Elements

  “S-Sahdaka?” Kuroyukihime asked, blinking.

  “Means Yuta blood,” Lagoon Dolphin interpreted. “She’s Sahdaka.”

  Kuroyukihime had read the word Yuta somewhere before in the Okinawa guidebook she’d flipped through on the plane. She was pretty sure it meant a folk shaman. Naturally, she did not have any such power, but if she were to believe what Dolphin said, then Merrow had that particular talent.

  After staring hard at the ponytailed girl sitting diagonally to the left, she hurried to rein in her thoughts. The “master” of these girls, in other words, their “parent,” was a mainlander—a Burst Linker who moved there from Tokyo. He’d made a child in a place where there were no other duelers and raised her to level four or five. So then it had to have been a veteran in possession of a fairly large number of points. However innocent these two might have been, she still needed to keep her guard up against this master.

  As Kuroyukihime took another sip of her juice, the two girls seemed to finally regain their composure, and they glanced at each other and nodded. Their spines snapping straight, Lagoon Dolphin, sitting to the right from Kuroyukihime’s perspective, opened her mouth first.

  “Uh, um…I’m in eighth grade, class two, at Kube Junior High—Ruka Asato!”

  Coral Merrow followed: “I-I’m in seventh grade, class three, at the same junior high. Mana Itosu!”

  And then they both bowed their heads with a “Nice to meet you!”

  Kuroyukihime spit out the tiny amount of juice left in her mouth. Wiping her lips, she hurried to interrupt the pair. “W-wait, wait. Just wait a moment!”

  “Yes?” Dolphin’s large black eyes opened wide in curiosity.

  “Just now, those are your real names?” she checked, thinking all the while that they actually couldn’t be.

  “Of course they are!” a similarly stunned Merrow responded.

  Kuroyukihime put the tips of her fingers to her forehead, and timidly asked, “So then, in the duel before…the nickname Merrow used for Dolphin, Ruka, was not a shortened form of dolphin—iruka—but actually just her real name?”

  “O’course, o’couuuurse. By the way, Ruka calls me ‘Mana.’ I was only ‘born’ three months ago, so I’m totally shaking at this incredible Sister in front of us!”

  As soon as she had gotten that far, Dolphin (Ruka) poked Merrow (Mana) lightly near the base of her ponytail. “Agah!” she yelped quietly, and turned vengeful eyes on Ruka, who paid her no mind and drank her rich juice like nothing had happened.

  Wanting once again to laugh at their antics, Kuroyukihime hurriedly pulled herself together, clearing her throat. “So then, well…your master, somehow, you…I believe your master would have told you several promises related to Brain Burst.”

  She actually wanted the conversation from that point on to take place via a direct cable. But she had some doubts about whether or not these two could use neurospeak, and she had left her XSB cable at the hotel. Thus, they would just have to keep their voices as low as possible, but apparently, these girls had not even been told the reason for that.

  Although Ruka and Mana looked stunned momentarily, they quickly nodded. They looked at each other, counted out, “One! Two!” to sync themselves, and then they started to chant fairly loudly, “Ooooone! Don’t use acceleration to do anything bad! Twooooo! Don’t blab about acceleration!”

  Kuroyukihime hurriedly tried to get them to lower their voices, but before she could, they snapped their mouths shut. Still leaning onto the table, she gawked in dumbfounded amazement. “That’s all?”

  “Yes! That’s everything!”

  Kuroyukihime wordlessly leaned back in her chair and took another sip of her pineapple juice before sighing through her nose.

  In short, their “master,” the experienced Burst Linker from Tokyo, had told them basically nothing about the many risks Brain Burst brought about. Even that most basic principle, which the newest of newbies at level one would have known in Tokyo: Don’t use real names in the duel stages to avoid being cracked in the real.

  “So then…your ‘master’ or whatever, it seems that we need to have a word or two,” Kuroyukihime murmured, almost unconsciously.

  For some reason, Ruka and Mana glanced at each other, and dazzling grins spread across their faces.

  “R-really, Sis?! Urissan. [I’m so happy.] Wasn’t sure how we could ask you!”

