2

A bright January 22. Thursday, 12:05 PM.

Rubbing eyes that hadn’t gotten enough sleep, Haruyuki walked down the hallway on the first floor of Umesato Junior High School toward the student cafeteria.

The night before, he had, in the end, slept in his own room while his second cousin Tomoko—or rather, the Red King in that guise—slept on the sofa bed in the living room. But he clearly lacked the intestinal fortitude to sleep soundly in such a situation.

What exactly was the Red King’s objective? Why put on the sweet younger sister act at first and bake cookies? And what was she planning to discuss when she met Kuroyukihime, otherwise known as the Black King?

Although he tried to seriously contemplate these and other questions, no matter what he did, the scene in the bath kept repeating in Haruyuki’s mind. Aaaah, that makes me a real perv, but I can’t help it. I’m a thirteen-year-old boy, after all. But I have Kuroyukihime…

Dawn broke with him still agonizing, so Haruyuki tossed back a breakfast of cereal, trying not to wake the deeply sleeping Red King, and left the house early. He managed to make it through his morning classes somehow with the help of the alarm on his Neurolinker, but as lunch break drew near, he roused himself a bit through self-interest, excited at the prospect of seeing Kuroyukihime again that day, enough that he flew out of the classroom the second the bell rang.

Stepping into the still nearly deserted cafeteria, he weaved around several long tables that were lined up and practically ran into the adjacent lounge.

She was seated at the farthest of the elegant, white, round tables arranged in a circle. Haruyuki forgot to breathe as he stared at the black-clad silhouette perched there. She almost looked as though she was glowing faintly, radiating softly from the midwinter sunlight falling on her as it poured in through the window at her back.

He had seen this same scene countless times over these last three months, but the painful throbbing that filled his heart every time showed not the slightest sign of abating. He even felt as if the fact that this tableau, a perfect painting, existed again today was akin to a miracle.

Resting her chin in her hands gently, looking down at an enormous book that rested upon the table, the girl called Kuroyukihime finally lifted her head soundlessly. The soft sun sparkled as it slid along the long black hair flowing over her shoulders. Her beautiful face broke into a light smile, a ring of flowers blooming in an unsullied snowy plain.

“Hey. Morning, Haruyuki.”

Even in the midst of his bliss at hearing his name spoken in her low, silky voice once more, Haruyuki felt ashamed recalling his recent and copious clumsy defeats, so as he walked over to the table, he bowed his head.

“Good morning! You, uh—”

You look beautiful again today.

Was what he desperately wanted to say, but he was completely incapable of uttering anything like that using his actual voice. He was forced to let something else emerge from his mouth. “You’re early again today, huh? I’ve never been able to get here before you.”

“It’s only natural. The seventh-grade classrooms are on the third floor, and the eighth-grade classrooms are on the second floor, after all.” Her face clear, she shrugged lightly.

After pulling out the chair next to her and sitting down, Haruyuki replied, “I—I guess that makes sense. So then every day, you—”

“And rather than make you wait, I prefer to wait myself. That way, I can remember every instant of this precious time, right from the moment you appear at the entrance.” She smiled again, her lips the petals of a black lily opening.

Joyful and daunted in equal measure that those words and that smile were directed at his fat, ugly self, Haruyuki slowly exhaled through pudgy lips the breath he’d momentarily held.

I seriously can’t believe it. That this dreamlike, amazing upperclassman and the demonic Spartan instructor in the Accelerated World are actually the same person.

He personally would rather have spent as much time as possible with the former, but he expected that wasn’t likely to happen today. Once he explained the situation spilling over from last night, there was no doubt that the gentle Kuroyukihime would immediately transform into the terrifying water lily of black death.

He was just thinking how he wanted to stare at her for even a second longer, like a love-struck little girl, when she opened her mouth.

“That reminds me. When you called last night. What was that? You suddenly stop talking in the middle of the conversation, and then you abruptly say good night and hang up. I believe…I believe you were saying something about the Red King?”

“Oh…um…right…”

During that one second when I was silent, I was fighting the Red King herself.

She wouldn’t believe him if he just blurted out something like that. Because the level-nine Kings no longer had any need to earn Burst Points in normal duels to level up, they almost never appeared on the battlefield.

With no other options, Haruyuki resigned himself to telling her everything. The whole kit and caboodle, from start to finish, beginning with the “Big brother! You’re home!” part—although he’d have to omit the problematic scene in the bath.

Several minutes later.

Kuroyukihime, her expression now a mixture of 30 percent amazement and 70 percent anger, raised a tightly clenched fist into the air while slowly inhaling.

That fool! Goddamn her!

