Accel World Vol 8 Chapter 6 (1/2)

Chapter 6

If he were asked which of the five weekdays he liked the most, without much hesitation Haruyuki would answer Friday. This was probably the same for most students—maybe adults too. It was hard to subst.i.tute anything for the bubbly feeling that came with knowing tomorrow and the day after that were days off.

However, his most disliked day was somewhat subtle. Of course most people would be fed up with Monday, but he had the joy of being able to meet her Excellency his revered student council vice president after two days, and though it was limited to this semester Monday’s lunch special was the G.o.dly menu of minced meat cutlet curry.

Therefore, with him granting amnesty to Monday with remarkable mercy, the runner-up was undoubtedly Wednesday.

Because on Wednesday he had PE from first period; it was an unforgiving timetable.

“Hey, Arita, hey!”

Haruyuki, whose name had been called, whose entire body was drenched in sweat, and whose feet were wobbling, reflexively tried to throw the basketball that he had been carrying with his two hands over there.

However, the figure of his teammate who had raised his hand was immediately blocked by an opponent team player and went out of sight. In the bottom left of his field of vision, the digital numbers counting five seconds as well as twenty-four seconds for violations were steadily decreasing. Out of impatience, in order to throw a long pa.s.s blindly, he raised the ball with both hands high overhead.

However, like a flash of lightning, the moment before the ball was thrown somebody deftly robbed him of the ball from behind.

“Thanks!”

The tall student who had left behind a spiteful voice and had cut splendidly into his own team’s territory with a dribble was the basketball team regular Is.h.i.+o. In the midst of the girls lined up around the perimeter of the court raising cheering voices, he broke through the two people marking him in the blink of an eye and made a layup with room to spare. The ring net rocked greatly, and the right side of the score of 22-36 displayed in the overlay in the lower right hand of his vision changed to 38.

“Don’t worry about it.”

With that voice, the teammate who had sought a pa.s.s from Haruyuki a little earlier tapped him on the shoulder. However, he couldn’t help but search for the ring in that voice lamenting «the misfortune of being on the same team as Arita» rather than «the misfortune of being on a different team from Is.h.i.+o’s».

The basketball court able to be divided into two sides in the gymnasium had been split between boys and girls, and furthermore since the twenty male students were divided into four teams, one match was only twenty minutes. However one thought about it a comeback from behind in the remaining seven minutes and thirty seconds was impossible, but he prayed that he would at least not make any more conspicuous basic mistakes—at the back of Haruyuki, who had begun to return to his fixed position while praying that, a voice different from the one earlier whispered in an undertone.

“Haru, what’s important is the whole image. It’s the same as the «territory battle».”

The person who had said just that and had left him was Mayuzumi Tak.u.mu, who coincidentally was on the same team. Though they were losing, they could say that a sixteen-point difference against opponents who had a basketball team regular on their team was on the contrary a good fight. The reason for that was that Tak.u.mu, who was a complete layman to ball games, was doing his best as a forward.

…The whole image? The same as the territory battle?

While running with heavy steps and chasing Tak.u.mu, who was attacking the enemy zone with a dribble as soon as he had received a throw, Haruyuki inwardly racked his brains.

The «territory battles» of Brain Burst were the compet.i.tions between legions for territory in group duels conducted Sat.u.r.day evening every week. In a normal duel, one could only do as far as two-on-two tag matches, but in territory battles, large-scale fights of at least three-on-three (and depending on the circ.u.mstances, over ten-versus-ten) were played out.

If it were so, then one could no longer win just by depending on his or her individual fighting strength. While recognizing the entire vast stage’s conditions, one blocked the enemy’s main attacks and simultaneously stabbed at c.h.i.n.ks in their armor…in short, a comprehensive «image of the tide of war» was needed.

Did Tak.u.mu want to say that basketball matches were also the same as those?

However, Haruyuki’s team was also already doing something similar. The main firepower of the enemy team was clearly the basketball team player Is.h.i.+o, so there was the strategy of always having two people marking him and sealing his movements. Haruyuki and one other person were defensive middle guards, and Tak.u.mu was the one forward. However, even with two people guarding him Is.h.i.+o would not easily be stopped, and with only Tak.u.mu as the pivot of offense of this side, they would not really be able to get any points. Having said that, even if they discarded defense and s.h.i.+fted the lineup to an offensive type, Is.h.i.+o, who would become free, would just be able to rage about as he pleased.

