The Red Storm Princess

by Reki Kawahara

  The main weapon, the right arm of the fortress avatar, the Red King Scarlet Rain, who he had thought too severely damaged to move, had been raised and was pointed straight at the center of the new crater. The residual heat moving heavenward from the large-diameter gun was a haze distorting the surroundings.

  He could no longer doubt that the attack launched from that gun—most likely, a top-level special attack—had swallowed Kuroyukihime and Chrome Disaster whole, causing enormous damage.

  Haruyuki gritted his teeth and stared at Niko’s eyes, peeking out from a gap in her armor plating. But those red lenses didn’t even notice Haruyuki, or Black Lotus in his arms.

  “Why?!”

  Even at Haruyuki’s scream, the Red King remained silent. Instead, the thrusters on her back and bottom lit up and began to slowly ease the enormous body of the Immobile Fortress forward.

  Once she started moving, she was surprisingly fast, and she soon covered the radius of the crater.

  “Rooo…” The low whimper came from Chrome Disaster, curled up like a wounded animal. Sensing the approach of the Red King, he got up on all fours and retreated to the north. The red automatic recovery light could be seen covering gashes all over the armor. But it seemed that his wounds now were too deep and could not be so simply healed.

  The crimson fortress in pursuit of the wounded and escaping knight appeared over the lip of the crater. Moved to tears at her majestic appearance, Haruyuki could only stare.

  “Why…” The trembling query escaped his throat once more, and the forward momentum of the fortress stopped abruptly. The avatar towering in front of him looked up, and with a deep breath Haruyuki cried, “Niko! I mean, Scarlet Rain!! You haven’t forgotten, right? If she’s defeated by you, Kuroyukihime…Black Lotus will lose all her points!!”

  Kuroyukihime was still unconscious in his arms. And just looking at the extent of damage, it was clear she didn’t have much left in her HP gauge.

  At Haruyuki’s reproach, the Red King replied curtly and hollowly. “So what?”

  Haruyuki was rendered speechless, and the childish, cold voice continued to pummel him. “For a Burst Linker, all Burst Linkers other than yourself are enemies. You get defeated by an enemy, your points decrease. When they hit zero, you’re forced to leave forever. And that’s that.”

  “B-but…we…you and us…”

  “Are friends?” With a heavy thud, Scarlet Rain’s main weapon struck the scorched earth. A voice, sharp like a blade, cut through air tinged with a final afterglow. “Your softness makes me puke! Listen, I’ll teach you one last thing. In the Accelerated World, you trust nothing and no one!! Partners, friends, armies…and even the guardian-child bond, they’re all nothing more than illusions!!”

  The incandescent blaze of a cry ripped through the air, and in unison, all of the Red King’s weapon containers, which had taken serious damage, broke off. From the center of the Enhanced Armament melting into the air, a small avatar appeared, descending to the ground.

  The crimson armor of the little avatar maintained its ruby-like shine, but her left arm from the elbow down had been savagely ripped off, and now small sparks scattered from it. Although she should have been in pain, Niko stood tall in a movement betraying nothing. The avatar glanced passingly at Haruyuki. On the other side of the lenses of those cute, round eyes, an inferno swirled.

  “After I take care of him, I’ll finish the two of you off together. If that’s not your thing, better run now. The next time we meet…it’s as enemies.”

  Having coldly communicated this fact to him, the Red King turned her gaze forward again. She pulled out the handgun on her hip with her right hand and started walking, yanking back the slide as she did.

  At her destination, Chrome Disaster was crawling northward even now, light the color of blood seeping from the wounds covering his body. That he could move even that much despite having been closer to the blast’s epicenter than Kuroyukihime really spoke to his astonishing endurance. However, he could slink no faster than about half of Niko’s current gait, meaning escape was no longer possible.

  Still holding the injured Kuroyukihime in both arms, Haruyuki’s blurred gaze was held by the shadows of two avatars steadily growing closer. Judging the situation rationally, he should have considered the possibility that he should, based on her earlier pronouncement, run toward the withdrawal point in either Ikebukuro Station or Sunshine City right away.

