The Binary Stars of Destiny

by Reki Kawahara

  UI> PLAS SSDTOP PLS

  Utai frantically slapped her hands at her holokeyboard as she was hoisted up into the air, but the letters scrolling out into the chat window didn’t come together into words. All Haruyuki could do was catch in midair the white handkerchief she dropped.

  The assailant executing this masterful backstab had no sooner flipped around Utai’s small body than she was clutching it to her chest and crying out with delight, “Aaah! Uiui, you’re as cute as always! I just want to tuck you away in my pocket and bring you home with me! Or make a little mascot doll out of you and put you on my dashboard!”

  Uttering this questionable declaration of love was a girl in the uniform of a school that was not in this area. She was quite a bit taller than Haruyuki, her too-perfect proportions wrapped in a light-blue blouse and checkered skirt, thin knee-high socks reaching up quite a ways past her knees. Her long, soft hair flowed down over her shoulders.

  Utai’s right hand scrabbled even more frantically in the air before dropping down, as if it had expended all its energy.

  Here, the predator, having confirmed total control over her target, finally looked at Haruyuki and smiled gently. “Hello, Corvus. I see you’re working hard at the Animal Care Club.”

  “Oh. Th-thanks. Hello, Master.” Face stiffening, Haruyuki exchanged greetings with the deputy of Nega Nebulus, level-eight Burst Linker Sky Raker, aka Fuko Kurasaki. Then he asked, ever so timidly, “Uh, um, wh-why are you here at Umesato?”

  “The one thing everyone should have is a friend in a position of power. Sacchi was kind enough to issue me a visitor’s pass.”

  In that era, the tightening of security at elementary, junior high, and high schools had been pursued wholeheartedly, so that people outside the school, even children of the same age group, could not freely come and go. Authentication occurred at the gates of the school via Neurolinker, and unless a pass had been issued, security guards would come running the instant a stranger stepped over the threshold.

  “Oh, nice.” Haruyuki nodded his head before suddenly shaking it.

  “W-wait, I’m not talking system-wise. We’re supposed to meet at my place at six, right?”

  “Goodness! Am I not allowed to simply want to see you sooner rather than later? I have to have some urgent business?” She grinned and, given that he was a healthy junior high school boy, there was no avoiding the way his head exploded a little.

  But on the brink of disaster, Haruyuki remembered that before him was the actually scary Master Raker. His slackening cheeks tightened abruptly, and he shook his head in tiny increments.

  “N-n-n-n-no, that’s, it’s not that you’re not allowed, I’m really h-h-h-h-happy.” This was no time for him to get carried away—because, at present, Haruyuki was keeping something important from Fuko. And that was the fact that he had to secretly initiate her “child,” Ash Roller, into the Incarnate.

  He stood frozen in place, stiff smile plastered onto his face, and Fuko gently stretched out her hand to pinch his cheek lightly.

  “H-huut?”

  “Corvus. Perhaps it’s just my imagination? Somehow, I feel like you are keeping something from me.”

  He desperately suppressed the urge to spring up into the air and shook his head from side to side again. “N-no, there’sh no reashon I would hide shomshing from you!”

  “I wonder? My instincts on this sort of thing are almost never off.” As Fuko gently tugged on Haruyuki’s cheek between her pinched fingers, a charming smile, sweeter than the finest-quality fresh cream, spread across her lips to fill her face. Still, he mustn’t forget that she still held her first victim tightly to her chest.

  He placed his hands on his legs and stood taller as he continued to shake his head, and Fuko’s fingers moved from his cheek to his ear. As her fingertips toyed with his earlobes, she brought her face in close and murmured, “So then I suppose I simply got the wrong idea?”

  “Wrong idea? About what?”

  “Nothing serious. It’s just I had a little time after I left school today, so I thought I might go sit in a duel Gallery. And when I did, I just happened to come across Ash in the Gallery of the same duel, so we started to chat.”

  “…”

  “And somehow, he seemed a little off, a little strange, you know? So I caught up with him in the real and gently questioned him.”

  “……”

  “And wouldn’t you know, he told me he had completely disregarded me, his parent, and gotten you to promise to teach him something very important? Verrrrry top secret, verrrrry critical, a name I hesitate to say in a public space…” Here, soundlessly, Fuko’s lips moved: In. Car. Nate. “…system and its use?”

