Accel World - Volume 26 - Chapter 2

2

Haruyuki easily beat back the three middle rankers who challenged him after Zelkova Verger and then waited for a new challenger for a minute or two. When none came, he determined that he was done for the morning and cut the global connection on his Neurolinker.

If he stayed disconnected twenty-four-seven like Kuroyukihime had, he wouldn’t be chased by this group of self-styled bounty hunters. But he left his connection on as a general rule, except for when he was at home or at school. In fact, he even made sure that the times when there was the greatest possibility of his name appearing on the matching list were widely known.

Thanks to that, he had a minimum of ten daily duels, and on busy days he fought in as many as twenty. He was always completely wiped out by the time he got home in the evening. But even if it meant collapsing on the side of the road in the real world, he had no intention of refusing any challenger. He figured that was the least he could do now.

He let out a short sigh and looked up at the sky. Even though it was only ten in the morning, the sun was practically setting fire to the city. He had no sooner had the thought that today was going to be another scorcher than sweat was beading on his forehead. He wiped it away with a terry-cloth handkerchief and started toward school once more.

He tried to stay in the shade as much as possible as he traveled the remaining three hundred meters, and then slipped through the school gates that appeared on the left side of the sidewalk. He immediately connected to the Umesato local network and sighed with relief. The local network was significantly limited compared with the global net, but even so, the connection did a lot to ease his sense of helplessness.

He went around to the right instead of going to the building entrance facing the front courtyard. He walked down the path that was always gloomy, even in the middle of summer, until the small hut set up in the space between the second school building and the concrete wall came into view.

It was a solidly built structure that made lavish use of precious natural wood, but its inhabitant was not human. The front of the hut was a stainless steel lattice, and Haruyuki peered through this to the inside as he offered a quiet greeting.

“’Sup, Hoo. Pretty hot again today, huh?”

A gray bird raised his eyelids from where he sat on a perch in the middle of the hutch. This was the northern white-faced owl, Hoo, the lone animal that the Umesato Animal Care Club, of which Haruyuki was president, was caring for at present.

It had only been just over a month since Haruyuki had started taking care of him, but lately when he said hello, the owl would reply with a little chirp. If he was in a good mood, he would fly up from his perch and do a couple turns around the hutch. He normally did, anyway, but that day, Hoo only glanced at Haruyuki with his orange eyes and quickly lowered his lids once more.

He was supposed to be a more heat-resilient species of owl, but Haruyuki guessed that days of this intense summer sultriness had worn him out. There was an overhang at the top of the wire mesh, so the hut got no direct sunlight, and there was a birdbath for Hoo to play in. But there was basically no breeze, so the heat was just sitting in the air there.

“Hang on a sec, okay? I’ll give you a mist shower,” Haruyuki said, and turned toward the toolshed. He got out the hose with the multi-spray nozzle and connected it to the tap on one side of the hutch. While cleaning the hut, he had accidentally discovered that Hoo liked to be sprayed with the mist setting, to the point where just seeing the hose would make him demand a shower.

He was twisting the dial at the end of the nozzle to set it to the mist mark and pulling the lever to test it, to confirm that misty water did in fact come out, when a chat window opened up in the bottom of his virtual desktop. Text scrolled in a cherry-pink font.

UI> HELLO, ARITA.

Haruyuki automatically started to turn around before muttering “whoops” and letting go of the trigger. He’d almost sprayed her once before in a similar situation, and he couldn’t go around repeating the same mistake.

He turned around for real this time and greeted the sender of the chat message. “Hello, Shinomiya.”

Standing there was the “super president” of the Umesato Animal Care Club, Utai Shinomiya. She was very much the picture of an elementary school student on summer vacation in her printed T-shirt and shorts, but in the Accelerated World, she was a true high ranker, inspiring fear with the nickname Testarossa.

When she held her longbow Flame Caller, she had strength on par with that of a fearsome god, and yet she was always giving Haruyuki the gentlest of guidance. She was a priceless friend and senior to him in the Legion. Or at least she had been, but their bond as members of the same Legion had been severed three days earlier.

A sharp pain shot through his heart as he had this thought. But he kept that off his face and tried to keep going with a smile. “I was just about to give Hoo a mist shower. Why don’t you—?”

But he couldn’t finish. Because Utai dropped the bag she was carrying and charged into him. Even though he was over twice her size, the tackle very nearly knocked him over. He managed to stay on his feet somehow, and with a shrill voice, he asked, “Wh-wh-what’s wrong, Shinomiya?!”

Clutching Haruyuki’s pudgy, round body with her right hand, Utai tapped at her holo keyboard with her left.

UI> ARITA, PLEASE STOP THE RECKLESS DUELS.

“Huh?” He was stunned at this comment out of nowhere.

She looked up at him with tears in her large eyes and kept typing at lightning speed.

UI> I TOOK THE LIBERTY OF WATCHING YOUR EARLIER DUEL. YOU FOUGHT WONDERFULLY, BUT IF YOU KEEP WINNING IN THAT FASHION, YOU WILL ONLY SEE AN INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO HARBOR ILL WILL TOWARD YOU.

“Um.” After thinking for a second about how to respond to this, he asked quietly, “You were watching? I didn’t notice you at all.”

UI> BECAUSE I USED A DUMMY AVATAR.

“O-oh, you did…?”

A dummy avatar was for viewing alone, an avatar with a different appearance from your duel avatar, set for those times when you wanted to hide your true identity and enter the Gallery. And indeed if Ardor Maiden, one of Nega Nebulus’s Four Elements, had been seen there, the other members of the Gallery would no doubt have started bothering her in one way or another. But why would she go to such lengths to watch his duel?

Guessing at his confusion, Utai answered before he could ask any questions.

