The Twilight Marauder

  Although it staggered and wobbled left and right, the avatar moved solidly away from the ground to float upward. It wasn’t a jump. It wasn’t hanging from a wire, either. This was…This was—

  “No way.” A cracked voice leaked from Haruyuki’s mouth. “No way. No. Way.”

  There is and has ever been only one duel avatar with the ability of pure flight.

  That’s what she said, didn’t she? Only me. The only one who can fly in this world is me. The one and only, my power. My hope. My…everything.

  “Oh no, this is quite real.” Hovering three meters above the ground, Dusk Taker spread both hands slowly. “My lone special attack, Demonic Commandeer, takes the Enhanced Armament, the special attack, or any one of the other abilities of the target avatar. Those tentacles, I got them from someone ages ago. Although I’m not really that good with them. Do you understand what I’m saying? Ultimately…there is no time limit. Although naturally, I can only keep so much in stock.”

  Stealing abilities. No time limit.

  So that meant this midnight-purple avatar stole the silver wings that were the reason for Silver Crow’s existence, never to return them…?

  “N-no way! Give them back…Give them baaaaaaack!!” Haruyuki screamed, as if his voice could fight the bottomless sense of emptiness washing over him. He leapt to his feet, took several quick steps, and jumped with everything he had, stretching out his right hand to grab at Nomi’s feet.

  “Whoopsies!”

  The feet were swiftly lifted higher and Haruyuki’s hand cut through empty air. He fell to the ground with a metallic clatter and clumsily got to his hands and knees. His limbs grew cold, and his sensations grew distant. He tried to stand up again, but his avatar wasn’t listening to him.

  “Arita, Arita! Please don’t be so dejected.” The words rained down from high above, as if they were teasing—or, perhaps, as if they were consoling. “I told you, didn’t I? That I’d hang onto something precious? Please don’t worry. I’ll give them back. The day you graduate from Umesato Junior High. Naturally, you’ll deliver your quota of points to me every week. Two years’ worth, paid in installments, as it were. And if you default even once…Well, you understand, don’t you?”

  As if to drive the point home, he flapped the strangely shaped wings loudly once and continued coaxingly, “It will be fine. You have that close-range fighting ability. You very nearly made me use my trump card, after all. You’ll do quite fine without wings and such. I guarantee it! Heh-heh-heh…Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  Haruyuki couldn’t suppress the shaking that wracked his entire body.

  This isn’t real; there’s no way this could happen. There’s no way the system would allow such a ridiculous special attack as stealing abilities. This…This—

  “Do you think I’m a coward, a cheater?” Snickering from his throat, Nomi continued mercilessly. “But, you see, isn’t that how everyone who’s faced you in a duel up to now has felt? ‘Flying is too much; how is it even possible?’…Now then, I suppose I’ll take this week’s payment. Please stay still right there. Or I suppose you can no longer move?”

  He heard the flapping of the sinister wings and felt Nomi landing very near him. But Haruyuki no longer had a shred left of the will to fight.

  With the nonchalance of a bored factory worker, the large cutters grasped his left arm. The metallic snap, the sparks of amputation, the pain careering through his nervous system—Haruyuki felt it all from a distance, like the happenings of another world.

  The duel ended, and as Haruyuki returned to the real world, Nomi’s foot was removed from his back.

  “Thank you for the duel, Arita,” the small seventh grader said brightly, coiling the cable he had yanked free of the two Neurolinkers. “This concludes the clarification of our positions in both the real world and the accelerated world. It’s inevitable, actually, that someone superior like me would use someone like you, at the very bottom of the ladder. I look forward to the next two years.”

  Glancing backward, he looked hard at Chiyuri, still on the ground after he’d sent her flying. “I’m tired after that serious duel, so I’ll have to have you show me your avatar another time, Kurashima. Please do remember your promise to be my pet. And…it goes without saying, but please keep this a secret from Mayuzumi and your boss—if you want your wings back. I have a few more preparations to make before I settle things with them. All right then, if you’ll excuse me.” After a neat bow, Seiji Nomi left the courtyard with the same composed air as when he’d appeared.

