The Binary Stars of Destiny

by Reki Kawahara

  However…

  “I see. Well done, Takumu,” the head of the Legion put forth immediately with a gentle smile after hearing the whole story. Fuko and Utai also nodded calmly.

  “What? I thought you’d be super mad and break the table slamming your hand onto it, so I got sushi ready as an emergency measure,” Chiyuri said, actually bringing both hands out onto the table.

  “I am indeed the Legion Master.” Kuroyukihime smiled a broad, wry smile as she responded. “But I don’t believe that I can—or would like to—control my members completely. All of us Burst Linkers have our own daily ongoing battles, in the Accelerated World and in the real world. Whether you’re a parent or a master, all you can do is simply have faith and offer encouragement. And it’s basically still adorable when you three act on your own. More so than the Four Elements of the first Nega Nebulus.”

  At this last bit, Fuko and Utai both stuffed sushi rolls into their mouths and feigned ignorance.

  In the midst of this harmonious scene, Takumu blinked quickly behind his glasses and then finally bowed his head deeply. When he lifted it again, his pale face had completely regained its usual intellectual expression. “Thanks to Haru and Chii, I was able to break free of the control of the ISS kit. At the same time, I managed to inflict some degree of damage to the main body in the Brain Burst central server. But, although that weakened the kits parasitizing Bush Utan and Olive Grab, they’re still not completely gone.”

  “Th-that’s right.” Here, Haruyuki remembered what he had wanted to say and connected that to words. “And Ash feels super responsible for Bush Utan getting sucked into the ISS kit. I think that, even if we did invite him to join, he wouldn’t say yes until he had freed Utan from the control of the kit. The reason he wanted me to teach him the Incarnate System to begin with wasn’t so he could get stronger, but because he wants to destroy Utan’s ISS kit himself. That’s all he wants.”

  “Corvus. You really do understand him very well, don’t you?” Fuko said suddenly, just as he had taken a breath and was about to down some of his tea, and he unconsciously choked a little.

  “Unh. What? You think so? To be honest, I still can’t picture what he’s like in the real at all, though.”

  “Hmm? Isn’t he the same, though? Riding an electric scooter every morning, doing his hya-ha-ha thing?” Chiyuri opined, and Takumu nodded with a serious face.

  Fuko, however, simply laughed gracefully, and then, without answering the question, clapped her hands. “Setting aside the Legion switch, if he wants to learn the Incarnate System because of his friend, then I can’t stop him. I believe he’s reached a level of actual power as a Burst Linker that will allow it. That’s the reason I got Sacchi’s permission to have him accompany us today.”

  After the escape from the Castle, we move straight into special training. Remembering Fuko’s words, Haruyuki felt a shiver run up his spine.

  Utai, to his right, finished eating a kanpyo roll before setting her fingers racing over the tabletop. UI> WELL THEN, OUR SCHEDULE TODAY’S GETTING PRETTY FULL. (1) CASTLE ESCAPE. (2) ARMOR PURIFICATION. (3) INCARNATE TRAINING. IT DOES COST TEN POINTS TO DIVE INTO THE UNLIMITED NEUTRAL FIELD, SO IT’S ACTUALLY A BARGAIN TO TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE.

  “Hee-hee, it truly is. Once we’ve finished all that, how about we do a little Enemy hunting while we’re at it?”

  “Ah, in that case, I wanna go check out one of the four great dungeons!” Chiyuri proposed innocently, and the three veteran Burst Linkers fell silent all at once before shaking their heads back and forth, looking serious.

  Utai typed out in an excessively stiff motion, UI> IF WE TRIED TO GO IN ALL THE WAY WITH THIS MANY PEOPLE, IT WOULD TAKE AT LEAST SIX MONTHS.

  At the same time as the three junior members dropped their jaws in amazement, the clock on the wall hit six forty-five.

  They worked together to clear the table, took turns using the restroom, and then moved to the sofa set on the west side of the living room just as the clock hit five minutes till seven.

  Looking around at the assembled, Kuroyukihime carried out the final briefing. That said, unlike the previous outing, they didn’t have a particularly detailed plan.

