The Floating Starlight Bridge

by Reki Kawahara

  At this distance, almost like the eye of a typhoon, there seemed to be almost no corrosion effect. Still, during the time he was charging through the Incarnate storm, Silver Crow’s body had become covered with rust, worn-out. Thirty-five percent left in his HP gauge. Pieces of armor dropping, Haruyuki drew in his right hand, lined up his fingers, and focused the last of his mental strength there.

  He sharpened his imagination. Generated an overlay, concentrated this on his fingertips, and made it converge into the shape of a sword.

  “……Laser Sword!!”

  Haruyuki released the sole Incarnate attack he had learned, squarely at the center of Rust Jigsaw’s chest.

  Along with a metallic squeal, silver light stretched out from the hand he thrust forward. He reached the rust-colored armor, grazed it—

  But here, Silver Crow’s right arm itself quietly crumbled from the elbow. The silver light diffused vainly into space, and Haruyuki’s first and last attack ended in carving merely a single dot off of Jigsaw’s HP gauge.

  Having exhausted every ounce of strength, he was on the verge of collapsing on the shuttle floor when a thin line, extending from the outside of Rust Jigsaw’s right arm, caught Crow under his left arm to support him.

  “Heh. Heh-heh-heh.” Chuckling leaked from the rust-red avatar as he turned completely around to face the rear. He took his foot off the accelerator, and the shuttle gently decelerated.

  But even if Haruyuki had succeeded in stopping number ten here momentarily, it meant nothing to what was left of number ten and the totally destroyed machines driven by Blood Leopard and Ash Roller.

  As number ten came to a complete stop, the Incarnate storm gradually subsided, and space returned to its original color and stillness. The cold light of the stars and the fierce light of the sun poured down on them.

  “Recognize.” Rust Jigsaw dangled Haruyuki on a thin line about two meters long, stretching out from his right arm. “This is the limit of you who blindly believe that this world is a game.”

  Abruptly, the fine black line began to vibrate repeatedly. A dense row of minute triangular blades popped up from the top of it. A saw. This was clearly his main weapon, the jigsaw that had given Haruyuki and Blood Leopard so much grief during the duel in Akihabara.

  “And understand. This is the price for your foolishness.”

  The vibrations of the jigsaw suddenly doubled. At the same time, a weak overlay enveloped the entire saw. He was inactivating the stage’s HP protection rule at the same time that he enhanced his cutting power with Incarnate.

  Immediately, a metallic shriek came up from under Haruyuki’s left arm, followed by an incandescent pain.

  “Unh…Aaaaah!” Screaming, Haruyuki tried to jump back. But his body wasn’t obeying his commands.

  Silver Crow’s own weight hanging down gradually pulled the jigsaw into the base of his left arm. A few seconds later, a stream of sparks came gushing out, and his arm was effortlessly removed. His health gauge, dyed a bright red, was cut down to 10 percent.

  Having lost both arms now, Haruyuki collapsed to the shuttle floor like a broken doll, and Jigsaw tossed off words again, tinged with cold laughter.

  “Heh-heh. Lament. That if you had to be a metallic color, you could not be gold or platinum, resistant to corrosion, or at least stainless steel.”

  And then Jigsaw extended the saw from his left arm, crossed it with the one from his right, and clasped them around Haruyuki’s neck, yanking him up high in the air.

  Crucified, head helplessly thrown back, Haruyuki caught sight of the last remaining spectator stand.

  The hundred or so members of the Gallery were still clamoring with confusion and doubt. However, even in the midst of that, a pronounced disappointment wafted through the air at Silver Crow, who, after making such a daring and bold attack, was now dangling helplessly without even getting to strike a single blow. “What’d this guy even come for?” “This is what we got all excited for…?” The countless voices pierced Haruyuki’s ears.

  I don’t need you guys telling me that. I’m the one most disappointed in me, okay? Haruyuki murmured in his heart, waiting for the jigsaw around his throat to bare its teeth. I was soft. Too ignorant. I never even dreamed that Incarnate born with hatred as its source could be this incredibly powerful…

  Someone from inside his head responded to this thought.

  Naturally. Did you really believe this thing called hope could be greater than malice in terms of attack power?

