Accel World: Return of Princess Snow Black

by Reki Kawahara

  Haruyuki now finally realized the true «special techniques» that was giving to him.

  «Punch». And «Kick».

  At the same time as those were normal techniques, there were also special super-attacks.

  Greatly drawing back his clenched fist, Haruyuki fully expanded all his fins and changed his body’s direction. Straight towards Cyan Pile beneath his eyes.

  “Fa…aaaall, dooooooown!! «Lightning Cyan Spike»!!”

  At the same time as Cyan Pile screamed out the technique name, the steel needle, having changed into a long beam of light, shot out from his right arm.

  Facing it, Haruyuki released all the propulsive power of both his wings while preparing just a punch.

  “Uu…ooooooooo!!”

  DOGOOO!!

  As if igniting a rocket engine, Silver Crow’s body charged forward as a bullet of light.

  In the left-hand corner of his sight, the green special technique gauge quickly began to decrease. At the same time, the white light wrapped around his right fist endlessly increased its radiance.

  “Haruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!”

  Takumu cried out.

  “Taku——————!!”

  Haruyuki also cried out.

  KIIIIIIIIIIIN!!

  A «hyper-acceleration» beyond the acceleration of Brain Burst surged from his back and wrapped around Haruyuki.

  The color of the world changed.

  Haruyuki certainly saw Cyan Pile’s blue lance rushing up from the ground, and the glare of its single tipped point. Its predicted trajectory stood out like an illusion in his vision.

  The speed of Haruyuki’s mind surpassed the speed of the attack that was certainly like the lightning the technique was named for. This was the power of a true «accelerated person» that Kuroyukihime found and believed in.

  I can see it…I can see it, senpai!!

  Haruyuki shouted that out in his thoughts.

  The speed of the lance fell.

  In comparison, Silver Crow’s speed increased endlessly, as if he had become light itself.

  Both of them closed in and blended—in that instant, Haruyuki slide his charging trajectory a little to the right.

  ZASHUUU!!

  The lance grazed the left side of his helmet, passed through and scattered fierce sparks.

  Immediately after.

  Haruyuki’s «Punch» deeply, deeply went through the center of Cyan Pile’s chest.

  Along with a roaring ‘SUGAAA!!’ sound, their two bodies were blown off together while carving a deep rut in the roof’s floor.

  They crashed into the steel fence of the roof, smashed it into pieces and sprung out into the open air.

  “…Oooh!!”

  Haruyuki cried out and made his metallic fins flap.

  The intense and powerful lifting power wrapped around his entire body. While embedding his right arm all the way into Cyan Pile’s body, Haruyuki pointed his trajectory upwards and rose higher, higher.

  He pierced through the sea of clouds in several seconds and flew out into the yellow sky.

  After he reduced acceleration and shifted to hovering, Cyan Pile, who seemed to have lost consciousness at the moment of impact, made a coughing noise under his mask from where it lay on top of Haruyuki’s shoulder.

  “Go…fuh…”

  After his huge figure quivered for a bit, he raised his head.

  Immediately after, he let out a thin scream that made his angry voice of resentment until now seemed like a lie.

  “U…wah…!? F…fly…ing…!?”

  While shaking his mask left and right, he cried out further.

  “Stop it, Haru…! D…Don’t drop me!! If I fall now…I’ll l-lose…”

  Both of their health gauges were dyed deep red together, and their width had decreased to the point of being thing like a thread. Cyan Pile’s entire body was still from the fear of falling from struggling, and he changed his voice to a tone of begging.

  “If…if I lose…if I lose against to a Level 1 like you, my points will become zero…but it’s fine for you, you’ll only lose 4 or 5 points anyhow! Please, please surrender here, Haru! I can’t lose Brain Burst now!!”

  “Taku…Takumu…”

  While murmuring as if groaning, Haruyuki strongly clutched his right fist that was still pierced through Cyan Pile.

  What—What are you saying after all this time!! You tried to take away all of Kuroyukihime’s points…You tried to erase that person’s Brain Burst, and her one and only wish!

