The Black Dual Swordsman

by Reki Kawahara

  To avoid that situation, Takumu was moving very carefully to keep from accidentally floating up. But as a result of that, he was unable to get the lightweight Lignum Vitae within range of his weapon. Meanwhile, the parasol that was Lignum’s main weapon was mesmerizing him, stretching and contracting, opening and closing, but it didn’t seem to have enough power to pierce Cyan Pile’s armor.

  The other fight, Ash Roller vs. Lime Bell, was developing even more simply: Ash merely fled from her.

  “Heeeey! Waaaaiiit!” Bell cried as she swung the striking weapon Choir Chime.

  “Mighty me can’t stop, won’t stop!” Ash shouted. The rider himself had almost zero fighting power once he had descended from his American motorcycle, but he was quick on his feet, if nothing else. He bounced deftly along in the low-gravity environment, and Chiyuri couldn’t get close to him.

  Neither Lignum nor Ash appeared to have noticed yet that Haruyuki was closing in on them from above. He wondered which to surprise with an attack and then grimaced abruptly.

  The fact that Lignum Vitae and Ash Roller had joined together in this fight was no random roll of the dice. They must have teamed up because of some synergistic effect, and yet, it looked like the two of them weren’t doing anything other than running away. They might have been buying time, but the Change didn’t happen in normal duel stages, and once a Battle Royale had started, it was impossible for reinforcements to jump into the fight.

  Wait. I need to take them down instead of just worrying about stuff! Haruyuki set his sights on a surprise attack on Lignum, who was closer to his landing spot.

  Abruptly, an intense light source appeared beyond the floating island off in the distance and painted the stage in monotone contrasts.

  “Th-the sun?!” Haruyuki cried out unconsciously.

  A girl’s voice from below drowned out his yelp. “Carbon Cycle!!”

  As if Lignum Vitae had been waiting for this to abandon her defensive position against Takumu, she stopped moving and held her parasol up high. The Enhanced Armament rapidly grew in size to cover and hide Lignum.

  Haruyuki didn’t know what kind of technique this was. But he couldn’t just stand by and let her do it. Bending his legs deeply and squatting to absorb the force of his landing, Haruyuki started running toward her as soon as his feet were on the ground. As if thinking the same thing, Takumu also closed the distance between them, readying his Pile Driver.

  Lignum’s special attack was apparently of the transformation variety. The dress-clad torso stretched out into a thin cylinder, while her feet became one with the earth. Her parasol swelled up into a cone shape and swallowed her upper body. She was a tree. A large green tree, reaching a height of three meters.

  “Yaaah!” Haruyuki launched a roundhouse kick to smash the thirty-centimeter-thick trunk.

  On the opposite side, Takumu braced his feet and fired the Pile Driver.

  Ka-klang!

  Both Haruyuki and Takumu were both knocked backward and fell to the ground.

  “N-no damage?!” Takumu cried, shocked, still on his backside. The torso/trunk of Lignum was not so much as scratched.

  In the back of Haruyuki’s mind, Aqua Current’s words from before the start of the meeting floated to the surface.

  Lignum Vitae, that’s the name of the wood that’s said to be the hardest in the world.

  So then, did that mean Lignum had gone full defense and abandoned the idea of attacking? In that case, was she still trying to buy time now that she was a tree? This hypothesis of Haruyuki’s was quickly proven false.

  A geometrical pattern that shone with a green light rose up on the surface of the canopy/parasol turned massive cone. The light flowed down the trunk toward the roots, just as a tree bathed in the light of the sun produced energy through photosynthesis. The light that collected at the roots focused into a single line and flowed across the ground to where Ash Roller was some ten meters away.

  “Hey, hey, heeeeeey!!” Ash stopped and shouted. “Here we go! Here we go! Giga-overflowiiiing!! Sorry for the wait, you kids!! Now’s where it all starts!! Mighty me! My tuuuuuurrrrrn!!”

  Snap! He turned finger guns on Haruyuki and his friends. Chiyuri stopped, dumbfounded, and then started running as if coming back to herself, swinging the large bell.