  But Haruyuki couldn’t move. Or rather, he didn’t want to move. If he ran now, something wrong would be established as fact. That’s how he felt.

  Near the exit to the road—created by the enormous beam mowing down a block’s worth of buildings—Niko had finally caught up with Chrome Disaster, and she casually raised her right foot. The knight avatar was kicked to the ground with a rough clang, and Niko perched her left foot on his head.

  Haruyuki felt it was an indescribably sad scene.

  It was true that the demonic armor had to be destroyed. And it might also have been a fact that she’d had no choice but to aim for the moment right before he started grappling with Kuroyukihime to actually hit this thing, given its transcendent reflexes, with her special attack.

  But—in that case, what was the other night about?

  Niko and Kuroyukihime sleeping, arms wrapped around each other in Haruyuki’s living room, as if they were both looking for something in the other. The two girls, making him feel a bigger bond, one that surpassed even their shared destiny that, as Kings, they would have to fight one day. Was that sight, so precious Haruyuki almost wanted to cry, merely one night’s illusion? Was it just a meaningless coincidence?

  Scarlet Rain pressed her gun to the back of Chrome Disaster’s head.

  Unable to bear the sight of what came next, Haruyuki ducked his head. But he didn’t hear the gun report no matter how long he waited.

  Instead, a weak voice spoke next to his ear. “…Hon. Estly…This is why…I despise children…”

  Kuroyukihime’s voice, wounded, shaking with pain. But there wasn’t a hint of anger there. Haruyuki lifted his face with a gasp and stared into the ebony goggles so close to him.

  Inside, a very faint violet light shone. Suppressing all the feelings welling up, Haruyuki whispered, “K-Kuroyu…”

  It was in that instant he heard a metallic screeching.

  Shifting his gaze, Haruyuki saw Chrome Disaster, upper body arched back, right hand thrown out. And Scarlet Rain, fragments of armor scattering from her left arm.

  Dancing, high up in the sky, was the crimson gun.

  “Wh-why didn’t she shoot?!” Haruyuki cried involuntarily.

  She should have had plenty of time to deliver Chrome Disaster the Judgment Blow, the immediate execution of a member by the Legion Master. Wasn’t it for exactly this purpose that she had gotten Kuroyukihime tangled up in her special attack and even gone so far as to toss them coldly aside and say such terrible things? Why on earth would she hesitate now?

  The response to the questions making his head swim came from Kuroyukihime in his arms. “…That. Little girl…is just sulking. It’s hard…She’s sad, throwing a tantrum…”

  “Wh-what?!”

  Shocked, eyes covering the distance between the girl in his arms and the one on the other side of the wreckage, he saw Chrome Disaster’s right hand flash like lightning, seizing Niko by the neck.

  The arm, which appeared to have recovered a fair bit of power, slowly hoisted the small avatar. Niko grabbed the gauntlet with her right hand but offered no other resistance, simply dangling there limply. Almost as if she had given up on everything and resigned herself to this fate.

  “That girl in particular…More than anyone else, she wants to believe. In the ultimate bond of a Burst Linker…,” Kuroyukihime murmured.

  “B-bond…?” Haruyuki asked in response, dumbfounded, his eyes opening wide.

  “Y-yes. I can tell. Those two…are guardian and child. The Red King…is Disaster’s…no, Cherry Rook’s child.”


  Guardian and child?! Those two?!

  Up to that point, the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. But now that she had said it, there was one thing that made sense to him.

  Niko had tracked in detail Cherry Rook’s location in the real world. Haruyuki had assumed it was some kind of Legion Master privilege, but that wasn’t the case. Niko simply knew Cherry Rook in the real. As her only “guardian” who had passed Brain Burst along to her himself.

  Further overwhelmed by surprise and rendered again speechless, Haruyuki shifted his gaze back to Kuroyukihime’s placid expression. She raised a ragged right hand and patted him on the shoulder. “Come now, what are you doing? I’m…fine. Go and help her…Niko…our friend.”

  Tears welled up in Haruyuki’s eyes, tears he didn’t try to hold back. He didn’t know why, but some huge, hot thing born in his heart pushed its way up. He nodded vigorously. “Okay!”

