Accel World - Volume 9 - Chapter 10

10

“……Kuroyukihime.”

Haruyuki gave voice to this one word, filling it with every drop of the flood of emotions within him.

He couldn’t help but feel such guilt that he wanted to rip his own body apart for falling into the berserker state and injuring so severely the swordmaster he had sworn to protect, Black Lotus—Kuroyukihime.

However, Kuroyukihime had dared to stop Haruyuki’s fists with her own body after he’d lost himself and gone wild. Given that the king had enough actual power to inflict serious damage on even a Super-class Enemy like the God Suzaku, she should have been able to at least counter the blows, even if her opponent was the rampaging Chrome Disaster. But instead, she had taken every bit of the beating he had mercilessly brought down on her. She had believed that Haruyuki would regain himself again…

In Silver Crow’s arms as he hovered in the air, hearing the trembling voice calling her name, Kuroyukihime blinked bluish-purple eye lenses irregularly beneath her battered, mirror-finish goggles. Her endlessly kind and gentle response flowed out on the faint wind of the stage.

“…Welcome back, Silver Crow. You did…well…” The half-broken sword of her left hand gently stroked the surface of the round helmet.

“Kuro…yuki…” Once more, he squeezed a faltering voice out and desperately suppressed the sobs rising up in him.

He wanted to bury his face in her chest and wail like a little kid. But this was not yet the time for that. There was still one more thing he had to do. He had a promise to keep with his erstwhile partner, the pseudo-intelligence of the Beast. It would probably take a long time to fulfill his vow to cut the root of evil from the world, but he would fire the first shot into this battlefield. To show the pride of the Black Legion and his own as a Burst Linker.

Kuroyukihime seemed to pick up on his intent through their armor touching. She nodded once, very slightly. “We have one chance, one moment. We’re both close-range types, so we’ll have to carry out the attack with long-range Incarnate. But we don’t have the luxury of slowly mustering up the image…You focus on targeting, I’ll provide the power.”

Despite the fact that she was so thoroughly injured that, viewed from any angle, it seemed any further fighting was impossible, Kuroyukihime’s words were filled with a firm resolve to fight. Haruyuki returned her nod and cleared his mind.

“We go from a count of three. Two, one, zero!”

In time with the instruction, he whirled his body around abruptly.

Below him, an enormous chalky spire rose up in the center of his field of view, bathed in the evening sun—Mori Tower. The roof had been swept clear of objects in the earlier clash between Black Lotus and Chrome Disaster, and transformed into a perfectly white plain.

In the center of this bled a single small, black dot. It was the shadow produced by Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime midflight with the sun behind them. However, for this moment alone, it was not simply a lighting effect of the virtual world: It was also the hiding place of his sworn enemy, the Burst Linker for whom, no matter how great the hatred in Haruyuki’s heart became, it would never be enough.

Yes. In that instant, within that tiny shadow hid the layered avatar who called himself the vice president of the Acceleration Research Society, the restrainer, Black Vise. One branch of the root of all evil the Beast had told Haruyuki to cut out.

“Crow! Your hand!!” Kuroyukihime shouted sharply, lifting her right sword high.

The tip of her sword-arm shone with a hazy golden overlay and separated with a snap to produce five slender fingers. Instinctively, Haruyuki reached out with his left hand and tangled his fingers tightly around them. From their clasped hands, the brilliant light of two auras—one crimson red, one silver—jetted out.

At that point, no doubt guessing something was amiss, a single, thin black panel slid out from the blurred shadow on the roof thirty meters below. Black Vise. The panel slid along as if glued to the floor, heading for the inner edge of the roof—more precisely, the enormous shadow that fell on the eastern wall of the building. If the roof had remained covered with its original pillars and walls, this layered avatar, with the unusual ability to move from shadow to shadow, would have been able to leisurely escape the battlefield without exposing himself.

But every single object capable of producing a shadow had already been destroyed. And the tower was the tallest building in the area. The only shadow etched onto that roof was that of Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime. And this was no coincidence—Haruyuki flew at these coordinates after precisely calculating the angle and distance that would produce this condition.

For these reasons, Black Vise could not, as he had done so many times before, sink into the shadows and escape—he could not, in his own words, show off his “greatest ability,” fleeing.

