8

Skree! Skree! Skree! Skree!

The world shook unnaturally for a moment, innumerable masses of metals grating against one another.

The fresh morning light that had been shining in from the entrance became an unsettling yellow. Rusty, metallic, slimy gills grew up like some monstrous creature from Haruyuki’s feet to cover the floor and walls around him. The pillars twisted and became ridged like the stomach of an insect, while several protrusions resembling strange eyeballs popped out from the ceiling. In seconds, the interior of the cutting-edge hospital, which had been so clean, was enveloped in an organic, metallic pollution, the nightmare of an old Cyberpunk author.

As Haruyuki held his breath, standing stock-still, shining silver armor reached down from the tips of his limbs to encase his body, which stretched out and narrowed like wire. Hips to stomach, and then up to his chest, he was transformed into smooth silver, and then finally, his head was sealed in a rounded helmet.

Almost simultaneous with the change from pink pig to Silver Crow duel avatar, two health gauges snapped out to the sides in the top of his vision. Between the gauges, the number 1800. Finally, in the center, flames rose up, and the word FIGHT! appeared within the flames, flaring bright red before bursting and scattering.

Glancing at the counter as it started its countdown, Haruyuki breathed a sigh of relief; he had made it. He looked over to where Takumu had been at the end of the slimy hall. Incredibly, standing in the same place, facing the side, was the unexpected form of Takumu’s duel avatar.

That’s…Takumu?! That’s Cyan Pile?!

Unconsciously, Haruyuki pulled his right leg back a half step in shock.

He was enormous. No, he wasn’t as tall as that. The avatar was just another five centimeters taller than Takumu, who was already 175 centimeters in seventh grade. But from Silver Crow’s perspective at barely 155 centimeters, it was enough for him to have to look up.

However, the most overwhelming thing was the sheer immense girth of Cyan Pile’s body. Which wasn’t to say he was fat. Four limbs and a trunk with muscles bulging like a pro wrestler’s, wrapped in close-fitting, metallic blue, bodysuit-type armor. On his feet, rugged dark blue boots. On his left hand, an enormous glove in the same color. He looked like the macho hero from some American comic, a full one hundred eighty degrees from slim, lithe Takumu.

Awestruck, Haruyuki was rooted in place.

Cyan Pile slowly turned to the left and stared down at Haruyuki. His head was covered by a stylish teardrop mask. Several thin slit-shaped gaps opened up horizontally on his face, with a single brace piercing them vertically in the center. Depending on how you looked at it, it was almost reminiscent of a kendo mask.

Behind one of the slits, two bluish-white eyes sparkled in a sharp shape with a sudden snap. The left foot came up slowly and fell to the floor heavily. The slime that had built up there whizzed to both sides.

As Haruyuki pulled his left leg back to take another step, his eyes were drawn to Cyan Pile’s bare right arm. What was that?!

Not a glove like on his left hand. A thick pipe connected at his elbow. The pipe was probably fifteen centimeters around and a meter long. The tip of the metal pole apparently equipped inside protruded from the opening and emitted a dangerous, dazzling radiance.

From the color of the armor covering his entire body, Cyan Pile’s attribute was close-range blue. But it was infinitesimally close to the pure blue Kuroyukihime had told him about. In which case, that sharp pole shouldn’t have been a flying weapon.

Even as he had this thought, Haruyuki felt compelled to take another step back.

As if to torment the slender, motionless Silver Crow, Cyan Pile took one slow step, then another, down the organic metal hallway. Then he stopped abruptly.

The mask with its lines of slits turned to survey the environment. Coming out of the mask was…It was twisted gloomily, but it was still definitely the clear voice of his good friend Takumu he had heard so much over so many years.

“Huh. So we got a Purgatory stage. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of these. What were the attributes again?”

As the carefree voice spoke, Haruyuki unconsciously opened his mouth. “T-Taku…”

Skkkkrrrk!

Suddenly, the iron rod, driven by Cyan Pile’s right arm, bit into the metal wall of the hallway, tearing it open horribly. Slime and pieces of steel were sent flying and tiny, crushed, peculiar insects he didn’t know the names for dropped to the floor.

Haruyuki swallowed his words and flinched, cowering.

Glancing at him, Cyan Pile continued in an even more cheerful voice, “It’s definitely solid. Might be a little hard to destroy this stage.”

Thud. He started walking again, and the large blue frame drew near, as if bending over. “Haru…Haru. You always were fast on the virtual desktop. I was literally about to push the duel button, but right before I could, you sucked me in.”

“Ta…kumu…”

Is it really you? Why? Since when?

Since when are you a Burst Linker?

Before Haruyuki could voice the questions swirling around in his heart, Cyan Pile made a further utterance. “Honestly, you being a Burst Linker…I have to say I’m surprised. You have no idea how hard it was to keep my calm yesterday. I mean, betrayed by my best friend like that, huh, Haru?”

“T-Takumu…It’s not like that. It’s…” The words Haruyuki blurted hoarsely were drowned out by the iron rod slamming into the wall again.

“How’d it feel, Haru? Directing on Chi’s bed? How’d it feel to be held by her? Did you enjoy Chi’s body, touching her while you thought about me?”

You’re not Takumu! Haruyuki screamed voicelessly. This isn’t the Taku I know. Taku would never say things like that. He’s always cheerful and bright and absolutely never negative. That’s the real Takumu. Cyan Pile is someone else. He probably built a back door in Takumu’s Neurolinker, too, and is connecting from someplace far off.

Haruyuki tried desperately to make himself believe this.

But there was the aura he had felt then.

Haruyuki was keenly conscious of the fact that the exact same aura he had felt when he was directing with Chiyuri and discovered the virus in her Neurolinker—that shadow of someone hiding back there, eyes and ears wide open—was radiating off the blue duel avatar in front of him.

And maybe it was the same shadow he had felt since way back when, since the three of them were kids, when Takumu would sometimes turn glancingly at Haruyuki and Chiyuri when they were fooling around.

“Taku…is this you?” The words Haruyuki uttered from under his silver mask echoed so sharply and clearly that they surprised even himself. “You infected Chiyu’s Neurolinker with that virus? You hid from Chiyu and connected to her, making her senses your own private peep show?!”

“I’d rather you didn’t call it a virus.”

The enormous avatar, stopping a mere five meters away, opened up its left hand nimbly, a smart gesture that alone was like Takumu. “Chi’s my girlfriend. So of course I direct with her. And directing means offering up your Neurolinker to your partner. It means circumventing password authentication, laying bare the depths of your local memory, and accepting whatever happens, whether it’s some file getting looked at or some program getting installed. Am I wrong? Haru, I mean, you…” Inside the slits cutting across Cyan Pile’s mask, Haruyuki could feel a sneer sliding across the face he couldn’t see. “You directed with Chi and dug through her memory without her knowing, right? And you’re not even her boyfriend or anything. Aren’t you the one who took advantage of Chi’s kindness to do something dirty?”

