Accel World: Flight Towards the Blue Sky Read online

  Chapter 1

  “Wh…y?”

  Haruyuki heard the cracked and crushed sound from his own throat.

  “Why……Chiyu?”

  The cold wind of the «Purgatory» stage blew away the hollow question, and scattered it to the yellow sky above. But, there was no answer. Standing still on top of the school building’s roof, the bright green avatar «Lime Bell»—Kurashima Chiyuri hid her face in order to avoid Haruyuki’s gaze, and sat down with a scraping noise while grasping the roof railing with her right hand.

  Instead, what responded to his question was a very low, warped laughter.

  “Fu……fu, fu.”

  On the ground a little ways away, the lens-like mask of the dusk-colored avatar, which had thrown down its limbs and was lying on its back, was shaking bit by bit.

  “Fufu…fu, amazing…how amazing…This is the «healing ability»…truly a miraculous power…fufu, hahaha…”

  As he laughed quietly, the avatar’s severe gashes from only dozens of seconds before were healed as if they had never been, and his whole body glowed a glossy dark purple. The recovery phenomenon didn’t stop at just the body, but even restored his right arm’s flamethrower which should have been destroyed.

  Haruyuki—«Silver Crow», and standing behind him, Takumu—«Cyan Pile», at the end of a hard-fought battle on the field of Umesato Middle School, had managed to crush the dusk avatar «Dusk Taker». Both of his arms had been blow off in an aerial battle with Haruyuki and had been pierced to the ground by Takumu’s special technique, and all that was left was to go make his HP gauge run out completely with a single ordinary attack.

  However, the one who interrupted that was Lime Bell, suddenly emerging from on top of the roof.

  As soon as he was wrapped in a shower of light emitted from her right arm just now, Dusk Taker’s HP had radically recovered, and even his right side was brilliantly glowing now.

  “Why…Why, Chiyu!!”

  Haruyuki looked up at the school building again, and screamed out as if tearing his throat.

  Dusk Taker was the enemy. The first year student who controlled that avatar, Noumi Seiji didn’t appear on the matching list even though he possessed «Brain Burst», and licentiously used his acceleration ability in kendo matches and real tests.

  Not stopping there, he even cornered Haruyuki to just before the point of school expulsion by setting a trap, and had taken away Silver Crow’s wings in a match using his special technique «Demonic Commandeer». After somehow cheering up his heart that had been completely broken then and getting a new power at the end of a long struggle, Haruyuki had managed to grab victory despite becoming torn up in the process.

  Now pushed past the edge of confusion, Haruyuki could do nothing but widen his eyes beneath his silver face and stare at Lime Bell.

  Chiyuri didn’t try to say anything, and just kept clenching the roof fence and hiding her face beneath the brim of her huge hat.

  As soon as he saw her delicate shoulders trembling intensely as if enduring something—

  —Why? It’s obvious.

  —Noumi. Noumi Seiji probably contacted Chiyuri during today’s lunch break, and demanded that she obey him. Like he did with Haruyuki, he took advantage of some weakness and threatened her. That was the only possibility.

  As Haruyuki’s gaze turned back, while creakily laughing even further as he remained lying down, Dusk Taker opened up the black wings on his back fully.

  The wings that seemed to cut through darkness struck the air slowly, and the slender avatar gradually stood up as if pulled by an invisible thread.

  “Fufufu…ku, kukukuku…”

  The volume of his gloating voice increased very fast. Inside his visor which had similar luster to the compound eyes of an insect, two reddish-purple eyes blinked intensely.

  “Kuku, ha, hahaha. «Flying ability». And «healing ability». These two incredibly rare powers…are now both mine…”

  Now completely standing up, the avatar stopped and simply floated about thirty centimeters above the ground. Energetically opening up his regenerated arms, Dusk Taker pointed his ten claw-like fingers towards the sky. A dusky-dark aura rushed out like mucus from those hands.

  “Aah…What a wonderful feeling! This pleasant feeling of robbing! This almighty feeling of stealing and trampling on someone’s dreams, their hopes, their potential…it’s just so irresistible…!!”

