Accel World - Volume 8 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

If he were asked which of the five weekdays he liked the most, without much hesitation Haruyuki would answer Friday. This was probably the same for most students—maybe adults too. It was hard to substitute anything for the bubbly feeling that came with knowing tomorrow and the day after that were days off.

However, his most disliked day was somewhat subtle. Of course most people would be fed up with Monday, but he had the joy of being able to meet her Excellency his revered student council vice president after two days, and though it was limited to this semester Monday’s lunch special was the godly menu of minced meat cutlet curry.

Therefore, with him granting amnesty to Monday with remarkable mercy, the runner-up was undoubtedly Wednesday.

Because on Wednesday he had PE from first period; it was an unforgiving timetable.

“Hey, Arita, hey!”

Haruyuki, whose name had been called, whose entire body was drenched in sweat, and whose feet were wobbling, reflexively tried to throw the basketball that he had been carrying with his two hands over there.

However, the figure of his teammate who had raised his hand was immediately blocked by an opponent team player and went out of sight. In the bottom left of his field of vision, the digital numbers counting five seconds as well as twenty-four seconds for violations were steadily decreasing. Out of impatience, in order to throw a long pass blindly, he raised the ball with both hands high overhead.

However, like a flash of lightning, the moment before the ball was thrown somebody deftly robbed him of the ball from behind.

“Thanks!”

The tall student who had left behind a spiteful voice and had cut splendidly into his own team’s territory with a dribble was the basketball team regular Ishio. In the midst of the girls lined up around the perimeter of the court raising cheering voices, he broke through the two people marking him in the blink of an eye and made a layup with room to spare. The ring net rocked greatly, and the right side of the score of 22-36 displayed in the overlay in the lower right hand of his vision changed to 38.

“Don’t worry about it.”

With that voice, the teammate who had sought a pass from Haruyuki a little earlier tapped him on the shoulder. However, he couldn’t help but search for the ring in that voice lamenting «the misfortune of being on the same team as Arita» rather than «the misfortune of being on a different team from Ishio’s».

The basketball court able to be divided into two sides in the gymnasium had been split between boys and girls, and furthermore since the twenty male students were divided into four teams, one match was only twenty minutes. However one thought about it a comeback from behind in the remaining seven minutes and thirty seconds was impossible, but he prayed that he would at least not make any more conspicuous basic mistakes—at the back of Haruyuki, who had begun to return to his fixed position while praying that, a voice different from the one earlier whispered in an undertone.

“Haru, what’s important is the whole image. It’s the same as the «territory battle».”

The person who had said just that and had left him was Mayuzumi Takumu, who coincidentally was on the same team. Though they were losing, they could say that a sixteen-point difference against opponents who had a basketball team regular on their team was on the contrary a good fight. The reason for that was that Takumu, who was a complete layman to ball games, was doing his best as a forward.

…The whole image? The same as the territory battle?

While running with heavy steps and chasing Takumu, who was attacking the enemy zone with a dribble as soon as he had received a throw, Haruyuki inwardly racked his brains.

The «territory battles» of Brain Burst were the competitions between legions for territory in group duels conducted Saturday evening every week. In a normal duel, one could only do as far as two-on-two tag matches, but in territory battles, large-scale fights of at least three-on-three (and depending on the circumstances, over ten-versus-ten) were played out.

If it were so, then one could no longer win just by depending on his or her individual fighting strength. While recognizing the entire vast stage’s conditions, one blocked the enemy’s main attacks and simultaneously stabbed at chinks in their armor…in short, a comprehensive «image of the tide of war» was needed.

Did Takumu want to say that basketball matches were also the same as those?

However, Haruyuki’s team was also already doing something similar. The main firepower of the enemy team was clearly the basketball team player Ishio, so there was the strategy of always having two people marking him and sealing his movements. Haruyuki and one other person were defensive middle guards, and Takumu was the one forward. However, even with two people guarding him Ishio would not easily be stopped, and with only Takumu as the pivot of offense of this side, they would not really be able to get any points. Having said that, even if they discarded defense and shifted the lineup to an offensive type, Ishio, who would become free, would just be able to rage about as he pleased.

…With this, it’s useless just to form an image of battle tactics, Taku. It’s as if the opponents have a «King» and we have a «level 1».

In his mind, Haruyuki had unconsciously retorted back in that matter to his old friend. Of course, level 1 referred to Haruyuki himself. As his feet were slow, his height was low, and his ball-handling was poor, in a basketball match he was no different from an in-the-way obstacle that was just there.

And then, at that moment, Takumu fell to the court with a heavy thud! sound. He had shown signs of rushing to the enemy goal and had aimed for a three-point shot; an opponent player who had panicked had accidentally made body contact. A sharp alert sound resounded, and the word 【FOUL】 glittered blue in the center of his field of vision. Blue was the opponent team’s color.

“Ta, Taku!”

