In the bottom center of his field of view, cruel digital numbers marked his time. Things he didn’t want to know were displayed before him—the remaining distance, his expected completion time, everything from the average pitch value to his heart rate—and watching the pounding heart symbol, he worried that if he kept this up, his heart might explode.
The majority of the students had already finished, and the only ones remaining were Haruyuki and a few extremely bookish types. Maybe because the jerks on the sports teams had more energy than they knew what to do with, there was even a joker trotting along the inside of the track, imitating Haruyuki’s plodding form, and, Goddammit! I’ll remember your little joke when I get to level nine someday. I’ll use Physical Full Burst in the hundred meter and get the world record, then when some track-and-field team scout comes along I’ll be all, “I’d rather watch this anime,” and they’ll turn you down cold and then you’ll see, you stupid idiots.
He left himself to these ridiculous thoughts while he tried to throw his everything into a final burst on the last straightaway. When he was nearly at the finish line, Takumu sitting quietly caught his eye.
His old friend was not even looking at Haruyuki’s sad sprint. Haruyuki thought it might have been a kind of warrior’s sympathy, but apparently not; he was staring at a fixed point in space—in other words, some AR information—as if he were going to devour it.
What is he even doing? Haruyuki wondered, wiping away the sweat that poured endlessly over his forehead. In the distance of his blurred vision, he felt like he saw Takumu’s lips part slightly and mutter an order.
Naturally, he wasn’t close enough to hear what it was. But the words formed a command that Haruyuki could lip-read by now: Burst Link.
Taku, why the hell are you accelerating now…With this thought, Haruyuki thrust his right foot out for a final push on the remaining several meters.
Instantly, a familiar, cold lightning exploded, and after passing through a semitransparent blue, the color of the ground changed to a sharp silver, tinged faintly with green. The backs of the students running ahead of him froze, the sports team guy teasing him disappeared, and the gym teacher waiting at the finish line vanished.
“Ah! Wh—! Whoa!”
A light enveloped Haruyuki’s body, transforming him into his silver duel avatar. After falling forward a few steps, he put the brakes on with a suddenly nimble movement unlike anything his real body could manage. Standing up and stepping on the hard ground, Haruyuki let an astonished voice slip out from beneath his helmet.
“Ta-Taku?! Why are you dueling me—” Naturally, that’s what he thought. That Takumu had accelerated, and his own acceleration that immediately followed was because Takumu had requested a duel via the local net.
But this was not the case.
Words roared and burst into flames in the center of his vision: A REGISTERED DUEL IS BEGINNING!!
In other words, a duel he was registered to watch was starting. Haruyuki wasn’t one of the duelists—he was the Gallery. Takumu was starting a duel with someone, so Haruyuki, who was registered to watch Takumu, had been automatically accelerated and invited to the stage.
In the top left of his field of view, the name and HP bar of the duel instigator appeared: Cyan Pile. Then at top right, the Burst Linker who had been challenged—
The name Dusk Taker appeared.
“Wha…”
Haruyuki gasped. Dusk Taker—Seiji Nomi—always kept himself blocked from the matching list through some unknown means. The only way to challenge him to a duel within the school should have been to restrain his physical body and forcibly direct with him, like Nomi had done to Haruyuki himself the other day.
About three hundred meters ahead of him stood an imposing navy and light blue avatar. Here, Takumu finally shifted his gaze to Haruyuki, but, without uttering a word, he gestured with his right hand for him to get back. At any rate, members of the Gallery—other than parent/child or members of the same Legion—could not get closer than within ten meters of the duelists.
Quickly turning to face forward again, Cyan Pile took in the view of the upper side of the school, eyes shining blue in his mask and its rows of slim slits.
The General Classroom wing had already been transformed into something organic, shining with a slimy metallic luster. The countless windows had all been replaced with convex, glass-like black eyes, and innumerable protrusions resembling fins or gill-like pleats lined the walls. The sky was colored an abnormal green, and the large schoolyard was covered in pipes like blood vessels or wriggling metallic tentacles. No doubt about it, this was a Hell stage.
