Pull of the Dark Nebula Page 5

“Which means that, of the three Arcs existing or having existed in the Castle in the Accelerated World, only the seventh, Youkou, is the real thing?” Fuko asked.

  “I do not know by what means one would designate it as real.” Trilead shook his head slightly. “But…Master Graph told me that it seems that of the kanji and English names given to the Seven Arcs, only Youkou and The Fluctuating Light correctly correspond.”

  “Huh? I know that the kou is light, but what does fluctuating mean?” Haruyuki cocked his head to one side ruefully. He should’ve looked it up in the dictionary before they came. He’d never heard the word before; at the very least, it wasn’t an English word you learned in junior high.

  It wasn’t Trilead or Fuko who responded to Haruyuki’s question, but Graphite Edge, gaze still focused on the ninth gate. “Fluctuate is a verb that means to sway, change, go up and down. Basically, fluctuating light means a light that shimmers and moves. Put it all together and you get Youkou.”

  Sensing something reflective in that as-ever lighthearted tone, Haruyuki blinked several times. But the swordmaster shrugged lightly as he turned around and continued, “I don’t know if the fact that only the names of the final Arc correspond perfectly means anything…or if it’s just a coincidence. If we wanna know, our only choice is to get to level ten and ask the developer or whoever directly.” Graph laughed briefly.

  “Graphite Edge, you should know this,” came a laser-focused voice all of a sudden. “It is impossible that you—with the power to reach the Highest Level and the technique to enter Area Zero Zero—would not know this. The reason for the existence of Brain Burst, which you call the Accelerated World…It is in The Fluctuating Light.”

  The large white icon floated up, flashing remarkably brightly as she ordered the swordsman through the majestic voice of an archangel.

  “Speak, Graphite Edge. Why are the little warriors of the three worlds, including the extinguished Accel Assault and Cosmos Corrupt, being made to fight? Why are we Beings given life? What is the final Arc, The Fluctuating Light?!”

  Both Fuko and Trilead recoiled slightly in surprise. It was no wonder: They likely thought Metatron was at most an Enemy—an AI made to move by the BB system. But in the archangel’s voice, there were echoes of the same struggle and longing that lived in the hearts of Haruyuki and the other Burst Linkers.

  The swordsman didn’t respond right away. He looked up at the tiny icon wordlessly as she floated slightly above his own head and then turned on his heel.

  Eventually, a quiet voice came over his shoulder to them: “I said before, we should move to the Shrine of the Eight Divines before we talk about this.”

  He started to walk toward the ninth gate, and Metatron watched him silently. Finally, she slowly descended back to her position on Haruyuki’s right shoulder.

  After exchanging glances with Fuko and Lead, Haruyuki went after Graphite Edge. Once Silver Crow slipped through the solemn gates, a dense darkness filled his field of view, just like the last time. But he immediately saw the hazy light up ahead, and guided by the candle flame flickering in hollows in the walls, the party descended the spiral staircase that continued into the depths.

  Haruyuki tried to count the number of steps this time, but he lost track right around a hundred. It was all he could do to simply resist the indescribable pressure that crawled along the icy stone steps. The reason it felt even more terrifying than it had a month ago was because he had more knowledge and experience, so that was fine, but…Mind racing, he intently put one foot after the other until finally Graph’s voice rang out up ahead.

  “We’re here.”

  Phew! He let out a breath and lifted his head.

  Every surface in the small room in the very depths of the Castle was covered in white tile, befitting the Moonlight stage. The light of the candlesticks reflected off the polished wooden floor, making it shimmer like the surface of water. The “small room” was actually about twice the size of the Arita living room. A large arch opened up on the wall in the back, but a slender silver fence barred passage through it. The opposite side was pitch-black.

  Fuko cut across the room, her heels clacking lightly, to approach the fence fearlessly and face the darkness on the other side. Haruyuki walked timidly to her side and narrowed his eyes to gaze beyond the silver fence.

  Pok! Abruptly, he heard the faintest of sounds, and a meager light grew some ways off. The source of the yellow light was a candle shimmering on top of an unfinished wooden platform. Similar lights lit up one after another in the depths ahead of them to outline a dim path.

