Cradle of Stars

by Reki Kawahara

Haruyuki was forced to use every spare bit of his mental energy to control himself once more. How can you say that?! He at least managed to calm himself down somewhat by shouting in his mind. A moment later, he asked Fuko quietly, “What exactly is he planning?”

  Fuko, too, was aware that Ivory Tower was almost certainly an ally of the ARS. “Perhaps a challenge to us,” she murmured, still facing forward, so quietly he could just barely hear her. “I think he’s trying to make us call out the White Legion and then use that against us.”

  “Like demand proof? Ugh, I wish we had some definitive evidence we could just slap down right now.”

  “When the White King interrupted our meeting, I thought about using a replay card to record it, but unfortunately, she was in a dummy avatar. And it would’ve been difficult to get a card out of storage without her noticing.”

  A replay card was a card item for recording video. The memory of how the Yellow King had used one to upset Kuroyukihime during the fifth Chrome Disaster incident six months earlier was still fresh, but not only had Haruyuki himself never used one, he didn’t even know how to get one.

  “Um, how do you get a replay card?” he asked, even more quietly.

  “At the shop, of course.” Fuko smiled faintly.

  “Oh! R-right.”

  “But you are forbidden from entering any shop for the time being, Corvus.”

  “R-right…”

  In the Unlimited Neutral Field (aka the Mean Level), the shop was a place that sold items…apparently. Given that Haruyuki’s hobby was going around to retro game shops, he was immensely curious about this shop. But Kuroyukihime and Fuko reasoned that he would clearly spend needless points there and had forbidden him from entering one. And given that he had once nearly used up all his points carelessly leveling up, he couldn’t say their concern was unwarranted.

  “If this ‘shop’ you are prattling on about is the item vendor that exists in the Mean Level, I’d do the utmost to stay away,” Metatron’s voice echoed in his mind. “I have never visited one.”

  “Huh…Wh-why not?”

  “Because that is another device to classify you little warriors.”

  “To classify…us…?” Haruyuki longed to one day go to this shop he’d still never even seen and buy all the treats he expected were inside, so Metatron’s words surprised and puzzled him. But the icon on his shoulder fell silent, so with no other choice, he turned his focus back to the kings’ conversation.

  “Now listen, just because you’re a proxy, don’t talk like this has nothing to do with you,” the Purple King snapped in response to Ivory Tower’s question, slamming the butt of her staff—The Tempest, one of the Seven Arcs—loudly against the floor of the stage. She continued to speak, her voice as sharply edged as her name of Thorn. “To begin with, the ISS kit main body was found in Tokyo Midtown, and that is within Oscillatory territory. In which case, shouldn’t you have done something about it in the first place? And yet you left the reconnaissance to GW and the attack to Negabu. And now, on top of that, you intend to have us take care of this Acceleration Research Society or whoever they are?”

  The King Purple Thorn was the most antagonistic toward Black Lotus, but at this moment at least, Haruyuki couldn’t help himself from cheering her on, internally shouting for her to keep telling the ivory avatar off.

  It was only natural that the White King did not try to get on board with the Midtown Tower attack. Because the very person who had set the ISS kit main body in that place and captured Metatron’s first form for guard duty was the White King herself.

  But there was no way that Ivory Tower was going to tell them that. Haruyuki focused his gaze on the mage, wondering exactly how he would dodge the Purple King’s questioning. If he revealed a single weakness, Kuroyukihime would immediately take to the offensive.

  When he did speak again, finally, it was, however, in the same unhurried tone. “That’s all fine and good to say, but this did take place in the Unlimited Neutral Field, where we cannot see the area borders. Unlike Aurora Oval, we do not assert our right to rule in the Unlimited Neutral Field. In fact, we have not interfered in any way in the activities of Great Wall or Nega Nebulus within the Minato Area, yes?”

  “That just means you haven’t done anything. And the reason we prohibit unauthorized entry into our area in the Unlimited Neutral Field is because so many idiots frequent the many high-class shops in Ginza until their point balance is tottering on the edge, and then they get caught by an Enemy on their way home and end up in total point loss.”

