking the matching list was stripped away—and if the names of the Society members appeared there, we would be able to prove that this was indeed their base. Naturally, we would have to ask some trusted third party to check the list. Thus, we requested that Leonids’ Dualis take on that role.”

Everyone in the venue turned their eyes toward Cobalt Blade and Manganese Blade, on standby behind the Blue King.

“And…what were the results?” Purple Thorn sounded impatient, and Kuroyukihime nodded to the sisters.

The ponytailed Manganese Blade stepped out in front of the Blue King. “We checked the matching list immediately after Nega Nebulus’s victory in the Territories.”

Haruyuki unconsciously held his breath even though he already knew the result of this.

Manganese Blade stated the facts in a cool voice. “On the list, there was no Burst Linker name determined to be an Acceleration Research Society member.”

He felt like he heard a deep sigh from his right. But before he could turn his gaze in that direction, the Purple King was crying out in a thorny voice.

“What? So the mission was a massive failure?! And you went out of your way to call us all here just to report that?!” She raised the Arc Tempest and slammed it into the ground. Tiny sparks crawled along the floor after its resounding clang!

Keenly feeling Purple Thorn’s rage and perhaps disappointment, Haruyuki stared at Ivory Tower sitting across from him all alone. His avatar was indeed the white tower suggested by his name, and he remained silent even as he heard the report of the mission’s failure. Not so much as a hint of relief or unease was communicated from his faintly patterned face mask.

The Purple King glanced at Ivory before speaking again. “And Lotus, you’ve been hedging yourself by saying ‘the area,’ but if we look at the territory map, it becomes immediately obvious where you attacked. In a single day, the areas of Shibuya One and Two and Minato Three became Negabu territory, so clearly, your true objective was Minato Three, the farthest from Suginami. Which is to say that you believed Oscillatory was the parent group for the Acceleration Research Society. So come out with it then and interrogate their full proxy.”

“If he would simply acknowledge it when interrogated, I would have done that to start,” Kuroyukihime replied with a wry grin. “It is precisely because my conviction is insufficient that we begged the assistance of GW and had observers from Leo in order to get definitive proof. But that strategy failed. Or to be more precise, the strategy was found out in advance. I admit that in the information war, it was Oscillatory’s win from the very beginning.”

Ivory Tower moved for the first time. Slipping both hands out from under his elephant-tusk robe, he turned his palms upward, and a smooth and yet utterly characterless voice flowed out into the arena.

“This line of inquiry is indeed upsetting. We responded in desperation to the sudden territory attack by the joint team of Nega Nebulus and Prominence, but our strength was insufficient and we were defeated. If we had known about it in advance, we would have been able to strengthen our defenses.”

“I find it extremely hard to believe that your defenses could be considered weak when you had four of the Seven Dwarves on the defending team, including yourself,” Kuroyukihime noted.

The white-robed magician simply shrugged.

“My,” Purple Thorn said. “You won against four of the Dwarves? I would like to hear the details of that.”

“I’m happy to tell them, but I don’t think you’ll believe me,” Kuroyukihime told her.

Haruyuki added his silent agreement, deep in his own heart. A special Incarnate technique changing the field from the Territories to the Unlimited Neutral Field, not to mention Devil-class Enemies running rampant in the Hell stage—if anyone had told him such a story, he would never have believed it himself.

But Ivory Tower spoke again, as if refusing to allow Kuroyukihime to say anything more. “No matter how many of the Seven Dwarves were present, you can see from the result that our defense was surpassed by their offense; that is the fact of the matter. We in Oscillatory Universe have currently had Minato Area Three, our critical base, taken from us by Nega Nebulus, preventing our global connection and greatly inconveniencing all our Legion members. Not to mention, naturally, there was not a single Society member on the matching list. This Territories attack, carried out with this baseless conviction that we were the parent organization for the Acceleration Research Society, is clearly a violation of the mutual nonaggression pact. Oscillatory Universe demands from Nega Nebulus the immediate return of our territory and commensurate compensation.”

At Ivory Tower’s—the Restrainer Black Vise’s—brazen and unscrupulous declaration, Haruyuki felt the virtual blood flowing through his avatar grow hot once again. If he hadn’t known about their own trump card, he might have lashed out.

Instead, he clenched his hands into fists to ride it out, and Kuroyukihime spoke, her voice cool as ever.

