The Carbide Wolf

  “Haruyuki,” Kuroyukihime said, her voice quiet, severe, and just a little sulky. “The moment you were told to go back to your starting point, the first thing that should have come to mind was me. It’s not that I don’t forgive you for going to Takumu, but…why would the squash court be next?!”

  “Huh? No! That! It’s—!”

  She snapped the sword of her right hand up and pointed at him as if to say, No excuses! “If you thought for a millisecond about it, you would know that your starting point as a Burst Linker could be nothing other than your parent, me!” the Black King shouted. “I understood that in a nanosecond! If you had come straight to me, I would’ve given you special training in easy mode, but now I consider hard mode inevitable given how you took the long way!”

  “Ea— Uh! Easy mode…Wh-what training…?”

  “It goes without saying.” Her right hand cut horizontally with a sharp whine. Haruyuki’s parent and Legion Master said, “The strategy for Wolfram Cerberus, obviously!!”

  There was no doubt had he not asked for this. But even so, once they had moved to the center of the grounds, Haruyuki couldn’t help but ask first thing, “Um…Even if I went to you for help, I thought you’d just tell me to figure it out myself. I mean, I’m already level five, and my opponent’s still level one, so. Um, wh-why?”

  “Does a parent need a reason to help their child?” Kuroyukihime stated calmly, before shrugging and adding, “But, well, perhaps this is a little overprotective. If this was Fuko, she’d definitely tell you to ‘please figure it out yourself ,’ and that would be the end of it. But…your opponent this time’s caught my interest.”

  “Interest? Do you mean his strength?”

  “There’s that, too…but also his timing, I suppose.” Kuroyukihime stopped speaking, and then her bluish-purple eye lenses shone quietly behind her smoked-mirror goggles as she came back with a question: “Haruyuki. After the meeting of the Seven Kings three days ago, you said to me and Raker that the Quad Eyes Analyst Argon Array is a core member of the Acceleration Research Society.”

  Haruyuki swallowed his breath and then nodded slowly. “Y-yes. Just like I said at the time, I have no visible proof you can see. I just have that dream from when I was parasitized by Chrome Disaster, which is a super vague foundation anyway, but even so, I’m sure of it. She’s been friends with Black Vise of the Acceleration Research Society for a long time, and she was involved in the birth of the Armor of Catastrophe.”

  “Mmm. I and Raker both believe you. Right, Fuko?”

  “Yes, Corvus would never speak irresponsibly.”

  “Th-thank you very much. But…is there some kind of connection between that and Cerberus?”

  “Allow me to explain.”

  At this, Haruyuki turned to his right. Standing there was a sky-blue duel avatar, with flowing metallic-type hair parts—unusual for the Accelerated World—the hem of her snowy white dress fluttering slightly in the breeze. Haruyuki bowed neatly. “Oh, yes, plea— Whaaaaaat?!”

  He leapt up nearly two meters and then flapped his wings to descend slowly. And yet despite all that, he felt like something like this had happened before, too. Well, might as well confirm it, at any rate. “Uh, um…M-master? It’s you, right?”

  “Of course. If you think you’re seeing a ghost or some such, you can go ahead and touch me to be sure.”

  Although he started to reach an unsteady hand out at these words, he felt waves of murder from the left, and he quickly pulled it back. He didn’t need to confirm; standing there before his eyes could have been none other than the deputy of Nega Nebulus, “Strong Arm” Sky Raker.

  Here, he finally realized that she was connected with this stage as a spectator. But still, it didn’t quite make sense. Because Raker’s real self, Fuko Kurasaki, went to a high school in Shibuya and should have been there at present in the middle of a weekday afternoon. But to be in the Gallery of this duel of Lotus versus Crow, she would have to move to the middle of Suginami.

  “Oh. N-no, right. This duel’s not happening through the global net, but the Umesato local net instead, so even if you came to Suginami, you couldn’t watch it. So then, Master, are you actually in the school?”

  “Unfortunately, you’re wrong. Although I understand your desire to see me.” The vacuum-destroying Raker Smile exploded onto her face. Unconsciously, Haruyuki staggered, but here, Kuroyukihime cleared her throat.

