Accel World Vol 8 Chapter 6 (2/2)

“Hgwah!”

Haruyuki again let loose a queer voice and while greatly bending backward was unable to shut his eyelids, but fortunately—if that was the right word, there two hands stopped his violent action.

“It’s a joke. Don’t worry about me getting wet, it’s shape-memory polymer material that can be washed as it is.”

The person who had said that without changing her expression and who was reb.u.t.toning her s.h.i.+rt to as it was before was of course, the sole person who wore a black uniform in Umesato Middle, the student council vice president, Haruyuki’s «parent» Linker, and his legion master Kuroyukihime.

Returning to her original appearance, the beautiful person in black who had straightened her back tightly on the chair opened her mouth again with a facial expression that made one feel a faint tremor in the depths of her sternness.

“—Haruyuki-kun. A little earlier Hotta-sensei said it too; I too won’t say that going all out in PE is bad. However, since you went to the trouble of equipping your Neuro Linker, you need to heed its vital warning. This time ended with some minor dehydration, but if the worst comes to the worst, it could also be linked to a large accident.”

“U, understood, I’m sorry… Without thinking, I became entranced in the match…”

He had the intention of striving to do his best, but the result was only being laughed at by his cla.s.smates; in the end, during the match he had collapsed in a heap, and not only that his foolish demeanor had become known to even Kuroyukihime. A fair right hand extended out gently covered the left hand of Haruyuki, who had hung his head, downcast.

“You don’t have to apologize, I’m not particularly blaming you. However…don’t cause me to worry too much.”

In response to that voice whose volume had dropped, he raised his face, and with a facial expression of increased softness Kuroyukihime whispered.

“When I heard from Chiyuri-kun that you had collapsed, I thought I would faint too. I was nearly on the verge of using the forbidden physical acceleration command to run to the school infirmary.”

The forbidden command was «Physical Full Burst», permitted to be used only by level 9 Burst Linkers. It was treated as the higher ranked version of the «Physical Burst» command that had Haruyuki had almost used in his matchup with Is.h.i.+o, but the effect of its tremendousness was wholly incomparable. As for why, it accelerated not only one’s consciousness but also one’s real-world physical body’s movements close to the normal one hundred times greater.

Of course, the indemnifications were also inordinate. The user would lose ninety-nine percent of her acc.u.mulated Burst Points, putting her at the critical brink of losing all of her points. Kuroyukihime’s words were a joke, but in spite of that Haruyuki reflexively shook his head tremblingly.

“I, I’m glad you didn’t use it. Rather than saying that I collapsed, I was only a bit too tired and got giddy… —Then, it was Chiyu who let Senpai know?”

“Unh, it was almost the same time as when you were carried here. On that point, she’s pretty fair too.”

“…F, fair?”

Not catching her drift, he tilted his head in puzzlement; Kuroyukihime made a faint bitter laugh and with her eyes indicated the side to the left beside herself.

“Chiyuri-kun and Tak.u.mu-kun were also keeping you company for a while since the start of second period. Since they would be counted as absent at that rate I made them return to their cla.s.sroom. Since they’re extremely worried, it’d probably be better to send them a mail.”

“U, understood.”

Haruyuki nodded and launched the local net-exclusive mailer from his virtual desktop. To his two childhood friends, he quickly sent the report that he had regained consciousness and that there were no problems with his physical condition and his thanks for them having accompanied him. There, he suddenly became aware of something, looked at Kuroyukihime’s face, and questioned her.

“Um, is it okay if you don’t go to cla.s.s, Senpai..? Won’t the record of you skipping cla.s.s without leave be left in the school register file…”

“Oi, who do you think I am. In the school system, I put in proof of being a subst.i.tute health-care committee member, of course. Hotta-sensei willingly signed too.”

If he were met with that laugh along with those remarks, he could only reflect on how that was a completely boorish question. Kuroyukihime slightly changed the nuance of her smile, leaned somewhat forward, and whispered mischievously.