“I will tell you now, Ivory Tower. We have never been a part of any mutual nonaggression pact. In fact, Leo and GW attack our territory on a near-weekly basis.”

“That is simply sport to train middle rankers and lower members. In point of fact, Nega Nebulus has never once had its Suginami area taken,” Ivory returned immediately, and looked around at the entire party through the now-narrow slits of his eye lenses. “But this attack was most certainly not sport. If you will not return our territory and compensate us appropriately, and if the other Legions remain silent on this matter, then we will consider the mutual nonaggression pact broken. Is this acceptable to you?”

“Hmm. Am I to take that to mean you will attack us in Aurora Oval given that our territory is adjacent?” the Purple King challenged.

The magician bowed courteously. “If that is your wish, Empress Voltage, at any time.”

“You!” Aster Vine roared, without a moment’s delay. “A mere proxy would do best to watch his words!”

But Ivory showed no sign of being moved. That fathomless ease and the information pressure on par with the kings were as mysterious as ever, but now that Haruyuki knew his true identity, it only made sense. Black Vise had been active behind the scenes since the dawn of Brain Burst, the age of the Originators before the Seven Kings of Pure Color rose to prominence, the consummate villain from the beginning of time.

“Well, don’t rush on ahead, Ivory Tower,” the Blue King said, easing the tension in the room. His heavy armor creaking, he spread his hands out before him. “We’re still only in the middle of Lotus’s report, yes? Can’t we discuss returns and compensation once we hear it to the end?”

“If you wish, Blue King. Although given that the mission or what have you was completely misdirected, I believe the conclusion is obvious.” Ivory reseated himself without a sound.

At Blue Knight’s signal, Kuroyukihime hovered forward.


At last.

Haruyuki wanted to turn around and offer Shihoko some encouragement, but he forced himself to stay put. He couldn’t do anything that might make Ivory Tower anticipate the existence of a trump card before they hit him with it. Even so, he shifted just five millimeters toward Shihoko and tried to communicate his intent to protect her no matter what happened as he focused in order not to miss a single word Kuroyukihime spoke.

“Yes. We lost the information war several hours or more before the Territories started.” There was no doubt she was talking about Megumi Wakamiya, whose memories as a Burst Linker had returned suddenly after school the day before. But Kuroyukihime continued as cool as ever.

“The situation changed at a dizzying speed, and we continued to fight desperately although toyed with by forces we did not understand. As a result, we just barely managed a victory in the Territories itself, but in practical terms, we lost. Because when Dualis checked the matching list, there were no Society member names. However…However. Leading the defense team, Ivory Tower, you made one very modest but extremely critical oversight. Well, I suppose I wouldn’t notice a lone and tiny red light in that situation, either.”

“Oversight? Red light?” Ivory Tower had to have at least sensed that the Black King was approaching the heart of the matter and yet his attitude hadn’t changed in the slightest. Cemented to his seat like a tiny white tower, he sought further explanation.

After staring at him for a second or so, Kuroyukihime turned, using her right sword leg as an axle, and sent a signal to her rear.

Tak! The hard sound of a footstep. Stepping out onto the metal floor in her chocolate-colored high heels, Chocolat Puppeter passed between Haruyuki and Leopard to come toward the center of the circle. Most likely the lowest-level Linker in the venue, Chocolat—Shihoko Nago—showed no signs of hesitation, however, as she came to stand next to Kuroyukihime and spread a hand out, bending at the waist for an elegant bow.

“Hello. My name is Chocolat Puppeter and I am a member of Nega Nebulus.” After introducing herself in a voice that carried, she turned to her left and looked at the three members of the Blue Legion. “I have a request of the two starters. I would ask that you please change me to a dueler.”

Instantly, a buzz raced through the arena.

In the normal duel field, there were two ways to turn a spectator into a dueler. One was a change to Battle Royale mode, which required the agreement of all Gallery members. The other was a continuous duel in which, once the duel was over, the winner (or either dueler in the event of a draw) went on to challenge one of the spectators. Neither actually happened that often, but because the number of victories was displayed for a continuous duel, brave warriors would tackle the challenge of taking out Burst Linkers. There was also the limited Battle Royale mode, in which only spectators invited by the duelers could participate, but there were many constraints like the number of consumed points and the amount of duel time, so this mode was generally not activated without a fairly significant reason.

At a meeting of the Seven Kings, naturally, a change to Battle Royale mode was unthinkable, which meant that the only other option was a continuous duel. At this sudden request, the two members of the Dualis exchanged a glance before older sister Cobalt Blade asked after Chocolat’s intent.

