The Red Crest

by Reki Kawahara

  He nervously switched from the default normal attack tab to the abilities tab, and then turned his face away for a moment. But when he gritted his teeth and stared at the window out of the corner of his eye—there were two rows of alphabet text.

  “O-oh! There’s two!” Haruyuki shouted.

  Chiyuri leaned forward, unable to stand it anymore. “Hey, show me, too!” She unwrapped the XSB cable she had been about to put away and with her left and right hands inserted the ends into their Neurolinkers. Normally, the Brain Burst program menu screen was invisible to other people, even while directing, and that restriction was canceled only when the other person was also a Burst Linker.

  “Let’s see. Where? Show me…” Chiyuri pressed her face in from the left, practically sticking her cheek up against his, and they read the text that had popped up in the window together.

  The first line: AVIATION. It went without saying that this was his flight ability.

  The second line: OPTICAL CONDUCTION.

  “…Huh…” slipped out of Haruyuki.

  “Whaaat…?” Chiyuri cocked her head hard to the right. “I’m pretty sure the English for the mirror ability was…Theoretical Mirror, wasn’t it?”

  “Y-yeah. I feel like that’s what I heard…” Haruyuki nodded, sensing the bad feeling oozing into his chest in drips and drops grow enormous in the blink of an eye. But I definitely reflected the laser, right. I became a mirror, right, he told himself as he launched the English-Japanese dictionary app on the right side of his virtual desktop. He pressed the voice entry button.

  “Opticull. Conducshun.” He specified word lookup with the most Englishy pronunciation he could manage, and with a wait time of basically zero, the meaning was displayed.

  Since Chiyuri was looking at the same screen, the two of them read it out loud together. “‘…Light. Guidance…’?”

  Even knowing the definition, he couldn’t grasp the meaning of the ability at all. He cocked his head from the right to the left in sync with Chiyuri, and then they heard the long-awaited voice of Chiyuri’s mother on the other side of the door.

  “Chii! Haru, hon. Suppertime!”

  He worried that the ability he had worked so hard to awaken was somehow apparently not the Theoretical Mirror that he had been asked to obtain at the meeting of the Seven Kings, but his anxiety could not cancel out the impetus of his empty stomach seeking sweet-and-sour pork with pineapple.

  Haruyuki took a deep breath and looked at Chiyuri next to him. “Let’s finish this after supper.”

  His friend of fourteen years shook her head lightly from side to side. “Very occasionally, there are times when I think you might be extremely strong mentally.”

  6

  A bright June 27. That day, too, the sky had been sprinkling them with rain since morning, as though the seasonal rain front was stubbornly sitting in the sky above Tokyo.

  Having finished getting ready for school ten minutes earlier than usual, Haruyuki left the house with the slightly too-large umbrella that his father used to use in one hand. He headed south on the sidewalk of Kannana Street, slipped under the Chuo Line Bridge, and set his sights on the usual Koenjirikkyo intersection. It was Thursday, the day of the routine Ash-Crow duel.

  According to rules that had been set at some point, the winner of the previous duel had to use a Burst Point to accelerate and challenge his opponent. But in the duel two days before, on Tuesday, Silver Crow and Ash Roller had both been struck by the lightning of the Thunder stage and had their gauges sent flying simultaneously.

  In the case of a draw, the rule was they changed the challenging side, and according to this, it was Crow’s turn to be the challenger. However, even after he had climbed up the pedestrian walkway at the lights, Haruyuki did not connect to the global net, but rather kept going to descend on the inner-loop side of Kannana and come to a stop in front of a convenience store on the corner.

  About two minutes later, a green EV bus stopped at the bus stop nearby. Only one passenger got off. After opening an off-white umbrella, she approached him at a trot, the pouch slung across her body, swinging from side to side.

  “K-Kusakabe, don’t run. It’s—” The moment he hurriedly started speaking, a brown loafer slipped on the wet road. The girl lost her balance and listed first to the left, then the right—somehow, mysteriously, not falling down—until she managed to just barely bring herself to a stop right in front of Haruyuki.

