Accel World - Volume 26 - Chapter 10

10

After getting out of the taxi in front of his condo building, Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime bought drinks at the shopping center inside before taking the elevator to the twenty-third floor. Although it had only been eight hours since he’d left the house to take care of Hoo, it felt like he hadn’t been home in days.

Well, I didn’t expect it to be a day with all of this happening when I left this morning, he thought as he unlocked the door. He placed his hand on the door handle, and then gasped.

“Mmm. What is it?” Kuroyukihime furrowed her brow.

“Oh, it’s nothing serious at all,” he said quickly. “It’s just, I announced I’m basically on the matching list every day around ten in the morning and three in the afternoon, and I realized I skipped out on the morning today.”

Instantly, the look on Kuroyukihime’s face changed from dubious to worried. “Is that it? Utai told me that you’ve been dueling dozens of times a day. And I won’t say that dueling is itself bad, but—”

“Uh. Um. It’s a bit awkward to talk here…” Haruyuki managed to cut in and gave Kuroyukihime a push toward the door. “Come inside at least!”

He had turned on the air conditioning via the condo’s local net while they were shopping, so the heat in the living room had been completely swept away. His mother had still been in bed when he left the house, but she’d left for work now and likely wouldn’t be home until late again. Even with Haruyuki on summer vacation, they were still always just missing each other. But lately, he hadn’t really felt the same abandonment he had before. And the fact that she always came home late meant that he could invite his friends over.

“Whenever I come to your house, it’s always impeccable. Your mother likes things neat?” Kuroyukihime asked him as she set her shoulder bag down.

Haruyuki looked around the living room. “Yeah, Mom definitely does like things neat, but I do clean, too.”

“Oh-ho!” She raised an eyebrow. “Impressive. And your own room as well?”

“Um. M-more or less.” He panicked suddenly as he realized his T-shirt was still where he’d tossed it on the bed, but it wasn’t like she would see it. He hurriedly went into the kitchen and washed his hands before putting some ice into two glasses. He portioned out the lime-flavored carbonated water they’d bought and popped a titanium straw into each glass.

When he returned to the living room, Kuroyukihime had moved to the window facing the balcony and was gazing out at the darkening sky.

“Here you go, Kuroyukihime,” he said, holding the tray with the glasses out to her.

“Oh. Thank you.” She took a glass with one hand and put her mouth on the straw.

For a moment, he was entranced by her face in profile. He hadn’t turned on the lights in the apartment, so the golden glow of the western sun pouring through the window made her silken ebony hair and her piano-black Neurolinker shine faintly. Despite the fact that it was nearly the end of July, there was no hint of a tan on the arms that peeked out from the short sleeves of her dress.

What was I so anxious about these last three days? Haruyuki asked himself, still holding the tray in both hands. He should have called her sooner, called her the very evening of the Tezcatlipoca mission. He should have had faith in his beloved master and parent, Kuroyukihime, and talked to her about everything on his mind.

No, but it’s not too late even now. Megumi and Tsubomi created this chance for me, and I have to really use it and tell her everything. With this thought, Haruyuki was about to open his mouth.

“That reminds me. I have a message for you,” Kuroyukihime said as she pulled her mouth away from the straw, like she’d just remembered something.

“What? Fr-from who?” he stammered.

“Graph and Lead,” she replied. “Let’s see, first Graph’s. ‘Sorry I was no use in the Tezcatlipoca fight. I’ll train more with Lead and be back.’”

“Tr-train?!”

“Mmm.” She nodded. “Lead left the message ‘I will return when I’m stronger. Please keep fighting, Crow.’”

For a moment, he stood and gaped at her, but then asked the first question that occurred to him. “Where is this training?”

“At Mount Fuji in the Unlimited Neutral Field, apparently,” she said. “Graph’s always been a wanderer. It might have been a mistake to free him from the Castle.”

“M-Mount Fuji?” Without thinking, he looked out the window at the western sky. On clear winter days, Mount Fuji was visible from his condo on the twenty-third floor, but maybe because the air was hazier in the summer, he could only see as far as the mountains of Okutama. “Is Mount Fuji in the Unlimited Neutral Field some kind of special place? I guess Metatron went to Mount Fuji, too, to heal from her injuries. And Master Sentry said there’s an infinite pool of sake there.”

