Signal Fire at the Water’s Edge

by Reki Kawahara

  “Hello Sacchi, Chiyuri, Mayuzumi.” Utai bowed her head.

  Chiyuri and Takumu also made their greetings before they clasped their hands together in front of their faces.

  “Kuroyuki, Ui—I’m sorry!”

  “Please excuse us, Master. Chii and I still aren’t finished with festival preparations.”

  Haruyuki had expected this, but when he heard them, he abruptly shouted, “Wh-what?! So then, Chiyutaku, you’re not doing the Territories?!”

  “I told you to stop with the combined or whatever name thing!” Lime Bell said, putting her hands on her hips. “I can’t help it. Right now, I’m testing out crepes in the booth. The time for this meeting’s set, so I could make arrangements to accelerate, but I don’t know when the Territories will start, so…”

  “I’m in the middle of dance practice,” Cyan Pile added, scratching his head with the pile driver of his right hand. “And it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to get away for a while. Haru, can you just try and push through somehow without us today?”

  “W-well, of course, I’m going to try…,” he replied, when there was another vwmm of appearance to his left.

  Teleporting in was an F-type avatar in a silver wheelchair. Her slender body was wrapped in a white dress, and long hair that shone bluish-silver hung down from beneath her equally white, wide-brimmed hat. This was their Legion Submaster, Sky Raker—Fuko Kurasaki.

  Now that Raker had gotten back her legs, which she had been missing for some time, in the Hermes’ Cord race, there was no longer any need for her to use the wheelchair Enhanced Armament. But in fact, to her, the wheelchair was not a handicap, but a powerful weapon that increased her mobility several times over. She couldn’t show off its true power unless the earth of the stage was flat and hard, but of course, she could just stand up when it wasn’t.

  Thus, Fuko normally showed up for the Territories in her wheelchair, and now, she approached as if gliding across the smooth tiles laid out on the earth of the Moonlight stage. She bowed lightly before saying with a smile, “It’s all right. If Chi-ko and Mayuzumi are out today, that does mean we’ll be defending with two teams of two this week, but I’ll allow you to freely choose your partner, Corvus.”

  “Oh, th-thank— Wait, whaaaaat?!” After unthinkingly bringing a hand to the back of his head and starting to thank her, he reeled backward anew. What Fuko was saying, basically, was that he had to choose her, Utai, or Kuroyukihime to team up with. Of course, all three of them were certifiably great in battle, but in this situation, it didn’t look like he’d be allowed to reply, “Anyone’s okay.”

  Haruyuki looked in turn at the grinning face of Sky Raker, the somehow serious or rather desperate air of Ardor Maiden (the reason was likely that she would end up tag-teaming with Fuko depending on Haruyuki’s choice), and the cold light shining in the eyes of Black Lotus…and then he finally realized it:

  Even without Takumu and Chiyuri, the number of people on the defense team was not four, but five. Because starting that day, Nega Nebulus had a new member—or rather, a returning member. And that was precisely the reason for the happiness that Haruyuki was keeping secret from Ardor Maiden. Exhaling slowly, Haruyuki turned to Lotus and gave a nod.

  Kuroyukihime released her grumpy mood and let the air of a faint smile bleed out. She loosely raised the sword of her right arm and, after first indicating the enormous full moon shining in the middle of the night sky, slowly moved the tip of her sword upward. It pointed toward the first school building, indicating a point on the roof. In that place where the Legion members now focused their gazes, at some point, a seventh person had quietly come to stand. A duel avatar of flowing water that caught the pale moonlight and shone coolly.

  “What…?!” Fuko gasped.

  “Ah…ah!” Utai let out a pinched shout. Chiyuri and Takumu were also frozen in place, looks of surprise on their faces. And then, under his goggles, a broad smile spread across Haruyuki’s face.

  As the six of them stared wordlessly, the avatar dropped down to the ground along the wall of the school building, and the babbling of water reached their ears; the fine droplets dancing in the air reflected the light of the moon and glittered silver. Fuko and Utai took a few steps forward as if pulled in, and the flowing-water avatar came to a stop before them.

  The silence continued for a while before a murmur came riding on the sound of her water.

