The Black Dual Swordsman

by Reki Kawahara

  “Right. I guess he’s originally from Africa, after all. I’ll check into how much it would cost to install a solar heating system.”

  UI> THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT. Utai grinned and returned her hands to her lap.

  The bus traveling east along Shinoume Highway entered Nakano Area No. 2 a little past Higashi–Koenji Station. The Leonids had temporarily occupied the area during the Saturday Territories in order to attack Suginami, but as a general rule, it was unoccupied, so there were plenty of duels unfolding even on a weekday evening.

  Naka-2 was where Haruyuki had first dueled against Wolfram Cerberus. It seemed like a hundred years ago, but it had actually been a mere three weeks earlier. But far too many things had happened in those three weeks, and Cerberus was now gone from the Accelerated World.

  Cerberus III, aka the copy of Dusk Taker, had stolen the Invincible thrusters from Niko, but system-wise, the thrusters should have still been in the possession of Cerberus I. He assumed the Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, also remained with Cerberus, so there was no way that the vast negative Incarnate energy, far surpassing that of the ISS kit terminals, was not having a negative effect on Cerberus in the real world.

  In the heart of one of Koenji’s bustling shopping areas known as Look Street, the Cerberus Haruyuki had encountered for the briefest of moments had been a small-statured, gentle-looking young boy. A strong light had shone in his clear eyes, despite the fact that he had been made a Burst Linker through the inhuman experiment that was the artificial metal color project. If he closed his eyes, Haruyuki could vividly remember the figure of Cerberus smiling at Haruyuki and bowing deeply, hands at his side.

  Today’s objective was Shinjuku Area No. 3 on the other side of Nakano Area No. 2, but once they got into Nakano, he would accelerate for a second and check the matching list. Maybe Cerberus’s name would be on it.

  Utai started tapping at her holokeyboard again. UI> ARITA, BEFORE WE GO INTO THE NAKANO AREA, HOW ABOUT WE TEAM UP?

  “Huh?”

  UI> IF YOU’RE SOLO, YOU’LL PROBABLY BE CHALLENGED BY ANY NUMBER OF PEOPLE, C.

  “I—I guess. I haven’t been doing too many free duels lately.”

  UI> THAT’S WHY! YOU WERE VERY ACTIVE IN THE METATRON MISSION, AND RUMOR OF THAT HAS SPREAD QUITE FAR AND WIDE, SO I’M SURE THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE WHO’D LIKE TO HEAR THE STORY.

  “Huh. There’s basically nothing I can tell, though.” Everyone probably wanted to know how he defended against Metatron’s sudden-death laser, but he couldn’t exactly run around blabbing about the performance and weak points of his ability Optical Conduction. And he hesitated to lie and say he’d gotten the Theoretical Mirror ability he’d been asked to get. Moreover, he absolutely could not leak to anyone the existence of the true form of the Archangel Metatron and the fact that she was now a member of Nega Nebulus.

  “O-okay then, please team up with me,” Haruyuki said hurriedly as he watched the sign for Higashi–Koenji Station pass by the window.

  UI> THAT’S ROGER AND A GO!

  They pressed the BB icon on their virtual desktops at the same time and specified their tag partner in the console. Now they would appear on the matching list as a team, and there likely weren’t too many warriors who would see the name Silver Crow alongside Ardor Maiden’s and still come to challenge him.

  This also meant that if he did see Wolfram Cerberus’s name on the list, Haruyuki would be unable to challenge him, but in that case, he could explain the reason and temporarily leave the team.

  “Um, Shinomiya. Once we’re on the area border, I’d like to give the list a quick check,” he said as he closed his console.

  Utai looked at him with those eyes that seemed to see through everything and nodded firmly.

  Thirty seconds later, the EV bus drove leisurely in the left lane out of the Suginami area and into Nakano. Haruyuki closed his eyes and prayed briefly for a miracle. He had to assume that, normally, Wolfram Cerberus wouldn’t make the trip to Nakano without a reason when his home was in Minato. In fact, if Cerberus had returned to the duels with the Armor of Catastrophe still living inside him, that would mean the Society was conspiring again, and he would definitely not be happy about that.

