Accel World - Volume 25 - Chapter 10

10

As Haruyuki woke up in the real world and the flash of dizziness that accompanied his return faded, he yanked himself upright. On either side of him, Fuko, Utai, Niko, and Kuroyukihime still had their eyes closed. If the mission had been canceled and they’d left through the nearest portal, then they would wake up in two seconds at the most.

But no one opened their eyes after two seconds had passed.

Two and a half…Three…Three and a half…More than an hour had passed in the Unlimited Neutral Field since Haruyuki had burst out. His palms were drenched with sweat. Did his message not get through? Had Kuroyukihime and the others begun the Genbu mission and been attacked by the Acceleration Research Society?

The timed disconnection safety was set for 10.8 seconds—three hours in the Accelerated World. So if he waited another seven seconds, no matter what was happening inside, they would all wake up. But those seven seconds felt like an eternity. He wanted to yank Kuroyukihime’s Neurolinker off that very second, but he gritted his teeth and resisted the impulse.

And then, at basically the same time, all four girls opened their eyes. He peered into the eyes of Niko, immediately to his right.

Her gaze lost its focus for an instant. Her memories were being synced from her quantum circuits to her physical brain. She blinked twice before the brown eyes with flecks of green caught sight of him directly above her.

“…Uh, Haruyuki. Were you staring at my face this whole time?” she asked with a scowl, and he reflexively sat up straight and shook his head from side to side.

“N-no! How was the mission?! What about the Acceleration Research Society ambush?!”

Niko shoved his face out of the way with both hands before sitting up. Kuroyukihime, Fuko, and Utai also pulled themselves up from the futon. The four of them looked at each other at the same time and nodded wordlessly.

“So then that voice was not a hallucination,” Kuroyukihime said, and a doubtfulness crept into her smile. “How on earth did you speak to me in the Unlimited Neutral Field? And how did you know that Vise and Argon were planning an ambush?”

There was no despair in her expression or voice. At the very least, it didn’t seem like the entire party had ended up in Unlimited EK at the Genbu gate. But in that case, why had it taken them so long to leave?

“Um,” Haruyuki replied, pushing down his desire to know the results. “After you all accelerated, I went to the Highest Level.”

“What? You called Metatron?” Kuroyukihime frowned, and he hurriedly waved his hands in denial.

“N-no! I wasn’t sure if I could…go by myself, but someone…” He glanced at Utai, and she blinked curiously at him. He didn’t believe that the voice he’d heard on the Noh stage of the Blue World was that of the real Kyoya Shinomiya, but he did want to go to that place again someday with Utai. With this thought in mind, he turned back to Kuroyukihime and explained.

“I probably had help from someone, so I was able to make the shift. When I looked at the area around the Genbu gate from there, I noticed Black Vise and them hiding inside the tower. Then Snow Fairy showed up and held me captive for a minute. But I managed to escape and warn you.”

“Is…that what happened…?” Kuroyukihime murmured, and Fuko, Niko, and Utai all let out a sigh at the same time.

“Honestly.” Fuko shook her head. “You never disappoint, Corvus. How many Burst Linkers are there in the Accelerated World who can actually make it to the Highest Level under their own power?”

“Oh, it wasn’t totally my own power, though. A-anyway, how was the mission?! Did you all escape safely?!” Haruyuki leaned forward, and Niko shoved him back.

“Cool your jets, pal. I’ll tell ya from the start.”

“O-okay.”

“Well, we were all freaked, y’know? I mean, we’re walking down Yasukuni-dori, and suddenly Lotus is going on about how she can hear Crow talking. I was like, is this girl so far gone she’s hallucinating his voice now?”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Kuroyukihime glared at her, but Niko paid her no mind as she continued.

“So obvs, we were gonna stop moving, but Lotus was all, don’t stop. I guess that was ’cause Sleepy was watching us, then?”

“Mmm. Exactly.” Kuroyukihime nodded, and picked up the story there. “If Fairy noticed that we had stopped despite the fact that there were no Enemies around, she would have found out that we’d gotten the warning from Haruyuki. But if we simply continued as we were, Fairy would think the ambush hadn’t been discovered…was my thinking.”