“Th-that—”

“You’ve always been like that, Haru.” As Cyan Pile spoke in a calm voice, a large, strangely shaped metal insect scuttled by on the wall to his right. He casually raised the enormous needle in his right hand and lightly pierced the insect’s back. Pinned to the wall and squealing, the insect moved its countless legs frantically, trying to get away. “Ever since forever, with Chi, you’ve been all, Poor me. Pathetic me. Be nice to sad little me. Hang out with me more. That’s all you’ve ever said to her. Not in words, but with your attitude, the look in your eyes—with your entire existence, actually.”

The rod sank deeper into the insect’s carapace, making a wet sound. Green liquid splashed out, and the virtual insect began to writhe even more frantically.

“Girls, they don’t get it. Chi always looks like she had so much more fun dragging you along by the hand, complaining the whole time, than she does when I’m the one holding her hand. Ever since we were kids, she looks so happy watching out for you, taking care of you. Did you know? Wherever she goes, Chi always brings a big handkerchief. For sweaty you.”

Clang!!

With a terrifying noise, the insect was pulverized, and the dark green shell and limbs shot out with the slime from the wall.

Half bewildered, Haruyuki asked Cyan Pile, insect fluids still dripping from the needle, “So that’s why…? That’s why you told Chiyu you liked her two years ago? Like that…like you were in a hurry?”

“Not like I was in a hurry. I was hurrying. I was sure if things kept up like that, Chi’d try to spend the rest of her life watching out for you. Like those ancient manga you keep an archive of. She’d end up all, You can’t live without me, so I’ll marry you. Ooh, or maybe your strategy was to lead Chi there? Ha-ha-ha!” Cyan Pile laughed brightly, but with a distorted echo that made a shiver run down Haruyuki’s spine.

No. No.

Takumu, you’re wrong. Chiyuri definitely did not have fun looking after sad-sack me. She’s been seriously worried. She doesn’t know what to do about me.

But Haruyuki didn’t know how to say these things so that they would reach Takumu. Because on a superficial level, there was a certain truth in what Takumu was saying.

Turning to Haruyuki still standing there, Cyan Pile took another step. “I was pretty happy two years ago when Chi picked me. I thought she finally understood that she was better off being happy with me than working so hard to look out for you. I suppose…it was a practical decision?”

“Practical?”

“ ‘We can’t be little kids forever,’ right?”

The words Haruyuki had said to Chiyuri the day before.

Cyan Pile raised the tip of the metal needle, dyed green, up into the air as if seeking agreement. “I mean, Chi’s a girl—well, a woman. She’ll realize someday that she’ll be way happier with a boyfriend she can brag to her friends about, a nice marriage, a satisfying life. So I tried my best. I studied so much it nearly killed me and got into the school I’m at now. I run every day to train my body while you play your dumb video games and sleep like a little baby, Haru.”

“A-are you serious?” Haruyuki shouted almost mechanically, unable to collect his thoughts. “Do you really think Chiyu chose you because of some calculating self-interest?!”

“I don’t like that phrase, calculating self-interest. It’s just a fair way of looking at things.” Cyan Pile laughed again. “Chi has the right to be happy. The right to date me—best student in my grade, kendo champion—and be happy.”

Haruyuki inhaled sharply.

This isn’t Takumu.

He couldn’t believe that this was Takumu’s true self. He didn’t want to believe it. Something had warped Takumu.

Part of it was probably Haruyuki and Chiyuri’s relationship. Chiyuri continued to care about Haruyuki while dating Takumu. He probably felt driven to the wall by that in a way. But more than that, what had changed Takumu was probably…

“This isn’t you, Taku.” Haruyuki raised his silver mask and stared directly into Cyan Pile’s sharp eyes. “Being the best in your grade, the championship, that’s not you. It’s Brain Burst; it’s the acceleration. When? When did you become a Burst Linker?”

For a moment, the Purgatory stage was shrouded in silence.

A group of small insects skittered past his feet, and occasionally vapor like a living creature spewed from the gills in the walls. Two hundred seconds had already passed on the counter, which had started at 1800. As the hundreds position on the counter clicked down to five, Cyan Pile spoke.

“It is me.” The needle on his right hand pointed at Haruyuki. “Acceleration is me. I was the one with brain-training software crammed down my throat through my Neurolinker from the time I was just a baby until I was totally sick of it. I cultivated the aptitude! And it’s only been a year since I became a Burst Linker. My kendo team captain is my parent, a close associate of the Blue King. He’s got high hopes for me. I’m a cadet in the royal guard. And yet—”

Ka-chaaaank!!

His right hand, gesturing broadly, ripped several enormous scars in the wall. “Now!! Now you’re a Burst Linker?! And you think you’re my equal, Haru?! The ability to accelerate’s given you confidence, so you’re trying to take Chi back?! Is that it?! It’s no good, Haru. You can’t beat me. In grades, in sports, in Chi’s heart. And, naturally, not in the accelerated world. I’ll help you understand. My power…I’ll teach that pathetic duel avatar of yours.” A brilliant light burst forth from Cyan Pile’s eyes.

He’s serious. Takumu is seriously planning to fight me.

Haruyuki still felt like he could make Takumu understand if he just found the right words. He wanted to explain Chiyuri’s—and his own—true feelings. He didn’t want to fight like this.

But if Haruyuki lost here…

Cyan Pile would try to fight Black Lotus again. And then he would hunt her while she was unconscious. In an instant, Kuroyukihime would lose all her points and, with them, the power of acceleration.

Just that. No matter what else happened, he had to prevent at least that.

“Taku. You really are amazing. You’re good at school and sports; you’re cool, too. You have everything I don’t,” Haruyuki murmured in a stifled voice, looking down. Then he jerked his face up at Cyan Pile and shouted sharply, “But you’re an idiot. A super idiot!”

“What was that? I’m an idiot?”

“Yeah. Which is why you can’t beat me! Did you forget? Have you ever in your life beaten me at any game?”

“…Haru. Haru.” A voice mixed with laughter and echoes of violence. “In that case, you’re about to lose the very last thing you can be proud of!!”

Cyan Pile’s boots kicked hard against the floor, and the enormous body, nearly two meters tall, began to close the distance between them at an incredible speed belying his form.

But he was still slower than the charge of Ash Roller’s bike.

Slip by him. Then move to a bigger area. The entrance hall—no, the roof.

Haruyuki focused on Cyan Pile’s right hand. His opponent was a close-range fighter; as long as he didn’t come within striking distance of that needle, he wouldn’t take any damage.

After watching Cyan Pile move, right arm drawn back as far as it would go, Haruyuki dashed forward, intending to slip through on the opposite side.

Silver Crow’s speed, essentially his only redeeming feature, appeared to take his opponent off guard. Seeming faintly surprised, Cyan Pile thrust his right arm forward, carving out an arc.

You can dodge this!

Predicting the trajectory of the attack, Haruyuki dropped down and tried to break through alongside Cyan Pile’s left arm.