…With this, it’s useless just to form an image of battle tactics, Taku. It’s as if the opponents have a «King» and we have a «level 1».

In his mind, Haruyuki had unconsciously retorted back in that matter to his old friend. Of course, level 1 referred to Haruyuki himself. As his feet were slow, his height was low, and his ball-handling was poor, in a basketball match he was no different from an in-the-way obstacle that was just there.

And then, at that moment, Tak.u.mu fell to the court with a heavy thud! sound. He had shown signs of rus.h.i.+ng to the enemy goal and had aimed for a three-point shot; an opponent player who had panicked had accidentally made body contact. A sharp alert sound resounded, and the word 【FOUL】 glittered blue in the center of his field of vision. Blue was the opponent team’s color.

“Ta, Taku!”

Fl.u.s.tered, he tried to run up to him, but Tak.u.mu raised one hand as if he were okay and immediately stood up. He calmly made three free throws, and the score changed to 25-38.

Having tried to call out to Tak.u.mu, who had promptly jogged back, with a start Haruyuki held his breath.

Didn’t the word «image» that his old friend had just mentioned have a much larger meaning—not just at the level of things like weaknesses and tactics?

At the start of cla.s.s, their division into random teams had been carried out by the on-campus system, and the moment he learned that Is.h.i.+o was among the opponents they would confront, Haruyuki had thought “This is bad” in the back of his mind; three of his four teammates also probably felt the same. That basically was being seized by the «image of losing» before the match began.

However, Tak.u.mu was probably different. Due to his quiet demeanor and intellectual appearance, it did not show on the outside much, but he was by nature a trueborn fighter. That was why in his elementary school days he did not quit the cla.s.sroom even when he met cruel bullying in the kendo cla.s.sroom, and also due to that he could not help himself from confirming the rumors about the «ISS Kit», which was said to negate avatars’ weaknesses.

And then even in this mere twenty-minute mock match of a mere PE cla.s.s, while knowing their distinct difference in combat power Tak.u.mu refused to have an «image of losing». That was right; it was just the same as Brain Burst’s territory battles. In those battles, both sides exhausted their tactics and strategies to the limit; on top of that, the first side to give up with “This is impossible” would lose.

“…My bad, Taku.”

His murmured voice probably had not reached him, but Haruyuki gazed at the square back of his good friend and tightly ground his molars.

Six minutes and twenty seconds remaining. For that amount of time, at the least he would renounce the image of losing. Without thinking that it was impossible, he would do the utmost of what he could do. —If so, what could he do? Magnificent pa.s.s cuts and sharp dribbling were impossible acts for Haruyuki. However, there must be something that even an oversized obstruction could do. Obstruction…

“..!”

Haruyuki suddenly opened his eyes wide; immediately after, with a fierce speed he manipulated his virtual desktop.

The application for PE ball games, which was the Ministry of Education’s quality product, had various functions, but the Augmented Reality display, or AR display, had poor compatibility in the first place—while it was obvious, it hindered one from seeing the crucial ball—it was only used to the extent of overlay displaying the score and match time in a side of one’s vision. Rather, it would have been better to remove one’s Neuro Linker, but monitoring the pulse, temperature, and blood pressure of students in exercise was obligated by law, so that too could not be done.

However, right now Haruyuki opened the court condition tab from the app, and it was displayed in bird’s-eye view slightly below the center of his field of vision. In the rectangle, which had become slanted, five red and blue circular symbols apiece moved irregularly. Of course, they were the present positions of all players. With the filter function, he made them to two. The remaining red circle was he himself. And then the blue circle was the enemy ace Is.h.i.+o.

As soon as the match resumed with the opponents’ throw, Haruyuki moved with heavy steps and spread his arms on the line joining the basketball, of which he had caught sight with his naked eye, and Is.h.i.+o, who was moving at his back.

He flapped his arms with all his might; by further enlarging his body, which at best could only be said to have great breadth, he tried to foil the pa.s.s course to Is.h.i.+o. The gallery burst out laughing at his imbecile movements, but the enemy player holding the ball lightly clucked his tongue and made a horizontal pa.s.s to another player. However, at the same time Haruyuki also ran a couple of meters to the left and again greatly waved his arms up and down.

