The Floating Starlight Bridge

by Reki Kawahara

  Having had his HP shaved away in the scrum, Utan disappeared from the battle, leaving a parting threat like the lead in a gangster movie. “I-I’ll get you back for this tomeowrroooooooow!!”

  …Tomorrow?

  Haruyuki had a bad feeling about that somehow, but he tossed it up on a shelf for the time being and rushed to the front line to offer Takumu backup.

  Fifteen minutes later, real-world time.

  The five members of Nega Nebulus gathered in the center of the field that served as the setting for their last battle and commended one another on their hard work. They had once again managed to thoroughly safeguard Suginami areas one through three for the week.

  Sitting on a nearby lump of concrete, Haruyuki felt a pleasant exhaustion as he exhaled deeply. In time, he spoke to Sky Raker, who was next to him. “But still…I never even thought of that sort of attack strategy with Ash Roller’s bike.”

  In the past, Haruyuki had met victory against Ash Roller by lifting the rear wheel of the motorcycle and thus removing its propulsive force, but grabbing on to the brake lever while the bike was in motion, and thereby sending it flying, was way more stylish, speedy, and, more than anything, totally cool.

  But Raker shook her head as she laughed quietly. “Unfortunately, you can only use that technique when Ash is standing on the bike.”

  “Oh…R-right…”

  Indeed, the rider’s hands normally would not leave the handlebars. He hummed his understanding, and this time, Kuroyukihime uttered with a rueful laugh, “Before that, though, to lay a hand on a bike that is accelerating full throttle, you have to synchronize yourself with its speed using a power sprint like Raker, or else you’ll end up the one damaged instead.”

  “Oh…R-right…I guess…” Haruyuki dropped his head and Chiyuri and Takumu raised their voices in unrestrained laughter.

  The jet-black avatar laughed briefly once more before adding, “But, well…It could be that you flying at full speed can do the same thing as Raker’s dash. Check into it.”

  “Right!” Haruyuki assented enthusiastically, and his Legion leader looked around at her subordinates.

  “If there’s nothing else that needs consideration, let’s discuss tomorrow,” she said. “I believe a text message from Haruyuki outlining the general concept has already gone around, but perhaps we could have the explanation from him again here.”

  “U-understood.” Hurrying to his feet, Haruyuki stepped out in front of the four sitting avatars and began to give an overview of the big event on Sunday—the Hermes’ Cord Race—first of all talking about how there was no need to go all the way to Skytree. If they got together at Haruyuki’s and directed, he said, the transporter card item would take them all to the bottom station of the space elevator.

  Second, he described how Silver Crow had registered as the driver of the first shuttle, and since he was unable to change this, the other four would have to be the crew. In other words, they would be staffing the shuttle to guard it or to attack rival teams.

  Finally, he spoke to how their HP gauges would be locked during the race, so there would be no risk for the level-nine Black Lotus.

  After he had somehow managed to get this far, albeit stammering the whole time, Haruyuki suddenly hesitated. He couldn’t decide whether or not he should tell them about the fact that Blood Leopard from Prominence had registered with the second shuttle and that she had said she was eager to see Sky Raker again. He quickly came to the conclusion that he would stay quiet about it for now, since the only ones who could understand the way things worked between Leopard and Raker were Leopard and Raker.

  Thus, Haruyuki expelled a deep breath and finished up with, “That’s all!”

  “Nice work,” Kuroyukihime responded quickly, and stood up again after Haruyuki sat back down. “This was also touched on in Haruyuki’s mail. There was the Grand Castle Attack race event the year before last. I know Raker understands this, but…” The Black King stopped speaking momentarily and made the blade of her right hand sing through the air. “At that time, I was in hiding from the assassins of the other kings and not connecting to the global net at all, so I was unable to take part, which…I do deeply regret.”

  “Absolutely. I know I sent waves of resentment from the top of Old Tokyo Tower all the way to the Grand Castle.” Sky Raker laughed gracefully, and Kuroyukihime nodded firmly, while the remaining three Legion members sat up straighter with a start. Not one of them would have been surprised if Scary Master Raker’s ire had actually managed to take down several duel avatars.

