5

“Unlimited burst!”

At the same time he shouted, lost in himself, an acceleration noise twice as loud as normal slammed Haruyuki’s consciousness. His vision blacked out momentarily.

But a silver light soon cut through the darkness: the effect light transforming his entire body into metallic steel.

In normal acceleration—with the “burst link” command—he would first become his pink pig avatar, but that phase was skipped here, and Haruyuki transformed directly into his pure silver duel avatar, Silver Crow.

The surrounding darkness was then blown away by a rainbow-colored light. From the other side of the radiating aura, there appeared the glittering of blue-black steel.

The place that should have been his living room had been metamorphosed into a cold, metallic corridor, almost like the castle of the king of hell in some fantasy film. The windows that opened to the south had disappeared, and several light blue flames flickered on walls and pillars sporting the design of several steel plates pulled together in the shape of radiating fins. A thick fog coiled around his feet, and the high ceiling was sunken in darkness, leaving him unable to really make it out.

The leaden place closely resembled a purgatory stage, but there was absolutely nothing organic about it. Haruyuki briefly surveyed that cold and linear scene that extended as far as the eye could see.

Reducing his focus, he saw three duel avatars standing very close to him:

Cyan Pile, dark blue armor on sturdy limbs, right hand equipped with its enormous Pile Driver.

Scarlet Rain, a lone handgun hanging from her slender, crimson-red frame.

And Black Lotus, shrouded in semitransparent, pure black armor, her four sharp, sword-shaped limbs glittering.

Haruyuki secretly swallowed back the feelings of inferiority welling up in him standing alongside Cyan Pile—Takumu, who was the same level as him—much less the two Kings, as he muttered, “This is the Unlimited Neutral Field…”

“It is,” Kuroyukihime affirmed in a voice distorted by a metallic effect as she turned around lightly. The tips of her toes essentially sharp sword points, Black Lotus did not walk normally, but rather hovered slightly above the floor.

Raising her right hand, the same elongated blade shape as her legs, Kuroyukihime indicated the end of the corridor. “That’s likely the exit. It would be faster to actually look.”

“Yeah. Let’s go.” Scarlet Rain—Niko—nodded, making her antennae-like pigtails bounce.

After walking a minute or so, an external white light started to shine in their path along the steel passageway, sinking into the heavy fog. Unconsciously quickening his pace, Haruyuki overtook the other three, cut around the bend to the left, and stared.

The place that had originally been the eastern wall facing the main street had changed into an open terrace, the entire area opened up to the outside. Their current location was still at a height equivalent to the twenty-third floor of his building, so the terrace offered an unbroken view of the outside world.

Tremendous. There was no other word.

In the sky, piles of thick gray clouds twisted, bluish-purple lightning frequently piercing the gaps between them. On the ground, like Haruyuki’s condo, the buildings were covered in a design of layered, sharp steel plates. The heart of Shinjuku, faint and hazy directly ahead of him, was now more jostling strongholds of evil armies than a group of skyscrapers. No matter how much he rubbed his eyes, he saw nothing moving. It was absolutely deserted.

The words “city of evil” lingering in the back of his mind, Haruyuki whispered to Kuroyukihime advancing to his side, “I’ve never seen a field like this before. What are its attributes…?”

“Chaos.” After giving this brief response, she turned eyes glowing violet toward Haruyuki and added, “You’ll understand what that means sooner or later. Anyway, Haruyuki. It’s all well and good to take in the view, but there’s something else you should have noticed first.”

“Huh…?” Haruyuki hurriedly swiveled his head through his surroundings before finally spotting what should have been the focus of his attention.

In the duel fields he’d visited up to now, his own and his enemy’s HP bars had always appeared in a fixed location in an upper portion of his field of vision, separated by a timer that started at 1,800 seconds and counted down the time remaining. Now, however, the only HP bar was his, and there was no sign of the count numbers.

Although the technical aspects of Brain Burst were the ultimate of the game apps Haruyuki had used so far, feeding back to players fields so detailed and apparently tangible to the senses that they were indistinguishable from actual sensory input, the game itself was the ancient and hoary one-on-one fighter. Despite the fact that the image before him had changed only slightly when he came to the Unlimited Neutral Field, it made him feel like the game had suddenly gotten a face-lift into a cutting-edge, large-scale net game, and Haruyuki shouted involuntarily, “Th-the time remaining’s gone?! What’s going on…?”

“That’s what going on.” It was Niko to his left who replied. “There’s no upper time limit for dives set here. That’s why it’s ‘Unlimited.’”

“What?!” At a loss for words yet again, Haruyuki considered seriously the implications of what he had just heard. “Uh, um. We are accelerated, right?”

“Yes, of course.” Kuroyukihime’s response set his thoughts whirling full speed again.

Brain Burst accelerated the consciousness of its users a thousand times and caused a full dive into a virtual field. So even if you used the full thirty minutes that was the usual upper limit for acceleration, a mere 1.8 seconds passed in the real world.

However, without that upper limit…

Spending just ten real-world minutes in this Unlimited Neutral Field, that would end up being ten thousand minutes—i.e., about 160 hours, i.e., about seven days. And if that was the case, what about spending the equivalent of a full day in the real world in this field?

After counting on his fingers, Haruyuki muttered in a hoarse voice, “Th-three years…”

What did that even mean? That was basically an eternity. Which meant, if you used this “unlimited burst,” no matter how much homework you had piled up, no matter how much you skipped out on studying for exams—

“You’d be better off giving up on that, Haru,” Takumu said from behind him, as if perfectly sussing out Haruyuki’s miscreant thoughts.

