The Black Dual Swordsman

by Reki Kawahara

  Four years ago, the mutual nonaggression pact did not yet exist among the major Legions, so Akira’s Nega Nebulus and Mihaya’s Prominence were actively fighting territory battles for the right to control the Suginami area between Shibuya and Nerima.

  One day after Mihaya had reached level four through steady work, she was finally instructed to take part in the Territories. She attacked Suginami Area No. 2 as one member of an eight-person team, but Aqua Current was not on the enemy team.

  An emotion had flickered through her heart, though regret or relief, she couldn’t tell. But then, ordered to defend the base to the rear, Mihaya had suddenly looked up at the sky of the field and saw it: a sky-blue duel avatar ripping through the black clouds of the Purgatory stage.

  The speed was incredible. Three times Mihaya’s maximum running speed at the time of one hundred kilometers per hour—no, four times that. In the blink of an eye, the avatar had moved from a corner of the sky to directly above the base, holding a small, light-red avatar. This avatar had drawn the large bow in her hands and launched a single flaming arrow.

  Or so Mihaya had thought, until it split into countless pieces that poured down on the heads of the four members of the Promi team.

  Desperately weaving through the fierce attack, essentially a rain of flames, Mihaya had chased after the sky-blue avatar shooting off to the north. Part of her mind had been vaguely occupied with not allowing another attack like that, but to be honest, she had simply chased after the blue comet as if she was in a dream.

  Fortunately, the avatar had been flying along the broad Kannana Street, so she managed to keep up somehow, running at full power in Beast Mode. The propulsive flames of the large booster equipped on the avatar’s back weakened, and the two members of Nega Nebulus landed on the roof of a building alongside the road. Mihaya ran up the pedestrian bridge, leapt into a nearby building, and continued to jump and jump until she reached the same altitude as the enemies.

  Quickly noticing Mihaya’s approach, the light-red, long-distance avatar had immediately hid behind her comrade.

  At her first glance of the sky-blue avatar turning around lightly, Mihaya had felt something pierce her heart. Despite the long hair swaying and shining like liquid metal, the graceful lines of the F-type body—an elegant form in extreme contrast with Blood Leopard’s—she had strongly felt that this avatar represented a craving very much like her own.

  Recovering from her momentary distraction, she had lowered her leopard body and took on a battle posture, while the sky-blue avatar smiled brightly at her.

  “What wonderful speed. And your form is also very beautiful. What’s your name?”

  “Blood Leopard,” Mihaya had replied briefly.

  “I’ll remember it,” the blue avatar had said. “I’m Sky Raker. And this is Ardor Maiden.”

  This had been her first meeting with Sky Raker, the Submaster of Nega Nebulus, already the fearsome ICBM, and Ardor Maiden, aka Testarossa, who was getting serious results paired up with Raker despite essentially being a newbie.

  And then Mihaya had fought Raker and was promptly dispatched with a dance of three successive palm strikes before she had a chance to strike a real blow.

  It had been four years since then. Sky Raker, Mihaya’s fated rival, had disappeared from the Accelerated World two and a half years earlier and then returned two months ago as a member of the new Nega Nebulus.

  And Nega Nebulus wasn’t the only one welcoming a new generation, but Prominence, too. Since the two Legions had concluded an indefinite truce, she hadn’t gotten the chance to directly duel Sky Raker again. But Mihaya felt like the time was coming soon. When they cleared away the dark clouds covering the Accelerated World, and Aqua Current also returned from semiretirement the way Sky Raker had, she would have her parent and her most worthy opponent see everything she had become, the sharpness of her honed fangs, the quickness of her refined body.

  She never dreamed she would see another Burst Linker copy that strategy before she could finally fight Raker. She struggled for half a second between whether to praise Beryllium Coil’s passion for research or be angry at his nerve in copying his predecessors.

  “Unfortunately, the original was about three times as painful and five times as fast,” she said finally, careful to keep her expression entirely neutral.