UI> PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT IT. THEY’RE SAYING THAT YOU FIGHT DOZENS OF DUELS A DAY, AND YET YOU HAVEN’T LOST ONCE. I WON’T CRITICIZE YOU FOR THE PURSUIT OF VICTORY. BUT THERE’S SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT. AND THAT’S TO—

“—have fun with the duel,” he muttered, before she could finish typing the sentence out. This was the philosophy Haruyuki himself had long held in his heart. He’d even said it to other people on multiple occasions.

Utai pulled herself away from him the tiniest bit and nodded firmly.

UI> THAT’S EXACTLY RIGHT. BUT YOU DID NOT LOOK LIKE YOU WERE HAVING THE LEAST BIT OF FUN TODAY, ARITA. YOU CLAIMED OVERWHELMING VICTORY IN ALL FOUR DUELS, BUT TO MY EYES, IT LOOKED ALMOST AS THOUGH YOU WERE FIGHTING IN ORDER TO FOCUS HATRED ON YOURSELF.

He met Utai’s deeply anxious eyes for only a moment before averting his gaze.

“I guess so,” he said. “That’s why I’m accepting these duels.”

Utai raised her left hand just a little, but then dropped it lifelessly without typing a single character. The right hand holding on to his shirt also slowly let go.

Ashamed of putting an unprecedentedly sad expression on the face of the Shinomiya he so deeply loved and respected, Haruyuki went on to explain.

“You know that the Deity of Demise, Tezcatlipoca, is wreaking havoc on the Accelerated World. In just three days, it’s had a huge impact on the small and midsize Legions that used Enemies as their point supply. Right now, they’re focusing their anger on Oscillatory Universe, the group behind all of these disasters. But at some point, I think they’ll also turn on the six Legions that released Tezcatlipoca.”

UI> WE’RE NOT LEAVING THEM TO THEIR OWN DEVICES BECAUSE WE WANT TO, Utai interjected, typing at the speed of light with both hands.

Haruyuki swallowed hard and looked up into the sky toward the city center. “Yeah. I know you did whatever you could on that front a long time ago. And I get that mustering the strength of the six Great Legions won’t do anything now, so you can’t attack or whatever.”

He brought his gaze back to Utai and continued. “But the Burst Linkers from the small and midsize Legions assume that the six Great Legions will naturally solve the problems of the Accelerated World. Just like that time with Chrome Disaster, and with the ISS kits, too. If they keep not being able to hunt Enemies, there’s gonna be people in those Legions asking why the kings aren’t doing anything. And when that happens, there’ll obviously be a backlash from the members of the six Great Legions.”

Utai seemed to grasp the danger contained in the map of the future that Haruyuki was drawing. A new anxiety, different from her earlier concern, rose on her childish face.

UI> IF IT’S AT THE LEVEL OF SIMPLY ARGUING ON THE NET, IT’S FINE. BUT WE DON’T KNOW HOW IT WILL ESCALATE ONCE THE SKIRMISHES START, CHALLENGING AND BEING CHALLENGED.

“That’s exactly what I think. I know they’re the ‘Great Legions,’ but even the biggest of them, Great Wall, only has a hundred or so people. There are definitely way more people in the small and midsize Legions, and Burst Linkers who are unaffiliated with any Legion. If serious fighting breaks out, the Great Legions won’t make it out unscathed. I mean, there are tons of really powerful fighters in the smaller Legions.”

Utai nodded. She had said earlier that he hadn’t lost once, even while dueling a dozen or more times each day. That was a fact, but he’d had several close calls. In the Zelkova Verger duel, for example, he might have lost if he hadn’t played his secret Gou card. If that level of user kept coming at him, they could make up the gap with the mainstay members of the six Great Legions. And if these small and midsize Legions put together a select team and entered the Territories, areas under the control of the six Great Legions might actually fall.

After that, it would be all-out war, blood spilled on top of blood. Who knew how many Burst Linkers would be driven to total point loss before the warring ended?

Likely thinking the same thing, Utai lowered her eyes briefly, but then eventually raised both of her hands and tapped resolutely at the air.

UI> EVEN SO, THAT’S NO REASON FOR YOU ALONE TO BE THE RECEPTACLE OF THE DISPLEASURE OF THE SMALL AND MIDSIZE LEGIONS, ARITA. THE ONES RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL OF THIS ARE THE WHITE KING AND OSCILLATORY UNIVERSE. NO ONE WOULD HAVE A WORD TO SAY AGAINST YOU IF YOU CUT YOUR GLOBAL CONNECTION AND TOLD THEM TO GO TO MINATO AREA NO. 3 AND NOT TO SUGINAMI IF THEY HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT!

This was an entirely correct assertion.

It was true that in the Territories exactly a week earlier, on July 20, Minato Area No. 3—which housed Eternal Girls’ Academy, the White Legion’s headquarters—had fallen under the control of Nega Nebulus, and the members of Oscillatory Universe, estimated to be around thirty in total, were stripped of the right to refuse challenges.

That said, however, they seemed to have cut their global connections, unlike Haruyuki, so even if a player were to march into Minato Area No. 3, they wouldn’t be able to challenge them. But there was one exception: the Legion Master and White King, White Cosmos herself.

Ever since she lost in the Territories, the White King had left her name on the matching list. Sky Raker/Fuko Kurasaki hypothesized that the reason for this was a challenge to the Six Kings—and to the Black King, Black Lotus in particular. The truth was unknown, but at any rate, if they wanted to, currently any and all Burst Linkers could freely duel the White King, of whom they had previously not even been able to catch a glimpse.

In fact, there were apparently more than a few Burst Linkers who challenged her out of curiosity or in pursuit of a tale to tell. But they had all been attacked by a massive, monstrous avatar and killed instantly before facing White Cosmos herself. There weren’t supposed to be Enemies in the normal duel stage, and it wasn’t as though she’d have a Legion member as a bodyguard in duels that weren’t tag team matches. Most people assumed that it was likely the ability to automatically produce a puppet, something along the lines of Chocolat Puppeter’s special ability Puppet Make or Viridian Decurion’s Viridian Legionary, but no one knew for sure.