  “Wh-what?” She recoiled unconsciously at Ruka’s unexpected exclamation.

  Mana explained, also beaming from ear to ear, “We wanted you to meet our master, Sister!”

  Over the course of the next five minutes, Kuroyukihime managed to pull the following information from the two girls.

  First, there were three Burst Linkers in Okinawa—or more precisely, the Nago/Henoko area: the master, who had moved there from Tokyo just as Kuroyukihime had assumed; his child, Lagoon Dolphin aka Ruka Asato; and then her child, Coral Merrow aka Mana Itosu. Mana apparently had not yet exercised her copy/install right.

  This could be said to be a bit of a miracle. The requirements for becoming a Burst Linker were fairly strict, and it wasn’t possible to check in advance if someone met them. If you failed when trying to give someone the BB program, you didn’t get a second chance. The link from the master to Ruka to Mana being unbroken was actually a relatively unlikely occurrence. As long as Mana chose someone, and then that someone did the same…and the chain continued without failing, an acceleration community outside of Tokyo, something Kuroyukihime had thought impossible in reality, might even have a chance here in Okinawa.

  Or at least that had been the dream of Ruka and the other two until recently.

  An incident to crush this dream—the trouble started this year. The master had tried to stand up to the nightmare at first, but now after a few months of struggle, he had given up completely, choosing to essentially ignore the issue. Ruka and Mana were taking advantage of the fact that it was school trip season to find a Burst Linker among the junior high and high school students who came from Tokyo to the Henoko resort. They were challenging the Burst Linkers they found to scrutinize their true abilities in their search for a warrior to snap open the eyes of their master, who had lost the will to continue.

  Having heard this much, Kuroyukihime nodded. “So how many before me?”

  “Three people! Ruka didn’t even talk with the two before you, she just beat them black and blue.”

  “I—I had to! If they’re not strong, that master of ours won’t listen to ’em.”

  As Ruka made this excuse to Mana, Kuroyukihime looked at her hands and noticed hard calluses that seemed out of place on a girl. Most likely, the real-world girl had been training in karate since she was small. And her duel avatar was also a relatively pure-blue close-range type—and a strike-fighting type on top of that—so it was fair to say she was basically a perfect match. With the sharpness of her technique, fighting back against the weight of a single blow of hers would have been quite difficult for avatars in the midlevel range.

  “Mmm. At any rate, I understand the situation, but…what exactly is this ‘trouble’ you mentioned?”

  Remarkably, the pair began to hem and haw over Kuroyukihime’s question.

  After a few seconds, Mana replied in a quiet voice, “That’s…I don’t know how to put it. It’s too complicated. To be honest, we don’t really understand ourselves. Master says there’s a majimun, a monster.”

  “In other words, I have to ask this master for details. Is that it?” After contemplating this for three seconds or so, Kuroyukihime nodded. “Very well. I’ll see him, this master of yours.”

  Instantly, the two younger girls lit up once more.

  “That’s great! I guess it’s just like Mana said!”

  “L-like Mana said? Which means?”

  “Mana said it, okay? She said the person we met here today would help us!” Ruka’s words basically implied that the other girl had predicted their meeting, and Kuroyukihime unconsciously looked over at her, but she ju
st had the same bright smile as usual on her face.

  While Kuroyukihime considered how she should interpret this as the power of a Yuta, the two girls stood up abruptly with a clatter.

  “Okay, let’s hurry up and go to my house—”

  “W-wait! Stop!” Kuroyukihime hurriedly held up both hands to sit them back down. “I said I would meet him, but I’d hold off on doing that on this side. If he came from Tokyo, then that means he might be someone I’ve run into in the Accelerated World in the past.”

  “Oh, is that it? Yeah, over there’s prob’ly better…If Master saw a churakahgi like you, Sis, dehjayassah [it’d be serious].”

  Mana laughed out loud, and Kuroyukihime grew slightly uncomfortable, but at any rate, it was too late to pull back now. Since she was out of time that day, she promised to meet them there again the next day during her free time in the afternoon. She glanced at the clock display in the lower right of her field of view, and the instant she saw that it was three minutes before four, she froze.