  “We don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll fill you in on the spoilers. I opened a long-distance access gate for the Umesato local net, had Fuko connect from Shibuya, to be on standby as a spectator.”

  “O-oh, I get it— Wait, long-distance access to the in-school net?! I-i-if anyone finds out, it’ll be—”

  “To secretly make a gate that won’t be found out is quite the challenge, even with the privileges of student council vice president. I only implemented it very recently. If I had completed it in April, I could have taken care of Dusk Taker directly. Or rather, considering that incident, I aimed to implement this gate, I suppose.”

  “O-oh. So then, even when you’re away and we get attacked, we can be totally secure…”

  “The issue is that the gate can’t be opened if I’m not in the school, but what’s more important right now is the Analyst.”

  His relief snatched away again, Haruyuki stiffened. Kuroyukihime patted his back lightly with the flat of her sword.

  “I told you this before, but Raker and I have complete faith in your story. To start with, that Argon Array has just too many unknowns. She’s always been an opponent requiring a certain level of vigilance.”

  “Yes. She’s undoubtedly more of a veteran than we are, she’s never joined a Legion, and her parent is also unknown. And I have only the fewest memories of her normal duels. I really have no idea how she made it to the high-level region.”

  Here, Haruyuki rapidly shook his head, setting aside the shock of Raker’s appearance and the long-distance gate. “R-right. But if she is a member of the Acceleration Research Society, then pretty much all those questions are taken care of, right? Those guys seem like they’ve been researching dubious ways to earn points.”

  “Mmm. And dubious power-ups as well,” Kuroyukihime said, and turned her face mask toward the static sunset. After a brief silence, a slight logic leap slipped from her mouth: “What exactly is a metal color? Haruyuki, have you ever thought about this?”

  “Huh? Metal colors?” Reflexively, he looked down at the silver armor enveloping his own body—glittering orange now with the reflection of the sunset—before answering. “You mean metallic color names, right? Like my silver, or the Leonids’ Manganese and Cobalt, or GW’s Iron Pound? Basically, they have high defensive abilities and are striking attack types. But they’re weak against acid or electric shocks and stuff.”

  “The characteristics are exactly as you say.” Sky Raker nodded, her wide-brimmed hat shaking slightly, but she soon connected that with a “but.”

  “But, you see, if we’re talking defensive types, there’s already green. Actually, in a group battle, metal-color and green-type duel avatars often end up playing similar roles. Taking up more specific specs, it’s not as though there aren’t metal colors softer than green types, and green types harder than metal colors. So then…why do you suppose the metal colors, a separate lineage from the normal colors, exist in Brain Burst?”

  “The reason…metal colors…exist…,” Haruyuki parroted back before slowly shaking his head. “I’m sorry. Even though I’m a metal color, I’ve never thought about that before. I’m not sure what to say. Me being silver, too…As to a reason, I just thought it was randomly chosen.”

  “Mmm. Well, there’s no doubt that there are a lot of random elements in determining color name. I also would prefer insofar as possible not to think about the fact that I’m black. However, the ‘kind of reason’ you just mentioned…A theory that attempts to explain that existed once. Although it was limited to the metal colors.”

  “Th-theo
ry?”

  “Exactly. It’s called the Mental-Scar Shell theory. Its proponent is Argon Array.”

  “—!!” Haruyuki gasped beneath his mirrored surface. It was partly because of the Analyst’s name coming up in an unexpected place, but more than that, it was because he remembered hearing the term “Mental-Scar Shell” sometime before.

  Right. In the scene carved into the memory of Chrome Disaster, a shadow looking like Argon Array had said those words. She had muttered them at the meeting three days earlier while looking at Haruyuki, too. And then last week, he had blurted those words out when overflow from the Armor of Catastrophe had overcome him in the rear courtyard of Umesato—at which point, Utai Shinomiya had reacted strongly to hearing them.

  “Wh-what exactly is a Mental-Scar Shell?”

