The Binary Stars of Destiny

by Reki Kawahara

  “Ah…huh.” Overwhelmed, Haruyuki nodded.

  “Then listen up, you little crow!” Ash Roller snapped the index fingers of both hands at him. “Today you doo-bappity-duel my righteous self for reals! If I lose, I’ll listen to what you have to say. But, ’ey, I win, and you grant me one wish! That’s totally mega even terms, a’ight!”

  “Sorry? A w-wish?!”

  “Two duels in a row of nada, and the pretty little boys and girls in the Gallery who went to all the trouble of registering me are gonna be mega bummed and blue!”

  Cheers like “Yeah! That’s right!” and “Show us something hot today!” came one after another at this declaration from beneath the skull–emblazoned face shield of Ash’s helmet. Hurriedly looking around, Haruyuki saw the silhouettes of the audience dotting the rooftops of the buildings along Kannana.

  There wasn’t a ton of people, but it did look like pretty much everyone registered on the matching list had shown up in the stage. Many of the Burst Linkers who made their home in Shinjuku or farther west knew Silver Crow and Ash Roller as fated rivals. Their fights tended to be rather spectacular because both of their avatars had very flashy performance—and they were both level five—so a fight between them was seen as a pretty fun event.

  Haruyuki glanced up at the timer, already down sixty seconds, and thought over the situation quickly.

  Unlike the day before, when they had talked for very nearly the full thirty minutes, all he had to say to Ash Roller that day was the simple message “if you’re going to remove Bush Utan’s ISS kit, now’s your chance.” That wouldn’t even take three minutes. In which case, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make good use of the burst point he’d gone and spent, and take on Ash Roller in a practice match. And he couldn’t rule out the possibility that, depending on how the mission to escape the Castle that night and the meeting of the Seven Kings on Sunday went, this might be his last duel.

  “Understood.” Haruyuki nodded deeply. “I’ll accept your terms. If I win, you sit down and listen to meeooowhoa!”

  Before he could finish speaking, however, his sentence turned into a shout once more, and he flew off to his left—because Ash Roller’s massive bike had suddenly and ferociously charged him.

  “Ah! That’s dangerous, you know! I was still talk—”

  “Shut it. Shut yer yaaaaap! Duel’s started, booooyyyy! Boo-hoo to you, ’cos I’m gonna victorize totes gigacoooooool!” Ash Roller shouted, and spun his bike around once more.

  Haruyuki made a mental note that the turn radius was much tighter than when they’d first met, as he flung back his own bravado. “I-I’m the one who’s gonna pull off a teragorgeous perfect win! But, like, the terms are not even at all. I mean, I win and you listen. You win, and I grant—”

  “Suuuuuucks! Not my style to get all worked up over details!”

  Exhaust jetting from the fat muffler, the American motorcycle rushed Haruyuki for the third time.

  Ash Roller was an irregular Burst Linker, having poured the majority of his duel avatar’s potential into the Enhanced Armament that was his bike.

  The rider himself had basically no fighting power, close-up or long-range. Instead, the motorcycle had both serious mobility and serious stamina. A vehicle Enhanced Armament was in and of itself rare, but even among the ones that existed, the performance of this one was likely at the top of the class.

  If pressed to list its weak points, Haruyuki would have to say that it wasn’t as maneuverable as a flesh-and-blood avatar and that it lacked the element of surprise because of its sheer size. To attack the latter weakness, a concentrated long-distance firepower attack was effective, but Haruyuki had essentially none of the attack power endemic in red-type avatars.

  Thus, if he was fighting Ash Roller on the ground, he ended up risking his life on close-range attacks. Specifically, when he dodged to one side as the charging vehicle was a hairbreadth away and then showered counterattacks on Ash himself or the motorcycle engine.

  The best thing was to use Silver Crow’s nimble agility to jump straight up into the air and aim for the rider’s head, but his opponent was well aware of this strategy. The instant Haruyuki assumed a posture to leap upward, his opponent would no doubt pull up into a wheelie and bring out the “antiaerial attack,” front wheel spinning at high speed. The jump attack and the antiaerial attack were mutually incompatible, a game of rock, paper, scissors, and if he took that hit, he wouldn’t be able to avoid serious damage. An unstrategic leap was suicide.

