Signal Fire at the Water’s Edge

by Reki Kawahara

  But Raker stayed where she was, her hands resting lightly on the wheels of her chair. The headlight, now impossibly close, dyed her entire body the color of blood, and the roar of the engine pushed her hair and skirt up around her.

  Just as the ferociously spinning front wheel of the motorcycle was on the verge of making contact with the slender wheelchair, Raker finally moved. More precisely, what Haruyuki saw was nothing more than a series of overlapping, glittering silver afterimages. The wheelchair spun around and escaped to the left so fast that Haruyuki couldn’t actually see it.

  The power of Raker’s wheelchair to dash from a standstill far surpassed the speed other duel avatars could manage with their own legs. This power of mobility was essentially teleporting over short distances, but up until that point, Haruyuki had thought it could only be used to go forward or backward. After all, the wheels were fixed to the chair itself and couldn’t turn to the sides. So the chair couldn’t actually move directly sideways; to dash to either side from a stop, she would first have had to turn and then advance.

  And yet, at that moment, Raker’s wheelchair was sliding directly to the left as she made multiple turns, though with what kind of logic Haruyuki didn’t know. The large motorcycle couldn’t keep up, and it skidded past, shooting up sparks for a moment as it aimed to crash into the closed door. Anticipating the collision, Haruyuki clenched his teeth.

  But there was no impact nor explosion. Immediately in front of the wall, the motorcycle crouched down for an instant like a beast before leaping up at an acute angle. When the tire made contact with the school wall, the machine trail braked hard. Once the nose had come around ninety degrees, the machine stopped on a dime.

  The massive metal body glued motionless to the vertical wall was such a strange sight, it almost knocked his sense of gravity out of whack. Ash Roller’s bike did indeed have the ability to drive up walls, but it shouldn’t have been able to stop on the wall like that. In fact, the bike itself was different from before, so totally transformed that no traces of its old self remained.

  “…Ash…” Squeezing out this voice that was not a voice, Haruyuki stared up at the motorcycle on the wall, right where the Umesato school crest would have been. The front and rear tires were thicker, and a series of sharp, fang-like protrusions had popped up in the centers of the treads. The front fork and the gas tank were covered in silver scales reminiscent of a snake, and the exhaust pipes coming from the engine were grotesque, the innards of a living creature.

  Or maybe it was actually a living creature now. Because the rider who was supposedly the machine’s master—in other words, Ash Roller himself—was fused with the bike. The hands gripping the handlebars, the feet stepping on the pedals, even the head and body were covered in a scaly metal shell, completely obscured from the outside.

  Despite this, Haruyuki sensed a powerful gaze shooting out from the bike. He soon understood the reason for that. The headlight emitting the red glow was not a light fixture; it was a single enormous eyeball. A crimson eye encased in a black organism; an eye he had seen any number of times recently, empty but at the same time hiding a powerful malice and lust.

  “That’s—the ISS kit…in the bike…!!”

  As if it could hear Haruyuki’s groan, the red headlight slowly blinked once. The engine, like an internal organ, growled, and the black and silver organic machine slowly ascended the wall, headlight still facing the ground—it was moving in reverse. This was definitely impossible with Ash Roller’s motorcycle under normal circumstances. The direction of the red illumination rolled over to Sky Raker, who was stopped once more on the south side of the courtyard. Like a carnivorous beast eyeing its prey, the light quickly blinked again.

  From the look of it, Haruyuki could only assume that it was the parasitic ISS kit itself moving the motorcycle. It was impossible to guess at present what kind of state Ash Roller had been placed in inside of the shell. The purpose of this direct duel was to talk with him and see exactly what the situation was, but to do that, it would be necessary to first render the motorcycle helpless. But given the extent to which it had become one with its user, it would be an extremely difficult job to selectively destroy the Enhanced Armament alone. Sky Raker could try to knock it over or flip it, but the machine wouldn’t release the rider it had swallowed up.

