The Red Storm Princess

  Something like a blush sprang up on the Red King’s cheeks before he wrapped both hands around Black Lotus’s waist.

  Once again, the girl from before cried out offscreen, “Hey! Come on!”

  “Don’t get mad. It’s just instead of a handshake.” The Red King excused himself impatiently, and several voices rang out in laughter.

  And then.

  Black Lotus’s eyes lit up with an icy, bluish-white light behind her sable goggles. The swords of her arms intersecting behind the Red King’s neck glittered an intense violet.

  “Death by Embrace.”

  She uttered the name of the special attack quietly as the two crossed blades swiftly intersected, like a pair of enormous scissors.

  Red Rider’s body went limp and crumpled at Black Lotus’s feet, a broken doll. His head alone remained on the crossed arms of the Black King. She brought the freshly severed head, dripping copious bright red sparks from the cross section, gently to her cheek.

  The thick, full silence was shredded by a high-pitched, despairing scream.

  “N-nooooooooo!!”

  The replay video ended there, and the figure of Black Lotus cradling her rival’s head faded back into the noise of the scan lines.

  Only the thin wail did not cut out, continuing to ring in Haruyuki’s ears. He finally realized it was being ripped from Kuroyukihime’s throat next to him.

  “Stop! Stop, stop!”

  “K-Kuro—” Haruyuki gasped at how violently his own voice shook as he called out to her.

  Kuroyukihime glanced at Haruyuki but quickly turned her face away and shook her head from side to side, over and over. “Haruyuki…I…I’m…”

  No other words followed.

  Suddenly, her eyes, shining a bluish purple behind the mirrored surface of Kuroyukihime’s goggles, became narrow lines of light and flowed from left to right before disappearing abruptly. At the same time, almost like a robot with its power cut, the obsidian avatar’s whole body went limp, and the Black King crumbled to the floor of the blue-black crater with a dry crunching sound.

  “Kuroyuki…Kuroyukihime?” Uncomprehending, Haruyuki could only, quavering, call out, kneel down, and gently shake the slender avatar. But she did not react in any way.

  “Zero Fill! Lotus, you…to go that far…” Niko cried in a low voice from behind.

  Unable to grasp the meaning of her words, Haruyuki started to turn to her when there came a high-pitched laugh, and he froze.

  “Hmm-hmm-hmm! Ha-ha-ha! Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

  The cackle belonged to Yellow Radio, looking down from on high as a king onto his kingdom. “Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh! Of course. I thought you might still be strongly affected by this betrayal. That you would live up to my expectations and zero for me is actually almost disappointing…simply going quietly and hiding yourself in a hole, and so willingly! What of all your big talk about wanting to get to level ten, hmm, Black Lotus?”

  “Y-you…” The stammer leaked from Haruyuki’s throat like a groan.

  The Yellow King’s tone changed abruptly and filled the crater, colored with a whiplike sharpness. “Now, then, let us enjoy the final program of our carnival! Ready attacks! Target: Scarlet Rain! Destroy without mercy any bit players who get in the way!!”

  “Dammit!” Niko cursed and spread out the hands of her cute avatar. “Come! Enhanced Arm—”

  However, Takumu’s arm snaked out to grab her shoulder. “You can’t, Red King! If you deploy your weapons, you’ll lose your mobility and won’t be able to withdraw! Even if you are a King, a fight with this many people is impossible for one person. Leave subjugating Chrome Disaster for the moment, break through the circle behind us, and retreat to the leave point in Sunshine City!”

  His eyes, glittering pale blue from under the mask’s narrow slits, turned to Haruyuki next. “Haru, take care of Master! I’ll hold them off, so you just get her to Sunshine somehow!”

  “B-but—If we do that, you’ll—”

  “I don’t matter! Once these guys take down the Red King, they’ll definitely go for Master! We can’t let that happen!”

  Haruyuki could only nod at Takumu’s voice, clear and yet tense.

  “G-got it! Do what you can!” he shouted, grabbing Kuroyukihime’s body with his left hand.

  “Commence attack!!”

  The Yellow King dropped the right arm he had raised.

