“No, don’t worry about it. You should merely progress straight ahead as you’re doing now. Yes…if it’s you…Only you may be able to overcome that deep darkness, and approach the truth light of the heart…”
Smiling softly, Kuroyukihime faced him directly, and also put her right hand on Haruyuki’s face,
She then changed her expression and tone, and—
“Now then. With that out of the way, I’ll now tell you the remaining 1% of my feelings.”
*HII* Haruyuki’s entire body stiffened. Was it on the side of «giving him a good whaling»!? In other words, a judo foot technique!? No, a submission technique!?
As Haruyuki’s uselessly spun around in that way, Kuroyukihime put her arms around Haruyuki’s neck and drew him to her chest with all her strength.
*MUGYUUUU* Held by that intense strength, Haruyuki’s consciousness over-revved up too quickly from that all-directional pressure and the sensation of direct contact with what was in front of his face, and the gears in his head screeched.
Her voice reached his left ear, which was probably blazing crimson, so close that her lips touched it.
“—I wanted to do this. Since the time when I learned from Chiyuri-kun’s email that you had lost your wings…and yet were still doing your best to face your enemy, I always, always wanted to do this.”
Hugging Haruyuki even tighter with a strength that made him think ‘Just how far will I be absorbed by this thin body?’, Kuroyukihime whispered in a trembling voice.
“You truly did your very best. Under such painful circumstances…—At such a time, I wasn’t at your side and could do nothing for you. I…am a failure of a «Parent»…”
A hot drop touched his left cheek with a drip.
Haruyuki widened his eyes. The beautiful hair that swayed in his vision got mixed with the light of the room and blurred.
Unconsciously raising both his arms, Haruyuki also put his hands around her thin waist and squeezed out a trembling voice.
“I…I’m sorry for making you worry.”
At that instant—
“I was worried. I was so worried. Thinking that, if you were no longer here, what would I do…I was scared. I was so scared!”
Saying that as it turned into a shout halfway through, Kuroyukihime’s shoulders trembled slightly.
His throat blocked, Haruyuki didn’t say anything else. Therefore, he continued desperately praying inside his heart. ‘I’m right here. I’ll always be by your side. I definitely will not disappear.’
Kuroyukihime leaked out thin sobs like that for several dozens of seconds, but eventually she sucked in a big breath, and finally loosened her hug slightly.
“…I have to give you a prize.”
When she suddenly said that, Haruyuki blinked in surprise.
“Eh, a pri…?”
“You defended splendidly in the territory battles, didn’t you? Like I said, if you defend Suginami to the last, I’ll listen and give you one prize you ask for, no matter what it is.”
As she whispered such a thing into his ear, Haruyuki’s consciousness once again rushed into the red zone.
—However.
The insolent ideas of a Direct Connect with a 30-cm cable or a swimsuit photo of her were instantly swept away in his mind.
Being like this right here, right now.
Besides having this person here in this world right now, what more could he possibly wish for?
…I will become much, much stronger, and become a knight who can protect you from any enemies someday. So, please always remain by my side until then, watching over me and guiding me.
The instant he wished that, his mouth moved half-automatically.
“…Then, please stay by my side.”
With a feeling boiling up from inside his chest, Haruyuki spoke in a hoarse voice.
“Please always, always stay by my side. That…is my only wish.”
Even once you graduate. As my senpai. As my legion master. And as my «Parent».
Haruyuki added those words in his mind—is what he intended, but.
The body of Kuroyukihime who had been loosely holding Haruyuki’s head intensely stiffened with a ‘BIKUUN’.
Suddenly releasing her hug, she back-dashed about two meters with a ‘SHUBAH’, collided with the sofa and fell down on it. Even though her face just been quite serious with tears, the person herself widened her eyes as if she had forgotten that, and flapped her mouth open and closed.
Eventually, she rapidly reddened from her neck to her forehead. Her voice, turned inside out, resounded in a high tone.
“W-W-Wha…W-W-What are you saying!!”
“Heh? Umm, eh…? I-I just, umm, meant nothing in particular.”
Not understanding the situation, he similarly opened and closed his mouth at high-speed, and after a full ten seconds passed, Kuroyukihime’s face began to return to its original whiteness from top to bottom. While letting out an unbelievably long sigh, she shook her head left and right many times.
“……I understand.”
Suddenly, Kuroyukihime muttered that.
Standing up, she walked over to Haruyuki once again and placed her right hand on his head with a plop.
“I promise. I’ll stay by your side. Always. For eternity.”
While disheveling his hair, Kuroyukihime gave the highest grade smile, and said that.
Chapter 12
“…Arita, hit me!! Please, hit me!!”
As those words were said over and over again, a shaven head stuck out in front of Haruyuki.
The owner of that voice was Ishio of the basketball club. He was the student who had called Haruyuki to the roof several days ago and given him a single punch there.
“N-No, it’s fine already. Since you understand now.”
While also repeating the same phrase over and over again, Haruyuki desperately looked for a way to escape.
