9

With his eyes closed, Haruyuki passed through the acceleration process: his Neurolinker amplifying his thought clock while simultaneously freeing him from his real-world senses. His body floated for an instant, and he waited for the sensation of coming down on a hard surface before lifting his eyelids.

Before him, the familiar Arita living room was already gone. In its place, a floor with a complicated pattern of blue-black tiles that held a sharp metallic luster. Walls that looked lined with thin blades. The ceiling a network of slender joists. The only illumination came from the several curious purple candles placed along the walls, so the room was dim overall, and he both felt and knew that this place was deep underground.

It was the small room connecting the great hall with the deepest depths of the inner sanctuary of the Castle, which itself stood in the center of the Unlimited Neutral Field—what a certain person had called the Shrine of the Eight Divines. The fact that the design differed from what he remembered meant that the Change peculiar to the Unlimited Neutral Field had happened, and the attributes of the place did not match the Heian stage of their last visit.

“This is the Demon City stage.” A clear, youthful voice came from immediately beside him, and Haruyuki turned his eyes in that direction.

Standing there, both hands neatly arranged before her, was a small duel avatar with white-and-crimson armor, reminiscent of the garb of a shrine maiden. One of the Four Elements of the first Nega Nebulus, the blazing shrine maiden Ardor Maiden. Naturally, this avatar was controlled by Utai Shinomiya.

“I’m glad it’s not some stage with a lot of terrain traps or wild creatures,” he quickly responded to that voice, something he had never heard in the real world. “The terrain’s probably harder than the Heian stage, but the Castle building can’t be destroyed anyway.” As he spoke, he glanced up to check the status in the top left of his field of view. Although his health gauge was completely recovered since he had left and dived back in, his special-attack gauge was at zero.

He then looked at their surroundings, but of course, none of the other Legion members were there. In the last dive, unlike Haruyuki and Utai, Kuroyukihime and the others had left properly through a leave-point portal, so they would have appeared ten kilometers away to the west in Suginami. They had probably just joined up with Ash Roller and started to move. Which meant the only people there were Utai and Haruyuki—

Or, no, that wasn’t true. There should have been one more person appearing there with them.

“R-right. He’s…”

“He’s already here,” Utai replied to Haruyuki’s muttering, and he jerked up his head to look around again.

“I’ve been expecting you, Crow, Maiden.” The clear voice of a boy, reminiscent of an early summer breeze, came from the gloom near the wall.

Turning his eyes in that direction, Haruyuki saw a single silhouette pop out of the darkness in the modest light of the candles.

The overall look closely resembled that of Ardor Maiden. Head armor shaped like pulled-back hair, a sharply defined face mask. Swollen arms like traditional Japanese clothing. The hakama-like armor of the legs spread out horizontally because the avatar was sitting properly on his knees. His color was a deeply serene azure.

Before the smallish avatar lay a silver stick-shaped object—a straight sword in its scabbard. It wasn’t especially large, either, but perhaps reflecting the overwhelming potential it contained, the space around the sword looked just the tiniest bit distorted. It was the fifth star of the Seven Arcs, the most powerful Enhanced Armaments in the Accelerated World, the Infinity.

The azure avatar, perfectly described by the words young samurai, looked directly at Haruyuki and Utai with sky-blue eye lenses before bowing deeply, still in the formal kneeling position. Bringing his body back up, he plucked the straight sword from the floor and stood easily.

The young samurai took a few steps away from the wall, and Utai returned his bow, bending at the waist with wonderful grace. Haruyuki hurriedly dipped his head as well. After he lifted his chin, he struggled with the words for a minute before opening his mouth.

“Uh, um, uhh, it’s been a whil—Actually, it hasn’t been that long. Good evening, Lead. Were you waiting long?”

The young samurai avatar smiled gently at Haruyuki’s awkward greeting and shook his head. “No. Although I did wait, it was a mere two seconds of real time. Please don’t concern yourself with it.”

That said, those two seconds were two thousand seconds on this side—more than thirty minutes. If it had been Haruyuki sitting in the formal kneeling position for that long, his legs would probably have fallen asleep, even in duel avatar form.

And before that, in the current age when Neurolinkers had spread far and wide, no one simply “waited” anymore. For instance, if you were meeting someone somewhere, your Neurolinker would tell you how many minutes before you needed to leave the house and what train at what time to get on so that you could move to your destination in the most optimal fashion, and it would even display in detail where the person you were meeting was at that moment and what time they were expected to arrive. If you went out to eat, you could see how busy the restaurants in the area were in real time, so you could go without having to wait in line, and if you were taking a taxi, the push of a button would send your request to the car closest to you. Of course, there were occasions when, due to unforeseen circumstances, time was spent waiting, but Neurolinkers were equipped with all kinds of meaningful ways to use time.

Thus, Haruyuki felt sorry from the bottom of his heart for having made the other Burst Linker simply wait for a whole thirty minutes in this place where there was absolutely nothing to do, and he started to lower his head in a bow once again.

But the young samurai put a stop to Haruyuki’s apology, as if accustomed to sitting for long periods with no AR or full dives, and said calmly, “Please don’t worry about it. Really. Waiting for the two of you to arrive was also a very thrilling experience. So much so that I might almost think it would have been better to have spent the whole day waiting.”

“I-it was? Um, me, too. I know the situation I’m in is really bad, but I was super excited to get to see you again, Lead.” Haruyuki didn’t usually say this sort of thing, but the words fell from his mouth, and the azure avatar pulled in his shoulders and offered a bashful smile in response.

“Lead” was a nickname. The other avatar was formally Trilead Tetroxide. Haruyuki hadn’t checked the name—which, according to a search by Takumu, was a molecular formula meaning three lead and four oxygen—in the Brain Burst system. That was simply how the other avatar had introduced himself.

Since you couldn’t see the health gauges of other Burst Linkers in the Unlimited Neutral Field, if he were going to attempt confirmation of another Burst Linker’s name, the only way Haruyuki could think of was to submit a request to join the Legion from the Instruct menu. But he couldn’t do something like that out of the blue, and to be honest, he, strangely, didn’t care whether or not Trilead was the other avatar’s real name. Haruyuki simply thought that if he was hiding his actual avatar name, then he must have some reason for doing so.

At any rate, having any doubts about Lead now would mean that the mission to escape the Castle itself would not happen. Because without his cooperation, Haruyuki and Utai probably didn’t have a hope of getting out of the inner sanctuary. Thus, he had already decided to trust Lead completely, and Utai seemed to have done the same.

The shrine maiden, even smaller than the young samurai, dipped her head again and said much more smoothly than Haruyuki had, “I’m also very happy to see you again, Lead. There are so many things I wish to discuss with you. However, our Legion comrades are waiting for us outside the Castle, so I apologize for our selfishness, but I hope you might be able to offer your opinion on the fastest route of escape.”

