Building entry in an Ice stage was impossible—or rather, because the buildings were all transformed into lumps of ice, a special power was required to ascend higher terrain. Since it seemed that his closest enemy was approaching straight down Oume Highway, if he hid here, he would be able to get a look at his opponent first. Haruyuki held his breath and stared hard at the tip of the guide cursor.
However, announcing the true identity of his enemy was not a shadow on the horizon, but a sound. The deep, throaty rumbling that came to him on the wind was more than familiar. It was the sound of what was probably the sole Enhanced Armament in the Accelerated World equipped with an internal combustion engine, a sound he had had so thoroughly beaten into his ears that very morning—the sound of a motorcycle engine.
“H-huh?!” Unconsciously, this slipped out of Haruyuki’s mouth, and he jerked his body up from its prone position on the ice wall. At the same time, a yellow headlight shone and glittered in the distance on the white road.
“Wh-what’s going on?” Muttering, he flew down to the road surface again, and as if the rider of the American motorcycle had noticed this movement, the bike sped up slightly as it approached. The machine grew larger before his eyes and brake-drifted in, the rear tire kicking up massive amounts of snow. On the parked bike, a familiar skull face snapped the index fingers of both hands at him.
“Hey heeeeeeeey! I know you triple-heart, überlove mighty me, but maybe a surprise duel in Bat-Ro mode is a little too much, yeah?!”
The voice, gesture, and style were definitely those of the Century End rider, aka Ash Roller. And they had made contact, so a gauge with his name inscribed near it appeared in Haruyuki’s view. But the words that came out of Ash’s mouth didn’t make sense to Haruyuki in a number of ways.
“N-no, I don’t actually triple-heart, überlove you— Wait, wasn’t it you who dragged me into this battle?!” Haruyuki hurriedly hissed back.
“Whacha talkin’?” A large question mark popped up above the skull helmet. “Me and my magnificent self were just cruuuuising along Loop Seven, geddit? You seriously for real not the starter?”
The way Ash talked made it sound like he had been running down Kannana Street on the motorcycle, but Haruyuki knew that Ash in the real, Rin Kusakabe, was actually on her way home from school in a bus. However, retorting with that here would have been mean-spirited, so he set it aside and spread out his hands.
“Y-yeah, it wasn’t me. But then does that mean you always have BR standby on, Ash?”
“Naturalmente! Come at me with a battle; I’m buying in!”
“O-of course you would…But, wait—then who started this?”
“Figured you were all up in the works, living in fire town to settle this morning’s draw, you know?” Ash sat on the seat of the bike with his arms neatly crossed, and Haruyuki took on the same pose.
“Well, you know, a draw twice in a row is kind of an incomplete burn, though.” He shrugged. “But this morning, you charged in while I was in sleepytown.”
“No choice at all there. I mean, you with my sis doing that indirect—” Ash had gotten this far in the most casual of tones when suddenly, red flames sprang up in his eye sockets. From the horizontal slit at his mouth, thin puffs of white steam rose up. “And now I rememberrred…That I gotta press you niiiiiiice and flat, Crow.”
“I—I—I didn’t do anything with Rin, direct or indirect!”
“D-d-direct?! Y-you’re no blue! So why you suddenly talkin’ ’bout up-close-and-personal?!”
“I’m telling you I didn’t do anything! Anyway, Ash, the issue right now is who started this battle! I mean, whoever it was knew that you and me were on the matching list when they pushed the START button, which means they decided that they could win against one of us—or two against one if things went south.” Haruyuki earnestly blathered on and on, and “Protective Big Brother” Ash’s attention seemed to pull back to the current situation; the steam coming out of his mouth stopped.
But Haruyuki’s relief was fleeting. Now it wasn’t just steam but also orange exhaust flames gushing out.
“My mighty mega self is tera-burniiiiiiiiing!! This guy thinks he can beat Ash here and the damned crow solo?! Who’s this filthy little brat?!”
“I-I’m telling you I want to know that, too! If our luck’s bad, it might be like a high ranker, level seven or something—”
“Tch! Your level plus mine makes ten! You think I’d be driving down Kannana shaking in my boots over a level seven?!”
