The Red Storm Princess

  Back still rounded, little, softly weeping Niko crouched over…

  For a moment, Haruyuki couldn’t find anything to say.

  The Burst Linker “guardian-child” relationship. Connected in the same way with Kuroyukihime, Haruyuki had thought he understood the weight of that. But for Niko and Cherry Rook, for these two who didn’t know their real parents, it was no doubt the only indelible bond they’d made. And Niko had severed that with her own hand. She’d had no other choice.

  Haruyuki worked to swallow back the things welling up in him, kneeled down, and placed a gentle hand on Niko’s shoulder.

  “Niko. It’s true, Brain Burst isn’t just a game. But…it’s not the whole of our reality, either.”

  Thinking, he started to talk, and the bitter sobs quieted slightly. “I mean, I’m always scared of being powerless. I’m scared of being abandoned by her. But…I know the real her. I know her face, her name, her voice. No matter what happens, that bond’s not going anywhere. I mean, it’s not digital. It’s carved into my heart. Which is why—Which is why you can still be friends with him again in the real world. You should be able to. I mean, you and us, we’re in different Legions in the Accelerated World, but in the real world, we managed to become actual friends.”

  The low sobbing continued for a while longer but finally melted, as if swept up by the slight wind blowing away the twilight. Her back shuddered conspicuously one final time, and Niko wiped her avatar’s eyes with her right arm before brushing away Haruyuki’s hand, still resting on her shoulder.

  “Friends…you say?” Her voice was hoarse and shaking, but it had reclaimed just a little of its impudent tone. The childish King stood abruptly, looked down at Haruyuki with red lenses, and spoke. “Were you born yesterday?! At best, you managed to become one of my subordinates! Don’t get carried away!!”

  “Wh-what?!” Haruyuki was about to continue in protest when a cool voice from behind interrupted.

  “Hey. Just who is whose subordinate?”

  Whirling around, Haruyuki saw the ashen avatar, her entire body in tatters but standing solidly—Black Lotus.

  And the indigo-blue avatar Cyan Pile supported her left arm.

  “K-Kuroyukihime! Taku!!” Crying out, Haruyuki practically flew over to them. “A-are you okay, Kuroyukihime? And Taku, how—” he started to ask before he finally remembered.

  Immediately prior to entering the battle with the Yellow Legion, Takumu himself had explained it. Burst Linkers who die in the Unlimited Neutral Field were resurrected in the same place after a one-hour standby penalty. Which meant that much time had already passed before he’d even realized it.

  “Taku…honestly, you were totally crazy to do that,” he grumbled.

  Takumu spread out a hand and replied, “You say that, Haru, but look at the terrible shape you’re in. Going after Chrome Disaster by yourself…I mean, that’s beyond crazy.”

  “I take after our master.”

  And that master separated herself from Cyan Pile and hovered on one leg to stand immediately before Niko. Kuroyukihime waved the tip of the sword of her right hand and uttered in a somehow arrogant voice, “Now then, Scarlet Rain. Don’t you have something to say to me?”

  Right fist trembling for a while, the Red King finally jutted her face up. “Sorry.”

  “Come on! Is that it? Honestly, this is exactly why I—”

  “Wh-what about you?! We were out there fighting our butts off while you were just taking a nap!!”

  “What did you say?”

  “What, you don’t like it?”

  Haruyuki and Takumu inserted themselves placatingly and desperately between the two Kings facing off, red and bluish-purple sparks scattering.

  Suddenly, a remarkably strong wind blew down from the enormous tower of Sunshine City, and Haruyuki unconsciously closed his eyes.

  “Oh,” Niko murmured.

  Followed by Kuroyukihime. “Come, Haruyuki. Look. It’s the Change.”

  “Ch-change?” Haruyuki asked in response as he lifted his face to see—

  The unbelievable sight of the world rapidly changing around him.

