Pull of the Dark Nebula

by Reki Kawahara

  Zmm! Zmm! Zmm! Three high-speed slashes came one after the other, ripping through the air. Vertical, vertical, horizontal. But Haruyuki managed to evade them all on the order of millimeters. More precisely, the last hack just barely scraped against his chest armor, but he took essentially no damage.

  The blue shimmer of a sword flashed suddenly behind the warrior. Lead’s slashing attack landed a clean hit in the middle of the Enemy’s back and whisked away a significant part of its health gauge. At this decisive display of power, he wanted to make a witty comment about how he’d expect nothing less from the Arc Infinity, but if he didn’t do something quick, the warrior’s target would shift back to Lead.

  “Hyaah!” He dived in close to the warrior and beat at the thin armor of his knee joints with punches and kicks. He shot off five blows in a single breath, but the damage he did didn’t begin to compare with Lead’s power. Three more hits—no, two…

  “Zoaaaam!” The warrior roared and tried to catch Haruyuki with the pommel of the thick blade.

  He hurried to duck, but the lump of metal—mass equivalent to a large, blunt weapon—grazed his left shoulder, and just that was enough to bring his health gauge down nearly 10 percent. Haruyuki bounded backward.

  “You pushed in too far, servant,” Metatron reprimanded him.

  “Y-yes, I know. But I have to do more damage…” Or I won’t be able to keep it targeting me, he was going to say, but the Archangel cut him off with harsh, meaningful words:

  “You take a Being as far too logical a presence. Being only newly born, their powers of thought don’t begin to compare with my own, but even so, they possess something that one might call a mind.”

  “A mind…?!” He was stunned for an instant but then quickly remembered Coolu, the lesser-Enemy of the Lava Carbuncle type. This friend of Petit Paquet had indeed appeared to have something Haruyuki believed was a soul. As he came to this realization, he heard Metatron once more.

  “Thus it is not necessarily the case that they will always set their sights on the one who deals them the most damage.”

  “Huh? So then, what’s the standard?”

  “I’m telling you, there exists no standard that can clearly be put into numbers. It’s the same as with you little warriors. Beings will attack the target they perceive as a threat, and that is not determined on the basis of damage alone.”

  This conversation—which was actually taking place not with voices but super-high-speed thoughts—sparked a certain memory in Haruyuki. The mission a month earlier to rescue Ardor Maiden from where she was imprisoned at the Castle’s south gate. The God Suzaku had turned the brunt of its attack not on Black Lotus, although she was the one dealing it constant damage, but on Silver Crow, who had been flying toward the south gate. At the time, Haruyuki had keenly felt Suzaku’s wrath at this little creature trying to penetrate his sacred territory.

  Enemies—Beings—were not mere programs. They were sometimes stirred by anger and sometimes made connections with a Burst Linker, just like Chocolat Puppeter and Coolu—or Haruyuki and Metatron. In which case, he had to make this warrior Enemy feel like Haruyuki was more of a threat than Lead.

  He couldn’t use Incarnate techniques, but he could hone his image until he was on the verge of Incarnate—the so-called fighting spirit, to put it neatly. He might not be able to manage the overwhelming aura that gushed from the Black or Red Kings on the battlefield, but he could increase his will to fight, throw away his hesitations, and confront his foe.

  Right. At some point, a seed of hesitation had sprouted in him at the idea of fighting Enemies. Maybe because he’d met the “Being” Metatron or because he’d fought to protect Coolu. Or maybe he’d already felt it the first time he saw an Enemy.

  He’d tried to actively take part in the hunts to earn points without confessing this to his comrades, but he never could get serious in an Enemy fight the way he did in a fight against another player, probably because the reason for fighting was flimsy. Enemies were frightening and strong, and if you let your guard slip, they’d destroy you. But was it really okay to attack them, creatures under system orders to attack, ordered just to win some points? The thought just wouldn’t go away.

  As he confronted this warrior Enemy now—which was probably Beast level in status—Haruyuki asked the question he’d wanted to ask for a long time: “Metatron. What do you think of us fighting Beings?”

  “That is for you little warriors to decide,” the Legend-class Enemy responded immediately, then added after a brief pause, “however, I believe that if the Beings are going to fight you, then that is proof of their existence.”

