Accel World, Vol. 17: Cradle of Stars

“Uh, um, oh…Kuroyukihime. That swimsuit looks really good on you…”

“This is pretty much the worst time for you to be saying that!”

Still sitting on the inner tube, Kuroyukihime brought the heel of her left foot down and made a direct hit with the crown of Haruyuki’s head. Once again, he burbled under the water.

“Okay, Corvus is out, then. So what’s your answer, Rin?”

“Um. Um. I’m pretty sure. There was that morning glory. In space thing, so…Morning Glory Day…”

“Enh! Enh! Enh! Wrong. Thirty seconds underwater.”

“Okay…”

Splsh! Rin vanished, leaving behind wavelets. Perhaps because of the lighting, the water surface was dyed the blue of the sky, and he couldn’t tell what was happening in the water at all.

Having recovered from the mental and physical shock, Haruyuki couldn’t wait for Rin to come bobbing back up and looked toward Fuko on the poolside. “Um. Master? So that automatically means the answer is Sunflower Day, then…”

“Do you still not see the connection between sunflowers and space?”

“Um. I guess sunflowers follow the sun? …Whoa!”

Rin popped up suddenly, ten centimeters before his eyes, so he threw himself back unconsciously.

“Arita, no fair. Answering…first!”

“Oh! S-sorry.”

“But I. Under. Stand.” Whirling around, Rin turned to Fuko and said, “Sunflowers. Himawari. They rotate. With the sun. Like the. Himawari satellite, right?”

“Correct, Rin.” Fuko smiled.

Kuroyukihime, to the rear, cleared her throat loudly. “You there, don’t stay so close. It’s just as Kusakabe said, on this day seventy years ago, the first Japanese weather satellite was launched, the Himawari Number One. To commemorate that, July fourteenth is seen as Sunflower Day.”

“Ohhhh…I get it. That is related to space, then.” Haruyuki bobbed his head up and down admiringly before quickly realizing something and craning his neck. “Huh? Maybe this sounds rude, but like, if they were going to match it up with some minor holiday, then they should have implemented the Space stage last week on July seventh, right? I think the Tanabata Festival’s way more of a major space-related holiday.”

“True, but because of the history of Tanabata, the exact date is a bit hazy,” Kuroyukihime noted. “When you look at the whole of Japan, there are a fair number of places that go by the lunar calendar—that is, they have the Tanabata Festival in August.”

“Oh! Now that you mention it, in Higashine in Yamagata where my grandparents live, Tanabata is at the beginning of August.”

“Oh-ho, is that so? Mmm. Well then, to be in time for that— No, no, we were talking about the Space stage.” Her thoughts nearly derailed, Kuroyukihime cleared her throat once more before continuing. “At any rate, all of this is to say that Fuko and I were thinking that today, which could be said to be space-related, might be the day when the Space stage is implemented. We don’t know because we’re cut off from the global net, but it may have already been, and as we speak, no-holds-barred fights are taking place in a gravity-free space. In which case, we, too, must ensure that we are able to respond, just in case.”

“Just in case…So then”—Haruyuki glanced around and checked that there were no poolgoers within hearing range—“do you mean the meeting with GW could be our first Space stage experience?”

“There’s that, too.”

“B-but we’re only talking today, yeah? So a stage with new rules we’re not used to still won’t be a problem, right?”

UI> THAT’S WHY IT’S “JUST IN CASE.” Bobbing on the surface of the water, Utai had been listening to them with a smile, and now she lightly tapped at the surface of the inner tube with her fingers. UI> I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THE PEOPLE OF GREAT WALL WOULD BREAK THEIR PROMISE AND CHALLENGE US. BUT WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN; WE DO NOT KNOW *IF* SOMETHING WILL HAPPEN…THAT IS THE ACCELERATED WORLD.

“Right…I guess so. Especially at such an important talk like this one, this is the sort of thing they’d target.” Haruyuki nodded, reminded of how Takumu had also said it depended on the situation the previous day.

Utai nodded firmly as well. He hadn’t gone so far as to say who “they” were, but there was no doubt that the name Acceleration Research Society had popped up in all their heads.

“Right. I know Rin is here, so maybe we shouldn’t say this,” Fuko said. “But GW is a large family, so we can’t exclude the possibility of an information leak.”

“Only the top people know about the meeting,” Rin replied in a quiet voice, still submerged up to her chin in the water. “But they issued a notice that global connections are prohibited between two fifty and three ten in Shibuya Two. So the Legion members are probably wondering what’s going on…I think.”

