Accel World - Volume 25 - Chapter 7

7

Waking up from the full dive, Haruyuki stared up at the unfamiliar wooden ceiling and wondered where he was. But he quickly remembered that this was Utai’s room, and he let out a short sigh.

The current time was…4:08 PM. That meant that the meeting had ended in just over an hour, but he felt like he’d been diving for three times that long. Although, since the VR space had been on top of a flying whale, “dive” wasn’t quite the right word for it. And why did they call it “diving” anyway? Who had been the first person to use that expression for virtual worlds…

As these thoughts wandered through his mind, Utai, who was lying to his right, moved her hands on top of the blanket.

UI> C.

Not “Arita,” but “C.” He waited a few seconds, but she typed nothing more, so he turned his head toward her.

When he did, the girl he could see through the chat window spelled out words unusually slowly, a vast light in her eyes, even though they were turned toward the ceiling.

UI> DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOU ENTERED THE CASTLE WITH ME?

“Yeah, of course.”

There was no way he could forget. The mission to rescue Ardor Maiden from where she was sealed at the south gate of the Castle, which was guarded by the God Suzaku, had been carried out in June—he was pretty sure it had been on the eighteenth. With some help from Sky Raker, he had charged onto the large bridge that led to the south gate at what had been his top speed at the time. Although he managed to pick up Ardor Maiden when she appeared, he had been unable to shake the fierce pursuit of Suzaku from behind, and so he had kept going right through the south gate.

That was the first time he’d broken into the Castle. He had encountered Trilead Tetroxide there and learned a great number of things. And now, even a month later, the dazzling red of the leaves falling on the grounds of the Castle’s Heian stage returned to him vividly whenever he closed his eyes.

Perhaps waiting for him to call up the memory, Utai now displayed new text in the chat window. UI> THERE, I SHOWED YOU AN INCARNATE TECHNIQUE FROM THE FOURTH QUADRANT, A DESTRUCTIVE INCARNATE.

“Uh-huh.” He also remembered this clearly. To crush a powerful sentinel Enemy, Utai had transformed the ground into a magma bog, a terrifying technique indeed. “You said that technique was…developed to use on the God Genbu, right?”

UI> YES. THE TIME TO USE THE FULL POWER OF THAT TECHNIQUE HAS FINALLY COME.

Having typed these gallant words, Utai’s hands tightened into balls, as if to fire herself up.

That night at ten o’clock, Nega Nebulus would recruit support from the other Great Legions and take on the fight with the God Genbu, which guarded the north gate of the Castle.

The ultimate goal of the mission was to rescue Graphite Edge, who was locked inside the Castle. In other words, they didn’t have to crush Genbu; they just had to prevent it from doing anything until Graph had crossed the bridge over the moat. But naturally, this would be no easy task. Genbu had the greatest defensive power of the Four Gods and possessed a shell that resisted even Graph’s twin blades Lux and Umbra, and he was the most powerful sword wielder in the Accelerated World.

Thus, given that she had already developed an Incarnate technique specifically for use on Genbu, Utai would be part of the main attacking group in the fight against the God. However, after she activated her fourth-quadrant Incarnate in the Castle, she had collapsed, unable to withstand the mental load. The power of the technique that would be required this time didn’t compare with the scale then. He couldn’t even imagine what kind of burden would be placed on her mind.

He wanted to help her. He wanted to cover her with the full force of a positive Incarnate, standing beside her as she used a powerful negative one. But he couldn’t. He was trapped in an Unlimited EK at Tokyo Grand Castle, so he wasn’t going to be able to take part in the mission on Genbu. Tortured by an unprecedented sense of powerlessness and frustration, Haruyuki tightened his hands on the edge of the blanket.

That was what Unlimited EK meant: No matter how difficult an objective his comrades took on in the Unlimited Neutral Field, the true form of the Accelerated World, he couldn’t be a part of it. Utai, when she was sealed at the Suzaku gate; Akira, when she was sealed at the Seiryu gate; Kuroyukihime, when she was swallowed up by the Sun God Inti—they must have felt this same way.

