Instantly, something Metatron had said to him popped up in the back of Haruyuki’s mind:

Listen to me, little warrior. On the Highest Level, the concept of “distance” is meaningless. Thus, it is possible for us two to touch like this, despite the fact that we are far apart on the Mean Level; for us to have this overview of all three fields; and to even reference memories…

The concept of distance didn’t exist on the Highest Level. If it did…

“Uh, um, so then, that means…You can attack anything, and it doesn’t matter where it is or how far away?” Haruyuki asked timidly. “Unilaterally strike an opponent a few dozen kilometers away from you?”

“Taken to the extreme, that’s what it ends up being,” Graph agreed. “And it’s not just distance. Attack power, defensive abilities, compatibility—all parameters get tossed out the window. You could even do something like completely and utterly destroy the entire field with a toy gun. Anyone who totally conquers the third stage’d basically be a god of this world.”

“A-a god?”

“Yeah. It’d be like they got administrator privileges…”

Sensing pain in Graphite Edge’s voice as he spoke half to himself, Haruyuki blinked hard and stared. But no matter how he focused on the dual swordsman’s goggles, looking for the eye lenses hidden beneath, he couldn’t read what was going on inside the avatar’s head.

Haruyuki shifted his gaze to the longsword still gripped in Graph’s right hand and asked another question. “So then, is it…? You mastered this third-stage Incarnate technique and broke through the Castle’s north gate?”

“Hmm. The answer’s eighty percent no and twenty percent yes, I guess.” Casually carefree again, the swordmaster shrugged lightly. “If I had the power to do that, forget the gate; I’d have been able to take down the God at it, yeah? But there’s totally no way I could do that. I’m still real far from mastery. And you can’t escape the core of the Incarnate—its biggest principle, the fact that the imagination comes from your mind. You always end up bound by the frame of your own self.”

“And how, finally, does this relate to your earlier talk of graphene, pray tell?” Fuko spoke for the first time in a while.

“Ri-ri-right.” Graph moved his face mask up and down slightly. “Rekka’s always saying I’m more sword than person, and she’s not necessarily off base there. If G—if the Green King’s the Burst Linker in our world going the extra mile to protect people, then I’m the one who’s thought about nothing but cutting. So you know, I’m not too shabby with Incarnate. And I’ve focused and concentrated that to my limits, for this third-stage Incarnate technique.”

Graphite Edge dropped his gaze to the long sword clutched in one hand, and a hazy, bluish-purple overlay rose up from his body. The overlay was the extra noise from the excess of imagination flowing into the image-control circuits that connected a Burst Linker’s mind and their avatar; the system processed it as a light effect. The overlay enveloping Graph currently was subdued, but probably not because his Incarnate level was low. The opposite, in fact—because his imagination was so purely honed and refined, it caused virtually no noise.

Clink. The longsword Lux vanished with a crisp metallic sound.

No, not vanished…The sword had become as thin as humanly possible, sinking down to the atomic level. The hazy, shadowy blade would disappear and reappear when Haruyuki shifted his head to change the angle he viewed it at.

Now that the sword was indeed “honed to the thickness of a single atom,” Graph stood up from his seat, hand still on the grip. He looked back and then swiftly swung his sword away from the other Burst Linkers there.

There was no call of a technique name. Just the flashing movement of his right arm, three times. He then sheathed the sword and took a step back.

A second later, a triangle-size area of the stone floor sank down. Graph had severed the supposedly indestructible foundation of the Castle. The block continued to sink, gradually dropping out of the floor, and a few moments later, they heard the sound of two heavy objects colliding.

“So, basically, that’s the idea.” Graphite Edge turned around and spread his hands.

“Now listen, Graph.” Fuko was half stunned, half exasperated. “Before, you said—the ‘ninefold gates,’ was it? You said it was absolutely impossible to destroy the Castle’s four directional gates. This demonstration contradicts that. Can’t you simply use that technique to open a hole in the large door at the gates?”

“I tried that, at first. But the gates rejected even a third-level Incarnate technique. They probably use up a tremendous amount of resources to constantly update their data. But there is one gap we can exploit. Listen. Those gate doors themselves are indestructible, but the double doors and the others, they have gaps in their logical openings.”

Graph thrust his palms forward, as if making contact with each of the double doors. “The width of this gap is infinitely close to zero. But the thickness of the atomic blade I produce with my Incarnate technique is also infinitely close to zero. So there’s wiggle room for me to push the ‘logic’ of my Incarnate technique. Of course, it’s pointless if my blade makes it through when I can’t…But with the four directional gates, it’s enough if just my blade can pass through. Because—”

“You can destroy the seal plate from outside the gate!” Haruyuki shouted.

“Exactly.” Graph seemed to be grinning as he opened his hands. “I said this before, but in short, third-stage Incarnate is about pushing through to the result. The argument that you believe is absolute—I call it the absolute theory. And with it, you can overwrite things whether anyone likes it or not. There’s no flashy lights or big explosions; you simply get the results.

“The absolute theory behind Elucidator is that this blade is thin and sharp to the extreme, so it can cut anything. It doesn’t work on the ninefold gates themselves, but I managed to slip the blade through the gap and cut the seal. Wasn’t as easy as I make it sound, though.”

That was obviously true. If you were going to try to pass a blade with zero thickness through a gap with zero width, then the tolerance for error would also be zero. And on top of that, you would have to slice through the solid seal plate with one hit, which would require swinging with full force at top speed.

“So you made it work with one hit?” Haruyuki asked, half disbelieving.

“No way.” Graph wove his hands back and forth to indicate a negative. “I failed so many times, got massacred by Genbu so many times…But in the Unlimited Neutral Field, you’ve got time if nothing else, and I had a bunch of extra points. I focused on the challenge like I was in training, and right around the time I forgot how many times I’d died, I finally made it work.”

“Graph, if you had enough points that you could die that many times, then why didn’t you try to flee to the other side of the bridge instead of inside the gate?” Fuko asked, exasperated.

“Nah, there was no way.” He shook his head once again. “I had about three seconds leeway from the time I regenerated on the bridge until Genbu popped up to attack me. But about fifty percent of the time, that turtle comes barreling at you with the gravity attack on its first go. No matter how far you get before that, you just get sucked back and have to start all over again. Swinging my sword at the gate in front of me was way more constructive. And…” He looked down at Lead, sitting properly on the chair to his left. “And because I made it inside the Castle, I managed to get my second student. All my hard work wasn’t for nothing.”

Right. Hearing this, Haruyuki belatedly remembered the sword wielder before him was Kuroyukihime’s teacher, and Kuroyukihime was Haruyuki’s own swordmaster. Which meant Haruyuki was Graph’s grand-student, and Graph would be Haruyuki’s grand master. So then maybe he shouldn’t be calling him Graph like he had been, but master, following Trilead’s lead. Or maybe he should pick something else, like elder.

As Haruyuki sat sunk in thought, his other master—his Incarnate teacher, Sky Raker, let out a soft sigh. “My goodness, the first story is finally finished, hmm? That you would spend twenty minutes telling a tale that could’ve been finished with ‘I broke through with an Incarnate technique.’”

“N-now you’re just being mean, Rekka. I was doing my best to explain it, so it was easy for the young people and Ms. Archangel to understand.”

“In my case, I comprehended the issue with simply ‘I interfered from the Highest Level.’” Metatron’s words were no less thorny and merciless than Fuko’s, and Graph’s shoulders slumped. Looking at this, Fuko smiled. “That’s the first time you and I have agreed, Meta.”

“Who are you calling ‘Meta’?!” Metatron fumed, and Haruyuki hurried to intercede.

“But, Metatron, you did say, right? That you can’t interfere with comrades or enemies on the Highest Level. You can only recognize and be aware. I think it’s the same with terrain, but…”

“It is admirable that you recollect my words, but if you are going to do so, then do so correctly. At that time, I said that you could not interfere. With your abilities in that moment in time, observing the Highest Level was your limit.” Metatron’s voice in cool declaration was just the slightest bit softer, something that Haruyuki alone likely realized. “But after that, you called to me through the Highest Level and reestablished the link that was nearly severed. If you do not call that interference, then what do you call it?”

“Oh…R-right…” Haruyuki remembered how, guided by a mysterious voice that gave its name as “somethingterasu,” he had just barely managed to recover Metatron’s core when she was on the verge of extinction, and he suddenly wanted to hug the icon on his shoulder. But if he did something like that, he had no doubt the surprisingly shy Archangel would be furious, so he resisted the urge and finished with a nod. “I had to concentrate so hard just to get my voice to finally reach you. I’m totally incapable of destroying something in the Highest Level.”

“Of course, servant.”

“Could I have a minute, Tron?” Fuko interjected again.

“Who are you calling ‘Tron’?!”

“This Highest Level, if it’s just looking, can anyone look, I wonder? For instance, myself?”

“…Mm…” Grunting with displeasure, Metatron moved from Haruyuki’s right shoulder to his left and glanced at Fuko’s avatar. “It is absolutely not the case that anyone can, but it would likely not be impossible for you. However. The reason Silver Crow was previously able to reach the Highest Level was because the calculation speed of his mental circuits increased dramatically during the battle with the pseudo-Being you call Mark II. To re-create that state in normal times would require long hours of concentration.”

Haruyuki listened attentively to Metatron’s slightly aggressive explanation, but fortunately, Fuko nodded, with no display of her own usual challenging spirit.

“I see. Well then, we will leave that for the next opportunity. The reason we have come to the Castle today is to obtain information on the seventh of the Arcs, The Fluctuating Light, and convey that to Black Lotus.”

“Hmm. I am also greatly interested in this.”

When Metatron agreed with her, Fuko turned back to Graphite Edge. “So then, shall we get on with the main discussion? Graph, given that you charged into this Castle three years ago, there’s no way that you didn’t investigate it. Tell me. What on earth is the final Arc?”

“H-hang on a sec.” The dual swordmaster raised both his hands in protest.

“What, Graph?” Fuko’s eye lenses flashed sharply. “Is there something you would rather not have known?”

“No, it’s nothing like that.” Eyes darting about, Graph looked as though he were turning something over in his mind, but he soon let out a sigh. “Fine, fine. I’ll tell you whatever I know. About TFL and the secrets of the Accelerated World…But if I’m going to tell you all that, there’s a more suitable place to do it.”

“Where?” Fuko asked suspiciously, and the graphite swordsman snapped an index finger out, straight downward.

“The deepest part of this Castle main building, of course—on the other side of the last gate.”

“Thank you. Shall we go?”

“S-sure.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Scared? …You?” Haruyuki was stunned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wh-whaaat?! Me?!”

“Yup. Oh, but no Incarnate techniques.”

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

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

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

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

“Ee—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Servant, from the right.”

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

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

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

“Understood, Crow!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Huh? So then, what’s the standard?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Proof…of their existence?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Zrrraaaaaah!!”

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

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

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

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

“Are you all right, Crow?”

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

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

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

“Wh-what’s the matter?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean?” Fuko pressed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lead nodded silently, and Haruyuki blinked in surprise.

“Wh-what do you…?”

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

Kuroyukihime had once assessed her duel avatar as the ultimate in ugly. She’d said that she didn’t even have hands to clasp with anyone. Niko had in the past declared her own duel avatar to be like the spines on a hedgehog, that it was her longing to keep the world at bay given material form. They’d quarreled plenty, built up a sort of friendship and trust, and now here they were, finally joining hands.

I will definitely never forget this sight. No matter what happens to the Legion—or the Accelerated World or Brain Burst itself.

Resolving this in his heart, Haruyuki blinked firmly one last time and then looked over to Pard, at his right. There, he witnessed the ever-cool Bloody Kitty secretly wiping tears from the corners of her eyes, and his mouth softened.

But noticing the look on Haruyuki’s face, Pard returned a slight glare.

“Oh, I’ll say this just in case, Niko. Even when our Legions become one, Haruyuki is my child and student. Ensure that you do not push your way into his home so casually.”