She very nearly shouted in anger and pounded the table but checked herself at the last minute because there were several other students carrying lunch trays into the lounge now. They shot glances at Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime, the usual expressions of disbelief despite the fact that it was a familiar sight by now, and occupied tables a slight distance away.

Unlike Haruyuki, Kuroyukihime paid no attention to the other students as she took several deep breaths, fist still poised five centimeters or so above the table. Finally, she brought the hand down with a thud.

“I really want to…I want to say, you should have seen through her right from the start, but…a social engineering attack like this is certainly beyond all expectation. And carried out by the Red King herself no less.”

“Right? Right.” Relieved to have avoided a serious eruption, Haruyuki bobbed his head up and down.

Her expression finally settling into a wide, bitter smile, Kuroyukihime shook her head several times and said in a low voice, “Well…it’s not as if there isn’t an aspect of this that isn’t quite lucky. A direct duel with a King is precious. You could never buy such an experience, no matter how many Burst Points you accumulated. How was she then, the second Red King?”

“Ridiculous. With one move, she sent half the government building flying…and she smashed my place in one go basically.” Haruyuki recalled again that transcendental heat power and shuddered all over.

Watching him, Kuroyukihime laughed softly. “That type of thing is precisely the might of a singular specialized ability. I’ve heard that Scarlet Rain put all of her level-up bonuses into enhancing her long-range heat attack. Which reminds me, did the Red King move during your duel?”

“Huh?” For a moment, Haruyuki failed to grasp the meaning of the question and blinked furiously before quickly realizing what Kuroyukihime had left unsaid.

Right. Now that he thought about it, the Red King Scarlet Rain had transformed into her duel avatar before his eyes, clad herself in that fortresslike heavy armament, and then hadn’t moved an inch until she finally cut loose with her antiaircraft free-for-all after leveling Haruyuki’s condo.

Abruptly, he stopped shaking his head.

That wasn’t right. At the very end of the end of the duel, when she dodged Haruyuki’s full-speed plummet attack, the Red King definitely moved, although only by a single step—

“Oh, she did move. But it was only, like, five centimeters or so.”

Hearing this, Kuroyukihime finally grinned again and clapped her hands together. “Well! That’s really something! Scarlet Rain’s other name, Immobile Fortress, was given to her not because she never moves, but because she never has to move. According to the rumors, in a large-scale battle—large enough to rouse the interest of the second Red King—she slaughtered nearly thirty enemies without moving one step from the coordinates where she appeared.”

“Whoa…” Haruyuki gasped reflexively. And there he was, charging an opponent like that head-on. Ignorance was a terrifying thing. “I-if I’d known all that, I would’ve surrendered as soon as the duel started. I mean, you know you’re up against a King, you flat-out say no before you even get to the duel. But from the whole ‘Six Kings of Pure Color’ bit, I just sort of assumed that the Red King was for sure a red something or other,” he said.

Still with a smile on her face, Kuroyukihime replied, “Which is why I said on the phone that you need to study more. In the Accelerated World, crowning the red symbol, none other than Red Rider—” Having gotten this far, she stopped abruptly.

Haruyuki stared, dumbfounded, as the vestiges of the smile on her lips melted away and disappeared. The blood drained from her white skin, turning it pale like ice.

“K-Kuroyukihime…?”

“No, it’s nothing.” The voice and wide eyes offering this reply to Haruyuki’s question, however, were completely lifeless.

Ruled by an empty expression, Kuroyukihime slowly turned her face downward. He saw her right hand, still on the table, tremble, and he finally—and quite belatedly—realized the reason for her reaction.

The previous Red King. Red Rider.

This was the first time he had heard the name from her mouth. But he already knew why the Burst Linker with that name had left the Accelerated World. Two years earlier, Kuroyukihime—the Black King known as Black Lotus—had chopped his head off with her own hands. But she’d done so while they were at a meeting of the Seven Kings, rather than in the usual duel field, taking her speechifying opponent by surprise.

The cruel reality of battle between level-nine Burst Linkers was that if you were defeated just once, you lost all your Burst Points. Naturally, it went without saying that total point loss meant the permanent loss of Brain Burst itself.

Staring at Kuroyukihime’s pale hands clasped tightly on the table, Haruyuki asked, half involuntarily, “Kuroyukihime…was the former Red King…to you, was…”

Was he not just a friend, but someone more special?

At the last second, he was self-aware enough to see that this question came from his own jealousy rather than concern for the person in front of him, and Haruyuki clamped his mouth shut in the middle of asking. He then bowed his head low. “I’m sorry. I’m being thoughtless. Last night on the phone, too…and this question now. I’m sorry, I really am.”