Flustered, he tried to run up to him, but Takumu raised one hand as if he were okay and immediately stood up. He calmly made three free throws, and the score changed to 25-38.

Having tried to call out to Takumu, who had promptly jogged back, with a start Haruyuki held his breath.

Didn’t the word «image» that his old friend had just mentioned have a much larger meaning—not just at the level of things like weaknesses and tactics?

At the start of class, their division into random teams had been carried out by the on-campus system, and the moment he learned that Ishio was among the opponents they would confront, Haruyuki had thought “This is bad” in the back of his mind; three of his four teammates also probably felt the same. That basically was being seized by the «image of losing» before the match began.

However, Takumu was probably different. Due to his quiet demeanor and intellectual appearance, it did not show on the outside much, but he was by nature a trueborn fighter. That was why in his elementary school days he did not quit the classroom even when he met cruel bullying in the kendo classroom, and also due to that he could not help himself from confirming the rumors about the «ISS Kit», which was said to negate avatars’ weaknesses.

And then even in this mere twenty-minute mock match of a mere PE class, while knowing their distinct difference in combat power Takumu refused to have an «image of losing». That was right; it was just the same as Brain Burst’s territory battles. In those battles, both sides exhausted their tactics and strategies to the limit; on top of that, the first side to give up with “This is impossible” would lose.

“…My bad, Taku.”

His murmured voice probably had not reached him, but Haruyuki gazed at the square back of his good friend and tightly ground his molars.

Six minutes and twenty seconds remaining. For that amount of time, at the least he would renounce the image of losing. Without thinking that it was impossible, he would do the utmost of what he could do. —If so, what could he do? Magnificent pass cuts and sharp dribbling were impossible acts for Haruyuki. However, there must be something that even an oversized obstruction could do. Obstruction…

“..!”

Haruyuki suddenly opened his eyes wide; immediately after, with a fierce speed he manipulated his virtual desktop.

The application for PE ball games, which was the Ministry of Education’s quality product, had various functions, but the Augmented Reality display, or AR display, had poor compatibility in the first place—while it was obvious, it hindered one from seeing the crucial ball—it was only used to the extent of overlay displaying the score and match time in a side of one’s vision. Rather, it would have been better to remove one’s Neuro Linker, but monitoring the pulse, temperature, and blood pressure of students in exercise was obligated by law, so that too could not be done.

However, right now Haruyuki opened the court condition tab from the app, and it was displayed in bird’s-eye view slightly below the center of his field of vision. In the rectangle, which had become slanted, five red and blue circular symbols apiece moved irregularly. Of course, they were the present positions of all players. With the filter function, he made them to two. The remaining red circle was he himself. And then the blue circle was the enemy ace Ishio.

As soon as the match resumed with the opponents’ throw, Haruyuki moved with heavy steps and spread his arms on the line joining the basketball, of which he had caught sight with his naked eye, and Ishio, who was moving at his back.

He flapped his arms with all his might; by further enlarging his body, which at best could only be said to have great breadth, he tried to foil the pass course to Ishio. The gallery burst out laughing at his imbecile movements, but the enemy player holding the ball lightly clucked his tongue and made a horizontal pass to another player. However, at the same time Haruyuki also ran a couple of meters to the left and again greatly waved his arms up and down.

This was «something that he could do» that he had thought of.

The opponent team’s strategy was to bulldoze a post play with their ace Ishio, who was camping underneath the goal. Since Haruyuki knew that the ball would ultimately be thrown to the low post area, first with his AR display he had precisely grasped Ishio’s position and then had become an «obstruction» on the path between him and the ball.

With Haruyuki’s amount of movement, a man-to-man defense sticking tightly to Ishio himself was impossible, but if he projected the pass course and optimized the distance he shifted, he might be somehow able to continue to fulfill this role until the close of the match.

At that time, the opponent player again showed the air of throwing the ball directly sideways, and Haruyuki began also to move his body that way.

However, right before he suddenly braked. Ishio, who was three meters behind him, was simultaneously running in the opposite direction. This was a feint motion. He somehow absorbed the mass of inertia with his planted left foot and threw his body right. The ball the opponent player had thrown bumped violently with a smack into his right hand, which he had extended with all his might. At the point where it seemed about to rebound somewhere, unconsciously with the gist of Brain Burst’s «gentle redirection» he killed its momentum, pulled it to his chest, and held it tightly.

“No way!”

Haruyuki also thought the same thing as the opponent player, who had let that voice out while popping his eyes out. However, if he stood there dumbfounded, the ball would be snatched away from him by Ishio from the back again.

“Hey!”

Hearing that voice another time from his left side, Haruyuki reflexively threw the ball, this time without holding it high over his head. The ally player who received it—a member of the swim team by the name of Nakagawa—brought the ball into the enemy camp and made a pass to their own team’s ace Takumu, who was running along the right side.

