The Binary Stars of Destiny

by Reki Kawahara

  The girl smiled a little sadly. “I told you, didn’t I? I’m…a memory. A souvenir of a BB player who disappeared from this world many long days ago. The echoes of a consciousness.”

  “M-memory? But you’re here talking with us like this,” Chiyuri murmured.

  The girl nodded slightly. “All data is saved here in the Main Visualizer in the same form as the person’s memory. So an object with a strong will…with a prayer or a wish carved into it, has a kind of pseudo thinking. And that’s me.”

  “Strong…wish…” A memory flickered to life in one corner of Haruyuki’s brain.

  When they first met in the middle of the battle with Takumu, the girl had said she was waiting for the person who could remove the curse of the armor, the person who could heal his fury and sadness. Him. Haruyuki didn’t know who that person was. But that wish had kept her alive in the Accelerated World all this time.

  “In this place, only the will has any actual power.” The girl nodded, as if reading Haruyuki’s thoughts. “That black lump is a solidified mass of enormous malice. If you get any closer, you’ll both be pulled into it, too.”

  “B-but, I mean, Taku’s—!” Frustrated, he looked at the end of the floating bridge again. There were only a few dozen meters now between Cyan Pile walking with his face turned to the ground and the main body of the ISS kit. In less than a minute, Takumu would be caught by the black blood vessels and have something precious stolen from him once more.

  And then—

  “You have the power,” the girl said curtly.

  “P-power?”

  “Exactly. The power to reach a hand out far into the distance.”

  Reflexively, Haruyuki looked at his own right hand, wrapped in silver armor. Five slender, tapered fingers. A hand that was afraid of touching anything, afraid of connecting with anyone, a hand that had stayed hidden in his pocket for a long time. Then he looked at his left hand. But that hand was holding on tightly to Lime Bell—Chiyuri’s hand—without any fear.

  Before he became a Burst Linker, he could never have done anything like this, even as avatars in the middle of a full dive. But ever since that day eight months earlier, so many people had reached out a hand to him; they’d encouraged him and shared their courage with him.

  I’m not the me I was back then, staring at the ground when I walked. I don’t have these hands just so they can break into a cold sweat and then get hidden behind me. They’re here to hold the hands offered to me—no, for me to hold someone else’s hand.

  “You can do it.” As if in perfect harmony with Haruyuki’s thoughts, Chiyuri raised his left hand and squeezed it tightly. “You of all people can do it, Haru. Your hand—your feelings can reach Taku.”

  “Yeah,” Haruyuki said, nodding and squeezing hard in return. “I’m going to reach him. As if I’m going to let that mass of meat take Taku!”

  The golden-yellow avatar said that the only power in this world was the will. In other words, that meant he could use only the Incarnate System. Put another way, normal techniques had no power at all. That was the reason Silver Crow couldn’t fly in this world.

  Haruyuki’s sole Incarnate technique was a basic range-expansion technique. That said, the most distance he’d added to his bare hand was barely two meters. In contrast, there were roughly fifty meters from him to Takumu and the black mass of flesh just ahead of his walk.

  However, in this world, apparent distances probably meant nothing. If you fired, thinking you’d never make the shot, then even the largest missile wouldn’t reach your target. And if you made your shot believing you’d get a hit—even Haruyuki’s underdeveloped Incarnate would definitely get there.

  Still holding Chiyuri’s hand, Haruyuki crouched down and spread out his legs in a runner’s stance. He brought the fingers of his right hand to a point.

  “You get one chance, one moment,” the girl whispered, immediately to his right. “But I know you can do it. Believe. In the power that connects you, your heart with so many people.”

  And then the girl—her avatar—faded abruptly, and her figure was overlaid onto his, almost as if she were melting into him. And then she disappeared completely.

  Haruyuki still had so many things he wanted to ask her. But they’d have the chance to meet again. Right now, he had to focus on getting Takumu back.

  He intuitively understood what she meant when she said he’d get one chance at this. That mass of flesh would expose some fragile part in order to connect with Takumu. He had to aim for that. As he focused his awareness into his right hand, a dazzling silver light was born in his fingertips and soon covered his arm up to his elbow.

