9

Indian summer.

What month is that again? Haruyuki wondered as he walked along the road to the now–completely familiar hospital. The rhythm the soles of his shoes tapped out on the paving stones increased unconsciously. If I keep speeding up, I’ll be covered in sweat by the time I get there, he thought, but even so, he couldn’t hold back.

Today was the day Kuroyukihime would finally be moved from the ICU to a general ward.

Since visits were naturally not permitted in the ICU, it had in fact been three weeks since they’d actually seen each other face-to-face. So he really couldn’t help it if he was a little lighter on his feet today.

The instant classes were over, he’d dashed out of school, so the sun was still high, and the light, warm for October, beat down on his back. At the school gates, the newspaper club shock troops who had somehow managed to get wind of the news were standing waiting, but he’d activated his now-rusty run-and-escape skill and had managed to break away beyond the reach of the local net.

The fact that he was so lighthearted was also partly because yesterday, Sunday, he had hung out with his oldest friends for the first time in a very long time.

Except for when they went up the new Tokyo Tower and Haruyuki accidentally connected to the sightseeing guide net and ended up getting challenged to a Duel (with the super-high-altitude local advantage, he just barely won), it was a very problem-free, fun day off.

The day of the fight three weeks earlier, Haruyuki and Takumu had gone together to Chiyuri’s house and confessed everything in Chiyuri’s bedroom, all of it: the reason Takumu told Chiyuri he liked her two years before, why Takumu had been gradually pressed against a wall since then, and why now, all of a sudden, Haruyuki and Takumu had pitted themselves against each other in battle.

Chiyuri had a hard time believing that Brain Burst actually existed. They finally managed to get her to accept it after they accelerated and took care of all the homework Chiyuri had been given that day in one-point-eight seconds, but the biggest hurdle was still ahead.

When Takumu told Chiyuri about the back-door virus he got from his guardian, the Blue Burst Linker who served as his kendo team captain, that he had used to infect her, Chiyuri exploded many times more fiercely than Haruyuki had predicted, chasing them both out of her apartment, screaming all the while that she hated them and they were through forever.

The following week, Chiyuri wouldn’t talk to them, but over time, she made allowances in her own way for Takumu’s feelings, and she forgave them—almost like she wondered if she was part of the reason Takumu felt forced to that extreme—on the condition that they treat her to all the finest parfaits she could eat.

The truth of the matter was that Chiyuri and Takumu were still somehow awkward together, even now. But Haruyuki believed that time would fix that, too.

Because it had taken ten years, but Haruyuki and Takumu finally had the relationship Chiyuri wanted. They really were best friends.

In fact, they were probably more than that.

Silver Crow and Cyan Pile were now a tag team fighting side by side in Kuroyukihime’s Legion.

Smiling and saying hello to the female nurse whose face he had at this point memorized, Haruyuki signed into the hospital net and set his sights on the hospital’s top floor at the limits of permissible speed. He got out of the elevator he had used in the Duel and arrived at the navigation line leading to the room number he had sent by mail.

In the middle of the bouquet of pink baby’s breath and the tropical water lilies in his right hand was a bud that was as close to black as possible. Since it was out of season, it had cost more than he had expected, and he had ended up spending what little money he’d been saving up for a new game on it, but he had somehow lost the desire to buy new games anyway. No game in the world could possibly be as stimulating as Brain Burst.

After he had taken just a few steps, the navigation line abruptly disappeared from sight. In front of him was the sliding door of a private room in the southeast corner of the top floor.

“Ummmm.” Haruyuki swallowed with a gulp and rehearsed in his mind what he should say. Congratulations…That’s good, right? No, wait, it’s not like she’s been discharged from the hospital yet. Maybe that’s kinda weird. Good job…That’s obviously wrong. It’s been a while…Something like that? But we see each other every day on the net. Um, aah, I don’t know.

Shmp.

The door in front of him abruptly slid open, and Haruyuki, flustered, jumped back.

As he did, a scolding voice came from inside. “Look, you. Just how long do you intend to make me wait? Hurry up and get in here!”

“Uh, okay!” he cried in a pitiable voice, and, pulling his shoulders in as far as they would go, Haruyuki took an exaggerated step over the threshold. Once he heard the door close behind him, he timidly raised his face.

In that instant, the large room, the scene outside the window, even the large bed disappeared from view. Haruyuki’s eyes took in only this girl he hadn’t seen in three weeks, wearing a black cardigan over cute pink pajamas.

She was a little thinner, maybe. Her skin, already pale, had lost even more color so that it was almost translucent. The normally free-flowing, silky hair was tied up tightly in braids, and her right leg was completely covered in a large cast.

But…

Those eyes. Those large, pitch-black eyes alone shone exactly as they always had, as if they had stars locked up inside them, welcoming Haruyuki.

Kuroyukihime smiled like a flower opening up and said in a slightly hoarse voice, “Hey…it’s been a while, Haruyuki.”

“Uh…uh-huh.”

All the lines he had thought up flew out of his head, and Haruyuki simply nodded sharply, blinking several times.

After they had stared at each other like this for nearly ten seconds, Haruyuki finally returned to his senses and took a few steps forward to offer up the modest bouquet. “Uh…um, here. It’s small, but…”

“Thanks.” Kuroyukihime grinned, taking them from him. She brought them to her face and inhaled their scent. “Black lotus, hm? I look forward to it blooming. There’s a vase over there. Could you put them in water for me?”