  Right now, with just the smallest change of his arm’s angle, he could deprive Cyan Pile’s huge body of support and make him fall to the ground far below. Takumu would lose about 40 points and at the same time have Brain Burst forcefully uninstalled. And then—he wouldn’t be able to attack Kuroyukihime-senpai from beyond the local network again.

  Haruyuki gritted his teeth to the point of breaking them.

  His whole body trembled, and then the momentary urge passed from his head to his toes and left him.

  The voice he pushed out from the space between his clenched teeth was cracked, as if it wasn’t from himself.

  “…Do you acknowledge it, Taku?”

  “……W-What…?”

  “You can never win against me anymore in this accelerated world. Do you acknowledge that, Taku!!”

  An instant of silence.

  The words that were returned through the body glued to him were quiet, as if something had collapsed.

  “……Yeah. That’s true…As expected, I can’t win against you. Just like in the various games we played together in the past…”

  Haruyuki inhaled deeply, and then exhaled. Then, he spoke in the same quiet voice.

  “Then…me and you are the same.”

  “…!? W-What……?”

  “In the real world, I can never win against you. But, in this world, you can’t win against me. We are the same. That’s why…that’s why.”

  Pausing in his speech, Haruyuki looked at the bluish-white eyes within Cyan Pile’s mask, and then continued.

  “That’s why…become my ally…my comrade, Taku. Just like me, fight as that person’s subordinate from now on.”

  Takumu became speechless and gasped sharply. After a short time, a hoarse groaning voice leaked from beneath his thin slits.

  “…Don’t be stupid, Haru, you should know as well. Your parent…«Black Lotus», who tries to hide and hunt the legion I belong to as well, is Accel World’s biggest traitor! In other words…to fight together with her would mean…”

  “That’s right. We would have to beat the «Six Kings of Pure Color». That’s nothing to feel frightened about. Let me tell you something good…Something like that is how a game essentially is.”

  After Haruyuki declared that, Takumu responded with a long silence.

  The words he let out several seconds later seemed to be dinged with a self-derisive smile.

  “…Haru, do you still believe in me? Even if I say yes here, do you intend to believe in my words without any basis at this late hour? The words of me, who broke the laws of my legion, broke the rules of Brain Burst, and betrayed my only two friends?”

  “After this, the two of us will tell Chiyu everything.”

  As Haruyuki immediately retorted back, Takumu let out an astonished breath for the nth time today.

  “Eh…!?”

  “About Brain Burst, about our battle, and also…about the feelings you and I kept hiding, we’ll confess it all to her.”

  Haruyuki turned his gaze towards the sky that continued on far away into infinity, and slowly spoke.

  “We probably have to start from there. Until now, all three of us kept hiding the things we shouldn’t have hidden. We doubted the things we shouldn’t have doubted. We have to start over…from somewhere.”

  “……Start over…do you really think that, Haru? I…I, to Chii-chan’s Neuro Linker…”

  As Takumu said that with a trembling voice, Haruyuki hit his back lightly with hi
s broken left arm.

  “She’s be mad enough to die, alright. She’ll yell, she’ll rage…but in the end, she’ll forgive, if it’s her.”

  Haruyuki said that with a laugh in his voice as they slowly began to descend.

  Returning to the roof and freeing himself from Silver Crow’s right arm, Cyan Pile staggered back several steps and then sat on the floor with a thud.

  Haruyuki briefly confirmed the remaining time. After two minutes and a little more, this long duel would end.

  Just in case he clicked on the gauges to confirm them, but their remaining health had both the exact same numerical value. If the time ran out like this, the result should be a draw and an exchange of points shouldn’t occur.

  Looking at Cyan Pile once again, who was hanging his head between his knees and wasn’t moving, Haruyuki thought in his mind.

  Am I…making a mistake?

  Should I have mercilessly thrown Takumu to the ground back them, and made the possibility of him breaking his promise afterwards and attacking Kuroyukihime completely zero?