  After diving into the Unlimited Neutral Field, Kuroyukihime, Fuko, Chiyuri, and Takumu would move from Suginami to the Chiyoda area and stand by in front of the Castle’s south gate. When Haruyuki and Utai dove, they would appear in the coordinates of the automatic disconnect from the last time—the shrine in the basement of the Castle’s main building—so with the cooperation of the mysterious young samurai avatar Trilead Tetroxide, they would return to the south gate, break the seal, and escape. Working together with Kuroyukihime and the others waiting outside, they would evade the fierce attacks of the God Suzaku and flee to the other side of the large bridge that stretched out from the gate.

  Since they couldn’t predict what Suzaku would do, all they could do was play it by ear in the actual moment. However, unlike the last time, when he’d had to collect Ardor Maiden from the ground, this time he just had to flee as fast as he could. The bridge was only five hundred meters long. If things went well, they might be able to charge through before Suzaku finished materializing after detecting the intruders in its territory. No, they’d definitely be able to.

  Clenching his fists as he whispered this to himself, Haruyuki suddenly remembered something and looked at Fuko, seated across from him. “That reminds me. What’s Ash going to do? If you’re going to meet up in front of the condo, he’ll have to match the timing here pretty closely.”

  “It’s fine. I gave him very strict orders to dive a second before seven,” Fuko responded briskly. And indeed, in that case, it would be impossible to leave Ash waiting for her and the others in vain. Just the opposite, actually. One second in the real world was a thousand seconds in the Accelerated World; in other words, Ash Roller would be waiting in front of the condo for sixteen minutes and forty seconds.

  Just like our master—tera nil mercy, he thought secretly, while Chiyuri asked in a slightly concerned tone:

  “Isn’t that dangerous? I know it’s only sixteen minutes, but he’ll be all by himself in the Unlimited Neutral Field.”

  Fuko smiled gently at Chiyuri’s kindness toward Ash, ostensibly an enemy, as she crisply uttered even more merciless words. “I don’t believe that our dive time has been leaked to the outside, and if, hypothetically, Ash did have the misfortune of being attacked by a large Enemy or a hostile Burst Linker, we’ll have appeared during the hour of regeneration time. We will at the very least avenge him.”

  “I guess that makes sense. Okay, if it comes to that, I’ll kick ass, too!” Chiyuri readily agreed with the elder girl, and the two boys felt shivers run up their spines.

  And then it was finally one minute before seven.

  Their six Neurolinkers were already daisy-chained together with five XSB cables, and they were connected to the Arita home server through the second cable extending from Haruyuki’s neck. All he had to do was press the button displayed in his field of view, and they would all be connected to the global net.

  Sitting to his immediate left, Kuroyukihime stared into his eyes and murmured in a gentle, ringing voice, “No matter how many hours, how many days it takes, I’ll be waiting, Haruyuki. For the moment when you and Utai open the Castle gate once more and come flying out.”

  “O-okay!” Haruyuki nodded once and then hurriedly shook his head. “N-no! We won’t make you wait that long! At most, five hours—No, we’ll escape in three hours!”

  UI> THEN LET’S AIM FOR TWO HOURS. WE HAVE OTHER PLANS AFTERWARD, AFTER ALL, Utai typed in a very Utai-like way. Everyone laughed.

  Nodding deeply, Kuroyukihime straightened up resolutely in her seat and shouted, “Well then, I’ll begin the countdown! Ten seconds to acceleration! Eight, seven, six…”

  Everyone joined in the countdown with her.

  “Five, four, three, two, one!”

  “Unlimited Burst!!”


  9

  With his eyes closed, Haruyuki passed through the acceleration process: his Neurolinker amplifying his thought clock while simultaneously freeing him from his real-world senses. His body floated for an instant, and he waited for the sensation of coming down on a hard surface before lifting his eyelids.

  Before him, the familiar Arita living room was already gone. In its place, a floor with a complicated pattern of blue-black tiles that held a sharp metallic luster. Walls that looked lined with thin blades. The ceiling a network of slender joists. The only illumination came from the several curious purple candles placed along the walls, so the room was dim overall, and he both felt and knew that this place was deep underground.

