7

“Wh-who is—?” Haruyuki croaked in something that couldn’t rightly be called a voice.

Approaching the hypervigilant Yellow King from behind unnoticed, and on top of that piercing his armor like it was made of paper, without even using a special attack. But even more importantly, who on earth would think to jump into a direct clash between Kings?

Almost as if it had heard Haruyuki speak, a shadow oozed out from behind the Yellow King. A dark gray silhouette essentially assimilating every nightfall everywhere. The instant the faintest afterglow caressed its surface, it shone as if the reflected light were leaking out.

The entire body of the mysterious intruder was wrapped in blackened silver armor with a mirrored surface. Although this aspect did bear some resemblance to Silver Crow, the figure was completely different. Heavyweight like a knight from the Middle Ages, voluminous shoulders, chest, elbows. Its right hand, wrapped in an enormous gauntlet, held a double-edged sword that looked nearly as long as its owner was tall, the tip of which, tapering off into essentially nothing, lanced the Yellow King from behind.

What drew the eye even more sharply than this sword was the knight’s head.

It wore a hood-shaped helmet with long horns, stretching toward the back from both sides. However, in the place where there usually should have been some type of face, there was nothing. Given the angle of the sun, the interior of the hood should have been illuminated, and yet it was simply painted a lone black, looking very like the darkness itself had taken on physical form and was lurking there. If Haruyuki really, really strained his eyes, he could see some kind of pitch-black something wriggling on the surface like a living creature.

A blackened silver knight with a mask of darkness.

Immediately before its name slid from Niko’s mouth at his feet, Haruyuki made the same connection. That was probably…It had to be—

“The Armor of Catastrophe. Chrome Disaster.” After these hoarse words, Niko continued in a whisper, “How? It’s too soon. We should have had an entire day to spare.”

Haruyuki soon guessed the reason for her shock. They had dived into the Unlimited Neutral Field two minutes before the train carrying Chrome Disaster’s real self, the Red Legion’s level-six Burst Linker Cherry Rook, would arrive in Ikebukuro. Since time here flowed one thousand times faster than in the real world, those two minutes were equivalent to thirty-three hours.

There was only one answer. Cherry Rook, the resident of that armor, had accelerated while still on the train and appeared in this world.

This was understandable in a Normal Duel, which lasted at most 1.8 seconds in the real. But they were in a higher-order world that could not be escaped once a player dived in, unless they made it to a withdrawal point. Leaving your real-life body behind pressed up against other people in the train, on public transport no less, was an act that surpassed daring and went right into recklessness.

“Cherry…are you so crazed now you can’t even hold on for two minutes?” Niko murmured in a stifled voice.

However, Haruyuki couldn’t read that kind of insanity in the Fifth Chrome Disaster, standing on the western edge of the crater.

His physique was not particularly powerful. Just barely 170 centimeters and much smaller than the Fourth Chrome Disaster they had seen in the replay file Kuroyukihime had showed them the previous day. Its form was an orthodox human shape. It stood quietly, almost vacantly, still gripping the sword piercing the Yellow King but doing nothing more.

Why didn’t the Yellow King break free? Why did he just stare silently at Chrome Disaster, his face turned as far to the rear as it could go?

A second later, Haruyuki got his answer.

“Yuroooooo!” A strange scream abruptly gushed forth. It was neither a human voice nor a beast’s. Not an alarm. It was an alien howl the likes of which he had never heard before.

Its source was the darkness lurking on the knight’s face. A darkness with actual substance erupted together with this cry from beneath the tossed-back hood of the helmet, immediately solidifying into a particular shape: a row of sharp triangles biting into each other, above and below the hood. Fangs. Inky black fangs protruded from the edge of the hood, almost as if the entirety of the cowl made up a mouth.

With a wet sound, the “mouth” opened.

In the rich darkness of the interior, two small, perfectly round eyes shone a faint red.

The instant he saw this, Yellow Radio finally snapped into motion. More throwing than reaching both hands around his back, he grabbed the sword piercing him and tried to pull it out.

He hadn’t moved sooner because he’d been frozen. Constricted with terror.

Even Kuroyukihime, a short distance away, remained silent, still striking her pose. She didn’t have the look of fear to her, but Haruyuki could sense a faint hesitation. Although it was a chance for her to attack, this wasn’t the kind of situation that facilitated quick decisions about which one of the avatars to target.

Chrome Disaster, the Armor of Catastrophe, brought the Yellow King, struggling to break free of the sword, to his enormous mouth, almost like a piece of food stabbed with a fork. As the jaw, opening even farther, drew nearer the round, puffy shoulder of the clown avatar, a clear, viscous liquid hung from its fangs.

“Deceit Firecracker!!” Yellow Radio cried out in a high voice, on the verge of having his shoulder eaten.

In a puff of vile yellow smoke, the skewered avatar exploded and disappeared.

Self-destruction?! Haruyuki opened his eyes wide, but he soon saw the same yellow smoke rise up about five meters away with the clown flying out from inside the cloud. It was probably a special attack of the glamour/escape type.

Fine sparks scattering from the razor-edged hole in his chest armor, the Yellow King back dashed another several meters. After ordering his subordinate avatars to draw near, he finally spoke.

“Pathetic dog, have you forgotten your master and now you’re here to get in the way of the program? Well, fine. If you’re as hungry as all that, go ahead and eat Blackie there in front of you! Although it’s not a color that stimulates the appetite, is it?! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” He laughed, but in his voice was a tension he didn’t try to hide.

Opening and closing his black maw with a clang, Chrome Disaster looked in turn at the Black King and the Yellow King, each standing an equal distance away. There was nothing remotely like a player struggling to decide who to fight in this gesture.

This was the look of a creature assessing which prey to attack.

That face which was not a face casually turned toward the bottom of the crater. Its gaze rested momentarily on the Red King, silent and covered in wounds, but it showed no sign of emotion even at the sight of its own Legion Master. It turned its face up at Haruyuki, standing atop the stabilizer on her back.

Suddenly.

He felt like the strange voice was delivered directly to the core of his brain. Inflectionless, like an animal—or a machine.

Get eaten.

Be eaten, be meat.

What was more terrifying than anything else was that the tone of the voice itself was most certainly that of a boy the same age as he was, before his voice changed. Haruyuki felt a species of dread run up his spine, one he had never before felt in the Accelerated World.

Setting aside the alien nature of the acceleration technology, Brain Burst was at most a fighting game. The fighting that had taken place up to that point in the South Ikebukuro crater had been extremely gruesome, but still, it didn’t fall outside of the sphere of gaming, albeit just barely.

It was true that if the Yellow King’s ambush had succeeded and he had managed to hunt Niko or Kuroyukihime, the two of them would have had Brain Burst forcefully uninstalled, and they would never again have experienced the pleasure of visiting the Accelerated World. But that would have been the end of the game, and their everyday lives in the real world would have continued on after that.

If the voice just now indeed belonged to the Burst Linker called Chrome Disaster, then inside that blackened silver armor, the boy by the name of Cherry Rook, the player supposedly enjoying this game, no longer existed.