When he turned around, his friend shrugged the solid shoulders of his avatar and continued in a voice sporting a laugh, “I came here exactly once before. I got excited that time just like you. I even thought going home right away would be a waste. I mean, I had spent those ten burst points, so I just hung around for three days, inside time. When I got back to the real world, I had forgotten everything I was planning to do right before I accelerated. It totally sucked.”

“That’s right, Haruyuki. In just three days, you’ll simply forget what you were going to do, but if you spend, say, a month or six months here…” Kuroyukihime’s tone grew serious. “People are changed when they return. It’s only natural; in the worst-case scenario, the you you were and the soul you have are different ages. If you don’t want your family and friends eyeing you suspiciously, you should avoid coming here too often.”

The moment he heard that admonishment, a voice revived in the back of Haruyuki’s brain.

If you knew exactly how much time me and that girl there had spent in the Accelerated World up to now…

The words Niko had said smilingly the day before. So what made it meaningful was—

But before he could pursue that thought, the girl herself patted his shoulder lightly. “Anyway, let’s get moving already. Although we do have time to spare. When we accelerated, there were still two minutes real time before the train Cherry’s on gets to Ikebukuro.”

“R-right. So, moving…you mean, to Ikebukuro?”

Two minutes in the real world was more than thirty-three hours in the Accelerated World. Thinking that this was rather more than “time to spare,” Haruyuki turned his gaze to the northeast.

On the far side of the blue-black steel city that seemed to stretch on to infinity, he could make out an enormous structure dimly rising. If that was the massive shopping center Sunshine City in Ikebukuro, then the distance from here to there should have been the same as it was in the real world, six kilometers.

“Umm. Are we walking? Or running? Or?”

“Why would we do that? Why do you think you’re here?”

“Huh? What…”

The adorable crimson duel avatar at the other end of Haruyuki’s dumbfounded gaze clasped both hands tightly in front of her chest and tilted her head to one side.

“You’ll give us a big hug and carry us, right, big brother?”

After using Punch and Kick to destroy the obstacles—strangely shaped statues and iron lattices set on the open terrace—and building his special-attack gauge up to the maximum, Haruyuki turned around, muttering, “Let’s see.”

He saw the two Kings shoot dangerous looks at each other.

“I have no choice but to be held, not with these arms. You hang from Silver Crow’s legs.”

“You gotta be kidding! Why would I do something as humiliating as that? Your design’s the problem here. Take the train by yourself!”

Takumu pushed in between the two squaring off with each other and sending actual, not just metaphorical, sparks flying and sighed. “Okay, how about we do it like this? Master, Haru holds you with his right arm and the Red King with his left. And then I’ll hang from his legs. Can you do that, Haru?”

“Oh. Y-yeah, prob’ly. Although I probably won’t be able to go too fast.”

Stepping out in front of Niko and Kuroyukihime still looking dissatisfied, Haruyuki stretched out his right hand first.

“E-excuse me.” He got a firm hold on the slim waist above Black Lotus’s armor skirt with its black lotus flower design and then wrapped his left arm around Scarlet Rain’s even more slender torso.

Without a scrap of mental energy to spare on the excitement of having flowers in both arms, Haruyuki nervously focused his power in his shoulder blades and deployed the metal fins folded up on his back.

The wings, spreading with a cold shuffling sound, soon began to emit a light vibrating noise. The virtual lift power generated brought the tips of his toes up off the floor. After ascending very slowly to a height of 1.5 meters, Haruyuki went into hover mode.

“Climb on, Taku.”

“Thanks, Haru.” Soon enough, Cyan Pile’s sturdy arms were wrapped tightly around his calves.

“Okay, then…Here we go!” Haruyuki declared, oscillating his wings as hard as he could.

Although a load of three people was definitely appreciable, he still reliably ascended into the sky. The steel terrace immediately receded, and the deserted, strangely shaped city sprawled in all directions beneath their eyes.

“O-oh, wow!” Niko cried out from under his left arm. “We’re seriously flying! That’s Kannana Street…Is that the Chuo Line? Maybe I can see my school!”

For Haruyuki, the view from the sky was a familiar sight. Even with the restricted movement of a Normal Duel Field, visually, the whole of the Kanto region, not just Tokyo, could be taken in.

But no matter how many times he saw it, the deep emotion that pierced the depths of his heart showed no sign of abating. And this Unlimited Neutral Field, according to Kuroyukihime’s explanation, continued on without bounds to every nook and cranny the social camera net covered—in other words, the whole of Japan.

This was not on the scale of a game map anymore. It was a world.

“Right…so this…,” Haruyuki mumbled unthinkingly. “This right here is the Accelerated World. Always existing right next to the real world. Not momentarily, but a permanent world.”

“Exactly.” It was Kuroyukihime, whose body was entrusted to his right arm, who replied briefly. Sharp, shining eyes were turned on Haruyuki, and her voice flowed both severe and gentle at the same time. “And this is the Burst Linkers’ true battlefield. If you are aiming for level nine, one day you will have to fight in this place and come out victorious. Although now is not yet that time.”

Did that mean that his level wasn’t high enough yet, or that his own abilities weren’t enough?

Aware of a faint impatience biting into his heart, Haruyuki nodded slightly. “Right…a-anyway…”

“Hmm? What?”

“If this is the permanent map, then that means that Burst Linkers other than us are diving at this moment, right?”

“Totes.” It was Niko who responded.

“B-but the ratio—It doesn’t feel like there’s anyone at all here,” he said querulously, turning his face.

The strange city below him was replete with a cold silence; he couldn’t see a single thing moving. Haruyuki had thought there would definitely be duel avatars everywhere like in the usual duel field, so he couldn’t help but wonder at the quiet.

