Accel World Vol 8 Chapter 3 (2/2)
“If that’s so! —If that’s so, I will too!”
Chiyuri looked alternately at Haruyuki and Tak.u.mu, then shouted.
“I will undergo the training for the Incarnate system too! It doesn’t matter how many years I spend in the Unlimited Field, I will acquire the power to be able just to erase the ISS Kit from Takkun!”
“You can’t do that, Chii-chan!”
Just at that moment, Tak.u.mu had shouted. Without a moment’s delay Chiyuri also retorted.
“Why not! Senpai and Nee-san both said that one day the time will come for me to find my own Mind Power and cultivate it! Why can’t that be now..!”
In opposition to that, Tak.u.mu tried to make a further reb.u.t.tal and began to open his mouth.
However, there his words were stopped. Haruyuki, who had distinctly sensed what he was about to say and why he had stopped short, leaned forward and softly touched Chiyuri’s slender yet graceful arm.
“Chiyu.”
Gazing at her large, catlike pupils, which were looking right back at him sharply, Haruyuki spoke slowly.
“…Chiyu, your Citron Call is an amazing technique. In some sense, it might be the strongest ability within Nega Nebulas. But, that’s undoubtedly…an ability that yearns for the past. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but the sound of the bell you hear when you activate the technique…it’s exactly like the after-school chime in the elementary school we went to…”
She herself probably had been noticing that. For an instant, Chiyuri opened her eyes wide, then immediately covered her face. Haruyuki spoke even more to his silent friend.
“Of course, my special technique and Taku’s too are both strongly bound to the past. However, at the very least Taku’s technique is an incarnation of the will to cut through the past and advance forward. That’s why I…and undoubtedly Taku too, want you to see the future when you undergo the Incarnate system training. Though we don’t know what kind of powers you will develop…we think that it’d be nice if it were a power like facing the future and reaching your hand out as far as you can…”
For a while, none of them opened their mouths or even stirred their bodies.
Only the thin second hand of the wall clock approaching eleven o’clock was rotating smoothly. The built-in type air conditioning on dehumidification mode hummed in a low tone; from the other side of the sound insulated gla.s.s, the noise of EV tires coming and going across the Loop 7 road at night faintly reached them.
At last, Chiyuri, who had suddenly relaxed her entire body, smiled placidly while her eyes were moistened.
“…That’s true.”
She whispered, then nodded, then moved her lips again.
“That’s true, isn’t it. If it’s a technique set by the system, then anyhow…if it’s a power that I have to find within my heart and cultivate…it’d be nice if it were something like being able to reach my hand out to hope. Something like Takkun’s…something like Haru’s.”
“Nah…my Incarnate technique isn’t something as exaggerated as that though…”
“Uh-unh, I love «Laser Sword» just as much as «Cyan Blade».”
Smiling and deeply laughing, Chiyuri continued in a voice that had regained its cheerfulness.
“That’s right, I might as well have a matching «Something Sword»! Something amazing that can blow both Haru and Takkun away!”
“Ugh…”
The two boys exchanged glances again. In truth, Lime Bell’s potential was still unfathomable. It was possible for her to be enlightened with an Incarnate technique that easily surpa.s.sed both of their techniques.
“P, please go easy on us…”
After Haruyuki said that, this time Chiyuri and Tak.u.mu exchanged glances and laughed together merrily.
Tomorrow they obviously had school, and after that the «Imperial Palace escape mission» was waiting for them, so it would soon become time for them to sleep; the three lay down on the three high-resilience mattresses aligned on the floor of the living room in the order of Haruyuki, Tak.u.mu, and Chiyuri from east to west. Long ago when they were small, when they had their afternoon nap at somebody’s house Chiyuri was always in the middle, but tonight’s leading role was Tak.u.mu.
If there were the apprehension that the ISS Kit would interfere with him during his sleep, then the three of them could rather pull an all-nighter—that method was also considered, but Tak.u.mu had immediately dismissed it, as it would influence the «Imperial Palace escape strategy» tomorrow. Matters related to the Kit were urgent problems, but Haruyuki’s alter ego «Silver Crow» was in a sealed state in the Unlimited Neutral Field. He had to escape together with the purification ability user «Ardor Maiden» by any means; if he was not purified of the «Disaster Armor» by the Seven Kings’ meeting on Sunday, he would have a top-cla.s.s bounty placed on his head in the Accelerated World.
“It’s okay; if both of us are at your side, then you can sleep in peace until morning.”
To Tak.u.mu, who had said that with his head facing sideways on his pillow, Haruyuki replied while also nodding back.
“Hey, if it seems that you’re going to see a scary dream, then tell us right away, ‘cause we’ll knock you awake.”
“I’m thankful, but how am I supposed to do that when I’m sleeping?”
“Uh, uhh…sleep talking…”
While feeling a sleepiness that caused his eyelids to gradually become heavier, as he exchanged those words, from Tak.u.mu’s other side Chiyuri snapped her fingers.
“That’s right! Hey, since you can’t block the interference anyways even if you remove your Neuro Linker, why don’t we sleep with the three of us joined by direct connection?”
“Huh..!?”
Haruyuki blinked, and Chiyuri agilely lifted her head and continued to speak.
“If we’re directly connected, even if we’re sleeping our thought voices are transmitted, right? If something abnormal happens to Takkun, we might be able to notice it with that.”
“Ahh…I see, I didn’t notice that…”
He exchanged glances for an instant with Tak.u.mu, who had let out a voice of admiration, and they exchanged their willingness to try it. They got up once, and the three of them simultaneously equipped their Neuro Linkers, which had been in the middle of charging wirelessly on top of the sofa set table. They prepared two XSB cables, and this time they lay down with Haruyuki in the middle. The reason was that only Haruyuki’s Neuro Linker was equipped with two direct connection terminals.
He made a direct connection with Chiyuri on the left terminal and Tak.u.mu on the right one. The two wired connection warnings disappeared, and only a small connection icon remained in the tip of his vision.
While pulling his blanket up until his neck, Haruyuki tasted a strange feeling.
No matter whom his partner was, with some difference in scale a nervousness always accompanied wired directions. The sense of vulnerability from canceling his Neuro Linker’s defensive walls and the instinctive sense of immorality from joining their very consciousnesses together inevitably made his heart flutter.
However, right now Haruyuki only felt a quiet tranquility. The feeling of mutually protecting and being protected by his childhood friends, with whom he had spent more time than anyone else. It was just as if from the two cables, a sense of security from the two of them flowed in, filling his heart…
Before he noticed it, Haruyuki was closing his eyelids. The home server AI detected that the residents had went to bed and automatically dimmed the amount of light from the panel lights. From the other side of the gentle darkness that had visited, two voices reached him.
—Good night.
—Good night.
Without even knowing whether those were their real voices or thought voices, Haruyuki also softly murmured.
…Good night…
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