Accel World: Floating Bridge in Starlight

by Reki Kawahara

  Heading towards the delicate silver wheelchair that stood alone in front of the plaza and the graceful female avatar that sat on it, the motorbike rushed forward raging and roaring loudly.

  “Masteeeeeer!”

  The skull-headed rider let out a yell, which was for some reason mixed with tears.

  “Today…I will…surpass you, master[27]……!!”

  Haruyuki gaped his mouth open in the air. Certainly, Sky Raker was Ash Roller’s mentor and «Parent», but his words just now were the kind only spoken when on the verge of the final battle after many twists and turns. This was still only the third time that Ash Roller’s team had participated in the territory attacks today, and moreover this should have been the first time this Parent and Child fought head-to-head.

  On top of her wheelchair, Raker was smiling beneath her wide-brimmed hat, and spoke after shaking her long sky-colored hair.

  “You’re a hundred years too early, Ash.”

  And then, she held out her left hand straight in front of her and made the gesture of «Come and get it» by turning her palm upwards and motioning with her fingers.

  “Toooooo!!”

  Ash responded to that with a sharp yell. He jumped up from his seat and stood up straight with his right foot on the handlebar and his left foot on the back end of his seat. This was—the original technique where one controlled the bike like a surfboard called «V-Twin Fist», named by Ash Roller himself.

  Although Raker showed no signs of panicking even when she saw that move, Haruyuki gritted his teeth once again. This put Raker at even more of a disadvantage. Since Raker couldn’t stand up from her wheelchair, her hands no longer reached up to Ash Roller’s body. And a bare-handed attack against the bike would cause damage to herself instead.

  “Master! Giga-Thank you for everything until nooooooooow!!”

  He used the sole of his boot to push down on the full throttle lever, and the bike went into one final burst of acceleration while gushing out flames from its muffler. Right at the instant when the huge grey front tire was on the verge of hitting the wheelchair hard—

  Raker’s left hand gently brushed against the silver wheel on her left side at a blurred speed. Raising sparks from the ground, the wheelchair did an extremely fast and sudden back dash.

  —It’s impossible, there’s no way to get away!

  Haruyuki inwardly shouted that at Sky Raker, who was his master as well. Although the wheelchair, which could only be moved by turning its wheels by hand, had incredible dashing speed due to its ultra-light weight, it only lasts for a moment. The bike will immediately catch up to her after going backwards and send her flying.

  At the same time as Haruyuki held his breath while expecting that outcome.

  With utter abandonment, Sky Raker stretched herself forward while just barely dodging the bike’s front wheel, and touched the bike’s handle bar with her left hand—

  And then lightly grasped the bike’s brake lever.

  Although it looked like a casual action, Haruyuki could tell that she had put unbelievable strength into it, as terrible sparks came out from the front wheel’s rotor disk. What would happen to a bike that had only its front brakes locked and with such force as well?

  “O-Owaah!?”

  Faster than Ash Roller could let out a yell, the entire American bike instantly went into a handstand on its front wheel and shifted into the so-called “jack-knife” state[28]. It rose up with the momentum and flew through the air while spinning, until it crashed into the wall of a building ahead.

  It seemed that the shock of impact exceeded the durability of the Enhanced Armament motorbike, as it then exploded in a burst of magnificent flames.

  However, Ash Roller himself had, thanks to standing on his seat, been thrown up in the air without being engulfed in the explosion.

  “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo—!?”

  He reached the peak of his ascent with a scream, stopped for an instant, and then started falling back down. And right beneath him was Sky Raker, who was dashing forward with her wheelchair again.

  “Make that two hundred years.”

  Along with that smiling comment, she shot her left palm upward with so much force that the air burned. The palm strike splendidly caught the back of Ash Roller’s dark leather rider jacket, and released an impact that could be felt all the way up to where Haruyuki was far away.

  Due to the critical blow dealt to the core of his body combined with the damage from the long fall, Ash Roller’s HP gauge quickly disappeared.

