Accel World - Volume 6 - Chapter 11

11

The Black King advanced, a single soldier.

She stepped onto the bridge stretching out five hundred meters from the Castle’s south gate. She spread both arms out diagonally to her rear and, in a form that had her body pitched forward as far as it could go, she charged, carving deep ruts in the ice at her feet.

Bomf! Beyond her, in the center of the square altar that lay on the other side of the bridge, a bright red flame appeared. Swirling, vortex-like, the flames grew in intensity before Haruyuki’s eyes. Soon, the entire twenty meters of one side of the altar was transformed into a sea of fire. In the center of that, something—a terrifyingly enormous something—was beginning to materialize.

“Here we go!” Fuko shouted back to Haruyuki, the instant they saw it.

The Gale Thruster howled beneath him. Its pale flames shot out and illuminated their surroundings, instantly vaporizing the ice on the road. The incredible thrust shot the two duel avatars off the ground like a catapult.

Air howled in his ears; to resist the roaring wind pressure, Haruyuki pressed himself as close as he could to Fuko’s back. The details of the buildings on both sides melted into flowing lines of pale blue. The sound of the Thruster grew louder and louder and louder.

Their two-hundred-meter runway was very rapidly approaching its end. In the blink of an eye, they had flown by Lime Bell, the bell of her left hand readied, in the center of the large intersection. The pair charged on, into the sky over the bridge, racing forward at maximum speed and an altitude of thirty meters.

Ahead of them, the something that was born from the sea of flames was taking on a clear shape.

First, two massive wings spread out to both sides, scattering glittering droplets like molten metal. Their span was essentially the width of the bridge; each and every feather, a devil’s flaming sword. Snowflakes dancing in the atmosphere evaporated long before they touched those wings.

Between the outstretched appendages, sturdy shoulders appeared next, followed by a long, arched neck jerking upward, and then a head began to materialize. Decorative feathers extending sharply like a dragon’s horns. Long, pointed beak. And even more dazzling than the flames, glittering more redly than rubies: two eyes.

The massive bird shrouded in flames—guardian of the Castle, super-level Enemy, the God Suzaku—turned its open beak toward the heavens and released a tremendous roar.

The moment this war cry and the infinite rumbling of piercing thunder coiled around it shook the world, Haruyuki saw it. The thick clouds blanketing the sky rippled and shuddered and briefly ripped outward in circular waves.

What was this thing?

What. Was. It? An Enemy? A soulless monster moved by the Brain Burst program?

No. That…that bird was alive. Angry at having its slumber disturbed, it rampaged to burn up the intruders. It seemed to be made of nothing but rejection and the intention to attack, the very concept of an unbelievable titan…

It was a pure aggregate of the will to destroy.

The moment he realized this, Haruyuki was aware of his own resolve to fly wavering inside himself.

He cowered. This presence in the Accelerated World he had once wanted to see, this manifestation of absolute power that eclipsed even the Seven Kings of Pure Color, who Haruyuki had found so overwhelming only a few days earlier, burned into all the channels of his five senses, and his breathing stopped.

…We can’t. That’s…I can’t go near that thing…The thought pierced the center of his numbed consciousness.

But Sky Raker’s flight did not stop. On the contrary, the noise from the Gale Thruster grew louder and louder, and the flames jetting out seemed to stretch on forever. The enormous flame bird in the distance flapped its wings and began to move forward from the altar. Even with the sensation of acceleration pressing down on him, the distance between them and it decreased with terrifying speed.

Haruyuki’s hands shook and unconsciously, he began to pull his fingertips from Raker’s shoulders.

Instantly.

Black Lotus, standing less than a hundred meters below him up ahead, abruptly began to gush dazzling rays of light from her entire body—the overlay of her Incarnate. The color was a pure red, rivaling that of the flames enshrouding the massive bird.

“Aaaaaaaaah!!” Kuroyukihime’s fierce battle cry ripped open the heavens. The ghostly light of her Incarnate doubled in intensity. From her avatar, starlike in its brilliance, a crisp voice was released: “Overdrive!! Mode Red!!”

It was a command Haruyuki didn’t know. And the phenomenon that it brought about was also unknown to him.