Takumu, who had reliably passed through and reached the enemy goal with a furious charge that made one want to think “As to be expected of a blue-color,” made use of his tall frame and made a marvelous jump shot. With an airy beep SE1resounding in his sense of hearing, the score display changed to 27-38.

“Nice, Arita!”

The one who had raised his voice was Nakagawa, who had quickly returned to their own side. The sports club member with a masculine figure raised his right hand while laughing with a smile; Haruyuki thought reflexively “I’m gonna get hit!”, but he somehow lifted his left hand and returned a high five. He only exchanged a fleeting smile with Takumu, who had come running from behind, but despite that he seemed to have conveyed fully what needed to be conveyed.

For the remaining slightly less than six minutes, Haruyuki only ran, ran, and ran till the end.

Sweat flowed like a waterfall down his face and body, his throat rang with a wheeze, and his legs and arms twitched in bits, but nevertheless he did not try to halt. Before he knew it, what existed in his field of vision, no, in his mind were only the ball ahead of him and Ishio behind him.

In opposition to those, he formed the image of the course he needed to move and simply traced it.

The image and its execution.

At last, in a recess of his consciousness that had become hazy, suddenly Haruyuki recalled that only a few days ago he had also had a similar experience.

That was, yes, the time when he was cleaning up the backyard’s animal caretaking shed alone. He had thought hard about how he could tidy up the fallen leaves piled up to the point where it seemed impossible to remove them with manual labor, formed an image of the result, and afterward only believed and moved his hands. That was also bitter work, but the fallen leaves that seemed to exist infinitely had all also disappeared in the end.

Playing a basketball match and cleaning up a shed were of course completely different. However, at their root maybe they shared in common a thing that should even be called the «essence of action». —No, at that time, sure enough hadn’t he begun to notice something more precious?

In another world different from this reality, the words someone had said to him echoed far inside his head.

…From your consciousness…an excessively strongly projected image…crosses limitations…and manifests itself.

Those were words that had explained a «power» hidden in that world. An ultimate power that crossed the frames of the normal system and could even be said to be a paranormal phenomenon. Miracles that did not exist in the real world. However, for all one knew that logic could be awfully simple—.

Even while he was thinking about those things, Haruyuki single-mindedly continued to run right and left as hard as he could.

Of course, with makeshift blocking he couldn’t prevent one hundred percent of the passes to Ishio. Occasionally when Haruyuki was unable to impede the ball from crossing, in those cases the enemy ace was able to make a certain score. With Takumu and Nakagawa’s counterattacks, although they had bridged the gap to five points, from there it was seesawing back and forth; the remaining time steadily decreased.

However, before he knew it Haruyuki had removed the time count and even the score display from his consciousness. From the gallery, mixed in with the usual laughing voices sometimes a buzz would also be emitted, but neither one reached Haruyuki’s ears.

“Hah…hah…”

While hearing only the strenuous wheezing leaking from his throat and his heartbeat ringing with a clang in the depths of both his ears, he continued solely to trace his image predicted a second ahead of time. He no longer had time to spare to participate on the offensive, but if they were able to counterbalance one-versus-one the opponent team’s ace with their own team’s burden, with the remaining four they could play a more-than-even match. At the point in time where they had dropped under two minutes remaining, their two allies who had been marking Ishio up until now also participated in the offense; they struck at the gaps in their bewildered enemies’ defense and thrust the ball into the hoop.

A three point difference.

“Over here!”

Ishio, who as expected showed signs of starting to have frustration build up, returned once deep into his side, raised his hand, and directly received a throw. Again two people from the red team marking him tried to block his way, but with his lightning-fast spin moves they were quickly overtaken. It seemed somehow that the basketball club’s regular’s «serious techniques» had been sealed up until now.

“..!”

In response to Ishio’s figure pressing in and filling his field of vision, which was blurred with sweat, Haruyuki stood rooted to the spot. In a head-on one-on-one, the Neuro Linker’s AR display would be of no help whatsoever.

—Physical Burst!

Haruyuki desperately held back the impulse of wanting to shout that inside his mouth.

If he used the «Physical Burst» command, which accelerated one’s perceptions by ten times while retaining one’s consciousness inside one’s physical body, no matter what dribble technique Ishio used it would probably be easy to steal the ball while he was in the middle of doing it. However, all «cowardly acceleration» was forbidden by their legion. Before that, it was a slight to Ishio, who in opposition to the likes of Haruyuki had come challenging him with a match in earnest.

“Wa…wah—!”

Without «acceleration», all Haruyuki could do was spreading his hands as much as he could while raising that voice.

The left hand of Ishio, who was pressing in before his eyes, flashed, and the ball disappeared from his sight. By the time he had noticed that he had dribbled to his back side, Ishio was already ferociously overtaking Haruyuki’s left side.

While knowing that he could not catch up to the back of the enemy ace, who was heading for their side’s goal and pushing his way through, Haruyuki chased after him.

