The Twilight Marauder

  “Ooh, this is the worst. In every sense of the word, this is the worst, Arita.” Nomi sounded astonished. “Going this far in the name of friendship is clearly an illness. But you are, for now at least, the owner of Brain Burst, are you not? Even I think this sniveling of yours has no place on the duel field.”

  “Think whatever you want. I’ll make sure to pay you next week’s points, too, so please…I’m begging you!!”

  “Yes, yes, I understand. Somehow this reminds me of torturing pill bugs in the garden when I was a child. But, well, I suppose it’s because you’re this kind of person that you obtained the flight ability.” Despite the considerable loathing in Nomi’s voice, Haruyuki heard the sound of Nomi’s foot being removed from Takumu’s face. Then he felt him open the Install menu from the HP bar.

  Which was followed by a shrill warning noise accompanying a single window opening up in his field of view, a confirmation dialogue to change the field from a one-against-one normal duel mode to a Battle Royale mode that included the spectators.

  Haruyuki momentarily lifted his face to look at Nomi, who was shaking his head in fake exasperation, and Takumu, who was still on the ground, before immediately pressing the YES button. Now, as long as Takumu accepted, the mode would switch, and Haruyuki would go from being a spectator to a duelist. He wouldn’t have to wait for next week; he could fight Dusk Taker now.

  However—and he had anticipated this—Takumu wasn’t pressing the button. It was only natural. He was taking Haruyuki’s words at face value, and his pride wouldn’t allow him to let Haruyuki shoulder the burden of points that were rightfully hunted from him.

  From a position almost touching the ground, which Nomi, standing, could not see, Haruyuki stared at Takumu, putting all his will into his eyes.

  Press it. I’m not giving up. I want to fight him. I have to fight him. So please, push the button, Takumu!!

  It might have been that the shout in Haruyuki’s head actually made it to his friend. Takumu momentarily opened his eyes behind his scarred mask and finally raised a trembling arm to touch a point in space.

  A few silence-filled seconds followed, and then suddenly, all the data displays disappeared from his field of view. Following a digital alarm, Silver Crow’s HP gauge stretched out at top left. The previous gauge on the right side stayed gone, but small, completely replenished gauges popped up above the heads of Cyan Pile and Dusk Taker. Below the remaining time of four hundred seconds, the blazing text FIGHT!! appeared, and then scattered in flames.

  Finally, Haruyuki murmured to himself, still prostrate. Finally, this moment had come. His rematch with Seiji Nomi/Dusk Taker. The battle to get back the many things taken from him, the battle he absolutely could not lose.

  Klak, klak. The twilight avatar crunched across the metal yard and approached him. He glittered a strange color in the green light pouring down from the sky. Perhaps to maintain his connection to the Incarnate, both hands dripped with the empty pulsing.

  Still cowering, Haruyuki carefully pulled his right hand to his chest, folded his thumb into his palm, and stuck the rest of his fingers straight out.

  My arm is a sword. A sword of light, piercing any and all things, no matter how hard, even the dark of nothingness. As he stabilized the image in his mind, he felt an intense heat being generated in his fingertips.

  The footfalls grew closer. A chill caressed the nape of his neck. The feet stopped directly in front of him. One foot was raised up and brought casually toward his head—

  “Shah!!”

  With a short battle cry, Haruyuki grabbed the foot about to step on him with his left hand, leveraged it to yank himself to his feet, and lunged straight out with his right arm at the same time.

  “Ngh?!” Letting a short cry escape, Nomi reacted at a terrifying speed and tried to parry Haruyuki’s thrust with his left hand.

  An abnormal clanging crash sounded throughout the field. The claws of Nomi’s left fingers slammed up against Haruyuki’s fingertips, now transformed into a radiant sword of pure white light. However, neither side touched. White and purple, pure light and empty aura fought each other, emitting a high-pitched squeal.

  “What!…This technique…?! You dog…When did you learn this trick!!” Nomi howled, and the power of the purple pulse increased. His dark imagination, to make anything and everything disappear, ate into the system and tried to scrape away Haruyuki’s arm.