This was «something that he could do» that he had thought of.

The opponent team’s strategy was to bulldoze a post play with their ace Is.h.i.+o, who was camping underneath the goal. Since Haruyuki knew that the ball would ultimately be thrown to the low post area, first with his AR display he had precisely grasped Is.h.i.+o’s position and then had become an «obstruction» on the path between him and the ball.

With Haruyuki’s amount of movement, a man-to-man defense sticking tightly to Is.h.i.+o himself was impossible, but if he projected the pa.s.s course and optimized the distance he s.h.i.+fted, he might be somehow able to continue to fulfill this role until the close of the match.

At that time, the opponent player again showed the air of throwing the ball directly sideways, and Haruyuki began also to move his body that way.

However, right before he suddenly braked. Is.h.i.+o, who was three meters behind him, was simultaneously running in the opposite direction. This was a feint motion. He somehow absorbed the ma.s.s of inertia with his planted left foot and threw his body right. The ball the opponent player had thrown b.u.mped violently with a smack into his right hand, which he had extended with all his might. At the point where it seemed about to rebound somewhere, unconsciously with the gist of Brain Burst’s «gentle redirection» he killed its momentum, pulled it to his chest, and held it tightly.

“No way!”

Haruyuki also thought the same thing as the opponent player, who had let that voice out while popping his eyes out. However, if he stood there dumbfounded, the ball would be s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him by Is.h.i.+o from the back again.

“Hey!”

Hearing that voice another time from his left side, Haruyuki reflexively threw the ball, this time without holding it high over his head. The ally player who received it—a member of the swim team by the name of Nakagawa—brought the ball into the enemy camp and made a pa.s.s to their own team’s ace Tak.u.mu, who was running along the right side.

Tak.u.mu, who had reliably pa.s.sed through and reached the enemy goal with a furious charge that made one want to think “As to be expected of a blue-color,” made use of his tall frame and made a marvelous jump shot. With an airy beep SE1resounding in his sense of hearing, the score display changed to 27-38.

“Nice, Arita!”

The one who had raised his voice was Nakagawa, who had quickly returned to their own side. The sports club member with a masculine figure raised his right hand while laughing with a smile; Haruyuki thought reflexively “I’m gonna get hit!”, but he somehow lifted his left hand and returned a high five. He only exchanged a fleeting smile with Tak.u.mu, who had come running from behind, but despite that he seemed to have conveyed fully what needed to be conveyed.

For the remaining slightly less than six minutes, Haruyuki only ran, ran, and ran till the end.

Sweat flowed like a waterfall down his face and body, his throat rang with a wheeze, and his legs and arms twitched in bits, but nevertheless he did not try to halt. Before he knew it, what existed in his field of vision, no, in his mind were only the ball ahead of him and Is.h.i.+o behind him.

In opposition to those, he formed the image of the course he needed to move and simply traced it.

The image and its execution.

At last, in a recess of his consciousness that had become hazy, suddenly Haruyuki recalled that only a few days ago he had also had a similar experience.

That was, yes, the time when he was cleaning up the backyard’s animal caretaking shed alone. He had thought hard about how he could tidy up the fallen leaves piled up to the point where it seemed impossible to remove them with manual labor, formed an image of the result, and afterward only believed and moved his hands. That was also bitter work, but the fallen leaves that seemed to exist infinitely had all also disappeared in the end.

Playing a basketball match and cleaning up a shed were of course completely different. However, at their root maybe they shared in common a thing that should even be called the «essence of action». —No, at that time, sure enough hadn’t he begun to notice something more precious?

In another world different from this reality, the words someone had said to him echoed far inside his head.

…From your consciousness…an excessively strongly projected image…crosses limitations…and manifests itself.

Those were words that had explained a «power» hidden in that world. An ultimate power that crossed the frames of the normal system and could even be said to be a paranormal phenomenon. Miracles that did not exist in the real world. However, for all one knew that logic could be awfully simple—.

Even while he was thinking about those things, Haruyuki single-mindedly continued to run right and left as hard as he could.