“Huh? Huuuuh?!” Niko shouted, shaking Kuroyukihime’s hand away. “This is Negabu’s Mission Control center, yeah? But like, once we merge, it’s my Mission Control, too, y’know? That’s actually like an ‘anytime free pass.’”

“D-don’t be ridiculous! Use is off-limits unless you get my permission in advance!”

Um, this is my house, though…All Haruyuki could do was gape, the words lodged in his throat.

The detailed negotiations involving the executive members of both Legions were set for the next day, July 19, a Friday evening, while the merger ceremony and the meet and greet for all Legion members were decided for the twentieth, Saturday afternoon—immediately before the Territories. And that was the end of the merger talk for the time being.

The Territories in two days’ time would also be the decisive battle with the White Legion, so the process was a bit rushed. But they had to avoid at all costs any leak of the attack mission on Minato Area No. 3 to the Oscillatory side. They didn’t particularly expect there would be a leak from Prominence, but simply because that Legion was overwhelming in number, Niko proposed that the announcement to all members should be made immediately before the mission.

However, on the other hand, this meant they couldn’t really have anyone from Prominence on the Minato No. 3 attack team. Naturally, Niko, who was level nine like Kuroyukihime, couldn’t take part, so the support from Prominence would likely be two or three members including Pard.

Of course, this was a big ask, and they were grateful to have the assistance of Prominence members in the defense of Suginami area. But the issue of insufficient personnel on the attack team was still not resolved. Even at a bare minimum, the estimate was that there would be twelve people on the Oscillatory defense team, and at maximum, there could be as many as twenty. Meanwhile, adding in the help from Prominence to leader Fuko and members Utai, Akira, Takumu, Chiyuri, and Haruyuki, the attack team would still only be nine people. If push came to shove, they could have the three former members of Petit Paquet join in, but then only Kuroyukihime would be left for the defense of Suginami, and that was just a bit worrisome.

We really do need three more people. But I don’t have any idea of who else to ask, Haruyuki muttered to himself, counting the number of people on his fingers, and then suddenly remembered his great adventure of an hour or so earlier and clenched his hand into a fist.

No, I might be able to wrangle one person, though. But I have to wait for him to contact me…If he’d join us, I’d feel a million times more confident.

“…yuki. Haruyuki.”

He suddenly realized he was being called and hurried to lift his face. “Oh! Y-yes! How about some more cookies?!”

“I hope that I’m not that much of a glutton.” Kuroyukihime gave a smile and checked Haruyuki as he was about to leap to his feet with the wave of a hand. “That reminds me. You said earlier that Fuko was here? What did she want?”

“Oh…Th-that’s right. I wanted to talk to you about that…” He got that far and then shifted his gaze to the right.

He met the eyes of Niko as she bit into a macadamia-chocolate cookie and Pard while she chewed a coconut-lemon one. He screwed up his face unconsciously as he thought.

Is it okay to tell them everything Graphite Edge told us? No, that’s not a problem. I mean, they’re going to be my comrades in the same Legion and all…And we did fight the God Seiryu together…

“You’re making a weird face,” Niko remarked. “Did you want my half-eaten cookie?”

“N-n-n-no!” He hurriedly rejected her offer and cleared his throat. “Um, the truth is…Today I kinda went to the Castle…”

“Wh-what?!” Kuroyukihime screeched.

“Th-the Castle?!” Niko howled.

“OMG,” Pard muttered.

By the time Haruyuki finished telling them the secrets of the Accelerated World he had saved in his analogue memory, it was 6:40 PM. The southern sky was violet, and the evening sun, on the verge of setting, created a powerful contrast in the room. The western light reflected off the flooring to be absorbed into the girls’ eyes, making them shine like jewels.

Or perhaps this glittering light was coming from inside them. Even after Haruyuki closed his mouth, they stayed silent for a long time, but he could sense that each of them was chasing down powerful thoughts at top speed.

When the in-ceiling air conditioner started automatically, filling the air with the faint whir of operation, Kuroyukihime shuddered. She lifted her lowered eyes and looked directly at him. Her lips moved slightly two or three times until finally he heard a faint voice. “The Fluctuating Light…”

She let out a long sigh and then raised her voice slightly. “Let me say this first, Haruyuki.”

“O-okay.” Haruyuki unconsciously sat up straighter.

“Thank you.” Kuroyukihime dipped her head toward him. “You took a terrible risk for my sake…But next time, make sure you say something in advance. I can’t even count how many times you’ve gone off recklessly like this.”

Haruyuki bobbed his head up and down at this heartfelt thank-you and minor scolding.

Kuroyukihime’s mouth relaxed into a small smile, but she quickly recomposed herself and said in a severe voice, “Youkou, the final Arc. So Graphite Edge said…reaching it is the final objective in Brain Burst. It is the reason for our existence as Burst Linkers.”

“Yes. No mistake,” he confirmed.

“I see. In other words, that mission to attack the Castle that destroyed the former Nega Nebulus…We were not incorrect in our aim then…” Kuroyukihime leaned back against the sofa and looked up at the evening sky beyond the window with narrowed eyes.

Silence fell once more, and this time, it was Pard who opened her mouth. “Two…developers.”

“Mmm,” Niko groaned. “So the whosit who made the Castle and the one who designed all the other elements are two different people. So that’s why that stupid palace totally rejects us then…”

“Yeah,” Haruyuki agreed. “But Castle creator A was defeated by creator B. That’s what Graph said, so I think in practical terms, the Brain Burst developer is B alone now…”

The furrow between Niko’s brows became that much deeper. “That ‘defeated’ is a pretty vague way of putting it. This war way back in the long ago happened in a virtual world, yeah? So then didn’t A just run out of HP and log out? …Did they lose their memory, too, like with Brain Burst? Or did they really die in the real world?”

Niko’s questions were right on the money, but all Haruyuki could do was shrug helplessly. “Aah. Uh, I didn’t ask about that.”

“And what’s this war in a virtual world anyway? And what exactly is this ‘Being’ they were fighting over?”

“Oh…Sorry, I don’t really…”

“Gah! This is so annoying!” At some point, Niko had taken off her socks, and now she kicked her skinny legs as she shouted, “Hey, Haruyuki, get Graphite Edge over here pronto!”

“I—I can’t! I don’t know how to contact him or anything…”

“Huh?!” she shrieked in disbelief. “He used to be one of Negabu’s Four Elements, yeah?! You didn’t even exchange mail addresses?!”

“Oh! No! I told him mine,” Haruyuki replied quickly. “But he didn’t tell me his…”

“Ngaaah! I’ll never be able to make my new Legion thing work like this!”

Her frustrated kicking in the air grew fiercer, and Kuroyukihime, who had been in silent thought, yanked on one of her pigtails.

“Hey!” she snapped. “I can’t just let that ‘my new Legion’ thing slide, you know.”

“That doesn’t matter right now! Just let it go!” Niko howled, but it seemed that she had succeeded in cooling down at last. She let out a long sigh as she clasped her hands behind her head and looked up at the ceiling.

“Mmm. Hmmm. It’s like I get ten answers, and my questions multiply by a hundred or something. So like…to start with, that Graphite Edge, how’s he know all this stuff?”

Haruyuki didn’t have the words to answer this question, either. He turned his gaze toward Kuroyukihime, and a knowing grin came across the lips of Graph’s student.

“Apologies, but I know very little about him myself,” she said. “We’ve never met in the real, either. All that’s certain is that he’s an Originator.”

“Originator,” Haruyuki parroted as he considered the word. The Burst Linkers with no parents, also known as the first one hundred. Those were the Originators. They had received the Brain Burst program directly from the developer in 2039 and created the prototype of the Accelerated World.

“So then, like, does that mean all the Originators know the same stuff as Graphite Edge?” Niko asked, still lying back with her legs outstretched.

“No, I don’t suppose it does.” Kuroyukihime shook her head slightly. “If it was information communicated to a hundred Burst Linkers, it would have spread more. Because in the initial Accelerated World, there was no limit on the number of people who could copy and install, apparently.”

“And if they made a child, naturally, they were gonna tell ’em about the conditions to clear the game. So then, I guess that means that Graphite does have some kinda secret.”

“Oh, about that, Niko.” Kuroyukihime cleared her throat. “I know this is me saying this, but when it comes to Graph, struggling to figure out anything he says or does is a waste of your time and processing ability. He only shows up where he wants to, he only talks about what he wants to, and he only fights the opponents he wants to. Most likely, the reason Graph chose to tell Haruyuki this information was because he’s the most obedient listener in Nega Nebulus.”

“O-obedient listener? What does that mean?” Is that a compliment? Haruyuki wondered as he asked.

“It means that you are simply obediently impressed and don’t ask all sorts of questions,” Kuroyukihime answered quickly.

…That’s not a compliment, is it?

Without leaving him the chance to be disappointed, Kuroyukihime continued, “Graph intended to communicate to me through your mouth, Haruyuki, that The Fluctuating Light itself is the clear flag for Brain Burst and only that. In other words, Graph is perhaps trying to stop me from recklessly pursuing level ten.”

“……!!”

Haruyuki gasped involuntarily.

Level ten. Kuroyukihime’s final objective, one she would pursue even if it meant her own life as a Burst Linker. He could still vividly remember the words that came from her mouth in a café in Koenji the day after she gave Haruyuki Brain Burst.

Because I put it far above friendship, above honor…becoming level ten. You could even say that alone is what I lived for.

I want to know. Whatever it takes, I have to know. Isn’t…isn’t there something beyond this? This…shell called a human being…outside…something more…

“Kuroyukihime.” Haruyuki ever so timidly asked his swordmaster in a hoarse voice, “If it’s like Graph says and level ten is just a checkpoint…If the final objective of Brain Burst is The Fluctuating Light in the Castle, would you stop trying for level ten?” He himself didn’t really know what answer he hoped for from her.

The path toward level ten was blood-soaked and ruthless. She would have to drive four other level niners to total point loss, and it was entirely possible that she would end up at total point loss in the process. It hurt his heart to think about Kuroyukihime incurring so much rage and enmity, and of course, he didn’t want to even think about the counterattacks against her.

But he also didn’t want to watch her throw away what she had been so desperately working toward, based on the logical judgment that it was too dangerous or that it wasn’t necessary. She cut down any and all obstacles in her path with her blades and the maddening passion within them to charge forward. Haruyuki was helplessly drawn to this powerful figure, and he was sure the other Legion members felt the same.

Conflicting feelings in his heart, Haruyuki clenched both of his hands in front of him.

Kuroyukihime blinked once at him before smoothly replying, “Impossible. Whatever the reason Brain Burst was created, I have absolutely no intention of standing still at level nine.”

“Y-you don’t?” Haruyuki wasn’t sure whether it was okay to be relieved or not.

“The system message when I reached level nine was a challenge from the developer.” Kuroyukihime favored him with a bold smile. “I am indeed interested in the reason Brain Burst was created, and I do want to know the true nature of The Fluctuating Light. And I also have the simple desire to clear this game. But above all else, I want to meet the developer and ask them directly—no, question them. What is Brain Burst? What were you thinking when you made such a thing?” Kuroyukihime opened and closed the fingers of her raised hand while Haruyuki looked on.

Abruptly, Niko chuckled. “Kuroyuki, so basically that, then? You wanna fight the developer, yeah?”

“Aah.” Kuroyukihime looked like Niko had caught her with her guard down and then also laughed briefly. “Perhaps. If I could ball up and pummel the developer with everything I’ve experienced since I became a Burst Linker, it would certainly be a relief.”

“Let me jump in when ya do. Once you’re done chopping ’em up, I’ll burn ’em to ash.”

The two kings had innocent looks on their faces during this dangerous exchange, and then they burst into bright laughter. The corners of even Pard’s mouth loosened, so Haruyuki allowed himself to be swept up in the laughter. But at the same time, he couldn’t help but break into a cold sweat.