  Haruyuki fought back with the image of a laser to pierce through everything in existence. Speed. The speed of light.

  …Right. You’re faster than anyone.

  The instant he felt that faint voice’s call, Haruyuki shouted, “Go…throoooooough!!”

  A transient clarity filled the battlefield like a thousand icicles shattering and scattering.

  Zzrk! The sword of Haruyuki’s right hand extended more than a meter instantly, piercing the darkness created by Nomi’s left hand. Soundlessly, it dispersed in all directions. Then.

  Dusk Taker’s left arm itself shattered from the inside, from palm to shoulder.

  “Ngaaah!”

  As Nomi staggered backward, rivers of reddish-purple sparks gushing out of him, Haruyuki released the avatar’s leg and thrust out his own left hand.

  “Aaaah!”

  Regrettably, his enemy’s right arm managed to deflect the attack targeting the center of his chest, and Haruyuki managed only to cut up the armor. Nomi dashed away in reverse at a serious speed, spread both legs out, and stopped.

  This was his chance to go for the kill, but Haruyuki couldn’t give chase. Maybe because he had managed to squeeze out such a strong image, white sparks crackled and dazzled his vision. He shook his head several times to shake them off, and when he opened his eyes again, Nomi was already back in a guarded posture.

  “Oh, myyyy…” A bantering yet hoarse voice slipped out from under the rounded, expressionless visor. “How unexpected, an Incarnate attack…Which means that, the whole of last night, you were up on the mountain training, weren’t you, Arita?”

  “Didn’t even take a whole night,” Haruyuki answered in a deep voice, standing up. The fingertips of both hands were still perfectly aligned; the white light and the hum of vibration remained.

  “Hmm? I had heard that you lost pathetically to a bit player in the Green Legion. I was worried you might not be able to earn your point quota, but on the contrary, I see that you still have enough energy to bite back. I underestimated you.” Nomi followed this with a sneering laugh, waved his right hand, and blew away the purple pulsation.

  “What, you already out of energy?”

  “Ha-ha-ha! Impossible!!” Nomi cried brightly, and moved his right hand once more, raising it high up to the left, crossing the front of his body. “You see, I wasn’t just sleeping myself!!”

  As he cried out, he drew his arm back as far as it would go, like drawing a bow. In sync with this motion, the angles protruding from his back deployed with a dramatic flap to both sides.

  Five axial bones on each side. A thin membrane connecting them. Demon wings—the flying ability he took from Silver Crow.

  Gulping unconsciously, Haruyuki watched as the wings spread out in the sky and once again flapped fiercely.

  Wham! The air shook, and Dusk Taker’s body rose straight up.

  There wasn’t a trace of the awkwardness he had displayed after taking the wings the other day; this was a spectacular flight. After quickly shooting past the roof of the school building, he whirled his body around and hovered.

  No, I can’t be surprised at this, Haruyuki told himself, biting his lip. Nomi was a user of the Incarnate System. And control of the flying ability was also through image control. In which case, getting the hang of it would be no big deal for him.

  A singsong voice came pouring down from the ominous silhouette carved out of the green sky.

  “The truth is, they are actually quite impressive, these wings! You had such a unilateral advantage and yet still are at level four! But well, I suppose there??
?s no helping it given that all you have for a weapon are those short little arms and legs of yours, Arita. Rest easy, I’m not like you! I’ll be able to use and master this power to a much greater extent than you. Like this, for instance!”

  Nomi had barely finished speaking before he stretched out his right hand and chanted quietly, “Equip Pyro Dealer.”

  Haruyuki stood stock-still and stared up as the system, receiving the voice command, manifested new Enhanced Armament on Dusk Taker’s remaining arm.

  An enormous piece of equipment now covered the entire appendage. From a large, tanklike object sitting on his shoulder, several pipes stretched to his elbow and then on down, to a firing device on the back of his hand.

  Long-distance heat power! Haruyuki clenched his teeth tightly and strained every nerve in his body.