Of course, with makes.h.i.+ft blocking he couldn’t prevent one hundred percent of the pa.s.ses to Is.h.i.+o. Occasionally when Haruyuki was unable to impede the ball from crossing, in those cases the enemy ace was able to make a certain score. With Tak.u.mu and Nakagawa’s counterattacks, although they had bridged the gap to five points, from there it was seesawing back and forth; the remaining time steadily decreased.

However, before he knew it Haruyuki had removed the time count and even the score display from his consciousness. From the gallery, mixed in with the usual laughing voices sometimes a buzz would also be emitted, but neither one reached Haruyuki’s ears.

“Hah…hah…”

While hearing only the strenuous wheezing leaking from his throat and his heartbeat ringing with a clang in the depths of both his ears, he continued solely to trace his image predicted a second ahead of time. He no longer had time to spare to partic.i.p.ate on the offensive, but if they were able to counterbalance one-versus-one the opponent team’s ace with their own team’s burden, with the remaining four they could play a more-than-even match. At the point in time where they had dropped under two minutes remaining, their two allies who had been marking Is.h.i.+o up until now also partic.i.p.ated in the offense; they struck at the gaps in their bewildered enemies’ defense and thrust the ball into the hoop.

A three point difference.

“Over here!”

Is.h.i.+o, who as expected showed signs of starting to have frustration build up, returned once deep into his side, raised his hand, and directly received a throw. Again two people from the red team marking him tried to block his way, but with his lightning-fast spin moves they were quickly overtaken. It seemed somehow that the basketball club’s regular’s «serious techniques» had been sealed up until now.

“..!”

In response to Is.h.i.+o’s figure pressing in and filling his field of vision, which was blurred with sweat, Haruyuki stood rooted to the spot. In a head-on one-on-one, the Neuro Linker’s AR display would be of no help whatsoever.

—Physical Burst!

Haruyuki desperately held back the impulse of wanting to shout that inside his mouth.

If he used the «Physical Burst» command, which accelerated one’s perceptions by ten times while retaining one’s consciousness inside one’s physical body, no matter what dribble technique Is.h.i.+o used it would probably be easy to steal the ball while he was in the middle of doing it. However, all «cowardly acceleration» was forbidden by their legion. Before that, it was a slight to Is.h.i.+o, who in opposition to the likes of Haruyuki had come challenging him with a match in earnest.

“Wa…wah—!”

Without «acceleration», all Haruyuki could do was spreading his hands as much as he could while raising that voice.

The left hand of Is.h.i.+o, who was pressing in before his eyes, flashed, and the ball disappeared from his sight. By the time he had noticed that he had dribbled to his back side, Is.h.i.+o was already ferociously overtaking Haruyuki’s left side.

While knowing that he could not catch up to the back of the enemy ace, who was heading for their side’s goal and pus.h.i.+ng his way through, Haruyuki chased after him.

After having run a number of paces, before his eyes a bright red font he was unaccustomed to seeing blinked. It was a warning that either his heart rate or his blood pressure had deviated from its normal value. However, he ignored it. He single-mindedly pursued the vague human figure smack dab in the middle of his vision, which had begun to whiten out flickeringly.

And then, opposite Is.h.i.+o a silhouette of tall height about the same as Is.h.i.+o’s blocking his way was dimly visible. Before he had known it Tak.u.mu had returned to the goal. With his techniques at full throttle, Is.h.i.+o went about pa.s.sing Tak.u.mu, who had matched him up. From a leg through dribble—to a behind-the-back dribble.

“K…ha!”

While exhaling all the remaining air in his lungs, Haruyuki faced the ball that Is.h.i.+o was trying to dribble behind his back and dived with all his might.

The fingertips of his left hand that he had reached out as much as he could, whether they touched the granulated rubber—Haruyuki did not know. As to why, there his vision had become pitch-black, and even his ability to think had sharply decelerated. The front side of his body b.u.mped into something wide and hard; at the same time he noticed that that somehow seemed to be the floor of the gym, somewhere far away a high-pitched voice like a scream resounded.

“Haru!!”

That voice was unmistakably that of Chiyuri, who was in the middle of a match in the adjacent court.

—Good grief, concentrate on your own game.

