Cradle of Stars

by Reki Kawahara

  The track slab that supported the line was also covered in cracks, but the rails at least shone a dull steel color. Depending on the stage, if there was a proper track, then generally, a train would be running on it from outside the area border. Of course, it was a rare event and unlikely to happen more than once during the course of a duel, but if a player was hit by that rare train, it was a foregone conclusion that they would take serious damage. Haruyuki quickly checked ahead and behind him, but he could see no sign of the train.

  But instead, a silhouette was approaching at top speed from the direction of Koenji station—his duel opponent, Jade Jailer, naturally. As they drew closer, several more human silhouettes appeared on the roofs of the buildings that looked down on the train line. The Gallery was in automatic follow mode, and its members had teleported in.

  He should have kept his eyes focused ahead of him on his approaching enemy, but Haruyuki nonetheless glanced over to check the faces of the audience. It was only natural that Takumu wasn’t there, given that he was probably still at practice at his school in Shinjuku, but he also didn’t see Kuroyukihime—Black Lotus—from whom he had only recently parted. Of course, it wasn’t as though the hospitalized Kuroyukihime had automatic viewing set to ON twenty-four hours a day, but he still felt a little anxious at her absence. He quickly rebuked himself, however: This duel was to determine the path he was meant to tread. All he could do was give it everything he had, whether his parent was there or not.

  Clenching his fists tightly, he turned his gaze forward again to stare down his duel opponent, who had just stopped between the two rails about ten meters away.

  If his enemy’s color name had been a long-distance red, then Haruyuki wouldn’t have naively jumped up onto the rails, but instead flown down from a neighboring building and aimed for a surprise attack. But with a defensive green, the possibility of being attacked with flying weapons was low. And his expectations were not betrayed; his opponent did not appear to have a gun or a bow.

  Still, it wasn’t as though he was completely bare-handed the way Crow was. His hands were totally fingerless and uniquely shaped into enormous rings about fifty centimeters across. Thin like washers, the rings didn’t appear to have blades on the edges. The color of his armor, including the rings, was a jade green, just as his name suggested. But most noticeable was the thin chain that connected right and left wrists. Two or so meters long, it clanged and jangled, hanging nearly down to his feet. Given how long it was, Haruyuki assumed it had to make any kind of offensive action difficult, and the whole aura of the other duel avatar was like someone robbed of their freedom.

  So then Jailer was a prisoner, huh?

  Haruyuki bowed his head. “Um, nice to meet you. I’m Silver Crow, a member of Nega Nebulus. I’m sorry for intruding on you, but I’m hoping for a good fight!”

  His opponent was also Low Level, so they were both on the newcomer side of the equation, but Haruyuki said his greetings at any rate as the challenger.

  His opponent responded by jangling the chain in his hands. “I would be Jade Jailer, a member of Great Wall.”

  …Would be? Haruyuki furrowed his brow but then reminded himself that this was not where his concern ought to lie. The Green Legion, Great Wall, was the largest in the Accelerated World, with a massive territory spanning from Shibuya to Meguro. Shibuya was right next to Suginami, but the members of GW almost never went on trips to the neighborhood of Koenji.

  As if reading Haruyuki’s mind, Jailer shook his unusually shaped head; he looked as though he was wearing an old-school woven rice hat. “You need not apologize for the challenge. Because I have humbly come to the Suginami domain so I might join you in a contest. Since I am unable to challenge you, it is most splendid that you were so kind as to challenge me.”

  …Humbly? Suginami domain? Caught on the particulars of speech, Haruyuki bowed his head once again. “O-oh, well, then I th-thank you for making the long trip.”

  “Goodness! Now you are thanking me. In any case…” Jailer turned the ring of his right hand toward Haruyuki with a jangle, and his voice grew tense. “…I shall inscribe you on the newest page of the detective’s memoirs!”

  “…D-detective’s memoirs?” Haruyuki cocked his head to one side, while cheers poured down from the Gallery on the roofs of the surrounding buildings.

  “Yah! Inspector Jade Poirot!”

  “You won’t catch the crow with your policeman’s rope so easily!”

