Accel World Vol 6 Chapter 6 (1/2)

Chapter 6

Like a mirage that vanishes without a trace, the warm moist air, brought on by the monsoon rains, disappeared and cool wind caressing his body took its place.

Under his duel avatar’s mirrored helmet, Haruyuki excitedly opened both his eyes. No matter how many time he battles, joy fills him the instant he confirms the stage setting.

However this time, there was something more important than the stage that mystified him, and thus with a single glance at the fire-red sunset with cool wind rustling the sea of golden gra.s.s, Haruyuki confirmed it was the «Gra.s.sland» stage, and immediately turned around.

Just as the object of his immense curiosity – the duel avatar s.h.i.+nomiya Utai controls – came into his vision, and in that instant, Haruyuki inhaled sharply.

As Haruyuki had expected, her body was small, yet it possessed a thickness that couldn’t be called ‘small’ at all. The reason was embodied in the long s.h.i.+elds draped from both her hands, and the layer of protective skirt armour she wore, which covers from her upper waist to her feet and widens at the bottom. Putting these two components together practically looks like a set of white clothes with a red skirt – resembling olden j.a.panese apparel.

But the deepest impression this duel avatar made was that its upper and lower halves were of completely different colours.

The colour of her torso and arms are a moist, watery pale white, very similar to her Neuro Linker. However, the lower body’s clothing armour is a deep, vibrant red colour of high purity in contrast. It’s completely different from the pure red of Red Rider, the first-generation Red King, nor does it elicit the transparency of Scarlet Rain, the second generation King. This particular colour, combined with her avatar gives a distinct j.a.panese feeling– it should be called «Vermilion».

The head bears an astounding resemblance to Utai in real life. In front of her forehead, fringe-like armour plates are covered by a white mask, while a considerably long head of hair extends from the back of her head. Combined with her skirt and eye lenses dyed in the same vermilion colour, it was both cute and yet appears firm and unwavering.

Haruyuki has never seen such an avatar with two colours separated like this. Silver Crow’s body was coloured entirely silver, of course, and this too was the case for the legionnaires of Nega Nebulas who all possess a single colour. Even though there are duel avatars that do have more than two colours, they were different shades of the same colour, as ‘the duel avatar’s colour name = duel avatar’s affinity = the colour of its body.’ Since the colour name of a duel avatar’s name is one word, there should only be one hue of colour being expressed– or that’s how it should be.

But before Haruyuki’s eyes, the lower half of Utai’s slender and elegant avatar is very close to the «Red of ranged Combat», while the upper half similarly is dyed in the «White of Special Character». What colour name might then possibly encompa.s.s both colours despite their clearly dissimilar properties?

Haruyuki became fully aware of his gaze, captivated by the powerful attraction of the j.a.panese-style avatar, and looked away to the two Health Gauges in the upper left corner of his vision. He focused on the names tagged to the Gauge:

[Ardor Maiden]. This is the name of s.h.i.+nomiya Utai’s avatar.

Maiden can be understood and interpreted as ‘young woman.’ There’s no other name besides this that fits Utai better.

But the crucial point is the colour word, the English word ardor, which Haruyuki momentarily couldn’t translate. Had this been the real world, a translation bubble would be called up just by focusing on the word in question. Regrettably, no such function exists in Brain Burst. Even if he feels that he has come across this word before, all the English materials up until 2nd year middle school level at least definitely did not cover this word.

Asking Utai for the meaning of her name would really be quite going off-topic, so Haruyuki could only give up and check his tag partner’s Level. It was Level 7– as expected, considerably high.

Haruyuki spent another three seconds to finish gathering his information, and then spoke to her while bowing:

“Then…then, please take care of me. I won’t disappoint you.”

Raising his head after speaking, he suddenly realised there was a problem. Brain Burst does not provide automatic translation capabilities nor textual chatting functions. How on earth would they communicate then? Sign language? Eye contact?

Immediately afterwards, Utai replied in such a way that made Haruyuki doubt his eyes– or rather, his ears:

“Take care of me too1. And Kuu-san, there is no need to speak so politely all of a sudden.”

–Kuu-san? Is this referring to me? Is this ‘kuu2‘ from ‘crow?’

No, this is not the question. I definitely didn’t mishear– she actually spoke. The mouth parts of Utai’s duel avatar’s mask had definitely moved, and afterwards that voice was heard speaking.

