3

“Come on! Back to your seats! Extended homeroom’s starting.”

Some students grumbled at their homeroom teacher clapping his hands together. “What?! The bell hasn’t even rung yet. Stick to the schedule.”

“Okay, then, anyone not in their seat the instant the bell rings gets extra homework! Come on, it’s going to ring—it’s gonna ring, you guys! Three, two, one…”

Haruyuki listened, chins propped up in his hands, to the ringing of the sixth-period bell and the clattering of students scrambling for their seats.

On the other side of the window, a drizzling rain colored the city gray. According to the weather forecast, the end of the rainy season was still two weeks away, but he had the end-of-term examinations to look forward to right after that, so he couldn’t really muster up any impatient desire for the rain to stop. Of course, if he could make it through the exams, the brilliance of summer break awaited him, but he would need a lot more training before he could manage to be upbeat enough to sustain any kind of anticipation over such a long time frame. He sighed heavily simply thinking about the classes (especially gym) and homework (especially essays) that would assault him in the week ahead.

At least with homework, he could noodle and dawdle and drag it out and still get it done right before it was due if he made a power play and used a burst point. In those final thirty minutes he gained from acceleration, he could mow down any amount of homework, an ability so incredible that even honors student Takumu was stunned and exasperated. “Why don’t you just use that kind of concentration normally?”

But he couldn’t use an intense burst of acceleration to similarly clear his schedule of the classes crammed into his days, morning to night. In fact, when he was dragging his exhausted self around the track in gym class, he even had the sense that a deceleration function was actually at work. Maybe there really was. According to the operating principles of Brain Burst, the thought clock was accelerated by an increased heart rate, extending subjective experienced time. So maybe if he trained so that his heart didn’t pound so hard when he was running, gym class would feel shorter than it did now. All right. He’d try dropping the Chinese Kenpo training app he had been using and do some chakra-type special power training or something.

These useless thoughts ran through Haruyuki’s mind as he looked out the window without really seeing anything while the voice of his homeroom teacher went in one ear and out the other.

“…It’s been two months now that you’ve been in this class. And now’s about the time when you start to lose focus. See? On this graph, lateness and lost items, starting in April…”

Normally, the last homeroom was precious time when he worked out his duel plans for after school. What area he’d go to, what kind of techniques he’d try, who he’d fight, or whose Gallery he’d sit in while they fought. For Haruyuki, who loved simulations, this was a fun exercise even if it had no effect on his actual duels. Usually, homeroom was over in the blink of an eye, a pleasant surprise, but today, time’s march was ridiculously slow.

The reason was obvious.

Haruyuki had been backed into a corner; he had no room for plotting out duel plans. The pressure he was under now was even, in a certain sense, greater than when he had his flying ability stolen two months earlier, teetering as he was on the edge of a cliff. Was his time as a Burst Linker almost over?

After the meeting of the Seven Kings ended the day before, Fuko dropped Haruyuki off close to his home. Although he managed to meet her and Kuroyukihime’s encouragement with a smile, he did indeed drop his head and count the tiles of the sidewalk as he trudged home along Kannana Street.

Head still hanging, he got into the elevator and rode up to the twenty-third floor. After walking down the silent hallway to his condo, just as he was in front of the door about to touch the UNLOCK button shown in his field of view, Haruyuki noticed a small figure crouching in the corner of the doorway and stopped dead in his tracks.

Bright T-shirt with some logo on it, slim-fit jeans. Faded sneakers on bare feet. Despite the rough appearance, he quickly realized it wasn’t a boy. The hair tied up on both sides, red like fire, shone lustrous even in the gloom of the hallway.

“N-Niko?” Haruyuki said her name, dumbfounded, and the small girl slowly raised her face, a daring and yet somehow powerless smile crossing her lips.

“Yer late. We supposedly left the Chiyoda Area at the same time, but here I am, waiting for ten whole minutes.”