  Perhaps in reaction to this light, the mass of flesh in the distance began waving the blood vessels that reached out from all over its body. The tips moved exactly like tentacles, seeming to search the area. Just as the girl had said, if he had gone any closer, those tentacles would have noticed him and tried to pull him in. Like the kit when it split at the end of the battle with Takumu.

  Vweeeen. The high-pitched hum of vibration echoed. The silver light of his right hand extended several dozen centimeters into a sharp sword shape. As he started to chamber his spear hand at his hip in the usual Laser Sword build-up motion, Haruyuki and his arm both froze.

  He suddenly knew he’d never reach with the same technique, the same Incarnate as the one he’d used up to now. He’d already put his Incarnate up against the aura generated by the ISS kit in the duel the previous evening. To penetrate that terrifyingly concentrated darkness, he would need a much, much stronger image.

  As if guided, he raised his right hand to shoulder level. He twisted his body, his arm, to pull back as far as he could. The movement his teacher and parent, Kuroyukihime—Black Lotus—had shown him any number of times with her miraculous long-distance attack, Vorpal Strike. That Incarnate attack was most likely the ultimate range/power expansion technique. He wouldn’t be able to simply up and use the same technique, but he should definitely be able to overlay the image of it at least. He had to.

  Because of the unfamiliar preparatory motion, the image flickered, and the overlay lodged in his right arm blinked irregularly.

  “Haru.” A whisper. His left hand was clenched even more tightly. “I can’t use Incarnate, but I feel the same as you. I want to get Taku back. And not for the past we had, but so the three of us can start walking toward the future. Even if…even if someday, the road ahead of us splits.” Her voice was trembling, shaking slightly, but Chiyuri’s words were a firm declaration.

  Abruptly, Lime Bell’s body was covered in a faint light-green shine. The vivid light flowed into Haruyuki through their joined hands and steadied the overlay of his right hand, and more—made it stronger.

  “This is the power of Incarnate, Chiyu,” Haruyuki replied in a voice that was nearly inaudible. “Pray. Pray that my hand reaches Taku.”

  “I am.”

  Vweeeeeen. The sound of resonance, like the lingering ringing of a bell, increased in volume again. The black lump flailed its herd of tentacles in what appeared to be annoyance. But it couldn’t quite find Haruyuki and Chiyuri.

  At that moment, Cyan Pile finally reached the lump of flesh and stopped. He dropped to his knees like the string holding him up had been cut, his head hanging deeply. On the surface of the Pile Driver of Takumu’s right arm, a small black sphere popped up. Opening an eye the color of wet blood, it flicked back and forth from side to side to check its surroundings before the entire sphere plucked itself off, up into the air.

  A mass of thin blood vessels still connected to Takumu’s arm, the black sphere slowly extended snail-like feelers upward. At the same time, a bundle of thick blood vessels reached out from the black lump of flesh to meet the feelers.

  Just as they were about to touch—

  Having pulled back his right arm as far as it would go above his shoulder, Haruyuki thrust it forward as hard as he could. At the same time, he shouted the words that rose up in his mind.

  �
�Laser…Lance!!”

  With a fierce metallic sound, a thin, concentrated lance of light shot forward from his right hand, growing longer and longer as it did, piercing the darkness lurking around the main body of the ISS kit. Twenty meters, thirty, and still it showed no signs of weakening.

  However, at this point, Haruyuki felt a heavy resistance in his arm. That feeling. The icy incandescence from when he was first hit with Bush Utan’s Dark Blow.

  Reach!

  Reach him!

  Haruyuki’s and Chiyuri’s simultaneous but soundless shouts rang out. The overlay blanketing their avatars shone dazzlingly bright, melted into each other, and flowed into the lance of light to blow off the thick film of darkness.

  Takumu’s ISS kit, about to make contact with the group of blood vessels stretching out from the main body, looked back in a motion that was very much that of a living creature and stared at the lance. The black eyelids opened as far as they could go. The kit immediately tried to return to the site it was parasitizing on Cyan Pile’s arm, but a fraction of a second before it could, the tip of the Incarnate lance plunged deep into the pupil of the crimson eye.

