Accel World Vol 4 Chapter 1 (2/2)

The blade created by Haruyuki and the five sickles created by Noumi touched in midair.

In the previous battle, as soon as their two mentally-formed attacks touch, they had violently repelled and conflicted with each other.

But this time, the exact reverse phenomenon occurred. That is, the instant the jet-black blade and the dark-purplish sickles clashed, the darkness swirled onto a single focused point and tried to suck each other in.

“Muu……”

Dusk Taker let a small voice leak out.

“An attack of the same attribute…!? What’s going on…?”

His eyes narrowed and seemed to fixedly observing the phenomenon. Facing him, Haruyuki no longer thought of anything, and just kept swinging forward his right hand and putting all his power into it.

“U…gu, ooh…”

He bared his teeth beneath his mask and shouted in a twisted voice.

“Disappear…disappear, Noumi! Disappear…from my siiiiiiiiiight!!”

*BYUAAA!!* His right hand’s sword shook, and the swirling darkness increased in force at the contact point. The sickles extending from Noumi’s fingers effortlessly crumbled from their tips and were swallowed in.

“Tch…”

Clicking his tongue, Noumi produced purple sickles on his left hand as well, and piled it on top of his right hand’s sickles to grasp Haruyuki’s sword. The darkness that looked like a small black hole swirled even more violently, and fragments of glimmering metal and other things were suck in from the ground, leaving a momentary flash before disappearing.

“So insolent…!!”

Dusk Taker shouted and increased the force of the purple wave of energy from both his hands.

“Gu…ooooh…!!”

A beast-like roar also gushed out from Haruyuki’s throat.

Perhaps as a result of the abnormal gravity being calculated in, even the thick low-hanging clouds slowly turned and were being pulled in like a funnel towards the ground. The school building’s windows broke one after another while scattering sharp light, and lightning-like sparks followed and radial cracks ran through the ground.

And then, several things occurred at the same time.

“Stop it…stop it already——!!”

Chiyuri’s scream mixed with crying resounded loudly through the stage.

“Disa…ppeeeeeeeeeeear——!!”

Haruyuki’s yell pressed down and roared over it.

And the remaining time that was indicated in the upper part of his vision reached zero.

The characters of ‘TIME UP!!’ burst out in front of him and signaled the end of the duel.

When the accelerated state was released through the result screen of Battle Royal mode and he pa.s.sed through rings of radial light and returned to the real world, let alone what Haruyuki had been doing before the start of the duel—he couldn’t immediately remember even where he was or what time it was now.

The sports-use track that was paved with auburn high-resistance material spread out straight in front of him. Many jersey-wearing male students were running in front of him.

And Haruyuki himself was also kicking off the ground noisily with both legs. His consciousness couldn’t link up with the movements of his intolerably sluggish physical body, and he nearly fell down before waving both his hands and holding himself up somehow. The students who sat on the inner part of the track and the male students running parallel to Haruyuki’s left suddenly laughed.

—Speaking of which, I’m in the middle of the measurement of the three thousand meter run. Right now it’s Tuesday, fifth period…in the middle of phys-ed cla.s.s…

After thinking that in dumb surprise, Haruyuki suddenly became aware of a feeling blowing out like magma from the bottom of his belly.

—Just what on earth am I doing?

—The phys-ed lesson? The long-distance running? Those are inconsequential! I have to…crush Noumi Seiji at all costs!!

“Uuu…!”

He let out a low, unrestrained growl. After clenching his teeth and staring at the goal line over there, Haruyuki put all his fury into his arms and legs. The pace of his heavy resounding footsteps increased. He naturally leaned his body forward.

Next to the measurement time shown in his lower sight, a red R characters blinked. It indicated that his pace had improved from his personal record. But without being conscious of that, Haruyuki ran the remaining ninety meters at full power. He couldn’t overtake the students who were ahead of him, but Haruyuki’s last spurt as he clearly shortened the distance made a light stir among the boys of the cla.s.s.