“There’s no mistake that’s it’s a special place,” Kuroyukihime assented readily, and indicated the window with the glass in her right hand. “There are dungeons and fixed Enemies in the Unlimited Neutral Field at nearly all of the famous landmarks in Tokyo, yes? Mount Fuji is the most famous landmark in all of Japan. It would be strange if there wasn’t something there.”

“I guess that’s true.” He nodded slowly. Even the Minato City Local History Museum, the name of which he had only learned that very day, had the Beast-class Enemy Crococetus living there. It made sense that Mount Fuji would have Legend-class or even higher-class Enemies living there.

He felt like he wanted to go check it out and at the same time like he wanted to stay away from it at all costs. He lifted his own glass and sucked hard on the straw. The shock of the carbonation and the fragrance of lime shot through his head, washing away part of the complex layers of thought bogging him down.

He didn’t know what was going to happen to him—to Silver Crow—from here on out. The Minato Area No. 3 Territories had only been postponed, so next week, he might actually have to fight the Nega Nebulus defense team as a member of the attacking team. And there was also the possibility that Platinum Cavalier would set another trap for him. That said, however, he couldn’t exactly go pulling his Neurolinker off his neck and locking himself away somewhere. In the end, there was only one thing he could do, one thing he had to do: get stronger. Strong enough to resolve all of these problems and reach the objective he had his sights set on with Kuroyukihime—the end of Brain Burst.

“Um. Kuroyukihime?” With his gaze still turned toward the evening sky, Haruyuki tried once more to tell Kuroyukihime the things he hadn’t been able to say before. “I’m sorry for transferring to Oscillatory Universe without consulting you…and for not calling you at all after that. But I—”

“Don’t say it!”

He jumped at the sudden shout, and a little carbonated water spilled from his glass. He turned eyes wide in surprise to his side and found Kuroyukihime hanging her head low. The long hair that spilled over her shoulders hid basically all of her face, and he couldn’t see her expression.

As he stood there, rooted to the spot, he heard a hoarse voice.

“I’m sorry for yelling.”

He realized that her hands on the glass were trembling. He returned his own glass to the tray, took two steps to one side, and gently took her glass from those trembling hands. After setting both glasses down on the dining table, he hurriedly turned back to her.

He placed a hand on her back to lead her to the sofa, where he guided her to sit down, before sitting next to her himself. But he had no idea what to do next. Even if he wanted to apologize, he didn’t know what he’d said before that had caused her to react like that.

“If you…,” she murmured abruptly, so he listened attentively. “If you apologize to me about the transfer, I feel like it will all become reality. In the car, I said you would perform magnificently even after this transfer to the White Legion. That wasn’t a lie, but the idea of it actually happening is very…very frightening to me. This is the first time since I became a Burst Linker that I’ve feared losing something this much.”

“You don’t—! Please don’t talk like that!” he said earnestly, leaning forward. “You’re not losing anything, Kuroyukihime! I have been and will always be your child. And I know the time might come that I have to fight Nega Nebulus, but the bond that connects us isn’t going to be cut by something like that. I mean…you were the one who taught me that once you accelerate, there is only the duel!”

Even after Haruyuki broke off, Kuroyukihime’s mouth remained closed. Eventually, he heard a voice that threatened to fade into silence.

“I suppose. I am your parent, you my child. As long as we are Burst Linkers, that will never change. But…that very relationship produces an invisible wall between us.”

“Huh? A…wall?” He frowned. “Where would that…?”

“Here,” Kuroyukihime said, and finally lifted her face. She brushed away the tears clinging to her long lashes with a fingertip and brought that hand to his face. But she stopped ten centimeters in front of his lips, and a faint smile crossed her own.

He finally understood what she wasn’t saying. The wall was a mental boundary, the awareness of being parent and child—in other words, “family” was putting a type of limiter on Haruyuki’s heart.