  “Your turn is never coming! You can just take a nap right there!” Chiyuri shouted.

  “Howling Panhead!” Ash cried at nearly the same time.

  Haruyuki remembered this special attack name. Flying Knucklehead was the one that fired the antiaircraft missiles from the launcher on Ash Roller’s motorcycle, and Howling Panhead launched the ground-to-ground missiles. But the motorcycle was sitting on the green camp island off in the distance; there was no way Ash could control it—

  Wait. No.

  “Bell! Run!” Haruyuki called before he’d gotten visual confirmation. And then he saw two points of light come flying from the north side of the stage at a ferocious speed. Large missiles with the first seeker lens shining red. Ash could launch the missile long-distance with just the technique call, even when he wasn’t riding the motorcycle.

  “Ah! Ah! Ah!” Chiyuri put on the emergency brakes with both feet and spun around to try to head over to Haruyuki. But the speed of the missiles’ flight was approaching that of Silver Crow’s top flying speed. And given how difficult running was in the Space stage, she wouldn’t be able to make it with just her feet.

  Takumu, about fifteen meters away, threw his upper body back forcefully and shouted, “Splash Stinger!!”

  Cyan Pile’s chest armor opened up, and a myriad of tiny needle missiles were launched in quick succession. These scraped past Lignum Vitae in tree mode and closed in on Ash’s missiles from the left side.

  The school of small missiles and the two larger ones crossed paths at basically the same time as Haruyuki threw himself forward to grab onto Chiyuri and yank her down to the ground.

  A burst of red light—the sound of explosions. The floating island shook fiercely, and as he covered Chiyuri, Haruyuki felt an intense wave of heat and debris assaulting his armor. Although they’d managed to avoid a direct hit, his health gauge dropped before his eyes.

  The damage was probably due to all of Takumu’s needle missiles exploding, too, but even so, this was quite the destructive power. If he’d taken even one hit, he would have sustained heavy damage, but fortunately, this technique of Ash’s used up a serious amount of his special-attack gauge. Haruyuki had to get close and take him down before it recharged enough for a second shot.

  He checked Ash’s gauge among those lined up in the upper right of his field of view and opened his eyes wide in surprise. “Whoa?!”

  Ash’s special-attack gauge was replenishing before his eyes. Was he drinking something? No, no; there was nothing like that in the normal duel field. His mind racing, Haruyuki lifted his head and looked at Ash, but he was simply standing there on the edge of the floating island in an imperious pose; he wasn’t smashing terrain objects or anything…

  “It’s Lignum, Crow!” Takumu shouted, and Haruyuki finally understood what was happening.

  The line of light that connected Ash to the tree that was Lignum Vitae was there to charge his special-attack gauge. Lignum’s transformation was not simply defensive. Most likely, she could generate energy just like photosynthesis when bathed in sunlight and share that with her comrades. In other words, Ash’s missiles were now unlimited for all intents and purposes. This was the synergistic effect of the Lignum/Ash duo.

  “You fiiiiiiiinally figured it out, damned bird bunch!” the century-end rider shouted, a smile of satisfaction on his skull face. “And it’s late o’clock! Mighty me’s turn! Never ends, yooooooo!! Howling Panhead!! One more time! Howling Panhead!! For luck, Howling Panheaaaaaaaaad!!”

  Whud, whud, whud, whud, whud, whud!! Six missiles were successively launched from the American motorcycle parked off in the distance.

  Ardor Maiden aka Utai Shinomiya took a deep breath as she b
egan to pull back the string of her longbow, Flame Caller. Particles of light enveloped her hands to become a long, thin straight line and make the lacquered vermilion arrow manifest.

  Normally, the arrow would have been wrapped in bright-red flames, but in the Space stage where there was no oxygen, flames could not burn. The silver arrowhead shone sharply, but unfortunately, it could not break through the thick armor of Iron Pound nor the hard buckler of Viridian Decurion with simple piercing damage alone.