“You don’t want to fight us, right?”

“N-no, of course not. I need to show you a certain object, but members of the Gallery are not permitted to use items.” Given that this was her first meeting of the Seven Kings, the fact that Shihoko managed to speak in her usual proper way was, in a word, a splendid display of her courage.

It wasn’t clear whether or not Cobalt and her sister also approved of this determination, but after looking at each other once more, the sisters flicked open their Instruct menus.

The word DRAW flared to life in Haruyuki’s field of view. The draw did not stop the timer with just under fifteen minutes remaining, but when Cobalt moved her finger again, the name of the new duel opponent—CHOCOLAT PUPPETER—was displayed in the top right of his view, and the timer returned to 1,800 seconds.

With this, Shihoko was now the main actor in this meeting in both name and substance. Although she faced immense scrutiny under the combined gazes of the four—well, three kings since the Yellow King had vanished—along with the eyes of the high rankers who worked as their close aides, Shihoko simply took a deep breath and stood taller.

“Chocolat Puppeter, you are now a dueler just as you wished. Are you going to show us something worth the extra point I had to spend?” Manganese Blade asked.

Shihoko nodded firmly and operated her own Instruct menu to pull out a single small card that was a rich gray in color.

Several times more nervous than when he flared up at the Yellow King earlier, Haruyuki stared intently at Shihoko.

“Corvus,” Fuko murmured from his side, at the lowest volume possible. “Eyes on Ivory, not Choco.”

She was exactly right. He already knew what Shihoko was going to do, so he should have been watching for Ivory Tower’s reaction. Tower was also still part of the Gallery, meaning he wouldn’t be able to interfere, but when it came to this mysterious avatar, it was honestly impossible to know what he would do next.

Haruyuki stared at Ivory sitting quietly, not moving a muscle, while out of the corner of his eye, Shihoko brandished the gray card high above her head.

“This is a replay card I recorded in the final stages of the Territories yesterday. As I’m sure you are all well aware, it is impossible to edit or alter a Brain Burst replay card in any fashion. This recording faithfully depicts the sequence of events we witnessed,” Shihoko announced, and then tapped the center of the card with her index finger.

A shining crimson triangle floated up and projected a cone of light upward. The light nearly reached the ceiling of the Budokan, and inside that cone, something enormous writhed.

The instant the image became clear, murmured exclamations filled the arena. It was a giant with two eyes like burning embers and twisting spiral horns. Displayed above its head was a four-level health gauge.

“A-an Enemy in the Territories?!” Was it Cobalt or Manga who cried out?

“And that’s a Devil class,” Iron Pound groaned. “A Hell stage?!”

Haruyuki’s eyes threatened to get sucked into the video, but he forced himself to stay focused on the south side of the arena. Ivory still wasn’t moving, though.

This white tower avatar also showed up in the video. Riding on the left shoulder of the massive Devil-class Enemy was none other than the full proxy of the White King, the fourth of the Seven Dwarves, Ivory Tower.

“Hang on…What is the meaning of this?!” Finally, even the Purple King cried out sharply. “You tamed a Devil-class Enemy and brought it into the Territories?! How would you—?”

“Wait, Thorn,” the Blue King interjected. “Watch the video.”

Then outside the frame of the video, there came the call of a technique name that sounded like spitting blood.

“Bloodshed Cannon!!”

Transformed into a beast, Blood Leopard became a bullet shining with crimson light and charged forward at Ivory Tower on the devil’s shoulder. Even in the video, it was clear that this special attack was immensely powerful, enough to put the life of the attacker herself on the line. If Leopard’s charge made a direct hit, the target wouldn’t be able to avoid instant death, but Ivory Tower was casual as he turned his left hand toward it.

The creamy armor of the slender arm grew dark, a change accompanied by a new technique call: “Layered Armor.”

Ivory’s arm transformed into ten thin panels that lined up along the trajectory of the bullet Leopard. The crush of destruction shaking the air, seven and then eight of the thin panels were smashed to pieces, but there Leopard’s charge stopped.

She plummeted like a stone, while Ivory Tower began to transform beyond her. An inky matte black, the darkness of night itself, washed over his body, and his tower form was sliced into countless thin panels arranged together like radiation fins, the merest hint of a gap between them. The head also turned into a collection of panels, with nothing of the face mask of other duel avatars.