Six days earlier, on Sunday, he’d taken a bath with Kuroyukihime at her house. Naturally, they had both been stark naked, but he’d only thought that her nude body was beautiful and hadn’t felt any kind of physical desire. This was partly because he’d been so nervous that he thought he might die, and because she had confessed some rather shocking things to him. She’d explained that she was a “machine child” born from an artificial womb, and part of an experiment to overwrite a body’s original soul with one with an unknown history.

But there was one more reason. He hadn’t been aware of it until now, but he had inside of him a solemn awareness that he was Kuroyukihime’s child, and this awareness was creating an invisible wall between them.

Nine months earlier, Kuroyukihime had used the Physical Burst command in order to save him when he was about to be hit by a car. When they were alone in the frozen blue world then, she had told him to his face that she liked him, but he hadn’t taken that declaration seriously.

Why was he so fixated on the parent-child relationship?

The truth was, he knew why. It was because he had no confidence in himself. Whenever something bad happened, he ran away; he’d hurt his beloved childhood friends any number of times because of his inability to stand up to bullying. He hated, hated, hated, hated this self so much he could hardly stand it. So he’d allowed himself to lean into the comfortable parent-child relationship regulated by the Brain Burst system.

But.

Now. This was the time for him to smash the hard, thick shell he had locked himself up in. He mustered all the courage he’d built up bit by bit in both the Accelerated World and the real world, and raised his hands.

The words Kuroyukihime had spoken to him nine months earlier, when he’d only just become a Burst Linker, came back to life in his mind: Do these two virtual meters feel that far to you?

At the time, those two meters had been infinity. They still felt that way. But it was a distance that he himself was creating.

Haruyuki reached out trembling hands and wrapped them around the cool hand of the long-suffering Kuroyukihime. He pulled it toward him and touched the teardrops on her fingertips to his lips.

“Kuroyukihime,” he said, with all the emotion in his heart. “Kuroyukihime. I like you. Not as a Burst Linker, but as me, Haruyuki Arita. I like you, Sayuki Kuroba.”

The black, crystalline eyes before him flew open in surprise. Tears welled up in them once again, and absorbed the red afterglow coming through the window, shining like tiny stars. Two of those stars slid downward, leaving a glittering trail behind. Her lustrous lips trembled slightly and then formed a delicate yet definite smile.

Kuroyukihime lifted the hand she had pushed down onto the sofa, laid it on top of Haruyuki’s hands, and murmured in a voice like a silk thread being strummed:

“I do, too. I like you, too.”

Using their clasped hands as a support, the two slowly brought their faces closer. Kuroyukihime’s hair slid forward, and a sweet scent wafted through the air. Ebony eyes containing small galaxies closed without a sound. A heartbeat later, Haruyuki closed his eyes, too. As if pulled together by some invisible force, lips touched lips.

Warm. Soft. Smooth. It wasn’t only these physical sensations; a vast amount of information was communicated to him as if every nerve in his body were responding. He could feel the sadness and pain and loneliness Kuroyukihime had been carrying around all this time…and the love that she was feeling in that moment.

He wanted to communicate the same—no, even deeper—emotions to her. With this fervent desire in his heart, Haruyuki leaned forward a little too far. The balance between their two bodies, supported only by their four hands, wavered, and they fell onto the sofa with Kuroyukihime below and Haruyuki on top.

But they didn’t move to pull their lips apart. In fact, they each pulled the other closer to them with their now-free hands, and tried to connect more powerfully, more deeply. The boundary separating them grew hazy and then broke apart; their bodies and minds melted into one.

More. He wanted to feel more. He squeezed the arms wrapped around Kuroyukihime’s slender frame as tightly as he could.

At some point, their mouths had opened, and now tongue tangled with tongue. An impossibly sweet sensation pierced his body, turned into sparks, and lit up his entire nervous system. A rainbow light bloomed in the darkness behind his eyelids. It became a shimmering circle that spread out and covered everything.

Skreeeeee!!

Haruyuki’s consciousness shattered into countless pieces.

“Ah! Wh-what?!”

By the time he heard Kuroyukihime’s cry, Haruyuki was already leaping up. He snapped his eyes open and looked around.

