The Twilight Marauder

by Reki Kawahara

  And “beyond that”…there has to be some people at that stage. There’s just no way there’s no one out there, anger and despair only growing, brooding about trying to bring the accelerated world itself down with their expulsion. Kuroyukihime explained it before, how even if some kid did complain, without any physical evidence, no one would believe him or her, but is that really true? If the media or the police started getting anonymous tips one after another, wouldn’t even the grown-ups start looking into it?

  How exactly has Brain Burst been able to stay this completely hidden for more than seven years? And just what is the creator of the program trying to do by setting up this situation?

  As he let his mind meander along this track half escapistly, the bus turned left at Koshu Kaido and entered Shibuya, Green Legion territory, where his privilege to go unchallenged in his own Legion’s territory would no longer be valid. Haruyuki—Silver Crow—would be registered on the matching list and could easily be trespassed upon at any moment.

  …Anyone will do.

  Haruyuki closed his eyes, leaned deep into the seat back, and waited for the moment. Silver Crow was now just a close-range type, weak to hits. Long-distance, close-range, mid-range—he had no advantage over any opponent.

  Eight PM was the busiest time slot for duels, even on a weekday, and it was only thirty seconds later that the thunder of acceleration filled his ears.

  Sucked into darkness, Haruyuki fell briefly as he transformed into his duel avatar and stepped onto the ground. Of course, the first thing he did was check his back; there was not a trace of the metal wings. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly once, and then looked around anew at his surroundings.

  As before, it was Koshu Kaido at night, but the lines of vehicles that had been squeezed onto the road were gone, including the bus he had been riding. The road surface was cracked and caved in, the landscape dotted with mountains of rubble.

  A Century End stage, huh? Haruyuki avoided the gazes of the Gallery members taking up positions on the roofs of the surrounding ruined buildings, and he cast his eyes at the ground. Without even checking the name of his duel opponent, he waited in the middle of the wide road. The guide cursor indicating the direction of his enemy twitched, and then pointed east.

  Finally, from deep in the darkness, he heard the thick roar of an engine. For a mechanical type, it was approaching pretty quickly. So a locomotive type, then. In which case the sound he was hearing was coming from an old-school internal combustion engine, and the Burst Linker who owned such a device was—

  Haruyuki finally raised his head.

  The light of the round headlamp blinded him. Going for a ridiculously flashy spin turn, the American motorbike screeched to a halt, red sparks flying from both front and rear brake rotors, the surrounding bonfires reflected in its chrome parts.

  “Hey hey heeeeeeeey!!” The skull-faced rider leaned back in the long seat and flipped the index fingers of both hands out at Haruyuki.

  Haruyuki didn’t have to look up at the name display; appearing before him was none other than his old friend, the motorcycle-using Ash Roller. Which meant both the stage and the opponent were exactly the same as the very first accelerated duel of his life, six months earlier.

  “Mega crazy long time, man! What, you just so in love with me you came all the way to Pucker Valley??? Maaaaaan?!”

  “…Huh?” Dumbfounded, Haruyuki forgot about saying hello or anything and countered with a question. “Wh-what is ‘Pucker Valley’?”

  “Whoa whoa whooooaa, come on, keep up! Yashibu, obvs! Yaaaashibu!”

  “……” Giving it another second or so of thought, Haruyuki finally grasped that he meant Shibuya. “Um, hey, Ash. I don’t think shibui means puckery in English; it’s bitter, sure, but not in the way you’re going for. Bitter-sour is nigai…So I think you should actually be saying Nigaya. So, um.”

  “…For serious?”

  “…For serious,” he retorted finally, caught up in the force of Ash’s personality, despite the fact that he had never been more depressed, and the Gallery on the buildings alongside the road erupted in laughter. Ash Roller looked in their general direction and brandished the middle fingers of both hands.

  “Nothing to LOL at, maaaan! I’ll kick all of your asses, just wait!!” He quickly turned his skull face back to Haruyuki and lowered his voice. “So then, what’s shibui in English?”

  “Uh, umm…rough, maybe?”

  “Oh ho! So then it’d be ‘Rough Valley,’ huh?…But who cares about that!!”

  “Y-you’re the one who ask—”

  “Keep it shaddap! Had a few wins and now you’re all pumped full of yourself, aren’t ya?! Watch and weep!!” he shouted, and pressed a button on the edge of his handlebars. Clang! Two bright red cones peeked out from mysterious pipes, one to either side of the handlebars’ fork.

  No way. But no matter which way he looked at it, they couldn’t be anything else. “A-are those missiles?” Haruyuki murmured, stunned.

  “One hundred percent! Missayles! Complete with homing, you flying monkey!”

  “B-but missiles on an American motorbike, design-wise…I mean, how does that work aesthetically…?”

  “Heeey! These things are totally Century’s End, mega cooooool!! So go on, fly away! And then weep those tears!!” Ash Roller howled, and then craned his neck as though he had finally noticed what was different about Silver Crow. “So why you got your wings all shut up? The duel’s started, y’know. Hurry up and spread ’em!”

  Haruyuki shook his head slightly and said hurriedly, “I have my reasons. Today, I’ll be fighting you on the ground.”

  “Huh? Well, you do what you want…But don’t take me lightly or I’ll seriously make those tears fall hard, got it?”

