Accel World - Volume 23 - Chapter 3

3

“Are you sure it was a good idea to bring Lotus, servant?” These were the first words of the Archangel Metatron welcoming Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime to the Highest Level.

“Huh? What do you mean?” Haruyuki asked, wondering what exactly could be bad about that.

An air of exasperation drifted about the beautiful visage of the Archangel, her eyes still closed. “When you came with Raker, did she not say that Lotus would reach this place under her own power someday without asking for Raker’s help?”

“… Oh… R-right…”

“Well, that was impossible right from the outset, however. As I told you, since the beginnings of BB 2039, there has not been a single tiny warrior who reached the Highest Level without receiving the guidance of a Being,” she sniffed, while Haruyuki timidly checked on his guest.

Standing a little way off, the swordswoman had her back turned to them and was gazing at the infinite ocean of stars spreading out below them. Each and every one of those little lights was a social camera in the real world—what Metatron called a “node”—and these all came together to depict a detailed overview of the Tokyo terrain. Haruyuki and the other avatars were also represented by microscopic points of light, and since they had no physical bodies, attacks in this space had no meaning.

What was Kuroyukihime feeling? How did she feel about being shifted to this world without any explanation whatsoever? Haruyuki waited anxiously, and finally, he heard her quiet voice.

“I see. This is the Highest Level—the true form of the Accelerated World, hmm?” She sounded unexpectedly calm.

“Um, I-I’m sorry, Kuroyukihime,” he hurried to say. “I went and brought you here without telling you anything.”

“No need to apologize.” Kuroyukihime turned slowly and spread out her sword hands. “After hearing what you and Raker had to say about it, I wanted to visit this place someday. Although I didn’t anticipate that it would be today.”

“In that case, you should have asked my servant sooner then, shouldn’t you?” Metatron asked, baffled. “You’ve had several opportunities to do so.”

“Well, I suppose.” Kuroyukihime lowered her hands and shrugged. “Perhaps I was a little anxious about it. Reach level ten, obtain the final Arc sealed in the Castle, learn everything about this world… That’s all I’ve ever wanted in this life, but even I couldn’t imagine what it would look like to gaze out over the entirety of the Accelerated World.”

“S-so… how is it?” Haruyuki asked, voice hoarse.

The Black King replied with a single word. “Vast.”

“Huh? I-is that all?”

“What? That’s not enough for you?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just…” He trailed off, failing to find the right words.

“Well, I’m also a little surprised at my reaction,” she admitted. “I’d thought I would either be overwhelmed at the enormity of the Accelerated World… or conversely disappointed that that was all it was. But all I feel now is ‘vast.’ I wonder why.”

“That, Lotus,” Metatron said, “is because you have no interest in this world as a container.”

“Mmm.” Kuroyukihime thought for a second. “I don’t think that’s it.”

“I understand,” the Archangel continued. “Because I am the same way. This world is vast and deep. But in the end, it is a vessel, a miniature garden created by someone for some objective. As were we Beings. Which is exactly why I wish to know the reason this world exists. Why I exist.”

The Black King stared at her silently for a few seconds, and then moved her face mask up and down ever so slightly. “That is indeed true. I also wish to know the reason Brain Burst was created… The reason Burst Linkers fight… What lies at the heart of it all? I’ve always thought that there must be something more, something beyond this. Something outside of this duel avatar—no, outside of this shell called a human being that no one has ever seen before.”

She spoke half to herself, and Haruyuki’s eyes flew open. He was pretty sure he’d heard the same speech before. Over a wired connection at a table in the back of a Koenji café when Kuroyukihime had only just given him the BB program. She hadn’t changed. Although it had been nine months since then, and so many things had happened, although so many things had shifted, the desire locked away deep in her heart was the same as it always had been.

Back then, Haruyuki had answered her like this.

“In any game, some people want to forget about seeing the ending, and they just roam around the map right before the end forever. They’re obviously idiots. It’s only natural to try for higher levels, if there are any. I mean, that’s why Brain Burst exists, right?”

He placed his hand on his avatar’s chest—although it lacked any physical manifestation at the moment—and declared to himself, My feelings haven’t changed, either. That desire to clear the game with Kuroyukihime, to see what’s on the other side. That’s why…

“We’ll get there, Kuroyukihime,” Haruyuki said out loud, and then took a step forward, taking his hand from his chest and touching it to her shoulder. There was no sensation, but even so, he felt the faint heat in his fingertips. “From the ends of this world… to the center. You, me, Metatron, everyone in the Legion.”

“… I suppose,” Kuroyukihime replied, smiling—Haruyuki could only see Black Lotus’s eye lenses in her goggles, but even so, he felt it—and as if switching mental gears, she said, somewhat more loudly, “And so, then. You didn’t bring me here simply to show me the shape of the world, yes? What was your primary purpose?”