  Even so, he couldn’t stop himself from praying. If he could just see him again, if they could exchange words—and blows—he was sure he could pull Cerberus back from that spiritual darkness. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth, ready to call out “Burst Link.”

  Skreeeeee!! The screech of acceleration shot through his head. Flaming text burned brightly in his vision, announcing the appearance of a challenger. Someone had come to challenge the tag team of Haruyuki and Utai.

  The EV bus stopped on the road and melted into the air. The buildings standing on either side of the street also vanished one after another, and the afternoon summer sky rapidly darkened.

  His silver-armored feet touched down on thin grass that reached his knees. A sea of grass swayed in the wind as far as he could see.

  “It’s a Grassland stage, then,” said the shrine maiden avatar next to him, sounding a little bittersweet. But it made sense; the first time he’d teamed up with her, they’d fought Bush Utan and Olive Grab in a Grassland stage.

  Nakano Area No. 2 was also adjacent to the Shibuya area in the south, so it was possible that Utan and Grab were the duelers again today. Or maybe it was the famed Leonids duo, Frost Horn and Tourmaline Shell. All right then, who is this reckless fool from wherever who would challenge the shrine maiden of the conflagration? With a bit of a borrowed swagger, Haruyuki looked up at the health gauges in the upper right of his field of view and a “Whoa!” slipped out of his mouth for the third time that day.

  The name neatly laid out on the first of the two gauges was Cobalt Blade. And on the second gauge was Manganese Blade.

  “Wh-why are they in Naka-two?!” Haruyuki reeled.

  “How like you, C, to draw such a favorable lot!” Utai clapped her hands. “This will save us the time of going all the way to Shinjuku.”

  “Uh. Th-that’s true, but I was planning to talk with everyone in the Gallery…”

  “In the Gallery, we’ll be cut off once the duel ends, but if we’re all duelers, then we can have the full thirty minutes to discuss. And moreover, the likelihood that they would agree to talk to us is very low. Now that they’ve challenged us, I believe our only choice is to fight first.”

  “I—I guess. But how are we going to…?” he wondered.

  “I am merely accompanying you, C,” Utai replied, cherubic eye lenses shining. “Thus, I will follow your strategy.”

  “…R-right…” He’d had a feeling she’d say something like that, so he nodded firmly and looked around the stage.

  Some distance away, avatars were standing in twos and threes around the vast grassy plain, but they were part of the Gallery. He narrowed his eyes and stared hard, but unfortunately, he couldn’t see Cerberus among them.

  The two light-blue guide cursors displayed on top of each other in the center of the lower part of his field of view were both motionless, pointing due north. Did that mean that their opponents were not moving from their point of origin? Or that they were approaching in a straight line? Given that he was up against Coba-Manga, it was probably the latter.

  His opponents were a tag team of the most powerful class of close-range types in the Accelerated World outside of the kings. If he and Utai were going for victory, the best strategy would be to take advantage of the fact that duels began with the duelers a significant distance from one another, and they would keep running away, unilaterally attacking with Utai’s flaming arrows.

  But Haruyuki dared to keep his feet planted on their appearance point. It meant throwing away the one advantage they had over their superpowerful opponents, but as long as they had this stage and this team, they had a trump card that could turn the tables in the second half with one blow.

  “Um, okay then, in the opening, please stick it out for a bit. I’ll take Manga, so
I’d like you to look after Coba, Mei,” Haruyuki instructed.

  The shrine maiden cocked her head to one side. “Which one is Manga and which one is Coba again?”

  “Uh, um. The one with the bluish armor and pigtails is Coba, and the one that’s just a little green with the ponytail is Manga.”

  “Understood!” Utai nodded sharply and slowly raised her longbow.

  At the same time, Haruyuki felt a cool wind blowing in from the north. No, that wasn’t it. From the way the grass was dancing, the wind blowing through the stage was southerly, so what he was feeling was extremely refined battle spirit…Or else, a high ranker’s information pressure wave. Straining his eyes to the north, Haruyuki saw two silhouettes slipping toward them in the sea of grass, which shone a golden-green in the evening sun.

