The Black Dual Swordsman

by Reki Kawahara

  Considering this, Mihaya called up in the back of her mind an image of Beryllium, an avatar she’d fought directly any number of times. His armor was a bluish silver-gray, and just as the “coil” of his name suggested, he had powerful coil springs equipped in his arms. The large jackknife that stretched out in an instant with the power of these springs was his greatest weapon.

  Given that he was a metal color, his fists were also tough, and Mihaya had a hard time handling his fighting style, a constant switching between a striking-type knuckle attack and a slashing-type knife attack. The instant she thought it was a punch and tried to dodge, the knife would come at her, and the way he doubled the distance between them was truly annoying. On top of that, although he used to have a knife only in his right arm, he now had one in his left as well, likely due to a level-up bonus.

  Her thoughts froze there, and Mihaya checked again the mini–health gauges of the six members of the enemy team lined up in her field of view. On top, the leader Beryllium Coil, level five. But the last time they’d fought, he’d been level four.

  “Cid, fly!” Mihaya shouted the instant the various bits of information came together in her brain and guided her to a single inspiration.

  Despite her normally laid-back style, Salticid was a reliable veteran when push came to shove. Instead of being surprised or asking questions, she simply jumped up next to Mihaya with a “Roger!”

  Mihaya crouched down, holding the slender waist of the jumping-spider avatar with her right arm. Her thighs, already rather large for an F-type, swelled up further and stored power. Reading the direction of the wind, she waited for the perfect moment to leap diagonally up into the sky.

  No matter how great Blood Leopard’s raw jumping power, she still couldn’t make it two kilometers in a single leap. And jumping from a tree two hundred meters off the ground meant she would take serious altitude crash damage when landed. That kind of impact spelled instant death.

  But Mihaya didn’t hesitate. Leopard and Salticid, flying with intense force from the branch of the massive tree, became a bullet and charged through the empty sky. The destination was not the central base in the east, but the western side of the stage—where there was nothing.

  Mihaya had spun around before jumping. If there had been a Gallery, they would have assumed she was fleeing.

  But of course, she would never run away. Her jump finally reached the peak of its parabola, and they entered a downward trajectory. If they kept going, they would crash and die in a few seconds, but halfway down, they started to return to the massive tree, pulled back by the thin, transparent cable Salticid held in her right hand. The end of the cable was attached to the large branch they’d been sitting on. Using that as a fulcrum, they were swinging through the air like a pendulum.

  The cable was, of course, Salticid’s power—the ability Dragline. In other words, a spider’s silk. Likewise, a real jumping spider did not make a web, but affixed “bookmark threads” here and there while in motion to avoid falling.

  “Yeeaaaah!” Crying out cheerfully, Salticid stretched out the thread little by little. At a speed essentially the same as free fall, the two glided through the sky. In the blink of an eye, they passed the dead point of the pendulum’s movement and rolled upward. Timed just right to obtain the ideal angle, Salticid cut the thread.

  The two flew upward at an angle once more. This time they headed toward the grassland that was Kanpachi Street, and Mihaya could see the central base. Their four allies would make it out of the forest in another minute or less. They’d been instructed to occupy the base once they reached Kanpachi, and Beryllium was no doubt waiting for the moment they appeared in the grasslands. Probably not from the sides or behind, but…

  “Ah! Pard! There!” Salticid cried, loud enough so as not to be drowned out by the wind.

  Following the direction in which she pointed, Mihaya could see a glint of reflected light deep in the eastern part of the stage wedging in Kanpachi Street. Not at the bottom of the woods, but the top. It was moving at high speed through the air, just like Mihaya and Salticid.

  Mihaya’s eyes weren’t sharp enough to make out the identity of the light source, but she had no doubt it was Beryllium Coil and Chili Powder. The source of the power to move them through the air was not flight—there was only one avatar in the Accelerated World for whom that was possible—but the elastic energy of metal. In other words, a long jump using the reaction force of a spring.