Haruyuki also had a ton of things he wanted to ask Lead about—how had he gotten into the Castle, why hadn’t he used the one-off portal in the great hall upstairs to escape himself, what did he mean when he said he’d never fought a normal duel—but it’s true that this was not the time to have a lazy chat. Kuroyukihime and the others were probably still on their way there, but he wanted to keep the time they spent waiting outside the south gate to a minimum. He also thought they would certainly have the chance to talk while they moved, and so he nodded wordlessly.

“It’s not selfish at all,” Lead responded firmly, standing up taller. “The first time we met, you were both kind enough to trust me unconditionally. In which case, it is only natural that I live up to that faith. I would gladly aid you in your escape.” The young samurai stopped and set the scabbard of his long sword, still in his left hand, on his waist. He raised his now-free hand into the air leisurely and continued, “Currently, there are two ways to exit this Castle normally. But one of them is impossible in practical terms.” He moved his left hand farther and indicated the far end of the not-large room.

A fence—actually, a barricade—stood there, with a design like countless short swords intersecting diagonally. On the other side of the fence was a vast space filled with a blue darkness. Beyond this expanse, ten times, a hundred times larger than the gymnasium at Umesato Junior High, he could see two tiny lights.

The one pulsing blue like the surface of a body of water was a path to the real world, the light of a portal. In front of that was a golden light, flickering faintly. According to Trilead, that was the last of the Seven Arcs in the Accelerated World, the seventh star crowned with the name Youkou, known as the Fluctuating Light.

Just like he had two days earlier, Haruyuki took a few steps forward as if sucked in and stared at the golden glow. Because it was so far away, he couldn’t make out the actual source of the light or the pedestal it should have been sitting on. But even still, he felt something.

The desire to own a rare item? No.

The instinct to enhance his fighting power? No.

The light, which should have been nothing more than a single Enhanced Armament, even if it was an Arc, didn’t seem like just a simple item to Haruyuki. As proof, the Fluctuating Light he saw as save data in the “dream” he’d shared with Chiyuri and Takumu that morning, inside the Brain Burst central server—which was, in a certain sense, a region more impenetrable than the Castle—had glittered and shone more brightly than any of the other stars in the center of the galaxy. Almost as if it were the absolute core of the Accelerated World itself.

“The final Arc, Youkou.” Lead’s voice came abruptly from his immediate left, and Haruyuki pulled himself back from his own thoughts with a gasp. “If you could obtain that item and activate the portal behind it, it would be possible to exit the Castle normally. However, that is simply too difficult. Because that fence—it was a sacred rope the other day, but the moment you go beyond it, extremely powerful Enemies begin to appear in the space on the other side.”

“Begin to appear? Does that mean it’s not just one?” Utai asked from Haruyuki’s right, and Lead nodded slightly.

“Yes. Two appear at first. And then they continue to appear in pairs as the intruders move forward or stand in place. I’ve confirmed there are at least six, but that probably isn’t all of them. Based on a guess that there will be at least two more, I call them the Eight Divinities.”

“E-Eight Divinities,” Haruyuki murmured tensely. They hadn’t even been able to do anything against just one of the super-high-level Enemies guarding the gates outside the Castle, the Four Gods. “What if that portal actually leads to the next boss room, and sixteen Divinities popped up there?”

Lead seemed to give serious consideration to this casual thought passing Haruyuki’s lips, so Haruyuki hurriedly shook both his head and his hands from side to side.

“N-no, sorry. Forget that. Uh, umm, anyway, so it seems like you totes can’t get to the portal without defeating the Eight Divinities. You can’t just avoid their attacks, huh?”

“Yes, that’s exactly right, Crow. I think it’s most likely that it is totes not possible to obtain Youkou unless you defeat all the Enemies.”

“Forget that ‘totes’ bit, too,” Haruyuki added quickly, afraid he had accidentally taught the completely straightforward Lead and the dictionary in his head a weird word. “Uh, um, it definitely doesn’t look like leaving through that portal is realistic. So then, the second way? We were kinda thinking it might end up being this. We have to go back to the south gate and leave through that…right?”

Lead turned back to Haruyuki and smiled as he nodded. “That is correct. Although if you insist on it, Crow, I have no issue with using the north or the west gate.”

“N-no, the south gate’s good! Our friends are waiting there and all,” Haruyuki replied before cocking his head. “The east’s no good?”

“I would hesitate slightly to recommend the east gate. The particular attack of the guardian beast Seiryu is a bit troublesome.”

“Huh? What does it do?”

“It is called Level Drain.”

“So we’ll forget about the east,” he answered immediately. “N-no, forget about the north and west, too. Please, let’s go to the south gate.”

“Totes understood, Crow.” Lead nodded with a serious look on his face, and unusually, Utai, standing off to the right, let a small giggle slip out.

“Both of you are in such perfect sync, I can’t get a word in.”

“Huh? A-are we?”

“You perform a splendid shite-kata and waki-kata,” Utai commented, using words Haruyuki didn’t know, before growing serious once more and bowing toward Lead again. “Lead, do forgive me for asking, but I would deeply appreciate your help in this endeavor.”

“I will expend every effort. Now then, let us first go upstairs.” Lead moved away from the sword barricade and began walking toward the stairs at the back of the small room, leading upward. Utai followed.

Haruyuki took a few steps after the two Burst Linkers before looking back one last time at the Shrine of the Eight Divinities. He stared at the golden light flickering on the other side of the ultramarine darkness and murmured in his heart, I will come here again someday. I’ll travel the proper path to come see you again once I have power befitting you…so please wait for me.

It sounded more like he was talking to a person rather than any Enhanced Armament, but Haruyuki clearly saw the seventh Arc flash brightly, as if it had its own will and was responding to him. Or he felt like he did, anyway.

The stairs that had been thick planks two days earlier had transformed into a spiral staircase that was a combination of polished stone and steel.

Right around the time he had lost track of how many times they had gone around, they finally arrived aboveground. They emerged from the staircase into the great hall, which was now both threatening and imposing, exactly what he would expect from a Demon City stage. Decorating the walls were countless protruding spears. Tapered chandelier on the ceiling, like a kind of drop trap. The only things that remained unchanged were the two objects lined up in the center of the great hall, the black granite pedestals where the fifth and sixth stars of the Seven Arcs were once enshrined.

“Right. So then, actually,” he started to say casually, and then clamped his mouth shut. Lead, ahead of him, looked back, perplexed, and Haruyuki apologized with a quick “Sorry, it’s nothing.”

What he had been about to say was, Actually, the one who has the other Arc from those pedestals is me.

The fifth of the Seven Arcs glittered beautifully on the waist of the young samurai avatar before him. And the sixth Arc, the Destiny, was sleeping lightly, deep inside Haruyuki himself—inside Silver Crow. However, it was no longer the mirrorlike silver it had once been. Now a dark chrome, Destiny had transformed into Disaster, the Armor of Catastrophe, a cursed power and the greatest in the Accelerated World.

