At these words, Haruyuki was conscious all over again of the madness of the situation.
The senior Burst Linkers, including the Seven Kings of Pure Color, had been doing everything within their power to conceal the existence of the Incarnate System. For instance, even when the need arose for a guide to give instruction in how to use the techniques, those guides were resolute, making the initiate swear to use Incarnate only when attacked with Incarnate. The reason for this was solely because of the enormous dark side the Incarnate System contained.
Those who reached a hand into the holes in their own hearts, seeking even greater power, were at the same time pulled into those depths. You were swallowed up by the negative feelings once sublimated as your duel avatar. The worst of these cases was the Armor of Catastrophe, Chrome Disaster, which formerly brought about enormous chaos in the Accelerated World. To prevent the same thing from ever happening again, the Kings had strictly controlled information related to the Incarnate System. Even the cunning Yellow King, Yellow Radio, had chosen the path of retreat in front of many subordinates, rather than use Incarnate.
Now, however, at the climax of the grand event Hermes’ Cord Race, Rust Jigsaw had released an Incarnate technique before the eyes of more than five hundred Burst Linkers, providing the members of the Gallery obvious confirmation of the phenomenon through their own senses. Confirmation of the irrationality of the supposedly protected audience seating collapsing, supposedly locked HP gauges being blown away. Of the existence of an abnormal power overwriting the normal system.
“Why…would he…,” Sky Raker murmured helplessly, shaking her head slowly. Haruyuki understood how she felt so much it hurt.
She, of all the Burst Linkers, believed most strongly in the light side of the Incarnate System. She believed that hope, rather than hatred or fear, was the greatest power in the Accelerated World. For Raker, the sight of a power materialized through the ultimate hatred injuring so many Burst Linkers must have been hard to bear.
“Master…” When he turned around to speak to her, Haruyuki noticed something on the edge of his vision and hurriedly faced front again.
Ahead of the shuttle, which was just barely outracing the effective range of Jigsaw’s enormous Rust Order attack, several protrusions stretched up from the surface of the elevator. Probably obstacles to make the race more exciting. If the situation were not what it was, this would be the place where he would be eager to show off his skill, but as it was, Haruyuki felt only astonishment. Charging full speed ahead through the antennae and tanks in close proximity was out of the question, but if they slowed down even a little, they’d be caught in Jigsaw’s Incarnate.
As he gritted his teeth, the enormous reverberation of the collapse of the second floating spectator stand reached his ears, along with countless screams.
“Dammit…Dammit!!” Haruyuki shouted involuntarily. The tears springing to his eyes blurred the world into a rainbow.
This was supposed to be the best, most exciting race. I was supposed to team up with my best friends and fight my heart out with my best rivals. And more than anything…Just a little more, only the tiniest bit farther, and I would’ve been able to take Raker to the “end of the sky” she’s wished so hard for!!
“As if…I’m gonna lose heeeeeere!!” Haruyuki screamed, brushing away his tears and glaring straight ahead. He couldn’t accept that the race was going to be destroyed by a hateful will. He would fight to the end. He would resist.
The only way to keep moving forward while evading the Incarnate attack was to make it through this obstacle zone without slowing down at all. The load Jigsaw was carrying in number ten was far and away the lighter, but perhaps because he was trying to keep the accelerator pressed down while he released his enormous attack, his speed was essentially the same as that of Haruyuki and his team in number one. If he could just continue to keep this gap between them, they should be able to fly through the finish line first, without getting caught in the rust storm.
Almost as if he were becoming one with the machine, Haruyuki concentrated all his mental strength into his hands upon the steering wheel, his right foot upon the accelerator pedal, and the seat beneath him.
A few seconds later, the sprinting shuttle flew right into the middle of the antennae covering the tower surface at irregular intervals.
“Hng…ah!” As a cry slipped from beneath his clenched teeth, he dodged to the right and left the steel poles that came flying at them one after another. Because he couldn’t ease up on the accelerator, if he slipped up even once, that would be the end of it. Over and over, he just barely managed these corners. The magnetic force generated by the linear wheels was on the verge of losing its grip on the steel surface.