Haruyuki took a step back from the metal insects skittering around at his feet and tried again to ask Takumu what was going on. But before he could, a repulsive rupturing sound echoed loudly through the field.
Turning his eyes to the source of the sound with a gasp, he saw that one of the eyeball windows—around the center of the third floor, in the vicinity of seventh grade class B—had been pulverized from the inside. Buckets of viscous fluid oozed out of the new hole in the wall, fluid scattered by the feet of the small human figure exuded from the gloom.
“Oh dear. I had thought you to be more of the cautious type, Mayuzumi,” the blackish-purple duel avatar, Dusk Taker, remarked in his clear boy’s voice as he revealed himself, looking down on Takumu from on high, shaking his rounded, expressionless visor slowly from side to side. “I was expecting, or rather, I was hoping to give you the gift of the scenario where you gather up every little scrap of information on me, rack your brains for trends and countermeasures, and then when you actually act, it’s too late.”
“I’ve already collected plenty of info,” Cyan Pile returned curtly, and waved his left hand lightly. “Which is why I was able to pull you into a duel stage like this, isn’t it, Nomi?”
“……”
Turning toward Nomi, who let slip a sigh of displeasure, albeit a faint one, Takumu raised the metal stake of his right hand and continued. “Seiji Nomi. Unfortunately, I still don’t know what trick you’re using to keep yourself off the matching list itself. But I can guess almost to the second when that wall will be released.”
“R-released?!” It was Haruyuki who cried out.
“Yes.” Takumu glanced over at Silver Crow, finally speaking to him. “Nomi uses the power of acceleration in the real world to give himself an advantage. Even in kendo team practice matches. So naturally, he must be using it in other places. To beat people up, to take care of his homework…and, of course, during tests.”
“Tests…” Instantly, Haruyuki felt like he finally understood why Takumu had made that strange request of Kuroyukihime.
As if reading his mind, Cyan Pile nodded lightly and shifted his gaze back to Nomi, above him. “Right now, at this very moment, the seventh graders are taking their first practical aptitude test. The subject of your fifth period class is, Nomi, the history you got full marks on in the entrance exam. Using the power of acceleration, obviously. But unlike a kendo match, where all you need to do is sign in, during a test, you need to be constantly exchanging information with the in-school local net. You can’t shut it off. I figured you’d have to be connected to the local net and Brain Burst at least momentarily during fifth period, so I just sat and waited for you. And if you were going to use acceleration during a test, it would undoubtedly be when you were on the verge of running out of time. Because it’s more efficient to do all the questions you need to look up with an external app all at once. As a result…”
Takumu gestured grandly with his left hand, as if to say, Here we are.
Listening so hard he forgot to nod along, Haruyuki unconsciously let out a deep sigh of admiration. Having reached the conclusion that Nomi would appear on the matching list for a mere instant—just as time was running out during the test for the subject in which he got full marks on the entrance exam—Takumu sat in the schoolyard and accelerated repeatedly to keep checking the list.
Nomi, s
een through with such perfect clarity, stayed silent for a few more seconds before suddenly shouting brightly, “And why on earth do we have history tests and the like! It’s the height of pointlessness, to be forced to answer through rote memorization tidbits you could look up in an instant, don’t you agree? And although you’re connected to the local net during tests, you’re blocked from viewing the database! I do think it’s some kind of a joke!”
Shoulders shaking as he laughed, Nomi continued, sounding increasingly self-controlled. “Mayuzumi. You said so now, didn’t you? That I am using the ‘power of acceleration in the real world to give myself an advantage.’ Almost as if this were the most evil act imaginable. But if you ask me, what’s incredible is that some people actually only use their Burst points for duels. If that’s all you’re going to do, why do you even need Brain Burst? There’s a veritable mountain of other more brutal, violent, and—this is key—pain-free games out there. At the end of the day, in the bottom of your hearts, you both also believe you’re part of a privileged class. That you’re one of a mere thousand Burst Linkers in the world, that you’re different from the other normal kids. You yourself are steeped in this sense of elite-ness, and yet you don’t take advantage of your abilities? If that isn’t hypocrisy, deceit, then what is it?”