Vivid red lines popped up on Black Lotus’s jet-black armor. At the same time, the design of the sword of her right hand changed. It grew 50 percent longer, the tip constricting into a diamond shape. It was no longer a sword; it was a lance.

Kuroyukihime forcefully pulled that arm back and made a cross with the sword of her left hand, readied horizontally. The overlay pouring out of every crevice of her body at once gathered in her right arm, to concentrate in a single point at the tip.

This force, focused to such an extreme that it threatened to carve a hole in anything it even touched, was released at the charging God Suzaku as she shouted the technique name.

“Vorpal Strike!!”

A roar like a jet engine, loud enough to drown out the howls of the massive bird, accompanied the enormous crimson lance as it shot over a hundred meters in an instant to land squarely in the center of Suzaku’s thick chest. The flames enshrouding the Enemy scattered into space like blood.

And then Haruyuki was sure he saw it. Suzaku’s HP gauge—so vast, it was stacked up in five layers—sliced away, albeit just the tiniest bit.

Kuroyukihime. Kuroyukihime. You, why…How did you get so strong…

The thought that flashed through the back of his mind was rejected by another emotion that came welling up from the bottom of his stomach.

Her, strong? No. I already know that’s not it. She’s simply trying to be strong. For her own sake. For someone’s sake. For that something important shining in her heart. And I am, too. Right now, I don’t have enough power or brains or anything, but I can move forward. And that is real strength, the kind that anyone has right from the start. Move forward, breathe,

throw your chest out. Okay, howl it!!

“Hnngaaaaaah!!”

“Fly!!” Fuko responded.

“Here I go!!”

Shhp! He spread the wings on his back; he beat the ten metal fins with every ounce of his strength—Haruyuki flew.

The air howled in his ears, compressed, became a wall. He broke through with the glittering of the Incarnate lodged in fingertips stretched out before him. Fmp! The pressure was broken. Haruyuki became a single beam of silver light and plunged forward.

Ahead and slightly below, the enormous body of Suzaku drew nearer with every breath. Blazing heat, as though burning the air itself, beat at his avatar. But he no longer felt any fear. Because Haruyuki wasn’t alone. Kuroyukihime, Fuko, Chiyuri, Takumu—they were all holding him up.

And that younger girl, too, who was, at that precise moment, landing in the Unlimited Neutral Field for the first time in two and a half years.

He had only met her two days earlier, but Utai Shinomiya was already a firm presence in Haruyuki’s heart. And not because she was going to purify the Armor of Catastrophe. Not because she would strengthen the Legion’s fighting ability. He wanted her to join the new Nega Nebulus as a new friend.

That was what he was flying for now. Without fear, without flinching: simply moving forward. Ever forward.

Silver Crow, a silver arrow racing along at an altitude of thirty meters, and Suzaku, charging ahead on the bridge with a roar, crossed paths, sending several sparks flying.

Suzaku kept on, rushing toward Kuroyukihime behind him and Fuko, who should have landed beside their fallen comrade by now. All that was left was for the two of them to lure the Enemy far back, onto the bridge. All he had to do was believe in them and let them handle it.

Ahead of him as he charged forward, in the center of the altar from which scattered flames still rose, fmp!—a scarlet flickering.

She was here. Utai, Ardor Maiden. Perfect timing. Takumu had pulled off his role as messenger flawlessly. The shrine maiden avatar clad in white and red materialized before his eyes. He wasn’t even a hundred meters away now. To pick Utai up, Haruyuki went to drop altitude.

At that moment—

“Haruyuki!!”

A shriek colored with shock and terror and despair.

The shout of his real name, a fundamental taboo in the Accelerated World, was followed from behind by “Run!! You have to get away now!!”

“……?!” Unable to comprehend the situation, Haruyuki glanced back over his shoulder.

And then he saw it.

The God Suzaku tilting those wings and pulling into a turn to the left. Its long neck carved out an arc, and the deep red eyes were focused straight ahead on this side of the bridge—on Haruyuki.

Its target had most definitely changed. But why? He could see the lingering damage effects of Kuroyukihime’s Vorpal Sword in Suzaku’s chest. Haruyuki, on the other hand, hadn’t even touched his Enemy. It didn’t make sense for it to come after him. As these confused thoughts flashed through his mind, he felt like he heard a voice.