  “So you’re saying to enter at your own risk? Overprotection is an obstruction to the growth of the younger ones. We want you to understand that doing nothing is also a contribution, Purple King.”

  Ivory Tower was disdainful, and deputy Aster Vine standing by behind Purple Thorn took a step forward, reddish-purple armor reminiscent of a military uniform clanging.

  “You would mock us?! You’re the one who asked what we should do about the Acceleration Research Society. So in that case, how about instead of being all slippery and evasive, you actually offer up a constructive solution?!”

  “I would love it if I could. Unfortunately, I don’t have any information on this Acceleration Research Society or what have you, so there is no way for me to offer anything in the way of a solution.”

  Shameless. Haruyuki also considered jumping out in front of Ivory and giving him a piece of his mind, but he resisted the urge, telling himself that this was probably exactly what Ivory wanted.

  Blue Knight shook his head in exasperation at the bickering; there had long been issues between the White and Purple Legions, simply because of the proximity of their territories. Meanwhile, Yellow Radio sneered, and Niko and Kuroyukihime watched wordlessly.

  The voice that broke the heavy, tense silence could only be heard by Haruyuki.

  “That little warrior…is strange somehow,” the 3-D icon on his shoulder murmured.

  “Strange?” he replied in his thoughts as he glanced over at Aster and Ivory. “Which one?”

  “The white one. Despite the fact that his battle power is numerically much lower than that of the blue or the purple warriors, the amount of information alone is extremely large…”

  “Amount of information?”

  This was probably the “information pressure” Niko talked about. Again, he looked hard at Ivory Tower, seated in the impromptu chair, but he didn’t sense anything along the lines of the pressure he was getting from the kings. In fact, it seemed like Tower’s presence was much fainter than Aster Vine or Cobalt Blade or any of the executive Linkers in each camp.

  Still, given that he was a top member of the White Legion/Acceleration Research Society, it was obvious that he was no ordinary Burst Linker. Haruyuki focused his mind to try to feel something.

  “If you could see that little warrior from the Highest Level,” Metatron murmured, “you would understand all kinds of things.”

  “I—I would? Then let’s just go—”

  “Why are you so foolish?” she chastised sharply. “This is the field below the Mean Level, the so-called Low Level. It is impossible even for me, which means you could never reach the Highest Level from here, no matter how many hundreds of years you spent attempting to do so.”

  “O-oh, okay.”

  The Highest Level that Metatron spoke of was the highest tier of space, but it was only possible to reach that space by further accelerating from the Unlimited Neutral Field, or the Mean Level. All the information in the Accelerated World was laid out there in a galaxy-like 3-D dot matrix, showing observers the truth about their digital world.

  However, Haruyuki had only peeked at this Highest Level for a mere instant when he was trying to evade sudden death in the battle with the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, seven days earlier. And Metatron had guided him then; he couldn’t even begin to understand how to “accelerate while accelerated” all on his own.

  More importantly, just as Metatron said, the meeting venue they wer
e currently in was a normal duel field created by the Cobalt-Manganese sisters. Haruyuki was a member of the Gallery, which could not so much as smash a tiny pebble; all he could do was watch and listen. In which case, he had to at least carve the words of the kings sharply into his memory.

  “You’re right, this lot has thrown the Accelerated World into confusion over and over, and yet, the only thing clear about the current situation is their name.” The Blue King sighed, shrugging. “A sad story indeed.”

  “And that’s just what they call themselves, isn’t it?” the Yellow King agreed, revealing his annoyance. “Honestly, if they’re going to call themselves a research society, then they should just be good kids and look for holes in the system.”

  “I think that’s exactly what they’re doing, Radio,” the Black King cut in, tone controlled. “It’s not just these ISS kits. The Hermes’ Cord race chaos last month. The mess at Akihabara BG three months ago. The backdoor program of eight months ago—they’re always causing confusion, and their modus operandi seems to sneer at the Brain Burst system. In other words, to them, it is ‘research.’”