  “At any rate, all of this is to say: I want to completely wipe away my regrets from two years ago in tomorrow’s race. Takumu and Chiyuri have both good-naturedly agreed to take part, and it was Haruyuki who realized that a new stage might appear and went all the way to distant Skytree to get the right for us to take part. It would be a true shame if we were to waste this gift.”

  “N-no, that’s—” Haruyuki hurriedly shook his head and hands. “It was just this idea that sorta popped into my head…You were the one who guessed all the stuff about when and where the portal would appear…”

  “That idea popping up was key. Those ten spots filled up quickly, and the majority of the registered teams apparently bought the information at a high price from NPC shops in the Unlimited Neutral Field. Only you, and maybe one or two others, realized the possibility on your own.”

  “H-huh…Is that what happened…”

  Perhaps the expected timing of the portal appearance in the NPC information was slightly delayed, and that was why Haruyuki, who had figured things out from zero, and Pard, who probably had, too, were the first to reach Hermes’ Cord.

  So then really, he should be thanking Chiyuri for inviting him to go to the Shinjuku government office the day before. And also, of course, Kuroyukihime for talking the whole thing over with him in the dive call. Having friends really was pretty great…

  As Haruyuki let these thoughts wander through his mind—

  “Lotus, may I?” Sky Raker raised a light hand and advanced her wheelchair with a creak. She turned around in a fluid movement and looked at the faces assembled there. “I’m also very much looking forward to the event. After rejecting any contact with the Accelerated World for so long, I am grateful every single day that I’m able to fight in the Legion, the reborn Nega Nebulus, again like this—alongside my companions. If it were possible, I would so much love to combine forces with you all and set our sights for the finish line in the race. But…”

  She cut herself off for a moment and dropped her gaze to her own legs, covered by her long white dress.

  “From what Crow’s said, there are only four seats for the crew in the shuttle and no real space for anything else. In which case, I’ll be without my wheelchair and simply glued to that seat. Which means that this avatar will become a mere object. If I’m just going to pointlessly increase the load the shuttle carries and dull its speed, then it’s better if I don’t even get in in the first place.”

  “B-but you—!” Haruyuki cried out reflexively, trying to deny Sky Raker’s words.

  However…

  If Sky Raker had been a long-distance avatar, then she could have more than adequately fulfilled an attacking role while glued to a seat. But just as her fresh sky-blue color indicated, she was a fairly pure close-range type. Most likely, for close-range types to take on an attacking role in the race, an action like jumping over to the other shuttles would be required. For Sky Raker and the wheelchair that took over for her legs, this was, of course, impossible.

  Seeing Haruyuki grinding his teeth tightly, Raker said gently, “Corvus, don’t worry about it. Even if I’m not there, if it’s you, Lotus, Pile, and Bell, I honestly believe you’ll end up on top when crossing the finish line.”

  No. No, that’s not it.

  I…I wanted to bring you especially to that pillar stretching up into the sky. In that world ahead where we’ll be shooting up the four-thousand-kilometer space elevator, there’s so
mething I want to tell you. On the ground, I’m held back by gravity and I can’t get it out. This particular thought…

  “Raker.” Kuroyukihime’s voice sounded like she was also enduring a kind of pain, similar to Haruyuki’s and this prayer in his heart. “Your avatar likely weighs less than Crow’s. Whether you are on the shuttle or not, the power-to-weight ratio will not differ that much. And even if you can’t move from the seat, it’s enough for you to stand on guard duty—”

  “I can’t go, Lotus,” Sky Raker said curtly. “As a fundamental principle, you…and Nega Nebulus must move to strike at the other kings to bring you to level ten. If you come in first in the race tomorrow, you’ll be given a quantity of burst points worthy of the feat. And that will bring you that much closer to your end objective. In which case, you shouldn’t be concerned about me, which would reduce your chances of winning, however slightly…Isn’t that right?”