Later, the four went to pick up some things in the ground floor shopping mall before making supper together. On the menu was chilled tantan ramen with plenty of black sesame seeds, decided upon by Niko and Kuroyukihime because the colors were black and red. He thought this might have been a bit of a cooking challenge with this lineup, but Pard showed a surprising chef’s flair, and their dinner turned out exactly like the photo on the recipe site they had referenced.

The main topic of conversation while they ate was the trip to Yamagata planned for the beginning of August, and they filled the table with holowindows, chatting excitedly about how they wanted to go here or see that, which was a lot of fun. And the black sesame chilled tantan ramen was shockingly delicious. The time flew by in the blink of an eye.

After Haruyuki saw Niko and Pard, who would be going home by motorcycle, and Kuroyukihime, returning home in a taxi, to the sidewalk of Kannana Street, he didn’t feel like going back to his empty house right away, so he bought a drink from the vending machine and then set himself down on a bench in the shopping mall galleria on the first floor.

Eight o’clock came and went, and shoppers carrying multicolored paper bags and residents of the condo returning home passed back and forth along the large galleria. As he stared absently at this scene, Haruyuki heard Graphite Edge’s voice in his ears once again, his reply to Haruyuki’s question about what would happen if The Fluctuating Light was freed.

But if there was one thing I could say…I think the outcome will change the world.

What did that mean—the real world would change? Would a technology that surpassed the standards for the current year of 2047 be revealed just like with the Brain Burst program itself? Or would something happen with the social camera network, given the close connection there with BB?

Haruyuki threw his head back and looked up at the black sphere placed basically in the center of the ceiling. The social camera, red indicator light blinking slowly inside the shell, was almost like the eyeball of a large Enemy.

Now that he was thinking about it, how could Brain Burst so easily hack into the social camera network, with the most critical security infrastructure in the country? Graphite Edge hadn’t explained that, either. Kuroyukihime said she would type up the information from Graph, together with the matter of the Legion merger, and distribute it to the other Legion members, so Takumu might figure out a bunch of things from that. In fact, if it had been Takumu who heard Graph’s story, there was no way he would’ve been “simply obediently impressed.” These thoughts running through his mind, he continued to stare at the black camera.

“What are you doing, Haru? Sitting here like this.”

He heard a voice from outside his field of view and jerked his head back down.

Standing in front of the bench was his childhood friend, shouldering a bamboo sword case—the very Takumu Mayuzumi himself, in his school uniform.

“Oh, Taku. Hey, you’re home.” Haruyuki hurriedly moved to stand, but Takumu checked him with a hand and then sat down to his right.

“Yeah, I’m home.” He slipped the sword case off his shoulder and let out a sigh. “Aah, practice was tough today. I don’t want to get back up again.”

“Ha-ha! It must’ve been seriously hard if you’re out of energy. Oh, here! Have this.” Haruyuki handed him the bottle of rooibos tea he’d bought but still hadn’t opened.

Perhaps Takumu was quite thirsty; he accepted it with a simple “Thanks,” twisted the cap, and gulped about half of it down immediately. “Aah, this is giving me life…Sorry for taking it from you.”

“NP. You think you’ll win at the meet?”

“Ha-ha! Won’t know until I get there. Well, since I’m making a showing, even if I don’t win the individual fights or the group fights, I still want to go for a spot in the national meet. And…” Here, Takumu cut himself off and gripped the bottle with both hands.

“And?” Haruyuki prompted.

“Oh, uh…It’s kinda embarrassing to say, but I have to win as many matches as I can in front of Nomi without relying on acceleration.”

“…Right.” Haruyuki relaxed his mouth and nodded.

The Twilight Marauder Dusk Taker, aka Seiji Nomi, had lost all his Burst Points in a decisive battle against Haruyuki and Takumu three months earlier, leading to the loss of the Brain Burst program and any memory related to it. Now that he was an average seventh grader again, he adored his older teammate Takumu and worked hard on the kendo team. The Nomi of the present didn’t know anything about acceleration, so Takumu’s efforts were perhaps one-sided. But there was no doubt something in those efforts that would reach Nomi.

“For his sake, too, we totally have to win in the Territories on Saturday and crush the Acceleration Research Society,” Haruyuki said.

“Yeah, we do.” Takumu nodded deeply. “I’m actually feeling more pressure about that than the meet the next day.”

“What? The next day?”

“Yes! The Territories are the day after tomorrow, and the meet’s on the twenty-first. So I keep telling myself that if we can win against the White Legion, I can win at the meet, too.”

“Huh,” Haruyuki said. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, the kendo meet’s not all easy or whatever, but I seriously doubt there’s a school team out there scarier than Oscillatory.”

“Right, exactly. And the Green King the other day, too. After fighting a real high ranker in the Accelerated World, I can actually relax at something like a kendo meet. So although I’m scared that some fierce Oscillatory warrior’ll show up in the Territories, I’m also excited about it,” Takumu said, pushing up the bridge of his glasses.

“I get that.” Haruyuki looked at his handsome face in profile with admiration. “Okay! When I’m nervous about something in the real world, I’ll just try remembering when I fought a king or a super-class Enemy or something.”

“So, like, when would you be nervous?” Takumu asked, and Haruyuki sank into thought.

Right before a test, he would get so nervous that his palms would sweat, but once it actually started, he would inevitably get so desperate he’d forget he was nervous. And he was a lot less nervous talking with students other than Takumu and Chiyuri in class now that they were at the end of the first term of eighth grade.

A few hours earlier, when Niko and Kuroyukihime had been together at his house, that had made him pretty nervous, but if he told Takumu that, he didn’t know what kind of reaction he’d get, so he decided to keep quiet. Now that he was thinking about it, though, the Haruyuki who belonged to the Animal Care Club would never actually have the opportunity to be in a sports meet of any kind in the real world, so he guessed that it was basically just when he had to speak in front of a lot of people.

Here, Haruyuki remembered he had an important proposal to discuss with Takumu and briefly cried in dismay, “Ah!”

“Wh-what’s wrong, Haru?” Takumu wondered in surprise.

Haruyuki scratched his head for a second before opening his mouth. “Um. This has nothing to do with what we’re talking about—well, maybe it does a little bit, but…Taku, so like, I…I think I’m gonna do it.”

Even though Haruyuki had left out the object of that sentence, Takumu being Takumu had apparently understood exactly what he meant with the psychic power of a childhood friend. He opened his eyes wide for a second before grinning and nodding forcefully. “You are? Then you gotta go talk to Ikuzawa right away tomorrow.”

“Y-yeah. I do…right?”

“Of course. This is gonna be fun, Haru.” Still smiling, Takumu patted Haruyuki’s shoulder.

Ten days earlier, Mayu Ikuzawa, the class representative for eighth grade class C, had sounded Takumu and Haruyuki out about running for election for the student council in the new term. He’d put off giving her an answer for a fairly long time, but this was the second most important decision of his life—the first, of course, being when he accepted the installation of the BB program Kuroyukihime sent him—and he’d absolutely needed this much time to firm up his resolve.

But once he told Mayu Ikuzawa yes, there would be no taking it back. Ikuzawa admired the current vice president Kuroyukihime, and she had confessed that her motivation for running in the election was because she wanted to live like her. For Ikuzawa’s sake, too, Haruyuki would have to expend every effort until the election in September.

“I’m going to do everything I can to win,” he declared, although his voice was just a little wobbly.

Takumu squeezed Haruyuki’s shoulder and nodded. “Yeah, let’s go hard, Haru. In the Territories on Saturday…and in the second-term student council election.”

“And you in the meet and then at nationals!” Haruyuki added.

“Of course,” Takumu replied with a smile.

After saying good-bye to Takumu in the elevator hall and returning to his own condo, Haruyuki took an hour to finish his homework and then washed up with a quick shower instead of a bath before getting into bed.

It had been a very long day. Given that he’d spent over ten hours in the Castle, it was only natural, but he’d jammed far too much information into his head during the long hours as well, and he still hadn’t finished processing it all. Staring up at the ceiling in his dark room, it seemed that words like The Fluctuating Light and Legion merger and student council election were whirling around in the corner of his vision.

If I fall asleep like this, I’m probably going to have weird dreams, he thought as his exhaustion finally forced his eyelids down, and Haruyuki dropped into sleep, forgetting to even take his Neurolinker off.

And then, as predicted, he had a strange dream.

The entire sky was filled with stars. Above his head, where he stood on an invisible horizon, the countless points of light formed clusters like spherical galaxies, shining brilliantly. It wasn’t as though the stars were standing still; one would move randomly, collide with another, and then that star would move and hit yet another star. There was something almost organic about their activity.

He had seen this before.

“The Main Visualizer?” he murmured. There was no one there to answer him, but Haruyuki was certain.

It had been on June 19—exactly a month ago. Although Takumu had annihilated his enemies when given an ISS kit by Magenta Scissor, he had been taken prisoner by the dark power. That night, Haruyuki had fallen asleep with a wired connection between himself, Takumu, and Chiyuri, and had visited this space, dragged along by the unconscious Takumu.

This was the central server for Brain Burst, also known as the Main Visualizer, where all calculations in the Accelerated World were performed. If the Highest Level was the place where the entire world could be seen, then this space was perhaps the place where the true nature of the Accelerated World could be glimpsed.

But it wasn’t like he was equipped with an ISS kit, so why would he have wandered in here during his sleep once again? Or was this…?

“A real dream?” he muttered as he looked down at himself and patted at the hazy, transparent avatar of Silver Crow with both hands.

“This is not a dream.” He heard a voice from behind and whirled around. “Although I do not know exactly what these ‘dreams’ you little warriors have when your mental circuits are made to rest are…I know—you will show me right here and now, servant.”

There could only be one person making such absurd demands in such a haughty tone.

“M-M-M-Metatron?!” The reason Haruyuki squealed was not only because the Legend-class Enemy crowned with the name of an archangel had surprised him there. Rather than the usual small, 3-D icon shining faintly before his eyes was instead the figure of a girl so beautiful it was divine, with snowy-white wings and clad in a long dress. “Th-that form…Metatron, are your wounds healed?! So you’re okay now?!”

Unconsciously, he stretched his arms out to embrace her slender shoulders. Silver Crow’s hands and Metatron’s body were both semitransparent, but even so, he felt a hazy warmth from her, and he was so deeply moved that he started to hug her with all his might.

Eyes still closed, Metatron swiftly raised a hand and thrust a fingertip into the middle of Haruyuki’s face. “Wh-what manner of behavior is this, servant?! Do you consider this sort of insolent action to be appropriate for a servant?!”

“Hyah…I-I’m sorry…I was just so happy, I just…”

“And the recovery of my true form is not yet complete! Most likely, this space is a different phase from the Highest Level…If the phase I visited with you could be expressed as the data positioning, then this shows the data movement. Thus, I am depicted in this form, I suppose.” Although she had refused Haruyuki’s embrace, the Archangel didn’t try to move away from him as she looked up at the oscillating galaxy.

“If you still don’t have your power back,” Haruyuki said, “then how did you call me to this space?”

“To use the words of you little warriors, it was ‘the result of training.’”

“Tr-training?! What kind of training?” Haruyuki stared at Metatron, dumbfounded.

She opened her eyes the slightest bit and cleared her throat. “I have spent long hours enhancing the link that has been established between you and me in order to make it more certain. As a result, when all the conditions are met, I am now able to call you like this…That’s all.”

“W-wow…”

“Well, the enhancement is still needing much more improvement.”

“W-wow…” After being obediently impressed, he started reeling. “Uh, um, that’s, when you’re done enhancing the link, I wonder what’ll happen.”

The Archangel chuckled proudly. “My ultimate objective is to be able to visit the Lowest Level where you live.”

“Wh-whaaaaat?!” He threw his head back even farther, and this time, it was Metatron grabbing hold of his shoulders.

“What is that reaction exactly? Are you expressing your overabundant joy, servant?”

“O-oh, uh…I-I’d definitely be happy if you could come to my house, Metatron. Very.” As he spoke, he imagined running into his mother and shuddered all over.

The look on Metatron’s face grew even more suspicious, but eventually she laughed again. “It will take much more work to enhance the link before that becomes possible. I permit you to look forward to the day, Silver Crow.”