  He quickly pulled back arms he had started to stretch out to support her in case of the worst and said his greetings. “Morning, Kusakabe.”

  “Good. Morning, Arita.” Bowing deeply along with her umbrella was, of course, Ash Roller in the real: Rin Kusakabe. Like Haruyuki, she was in eighth grade, but she attended a girls’ school in Sasazuka in Shibuya Ward; she commuted from her home in Egota in Nakano.

  Sasazuka was on the Keio line, and the station a mere four stops farther out was the very Sakurajosui which they had visited the previous night. As the crow flies, they weren’t even four kilometers apart, but since the borders between Suginami, Shibuya, and Setagaya wards got complicated in that area, in the Accelerated World sense, the distance was greater than this small number. In fact, during the dive the previous day, Haruyuki had not once realized that Sasazuka station was fairly close by.

  That said, there was no mistake that Shibuya Area No. 3, where Rin’s school was, was immediately adjacent to Setagaya area on the east. This fact caught at his thoughts for some reason, but Rin’s smile appearing from beneath the edge of her white umbrella instantly pushed the question away.

  “Um. I’m sor-ry for being selfish.” With this, Rin went to lower her head once more, so Haruyuki shook his free hand and his head back and forth at the same time.

  “N-not at all! It’s fine! The only difference is the duel coming first or after.”

  The selfishness Rin was referring to was the extremely modest request to talk at the intersection before their usual duel. Haruyuki had intended to talk with her after the duel, like they had two days before, but he couldn’t believe there would be any issue in just changing that order.

  However, in that case, why did Rin want to put the duel off on that day alone?

  “Um.” As if intuiting Haruyuki’s question, Rin pulled her head back into herself with an embarrassed air. “If the duel’s first, I thought my brother might. Say something unnecessary to you.”

  “Unnecessary? Like what kind of thing?”

  “Um, like ‘A million years too early to invite my baby sis to the school festival, you damned Crow’ or something.”

  “…R-right. I get it. I totally get that.” It was a realistic concern. Haruyuki involuntarily burst out into a sweat.

  It was a fact that Rin Kusakabe was Ash Roller in the real, but the personality—or rather, the spirit that lived in the duel avatar that fought in the Accelerated World—was not hers. Rin’s older brother, the former ICGP racer, Rinta Kusakabe, operated the fin de siècle rider—or that’s how Haruyuki understood it, although the logic wasn’t clear.

  Ash Roller adored his little sister, and although he lost it whenever Haruyuki got near her, if Haruyuki didn’t invite her to event-type things, he would get angry about that; he was truly an irrational figure. Haruyuki had invited Rin to the Umesato school festival after the duel the day before yesterday, so he assumed that Ash also shared that memory—in other words, there was a strong possibility he would be in Mega Heat mode in that day’s duel.

  Huh? Wait? But then does that mean that talking to Kusakabe now before the duel will make Ash’s anger go beyond Giga and up into Tera Heat?

  The thought crossed his mind, but he didn’t have the time for indecision right then and there. According to the bus information transmitted from the sign pillar at the bus stop, the next bus for Rin to catch had already arrived at the third stop back.

  Putting aside the question of the big brother for the moment, Haruyuki manipulated his virtual desktop. The document file he called up was an i
nvitation to the school festival, coming up in three days. Each student was given three invitations, but since it was assumed that the invited guests would be close relatives, there was a restriction that did not allow them to be transmitted over the global net.

  Haruyuki turned toward Rin and transmitted the invitation, which he had gotten his mother’s stamp of approval on from her bed that morning through an ad hoc connection between their two Neurolinkers. The number of files remaining dropped to two, but he didn’t have anywhere to use those anyway.

  “If this is in your Neurolinker, you’ll be able to pass through the gates of Umesato,” Haruyuki said. “If you let me know a little before you arrive, I’ll come meet you.”

  Rin rested her umbrella on her right shoulder and wrapped both hands carefully around the invitation file displayed in her virtual desktop. A huge smile popped up onto her face, a face with thin lines reminiscent of a boy’s somehow. “Thank…Y-ou. I…M. Very happy. I’ll definitely, definitely come.”

