The Floating Starlight Bridge

by Reki Kawahara

  In the back of his mind, the faces rose up and disappeared again: those of his Legion companions, starting with Kuroyukihime; then friends like Niko and Pard, his rival Ash Roller; and even Frost Horn and that gang.

  Aiming for level ten as a Burst Linker was essentially equal to continually kicking down other Burst Linkers. Most likely, this was exactly the thing the mysterious developer was aiming for: Make a thousand young people fight among themselves, and select just one perfected player.

  But even if that were so, even the developer couldn’t exactly stop them from developing feelings for one another rather than hatred during the process. The fact that Blood Leopard could care about Sky Raker like that, a Burst Linker she had never been on the same team with, was proof of that.

  I want to be like that, too. The feeling swept over Haruyuki as he walked toward his house. No matter how badly beaten I get, even if I’m so frustrated I could cry, I still won’t hate my opponent. Because I love this game and the Accelerated World. Because I think I’m happier than anyone that I get to be a Burst Linker.

  Really? Is that really all?

  A voice abruptly questioned him.

  At the same time, several shadows quickly flashed across the screen in the back of his mind. A rust-colored avatar like a steel framework. A layered avatar, thin jet-black planks lined up. And the no-longer-extant dusk-colored avatar with the spherical visor and long talons. The members of the Acceleration Research Society, a group that saw Brain Burst not as a fighting game, but rather as a tool for thought acceleration, and focused only on the acquisition and use of points.

  Over these last two months, any activities they might have carried out had been entirely under the radar. But there was no way that they had simply vanished. They were almost certainly lying in wait somewhere in the Accelerated World watching vigilantly, hostilely, waiting for the chance to invade again.

  ARE YOU GOING TO LET THEM? CAN YOU FORGET THE TERRIBLE PAIN THEY CAUSED YOU, YOUR FRIENDS, THE HATRED IN YOUR HEART FOR THEM, AND HOW THEY MADE YOU SUFFER?

  Haruyuki didn’t notice that the voice echoing in the back of his mind had at some point stopped being his own and taken on a dark, warped metallic quality. Scowling at the throbbing sensation in the center of his back, he stepped briskly onto the site of his condo building.

  IT’S ONLY NATURAL TO HATE GUYS LIKE THAT. IT’S ONLY NATURAL TO STRIKE THEM DOWN WITH THAT HATE. RELEASE ALL THE RAGE, THE RESENTMENT, THE HATRED, AND DESTROY THEM. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO DO IT. THE POWER TO TEAR OFF THEIR LIMBS, DEVOUR THEIR FLESH, DRINK THEM DRY OF BLOOD. THAT’S RIGHT.

  EAT THEM. EAT THEM. EAT THEM. EAT THEM. EAT—

  “Shut up!!” he cried in a strangled voice, hanging his head low. He stopped in front of the main entrance to the shopping mall, and residents of the buildings and various shoppers went around him as if he were just another obstacle.

  Among the countless pairs of shoes flowing to both sides, he felt like he saw talons glittering the purple of dusk and squeezed both eyes shut tight. In his head, he told himself firmly, If they show up again, I’ll fight them. But it won’t be because I hate them. It’ll be because I love the Accelerated World and because I believe in bonds other than hostility there. I’ll fight to protect that.

  REALLY?

  The voice left this word like a creaking laugh before receding. The throbbing in his back finally faded and disappeared.

  He let out a long breath and rubbed palms soaked with sweat along his trousers before he set out with heavy feet, head still hanging, for his deserted condo.

  5

  “Hey, hey, heeeeeey!!”

  The shout echoed throughout the battlefield, accompanied by the throaty roar of the V-twin engine. A high-pitched squeal, then another shout. “Cheap wall like this’ll never stop a master like me!!”

  “No way?!” Haruyuki looked around, panicked. The discolored buildings characteristic of a Weathered stage crumbled here and there, and a barricade had been made of the rubble. He and Takumu—who was now fighting a little ways off—had brought the buildings down. Taking advantage of the extremely brittle nature of the terrain particular to this stage, they had focused on smashing buildings and blocking whatever roads there were.