Haruyuki couldn’t remember all of that strange dream, but way, way back, at the dawn of the Accelerated World, a lone Burst Linker had succeeded in infiltrating the Castle and obtaining the Destiny. Rather than use it himself, he had given it to his partner. To the girl with golden-yellow armor who appeared in Haruyuki’s dream. However, after that, something—a very sad and scary something—had happened. But no matter how hard he tried, Haruyuki couldn’t remember the details. He earnestly dug through his hazy memories, but all that came back to him were several fragmented images.

An Enemy with an enormous, terrifying form.

A group of Burst Linkers lined up around the edge of a large hole, looking down.

And several people in one corner whispering to one another things he didn’t really understand. “Main Visualizer,” “override,” “mental scar shell.” The words hazily wafted through his ears, but when he tried to catch them, they disappeared without warning, like soap bubbles. If he tried to chase after them, it would almost certainly happen once more: the overflow, calling up extremely negative feelings alongside intense pain. Right now, he had to at least avoid collapsing and being unable to move.

At any rate, because of some incident that included these images, the Destiny had changed shape—or perhaps even its essential nature—to become the Disaster. Thus, the Enhanced Armament Haruyuki currently possessed could no longer be called one of the Seven Arcs. When he thought about explaining this history to Lead, who knew nothing of it, no matter how much time he had, it wouldn’t be enough, and he didn’t have enough information to begin with to even explain things properly.

Sorry, Lead. Haruyuki apologized in his heart to the blue back of the young samurai, whom he felt strangely close to. Someday, I’ll definitely tell you everything. Not just about the armor, but why I became a Burst Linker, what I fight for, what I’m aiming for, everything; I won’t leave anything out. And when that time comes, you, too…

Here, he forced his thoughts to a halt, quickened his pace, and came up alongside the pair walking before him. They passed between the two pedestals, so close their shoulders were almost touching, and headed toward the south of the Great Hall.

The exit and its imposing ornamentation came into view, and Haruyuki spoke up once more in a quiet voice. “Huh? The terrain’s different?”

When they had entered the great hall two days earlier, he was sure they had gone down a hallway running east–west. But now, the path he could see beyond the doorway was stretching out to the south—and he could see stairs leading up beyond that.

Responding to Haruyuki’s confusion was not Lead but Utai. “The Change happened, and the stage transformed from Heian to Demon City, so the structure of the maze changed with it, not just the design.”

“Hngh! So then my ‘memories’ are no good anymore.”

The reason Haruyuki and Utai had been able to make it to the great hall without getting caught by patrolling Enemies two days earlier was because he hazily remembered the path taken by an unknown avatar in a mysterious “dream.” But if the terrain had been transformed along with the Change, then naturally, he couldn’t make use of those memories now.

Fortunately, however, Lead nodded as if to reassure them. “It’s all right,” he said smoothly. “I know the way.”

“Huh? So does that maybe mean that you’ve memorized the map of this Castle for the hundred or more different stages?” he asked, stunned.

The young samurai nodded, somewhat bashfully. “That said, I actually only remember the way from this great hall to the exit of the inner sanctuary.”

“Th-that’s plenty. Great! For a second there, I thought we’d have to play the dungeon right from scratch to get out. I mean, I definitely wouldn’t hate that, but, you know…I actually like that sort of thing.”

Lead flashed a quiet smile at Haruyuki’s strange relief, but his face took on its serious look again soon enough. “But speaking from my own experience, the level of difficulty of Demon City is a fair bit higher than Heian. The strength of individual sentinel Enemies is not as great, but because there are more of them, it’s difficult to move without being seen.”

In his mind, Haruyuki cocked his head curiously at Lead’s unbalanced knowledge; he didn’t know the name Nega Nebulus, but he knew the stage names. Still, he set aside his questions for the time being and murmured, “I get it. Mobs are more likely to aggro, so sneaking’s harder.”

This time, it was not only Lead who gave him a puzzled look but also Utai. It seemed neither was familiar with the general terminology of net games. The thought struck him that it would be fun to make them talk with Pard, but he quickly tucked it away and continued without the jargon.

“Um, basically, moving takes more focus than in the Heian stage. But still, let’s make it happen somehow. I’m pretty good at sneaking around.”

“That’s very reassuring.” Haruyuki was half joking, but Lead took in his utterance with a serious face. “But there is just one place where we will not be able to slip by in the Enemy’s blind spot, no matter what we do. Thus, we will be forced to fight once. I’d appreciate it if you could prepare yourselves mentally for that.”

“W-we will? Okay, got it. It’s fine. W-w-we’ll fight. If they’re weaker than the Heian stage, I feel like we’ll be able to manage it. I’m sure it’ll be okay, probably.” The mere thought of fighting one of those Enemies was enough to make a fountain of sweat gush up inside, but Haruyuki tried to cover it with a display of bravado. He clapped his hand to his chest and jumped forward about three meters. Whirling around, he asked Lead, “So then, maybe you could tell us, just so we know, about when the fight’ll happen?”

Lead’s reaction was unusually slow; after two seconds or so, he apologized for some reason. “I’m sorry, Crow. My explanation was insufficient.”

“Huh? H-how was it not enough?”

“The unavoidable fight is when we leave this great hall. A single sentinel Enemy is patrolling there.”

“…Huh.” At the same time as Haruyuki let a stunned noise slip out, he heard a heavy metallic sound behind him. Nervously turning around, he saw through the large exit an even larger silhouette peeking into the great hall.

In the Heian stage two days earlier, the Enemies guarding the inner sanctuary of the Castle had all taken the form of Japanese-style warriors, but in the current Demon City stage, they resembled something like knights. The large frame closing in on them was three meters tall and covered in thick metal armor. In its left hand, a kite shield the size of a door. In its right, a rough greatsword that looked as though it had been hewn from a piece of steel.

The area beneath the open helmet and the long horns growing out of it was swallowed up by darkness, making it invisible to Haruyuki, but from within that darkness, two sharply glittering purple eyes stared down at him. That gaze indicated he had entered the reaction range of the knight Enemy.

“…Huh,” he inadvertently murmured again, hoarsely, and slowly moved to step back. But before he could, the knight stepped into the great hall with a weighty, thunderous sound.

“Voraaaaaa!”

If forced to transcribe the battle cry that slammed into his avatar with a physical force, Haruyuki would string the letters together something like that. He staggered backward, while an impossibly massive sword was brandished high above his head.

“Hey. Wait,” he said, stunned, but the Enemy was obviously not going to listen to him, a tiny avatar that didn’t even reach up to its waist. The purple eyes blazed, and the knight moved to slice him neatly in two.

The sharp noise of the sword cutting through the air kick-started Haruyuki’s halted thoughts.

An arc of blue light came flying from behind him and drove into the sword of the Enemy knight, pushing it back the slightest bit. Not letting this opening slip away, Haruyuki dashed backward with everything he had.