After having run a number of paces, before his eyes a bright red font he was unaccustomed to seeing blinked. It was a warning that either his heart rate or his blood pressure had deviated from its normal value. However, he ignored it. He single-mindedly pursued the vague human figure smack dab in the middle of his vision, which had begun to whiten out flickeringly.

And then, opposite Ishio a silhouette of tall height about the same as Ishio’s blocking his way was dimly visible. Before he had known it Takumu had returned to the goal. With his techniques at full throttle, Ishio went about passing Takumu, who had matched him up. From a leg through dribble—to a behind-the-back dribble.

“K…ha!”

While exhaling all the remaining air in his lungs, Haruyuki faced the ball that Ishio was trying to dribble behind his back and dived with all his might.

The fingertips of his left hand that he had reached out as much as he could, whether they touched the granulated rubber—Haruyuki did not know. As to why, there his vision had become pitch-black, and even his ability to think had sharply decelerated. The front side of his body bumped into something wide and hard; at the same time he noticed that that somehow seemed to be the floor of the gym, somewhere far away a high-pitched voice like a scream resounded.

“Haru!!”

That voice was unmistakably that of Chiyuri, who was in the middle of a match in the adjacent court.

—Good grief, concentrate on your own game.

While hearing a number of footsteps running up to him, with that final thought Haruyuki’s memory was cut off.

Since something thin was being inserted in his mouth, for the time being he tried sucking on it.

In doing so, a cool, sweet liquid flowed into his mouth, so with his eyes shut he swallowed it deliriously. After gulping it down to the point where breathing became difficult and sending the liquid to his stomach, he exhaled greatly.

He gently raised his eyelids, and a brilliant white light shone strongly on his eyes. He hurriedly closed them, blinked several times, and then opened them again.

The source of the light was the light panels embedded in the ceiling. In addition to that, there was an enclosing rectangular white curtain in his peripheral vision. Somehow it wasn’t the gym. Below his body were not hard floorboards but rustling sheets—basically, a bed.

Before he thought “Where am I,” the curtains in the direction of his feet made a light sound and were pulled open.

“Oh, Arita-kun, you’re awake?”

Who had appeared was a woman whose semi-long hair was bound behind her neck and who was clad in a smart white coat above her patterned T-shirt—the Umesato Middle school nurse. Her family name was Hotta. So basically, this was probably the nurse’s office of the east wing of the first floor of the second school building.

“Ah…um…I…”

As Haruyuki mumbled with his words inside his mouth, Nurse Hotta showed taken-aback laughter on her masculine face and spoke.

“It’s important to try your best in matches, but you need to pay attention to your own condition. If your blood pressure had dropped a little bit more it would’ve been the ambulance for you.”

“U, understood…I’m sorry…”

—I see, during the middle of the basketball match I collapsed from something like anemia or dehydration and was carried to the nurse’s office, wasn’t I.

Finally aware of the situation, he glanced at the time display in the lower right hand of his vision; second period had begun long ago. Somehow it seemed that he had been unconscious, no, sleeping for over thirty minutes.

The school nurse nimbly manipulated her virtual desktop, confirmed that Haruyuki’s vital signs had returned to their normal values, and nodded lightly.

“Please rest during second period. Make sure to have plenty of water. I’ll be out for a little due to a staff meeting, but if anything happens feel free to push the call button. With that, afterwards I’m leaving it to you!”

The curtains were again closed with a snap, and the pitter-patter sound of footsteps went far off. Finally, he heard the sound of the door opening and closing, and silence returned to the nurse’s office.

Probably Nurse Hotta would have watched Haruyuki’s condition until he awakened even if the meeting began. After absentmindedly thinking “I sure caused her a lot of trouble, but well I guess that’s her job,” from the left side of his face the thin straw again extended toward his mouth.

Without thinking he held it in his mouth and sucked. The well-cooled sports drink pleasantly went down his throat.

“..?”

There, Haruyuki finally thought strangely about to where the straw was connected and turned his gaze left. Was it perhaps automatic water dispensing equipment? Surely not a robot nurse?

However, the straw was extended from a featureless cooling bottle.

And then a white, delicate hand that was not Haruyuki’s was holding that bottle.

“..?”

Ordering his currently decelerating thoughts to do as he said, this time he traced that hand with his gaze. The thin arm was protruding from the sleeve of a black open-collar shirt. In the breast of the shirt, a dark red ribbon. Equipped on her thin neck, a piano black Neuro Linker. Flowing above that, jet black straight hair…

“…Buha!”

The moment he noticed that someone whose existence he had not even perceived until now was sitting at the immediate side of the bed, Haruyuki caused the sports drink to spurt out forcefully from his mouth and nose.

The moment he saw that a part of the water drops had also spattered onto his companion’s shirt, his body temperature and pulse ascended steeply again. He flapped his two hands and shouted in a hoarse voice.