“…No. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” Her voice was husky, having lost all smoothness. “This is the path I chose. It’s immature of me to react like this. Heh…I thought I had come to terms with all of this inside myself quite some time ago. After all, I made up my mind that every other Burst Linker is an opponent, that is, an enemy. But catch me by surprise, and look what happens. It’s the height of ridiculousness.” She laughed gravely and repositioned her right hand to rest on her knee.

Haruyuki spontaneously reached forward to envelop that hand. Kuroyukihime gasped and pulled hers back firmly, but Haruyuki resisted the tug with an uncharacteristic obstinance.

Although she was bathed in sunlight from the window, she was cold like a stone statue. So much so that he could practically hear the creaking as her tendons stiffened to their limits.

Summoning every bit of body heat he had to try and warm her hand, Haruyuki opened his mouth. “I—I…”

Despite the fact that he had a clear idea in his head of what he wanted to say, the ability to put it into words did not follow. As if unaware of the glances turned toward them from the lounge—which was quickly filling with students—Haruyuki moved his mouth desperately. “I absolutely will not fight you. I absolutely will not be an enemy. You’re my ‘guardian,’ and I’m your ‘child.’ Before we’re fighters, we’re family, right?”

The silence continued momentarily before Kuroyukihime finally lifted her face, staring slightly upward at Haruyuki and nodding slowly. She smiled faintly, as if somehow sad.

“Shall we go someplace else?” She nearly sighed the words, but she did manage to return her right hand to its resting spot, unhindered this time.

She stood up smoothly and started to walk, carrying the hardcover book with her. Following her back, Haruyuki asked, “Wh-where?”

Somewhere we can be alone.

Instead, Kuroyukihime’s response was exceedingly businesslike. “We can’t exactly decide how to handle Scarlet Rain with just the two of us, can we? This type of thing has to be discussed by the entire Legion. We’ll buy some sandwiches or something for lunch.”

“Oh…r-right.” Haruyuki bobbed his head up and down as he felt simultaneously disappointed and relieved by Kuroyukihime’s return to normal.

The Black Legion, Nega Nebulus.

In contrast to the majestic scale of the name—Dark Nebula—the Legion was extremely small, made up at present of just three people, the last of whom responded to Haruyuki’s mail with “I’m on the roof.”

Pulling his neck in at the blast of cold air when he opened the steel door, Haruyuki was just able to make out a single person sitting on a bench way off to the side. Even as he hurried over, the figure sat so still that Haruyuki could almost imagine him as an actual painting, although of a different nature than Kuroyukihime’s.

Tall frame, thin, but solid with muscle. The profile beneath the longish bangs, gently ruffled by a soft wind, held a calm sharpness reminiscent of a Japanese sword. Facing slightly downward, the fingers of his right hand were racing along in the air, likely operating a holo keyboard; but even this movement conjured thoughts of a samurai seated in Zen meditation somehow.

Hearing their footsteps, the young man raised his head, and Haruyuki lifted a quick hand. “Hey! Sorry for bugging you when you’re studying. But do you have to do every single thing in this stupid-cold place, Taku?”

Takumu Mayuzumi—Taku, Haruyuki’s childhood friend and battle companion—grinned from behind frameless glasses. “Doesn’t the sun feel good today, though? You should get some sun sometimes, too, Haru.” He then stood up briskly and bowed deeply to Kuroyukihime, who stood behind Haruyuki.

“Good morning, Master!”

“Mmm, morning, Takumu.” Dipping her head, Kuroyukihime brought a wide, wry grin to her face. “As I’ve told you countless times, although it is true that I am the Legion Master, there is absolutely no need to always refer to me by that title.”

“Apologies. But it really works best for me.” Takumu took a slight step and gestured with his left hand toward the bench where he had been seated up to then.

Still wearing that same grin, Kuroyukihime sat, crossing her thin, black-encased legs before she arched a single questioning eyebrow, looked at Takumu, and said, “Excuse Haruyuki and me as we eat lunch here. And you? What about your lunch?”

“Yes, I’ve already eaten.”

Haruyuki looked and saw a lunch box neatly wrapped up in a corner of the bench. He felt like he had seen the cloth covering it before and remarked lightly, “Chiyu made that, right? In which case, the two of you should have eaten together!”

Takumu turned a bitter smile toward him. “We’re not like you and Master. We don’t have the kind of relationship where we can be all openly lovey-dovey at school.”

“W-we’re not lovey-dovey!”

“We are not lovey-dovey.”

When Haruyuki denied the charge in concert with Kuroyukihime, Takumu grinned and pushed his glasses up with a fingertip. “Talk about how you guys just sit and stare at each other in the lounge every day, this fluffy pink halo hovering over you, has made it all the way to my class even. Well, anyway, whatever. I’ve stopped rushing. I’ll redeem myself bit by bit for all the things I need to redeem myself for.”