However, with the location in front of the Class-2C podium, the time at Monday morning homeroom, and forty students approaching on his right side, there was no path of retreat. Furthermore, his homeroom teacher Sugeno was standing opposite Ishio, and had his arms folded with a meek face. He was cornered like this.
Ishio brought his face even closer, and argued vehemently with him while moving his eyebrows in the shape of the character 八.
“No, until you hit me, I can’t agree!! Even though there was no proof, I arbitrarily decided that you were the culprit of the peeping video attempt…What’s more, I punched you…If it’s true, then it wouldn’t be strange even if I was punished for that! Yet, you didn’t say anything to the teachers. As things stand, I cannot forgive myself!!”
…Then please hit yourself with your own hands!
While screaming that out inside his mind, Haruyuki looked over at Chiyuri and then Takumu in search of help. However, the two of them were merely grinning. They were enjoying the situation from the bottom of their hearts.
—The reason the «peeping camera attempt incident», where a small digital camera was discovered in the locker room of the female shower room last week, had taken such a sudden reversal of events was all due to Kuroyukihime’s ability.
Her plan, which she had executed with a skill and idea that could only make one think of a Network Witch, was actually very simple and immediately effective. Kuroyukihime had completely changed the records of the peeping camera’s maker, model number and serial number into being the exact same as a camera that she had found on the school’s Lost Equipment List.
Haruyuki had naturally asked ‘Is it really all right to do something like that’, but Kuroyukihime had answered easily, saying, ‘The camera that was unrelated to you from the beginning will simply become even more unrelated’.
If even the serial number was made to match it, there was no room to suspect the fact that that camera was an item that had already been lost two years ago. And Haruyuki hadn’t been attending this school two years ago. Thus, the suspicions that had been laid against him disappea
red instantly, and the instant Sugeno had reported that in homeroom, Ishio had stood up and dragged Haruyuki over to the podium—and so it became this scene.
“Come on, hit me, please!”
Gazing at Ishio as he shouted that again, Haruyuki murmured in his mind.
—Even if you say that, there are Social Cameras right in this classroom as well. As if I’m going to make new proof of violating the school regulations again. Rather, Sugeno-sensei, you should be the one to stop this! Why have you been looking at me with such a strange face!?
However, Ishio, who wouldn’t stop unless he received a punch, seemed determined not to budge.
Swallowing down a sigh, Haruyuki responded in a whisper.
“…T-Then, I’ll do it if it’s to the belly instead of the face.”
He inwardly added, ‘And if it’s a body blow from this angle, it won’t be captured by the cameras’.
Ishio gave a huge smile as if happy about something, and raised his body along with a ‘Alright, bring it!’.
While carefully calculating the cameras’ field of vision, Haruyuki clenched his right hand.
When he launched a punch with an awkward motion, his round fist collided with trained abs, and rebounded back with a ‘POYON’.
Showing a seemingly dissatisfied face for a moment, Ishio then immediately grinned, said ‘You really are a good guy’, and returned to his seat.
…It wasn’t that I held back, rather, I really did put all my strength into it.
Although he was dejected inside his heart, Haruyuki let out a sigh of relief, and also tried to return to his seat.
Then, he heard Sugeno’s solemn voice from behind him.
“…Arita. I am truly sorry. I don’t mind, so please hit sensei too!!”
——Please give me a break!!
Haruyuki let out that unvoiced scream.
Nonetheless.
He still couldn’t say that everything was settled with this. There was still a big and also far too mentally heavy mission awaiting Haruyuki.
That is, the negotiations with Noumi Seiji. If he couldn’t get him to dispose of the peeping video from in front of the shower room that he should have saved, Haruyuki wouldn’t be able to go to school with peace of mind.
As soon as lunch break came, Haruyuki went to the third floor where the first-year classrooms were.
He waited near the stairs, and after several minutes, he saw the moderately long hair that he remembered within a group heading towards the lounge.
Noumi Seiji was walking while chatting cheerfully with several of his classmates. As the distance between them shortened, Haruyuki’s hand sweated and his heartbeat sped up.
—Three days ago, I fought a battle with him where we threw all our hate at each other to the utmost limit.
—And then I mercilessly took away his Brain Burst. I completely annihilated his acceleration ability, the only thing he persisted in.
Even while Haruyuki thought that, Noumi rapidly approached. His girl-like long eyelashes blinked, and his eyes caught Haruyuki standing in a corner of the hallway—
And then, his eyes passed over him.
“……!?”
Haruyuki’s breath was taken away. To be ignored, even though he had expected a glare or insults.
No, it was also different from ignoring him either.
It was as if Noumi didn’t know him from the beginning. As if Haruyuki were only just another of the hundreds of students that attended the same school as him.
Haruyuki unconsciously took a step forward, and called out to Noumi as he was about to pass by in front of him.
“U-Umm!”
After stopping and looking at Haruyuki once again, Noumi merely titled his head with a puzzled-looking face.
“Umm…you’re Noumi…-kun, right?”
“Yes. Did you need me for something?”
What is this? What’s happened to you?
Swallowing down his confusion with difficulty, Haruyuki moved his stiffened mouth.