There were also rumors of the names of the Legion’s executives, the Seven Dwarves, appearing on the list from time to time, but these were fierce and powerful warriors. Unless you were a skilled high ranker, they would kick you to the curb without giving you the chance to protest.

Because of this, it was next to impossible for Burst Linkers like Zelkova Verger to register their complaints directly with the members of Oscillatory Universe, even if they did make the trip to Minato Area No. 3. Still, Haruyuki didn’t shy away from Utai’s gaze as he said, “Thanks, Mei.”

He called her by the nickname derived from her avatar name rather than her real name and placed a gentle hand on her small shoulder.

“I’m really happy you’re still keeping an eye out for me like this, even though we’re not in the same Legion anymore. But I was the one who cut open the Sun God Inti and revived Tezcatlipoca sealed away inside of it. And I was the one the White King kidnapped, the cause of everything that’s led to where we are now. The members of the small and midsize Legions have a right to complain to me. If that releases even a little of the pressure building up, then I can’t exactly go refusing challenges—”

UI> OF COURSE I’M WORRIED ABOUT YOU!!

Utai typed with such force that he felt like he could hear the keys clacking, even though it was a holo keyboard, and then she leapt at Haruyuki once more. Tears pooled in her wide eyes, and her lips trembled like she was going to try to produce words, before her ten fingers flashed once more.

UI> EVEN IF WE’RE NOT LEGION MEMBERS IN THE SYSTEM ANYMORE, THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT OUR BOND HAS DISAPPEARED! AFTER ALL, YOU LEFT NEGA NEBULUS TO HELP LO. AND TO GO BACK FURTHER IN TIME, YOU CUT INTI OPEN TO SAVE THE FIVE KINGS. AND YET YOU ALONE ARE BEING TREATED LIKE A TRAITOR, AND YOU CONSTANTLY GET CHALLENGED EVERY DAY, I JUST—

Perhaps she couldn’t continue any further. She grabbed on to his shirt with both hands and pressed her forehead firmly against his chest.

The instant he felt her silent sobbing, Haruyuki’s own eyes grew hot. But he couldn’t go crying now. He had chosen all of this of his own free will.

Instead of holding the shuddering slender back, Haruyuki gently patted it.

“I’m sorry to make you worry, Mei. But I really am not pushing myself. It’s maybe true that I don’t have the mental energy to enjoy the duels, but…compared with training with Master Raker or my teacher Sentry, twenty or thirty duels a day is nothing. I’m only on standby on my way to school and back home, and most of the time, it’s the first time I’m going up against that avatar. So I actually am learning all kinds of things fighting them.

“And we’re Burst Linkers, so there’s only the duel, right?” he finished in a joking tone.

Utai still took a while to lift her face away from his chest, but eventually, she took a step back, pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket, and wiped her eyes. Head still hanging, she took a few deep breaths before finally looking at him. She blinked red-rimmed eyes a couple times, and a faint smile spread across her face as she nimbly made the fingers of her left hand dance.

UI> THE WAY YOU SAY THAT, IT SOUNDS AS THOUGH YOU THINK YOU COULD BEAT ME ALREADY IN A DUEL.

“Wh-what?!” Stunned, Haruyuki threw his hands up around either side of his face and began waving them frantically as he protested desperately. “I—I—I don’t think that even a bit! If you saw the duels today, then you know I’m totally nowhere near that level, Mei!”

Utai giggled before exhaling once more. Recomposing her expression, she typed a tiny bit more slowly.

UI> I UNDERSTAND YOUR THINKING, ARITA. IF YOU WILL PROMISE ME THAT YOU WON’T BE RECKLESS, THEN I WILL NOT TELL YOU TO STOP THE DUELS ANYMORE. BUT I DO HAVE ONE REQUEST.

She paused for an instant and looked directly at him.

UI> WOULD YOU PLEASE MEET WITH LO?

Haruyuki couldn’t answer her right away.

The person that Utai called Lo was of course the leader of Nega Nebulus, the Black King, Black Lotus—Kuroyukihime.

After the mission to rescue Silver Crow had ended in disastrous failure that evening three days earlier, Haruyuki explained what had happened to his comrades in a dive chat. Naturally, Kuroyukihime had also been there. But from the time the meeting had ended after midnight on July 25 until the present moment, Haruyuki hadn’t been in touch with her, and she’d made no attempt to contact him.

He did feel like he needed to sit down and actually talk with her. But what to say and how to say it? Kuroyukihime was the very person who had rescued him from Hell, the parent who had given him Brain Burst, and the swordmaster to whom he’d sworn his eternal loyalty. He owed her so much, and yet he had betrayed her, leaving Nega Nebulus to transfer to Oscillatory Universe.

If he hadn’t done that, though, Cyan Pile, Trilead Tetroxide, Lavender Downer, Graphite Edge, Centaurea Sentry, and the Archangel Metatron, the six who had volunteered for the dangerous mission of rescuing him, would have all been slaughtered by Tezcatlipoca under the thrall of the Arc Luminary.

If it had simply been death they faced or losing however many points, then it would have been possible for them to come back from that. But Tezcatlipoca had the same Level Drain ability as Seiryu, one of the Four Gods, and had in fact forced Cyan Pile down from level six to level four.

On top of that, unlike the Burst Linkers, Metatron couldn’t regenerate as long as she had points left. Strictly speaking, once the Change came over the Unlimited Neutral Field, Metatron would be revived as an Enemy in the deepest part of the Shiba Park Dungeon, but this would be an entirely different individual, one whose memories and thinking had been reset.

