Flight Toward a Blue Sky

by Reki Kawahara

  His left arm rose on its own. His hand had at some point transformed from the comical hoof of the pig avatar to dark silver claws. His sharp fingertips, shining sinisterly, grabbed the edge of a jet-black wing as it flapped helplessly.

  He put the tiniest bit of force into his glittering fingers, and the bottom right of the four wings was ripped out at the base. The wind immediately turned to dry black sand and spilled it from Haruyuki’s hand.

  Another.

  And still another.

  At some point, Kuroyukihime’s head had dropped down heavily, and her limbs dangled loosely.

  Now you won’t be able to go anywhere, Haruyuki said as he reached out for the last wing. You’ll be locked in this darkness for all eternity. With me. Just like me.

  The instant he plucked the last wing, Kuroyukihime’s slender body fell with a thud into his arms. He held her tightly with the blackish-silver talons.

  But a second later, even the body pressed against his chest crumbled into inky particles, which flowed down with a quiet shff, forming a small mountain of sand at his feet—

  “Aaaaah!”

  Haruyuki bolted upright in his bed, screaming his throat raw. His heart was pounding like an old-school alarm clock, his entire body was covered in a cold sweat, and his mouth was parched.

  Blinking sleep-blurred eyes repeatedly, he examined his hands in the gray light filtering through the curtains. Naturally, he found no ominous talons there, just ten plump fingers. Clenching them tightly, he pressed his fist to his forehead.

  Unlike the nightmare after he had first gotten Brain Burst six months earlier, his memory of this one was crystal clear, right down to the smallest details. And even more frightening than that, he had taken his Neurolinker off before he’d gone to bed. Which meant the dream now was not due to any interference from the program; it was spun wholly from Haruyuki’s thoughts and memories.

  “Kuroyukihime,” he murmured, husky, as he shook his head slowly. “I’ve never wanted to do anything like that. I—I just…”

  I want to be together forever, that’s all.

  Haruyuki impulsively yanked his Neurolinker down from the shelf above his bed and slipped it around his neck. He turned it on, and once the initial connection was complete, he glanced up at the time display. Six fifteen AM. Way earlier than when he usually woke up, but he was no longer the slightest bit sleepy. The strength drained from his body, and he gave the brief “full dive” command.

  “Direct link.”

  His dim bedroom disappeared, and a darkness spread out from the other side of a radiating light. Pulled down by the virtual gravity, Haruyuki fell and finally landed on a flat, cold gray surface. Several semitransparent windows with tags like PUBLIC UTILITIES and CONDO ASSOCIATION popped up around him with a crisp ping. This completely functional space was the main console for the Arita home net.

  After staring for a while at the round right hand of his pig avatar, Haruyuki whispered a voice command. “Command: dive call. Number: zero one.”

  Before his eyes, a holodialog opened. A VOICE CALL WILL BE PLACED TO THE REGISTERED ADDRESS 01. OKAY? He shook off a moment’s hesitation and pressed the YES button.

  There were several modes of bidirectional communication using the Neurolinker. The most frequently used was a voice call, conversing vocally like the old cellular phones. Widespread use was also made of video calls, in which you removed the camera from the side of the Neurolinker and talked while your face was recorded.

  In contrast with these, the dive call—in which both parties used their avatars to talk in a virtual space—was used only in exceptional circumstances. The reason was simple: It wasn’t always the case that the person being called could immediately go into a full dive. At the very least, you had to mail or make a voice call in advance for an appointment, and the majority of business could be taken care of in such communiqués.

  Thus, Haruyuki requesting a dive call at this early hour and completely out of the blue was relatively nonsensical. Even so, he wanted desperately to see her right away. And not just hear her voice or see a flat image, but touch her with all five senses. He felt as though a part of him would change into something else if he couldn’t.

  The CALLING in Mincho font blinked eight, nine times, and just before message mode kicked in, the word turned into CONNECTING.

  All the windows around him disappeared with a whoosh. A drop of white light appeared in the inorganic gray space, followed by another and then a cascade of particles of white light shifting into the form of an avatar.