  “Just like it sounds. A shell that envelops your mental scars…apparently,” Fuko replied after taking a step forward. She turned the madder red of her eye lenses on Haruyuki and spoke to him in a kind yet clear voice. “All of us Burst Linkers have scars in the depths of our hearts. My scar is that I was born missing the lower half of both legs. That mental scar produced the duel avatar Sky Raker, who seeks the sky—and space beyond it.”

  Haruyuki stood stock-still. Never averting her eyes from him, the sky-blue avatar continued.

  “Corvus, you no doubt already know the wounds that are the sources of your childhood friends’ avatars, Cyan Pile and Lime Bell. In many cases, the color and appearance of normal-color avatars is a direct materialization of these mental scars. My child Ash is also like this. Rin, having been hurt by her brother’s racing accident, or perhaps Rinta himself, having lost his dreams, created the avatar with the motorcycle Enhanced Armament. It’s almost too obvious.” Fuko laughed faintly.

  Kuroyukihime stepped forward beside her and picked up the explanation, also speaking quietly. “But there are also Burst Linkers for whom the mental scars that are the template for the avatar are not so readily obvious in their color or appearance. I’m sure you already know this, but…those are the metal-color avatars. Almost all of them are orthodox human forms, and they have no symbolic Enhanced Armaments. Their mental scars are, so to speak, wrapped in a thick, impermeable metal shell. Long ago, the Analyst proposed that we call this shell the Mental-Scar Shell.”

  “A shell…wrapping mental scars…”

  “Exactly. This shell, for exceptionally strong children—children with shells so thick that they themselves can’t see their scars—are thought perhaps to produce metallic duel avatars. This is the gist of the Mental-Scar Shell theory.”

  They themselves can’t see their scars.

  Kuroyukihime uttered these words in a tone that was kind and calm to the utmost. Even so, Haruyuki’s heart, wrapped in metal armor, throbbed painfully.

  It’s true, I don’t really understand why I ended up as Silver Crow, as a duel avatar with the ability to fly.

  But…that’s…It’s not that I can’t see my scars; it’s that I don’t want to, so I’ve always turned my eyes away. The truth is, that time…the time when Dad and Mom told me they didn’t want me—

  Abruptly, feeling his body gently enveloped, Haruyuki opened his eyes, only to discover he had closed them at some point. When he did, Black Lotus and Sky Raker were directly in front of him, both of them gently holding him. In his ear, he heard their voices alternate.

  “I’m sorry, Haruyuki. Both Fuko and I understand that talking to you about this was likely to cause you great pain. But this…is a path you cannot avoid.”

  “Given that you are a metal color, at some point, you will have to face your own shell, Corvus. Before some malicious opponent pulls that door open. Sacchi and I discussed it and decided we should talk about it.”

  Hearing this, Haruyuki finally grasped why Kuroyukihime had gone to the lengths of using the drastic move of a long-distance access gate to call Fuko into this stage. It was to ease the shock the Mental-Scar Shell theory would give him by using not just her own power as his parent, but also borrowing Fuko, who Haruyuki adored as his Master. The warm pulsations coming to him through the arms of the two duel avatars holding him was proof of that.

  I’m so lucky. Even if I fail to get the Theoretical Mirror, even if I’m beaten black and blue by a level one, and no matter what scars are buried beneath the shell of my heart, that’s the one thing I can never forget. Forcefully reminding himself of this, Haruyuki took a deep breath. “Thank you, Kuroyukihime, Master. I’m all right. My ‘Mental-Scar Shell’ doesn’t even shake at a little tap like that.”

  “That’s a strange kind of confidence, Haruyuki.”

  “Shall we consider this a promising outcome?”

  Kuroyukihime and Fuko offered their impressions as they pulled away from him, and the three laughed together for a moment.

  “This is just roughly speaking, but that’s the basic idea of the Mental-Scar Shell theory. At the time it was proposed, many Burst Linkers accepted it as a theory that could explain to a fair extent the reason for the existence of the metal colors. But…after a certain time, everyone stopped saying it. It became a forbidden word, as it were.”