“Yeah. I’m looking forward to it. Totally,” Haruyuki replied obediently, before moving away from Metatron to look up at the galaxy of information once more.

When he sat down on the spot, the Archangel also lowered herself down next to him. For a while, they stared wordlessly at the flickering stars. Right around the time when he’d lost track of how long they’d been sitting there, Haruyuki asked, “Metatron? What do you think about the stuff Graphite Edge said in the Castle?”

Unusually, it took a while before her response came back to him. “I am deeply grateful that you could lead me into the Castle. However, the information input in that space is much too fragmentary, so I have not yet reached a conclusion. No…perhaps I should say that there is still insufficient data required to reach a conclusion.”

“Insufficient…Yeah, I get that. And I feel like Graph didn’t tell us the key parts. But…in that case, why didn’t you ask Graph anything yourself?”

“Mmm.” She paused again before murmuring, “I shall admit it. I was on guard against that little warrior.”

“O-on guard?”

“It’s not that I felt malice or ill will…He is different from the enemy who dragged me out of my palace. But something…Something—including that warrior—put me on guard. Even to simply name myself required some courage, albeit only a minute amount…It is impossible, but that warrior is…perhaps even greater than a Divine such as myself…” Metatron’s voice gradually faded until she broke off entirely.

When he turned his gaze toward her, the Archangel grabbed his head with her hand and roughly pushed it down, as if to say Don’t look at me. This inevitably set his head on her knees, but for some reason, the usual “Insolent creature!” did not come down on him, so he stayed where he was.

He could feel her soft warmth even through the helmet of his duel avatar, and a powerful desire to sleep came over him. But I wanted to talk more about stuff, he thought as his eyelids became so heavy he could hardly stand it.

“Someday, I will visit the Castle with you and meet him once more, I suppose. At that time, all mysteries will be revealed, and we will learn the meaning of our existence.” Metatron’s words echoed softly like a lullaby. “Go to sleep now, Silver Crow. And ready yourself for the fight to come…”

Listening to the stars’ faint orchestra of bells from Metatron’s lap, Haruyuki was consumed by a dark sleep.

Because Mayu Ikuzawa invited me.

Because I want administrator privileges on the in-school net.

Because I want Kuroyukihime to approve of me.

None of these was a lie exactly, but he felt like none of them was the fundamental reason for his decision, either. He searched the depths of his heart and put into words what popped up there. “I just…I wanted to do something. Something I haven’t been able to do before.”

A faint smile came across Saya’s lips. She brought the last of the tantan soup to her mouth and then finished the water in her glass before speaking. “Then you can just say that. The most important thing in a speech is how much of it reaches the hearts of the people listening. If you simply lay out some grand manifesto, it’ll go in one ear and out the other.”

“How much…reaches…,” Haruyuki murmured.

“Once you have a draft of your speech, show it to me.” His mother closed her newspaper and stood up with her bowl and glass. “I’m going to bed. Thanks for the soup.”

“G-good night.”

After putting away her dishes, Saya Arita deftly tapped at her virtual desktop and sent five hundred yen for lunch money to Haruyuki’s account before leaving the living room.

Friday, July 19, was cloudy as though the seasonal rain front had returned. His weather widget showed a 40 percent chance of precipitation from the afternoon, but since it still wasn’t raining by the time lunch came, Haruyuki invited Takumu and the class rep Mayu Ikuzawa to the roof of the second school building with him.

On the way, they each bought onigiri and sandwiches and things in the cafeteria, but before they started to eat, he bowed his head neatly at Mayu. “Ikuzawa, I’m sorry my answer’s so late.”

“Uh-uh, it’s fine. It’s an important decision. So?” Mayu cocked her head to one side expectantly.

Haruyuki caught Takumu’s eye for a moment before saying, “I’ll run together with you, Ikuzawa.” He was going to follow that up with “I don’t know how useful I’ll be, though”—but before he could, Mayu was shouting excitedly.

“Really?! Aah, thanks!! We’re gonna do this!!” A grin spread across her entire face, and then she quickly looked around. Fortunately, there were no other students on the roof. “I get it. The reason you brought us up here instead of the cafeteria was to avoid an information leak, huh?” Mayu nodded as if satisfied.

“Nah, it wasn’t that.” Takumu laughed cheerfully. “I think Haru was just embarrassed.”

“H-hey!” he protested. “It’s not just that. I figured if we were going to talk about election strategies, then it would be better if no one was around.”

“Getting ahead of yourself there. Well anyway, let’s eat lunch,” Takumu urged, and Haruyuki and Mayu turned their backs to the rooftop fence and sat down on the parapet, some forty centimeters high.

“That reminds me, Ikuzawa,” Haruyuki said, after taking a bite of his mentaiko onigiri and washing it down with some genmai tea. “Who’s the fourth member of the team?”

“Actually, I haven’t totally decided yet.” Mayu shrugged as she brought her tomato-and-cheese sandwich to her mouth. “It’s not that I don’t have some ideas, but I was thinking, like, how can I put it…? Someone with a sharpness like you and Mayuzumi’d be good.”

He unconsciously exchanged a look with Takumu on the other side of Mayu. Takumu didn’t have too many angles to him, but there wasn’t another student in the entire Umesato student body who was less sharp both externally and internally than Haruyuki. He unconsciously looked down at his body and its ample cushioning; Mayu shook her head in a huff.

“Uh-uh, I don’t mean ‘sharp’ like dangerous or hard. I mean someone with lots of parts other people don’t have.”

“Still, Taku is one thing, but that doesn’t fit me at all,” he protested.

“That’s not true.” Mayu’s serious face cut him off, and he looked up at the cloudy sky, which threatened rain at any second.

“The truth is, I think that everyone has something different from other people, something that’s just theirs. But it’s hard to express that to the outside world. When people think you’re different from everyone else, or you’re seeking attention, all kinds of bad things happen.”

She looked and sounded as though she had actually experienced this herself, but then this momentary cloud vanished instantly, and Mayu looked at Haruyuki again as she continued.

“But, Arita, you upgraded the exhibit for the school festival on your own; you made yourself a candidate for the Animal Care Club. You’re really working without trying to hide what you’re good at or what you like.”

“Oh. But I’m not actually good at either of those things. In fact, it’s more like I had to do something, so I did it because I didn’t have a choice, basically,” he confessed.

“What’s important is whether you actually do it. I think you’re someone who does things properly, Arita. That’s what I mean by sharp. In English, it wouldn’t be sharp, but maybe prominent.”

“P-prominent?” Haruyuki cocked his head to one side at the English word he couldn’t remember studying.

“Like this.” Mayu launched her memo app and smoothly spelled it out. “It means remarkable or foremost. As a noun, it’s prominence. Maybe you’ve heard that before?”

“Oh,” he said. “Like with the Sun.”

“Yeah. It means a solar flare, but also standing out and excellence.”

“Huh. I didn’t know that.” What popped up in the back of his mind was, of course, the Red Legion, led by Niko. There was no way of knowing what meaning the first Red King intended when he named it Prominence. But the Prominence inherited and kept safe by the second King, Niko, was going to merge with Nega Nebulus the following day, and an era would end.

And now, here was Mayu Ikuzawa teaching him the meaning of the word Prominence. Coincidental though it might have been, it felt like some kind of fate to him. He shot a glance at Takumu again, and they nodded to each other slightly before turning back to Mayu.

“Um. I don’t have that kind of confidence in myself yet, but I’m going to try to live up to your expectations, Ikuzawa,” Haruyuki said. “Thanks for asking me to join you.”

Mayu blinked in surprise once before nodding with force. “Yeah. Let’s try hard, Arita!”

“Naturally, I’ll give it everything I have, too,” Takumu added from where he sat across from them.

She turned back toward him and shouted, “Thanks, Mayuzumi!” Mayu thrust a hand out to each of them, and Haruyuki and Takumu grabbed hold.

After that, they talked as they ate, and it was decided that they would each put forth a candidate for their fourth member in the middle of July. At the same time as Haruyuki finished his second onigiri—ume bonito flavor—a drop of water touched the tip of his nose.

“Ah! It’s starting to rain.” Mayu put a hand to her forehead and looked up at the sky, sandwich wrapper crumpled in one hand.

Haruyuki also tilted his head back and stared at the sun shining hazily on the other side of the gray clouds when a sudden thought struck him. “That reminds me, Ikuzawa. The group of four candidates, usually people give them something like a team name, right?”

“Oh, right. Yes. Although you just use it during the campaign. It’s usually Blah Blah party or the Blah Blahs. Lots of names in the Team Blah Blah style. Registration starts in the second term, so I haven’t thought about it at all yet…Arita, you got any ideas?”

“Not so much an idea as something that just occurred to me,” Haruyuki said, standing up from the parapet/bench. “Just like, maybe we could make it the ‘prominent’ you just taught me, Ikuzawa. Team Prominent.”

“Team Prominent…” Mayu followed him to her feet and rolled the name around in her mouth a few times before breaking into a grin. “It sounds like we mean business. I like it! What d’you think, Mayuzumi?”

“I think it’s good, too.” Takumu grinned along with her, the light reflecting off his glasses.

Mayu bobbed her head up and down, setting her ponytail bouncing, and thrust her fist high up into the air, as though she were perhaps trying to push back the rain that had started to fall, and declared in a strident voice, “All right! Team Prominent starts now! Guys, let’s make this happen!”

“Yeah!” Haruyuki and Takumu shouted in unison.

The one who made the deepest impression was, of course, Master Kuroyukihime. Shihoko couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the otherworldly beauty of the Umesato student council vice president, using her handle name (?) of Kuroyukihime even in the real world, and her seemingly indefatigable (?) mental strength. Shihoko and her friends had nodded in agreement on the way home: Of course, the Black King was no ordinary person.

And then after Kuroyukihime, the second strongest impression had been made on her by Silver Crow—Haruyuki Arita. His face and body were both round, and his image was in stark contrast to his Accelerated World duel avatar. But just like when they’d met in the Unlimited Neutral Field, Shihoko’s nervousness melted away in the blink of an eye. It quickly became clear to her soon that Kuroyukihime and the others trusted him a great deal.

If it was Silver Crow…If it was him, with the strength to always accept his own weaknesses and push forward with all his might, he probably wouldn’t blanch at his opponent turning out to be a tag team.

Right…The reason Shihoko was in Setagaya wasn’t simply to fight and win. She had come this far to share something more important than victory with her former enemy.

“Satomi, Yume. And Corvus. I…I’m gonna do it!” Shihoko shouted in the frozen-blue world and punched the matching list button.

As she transformed from her Gretel avatar into her duel avatar, Chocolat Puppeter, Shihoko fell through the darkness until she landed on solid ground—no, until her feet were swallowed up by a shallow layer of water. Aware of waves lapping ticklishly at her ankles, she slowly opened her eyes. Instantly, the powerful sunlight dyed her field of view white.

She quickly adjusted the sensitivity of her eye lenses, and color returned to the world. Blue water stretched out endlessly. It was only about ten centimeters deep, but it covered the entire field. All the buildings had been turned into skeletal concrete frames bleached white in the sun, and the wind that blew between them swept up little wavelets on the water surface.

The natural-type, water-attribute Water stage. It was quite popular thanks to the bright sun and clear water, a design that allowed players to taste a bit of the resort life. But the instant Shihoko recognized the stage, she muttered, “Oh, crud.” But regardless, the duel had started. And by Shihoko challenging. All she could do now was fight with everything she had.

First, she checked on the situation. There were two health gauges displayed in the top right of her field of view, one upon the other. As expected, the one on top was Magenta Scissor, while the one below was Avocado Avoider.

There were also two guide cursors in the lower center of her vision. But they were indicating different directions. It seemed that Magenta and Avocado were in different places within the area. The one she was supposed to meet was Magenta, but she didn’t know which cursor was pointing toward her.

Finally, she spun around to take a look at her surroundings and saw the figures of the two members of the Gallery on the roof of the station building a little ways off. Of course, it was Mint and Plum. As Shihoko raised a hand to wave, they both jumped down.