  “Well, I guess so.” The slender metal color nodded evenly and nonchalantly raised his arms. “But we’ve got only one level between us now. I’m definitely going to win one-on-one today. We’re both making our comrades wait. How about we get started?”

  “K.” Mihaya sank her body down.

  The biggest characteristic of the Primeval Forest stage was the large creatures, as powerful as the Enemies of the Unlimited Neutral Field, who lived there and would attack if provoked, but she had already confirmed during their scouting mission that there weren’t any within a kilometer of the central base. There weren’t any other annoying obstacle effects, so from here, victory would be decided by a simple contest of their abilities.

  She didn’t like to idly glare at her opponent before the fight. She started to leap forward when she noticed that Beryllium Coil looked a little shorter than he had when she’d first faced off against him. The reason was because the springs equipped in his legs were compressed at that moment, making just the faintest of sounds.

  She forcefully twisted her leaping body to the right and changed the trajectory of her jump. At exactly the same time, Beryllium’s legs screeched, and the bluish-gray avatar charged with essentially no warning, using the reactive force of his springs instead of the usual steps involved in a leap.

  “Heeah!” His left arm shot forward from its compact ready position.

  If she took a striking counter from the fist of a metal color, Mihaya would take some serious damage, even with her defensive powers, fairly high for a red type.

  But in Beast Mode, Blood Leopard had a height of less than a meter, making hitting her with a punch a Herculean effort. Beryllium lowered his trajectory with the flavor of an uppercut, but Mihaya had already slid down beneath it to avoid it.

  Skeek! The air shook once more, and a silver light flashed in Mihaya’s field of view.

  The large knives in Beryllium’s arms sprang out in an instant. This was the spring-loaded Jackknife Guillotine.

  Naturally, she had not forgotten about the existence of this ability. But she hadn’t expected that the attack also went from stored to rotating 180 degrees. In the middle of the rotation, the forty-centimeter blade stood up directly from his arm, albeit for a mere instant. Beryllium magnificently matched that instant with Mihaya’s evasive action.

  Cool, Mihaya murmured to herself, twisting her head farther to the right. If she’d been in normal mode—i.e., human form—she would have had no way to evade or defend against the knife blade and would have taken serious damage to her face. Even if she wouldn’t have died instantly, she might have lost an eye lens and had her field of view cut in half.

  But transformed as she was in Beast Mode, Mihaya had an even more powerful weapon in the claws of her four limbs. And in the head the knife was aiming for. Four hard, sharp fangs.

  Of course, if the timing had been even a millisecond later or faster, her counterattack would have failed, and she would have taken real damage. But Mihaya already knew that running alone wasn’t just about speed. There was also the “battle of speed” that existed only in the world of the instantaneous.

  Two months earlier, when she’d only just started high school, Mihaya had ended up fighting in a tag team with an unexpected Burst Linker. The place was Akihabara Battle Ground, the duelist holy ground in the Akihabara area. The enemy was Rust Jigsaw, who had the ability to ignore the rules and isolate himself from the matching list. And her partner was a member of the new Nega Nebulus and the only avatar in the Accelerated World with the ability of true flight, Silver Crow.

  At first, she got the impression that she couldn’t really count on him, but when it came down to the
actual battle, Crow showed duel instincts that made it hard to believe he’d become a Burst Linker only six months earlier.

  The enemy Rust Jigsaw had the annoying long-distance technique of launching jigsaw rings rotating at high speed, and Mihaya had no way of defending against these. Right before Jigsaw leapt out, the rotating saws were thrown at a timing that was impossible to avoid, and Mihaya had instructed Crow, on her back, to take care of them. To be honest, she would’ve thought he’d done a great job if he’d sacrificed an arm defending against them.

  But Crow had realized that there were no teeth on the inside of the rings and caught the rotating saws flying in at super-high speeds with his fingers, like some kind of miraculous ring toss, to stop them totally uninjured. If his timing had been off by even a second, his fingers or neck or even both arms would have been knocked flying.