  Their objective was to reduce the mobility of the motorcycle-using Ash Roller, a member of the attacking team in the Territories. They had succeeded; there was no longer a way to get from here on the front line to the base Sky Raker was protecting in the rear—or at least, there shouldn’t have been.

  “Wh-where are you riding?!” Haruyuki searched desperately for the origin of the burbling roar of the engine. A few seconds later, he found it. But unable to move immediately, he simply stood bolt upright, mouth gaping, totally open.

  The gunmetal American motorcycle was moving from right to left on the opposite side of the four-lane main road. But he was going far too slowly. And it wasn’t to avoid the rubble blocking the road—given that the rubble was piled nearly two meters high, avoiding it was impossible right from the get-go—but rather because it was being carried.

  The enormous bike, complete with rider, was up on the right shoulder of a small avatar only half its size, laboriously stepping over the rubble-pile barricades. Ash Roller straddled the seat of the bike swaying on that shoulder and simply raced the engine.

  “Th-there’s no point in racing the engine!!” After throwing everything he had into this unconscious rejoinder, Haruyuki finally realized that this was not the time for staring. Their aim was the base beyond the mountain of rubble. If they occupied that, things would get annoying.

  “A-as if I’d let you!!” he muttered and charged toward the opposite side of the main road. When he did, the small avatar bearing the motorcycle shot a glance at him and—

  “My brother Ash! Go on without meeeee!” Spitting out this ridiculously cool line, he heaved the bike forward. For his size, his strength was incredible.

  The large American bike bearing Ash Roller, who had apparently at some point gotten a younger-brother-type companion, soared over the pinnacle of the barricade, the high-pitched sound of the exhaust ringing out remarkably loudly.

  “Your heart’s giga-buuuuuurning, yo!!” He hit the asphalt with his usual nonsensical shouting and took off at high speed, white smoke rising up from the rear wheel.

  Saturday, June 8, five thirty PM. They were in the middle of a three-on-three team battle to defend Suginami area number three. Kuroyukihime and Chiyuri were taking a break, so on the Nega Nebulus side, it was Haruyuki, Takumu, and Sky Raker. Against them on the attacking side was a three-person team from the Green Legion Great Wall, led by Ash Roller.

  There was a difference in the level makeup, with eight, five, and five for Haruyuki’s team, and five, five, and three for the enemy, but Brain Burst was the type of game where if you let your guard down even just one time with this kind of gap, the whole situation could easily be upended. Gritting his teeth and vowing that Ash breaking through the barricade would be the man’s only triumph this match, Haruyuki went to chase after the speeding bike. However…

  “Ain’t gonna let mew get through here!!”

  Accompanied by this shout—which Haruyuki couldn’t decide was an attempt at creating a character or the kid’s actual voice—a shadow flew down before him. The avatar who had been carrying Ash Roller’s motorcycle.

  His name was Bush Utan. Level three with dark grass-colored armor. He was a few centimeters shorter than Silver Crow, but he had a toughness about him that kept you from really noticing that. The reason for this was his abnormally developed arms. They were so long that if he was leaning forward, his hands very nearly scraped along the surface of the ground, making his overall silhouette reminiscent of a type of primate, but still, he was definitely not an opponent to take lightly.

  “Anyone who says something like that obviously doesn’t have it in him to stop me!” Haruyuki replied, glaring cautiously at the large arms turned toward him. He bent forward, aiming for a decisive, super-low-altitude dash
.

  Bush Utan had poured all his potential into those enormous arms. He was an avatar that specialized in brute strength. If Haruyuki took a punch from him, the damage would be enough to blow away the two-level difference between them, but Utan didn’t have much in the way of speed. And anyway, he had no intention of fighting here.

  Racing along, nearly scraping the ground himself as he closed the gap in an instant, Haruyuki brought his enemy’s focus downward before leaping up with all his might. He vibrated his wings for a mere instant to preserve his special-attack gauge, so that rather than flying, he soared over his enemy’s head in a long jump.

