Cradle of Stars Read online

  Now that he thought about it, she hadn’t said much since the start of that day. She’d probably been tense before the meeting of the Seven Kings, but at the actual meeting, she’d stood up and argued against Ivory Tower and the others and even managed to apply a not-insignificant amount of pressure to the White Legion.

  In the end, though, Haruyuki had simply stood there, so he wanted to at least offer her some sympathetic words. But the face in profile he could see from the back seat looked deep in thought, and he hesitated to disturb that.

  Meanwhile, there was no sound from the driver’s seat, either. Normally, Fuko would start talking about whatever came to mind to try to ease their Legion Master’s tension, but that day, she just gripped the steering wheel, her mouth firmly closed. Inside the car, the only sound was the faint hum of the road and the whirring of the engine, interrupted periodically by the inorganic AR GPS.

  I really do have to do something to lighten the mood here! Haruyuki caught sight of a game shop he was a regular at and decided to bring up the topic of retro games where you could only jump and dive-kick.

  “Fuko.” Kuroyukihime suddenly spoke up softly. “Could you please stop for a minute once we get into the Suginami area?”

  “I was about to suggest the same thing.” Fuko glanced at the GPS. At some point, the car had slipped past the Yamanote Line and gone from Yasukuni Street onto Shinoume Highway. A few minutes later, the instant they crossed the border between Nakano and Suginami, the car’s left signal started blinking.

  The canary-yellow Italian EV smoothly decelerated and slid into a parking spot along the side of the road. The car had no sooner come to a complete stop than Kuroyukihime was twisting her upper body around.

  “Haruyuki.”

  He closed his half-open mouth before responding. “Y-yes?”

  “There’s one thing I want to confirm— No, let’s discuss the rest on the other side.”

  “Y-yes?”

  Really, before he could even blink, Kuroyukihime had dropped her seat all the way down and was leaning into the back seat. Clutched in her outstretched right hand was the plug of a shiny black XSB cable.

  Plk! The plug was inserted into Haruyuki’s Neurolinker, and he was simultaneously directly connected with Fuko and Kuroyukihime. The words Burst Link left Kuroyukihime’s mouth, and before Haruyuki’s eyes, the flaming text HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!! appeared.

  The whole process took a mere two seconds.

  What on earth, for what reason, a direct duel in the car?! Haruyuki puzzled over this as he dropped down onto black, damp earth. In the night sky above his head, a thin sliver of the crescent moon hung like a sickle, and countless gravestones of all sizes and shapes surrounded him. A low-level dark type, the Cemetery stage.

  He whirled his head around to look for his duel opponent, Kuroyukihime. There was no guide cursor in his field of view, so she had to be right nearby, but the stage was quite dark, so he couldn’t manage to spot the jet-black duel avatar.

  “This is like looking for a crow at night…Oh! But wait, I’m the crow…” Muttering to himself inanely, he was about to start walking along the row of tombstones when from above his head came a familiar and yet somehow cold voice.

  “I’m here, Crow.”

  Hurriedly, he looked up at the sky again and found the sharp silhouette, totem pole–like, on top of a tall, thin gravestone. Arms crossed, legs firmly braced, this was no doubt the Black King, Black Lotus.

  The hazy, pale moonlight brought out the linear edges of the semitransparent armor, and the bluish-purple eye lenses there shone with remarkable brightness. He could feel an intense pressure in the aura emitted from the avatar body.

  She’s serious. But why all of a sudden? It can’t be some kind of special training now? Or maybe punishment? Or maybe she’s trying to be sweet to me? These thoughts spinning through his mind, Haruyuki took a step back when a new voice rang out from behind him.

  “I’m over here, Corvus.”

  He whirled around. A pale shadow sat on the branch of an enormous gnarled tree rising up a little ways off. Clad in a snowy-white dress, a hat of the same color on her head, it was the deputy of Nega Nebulus, Sky Raker.

  She should’ve been part of the Gallery, unable to interact with Haruyuki, but the wave of presence he felt from her was at least as strong as the one Kuroyukihime was emitting. Raker seemed serious, too. He just had no idea what they were serious about.

