Accel World - Volume 20 - Chapter 4

4

After waking up inside the automatic EV bus heading from the Nakano area to Shibuya, Haruyuki unconsciously let out a long sigh as he sank deeper into his seat.

Instantly, Kuroyukihime jabbed him lightly in the side. “Too soon to relax, Haruyuki. The main event’s about to start.”

“H-hyah. I know.” He looked up at the AR map displayed on the ceiling of the bus. Their current position was near Nakano-sakaue Station on the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi line. The West Tokyo Loop Bus was the perfect line for their current mission, going as it did from Nakano south into Shibuya to pass through Minato before heading north up to Shinjuku and cutting across Toshima to return to Nakano. If they kept going south down Yamate-dori Street, they would cross Honan Street in a few minutes and enter Shibuya Area No. 1.

“It’s finally starting,” he muttered.

“Mm.” Kuroyukihime nodded deeply. “It’s such a terrible, terrible shame I can’t take part in the Territories.”

“It’s all right. Please wait without worry like you’re sailing on a large warship!” Haruyuki slammed a fist against his chest, but all he got in response was the familiar wry smile.

“That’s a rather iffy analogy. The warship of the Edo shogunate only looked wonderful; it was actually useless.”

“Th-then the ironclads of the American Civil War?”

“Why are you dragging out ships from ancient history?” She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Well, fine. I will relax about the main event as though I’m on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. I’m actually more concerned about the procedures that come before that, however.”

Haruyuki was forced to nod his thorough agreement. The main mission that day was the attack on Minato Area No. 3—Oscillatory Universe’s headquarters—but they had to jump through a number of complicated hoops before they could carry that mission out.

Currently, a total of sixteen members of the Legion born from the merger with Prominence—provisionally known as the third Nega Nebulus—were riding the EV bus. Specifically, there were the twelve from the previous Nega Nebulus: Haruyuki, Kuroyukihime, Fuko, Akira, Utai, Takumu, Chiyuri, Shihoko, Satomi, Yume, Rui, and special guest Rin. From the former Prominence, there were Niko, Pard, and the remaining members of the Triplex, whom they had seen in the real only now, for a total of four. The only other passengers were three older ladies at the front, so there was no chance of a Burst Linker from another Legion in the mix.

Bush Utan and Olive Grab, who had completed the transfer procedure in Nakano, were moving to Minato by train, so it was just the sixteen of them entering Shibuya Area No. 1 (still the territory of the Green Legion, Great Wall at present), together with the bus itself. And at ten seconds before four PM, the Great Wall side would renounce its rights to the area. If Nega Nebulus immediately registered an attack on the vacant area the instant the minute hand hit four, Shibuya Area No. 1 would be ceded to them in a no-show.

After that, when the bus entered Shibuya Area No. 2, Great Wall would abdicate its control over Area No. 2 in the same way, ceding rights with zero bloodshed. Once Nega Nebulus had come this far, it would finally be ready to attack the territory that bordered Shibuya Area No. 2: Minato Area No. 3—the headquarters of Oscillatory Universe. The bus carrying the attack squad would turn left off of Yamate-dori onto Komazawa-dori, cut across Shibuya Area No. 2, and enter Minato Area No. 3. If Nega Nebulus registered the attack immediately before it did, the instant the bus was straddling the boundary, the conditions for invoking the Territories would be met, so the attacking team captain would watch for the right moment to accelerate and challenge the White Legion to a fight.

If they couldn’t pull off this complicated sequence without a single mistake, the day’s mission would be a failure before it had even begun. And level niners Kuroyukihime and Niko couldn’t exactly take part in the Territories, so they would be away from the attacking team, shifted to the defense of Suginami. The plan was for them to change buses at Honan Street, the boundary between Nakano and Shibuya, and return to Suginami, so they would be able to sit next to each other like this for only another five minutes or so.

Haruyuki found it discouraging to be parted from the swordmaster in whom he placed his absolute confidence, but Kuroyukihime had to be feeling more anxious about the success or failure of the mission. In which case he had to keep his own concerns to himself.

“It’s okay. Leave it to me!” Haruyuki slapped his chest. “I’ve got all the transfer procedures right here in my head!”

However, the moment he said this, Niko popped her face up in between the headrests ahead of them.

“Now listen, Haruyuki,” she said, sounding exasperated. “The only ones actually fiddling with the menu are Raker as attack team leader and whoever from GW, y’know? You’re just gonna be sitting there.”

“Th-that’s true, but…it’s, like, about feelings…”

“I’m actually more worried about whether GW’ll abandon the territory at the right time like they promised,” Niko mused. “They’re not gonna be all, Aaactually, this is a total waste—let’s give the whole thing uuuup right before, right?”

“We’ve got no choice but to trust them,” Kuroyukihime stated. “At any rate, the leader on their side is apparently the first seat of the Six Armors, so I think it will be all right.”

Haruyuki unconsciously brought his face close to Kuroyukihime’s ear and murmured, “Th-that’s Graphite Edge, isn’t it?”

“Mm, indeed.”

“I—I hope it works out.”

While Trilead Tetroxide, whom he had met in the Unlimited Neutral Field mere minutes earlier, was the very picture of politeness, the physical embodiment of the idea of irreproachable conduct, Haruyuki would describe his parent Graphite Edge as oblivious to the needs of others.

But Kuroyukihime shrugged lightly. “Well, he was the one who paid the bill here. He won’t scrap his promise after all that.”

And this was exactly the case. Graphite Edge had paid the land price for Shibuya Areas No. 1 and 2 in Burst Points. He hadn’t told them how much it had cost, but there was no doubt that it had been a massive number of points.

Now that Haruyuki was thinking about it, Takumu and Magenta Scissor had also paid the deposit that served as proof of trust at the merger meeting with Prominence, so he felt as if he had gotten himself into serious debt to all kinds of people. He had to at least be more active than anyone in the Territories and pay back even a little of that debt.