“May…may..may I ask? s.h.i.+..s.h.i.+…s.h.i.+…no, um, how should I address you…”

“Anything besides ‘Denden’ is fine. Previously, I was called by ‘Mei.'”

–is it the first half of ‘Maiden?’ No, this still isn’t the important thing now.

“…then, then…Mei-san, this…just now, you…spoke…”

Extremely shocked, Haruyuki’s words were more than a little rash, but Utai didn’t seem to mind and nodded:

“I may only speak like this during Acceleration. You could say that it’s the only reason why I continue to come to this world.”

Her voice seemed to carry a piercing, unyielding tenacity underneath its innocent and pure tone. While Haruyuki’s poor speaking skills is a perfect reflection of his real self, Utai appears overwhelmingly smooth with a rich inflection to her words; every word can be heard clearly as though she has taken speaking cla.s.ses.

“But…but, to talk in this world, isn’t the theory that speech signals originate from conscious thought and the Neuro Linker processes them…?”

“I myself am not so sure of the specifics. But in the past, Black Lotus said that this is because the depth of quantum consciousness connection is never the same for everyone.”

“Oh, oh…I don’t understand either…”

Tilting his head to the side in deep thought, Haruyuki returned to closely examining the entirety of Utai’s avatar.

Page 171

Exquisite as the combination of pure white and vermilion was, the j.a.panese-style apparel, a white s.h.i.+rt and red skirt, almost made one feel like their very soul was being captured. No– perhaps there’s a reason for this appearance. The arrangement of these colours and this appearance reminded him of a certain event in the real world. He remembered that long ago, he had seen it there…remembering that it was before his parents divorced, and the three of them were together for New Year’s…

“Kuu-san, I don’t mind even if you stare at me all day…”

“…and there, we went to a huge shrine…to pray for New Year’s…”

“I wouldn’t mind if you want to come pray in June for New Year either…”

“After praying, then we went for a divination…and then I remember drawing ‘Greatly Inauspicious’…”

“But the Guide Cursor has been moving nonstop till now.”

“It was written on the top that my interaction with others would greatly suffer…wait, what?”

When Utai’s words finally reached his consciousness, Haruyuki hurriedly looked at the dull blue cursor in the center of his vision. Indeed, the cursor was circling from left to right speedily, and the opponents were surely were the arrow pointed.

This picturesque gra.s.sland after all is a battleground provided by Brain Burst, not a virtual s.p.a.ce to chit-chat.

“No good…they’ve gotten a lot closer!”

Quickly grasping the situation, Haruyuki checked on the opposing tag team information in the upper right corner of his vision.

One of them is a Level 4, «Olive Glove», who should be a Green Legionnaire whom Haruyuki has never seen before.

However, he was quite surprised upon checking the other name.

It’s «Bush Utan». A Level 3, he’s also a Green Legionnaire whom Haruyuki has battled numerous times before. But whenever he appeared in the Suginami Ward, it was always in a tag team with the person he called ‘Big Bro,’ the motorcycle rider Ash Roller.

Despite his misgivings, it wasn’t as though he teamed up with his pal to battle more than half the time, so Haruyuki set his feelings of uneasiness aside. There was a more pressing question before him: gong by the Guide Cursor, the enemy should have closed in within twenty metres and logically the battling will begin soon, but–

“…where are they?”

Tiptoeing, Haruyuki desperately scanned in the direction of the Cursor, but all he could see was the absurdly tall gra.s.s being blown by the wind. Not even the silhouettes of the opponents’ avatar could be seen. They surely should be keeping a low profile as though swimming through the gra.s.s.

While Haruyuki looked all around, Utai softly spoke to him:

“Kuu-san, it seems that the opponents have split themselves into the front and rear vanguards. I will take care of the rear and leave the front to you. Please let me see your true strength.”

She leisurely walked towards the back after saying that.

From Utai’s manner of speech before the battle, she should be related to Kuroyukihime’s «Disaster Armour Purification Plan» for her, a rural resident, to even appear before Haruyuki. And it is almost as though she is judging on whether to take part or not based on the outcome of this battle.

As such, a meaningful victory should be desired; a quick win is out of the question. But it is useless to talk about winning when the enemy can’t be found at this very moment. From the opponent’s constant movement to the left, coming closer in a spiral pattern, he will soon approach within 10 metres of Haruyuki,and at that point the Guide Cursor will vanish. With increasing desperation, he searched high and low for his opponent to no avail, unable to distinguish between the occasional rustling of the wind and the sound of an opponent’s footsteps.