  It was the small room connecting the great hall with the deepest depths of the inner sanctuary of the Castle, which itself stood in the center of the Unlimited Neutral Field—what a certain person had called the Shrine of the Eight Divines. The fact that the design differed from what he remembered meant that the Change peculiar to the Unlimited Neutral Field had happened, and the attributes of the place did not match the Heian stage of their last visit.

  “This is the Demon City stage.” A clear, youthful voice came from immediately beside him, and Haruyuki turned his eyes in that direction.

  Standing there, both hands neatly arranged before her, was a small duel avatar with white-and-crimson armor, reminiscent of the garb of a shrine maiden. One of the Four Elements of the first Nega Nebulus, the blazing shrine maiden Ardor Maiden. Naturally, this avatar was controlled by Utai Shinomiya.

  “I’m glad it’s not some stage with a lot of terrain traps or wild creatures,” he quickly responded to that voice, something he had never heard in the real world. “The terrain’s probably harder than the Heian stage, but the Castle building can’t be destroyed anyway.” As he spoke, he glanced up to check the status in the top left of his field of view. Although his health gauge was completely recovered since he had left and dived back in, his special-attack gauge was at zero.

  He then looked at their surroundings, but of course, none of the other Legion members were there. In the last dive, unlike Haruyuki and Utai, Kuroyukihime and the others had left properly through a leave-point portal, so they would have appeared ten kilometers away to the west in Suginami. They had probably just joined up with Ash Roller and started to move. Which meant the only people there were Utai and Haruyuki—

  Or, no, that wasn’t true. There should have been one more person appearing there with them.

  “R-right. He’s…”

  “He’s already here,” Utai replied to Haruyuki’s muttering, and he jerked up his head to look around again.

  “I’ve been expecting you, Crow, Maiden.” The clear voice of a boy, reminiscent of an early summer breeze, came from the gloom near the wall.

  Turning his eyes in that direction, Haruyuki saw a single silhouette pop out of the darkness in the modest light of the candles.

  The overall look closely resembled that of Ardor Maiden. Head armor shaped like pulled-back hair, a sharply defined face mask. Swollen arms like traditional Japanese clothing. The hakama-like armor of the legs spread out horizontally because the avatar was sitting properly on his knees. His color was a deeply serene azure.

  Before the smallish avatar lay a silver stick-shaped object—a straight sword in its scabbard. It wasn’t especially large, either, but perhaps reflecting the overwhelming potential it contained, the space around the sword looked just the tiniest bit distorted. It was the fifth star of the Seven Arcs, the most powerful Enhanced Armaments in the Accelerated World, the Infinity.

  The azure avatar, perfectly described by the words young samurai, looked directly at Haruyuki and Utai with sky-blue eye lenses before bowing deeply, still in the formal kneeling position. Bringing his body back up, he plucked the straight sword from the floor and stood easily.

  The young samurai took a few steps away from the wall, and Utai returned his bow, bending at the waist with wonderful grace. Haruyuki hurriedly dipped his head as well. After he lifted his chin, he struggled with the words for a minute before opening his mouth.

  “Uh, um, uhh, it’s been a whil—Actually, it hasn’t been that long. Good evening, Lead. Were you waiting long?”

  The young samurai avatar smiled gently at Haruyuki’s awkward greeting and shook his head. “No. Although I did wait, it was a mere two seconds of real time. Please don’t concern yourself with it.”

  That said, those two seconds were two thousand seconds on this side—more than thirty minutes. If it had been Haruyuki sitting in the formal kneeling position for that long, his legs would probably have fallen asleep, even in duel avatar form.

  And before that, in the current age when Neurolinkers had spread far and wide, no one simply “waited” anymore. For instance, if you were meeting someone somewhere, your Neurolinker would tell you how many minutes before you needed to leave the house and what train at what time to get on so that you could move to your destination in the most optimal fashion, and it would even display in detail where the person you were meeting was at that moment and what time they were expected to arrive. If you went out to eat, you could see how busy the restaurants in the area were in real time, so you could go without having to wait in line, and if you were taking a taxi, the push of a button would send your request to the car closest to you. Of course, there were occasions when, due to unforeseen circumstances, time was spent waiting, but Neurolinkers were equipped with all kinds of meaningful ways to use time.