  From the look of the Gallery, Jailer was apparently pretty famous in the Shibuya area. But Haruyuki was no slouch himself; the name Silver Crow had reached the opposite side of Tokyo by now. Apparently.

  A prisoner avatar in chains, and you’re planning to catch me? Go ahead and try! he shouted inwardly, joining his opponent in snapping his arms up into a ready position. “Okay then, permit me to get started!”

  “The usual contest it is, then!”

  A small spark bounced up between their two battle cries, and the two avatars moved at the same time.

  Haruyuki didn’t know the first thing about Jailer’s fighting style or abilities. But he could at least be sure that his opponent was a close-range type, given that he was also charging straight at Crow.

  …At a time like this, if I had a long-distance special-attack gauge like Radial Shot, I could launch a feint and check my opponent’s output.

  These thoughts rose up persistently in the back of his mind, and he forced them out of his head so he could focus his attention on his enemy’s weapons—the rings of both hands. Given that they had no blades, they were an impact-type weapon rather than slicing, but this was actually more of a threat to the metal-colored Crow. He’d best deal with them by evasion rather than guarding.

  “Hup!” Jade shouted, bringing the ring of the right hand down from directly above, and Haruyuki dodged it with a side step.

  “Yah!” This time, the ring of the left hand closed in on Haruyuki on the horizontal, and he dodged this with a jump. But that seemed to be his enemy’s intention, and the third blow—the chain connecting Jailer’s hands—came rushing toward him, carving out an arc in the air.

  Normally, the only choice when he was attacked mid-jump was to guard. But of all the duel avatars in this world, Haruyuki could completely change his trajectory mid-jump. He applied a brief burst of back thrust with the wings on his back, a technique he’d only awakened to in the duel with Kuroyukihime earlier, to stop his jump in midair.

  The chain passed in front of him and slammed into the concrete slab in vain, and Haruyuki launched his own attack with a roundhouse kick aimed squarely at Jailer’s left shoulder.

  Skreenk! His opponent’s health gauge dropped just over 5 percent. The damage was slight despite the fact that Haruyuki had gotten a clean hit, which meant his opponent’s defensive power must have indeed been great. To come out on top here, he’d need moves to counter rather than defensive power.

  If only I at least had a continuous special attack like Rapid Knuckle— How long am I going to keep thinking about this?! Concentrate on the battle!

  Scolding himself, he used the reaction from the kick to do a backward somersault and landed some distance away from Jade. He’d managed to get the first attack in at any rate, but now his opponent also knew Crow’s fighting style. What they would do with that knowledge was the difference between winning and losing.

  Jailer seemed to be thinking that same thing. “I see now!” he shouted as he stood up, the chain between his hands clanging. “You do indeed move quite well! It seems that I am at a disadvantage in this fight, so if you please, I will allow myself to use my secret technique!”

  “P-please! Go ahead!” Haruyuki replied, checking his enemy’s special-attack gauge. With the charge Jade had built up in advance plus the charge from Haruyuki’s blow, it was more than half full.

  Jailer thrust both arms forward so the chain hung down loosely. And then he had no sooner yanked it up with a snap of his wrists than he was calling the name of the special
attack. “Skipping Chain!!”

  Ah, of course, the name of the special attack’s in English. In the fleeting moment of this thought, Haruyuki opened his eyes wide at his enemy’s movements.

  When the shining-green chain hit Jailer’s feet, he did a little jump and leapt over it. The chain came up around the top of his head from behind, and then back down to the ground. At the same time as the edge hit the concrete, he jumped again. Three, four times, Jailer repeated the same movement.

  So then this was the jump rope—no, jump chain—that Haruyuki was extremely terrible at. He watched, dumbfounded, as Jade jumped faster and faster and faster, the klak, klak of it hitting the ground becoming a successive ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-kak, and Jailer became a sphere shining with green light. Carving out a narrow rut in the concrete slab, he charged Haruyuki.

