But…
Tonight the two of them, through a coincidence brought about by a complicated entanglement of circumstances, were sleeping alongside each other like this in the real world. Almost as if both had wished for this moment deep in their hearts.
Was this scene the illusion of a single night? An accidental miracle never to happen again?
Or…
Haruyuki was seized with the premonition that he was on the verge of arriving now at a very important something. But the unnameable feelings cutting through his chest and the tears blurring his eyes would not allow him to put his thoughts into actual words.
So Haruyuki just stood there and stared, as if he could stand and stare forever at the girls slumbering soundly in the pale blue moonlight.
4
“All right, we’re off.”
“W-we’re off!”
“Yup, have a good ’un.” Niko waved a hand beside her face in response to Kuroyukihime and Haruyuki, then furrowed her eyebrows. “Hey. Isn’t this kinda weird?”
“Hmm? What?”
“Nah…When you ask, I can’t really…” Niko crossed her arms as she stood on the step of the entryway, deep in thought.
Kuroyukihime shrugged easily. “You’re a strange one. In any case, I’m leaving the particulars of today’s strategy to you. You won’t have any problems with specifying the position and time of Chrome Disaster’s appearance, yes?”
“N-no…Leave it to me.”
“Mmm. All right, we’re off.”
“Yup, have a good ’un.”
Closing the door with a clack, Kuroyukihime turned around and took a step down.
January 23, Friday, 7:30 AM.
It was time to begin that shifting of coordinates known as “going to school” that Haruyuki had executed countless times up to that point. The gray light shining into the shared hallway of the condo, the exhalations colored white by the cold air—all of it was the same as the day before.
However, one thing was different: a female student dressed neatly in the Umesato uniform walking alongside him. Her blue ribbon tied, school-designated bag in her right hand, and shopping bag in her left.
“Apparently, it’s going to be cloudy all day,” Kuroyukihime said to him casually after turning on her Neurolinker and running her gaze over empty space. “I hope it doesn’t rain. Well, shall we go?”
“R-right.” Dipping his head, Haruyuki started walking after her, assuming his home position behind her to the left and wondering vaguely. Huh…so is she like my big sister? And the other’s the little one?
No, forget that. That kind of setup would never exist in reality. Going to school with your big sister, this isn’t some ancient visual novel or something.
He shook his head fast like a wet dog and climbed into the empty elevator car arriving before them.
Normally, if this were a game, there’d never be just two girls, the big sister and the little sister. Right?
As he toyed with this idea in his head (which wouldn’t quite get up to speed, possibly due to a minor lack of sleep) the elevator stopped a mere two floors down, on the twenty-first floor. Haruyuki automatically took a step back, opening up a space for someone to get on.
As the door slid open, his gaze crashed into a girl wearing the same color uniform who jumped in with a spritely, bouncing movement—his childhood friend, Chiyuri Kurashima.
No…! he screamed in his heart.
Seeing him, Chiyuri blinked her large, catlike eyes rapidly before breaking into a broad grin. “Oh, Haru! Morning! What happened? You were superearly yester—What…wh-what?!”
Once she noticed the person to Haruyuki’s right, Chiyuri’s voice and expression evolved rapidly. From distracted, passing through stunned, and then arriving at the critical point: the calm before the storm.
“…Haru? What is this?” Chiyuri murmured, eye twitching.
“Oh, morning, Kurashima!” Rather than Haruyuki, who was frozen solid, it was Kuroyukihime who greeted his friend with a carefree salute.
“G-g-good morning.” Chiyuri lowered her head instinctively, then grabbed Haruyuki’s necktie and shouted, “What’s going on?!”
“I-it’s not what you think!” Shaking his head back and forth, Haruyuki launched his mail with a hand behind his back, seeking help from the only person with a chance of managing this situation; i.e., “Taku, in trouble. Help.”
“And how is it not what I think?!”
Just when it seemed like she was getting serious about grilling him, the elevator finally arrived at the first floor, and the door opened. Haruyuki grabbed Chiyuri’s shoulders and spun her halfway around saying, “C-come on. First, we gotta get to school! We’ll go to class first, then come home, and by the weekend, we’ll forget all about this.”