Krsshk!

An unexpected sound rang through the air.

Eyes open wide, Haruyuki saw in his periphery flames shooting from the end of the fat pipe that was Cyan Pile’s right arm. The dazzling, thick iron rod shot out so fast he could hardly see it.

It may not have been a flying weapon, but it did stretch out to nearly double its length, and the range was more than sufficient to grab hold of Silver Crow. Haruyuki heard an unpleasant shrieking pass through his own body concurrent with the impact. And then a sharp, numbing pain.

The tip of the rod had pierced his left elbow, and Haruyuki watched as his arm separated in that spot. He remembered belatedly that pile could also mean stake.

The arm, carving out a trail of sparks as it fell to the floor, immediately smashed into a thousand tiny pieces and disappeared. The health gauge in the upper left of his vision dropped abruptly, nearly a third with just the one blow.

But Haruyuki didn’t have the time to feel sorry about taking such serious damage right at the start of the fight. Even as he crumpled and his back scraped along the hallway wall, trying to regain his balance, he saw the evil iron rod in Cyan Pile’s right arm, still extended—or rather, he saw it being pulled in again.

It was clear that the instant the stake was reloaded, he would again have to face that terrifying attack.

The attack attribute was probably “piercing” and Silver Crow’s metal color should have meant he was resistant to it. So his arm being torn off in one blow meant it hit him in exactly the wrong place. This was the difference three levels could make, or simply, Cyan Pile was really strong.

Considering this momentarily, Haruyuki picked himself up again and jumped hard, gaining some distance. Without looking back, he dashed for the entrance hall as fast as he could.

“Ha-ha-ha! What? Running away so soon, Haru?”

The sneering laughter echoed up from behind him almost as if urging him on, and Haruyuki ran his eyes quickly over his surroundings.

The long benches in the waiting area had been transformed into cast iron, spikes sprouting up everywhere like some torture device from the Middle Ages, and the reception counter to his right was entwined with rusted barbed wire. Naturally, there weren’t any people. And on the other side of the counter was the thing he was looking for: the elevator doors.

In the Century End stage, the elevators were naturally not likely to have been functioning because entry into the buildings themselves was not permitted, but in this Purgatory stage, with the interior reconstructed in such detail, they just might be working.

Running over, Haruyuki smashed the skull-shaped button beside the door—now mesh like a cage—with a prayer in his heart. Sure enough, the mesh opened to the left and right, accompanied by a grinding, metallic noise. He clenched his right hand in victory.

From behind him, the sound of Cyan Pile’s thudding footsteps grew closer moment by moment.

He leapt into the solitary-confinement cell of an elevator, and his right hand repeatedly punched the button with an R carved into it. Hurry. Hurry up and move.

The instant the lattice closed at a speed so sluggish it seemed designed to irritate, something slammed into the door. Poking its face through a gap of about five centimeters in the mesh was the iron rod’s shining, dazzlingly sharp tip.

Haruyuki stifled the urge to shriek and jumped away, pressing his back against the wall.

Skreeeee!

The iron stake shot forward, bending the lattice slightly, before finally stopping mere millimeters from Silver Crow’s thin abdomen. As its malignant radiance retracted, the elevator finally trembled and rattled, beginning its ascent.

“Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

Haruyuki stomped his right leg against the floor, banishing the sticky, sneering laughter chasing up from below him.

Tumbling out onto the roof, Haruyuki scanned his surroundings, breathing heavily. Involuntarily, his eyes grew wider.

The sky in the Purgatory stage was filled with an unsettling yellow light, and dark clouds wound through the sky like living creatures. The buildings around him, the heart of Suginami ward, had been changed into bizarre forms bearing a distant resemblance to something living and shone slimily with a reddish-black rusty color. He supposed the lancelike spires he could see in the distance were the Shinjuku Government Building and the surrounding skyscrapers.

Just as he started to wonder exactly how far the stage reached, Haruyuki noticed something with a start and gasped.

There was someone there.

Well, if by someone, he meant a strikingly eccentric silhouette. From the roofs of buildings around him that were taller than the hospital, groups of twos and threes were looking down on Haruyuki. Unknown Burst Linkers. Spectators.

Momentarily bewildered, Haruyuki finally hit on it.

He might have been cut off from the global net, but the other fighter, Takumu, probably connected globally right before the match started. Why he would have done that and taken the risk of someone else calling him out was unclear, but in any case, because he had, this stage was open to the outside, and the Burst Linkers registered for the automatic Gallery for Cyan Pile and Silver Crow had appeared. Although it made no real difference to his situation if there was a Gallery or not.

The light blue, arrow-shaped cursor displayed in his field of view slowly started to change direction, vibrating slightly. Cyan Pile had also gotten in an elevator and was headed for the roof.

After moving about ten meters across the expansive roof, Haruyuki turned and faced the elevator. Up here, he had plenty of space for evasive moves, unlike in the hallway.

And he now understood from firsthand experience the reach of Cyan Pile’s metal stake. As long as he paid attention to the position of Cyan Pile’s right arm, Haruyuki should be able to avoid it. Don’t be afraid. You have no choice but to do this. As he told himself this, the elevator lurched to a stop in front of him and the doors slowly pulled open.

Cyan Pile’s enormous body was stuffed into the elevator, taking up every bit of space. Scraping along the walls, he stepped out onto the roof, and the eyes in the depths of the slits lit up faintly. “Oh, I get it. Up here, you can dart in and hit and then dart back out again, huh, Haru—I mean, Silver Crow.”

“It’s just that down there, you looked cramped, like you were having a hard time.”

“A-ha-ha! I can’t believe you’re saying something like that to me.” Still chuckling, Cyan Pile started to advance mechanically.

Haruyuki crouched and measured the distance between them. He shouldn’t fully understand how fast Silver Crow is yet. That’s my only chance of winning. Before he gets used to my speed, I have to do something and win.

A heavy-looking boot took its fourth step, and just as it was on the verge of making contact with the ground, Haruyuki kicked off as hard as he could.

The sky rang out shrilly, and the enormous blue body approached instantaneously. Haruyuki plunged forward in a straight line, and Cyan Pile’s right arm followed, targeting him.

Right here!!

He abruptly took off on his left leg and started running to the right. With an enormous roar, the metal spike shot out at an extremely high speed. Reacting after seeing the spike launched was basically impossible, but if he could anticipate where it would go and make the right call, he could pull this off.

Haruyuki traced an arc over the surface of Cyan Pile’s left arm and darted in, the tip of the metal spike stopping just in front of his left cheek. Feeling a scorching heat there, Haruyuki kicked his right leg at the floor with all his strength.

“Nngaaah!” He beat into the defenseless flank with his right fist. Thunk. Serious resistance. The big frame shuddered.

I can still do this!

As if chasing Cyan Pile’s back as he tried to turn his body around, Haruyuki dashed forward another step and landed a right roundhouse kick on his enemy’s left calf. As Cyan Pile lost his balance with a jolt, Haruyuki brought a final blow, a left knee strike toward the center of that enormous back.

