Accel World: Floating Bridge in Starlight Read online

—Here!

  He kicked off the ground to step out of the way with a timing just slightly faster than earlier, and at that instant.

  The top of the sharp horn directly hit Haruyuki’s left shoulder.

  “Uah!”

  Involuntarily letting out a shout from the intense impact, Haruyuki was helplessly blown away. He crashed into the ground while spinning, and without stopping he rebounded back high in the air. Since he would get additional damage if he fell like this, he somehow managed to make himself land on his feet to avoid that at least.

  Even so, though, Haruyuki’s health gauge had decreased about 20% from just the horn attack. A deep gouge was dug into his left shoulder’s armor, releasing crackling sparks. A sharp pain that was characteristic of receiving large damage locally ran through his nerves, but Haruyuki felt more surprise than pain.

  The timing should have been perfect. So then why had he been completely hit by the horn attack that should have been slower than a bullet?

  The answer was given from the mouth of Frost Horn, who stood up to his full height a little further away.

  “Uhahahaha! Are you surprised, bird-man! You might not know since you always look down from the sky, but my stylish horns get longer while within «Frosted Circle»! They rise strongly and sturdily!”

  “…W-What did you say…”

  While dumbfounded, Haruyuki focused his eyes, and saw that, indeed, the cone-shaped horns extending from the large water-colored avatar’s shoulders and forehead were thickly wrapped in ice and seemed to be longer than they were when where the battle started.

  Furthermore, their size still seemed to be increasing moment by moment. In other words, no matter how many times Haruyuki memorized the distance and interval of his tackle attacks, it would be useless.

  “How is it, this! Is a real man’s! weapon! Uhahanohaa!”

  In response to Horn’s loud laughter, applauses of ‘yeah, yeah!’ and retorts like ‘How vulgar’ rained down from the surrounding gallery.

  Listening to it all, Haruyuki sucked in a deep breath, and then breathed out.

  —It seems I was mistaken about this.

  Fighting recklessly without choosing one's opponent and fighting by destroying one’s style and just bulldozing forward are both similarly mistaken. Thinking I could win without any strategy in the enemy’s arena was the same as making light of my opponent. I should have fought by mustering all my ability from the beginning against this opponent. And if I don’t do so, I’ll have no chance of winning.

  —From here on, I’m going full-throttle!

  Making a fist with both hands and drawing them to either side of his body, Haruyuki started unfolding the wings on his back. With the first damage he had given and the damage he had received just now, his special technique gauge was about half-filled. First, he would retrieve Chiyuri and fly up towards the sky. He would then wait for the Frosted Circle to be canceled, and then defeat Tourmaline Shell first with another double dive attack—

  Haruyuki formed that strategy in his mind, but then experienced an unexpected phenomenon and cried out.

  “Geh…!”

  For some reason, his wings wouldn’t unfold. When he promptly turned to look at his back, he saw that frost was sticking to his folded metal wings, most likely acting as a glue that prevented them from unfolding.

  Watching Haruyuki as he frantically moved his hands to his back and tried to rub off the frost, Horn shouted.

  “Uhoh, somehow! I sense! A cha~~nce!”

  Lowering his waist, this time he took a position to dash with the remarkably larger horn on his forehead in front.

  Haruyuki’s gauge had lost 20% from just the shoulder tackle. He absolutely couldn’t allow himself to be hit by what seemed to be Horn’s sure-kill technique. However, even if he abandoned doing a counter attack and ran out of the way, the situation would just gradually get worse. Something, something, he had to do something—

  “Teiyaah—!!”

  It was at that moment that a high-spirited yell resounded.

  When he looked in its direction for a moment, his eyes beheld the scene of Lime Bell catching Tourmaline Shell’s palm strike with her right hand and then flinging him over her shoulder with a one-armed shoulder throw of excellent form.

  *SUPO—N* The thrown Shell fell somewhere behind her about 10 meters away. However, it was unfortunate. The effectiveness of a throwing technique was at the lowest in a grassland or sand stage like this «Primeval Forest». The blue-green avatar started to jump back up immediately without having received much damage.