Haruyuki put on a serious face and nodded. “…Right.”

A mere two weeks earlier, Takumu had transferred from the school in Shinjuku he had been attending for seven years to Umesato JH the day the third term started. His old school was integrated from elementary all the way through to university, so Haruyuki had said it was a waste to transfer and tried to stop him. He remembered how hard little Takumu had worked for the entrance exam. But Taku’s resolve was firm.

It wasn’t for some pessimistic reason, like the fact that Shinjuku was a battlefield under Blue Legion control. Takumu had decided to put all of his time toward atoning for his crimes—hacking the Neurolinker of his childhood friend and girlfriend, Chiyuri Kurashima, breaking the rules of the Accelerated World, hunting Kuroyukihime.

An atonement that consisted primarily of always being by Chiyuri’s side and continuing to fight desperately to protect Suginami, the territory of Nega Nebulus. Haruyuki wondered if even the glasses he had started wearing this winter were a show of this resolve.

As of the present, the year 2047, glasses had lost their original function as a tool to correct vision and had become a fashion item because the Neurolinkers on everyone’s necks were equipped with powerful visual compensation. But Takumu’s blue glasses were not an accessory. The lenses were the real prescription deal. In other words, Takumu had stopped using his Neurolinker to correct the nearsightedness that was a consequence of studying too much with paper media and panel terminals.

As powerful as the Neurolinker was, it didn’t have the power to adjust the focus of the crystalline lens of a flesh-and-blood eyeball. Instead, it synthesized the blurry visual field captured by nearsighted eyes with the images from the Neurolinker’s internal camera and corrected the perceived scene digitally in real time. Which meant that over half of the world seen by people using the Neurolinker instead of glasses was made up of virtual images generated by the CPU.

Takumu had rejected that function and apparently decided to see the real world with his own eyes. The real Chiyuri, the real Haruyuki, his own real self.

At some point, even Chiyuri, as awkward and weird as she still is right now, is going to see how you feel, Takumu. You’ve already shown her plenty what those feelings are.

Haruyuki wanted to say this to his friend, but it was pretty difficult. Despite what he said, Takumu sometimes got a look in his eyes like he was still tormenting himself. The same look Kuroyukihime got in her eyes when the topic of the previous Red King came up.

Shaking off these random thoughts, Haruyuki sat down next to Kuroyukihime and opened up his lunch bag. As he stuffed his face with a pork cutlet sandwich, he explained the situation once again, this time to Takumu, who was leaning up against the fence facing them.

Once he had finished listening to the whole story with wide eyes, Takumu nodded briefly. “Hmm.”

“What do you think, Taku?”

“Well, even if we tried to guess what the Red King intends to say to Master, we don’t have enough data to make those guesses meaningful. But I feel like I understand what she was planning to do if she had been able to keep up the charade for three days without exposing her true identity to you.”

“Wow!”

“Oh ho!”

Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime let out exclamations at the same time, and Takumu turned toward them to continue speaking, the lenses of his glasses sparkling.

“Given your personality, Haru, if you had lived with her for three days, you’d have ended up fairly attached to your ‘little sister.’ And if she had said something along the lines of ‘The truth is, I’m a Burst Linker. But because I’m a kid, all the big kids in the Legion steal the points I worked so hard to collect. Please, big brother, join my Legion and protect me!’…”

“Now really! That’s ridiculous!” Kuroyukihime shouted, astonished. “Would anyone get tripped up by such an obvious trap? Quite the opposite, I would think; it would be plain as day that she would strip away all your points. However inclined Haruyuki might be, he would never…”

Here, she glanced over at Haruyuki.

“He…would never…”

She was speechless. Probably because she noticed Haruyuki was involuntarily tearing up.

“What is wrong with you?!”

“I-it’s just…I mean, bullying, poor thing…”

As soon as he spoke, Kuroyukihime reached out with her left hand to pinch Haruyuki’s cheek and yank it. “Whah haa ee oin oo do?”

“I’ll tell you right now,” Kuroyukihime whispered, glaring at him with eyes lit by an ember deep within. “You try anything noble like temporarily moving to another Legion to help your little sister, and you won’t be coming back.”

“Huh? Hai’s aat?”

Releasing his cheek with a snap, the master of the Nega Nebulus Legion answered in a tone dialed up to evoke maximum terror. “You can’t have forgotten. What was the fate of Takumu’s ‘guardian,’ the senior Blue Legion member who disseminated that back door?”