  At a loss, wedged between Kuroyukihime in front and Fuko in back, Haruyuki looked at each of them in turn as he asked timidly, “Um, Kuroyukihime, Master, what is this…about?”

  “I told you. There’s something I want to confirm.” Kuroyukihime danced down from the top of the tombstone, seven or eight meters off the ground.

  “C-confirm?” Haruyuki also leapt from the tree to land gently on the ground. “You don’t think I’m parasitized by the Armor again, do you?”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s nothing concerned with you.”

  “Huh?”

  “What was that on your shoulder the whole time during the meeting today?” Kuroyukihime’s entirely unexpected question further dumbfounded Haruyuki.

  Gulp. His whole body stiffened.

  “You said it was a ‘pet or an option or something,’ Corvus,” Fuko continued from behind him. “You couldn’t possibly have gone against our warning and picked up some strange thing in the shop, now, could you have?” As she spoke, she stepped past to give him a shaming stare from alongside Kuroyukihime.

  “N-n-n-n-n-no!” Haruyuki moved his helmet along the horizontal at top speed. “I haven’t gone to a shop or anything!”

  “Then where did you get it? I’m getting a weird vibe from that little bug.”

  “Neither do I. It’s like I’ve felt that aura before. Or maybe not…” Kuroyukihime crossed her arms once more.

  “Maybe that’s just in your head?” He attempted an awkward explanation. “It, um, uh, before I knew it, in like a flash, it was sticking to me…”

  “Mm-hmm. So then, pull it off,” his Legion Master demanded.

  “What?!”

  “It’s fine, isn’t it?” Fuko smiled. “Please introduce us to your cute little pet, Corvus, hmm?”

  “Uh, oh, ah…” No matter how he tried to get out of it, the search engine in his mind only came back with Your search did not match any documents.

  Since it had come to this, he braced himself as he realized his only option was to call out Metatron. He prayed he could avoid disaster, and then realized he might not be able to call Metatron there to begin with. They were bound by a kind of link according to “something-somethingterasu,” true identity unknown. That link didn’t connect them only in the Unlimited Neutral Field but also in the normal duel field. Still, to call up Metatron’s 3-D icon, he had to concentrate deeply and keep calling for a full minute or two.

  He had summoned Metatron to the meeting of the Seven Kings without telling Kuroyukihime or Fuko because he wanted her to see Ivory Tower and the other kings. It had been worth the trouble; she’d sensed something in Ivory and Grandé.

  But this Cemetery stage was a direct duel field, cut off from the rest of the world. In the end, he couldn’t say if his call to Metatron would reach her from here…

  No, it should reach her. You gain and lose points even in a direct duel, which means we’re still connected to the Brain Burst central server.

  With this thought in mind, Haruyuki turned to his Legion Master and Submaster and nodded. “I understand. I’ll call her now, so please wait for—no, thirty seconds.”

  “It takes quite some time, hmm?” Kuroyukihime said as she took a step back and leaned against one of the tombstones.

  “If you dawdle too much, dead people will reach their hands out of the ground, so I’d ask that you please do it sooner rather than later,” Fuko added with a smile.

  “R-right.” Haruyuki took a deep breath and then expelled it before closing his eyes and focusing his mind.

&nbs
p; Imagine. A single ray of light stretching out from himself in one corner of the Accelerated World and passing through the Highest Level far, far above to reach Metatron, resting her wings in the depths of the Contrary Cathedral. Imagine his voice being able to reach her through this link…

  “Metatron. Can you hear me? I know we just said good-bye not more than half an hour ago, but could you come out one more time? There are some people I want to introduce you to properly…”

  In his field of view, locked away in complete darkness, an infinitely small point of light was born. The dot, blinking slowly, expanded bit by bit in breadth until it finally stabilized as a continuous light.

  “Foolish as always, I see, Silver Crow.” An exasperated voice echoed inside his head. “Thirty minutes in your world is equivalent to five hundred hours in the Mean Level. Although that amount of time, too, is but a moment’s slumber for me…The link is stable now; open your eyes.”

