Accel World - Volume 21 - Chapter 7

7

The dry sound of a motor and road noise. The sensation of slightly hard woven fabric of the seat beneath him. Golden sunlight coming in from behind.

For about two seconds after returning to the real world, Haruyuki didn’t know where he was. He looked at the scene flowing by outside the window and finally remembered that he was inside an automatic, circular bus running along Meiji-dori.

Although the dive into the Accelerated World had been a succession of unexpected developments, they had only been fighting on the other side for an hour and a half at best, meaning that not even five seconds had passed in real time, but he felt as if it had been several days. Perhaps the other Legion members felt the same; for a while, no one moved to speak.

But when the bus stopped at a light, Fuko stood up. “So many things happened, but first and foremost, good job, everyone.”

There were no other passengers on the bus, so she spoke to them in her physical voice as she looked at the party.

“We’ll get off at the next stop and get on a bus going in the other direction. I’m sure there are many things we’d like to discuss, but let’s save the details for a meeting after we get back to Suginami.”

“Okaaaay,” Chiyuri responded, before sitting up straighter next to Haruyuki, and looked around the bus. “Right. Kuroyukihime and Niko aren’t on this bus.”

True. Bush Utan and Olive Grab had dived from a separate location, so they weren’t on the bus. Nor were Kuroyukihime and Niko, who had executed an unexpected entrance. But they were probably coming after the bus in a taxi or something, so they might meet up with them at the bus stop.

“Um, Master, I’m going to give Kuroyukihime a call,” Haruyuki said, manipulating his virtual desktop.

“No.” Fuko twisted around and shook her head. “I’ll do that. You have something else to do, Corvus.”

“Huh…What’s that?”

Instantly, everyone on the bus was sliding down in their seats in exasperation. Gah, what was it again? After thinking for a second, he finally remembered.

“Oh! Right! I have to get Coba-Manga to check the matching list!”

Yes, that was the objective of the day’s mission. Although they had come up against some twists and turns, the Territories had ended in Nega Nebulus’s victory. Which meant that, at the current moment, control of Minato Area No. 3 had shifted from Oscillatory Universe to Nega Nebulus, and Oscillatory no longer had the right to block the matching list.

If members of the Acceleration Research Society now showed up on the list, then it would be clear that the White Legion and the Society were one organization, two sides of the same coin. But the list confirmation had to come from some high-positioned third party. It had been members from the Blue Legion, Leonid, Dualis, Cobalt Blade, and Manganese Blade who had agreed to take on this important role. They were currently on standby at the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum in the southern part of Minato Area No. 3 and would’ve quickly completed the confirmation.

With a suddenly cold hand, Haruyuki launched his call app and started a voice call to Cobalt Blade, aka Koto Takanouchi. He got through in about 0.3 seconds.

“Uh, um, this is Arita.” He pushed out a hoarse voice from his desert-dry throat. “K-K-K-K-K-Koto, how did it go?!”

“Before that!” Koto sounded excessively thorny, and Haruyuki unconsciously shrank into himself. “Why did the Territories take more than five seconds?! Yuki and I had to accelerate so many times, you know!”

“S-some stuff happened. I’ll explain everything later. S-s-s-so the matching list…”

The brief hesitation of her silence told him what was to come. That can’t be, he thought.

“Unfortunately, none of the Acceleration Research Society member names that you indicated were on the matching list. You won’t be able to expose the evil deeds of Oscillatory Universe with this.”

His mind went blank, and he lost sight of what he should say. The victory they had fought so desperately for, that had left them all painfully battered and beaten, that had plunged the majority of the attack-team members into the very real danger of total point loss—it had all been for nothing. His brain couldn’t accept this fact.

No. The truth was somewhere in his heart; he’d expected this. The White Legion had laid an elaborate trap, and they’d been waiting for Haruyuki and his comrades. In which case, it made sense that they would have made sure to evacuate Society members Rust Jigsaw and Sulfur Pot outside the area beforehand. But he’d felt like he wouldn’t be able to keep fighting if he thought about that possibility, so he had desperately pushed it aside.

But he couldn’t erase Koto’s words. “I…see,” he managed to reply somehow.

“The truth is, I shouldn’t be saying this as an observer, but”—Koto lowered her voice—“I actually think it’s too bad myself. But there should still be another way. I’ll be wishing Nega Nebulus success in battle.”

“…Thank you,” Haruyuki murmured and then managed somehow to pull himself together. “Um, if you see Trilead at the museum, please tell him thank you. I’ll call him, too, but he really did amazing work in there.”

“Understood…Yuki says for you to keep fighting, too. All right, bye then.”

The call was cut off there, and he let out a long breath before lifting his head.

Even as his comrades had already figured out what was coming, they turned their eyes on him wordlessly as if holding on to one last thread of hope. Not knowing how to respond to this, he simply shook his head silently.

Weighty disappointment and despair filled the bus, and Haruyuki hung his head once more. Chiyuri patted his back, but all he could do at the moment was nod slightly.

Their strategy of using the matching list to pull back the curtain on the Acceleration Research Society had been utterly defeated. Cobalt Blade said there had to be some other way, but it seemed like a frontal attack was now out of the question. The only method left to them was to enter the private Eternal Girls’ Academy, Oscillatory Universe’s headquarters, and challenge them to a final battle via the local net, he thought desperately.

“Um.”

Haruyuki looked in the direction of the voice. Shihoko Nago was holding up a small hand next to a teary-eyed Rin Kusakabe.

All eyes focused on her, and Shihoko slowly started to lower her hand, shyly, but then she bit down hard on her lip, took a deep breath, and continued. “Um, I don’t know if this would be proof or not, but…”

“Go on and tell us, Choco,” Fuko urged her. “We’d like any bit of hope at the moment.”

“Okay.” She nodded firmly. “Well…When we were surrounded by devils and everything looked hopeless and I could only just stand there and be protected and not do anything…I thought at least…I wanted to at least keep the memory of the battle for everyone…”

Chiyuri’s hand was still on Haruyuki’s back, and now it suddenly clutched his flesh together with the fabric of his shirt. But what Shihoko said next blew even that pain away.

“I recorded it on a replay card. Ivory Tower’s transformation into Black Vise. Is that…? Would that be proof?”

To be continued.