A laugh came quickly from Takumu, who dangled from his legs. “Ha-ha! Of course, Haru. Given the fact that there’s a grand total of only a thousand or so Burst Linkers, the number diving in the Unlimited Neutral Field at any given time is supposedly just barely a hundred. Put simply, it’s totally natural that you wouldn’t see anyone in a place like Suginami, where there’s nothing at all.”

“O-okay, then. So if we go more into the center of town?”

“That’s how it works. Which is exactly why we, and Cherry Rook, are headed for the Bukes.” Niko hit Haruyuki’s helmeted head lightly as she spoke. “But you keep floating like this without moving, and your gauge’ll run out.”

“Oh! R-right.” Haruyuki checked the blue special-attack gauge shining thinly below his HP gauge. Hovering didn’t use up much, but it was already down nearly 10 percent.

“Okay, I’ll head out on a direct course,” he announced, increasing his wings’ oscillation again.

They moved ahead, gliding directly below the twisting clouds. Soon enough, they crossed the deserted Kannana and entered Nakano Ward.

Haruyuki caught sight of the Chuo Line Bridge, supported by pillars with a ridiculously tapered design, and casually followed it to the end where he saw something unexpected and muttered quietly, “Ah! Th-the train’s moving?!”

Although it was a mere two-car configuration, a train-like, long, thin shadow was definitely moving in the direction of Shinjuku on the blackly lustrous rails, echoing solemnly.

“You can get on as well. Although it costs you points,” Kuroyukihime explained, somewhat delightedly, and his eyes popped unconsciously beneath his silver armor.

“What?! Wh-who’s driving it?!”

“Heh-heh, you should check yourself, one day.”

Even while they were having this conversation, the tracks quickly passed into the distance behind them, and the Yamanote Line appeared, as if to replace it. Once they got past that, they’d be in Mejiro, and Ikebukuro would soon follow.

In the real world, Haruyuki often went to buy older-generation games and used paper-media books, but access from Suginami was surprisingly poor. He either had to go out to Shinjuku by train or get a bus from Koenji, but either way, he was moving at right angles, so it took a while.

Carefree thoughts about how much easier it would be if he could fly there like this were spinning around in his head when Kuroyukihime, riding on his right arm, indicated the east side with the point of her sharp sword.

“See, Haruyuki? Take a look at that.”

Turning his gaze lazily in that general direction, Haruyuki was so shocked he nearly dropped the two Kings. He hurriedly strengthened his grip.

“Whoa! Wh-wha—?!”

An enormous shadow moved densely down Yamate Street—which was covered in a thick fog—a shadow that could only be described as strange. Its overall form was like a four-legged beast, but its torso was flat like a stingray, and from the place where its head should have been, countless feelers drooped down toward the ground. At the ends of its long, sturdy limbs, two sharp talons like those of an insect stretched out to the point of heinousness.

And its size…it had to have been at least as big as a three-story building. It completely occupied the three lanes into the city and was moving leisurely toward the south.

Feeling a heavy, low crunch shake the air each time its legs came into contact with the road, Haruyuki mumbled, dazed, “What…is that?”

“An Enemy. The inhabitants of this world, created and moved by the system.”

Picking up where Kuroyukihime left off, Niko whistled briefly, “You’re pretty lucky, you know, getting to see one that big right off the bat. But don’t get too close. We get targeted by that thing and even a group like this is gonna get slowed down.”

“Targeted…You mean, attacked?!”

“You do learn the meaning of the word ‘Enemy’ in junior high, right?”

With nothing to spare to react to Niko’s spiteful style, Haruyuki hurriedly gained altitude. The strange, enormous beast seemed not to notice the spectators in the sky and continued lumbering along.

“Wh-why would something so dangerous be part of the game?”

“Why? Well, that is…” Kuroyukihime started to answer and faltered. Niko and Takumu also appeared similarly pressed for a response, and Haruyuki cocked his head to one side.

“Oh!” Takumu, dangling from his legs, cried in a strained voice. “Look, it’s just starting. The hunt.”

“H-hunt…?”

The enormous beast suddenly roared as below their eyes it moved farther. Haruyuki abruptly flew up several meters.

“Whoa?!”

The beast stood on its hind legs and howled again, violently swinging its bundle of tentacles. But Haruyuki quickly realized that he and his companions had not incited this roaring.

There were several small shadows farther south on Yamanote Street.

At first, he thought they were other Enemies, but he soon gathered that this was not the case. The silhouettes were human shaped in various colors of armor—they were Burst Linkers.

A large one standing in front lifted its right hand swiftly and swung it downward. Immediately, a firing line of several beams and live ammunition surged from the roofs of the buildings lining both sides of the street and exploded against the monster’s skull.

Instantly, the Enemy, massive bulk reeling, emitted a strange howl of a war cry and turned its head toward one of the buildings. Scratching the air with its forelimb, it started advancing with a subterranean rumbling.

However, before its enormous bulk slammed into the building, the Burst Linkers who had taken up positions on the road launched a midrange attack. The beast, peppered by explosions, changed targets with an angry cry and plunged toward the Linkers exposed on the road.

“Ah! Watch out!” Haruyuki shouted automatically.

The beast brought its forelimb down from high in the air, smashing without the slightest resistance into the leader. Or at least that’s what it looked like, but the duel avatar, with its bluish-silver heavy armor, stopped the huge talons with crossed arms.