  He closed his eyes and replied, Well, how was I supposed to know? I mean, I can’t use that kind of power.

  Once again, someone rebutted. Not true. You knew. That power’s been sleeping in you for a very long time. A power even purer than hatred. A malice accumulating inside, never dispersing to the outside world, single-mindedly honed and whetted.

  That is: anger. The Incarnate of rage has existed within you from the distant past, waiting for the time it would be released.

  Thmp.

  Suddenly, the center of his back began to throb coldly. Thmp. Thmp. This pulsing, almost a heartbeat, cycled a frozen fluid, like mercury, through Haruyuki’s veins.

  Well.

  WELL!!

  NOW IS THE TIME! CALL MY NAME!! RELEASE ME!! I WILL CHANGE YOUR ANGER INTO POWER!!

  “Unh…Aah…!”

  The chill filling his entire body abruptly became flames, and he was overwhelmed with a burning sensation. Haruyuki opened his eyes.

  And then he saw it: the fluctuation of a thick aura rising up from his own battered body—overlay. But it wasn’t silver. It was a gray pressing up against the boundary between gray and black, a color of darkness he was sure he’d seen somewhere before.

  Something terrifying was happening. Instantly, he was choking on fear, but the moment he looked at Rust Jigsaw dangling his body in the air, that fear vanished.

  The conversation with whomever it was had apparently taken place in the mere twinkling of the eye while Jigsaw pulled Haruyuki’s body up and began to whirl the saws. A discordant sound came from his throat, and the minute teeth ate into his thin armor.

  But Haruyuki had forgotten his terror of having his head cut off. “I…won’t let you,” he muttered, staring intently at Rust Jigsaw. “You alone…I will totally not let you.”

  “Heh. Heh-heh. Resign yourself. There’s no longer anything you can do.”

  “I won’t let you…I won’t let you…,” Haruyuki returned, almost delirious, his core cold as ice. It stirred up his overwhelming rage, as if to surround ice with scorching heat.

  Rust Jigsaw no longer existed there as himself. He was the symbol of all the irrational malice that had tortured Haruyuki for the better part of the fourteen years of his life.

  If, in that place, there had been even just one friend connected to his heart, perhaps Haruyuki might have been able to stop himself. The way he had in that decisive battle in the Unlimited Neutral Field two months earlier.

  But now, he had left the stalled shuttle number one, together with Kuroyukihime, Fuko, Takumu, and Chiyuri, who had all been deeply injured by Jigsaw’s Incarnate attack, off in the distance behind him. This fact only served to increase Haruyuki’s anger all the more, and there was nothing to hold him back.

  “You…You…” In a voice that resonated metallically, Haruyuki released his final roar. “As if I could ever…let yooooooouuuuu!!”

  Instantly.

  The heat of his rage finally crossed a certain threshold.

  Haruyuki felt something break through the armor of his back and stretch out, writhing. He brandished whatever this was in place of his lost arms, and beat at the two saws binding his neck, breaking them.

  “Mmng!” Jigsaw groaned while Haruyuki leapt back, putting some distance between them.

  After landing outside of the parked shuttle, he plunged the thing stretching out from his back into the surface of the tower. Brilliant sparks flew everywhere, together with an enormous crash.

  It was a sinister tail,
countless blackened silver segments connecting, a sharp, sword-shaped protuberance at the tip. The black silver tail swaying like a snake, Haruyuki took the deepest breath he could, threw his head back, and howled, “Unh…ah…aaaaaaaaah!!”

  An aura of darkness cascaded from his entire body, and shock waves rippled through the stage. The Gallery in the air began to shout and holler in earnest. But their voices no longer reached Haruyuki’s ears. Instead, a single sharp command slammed into the center of his brain.

  NOW THEN! CALL MY NAME!!

  Striking a daunting pose, thrusting his tail into the vertical wall to support his body, Haruyuki called the name that flashed in the back of his mind.

  “Chrome…Disasteeeeerrrrrrrr!!”

  10

  The Gallery, Rust Jigsaw, even the stars fell silent.

  In the stillness, a black lightning poured down from out of nowhere to strike Haruyuki, and in the upper right of his field of view, a purple system message glittered.