“Uh, um…I’m pretty sure there was talk of a total point loss…so, uh, a revocation of Brain Burst…”

In front of Haruyuki, Takumu cocked his head and added by way of explanation, “About that ‘total loss.’ It’s not as if he was thrown into duels and forced to fight until all his Burst Points were gone. In practice, that’s just not possible. If you simply disconnected from the global net and removed your Neurolinker the moment the first duel was over and the acceleration released, you could escape the duels and the loss of points for the time being. Although the fate awaiting you after that would be being chased for the bounty, like Master here.”

“Uh…uh-huh. Right.”

“But you don’t need to go to all that trouble. The Legion Master has a simpler method of ‘executing’ subordinates.”

“Wh-what?! I haven’t heard anything about that!!” This was complete news to Haruyuki, and he whirled his head around to look at Kuroyukihime next to him.

The older student, expression serene, opened up her right hand in a shrug. “It’s written right there in the document shown when you apply to join a Legion. It’s your fault for not reading it. And I don’t have any particular reason to execute you, do I? Other than, of course, if you cheat on me with some other girl.”

Grin.

That smile, so full of affection, made him sit up perfectly straight. “I—I would never do that. B-but I kinda want to know this as a thing to know. Execution…what specifically does that…?”

“Mmm. Yes…well, we could call it a type of special attack. The moment you apply to the system to create a Legion and are registered as its master, it appears in your command list; the name of the technique is fixed. Very decisively, Judgment Blow.”

“Judgment…,” Haruyuki muttered, and Kuroyukihime turned her eyes softly from him, continuing her explanation with an increasingly serious expression.

“By joining a Legion, that is, a team, a Burst Linker obtains a large measure of security. Group battles reduce your risk and also stabilize your returns. As compensation for that advantage, there is the Judgment Blow. To participate in a Legion is to submit your life to its master. Legion members who receive this blow have their points zeroed out immediately and lose Brain Burst forever. The term of validity of this attack is during the period of Legion membership and one month after leaving the Legion.”

“E-even a month later?”

“Mmm. That is to say, if you were disappointingly deceived by the Red King’s social engineering, if you were to leave Nega Nebulus and join the Red Legion for even a short time, in that instant, you…It would be the same as giving her the power of life and death over Silver Crow.”

“Whaaaat…” was all he could say.

In all honesty, he couldn’t deny the possibility that he would have totally bought into the Red-King-as-his-second-cousin-Tomoko thing if he hadn’t found that picture on his grandparents’ home server. And after sleeping and waking up together for two nights like that, if she had come at him with the “Actually, I” attack Takumu guessed at earlier, he might have even given into his emotions and casually joined the Red Legion. It definitely could have happened.

However.

“But why?” Haruyuki spat out, looking at Kuroyukihime and Takumu in turn. “Why would the Red King go to all that hassle…?”

“And so we arrive inevitably at that question,” Kuroyukihime growled. “Hmm…There’s no reason to go so far as to put on this little suicide show, get Haruyuki to join the Red Legion, and obtain his loyalty by holding the Judgment Blow over his head. Not to mention that a Legion member with no sense of belonging to the Legion does no good and quite a bit of harm. Which means…”

Takumu picked up the thread as he pushed up the bridge of his glasses with his middle finger. “Which means there’s something she wants to make Haru do just once. Just one time, and she could threaten him to make him do it. That must be what she was thinking. So then, this ‘something’ should be what the Red King plans to bring up with Master later. Since her little-sister cover was blown, maybe she’s changed her strategy from the backdoor tactic she was working before?”

“Hmm.” After growling in a low voice once again, Kuroyukihime looked up at Takumu. “How can I put this?…You’re starting to look good for this.”

“S-sorry? For what, Master?”

“The glasses character. How about we call you ‘Professor’ from now on, Takumu?”

Sliding his back down the fence propping him up, Takumu moved his head sharply from side to side. “N-no…I do appreciate it, but I’ll pass.”

Haruyuki worked hard to suppress the urge to laugh and said, “I-I think Taku’s right. In the duel yesterday, the Red King could’ve mopped the floor with me, but she didn’t. Instead, she told me to set up a meeting with Kuroyukihime. Which means she’s choosing to negotiate as her Plan B, so isn’t that basically a declaration that her intent is nonhostile?”

“You’ve finally said something sensible!” Kuroyukihime hummed and recrossed her legs. She crushed the paper that had been the wrapper for the sandwich she’d just finished and sank it in the garbage can a ways off, in an incredible overhand throw. “But, well, fine. If she wants to talk, I’ll listen. At the very least, the sheer nerve of the King herself coming along, knowing full well that it outs her in the real world, is impressive, and in a child, no less. Haruyuki, call the Red King. The meeting will be today at four PM, the place—”

Here, Kuroyukihime cut herself off and stood up. She whirled around and grinned.

“Your living room.”