  Utan hurriedly stretched both arms up above his head, but Haruyuki was far beyond his grasp. You should’ve closed in on me yourself to reduce the number of options I had, Haruyuki remarked tangentially in his head. The distance between opponents wasn’t something you had, it was something you actively controlled—

  “Hng! Wha?!” The cry of shock slipping out of Silver Crow’s mouth was drowned out by a thick battle cry.

  “Ooh ho ho hoooo! I’m not letting mew gooooo!!”

  In some incomprehensible turn, Bush Utan had stretched his arms out. He hadn’t dislocated his joints or anything like that; no, he had in fact elastically extended his arms to nearly three times their original length, and now grabbed tightly on to Haruyuki’s ankles with his enormous palms.

  “Hnngaaaaah!”

  Utan was about to slam Haruyuki down onto the ground as hard as he could, so Haruyuki deployed his wings fully in the opposite direction and released every bit of propulsive force he had.

  “Nnngh!”

  The state of equilibrium was momentary. No matter how great Utan’s physical strength might have been, weight-wise, he was in the light class. With the primate-type avatar dangling from both legs, Haruyuki ascended blindly. As he thought about how he would just carry the other avatar like this and take out Ash Roller—

  “Ooh ho?! Mew’re scaring me!!”

  He heard a pathetic scream, and his flight speed dropped with a jerk. Hurriedly looking down, he saw that Utan had removed just his left hand from Haruyuki’s feet and was using that hand to grab on to a building’s roof railing instead. His arms were now stretched out to the limit, so it was almost like an avatar had been fastened to the middle of a long rope.

  “Hey! L-let go!”

  “N-no mway!”

  Haruyuki flapped his wings fervently, but the power with which his left ankle was being held didn’t appear to slacken in the least. Takumu’s Pile perhaps could have cut him free of Utan’s arm, but he seemed to be still in the middle of a pitched battle against the third member of the enemy team a little ways off, judging from the clashes Haruyuki could hear.

  With no other choice, Haruyuki continued with the midair tug-of-war as he raced his eyes over the area, looking to the west side of the main road. Instantly and unconsciously, he opened his mouth. “Crap…!”

  The large American motorcycle had already raced ahead a hundred meters or more and was charging right at the small plaza at the end of the street. In that plaza stood a tall flagpole in the center of a circle emitting a violet light. The black of the flag there was the proof that this was Haruyuki’s team’s base.

  The base was a spot existing in each Territory Duel Field where members of the team occupying the base could recharge their special-attack gauges over and over within the circle. Which was to say, the Brain Burst Territory Battle was nothing more than a fight in which teams pushed the front line forward while occupying base after base and taking down their opponents’ bases.

  The base Ash Roller was aiming for was currently being guarded by no one but Sky Raker. As a level eighter, her power was obviously the real deal, but because of her strange fighting style, there was a big difference in whether she had the advantage or not depending on the enemy’s affinities.

  And from where Haruyuki was standing, he was forced to conclude that because wheelchair-user Sky Raker and motorcycle-user Ash Roller were of the same lineage, Sky Raker would be at a disadvantage here. When it came to performance as a vehicular Enhanced Armament, the motorcycle was obviously superior in each and every way.

  The motorcycle faced the sleek silver wheelchair plopped down in the front of the plaza and the graceful female-shaped avatar occupying it, and then it charged, roaring thunderously.

  “Masterrrrrrr!” The skull-headed rider’s cry was for some reason mixed with tears. “I!…Today for sure! I’m going to go…beyond you, Master…!!”

  Up in the air, Haruyuki’s jaw dropped. Sky Raker was indeed Ash’s teacher and his “parent,” but a line like that was something you only shouted after numerous twists and turns, in the final moments of battle. Although today was actually already the third time Ash Roller’s team had taken part in the Territory attack, this would be the first time that parent and child faced off in direct contest.

  Raker in her wheelchair grinned beneath her wide-brimmed hat and shook her long sky-blue hair. “You still have so much to learn, Ash.”

  And then she stretched her left hand straight out in front of her, turned her palm toward the sky, and curled a finger up in invitation. Come.

  To this Ash replied with a sharp “Hyaaah!” He jumped up vertically from his seat and stood with his right foot on the handlebars and his left on the back end of the seat. He rode the motorcycle almost like a surfboard; the name of this unique technique was V-Twin Punch, so named by the rider himself.