Kuroyukihime said that Enhanced Armament encroached on the mind of its user. Haruyuki half believed and half doubted that, but the fact that the humanity of the person wrapped in the armor had already been largely lost was clearly communicated by that short utterance. And that phenomenon was likely not limited to the Accelerated World. Whoever was inside that armor couldn’t possibly be living peacefully in the real world.

“Niko…he’s already—”

“Don’t say it.” The Red King astutely guessed the meaning conveyed by Haruyuki’s quavering tone. “We…we might still be in time. If we can destroy the armor here and now, then maybe—” She didn’t finish her whisper.

“Ruuooo…Oooooooh!!” Chrome Disaster howled ferociously again, as if to destroy the hope Niko expressed. Changing direction abruptly, he faced the Yellow King.

He brought the large sword in his right hand up to his shoulder and stretched out his left in front of him, five fingers in the shape of enormous claws.

And then something surprising happened. Despite the fact that the Armor voiced no attack name, one of the red avatars gathered very close to the Yellow King was sucked into Chrome Disaster’s left hand at an alarming speed. The Armor fingers bit into the torso of the unfortunate duel avatar with a metallic clang.

“Eeaah!”

Even as a high-pitched scream escaped its throat, the red type tried to turn the rifle in its right hand toward the Armor’s head. Haruyuki realized abruptly that it was the long-distance type who had been protecting the jamming avatar.

The muzzle of the rifle glittered, and a bluish-white beam was very nearly discharged at point-blank range. But just as this was about to happen, the right arm gripping the gun was ripped off at the base. The beam grazed Chrome Disaster’s helmet and streamed off in vain to the rear. Haruyuki hadn’t even been able to see the slash that took off the arm.

And then, “Rooooo!!” In tandem with this cry, Chrome Disaster opened wide the fangs lining his hood. With a chomp, the red avatar’s right shoulder was swallowed up, lost to the darkness of the maw.

“Aauuuuughn!!” The wail of distress that burst forth was so brutal it made Haruyuki want to cover his ears. The pain of damage in the Unlimited Neutral Field was twice that of the lower field. Most likely, this red type was now experiencing the same level of pain his body would in the real world: that of being devoured by a wild animal.

The dozens of enormous teeth easily pierced the avatar’s armor. A semicircle was ripped off from shoulder to chest, and the severed left arm dropped to the ground.

“Aaaaaaaaaah!!” The head of the avatar flailed at the intense anguish of having its stomach gouged out and losing both arms.

Finished chewing and opening wide again, Chrome Disaster’s “mouth” then swallowed the flailing head whole.

Was the scattered spray accompanying the wet squishing a spark effect, or fragments of armor—or the avatar’s flesh?

The screaming abruptly ceased. A few seconds later, the remains of the avatar, having lost its entire head and been drained of all strength, finally melted into a pillar of light and disintegrated.

My vision is crazy wobbly, Haruyuki thought. It took him a brief while to realize the reason for that was his knees were shaking so hard that they were knocking together.

That was not a duel.

It wasn’t violence, either, nor slaughter.

It was predation. Simply an instinctive behavior, to take in the flesh and blood of the captured avatar along with their burst points.

At the same time as the up-and-down movement of the black fangs stopped, Haruyuki saw a deep red light running along the seams of the blackened silver armor. A phenomenon akin to stolen points, but also some kind of energy as well. Most likely, it was Drain, the health gauge absorption ability Kuroyukihime had mentioned the day before.

“Rooooo!” Chrome Disaster raised his head and howled from deep in his throat.

“You mad dog…It appears I have no choice. It is regrettable, but the program is canceled. Everyone, get to the leave point in Ikebukuro Station and retreat!!” the Yellow King shouted. As the order was given, the dozen or so remaining Yellow Legion members faded to semitransparency, apparently using some kind of special move.

The avatars, now hazy shadows, evacuated the crater with remarkable haste and retreated to the northwest. Although it was already clear that his plan had been ruined, the voice of the receding Yellow King drifted back to the field in a final sneer.

“Heh-heh-heh! Red and Black, I’ll invite you back to our wonderful, delightful carnival one day! That is, if you still have the will to fight after being eaten by this dog! Heh-heh-heh…Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Had they assessed the situation calmly, they could’ve adopted a strategy of interfering with this retreat: get Chrome Disaster to attack them and then take the head of the Yellow King. But Haruyuki couldn’t move a single finger, much less say anything. It was all he could do to simply stand atop Scarlet Rain’s armor plate, cowering like a small animal under the glare of a predator.

Fight that? Fight that, render it helpless, and hit it with the Judgment Blow at point-blank range? And I’m supposed to help with that?

No way.

I can’t do it. I mean, it’s taking everything I have to just stay here and not run away screaming.

As his knees and teeth chattered, Haruyuki watched as Chrome Disaster hunched over motionlessly. It was the pose of a carnivore unable to resist chasing down and slaughtering its prey; in this case, the members of the Yellow Legion running away, scattering in all directions.

Haruyuki prayed they could just let him go with the Yellow Legion. However.

Behind Chrome Disaster, as he began a fierce dash—

“Death by Piercing!!” Kuroyukihime’s voice rang out boldly.

The sword of her right arm nocked in her left thrust straight ahead, accompanied by an enormous noise like a jet engine. The violet glittering encasing the blade expanded and extended in a straight line nearly five meters long, coloring the world around her dazzlingly.

The incredible attack power released compressed the virtual air, and the view of the other side was distorted like a heat shimmer. The high-pitched sound of screeching destruction roared—but what was immediately cut off was just the horn extending from the right side of Chrome Disaster’s helmet.

Despite being targeted from behind in the best possible opening Kuroyuki would get—as it was the verge of taking pursuit—the blackish silver armor slid to the left, as if turning to mist, and evaded the attack.

The horn, whirling high up into the sky, dropped down, and pierced the surface of the blue-black ground with a thud.

“So. You dodged that,” Kuroyukihime uttered, almost admiringly, bringing the right arm she had thrust forward back to her body.

The tip of the large sword in his right hand clanged. It carved out the arc of a half-circle in the ground as Chrome Disaster turned around and returned what was clearly a roar of anger from between his enormous fangs. “Yurooooo!”

Raising his sword and setting it on his right shoulder, the diabolic knight glared directly at the jet-black beauty. From the depths of the jaw, slightly open beneath the hood, the deep red light of his eyes flickered repeatedly.

“K-Kuroyu…” A hoarse voice stole out from Haruyuki’s parched throat.

Are you going to fight it? I mean, even if the Red King did ask you—With that? Face-to-face…

It was true that Chrome Disaster was still at level seven. Even if she was defeated, she wouldn’t end up losing Brain Burst, unlike when a King was her opponent.

But she would be eaten.

In this Field, where a sensation of pain could be greater than that in the real world, her avatar would be devoured still living. Such agony as that was beyond comparison to that of taking a slug from the gun in Haruyuki’s training room.

