Accel World - Volume 9 - Chapter 6

6

The place was once more the living room of the Arita home on the twenty-third floor of the condo. The time was 7:40 PM.

Since Operation Castle Escape had started at exactly seven o’clock that day, June 20, 2047, this meant not even an hour had passed in the real world. But for Haruyuki subjectively, it felt as though he had accumulated several days’ worth of events that he still hadn’t processed.

The escape from the Castle and Suzaku’s fierce attack.

The search for and discovery of Ash Roller. Summoning the Armor, the slaughter.

The encounter with the two members of Great Wall. And yet another battle…

When he had absently retraced his steps to that point, as he sat plopped down in one corner of the sofa set, a mug of café au lait was set down before him, accompanied by a “Here you go.”

“…Th-thanks…” He thanked Chiyuri in a small voice and picked up the steaming mug to bring it to his lips.

“Ah! Hawwwwt?!” The instant he sipped at it, the overboiled, scorchingly hot liquid burned his tongue, and Haruyuki cried out in pain.

But Chiyuri, sitting on the sofa opposite him, touched her own café au lait to her lips with a feigned ignorance. “Oh my, I beg your pardon,” she said crisply.

Somehow, the cups distributed to everyone else were a suitable temperature, and Haruyuki’s alone had been given plenty of heat in the microwave. But only Takumu clucked his tongue and shook his head with a wry grin at this targeted maliciousness; Kuroyukihime, Fuko, and Utai Shinomiya simply turned silently toward their own cups.

This was not because Haruyuki had locked them all in the house and run off alone, or even because he had summoned the Armor of Catastrophe. It was because of the presence of the seventh person, clutching the hem of his T-shirt tightly with her right hand while she sat to his left, on the verge of tears as always. From the time Fuko had pulled her off him in the underground parking lot until she was brought up to the twenty-third floor in the elevator and sat down on the sofa, she had not let go of Haruyuki’s shirt.

If, hypothetically, this had been the Red King, Yuniko Kozuki aka Niko, Kuroyukihime would have instantly shouted, Quit fooling around and let go! and might actually have even attacked physically. However, when her opponent was a weak-looking girl who constantly sniffled, tears in her eyes, even the Black King apparently hesitated to take action.

Only the sound of Haruyuki blowing on his cup broke the urgent silence.

Finally, Chiyuri set her own cup down. “Leeeeet’s see,” she said in a voice that was half groan, rubbing her temples with the index fingers of both hands. “I don’t understand the situation yet. Actually, I just can’t accept it.”

Lifting her face, she stared hard at the girl to Haruyuki’s left—the girl sitting directly across from her. “Are you really Ash Roller? The Ash Roller? The hya-ha-ha-haa-mighty-me-mega-luckyyyyy Ash Roller? The Ash with the missiles on his motorcycle?”

Chiyuri was slightly overemphasizing one aspect in her description, but still, the girl—Ash Roller’s real-world self, Rin Kusakabe—nodded clearly. Rin had already switched out her brother’s old metallic-gray Neurolinker for her own pastel-green one. If he were to believe what she said before, she already could no longer remember the details of the duel with Haruyuki earlier. But even still, she was apparently fully aware of what kind of Burst Linker she—or her brother—existed as in the Accelerated World. Tears dampening both eyes, she apologized in a thin voice.

“Um, I’m sorry. On the other side. I’m always saying so many. Rude things.”

“Y-you don’t have to apologize. I talk pretty bluntly in the duels, too.”

Unconsciously, Haruyuki and Takumu both bobbed their heads up and down, and once she had frozen the awkward pair with her eye laser, Chiyuri continued. “But—I’m not sure how to put this. I’m just a little surprised because I’ve never seen anyone so different between here and over there before. I mean, I can’t believe you can be a girl in the real and have a male-type avatar.”

The instant he heard these words, Haruyuki this time made momentary eye contact with Fuko, who was seated on the love seat to his right.

Since he hadn’t explained to Chiyuri and the others Rin’s special circumstances, the only people there who knew all about the girl and her brother and the two Neurolinkers were Haruyuki and Rin’s parent, Fuko. He took the look in her eyes to mean they would watch for the time to explain it all, and so abruptly opened his mouth.

“Th-that’s just ’cos there’s over a thousand Burst Linkers. It’s not so weird to find someone who seems like an exception sometimes.”

