Accel World: Return of Princess Snow Black

by Reki Kawahara

“You... Why...!?”

  Standing imposingly in front of him, was a single female student. The color of her blazer and ribbon showed that she was a similar first year student.

  She was small, less than ⅓ of Haruyuki’s weight. Her short-cut fringe was raised on the right side with a blue hairpin. Cat like small contour, disproportionately large eyes burning with anger stared at Haruyuki.

  Her left hand held a small basket, and her right hand extended right above Haruyuki’s head, in a small fist. Seeing that, Haruyuki finally understood why he had been suddenly disconnected from Full Dive. The female student had hit his head with that fist, and the shock activated the Neuro Linker’s safety causing an automatic Link Out.

  Normally, the safety would activate from shaking the shoulder or a loud shout, but for sensitive girls, if anyone gets within a meter of them, they were set to Link Out. The reason Haruyuki didn’t notice the intruder until he was hit on the head was since he was hiding in a toilet stall, he set his safety level to the lowest.

  “Why you!!”

  Surprised and amazed, Haruyuki shouted at the only girl in this school that he can talk to without panicking.

  “What were you doing! This is the men’s toilet! The door was locked... are you an idiot!!”

  “You are the idiot.”

  Haruyuki’s childhood friend while wearing a skirt climbed over the wall of the men's toilet stall, this strong person is Kurashima Chiyuri, after replying in a sulky voice, she pulled back her right hand and unlocked the door behind her.

  With a light movement, she jumped out of the stall. Haruyuki’s eyes narrowed from the sunlight reflected from her chestnut-color hair, Chiyuri finally had a small smile on her face, and added.

  “Hey, come out already.”

  “...I got it.”

  Swallowing his sigh, Haruyuki stood up as the toilet seat cover creaked. While chasing Chiyuri who was heading to the exit, he had another question.

  “...How did you know I was here?”

  The reply did not come immediately. After poking her head out of the men’s toilet to check outside, Chiyuri slipped into the hallway and tersely said.

  “I was on the roof too. So I followed you.”

  That means -.

  “...You saw.”

  Haruyuki stopped after putting one step into the hallway, and whispered.

  Looking like she was trying to find the right words, Chiyuri leaned her back on the far wall, then finally nodded.

  “...I won’t say anything more about those guys. Since Haru decided that was fine... I have no choice. But you should eat your lunch. It’s bad for your body.”

  With a forced smile, Chiyuri held out the basket in her left hand.

  “I made lunch. I can’t guarantee it'll taste good though.”

  - So miserable, Haruyuki thought.

  His heart trying to find feeling beyond compassion in Chiyuri’s words and actions, was without a doubt pitiful.

  Because Chiyuri had a genuine boyfriend. In many ways opposite of Haruyuki, their other childhood friend.

  His mouth moved on its own, a strangely flat voice issued, Haruyuki heard it.

  “...Remains of what you made for Taku?”

  Chiyuri’s face suddenly became cloudy. Unable to stand looking into her eyes with raised eyebrows, Haruyuki looked down at the hallway.

  “That’s not true, Ta-kun has school lunch. This... sandwich is made with potato salad, ham and cheese. Haru’s favorite right.”

  Haruyuki extended his right hand to push back the white basket that entered his view.

  However, the slow real body moved in a different way from his control, the sudden movement knocked the basket from Chiyuri’s hand and fell. Upon hitting the floor the cover opened, from inside the water color cooking paper, one or two triangle cut sandwich fell out and broke apart.

  “Ah...”

  He wanted to apologize on reflex, but the inside of his head became hot and the words he should have spoken could not take shape. He could not raise his head, and stepped back while cowering, then he shouted and turned around.

  “I don’t want them!!”

  He wanted to log out from this place right now, Haruyuki painfully thought, but of course that’s impossible. He should at least run, but his real body became unbelievably heavy, he could not escape from the small voice behind him.

