The End and the Beginning Read online

  “Wha—?” he cried out in surprise, looking back over one shoulder and then the other. But all he could see were Crow’s original silver wings. The string of characters METATRON WINGS, displayed in tiny font directly below his health gauge to indicate he had an Enhanced Armament equipped, melted away from the right into tiny pixels and vanished.

  “W-wait!” Haruyuki called out desperately, looking at the snowy-white particles dancing up into the air. “He’s still got Niko! Just a little longer…Help me for just a little longer!”

  But of course, he would get no reply.

  Except he did.

  “Calm yourself, little bird.”

  “…Huh?”

  “I am still here.”

  With these words echoing in his mind, Haruyuki saw the particles floating in the air concentrate into a point. The small white ball instantly transformed into a more complex shape: a sharply tapered spindle facing downward with a thin ring floating above it.

  Streamlined wings stretched out from both sides of the spindle. The whole thing shone with a white light and looked like one of the AR icons his Neurolinker displayed in his field of view. From the top of the ring to the bottom tip of the spindle, it was a mere fifteen centimeters long.

  “Wh-what is this?” he muttered, peering at the mysterious icon.

  “Not ‘this.’” He heard the intimidating voice once more. “Call me Lord Metatron.”

  “Lord…Meta. Tron? So then— Wh-whaaaat?!” he shouted without thinking, hurriedly clamping his hands over his mouth. He looked back into the room behind him and checked that the massive silhouette of the Enemy was still motionless before turning an intent gaze on the mysterious body of light once again. “So, Metatron, you mean the Archangel Metatron we fought at Midtown—the one in control of its main body? You were on my back this whole time? You didn’t just give me your wings?”

  In his great surprise, he forgot to say “Lord,” but fortunately, it seemed that the 3-D icon was willing to overlook it.

  “I believe I told you that I would lend you my strength,” it replied, icon blinking randomly with pale light. “The wings I extended to you are one part of my being. Thus, it is possible to have two-way communication with our true self. Although to do this, it is necessary to turn into a terminal for a time.”

  “Uh. Um. So then, that’s…The Metatron Wings are an Enhanced Armament, but they’re also Metatron itself. Which means they don’t entirely belong to me, is that it?”

  It was like—no, in a certain sense, it was one of those items with a whole history, the super-high-level equipment you got after clearing a super-hard mission, only to have it just disappear when it wanted or talk to you a lot or whatever. That was what Haruyuki figured as he spoke anyway.

  The icon’s response to this, however, was extremely cold. “Essentially, the idea that I would be under the control of you little warriors, even if only a part of me, for no compensation whatsoever is out of the realm of possibility. To obtain our Four Holy Powers, you must crush the first form with special conditions—and then defeat the second form. Speaking for myself, there is not one warrior who has ever accomplished this.”

  He had spoken with Metatron any number of times during the fight at Midtown, but belatedly, he marveled at how perfectly they could understand each other through words. The Gods Suzaku and Seiryu had spoken insofar as speaking goes, but in contrast with the way they unilaterally issued statements, Metatron appeared to digest what Haruyuki said before it responded. If it was an AI, it was pretty high level—Haruyuki hurriedly yanked his thoughts back from this admiring train of thought and repeated the words spoken to him one at a time.

  “Special. Conditions?” He once again visualized the earlier fight in the back of his mind.

  The first form had to be the super-massive Enemy that Haruyuki recognized as Archangel Metatron with the spherical head and four wings attached to the long torso. In which case, was the Enemy that appeared after they crushed that the second form? Meaning that Haruyuki and his friends had, without knowing it, cleared these special conditions or whatever—even if accidentally?

  He opened his mouth to ask just what those conditions were when he realized, finally, that now was not the time for leisurely conversation. He had to go after Black Vise and get Niko back as soon as possible. “Right. Um, I super-appreciate you helping me out so far. But it’s not over yet.”

  The slowly blinking 3-D icon had nothing equivalent to a face, so he looked up at the ring part and continued earnestly.