Th-th-th-th-that’s too soon I’m not ready we’re honorable and just junior high students.

The confused, rambling refusal Haruyuki was preparing was dodged by Kuroyukihime with a simple: “It’s all right for the Red King, but not me?”

Takumu invited Chiyuri to walk home with him, saying that he would come to Haruyuki’s place after that, so inevitably, Haruyuki went home alone with Kuroyukihime.

Glancing over at Kuroyukihime as she walked along revealed her to be exchanging cheerful greetings with many other students while she kept one hand on her holo keyboard. She was most likely bringing student council work home as usual, but Haruyuki’s thoughts were new and frantic.

Let’s see, the living room, kitchen, and toilet should all be nice and clean. And we have tea and snacks. The problem is my room. Especially that blood-decorated, M-rated collection of games from the beginning of the century. If she saw those, I’d never be able to come back from that.

He had to defend his room to the last. No matter what happened. He could not unlock that electronic key. Having made this resolution, Haruyuki glared at his condo building, just barely peeking out on the other side of the elevated Chuo Line track.

He got the unusually silent Kuroyukihime on the elevator, pushed a button, and got off on the twenty-third floor. All that was left was to walk a dozen meters along the shared outdoor corridor, and then they would be at his door.

“Um…my house is basically nothing special, it’s just a regular house. We don’t have any pets, either.”

“I—I see. Not a problem. I hate shedding animals.” Kuroyukihime coughed and stopped in Haruyuki’s footsteps.

Please don’t let anything happen! Prayer uttered, Haruyuki touched the unlock dialogue that floated up into his field of view. The click of the lock being released followed.

As soon as he yanked on the pull-type doorknob, Haruyuki’s ears picked up the rat-a-tat-tat of the consecutive fire of a machine gun, a cry of, “Aah! Help me!” in English, and a girl screaming, “Yaah! Die! You’re dead!”

“Aaaugh!!” Haruyuki cried in turn as he ran straight into the living room, removing his shoes being too much to deal with at that moment.

There he saw a previous-generation game console connected to the panel monitor on the wall, cases from his M-rated game collection scattered all over the floor, and the figure of the Red King sitting cross-legged on the sofa gripping a wireless controller.

“Wh-wha—My room…locked…” Haruyuki took a step into the living room, mouth flapping, and the Red King glanced back at him.

“Oh, you’re home! Big brother, this is quite the hobby you’ve got. I love this kind of thing!”

Next to Haruyuki, standing stock-still with all thought processes stopped, he heard a slightly stunned voice. “Well, I can’t say I hate it myself. The Western games from this era did have a certain philosophy. Mmm.”

At exactly that moment, an older mafia don character was blasted away in a splash of blood on the large monitor.

“Yes! That’s five cleared!”

Looking down at the elementary school girl posing triumphantly, Haruyuki muttered hollowly once again, “How…? It was locked…”

The Red King paused the game and finally turned her entire body around. She stared first at Haruyuki, then at Kuroyukihime next to him, before smiling like an angel, red pigtails bouncing. “I told you, didn’t I? That your mom gave me a spare key for your place. It’s easy enough to fiddle with that a bit and make it a master key. But don’t worry, big brother. I didn’t touch the other kind of M-rated games behind your reference books!”

His life was over…

His bag fell with a thud from his right hand, which had lost the ability to hold things. The Red King turned her gaze from the gobsmacked Haruyuki to stare at Kuroyukihime again, innocent expression wiped from her face.

Putting the controller aside, the girl lifted both legs and leaped down from the sofa. Her clothing was no longer the simple, pure white blouse and navy skirt of the day before. She was draped in a bright red T-shirt, black vest with a zipper overtop, and cut-off jeans that showed her slim legs right up to the base, accented with red and black-striped thigh-high socks. And around her neck glittered a Neurolinker with a semitransparent, ruby-like exterior.

The girl, clad in colors like the bright blaze of a fire, took a few steps forward, dangerous smile still playing around the edges of her mouth, and next to Haruyuki directly confronted Kuroyukihime.

In stark contrast in black, not a single color on her body as if she were an aggregate of cold darkness, the junior high school girl returned an aloof gaze and a cool smile.

He could almost see the blue-white sparks crackling between the two of them and steadily retreated, momentarily forgetting the disastrous scene in the living room.

They’re not actually going to just dive into a duel right here, are they?

He observed them with serious misgivings as the Red King placed both hands on her hips, lifted her sharp chin, and spoke without even a trace of the demure-sister act from earlier.

“Hmph, so you’re the Black King. I get it. You sure are black. I wouldn’t be able to see you at night, even if you were standing right in front of me.”

Her usual sharp self, Kuroyukihime returned, arms folded, “And you are actually scarlet, Red King. It’d be interesting to hang you in an intersection and make cars stop.”