“S-sorry,” he apologized reflexively, and she shrugged sharp shoulders lightly.

“Well, Pard did give me a lift on her bike, so it’s no wonder I was faster.”

“Th-there’s no way I could catch up with her. A-anyway…why are you here?” Haruyuki asked, blinking furiously.

Niko looked away momentarily and snorted lightly. “This is gonna take a while. You wanna hear the whole thing in the hallway?”

“O-oh, sorry.” Haruyuki hurried to touch the UNLOCK button still displayed before him. The door of his deserted-as-always apartment opened, and he politely invited her in, to which Niko responded with a long sigh before putting both hands on her knees and standing up.

After showing his surprise guest to the living room, Haruyuki got two glasses of orange juice in the kitchen and returned, only to cock his head anew.

The younger girl seated on the sofa, looking out at the clouds on the other side of the windows, was indeed someone he had met many times before, Niko aka Yuniko Kozuki—ruler of the Legion Prominence, the Red King, Scarlet Rain herself. But why? He had not only exchanged anonymous mail addresses with her, but also call numbers, so she had any number of ways to get ahold of him. And more than that, sitting with her knees clutched to her chest, in the corner of the entryway of someone she had business with, was the polar opposite of what he expected from Niko.

As he set the juice down on the glass table, Haruyuki stole another peek at the small face in profile. He could see no sign of the usual sparkling energy in her lightly freckled cheeks. On the contrary, he felt like he could see an unease of sorts in them. It was hard to believe this was the very Red King who had spoken so sternly at the meeting earlier. Her sharp voice came back to life in the back of his head.

We got someone not fit for the threat of Incarnate blah-blah right here.

“Sorry. For saying it like that, I mean,” Niko muttered before him the instant he recalled the intense heat of her recrimination, her crimson flames, almost as if reading his mind.

“Huh? O-oh, no, it’s—” Having sunken into the sofa, he sat up again and hurriedly shook his head back and forth. “I—I was surprised at first, but Kuroyukihime and Raker explained it later, so…They said you brought up the subject of my—I mean, the Armor of Catastrophe parasitizing me then because we couldn’t let any of the other kings, especially the Yellow King, take the lead on this.” He rushed to get the words out, and Niko blinked a couple times before a wry smile bled into her large eyes, which looked reddish brown or green, depending on the light.

“Tch! So they saw through me. Honestly, nothing to love about those two.” Cursing, she leaned back into the sofa, crossed surprisingly thin legs, and dangled a slipper from the tip of her bare foot.

Relaxing slightly at this change in demeanor, Haruyuki cocked his head lightly to one side and asked, “Wait, have you and Raker met before?”

“Nah. The meeting there was the first time we’ve come face-to-face. I’ve just heard stuff about her from Pard.”

“S-stuff? Like what?”

At the question, a broad, meaningful grin spread across Niko’s face. “You know where her nickname ICBM comes from?” she asked in return.

“Huh? It’s not just from her boosters sort of looking like missiles…?”

“There’s that, but that’s not the whole story. It actually comes from this tactic the old Nega Nebulus used once in a while in large-scale Territory Battles. They would deliberately push up to the enemy team front line and scatter their fighting power. Then Raker, either alone or carrying someone as support, would fly into the enemy’s rear base with her boosted jump. And ’cause the only armor in the rear’s basically paper, super-long-distance types, they did serious damage with this strategy, the sort of damage you’d get from a missile.”

“…R-right.” Haruyuki nodded, unconsciously breaking out into a cold sweat despite the fact that the person behind this clever attack was his own ally.

“And you know how Pard is a speed demon.” Niko’s expression softened as she continued, almost as if she were recounting her own memories. “Whenever she got hit with that missile strategy, she’d head straight to the rear and duke it out with Raker. Over and over. Seriously. I mean, we’re talking about the main force of a Legion we got a cease-fire with, but she was so happy Raker’d come back to the front…You know what, Crow? Pard’s a fairly longtime Linker, but she’s still only at level six and…”

Here, Niko fell silent, so Haruyuki finally leaned forward. The doubt in her was one he’d sensed several times in the past. “‘L-level six and’…?”