The idea was apparently not to stop and fight head-on then and there. The Linkers gradually retreated, all the while guarding against the fierce attacks of the rampaging beast. When they had drawn it sufficiently far away from the two buildings, another simultaneous launch came from the rooftops, hitting the base of the creature’s tail. The monstrosity changed directions on heavy feet and plunged toward the building on the east side, and this time, the ground troops chased after it to initiate a close-range attack.

“Fairly decent party. Good hate control. Who’s the leader?”

Niko responded to Kuroyukihime’s admiring tone. “Pretty sure it’s a senior member of the Green Legion. Although the party looks mixed.”

At this conversation, Haruyuki finally grasped the facts of the battle spreading out below his eyes. “I-Is that it…Those Burst Linkers aren’t being attacked by that huge monster. They’re targeting it and trying to bring it down, right?”

“Yes. It’s a hunt.”

“So then if they defeat it, they get experience poi—I mean, burst points?”

“Mmm-hmm. That’s the idea.”

Following the assenting Kuroyukihime’s lead, Niko patted Haruyuki on the head. “Even you should get it by now. The reason Enemies exist in the Unlimited Neutral Field is, ultimately, the reason the field exists at all. Burst Linkers can level up not just with regular duels, but by hunting and stuff here. But, you know—”

“It’s remarkably inefficient compared with duels. Even if you’re willing to risk the annihilation of your points to hunt a large monster at that level, you might, if you’re lucky, get what you’d get for winning a duel at the same level. Ten points.” Having picked up the explanation, Kuroyukihime paused there for a moment and lightly shook the mask of her elegant form. “There’s no avoiding that. Hunting Enemies in this world is essentially an act of generating burst points from nothing. Which is to say, in Brain Burst, which is at best a one-on-one fighting game, hunting in the Unlimited Field is basically nothing more than a supplementary means of point supply. However, currently, it has essentially become the lone road to a higher level. The reason being—”

“The mutual nonaggression pact, right?” Haruyuki murmured.

“Even if high-level Burst Linkers want to fight, they can’t just go invading another Legion’s Territory. And given that, the weekend Territory Battles aren’t functioning because of the pact…”

“But, Master,” Takumu said thoughtfully from Haruyuki’s feet as Silver Crow started to fly north again, moving them away from the fierce battle unfolding far beneath them, “if I’m correct, there’s just one more, isn’t there? A means of earning points to swiftly gain the higher levels with great efficiency, even given the current situation?”

“What? Taku, what do you…?”

“The thing is, in this world, there are things besides Enemies you can hunt. Prey with way, way more points.”

After sinking into thought for a moment, Haruyuki inhaled sharply. “R-really? Not the huge creature back there, but the Linkers…?” Glancing back, he could see the ongoing battle fire making the heavy fog sparkle even now far to the south.

Kuroyukihime’s quiet voice broke the slight silence. “That’s it. In this place, you can attack to your heart’s content those high-level Burst Linkers you can’t challenge otherwise. Even if you would like to challenge them to regular duels, it’s impossible due to the fact that they almost never leave their Legion Territories. And anything is possible here: ambushes, surprise attacks.”

“And we’re about to do exactly that to Cherry Rook—I mean, Chrome Disaster,” Niko whispered while directing both eyes, covered by round, cute crimson lenses, abruptly forward.

They had already passed Mejiro Street, aka Ring Road No. 7, and the center of Ikebukuro was dead ahead of them. So Haruyuki supposed that the palace surrounded by a group of strange steel spires piercing the sky from where the inky road was swallowed up was JR Ikebukuro Station. From there, an enormous skyway stretched out to the south and connected with a high-rise fortress a little distance off—Sunshine City. At the foot of the passageway was a jumble of tiny buildings, looking like multicolored lights twinkling.

Are those just plain old light effects? Or is there actually a shopping district down there, just like the real Ikebukuro? Which reminds me, Takumu and Kuroyukihime didn’t say what that shop thing was all about before. Maybe down there—

As he drifted on to other things, unconsciously forgetting about the current situation, Haruyuki’s head was yanked back to reality by Niko’s right hand.

“Heyo, not stopping here. We should still have a fair bit of time before Cherry gets here, but let’s keep an eye out on the ground. Flying like this, we’re totes exposed.”

“Well, that’s true, but Ikebukuro is quite large. Do you know where he’ll appear?”

She sniffed at Kuroyukihime’s question. “Given his pattern ’til now, somewhere around Sunshine City. Just come from the south and land on the roof of whatever building there is.”

Haruyuki prepared to do as he was told, angling his body toward the east. He could see the sky-impaling fortress diagonally to the left in front of him. To its right was something like a basin gaping open. That was probably South Ikebukuro Park in the real world, but with nothing treelike to speak of, it gave off an air of desolation like a crater where a giant meteorite had violently collided with the earth.

“Okay, I’ll come down in front of the empty lot.” Haruyuki checked his special-attack gauge, which had only a little left in it, judged that he could just barely make it, and flapped his wings. Bearing the weight of four people, he began his slow advance—

“Haru!!” Takumu, at his feet, cried.

Snapping his head down, Haruyuki caught the dazzling orange of a firing line, stretching upward from a gap between the buildings on the ground.

“Ngh!!” Without even the time to scream, Haruyuki instinctively put all his power into a forward dash, diagonally to the right.

The air burned around him, and he felt an enormous amount of heat scraping very close to his back. It felt like the tips of his wings, which should not have had the sensation of pain, were splitting into tiny bits.

Regardless, Haruyuki once again slid through the sky, this time tacking left. His eyes perceived a second launch from the ground—and the color was different from the first round.

After he just barely dodged a blue-white beam of light, Kuroyukihime cried in a low voice, “Impossible. Chrome Disaster?!”