This was their one moment, their one chance.

Haruyuki concentrated the image of light in his left hand as fast as he could, pushing up against the limits of the speed he had managed up to that point. The crimson overlay produced in Kuroyukihime’s right hand carved a spiral in the silver one he generated, fusing with it.

“Laser Lance!!”

“Vorpal Strike!!”

The two different technique names rang out, one over the other in perfect unison.

From between their clasped hands, the two auras extended, carving out a trajectory like the double helix of DNA to produce a single, enormous lance.

Movement synchronized, the pair threw the lance toward the tower below. The silver-and-crimson javelin plunged ahead, ripples spreading out around it in the virtual atmosphere, and quickly closed in on the thin black panel quickening its slide away. The two parallel tips touched the center of the panel.

And then Haruyuki saw it.

The jet-black sheet scattering into countless fragments and radiating outward.

The lance did not stop there; it touched the white roof and easily dug into it, as if pushing through the surface of a body of water.

Leaving behind only a high-pitched skrnnn of resonance, it disappeared into the two hundred thirty-eight meters of the massive building.

A few seconds later, from far lower on the building, a vibration wave like the earth trembling came racing upward. The decorative windows of the building’s outer walls shuddered violently, along with the pillars and bas reliefs straight out of temples of Ancient Greece, some of them even cleaving from their homes. And the damage didn’t stop there: Deep cracks raced, one after another, along the entire outside wall, a torrent of flaming energy erupting from inside…

In the next instant, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, a landmark and without a doubt one of the largest structures in the Accelerated World, began to collapse, reduced to an infinite amount of falling rubble.

The phenomenon itself was incredible, but for Haruyuki, the complete destruction of the enormous building was just one more thing to fill his special-attack gauge. More important was the burst point addition system message that scrolled in small letters along the left side of his field of view. This meant, then, that the earlier combined Incarnate attack had pushed the health gauge of his sworn enemy Black Vise down to zero—he was dead.

Of course, death in the Accelerated World was, for the majority of Burst Linkers, an everyday occurrence. Their points simply decreased a certain number as a penalty, and they came back to life perfectly fine in the next duel in the Normal Duel Field, or an hour later in the Unlimited Neutral Field. However, there was an exception to this rule.

“Kuroyukihime!” Hands still intertwined, Haruyuki turned toward her and shouted, “How about it?!”

The question omitted the subject, but the Black King still shook her head slightly. “No. From the number of points added, he seems to be level eight.”

“…He is, huh…” Haruyuki said, letting out the breath he’d been holding.

If the restrainer Black Vise had reached the same level nine as Kuroyukihime, the sudden-death rule would have applied to him now, and he would have lost all his points in one swoop and been forever banished from the Accelerated World. Given Vise’s history—basically one of the oldest residents of this world—and his unfathomable powers, Haruyuki had anticipated that it might at least be a possibility, but unfortunately, that schemer had apparently stopped at level eight.

Which meant that the layered avatar, instantly dying when pierced by the Incarnate lance, remained in the field as a small death marker and would regenerate in an hour. If they challenged him again there without letting him run off and defeated him over and over again, at some point, they would press him to total loss…but…

“It’ll be quite the chore to find his marker in that mountain of rubble.”

At the sound of Kuroyukihime’s voice, Haruyuki looked down at the enormous pile of destruction that had been Mori Tower. He couldn’t begin to guess how many tens or hundreds of thousands of wreckage objects were stacked up in that pyramid; it was indeed a fact that it would be difficult to turn each of them over to find the death marker.

“And there are a lot of shadows on the ground, too. I feel like next time would probably just end with him running off at top speed.”

“Mmm. That’s exactly it…Well, at any rate, we did defeat him once, he who is so proud of his fleet-footedness. That should serve nicely as a declaration of war,” Kuroyukihime responded before gently untangling her hand from Haruyuki’s. The five slender fingers made an ephemeral cracking sound before shattering.

“Ah!” Haruyuki cried out.

The Black King turned a gentle smile on him. “Just over two minutes. A new record.”

