“What?!” He inhaled sharply again. Kuroyukihime wouldn’t even allow the use of the acceleration command during a test, and yet she had attempted the loathsome real attack—i.e., a PK. The fact that that had even been possible meant—
“K-Kuroyukihime, do you know the real of another…king?”
After a long silence, she murmured briefly, simply, “I’m sorry.”
She then turned to the left and touched Haruyuki’s right side with not just her head, but her entire body. Once more, his consciousness threatened to fly off at the softness and warmth communicated to his five senses, but he just barely held on again. Because this gesture of hers reminded him somehow of a young child clinging to someone and seeking protection.
“Someday…when the time comes that I can talk about it, I’ll definitely tell you.” Her voice was at a volume that he could almost hear, almost not hear.
Haruyuki nodded slightly. “Okay.”
That was all he could manage, but Kuroyukihime clutched the hem of his T-shirt and murmured, “Thank you.”
Several minutes of peaceful silence passed. Since there was nothing by way of clocks around the room, he could only check the time by looking at the corner of his virtual desktop. However, from Haruyuki’s perspective, the small digital numbers were displayed on top of Kuroyukihime’s chest. And apparently, these creatures known as girls had a super sense for detecting the rude gazes of boys.
Haruyuki had suffered Chiyuri’s harsh verbal attacks more than a few times—“What are you staring at, Haru, you perv?!” He would have liked to have argued that it wasn’t intentional eye movement, but rather a command issued by the most primal regions of his brain, but in the current situation at least, something precious would have been ruined if Kuroyukihime were to misunderstand him in any way. Thus, Haruyuki had no choice but to tackle the high-level technique of sliding his entire virtual desktop to the left, while looking down to the righ—
“That reminds me. I still haven’t gotten an explanation of what you were doing.”
At the sudden voice, his gaze froze with a start. “What I’m doing? N-nothing. I mean, tr-tr-trying to look at the clock.”
“You can look at your clock all you want. That’s not what I mean.” Kuroyukihime lifted her face, pursed her lips together somewhat poutingly, and continued. “I’m talking about what exactly you were doing in Fuko’s car with that Rin Kusakabe.”
The attack came from such an unexpected angle with such unexpected force that Haruyuki froze again. Now that he was thinking about it, Kuroyukihime had clearly witnessed Haruyuki and Rin glued together in the backseat of the EV, directing with each other.
“Uh, um, that, well, it, Rin— I just was talking with Kusakabe in the duel field, and there was absolutely nada else to it.”
“Hmmmm. Still, I feel the look on her face was incredibly emotional. Is that really all?”
Under the hard stare of her slitted eyes, Haruyuki was forced to remember, whether he liked it or not. In fact, it was hard to definitively say that was all. Rin had come straight out and bluntly told him she liked him. And there was no other way to interpret the simplicity and strength of the way she said it.
“Uh, um, uh. Oh! Really, nothing happened with Ash! I was trying to run off to the ends of the Unlimited Neutral Field, and he said he’d give me a ride, but that was about it, uh-huh.”
That was true. Between the Burst Linker Ash Roller and Haruyuki, there was nothing other than the friendship that had grown out of their rivalry. Because the one moving that century-end rider in the Accelerated World was not Rin Kusakabe, but either her actual older brother Rinta Kusakabe or a simulation of his personality.
At this explanation, which was just barely not a lie, Kuroyukihime pursed her lips suspiciously once more. She, Chiyuri, Takumu, and Utai didn’t yet know about Rin Kusakabe’s special circumstances. They thought the extremely teary-eyed, weak girl had a personality flip and was doing some ha-ha-ha-vroooom role-playing in the Accelerated World. But Haruyuki couldn’t be the one to tell anyone the truth. It should be Rin herself, or at least her parent, Fuko Kurasaki, telling that story.
Fortunately, Kuroyukihime’s expression softened abruptly after a few seconds, and she pinched Haruyuki’s round cheek. “Well, I suppose I should say that adding one to our numbers makes no great difference in the battle situation at this point.”