  No—that’s wrong. To doubt in others, or to believe in others, it’s the same as to doubt myself, or to believe in myself.

  I believe in myself who has decided to believe in Takumu.

  It’s fine like this, right…?

  He called that out with the voice of his heart—immediately after that.

  The elevator door opened behind him, resounding with a grave metallic clank.

  In the instant that his whole body stiffened and quickly looked back, Haruyuki guessed which form would appear before his eyes here, and believed once again.

  It’s impossible for it to be a new enemy. Since the only ones who could fight on this stage were Haruyuki and Takumu.

  And it couldn’t be an unknown duel avatar. There was no reason for an unrelated spectator to appear from the hospital.

  But, the instant he actually confirmed it with his own eyes, Haruyuki’s breath stopped, his chest was filled with something hot, and tears flowed from both his eyes.

  A pure black, as if the essence of darkness was condensed. The clear silver which colored its edges.

  The cold wind which blew too much shook her long rolling hair and the hem of her skirt, and lightly chimed the bells that decorated her parasol.

  “Sen…pa…”

  His squeezed-out voice trembled thinly like a small child’s.

  Looking at Haruyuki as he dragged his broken leg and went forward one, two steps—

  Kuroyukihime tilted her head to the side and at the same time smiled pleasantly.

  “Senpai!!”

  Finally calling out with a decent voice, Haruyuki ran up to her at maximum speed while letting out irregular clanking sounds.

  Kuroyukihime also ran up to him with her high-heels clicking furiously.

  There was neither hesitation nor nervousness at all as he stretched out their arms and dive into the other’s opened arms.

  Hugging her soft and sweetly fragranced body with all his might, Haruyuki cried out in a voice mixed with sobbing.

  “You’ve…you’ve regained consciousness! Thank goodness…I believed…I believed that you’d definitely be saved…thank goodness…truly…”

  Holding Haruyuki in her arms as if wrapping him up, Kuroyukihime pressed her cheek near while remaining silent for a while.

  Finally, the whispery voice that resounded in his ear was wet like his.

  “…Within the darkness that was neither heaven nor earth…I heard only your voice. You…protected me, didn’t you? Getting this hurt…”

  Her right hand gently stroked Silver Crow’s crack-covered body.

  “Becoming so torn-up…Thank you…thank you, Haruyuki-kun.”

  “No…Senpai was the one who protected me. Because I heard you say…that you believed in me, that’s why…I was able to fly.”

  Kuroyukihime nodded several times in silence, and gently stroked the thin wings stretching out from Haruyuki’s back with her extended hand.

  “They’re beautiful…This is your power, the potential that was hidden within Silver Crow. Until now…there has never been a single duel avatar that possessed a true flying ability. As I thought, my premonition wasn’t wrong. You are the person who will change this world.”

  Kuroyukihime softly lowered Silver Crow’s small body onto the ground with her hands.

  Inclining her head and looking down at Haruyuki with a smile, the fairy princess with her ephemeral silhouette spoke in a tone that possessed just a little strength in it.

  “It seems the time has come…The time for me to also leave my peaceful cocoon and aim for the sky once more.”

  She then turned her gaze to look behind him. Cyan Pile, who was sitting at the place he had been left at, had only raised his eyes a little while still hanging his head and was looking at the two of them.

  “To you as well…I should apologize, Cyan Pile.”

  The words from Kuroyukihime were unexpected.

  “I also disgraced the duel which should have had honor with you many times. I will show it now, my true form. And if you so wish, I will face you with my full strength.”

  Raising her right hand, she quickly operated her virtual console.

  BACHI. BACHIBACHI!!

  Black lightning that was suddenly released wrapped around the avatar of the fairy princess over and over again.

  Before the eyes of Haruyuki as he hurriedly took several steps back, the form of the silhouette that was wrapped in purple light changed little by little, little by little. The skirt that nearly grazed the floor quickly shortened, and split into sharp serrated edges. Her arms and legs became perfectly straight lines, and the tips contracted like needles.