“We requested they send out that notice.” A faint, wry smile rose up on Fuko’s face. “If we hadn’t, then we might be disturbed by a connection to the meeting stage, even if it’s not deliberate. That said, however, having them issue a notice to every member of GW saying Nega Nebulus is coming so don’t challenge them seemed like it would only court extra risk.”

“…It’s true that. There are a few. People who would want to go one-to-one with the Black King. Even if they got in trouble for disobeying an. Order. I think,” Rin said apologetically.

Kuroyukihime grinned. “You tell that lot they can come to Suginami in the Territories, and I will be sure to take them on one-on-one. At any rate, I hope you’ve understood what Fuko and I are concerned about, Haruyuki?”

“Y-yes.” Haruyuki hurriedly nodded. “An unexpected challenger—and in the newly implemented Space stage on top of that, so we can’t fight properly…That kind of thing, right?”

“Yes. A gravity-free environment, which the Space stage is sure to be, requires fairly specialized movements and sense of direction…It actually would have been better if we could have trained in the Ocean-stage sea, but it would just be too much to stay accelerated until we drew such a rare stage. So! The real world it is!” Kuroyukihime slapped at the water. “This explanation’s run a little long, but we still have an hour and a half until the meeting at three. You may swim, you may dive, you may sip tropical juice by the poolside when you get tired. Everyone, play with all your might. That is today’s training!”

Haruyuki and his friends all thrust their right hands into the air and shouted, “Okay!”

Akira and the others had apparently tired of swimming, and so he, Rin, and Utai took their place in the inside lane and swam back and forth several times before starting a game of underwater hide-and-seek. With this and drinking colorful juice on deck chairs, the time flew by.

When it was 2:50 PM, Kuroyukihime gathered them all in one corner of the pool to form a circle in the water.

“Now, how do you feel, friends?” the Legion Master asked. “Have your bodies become accustomed to the floating sensation?”

Chiyuri tilted her head thoughtfully. “Like, maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t? Or like, Kuroyukihime, are we really going to be able to deal with the Space stage like this?”

“No idea. This will be my first time, as well.”

At this response, everyone there rolled their eyes, but Kuroyukihime continued brightly.

“Of those present, the only ones who have tasted zero gravity in the Accelerated World are Fuko and Haruyuki, who made it through to the very end of the Hermes’ Cord race. Considering this experience, perhaps you could say a few words?”

“Um.” Haruyuki exchanged a look with Fuko before answering timidly, “I wasn’t able to go all the way to the finish line. But due to the feeling of up and down and left and right, being hazy is maybe like diving in the water…”

“I only flew straight ahead to the finish line,” Fuko said, cocking her head to one side. “But I think it’s totally different depending on whether you’re mentally prepared or not. We’ve played around a full two hours here in the pool, so there’ll be no panicking if the Space stage really does come. As long as we have that mental awareness, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“Mmm. That’s exactly it. Now, everyone, we’ll dive one last time into the water. Join hands with the person beside you.”

He clasped the hand of Kuroyukihime on his left and Akira on his right. On Kuroyukihime’s signal, he took a deep breath to fill his lungs and dived.

The faces of his comrades were distorted through the transparent aqua blue. To confront the Acceleration Research Society and Oscillatory Universe, Kuroyukihime had decided on a Legion expansion policy. Already, Chocolat Puppeter and her two comrades had joined the day before yesterday, and the total muster of Nega Nebulus was now ten—eleven if you counted the Archangel Metatron. Going forward, he would have fewer chances to work with the people there that day. He couldn’t feel that this was a bad thing, but he still wanted to burn that moment firmly into his memory.

As if picking up on his thoughts, Akira and Kuroyukihime both squeezed his hand. One at a time, they squeezed one another’s hands until the gesture made it all the way around the circle and back to him again. Then they rose up to the surface.

Once most of the dripping was under control, Kuroyukihime gave instructions calmly. “One minute to go. Ready your global net connections.” They all put a hand to their Neurolinkers. Great Wall would be making the stage that would serve as the setting for the meeting, so all Haruyuki and his comrades had to do was wait. Of course, they had registered the starter Iron Pound on their automatic Gallery list.

“Thirty seconds. Start the connection.”

He held down the connect button on his Neurolinker. The global net connection dialog box was displayed in his field of view.

“Ten seconds. Nine, eight, seven…”

As he listened to Kuroyukihime’s countdown, Haruyuki closed his eyes.

“…three, two, one.”

Not even a second late, a row of characters wreathed in flames shone red against the back of his eyelids.

A REGISTERED DUEL IS BEGINNING!