“S, so, sor, sorry! I-if, if we don’t hurry up and wipe it it’ll become a s-s-stain.”

Upon which the person sitting in the unadorned folding chair put the cooling bottle with a calm motion on the bed and spoke.

“Mm, is that so. Then let’s wipe it up.”

And then she lifted her two hands, took the hook-style ribbon, and with a pop began to remove the buttons starting from the top of her open-collar shirt. The skin of her unbelievably pure white chest began to peep out, and furthermore the upper end of her smooth curves also fleetingly came into sight.

“Hgwah!”

Haruyuki again let loose a queer voice and while greatly bending backward was unable to shut his eyelids, but fortunately—if that was the right word, there two hands stopped his violent action.

“It’s a joke. Don’t worry about me getting wet, it’s shape-memory polymer material that can be washed as it is.”

The person who had said that without changing her expression and who was rebuttoning her shirt to as it was before was of course, the sole person who wore a black uniform in Umesato Middle, the student council vice president, Haruyuki’s «parent» Linker, and his legion master Kuroyukihime.

Returning to her original appearance, the beautiful person in black who had straightened her back tightly on the chair opened her mouth again with a facial expression that made one feel a faint tremor in the depths of her sternness.

“—Haruyuki-kun. A little earlier Hotta-sensei said it too; I too won’t say that going all out in PE is bad. However, since you went to the trouble of equipping your Neuro Linker, you need to heed its vital warning. This time ended with some minor dehydration, but if the worst comes to the worst, it could also be linked to a large accident.”

“U, understood, I’m sorry… Without thinking, I became entranced in the match…”

He had the intention of striving to do his best, but the result was only being laughed at by his classmates; in the end, during the match he had collapsed in a heap, and not only that his foolish demeanor had become known to even Kuroyukihime. A fair right hand extended out gently covered the left hand of Haruyuki, who had hung his head, downcast.

“You don’t have to apologize, I’m not particularly blaming you. However…don’t cause me to worry too much.”

In response to that voice whose volume had dropped, he raised his face, and with a facial expression of increased softness Kuroyukihime whispered.

“When I heard from Chiyuri-kun that you had collapsed, I thought I would faint too. I was nearly on the verge of using the forbidden physical acceleration command to run to the school infirmary.”

The forbidden command was «Physical Full Burst», permitted to be used only by level 9 Burst Linkers. It was treated as the higher ranked version of the «Physical Burst» command that had Haruyuki had almost used in his matchup with Ishio, but the effect of its tremendousness was wholly incomparable. As for why, it accelerated not only one’s consciousness but also one’s real-world physical body’s movements close to the normal one hundred times greater.

Of course, the indemnifications were also inordinate. The user would lose ninety-nine percent of her accumulated Burst Points, putting her at the critical brink of losing all of her points. Kuroyukihime’s words were a joke, but in spite of that Haruyuki reflexively shook his head tremblingly.

“I, I’m glad you didn’t use it. Rather than saying that I collapsed, I was only a bit too tired and got giddy… —Then, it was Chiyu who let Senpai know?”

“Unh, it was almost the same time as when you were carried here. On that point, she’s pretty fair too.”

“…F, fair?”

Not catching her drift, he tilted his head in puzzlement; Kuroyukihime made a faint bitter laugh and with her eyes indicated the side to the left beside herself.

“Chiyuri-kun and Takumu-kun were also keeping you company for a while since the start of second period. Since they would be counted as absent at that rate I made them return to their classroom. Since they’re extremely worried, it’d probably be better to send them a mail.”

“U, understood.”

Haruyuki nodded and launched the local net-exclusive mailer from his virtual desktop. To his two childhood friends, he quickly sent the report that he had regained consciousness and that there were no problems with his physical condition and his thanks for them having accompanied him. There, he suddenly became aware of something, looked at Kuroyukihime’s face, and questioned her.

“Um, is it okay if you don’t go to class, Senpai..? Won’t the record of you skipping class without leave be left in the school register file…”

“Oi, who do you think I am. In the school system, I put in proof of being a substitute health-care committee member, of course. Hotta-sensei willingly signed too.”

If he were met with that laugh along with those remarks, he could only reflect on how that was a completely boorish question. Kuroyukihime slightly changed the nuance of her smile, leaned somewhat forward, and whispered mischievously.

“To compensate Chiyuri-kun for her spirit of fair play, I did think about issuing her proof of being a substitute too, but this time she listened to my selfish desire. Because you see, even though yesterday I went so far as to use my ace in the hole at great pains and was able to become alone with you in the student council meeting room, we weren’t able to talk about much. Well, you did have some inevitable circumstances though.”

“Ah…hah…hahi…”

In response to the excessive beauty of her black pupils glittering close at hand, while involuntarily turning his voice inside out Haruyuki nodded.

