Accel World - Volume 19 - Chapter 5

5

Waking up in the living room of the Arita house in the real world, Haruyuki had no sooner opened his eyes than he was lifting his hand to access the settings screen of his home network.

A moment later, he did a mental conversion of Accelerated World time into real-world time. Graphite Edge had said to change the automatic disconnection safety activation to ten UNF hours later, so the number he should enter into the setting window was a thousandth of ten hours—so then, six hundred minutes equals thirty-six thousand seconds, divided by a thousand—thirty-six seconds…

He managed the calculation in an instant and was about to type the numbers into the screen when a pale hand stretched out abruptly from beside him and grabbed hold of his wrist.

“Fwaah?!” he cried as he looked to his side and found a small face a mere ten centimeters away from his.

Fuko Kurasaki normally wore a gentle smile, but at the moment, her face looked tense somehow, and Haruyuki held his breath. But before he could say anything, Fuko brought her forehead to his and murmured, “Corvus, give me courage.”

“Huh?” Haruyuki didn’t understand what she meant, but he reflexively squeezed her hand firmly anyway. Instantly, a deep shudder came to him through the parts of their bodies that were touching. It was only after that that he heard her voice more firmly:

“Thank you. Shall we go?”

“S-sure.”

The way Fuko was acting was indeed concerning, but he didn’t have the time to be bewildered. With each second that passed on this side, sixteen minutes and forty seconds went by in the Unlimited Neutral Field. Once he finished changing the automatic disconnection settings, they nodded at each other and chanted the command in unison, “Unlimited Burst.”

Together with the sound of acceleration, his field of view went dark, and the warmth of Fuko’s body disappeared, along with the smell of her shampoo. What he felt in their place was a cloak of cold air and the crisp scent of wood.

When he opened his eyes, head still hanging, the feet of Silver Crow, wrapped in their silver armor, were braced on a white, natural-wood floor. Apparently, the Change had come while they were in the real world.

“A…Heian stage maybe…” He lifted his head and looked around.

Naturally, he was still in the same location as he was before the automatic disconnection, the small room in front of the Shrine of the Eight Divines in the deepest level of the Castle. But he could see only Sky Raker a little ways off; the master-student duo of Graph and Lead were nowhere to be found.

He was curious about where they’d gone, but since Fuko’s appearance before they accelerated still bothered him, he walked over to Raker and asked timidly, “Um, Master? Is something the matter?”

Fuko lifted her hanging face mask and shook her head. “I’m sorry for saying something so strange out of the blue like that, Corvus. I was just a little…scared.”

“Scared? …You?” Haruyuki was stunned.

“Yes.” Fuko nodded, setting her fluid metal hair in motion. “I…I have an obligation to tell Sacchi everything we learn today. But…what if what Graph tells us is something that will bring her not hope but despair? What if it’s something that will crush the desire she’s kept with her all this time, for so many years, the yearning to see the end of the Accelerated World? When that thought struck me, I was suddenly seized with fear.”

Haruyuki gasped beneath his goggles. The reason he had taken on the challenge of breaking into the Castle again today in secret from Kuroyukihime was to investigate the seventh Arc, The Fluctuating Light. He wanted to get information on it—the item Metatron had declared to be the reason for the existence of Brain Burst—and tell Kuroyukihime about the possibility of another path.

He had simply assumed it was nothing but unexpected good fortune when they ran into not only Trilead Tetroxide but also Graphite Edge after slipping through Suzaku’s ferocious attack to arrive in the Castle, because Graph probably had more detailed knowledge than Lead about the Castle—and about Brain Burst itself.

But it was true there were no guarantees that the information Graph disclosed to them would be what Haruyuki had been hoping for. Graph might declare that TFL was not a condition for clearing Brain Burst. Or that even if it was, reaching it was utterly impossible.

Haruyuki shifted his gaze to the far wall. The entrance to the Shrine of the Eight Divines had been a temple-like arch blocked by a silver fence in the Moonlight stage, but now in the Heian stage, it had transformed into crimson torii gates closed off by a snowy-white sacred rope. In the deep darkness beyond it, he could see the hazy pulse of the golden light on the pedestal.

It was, at most, only a hundred meters from the sacred rope to the pedestal. But in practical terms, that distance was infinite. He could barely just evade Suzaku, a single God, so he was convinced he’d never be able to cross those hundred meters, guarded as they were by eight super-class Enemies with God powers.

Fuko also stared at the golden light from his side. “I wonder what Sacchi would do if she were here, hmm?” she murmured softly.

He thought for a bit and then answered, “Knowing Kuroyukihime, I feel like she would try charging in there to see what would happen.”

