“Le—”
Left. Which meant he probably deleted his own Brain Burst himself.
Kuroyukihime glanced at the shock-frozen Haruyuki with a cynical expression on her face. “Well, if pressed, I’d say it was more along the lines of a complicated case of princess syndrome, unable to choose one or the other of the two princes petitioning for her hand, and throwing herself from the tower.”
“H-harsh…” Haruyuki’s cheeks spasmed involuntarily, and Kuroyukihime voiced something even more frightening.
“Fortunately, Kurashima’s not that type at all, hmm? Just the opposite, I suppose. Hard to see her as a prize two princes would vie for.” She laughed lightly.
“B-but.” Haruyuki hurried to return to the topic at hand after glancing reflexively behind her to check that no one was there. “Um, why does everyone lose it just because someone has a healing ability?”
“Use your imagination. Say you work quite hard to reduce the HP of your opponent’s advance guard in the public territory team battles. But then he pulls back, returns to the rear, and he’s completely recovered. Poof! Put simply—”
“He can’t be killed?”
That certainly would be tough. Or rather, awful.
As Haruyuki nodded with a gulp, Kuroyukihime spread out her right hand lightly, adding, “In short, yes. If the enemy team has a healer, you have to subjugate that healer first, above all else. But the other side will clearly anticipate your intentions and have a field day setting up ambushes, pincer attacks, and every other trap imaginable.”
“Y-yeah…”
“Frankly, an effective countermeasure has yet to be established for when the enemy side alone has a healer.”
“Huh?” Her words were delivered with a catlike smile, and Haruyuki blinked back a daze. “Hold on a minute. You said there was just one active healer right now—I mean, other than Chiyu. That’s what you said, right? So then, if the Legion that Burst Linker belongs to wanted to, couldn’t they unify the accelerated world?”
“It’s possible, yes, certainly. Very much so.”
“Why don’t they do that, then?”
At Haruyuki’s naive question, a wry grin rose briefly to Kuroyukihime’s face before quickly melting away. He thought he saw a dangerous glint in her narrowed jet-black eyes. Her voice also contained a cool echo now, different somehow from before.
“A very simple reason. That healer is currently one of the Six Kings of Pure Color. So even if, for instance, the Legion boasts a win ratio of ninety-nine percent in the team battles, if another king hits that king just once, she loses acceleration. Because of this, the healer never appears on the battlefield.”
“One of…the kings?!” Haruyuki very nearly dropped the paper cup of oolong tea he had started to bring to his lips, and he hurriedly clutched it with both hands to stop its fall. “What color?!” he asked, coughing violently, but for some reason, her reply was longer in coming.
Eyes lowered, Kuroyukihime seemed to be wrestling with something for quite a while until finally, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to hear her name right now. I don’t want you to be even marginally curious about her.”
“Huh? Wh-what do you mean?” Haruyuki said dumbly, unable to grasp Kuroyukihime’s meaning.
What he got in response to his question was another question. “Now, Haruyuki. Perhaps this is a strange thing to ask, but in these six months, how many times have you been scouted?”
“What?!” His back snapped to attention and his mouth flapped open and closed repeatedly. But he didn’t exactly have the option of lying. “Um, twice from the six major Legions controlled by the kings, including the thing with Niko three months ago.” His voice gradually disappeared as he told her the truth. “And once from a small place outside of that. But I obviously turned them all down, right there right then!!”
He tacked on the last bit rather frantically, but it unfortunately didn’t seem to make a deep impression on Kuroyukihime. Or rather, something else seemed to have caught her attention, and she furrowed her eyebrows before questioning him further. “Hmm. The other time from the six major Legions, which color was it exactly?”
“Ummm…I’m pretty sure it was blue?” he replied, and Kuroyukihime exhaled sharply after several seconds.
“Mmm hmm, I see. But blue, well. On top of sending all those assassins every week, they’ve honestly gone beyond shameless.”
“Th-they really have.” The beautiful pale face finally cracked a smile, so Haruyuki relaxed his own mouth with relief and cocked his head once again. “But does all that matter?”
