“Rider, you think I’m just gonna let that go?!”
“Hey! Come on!”
The shout of a girl, indignant and yet still innocent.
In the video, at this moment, the Black King had wrapped both of her arms around the neck of the first Red King, Red Rider. And so the Purple King, who had been close to the Red King, had raised a voice that would have gone perfectly with an angry face. However, immediately after that, the swords of Black Lotus’s arms had closed like a pair of enormous scissors, cutting off Red Rider’s head.
Burst Linkers who reached level nine were bound by the rule of sudden death: The moment they were defeated by another level-nine player, they lost all of their burst points. Which meant that, in that instant, the Red King was chased from the Accelerated World forever. Recorded at the end of the replay video was Purple Thorn’s piercing scream.
The story Haruyuki had heard was that immediately after this act, Kuroyukihime leapt into mortal combat with the remaining five kings, and while the thirty-minute duel time ended with her unable to defeat even one, she was not defeated herself. For the following two years, she refrained from connecting to the global net, sheltering in the obscurity of the Umesato local net until opportunity knocked in the form of Cyan Pile’s assault and the birth of Silver Crow in the fall of the previous year.
This intense and heavy history palpable between them, the two kings locked eyes and radiated their own oppressive auras at each other for another few seconds. Haruyuki couldn’t help secretly fearing that Black Lotus would lower her face. In her heart, Kuroyukihime no doubt still regretted that day she had hit Red Rider with a surprise attack. Even if the Red King no longer remembered that he had been a Burst Linker.
However.
The black crystal avatar did not avert her eyes from those of the thorny queen; her sharp face mask did not so much as quiver. “Nor I, Thorn.” Kuroyukihime’s low, smooth voice finally flowed out into the field and the drifting fog. “I was certain the next time we met, one of us would lose their head.”
Taking in these calm words, the Purple King slowly blinked the eyes of her avatar, unmoved. When she spoke again, the chill in her voice seemed to have gotten slightly colder, although it could have just been in his head. “Perhaps one of us will, hmm? For instance, if all of us gathered here were to agree to change modes from Normal Duel to Battle Royale…the possibility’s there.”
Swallowing hard, Haruyuki desperately tried to keep himself from shouting. “Don’t even joke about that! I would totally never agree to do that!”
But Kuroyukihime’s reply was calm, with a hint of a laugh. “That would certainly speed things up. If today ended up being the day one of us cleared this game, we wouldn’t need to have these sorts of annoying meetings.”
Instantly, Haruyuki froze in place once more. Her words sounded like a declaration that she would hunt the other four kings then and there and become level ten; they could mean nothing else. He completely could not believe Sky Raker’s courage, that she was able to stand next to him so calmly.
The Purple King cocked her head slightly at the Black King’s retort and abruptly stabbed the staff in her right hand into the paving stones. The edged clang lingered in the air and Haruyuki’s cold blood ran even colder. He heard several sets of footfalls, neatly synchronized, coming from the direction the Purple King had arrived from, before eight Burst Linkers revealed themselves. Their coloring and armor shapes were all over the map, but he could tell at a glance that they were all skilled masters; most likely, the most powerful members of the Purple Legion had dived together.
Purple Thorn grinned here for the first time. “Unthinkable that you believe that to be a joke,” she said. “Naturally, I came prepared. So that if and when the time comes to fight you, you won’t be able to escape again, hmm?”
The show of force was no bluff. She was serious. This girl had feelings so strong locked up inside of her it would almost be presumptuous to think he could even begin to understand them.
Haruyuki felt a pressure so strong he could hardly breathe and pulled his right leg back the tiniest bit.
But Kuroyukihime still did not lose her composure. Somehow, she even managed to laugh. “Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha…I see. I underestimated you. But, well, Thorn, if you’re seriously looking to take my head, shouldn’t you really have your troops lying in wait on the very edges of the area? Learn from Radio over there.”
Huh? Haruyuki looked over at Yellow Radio, seated on the opposite side. The canary clown simply moved his shoulders slightly without saying anything, but now that Haruyuki actually thought about it, the Yellow King would never have come alone if the possibility of the meeting turning into a battle was even just 0.001 percent.
Reacting to Kuroyukihime’s comment was not the Purple King, but rather a female-shaped avatar who broke away from the eight-member entourage. Her armor was a deep reddish purple, reminiscent of wine. The broad-brimmed hat and wide thigh area were almost militaristic, but rather than a gun on either hip, she was equipped with a whip rolled up into a ring.
The female officer-type avatar stopped one step back from the Purple King. “Amusing that you would take your bravado this far, cave king,” she uttered, her voice chilled to the extreme. “You may have crawled out from underground to run around or whatever it is you do, but I’ll have you remember that the Seven Kings need only become serious, and your pathetic little frontier territory and what have you would be crushed in a single day.” Her speech was contemptuous in the extreme, but Haruyuki could only grit his teeth tightly.
Unfortunately, he had to admit that what the avatar said was true. Currently, Nega Nebulus ruled all of Suginami Ward, but more than 70 percent of the challenges they got during the Territory Battles at the end of each week were from small and midsize Legions. Of the six major Legions, one or two teams from Leonids neighboring them to the east would always participate, with occasional sorties from Great Wall to their south. And the average level of the challengers was four or five; a high-level Linker at level seven or greater had never once appeared before them.