“You and Pile would do everything in your power to stop her, though.” Chuckling, Fuko touched the thick sacred rope and then took a step back. “I’m sorry for my sudden weakness, Corvus. I’m all right now. No matter what Graph tells us, Sacchi would never give up or despair as easily as that. My duty is to cut down any obstacles ahead of her and fly—whatever sky might await us.”

“Um.” Haruyuki also moved away from the sacred rope and touched her arm gently. “I-I’ll fly, too. With you, Master…for Kuroyukihime’s sake.”

“Thank you, Corvus.” Smiling gently, Fuko looked around the small room. “Still…I wonder where Graph and Lead went off to.”

“Yeah. We were in the real world for about fifteen seconds, so only a little over four hours should have passed here, but…”

“You’ve gotten faster at accelerated calculations, hmm?”

He shrank at the unexpected praise and then had a sudden realization. “Oh! R-right. Please wait a moment…” He focused his mind and started to call the master of the underground labyrinth in distant Shiba Park. As the link was established, a 3-D icon terminal appeared on his shoulder and bobbed gently.

“That took quite a lot of time, servant.” The Archangel Metatron sounded peeved.

“Sorry.” Haruyuki hurried to apologize. “I’m sorry for making you wait, Metatron. And also…do you know where Graph and Lead went?”

“Listen to me, servant. In this state, the instant the link with you is severed, all sensory information is also interrupted. Which is to say, there is no reason why I would know.”

“R-right. Hmm…Maybe they went to have dinner or something…” A place on the level of the Castle would maybe have a super-luxurious restaurant-type shop somewhere, he wondered, casting his eyes around the room again.

Then he heard the thunder of one heavy impact after another from high above and looked over at Fuko. She nodded at him, and they started to run. They leapt onto the staircase opposite the sacred rope and raced up the stairs two at a time.

What they saw when they entered the Hall of the Arc half a minute later was the entirely unexpected sight of a gray-armored warrior over four meters tall swinging its sword against a young sky-blue samurai a third its size in the center of the hall. The bigger one was most likely one of the Castle’s guard Enemies, while the smaller was without a doubt Trilead Tetroxide.

With his slender straight sword, Lead caught the blade of the warrior Enemy, which looked like it could sever even stone. Snowy-white sparks jetted out from where their blades made contact, illuminating the gloomy hall. Lead had managed to brace himself for the present moment, but the difference in power and weight was clear. At some point, the equilibrium would crumble, and Lead would be struck with a fatal blow.

“Wh-wh-wh—? Sh-sh-sh—,” Haruyuki stammered hoarsely. What is going on?! Should we do something?!

“Oh!” A black shadow passed by the pedestal where the Arc Destiny had once been safely enshrined. “Rekka! Crow! You’re back!”

“This is not a ‘you’re back’ situation, Graph!” Fuko returned sharply, pressing in on the man. “Why is this happening?! You have to hurry and help him!”

“Nah, don’t panic.” Graph raised his hands to hold her off and continued lazily, “So like, the Change happened while we were waiting for you guys to get back. Both Lead and I haven’t had a Heian stage for a while, so I figured we’d double-check the route home and clean up some Enemies while we were at it.”

“Then why are you making Trilead do it by himself?!” Fuko scolded. “It’s dangerous!”

“It’s fine; he’s fine. He gets the job done when it needs to be done. I mean, he’s my student—,” Graph started, but he was interrupted by Lead.

“I-I’m sorry, Master.” His voice was pained as he continued to push back against the Enemy blade. “It’s getting a little difficult.”

“Oh-ho! Well, that is like the third or fourth one. Hmm…Okay then…” Cocking his head slightly to one side, Graphite Edge raised a hand and snapped a finger at Haruyuki. “Sorry, Crow. Get in there and help Trilead.”

“Wh-whaaat?! Me?!”

“Yup. Oh, but no Incarnate techniques.”

“Um…Okay…But…Uh…” Stunned, he alternated between looking at Graph and Lead, but the situation did not change. In fact, Lead’s straight sword was gradually being pushed back. He wouldn’t be able to hang on forever.

I don’t even know what’s going on, but I have to get in there, I guess!

He shelved his myriad doubts and took a deep breath before starting to run across the white wood floor. For a fleeting instant, he took some bit of courage from Fuko’s cheer of “You can do it, Corvuuuus!” that chased him from behind, but then the cold voice of Metatron echoed in his ear:

“Servant, that Being’s weapon has a relatively high priority. Your thin armor will not be able to completely defend against it.”

“Ee—”

“Your attack will have to be entirely composed of evasion. Well, if I am so inclined, I shall warn you in advance.”

“…P-please do.” He groaned in reply and stared straight ahead.

