Armor of Catastrophe

by Reki Kawahara

  A Scorched-Earth stage. All the terrain was more brittle than that of a Twilight stage, but smashing it didn’t charge special-attack gauges by any real amount. Without even any objects or critters that could be incorporated into a battle strategy, it was truly a barren world.

  Having checked the attributes of the stage right off the bat, as his Burst Linker instincts compelled him to do even in this situation, he turned his gaze forward once more.

  Ten meters away stood a large silhouette, arms dangling by his sides, head hanging limply. The armor that encased the sturdy limbs was a light blue of a slightly low saturation. A face mask with several rows of narrow, horizontal slits. And equipped from the elbow of his right arm, an Enhanced Armament in the shape of a gun barrel—Pile Driver.

  It was a figure he had seen countless times, first as an Enemy, and then as his partner on the front line in the Legion. But there was no way Haruyuki could not notice the unfamiliar air of intimidation emanating from the heavyweight avatar now. Just going by size alone, there were more than a few duel avatars larger, starting with Frost Horn. This highly concentrated power, however, was likely head and shoulders above any other avatar. At the very least, Haruyuki couldn’t feel any kind of weakness stemming from the contradiction between the attributes of the main body and the Enhanced Armament, as Takumu had assessed himself earlier.

  Haruyuki took a deep breath beneath his silver mask and, steeling himself, took a step toward Takumu—Cyan Pile. “Taku.”

  Normally, calling an opponent by their real name within the duel, even if it was a nickname, was taboo, but this was a direct duel, and there wasn’t a single person in the Gallery. Which was why Haruyuki dared to use the same name he did in the real world and let his confused thoughts simply spill out of him. “Taku. What…Why do we have to fight? I know your strength better than anyone. We don’t need to test it now, after all this time—”

  “No, Haru,” Takumu interrupted, standing off in the shadows and moving his head slowly from side to side. “What you know so well is not my strength but my limits…In the Suzaku mission yesterday…and the final battle with Dusk Taker…and the mission to subjugate the Armor of Catastrophe, I couldn’t even manage to stand by your side right up until the end, could I?” His voice was dispassionate, without even a hint of self-deprecation. But Haruyuki faintly felt the existence of something pushed deep down, whirling around, seeking release. “After all this time, I have no intention of denying the principle of same level, same potential. You and I have been the same level all this time, almost six months now. So I’m sure there isn’t too huge a difference in the abilities of our duel avatars. What’s missing is not the avatar’s strength but that of the Burst Linker himself. The strength of your heart to grit your teeth and stand up, no matter what the crisis, no matter how big a difference there is between you and your opponent’s battle abilities…I don’t have that in me. That’s right. I see it. I’ve always been jealous of you. Of you in that form, the realization of a wish almost too pure; of hope, that power, the way you defy the impossible…”

  Takumu moved his left hand and grabbed the Enhanced Armament of his right hand, a gesture uncomfortably like the way he had sat on the bed in the real world mere minutes earlier.

  Once again, a low, suppressed voice. “That ‘darkness’…The ISS kit pushes into gaps like this in your heart and puts down roots. It’s not a simple Enhanced Armament. It’s pure negative will made into an object somehow. It pollutes the heart of the wearer and overwrites it. And then it eats negative feelings and grows and multiplies…Haru, I’m already…I can’t tell myself anymore…how much of this black feeling is my own…and how much of it is induced by that thing,” he finished, almost groaning.

  Haruyuki was sure he saw a weak, shadowy aura momentarily envelop Takumu’s entire body. Clenching both hands into tight fists, he took another step forward.

  It was no illusion anymore; he felt an intense pressure blowing coldly up against the front of his avatar. Never before had Cyan Pile given off this kind of power. In a certain sense, Takumu was indeed no longer the him he had been before. Haruyuki recognized this, but he still faced the boy the same age as him, the boy who had to be his best friend still, and held nothing back.