Wham! Serious impact. The hulking body bent over into a sideways V.

Cyan Pile, staggering to put distance between them, roared hatefully, “Rrrgh! I—I guess you really are good at games, Haru. But little tricks like that are useless!!”

Haruyuki just barely managed to dodge the left fist thrown at him, used the inertia to spin his body around, and buried his right heel in the nape of the neck presenting itself defenselessly.

“Nnngaaaaah!”

Haruyuki closed his ears to the broken shrieking in Takumu’s voice and continued his rush. Using not just both legs and his right fist, but even his severed left arm, he delivered combo after combo without a break. At some point, half-screamed shouts began to tumble from his mouth. “You…idiot! You stupid idiot! Chiyu! Chiyu isn’t asking you to be number one in your grade or the kendo champion or anything!”

In desperation, he used a leg kicked out in front as a step ladder to jump up high, grab Cyan Pile’s mask, and smash his own silver-armored helmet into it with everything he had. Part of the blue mask cracked loudly and caved in.

Cyan Pile lost his balance, falling back onto the floor, and Haruyuki jumped on his chest to continue battering him with his right fist. “Chiyu just wants you to be you! You’re the one making her look back at the past, making her want to go back to when we were kids, Takumu! The only one of us who’s changed is you!” Mind blank, he simply screamed.

However, at the sound of Haruyuki’s voice, Cyan Pile’s eyes shone from beneath the cracked slits with a light strong and cold enough to send shivers down spines. “D…on’t…” He crossed his thick arms abruptly as if to protect himself. “Don’t get so carried awaaaaaaaay!!” He flung his arms out wide to reveal the sharp tips of at least ten stakes that rose up with a grinding noise from the chest to the stomach of his body suit.

What the—?! This is bad. Gotta dodge—

But the instant Haruyuki tried to kick down on the ground with both legs and send himself flying backward: “Splash Stingerrrrrrr!”

Thk thk thk thk thk thk!! Sounding like a heavy machine gun, the multitudinous stakes shot toward Haruyuki at point-blank range.

“Gaaaah!!”

Haruyuki somehow managed to avoid the stakes flying straight for his head and chest. But he then took serious hits to his left shoulder, his left flank, and his right knee, which sent him flying high in the air like a hunk of scrap, landing on his back against the roof.

“Nngaah!!” The breath knocked out of him mixed with a cry from deep in his throat. His vision flickered, and a sharp, intense pain ran through his entire body. He couldn’t believe this was virtual damage from the Neurolinker.

What was that?!

Haruyuki braced his right arm and somehow managed to raise his upper body to watch Cyan Pile sluggishly get up a step ahead of him.

“Hnn…Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh!” Short bursts of laughter leaked out from beneath the blue mask as if a screw had come loose somewhere. “Heh-heh-heh-heh! You really…got a lot of energetic poking in there, huh? You surprised me a little. But in the end, you’re just an annoying little bug. And you even went out of your way to build up my special-attack gauge.”

“Special…attack…” Haruyuki muttered as he checked the gauges at the top of his vision.

Cyan Pile’s thick health gauge stretching out on one side was at 60 percent. He had taken more damage in Haruyuki’s rush than he was letting on. But Haruyuki, having been caught directly by the random stake shooting, only had about 30 percent health left.

And below each of the health bars, a thin green gauge stretched out. Cyan Pile’s was glowing brightly at around 70 percent. In contrast, Haruyuki’s was basically full.

“Now, now, don’t talk like it’s the first time you’ve heard the words, Silver Crow.” Cackling, Cyan Pile started to advance slowly. “The give-and-take of special attacks is the best part of any Duel. That Splash Stinger before’s my level-two special attack. Perfect for knocking down annoying insects, huh? Oh, that reminds me. Your gauge looks like it’s full up already. Go ahead, come on. Use whatever you’d like.”

Haruyuki clenched his teeth grindingly. The special attack given to Silver Crow was just Head Butt, which basically had no reach at all and could definitely not stand up against Cyan Pile’s long range. And the motion was long and very obvious, so using it was basically like saying Shoot me while you were getting ready to act.

Dammit. I don’t need a special attack or anything. I have my fists and my feet. And speed. Once his shaky vision settled, Haruyuki quickly rose and focused his strength in his right leg.

But.

He heard a repulsive breaking noise, like a snap. And then the metallic sound of his own body collapsing to the ground again with a crack. Hurriedly turning his eyes downward, he saw that he had been pierced with one of the shotgun stakes, and his thin silver leg, smashed from the knee—

“A-ha! A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!” Cyan Pile’s piercing, loud laughter. “I got it! Your leg!! You’re so brittle!! And you’re supposed to be a metal color?!”

Haruyuki was oblivious to this sneering voice. Crap. Crap!! I lost my leg, which means I can’t run anymore. Forget avoiding him, forget running; I don’t think I can even move.

The sense of panic sneaking in chilled him to the depths of his bones.

This is bad. I can’t, there’s no way I can lose here. I have to protect her; I have to.

Crack.

The boot, stomping down uncomfortably close, smashed Haruyuki’s severed leg as if it were glass.

The corners of the bluish-white eyes Haruyuki could see in the distance turned up sharply. “So this is how it ends, Haru.” A faint whisper of a voice. “You here, like this: it suits you. And you even managed to get a lot of stuff off your chest back there, huh? Almost like you’re the only person who understands Chi?”

“I do, you know. At least better than you do, anyway.”

“Then what about me? Have you thought about me at all? Have you ever thought about how I feel when I’m alone with Chi and she gets this sad look on her face all of a sudden…and I know it’s because she’s thinking about you? Huh, Haru?” He cut himself off and brought his face in close. Cyan Pile—Takumu—gave voice to the decisive phrase. “It’s because you’re like this.”

There was almost a gentleness somewhere in his tone, but his words dug a deep hole in Haruyuki’s chest, an enormous iron stake.

“It’s because you’re like this that me and Chi and you are totally caught in this muddy swamp and can’t get out. Just disappear already, Haru. Set me and Chi free.”

Crack.

This step caught the bottom of Haruyuki’s foot on his good leg.

Cyan Pile, drawing himself up abruptly, raising the launcher in his right arm high, drew a complicated trajectory with the tip in the air. As he did, the launcher was wrapped to his shoulder in a crisp blue light.

Suddenly, the launcher expanded to three times its size with a thick noise. From within, something akin to an enormous hammer popped its head out, front face flattened. The striking surface of the hammer turned sharply toward Haruyuki, who was unable to think, much less move.

“Now. Shall we put an end to this, Haru? All of it.” This Duel and the pretense of our friendship. Cyan Pile’s eyes communicated this message loud and clear.

The end of the hammer began to emit an intense light. “Spiral Gravity Driver!”

Skrrrrk!