“To compensate Chiyuri-kun for her spirit of fair play, I did think about issuing her proof of being a subst.i.tute too, but this time she listened to my selfish desire. Because you see, even though yesterday I went so far as to use my ace in the hole at great pains and was able to become alone with you in the student council meeting room, we weren’t able to talk about much. Well, you did have some inevitable circ.u.mstances though.”

“Ah…hah…hahi…”

In response to the excessive beauty of her black pupils glittering close at hand, while involuntarily turning his voice inside out Haruyuki nodded.

If he thought back on it, during yesterday’s lunch break Kuroyukihime had suddenly marched into the cla.s.sroom of year 2, cla.s.s C and had shouted “I demand the immediate presence of the animal caretaker committee chairperson!” Haruyuki, who by a misunderstanding had been appointed to that post due to his candidacy, had prepared himself to be the object of anger for some reason and had followed her to the student council meeting room, but Kuroyukihime’s order of presence was a simple pretext for the purpose of becoming alone with him in a private room.

Needless to say Haruyuki was very happy to be able to talk with Kuroyukihime with just the two of them—it was a dreamlike experience beyond happy.

However, inside Haruyuki she was a far too important as well as precious existence. She was not only his «parent» and «legion master» as a Burst Linker. She was the «benefactor» who had rescued him from the swamp and had given him hope. She was the «master of swords» to whom he swore his absolute as well as eternal loyalty. Even with those words he was still far from able to tell the whole story. That was right—, preferably he should perhaps describe it in just one word like this. It was a «miracle».

Kuroyukihime, whose way of living was like aiming for a star in the far distance and pus.h.i.+ng one’s way there with one’s heart and soul, though there were some circ.u.mstances had fixed her eyes upon a human like Haruyuki, had spoken to him, and had extended her hand out to him: if one didn’t call that a miracle, then what? At present, in the center of Haruyuki’s world, she was equivalent to a dazzlingly scintillating, humongous jewel. She was exceedingly beautiful to the extent where it seemed if one’s hand touched her she would ephemerally disappear.

Though recently he had finally begun to be able to chat properly with others, just by being conscious of being alone with Kuroyukihime in a closed room, his heart rang with a thump, and his breathing became shallow. No, his current situation was even more critical than that of the one yesterday in the student council meeting room.

At any rate, in his surroundings were white, thick curtains tightly encircling them; Haruyuki was lying sideways on the bed; Kuroyukihime was pus.h.i.+ng her hand on the edge of the bed, leaning her body out, and gazing at Haruyuki.

At this rate if he kept silent, his thoughts would overshoot into an unbelievable territory, so Haruyuki forcibly pulled the control lever and resumed conversation.

“…Um, I’m sorry about yesterday. Now that I think about it, I also hadn’t properly explained the state of things, hadn’t I…”

“Mm…, well, I meant to grasp the outline of it from your mail, but…though I was thinking about asking about various things in detail, you brought about this incident, so it had completely slipped my mind.”

“I, I’m sorry…”

While nervously rubbing the fingertips of his two hands together, he apologized for the second time in a row.

Yesterday, why Haruyuki had returned from school at a dash was of course because he had apprehensions about Tak.u.mu’s situation. By no means were those groundless fears; he was nearly at the point of having his mind controlled by the «ISS Kit», but through his duel with Haruyuki he had regained himself, and due to the fight in the dead of night in the «BB central server», the Kit had also been completely destroyed.

After his duel with Ash Roller this morning, Haruyuki had roughly explained the circ.u.mstances thereabouts or so to the three people Kuroyukihime, Kurasaki Fuuko, and s.h.i.+nomiya Utai by mail, but it was quite impossible to sum up the particulars in a short piece of writing. Haruyuki himself had not precisely understood the occurrence in the central server, and he had another important matter before the «Imperial Palace escape strategy».

Namely, Ash Roller’s very unexpected «request».