  What was more frightening to him than anything else was the thought that the irregular phenomenon of the kit parasitizing the Enhanced Armament and the control that had grown so strong in just that short time would obstruct any purification. The whole time a duel avatar was parasitized, the kit was interfering with the Linker’s mind. If they didn’t remove it right away and return it to its sealed-card state, Ash Roller and Rin Kusakabe—Haruyuki’s precious friends, allies who had helped him out any number of times—might end up irrevocably changed.

  Spurred on by a foreboding that threatened to burn him up, Haruyuki shouted in a trance, “Ash…! Please wake up, Ash! You’re not going to lose to a kit like that…Right?!”

  Perhaps in response to his cry, the growling of the bike engine grew louder.

  And then Haruyuki saw them: two large holes on the surface of the cowl undulating organically on either side of the red headlight, opening a mouth.

  But this was not a sign that the rider was being released. Inside the holes, an energy blacker than darkness coalesced. Purple sparks flickered, and the entire machine shuddered violently.

  Understanding intuitively what was about to happen, Haruyuki started to cry out again, “Master, ru—”

  But his words were drowned out in the weighty sound of vibration. Jet-black energy bullets shot out of the holes in the cowl: Dark Shot, one of the Incarnate techniques the ISS kit gave to its users. The long-distance attack was fearsome, destroying everything it hit with a nihilistic energy, and now there were two of them at the same time.

  If the slender wheelchair was even lightly grazed by the Incarnate bullets, it would be destroyed, robbed of the ability to dance around the stage. And yet Sky Raker did not move. Resolutely staring at the two spheres of darkness closing in on her, she smoothly raised her right hand. Leisurely opening up her fingers, she rotated the hand brandished in front of her once in a small circle.

  “Swirl Sway.”

  At the same time as the name of the technique was announced, a pale-blue light enveloped her right hand. The light swirled with incredible force, centered on her palm, and called up a wind. This immediately grew into a small tornado that shook the entire courtyard.

  The two Dark Shots were swallowed up the instant they touched the tornado, but even as they whirled around impossibly fast, they moved stubbornly toward Raker as if they had their own will. They pressed in until they were a few centimeters from her palm, but there, they were overpowered by the tornado and flung outward. One shot hit the first school building, while the other slammed into the wall of the second.

  The fact that entry was impossible also meant that it was impossible for the building object to be destroyed, but the wall was completely cut away by the explosion of nihilistic energy. Given that it could repel an Incarnate technique with that much force, the tornado of light generated by Sky Raker also had to have been Incarnate. Defensive, quick activation—very much the domain of a master.

  Incarnate techniques were divided up into four categories according to their characteristics. Was the source of power hope or despair? Did the effect extend to individuals or over a range? As far as Haruyuki knew, Sky Raker—Fuko Kurasaki—was the most powerful user of “positive will with range as its target.” And that was because she believed in the Incarnate System—in Brain Burst, in the Accelerated World, and in the power of the bonds found and forged there.

  Fuko would definitely be able to pull Ash Roller back from the darkness. She would beat back the malice that tortured Rin. With that conviction in his heart, Haruyuki took his gaze off Raker and looked up at the living bike stuck to the wall above the entrance. And then he opened his eyes wide, dumbfounded.<
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  It wasn’t there. Although he had taken his eyes off it for just a couple of seconds, the motorcycle had disappeared. But that was impossible. Even the ISS kit couldn’t overcome Ash Roller’s greatest weakness of making a loud noise when he moved.

  As a worst-case scenario, he could believe that, just like the kit had changed the structure of the transmission and made it possible to ride in reverse, it had somehow gotten rid of the explosive noise of the gasoline engine. But as long as the bike was a bike, it couldn’t move without the tires hitting a wall or the ground or something. And with those fang-like protrusions on the tires, Haruyuki should have heard some kind of serious noise.

  No, wait.

  There was just one place where it could move without even the tires making noise. That was—

  “Master! Above you!!” Haruyuki screamed, looking up at the sky.

  There were no stars in the night sky of the Bizarre Festival stage, and it was covered with thick clouds that threatened rain at any second. But in the center of the gray rectangle, punched out on three sides by the walls of the school building, was a conspicuous black shadow: the motorcycle. Using the cover of the roar when the two Dark Shots hit the school, it had revved its engine for just a moment and jumped from the wall.