Chiyuri turned her hard stare on the girl once more, and then looked away abruptly. “I guess so. Like someone who’s all nervous and shy in the real world like this, but then gets all carried away in the Accelerated World and charges on from one thing to the next!”

“Unh!” He reflexively ducked his head at the unexpected attack. As he sipped at his coffee, finally cooled enough to drink, his brain worked at top speed. His plan to escape alone and resolve this himself was ruined, and given that he had been caught again like this, he wouldn’t be able to shelve the matter forever. He should at least bring it up himself and apologize. In which case, maybe this was that time.

Haruyuki set his mug down on the glass table in the center of the sofa set and sat up straighter as he took a deep breath. He looked again in turn at the members of his Legion—Kuroyukihime sitting on the far left, Chiyuri and Takumu across from him, Fuko on the right end, and Utai tucked in to his immediate right because of space concerns—and then yanked his head down.

“Um, about what I did there, I’m really sorry. I don’t expect an apology to get you to forgive me after all this, but—”

“Do you actually understand why we—why I am angry, Haruyuki?” The clear voice that rang out belonged to Kuroyukihime, who had been silent this whole time. Her fingers intertwined as they rested on her knees, and the swordmaster and Legion head stared at Haruyuki with jet-black eyes.

“It’s not because you summoned the Armor of Catastrophe and released the sealed Chrome Disaster. Everyone sitting here already understands that you had to do that to save your friends. But you…you shook off the words and hands we reached out to you and tried to punish yourself alone. If…if you had managed to carry out that plan and disappeared to the edge of the Unlimited Neutral Field along with the Armor…”

Her voice trembled the slightest bit, and Haruyuki felt something squeeze his heart. He unconsciously clutched at the fabric of his T-shirt above his chest.

Kuroyukihime blinked once, slowly, before turning slightly more reflective eyes on him. “Did you really think that we would have been able to continue fighting without you? You, who never once thought to leave us, not Chiyuri held prisoner by Dusk Taker, not Takumu infected with the ISS kit, not Fuko about to give up on her dream of the sky, not Utai sealed away on Suzaku’s altar—and not even me, hiding in the depths of the local net for two years! Did you really think that we would just cut you loose and forget you?!”

Her voice gradually increased in volume to become a sharp sword piercing Haruyuki’s heart. But that stabbing was not a cold pain; instead, a sweet, sad, and warm throbbing spread out to fill his chest.

Biting his lip, head hanging, Haruyuki pushed back the self that tried to cling to that gentle rebuke. “I’m sorry,” he apologized once more in a shaky voice, and quickly continued. “But…but the Four Elements of the old Nega Nebulus and you, Kuroyukihime— Two years ago, you tried to throw yourselves away to protect your friends in the Legion, didn’t you? You tried to let the other Legion members get away by putting yourself alone into a state of unlimited EK on the altars of the Four Gods, didn’t you? I—Before, I thought the time for that had come for me, too. I thought everyone in the Legion would end up with a bounty on their heads…and I wanted to avoid that at any cost, at least.”

“What are you talking about, Haru?! Only yesterday, you told me that rather than sitting and brooding alone, I should believe in my friends and reach out a hand!” Takumu half shouted.

Chiyuri, next to Takumu, gently held him back with a hand. His childhood friend’s eyes were completely different from the earlier superpowered fire beam, this time gently urging Haruyuki to continue.

“Sorry, Taku,” Haruyuki earnestly muttered. “I actually remembered that earlier when I was direct-dueling with Ash—I mean, Kusakabe.” He turned his face back to Kuroyukihime. “And at the end of the duel, Ash said to me that if I was gonna go disappear in the Unlimited Neutral Field somewhere, he’d come with me. And then I realized it: When you lose all your points in the Accelerated World and are pushed to a forced uninstall, it’s only you who has all your memories related to Brain Burst erased. So, like, um…”

He struggled with how to express this precious thing that he had realized, but here his language processing engine reached its limit, and Haruyuki simply moved his mouth and his right hand.

“In other words, the death of a Burst Linker doesn’t belong to the person themselves.” From his right, a quiet, calm voice finished his thought—Fuko. “That’s what you mean, yes? Because the Linker forgets they were ever part of Brain Burst, along with who they met in the Accelerated World, what they experienced there, what they were aiming for…Because of that, what really dies…is the him or her inside the people around them, close to them. Only the comrades, friends, and lovers of the person who disappears continue to carry on knowledge of this ‘death’ in their hearts, in their unlimited accelerated time.”

