Pull of the Dark Nebula

by Reki Kawahara

  “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.

  7

  Perhaps because he slept in the most irregular place in the most irregular way, even after Haruyuki’s alarm woke him up, his head was full of cotton. As his mind gradually shook free of the fluffy stuffing, fragments of the strange conversation he’d had with Metatron under the starry sky came back to him, and he looked around, still lying in bed. The Archangel was nowhere in his room with the morning sunlight pouring in, and he felt half disappointed, half relieved as he got up.

  He washed his face and chased away the lingering remnants of sleep with a large yawn as he opened the door to the living room where he found an unexpected guest, and his eyes widened in surprise.

  No, not a guest. In fact, it was the owner of this residence and the master of the house. The woman in a blouse at the dining table flicking through the morning paper was Saya Arita—Haruyuki’s mother.