  The city, nothing more than blue-black steel and desolate ground unfolding infinitely, was covered in a wave of light like an aura rolling in from the east. Caressed by this curtain, the bleak, naked steel structures of the town were transformed into a series of large trees with thick trunks. Cavities to be used as entrances and stairs winding around the trunks were built into the trees, with suspension bridges reaching out to connect thick branch to branch. The city became an elf country straight out of a fantasy movie.

  In the dead of night, the thick growth of leaves were enveloped in a faint blue phosphorescence that illuminated the floor of the forest. As Haruyuki stood there dumbfounded, a rainbow-colored aura drew near, wrapped up the world in front of him with a roar, and faded to the rear.

  “Ah! S-Sunshine is…”

  In the place where there had been an enormous tower, the castle of the King of Hell a moment before, he saw a tree so enormous it very nearly pierced the heavens, and Haruyuki caught his breath.

  The trunk, covered in a golden-green moss, stretched up vertically, gnarled knots popping up here and there, while the top of the tree melted into the clouds in the distant sky above. Here and there along the trunk, terraces—small forests themselves—jutted out, and particles of blue light spilled down to the ground. A majestic presence worthy of the name World Tree.

  But why on earth would the field transform like that?

  When he shifted his attention to ask the question, Kuroyukihime had the air of a slight smile wafting around her injured avatar as she replied. “Come now, I told you that its affinity was ‘chaos’ when we first dived into this field.”

  “Uh-huh, so then…”

  “That, in other words, means that the affinity of this world changes at fixed times. But most of the time, it’s just brutal. You’re lucky. The field almost never shows itself in this kind of beautiful form.”

  “Uh-huh.” Haruyuki filled his lungs with air that had adopted a sweetness in scent and flavor and nodded several times. It had been a tough, painful series of battles, but for the first time, he felt glad to be here.

  I still don’t have enough power to fight here. But I’ll get strong enough so that one day, I can fly freely through this world’s skies. And I’ll probably keep losing again and again in very uncool ways, but…one day, for sure.

  “I’d ask you to pick us up and fly again. But when the Change happens, the Enemies are completely repopped. Loitering’s dangerous right now. We’ll just be good kids and go home.”

  “Let’s.” Kuroyukihime nodded at Niko’s suggestion. “Whoops! Before we do, though, I nearly forgot something important.” Looking around once, she continued in a more severe tone, “Everyone. Open your status screen and check your item storage. If the Armor of Catastrophe is there, you must get rid of it. So the same thing does not happen again.”

  Haruyuki’s eyes flew open.

  Right, we have to check that at least.

  When the previous Chrome Disaster had been subjugated at the hands of the Seven Kings of Pure Color two and a half years earlier, the Kings supposedly did the exact same thing. And they’d all reported that the armor hadn’t been transferred.

  However, that had been a lie. There was no proof, but the armor had been dropped into the Yellow King’s storage. The Yellow King had concealed this fact and had only recently contacted Cherry Rook, who belonged to the Red Legion, and given him the armor. To have him break the nonaggression pact due to the poisonous nature of the armor, and then take compensation for this “crime” with Niko’s head.

  Just as Kuroyukihime had said, the same tragedy must not happen again. Haruyuki stretched out a hand, touched his HP gauge, and moved from the open status screen to the item storage.

  The window was completely empty. He nearly burned a hole into it with his gaze, but there wasn’t a single line of text there.


  “I don’t have it.”

  Haruyuki gave his answer, lifting his head, and was followed by Niko’s “Me neither,” Takumu’s “Nor me as well,” and shakes of their heads. Finally, Kuroyukihime murmured, “Nor I,” and the four of them fell silent for a moment.

  Cherry Rook, the fifth Chrome Disaster, had definitely had Brain Burst forcefully uninstalled with Niko’s Judgment Blow. When its owner lost all his points, the Enhanced Armament was supposedly transferred with a fixed probability to the storage of those who had defeated the owner. In which case, this time, not having been transferred, it had finally been completely destroyed. Probably.

  Since it was impossible to see anyone else’s status screen, there was always the possibility that someone was concealing the armor like the Yellow King had. However…

  “It’s gone, this time for sure,” Haruyuki declared in a clear voice.