  “Eeeeeeyaaaaaah!”

  Together with a high-pitched battle cry from its rider, the bike charged toward Haruyuki, and he concentrated all his mental energies on its enormous front wheel.

  His opponent was also no doubt assuming Haruyuki would dodge and was ready to make tiny adjustments to his trajectory one way or the other immediately before Haruyuki could jump. Which was fine if Ash plunged ahead on the opposite side, but Haruyuki was just another jumper on a busy train line if he dodged in the same direction.

  Which way…right or left…Don’t look at the tire, watch the angle of the bike itself…

  Haruyuki activated the hyperpowers of concentration—limited to game play and nothing else—he had polished long before he became a Burst Linker and focused every inch of his mind on the behavior of the entire motorcycle.

  Then.

  The turn signal on the bike’s side, the right from Haruyuki’s perspective, began flashing orange.

  “Huh.” The sound slipped out of him as he reflexively flew to the left.

  But at the same time, the bike also angled to the left, and the tough, charcoal-colored tire pressed in on him.

  An incredible impact like being hit with an enormous hammer. The entirety of the stage spun round and round. Or rather, Haruyuki himself spun round and round. In a magnificent display that outshone even the more silly anime programs of the day, Silver Crow flew dozens of meters head over heels at top speed through the air before smashing headfirst into one of the rocky mountains along the east side of Kannana Street.

  After blacking out for a minute, he braced his hands on the stony face of the mountain and yanked his helmet free. The moment he leapt back to his feet, he shouted indignantly, “Y-y-you turned the opposite way of your signal! That’s a traffic violation! Fine of two hundred million yen!!”

  “Heeyah-ha-ha-haaaaa!” The skull-faced rider laughed long and loud at this, even as he turned to follow Haruyuki and rush him once more. “Mighty Ash right here! Just me existing’s a traffic violation, you knoooooow!”

  That was true. In the present day, bringing something that burned fossil fuels onto public roads and generated even a cubic centimeter of carbon dioxide was basically asking to be immediately arrested. And the noise coming from the muffler easily tore through standards for public order; the bike didn’t even have a license plate on the back. But of course, in this Accelerated World, there were also no white bikes to pull him over.

  Instead of sirens, they were showered in the enthusiastic cheers erupting from the Gallery all around them, as Ash Roller plunged forward to send Haruyuki flying again.

  “Damn him!” Cursing, Haruyuki glanced to the top left of his field of view. Silver Crow’s health gauge had dropped nearly 20 percent from that hit. In contrast, his special-attack gauge was charged 30 percent, but he still couldn’t be sure he could win this if he activated his flying ability.

  He’d fly after going up against Ash one more time on the ground. Having resolved this, Haruyuki dropped his stance and waited for the assault. He’d never seen the feint with the turn signal before, so he’d unconsciously fallen for it, but he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. This time, he shouted in his heart, he’d dodge the charge at the very last moment and pummel Ash with a fierce counterattack.

  But it seemed that Ash Roller also didn’t think the same feint would work a second time. Rather than flicking on his turn signal—

  “Huuuup!” he called out as he jumped straight up on the vehicle a
nd stood, using the seat and the handlebars as footholds. He plunged ahead, riding the motorcycle like a surfboard. Ash Roller’s so-called secret technique, the V-Twin Punch.

  Seemingly a joke in both name and appearance, the technique in fact held a power that couldn’t be so easily dismissed. Haruyuki could dodge the front tire of the bike, but then the rider’s kick would come flying at him, so it was hard to find the timing for a counterattack. Although he had come up against the V-Twin Punch several times already, he still hadn’t been able to find an effective countermeasure to it.

  “Yaaahooooooooo!”

  Haruyuki glared intently at the motorcycle, slaloming lightly left and right as it pressed in on him, and at the rider shouting on top of it. It was possible for him to evade the attack with a large jump, but then he wouldn’t be able to counter. Ash’s teacher and parent, Sky Raker, had taken down the V-Twin Punch with the superhuman feat of dashing backward while clutching the motorcycle’s brake lever, but that was still beyond Haruyuki’s abilities.