  6

  The first to come pouring down was, naturally, the torrential rain of the distance attacks.

  It might have been the Yellow Legion, but that didn’t mean that all its members were in the yellow family—that the Legion was made exclusively of Burst Linkers whose affinity was midrange attacks. The group of thirty foes encircling the crater looked like it included at least ten in the red family, and the number of beams and explosive rounds could more aptly be called concentrated fire.

  The majority of it was aimed at Niko, but the Red King dashed backward and avoided the rounds admirably, with a nimbleness that was a far cry from her fortress mode. However, one blue light beam, whether targeted or a misfire, came straight for Haruyuki, who was holding on to Kuroyukihime and unable to get his feet to move.

  “Ngh!” Although he tried twisting his body to avoid it, the beam grazed his shoulder. Playing at being tough, he was laughing it off in his heart—Can’t even call that a scratch—when:

  “Hnngh!”

  Haruyuki’s back arched at the scorching heat suddenly generated in his shoulder.

  When players took damage in a duel in Brain Burst, they were given a pain stimulus on a level that was not possible with normal Neurolinker apps. But the pain Haruyuki felt was twice that of a normal duel.

  Which meant something like: In addition to features like “no time limit” and “can’t instantly withdraw,” this place, the Unlimited Neutral Field, increased the sensation of pain by an order of magnitude when struck, as a risk to counterbalance the advantage of being able to earn points outside of duels.

  After a slight lag, a number of small missiles rushed in above Haruyuki’s head as he stood there.

  “Heeey!” Howling, Cyan Pile came to stand before them, blocking Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime with the Pile Driver device in his right arm, aimed at the missiles.

  The sharp iron spike launched with a metallic rasp, and the majority of the enemy rounds exploded from the impact wave. However, a few survived and struck the body sheathed in blue armor. Flashes of light. Sounds of explosions.

  “Gaaah!” he cried out and reeled back, but Takumu did not fall. Instead, he turned his enormous body around, plumes of smoke rising from it, and barked, “Haru! Run!”

  “G-got it!”

  Apologizing in his heart, Haruyuki started running, practically dragging Kuroyukihime’s avatar along with him. In his path, Niko had already drawn the gun on her hip and was firing blindly at the enemies in position on the east side of the crater.

  If they didn’t get out of this siege first, retreating or fighting back would be impossible. Fortunately, because their foes had spread themselves out along the entire hundred-meter-diameter crater, the wall, as it were, was thin. If they could break through in a single hit and get out onto Green Street, Sunshine City and its leave point were right there.

  Haruyuki, still holding Kuroyukihime under his arm, opened the wings on his back. Thanks to that hit earlier, his special attack gauge had increased, albeit by just a tiny bit. But it was enough to make a sliding dash to the edge of the crater possible.

  One point in the eastern circle was starting to come apart thanks to Niko’s steady fire. Staring right at it, Haruyuki kicked the ground with everything he had.

  Then the voice of the Yellow King, smooth and cool while also somehow discordant, echoed remarkably high behind him. “Silly Go Round!!”

  A special attack!

  But it was too late! The edge of the crater was right in front of his eyes—

  “Waaah?!” Haruyuki reared at the phenomenon that abruptly unfolded. r />
  The world had started to turn. No, the truth was the inside and outside of the crater were rotating in opposite directions, with the edge as the border. The buildings in the background, and the enemy duel avatars standing there, flowed from left to right at high speed.

  Around them, several toy horses had popped up at some point, a transparent, hazy yellow, and were moving up and down together in a happy-go-lucky way. He even heard a sunny country tune, but that, too, was eerie.

  Immediately, Haruyuki lost his sense of balance and dropped to one knee. He saw that Niko, right ahead of him, and Takumu, at his side, were also bracing fiercely, their bodies swaying.

  “Th-the field’s rotating?!” Haruyuki blurted, dazed, to which the Red King replied sharply.

  “It just looks like it’s rotating! The truth is, nothing’s moving! Close your eyes and run!”

  “But…which way?!” He already had absolutely no idea which way was east, which was what he’d been aiming for. It would all be for nothing if he charged forward blindly and ended up farther away from the leave point.