  “…I’m home, Raker, Maiden.”

  Even hearing that voice, Fuko and Utai didn’t react right away. Or rather, they couldn’t. Some seconds passed before they squeezed out faintly.

  “Is that you…Curren…?”

  “Ren…is it you?”

  The water of the Four Elements, Aqua Current, returned a definite nod to both questions. Then she reached out, and the rings of water connected to the backs of her hands spread out to both sides, drawing a large heart in the air. Fuko and Utai leapt forward at the same time and, spreading their arms similarly wide, wrapped themselves around Current’s—Akira’s—body.

  As Haruyuki watched the three hugging each other tightly with a warm feeling in his heart, Chiyuri asked softly from beside him, “Hey, Haru…Was this person maybe one of our senior members way back when…?”

  “Yeah. That’s Aqua Current. She’s finally come back to Nega Nebulus.”

  “Wait, Haru, you knew? You knew and you kept it a secret?!” She shoved him in the side with the edge of her Enhanced Armament Choir Chime, and he hurried to make his excuses:

  “E-even if I did know, I only met Curren two days ago! And making it a surprise was more fun. I mean, we get to watch this reunion.”

  “That’s no reason to keep it from us! Right, Taku—? …Huh? What’s wrong, Taku?”

  Haruyuki looked back together with Chiyuri and saw Cyan Pile standing there with his arms crossed, twisting his head from side to side for some reason.

  “…Aqua Current…one of the Four Elements…I’m pretty sure we were told that, but she’s…the bodyguard, the One…Why have I heard this name before, and that…?”

  “Wh-whoa, you okay, Taku? …Oh! R-right. Your memory, too!” Haruyuki took his eyes off Takumu—who was so deep in thought that steam practically threatened to come out of the slits in his face mask—and shouted at Akira, still immersed in her emotional reunion, “Uh, um! I’m sorry to disturb you in the middle of something, Curren! P-please do that, that Memory Free thing for Taku, too!!”

  On the verge of losing all his points the previous fall, Haruyuki had fought tag-team matches with Akira in the Jimbocho area and averted the crisis. But after that, he had been forced to forget the meeting with Aqua Current through the amazing Incarnate technique Memory Leak, which sealed away memories, and he hadn’t been able to remember a thing about it until she’d released the seal two days before. And apparently, she’d performed the same technique on Takumu, who had gone with him to Jimbocho.

  After they switched the battlefield to Battle Royale mode, Takumu had his memory returned, as Haruyuki had. He shook his head back and forth several times before finally nodding as if satisfied. “I see…I finally understand how you were never cracked in the real despite the fact that you’ve been in the high-risk job of the Bodyguard for such a long time.”

  Akira shrugged lightly. “As a guarantee of security, just a photo in the real’s usually enough. The memories I’ve sealed so far have just been those of a few Burst Linkers who contacted me with malicious intent right from the start and”—she closed her mouth again and then added with a smile—“you new Nega Nebulus members.”

  “Honestly, leveling up right away when you’ve just reached three hundred points—that is so like you, Haru,” Chiyuri said, shaking her pointed hat from side to side, and then turned her face to Akira and offered a straight question. “But, Curren, I mean, sealing memories…Even for an Incarnate technique, that is a super-amazing effect. How on earth did you put it together?”

  “From my perspective, Bell, your special attack is way more amazi
ng. As for the logic of my Incarnate technique, I’ll explain in detail once the duel’s over, so I’ll just summarize for now. I think everyone here knows that the Brain Burst program itself has the power to interfere with Burst Linker memories.”

  At this, Haruyuki let slip an unconscious “Oh!” The fact that he hadn’t connected this until that very moment was pathetic, but it was true that when Brain Burst forcefully uninstalled itself from the Neurolinkers of players who had lost all their points, it also ripped up memories of the Accelerated World, right from the root. Haruyuki had even seen an actual example of this in April of that year.

  Akira looked around at everyone before continuing. “My Incarnate technique Memory Leak activates that power in a very limited way and blocks memories related to me. We can talk about the detailed mechanics of it later, when we have more time.”