  But, the true aim of that shoulder throw seemed to be something else.

  Chiyuri turned around without looking at where her thrown enemy was going, and cried out while hoisting the large bell in her left hand up high in the air.

  “«Citron Ca——ll»!!”

  As she swung down her bell, a lime-green light was sent out from it along with a beautiful bell sound. The light headed straight towards Haruyuki, and then—

  Passed right by his left arm and disappeared into the fog behind him.

  “Wha……”

  Haruyuki’s dumbfounded voice was overlapped by loud laughter from Frost Horn.

  “Uhaha! Light beam techniques have their hit rate decreased by 30% within the «Circle»! If you’re a real man! Fight with! Your body!!”

  *GOH* White frost was whirled up into the air at Horn’s feet. With an energetic dash with a strong kick-off, he thrusted towards Haruyuki. His forehead’s huge horn shined sharply.

  In the near-instant it took the enemy to close in on him, Haruyuki’s thoughts spun at full power.

  No matter how low the visibility was, had Chiyuri really missed with her special technique just now?

  She was an incredibly careful-type when it came to that. If she used her healing ability, she must have waited for the moment when it would surely hit. Yet, Haruyuki’s health gauge was down by only 20%. It was too soon for activating «Citron Call» with its bad energy consumption.

  In other words, Chiyuri had purposely made her technique miss, no, she had aimed at something else besides Silver Crow.

  If he had to name a factor besides the fighters in this Primeval Forest stage that could influence the state of the battle, it would be…

  The instant his thoughts reached that far, Haruyuki realized what he had to do.

  Opening his eyes wide, he waited for Frost Horn’s charge. He lowered his waist, with one leg bent forward and the other extended behind him, and calculated the direction he needed to dodge towards.

  “Uo…ryaaaaa—!”

  Pretending as if he was unnerved by Horn’s rough battle cry, Haruyuki turned his body around. He ran away at full speed while precisely following the line that Chiyuri’s special technique had pass through earlier. A trembling in the ground drew near him from behind, and a premonition of damage suddenly hit his back—

  He then suddenly braked and kicked off the ground with all his strength, aiming directly above. Spreading out his hands and bending his back, he jumped over Horn with a backwards somersault, and tried going around to behind his back.

  The enemy was aware that Silver Crow couldn’t use his wings. In that case, he shouldn’t expect for him to escape upwards. Sure enough, there was a feeling of grazing a sharp tip on the center of his back, but Haruyuki danced through the air without getting any further shocks.

  The large avatar was charging in a straight line towards the center of his vision that had become reversed.

  In the direction he was heading towards, a huge elliptical-shaped silhouette had appeared within the curtain of white fluttering frost.

  “Owaah!?”

  That shout belonged to Frost Horn. He flapped both his hands frantically and tried to do an abrupt braking. However, since the ground at his feet was half-frozen, he couldn’t immediately stop. While grandly kicking about the frost on the ground, he slammed straight into the round silhouette.

  *BAKUSHA* A dry yet wet smashing sound res
ounded.

  The huge elliptical sphere broke greatly, and transparent mucus flowed out. Something crept out from inside it, and let out an angry cry of ‘GIIIIIII’ as if its back had gotten cold.

  The things that one always had to look out for in the Primeval Forest stage were the gigantic living creature-type objects. There were various types like carnivores, dinosaurs, and also man-eating plants, but standardly all the creatures would indiscriminately attack any duel avatars that entered their vision.

  The only exception to that was «when one broke an egg».

  A huge living creature whose peaceful sleep within its shell had been disturbed would continue aiming at only the avatar that disturbed it for 500 seconds. Like this huge long-horned beetle, whose four eyes were shining red right now as it looked down on Frost Horn with its large robust jaws chattering.

  As amazed voices saying things like ‘Aah, he really did it this time’ rained down from the gallery, Horn put up his hands and spoke to the carapace-covered creature.

  “W-W-W-Wait! …If we talk as fellow men, we’ll understand each other!”