  “My really good friend’s been taken by a bad guy. I think this is his base or something, but while I was fighting the Enemy, I lost sight of them. So I’m going to smash through the ceiling and go outside. Please, Metatron, help me a little longer, just until I save Niko—my friend.”

  He didn’t know how much of this Metatron, a non-Burst Linker—and not only that, a hostile Enemy of the highest rank after the Four Gods—would understand, but Haruyuki put every emotion into the eyes he turned on the icon. Finally, the flickering of the light sped up, and in his mind, he heard the same curt voice.

  “I have no concept of good and evil as you do, and I have no interest in the squabbles of little warriors.”

  “……”

  “However, I have no intention of breaking my vow to lend you my strength. The reason I took this terminal form is because you were on the verge of taking an extremely foolish action.”

  “Huh? Foolish…action?” Haruyuki parroted, struggling with whether or not he should be happy about what he had just been told.

  The icon flashed brightly, as if nodding, and continued in its cool voice. “Earlier, you were about to try to smash the ceiling of this structure with your fists. If you had enacted this experiment, you would have been hurt instead.”

  “What?! But…I’ve smashed a bunch of buildings of the Twilight stage…”

  “If this Tawailait stayj, or what have you, that you speak of is the current field attribution HL06, then normally built structures do indeed have low strength. However, this structure is the exception to that rule. This would have been clear if you had paid greater attention to the attack of the mid-class Being earlier. This is why I call it foolish.”

  He was well accustomed to being scolded in the Accelerated World, but he never thought the day would come when it was an Enemy taking him to task. A bit struck by this even as he chafed to get moving again, Haruyuki guessed at the meaning of the three words he’d never heard before.

  He was pretty sure that attribution meant characteristic, so that word probably indicated the attribute of the Unlimited Neutral Field. So then HL06 was the code given to the Twilight stage? The last mention of Being probably referred to a creature.

  “Um, Being? Do you mean the Enemy?”

  “I do not care for this appellation of Enemy that you all use. Refrain from it in the future.”

  “R-right! …So then, what was so obvious?”

  “That Being struck the floor and walls several times with its sword, but they were not damaged in the least. If this were a normal HL06 structure, they would have been severely damaged.”

  Haruyuki looked back, dumbfounded, and peered at the space behind him. Just as Metatron had noted, there was not so much as a scratch on the surface of the floor, against which the knight-type Enemy’s sword had created such a spectacular show of sparks. He had no idea why that would be, but given that the building could easily withstand a Beast-level sword attack, it wouldn’t crumble to pieces at a strike carrying the full propulsive power of four pairs of wings—in fact, there was a strong possibility that his fist would be what disintegrated, unable to endure the impact.

  He looked farther back into the room to check on the status of the knight while he was at it and found the massive body still crouched on the floor. It looked like it would probably stay quiet for the time being, and Haruyuki let out a small sigh of relief.

  But of course, in that instant, a vivid scarlet light flashed beneath the slits car
ved into the Enemy’s helmet. Bits and pieces of metal armor clanking, the knight slowly rose to its feet.

  “Gah!” Haruyuki let out a low cry and took a step back. As if to take his place, Metatron’s terminal moved forward. The pure-white light flickered with dazzling intensity and reflected off the knight’s armor. The strobe light appeared to convey some kind of information; the Enemy froze in place.

  Then the massive creature—over three meters tall—turned on its heel as though it had been mentally overpowered by the 3-D icon, a mere fifteen centimeters in height. The Enemy continued in that direction, departing, its weighty steps ringing out, and Haruyuki stared, stunned.

  Once the giant had vanished through the opposite doorway and he could no longer hear its footfalls, Haruyuki asked, ever so timidly, “That En—I mean, Being—did it maybe leave on your orders?”

  The icon spun around. “I assume we do not have the time for obvious questions,” it said, sounding exasperated somehow. “It was you who said we must find your comrade warrior as soon as possible.”