“…Kuroyukihime.” He reached out his right hand once more and wrapped it around the half-broken jet-black sword. Even though he had so much he wanted to say, so much he had to say, the words were obstructed by the enormous vortex of emotion welling up in his chest.

Everything was over—even though in actuality, it wasn’t. Although the curse that produced the Armor of Catastrophe, the Disaster, had been broken and the Armor had disappeared superficially, it still existed in some form or another system-wise somewhere in the data that made up Silver Crow. Until it was separated from him as an item through purification, the current mission was not over. And he still couldn’t see the big picture strategy of the Acceleration Research Society, who he assumed were the source of the ISS kits.

Pushing back once more the impulse to clutch the battered and bruised Kuroyukihime to his chest with all his might, Haruyuki slid his hovering body a little to the northeast. His eyes caught the majestic Midtown Tower, soaring higher even than Mori had been, about five hundred meters ahead.

“Can you see it, Kuroyukihime? The transparent Enemy lurking at the top of Midtown there.”

A few seconds later, Kuroyukihime assented quietly. “Mm-hmm.”

At first glance in the fiery light of the setting sun, it appeared that there was nothing around the tip of the massive tower. But squinting hard, he noticed the presence of an enormous something bending the rays of sunlight slightly.

“Iron Pound from GW said it was the Legend-class Enemy Archangel Metatron. He said someone tamed it and moved it from the bottom of the Dungeon up over there.”

“So Metatron has left the Cathedral? Then that means…that that tower is basically unapproachable outside the Hell stage, which has an extremely low appearance rate.”

“That’s exactly it. The huge explosion you guys saw in the south during the last dive was when Metatron there reacted to Pound’s rocket punch and shot off an incredibly powerful laser.”

“I see…The scope of that explosion makes sense now. And this means that Midtown Tower is itself…” Kuroyukihime trailed off.

“Yes,” Haruyuki said. “That’s the location of the ISS kit main body—the headquarters of the Acceleration Research Society.”

With sharp eyes turned toward the massive spire in the distance, Kuroyukihime maintained the silence for a few seconds, then relaxed slightly and murmured, “I dearly want to go and raid it right now, but…Fuko and the others would be angry if we went ahead without them. Let’s leave this Castle attack for later enjoyment.”

At this extremely bold line, Haruyuki couldn’t stop his mouth from softening beneath his helmet. Perhaps sensing this, Kuroyukihime smiled slightly before continuing in a different tone, “Now then, it’s about time for us to be getting home. The nearest portal is…”

“Oh! Oh, no. It would have been inside the tower. If the building was totally blown away, then…”

“Ha-ha-ha!” Kuroyukihime laughed at Haruyuki’s panicking. “It’s fine. No matter what sort of attack they come under, the leave-point portals cannot be destroyed. Their coordinates are completely fixed, so even if the tower was destroyed, it should still be floating in the place where it normally is.”

He sent his gaze racing around. The blue circular form was indeed floating in space several dozen meters diagonally below them. There was no mistake that the shimmering he saw there, so like the surface of still water, was a one-way door to the real world.

Haruyuki gently cradled Kuroyukihime’s injured body in his arms and spread the silver wings on his back—now restored to their former sheen—to start a gentle glide through the air. Before his eyes, the portal hanging in empty space grew larger, welcoming them with a gently pulsating light.

On the verge of plunging into the surface of the blue water, he flipped himself around and took in the eternal evening of the Twilight stage spreading out around them. Beyond the neighborhoods of Roppongi and Shirokane and past Shinagawa, he could see Tokyo Bay, reflecting the orange light of the setting sun and glittering brightly. For some reason, the sight called up a bittersweetness in Haruyuki so strong that he wanted to cry.

The instant they slipped through the ring of blue light and returned to the real world from the Unlimited Neutral Field, something elastic was pressed tiiiiightly up against his face, completely closing off his view. Unable to immediately recall where he had dived from and in what position, Haruyuki frantically flapped his hands.

And then from his fingertips came an incredibly soft sensation like silk thread—although, of course, he had never actually touched real silk—and he unconsciously caressed it. The delightfully smooth texture was something so…right. It was really similar to the feel of Kuroyukihime’s long hair when she had directed with him in an audacious posture on top of him in bed in the nurse’s room at Umesato after he was carried there when he collapsed during the basketball game. Or maybe it was exactly the same thing?