  “Proof…of their existence?”

  “Yes. Without exception, when we awaken in this world, we know nothing other than fighting you Burst Linkers. However, more than a few Beings find a new reason for existing after surviving numerous fights and continuing to live for eternity. In which case, there is certainly meaning in us fighting. This is what I believe.”

  Meaning in fighting. Haruyuki nodded and stepped firmly onto the floorboards with both feet. A moment later, he raised his hands into position.

  It wasn’t that he completely understood what Metatron was saying. And it wasn’t as though his hesitation about fighting Enemies had vanished. But the warrior Enemy before him was using all his force to try to defeat Haruyuki and Lead. In which case, Haruyuki had to do the same. Even if his opponent was an Enemy, this was a Brain Burst duel, after all.

  All thought vanished from his mind as the color palette of the world shifted toward the blue, and he felt the super-acceleration that had come over him any number of times now. But this time, in addition to the change in palette, the Enemy’s heavy armor gradually grew translucent.

  He could see the particles of light flowing inside the massive body. This was the first time this had happened, but he instinctively understood that the particles were the information that made up the Enemy itself. Most likely, because he had been focusing his mind while communicating with Metatron, his perceptions were in the tiniest bit of alignment with the Highest Level.

  The warrior started to turn toward Trilead, but then, as if sensing something, it looked at Haruyuki. In the depths of its mask, the fires of its eyes blazed red. The warrior raised a foot where particles of light were gathering.

  “Zrrraaaaaah!!”

  The instant the Enemy launched a stomp attack, Haruyuki jumped.

  The warrior’s foot hit the floorboards hard, while the gathering light—its power made visible—dispersed in concentric waves. If he’d stayed on the floor, he might have been caught up in the shock wave and knocked over. But he evaded that fate with room to spare and used the warrior’s extended knee as a stepping stone for a two-tiered jump. He got in another clean hit, a fist in the face, likely its weak point.

  From there, Haruyuki moved with dizzying speed to keep the warrior’s focus firmly on himself, while Lead beat down with all his might, darting in with a slashing attack as the openings presented themselves.

  The battle seemed both infinite and fleeting until finally the warrior’s massive bulk exploded and scattered, leaving behind one final thunderous roar. An instant later, Haruyuki dropped out of his super-accelerated state. He staggered, dizzy, and nearly fell—only to be caught by Lead’s firm hand.

  “Are you all right, Crow?”

  “Y-yeah,” Haruyuki somehow managed. “I just got a little dizzy there.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lead said apologetically. “I left you to be the target the whole time.”

  Haruyuki glanced at his face mask, and a laugh slipped out of him.

  “Wh-what’s the matter?”

  “Ha-ha! Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just you using net game words like target.”

  The young warrior shrugged, somewhat embarrassed. “When I’m with Master Graph, I accidentally start talking like him.”

  “Nah, I think it’s great. I can get on board with that, too,” he replied, pulling himself upright when he heard a two-p
erson applause from the rear.

  “Pretty good fighting style there, my students. There’s really nothing left for me to teach—,” Graphite Edge started, somewhat theatrically, and Sky Raker shoved a sharp elbow into his side.

  “Hold on, Graph. Corvus is my student.”

  “Urgh,” the swordmaster groaned. “It doesn’t matter, though, right? And if I teach him just one thing, then he’s my student, too, after all.”

  “Are you saying you taught him something?” Raker demanded.

  “Huh.” Graph scratched his helmet. “Maybe nothing yet?”

  The absurd conversation brought wry smiles to the faces of the younger Burst Linkers, and Haruyuki glanced backward. He closed his eyes briefly at the traces of the fierce battle carved into the wooden floor.

  “The soul of that Being has returned to the Main Visualizer and will be reborn someday in a new form to perhaps fight you again,” Metatron murmured from his shoulder.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” He joined Lead and returned to where Fuko and Graph stood.

  The young samurai bowed to his master, and although he showed only the slightest sign of fatigue, his voice was crisp and clear as always. “Master Graph, thank you for your instruction.”

  “Yup. Nice work. You’re really getting the hang of that thing, Lead.” Graph pointed to the Arc Infinity, and Lead glanced down at his left hip before shaking his head.