  “Hmph,” Yellow Radio spat. “It looks like mere terrorism to me, though.”

  Instantly, the antenna parts on the head of the Red King, seated to the right of the Black King, twitched. Blood Leopard casually stepped forward from behind and touched her fingers to her master’s shoulder.

  Rain—Niko—had probably remembered the other Society incident, which Kuroyukihime hadn’t mentioned: the fifth Chrome Disaster of six months ago. They had no proof, but it had probably been Yellow Radio who had given the Armor of Catastrophe to Niko’s parent, Cherry Rook, turning him into the fifth Chrome Disaster. And they had no proof of this, either, but there was a strong possibility that the invisible hand of the Acceleration Research Society had guided Radio’s actions.

  Judging from the Yellow King’s tone, the thought that he had been manipulated by the Society didn’t so much as cross his mind, but that wasn’t enough to assuage Niko’s anger and grief, of course. Haruyuki fervently wished he could be there beside her, too, to offer her strength, but unfortunately, he couldn’t do something like that at a meeting of the Seven Kings. Niko and Pard were in a delicate position here; the fact that they had even taken part in the ISS kit attack mission was a secret from the other kings present.

  “The issue is what they’re after,” Kuroyukihime continued quietly. “Is their objective simply to upset the Accelerated World with means that people wouldn’t normally consider? Or are they using a series of incidents to bring about monumental chaotic destruction?”

  “Hee-hee.” Purple Thorn chuckled, a laugh like thorns of ice buried deep within the sweetest honey. “Of course, you would be the one to say that, hmm, Lotus?” He was certain she was alluding to the events of three years earlier, the reason why Black Lotus was now called “the destroyer of order.”

  “I’ll say it. Of course.” Black Lotus kept her cool as she replied. “If the Society brings about the destruction of the Accelerated World, then given my stated goal of reaching level ten, they are nothing more than an obstacle for me.”

  Once more, sharp sparks crackled in the air between the Purple and Black Kings.

  Purple Thorn didn’t know that the mind of the first Red King, Red Rider, had been pseudo-revived and made to live in the ISS kit main body by the Acceleration Research Society. What would she have done if she had been there? Would she have worked with Kuroyukihime to give repose to the soul of the Red King once more? Or…would she have turned the Arc in her right hand on Kuroyukihime to save Red Rider, even knowing he was a ghost?

  One thing alone was certain, however. The reason Kuroyukihime and the others had not reported that Rider’s mind had possessed the ISS kit main body nor that it had been his Arms Creation ability that produced the kit terminals was out of consideration—no, kindness—toward Purple Thorn, who had once loved Rider.

  “It’s true. We do need to thoroughly investigate whether those Society guys are planning some huge thing,” the Blue King said calmly, as if to ease the tension mounting between the Black and Purple Kings. “Of all the incidents they’ve caused so far, the Hermes’ Cord chaos and the ISS kits are clearly connected. After making a show of the Incarnate System for however many hundreds who were in the Gallery for that race, they distributed the ISS kits to allow easy access to Incarnate techniques. Depending on how you think about it, maybe the violence in Akihabara BG and the backdoor program experiment were in order to earn the points required to produce the ISS kits…Well, we have no idea how they made the kits, though.”

  Haruyuki sensed the Blue Knight glancing over at them, but when he hurriedly took a peek at him, the Blue King had already resumed speaking.

  “If there’s going to be a ‘next time,’ then the Acceleration Research Society had to have gained something from the free distribution of the ISS kits. If we can find out what that was, we’ll be able to see at least the direction of their objective. So, Lotus? You had direct contact with the ISS kit main body at Midtown Tower. Did you pick up anything?”

  Kuroyukihime didn’t immediately respond. Naturally, she—and Fuko, Niko, Pard, and Haruyuki—knew the true identity of this “something” the Blue King mentioned. An object as evil as anything imaginable, the threat of the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, born anew from the condensed negative will of the innumerable kit users poured into the Enhanced Armament that had been stolen from the Red King.