  Eventually, a black stone pedestal appeared in the distance.

  It was the same as the ones in the hall above, but this one was not empty. On the pedestal, there was something enveloped in a pulsing blue light. A warm golden glow shimmered irregularly, as if tired of waiting for the moment when the seal would be broken.

  “This is…the Shrine of the Eight Divines,” Fuko murmured from next to Haruyuki.

  “That is The Fluctuating Light,” Metatron muttered on his shoulder.

  “It really is a fluctuating light, hmm? From here, you can’t tell what kind of item it is.”

  Fuko simply accepted it, while Metatron floated up slightly.

  “It is very vexing that I can only observe visual spectrum data. Servant, Raker, approach it.”

  “Whoa! No way! There’s no way!” Haruyuki shrieked immediately. “If we go past the sacred rope, powerful Enemies called the Eight Divines will appear, and it’ll be a whole thing, right?”

  This last query was directed at Trilead behind him. The young samurai nodded firmly and explained, “Yes. I have never seriously fought the Four Gods of the directional gates, but Master Graph has said that the battle power of the Eight Divines exceeds even their power.”

  “Is that so?” Fuko looked back at the swordsman leaning against the wall near the entrance.

  “Mmm. Hmm.” Scratching his helmet with a finger, Graph’s answer was fairly evasive compared with his student’s. “To be honest, I’ve only ever tried to run frantically from them and reach the pedestal without fighting. But it’s like the Four Gods are, at best, massive Enemies on a fairly large battlefield. To put it in gaming terms, they’re raid bosses. You can attack them all at once with a party of however many dozens of people, so you’ve got some wiggle room when it comes to strategies and techniques. But with the Eight Divines, as you can see, the battlefield is a room, and the enemy’s about the size of a large duel avatar, so it’s more PvP than boss fight—it’s pretty close to Brain Burst’s standard duel. If you’re not careful, you’ll have to fight one-on-one, but their specs are on the level of the Four Gods. My honest impression is that no one’s getting anywhere with that.”

  “Hmm. If you are saying that, the person who challenged Inti solo, then I suppose we really aren’t going to get anywhere,” Fuko said.

  With a wry smile, Graph shrugged.

  Listening to this conversation between the two powerful and experienced high rankers, Haruyuki suddenly sensed a fundamental question. “Um, Graph,” he said hesitantly. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Hmm? What’s up, Crow?”

  “Um. Before, Metatron said that reaching the final Arc, The Fluctuating Light, was the reason that this game—that Brain Burst 2039—exists. So then, that means the creator of Brain Burst created the game to make us Burst Linkers break into the Castle. And it’s a game, so I know you need to jump over all kinds of hurdles before you can get to the end. You level up, explore dungeons, get items, defeat bosses…But normally, there’s a balance to the game, you know? Adjusting it to just the right level of difficulty is the creator’s most important job, right? But…the Four Gods and the Eight Divines are absurdly powerful. It’s almost like the creator doesn’t want anyone to ever clear the game. So do they want us to invade the Castle or not? Honestly, which is it?”

  Haruyuki had absolutely zero confidence in his ability to put his thoughts into words, but his inte
rlocutor seemed to understand the question he had so earnestly put forth.

  The double swordsman slowly nodded and spoke in a more serious tone. “Silver Crow. Your impression that the settings of this game are contradictory is entirely correct. But there’s nothing to be done about that. Because Brain Burst 2039 is both a game and not a game.”

  “What…does that mean?” Haruyuki asked, holding his breath. He’d had basically the same question about the Highest Level when the Archangel Metatron showed it to him in the middle of the battle at the headquarters of the Acceleration Research Society at the end of the previous month.

  If the creator of Brain Burst placed TFL in the deepest depths of the Castle, then all they had to do was reach out and take it with the hand of God if they needed it again, right? They could set anything as the game-clear marker; why did they have to go out of their way to make countless Burst Linkers attack the Castle?

  Graphite Edge stirred slightly before him, but before the man could speak, Fuko raised her hand to stop him. “Wait. There’s only two minutes left before Corvus and I automatically disconnect. This seems like it will be a long story, so can we continue once we dive back in?”