“Wh-what?” She put some force into her fingertips, and Haruyuki hurried to shake his head back and forth. “Nho, hit’s hine, hit’s hine.”
“Honestly.” Again with the faintest hint of a smile slipping out, Kuroyukihime released his cheek and smoothly turned herself on the beanbag chair to stare up at the ceiling as she continued. “Even still, I was honestly surprised. To think that inside your very first duel opponent, that biker, is a girl younger than I am. Until this very day, I never doubted that he was that sort of boy in the real as well.”
“Yeah, me, either.”
“Well, I can accept it somewhat with Fuko being the contact point. She told us a little of the story when we were walking down to the parking area. Apparently, they met at a family hospital. It seems they just clicked at first sight. The same as when I found you.”
“Uh, uh-huh. I wonder just how they clicked…”
“Mmm. Then shall I quote everything Fuko said? ‘If the strength of a certain button being pushed inside me was a hundred points with Corvus, it was two hundred with Uiui, but it was a thousand with Rin. The instant I saw her, I knew I had to train her.’”
“She. Said that?” Haruyuki replied, in a hoarse voice. If she would shove him off the top of the old Tokyo Tower when he had a hundred of whatever points, then what kind of training exactly would she inflict on Rin with a thousand? Simply imagining it was frightening.
However, Kuroyukihime then added something unthinkable with a wry smile. “Incidentally, according to Fuko, I was a hundred thousand points at the time we met. I suppose I should be glad that I am not her child but her friend instead.”
“Sh-she. Said that?”
Kuroyukihime and Fuko had been friends since they were both low level, so he guessed that they had probably been in elementary or junior high school when they met. He could even imagine, from looking at the current Kuroyukihime, what kind of child she had been.
“I—I wish I could have met you ages ago, too. We could’ve done so much together as members of the old Nega Nebulus,” Haruyuki muttered to himself, and Kuroyukihime popped her head up.
Centimeters away from his face, she peered into his eyes. “What are you talking about? At that time, there would have been no points of contact between you and me in the real, so the possibility’s stronger that far from Legion members, we would have first encountered each other as enemies.”
“Oh! R-right. I guess so.” Haruyuki began to hang his head despondently, but slender fingers held his cheeks back.
“Well, in that case, I likely would have done whatever it took to recruit you into the same army. If it really had been like that—in other words, if I had invited you to transfer when you belonged to the Legion of a different king, what would you have done?”
The question sounded like a joke, but at the same time, there was something serious hiding deep within it, causing Haruyuki to falter momentarily. However, he soon returned Kuroyukihime’s gaze from a slight diagonal. “I think I would have moved to the Black King’s Legion, no matter how hard I had to work,” he replied. “I’m not just saying that, either. I guess Taku—Cyan Pile—got into some seriously real trouble when he was transferring from the Blue Legion, Leonids, to Nega Nebulus last fall. I keep asking him, but he won’t actually tell me the details. I’m sure I’d do that, too, though. I mean, even if you weren’t my parent or my Legion Master, Kuroyukihime—Black King, Black Lotus, you’re my…”
He was speaking in earnest, but here he came upon the limits of his linguistic powers. If he had been typing with the text editor in his Neurolinker, the predictive engine would have displaye
d a list of appropriate words for him, but right now, he had to find them himself. After opening and closing his mouth several times, Haruyuki finally declared, “You’re my hope.”
It was how he truly felt, completely and honestly. Kuroyukihime let her gaze wander for a bit as if she was thinking, and then a smile that was half-happy, half-complicated rose up on her face.
“Hope, hmm? Welcome words. But that is the very thing I would say to you. Actually, I believe I’ve said it to you any number of times since we met. Haruyuki, I’ve told you you’re the fastest Burst Linker in the Accelerated World and that someday you’ll surpass even the kings and reach the source of that world. Yes. And I believe I also said this.”
Here, the tiniest bit of color bled into the snow-white features of the black-clad beauty as she turned her body for the third time and wound both arms around Haruyuki’s neck, pulling their bodies together.