The anger, the disdain of the Enemy, supposedly nothing more than a moving object without a will of its own.

Small one. Accept the reward for the folly of penetrating Our domain. The flame of Our breath…

Become ash.

The enormous beak opened wide.

Flames flickered in the depths of a throat filled with darkness. The breath attack. If he got hit with that, there was no doubt he would die instantly.

Run, Haruyuki!!

He heard Kuroyukihime shrieking again.

For an extremely tiny unit of time, so short that the word instant was even too long, Haruyuki hesitated.

If he rapidly ascended right then, he could probably evade the breath. If he kept going all the way up to Silver Crow’s maximum altitude of fifteen hundred meters, Suzaku probably wouldn’t come after him. But…

Aah, but…

Haruyuki gritted his teeth below his silver mask so hard, they threatened to crumble.

And then he made his decision.

He wouldn’t pull back. He couldn’t run away here. If he ran now, Utai Shinomiya, waiting for him just a dozen or so meters ahead, would be attacked by Suzaku and die. And if that were to happen, she wouldn’t reproach Haruyuki returning to the real world. She would probably tell him in her usual high-speed typing, YOU HAD NO OTHER CHOICE.

But the truth was, he did have a choice. Because in that moment, Haruyuki could choose what he was going to do. Because he had been given these wings to keep flying toward her as long as there was the tiniest possibility that he could rescue Utai.

“Unh…Aaah…” Returning his gaze once more to the altar, he pushed his voice out from the depths of his stomach.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

With this battle cry, Haruyuki mustered up every ounce of his focus, so much so that he almost burnt out the synapses in his brain, and made his wings flutter. The light housed in the tips of his two hands, thrust out straight ahead, spread out over his entire body. Wrapped in the same silver overlay as when he used his sole Incarnate attack Laser Sword, Haruyuki plunged forward.

Behind him, he sensed an incredible energy being generated. A vortex of flame to instantly vaporize all things was released from Suzaku’s maw, and coming at him, dyeing the world crimson.

Haruyuki!!

Corvus!!

Haruuuuuuu!!

The three screams barely touched his awareness. But he shook free of even that, became a single ray of light, and flew.

Kuroyukihime. I know I promised to run when you said to run. I’m sorry. I’ll apologize loads and loads later. But in order for me to keep being me, I have to do this now.

This fleeting thought became a white spark, bounced off, and disappeared, and then there was nothing left in him but the will to keep pushing ahead.

He was getting closer to the altar with each thought of a breath. Ardor Maiden, who had appeared in its center, was simply standing there, as though she couldn’t understand what was going on.

Haruyuki stared at the small shrine maiden and shouted in a voice that was not a voice, Your hand!!

Like a switch had been flipped, Ardor Maiden raised her slender hands.

Dropping down to a meter above the bridge, Haruyuki stretched out his own arms. Their hands touched, and they grabbed tightly on to each other—Haruyuki yanked Utai’s avatar up with all his might and held her to his chest.

Hold on!! he shouted again, and Utai’s arms were no sooner around his neck than he was climbing once more. He would do a 180-degree loop, turn around, and escape—

Abruptly, the world around him changed color.

Flickering with a wavelength from orange to crimson. Red. The color of fire.

His avatar’s entire body sang out. Suzaku’s flame breath had caught up with them. Despite the fact that the flames themselves couldn’t be touching them yet, the HP gauge in the top left of his vision was decreasing with terrifying force.

It was impossible. He couldn’t ascend. The instant he dropped his speed by even the tiniest amount, they would be swallowed in the flames and melt. He had no choice but to keep going straight. But not far ahead of them, the rock of the castle gate was blocking the way.

For his self-respect, at least, perhaps the only thing to do was end this by crashing into the gate. But no—he hadn’t come that far to commit suicide. He was going to live. He was going to survive with Utai. He would do it.

“Open!!” Haruyuki shouted, the surface of his avatar crackling and burning.

At the same time, Utai in his arms raised her own voice. “You must open!!”

But the thick, ice-covered indigo castle gates stayed firmly, tightly closed, as if mocking them.

No.

A light…

In the center of the doors standing tall, he could see a mere sliver of white light, like a thread.