  Silver Crow, three years her junior, had taught her then and there that the fight wasn’t only a competition of avatar action, but also of the speed of perception.

  Ever since, when she was dueling, she always practiced honing the acceleration of her senses—her powers of insight. It was a mysterious thing, but the sharper her instantaneous perception was, the more her struggle and hesitation when decorating cakes in the real world disappeared. Her aunt praising her work on the strawberry labyrinth was definitely because of this work.

  Now was the perfect time to leverage the way of fighting in the Accelerated World that a hard-working player two years her junior had taught her.

  The moment she felt the knife approach with a sense that was neither vision nor hearing, Mihaya bit down, her mouth opening the bare minimum.

  Skreeeench! Pieces of the blade scattered glittering to either side of her face. Her powerful and sharp leopard fangs unerringly caught the side of the knife and shattered it.

  “Nngh!” A grunt of surprise slipped from Beryllium Coil. He swung out with a left uppercut, and the instant his balance tipped slightly, Mihaya lashed out her long tail. The tip caught Beryllium’s left leg and further knocked him off-balance.

  They slipped past each other, and no sooner had she landed than she was leaping forward. Using the trunk of the tree directly in front of her as a foothold, she somersaulted backward.

  In her upside-down field of view, she saw the crumpling Beryllium. The springs of both legs were contracting once more; he was likely intending to close the distance with another Spring Dash. But she was not about to let him.

  Rawr! A wild howl ripping from her throat, Mihaya pressed her front paws against Beryllium’s back and bit deeply into his defenseless neck. Her fangs sent sparks flying as they dug into the metal armor and pierced the avatar’s body inside.

  “When—? Y-you—!” Beryllium deployed the jackknife of his right hand and tried to attack Mihaya behind him. But before he could, she shook the duel avatar in her mouth as hard as she could. Her fangs dug in ever deeper, and the knife was knocked off course.

  An avatar that was more close-range than mid-range had essentially no way of escaping when Blood Leopard was biting into his neck from behind—just like prey being taken down by a wild leopard.

  With Beryllium Coil hanging from her mouth, Mihaya started to run east.

  “Dammit! I’m not some kitten here!” the leader of Helix grumbled, flailing his legs and arms, but he couldn’t do anything more than scraping damage. And the gauge he worked so hard to take from Mihaya was recovered instantly through the effect of her Vital Bite.

  Meanwhile, with her four fangs digging into his vital spots, Beryllium’s health gauge was dropping before her eyes. It hit zero as they flew out of the forest into the grasslands.

  “Just you wait. Next time…” Unable to finish this speech, Beryllium Coil broke into countless fragments and disappeared.

  “Next time, bring a new trick. GG,” Mihaya muttered after him.

  And then she remembered it was a little too soon to be saying good game. Ahead of her, the five members of Prominence and the four members of Helix were still engaged in a fierce fight around the stronghold. Chili Powder and now their leader Beryllium had been dispatched, and they were pressed down in terms of what was left in their gauges as well, but the enemy appeared to have no intention of throwing in the towel yet. In which case, she would meet them with everything she had.

  Mihaya howled once to encourage her comrades before starting off across the grassland at top speed.

  4

  All the Territory Battles for the fifth week of June were finished, and Mihaya slowly let out the air that had built up in her chest as she returned to the specialized room in the back of Patisserie La Plage.

  During the accelerated duel, she had, of course, continued to breathe with her real-world body. If she fought the whole time in the Territories, 1.8 seconds passed in the real world, so the lungs that exhaled with the Burst Link command would be taking in their next breath around the time she woke up.

  Back when she was a newbie, she would often try to take a deep breath immediately after she returned to the real world before exhaling the last one and end up coughing. Her parent, Akira, rolled her eyes and said it was because she kept running all over the place during the duel, but that was a long time ago now, too.