Moving forward past him was the young samurai with the azure armor, Trilead. The previous attack had definitely been his, but the straight sword on his left hip was still in its scabbard, and both hands were wrapped in blue light.

Haruyuki opened his eyes wide as Lead brought his weaponless right hand straight up into the air.

“Ha!!”

A battle cry like a scream. His sword hand flashed up and down, and a sword of light in the shape of a crescent moon—the same as the one Haruyuki had seen before—emerged and raced through the air. The metallic clash again. The blue arc struck the knight’s neck and carved out a definite mark on the thick armor.

“Voruuuuu,” the knight groaned, moving its gaze from Haruyuki to Lead, shifting its target. In other words, the knight’s AI was, as Haruyuki suspected the last time, based on a simple hate principle, unlike the AI of the Four Gods.

“Vora!!” the knight roared, and whipped the massive sword sideways through the air.

This single slice would no doubt have mown down even the enormous trees of the Primeval Forest stage, but Lead dodged it with a sliding step. For the third time, an arc of light shot out from his sword hand to dig into the surface of the shield in the knight’s left hand.

Haruyuki pushed Ardor Maiden farther back behind him in an unconscious gesture as he continued to watch the duel with wide eyes.

It was the first time he had seen the mysterious Burst Linker Trilead Tetroxide fighting. Haruyuki had expected it to a certain extent from the way the young samurai carried himself, but he was indeed extremely skilled. The way he stepped smoothly, like water flowing; the speed with which he moved from evasion to counterattack; and above all else, the blades of blue light launched from both hands in rapid succession were no mere special attack. Given that he wasn’t calling out the name of the attack and the fact that it had the power to dig into the incredibly hard armor of the knight Enemy, it was clearly a power generated outside the system by his imagination—an Incarnate attack.

At the same time as his Burst Linker’s instincts had him collect all this information instantaneously, Haruyuki felt a single question rise up in him.

Why didn’t Trilead take out his sword? The weapon equipped at his left hip was the Arc Infinity, which held an attack power that it was likely no exaggeration to say was the greatest in the Accelerated World. If he could generate that kind of power with no weapon, it wasn’t inconceivable that he could do several times, maybe a hundred times more damage if he used the Arc.

“My apologies, Crow! There is a reason why I can’t use the sword right now!” Lead shouted out, almost as if he had read Haruyuki’s mind, as he jumped aside to dodge the knight’s sword. “This Enemy must be defeated without the Arc!”

“G-got it!” Haruyuki shouted back immediately, and hurriedly added, “It’s okay to use I-Incarnate?!”

He asked because the conversation with Kuroyukihime and the others from two days earlier still lingered in his ears. The higher the level of Enemy, the more ineffective Incarnate attacks became, and at the same time, Enemies were more likely to be drawn to the Incarnate waves. Just the one knight before him was so terrifying he was practically passing out; he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay in place and not run like the wind if another one or two came along.

Fortunately, however, Lead nodded quickly. “In this room, it’s all right as long as we don’t use it for more than ten minutes in succession!”

“Got it!” Haruyuki shouted again, and then belatedly readied his own hands in front of him. His brain, stunned at the sudden appearance of the Enemy, was finally switching into battle mode.

Happily, the knight Enemy wasn’t using long-distance attacks. Of course, their opponent was a Castle guard Enemy, likely on par with Legend-class Enemies, so if he took a real hit from that sword, Haruyuki would be killed instantly. If it kept picking out new targets, they clearly couldn’t focus their might, but he was sure they had a chance of winning if they worked together with Lead and attacked from a distance.

He took a deep breath and brought the image of light speed into both hands, taking aim through the scope in his mind at the back of the knight chasing Lead. The Enemy brandished its sword and pieces of its thick armor slid over each other. The instant Haruyuki saw the less-protective chain mail at the back of the neck…

“Laser Lance!!”

Shouting out with his entire body and soul, Haruyuki launched the Incarnate technique he had only just developed. From his extended right hand, a lance of silver light gushed forward and hit his target at the base of the knight’s neck, dead-on. The massive creature staggered, albeit slightly, and the sword attack aimed at Lead slid off course and slammed violently into the floor.

At the same time, the health gauge of the knight Enemy was displayed in Haruyuki’s view. The right edge of the first of the three bars stacked up there decreased about 2 percent.

“Whoa,” he cried out unconsciously.

Including the clean hit Lead had gotten on the knight’s body before, the amount of the gauge they had taken still wasn’t even a tenth of the first bar. At this rate, how many minutes—how many hours—would it take to carve away the swollen gauge?

“Both of you, please hold out against it for three minutes.” A firm voice echoed from behind him. “I will take over after that.” The owner of the voice, silent until that point, was, of course, Utai Shinomiya—Ardor Maiden.

They’d probably only barely be able to cut away another couple percent from the knight’s gauge in three minutes. She said she would take over from there, but could the completely long-range Maiden actually draw the Enemy’s focus?

“R-roger!” Haruyuki shouted, and knocked the fleeting question out of his brain.

“I understand!” Lead’s voice came from a little farther off at the same time.

Nodding at their replies, Maiden held a long Japanese yumi bow that had appeared in her left hand at some point. It was immediately enveloped in crimson flames and began changing shape, as though melting. The item, now transformed into a short, flat stick, opened out thinly into a hand fan with a satisfying snap. From both sides of the shrine maiden’s innocent face mask, additional snow-white armor slid out, meeting in the center to produce a curious screen. Then her entire body was wrapped in a thick crimson aura.

After watching this much out of the corner of his eye, Haruyuki moved to Lead’s side. They communicated their strategy through eye contact alone. That said, it wasn’t anything complicated. They would both increase the knight Enemy’s hate to about the same amount and split its focus as much as possible while attacking.

“Vorrraaaaaaa!!” the knight roared, as if irritated that it hadn’t yet gotten a direct hit. Until that point, it had been bringing the massive sword down in one strike at a time, but now it began swinging from side to side as it advanced on the two Burst Linkers.

Haruyuki and Lead drew the Enemy as close as they dared before leaping off to the sides, and then with perfect timing, together…

“Haah!!”

“Laser Lance!!”

Blue and silver light shot out. Two light-effect colors bounced off the knight’s side. Damage: 4 percent.

The following three minutes were excruciatingly long, hard, and just the teensiest bit exciting. However much they were splitting the Enemy’s focus, they couldn’t quite manage to flee a safe distance. Although they dodged the sword closing in on them while the knight roared fiercely, sometimes they took splash damage from the blade hitting the floor.

If Haruyuki had been alone, he would no doubt have been eating a direct hit in less than a minute; he could keep slipping by the lethal blade thanks to Lead’s precise instructions. Somehow, not only did the young samurai have maps for all the various structures of the inner sanctuary, he also apparently possessed complete knowledge of the attack patterns of the transforming guardian Enemies. He perfectly read in advance the trajectory of the sword the knight brandished from side to side, and even more than that, the placement of the log-like legs and the wind-pressure attack using the shield, and told Haruyuki how to avoid all of these.