Haruyuki finally understood, not with his head but with his heart, the true severity of the situation into which he had been placed.

If the mission to rescue him failed late tomorrow night or, at the very latest, early morning the day after tomorrow, the White Legion would no doubt put some kind of measures in place, so it would become much more difficult for him to escape the Unlimited EK. He might not be able to enter the Unlimited Neutral Field for weeks or months—or maybe, like Utai and Akira, for years—of real time. Normal duels were possible, and he could take part in the Territories on the weekend, but he would no longer be able to go hunting Enemies with his comrades, or talk endlessly while looking out at the view, or fly free in the sky of the borderless Accelerated World.

Nor, of course, fight alongside his comrades as they faced death.

Tears threatened to spring from his eyes at his frustration and fear.

“Hey, Haruyuki, c’mere.”

He looked to his right and saw that Niko, on the other side of Utai, had wrapped her right arm around the younger girl and pulled her close.

“Uh, um,” he stammered. “When you say ‘c’mere’—”

“Just do what I’m doin’!”

Huh? he thought, but Niko was currently the submaster of Nega Nebulus, and Utai wasn’t saying anything. He steeled himself before rolling ninety degrees to his right to cross Niko’s right arm with his left and touch Utai’s shoulders.

When he did, he felt small vibrations in his palm—she was shaking. This small body, less than half the size of his, was stiff, cold like ice, and shivering. She hadn’t clenched her fists before to psych herself up. She had been trying to stop the shaking.

Ever since she returned to Nega Nebulus, Utai Shinomiya had been the Legion’s booster and moral support. No matter what was happening, her smile never faltered as she encouraged other members with a calm attitude and warm words to give them all courage.

But she was still only ten years old. It was said that the actual and mental ages of high-level Burst Linkers diverged, but that didn’t mean the feelings stopped. Even if they did learn the trick to withstanding terror, that didn’t erase the terror itself.

Three years earlier, Utai had fought the God Suzaku and lost. That memory was no doubt still vivid in her mind. If Utai’s Incarnate attack in the mission against the God Genbu failed, it was possible that not only Utai, but several of her comrades, would end up in Unlimited EK. That pressure made her slender body shake viciously.

After all, even Utai had times when she wanted to voice her fears or cling to someone else. But the parent who could’ve been there for her in those moments—her real-life older brother Kyoya Shinomiya/Mirror Masker—was no longer in the Accelerated World, nor even the real world. A mere year after he made her his child, the large mirror in their Noh Theater’s Kagami-no-ma had fallen onto him and he lost his life right before Utai’s eyes. That was the day she’d lost her voice.

Kyoya had been four years older than Utai, which meant that if he had been alive, he would’ve been in eighth grade—the same as Haruyuki. But Haruyuki could never take his place. Whatever Kyoya could have given Utai at a time like this, Haruyuki couldn’t give her even a piece of that.

Knowing that, he still tightened his hand on Utai’s shoulder slightly. The body he touched through the fabric of her yukata felt a little cool after her bath. He scraped together all the energy in his body, thinking he should at least share his warmth with the shaking girl.

“Hey, Ui?” Niko said suddenly, glued to Utai on the other side. “It’s true that the main attacker tonight’s gonna be you. But like, you don’t gotta carry all that pressure or stress or whatever all by yourself. You gotta hand out that heavy stuff to the people around you. A good Legion lets you do that, yeah?”

She was exactly right. When he’d been parasitized by the Armor of Catastrophe, Haruyuki had tried to carry everything all by himself. But Takumu, Chiyuri, Kuroyukihime, Fuko, and Utai had reached out and helped him support the weight of the armor.

“Me too,” he said. “I’ll carry this with you, too. I can’t be a part of the Genbu mission. But I’ll send you power from the real world while you’re accelerated, Shinomiya.”