  “Taku…I’m sorry.” Rather than thinking, he let the feelings filling his heart become words and spill out. That way, at least, he couldn’t lie to Takumu. “All this stuff you’re thinking about, all the stuff that’s weighing you down, I basically didn’t even try to understand it. I just thought you’re always so cool, always so calm, you’re never shaken, you’re always supporting me. But…I didn’t want to see. I mean, you had to have something…You were aiming for yourself…”

  He cut himself off for a moment and turned clenched fists toward Takumu.

  “But, okay? I’m just gonna say this. Taku, you…you’re my hero, my goal. Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to be like you. Before, you were talking like your power wasn’t enough, so you gave in to the temptation of the ISS kit, but that totally can’t have been it. I believe that no matter how dire the situation, you can get through it with your own power.”

  He took a deep breath and put every ounce of feeling he had into his eyes and his fists. “So that’s why…I’ll fight you now to show you that. I’ll go up against you with everything I’ve got.”

  Exactly.

  Once you accelerate to the battlefield, all that’s left is to simply duel wholeheartedly. All the answers lived there. That had been the first teaching of the person he loved and respected more than anyone else.

  As if feeling the heart coming from Haruyuki’s fists, Takumu lifted his head. Beneath the slits cut into his face mask, sharply shaped eyes flashed bluish white.

  Slowly, Haruyuki stretched his fingers out from tightly clenched fists. His tapered fingers drew out a straight line like a sword. The clear metallic hum of vibration was accompanied by a glittering silver shooting up over the tip of this sword. The light extended about fifteen centimeters from his fingertips and made the virtual air shudder. Haruyuki’s Incarnate attack, Laser Sword.

  “Full throttle right from the start. Taku! Come at me with everything you’ve got!”

  As if in response to Haruyuki’s call, Takumu also wordlessly raised the Enhanced Armament of his right arm. He slid the left hand pressing down around his biceps and grabbed on to the iron spike peeking out from the barrel. Which was immediately followed by the attack name, quietly: “Cyan Blade.”

  Gashkt! The pile was shot forward violently. Impressively, Takumu caught the momentary flash of light like lightning in his left hand and carved a pale arc out in the sky. At the same time, the Enhanced Armament of his right arm disassembled, and his free right hand also wrapped itself around the light, stopping it precisely on the median line. Appearing from within the scattering light was a large, close-range weapon with a blue blade, enveloped in an aura of the same color—the Incarnate sword Takumu had made materialize through his training with the Red King.

  Bathed in the red twilight, the two friends stared at each other for a while, standing on the scorched floor.

  The time counter in the top of his field of view, which had started at eighteen hundred seconds, was already cut down to fifteen hundred. Twenty-five minutes left. But if they were both exchanging Incarnate attacks right from the start, the battle would likely be decided in less than half that time.

  In exactly the same magnificent, upright pose as when he clutched a bamboo shinai sword in kendo, Takumu readied the sword at midlevel with both hands. There wasn’t a hint of an opening in that stance. But Haruyuki had already decided it would be hard for him to get in the first blow. Going from Silver Crow’s abilities, his usual strategy was to be on the defensive for the first half and build up his special-attack gauge to then attack in the second half and finish it in one go from the sky, but in this fight, there was no need for such shrewd calculations. This wasn’t about his average win score. The do-or-die contest here was the sou
l of a Burst Linker, to simply burn the flames of his heart wholeheartedly and give it everything he had. Throw cleverness to the dogs, as she had once resolutely declared.

  Gradually dropping his hips, he pulled the light sword of his right hand up behind him. The tension filling the space increased geometrically, and tiny sparks bounced off the air itself.

  “Ngaaaaah!” Haruyuki kicked at the ground as hard as he could. In an instant, he had closed the mere ten meters between them. He concentrated the momentum of the dash and the torsion of his entire body in the tip of his right hand and layered on it the light speed of his imagination.

  Shweeeenk! Together with a high-pitched, crisp sound, the Laser Sword extended more than a meter and struck at Cyan Pile’s left shoulder. Since Haruyuki’s technique belonged to the range expansion category of the four basic types of Incarnate, its special characteristic was that the blade only stretched out at super speeds when he was attacking or defending.