Faithfully following these instructions to evade the attacks, Haruyuki aimed for any and every little opening to get a blow in whenever the knight targeted Lead. In a certain sense, moving in perfect sync like this to walk a tightrope where making a single mistake meant certain death was the real thrill of network games.

Once two minutes or so had passed, Haruyuki and Lead had basically stopped talking. Lead communicated instructions via a slight movement of his hand, and Haruyuki responded without a moment’s delay.

If I had done it like this…If I had done it like this in the basketball game today, imaging not just the opposing players but even my teammates’ movements and thoughts, and moving in line with that, then maybe…

In the middle of the intense battle, the thought flitted through Haruyuki’s head, but he quickly stamped it out.

There’s no way I could. Real-world me is totally different from Silver Crow. Not this light. Not this fast.

But…maybe I can aim for that at least. No matter how impossible it seems. If I hope I change, and I take one step, just one step toward that, maybe I can, too.

“Come here!” A sharp voice sounded abruptly from his rear, and Haruyuki opened his eyes wide with a gasp.

At some point, the three minutes Utai asked for had passed. He exchanged a quick look with Lead, off to his right, and then they both jumped way back at the same time. As the knight Enemy charged after them, raging even more fiercely, they led it in the direction of Utai’s voice.

However, even though they had endured for the three minutes as instructed, the first bar of the Enemy’s three-level health gauge was still nearly 90 percent full. What exactly was Utai planning to do?

Feeling slightly anxious, Haruyuki continued to dash backward alongside Lead until they reached the two pedestals in the center of the great hall.

Instantly, the right side of his field of view was dyed red, and he reflexively pulled his eyes away from the Enemy to look in that direction.

What he saw there was a scene that made even Haruyuki—who had come up against all kinds of supernatural phenomena within the Castle and hardened his nerves to pretty much anything—swallow his breath in dumbfounded amazement.

Flames. The source: the small body of the shrine-maiden avatar. From the tips of her tabi-covered toes to the ends of the long hair coils, she was enveloped in a conflagration burning red.

Since Ardor Maiden didn’t seem to be taking any damage herself, they probably weren’t real flames. It was likely overlay, the irregular light effect that accompanied the activation of the Incarnate System. But even compared with the overlay of another red-type avatar, the Red King—Scarlet Rain—the flickering hue was much closer to the look of real flames.

This aura, which took a full three minutes to muster, was several times more intense and more beautiful than when she had burned Bush Utan to ashes in the tag-team duel three days earlier. Cloaked in flame, the shrine maiden held her fan over her head and danced unhurriedly. The knight Enemy charged in with enough force to smash her to pieces.

“Grief-stricken flames of Dvesha.” All of a sudden, a sonorous “song” rang out from the mouth of the shrine maiden. She waved her fan neatly, and a spray of small flames flowed off into space. Seeming to be nothing more than meager sparks, they fell at the feet of the knight Enemy.

Krrrr! Instantly, a deafening roar filled his ears and shook the air, and the supposedly incredibly strong floor of the Demon City stage burst into flames—and melted.

The knight Enemy sank helplessly up to its chest in the liquid—the magma—glittering with a dazzling orange light. The cold dark-gray shine of the metal armor immediately grew incandescent, like a lump of burning coal.

“Vorooooaaaaaa!!”

A roar—or a scream. The knight waved both arms frantically and tried to free itself of the magma, but the “lake” of molten floor was easily larger than five meters in diameter. All the knight did was vainly scatter droplets of fire; the large frame didn’t seem to move up in the slightest.

“Become dust in the ground and be gone.” Once again, a verse with a mysterious rhythm echoed in the hall.

The crimson aura enveloping the shrine maiden grew more and more intense, and the temperature of the magma lake increased further. Although Haru was plenty far away, a hot wind blew toward them and threatened to cook his own body. If he got any closer, he wouldn’t be surprised if he did actually start taking damage.

After standing slack-jawed for over ten seconds, Haruyuki finally looked at the health gauge of the knight Enemy displayed above his head. The first bar was just on the verge of being similarly burned up.

Lead had said that even in the great hall, if they used Incarnate techniques for more than ten minutes, there was the possibility that it would call other Enemies over. Taking that into consideration, it was a little iffy as to whether or not the remaining two bars would be carved away during this grace period. This was perhaps the time for Haruyuki to join in with a long-distance technique, but for some reason, he felt like he shouldn’t. This “flame dance” was a stage for Utai alone, and other people shouldn’t force their way in. Lead, maybe feeling the same thing, simply stood quietly near Haruyuki.

The shrine maiden danced for another five minutes, the flames eddied and coiled, and the knight writhed. Eventually, the third health gauge bar was also burned up, and the Enemy disappeared in the center of the magma pool together with a magnificently large scattering effect.

Even after Ardor Maiden slowly lowered her fan and stopped moving, Haruyuki was unable to say anything. He was overwhelmed. By the power of Utai’s Incarnate technique, its beauty, its ferocity. He couldn’t help but tremble at this terrifying, destructive power.

As far as the logic of the technique, it wasn’t that complicated. Melt the floor of the stage, turn it into a high-temperature liquid, and drop opponents into it. What was terrifying was what came after that. There was basically no escaping from it. If you couldn’t fly like Haruyuki or you didn’t have some kind of special movement ability like the fifth Disaster’s wire hook, you’d never be able to get out of the lake of magma. The liquid was viscous, hindering movement, and even if you did manage to somehow make it to the shore, the inside wall of the hole was also melted. It would be like trying to climb a wall of glass covered in oil.

It was a fundamentally different power than the flame of purification that had burned up Bush Utan three days before. The category of Incarnate technique was—he didn’t want to think about it, but it was probably the fourth quadrant, i.e., negative power targeting range. But why exactly had adorable, youthful Utai Shinomiya managed such a tortuous technique of destruction…

Part of Haruyuki’s half-numbed brain was wandering along this track when Ardor Maiden, standing a few meters ahead of him, shook violently.

“Ah!” Reflexively, Haru dashed forward to catch Utai’s back as she was about to collapse to the floor. Before his eyes, the white face mask covering the shrine maiden’s face split apart and retreated beneath her hair parts.

Her crimson eye lenses blinked irregularly and looked up at Haruyuki. A weak voice flowed out. “It seems that…it was a bit too soon. To use in actual battle.”

“Huh? What?”

“That. Technique. I’ve been practicing it for a year now. An experimental…technique for heavyweight, ground-based Enemies. More precisely…for the God Genbu.”

“For Genbu?”

Naturally, Haruyuki had never actually seen Genbu, the super-high-level Enemy guarding the north gate of the Castle. He had no idea what it looked like or what kind of attacks it used. But he did know one thing: Another of the Four Elements that Fuko and Utai had been a part of in the old Nega Nebulus was currently sealed at Genbu’s feet.