“Th-that’s not the point.” Haruyuki wanted to cradle his head in his hands.
Suddenly, the north side of an ice wall ten meters to the east exploded with a roar. Worried that it was a red-type long-distance bombardment, Haruyuki started to look up at the sky, but then realized that wasn’t it. The thick wall of ice hadn’t been destroyed from the outside, but been blown out from the inside.
In other words, one of the people who had dived into this battlefield was reluctant to waste the time it would take to follow the terrain and come out on Oume Highway and had moved in a direct line from the northeast—from the direction of Nakano Station. But the ice walls of the Ice stage were hard—maybe not as hard as objects in a Demon City or Steel stage, but still hard. To destroy one while moving forward, you’d have to be a Burst Linker with flame-type attack power or have some kind of armor that was so strong that ice was not even a thing—
The instant his thoughts reached this point, Haruyuki moaned, “No. Way.”
Springing to life in the back of his mind was a scene from the duel in Nakano Area No. 2 after school on Tuesday. Haruyuki had leaned back against the thick wall of the Steel stage and devised a strategy of lying in wait for an enemy who had to approach from either the left or the right. But his enemy had taken him with a surprise attack from a direction he never even imagined—by smashing through the steel wall behind him.
That Burst Linker had super-hard tungsten armor, a level one cloaked in many mysteries. Manganese Blade, a senior member of the Blue Legion, had assessed this young man as a genius, and he had the ability Physical Immune, which repelled all kinds of non-energy attacks.
“Wolfram…Cerberus…” At the same time as Haruyuki uttered the name, a sharply edged silhouette appeared from within the icy fog hanging in the air.
A right foot wrapped in gray metal armor trod heavily through the snow piled up on the road. The system determined that contact had been made, and a second health gauge appeared in the upper right of his field of view. The name displayed there was indeed that of Cerberus. The visor, reminiscent of a wolf’s maw, was open about three centimeters, with dark goggles exposed. Haruyuki couldn’t see the eye lenses, but he was keenly aware of the strong, focused gaze going right through him.
Stepping over the edge of the large hole in the ice wall onto Oume Highway, Cerberus walked straight toward them, his feet crunching in the snow. He stopped a mere two meters away from Haruyuki and Ash and bowed his head lightly.
“Hey, heeey. Don’t know this face. You may be the sta—”
“Was it you who started this, Cerberus?” Haruyuki asked, interrupting Ash.
“Yes, it was me, Crow.” The face mask with its sharp design moved up and down once more, and his clear, young boy’s voice continued, “I’m glad to see you. I felt certain that you would have BR mode on.”
Haruyuki couldn’t immediately respond. Because the reason he had Battle Royale standby on was the result of an extremely careless mistake. But this wasn’t the time to be worrying about that.
Just like the Cerberus of his avatar name, Wolfram Cerberus had more than two—probably three—personalities in his body. From his attitude, tone, and the fact that his original head was functioning, the one Haruyuki was currently speaking with was the one he had first fought, Cerberus I. This boy was very neat in his language and extremely polite.
When his head visor closed completely and the armor of his left shoulder opened, his personality changed to Cerberus II. Th
at boy was not so fastidious with language, and his tone was fairly rough. But the biggest change was that even the abilities he used switched. The Physical Immune that Cerberus I had was plenty nonstandard, but II’s Wolf Down was even more terrifying. Just as the name indicated, this was the power to eat a duel avatar’s ability; II had even reproduced Silver Crow’s flying ability, albeit for a short time.
Both I and II were fearfully powerful enemies, but in terms of conversation partners, he couldn’t help but still be nervous with Cerberus I. Thus, Haruyuki didn’t dare correct Cerberus’s misunderstanding—and a part of him did indeed want to come off looking good—so he asked another question. “But if your goal was to see me, why go to the trouble of a Battle Royale? I was planning to head over to Naka-Two again tomorrow after school.”
“That…” Cerberus trailed off, which was unusual for him, but then he replied, head hanging slightly, “I absolutely had to see—no, fight you today. I waited in Nakano, but it didn’t seem that I would get the chance to see you there today, so I moved to Suginami. But this is Nega Nebulus territory, so I can’t challenge you here. So I had no choice but a Battle Royale.”