  “F-forbidden? But it only explains the reason metal colors are born, right? There’s no particular harm…” Haruyuki cocked his head to one side, and neither of the girls moved to answer him right away. The slight breeze of the twilight grassy plain made Black Lotus’s sharp swords clink faintly.

  Kuroyukihime crossed those swords before her, as though crossing her arms, and said in a more severe tone, “The truth is, well, there’s a corollary to the Mental-Scar Shell theory. Rather than something anyone proposed, this spread as a spontaneous rumor, the idea that if the theory is correct, then perhaps it would be possible to apply it.”

  “Apply? To what exactly?”

  “The deliberate birth of a metal color.”

  “…!!” Haruyuki threw his helmet back in his total shock.

  “If children whose mental scars are wrapped in a thick shell become metal colors, then,” Fuko explained, also sounding a little more tense, “if you make a Burst Linker after creating that shell first, perhaps you could purposely make that child into a metal color. That’s the idea. As a specific instance of this, you seal away the scars the target child bears through some means—for instance, through hypnotherapy or, in the extreme case, with a brain implant chip—and then install the Brain Burst program. The existence of this so-called ‘artificial metal-color plan’ was a whispered rumor of the early Accelerated World.”

  “W-was that plan ever carried out?”

  “Unknown. To begin with, we don’t even know the source of the rumor, so…” Kuroyukihime shook her head slightly, but then continued almost at a whisper. “But it is a fact that a while after that, a metal color appeared in the Accelerated World. His name was Magnesium Drake. An avatar with hard metal armor and a dragon head that came with a powerful flame attack. He immediately went up levels and was revered by a great number of people.”

  This was the first time he’d ever heard the name. But Haruyuki felt a spark in the corner of his memory and furrowed his brow. “‘Was?’ Does that mean he’s gone now? Even though he was that strong?” he asked ever so timidly, and the other two nodded together.

  “But, you see, he didn’t simply lose all his points and vanish from the Accelerated World.”

  “He was the target of a concentrated attack by countless Burst Linkers, undergoing one fierce and bloody battle after another. As a result, he was subjugated.”

  “Huh. Th-that—was he maybe—you talked to me about him before?”

  “Exactly. Even though he was a noble leader, Drake suddenly became the second Chrome Disaster.”

  It wasn’t that he had a memory of this. When Haruyuki became the Sixth Disaster, he had used the ability Flame Breath any number of times, spilling white-hot flames from his mouth. This was the ability left behind in the armor by the Second Disaster—in other words, the originator of that skill had been none other than Magnesi
um Drake.

  “So, then.” Haruyuki pushed a hoarse voice from his throat, somehow taking in the shock that was large enough that he forgot to breathe. “This Magnesium Drake was an artificial metal color created by applying the Mental-Scar Shell theory—is that it? Is that the reason he became the Second Disaster?”

  Given the flow of the conversation, it was only natural he’d want to make that assumption, but neither Kuroyukihime nor Fuko assented immediately.

  “This is all in the realm of rumor, Corvus. All that is certain is the fact that Drake appeared in the Accelerated World and astonished everyone with his strength, but then at a certain time, he fused with the Armor of Catastrophe. After much blood was spilled, he was subjugated and disappeared.”

  “And one more thing: As of that incident, Mental-Scar Shell became a taboo term. Though, from what Haruyuki said, Argon Array appears to be the only one not concerned by this.”

  “…So that’s what happened…” After he had finished listening to the long story, Haruyuki glanced at the timer as he let out a sigh. The time remaining was eight hundred seconds—a little over thirteen minutes.

  Now that he was thinking about it, why exactly had they gotten onto the subject of Mental-Scar Shell to begin with? He rewound his memory. It was Argon Array who had coined the phrase, and she was probably a veteran member of the Acceleration Research Society. Kuroyukihime had said she was concerned about the timing of her appearance, and that timing was—

  “…Oh!!” Here, Haruyuki finally remembered that the main point of this duel was not a meeting, but rather special training. Kuroyukihime had invited him to this stage to instruct him in a means of attacking the new level-one metal color with the super-hard tungsten armor whom he had lost to so completely and utterly. “Huh? Wait. H-hold on a second, please…”