–that’s right, listen!

He abruptly shut his eyes and directed all his concentration to his ears. He needs to listen for the difference in sounds when an opponent tramples the gra.s.s as he advances, and the rustling of gra.s.s and leaves when the wind blows. There’s a minute difference within the two that should be heard.

Two seconds later.

“…there’s absolutely nothing!”

Feeling extremely irritated, Haruyuki opened his eyes again. No matter how he listens, there seems to be zero variation of the shashasha sound coming from all directions. Usually there will be small differences between the two players, but to perceive this aural difference might possibly require anti-detection training.

His eyes and ears are useless in this situation. Haruyuki might be able to find the opponent if he was able to fly with his wings, but his Special Gauge is still empty and there are no breakable objects in the surroundings.

On the edge of grinding his teeth in worry, the Guide Cursor in Haruyuki’s vision finally disappeared. Strictly speaking, there is still one more Cursor, albeit pale-coloured, but it points towards the rear vanguard opponent instead, and as such is irrelevant to the circ.u.mstances.

He doesn’t know if the front vanguard is Bush Utan or Olive Glove, but that guy, having come within a radius of 10 metres, should be waiting for an opportunity to strike and dish out the punishment to Silver Crow. Of course, Haruyuki could simply copy the same strategy and lie low among the gra.s.s, but doing so will sacrifice the biggest advantage of Silver Crow: it’s speed. And in doing so, the duel will become a mutual fistfight on the ground.

Had this been a regular battle, Haruyuki would have abandoned all thoughts by this time; make preparations beforehand to attack the weak spots, steadily fill his Special Gauge, and bet on aerial combat from the middle of the fight onwards. This could be said to be the default fighting style of Haruyuki. It’s because Silver Crow is not very durable and its attack range is short, therefore it isn’t suited for grappling combat on the ground. There’s a definite loss of advantages while not flying–

Because that’s what he has always believed in his heart.

But, s.h.i.+nomiya Utai had asked to see Haruyuki’s true strength.

This true strength could be said as «One’s true power». And as for ‘true,’ it would mean that no reservation nor excuse is acceptable. Most importantly, this battle definitely has a direct connection to the success or failure of the «Purification Plan».

–is there no way out anymore? Have I no cards left to deal with this situation?

As he wondered, a thought seemed to flash in his heart.

What if it’s her? Even if the Black King, Black Lotus, is only strong in close-quarters combat, what would she do if in the same situation as Haruyuki? Of course she wouldn’t be frantically looking around like he is; she’d definitely stay in that one spot leisurely until the enemy shows himself to attack, betting on that one instant to counter. Indeed, she’d do this. Since the enemy is a close-combat type, he certainly won’t be standing in the gra.s.s the instant he strikes.

Naturally, Haruyuki will be the one slower to react in this course of action. He can’t pre-emptively strike even if he sees the enemy. But in the Direct Connect duel last week, she told him that a skill to switch from defense to offense exists. He can’t replicate it exactly, but even if he tries and fails, it’s a hundred times better than not thinking and blankly standing there.

Releasing his entire body, Haruyuki half-closed his eyes.

The image of Black Lotus during last week’s duel appears in his mind.

Silver Crow’s fastest, most powerful right-hand punch was still slow in comparison to the speed at which the Black King had intercepted it. Her movement was not so much fast as it was «without excess movement». It wasn’t merely repelling the enemy strike as much as it was pulling it in and diverting its vector to push it away. This technique as named by the Black King is «Soft Act», or also known as «Guard Reversal3».

A high-pitched RIIIN sound can be heard in his consciousness, blotting out all sound in the background even though he’s keeping perfectly still. This is the Accelerated Sense, which Haruyuki only experiences after surpa.s.sing a certain level of concentration, although this is his first time doing so when keeping still in such a relaxed state.

After an indeterminable amount of time, Haruyuki finally felt the direction of the opponent’s first strike; not by seeing nor hearing, but by the slight tremors of footsteps.

–the back-right!

Haruyuki turned his body and raised his right hand simultaneously. At the same moment, his opponent emerged from the gra.s.s, fist thrusting forwards; a small, gra.s.sy-green avatar that blended into the surroundings: Bush Utan.