  Pshkt! With a terrifying sound, the eye burst, black liquid spraying everywhere. Instantly, Haruyuki felt the enormous lump of flesh—the main body of the kit—emitting violent waves of rage.

  The countless tentacles that stretched out from the lump, so reminiscent of a brain somehow, whirled about searching for the intruder. Directly below it, Cyan Pile jerked his head up.

  “T-Taku! Over here!!” Haruyuki roared, as loudly as he humanly could.

  Takumu looked back to see Haruyuki and Chiyuri. Beyond the slits carved into his face mask, his pale-blue eyes opened wide; he was apparently wide-awake now.

  “Taku! Run!!” Chiyuri shrieked.

  Takumu stood up his large avatar and moved toward the two of them. He had run a few steps on the narrow, floating bridge before he stopped suddenly, perhaps having thought of something, and whirled back around toward the lump of flesh.

  The main body of the kit twisted the bulk of its appendages into a single massive tentacle and tried to grab hold of Cyan Pile once more. If it swallowed him up again, Takumu would probably be parasitized with a new kit.

  “Taku, run…” Halfway through, Haruyuki swallowed the words he was shouting.

  And that was because Takumu suddenly grabbed hold of the Pile Driver’s tip with his free hand. That was—that movement, the Incarnate technique Takumu had mastered, the attack power expansion…

  “Cyan Blade!!”

  His voice triumphantly called out the attack name. His Enhanced Armament pulled apart, and a blue overlay enveloped the now-freestanding spike. By the time he shifted smoothly to firmly hold the blade in both hands, the Armament had already transformed into a large, two-handed sword.

  Without flinching at the mass of tentacles rushing toward him, Takumu brandished the shining blue sword above his head.

  “Cheeeeeaaaaah!!”

  A powerful battle cry. The space itself rippled and shook, and leftover waves of incredible power made it to the two friends frozen in place.

  The double-handed sword swung down directly before Cyan Pile, a beam like lightning jetting out of it. The herd of tentacles was cut in half, and the sword dug deeply into the flesh of the main kit body.

  A soundless shriek. The entire lump of flesh shuddered violently over and over, and the several dozen Burst Linkers connected to it by those blood vessels also shuddered and shook. Some woke up and stared absently at their surroundings. Blue light radiated outward from around the two-handed sword buried in the mass, and fine fissures raced outward.

  Then the kit’s main body, ten meters in diameter, exploded from the inside, and massive amounts of black fluid and vapor gushed out in all directions. The circuit on which Takumu, Haruyuki, and Chiyuri stood began to crumble and fall from where it was attached. Losing their support, the avatars were released helplessly into the bottomless expanse of outer space.

  Or so it seemed, until the next instant—

  5

  “Aaah! W-we’re gonna fall!” Haruyuki shouted, bolting upright into a sitting position. As he did, something tugged on both sides of his neck. “Huh? What?”

  His heart pounding at top speed, he looked around several times. The off-white wallpaper. The extremely thin flat-screen TV. The large dining table and the kitchen counter beyond it. It was the familiar living/dining room combination of his own house. He was sleeping there on a mattress spread out on the floor.

  The home server detected him sitting up and turned on the light panel on the ceiling to shed a dim illumination. Looking down in the weak gray light to see what was pulling at his neck, he found two XSB cables stretching out from his still-equipped Neurolinker. With his eyes, he followed the cable on the left to land on the face of his childhood friend Chiyuri Kurashima, sleeping a mere fifty centimeters away, blankets tossed off, stomach peeking out from the bottom of her pajama top.

  No way. It was all a dream?

  Turning into a duel avatar in a mysterious place, passing through the long tunnel, seeing the galaxy of light, meeting that golden-yellow girl there again…all of it, just a dream?

  Just as Haruyuki was seized by doubt, Chiyuri’s eyelids flew open with an audible snap. She met his eyes for a mere second before shouting hoarsely, “Haru! What about Taku?! Did he make it out okay?!”

  Her words showed that she and Haruyuki had shared the same experience.