“S-so then?” he urged her to continue.

“As we walked, I told Coba-Manga, Pound, and the other Legion leaders that I’d gotten a warning from you. That moment was the turning point for the mission.”

Haruyuki cocked his head to one side. What did she mean? That the turning point hadn’t happened after she got the warning, but rather the moment when she told the others?

Perhaps sensing his confusion, Kuroyukihime smiled. “Normally, none of them would have immediately believed that I had heard your voice. At the very least, they would have stopped and demanded an explanation. But…they believed it. Not me. They believed that Silver Crow, of all people, could make a miracle happen and contact a Burst Linker in the Unlimited Neutral Field from the outside.”

“…”

Haruyuki was speechless. He felt a small hand on his knee and looked over.

Utai nodded firmly, a serious look on her face, and typed on his knee. UI>OF COURSE, ALL OF US IN NEGA NEBULUS BELIEVED IT. NOT ONLY DID WE BELIEVE IT, WE DISCUSSED WHAT WE SHOULD DO AS WE WALKED.

“What you should do,” he repeated. “With an ambush waiting for you, wasn’t your only choice to leave and try again later?”

“That’s not Nega Nebulus’s style, Corvus,” Fuko noted, a smile on her face, as she straightened the slight crease in the collar of her white yukata, and Haruyuki stared dumbfounded. “While you’re accelerated, there is only the duel. That is our policy, yes?”

“B-but Black Vise and Argon Array were waiting for you! And Cerberus was there, too! It’s too dangerous to take them and Genbu on at the same time!”

“Naturally, we wouldn’t fight both at the same time,” Kuroyukihime said, and he turned to his right to look at her, still sitting formally on his knees. “Listen. Thanks to you, we learned that Vise and his group were waiting for us, right down to the spot where they were waiting. In other words, you gave us the chance to strike first.”

“S-strike first?” he repeated, and the look on Kuroyukihime’s face grew severe.

“We have one other important policy,” she noted. “Only use Incarnate techniques when attacked with Incarnate techniques. Do you know why?”

“Y-yes. When you use Incarnate indiscriminately, you end up a prisoner of the dark side of Incarnate. Right?”

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded. “But there’s also one other extremely simple reason. A first strike with Incarnate techniques is simply too powerful. Only Incarnate can guard against Incarnate attacks. There’s no point in merely taking on a defensive stance. But in the event that you are taken completely by surprise, the chance of being able to mount an Incarnate defense in time is low.”

She was exactly right.

The reason the members of the Black Legion had been essentially annihilated in the opening stages of the Territories with the White Legion three days earlier was because Glacier Behemoth and Snow Fairy had gotten a first strike in against them with the extremely powerful second-stage Incarnate techniques Last Glacial Period and Brinicle. If those had been regular special attacks, it would’ve been possible for Nega Nebulus to respond, but they’d been unable to break the ice prison that Behemoth had created or guard against the chilly tornado Fairy had produced. Add in the Acceleration Research Society, and Kuroyukihime and their comrades had been hit with Incarnate technique surprise attacks any number of times, so there was no need to be ashamed of playing the same trick this time.

But there was still an issue.

“So then you were going to attack—I mean, you did attack Black Vise and them with an Incarnate first strike? But they already knew what route you were taking,” he said. “Wouldn’t a surprise attack be impossible?”

“It’s ’cause you told us exactly where they were,” Niko replied, as she flicked a hand to call up a three-dimensional map of Tokyo. She shared it with Haruyuki and the others, swiping at it to move to Kitanomaru Park.

“See? Here’s the tower of the Palace’s side building where they were waiting. And this is our route.”

Niko tapped the map, and the commercial building with the round towers he’d seen from the Highest Level lit up in red, while the roads from Yasukuni-dori past Kitanomaru Park and up to Inuimon, the north gate of the Imperial Palace, lit up in blue.

“They were prolly watchin’ us with Argon’s X-ray ability to make objects transparent. So once the attack on Genbu started on the bridge, they were gonna come flying outta the tower and catch us in a wedge. But there’s some stuff in the Unlimited Neutral Field that even Argon can’t see through.”