  “Oh! Y-yeah. But if I can’t smash the walls or the ceiling, how am I supposed to look for her?”

  “What I promised to lend you was strength, not knowledge. You must decide yourself in what direction to move; what should be accomplished.”

  Thus chastised, he couldn’t stand there complaining any further. He should have simply been deeply grateful to Metatron for stopping him from recklessly crashing into the ceiling. And that the Legend-class Enemy—who could’ve instantly annihilated Haruyuki and his friends at Midtown Tower if it had felt like it—was helping him out at all was a significant bit of good fortune in and of itself. Better to get moving right away instead of standing here, twisting himself into negative, worried knots. So. Which way to go to save Niko?

  “…This way!” Haruyuki shouted, kicking off the floor. Not to the right in the passageway, nor the left, nor upward; he charged back into the first room, cut across the broad floor, and flew out the door on the opposite side, as if chasing after the Enemy Metatron had gone to the trouble of neutralizing for him.

  With exits A and B out of the hall, why had Black Vise chosen A? Maybe because the knight-type Enemy was approaching via door B? It might not have attacked Vise himself because of the taming, but it would have targeted Niko in his arms. Maybe that was why he couldn’t use door B?

  In which case, Haruyuki could assume that the direction from which the Enemy appeared and into which it retreated was itself a key section of the base. If Vise had taken the long way around and was heading for that center, there was still the chance that Haruyuki could catch up to him.

  The 3-D icon hovered silently by Haruyuki’s side as he ran. It wasn’t clear how long he had left until Metatron’s promise to lend him power expired, but all he could do was pray that it wasn’t before he rescued Niko.

  Fortunately, unlike the other exit, beyond this doorway was a single straight path. He could see the back of the slow-moving knight up ahead, but he ignored it and kept running. Kashak! Kashak! He slipped by the massive feet treading on the floor and passed the knight. He’d expected this, but it showed no signs of coming after him.

  “Just in case, I shall give you fair warning, you who lacks knowledge.” The icon bobbing along in the air spoke to him first, unusually enough.

  “Wh-what?”

  “The reason I was able to render that Being to the rear non-offensive is because the control state due to the abominable silver crown was released. Be warned that I cannot interfere with any new Being you might encounter up ahead, until you destroy the silver crown.”

  “G-got it.” Haruyuki managed to wrap his brain around the meaning of this soon enough and bobbed his head up and down as he ran. “But the reason I managed to break the crown on the Being back there is thanks to the wing attack with the Metatron Wings.”

  He’d intended to suggest that with that Enhanced Armament in terminal mode, he might not be able to break the crown so easily, but Metatron’s response was cold, as always.

  “It is not a ‘wing attack.’ Call it Ektenia.”

  “…R-right.” The laser attack had the ability name Trisagion, so he guessed the wing attack also had a proper name. He had no idea what either word meant, but he assented at any rate and turned his gaze back to the path ahead.

  The straight line of the hall finally appeared to connect with the next room several meters ahead. Nearly a hundred meters away from the first room—meaning this base was relatively enormous. The Acceleration Research Society had to have been occupying a building somewhere in the Unlimited Neutral Field, but facilities of this size were fairly limited, weren’t they? So why hadn’t their base been discovered yet?

  Haruyuki had pressed unprecedentedly deep into the central pillar of the Society, yet now he was assaulted with the sense that things were only going to get more ominous, and he wrapped his left hand around his right arm as he ran.

  “…Metatron,” he spoke without thinking as he realized all over again how much courage he got from the presence of the small icon floating beside him. “Thanks.”

  “Refrain from pointless utterances,” the icon replied briefly.

  “Right,” he responded, pulling his head in. Haruyuki was gradually coming to think of the Legend-class Enemy with the name of Archangel as a strict teacher.

  Arriving at the entrance to the next room, he stopped and peered inside from the edge of the wall. The configuration closely resembled the first room, but openings were built into all four walls of this one. From where Haruyuki was standing, the doors to the left and right seemed to connect to new passages, but he could see stairs leading up beyond the doorway ahead. The enormous space was deserted; there was no sign of a new Enemy or Black Vise.