  “O-oh, no” slipped out of her mouth, and, leaving a quick “See you tomorrow!” for a baffled Ruka and Mana, Kuroyukihime raced down off the patio of Sabani.

  Kuroyukihime dashed north through the shopping street and sprinted down the brick-paved sidewalk that led to the resort hotel, so that when she arrived at the front entrance, it was only two minutes and thirty seconds past four. She spotted a girl in a dress leaning back against the white stone gatepost, bathed in the concentrated red of the setting sun. Slowing down, Kuroyukihime walked over.

  Noticing the sound of footsteps approaching, Megumi Wakamiya lifted her face and smiled when she saw her friend. Kuroyukihime felt like she saw something a little different in the depths of Megumi’s usual kind and gentle smile, and her breath caught in her throat.

  In Megumi’s left hand was a small purple paper bag that had not been there when they left the hotel. The moment she set eyes on it, Kuroyukihime stopped a meter away and bowed her head. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, Hime. I mean, it’s only two minutes,” Megumi said, and smiled again, but a hue that wasn’t normally there bled into both her voice and her face. Probably sadness—or something like that. The reason for that was surely the fact that, unlike Megumi’s, Kuroyukihime’s hands were empty.

  “Oh. I have to apologize for one more thing. Sorry, Megumi. I couldn’t decide on a present.”

  Right. Half an hour earlier, Kuroyukihime and Megumi had split up to choose a souvenir for each other and decided to meet back up here. But Kuroyukihime had gotten into the duel immediately after they’d gone their separate ways, and then her attention had been completely absorbed by the discussion in the real that followed, which used up all of her time.

  Kuroyukihime bowed her head, and Megumi lightly tapped her arm. “It’s fine, Hime,” she said brightly. “We still have time on this trip and all. I mean, we have tons of time to look for souvenirs and stuff. But…” Her voice wavered, and she cut herself off.

  Kuroyukihime lifted her face with a gasp. At basically the same time, two trails of tears slid down Megumi’s cheeks, illuminated by the setting sun, and dropped to the ground. Glittering like orange jewels, the tears bounced one after another off the bricks underfoot and disappeared.

  “Megumi,” Kuroyukihime said hoarsely.

  Megumi took a step back and wiped at her eyes with her right hand. “H-huh? What’s wrong…I didn’t mean to…I’m sorry, Hime. I really…it’s nothing. Just…,” she said, and grinned broadly, but her tears did not stop. Finally, as if she had given up, she turned her back and announced in a trembling voice, “I’m sorry. I’m going back to our room ahead of you. Just relax until it’s time for dinner, Hime.”

  And then she ran off, leaving Kuroyukihime to stare at her friend’s receding back. After standing stock-still for nearly ten seconds, she leaned against the side of the gatepost and let out a long breath.

  “I…am an idiot.” The voice she mustered as her lungs were almost empty of air was so thin it surprised her. “Even as I instruct Haruyuki and Takumu from up on high that they must not get so involved in the Accelerated World that they neglect the real world…this happens.”

  Closing her eyes, several faces popped up against the screen of her eyelids, made slightly transparent by the red of the setting sun. Long, chestnut hair fluttering in the wind, gracefully smiling Fuko Kurasaki—Sky Raker. Putting on a childish yet resolute smile beneath a black fringe trimmed tidily was Utai Shinomiya—Ardor Maiden.

  Although she’d never met them in the real, Aqua Current, the avatar whose entire body was wrapped in clear water, and Graphite Edge, tinged with the glittering of soft, lustrous carbon, were next. And then so many duel avatars appeared and disappeared one after the other. They were all members of the first Nega Nebulus, the Legion destroyed two and a half years earlier. The afterimage of the bonds that had been lost, never to be regained due to the tragedy brought about by Kuroyukihime’s mistake.

  “Honestly. I have no right to seek a connection with anyone,” she murmured, and stared at her right hand with the eye of her heart. Her slender white fingers shuddered and disappeared, to be replaced by a jet-black sword. A blade of rejection that could cut through everything and thus never touch anything.