  In the worst mood, he passed the afternoon lessons and home room, and fled out of the classroom.

  He pushed the voice in his head aside that told him to wait for Chiyuri at two classrooms next to his, or in front of the school, or on the way home to apologize, and went to his other hidden place, the library.

  Originally, the usefulness of places like the library were gone. However, some adults thought that in a school, children need the same paper media books to learn, so with a waste of material and space, brand new hard cover books lined the shelves.

  Mostly due to this, he has an important personal space within the school, so he can’t complain. He took two or three hardcover books for camouflage and went into a reading booth near the wall, he pushed his body into a tight chair, and went into Full Dive with a volume barely recognizable by the Linker.

  Since it was only a few minutes after classes had ended, the school net was still quiet. He should go right now to hide in his usual place, he quickly passed by the grass field then climbed the tree.

  The virtual squash corner of course was devoid of people. Honestly, he did not want to simply hit a ball, he wanted to go into a bloody battle where he can blow away the fuzzy feeling in his chest as soon as possible, but without a global net connection and inside the school where games were not allowed to start, it was impossible.

  His empty stomach was also beyond limit, but even so he did not feel like going home right away. If he met Chiyuri on the way home, he had absolutely no idea what expression to make or what words to use. No, apologizing should be fine, but he did not have the confidence that his mouth would follow his intentions.

  - It’s the same as that time.

  In the past, he made Chiyuri cry similar to now, he was starting to remember that time so he tightly closed his eyes. He moved his right hand to the panel and logged in.

  He groped for the racket and held it, then turned his body to face the court.

  Opening his eyes, he was going to hit the falling ball with the many gloomy feelings -.

  Haruyuki’s full body froze.

  “Level... 166!?”

  His level that had just increased a few hours ago, yet now more than 10 levels had been added.

  How, the score is stored with the student ID, after an instant of thought, he understood. That time, he was forced to log out because Chiyuri hit his head, the game was kept like that. That means it’s possible that someone continued to play and changed the score. However.

  Who else other than himself could make this kind of ridiculous score!?

  For Haruyuki’s pride that was on the blink of collapse, his support was his VR game technique under Full Dive. Of course, excluding quiz and board games where your knowledge decided the outcome, for reaction speed types like gun shooting and action race games, he had the conceit that no one else in the school could beat him.

  He wasn't showing off. The reason why he did not stand out was that he learned from very bad experiences during elementary school. There was no proof, but as he thought up to this point - who made this squash game’s fearsome score...

  At that time.

  Behind him, there was a voice. It was female, but wasn't Chiyuri's. A much lower tone, a sound as smooth as silk.

  “You made that absurd score?”

  He fearfully turned around, standing in front of him was.

  A silver-studded dark dress. Staff, or sword like parasol poked the ground. Pure white skin and jet black eyes - «Kuroyukihime».

  Even though an avatar, she didn't have a digital feel to her, an extreme beauty tilted slightly, the school’s most famous person moved forward without
making a sound.

  A slight smile appeared on her red lips, the only place in her body with any color, and Kuroyukihime continued saying.

  “Do you want to... «Accelerate» further ahead, boy?”

  “If you are interested, come to the school lounge at lunch time tomorrow.”

  Leaving just that sentence behind, Kuroyukihime abruptly logged out.

  Her avatar was in Haruyuki’s view for less than 10 seconds. Was it a local network server bug? If it wasn't an illusion, then what’s left was something that won’t happen in a thousand years, however, the fearsome score floating in the court was real.

  Haruyuki didn’t feel like challenging a new high score anymore, so he ended the dive and continued to sit in the reading booth while spacing out. Inside his ears, the three lines of speech repeated in an infinite loop. Kuroyukihime’s expression was diverse as a middle school female student, but that overwhelming presence mixed with uncomfortable feeling was something no one had, it’s partly why she was ultra popular with not only males, but females as well.