  A week ago, Haruyuki had been saved by Metatron’s act of martyrdom and somehow managed to crush the Mark II. But when they tried to break Invincible apart with Lime Bell’s special attack, Citron Call, the vessel that was Wolfram Cerberus disappeared right in front of them, together with the last of Invincible’s parts, the rear thrusters.

  In other words, Niko was currently only in possession of four of the total of five parts that made up Invincible. It was possible for her to equip it, even so, but of course she couldn’t get at its full capacity. They couldn’t let the other kings know this fact; if they knew the Red King was weakened, Yellow Radio in particular might come up with a no-good plan once again.

  How much to tell them about the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, while keeping anything related to Niko quiet? Before the meeting, Niko herself had declared that she would leave that up to Kuroyukihime. She’d even gone so far as to say, “No biggie if anyone finds out I’m missing one part. I’ll show ’em I still mean business,” and Haruyuki and the others were forced to assent.

  The kings and their subordinates stared while Kuroyukihime uncrossed her legs and stood up soundlessly. “I did indeed pick something up. No, I saw it with my own eyes. A certain phenomenon that occurred after the ISS kit was destroyed.” She raised the sword of her right hand and pointed it directly ahead of her. “An ominous red light shot out toward the south from Midtown Tower. It was most likely the vast amount of negative energy that had accumulated in the kit main body.”

  “Oh-ho?” The Yellow King spread his thin arms and made a show of being surprised. “So then does that mean that although you destroyed the main body, its contents got away from you?”

  “Gooot awaaay from yooouuu!” the girl sitting on the ball behind him shrieked.

  Frowning hard at them, Kuroyukihime brought her right arm down forcefully as she responded. “You speak almost as though you regret the loss of the transferred energy, Radio. If you’d gotten ahold of something like that, you could have been reduced to Chrome—well, Yellow Disaster right about now, you know.”

  The Yellow King had once hesitated to equip the Armor of Catastrophe despite having gotten ahold of it somehow and had instead passed it on to Cherry Rook. Her words were just barely a comment, but, his pride seemingly injured, he simply sniffed indignantly before falling silent.

  In his place, Ivory Tower threw a hand into the air. “You said in a southerly direction, but do you know specifically where this Incarnate energy or whatever it was was sent, Black King?”


  Another blunt challenge.

  Haruyuki had witnessed the moment the red light emitted from Roppongi Hills Tower came pouring down. The location was a girls’ school in Shirokane, Minato Ward, K–12. And they already knew its name: the private Eternal Girls’ Academy.

  Thought to be the headquarters of the White Legion, Oscillatory Universe—and the Acceleration Research Society—this was a famous school with over 130 years of history. It was curious that the Society would base itself at a girls’ school when the majority of its members were boys, but their actions couldn’t be measured by the common sense of the Accelerated World. And this was also another cover.

  They couldn’t announce that this was the place they had identified after so many difficult battles. Because they still hadn’t managed to put together any proof.

  “Unfortunately, we could not trace the energy.” Even in the face of Ivory’s challenging question, Kuroyukihime was endlessly calm in her response. “Just in case, we checked on a map for suspicious points on the south side of Midtown Tower, but that area’s quite far from our own. Although, come to think of it, it is inside Oscillatory’s territory, so perhaps some place comes to mind for you?”

  Ivory coolly accepted Kuroyukihime’s smooth counterattack. “The south of Midtown is quite a broad area. I suppose the only remarkable landmarks are Roppongi Hills, the Institute for Nature Study, and around Shinagawa Station? After that, you get into Great Wall territory.”

  Eternal Girls’ Academy was, of course, not on that list of names. Ivory Tower’s arrogance made Haruyuki grit his teeth once more, but he remembered the categorical imperative that had been handed down before the meeting and grimly endured it.

  The other kings appeared to sink into thought, and Scarlet Rain broke her long silence.

  “At any rate, those Society jerks are planning something with the Incarnate energy they used the ISS kits to build up.”

  Haruyuki could sense the brightly burning will in the depths of her restrained voice and forgot his own momentary rage to focus his gaze on her.