The Red Storm Princess

  “The wings on your back…I want to borrow your flight ability, just once. To destroy the Armor of Catastrophe.”

  3

  Haruyuki couldn’t understand the meaning of Red King Yuniko’s words. Most likely, Takumu was in a similar state, eyebrows slightly furrowed behind his glasses. Only Kuroyukihime reacted with any intensity.

  She abruptly clenched her right hand, which had been reaching for her cup. The Black King slammed her fist down on the table and shouted. “Fool! That armor…It’s already been destroyed!!”

  She fell silent, eyes staring off into space, and Haruyuki hesitantly posed a question to her pale profile. “U-um…What is that? The, uh, Armor of Catastrophe? It’s a thing, not a person?”

  For a few seconds, Kuroyukihime stayed silent, but finally, she leaned back gently in her chair and let out a long, narrow breath. Crossing her stocking-clad legs, she turned her upper body toward him.

  “Yes…How to put it…It is a person, specifically, a Burst Linker; but it is also a thing, in other words, an object. I suppose you could describe it that way. Haruyuki, do you remember the first opponent you fought?”

  “Oh, uh, yeah. The guy on the bike…Ash Roller, right?” Haruyuki nodded, an image of the splashy chopper motorcycle and the skull helmet floating up in the back of his mind. He still occasionally fought duels with him, a member of the Green Legion, which had its stronghold from the neighborhoods of Shibuya to Roppongi, sometimes winning, sometimes losing.

  “His motorcycle. It’s an object distinct from the rider himself but comprises the whole of the duel avatar. Which means that it ends up being a thing and a person, yes?”

  “Umm…I guess so. Yeah.” He bobbed his head again.

  “In the Brain Burst system, this type of external item is called Enhanced Armament.”

  “Enhanced…Armament.”

  That…has a kinda cool name. Haruyuki felt a momentary thrill, which quickly changed into dejection. Because no matter how he looked at it, the empty-handed Silver Crow didn’t have any.

  As if seeing into Haruyuki’s heart, Kuroyukihime smiled very briefly and somewhat bitterly before saying, “I don’t have any, either. Don’t be so down about it.”

  “I have some, though,” Yuniko said, twisting her mouth into a sneer.

  “Although in your case, it’s rather that it has you at this point.” Kuroyukihime’s sharp voice rained down without missing a beat.

  “Ooh! Those grapes are nice and sour!”

  “O-okay,” Haruyuki hurriedly interjected himself between the two girls’ glares. “So those incredible heat-power lasers Scarlet Rain has…are those Enhanced Armaments?”

  “They are. However, they are not such a rare item as this little girl boasts. There are actually four ways to get Armaments.” Kuroyukihime stuck out the thumb on her raised right fist and continued. “The first is, you have some from the start as your initial equipment. Ash Roller’s motorcycle is probably one of these.”

  “The Pile Driver in my right hand is one, too, right?” Takumu cut in, and Haruyuki cried out in surprise.

  “What? You have some, too, Taku?”

  “Yeah, well. Let’s just listen.”

  “…I’ll continue.” The nail of Kuroyukihime’s index finger stretched out, hitting empty space. “The second is, you obtain Armament as a level-up bonus. Although this is not possible if there are no choices for your bonus.”

  “…I didn’t have any…,” Haruyuki muttered, remembering the three times he’d leveled up so far. But even if there had been, he’d have followed Kuroyukihime’s advice and poured all his bonuses into speed and flying time.

  Her middle finger extended next, and Kuroyukihime continued with her explanation. “And then the third. You spend points and buy some in the shop. This one would be possible for you, Haruyuki, but, mmm, I don’t recommend it.”

  “Huh? Shop…a store? Where is it?”

  “Not telling. I can see only too well that you’ll go crazy with all of your points.”

  “I—I…”

  Takumu laughed out loud and nodded. “No doubt about it. When Haru goes into a store like that, his whole personality changes.”

  “Wh-what are you two even…”

  The relaxed mood wafting out to the living room was cut short by a demand from Yuniko. “Hurry up and say the fourth!”

  Although Kuroyukihime nodded as she met head-on the dangerous gaze of the Red King, she didn’t immediately move to speak.