“…Yes.” Haruyuki nodded deeply, slowly, and started speaking his words himself again. “That’s just it. Which is why…I had the thought that it’s actually impossible to begin with, the idea that you alone disappear—it’s actually not possible in the Accelerated World. Even if I snuck off somewhere and disappeared after losing all my points to an Enemy…at that time, really, the me that lives inside the people around me I care about would disappear, and that would make a scar, or a hole that size…”

Kuroyukihime kept harsh eyes on him, and he met them first out of the corner of his eye, gradually coming to look directly at her as he spoke his heart in full.

“Which is why I don’t think that me alone disappearing will fundamentally resolve anything. Because I know now that it might hurt you all about as much as if I became the Disaster and you had to come hunt me. But…but…”

He clenched his hands into fists as they sat on his knees.

“Making the Armor of Catastrophe disappear again before the meeting of the Seven Kings on Sunday now that I woke it up is probably—no, ninety-nine percent impossible. After fighting with it in the Unlimited Neutral Field, I’m sure of it. The Armor’s already completely one with Silver Crow. And not just that. I— At this stage, I might already be getting mental interference from the Armor. I mean—I…”

He was aware that his friends had all opened their eyes a little wider. And he announced to them what he felt himself immediately before he was forced to burst out, when he had been about to set out on a wandering journey together with the Armor of Catastrophe—or rather, the Beast that lived in the Armor.

“I…had the thought that I didn’t want to erase it with some outside method. If that had to happen, then…at least I wanted to disappear with it. That’s what I thought.” Eyes completely downcast once again, Haruyuki bit his lip hard.

UI> ARITA. BY “IT,” DO YOU MEAN THE ARMOR OF CATASTROPHE AS AN OBJECT? OR IS IT SOMETHING OR SOMEONE ELSE? Utai Shinomiya asked him gently, in the chat window, as she sat pressed up against him immediately to his right in the narrow space.

“…That’s…” After hesitating awhile, Haruyuki resolved himself and explained.

About the two consciousnesses that lived inside the Armor of Catastrophe. The mysterious girl with the canary-yellow armor inside the original Destiny. And the savage instinct to fight that lived within the Enhanced Armament Disaster, that a twisted fate had given rise to—the “Beast.”

“Chiyu also met the girl, and so I think it’s pretty clear that she’s not a dream I had or some kind of delusion.”

“Yeah.” Sitting across from him, Chiyuri nodded sharply. “Although I think the world I went to with Haru and Taku, the Brain Burst central server itself, might have been a dream. But the girl we met there was definitely not. I mean, she told us so much stuff that me and Haru didn’t know.”

“Hmm. A Burst Linker’s consciousness lodged in an object. Or perhaps it functions as a pseudo-intelligence. Considering the power of the Armor to interfere with the mind, it’s not impossible,” Kuroyukihime murmured, a thoughtful look on her face. The dangerous edge in her eyes had faded somewhat as she turned her gaze on Haruyuki again. “Haruyuki. Which was it that you felt you didn’t want to disappear? The unknown female-type duel avatar who helped and guided you? Or the Beast that spurs you to fight?”

“…Both— No, maybe…maybe the Beast,” Haruyuki muttered, dropping his eyes. “The girl wants the Armor to be completely eliminated, to cut short the cycle of catastrophe that’s been repeating in the Accelerated World. So if I disappeared with it, I don’t think she’d be sad. And…the Beast wants to erase all Burst Linkers other than itself. Of course, I think that’s basically nuts. But if we take what we were talking about before, about a Burst Linker’s death, and apply it to what the creature wants…each time it hunts someone and dispatches them from the Accelerated World, it ends up squirreling that death away in its own memory. If it ended up the last Burst Linker in the Accelerated World like it wants…it would be carrying the deaths, the extinctions of a thousand Burst Linkers, on its shoulders. So, like, the Burst Linkers that disappear would live on inside its memory alone. So then, what on earth does it…why would it…?”

Drops of water fell onto his clenched fists. He finally realized that they were falling from his own eyes, and he hurriedly moved to rub his face with his right arm.

Two seconds faster than him, Kuroyukihime leaned forward; slightly ahead of her, Chiyuri was about to offer the nearby box of tissues, but an instant faster than even that, Utai was pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket. But the one who moved even more quickly than these three was the seventh person, sniffling to Haruyuki’s left—Rin Kusakabe. She soaked up the tears collecting on Haruyuki’s cheeks with the sleeve of her ivory summer sweater.