And it wasn’t just a matter of the sense of actual pain. The screams of the long-range avatar that had been caught and slaughtered by that thing a few minutes earlier were marked by despair. Despair at its whole self helplessly assimilated into a predator’s overwhelming power.

No way. I don’t want that thing to eat me. If that happens, I’ll just run again—

The strength abruptly drained from his legs, and Haruyuki fell to his knees on top of Scarlet Rain’s armor. He hurriedly tried to stand again, but his body didn’t move. It was frozen, stiff down to his fingers, refusing to listen to his commands.

What’s going on? What’s wrong with me? I was talking so big and saying all that stuff when Kuroyukihime was down, and now…I’m so pathetic, I can’t even move.

The more panicked he got, the more petrified his body became. It was almost as if his nervous system had been detached from the limbs of his avatar.

Haruyuki could only keep taking shallow breaths below the mirrored surface of his helmet when he heard her.

“A Burst Linker without the desire to fight cannot move his duel avatar.” Kuroyukihime’s clear voice reached him from where she and the black-silver armor still faced off on the edge of the crater. “It’s exactly as the little girl there said before. I don’t want to acknowledge it, but I regret that betrayal of two years ago. I feel that it was an unforgivable crime. And because of that, I was deeply afraid in the bottom of my heart of my own desire for battle—the very belligerence that seeks victory.”

With her sword arms still at the ready, her guard still up, Black Lotus’s blue-purple eyes glanced at Haruyuki.

“However, Haruyuki. You are the opposite. You fear defeat. You are under the impression that your own worth drops with each loss. This is the cause of your poor form recently in the Territory Battles.”

Her words gouged, mercilessly, deep into his heart.

Still on his knees, Haruyuki forced his eyes open wide and gritted his teeth.

It’s not an impression! It’s the truth! he shouted in his mind. If I lose, I don’t get anything. The value of my—of Silver Crow’s—existence is in continuing to win with his unique flight ability. Just gain levels, increase the territory of Nega Nebulus, and meet your expectations. I mean, if I don’t win, if I don’t get stronger and stronger, then you’ll—one day, you’ll give up on me…

“I’ll return the words you said to me earlier, Haruyuki!” With a sharp gesture of her right hand-sword, Kuroyukihime uttered a shout that bordered on ferociousness. “Do you really believe…that the bond connecting the two of us is at most on that level?!”

Then she immediately started to cleave at Chrome Disaster. Almost as if she was trying to tell him something.

Disaster’s broadsword welcomed Kuroyukihime’s left sword-arm as it struck down from directly above, absorbing its tremendous impact. Shining, spherical energy welled up and burst on the surface of the black-and-silver armor, turned into countless points of light, and then scattered.

Both fighters, violently knocked back, held their ground, digging into the surface of the earth, and attacked again at exactly the same time. Disaster gripped his broadsword in both hands and swung it horizontally. Kuroyukihime met this with a right roundhouse kick.

The bold moves, crashing into one another and tracing out deep red and bluish-purple arcs, really did cause an explosion this time, drilling out a small crater on the spot. Both were sent flying in opposite directions, and Chrome Disaster’s left hand, open all the way, was turned precisely toward Kuroyukihime, raising as she tumbled along.

That attack!

But, unable to move or speak, Haruyuki only held his breath.

The special attack that dragged the enemy over through a mysterious attractive force and held them. If he hit her with that, she’d be pulled into a close-contact situation, and without being able to fully swing her swords, she would just, in a manner of speaking, be chewed up.

Tnk!

A silver light seemed to flash between the two.

At the same time, Kuroyukihime placed a large lump she had gathered up at her tiptoes when he wasn’t looking—a mass of rock made out of the fragments of the ground from the earlier explosion—and kicked it up, into the center of her right leg-sword.

The boulder was propelled into Chrome Disaster’s palm. As he tried to shake free fingers that had bitten deeply into the hard surface, Kuroyukihime charged at full speed.

The piercing, metallic screech of impact burst forth, and the upward-thrust sword of her left leg at last found a home, digging into the armor of Chrome Disaster’s chest.

Incredible, Haruyuki murmured in his head, forgetting momentarily the despondency strangling him. How can she fight like that when her opponent is that terrifying? She might be a higher level, but the difference in power’s more than made up for by the Enhanced Armament; they’re basically even in terms of the force a single blow packs. I mean, if she makes a single mistake, she’ll be eaten up by those huge fangs for sure and drown in intense pain and despair. Why can she—It’s almost—

Like she’s having fun.

Because she’s confident she’ll win? Can she move so freely like that because she’s sure she’s stronger than her enemy?

No, that can’t be it. Despite the fact that Yellow Radio, level nine like her, still had ten or so subordinates left, he fled without even hesitating. And there’s absolutely no way you could say that decision came from cowardice. Chrome Disaster’s not a regular Burst Linker anymore. He’s a bigger threat than that enormous Enemy we saw on our way to Ikebukuro.

As if to support Haruyuki’s thinking, the crazed knight unleashed a terrifying skill. Reddish-black light coalesced around the wound in the Armor that Kuroyukihime’s sword had opened and proceeded to repair it to a smooth polish right before his eyes.

“Yurooo…” The Armor, a low voice like laughter spilling out, counterattacked with a sudden ferocity. The sword in his right hand came down at a speed that made it impossible to see, cutting the sky and the ground in a straight line. Kuroyukihime, on that trajectory, dodged uncharacteristically, but the tip of her armor skirt broke off at the left hip and fell with a faint clink.

But Chrome Disaster’s attack didn’t stop there. The enormous sword, the blade of which was probably a meter and a half long, was brandished again and again at a speed that made it seem weightless. Black Lotus dodged as if dancing or deflected the blows, but in short order, chinks were carved here and there across her beautiful armor.

She was gradually being pushed from the west side of the crater to the north in an onslaught that seemed like it could go on forever. Yet there was no sign that Kuroyukihime’s fighting spirit was weakening in the slightest.

The swords of her limbs swelled with violet light, and whenever she found a small gap in Disaster’s movements, she threw in a sharp counterattack. The wounds carved into her opponent’s armor were quickly restored by that malevolent red light, but she thrust her sword out, cut, and plunged the blade in again and again with an accuracy that was startlingly effortless.

It couldn’t have been that she wasn’t feeling the terror. They were essentially equals in attack power, speed, and precision, so the fact was that, at some point, an opponent with the ability to automatically heal his own damage would overcome her resistance. If she got hit with even one heavy attack and her ability to evade dropped, in that instant she would be snatched up by her opponent, and some part of her body would be bitten off. Her pride as a King would be taken, and she would crawl on the ground as just a hunk of food for the beast.

And yet—Why…

“Why…why don’t you run?!” A croaking screech ripped itself from Haruyuki’s throat.

After all, running away wouldn’t lower her value as the Black King. The Yellow King had run away, and he was sure she had said that the Seven Kings of Pure Color had worked together to finally put an end to the former Chrome Disaster. It was only natural to pull out here. And more than that—

He didn’t want to see it. He absolutely did not want to watch her get destroyed and eaten, screaming.