From this faceless face came a voice that was utterly different in both timbre and tone from Ivory Tower’s. “My goodness. And I was planning to hide from you, even submitting to dying alongside you repeatedly in Brinicle.”

“You…Black Vise!!” Black Lotus shouted ferociously from the left side of the frame. “So Ivory Tower is your true identity!!”

Now the meeting venue was awash in gasps and stunned whispers. The Purple King, the Blue King, and even the Green King, Green Grandé, stood up from their chairs. The only one who remained firmly seated was the newly exposed Ivory Tower.

“Now, now.” In the video, Black Vise shrugged nonchalantly. “Why would you think that? The opposite is just as possible.”

“No, it’s not. Because the system has never once displayed the avatar name Black Vise. That name is nothing more than what you call yourself!!”

“I see, I see. So you won’t forgive the doubling of the black color? Quite rude, hmm?”

“Heh-heh-heh.”

“But, well, since it’s come to this, it seems I’ll have no choice but to also have you retire from the Accelerated World, Black King,” the layered black avatar stated decisively. “I shall gladly take on the vacated black color name.”

Here the video stopped. Shihoko had paused the replay card she still brandished. “Up until the moment before I started recording this video, I was prepared to lose all my points.”

The eyes of the kings and their aides turned toward the small princess avatar again.

“But my…precious friend said she would protect us. So I tried to think of at least one thing that I could do, too, and I ended up recording this replay. Ivory Tower.” Still tightly gripping the card, Shihoko turned to him. “You’re likely wondering why you didn’t notice the light of the card. During recording, the circular mark shines bright red, after all. But this light was lost in the Incarnate overlay of the friend who said she would protect us. The shining heart of a middle ranker you ignored as not worthy of your time dazzled your eyes…”

Haruyuki had thought that the friend Shihoko was referring to was either Plum Flipper (Yume Yuruki) or Mint Mitten (Satomi Mito), but he quickly realized it was neither of them. The “us” she mentioned had to have been the three-person group of Petit Paquet. In which case, the one who tried to protect them had to have been Rui Odagiri—Magenta Scissor.

Rui had at one point tried to parasitize Shihoko and her friends with ISS kits, but now she wanted to protect them, with a resolve that even generated an overlay, and that light had hidden the recording mark of the replay card from the eyes of Ivory Tower. In other words, Ivory had had his feet knocked out from under him by a bond born from the ISS kits that he himself had dispersed.

After the meeting members had gotten a good look at the temporarily frozen Black Vise, Shihoko ended the replay.

The first to open their mouth was the Submaster of Aurora Oval, Aster Vine. “That bizarre form…I could never forget it. I saw him very clearly with these very eyes from the Gallery of the Hermes’ Cord race. He was riding in the shuttle with that Acceleration Research Society terrorist, the one who made a total mess of the race, Rust Jigsaw. The black avatar that disappeared in the shadows, Black Vise. Ivory Tower. To think that you were Black Vise all along!!”

In a motion that seemed unconscious, she took the whip from her waist and snapped it fiercely at the metal floor. Shwk!

“I remember each and every word that’s come out of your mouth at the meetings of the Seven Kings so far. Last time, you said that unlike Aurora Oval, Oscillatory didn’t insist on control in the Unlimited Neutral Field, and thus you were under no obligation to dispose of the ISS kit main body inside Oscillatory territory. Impressive that you could spit out such a bald-faced lie…when it was you yourself who set the kit main body in Tokyo Midtown Tower and the Archangel Metatron to guard it!!” As if overwhelmed by her indignation, Aster yanked her whip from side to side as hard as she could with both hands.

Then Cobalt Blade stepped forward with a force that nearly flipped her pigtails up on end. “Black Vise. You will pay now at last for the countless catastrophes that you have brought about in the Accelerated World! At this stage, I will not allow you to refuse to become our next duel opponent!”

She drew the sword on her left hip and turned the sharply glittering tip toward Ivory Tower. Now a member of the Gallery, Manganese Blade came to stand next to her older sister, hand on the hilt of her own sword.

Her fighting spirit boiling over, Cobalt Blade moved to open her Instruct menu to change her duel opponent.

“Wait, Dualis.”

The sonorous voice holding the sisters in check was not that of the Blue King but the Green, who had maintained his silence as always right from the start of the meeting.

Haruyuki unconsciously nearly shrieked He spoke?! but managed to hold the yelp in somehow.