After landing gently without sending any water spraying up, Satomi and Yume ran directly over to her, shouting alternately.

“What’ll we do, Choco?!”

“You’re up against a tag team?!”

“Why didn’t you just reaccelerate?!”

“And they’re level six and five, you know?!”

As the two interrogated her, she glanced at her own health gauge. The level displayed beside her avatar name was five, the same as Avocado. The power gap from the opposing tag team was absolute. But.

“Min-Min, Pliko. Listen?! A Burst Linker! Once she accelerates, all that’s left is to fight in earnest! She must!!”

““……””

Satomi and Yume fell silent, dubious looks on their faces.

“If you would think that I would shrink in the face of a tag team of a mere five and six, then you are greatly mistaken!” she declared in an even higher-pitched voice. “I will neatly defeat them both and happily accept the many points I earn!”

“But, Choco, you didn’t come to duel—,” Satomi started, but she didn’t get to finish.

Suddenly, her friends vanished from before her eyes. They’d been forcibly moved due to the fact that a dueler other than a parent or Legion member had approached to within a ten-meter circle. Shihoko quickly looked back.

Splsh! Meager waves rippled outward from the center of the station plaza where a human figure had descended to stand. Slender and tall. The F-type avatar silhouette was wrapped in reddish-purple, ribbon-type armor. Weapons like large knives were equipped on each hip, and the only body part exposed was the mouth, where a bewitching smile played.

The duel avatar was without a doubt Magenta Scissor. But there was just one thing that was different from the last time Shihoko had encountered her. She had no jet-black eyeball-type Enhanced Armament attached to the center of her chest—no ISS kit.

Her red lips moved, and Shihoko heard a husky voice. “I was wondering who’d come to challenge us in an area like this. If it isn’t our neighbor, Choco.”

Pushing back her nerves, Shihoko returned resolutely, “Unfortunately, my headquarters is no longer Setagaya Number Four.”

“Oh my! Did you move?”

“I did not!” She took a deep breath, threw out her chest, and named herself. “I am now Chocolat Puppeter of the Legion Nega Nebulus!”

The smile on Magenta’s lips faded somewhat. “Hmm. So you came all this way to tell me of your Legion transfer?”

“To be precise, it was not a Legion transfer. Petit Paquet was disbanded, and Min-Min, Pliko, and I all joined Nega Nebulus!” Shihoko announced, and Magenta’s faint smile disappeared altogether. She didn’t know if this was because the other Burst Linker was mad or exasperated or annoyed at the way Shihoko spoke.

Her somewhat formal tone was not because she was trying to create a particular character or use psychological warfare. At some point, she had become unable to speak any other way, no matter how she tried, when she was Chocolat Puppeter. Or rather, it was perhaps more accurate to say that once this tone had sunk into her, she’d finally been able to act naturally and fight in the Accelerated World. Satomi and Yume would sometimes tease her, but Shihoko surprisingly didn’t hate this self of hers. At the very least, she was far more free to speak her mind without fear than she was in the real world.

Right. She was here to speak. The reason she’d come to that area that day, the reason she’d challenged Magenta Scissor. Shihoko steeled her will and started to open her mouth.

But an instant before she could, Magenta said in an even cooler voice, “So then, you came to warn me? To say that the three of you are members of the Black Legion now, so I won’t get off so easily if I lay a hand on you?”

“Pardon?” Surprised into speechlessness, she clenched her hands into fists and indicated her denial of this with her whole body. “Wh-why, that’s not it at all!”

“So then, is this a pilgrimage or what? Did you come to get revenge on me for the ISS kit thing?”

“Th-that is even more incorrect! You have the whole situation wrong!” Shihoko shook her head so forcefully that her bonnet threatened to go flying. “It is true that I won’t so easily forget the fact that you forcefully parasitized Min-Min and Pliko with the ISS kits, or that you tried to hunt our friend Coolu. However…Silver Crow told me how you helped him and the others in the end, in the battle to destroy the ISS kit main body.”

Magenta’s lips curled with dissatisfaction. “That story’s gotten a bit exaggerated, it seems. I wasn’t helping Crow; I was just trying to protect my comrades.”

“That’s fine, too. If you have the desire to protect your comrades…then that means you’re a Burst Linker just like us.” Shihoko had gotten that far when the water at Magenta Scissor’s feet scattered in an explosion of white spray.

With a fierce charge, Magenta closed the distance between them at once. Her hand flattened like a sharp sword cut through the whiteout of the spray and closed in on Shihoko’s neck.

Clenching her teeth, Shihoko sank down and twisted her upper body. Magenta’s strike grazed her neck with a tch and slipped past. Her health gauge dropped ever so slightly, and she wanted more than anything to leap back, but fleeing carelessly was deeply inadvisable at this stage.

She grabbed hold of Magenta’s left arm with both hands and braced her feet firmly in the water as she threw her backward with what was essentially a one-armed shoulder throw. The taller duel avatar should have slammed into the water on her back, but she deftly did a somersault in the air and stuck the landing quite magnificently.

Here, Shihoko finally stepped back and snapped a finger at Magenta. “That is very dangerous all of the sudden…indeed!”

Magenta looked back and fortunately did not pursue the attack, but now a very clear animosity bled into her voice. “It’s a duel; it’s supposed to be dangerous. Anyway, nice job standing there and evading that. I’m a little surprised.”

“I have a long history as a recluse in the Unlimited Neutral Field. I may not have very much duel experience, but I have memorized all the attack strategies in the various stages.”

As she spoke, she checked the water beneath her feet. The liquid covering the Water stage was only ten centimeters deep, but in close combat, this meager water depth was more treacherous than it seemed. Players would forget that only their feet were sunk into the water, and when they carelessly tried to jump or run, they were more likely than not to fall. When moving, you first had to lower your center of gravity and make very sure of your foothold. This was the trick Shihoko had learned through painful experience from playing tag and stepping on shadows with Satomi, Yume, and Coolu.

Meanwhile, being level six, Magenta Scissor of course was familiar with this somewhat rare stage. Even without the ISS kit, Shihoko was forced to admit that she was a worthy warrior with the sharpness of her striking hand and earlier somersault. Which was exactly why she could not lose here, of all places.

“Magenta. Given that I was the one who challenged you, I have no intention of evading the fight. However…after that, I would ask that you hear what I have to say.”

A thin smile rose up on Magenta’s lips once more. “Well then, you’ll have to try hard to keep me from taking you down. Because once this duel is over, I’m going to cut my global connection immediately.”

“All right.” Shihoko nodded, adding in a resolute voice, “I would ask that you also do not leave the battlefield so simply…please!”

At the same time as she finished speaking, she kicked off the ground beneath the water as hard as she could. The tips of her toes sliding along the surface, she closed the distance between them in a heartbeat.

Chocolat Puppeter’s armor basically only looked like chocolate; it didn’t melt in the sun or break upon impact. But even so, it was equipped with several properties based on chocolate. The most peculiar of these was the sweetness when you licked it, and her heat resistance was on the low side, but it would also repel water. Thanks to this water-repellent property, she could diminish water resistance to a certain degree in a Water stage. Dashing to close in on Magenta, Shihoko sliced through the water with a left mid-kick.

In a reaction befitting her, Magenta bent her right arm. The armor of Shihoko’s leg beat down from above this guard.

Clang! Magenta was knocked slightly off-balance.

“Hah!” Even as she staggered, she launched a left hook in a counterattack with a sharp cry.

Shihoko sank down to dodge it and drew in close to Magenta, pressing on her opponent’s neck with both hands as she stabbed her left knee into the ribboned avatar. One blow, two, and then three!

Magenta’s ribbon armor perhaps didn’t have such a high resistance to strikes; with the three Ti Khao knee strikes in succession, her health gauge dropped over 10 percent.

“Ngh.” Undaunted, Magenta threw out punches with her right and left arms, but given her long reach, her movements were awkward in these close quarters. And the strikes from above were obstructed by Shihoko’s large hat, so they didn’t manage to reach her face.

To escape from a clinch, the standard practice was to either remove your opponent’s grip from the inside with both hands or spin around to the side. But Magenta had apparently not studied that far. Still clinging to her, Shihoko took what she could of the other girl’s gauge with strikes and took the lead in the fight.

As Magenta crumpled, Shihoko was just about to drive home her fourth knee kick. But then an icy shiver caressed her stomach.

Reflexively, she released her hold and shoved on her opponent’s shoulder to create some distance. A silver flash raced upward in the gap that was created between them.

An icy chill shot through her, from her stomach up into her chest, and the bright-red damage effect chased after it. As she looked to see her own health gauge drop 5 percent in the corner of her eye, Shihoko jumped even farther back.

In her outstretched hand, Magenta Scissor was gripping a large knife. The tip of the blade, whipped out sharply from her right hip, had sliced effortlessly through Shihoko’s armor.

Regretting how she had become utterly focused on a weaponless battle, just like when she was sparring with Satomi, Shihoko dropped into position without a word.

But Magenta slowly lowered the knife of her right hand and called out with a smile, “I’m a tad surprised. I thought you were a long-range type, and here you are surprisingly accustomed to hand-to-hand combat, hmm? Where’ve you been training?”

“Min-Min—Mint Mitten—goes to a martial arts dojo on the other side. She is 1.3 times stronger than I am.”

Instantly, a voice came down from up on a nearby building—“Your numbers are ridiculous!”—but she decided to ignore it.

Magenta also didn’t react, but instead she nodded lightly, her eyes still on Shihoko. “I see. So they’re techniques you spent time learning in the real…I must apologize for not taking you seriously, then.” She also removed the knife on her left hip with her other hand and spun the two weapons at top speed before snapping into a fighting position.

At first glance, it looked like she fought with a blade in each hand, but that was actually not the case. The two knives were together a single Enhanced Armament, and by fusing them, Magenta created the scissors that were the origin of her avatar name. And then she would show what she was really made of…

But Magenta didn’t move to cross the two knives. “I’m gonna use this, so you can go ahead and summon them, Choco. Your delicious-looking puppets.”

“I’m sorry to tell you, but my special-attack gauge is still insufficiently charged,” she replied, but the truth was, her gauge was just barely full enough for her to call up one Chocopet. But sadly, she couldn’t summon it right away.

That was the reason Shihoko had muttered “Oh, crud” the instant she realized it was a Water stage—she couldn’t use the Cocoa Fountain special attack here, the prerequisite for summoning her Chocopets. In other words, she needed to move to a dry place to call her Chocopets, but the majority of this stage was covered with water. And the buildings were only concrete skeletons; there was no space there where she could create her Cocoa Pond.

Perhaps realizing the situation Shihoko was in or perhaps not, Magenta kept her faint smile as she spoke. “Well then, I’ll charge it up a bit for you.” She took a step forward, the knives in both hands glittering ominously.

Then.

The water in the plaza in front of the station rocked and surged with a wave that was not generated by the wind. Regularly, once a second, the water surface shuddered. If she listened carefully, she could also hear the showy splash, splash of the water.

“Oh my,” Magenta murmured, retreating as she lowered her knives.

Very carefully readying herself, Shihoko also glanced in the direction of the sound.

On the road—no, the waterway—connecting with the station plaza, a silhouette was slowly approaching from the south. Despite the fact that it was still quite far away, the water shuddered and rippled due to the immense size of the shadow. A Burst Linker without forehand knowledge might have mistaken it for an Enemy, although they were not supposed to exist in the normal duel field.

Two and a half meters tall. A meter and a half wide. The massive bulk wrapped in dark-green armor was perfectly egg-shaped. Running along on short, fat legs, sending magnificent sprays of water up into the air, was none other than Magenta’s partner, Avocado Avoider.

…So we’re finally getting serious here? she murmured to herself, slowly inching backward. She had almost been literally eaten by this very Avocado once before.

A few seconds later, Avocado raced into the plaza and stood next to Magenta. No sooner had he done so than his low voice rumbled out and intensified the water’s rippling. “Sorry, Magenta! I’m late!”