  Haruyuki wrestled briefly in the back of his mind with the question of whether he had been wrong in assuming Vise was taking the long way around to this room and whether or not he should go back to the first room and head down the other passage when—

  A spot on the ivory white floor flashed red. As if sucked in by it, he moved into the room and took a few steps before crouching down. With the outstretched fingers of his right hand, he gently grabbed the object that had reflected the light, an almost microscopic crimson something. There was no mistaking this color; this was a fragment of the cracked armor of the Red King, Scarlet Rain. Solid proof that Vise had passed through this room no more than a minute or two earlier.

  “Niko…” As her name slipped past his lips, the crimson fragment lost its life as an object, scattered into fine particles of light, and disappeared. He clenched his hand tightly and lifted his face.

  The exit through which Vise had disappeared had no doubt been a large detour that connected with the right or left entrance to this room. Which meant he had gone up the stairs on the far side. Thanks to his shortcut through the central passage, Haruyuki had managed to largely make up for Vise’s head start.

  “Just wait, Black Vise!” Haruyuki called in a measured voice and turned toward the stairs. But the floor before him suddenly changed from the snowy-white of marble to the jet-black of coal tar. Hurriedly putting on the brakes, he jumped a step back.

  Concentric waves spread out in the lustrous black floor, the center puffing up in a circle. Just like the room he’d arrived in, there appeared to be an exit to the shadow corridor in here as well. Haruyuki reflexively braced himself to attack. Would it be an Enemy that appeared or a new member of the Society—?

  Plrmp. With a viscous, watery sound, two human-shaped silhouettes leapt out, one after the other. Not Enemies, given that they were basically the same size as Crow. They shot up into the air before falling to the floor in a pile a ways off.

  “Nngh!”

  “Ouch!”

  Both of these slightly underwhelmed voices were almost too familiar to him. He released his fists, ready for a surprise attack, and opened both eyes wide as he shouted, “Ta-Taku?! And…Chiyu?!”

  The large blue avatar pinned to the grou
nd and the small green avatar on top of him raised their heads toward Haruyuki at the same time. No matter how he looked at them, they were none other than Cyan Pile and Lime Bell.

  2

  According to the story Haruyuki was told later, it took Kuroyukihime and the others he’d left in the park at Midtown Tower a moment or two to get moving again. Haruyuki had called to them immediately before he’d flown off in pursuit of Black Vise: “Pard, please chase down Argon!” and “Someone, leave through the nearest portal and pull Niko’s cable!”

  The first to leap into action had been Blood Leopard. She raced off with the full strength of Beast Mode and receded into the distance in the blink of an eye, in hot pursuit of the Quad Eyes Analyst, who had been covering Vise with her laser attack from the roof of a distant building.

  Six people remained in the park: Kuroyukihime, Fuko, Akira, Utai, Takumu, and Chiyuri. But Utai had been shot in the chest by four of Argon’s lasers, and she lay cradled in Fuko’s arms, unable to move. Chiyuri had restored the shrine maiden’s health gauge with her Citron Call ability as soon as they regrouped, but it would take a little time to recover from the severe shock of the surprise attack. So the group would have to split into two, half backing Leopard up, while the others went off in search of a portal to stop Rain’s acceleration.

  Just as Kuroyukihime made this decision, a huge explosion rocked the north side of the park. Turning her head, she saw a pillar of red flames rising up from one end of the pale line of buildings. She suddenly tensed, fearing an attack on Leopard.

  “It’s all right,” Akira murmured quickly. “That’s Pard’s work.”

  “Is it? Then…” Kuroyukihime brought her gaze back to her Legion members. “Pile, Bell, you go after Leopard!”

  Takumu and Chiyuri agreed in unison.

  “Leave it to us!”

  “Understood, Master!”

  The words still hanging in the air, the pair set to the north. Without waiting to see them off, Kuroyukihime turned to Fuko and Akira.