Trilead had his back turned to him, but he had to have noticed Haruyuki’s approach. However, it was all he could do to hold off the Enemy’s large sword; he couldn’t move from that position. Haruyuki had to first strike the Enemy to get it to change targets. Fortunately, his health gauge was in fine condition after he’d spent the ten points to re-log in.

“Lead!!” Haruyuki cried, kicking at the floor to jump. He flew over Trilead from behind, and once he had bounded close to the Enemy’s face, he beat down with a right straight with the whole weight of his body behind it squarely in the center of that terrifying mask. “Un…hyah!”

The feedback was fierce. The still-full health gauge displayed above the warrior’s head decreased the slightest amount. This seemed to be the first attack in practical terms, and the burning-red eyes of the warrior latched onto Haruyuki.

“Zoooooowaaaaan!” With a curious battle cry, it brandished its massive sword, at least two meters in length.

Released from its pressure, Trilead nimbly leapt backward, and Haruyuki used the slight charge in his special-attack gauge to deploy the wings on his back.

“Servant, from the right.”

The instant after Metatron’s voice echoed in his mind, the warrior brought down its massive blade and swung horizontally. Haruyuki had been thinking he would avoid a vertical strike to one side or the other, so if Metatron hadn’t warned him, he would have reacted too late.

“Shwah!” With a somewhat pathetic cry, he jumped into the air. The powerful horizontal slash passed directly below his feet, leaving a shimmering mirage in the air.

He got another blow in with his right foot as the Enemy was still swinging its sword, and with the reaction from that, he leapt backward and called out to Trilead as he landed, “It’s targeting me now; you watch for openings and attack!”

“Understood, Crow!”

It’d been a while since they’d fought together, but there was no hesitation in Lead’s response. The two kicked off the ground simultaneously, and Haruyuki went right while Trilead went left. Just as he’d expected, the Enemy chased after him, whirling its massive body around as it quickly brandished its fat blade.

“A series of attacks is coming, servant!” Metatron said from his shoulder, her voice slightly tense.

Haruyuki kept his field of view—which threatened to contract to the tip of the large blade—wide to take in the whole Enemy and waited.

“Zooooiii!” With a roar, the massive body began to move. From the flow of power and the change in its center of gravity, Haruyuki picked up the trajectory of the sword.

It’s true that one blow is ridiculously powerful…but in terms of technique, it’s not as sharp as Manganese Blade!

Zmm! Zmm! Zmm! Three high-speed slashes came one after the other, ripping through the air. Vertical, vertical, horizontal. But Haruyuki managed to evade them all on the order of millimeters. More precisely, the last hack just barely scraped against his chest armor, but he took essentially no damage.

The blue shimmer of a sword flashed suddenly behind the warrior. Lead’s slashing attack landed a clean hit in the middle of the Enemy’s back and whisked away a significant part of its health gauge. At this decisive display of power, he wanted to make a witty comment about how he’d expect nothing less from the Arc Infinity, but if he didn’t do something quick, the warrior’s target would shift back to Lead.

“Hyaah!” He dived in close to the warrior and beat at the thin armor of his knee joints with punches and kicks. He shot off five blows in a single breath, but the damage he did didn’t begin to compare with Lead’s power. Three more hits—no, two…

“Zoaaaam!” The warrior roared and tried to catch Haruyuki with the pommel of the thick blade.

He hurried to duck, but the lump of metal—mass equivalent to a large, blunt weapon—grazed his left shoulder, and just that was enough to bring his health gauge down nearly 10 percent. Haruyuki bounded backward.

“You pushed in too far, servant,” Metatron reprimanded him.

“Y-yes, I know. But I have to do more damage…” Or I won’t be able to keep it targeting me, he was going to say, but the Archangel cut him off with harsh, meaningful words:

“You take a Being as far too logical a presence. Being only newly born, their powers of thought don’t begin to compare with my own, but even so, they possess something that one might call a mind.”

“A mind…?!” He was stunned for an instant but then quickly remembered Coolu, the lesser-Enemy of the Lava Carbuncle type. This friend of Petit Paquet had indeed appeared to have something Haruyuki believed was a soul. As he came to this realization, he heard Metatron once more.

“Thus it is not necessarily the case that they will always set their sights on the one who deals them the most damage.”

“Huh? So then, what’s the standard?”

“I’m telling you, there exists no standard that can clearly be put into numbers. It’s the same as with you little warriors. Beings will attack the target they perceive as a threat, and that is not determined on the basis of damage alone.”