  “As expected of master…Forgive me, Tera-Nothing.”[29]

  Leaving those mysterious words, the skull rider avatar burst and scattered into pixels. Haruyuki and Bush Utan simultaneously murmured as they watched Sky Raker dust off her hands.

  “S-So powerful……”

  “Way too strong……”

  They exchanged glances. Since Raker had splendidly repulsed Ash and protected the base, there was no longer any meaning in continuing their tug of war.

  Without saying anything, Haruyuki suddenly made his wings vibrate at high speed by consuming his entire remaining special technique gauge. The ascending force this produced made Utan’s arms creak and grate.

  “T-That’s useless! Burn, my biceeeeeeeeeeps!!”

  Utan pumped up his left arm that was grabbed onto the building handrail and his right arm that was holding Haruyuki’s ankle, and tried to pull back Haruyuki with pure physical strength—and at that instant.

  Haruyuki changed the flight direction of his silver wings by 180 degrees, and went into a diving posture. Inevitably, this caused Utan to pull Silver Crow towards himself with all of his arm strength.

  “Wha…hey, wait a minute.”

  His words were erased by the sound of being hit by a violent dive kick.

  Like that, the two of them fell to the ground like heavy lumps. Since Utan released his grip on Haruyuki’s from the shock of impact, it showed that he still had a long way to go before he could fight Haruyuki at point blank hand-to-hand combat.

  As his HP disappeared in a rush, Utan exited the stage with parting words of surrender just like that of his big bro’s.

  “I-I’ll pay ya back for this tomorrow~~~~~!!”

  ……Tomorrow?

  Haruyuki had a bad feeling about those words somehow, but he put it aside for the time being and hurried over to the front lines in order to assist Takumu.

  Fifteen minutes later in real world time—

  Having protected the First to Third Battle Areas of Suginami this week as well, the five members of Nega Nebulas gathered in the center of the field that had served as the stage for the last battle, and congratulated each other for a good day’s work.

  Sitting down on a nearby slab of concrete, Haruyuki let out a long breath, feeling comfortably fatigued, and spoke to Sky Raker next to him.

  “Even so…I didn’t think that Ash Roller’s bike could be taken down through such a method…”

  In the past, Haruyuki had defeated Ash by lifting the rear wheel of his bike and cancelling its propulsive force, but the method of grasping the brake lever while it ran and then blowing it away was far more smart, speedy, and most of all, interesting and cool.

  However, Raker shook her head with a wry smile.

  “Unfortunately, that method can only be used when Ash is standing up straight on his bike.”

  “Ah…I-I see…”

  Certainly, a rider’s hands usually do not separate from the handles. After he gave a thoughtful hum, this time it was Kuroyukihime who spoke up with wry laughter in her voice.

  “Before that, if you don’t synchronize your speed with the bike using a Raker-class dash when you touch it going at full speed, you would receive damage instead.”

  “Ah…I-I…see…”

  As Haruyuki dropped his head, Chiyuri and Takumu let out unreserved laughter. The jet-black avatar also laughed for a while, but then added, “But, well”.

  “Perhaps if you flew at full speed, you mi
ght be able to do the same thing as Raker. You should look into the possibility.”

  “Yes!”

  After Haruyuki energetically nodded, the legion leader looked around at her subordinates and spoke.

  “If there’s nothing else to discuss, let’s talk about the matter of tomorrow. I think you’ve all already received a text message with an outline of it from Haruyuki-kun, but I’ll have him explain it again here.”

  “U-Understood.”

  After frantically standing up and facing the four other people sitting down side by side, Haruyuki started explaining the outline of the big event tomorrow—the «Hermes Cord Traversing Race».

  He explained about how it was not necessary to specifically go to the Sky Tree, and that if they gathered and Direct Connected together at Haruyuki’s home, the «Transporter Card» item would teleport them to the bottom station of the space elevator.