The sparks increased a level in voltage, and Haruyuki took another step back, silently screaming.

These two were both level-nine Kings. Special rules applied if they got into a duel, and the loser would be unceremoniously stripped of Brain Burst. They certainly wouldn’t enter into that fight lightly, but the low threshold of Kuroyukihime’s flash point went without saying, and the Red King was doubtless a no less short-tempered personality.

I—I have to throw myself between them!

Haruyuki resolved to nobly sacrifice himself. “U-uh, I sure am happy I get to have a cute little sister and a beautiful older one all at once!” he said, scratching the back of his head with one hand. He turned a sheepish grin on them before he heard:

“I will kill you again.”

“What is wrong with you?”

Two extracold voices lashed out at him simultaneously, piercing his brow and his heart.

No longer bothering to even glance at Haruyuki, staggering and crumbling, the two Kings continued to face off for another few seconds before finally averting their gazes together with disdainful sniffs.

After going a step further and clicking her tongue as if to nail an extra bonus, the Red King looked down on Haruyuki. “Hey, hurry up and make some tea. Don’t you have any manners?”

“Oh, Haruyuki. I’ll have coffee, black.”

I like second cousin Tomoko from yesterday better, all baking me cookies and making me curry and stuff.

Honestly dejected, Haruyuki retreated to the kitchen on all fours, positioned himself where the two of them couldn’t see him, and gently wiped the corners of his eyes.

Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime sat down next to each other at the large dining table while the Red King perched cross-legged on a chair on the other side. Just as they were sipping their coffees—Kuroyukihime’s black, Haruyuki’s with milk and sugar, and the Red King’s essentially a café au lait made of milk alone—the door chime finally rang.

“Wow, this takes me back!” Takumu’s cheerful voice called out as he came inside, the door unlocked remotely by Haruyuki. “How many years has it been since I came over here, Ha—”

And then he saw the devastation on the living room floor, immediately grasped that something of some import had happened, and clapped Haruyuki on the shoulder lightly, sympathy rising up behind his glasses.

Next, he looked at the Red King, and after narrowing his eyes for a moment, he set himself down next to her without a word. A cup of coffee with only a little milk was already waiting there for him, and he mumbled his thanks as he stretched out a hand. Affably, he offered, “First, how about we start by introducing ourselves? It would make sense for you to tell us your name, I think, Red King.”

The girl sniffed quickly, but at the hard look Takumu shot her, she opened her mouth. “Well, whatever. I can do that much for you at least. I’m…Yuniko. Yuniko Kozuki.”

She followed that with a snap of her fingers, and a crimson name tag popped up in Haruyuki’s field of vision, inscribed with “Yuniko Kozuki” in a rather cute font. Although it was a business card sort of thing to give people you were just meeting, it was also a simple ID card. In the bottom right corner of the tag, a resident net certification mark glittered, and given the fact that even a wizard-level hacker would have a tough time forging this, the name on the tag had to be real.

The only other thing on the tag was her date of birth. Born December 2035, which meant she had just turned eleven.

There was often a discrepancy between the mental and physical ages of Burst Linkers, but in the case of the Red King—Yuniko—there was something that was hard to pin down. Sometimes, she seemed much more mature than Haruyuki, and other times, she was more like the girl her tag said she was.

“Hmm, Yuniko, huh?”

Tomoko-now-Yuniko gave the grinning Takumu a suspicious look. “Now what’s your name, Cyan Pile?” Which meant the Red King had already done a fair bit of checking into Nega Nebulus.

Takumu had also likely made that assumption, and while his smile warped to include a hint of cynicism, he obediently voiced his real name. “I’m Takumu Mayuzumi. A pleasure.” He slid a gentle finger, probably sending the Red King his name tag.

Yuniko momentarily stared into space, then turned her gaze on Haruyuki before her, jerking her chin.

“Y-you already know my real name, don’t you? Haruyuki Arita.”

“Gimme your tag,” he was ordered, and he reluctantly turned to his desktop.

Finally, the eyes of all three fell on Kuroyukihime, who had stayed silent for this exchange. She lifted her face from her cup and blinked her long eyelashes slowly. “Hmm? Oh, is it my turn? I’m Kuroyukihime. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Yuniko Kozuki.”

“Come on! That’s not your real name!!” Yuniko shouted immediately, and Kuroyukihime flicked a finger coolly.

Instantly, a jet-black name tag appeared not only in front of the Red King, but also in Haruyuki’s field of vision.

KUROYUKIHIME

To the lower right of this, in a large Mincho font, the seal of resident net certification shone, and Haruyuki shook his head with a sigh. He really could not understand this girl.