  “GIGIGIIIIIII!!”

  Unfortunately, it seemed to be a female. The long-horned beetle began to savagely chase after the avatar that wasn’t even half its size, mowing down the surrounding rafflesia with its huge antennas. As Horn let out a scream of ‘Uhiiii!’ and tried to escape, its huge jaws bit the air several times above his head.

  —Of course, «eggs of huge creatures» that could cause such a terrifying result didn’t lie around the forest that conveniently. Even if you tried to use it as part of a strategy, there was a high chance of not finding even one after searching intently during the duel time limit.

  But, in this case, the egg being there wasn’t a coincidence.

  Chiyuri had produced it. She had noticed the silhouette of a large insect moving on the other side of the mist while fighting. Then, she had released her special technique while pretending to aim at Haruyuki, when in fact she was targeting the insect.

  «Citron Call» wasn’t a true healing ability. It was actually the power to «turn back the time of the target». It healed the health gauge in a pseudo-manner, but it also canceled things like alterations by Enhanced Armaments, and if it hit an object on the stage, its state would be reversed in time. Destroyed objects would be restored to just as they were before—and a huge long-horned beetle would return to being an egg.

  Naturally, Frost Horn probably would have normally noticed what had happened as well and not approached the egg. However, the frost drifting thickly through the air had obstructed his vision and hidden Chiyuri’s true aim. As a result, he had been deceived by Haruyuki’s guidance and smashed straight into the egg—

  “Hiiyaaaaah—!!”

  That shrill scream and the huge insect’s angry cries went far off into the deep forest to the west, in the direction of Shinjuku Central Park. «Frosted Circle» also moved along with him, and the surroundings regained their original brightness immediately.

  Watching his partner’s fleeing escape in a dumbfounded manner, Tourmaline Shell turned around and shouted while looking from Haruyuki to Chiyuri in turn.

  “…I’ll take revenge for Horn-kun! C-Come at meeeeeeee!!”

  Of course, they came at him.

  “Good work!”

  Haruyuki bumped his own fist against Chiyuri’s stuck out right fist as she said that with a smile over her entire face, and then dragged himself to sit down on one of the benches lying along the passage of the Tokyo Government Office Building’s top floor.

  He let out a long breath and cut off his connection to the Global Net for the time being, before collapsing and turning his face skyward.

  Even though he had merely finished a single normal duel without anything other than Burst Points hanging in the balance, he was somehow extremely tired. The reason was probably because he had forced himself to continuously fight in close-combat on the ground, a way of fighting that wasn’t his usual style.

  The stress of «not flying» truly was like being in a desert without water to him. When the first school term had started, there had been a time when he couldn’t use his wings for more than a week, but that experience had only seemed to increase his desire to fly even more.

  A year had still not yet passed since Haruyuki had become a Burst Linker. If it was «that person» who had six years of experience, it wouldn’t be strange at all if she had continued hiding her passion for the sky more and more until it was maddening. Although signs of that couldn’t be felt at all from her usually quiet manner…

  “Hey, what are you spacing out about!”

  *GOTTSUN* Haruyuki confusedly blinked his eyes as his head was hit.

  Sitting on the next bench beside him, Chiyuri puffed up her cheeks and gave him a sidelong glare. It seemed he had completely missed what she had been saying.

  “S-Sorry. What were you saying?”

  “‘Shall we do another battle?’ is what I asked!”

  After she said that, Haruyuki glanced at the time display at the lower right corner of his vision, and saw that only a few minutes had passed since they had arrived at the viewing platform. Burst Linker duels finished after 1.8 seconds at the most, so it was only natural, but Haruyuki thought it over a little, before answering.

  “Hmm, even if we wait for another duel challenge as a tag team, I feel that we’ll probably just end up battling with Horn and Shell’s team again…Well, that’s not that bad either, though.”

  Chiyuri rolled her cat-like eyes, before shaking her head.