“It’s no big deal, Avo. You’re in the south of the area and all…And at any rate, I was planning to do this fight alone.” She hooked her fingertip through the ring-shaped knife grip—more precisely, the handle of the scissors—and spun it around.

“No!” Avocado shook his head, together with his large body. “I…I wanna fight with you!”

“Oh yeah? But our opponent’s level five, you know? And a level five and six duo attack, well, that’d be picking on someone weaker than us.”

There is no need for concern! Shihoko nearly shouted. But when she had gotten the “there” in her mouth, Avocado’s loud voice drowned her out.

“Then I’ll fight Choco by myself!” he declared, the small eye lenses on the upper part of his egg-shaped body flashing as he took a heavy step forward.

Magenta shrugged as if to say “Well, there you have it” and called out to Shihoko. “Choco, hon, sorry, but maybe you could take Avo on instead. Looks like he’s really been looking forward to a rematch with you.”

“I—I have no objection,” she replied, but in her heart, she couldn’t help thinking Whoa, indeed.

The truth was Chocolat Puppeter wasn’t so incompatible with Magenta Scissor, although only under the condition that she was able to summon her Chocopets. Because the Chocopets, chocolate in human form, were basically immune to Magenta’s blade attacks.

But it was no exaggeration to say that her compatibility with Avocado Avoider was the worst. On top of Avocado’s soft armor rendering nearly all physical attacks ineffective, his large mouth was big enough to swallow her Chocopets whole, and they were weak to biting attacks. The only way she could come up with to fight him was to blow away the soft armor with an annoying string of striking attacks and yank out the true avatar body inside. And anyway, there wasn’t any ground anywhere nearby for her to summon her Chocopets.

But if she lost here, she wouldn’t be able to achieve her main objective of talking with Magenta.

In terms of level, and in terms of compatibility with both stage and opponent, this was indeed a fierce situation. But she had to turn those disadvantages around and fight bravely—even if she couldn’t win, she had to show enough resolve to persuade Magenta at the very least. As a member of Nega Nebulus. As one Burst Linker who loved the Accelerated World.

“All right. Come, Avocado Avoider!!” Shihoko shouted, adopting an upright posture in the style of Muay Thai.

Avocado raised his short arms and shouted back, “I…tried to eat you last time! But today…I win!!”

Letting out a roar, he charged in a straight line, and each time the super-heavyweight avatar stepped on the ground, columns of water shot up like a fountain.

In the back of Shihoko’s mind, a fragment of a thought made a noise as it was given a singular shape. The battle with Silver Crow ten days earlier…He had grasped the terrain of the stage three dimensionally and defeated Shihoko with unexpected methods. Of course, Chocolat Puppeter didn’t have the ability to fly. But she should still be able to do the same thing. To do so, first of all, she had to get the upper hand on Avocado health gauge–wise.

Shihoko stood waiting in place for the massive egg-shaped bulk charging ferociously toward her.

“Hyoooaaanh!” Avocado spread his arms and jumped. Crushing the enemy with his heavyweight body protected by thick armor was his standard move. It was simple, but the attack was hard to counter. But if she started running away in the early stages of the fight, she would lose precious time.

“Ooyah!” With a single battle cry, she took decisive action, sliding directly beneath him. Slipping along the water surface, she just barely managed to pass under the falling bulk and slip out behind him.

Splooooosh! The sound of water filled the air, and a fountain of spray shot up. Showered in water droplets, she turned around and flew at Avocado, who was trying to get to his feet.

It was the perfect chance for a counterattack, but any reckless kicks or punches would be absorbed by his soft armor and do no damage. Given how short his arms and legs were, they seemed sturdy; joint techniques were also hopeless.

She took careful aim and launched a blow with all her might behind it for a direct hit on the real body of the avatar inside the armor. Avocado’s real body—she’d seen it once before—was a mere fifty centimeters around. This was buried in the center of the green shell that was a meter and a half around. In other words, to do damage to the real body, she had to pierce fifty centimeters of armor.

The gym that Shihoko’s master Satomi went to was a so-called mixed–martial arts type, but for strikes, the foundation was Muay Thai techniques. Naturally, Shihoko had also been taught these, but for some reason, she’d only been given permission to use the left mid-kick, the left jump, and the right straight in a real fight. However, she had a modest pride in these techniques, given that she had practiced essentially an infinite number of times in the time that was essentially infinite in the Unlimited Neutral Field. In the Silver Crow fight before, as well, if it had been just close combat on the ground, there was also a moment when she could see that she would have taken the lead.

The trick of the right straight punch according to Satomi: Brace your left foot like unh, twist your right heel like whup, fwwm your right hip around, bwam the force of rotation and your body weight behind it—and then kablam! Out in a straight line like you’re firing a massive gun from your right shoulder!!

Faithfully following the excessively onomatopoeiaed instructions, Shihoko launched her right straight and dug deep, ever deeper into Avocado’s back as he was getting to his feet.

The soft armor, with the viscosity and elasticity of bread dough allowed to rise once, caught her fist and tried to push it back. But Chocolat Puppeter’s armor was very smooth—almost Teflon—and her small fist gouged into the soft body, piercing it, and reached the avatar’s naked body.

The feedback was more like she had pushed rather than punched, but Avocado’s pit—or rather main body—had basically zero defensive abilities, and his health gauge dropped over 10 percent. Once she pulled her arm out, the wound was filled in, so she gave up on a follow-up attack and got some distance.

“Now I have turned the tables, Avocado!” she shouted, a sad attempt at a challenge, and made both of them check his gauge before whirling on her heel. She ran for the station building adjacent to the plaza.

“I…don’t lose!” Avocado shouted from behind as he stood and set off after her in hot pursuit.

The building was only a frame, but the stairs were there just like she remembered. She flew up the bare concrete steps, racing toward the top floor. Avocado gave chase, making the entire structure shake.

The roof was a flat surface, a latticework of gaps. Satomi and Yume were at the very far edge. She stopped to respond to their cheers by striking a tough pose and then dashed in the direction of the plaza along the lattice structure.

“You won’t get away, Choco!!” Avocado rushed out headlong from the staircase, roaring. He slipped a couple times, but given that he was bigger than the gaps in the latticework, he didn’t fall down but rather half tripped his way over to Shihoko.

The station building was about fifteen meters tall. Although there was water below, it was shallow, so if Chocolat Puppeter fell, she wouldn’t walk away unscathed. Meanwhile, Avocado would no doubt be unharmed in a fall thanks to his thick, soft armor. Which was exactly why he had chased after her without a second thought.

“Come, Avocado Avoider!!” On the northern edge of the roof, she stood on the thirty-centimeter frame and waggled the outstretched fingers of her hand beckoningly.

“I…win!!” With this simple declaration, Avocado threw his arms out and dashed toward her. His strategy was probably to grab hold of her and then fall together. This time, there was no space for her to slip underneath him, and he was nearly three meters wide with his arms out, so it would be hard to dodge to either side in front of him.

But Shihoko was calm as she stood waiting for Avocado. The massive egg filled her field of view. She could hear Satomi and Yume yelling for her to get out of the way.

Not yet. She would draw him in further. Shihoko waited until Avocado was close enough that he could no longer stop himself.

“Now!” The moment she had carefully set her sights on was here; she jumped back.

Naturally, there was no foothold there. Shihoko began to drop soundlessly. If she kept going and hit the ground, she wouldn’t be able to avoid serious damage. But her hands caught onto the edge of the frame passing before her eyes, and using the force of the reaction, she swung her feet in ahead of her and yanked herself up through a gap in the lattice with something along the lines of a gymnastics move.

Directly ahead of her feet was Avocado’s back. She used her toes to push him with everything she had, and the heavyweight avatar leapt from the roof.

“I’m falling!” he announced faithfully before disappearing from her sight.

Having climbed up onto the frame once again, Shihoko stared down at the falling Avocado. A second later, the massive body slammed into the water in the plaza, atomizing the liquid into jets of frothy spray. His soft armor was completely flattened, and just as she’d expected, this absorbed the majority of the impact so that Avocado was essentially unharmed.

However, this situation—this moment—was precisely what Shihoko had been aiming for. Avocado’s impact had displaced enough water to lay bare a circle of tiled earth more than ten meters across. It would of course be covered again soon enough, but she only needed a few seconds.

Brandishing her hand high above her head, she turned her index finger toward the dry land and shouted, “Cocoa Fountain!!”

A shining brown pond welled up immediately next to Avocado. She yanked her finger up and yelled, “From there…Puppet Maker!!”

The pond instantly contracted, and a human shape made of chocolate sprang forth from its center. Shihoko gave orders to the automatic doll, whose face shone with a flower pattern. “Chocopet! Evade attack!!”

Avocado had finally gotten back up. He had no sooner noticed the Chocopet standing in a defensive posture next to him than he was thrusting both hands out and opening his massive mouth. “I…eat choco!”

Since the Chocopet could only use striking techniques, it had no way of doing damage to Avocado. Meanwhile, Avocado Avoider could bite down on the avatar whole with his mouth, which was rumored to be filled with a void.

Thus, Shihoko had ordered the Chocopet to focus on evasion, but it wouldn’t be able to keep that up for long. If it could keep Avocado’s attention for twenty—no, ten seconds, though, that would be plenty.

From the roof fifteen meters up, she stared at Avocado chasing the Chocopet. It might have been the Accelerated World, but she was honestly afraid. She’d never once jumped of her own will from somewhere this high up. But she had been knocked down from a place many times higher up than this. And Shihoko had learned then that while there was the risk of instant death, the vast energy that a fall from up high generated could also be a powerful weapon. Next time, she would ask Silver Crow to take her as high up as he could ascend.

She stretched out her right foot, toes pointed sharply. Below, she saw that Avocado had finally succeeded in capturing the Chocopet and was opening his large mouth to devour it.

From the edge of the plaza, Magenta Scissor, who had been watching quietly up to that point, shouted sharply, “Avo! Above!!” They were a tag team, so it wasn’t particularly a breach of etiquette to give him advice. But it was too late.

“Hanga…?” Avocado Avoider made a strange sound as he started to look up at the sky.

And then Shihoko’s foot stabbed into the top of the egg-shaped avatar. Chocolat Puppeter’s slender and relatively smooth, slippery leg gouged ever deeper into Avocado’s soft armor, which had defended against even the full weight of Silver Crow’s spiral kick, and the tips of her toes touched the real body hidden deep inside. This time, she felt a definite sense of impact, and Avocado’s health gauge dropped 20 percent all at once.

“O-ow!!” Avocado shrieked and released the Chocopet to try to grab ahold of Shihoko piercing his head. But his arms were too short and couldn’t reach her. Meanwhile, Shihoko fought the peristalsis of the soft armor trying to push her leg back out and ground the tips of her toes into the main body.

“Now admit that you’re in quite the bind! Otherwise, I’ll make it hurt even more!” Shihoko thought about it, and then thought some more, and decided I kind of don’t like how that sounds.

“N-no!” Avocado was flailing out of control, but he had a surprising stubborn streak. “I…will fight Choco more. More!”

“Then I guess I have no choice!” Hardening her heart, Shihoko put every bit of strength she had into a kick to smash Avocado’s body.

“Avo! That’s enough!!” The cry echoed across the plaza. The owner of the voice was Magenta Scissor. She was walking toward them with her arms crossed, both her knives back on her hips. Avocado froze, and Shihoko hung her head, still stabbing into the top of the other avatar.

“I lose…,” Avocado announced, slumping to sit on the spot, so Shihoko pulled her foot out and jumped down from his head.

They still had half the duel time left. She stepped back together with the precious Chocopet she’d finally been able to summon and stared at the approaching Magenta. She’d managed somehow to get a victory by decision over Avocado, but Magenta was still essentially unharmed. This was the real start of the duel—or so she thought.

Magenta came to a stop next to Avocado and patted him near the top where the hole was still open as she spoke in a curt but warm voice, “You did your best there, Avo. Choco was a cut above today, but you’ll be able to fight much better next time.”