  Thus, the person facing off against him had an extremely hard time reading the distance between them. Even Dusk Taker hadn’t been able to see the tip at first sight.

  However…

  Takumu shifted the angle of the blade in his hands the slightest bit and wonderfully caught the irregular track of Haruyuki’s slash from above and to the right. The high-pitched screech of impact echoed throughout the stage, and beams of silver and blue light scattered. The swords shrieked as they slid along each other, and in the blink of an eye, Haruyuki’s blade, once on top, had been pushed down below.

  “Ngh!” He lifted his left hand reflexively at the terrific pressure. A sword of light stretched out from this one as well, and he crossed this to make an X with his right hand—an attempt to double his resistance to Takumu’s two-handed sword.

  But he was able to compete for only a mere half second. As soon as the blue aura of the two-handed sword spread up the sturdy arms, the weight of the blade doubled instantly. Takumu’s experience—the countless times he had locked swords and pushed with his whole body like this in kendo practice and tournaments—strengthened his imagination. Exposed to extreme pressure, Silver Crow’s elbow and knee joints creaked and squealed, orange sparks dancing up.

  Using all of the modest gain in his special-attack gauge he had gotten in exchange for the few pixels of damage carved out of his HP gauge, Haruyuki momentarily flapped the wings on his back. He pushed back slightly at the blue blade with the thrust this generated and used the reaction force to race backward. He put some distance between them and once again faced his opponent.

  Not having moved a step from his starting point still, Takumu readied his sword at midlevel and murmured, “Haru, you have absolutely zero chance of winning in a stupid straight-up contest of strength. What I want isn’t that kind of fight.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Nodding, Haruyuki casually raised the sword of his right hand. “That was just me saying hello. Next, I’ll show you the power and technique of me.” Admittedly, this was a bit of bravado, but it was at the same time an accelerant to cheer himself up.

  Takumu’s sword handling was backed by his skill and talent in the kendo that he had spent nearly six years practicing. Even if Haruyuki had challenged him to a normal contest, he wouldn’t have had a hope of winning if each of them had been gripping shinai in the real world, much less sword against sword in the Accelerated World.

  But Haruyuki now had a technique for changing the attacks of a more powerful opponent into his own strength.

  Guard reversal—the “way of the flexible” Kuroyukihime had shown him through her own actions, and which he had been practicing ever since—a high-level technique to pull an opponent’s attack into your own movements, blend with it, and release it, rather than crash up against it or repel it.

  Haruyuki guessed that to some minute and curious extent, the Incarnate System was at work when he used this technique. It wasn’t so strong that it generated a visible aura—an overlay—but it did influence reality through the imagination, operating only on the trajectory of the attack power.

  In which case, he had to have faith in this important point. It was paradoxical, but he believed in his Enemy’s attack and accepted it. If he simply met it with hostility, he couldn’t create the image of fusing with it. He wasn’t trying to aggressively repel the attack; he only wanted to gently follow along with it. Which was why this was the way of the flexible.

  Only ten days had passed since Haruyuki started practicing this technique. He had barely used it in actual battle—only a few times, including the fight with Bush Utan. And it went without saying that this was the first time he was trying it with a swordsman, and in an Incarnate fight. But he had promised to go up against Takumu with everything he had. He couldn’t allow himself to hold back or make any excuses here.

  After taking a deep breath and then expelling it, Haruyuki contracted the sword of light housed in his right hand until it was just the overlay covering his five fingers.

  Takumu’s eyes narrowed sharply beneath the slits. But he seemed to take this to mean that Haruyuki was throwing in the towel; the glittering aura around his right hand condensed and grew stronger.

  “Here I come, Taku!”

  “Bring it, Haru!” Takumu’s reply to Haruyuki’s shout was almost an invitation.

  Haruyuki sank down slightly before kicking fiercely at the floor and charging ahead in his second dash. This time, Takumu brought his own attack to meet him to speed the whole thing up. Many blue Burst Linkers were equipped with sword-type Enhanced Armaments, but almost none of them had experience in kendo. Takumu’s technique was on a completely different level, right from the speed of his launch.