  Cobalt Blade and Manganese Blade, twin soldiers and close aides of the Leonids leader, Blue Knight. Their heavy armor was patterned after that of samurai and deeply intimidating, while the greatswords on their left hips communicated their razor-sharpness without even being drawn.

  When they stopped about ten meters away, the number of people in the Gallery spiked due to the automatic transfer function. He checked one more time, but of course, Cerberus was not among them.

  Normally, jeers and cheers would be flying through the air, but today, perhaps overwhelmed by the threatening presence of the soldiers, everyone was waiting quietly for the start of the fighting.

  Gulping hard, Haruyuki was about to try announcing his business with them since he had nothing to lose.

  But before he could open his mouth, the ponytailed Manganese Blade announced in a brilliantly clear voice, “So you’re level six now, hmm, Silver Crow?”

  “Oh.” He unconsciously dipped his head at this unexpected comment. “Y-yes. Thanks.”

  “Don’t get the wrong idea—I’m not congratulating you!”

  And of course, he was rebuked by Cobalt Blade, causing him to shrink into himself with a squeak.

  The pigtailed soldier pointed squarely at Haruyuki and continued as if talking to herself, “Level four is still a babe, level five, finally a novice, but if you have reached level six, then I will not treat you as a forelock.”

  “…Forelock? What does that mean…?” Haruyuki muttered.

  “It refers to a young samurai before his coming of age,” Utai quickly interpreted for him, “because he’s not yet shaved his forelocks, the hair in the front of his head.”

  “O-oh, I see.” He bobbed his head, and now Manganese was angry with him.

  “You! Listen well!”

  The twin soldiers gripped their swords at the same time, with the same relative hand, and shouted in perfect sync, ““No insufficiency in a tag team of opponents of levels six and seven! Now, as always, the contest!!””

  No way they’re gonna go for dueling another time and just talking today, huh? Accepting his fate, Haruyuki gave a brief instruction to his partner. “Just like I said before. Please hang on until our gauges are charged!”

  “Roger that!” She nodded and drew her bowstring halfway back. And then Ardor Maiden abruptly turned toward the soldier to the right, the double-horned Cobalt Blade, and charged.

  “Wha—?!” he cried out, once more dumbfounded. But he couldn’t freeze now. He dashed after Maiden and moved to get the first hit in on Manganese Blade to the left.

  The soldiers moved in perfect sync once more as they leaned forward, gripping the hilts. Anticipating that they would draw and strike in one stroke, Haruyuki felt the core of his body become as cold as ice.

  This was the first time he’d fought Manganese, but he actually didn’t have that much experience fighting other sword-wielding avatars, either. This was because, as a flying type, he inevitably ended up with gun users as opponents. But his teacher was the most powerful blade user in the Accelerated World, and their numerous bouts had given Haruyuki serious confidence. No matter how sharp Manganese’s slicing attack, it couldn’t have been greater than Black Lotus’s Terminate Sword. Step past the fear and go forward!

  ““Shah!!”” Not even a millimeter of difference between them, Cobalt and Manganese unsheathed their swords simultaneously.

  Haruyuki used the slipperiness of the grassy field to slide beneath the flash of Manganese’s sideways scythe. The blade grazed his mirrored goggles, and dazzling sparks burned his field of view.

  On the right side, Utai jumped without warning and leapt over Cobalt’s slicing blade. Although she was a pure long-distance type, she apparently intended to seriously take on the challenge of a close-range battle with a female warrior who was the bluest of blue.

  The soldiers yanked the blades back above their heads with impossible speed and, this time, brought them directly downward. ““Seh!!””

  If he stopped sliding, his helmet would be split in two. Understanding this instinctively, Haruyuki used the mere pixels charged up in his special-attack gauge from the scratch he received earlier to vibrate the wings on his back for a microsecond. The generated thrust accelerated his slide and pushed his avatar directly below the falling blade.

  Ting! Once again, there was a small, sharp metallic sound, and the blade grazed the top of his helmet. The downward slash severed the surrounding grasses, and the blades of green danced up into the air, while Haruyuki shrank into himself, slipped between Manganese’s legs, and grabbed at the grass on either side as makeshift emergency brakes.