  He eventually left school on fluffy legs and headed home, his body mostly on automatic mode. If it wasn’t for his Neuro Linker on sight and sound mode doing traffic prediction navigation, he would have been hit by cars two or three times.

  Returning to the empty Kouenji high-rise mansion home, Haruyuki heated up a frozen pizza and ate it with a soda drink. His parents divorced long ago, he was now living with his mother, she won’t be back home till after midnight, and he only sees her for a moment when he gets lunch money from her before going to school.

  His empty stomach filled with junk food, Haruyuki returned to his room. Normally, he would check his patrol course in the Global Net, then he would bustle about the battlefields around Europe for a few hours, while his remaining strength would be for homework and then sleep, but just today he didn’t feel like doing anything.

  Since too many things happened today, his brain felt heavy like it was swollen. Haruyuki changed his clothes, removed his Neuro Linker and then fell heavily on the bed.

  He wanted to say his sleep was very peaceful. But dreams of Araya group’s scorn, Chiyuri’s tears, and Kuroyukihime’s mysterious speech kept repeating, it made him toss and turn.

  Do you want to - «Accelerate» further ahead?

  Inside his dream, instead of Kuroyukihime’s avatar, it was the real student council vice president’s shape. He should not have seen her other than on the stage of school assembly where she kept a detached and expressionless face, but why in his dream she has a little devil like smile inviting him somewhere, and whispered in Haruyuki’s ear. ‘Come here.’

  Chapter 2

  Yes, everything was a dream. Including yesterday’s encounter in the local network.

  The next day, Wednesday, Haruyuki went to school with his usual gloomy face, and thought that while entering his classroom.

  In the déjà-vu lesson, Araya group’s bullying mail came again. It was the first time that they had extorted lunch for two days in a row, what they wanted was same as yesterday, fried noodle buns and cream melon buns. How much do they like those anyway, he closed the mail while thinking that, and left his seat when the bell for lunch chimed.

  Where his slow feet headed however was not the roof that Araya’s group asked him to go, but the first floor in the school building, the lounge next to the student cafeteria.

  Instead of the cheap long tables lined up in the cafeteria, the half circular lounge was filled with elegant white round tables. Beyond the large glass window for lighting, the autumn colors of the central courtyard’s trees could be seen clearly, without a doubt this was the highest rank space in Umesato middle school.

  Hence, there’s an unwritten law that first years are not allowed to use it. The students around the tables, their ribbons and neckties were all blue (2nd year) or dark red (3rd year), there wasn’t a single green.

  Half of the upperclassmen held a cup of coffee or tea in one hand while chatting to each other, while the other half leaned back on high back chairs with eyes closed, not sleeping, but rather Full Diving on the school network.

  Haruyuki first hid his large body behind a decorative plant in front of the lounge entrance, then looked around inside.

  She couldn’t be there, that thing yesterday was a dream, he more than half believed it - but.

  “...She’s there...”

  He involuntarily swallowed a breath of air. In the deepest part of the lounge, at a table near the window, there was a striking group. Six students, a mix of 2nd and 3rd years. Looking closely, he could recognize them all. They were all current student council members, male or female in different orientations, and all of them were handsome.

  The largest presence in that group was a female student with a blue ribbon flipping the pages of a hardcover book with melancholy. Her long hair, that came down to nearly her waist, was a deep black that was rare nowadays. Her legs that peeked out from her dark grey pleated skirt were covered with black stockings too. He was surprised that her open-collared shirt under her blazer was also glossy black. Without a doubt - she was Umesato middle school’s most famous person, «Kuroyukihime».

  From the lounge entrance to that far table, it should be less than 20 meters in a straight line. However, that distance felt like it was almost infinite to Haruyuki. Passing by upperclassman to get there is like an adventure that he couldn’t possibly complete.

  Turn around and go back. Then buy buns and juice from the school cafeteria and bring them to the roof for Araya’s group. After that go hide in the 2nd school building toilet and play single player games in the local net to waste time.

  - Shit. Damn. I will go.