  Her argument was more than sound, and thus even sad. Most likely, in her heart, Sky Raker had clearly determined her role as someone whose range of movement was severely limited. She would expend every effort in ways she was able to help the Legion. But conversely, she would absolutely not take part in battles where it seemed like she might become a burden.

  So all of that came down to this.

  Sky Raker had already given up on her own game, her own Brain Burst. She had agreed to Kuroyukihime’s request and come back to the Legion, but her motivation was solely to help Kuroyukihime. She had strictly prohibited herself from the thrills and excitement of the duel, the joy of talking with others through her fists. Almost as if it were a punishment she should continue to receive forever.

  That’s not it, Haruyuki murmured once more in his heart.

  Getting his Legion Master Kuroyukihime to level ten was also Haruyuki’s own personal objective. He constantly prayed that until that time came, he could be a knight worthy of closely guarding his King. He put nothing before this goal, but there was one thing that was on the same level:

  Playing. Having fun with this fighting game known as Brain Burst.

  The duels couldn’t just be painful. They couldn’t be just mechanisms for earning points. At the end of those roads was nothing but darkness, a heavy shadow falling even on the real world, as embodied in the Acceleration Research Society.

  Naturally, Haruyuki didn’t think that Sky Raker would fall into that darkness. But if she had yet to forgive herself even now, then she most certainly was not happy. But he didn’t have the ability to communicate those thoughts and feelings at the moment. Kuroyukihime and Takumu seemed to feel the same way, both of them stiffening up like rocks and simply hanging their heads.

  A silence blanketed everything other than the timer, which noted that they had ten minutes left until the field disappeared. It was a silence Sky Raker broke with a gentle, short laugh. But a moment before that—

  “Sister Raker.” Chiyuri started talking, using the strange seminickname that had at some point stuck for her.

  “What is it, Bell?”

  “I…I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” Chiyuri said as Lime Bell stood up, using an almost-hesitant voice that somehow could still make its listeners feel the resoluteness of her will. She took a few steps to stand before Raker. After she took a deep breath, an unusually serious air came over her mask. “As long as it’s okay with you, big sis, I’d like to try something. To see whether or not I can bring your legs back with my power.”

  Haruyuki’s eyelids flew back. Chiyuri’s—Lime Bell’s power was, in other words, the special attack Citron Call, the result of which was a reversal of time. Any avatar or object subjected to it had time rewound.

  In a normal duel, this technique was used as a pseudo–healing ability to recover the HP gauges of allies. But the fact that its effectiveness did not stop there had been proven the other day in the fight against Frost Horn and Tourmaline Shell. Since it was possible to dodge the technique, it was fairly difficult to use against enemies, but if it succeeded, it could even forcefully eliminate Enhanced Armament summoned by an enemy. And in this sense, Citron Call was a special attack even rarer than a healing ability.

  However.

  “B-but, Chiyu,” Haruyuki reflexively interjected, “I’m pretty sure Master Raker lost her legs more than three years ago. Can you actually rewind time so far back?”

  “Okay, um…” Chiyuri cocked her pointed, witchy hat and waved her index finger, as if to confirm her own thinking. “My Citron Call has two modes. The first one uses up half my special-attack gauge and rewinds the in-game time in units of seconds for the status of the target duel avatar. That’s the one I use to heal HP.”

  The number of fingers increased to two as she continued. “And then, mode two uses all of my fully charged gauge and rewinds the avatar’s status, except for level increases…like in units of fixed changes due to external causes. One by one, it cancels out changes like buying Enhanced Armament with points or stealing techniques and parts from other avatars. That’s the one I got Haru’s wings back with.”

  “So fixed changes…are undone?”

  It was Kuroyukihime who murmured this. “Mmm,” she hummed quietly and, still sitting, brought the ridge of the sword of her right hand up to her mask. “Easy to say, but when I think about it, that’s quite the power. The natural enemy of—or perhaps, divine retribution for—those with theft abilities.”

  “But I can’t interfere negatively with the status data of anyone other than the target, so I can’t get back items someone else owns. Which is why I couldn’t get back Haru’s wings when I used my power on him. It’s pretty easy to run away from the technique itself, so it’s hard to use it on an enemy during battle, Lotus.”