  “Honestly, way to throw cold water on the love, Curren. Even us Elements didn’t know you had a power like that,” Fuko remarked.

  “Of course I bring the cold water,” the avatar wrapped entirely in flowing water replied smoothly.

  Everyone laughed at this, and then Kuroyukihime clanked the long swords of her hands together.

  “We have much more to talk about, but at any rate, Nega Nebulus has welcomed a new member. Bell, Pile, Crow, I’m sure you’ll have many opportunities from now on to fight alongside Current. Make use of your own particular abilities and come up with effective combinations. With that said, since Bell and Pile can’t take part in the Territories today, that leaves five of us to defend. As for the team-ups, sorry, but I’ll be deciding that.”

  Haruyuki waited slightly nervously for what she would say next. In the flowing tones befitting the master, Kuroyukihime briskly gave instructions for the areas they would all be responsible for.

  “The south side, Suginami Areas Two and Three, will be Raker and myself. And Maiden, Current, and Crow will be placed in Area One in the north. I’m counting on you all. Getting our territory stolen right before the Tokyo Midtown Tower operation would be about as exciting as a Sewer stage.”

  5

  As a general rule, the amount of people taking part in the Territories was set so that the number on the defending team and the number on the attacking team matched. In other words, if there were three on the defending side, then even if the attacking side was a team of five people, two of them would be automatically removed, and only the three with the highest levels would dive into the battlefield.

  The exception to this rule was when there was just one or two people on the defending side. The minimum for the attacking side was three, so even if there were two or fewer defenders, they would have to fight an enemy of three.

  So for Territory Battles among the Great Legions with member Burst Linkers numbering in the dozens or more, the element of reading the number of people on the opposing team came into play. If a large team of ten people was intercepted by a team of three, that would waste the battle potential of seven of the enemy’s team, and in the event that defending the entire territory was impossible, there was a chance to take a worthwhile loss by putting just one person in an area where the greatest number of the enemy was expected to attack and throwing the fight.

  However, with the current state of affairs in Suginami, that level of strategic operation wasn’t necessary. Since everyone knew that the second Nega Nebulus was a small Legion with fewer than ten people, those coming to attack didn’t put together teams of more than three. About the only element to read in advance was whether the attacking side would avoid the area where Black Lotus was. The reason was simple: They couldn’t win against her.

  Put another way, in areas without the Black King, the fight would be good. Sarcastic enemies would even shout out, “All right! Hit the jackpot!” when they got an area without Lotus but with Crow, so Haruyuki absolutely couldn’t let his guard down whether he was on Kuroyukihime’s team or not.

  Thus, the instant the first duel of the day started mere seconds after four o’clock and he descended into the battlefield of Suginami Area No. 1, Haruyuki shouted in high spirits, “All right! Let’s work hard and defend this place, Mei, Curren!!” But the next moment, he dropped his shoulders and groaned, “U-ugh…this stage…”

  There was nothing that particularly stood out in the terrain as he looked around. The roads were covered in a gray asphalt that strongly resembled that of the real world, and the buildings were all made of a similarly gray concrete. About the only thing that stood out were the large manholes dotting the road. But these were precisely the biggest feature of the Sewer Stage.

  “…’Cos Lo went and said that, it actually happened…” Ardor Maiden’s voice was also lifeless.

  Next to her, for Aqua Current, in what was her first Territory as a member of the new Nega Nebulus and thus something to be memorialized, the pace of the water flowing around her body dulled just the slightest bit. It was no wonder their morale plummeted; the Sewer stage was the unshakable unfavorite of all the water-type stages.

  But Aqua Current, the oldest of the three and with the longest history as a Burst Linker, naturally looked at the situation coolly. “It’ll be just as hard for the enemy team. If it’s a battle of willpower, then there’s no way we can lose.”

  “Y-you’re right. I mean, a sewer’s just a dark, stinky, wet pipe!”

  “…Your wording aside, Crow, that spirit’s good. So then I’ll ask you to take the lead in this Territory Battle. Thanks.”

  “Okay, leave everything to— Wh-what?!” Haruyuki recoiled belatedly, but even Maiden was bobbing her head up and down.