“It’s lonely,” the girl in the same grade remarked, in a fairly weak voice. “By yourself. No one. Should disappear. All alone.”

“…Oh, yeah. That’s, um.” Haruyuki naturally froze, but Kuroyukihime, Chiyuri, and Utai all also stiffened up with their own individual expressions on their faces.

What got things moving was a word from the gentle Fuko. “Rin?”

With just that, Rin Kusakabe jerked her body back up to its original position, but as if making some sort of statement, she clutched at the hem of Haruyuki’s T-shirt in the same way again.

Still with a complicated look on her face, Kuroyukihime leaned back into the sofa and cleared her throat lightly. “Haruyuki. These feelings of yours…I don’t believe that they come from mental interference from the Armor of Catastrophe as you say. Because that is so like you, so like what the Haruyuki Arita I know would say.”

Chiyuri, Utai, Takumu, and Fuko all nodded together.

“And thus, I don’t believe the possibility of purifying the Armor is completely out of the question. Haruyuki. Just once is enough. Will you give me—will you give us a chance?”

Purify.

The word meant that they would burn the Beast together with the Armor of Catastrophe, with the special abilities of the shrine maiden of the conflagration Ardor Maiden—Utai Shinomiya. At this point, the power of Utai’s Incarnate, which had melted and buried the protector knight of the Castle’s inner sanctuary in a massive pool of magma, went without saying. With her of all people, it might have been possible to selectively burn away—no, to exorcise—the Armor, even if it had completely fused with Silver Crow. They had indeed taken great pains to get Ardor Maiden back from Suzaku’s altar to carry out that purification to begin with.

But. The Haruyuki of that moment could not be sure that this was really the only correct solution. He couldn’t remember the details now, but in the distant past—at the dawn of the Accelerated World—there had been a very sad, cruel incident involving that golden-yellow girl, a metal color that looked a lot like Haruyuki, and the layered avatar calling himself the vice president of the Acceleration Research Society, Black Vise. The metal color, stained with an excessively deep despair, had caused the Arc Destiny and the longsword Star Caster to fuse and given birth to the Armor of Catastrophe, the Disaster.

The Beast, the pseudo-intelligence that lived in the Armor, reacted violently to the memory of this incident and had once even caused a negative Incarnate overflow within Haruyuki in the real world. That was proof that this incident was the source of the Catastrophe, enacted over and over in the Accelerated World. What exactly had happened in the past? Was it really all right to just eliminate the Armor and the Beast without knowing—no, without properly remembering, that?

Of course, if he went back into that unknown past—in other words, into the memory of the Beast itself—he would experience even more intense mental interference than he had already. Surpassing even the stage of “fusion” and reaching into “control”—Haruyuki’s personality might disappear entirely. The fact that he was struggling like this might itself have been proof that this interference was already progressing.

As Haruyuki hung his head and bit his lip, a small hand reached out from his side and wrapped itself around his right hand. At the same time, text typed out one-handedly was displayed in his view in a cherry-pink font.

UI> ARITA. THE TRUE PURIFICATION ABILITY I HAVE IS NOT A DESTRUCTIVE FOURTH-QUADRANT INCARNATE LIKE I USED IN THE CASTLE.

“Huh? So then…?”

UI> THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO PHYSICAL ATTACK POWER. IT CANNOT BREAK A DUEL AVATAR, NOR AN ENHANCED ARMAMENT, NOR AN ENEMY, NOT EVEN A SINGLE TERRAIN OBJECT. WHAT MY FLAMES BURN IS…THE SO-CALLED “CONNECTION.” IT SELECTIVELY PURGES ONLY THE INFORMATION ROUTE CONNECTING THE PARASITIC BODY AND THE HOST. THUS, THE TARGETED PARASITIC OBJECT IS SIMPLY CUT AWAY, Utai Shinomiya replied, a calm smile slipping onto her face.

“It’s cut away…without disappearing…,” he parroted, and then shook his head slightly with a “But…”

“But…in that case, even if it works, the Armor of Catastrophe itself will remain in the form of a sealed card again. Right? If someone takes that card, or we sell it in the shop, or even toss it into the bottom of the ocean, I know it will call out to its next host again. Kuroyukihime, the card items, they’re…”

When Haruyuki turned his gaze on her, Kuroyukihime guessed at the implied question and nodded. “Mmm. Impossible to destroy, without exception. The most certain method of disposing of a card currently known is to feed it to a Legend-class Enemy with an affinity for item loot…but I can’t say that that is actually foolproof.”