“It can’t be,” Niko replied in a voice echoing with tense amazement. “It’s too soon. We should still have an entire day in this time before he shows! And this kind of technique, he doesn’t—”

Haruyuki interrupted their conversation with a desperate cry. “We’re going down!!”

This due to the fact that on one side of the buildings below, he could see the third volley—and multiple points of light blinking. Those weren’t linear laser attacks, but rather the lights of real projectiles firing, probably missiles equipped with a tracking function.

Haruyuki stopped the lift force of his wings temporarily and went into a sudden descent equivalent to falling. However, if they fell straight down, they would be immediately captured by the mysterious foe coming to meet them. Spreading his wings out to their fullest and drifting along like a glider, he aimed for the enormous crater in front of him.

“Here they come! Missiles!” Clucking her tongue and twisting her body in Haruyuki’s arm, Niko unholstered the gun at her hip.

The staccato sound of repeated fire followed, and several small-scale explosions roared. However, she obviously couldn’t intercept every missile with a single gun, and a few of them pierced the flames and closed in.

“Yah!” Kuroyukihime ripped through them in a single swipe of her left arm.

A second passed before the explosion. Using the pressure of the blast, Haruyuki cut through the last few dozen meters and stepped hard on the brakes in the center of the round crater.

First, Takumu separated from Haruyuki’s legs, digging into the ground as he impacted. The two Kings then leapt out from his arms to land delicately on the ground. After crashing clumsily in the middle, Haruyuki hurried back to his feet and saw, checking his HP bar with a glance, that fortunately it hadn’t dipped even 3 percent. Kuroyukihime and the others shouldn’t have taken any direct hits at all.

In the center of the enormous hole, countless cracks radiating outward, Haruyuki and the others held their breath.

The world returned to silence, almost as if the attacks of only a few seconds earlier had never happened. All that could be heard was the lightning flashing in the distant black clouds above them and the sound of the wind blowing past.

Then…

The quiet crunching of footsteps broke the silence, and a lone shadow appeared on the western edge of the crater. A Burst Linker. No doubt their assailant moments earlier. But it was nothing more than a silhouette, and Haruyuki couldn’t make out details like its color.

“That’s…our attacker from before…?” Haruyuki muttered in a croak that didn’t quite constitute a voice.

However, seconds later, a second shadow rose up soundlessly to the right of the first. And then a third and a fourth.

“Wh-what the…” Takumu cursed under his breath at the same time countless heavy footsteps echoed around them.

Shadows of avatars lined the circumference of the crater in every direction. Big, small, long-distance, close range, their characteristics ran the gamut, but there was just one thing they all had in common: their aura. The eyes Haruyuki felt on him conveyed a thirst for battle that practically overflowed from the assemblage as they stared intently and silently at their prey. The aura of a hunter.

The number of Burst Linkers quickly reached thirty. And finally, the center of the group encircling the outer edge of the crater parted, and an avatar with remarkable presence appeared.

Long and thin, it was probably taller than Cyan Pile, but the slenderness of its limbs was on par with Silver Crow’s. On this body, a skeletal insinuation of a human, only the shoulders and hips were rounded and filled out. Atop its head, it sported a hat shaped like thick horns, curving long and thin to both sides. Large spheres stuck onto the ends of the horns wobbled soundlessly. The face was covered by a mask in the pattern of a smile.

“A clown?” Haruyuki whispered. The avatar’s silhouette eerily resembled the joker from a deck of cards. But there wasn’t a hint of humor in the mask. The long, thin eyes—nothing more than upended talons—shone dimly white with a cruel glimmer in the backlit shadow.

Abruptly, the clouds in the sky above parted, and beams of ashen sunlight weakly trickled across the landscape, illuminating the avatars tightly encircling the crater. They represented a rainbow of colors, but if anything, the majority were red and yellow. Shining conspicuously vividly among them was the armor of the clown avatar standing lanky in their nucleus.

The armor was a garish yellow like uranium ore, without even a trace of dullness to muddy it. The instant he saw it, a fierce shudder ran down Haruyuki’s spine. Duel avatars with that kind of vivid color saturation just didn’t exist. He’d seen this sort of color personally only twice: obsidian darkness and crimson fire. Which meant…Which meant, this clown…

As if to give credence Haruyuki’s speculation, the crimson avatar next to him emitted a hoarse acknowledgment. “Yellow Radio. The Yellow King. Why is he—”

A King. A level-nine Burst Linker, one of only seven in existence in the Accelerated World.

Up to now, Haruyuki hadn’t had any contact with members of the Yellow Legion, much less the Yellow King himself. This was because the Territory the Yellow Legion controlled was the opposite side of Tokyo as seen from Suginami—the area from Ueno to Akihabara. Although he occasionally went to Akihabara to buy old computer parts and such, Haruyuki made sure to cut off his global connection when he did.

Put another way, it was highly unnatural that the Yellow Legion would be here in Ikebukuro at this moment and accompanied by such numbers. Obviously, it wasn’t a coincidence. Because the four of them had used the “unlimited burst” command at Haruyuki’s condo to dive into the Unlimited Neutral Field, only something like a few seconds would have passed in real time. Definitely not enough time for a member of the Legion to discover them, contact the outside, get other members together, and meet up in Ikebukuro.

Which meant they were also monitoring Cherry Rook’s movements, had predicted that Haruyuki and the others would turn up here, and laid an ambush.

If that was true, then there was only one reason for it. All of it. Every little thing leading to this situation was their—

“Bastard!!” Niko howled suddenly.

The Red King, likely having reaching the same conclusion with similar rapidity, jumped a step forward, clenched her fists, threw her head back, and roared in an accusation that was at once both childish and menacing, “You’re behind this whole thing, Yellow Radio!!”

