“Sir!!” the warriors shouted, retaking their original positions.
Haruyuki flinched and pulled his head back. However, he still peered at the owner of the voice from beneath the mirrored shield that made up his own avatar’s face.
The platform on which Silver Crow had been made to stand was in the center of a circular plaza about thirty meters in diameter. On the outer circumference of the plaza, seven improvised seats, made by cutting down thick pillars, were arranged in a semicircle. Seated there were the level niners, the rulers of the Accelerated World—the Seven Kings of Pure Color.
From Haruyuki’s perspective, on the far right was the leader of Great Wall, the Legion headquartered in the Shibuya area: Nicknamed “Invulnerable,” it was the Green King, Green Grandé. This week, like last week, he brought no attendants.
Sitting next to him was Haruyuki’s swordmaster and the leader of Nega Nebulus, which held Suginami as its territory; apparently once called “World’s End,” she was the Black King, Black Lotus. Behind her stood the beautiful Sky Raker, her deputy.
On the third chair was Scarlet Rain, Legion Master of Prominence, who controlled the areas from Nakano to Nerima. Given that she had—naturally—not summoned her army of an Enhanced Armament, her cute little-girl avatar dangled its legs over the edge of the seat. Beside her was the silhouette of Blood Leopard, reminiscent of a leopard standing erect.
And then fourth in line—directly facing Haruyuki—the Blue King sat with an air of composure, acting again as chair for the meeting this time. “Vanquish,” aka Blue Knight, was the head of the Leonids, which held as its territory Shinjuku to Bunkyo; the two girls flanking Haruyuki were his executives. This was the very Blue King who had chided them a moment earlier.
Farther to the left, on the fifth chair, sat an avatar with a noble silhouette that immediately brought the word queen to mind: the ruler of the Ginza area, “Empress Voltage,” the Purple King, Purple Thorn. Behind her, the whip user Aster Vine stood at the ready, a female military officer and the king’s close aide. Neither of them so much as twitched, but the pressure they exuded was more obviously focused on Haruyuki than anyone else there.
Occupying the sixth seat was a clown avatar with armor so vividly yellow, it was almost sickening. The head of the Legion Crypt Cosmic Circus, which held Akihabara to Ueno as its territory, the man known as “Radioactive Disturber,” the Yellow King, Yellow Radio also hadn’t brought attendants, as far as could be seen. His smiling face mask wobbled slowly from side to side like a pendulum.
And then on the far left, in the seventh seat, there was again no sign of the king who should have been there. Instead, there stood an avatar with a tall and thin silhouette that tapered at the end like a pole, one Ivory Tower. That avatar was the proxy for the White King, who ruled over the Legion Oscillatory Universe, which was based in the Roppongi area. Haruyuki had thought that today might be the day that he would meet the only remaining one of the level niners he had not yet seen with his own eyes, but perhaps the White King was surprisingly shy…Or perhaps they had no interest in someone like level-five Silver Crow.
Probably the latter, huh. Even though I’m so curious about them, he murmured to himself, a little dejected, as he moved his eyes even farther to catch a glimpse of the massive palace soaring up beyond the thick fog within this Demon City stage. Naturally, that was the majestic castle, the center of the Accelerated World, but rather than the Unlimited Neutral Field, this was a normal duel field generated by Cobalt and Manganese, so the castle couldn’t actually be entered. System-wise, Haruyuki and the kings and everyone else were only connected to this space as the duel Gallery for the two warriors.
In other words, Cobalt and Manganese could not directly attack Silver Crow with the swords they carried, but they could eject him from the space as a Gallery disturbance. Or—and this was unlikely—if everyone present agreed, the duel rules would change to Battle Royale mode, allowing everyone to be everyone else’s enemy.
No, wait. I would totally never press the YES button. As if I would press it. Haruyuki hardened his resolve, completely forgetting that he had had the same thought at the last meeting of the Seven Kings, and concluded his examination of the situation.