  When he opened the eye lenses beneath his goggles as ordered, the pure-white icon was floating directly in front of him. This was Metatron’s sensory terminal, a spindle-shaped body equipped with an angel’s halo and small wings.

  Sensing that Kuroyukihime and Fuko were staring at him from where they stood about three meters away, Haruyuki wrapped the icon in his hands and gently moved it in front of his chest. “Um. Kuroyukihime, Master, I called her…”

  Please let this “audience” end peacefully! he prayed as he spoke.

  Having moved away from the tombstone, Kuroyukihime leaned forward with great interest and said, “Oh-ho, so this is your pet?”

  “Who are you calling a pet, you insolent creature?!”

  A voice, rather than the usual thought, instantly roared out, loud enough to shake the entire stage. In fact, any number of tombstones shuddered, and it seemed like even the dead writhing in the ground beneath them shrank back, although that was probably just in his imagination.

  Kuroyukihime and Fuko reeled before exchanging a look.

  “Raker, it’s like—I feel like I’ve heard that voice before.”

  “I do, too, Lotus. I’m quite sure it was somewhere in the Unlimited Neutral Field.”

  “That you would forget my voice is to compound your great insolence! I shall not forgive it! My servant Silver Crow, you will strike them down this very instant!”

  “Y-your servant?! That’s really something coming from a bug like you! Crow is my child, you know!”

  “And he is my student, little pet,” Fuko added. “I don’t care who you are, you have some nerve trying to steal him away.”

  “It seems you truly do not value your lives, calling me ‘bug’ and ‘pet’ and what have you over and over! Given the situation, I shall make you understand directly! You shall come to my castle straightaway!”

  Great. Time to run away. Having resolved to flee for the first time in a long time, Haruyuki started to inch backward, but Kuroyukihime turned the sword of her right hand on him, and he froze.

  “Crow, who is this self-important someone?!”

  “Corvus, if you run off or try to deceive us, I’ll make you regret it later.”

  “Uh, um. Uhhh…” Still in his unstable posture, Haruyuki searched for a path to avoid the crisis but eventually resigned himself to the fact that this was an unavoidable dead end. “Um. This—I mean, this person is a Legend-class Enemy, one of the Four Divines, the Archangel Metatron.”

  As he spoke with hesitation, the small icon floated up lightly and flapped its wings importantly, while Kuroyukihime and Fuko opened their eyes wide below it, dumbfounded.

  “The Archangel. Meta…tron?”

  “Metatron’s main body? It didn’t disappear?”

  “You will call me Lord, little warriors.”

  I just know that these three will understand one another and be friends someday. Someday…Right, when peace comes to the Accelerated World, then…, Haruyuki thought while sweepingly majestic music played in the background of his mind.

  Metatron was thought to have been annihilated during the battle to the death with Armor of Catastrophe, Mark II, but Haruyuki had somehow managed to revive her “core.” Ever since, she had been connected with him through this mysterious link where he was able to call her icon up even in a normal duel field. However, she had lost essentially all her battle power and was currently healing her wounds in her first form in the Contrary Cathedral.

  It took about 70 percent of the duel time on the clock to simply explain these facts to Fuko and Kuroyukihime. Metatron kept interrupting him with complaints like “I did not do it to save you” and “You apparently revived me, did you not?” leaving Haruyuki having to apologize each time. But he himself didn’t fully understand the logic of the phenomenon, so there was a limit to how much he could explain.

  Having heard him out, Kuroyukihime and Fuko looked at each other again and then let out long groans.

  “We found out that the high-level Enemies possessed a certain level of intelligence during the battle with the Gods Suzaku and Seiryu, but this…” Kuroyukihime trailed off.

  “Call us Beings, Black Lotus or whatever your name is.”

  “But I never dreamed they could talk like this or be so self-important…,” Fuko added.

  “I am not self-important. I am important, Sky Raker or whatever it was.”

  The floating icon interjected every time either of them said anything, wings flapping lightly, which was as frightening as it was laughable. Haruyuki tightened his lips, a cold sweat on his brow.