  Point-five seconds later, with the artlessness of a child playing with fireworks, Nomi sent flames gushing from the short gun barrel.

  These were the very definition of flames. Not a physical bullet, not a beam of light, but extremely dense, near-liquid fire. Like the blazing attack spewed forth by a dragon in some fantasy game, the attack raining down from high above his head, roaring as it did so.

  He had no time to hesitate about how to respond. As soon as he dashed forward reflexively, a fwoomping howl was generated behind him, and a fierce heat beat down against his back.

  “Hng!” Grunting from between gritted teeth, Haruyuki ran for his life, zigzagging randomly, but the thunderous flames were always chasing right behind him. Fires flickered all around him, and his HP bar was shaved away a few dots at a time.

  When he had run westward along the wall of the school building for nearly ten seconds, the roar was finally interrupted. Whirling around as the soles of his feet slid along the surface of the ground, Haruyuki gazed up in wonder.

  Smack in the middle of the large schoolyard was a bright red pond, about five meters in diameter. A small river wound its way out from the pond, and burbling, melted metal flowed before Haruyuki’s eyes.

  The new Enhanced Armament Dusk Taker had called up was clearly a flamethrower. And one that produced a terrifyingly high temperature. If he took a direct hit from that thing even once, the ground below his feet would without a doubt melt, leaving him unable to move, and he would be burned to a crisp just like that.

  Haruyuki ripped his gaze away from the gleaming red expanse and shifted it to Cyan Pile, still crouching near it. His HP gauge had been refilled and his visible injuries healed with the duel mode change, but it seemed the shock of the pain from his entire body being hollowed out still held him. He was going to need at minimum another minute before he could participate in the battle.

  “Heh…heh-heh-heh!” Dozens of meters up in the sky above Haruyuki and his racing thoughts, Dusk Taker raised his voice in an innocent laugh. “Just as I expected, the combination of flight with long-distance fire power is incredible. I can recharge my special-attack gauge with field destruction bonuses as I hover up in the sky like this. A clear perpetual motion machine…To be perfectly frank, I’m invincible.”

  “I dunno about that,” Haruyuki shouted at the avatar in a strangled voice, the flame demon changing the orientation of the flamethrower again. “There’s still one condition you have to meet if you want to be truly invincible.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “You’d have to be the only one…who can fly!!” The words had barely left his mouth when Haruyuki raised both hands up high and prayed briefly in his heart.

  Sky Raker. My other teacher. Thank you for these…Your wings!!

  “Equip!! Gale Thruster!!”

  The voice command rang out, sonorous.

  Dusk Taker halted abruptly.

  Two streaks of sky-blue light streamed from the sky, hit Haruyuki’s back, and coalesced—

  Producing a big, strong, beautiful object: streamlined boosters about eighty centimeters long and ten centimeters wide. The pair settled in place on his back, side by side. The tips of the square thrust openings tapered slightly, and on the ends, there was a total of four small stabilizers around them, two horizontal and two vertical. Rather than boosters, these were the equivalent of having two small cruise missiles strapped to your back.

  This was the Enhanced Armament that once earned Sky Raker the nicknames ICBM and Iron Arms.

  Haruyuki stared at his opponent, who couldn’t completely disguise his shock, and lowered his stance. The boosters whined. Pale reflected light shone on the ground at his feet.

  A heart that wishes for the sky. That is precisely the source of Gale Thruster’s power.

  Once again, a distant voice echoed in his ears: Now go. You of all people should be able to fly again, Corvus.

  “Aaaaah!!” Haruyuki howled and kicked off the ground with all his might.

  An enormous crash shook the atmosphere, and a dazzling light filled the surroundings. And then Haruyuki was shooting up into the sky like a bullet, at a speed easily surpassing the vertical takeoff with his old silver wings.

  Dusk Taker’s black silhouette grew closer with each microsecond. But at the same time, Haruyuki’s perception also started to accelerate, and his relative approach speed seemed to decrease.

  “Wha…” Letting slip this semi-cry of surprise, Dusk Taker tried to turn the flamethrower of his right hand on Haruyuki. As the muzzle was on the verge of generating a red light—

  “Heeaaah!!” Battle cry sharp, Haruyuki thrust his left hand out in a strike.