Thus, in the moment, Haruyuki could only surrender himself to the White King and beg her mercy. He had no other option but to bow his head to her, the only one with the potential to stop Tezcatlipoca, and pledge his loyalty in exchange for those six lives. Kuroyukihime also had to understand this, but whether or not she accepted it and agreed with him was another question.

To be honest, he didn’t know how she would take his decision. But the fact was that even now after three days—to be more precise, sixty hours—had passed, he still hadn’t heard from her. He was forced to assume that Kuroyukihime was still in no mind to talk to him. He wasn’t sure how to explain all this to Utai.

But before he could open his mouth, his ears picked up new sounds: the crunching of feet against the gravel of the rear courtyard and a cheerful whistling.

Hurriedly taking a step back from Utai, he lifted his hanging head. Approaching them was a girl wearing the school-mandated gym clothes. Fortunately, because she was looking at her virtual desktop as she walked, she hadn’t noticed this moment of closeness between Haruyuki and Utai.

After glancing over to make sure that Utai’s face was dry now, Haruyuki called out to the girl, “Izeki! Distracted walking’s dangerous.”

The girl, Reina Izeki, lifted her face from her desktop and grinned. “It’s totes fine. I’m a pro.”

“A pro at what, though?” Haruyuki retorted, and she let this slide with a smile.

“Hey there, Utaicchi,” she said. “That’s a cute shirt.”

UI> THANK YOU. I BOUGHT IT WHEN I WENT SHOPPING WITH GRANNY.

Utai shrugged bashfully and grabbed the hem of her T-shirt to pull it smooth. It was printed with three rows of silhouettes of small birds.

Reina had a little sister the same age as Utai, and a fond smile crossed her face before she at last shifted her gaze to Haruyuki.

Instantly, her smile faded, like she could sense something amiss with him. But her usual playful expression quickly returned, and she yanked on the collar of her gym uniform, to flap it open and shut.

“And like, Prez, this heat is seriously deadly,” she complained. “Make it so we can come in our street clothes for summer break at least.”

“Huh?!” Haruyuki shook his head, vigorously. “N-no way, we can’t!”

“How come only Super Prez gets to be different?!” she argued, somewhat overbearing, and Haruyuki cleared his throat.

“Um,” he started. “Shinomiya’s entry permission uses the shared study program of Umesato and Matsunogi Academy, but the program rules don’t specify the clothes to wear when visiting the other school. But for us, there’s a rule that says anything other than our uniforms, gym clothes, or team uniforms is no good, even during summer break, so…”

“So striiiict.” Reina pursed her lips before she snapped the fingers of her right hand. “I know! So we make our own uniforms then!”

“Whaaat?!” Haruyuki yelped.

“Our gym clothes are so thick and stuffy,” she said, matter-of-factly. “We could do some SC design with fabric that breathes better and stays drier.”

“E-ess-see?!” Haruyuki repeated the letters that most likely were a contraction for “super cute” and turned his gaze to the left, seeking help. But super president Utai merely grinned and made no move to tap at her keyboard.

“O-oh. Clubs don’t usually have uniforms, though,” Haruyuki replied, even as he thought that this was a very uninteresting response.

Reina raised an eyebrow at him. “I think it’d be good, though,” was all she said as she looked down at her feet. The tote bag Utai had dropped earlier was standing there. She picked it up and turned her face toward the hutch.

“We’d better get cleaning before it gets too late,” she said. “And Hoo’s gotta be hungry.”

“Yeah, I guess we should get to it.” Haruyuki nodded, and Utai also voiced her agreement.

UI> YES, LET’S DO THAT!

If they had followed the agreement to each take their turn watching over Hoo, Reina would have been on duty that day. But Haruyuki ended up coming to school every day, and Reina also came every two out of three days, so they’d stopped mentioning it when the other showed up on their off-duty days.

The group quickly finished cleaning the hutch and changing the water in the birdbath to arrive at the long-awaited feeding time. Utai was left to purchase and prepare Hoo’s food—either quail or mouse meat cut up into small pieces, or live crickets and mealworms. But despite the fact that Hoo would only eat from Utai’s hand when he first came to Umesato, he had recently started eating the food that Haruyuki and Reina gave him, albeit only when he was in a good humor.

It seemed like he was in a bit of a listless mood that day, so Haruyuki thought maybe there was no chance he would take food from anyone other than Utai. But after he swooped down to perch on Utai’s arm, he quickly gulped down the quail meat Reina offered him with tweezers. After she’d fed him five pieces, they traded, and Haruyuki brought a piece of meat toward Hoo’s beak in the same way.

“Skree!” Hoo opened his beak wide and made a threatening sound, so Haruyuki jumped and dropped the tweezers.

But Utai didn’t panic; she simply covered Hoo’s face with her free hand. His field of view blocked, Hoo flapped his wings several times, but soon quieted right down.

As Haruyuki reeled from the shock of Hoo’s reaction, especially since he thought the owl had grown comfortable with him, he remembered his earlier greeting to Hoo through the wire mesh of the hutch. Hoo had quickly closed his eyes without a cry, instead of flying up from his perch, not because the heat had drained him of energy, but maybe because he had been on guard against Haruyuki.

“Did I do something to Hoo?” he murmured, processing the shock of it bit by bit.

“Oh,” Reina said, unexpectedly. “Actually, I kinda get how he feels.”

“Huh?!” Haruyuki cried.

“Nah, I don’t mean like you did anything to me, Prez. But like, lately, you’re, I dunno…” She trailed off, and the hesitant expression she’d had when she first saw Haruyuki that day returned to her face.

If she’d sensed a change or some anomaly in him, then he could think of only one reason for that: the fact that he’d been forced to leave Nega Nebulus and transfer to the enemy Legion Oscillatory Universe. He’d thought he had a handle on his mental state, but given that he’d caused both Utai and Reina worry and had even put Hoo on guard meant that he didn’t have the shock he’d received three days earlier or his anxiety about the future completely under control.