  “That way!”

  “This way!”

  Niko and Takumu simultaneously pointed in completely opposite directions.

  Instantly, as if aiming to strike while they were frozen in place, the surging wave of a volley spiraled in from the outer edge of the crater and converged on them.

  As he looked up at the multicolored line of fire, Haruyuki knew in his gut that he wouldn’t be able to dodge. That trajectory of the volley only looked like it was deeply arching. It only felt curved because of Yellow Radio’s hallucination attack.

  Thinking that at the very least he had to protect Kuroyukihime, he tried to cover the slim avatar beneath his outspread wings.

  But before he could, Takumu cried out, “Get down!!” Scooping the three of them up in his strong arms, he covered them, as if falling.

  “Ta—” Haruyuki’s words as he opened his eyes wide were erased by the fierce instrumental ensemble of explosions. His field of view was painted white, and heat scorched his cheeks. The stifled scream of his friend popped next to his ear.

  “Ngaaaaaaah!!”

  At that moment, every single kind of long-distance attack was raining down in a fierce barrage on Takumu’s broad back. With the pain from just one round scraping Silver Crow’s shoulder being that intense, exactly what was the sum total of the agony hammering Takumu’s nerves? Given the circumstances, it would have to be even greater than what Haruyuki inflicted on himself in his training room.

  “Stop…Taku, stop already!” Haruyuki cried, trying to crawl out from under his friend.

  But the young man’s essentially steel arms held him even tighter, locking him in place, while at the same time, he gasped. “I-it’s okay, Haru. I have to…do this much…to pay you…”

  “You don’t! You don’t have to! How many times do I have to tell you that, Taku?!” Haruyuki shouted desperately, but the answer he got was more anguish. Each time he felt the shudder of a direct hit, a cracking groan slipped out from the slits dividing Cyan Pile’s mask.

  Mixed with the sound of countless shots firing, the Yellow King’s detestable voice just barely reached him. “Monstrous…Burn that little puppet up already.”

  The sound of several shots in concert came in response, but Takumu did not fall.

  The red Burst Linkers in this enemy group probably weren’t very high level. And although Cyan Pile was still level four, he was blue, a type emphasizing endurance. Thus, even taking this kind of concentrated fire, he could keep going without falling. But that also meant the agony Takumu himself was experiencing would be drawn out until who knew when.

  There was nothing left for Haruyuki to say. Takumu was prepared to continue protecting the three of them until the effectiveness of the Yellow King’s special attack wore off.

  Likely having already guessed this, next to Haruyuki, Niko said clearly, “Retreat in your mind at least, Cyan Pile. Thirty more seconds.”

  “Under…stood…”

  An unpleasant rasp nearby erased Takumu’s voice, and Haruyuki stared, dumbfounded, at three glittering chunks of metal protruding slightly from the thick chest sheltering him.

  At some point, the enemy fire around them stopped. In the midst of the sunny and strange music of the merry-go-round, Cyan Pile’s enormous body was lifted in a movement not of his own volition.

  Standing behind him was a blue-green duel avatar with basically the same physique. A remarkably massive right arm in the middle of its unrefined form caught Haruyuki’s eye, reminding him of heavy machinery used for public works projects. At the end were three fiendish claws, which had pierced Cyan Pile’s chest from behind.

  One close-range type who’d been put on standby had probably gotten exasperated and come flying down. Its goggles, the shape of which reminded Haruyuki of the CRT monitors of the previous century, blinked, and the avatar emitted a thick voice.

  “I’d heard you do reasonably well among the young blues. Was that just bravado, Cyan Pile, nothing more than empty boasting?”

  The heavy machinery avatar yanked the skewered Takumu up and sneered. “Heh-heh! Before you drop dead, listen good. The one who defeated you was me, Saxe—”

  “Not interested…in the name of an idiot,” Takumu rasped. Raising his right arm, he pressed the launcher to the center of his own chest.

  “Lightning Cyan Spike!!”