“Nah, it’s a secret. Ask the girl herself later.” Grinning, she offered a quick “Thanks” as she lifted the glass from the table.

He could no longer see the curious helplessness in the little—apparently thirsty—girl as she took big, glugging gulps of the juice. Maybe it had just been his imagination, he thought as he replied, “I totally feel like she wouldn’t tell me even if I did ask…Well, anyway. So, Niko, did you come all the way over here just to apologize for the thing in the meeting?”

“What? You don’t have to sound so put out.” She glared at him over the rim of her glass, and he hurried to shake his head.

“N-no! I’m not put out! It’s just sort of out of character, I guess. Oh, uh! I didn’t mean it like that, it’s, um, actually I’ve been thinking for a long time that I’m the one who should apologize.” Unable to stop the spinning of his mouth once it had started moving, he awkwardly turned into sound the idea he had been planning to communicate in a more polished form. “I-it’s just, we worked so hard to destroy the Armor in Ikebukuro, and then I go and make a stupid mistake and now it’s still around. And on top of that, you had to give the old owner, Cherry Rook, the Judgment Blow, but I’m still here being a Burst Linker—”

Haruyuki’s words did not entirely miss their mark, and Niko listened with a serious face. Eventually, however, she shook her head lightly and interrupted him. “Nah.” The young king set her glass down, crossed her legs again, and sat back deep in the sofa. “I’m not holding a grudge against you or anything for that. I didn’t give Cherry the Judgment Blow because he was the owner of the Armor. I did it because he was swallowed up by the Armor’s controlling power and then he attacked—no, devoured—a ton of Burst Linkers. If Cherry had maybe been able to make the Armor surrender and control it with his own power, I would have done the opposite. I would’ve protected him. No matter what the other kings said…yeah…” Niko’s voice slowed unnaturally.

Haruyuki blinked and looked at the pale face turned to the floor. The same dark shadow he had seen outside in the hallway again clouded her large eyes, a deep green at that moment. This time, Haruyuki understood what it was: fear. And anger at herself for being afraid. And a tiny bit of resignation. The look that must have come onto Haruyuki’s own face in the past at those times when he clutched his knees, unable to do anything under his own power.

“N-Niko.” He called her name in a strangled voice.

The girl raised her eyes momentarily and then dropped them again with a weak smile. “I had the power to actually protect Cherry. I’ve believed that these last six months. But, the thing is…” Abruptly, she clutched the arms poking out of the sleeves of her T-shirt tightly. Almost like she had been overcome by a fierce chill in the middle of the sweltering June heat. “Crow. You didn’t feel it at the meeting?”

“F-feel what?” Haruyuki timidly asked in reply.

“That inside those kings there,” Niko—the second Red King, the Immobile Fortress, Scarlet Rain—groaned in a cracking voice, “are real monsters. That information pressure…It’s impossible…Like, I really planned to just protect you there. I mean, I owe you for saving Cherry for me. So, like, I proposed that compromise at today’s meeting. But…if they had seriously pushed for execution, I…” She shut her mouth and pulled her knees up onto the sofa.

For a while, Haruyuki could say nothing to her in reply. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe it right away; he just couldn’t actually understand it. The fact that Niko was calling another Burst Linker a monster, complete with a look of real fear…

To Haruyuki, the Red King was an absolutely elevated presence. He was convinced that they could fight a hundred times under the same conditions, and he would lose each one of those hundred times. The dreadnought long-distance firepower she had when she deployed all of her Enhanced Armament was no doubt one of the greatest attack powers in the Accelerated World. After all, with one shot of her main armament, she had sent half of the Shinjuku government building flying.