A heavy silence filled the living room, illuminated only by the indirect orange lighting.

Breaking this silence was a faint alarm announcing that it was eight PM. There was still time before Haruyuki’s mother came home, but it was about time for everyone to be getting home, especially Utai, who was still in elementary school. Regardless of how great the problem facing the Legion, the fact remained that in the real world, they were all students and thus constrained by various rules.

They did have the option of diving into the Unlimited Neutral Field to continue talking there or to try Ardor Maiden’s purification. But there was one little snag. Because Haruyuki had burst out with a forced disconnection safety—in other words, his cable had been yanked out—if he dove into the Unlimited Neutral Field, he would appear alone on the roof of Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills, far away from this condo. And even that would have been fine if he could have immediately exited normally through a portal, but if the mental interference from the Armor began soon after he dove, Haruyuki himself didn’t know what would happen after that.

“We’ll continue tomorrow…yes?” Fuko, the Legion deputy, said quietly, perhaps thinking the same thing. “We have to first safely reset Corvus’s position information.”

Haruyuki had previously explained that he had disconnected in Roppongi Hills, right before he fled from his friends and this very room. Yet he still had a mountain of information to share with them, even though he wasn’t able to completely process his memories inside his own head. He needed to reexamine the exchange he had with the pair on the roof of Mori Tower—the Green King, Green Grandé, and the third seat of the Green Legion’s executive group, the Six Armors, a Linker known as Iron Pound. His memories themselves also needed time to clear.

His Legion Master, Kuroyukihime, looked around the room. “We in Nega Nebulus made significant progress today,” she announced in a clear voice, “because we managed to bring back Utai—Ardor Maiden, one of the former Four Elements, from the altar of a God, a place believed to be impossible to escape. Although after that, there was a slightly unexpected incident…” Here, she glanced over at Rin Kusakabe—who continued to clutch Haruyuki’s T-shirt—but then merely cleared her throat before continuing, “It is an unquestionable fact that Silver Crow’s hard work contributed greatly to the success of this operation. Haruyuki, that’s why it’s our turn now to work hard for your sake. I can understand your indecision and fear. But please. Give us just one chance.”

She repeated her earlier words, turning earnest eyes on him, and beside her, a small figure pushed forward: Utai Shinomiya, clad in a white dress-style uniform. She bowed her head neatly, which set her ponytail swinging, and tapped decisively at the air with both hands.

UI> ARITA. WE NEED YOU. THE FACT THAT I WAS ABLE TO RETURN TO NEGA NEBULUS—THAT I COULD ESCAPE FROM THE STATE OF UNLIMITED EK THAT STRETCHED ON FOR TWO AND A HALF YEARS—IS ALL BECAUSE OF YOU. AND THE REASON I AM HERE RIGHT NOW IS TO CUT THE TIE THAT BINDS YOU TO THE CATASTROPHE. PLEASE. I WANT YOU TO GIVE ME THE CHANCE TO FULFILL THE ROLE I AM TO TAKE.

Finished typing, she squeezed her small hands together at her chest. Fuko, Chiyuri, and Takumu all nodded deeply. Finally, Rin Kusakabe, sitting to his left, tugged lightly on the shirt she still held.

Haruyuki shook slightly, with a momentary yet fierce conflict.

Trying Ardor Maiden’s purification meant, in other words, diving into the Unlimited Neutral Field again at the same time as his beloved Legion comrades. In the worst-case scenario, his thoughts would suddenly be under the Armor’s control, and it was possible he might attack them without a word. Naturally, however strong Chrome Disaster might have been, Haruyuki didn’t think he could simultaneously fight all five members of Nega Nebulus with the Black King at the lead and win. But Kuroyukihime and the others would be forced to choose whether or not to neutralize—no, to push him to—a forced uninstall with the Judgment Blow.

And that was something he didn’t want. No matter the cost.

Haruyuki lifted his eyes and looked at Utai and Kuroyukihime in turn before nodding slightly. “I…understand. And I’ll ask you guys, too. Please use your power to end the cycle of catastrophe I can’t escape. Shinomiya, Kuroyukihime…everyone.”