Right. That was the only answer.

The raging flames of her blame flared at him, but the Yellow King’s slim figure didn’t flinch. Unexpectedly, he took his time raising his bone-like arm. He waved it out broadly to the right and flipped his palm up.

“Well, well, when the little bug fluttering in the sky comes falling to earth, he brings a surprising guest. Hello, Red King.” Emanating from the grinning mask was the clear, fluid voice of a boy. However, a distortion effect, almost as if it had been encoded at an incredible compression ratio, added a certain odiousness to it.

“What’re you talking about? You’re the one who ambushed us!”

“You don’t understand what I’m saying? I only came out this way to have the Red Legion take responsibility one way or the other for violating the nonaggression pact and attacking my precious subordinates and hounding them into total point loss. This duel avatar running so insolently wild in our Territory recently is a real problem, hmm?”

Countless layers of metal rings that comprised the horns of his hat wobbled lazily. Almost as if he was trying to suppress a smile.

Niko jabbed her index finger at him and cried, flames leaping forward, “And you’re the one who made him like that! You gave Cherry Rook the Armor of Catastrophe, which you had concealed, to lure me out to this place…You were the one who laid the temptation in front of him and sent him on a rampage in violation of the pact!!”

“‘Concealed’? ‘Gave’? That’s no way to talk to a person. The Armor disappeared ages ago, hmm? Didn’t your subordinate simply make it again?” he asked throatily. This time he stretched out his left arm before continuing, tracing a line in the air with an abnormally long and sharp finger.

“In the sacred pact formerly consecrated among the Kings, we have this clause: ‘Should a member of a given Legion be pushed to the forced uninstallation of Brain Burst due to an attack in violation of the pact, the aggrieved Legion may select one from the ranks of the Legion to which the transgressor belongs, consigning that person the same fate.’ An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…In truth, it’s an uncivilized method of revenge, hmm?”

Heh. Heh-heh-heh.

This time an unmistakable laugh leaked out from beneath the acute angles of the inverted triangle of the mask. The upward-arching eyes flickered faintly in time with the laughter.

“However, rules are rules. Isn’t that so? If I, a King, were to ignore the pact here, we can’t say for certain that there wouldn’t follow a string of similarly insolent fellows, one after the other. Thus, I had no choice but to come all the way out to the boonies of Ikebukuro. To find one person affiliated with the Red Legion and have them pay for their comrade’s sins, yes? However…perhaps this is yet another cruel trick of fate?”

Placing both hands on his hips and bending over abruptly, the Yellow King uttered coolly, obscenely, “That this person coincidentally turns out to be none other than the head of the Red Legion, Scarlet Rain herself.”

It’s no coincidence! Haruyuki screamed in his heart, grinding his teeth.

The duel avatars lined up outside the crater had topped out at about thirty. It might have been a King’s Legion, but this was probably about the maximum that could be mobilized on a weekday evening. It was impossible that their objective was anything other than hunting a King, the strongest prey in the world.

The Yellow King had predicted that Scarlet Rain—Niko—would pursue this course of action. That, given Niko’s personality, she would show up like this in the Unlimited Neutral Field to punish the crimes committed by her subordinate, Cherry Rook, with her Judgment Blow.

No, it wasn’t just that. Luring Niko into this situation and legally hunting one of the five heads he needed to elevate himself to level ten—for this purpose, the Yellow King had slipped the Enhanced Armament Chrome Disaster to a Red Legion member. That was the only thing that made sense. In which case, that meant…

“It was the Yellow King who hid the fact that the Armor dropped two and a half years ago when The Fourth was defeated,” Haruyuki whispered to himself, unaware that he was speaking aloud. But there wasn’t a shred of evidence supporting this. If he started hollering about his hypothesis here, it would just be an endless argument.

Likely understanding this, too, Niko stayed silent, her clenched fists shaking violently. Finally, her hands opened and dropped to her sides. A controlled, level voice flowed up from the bottom of the crater.

“It should also say this in the pact: ‘It is permitted to select any one person and exact vengeance, but this shall not be the case in the event that the Legion Master personally judges and sentences the offender to total point loss.’ I’ll judge him; I’ll judge Cherry Rook. You got no problem with that, right?”

“Go right ahead!” Spreading his hands smoothly, the Yellow King, Yellow Radio, said amusedly. “If you’re capable! I heard the rumors on the wind. The other day, you certainly made an attempt, and you lost spectacularly. And you suffered the further shame of a crude time-out loss! Isn’t that so? If you are going to challenge him again, you are free to do so. However, where exactly is this Cherry so-and-so?” He swiveled his enormous hat-accesorized head from side to side theatrically.

“We are busy, too, you know. You don’t plan to make us wait here for days when you don’t know when he’ll make an appearance, do you? If you can’t deal with him right away, then it seems our only choice will be to make do with you here, hmm?”

“Hngh!” Niko grunted, vexed.

They had verified that Cherry Rook was moving in the real world with Niko’s remote monitoring before accelerating, but there was a time lag before their opponent actually appeared in the Unlimited Neutral Field. For instance, even with a lag of a few minutes in the real world, in this world, where time was accelerated by a factor of a thousand, in the worst case, the difference could end up being a day or more. Just as the Yellow King said, it would be impossible to capture Cherry Rook right away.

Bracing himself, Haruyuki took a step forward and murmured very quietly at Niko’s back. “It’s hopeless, Niko. Right from the start, he was trying to trap you. There’s no way he’ll let you go. Let’s retreat temporarily. Log out and then the next chance—”

“We can’t.” Her reply was immediate and concise. “System-wise, we can’t do that. In the Unlimited Neutral Field, immediate log out’s not possible.”