  Leaping to attack its prey, very much the act of a carnivorous beast, the motorcycle dropped from the sky toward Raker. Naturally, she could have avoided it with a dash of her wheelchair. But if an object of that weight class crashed into the earth, it would generate a shock wave more than enough to stomp a large avatar. If she took a stagger effect while she was moving, there was a danger that the lightweight wheelchair would fall over. That said, if she didn’t dodge, she’d inevitably be pinned down and hit with massive—

  “…Master…!” Even though Haruyuki knew in his head that he couldn’t interfere at all as a member of the Gallery—he couldn’t even get within ten meters of the duelers—he instinctively moved to leap from the wall of the school building. But just on the verge of doing that, he saw it: Raker’s eyes shining with a sharp light in the darkness.

  For her, this was not checkmate. Just the opposite. Fuko had been patiently waiting for the motorcycle to jump, for it to reveal its defenseless belly in midair, where it lost its mobility.

  A dazzling blue light was born on Raker’s back.

  Whm! The sound of a powerful jet.

  Her white hat was blown off, her dress was ripped to shreds and then vanished, and even the wheelchair was pushed back. In the next instant, the graceful F-type avatar with sky-blue armor shot up from the ground, two jets of flame stretching out from her back, at a speed that far surpassed Silver Crow’s maximum vertical ascent power. It was the power of the booster-type Enhanced Armament, born from her heart’s desire to reach the sky—Gale Thruster.

  Reaching the height of the falling bike in an instant, Raker brought her slender-looking right hand up to the bottom of the engine without a moment’s hesitation. Not a fist or a chopping hand, but a palm strike. The sound of impact rang out like thunder, and the manifold that looked so much like a gastrointestinal tract was torn free and sent flying, while red flames gushed from cracks that appeared all over the engine block.

  Even still, the living motorcycle didn’t stop. The kit parasite in the headlight shone fiercely, and the front and rear tires were enveloped in a thick black aura. Of course, only the rear tire was spinning, but when Raker’s long hair touched the radiating inky overlay, it was ripped off without a sound. Most likely, this was an ability corresponding to the close-range Incarnate technique Dark Blow. If she was caught up in that rotation, even Raker wouldn’t make it out unscathed.

  But the sky-blue avatar didn’t show any sign of faltering; she continued to beat at the engine with palm strikes. The cracks spread even farther, and the flames leaking out became an orange rain falling to the ground. The spin of the tire slowed, and the red eyeball flickered, struggling.

  The damage to the motorcycle was serious, but Ash Roller’s health gauge, displayed in the upper right of Haruyuki’s field of view, had basically not dropped at all. Here, Haruyuki finally understood Fuko’s true aim: If she attacked the heart of the living bike that was the engine while on the ground, Ash himself, locked in the metal shell above it, would inevitably be dragged in. But if she attacked from directly below in the sky, she could target the engine alone without friendly fire on the rider. In other words, Fuko’s main priority as she fought was not to destroy the terrifying living motorcycle, but rather to avoid hurting Ash Roller.

  That’s so like you, Master!! Haruyuki shouted this in a corner of his heart, and Gale Thruster roared even more loudly.

  The Thruster’s propulsive force overcame the weight of the bike, and the massive black machine was yanked up into the air. Raker took her hands off the engine for just that moment and shot out each hand to strike hard with her palms. Despite the fact that these blows came from too close to have any significant force behind them, the engine block was completely shattered, and the frame was ripped apart such so that the motorcycle was basically split into two.

  Immediately after that, a massive explosion dyed the dark sky of the Bizarre Festival stage red.

  As the ball of flames swallowed Raker and Ash, their health gauges suddenly dropped—but that soon stopped. Opening his eyes wide, Haruyuki watched as a beam of sky-blue light shot up through the expanding ball of flames. Clutched tightly in Sky Raker’s arms as she danced high up into the night sky was the familiar skull-faced avatar in the leather jacket.

  “…Master…! Ash…!!”

  Tearing up, Haruyuki shouted in the loudest voice he could manage, waving his hands wildly.

