The Red Storm Princess

by Reki Kawahara

As he shrank into himself even further, the slender, black-stocking-wrapped legs were nimbly crossed in front of him, and Kuroyukihime moved her beautiful face, where neatness and cleverness coexisted, into a faint smile.

  “Naturally. I’m your ‘guardian.’ What kind of practice have you been doing?”

  “Uh, umm, well.” Haruyuki resigned himself and explained the specifications of the training room he had constructed.

  Instantly:

  The crown of his head was struck, and Haruyuki let out a cry. “Gaah?!”

  “Y-y-you idiot!! Avoid a bullet with no one pulling the trigger at that close range?! And with pain at maximum?!” Kuroyukihime shouted, her expression fiery, and her right fist trembled momentarily.

  She studied Haruyuki, who was sprouting tears and frozen solid, let out a long breath, and abruptly grabbed his head with both hands and pulled it close.

  “Wh-wha—?! K-Kuroyukhime, wh—” When he started to hyperventilate at the softness communicated from the other side of her uniform, she changed suddenly, and he heard a calm voice above his head.

  “I told you, didn’t I? That no matter what happens, I have no intention of harming my relationship with you. Trust me. That is an order.”

  “O-okay.” When Haruyuki went limp and simply nodded, she released his head and grinned.

  “I’ll say this because it’s now, but the reason I accepted the Red King’s request this time was because I thought perhaps it could show you that winning or losing isn’t everything. Don’t push yourself too hard. Get stronger for me bit by bit. I prefer it like that. Now. Shall we be on our way?”

  Haruyuki stared at the figure dressed in black as she stood up, retrieving her bag from the table, and nodded deeply once more.

  “Me, too. No matter what happens…I won’t hurt you again.” He didn’t say it out loud but made sure to mutter it under his breath.

  “Hmm? Did you say something?”

  “N-no, nothing!”

  And then he pulled himself up from his chair and hurried to follow after his guardian, his king, his classmate—the person he loved.

  Opening the door to his condo, a tiny trace of sweetness lingered in the air that enveloped Haruyuki.

  Although the dim hallway, returned to silence, was a sight he should have been used to, it made him sad somehow. The two Kings had only stayed here two nights, but it didn’t look like he’d be forgetting the experience any time soon.

  “I’m home,” he murmured, taking off his shoes before opening the door to his deserted living room.

  His mother was supposed to be back from her overseas business trip that morning, but she’d apparently just dumped her suitcase and headed to the office. She had unbelievable energy.

  Taking off his uniform jacket and hanging it on the back of a chair along with his tie, Haruyuki noticed an icon blinking in the corner of his visual field. As usual, his mother had left a message on the home server.

  He played the message back with a voice command while he pulled a bottle of oolong tea out of the refrigerator. An indistinct noise reached his auditory system, followed by his mother’s voice.

  “Haruyuki, I’ll be late today, or I might not make it home at all. Send the clothes in my suitcase out to the cleaner’s for me, would you? Oh, and sorry, but we’re babysitting again. This time, it’s my coworker’s kid, and it’s just for one night, so watch out for her, okay? Please? She should already be there by the time you get home. Okay, thanks.”

  What did she say? Haruyuki froze, glass of oolong tea still tilted. No way. It can’t. I mean, come on.

  He took a gulp from the glass and then put it down. He held his breath and looked around quietly.

  The living room, the kitchen, completely deserted. The lights were even off, and the air was still. Haruyuki had frantically cleaned up last night, so there wasn’t a trace of the terrible spectacle of the retro gaming tournament of two days prior.

  Holding his breath and letting his eyes race around, he heard—

  It was faint, but it was definitely a voice laughing somewhere.

  “No. Way.” He moaned as he flew out of the living room at lightning speed, dashed down the hall, and pushed open the door to his own room at the end of it.

  And then Haruyuki took a deep breath and let out a scream. “Waaaah?!”

  On his bed.

  Flopped back, legs crossed, buried in a mountain of paper manga from the last century smuggled out of his hiding spot, and flipping through one of them—a girl in a pure red outfit.

  “N-n-n-n—”

  The girl glanced at the trembling Haruyuki, lifting her head. It made the hair tied up on either side swing, and she smiled.

  “Welcome home, big brother!”

  “Wh-what are you—?!” Haruyuki shouted and crumpled on the spot, pointing at the girl—Immobile Fortress, Bloody Storm, the Red King Scarlet Rain, Yuniko Kozuki—mouth flapping before he finally manage to get words out. “Niko. Why are you here?”

  “Don’t make me explain the whole thing again. The whole fake-mail thing.” Abruptly returning to her other tone, Niko raised her torso. She flapped a volume of manga—definitely not educational, the kind with people dying and explosions—and grinned. “And this is some good taste you got here.”

  “O-oh, thanks—No!!” Panting frantically, Haruyuki slumped over and shook his head from side to side. “This is seriously too much! The exact same social engineering in one day, I mean…”

  “Come on. I figured I should at least say thanks, so here I am.”

  He hurriedly bobbed his head at Niko, who was pursing her lips sharply. “W-well, that is very thoughtful. Thanks.”

  He would definitely be roasted whole in her overwhelming firepower the next time she was in a bad mood that erupted into a duel. “You’re welcome,” Haruyuki quickly managed, his lips spasming into a smile. “So that’s all you needed, then? You can make your way out through that door—”

  “Oh, is that your attitude? Hmm. And here I was thinking I’d give you a follow-up report, and this is how you are?”