  As Haruyuki worked hard to digest the rules for the somewhat complicated technique, Takumu opened his mouth.

  “Chi, with that Citron Call mode two, how many steps back can you cancel out these fixed changes? What’s the maximum?”

  “Um, let’s see. I haven’t actually tested it out, but judging from how my gauge decreases, I’d say I could go three steps, max.”

  “Three…hmm? Raker, since you lost your legs, have you had any other status changes?”

  The sky-blue avatar paused for a moment at Takumu’s question. “There was the exchange of Enhanced Armament with Corvus…If that counts as two changes, then the loss of my legs would be the third.”

  “U-um, Master. What about the wheelchair…?” Haruyuki asked reflexively the instant he heard these words. The silver wheelchair in which Sky Raker sat was an Enhanced Armament item, the same as Ash Roller’s motorcycle, and Haruyuki wondered if getting it also counted as one fixed change.

  Raker shook her head lightly, stroking the wheels gently. “I acquired this immediately before I cast off my legs.”

  She sounded nonchalant, but the meaning hidden in her words was significant. At the point in time when Sky Raker asked Black Lotus to cut off her legs, she had anticipated that the amputation damage might be permanent, or she had been prepared for it to be. In other words, the injury she had suffered didn’t stop within the framework of the normal game system; there was a greater logic at work: that system.

  “Bell.” Sky Raker’s voice calling out interrupted Haruyuki’s thoughts. The Burst Linker in the middle of their collective stares, who even now lived half as a recluse, announced in an endlessly kind tone, “Thank you. I gratefully accept your feelings…But even if it doesn’t work, you mustn’t blame yourself. The causes and effects here are all within me.”

  To Haruyuki, it seemed that the latter part of that statement had been directed to Black Lotus as well as Lime Bell. The black crystal avatar stiffened momentarily and lowered her face slightly.

  “I understand, big sister Raker.” Chiyuri’s determined voice broke the silence that fell over the stage. “But I’m definitely going to bring your legs back. Oh, and Haru?” Her gaze swung around to Haruyuki, and she flicked a finger at him as he blinked in confusion. “I think you’ll g
et a message saying you got some Enhanced Armament while I’m using the technique, but you have to cancel. Otherwise, it’ll be a big hassle later!”

  “R-right, got it.”

  When Haruyuki nodded, Chiyuri glanced up to her left. She was probably checking that her special-attack gauge was still full, charged up at the base during the Territories. She brought her face back down and put a foot forward.

  In sync with Lime Bell, as she stepped forward, Kuroyukihime, Takumu, and Haruyuki fell back.

  The freshly green avatar stood about two meters in front of the wheelchair and pointed the enormous bell attached to her left arm directly up at the sky. She tilted her pointed, broad-brimmed hat backward and took a deep breath, throwing her slender torso back.

  “Okay, here we go…Citron…”

  At the same time as she started to call out the technique name, she rotated the bell in a large counterclockwise circle. Ring gong. A magnificent sound washed over the field. Normally, when she was healing Haruyuki and their team’s HP, she rotated the bell twice, but Chiyuri drew another two circles after that and—

  “…Call!!”

  With the loud cry, she brought her left hand straight down in front of her.

  A ribbon of yellow-green light and chords like something played by an orchestra of angels cascaded from the large bell and enveloped Sky Raker. Her long sky-blue hair and the hem of her white dress flapped back, exposing hidden legs. Below the round knees, almost as if they had been designed that way from the start, there existed absolutely nothing.

  Sky Raker closed her deep-red eye lenses and clasped her hands in front of her chest as her entire body flashed lime green once. At the same time, in the center of Haruyuki’s vision, a system message popped up.

  DO YOU ACCEPT THE ENHANCED ARMAMENT GALE THRUSTER?

  Haruyuki quickly pushed the NO button in the window, which flashed erratically, quite unlike a normal window. He felt something returning to Sky Raker, and her body flashed brightly once more. This was likely Chiyuri’s ability rewinding the two item exchanges that had taken place between her and Haruyuki.