The Twilight Marauder

  But she had been talking about mental scars, like discussed earlier. In which case, he could wrap his brain around it—because scars equaled memories plus interpretation. But how could this vague “power of will” or whatever be digitized?

  “Perhaps you’d understand if, instead of ‘will,’ I said ‘image power’?”

  At Sky Raker’s voice, Haruyuki gasped and lifted his head.

  “Image…?”

  “Exactly. You could also call it ‘the power of imagination.’ During flight, you create a strong image of how much you’re going to accelerate, when you’ll turn, when you’ll decelerate. Your Neurolinker reads that and moves your avatar. Do you see? Image power! It is precisely this that is the true power hidden within us Burst Linkers. I have total control over this wheelchair through a stable imagining of the two wheels rotating. Admittedly, it did take me quite a long time before I was able to do this, but it’s not impossible. Absolutely not.”

  Once again, the right wheel turned with a slight creak, and Sky Raker and her wheelchair faced Haruyuki again. When she spoke, she sounded majestic and mysterious somehow—an oracular echo.

  “Those Burst Linkers who manage to attain control via the Image Power System—which lies beneath the Movement Command System normally used to control the avatar—have a name for it. This desire straight from the heart—in other words, your will.”

  She paused for a beat.

  “Incarnate System.”

  “In…carnate?” It wasn’t a word he had heard in either the accelerated or real worlds. But Haruyuki could feel a kind of definite power in the sound of it, and he repeated it several times in his head.

  He didn’t immediately understand what Sky Raker was saying. The Neurolinker might differ in its very foundation from the old-generation VR machines, and Brain Burst might be a mysterious super-application, but how on earth could they digitize the imagination of the diver?

  And yet the delicate silver wheelchair had, in fact, danced easily for him on the lawn, without any kind of propulsive device at all.

  Accept it. Haruyuki squeezed his eyes shut and murmured to himself. It was circular, but if the will—if believing had real power in this world, he felt it would certainly become the truth for him if he just believed Sky Raker.

  “So then…So then.” Something large and hot choked his throat, and Haruyuki worked to put the rest of his thoughts into words. “If I learn to use this Incarnate System, I’ll be able to fly again even without wings…I-is that what that means?”

  Haruyuki stared at Sky Raker’s face as if devouring it and waited for her reply with a longing that almost burned.

  The words she uttered quietly a few seconds later, however, were neither an affirmation nor a denial. “I showed you before how I move the wheels with the power of my will. But I could easily do the same thing with my hands, instead of working so hard to focus the image. Do you see? Using the will as an agent for work is possible to do with the normal control system, but manifesting something with the will phenomena is normally impossible; there is a very wide, deep ditch—no, a vast canyon—between these two concepts. To speak figuratively, it’s like hitting a bullet with a bullet in the real world. It’s possible, in terms of physics, but the execution is difficult. Extremely.”

  Sky Raker took her eyes off the speechless Haruyuki and cast her gentle eyes up at the sky. Then she began to speak again, still tranquil but sounding like she was having a hard time suppressing the would-be tremor in her voice.

  “I wasn’t able to do it. I threw away my legs, my friends; I abandoned everything I could think of, and yet I wasn’t able to detach myself from the virtual gravity of this world…I said so earlier, didn’t I? That the Burst Linker who can’t fly no matter how she might want to is me.”

  “Uh…uh-huh…”

  When he agreed, spellbound, the sky-blue avatar waved her supple right hand up at the heavens and continued. “Drawing near but never quite there…Since the beginning, this avatar of mine has had a certain Enhanced Armament. The power to move away from the earth and approach the sky. However, you most certainly could not call it flying. I leapt to an altitude of a mere hundred meters or so through a momentary thrust force, before I simply fell back down.”

  “……” Unable to reply, Haruyuki merely held his breath.

  Once, a long time ago, he had tested just how high he could go with Silver Crow’s power of flight. The normal duel field was surrounded on all sides by semitransparent barriers marking the boundaries of the area, but he had wondered about the sky.