  Klak! The toes of high heels touched the floor, and the fairy princess, black spangle butterfly wings on her back, blinked slowly two or three times before acknowledging the pig avatar a short distance away from her and smiling gently.

  “Hey. Morning, Haruyuki.”

  Even after being greeted like this by her smooth, silky voice, Haruyuki couldn’t manage to get any words to leave his mouth, afraid of the premonition that the slender figure before him would turn to sand and crumble. He rubbed his eyes hard.

  But of course, no matter how many seconds passed, the avatar did nothing that would lead to her disappearance. Haruyuki came back to himself abruptly and hurriedly opened his mouth.

  “Uh, um, good morning, Kuroyukihime. Uhh, I—I’m sorry. Suddenly dive-calling you, and so early…”

  “It’s fine. I just woke up and was trying to decide whether I should try to go back to sleep or not.” She smiled again and then examined her surroundings. “And this, well, this is quite the simple place. Although it is like you to prioritize a lighter data load.”

  “Oh, uh, no, that’s…”

  The initial setting for a dive call meant that the person doing the calling brought their partner into the VR space they dove into. Because Haruyuki had called without moving from the main area of his home net, he’d ended up inviting Kuroyukihime into this world, a place without even a single chair.

  “I-I’m sorry. I’ll change the location right away!” Hastily, he pulled up a menu window and flicked through the object sets he had made and saved, but they were all emotionless places—the ruins of a battlefield, the deck of a battleship.

  Kuroyukihime looked on wryly as he scrolled through the list, sweating profusely. Finally, she clapped her hands and said, “Maybe it would be a bit heavy data-wise, but perhaps you’ll allow me to load a set I have? I want to try out one I bought yesterday.”

  “Oh! Sure! Please! Go ahead! Go ahead!”

  Haruyuki nodded so hard he practically bounced, and Kuroyukihime smiled once more before moving her right hand. She navigated the menu with quick gestures, playing a virtual piano.

  A progress bar popped up before Haruyuki’s eyes. An object set was being sent from the Neurolinker of Kuroyukihime in far-off Okinawa, via the global net. Because it was a large file, it took five seconds for him to receive and two seconds to unzip and open. As the bar disappeared, powerful lightning—no, sunlight—poured down from above his head, and the cold emptiness around him evaporated.

  Appearing in its place was a southern country scene with enough color to jolt him fully awake. Maybe it was a shrine: Hearth-protecting stone lion statues known as shisa were covered in moss and set on both sides of a short pilgrim’s path. Windmill palm trees surrounded them, and at the end of that path were stone steps that led downward, while even farther off in the distance, he could see the azure sea.

  When he turned around, there was a small vermilion shrine. Next to him, Kuroyukihime snapped open her parasol and held it above their heads. As if this were a switch, the chirping of countless cicadas closed in on them from all sides, and Haruyuki breathed deeply of air that smelled like the sun.

  “Why don’t we sit over there and talk?”

  She pointed at the small stairs built directly in front of the shrine. He nodded his assent, and with gravel crunching beneath their feet, Haruyuki came to sit his avatar down next to hers. For a while, he just took in the scene spreading out before his eyes, both fore
ign and familiar at the same time.

  Although this was, of course, a VR space built from digital data, it wasn’t just an arrangement of ready-made polygons. The shisa, the palm trees—all the objects were created based on a real scene photographed with a special high-resolution camera. This kind of object set, reproducing in detail a picturesque scene, was currently the standard trip souvenir.

  Haruyuki, who had never been off the main island of Honshu, much less all the way down to Okinawa, forgot that he had initiated the call, and kept staring almost dumbfounded at the scene around him. Kuroyukihime very patiently sat next to him as he did, but at last, she cleared her throat with a small cough.

  “Although personally, I have absolutely no objection to just looking at the scenery like this with you…”

  Haruyuki jerked his head to look up at the lovely face of the fairy princess beside him and finally remembered that this was the continuation of his thoughtless, early morning dive call.