Still, for Nega Nebulus, with only five members, maintaining their territory was no mean feat. If the six major Legions mustered all their energy and launched a concentrated attack just once during that battle time, Haruyuki and his friends would have been unable to win more than half of the enormous number of defensive battles, and the black flag would have been wiped from the map of the Accelerated World.
In other words, in a certain sense, it was precisely because the six—no, five—kings, excluding Niko and their ceasefire, had adopted a “wait and see” attitude that Haruyuki and his friends had been able to continue protecting their home area of Suginami.
Unable to put up a real fight in his own heart, much less make any sharp retort to the female officer, Haruyuki’s helmet sank downward. But just as his gaze was about to fall on his feet, a crisp, insistent voice rang out to his immediate right, and he lifted his face back up with a gasp.
“Well, for someone who could do no such thing, you certainly do manage to sound quite arrogant, hmm, Aster Vine?” It was Sky Raker. As Kuroyukihime’s deputy, she stood firm and proud, not backing down before the other officer’s bluster.
The whip user, apparently named Aster Vine, narrowed her eyes sharply under the brim of her hat. “Could do no such thing, you say?” Her voice was even icier. “While you were running and hiding all that time, did your head rust to the point where you can’t even assess your own fighting ability?”
“And you. I don’t see you for a while and your eyes cloud over so much that you’re unable to see reality.”
Haruyuki could do nothing but stand frozen and listen to this exchange practically electrify the air around them. No matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t figure out what Sky Raker meant by this reality. The difference between Nega Nebulus and the five kings—excluding Red—in terms of both membership and combined level, was so great that comparison was pointless. What on eart
h was Raker trying to say…?
The answer to his question came after a pause, in Raker’s own words. “If you think the kings are letting Nega Nebulus’s territory continue to exist out of the goodness of their hearts, you’re either thickheaded or not trusted. If they could crush it, they obviously would have done so long ago. The reason they can’t…is because they themselves who name themselves king know that this controlling power is not something absolute.”
“…What did you say?” Aster Vine squeezed out a creaking voice, while the Purple King maintained an eerie silence. He couldn’t read what kind of emotion was in the light shining in her eyes suddenly.
“Pay attention.” Raker’s cool voice continued to echo in the penetrating cold of the Demon City stage. “They may be the six major Legions, but their combined membership is just over six hundred or so. In contrast, more than a thousand Burst Linkers currently live in the center of Tokyo. And nearly forty percent of the Territories map is made up of gray neutral states, including the Chiyoda Area we’re in now.”
“…And what does that matter? All the Legions outside the ones ruled by the Seven Kings are ephemeral organizations that would fly off into the sky if you blew on them. Your teensy little home included.”
“True, the scale of all of those Legions is modest. But, you see, these four hundred people, including Burst Linkers with no Legion affiliation, have one thing in common. And that is that they want nothing to do with the seven major Legions.” Stopping briefly, Sky Raker then continued with an air so intimidating, it was as if she herself had become one of the level niners.
“Understand? The majority of them choose the micro of their own volition. Because of their own animosity toward the kings who have caused such stagnation in the Accelerated World with their nonaggression pact. And those Burst Linkers are paying close attention to the return of Black Lotus and the movements of the Black Legion. They’re trying to gauge whether her ‘traitorous intentions’ are real or fake. What do you think would happen if the Legions of the Seven Kings tried to crush her? You’re right: Our flag would indeed disappear from the territory map. But that wouldn’t make Black Lotus herself disappear from the Accelerated World, and the Legion itself would go on. And the smaller legions would likely take a step forward from ‘paying attention.’ If they all came together into one stream, I wonder if you’d still be able to scorn them as ‘ephemeral’?”
And here, Haruyuki finally felt that he vaguely understood what Raker was getting at.
At the Hermes’ Cord race the week before, the more than five hundred members of the Gallery gathered along the course definitely had not been booing at the appearance of the Black King, once exiled as a traitor. They had, in fact, welcomed her with warm cheers, had they not? There was no doubt that those cheers had been laden with expectation, the hope that the Black King would be the one to break through the stagnation.
And if that energy were brought together as a single force? Wouldn’t that be something that even the Seven Kings could not ignore—something they would be forced to recognize as a threat?
Sky Raker waved her right hand lightly at the silent Aster Vine. “Do you understand? That there is a far greater strain on the Accelerated World than you think right now? That underneath the pretense of stagnation, more than a few large currents are beginning to twist and swirl?” Her cool, clear voice rippled into the field and lingered before sinking into silence and at last fading entirely.
The sound of the Purple King’s high heels broke the silence as she stepped forward. Tak. Turning to face forward once more, she quietly walked away as though she had taken no notice of Raker’s comments. With a final fierce glare, Aster Vine turned to follow her. The remaining seven members of the entourage standing at a distance did the same.
The Purple King took as her seat the empty pillar between the Blue and Yellow Kings in the semicircle of seven columns. Her eight Burst Linkers stood in a V formation behind her. The heavy pressure of their majestic presence was clearly the most massive of any of the Legions gathered there.