“Hey!” From the seat ahead of him, Niko stretched a hand through the gap between the headrests and jabbed him in the forehead.

“Ow! …Wh-what?”

“When you get that look on your face, you’re basically just spinning your wheels,” she snapped. “So I worry. Listen. Don’t think about showing off. You just fight like you fight and that’ll be enough.”

After she had so clearly read his thoughts, there was nothing he could do but nod vaguely. “R-right…I’ll fight my own way.”

But now a hand stretched over from his right and yanked on his earlobe.

“Ow! …What is it, Kuroyukihime?”

“Mm. Nothing. Niko went and stole my thunder, so I was just sulking.”

“Th-that’s…” Haruyuki tried to argue against the absurd attack, but in some terrible twist, a hand reached out from the seat behind him and tugged on the hair on the top of his head. “Ow! …What are you doing, Master?” He turned around with teary eyes.

A bright smile on her face, Fuko had an even more absurd reason than Kuroyukihime. “I just felt like this was getting a bit rom-commy, so I put a forced end to it.   Anyway, the next stop is Shimizubashi, Sacchi.”

“Ah. Already there, hmm?” Kuroyukihime glanced up at the map on the ceiling, twisted her body to look at Fuko, and said with a serious look on her face, “I’m counting on you.”

Her statement was brief, but that was exactly why it made him feel the strength of the bond between the girls and their trust in each other.

“Leave it to me, Sacchi,” Fuko replied confidently.

They bumped fists lightly, and then Kuroyukihime met Haruyuki’s eyes once more with a wordless smile.

Haruyuki grinned from ear to ear as the bus began to decelerate and pulled into the left lane. The moment it stopped, Niko and Kuroyukihime stood up, and without looking back, the pair stepped from the back door onto the sidewalk, and the bus pulled out again, motor rumbling.

Haruyuki glanced at the now-empty seat to his side before turning his eyes forward again. The time was 3:50 PM. In just ten minutes, it would at last be time for the Territories of the third week of July. The main fight wasn’t supposed to start right away, but his hands were damp with sweat anyway. There was no need to get all worked up, though. He had plenty of powerful comrades surrounding him. He just had to believe in them and fight in his own way, and the path forward would open up.

Niko. I’m definitely getting your Enhanced Armament back.

Kuroyukihime. I’m absolutely going to expose the conspiracy of the White King who’s tortured you so.

Haruyuki clenched his hands into tight fists.

When they got off the bus, Kuroyukihime turned on her Neurolinker’s Friend Tag function, something she generally kept turned off. A part of the Person Tag function, it displayed in AR a holotag of name and/or icon above the heads of registered friends. It was useful when you were in danger of being separated in a crowd or when you were meeting someone, but if the tags were on all the time, you were likely to develop a habit of looking at the tag rather than the other person’s face, so she normally avoided it.

But now she somehow wanted to see her friends’ tags. As the function was activated, several squares with rounded edges popped up over the bus pulling away from them. She had it set to display icons alone, so the squares were filled with multicolored symbols. The white hat with a ribbon inside a sky-blue circle was Fuko. The owl with orange eyes was Utai. The simple water droplet was Akira. The yellow-green cat was Chiyuri. The blue glasses were Takumu. And the pink pig was Haruyuki Arita.

She’d set the designs to the ones her friends used themselves in SNS apps and the like. Haruyuki didn’t really like the pink pig school-net avatar from back when they first met, but he still hadn’t changed it—in fact, he had even made it his SNS icon. But Kuroyukihime truly loved his pig avatar, so she was happy he kept using it.

The ad hoc connections with the Neurolinkers of her friends were cut one after another as the distance between them grew, until at last the pink pig also disappeared. The bus they rode on quickly melted into the traffic, but she still stared after it soundlessly.

“Don’t look so down. It’s not like you’re never gonna see them again.”

Kuroyukihime felt a jab in her back right around her third vertebra, and she jumped. “Eeah! I am not down or anything like it! I was simply watching the bus!”

Niko, a tag with red cherries displayed above her head, grinned as she retorted, “You can be gloomy or sad or whatever you want, but unless we hustle over to the bus stop there, we’re gonna miss the bus back to Suginami.”

“Mmph. I—I know.” She started walking briskly toward the pedestrian crossing at the Shimizubashi intersection.

“But, like, this sucks, huh?” Niko muttered grumpily from her side. “We prepped all this stuff for today, but we can’t even be a part of the main event, the big battle.”

“We decided that at the Legion meeting, so there’s nothing else we can do.”

“I knoooooow that, but I’m super worried about Pard and them. No point-transfer in the Territories, so I figured it’d be only natural that the sudden-death rule wouldn’t apply, either, y’know.”

“That’s, well…I think so, too, but…” Kuroyukihime nodded as the light turned green and they crossed the road.

The reason the two Legion Masters, the most powerful members of the Legion, were not able to take part in the attack on Minato Area No. 3 and were instead left to defend their own territory was the nonzero possibility that the White King herself might be among the Oscillatory Universe defense team. Kings—that is, level niners—were bound by the sudden-death rule, which meant that in just one fight, all their Burst Points would be transferred and the loser would be pushed to a forced uninstall. But given that no record of two kings ever fighting each other in the Territories existed, Niko was probably right; it was very likely that the sudden-death rule wouldn’t be applied in the Territories when no points were transferred to start with.

“But if we are on the attacking team and Cosmos is among the enemy, Raker and Leopard and the others won’t be able to fight freely. They would never leave our side, after all,” Kuroyukihime stated.

“Well, maybe, yah.” Niko nodded, albeit while pouting. “But for all your worrying here, you guys went and fought that mock Territories with the GW team the other day, with Grandé in the mix, yeah? System-wise, that was a regular Battle Royale, so if you and G had gone up against each other, one of you woulda ended up with a sudden death. Can’t believe Raker and Crow were okay with that.”