Although he had a mountain’s worth of things he needed to tell Kuroyukihime, not knowing from where on earth to start, Haruyuki again held his tongue. In doing so, wholly as if she understood Haruyuki’s confusion and was trying to cool it down Kuroyukihime spoke tranquilly.

“Be that as it may, the fact that you tried hard in PE cla.s.s to the point of collapsing… This may be a rude way of putting it, but it was a little unexpected.”

“Y…yes, I was awfully surprised too…”

“Did you have some sort of change of heart?”

Questioned thus, he thought hard about it puzzlingly. Now that it was mentioned, he had the feeling that he did; it also seemed likely that nothing had changed.

“Um…it’s not that there was anything special in particular, but…after I made a bunch of blunders during the match, Taku said something to me. That “what’s important is your image.” That’s why I thought about ceasing only to play the match while carrying the «image of losing» at the least…and then, unawares it seemed that I got a little too serious. —Come to think of it, how did the match end after all…”

“According to Tak.u.mu-kun, it seems to have been a loss by a one point difference.”

“Is that…so?”

According to his hazy memory, Haruyuki’s team was three points behind with the remaining time of a few dozen seconds; moreover, they were taking the enemy ace Is.h.i.+o’s swift attacks. The fact that they had approached a one point difference probably meant that they had defended against those swift attacks and furthermore with a counterattack had stolen one goal, and there the match had concluded.

After he thought “No doubt Tak.u.mu had made an eye-opening counter, just as expected,” while she smiled Kuroyukihime said something surprising.

“Truthfully, the ones who carried you and transported you to the nurse’s office were Tak.u.mu and one other person, a member of the basketball team in your cla.s.s.”

“Eh…Is.h.i.+o, carried me?”

“Unh. He has a message for you. It was ‘This time was a complete defeat, but next time the same trick absolutely won’t work again’ apparently.”

“Huh…co, complete defeat!? But, wasn’t the match their side’s win…”

“He seems to have set a personal margin of winning where if he doesn’t win with at least a twenty point difference it’s a loss.”

“…Is, is that so.”

In response to his message, without knowing whether Is.h.i.+o was being humble or arrogant Haruyuki involuntarily laughed bitterly. Granted though, sure enough why this time Haruyuki had been able to continue to hinder Is.h.i.+o was because the opponent team had stubbornly refused to change strategies. If the next gym cla.s.s were basketball matches again, and furthermore if they had to confront Is.h.i.+o, there was no way that the simple trick of blocks using the AR display would pa.s.s anymore. It was the same as Brain Burst’s duels and territory battles. Even in the world over there, it was rare for the same strategy that had worked once to succeed a second time in a row. It was because one was not fighting AI but humans who possessed the power to imagine the future…

When he had absentmindedly thought that far, Haruyuki was suddenly aware of the precious «something» he had felt during the match beginning to be resuscitated into his head again.

“Ah…”

“Mm? What’s the matter?”

“No, well…it’s not anything of consequence, but…I mean, it might be an absurdly wayward guess, but…”

Backed by the gaze of Kuroyukihime, who was silently egging him on, Haruyuki moved his mouth, which was on the verge of stopping.

“…«From your consciousness an excessively strongly projected image crosses the system’s limitations and manifests itself.»”

In doing so, for an instant Kuroyukihime opened both her eyes wide and subsequently smiled kindly.

“The one who said that to you was undoubtedly Fuuko, right.”

“Ex…exactly. How did you know..?”

“I said it before, didn’t I. She is, to the utmost of my knowledge, the purest user of «positive Mind Power». Those are words typical of Fuuko, who believes in the superiority of the light side of the Incarnate system…”

It was unlikely that Haruyuki had completely understood the meaning of Kuroyukihime’s whisper. However, without venturing to interrogate her, he continued his words.