  “No. I’m still nowhere near your level, Master. When the battle drags on, I feel the weight of this sword.”

  “Well, of course you do,” Graph said. “I mean, it is a mighty Arc, after all. There aren’t too many swords in this whole Accelerated World heavier than that one.”

  “Huh. Is it really that heavy?” Haruyuki asked, distracted.

  Lead cocked his head slightly to one side. “Would you like to hold it, Crow?” He had no sooner asked than, without waiting for an answer, he was removing it from the sheath on his hip. “Go ahead.”

  Lead held the straight sword up in both hands, and Haruyuki looked at his face, then Graph’s, then Raker’s, but everyone seemed fine with the idea. He swallowed hard before he timidly raised his hands.

  “O-okay then, if you don’t mind— Wh-whoa!!” The instant he took the sword from Lead’s hands, Haruyuki very nearly dropped it and hurriedly braced himself. It was indeed heavy. He had only the memory to compare to now, but it might have been as heavy as the great sword Chrome Disaster had been equipped with, if not heavier. “Y-you were swinging this thing around…? Um. C-can I take it out of the sheath?”

  “Please, go ahead,” Lead acquiesced with a smile, so Haruyuki carefully gripped the hilt and drew the sword.

  When he looked at the blade of The Infinity up close for the first time, he noticed that it shone crisp and cool like ice, the straight lines of the tempering rising up in the bluish steel. Haruyuki had mainly fought with a sword when he was the Sixth Disaster, but when he felt again the weight and danger of the sword as an Enhanced Armament, he could see it would be no easy task to master it.

  “Hmm. It has a fairly high priority,” Metatron said, flapping her wings with deep interest. “Servant, hit it with Ektenia.”

  “N-n-n-n-no way! I can’t pay for it if I break it!” He hurriedly re-sheathed the sword and handed it back to Lead. He waited until the young samurai had hung it from his left hip again and then let out a deep breath. “It’s only natural you’d get tired, fighting with such a heavy weapon.”

  “No.” Lead shook his head firmly. “If I’m feeling the weight of the sword after a mere three battles, it simply means that I still have a long way to go.”

  “B-but,” Haruyuki protested, “I mean, when I get tired, I feel even the weight of my own arms and legs.”

  “It doesn’t look that way at all, Crow. The way you moved in the battle earlier…” Lead paused. “It was so smooth that I was vaguely fearful.”

  “Huh? Oh, th-th-th-that was…” Now it was Haruyuki’s turn to shake his head.

  However, Graph nodded solemnly. “I had the same thought in that mock battle the other day when you had that exchange with G. Your physical techniques, Crow—the way you fight at super-close range in three dimensions at top speed is already high-ranker territory. I guess Rekka and Lota gave good instruction.”

  “Naturally.” Fuko sniffed. “Of course, there was also Corvus’s own hard work.”

  “N-n-n-n-n-no-no-no, not at all.” Haruyuki, unused to praise, could only shake his head even faster from side to side. “I mean, with the Green King—and the Enemy just now—I could barely do any damage or anything.”

  “Right. Right there.” Graph snapped a finger at him. “Fighting-type duel avatars like you who have no Enhanced Armament can master how to use their bodies faster than other types…sometimes. That’s the foundation of the duel, a critically important skill. But when you go up levels, it stops winning out over those with Enhanced Armament in terms of simple attack power. Meaning that when your opponent’s hard like G or that warrior Enemy, whether your punches are powerful enough to break the enemy’s defenses also comes into play…Oh! When I say powerful here, I don’t mean the physical power of the punch.”

  “We understand that much at least, Graph.” Fuko shut the avatar down and immediately picked up where he left off: “I’m also a fighting type with no sword or gun, but to compensate for my relative lack of attack power when fighting an opponent with firm defenses, I use the propulsive power of Gale Thruster and penetrating blows. Corvus has poured his level-up bonuses into enhancing his flight ability, so his flight speed and continuous travel distance are quite good, but his instantaneous thrust doesn’t match that of a booster, and he has no special striking abilities.”