This conversation—which was actually taking place not with voices but super-high-speed thoughts—sparked a certain memory in Haruyuki. The mission a month earlier to rescue Ardor Maiden from where she was imprisoned at the Castle’s south gate. The God Suzaku had turned the brunt of its attack not on Black Lotus, although she was the one dealing it constant damage, but on Silver Crow, who had been flying toward the south gate. At the time, Haruyuki had keenly felt Suzaku’s wrath at this little creature trying to penetrate his sacred territory.

Enemies—Beings—were not mere programs. They were sometimes stirred by anger and sometimes made connections with a Burst Linker, just like Chocolat Puppeter and Coolu—or Haruyuki and Metatron. In which case, he had to make this warrior Enemy feel like Haruyuki was more of a threat than Lead.

He couldn’t use Incarnate techniques, but he could hone his image until he was on the verge of Incarnate—the so-called fighting spirit, to put it neatly. He might not be able to manage the overwhelming aura that gushed from the Black or Red Kings on the battlefield, but he could increase his will to fight, throw away his hesitations, and confront his foe.

Right. At some point, a seed of hesitation had sprouted in him at the idea of fighting Enemies. Maybe because he’d met the “Being” Metatron or because he’d fought to protect Coolu. Or maybe he’d already felt it the first time he saw an Enemy.

He’d tried to actively take part in the hunts to earn points without confessing this to his comrades, but he never could get serious in an Enemy fight the way he did in a fight against another player, probably because the reason for fighting was flimsy. Enemies were frightening and strong, and if you let your guard slip, they’d destroy you. But was it really okay to attack them, creatures under system orders to attack, ordered just to win some points? The thought just wouldn’t go away.

As he confronted this warrior Enemy now—which was probably Beast level in status—Haruyuki asked the question he’d wanted to ask for a long time: “Metatron. What do you think of us fighting Beings?”

“That is for you little warriors to decide,” the Legend-class Enemy responded immediately, then added after a brief pause, “however, I believe that if the Beings are going to fight you, then that is proof of their existence.”

“Proof…of their existence?”

“Yes. Without exception, when we awaken in this world, we know nothing other than fighting you Burst Linkers. However, more than a few Beings find a new reason for existing after surviving numerous fights and continuing to live for eternity. In which case, there is certainly meaning in us fighting. This is what I believe.”

Meaning in fighting. Haruyuki nodded and stepped firmly onto the floorboards with both feet. A moment later, he raised his hands into position.

It wasn’t that he completely understood what Metatron was saying. And it wasn’t as though his hesitation about fighting Enemies had vanished. But the warrior Enemy before him was using all his force to try to defeat Haruyuki and Lead. In which case, Haruyuki had to do the same. Even if his opponent was an Enemy, this was a Brain Burst duel, after all.

All thought vanished from his mind as the color palette of the world shifted toward the blue, and he felt the super-acceleration that had come over him any number of times now. But this time, in addition to the change in palette, the Enemy’s heavy armor gradually grew translucent.

He could see the particles of light flowing inside the massive body. This was the first time this had happened, but he instinctively understood that the particles were the information that made up the Enemy itself. Most likely, because he had been focusing his mind while communicating with Metatron, his perceptions were in the tiniest bit of alignment with the Highest Level.

The warrior started to turn toward Trilead, but then, as if sensing something, it looked at Haruyuki. In the depths of its mask, the fires of its eyes blazed red. The warrior raised a foot where particles of light were gathering.

“Zrrraaaaaah!!”

The instant the Enemy launched a stomp attack, Haruyuki jumped.

The warrior’s foot hit the floorboards hard, while the gathering light—its power made visible—dispersed in concentric waves. If he’d stayed on the floor, he might have been caught up in the shock wave and knocked over. But he evaded that fate with room to spare and used the warrior’s extended knee as a stepping stone for a two-tiered jump. He got in another clean hit, a fist in the face, likely its weak point.

From there, Haruyuki moved with dizzying speed to keep the warrior’s focus firmly on himself, while Lead beat down with all his might, darting in with a slashing attack as the openings presented themselves.

The battle seemed both infinite and fleeting until finally the warrior’s massive bulk exploded and scattered, leaving behind one final thunderous roar. An instant later, Haruyuki dropped out of his super-accelerated state. He staggered, dizzy, and nearly fell—only to be caught by Lead’s firm hand.

“Are you all right, Crow?”

“Y-yeah,” Haruyuki somehow managed. “I just got a little dizzy there.”

“I’m sorry,” Lead said apologetically. “I left you to be the target the whole time.”

Haruyuki glanced at his face mask, and a laugh slipped out of him.

“Wh-what’s the matter?”

“Ha-ha! Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just you using net game words like target.”

The young warrior shrugged, somewhat embarrassed. “When I’m with Master Graph, I accidentally start talking like him.”

“Nah, I think it’s great. I can get on board with that, too,” he replied, pulling himself upright when he heard a two-person applause from the rear.