“Next time…,” Avocado murmured, whirling around on the fulcrum of his butt. “Choco. Will you come again?”

“Uh…Um.” She was unconsciously stuck for an answer, but with those tiny eye lenses staring hard at her, she got the feeling that she couldn’t just simply refuse. She cleared her throat and put her hands on her hips. “W-well, if the spirit moves me, I suppose I could do you the favor of coming again.”

“Yay!” Avocado Avoider waved both arms wildly. “Next time, I eat—no, win!!”

A transparent smile rose up on Magenta Scissor’s face for the merest instant, a smile that quickly became challenging as she turned to look at Shihoko. “Now…what’ll you do, Choco? You wanna keep the duel going with me as your opponent? Or do you want to have your chat or whatever?”

As a Burst Linker, she should perhaps reply, “I will fight, of course!” But her opponent still had plenty of energy to spare. If Magenta was willing to listen to what she had to say, then she had to take advantage of this opportunity.

“Well then, I would ask that you hear what I have to say,” Shihoko responded, and Magenta waved her hand, urging her to speak then. She took a step forward and a deep breath, but then her throat closed up like it was glued shut. She frantically tried to open her mouth, but her throat was spasming so hard that she couldn’t make a sound no matter how she tried.

There was no way for involuntary movement to happen to an avatar in a virtual world. It wasn’t her flesh-and-blood body shrinking; it was her spirit. Right. Chocolat Puppeter’s high-handed way of speaking was no doubt a mask to hide her own shyness.

Shihoko was extremely bad at handling conflict. She held her breath at school so that she wouldn’t stand out, and if she sensed trouble brewing, she left the scene immediately. She feigned an agreeable smile in front of everyone, and even if something made her mad, she would never let it show. Even with her own parents, she had gotten into the habit of being one step ahead so that they wouldn’t get angry with her. She thought that she let her true self out with Satomi and Yume, but that could have just been her deluding herself.

She had told her friends that the mental trauma that was the resource for her duel avatar Chocolat Puppeter was the fact that she had been allergic to chocolate since she was small, and she herself 90 percent believed that. But…what if…perhaps the armor with the scent, texture, and taste of chocolate was an expression of her desire not to be hated? Perhaps the mask of the friendly smile that Shihoko wore in the real world had produced her sweets avatar in the Accelerated World.

If that was the case, it was deeply ironic that she was finally able to act freely by wearing a high-handed and antagonistic mask with this avatar. Or was she actually just doing the same kind of performance as in the real world? Had she been stifling herself all this time in this world, too? What on earth was the “real” her?

“Magenta.” Before she knew it, the stiffness had vanished from her mouth, and Shihoko spoke her former nemesis’s name. “Indeed, I— The truth is: I didn’t really like duels too much.”

Magenta was staring hard at her. Taking in the powerful gaze emitted by the invisible eye lenses, Shihoko continued, without noticing that at some point she had adopted her usual real-world tone, “All this time, I thought it was enough if I could just have fun hanging out with my friends in this world cut off from reality. But…Brain Burst is a fighting game, so I can’t keep running away from the fights forever. There’s going to come a time when I’ll have to fight to stay in this world. And lately, I’ve been thinking that you’re the one who made me realize that, Magenta.”

“How incredibly spoiled you are,” Magenta said coolly, lips twisting up. “I mean, all of you, you fought any number of duels to reach level five, right? In the process, you stole plenty of points from other Burst Linkers. I’m not saying that’s bad or anything. But now you stand here, telling me you just forgot about all the Burst Linkers you stepped on so you could pal around having fun; I mean, you gotta be kidding me.”

The anger in Magenta Scissor’s words cut through Shihoko’s heart and made it ache painfully. But it was only natural that when one person and another person slammed their individual truths up against each other, there would be anger—and pain. They couldn’t communicate their true feelings if she kept avoiding that.

“I…guess…up to now, I’ve only been thinking of us. I’ve just been like, it’s fine as long as we’re having fun. But after meeting you and your friends, Magenta Scissor, and Crow and them, I understand. I was given power in order to fight, and if the time comes when I should fight, then I have to fight. In order to be a Burst Linker…and to protect the things I want to protect. That feeling…it’s the same for you, isn’t it?”

Magenta pursed her lips tightly and raised a hand with its tapered nails, as if to grab the center of her chest covered in the ribbon armor. The place where a jet-black eye had once parasitized her. “I don’t have a single thing I wanna protect in this twisted world. But if we’re talking things I want to destroy, I can’t even count how many of those I have,” she spat, her voice like ice.

“Liar!” Shihoko shouted, putting her own hand to her chest in the same way. “At the very least, you want to protect Avocado! That’s why you sought power, isn’t it?!”

“Don’t talk like you know me! You and your cute avatar and your powerful abilities, what would you know?!”

“I do know! I love Min-Min and Pliko, too! And that feeling has to be there inside you, too!!”

“If you say any more stupid stuff—!” Magenta’s hand flashed out to clasp onto the grip of her knife.

But in that instant, Avocado Avoider opened his massive mouth and roared at an incredible volume, “I…love Magenta!!” Surprisingly large tears spilled from his tiny eye lenses, and the egg-shaped duel avatar shouted, “I like Choco, too…And Crow…So I want to fight! I want to fight lots more. I want to get strong and be friends!!”

“…Avo…” Magenta Scissor called her partner’s name in a stifled voice, and the tension drained from her body bit by bit. Pulling her hand away from her knife, she gently stroked Avocado’s armor. When she lifted her face and looked at Shihoko, she asked, the anger in her voice faded, “Chocolat Puppeter, you…What do you want from us?”

“I want you,” Shihoko said, placing her other hand over the one on her chest, “to fight the Acceleration Research Society with us—with Nega Nebulus.”

Finally, the girl who had given her name as Rui Odagiri moved her mouth, the corners climbing into a coquettish smile, something she did indeed share with the scissor-wielding avatar. “Your character is exactly the same as it is over there, hmm, Silver Crow?”

“Ah…Uh, i-is it?”

“The reason I’m visiting you today is because Choco and the girls scouted me.”

“Oh. I-is that what happened? …But like, wait. S-scouted?!” He whirled around to stare at Shihoko, who had emerged from the kitchen.

Shihoko, who had previously fought fierce battles against Magenta, laughed sheepishly when she met Haruyuki’s eyes.

“Um, well, not to get ahead of things here, but we went to Setagaya Number Five to see Magenta and ask her to come fight with us,” Yume, formerly the brains of the Petit Paquet organization, announced as she looked over the frame of her glasses. “There was a bunch of stuff in the middle there, but that’s how it turned out.”

“Hey, heeeey!” Shihoko shouted, running over to give Yume a chop on the head.

“Ouch!”

“C’mon, Yume! Don’t skip the important bits! I tried super-hard out there!”

“……?”

Haruyuki cocked his head to one side curiously, and Magenta/Rui smiled.

“Choco challenged Avo and me all by herself when we were tag teaming and got a win by decision.”

“W-wow!” He could only be obediently surprised at this. Chocolat Puppeter was level five while Magenta Scissor was six, and Avocado Avoider was also five. A solo victory over a tag team with an added-together level of double hers was nothing other than a truly spectacular achievement.

But Shihoko laughed with embarrassment once more as she shook her head. “Uh-uh. The truth is, I just fought Avocado one-on-one. But I feel like that was the first time I’ve worked so hard in a solo duel.”

“You did…So wait. Avocado isn’t here…?” Haruyuki shifted his gaze from Shihoko.

“Unfortunately, Avo can’t move away from Setagaya,” Rui replied, shaking her lustrous black hair. “He’s been in the hospital for a long time now.”

“Hospital…,” Haruyuki murmured.

Rui glanced at him before turning to Satomi next to her. “I think you would know it, Mint. There’s that big hospital right next to Kinuta Park, right?”

“Oh. Right.” Satomi nodded. “The place where they treat children.”

“Right. Originally, it was called the National Children’s Hospital, but now it’s the National Center for Child Health and Development. That’s where Avo and I met,” Magenta Scissor said.

Utai began to move her fingers quickly. UI> I WENT MYSELF A NUMBER OF TIMES FOR TESTS FOR APHASIA.

“So then, maybe I just missed you there, Maiden,” Rui replied, a faint smile crossing her lips, and then continued. “Avo’s disease isn’t the life-threatening kind. But I can’t actually be the one to tell you what it is. He’s really dying to meet all the Nega Nebulus members, so I’d love it if you’d come to Setagaya Five at some point.”

“Yes. Of course. At the time, we’ll invite him to join the Legion as well,” Kuroyukihime replied, and Rui dipped her head in thanks.

Staring at all this, Haruyuki absolutely couldn’t help but think that the fact that they met in the hospital meant that Rui, too, had a reason for getting treatment or being hospitalized there.

As if reading his mind, Rui turned her gaze on him. The diagonal cut of her bangs almost completely covered her right eye, so that only her left eye shone with a strong light. Smiling once again, she parted her lips. “A few years ago, a small-scale Legion was born at the National Center for Child Health and Development. More than a few kids hospitalized or getting treatment there had had to wear a Neurolinker since soon after they were born because of their illnesses. I did, too.”

She cut herself off there for a moment and looked down at her own hands.

“I have what’s called Gertsmann syndrome. My own symptoms are finger agnosia and left-right disorientation. So basically, I have a hard time distinguishing my own fingers, and I don’t understand left or right. With my Neurolinker, I can display a mark on my fingers and hands, but even so, I’ve had the thought a million times: Just one hand would be fine; just one finger would be good—and yet.”

Haruyuki looked at Rui’s slender hands and then suddenly noticed that her right wrist was encircled by a zigzagging scar. It was almost like she had tried to cut off her hand with a large pair of scissors.

“You said that you hate pairs of things that are one, Magenta…Is that why?” Unconsciously, Haruyuki gave voice to this question. In his heart, he panicked that he’d gone and asked something rude, but the look on Rui’s face didn’t change as she nodded.

“There’s that, too. Chopsticks, shoes, scissors…And human arms create a left-right just by existing there. I mean, when I was taught how to use chopsticks at daycare, I was told to put the right chopstick between the index finger and thumb, middle finger of my right hand—and the left chopstick between my thumb and middle finger, ring finger…Just hearing that, I thought I’d lose my mind.”

Chuckling, she laid her hands in her lap and continued quietly.

“So when I got Brain Burst from a kid I knew at the hospital, and my own duel avatar had arms and fingers like normal, I was a little disappointed. But…the most disappointing thing was that the Burst Linkers besides me picked on Avo, who was the last to join us, because of his appearance. I thought, well, this is just the same as the outside world. But I didn’t have the power to stop them; they were all higher level than me. So I got ahold of the ISS kits…and drove all the Burst Linkers at the treatment center to total point loss, including my parent and Avo’s.”

The entire group listened silently to Rui’s monologue. The internal strife and collapse of a small-scale community was absolutely not unheard of in the Accelerated World. But she hadn’t simply let the situation unfold; she’d sought power of her own will and used it.

“I don’t regret doing that. But…you all surpassed the power of the ISS kit, when I thought they could change the Accelerated World. So I want to keep an eye on your fight until the end. And if you’ll permit me, I’d like to fight again, alongside you this time. Of course…that is if you’ll have me after I did those things…”

Even after Rui closed her mouth, no one moved to say anything for a while.

Haruyuki slowly looked over at Rin, seated the furthest away from Rui at one end of the dining table. Her older brother Ash Roller had been forcibly parasitized with an ISS kit at Magenta Scissor’s hand the day before the school festival last month. In order to save Rin suffering from the mental interference from the kit, Ash had been prepared to even be banished from the Accelerated World with the Judgment Blow.

Before the mental interference could become that serious, however, they had managed to destroy the main kit body, albeit with some difficulty, but there was no doubt that it had been rough on Rin and Ash. How would Rin take what Magenta Scissor was saying here?

Then Rin lifted her head finally, having kept it down all this time, and looked at Haruyuki. Her usual gentle smile rose up on her face, and she nodded slowly before turning and taking a deep breath.