“Oh. S-sorry. I actually was planning to go over to Nakano right after school today, but some stuff happened.” Haruyuki automatically apologized before cocking his head for the third time. “But you said you had to fight me. Why? I mean, I could understand if you wanted to fight me…”
“…Please excuse me, Crow. I can’t tell you the reason right now. I apologize for my selfishness, but I beg you, please fight me!” He took a step forward. His voice was a shout, one that sounded the tiniest bit cornered.
Vrrrrrrron! But there, the large displacement V-twin engine roared. Silent up to that point, Ash Roller slammed his right hand down on the throttle.
“Whoa, whoaiiiiing! You. Totes no clue about you, but your little chitchat, blah-blah here says neeeewb, Level One. You know who we are?! Gotta respect it! Get it? My mighty self’s already got a date with this crow here! You wanna fight, you get in line!”
Um, Ash, that—you’re assuming you’ll beat me, aren’t you?
Before Haruyuki could snap out this sharp retort, Cerberus said in a low voice, eyes still fixed straight ahead, “Excuse me, but please don’t get in the way. The only one I want to fight is Crow. I don’t know who you are, but I have no business with you.”
Instantly, clouds of angry white steam puffed out from Ash Roller’s mouth once more. “Y-you braaaaat! Now you’ve gone and done it, yeah?! So pretty please sorry, I’m not the Gallery. This here’s Bat-Ro. Lemme giga burn that into your peewee braaaain!”
Before Haruyuki had time to stop him, Ash had kicked at the shift pedal and was accelerating full throttle. Snow spun up, and the front tire he yanked up high charged toward Cerberus’s head.
Ka-klank! The sound of impact roared through the stage, and a spray of snow danced up like smoke. With hands half-raised, Haruyuki waited for his field of view to clear. The sight that finally appeared was—surprising.
The small Cerberus had caught the front tire of the motorcycle with his crossed arms. He had dropped his hips down low, but his knees weren’t touching the ground. If Haruyuki had tried the same thing, he would definitely have been unable to support the heavy weight—easily exceeding two hundred kilograms—and he would have been pushed backward, sparks shooting from every joint on his body. When he had once lifted the rear wheel of the bike a mere ten centimeters, he had taken more than a little damage to both arms.
“Ah! Wha—?! You— Damned brat!” Ash Roller stood up from his seat and pushed the weight of his body hard against the handlebars, but Cerberus did not sink down. The visor on his head was still open, so Physical Immune wouldn’t have been activated, and beyond that, it was unclear as to whether or not that ability was effective against pressure damage.
In short, Cerberus wasn’t just hard, he was also tough. Now that Haruyuki thought about it, when Cerberus had collided head-on with the heavyweight Frost Horn, instead of being knocked back, he had braced his feet and stopped the onslaught. That wasn’t something you could do without some serious load-bearing capacity and impact resistance. In other words, locking techniques probably wouldn’t work on Cerberus, either. Haruyuki added another line to the list in his head.
“Tera suuuuuuuucks!” Ash shouted in exasperation. “I am gonna seriously crush yoooooou!” Still standing on the pegs, he twisted the accelerator in his right hand, so Haruyuki made a big X with both arms.
“I-it’s no use, Ash! If you open the throttle there—”
But it was already too late. The rear tire in contact with the ground spun fiercely, and inevitably, the motorcycle brought the front wheel up once again.
“Unh…aaaaah!” Without missing his chance, Cerberus howled sharply, as he stretched out his arms like a stiff spring. Its front wheel thrust up from below, the motorcycle moved into a basically vertical position, and the vehicle body wobbled in all directions.
“No—no?! Noooooooo!!” Ash tried desperately to bring down the bike in front, clutching the handlebars all the while, but the vehicle body instead slowly inclined to the rear and finally flipped over into the snow, engine racing emptily. There was a cry of “Hnrrk!” from beneath the massive engine block, accompanied by red damage light, and Ash’s health gauge displayed in the upper right of Haruyuki’s field of view dropped to around 10 percent.