“Pretty good fighting style there, my students. There’s really nothing left for me to teach—,” Graphite Edge started, somewhat theatrically, and Sky Raker shoved a sharp elbow into his side.

“Hold on, Graph. Corvus is my student.”

“Urgh,” the swordmaster groaned. “It doesn’t matter, though, right? And if I teach him just one thing, then he’s my student, too, after all.”

“Are you saying you taught him something?” Raker demanded.

“Huh.” Graph scratched his helmet. “Maybe nothing yet?”

The absurd conversation brought wry smiles to the faces of the younger Burst Linkers, and Haruyuki glanced backward. He closed his eyes briefly at the traces of the fierce battle carved into the wooden floor.

“The soul of that Being has returned to the Main Visualizer and will be reborn someday in a new form to perhaps fight you again,” Metatron murmured from his shoulder.

“Yeah, I guess so.” He joined Lead and returned to where Fuko and Graph stood.

The young samurai bowed to his master, and although he showed only the slightest sign of fatigue, his voice was crisp and clear as always. “Master Graph, thank you for your instruction.”

“Yup. Nice work. You’re really getting the hang of that thing, Lead.” Graph pointed to the Arc Infinity, and Lead glanced down at his left hip before shaking his head.

“No. I’m still nowhere near your level, Master. When the battle drags on, I feel the weight of this sword.”

“Well, of course you do,” Graph said. “I mean, it is a mighty Arc, after all. There aren’t too many swords in this whole Accelerated World heavier than that one.”

“Huh. Is it really that heavy?” Haruyuki asked, distracted.

Lead cocked his head slightly to one side. “Would you like to hold it, Crow?” He had no sooner asked than, without waiting for an answer, he was removing it from the sheath on his hip. “Go ahead.”

Lead held the straight sword up in both hands, and Haruyuki looked at his face, then Graph’s, then Raker’s, but everyone seemed fine with the idea. He swallowed hard before he timidly raised his hands.

“O-okay then, if you don’t mind— Wh-whoa!!” The instant he took the sword from Lead’s hands, Haruyuki very nearly dropped it and hurriedly braced himself. It was indeed heavy. He had only the memory to compare to now, but it might have been as heavy as the great sword Chrome Disaster had been equipped with, if not heavier. “Y-you were swinging this thing around…? Um. C-can I take it out of the sheath?”

“Please, go ahead,” Lead acquiesced with a smile, so Haruyuki carefully gripped the hilt and drew the sword.

When he looked at the blade of The Infinity up close for the first time, he noticed that it shone crisp and cool like ice, the straight lines of the tempering rising up in the bluish steel. Haruyuki had mainly fought with a sword when he was the Sixth Disaster, but when he felt again the weight and danger of the sword as an Enhanced Armament, he could see it would be no easy task to master it.

“Hmm. It has a fairly high priority,” Metatron said, flapping her wings with deep interest. “Servant, hit it with Ektenia.”

“N-n-n-n-no way! I can’t pay for it if I break it!” He hurriedly re-sheathed the sword and handed it back to Lead. He waited until the young samurai had hung it from his left hip again and then let out a deep breath. “It’s only natural you’d get tired, fighting with such a heavy weapon.”

“No.” Lead shook his head firmly. “If I’m feeling the weight of the sword after a mere three battles, it simply means that I still have a long way to go.”

“B-but,” Haruyuki protested, “I mean, when I get tired, I feel even the weight of my own arms and legs.”

“It doesn’t look that way at all, Crow. The way you moved in the battle earlier…” Lead paused. “It was so smooth that I was vaguely fearful.”

“Huh? Oh, th-th-th-that was…” Now it was Haruyuki’s turn to shake his head.

However, Graph nodded solemnly. “I had the same thought in that mock battle the other day when you had that exchange with G. Your physical techniques, Crow—the way you fight at super-close range in three dimensions at top speed is already high-ranker territory. I guess Rekka and Lota gave good instruction.”

“Naturally.” Fuko sniffed. “Of course, there was also Corvus’s own hard work.”

“N-n-n-n-n-no-no-no, not at all.” Haruyuki, unused to praise, could only shake his head even faster from side to side. “I mean, with the Green King—and the Enemy just now—I could barely do any damage or anything.”

“Right. Right there.” Graph snapped a finger at him. “Fighting-type duel avatars like you who have no Enhanced Armament can master how to use their bodies faster than other types…sometimes. That’s the foundation of the duel, a critically important skill. But when you go up levels, it stops winning out over those with Enhanced Armament in terms of simple attack power. Meaning that when your opponent’s hard like G or that warrior Enemy, whether your punches are powerful enough to break the enemy’s defenses also comes into play…Oh! When I say powerful here, I don’t mean the physical power of the punch.”