Haruyuki felt keenly relieved that Aurora Oval’s territory was Ginza together with Ariake and therefore far away from Suginami, and then hurriedly pulled himself up straighter. Who knew what kind of punishment he’d get later if these two next to him noticed this weakness? He nodded slightly as if to hide it.
“So…that’s six. And the last person is, umm…”
Currently assembled were the powers of Black, Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, and Purple. So that meant the remaining king was—
“No,” Kuroyukihime murmured, impossibly quiet, before Haruyuki could give voice to his thought. “She won’t come.”
“Huh?”
“The remaining king won’t show herself here. I have no doubt she’ll send a proxy.”
He was about to ask how she knew that when he sensed something not quite right in one corner of his vision. He clamped his mouth shut and sent his eyes racing around.
But there was nothing out of the ordinary. The remains of the inner citadel in the East Gardens of the Demon City stage were quiet, white fog trailing through. Half of the round pillars standing there had been cut down, and on the seats those seven pillars had become, the seven representatives of the great Legions ruling the Accelerated World were—
“Huh?” The moment he realized it, Haruyuki jerked backward.
Seven seats had been made. Six kings had shown up so far. So one seat should have been empty. But all of the seats in Haruyuki’s field of view at that moment were filled. Had he missed someone’s arrival? No, he couldn’t have. And even if his extreme nervousness had made him miss something, he couldn’t believe Raker and Kuroyukihime would have.
Because the seat that had to be empty was immediately in front of the three members of the Black Legion. It might have been a different matter if the seat had been to one side, but they certainly would have seen someone approaching the pillar opposite them and sitting down. However, at some point, a single Burst Linker had actually done just that, taking the seat the very short distance of ten meters away from them.
Tall, slender body wrapped in a subdued, simple armor with nothing resembling a weapon. The sole distinguishing feature was likely the long, thin, and tapered head. Only a curved parting line was carved into the front; he couldn’t see any eyes or mouth. It was sitting so neatly, arms and legs together on the pillar, that it looked more like a decorative object than a duel avatar. The entire body was an almost matte ivory white, reminiscent of porcelain.
The avatar had an incredibly dilute presence. He couldn’t sense even a shred of the concentrated pressure emitted from its existence like he could with the other kings. Maybe it was actually an object? Impossible. Had there been a sculpture there this whole time and he just hadn’t noticed it…?
Just as Haruyuki was gripped by a sudden confusion, the ivory avatar bowed neatly from the waist, both hands still on its knees. At the same time as its upper body was brought back up, a voice flowed out, with no identifying features other than that it was masculine. “My name is Ivory Tower, member of the Legion Oscillatory Universe. I have come to take part in this meeting as full proxy and representative for the White King. I ask for your cooperation.”
It was an extremely businesslike greeting, almost as if they had moved from a duel field in the Accelerated World into a corporate conference room without realizing it.
Although they tried to suppress it, this greeting clearly made the other kings and their aides deeply uneasy. Most likely, none of them had noticed Ivory Tower’s appearance, either. The Yellow King, directly beside Ivory Tower, tapped the sharp-tipped toes of one foot on the ground, expressing his actual irritation.
However, the discomfort lasted only a few seconds.
The Blue King, Blue Knight, stood up abruptly in the center, armor clanking. “Good, so then everyone’s here,” he said in a strong, ringing voice. “First, let me thank all seven Legions for taking part. Good to see you.”
“Two of
the faces here are different from the meeting of the Seven Kings two and a half years ago, hmm?” Interrupting with unnecessary chatter was, of course, Yellow Radio. He might have been making a sarcastic reference to the fact that the Red King was the second and that the White King had sent a proxy, but not a soul responded. The meeting continued forward with just the hint of a wry smile from the Red King.
“We don’t have much time, so let’s just get right into it. You all already know the situation, so I’ll just summarize briefly. In the middle of the Hermes’ Cord race event last week, in front of several hundred members of the Gallery, an incident occurred in which the Incarnate System was activated. The first item on the agenda today is how we should deal with this situation. That said, I can think of only two ways. We either expend every effort to hide the system, as we have been up to now, or we give up and disclose it to all Burst Linkers.”
“Disclosure’s impossible. Wasn’t that it?” Yellow Radio raised his voice once again, skirting around the edge of saying the idea was ridiculous. He spread his long, thin arms and shrugged exaggeratedly. “The Incarnate System’s like nuclear energy, yes? If it’s not strictly controlled, it could bring about catastrophic disaster to the Accelerated World. That was our shared understanding, hmm?”
The clown cocked his horned hat to one side, and the Purple King to his left immediately raised an objection.
“The point is that control has been shattered, Radio. If you’re making an analogy with nuclear, then the current situation is equivalent to the raw materials for nuclear weapons being scattered all over the world. How are we supposed to recover them now?”
“So are you then saying we should kindly hand out manuals for missile production? You realize the great majority of Burst Linkers still don’t even know what the Incarnate System is? Wouldn’t it be better to simply push the idea that there was a problem with the event’s stage design?”