  In the end, Haruyuki’s fingers had not come into contact with any wall before his fully charged special-attack gauge was completely spent. He remembered his altitude at that time as being three times higher than the Shinjuku government building he could see off in the distance. The government building, which had been rebuilt in recent years, boasted an imposing five hundred meters. In short, Haruyuki had effortlessly risen to a height of fifteen hundred meters, and that had been purely to satisfy his curiosity.

  I didn’t even think about the meaning of the power I was given.

  Carried away by the same regret he’d felt on Ash Roller’s bike, Haruyuki pulled into himself as much as he could and turned his ears toward Sky Raker’s voice.

  “I ended up possessed by the desire to someday fly higher, go farther. I spent every level-up bonus on enhancing my jumping ability, and all my time fighting so that I could get even more points. The few friends I had, and even my parent, lost patience with what I became and left me. All alone, only the Master of the Legion I belonged to understood and helped me. And I tried to be useful to her as well; we spent many, many hours fighting side by side…But when I reached and turned that bonus again to my jumping, I had a flash of insight: It would never be enough to turn Jump into Fly…My desire had turned into a deep-rooted delusion—no, madness.”

  “Mad…ness.”

  Sky Raker glanced at Haruyuki as he muttered hoarsely, and the faintest of smiles rose up as she nodded sagely.

  “I…I made my avatar itself more lightweight, and in order to enhance my ability to fly using my will, I decided to get rid of my legs, which held my greatest attack abilities. I asked the person who had been both my friend and Master to cut off my legs with her sword. She tried to stop me. But I no longer understood even her feelings…I said some terrible things to her, but she only looked sad until finally she granted my wish.”

  Sky Raker stroked her knees lightly with her right hand and brought her story to a calm end.

  “I used all my bonuses, trained my will, and even abandoned my legs to make it impossible for me to walk. The maximum altitude I was able to reach as a result was three hundred and fifty meters. Three point five times my starting altitude. But I did not reach the sky. I just barely managed to reach the peak of old Tokyo Tower here, and then I finally understood. That the psychic wounds that were the source of my avatar and my hopes did not have that much power. ‘Raker’ means ‘one who views.’ Viewing the sky for a moment at the peak of a parabola…that is the absolute limit of the power given to me. But by the time I realized this, I had lost everything I cared about.

  “So, Silver Crow?” Sky Raker asked, turning her shadow of a mouth up into a smile. “Even after hearing this fool’s story, do you still want to train with the Incarnate System and learn to fly? Even knowing that it’s most likely ninety-nine percent impossible?”

  “……” Haruyuki hung his head and bit down on his lip.

  I won’t be able to do it. Why should a total gutless loser, crybaby wimp like me be able to do something even she couldn’t do, when she’s a powerful enough Burst Linker to get to level eight?

  It’s not like I’ll be like this forever and never get my wings back. If I can just hold on for two years, he’ll give them back to me. I can make something up about why I don’t have my wings for Takumu and Kuroyukihime. I just have to lie and keep paying points in secret to Nomi for two years. I mean, back when Araya was bully
ing me, I did basically the same thing and I got through six months of that, didn’t I? And Chiyuri, if I really beg her, she should be able to put up with being treated like a pet on the duel field. It’ll be fine. If I just pull back into myself and keep my head down, it’ll be fine.

  “…I—”

  I can’t, Haruyuki tried to reply.

  Answer, stand up, turn around, take the portal back to the real world.

  “…I…”

  But something in his chest resisted stubbornly, and he couldn’t make himself say the rest. Almost as if the avatar Silver Crow itself were refusing to utter the words. Almost as if this avatar—which was now, having lost its wings, nothing more than a stick figure, a huge head sitting on wirelike limbs—were insisting to Haruyuki that it still had value.

  He took a deep breath, filling his trembling chest with cold air, and held it.