  Ash Rolleeeeerrrrrrr!! Way to crack under pressure! I mean, if you’re going to spill it right away, then just get Raker to teach you to begin with! What exactly was the point of me worrying and working on this all day?! Anyway, you seriously owe me for this mess now! he screamed in his mind, but he couldn’t turn back time.

  He stopped the ongoing side-to-side motion of his head and moved it sharply up and down in resignation. “Um,” he said. “Uhh, I-I’m sorry. I was. Hiding something. From you.”

  “Oh, you were?” Terrifyingly, her perfectly kind smile still on her face, Raker nodded once more. “I’m so glad you told me. If you had tried to feign ignorance any further, I would have given you the full course of special training with Ash, Corvus, but now I’ll let you do just half.”

  “…H-half…?”

  “Yes. Once we succeed in today’s Castle escape, your special training will begin in the Unlimited Neutral Field. I think it’s getting to be time for you to proceed to the next level as well, Corvus.”

  “…T-today…?” he said, dumbfounded, and, although he was reassured by Fuko referring so easily to the mission’s success, proceeded to cast around wildly. But of course, there was no sign of anyone in the dim school yard besides Haruyuki, Fuko, and Utai (clutched firmly to Fuko’s chest).

  “B-but how are we going to meet up with Ash? If we don’t pick a fairly definite time, it’s pretty difficult to meet in the Unlimited Neutral Field, isn’t—”

  “That’s not a problem.” Fuko answered Haruyuki’s question with the utmost ease. “I already have Ash locked up—or rather, standing by in my car parked nearby. I’ll be bringing him along to your condo, Corvus, and having him dive with us. Naturally, not from your house, but rather the parking lot close to you.”

  “Huh? Ash came all the way here? In the real?”

  Haruyuki opened his eyes wide, forgetting momentarily his own punishment status. So then that meant if he wanted to, he could meet Ash in the real world? The century-end rider who in his mind had a mohawk and a riveted leather jacket in real life, too?

  Unfortunately—he wasn’t sure whether to call it that or not—Fuko shook her head slightly. “He’s here, but it’s better if you don’t meet in the real yet. He is, after all, still a member of one of the six Legions, Great Wall.”

  “R-right, he is.” Slowly letting out the breath he had been holding, Haruyuki nodded. They might have been pupils together, but Ash was still a subordinate of the Green King, who stood in opposition to Kuroyukihime. There was a line where he had to pull back.

  “I understand.” He lifted his face, finally looked directly at Fuko, and nodded deeply. At some point, Haruyuki teaching Ash the Incarnate had turned into both of them being taught together by Fuko, but his exhilaration was greater than his regret. “I feel like I just came across a new clue. Having you teach me again, Master, is exactly what I want!”

  “Well said. Good attitude.”

  He watched Fuko smile, pleased, and wondered if it wasn’t a little too soon, when the still-captive Utai weakly moved both hands and tapped at her keyboard.

  UI> I’LL ALSO COME ALONG FOR THE TRAINING.

  After finally releasing Utai, Fuko said hello to Hoo in the animal hutch—it was their first meeting, but they apparently got along quite well as fellow “flying typ
es”—before the three of them headed toward the student council office.

  Although there weren’t very many students left on campus after school, walking alongside an elementary school girl and a high school girl was a bit of a trial for Haruyuki. Slipping past the amazed eyes that lasered in on them, they moved from the entrance to the depths of the first floor of the first school building, and the instant he pushed through the door, Haruyuki heaved a sigh of relief.

  But once they were in the closed room of the student council office, he was forced to deal with a different kind of nervous tension. Because with the addition of Kuroyukihime, who welcomed the party with a smile, he had definitely arrived in the situation where he was the lone, dull boy in a troupe of sleek, refined girls. Not to mention that these three girls had been the head and senior members of the former Nega Nebulus, which had once occupied the top spot of the Accelerated World’s seven major Legions; there was no reason Haruyuki would be able to relax among them.

