2

“Hiii…yaaaaah!!”

The blow came riding in on a full-powered battle cry. The roar of a sonic boom ripped through the virtual air and shook the very stage itself. The black sword raced through space even faster, at a speed that left even these effects behind in the virtual dust.

There was no longer anyone in the Accelerated World who would try to meet head-on the slicing attack of the level-eight Burst Linker nicknamed World End, the head of the Legion Nega Nebulus, Black Lotus—with two exceptions.

One was Invincible, the leader of the Legion Great Wall: Green Grandé. The great shield the Strife, the Enhanced Armament in his possession that was the third star of the Seven Arcs, could resist every type of attack, be it long-range or close. The other was one corner of the Four Elements, the executive of Nega Nebulus, nicknamed Anomaly: Graphite Edge. He was also level eight. And his avatar’s coloring was almost visually indistinguishable from hers, not to mention a strikingly similar silhouette. Not the least of which reason was because, right now, his weapons were the two swords he held in his hands.

Graph waited for Lotus’s full-body attack without moving a step from where he stood. He whirled the longswords in his hands as he raised them up and crossed them in front of his body. Both blades had the same design, with edges of a metallic gray that was essentially black, but the central parts were a transparent glass-like material. Thus, when seen from afar, the swords looked hollow with only a two-centimeter blade.

Normally, only the blade part of a sword was used when attacking or defending, but Graph had crossed and readied his swords with the transparent parts facing outward—that is, the flat of the swords. These looked as though they would bend and break with a simple punch attack, but for him, this setup was no mistake.

Glaring at the midsize M-type avatar standing coolly on the other side of those blades, Lotus prayed silently in the moment of the slicing attack. Today for sure, I will break that shield!

It was a simple regular attack, but the sword of Lotus’s right hand came down with a force greater than any special attack and collided with the intersection of Graph’s double blades.

Kreeeaaan! She heard the screech of impact, and a shock wave rippled outward to the distant edges of the stage. The wave swallowed up two figures watching the battle a little ways off, but given that they were part of the Gallery, it had no effect on them.

Lotus’s slicing attack didn’t manage to take down Graph’s cross defense in a single blow, but her attack was not repelled, either, and the fight became a struggle at the intersection of the swords. Some years ago, when she had first struck Graph’s double blades, she had been easily repelled and knocked some twenty meters or more backward, so this could be said to have been significant progress. But World End would not be satisfied with this.

“Nngh…aaaaah…!!” She focused all her might in her right arm. Compressed to a pinpoint, the power transformed into pale sparks, causing the black armor of the fighters to flicker irregularly.

The swords of Black Lotus’s four limbs had the Terminate Sword ability. The effect was to eternally generate the highest-level severance-attack power in her blades. Many duel avatars were equipped with swords, but normally, it was only during the attack motion—when the sword was swinging—that the blade housed any force. Lotus’s swords, however, were always generating the attack force of a slicing attack, even when they were completely at rest. This power allowed her to sever an opponent’s fist or foot—or take down her prey simply by guarding against their attack. This was the origin of the nickname World End.

The only things that could survive a collision with Lotus’s limbs without being severed was armor that possessed the maximum resistance to severance damage (which only existed in Grandé’s shield), and swords that had the same level of power (and there weren’t really any of these in the Accelerated World, either). It wasn’t that there weren’t exceptions like items or abilities that allowed defense with special conditions—for instance, Yellow Radio’s baton increased his defensive power in proportion to the number of times it was rotated—but the only thing in the entire Accelerated World that could take Lotus’s slicing attack while being on the supposedly fragile side was Graph’s twin swords.

He wasn’t leaving the flats of his swords open to her because he was trying to go especially easy on her. This was actually the power of the duel avatar Graphite Edge—or rather, of his swords.

Two extremely powerful abilities were hidden away in those double swords. One was that they could guard against any and all attacks when the transparent sides were used as a shield. This was no special ability, but rather was derived from the material of the sword itself. The transparent area was not glass or crystal, but something called hyper diamond, which had a hardness that surpassed even natural diamond. In the four years since the start of the game Brain Burst 2039, not a single Burst Linker had broken through the protection this material offered. And of course, Lotus was no exception.

But today…definitely today!

“Aa…aaaaaaaah!!” With every scrap of energy she could muster, Lotus pushed back against the hyper-diamond core of Graph’s swords, supposedly the hardest substance in the Accelerated World. Another shock wave shot out and faded at super-high speed. The supposedly indestructible earth cracked with concentric circles racing outward, perhaps unable to withstand the power generated in the struggle of the two level eighters, a force that went far beyond the numbers.