  “I’m transforming and running. Hang on,” Mihaya said.

  “Roger!” Salticid responded.

  Their pendulum jump had already passed its apex, and they were on the downward trajectory. With one jump, they’d actually moved nearly seven hundred meters, but there was still over a kilometer left until the belt of grassland in the center. They had to somehow make it there before Beryllium’s team attacked their comrades from the sky above.

  Staring into the dense forest closing in below her eyes, Mihaya called the technique name: Shape Change.

  Instantly, Blood Leopard was enveloped in a red light. A heat came to her, as though the inside of her body was in flames. First, her limbs transformed into those of a beast, and then claws stretched out from their ends as they grew sturdier. Her torso grew slender and long, and her head shifted to join her neck at a different angle.

  When the instantaneous transformation was complete, Mihaya was no longer an F-type avatar, but a leopard. Salticid straddled her back, and they plunged through a gap between the trees.

  The ground drew closer with each breath. Although it wasn’t a direct fall downward, if they hit the ground at this speed, they normally wouldn’t have been able to avoid serious damage. But the instant the paws that Mihaya stretched out touched the ground, she shifted into a full-power dash and took no damage.

  This was an ability activated only when she was in beast mode, Fall Protection.

  “Awwrrright! Let’s—” Salticid cut herself off mid-shout. Pushed back by the wind pressure, she hurried to sit back down and wrap her arms around Mihaya’s neck.

  I told you to hang on, she thought.

  Mihaya pushed herself to go even faster. The massive mossy trees whistled by them, and the ground flowed beneath them, a mixture of green and brown. But this still wasn’t enough. From what she’d seen while they were in the air, Beryllium Coil would arrive at the center on his springs in another twenty seconds. In other words, unless Mihaya burned through a thousand meters in less than that time, they would be too late. Doing the calculations, that was a speed of 180 kilometers per hour.

  Her late father had ridden a bright-red Italian electric motorcycle. For the last four years, it had sat in the garage where he was a regular customer. It had been a mere two months earlier that Mihaya rode it for the first time. In the Road Traffic Act revision of a dozen or so years earlier, riders were allowed to get their licenses in April of the year they turned sixteen, so she’d started riding to school when she graduated from junior high.

  Motorcycles equipped with two in-wheel motors with an output of 60 kilowatts reached a maximum speed of 240 kilometers per hour on paper. At present, Mihaya had only experienced the eighty kilometers per hour that was the speed limit on the main roads, but even that had made her heart rise up into her mouth at first.

  Although this was the VR space of the duel stage, running at high speeds would incur serious damage and intense pain if she was to crash into something, but this brought about a mix of excitement and fear in her. Even Salticid, who had been so cheerful during their swing jump, was now pressing herself firmly against Mihaya’s back, a little more focused than before.

  But Mihaya gritted her fangs and mustered up every bit of strength she had to push off the ground. Their subjective speed approached one hundred kilometers per hour in an instant, and her virtual heart beat with incredible force. The continuous pounding echoed through her body like a single-cylinder gasoline engine from a previous era.

  A chill crept into her heart. The mental trau
ma that had produced Mihaya’s duel avatar Blood Leopard was her fear and hatred of the disease that had stolen her father. In other words, a fear of the engine that kept the body going: the heart, as well as its fuel: blood. The vague anticipation that her own heart, too, might one day use up its allotted number of beats and stop.

  Break free!! Mihaya willed herself. If she was going to stagnate in the depths of terror, then better to throw herself into the fierce flow.

  Forward. Even just one more step forward.

  The moment her speed surpassed one hundred kilometers per hour, another heartbeat started in the right side of her chest. The two pulses resonated and changed into a slick roar reminiscent of an electric motorcycle. Her blood raced through her body hot like flames, sending an intense power circulating through her four limbs.

  Krr! In the center of a concentric shock wave, Mihaya accelerated once more. Transformed into a bloodred bullet, she charged into the depths of the forest. In an instant, her speed reached two hundred kilometers per hour, and the massive trees that appeared before her flew backward in the same instant.