But even in just her small avatar body, equipped with a single handgun, Niko’s strength was fathomless. At the meeting of the Seven Kings, Haruyuki had in fact felt an enormous pressure from the Red King, one that did not pale in any way in comparison with that of the other kings.

“Th-that’s…” Haruyuki finally rebutted her hoarsely, shaking his head in several short jerks. “I mean, for me, every single person in that place was up in the clouds, but I can’t believe there was anyone there who could make you say that. I—I mean, you’re a level niner just like them, right? ‘Same level, same potential,’ that’s the main principle of the Accelerated World, right?”

The redheaded girl glanced at Haruyuki over her small kneecaps and moved her head slowly from side to side with a bitter smile. “Exceptions to every rule, you know. Listen. For all intents and purposes, level nine’s the cap for Brain Burst. ’Cause no matter how many points you earn, you can’t get to the next level from there. The road to level ten is hunting five other level-nine Linkers…which basically equals making five people lose all their points. To put it another way…”

She dropped her eyes once more and said softly, “No one else knows how much time you’ve spent in the Accelerated World, how much experience you’ve had after getting to level nine. I thought those other kings couldn’t beat me on that one. I thought I had the power to at least not have the things I lost in the real world taken from me again in the Accelerated World. But…that was wishful thinking. Those guys, the ‘originators,’ have transcended stuff like the hurts I’m clinging to. And if you don’t call that monstrous, what is it…”

“…‘O-origin’…?” Baffled, Haruyuki could only repeat to himself the unfamiliar word. But Niko simply set her cheek down on the knees she had her arms around and offered nothing in the way of reply.

The living room fell back into silence, with just the faint hum of the air conditioner reaching his ears. The cloudy sky beyond the windows was concentrated lead, and headlights began to pop on here and there in the lanes of EV vehicles flowing along Kannana.

Niko went to a boarding school, and she would soon be in danger of breaking curfew, but the body curled up before him showed no signs of moving. Even the hair pulled up into thin bundles on either side of her head hung limply, as if it had lost its usual vigor.

I should say something, Haruyuki felt, and fumbled earnestly for the words. Now that he was thinking about it, he had a hard time believing that Niko would have brought herself all the way to Suginami just to apologize for what she had said during the meeting. Maybe right now, the look on her face under that red fringe was one she couldn’t show to her friends in the Red Legion, not even her closest aide, Pard.

“……”

He was completely unable to think of something appropriate to say, but even still, he had to say something, and so took a deep breath. But before he could get any words out, Niko popped her head up. Her entire face radiated with an unexpected smile. Her lips moved and her high-pitched voice came rushing out, her tone a complete one-eighty from what it had been until that point.

“Sorry for suddenly talking about all this weird stuff, big brother!”

“…Uh, n-no, it’s…” He simply darted his eyes about in confusion. Even knowing that Niko’s suspicious “Angel mode” was a trick to tease Haruyuki and throw up a smoke screen, for an only child, being called big brother with a big smile was a shot straight through the heart.

“Just forget all that! Ah! I gotta get going! Thanks for the juice!” She launched the words in a voice so adorable, he could practically see a stardust effect at the end of each sentence, and then bounced off the sofa and trotted across the living room.

Here, Haruyuki finally pushed through his surprise and stood up. “H-hold on, Niko!” he called after her slim back. “Didn’t you…Wasn’t there something else you wanted to talk about?”

The small girl stopped dead in her tracks in front of the door. After a moment’s hesitation, she whirled around abruptly. He was wholly unprepared for the broad grin and the speech that accompanied it.

“Look, big brother Haruyuki. If one of us—or maybe both of us—loses Brain Burst, we’ll probably forget it all, everything about each other, you know?”

“Huh…?”

Total erasure of related memories. The final rule of Brain Burst applied to those who lost the game, a rule Haruyuki had discovered a mere two months earlier. Even Kuroyukihime had only had rumor-level information about this rule before then; how long had Niko known?