  “Oh, uh! I-I-I’m sorry!”

  “No need to apologize. I just wondered if you didn’t have some pressing business.” She gazed at him, smiling.

  Haruyuki realized an even more fearful fact. That is, he did not in actuality have a single thing that could be called business of any sort. Just that he had had a dream at dawn, and it had been a very scary dream…

  Abruptly, the sensation of pulling the wings off of her back in the nightmare came back to life in his hands, and he screwed up his face, clenched his fists, and dropped his eyes.

  His Neurolinker appeared to have dug from deep in his mind the words that then came out of his mouth, rather than from his brain’s language center. “Uh…Um, I was lonely.” Still not totally aware of what he was saying, Haruyuki let his duplicate self do the talking. “Not being able to see you. Being so far away from you for so long’s been hard. So, uh…”

  The virtual forest hushed around him. He didn’t know if the cicada sound effect had actually stopped or if his own brain was blocking the environmental audio information. After a long silence, the reply he received was short.

  “Me, too.”

  The shoulders of the pig avatar shook slightly, and he looked up ever so timidly to see her pale face frowning.

  “I’m lonely, too, Haruyuki.”

  Unable to completely hold back a smile through her tears, Kuroyukihime raised both hands and held Haruyuki’s cheeks firmly between them. “This is the first time a mere week has felt so long, despite the fact that I’ve done countless continuous dives in the Accelerated World for much, much longer than this. I want to go back to Tokyo and see you again already.”

  “…Me, too.”

  The instant he squeezed the words out, Kuroyukihime bit her lip hard. Between her arms, she yanked Haruyuki’s head to her chest.

  A sweet scent and a gentle, radiant warmth not possible in the Umesato local net (because an avatar’s sense of touch was severely diluted there) raced along Haruyuki’s nervous system. Normally, he would be panicking and turning into a stiff board-person, but right now, he was stirred by an overwhelming longing, and as if in a trance, he reached his hands out to cling to her slim body.

  Please come home. That’s what he wanted to say. Please come home and help me like you always do.

  In that moment, Haruyuki became acutely aware of how close to his limit he had been pushed. No matter how desperately he fought, his enemy—Dusk Taker—continued to stand, as though a dark steel wall sneering at his efforts, a wall Silver Crow’s slender fists could neither pierce nor climb.

  But he couldn’t say it.

  It wasn’t just for Chiyuri. For his own sake, too, he had to fight this enemy right to the end with his own power. Giving in to despair now and using Kuroyukihime as a crutch while she was on her school trip would be basically what he had done in the dream.

  “We’ll be able to see each other soon, right?” Haruyuki muttered finally in a hoarse voice. “Only three more days.”

  “Mmm. That’s true,” Kuroyukihime responded, and after putting all her strength into her arms for one final squeeze, she released her embrace. Black eyes shining, she locked eyes with her junior, leaning in close.

  “Haruyuki…”

  She said his name anxiously, as if she had discovered something in those eyes.

  But Haruyuki mustered every ounce of mental strength he had to put a smile on his face. “Um, I really want you to have fun in your last few days on the trip,” he said, before she could say anything else. “I’m sorry for calling you so out of the blue like this.”

  “No, if you hadn’t called me, I would’ve called you. I’m happy to see you, even if it is our avatars doing the seeing. I’ll buy you the real thing for a souvenir, so look forward to that.” Grinning, Kuroyukihime stood up and crunched onto the gravel. She twirled her parasol, closed it, and called up the menu window.

  She pushed the DISCONNECT button, and even after her form had turned into particles of light and disappeared, Haruyuki continued to sit where he was. The cries of the cicadas, louder again, wiped away the lingering remains of the nightmare still in his heart.

  After a breakfast of cereal and milk, he called into his mother’s bedroom that he was leaving. Opening the door to his condo, he was greeted by a dull, cloudy, leaden sky.

  Focusing his eyes on the icons lined up on the left of his virtual desktop, he pressed the weather report shortcut. The probability of rain was 72 percent after 12:40 PM. He took a step back, grabbed a light gray umbrella from beside the shoe cabinet, and went outside.