“You really did so well, Haruyuki,” a voice murmured abruptly in his ear.

In an instant, Haruyuki finally remembered where he was. The living room of a stylish town house in one corner of the URB Asagaya residences in southern Suginami Ward, on top of a large beanbag chair by the window. And the person holding his head with all her might was none other than the master of this house, Haruyuki’s parent, head of the Legion Nega Nebulus/vice president of the Umesato Junior High School student council, the Black King, Black Lotus, aka Kuroyukihime.

Kuroyukihime invited me to her house for the first time…We sat together on an enormous beanbag and directed…We used the “unlimited burst” command and dove into the Unlimited Neutral Field together…and then…

When his brain finally caught up, a fierce shudder ran through him. His voice spilled out as he moved his lips slightly, unawares. “K-kuro…yukihime…I—I hurt you…so, so much—”

“That’s enough!” A sharp voice cut off Haruyuki’s river of self-reproach. Gently pulling away from his head, which she held cradled to her chest, Kuroyukihime looked into his eyes from extremely close-up. “There is not a single thing you need to apologize for,” she said, her tone easing. “You fought wonderfully and accomplished what needed to be done. That’s all. If anyone here is to be reproached, it’s me for failing to consider even the possibility of an ambush.”

“Th-that’s— I mean, I, I should have been watching out. I knew the place we’d appear after diving was really close to their headquarters.”

“Even if you had very seriously warned me, it’s doubtful whether or not I would have been able to respond to the surprise attack by that annoying panel avatar. In that sense…I suppose we could say that we both put up a good fight. After all, we’re here like this now, talking, the same people we were before the dive.”

Her endlessly smooth and silky voice gently soothed Haruyuki’s exhausted senses. As the sensation of the hand gently stroking his scalp sank in, his mind threatened to wander far off, but right before it did, he remembered something and opened his eyes once more.

“Oh, that reminds me, Kuroyukihime. You said something right before we dove, didn’t you?”

“Mmm. Did I, then?”

“Umm. Something about if we both come back safe or something?” He turned a puzzled gaze on her.

For some reason, the porcelain of Kuroyukihime’s skin was dyed a cherry pink. She jerked her head back, but perhaps the movement was too sudden, and she lost her balance on the beanbag chair.

Haruyuki stretched out a hand, but to no avail. Her bottom hit the floor with a wonderful thump. Two seconds later, the black-clad beauty stood up with a look on her face like nothing had happened and cleared her throat deliberately before continuing.

“Ahem. D-did I say something like that? Let’s see. That was, then, if we both returned safely, I would whip up some of my excellent cooking in celebration.”

Although he felt that both her tone and facial expression had a fleeting awkwardness to them, the majority of Haruyuki’s thoughts were carried away by the word cooking. The last time he’d eaten was the enormous plate of sushi around six thirty, shared among the six Legion members—well, seven if he counted Rin Kusakabe. He hadn’t moved much physically, but so many things had happened that weighed heavy on his mental capabilities. Just roughly listing them, he had…

June 20, 2047. Seven PM: Haru dove with Utai Shinomiya/Ardor Maiden into the Castle inner sanctuary in the Unlimited Neutral Field. He gained the assistance of the mysterious young samurai avatar Trilead Tetroxide aka Lead, and defeated the guardian Enemy while escaping from the Castle.

Immediately following that event: Haru made contact with the Super-class Enemy, the God Suzaku, on the large bridge outside the southern gates of the Castle. After bringing Maiden to safety, he used the Incarnate flying technique Light Speed to fly vertically upward outside the atmosphere while rescuing Kuroyukihime and Fuko, who were acting as bait. When Suzaku lost the divine protection of flames, it was crushed by Kuroyukihime’s superdreadnought Incarnate attack, Starburst Stream.

Continuing from there: The escape into the Unlimited Neutral Field from the southern bridge was completed. They carried out the mission to rescue Ardor Maiden, but Haruyuki set out alone to find Ash Roller, who was supposed to join them.