  “Certainly, fighting the same team might be boring. But, it’d also be a waste to do solo duels after the two of us came all the way here…”

  After staying lost in thought for a while with an expression where she would probably have been moving her big cat ears if she were in the avatar form she used on the school’s local network, Chiyuri suddenly clapped her hands together and spoke.

  “Ah, I know! Since we’re already in Shinjuku, let’s call Nee-san[11] over! If I remember right, she attends a high school in Shibuya, so she could just travel over one station.”

  The instant he heard that, Haruyuki was a little surprised. That was because the «Nee-san» that Chiyuri spoke of was «that person» who Haruyuki had been thinking of just now.

  Her name was «Sky Raker». She was a senior Burst Linker that had joined—no, returned to Nega Nebulas just two months ago, and was also Kuroyukihime’s old friend.

  The reason why Chiyuri called her Nee-san was very simple. It originated from when they exchanged name tags in their first meeting in the real world, where Haruyuki had noticed that, like how Chiyuri’s family name was «Kurashima», Raker’s real name was «Kurasaki Fuuko», and then nonchalantly commented ‘Since you’re an island and peninsula together, it’s like you’re sisters, hahaha’.[12]

  Without waiting for Haruyuki’s response, Chiyuri started typing an invitation email to that Raker-nee-san. As his childhood friend typed on her holo-keyboard with slightly awkward finger movements, Haruyuki wavered over whether to say “Stop”. That was because he had an intuitive premonition that Raker-san would undoubtedly refuse that invitation.

  While she had certainly returned to the legion, Sky Raker was still not released from the guilty consciousness that bound her. Even now, she still deeply regretted having left the legion a long time ago as if she were forsaking the leader Kuroyukihime. Chiyuri of course also knew about that. And in her own way, she was probably trying to knock at the door of Raker’s closed heart.

  That’s why Haruyuki closed his mouth back shut.

  Completing the email after a few seconds, Chiyuri connected her Neuro Linker to the Global Net for an instant and sent it. She cut it off again, and then after waiting a little while, connected it once more. After receiving the reply from Raker, she disconnected from the net again, and then looked at the text.

  “……‘Sorry’, it says.”

  After whispering that, Chiyuri then raised her head and g
ave a tiny laugh; Haruyuki carefully prepared his next words.

  “Raker-san is in high school, so she’s surely busy on weekdays. Since she should be participating in the territory match next weekend, we can meet her there.”

  “…Yeah, that’s right.”

  His childhood friend sucked in a deep breath, smiled as if renewing her emotions, and spoke in a chipper voice.

  “Then, shall we fight another round as solo fighters this time?”

  “Hmm, I feel quite satisfied from the one earlier…If you’re unsatisfied though, Chiyu, I’ll keep going with you, of course.”

  When Haruyuki gave that as his answer, Chiyuri showed a sincere happy-looking smile and nodded.

  “Yeah, since we were able to win in such an interesting and cool way, I’m also done for the day. Ah, it was really satisfying!”

  “Pretty much.”

  Giving a smile of his own, Haruyuki reflected on their tag match earlier.

  Just winning in a power battle with their avatars themselves was also very nice, but what was even more refreshing was having a strategic victory perfectly using the stage’s attributes. Furthermore, it wasn’t just something like a comeback victory while covered in disadvantages. That was evident by how the gallery had gotten thrilled and animated when the duel had been concluded.

  Of course, the regret of having lost was also consequently doubled for the losers.

  Chiyuri also seemed to recall at the same time as Haruyuki the magnificent words Frost Horn had declared to them after having somehow shaken off the hot pursuit of the huge long-horned beetle and returned to the battlefield only to be crushed by their concentrated attacks, and so the two of them burst into laughter together.

  “Bufufu…‘Next time I’ll definitely dropkick you off from the top of the Tokyo Sky Tree!’. If he gives us advance notice like that, we can just easily dodge it, and it’ll end with him falling from that height.”

  “Before that, there’s the problem of how he would reach up there. There’s probably 200 meters from just the viewing platform there to the antenna at the top, and in the first place, do the social cameras even…reach…that high…”