Dark. A gloom so deep he couldn’t see the ceiling or the walls. Had night actually fallen without him realizing it?! If that were the case, though, the lights of the streets of Koenji would have been shining through the windows.

“Hey…Hey, Haruyuki.”

He heard a voice from immediately behind and whirled around.

Standing there was Kuroyukihime. But her long hair, her slender limbs, and her entirely naked body were formed of particles of white light. He quickly looked down to find that his own body was the same. And in the distance far below, a vast galaxy sparkled quietly.

“Huh?” He frowned. “This is…the Highest Level?”

“It does appear to be.” Kuroyukihime shrugged. “But why did we shift so abruptly?”

“Um.” He checked his surroundings once more. But there was no one else in the infinite darkness. Which meant they hadn’t been forced to shift by Metatron or some other Being. Which meant…

“I think I brought you here, Kuroyukihime,” he said slowly.

“Huh?” She stared at him, uncomprehending. “But, Haruyuki, we’re not accelerated or directing.”

“W-we’re not,” he agreed. “But the way this feels…I can’t think of any other explanation.”

She was speechless for a few moments before she finally shook her head slowly. “Of all the things…So then will I be sent to this place every time I kiss you?”

“K-kiss…”

That’s right. I kissed Kuroyukihime.

After reconfirming this fact, he froze, not able to process how he should react. Instantly, Kuroyukihime reached out and poked him in the shoulder.

“Hey! You’re the one who started it, so what are you getting all awkward for now? You’re going to make me embarrassed, too.”

“Huh?” He blinked rapidly. “D-did I start it?”

“You did,” she told him firmly. “No ifs, ands, or buts.”

He turned his face away in shyness, and she looked down at the sea of stars below them as she continued in a softer tone. “Well. I do like it here, so I’ve no complaints about the fact of you bringing me, in and of itself. But last time, we were both duel avatars, and now we’re our real selves. Not to mention we’re both stark naked. How does that work?”

“Dunno. This is the first time I’ve shifted like this, too,” he replied, belatedly trying to hide himself.

But a voice in his brain denied this. No. When he came to the Highest Level for the first time with Metatron, the shell of his duel avatar had peeled away, and he’d been transformed into his real self. That might have been a clue to understanding their current situation, but he got the feeling that it would be dangerous in numerous senses to bring up Metatron’s name now.

“A-anyway, should we be getting back?” he suggested, unconsciously lowering his voice.

But Kuroyukihime took a step forward and said, “Regardless of the fact that it was an unintentional shift, we were able to come here without using any Burst Points, so why don’t we enjoy it a little longer? We would never get this sort of opportunity to leisurely take in Tokyo from this altitude in the real world.”

“Okay,” Haruyuki agreed, and looked down.

Because he’d been visiting the Highest Level on a regular basis lately, he had gotten used to being here. But normally, this was a place of miracles, a space that was impossible to reach, no matter how many stars you wished upon…

Suddenly, he felt like he’d stumbled onto the answer to a question that had been stuck in a corner of his brain.

The words that Snow Fairy had said—on top of that, Crow’s a level-three accessor. That had to have meant a person who could reach the Highest Level. Most likely, level one was someone who was led there by a Being; level two, someone who could shift long-distance in resonance with a Being; and level three, someone who could shift on their own.

He’d only been able to move here on his own three times, excluding right now, when he’d shifted spontaneously. The first time, he’d shifted after hacking at a virtual steel sphere thousands of times in the Unlimited Neutral Field. The second time, he’d had the help of Utai’s late brother, Mirror Masker. And the third time, he’d shifted in the extreme situation of the awakened Tezcatlipoca trampling his comrades before his eyes. So it was natural for Fairy to note the “on top of that” part.

He had no guarantee that there would be a fourth time, and like Kuroyukihime said, he hated to waste this opportunity. After thinking everything over, he squinted at the sea of stars and immediately found what he was looking for: the swirling inky vortex that threatened to swallow everything up.

However.

“H-huh?” he wondered.

“Mmm.” Kuroyukihime turned to him. “What is it?”