  Nearly five minutes had passed already since Utai, Sky Raker, and Aqua Current had started to fight Pound and Decurion on one chunk of the floating island that had been split apart by Graphite Edge. The strategy was for Raker and Current to stand firm and handle the fierce attacks of the two green members, while Utai launched arrows from the rear, but this was something they’d been forced into, rather than the optimal strategy. Now that Utai had lost the divine protection of flames, she wouldn’t be able to endure close-range combat with “Fists” Pound or “Consul” Decurion. And since Utai couldn’t approach the enemy, Raker (who was definitely not a close-range type herself) and Current were in there giving it their all.

  She wondered if she might be more useful if she retreated to a different floating island farther off and tried a long-range attack from there. Of course, they were defending against pretty much all the arrows she launched at this close range, so unless she came up with some pretty serious tricks, she wouldn’t be able to do any damage from a distance, either. Even so, Utai couldn’t help thinking it would be better than simply standing there and letting the others protect her.

  Her parent and real-life older brother, Mirror Masker/Kyoya Shinomiya, had sheltered Utai from a massive falling mirror and lost his life doing so. She had absolutely no desire to see anyone else get hurt protecting her. It was more painful than having her own body ripped into a thousand pieces.

  But before this fight began, Sky Raker/Fuko Kurasaki had told her, “Get back, be patient, and keep shooting arrows. You’ll definitely make it like that.”

  Having been teamed up with Raker ever since the days of the former Nega Nebulus, she trusted her implicitly, and she truly adored Fuko in the real world. But Utai found herself just the tiniest bit unnerved by the older girl. Because when it came down to it, Fuko would try to protect Utai. She would shower Utai with love and try to look after her. And that felt very, very good.

  Maybe it was inevitable that Fuko would protect her. The fact was, though, the gap between their actual fighting abilities went far beyond the numbers of level seven and eight. It had been years since they last dueled each other, but if, hypothetically, she was to go up against Raker today, Raker would knock all the arrows Utai launched to the ground with the palm of her hand, close the distance between them in an instant, and defeat Utai before she had a chance to even fight back.

  But someday.

  Someday, she would reach the same heights as Raker and not simply be protected by her. Utai had started thinking she wanted to become a real partner since she joined the new Nega Nebulus—to be more precise, since she met Silver Crow/Haruyuki Arita.

  To be honest, she’d thought he was a little unreliable at first. He didn’t really look like the kind of Burst Linker that the Black King, Black Lotus, World’s End, would choose for a child and entrust with the future of the Legion. But by the time Crow had rescued her from Suzaku’s altar, and they had returned from the Castle together, Utai, too, had come to understand what made him special.

  Crow’s strength was his very determination to reach distant heights. That strength of will, no matter how hopeless the situation—even if he was beaten a hundred times and made to crawl on the ground, he would grit his teeth and force himself to his feet to take on the hundred and first fight. Which was why he had been born with those beautiful silver wings, the lone duel avatar in the Accelerated World with the power of true flight.

  Utai had learned from Silver Crow the importance of standing firm and moving forward in a crisis. Even in this situation, where she seemed to be nothing more than baggage, if she had faith in Raker and kept shooting her arrows, something would surely change.

  Her beloved bow, Flame Caller, had the ability to generate arrows without limit, so unlike a gun-type Enhanced Armament, she could never run out of ammo, no matter how many she fired. She aimed the thirty-third arrow at Iron Pound and released the bowstring. The arrow whistled through the sky, despite the lack of air, nearly hit Pound’s face just as she’d intended, but then it was blocked by his left glove. The arrow fell to one side without doing any damage and melted out of existence.

  Not yet, she thought as she went to ready her next arrow.

  “Nngh!” Decurion grunted sharply from his place fighting at Pound’s right. He had failed to defend against a whiplike high-speed jet of water that shot out from Aqua Current’s hand and took some damage, albeit minimal.

  But why was Decurion off his rhythm? Utai had been aiming at Pound, and he had completely defended against the arrow…

  She gasped with realization and quickly pulled back the arrow produced by the longbow. This time, she shot at Decurion. The Consul caught the arrow with his buckler again as he had up to that point, but at the same time, Pound failed to dodge Raker’s sword hand and clicked his tongue. “Tch!”