  Haruyuki, on all fours, put some effort into it and raised himself up on shaking arms, only to collapse with a thud on the same spot. Although a minute hadn’t yet passed in this world since he had been punched and kicked by Nomi, he was essentially oblivious to the lingering pain. His entire body was soaked in a greasy sweat, but he only felt an empty cold, as if he were hollow inside. Teeth chattering, he was unable to even take a deep breath.

  Chiyuri’s shoulders were similarly shaking, but she finally crouched down before him and forced out a hoarse voice. “Haru…Why…Why is this happening…Why would he…say such horrible things…”

  It’s supposed to be a game. It’s supposed to be fun, her wide-open eyes said.

  “Sorry, Chiyu.” Haruyuki hung his head and pushed a voice that wasn’t quite a voice from his throat. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess. I’m sorry for scaring you. But I…I can’t do anything. He took my wings. I can’t fight anymore. I don’t have anything anymore, nothing.” As he muttered, drops flashed to life in both eyes and poured down his cheeks.

  I—Haruyuki Arita, Silver Crow, lost in every way to Seiji Nomi/Dusk Taker. In the information war in the real world, in the fistfight with real bodies, and even in a duel in the accelerated world, I lost utterly and completely. And—he took It from me. Everything.

  He watched as two kneecaps, blurred by tears tumbling and falling one after another, sidled up to him. For a moment, he wondered if she was going to hit him. If she would jab him and yell at his cowardly, pathetic self like always.

  But.

  Chiyuri abruptly pulled Haruyuki’s head toward her and buried her own forehead in his shoulder. “I hate this…I hate it, I hate it, this…It’s all crumbling…We tried so hard, so, so hard…to go back to the way it was…So hard!”

  The thin weeping in the pauses between her bitter words dug much, much deeper into his chest than the pain from Nomi’s fists.

  9

  That day, Haruyuki had no idea how he got through his remaining classes, what he ate for lunch, or even which road he took to get home. When he came to his senses, he was flopped on his bed, still in uniform, and staring vacantly at the ceiling.

  It was as if his memories of the day had all been placed in opaque wrapping and tumbled into soundless darkness. Almost as if the whole ordeal had been a dream.

  Right, it was a dream. There’s no way that could have been real, right? he murmured to himself.

  Of course, if he accelerated right then and there, picked an appropriate opponent from the matching list, and went to duel, the truth of the matter would quickly be made clear. He would know without looking whether or not he had his wings on his back. But he wasn’t the slightest bit interested in checking.

  Rolling onto his side, he pulled up the blanket, from his feet to his shoulders, thinking he’d just skip his usual training and go straight to sleep. But that was when he heard the delicate chime of the doorbell in his auditory center.

  He wanted to ignore it—probably some package for his mother—but whether he liked it or not, an image of the visitor popped up in a small window in his visual field. There stood his good friend Takumu, looking grim, and Haruyuki threw the blanket up over his head.

  All day, Takumu had been asking Haruyuki what exactly had happened, including at lunch and after school. Given the bruise on Haruyuki’s jaw and the state Chiyuri was in, it was plainer than day that something had happened.

  Chiyuri had apparently only r
eplied with, “Ask Haru,” and Haruyuki could only respond with, “Nothing.” He was likely betraying Takumu whether he told him the truth or not, so he excused it in his head, telling himself he needed time to think, and fled to his condo.

  But Takumu was apparently not going anywhere. The chime ringing again had a resoluteness to it, as if saying, I’ll wait however long it takes for you to come out.

  Haruyuki sighed deeply and, half despairing, raised his hand to press the unlock button in the holo-dialog. When he got up and trudged out into the hall, Takumu had just opened the door and come into the entryway. With a look, Haruyuki urged him in.

  They went into the living room, still not speaking, and sat down at the table across from each other. The silence continued for another three minutes or so.