“Umm, I just want…to t-talk.”
Noumi once again put on a face that seemed suspicious, and then he turned to his friends and told them to go on ahead to the cafeteria without him.
He looked at Haruyuki again, and—
“What is it?”
“Eh…err…”
The short-statured first-year student before Haruyuki, who he didn’t think was putting on an act, merely looked in curiosity at this second-year student that had called out to him. There wasn’t any other emotion on his well-featured face at all.
Could this be a different person? Some kind of twin brother or something?
While thinking that, Haruyuki gave his name for the time being.
“Umm, I’m Arita. Arita Haruyuki, in second year…”
Then, Noumi’s eyebrows twitched. He frowned, and seemed to be trying to remember something.
“…Arita, senpai…Ah, yeah, that’s right. You played a net game with me…”
“…T-That’s…right, but…”
Strange. Something is unbelievably strange here.
Looking at the stock-still Haruyuki, Noumi Seiji, while making an expression of searching through his memories even harder—
Spoke.
“Err…That game…what was its name again…?”
The intense fear and dread that Haruyuki felt at this moment was without a doubt the greatest since he had become a Burst Linker. A shudder, colder than the time he stood face-to-face again the Armor of Catastrophe, Chrome Disaster, or the time that his wings had been stolen by Dusk Taker, crawled violently down his back.
—His memories have been suppressed!
There was no other way to think of it than that.
Noumi Seiji had had most of his memories related to Brain Burst erased through some kind of means.
He didn’t remember anymore. That he had been the «plunderer» Dusk Taker. That a death match had unfolded between himself and Haruyuki’s group. And even the existence of Accel World.
Perhaps grasping whatever expression was on Haruyuki’s face, Noumi smiled as if troubled.
“Ah, did you possibly come here to invite me to play? But…I’m sorry, I’m not that interested in net games anymore…”
Haruyuki merely gazed this underclassmen, who was making an earnestly apologizing face.
Just before a puzzled expression appeared on Noumi’s face again, Haruyuki moved his mouth into the form of a smile with difficulty.
“Is…Is that so? Then…it’s fine. Umm…also. About the video of me…”
“Eh, video…? I’m sorry, what is that?”
“……No, sorry, it’s nothing.”
After shaking his head a little, Noumi smiled again and quickly bowed his head.
“Is that so? Then, I’ll be going now.”
And then, the boy who had once been called by the name of Dusk Taker turned around, went down the stairs at a fast pace, and disappeared from Haruyuki’s view.
Stumbling back several steps and leaning his sweat-covered back on the hallway’s wall, Haruyuki shut his eyes strongly.
Ex-Acceleration Ability Users cannot interfere with Accel World in any way.
Now, Haruyuki finally understood the meaning of those words from the mysterious avatar Black Vise.
Burst Linkers who lost Brain Burst lost all memories related to Accel World. Therefore, they couldn’t do anything. They wouldn’t try to do anything.
Noumi Seiji must have also known the truth from having driven his «Parent», his real life older brother, into going through the forced uninstallation. Yes, he recognized it at the moment his avatar was dispersing in the Moonlight Field. That his memories were being erased. That, in that moment of self-awareness, he was already becoming an «ex-Burst Linker».
“That…That’s just…”
As Haruyuki mumbled that while wearing a pale face in front of the first-year student classrooms, the other students looked at him strangely.
After school.
At the usual table in the student’s dining lounge, Haruyuki explained what he had learned to Takumu and Kuroyukihime. There were no students in their vicinity at all.
He could still feel his fear and dread even as he explained it. Because he feared that the Brain Burst program was possibly monitoring all his speech, and would also erase Haruyuki’s memories the instant it detected keywords such as «uninstall», «memory», and «erase».
Therefore, after making all of them remove their Neuro Linkers, Haruyuki had started talking rapidly.
Even after they finished hearing everything, the other two did not speak for a while.
After being silent for a full thirty seconds, Kuroyukihime picked up her cup of black tea, and after moistening her lips, she spoke in a whisper.
“…You two must have always wondered about it. About why Accel World’s existence had continued to be completely hidden over the span of seven years.”
“……Yeah.”
Haruyuki nodded.
“If it were me and I lost Brain Burst, I would become desperate and be liable to expose everything about it on the net or the mass media, in order to take down Accel World along with me…”
“Hey, hey, are you talking about me?”
Kuroyukihime gave a faint wry smile, put her cup down, and continued.
“But, well…there would always be those who think like that…and those who would put those thoughts into action. But various reasons for why that doesn’t happen have been conjectured. Because a child won’t be believed by the mass media no matter what they say without proof. Because a system that deletes all information about Brain Burst is encroached into all networks. And there is one more conjectured reason…I also heard about it on the rumor level.”
Her black pupils narrowed sharply. A voice that was even quieter flowed out from her.
“…That Brain Burst, when it vanishes, takes along with it the memories of it as well. But…I didn’t believe it unless I could see it with my own eyes, no, I didn’t want to believe it. However, to think that it really is…the truth.”
Accel World: Flight Towards the Blue Sky Page 25