  “I see how it is,” Utai murmured. She finally understood Sky Raker’s intention. For the last five minutes, she had been launching her arrows at a fixed pace, but the target had been random. She’d switch between Pound and Decurion and then fire a few times in a row at one or the other. The cumulative effect was to produce hesitation and annoyance in the veteran warriors of Great Wall— “Which one of us will it be now?”

  In which case.

  Rather than suppressing her battle aura as she had been up to that point so they would not guess who she was aiming at, Utai poured it all into her bowstring. Her whole body frozen with the bow drawn and aimed, she built up the fire of her battle will. Still not shooting. Not shooting. Not shooting…

  Pound and Decurion glanced at Utai impatiently, and Sky Raker and Aqua Current did not let those openings slip away.

  “Ha!”

  “Hunh!”

  Crying out at the same time, the two took a huge step forward, and Raker launched a palm strike from a low crawling position, while Current produced a water blade to deal ferocious attacks at their respective targets. The end goal of these “floating techniques” was marvelously accomplished, and Pound and Decurion were knocked upward simultaneously.

  “Dammit!” Pound cursed and turned his fists toward the starry sky as he slipped out of the island’s field of gravity. He was likely intending to fire some special attack upward and return to the island with the recoil. But floating in the zero-gravity space, he was now the perfect target for Utai.

  “Superluminal Stroke!!” Utai shouted, further drawing back the already taut bowstring.

  Ardor Maiden’s level-seven special attack, the only one whose force was not lessened in this stage. She drew a light attribute arrow that specialized in range, speed, and piercing power. Unlike her fire attribute special attacks like Flame Torrent or Flame Vortex, there was no particular explosion effect, but if it pierced her enemy’s critical point, it could deal serious damage. But the accuracy compensation that the majority of her special attacks had did not work at all on this one, so if her heart wavered even slightly, the accuracy would diminish.

  The nocked arrow was enveloped in a pure-white light. Her consciousness traveled down to her duel avatar’s fingertips, and the instant she felt the bow and arrow become even more a part of her—she released it.

  A silent flash raced through space and was pulled into Iron Pound’s body.

  As a phenomenon, that was it, but as Iron Pound raised his arms, his thick chest armor shattered outward from the center. The health gauge that had been at nearly 90 percent dropped rapidly through the yellow zone and into the red, finally stopping when he was down to only 20 percent. Because the light
had pierced that avatar in an instant, his kinetic energy did not change, and Pound continued to float in place.

  It wasn’t instant death, but for a high-level metal color, she’d been able to do more damage than she’d expected. Raker would strike the final blow for her later. With this thought in mind, Utai next turned her bow toward Decurion.

  “Pound! Fall back!” Decurion shouted, brandishing the Gladius dagger in his right hand.

  Pound narrowed his eye lenses in vexation as he positioned his hands in front of himself. “Eruption Blow!”

  Flames spewed from both gloves, and with the reactive force, Iron Pound flew off to the island to the rear. The enemy team didn’t have any means of recovering their health gauges, but even so, Sky Raker sank down to follow in pursuit. But she wasn’t allowed to strike the final blow.

  “Viridian Legionnaire!” Decurion roared thunderously in midair, sword still raised.

  Four bolts of green lightning jetted from the sword and struck the earth of the floating island one after another. Raker and Current leapt aside in time, so there was no damage. But this special attack of Decurion’s wasn’t a simple ranged attack.

  “Here it comes,” Raker murmured as shadows oozed up from the ground where the lightning had hit. There were four soldiers clad in heavy armor, all a slightly lighter green than Decurion’s, carrying rectangular shields and rough lances.

  Chocolat Puppeter, a new member of Nega Nebulus who had just joined the other day from the Setagaya area, had the ability to produce automatons called Chocopets. Excellent soldiers with chocolate bodies impervious to physical attacks, they could understand a fairly high level of commands, but the Viridian Legionnaires that Consul Viridian Decurion summoned were on an entirely different level. He could call up four with one special-attack gauge, so if he repeated the technique, he could summon even eight at one time, which was terrifying.