“Taking an ‘over’ thing and making it a ‘forever’ thing is basic ‘nothiiiiiing’!!”

Her sudden shout made everyone present jump. Rin, her cheeks colored with embarrassment, shrank back into herself and continued in a thin voice, “…Is what my brother would say. I think. It’s true my brother. Ash Roller. Did fight Magenta Scissor and was forced to equip the ISS kit. But I think he felt. Something through the parallel. Circuits of the ISS kit. The feelings of the ones who. Sought the ISS kit power themselves. Utan, Olive…and Magenta Scissor and them.”

Rui Odagiri didn’t know the mysterious connection between Ash Roller and Rin Kusakabe, but she lowered her face without asking a single question. She looked down at her right hand with its faint scars and gently closed her fingers.

“If you have ten Burst Linkers, you have ten ways to be right,” Kuroyukihime suddenly said in a resolute voice. “My master, Graphite Edge, always used to say that. At the time, I simply thought he was putting on airs again and let it go in one ear and out the other…But now, I think that might actually be the case. It goes without saying that my ‘right,’ aiming as I am for level ten, is nothing other than ‘wrong’ to the other kings…And the actions of the White King and the Acceleration Research Society, which we believe to be wrong, are perhaps unshakeably just to them. Yes…That’s why I have no intention of judging what you did as evil, Magenta Scissor. And all the more so if it was something you did not for your own profit, but for the sake of so many Burst Linkers.”

Hearing this, Rui bit her bottom lip hard. She closed her eyes, and a small valley was carved in between her eyebrows. She stayed like that for about three seconds, but then the tension quickly drained out of her body. Her face had the same cool expression—no, the light of a powerful will that hadn’t been there before shone in her left eye as she turned her whole body toward Kuroyukihime.

“Black King…Black Lotus. I want you to forgive me and let Avocado Avoider and me fight with you as Legion members.” Her head lowered, she raised her hands, and after what looked like a moment’s hesitation, she pushed her two hands out in front of her.

“I cannot forgive you,” Kuroyukihime announced quietly. “Because neither I nor my comrades have a single reason for you to seek forgiveness from us. In fact, we would gladly have you, Magenta Scissor. I would be delighted to have someone as dependable as you join our Legion as a comrade before the large battle we face.”

She smiled once more and took Rui’s hands with her own, gripping them tightly.

Head still lowered, her long bangs hung forward to obscure Rui’s face, but even so, Haruyuki could see that her thin lips were pursed like she was holding something back. Haruyuki felt certain at least that whatever it was, it wasn’t anger or sadness.

Once the Legion membership procedures were taken care of through a normal duel between Kuroyukihime and Rui Odagiri via the Arita home net—he wasn’t sure if it was a relief or a regret that there was no actual fighting in order to conserve their strength—the entire party got to work on lunch.

With the ten girls and one boy, and then Takumu joining them at one for a total of twelve people, it was their largest dinner table so far.

“There’s a ton of frozen pizza,” Haruyuki proposed in earnest.

But Chiyuri immediately rejected that idea. “Now look, I’m totally in the mood for mixed rice now!”

“Y-you are…But I mean, just rice…”

“Well, that’s true.” She thought for a second. “If we make onigiri out of the mixed rice, then we’re fine with another side dish and some kind of soup. I mean, it is just lunch. Ui, what do you think would be good?”

UI> LET’S SEE. FOR THE SOUP, HOW ABOUT A SUMMERY JAPANESE-STYLE BROAD BEAN POTAGE?

“Oooh, the elementary kids these days know some stylish recipeeees!” Chiyuri caught Utai from behind and pinched her cheeks with both hands.

UI> PLSE STP THA

“But what about the other dish?” she asked, and a voice came from somewhere surprising.

“Karaage.”

“Huh?” He looked over at the speaker.

Akira, the bouncer, had maintained her silence during the meeting, but now she repeated with an extremely serious expression, “Karaage goes with onigiri.”

The rest could only nod wordlessly.

Since the menu was set, Haruyuki accepted the position of grocery squad leader and hurried down to the food sales area of the mall. With the power of the Kuroyukihime-made shopping efficiency improvement app, he cleared the large shopping list in a mere five minutes and managed to get a butterfly point while he was at it before returning to his house.

After that, he had basically nothing to do. Plus, there were ten girls crowded into the living/dining/kitchen area of the Arita house. He shelled broad beans as he shivered at the thought of what would happen if his mother was to come home for some reason.

At any rate, they had the personnel if nothing else, so at basically the same time that Takumu rang the doorbell at one o’clock, lunch was set out on the table: shredded mackerel, edamame, myoga, and perilla mixed-rice onigiri; chilled broad bean and soy milk Japanese-style potage; and a mountain of chicken karaage.

Stepping into the living room behind Haruyuki, Takumu set eyes on the crowd of girls and the pile of karaage and froze in place. “Haru, what is this…? I can’t even believe it’s real…”

“It’s too soon for freaking out, Taku,” Haruyuki whispered back, beckoning Rui Odagiri with one hand. When Rui and Takumu were facing each other, he cleared his throat and raised his right hand. “Um, Odagiri, this is Takumu Mayuzumi—Cyan Pile.”

“Hello. I’m glad we can meet in the real.” The usual Magenta smile crept onto Rui’s lips, and Takumu returned her bow with a doubtful look.

Haruyuki cleared his throat once again and raised his left hand. “And, Taku, this is our new Legion member Rui Odagiri—Magenta Scissor.”

“It’s a pleasure to—” After extending his right hand, Takumu reeled for once, as he uttered the strange sound, “Majenza?!”

With an unprecedented twelve people at the historic and traditional Nega Nebulus dinner party, Chef Chiyuri and Sous-chef Utai had intended to make more than enough food, but the onigiri, potage, and karaage vanished completely in twenty minutes.

But that wasn’t to say there wasn’t enough food; everyone thanked them for the meal with satisfied faces before they stood to clean up. Once they were done with that, the clock read one thirty PM. The group then gathered in the living room, and Legion Master Kuroyukihime and Submaster Fuko stood with their backs to the balcony.

“First, I’ll just confirm,” Kuroyukihime began. “May I assume that all the members who go to schools other than Umesato also had the closing ceremony for the first term today?”

Fuko, Utai, Rui, Rin, and Akira all nodded, while Shihoko, the representative for a group of three, chimed in, “You may!”

“Mmm. Well then, that means that everyone here is on summer break starting tomorrow. I’m sure you all have exciting plans. Of course, I do as well.”

Here, she turned her gaze toward Haruyuki momentarily, so he replied with the thought I’m excited about the trip to Yamagata, too! He wasn’t certain whether that got through to her or not, but she did smile faintly before continuing her speech.

“And in order to make this summer break fun and full, we absolutely cannot lose against Oscillatory Universe in the Territories today. Unfortunately, I must remain behind to defend Suginami area, but we have even more trustworthy comrades now, and I firmly believe you will achieve our objective. Please. I’m counting on you.” Kuroyukihime bowed her head.

Fuko thrust her fist high into the air. “Everyone, let’s fight as hard as we can so we can report victory to Sacchi!”

“Yaaaah!!” the ten cried in unison, the sound filling the large living room.

1:40 PM.

Nega Nebulus, with a current roster of eleven people—twelve with the Archangel Metatron—formed a group with Rin Kusakabe, who still belonged to Great Wall in terms of the system, and sallied forth from the Arita house. However, they didn’t dive into the Unlimited Neutral Field like they had on previous missions. They lined up in the entryway, put on their shoes, and filed into the condo hallway in pairs.

Their first destination was the mixed-use commercial facility Nakano Central Park near JR Nakano Station. This was just over a kilometer away, but even on foot, they could reach it in fifteen minutes.

As Haruyuki walked alongside Takumu at the tail end of the group, his childhood friend said to him in a low voice, “Haru, it might be time to seriously think about the extreme imbalance in the ratio of boys and girls in our Legion.”

“Agreed on all fronts,” Haruyuki answered, while girls in a rich variation of six different kinds of uniforms—Akira only was in her usual jeans—led them, looking dashing as they walked. They looked so much like they were out of a movie, and Haruyuki had to confess that he would have been lying if he said he had absolutely no desire to record them.

“Oh, but it might improve a bit soon,” he murmured, tugging on the sleeve of Rin Kusakabe walking immediately ahead of them. When Rin looked back, he peeled her away from the rest of the girls’ squad and asked in a low voice, “Um, Kusakabe. Will Utan and Olive be okay?”

“Oh. Yes. They’re already. On standby somewhere in. Nakano One.”

“They are? Okay, then all that’s left is the joining procedures.”

Listening to this conversation, Takumu cocked his head to the side, curious. Haruyuki simply said to that “I’ll explain later” and let his thoughts race for a moment.

Kuroyukihime had already been informed of the application to join Nega Nebulus from the three-person group of Ash, Utan, and Olive. To be more precise, what they wanted was a limited transfer until the fight with the Acceleration Research Society was settled, but Kuroyukihime had assented without hesitation. No matter how much power they had, it could never be too much, and there was no need to consider the possibility of Ash and the others being spies.

“Come to think of it, in the space of a week, we’ve gotten loads more comrades, huh?” Haruyuki said, half to himself, as they waited for the elevator.

The three members of Petit Paquet. Magenta Scissor and Avocado Avoider—although he wasn’t yet a member. Ash and his two friends. Adding in Metatron, they were a total of sixteen. Plus, Haruyuki was waiting on a message from one more person, more reliable than anyone else.

And in less than an hour, Nega Nebulus would take on the negotiations for a merger with Prominence. If everything went according to plan, a new Legion with nearly fifty members would be born in an instant, a fighting force that didn’t pale in the slightest in comparison with the Legions of the other Kings.

Of course, he was anxious about the Legion growing. Would the suddenly large organization be able to come together as one? Would differences of opinions invite their split again?

No. What I’m really afraid of is losing the Nega Nebulus of now, the cozy and comfortable Nega Nebulus. Of being buried among Burst Linkers with higher levels, more skills, of Silver Crow losing this place where he belongs. It’s an entirely egotistical, selfish anxiety. But I can’t deny that I do have these feelings in one corner of my heart.

“Haru.”

Abruptly, Takumu’s voice descended near his ear.

“Nega Nebulus at first was just you and Master, and you’re the reason it’s gotten so big now. You kept trying your hardest, and now this many people have come together under the black flag. I’m no exception, either.”

“I just did what I did,” he whispered in response, receiving a solid slap on the back.

“Then you just have to keep doing that, don’t you?” Takumu laughed. “You still got our sights set on a lot of stuff, yeah? You just have to keep your eyes on those goals off in the far distance and fly without getting distracted. If you do that, I—all of us, will come chasing after you. Forever.”

“Makes my back itchy when you say that…But it’s true we don’t have time for standing still. First, we have to give it our all in the Oscillatory fight today.” Haruyuki gently touched the place on his left hand where the level-up bonus he had just obtained would be equipped.

No matter how large the Legion got, the fact that Kuroyukihime was its center would never change. Just like the first fixed star emitting an enormous gravitational pull in the center of a dark nebula.

The elevator arrived, and all twelve piled in, albeit like sardines in a can, and descended to the ground floor. The Saturday afternoon shopping mall was quite busy, but it seemed that their group with its mix of ages and uniforms was drawing attention nonetheless. But the squad of girls seemed to pay this absolutely no mind and proudly cut across the galleria with the two boys in tow at the end until they came to a stop in a corner of the entrance hall.

In the front garden that opened up outside the main building, the redbrick paths shone, pale in the midsummer sun. Beyond this light, the merger meeting that would determine the future of the Legion awaited—and the battle with Oscillatory Universe.

Kuroyukihime spun around, her black hair swinging gently. Standing in the powerful sunlight, her outline shone hazily, almost as though she were wrapped in an aura of light. The Legion Master looked at each of the party in turn and made her crisp voice ring out.

“Now…let’s go!”

To be continued.