“I trust you, of course. I trust that there is honestly no way you would accept an offer from another king. I trust you, but…but I can’t help feeling a little uneasy. There is something so absolute about their attraction, to go that far.”
Haruyuki didn’t know what color king the “their” indicated.
Kuroyukihime abruptly raised her right hand, keeping eyes the color of the night sky on the perplexed Haruyuki. With a supple movement, she caressed the line of his round cheek and murmured in a silken, yet coldly tense voice, “Haruyuki. Listen. You belong to me. Until now and from now. For all eternity. I will not let another have you.”
Haruyuki opened his eyes wide and forgot to breathe, turning to stone at this sudden touch and declaration. If it had been just the words, he maybe could’ve accepted it as a confession of love. But even after she closed her mouth, Haruyuki could still clearly hear a soundless voice in his ears: Say you’re going to another king and I’ll cut you down before you get the chance.
He felt a shiver run down his spine but still managed to reply in his heart: If that should happen, please have no mercy on me.
Although what came out of his mouth treated the whole thing like a joke. “Oh, that goes without saying. You can even write your name in permanent marker on my avatar.”
“Ha-ha! That’s a good idea. And you know, they do exist over there, indelible pens.”
“Wh-what?!”
At Haruyuki’s surprise, Kuroyukihime finally opened up with her usual smile. She lowered her hand and took another sip of her tea.
“Sorry. I got a little sidetracked there. We were talking about Kurashima, yes? I think you fully understand now just how rare a healer-type avatar is.” She nodded briefly, returning her cup to its saucer and letting her gaze drift off a little. “Just as Takumu said, we must therefore handle this all the more discreetly. If the news spreads that a third healer has appeared in the accelerated world, any and all kinds of powers will be maneuvering to scoop up Kurashima.”
At that, Haruyuki couldn’t help but feel apprehensive. It wasn’t that he thought Chiyuri would blithely run out on them at the invitation of another Legion, but when all was said and done, the head of Nega Nebulus was Kuroyukihime, and he couldn’t even begin to make the case that the Legion was a good fit for Chiyuri. And if the two of them had a big blowout or something, this was impulsive, straightforward Chiyuri they were talking about. Her quitting the Legion in a fit, getting scooped up by an enemy organization, depending on the circumstances, it was possible that—No, it was fairly likely that…
“…It could happen, yeah,” he muttered, a shiver running up his spine. Kuroyukihime let out a long sigh.
“It seems that I’ll need to have a real heart-to-heart talk with her about this,” she said.
“G-guess so,” he assented softly, although he absolutely did not want to be there when it happened. But the thought of not being there also made his heart beat faster. In any case, all he could do was brainstorm with Takumu in advance to figure out every possible scenario, and then work hard to ensure everything was resolved peacefully.
I can do this. Maximum efforts, he told himself, and the instant he clenched his right fist tightly under the table, Kuroyukihime said something unexpected.
“Well, either way, we’ve got ten days.”
“Huh? Ten days? Why are you going to wait that long?”
; “Why?” With a slightly bewildered expression, the black-clad elder student replied smoothly, “School trip.”
“Huh?!”
“It was in the annual schedule file handed out in homeroom today. The new ninth graders have a weeklong school trip. We leave in four days, on Sunday. We’re going to Okinawa, so think about what you’d like me to bring back for you.”
Okinawa?!
In the back of his brain, rafute, mimiga, soki soba, and many other food names scrolled by one after another. But she prob’ly won’t be able to bring those all the way to Tokyo. I guess it’ll have to be that, those donut-y things, um, sata—
“Andagi? But those are no good unless you eat them when they’re just out of the fryer.” Without realizing it, he had apparently started talking out loud. After making this statement to Kuroyukihime, he came back to his senses abruptly and hurriedly shook his head. “W-wait a minute. A whole week?! So you’re going to put the Chiyu thing on hold until then? But wait, forget that, what are we supposed to do in the territories at the end of next week?!”