Black Lotus had crossed swords any number of times with Graphite Edge, a member of the Legion she was master of—her subordinate, in other words. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, despite Graph pushing back against her authority. In fact, just the opposite—he had been instructing Lotus in the art of sword fighting since she was still only level two or three. In other words, he was something of a teacher to her.

And yet, Lotus had a reason for desperately trying to surpass her teacher in today’s lesson. She intended to advance soon to the (supposedly) untrodden territory of level nine. To go from eight to nine required the expenditure of a sum of Burst Points so vast it boggled the mind, but nonetheless, she had finally built up that massive reservoir, including an extra-points buffer that would prevent anything from getting in the way of her duties as Legion Master.

The masters of the other six major Legions were also on the verge of reaching level nine at basically the same time, so it would be unacceptable for her to be late, given that she was considered one of the Seven Kings of Pure Color alongside them. But there was one problem: Becoming level nine meant she would advance beyond Graphite Edge. She very well might be able to best him in a duel from level nine, but then she wouldn’t be able to say that she had actually surpassed him when fighting as equals.

Which was why that day would most likely be the last she was able to fight Graph on equal ground. He had passed on to her a multitude of techniques over more than three years in the real world and a period of time impossible to count in the Accelerated World, so she wanted desperately to show him some proof of her growth. No…She wanted to beat him down, this vexingly cool-as-a-cucumber double-sword user, and be proud of her victory.

“J-just fly already!!” Lotus squeezed a hoarse voice out of her throat, as she felt the periphery of her vision start to white out, perhaps because of her intense concentration.

She no longer had the extra power to step back momentarily and then attack again. It had already been a bit of work just to push Graph into using his double-sword cross guard, given that he was a master of evasive footwork. And yet, even in this situation, the face mask that she caught a glimpse of through the transparent hyper diamond had an air of easy nonchalance about it.

At times like this, Graph’s usual lines were things like “Not too shabby, Lota.” Or “Just a bit more, Lota.” “Nice guts, Lota.” Ever calm and composed, the way he called her Lota as a play on Lotus would only further aggravate her.

This was likely because Lotus had still been in second grade when they met for the first time, and so he’d had no choice but to treat her like a child. But she was in sixth grade now; she’d be in junior high next spring. And when you considered the Brain Burst installation conditions, Graph had to have been of a similar age in the real, right? Honestly, this double-sword user was really—

“You’ve gotten strong, Lota—I mean, Lotus.” His voice came suddenly over the squeal of their locked swords.

Stunned, she wondered if she’d misheard, but the ever-calm voice continued.

“Seems like there’s nothing left for me to teach you.”

“—?!”

He’d never said this to her before, and Lotus stumbled, her concentration faltering. The balance between the attacking and defending forces crumbled, and the pressurized energy concentrated there scattered violently.

Kreeaahn! That pressure slammed into her like an explosion and knocked her flying backward. She bounced off the cracked marble ground of the Twilight stage several times, tumbling and rolling until she found the right moment to plunge the sword of her right leg into the ground and bring herself to a halt, carving out a rut in the ground. She stood up, shaking her head lightly.

She had been convinced that Graph had also been knocked flying, given that he was just as close as she was to the explosion’s ground zero, but in a twist, the metallic-gray avatar hadn’t moved so much as a single step from his original position. He had taken the blow from that violent surge of energy with the crossed double swords.

…Honestly! This guy!

Cursing him inwardly, Black Lotus—Kuroyukihime—shouted, “Oy, Graph! What was that strategy about?!”

“That was how I really feel as a teacher.” Graph shrugged lightly as he lowered the swords in both hands, a dozen or so meters away. “If I was going to set a trap to mess up your sword work…Right, I’d talk about flat, black bugs wriggling around or something.”

“Stop it. I’ll kill you,” she returned in a cold voice—before letting out a long sigh.

Regrettably, she hadn’t been able to achieve her objective of surpassing her teacher, but she had pushed Graph to a place where he’d had to say something like that, which gave her confidence. And with that in mind, she checked in with the acting referees, watching over the scene together from the left. “Maiden. Curren. May I call this…a draw?”

The small dual-colored avatar standing on the right side shook her head firmly. “No matter how you look at it, it’s your loss, Lo.”

This was followed by the avatar on the left, her entire body wrapped in her unique flowing-water armor, similarly shaking her head, sending water droplets scattering. “I think the winner of the battle is the one standing in the end.”

“…Mm. I see.” Kuroyukihime nodded, her gaze still turned toward the official referees.

“Hunh!” She brandished the sword of her right arm with a cry. Red light jetted forth in a straight line along the floor—or more precisely, the roof of the large, mixed-use building at the east exit of Shibuya station, Shibuya Hikarie. On this side of the line were Lotus and the two referees; on the other side was Graphite Edge.