The Black Dual Swordsman

by Reki Kawahara

  “I’m good on the bottom. Please make the corrections to our course, Corvus,” Fuko instructed.

  He took a deep breath. “Roger. I’ll tell you when to fire Gale Thruster.”

  “Please do. My special-attack gauge and my thruster-energy gauge are both fully charged.”

  “Me too.”

  “I have been prepared for some time,” Metatron said, a little quicker than usual.

  “R-roger…You’re not going to fall off while we’re flying?”

  “Your relative coordinates are fixed, so there is no issue. Now commence activity immediately.” Metatron fluttered her wings as if to say she could wait no longer, and smiles spread across the faces of Haruyuki and Fuko. The tension building in his chest melted away, and his mind was calm.

  “Okay, we’re going to fly!” Haruyuki announced, deploying his own wings first to gently lift off. He started hovering at ten meters altitude and tilted his body parallel to the ground. Fuko, in his arms, would be flying on her back, but she looked at the upside-down field with an accustomed air.

  Before their eyes, Sakurada Street stretched out straight ahead like a runway, gleaming white. Far in the distance, he could see the hazy spires of the stately Castle. In the deepest layer of that palace, the Shrine of the Eight Divines, the final Arc lay sleeping, The Fluctuating Light—TFL.

  In the Highest Level, Archangel Metatron had once told him:

  “The reason for the existence of this space fusing three worlds—if I was to follow the example of you little warriors—the Accelerated World. It is to break into the Castle, a separate world in the center of this world, and the Shrine of the Eight Divines sunken in its depths and reach The Fluctuating Light sealed inside. I am confident of this.”

  Metatron had declared that TFL itself was the meaning of the existence of the fighting game Brain Burst 2039. And Haruyuki believed her.

  Kuroyukihime. I’m sorry for taking this risk in secret. But I will unlock the secret of TFL and return to you. To reach the end of the Accelerated World with you, Haruyuki called out in his heart.

  Then he opened his eyes and stared at the end of the long, straight road.

  “Suzaku will start to appear the instant we cross the boundary between the road and the bridge. We will reach and enter the south gate within three seconds from that point.” He reconfirmed the strategy, and Fuko nodded silently. Nodding back, he took a deep breath. “I’ll count down. Five, four, three, two, one…zero!!”

  He activated the silver wings on his back with everything he had. The ten metal fins beat against the air, and the ferocious thrust they generated made the two avatars accelerate like a cannonball. The chalky buildings standing on either side of the road advanced frame by frame like a movie.

  Weeeen! The wall of air increased in density. Their subjective speed reached two hundred kilometers per hour, and the instant he felt the acceleration from his flight ability dull, Haruyuki howled a brief “Aaaah!!”

  He flapped his new wings as hard as he could—the Enhanced Armament Metatron Wings, sharply shaped like swords. White light jetted from them, and the intense thrust from dropping into second gear accelerated the pair abruptly.

  “You’ve become quite masterful with these wings of mine.” This thought from Metatron, motionless on his shoulder, flashed into the back of his mind. He didn’t have the mental leeway to respond in words, but he sent out a feeling of gratitude as he continued to accelerate full throttle.

  In inverse proportion to his rapidly decreasing special-attack gauge, his flight speed skyrocketed. The buildings on either side became a flowing line of gray and started to melt away. However, at four hundred kilometers per hour, their acceleration started to falter once again. Despite their combined weight, the doubling air resistance was more difficult than he’d expected. The air became a highly viscous liquid pushing the pair back.

  As he gritted his teeth, his wide-open eyes caught the shadow of a massive structure on the right side of the road—Toranomon Hills Tower. This was the midpoint of their runway. Holding onto Fuko tightly, he shouted half in his mind, “Master!!”

  “Roger!!”

  Gale Thruster sent pale-blue flames gushing from Sky Raker’s back.

  Their acceleration’s third gear was also incredible. Haruyuki felt the armor of his entire body squeal at the intense Gs, while the high-frequency hum of Silver Crow’s four wings was drowned out by the roar of the rocket boosters. Their subjective speed exceeded six hundred kilometers per hour, and his field of view gradually contracted.