Ultimately, this place was the grand bench of the Supreme Court, there to pass judgment on the defendant Silver Crow. For the time being, if Black Lotus was his lawyer, then the antagonistic Purple Thorn would have been his prosecutor. If Blue Knight was the judge, then the other four kings were jurors.
Although these players were all lined up, there was a uniform silence as they awaited the appearance of the last player in the case—the “witness” who would check whether Silver Crow was clean or not with a special ability. At one word from her (or him), the fate of Haruyuki’s life as a Burst Linker would be decided.
Of course, Haruyuki was certain of his innocence.
The immediate reason that he had been made to stand in this place as a suspect was that in the Hermes’ Cord race, he had summoned the cursed Enhanced Armament, the Armor of Catastrophe, Chrome Disaster. Haruyuki, the sixth owner—no, host—of the armor that had caused enormous calamity over and over since the dawn of the Accelerated World, had been permitted a week’s deferment. If he hadn’t managed to purify the armor from his avatar in the seven days since the last meeting of the Seven Kings, an enormous bounty would have been placed on his head. Given that he was still only (and finally) at level five, this was equivalent to a death sentence.
Thus, Haruyuki and his Legion comrades had made every effort during that week to get rid of the armor parasitizing Silver Crow. They rescued Ardor Maiden—who had the Purify ability—from the altar of the God Suzaku, faced the memories of the two Burst Linkers who had generated the armor, untangled the logic hidden in the presence that was Chrome Disaster, and finally succeed in removing the entire curse.
The two Enhanced Armaments that were the armor’s original form—the great sword Star Caster and the full-body armor the Destiny—had already been cut away from Silver Crow through Maiden’s purification power and left to rest forever in a certain place in the Accelerated World. With nothing parasitizing Haruyuki’s duel avatar anymore, there was no reason for anyone there to censure him.
Or that’s what he believed, but he wasn’t completely free of worry about whether or not that would be easily recognized. Because he didn’t really know what kind of Burst Linker this witness everyone was waiting for was. Kuroyukihime and Fuko talked as though they had some idea, but they really didn’t seem like they trusted this person completely.
In other words, if, for instance, in the worst case, the witness had been brought over to the public prosecutor’s side, the witness might ignore the results of their own analysis and declare him “Dirty!” and Haruyuki would have no evidence to deny this. If he simply stood there silently thinking about this, he would only get more and more worried, so he felt the sudden urge to talk to the warriors on either side of him.
“Um, Manganese?”
His interlocutor turned annoyed eyes on him. “…What is it now?”
“Are you and Cobalt sisters in the real, too?” he asked in a whisper. “Or are you maybe even twins?”
“…We’re twins.”
“W-wow! But then, you each have different ‘parents’? Is that it?”
“Oh, that’s a good question, kid,” Cobalt muttered from the opposite side. She brought her face in closer and continued in a somewhat self-satisfied tone. “You know that Neurolinkers identify the user based on characteristic brain waves. So then what do you do when you have two people with essentially the same brain waves?”
“Huh? Shared Neurolinker?” He cocked his head. “B-but you both accelerate at the same time like this…”
“Heh-heh-heh,” Manganese Blade laughed quietly. “If you want to know the rest of the story, transfer to Leonids and perform your devotions. If you’re not useless, we might make you our spear carrier.”
“That actually depends on the di
rection of today’s meeting, though. Heh-heh-heh.”
“Huh? Um! No, I’ll pass this time…”
“What?!” The two grabbed the hilts of their swords again, and Blue Knight (seated directly in front of them) shook his head in exasperation, about to chide them once more.
Just as he was on the verge of doing so, a strangely bright voice echoed through the foggy circular plaza:
“Hey! Sorry I’m late, yo! I accidentally came out on the total other side of the castle!”
The tapping of fleet feet against the hard ground of a Demon City stage. Judging the sound to be from behind, Haruyuki quickly turned around. A second or two later, the warriors flanking him followed suit.
Through the thick veil of fog, he could make out a single silhouette: a small, slender, female-type avatar. Her head alone was disproportionately large, making her look unbalanced, but she came straight toward them, seemingly unconcerned with the glares she was getting.
“She’s here, Maga.”