“I’m sorry, Izeki,” he apologized. “I had a kind of shock recently, and…if I’m different from usual, it’s probably because of that.”

“Like, what kind of shock?” Her brow furrowed in concern.

“Um.” He was sure she was actually worried about him, so he wanted to tell her the truth without any lies or evasions. But he couldn’t exactly go talking about Brain Burst stuff when she wasn’t a Burst Linker.

After thinking earnestly about it for a second, he said, “I betrayed someone I really care about. Someone really important to me. I guess you could even say I owe her my life.”

“So then you just gotta say you’re sorry and you’re good to go.”

Reina’s response was so straightforward and to the point that he was briefly at a loss for words.

If I could do that, I wouldn’t be having such a hard time, he said to himself.

Reina peered into his eyes as if she could read his thoughts.

It was true that the only thing for him to do was apologize. Utai had said the same thing. And he did want to see Kuroyukihime and tell her how sorry he was. Otherwise, these feelings casting a shadow over his heart would never go away. He understood this painfully well, and yet…

When he fell silent, Reina patted his shoulder lightly. “This sort of thing, the longer you let it go, the harder it gets, y’know? Instead of getting all in your head about whatever, the best thing is just to go. Do the thing. Not like I’m one to talk, though. I’m not so great with people that I can get up on my high horse or anything.”

She grinned as she crouched to pick up the tweezers and meat Haruyuki had dropped.

“Ah, sorry. Thanks,” he said hurriedly, coming out of his reverie, but he didn’t reach out to take them from her. Most likely, the way he was now, Hoo wouldn’t eat from his hand no matter how many times he tried.

Taking the dirt-covered bit of meat, he told the girls, “I’m going to clean up outside,” and left the hutch.

He tossed the piece of meat in the garbage and washed his hands, and then stared at his wet hands. They were chubby hands that appeared to have never touched anything other than a virtual desktop and a holo keyboard. But even so, he felt like the skin on them had gotten a bit thicker from gripping a broom or a mop every day, cleaning up after Hoo.

He thought his insides had changed as well, just like these hands. He had been changed in overcoming the many life-or-death struggles, the intense battles as a Burst Linker. He’d gotten so that he could hold his head a little higher. But had he only thought he was stronger now? Was he dressed up in paper armor? He acted tough now, but if that hardened shell was peeled away, would there still be the same old him inside, clutching his knees to his chest?

He lowered his wet hands and headed for the toolshed. On his way, he had a sudden thought and changed course for the concrete wall on the west side of the animal hutch.

At the base of the wall were flower beds about eighty centimeters wide. They were beautiful, made with natural rock in neat piles, but they contained not even a blade of grass at the moment, much less a flower.

He crouched in front of them and stared hard at the black earth. If a weed had popped its head up there, he would have to yank it up, although he would be sad to do so. He checked the bed from the left end, and by about the time he’d gotten to the middle, he noticed a single tiny green leaf about the size of his pinky fingernail poking its face up.

Wondering if the wind had blown a seed there or if it had been mixed into the soil from the start, he was about to pluck the leaf out when he stayed his hand.

“Ah!” he cried out unconsciously, and brought his face in closer. The slightly shiny, simple elliptical leaf looked to be neither grass nor tree. He stared very hard at it for five seconds, and then leapt to his feet.

Forgetting for a moment the weight on his heart, he ran back to the animal hutch. He peered through the mesh to find that Utai and Reina had just finished feeding Hoo. He waited for them to come outside before calling, “Sh-Shinomiya! The seed is maybe growing!”

Utai’s jaw dropped. She blinked several times and then raced over to the flower bed. Haruyuki and Reina chased after her.

She bent forward, hands on her knees, to scrutinize the little leaf before looking back and tapping at her holo keyboard.

UI> THERE’S NO MISTAKE. THIS IS THE SAME SHAPE AS THE PICTURE THAT WAS ONLINE!

“R-right?!” Haruyuki bobbed his head up and down, while beside him, Reina cocked her head to one side.

“What’s growing?” she asked.

He belatedly realized that Reina hadn’t been with them when they were doing the planting and explained rapid-fire, “Um. I guess it was about four days ago? Me and Shinomiya planted some cherry seeds in these flower beds. To be honest, I thought they wouldn’t germinate, but they are!”

“Whoa! Look at you kids! You gotta let me in on the fun, too!” Reina whapped him on the back.

Flustered, Haruyuki wasn’t sure how to respond, and Utai replied on his behalf.

UI> I’M SORRY, IZEKI. WE WEREN’T TRYING TO KEEP IT A SECRET. IF YOU’D LIKE, WHY DON’T YOU HELP US TAKE CARE OF IT?

“Yeah, totally!” Reina cried, and reached out both hands to pat Utai’s cheeks.

Haruyuki watched them happily fooling around and looked at the new bud shining like an emerald in the sunlight. He felt a tiny bit of the ice choking his heart melt away.

By the time they had watered the little cherry plant and finished carefully cleaning the animal hutch, it was 11:50 AM. Normally, this would have been the end of their club duties, but they had one other big event scheduled for that day.

Haruyuki left Utai and Reina in the rear courtyard and returned to the front of the school. As he approached the gates, the designated meeting spot, he felt like his stomach was curling up into itself. He tightened the muscles of his lower abdomen to try and rid himself of this anxiety and then stepped behind one of the gate pillars, about to launch his messaging app. But there was no need.

“Yo, Haruyuki! We’re here!”

He yanked his face up at the sound of this voice and saw a flash of vivid color.

Oversized T-shirt, canvas sneakers, hair tied up in pigtails—all of it a flaming red. The shorts with drawstring hems and the messenger bag draped across the chest were black, maybe to express the merged status of their Legions. Or maybe not.