  YOU EQUIPPED THE ENHANCED ARMAMENT…

  The cursor at the end blinked twice, three times. Almost as if the Brain Burst system itself were afraid to note the name. However, after flashing for a fourth time, the cursor flowed to the right and carved out a single row of text.

  …THE DISASTER.

  The darkness overflowed.

  A muddy black/dark-gray aura spurted out in several lines from the base of the tail to wrap thickly around his entire body. These immediately condensed, grew thicker, and wiped away the silver of Silver Crow.

  Finally, a glassy metallic luster appeared on the surface of the concentrated darkness. A shining dark metal, blackened like the tail. A myriad of armor parts, all with sharp edges, materialized at high speed from his back out to his extremities. These covered his chest, his stomach, his legs, and even the two arms he had supposedly lost, leaving no gaps, creating a perfect blackish-silver full-body armor. At the same time as his arms regenerated inside the armor, his HP gauge was completely restored. Finally, there came a heavy metallic clanking, and a thick helmet covered his head from the rear.

  His field of view changed color. A light gray layer was added to everything, leaving only the figure of Rust Jigsaw in the center to stand out vividly.

  Haruyuki slowly raised his arms and looked at the ten talon-fingers glittering brutally at the ends of them. Worlds away from the slender hands of Silver Crow, even if they could hold nothing, he was easily convinced that the talons alone would be fearsome weapons.

  And it wasn’t just his hands. It was also the torso covered by the thick armor. And the legs, drawing out sturdy, supple lines. And the three enormous claws on his feet.

  His entire avatar had turned into a crystal of pure power.

  Unable to bear the force racing through his entire body, Haruyuki clenched both hands ferociously, turned his head back to the sky, and—

  Howled.

  “Gng…Yurooooooooo!!”

  Released from his throat was the metallic roar of a beast.

  Standing in the shuttle a little ways off, Rust Jigsaw reeled for a moment before quickly recovering himself. Even Jigsaw couldn’t have anticipated this scenario, but the voice he spoke in was filled with the same cool contempt as it had been up to now.

  “Heh-heh, interesting. The Armor of Catastrophe? Fine. Recognize that this so-called most evil power is, in the end, an embellished pretense.”

  This utterance also felt to Haruyuki like nothing more than a single drop of water falling into incandescent flames. Emotional thoughts were completely blocked. Only a high-speed, calculating logic filled his consciousness—in other words, the question of how to most efficiently render inactive the enemy before his eyes.

  He could no longer hear the voice that had whispered to him so many times before now, nor did he feel the anger the voice had led him to. The reason for this was clear. Haruyuki himself had now become completely one with them.

  So that’s it?

  I’m already…the sixth Chrome Disaster.

  I’m sorry, Kuroyukihime. I’m sorry, Master. Sorry, Taku, Chiyu…

  These thoughts created a tiny ripple on the surface of his consciousness and disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a purified bloodlust.

  Rust Jigsaw moved first.

  On top of the parked shuttle, he raised a leisurely right hand and spread out five angular fingers. The hand was wrapped in a dull red light.

  Instantly, something strange happened in Haruyuki’s field of view. Several English words were displayed at high speed in the newly added gray layer. From what he could understand: PREDICTED ATTACK/INCARNATE ATTACK; RANGE/POWER ENHANCEMENT/CORROSION TYPE; THREAT LEVEL/ZERO.

  “Rust Touch!”

  Following the attack name, Jigsaw’s hand released an enormous phantom hand, which grabbed tightly on to Haruyuki’s body. Armor that glittered a dark gray immediately began to cloud over—however…

  “Gaaar!!”

  With a short roar, Haruyuki flung his arms out. He casually ripped the phantom hand off, and it dissipated into the void. The chrome silver armor also immediately regained its original, almost wet luster.

  He took a heavy step toward the cockpit and laughed curtly. “Heh-heh…You said before I should be stainless steel.” His voice was tinged with a metallic edge and twisted strangely. “You were wrong. The reason stainless steel doesn’t rust is because the chrome it contains is passive. It’s the chrome that doesn’t rust.” Once again, a suppressed laugh slipped out. “Your Incarnate is useless against me now.” As he made this sneering declaration, Haruyuki pushed off with both legs like an animal.