“I don’t actually blame you in the least, you know,” Takumu returned, shrugging. “Until a little while ago, I used the power of acceleration to sneak around, too. How you want to use your points is up to you; you can do what you want. But if you’ll let me give you one piece of advice as someone who’s been there, a perfect score’s too much, Nomi. You’ll only attract unnecessary attention; there’s no gain in it.”
“That, I suppose, is a difference of opinion. For me, you see, my philosophy is to obtain the very best in all arenas. Whether it’s a single point on a test or a single strike in a practice match. Or rather…perhaps it’s more correct to say ‘take,’ hmm? Ha-ha!”
The avatar popped his upper body out through the hole in the wall and stuck his bolt-cuttered right hand straight out, palm up.
“There are a finite number of things in the world. Which means when someone gets something, someone else loses precisely that same thing at the same time. Such as with the law of conservation of energy, as it were. The fundamental principle of this world is ‘struggle.’ And I, well…I like taking, but more that that, I cannot stand losing things or having things taken from me. Right now, you’re trying to take a maximum of one point eight seconds of my time. Precious time, at that, during a test. It’s absolutely unforgivable. Naturally, you’ll compensate me for it. With your Burst points.”
“Nah. You’ll actually be giving something to me. Something you got unfairly, Seiji Nomi. Something precious you took from my good friend.”
The moment he heard those quiet words, Haruyuki felt his entire body stiffen with a gasp. Takumu already knew. That Dusk Taker had stolen Silver Crow’s silver wings.
Cyan Pile’s hard face took on a somehow mournful quality, and Takumu looked at Haruyuki briefly. “I heard rumors about your duel in Shibuya last night. Sorry, Haru, for not realizing. This time, it’s my turn to fight.”
“T-Taku!”
At Haruyuki’s short cry, Takumu flicked the index finger of his left hand up, as if to say, Leave it to me.
Instantly, Haruyuki was overcome by a powerful sense of his own smallness. He had been thinking of nothing but how he didn’t want anyone to know he had lost his wings, his power, and he had said terrible things to his best friend; he had hurt him. And yet here Takumu was trying to help him. For this purpose alone, his partner had planned and schemed, used his points, and made this duel happen.
“Taku…” Clenching both hands into tight fists, Haruyuki was ashamed of himself for trying to resolve the situation by himself and keeping everything hidden. He instantly forgot the long training he had undertaken to that end in the Unlimited Neutral Field and shouted out with his whole heart, “Taku, win this one! Not for me—win it to show him how strong you really are!!”
“I’ll win. To get your wings back, Haru.” Nodding firmly, Cyan Pile took a heavy step, and pale blue flames licked up around his foot, making the air shimmer.
Confronted with this zeal, Dusk Taker turned his face away, seemingly disgusted, and spat out in a low voice, “Oh, don’t put on this unpleasant show, please. Things like this make my skin crawl. Seeing such naifs saying such things with straight faces, as if they actually believed in fairy tales like ‘selfless friendship.’”
Here, the blackish-purple avatar finally emerged fully from the dark hole. He wrapped a tentacle from his left hand around the opening’s edge and used it to make his slithering descent. After kicking aside the metal insects squirming along the ground to make his landing, Dusk Taker glared with upward-turned eyes at the much taller Cyan Pile, from a distance of about twenty meters. The tentacle disentangled itself from the school wall and snapped back, coming to lightly stroke two curved angles—the folded-up flight membranes—protruding from the avatar’s back.
“Return them because I obtained them unfairly? You can’t be serious. Once I steal something, it’s mine forever. As long as I don’t get bored of it and no longer need it, that is. I like these wings. Until Arita finishes paying back his two-year loan, I plan to enjoy them to the fullest.”
Haruyuki clenched his teeth tightly, aware of an enormous fury and hatred in the pit of his stomach.
But before he could shout out in reply, Takumu whispered in the same quiet, and yet white-hot, voice, “Nah, you’re wrong. No matter what it is, power you steal can never become your own. The thing about power is, the only way you can get it is to create it, refine it, train it yourself.”