“Please run, Kuroyukihime!” Haruyuki shouted again.

However, the massive iron sword rained down from on high with such speed and timing that it allowed no evasion.

Kuroyukihime caught the blow with crossed sword arms, but, unable to repel it the way she had up to that point, she dropped a single knee. The fierce impact roared like thunder, and fissures radiated outward in the ground around her.

“Yurooooooo!!”

Chrome Disaster howled loudly, perhaps convinced of his victory. He used all his weight to lean forward on the weapon gripped in both hands. With each hard metallic creak, fine sparks flew out from the contact point of the three swords.

It was the same scene as her battle with the Yellow Legion’s warrior avatar, but this time, the one on the defensive was clearly Black Lotus. The light of the bluish-purple aura enveloping her sword arms gradually faded and began to flicker irregularly.

Soon, both swords would be cleaved through, and she would take serious damage. Disaster would pounce on her the moment she fell and maul her at will until her HP gauge ran out.

“Why…didn’t she run?” Haruyuki murmured feebly.

It likely wasn’t to protect the immobilized Haruyuki. Because it had been Kuroyukihime herself who initiated the offensive, striking at Chrome Disaster when he was about to go after the Yellow Legion. In other words, Kuroyukihime had chosen to fight that armor, and with absolutely no chance of victory to boot.

Haruyuki knew that this had been their original objective when diving into the Unlimited Neutral Field, but the situation was already very different from what they’d assumed. Takumu was dead and wouldn’t be able to come back for another half an hour at least, and the essential Scarlet Rain was seriously damaged and incapacitated.

So, why? What exactly was she—

“This…this is my place, Haruyuki.” Unexpectedly, her words rang out.

Black Lotus looked up with violet eyes, blazing in the blades pressed within an inch of them, but said in a quiet but profoundly leaden voice, “I have exposed you to something unsightly here. As your teacher…and as your ‘guardian,’ I wouldn’t be able to look you in the eye in the real world if I left things like that.”

Chrome Disaster’s blade was getting closer to her with each passing moment. Haruyuki swallowed his breath and squeezed a trembling plea from his throat.

“P-place? But…if you lose, it won’t…mean anything…”

“You’re misunderstanding. Feed your clever retreats to a dog! There’s no value in things like that! Once you dive into the battlefield…there is only fighting with all your heart, toe-to-toe with whosoever your opponent might be!!” Kuroyukihime’s words, uttered so brazenly on the doorstep of defeat, hit Haruyuki like a hammer.

In his mind, the sense of acceleration that had visited him countless times in battle up to that point returned in a dazzling flash.

That time, just a few minutes earlier, when he’d dodged the protective laser attack in order to take down the jamming avatar. When he’d slipped through the Red King’s fierce antiaircraft barrage. And three months earlier, around the time when he’d just become a Burst Linker and caught Ash Roller’s motorcycle; or when he saw through Cyan Pile’s special attack…

Inside, I wasn’t lusting for victory or frightened of defeat. I was just lost in the battle. Without being aware of anyone’s eyes on me. Right. It wasn’t defeat itself I was afraid of. It was being laughed at by the gallery when I lost. Being compared with Takumu. And I was scared senseless of disappointing her. Not only in the real world, but even in the Accelerated World, all I’ve worried about is how people will see me—What…

“I am such an idiot.” Murmuring, Haruyuki put all his strength into his open right hand, frozen helplessly.

They creaked and groaned in protest, but he managed to clench his fingers tightly.

He raised this fist straight into the air and hit his own cheek as hard as he could. Accompanying the dull sound of the impact, a burning pain ran through his molars. This sensation of scorching heat raced along his entire virtual nervous system, diffusing as a signal to the limbs of his avatar.

He raised his head abruptly. On the northern edge of the crater, Black Lotus was offering her final resistance to the lethal blade. The dull-colored edge was grinding the crossed arms and pushing the backs into her forehead. Scattering sparks illuminated armor pitted with damage.

“Kuroyukihime!” Haruyuki cried. He spread his wings, to which the power had just returned, and threw himself into flight. Gliding at full speed just barely over the bottom of the crevasse, he hit Chrome Disaster’s blind spot and flew up from the crater’s edge.

“Unh…Ooooh!” Haruyuki howled. The punch he’d thrown at the black-silver armor was just barely blocked by an upraised right gauntlet.

But the instant Disaster took one hand off his sword, Kuroyukihime thrust both arms up with a battle cry.

The sword rebounded with a thud, and Chrome Disaster was pushed back several meters. But he maintained his fighting posture, immediately readying his sword low again, the fangs below the hood chattering fiercely.

“Rooo! Roooooo!!” The growl was colored with anger.

His whole body shaking with fear, Haruyuki confronted the beast head-on, keeping Black Lotus behind him. No doubt using every bit of strength she had left, Kuroyukihime had poked one arm into the ground like a cane, but soon she used it as a crutch to stand and took her place to Haruyuki’s left.

“Well, Haruyuki. Now, then, shall we lose with grace?”

Unconsciously, he smiled bitterly and nodded. “Yes, Kuroyukihime.” He crouched, widened his stance, and took a half-baked karate-style pose.

Next to him, Kuroyukihime yanked her swords up in a motion seemingly appropriate to the situation.

A second later, several things happened in succession.

Chrome Disaster raised his sword with a violent roar of rage.

Something glimmered on Haruyuki’s left as he was focused on trying to anticipate the coming slashing attack.

Kuroyukihime’s right arm flashed with exceptional speed, striking Haruyuki hard in the chest with the edge of the blade.

As he was sent helplessly flying in shock, and tumbled along the ground, a wall of crimson light rose up before his eyes.

Only after the terrifyingly large explosion—a detonation that sent him flying a farther ten or so meters—did Haruyuki grasp that this was a beam attack launched to his right from the center of the crater. He instinctively raised both arms to protect himself from the heat and impact wave that surged toward him, but even so, the HP gauge in the upper left of his field of vision was ground away. Upon his attempt to move, an unpleasant metallic scraping came from all over his body.

He was overwhelmed by a wave of anguish so acute it was as if every nerve he had was scorched from the intense heat of the flames, and it took his breath away as he lay there, legs splayed as he had fallen. Unable to even scream, his body convulsing, a raging storm of question marks swirled in his head even as he waited for the pain to recede.

How on earth—The Yellow Legion long-range types should have all retreated. Did they come back and jump into the fight? Even if they did, though, what was that power about? That was no gun. That was artillery so overwhelming it could have been from the main armament of a tank—no, a battleship!

Propping himself up on his right arm now that the feeling had finally returned to it, Haruyuki wobbled as he raised his torso—

—and saw something falling with a stiff crunch. Deeply cracked, mutilated black armor. It was cruelly scorched, its transparent gloss gone. Of the four swords, the left arm and leg had been split in half, and cracks raced along mirrored goggles in a spiderweb pattern.

“Ku—” Haruyuki groaned hoarsely and dashed forward, forgetting his pain. “Kuroyukihime!!”