Haruyuki held his breath as Niko peered up at him and then suddenly thrust her right hand out, extending just her surprisingly slender little finger.

“So let’s promise. That when we find a name we don’t know in the address book of our Neurolinkers, before we erase the data, we’ll send one mail. And then maybe, one more time…”

“…rita. Arita! Hey! Are you listening to me?”

A thick voice suddenly calling his last name dragged Haruyuki out of his memories of the previous day. He intently swallowed down the pain rising up in his chest and took several breaths, somehow managing to change gears in his brain.

“Y-yes!” he responded hurriedly, reflexively half standing at the same time, and bumped his legs into the reinforced plastic desk, making both desk and chair clatter.

Here, he finally remembered that this was not his own living room, but the classroom of grade eight’s class C. Nervously shifting his gaze, he saw his homeroom teacher Sugeno making a sour face at the podium, and the students around him snickering at his overreaction.

He couldn’t hear the scornful echoes of seventh grade in that laughter, although there might have still been the tiniest undercurrent. But the Haruyuki of this class, despite still being at the bottom of the hierarchy, had somehow established himself as the harmless round guy. Naturally, he was not dissatisfied with this. He would almost say it was ideal, in fact.

Which was why he had to make every effort to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to himself as he had just done with his silly mistake. He wouldn’t be able to handle it if, because of this, some secret punk in the class decided it would be a good idea to relieve some stress by sending a little light bullying Haruyuki’s way. Thus, he moved to sit back down with an embarrassed smile befitting someone who had gotten a bit too carried away and done something awkward.

However, for some reason, he sensed in his classmates a certain expectation directed toward him, and he froze. They all looked like they were waiting eagerly for Haruyuki to say something.

Wh-what’s going on? Am I supposed to do something now? Do they want me to make a joke? Did I accidentally activate the super-difficult mission of making them laugh? Mind racing, Haruyuki broke out into a cold sweat.

“Oh, Arita. So you’re standing up. Can I take that to mean you’re announcing your candidacy?” Sugeno said unexpectedly.

Candidacy? For what?

He had let his homeroom teacher’s words flow right past him, so he had no idea how what connected to what. Stiffening at the surprising turn things had taken, Haruyuki focused his eyes to the rear of his teacher. But there was nothing written on the virtual blackboard.

Don’t panic. Think. So the kind of jobs you recruit for in homeroom…Right, someone to read out the announcement texts from the school. Nine times out of ten, that’s what it is. Haruyuki turned his gaze back to his virtual desktop and noticed that at some point a document file had arrived in his new message area.

He definitely wasn’t good at reading out loud. But he had to do it sometimes in language arts or English class, and it was way better than having to state his own thoughts on anything. In this situation, the less messy choice was to own his carelessness and take the role of reader instead of sitting down with a no and making the whole thing worse.

Having arrived at a decision on how to act, Haruyuki raised his head and met Sugeno’s eyes. “Y-yes, I’ll do it!” he replied in a clear voice.

An impressed “Ohh!” abruptly rose up from the entire class, followed by applause like heavy thunder.

“…Sorry?”

Th-this reaction. Why would anyone applaud just because I said I’d be the reader? Freezing once more, Haruyuki watched Sugeno nod.

“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I knew you were the type to step up when push comes to shove, Arita! I’m honestly delighted someone’s come forward in class C. Classes A and B will no doubt end up drawing names.”

What? A very ominous feeling settling over him, Haruyuki clicked on the newly arrived file. The document that opened with a crisp sound effect was:

NOTICE OF ESTABLISHMENT OF ANIMAL CARE CLUB: A TOTAL OF THREE MEMBERS, ONE FROM EACH GRADE EIGHT CLASS, ARE TO BE ELECTED.

—In a rather cold font.

“A-Animal Care Club?!” Haruyuki’s shriek was drowned out in the ongoing applause.

Animal Care Club. So then, looking after animals?