  The tool known as an umbrella was probably one of the everyday-life accessories that had had the same basic structure the longest. At most, the fabric had changed to a nondegradable, water-resistant one, and the skeleton to high-modulus carbon.

  Idly noting that rainy days would be a little more fun if his umbrella at least had an automatic closing gimmick like the one on the parasol Kuroyukihime’s avatar was equipped with, Haruyuki walked down the hall and stepped onto the elevator. When the car, having begun its descent to the ground, stopped after a mere two floors, Haruyuki had a premonition that was a near certainty.

  And, of course, standing on the other side of the doors as they slid open was Chiyuri Kurashima.

  Meeting his gaze squarely, Chiyuri’s large, catlike eyes wavered as if she were hesitating. Despite the fact that she would normally jump in with a hearty “Mornin’!” her black shoes now stayed perfectly aligned; she did not move.

  Several seconds passed, and the moment the door began to move again, Haruyuki reflexively pushed the OPEN button with his left hand. He obstinately continued to stare at her face, hand on the button.

  Just as the warning buzzer was on the verge of sounding, she lowered her eyes and quietly stepped in.

  “Thanks. Morning,” she said with a small voice as Haruyuki released the button.

  “Mornin’,” he replied in a whisper, looking sidelong at the light peach umbrella she held in her left hand as she stood a good deal farther away from him than usual in the moving elevator.

  Long after he got off the elevator, the words that should have come next from his mouth filled his brain. No matter what Seiji Nomi told you, you don’t have to obey him. If he’s threatening you and the threat is the hidden video from the shower room, he can’t actually use that or anything. Because the instant he destroyed Haruyuki with that video, Haruyuki could broadcast Nomi’s real-world information in the Accelerated World and take Nomi down with him.

  But it was also clear to him that Chiyuri probably wouldn’t agree with this kind of “deterrence through mutual assured destruction.” If it meant he would be expelled for an extremely shameful crime—there was even the slight possibility he would be arrested—she would do whatever it took to avoid that outcome. Even, for instance, be forced to be Dusk Taker’s personal healer and stand against Haruyuki and Takumu in the Accelerated World.

  Because they were friends. Because they were childhood friends who had spent a long, long time together
in the real world. For Chiyuri, this was the most important thing, something to be defended above all else.

  “Chiyu.” Haruyuki said the name of his childhood companion in a voice so tiny it threatened to be swallowed up by the very modest sound of the elevator continuing its descent.

  Her small shoulders twitched, but her lips remained firmly fastened shut. He dropped his eyes to her hand, the one that clutched the umbrella. He wanted to grab it and pull her toward him, but the words he would have said glommed together into a hot lump and stuck in his throat.

  So Haruyuki stayed where he was, his body rooted to the spot as the weight of gentle deceleration enveloped him. The door opened, and Chiyuri proceeded briskly toward the entrance without looking back.

  Having had his track team friend ripped away from him in what felt like the blink of an eye, Haruyuki trudged to school, head hanging, just like the trek home the day before.

  Wednesdays, he normally went to buy the package edition of his favorite comics magazine at the convenience store, but today he just didn’t feel like it and passed by without stopping.

  Alternately feeling the delight of the dive call with Kuroyukihime and the pain of not having talked to Chiyuri about anything, he arrived on the road to the school—one-third less congested than usual with the new ninth graders off on their trip—and finally stepped through the Umesato Junior High gates, hunched into himself. His Neurolinker automatically connected to the in-school local net, and the attendance log time, the day’s schedule, notifications from the school, and more were listed, pop, pop, pop, on the right side of his field of vision. At the end of this list, he saw the sentence IMPORTANT INFORMATION ITEM: PERSONAL in red characters and frowned.

  After changing into his school shoes at the entrance, stifling the sense of something ominous approaching, he touched the row of characters with a finger. Shp! The message text opened, and stern Mincho-font characters lined up before him.