After that: Haru discovered Ash Roller under attack by a group of six ISS kit users on Meiji Street in the Shibuya Ward. He lost his composure and summoned the Armor of Catastrophe from its seed state. With his power as the sixth Chrome Disaster, he instantly slaughtered the kit users and then fled the scene.

Thereupon: He met the Green King Green Grandé and his escort Iron Pound on the roof of Mori Tower in the Roppongi area. Haruyuki crushed Pound after a fierce battle and exchanged a single blow with the Green King before bursting out through the emergency disconnection safety activated in the real world.

Seven twenty PM: Haruyuki fled, after locking his friends from his Legion within his home. But in the shopping mall on the first floor, he was captured by Fuko’s child, Ash Roller/Rin Kusakabe. They moved to a car in the underground parking area and, after talking, entered a direct duel.

Seven forty PM: He was recaptured by Fuko, Chiyuri, and Kuroyukihime. He promised not to run off by himself, and at eight PM, they dispersed. He then quietly did his homework in his room.

Nine PM: He exited the house once more, leaving a note to his mother that he would be on a sleepover that night. However, he was recaptured by Kuroyukihime in the garden in front of the condo building. He was put into a taxi and taken to Kuroyukihime’s home in Minami Asagaya. After talking for a long time, the two of them dove back into the Unlimited Neutral Field.

Ten fifteen PM: The battle with the vice president of the Acceleration Research Society, Black Vise, on the rooftop skydeck of Roppongi Hills Mori Tower. Although an evil trick plunged him into an unprecedented state of wildness, he happened to meet Chrome Falcon, the first Chrome Disaster, in the deepest depths of the imagination circuit. He suddenly understood the secret of the two Enhanced Armaments that made up the Armor of Catastrophe and finally succeeded at removing the curse.

All of these too-numerous incidents had happened one after the other in just over a mere three hours. But by his own reckoning, the mental energy Haruyuki had burned was up to 2,500 kilocalories, and thus, it was inevitable that the incredible appeal of Kuroyukihime’s cooking would steal away with his thoughts.

He tumbled out of the beanbag chair with a thud himself and trotted after Kuroyukihime as she headed toward the kitchen.

The kitchen space off the living room was fairly large for a one-person dwelling, but the sink and the induction cooktop sparkled; the sense that it wasn’t used much was not that different from the Arita house. On top of that, he couldn’t spot anything in the nature of a pot. But he interpreted this as something along the lines of a masterful housewife is also good at cleaning up.

“Uh, um, I’ll help,” he called to Kuroyukihime, as she turned toward the refrigerator. “I’m not actually so good at cooking, but I can peel potatoes or something at least.”

“Oh-ho, impressive! Teach me the trick to it next time. When I peel them, they strangely lose mass.”

“O-okay. Anytime. Wait. Huh?” Haruyuki blinked quickly, surprised at the admission. He’d assumed she was an excellent chef.

She yanked open the door of the fairly large refrigerator-freezer. The inside was stuffed not with vegetables or meat or fish or fruit, but countless white square packages piled up neatly.

“Haruyuki, jwestchiitaspagerfren, which do you prefer?”

This question posed to him with a serious face, he thought a moment. Jwestchi was “Japanese, Western, Chinese,” so then if ita was “Italian,” the rest were “Spanish, German, and French”…right? In that case, a single artless question came to mind.

“Uh, um, how is Western different from itaspagerfren?”

“Mmm. It’s obvious, isn’t it? ‘Western’ is a Western-style meal. And I’ll just say this. Western is traditional Japanese cooking, you know. I like beef stew and macaroni gratin.”

“R-right…Th-then I’d like ‘Western’ beef stew.”

“Understood. In that case, perhaps I’ll have the gratin.” With practiced ease, Kuroyukihime pulled two packages from the tall white towers, put them into the high-powered microwave next to the fridge, and pushed a button. “Dinner will be ready in five minutes. Go wait at the table.”

He felt it was a bit hazy as to whether or not this could actually be called cooking, but at the very least, the finger of Kuroyukihime herself had pushed the HEAT button. As he tried to convince himself, Haruyuki slid back into the living room.