Belatedly coming to the obvious conclusion, he looked around the class and saw Chiyuri shaking her head in exasperation and Takumu grinning wryly with a you’ve done it now look.

“Look, Haru. Even if you are always daydreaming…” In the short period after school before team practices started, his childhood friend Chiyuri Kurashima appeared before Haruyuki, who was still limp with exhaustion at his own desk. She turned a hard gaze on him as she continued. “If you don’t know what’s going on, then at least open the handout! Why would you just charge in on a gut feeling like that?!”

“Come on, Chi. It’s not like this is the first time Haru’s let his thoughts just run wild,” Takumu Mayuzumi said, standing next to Chiyuri.

You don’t have to rub my nose in it, he thought, although he couldn’t actually deny the truth of what they were saying. He slowly slid down on his chair and said lifelessly, “It’s fine. Whatever. I’ll just do it. The animal caretaker thing, anything.”

“If someone had, like, forced you, we could maybe have said something. But, I mean, you stood up and proudly declared your candidacy. There was nothing we could do.” Chiyuri let out a sigh, and then the expression on her face changed abruptly. A serious light shone in her catlike eyes, and she brought her head in close, large barrette glittering. “But, actually, you do have the time for some kind of club, right? I mean, within the next week, you’ll—”

“You have to ‘purify’ that parasite, whatever it takes,” Takumu interjected to finish the thought in a low voice.

Exactly.

That week—Monday, June 17, to Sunday, June 23—was the “stay of execution” Haruyuki/Silver Crow had been given.

Two resolutions had in the end been adopted at the meeting of the Seven Kings the previous day. First, they would continue to gather information on the attack by the mysterious Acceleration Research Society. In his heart, Haruyuki was indignant at this too-lukewarm proposal, but it was true that a counterattack was impossible, given that they had absolutely no real details about the nature of the group; there was really nothing else they could do.

And then, as if to counterbalance that tepidity, a harsh decision was made about Silver Crow’s transformation into Chrome Disaster: If he didn’t completely remove the parasite that was the Armor of Catastrophe within that seven-day period, the five kings would place a large bounty on his head. And that enticing sum of burst points would be distributed according to the number of times a Linker defeated Silver Crow. Once that happened, the instant he took even one step outside of Suginami Area, he would be assaulted by waves of Burst Linkers, including high-level ones, and Haruyuki’s points would run dry in a flash. They did have, after all, the just cause of the destruction of the armor on their side. No one needed to hesitate about pitting a large group against one person.

Naturally, if he copied Kuroyukihime, who had a similar bounty on her head, and shut himself up in Suginami, he could refuse duels even while connected to the global net, but if he did that, he would no longer be able to earn points. He would stop leveling up, which was the very definition of a slow death for a Burst Linker.

All of which meant an erasure ordered by a king, as long as it was lawful, was essentially the same thing as a death sentence. Kuroyukihime had managed to live for two whole years due, of course, to her iron will and her steadfast refusal to connect her Neurolinker globally, but the fact that she was already level nine played a big part. Haruyuki obviously lacked the latter and most likely the former as well.

“…One week…” Haruyuki looked down at his hands on his desk. Unconsciously, he overlaid on them the gleaming, smooth silver of his armor. Silver Crow was his other self; becoming his avatar was entirely natural. The idea that he would no longer be able to be that person, no longer able to be a Burst Linker, felt unreal.

Wait. Maybe I just feel like that because that’s the real world now? Real for me is maybe in that world now? So then, if I lose Brain Burst, where the hell will I go…? The instant this thought came into his mind, Haruyuki was overtaken by something like a chill, and a shiver ran up his spine. Deep in his ears, he heard again her clear, high voice.

So let’s promise. That when we find a name we don’t know in the address book of our Neurolinkers, before we erase the data, we’ll send one mail…

Haruyuki didn’t know just how serious Niko had been, since she’d said it in Angel mode, which was supposed to be a performance. She had forced Haruyuki to pinkie shake and then left, practically running out the door.