  With a weak but resolute cry, a bluish-white flash of light surged from of the end of the cylinder. At the same time, a bolt of lightning pierced Cyan Pile’s chest, to the heavy avatar’s right arm, and then, by extension, its square head. Saxe so-and-so’s right arm and goggles went flying with a crack, and both avatars were tossed into the air before collapsing in a thunderous roar.

  Because of the merry-go-round hallucination, they couldn’t accurately target their enemies, even close-up. But when the enemy’s arm had you, it was a different story: a body had to be at the other end of that arm.

  “T-Taku!!” Haruyuki shouted.

  Amazing, you really are amazing. Way stronger than me, way smarter. I’m proud to be your friend. But he didn’t get the chance to put the feelings rushing through his chest into words.

  “Unh…Aaaaaugh!!” With his remaining strength, Takumu leaned against the enemy avatar, which was pressing its left hand to its face and writhing on the ground as it screamed.

  A hoarse voice came Cyan Pile’s mask as he turned briefly toward Haruyuki. “The rest…is up to you, Haru.” And then, firmly pinning the enemy down with both arms:

  “Splash Stinger!!”

  From the gap between the two bodies pressed together came the sound of rapid fire, like a machine gun, and successive flashes of light. The enemy’s thrashing ceased abruptly, and innumerable fissures pitted the pair of avatars.

  A moment later, two pillars of blue light in differing shades soared high upward from the bottom of the crater. Takumu and the enemy burst and scattered, fragments of polygons flying, and then they were nowhere to be seen.

  Meanwhile, the merry-go-round hallucination attack ended, and the world took on its original aspect.

  A moment’s silence filled the crater in what was once South Ikebukuro Park.

  The shots from the outer edge had stopped as well, with just the distant lightning and howling wind resounding heavily once more.

  There were limits to the duel avatars’ long-distance attacks—overheating in the case of light beams, number of bullets for live rounds. It wasn’t as if they could keep shooting forever. Even making allowances for that, this silence was strange. They were likely caught up in it, too. In the dreadful theater of the simultaneous deaths of Cyan Pile and the other one.

  This is our chance to escape, Haruyuki thought. This was the time Takumu literally laid down his life to create for them. But for some reason, his feet didn’t move. Still raised up on one knee, his thin avatar trembled all over.

  A feeling he couldn’t explain swirled in the depths o
f his chest. A sense of helplessness due to his inability to act while his friend protected him. Rage at the Yellow King and this cowardly plan that toyed with other people’s emotions. And more than either of those, directed at the pitch-black avatar hanging limp, as if its power had been severed, still clutched in his right arm—

  “Kuroyukihime…Kuroyukihime.” Haruyuki squeezed a voice like a groan from the depths of his throat. “Kuroyukihime. Why…why won’t you stand up…?”

  “It’s pointless, Silver Crow,” Niko muttered. Making her footsteps resound loudly, the Red King came to stand directly over the petite figure.

  “Zero fill. Right now, the signal output by the girl’s soul, which is supposed to be communicating with the avatar, is at zero, so the system’s overwhelmed. Without a Burst Linker with the will to fight, the avatar can’t move. The duel avatar’s power source is the heat of the heart of the person inside it. If you don’t have the strength to face your own wounds, you can’t even stand up. That’s what this Brain Burst game’s about. And this girl understands that, so much that she hates it. Even if you get it, it’s a problem you can’t do anything about.”

  Once she had explained all this in hushed tones, Niko glanced back at Haruyuki. “Sorry. I know Cyan Pile sacrificed himself to buy us time, but…I can’t run. I didn’t train all that time just to go running all helter-skelter here. You’re good. You take the girl and get out of here.”

  The girl’s crimson avatar looked like it was burning up. It wasn’t an illusion. Around the foot that had stepped forward, Haruyuki actually saw faint flames rising.

  It was reckless. The enemy battalion was still essentially unharmed. There was no way she could win.

  Even as he told himself he should do as reason dictated and run, he couldn’t move. He felt like something would be decisively lost from him and from Kuroyukihime if he ran off and left Niko here, and, still crouching on the spot, Haruyuki whispered in return, “I won’t run. I’m not going to run off and leave a friend behind!”