“We understand that much at least, Graph.” Fuko shut the avatar down and immediately picked up where he left off: “I’m also a fighting type with no sword or gun, but to compensate for my relative lack of attack power when fighting an opponent with firm defenses, I use the propulsive power of Gale Thruster and penetrating blows. Corvus has poured his level-up bonuses into enhancing his flight ability, so his flight speed and continuous travel distance are quite good, but his instantaneous thrust doesn’t match that of a booster, and he has no special striking abilities.”

“Right…” Left with no choice but to agree with this assessment, Haruyuki hung his head. In the fight just now, if Lead hadn’t hit the Enemy with such accurate damage, Haruyuki’s powers of concentration would have eventually been exhausted, and he would’ve taken a direct hit from that massive blade.

“But still, you know, the duel can’t be won just by guarding. Fighting types with solid moves, sword wielders with powerful swords, heavyweight types with strong defenses—one of the fun parts of Brain Burst is how everyone has these strong points and shortcomings. Put ten Burst Linkers together and you got ten ways of being right,” Graphite Edge summed up. He grinned as he added, “But of course, that begs the question of just how scary dangerous Lota is as a sword-bearing, fighting type.

“Either way, Crow, no need to get so glum as all that. You totally got what your role was in the impromptu tag match with Lead, and you kept that powerful opponent focused on you right up to the end. From my point of view, you did pretty great for yourself out there. And well, if you’re not satisfied with how you are now, you can just get stronger with more training or level-up bonuses or whatever. And if you come across an opponent you can’t beat even then—”

“If you can’t beat them alone, then you can beat them with two people, and if you can’t win with two, you can with three, Corvus. You have plenty of comrades you can turn to.” Fuko beat Graph to the punch, and he scratched his helmet, seeming dissatisfied, while Lead chuckled.

“Yes.” Metatron flapped up above his head. “And of course, you can also turn to me, your master!”

To let Trilead—exhausted after three spontaneous Enemy battles in a row—rest, the party moved once more to the secure basement. The instant they sat down in a circle on the wooden floor, the young samurai let out a long, thin sigh. Haruyuki felt like there was no need to sit formally at a time like this at least, but when he saw Trilead’s upright bearing even as tired as he was, he couldn’t actually say that. And anyway, no matter how many hours they sat formally on their knees, a duel avatar’s knees didn’t get tired, and their feet didn’t fall asleep—supposedly.

“It’s too bad there’s no tea and snacks,” Fuko commented.

“Well, if you’re looking for a shop, there is one in the Castle.” Graph shrugged. “But the location’s totally random. It’s basically a hidden room, so consider yourself super-lucky if you do come across it.”

“Ohh.” Fuko nodded. “Does that mean they sell good things there?”

“Well, it is the hidden shop of the final dungeon. I’ve found it a couple times, and the first time, I nearly threw all the points I had at them— No, I mean.” The man, sitting lazily cross-legged in contrast with Lead, coughed a little and cleared his throat before sitting up a bit straighter. “At any rate, Rekka, Crow, thanks for logging in again. Did you change the automatic disconnect time?”

“Yes. To ten hours from now,” Haruyuki replied.

“Good.” Graph nodded, satisfied, before continuing. “Now we’ll have a while to talk. That said, I feel like I told you the important stuff before the disconnect.”

“What are you talking about? You still haven’t told us anything.” Fuko, sitting formally on her knees, sounded exasperated. “Right before Corvus and I disconnected, you said that this Brain Burst 2039 was a game and also wasn’t a game. What does that mean?”

“Ohh. Um, the thing about that.” Graph turned his face mask upward like he was looking for the right words but eventually glanced over to the left—toward the depths of the Shrine of the Eight Divines, separated from them by the white sacred rope. Haruyuki followed suit to look that way, too, and the pulsing golden light in the distant darkness came into view.

“Okay, this’ll be a little bit of a long story, but I’ll tell you what I know.” With that preamble, the dual swordsman, Graphite Edge, aka the Anomaly, started to speak slowly, telling his story as though it were a fairy tale.

A long, long time ago, there was a large battle in a world that closely resembled this one, a battle brought about by a certain “presence” locked away in that world—to borrow Metatron’s wording, a Being. The war that waged between the two sides was long and fierce. Although the world was virtual, much blood was spilled, and many lives were lost from that world.

The objective of one side was the destruction of the Being in question. The objective of the other side was to free the Being from the world. After years of fighting, the leaders of the two sides discovered at basically the same time a console that would allow them to exercise administrator privileges in this virtual world—game master privileges. But that was all the console gave them, so the only thing they could do was generate and place objects and monsters within the already maximum resource range; the console didn’t allow soldiers on either side—players—to directly annihilate the other or the Being at the heart of the matter.