“Well…Mm. But the return of Shibuya area was on the line. And Grandé and I also decided we absolutely would not fight each other directly.”

“Still, all you had was each other’s word. And…I mean, you never even thought about it? The possibility that the whole thing was a trap right from the start, and Grandé was coming for your head?”

“Hmm.” Kuroyukihime pondered this as they finished crossing the road. They turned right, and the bus stop soon came into view ahead of them. According to the wait time displayed in AR, the next bus for Suginami would arrive in two minutes and forty seconds.

They stopped next to the bus stop sign, and she replied to Niko’s question. “Grandé is the most mysterious of all the kings, but at the same time, he’s also the least duplicitous…I’ve come to think that lately. His only objective is the continued existence of the Accelerated World—of Brain Burst 2039. He agreed to the mutual nonaggression pact among the seven Great Legions because it worked for this larger objective, and he personally has offset the shortage in points supply by hunting a large number of Enemies himself. Given all of this, Grandé no doubt feels that the Acceleration Research Society’s conspiracy must be stopped. As long as we’re fighting the Society, he’ll likely cooperate with us.”

“Hmm.” Arms crossed, Niko got a kingly look on her face. “But that cooperation is a double-edged sword—wait, shield. Right now, he’s inclined to protect you—well, I guess it’s us now—but he’ll flip the instant he determines we’re any kind of threat to the Accelerated World.”

“I suppose so. I did actually retire one king, and I’ve made it public knowledge that I aim to clear Brain Burst, so…” Kuroyukihime took a deep breath and looked up at the late-July sky. “But that’s the one thing I will not back down from, even if it ends up making an enemy of Grandé. What will happen when I reach level ten, meet the developer, break down the four gates of the Castle, and touch the final Arc? I basically live to answer that question.”

Niko threw her head back reflexively as if to say something in return, but then slowly let out a sigh and nodded sharply several times. “Yeah…I know. I won’t tell you to give it up or anything. And I wanna see the inside of the Castle at some point, too.”

“Honestly. I’ve never even made it in there once, and Crow just waltzes in there to play whenever he feels like it. I can’t accept it.”

“Ha-ha-ha! It ain’t as easy as waltzing, though,” Niko said, laughing.

Meanwhile, Kuroyukihime opened her virtual desktop to turn off the Friend Tag function on her Neurolinker. But immediately before she pressed the OK button, she noticed a bright color moving in the corner of her eye, and she furrowed her brow as she looked in that direction.

A square icon with rounded edges was approaching from the north on Yamate-dori—that is, from Nakano area. And it wasn’t at walking speed. Someone Kuroyukihime had registered on SNS as a friend was riding a bus driving in the lane on the opposite side. But that seemed impossible. Essentially all of Kuroyukihime’s friends were members of Nega Nebulus, and they had only just driven off toward Minato in the bus she and Niko had recently alighted from.

So then who on earth…?

She narrowed her eyes at the icon. The symbol was a thick hardcover book against a light purple background.

“Th-this mark…” She opened her eyes wide. “M-Megumi?”

There was just one non-Legion friend on her list. Umesato Junior High student council treasurer Megumi Wakamiya.

“Hey, what’s up? That someone you know?”

Unable to even reply to Niko’s question, she continued to stare wordlessly at the approaching EV bus and the icon above it.

A coincidence. It had to be.

Megumi would, of course, also go to places like Shinjuku and Shibuya to hang out, and she took the bus instead of the train sometimes, too. But the bus she was on was traveling along the exact same route as the bus the members of Nega Nebulus—the attack team for today’s Territories—were on, and she was only one bus behind them on top of that. It was almost as though she was chasing after them.

And Megumi might not be a Burst Linker, but that wasn’t to say she had absolutely no connection with the Accelerated World.

It had happened three months earlier, when they visited Henoko Beach in Okinawa on a school trip. Kuroyukihime had had an unexpected reunion with a Burst Linker acquaintance who once belonged to the Purple Legion, Aurora Oval, and she ended up helping him and his students to fight the “magiimajimun” (large monster).

The monster turned out to be a tamed Legend-class Enemy, and it had tormented Kuroyukihime and her new comrades in linked attacks with Sulfur Pot, a member of the Acceleration Research Society, riding on its back. But an unfamiliar duel avatar had charged in to save Kuroyukihime and her allies, using the miraculous massive technique of changing the stage attributes, and then departed again just as quickly. There was no mistake—that avatar had been Megumi.

Kuroyukihime still wasn’t sure even now what had happened. After the incident, she had made some excuse to direct with Megumi’s Neurolinker and scanned every nook and cranny of her local memory, but she hadn’t been able to find the BB program. Thus, she had come to think that what happened on that southern island had been a one-off miracle.

Megumi…Why now, why here…? As she called out like this in her heart, Kuroyukihime moved her hand, still hanging in midair, to her Neurolinker’s vision enhancement.

Video from the built-in camera was overlaid onto her field of view. She double-tapped the bus with a finger and enlarged the image. She zoomed in as far as she could on the window on the right side of the bus as it approached on the opposite side of the street.

The book icon pointed downward, and beneath it a person with short, fluffy hair came into view. This was without a doubt Megumi. Her head hung slightly, and there was no expression on her face in profile. But Kuroyukihime felt as if something small glinted and shone in the corner of her eye.

“Sorry, Niko!” Kuroyukihime called in a strained voice. “I can’t go back to Suginami!”

“Huh?! Wh-what’s happening?!”

“I’ll explain later! Anyway, good luck with the Suginami defense!” She had no sooner shouted the words than she was running toward the crosswalk they had only just crossed.

The bus carrying Megumi had already passed them and was racing off to the south, not having been caught at the light, so she’d never catch up if she started running after it. But if she could at least get on the next bus or catch a taxi going in the same direction, and if she was lucky, she might be able to make it for the moment the Territories started.