  As the world narrowed into a small circle, Haruyuki finally saw it: the bridge that appeared off Sakurada Avenue and the massive palace gate beyond it.

  Theoretically, if they managed six hundred kilometers per hour, they would cross the five-hundred-meter-long bridge in three seconds and reach the gate before Suzaku finished appearing. But they were just barely going that fast. He wanted another level of acceleration.

  I guess…I’ll have to use it after all! Bracing himself, Haruyuki focused his imagination.

  Light. The image of a light that pierces everything.

  Silver Crow’s entire body was enveloped in a faint glow. The Incarnate overlay also cloaked Fuko in his arms and Metatron on his shoulder.

  G…ooooooooo!!

  After this soundless battle cry, Haruyuki shouted, “Light Speeeeeeeed!!”

  Top gear. Their final acceleration boost came from the lone second-level Incarnate technique Haruyuki had learned. The wall of compressed air generated a shock wave and shattered the buildings on either side.

  Seven hundred…seven hundred and fifty…eight hundred kilometers per hour!

  The end of the runway was approaching. Large buildings came into view once again ahead of them. On the left was the Metropolitan Police Department, on the right, the Ministry of Justice; beyond that, the earth disappeared, and there was only the bridge across the bottomless ravine and the Castle it connected with the field.

  Almost on the bridge. Three seconds…two…

  In the midst of a super-acceleration that made everything feel like it was in slow motion, Haruyuki saw it: Bright-red flames flickered to life on the Suzaku altar in front of the Castle’s south gate. In the blink of an eye, the flicker became a bonfire and transformed into a bird of flames with massive wings and a long tail. The appearance effect of the Super-class Enemy, one of the Four Gods, Suzaku.

  But why?! We’re not on the bridge yet!! An astonished scream echoed in Haruyuki’s mind.

  Suzaku’s appearance was two seconds earlier than he’d expected. It would be impossible to cut past the altar and break through the gate before it finished manifesting. But he couldn’t stop now. Even if they decelerated here, they’d only end up stopping in the middle of Suzaku’s territory.

  Break through, Corvus!!

  You must go, Crow!!

  Thoughts from Fuko and Metatron hit him at the same time.

  “Unh…Aaaaaaaaaaah!!” Howling, Haruyuki mustered up every last bit of energy his mind and the system could offer and charged onto the bridge, accelerating even further.

  When they reached the halfway point of the bridge, the God Suzaku finished materializing. The immortal bird, wrapped in crimson flames with a wingspan of thirty meters, opened its glittering ruby beak wide, flapped both wings powerfully, and floated up ahead of Haruyuki and Sky Raker.

  An orange light grew inside the beak—the Breath attack.

  They weren’t going to make it. The instant those flames rained down on them, Haruyuki’s and Fuko’s health gauges would drop to zero, and they would fall into an inescapable state of Unlimited EK.

  Suddenly, an intense light nearly blinded him. The source was his own shoulder. The 3-D icon settled there emitted a white light so bright it washed out even Suzaku’s flames, while a thought filled the air, sonorous and solemn, befitting an Archangel.

  “Stubborn beast, embodiment of destruction!! I shall not allow you to obstruct my flight nor that of my servant!!”
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  Her voice spread out through the field with an energy that was almost physical, and Suzaku stopped moving for the briefest of instances.

  And then the Super-class Enemy roared like an explosion of flames, its voice too familiar to Haruyuki.

  “The ruler of a mere hole in the ground would dare turn a hand against me, a God?! Foolish traitor, turn to ash with the little insects!!”

  Because this exchange took place in thought rather than out loud, it did not even take a full second. But that almost-second was the most precious second of all the time Haruyuki had experienced in the Unlimited Neutral Field.

  Suzaku started the motion for its breath activation again. The remaining distance was one hundred meters.

  A torrent of flames jetted out from the diamond-shaped opening of its beak. The very tip of the orange blaze shone an intense bluish-purple, indicative of the terrifyingly high temperature.