  That ugly joy coming from the voice of a young boy spread across the field as a physical pressure, and shook Haruyuki’s badly-bruised avatar.

  But, without being conscious of that, Haruyuki squeezed out a voice covered in the noise of various feelings from beneath his helmet.

  “……Y, ou.”

  He took a single step toward the dusk-colored avatar that was floating at a slightly high place.

  “Noumi…what did you do? What did you do to Chiyu?”

  Hearing that, Dusk Taker slowly moved his face and looked down at Haruyuki.

  Within that half-gross spherical surface, his two thin eyes slowly blinked once, and—

  He formed a smile filled with the most venomous ridicule in silence.

  Haruyuki’s sight was suddenly dyed in the color of blood. All his confused feelings converged onto a single needle-like point. That is, onto overwhelming hatred for Noumi Seiji.

  “Nou…mi…”

  While muttering that, Haruyuki unconsciously gathered his remaining right hand’s fingers into the shape of a sword. A high resonance ‘IIIIIIIN’ sound came out, and silver light flickered on his fingertips.

  As if the swirling hatred had become noise and was the formation of his «silver sword» image, the light was quite unstable. Without caring about that, Haruyuki greatly brandished his right arm and tried to slice it towards Dusk Taker.

  But, an instant earlier.

  “U…aaaaa!!”

  Along a cry that seemed to vomit blood, there was a blue shadow which passed by Haruyuki from the right.

  It was Cyan Pile. His armor burned from the previous battle and still emitting smoke, the heavy weight-class avatar rushed forward while unleashing a rumbling sound over the ground.

  “You made Chii-chan…cryyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”

  Takumu, who never lost his calm at any kind of time and should have been the one who held back Haruyuki’s rampage, tried to recklessly jump at Noumi while yelling like a little kid.

  Even in the face of the raging heavy tank-like charge, Dusk Taker didn’t try to move away even a little.

  He slowly raised his slender right hand and fully opened out his five sharp fingers. At the same time, he spat out a short sentence.

  “Disappear already.”

  *BYUAAA!!* Along with a different vibrating sound, his right hand was wrapped in a glistening purple wave of nothingness. It soon changed shape, and claws, no, sickles extended out longer and longer from the tip of all his fingers.

  The five sickles casually wrapped around Cyan Pile’s huge body from the front as he charged at him. The points of the curving long claws touched both sides of Cyan Pile’s neck, his right side, his left shoulder and his left side, and then—

  Immediately after, those claws closed together without any resistance.

  “……!!”

  Before the eyes of the silently gasping Haruyuki, the upper body of the blue heavy weight-class avatar was split into several parts.

  His head and arms flew through the air while releasing a terrifying amount of sparks from their cut sections, and rolled onto the ground after brushing against Dusk Taker’s body. Finally, his still charging lower body fell down with a grave sound.

  Following a slight time lag, as if saying that t
he system recognized the damage only after the phenomenon of being cutting apart, Cyan Pile’s HP gauge suddenly began to decrease. Changing to yellow as it reduced to half and dying red when it reached the remaining 20 percent, it continued decreasing in width, and then—

  Reached zero.

  The wreckage of the cut-apart avatar scattered into pieces of bluish-white polygons and disappeared. Before Haruyuki’s eyes, a system message signifying that Dusk Taker had destroyed Cyan Pile appeared.

  “……Ku…ku, ku, fu, ha.”

  Mincing laugher dripped out from the dusk-colored avatar’s mouth.

  “The ones known as loser…are always so comical. Without even trying to admit they were defeated, they struggle in an unseemly manner and in the end have even the last of their pride taken away. Though I thought Mayuzumi-senpai was more the intelligent-type, he completely disappointed me. Well, after all, even with a brain, he has that muscular macho avatar, kukuku, fufu, hahahahaha!!”

  Radiating a pronounced dark aura from both his arms, Dusk Taker laughed hysterically.