Of course, in terms of the Brain Burst system, Haruyuki wouldn’t be able to support or interfere with Utai in any way in the Unlimited Neutral Field, even if they were directing. His voice wasn’t even allowed to reach her. But he was sure that there was something he could communicate that transcended the system. He believed it.

Glued to her friends on the blanket, Utai gradually regained her body heat, and her shaking slowly subsided. The hands she had kept clenched finally opened and touched the keyboard that only she could see.

The chat window had disappeared but now it popped up again. UI> NIKO, C. The letters scrolled out in a cherry-pink font.

And then they heard a sharp knocking and all three looked toward the sliding door. Haruyuki assumed it was Shiomi, so he panicked and tried to pull away from Utai, but before he could…

Bang! The door flew open and someone stomped inside to look down on the three of them lying on the tatami.

“I knew it!”

“Huh?! K-Kuroyukihime?” Haruyuki cried out, and the face that popped up above his head was none other than that of his swordmaster, who he’d seen off early that morning from the Arita house. Fuko popped up beside her. “A-and Master…What’s wrong?!”

Fuko smiled merrily. “Uiui messaged Sacchi and me that you and Niko were staying at her house, Corvus.”

Haruyuki turned his head to the right, and Utai deleted the first line and began to type again.

UI> I THOUGHT THAT I SHOULD MAKE CLEAR YOUR WHEREABOUTS SINCE WE WILL BE CONTINUING A MAJOR MISSION FROM TONIGHT UNTIL TOMORROW. BUT WHY ARE YOU AND FU AT MY HOUSE, SACCHI?

“Because it is the role of the master to monitor the actions of her Legion members.”

“A-actions,” Haruyuki muttered.

“Corvus,” Fuko said, smile still on her face, “I can’t see this as anything other than a violation of public morals.”

It was true that he could offer up no excuses for being glued to Utai and Niko, wrapped up in a single comforter together. On top of that, he could hear elegant footsteps that no doubt belonged to Shiomi in the hallway. He hurried to sit up and lay out the cushion he’d been using as a pillow before sitting up properly on his knees on it.

Shiomi appeared in the doorway, carrying a tray. She took a look at the strange situation in the room and furrowed her brow slightly.

“Miss Utai, as I recall, these young ladies did come to visit once several years ago, so I had them come inside. But it does appear that they are also acquaintances of the young master and mistress there. So I do have to wonder how it is that you all know each other?”

It was no wonder that she would wonder. Niko, in sixth grade, could just barely be seen as the same age as Utai, but Haruyuki was in eighth grade, Kuroyukihime in ninth, and Fuko tenth. At a glance, they had nothing in common, and they definitely couldn’t tell her about Brain Burst.

“You’re always such a good child—you’re really too good, Miss Utai—so I don’t wish to say too much. But I am here to take care of you while the master of the house is away.”

Haruyuki and the others stiffened at this, while Utai sat up formally on her knees on a cushion after adjusting the collar of her yukata and smiled brightly as she moved her fingers. UI> NANNY, ALL OF THESE PEOPLE ARE MY PRECIOUS

But the cursor stopped there. Shiomi had an elegant lavender Neurolinker on her neck, so she would have also been able to see the chat window. But Utai waved her left hand to erase the holo keyboard and then set her hands in her lap.

She sat up straight and took a deep breath. Her small lips trembled. Smile gone now, her face twisted, and she took several painful breaths.

“Miss!” Shiomi cried and started to run toward her.

But Utai whipped up a hand to stop her. She pressed that hand to her own chest and hit it once, twice. Almost as though she were trying to knock loose something caught in her throat.

“Uiui,” Fuko said, her voice hoarse, but she didn’t take a step toward the girl. Niko and Kuroyukihime watched with concern.

Utai gritted her teeth. Tears sprang up in the corners of her eyes and fell onto the lap of her yukata.

After Haruyuki had met Utai, he had looked up aphasia. Apparently, the syndrome in which words were lost due to a mental shock was called psychogenic aphonia. Meanwhile, expressive aphasia was a higher brain dysfunction caused by damage to the speech center of the brain, so Utai’s symptoms of having become unable to speak from the shock of seeing her brother Kyoya die before her eyes appeared to be the former impairment.