But Haruyuki didn’t care at all about those voices, nor his new personal time which flashed in front of him as soon as he stepped over the goal line. Rather, he didn’t even stop his feet and tried to run like that straight towards the entrance.

“Hey, where you going, Arita? The toilet?”

He heard the carefree voice of the phys-ed teacher and the laughter of the other students, but ignored them.

Of course, he wasn’t aiming for the toilet. He was going to run up to the third floor of the school building and launch an attack on Noumi Seiji’s cla.s.sroom.

He would directly squeeze Noumi’s real body, forcibly direct connect with him, and this time, make him completely submit. If that was impossible, he would instead yank of his Neuro Linker from his neck, trample over it, and destroy its core chip.

Was it necessary to give up on such brutality? Against an enemy that went as far as to use foul means to threaten Chiyuri and make her obey his will?

Every time his intense violent impulse welled up, a point on his back throbbed. No, it seemed like the impulse was being infinitely produced from there.

“Just wait…!”

Shouting as if spitting out, he tried to kick off the ground even more intensely—at that moment.

*GAs.h.i.+* A strong hand held back Haruyuki’s shoulder from behind.

“Stop it, Haru!”

At the same time as a stifled voice resounded in his ear, Haruyuki reflexively put on the brakes. Unable to stop coolly like his duel avatar, he nearly pitched forward and fell, until his arm was grasped and he righted himself.

While deeply hanging his head in that position, Haruyuki squeezed out a hoa.r.s.e voice.

“…Taku, why are you stopping me!?”

Tak.u.mu—Mayuzumi Tak.u.mu answered back while strongly holding Haruyuki’s left arm with his muscular right arm.

“If Haru causes an incident of violence here and gets suspended from school, things will just become even harder for Chii-chan!”

“…She’s already having plenty of a hard time! Noumi…he threatened Chiyu and told her to obey what he said by force! I can’t forgive that!”

For the first time, Haruyuki turned around here and saw Tak.u.mu’s face.

He noticed that Tak.u.mu’s always refres.h.i.+ng eyes were twisted by strong anguish on the other side of his sports-type gla.s.ses, and he held his breath.

That’s right—It wasn’t that Tak.u.mu couldn’t feel anything. Inside his heart, he must have been more concerned about Chiyuri and more enraged at Noumi’s actions than Haruyuki.

But his childhood friend was worried about Haruyuki at the same time. Even though Haruyuki himself was simply filled with rage and didn't try to think of Tak.u.mu at all.

His back still throbbed, but at the moment he made that storm-like violent drive go away. After taking a big breath of air and slowly letting it out from his trembling throat, Haruyuki undid the tension in his shoulders and spoke with a sigh.

“……Even though a short while ago you also jumped at Noumi before I did.”

Then, Tak.u.mu revealed a brief bitter smile.

“Indeed. How many years has it been since I acted like that…?”

The day Noumi stole Haruyuki’s wings, cruel things had been said between himself and Taku after they quarreled at his home, but Haruyuki felt that it all had suddenly melted away and disappeared. The two of them kept standing in a corner of the school grounds like that, but eventually, it seemed that the time measurement for all the students at the track behind them had ended, and the teacher clapped his two hands together and called for everyone to gather.

“…Let’s go back, Haru.”

After slowly nodding at Tak.u.mu’s words, Haruyuki added something in a low voice.

“Please go talk to Chiyu afterwards. Even if she was told something by Noumi, it isn’t necessary in the slightest for her to obey that guy.”

“Yeah, I know. I…no, we will protect Chii-chan.”

Looking into each other’s eyes for a moment, the two of them turned back.

Haruyuki stared at the third-floor section of the school building one last time, and muttered in the depths of his mind.

——Noumi, you did something you absolutely never should have done. From this moment on, my battle with you will be an endless death match. I’ll see through the method you use to block yourself from accelerated duels no matter what, and keep fighting relentlessly until one of our Burst Points reaches zero.