“Oh. You can see Tezcatlipoca’s marker over there, right?”

“Of course. I was looking at it myself. In the Ueno Park area, hmm?”

Haruyuki slid his extended hand just a little to the left. “Can you see the small markers fixed around a kilometer away from it?”

“Mmm.” She leaned forward. “Ohh, I see them. Are those Burst Linkers?”

“The color’s a little different from the white markers of the social cameras, so they’re either Enemies or Burst Linkers. But Enemies basically never form groups, so they’re probably Burst Linkers. But what are they doing so close to Tezcatlipoca?” he muttered, half to himself.

Tezcatlipoca’s basic detection range was about a kilometer. Meaning that if they went just a little closer, they would be targeted by the god of the end. And unless they were Seven Dwarves–level skilled, they would be slaughtered.

“You don’t know who they are or where they’re from, either?” Kuroyukihime asked, and Haruyuki shook his head.

“I can tell who it is from the color or the kind of feel of the marker if it’s a Burst Linker I know well, but…”

“Not Oscillatory members?”

He shook his head. “It’s not the Seven Dwarves, at any rate.”

“Hmm.” Kuroyukihime placed a finger on her chin. “Rabble coming to have a look at something scary? Or—”

“That’s the Exercitus scouting party.”

The voice came from above, and Haruyuki jerked his face up.

A silhouette enveloped in phosphorescence danced soundlessly down from the starless heavens. The figure, with slender arms slightly open and long hair swinging gently, seemed to be a real girl. For a second, he thought it was a Being, but she didn’t seem to have any clothes or accessories, just like Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime.

“Impossible…,” said Kuroyukihime, her voice hoarse, while basically at the same time, Haruyuki also swallowed hard.

“Huh? Is that maybe…?”

The aloof aura, as if to make all of creation bow down before her. This ambience, this sense of presence…

“The White King?” A second after he gave voice to this name, the elegant tips of her toes touched the invisible ground.

Hair fanned out behind her like wings slid smoothly together to hang flat down her back. The slender body leaned forward slightly.

Haruyuki gaped at the face this movement revealed. An extraordinary beauty that still shone in this colorless world. If he hadn’t had the faint sense of déjà vu, he might have decided she was a Being after all. Her visage somehow resembled Kuroyukihime’s, but instead of the severity of a finely whetted blade without a single blemish, hers displayed an absolute purity like a flawless diamond.

His brain went numb, and he was unable to think at all.

Next to him, Kuroyukihime spoke in a calm, yet extremely strained voice. “Been a while, Cosmos—I mean, Enju.”

“It really has,” the White King replied, with a smile full of love. “You look good, Sayuki. I’m glad.”

As he listened to the girls, Haruyuki managed to at last get his brain back up to half speed. He was about to ask about the name “Enju,” but as if anticipating this, the White King turned her gaze toward him and smiled again.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, I haven’t told you my real name. Enju Kuroba. Nice to meet you, Haruyuki Arita.”

“I-it’s nice to meet you.” He reflexively bowed before earnestly setting his brain to work. He didn’t care at the moment how the White King knew his name when they’d never met in the real world. The issue at hand was why she had appeared before them now.

Snow Fairy had manifested on the Highest Level in a similar fashion and had tried to sever the link between Haruyuki and Metatron. She’d also tried to suffocate him. And if Fairy could do it, then the White King most certainly could. There was no one else in the Arita house, and they hadn’t set up a timed safety, so if she hit both him and Kuroyukihime with that suffocation attack at the same time, they would suffer for what was basically an eternity in the stopped world.

Should he burst out right that second with Kuroyukihime? But if he did that, he wouldn’t find out the meaning of this “Exercitus.”

As if seeing right through him, the White King—Enju Kuroba—announced in a sweet, kind voice, “Don’t be so afraid. The two of you are my precious child and grandchild. I’m not going to hurt you for no reason.”

She turned around so that her back was to them, clasped her hands behind her, took a couple steps forward, and looked down at the black hole swirling in one corner of the white galaxy.