  She hadn’t dueled or fought alongside Akira in almost three years. A lot of things had changed after the destruction of the former Nega Nebulus headquartered in Shibuya—no, the night before that, when the Red King had been pushed to total point loss by the Black Lotus.

  Prominence fell into total chaos, faced with the abnormally abrupt departure of their Legion Master, who had earned their absolute faith as one of the Seven Kings of Pure Color. Although system-wise, the master privileges were automatically ceded to the Submaster at the time, half the members refused to accept him as the new leader of the Legion.

  They came up on their next Territories with nothing settled, and Prominence was utterly crushed. Even though the Legions of the other kings did not attack them, they lost to one after another of the mid- and small-size Legions, opponents who were superior in number and average in level. In a single night, their territory was halved, and more than a few members put in their resignations. The indignant new master went so far as to use the Judgment Blow on one of those leaving, and Prominence’s split became decisive.

  Mihaya emptily watched the destructive drama of the Legion she had belonged to for a little over a year from almost the outside. Regardless of the fact that she’d barely spoken to Red Rider, she’d trusted him as a strong and fair master, and she’d had absolutely no complaints about fighting under him, but she felt nothing like the adoration of the veteran members.

  So she coolly accepted his departure as the result of having lost a fight. And even if he was dead as a Burst Linker, that naturally didn’t mean his life in the real world had also been taken. It wasn’t as though he could never ride a motorcycle again or drink his favorite coffee, like Mihaya’s father.

  Mihaya thought this way of thinking probably meant she was heartless. She stayed a member of Prominence, but she never really liked the new master, and she even felt like she might retire, too, if things stayed the same.

  What changed this was when she saw a newbie Linker trying desperately to protect herself and a few comrades in the Nerima area, which had fallen into its own Warring States period. Her level was still quite low, and her fighting style was the very definition of rough, but her spirit alone was so hot that it threatened to burn the entire stage to the ground. This kid’ll definitely get stronger if she survives the chaos. Mihaya applied to join the girl’s team, in a move that she herself found strange.

  Her instincts had been right, but at the time, she never dreamed that not only would this small girl’s avatar become so strong that she would charge through the wall of level eight in only a year, but she would eventually take the throne as the second Red King.

  “What’re you looking at me and grinnin’ for, Pard?” The redheaded girl sitting across from her—the Second Red King, Scarlet
Rain, aka Yuniko Kozuki—pursed her lips tightly together in a frown.

  Mihaya quickly shook her head. “I wasn’t looking at you and grinning.”

  “Huh? So then, a smile of satisfaction at beating Helix?”

  “Not that, either.”

  “Then what? …You don’t have to say if you don’t want to, though.” Niko leaned back on the sofa, a childish—and indeed, she was still in sixth grade—pout on her face.

  Mihaya thought a moment before answering. “I was just remembering all this stuff during the duel. From way back.”

  “Hmm.” Niko cocked her head to one side but then nodded quickly and smiled herself. “You were, huh? Nice to have memories that can make ya smile.”

  “……”

  Mihaya shifted her gaze unconsciously in a questioning manner. As if he could read her thoughts, Niko’s smile became pained.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I got memories like that, too, y’know. Like maybe what you said to me the first time you ever talked to me.”

  “Just forget that.”

  “No way! Saving it forever!” Niko laughed out loud before composing herself in a Legion Master way. “Anyway, nice work defending again this week. How was the fight with Helix?”

  “The leader and the members are gradually getting stronger. And they’re keen students.”

  “They are, huh? It’s ’cause we were all a mess with the whole ISS kit thing. We let our guard down even a bit next week, and it could be dangerous. And we had fewer people taking part today, too.”

  “About that.” Mihaya got a serious look and stared hard at Niko. “A small issue with the members who backed out at the last minute.”

  “Hmm? What’s that?”

  “It wasn’t all of them—probably three. They ignored orders and attacked another Legion.”

  “Who?” Instantly, Niko’s brow was furrowed. “And where?”