  “There’s still something I have left to do…,” Haruyuki said, bowing his head deeply. “Please. I want you to teach me…how to use the Incarnate System.”

  Sky Raker smiled again faintly and cocked her head slightly. “It will take a long—a very long time.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “It will probably take much longer than you think. So long that, depending on how it goes, you might reach the Point of No Return as a Burst Linker.”

  Haruyuki immediately understood the meaning of those words.

  He knew two kings—the Black King, Black Lotus; and the Red King, Scarlet Rain—and there was something quite remote from their real-world selves in both of them, in their words and actions. The reason was that they had spent a protracted amount of time in this Unlimited Neutral Field, so much so that a gap between their actual and mental ages had emerged.

  So the time to make that choice had finally come for him as well. Even as he was terrified, Haruyuki took a deep breath and nodded. “I understand…Please, Sky Raker.”

  “All right, then.” Turning the wheelchair with a creak, the accelerated world’s hermit looked up at the sky. “Right now, in real time, it’s after nine PM, isn’t it? How much longer can you stay in the dive in the other side’s time?”

  “Um…I have school tomorrow, but I should be okay for another three or four hours. If you like, until morning.”

  Kuroyukihime had once warned him that if he spent too long in this world, his real-world memories from before the dive would grow weaker. But that didn’t seem like much of a concern right now. No matter how much time passed, he would never be able to forget that Seiji Nomi had stolen his wings. That, at least, was guaranteed.

  “Good.” Sky Raker brought the fingertips of both hands together and turned to face Haruyuki. “Well then…we’ll stop here for today.”

  “E-excuse me?!”

  “Your heart is in turmoil with all the things that have happened today. You can’t train your will like this. And in any case, it’s night here. We’ll sleep well tonight and then begin tomorrow morning. We have plenty of time.”

  “S-sleep well?” Haruyuki asked, baffled. “B-but if we sleep during a full dive, won’t our Neurolinkers look at our brain waves and automatically link out?”

  “You don’t need to worry about that happening while accelerated. You know that popular manga artist who’s actually a high school student? The one whose work was recently turned into an anime?”

  Perplexed at this question out of the blue, he nodded slightly. “Y-yeah. I’m a big fan…”

  “He’s a high-level Burst Linker. He gets all his sleep on this side, so he can do something as absurd as have a weekly serialization while going to high school.”

  Whoa, that genius hit maker is actually a Burst Linker. So then this kind of thing’s happened before. A faint sense of déjà vu making his head spin, Haruyuki trailed after the wheelchair’s smooth advance.

  The inside of the white-walled, green-roofed house he had been invited into was larger than he had expected. That said, it was still just one room, equipped with nothing more than a small kitchen, a table, and a bed.

  Sky Raker brought her wheelchair over to the kitchen’s stove, where she removed the lid off a pot, uncovering a burbling sound. Instantly, a delicious smell filled the room. Before the eyes of a stunned Haruyuki, she nimbly ladled something resembling stew into deep wooden plates, and then brought her wheelchair to the table, a plate in each hand. As she set them down together, complete with spoons made of the same wood, she said to Haruyuki, “No need to stand. Have a seat.”

  “Oh…S-sure.” Staggering, he set himself down in a high-backed chair, looked at the steaming white stew before him, and murmured in his heart, No, but, this is, here…

  “This is in the middle of a fighting game, right?” he blurted, and Sky Raker nodded with a composed expression on her face.

  “Yes, it is. Is there a problem?”

  “It’s just, I mean, supper in a fighter…”

  “My! In the background of a certain 2-D fighter game in the early years, the Gallery was eating ramen, you know.”

  “Th-that might be true, but!”

  At the same time that he was struck by the urge to rip off his own head, Haruyuki realized that he was intensely hungry. He had just chomped down on that pizza in the real world not even minutes ago; where exactly was this hunger coming from?

  The metaphysical question vanished like the mist when Sky Raker urged him, “Go ahead, please eat,” and Haruyuki quickly grabbed the wooden spoon.

  And then he was confounded once again.