But it turned out that an overly strong stressor could bring about organic damage to the brain. In Utai’s case, this had meant treatment with a BIC, so they had confirmed actual damage in exams. In other words, her aphasia was not an impairment that could be overcome through her own will. Utai would have known that better than anyone else.

And yet, she wouldn’t stop trying to speak.

Her hands tightly clenched on her lap, she leaned forward and continued to breathe quickly. It seemed relatively hard for her to call the acceleration command voicelessly, but that didn’t begin to compare to the struggle now. Droplets of tears mixed with sweat fell on her tiny fists.

That’s enough! Haruyuki desperately swallowed the cry that threatened to leap out of his throat.

The time seemed double, triple what it was. Ten, twenty seconds passed. And then.

“…F…”

The voice was so weak that it was almost drowned out by the cries of the cicadas coming in through the window glass, but it was there. The timbre of it was basically the same as the one he heard in the Accelerated World, but it was gentler and clearer.

“…F. Riend…s…”

When she squeezed the syllables out from the depths of her soul, Utai slumped as if drained of strength and propped herself up with her hands on the floor. After taking a few seconds to get her breathing back under control, she straightened up and touched her holo keyboard.

UI> MY FRIENDS! she typed with vigor.

Even though he could clearly see this text, the outer edge of the chat window was blurred into a rainbow, and Haruyuki blinked repeatedly. At the sensation of droplets sliding down his cheeks, he finally realized that he had tears in his eyes. He wiped at his eyes and looked up to see Shiomi also blinking quickly. She nodded slowly as a loving smile spread across her face.

“Is that so, then?” was all she said. She walked over to the low table against the wall and moved the glasses of cold tea from the tray in her hands onto it before standing up again. “Please relax and enjoy yourselves, everyone.” She left the room, and her footsteps in the hall outside gradually grew fainter.

“Uiui!” Fuko half-shrieked, and threw herself at Utai, almost sliding across the tatami mats. She deftly flipped around so that she was underneath the girl as she squeezed her with inhuman strength. Utai’s hands reached into the air and flailed at her holo keyboard.

UI> FU! I XAN’Y BREADHE.

Seeing this spring up in the chat window, Haruyuki, Niko, and Kuroyukihime all smiled through their tears.

Supper that evening was sukiyaki prepared for them by Shiomi. Her work normally ended with making supper for Utai, and she usually went home at five o’clock. But she stayed an hour later that day and made sure there was plenty of food for the five of them. Of course, Haruyuki and his friends also helped, but Shiomi was just so skilled in the kitchen that they weren’t able to really do much of anything.

Once they finished a lively supper with the five of them crowded around a single pot, they cleaned up and then Kuroyukihime and Fuko got in the bath. When Kuroyukihime came back in a black kimono with a wavy stripe pattern and Fuko in a white yukata with a traditional hexagonal pattern in blue, it was seven thirty PM and study time.

When he thought about it, he had stayed at Kuroyukihime’s on the twenty-first, the first day of summer break, and after the grand send-off party for him at the Arita house on the twenty-second, Seri, Rin, and Kuroyukihime had stayed over, and now he was staying over at Utai’s. He was sure that Chiyuri would tell him he was playing around too much from the first day of summer break the next time he saw her, so he had to at least get the jump on his summer homework.

Fortunately, every time he got stuck on a difficult problem, Kuroyukihime—who was more the science type—and Fuko—who was more the literary type—gave him helpful hints, so he managed to get more than his quota done that day again. The older group helped the younger group while also getting through their own homework at a brisk pace, but although they kept pushing at it, they were also carrying the exhaustion of an important battle, so study time came to an end at nine thirty that night.

They had half an hour before the start of the mission to attack the God Genbu.

After replenishing their energy with tea made by Fuko and Utai and macarons brought by Kuroyukihime, they cleared away the coffee table once again and spread futons out on the tatami mats. The room was small, so two futons were the limit, but it was only the four girls who were diving, so that wasn’t an issue.