  About how they couldn’t change the driver of Shuttle-1 since Silver Crow had already registered for it, and so the rest of them would be passengers that either, defend their shuttle or attack the shuttles of the rival teams.

  About how, since their HP gauges were locked while in the race, the Level 9 Black Lotus would not be in danger either.

  After somehow managing to explain that far while stumbling over his words, Haruyuki suddenly hesitated. He wasn’t able to decide on the spur of the moment whether he should mention how Blood Leopard of «Prominence» had registered for Shuttle-2, and how she was looking forward to meeting Sky Raker again.

  However, he immediately decided to remain quiet about it for now. The exchange between Leopard and Raker could only be understood by the two of them.

  Therefore, Haruyuki sucked in a deep breath and then finished with “That’s all!”.

  “Good work.”

  Kuroyukihime said that and then immediately stood up in Haruyuki’s place as he sat down.

  “You should have learned this from Haruyuki-kun’s mail as well, but an event known as the «Grand Castle Capture Race» also occurred one year ago as well. I think Raker already understands, but…”

  Suddenly stopping her words, the Black King struck her right hand’s sword on the ground.

  “Back then, I was completely cut off from the Global Net and was hiding from the assassins of the kings, so I felt veeeeeeeeeery mortified about not being able to participate.”

  “I truly did too. I sent a bitter call of resentment all the way to the Grand Castle from on top of the Old Tokyo Tower back then.”

  Raker smiled gracefully as she said that, making Kuroyukihime nod in agreement and the other three legion members straighten their backs nervously. While sharing the thought of «Raker-sensei is truly scary», they wouldn’t have been surprised if several duel avatars had actually become paralyzed from the grudge and malice contained in Raker’s message back then.

  “Anyway. As a result, I would like to dispel last year’s regret in tomorrow’s race without fail. Takumu-kun and Chiyuri have also gladly agreed to enter, and above all, Haruyuki went through so much trouble to get us the right to participate by noticing the possibility of a new stage appearing and going all the way to the distant Sky Tree. I will allow no excuses for putting this to waste.”

  After Kuroyukihime spoke, Haruyuki frantically shook his head and hands.

  “N-No, really, I merely came up with a trifling idea…The one who guessed the location and time of the portal’s appearance was senpai…”

  “That idea was very important. Although the ten participation slots were apparently all quickly filled, it seems most of the registered teams were people that bought an expensive piece of information at an NPC shop in the Unlimited Neutral Field. There were only one or two people besides Haruyuki-kun who realized it on their own.”

  “H-Heh…So that’s how it was…”

  Then, that NPC information may have had its announcement on the portal’s appearance slightly delayed. In that case, Haruyuki, who guessed it from scratch by himself, and probably Pard-san were the first people to reach the Hermes Cord.

  In that case, he was really grateful to Chiyuri for inviting him to the Shinjuku Government Office the other day. If he hadn’t gone there, the news about the space elevator would probably not have come to mind in the first place. And of course, he was also grateful to Kuroyukihime for giving him advice during their Dive Call. It truly was good to have comrades…As Haruyuki idly thought that—

  “……Wait a moment, Lotus.”

  Sky Raker lightly raised her hand, and moved her wheelchair forward as its wheels squeaked. She turned the wheelchair around with a smooth motion and faced all the other legion members.

  “I’ve also been looking forward to this kind of event very much. As someone who cut off social interaction in Accel World for a long time, I’m thankful every day that I can fight alongside the members of this legion…of the reborn «Nega Nebulas» once again. If possible, I would like to join forces with everyone and aim for the goal of the race tomorrow as well. However…”

  She cut off her words for an instant, and dropped her gaze down to her legs wrapped within her long white dress.

  “…According to what Crow said, there are only four seats for crew members in the shuttle, and it seems there isn’t any other loading space. Therefore, I would have to remain fixed on a seat without my wheelchair. If I do that, this avatar of mine will just serve as an ornament. If I will just increase the carried weight without doing anything and slow down the shuttle’s speed, it would be better if I didn’t board it in the first place.”