She dashed into the intersection just as the pedestrian light started to flash ahead of her, and then heard footfalls chasing after her from behind. Still running, she looked back and shouted in the same strained voice, “Niko, you go to Suginami—”

“Now look! I can’t just walk away from a sitch like this! Kuroyuki, you’re my Legion Master now!”

These words stabbed deep into Kuroyukihime’s heart. That was exactly right. Although she suspected that Niko had lost the game of rock-paper-scissors on purpose, Kuroyukihime had taken on the position of Legion Master of the newly formed third Nega Nebulus, albeit provisionally. If their positions were reversed, she wouldn’t let Niko go off alone, either.

Once they were on the other side of the street, Kuroyukihime apologized to Niko once again. “Excuse me.” She inhaled deeply to calm her breathing as she looked to the south. The bus Megumi was on had already gotten quite a ways away, and just as when she’d watched Fuko and the others disappear, the ad hoc connection was cut and the Friend Tag also disappeared.

“So something up with that bus?”

When she turned around, Niko was looking up at her with a serious face.

“Yes. My friend is on it,” Kuroyukihime explained briefly. “She’s not a Burst Linker now, but she might have been at one point. I can’t think it’s mere coincidence.”

“So you mean”—Niko paused to process this—“a Burst Linker who lost all her points and had all her memories disappeared?”

“It’s possible.” Kuroyukihime bit her lip. “I might just be worrying too much. But…”

Niko tapped her arm. “I don’t think y’are. I mean, like…we’ve maybe heard some stories where total point loss Burst Linkers come back to life, yeah?”

“……!!”

Kuroyukihime gasped sharply. Niko was right. Until only recently she would have thought the phenomenon utterly impossible, but she had come across two cases in the last month that had turned this common sense on its head.

The first was the residual mind of Red Rider that lived in the ISS kit main body. And the second was the residual mind of the Twilight Marauder, Dusk Taker, which survived in the right shoulder of Wolfram Cerberus. Both seemed to be memory copies that existed with no relationship to the actual flesh-and-blood person, so the situation with Megumi was obviously different. But on the other hand, there were commonalities.

The one controlling the memory reproductions of Red Rider and Dusk Taker was the Acceleration Research Society. And three months ago in Okinawa, the Society had created the reason for the fight that had brought back Megumi’s memories and powers as a Burst Linker—albeit for a mere instant. And they were also the opponent her Legion was going to fight in Minato Area No. 3 that day.

“If she’s being used in some way by the Society…then I really must go,” Kuroyukihime declared, and Niko didn’t try to argue with her.

“Then I’m coming, too.”

“B-but if Cosmos is among the enemy…”

“We’re gonna have to fight her one of these days. And I said this before, but there’s no way I can let you go by yourself, as a Legion member.” Grinning recklessly, Niko glanced over at the western sky and added, “Plus, you don’t gotta worry about Suginami. We got thirty ex-Promi kids over in Nerima, so they’ll be all wham-bam defending Suginami, too, trust me. They’re hella strong.”

“…Yes, I trust them.” Something welled up in her throat abruptly, but Kuroyukihime somehow managed to swallow it back down.

Nega Nebulus was no longer the small-scale Legion that had to work hard to defend just one area. Although it had been just Kuroyukihime and Haruyuki when the Legion was reborn, Takumu had joined them, soon followed by Chiyuri, and then Fuko, Utai, and Akira. And now, today, Ash Roller, Bush Utan, Olive Grab, and Trilead Tetroxide had become new members, and if you included the Archangel Metatron, who was not in the register system-wise, they were a total of fifty people with six areas—a Great Legion.

That day…the day when she found out that White Cosmos had manipulated her into taking the head of Red Rider and she had turned a knife on her actual older sister, she thought she had lost everything. Even after she was chased out of her family home in Minato Ward and started school in distant Suginami Ward, she had stubbornly refused to connect her Neurolinker globally and kept herself locked away in a small black shell.

But one day, after a year and a half, she had met a small pink pig avatar on the squash court of the in-school local net, and he broke her shell. He broke his own shell, too, and gained the form of a silver bird, flapping his beautiful wings to cut a path forward for both of them.

If that path led to this place on this day, well, then she couldn’t pull back now. Even if there was the possibility of total point loss, if she couldn’t be together with him in this fight, then there was no meaning in her having accepted the position of Legion Master.

Apologies, Fuko. Sorry, Haruyuki. Let me break my promise just this once. And, Megumi. If the Acceleration Research Society is making you suffer, then as your friend, I will save you.

Kuroyukihime called out to these precious people in her heart and then whirled around.

A third bus was approaching from the north. Next to her, Niko slapped her fist into her hand. “Awwwwright! I’m on fire now! Yep, attacking’s where it’s at in the Territories!”

“For once, I’m strangely in agreement.”

The two kings grinned at each other before breaking into a run for the bus stop.

“Burst Link.” Fuko Kurasaki murmured the acceleration command at minimum volume from the back seat.

Haruyuki stiffened up and stared at the digital clock in the lower right of his field of view: 3:59:57 PM, fifty-eight seconds, fifty-nine…four PM.

“Okay. The transfer of control for Shibuya Number One went off without a hitch,” Fuko whispered, returning from the instantaneous acceleration, and hearing this, Haruyuki wasn’t the only one who let out a sigh of relief. Graphite Edge was indeed keeping his promise, apparently.

“What a relief.” Chiyuri had moved to the seat next to him once Kuroyukihime vacated it, and now she leaned back in it. “GE’s a fishy character, so I was like twenty-five percent not sure.”

“Isn’t that nickname kind of confusing with the G for the Green King?” Haruyuki replied.

His childhood friend pursed her lips in a pout. “So then what about Phite? Or maybe Edgy?”

“No, no. The regular Graph is fine.”

“It’s just too regular. I mean, that guy’s calling Ui ‘Denden’ and Akira ‘Kareent’ and all these weird names, so we have to fight back, y’know?”

“You talk like that and you’ll end up with a weird name, too, you know,” he warned her.