But how could he forget? They could erase his memories of the Accelerated World, but there was no way he’d forget the people he had built bonds with in the real world. He tried to feel this confidence, despite the sharp unease in his heart. What if at some point he had lost sight of the reality of the real world? What if the memories tagged with reality had become empty without him noticing it?

Clenching both hands tightly at the fear suddenly rising up in him, Haruyuki’s head started to sag even lower, but a small hand entering his field of view was faster than his head, wrapping itself around Haruyuki’s left fist.

“It’ll be okay, Haru.”

Lifting his face again, he found Chiyuri’s usual smile there.

“Right. I’m sure we’ll be able to work it all out,” Takumu said crisply, standing next to her, and stretched out a hand blistered from his wooden kendo sword to rap Haruyuki’s right fist. His two childhood friends exchanged brief glances and nodded as if confirming something before looking back at Haruyuki.

“And, okay, Haru? We talked about it, and we made a decision. If the week does go by and that bounty gets put on you, Taku and I will share our points with you, so you can keep leveling up at the same pace. So you don’t have anything to worry about.” Haruyuki stared hard at Chiyuri’s face as she spoke.

He quickly rose up out of his chair and shook his head fiercely. “Y-you can’t!” he half said, half shouted, keeping his voice at minimum volume. “If you guys do that, you might end up with bounties, too! They’re just waiting for an excuse to turn all of us into targets!”

“Hey, whoa, Haru. I’ve been in this longer than you, okay? I know a dozen ways to transfer points in secret.” Takumu grinned as he touched the bridge of his glasses and quickly ran his gaze over to the lower right, moving his body as if to close off any objections from Haruyuki. “Yikes! I gotta be getting to practice. Haru, let me know if the animal thing takes too much of your time. I’ll switch off with you whenever I can. At any rate, this week, your priority should be the purification plan Master came up with.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Taku.” Haruyuki swallowed a bunch of different words and lowered his head.

The Armor of Catastrophe purification plan. After the handling of Silver Crow had been decided at the meeting of the Seven Kings, Kuroyukihime had come up with a mission to eliminate the element of Chrome Disaster parasitizing him, fuming all the while. Her plan apparently had three stages, but she still hadn’t told Haruyuki and his friends the whole of it. “I don’t know the details, but…,” he said half to himself, lifting his face. “Anyway, I’ll just do everything I can.”

“Yeah. And we’ll do everything we can to help. Okay, see you guys later.” Takumu patted Haruyuki’s elbow lightly, turned, and trotted off to the kendo area.

Watching him go, Chiyuri said quickly, “I have practice, too, but tell me if you need anything. Don’t be shy about it. We…um…We’re not friends…or kindred souls…ummm…”

Family. Right.

Almost as if she could hear Haruyuki’s thoughts, Chiyuri stopped talking and offered him a big smile before raising her right hand briefly and racing out of the room.

Left alone, Haruyuki murmured in his heart as he shouldered his bag, It’s not such a basic problem as real or virtual or whatever. Me and Taku, me and Chiyu, me and Kuroyukihime and Raker. And Niko and Pard, and so many other people. What ties us all together is always here, inside my heart.

I want to protect that. I don’t want to lose it. As Haruyuki Arita. And as Silver Crow.

Glancing at the clock, he saw that he only had five minutes until the meeting time noted in the file. Even as he hurried to the exit on the first floor, Haruyuki was steadying his resolve anew.

This week of grace was precious time Kuroyukihime and Niko had won for him by fighting the Yellow and Purple Kings, who both had insisted on immediate execution. He absolutely could not waste it. He had accidentally nominated himself for the unexpected job of caring for some animals, but there had to be a hint for him somewhere, even in that. Right now, he had to simply focus his everything on his problem.

“Right!” he shouted softly, and went outside to find that at some point, the rain had stopped.