“Don’t try to weasel out of this!”
Shoving Chiyuri’s shoulders as she shrieked, he cut through the residents and their widened eyes in the lobby and managed to get her out into the courtyard when he heard the sound of his rescue from behind.
“M-morning, Chi! Morning, Haru! Mor…ning…” Here, Takumu pulled his glasses down slightly and stared questioningly at Kuroyukihime’s composed face. “Good morning, Master.”
His partner, somehow having read his mail and rushed down, muttered to Haruyuki, expelling large puffs of white breath in the chill morning air, “Haru. You sure like to live dangerously.”
“I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all,” he returned, before turning Chiyuri who was still shrieking, “Explain yourself!” toward Takumu and letting go.
And Takumu, being Takumu, took the bullet and calmly reassured her: “Chi, I was at Haru’s place yesterday, too.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Just had a little problem with that application.” Faced with the extremely doubtful look on the face of his childhood friend, Taku offered up smooth explanation. Haruyuki could never even hope to imitate his effortless eloquence. “We used Haru’s place as a meeting room. But it ended up running late, and if the social cameras caught some junior high kid out walking alone at that time of night, it’d turn into a whole big thing, so Kuroyukihime was basically forced to stay at Haru’s. Right?”
Fortunately, Kuroyukihime accepted the question lobbed at her and nodded obediently. “That’s essentially the case. No need for any strange suspicions, Kurashima.”
Chiyuri was silent for a few seconds, the expression on her face becoming complicated. “That again? Brain…Burst?” she asked finally in a hushed tone.
She puffed her cheeks up as she looked around at the three of them nodding in unison. “I am not okay with this! I mean, it’s just a game, right? So what is there that you need to spend hours talking about?”
“I-it is a game, but it’s not just a game.” Haruyuki glanced around the wide condo courtyard and confirmed that no one was around before continuing. “We talked about this before…It creates another world by accelerating your thoughts. So just like the real world, all kinds of problems happen—”
“Hmph!” Chiyuri pursed her lips and made a dissatisfied noise. “And I don’t believe a word of that. I mean, you say you ‘accelerate,’ but I don’t even know what that means…Okay, fine. If you show me, I’ll shut up about it.”
“Huh?”
“You can copy and install this game, right?” Chiyuri asked Haruyuki, eyes like saucers, as if it was no big deal. “I’ll load it up, too. And then I’ll be, what did you call it, a, uh…‘Burst Linker,’ too.”
“Wh-what?!” The shout came not just from Haruyuki but from the mouths of Takumu and Kuroyukihime as well.
All three immediately brought hands up in front of their faces, waving them fluidly back and forth.
“I-impossible, no way. Absolutely no way.” Haruyuki accidentally let his true feelings slip, and Chiyuri pinched his round cheek.
“What do you mean?! Just hand it over!”
“No, it’s just—You need an aptitude for the ga—”
“And
if I don’t try, we won’t know, will we?!”
“But I mean, you’re…superslow and everything.” The moment the words left his mouth, Chiyuri’s cat-shaped eyes glinted.
“Oh ho! You’ve got some nerve. I get it, you just watch! I’ll practice and get so good I can beat you and Taku at video games!”
“Wh-what?!” Haruyuki’s jaw dropped, and he stared at the challenging glitter growing in her eyes. It was her “Once I say it, there’s no turning back” face, often seen when they used to play together way back in the day.
She yanked Haruyuki’s cheek out as far as it would go, like a sticky mochi rice cake. “And then you’re gonna copy that whatchamacallit Burst to me, too!!” Having said that, his childhood friend, this girl who was the same age as he was, dropped her hand, stuck out her tongue, and ran off at a blistering pace.
“‘Practice,’” Haruyuki muttered, rubbing his cheek. He turned again to Takumu beside him and bowed deeply. “Sorry, Taku. I made you lie to Chiyu.”