  “Oh, b-but my…mouth.”

  Silver Crow’s face was covered by a mirrorlike silver helmet and had neither eyes nor nose nor mouth. However, since Sky Raker encouraged him with a gesture to eat, he timidly scooped up some stew and brought it to his mouth. When he did—

  The lower side of his helmet slid up a small bit with a light humming noise. Taken aback, he touched it with his left hand and felt a definite mouth in there. No longer understanding anything, Haruyuki muttered his thanks for the food and stuck the spoon in there.

  It was delicious.

  More natural than any VR manufacturer’s taste-reproduction engine, a nuanced flavor permeated his mouth, and Haruyuki spooned up potatoes and onions and chicken and more to stuff his cheeks.

  “I’m glad you seem to like it, Corvus,” Sky Raker said with a smile, elegantly moving her own wooden spoon across from him while he greedily devoured his stew. “Please take your time and savor it. So that you’ll have this memory for the time being.”

  “…Sorry?”

  After emptying his plate without taking time to breathe, Haruyuki finally considered the meaning of her words. But without giving him the chance to ask her anything, Sky Raker agilely dumped the plates together on a shelf, so he could only bow his head and thank her for the delicious meal.

  At some point when he wasn’t paying attention, it had gotten completely dark outside the south-facing window. In the distance, he could see a light that was probably in the Odaiba area, rocking back and forth, reflecting off the black surface of the ocean.

  Sky Raker snapped her fingers sharply, and whether it was a function of the house or telekinesis through will power, all the curtains slid shut. The wheelchair creaked over to the side of the small bed, and the amputee avatar nimbly shifted her body on top of the sheet, using her right hand as a support point.

  “I know it’s a bit early, but perhaps we should be getting to sleep?”

  Huh?

  Sleep?

  One bed. Two avatars. Which means— What does that mean?

  The pillow barreling into him cut off the instant expressway of his thoughts. He clutched it and cursed himself—Right, of course, what was I even thinking, you stupid dumbass—as he fell to the floor in his silver avatar. His entire body was covered in clanking metal armor; there was no great difference as to whether it was a bed or floor underneath him.

  Having hung her hat on a hook on the wall, yanked off her dress, and laid down on the bed, Sky Raker snapped her fin
gers once more. The light on the ceiling and the fire in the wood stove vanished, and the inside of the house was shrouded in a light blue darkness.

  “Good night, Corvus.”

  Just what I’d expect from Ash Roller’s parent; she’s not just a regular someone, Haruyuki thought admiringly and replied, “G-good night…”

  At the same time, he cried in his heart, As if I could sleep in this situation!

  But surprisingly, the instant he laid down next to the table and closed his eyes, a white fog began to gently envelop the core of his head. It was just like Sky Raker said; he was seriously spent mentally because of all the things that had happened.

  Of course, it wasn’t as though he had forgotten the humiliation and despair Nomi had inflicted on him. But right now, in this house in this world at least, he felt he could leave the black things at a distance. Although this perhaps might also have been due to utilitarian and gluttonistic reasons, given that he was pleasantly stuffed with a stomach full of delicious stew.

  Haruyuki fought for a while against the sleepiness trying to pull his eyes shut with an almost violent heaviness, and murmured very quietly, “Um, Sky Raker? Can I ask you something?”

  “Go ahead,” she replied right away, so he glanced over toward the bed and directed his question at the graceful curve of her silhouette.

  “Um…has Ash Roller already learned the Incarnate System?”

  “Not completely, not yet. But I’ve just given him hints. It seems he is trying a variety of things in his own way.”

  At this reply, something fell into place for him. Haruyuki had felt that Ash’s new technique of standing on the bike while riding it was just too over the top, but it probably had some image control incorporated into it. After he nodded slightly, still on the floor, he gave voice to his next question. “If you’re his parent, then are you also in the Green Legion…?”

  The answer to this came after a slight pause. “No. I have only and will only ever belong to one Legion.”