  How’s Mei?! Haruyuki glanced over to the left as he bounced back up.

  Ardor Maiden had firmly caught Cobalt Blade’s slash with the top of the longbow Flame Caller in her hand. Here, for the first time, the twin soldiers’ synchronization crumbled.

  “Nngh!” Cobalt abandoned the push-pull struggle with the longbow and leapt backward.

  Assuming the priority of the Enhanced Armaments was equal, Cobalt was definitely superior to Maiden in terms of physical avatar strength. If she had just kept going, she should have been able to use brute force to push back the bow and slice into Maiden’s armor.

  The reason Cobalt put some distance between them instead of doing that was because of the bright-red flames generated when Utai pulled the bowstring back with her right hand while she held the sword in check with her left. A flaming arrow aimed at her face, a mere dozen or so centimeters away, didn’t leave Cobalt much choice.

  Utai shot her flaming arrow at Cobalt, who was still very much in range. But her enemy was no fool; she made an impressive catch with the blade of her sword, and the arrow’s scattering flames made the evening grasslands shine red.

  Meanwhile, Haruyuki charged forward in a fierce dash, straight for Manganese. Before the warrior could get into position for a slicing attack, he closed the distance between them to zero. The twin’s blade was likely eighty centimeters long, but she wouldn’t be able to use it if he glued himself to her.

  “Ha!” Stepping deep into Manganese’s space, he launched a right short hook. This was blocked with her gauntlet, but he immediately took aim at her body with his left fist. She was unable to defend in time with her sword hand, and he landed a hit on her side where her armor was thinner, finally stealing a bit of her health gauge.

  “Impudence!” The warrior grimaced and moved to slam the hilt of her sword in Haruyuki’s face. But Takumu had used this technique on him in fights, and he knew to duck to the right to avoid it before beating at her body once again with his left knee.

  Once again, he got a clean hit, but it was actually too good, and the impact pushed Manganese back. Taking advantage of the moment’s respite this brought her, the warrior tried to lash out with a compact face strike. But Haruyuki threw the bundle of grass he’d yanked up when emergency braking at her face, and she immediately closed her eyes, knocking her attack slightly off course.

  Using the opportunity, he glued himself to her again and cut away at her gauge with a series of short punches.

  Ardor Maiden was also proving more than equal to Cobalt in a close-range fight. She wasn’t sticking quit
e as closely to her opponent as Silver Crow, and that she managed to continually evade the warrior’s slicing attacks was solely due to the overwhelming power of her bow.

  With Flame Caller, there was no need to pull an arrow from a quiver and nock it. She only had to draw the bowstring back a certain amount with her left hand, and a flame arrow was instantly generated. To Haruyuki, it looked like she was launching more than one arrow a second. She wasn’t pulling the string back all that far, so each arrow didn’t carry that much force, but the barrage was more than enough to check Cobalt’s approach.

  Two hundred seconds into the duel, the health gauges of Crow and Maiden were holding at more than 90 percent, while those of Cobalt and Manganese had dropped to nearly 70 percent. Naturally, Haruyuki didn’t think they could keep this up right to the end. But if they could steal 50 percent of their gauges before the breakthrough—i.e., when the enemy started using their special attacks—their chances of victory would increase significantly.

  “Go!” he shouted briefly at himself and kicked off the ground. He was about to launch the technique he’d christened Aerial Combo, a high-speed, three-dimensional charge that made use of the instantaneous thrust from the wings on his back.

  However, Haruyuki—and probably Utai, too—hadn’t noticed that Manganese and Cobalt Blade, who were supposedly fighting separately, had at some point started to approach each other, backs coming together.

  “Sehaaaaaah!!” With a battle cry that shook the air around them, Manganese swung the sword in her right hand out horizontally.

  If it had been the same slice as the one she’d been using so far, he would have been able to close the distance and evade it. But there was no need for that. Although her eyes remained on him, Manganese’s target was not Haruyuki in front of her, but somewhere directly behind her.

  For a moment, Haruyuki’s brain froze at the unexpected and seemingly entirely useless action. Thus, he was late to react to the second sword that came flying in from outside his field of view.