  “Once the battle starts, Ren and I will move on your instructions, C. I’m looking forward to a nice strategy!”

  “…Y-yesh…I’ll do my best…” Haruyuki could hardly tell them no at this stage, so he nodded firmly and then checked the enemy team formation displayed in the upper right of his field of view.

  There were three of them, naturally. From the top, they were the level-five Blaze Heart, the also-level-five Ochre Prison, and the level-four Peach Parasol. None of the names were unfamiliar. In fact, he had even dueled them several times. But the instant Haruyuki saw those three avatar names together, he let out a small cry.

  “Huh…? Why…?!”

  “What’s the matter?” Utai cocked her head curiously, seeing Haruyuki’s reaction.

  “The reason Crow is surprised”—it was Akira who explained smoothly—“is that all three of them belong to the Red Legion, Prominence.”

  “Th-that’s right. Promi and us, we have an unlimited cease-fire right now; we promised not to attack one another in the Territories. So then why all of a sudden…Niko—I mean, the Red King—didn’t say anything to us…” After babbling this far, Haruyuki lit upon a single possibility and clenched his hands into tight fists.

  The cease-fire pact between Prominence and Nega Nebulus, unlike the eternal mutual nonaggression treaty among the six Great Legions, prescribed no punishment whatsoever; it was, in other words, a gentlemen’s agreement. So it was possible for them to come and attack in the Territories if some “impetus” caused by something surpassed the “rationality” of keeping the agreement. And given the current situation, of the handful of reasons he could think of, the most likely was—

  “I-impossible…Even members of Promi are infected with the ISS kits…” The instant Haruyuki groaned, a note of tension raced across the faces of Akira and Utai. He had said it was impossible, but ten days earlier, members of another of the six Great Legions, Great Wall, had been infected. And Nerima area, Prominence’s territory, was not that far from Adachi area, one of the three places within the city known to be a source of ISS kit occurrence.

  Haruyuki took a deep breath. “So far, there hasn’t been anyone infected with the ISS kit taking part in the Territories,” he said quickly. “But it was only a matter of time. If all three of the enemy are equipped with kits, then they won’t hesitate to randomly shoot off the two Incarnate attacks—the long-distance Dark Shot an
d the close-range Dark Blow. Either of them has enough power to instantly kill if you’re hit without any guard. And”—he glanced toward the north of the stage—“if the enemy are kit users, it’s possible they won’t come through the sewers, but just charge us in a straight line aboveground.”

  Normally, players couldn’t move freely aboveground in a Sewer stage because there were high, solid concrete walls blocking the way all over. They were movement restrictions to force players to use the sewers whether they liked it or not, but these restrictions had no meaning for anyone with an ISS kit. The two Incarnate techniques could easily gouge a hole in the thickest of walls.

  The three members of the defending team were silent for a moment as they looked to the north of Suginami Area No. 1. In the Territories, regardless of the location of your real-world body, the attacking team and the defending team were always placed east-west or north-south. Haruyuki and his team had appeared on the southern edge of Kanpachi Ring Road No. 8 that cut through the area from north to south, so the enemy team would be coming at them from the northern end of this road.

  In any other stage, they’d have been able to see fairly far down the street, but the Sewer stage wouldn’t allow that. A concrete wall, stained black by the rain, cut across the road just a dozen or so meters ahead of them. To go beyond it, they would have to use an ability that allowed them to climb vertical walls, go through the sewers underground, or fly over it.

  “…I’m going to go investigate from abo—”

  Haruyuki swallowed his words mid-sentence. In order to fly, he needed to charge his special-attack gauge, but in a very considered design touch, you could barely charge your gauge when you broke terrain objects aboveground in a Sewer stage. In exchange, there were plenty of mysterious oil drums in the tunnels underground that would make your gauge leap up if you smashed just one. It was, after all, a stage designed in every detail to make players give up and go underground.

  Even so, if you tried to forcefully charge your gauge aboveground, the only way was to hit your allies or to be hit by them. But for victory in the Territories, in the event that the same number of people were still alive, the match would be decided by the total remaining in their health gauges, so they had to avoid needless damage to whatever extent possible.