Her cool touch, sweet, refreshing scent, and supple elasticity sent an overload signal racing through his sensory system. And then she struck the final blow.
“Haruyuki…I like you.”
He was seriously on the verge of passing out at the shock, so great he could even believe some of the circuits in his brain actually burned out, but at the last minute, he managed to avoid a system outage.
“I like Silver Crow of the Accelerated World and Haruyuki Arita of the real world the same amount,” Kuroyukihime continued, her words flowing into his right ear with a light sigh. “With these feelings as a guidepost, I was able to stand up once again as a Burst Linker and come this far. That itself is indeed…a true miracle, going far beyond the Incarnate System or anything like it. It seems I could do anything if it was for you, and I now believe I can go anywhere if you are holding my hand.”
“…Kuro. Yukihime.” It was all Haruyuki could do to murmur her name in reply. He wasn’t worth anyone telling him they liked him—he was now finally able to brush aside this extremely negative self-definition, but even so, it wasn’t as though that instantly made him capable of calmly accepting such a declaration.
And—although thinking about another girl in this situation was an absolutely unforgivable sin—two and a half hours earlier on that very day, when he had been glued to Ash Roller’s real-world self Rin Kusakabe, that girl had also told him in the most straightforward way that she liked him. The experience of having two girls confess their feelings of affection to him one after another on the same day was nearly impossible for Haruyuki’s brain to even process, much less accept.
His mind on the verge of complete burnout, he wondered exactly to what extent the law of cause and effect would have to be twisted to allow for this to happen. And then, abruptly, he understood.
It was all because Haruyuki had tried to disappear, of course, in front of his Legion comrades. In full view of his war buddies. From the Accelerated World itself. To extend a hand and hold him back, his most frequently fought rival, Rin Kusakabe, and the person he had spent the most time with, the swordmaster Kuroyukihime, were turning feelings, priceless like gems, into words and letting Haruyuki hear them.
I am a fortunate person. Is there any other Burst Linker—no, junior high kid—as fortunate as me? he whispered in a corner of his heart. The thought was, for Haruyuki, as revelatory as being reborn into this world.
All this time, he had hated himself. He had loathed himself. He had been glad of the smiles and feelings his friends—Kuroyukihime, his Legion comrades, Niko, Pard, Ash Roller—turned toward him, but he had come along thinking he didn’t have the right to really respond without changing how he looked and how he was inside.
But, in that moment, for the first time, Haruyuki thought, Maybe I’m okay the way I am. He still didn’t have enough mental energy to say so definitively, but someday…someday, the time would come when he could honestly be positive about himself…
“Kuroyukihime…I— Me, too,” he murmured hoarsely, and moved to gently place his hand on her slender shoulder. But he couldn’t do it. And his mouth, too, stopped before it could get any other words out.
Because someday might never come for Haruyuki. If they couldn’t purify Silver Crow—no, Haruyuki himself, more than half-fused with the Armor of Catastrophe, he would no longer be a Burst Linker whether he went and lost all his points alone at the end of the world or he was done in by assassins of the Six Kings. And at that time, he would probably lose a large part of his memories and feelings related to Kuroyukihime, including even the sad ache filling his heart at that moment.
But even if my memories are erased, the truth can’t be erased. The fact that Kuroyukihime said she likes me. The fact that I was able to think of myself as fortunate. So even after everything is all over, these facts will encourage me and guide me. Like a gem in the palm of my hand, even if I don’t know why I have it.
At this thought, two of the tears he had been trying so desperately to hold back spilled out of his eyes. They fell from the corners of his eyes onto the cheek of Kuroyukihime, pressing her head against his chest.
And then the slender arms wrapped around his neck doubled the strength of their grip. At the same time, a voice that was almost soundless said, “Haruyuki. You belong to me. I will not give up. I cannot tolerate losing you. Absolutely not.”
She announced it as if carving each word into both of their hearts and slowly lifted her face. On those pale cheeks, a trail separate from the tears Haruyuki had shed glittered silver, slipping out from her own eyes. The two of them were so close, they were on the verge of touching, and her lips trembled.