“H-hey, Niko. Sorry for getting you to come all the way here when it’s so hot out. But I’ve got some good news—,” he started to say, but then he noticed someone walking up behind Niko, aka Yuniko Kozuki, and his jaw dropped.

His age or maybe younger—the girl looked to be in seventh or maybe even eighth grade. Ever since he’d become a Burst Linker, he’d had significantly more opportunities to interact with girls this age, but this was a type he hadn’t encountered before.

Hair that fanned out into slight spikes with fine silver highlights, black tank top with a flashy pink splash pattern. Her black miniskirt had a ridiculous number of zippers, and even in this heat, she wore black leather gloves on her hands and thick-soled black boots on her feet. If he was forced to say one way or the other, her look resembled Rin Kusakabe’s regular avatar, but it had a different feel when seen in the real world.

Heavy boots thudding against the sidewalk as she approached, the girl came to a stop directly in front of Haruyuki and blinked eyes rimmed in black eyeliner.

“’Sup,” she said, her voice surprisingly sweet, with a hint of an edge to it.

“’S-Sup,” he managed to reply, while wondering who exactly this was. He was only supposed to meet Niko here this morning, and she hadn’t said anything about someone coming with her. He figured the girl was most likely a member of Prominence, but he had absolutely no idea who her duel avatar was just from looking at her. He glanced at Niko for help, but she merely grinned at him, as if to say “take a guess.”

Happily for him, Niko’s attitude hadn’t changed in the least. It had been three days since he’d seen her in person, but she seemed to not care at all about his Legion transfer. Or maybe she was just acting like she didn’t.

In which case, he couldn’t exactly be the one moping around with a long face. Just act normal! he told himself, before turning his gaze back on the punk girl. But her avatar name still eluded him, and she would probably get angry at him if he kept staring at her forever.

“Um,” he hedged. “This is the first time we’ve met in the real. Right?”

The punk girl’s sparkly purple lipsticked lips curled upward, and she glanced at Niko standing next to her. “Yah. I win, man.”

“Whoa, hey, Haruyukiiiii!” Niko stretched out that last syllable and marched over to him to impose successive karate chops to his side.

“Hngh!” He doubled over. “What do you mean, win…?”

“Obviously, we had a bet, okay?” Niko snapped. “About whether or not you’d guess who she is.”

“H-huh?!” He gaped at her. “But there’s no way I could! How am I supposed to know the name of someone I’ve never met in the real?”

“You have, though,” the punk girl interjected, grin still plastered across her face.

“I—I have? Where?” he asked, baffled.

The girl tapped at her virtual desktop without a word and snapped out her index finger.

Haruyuki’s jaw dropped even farther as he watched the silver highlights coloring the girl’s hair vanish. It was probably that new high-tech discoloring powder—a micromachine dye that controlled how light was reflected and refracted by manipulating the microscopic surface structure. It had only just gone on sale to the general public and was astoundingly expensive.

“W-wow,” he gasped. “So the other colors…”

He swallowed the rest of his question about whether she could manipulate the rest of her look the same way. Now that her hair had changed—transformed into a uniform black short cut—he felt a belated sense of déjà vu as he looked at her face. The Goth makeup made it hard to picture her unadorned face, but if he subtracted the thickness of the soles of her boots from her height and turned the punk look into a sailor-style uniform…

“Oh!” he cried, in realization. “A-are you maybe Pokki?”

Pokki was the nickname of Thistle Porcupine, a member of Prominence’s Triplex. Haruyuki had indeed come face-to-face with her on this side last Saturday at the time of the expedition to Minato Area No. 3, the location of the headquarters of Oscillatory Universe. But Thistle then had been wearing her school uniform, and of course, she hadn’t been wearing makeup, nor had she had the dye in her hair. Haruyuki had also been nervous before the big fight, so the only real impression he’d taken away of her was “lively and clever.”

Had she gone so far as to use discoloring powder to disguise herself in order to win the bet with Niko? Or was that how she usually looked? Haruyuki couldn’t help but wonder this as he hurriedly extended his right hand.

“I-I’m sorry. I’m Haruyuki Arita. Welcome to Umesato.”

The smile disappeared from Thistle’s face, and she looked at his hand, seemingly troubled.

And small wonder when he thought about it. Even if she was a veteran high ranker serving as an executive of a Great Legion in the Accelerated World, she was still a junior high school girl in the real world. It was only natural that a boy suddenly demanding to shake her hand would be an issue.

“Oh! S-sorry.” He hurriedly withdrew the offending hand, but Thistle didn’t move to lift her face. He was stuck for what to do when Niko slid over to him.

“Sorry, my dude,” she murmured. “It’s a whole thing. No handshaking, please and thanks.”

“S-sure thing. Um. So should we go, then?” He tapped at his virtual desktop and sent the two girls the school visit permits he’d applied for using his authority as the Animal Care Club president. Unlike the permit issued to Utai, there was a limit built into these for the maximum time they were allowed to stay. And although visitors were generally required to wear the uniforms of the school they went to or clothing in line with that school’s regulations, it was summer vacation, so they had a little leeway with that.

Once Niko and Thistle set up the permits in their Neurolinkers, he led them to the animal hutch in the rear courtyard. Utai appeared to know who Thistle was at first glance, and Reina and Niko had met at the school festival at the end of the previous month. But this was the first time Reina and Thistle were meeting, so he would have to introduce them.

“Um. This is Reina Izeki. She’s a member of the Animal Care Club. And this is…” He’d gotten that far when he realized he didn’t know Thistle’s real name, much less what school she went to. Yikes! He started to panic, but fortunately, the girl in question gave her name for him.

“Kao Fukaya. Nice to meet you, Izeki.”