When he lifted her up in a daze, black splinters scattered from every part of her body. The completely limp avatar was so light it shocked him, and the bluish-purple sparks crawling around the damaged areas looked almost like blood spilling.

But another heavy metallic sound came from in front of him. Abstractedly lifting his head, he saw the figure of Chrome Disaster kneeling on one knee a short distance off. The destruction there, too, was severe: the black-silver armor was covered in soot and deeply dented in several places. The interior of the hood-shaped helmet had sunk once again into an indefinite darkness, and the broadsword, having perhaps flown off somewhere, was nowhere to be seen.

The damage had even changed the terrain.

New, smaller craters had been dug out of the northern edge of the South Ikebukuro crater, which had served as their battlefield up to that point, and thick smoke rose up from fires twinkling and burning in various places. Apparently, some percentage of the power of the bombardment had escaped to the north, and the buildings had been cut down at the roots, as if a new avenue had been created that cut across Green Street.

Nervously, Haruyuki finally turned his head to the south. He was already half expecting the scene that met his eyes, but he didn’t want to believe it. Even after logically determining that it couldn’t be anything else, his heart strongly rejected this conclusion, and the conflict materialized as tears distorting his vision.

“Why…why, why…Niko?”

The main weapon, the right arm of the fortress avatar, the Red King Scarlet Rain, who he had thought too severely damaged to move, had been raised and was pointed straight at the center of the new crater. The residual heat moving heavenward from the large-diameter gun was a haze distorting the surroundings.

He could no longer doubt that the attack launched from that gun—most likely, a top-level special attack—had swallowed Kuroyukihime and Chrome Disaster whole, causing enormous damage.

Haruyuki gritted his teeth and stared at Niko’s eyes, peeking out from a gap in her armor plating. But those red lenses didn’t even notice Haruyuki, or Black Lotus in his arms.

“Why?!”

Even at Haruyuki’s scream, the Red King remained silent. Instead, the thrusters on her back and bottom lit up and began to slowly ease the enormous body of the Immobile Fortress forward.

Once she started moving, she was surprisingly fast, and she soon covered the radius of the crater.

“Rooo…” The low whimper came from Chrome Disaster, curled up like a wounded animal. Sensing the approach of the Red King, he got up on all fours and retreated to the north. The red automatic recovery light could be seen covering gashes all over the armor. But it seemed that his wounds now were too deep and could not be so simply healed.

The crimson fortress in pursuit of the wounded and escaping knight appeared over the lip of the crater. Moved to tears at her majestic appearance, Haruyuki could only stare.

“Why…” The trembling query escaped his throat once more, and the forward momentum of the fortress stopped abruptly. The avatar towering in front of him looked up, and with a deep breath Haruyuki cried, “Niko! I mean, Scarlet Rain!! You haven’t forgotten, right? If she’s defeated by you, Kuroyukihime…Black Lotus will lose all her points!!”

Kuroyukihime was still unconscious in his arms. And just looking at the extent of damage, it was clear she didn’t have much left in her HP gauge.

At Haruyuki’s reproach, the Red King replied curtly and hollowly. “So what?”

Haruyuki was rendered speechless, and the childish, cold voice continued to pummel him. “For a Burst Linker, all Burst Linkers other than yourself are enemies. You get defeated by an enemy, your points decrease. When they hit zero, you’re forced to leave forever. And that’s that.”

“B-but…we…you and us…”

“Are friends?” With a heavy thud, Scarlet Rain’s main weapon struck the scorched earth. A voice, sharp like a blade, cut through air tinged with a final afterglow. “Your softness makes me puke! Listen, I’ll teach you one last thing. In the Accelerated World, you trust nothing and no one!! Partners, friends, armies…and even the guardian-child bond, they’re all nothing more than illusions!!”

The incandescent blaze of a cry ripped through the air, and in unison, all of the Red King’s weapon containers, which had taken serious damage, broke off. From the center of the Enhanced Armament melting into the air, a small avatar appeared, descending to the ground.

The crimson armor of the little avatar maintained its ruby-like shine, but her left arm from the elbow down had been savagely ripped off, and now small sparks scattered from it. Although she should have been in pain, Niko stood tall in a movement betraying nothing. The avatar glanced passingly at Haruyuki. On the other side of the lenses of those cute, round eyes, an inferno swirled.

“After I take care of him, I’ll finish the two of you off together. If that’s not your thing, better run now. The next time we meet…it’s as enemies.”

Having coldly communicated this fact to him, the Red King turned her gaze forward again. She pulled out the handgun on her hip with her right hand and started walking, yanking back the slide as she did.

At her destination, Chrome Disaster was crawling northward even now, light the color of blood seeping from the wounds covering his body. That he could move even that much despite having been closer to the blast’s epicenter than Kuroyukihime really spoke to his astonishing endurance. However, he could slink no faster than about half of Niko’s current gait, meaning escape was no longer possible.

Still holding the injured Kuroyukihime in both arms, Haruyuki’s blurred gaze was held by the shadows of two avatars steadily growing closer. Judging the situation rationally, he should have considered the possibility that he should, based on her earlier pronouncement, run toward the withdrawal point in either Ikebukuro Station or Sunshine City right away.

But Haruyuki couldn’t move. Or rather, he didn’t want to move. If he ran now, something wrong would be established as fact. That’s how he felt.

Near the exit to the road—created by the enormous beam mowing down a block’s worth of buildings—Niko had finally caught up with Chrome Disaster, and she casually raised her right foot. The knight avatar was kicked to the ground with a rough clang, and Niko perched her left foot on his head.

Haruyuki felt it was an indescribably sad scene.

It was true that the demonic armor had to be destroyed. And it might also have been a fact that she’d had no choice but to aim for the moment right before he started grappling with Kuroyukihime to actually hit this thing, given its transcendent reflexes, with her special attack.

But—in that case, what was the other night about?

Niko and Kuroyukihime sleeping, arms wrapped around each other in Haruyuki’s living room, as if they were both looking for something in the other. The two girls, making him feel a bigger bond, one that surpassed even their shared destiny that, as Kings, they would have to fight one day. Was that sight, so precious Haruyuki almost wanted to cry, merely one night’s illusion? Was it just a meaningless coincidence?

Scarlet Rain pressed her gun to the back of Chrome Disaster’s head.

Unable to bear the sight of what came next, Haruyuki ducked his head. But he didn’t hear the gun report no matter how long he waited.

Instead, a weak voice spoke next to his ear. “…Hon. Estly…This is why…I despise children…”

Kuroyukihime’s voice, wounded, shaking with pain. But there wasn’t a hint of anger there. Haruyuki lifted his face with a gasp and stared into the ebony goggles so close to him.

Inside, a very faint violet light shone. Suppressing all the feelings welling up, Haruyuki whispered, “K-Kuroyu…”

It was in that instant he heard a metallic screeching.

Shifting his gaze, Haruyuki saw Chrome Disaster, upper body arched back, right hand thrown out. And Scarlet Rain, fragments of armor scattering from her left arm.

Dancing, high up in the sky, was the crimson gun.