He couldn’t get any kind of read on what was in the heart of the king towering above them like a massive green statue, but there was nowhere near the level of shock and indignation in the eye lenses of Iron Pound and Suntan Chafer behind him as there was with Vine and the Coba-Manga sisters. When the two Legions had negotiated the return of Nega Nebulus’s territory a week earlier, the Black King had informed them that Oscillatory Universe was pulling the strings on the Acceleration Research Society, so perhaps for the members of the Green Legion, they were more resigned than shocked at having this suspicion confirmed.

Carrying one of the Arcs, the cross-shield Strife, the Green King turned his entire body toward Ivory Tower, who still sat quietly about five meters to the king’s right, and brought the bottom of his great shield down heavily onto the ground.

“That the physical evidence myself and Dual Sword could not obtain even after hundreds of years was captured in the span of a single territory battle shows uncharacteristic carelessness, hmm, Restrainer?”

Even called by Black Vise’s nickname, Ivory Tower showed absolutely no reaction. Almost as though he had become an actual tower, he didn’t so much as twitch.

But the Green King continued evenly, “We vowed to the Black King that when it was proven that the Acceleration Research Society and Oscillatory Universe were one and the same, we would attack White. I judge the earlier replay video to be more than sufficient to serve as that evidence. Would any argue differently?”

There came an aura of a gasp from previously indignant Aster Vine and the sisters Cobalt and Manga. This was how definitive the Green King’s statement was.

In the silence strained to the limit, Ivory Tower finally spoke. “I remember, you know, Green King.”

Without awaiting a reply, he continued in a voice that was as level as ever, not changing in the slightest even in this situation.

“Immediately after the annihilation of the first Nega Nebulus, Oscillatory Universe attempted to annex Shibuya Areas One and Two. They were essential locations in our plan. But right before what should have been an essentially bloodless handover in the Territories, you conducted secret negotiations with the Black King and slipped through a gap in the system to obtain the Shibuya areas. That forced our road map back by over a year…Ever since, I’ve thought that we would likely come up against you someday, but that day has come surprisingly early.”

His words were equivalent to admitting that he was Black Vise. But Haruyuki’s interest was piqued by something else Ivory had said.

“Essential…locations…?” he muttered.

Given that the center of Shibuya No. 1 was the Harajuku region and the center of No. 2 was Shibuya Ravine Square with JR Shibuya Station at its core, both were famed tourist areas in Tokyo and popular duel spots. But he couldn’t remember there being anything important there, system-wise.

“I think it’s probably Yoyogi Park,” Fuko whispered.

“Huh? What’s in Yoyogi Park?”

But before she could answer him, the Blue King started to walk to the south, his armor creaking. The Purple King also moved; her pin heels sharp like needles clacking against the floor. They both came to a stop about five meters away from Ivory, just like the Green King.

“At the last meeting, we adopted the Red King’s proposal,” Blue Knight began. “We agreed that we would immediately put together a joint team from all seven Legions and carry out a concentrated attack at the point in time when the base of the Acceleration Research Society became clear. We would have as many high-level members as possible take part in the attack. You also agreed to this proposal, Ivory Tower.”

Purple Thorn also spoke, her words essentially devoid of emotion, which made them all the weightier. “We have determined that you, the full proxy for the White King, are Black Vise, and that the Acceleration Research Society and Oscillatory Universe are one and the same. I don’t suppose Radio, wherever he’s hiding, would argue this point. Thus, once this meeting is concluded, the seven— No, Oscillatory is no longer included, and Promi has merged with Negabu. The five Legions will commence a joint attack on Minato Areas One, Two, and Three. If we find any members of Oscillatory on the matching list, we will continue to charge them until they have been driven to total point loss. Moreover, in the next Territories, we will also attack Minato One and Two and strip you of your control.”

“In practical terms, this means that the mutual nonaggression treaty with Oscillatory is null and void.” Blue Knight spoke once more. “So naturally, we won’t object if you come to attack us. But…before the concentrated attack begins, I would like to at least warn the members of Oscillatory. If they leave the Legion, they will not be the target of our attack, even if their name should come up on the matching list. Unfortunately, that caveat excludes all members of the Acceleration Research Society, including you. I want you to communicate this warning to your Legion members. Will you do that?”

Ivory Tower silently took in what could have been seen as a final mercy on the part of the three Kings.