It seemed that the four in the rear seats had picked up on Haruyuki’s determination. Each time the machine threatened to angle up into a dangerous incline from his wild cornering, they shifted the load on the opposite side without saying a word. With this desperate, cooperative play, shuttle number one continued to flee unwaveringly, scant centimeters in front of the Incarnate storm chasing them.
In contrast, shuttle number ten did not deviate from its path a single millimeter, even as it plunged into the obstacle zone. All the antennae and tanks before it transformed into lumps of rust from the top down and were blown away. Despite the fact that it had already been five minutes since Rust Order was activated, the raging Incarnate light showed no signs of weakening.
If he could sustain such a large-scale overwrite for so long, the strength of his imagination was truly terrifying. Yet at the same time Haruyuki shuddered at the depth of that hatred, he felt a touch of doubt.
This wasn’t the first time he had gone up against Rust Jigsaw. Two months earlier, he and Blood Leopard had teamed up to fight Rust Jigsaw on the duel stage at Akihabara Battle Ground, and they had won.
But back then, Jigsaw hadn’t even tried to use any kind of Incarnate attack. And, judging from everything he had said and done today, if he could have used one, he definitely would have. Haruyuki could think of two reasons for that. Either the only Incarnate attack Jigsaw had was this Space Corrosion, which took a long time to activate and carried an element of risk for his brain, or the previous time they met, he had been forbidden by his superiors to use any kind of Incarnate.
If it was the latter, that would mean that during these last two months, there had been a significant policy shift within the mysterious Acceleration Research Society. Because Rust Jigsaw’s actions—his rampage—today had to be happening with the approval of that organization. The fact that Black Vise, who had identified himself as the vice president, had helped him was proof of that. What on earth could the objective of the Acceleration Research Society be, to launch destruction like this on such an enormous scale…?
Haruyuki was able to start churning these thoughts around in his brain—albeit only in one corner of it—once he had memorized to some degree the pattern of the obstacles’ appearance. It was complicated, but the antennae were placed following a fixed set of rules. All he had to do after figuring it out was continue to dodge to the sides without making a mistake. And this was the sort of action he had mastered more than a few times up to now in the countless racing games he had played—
But, in a flash, Haruyuki understood that the pattern was itself the area’s biggest obstacle. The instant he became accustomed to the placement of the antennas and had a little mental leeway, the rule for that placement changed entirely.
“Hng!” Groaning, he devoted himself to steering. The sides of the machine scraped up against obstacles he couldn’t dodge completely as the shuttle swung left and right, sending vivid sparks scattering.
Then, a few seconds later, as if sneering at Haruyuki struggling, a group of antennae lined up in front of them blocked the way forward entirely. There wasn’t enough space to slip between them. The only thing he could do was dodge wide to the right or the left. But at this speed, the instant he turned the wheel, they would roll.
/> By the time he made that judgment, his right foot was already reflexively pulling back from the accelerator and stepping on the brake. Skree! The magnetic force lines howled, and the shuttle pitched forward into a left turn.
The storm chasing them didn’t let the opportunity presented by this slight deceleration get away.
“Haruuuu!!” Takumu shouted as a rusty red swallowed the rear of the machine.
An abnormal vibration came to him through the steering wheel. Even without looking in the mirror, he knew that the beautiful silver body was rapidly corroding, peeling back, and falling away. Mastering his fear, Haruyuki tried to accelerate once again, now that they had pulled out of the turn. But the acceleration that had been so reliable until just a moment ago did not return.
It wasn’t just the body; the linear wheels in the back had also rusted. Shuttle number one tried earnestly to sprint away with just the magnetic power generated by the discs in the front, but these produced only half the output.
“Ngh!”
“Aaah?!”