  “Aah. Right. Okay, Lead and I’ll wait around here, so log in—I mean, dive again as soon as you can,” Graph said in his usual carefree tone, for some reason mixing in ancient net game terms, and crossed his arms, still leaning back against the wall.

  Haruyuki glanced at the total time in his Instruct menu, which he’d left open all this time, before muttering to the 3-D icon on his shoulder, “Sorry, Metatron. We’ll be back soon, so just wait a sec, okay?”

  “Do not tarry, servant.” While Metatron sounded as arrogant as ever, there was also the slightest bit of a sulk in her voice, and he grinned at this as he bowed to Trilead, who had moved to stand next to Graph.

  “Lead, we’re just going to go back for a bit.”

  “Yes, take your time, Crow. Miss Raker.”

  Once they had finished their good-byes, they had thirty seconds left. He and Fuko nodded at each other and readied themselves for the disconnection when, abruptly, Graph snapped his fingers.

  “Oh, right, Rekka! Make the next safety activation time around ten hours.”

  “That’s quite long,” she remarked.

  “There’s a reason for that. So please and thanks.”

  Fuko looked slightly suspicious, but she nodded, and a second after she gripped Haruyuki’s hand, a warning shone bright red in his field of view.

  DISCONNECTION WARNING—beyond the row of letters, the Castle depths melted into the light and disappeared.

  4

  “Mah…mah…ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma.” Stammering like a broken sound file, Thistle Porcupine was transformed at once into a cute, round animal, having fired every single needle on her back.

  Cassis Moose clapped a large hand lightly on her back, and Thistle coughed for a moment or two before sucking air into her lungs.

  “Merrrrrrrge?!” she shrieked at double-decibel volume.

  Kreeeeenk!

  Mihaya waited for the earsplitting sound to fade away and then nodded with Niko.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s right.”

  Thistle staggered backward. Of the three members of the Triplex, she had been the most concerned about any form of cooperation with Nega Nebulus, so her shock was entirely understandable, but they had to get her to agree before the meeting was over.

  “No.” Although her torso was still thrown back at a twenty-degree angle, her feet had stopped shuffling away from them. Thistle thrust her hands out ahead of her and shook her head back and forth. “No-no-no-no. Hang on a sec. Um. To begin with, is it even possible system-wise to merge Legions?”

  “Yes.” Mihaya nodded at the porcupine as she finally started to calm down a bit. “But for a merger between Legions that both have territory, their territory has to be adjacent.”

  “So then what happens to the Legion name and the Legion Master?” she asked immediately.

  “You can pick and choose, I guess,” Niko replied. “Keep one of the Legion names or pick a new one or something. And both LMs can stay on as is, or you can pick someone new.”

  “Hmm.” Thistle considered this. “What about those kids from Setagaya who joined Negabu whenever that was?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t a merger,” Niko told her. “They disbanded their original Legion and formally joined Negabu.”

  “Huh? Why’d they go through all that hassle?”

  “Dunno. I didn’t get that part of the story.”

  Thistle and Niko cocked their heads to one side in unison.

  “Balance, probably,” Cassis Moose said, breaking his silence. “With the Judgment Blow.”

  “Whaddya mean?” Thistle cocked her head to the opposite side.

  “I only discovered this when I looked into it now. Regardless of what options are chosen, when two Legions merge, both of the original Legion Masters continue to possess that right for one month. The right to activate the Judgment Blow.”

  “Whoa.” Thistle whistled. “So then, if the merged Legion chooses a totally new master, with the two former Masters, there’d be three people who could Judge?”

  “It would appear so,” Cassis agreed.

  “Whoa-ho. You get a big fight going after the merger, and it’ll be a Judgment festival!”

  “That’s not a festival I want to go to,” Niko interjected with a smirk. “So then, the Petit Paquet LM went and disbanded the Legion so she wouldn’t still have the right to Judge? That takes some real guts.”