“Heh-heh! Just what I was hoping for.”

The bus kept running south along Yamate-dori. Soon they would cross another border at the Tokyo University intersection and enter Shibuya Area No. 2. When they did, Fuko and Graph would carry out the same operation once more, and the ceding of Area No. 2 would also be complete. Once the bus turned left on Komazawa-dori, passed the north side of JR Ebisu Station onto Meiji-dori, and then crossed another boundary around the French embassy, they would finally enter Minato Area No. 3. Trilead Tetroxide and the CobaManga sisters were no doubt anxiously waiting for the moment at the Teien Art Museum in Minato.

The clock had passed four PM, and it was already Territories time, but the attacking side was free to decide on any time before five PM to start any actual battles. Haruyuki did a quick calculation from the average speed of the bus that day and figured they would probably end up starting around four thirty or so.

In other words, they needed Lead and CobaManga to be on standby at the museum for a while still, and Haruyuki knew only too well how long those thirty minutes would be, so he felt terrible, like a Grave Sin stage, but there was nothing he could do about it. He would have at least liked to send them a mail with the expected start time, but his Neurolinker was currently not connected globally. When he’d entered the Unlimited Neutral Field to meet with Lead earlier, he’d connected globally for just an instant, with the expectation that someone would challenge him, but he wasn’t sure if it was okay to try the same thing again—which made him realize something with a gasp.

Haruyuki turned himself around in his seat and peered through the headrest to ask Fuko in a quiet voice, “Um, Master? System-wise, Shibuya One’s already Nega Nebulus territory, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.” She nodded. “Although if another Legion registers an attack during the Territories and we lose, they’ll take it from us.”

“Th-they will? So that’s a possibility, too, huh…? What about a team to protect Shibuya One?” he asked.

“As of the present moment, I’m the only one registered,” Fuko replied with a grin. “But if you’d like to take my place, Corvus, you can anytime.”

“N-no, I’m fine, thanks.” He paused, confused. “But if you’re registered for the defense, doesn’t that mean you won’t be on the team to attack Minato Three?”

Which is ridiculous, because without Kuroyukihime and Niko, Sky Raker’s the most powerful person on the team!

Fuko grinned once more. “It’s all right. When we register the attacking team, I’ll be taken off the defending team. Basically, it’ll be fine as long as the territory is adjacent only for the moment of the start of the attack.”

Next to Fuko, Utai quickly tapped at her holokeyboard. UI> BY THE WAY, I’LL BE IN CHARGE OF THE DEFENSE OF SHIBUYA NO. 2, BUT I’LL ALSO BE TAKING PART IN THE ATTACK IN THE SAME WAY, SO PLEASE DON’T WORRY!

“R-right…” Relieved, he felt the tension run out of his shoulders.

Chiyuri also turned around in the seat next to him. “But, Sis, then that means there won’t be any defenders once we hit four thirty, right? What if the surrounding Legions realize that in the last thirty minutes? Won’t they take the Shibuya areas by default?”

“Of course, there is that possibility. But…” Fuko fiddled with her virtual desktop and made visible a holomap centered on Shibuya. The three members of Petit Paquet and Rin across the aisle also leaned forward to peer at this with great interest. “As you see here, the only ones with territory adjacent to the Shibuya area are the Leonids, who control Shinjuku to the north; Great Wall, who rule Meguro to the south; and Oscillatory Universe, who rule Minato to the east. CobaManga should have already passed this by the Blue King as Leonids, and since we paid GW for the territory, we can assume there’s no risk of them attacking. Which means the only possibility is Oscillatory. If they realize Shibuya One and Two have become Negabu territory and assemble an emergency attack team, that would actually be a lucky thing. After all…”

“Then their defense of Minato Three would be that much weaker, right, Professor Fuko?” Satomi of the Petit Paquet group said, snapping a hand into the air. A student of mixed martial arts in the real world and Shihoko’s personal martial arts master, she’d challenged Fuko to a match after she transferred into Nega Nebulus and had been squarely defeated by the latter’s phantasmagoric palm strikes and lightning-speed kick techniques. Ever since, Satomi had been head over heels in adoration for the older girl, as had her friends Shihoko and Yume, and they therefore now called her Professor Fuko.

Perhaps groomed for this by Haruyuki and Rin calling her Master, Fuko nodded evenly and continued. “That’s exactly it, Sato. But when Oscillatory figures out that the control rights for the Shibuya areas were transferred for an attack on Minato Area Number Three…we actually need to be ready for the defense to be firmed up. And in that sense, it’s better for us if we can move quickly through Shibuya One and Two and Minato Three in the real.”

“But the Yamanote Line, the underground Oedo Line, and the Chiyoda Line don’t pass so neatly through all three areas, riiiight?” This was from another of the Petit Paquet group, Yume. She pushed up the bridge of her glasses neatly. “We did consider the idea of arranging for a twenty-person microbus to race along the same course as this bus, though.” Her proposal was delivered with equal parts confidence and uncertainty.

Fuko couldn’t help but smile ruefully. “Now listen, Yume. I can’t drive such a large vehicle with my license.”

“But just the fact that you have a license and a car is amazing!” Satomi said. “Please take us somewhere one of these days!”

Shihoko tugged on the collar of her friend’s blouse with an impatient look. “C’mon, you can’t just go asking the professor like that!”

“What? You were just saying you wanted to go to the puppet house in Yokohama, Choco!”

“That’s a totally different thing!”

Akira popped her head forward. “Area boundary’s coming up.”

Haruyuki hurriedly looked up at the map on the ceiling and saw that they had two hundred meters or so left until the Tokyo University intersection, the boundary between Shibuya Areas No. 1 and 2. Shihoko and her friends hurriedly returned to their seats, while Haruyuki and Chiyuri turned back around.