Immediately after he heard Takumu and Chiyuri crying out, the maw of the red storm came down on Kuroyukihime and Fuko in the seats ahead of them and even on Haruyuki in the driver’s seat.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha! Corrode! Degrade! Decay!!”
Jigsaw’s shrieking laughter came to him from a distance. But Haruyuki had no time for listening to it.
So hot! A fierce pain, as though his entire body were being showered with boiling water, enveloped him. When he looked down, the smooth, glittering silver armor of Silver Crow was clouded white all over and pocked with tiny holes. Simultaneous with this phenomenon, the HP gauge in the top left of his field of view was rapidly ripped away as if mocking the LOCKED displayed above it.
Enduring the agony, Haruyuki looked back. And reflexively twisted his face. Similarly having every bit of the armor of their duel avatars eaten away, the four members of his crew were curled up, trying to withstand the fierce pain. A metallic color to start with, Silver Crow was weak against corrosion attacks, but to see even the regular colors of Kuroyukihime and his friends being devoured—Jigsaw’s Incarnate was not the simple idea of “rusting.” It was, just as the attacker himself had shouted earlier, a more fundamental “degradation,” “decay.”
“Ah…Ah!” As if unable to withstand the pain, a thin cry escaped Chiyuri. Hearing it, Takumu tried to shield her with his own body, but the red light penetrated every nook and cranny, and the fresh green of Lime Bell withered cruelly.
“Bell…!” Sky Raker called, and then dropped her eyes, as if hesitating.
But the next instant, she jerked her face up and reached her slender right hand up high into the sky.
“Raker—” Kuroyukihime started to speak, but Raker stopped her with a wave of her hand.
A vivid sky-blue light gushed from Fuko’s outstretched palm.
Overlay. The light of an unshakeable will released from deep in her heart.
“Wind Veil!!”
The high cry of the technique name was followed by wind. A whirlwind, tinged with a hazy light blue color, appeared, centered on Raker, and enveloped the entire shuttle. Instantly, the corrosive pain torturing Haruyuki’s entire body faded away as if it had never even happened. A web of sparks bounced up where the red light and the blue wind came into contact, showing the two imaginations clashing.
There was no mistake, this was an Incarnate technique activated by Sky Raker. Not an attack, but a defensive image. And it covered not only herself, but also everything within a radius of three meters.
If…
A positive Incarnate targeting the individual was hope.
And a negative Incarnate targeting a range was hatred.
Then what to call a positive Incarnate protecting five people?
These feelings flitting through Haruyuki’s heart were fleeting. Wrapped in the blue veil, machine number one had slowed down, and number ten with Rust Jigsaw inside was closing in on them at high speed from twenty or so meters away. The rust-colored avatar rising up from the cockpit thrust both hands up at the sky, malice turning to loud laughter and scattering.
“Ha-ha-ha…ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”
The antennae ahead of him snapped one after the other, while the surface of the tower behind him split into deep fissures as the shuttle quickly grew distant. The very person who had so thoroughly destroyed the Hermes’ Cord Race sped upward, alone, to the finish line awaiting the winner in distant space.
“Dammmmmmit!” Haruyuki shouted involuntarily. He couldn’t let this happen. It was already impossible for the half-destroyed number one to overtake number ten, but at the very least, there was absolutely no way he was going to allow Jigsaw to be the winner. That would be defeat for all the teams taking part in this race—no, for everyone, including the more than five hundred people in the Gallery.
That said, there was still one thing Haruyuki could do…
No.
There was. Even if he couldn’t race anymore, there was still one lone method of stopping Jigsaw.
The shuttle finally slipped out of the effect range of Rust Order. Raker reined in her sky-blue wind and slumped into her seat, spent. Kuroyukihime held her shoulders, looking worried. After watching this scene, Haruyuki brought his eyes back to the front. The shuttle’s speed had been cut in half, but he should still have the two linear wheels in the front.