“Um, Cosmos?” Haruyuki mustered his will and called out to her when he could no longer stand being put on hold. “That Exercitus you mentioned…”

“It means ‘army’ in Latin.” It was Kuroyukihime who answered him.

The White King nodded without looking back and added, “To be a little more specific, it’s the idea of the high-ranking ‘legio’ in the ancient Roman army. ‘Cohors’ come together and form a legio; legio come together and form an exercitus. Taking all that into consideration, the choice of name is quite bold, hmm?”

“So then does that mean they made, like, a joint Legion army in the Accelerated World?” he asked.

“It does. It was officially launched this afternoon, apparently, so it’s no wonder that you’re not aware of it.” The White King stopped for a moment, before adding, as though she’d just remembered, “Aah, it might be a joint Legion army, but the Kings’ Legions aren’t involved. The central group are powerful midsize Legions: Night Owls, Ovest, and Cold Brew. Many of the small Legions and solo Linkers are also a part of it.”

“Many?” Kuroyukihime asked, and the White King tilted her head slightly to one side.

“I don’t have a perfect grasp on the situation myself,” she said. “But it seems that there are more than five hundred members.”

“Five hundred?!” Haruyuki cried, shocked. There were said to be about a thousand Burst Linkers residing in Tokyo. Five hundred meant half of that number. This was clearly more than all members of the seven Great Legions combined. “Wh-why would such a large group suddenly…?”

“It’s not as though it was sudden,” the White King told him. “The movement to create an alliance to resist the Kings’ Legions has been ongoing for quite some time. But whenever it starts to gain momentum, the Armor of Catastrophe runs wild or ISS kits get passed around, and the new problem takes the wind right out of those sails.”

“You’re the one pulling those strings behind the scene, Cosmos,” Kuroyukihime pointed out icily.

That was only natural. Not only had the White King created the reason for the crisis of Haruyuki becoming the sixth Chrome Disaster, and for Takumu and Rin being parasitized with the ISS kits, she had also incited Kuroyukihime into a surprise attack on the first Red King, Red Rider, and caused his total point loss in order to control him with her ability to revive the dead.

But the White King apparently did not consider her own actions to be crimes in the slightest. “I am.” She nodded evenly. “And once again, a crisis in the form of Tezcatlipoca has appeared. If it were still under the control of the Luminary, the children in those midsize Legions might very well have feared being targeted by it and thus put any plans for an alliance on hold. But while Tezcatlipoca is still extremely powerful freed from that control, its movement patterns are simple, so this has actually accelerated movements to form an alliance.”

After taking a few seconds to digest this, Haruyuki asked quietly, “That’s…sounds like you don’t want the Burst Linkers to come together as one?”

He was prepared for this question to turn her mood sour, but the White King let out a happy chuckle.

“Ha-ha! If we’re speaking the unvarnished truth, then yes, that’s exactly right. Grandé is the one bringing them together, so I’m working hard to keep them from doing that.”

Grandé was the head of Great Wall, and the Green King. And indeed, by indirectly distributing the Burst Points he earned hunting Enemies to lower-ranking Legions, he was defending against the intensification of fighting in the Accelerated World and any increase in the number of players forced to retire.

Haruyuki could never do the same himself, but without these efforts on the part of the Green King, there would be far fewer Burst Linkers than there currently were. It was even possible that Brain Burst itself would have long ago met its end. And even the White King couldn’t want that. So then why…?

Once his thoughts had reached this point, he heard the echo of something the White King had once said to him. Unconsciously, he turned that echo into words. “Accel Assault 2038 was filled with excessive fighting, and Cosmos Corrupt 2040 with excessive harmony. That’s why they fell.”

“Exactly.”

“So then everything you’ve done has been so that no excessive harmony happens in Brain Burst 2039? Is that it?!” Haruyuki half shouted.

The White King shrugged shoulders, slender like a doll’s. “I won’t deny it, but that is definitely not the whole of it. When I spoke to you of this at your school before, Sayuki, you did get so angry at me. You said I shouldn’t try to legitimize what I’ve done with flowery words.”