  Consequently, Yuniko reached across the table and forced the ring finger on Kuroyukihime’s right hand up while spitting out abruptly: “Four. Kill someone and take it.”

  “K-kill…”

  “That’s not an entirely clarified phenomenon, but…,” Kuroyukihime added, a sigh-infused explanation for the benefit of Haruyuki gazing in wonderment. “If a Burst Linker with Enhanced Armament loses in a duel and thus her burst points drop to zero and she is forever removed from the Accelerated World, in some cases, the ownership of the loser’s Armament is transferred to the winner.”

  “One of the current established theories is that it’s a randomly generated event with a low probability,” Yuniko interjected, clasping both hands behind her head. “But ‘maybe’ isn’t how it works for the Armor of Catastrophe. One-hundred-percent transferral rate—it’s totes cursed.”

  “However,” Kuroyukihime murmured, her teeth squeaking sharply as she ground them together. “That is impossible. It was destroyed. Two years ago, I saw the Armor…I witnessed the end of Chrome Disaster; I confirmed its annihilation!”

  Chrome Disaster is the name of a legendary Burst Linker who had existed in the dawning of the Accelerated World, which is to say, seven years ago.

  The story Kuroyukihime told began with those words.

  Wrapped in the metallic gray, knight-like Enhanced Armor, Chrome Disaster possessed fierce combat abilities and made many Linkers crawl before him. His fighting method was, in a word, severe…or perhaps brutal; he was said to decapitate surrendering opponents, tear off their limbs, and perpetrate every outrage on them.

  However, the end finally came for even him, he who had pushed countless duelers to the permanent loss of Brain Burst. The highest-level Burst Linkers—other than himself—joined together, targeted Chrome Disaster, and deliberately and repeatedly challenged him to duels.

  In the end, his points dropped to zero, and in the moment he faced his “death” in the Accelerated World, he laughed loudly and cried out, “I curse this world. I dishonor it. I will be resurrected again and again.”

  Those words were truth. The Burst Linker called Chrome Disaster himself left, but the Armor…his Enhanced Armament did not disappear. Ownership of it transferred to one of those who had subjugated him, and the mind of the Linker who equipped it, whether out of curiosity or giving into temptation…was hijacked. Despite the fact that until then this Linker had been beloved as a noble leader, in the space of one night—a single night—she changed into a ruthless slaughterer. Apparently, this wild figure was absolutely indistinguishable from the first Chrome Disaster.

  There her words stopped, and after wetting her throat with coffee, Kuroyukihime continued gravely.

  “The same events have, in fact, been repeated three times. Once the owner of the Armor has sown terror, they are subjugated, but the Armor, rather than disappearing, is transferred to the one who dealt its owner the final blow, and this transfer changes their personality. This Burst Linker is then referred to as Chrome Disaster, instead of their original name. Two and a half years ago, already occupying one of the seats of the Seven Kings of Pure Color, I participated in the subjugation of the fourth Chrome Disaster with the other Kings. The dreadful nature of that battle…Even now, my hair stands on end. I couldn’t possibly communicate it in words.”

  She set her cup back down and stroked her arms gently over her uniform. “And that’s it, Haruyuki.” Her tone changed abruptly. “Sorry, but can you get two direct cables?”

  “Huh, c
-cables?! Two of them…?”

  “I have one myself. As for length, I suppose a meter should do.”

  “O-okay.”

  Still not getting what she was up to, Haruyuki stood and trotted to his room, grabbed two of the XSB cables bundled up on a wire rack on the wall, and returned to the living room.

  “I had exactly two. Um, the length is, this one’s a meter, and this one’s…ooh, ouch. Fifty centimeters.” He dangled a cable from each hand, shrugging, and Yuniko stood up with an agreeable look.

  “Ohhh, is that it? Okay, okay, I’ll make do with the fifty-centimeter one.” Smiling smugly, she grabbed the shorter of the cables from Haruyuki’s left hand and plugged it into the connector on her own red Neurolinker. As soon as she had:

  “H-hey! Enough! I’ll use that one!”