The time was 4:08 PM. The plan was for Fuko to contact Graphite Edge by mail when the bus was crossing the area border. To that end, Fuko had apparently asked Graph for his mail address when they’d had the surprise encounter with him in the Castle, but after they returned to the real world, she’d said something somewhat strange. Something about how there were no hits when she did a WHOIS search on the domain of the address he’d indicated and yet the mail got to him, which was impossible in terms of the structure of the global net.

Haruyuki wanted to ask again about this and so many other things, but he couldn’t bother Fuko now. He waited quietly as the bus passed through the large intersection and entered Shibuya Area No. 2, the Department of Education campus at Tohto University on their right.

Fuko accelerated once again and quickly returned. The party held their breath until they heard the calm voice of their attack team leader.

“Okay, the handover of Shibuya Two is complete without incident. Now all of Shibuya is provisionally the territory of Nega Nebulus.”

Just as he had with Area No. 1, Haruyuki let out a deep sigh and bumped fists lightly with Chiyuri, who was sitting next to him.

If this had been a normal Territories win, he would be shouting for joy right about now, but this was nothing more than groundwork in preparation for the real fight. And although it was the result of their victory in the mock Territories six days earlier, it would look to the world as though Great Wall had ceded them the territory. Looking out at the utterly unfamiliar cityscape streaming by, he didn’t really feel that their territory had grown.

Regardless, however, the transfer procedure that had worried Kuroyukihime was now finished. Haruyuki felt a sense of relief (although Fuko was the one who’d actually pushed the buttons on her Instruct menu), but at the same time, a new nervousness rose up inside him. Kuroyukihime and Niko would be back in Suginami by now. They might have already been challenged by an attacking Legion and be fighting at that very moment to defend their territory.

Staring out the window again, Haruyuki sent his thoughts toward his swordmaster. Kuroyukihime, it’s finally time. We’re going to win no matter how strong our opponent is. So please wait just a little longer.

Once the bus crossed the Keio Inogashira Line, it passed onto the old Yamate-dori, slipped under overhead expressway no. 3, and approached the southern edge of the Shibuya area. Three more kilometers until the border with Minato Area No. 3. Anticipated arrival time in seven minutes.

They’d done everything they could up to this point: reinforced the Nega Nebulus battle lineup, negotiated the return of territory from Great Wall, merged with Prominence, asked Cobalt Blade and Manganese Blade to act as witnesses, brought Trilead Tetroxide out of the Castle, and invited him to join the Legion. And Haruyuki had enhanced his own self, Silver Crow.

Whether or not all these efforts would bear fruit would become clear in seven minutes. They couldn’t accept defeat, but the general principle of the Accelerated World was that there were no absolutes. Now that they’d come to this point, all they could do was give the fight everything they had. Muster up every bit of strength inside them—well, except for the Incarnate System—and break through the enormous wall in front of them.

“It’s okay. I know you can do it, Haru,” Chiyuri said as if she had read his mind, and proceeded to squeeze his hand lightly. He looked over to see the familiar smile of the friend he’d known since birth, and yet it still made him suck in a tight breath. “Once it all starts, don’t think about stuff. Just get in there and blast ’em! You take a little damage and I’ll heal you up in no time flat.”

“Yeah, I’m counting on you.” Haruyuki smiled back and stared up at their route. The bus had already gone from the old Yamate-dori onto Komazawa-dori and was heading east. All he could see through the front windshield was clusters of buildings on both sides of the road, but in the distance, overlaid on the image of the city, he glimpsed a chalky palace shimmering like a mirage—the Acceleration Research Society headquarters he’d seen once in the Unlimited Neutral Field. He’d gotten caught then in the shadow-slipping ability of the self-professed vice president of the Society, Black Vise, and charged into the place without any idea of anything, but this time was different. He was prepared, he was with his comrades, and he was attacking of his own will.

According to the map on the ceiling, there were about two kilometers left. A little over four minutes, then.

Looking at the display brought a question back to his mind, so Haruyuki hurriedly turned around once more. “O-oh, right! Master, I forgot to ask something important.”

“What’s that, Corvus?”

“Um, now that Shibuya’s Nega Nebulus territory, our names won’t show up on the matching list if we connect to the global net, right?”

“Well, basically, yes.” Fuko nodded.

He heaved a sigh of relief. “Then can I just contact CobaManga for a sec? I want to tell them what time to expect us.”

“That’s fine. But once you’re done, please cut the connection again just in case.”

“Roger!” He faced forward again and hurried to connect globally before launching his mailer. When he sent the Takanouchi sisters the anticipated time of the start of the Territories fight, he immediately got a ROGER from Koto and a GOOD LUCK! from Yuki.

The reason Burst Linkers didn’t use messenger apps or any other SNS services to contact members of other Legions was to protect their privacy. Registering a person on SNS meant running the risk of unintentionally giving out information, and if you wanted to cut all contact later on, the person’s SNS ID itself would have to be deleted. But if you simply exchanged so-called “burner mail” addresses, you could simply delete the address.

But the twin blade sisters had already revealed their faces and real names to him, so it was impossible for them to cut all connections with him. As he considered this, he sent a mail to Trilead as well. And then he figured he might as well report on the current situation in a voice call to Kuroyukihime while he was at it. Instead of her voice, however, he got a message on his virtual desktop that the person he was calling was not connected to the global net.

“Huh?” He cocked his head. It was already well past four, and Kuroyukihime and Niko were supposedly on defense standby in Suginami. And obviously, you had to be connected globally for a sortie in the Territories. Maybe their bus back to Suginami had been delayed or something.

“What’s up, Haru?” Chiyuri asked.

Haruyuki shook his head. “I’m okay. It’s nothing.”

Even if Kuroyukihime and Niko were a few minutes late, they could count on the members of the former Prominence to help out with the defense of Suginami, so there was no issue. He got a reply of I UNDERSTAND. IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING, HMM? from Trilead, so he decided to call it all good and disconnected his Neurolinker from the global net.