So the leader whose aim was to destroy the Being—let’s call him A. As an alternative plan, he tried to lock the Being away in the virtual world forever. He created an enormous dungeon at the center of the world, sealed the Being in the deepest level, and had the area guarded by eight of the most powerful class of monsters. Moreover, he made the dungeon itself an impregnable, impenetrable stronghold protected by four similarly powerful monsters.

Meanwhile, the other leader, B, whose start had been delayed only a few minutes, challenged A to a fight and won. But by that time, A had completely locked the stronghold, and B could not rescue the Being with GM privileges. Leader B and the players they commanded were forced to attack the stronghold under their own power. But the four guard monsters A had placed there were overwhelmingly—no, hopelessly strong, and B and their army could not defeat even one of them. B’s comrades fell one after another, and finally, B, too, had to abandon the attack.

So they decided to entrust their hope to the future. To believe that at some point, warriors powerful enough to defeat the four gatekeeper monsters would come, penetrate the stronghold, take down the eight guardian monsters, and release the Being.

Even after Graphite Edge closed his mouth, no one said anything for a while. It was too abstract a story, the details too difficult to visualize. It seemed to Haruyuki that a war in a virtual world that worked on a game program was, when it came down to it, simply a multiplayer fighting game, but Graph sounded like he was recounting a real war.

Still, there were a few things he could imagine. After exchanging a look with Fuko, Haruyuki began timidly, “Um. So the stronghold in your story’s the Castle, the four gatekeeper monsters are the Four Gods, the sealed Being is the last Arc, The Fluctuating Light…Is that what that’s supposed to mean?”

“Well, that’s basically the gist of it.” Graph nodded.

“So then that means, um, the person who created the Castle and the person who created the rest of the field and the other dungeons are not the same?” Haruyuki asked further. “Is that the cause of the contradiction I felt?”

“Well, that’s basically the gist of it.” Once again, the double swordmaster nodded.

Indeed, if there were these two leaders—A, the creator of a Castle he didn’t want attacked; and B, the creator who wanted to attack it—then that would explain Haruyuki’s doubt about whether the creator of Brain Burst wanted the Castle attacked or not. But still, wasn’t B taking the long way around here?

“Hmm. So then with the GM privileges, creator B can manipulate every place other than the Castle, right? In that case, couldn’t they have just created a ton of Enemies as strong as the Four Gods and had them attack the Castle…or made their own status more powerful than the Four Gods and charged the gates?” Haruyuki wondered.

“First of all,” Graph said, raising a finger, “as a general rule, the only ones who can attack monsters are players. You can’t manipulate a large army of monsters or make other players bend to your will. It might be possible to control a scant few with special methods, but they’d never win against the Four Gods like that.”

Haruyuki worried about Metatron’s reaction to this, knowing that she had been tamed with the power of an Enhanced Armament once, so he looked to his shoulder, but the 3-D icon held her silence. When he turned to face forward again, Graph added a second finger.

“Second, there are ways to strengthen players, but those have limits, too. Listen. Creator A placed the most powerful monsters the program would allow—Enemies, in other words, as the Castle gatekeepers. So all the players—the Burst Linkers—can do is also get as strong as the maximum status allowed by the program.”

“And that maximum is level ten…is that it?” Fuko asked.

Graph didn’t respond right away. Sitting cross-legged still, he crossed his arms and leaned forward. “Hmm. The thing is…I’m thinking maybe the real limit program-wise is level nine.”

“What do you mean?” Fuko pressed.

“Mm, it’s hard to explain.” The avatar’s hands rounded as though he were holding a ball. “There’s an upper limit to the amount of Burst Points you can earn, too. So Burst Linkers can’t keep getting more of them forever, and not every Burst Linker who exists now can become a high ranker. So maybe level nine’s the highest level you can reach normally, by spending points and leveling up, and that’s related to that resource upper limit. But…Even if you make it to level nine, there’s absolutely no way you can defeat the Four Gods. About all you can do is use every Incarnate technique in the book and somehow make it so that can’t act temporarily.”

Haruyuki remembered when he’d fought Suzaku with Kuroyukihime and Fuko. They hadn’t been able to defeat it even by dragging it up into the stratosphere, which made Suzaku’s flames die out, and beating on it with the full force of the Black King’s second-level Incarnate technique Starburst Stream.

“It’s true.” Perhaps reliving the same memory, Fuko shuddered slightly as she spoke. “I don’t feel at all that I’d be able to defeat a God if I went up another level. So then…level ten goes beyond the system limits to fight the Four Gods?”