  “Noooope.” Yuniko slipped smoothly past Kuroyukihime’s outstretched hand and landed on Haruyuki’s left arm. A body still hard like a boy’s attached itself to him, its sweet and sour scent wafting upward as she aimed at the slightly stunned Haruyuki’s neck. She thrust the plug at him.

  He had no time to dodge, and the plug was inserted in his Neurolinker, causing a WIRED CONNECTED warning to flash before his eyes.

  “Wh-whoa?! Wh-what—”

  Yuniko looked up at the flustered Haruyuki and smiled boldly. “Come on, put that looooong one in and hand it to the girl there. Oh, and if you try and peek into my memory, you’ll pay for it, so you better be careful.”

  At this, Haruyuki finally grasped the meaning behind the three cables. Kuroyukihime was trying to create a daisy chain among the four Neurolinkers present.

  Takumu’s and Yuniko’s Neurolinkers were the lite type, with one external connection terminal, so the only way to connect all four of them was to have Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime—equipped with high-performance types with two terminals—come into the middle. Quickly grasping this, Yuniko had likely secured the shortest cable right off the bat to annoy Kuroyukihime. The effect was immediate, and Kuroyukihime’s right cheek twitched as both fists trembled, and she cried threateningly, “Do not cling to him like that, you!”

  “Don’t have much of a choice, do I? Cable’s too short.”

  “You were the one who chose it!” After raising her voice, Kuroyukihime finally sniffed with disdain and looked down on the Red King with her Kuroyuki smile and its temperature of absolute zero. “Honestly. This is why I despise children. Intimacy being this or that depending on the length of the cable, it’s really just nonsense!”

  “Oh my, no one said anything about that, you know? I just figured there would be less signal decay with the shorter one.”

  “Th-th-this…”

  Watching her aura suddenly rise from absolute zero all the way up to the temperature of the sun’s surface, Haruyuki thrust out a cable with the other end connected and made desperate eyes at her, as if to say Please forgive me somehow, your Highness! Kuroyukihime took the cable, almost snatching it from him, and as she connected it to her own Neurolinker, she offered Takumu her usual two-meter cable, which she produced from her pocket.

  Takumu, watching the proceedings half-dumbfounded, half smiling faintly, inserted the terminal, and Haruyuki heaved a sigh of relief when a second direct warning popped up, indicating that all four Neurolinkers were finally connected in a line.

  “Um…so now.…what are we doing?”

  “First of all, sit down,” Kuroyukihime commanded in an even more brusque tone. She promptly sat, tucking her legs under her and stretching her back up straight. Haruyuki hurried to follow suit, but the cable started pulling. Yuniko, still glued to him on the left, followed him down with a flop.

  Finally, Takumu knelt, back straight, a reminder of his kendo team membership, and glanced over at Kuroyukihime. “Master, should we accelerate?”

  “No, there’s no need for that. After switching to full sensory mode, jump through the access gate displayed. Now, here we go. Direct link.”

  Watching Kuroyukihime’s eyelids snap shut and her shoulders relax, Haruyuki hurried to shout the same command. “Direct link.”

  Immediately, the sensations from his entire body and the surrounding scene receded. His Neurolinker canceled out the actual information coming from his five senses, leaving only his consciousness to be called into the virtual space. In the darkness, he simply had a strong impression of falling. If he waited like this, he would go into a full dive on the Arita home net, but before that could happen, a round, shining access gate rose up before his eyes.

  The instant he stretched out an invisible hand to touch it, Haruyuki’s consciousness was sucked through the gate.

  Light spread out, as if yanked from the center of his vision, and enveloped him. The scene that appeared was an infinite wasteland with nothing but rows and rows of strangely purple rocks.

  Wondering where exactly this was as he turned his gaze downward, Haruyuki noticed that his body was not there and panicked a little. However, he soon realized that this was not the Accelerated World, but rather a VR movie; in other words, a recorded video that played directly inside his brain. As evidence of this, numbers counting out the play time and a slide bar floated small in the lower right-hand corner of his visual field.

  “Um…Kuroyukihime?” he asked, and there was a response immediately to his right.

  “I’m here. Takumu, little girl, are you also here?”