  Niko assented right away. “Yeah. We’re not that jerk Radio, and…I don’t think anyone here’s stupid enough to fight him, fight Disaster, and then go and make the thing their own. The Armor of Catastrophe is gone. We totally destroyed it.”

  “Uh-huh. I could see that explosion from South Ikebukuro. That’s probably proof it was annihilated, right?” Takumu also nodded.

  Finally, Kuroyukihime declared firmly, “Good. Settling things with the Yellow King will have to wait until next time or later, but in any case—mission complete. Now, perhaps we should go home and raise a glass?”

  “Ooh! Okay, let’s have champagne! Champagne!”

  “Idiot. Children drink juice.”

  Quarreling once again, the two Kings began walking. Takumu and Haruyuki followed them, grinning wryly.

  At the root of the World Tree, a large cave opened up illuminated by the same blue light he’d seen when it was a steel tower was shining inside. They headed toward the swirling, shining withdrawal point, and walking last in the line, Haruyuki’s ears—

  A voice that somehow wasn’t—

  “Huh?” He turned around automatically, but of course, there was no one there.

  “What’s wrong, Haru?”

  At the sound of Takumu’s question, he hurried to turn again and shook his head. “No, nothing! Aah, I’m like ten times more tired than after a regular duel. I’m starving. I can’t go on…”

  “Hey, come on! You know, in the real world, we ate cake, like, just a few seconds ago.”

  “Gah! I forgot…” Bantering with his friend, he slipped through the entrance enclosed by the thick tree trunk.

  The base of the World Tree turned into an expansive semi-sphere of a dome. In the center, a blue portal, which contained a view of the real-world Ikebukuro, floated like a mirage. Following his friends and moving forward a few steps, Haruyuki turned around just one more time.

  Must be imagining things, he murmured in his head before quickly facing forward again.

  But the instant he leaped into the slowly rotating portal, the strange voice rang out behind his head once more.

  This is what he heard:

  Want to eat.

  9

  Haruyuki glared intently at the steel holes created by the eight spiraling grooves of the rifling.

  Saturday. Four PM.

  He was in the middle of the public Territory Battle to protect Suginami Area No. 3, controlled by the Black Legion, Nega Nebulus.

  A three-person team with a balance of blue, red, and purple had come to challenge them. It was a lineup that had often been coming to attack for a while now. Which was to say, they were also the opponents to whom Haruyuki had clumsily lost repeatedly.

  The one he was particularly bad with was a sniper-type avatar in a dark red cloak, equipped with a large antiaircraft rifle. It would conceal itself on the rooftop of a building quite far from the front line and launch incredibly powerful bullets with terrifying precision.

  Since of the three members of Nega Nebulus, Kuroyukihime and Takumu were actively close-range types, Haruyuki necessarily had to take on the enemy sniper, being a high-maneuverability type. That said, because he didn’t have any long-range attack power, he needed to fly in close once he’d determined the sniper’s position.

  But in the Territory Battles up to that point, Haruyuki had been ignobly shot down time after time, unable to dodge the enemy sniping in the course of closing the distance. To compensate, he was forced to join up with Kuroyukihime’s powerful battle abilities, and every weekend, he fell victim to fierce bouts of self-hatred.

  And now again from the roof of a building a kilometer ahead, the black gun muzzle was precisely trained on Haruyuki flying hard.

  Since approaching in a straight line was the equivalent of saying Please shoot me, Haruyuki carried out maneuvers as randomly as possible to escape the enemy scope, sometimes even entering the shadow of some cover on the ground. But no matter what the technique, at the end of it, the large-diameter rifle always snapped back onto Haruyuki without the slightest delay.

  When are you going to shoot? Now? Now?

  Here and there passing before his eyes at high speeds were the figures of people in the gallery. Especially right after he started playing, Haruyuki had been pretty popular as the possessor of the sole flight ability, but now that walk-throughs had been studied, the gallery was mostly exposed to scenes of him crashing awkwardly. And they were disappointed—that would have been better, actually. Lately, he thought they had gotten past that and likely reached the sneering stage, and everything got hot inside his head.