  In the top of her field of view, her special-attack gauge started to drop. First Blood, the ability that allowed her to surpass her limits and run at this high speed, had been activated. Mihaya didn’t know of any other duel avatars who could produce speed greater than this under their own power, without using an Enhanced Armament.

  She broke through the kilometer separating them from Kanpachi Street in nineteen seconds and flew from the forest into the belt of grassland to find the backs of the allied main force directly before her. They were clumped together, running toward the large metal ring ahead in order to occupy the stronghold.

  “Scatter!!” She had no sooner barked this at her team than Mihaya was jumping upward diagonally. She flew over her allies and glared at the sky.

  There: a bluish-silver metal color flying some dozen meters off the ground, Beryllium Coil, and an orange-red avatar in his arms, Chili Powder. Chili was holding a large sphere in each of his outstretched hands.

  Chili let go, and the two spheres, the same color as the avatar, fell soundlessly. Their trajectory would definitely catch the main Prominence force just as they were finally starting to scatter.

  “Cid!” Mihaya shouted.

  “Gotcha!” Salticid stretched out her right hand, and the thread that was launched from her palm caught one of the falling spheres. She pulled back on the thread immediately, swinging the sphere around, and tossed it into the forest ahead.

  But there was nothing they could do about the other sphere. Salticid couldn’t launch her thread successively, and the sphere was out of reach of Mihaya’s claws and fangs. Praying her allies would dodge, they passed them in midair.

  Just as they landed very close to the stronghold and whirled around, the red sphere hit the ground.

  An explosion…did not happen. Instead, a vile red smoke shot out and blanketed a corner of the grassland.

  Chili Powder’s special attack, Red-Hot Grenade.

  He threw a grenade containing a powder that was so spicy, it was almost lethal, to block the vision and conversation of any avatars caught up in the smoke while at the same time dealing damage.

  With the debuff effect, it was more terrible than a simple explosion attack, but it was still only a grenade, so the physical range was short. But the effect range was large, so unless the person who threw it immediately retreated as fast as he could, he would get caught up in it, too. And Chili Powder’s defensive powers were on the low side, so he had to approach the enemy with a guardian and then run away once the grenade was thrown. But if he could drop in a surprise attack bomb from above, then he could escape that restriction. They might have been the energy, but she couldn’t help admiring the strategy. But this way of fighting…

  No! Focus! She quickly collected her thoughts as they threatened to wander off the battlefield and gave instructions. “Cid, check the enemy force coming up from behind!”

  “Roger!” Salticid had no sooner leapt off her back than Mihaya was dashing again. Her aim was Beryllium Coil’s landing point. On the left ahead of her, her four allies leapt out of the red smoke that the wind was finally starting to clear away. All their health gauges were down just under 10 percent, but because they’d spread out right before the grenade landed, they’d managed to avoid a direct hit.

  “Rob! Cimon! Occupy the base! Mos, Akon, join up with Cid and take on their main force!” Mihaya instructed as she ran. She charged into the smoke without hesitation, eyes closing just before she did so in order to prevent the vision debuff. Her health gauge dropped a little because of the fine particles that stuck to her body, but she ignored this together with the tingling heat.

  She broke through the smoke soon enough and opened her eyes as she charged into the forest once more. Looking around, she caught the reflection of silver just beyond the treetops.

  To land from that height, it would take focus no matter what the mitigating effect of the springs. She knew in an instant: She would aim for that opening.

  Making full use of her instincts as a leopard, a prime hunter of the forest, Mihaya ran lithely, lethally.

  Krsh! The branches above cracked.

  Coming down with his back toward the ground was without a doubt the head of the Legion Helix, Beryllium Coil. While Chili Powder had dangled down in front of him before, the avatar was now under his right arm, likely so he could secure a decent field of view.

  Mihaya raced one, then two large steps, and on the third, she jumped.