The explanation Takumu had given Chiyuri before was not 100 percent accurate. At the time Kuroyukihime declared that she was staying over, the meeting had already ended.
Takumu smiled and shook his head slowly. “It’s fine.” His expression was calm, but Haruyuki felt like it held something somehow self-deprecating, and he bit his lip.
“Takumu,” Kuroyukihime said, sounding concerned. “Perhaps I’m intruding by asking, but…are you and Kurashima still…well…”
“We’re a long ways from the way we were.” Shrugging his shoulders, Takumu turned his gaze to the tops of the trees lining the road, completely bereft of leaves. “Because of what I did. And it might be that we can never go back to boyfriend-girlfriend. But…if I can be with Chi in a way that makes her happy, then I feel like that’s enough for me.”
“Taku…” Haruyuki fumbled for what he should say, but his throat always got plugged up at the critical moments.
Kuroyukihime spoke softly instead. “If…you feel like it’s too much of a burden, or it’s interfering with your relationship with Kurashima, you can delete it, you know…Brain Burst.”
Takumu’s eyes flew open. But he was quick to shake his head firmly from side to side. “No. I still have to repay you for…and Haru, too.”
“Y-you don’t. There’s nothing to repay us for, Taku.” This time, Haruyuki managed to speak, albeit mechanically. “I’ve never thought you had anything to repay me for. And Kuroyukihime’s the same. That’s not why Brain Burst exists. That, that game…” But again, Haruyuki’s meager lexicon was exhausted.
“Don’t worry.” Takumu returned Haruyuki’s gaze with sad eyes and patted his shoulder. “I mean, I definitely have fun in duels. Anyway, Master, I wanted to talk to you about something.” Turning his entire body toward Kuroyukihime, he continued in a serious tone. “Do you really think there’s no possibility of Chi becoming a Burst Linker?”
Kuroyukihime tilted her head thoughtfully, her expression essentially unchanged as opposed to Haruyuki’s bug eyes. “To begin with, does she meet the first requirement?”
“Yes, she should,” Takumu assented immediately.
The first requirement for Burst Linkers was to have been wearing a Neurolinker since birth. Takumu met the requirement due to the educational policy of his overly enthusiastic parents; Haruyuki because his parents, who both worked, had used it as a remote monitor.
Chiyuri was raised by deeply loving and broad-minded parents, and they had placed a Neurolinker on her from the time she was a newborn for different reasons. Chiyuri’s father had once been treated for pharyngeal cancer, and it was difficult for him to speak naturally. Thus, Chiyuri had grown up listening to her father’s neuro voice via the network.
Takumu didn’t go so far as to explain all that, and Kuroyukihime didn’t ask.
“I see.” Nodding, she turned her gaze in the direction in which Chiyuri had run off. “The truth is, the second requirement…It’s not as though there are strict standards for cerebral reaction speed. Some people who are terrible at VR games have been able to install Brain Burst. However, I have to say, trying to make someone you’re not sure of into a Burst Linker is an enormous gamble.”
“G-gamble…?” Haruyuki asked in response, and Kuroyukihime shifted her gaze in a way that seemed meaningful and nodded.
“Currently, a Brain Burst copy license—that is, the right to make a ‘child’ of someone as a ‘guardian’—is limited to just one. That right is exercised even if the install fails and can never be recovered.”
“O-one time?!” Haruyuki stammered involuntarily and hurriedly clapped his mouth shut. He lowered his voice and continued, still flustered. “B-but that—the number of Burst Linkers basically isn’t gonna go up at all, then. I mean, the number of people losing all their points and leaving and the number of new people joining…They’ll just barely be balanced?”
“In other words, Haru,” Takumu said, pushing up his glasses, apparently already aware of this “one-time rule.” “I think that the mystery administrator who runs Brain Burst wants the current number of people—about a thousand—to be the upper limit. That means that’s probably the threshold for keeping the acceleration technology hidden.”