“Quick and slipshod before slow and careful,” he said finally.

“What?” the Blue King asked.

“It’s an old saying. It means if your work is skillful but measured, it will inevitably fall short of sloppy but fast. I’ve always thought that this admonishment did not apply in the Accelerated World where time is very nearly infinite. I believed you could take as much time as you wanted, that it was best to proceed slowly so you made no omissions or blunders. That’s why it’s taken seven years in the real world to get to this place. Seven years since I learned of the dark side of the Incarnate System…of that tremendous power.”

Blue Knight and Purple Thorn looked slightly confused by Ivory Tower’s monologue, but Haruyuki understood it so well it hurt.

The Acceleration Research Society’s plot was entirely and intimately bound to negative Incarnate. It went without saying that the Armor of Catastrophe Chrome Disaster had been bound to it, but the Hermes’ Cord attack, the ISS kits, and perhaps even the backdoor program Takumu had taken advantage of all called up, used, and amplified the power of negative Incarnate.

And the Society currently had the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, in their hands, perhaps the culmination of their plans. He still didn’t know what the group—no, what Ivory Tower and the White King—were going to do with it. But if Nega Nebulus and the other Legions didn’t do something, they would bring about an even greater catastrophe in the Accelerated World; that much was certain.

Which was why no matter how merciless a general attack on the White Legion was, they had no choice but to go through with it. All Haruyuki could do was pray that as many Legion members as possible came to realize the cruelty of the White King like Rose Milady had and heed the warning to leave the White Legion.

“Your seven years were on the wrong course right from the moment you set out,” Kuroyukihime proclaimed, still standing alongside Niko. “There is a great power in the dark side of the Incarnate. Any middle ranker in their first minutes of Incarnate System training knows that. As well as the fact that all that lies ahead is destruction once you are consumed by the darkness. And indeed, the Armor of Catastrophe and ISS kits you made have brought about irreparable tragedy in exchange for fleeting power. In an instant, you destroyed the bonds, friendship, and love cultivated over great time. What significance do you mean to say there is in pursuit of such power?!” Her question was replete with a deep anger, misery, and sadness.

“My, my.” Ivory Tower pulled his hands out from inside his robe and spread them out theatrically. “The only reason the young ones know the fearsomeness of the dark side of Incarnate is because that is what their instructors teach them. And the only reason those instructors know that is because there have been people who pursued the power of the dark side, yes? I am referring to us, of course. Black King, we have been painfully aware of the points you mention for the last seven years—no, since before the appearance of this Accelerated World. Even so, we have chosen to walk this path.”

“In that case…it’s unavoidable now, hmm?” Kuroyukihime also finally stepped forward. She hovered to the side of Chocolat Puppeter, still holding the replay card in the center of the arena, and patted her shoulder as if to applaud her work. A moment later, she continued her advance.

“Our paths have crossed any number of times before, and yesterday, they finally became one. Now our only choice is to fight until one path or the other is permanently severed. It’s too bad Cosmos isn’t here. Tell her for me: Next time, we meet in the duel field.”

“Heh-heh, you’re impatient as ever.” Ivory Tower chuckled, and when he continued, his tone sounded somehow earnest. “I have been nothing but exasperated by your quick-and-dirty way, but this incident made me realize that just as the saying has it, quick and dirty can beat slow and methodical in the Accelerated World as well. Aah, it is a delight and a surprise that there is still something for me to learn after so much time has passed here.”

Haruyuki realized that at some point, Ivory Tower’s level and courteous tone had changed into Black Vise’s somehow teacherly voice. He felt a charged shiver at the base of his neck, but nothing could happen here. This was the normal duel field, and Ivory Tower was a powerless spectator.

The ivory magician stood up in a ghostly motion that made his avatar appear weightless and looked at the four Kings lined up a mere five meters from him. Eventually, he turned his face mask back to the Black King.

“It would be odd perhaps to thank you, so I will tell you something you do not know.”

“What now—?” Purple Thorn was about to step forward, but he checked her with a hand and then pointed up with his index finger.

“Listen. As you well know, members of the Gallery cannot use special attacks or abilities. But every now and then exceptions to the rules of the Accelerated World are generated. Especially when the Incarnate System is involved. That said, of course, you can’t use any flashy attack-type Incarnate techniques, but there are instances when you can manifest results even as a member of the Gallery. Just two, in fact—the Incarnate-enhanced ability to interfere with perception or to interfere with the system directly. Radio disappeared earlier, did he not? A perfect example of this.”