Completely forgetting the emotions carved into his heart only moments ago at Sky Raker’s Incarnate technique, Haruyuki gritted his teeth. He could drive the machine like this, but he had no chance of catching up with Jigsaw anymore. Which was why there was just one method left now. Right. Not with the machine, Haruyuki alone.
“Haru, what should we do? If we go ahead and keep a safe distance like this, we could probably be second, but…,” Takumu said from the rear seats.
“Mmm,” Kuroyukihime replied in a strangled voice. “If that’s the only prize we’re going to pick up, we might as well leave the machine here…”
Their conversation barely registered in Haruyuki’s consciousness. He saw only the receding rust storm as he staggered to his feet in the driver’s seat.
“Crow?” Kuroyukihime called, as if suspecting something.
“Kuroyukihime, watch out for everyone,” he replied curtly without looking back.
“Wh-what are you going to do?!”
Instead of answering, Haruyuki smashed the accelerator to the floor, still standing. The half-ruined machine squealed in protest. Lightning gushed from the rusted linear discs like the throes of death.
Haruyuki confirmed that the digital meter was once again increasing as he leaned forward with a grunt. He threw both hands ahead. Drew them back forcefully. In sync with this action, the thin metal fins folded up on his back deployed on both sides.
The damage from the Incarnate attack that had ignored the system’s protection had taken more than 30 percent of his health gauge. To compensate for that, his special-attack meter had been charged to more than half full.
In other words, he could fly. Right now.
“Y-you can’t! Stop, Crow!” Kuroyukihime shouted, guessing his intention. “You can’t fight a hateful will with hate! There’s no longer any meaning for you to fight here and now!!”
“But…I…I!” Haruyuki squeezed a cracked voice from between clenched teeth. “I can’t let him do this!!”
Whatever means he had to resort to, he would stop Jigsaw. No, crush him.
Immediately after he added this in his heart, the right linear disc released dazzling sparks and abruptly exploded. Seconds before it did, Haruyuki bent forward and leapt into the sky with all his might.
To support his body, the rear of which threatened to blow off, he vibrated his spread wings only lightly. But he stared ahead, as if devouring the scene before him, and in the center of his field of view caught sight of number ten racing in the distance.
“Go!!”
With a sharp cry, he released the full thrust of both wings. Desert
ing number one as it went into a spin before coming to a stop, Haruyuki flew upward alone.
The maximum speed of Silver Crow, the lone duel avatar in the Accelerated World with the ability to fly, was roughly three hundred kilometers. In contrast, shuttle number ten was racing along at a speed of more than four hundred kilometers. Thus, starting from zero, there was no way he would have been able to catch up, but if he shot himself forward, using a shuttle going the same speed as a catapult, the supplement should give him a tiny chance.
Channeling every ounce of his mental strength and his special-attack gauge into flying power, Haruyuki plunged forward, a beam of light.
He soon charged into Rust Order’s effective range, and the armor covering his body began to cloud over. The surface foamed as if boiling, became minute particles, and melted off behind him.
The fiery pain once again danced around his nervous system, but the size of his anger won out. He pierced the raging rust storm in a straight line and closed in on the shuttle. The corrosion reached the wings on his back, and one by one the ten metallic fins on each side peeled away from the base, but he paid no attention and kept charging.
He lost both momentum and thrust rapidly, and his speed dropped. Six hundred kilometers an hour. Five hundred. If he didn’t catch up with the shuttle before his speed dropped below the four hundred kilometers an hour the shuttle was doing, he would never get another chance to catch it.
He drew nearer rusty number ten…nearer…but his forward momentum was growing duller—
“Unh…Ah!” As he pushed everything he had into a battle cry, Haruyuki touched the rear wing of the shuttle with the fingertips of his left hand, fell back again, touched it again—and dug solidly into it.
“Aaaah!!”
Howling, he finally yanked his body forward with nothing but the strength of his arms and flew into the rear seat of the shuttle. In the cockpit, Rust Jigsaw looked back with a gasp. The slightest hint of surprise raced across his naked framework face.
The Floating Starlight Bridge Page 19