“O-okay, that’s probably true, but…but come on, even if it keeps going like this, at some point, the day is going to come when the secret gets out, right? I mean, Chiyu already knows pretty much everything and all. I-if this admin or developer or whoever is running this whole show with the understanding that the existence of Brain Burst will someday be revealed to the world, and when that happens, we won’t be be able to use our Neurolinkers to accelerate anymore, then…what’s this guy’s objective?”
Haruyuki spread out both hands and looked at Takumu and Kuroyukihime in turn. “It’s just, we…we haven’t paid the price of entry to play this game. And we never see any ads or anything.”
There were two general types of profit structures for the many net games in the world: either charge the gamer with a monthly fee or via item sales, or flood the user with in-game ads from contracting companies.
Brain Burst was definitely a net game, and more than that, it gave its users an extraordinary privilege with the acceleration technology. No matter how he looked at it, a price of zero didn’t make it worth anyone’s while.
Kuroyukihime listened to Haruyuki’s fundamental and very belated question, a faint and wry smile crossing her lips. “Think about that all you want, but there’s no answer to be had, Haruyuki. If you want to know, your only choice is to reach level ten and ask the developer yourself. But I can say just two things with certainty. The first is, as you said before, the Accelerated World likely can’t continue forever given the way things stand currently. The time will inevitably come when the curtain will be lifted and every last Burst Linker annihilated. And the second is…the day will also definitely come when we are made to pay a price in line with the privilege of acceleration. Or…” Her voice became uncertain, and her lips moved very slightly.
But Haruyuki felt like he could see the tiny letters in his exhaled breaths, colored white in the morning chill.
Or we’re already paying it.
“But I digress.” Kuroyukihime laughed briefly and looked at Takumu. “Back to Kurashima. I believe that the possibility of her becoming a Burst Linker is extremely low, but there is value in trying.”
“R-really, Master?”
Kuroyukihime nodded slowly at Takumu and his wide eyes. “Physically, her potential is certainly not low. That sprint of hers earlier was wonderfully quick.”
“Oh, that’s ’cos she’s on the track team,” Haruyuki interjected.
“Hmm. I see,” Kuroyukihime murmured. “In your brain, the circuits that move your physical body and those that move your virtual avatar are basically one and the same. Which is to say, in Kurashima’s case, it’s possible she meets the necessary conditions for the performance of those circuits. The problem is her affinity with the Neurolinker, although there’s nothing to
do about that but jump right in and test it.”
“Oookay. But she can’t even neuro-speak.”
“You, on the other hand, are too specialized on the Neurolinker side. Move your real body a little more.”
Haruyuki was slammed into silence, and Kuroyukihime shifted her attention from him to Takumu.
“Takumu. If Kurashima is able to install Brain Burst successfully, a strong connection between the two of you will be created. That of guardian and child. But remember, that does not necessarily mean that there are only positives there.”
Haruyuki couldn’t understand the meaning of these words, uttered quietly and forcefully, right away.
Not positives…Negatives? Between a Burst Linker “guardian” and “child”? What could they be? The guardian leads, the child adores. There’s no dark side or anything there; that’s true, right? It’s different from parent-child relationships in the real world. Totally and completely different from my dad—who shook off weepy, clingy me and left us, and my mom—who doesn’t bother to even look at me, much less talk to me in any real kind of way. Between guardian and child in the Accelerated World—between Kuroyukihime and me—there’s definitely a strong bond.
A thrill ran through Haruyuki, and he stared into Kuroyukihime’s obsidian eyes as she stood next to him. They were filled with the same gentle glow as always.
No. Beyond that, though, something kind of sad. Or maybe it’s just my imagination. I thought I saw a flash of something like fear.
In an instant, a doubt he’d never once given thought to since becoming a Burst Linker under Kuroyukihime’s guidance flickered to life in the back of Haruyuki’s mind.
The question of who Kuroyukihime’s guardian was.
“…U-um.”
“Now we’ve done it,” Kuroyukihime said, as if cutting him off the moment he ever-so-timidly spoke up. “We got too caught up standing here talking. And now we’ll be late if we don’t hurry.”
“Huh…”
Quickly glancing up at the horizon, Haruyuki noted that the sky on the other side of the low clouds had grown much brighter.