  “If there’s literally no way you can tell me, I won’t ask you about what happened anymore,” Takumu said abruptly, looking at the faint remains of the bruise on Haruyuki’s jaw. He took off his blue-framed glasses and met Haruyuki’s eyes directly. “But just tell me this, Haru. What exactly is Chi to you? Why would you just leave her when she’s looking so heartbroken—when she’s crying? Whatever happened, she’s my…friend, my best friend, you know, Haru?”

  Unable to meet Takumu’s eyes, Haruyuki turned his gaze down and to the left.

  I would never just leave her! he shouted in his heart. But to settle this mess that he had gotten Chiyuri tangled up in, he would have to make this creature Seiji Nomi submit to him completely. Unless he forced Nomi to delete the video of Haruyuki sneaking into the girls’ shower room, defeated him in the accelerated world, and got his wings back, Haruyuki would have no choice but to follow Nomi’s orders for all time. And Chiyuri would be stuck in the same position, with Haruyuki between them as a hostage.

  If he considered things rationally, he should probably explain the whole situation to Takumu right now, regardless of what Nomi had said about keeping quiet. But Haruyuki wanted desperately to avoid telling Takumu about how he had been completely tripped up by Nomi’s vision-masking program and had dragged Chiyuri into this as a result of charging into the girls’ shower.

  After all, that program was embedded in the photo you sent me. If you had just noticed the abnormal file size, this would never have happened, he murmured over and over in his head, conveniently ignoring the fact that he hadn’t noticed, either.

  This thinking, clearly nothing more than blame shifting, pushed words he didn’t want to say from his mouth. “A-and you. How do you feel about Chiyu? If you’re going to come here saying all this stuff, maybe you should do something about it yourself?”

  “I want to. I want to, but…I—”

  I already betrayed Chi once.

  The instant he felt he heard these unsaid words, Haruyuki slammed both hands against the table. “T-Taku! I mean, you’re just as bad as me!” he roared suddenly, letting the feelings overflow. “You always, always do this, keep your head down like this! You drag out all that old stuff forever and swallow all the things you want to say! I mean, you like Chiyu, don’t you?! You want to go out with her again, don’t you, Taku?!”

  “Yeah, that’s right! I do like her! I like her more than anyone!!” Takumu yelled back, making his chair clatter underneath him. “It’s exactly because I like her that I want to do this her way! I’ll wait as long as it takes for Chi to come up with her own answers!!”

  “Wait?! And what are you going to do if the answer Chiyu comes up with is not you?! What are you planning to do if she decides to go out with some other guy?!”

  “That’s fine! I’m fine with that!!” Takumu gritted his teeth and the edge of the table creaked where he was clenching it in stiff hands. He choked out his next words from deep in his throat. “If that’s what makes Chi happy. Even if that guy was, say…you, Haru. Even you. I’d be okay with that.”

  “…Are you seriously saying that, Taku?” Haruyuki asked, the voice that slipped out strangely monotone, even to himself. “So then…what? Are you saying you’ll let me have Chiyu or something? Oh…or—”

  No. No. I don’t want to say it. Why on earth would I want to say something like this? I mean, I, I’ve always wanted you and Chiyu to go back to the way you were, that’s it.

  “Or do you like Kuroyukihime now? So then, if Chiyu and I got together, you could have her? Is that the plan?”

  I just keep hoping and praying for you two.

  Haruyuki accepted the heat and shock blooming in his right cheek half matter-of-factly. As well as Takumu’s powerful fist thrust across the table, its connecting with his face, and how he and his chair flew back and fell to the floor.

  Peering through a veil of tears for the second time that day, as he stood up, Haruyuki saw the thin, threadlike trail of teardrops on his friend’s cheeks as well.

  “Haru…Haru.” Takumu’s voice cracked and shook. “Haru, didn’t we decide we wouldn’t hide things anymore? Why…Why won’t you tell me? Why won’t you tell me the truth? I…Am I so untrustworthy a person?”

  “Ta— Th—”

  Taku, that’s not it. But nothing more in the way of a voice would come from Haruyuki’s throat. I can’t tell him.

  If he laid everything out, Takumu would probably immediately try and confront Nomi or something. And then he’d know. That Haruyuki, that Silver Crow, had lost his wings. That he’d never fly again.