The White King giggled, and Haruyuki shifted his gaze from her back to Kuroyukihime beside him. But the Black King’s face was unexpectedly calm.

She parted her lips, and in quiet notes declared, “Cosmos—Enju. There’s no point in you revealing your objective here. Whatever you say, there’s no proof that it’s true. But I will say just one thing.”

A lurid light shone in the eyes that stared at her older sister’s back. “I will eliminate you and the Acceleration Research Society from this world. Even if the end result of that is the destruction of Brain Burst due to this excessive harmony or what have you.”

Despite the fact that this was coming from her sister/child, the White King did not so much as twitch. She looked back abruptly, hair that was the slightest bit longer than Kuroyukihime’s swinging, a saintly smile on her innocently beautiful visage. “Can you, though? If the day comes when you and I face off against each other, it might be that Haruyuki will be standing not by your side, but by mine.”

Haruyuki gasped sharply. He wanted to deny it. He wanted to shout that there was no way.

But the current Haruyuki was a member of Oscillatory Universe; he had dedicated his sword to the White King. If she ordered him to, he would have to fight Kuroyukihime and protect the White King. It wasn’t because he was afraid of the Judgment Blow. If he didn’t want to stain his own sword with deceit, he had no choice but to do as she asked.

He stood there, head hanging, but Kuroyukihime took his hand and squeezed it tight. “Even then, Enju. Even if that happens.”

The White King turned a gaze on Kuroyukihime that was almost fond somehow. “You really have grown strong, Sayuki. I’ve said this before, but I look forward to the time when you stand in my way.”

She took a light step backward.

“Well then, I should be on my way. Oh! One more thing. It’s lovely that you two are getting so close, but please, everything in moderation. You must act appropriately for students.”

“Wh—? Th-that is none of your business!” Kuroyukihime snapped, losing her temper.

The White King laughed merrily, and then her body sank down with a graceful gesture. She kicked off the invisible ground and—

“Ah! R-right! Please wait!” Haruyuki cried out to stop her, and the White King simply did a little hop before returning to their plane.

“Whaaat? If it’s about Exercitus, I’ve told you all I know.”

“No, it’s not that.” He shook his head. “It’s about Tezcatlipoca. You instructed Metatron to observe it, right, Enju? Have you received her report yet?”

“No, not yet.” The White King shrugged again. “Hmm? Are you saying that child went past me, the Master, and reported to you?”

Referring to a Being of the highest rank who had lived for over eight thousand years as “that child”…Haruyuki shivered in fear. “N-no, it’s not like that. I just happened to see her, and…”

The one who gave us reason to meet was your very own Cavalier, you know!

With effort, he swallowed this complaint and continued, “Um. Metatron is getting help observing Tezcatlipoca from these Beings Amaterasu and Lady Bari—I mean, the Abandoned Princess Bari. She said it was weird.”

“Bari,” the White King said, lowering her lashes for a moment before quickly raising her face again. “And what did she say is weird, then?”

“She said Tezcatlipoca’s not a Being,” he told her.

““What?”” the White King and Kuroyukihime said at the same time.

“What is that supposed to mean, Haruyuki?” Kuroyukihime demanded. “A Being is an Enemy, yes? I don’t think there’s anything more fitting to be called Enemy than that.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I thought so, too. But Lady Bari said there’s a portal inside of Tezcatlipoca, and that that’s its true nature.”

“A portal?” Kuroyukihime furrowed her brow dubiously.

“And what does that mean?” came a quiet voice, causing Haruyuki to turn to the left.

The White King had one hand on her elbow and the other up against her mouth, while her head hung deeply. “There was no portal in the Tezcatlipoca before. Although I didn’t exactly confirm this. Nothing like that appeared in the moment the world closed, either.”

Unable to understand what she was talking about, Haruyuki gaped.

But actually, he felt like the White King had said something similar before. He was pretty sure it was when Tezcatlipoca had been freed from the control of the Luminary and was running wild. The White King had said that of all the Burst Linkers, she alone might be able to stop it once again. And the reason for that was because she’d been eaten by it long ago.