If he thought back on it, during yesterday’s lunch break Kuroyukihime had suddenly marched into the classroom of year 2, class C and had shouted “I demand the immediate presence of the animal caretaker committee chairperson!” Haruyuki, who by a misunderstanding had been appointed to that post due to his candidacy, had prepared himself to be the object of anger for some reason and had followed her to the student council meeting room, but Kuroyukihime’s order of presence was a simple pretext for the purpose of becoming alone with him in a private room.

Needless to say Haruyuki was very happy to be able to talk with Kuroyukihime with just the two of them—it was a dreamlike experience beyond happy.

However, inside Haruyuki she was a far too important as well as precious existence. She was not only his «parent» and «legion master» as a Burst Linker. She was the «benefactor» who had rescued him from the swamp and had given him hope. She was the «master of swords» to whom he swore his absolute as well as eternal loyalty. Even with those words he was still far from able to tell the whole story. That was right—, preferably he should perhaps describe it in just one word like this. It was a «miracle».

Kuroyukihime, whose way of living was like aiming for a star in the far distance and pushing one’s way there with one’s heart and soul, though there were some circumstances had fixed her eyes upon a human like Haruyuki, had spoken to him, and had extended her hand out to him: if one didn’t call that a miracle, then what? At present, in the center of Haruyuki’s world, she was equivalent to a dazzlingly scintillating, humongous jewel. She was exceedingly beautiful to the extent where it seemed if one’s hand touched her she would ephemerally disappear.

Though recently he had finally begun to be able to chat properly with others, just by being conscious of being alone with Kuroyukihime in a closed room, his heart rang with a thump, and his breathing became shallow. No, his current situation was even more critical than that of the one yesterday in the student council meeting room.

At any rate, in his surroundings were white, thick curtains tightly encircling them; Haruyuki was lying sideways on the bed; Kuroyukihime was pushing her hand on the edge of the bed, leaning her body out, and gazing at Haruyuki.

At this rate if he kept silent, his thoughts would overshoot into an unbelievable territory, so Haruyuki forcibly pulled the control lever and resumed conversation.

“…Um, I’m sorry about yesterday. Now that I think about it, I also hadn’t properly explained the state of things, hadn’t I…”

“Mm…, well, I meant to grasp the outline of it from your mail, but…though I was thinking about asking about various things in detail, you brought about this incident, so it had completely slipped my mind.”

“I, I’m sorry…”

While nervously rubbing the fingertips of his two hands together, he apologized for the second time in a row.

Yesterday, why Haruyuki had returned from school at a dash was of course because he had apprehensions about Takumu’s situation. By no means were those groundless fears; he was nearly at the point of having his mind controlled by the «ISS Kit», but through his duel with Haruyuki he had regained himself, and due to the fight in the dead of night in the «BB central server», the Kit had also been completely destroyed.

After his duel with Ash Roller this morning, Haruyuki had roughly explained the circumstances thereabouts or so to the three people Kuroyukihime, Kurasaki Fuuko, and Shinomiya Utai by mail, but it was quite impossible to sum up the particulars in a short piece of writing. Haruyuki himself had not precisely understood the occurrence in the central server, and he had another important matter before the «Imperial Palace escape strategy».

Namely, Ash Roller’s very unexpected «request».

Although he had a mountain’s worth of things he needed to tell Kuroyukihime, not knowing from where on earth to start, Haruyuki again held his tongue. In doing so, wholly as if she understood Haruyuki’s confusion and was trying to cool it down Kuroyukihime spoke tranquilly.

“Be that as it may, the fact that you tried hard in PE class to the point of collapsing… This may be a rude way of putting it, but it was a little unexpected.”

“Y…yes, I was awfully surprised too…”

“Did you have some sort of change of heart?”

Questioned thus, he thought hard about it puzzlingly. Now that it was mentioned, he had the feeling that he did; it also seemed likely that nothing had changed.

“Um…it’s not that there was anything special in particular, but…after I made a bunch of blunders during the match, Taku said something to me. That “what’s important is your image.” That’s why I thought about ceasing only to play the match while carrying the «image of losing» at the least…and then, unawares it seemed that I got a little too serious. —Come to think of it, how did the match end after all…”

“According to Takumu-kun, it seems to have been a loss by a one point difference.”

“Is that…so?”

According to his hazy memory, Haruyuki’s team was three points behind with the remaining time of a few dozen seconds; moreover, they were taking the enemy ace Ishio’s swift attacks. The fact that they had approached a one point difference probably meant that they had defended against those swift attacks and furthermore with a counterattack had stolen one goal, and there the match had concluded.

After he thought “No doubt Takumu had made an eye-opening counter, just as expected,” while she smiled Kuroyukihime said something surprising.

“Truthfully, the ones who carried you and transported you to the nurse’s office were Takumu and one other person, a member of the basketball team in your class.”

“Eh…Ishio, carried me?”

“Unh. He has a message for you. It was ‘This time was a complete defeat, but next time the same trick absolutely won’t work again’ apparently.”