Haruyuki thought about it and told Utai that he would take the chair. He started toward the wooden stool in front of her study desk, to sit there until they all returned.

“Why can’t you lie down here, too, Haruyuki?” Kuroyukihime said, and the other three girls nodded.

“Huh?” He frowned. “But there’s not a lot of room, and I’m not taking part in the mission, so…”

“It’s a matter of feelings, Corvus,” Fuko said. “When I think about someone looking at my face from over there while I’m accelerated, I won’t be able to stay calm and fight.”

“Yeah, totes. You gotta be in the same place in the real world because you can’t dive inside.”

UI> THERE ARE NO BARRIERS IN NEGA NEBULUS!

In the face of this string of objections, he couldn’t keep stubbornly refusing. With no other choice, he moved away from the stool and back toward the futons where the girls were sitting.

“O-okay, then just on the edge here.” He lay down in a position that had half his body spilling off the futon so that he would take up as little space as possible.

But Niko jumped over him with the nimbleness of a duel avatar and came down to body-check him. “Boom!”

He reflexively jumped upward and was promptly pulled back down with a surprising amount of force, until he was maneuvered into the middle of the two futons.

“Ui! Hold that side down!”

UI> ON IT!

Niko threw herself onto his right arm and Utai onto his left, rendering him immobile.

He sent his eyes racing around, bewildered, and Kuroyukihime looked at the gleeful smiles of Niko and Utai with an exasperated, affectionate expression. Finally, she clapped her hands together.

“All right, then. Five minutes until mission start. Utai, is there a terminal for your home server in this room?”

UI> YES, ON THE BOTTOM SHELF.

Utai lived in a house that was so traditionally Japanese he wouldn’t have been surprised if it were designated an important cultural property in the ward. But it seemed that a certain amount of work had been done to make even this a smart home, and a small device with a row of XSB ports sat on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. Kuroyukihime pulled five long cables out of her bag and first connected her own Neurolinker to the terminal before connecting the Neurolinkers of the others in a daisy chain. Now, when Kuroyukihime’s connection to the global net was cut off, that of the others would be cut off at the same time. This was the timed disconnection safety, an essential precaution when entering the Unlimited Neutral Field.

“I’m setting the timer for three hours of inside time. In other words, no matter how the mission drags on, all of us will be disconnected in ten point eight seconds in real time,” Kuroyukihime said, and sat down to the right of Niko as she looked at Haruyuki. “Naturally, I have no intention of actually taking ten seconds—three hours. Haruyuki, have faith in the success of our mission and wait for our return.”

“Okay!” he replied, and Kuroyukihime smiled in response before she lay down next to Niko. Fuko settled in beside Utai, and they all waited for ten PM. Forty more seconds. Thirty.

“Hey, Haruyuki, don’t go Unlimited after us,” Niko said, plastered to his right side.

“I-I wouldn’t!” he protested. “If I did, I’d die right there on the spot!”

“You’re careless is the thing, though.”

Instantly, laughter came from either side of him. When he looked to his left, he saw that Utai also had a huge grin on her face.

Fifteen seconds.

“Mei, good luck,” he murmured, and Utai nodded firmly, grin still on her face.

“All right, Niko, Utai, Fuko. We dive on the count of three,” Kuroyukihime instructed in a calm voice, stifling her own laughter.

A powerful feeling of frustration rose inside of Haruyuki once again.

Was there no way for him to support Utai—and all the people taking part in the Genbu mission? Was there nothing he could do besides pray in the real world?

“Countdown. Three, two, one…Unlimited Burst!”

The instant they called out the acceleration command—Utai alone with no sound—a single possibility sparked to life in the back of Haruyuki’s mind.

There…was maybe a way Silver Crow could help with the Genbu mission, even when he was sealed away at Tokyo Grand Castle in the Unlimited Neutral Field.

And so, a second after the four girls, Haruyuki also shouted,

“Burst Link!”