  Haruyuki ground his teeth, came out from behind the decorative plant’s shade, and stepped into the lounge.

  The stares from the upperclassmen in the surrounding tables were not just his paranoia, but contained actual criticism and displeasure. A new student might not know, but in the later half of 2nd term, all 1st years should know about the no entry rule.

  However luckily, no one said anything to blame him. His shaking two legs earnestly carried his heavy body, passing between the tables, Haruyuki almost stopped breathing, and finally reached the deepest section controlled by the student council.

  The first to raise her head, was a 2nd year who sat nearest to him. The female student’s fluffy hair waved as she turned her head, she faced Haruyuki with a slightly questioning smile and kindly said.

  “Oh... What is your business?”

  ‘I have business here.’ Being unable to say that, Haruyuki mumbled.

  “Well... that is... err...”

  At that time, the remaining four members all looked at Haruyuki. Their faces did not have any ill will, but he almost could no longer stand the displeased stares from the surrounding tables, when he was about to faint from all the tension, the last member finally raised her head from her book.

  Kuroyukihime’s face first seen at close range with naked eye, really was many times more beautiful than the avatar that he (thought he) saw yesterday. Under her cleanly split front hair, below her clear eyebrows, were eyes that even the iris looked black, shinning brightly. If her avatar can be compared to a black rose, then she would be a black narcissus. He did not know if such a thing existed or not.

  He was prepared for that beautiful face to show a ‘what?’ expression to match his unsightly year-level.

  However he was deeply surprised, Kuroyukihime’s lightly colored lips showed a familiar smile and she said a short line.

  “You came, boy.”

  She closed the hardcover book with a clap sound, while standing up right waved Haruyuki over, her view moved to the members at the table.

  “He has business with me. Sorry, can you empty that space?”

  The latter half was directed at the 3rd year male sitting next to her. The short hair, tall upperclassman stood up with an amazed expression and used his palm to show his chair to Haruyuki.

  After mumb
led thanks, Haruyuki shrunk his round body to the limit and sat down. The delicate chair creaked loudly, but Kuroyukihime did not seem to care about it, she took out a bundle of something small and long from her blazer's left pocket after searching in it.

  It was a cable. The cord was shielded with thin silver lines, and both ends had a small plug. Her left hand raised the hair at her back, there was a Neuro Linker around her surprisingly small neck (Of course, the Linker was piano black), her right hand inserted one end of the plug into her Neuro Linker, and casually handed the other end to Haruyuki.

  This time for sure, the students in the lounge waiting to see what would happen broke into a huge buzz. Screams of‘It must be a lie’ and ‘No it can’t be’ could be heard from it.

  Haruyuki was dumbfounded too. Sweat started pouring out of his face.

  «Wired Direct Connect Communication».

  Normally called Direct Connect, it was something that Kuroyukihime wanted to do with Haruyuki. Neuro Linkers normally use wireless communication with each other using the network in that area, under many levels of security. However, with Wired Direct Connect, 90% of the security wall became useless. For people with a certain level of Linker skill, they can peek into the other person’s private memory, or install malicious programs.

  That is to say normally, Direct Connect is only done with people one trusted the most - family, or lovers only. Saying it in another way, males and females who used Direct Connect in public places were very likely to be going out with each other. The cable length being a measure of intimacy is something of an existing custom without technical justification.

  The XSB cable that Kuroyukihime was holding out right now was about 2 meters, however in this situation the length doesn’t matter. While looking at the shining silver plug, Haruyuki somehow managed to make a sound to ask.

  “...U, Umm, what do I do with...”

  “It has no other use than to be plugged into your neck.”

  She instantly confirmed it. While Haruyuki was about to faint, his shaking fingers accepted the plug and inserted it into his Neuro Linker.

  At that moment, a «Wired Connection» warning was displayed in front of his eyes. When that faded away, from the view of the lounge, only Kuroyukihime’s shape freshly floated in front of him.