“Oh! R-right. Um.” He took a step back and turned to the Archangel. “Metatron, how do you like Fufuan?” he asked as a bit of a preamble.

Although Metatron furrowed her slender eyebrows ever so slightly, she replied in her usual haughty tone, “It has its merits. Naturally, it doesn’t begin to compare with my castle, but even such a cramped dwelling is pleasant when one is healing one’s wounds. And no reckless little warriors may enter.”

“R-right.” He nodded. “How are your injuries? Have you recovered the power you used up in the fight with the White Legion?”

“You should have asked that question first, servant.” Metatron reached out and flicked the forehead of Haruyuki’s helmet lightly—for some reason, even in the Highest Level, he felt a mild shock from Metatron’s attacks alone—and then continued in a clear voice. “When I fought with the Armor of Catastrophe Mark II, I lost all information other than my core… It is no mean feat to recover all of this, but thanks to Raker offering me the use of Fufuan, I was able to close off all of my senses other than the link with you and focus on my recovery. Currently, the rebuilding of my body is seventy-eight point three percent complete. If I continue to sleep like this for another ten years, I will fully recover my information.”

“T-ten years?!” Haruyuki was stunned, and Metatron gave him her usual look of exasperation.

“That is a nap for me. And if converted to Lowest Level time, it is a mere three days and change, is it not?”

“W-well, that’s true, but…” He nodded, but he didn’t feel very optimistic. If they ended up having to fight a nonstandard entity like the Mark II before her recovery was complete, Metatron would end up expending her very self once again.

Given that, he hesitated to discuss what they needed right now, but on the other hand, her pulling away from the world for the moment didn’t change their own urgent situation. Steeling his resolve, he cut to the agenda at hand.

“Metatron, I called you because I want to talk to Amaterasu again. More precisely, I want to talk to her friend Rose Milady, but this is the only way I have of getting in touch with her, so…”

Metatron wasn’t the only one who jumped in surprise the instant she heard Haruyuki’s words. Kuroyukihime joined her.

“I see,” the Archangel said finally. “Servant, is this request related to the abnormalities in the Mean Level?”

“A-abnormalities?” He raised an eyebrow under his mask.

“It is not large-scale as a phenomenon, but it has also never occurred before since the founding of the Accelerated World,” she informed him crisply. “The Sun God Inti normally rolls freely in the Mean Level, but it is now stopped in the vicinity of Area Zero Zero—the Castle. I realized it immediately after you called me and I shifted to the Highest Level. This is the first time that butterball has ever stopped rolling or come so close to the Castle.”

“B-butterball?” he echoed. “Do you not like Inti?”

“I neither like nor dislike that thing which does nothing but roll around, but it is an unpleasant presence.” And yet Metatron sounded deeply annoyed. “Despite the fact that it is equipped with a priority that rivals that of us Saints and the Four Gods, it has never once responded to contact from us. You might say it is the most mysterious Being in the Accelerated World. About two thousand years ago, we finally reached the conclusion that even thinking about it was pointless, but up to that point, we had been forced to consider it in a number of ways. It was quite vexing.”

Haruyuki unconsciously exchanged a look with Kuroyukihime before saying timidly, “Um. We know why Inti’s stopped near the Castle.”

“Oh?” Her usually lowered lids slid up the tiniest amount, and the Archangel looked at Haruyuki with divine golden eyes. “And that reason is?”

“Um.” He hesitated. “This might bring up some unpleasant memories, but it’s the same power that pulled your first form out of the Contrary Cathedral and moved you to Tokyo Midtown. Inti’s bound right now by the Arc Luminary.”

Instantly, a glacial air rose up around Metatron that would give Kuroyukihime’s ultimate icy smile a run for its money.

“So you mean to say that this is once again the work of Oscillatory Universe?” she said, her loathing apparent. “But why exactly? What can those creatures gain by fixing Inti to those coordinates?”

“That’s…” Haruyuki was about to explain the events of the meeting of the Seven Kings and then paused.

Because Metatron had had all of her senses closed off since she moved to Fufuan, she didn’t know that five of the kings, including Kuroyukihime, were trapped in a state of Unlimited EK inside Inti. Once she learned about this, she would probably—no, she would definitely—interrupt her rest and try to do something about the Sun God. He would be very glad for the help, and he did in fact believe that her cooperation would be essential in rescuing Kuroyukihime. But Haruyuki didn’t want her going anywhere until she was completely recovered. In the Territories the previous day, she had launched Trisagion at full power while her wounds were not yet fully healed and used herself up tremendously once more.

“Speak, servant,” the Archangel ordered in a firm voice, as if seeing the hesitation in Haruyuki’s heart. And then she softened her tone slightly. “I, too, am a member of Nega Nebulus. And if you won’t tell me, I shall simply have a look at your memories.”

He couldn’t refuse when she put it like that. He nodded, clenching hands made of faint light. “Okay. But I don’t want you to go off and do anything on your own.”