“Oi, oi, that’s common knowledge among high rankers.” Blue Knight sounded exasperated. “People generally don’t use those abilities, though, because it’s a violation of etiquette.”

“Common knowledge, hmm?” Ivory Tower calmly continued his lecture. “Then you must start by questioning that common knowledge, Knight. After all, not a single one of you noticed. Not even Grandé.”

“Noticed? Noticed what then?”

“Him. Or perhaps I should say ‘her,’ now.” Ivory Tower glided to the right.

And then Haruyuki saw it. A nineteenth duel avatar behind Ivory, standing quietly in the gloom of the arena wall. A sharp silhouette with straight lines. On the smallish side, but with large hands and feet, so the overall effect was far from slender. The most distinctive feature was the shoulder armor jutting out to either side.

“…You,” Haruyuki murmured in a hoarse voice as he stepped forward.

“Ridiculous…Impossible!” Cobalt Blade shouted, dumbfounded, flying to Chocolat’s side. “I checked the number of people on the spectator list twice!”

“She was on the list, though,” Ivory Tower responded. “It’s just that you weren’t able to perceive the name of the nineteenth person. That is the true power of my Undercover ability. Now…It’s your turn.”

He brandished his left hand and snapped his fingers. At this signal, the avatar by the wall began to walk. Heavy footsteps echoed through the large arena, metal against metal.

A member of the Gallery had used an ability to keep them from seeing a name on the spectator list, a part of the BB system itself. Haruyuki couldn’t believe it was actually possible.

However.

In the middle of the previous month, at the first meeting of the Seven Kings that year held to discuss the handling of Rust Jigsaw and his disruption of the Hermes’ Cord race, Haruyuki had had a very similar experience.

Six kings had sat on the seven chairs that had been prepared, and they were left to wait for the last person. But Haruyuki hadn’t actually noticed when the seventh chair had been filled. He remembered being surprised when he happened to glance over at the empty chair, and suddenly an inconspicuous avatar was sitting there quietly. That avatar had been Ivory Tower. He’d activated his Undercover ability as part of the Gallery to deceive not only Haruyuki but even the kings.

The power to make oneself so unobtrusive that no one could perceive you seemed boring at first glance, but when he really thought about it, it was much more terrifying than the Shadow Lurker ability Black Vise and his student Shadow Cloaker used. The target was other duel avatars…and the fact that it could affect even the system display made it all the more frightening.

Sending his thoughts racing along at top speed, Haruyuki stared into the southern edge of the arena, unable to even breathe, as the nineteenth person at last stepped out from the gloom beneath the stadium seating.

Matte-gray metal armor textured like striping slashes. Face mask reminiscent of a wolf with its maw closed. The same motif on the shoulder armor.

Wolfram Cerberus…

A duel genius, he had an absolutely insurmountable defense in his superhard tungsten armor and Physical Immune ability, and combined this with a fighting style that amazed even high rankers. He was also a precious friend Haruyuki had encountered, exchanged blows with, and formed a real bond with in the Accelerated World.

“Cerberus…” Calling his friend’s name in a hoarse voice, Haruyuki took a step and then another forward. But Cerberus didn’t respond in any way; the fangs on the top and bottom of his visor remained firmly closed.

The first time Haruyuki had encountered Wolfram Cerberus and dueled at his request had been about a month earlier, the evening of June 25. At the time, Haruyuki had been forced to bow to the other avatar’s brilliance as he was immediately struck down in a crushing defeat. They had a rematch the following day, and he’d narrowly taken the victory with a fighting style made up mainly of Kuroyukihime’s Way of the Flexible and throwing techniques. And then on the twenty-seventh, Haruyuki tackled Cerberus a third time in a Battle Royale, but Argon Array, an executive member of the Acceleration Research Society, had barged in and victory had slipped through his fingers. Then, right after the battle, Haruyuki had faced Cerberus for just a moment in the real world.

He had turned toward the boy his age, who was standing there stock-still, and called out to him with the thought, I want to be your friend. The boy had quickly run away, but even so, Haruyuki had believed that if they kept on piling on the duels until they couldn’t even count how many they’d fought, they would be able to become real friends one day.