“Now look, Kuroyuki,” Niko said from the seat beside her, and Kuroyukihime awoke from her reverie.

“What?”

“I was just thinkin’…this bus we’re on, it’ll never ever catch up with the bus with Haruyuki and them or the one with your pal, yeah?”

“Of course not,” Kuroyukihime sniffed. “It’s an automatic bus on a circular route. If we did pass the vehicles ahead of us, it would mean the AI was out of control.”

“No, not that!” Niko rolled her eyes. “I mean, if they start the Territories the instant the bus with Haruyuki and them gets into Minato Three, we won’t make it in time!” She pressed a finger into the area around Kuroyukihime’s kneecap.

In return, Kuroyukihime jabbed her in the side of her red T-shirt as she replied in the same hushed voice, “I know that much at least, you know! Shibuya area here should already be our territory, so I’d very much like to connect globally and let someone there know the situation. But even if I did tell them you and I are going to take part so they should hold off on starting, do you think they’ll simply agree with that?”

“…Definitely not. One hundred percent no way.” Niko groaned.

“Exactly. If we do this wrong, the whole mission itself might be canceled. That’s why…”

“That’s why what?”

“I’m thinking about what we should do.”

Fwmp! Niko slumped down in her seat and looked at her, exasperated. “You were talkin’ so high and mighty, I figured you had a plan. Hmm. Even if we grab a taxi now, there’s no way they’ll go fast enough to overtake the buses, either.”

In the present year, 2047, when all vehicles had AI controls, no vehicle—driverless or not—could exceed the legal speed limit. In an emergency, a driver in a manual vehicle could temporarily turn off the AI, but doing that without a good reason carried the penalty of no mere fine but an actual arrest. And no matter how they pleaded, there was no way a taxi driver would do something like that for two strange girls, anyway.

But Niko was right—the possibility that Fuko and the others would start the Territories the instant they had crossed the area boundary was definitely nonzero. She assumed that in reality, they would take a few minutes to prepare, but even still, she didn’t know whether the bus they were on would catch up in that time.

The worst case would be if Megumi Wakamiya made it in time for the Territories and Kuroyukihime and Niko didn’t. In that case, this whole chase would have been pointless, and Kuroyukihime had the feeling that something would be decisively destroyed if they failed to force Megumi’s hand here.

“So we have no choice then,” she muttered, and she launched her taxi app.

Her Neurolinker wasn’t connected globally, so she couldn’t choose her preferred taxi company and car make from a wide range, but if there was an empty taxi nearby, she could call it on an ad hoc connection. She checked the driverless option and did a search. She got an immediate hit, fortunately, although it was just the one vehicle. She set the pickup location at the next bus stop and their destination as a random spot in Minato Area No. 3 before whispering to Niko, “We’re getting off at the next stop and taking a taxi.”

“Sure, sure,” Niko agreed. “You got a trick up your sleeve?”

“A trick I don’t really want to use.”

“I have a very bad feeling about this.” Niko looked highly doubtful, so Kuroyukihime jabbed her in the side once more before standing up and heading toward the rear doors. When the bus stopped in the bus bay a minute or so later, they jumped down onto the sidewalk and ran over to the small taxi that pulled up behind the bus.

She pressed the confirmation button on the taxi app and climbed in through the rear door that opened automatically. Since she’d already specified their destination, the taxi pulled out immediately, and the AI’s synthetic voice rang out in the cabin. “Thank you for using Smart Cab Tokyo’s automatic taxi service. For your safety and comfort, please pay attention to the following important points…”

Ignoring the fixed announcement, Niko clicked her tongue in irritation. “Totally driverless car? Now there’s no way we can switch to emergency mode and fly out of here.”

“Now, now. You’re talking quite dangerously there.” Kuroyukihime gave her a wry smile, but Niko was right. The vehicle was completely automatic, with no steering wheel or pedals for human use. Both front and back seats were for passengers, and all that was on the dashboard was a large information panel. They indeed could not use the emergency driving mode, even if they were prepared to be arrested for doing so.

But Kuroyukihime had had a reason for choosing a completely automatic car. She pulled a wound-up XSB cable from the pocket of her school uniform and inserted one end into her Neurolinker. Leaning forward, she pushed the other end into the connector beneath the dashboard. The only change in the display on her virtual desktop was a wired charging mark in the top right. And this was only natural. The connector was there for passengers to charge devices, and it was impossible to use this port to access the car’s system. Normally, anyway.

“Whoa, hey there. You’re charging now?”

Kuroyukihime glanced at Niko’s exasperated face before closing her eyes and giving the voice command she had never once used in front of someone else. “Triple S Order! Activate!”

Bwan. As a virtual vibration sounded, a complicated emblem appeared in the center of her field of view. Two types of flowers winding around two swords standing side by side, intersecting diagonally to draw out a circle. The emblem soon vanished, and in its place, a control window for the taxi system popped up.

“System administrator log-in confirmed.”

“Wha—?!” Hearing the AI voice, Niko bounced up from her reclining position. “Wh-wh-what’s going on?!”

“I’ll explain later.”

“E-explain now! What the hell’s this admin…” The Red King pushed forward. Kuroyukihime put a palm to her forehead to push her back before turning her attention to the control window.

First, she turned off the camera monitoring the cabin and gave the order to arrive in the minimum time at the legal speed limit. Instantly, the taxi switched to the right lane and, with a force that pressed their backs into the seat, accelerated to a speed of eighty kilometers an hour, just barely under the legal limit.

“Whoa! A-are we gonna be okay?!”

“Hang on tight. We’re flying!”

Now the car swung into the left lane and sped along Yamate-dori, slipping into and out of the three lanes as though sewing them together.

Niko grabbed the armrest inside the door to stabilize herself and shifted from panic back to exasperation. “Dang! Where exactly did you pick up this kind of hacking tech?!” she shouted over the high-pitched whine of the motor.

“My former master taught me all kinds of things.”