  “R-right. Although I’m basically not doing anything except helping with my class exhibit.”

  After a quick bit of research the other day, he had learned that the kendo team that Takumu belonged to was going to present in the dojo a “cosplay martial arts demonstration,” the true nature of which was unknown, while Chiyuri’s track team was going to do a crepe booth. When he additionally heard that the student council, on which Kuroyukihime served as vice president, was planning to open a secret program on the local net, his mouth inevitably turned down slightly at the corners.

  Haruyuki had also been officially appointed to the important role of president of the Animal Care Club, but it had only been ten days since the launch of the club itself. Even so, he had thought about borrowing a classroom somewhere, decorating it like a jungle, and displaying the lone animal they were caring for, the northern white-faced owl, Hoo. But in addition to being a nervous type, Hoo had only just moved to Umesato from Matsunogi Academy, so Haruyuki had determined that the burden of having so many people traipse by him would be too much and had given up on the whole idea before getting to the stage of proposing it to the “super president,” Utai.

  The exhibit by the seven students in grade-eight class C, who were not participating with a team or club, was “Koenji Thirty Years Ago,” a fairly cultural and inoffensive topic. When people entered the classroom, static images of the Koenji shopping street in the 2010s would be displayed in their field of view, and if visitors followed the path laid out, the images were set to scroll automatically. At first glance, it seemed elaborate, but they had actually adopted the basic program from something extant, so Haruyuki and the others working on it simply had to find and load pictures from the period from the Umesato archives and individual websites. They planned to finish this task in just one day, on Saturday, and regrettably, these were not details he was particularly proud to share with Rin.

  But Rin’s smile was not clouded in the least. She took a step toward Haruyuki and gripped her umbrella tightly with both hands again. “Um, I am looking forward to your class exhibit. But. I. I’m just so incredibly happy. That you invited me to your school festival. Arita. I mean.” Here, she brought her face even closer and lowered her voice as much as possible. “Bringing Burst Linkers from other Legions. Into your school. Is like the most taboo of taboos. In the Accelerated World.”

  It could be said to be something of a miracle that Haruyuki, who had a tendency toward a direct link between his inner heart and the look on his face, managed to maintain his smile upon hearing this. Because he hadn’t discussed inviting Rin to Umesato’s school festival with anyone in the Legion, much less its master, Kuroyukihime. He had simply decided on his own that it wouldn’t be a problem, since Rin and everyone in Nega Nebulus were already cracked in the real to each other. But what if it was actually a huge problem? And if it was, what kind?

  “I-it’s fine.” Concealing the sudden apprehension, Haruyuki bobbed his head up and down. “Everyone in the Legion’s looking forward to seeing you, Kusakabe. So. O-of course, I am too.”

  “…Thank. Y…ou,” Rin murmured, her eyes tearing over, and closed the distance between them with another step. The fronts of their umbrellas overlapped, and the gray-and-white water-repellent fabrics created a modest shelter, cutting the two of them off from the outside world for a moment.

  The sound of the rain and even the noise of the EV motors coming and going on the main road right next to them grew distant, and in the mysterious quiet that was born, Rin’s voice came, faltering.

  “I. Always. Always. Imagined it. If the Burst Points. System disappeared. From the Accelerated World. If the whole of the duel. Was just being happy when you win. And being frustrated when you lose. There’d be no need to worry. About being cracked in the real. Anymore. And all the Burst Linkers. All of us could just. Be friends in the real world, too.” Her voice stopped momentarily here, and lovely, glittering droplets sprang up in her gray-flecked eyes. Her lashes caught them as they were on the verge of falling, and Haruyuki stared as he listened wordlessly to her murmured voice. “But. Even with the system now. I thought that day. Would probably come. That you. Would change. The world, Arita.”

  “Huh? Oh, I— That’s—”

  Totally impossible, his mouth wanted to say, but Rin’s left hand pressed against it gently. His heart leapt and jumped at the sensation of her slender, smooth fingertip touching his lips.