The Red King released her breath slowly through her nose with an expression that was difficult to describe and finally clicked her tongue loudly. “Aah seriously, fine, whatever! I’ll just remember you’re totally shameless and actually have the nerve to call yourself ‘hime’ like a princess!”

Even if she was to force Kuroyukihime to give up her real name, Yuniko would have no positive proof that the next tag would be the real thing, either, since Kuroyukihime had clearly hacked the quantum cypher key of her tag.

Kuroyukihime finally smiled. “Much cuter than referring to oneself as ‘King,’ don’t you think?” she asked, complacent and cool. “In any case, now that the introductions have been concluded without incident, perhaps you will allow me to get straight to the point.” Her smile vanished, and her jet-black eyes were alight with a sharp gleam. “First of all, Red King—or rather, Yuniko. I must hear exactly how you cracked Haruyuki in the real.”

First staring blankly at this unexpected opening, Haruyuki belatedly held his breath.

Right. This is the thing we should be concerned about more than anything else. How the Red King disguised herself as my second cousin Tomoko, not just the reason she did. Cracking the real is the ultimate taboo for Burst Linkers. Because it was directly connected to the safety of one’s real-world self.

Glancing over at the now pale and easily read Haruyuki, Yuniko shrugged lightly. “You don’t need to make that face. Even in the Red Legion, the only one who knows you’re Silver Crow is me. I give you my word as King. As for how I pinned you down…” One corner of her mouth yanked its way up. “Same tech I used to sneak into this house. Social engineering. And in a way only an elementary school kid like me can do.”

“Huh? What do you mean…?”

“Everyone knows you guys’ territory is Suginami. And I guessed from the times you showed up that you were a junior high student. You following me so far?”

Because of the requirement that Burst Linkers must have been wearing a Neurolinker from birth, even the oldest ones were currently only sixteen. Strictly speaking, it was possible for some to be in tenth grade, but if they were students, the majority were in junior high, giving Yuniko’s guess legs.

Nodding sharply, the Red King tucked her chin in slightly and continued. “So, then I used the fact that I’m in elementary school and systematically applied for school visits to every single junior high in Suginami Ward. Cuz if you get a visitor’s pass, you can connect to the in-school local net. And then I just accelerate a bit while the teacher’s showing me around and take a look at the matching list—”

“Which means you could discover Silver Crow at any point. Hmm, extremely troublesome, but your method makes sense,” Kuroyukihime said, slightly vexed. “However. You couldn’t have known anything more than that he was one of the three hundred students attending Umesato. How on earth did you determine it was Haruyuki here?”

At this, the Red King pursed her lips and fell silent for a moment. Face downturned, she gave Haruyuki a sidelong scowl before producing a voice that sounded very much like like she was excusing herself.

“Listen, it’s not like I have any particular feelings for you one way or the other, okay? At best, it’s your duel avatar I got business with, or more like just the wings on your back. I found Silver Crow at Umesato Junior High, I set up camp at a restaurant where you could see the road between the school gates, and I accelerated whenever students came out on their way home. I can tell you, I was pretty surprised when this guy was the person at the gate when Silver Crow appeared on the matching list.”

Normally, this jab would’ve cut deeply, but right now, Haruyuki’s resources were stretched too thin for that. His eyes grew round, and he flapped his mouth a few times before timidly asking, “Exactly how many Burst Points did you use…?”

“’Round two hundred maybe.”

“T-two hundred!!” Haruyuki shouted, Takumu nearly dropped his cup, and Kuroyukihime offered a large, wry smile.

“I see. In other words, this is a method that only you, an elementary schooler who’s also a King with points to spare, could employ. However, well…your tenacity’s quite commendable. Have you really fallen so hard for Haruyuki?”

“That’s not it!!” Irrationally, she kicked Haruyuki’s shin with a bang under the table, and Haruyuki yelped.

“I told you!! My business is with the avatar, not the person inside!! I mean, if things had gone well, right about now I would’ve stolen him away and made him my subordinate!!”

“So, then,” Takumu said quietly, still smiling, almond eyes filled with a cool light, “this ‘business’ is the ultimate reason you expended two hundred points, cracked Haru in the real, threw yourself into a social engineering project, and asked for this meeting.”

As soon as he spoke, any hint of childishness was absent from Yuniko’s face. “That’s right,” the Red King agreed in a low voice, shaking her neatly bound red hair, entrusting her slim body to her seat back.

Her dark green eyes shot straight at Haruyuki from beneath half-closed lids. The pressure of that gaze was more than sufficient to remind him that even if she was a small girl, she was still a King like Kuroyukihime.

“The wings on your back…I want to borrow your flight ability, just once. To destroy the Armor of Catastrophe.”