  Haruyuki tried to race over to where Raker landed in the courtyard, but halfway there, he stopped advancing, no matter how hard he pumped his legs. When he thought about it, the duel was still ongoing, even if the Enhanced Armament had been destroyed, so the rule about the Gallery not being allowed within ten meters of the duelers was still in effect.

  As he flailed in vain at the border of the prohibited zone, Fuko glanced at him and raised her right hand, telling him, “Wait,” with the aura of a wry smile bleeding through. Then she turned the palm of her hand around ninety degrees and mercilessly chopped at the helmet of Ash Roller, who appeared to still be unconscious. Paying no mind to the fact that Ash’s health gauge had dropped to around 5 percent, she raised her hand one more time.

  “Wake up, Ash,” she said kindly. “If you don’t wake up before the count of three, the next one will hurt a little more. Okay, three, two, one…”

  Whp! The second chop whistled through the air, and immediately before the center of the skull face could be cracked open, a thick cry echoed in his ears: “Nooo!”

  Hands in leather gloves came together to make a small X. “No more chopping!! I’m awake! I am perfectly waked up, Master!!”

  “Oh, you are? Then stand up on your own.” She had no sooner said the words than she was pulling away the hand supporting Ash’s back. Not even glancing at her beloved pupil falling with a thud, Fuko quickly brought up her Instruct menu. Still lying on his side, Ash pressed the confirmation window that appeared before him, and in Haruyuki’s field of view, flaming text announced that the duel had ended in a draw.

  And then the wall that had prevented him from moving forward vanished, and he tumbled over from the excessive force of leaning into that wall. He got back to his feet after a somersault and raced over to them as fast as he could.

  “A-Ash! A-are you okay?!” He screeched to a halt next to the rider splayed on the ground and peered at his face.

  “The hell. You’re here, too, you damned crow? But nah, I’m all right, obvs. A chop or two is nothing for mighty me.”

  “I’m not talking about the chops!! Your head—I mean, your thinking…”

  “Whoa, you. My super-fine head is o’course super-mega-cool every time,” Ash replied, giving Haruyuki a thumbs-up, but his voice didn’t have its usual energy to it. Haruyu
ki offered Ash his hand to pull him up into a seated position, and then sat down next to him himself. Having recovered her wheelchair, Fuko also sat, so that she was facing the two of them.

  The first one to break the brief silence was Ash. Placing his hands on the knees of his crossed legs, he bowed his head deeply toward his teacher and Brain Burst parent, Fuko. “…I’m sorry, Master. I messed up.”

  “No need to apologize. I’m also responsible for not anticipating the situation.”

  At this exchange, Haruyuki took a deep breath and then uttered the words he had prepared before the duel began. “Um…I’m actually the one who has to apologize here!”

  “What do you mean by that, Corvus?”

  “…On Wednesday this week—so three days before Ash was attacked—I heard it from the mouth of Magenta Scissor herself. That she was going to give up on attacking the north and invade the east. I should have remembered right then and there. East of Setagaya Area Two, where I ran into Magenta, is Setagaya Area One, where Shimokitazawa is. And immediately east of that is Shibuya Area Three, Sasazuka in Shibuya, where Rin’s school is.”

  The instant after Haruyuki announced this, his heart nearly breaking, Ash was grabbing the neck of his armor, given that there was no collar to grab and yank him up by.

  “You damned crow!! You— How’d you know?! I mean, that she’s a student at the Sasazuka Girls’ Academy junior high division?!”

  “I-is she?! I mean, I didn’t know her school name! I just kinda had an idea it was in Sasazu—”

  “Shaddap! Shaaaaaddap! So you’re all up and stalking her after the morning duel! Secretly jumping on the same bus as Rin, following her all the way to school, you creepy little crow!!”

  “I-I’d be late for school if I did that!”

  “Shut it. Which is more important, Rin or being late?!”

  “Th-that’s a weird question!”

  “All right. If you don’t end that here, it’s going t’ hurt, you know?”

  Fwssh. Once they both had returned to their original positions (Ash went beyond cross-legged to formally sitting on his knees), Fuko first turned to Haruyuki.