Accel World - Volume 23 - Chapter 8

8

Their third taxi ride of the morning was six kilometers long and took approximately twenty minutes.

The car had no sooner stopped at their destination, the National Center for Child Health and Development, than Kuroyukihime and Tsubomi were flying out of the door. They trotted along at a brisk pace, seemingly fighting the urge to break into a run, and Haruyuki chased after them.

Though this high-level medical facility was known to be the largest in the city, the sheer scale of the beige building still exceeded his wildest expectations. They cut across the expansive lobby on the first floor and headed for the intake reception counter. When they presented the visitation request form Megumi’s mother had authenticated for them in the entryway of her house, they were immediately issued digital visitor permits, and they showed these as they got onto the elevator. The group got off on the tenth floor of the treatment wing, and after stopping at the nurse’s station, they followed the navigation down the hallway.

That reminds me. This is where Magenta’s friend Avocado Avoider is hospitalized, Haruyuki suddenly thought as he walked along, but there was no way he could accelerate and go after him in a duel. To start with, although the three of them would appear on the matching list for this area, Setagaya No. 5, the fact that they had received absolutely no challenges was either because this was an empty area or because Great Wall, who controlled it, had issued some kind of directive.

As he turned these thoughts over in his mind, the green navigation line disappeared in front of a private room on the east side. The door automatically unlocked and opened with the faint whirring of a motor. He smelled a vaguely sweet fragrance mixed in with the scent of sanitizer.

Kuroyukihime froze in place and Tsubomi gave her a slight push. With awkward steps, the girls went through the doorway, and Haruyuki followed.

The room was small and dimly lit, though sunlight came through the curtains and gently illuminated the bed by the window. Pale-peach flowers were in the small vase set out on the sideboard. From the shape, they were probably in the orchid family, but Haruyuki didn’t know the cultivar name.

A girl with fluffy hair lay next to these flowers, as if they were watching over her, her eyes closed. Around her slender neck was a Neurolinker the same color as the orchids.

“… Megumi,” Kuroyukihime murmured and approached the bed, but then she froze, unable to reach out to her friend.

Tsubomi stood on the opposite side, and she, too, stopped moving. Her face twisted slightly and her lips moved for a moment, but he couldn’t hear what she said.

Haruyuki dropped his gaze to the bed once more. He didn’t sense any suffering in Megumi Wakamiya’s face; she looked like she was sleeping peacefully. But according to her mother, she hadn’t woken up once since Saturday evening. It was Sunday morning when her mother naturally found this strange. At that point, she’d called an ambulance, and Megumi was taken to the hospital for testing. They couldn’t find any abnormalities, such as a cerebral hemorrhage, but they admitted her anyway because of the extremely slow pace of her brain waves.

It bothered him that Megumi’s mother had been excessively dispassionate as she explained all this to Haruyuki and his friends, but it might have just looked like that to him because she was in a state of psychological distress. Of course, they knew the reason why Megumi wasn’t waking up, so it was hard not to be able to tell her. But he also knew that she wouldn’t have believed them even if they had explained it.

At any rate, Megumi Wakamiya had been accelerated from past four in the afternoon on Saturday when the Territories had ended to the present moment, at least forty-two hours. In the Accelerated World, that was 1,750 days—four years and 290 days. Haruyuki had never stayed on the other side for so long.

Perhaps thinking the same thing, Kuroyukihime began to speak. “W-we have to hurry and stop Megumi’s acceleration. Koshika, you had some idea in coming here, yes? How can we safely wake her up?”

“……”

Tsubomi silently put a hand into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a white XSB cable. As she connected one plug to Megumi’s Neurolinker, she looked at Kuroyukihime and said, “Orkki’s consciousness is being held captive by one of Wolfram Cerberus’s three quantum circuits. But Orkki’s own duel avatar also has to exist somewhere in the Unlimited Neutral Field. We find her and get her out through a portal. It’s the only way.”

“Find her? But how in the world…?” Kuroyukihime was at a loss. “The Unlimited Neutral Field is for all intents and purposes infinitely large.”

“That’s the reason for the wired connection. I don’t have time to explain in detail, but basically, I might be able to trace Orkki this way. If I don’t wake up in five minutes, take my Neurolinker off,” Tsubomi told her and plopped herself down on the floor beside the bed.

Seeing that she was about to accelerate at any second, Haruyuki hurriedly interjected, “Please wait a moment! I-I’ll go, too!” He pulled his own XSB cable from his pocket and held out the plug.

Tsubomi glared up at him from behind her curtain of hair. “I don’t need a wired connection with you. For that matter, I don’t need you at all… But if you want to come, I won’t stop you.” She accepted the plug and connected it to her Neurolinker.

As he plugged the other end into his own Neurolinker, Haruyuki looked at Kuroyukihime. She probably wanted nothing more than to go and save Megumi, too. But that was impossible. The moment she entered the Unlimited Neutral Field, she would materialize not in this hospital but inside of Inti, and die instantly within the nuclear conflagration.

“Kuroyukihime… We’ll definitely…,” Haruyuki vowed, staring straight into her obsidian eyes. “We’ll definitely save Wakamiya. So please have faith in us and wait.”

“I have faith in you.” Kuroyukihime nodded and patted his arm before turning her eyes to Tsubomi, sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees. “Koshika—no, Tsubomi. I leave Haruyuki and Megumi to you.”

“Orkki ranks higher in my list of priorities,” Tsubomi said bluntly. “But well, I’ll do what I can. Hurry it up, Crow.”

Haruyuki quickly sat down next to Tsubomi, and she immediately started the countdown.

“Three, two, one…”

He took a sharp breath and shouted with her, ““Unlimited Burst!!””