“Dunno. What I know’s limited info from the past; I can only guess from that about the current Accelerated World. But the sudden-death rule—if a level niner loses to another level niner, it’s immediate total point loss, and if you get five people down to zero like this, you can get to level ten. For a game, it’s abnormally harsh. It wouldn’t be at all strange if it was a rule to give you the power to surpass system-wise limits…Or it’s testing us,” Graphite Edge muttered, half to himself, and then lifted his face as if he’d abruptly realized something and looked at Haruyuki. “Crow, your face says there’s a whole lot you can’t accept here.”

Reflexively, Haruyuki touched his face with both hands. Silver Crow’s face mask was covered by mirrored goggles, which were absolutely impossible to see through, and yet, Graph had somehow sensed his expression. He nodded his head up and down.

“Yes. The way you’re talking, it sounds like it’s not the duel that’s the main objective of Brain Burst, but Enemy hunting…”

“Yeah, I guess,” Graph agreed. “But that’s the way it is. The reason Burst Linkers exist isn’t to win against other Burst Linkers, but to reach TFL sealed in the center of the Castle…and that means defeating the Four Gods and the Eight Divines, the strongest of the Enemies.”

“So then why is Brain Burst a one-on-one fighting game?!” he shouted, clenching his hands into fists.

“No idea.” Graph only shrugged lightly. “In order to attack—no, have the Castle attacked, creator B tried three approaches. Trial one aka Accel Assault, trial two aka Brain Burst, and trial three, Cosmos Corrupt. Apparently, AA was a high-speed shooter with player fights as the main deal; CC was hack and slash with Enemy fights as the main thing. If the objective of all three games was to liberate The Fluctuating Light, then CC would seem to be the closest to that objective. But AA and CC are both long closed down, and all that’s left is BB. And I don’t think that’s mere coincidence. Even setting aside G’s hard work.”

“Excess fighting…and excess harmony,” Fuko remarked. “That’s why the worlds of AA and CC fell. According to the White King, at least.”

Graph snorted. “Ninety percent of what she says is to manipulate other people. You can’t take it seriously. Anyway, now I’ve told you everything I know about The Fluctuating Light. You two be the ones to tell Lota.”

The man moved to stand, but Fuko called to him sharply.

“Wait. We still haven’t heard the most important part. At the end of the day, what is The Fluctuating Light? It’s not simply an in-game item. What did you mean by Being before?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t know that either,” Graph said, spreading his hands. “I mean, it’s not like I was there for this virtual war way back when…You want anything more than that, your only choice is to achieve level ten and ask the developer.”

Then where exactly had Graph heard the story he told them? The doubt rose up in Haruyuki’s heart, but he felt like he wouldn’t get an answer even if he asked the question.

“Um, can I ask just one last thing?” Haruyuki followed Graph to his feet and cast a glance into the darkness beyond the sacred rope before looking at Graph again.

“Yeah. If it’s something I can answer.”

“Even a guess would be great. If someone does break into the Shrine of the Eight Divines, reach The Fluctuating Light, and remove the seal…what will happen to Brain Burst?”

Graph paused briefly. “Sorry. My only answer to that is ‘no idea’…But if there was one thing I could say…I think the outcome will change the world.”

“Change…the world?” Haruyuki parroted. “Do you mean it would bring about a large change in the Accelerated World?”

“No, that’s not it.” An air of a grin and a daring laugh bled through Graph’s face mask. “The real world. Somewhere inside that light is a blow powerful enough to change our lives in the real…That’s what I think.” He stared at the golden light shimmering in the distant dark.

Haruyuki, Fuko, Lead, and Metatron also stared wordlessly at the final Arc for a while. At the light that was quietly and yet definitely breathing. It really didn’t seem like any ordinary item. It called out with a voice that did not form words, as a presence with some kind of will.

“If…” Unconsciously, Haruyuki started to ask the swordsman. “If all of us here now took on the challenge, could we reach that light?”

“No way.” The reply came back to him instantly.

Only two words, but their simplicity held an incredible weight.

Haruyuki slowly nodded and closed his eyes. Right now, there’s something else we have to do. When it’s time to fight toward that light, I’ll come back here again with Kuroyukihime. Carving this resolve deep into his heart, he lifted his head. What he had gained by coming that day was great. That would have to be enough for now.

“Wohkay.” Graph’s lazy voice broke the silence. “Sorry for the wait, Lead. You’re in charge from here on out…Good luck.”

Lead nodded silently, and Haruyuki blinked in surprise.

“Wh-what do you…?”

“It’s obvious.” The black-clad swordsman thrust out a finger as he smoothly made his announcement: “Lead’s leaving this Castle…together with all of you.”