“Don’t let your guard down, Cobal.”
Sensing the excessive tension in the voices of the warriors in this brief exchange, Haruyuki was confused. If this had been the Unlimited Neutral Field, an approaching duel avatar would have required the greatest amount of caution, but this was a normal duel field. It was true that at the present moment, the restriction preventing members of the Gallery from coming within ten meters of the duelers had been turned off in the options, but even so, the basic principle of the Gallery not having any attack power whatsoever was unchanged.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to ask them what on earth they were on guard against. The visitor casually cut through the fog, passing immediately by Haruyuki, and stopped before the Seven Kings.
Her armor was a very light lavender. She had no distinctive parts on her limbs or body, and her form was supple like a female type. But, indeed, what stood out more than anything was her head. Of her approximately 160 centimeters, her head took up more than thirty. Haruyuki couldn’t immediately determine from behind whether the fan shape was hat-type armor or her actual head.
She put a hand on her right hip and bowed slightly, while the Blue King stood up from his seat.
“First, a word of thanks for responding to the sudden request, Argon Array.”
“Whaaat? No biggie. I got my reward and all. Ha-ha-ha!” The reply from the Burst Linker—apparently named Argon Array—was relentlessly bright. Haruyuki couldn’t sense even a hint of nervousness at being before the Seven Kings. “Anyway, it’s been aaaages, this scene. How many years has it even been since I saw all you kingies lined up together!”
“Oh my!” The first one to react was Yellow Radio. “You do say the strangest things, Quad Eyes. As I recall, after we started to be called kings, there was just the one time we all came together…that time when the previous Red King was caught in a surprise attack and exited this world. And yet you speak as though you happened to be present there?”
He spoke as though he were interrogating Argon, but it was obvious to anyone there that his actual intention was to challenge the Black King. Haruyuki gritted his teeth hard, but Kuroyukihime and Fuko both let it slide, pretending not to recognize Radio’s words for what they were; in the end, he managed to endure it somehow.
Argon was also not perturbed. She cocked her head exaggeratedly and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess yer right. My memory’s real terrible, y’know? ’Cos I’ve known little Radio since you were just a wee one this high, huh?” She indicated the level of her own chest with her right hand before answering herself: “Obvs, that’s not true, though!” When even the Yellow King fell silent, she struck the final blow. “Aah, it’s no good!! Just for ages, every time I see little Radio, I end up wanting to go eat some o’ them little fried radio balls. Whaddaya think? Join me? There’s a tasty little place in Iidabashi. ’Course, they’re only good in Tokyo! Ha-ha-ha!”
“…Always the fast talker,” Yellow Radio muttered, baffled and shifting in his seat, before Blue Knight began to speak once more.
“All fine and good to renew old friendships, but it’s about time to get to the point. We’ve got other matters on the agenda after this, after all.”
“Ah, yeah, I came to ‘look’ an’ all. ’Kay, I’ll just take a peek, then.” Having had her back to Haruyuki all this time, Argon Array now whirled around.
So it’s a hat was Haruyuki’s first thought. The top half of the face mask with its exposed mouth—as sometimes happened with female types—was covered by lens-shaped goggles. And above those, he could see two round parts, but they were hidden by a cover. The abnormal size of her head was apparently a result of the additional armor sitting on her actual head.
These thoughts absently racing through his mind, Haruyuki stared hard at Argon as she approached him. Paying no attention to Cobalt and Manganese stepping back bit by bit to either side of him, he simply continued to stand there.
Argon slowly climbed the first, then the second step of the dais staircase before stepping onto the third step, where Haruyuki stood, all seemingly without hesitation. Once she had climbed that far, there wasn’t even twenty centimeters between them; her large lens-shaped goggles gleamed immediately before him. Unconsciously, Haruyuki peered into them, but they were filled with darkness, and he couldn’t see through to the other side.
“…Hmm. So this boyo’s the Corvus of legend, huh?” As she spoke, she turned her face toward him, and the reflection of light made it look like her two lenses blinked. “So the story I heard is you went an’ cut that armor out your own self? My buddies and me, we’re all high-fiving you, boyo. So, like, this’ll be great, y’know.”