“Haru, are you really okay by yourself tonight? Maybe you should stay over at my place or at Taku’s?”

Chiyuri repeated this worry at least five times, and Haruyuki sang his part in the duet, assuring her each time that he would be fine, he was fine, while he saw everyone to the door he was still fine, he was fine.

Fuko yanked Rin Kusakabe by the collar of her shirt, forcing her to release Haruyuki’s clothes. Rin shoved her feet into her loafers before turning around again. “Um,” she said. “The sushi you gave me. Was. Really good.”

“Oh! Th-then you should tell Chiyu—Chiyuri Kurashima. Her mom made it,” Haruyuki replied.

So Rin turned around once more and bowed her head at Chiyuri, who was already out in the shared hallway. “Thank. You. Very much.”

“…It was really nothing. Although I guess I’m not the one to say that…”

Chiyuri returned the bow at a subtle angle, and an even sharper doubt rose up on her face, as it did with Takumu, who stood next to her. Except for the brief self-introduction immediately after they had dragged Haruyuki and Rin to the Arita home from the underground parking area, they had hardly spoken to her, so they were probably still having trouble accepting the theory that Rin = Ash Roller. Haruyuki could relate.

Nonetheless, there was definitely an indescribable air of master and apprentice to Rin and Fuko, as Rin pulled her head in meekly and Fuko clutched the collar of the girl’s cardigan. Since Rin would also be part of the operation to purify the Armor of Catastrophe—which they had elected to start the following evening at seven, once more in the Arita home—all of them would get another chance to poke at her and ask her all kinds of invasive questions. This, of course, came with a rather large if—if the operation actually succeeded.

Master and apprentice stepped out into the hallway, and once Utai followed them, Kuroyukihime slowly slipped on her shoes. She took a step forward before whirling around to look at Haruyuki. Her lips trembled as though she wanted to say something, parted slightly, and then quickly closed again. After a pause, Haru’s beloved swordmaster let a faint smile rise up onto her lips. “Sorry for always, always making use of your house as Legion headquarters. I hope you don’t mind that we’re doing it again tomorrow.”

“No, not at all. It’s totally fine. But isn’t it actually tough for you and Master going home?”

“Ha-ha! I’ll get a ride from Fuko again today, so I’m fine. Everyone should have an adult friend.”

The look on Fuko’s face changed slightly behind her, and the others laughed briefly. They then took two steps back, facing backward, and stepped out into the hall.

“So we’ll see you tomorrow, Haruyuki.”

“Right. See you tomorrow.”

The gently closing door hid the faces of Kuroyukihime and his friends, and separated the inside of the house from the outside. The sound of the automatic lock scraped the air. He waited until their footsteps had receded and disappeared before trudging back into the living room.

Chiyuri had taken the large plate with the chirashi sushi and maki rolls on it, so Haru just had to wash the coffee mugs and return them to the cupboard with the dryer function. He wiped the dining table and the glass table, set the chairs straight, and turned on the AI vacuum cleaner.

Back in his own room, Haruyuki opened his homework app and focused on tackling the math and English problems. Once he had taken care of both, he looked up at the clock and saw that it was just past nine. His mother still wasn’t home. On days when she hadn’t come back by now, she usually ended up home closer to midnight. Haruyuki accessed the home server and opened the family message board. After thinking for a minute, he typed out a short note…

I’M GOING TO STAY AT TAKUMU’S HOUSE SINCE WE HAVE A GROUP PRESENTATION TO WORK ON. I’LL BE BACK EARLY TOMORROW MORNING.

Naturally, this was a lie. And it was a lie to both his mother and his friends. In fact, it was perhaps a lie that betrayed all the members of his Legion. But he was sure that in the event that his mother did call Takumu to check up on him, he would very neatly corroborate Haruyuki’s story.

He hit the ENTER key of his holokeyboard with a stiff finger, cleared his virtual desktop, and stood up. He changed out of his house clothes into baggy camo pants and a printed T-shirt. He put on a cap, slid into some sneakers in the entryway, and opened the door.

The shared hallway seemed even darker and quieter than it had been a mere hour ago. It was only to be expected, but in the space illuminated by LED tubes, there was not a trace of his friends passing through earlier on their way home. Still, Haruyuki took a deep breath and tried to fill his lungs with the air they had all breathed before stepping out of the entryway. Behind him, the lock on the door of the now-deserted Arita house shut tight, along with a small electronic sound of raising the security level.