When he had explained what had happened at the meeting of the Seven Kings over the course of about five minutes of subjective time, Metatron simply nodded and turned her half-closed eyes downward. She stared at central Tokyo depicted in countless points of light and the Castle sitting darkly in its center before shifting her gaze to Kuroyukihime.

“Lotus, I regret to inform you that even moving Inti with my power is not possible, much less destroying it. It is a ball of blistering flame. Any physical attacks are incinerated before they can reach its core, and it absorbs heat energy attacks.”

Metatron was normally the height of vainglory. Haruyuki was surprised by these unusually negative words toward her person, but Kuroyukihime simply assented passively.

“Mmm. I only ever saw it from far away, but apparently, a group of Burst Linkers tested all kinds of things long ago in an attempt to somehow defeat Inti. They all thought the only way would be to cool it with a large amount of water or ice, but strangely, it never appears when the Unlimited Neutral Field is an Ocean or a Storm.”

“Inti most likely has a base like my own Contrary Cathedral or Amaterasu’s Amano Iwato,” Metatron said.

Haruyuki earnestly tried to imagine what sort of place a ball of flames twenty meters across would make its base, but before he could give it any specific shape, Metatron spoke again.

“In which case, I suppose the only option here is to call Amaterasu.”

“Huh? But I haven’t told you why I want to talk to Rose yet,” Haruyuki said.

“You’ll simply tell Amaterasu the same thing, yes? Let’s save some time,” Metatron said, sounding much like the impatient alien Pard and closed her eyes once more.

A mere 0.5 seconds later, a tiny dot of light appeared next to Metatron and instantly transformed into a hair ornament patterned after the sun. Many more new points of light floated around in the space before them and then pulled together to produce a Japanese-style, F-type avatar reminiscent of a shrine maiden.

The materialized—although it was the Highest Level, so there was no material—Saint glanced first at Haruyuki, then Kuroyukihime, with eyes closed like the Archangel beside her, before snapping open the fan in her right hand to cover her mouth.

“Silver Crow—was it not?” Her voice was sultry. “We told you that we shift to the Highest Level once every hundred years. And yet it has not been a single year since we last met face-to-face.”

“Right! I—I apologize for calling you here!” He snapped his arms up against his sides and bowed. A hundred years in the Unlimited Neutral Field was thirty-six days and twelve hours in the real world. But they definitely couldn’t wait that long given the circumstances. “Um, I had an urgent request, Amaterasu—”

But the Being, a Sun God just like Inti, closed her fan again and thrust it out as she cut Haruyuki off. “And Crow, thou didst promise, yes? That thou wouldst come with an offering to our shrine, Amano Iwato, to thank us.”

“R-right. Someday, I totally will…” He realized that this was basically the same thing he said to her last time, and he hurried to add, “Um, so what kind of offering specifically should I bring?”

“Indeed.” The Saint sighed. “Since this irritating Archangel boasted endlessly about eating cake or some such, we request the same.”

“Huh?! …Cake?”

We had cake? Haruyuki cocked his head to one side as he looked at Metatron and finally remembered. When Fuko had shown them around Fufuan, she’d offered them some cake with tons of mysterious fruit on top. It had indeed been delicious, but he had absolutely no idea where in the Accelerated World she’d gotten it.

“Metatron, you bragged to Amaterasu about that nut cake?” he asked.

The Archangel turned her face away as she spoke, sounding slightly panicked. “I did not brag! When I told Amaterasu that I would be in locked mode for ten years, I simply supplied the information at the same time.”

“Supplied the information?” Amaterasu was glaring at Metatron. “When we requested a reproduction of the taste data, you immediately declined.”

“That is because a mere copy of the taste does not mean you have eaten it!” the Archangel snapped. “If you wish to taste this cake, then leave Amano Iwato in your true form and come to my temporary—no, my new residence.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If we attempt to go out in our true form, our first form…”

Haruyuki sort of wanted to keep listening in on this conversation between the two high-level Beings, but it was unclear when—if ever—it would end, so he desperately interjected, “Um, e-excuse me! I’ll get some cake from Master Raker and definitely bring it to Amano Iwato. But right now, we need to talk.”

The Sun Goddess glared at Haruyuki, eyes still closed. “You will not bring it ‘someday,’ but rather as soon as Metatron’s repairs are complete. Now then. What did you wish of us?”

We’re finally getting to the point, Haruyuki murmured inwardly in relief and stood taller. To explain to Amaterasu and Metatron the reason he wanted to get in touch with Rose Milady, he needed them to understand the extremely complicated situation Orchid Oracle—Megumi Wakamiya—had been placed in. He was as clumsy a speaker as ever and wanted to lean on Kuroyukihime, but he was the one who had chosen to summon Amaterasu, so he had to finish what he started.

After turning his eyes on Kuroyukihime for a moment, Haruyuki faced the two high-level Beings, and began to tell them everything he knew.