“Wha—” Speechless, Haruyuki heard Takumu, who’d moved alongside him, murmuring in his ear.

“It’s true, Haru. The only way to get out of here is to go to one of the leave points set up in the area. Even if you commit suicide, you can’t log out. You’ll just be resurrected an hour later in the same spot you died. Of course, if someone on the real-world side yanks your Neurolinker off for you, that’s a different story. But, right now at your place…”

There was no one. His mother didn’t get back from her business trip until tomorrow, and three years would pass before then in this world.

“The closest leave point is either Ikebukuro Station or Sunshine City,” Niko whispered quickly, glancing backward. “We can’t get to either of them fast. And even if we did head for one, we’d have to fight at least once just to bust through this circle.”

She cut herself off momentarily, both eyes glinting sharply like rubies. “But y’know, this Radio Jackhole’s made a miscalculation of his own.”

“M-miscalculation?”

“Yeah. This is how many people he got together to take me down, to take down a King. But, uh, we got another one here right now, don’t we?”

Haruyuki’s eyes flew open.

On the color wheel that determined the attributes of a duel avatar, yellow excelled at midrange attacks. Although it was particularly good at unpleasant, back-stabbing kind of maneuvers, it was inferior to the other colors in terms of direct attack power. Meanwhile, Red King Niko was a demon with long-range heat powers, and although he could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen her fight, from her form alone, he could see the Black King Kuroyukihime specialized in close-range attacks.

If the two of them worked to cover each other, they might have a chance at winning, even up against thirty people, one of whom was a King.

Having thought this far, Haruyuki was suddenly gripped by a physical unease. Why had Kuroyukihime been silent this whole time? Normally, she would have been flaring up at the Yellow King the second he showed his face even more aggressively than Niko.

Turning abruptly, Haruyuki saw the jet-black avatar, sword hands dangling at her sides, head hanging, almost as if she was afraid. “Ku—”

Just as he was about to instinctively shout her name, the Yellow King’s clear voice rang out once again.

“As long as Cherry-whatever doesn’t show up, it seems the only thing to do is have you take responsibility, hmm, Red King? And that being the case…” A long finger on his leisurely raised arm aimed straight at a black spot at the bottom of the crater. “You’ll just sit back and watch the thrilling, wonderful carnival about to commence without interference, hmm, Black King?”

Even slapped with the Yellow King’s overly self-righteous manner of speaking, Kuroyukihime showed no reaction whatsoever, head still hanging. After a full five seconds had passed, she finally lifted her face in an almost rusty motion and pointed the sword of her right hand at the Yellow King.

“You’ve got to be kidding, Radio.” The words slipping out from under her mask were combative, but her voice didn’t contain its usual severity. Almost as if talking to herself rather than her opponent, Kuroyukihime went on spitting out words. “Even you don’t believe you’ll actually be able to bring down two Kings with this strike force. If you think I’m just going to sit back and watch, you’ve made an enormous mistake.”

“Oh? So you’re saying you’ll fight? That you’ll turn that bloodstained sword on me as well? And here I was trying to give you a front-row seat to the show. But you’re saying you’d rather deliberately meet with a bad end?”

Despite the fact that the situation could not in any way be said to be to his party’s advantage as Kuroyukihime had indicated, the Yellow King laughed from deep in his throat. “It is true that I hadn’t considered that you might join Scarlet Rain in appearing in the Unlimited Field here today. But, well…a wrinkle like this won’t put a stop to our Legion Crypt Cosmic Circus’s exciting carnival. You see, I have been waiting all this time, aaaaaall this time in my heart of hearts, to meet you like this one day, Lotus. So that I can give you this wonderful present I’ve been carrying around in my pocket for so very long!”

Haruyuki saw something square glittering at the end of the Yellow King’s fingers as he stretched them out with a performer’s grace. It was about the same size as a playing card, but he couldn’t make out the pattern on it.

The clown avatar twirled the card around deftly with his fingertips before flicking it out. It reflected the sunlight trickling through the gaps in the thick clouds and danced several dozen meters into the air, shimmering and glistening before striking the ground soundlessly a short distance from Haruyuki and the others.

It didn’t seem to be anything dangerous. Haruyuki stared absently at the sideways triangle, which popped up on the card surface and blinked. Immediately, Niko next to him warned in a low voice, “A replay file.”

The card’s surface sparkled dazzlingly and emitted an inverted cone of light straight up. Countless horizontal lines ran through the sky like noise, soon coming together in a single image. The semitransparent 3-D projection was of a duel avatar that Haruyuki had never seen before.

Red. The figure was an orthodox human shape, but the balanced armor it bore shone a red so pure it seemed impossible for it to be any more so. It was different from the flaming crimson of Scarlet Rain—the color of passion, as it were.

Once again, a hoarse voice slipped out of Niko. “My predecessor…Red Rider.”

Kuroyukihime took a step back and said, almost shouted, “Stop…stop it!”

It was then that the semitransparent 3-D image suddenly started to move.

The bright red avatar projected large in the sky clenched his right fist in front of his body and waved his left directly to the side. The crisp voice of a boy broadcast loudly, echoing clearly in Haruyuki’s ears.

“This…this ridiculous goal is what we’ve been fighting for up to now?! Hating each other, stealing from each other, killing each other…Did we keep fighting however many thousands of duels for however many years because we wanted to see an ending like this?! No, even if this is the scenario the developer of Brain Burst wrote…we’re not NPCs made to dance by the game master! The heroes of this game are us, all of us here! Right, Lotus?”