“Same. And call me Reina.”

“Then call me Kao.”

The two girls grinned at the same time. Reina was the beach-blond, miniskirt type, and Thistle/Kao was on the punk side of things, so they belonged to pretty different subcultures, but something clearly clicked between them nevertheless.

Smile fading, Kao turned her gaze toward the animal hutch and said admiringly, “That’s some animal hutch. Looks big enough for you to have an eagle or a falcon or something in there, too. But it’d be pretty hot for them in the middle of summer.”

“Right?” Reina agreed. “I mean, dang, it’s only July, and I’m already dying.”

“Can I go say hi to Hoo?” Kao asked, and Reina glanced at Utai. Utai was quick to nod, so Kao approached the hutch on quiet feet to peer in through the wire mesh. Haruyuki and the others also moved to a position where they could see inside.

“’Sup, Hoo?” Kao called softly.

Having just eaten his fill, Hoo was drowsing on his perch, but he raised an eyelid at the sound of her voice. He apparently wasn’t actually in a bad mood or feeling poorly; he spread his wings out wide in greeting and then returned to his afternoon nap.

“Whoa, what a beautiful white-faced owl,” Kao said in quiet awe, and then looked back over her shoulder. “So it’s totally okay with my fam. We can definitely take him over the summer. But the big thing is whether Hoo’ll be comfortable with us. Anyway, how about we just have him overnight first and see how it goes?”

UI> THAT WOULD BE GREAT, Utai replied instantly, and continued to tap at her holo keyboard. UI> WE UNDERSTAND ONLY TOO WELL THAT WE’RE ASKING A TREMENDOUS FAVOR OF YOU. EVEN IF IT DOESN’T WORK OUT, PLEASE DON’T FEEL AS THOUGH YOU’RE PUTTING US OUT IN ANY WAY.

“Uiui, way too together. As usual.” Kao grinned wryly, and then looked at Haruyuki and Reina. “Uiui said that she’d bring Hoo. But you two are welcome to join if you want.”

“Huh? Um,” Haruyuki stammered, and Reina answered first.

“Thanks for asking us, Kaocchi. But I gotta go pick my kid sister up in a bit.”

“She in nursery school?” Kao asked.

“Mm-nn.” Reina shook her head. “Kindergarten day care. It’s Saturday, so I gotta pick her up earlier than usual.”

“Yeah? I guess you can’t come with your little sis, huh?”

“Ha-ha-ha! No way!”

Listening to the two girls talking, Haruyuki had a slightly guilty thought.

If Reina couldn’t come, then everyone going to Kao’s house would be Burst Linkers. Once Hoo’s move was finished, there was a good chance that talk would turn to his Legion transfer. He couldn’t avoid it forever, but he wasn’t sure he could talk about it calmly yet.

“So then, Cr—I mean, Haru. What’re you doing?” Kao turned to him, and Haruyuki lowered his eyes.

“Um,” he said, “I actually have a thing after this, too. And like, Hoo won’t really settle down today with me around for some reason.”

“What? You’re not coming?” Niko pouted.

He hadn’t been in touch with her for the last three days, either, so he really did need to sit down and talk with her for real at some point. But all he could do now was bring an awkward smile to his lips.

Fortunately, the clouds on Niko’s face cleared quickly, and she clapped her hands together. “Well, if ya got something going on, ya gotta go. At least help us get ready to go, though?”

“O-of course.” Haruyuki bobbed his head up and down and ran to the toolshed to get Hoo’s carrier.

While Utai and Kao were putting on Hoo’s jesses and leash, Haruyuki led Niko to the flower beds.

Seeing the new cherry sapling shining a bright green, Niko threw a fist into the air so forcefully it nearly pulled the rest of her up with it, and she gave Haruyuki three high fives in a row. And then she suddenly shifted into worrywart mode, muttering about how the sprout might wither and die, or be eaten by insects or birds. So Haruyuki promised to put a net up over the flower bed to keep the bugs out and set up a solar-powered camera to watch their future cherry tree, and managed to soothe her anxiety.

When they returned to the hutch, the girls had just finished tucking Hoo away in his carrier. Haruyuki and Reina went with Niko, Kao, and Utai to the school gates to see them off.

He had assumed that Kao lived in Nerima Ward, but she was actually in Nakano. When he thought about it, the north side of Nakano—Nakano Area No. 1—had long been the territory of Prominence, so it made sense that she lived there.

“And there they go,” Reina muttered, as the girls disappeared into the crowd on Oume Highway.

“Yeah.” Haruyuki nodded. “I just hope Hoo likes Fukaya’s house.”

“He’ll be fine?” Reina raised an eyebrow at him. “I mean, Kaocchi, she’s all right.”

“I guess. Yeah.” He could agree with that wholeheartedly.

When Kao—Thistle Porcupine—first learned of the plan to merge Prominence and Nega Nebulus, she had been opposed to it becoming a reality. But once she saw how firmly determined Niko was, she had apparently done everything she could to win over the other Legion members.

Which was exactly why her feelings about Haruyuki’s transfer were almost certainly not peaceful, probably more akin to betrayal than anything else. And yet none of that had shown in her voice or her face as she took on the serious role of caring for Hoo.

Maybe I should message them and say I’ll come after all. Explain what happened in my own words. And apologize?

Haruyuki pushed back this impulse. He could talk all he wanted, but talk wouldn’t begin to make up for what he’d done. He had to keep on fighting every comer until there was no one left to challenge him before he even deserved the chance to apologize to everyone.

“Prez, you’re making that scary face again,” Reina said abruptly, and Haruyuki blinked a few times before turning to his side.

Reina’s face was tense with the same concern as when she had first seen him that day. She glanced around quickly before lowering her voice and continuing.