  Sky Raker didn’t appear to panic in the slightest seeing this, but Haruyuki was already grinding his teeth once again. This was a bad situation for her, wasn’t it? Because given that she couldn’t stand up from her wheelchair, Sky Raker’s hands could no longer reach Ash Roller’s body. And if she attacked the bike with her bare hands, she’d be the one taking the damage.

  “Master! Giga thanks for everythiiiiiiing!!”

  The sole of his boot opened the throttle all the way, and the motorcycle jumped into a final acceleration, spewing flames from the muffler. The instant the massive gray front tire was about to deal a serious blow to the wheelchair—

  Raker’s left hand caressed the silver wheel beneath it so fast it was nearly blurred. Sparks flew up from the ground, and the wheelchair shot backward with intense force.

  Impossible! You won’t be able to get away! Haruyuki shouted in his heart at Sky Raker, who was a teacher to himself as well. The wheels had to be turned by hand to make the chair move, and while the power it held for sprints was incredible indeed due to its extremely light weight, it could continue at that pace for only a moment. Once she had fallen back, the bike would quickly catch up with her and send her flying.

  Or so Haruyuki expected as he caught his breath. But at the same time—

  Sky Raker stretched her entire body forward with wonderful abandon, avoiding the front tire, and pressed her right hand onto the bike’s handlebar. She grabbed only the brake lever.

  It looked like such a casual gesture, but the power it contained was apparently very much more than that, and a flood of sparks gushed from the front rotor disc. And what would happen to the motorcycle when only the front brake was locked with this kind of force?

  “Oh! Whoa?!”

  Even before Ash Roller managed to cry out, he was rising up at the force of the sudden deceleration and flying through the air along with his bike, wheels racing meaninglessly, before crashing into the wall of a distant building.

  This impact seemed to be more than the Enhanced Armament of the motorcycle could endure, and the whole thing burst into fierce flames with a whoosh before exploding into pieces.

  However, Ash Roller himself had, perhaps fortunately, been standing in the seat, and was not caught up in the explosion, but rather thrown high into the air.

  “Noooooooooooo!” Screaming, he reached the peak of his parabola, stopped for a moment, and then started to drop back down—with Sky Raker pushing her wheelchair into a sprint once more, aiming to stop directly below him.

>   “So very much to learn.”

  Grinning as she rendered this assessment, she thrust the palm of her left hand up perpendicularly with such force as to practically scorch the air. This open-handed punch beautifully caught the back of the rider’s black leather jacket, causing such an impact that it reached even Haruyuki, up in the far-off sky.

  In addition to the damage from falling from so high up, he had also taken a critical hit to the center of his body, the combination of which easily knocked Ash Roller’s HP gauge down to nothing.

  “You are the master…Mercy, Tera-nothing.” Leaving these mysterious words behind, the skull rider avatar exploded and scattered.

  Watching Sky Raker as she brushed her hands off, Haruyuki and Bush Utan murmured at the same time.

  “S-so strong…”

  “Meah’s too strong…”

  They gasped as their eyes met. Sky Raker had so wonderfully repelled Ash and guarded the base, so there was no longer any real point in continuing this midair tug-of-war.

  Haruyuki said nothing as he flapped his wings forcefully, abruptly using up the remainder of his special-attack gauge. The upward force he generated made both of Utan’s arms creak alarmingly.

  “N-no meoway! Burn, biceeeeeps!”

  The left arm hanging onto the railing of the building and the right holding Haruyuki’s ankle swelled up and pulled with terrifying brute strength, bringing Haruyuki back down.

  In that instant, Haruyuki changed the orientation of his silver wings by one hundred eighty degrees and readied himself for a sudden dive. Inevitably, Utan ended up being yanked toward Silver Crow with the strength of his own arms.

  “W-wait, meo—!”

  The w disappeared in the sound of a ferocious dive kick hitting its mark.

  The two avatars fused into a single lump and crashed to the Earth. Utan released Haruyuki’s ankle from its imprisonment with the impact, and in the close-range fight that necessarily followed—the zero-range fight, to be precise—he was no match yet for Haruyuki.