  While being bathed in that voice, Haruyuki stared at the spot where Takumu had vanished several seconds ago, and then looked at Chiyuri, who was still crouching small on the roof of the school.

  Standing stock-still, the sword of silver light on his right hand flickered little by little and then vanished.

  He hadn’t lost his fighting spirit. It was the opposite. Like a blazing flame, a brutal destructive urge coursed through the inside of his avatar, and was disturbing Haruyuki’s mental concentration.

  Hate. He wanted to destroy. He wanted to smash up the duel avatar called Dusk Taker—no, the mind of Noumi Seiji that was lodged inside it, to mince it apart, to tear it into shreds and trample over it.

  The world already wasn’t a virtual game field anymore, nor a battle where numerical points of damage were exchanged back and forth.

  Until now, in every game he had played including «Brain Burst», Haruyuki, while feeling frustration towards enemies who defeated him, had felt no hatred towards the real-life players who controlled those avatars.

  But, right now was different. The temperature of the dark hatred that flowed through the blood vessels of his entire body easily exceeded that of frustration.

  ——Then, destroy.

  Suddenly, someone whispered from right behind him.

  ——Destroy, eat. Devour his flesh, drain his blood, steal everything from him.

  It was a familiar voice. Haruyuki had definitely heard that warped low voice that was mixed with a metallic overtone at some point, somewhere.

  But, before he could trace the memory, an intense cold feeling like a needle of ice thrusting into him formed in the center of his back. It pierced deeply between his shoulder blades, penetrated all the way to Haruyuki’s heart, and from there released a liquid metal-like chill through his entire body.

  The chilling hunger fused together with his burning hate, and at that instant—

  His vision squeezed and contracted to the center.

  The gold-green ground of the Purgatory field, the school building with an organism-like form, Lime Bell hanging her head on the roof, it all disappeared into the swaying darkness. The only thing he saw was the still high-pitched laughing Dusk Taker.

  “Nou……mi.”

  A moan with the same metallic effect as the voice he had heard before leaked out from Haruyuki’s throat.

  “Noumi…You…you……”

  All of his raging feelings flowed into the tip of his remaining right hand as if pulled there.

  In order to activate the «Incarnate System»—the skill which intervened in the image control system of the Brain Burst program and caused a phenomenon that exceeded the limits of the game, absurdly deep concentration was needed. In truth, the «sword of light» that was given form due to Haruyuki’s mind had vanished the instant he was seized with hatred towards Noumi.

  In spite of that.

  Suddenly, a very long sword extended out from Silver Crow’s right hand along with a grave ‘ZUAAA!’ vibrating sound.

  However, its color wasn’t the clear white of earlier.

  As if drawing in and drowning out all light, a jet-black sword. It had a far deeper color of hungry darkness than the dark purple needles that Noumi had formed.

  “……Hmm?”

  Noticing Silver Crow’s unusual phenomenon, Dusk Taker stopped laughing and gave a short mutter.

  “Oya…Do you still intend to do something, Arita-senpai? Do you intend to follow your companion’s lead and happily expose the same unsightly behavior?”

  Haruyuki had no mental room to respond to that mocking. He felt his thoughts and feelings being sucked into his right hand’s sword. Besides that, the only thing that existed in him was the extreme impulse that only wanted to destroy the enemy in front of him into minced pieces.

  ——That’s right. Eat. Devour.

  The brutal voice whispered in the center of his head.

  As if urged on by that, he took a step forward with his right foot.

  Immediately after, he kicked off the ground savagely.

  “U…oaaaaa!!”

  While howling, he raised the dark sword in his right hand high above his head. He placed the speed of his charge, the entire weight of his avatar, and all of his raging hatred into the sword edge, and aimed to cut down the face of the floating Dusk Taker.

  It should have been impossible for the kendo player Noumi to not avoid the direct slash from Haruyuki who had no plan. But, the purple avatar didn’t try to move even a little from where he was, and like he did to Cyan Pile, tried to catch the black blade with only his opened right hand.

  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 passed 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 class…

  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 class.