In Haruyuki’s arms, Utai closed her eyes and continued speaking in bits and pieces. “My power…it was as if it didn’t reach the God Suzaku. At the time of the mission to attack the Castle, I personally wished to lead the team against Suzaku. I foolishly thought…if it was fire, then I would be able to control it, no matter what kind of power it had…Perhaps if it had been Aqua Current and the water she controls, then opposite attribute…Or maybe Sky Raker, faster than the wind…Maybe they would have broken through Suzaku’s guard. In which case…the annihilation of the Legion two years ago…it was my disdain for the enemy, my forgetting to respect it…my…fault…”

Haruyuki saw a single small droplet of water shining on the edge of her closed eyes and instinctively shouted, “That—That’s not true! Absolutely no one thinks it was your fault, Mei!”

“No…that is a mistake for which I should be rebuked. Because…at that time, in my heart…I foolishly thought I might be the one to quell Suzaku’s flames and make it through the gates alive…and I said nothing…What would you call that…” The murmured voice, colored with sorrow, finally halted there.

Unable to find any words to say to her, Haruyuki felt like he finally understood why Utai had stayed hidden in a corner of the Accelerated World for two years, without trying to contact Kuroyukihime and the others.

Before, Utai had said that it was because she didn’t want to be the cause of secondary damage in a mission to rescue her avatar sealed away in front of the Castle. And of course, that wasn’t a lie. But at the same time, she had been severely blaming herself. She was convinced that she was the cause of the Legion’s destruction, and because of this sin, she had decided that no matter how much she wanted to see Kuroyukihime and Fuko, she couldn’t be allowed that. For a period of two years.

But…

But these feelings of guilt were shared by Kuroyukihime and Fuko.

Kuroyukihime had decided that her taking the head of the first Red King, Red Rider, on impulse and bringing about a war on all fronts with the remaining five Kings’ Legions was the direct cause for the destruction of Nega Nebulus. She had hidden herself in the Umesato Junior High local net for two years.

Fuko worried that she had created all the underlying causes for the dissolution of the Legion when she resolved to cut off her legs to strengthen her own will and forced Kuroyukihime to perform the act for her. She had lived in seclusion in the old Tokyo Tower for two years as well, in the Unlimited Neutral Field.

It was all the same. The three of them were all the same. Because they all cared so deeply about their companions, felt tied to them by profound bonds, they punished themselves. Haruyuki was sure, absolutely certain that the other two Elements, and the other Legion members whose names he didn’t even know yet, all went into hiding thinking the same thing. Eternally sacrificing themselves for the destruction of the old Nega Nebulus, never to stand center stage in the Accelerated World again.

“But…but…” Staring down at the face of Ardor Maiden in his arms, her eyes still closed fast, Haruyuki worked to push out his voice. “But Brain Burst doesn’t exist for us to—to struggle or worry or hate or fight. It shouldn’t, at least. Lots of sad and hard things happen in this world, but someday, we’ll get past all that, and the day will come when we can again take the hands of the people we love and share everything with one another. The day is definitely going to come when you can share with your friends this pain you’ve been shouldering by yourself all this time. It’s been two years already since the destruction of the old Nega Nebulus. So this day could be that day!”

As he moved his mouth frantically, Haruyuki vaguely understood the source of the destructive Incarnate that Utai had displayed earlier.

It was sin. It wasn’t colored with the same level of darkness as despair or hatred, but it was definitely not a positive force. If those flames were to roast a criminal, then Utai must have tasted the same anguish as her target the whole time the technique was activated.

And at the same time, the sin Utai carried with her was probably not just tied up with the destruction of the Legion. There had to be a deeper, stronger emotion directly connected with the real-world her. After all, Kuroyukihime had said it herself. You definitely couldn’t generate a second-level Incarnate technique without facing head-on the scars of your own self in the real world.

Naturally, there was no way Haruyuki would be allowed to enter into the depths of Utai’s heart, given that it had been mere days since they met. Right now, he couldn’t even imagine the things she had been through, what she had suffered, and why she had lost her real voice. But…but…

“If you have to be tormented forever, to hate people forever even here in the Accelerated World for all your mistakes and disagreements, then why did we even become Burst Linkers?” Haruyuki squeezed the feelings in his heart out into words, and Utai’s limp body twitched in his arms.

The crimson eye lenses opened slowly. But their light still flickered weakly. Although Haruyuki wanted to say something more, another few words of some kind, his heart was shaking too fiercely and no words would come out.

At that moment, a voice cool and gentle as a breeze blowing over a grassy plain came to them softly.

“‘For sport and play, I think that we are born; for jesting and laughter, I doubt not we are born.’”

It was Trilead, who had been silent the whole time. The young samurai had moved soundlessly out from behind Haruyuki to now face him, Utai between them, before he sank down on his knees without even bending his back.

After a brief period of silence, Utai replied in a hoarse voice, blinking slowly as she did, “‘For when I hear the voice of children at their play, my limbs, even my stiff limbs, are stirred.’”

It was probably some old poem or something, but Haruyuki didn’t know it. Still, he felt like he could get the meaning of it, albeit only on an intuitive level.

Lead shifted his gaze from Utai to Haruyuki and began to speak quietly. “I am embarrassed to say this, but I have never before considered the kinds of fates Burst Linkers other than myself have borne or for what objectives they fight. However…however, I had the…vague idea…that the majority had fun playing this game. And that someday, I would be able to…join them.”

He hung his head momentarily, the long hair tied behind him swinging. When he lifted his face again, the mysterious youth continued softly:

“However, before I met the both of you, I was the sole Burst Linker I knew. The person who is my parent and teacher told me that even if I was all alone, even if I could not exit this palace and step outside, I should throw myself into playing and having fun. That it was the only path leading to my future. I have long swung my sword alone, imagining the voices of children happily at their play on the other side of the high palace walls. After many, many long days, you appeared before me suddenly, Crow, Maiden. We spoke, we promised to meet again, and then today, we fought alongside one another. I find it impossible to put into words what I am feeling now.”

Trilead broke off once more, and Haruyuki and Utai stared wordlessly at the droplet sliding down his graceful face mask. Rather than wiping his face, Lead gave voice to a few last words in a trembling voice.

“The only—the only thing I can say is that I’m glad I became a Burst Linker. I’m happy to have been able to know this Accelerated World. And it is you both, Crow and Maiden…who have given me this joy.” Here, the young samurai closed his mouth and bowed once more, deeply.

For a time, silence ruled the great hall curtained in blue gloom. At some point, the lake of magma Utai’s Incarnate technique created had cooled, leaving nothing but a slight, shallow indentation.

Finally, Utai sat up in Haruyuki’s arms and looked at the other two Burst Linkers in turn. “I, too—that at least,” she said in a clear voice. “I am without a doubt happy that I was able to become a Burst Linker at least. No—serving the Black King, fighting as a member of Nega Nebulus. And at the end of that road, meeting you both, C, Lead. I’m happy for all this as well. Which means…the path I have walked until now…was not a mistake.”