Haruyuki tried desperately to avoid the hammer as it struck while still rotating, making a mechanical noise like countless gears catching. However, Cyan Pile had a firm hold on the bottom of his lone leg, and he couldn’t escape. The massive hunk of steel came crushing down on Haruyuki’s chest, followed by a duet between the high-pitched shriek of his silver armor being pulverized and the deep rumble of the floor beneath him being crushed.

Unable to even cry out, Haruyuki was beaten down a level along with the rooftop below him, slamming into the floor below in the hospital. But the hammer didn’t stop there, smashing Haruyuki right through that floor as well.

Thump! Thud! Thump!!

The sound of destruction ringing in the air, Haruyuki plunged through all five levels of the hospital and finally stopped moving after becoming embedded in the ground floor.

Flash. Flash.

In the obscure darkness, something red was blinking in the top left of his vision. It took Haruyuki a few seconds to realize that it was his own health gauge reduced to just under 10 percent.

As if regretting the fact that it hadn’t beaten his gauge down entirely, Cyan Pile’s hammer stayed wedged in Haruyuki’s chest for a while but eventually rose up, grindingly, rotating in the opposite direction.

Once the hammer had been lifted causing debris to rain down, all that was left in front of Haruyuki was a tiny hole leading up to the distant roof. Through it, he heard Cyan Pile’s voice echoing weakly.

“Aaah, you still have a little health left. Well, whatever. We only have five or six minutes; it’ll be time up before I can come find you and finish you off. And once I’m done here, I can get to my real mission, the boss battle. So!” His tone of voice changed, tinged with pride or perhaps fawning. “I hope you saw, all of you watching! Especially all of you in the Blue Legion!! I can still be of great use! I mean, I can definitely fight in the unlimited field above this! You must be regretting tossing me aside just because I used a few too many points? Right?!”

Taku…Takumu…You…

A broken doll at the bottom of a dark hole, Haruyuki felt hot fluid running along his cheeks. His tears. But he didn’t quite know what he was crying about. He was probably shedding these tears for something that broke without him noticing it, something important he had completely lost.

But he couldn’t afford to lose this Duel. He absolutely had to win—for himself, for Takumu, for Chiyuri. And for Kuroyukihime. And yet…

Carrying the pain of his tremendous regret, Haruyuki pulled himself up slowly. From all over his body, pieces of his cracked armor fell like rain and scattered. There was no more point in standing up anymore. He should just accept his decisive defeat and go back to the him before he knew Brain Burst. Haruyuki clutched his knees and decided to wait for the timer to reach zero.

Just before his eyes closed.

In the corner of a dim room.

She floated up like an illusion.

The bed was braided out of black wild roses. The slender figure lay as if enclosed by the inky black petals of countless flowers in full bloom.

A dress blacker than night. Silver edging. Parasol resting close by. And the shiny black hair fanning out over shining skin whiter than snow in the dim light. Her long eyelashes peacefully shut.

Am I hallucinating?

As he wondered this, Haruyuki approached the black rose bed slowly, very slowly, dragging what was left of the right leg he had lost. But no matter how close he got, Kuroyukihime’s avatar showed no signs of disappearing.

Thrusting his right hand onto the edge of the bed as if to catch himself before he fell, Haruyuki finally understood. This, this place was the nanomachine room in the ER where the real Kuroyukihime was being treated. And Kuroyukihime’s Neurolinker was connected to the hospital net. So the instant Haruyuki initiated the accelerated fight, her automatic spectator mode was activated, and she was also brought onto this stage.

“…Kuroyukihime,” Haruyuki murmured hoarsely, stretching out his battered right arm to stroke her cheek softly. The words came tumbling out, one after another, as if the dam had broken. At the same time, more tears. “I—I couldn’t save you. I couldn’t protect your dream, your hopes. I couldn’t live up to your expectations.”

The tears trickling from the cracks in his half-shattered helmet fell in drops on Kuroyukihime’s cheek, caught the minimal light, and shone before disappearing.

“I can change…That’s what I thought. With your words, your kindness, your love, I could change…But I couldn’t. It’s not my avatar’s fault…This avatar was probably created to reflect my ‘resignation.’ I’m the one who made him, who made Silver Crow like this. Me, never trying to look up, eyes always on the ground, living my life on my hands and knees.” Haruyuki bent over slowly and clung to Kuroyukihime’s shoulder. “I wanted to go there. Where you were…High up in the sky, where you were lightly flapping your wings. High up…far away…escaping the swamp of the real world…with you…”

With a sob, Haruyuki squeezed the last words out.

“I wanted to—fly.”

Thump.

Almost as if in response to his voice, he heard a faint sound.

Thump. Thump.

The source was Kuroyukihime’s chest against Haruyuki’s cheek. A small, faint, but definite rhythm being carved out. Her heartbeat.

Here in the accelerated world, there was no way he should have been able to hear the sound of her heart beating in the real world. But it couldn’t have been a hallucination. He strained his ears and listened, and suddenly, Haruyuki understood.

This was the echo of Kuroyukihime’s will. Right now, Kuroyukihime was fighting desperately. On the border between life and death, she was fiercely fighting to hold her ground. Her strong will became a heartbeat, echoing in the virtual battleground.

“Right,” Haruyuki murmured. At the same time, new tears spilled out and trickled down warmly. In his ears, something Kuroyukihime had once told him echoed faintly.

In the end, strength doesn’t mean winning.

It’s like I never knew the meaning of the word strong. And not knowing, I was jealous, and I gave up.

“Strength isn’t just winning…”

Even if it was ugly. Even if it was funny. Even if you lost in the end, fell to the ground, and ended up covered in mud.

After surviving the death match of the kings, Kuroyukihime—Black Lotus had held her breath in a tiny net and stayed hidden for two years. But it wasn’t because she was sneaky or cowardly. It was because she hadn’t given up. It was because she refused to hang her head in shame.

“Just fighting itself. Falling down and still looking up at the sky…That’s the proof of strength. That’s right, isn’t it…Kuroyukihime.”

He got no answer.

But he felt a powerful heartbeat being born deep inside his own chest. The pulsing of his heart became a signal to drive his brain. And then his spirit, his will, and the nerve to face adversity, all of it accelerated.

As long as this sound echoed in his chest…

“I’m still standing…I can still fight!” he screamed to himself and to Kuroyukihime.

Gripping the edge of the bed with his right hand, he put his strength into his left leg and stood up, staggering. Tiny shards glittered as they fluttered down from all over his body. However, the heat generated from within his chest reached to the tips of his four battered limbs, and he shivered fiercely.

Suddenly.

Several rays of intense white light shot out from the cracks in his armor.

At the same time, the armor on his back cracked wide open, and he had the sensation of it being blown off. Haruyuki opened his eyes wide and threw his head back.

On the wall not far in front of him hung a large mirror. It was probably the two-way mirror leading to the monitoring room next door in the real world. Now it was an enormous full-length mirror edged in the same black cast-iron roses as the bed. Reflected in its center were the rose bed, Kuroyukihime lying in it, and Silver Crow standing there.