Here, the screen pulled back, and as the red avatar grew smaller, another avatar sitting in front of him came into the frame. A jet-black avatar equipped with four long, daunting swords. Black Lotus.

The first Red King continued tossing out harsh words, accompanied by even harsher gestures, at the Black King, who quietly hung her head.

“It’s true we all control our respective Legions, and we’ve fought hard up to now. But that’s definitely not because we’re enemies! It’s because we’re rivals, isn’t it?! I…I like your fighting style, Lotus. If we ever met in the real world, I could be buds with you. Totally. Actually, I want to be! Which is why I don’t want us to try to kill each other in sudden death! It’s gotta be the same for you!”

At that moment, the slightly sharp voice of a girl came from offscreen. “Hey, Rider! You think I’m just gonna let that go?!”

The red avatar turned to the left as if flustered and held a hand up. “N-no, that’s not it. I didn’t mean it like that…Ah, crap.”

Background laughter could be heard above this exchange.

The Black Lotus, hanging her head on-screen, abruptly relaxed her shoulders. Raising her face, in a calm voice, she said: “Mmm…I suppose so. It’s just like you say, Rider. I like you, too. Naturally, I mean, I respect you.”

Standing smoothly and taking a step up, the Black King extended her right sword hand to the Red King.

“I knew you’d get it, Lotus!” the Red King shouted gleefully, and when he reached out to shake hands, he stopped as if confused.

The Black King shrugged and said, her voice tipped with laughter, “Oops! Apologies. Well, then…how about this?” In a smooth, unreserved motion, the Black King thrust herself against the Red King’s chest, bringing both arms up around his neck and hugging tightly.

Something like a blush sprang up on the Red King’s cheeks before he wrapped both hands around Black Lotus’s waist.

Once again, the girl from before cried out offscreen, “Hey! Come on!”

“Don’t get mad. It’s just instead of a handshake.” The Red King excused himself impatiently, and several voices rang out in laughter.

And then.

Black Lotus’s eyes lit up with an icy, bluish-white light behind her sable goggles. The swords of her arms intersecting behind the Red King’s neck glittered an intense violet.

“Death by Embrace.”

She uttered the name of the special attack quietly as the two crossed blades swiftly intersected, like a pair of enormous scissors.

Red Rider’s body went limp and crumpled at Black Lotus’s feet, a broken doll. His head alone remained on the crossed arms of the Black King. She brought the freshly severed head, dripping copious bright red sparks from the cross section, gently to her cheek.

The thick, full silence was shredded by a high-pitched, despairing scream.

“N-nooooooooo!!”

The replay video ended there, and the figure of Black Lotus cradling her rival’s head faded back into the noise of the scan lines.

Only the thin wail did not cut out, continuing to ring in Haruyuki’s ears. He finally realized it was being ripped from Kuroyukihime’s throat next to him.

“Stop! Stop, stop!”

“K-Kuro—” Haruyuki gasped at how violently his own voice shook as he called out to her.

Kuroyukihime glanced at Haruyuki but quickly turned her face away and shook her head from side to side, over and over. “Haruyuki…I…I’m…”

No other words followed.

Suddenly, her eyes, shining a bluish purple behind the mirrored surface of Kuroyukihime’s goggles, became narrow lines of light and flowed from left to right before disappearing abruptly. At the same time, almost like a robot with its power cut, the obsidian avatar’s whole body went limp, and the Black King crumbled to the floor of the blue-black crater with a dry crunching sound.

“Kuroyuki…Kuroyukihime?” Uncomprehending, Haruyuki could only, quavering, call out, kneel down, and gently shake the slender avatar. But she did not react in any way.

“Zero Fill! Lotus, you…to go that far…” Niko cried in a low voice from behind.

Unable to grasp the meaning of her words, Haruyuki started to turn to her when there came a high-pitched laugh, and he froze.

“Hmm-hmm-hmm! Ha-ha-ha! Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

The cackle belonged to Yellow Radio, looking down from on high as a king onto his kingdom. “Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh! Of course. I thought you might still be strongly affected by this betrayal. That you would live up to my expectations and zero for me is actually almost disappointing…simply going quietly and hiding yourself in a hole, and so willingly! What of all your big talk about wanting to get to level ten, hmm, Black Lotus?”

“Y-you…” The stammer leaked from Haruyuki’s throat like a groan.

The Yellow King’s tone changed abruptly and filled the crater, colored with a whiplike sharpness. “Now, then, let us enjoy the final program of our carnival! Ready attacks! Target: Scarlet Rain! Destroy without mercy any bit players who get in the way!!”

“Dammit!” Niko cursed and spread out the hands of her cute avatar. “Come! Enhanced Arm—”

However, Takumu’s arm snaked out to grab her shoulder. “You can’t, Red King! If you deploy your weapons, you’ll lose your mobility and won’t be able to withdraw! Even if you are a King, a fight with this many people is impossible for one person. Leave subjugating Chrome Disaster for the moment, break through the circle behind us, and retreat to the leave point in Sunshine City!”

His eyes, glittering pale blue from under the mask’s narrow slits, turned to Haruyuki next. “Haru, take care of Master! I’ll hold them off, so you just get her to Sunshine somehow!”

“B-but—If we do that, you’ll—”

“I don’t matter! Once these guys take down the Red King, they’ll definitely go for Master! We can’t let that happen!”

Haruyuki could only nod at Takumu’s voice, clear and yet tense.

“G-got it! Do what you can!” he shouted, grabbing Kuroyukihime’s body with his left hand.

“Commence attack!!”

The Yellow King dropped the right arm he had raised.