  Haruyuki gently settled Kuroyukihime’s body back on the ground and stood up. With a sharp clack, the wings on his back were fully deployed.

  He aimed for the top of Niko’s shoulder where she was clutched in Disaster’s right fist. It would also bring him close to the monster’s jaw. He took a deep breath and clenched his right hand.

  “Yaaaaah!” He shouted a cry and then kicked hard off the ground.

  After running toward takeoff for a few seconds, he vibrated the metal fins of his wings as hard as he could. His feet pulled away from the ground, and Haruyuki plunged forward, just skimming the surface of the earth, becoming nothing more than a beam of silver light.

  On the other side of the rubble road, the crazed armor drew closer to Niko. He held her before his red eyes, ready to tear into her flesh, his own “child” Linker. Haruyuki clenched his right fist tightly, readying it at his side.

  “Stoooooop!” Screaming, Haruyuki slammed a fist enveloped in dazzling light into the center of that stygian maw.

  His silver radiance ripped into the lurking darkness with a crunch. After a moment’s pause, Chrome Disaster flew back, head thrown off to the side, as if flicked away by an explosion of repulsive force. He bounced on the rubble and tumbled along for another ten meters before falling, limbs askew.

  Haruyuki folded up his wings and landed, glancing up to see that he had used half of his special-attack gauge with the Punch. Presently, he looked down at the crimson avatar on her knees beside him.

  Holding her throat where Disaster had clutched it and coughing violently, Niko lifted her face and glared at Haruyuki, fire in her eyes. “Y-you…Why…”

  “I came to help.” The heat rising up from the depths of his body made his voice unusually rough. “We’re…friends, okay?”

  Swallowing her breath for an instant and stiffening up, Niko squeezed out hoarsely, “You jerk…Just a small fry and here you are…acting all big…”

  “You, too. You’re supposed to be a King. How long are you gonna mess this up?” With the tip of his toes, Haruyuki kicked up the crimson gun, which had fallen near his right foot, and grabbed the barrel midair. He held the grip out to Niko as he continued, “You’re the only one who can help him; the only one who can help Cherry Rook, Niko. For him, Brain Burst is nothing more than a curse now. You have to set him free.”

  Behind the round, cute lens, a glimmer wavered as if in hesitation. But a second later, her right hand stretched out and wrapped firmly around the grip of the pistol.

  “Yeah. I know. I know, okay?” Muttering as she stood, the Red King brought her left foot down on the ground loudly, as if to crush something. She focused her gaze straight ahead.

  Chrome Disaster, having been sent flying, was only now raising his torso. With his right hand, he covered his face where he’d been struck by Haruyuki’s Punch and whined restlessly. He apparently didn’t have enough strength left to stand. The red glow attempting to repair the damage covering his body had disappeared almost entirely, replaced with particles the color of pitch, dripping out of the wounds like blood.

  “Cherry,” Niko called to him quietly as she advanced. “Let’s end this already. There’s no point in going on with a game that’s just pain and suffering.”

  From between the fingers covering his helmet, the flickering blink of Chrome Disaster’s red eyes was visible. The left arm that had been thrust into the ground lifted shakily, and the palm of his hand was turned up to the sky, as if to say I surrender.

  For a moment, Haruyuki wondered if he had come to his senses.

  However…

  Suddenly, without any kind of preliminary movement, the blackish-silver avatar whirled upward diagonally, with a speed that belied its weight.

  “What?!” Haruyuki cried as he watched Disaster attach himself to the steel frame protruding from the top of a nearly destroyed five-story building. Whipping around backward, he leaped again, as if sucked up by the sky itself.

  As he stared at the figure receding with each passing second, Haruyuki shouted, “Flight ability?!”

  “No, it’s a long-distance jump!” Niko replied, tense. “He’s going to try to log out at the withdrawal point in Sunshine City. If we let him get away now, we won’t get another chance.”

  Cherry Rook, wrapped in that armor, probably already understood that his Legion Master and “child,” Niko, had tracked his movements somehow. He was certain to deal with that once he logged out, and if he did, they wouldn’t be able to use this Unlimited Neutral Field ambush strategy again.