The armor all over his body was in a terrible state. His left arm and his right leg were half torn off, and deep cracks radiated outward across his chest. The fractures also wrapped around to his back, which was the source of the cracking sound. Each time a tiny spark flew up, a piece of his smashed armor scattered.

Haruyuki stared dumbfounded as something white and shining started to very slowly spread out on each side of his back. Thin, sharply triangular shards of metal. Swords?

The moment he had this thought, the two pieces of metal stopped crawling out and expanded into semicircles with a cold, clanging noise. Perhaps ten thin metal fins folded up on either side were deployed, the tips of those initial sword-shaped protrusions as fulcrums.

This…this isn’t a weapon…

They’re wings.

Haruyuki stood dazed for less than a second.

Hot!

At the intense heat running through his body from the center of his back, Haruyuki snapped to attention. Writhing in agony, he retreated a few steps on his knees and drew his body in, cradling his shoulders in his arms. More than the temperature, he felt as though a ball of pure energy was sealed up in his back and was whirling around like a vortex, seeking a way out.

I can’t. I can’t stand it anymore.

Arching his body back like a bow, Haruyuki turned to look straight up.

There he saw the enormous hole he’d torn through the building only seconds earlier. A small yellow light alone up there in the deep, black sky. A corridor leading to the distant heavens.

It was calling to him.

In an unconscious motion, Haruyuki raised his shattered left arm high and pressed his uninjured right arm to his side. He felt the raging energy at the tips of his shoulder blades increase in intensity suddenly and then contract.

Bringing his eyes back down for just a moment, he saw the figure of his beloved lying there.

He looked up again.

“Gooooooo!!” He thrust his right arm straight out with a cry.

Fwoomp!!

With a half crash, half explosion, a silver light ripped through the darkness. Instantly, Haruyuki’s body shot up in a straight line like an arrow released from its bow.

The air roared in his ears each time he passed a floor of the hospital.

Piercing the dark path in mere seconds, his silver avatar flew out through the large hole drilled through the roof and soared higher, ever higher. The metal fins on his back shook at high speed. The energy accelerated his small body with an overwhelming power, and he easily cut his ties to any virtual gravity. Haruyuki pushed up, up, endlessly up.

Soon enough, a swirling black cloud drew near. The moment his raised right fist came into contact with the thick lump, the round cloud was shoved aside with a thud, shooting through the black tunnel and ascending even farther. Haruyuki’s field of vision was filled with a blinding, pale yellow light.

After passing through the sea of clouds, Haruyuki spread out his arms and legs and eased his acceleration. The high-pitched shuddering noise dropped in pitch, and a soft sensation of floating came over him, like being in a plane after takeoff.

Hovering gently, Haruyuki rolled over. “Aaah…,” he half sighed. An unimaginable scene spread out below him. From the breaks in the sea of clouds twisting as they flowed along, he could make out the sharp colors of the enormous city sprawling endlessly. The building on the other side of the city subcenter of Shinjuku transformed into twisted spires, and the deep wood beyond was probably the Imperial Palace, looking like a soaring, magical castle.

In the opposite direction, the city extended off into the distance from Suginami to Mitaka and on into Hachioji, with the Okutama Mountains beyond that. The steep mountain peak piercing the sea of clouds and towering high above them was probably Mount Fuji.

Finally, turning his gaze to the south, Haruyuki caught sight of a gray, flat plane glittering. The sea. That’s Tokyo Bay. And, extending limitlessly, the Pacific Ocean.

Infinity.

“This world…it’s infinite…” Haruyuki gasped as he started to descend ever so slowly.

Sinking into the clouds on his back, he slipped through to the bottom and approached the earth’s surface. When he had dropped to an altitude where he could once more see the details of the city, he made the fins vibrate fiercely to hover again.

Directly below him as he straightened out was the roof of the hospital, a mere thirty meters away. After seeing the immensity of the Duel field, the roof looked small enough to pick up in both hands. Standing stock-still on the edge of the large hole piercing the center of the roof, a large blue figure looked up at him.

Cyan Pile stared up at Haruyuki for a full three seconds as if his soul had been ripped out. He raised his left hand slightly and said hoarsely, “H-Haru—”

But his words were erased abruptly in a sudden roar.

Voices. The members of the Gallery watching the Duel between Silver Crow and Cyan Pile encamped on the roofs of the buildings surrounding the hospital shouted out all at once.

“He’s not…he’s not falling?! He’s perfectly still!!”

“It’s not a jump…He’s flying?! No way!!”

“He has the ability to fly…It’s finally showing up! Check out those wings!! It’s a flying avatar!!”

Haruyuki didn’t understand why the members of the Gallery were making such a huge fuss. As he stared down in mute amazement, some of the several dozen duel avatars were moving, aiming for ground higher, while others were running their fingers along consoles.

“Isn’t there any info on him?! Who the hell is this guy?! His Legion…Who’s his guardian?!”

“Wh-whatever! We need to contact the head office! You, drop and tell them!!”

“You gotta be kidding! You think I’m gonna miss this?!”

Quelling the beehive-like commotion was an abrupt, fierce scream.

“Aaaaaaaaaah!!” Cyan Pile howled, spreading out his arms and legs. The vibrations of his scream ripped the atmosphere, reaching Haruyuki in the sky far above like an electric shock. “No! No no no no no nooooooooo!!”

With a mechanical crack, the launcher in his right arm turned toward Haruyuki. “You!! You!! On me!! You don’t look down on meeeeeeee!!” A cry like vomiting blood.

At the same time, a jarring screech echoed through the air, and the loaded stake sent out several rays of light. As he adopted a posture with both legs spread out, hips dropped, and launcher readied in his left hand, the remaining 40 percent of Cyan Pile’s special-attack gauge dropped abruptly all at once.

In the sights of what was most likely Cyan Pile’s final attack, Haruyuki, still hovering in one spot, raised his right hand lightly and closed it tightly into a solid fist. He finally understood what the special attack he had been given was.

Punch. And then Kick. While these were his normal attacks, they were also his special super attacks.

He pulled his tight fist back and expanded all his fins as far as they would go to change direction. Toward Cyan Pile, directly below him.

“G-gooooooo! Lightning Twin Spikes!” As he screamed the name of the attack, a steel needle, transformed into a beam of light, shot forward from Cyan Pile’s right arm.

Faced with this, Haruyuki simply readied his fist and released the propulsive power from both wings.

“Unh! Aaaaaaah!”

Silver Crow’s body became a bullet of light, a rocket engine igniting, and charged.

In the left corner of his vision, his green special-attack gauge started to drop all at once. At the same time, the radiance of the white light enveloping his right fist increased endlessly.

“Haruuuuuuuuu!” Takumu screamed.

“Taaaaaaaku!” Haruyuki cried.

Skreeeee!

A feeling of super acceleration, greater than the acceleration of Brain Burst, rushed over Haruyuki from his back, enveloping him.

The color of the world changed.