  At that moment, a pudgy hand reached out from ahead of her and gently gripped the sharp blade floating against a background of darkness.

  Instantly, the sword turned back into her original five fingers. She squeezed the hand back, almost clinging to it, and lifted her face. Standing there with a round face was a boy a year younger than her. With a bashful, encouraging smile, the boy pronounced clearly, “You’re the one who reached out a hand to me, Kuroyukihime.”

  “Oh, that’s right, Haruyuki,” she replied, and her eyes snapped open, as she clenched her right hand tightly. She brought that hand to her chest for a moment before she started to run into the hotel after Megumi.

  4

  The sea was green, with a shine tinged by gold. Rippling with countless rows of waves in the western wind, this, however, was not water. It was a tall, pliable grass. The sea of grass continued in all directions as far as the eye could see, on a scale that could not exist in the real Okinawa, Japan.

  There was no trace of man-made buildings. In fact, there were basically no large trees or rocks to be seen anywhere. The only thing that broke up the unending flatland was gentle hills with a narrow stream flowing between them. The sole protrusion from this terrain so devoid of ups and downs was a half-spherical body in motion, popping up from the sea of grass.

  Carving out a gentle ellipse, the major axis of the semisphere exceeded four meters. On its upper surface, regular hexagon-shaped panels—armor plating—were seamlessly arranged, colored a grayish green with a metallic luster and seemingly quite hard.

  Set in the bottom of the semisphere were a total of six openings, and from four of these, short, thick, sturdy organs for support and movement—“legs”—stretched out. From the hole in the rear, a “tail” that tapered sharply at the end. And stretching out from the hole in front was a “head,” the form of which was somehow reminiscent of a dinosaur. With several massive cone-shaped fangs, it mowed down the grass before it and chewed loudly.

  Viewed as a whole, the enormous creature was a turtle; perhaps a type of tortoise. But like the grassy plain itself, a turtle of this size could not possibly have existed in modern Japan. In fact, even Stupendemys geographicus, the largest turtle on earth, which went extinct five million years earlier, had a maximum shell length of only two and a half meters.

  This grassland was not in the real main island of Okinawa in Japan, and this turtle was not a real creature. It was another Japan generated by the mysterious game program Brain Burst 2039 called the Accelerated World, a high-level hidden VR world layer. This endless sea of grass was known as the Unlimited Neutral Field, and the massive tortoise with a shell over four meters long was a moving object that lived in this field. The fixed sp
ecies name was Wild class Enemy, Armor-Clad Tortoise.

  Just as the common nickname “Enemy” indicated, the inhabitants of this world, including the massive turtle, were the enemies of the people who visited this world—the Burst Linkers. No matter how small or how harmless-seeming the individual Enemy, they would without exception start attacking unrelentingly if a Burst Linker entered their aggro range. And they were strong. Outrageously strong. For a level-four Linker who had only just gained the privilege of diving into the Unlimited Neutral Field, it was basically 99 percent impossible to defeat a Wild class or even a lesser-class Enemy solo. And the Beast and Legend classes above these were the equivalent of natural disasters, best evaded the second their shadow was spotted on the distant horizon.

  These Enemies were indeed fearsome, but in the space-time where the Burst Linker intruders didn’t exist, they were nothing more than creatures who lived in the field, just like wildlife in the real world. Except, in a certain sense, they were far more peaceful than their counterparts in reality, because Enemies did not fight each other. Enemies of the same class each had their own particular territory, so they almost never came into contact, and they were uninterested in individuals above or below them. They walked around, slept, and ate as they pleased in the vast world. Just like the massive Armor-Clad Tortoise was lazily chewing grass at that moment.

  —But…

  A wind blew over the peaceful plain, carrying the scent of unrest. The tortoise absently lifted its head, stretched its long neck, and stared off toward the south for a while.

  Suddenly, in a total change from its movement up to that point, it turned quickly to the north and started running. In the distance, turtles of the same species and larger Enemies with a form that resembled elephants all began to move at once in the same direction, almost as if they were fleeing something terrifying.

  A few seconds later, it appeared on the horizon to the south.