  Just like a punch in boxing, there was no obvious preliminary movement in a truly refined technique. Unlike the other Burst Linkers, who brandished their swords above their heads or brought their arm down before their sword in a slashing cut, the tip of Takumu’s sword had no sooner twitched than it was already closing in on his opponent. If this had been the real world, Haruyuki would have had a fresh new lump on his head before he could even figure out what was happening.

  However, his perceptions and reaction speed in the full-dive environment were about the only abilities Haruyuki had that he was proud of. Not relying solely on his sight, he used all his senses—and maybe even his intuition—to focus on the tip of the Cyan Blade pressing ever closer at ungodly speeds, threatening to slice into the forehead of his helmet.

  Rrrrrring! He heard the sound from off in the distance. The color of the world changed. His perceptions became super accelerated, and the speed of the blade was just a very tiny bit too late.

  Now!

  Haruyuki gently ran the fingers of his right hand along the ridged side of the lethal sword, the area that had little ability to generate damage.

  Even up against the flat of the blade, if Haruyuki’s hand hadn’t been guarded by the overlay, it would’ve gone flying at that moment and disappeared without a trace. That was the power of the Incarnate surpassing all physical laws within the game. However, the speed of light enveloping his right hand guarded against the image of Takumu’s severing.

  That said, the blade would still indeed cut him if he tried to catch it on the leading edge. Because while Haruyuki’s Incarnate was a range expansion, Takumu’s was a power expansion. This was why Takumu had asserted earlier that Haruyuki didn’t have a hope of winning a contest of strength. Thus, he was trying to catch and return it through the way of the flexible.

  Of course, Takumu’s dauntless noble blade would not be bent so easily as that. Rotating the attack vector a hundred and eighty degrees the way Kuroyukihime had shown him would be absolutely impossible. But in the fight with Bush Utan, Haruyuki learned that if it was just a matter of averting the power and avoiding a lethal blow, a bit of interference much smaller than he had imagined was enough to do the job.

  Gently, softly, he put his strength into the fingers touching the ridges of the sword. Both overlays were compressed at the contact point, send
ing sparks flying. He couldn’t be repelled here.

  The image of Ardor Maiden catching and sending back Bush Utan’s Dark Blow with the palm of her hand the other day flashed in the back of his mind. That hadn’t been the way of the flexible, but there hadn’t been any hostility or malice in her flame aura. He had felt only the intent to purify as she accepted the raging will of her opponent, quelled it, and tried to heal it. He hadn’t trained anywhere near as much as she had, but even so, there was not a shred of animosity toward Takumu in his heart. He simply wanted to show him how much he, Haruyuki Arita, believed in this person Takumu Mayuzumi.

  The aura snaking around the blue blade seemed to be replete with Takumu’s confusion and fear, his regret, and also his longing.

  As if to draw closer to those feelings, Haruyuki lightly brought his hand, from the pads of his fingers up to his palm, in contact with the sword. He pulled himself in with the image and pushed outward with his movement.

  Skrreeenk! A sound like metal impacting a hard surface echoed inside his head, and orange sparks flowed out in infinite lines in his vision. The tip of the two-handed sword scraped off the left side of Silver Crow’s helmet and slipped off, to the rear.

  Undaunted, Haruyuki took the hand that had been touching the sword and, directing it toward his own shoulder, launched the rest of his arm forward.

  Unexpectedly, the blow, very much like a Chinese Kempo elbow strike, exploded into the base of Cyan Pile’s left shoulder. Thud! A weighty resistance. Upper body shaken, Takumu tried to bring his sword back up as he braced himself.

  Most likely, the guard reversal he had just used wouldn’t be so neatly decided like that again. Takumu would no doubt have guessed at the logic of what Haruyuki did in an instant, and would formulate a response to it immediately. Which was why he couldn’t let Takumu get any distance between them now. He had to cling to him—he could only rush him now!