His mask resembles that of a primate. His body is hunched over with small feet, but his arms are long and thick. It would seem that he had not run through the gra.s.s, but instead depended on his muscular arms to ‘swim’ through, which explained the lack of the sound of footsteps.

There is a distinct advantage for the short-statured in this kind of terrain. To Haruyuki, this first strike is a surprise attack. By the time he’s determined his opponent’s ident.i.ty, the huge right fist is no more than ten centimetres away from his face. Combined with the fact that his footing is less than ideal, it’s impossible to dodge this. .h.i.t.

“–hohh!”

Certain that his first hit would connect, Utan gave a loud shout. Without making a sound, Haruyuki intercepted the enemy’s fist with his open palm.

The blazing power from the enemy’s right hook was transferred to the palm. In this moment, any attempt to withstand and block would certainly end with the arms being deflected instantly and the face bearing the brunt of the strike. Rather than doggedly resisting, it is to adjust one’s movements to match the enemy’s action; not to reject his strength but to change his vector. The key point is a «Circular motion». It’s similar to how he played the virtual squash game daily in the past: the speed of the ball will rise infinitely if power hits are always used to return it, so it became necessary to lower its speed by moving the racket’s face in a circular ‘wrapping’ motion.

Recalling the action, Haruyuki twisted his opponent’s fist in an anti-clockwise direction with his palm. It wasn’t possible for him to fully absorb the power of this strike: his right wrist armour creaked from the stress applied, but at the same time he felt the fist’s trajectory being altered.

At this stage, Kuroyukihime could already redirect the attack a hundred and eighty degrees to throw Haruyuki backwards completely. Naturally, Haruyuki didn’t have such proficiency, but a deflection of about ten degrees was all that was needed here, such that it would not be a direct hit at least. Clenching his teeth and holding his breath, Haruyuki carefully redirected Utan’s fist into a circular motion.

CHII! A small sc.r.a.ping sound sounded as a sharp, burning, sensation a.s.sailed his left cheek. A few dots were shaved off from his HP Gauge. However, the huge fist merely glanced off Haruyuki’s helmet for an instant and continued on past; Utan’s upper body lost balance. It would probably be a result of only his arms and shoulders being exceptionally developed, hence raising his centre of gravity too high whenever he strikes.

Realising in that instant, Haruyuki involuntarily swept out his right leg towards Utan’s short legs.

“Uwoah?!”

The gra.s.sy green avatar yelped and somersaulted uncontrollably, landing on his back with a ZAN! sound effect. Although the tall gra.s.s might have cus.h.i.+oned the fall and reduced the damage, Utan’s HP Gauge nevertheless fell by a few percentage points.

——I did it! That looked like Guard Reversal!

Much as he was elated with himself, it was too early to celebrate. Utan disappeared into the gra.s.s with audible SHA SHA sound effects again, probably to attempt another sneak attack. Haruyuki crouched slowly and devoted his full attention to his perception.

The next attempt came quickly; within seconds, the ground shook with the vibrations of footsteps from directly behind. Moving faster than his eye could see, Haruyuki’s right hand shot out, and in the instant he felt it catch something, immediately guided it into a circular motion again.

When his vision caught up to his action, it was the sight of the deflected left straight and Utan having lost his balance again that greeted his eyes. Utan had attempted to forcibly correct his attack’s trajectory at the cost of raising his centre of gravity when his left leg was fully straightened; Haruyuki reflexive catching of Utan’s fist with his palm therefore resulted his his arm hitting Utan’s shoulder.

“Uoh!?”

With that single shout, Haruyuki put in his strength to deflect Utan, sending him flipping end-over-end higher in the air before landing on his face. It seemed that the natural cus.h.i.+on of gra.s.s wasn’t able to properly absorb the fall damage: accompanying the injury effect was a 10% decrease in his Health Gauge.

Stuck in that disastrous position with his legs waving in the air for a moment, Bush Utan jumped up explosively with his arm strength to spin a hundred and eighty degrees and land on his feet. Instead of tunneling back into the gra.s.s, he merely retreated a few steps and pointed at Haruyuki:

“Hohoho, as expected of Ash-bro’s longtime rival!”

Not expecting this kind of response, Haruyuki could only blink and sputter incoherently:”Eh… It… It is?” But Utan merely continued his rant without paying attention to him:

“To think you’d use such an extraordinarily clever defense technique! This is the first time I wasn’t able to get the FA4 on the Gra.s.sland Stage! But if you think you’ve won already, don’t get a head of yourself! I would truly be undefeatable if I gave up direct attacking and went for sneak attacks instead!”