  “I-I’m listening! I’m listening!” Haruyuki dropped to his knees to sit formally; after glancing down at him from up on the bed and bringing the slender legs stretching out from her cut-off jeans up to sit cross-legged, Niko gave him a sharp look. But luckily for him, she continued to speak without making trouble.

  “It’s about Chrome Disaster.”

  Haruyuki swallowed hard and switched tracks. He would have to report back to Kuroyukihime on everything she said henceforth.

  “Last night, I notified the Five Kings, including the Radio jerk, that I had executed Disaster. And so anyway, that’s the end of that. Although personally, I’d like to make some kind of fuss about Yellow swiping the Armor. Unfortunately, I’ve got no proof, so…”

  “Right.” Haruyuki nodded slowly. Timidly, he continued, “So then, um, what about Cherry Rook?”

  Niko fell silent briefly and looked up at the winter evening sky peeking through the south window. Narrowing her deep green eyes, blinking her long lashes once, she answered quietly. “He said he’s moving next month.”

  “What?”

  “Some distant relative stepped up after all this time saying they wanna take him in. All the expenses at our school are covered by taxes, so students can’t say no to offers like that. He said he’s moving to Fukuoka.”

  “He is? That’s far.”

  “Yeah, I guess. So he was in a hurry. Once he moves, his only connection with me would have been Brain Burst. And on top of that, there are almost no Burst Linkers outside Tokyo. If you can’t fight, you can’t level up. And then his impatience got eaten up by the Armor…” Making a gesture like she was swallowing something back, Niko smiled faintly.

  “But maybe because Brain Burst is gone, today he was…he looked like the old him, from when he first started talking to me. Even though he hadn’t been coming to class lately or talking to anyone, today he actually chatted with me. And, you know, I was thinking.
Even if he’s not a Burst Linker anymore, even if he’s moving to Fukuoka, the VR world isn’t just the Accelerated World, right?”

  She turned her gaze on him, and Haruyuki nodded deeply.

  “Y-yeah. Of course.”

  “So, like, I hadn’t thought about it before now, but…I figured I might try some other VR game. One I could play for a long time with him. If you know any good ones, let me know.”

  “Right, okay.” He nodded, again repeatedly, and then replied: “Well, you can take whichever ones you want that I have here. Although I am kinda biased when it comes to genre.”

  “Ha-ha-ha!” Niko smiled and abruptly turned away, digging around in a small backpack off to her side. She pulled out a brown paper bag and tossed it up, and Haruyuki hurried to catch it in both hands.

  “Wh-what’s this?”

  “Yeah…It’s, uh, a thank-you. You scarfed it down the other day, all ‘so gooood,’ right?”

  Craning his neck and opening the paper bag, the smell of sweet butter wafted up. He could see the faces of several golden discs from under the white paper towel wrapping.

  Dazed, he pulled out one of the cookies, still a little warm, and timidly asked Niko, “What? A-are you sure—?”

  “What? If you don’t want ’em, give ’em back!” She glared at him, and he hurriedly shook his head.

  “I want them, I want them! Th-thanks. I was just a little surprised.” Turning his face down, he bit into the cookie in his hand.

  It was sweet and fragrant and a little salty.

  The taste of reality, he thought. This is the flavor symbolizing something in reality. And that something’s the fact that me and Niko can be friends in the real world, for real.

  “Hrng.” A strange noise slipped out of his throat.

  Curling up his body as best he could, desperately hiding his face, he took another bite of the treat. He heard a high-pitched cry from on top of the bed.

  “Y-y-you’re crying! I-idiot! Go to hell!!”

  He lowered his face into the bed, and listening to Niko’s voice continuing to berate him, Haruyuki kept chomping down the cookies, a little saltier now.

  END

  AFTERWORD

  It’s been a while, or maybe this is the first time. Reki Kawahara here. Thank you for reading Accel World 2: The Red Storm Princess.

  I was told about two billion times that the afterword in the last volume was “too formal!” or “pretentious!” or “who are you?” so this time, I’d like to do it with a tiny bit more delicacy.

  About twice a week, I get on my good-for-nothing bike and ride out to a farm not far from my house, about thirty-five kilometers north along the river. Last year, two kittens were born on this farm. And of course, even these kids, who were such cuties as first, grew up at an incredible speed (lol). Before I knew it, they had gotten so huge, and for the most part, that’s fine, but what bothers me is that when I eat some sweet bread on a bench at the farm instead of an extra meal, they come flying at me really forcefully now, demanding some bread with loud meows.

  I feel like it’s not a particularly good idea to give cats bread, and more important, I’m very much not interested in having my precious calories taken from me, so, crafty me, I decided to bring some of those little dried sardines with me along with the sweet bread and give them those. What a good person! Go ahead and compliment me!

  However. The sardines I offered up so confidently (domestically made, no less) were only sniffed at by the cats and ignored. Then they started clamoring—Who would eat such a fish? Give us a break, give us the bread. You can understand my amazement, I’m sure. Until that time, I had believed all the writings stating that these creatures called cats universally loved sardines. But that was not the case. Cats who have been raised not eating fish will end up not liking fish.

  The result of all this being that I now spend my days being squeezed by this gang for approximately 10 percent of my precious sweet bread.

  The moral of this apparently pointless story is that things you think may make others happy may not necessarily make others happy. Yes…Even so, I do hope you all enjoyed this book, which I worked hard in my own way to write.

  Illustrator, HIMA, and my editor, Miki, you have again helped me out so much.

  Thank you to my friends on the IRC channel, who cheer me up when I tend to lose heart so easily, and everyone who sent me encouraging messages on the website.

  And you reading this far, you have my deepest gratitude.

  Reki Kawahara

  March 30, 2009

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Yen On.

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