“Wh-why didn’t she shoot?!” Haruyuki cried involuntarily.

She should have had plenty of time to deliver Chrome Disaster the Judgment Blow, the immediate execution of a member by the Legion Master. Wasn’t it for exactly this purpose that she had gotten Kuroyukihime tangled up in her special attack and even gone so far as to toss them coldly aside and say such terrible things? Why on earth would she hesitate now?

The response to the questions making his head swim came from Kuroyukihime in his arms. “…That. Little girl…is just sulking. It’s hard…She’s sad, throwing a tantrum…”

“Wh-what?!”

Shocked, eyes covering the distance between the girl in his arms and the one on the other side of the wreckage, he saw Chrome Disaster’s right hand flash like lightning, seizing Niko by the neck.

The arm, which appeared to have recovered a fair bit of power, slowly hoisted the small avatar. Niko grabbed the gauntlet with her right hand but offered no other resistance, simply dangling there limply. Almost as if she had given up on everything and resigned herself to this fate.

“That girl in particular…More than anyone else, she wants to believe. In the ultimate bond of a Burst Linker…,” Kuroyukihime murmured.

“B-bond…?” Haruyuki asked in response, dumbfounded, his eyes opening wide.

“Y-yes. I can tell. Those two…are guardian and child. The Red King…is Disaster’s…no, Cherry Rook’s child.”

Guardian and child?! Those two?!

Up to that point, the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. But now that she had said it, there was one thing that made sense to him.

Niko had tracked in detail Cherry Rook’s location in the real world. Haruyuki had assumed it was some kind of Legion Master privilege, but that wasn’t the case. Niko simply knew Cherry Rook in the real. As her only “guardian” who had passed Brain Burst along to her himself.

Further overwhelmed by surprise and rendered again speechless, Haruyuki shifted his gaze back to Kuroyukihime’s placid expression. She raised a ragged right hand and patted him on the shoulder. “Come now, what are you doing? I’m…fine. Go and help her…Niko…our friend.”

Tears welled up in Haruyuki’s eyes, tears he didn’t try to hold back. He didn’t know why, but some huge, hot thing born in his heart pushed its way up. He nodded vigorously. “Okay!”

Haruyuki gently settled Kuroyukihime’s body back on the ground and stood up. With a sharp clack, the wings on his back were fully deployed.

He aimed for the top of Niko’s shoulder where she was clutched in Disaster’s right fist. It would also bring him close to the monster’s jaw. He took a deep breath and clenched his right hand.

“Yaaaaah!” He shouted a cry and then kicked hard off the ground.

After running toward takeoff for a few seconds, he vibrated the metal fins of his wings as hard as he could. His feet pulled away from the ground, and Haruyuki plunged forward, just skimming the surface of the earth, becoming nothing more than a beam of silver light.

On the other side of the rubble road, the crazed armor drew closer to Niko. He held her before his red eyes, ready to tear into her flesh, his own “child” Linker. Haruyuki clenched his right fist tightly, readying it at his side.

“Stoooooop!” Screaming, Haruyuki slammed a fist enveloped in dazzling light into the center of that stygian maw.

His silver radiance ripped into the lurking darkness with a crunch. After a moment’s pause, Chrome Disaster flew back, head thrown off to the side, as if flicked away by an explosion of repulsive force. He bounced on the rubble and tumbled along for another ten meters before falling, limbs askew.

Haruyuki folded up his wings and landed, glancing up to see that he had used half of his special-attack gauge with the Punch. Presently, he looked down at the crimson avatar on her knees beside him.

Holding her throat where Disaster had clutched it and coughing violently, Niko lifted her face and glared at Haruyuki, fire in her eyes. “Y-you…Why…”

“I came to help.” The heat rising up from the depths of his body made his voice unusually rough. “We’re…friends, okay?”

Swallowing her breath for an instant and stiffening up, Niko squeezed out hoarsely, “You jerk…Just a small fry and here you are…acting all big…”

“You, too. You’re supposed to be a King. How long are you gonna mess this up?” With the tip of his toes, Haruyuki kicked up the crimson gun, which had fallen near his right foot, and grabbed the barrel midair. He held the grip out to Niko as he continued, “You’re the only one who can help him; the only one who can help Cherry Rook, Niko. For him, Brain Burst is nothing more than a curse now. You have to set him free.”

Behind the round, cute lens, a glimmer wavered as if in hesitation. But a second later, her right hand stretched out and wrapped firmly around the grip of the pistol.

“Yeah. I know. I know, okay?” Muttering as she stood, the Red King brought her left foot down on the ground loudly, as if to crush something. She focused her gaze straight ahead.

Chrome Disaster, having been sent flying, was only now raising his torso. With his right hand, he covered his face where he’d been struck by Haruyuki’s Punch and whined restlessly. He apparently didn’t have enough strength left to stand. The red glow attempting to repair the damage covering his body had disappeared almost entirely, replaced with particles the color of pitch, dripping out of the wounds like blood.

“Cherry,” Niko called to him quietly as she advanced. “Let’s end this already. There’s no point in going on with a game that’s just pain and suffering.”

From between the fingers covering his helmet, the flickering blink of Chrome Disaster’s red eyes was visible. The left arm that had been thrust into the ground lifted shakily, and the palm of his hand was turned up to the sky, as if to say I surrender.

For a moment, Haruyuki wondered if he had come to his senses.

However…

Suddenly, without any kind of preliminary movement, the blackish-silver avatar whirled upward diagonally, with a speed that belied its weight.

“What?!” Haruyuki cried as he watched Disaster attach himself to the steel frame protruding from the top of a nearly destroyed five-story building. Whipping around backward, he leaped again, as if sucked up by the sky itself.

As he stared at the figure receding with each passing second, Haruyuki shouted, “Flight ability?!”

“No, it’s a long-distance jump!” Niko replied, tense. “He’s going to try to log out at the withdrawal point in Sunshine City. If we let him get away now, we won’t get another chance.”

Cherry Rook, wrapped in that armor, probably already understood that his Legion Master and “child,” Niko, had tracked his movements somehow. He was certain to deal with that once he logged out, and if he did, they wouldn’t be able to use this Unlimited Neutral Field ambush strategy again.

Haruyuki gritted his teeth, stared directly at the Red King, and said, “Niko. This time you can shoot, right? The Judgment Blow.”

“Shut up. I’ll fire. For his sake.”

Finally, Haruyuki’s turn had come: time for Silver Crow to run down and capture Chrome Disaster as per their original plan. All he had to do now was fly. Praying that was the case, Haruyuki told her bluntly, “I’ll keep Disaster in check until you catch up.”

Speechless for a moment, Niko shook her head in tiny increments. “Y-you can’t alone! Not only are you hurt, but he can still move like that. If you get caught, he’ll be the one eating you!”

Haruyuki glanced over at the jet-black figure lying at the far southern edge of the crater and then quickly brought his gaze back before saying, forcefully, “Then you’ve got until he eats me!”

Making the rubble clatter, he reoriented his body, spread his wings, and took off in a straight line.