  The hellish conflagration charged toward them from above, and the world was dyed the color of flames. Haruyuki flew at the limits of his superspeed while adjusting the angle of his wings to lower their altitude. If Fuko’s back touched the bridge, they would definitely lose their balance, bounce up, and be swallowed by flames, but they couldn’t evade the Breath unless they got as close as possible to the bridge.

  Another centimeter. One more. And then…five millimeters.

  Gale Thruster’s stabilizer made a chk! sound as it scraped against the bridge’s paving stone.

  A single drop of Flame Breath bounced off Haruyuki’s back, and that alone burned away 10 percent of his health gauge.

  “Aaaaaah!!” With an unconscious howl, Haruyuki mustered the last of his imagination and kept flying away from the flames charging them from above. Cruising at an altitude of fifteen meters, Suzaku changed the angle of its breath to aim at Haruyuki and his comrades. But it wouldn’t be able to hit them if they flew directly under it.

  Stray sparks of fire ate into his armor and tore through his gauge. Gale Thruster made contact with the bridge two, three more times, sending sparks scattering.

  Only fifty meters until the blind spot under Suzaku…forty…thirty. They should have been able to race through this distance in the blink of an eye at this speed, but it seemed hopelessly far.

  No, it definitely wasn’t hopeless. He had to believe with a single-minded focus and fly. In Fuko’s Gale Thruster, Metatron’s wings, and his own will.

  Fly. Fly. Flyyyyyyy!!

  Flash.

  A blue light pierced Haruyuki’s wide-open eyes. It was not the rage-filled bluish-purple of the Flame Breath, but an endlessly pure, deeper than any other, lapis lazuli blue.

  The color of the sky. A color he had seen just once before.

  The source of the light was the Castle’s south gate blocking the road ahead. The thick stone doors had at some point opened just a little—wide enough for a single avatar.

  A silhouette stood quietly in the darkness of that gap. The moonlight reflected off the armor, making it shine a royal blue that was even noble.

  The silhouette had its right hand on its left hip. This image overlapped in his mind with the special attack motion of the twins Cobalt and Manganese in the fight the day before. The unsheathing of a sword…

  The silhouette moved its right hand so quickly, it resembled a blue aura—an Incarnate overlay gushing from its entire body. This was clearly an attacking movement, but Haruyuki did not so much as hesitate in the direction or speed of their flight.

  A clear voice reminiscent of a young samurai rang out sonorously.

  “Heavenly Stratus!!”

  The blade lashed out at incredible speed on the horizontal and then vertically drew out a cross-shaped sword of light.

  At the same time, an enormous blue cross was carved into the back of the God Suzaku, closing in before Haruyuki and his comrades.

  The Super-class Enemy wavered slightly as it gushed pulsations of rage. The trajectory of the Breath pressing in on Haruyuki’s back was knocked off, and the flames were swallowed up by the ravine to the side of the bridge.

  Last chance!! Spending all his remaining energy, Haruyuki pushed for one last acceleration.

  Finally, they charged into the space beneath Suzaku. The rage-filled aura pressed down on them from above and tried to crush them.

  But this pressure was an illusion. They didn’t begin to compare with the God Suzaku when it came to battle power, but they couldn’t lose in determination.

  Fighting the pressure, Haruyuki turned their course upward. A mere thirty meters until the gate. If they could fly through that opening, Suzaku couldn’t come after them. He was laser focused.

  But the Super-class Enemy did not miss this instant when he turned his mind from the powerful foe above to the gates in front of him.

  “Up, Crow!!” Metatron’s voice echoed in his brain.

  At the same time, a belt of flames whipped toward them from above. Suzaku’s tail. If it hit them, they would crash into the bridge and be killed instantly.

  “I won’t…let yooou!!” Screaming, Haruyuki removed just his left hand from Fuko’s back and held it up high.

  He had already activated his second-level Incarnate technique Light Speed. And before this moment, he’d never even attempted to activate, much less succeed in activating, two Incarnate techniques simultaneously. But he had no choice now.

  With the image of light still gathering in his wings, a silver overlay also rose up in his hand. Fingers stretched out like a sword, he thrust his hand directly at the tail of the immortal bird.

  “Laser Sword!!”

  A sword of light extended more than two meters from his hand and severed just one of Suzaku’s flaming tail feathers.