  And on top of that, in the battlefield to the rear, Takumu and Kuroyukihime, taking on the enemy close-range types, were probably casting their eyes his way during the pauses in battle. Wondering if today would be the day he took care of the sniper or if they would have to follow up yet again.

  Just when are you going to fire? Hurry up and shoot already. And set me free from this ridiculous pressure. In desperation, Haruyuki unthinkingly started to drop into a headlong advance.

  His eyes popped open.

  This is just a repeat of last week. Didn’t I learn anything?

  Obviously, no one gets stronger overnight. And just because I practiced a bit doesn’t mean I can suddenly dodge bullets now. But I can totally change the way I think anytime.

  It’s not like I’m fighting to look cool for the gallery. And it’s not for Takumu’s approval or Kuroyukihime’s praise.

  It’s for me. I’m fighting because I want to like myself, the menial, weak, thickheaded me I hate so much, just a little more than I did yesterday.

  In which case—

  “You’re not running!!” Haruyuki scolded himself in a low voice and focused more on seeing with his eyes.

  Don’t look at the gun barrel. That antiaircraft rifle’s not the enemy. The avatar holding it, finger on the trigger. The Burst Linker moving the avatar. The will to attack itself, sent out by that brain—feel it!

  Haruyuki mustered every drop of willpower, took his eyes off the gun, and stared straight at the right eye of the enemy sniper peering through the scope.

  And for some reason, he got the sense the enemy was shaken.

  Immediately, a flash of orange light flickered from that direction, and a glittering bullet was released from the rifle’s maw.

  Before he even saw it close in, drawing out its spiral vortex, Haruyuki shifted the angle of his right wing slightly and twisted his body. The bullet lightly grazed his right side with a whine and flew off harmlessly behind him.

  One-point-five seconds later, before his enemy had finished pulling the rifle’s bolt handle, Haruyuki was driving a Punch into its jaw.

  “Well! Nice work avoiding that!”

  The instant he returned to the real world, his back was slapped, and Haruyuki leaped out of his chair. Turning around, he saw the smiling face of Kuroyukihime, who had burst out a step ahead of him.

  It was their usual table at the back of the lounge, adjacent to the student cafeteria at Umesato Junior High. Late on a Saturday afternoon, there were no other students to be see
n. Takumu had apparently dived into the game from the roof, so he wasn’t there, either.

  “Oh yeah. Probably just lucky.”

  Tucking his chin in as he spoke, he got the usual “What am I going to do with you?” face.

  “That wasn’t luck. It was superb timing. You must have had some trigger to anticipate it?” Kuroyukihime sat up on the table, crossed her arms, and stared him down.

  After faltering a moment, he replied. “A trigger…I guess it was just, the moment I looked at the scope instead of the muzzle of the rifle, I got the sense that the sight shook. And then it was like my reflexes took over and I dodged,” he mumbled, and Kuroyukihime snapped a single eyebrow up.

  “Oh? Hmm…Yes, I see…It was that, then, was it?”

  “What do you mean, you see?”

  “Oh, well, that sniper. I had thought he was just too good at maintaining a line of sight. Most likely having an ability you could call ‘eye tracking,’ perhaps.”

  “Eye tracking…?” Haruyuki asked in response, blinking furiously.

  “Mmm. That is to say, track the eyes of an enemy looking at the gun muzzle and automatically sight.”

  “What?! Th-then, that means that up to now, I’ve been getting shot down precisely because I’ve been staring so intently at that gun muzzle?”

  “It does.”

  “Th-that’s…”

  Seeing Haruyuki slumping back into his chair, mouth hanging wide with shock, Kuroyukihime laughed gently.

  “Don’t be so discouraged. Regardless of any tricks, being able to dodge a bullet moving that fast is clearly the result of your efforts. This last month or so, your reaction speed has visibly improved. Have you been doing some kind of practice in secret?”

  “Oh. Y-you can tell?”