“Ugh!”

He wasn’t wrong at all. Although he understood Kuroyukihime’s tactic of «technique beating strength» with great difficulty, it was fundamentally ineffective against throwing and grappling skills. If both his legs were to be grabbed by Utan’s ma.s.sive hands below the gra.s.s, he would end up in a one-sided battle without a doubt.

However Utan merely waved his right index finger at Haruyuki, who was sending himself into a panic:

“But if we used grappling skills here, the audience here would be super-disatisfied, right? That way, they wouldn’t see anything at all!”

Upon hearing this, Haruyuki scanned his surroundings and discovered that besides s.h.i.+nomiya Utai — «Ardor Maiden», who was watching him from a distance, and the other opponent «Olive Glove», who had yet to make his appearance, everyone else was observing by standing among the gra.s.s.. Utan was quite correct: no matter how fiercely Haruyuki and Utan tussle on the ground, they would not be seen by anybody.

“…so, what do you plan? Eh, I just wanna clarify, I absolutely won’t agree to using brute strength to decide the winner!”

When Haruyuki had blurted out as such, Utan replied just as he slapped his right fist into the the palm of his left:

“Hoho, that’s a pretty good idea! But too bad, those skinny arms of yours that look like bamboo are no match for mine full of power. That’s why, this time I’m going to bring out my newly acquired skill!”

“N…New skill?”

This made Haruyuki tense up. As far as he knew, Bush Utan’s only two weapons are 1) The strength contained within his huge arms, and 2) The ability to extend them by up to three times their length by depleting his Special Gauge. Since he was a Level 3 in the duel last week, it naturally couldn’t be that he had obtained a new Special Move or ability. If that was the case, then he should have used his Burst Points to purchase an Enhanced Armament, or he had perhaps developed a new battle technique. No matter which one it was, he needed to be extra careful.

Haruyuki crouched low and tightened his mind and body. Utan, on the other hand, walked closer without a care in the world and spoke deeply and provocatively:

“Hohoho, if you challenged me thinking that you could win just as easily as you did in last week’s Territorial Battle, then you’ll surely regret this! I’m not the polite me from then anymore, so watch closely… This is my new power!!”

Coming to a stop, he crossed his arms over his chest in a hugely exaggerated action, and after a moment, fiercely uncrossed them while shouting:

“«IS Mode» activate!! Come!!”

I…IS Mode?

Hearing that unheard-of skill name being called out, Haruyuki braced his senses, preparing to dodge anything – even a long-ranged skill.

But what happened next completely surpa.s.sed his predictions.

From the centre of Bush Utan’s gra.s.s-green chest, a strange object emerged with a *kacha* sound. It was a small hemisphere approximately 5 centimetres in diameter with a heavy l.u.s.tre, but not the metallic type. It looked like plastic; no, it should be best described as a moist texture like an organic form.

The following things immediately confirmed this observation. The hemisphere’s surface opened up like a human eye, splitting in half. Below this ‘eye’ leaked a bloodred glow, and the eye stared directly at Haruyuki.

And then-

Bush Utan released a dreadful pressure, flattening the gra.s.s all around. Black light was released from the eye in his chest, covering his entire body and radiating loudly. Despite being about ten metres away from Utan, an inexplicable sensation of pain was felt even through Haruyuki’s armour.

An abnormal thirst in his eyes, Utan shouted out an unheard-of skill name, raising his right fist as he charged forwards:

“Hohh… «Dark Blow»!”

Gaining the likeness of an enormous steel bullet, the shadow thickened around his fist and gave off a heavy, low vibration as it hurtled towards Haruyuki.

“Uuh…”

If he wanted to, surely Haruyuki could grasp this chance to use Guard Reversal again, but an indescribably frigid killing intent shut down that thought. Driven by fear, he jumped with all his might to the left to dodge.

What happened thereafter blew away Haruyuki’s thoughts, even forgetting to counterattack.

Utan’s straight landed at his feet, and in an instant blew away the gra.s.sy field like a meteor strike.

The stage floor possesses different properties from objects and rock, and should not be so easily shattered. Such power to effortlessly carve out such a crater was highly uncommon. Had he attempted to deflect that punch with Guard Reversal, he would have been single-handedly trying to bear such huge strength.

–What was that!? A Special Move…that can’t be right, an Enhanced Armament?