  Some other weak point, somewhere, somehow—

  “Ngh!” A light went on abruptly.

  Could Ash Roller still make the bike do a wheelie in that position? No, it was probably impossible. If he did a wheelie, he’d fall off the bike himself. So then where Haruyuki needed to aim was—

  “Up!”

  The instant the massive tire filled his field of view, Haruyuki bent forward and kicked off the ground as hard as he could to fly up into the air.

  “Hungaah?!”

  The rider let out a strange sound as Haruyuki crashed into him and clung to him for dear life. The pair fell away from the motorcycle and hit the ground with a thud. Having lost its master, the American bike raced off north on Kannana.

  “You! This! Hold me tight—No way, lemme go, dude!” Ash Roller howled, kicking and flailing, while Haruyuki tried with all his might to hold him down. He couldn’t let this chance get away from him.

  “Nope! You without your bike is like soy sauce pickles without curry!”

  “The hell! When it comes to curry, I’m totally on the pickled leeks team!”

  The Gallery erupted once more at the two wrestling on the road. But when it came down to actual fisticuffs, Ash Roller simply didn’t have the power to pierce Silver Crow’s metal armor. Regardless of the punches landing on his face and chest, Haruyuki pushed his way behind Ash Roller and held his chest with both arms.

  “Gah! Hey! D-d-d-d-d-d-don’t go hugging me, man!”

  “I-it’s not like I want to be hugging you!”

  “Don’t say you’re hugging me! Dammit, dude!”

  “You’re the one who said it…first!!” Haruyuki shouted back at Ash Roller, as he deployed the silver wings on his back. His special-attack gauge had been charged a further 10 percent in this ground scuffle, and he used it to deploy the ten metal fins with everything he had.

  Vwwmp! Silver Crow and Ash Roller took off directly up into the air like a rocket.

  “Ngaaaaah! Wh-what the hell?! Fly hiiiiiigh!”

  Ash Roller continued his nonsensical yelling, but Haruyuki was done responding; he simply ascended at full power. In an instant, they passed the stony mountains the members of the Gallery stood on, reaching an altitude of one hundred meters, two hundred, three.

  “N-noooooo! Heights are no good, no way, no thank you—” The high-pitched cry was abruptly cut off. The body flailing frantically in Haruyuki’s arms stiffened, and Ash Roller asked hoarsely, “Uh, um, Crow? Mighty me’s not actually? Like a falling star in the night sky?”

  “Yes. Like space debris falling out of orbit.” Nodding, Haruyuki moved to release his hands, merciless.

  He had worked out a number of battle strategies to make use of Silver Crow’s flying ability in an actual duel. The one he had been using since the early days was a super-high-speed kick or a punch from a high altitude—his dive attack. And lately, he had been practicing the Aerial Combo technique, which used momentary thrust from his wings in close-range battle on the ground.

  But there was a way of using his wings that was more reliable and effective than either of these. He pinned down his duel opponent, carried them high up into the sky, and then released them from serious altitudes for drop damage. It was hard to use on large avatars, and he couldn’t manage to even pin down opponents with real fighting abilities, but the moment he got an enemy in the air, real damage was basically assured. The reason Haruyuki didn’t use the technique that much was because the second his opponent saw that he was coming in close, they tended to make him eat a painful counterattack. Plus, more than a few avatars were resistant to being dropped even if they couldn’t fly, so he couldn’t count on a situation like this one, where all the different factors happened to come together. Given that Ash Roller had very weak armor and no hovering or three-dimensional movement abilities, if he was dropped from this height, the maximum value for fall damage would probably be applied.

  Haruyuki had gotten swept up in his impending victory and completely forgotten his initial objective, but Ash was not the sort of gallant opponent who could simply keep his mouth shut, even when faced with a stalemate like this.

  Before Haruyuki could remove his hands, Ash Roller grabbed on to them tightly and shouted, “Then my mighty self and you are riding tandem straight into hellllllll! Flyyyying Knucklehead!!”