  Fuko also thrust her left hand out and shouted resolutely, “Wind Veil!!”

  The green overlay that gushed from her left hand became a whirlwind that swallowed them up. The Incarnate barrier fought the flames that closed in and sent waterfalls of sparks scattering. But even Fuko could not completely defend against Suzaku’s flames, and sparks broke through the barrier to singe their armor.

  Sensing the health gauges in the upper left of his field of view dropping rapidly, Haruyuki made a last-minute correction to their trajectory. His aim was the slight gap the Laser Sword had made in Suzaku’s tail feathers. He inclined his body, folded his wings at an acute angle, and opened his eyes wide.

  “Yaaaaaah!!” With a final battle cry, he charged through the eye of the needle.

  The instant they intersected with the tail feathers, his field of view was dyed a bright red. His health gauge dropped even further, falling to 50 percent.

  In the next instant, Haruyuki and his comrades emerged beneath the night sky, a plume of sparks trailing behind them like a comet tail. He listened to Suzaku howl with rage behind them as they flew the final thirty meters and plunged through the crack in the doors.

  10

  Haruyuki didn’t remember how he’d landed. When he came to with a gasp, he was being held by Fuko on the snow-white ground.

  “…Master…Where are we?” he muttered, staring vacantly into Sky Raker’s eye lenses.

  It wasn’t Fuko who answered his question, however, but rather the 3-D icon floating above his head.

  “What are you talking about, servant?! This place, this very space is Area Zero Zero! We are still in the external area, but we have indeed penetrated that isolated space at long last!!”

  Hearing her lively voice, his own head cleared, and he finally pulled himself upright.

  “Are you all right, Corvus?” Fuko asked.

  “O-of course.” He bobbed his head. “Um. How long was I unconscious?”

  “Just a few seconds. Your deceleration and landing were also wonderful.”

  “Th-they were? …That was probably automatic control.” Scratching his head, he took a fresh look at their surroundings.

  Above his head, the inky night sky embraced the massive full moon. Beneath him was the ground, a combination of complicated
tiles. It seemed the Moonlight stage continued.

  When he lowered his gaze, he found stone slabs standing upright about twenty meters ahead. Made of pure-white marble, they were the massive gate doors. They were now closed with no gap between them, and a silver metal plate was attached with a bolt in the center. A relief of the God Suzaku carved into it, the object shone coolly bathed in the moonlight, the gate seal he’d seen before.

  It had probably regenerated when Haruyuki and his comrades charged in, and the doors closed. But the one who opened it before they barged in had to have been him…

  Now Haruyuki was finally fully awake, and he whirled around, still sitting on the ground. And he saw it.

  An azure duel avatar standing a little ways off inconspicuously but still cloaked in an overwhelming sense of presence. The somehow noble armor design, the straight sword on the left hip. The sky-blue eye lenses quietly shining as they stared at Haruyuki.

  He took a deep breath and held it for a minute before quietly calling out,

  “…Lead…”

  Instantly, a faint smile bled across the face mask. A drop of warm light rose up in the almond-shaped eye lenses, spilled out soundlessly, floated in space, and disappeared.

  The young azure samurai avatar, Trilead Tetroxide, sat formally on his knees to match Haruyuki, who was still sitting on the ground. “It has been some time, Crow,” he said with his airy, beautiful voice. “You really came back, hmm?”

  “Sorry I’m late.” He managed to squeeze the words out from the depths of his chest where he felt something warm welling up ceaselessly. “But I came…because I promised you…that I’d see you again.”

  “Yes.” Trilead nodded his head deeply. “I believed you… That this time would most certainly come.”

  He stood up with a movement that belied gravity and approached them, almost sliding, and deliberately extended his right hand. Haruyuki took that hand and got to his feet and then shook hands with Trilead again, reflecting on the flood of emotions that came back to him.

  This was the reunion he’d wanted so badly, and it wasn’t that he wasn’t happy. But Haruyuki did feel a sad pain pass through his heart. If only Wolfram Cerberus, whom he had similarly hoped to be reunited with, could have been there. Haruyuki was sure he could have become best friends with Trilead.