  His sharp fingertips, wrapped in a white radiance, touched the muzzle and split it top to bottom. Then kept on going, piercing all the way up to the fuel tank on Dusk Taker’s shoulder.

  With a thudding groan, the two avatars joined together and then separated. Haruyuki danced ever higher in the sky as scarlet flashes appeared below his feet, and he heard the rumbling of explosions chasing the flashes.

  He opened his crossed arms and stopped his ascent. Looking down, he could see the familiar H-shaped school building and large grounds of Umesato, and the figure of Dusk Taker floating against them.

  Having already lost his left arm, he now also suffered severe damage to his right. The flamethrower was completely blown away, and his arm from shoulder to elbow was cooked a burnt black. Fissures raced along armor shining like amethyst, and the dripping of dazzling sparks was constant. Nomi’s HP gauge was cut down to half.

  Adjusting his descent trajectory by spreading his arms, Haruyuki landed on a pole at the edge of the schoolyard. It was topped with rows of strange eyeballs, which had apparently been floodlights in the real world.

  Unlike with his stolen wings, flying with Gale Thruster didn’t consume his special-attack gauge. But just like Takumu’s Pile Driver, once it used up its energy in a momentary thrust, it took a long time to recharge. Checking in the upper left of his field of vision that the third gauge newly displayed there was slowly increasing, Haruyuki readied his sword hands.

  “I see, I see.” Nomi also yanked up his injured right hand. The curved claws housed the purple pulsing energy once again. “So you were still hiding a card like that?” The voice was flat, as if squelching any hint of surprise or anger, but the echo of a sneer still coiled around it somehow.

  “Say, please tell me, Arita. Where on earth did you find Enhanced Armament like that? You don’t have enough points to buy it in the Shop, now do you?…Oh, is that it? You chased the avatar who owned it to a forced uninstall and then stole it. Is that the case? How awful. Even I wouldn’t go that far.”

  Nomi chuckled from deep in his throat, and Haruyuki responded calmly, “You wouldn’t understand, Nomi.”

  “…And what’s that?”

  “Even if I told you the wishes of the person who produced these sky-blue ‘wings’ and the hopes entrusted to me, you totally wouldn’t understand at all. Not when you think that the accelerated world is nothing more than a means to an end. And…someone like that, like you, doesn’t have the right to call himself a Burst Linker!!”

 
Haruyuki thrust his right fist, filled with white radiance, straight at Nomi.

  The twilight-colored avatar remained silent for a while. Finally, he cocked his head abruptly and said, “You know, I’ve heard that line before. ‘Burst Linker’?…When have I ever used those words?”

  “…What?”

  “Did you know? Burst Linker is what the initial owners of Brain Burst called themselves. You can look anywhere you want in the system, but you won’t find that title anywhere. Which is why we would never use it.”

  “We…?”

  Before he could think about what that meant, Nomi spat fiercely, “If you’re going to refer to us correctly, it should be accelerated persons— No, accelerated users. We use the privilege we have been given to its fullest and obtain whatever we are able to obtain. That is how you and I should be. Well…isn’t it about time we settled this? Mine or yours, whose will—that is to say, whose ‘desire’ is stronger!!”

  A whistling roar swelled, and the now familiar energy pulse radiated from Nomi’s right hand.

  “The will is not about desire. It’s a wish!!” Haruyuki shouted, and swords of white light grew from both hands.

  At the same time, he scraped together every bit of hope and desire for the sky in his entire body. A clear sky blue filled his chest and flowed into the boosters on his back.

  This was the true purpose of Sky Raker training Haruyuki in the Incarnate System: so that he could use his will to recharge the Gale Thruster, which could normally only jump a short time on a single thrust. As long as he could do this, these boosters were no longer simply a jump-assist device; they could become real wings, allowing even continuous flight. The third gauge, on the verge of being empty, was at full change in the blink of an eye. Pale flames gushed from Haruyuki’s back.