“Huh…co, complete defeat!? But, wasn’t the match their side’s win…”

“He seems to have set a personal margin of winning where if he doesn’t win with at least a twenty point difference it’s a loss.”

“…Is, is that so.”

In response to his message, without knowing whether Ishio was being humble or arrogant Haruyuki involuntarily laughed bitterly. Granted though, sure enough why this time Haruyuki had been able to continue to hinder Ishio was because the opponent team had stubbornly refused to change strategies. If the next gym class were basketball matches again, and furthermore if they had to confront Ishio, there was no way that the simple trick of blocks using the AR display would pass anymore. It was the same as Brain Burst’s duels and territory battles. Even in the world over there, it was rare for the same strategy that had worked once to succeed a second time in a row. It was because one was not fighting AI but humans who possessed the power to imagine the future…

When he had absentmindedly thought that far, Haruyuki was suddenly aware of the precious «something» he had felt during the match beginning to be resuscitated into his head again.

“Ah…”

“Mm? What’s the matter?”

“No, well…it’s not anything of consequence, but…I mean, it might be an absurdly wayward guess, but…”

Backed by the gaze of Kuroyukihime, who was silently egging him on, Haruyuki moved his mouth, which was on the verge of stopping.

“…«From your consciousness an excessively strongly projected image crosses the system’s limitations and manifests itself.»”

In doing so, for an instant Kuroyukihime opened both her eyes wide and subsequently smiled kindly.

“The one who said that to you was undoubtedly Fuuko, right.”

“Ex…exactly. How did you know..?”

“I said it before, didn’t I. She is, to the utmost of my knowledge, the purest user of «positive Mind Power». Those are words typical of Fuuko, who believes in the superiority of the light side of the Incarnate system…”

It was unlikely that Haruyuki had completely understood the meaning of Kuroyukihime’s whisper. However, without venturing to interrogate her, he continued his words.

“The words we used right now were of course words explaining the Incarnate system of the Accelerated World. But during the basketball match I was told by Taku ‘your image is important,’ and somehow…I thought about it. Even in this real world…when we really try hard, I wonder if we aren’t doing the same thing… Of course, on this side we’re not able to use Incarnate techniques like superpowers, but even so…for example, the fact that I fought with that Ishio in the basketball match, the fact that I was able to manage cleaning up the caretaker shed alone; those to me were miracles above superpowers. Umm, basically, what I want to say is…well…”

There Haruyuki’s verbalization ability finally reached its limit; afterward he could no longer do anything but flap his mouth open and closed like he always did.

However, fortunately it seemed that what he had to convey to Kuroyukihime had been conveyed. Her jet black pupils again opened wide, and from her bewitching lips she let out a thin sigh.

“…Haruyuki-kun. You always keep surprising me… I surely hadn’t thought that you would reach that stage that quickly and furthermore unaided…”

“Eh..? St, stage..?”

Peering close at hand into the eyes of Haruyuki, who, dumbfounded, had asked that back, Kuroyukihime nodded deeply.

“That’s right. The words that you spoke just now are the entrance to the second stage of the Incarnate system. To acquire the so-called «applied techniques», which surpasses the basic techniques of «range», «power», «defense», and «movement» expansion, you must master something in the imagination not through logic but through feelings. Master the power called the «imagination» given to us, which is such a vast, such a deep thing…”

“Ima…gi, nation…”

“Unh. Until now, you thought that the Incarnate system’s main point «override through one’s image» was nothing more than a bit of logic of the game system that only existed in the virtual world, right? However, that is wrong. Imagination hides a boundless power even in this real world. Of course, you can’t act in a way that ignores the laws of physics. Nevertheless, it’s possible to override walls that seem to be one’s absolute limits in borrowing the help of one’s power to imagine. Like how you proved so yourself in the basketball match.”

Those words of Kuroyukihime strongly shook a place in the deep recesses of Haruyuki’s heart, but at the same time a large bewilderment too was born. Before he was conscious of it he had leaned forward, and while fixing his eyes on Kuroyukihime, who was in the same posture, from close by, he asked her in a hoarse voice.

“…The power of imagining causes one to cross one’s limits. Its foundation doesn’t change whether it’s in the Accelerated World or the real world. I have a feeling that I too have somehow been able to understand that. —However, what kind of relationship is there between that and the «second stage of the Incarnate system»..?”

In response to Haruyuki’s inquiry, Kuroyukihime did not respond right away. As if having been apprehended by hesitation in coming here she cast her eyes down and lightly bit her lip.

Haruyuki had the feeling that he was able to surmise that reason vaguely.

Kuroyukihime was carrying some sort of fear of the strength of the Mind Power she had acquired. She had misgivings about whether or not it was negative power that called on destruction and sorrow, not positive power like the type Fuuko—Sky Raker manipulated.