  “N-No way!”

  Haruyuki reflexively cried out and tried to deny Sky Raker’s words.

  However—

  If Raker were a long range type avatar, she could sufficiently play the role of attacker even while fixed onto her seat. But, just as her vivid sky-blue color indicated, she was a pure close range type. Most likely, in order for close range types to play the role of attacker in the race, they needed to be able to jump over to other shuttles. For Sky Raker, who uses a wheelchair instead of legs, doing that would of course be impossible.

  Watching as Haruyuki grit his teeth hard, Raker spoke gently.

  “Karasu-san[30], don’t worry about it. Even if I’m not there, I believe that you can surely reach the top at the top with you, Lotus, Pile and Bell.”

  —No, that’s wrong.

  I wanted to take you…to take you especially to that pillar reaching up to the sky. There’s something I want to tell you, in that world above that covers the entire length of the 4000 km long space elevator. To tell you a certain thought that cannot be expressed on the ground, where it is weighed down by gravity…

  At the same time as Haruyuki thought that in his mind, Kuroyukihime also spoke in a pain-filled voice.

  “…Raker. Your avatar’s body weight is probably lighter than Crow’s. There won’t be much difference in the loading weight of the shuttle whether you board it or not. Besides, even if you can’t move from your seat, it’s enough if you just act as a defender…”

  “You can’t do that, Lotus.”

  Raker decisively stopped her.

  “Your…and Nega Nebulas’ activities should, first and foremost, be for the sake of toppling the other kings and allowing you to reach Level 10. If you end up in first place in tomorrow’s race, you’ll surely be given a considerable amount of Burst Points. That will certainly allow you to get closer to your final objective. In that case, you shouldn’t fuss over me and reduce your chances of victory even slightly…Isn’t that right?”

  Her words were far too logical, and more than that, far too painful. Most likely, in Sky Raker’s heart, she had clearly regulated her own role, due to having a big limitation to her movements. She values her power when it can help the legion’s activities. But conversely, she absolutely won’t participate in a battle where she will be a burden.

  In other words, it was like this.

  Sky Raker had already given up on Brain Burst for herself. She had resp
onded to Kuroyukihime’s request and returned to the legion, but her only motive was to help Kuroyukihime. She was strongly forbidding herself from feeling the thrill and excitement of «duels», and the joy of talking through fists. Like a punishment that she will bear forever.

  —That’s wrong.

  Haruyuki once again whispered that in his mind.

  It was Haruyuki’s goal to make their legion master Kuroyukihime reach Level 10 as well. He was always wishing to be a knight that would continue to properly protect his king until that time came.

  He had no greater priority than that, but he did have a wish that was compatible with it.

  To play and enjoy the fighting game known as Brain Burst.

  Duels must not be fought out of bitterness or pain. They must not be done as work for earning points. There only lies darkness that casts a deep shadow even over the real world down that path, like with the «Acceleration Research Society».

  Of course, Haruyuki didn’t believe that Sky Raker would fall into such darkness either—but, if she still hadn’t forgiven herself, she would never be able to enjoy Brain Burst.

  However, Haruyuki didn’t have a way to convey his thoughts and feelings right now at this place. It seemed to be the same for Kuroyukihime and Takumu, as both of their avatars were stiffened like rocks and were merely looking down.

  Sky Raker tried to break the silence that engulfed everything other than the ticking time count, which showed 10 minutes until the field disappeared, by speaking with a gentle smile. However, an instant before she could speak.

  “Raker-nee-san.”

  Without warning, Chiyuri addressed Raker with the name she had come to call her by.

  “What is it, Bell?”

  “There’s…something I’ve always been thinking about, but……”

  Speaking in a voice as if she were wavering over something, but still expressing a firm will at its core, Lime Bell stood up. She took several steps, and stood before Raker. She took a deep breath, displayed an unusually serious expression on her mask—

  “If you’re okay with it, Nee-san, I’d like to try out returning your legs to normal with my power.”

  And she said that.