“O-okay,” Haruyuki replied, shrinking back, and Argon Array laughed throatily.
He didn’t know much about this Burst Linker acting as the witness. He’d only heard that she had the power to see everything about another duel avatar’s status, and that she was able to determine the existence of a parasitic object; her nickname was Quad Eyes Analyst.
From the way she spoke, he could imagine that she was a fairly old hand, but since he had only just learned her actual avatar name that day, it was of course his first meeting with her. From her nickname, he’d thought she would have four eyes, but there were just two lenses covering Argon’s face. He wondered where the other two were as he stared intently at her petite form.
Snap.
Somewhere deep in his mind, he felt a small spark bounce up. If he had to say, it was like the circuit was connected for a mere instant to a memory that shouldn’t normally have been there. Somewhere…, he thought, but he couldn’t call up any more information. A hazy silhouette flickered on a screen filled with noise.
As he stood there stock-still, Argon pulled her body back and looked back and forth between Cobalt and Manganese on either side of him. “Right! You wanna get started? Boyo and me are Gallery now, so if I’m gonna use my ability, I’m gonna need you ladies to pull us into your duel.”
“…We’re aware of that,” Cobalt replied in a hard voice, opened Instruct, and made some quick movements. Soon enough, a small window opened before Haruyuki and Argon. The message in English read YOU HAVE BEEN INVITED TO BATTLE ROYALE MODE. YES/NO.
Argon said “Yaap” and quickly hit YES, but Haruyuki couldn’t stop his head from spinning. Participating in Battle Royale mode meant that he would be raised up—or maybe lowered?—from safe spectator to dueler, complete with health gauge. If the samurai sisters Cobalt and Manganese got it into their heads, they could carve Haruyuki to pieces in minutes with their two swords—
For the first time since they had arrived at the meeting space, Black Lotus spoke, albeit quietly. “It’s all right, Crow. If it’s a trap, I’ll kill everyone in the place.”
Behind her, Sky Raker followed up with, “Naturally. We’ll hang them all from Skytree.”
At this not-insignificant utterance, the temperature started to drop to about minus one hundred, when the Red King, Scarlet Rain, sitting beside them, dropped a
n additional bomb:
“Whoa, whoa, Lotus. Lemme just say this, Promi’s just an observer! If you’re gonna hang anyone, just do those sickly-looking kids over there.”
“Those sickly-looking kids” clearly indicated blue and purple and the rest, and even if the adult Blue King stayed calm, the auras around Purple Thorn and Aster Vine flared up. If this kept up, a second super war among the Seven Kings was certain to break out.
Haruyuki hurriedly reached his right hand out to the window. “I-it’s fine! It’s to prove my innocence, after all!” Firming up his resolve, he pushed the button.
A message flashed saying he was taking part in a Battle Royale, and his own health gauge dropped into existence with a metallic tink in the upper right of his field of view. The gauges of the other three were compressed and displayed to the upper right.
Cobalt and Manganese were both level seven, a rank befitting the close aides of the Blue King. However, a new surprise was that the level inscribed to the right of ARGON ARRAY was eight. She really was quite the veteran, and powerful. With this, he could understand the familiar tone she took with the Yellow King, as though she had known him forever.
However, Argon herself was relentlessly light. “Wohkay! Time for work. Gonna take a real hard peek at you. You ready, Corvus?” She sidled up to him.
Reflexively, Haruyuki stood at attention. All he could say in response was “Please.”
“’Kay, here we go.” Two round panels equipped on Argon Array’s hat—which he had thought of as a part of her head until then—opened up with a klak.
Inside were lenses about one and a half times the diameter of those in the position of her actual eyes. The four lenses—no, the four eyes—peered at Haruyuki from extremely close up.
Next, he heard a whining from inside her large head. Warm air was vented from the slits on the side, and then all the lenses lit up a dazzling purple. The light shot out straight ahead like a searchlight or a laser, penetrating Silver Crow’s body in four places.