Clenching his teeth hard, Haruyuki began to walk towards the gathering place alongside Tak.u.mu.

However, only ten minutes later.

The situation once again advanced in a direction that betrayed Haruyuki’s expectations.

As soon as fifth-period ended, Haruyuki and Tak.u.mu dashed over to the gymnasium that was on the other side of the school building. They found Chiyuri just as she was coming out from a corridor, and they beckoned her from the shadow of a pillar.

Wearing a t-s.h.i.+rt and shorts, Chiyuri’s face froze as soon as she saw the two of them. That was only natural, as she had just dived into the field of her first actual battle just several minutes ago, used «recovery» on Haruyuki and Tak.u.mu’s enemy Dusk Taker, and healed him. As a result, Cyan Pile (Tak.u.mu) had lost from losing his entire HP gauge. Silver Crow (Haruyuki) had also lost due to the Time Up, and they both had points taken away by Noumi.

However, they put ‘We didn’t come to blame you for that’ into their expression as much as they could, and Haruyuki continued waving his arm while giving an awkward smile. Chiyuri cast her eyes down and seemed to avoid their gaze, but eventually she approached Haruyuki and Tak.u.mu after saying something to her cla.s.smates in the locker room.

In spite of the fact that he had just been strenuously exercising, when Haruyuki saw Chiyuri’s pale cheeks, intense rage towards Noumi welled up in his chest again. After Tak.u.mu beside him also clenched his fists tightly for an instant, Tak.u.mu took a big breath and opened his mouth.

“…Chii-chan. We already know why you did such a thing. That’s why, we’ve some to tell you that it isn’t necessary to obey him.”

“Th…That’s right.”

Haruyuki energetically added his own words as well.

“He should also fear Chiyu’s power now. With an ability that can heal not only HP, but even broken armor as well, we can fight against him plenty…no, we can beat him!”

As she listened to that, Chiyuri’s eyebrows tightened for a moment. An action that showed she was considering something and hesitating.

Several seconds later—

“That’s not it.”

Those were the first words to quietly come out from Chiyuri’s mouth.

“Eh…th-that’s not it…?”

When Haruyuki dumbfoundedly repeated her words, Chiyuri’s expression suddenly changed and her eyes released a strong light, and she said it again after looking from Haruyuki to Tak.u.mu in turn.

“That’s not it. I’m not being forced to obey Noumi.”

“Chii-chan…w-what…?”

This time it seemed that Tak.u.mu was also surprised and tried to take a step forward while blinking rapidly. Backing away as if to avoid him, Chiyuri quietly, but decisively answered.

“I asked Noumi. ‘Make me your comrade. I’ll become your exclusive healer, so supply me with points without fail.’ It’s not a big deal, since I haven’t joined you and Haru’s legion yet.”

Taking yet another step away from the two of them as they stood stock-still in shock, Chiyuri continued speaking.

“We and «Nega Nebulas» will act without interfering with each other from now on. Since each side knows each other’s real ident.i.ties. Of course, the agreement between Noumi and Haru is a different story.”

Even in the midst of his blank-filled mind that couldn’t grasp the situation, Haruyuki could understand what the «agreement» that Chiyuri spoke of was. In other words, that was about how, if Haruyuki continued to pay ten burst points every week for two years to Noumi, he would get back his «flight ability».

They didn’t intend to fight from now on. But, that wasn’t related to Noumi extorting points from Haruyuki. That was what Chiyuri was saying.

That was also a shock, but before that, but the fact that Chiyuri referred to Noumi and herself as «we» had itself too enormous of an impact on Haruyuki. Among all the years until now, whenever Chiyuri said «we», only she, Haruyuki and Tak.u.mu were included in that.

Showing a profile of evading the eyes from the frozen two of them, Chiyuri then simply gave a short “See you later, then”.

And then she quickly turned around and ran towards the locker room.

After that, only the sweet milk-like smell that they were so familiar with was left behind.

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