Fortunately, the snow below him was deep, and he managed to escape any further pressure damage. But Ash was apparently unable to lift the bike off himself. Cursing like a sailor, the century-end rider kicked and flailed.
“H-hold on, Ash.” Haruyuki started to hurry over to him. “I’ll get the bike—”
However, a sharply edged silhouette blocked his way. Wolfram Cerberus, of course, but he seemed somehow different from before. A powerful wave of brooding torment came drifting out from the gap in his wolflike visor.
“Crow. I’ll ask you again. Please…fight me.” The clear, high-pitched voice of the young boy reminded Haruyuki for some reason of metal under pressure, on the verge of shattering.
He stopped and looked hard at his opponent’s eyes hidden beneath goggles. “I asked you this before, too, but why are you in such a rush to fight? I get that you’d want a revenge match for yesterday. But you totally crushed me the time before that and all. If today couldn’t happen, then wouldn’t tomorrow be just fine?”
“That will be too late!” Cerberus suddenly howled, and Haruyuki swallowed hard. The gray-metal avatar clenched his hands into tight fists and continued, almost forcing the words out. “I—I have to keep winning! If I don’t keep winning, I won’t be me anymore!”
“Wh-what are you talking about, Cerberus?! Sometimes you win duels, sometimes you lose, right?! That’s the way everyone gets stronger, bit by bit—”
“I don’t have that kind of time!!” The shout that interrupted Haruyuki sounded more like a scream. “I—I have to prove I’m worthy of being Wolfram Cerberus! For that…my only choice is to win against you right now, Silver Crow!!”
The words dispersed through the stage with a physical pressure and violently shook the diamond dust hanging in the sky. As if to say the conversation was over, Cerberus brandished his fists high and brought them out to his sides before slamming them together in front of his chest. Receiving the motion command to activate his ability, the visor patterned after the maw of a beast slammed shut. He had shifted into the Physical Immune state.
“So I guess we’ll say the rest with our fists, then,” Haruyuki murmured. “Got it. We’ll fight. We are Burst Linkers, after all.”
The instant he heard these words, Cerberus’s slender body shook slightly, but he quickly nodded.
“Sorry, Ash. Hold on a minute!” The man in question was still kicking and struggling beneath the bike. Haruyuki jumped back; glancing at the time, he saw there were still just under 1,200 seconds left. A fight with Cerberus, whose fighting style resembled his own, was likely to be resolv
ed in a short time, so that was plenty of time to decide this. Haruyuki lowered his stance in the center of broad Oume Highway, readied his hands in front of him, and shouted, “Come!!”
A voice came in response immediately. “On my way!”
A massive amount of snow rolled up from Cerberus’s feet with a whump. Haruyuki focused all five of his senses on the figure charging at him in a straight line. His dash power was, as before, explosive, but the snow piled up on the ground hindered him, and his speed was slower—albeit only slightly—than in the Storm stage of the previous day.
You won’t beat me with the same strategy! Haruyuki shouted in his heart, and pulled his left foot in leisurely.
Cerberus spun his body around and launched a right mid-kick. Crushing even the atoms of ice dancing in the air, the kick closed in on Haruyuki. He caught it gently with the palm of his right hand and turned his own body suddenly to the left, pulling in the direction of the spin’s momentum, and grabbed Cerberus’s ankle with his left hand.
“Sheeah!” With a short battle cry, he went for a throw to leap on Cerberus and crush him. Just like the day before, Cerberus’s direct, rigid technique was caught by Haruyuki’s Guard Reversal, and his head met the ground—
Whud! The instant clouds of snow flew up with a wet sound, Haruyuki finally realized that this development was not Cerberus’s strategic failure, but his own.
The lone source of damage for Wolfram Cerberus in Physical Immune state was throwing techniques, but in an Ice stage, the effect of those throws was halved because the snow covering the ground acted as a cushion. Cerberus’s health gauge dropped by just under 10 percent after being thrown, and he wasn’t stunned like he had been the previous day, and he wrapped his arms and legs around Haruyuki from below.
The Red Crest Page 18