Did that mean that she had once been eaten and killed by “the Tezcatlipoca before”? In that case, this wasn’t the first time that Tezcatlipoca had appeared in the Accelerated World? But if something this big had happened before, the veteran Linkers would have definitely known about it. One question after another popped up to overwhelm him, and he was rendered speechless.

And then the White King abruptly lifted her face and looked directly at him. “Silver Crow, I command you as your King,” she said, her tone and entire aura suddenly completely different from before. “Contact the other highest-ranking Beings as soon as possible and link with them if you can.”

Haruyuki stared, stunned, as he managed to squeak, “O-okay. But I don’t know where any of the other Beings are. I mean, other than the three I’ve already met.”

“And those three are the Archangel Metatron, Ohirume Amaterasu, and Abandoned Princess Bari, yes?” the White King asked.

“Th-that’s right.”

“Then the remaining four are…” She paused for a moment before continuing, “Goddess of the Dawn Ushas, Queen Mother of the West Xiwangmu, Storm King Rudra, and Night Goddess Nyx. Ushas is in the Shinjuku Government Building Underground Labyrinth, Xiwangmu is in the Tokyo Dome Underground Labyrinth, Rudra is in the Tokyo Big Site Underground Labyrinth, and Nyx lives in the Yoyogi Park Underground Labyrinth. But Yoyogi’s sealed presently, so it’s fine if you leave that one for later.”

“Okay,” he started to say, but then quickly shook his head. “No, but the government office, Dome—you’re talking about the four great dungeons! I’m supposed to charge in there by myself?! I will definitely die, though?!” he argued desperately, as he brought his arms together in front of him to form a giant X.

The White King waved a hand to the side lightly. “I’ll talk to Fairy. Select whichever members of Oscillatory you need, including the Dwarves, and put together an attack team. When you need to contact me, go through Fairy. Please and thank you,” she said at twice the speed of anything else she’d said thus far, and prepared to jump once more.

This time, Kuroyukihime called out to her. “Enju, stop! Haruyuki may very well be your subordinate now, but if you’re going to order him to take on such a large mission, how about you at least explain the objective to him!”

“I would explain if I could,” she said. “Right now, I can only say it’s a gut feeling. Sayuki, if you’re worried about Haruyuki, you’re free to help him. All right then!”

The White King sprang hard off the ground and shot up into the air at incredible speed. In the blink of an eye, she disappeared into the infinite darkness.

Haruyuki stared upward even more baffled, but Kuroyukihime’s voice brought him back to himself with a gasp.

“Honestly, what was that…?”

“For real. You said it…”

They looked at each other and sighed heavily at the same time. They’d managed to get out of the encounter without any suffocation attacks at least, but in exchange, he’d been ordered to undertake an extremely tough mission.

Attack three underground labyrinths, including two great dungeons, break through the first form of the final bosses—Beings of the highest rank—and make them take on their true forms. Build a friendly relationship with these thoroughly crusty creatures and form a link with them. No matter how much help he got from Snow Fairy and the others, he couldn’t even imagine how many days this would take, with all the prep work included.

“So how soon is ‘as soon as possible,’ then?” he muttered, and Kuroyukihime sighed again.

“Enju—well, Cosmos—said ‘as soon as possible,’ so that means now if not yesterday,” she replied. “But she said to put together a team. If you’re tackling the great dungeons, you want at least three parties of ten people. And it normally takes an evening to make sure you have the right balance of people in your parties and put together a schedule. This is where you get to show off your leadership and planning abilities.”

“I—I don’t have any, though.” Haruyuki shook his head vigorously, and Kuroyukihime patted his shoulder.

“Well, you can lean on Fairy and Glacier Behemoth if you need to,” she said, with a sly smile. “Work them to the bone as revenge for all the trouble they’ve given you.”

“R-right,” he said, less confidently.

“Now then, we should also be getting back.” She paused briefly. “And how do we go about doing that, do you suppose?”

“Um,” he said. “You basically have, like, an image and then you sort of just snap,” Haruyuki started to say, and then decided it was hopeless to try and explain in words. He reached out a hand, and when Kuroyukihime clasped it in hers, he called in his head, Burst Out.