  In the air, he spread the wings on his back with a flap. They bore not the slightest resemblance to the original simple metal fins. His wings had transformed into something with a weapon-like silhouette, and Haruyuki shook them with all his might.

  He simply raised his right hand, and without having to particularly focus his mental energies, a dark overlay spilled out, almost overflowing. This immediately concentrated into the shape of a dagger, like the katar used by Middle Eastern soldiers, as he closed in on Jigsaw.

  To meet this, Jigsaw extended a long saw tinged with the red of his overlay from his right arm and went to meet the dagger. Instantly, detailed information raced across Haruyuki’s field of view. PREDICTED ATTACK/INCARNATE ATTACK; POWER ENHANCEMENT/AMPUTATION TYPE; THREAT LEVEL/20. This time, the information even included the trajectory the jigsaw would likely carve out.

  “Yurooo!” Haruyuki barked and slid his body about fifty centimeters to the right in midair.

  The jigsaw, having the longer reach, attacked first. However, the tip was tracing with incredible fidelity the predicted line Haruyuki had been shown. As a result, he was able to dodge it, despite the fact that normally, even without the relative power difference, the strike was precise down to the millimeter and should have been impossible to evade. He immediately thrust the black katar into Jigsaw’s left shoulder.

  Skrrinng! A painful ringing filled the air, and Jigsaw’s body was sent flying from the top of the shuttle. However, displaying impressive control, he was able to tuck into a roll and land on his feet on the surface of the tower.

  His body tilted back toward the Earth. A sort of pseudogravity in the direction of the Hermes’ Cord pillar was at work on the interior of the shuttles, but the instant any avatar stepped outside, the ground was no longer the ground, but rather a precipice continuing vertically for several thousand kilometers.

  Jigsaw instantly stabbed the saw in his right hand into the surface of the tower to support his body and keep from falling.

  Touching down right in front of him, Haruyuki similarly pierced the tower with the talons of his feet and assumed an imposing stance.

  “Heh-heh-heh. What kind of acrobatics are you going to show me next?”

  Here, finally, concentrated hatred came from Rust Jigsaw’s eyes. “You……ret. Gret. Regret. Regret. Regret regret regret regret!!” The muttered order turned into a scream, and as if guided by
that hatred, his left arm began to shine with the largest overlay he had mustered so far.

  Shiink! The jigsaw came flying. Red light streamed off it, countless teeth glinting. His arm drew a circle, fast like smoke, and the jigsaw transformed into a giant ring. He then fired it off somewhere; the saw whined as it flew away. It was Rust Jigsaw’s long-distance attack, Wheel Saw. This technique, which involved throwing a rotating saw with extreme cutting power, had previously caused Haruyuki no small amount of grief.

  However, it wasn’t moving in a straight line now. The saw completely disappeared from Haruyuki’s view and came at him along a curve like a boomerang. At first glance, he shouldn’t have been able to handle it.

  But the detailed information in his field of view appeared once more. PREDICTED ATTACK/INCARNATE ATTACK; RANGE/POWER/MOVEMENT EXPANSION; THREAT LEVEL/40. And then an estimate line stretching from the top of Jigsaw’s left hand, flying over Haruyuki, and coming around again from behind.

  Without even looking over his shoulder, Haruyuki waved the tail attached to his back, once, broadly.

  Cliiiink! The earsplitting sound of impact rang out, and the rotating saw of the special attack bounced harmlessly away, disappearing into the starry sky.

  Haruyuki vaguely understood what the various information displayed in the gray layer was. It was a prediction of the future calculated from vast battle experience accumulated by the Enhanced Armament The Disaster, which was the true form of the Armor of Catastrophe. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how many duels this armor—born at the dawn of the Accelerated World, inherited by five Burst Linkers—had passed through. That data, essentially infinite, were being used to predict with terrifying accuracy every attack from his enemy.

  “How? Explain. What is this power?” Rust Jigsaw moaned hoarsely.

  Haruyuki glanced at him through his thick visor. “Are we done already? Then disappear.” And he attacked, artlessly, dead-on.

  This was not a duel on which the pride of Burst Linkers rested. Nor was it even a simple battle. It was better called a slaughter—no, work.