“Huh?” He frowned. “Like the Castle walls?”

“Those, too,” she agreed. “But other stuff just lying around. Like, here. The inside of the Museum of Modern Art.”

“…?”

Cocking his head to one side, he stared at the simple square building and then he suddenly understood. “Oh! A portal?!”

“Zactly!” Niko said. “I got an ability, this vision extension that can fake transparency with a heat scan, but I totes can’t see anyone on the other side of a portal. I figured it’s prolly the same for Argon.”

“M-makes sense.” He dropped his gaze to the 3D map once again and pointed at the roads in blue. “So then you moved along here like this and the second you entered the line of sight with the portal between you and the tower, you struck first with Incarnate techniques?”

“Yup. No collision detection for portals, neither. Attacks just slip right on through ’em.” Niko grinned, and on the other side of her, Kuroyukihime shrugged.

“Although it wasn’t as easy as Niko makes it sound. We assembled all the Burst Linkers with long-distance Incarnate techniques in the center of the formation while we moved, and they attacked in sync on my signal. It’s a good thing we’d already done the same maneuver once, up against Tezcatlipoca.”

“D-did it work?”

“It’s because it did that we are sitting here leisurely explaining it to you,” Kuroyukihime said proudly, and Utai quickly added.

UI> IT WAS INCREDIBLE. THE MUSEUM EXPLODED, AND ALL THESE DIFFERENT COLORED INCARNATE TECHNIQUES WENT WHOOSH!

For once, the look on her face was childlike, and Haruyuki couldn’t help but smile. The corners of Kuroyukihime’s mouth also went up, but her face was soon serious again.

“That said, however, Black Vise seemed to notice the attack immediately before it hit and fled with Argon using his ability to hide in the shadows. Rust Jigsaw and Shadow Cloaker, however, died instantly. But Wolfram Cerberus…he withstood a direct hit from over ten Incarnate techniques and charged us.”

“What?!” Haruyuki clutched his hands into fists on his lap and asked in a small voice, “Then…you fought Cerberus?”

“The thing there is, well, something strange happened.”

“Strange?” He raised an eyebrow.

Kuroyukihime nodded and looked at Fuko, as if to hand her the baton. Haruyuki hurriedly turned to Fuko, who blinked once as if checking her memory.

“I saw it from the closest,” she said quietly. “Cerberus came at us at first in the Armor of Catastrophe’s usual berserker state, but once he passed the portal, he suddenly slowed down. Quite awkwardly. Almost as though the Burst Linker inside was resisting the duel avatar’s movement.”

Kuroyukihime, Utai, and Niko all wordlessly indicated their agreement with Fuko’s statement.

“S-so then what happened?” he asked.

“Cerberus moved like a broken robot into the portal and disappeared,” Fuko replied.

“…”

What if.

What if exactly what Fuko said happened actually did happen? Cerberus had resisted the destructive impulse of the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II. And then he had escaped the control of the Armor for long enough to leave the Unlimited Neutral Field.

“Cerberus.” The corners of his eyes grew hot. He hurriedly squeezed them shut and took a deep breath.

He didn’t know what had actually happened. But at the very least, Cerberus’s own will hadn’t disappeared yet. The boy holding his knees inside the raging darkness Haruyuki had sensed on the Highest Level was still desperately trying to protect himself.

In order to free him from the Armor of Catastrophe and the chains of the Acceleration Research Society, Haruyuki himself had to smash his own Unlimited EK.

“What about Snow Fairy?!” he demanded, suddenly remembering. “Didn’t she come and get in the way?”

“No, she didn’t show herself,” Fuko told him. “It seems that her role this time was at most as observer.”

“Huh…” But the time would soon come when they would fight her again. Mentally preparing himself for this, Haruyuki gave voice to his final question. “So then did you carry out the Genbu mission? How did it go?”

The four high rankers all looked at each other and smiled at the same time. Kuroyukihime cleared her throat.

“A message from Graphite Edge for you: ‘If you want to learn Ain style, I’ll teach you loads in the Unlimited Neutral Field.’”