  The instant her maw was as far open as she could bring it, the back covered in bluish-gray armor stiffened, perhaps sensing something. But he didn’t have time to turn around. Mihaya bit into not Beryllium but rather Chili Powder’s right leg and ripped him from the other avatar’s arms before breaking away toward the front.

  “Ouch! What, what, what?!” Chili shouted.

  She released his leg in midair, only to sink her fangs deep into his neck. His shout changed to a shriek, but of course she didn’t care. Her sharp fangs ripped through the orange-red armor, down to the avatar’s inner body, and Mihaya’s health gauge started to recover from the earlier smoke damage. It was the effect of her ability, Vital Bite.

  They landed with Chili gushing a bright-red damage effect like fresh blood, and she whirled around. About ten meters away, Beryllium was sticking his own landing.

  As she’d expected, he looked a little different from the last time they’d fought. Large springs had been added inside the shins of both legs. These contracted all the way to absorb the impact of landing, and he bounced up just a little from the reaction before coming down to the ground. Just like the suspension of a car or motorcycle, he appeared to also have a shock absorber to control the spring return.

  “Help! Leader, heeeeeellllp!!” Chili Powder shouted and flailed his arms and legs, his neck firmly in Mihaya’s mouth.

  Beryllium started to react but then quickly checked himself. He’d probably seen Mihaya relax her bite so as not to strike the final blow. If she fought Beryllium with Vital Bite still active, her health gauge would continue to recover, so she’d have an advantage to compensate for the fact that she wouldn’t be able to use her fangs, but apparently, the star of the brains team was not taken in.

  “Sorry, Chili. Forgive me. I’ll avenge you,” Beryllium said, readying his hands into fists.

  Chili Powder swallowed a shriek as if accepting his fate. “You better! The rest is up to you, Leader!”

  After being witness to this exchange, she couldn’t exactly dangle him like a kitten from her mouth forever. Mihaya bit down and crushed Chili’s neck, and his health gauge dropped to zero. Enveloped in the vanishing effect of his avatar, she shot a glance at Beryllium Coil.

  Near the stronghold a little ways off, her comrades should have been engaged in battle with the main force of the Helix team. Although it was five against four, Brain Burst was the kind of game where things never went according to those sorts of calc
ulations. She had to defeat Beryllium as soon as possible and race to the center, but there was just one thing she really wanted to know before they fought.

  “That strategy back there. You come up with that?” she asked in a low voice.

  Beryllium shrugged, but then, his inverted triangle goggles shook from left to right. “Sorry, no. I just heard about this player who did huge damage with a strategy like that back in the day. Long-distance, wide-range attack from above. Most powerful combo when you think about it. I was thinking we could take the victory in one blow if we used it, but…” Here, he closed his mouth and nodded as if he’d realized something. “I get it. You told your comrades to dodge back there ’cause you know whoever came up with that strategy?”

  “I do.” Mihaya nodded gently. “We’ve fought a bunch of times.”

  Normally, when the parent Burst Linker belongs to a Legion, the child generally becomes a member of the same Legion.

  But that was difficult in Mihaya’s case. At the point when she became a Burst Linker four years earlier, her parent, Akira Himi—Aqua Current—belonged to the Black Legion, Nega Nebulus, and their headquarters at the time were not in Suginami but Shibuya. This was pretty far from Mihaya’s home in Nerima, which meant she wouldn’t gain the greatest advantage of being in a Legion, the right to refuse challenges within Legion territory.

  Mihaya wasn’t sure what to do, but Akira had had a ready suggestion. “You can just join the Red Legion that occupies Nerima.”

  But then, wouldn’t Mihaya and Akira have to fight at some point in the future?

  Her cousin in red-framed glasses had nodded simply, as if wondering what the issue was.

  “We’ll just fight with everything we have, then. I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

  So following the advice of the younger Akira, Mihaya had joined Red Rider’s Legion, Prominence. Although to be more precise, they had actually scouted her when she was still unaffiliated with any Legion and learning how to fight.