  You know, now that I’m thinking about it, the current Negabu has Chiyuri and Takumu now, so it’s four girls and two boys. If we don’t get more boys in here, it’s gonna be all lopsided. But it’d be better to get someone who’s not too scary, if we can. Oh, right! Maybe that guy’d join. Maybe I’ll try inviting him when we see him.

  These and many other random thoughts wandering through his head, Haruyuki sat in one corner of the sofa set and sipped the tea Kuroyukihime had made. At some point, the clock on the wall had gotten all the way around to five PM.

  “Goodness! Is it already so late?” Fuko stood up as if in a panic and clapped her hands together. “I simply can’t leave Ash locked up—waiting forever in the car, so I’ll go on ahead, all right? I’ll park the car near Corvus’s house and come by myself at six.”

  “I feel like you’ve already left him alone plenty long,” Kuroyukihime remarked wryly.

  “I told him to earn ten points in free duels before diving into the Unlimited Neutral Field, so I’m sure he’s not bored,” Fuko responded with a composed expression. “All right, then, everyone—I’ll see you later.”

  Fuko waved a hand and left the student council office, and almost as if to replace her, Chiyuri and Takumu appeared, practice over. Their hair was still damp from the quick showers they had taken, and the party, now five, walked together to the mixed-use condo in north Koenji.

  Since Chiyuri’s mother should have already prepared a light supper for all of them again that day, hot on the heels of the previous two days—a fact for which Haruyuki was both deeply grateful and deeply apologetic—they simply stocked up on drinks at the shopping mall in the condo building and got into the elevator. Chiyuri and Takumu got off at the twenty-first floor to transport the foodstuffs, while Haruyuki, Kuroyukihime, and Utai went up to the twenty-third floor ahead of them.

  As they were making these preparations, Haruyuki felt his nervousness increase with each second they drew closer to seven PM.

  His other self, the duel avatar Silver Crow, had been left deep in the Castle enshrined at the center of the Unlimited Neutral Field. If he couldn’t escape from there, the purification of the Armor of Catastrophe couldn’t happen, and thus, his future as a Burst Linker would become very uncertain. Takumu and the others had declared that even if a bounty was placed on his head in the name of the Seven Kings and he ended up not being able to duel, they would supply him with the points he needed. That sentiment filled his heart with joy, but he couldn’t simply sit back and count on that. He didn’t want to cling to acceleration to the point where he became a burden on the Legion.

  “Don’t get caught up in a negative image, now,” a voice murmured in his ear the instant he walked into the living room of his house and set down his bag.

  At some point, Haruyuki had started to droop forward, and he lifted his head with a gasp.

  The voice belonged to Kuroyukihime, and she was standing immediately behind him. Placing her right hand on his chest, she pulled him around to face her. “It’s important to have an image of every situation. But there are times when you need to focus hard on what’s in front of you and charge ahead. Now is one of those times.”

  UI> IT’S EXACTLY AS SACCHI SAYS. RIGHT NOW, LET’S SIMPLY BELIEVE AND MOVE FORWARD.

  If even Utai, his fellow prisoner of the Castle, was typing these words as she poked her head out from behind Kuroyukihime, then he couldn’t very well hang his head.

  Haruyuki thrust out his chest and replied with a single word: “Right!” At this, the cold sweat oozing from both hands seemed to mysteriously suck back in.

  Once the sushi and various other rolls prepared so lovingly by Chiyuri’s mother were laid out on the six-person dining table and the tea had been brewed, Fuko joined them, with perfect timing.

  Haruyuki looked around at the lineup of Legion members, the same as it had been two days earlier, and asked timidly, “Um, are you sure it’s really okay? Leaving Ash in the car, I mean?”

  Chiyuri and Takumu—already filled in on the situation—smiled wryly along with Kuroyukihime, and Fuko composed her face in the same cool expression as before.

  “He’s pouting a little, but I can’t exactly bring him up here.”

  “So then at least bring him some of the sushi later,” Chiyuri suggested, smiling as she brought a plastic container out from the kitchen and began to quickly divide up the rolls. Haruyuki pictured the century-end rider eating cucumber rolls, and the corners of his mouth unconsciously turned up.

  “How about it, Fuko? Time to recruit him for our team?” Kuroyukihime uttered unexpectedly, with a serious face.