  Kuroyukihime, keenly picking up on this aura, stared hard at him. “Well, Crow’s the type to pick up strays, so I’m not surprised at this stage, but…”

  “Huh?” he said, aghast. “Really?”

  “Have a little self-awareness, at least. Now, as for what happens next…” She turned her gaze toward Metatron, thirty centimeters above her head. “Divine Metatron. Before anything else, I shall thank you for saving my child, Silver Crow.”

  “There is no need for that, Black Lotus. Silver Crow is my servant, after all.”

  “…We’ll sort out via the sword whether the rights of parent or master come first once you have recovered your strength. Until then, I am forced to recognize that you will be with Crow. But I want you to confirm one thing.”

  “I am under no obligation to confirm anything to you, but go ahead.”

  “Metatron. You also intend to fight the Acceleration Research Society again…Am I correct in assuming this?” Kuroyukihime asked, and the small icon fell silent for a moment.

  A chilly, damp wind blew through the Cemetery stage, causing the branches of the twisted, ancient trees to rattle and rustle. He heard the sad howl of a wolf off in the distance, and a large bat cut across the night sky.

  “I have no interest in the wars of you little warriors.” Metatron sniffed curtly, but then she continued in a slightly louder voice, “But these who name themselves the Acceleration Research Society had the insolence to pull me from my domain and make me a guard. They produced that repugnant, nihilistic pseudo-Being, and they attempted to erase my servant, Silver Crow. I must make them pay for that.”

  “Mmm. That’s a bit of a troublesome answer, but…Well, fine. You’ve made your intent clear. So then, Divine Metatron. From this point forward…” Her eyes focused solely on the icon floating a little above her head, Kuroyukihime announced in a strident voice, “…you are a member of our Legion, Nega Nebulus!!”

  3

  “Thank you, Master. Please have a safe drive home,” Haruyuki said to Fuko in the driver’s seat and then got out of the car. From the sidewalk, he bowed his head to Kuroyukihime in the passenger seat. “Thank you, too, Kuroyukihime. I’m sorry for not telling you about Metatron…”

  “No, it’s fine. I understand that you felt it was difficult to explain. That, well…” Kuroyukihime smiled wryly, and Haruyuki returned a small smile of his own.

  After her proclamation that Metatron was now a member of Nega Nebulus, the Archangel had made a big fuss—Wh
y must I join a band of little warriors?!—before finally assenting with a number of conditions. And that had just been a meeting with Kuroyukihime and Fuko. He couldn’t even imagine what a huge commotion it would have turned into if all the Legion members had been present.

  “But…it’s curious. When we were fighting the first form at Midtown Tower—No, even when we went up against the second form after that, I could only see it as a fearsome Enemy, and yet, now I think of her as basically the same as us…,” Kuroyukihime murmured.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” Haruyuki bobbed his head up and down. “When she was about to disappear protecting me, Metatron said that we little warriors are essentially the same as Beings like her.”

  “In which case, it will be hard to go Enemy hunting from now on,” Fuko said, across from Kuroyukihime, a slightly troubled smile on her lips.

  Haruyuki had been thinking the same thing these past few days. “Yes, I believe it will. I’m going to ask Metatron what she thinks about that.”

  “Oh-ho, that said, I expect you will not run about with her and do whatever you please while I’m not around. I absolutely do not accept her as your master or any such nonsense!” A hand stretched out from the window and smacked Haruyuki’s chest lightly.

  “R-r-r-r-right!”

  “And I want to check one more thing. Is Metatron always in that little icon form?”

  “Y-yes. I guess she can’t appear in her true form until she recovers her strength.” Haruyuki nodded frantically, and the fingers finally were pulled back into the car.

  “Well then, that’s fine. All right. Good work today, Haruyuki. I would like to tell you to have a good rest, but you have to study in preparation for the final exams on Wednesday.”

  “All right, Corvus,” Fuko said. “See you. Good luck on your tests.”

  “R-right…” Disappointed at being suddenly yanked back into the harshness of reality, Haruyuki listened as the car drove off down Kannana Street and disappeared to the south, leaving only the faint sound of the engine. He watched the vivid canary-yellow disappear in traffic before starting to walk to the pedestrian crossing.