  “G-gah!” Haruyuki hurriedly leapt backward, but the jump-rope ball also changed its trajectory to chase after him. The chain touched the steel rail, sending red sparks gushing upward. Judging from the nature of the technique, shaving damage would steal away a not-insignificant portion of his health gauge if he tried to guard with both arms. He felt a bit pathetic, but his only choice was to retreat first to the sky above with his flight ability.

  “Nngh!” He kicked off the ground and jumped, vibrating his wings at the same time. The thrust yanked his body upward, and he ascended directly up into the sky.

  “It would seem you fell for it!!” Jade called out, and the sphere bounced. The chain spinning at high speeds seemed to be generating some kind of propulsive force, and the green avatar leapt up three meters to where Haruyuki hung in the sky. The glowing ball touched the tips of Crow’s toes.

  “Waaah!” The chain caught his ankles, and Haruyuki was slammed down to the ground with a force he was helpless against. Although he managed to avoid crashing into the track slab at least by using the last of his thrust, he still landed flat on his back.

  And the spinning chain ball came down at him from the sky above. If he got pinned under that, he risked having the last of his gauge shaved away. Fortunately, however, Jailer’s special-attack gauge ran out there. The jump-rope status was released to reveal the avatar in midair.

  The perfect chance!

  Haruyuki quickly got to his feet and waited for the chain hanging loosely from Jailer’s wrists. If he could grab hold of it and pull it up high into the sky with him, then it would be Haruyuki’s undisputed victory. No matter how tough the green type was, he wouldn’t be able to withstand the falling damage from a hundred meters above the ground.

  “I got yoooooouuuu!” Haruyuki stretched out a hand to grab hold of the chain.

  “Do yoooouuuu?!” Jailer lowered the ring of his right hand.

  There was no room to dodge, but Crow was also a metal color. He could handle a single normal technique blow. He centered his strength in his stomach, ready for the impact, and the ring swept sideways into his body.

  But. He felt none of the anticipated shock. Because the left half of the ring had moved to the inside using a pivot hidden at the top as an axis. It spun once to slide around to Haruyuki’s back before closing up in a circle once more with a high-pitched ting. Crow’s torso was now inside the ring of Jailer’s right hand.

  “You have been apprehended!!” Jailer’s shout was practically a declaration of victory, but Haruyuki’s health gauge did not drop so much as a pixel.

  Ignoring whatever was going on with Jailer’s hand, he tried to take off, but his opponent had another surprise for him.

  The moment Jailer’s feet touched the ground, he slammed the ring of his left hand against the steel rail at his feet. The brittle concrete slab crumbling, half the ring rotated and reconnected with a chak. This hand ring now held the track inside it.

  Unable to understand what Jailer was trying to do with his right hand around Haruyuki and his left around the rail, Haruyuki wondered about his next action, but the truly astounding part of this curious fight was yet to come.

  Clunk! The rings of Jailer’s hands separated from his wrists. The now handless jade-colored avatar jumped back and put some distance between them. All that was left was the ring wrapped around Haruyuki’s torso, the ring eating the rail, and the two-meter chain that connected them.

  “Unh.” Here, finally, far too late, Haruyuki grasped what Jailer’s peculiar hands were all about. They weren’t striking weapons; they were massive handcuffs. And jailer didn’t mean prisoner, but…imprisoner.

  “Silver Crow, you have been apprehended! Indeed!” Jade Jailer announced, firmly crossing arms that had nothing beyond the wrists.

  The voices of the Gallery rained down on them from the buildings on either side of the tracks.

  “Yah! Perfection, Jade Poirot!”

  “Aah, Nega Nebulus’s little bird in chains, too? Well, this is a tough one to handle on first sight and all.”

  “Damned bird! Next time, don’t get caught!”

  The Gallery and his duel opponent were talking as though Jade’s victory was assured. But his health gauge hadn’t dropped any further. And they still had fifteen minutes left.

  “It’s not over yet! I’ll break out of these handcuffs right now!” Haruyuki cried and grabbed the chain hanging down from the ring around his torso. He yanked on it for all he was worth, this chain with the opposite end touching the rail.

  “Unh…Gaaaah!” He continued to pull with all his might, but the jade chain didn’t move a millimeter.