Three days later, on June 30, when Haruyuki and his friends marched into the headquarters of the Acceleration Research Society, Cerberus had appeared again in an entirely unexpected form. Gone was the friendly rival Haruyuki wanted, someone to simply enjoy the duel with no fetters or restraints; instead, the wolf avatar had been equipped with the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, produced by the Acceleration Research Society.

With the help of his Legion comrades and Metatron, Haruyuki had just barely succeeded in rendering Mark II powerless, and they had attempted to disassemble Scarlet Rain’s Enhanced Armament, which had been turned into the Armor’s vessel, with Chiyuri’s Citron Call. But before they could take back the last part of the Armament, Cerberus vanished from where he lay on the ground.

From that time until this moment, Haruyuki had worried about Cerberus, but not only had he not seen him again, he hadn’t even been able to find out where the other player was. So meeting him here and now, despite the unhappy circumstances, should have made Haruyuki dance with joy, if only because it was proof that Cerberus had avoided total point loss and remained a Burst Linker after having been reduced to a balance of just ten Burst Points.

But he had only taken two steps forward when he found himself unable to move any farther, as though his feet had been nailed to the floor. In the core of his being, he felt a sense of dreadful anticipation more ominous than when they had been locked inside Glacier Behemoth’s Last Glacial Period with Snow Fairy’s Brinicle closing in on them the day before in the Territories. It was such a cold shiver of fear that it threatened to knock him into a helpless Zero Fill state if he let it.

Stepping into the meeting venue on unsteady feet, Wolfram Cerberus stopped behind Ivory Tower. His face mask remained dark, and he showed no sign of speaking. On his back were four new protrusions of various sizes, illuminated by the weak light coming in through the roof of the dome. The Invincible thrusters stolen from the Red King had likely changed shape and color to match the design of Cerberus’s avatar.

Taking back those thrusters and freeing Cerberus from his multiple binds was one reason Haruyuki was fighting the Acceleration Research Society. The chance might have been presenting itself at that very moment, so this was no time for him to be frozen in fear. And yet he couldn’t make his feet move, clench his hands into fists, or even open his mouth. There was no reason for him to be this afraid, though, no matter how strange Cerberus seemed.

“I’ll admit that your inconspicuousness is a powerful ability, Ivory. But what do you mean to accomplish using the power to hide someone else in the Gallery? You just said so yourself. That the only abilities the Gallery can use are harmless things to deceive the eyes and ears of others.” Blue Knight gave voice to Haruyuki’s own thoughts.

Wolfram Cerberus was at best an observer there. With no health gauge and unable to carry out physical attacks, he also couldn’t use special attacks. And as far as Haruyuki knew, being a pure fighter type, Cerberus didn’t have any abilities that could mess with anyone’s perceptions. It would have been a different story if everyone in the venue agreed to change to Battle Royale mode, but there was absolutely no way that would happen. And anyway, the only ones with the right to put forward a request to change the mode were the current duelers, Cobalt Blade and Chocolat Puppeter. What exactly was Ivory Tower planning to do?

Without waiting for Ivory’s reply, Blue Knight raised a hand and signaled Cobalt Blade to his rear. “Cobal, you can see the names on the spectator list now. Just in case, force this metal color to leave the venue.”

“…Yes, sir.” Cobalt opened her Instruct menu.

For a split second, Haruyuki, Fuko, Chiyuri, Niko, Aster Vine, Iron Pound, and the other kings turned their attention to Cobalt Blade.

“Cerberus III, activate,” Ivory Tower said, his voice low and smooth.

Kshak! The armor of Cerberus’s right shoulder opened along the zigzag joint, and a vivid light gushed out of the gap.

In the battle at the Society’s headquarters, Haruyuki had heard the exact same command from the mouth of Argon Array. Then, too, the right shoulder armor had opened and the third personality living in Cerberus’s avatar—a copy of the marauder Dusk Taker—had appeared.

Is he going to show up again? Haruyuki held his breath. But the light coming from the armor opening was not the rich purple of Dusk Taker’s overlay, but a light peach reminiscent of dawn in early spring. A color he had seen somewhere very recently…

“It can’t be!” Kuroyukihime cried, facing off against Ivory Tower together with the other three kings.

At the same time, Cerberus’s right shoulder called out the technique name in a voice that was sweet and clear but also sad and empty somehow.

“Paradigm Breakdown.”

A pale pink radiance grew to an incredible intensity, dyeing Haruyuki’s field of view a single color.



Share This :


COMMENTS

No Comments Yet

Post a new comment

Register or Login