The reason Haruyuki was going out by himself at this hour was slightly different from when he had locked his friends in and run off. Then, he had intended to slip into the Unlimited Neutral Field from a nearby dive café and lose all his points to an Enemy at the ends of the earth.

However, Rin Kusakabe, Fuko’s “child,” had blocked his flight with her body in the shopping mall on the first floor, and Haruyuki had rethought things after talking with Ash Roller, who said he was Rin’s brother, in the duel field. He could disappear all on his own, but that didn’t fundamentally resolve the problem. And he couldn’t do that anyway, not when Takumu had been in exactly the same situation the night before but had still heard Haruyuki out and held his ground.

Just like Takumu, I have to believe in my friends—in the bonds of the Legion, Haruyuki decided somewhere deep in his heart. So the solo excursion he was about to embark on (at a time of night not particularly appropriate for a junior high school boy) was not intended to result in his death in the Unlimited Neutral Field. He wouldn’t have had to go to the trouble of leaving his house for that; he could simply shout the “unlimited burst” command from the comfort of his own bedroom.

Haruyuki’s objective was outside Suginami—in fact, outside the twenty-three wards of Tokyo: the city of Musashino, spreading out to the west. Of course, it was fully equipped with the social camera net, and thus was a part of the Accelerated World, but it was deserted. Almost no Burst Linkers lived or went there. And he was heading out to his wilderness because he wanted to check if he was still himself even when he dove into the Unlimited Neutral Field.

The worst thing he could imagine happening in the purification mission the next day was him going on a rampage immediately after they dove and attacking his Legion comrades. Even if he assumed Kuroyukihime and the others would be prepared for that, they might decide they could control Chrome Disaster, but Haruyuki couldn’t take such an optimistic view of the situation. The sixth’s battle ability—being able to use all of the abilities of preceding Disasters—was his own power, but even he couldn’t see its depths. Especially the Flash Blink ability left in the Armor by the first Disaster. That was dangerous. This technique rendered physical constraints completely ineffective and turned the user into particles for teleportation. If Haruyuki, one with the Beast, was able to freely control it, it was possible that Nega Nebulus, which lacked anyone with the indirect abilities of yellow-type avatars, wouldn’t be able to handle him completely.

Idly considering the possibilities, Haruyuki got on the elevator at the twenty-third floor. The car slipped smoothly downward as he continued along this train of thought.

He could not turn into a crazed Beast and assault his friends in the next day’s purification operation. The only way to avoid this tragedy was to dare call up the Beast in the Unlimited Neutral Field, talk with it or fight it, and gain the right to a certain amount of control. And if he was going to do that, he had to get out of Suginami. If, hypothetically, his plan failed and he was completely taken over by the Beast, Haruyuki—no, the sixth Disaster—would first try to assault the Burst Linkers who made their homes in Suginami. For the same reason, he wanted to avoid Nerima, Nakano, Shinjuku, and Shibuya to the east. But in Musashino to the west, no matter how he might rampage, there were no targets to begin with. If he tried to hunt anyone, he would need to return to the real world through a portal and then take a train or something. During that time, his head might cool, even if only a little.

For these reasons, Haruyuki had decided on this solo trip.

He passed through the shopping mall, where most of the shops other than the supermarket were closed given that it was past nine, and went out into the front garden laid with red bricks. This space, filled with flower beds and benches, was basically taken over by couples at night. At ten o’clock, the main gate was closed, and no one other than residents of the connected condo could pass through it, but he could see the silhouettes of young people sticking around until the last minute, sitting together on benches here and there.

For Haruyuki, this sort of thing was not interesting at all, so when he left the condo in the evening, he tried to use the residents-only gate on the north side. But the south main gate was closer to Koenji Station. Thus, he pulled the brim of his cap down over his eyes, tucked his shoulders in, and tried to pass through the garden at a brisk pace.

“Have a seat.”

The voice came from the bench immediately beside him. Startled, he came to an abrupt halt and froze, eyes still fixed forward.

The tone was masculine, but the voice was clearly female. He couldn’t mistake that voice, with its silky smoothness, the clarity of melted snow, the sharpness of a whetted knife.

Haruyuki creakingly turned his head seventy degrees to the right, a movement like a gear-driven doll.

Seated on the bench, the swordmaster he had parted from only an hour earlier was looking at him, smiling calmly. Obsidian eyes, black like deep space, announced that they had seen right through him.