  “Right now. It’s enough. That you fly in the sky. Of the Accelerated World. People who see you. They all, they all feel something. They should. A precious something. Like me.”

  She pressed the fingertip she pulled away from his mouth up against her own lightly, and then grinned. The expression on her face was so innocent and transparent that Haruyuki didn’t realize that her finger had brought about an “indirect kiss.”

  Still smiling, she took a step back and their umbrellas separated, and the noise of the world returned at once. Mixed in with it was the heavy engine of the bus approaching from the north.

  “The bus. Is here,” Rin said, blinking rapidly, and gently stroked the metallic-gray Neurolinker equipped on her slender neck. The machine, with its lightning bolt crack on the exterior, was the one her brother, Rinta, had used during the fateful race. “I’m looking forward. To the festival. And I’m sure. My brother is, too.”

  With these last words, she bowed together with her umbrella and then turned around and ran—splashed—away. She slipped again on the wet pavement, but she didn’t almost fall this time. She made it safely to the bus stop and got on the bus that arrived a few seconds later.

  She waved slightly through the closed door, and finally coming back to himself, Haruyuki hurriedly returned the wave with his left hand. The bus departed with a low hum, passed through the Rikkyo intersection, and disappeared to the south.

  Replaying her words over and over in his head, Haruyuki started to walk. He climbed the pedestrian bridge and stopped when he was somewhere in the middle to connect his Neurolinker globally. No sooner had the confirmation dialogue appeared than he was murmuring, “Burst Link.”

  Skreeeee! The sound of impact roared, and the world was frozen blue. Haruyuki appeared in the blue world of the initial acceleration space in his pink pig form and opened the Brain Burst matching list. From the dozen or so names listed there, he of course selected Ash Roller.

  If the whole of the duel. Was just being happy when you win. And being frustrated when you lose. Murmuring this in the back of his mind, he pressed the DUEL button.

  Instantly, the blue world began to transform. At the same time, his pig avatar also started to change into his silver duel form. After passing through a faint floating sensation, his metal feet came down on the thick trunk of a tree on its side. The scene around him had also changed completely; the road surface was now a valley covered by green grass, while the clusters of buildings had turned into enormous, mossy trees. A natural-type, wood-affiliated Primeval Forest stage.

  As the timer dro
pped to 1,799, the throaty roar of a V-twin engine came to him from the south side of the valley. The bus Rin was on could have only gotten about two hundred meters away, and that distance was the blink of an eye for the American motorcycle Ash Roller rode.

  Haruyuki spread the wings on his back and flew gently from the tree that had been the pedestrian bridge down into the middle of the valley and waited for the approaching motorcycle. The emotion he felt at Rin’s words lingered in his heart, and he decided he wanted to have a few words with Big Brother Ash, too, before the duel.

  Mere seconds later, the hooded headlight shone yellow from the other side of the plain. Time in the Primeval Forest stage did actually change, and it felt like it was currently a little before evening, but Haruyuki could still clearly make out the rider straddling the bike.

  It was a familiar figure, clad in a leather jacket with metal armor, a skull-faced helmet on his head. But something was different than usual. Quickly taking a closer look, Haruyuki realized that red flames were burning in the eye sockets of the skull. And a tail of white steam appeared to be stretching out from the slit of a mouth.

  “Uh, um, Ash—” Haruyuki had gotten that far when a leather boot kicked the shift pedal violently. At the same time as the accelerator roared to life, Ash crushed the clutch and yanked the tough front wheel up. The bike charged forward, ripping up the green grass.

  “Yooouuuu goddaaaaaamned croooooooooooow!” A roar of anger shook the stage, loud enough to compete with the howling of the engine.

  “Eee!” Haruyuki jumped a little. “Eeeee?!” Reflexively, he tried to fly, but his special-attack gauge was empty. He turned and started to dash away, but the glow of the headlight got closer with each breath he took.

  “Yooooooouuuu! In-indirect—Indirect kiss with my siiiiiiiiis! Whaaaaat the hellllllll?! Yooooouuu! Shall! Craaaaaaash!!”