While hearing a number of footsteps running up to him, with that final thought Haruyuki’s memory was cut off.

Since something thin was being inserted in his mouth, for the time being he tried sucking on it.

In doing so, a cool, sweet liquid flowed into his mouth, so with his eyes shut he swallowed it deliriously. After gulping it down to the point where breathing became difficult and sending the liquid to his stomach, he exhaled greatly.

He gently raised his eyelids, and a brilliant white light shone strongly on his eyes. He hurriedly closed them, blinked several times, and then opened them again.

The source of the light was the light panels embedded in the ceiling. In addition to that, there was an enclosing rectangular white curtain in his peripheral vision. Somehow it wasn’t the gym. Below his body were not hard floorboards but rustling sheets—basically, a bed.

Before he thought “Where am I,” the curtains in the direction of his feet made a light sound and were pulled open.

“Oh, Arita-kun, you’re awake?”

Who had appeared was a woman whose semi-long hair was bound behind her neck and who was clad in a smart white coat above her patterned T-s.h.i.+rt—the Umesato Middle school nurse. Her family name was Hotta. So basically, this was probably the nurse’s office of the east wing of the first floor of the second school building.

“Ah…um…I…”

As Haruyuki mumbled with his words inside his mouth, Nurse Hotta showed taken-aback laughter on her masculine face and spoke.

“It’s important to try your best in matches, but you need to pay attention to your own condition. If your blood pressure had dropped a little bit more it would’ve been the ambulance for you.”

“U, understood…I’m sorry…”

—I see, during the middle of the basketball match I collapsed from something like anemia or dehydration and was carried to the nurse’s office, wasn’t I.

Finally aware of the situation, he glanced at the time display in the lower right hand of his vision; second period had begun long ago. Somehow it seemed that he had been unconscious, no, sleeping for over thirty minutes.

The school nurse nimbly manipulated her virtual desktop, confirmed that Haruyuki’s vital signs had returned to their normal values, and nodded lightly.

“Please rest during second period. Make sure to have plenty of water. I’ll be out for a little due to a staff meeting, but if anything happens feel free to push the call b.u.t.ton. With that, afterwards I’m leaving it to you!”

The curtains were again closed with a snap, and the pitter-patter sound of footsteps went far off. Finally, he heard the sound of the door opening and closing, and silence returned to the nurse’s office.

Probably Nurse Hotta would have watched Haruyuki’s condition until he awakened even if the meeting began. After absentmindedly thinking “I sure caused her a lot of trouble, but well I guess that’s her job,” from the left side of his face the thin straw again extended toward his mouth.

Without thinking he held it in his mouth and sucked. The well-cooled sports drink pleasantly went down his throat.

“..?”

There, Haruyuki finally thought strangely about to where the straw was connected and turned his gaze left. Was it perhaps automatic water dispensing equipment? Surely not a robot nurse?

However, the straw was extended from a featureless cooling bottle.

And then a white, delicate hand that was not Haruyuki’s was holding that bottle.

“..?”

Ordering his currently decelerating thoughts to do as he said, this time he traced that hand with his gaze. The thin arm was protruding from the sleeve of a black open-collar s.h.i.+rt. In the breast of the s.h.i.+rt, a dark red ribbon. Equipped on her thin neck, a piano black Neuro Linker. Flowing above that, jet black straight hair…

“…Buha!”

The moment he noticed that someone whose existence he had not even perceived until now was sitting at the immediate side of the bed, Haruyuki caused the sports drink to spurt out forcefully from his mouth and nose.

The moment he saw that a part of the water drops had also spattered onto his companion’s s.h.i.+rt, his body temperature and pulse ascended steeply again. He flapped his two hands and shouted in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

“S, so, sor, sorry! I-if, if we don’t hurry up and wipe it it’ll become a s-s-stain.”

Upon which the person sitting in the unadorned folding chair put the cooling bottle with a calm motion on the bed and spoke.

“Mm, is that so. Then let’s wipe it up.”

And then she lifted her two hands, took the hook-style ribbon, and with a pop began to remove the b.u.t.tons starting from the top of her open-collar s.h.i.+rt. The skin of her unbelievably pure white chest began to peep out, and furthermore the upper end of her smooth curves also fleetingly came into sight.