He saw Cyan Pile’s blue lance rushing up from the ground, the glint of the tip. The line of fire he had anticipated rose up in his vision like a phantom. The blow, like the lightning bolt of its name, was far surpassed by the speed of Haruyuki’s spirit. The power of one truly accelerated, who Kuroyukihime had found and believed in.

I can see it…I can see it, Kuroyukihime!! Haruyuki cried in his heart.

The lance slowed.

Before it, Silver Crow increased his speed limitlessly, as if his very existence had become light itself.

At the moment the two approached and blended, Haruyuki slid his charging trajectory slightly to the right.

Skrrrrk!

The lance scraped the left side of his helmet and passed by, releasing an intense shower of sparks.

Then…

Haruyuki’s punch penetrated deeply, ever deeper into the center of Cyan Pile’s chest. Carving out a gaping rut in the floor of the roof with a shrieking roar, the two bodies became one and went flying.

Crashing into and pulverizing the railing of iron lances, sending bits in every direction, Haruyuki sprang out into the sky. “Aaaaah!!” he howled, flapping his metal fins.

A powerful, dynamic lift enveloped his body with a start. His right arm still buried up to the shoulder in Cyan Pile, Haruyuki turned upward and ascended ever higher. In a few seconds, he had pierced the sea of clouds and sailed out into the yellow sky.

When he eased up on the acceleration and shifted to hovering, Cyan Pile, who had apparently lost consciousness in the collision, made a coughing sound from under the mask riding on Haruyuki’s shoulder. “Keh…Hrk…” The enormous body twitched and shuddered, and he gradually lifted his face.

An action that was immediately followed by a faint cry that seemed almost unreal after the previous angry roars of deep resentment. “Wh-wha—?! I-I’m flying…?!” Mask shaking from side to side, he shouted again. “Stop! Haru! D-don’t drop me!! If I fall now, I’ll…I’ll lose!!”

Both of their health gauges were dyed red and had dropped so that they were no more than a hair’s width. Cyan Pile stiffened as if fearing he’d be dropped if he moved, and his tone changed to one of supplication.

“I-if I lose…if I lose to you, and you’re level one, my points will drop to zero! Y-you’ll be fine. I mean, you’ll only lose four or five points! Please! Let me have this one, Haru! I can’t lose Brain Burst now!!”

“Taku…Takumu…” Half groaning, half muttering the name, Haruyuki firmly clenched his right fist, still piercing Cyan Pile.

Now? Now?! You tried to take all of Kuroyukihime’s points…You tried to erase her Brain Burst, her only desire!

All he had to do was change the angle of his arm slightly, and Cyan Pile’s enormous body would lose its support and go crashing into the ground far below. Takumu would lose forty points, and Brain Burst would be forcefully uninstalled. And then…he would never again be able to come after Kuroyukihime from outside the local net.

Haruyuki gritted his teeth hard enough to break them. His entire body shook, and a momentary impulse ran from head to foot before disappearing. The voice he pushed out from between his clenched teeth was so cracked, it didn’t even sound like his own. “Do you concede, Taku?”

“Wh-what?”

“That you totally cannot beat me in this accelerated world. Do you concede, Taku?!”

A moment’s silence.

The words returned through the body pressed against him were quiet, deflated somehow. “…Yeah. I do…I guess I can’t beat you, after all. Just like way back when we used to play all those games together…”

Haruyuki inhaled deeply and exhaled. And then he said in the same quiet voice, “Then…we’re equals.”

“Huh?! What…?!”

“In the real world, there’s not a single thing I can beat you at. But in this world, you can’t beat me. We’re equals. So…so—” Cutting himself off and staring at the bluish-white eyes under Cyan Pile’s mask, Haruyuki continued. “So you…be…be my ally, Taku. My friend. Fight as her servant from now on, like me.”

Speechless, Takumu gasped sharply. After a while, a hoarse moan slipped out from the thin slits. “…Idiot. You have to know this, too, Haru. I know you do. Your guardian…Black Lotus…I’ve been hunting her in secret from my own Legion. She’s the biggest traitor in the accelerated world! I mean…to fight on her side…”

“You’re right, she is. She took down the Six Kings of Pure Color. You can say it. It’s fine. And I’ll tell you something really good…Look, that’s how games are supposed to be.”

Takumu reacted to the words Haruyuki uttered with a long silence.

His response a few seconds later was tinged somehow with a masochistic laugh. “Haru, would you really trust me? Like, if I said yeah right now, what reason would you have at this point to trust what I say? After I broke my Legion’s rules, broke the rules of Brain Burst, and even betrayed both of my friends?”

“We’re going to go and tell Chiyu everything.” The second Haruyuki came back with this, Takumu gasped in shock again for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“What?!”

“Brain Burst, us fighting, and…all the feelings you and I have been hiding. We tell her everything.” Haruyuki turned his gaze off into the infinite sky and continued slowly. “We probably have to start there. The three of us have been hiding things we shouldn’t have. We’ve been suspicious of stuff we didn’t have to be. Somewhere…we have to start over.”

“…Start over…You really think we can, Haru? I…Chi’s Neurolinker…” Takumu’s voice shook as he spoke, and Haruyuki lightly patted his back with the stub of his left arm.

“She’ll probably be so mad, she’ll kill us. She’ll yell and get mad…but she’ll forgive us in the end. That’s how she is,” Haruyuki said with a smile as he started to slowly descend.

Having returned to the hospital roof and been released from Silver Crow’s right arm, Cyan Pile sank down to the ground with a thud after a few staggering steps.

Haruyuki glanced up to check the remaining time. In a little more than two minutes, the long fight would be over. Just in case, he checked his gauge, but the remaining health was exactly the same number for both of them. If they timed out like this, the result would be a draw, and no points would be transferred either way.

Haruyuki looked over again at Cyan Pile, motionless, head hanging between raised knees, and thought to himself, I…Did I make a mistake? Should I have shown no mercy and dropped Takumu into the ground back there to make completely sure he couldn’t break his promise after this fight and come after Kuroyukihime?

No. No, I can’t. Suspecting people, trusting people, it means suspecting yourself, trusting yourself.

I trust the me who Kuroyukihime told she likes.

I trust the me who decided to believe Takumu.

That’s enough.

Immediately after he told himself this, the elevator doors opened behind him, and a heavy metallic noise reverberated through the air.

His whole body stiffened with a start, and in the instant before he spun around, Haruyuki guessed who he would see before him and was then certain of it.

It couldn’t possibly be a new enemy. Because the only people who could attack and be attacked in this stage were Haruyuki and Takumu. And it wouldn’t be an unfamiliar duel avatar. There was no reason for an unconnected spectator to appear from within the hospital.

However, the moment he actually confirmed his hunch with his own eyes, Haruyuki stopped breathing, his chest was full of something hot, and tears spilled out of both eyes.

A pure black, as if a distillation of the essence of darkness. Edges gilded in a dazzling silver. The cold wind blowing past made the long rolls of hair and the hem of the skirt flutter, and the bells decorating the parasol rang softly.