Flying from the devastated cluster of buildings and giving everything he had to increasing his speed, a dully glittering avatar entered his field of view. Already three hundred meters off to the northeast, the fleeing beast continued to move farther away with incredible long-distance jumps from rooftop to rooftop.

Haruyuki glanced down to see the crimson avatar starting to run in the same northeasterly direction. Taking a deep breath, he flew faster, accompanied by a roaring whoosh.

He stuck both hands straight ahead and surged forward, slicing through the virtual air. Soon enough, he’d passed Green Street, and he continued accelerating along the intersecting Shuto Expressway No. 5.

Soaring on the horizon, Sunshine City was already directly ahead. Naturally, it was no longer the gray skyscraper from the real world. A bluish, jagged steel material interwove to make up the truss structure, and the look of it piercing the dark clouds, eclipsing everything else, gave it the appearance of an enormous tower that was home to the King of Hell. The shopping mall at its base had also been transformed into a desolate park, and here and there in the cracked, tile-covered space, pitch-black trees spread out deformed arms.

At the end of the large stairway cutting through the park from the road to the tower, he could see the structure’s entrance, filled with a hazy, pale blue light. That was probably the leave point. If Chrome Disaster managed to get that far, they’d never get the chance to capture him in the Unlimited Neutral Field again.

Disaster continued leaping in a zigzag across the tops of the buildings on the main street, pitch-black blood particles dropping in his wake. He was so incredibly fast that it was impossible to believe he was just jumping, but as expected, he was slower than Silver Crow in flight.

I caught him!

Haruyuki held his breath and planned the timing for a sudden drop. Above all else, he had to knock the Armor into the ground and stop its advance.

Maintaining sufficient speed and having positioned himself directly above his opponent’s blind spot, Haruyuki entered a full-throttle dive the instant the Armor landed atop a new roof and launched itself toward its next target.

Haruyuki stuck out the toes on his right foot, turning himself into a sharp wedge, and streamed downward. Perhaps noticing the whistle of the wind, the Armor’s helmet looked up with a start. But he wouldn’t be able to dodge midleap. The tips of Haruyuki’s toes, glowing with a fierce radiance, piercing the lacerated back of the Armor—

“Wha—?!”

The instant before he connected with the mutilated Armor, something impossible happened.

In midair, Chrome Disaster, without giving any warning whatsoever, abruptly diverted his trajectory to the right. Haruyuki’s Kick missed its target, accomplishing no more than a scraping sound. Had he allowed the momentum to carry him, he’d have buried himself in the base of the tower, but he braked with every ounce of strength in his wings and just barely managed to decelerate in time.

Landing on both feet with an enormous thud, Haruyuki looked up, still dumbfounded, at Chrome Disaster flying off to the right.

What was that?! No matter how fast or long the jump, as long as it was still a jump, it just wasn’t possible to change trajectories in midair. After all, had it been possible, then it was basically the same as being able to fly, like Haruyuki.

He hurried to take off again and pursue Disaster. The avatar was already close enough that he could probably reach the Sunshine City site in another two or three jumps.

The method of it was unclear, but given that his opponent could alter his course in midair, Haruyuki wasn’t likely to land a straight dive-kick. In which case, the only thing to do was court the risk of being caught himself and launch an attack while following him closely.

“Aaaah!” With a small battle cry, he accelerated and closed the distance until he was just behind the blackish-silver back. When he did, the Armor once again whirled, this time to the left, and Haruyuki was forced into a hard turn. His avatar groaned at the centrifugal force bearing down on him.

Gritting his teeth, he began beating his fist desperately into the Armor’s back when Chrome Disaster again did the impossible.

This time, he sank straight down. Haruyuki’s Punch sliced the air, and having overtaken his enemy, he dove, twisting his own body to target where his opponent would land.

Only in that moment, when both his feet made contact with the roof of the building, would Disaster be forced to stop before launching into the next jump. Haruyuki continued holding the figure of Disaster descending desperately in his sights, dimming because of his own reckless maneuvering, and calculated his timing.

The Armor arched its body, yanked its face up, and stretched out its right arm, allowing Haruyuki to bear witness to a sight that stunned him a third time.

The metal avatar, supposedly incredibly massive, suddenly decelerated in midair. Almost as if gravity had reversed direction, it stopped instantly in empty space and then shot directly up again. His aim off yet again, Haruyuki sliced through the atmosphere vainly with his right foot and flipped his body—

Both eyes wide, he finally saw it.

The momentary glimmer of an extremely fine red line between Chrome Disaster ascending at a steep angle and the rather tall building for which he was headed.

It wasn’t a beam. The light was a reflected afterglow shining through the gap between buildings.

It was a wire.

In the back of Haruyuki’s mind, he recounted flashbacks of the strange gripping technique Chrome Disaster had shown off earlier. That technique—the way he had forcibly yanked the Yellow Legion long-range avatar and the rock that Kuroyukihime had kicked into the armor’s opened palm—and Disaster’s long-distance jumping and midair maneuverability came from exactly the same thing: an extremely thin wire with an anchor attached. It was launched from the palm of his hand at the target to retract it, or was launched at a fixed object to hoist himself toward it.

As Haruyuki watched, Chrome Disaster ascended, wire winding at ridiculously high speeds, and disappeared onto the edge of a building.

Rising once more to give chase, Haruyuki focused his thoughts to calculate his next move. To interfere with that jump, all he had to do was cut the wire stretched out in the air.

But he probably couldn’t disconnect it with a hand chop or a Kick. It easily supported that heavy avatar—and while accelerating on a descent, to boot. He had to assume that the wire’s anchoring power and load-bearing ability were absolute. There was even the possibility that it could not be cut and, in fact, might do him damage.

Rolling seriously through these thoughts as he gained altitude, Haruyuki caught sight of Chrome Disaster landing on an arched roof. On the other side, separated by only a road now, was Sunshine City. His opponent would reach the portal tower with one more leap. What could he do? How could he stop him?

Disaster stretched out his right hand, aiming for the blue-black wall of his destination. His sharp fingers opened into claws. In the center, the light of the wire firing flashed.

“Right!!” Haruyuki shouted at the revelation that came to him in an instant. The strategy that popped into his mind was basically suicide, but he had no other cards to play.

He poured every bit of energy he had into the silver fins that constituted his wings and plunged straight ahead toward Sunshine. Particles of light enveloped his small avatar, drawing out a tail in space like a comet. He quickly overtook Chrome Disaster, crossed the road, and flew on.

More! More, more! Accelerate!

The faster he moved, the more the color of the world changed; everything was decelerating in relation to himself. Now just a dazzling laser shooting forward, Haruyuki was sure he saw it: the wire launched from Chrome Disaster’s right hand toward the exterior wall of the tower, and the microscopic hook at its end.

“Aaaaaaah!!” With a howl, he applied a final burst of acceleration and dove at a shallow angle, mingling his flight trajectory with the wire sight.

He heard the faint snap through his body and felt something bite into the center of his back. An incredible force tried to haul Haruyuki back, but he fought it and pushed himself to the limits of his acceleration to keep charging ahead.