  Thus, Haruyuki felt sorry from the bottom of his heart for having made the other Burst Linker simply wait for a whole thirty minutes in this place where there was absolutely nothing to do, and he started to lower his head in a bow once again.

  But the young samurai put a stop to Haruyuki’s apology, as if accustomed to sitting for long periods with no AR or full dives, and said calmly, “Please don’t worry about it. Really. Waiting for the two of you to arrive was also a very thrilling experience. So much so that I might almost think it would have been better to have spent the whole day waiting.”

  “I-it was? Um, me, too. I know the situation I’m in is really bad, but I was super excited to get to see you again, Lead.” Haruyuki didn’t usually say this sort of thing, but the words fell from his mouth, and the azure avatar pulled in his shoulders and offered a bashful smile in response.

  “Lead” was a nickname. The other avatar was formally Trilead Tetroxide. Haruyuki hadn’t checked the name—which, according to a search by Takumu, was a molecular formula meaning three lead and four oxygen—in the Brain Burst system. That was simply how the other avatar had introduced himself.

  Since you couldn’t see the health gauges of other Burst Linkers in the Unlimited Neutral Field, if he were going to attempt confirmation of another Burst Linker’s name, the only way Haruyuki could think of was to submit a request to join the Legion from the Instruct menu. But he couldn’t do something like that out of the blue, and to be honest, he, strangely, didn’t care whether or not Trilead was the other avatar’s real name. Haruyuki simply thought that if he was hiding his actual avatar name, then he must have some reason for doing so.

  At any rate, having any doubts about Lead now would mean that the mission to escape the Castle itself would not happen. Because without his cooperation, Haruyuki and Utai probably didn’t have a hope of getting out of the inner sanctuary. Thus, he had already decided to trust Lead completely, and Utai seemed to have done the same.

  The shrine maiden, even smaller than the young samurai, dipped her head again and said much more smoothly than Haruyuki had, “I’m also very happy to see you again, Lead. There are so many things I wish to discuss with you. However, our Legion comrades are waiting for us outside the Castle, so I apologize for our selfishness, but I hope you might be able to offer your opinion on the fastest route of escape.”

  Haruyuki also had a ton of things he wanted to ask Lead about—how had he gotten into the Castle, why hadn’t he used the one-off portal in the
great hall upstairs to escape himself, what did he mean when he said he’d never fought a normal duel—but it’s true that this was not the time to have a lazy chat. Kuroyukihime and the others were probably still on their way there, but he wanted to keep the time they spent waiting outside the south gate to a minimum. He also thought they would certainly have the chance to talk while they moved, and so he nodded wordlessly.

  “It’s not selfish at all,” Lead responded firmly, standing up taller. “The first time we met, you were both kind enough to trust me unconditionally. In which case, it is only natural that I live up to that faith. I would gladly aid you in your escape.” The young samurai stopped and set the scabbard of his long sword, still in his left hand, on his waist. He raised his now-free hand into the air leisurely and continued, “Currently, there are two ways to exit this Castle normally. But one of them is impossible in practical terms.” He moved his left hand farther and indicated the far end of the not-large room.

  A fence—actually, a barricade—stood there, with a design like countless short swords intersecting diagonally. On the other side of the fence was a vast space filled with a blue darkness. Beyond this expanse, ten times, a hundred times larger than the gymnasium at Umesato Junior High, he could see two tiny lights.

  The one pulsing blue like the surface of a body of water was a path to the real world, the light of a portal. In front of that was a golden light, flickering faintly. According to Trilead, that was the last of the Seven Arcs in the Accelerated World, the seventh star crowned with the name Youkou, known as the Fluctuating Light.

  Just like he had two days earlier, Haruyuki took a few steps forward as if sucked in and stared at the golden glow. Because it was so far away, he couldn’t make out the actual source of the light or the pedestal it should have been sitting on. But even still, he felt something.