“Kuro…yukihime…” His wrung-out voice trembled faintly like a small child’s.

Watching Haruyuki dragging his shattered leg, taking one step, then another, Kuroyukihime’s face twisted up and broke into a grin at the same time.

“Kuroyukihime!!” Finally able to cry out in a proper voice, Haruyuki ran as fast as he could, making an irregular metallic noise.

Kuroyukihime also ran toward him, high heels ringing out sharply.

Both stretching arms out straight ahead, neither showed the slightest hesitation or timidity in leaping into the open arms of the other.

Hugging her sweet, softly scented body with all his might, Haruyuki cried, almost groaning, “You…you’re awake!! I’m so glad…I knew it, I knew it. I knew you’d make it…I’m so glad…so glad…”

Kuroyukihime, holding onto Haruyuki as if wrapping him up, snuggled against his cheek silently for a moment. “In the darkness, no heaven, no earth…All I heard was your voice. I…You saved me. And got hurt so badly…” The whispered voice that finally echoed in his ear was similarly wet.

Her right hand gently stroked Silver Crow’s broken body. “You’re shattered…Thank you. Thank you, Haruyuki.”

“No…you’re the one who saved me. Because you told me…to believe in myself, so…I could fly.”

Nodding silently several times, Kuroyukihime stretched a hand out to trace the edge of a thin wing extending from Haruyuki’s back. “They’re beautiful…This is your power, the potential hiding in Silver Crow. Until now…there’s never been a duel avatar realizing the ability of pure flight. I knew my prediction wasn’t mistaken. You really are the one who’s going to change this world.”

Kuroyukihime gently brought Silver Crow’s small body down to the ground with both hands. Tilting her head to the side and smiling, she looked down at him, and the ephemeral silhouette of the fairy princess spoke in a slightly forceful tone. “It seems the time has come…the time when I must also emerge from my safe cocoon and aim for the sky again.”

She glanced behind her. Cyan Pile, seated a ways off, head still hanging, had raised his eyes only slightly to watch the two of them.

“You as well…I’ve wronged you, eh, Cyan Pile?” The words Kuroyukihime uttered were unexpected. “On more than one occasion, I sullied Duels with you, Duels that should have been full of honor. Shall I show you now? My true form. And if you wish it, I will engage you with all my might.” She raised her right hand to quickly move her virtual cursor.

Suddenly, the fairy princess avatar was shrouded in repeated surges of black lightning.

Her silhouette, engulfed in a bluish-purple light before Haruyuki, who hurried to take a few steps back, began to change shape slowly, bit by bit. The skirt that reached nearly to the floor shortened all at once and split into sharp notches. Hands and feet snapped out into perfectly straight lines, tips converged into needles. The long hair dissolved and disappeared in the light, and in its place, a mask appeared in the shape of a bird of prey, wings stretching out to the back. Finally, one last, terrible bolt of lightning struck, and all the effects disappeared.

Standing before them was a beautiful—extraordinarily beautiful, as if carved out of a black crystal—duel avatar.

Her overall form resembled Silver Crow somehow. But she was much taller, more than 170 centimeters. Her body, encased in flowing, seemingly transparent black armor with a straight line at its core, was slender like a doll’s and connected to an armor skirt resembling a black lotus around her hips.

More than anything else, the limbs were her main feature. Both arms and both legs were long, sharp swords, enough to send a chill up the spine. The bright, glittering edges that looked as though they could immediately bisect anything touching them rang out crisply in the slight wind of the stage. The front surface of the angular head, with a V reaching out behind it, was a pair of goggles like an inky black mirror. Inside, two bluish-purple eyes shone with a humming, vibrating sound.

Haruyuki just stood there for a moment as if the wind had been knocked out of him. Farther off, he sensed Cyan Pile, similarly speechless. Both were overwhelmed at the almost violent beauty of this figure and the boundless potential seeming to radiate from the slender, pitch-black body.

Haruyuki was convinced that if he found himself in a Duel with her, he wouldn’t have to wait more than a second before he was sliced into thin pieces and eliminated. Finally, he pushed a voice somehow resembling a sigh from his chest. “You’re beautiful…so beautiful…Before, you said you were ugly, but…you’re not at all…”

“Mm. I wonder…” Only the voice was the original Kuroyukihime’s. “I don’t even have any hands to hold someone else’s—” She didn’t get to finish.

Cries of surprise filled the air all at once at an incredible volume from the surrounding buildings.

“Whoooaaa! Oooooh?!”

“That’s…That duel avatar…!”

“Black Lotus!! The Black King!! She’s alive!!”

The shouts from the Gallery were clearly several times louder than at the appearance of the flying Silver Crow.

Kuroyukihime glanced around and shrugged lightly before saying, “Well then…Silver Crow. Perhaps you could fly away with me?”

“Huh? Uh, sure.”

No matter how great her potential, she didn’t actually weigh any more than Cyan Pile. But however willing he was to fly off with her, there was still the question of how.

In front of Haruyuki in his confusion, Kuroyukihime hovered with a faint vibration noise and turned to her right casually before raising both arms and dropping her hips. Almost as if she was urging him to pick her up and carry her across an unknown threshold.

Although he wondered at this, he could definitely not run away here, not at this point. Sweat dripped across the surface of his silver helmet—or rather, he had that illusion as he awkwardly stuck out both arms and fastened them around Kuroyukihime’s waist.

“Please and thank you,” she said, sounding somehow excited, before leaning back into his arms with a slight thump.

As Takumu, seated, gave them a slightly teasing look that he could well have been imagining, Haruyuki readied himself and lifted the black crystal avatar. Fortunately, she turned out not to be so heavy, and he made the fins on his back vibrate fiercely before kicking off with one foot. Accelerating moderately, he aimed for the sky.

Against his chest, Kuroyukihime craned her neck to look out at the city below them and cried out in a subdued voice, “This is…amazing! I could get addicted to this…The next time we direct and have a Duel, I want to spend the whole thirty minutes flying…Oh, here’s good.”

“Okay.” Nodding, Haruyuki switched to hovering.

They weren’t so high up. Below them, they could clearly make out the countless duel avatars looking up at them from the roofs of the buildings, still yelling and shouting.

Kuroyukihime drew in a deep breath and shouted in a crisp voice that seemed to reach all the way to the distant horizon. “Hear me!!”

In an instant, the entire stage fell into silence.

“Hear me! You Burst Linkers before me, Legions of the Six Kings! My name is Black Lotus! I am the one who fought against the rule of the usurper kings!”

The twisting black clouds grew shorter and even the blowing wind held its breath. The only thing still moving in his field of view was the timer with ten seconds left on the clock. In the quiet, the ringing proclamation echoed endlessly.

“I and my Legion Nega Nebulus come forth from behind the veil of obscurity to destroy this false peace! Take out your swords! Call up your flames! The time to fight…has come!!”