However, Haruyuki strongly believed that was not so. As for why, Kuroyukihime’s Incarnate techniques were—the only one he had seen was the long-range attack «Vorpal Strike», but that technique was so beautiful to the degree where it made one at a loss for words. Even if it concealed a fearsome power, there was no way a technique that beautiful could be negative imagination.

Haruyuki sidled up to her a further number of centimeters closer on the bed, made his left hand softly touch Kuroyukihime’s right hand, and spoke.

“Senpai. I was taught valuable things, first by Raker-san, and then by Niko, about the Incarnate system. However…my «parent» is you. I want to know everything about you, senpai. I want you to teach me everything. I implore you…please teach me your Mind Power.”

A reply did not come back immediately.

The June sun of half past ten in the morning had already climbed close to its zenith, so light from the window did not reach the secluded corner of the nurse’s office. In the space faintly illuminated by the dimmed light panels and cut off in a rectangular shape by pure white curtains, only the two’s breathing faintly resounded.

Before long, the fingers of Kuroyukihime’s right hand moved softly and gripped Haruyuki’s fingers in a way as to entwine them. Following that, a quiet whisper.

“…If so, first we’ll need a direct link-use cable.”

On Kuroyukihime’s face, which she had lifted up, there only existed the almost usual smile that was shrouded somewhere in mysteries. Haruyuki gently exhaled and then spoke while becoming slightly flustered.

“Ah…I, I’m sorry, my cable’s inside my bag in the classroom…”

“Mine too. But they probably at least have cables here too.”

While murmuring, Kuroyukihime manipulated her virtual desktop with light fingering. Probably having searched the list of equipment, straightaway she nodded, parted her fingers from Haruyuki’s left hand, stood up, and disappeared smoothly to the other side of the curtains.

He heard the opening and closing sound of a drawer; sure enough a white XSB cable was grasped in the hand of Kuroyukihime, who had returned immediately. However—.

“Is…isn’t that a little short..?”

The moment he saw the cable, which seemed to be only about fifty centimeters long no matter how he looked at it, Haruyuki blurted that out. But Kuroyukihime lightly shrugged her shoulders.

“If so, it’ll be fine if we make it reach. Fortunately, it’s outside of the view of the social cameras here.”

“Eh…b, but, how.”

As he had begun to say that, Haruyuki was forced to swallow his words down. As for why, it was because Kuroyukihime had placed her body on the bed with a heave-ho and a completely nonchalant bearing.

“Eh, um, well…”

He belatedly noticed that he was still in his white gym suit and drew his body back. Due to the fact that it was made of quick-drying material, his sweat had already dried, but he definitely wasn’t odorless.

However, without any sign of minding that, Kuroyukihime reached out her left hand, softly pushed Haruyuki’s chest, and made him lie supine on the bed. At his immediate left, she lay sprawled out sideways and directed a mischievous smile at him from an exceedingly close distance.

Page 177

As usual the clutch controlling his ability to think ran idly, and a breath with a hint of laughter gently touched Haruyuki’s ear, which was about to blow up into the red zone out of excessive throbbing.

“Fufu…, it’s probably fine if you don’t get that nervous at such a late point. The night before the «Hermes Cord Race», didn’t we have the relationship of sleeping a night in the same bed?”

“Hah, hahi, th-th-that’s true, but.”

In the Accelerated World, the above-mentioned race event had taken place a mere two weeks ago, but since far too many things had happened since then, it also felt like the faraway past. However, the memory of that one night was vividly engraved into Haruyuki’s mind.

At that time too, in the bed they similarly had dueled through a direct connection—though Haruyuki had unleashed his newly mastered «Aerial Combo» on Kuroyukihime and had challenged her, due to her «gentle redirection» of an even more advanced skill he had been easily dealt with, had ultimately suffered her level 8 special technique «Death by Embracing», and had been one-hit KO’d.

…Somehow, I have a hunch that this time seems like it’s going to become something similar too…

While Haruyuki thought that, Kuroyukihime brought one end of the XSB cable only fifty centimeters long near his Neuro Linker. Reflexively, he began to distance his neck, but with his resistance in vain it was inserted.

“…Ah…”

Not heeding Haruyuki, who had let out an odd voice, following that Kuroyukihime connected the opposite side’s plug into her piano black communication device equipped on her slim neck. In his vision, the wired connection warning blinked red.

“…Yesterday, with my selfishness I made you use one point. Today, let’s make it my treat.”

The meaning of the words whispered thus was not that both of them would simultaneously accelerate and dive into the Initial Acceleration Space the Blue World; only Kuroyukihime would accelerate and would promptly encroach on Haruyuki.

“Y…yes, please do so.”

Before the eyes of Haruyuki, who had replied so, her light rosy lips slightly intoned «Burst Link».

Immediately after, an acceleration sound resembling a dry clap of thunder reverberated fully throughout his hearing.

References:
1. ^ Sound effect.