  “It is hopeless.” Jailer shook his woven-hat-shaped head five or so meters away. “Not even Frost Horn of the Blue Leonids was able to pull apart that chain.”

  “Huh? S-seriously?”

  Frost Horn was a super-close-range-type avatar who boasted of his ferocious charge and physical strength. He far surpassed Crow in terms of sheer power.

  “W-well, then!” This time, he hit the taut chain with his fist, but of course, it made no real mark. So he tried placing it on the slab and stomping on it with his feet, but the result was the same.

  If the chain was out of the question, then he could destroy the rail the other ring was attached to. So he flew at the steel rail with a full-power kick, but he actually ended up taking a tiny bit of damage. From the feedback he got, he guessed it was probably an indestructible object.

  Why would the train track be protected like that? he wondered in an outburst of anger, and then a chill ran up his spine. The reason it was indestructible was obvious. Because the train ran along it. And now the reason Jailer had chosen the overhead bridge as the battleground, as well as the reason he had locked Haruyuki to the rail, was as clear as day.

  To have the train hit Silver Crow, of course.

  “It appears you have at last come to understand. And yet, your understanding comes at too late a date.”

  Haruyuki lifted his face and saw Jailer gently raise his left arm in the direction of Shinjuku. Shining beyond the dust of the Weathered stage was, without a doubt, the headlight of a train.

  “Nngh!” Gritting his teeth, Haruyuki yanked on the chain once more. But he had already confirmed that it wouldn’t be severed by Crow’s strength. Faint vibrations came to him via the taut chain. And then a heavy metallic sound. Ka-tunk, ka-tunk.

  Is it over? Is my only choice now to be hit by a train? If only Crow had flying weapons, I could have attacked Jailer even stuck like this.

  Ah, I’m an idiot! If I had flying weapons, all Jailer would have to do is get in my blind spot. The reason I’m losing now is much more fundamental. Jade Jailer’s whole deal is catching and fixing an enemy in place, and he’s been fighting with the sole thought of using that power to the maximum. This is precisely the strength of a singularly specialized avatar…

  “It’s still…not over!” Haruyuki howled, half to himself. He released the chain in his hand and stared upward. If Jailer specialized in arrest, then Crow specialized in flight. Even if he couldn’t break the chain with brute force, there was one power he still had yet to test.

  “G…ooooo!!”
He clenched his fists and opened his wings up full throttle. Crow shot up like a rocket—only to suddenly stop in midair.

  Chank!

  The chain, only two meters long, was completely taut, and orange sparks flew from both the ring fixed around Crow’s torso and the one around the rail.

  “Unh…ah…aaaah…!!” He stretched out his arms and vibrated his wings with every bit of strength he had. Kee, kee, kee, kee. The source of the creaking was the chain or the rail—or perhaps Crow’s body itself.

  Finally, the armor on his back gave in to the pressure, and the ring started to dig into him. His health gauge started to drop, but Haruyuki ignored this and kept trying to reach the sky. The train was already close enough that he could see there was no driver. And the automatic driving program showed no signs of slowing down because of the foreign object on the rails.

  Then.

  Krrk! The health gauge to the right—Jailer’s—dropped just the slightest bit.

  In one corner of his nearly burned-out mind he wondered why that was, but then realized the answer immediately. The handcuffs were not an Enhanced Armament; they were Jailer’s hands—a part of his body. And the fact that his health gauge was dropping meant the chain was being damaged.

  “Nngh…ah…aaaaaaaah!!” Shouting, Haruyuki mustered up the last of his strength. He probably had twenty seconds before the collision with the train. And fifteen seconds before his special-attack gauge was used up. But these calculations flew from his head, and he saw only the blue of the sky.

  Sky. Toward the sky. I want to fly. Higher, beyond the heights.

  …Oh, I get it…I’m such an idiot. I mean, what I want, what Silver Crow wants, ever since I became a Burst Linker— No, I knew it way before that. Crow doesn’t need long-distance or continuous hit techniques. Because I’m not in this world just to win duels. There’s something more precious and good, something I want from the bottom of my heart.