  The long hair melted into the light and vanished, and in its place a mask shaped like a bird of prey with wings at the back appeared—and finally, after still more lightning soared, all of the effects disappeared.

  What stood there, as if cut out of black crystal, was a beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful duel avatar.

  The form of its entire body was somewhat similar to Silver Crow’s.

  But its height was quite tall, over a hundred-and-seventy centimeters. Elegant, though mainly a straight line, and wrapped in black armor that gave a feeling of transparency, the body was thin like a doll and connected to an armored skirt similar to a black lotus flower which surrounded the waist.

  And the characteristic that stood out above anything else were the limbs. Both arms and legs were chillingly long and sharp swords. Looking as if they would immediately cut in half anything they touched, the blade edges that emitted a bright radiance faintly resounded coldly, coldly against the stage’s breeze.

  The front part of the head, which was shaped like a V tilting towards the back, had utterly black mirror-like goggles. Within that, two bluish-purple eyes shone with a vibrating ‘VIIIIN’ sound.

  Haruyuki stood stock still for a short while as if his soul had fallen out. Cyan Pile also gave off the same speechless feeling from where he sat. To the two of them, more than that violently beautiful form—they were overwhelmed by the bottomless potential that rose out from that entire slender and jet-black body.

  Haruyuki was certain that, if he «battled» that, he would be minced up without even having a few seconds and would disappear while crumbling into pieces.

  Eventually, Haruyuki squeezed out a voice from his chest that was similar to a sigh somehow.

  “It’s…beautiful. Very…beautiful…Senpai said it was ugly before, but…it’s not like that at all…”

  “Hmm…is that so…”

  Only the voice that came out was still like Kuroyukihime.

  “Even though I have no hands to hold someone with…”

  Those words didn’t continue to the end.

  D O O O O O !!

  Suddenly, fiercely loud voice of shock burst out once again from the surrounding buildings.

  “U, uooo! Oooooo—!?”

  “That’s…That duel avatar is…!!”r />
  “«Black Lotus»!! The «Black King»!! She was in such good health——!!”

  The shouting voices of the gallery were at a volume that was clearly more than double than when they had seen Silver Crow take flight.

  Kuroyukihime looked at the surroundings and then spoke while lightly shrugging her shoulders.

  “Now then…Silver Crow. Will you take me along and fly?”

  “Eh, ye…yes.”

  No matter how high her potential may be, her actual weight couldn’t be greater than Cyan Pile’s. But, even if she said ‘take me along’, how should he…?

  Moving with a hover while emitting a faint vibrating sound right up to the bewildered Haruyuki, Kuroyukihime turned her body to the right and raised her arms with a casual gesture while lowering her waist.

  As if inviting him to give the so-called «princess carry».

  Though thinking ‘Eh!?’, Haruyuki knew he could under no circumstances run away and escape here. While dripping sweat drops from his helmet—or rather while experiencing the illusion of that, Haruyuki awkwardly held out both his arms and put them around Kuroyukihime’s back and waist.

  “Please take care of me.”

  Saying that in a somewhat playful tone, Kuroyukihime entrusted her body to Haruyuki’s arms. While being poured on by Takumu’s gaze, which might have been his imagination that it seemed teasing, Haruyuki resolved himself and carried the avatar of black crystal. Fortunately, it wasn’t that heavy like he thought, and Haruyuki then made the fins on his back vibrate strongly and kicked off the floor with his one leg.

  With ‘Gyuuu!’, he moderately accelerated and aimed for the sky.

  From within his arms, Kuroyukihime cried out in a whispery voice while craning her back and neck in order to survey the streets below.

  “This is…incredible! It seems I could get addicted to this…Next time, I want us to direct connect duel and fly for the whole thirty minutes…oops, this is high enough.”

  “Yes.”

  Nodding, Haruyuki switched to hovering.

  They weren’t that high up. Below, the countless duel avatars gazing upwards from the scattered roofs could be clearly seen.

  Kuroyukihime inhaled a single, big, breath, and—