“The words we used right now were of course words explaining the Incarnate system of the Accelerated World. But during the basketball match I was told by Taku ‘your image is important,’ and somehow…I thought about it. Even in this real world…when we really try hard, I wonder if we aren’t doing the same thing… Of course, on this side we’re not able to use Incarnate techniques like superpowers, but even so…for example, the fact that I fought with that Is.h.i.+o in the basketball match, the fact that I was able to manage cleaning up the caretaker shed alone; those to me were miracles above superpowers. Umm, basically, what I want to say is…well…”

There Haruyuki’s verbalization ability finally reached its limit; afterward he could no longer do anything but flap his mouth open and closed like he always did.

However, fortunately it seemed that what he had to convey to Kuroyukihime had been conveyed. Her jet black pupils again opened wide, and from her bewitching lips she let out a thin sigh.

“…Haruyuki-kun. You always keep surprising me… I surely hadn’t thought that you would reach that stage that quickly and furthermore unaided…”

“Eh..? St, stage..?”

Peering close at hand into the eyes of Haruyuki, who, dumbfounded, had asked that back, Kuroyukihime nodded deeply.

“That’s right. The words that you spoke just now are the entrance to the second stage of the Incarnate system. To acquire the so-called «applied techniques», which surpa.s.ses the basic techniques of «range», «power», «defense», and «movement» expansion, you must master something in the imagination not through logic but through feelings. Master the power called the «imagination» given to us, which is such a vast, such a deep thing…”

“Ima…gi, nation…”

“Unh. Until now, you thought that the Incarnate system’s main point «override through one’s image» was nothing more than a bit of logic of the game system that only existed in the virtual world, right? However, that is wrong. Imagination hides a boundless power even in this real world. Of course, you can’t act in a way that ignores the laws of physics. Nevertheless, it’s possible to override walls that seem to be one’s absolute limits in borrowing the help of one’s power to imagine. Like how you proved so yourself in the basketball match.”

Those words of Kuroyukihime strongly shook a place in the deep recesses of Haruyuki’s heart, but at the same time a large bewilderment too was born. Before he was conscious of it he had leaned forward, and while fixing his eyes on Kuroyukihime, who was in the same posture, from close by, he asked her in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

“…The power of imagining causes one to cross one’s limits. Its foundation doesn’t change whether it’s in the Accelerated World or the real world. I have a feeling that I too have somehow been able to understand that. —However, what kind of relations.h.i.+p is there between that and the «second stage of the Incarnate system»..?”

In response to Haruyuki’s inquiry, Kuroyukihime did not respond right away. As if having been apprehended by hesitation in coming here she cast her eyes down and lightly bit her lip.

Haruyuki had the feeling that he was able to surmise that reason vaguely.

Kuroyukihime was carrying some sort of fear of the strength of the Mind Power she had acquired. She had misgivings about whether or not it was negative power that called on destruction and sorrow, not positive power like the type Fuuko—Sky Raker manipulated.

However, Haruyuki strongly believed that was not so. As for why, Kuroyukihime’s Incarnate techniques were—the only one he had seen was the long-range attack «Vorpal Strike», but that technique was so beautiful to the degree where it made one at a loss for words. Even if it concealed a fearsome power, there was no way a technique that beautiful could be negative imagination.

Haruyuki sidled up to her a further number of centimeters closer on the bed, made his left hand softly touch Kuroyukihime’s right hand, and spoke.

“Senpai. I was taught valuable things, first by Raker-san, and then by Niko, about the Incarnate system. However…my «parent» is you. I want to know everything about you, senpai. I want you to teach me everything. I implore you…please teach me your Mind Power.”

A reply did not come back immediately.

The June sun of half past ten in the morning had already climbed close to its zenith, so light from the window did not reach the secluded corner of the nurse’s office. In the s.p.a.ce faintly illuminated by the dimmed light panels and cut off in a rectangular shape by pure white curtains, only the two’s breathing faintly resounded.

Before long, the fingers of Kuroyukihime’s right hand moved softly and gripped Haruyuki’s fingers in a way as to entwine them. Following that, a quiet whisper.