  Haruyuki gritted his teeth, stared directly at the Red King, and said, “Niko. This time you can shoot, right? The Judgment Blow.”

  “Shut up. I’ll fire. For his sake.”

  Finally, Haruyuki’s turn had come: time for Silver Crow to run down and capture Chrome Disaster as per their original plan. All he had to do now was fly. Praying that was the case, Haruyuki told her bluntly, “I’ll keep Disaster in check until you catch up.”

  Speechless for a moment, Niko shook her head in tiny increments. “Y-you can’t alone! Not only are you hurt, but he can still move like that. If you get caught, he’ll be the one eating you!”

  Haruyuki glanced over at the jet-black figure lying at the far southern edge of the crater and then quickly brought his gaze back before saying, forcefully, “Then you’ve got until he eats me!”

  Making the rubble clatter, he reoriented his body, spread his wings, and took off in a straight line.

  Flying from the devastated cluster of buildings and giving everything he had to increasing his speed, a dully glittering avatar entered his field of view. Already three hundred meters off to the northeast, the fleeing beast continued to move farther away with incredible long-distance jumps from rooftop to rooftop.

  Haruyuki glanced down to see the crimson avatar starting to run in the same northeasterly direction. Taking a deep breath, he flew faster, accompanied by a roaring whoosh.

  He stuck both hands straight ahead and surged forward, slicing through the virtual air. Soon enough, he’d passed Green Street, and he continued accelerating along the intersecting Shuto Expressway No. 5.

  Soaring on the horizon, Sunshine City was already directly ahead. Naturally, it was no longer the gray skyscraper from the real world. A bluish, jagged steel material interwove to make up the truss structure, and the look of it piercing the dark clouds, eclipsing everything else, gave it the appearance of an enormous tower that was home to the King of Hell. The shopping mall at its base had also been transformed into a desolate park, and here and there in the cracked, tile-covered space, pitch-black trees spread out deformed arms.

  At the end of the large stairway cutting through the park from the road to the tower, he could see the structure’s entrance, filled with a hazy, pale blue light. That was probably the leave point. If Chrome Disaster managed to get that far, they’d never get the chance to capture him in the Unlimited Neutral Field again.

  Disaster continued leaping in a zigzag across the tops of the buildings on the main street, pitch-black blood particles dropping in his wake. He was so incre
dibly fast that it was impossible to believe he was just jumping, but as expected, he was slower than Silver Crow in flight.

  I caught him!

  Haruyuki held his breath and planned the timing for a sudden drop. Above all else, he had to knock the Armor into the ground and stop its advance.

  Maintaining sufficient speed and having positioned himself directly above his opponent’s blind spot, Haruyuki entered a full-throttle dive the instant the Armor landed atop a new roof and launched itself toward its next target.

  Haruyuki stuck out the toes on his right foot, turning himself into a sharp wedge, and streamed downward. Perhaps noticing the whistle of the wind, the Armor’s helmet looked up with a start. But he wouldn’t be able to dodge midleap. The tips of Haruyuki’s toes, glowing with a fierce radiance, piercing the lacerated back of the Armor—

  “Wha—?!”

  The instant before he connected with the mutilated Armor, something impossible happened.

  In midair, Chrome Disaster, without giving any warning whatsoever, abruptly diverted his trajectory to the right. Haruyuki’s Kick missed its target, accomplishing no more than a scraping sound. Had he allowed the momentum to carry him, he’d have buried himself in the base of the tower, but he braked with every ounce of strength in his wings and just barely managed to decelerate in time.

  Landing on both feet with an enormous thud, Haruyuki looked up, still dumbfounded, at Chrome Disaster flying off to the right.

  What was that?! No matter how fast or long the jump, as long as it was still a jump, it just wasn’t possible to change trajectories in midair. After all, had it been possible, then it was basically the same as being able to fly, like Haruyuki.

  He hurried to take off again and pursue Disaster. The avatar was already close enough that he could probably reach the Sunshine City site in another two or three jumps.

  The method of it was unclear, but given that his opponent could alter his course in midair, Haruyuki wasn’t likely to land a straight dive-kick. In which case, the only thing to do was court the risk of being caught himself and launch an attack while following him closely.