  But he should actually confess that. If they were partners. If they were friends.

  But Haruyuki couldn’t tell Takumu. He just couldn’t bring himself to spill the fact that he was so much weaker now than he had been at level one, that he was no longer qualified to be Cyan Pile’s partner.

  Takumu waited for another ten seconds for Haruyuki to answer him, but finally, the fight left his shoulders and he turned around, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

  “Sorry for hitting you.”

  Leaving the curt apology to linger, his tall, good friend walked heavily out of the living room. Haruyuki heard the front door latch, and then there was only silence.

  How much time passed while he lay on the cold laminate floor?

  Coming back to himself suddenly, he saw that the view outside the south-facing window had turned to night. He pulled himself slowly to his feet, brain still on pause, and changed into whatever clothes he could find before stepping out of the condo. He rode the elevator down to the first floor and crossed the lobby briskly.

  The condo site was bustling with families visiting the adjacent shopping center. He saw a child clutching to her chest a bag from a video game shop, face shining, and was reminded that the latest in a popular RPG series came out that day.

  …Maybe I’ll pick it up, too.

  Buy the game, go straight home, put it into his Neurolinker, and play intently. But the stuff they sold these days required a ton of capacity. He probably didn’t have enough empty space in his local memory, but he could just erase some other game. That ridiculously large program…Brain Burst.

  Right. I might as well stop playing that game. I mean, you do eventually get sick of any game. Now that I think about it, I can’t believe I spent a whole six months obsessed with that one.

  If he left the accelerated world and stopped being a Burst Linker, Nomi’s stake in him disappeared. The video he had as evidence also lost its value, and he wouldn’t be able to hold Haruyuki hostage to threaten Chiyuri.

  Wasn’t that the best choice right now? Of course, he wouldn’t be able to help her in her quest for level ten anymore, but he also wouldn’t drag her down and disappoint her with an avatar who couldn’t fly anymore.

  Everything’ll just go back to normal. Something I had for a while will go away again, that’s it. Is there any reason left why I shouldn’t leave?

  A little girl passing Haruyuki looked up at him with a strange expression. And that was when he realized he had tears streaming down his face as he walked along through the throng of people. Hurriedly, he wiped at his face roughly with both sleeves of his hoodie and started running for the g
ate to his condo.

  Just duel with someone to earn the points to pay Nomi. Meet his quota like he was told and get his wings back someday.

  If Haruyuki fought in Suginami, Takumu would be called to his duel’s Gallery if he had “audience standby” switched on, so Haruyuki decided to change areas, and he walked up to Kannana Street.

  After thinking a bit about whether to get on the inner-or outer-ring bus line at the Koenjirikkyo intersection bus loop, he waited for the bus to Shibuya. Nakano and Nerima to the north were the territories of the Red Legion, Prominence, and he didn’t feel like seeing its ruler Scarlet Rain.

  When the rounded, electric-engine EV bus and its many wheels stopped, Haruyuki stepped onto the ramp. At the edges of his vision, the fare was subtracted with a clink from his e-money balance. He crammed himself into an empty seat in the corner and let his thoughts drift as he stared at the night scene flowing past.

  There were about a thousand Burst Linkers in total, and Haruyuki had been taught that the majority lived in Tokyo. However, he didn’t know the aggregate total—i.e., the total number of people who had obtained the power of acceleration, including the number of people who had lost it in the seven years since the Brain Burst program appeared on the network.

  Just how did they, these former Burst Linkers, feel now? Were they biting their lips in regret? Did they simply remember it fondly? Or were they shaking with deep-seated resentment?

  Haruyuki tried to imagine himself in their place. If I lost all my points and ended up facing a forced uninstall, would I be able to walk away, to just think of it as “game over”? I mean, here I am clinging to the idea of being a Burst Linker, despite the fact that my wings, which are basically the reason for my existence, have been stolen.

  No, there’s no way I’d be able to forget so easily. I’d probably scramble around trying to get Brain Burst back again.