  “Hey, hey, hey, heeey! Now’s not the time for getting all starry-eyed, Rain!” Thistle started to get worked up again, her voice rising in pitch. “There’s no way we’re gonna be doing that, right?! I’m not here for that, not that kinda one-sided, take-it-all merger!!”

  “Calm down, Pokki.” Cassis placed both hands on Thistle’s shoulders, and the small porcupine gradually cooled down once again.

  She let out a long breath and stared up at the larger moose. “You’re way too calm, Cassi…Oh! Or maybe you knew about the merger right from the start?!”

  “N-no, don’t worry about that.” Clearing his throat, Cassis removed his hands and took a step back.

  Thistle Porcupine’s guess was correct. Before this meeting, Mihaya and Niko had sounded out Cassis Moose alone on the possibility of merging Legions. They’d done so because Thistle’s flash point was famously low, and they’d wanted him to pacify her. But he’d apparently taken the opportunity to dig a little deeper on his own into what the whole thing would mean.

  His cool powers of judgment and Thistle’s nimble explosive force had saved them any number of times in the short period that they’d fought together as Submasters of the new Prominence. Both were essential members of the top executive and loved Prominence very deeply. That love was maybe even greater than Mihaya’s own.

  Mihaya’s loyalty as one of the Triplex was more deeply focused on Niko personally rather than the Legion. And her passion as a Burst Linker was turned more toward individual battles than the Territories. The reason she frequented the so-called duel holy land, Akihabara Battle Ground, was to gather information, but another big factor was her desire to refine her one-on-one duel techniques. Thus, she didn’t feel any serious resistance to the idea of merging with Nega Nebulus. Of course, it was a shame that the Prominence name would be gone, but as long as Niko was there, the new space would be Mihaya’s battlefield. And anyway, Niko had decided on the current merger policy only after a lot of wrestling with the idea.

  But the majority of Prominence members wouldn’t be able to accept it as easily as all that. Even Thistle, who had risen to the top during the rule of the second King, was deeply shocked, so veteran members from the time of the first king, like Blaze Heart and Peach Parasol, would be more than surprised. After all, it had been the current Legion Master of Nega Nebulus, Black Lotus, who had taken the head of the previous Red King, Red Rider, and pushed him to t
otal point loss.

  “Pokki. I get that a merger with Negabu’s a tough sell.” Niko, speaking softly, turned toward Thistle Porcupine, whose lavender fur silently rippled as it regenerated. “Of course, I’m not thinkin’ we’ll just disband Promi and get sucked up into Negabu. I’m gonna seriously negotiate so that it’s an equal merger. But…even still, to be honest, I doubt all the current Legion members’ll follow me. I’m expecting any number of them to leave, and…If you or Cassi make that choice, I don’t have the right to hold that against you.”

  Thistle opened her mouth, ready to fire back instantly once more, and once again, Cassis gently pressed down on her shoulders to silence her. Niko kept her gaze squarely on them as she continued.

  “But…I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Like, after my predecessor was retired, why’d we fight so desperately to stay alive in Nerima and Ikebukuro during the total chaos of the warring states period? I’m up here, sitting on the throne as the second Red King, so what am I doing gritting my teeth and protecting our territory? I’m totally no good at bringing together huge forces, and to be honest, I don’t feel too much of an attachment to the Prominence name. Like, I’d be happy with a few close pals in a tiny Legion with no territory or nothing, just hanging out in a corner of the Accelerated World, y’know?”

  The small crimson avatar looked up at the cloudy sky of the Thunder stage. She slowly pointed with one hand as though she had spotted a bird flying in the thick, distant clouds.

  “I know it wasn’t that I wanted to run away. Not from that lot who came and attacked us, like they were gonna earn big points from the Red Legion when we were on the verge of destruction. Not from those jerks in the major Legions who looked down on me like I wasn’t a pure color after all, like I was a fake king. And not from the members of Promi now, not when they rely on me for real. But I’ve sorta been bluffing my way through this, like any second the paint’s gonna peel off, and everyone’ll see that I’m actually awful; and that’s so scary I can hardly stand it. But still, in my heart, I’m totally certain of it; I don’t want to run, and I don’t want to lose.”