  Although he couldn’t see her, that was definitely Kuroyukihime’s voice. Which was followed by the sound of two other voices: “Yes” and “Don’t call me that.”

  When Haruyuki looked around again and confirmed that, yes, there really was nothing other than the weird rocks, he asked timidly, “Umm…What is this movie file that’s playing? If we’re just going to watch a movie, why go to all the trouble of us directing?”

  “I don’t want anything leaking to the outside, just in case. If I transmitted to all of you via your home net, it would remain in the cache of the condo servers.”

  “O-ohhh.” He got the reason for the direct connection, but the content of the movie was still a mystery. He cocked the head of his invisible body with the thought that it probably wasn’t material that required any particular concern when he heard a sharp wind blowing suddenly in the sky above him. As soon as he raised his eyes, he saw a figure landing with a crunch about ten meters in front of him.

  Jet-black, sparkling, semitransparent armor. Long, sharp, sword-shaped limbs. V-shaped head. There was no mistake, it was Kuroyukihime’s duel avatar, Black Lotus.

  “What? Kuroyukihime…?!” Haruyuki cried out unconsciously.

  “Mmm,” Kuroyukihime replied. “It’s me. From two and a half years ago, however.”

  “Two…and a half years. No, wait…If you’re in that form, then is this the Accelerated World? I mean, is this a recording of a duel…?” he asked, wondering if this was a feature in Brain Burst. This time, to his left it was Yuniko’s voice that he heard.

  “Thing called ‘Replay.’ You can record with a crazy-expensive item. Anyway, two and a half years ago—that means this is a replay of that battle you mentioned before, the Seven Kings of Pure Color versus Chrome Disaster? But there’s just you alone?”

  “No, someone else will come soon.”

  Before she had even finished speaking, a new duel avatar appeared from the left side of the field. Haruyuki strained his eyes as he wondered at the fact that it was a battle of many against one.

  About a head taller than Black Lotus, its body was slim, but its arms and legs had serious volume to them. It carried a thick, rectangular shield in its left hand, and its right hand was empty. The color of the armor covering its body was emerald-like, deep and transparent green.

  “What a beautiful green…Master, is that…?”

  “Yes. The Green King,” Kuroyukihime responded to Takumu’s whisper. “Affiliation is near and midrange…but the nickname more accurately expresses this avatar’s particular nature. That is, invulnerable.”

  “Looks pretty hard. Rumo
r has it, all his losses were time-ups, and even then, his HP’s never once been cut in half…Obviously a lie, though.”

  “Watch and see,” Kuroyukihime replied curtly to Yuniko’s slight jeering, and the movie Black Lotus approached the green avatar, indicating with a gesture the shadow of a large rock beside them.

  The Green King assented silently and slid into the shadow of the rock, pressing his back up against it. The Black King hid herself behind a rock a slight distance off. They were clearly planning an ambush.

  Haruyuki watched over them, holding his breath even though he knew it was a video of the past, when he heard a sudden low crunch to his left. He snapped his gaze there with a gasp. Crunch, crunch. The dry sound of earth being trodden slowly drew closer.

  A few seconds later, an enormous duel avatar appeared from between the strange rocks. It likely had another fifty centimeters on the Green King, and its chest, covered in bellows-shaped armor, was unusually thin and long, inclined forward, like a snake raising its head. Both arms were also almost impossibly long. Its hands, dangling down, held clumsy axes, thick blades nearly scraping along the ground. Its head was smoothly cylindrical, reminiscent of a massive earthworm, two black holes on the end. Dark inside, the eyes shone red and blinked vigorously over and over.

  The armor on its body was a dusky silver. As the surface of it reflected the weak sunlight, the avatar, looking around at its surroundings, abruptly came to stare directly at Haruyuki. Standing stock-still, he instantly forgot this was a recording and cringed with fear.

  What’s going on? This…is this a Burst Linker? An avatar operated by a flesh-and-blood human being?

  No way. It’s like a robot…No, like a wild beast.

  “Is that…the fourth Chrome Disaster? It’s completely different in form and size from the fifth one running wild right now,” Yuniko murmured in a voice that was relaxed as always but tinged with faint tension.