The steaming beef stew was transferred from the package to a ceramic plate, and regardless of its origin, it was incredibly delicious. While the flavor was a fair bit blander than the mass-produced frozen dishes, it had a solid savor to it, and there were plenty of root vegetables. Considering the fact that the packaging was extremely simple, it was probably the private label product of some famed restaurant. A salad was also included, so there didn’t seem to be any problems at all on the nutritional front, but as he intently moved his spoon, Haruyuki couldn’t help picking out the lone commonality with the frozen pizza that was his own daily fare. And that was, in other words…

“Let’s trade, Haruyuki. C’mon, aaah!”

Together with these sudden words, a fork was thrust in the direction of his mouth, so Haruyuki reflexively opened it. The large-ish bite of macaroni covered with plenty of velvety béchamel sauce had a firm al dente texture despite the fact that it was a frozen meal, and he chewed it in delight.

Turning a gentle smile on this ecstatic Haruyuki, Kuroyukihime dropped her gaze to the table. “So then, in exchange, that enormous carrot there…”

“Oh! Sure…”

“The super-enormous piece of beef next to it.”

“Oh! Sure— Hey, wait! You can’t! I’ve been taking good care of this little one until now.”

“You accepted a trade without asking the conditions. That was your error. Now, ‘aaah’!” she continued, and closed her eyes as she opened her mouth wide, leaving him no choice but to weepingly offer up the little meat baby he had kept aside to enjoy last.

Enveloped in sadness, but still just a little excited somehow, Haruyuki brought the meat to the other side of the table with his spoon, and after she had disposed of it mercilessly with a chomp and some chewing, Kuroyukihime raised her eyelids and laughed cheerfully.

“Food really does taste better when you eat it with someone else, hmm?”

This hit exactly on the thought struggling in the back of his brain earlier. No matter how good a cook she was or wasn’t, Kuroyukihime was sitting at this table by herself every night. Eating alone was sad. Before the question of flavor or nutrition…just sad. Haruyuki knew that only too well.

“Um, Kuroyukihime?” Forgetting the pain of having his chunk of beef stolen, Haruyuki opened his mouth, heart full of emotion welling up.

“Hmm? You can ask me to give it back, but it’s too late, you know?”

“N-no, it’s not about the meat. It’s, um…” He clutched the spoon tightly in his hand like a protective charm, and stared intently into the jet-black eyes eighty centimeters ahead of him. “Um, I know we can’t right away, but…I was thinking it’d be kinda nice if someday…we could eat dinner together like this every day.”

There had to be a way—even if every day was more a figure of speech than literal truth—some means of increasing the number of suppers where Kuroyukihime wasn’t alone, by having her stop by his house on the way home from school or somehow getting past the mandatory departure time at school and staying with her in the student council office or something.

This was Haruyuki’s intention in saying this, but…

Kuroyukihime’s reaction was rather unexpected. She dropped the fork in her left hand onto the plate of gratin and dipped her fingertips in the fiery hot sauce when she went to pick it up. Crying out “Ah!” she reached out for her glass of ice water and even knocked that over as well.

Fortunately, it was basically empty, and Haruyuki hurried to catch the glass as it fell. Standing it upright again, he looked with puzzlement across the table.

Kuroyukihime had frozen solid, right hand clutched to her chest in her left. There was an excessively strong red element to her coloring, but he couldn’t manage to read the look on her face. She seemed surprised, but also like she was ruled by a different emotion entirely.

After a few seconds, she finally relaxed her shoulders a little. “Again? Again, really?” she said briefly.

“Huh? A-again? What is—? Did we talk about dinner before?”

“No…This trick is a first, but…this is the second time you’ve done something to trouble my circulatory system.” She followed up this fairly incomprehensible statement by letting out a long sigh. Catching the eyes of a dumbfounded Haruyuki again, the gentlest of all faint smiles—one he had seen somewhere before—spread across her lips.

“Understood,” she said. “I promise: We can eat together as many times as you like.”

Standing up, she moved around the table to stand next to Haruyuki and stretched her right hand out in front of her, her pinky finger extended from her loose fist. “Here, pinky promise.”

Just as he was told, Haruyuki timidly raised his hand and wrapped his own plump finger around it. Shaking their hands slowly up and down, Kuroyukihime smiled faintly once more.

“It’s a promise. Someday, we will eat supper together. Every day.”