She moved feet patterned after the split-toed tabi socks and brought them down onto the floor. Following Utai’s movement, Haruyuki also slowly stood up.

Utai waited for Lead to also get to his feet before taking a step forward and looking back. “I’m sorry to have worried you. Now then, shall we go? I’m sure at the end of this road we walk down one step at a time, our future—our destiny stretches out to infinity.”

Lead’s claim that he had memorized the internal structure of the Castle inner sanctuary in all the various stages was most certainly not empty boasting. Without hesitating even once, the young samurai led them assuredly through the complicated map of the Demon City stage, which was completely different from the Heian stage of two days earlier.

They ascended stairs, crossed walkways over air, pressed trap switches, opened hidden doors, and descended using pulleys. Without guidance, who knew how many days or even weeks it would have taken them to make it through the medieval castle–style dungeon, replete with gimmicks? And on top of that, the place was crawling with Enemies of the same knight type they had fought in the beginning, along with some in heavier armor, some that looked quick and nimble, and even some wizard types.

Haruyuki was prepared for the fact that they probably wouldn’t be able to avoid two or three random encounters, but Lead’s instructions were perfection itself. Even when they were stuck with Enemy groups walking along on both sides, he calmly stopped them in the shadow of some object before they all ran as fast as they could once they were in the blind spot of receding opponents. Once, he even managed the stunt of deliberately setting an empty elevator in motion, and when the Enemies gathered there, they went down a ladder in the opposite direction. It was no exaggeration to say that he knew the place like his own backyard.

For a dyed-in-the-wool gamer like Haruyuki, the only titles he could “move” in this freely were online FPS games that he’d played for years or single-player action-adventure games he’d logged more than a hundred hours on. And the entire structure of the Castle was transformed during the Change, too. Exactly how many years had Trilead spent fighting—no, playing—in this place?

This question in mind as he followed instructions and ran, climbed, descended, and passed through the nth doorway, a scene suddenly appeared before Haruyuki’s eyes.

A single small window on a wall. A vast expanse spreading out on the other side, columns of pillars, and a sky swirling with black clouds. Outside.

“Very nice work. The Castle inner sanctuary ends here,” Lead said, completely nonchalant, and approached the window to open it casually. A cold wind blew in and coolly caressed Silver Crow’s armor.

Moving to the window as if compelled, Haruyuki looked outside. Two columns of massive blue-black pillars stretched out in long lines a fair bit to the right of the window. He had seen this before. In the Heian stage, the coloring had been different, but similar pillars had stood at the main entrance of the inner sanctuary then, too. So that meant that ahead of them was…

“Th-the gate!” On the verge of unconsciously shouting in his excitement, he hurriedly got himself in check.

He could even catch a tiny glimpse of the enormous gates at the end of the columns of pillars, beyond the fog lingering above the surface of the ground. From the angle of the shadows the pillars cast, he could tell the gate was directly to the south—in other words, it was the very same Suzaku gate Haruyuki and Utai had crashed through two days earlier.

Finally. Finally, they had made it to a place where they could see the gate. All they had to do now was open it, go outside, shake free of the flames of the God Suzaku, and fly to the other side of the bridge.

Thinking about this, Haruyuki clenched his right hand into a tight fist before realizing something and taking a sharp breath. “R-right. How are we going to open it?”

The gates he could see on the other side of the heavy fog were without a doubt shut tight. There was no possible way the stone doors, very nearly twenty meters in either direction, would simply open if they reached out and pushed them. The reason the gates had automatically opened, albeit just a crack, when Haruyuki and Utai flew in was that someone—or rather the young samurai before him—had broken from the inside the seal plate that served as a lock.

The moment his thoughts reached that point, Lead nodded as if he had been watching Haruyuki’s mind at work. “The seal of the Suzaku gate has regenerated, but I will break it once more now. The gate should open then.”

“I-is that an easy thing for you to do?” Haruyuki asked timidly, and Lead cocked his head, as if searching for the words, before nodding slightly.

“I don’t know whether or not it’s easy, but it is something I’ve done once before. And the reason I didn’t—no, couldn’t unsheathe this sword in the battle earlier was because I needed to break the seal on the gate.”

“What do you mean exactly?” Utai asked. Haruyuki also didn’t understand the causal relationship between not drawing the sword and being able to break the seal.

Lead nodded again and gently touched the straight sword on his hip with his left hand. “Although it is beyond my position, this Infinity I have been allowed to possess now has several special effects. One of these is that as long as it is sheathed in the scabbard, the power of a single blow increases infinitely until it is unsheathed.”

Haruyuki opened his eyes wide in amazement, but at the same time, this made a very deep kind of sense to him. If the sword did indeed have that kind of effect, then it wasn’t something to be used against random sentinel Enemies. In fact, frugal Haruyuki could see himself dragging it out forever and never actually using the thing.

However, Lead was apparently generous enough to use the power stored up in the blade for what was certainly many long hours on their behalf. Despite the fact that there weren’t enough words of thanks simply for his guidance up to that point, he was going to go even further for them, and Haruyuki did feel a little guilty. But the fact of the matter was that there were no other proposals for them to achieve their number one priority of escaping the Castle. Thus, Haruyuki lowered his head deeply and said simply, “Thank you, Lead.”

Utai, beside him, also arranged her hands on top of her hakama armor and bent deeply at the waist.

The young samurai shook his head, almost blushing. “It’s much too soon for you to be thanking me,” he responded in a light tone. “We still have to fight our way a little farther to the gate.”

But contrary to Lead’s words, after the road they had taken up to that point, it was no great effort to go out the small window of the inner sanctuary and head south in the cover of the pillars.

Naturally, just like the last time they had passed this way, terrifying groups of sentinel Enemies incessantly patrolled the wide road between the two columns of pillars, and they could hear suspicious footsteps and groaning voices from the deep woods to the left that made their blood run cold. However, once they knew they wouldn’t be targeted as long as they hid behind the pillars, it wasn’t a difficult thing to relax and clear one pillar at a time. Fortunately, all three avatars were small and lightweight; their footfalls were quiet, and their bodies didn’t stick out from the sides of the pillars.

After about forty minutes, they had reached the shadow of the southernmost pillar, and all three heaved a sigh of relief together as they leaned back against the cool, curved surface. They looked at one another and exchanged small grins.

They had managed to make it this far. Within the Castle, there was only one sequence left. When he quietly opened the Instruct menu and checked the time elapsed since they’d dived, the digital readout showed 135 minutes. A little over the two hours Utai had set as a target, but they had basically done an amazing job.

That said, on the outside of the south gate at that time, Kuroyukihime, Fuko, Takumu, Chiyuri, and the spur-of-the-moment inclusion, Ash Roller, were impatiently waiting for the gate to open. All he wanted was to break through the guard of Suzaku ahead of them and share in the joy of the mission’s success with all of them.