“…If so, first we’ll need a direct link-use cable.”

On Kuroyukihime’s face, which she had lifted up, there only existed the almost usual smile that was shrouded somewhere in mysteries. Haruyuki gently exhaled and then spoke while becoming slightly fl.u.s.tered.

“Ah…I, I’m sorry, my cable’s inside my bag in the cla.s.sroom…”

“Mine too. But they probably at least have cables here too.”

While murmuring, Kuroyukihime manipulated her virtual desktop with light fingering. Probably having searched the list of equipment, straightaway she nodded, parted her fingers from Haruyuki’s left hand, stood up, and disappeared smoothly to the other side of the curtains.

He heard the opening and closing sound of a drawer; sure enough a white XSB cable was grasped in the hand of Kuroyukihime, who had returned immediately. However—.

“Is…isn’t that a little short..?”

The moment he saw the cable, which seemed to be only about fifty centimeters long no matter how he looked at it, Haruyuki blurted that out. But Kuroyukihime lightly shrugged her shoulders.

“If so, it’ll be fine if we make it reach. Fortunately, it’s outside of the view of the social cameras here.”

“Eh…b, but, how.”

As he had begun to say that, Haruyuki was forced to swallow his words down. As for why, it was because Kuroyukihime had placed her body on the bed with a heave-ho and a completely nonchalant bearing.

“Eh, um, well…”

He belatedly noticed that he was still in his white gym suit and drew his body back. Due to the fact that it was made of quick-drying material, his sweat had already dried, but he definitely wasn’t odorless.

However, without any sign of minding that, Kuroyukihime reached out her left hand, softly pushed Haruyuki’s chest, and made him lie supine on the bed. At his immediate left, she lay sprawled out sideways and directed a mischievous smile at him from an exceedingly close distance.

Page 177

As usual the clutch controlling his ability to think ran idly, and a breath with a hint of laughter gently touched Haruyuki’s ear, which was about to blow up into the red zone out of excessive throbbing.

“Fufu…, it’s probably fine if you don’t get that nervous at such a late point. The night before the «Hermes Cord Race», didn’t we have the relations.h.i.+p of sleeping a night in the same bed?”

“Hah, hahi, th-th-that’s true, but.”

In the Accelerated World, the above-mentioned race event had taken place a mere two weeks ago, but since far too many things had happened since then, it also felt like the faraway past. However, the memory of that one night was vividly engraved into Haruyuki’s mind.

At that time too, in the bed they similarly had dueled through a direct connection—though Haruyuki had unleashed his newly mastered «Aerial Combo» on Kuroyukihime and had challenged her, due to her «gentle redirection» of an even more advanced skill he had been easily dealt with, had ultimately suffered her level 8 special technique «Death by Embracing», and had been one-hit KO’d.

…Somehow, I have a hunch that this time seems like it’s going to become something similar too…

While Haruyuki thought that, Kuroyukihime brought one end of the XSB cable only fifty centimeters long near his Neuro Linker. Reflexively, he began to distance his neck, but with his resistance in vain it was inserted.

“…Ah…”

Not heeding Haruyuki, who had let out an odd voice, following that Kuroyukihime connected the opposite side’s plug into her piano black communication device equipped on her slim neck. In his vision, the wired connection warning blinked red.

“…Yesterday, with my selfishness I made you use one point. Today, let’s make it my treat.”

The meaning of the words whispered thus was not that both of them would simultaneously accelerate and dive into the Initial Acceleration s.p.a.ce the Blue World; only Kuroyukihime would accelerate and would promptly encroach on Haruyuki.

“Y…yes, please do so.”

Before the eyes of Haruyuki, who had replied so, her light rosy lips slightly intoned «Burst Link».

Immediately after, an acceleration sound resembling a dry clap of thunder reverberated fully throughout his hearing.

References:

1. ^ Sound effect.

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