  “Ye—H-huh?!” Naturally, it was Haruyuki who shouted.

  But the other members didn’t seem so surprised. Takumu even nodded calmly with a quick “That’s one way, isn’t it?”

  Haruyuki stared, dumbfounded, with wide-open eyes, and Fuko cocked her head slightly, looking perfectly composed.

  “It’s not that I haven’t thought about it, but…he’s, well, he has a surprisingly strong sense of duty. I can’t say whether or not he’d approve of lowering the Wall flag after raising it already. And, of course, there’s also the concern that the Green King, Green Grandé, would use the Judgment Blow instead of approving Ash’s withdrawal.”

  “Hmm. To be honest, I never really know what Grandé is thinking.” Kuroyukihime crossed her arms, frowning. “I feel like I’ve grasped the personalities of the other Kings to a certain extent, but that shield of a man alone, well…”

  At the meeting of the Seven Kings the previous week, Haruyuki had also seen the Green King close up, but the only thing he got from it was that the Green King seemed super hard. Grandé hadn’t said a single thing from start to finish but had simply nodded once when it was concluded that they would give Silver Crow a week.

  It’s kind of incredible that he rules over a major Legion of more than a hundred people like that.

  Haruyuki hurriedly brought his straying thoughts back to the subject at hand: Ash Roller in Nega Nebulus. He had never even considered it, but he didn’t actually hate the idea. Ash was his eternal rival, someone he had fought countless times since that first day when he’d become a Burst Linker, but when Haruyuki lost his purpose after his wings were stolen, that man had passionately rebuked him and brought him to his own parent, Sky Raker. Haruyuki owed him. It was hard to picture from the swaggering way he carried himself, but Ash Roller was a real stand-up guy, honestly compassionate.

  And then Haruyuki realized something and lifted his face with a gasp. “Uh, um, Kuroyukihime, Master? I think that, for the time being at least, Ash can’t transfer to our Legion.”

  “Why do you say that with such certainty?”

  “Ash’s little brother, Bush Utan—” Haruyuki cut himself off here and suggested that they talk while they ate, since it was a long story.

  Once Fuko had returned from delivering the package of sushi Chiyuri had put together to her car—although it was apparently not her vehicle, but rather in her mother’s name—in
the large parking garage in the basement of the condo, they all sat down together once more to eat.

  Chiyuri’s mother’s specialty was Italian food like pasta and lasagna, but she also demonstrated ample skill when it came to Japanese food, and Haruyuki, who didn’t get to eat sushi all that often, stuffed it all in his mouth in a trance. Everyone else also rose to the challenge, maneuvering their chopsticks until the large plate was half-empty, and then finally, the conversation resumed.

  “Haight, haight. Ahout Ahoo Hohaa.” Haruyuki started to speak with a mouth full of sushi, and Takumu stopped him with a slight smile.

  “I’ll explain about that. I’m a big part of it, so…”

  Haruyuki opened his eyes with a gasp and hurried to chew up the vinegar-seasoned rice in his mouth, but while he was furiously masticating, Takumu had already started to explain, so he had no choice but to accept the role of listener. The briefing by the biggest brain in the Legion was indeed easy to understand, but Haruyuki couldn’t help but get nervous. Because, just as Takumu had said he would, he explained everything that had happened to him, without leaving out a single detail.

  How two days earlier, after hearing about the ISS kits from Haruyuki, he had gone to investigate on his own. How he had come into contact with a Burst Linker called Magenta Scissor in the Setagaya area and been given the kit in a sealed state. And then how the previous day, he had been attacked by the PK group Supernova Remnant in the Shinjuku area and had counterattacked and destroyed them with the power of the ISS kit in the Unlimited Neutral Field. The direct duel with Haruyuki after that. And the mysterious “dream” the three of them shared that morning.

  Haruyuki had simply informed Kuroyukihime, Fuko, and Utai of the general overview of this chain of events in a mail, because it had seemed impossible to properly put into text why Takumu had sought power and how he’d overcome that. Of course, given that they would have to explain that at some point, it was probably preferable that Takumu was telling the story now himself, but Haruyuki couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Like maybe Kuroyukihime would reprimand Takumu for getting the ISS kit at his own discretion like that.