“Hrrk! Again with that.” Nomi sneered, pressing his right hand up against his mouth. “I’m likely to vomit if you say another word, so I’ll just be taking your points and sending you on your way. I still have another five questions left on my test and all.” Then the small avatar dropped into a crouch and readied both hands in front of his faceless mask.
In contrast, Cyan Pile simply thrust out his left hand: the imposing ready position he used in kendo matches.
“T-Taku!” Haruyuki shouted quickly, while taking a step back in the charged battlefield. “You can cut those tentacles off but they grow back! The cutter on his right hand is super sharp! And if he pins you down and gets you with a black beam from his mask, he can take abilities and Enhanced Armament, so be careful!!”
A member of the Gallery giving advice to one of the duelists was seriously bad manners, but naturally, in this situation, he had no reason to hold back. Nomi looked fleetingly annoyed at Haruyuki’s shouting.
Immediately, Takumu moved.
With a thunderous roar, the blue giant leapt forward in a blur—an incredible forward dash that should have been impossible for the heavyweight body. It carried a punch that was impossible to read, to boot. The propulsive force sending him rocketing forward was the pile driver of his right hand, the tip of which he had, at some point, thrust into the ground. He was taking advantage of one feature of the Hell stage—the fact that the surface of the earth was hard metal—and transforming the launch power of his metal spike into forward momentum.
Perhaps momentarily caught off guard by the attack, his enemy’s reaction was delayed, and Cyan Pile’s massive fist was up and headed straight for the face.
Dusk Taker abandoned the idea of trying to dodge the blow and crossed both arms to take a guard stance. The punches that rained down regardless sent pale beams of light shooting in all directions: the first attack of the battle. A sound like a hammer beating a steel plate rang out, and the smaller avatar flew, spinning, through the air. Haruyuki thought he might keep going and slam into the school building behind him, but the tentacles of his left hand wrapped around some protrusion on the ground and yanked him to a halt, like a giant rubber band.
As Dusk Taker landed on one knee, his HP bar was down more than 5 percent despite the fac
t that he had guarded, offering a glimpse of the enormity of Cyan Pile’s power.
“Ooh! That’s quite a change from when we’re in kendo, isn’t it? So then that meat sack expresses your ‘lack,’ does it, Mayuzumi? You’re so smart and clever, and yet what you truly long for is a rough machismo?”
Takumu had nothing left to say to the laughing Nomi. Almost before the stake in his right hand was reloaded, he hurtled across the distance between them, all the while keeping his guard up.
“And judging by your avatar’s name,” Nomi spat even more sneeringly, staggering backward as if overwhelmed, “I’d say the real essence of your mental scars is that metal skewer in your right hand. Hmm, I wonder what that could symbolize? Piercing…Perforation…Goodness, what’s wrong? Your eyes got a little scary there…?”
“Stop it! Stop it, you coward!” It was Haruyuki who shouted. If his position hadn’t been one of observer, he would have started pounding on Nomi himself.
A duel avatar is born from the mental scars of the person who lives inside of it. Every Burst Linker knew that. Which was exactly why Haruyuki had deliberately avoided bringing that topic up with any opponent he had faced. And when it came to Takumu and Kuroyukihime, he warned himself not to even guess at it in his heart.
Cyan Pile’s spike probably was an expression of some scar Takumu was carrying around. But he had taken ownership of it and mastered it as a weapon. Which meant, in other words, that he continued to fight his own scars on a daily basis.
“I mean, Nomi! You—Your avatar, too! It’s the manifestation of some pain you don’t want to look at, you know!!”
Dusk Taker chuckled at Haruyuki’s sharp words, his eyes still fixed in front. “Oh, ouch, Arita. I already said this, didn’t I? My pain is having anything taken from me. Thus, my Dusk Taker has the power to take. It’s actually quite obvious. About as obvious as your Silver Crow there!”
His last word was overlaid with a whipping sound as the three tentacles, previously lolling on the ground, undulated like snakes to fling their cargo straight at Takumu. Metal insects, one of the Hell stage’s many terrain effects, shot through the air, thin legs kicking frantically. In general, they were harmless, albeit creepy, but the ones in the flashy shells released different kinds of poison when crushed.