The public Territory Battles, or “Territories” for short, were the team battles held every Saturday evening in which Legions fought for the areas each controlled. The Black Legion, Nega Nebulus, to which Haruyuki belonged, currently controlled the areas Suginami No. 1 through 3—in other words, all of Suginami City. But to maintain this control, they had to hold onto a 50 percent win ratio against opposing teams who came to challenge them during the Territories.
Victory in team battles was determined by total annihilation of either side, the number of people remaining in the case of timeout or, if this was the same on both sides, by the total amount of HP in all gauges. As of late, even if his opponent was a sniper, Haruyuki was no longer getting unilaterally shot out of the sky like he used to, but it did make him feel secure to have someone like Kuroyukihime, an attacker boasting such overwhelming attack power, as his leader.
But more than that, in the Territories, the system only matched the number of people on both teams when the defending side had three or more people. It was possible for one or two people to come out to defend, but that would be—
“So then Taku and I are going to have to take on three enemies by ourselves?”
“Mmm. Well, I suppose you will,” Kuroyukihime agreed crisply, swirling the milk tea in her cup. “The ideal situation would be if Kurashima were able to participate in the Legion by the end of next week. Then you wouldn’t have to deal with that. But it seems quite cruel to make her take part in the Territory battles a mere week after becoming a Burst Linker. And you know, with you and Takumu tag-teaming, no three-person team is going to be able to outdo you.”
“R-right…” He was definitely not unhappy to hear her say that, and a faint smile rose up onto his face. “We’ll do what we can. S-so then I guess we just have to accept that there’s nothing we can do about it if we get some kind of wildcard super-team. And we can still get it back the following week, right?”
“No, that won’t work.” She turned away abruptly. “I couldn’t stand it if some other Legion’s flag were to be raised in our Suginami. Which is why, Haruyuki, you must defend it to the death.”
“To the death?!” Kuroyukihime gave the instantly tearful Haruyuki a fleeting glance, and then smiled in a placating kind of way.
Then, out of the blue, she said, “Mmm, well. Let’s do it like this, then. If you succeed in next week’s defense, as a reward, I will grant you one wish, anything at all. What do you think?”
“Reward?!”
This word coming from Kuroyukihime’s mouth was equipped with a seemingly physical attack force, and it struck him right between the eyebrows, knocking him backward, chair and all. Haruyuki just barely recovered his balance and pulled himself upright again with a clatter, hands trembling visibly.
Anything…What does that mean?! All I can eat from the school cafeteria? Wait, maybe a restaurant even? No, no, this isn’t necessarily about eating. Just the two of us going out somewhere…Or maybe she could come to my place…And then she’d let me direct. And the cable could be a meter— No, fifty centimeters— No, thirty centimeters? Could it?!
“Oh, I’ll just say this. I can’t grant any requests beyond my own abilities. Like eat spaghetti through my nose or something.”
“Wh-what would that do for anyone?!” All his rose-colored dreams were instantly wiped from his mind. Haruyuki jerked himself bodily to the side, then shook his head sharply several times to reset his brain. “A-anyway, I’ll give it everything I’ve got. And while you’re away, I’ll make sure to talk to Chiyu about the basics.”
“Mmm. After that, I’ll have her apply to the Legion.” Here, Kuroyukihime glanced up at the clock display near the edge of her vision. “I should be getting back to the student council office. Which reminds me, didn’t you say you had something you wanted to talk about?”
“Oh, right.” Nodding, Haruyuki continued rapidly. “No, it was no big deal at all. Just that there are no Burst Linkers in the new seventh graders, that’s all.”
“You checked as well? I also looked at the matching list a little earlier via the in-school local net, but the only addition there was indeed Kurashima…Lime Bell, was it?”
Even as she confirmed his own finding, Haruyuki sensed a slight evasiveness in her tone. Abruptly, he remembered the entrance ceremony and the glance she shot at the seventh graders when she was onstage.
“Um, just when you were about to finish your speech, did one of the seventh graders catch your attention?” he asked timidly.