  A special attack?! Unconsciously, Haruyuki stiffened up. He hadn’t even imagined that Ash Roller’s body had a special attack.

  But a few seconds passed, and still nothing happened. Deciding that it had been a bluff to buy time, Haruyuki opened his mouth to complain about how his opponent just did not know when to give up, but his words quickly turned into a shout of surprise.

  “Come on, Ash! There are limits even fowaaaaaaaah?!”

  What had stunned Haruyuki so was not Ash still held in his arms, but rather two spots of light racing toward him from directly below. Long, thin cylindrical bodies closing in, jetting orange flames. Four small wings near the tails and red lenses at the heads. No matter how he looked at them—

  “M-m-missiles?!” he screamed as he shot upward in the sky.

  But the two missiles were apparently equipped with a homing function and followed him with unerring precision. No matter how he zigged and zagged, he couldn’t break away from them.

  Now that he was thinking about it, Ash Roller had said something before about getting missiles on his motorcycle. Which meant the launcher of these missiles was that American bike, which had probably fallen over somewhere along Kannana. Which meant that voice commands were still possible even when separated from the Enhanced Armament. However.

  “Y-y-you’re gonna get blown up, too, though!”

  “Ha! Way better than just getting dropped, booooyyyy!”

  That was definitely true. Haruyuki tried earnestly to dispose of his burden, but Ash, looking for a draw, had wrapped both arms and legs around him and was clinging to him tightly. Because of this, Haruyuki couldn’t manage to produce more than half his usual speed, which meant the missiles would be reaching for the tips of his toes in a few seconds.

  “Key shooooooop!” At the same time as Ash Roller shouted this incomprehensible cry, there was a magnificent explosion.

  The really terrifying part of explosive attacks—although this naturally depended on the power and range of the explosion—was that when you were hit, you didn’t know which way was up for a while. Falling from a height of three hundred meters upside down, head spinning, Haruyuki just barely managed to collect himself before he plunged headfirst into the earth and spread both wings to apply the emergency brakes.

  Still tangled up with Ash Roller, he landed in the middle of the intersection of the original Kannana and Oume Kaido. He peeled off the clinging Ash Roller and pushed him half a meter or so away before asking in a groan, “Hey, Ash. What was that ‘key shop’ thing before?”

  Apparently recovering his senses a little more slowly, the motorcycle rider shook his skull helmet lightly back an
d forth as he whispered in reply, “Okay, so, like…when you set off fireworks, you shout out tamaya or kagiya, right? I just figured I’d translate that into English…Would ‘ball shop’ be more compredés for you?”

  For once, Ash had translated them correctly, albeit entirely too literally to make any sense. “I’m telling you from the bottom of my heart, either is fine. Which is to say they’re both incomprehensible,” Haruyuki muttered, and checked both of their health gauges.

  Immediately before the direct hit from the missiles, Haruyuki’s had been lower, but apparently, his metal armor had cut the damage from the explosion; both gauges currently had a mere 10 percent or so remaining. If one of them got in two or three clean punches, the battle would be decided, but as they lay sprawled out on the ground, Haruyuki and Ash Roller glanced at each other before speaking at the same time:

  “Should we call it a draw?”

  “How about we leave this a draw?”

  Each nodding at the other, they pulled themselves to their feet.

  Wordlessly, Haruyuki looked around at the Gallery gazing down upon them, and then shouted in a tense voice, “Um, sorry! We’re going to end this duel here as a draw!”

  He thought a few people at least would grumble, but to his surprise:

  “Good game!”

  “Thanks for the great show!”

  “Looking forward to next tiiiime!”

  The spectators shouted their appreciation and burst out, leaving only their thundering applause. As he watched this, Haruyuki abruptly became aware of a certain kind of deep emotion filling his heart.

  This was the duel. There might be thrills and excitement, but there was no resentment or anger. The duelers might be rivals competing against each other, but they were not enemies to hate.

  Considering the cool rationality of the burst point system, perhaps the creator of this world had envisioned a more bloodthirsty survival game. But the players had of their own will rejected the expectations of the creator. That feeling was certainly included in the name “Burst Linker,” something not set by the point system: the feeling that they were comrades.