  “Right…” Left with no choice but to agree with this assessment, Haruyuki hung his head. In the fight just now, if Lead hadn’t hit the Enemy with such accurate damage, Haruyuki’s powers of concentration would have eventually been exhausted, and he would’ve taken a direct hit from that massive blade.

  “But still, you know, the duel can’t be won just by guarding. Fighting types with solid moves, sword wielders with powerful swords, heavyweight types with strong defenses—one of the fun parts of Brain Burst is how everyone has these strong points and shortcomings. Put ten Burst Linkers together and you got ten ways of being right,” Graphite Edge summed up. He grinned as he added, “But of course, that begs the question of just how scary dangerous Lota is as a sword-bearing, fighting type.

  “Either way, Crow, no need to get so glum as all that. You totally got what your role was in the impromptu tag match with Lead, and you kept that powerful opponent focused on you right up to the end. From my point of view, you did pretty great for yourself out there. And well, if you’re not satisfied with how you are now, you can just get stronger with more training or level-up bonuses or whatever. And if you come across an opponent you can’t beat even then—”

  “If you can’t beat them alone, then you can beat them with two people, and if you can’t win with two, you can with three, Corvus. You have plenty of comrades you can turn to.” Fuko beat Graph to the punch, and he scratched his helmet, seeming dissatisfied, while Lead chuckled.

  “Yes.” Metatron flapped up above his head. “And of course, you can also turn to me, your master!”

  To let Trilead—exhausted after three spontaneous Enemy battles in a row—rest, the party moved once more to the secure basement. The instant they sat down in a circle on the wooden floor, the young samurai let out a long, thin sigh. Haruyuki felt like there was no need to sit formally at a time like this at least, but when he saw Trilead’s upright bearing even as tired as he was, he couldn’t actually say that. And anyway, no matter how many hours they sat formally on their knees, a duel avatar’s knees didn’t get tired, and their feet didn’t fall asleep—supposedly.

  “It’s too bad there’s no tea and snacks,” Fuko commented.

  “Well, if you’re looking for a shop, there is one in the Castle.” Graph shrugged. “
But the location’s totally random. It’s basically a hidden room, so consider yourself super-lucky if you do come across it.”

  “Ohh.” Fuko nodded. “Does that mean they sell good things there?”

  “Well, it is the hidden shop of the final dungeon. I’ve found it a couple times, and the first time, I nearly threw all the points I had at them— No, I mean.” The man, sitting lazily cross-legged in contrast with Lead, coughed a little and cleared his throat before sitting up a bit straighter. “At any rate, Rekka, Crow, thanks for logging in again. Did you change the automatic disconnect time?”

  “Yes. To ten hours from now,” Haruyuki replied.

  “Good.” Graph nodded, satisfied, before continuing. “Now we’ll have a while to talk. That said, I feel like I told you the important stuff before the disconnect.”

  “What are you talking about? You still haven’t told us anything.” Fuko, sitting formally on her knees, sounded exasperated. “Right before Corvus and I disconnected, you said that this Brain Burst 2039 was a game and also wasn’t a game. What does that mean?”

  “Ohh. Um, the thing about that.” Graph turned his face mask upward like he was looking for the right words but eventually glanced over to the left—toward the depths of the Shrine of the Eight Divines, separated from them by the white sacred rope. Haruyuki followed suit to look that way, too, and the pulsing golden light in the distant darkness came into view.

  “Okay, this’ll be a little bit of a long story, but I’ll tell you what I know.” With that preamble, the dual swordsman, Graphite Edge, aka the Anomaly, started to speak slowly, telling his story as though it were a fairy tale.

  A long, long time ago, there was a large battle in a world that closely resembled this one, a battle brought about by a certain “presence” locked away in that world—to borrow Metatron’s wording, a Being. The war that waged between the two sides was long and fierce. Although the world was virtual, much blood was spilled, and many lives were lost from that world.

  The objective of one side was the destruction of the Being in question. The objective of the other side was to free the Being from the world. After years of fighting, the leaders of the two sides discovered at basically the same time a console that would allow them to exercise administrator privileges in this virtual world—game master privileges. But that was all the console gave them, so the only thing they could do was generate and place objects and monsters within the already maximum resource range; the console didn’t allow soldiers on either side—players—to directly annihilate the other or the Being at the heart of the matter.