“Well then, it’s about time for us to finish this, yes?” Lead murmured, nodding briefly, as if sensing Haruyuki’s impatience. “The procedure is simple. Once the Enemies patrolling the main road on either side are at their farthest point away from us, I will fly out and destroy the seal. At the same time, you escape through the gate. If you are prepared, we will go on our next opportunity.”

A nervous tension quite naturally rose up in him, and all Haruyuki could do was nod. In contrast, Utai had the air of wanting to say something, but she quickly pulled back and also assented with a nod. Lead glanced out at the front from the shadow of the pillar and raised his right hand.

The southern gate rising up like a stone monolith was about twenty meters to the southwest of the pillar they were hiding behind. In the center of the two gate doors was a steel plate with a relief of a phoenix on it; this alone was the same as it had been in the Heian stage. The seal of Suzaku.

The wide road that stretched from the gate straight out toward the north was patrolled by a total of eight groups of guardian Enemies. Additionally, a curving hallway ran in the east–west direction in front of the gates, with groups of Enemies coming and going on both sides.

The movement of all the groups was slightly out of sync, meaning that the space in front of the gates never seemed to clear out. But as they waited with bated breath, the timing of the groups’ movement gradually started to match up. Finally, Lead splayed the five fingers of his right hand. Then he folded down one finger after the other. Four, three, two, one…

Now!!

Their soundless shouts overlapped, and the three Burst Linkers raced out from the shadow of the pillar.

They dashed across ground made up of blue-black tiles, running as hard as they could, cutting through the thick fog. In a mere three seconds, they had arrived at the plaza in front of the gates.

Lead quickly raised his left hand to stop Haruyuki and Utai, while at the same time placing his right hand on the scabbard of the straight sword—the Infinity, one of the Seven Arcs. An intense blue light jetted from the small body of the young samurai, the light of a young, fixed star.

Overlay. The brilliance of the Incarnate. When they fought the knight Enemy, Haruyuki had thought Lead was a fairly skilled user, given that he used the technique without calling out a technique name, but the speed at which he activated the system and the scope of his overlay far exceeded Haruyuki’s expectations. Despite the fact that Lead still hadn’t activated the technique itself, the hard tiles at his feet cracked in concentric circles, and the air burst with blue plasma.

The young samurai crouched down abruptly and grabbed the scabbard of the straight sword with his left hand and the hilt with his right.

“Ah…Aaaaaaaaah…!!”

Lead’s severe battle cry, the first time Haruyuki had heard it. Unable to breathe, Haruyuki unconsciously pulled Utai in toward him.

Lead’s normally cool eye lenses burned a hot white, and he called out the name of the technique with a deep echo.

“Heavenly Stratus!!”

His right hand moved so fast, it blurred as it shot out in a horizontal line. The blue blade raced through space, combining the superior attack power of the Arc itself, which increased every second it sat sheathed in the scabbard, and Trilead’s Incarnate, which threatened to split the heavens. To Haruyuki’s eyes, the arc the combined power cut in the air looked as though it would split the world itself in half.

From left to right, a single blow, a sword drawn and swung. The blade returned without a moment’s delay and slashed downward from directly above.

The light slashed out to form an enormous cross and slammed into the thick steel plate joining the two doors. A sharp cross ran along the face of the phoenix that was carved in bas-relief. The vertical line stretched out top to bottom and pierced the door itself. The southern gate standing in their way like a cliff shuddered heavily.

It’s opening!

Haruyuki held Utai even more tightly and pulled his clenched right hand to his side. With the movement, the ten metal fins folded up neatly on his back until now unfurled all at once.

“So that is your true form, then, Crow.”

Hearing the murmur, Haruyuki looked to his side.

Silver sword still drawn and lowered, the young samurai narrowed his eye lenses as if dazzled. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “I truly am happy to have met you.”

“Th-that’s…I mean, me, too, meeting you, Lead…” He had gotten this far when suddenly the body of Utai, pressed up against him, stiffened. At the same time, Haruyuki noticed it, too.

The wide road stretching out at length behind Lead. The hall connecting it to the east and west. From all directions, groups of patrolling Enemies were thundering toward them. But why on earth—they were definitely out of visual range. After a stunned moment of thought, Haruyuki finally realized it.

The high-level Enemies were drawn by the Incarnate waves.

The Incarnate technique Trilead had activated to break the seal on the gate, Heavenly Stratus, was the highest-level attack Haruyuki had seen up to that point. Using it in an open space where they were in plain sight, it was no wonder a wide range of Enemies would get aggro.

“L-Lead!” Haruyuki shouted, and quickly stretched out his right hand. “Hurry and grab on! You, too!!”

However…

The azure samurai simply smiled, a tinge of sadness in the calmness of it, and shook his head slightly. “No, I cannot go. Please, the two of you leave on your own.”

“Wh-why?! If you stay here, the Enemies’ll destroy you!!”

There were more than ten of the massive-framed knights and wizards, all seething with palpable animosity as they surged toward them. Even a master like Lead, armed with the Infinity, couldn’t take on that many alone.

But before that, even, Haruyuki had unquestioningly assumed the whole time that Trilead would naturally be escaping with them. Which was why he had put off all the many things he wanted to ask the other Burst Linker, all the things he wanted to talk about. And yet, being separated for life here on opposite sides of unopening gates, he had no idea when they’d be able to meet again.

“Y-you can’t! Lead!!” Haruyuki shouted with all the voice he could muster and stretched out his hand even farther.

But Trilead took a large step back and pointed at the south gate with the sword in his hand. “You must go!! As long as I’m here, I won’t end up in a state of unlimited EK! And…I cannot leave this palace yet!! But I promise you, I will meet you and Maiden once again one day. And then I will tell you everything. The reason why this palace exists in the Accelerated World, the reason why it is so fiercely guarded—everything I know about it!!”

Faced with the firm spirit of the young samurai and his resolute declaration, Haruyuki could say nothing more.

“Shall we go, C?” Utai said sharply from his side. “Our staying here now will only make Lead’s sacrifice be in vain!”

“Hngh!” Haruyuki closed his eyes tightly for a second, and when he opened them again, he was resolved; the wings on his back vibrated lightly. The thrust they generated pulled the two avatars soundlessly upward.

From an altitude of about two meters, Haruyuki shouted briefly, in a voice filled with a flood of emotion, “Lead. See you!”

The young samurai grinned. “Yes. See you!”

The two words were the promise young children exchanged in the evening to meet again the next day. Suppressing tears as he looked back, Haruyuki heard, mixed in with the footfalls of the herd of Enemies closing in, Lead’s final words.

“Trilead Tetroxide is the name my parent gave me. My real name is…”

Checking the impulse to look at Lead once more, Haruyuki flapped both wings vigorously. As the two avatars charged toward the southern gate of the Castle, narrowly opened with just a seam, a voice like the deep blue of a cool breeze pushed at their backs.

“…Azure Air!”