“Master?” Niko frowned. “That guy? Graphite Edge?”

She nodded. And indeed, the Anomaly had schooled her in the ways not only of Brain Burst but also of the global net. But immediately before the attack on the Castle that would spell the doom of the first Nega Nebulus, he had also given Kuroyukihime a mysterious program. The emblem of the double swords and flowers—SSS Order.

Using this, Kuroyukihime’s Neurolinker could execute administrator privileges for essentially all systems connected to the global net. She could even overwrite name tags verified by the basic residents’ register, one of the country’s most critical systems. The only places SSS Order couldn’t interfere were the social camera network and the Brain Burst central server.

Why had Graphite Edge given Kuroyukihime this incredible power? She hadn’t understood at the time. But once the Legion had collapsed, a bounty had been put on her head, and she’d moved from Minato to Suginami, she’d finally thought it made sense.

Anticipating the future, Graphite Edge had given Kuroyukihime a way to survive as a Burst Linker. In fact, it was because of SSS Order that she’d been able to freely manipulate the in-school net at Umesato Junior High and discover the true identity of her random attacker, Cyan Pile. She’d also been able to look up the name of the player who’d gotten that incredible high score in the squash game, as well as set up a remote access gate so Fuko, Utai, and the others could connect to the Umesato Junior High local net.

But she avoided using SSS Order for anything other than her main objective of defending the Umesato space—except for the time when she tested out overwriting name tags. One reason for this was that the power it contained was simply overwhelming, but part of her reluctance to use it stemmed from her frustration with Graph’s overprotectiveness.

She could forgive herself for breaking that self-inflicted prohibition now, however. For Megumi’s sake. And the sake of her Legion comrades.

“Sheesh. No matter how deep ya dig, you’re a woman of many secrets,” Niko remarked.

“Well, keep digging. Maybe you’ll get to the bottom one day,” she replied, looking out ahead of them. She caught a glimpse in the distance of a large green vehicle—the bus that carried Megumi Wakamiya.

The Brain Burst area boundaries were naturally invisible in the real world, but the majority of Burst Linkers had customized the navigation functions in their Neurolinkers so that the lines would be displayed in AR. Haruyuki was no exception; he could clearly see the approaching red line through the bus’s large front window. The intersection at Tengenjibashi where Meiji-dori and Gaien Nishi-dori crossed…once they went through it, the bus would be in Minato Area No. 3.

His heart kept trying to pick up speed, and Haruyuki did his best to be calm. In the end, he turned to Fuko through the gap in the headrest behind him. “Master, when will we start?”

“Hmm.” Fuko tilted her head slightly to one side, and her smooth long hair swung back and forth as she spoke. “Our initial location in the Territories is always somewhere on the edge, regardless of location in the real, so it’s not an issue to start the instant we cross the boundary. But it wouldn’t be a waste to get a sense of the area for a little bit on this side. Since we’ve come all this way, how about we start once we’ve reached the intersection at Furukawabashi, the start of Meiji-dori?”

“Understood.” Nodding, he looked forward again.

A minute or two later, the bus crossed the bright red line that only Haruyuki and his friends could see and entered Minato Area No. 3. He wasn’t actually expecting anything to happen right away since their connections to the global net were still off. Nevertheless, he felt as if the color and temperature of the air had changed somehow, and he grabbed hold of his seat tightly.

The group of three elderly women got off at the next stop, Korinjimae, leaving only the fourteen on the attack team inside the automatic bus. Takumu and Rui were sitting in the seat in front of Haruyuki and Chiyuri, with the three former members of Petit Paquet across the aisle with Rin. Fuko and Utai were in the seat behind him, and Akira was across from them. And then, on the bench seat in the very back of the bus, was the former Prominence’s Triplex—Pard, Cassis Moose, and Thistle Porcupine.

Meeting these last two in the real for the first time, he’d found that they matched their images in the Accelerated World fairly well. Cassis was a large and artless ninth grader, while Thistle was a small, seemingly clever seventh grader. Haruyuki’s usual shy-person mode had immediately been activated, so he hadn’t really talked to them, but Akira, Utai, and the others had been exchanging information with them during their trip. Once the mission was over, they were supposed to return to Suginami and have a meeting—the venue being, naturally, the Arita home—so he would have the chance to talk to them then.

The fight that was about to start was the biggest mission Haruyuki had been on since becoming a Burst Linker, but it definitely wouldn’t be the decisive final battle. It was merely the first step in revealing the evil deeds of the Society, taking back Niko’s Enhanced Armament, and freeing Wolfram Cerberus.

Hang on, Cerberus. I will free you from the Catastrophe that’s tormenting you. So many people helped me when I ended up Chrome Disaster, and now it’s my turn to help you.

“Next stop, Furukawabashi,” a synthetic voice announced. “Furukawabashi. Passengers traveling to Shirokanetakanawa Station, please change here.”

The speaker had no sooner gone silent than Fuko stood up in the seat behind him and shouted resolutely, “Everyone, get ready to connect globally!”

All present touched their Neurolinkers.

“Once the connection’s complete, I’ll accelerate immediately and challenge Oscillatory Universe to a territory fight. Now that we’ve come all this way, there’s only one thing I can say to you…We’re going to win!”

“““Yeah!!”””

The whole team responded at a shout, and Fuko lowered herself into her seat. Haruyuki pressed his back firmly against his own seat and readied himself to accelerate.

The bus made a gentle left turn and approached Furukawabashi. The sunlight, starting to incline, reflected off the countless windows of the skyscraper condo rising up in front of them and made them glitter.

“I’m starting the count!” came her voice. “Five, four, three, two, one…connect!”

Haruyuki pushed down on the physical switch on his Neurolinker, and an icon flashed in his field of view to inform him that he was connected to the global net.

“Burst Link!!” Fuko called.

Skreeeeee!! The cold, dry sound of acceleration chased Haruyuki from behind and sent him flying to the fateful battleground.