“I basically get that you’ve got something I don’t know about with Utaicchi, and Nikocchi, and Kaocchi. And those two who visited before, Shihoko and Rin. That stuff you were saying before about betraying someone important to you, that’s connected to them, too, right?”

“Huh?!” Haruyuki’s jaw dropped, and he was stumped for a second about how he should answer this.

He’d had plenty of guests from other schools visit the animal hutch, so it was natural that she would figure they had some kind of connection with each other. She maybe couldn’t guess that it was a full-dive fighting game, but from her tone, she seemed to have at least realized that it wasn’t something the general public was especially aware of. If he kept on dancing around the subject, he might end up causing some groundless misunderstanding.

What if I just invited Izeki to Brain Burst?

The thought popped up in his head, but he quickly pushed it back down to the bottom of his brain.

He didn’t know if Reina even met the very first condition for becoming a Burst Linker—having worn a Neurolinker since immediately after her birth—and there was no guarantee that she liked video games. Plus, even assuming she made it past these two hurdles, he would have been hard-pressed to say that the Accelerated World as it was now was a place where beginners could have fun with duels.

What came out of his mouth instead was something he’d been thinking about for a while, although it was a bit out of the blue in the current conversation.

“So, um, Izeki?” he asked.

“Hmm?” She angled her head to one side curiously.

“You wanna run in the student council elections with me?”

“Huh?!” she cried, stunned, and waved both her hands in front of her, frantic. “Wh-where’d that come from, Prez?! Way to sucker punch a girl! And I’m totally, obviously not council material.”

“I mean, if you’re not, then neither am I,” he responded. “Um, do you know Mayu Ikuzawa, the Class C rep?”

Reina blinked a few times before nodding. “I mean, I know her to see her. But I’ve basically never hung out with her.”

“Yeah? So like, a little while ago, she came to me and Taku—Takumu Mayuzumi—and asked us to run with her,” he explained. “But you have to have a team of four for the election, so we’re short one.”

She shook her head, exasperated. “That is definitely not enough of a reason to ask me. There’s gotta be someone better for the job, like Kurashima or someone.”

“Ohh.”

It wasn’t that he hadn’t entertained the idea of asking Chiyuri to be the fourth member of their team. However.

“She’s totally not interested,” he told her. “And Ikuzawa said we should pick someone we think would be good on student council instead of just someone we’re friends with.”

“So then I’m even less—” Reina was interrupted by the sound of a bell.

If this had been in the middle of a school term, the sound would have signaled the end of fourth period and the start of lunch. But now, on summer vacation, it was nothing more than a synthetic noise to inform them that it was twelve thirty.

Once the bell had finished ringing in their aural receptors via their Neurolinkers, Reina groaned. “Sorry. I gotta go change and pick up my sister pretty quick here. Prez, can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Sure, that’s fine. But…” Haruyuki turned his eyes to the rear courtyard, and Reina seemed to remember that Hoo had moved.

“Right.” She nodded thoughtfully. “No job for us here tomorrow. Um, so then I’ll call you tomorrow night. I’m out!” Reina waved at him and ran off toward the entrance to the school.

“O-okay. See you!” Haruyuki wondered if this would be a voice call or a dive call or…

Left alone at the gates, he exhaled at length and then slipped through the stone archway. He could faintly hear students on various sports teams yelling from the courtyard on the other side of the main school building. Track team member Chiyuri was probably at practice there, and Takumu was likely working hard in the dojo, given that he and the kendo team had the Kanto Tournament in the middle of August. That said, however, they would still have lunch breaks, so if he messaged them right now, he could probably see them for a bit.

But he kept standing there, rooted to the spot, arms dangling by his sides. He hadn’t talked to either Takumu or Chiyuri since the meeting after the Tezcatlipoca mission. He’d gotten a mail from each of them, but he’d simply replied, “I’ll message you later” and left it at that. It was true that he didn’t know how to face them exactly, but there was also one other rather large issue.

Today was Saturday—the day the Territories took place in the Accelerated World. Minato Area No. 3, location of Oscillatory Universe headquarters, was currently the domain of Nega Nebulus. Naturally, Oscillatory would attack with a lineup of its best members in order to recapture it. Haruyuki hadn’t been told whether Nega Nebulus would defend this territory or decide there was no need for that and abandon it. And there was no reason for anyone to tell him. Because he was now a member of Oscillatory Universe, and if the White King or her executive were to seek information related to Nega Nebulus from him, he couldn’t exactly not answer them.

On this point, the movement of Oscillatory Universe was in fact a little unsettling. He’d given them his mail address and contact info, but he hadn’t heard so much as a peep from them these last three days. There were only three and a half hours from the time when the bell had rung earlier to mark twelve thirty until the start of the Territories at four o’clock. Haruyuki had thought that the White King intended to use him as a spy, but even if she did get some good information from him at this late stage, she wouldn’t be able to reflect it in their strategy for the Territories, would she?

And then, as if the universe was reading his mind, his mail icon blinked.

He swallowed hard as he stared at the name of the sender to the right of the icon. “Sleepy” in roman letters. Oscillatory Universe’s Snow Fairy.

How had he gotten a message from the outside when he was only connected to the local in-school net? He felt a shiver run up his spine as he raised a tense hand to tap the icon. The window that popped up contained a single line of text.

YOUR RIDE WILL PICK YOU UP AT 12:40.

Behind the overly simple message was a taxi reservation link. When he tapped it, a map of the area opened, and the movement of the car was displayed in a glowing blue line, along with a scheduled arrival location in a marker of the same color. The vehicle was currently heading east on Oume Highway.

“Gah! It’s practically here!” he gasped, and whirled his head around, looking for help. But none of his comrades were there. And given that he was no longer a member of Nega Nebulus anyway, he would have to decide on his own how to handle Fairy’s instruction.

After looking toward the school one more time, Haruyuki whirled around and ran out the gates.