He felt the weight suddenly. Chrome Disaster’s body at the other end of the wire was floating on its back in midair. Without even looking back, Haruyuki saw vividly in his mind the Armor connected to him, flying through space at the same speed.

When landing normally, Disaster avoided crashing into whatever he’d hooked by adjusting the force reeling in the wire. But dragged along like this, the Armor had no technique for decelerating on its own.

Before him, the exterior wall of the enormous tower piercing the sky drew closer. Haruyuki glared at it, a combination of countless pieces of thick steel, and swallowed his fear as he timed his strategy. Too early and he would end up giving Chrome Disaster enough time to land safely; too late and he would crash into the tower himself.

Right. Now.

“Gah!” Screaming, Haruyuki shot straight up at the steepest angle he could manage. Every joint in his body squealed, pain lancing through them. The sharp end of one of the steel girders grazed him from chest to stomach. Orange sparks flying, Haruyuki ascended along the wall of Sunshine, easing up on the acceleration at the same time.

And Chrome Disaster’s enormous body collided against the wall of the tower with an impact so loud that the whole of Ikebukuro shuddered.

The tower itself rattled, and broken fragments of glass, steel, and stone scattered with the force of an explosion. The aftershocks of the energy unleashed turned into bluish-white sparks, crawling through the air.

The wire stretching out from Haruyuki’s back trailed into a massive breach around the tower’s tenth floor. There was a rumbling roar, and he stared, awestruck, as a river of water surged from the hole. Straining his eyes, the water appeared to contain strange, aquatic creatures of varying sizes. The afterglow lighting up their scales red, they danced in the sky and fell to the park on the first floor, splashing about.

Haruyuki finally realized that in the real-world Sunshine City, there would have been an aquarium around this spot. Most likely, that had been re-created here in the Accelerated World, and the crashing Disaster had shattered the tanks.

Toward the end of the outflow of giant fish and amphibians, something that looked like a lump of metal popped out of the hole and was caught, limp, on one of the twisted girders.

Chrome Disaster. In such bad shape, he was nearly unrecognizable. Half of his left arm had been torn off, and his right leg had been smashed like scrap iron. His armor plating was furrowed and crushed, wholly lacking its former sheen.

From innumerable lesions, a near-terrifying amount of black liquid spewed, melting into the air and disappearing before it even hit the ground. Given his condition, it was amazing Chrome Disaster didn’t disappear from the field that second.

Haruyuki blinked his eyes tightly, told himself that this was not the time to let these feelings out, and went to lower Disaster’s body to the ground, using the wire that still connected them. Niko would probably arrive soon.

He ascended slightly, and the taut wire hoisted up the Armor’s right arm.

“Rooooooooooo!!” Suddenly, a howl emanated from the beast at an unspeakable volume.

From inside the hood-shaped helmet of Chrome Disaster’s abruptly raised face, a countless number of very long fangs appeared and opened wide.

His right hand snared at the air like a claw, and Haruyuki’s body was yanked back irresistibly.

After unexpectly dropping several meters, Haruyuki put every bit of force he had into pumping his wings to resist the demonic pull. The straining wire screamed. Before his eyes, the hungry fangs snapped open and closed.

“Nngaaah!” Wailing, Haruyuki desperately fought back. Chrome Disaster’s “predation” had a damage recovery effect. If he got eaten now, this thing would be all healed up and go after Niko again, and then Kuroyukihime.

Tearing his gaze away from the terrifying maw, Haruyuki looked straight up.

The sky of the Unlimited Neutral Field, night approaching, was almost entirely covered by inky black clouds, but between the breaks, he could faintly see stars. He reached out his right hand to a remarkably large red star among them. Making a tight fist, Haruyuki cried out.

“Ngaaaaaaah!”

The air roared, and the thrust of his silver wings increased the metallic attraction. Flying perpendicularly as if popping out, Haruyuki started scrambling up the exterior wall of Sunshine tower rapidly, the Armor still dangling below him. The shock wave rippled the wall like a wave, and the glass followed, shattering.

Reaching the summit of the tower mere seconds later, he kicked at one of the strange thorns stretching out horizontally from the edge and used the reaction to change his orientation, turning back toward Chrome Disaster, still borne along by the wire.

“Nngaaah!!” As he yelled, he drove a right Kick into the Armor’s throat. The lower half of the helmet went flying with a sharp metallic clatter, and the obsidian fangs crumbled.

Still in the same posture, he began plummeting at full speed. The silver avatar and its blackish-silver counterpart became one, streaking toward the ground like a falling star.

Then…

The darkness inside Disaster’s helmet disintegrated with a puff. What appeared inside was a simply designed mask with a light pink hue. The horizontal ellipses that were its eyes blinked hazily, and a small voice—that of a boy—spoke, a lingering innocence in its tone.

“I…want…to be stronger. That’s all…”

Continuing to dive even now, Haruyuki opened his eyes wide. He met the other’s, almost as if trying to peer in, and the peach-colored avatar pressed further, “You…you can understand that, right? You want…power, too, don’t you?”

Hearing those words, Haruyuki felt an intense heat well up deep within him.

Rage. Overwhelming fury.

“You wanted to be strong?” Haruyuki said, still concentrating all the thrust of his wings into the right foot piercing the Armor’s neck. His question instantly swelled to a shout, which practically erupted from his throat.

“So you’re saying that gives you the right to do whatever you want?! You’re saying that makes putting on that armor, attacking huge numbers of avatars, and even trying to eat your own child—eat Niko—totally acceptable?!”

Their dive had already passed the tower’s halfway point. If he didn’t pull out soon, he’d be in trouble, too. He knew that, and yet he couldn’t stop the words rushing out of him.

I want to be stronger. He had, in fact, been repeating those words over and over like a spell for a while now. He felt inferior to pretty much everyone and had become completely obsessed with his ridiculous training. But coming to the field today and fighting his way through more battles than he could count, Haruyuki finally understood that he had forgotten something important.

Strength was definitely not relative.

Superficial standards like winning or losing duels, or being higher or lower than someone, had no value.

It was him. The sole, absolute standard was inside himself.

“It’s not just you!” Haruyuki mustered every scrap of vocal strength he had to shout. “I mean, Niko…and Kuroyukihime…and Taku, and the other Burst Linkers…and Chiyu, and the kids at school, the teachers, too, everyone thinks that!! ‘I want to be stronger, I want to live strong…I want to be able to stand up and face all the hard things myself,’ everyone thinks that!!”

Fragments of the Armor, unable to withstand the speed of their descent, peeled away, immediately turning into light particles and disappearing. Even the darkness leaking from the countless wounds emitted heat the instant it touched the wall of air and burned up.

The avatar contained in the helmet said nothing more.

Without even trying to decelerate or withdraw, Haruyuki plunged forward as one with the Armor.

The two entangled avatars crashed at a terrifying speed into roughly the center of the large staircase that stretched out from the entrance of the park to the tower, causing a final, massive explosion.