“Okay!”

Haruyuki took the small vase from the sideboard, filled it with water in the sink in a corner of the room, put the flowers in it, and returned.

Once again, silence.

It was Kuroyukihime who untangled their eyes glancing past each other. The expression on her face became suddenly severe and, clearing her throat lightly, she said in an increasingly hard tone, “Now then…shall I hear you report on that matter? Sit in the chair there.”

“Oh…O-okay.”

Right, this is no time to be giddy. Feeling a tinge of sadness at the thought, Haruyuki gently lowered his body into the guest chair.

Flicking around on his virtual desktop, he slid the report he had put together over to Kuroyukihime. “Ummm…so, for the back-door program that Taku’s guardian had several of his subordinates test in absolute secrecy, a patch for the matching server came out last week, and it’s completely unusable now. This guardian was ‘executed’ within the Blue Legion. I mean, it looks like he had all of his points taken away from him. But he still didn’t spill the beans about who the program’s creator was.”

“Hm, I see.” Kuroyukihime exhaled shortly and rested her head on intertwined fingers. “Most likely, a yellow, expert at exploiting weaknesses, was the originator. Especially given that whoever it was had it tested out on the top brass of an enemy Legion. Well, one of these days, I’ll yank that black curtain up.” Muttering this dangerous line as she moved the tips of the fingers of her right hand like a sword, Kuroyukihime recomposed her expression and looked at Haruyuki. “So how is it? My Legion.”

“Right…well, I have to say it’s bit by bit, but we’re slowly getting control of Suginami Area numbers three and four.”

“Ha-ha-ha!” Kuroyukihime’s shoulders shook lightly as she laughed. “A modest territory. But it’s wonderful. Just right for a Legion made up of three people.”

The Black Legion, Nega Nebulus, was once an enormous group, ranked alongside the Legions of the six kings, but with the events two years earlier, it had apparently gone the way of dissolution and disappearance. Her spectacular proclamation of the Legion’s return was fine as far as it went, but as of now, the only three members were Kuroyukihime, Haruyuki, and Takumu. And Black Lotus, as the world’s most powerful traitor, wouldn’t be able to appear in any Duels for the time being. They had their hands full just protecting the field around Umesato Junior High.

As if reading Haruyuki’s mind, Kuroyukihime said, smiling, “Don’t be so down. There’s no need to hurry. We’ll gain companions gradually and slowly expand our area.”

“R-right.” Haruyuki nodded.

When he went to wipe away the slight sweat beading on his face because of this first real-life meeting in some time, he stuck his hand in the pocket of his uniform, where his fingers struck something other than his handkerchief. He pulled the completely forgotten item out. The student agenda with the blue cover that had never been used for its original purpose. Kuroyukihime’s.

“Oh…right. I was hanging on to this for you. Here.” Not thinking too hard about what he said, he offered her the agenda.

Seeing it, Kuroyukihime blinked with surprise and opened her mouth slightly before her cheeks suddenly flushed bloodred. Snatching the agenda away from him, she pressed it to her chest and turned her face downward. “Did you look inside?” A question uttered in a voice that was almost disappearing.

Haruyuki finally grasped the reason for Kuroyukihime’s reaction. “Oh! No! Yes! No, uh, well…I—I did…”

Silence.

Abruptly, a short phrase cut through the extremely dense, frozen air. “Forget it.”

“…Huh?”

“Erase it from your memory and never speak of it again. And if you mention this in the future, you’ll learn exactly what someone with level-nine special attacks can do.”

Eeaah?!

Swallowing this cry, Haruyuki shook his head vehemently. “I won’t say anything! I won’t remember it! Oh, I’ve forgotten, I’ve already completely forgotten it!”

She glared sideways at Haruyuki dripping with sweat, standing at attention, and a chastising smile rose up on her face. “Honestly. Even though the name Silver Crow is known across the accelerated world at this point, you’re still the same old you, aren’t you, Haruyuki?”

Slightly releasing the tension in his shoulders, Haruyuki returned, “A- and this scary part of you hasn’t changed at all, either…Black Lotus.”

“Well, that’s unexpected. I’m always so kind…Anyway, Haruyuki.” She cleared her throat with a cough and sat up straight again before continuing with a gentle smile, “Maybe it’s time for you to get it together and just call me by my name, instead of my nickname.”

“Oh!…R-right.” Nodding sharply, Haruyuki realized with a start a single preposterous fact. “Uh…um.”

“Hm?”

“I…I…Your real name…I don’t…know it…”

Snap.

The world froze again almost like when he was accelerated—no, harder and thicker than that.

But Kuroyukihime’s laughter mixed with a sigh melted it soon enough. “You…I thought you looked in my agenda?”

“Oh! I…I just glanced in it once, at the start…”

“Ha-ha. Of course. That’s very you, Haruyuki. Well then, let’s introduce ourselves anew, shall we? That said, it’s not that different from my nickname.”

A gentle breeze blew in through the slightly open window, gently diffusing the scent of the black lotus. Stretching her thin body up straight, she clasped both hands in front of her chest.

The beautiful older student and rebel Black King said in a clear voice, “My name is…”

END