Kuroyukihime smiled bitterly and shook her head. “You were watching quite closely, hmm? No, it wasn’t so much something caught my attention. If I had to say…I simply felt something.”
“Felt?”
“You probably know the feeling. Like you’re in the sights of a sniper hiding somewhere in the duel field.” This was absolutely Haruyuki’s most detested sensation in the accelerated world, and he screwed up his face reflexively. Kuroyukihime was quick to wave a dismissive hand. “In the end, though, there were no new Burst Linkers among the freshmen, so it must have been my imagination. And now I will be on my way.”
“Oh. I’ll head out, too.” Haruyuki was now a proper eighth grade student, so he had the right to use the cafeteria’s special lounge, but he had absolutely zero courage to stay in this elegant space all by himself. Following Kuroyukihime’s lead, he stood, but it was as he tossed his paper cup into the recycling bin that a totally unrelated thought flitted through his brain.
Does that reward of anything apply to Taku, too?
He wanted to reject the idea as impossible, but when it came to Brain Burst, Kuroyukihime treated Haruyuki and Takumu exactly the same. If the reward was for working hard in the Territories, then there’d be nothing strange about it being for both of them.
But I mean, Taku’s totally devoted to Chiyu. He wouldn’t ask Kuroyukihime for anything weird. His elder reverence is seriously hardcore, though. I mean, he even calls her “Master.” Taku’s way better in the role of knight than I am. And she probably wouldn’t be unhappy if he was…
Puffs of smoke rose up from a heart suddenly overloaded as he trotted along behind Kuroyukihime toward the cafeteria exit, and he blurted, “Um…Uh, Kuroyukihime?”
“Mmm?”
He flapped his mouth, fishlike, at the pale profile peeking through shining black hair, before timidly posing his question. “About that ‘two princes for one princess’ story you were talking about. If it were you, how would you decide?”
“I wouldn’t even have to think about it,” Kuroyukihime answered immediately, a daring smile spreading across her lips. “I would fight them and choose the winner.”
Then, still walking, she lined up the index and middle fingers of her left hand and aimed straight for Haruyuki’s heart.
Eep!
As all the muscles along his spine cramped up and he tripped on the leg of a long cafeteria table, Haruyuki realized all over again:
He would never get to the bottom of her.
4
After school on a bright Thursday, 2:50 PM, Haruyuki was walking briskly toward a section of the school he had essentially no memory of ever having set foot in during the previous full year of his junior high school life.
The fairly dated Umesato Junior High School building was in an H shape, with general and classroom wings built in parallel and connected by a sports wing. Haruyuki’s destination was in this horizontal part of the H—the martial arts area, adjacent to the gymnasium where the entrance ceremony was held. Naturally, however, he wasn’t headed there to join the judo team and make use of his bulk. Although, he wouldn’t have hesitated to join if there had been something like a “special forces” team that taught marksmanship and martial arts, but regrettably, no such thing existed.
Haruyuki, with nothing remotely resembling any interest in participating in any afterschool club or team, ceded the starring role to Takumu today.
Approaching the martial arts area, he could already hear restrained cheers from inside and the dry blows drowning them out. He slipped off his indoor shoes, tucked them into one of the bags provided so he could bring them with him, and stepped up onto the polished wooden floor. In the circle of spectators, of which there were not that many, he found the back of a familiar head with its short-cropped hair, and approached at a trot.
Chiyuri turned and immediately pursed her lips. “Haru. You’re late!” she complained in a quiet voice. “They’re already doing Taku’s match!”
“Sorry. But Taku’s gonna kill him. I mean, it’s the first round.”
“Well, yeah, but still.”
He shifted his gaze from Chiyuri’s sullen face and, craning his neck for a better look, quickly made out the remarkably calm figure of his childhood friend among the kendo team members. They were lined up on the other side of the tournament area in their defensive gear. Takumu had apparently noticed Haruyuki at the same time, and he signaled with a short wave of his right hand.
The Twilight Marauder Page 4