At a loss for words, Haruyuki reflexively checked the gauge displayed below Utan’s HP, a slim, green line displaying the amount of Special Gauge remaining.

Upon seeing it, he was panic-stricken and breathless.

The gauge hadn’t even decreased by a hair. Or rather, it hadn’t even been used from the start. And yet, Utan’s entire body was constantly radiating a dark aura with flickers of red.

Constant emission of light without depleting the Special Gauge. Only one word in the Accelerated World exists to explain this phenomenon:

«Over-Ray». Besides the Movement Command system most commonly used, there’s another way to control a duel avatar: the Image Control System. When a strongly imagined action pa.s.ses through this system, excess signals are treated and rendered as photons – visible light.

At this point, Haruyuki finally understood what Utan had meant by ‘IS Mode.’

It had to be an abbreviation for ‘Incarnate System Mode,’ or the more commonly used term, ‘Incarnate System.’ The dark aura enveloping Utan was proof that he had activated the forbidden Incarnate System.

But why did he do this? Whenever high-rankers pa.s.s on the knowledge of IS, they would surely warn their students that the Incarnate System is to not be used in normal duels. And besides that, just what was that black eyeball in his chest? Incarnation is purely from the imagination of its user, so no objects nor equipment need to be equipped.

Deeply confused, though Haruyuki was fully aware that Utan, draped in inky blackness, had begun to attack; he thus was unable to react immediately.

“Vuu…hohh!”

Utan yelled out in a distorted voice as he raised his fist high. Haruyuki finally blinked and opened his eyes wide; but it was too late to dodge. Despite knowing the danger of doing so, all he was able to do was to raise his left hand, preparing to apply Soft Act in response-

“Hohh…«Dark Blow»!”

Calling out the same skill name as before, Utan threw an explosive punch.

Haruyuki brought his palm up to bear against the Over-ray emitted by the fist.

For a split second, he felt a bone-chilling sensation in his hand—

With a high-pitched shattering sound, Silver Crow’s left hand instantly fragmented into countless shards of silver.

“GUAHHH!”

Even in the regular field with a reduced pain threshold, Haruyuki was unable to hold back his scream from the pain, feeling as though someone had literally ripped out a piece from his mind. And yet Utan’s fist didn’t stop there and continued on towards his face.

Haruyuki desperately craned his neck away to evade, but couldn’t stop the corner of Utan’s large, rough thumb from grazing the left edge of his helmet. Feeling as though his cheek had been cauterised, an enormous pressure then knocked him off his feet and onto his back, crumpling heavily into the gra.s.s.

Haruyuki rolled on the ground in agony. All of his left arm from the elbow downwards had disappeared without a trace, and at the side of his helmet a deep scar ran, emitting sparks. Utan looked down on him, and withdrew his right hand with heavy movements. He then thrust his left fist into the air.

There was no trace left of the original Bush Utan from last week’s duel in the light of his slanted, comma-like eyes behind his humourous mask. No, it could already be seen just ten seconds ago, with none of the pa.s.sion for duelling. Now, those eyes only held a thirst, a longing beyond hurting and breaking Haruyuki, until he surrendered to Utan’s delight.

For the third time, Utan’s left fist, cloaked in the sticky black aura, was brought down to strike. Haruyuki propped up his back for dear life and unfurled his wings from this position, extending ten metal fins with all his strength.

Utan’s fist deeply pierced the ground where Haruyuki was a mere 0.1 seconds before. His blood ran cold at the mere sight of this, and he climbed as high and fast as he could until he was more than twenty metres above, and only then did he halt.

He couldn’t understand it at all, or rather, he refused to believe it. With great difficulty, he eased open his locked jaw, and squeezed out a few words:

“…U, Utan…why…your skill, what the…”

And the response he received was-

Utan raised a ma.s.sive hand and faced Haruyuki, floating in the air. A voice crushed low to the point of a rumble issued from his mask:

“…flying away is just as useless…”

A black aura gathered in the center of his palm, five fingers spread outwards. In a slightly garbled voice, he shouted:

“«Dark Shot»!”

A jet-black beam of light erupted from Utan’s palm with a heavy sound.

Haruyuki’s mind was long past the point of surprise, and all he could do was stare at the black beam streaking right for him. He unconsciously vibrated his wings and slipped sideways, attempting to move out of the beam’s way, but of course, it was too late…

Boom!