  Right, it couldn’t have been just a dream. Everything they had seen and heard in the world, everything that had happened was all real. They had passed through an imagination circuit into the central server of Brain Burst, discovered a strange lump of black flesh—the main body of the ISS kit—and Haruyuki had “awakened” Takumu with an Incarnate technique just as the lump was trying to connect with his friend. And then…

  “Taku!” Crying out, Haruyuki twisted his body toward the mattress laid out to his right.

  In the gloom, Takumu Mayuzumi was, in contrast with Chiyuri, in a proper sleeping position facing directly upward, eyes closed.

  “Taku!” Chiyuri cried out weakly, and jumped over Haruyuki’s legs to stand on her knees immediately beside Takumu. Her hand reached out to touch his shoulder, and the young man’s eyes popped open.

  Hearts in their throats, Chiyuri and Haruyuki watched as his brown eyes took in each of them in turn. His left hand snaked out from under the blanket and touched the Neurolinker on his own neck, at the cable extending from his XSB terminal to Haruyuki’s.

  “It…wasn’t a dream, was it?” Haruyuki’s childhood friend said finally, in a clear voice that couldn’t be mistaken for sleep-talking. “Or wait. It was a nightmare, and you guys smashed it for me. That’s it.” And then the exact same gentle smile as always spread across his lips.

  Instantly, Haruyuki reached out and gripped his friend’s shoulder tightly. “Taku!” he shouted. “Y-you…When I tell you to run, you run! You can’t usually counterattack on the spot like that, you know!”

  “Exactly! What did you intend to do if those creepy tentacles got ahold of you again?!” Chiyuri also raised a shrill voice, leaning in so far toward him that she threatened to fall on him.

  Rebuked for launching a counterattack with his Incarnate rather than running from the rage-crazed main body—after he had broken free of the mind control thanks to Haruyuki’s Incarnate attack—Takumu’s smile changed into something more apologetic.

  “I-it’s just, I suddenly got the idea. That that thing was the bad guy, that it was the root of all evil. In which case, I felt like I had to at least send one shot back at it.”

  “W-well, yeah, I mean, I wanted to get in there and send it to the hospital if I could have.” Nodding unconsciously, Haruyuki suddenly lifted his face with a gasp and hurried to ask, “R-right, more importantly…how is it? That thing inside you?”

  In the “dream,” with his new Incarnate technique Laser Lance, Haruyuki had pierced
and destroyed the ISS kit that had separated from Takumu’s right arm. But even if it hadn’t all been an actual dream, it was still something that had happened in the world of imagination, so he didn’t know how much of an impact it would have on reality.

  Takumu lowered his eyes and then closed them tightly. He raised his hand and pressed it to his forehead, his furrowed brow trembling a little. He stayed like this for a while, before finally bringing down his hand and opening his eyes again. Takumu looked directly at Chiyuri and Haruyuki in turn.

  “It’s gone.” His voice was quiet.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s gone, Haru. That thing that’s been sitting somewhere deep inside my head since last night, constantly whispering to me…it’s gone.”

  The home server, having decided that its master was awake now, turned the lights up further. The daytime color of the panel lighting shone on Takumu’s smiling face. It was his best friend’s usual smile, the grin that was always there whenever he looked over as they devoted themselves to playing; the look that had been there ever since they became the two forwards of Nega Nebulus—no, ever since they were little kids.

  It’s Taku. He’s back. He broke away from the temptation of the power of darkness and climbed out of the deep hole in his heart and came back to us again. To my side. To a place I can reach if I stretch out my hand.

  The instant he felt it sincerely, Takumu’s smiling face was covered and blurred in a boisterous dance of white light. As soon as he realized what was spilling hotly out of his own eyes, Haruyuki was so embarrassed he slammed his forehead into Takumu’s broad chest.

  “M-making us worry!” Shouting with a deliberate roughness, he tried intently to rein in his tears, but they only kept coming, one after another. He clenched his teeth and something like a child’s sobs slipped out from his throat. “Unh…Ngh…Huunh!”

  Unable to hold anything back now, Haruyuki wept, shoulders shaking, while a large, warm hand patted his back gently.