“Even with Utai-class purification—with the most powerful purifying ability in the Accelerated World—it’s a big gamble as to whether or not the Armor can be cut free now that it’s fused with you. I crossed swords with that berserker more than once, and even I couldn’t see the bottom of the darkness it contained.”
Haruyuki held his breath and let the words pour into him. Kuroyukihime stared into his eyes and continued in a voice that had regained a little of its tension.
“But there is possibly one way to increase the chances of success for the purification. In a certain situation, the activation of the negative will of the former Disasters always decreased. And that was…immediately after a fierce battle with a powerful enemy. And not simply a fight to the death where hatred slams up against hatred, but a fight that could be called a true duel, an exchange of high-level techniques and Incarnate on both sides. Do you remember? When you and I and the little red girl challenged the fifth Disaster, immediately after that close-range battle we fought body and soul? He was unable to dodge Rain’s main armament and was seriously injured. Normally, the Disaster would have repelled that attack with just his aura.”
Now that she mentioned it, he did have the feeling that the fifth, aka Cherry Rook, seemed different at the turning point of the ferocious sword fight with the Black King. And without a reason like that, he wouldn’t have tried to run away from Haruyuki, when he had only just made it to level four and didn’t even know how to use Incarnate.
There was no need to even go back to the fifth. The current status of Haruyuki, the sixth, indeed supported this hypothesis. He took a deep breath before nodding twice, then three times, and opening his mouth. “Kuroyukihime, maybe that’s the reason that I can be here like this as my regular self.”
“Oh?”
“Um, before, I didn’t really tell you all the details at the house, but I said I got into a fight with members of another Legion at Roppongi Hills in the Unlimited Neutral Field, right?” He closed his mouth for a minute and swallowed hard before announcing the rest. “My opponent was, um, a senior member of Great Wall. I guess they’re called the Six Armors? Um, this level seven named Iron Pound—”
“What? ‘Fists’ Pound from GW?!”
“Oh! Y-you know him?” he asked.
“Do I know him?!” Kuroyukihime moved her arms while his head was still turned and yanked on his ears with both hands. “He’s an old enemy of ‘Strong Arm’ Raker. One of t
he legends of the Accelerated World is how Pound knuckled under and got a flying tool just to shoot Fuko out of the air.”
“Oh, that rocket punch was for that…”
It made sense. He nodded and quickly thought back: He had been told ages ago about the relationship between Sky Raker and the Prominence deputy Blood Leopard, fierce enemies on the surface and friends below it, but apparently, Raker had also dangled the Leonids’ deputies Cobalt Blade and Manganese Blade from the top of the government building in Shinjuku. And on top of that, she had also clashed loudly with the Aurora Oval deputy Aster Vine. Just how many old enemies did she actually have…?
A chill ran up his spine, and Haruyuki brought his straying thoughts back on track. When he met Kuroyukihime’s eyes, a faint, wry smile crossed her face.
“So once again you happen to meet something incredible. I see,” she murmured. “You fought Fists, then, did you?”
“Oh! Um, it wasn’t just Pound…”
“What? Other members of the Six Armors were there, too? It couldn’t have been someone higher up than Fists?”
“I guess you could call him higher-up.” With Kuroyukihime still clutching his ears gently, Haruyuki ever-so-nervously gave voice to the name. “Th-the Green King, Green Grandé, was also there. And I don’t know, things just happened…”
Kuroyukihime yanked hard to stretch out Haruyuki’s earlobes. “Whoa,” she commanded, in a fairly strained voice. “You can’t mean…? D-did you fight? That shield man as well?”
“Sort of. Really, we just smashed sword and shield together once.”
The swordmaster let out a long, thin breath as she released Haruyuki’s auricles, which bounced back like rubber. Winding her arms around his neck once more, she stroked the back of his head. “I had intended to not be surprised at your recklessness at this late stage, but…So if you brought your sword down on it, then you got hit with the extra effect of that great shield Strife, yes? Incredible you made it out all right.”