  Haruyuki stared as clouds of white smoke flew up from the rear wheel, and the bike peeled out to the right. In his recent fights against Ash Roller, he had shifted to a game plan of slamming into the wall-climbing motorbike with hard drop attacks, but he couldn’t use that strategy anymore, of course. All he could do was dodge the charge toward him and inflict incremental damage from behind.

  The bike spun around some distance off and came barreling straight at him. Haruyuki lowered his stance and focused his mind on scrutinizing the incoming trajectory. The nature of a gamer meant that body and heart moved instinctively once the fight began, but obviously, Haruyuki hadn’t gotten past Dusk Taker stealing his wings. That enormous hole still gaped in his heart, and he felt like he was now shoving his hand into that hole and poking around to see what, if anything, was in there.

  “Hngah!” Baiting the hook until the last possible second, he dove to the right with a fierce battle cry, and the tread of the front wheel brushed his leg.

  Now! He whirled around to slam his fist into the rider.

  But.

  “Hyaaaah!”

  A boot launched abruptly from the side of the bike and connected with Haruyuki’s helmet. As he soared through the air, he saw Ash Roller standing straight up in his seat, leg thrust out, following through on the kick.

  The biker quickly dropped down with a thud and started accelerating again. Twenty meters out, he spun the machine around and stood in his seat again; apparently, he controlled the accelerator with his right foot.

  “See this?! Maaaaan! That’s my new jam! V-Twin punch, yo!!”

  I don’t know about the name, but the trick’s amazing. Haruyuki admired it as he got to his feet.

  Ash Roller maneuvered the enormous bike with just his legs, like a surfboard. Now it wasn’t just the vehicle itself that attacked; the rider could strike, too, erasing the gap that used to open up when Haruyuki dodged the machine’s assault.

  …Maybe I’m screwed? Haruyuki murmured to himself.

  In a simple contest of blows, Ash Roller, with his bike’s charging ability, had the advantage. If they were both to strike simultaneously, for instance, Silver Crow would be the one taking serious damage. It was actually a waste of time to fight back
now.

  Haruyuki threw both arms down and stood stock-still as the bike’s front wheel sprang up directly in front of him. He danced through the air like a broken stick, crashed into the road, and then tumbled two, three times before slamming into a mountain of debris and finally coming to a stop.

  I guess the hole’s empty after all, Haruyuki thought vacantly, head spinning as he lay there awkwardly. Stripped of my wings, I have nothing. All I can do now is target low-level Burst Linkers, ones who are more compatible with me, and just keep fighting. Steadily earn points in fights and deliver what I’ve saved up to Nomi. For two whole years. Until the day he gives me my wings back.

  The engine was suddenly growling right next to his head.

  Hurry up and finish the job, he thought and waited, but the hard, hot tread did not crush him even after several seconds. Instead, a voice came from high above him.

  “Sooooooooo bad, yo. Hey, Crow. Why aren’t you flying, man?”

  Haruyuki lifted his head a little and caught the skull face in the corner of his eye. “…I can’t fly,” he replied thinly, at a volume inaudible to the Gallery. “My wings are gone. So I can’t win at same-level duels anymore. I just wanted to test that today…Go ahead and end this already.”

  Once again, he heard nothing but the rumbling of the V-Twin engine.

  “…Finish it?” The voice that finally reached his ears contained a stillness he had never heard before in Ash Roller. “What d’you mean?”

  “There’s nothing to mean. If you run that tire over me a few times, the duel will be over.”

  “Hmm. So this your deal, then? You can’t fly no more. So you can’t win. So you’re throwing the duel and letting me have it.”

  Even in his current state, Haruyuki could tell he wasn’t being complimented on his fighting attitude. However, even if he could use every bit of cunning he had to come up with some brilliant scheme to win this, there was no point. The only thing that mattered now was being able to hit his average in all the fights from now on, forever. And he knew that was already impossible. So—

  “There’s no point in standing up anymore,” the still fallen Haruyuki muttered, and awaited Ash Roller’s abuse.

  But the reply he got was even quieter—so restrained it could even be said to be calm. “Hey, you remember, man? That second duel between you and me…That time you lifted up the ass of my bike.”

  “……” How could he forget? That was Haruyuki’s first win, a fight to be memorialized. But saying nothing, not even nodding, he waited for Ash Roller to continue.

  “You really had me. Ass up in the air, and my bike wouldn’t move, like, even a millimeter, no matter how much I revved the engine. So then I was just stuck sitting there, and you went to town on me. It was like that checkmate thing. But, man…” Eyes glittered behind the skull of the helmet, and Ash Roller let out a low, strained voice, “That time, did I throw it? Did I give up like you are now and let you beat me?”

  You didn’t.

  The Burst Linker before Haruyuki, who had sunk pretty much all his potential into the Enhanced Armament of the motorcycle, leaving the rider himself with essentially zero fighting ability at the time, had jumped down from his seat, swinging real punches at Silver Crow and his metal armor.

  In the end, Haruyuki had unilaterally pounded on his opponent until he could no longer stand and won the duel. But Ash Roller had not capitulated, right up until the very last dot of his HP gauge was shaved away. Howling curses the whole time, he had been on his feet, swinging his fists, until the very moment Haruyuki knocked him unconscious.

  “…No,” Haruyuki answered in the negative, in a voice so thin even he could barely hear it. At the same time, below his own helmet, he felt tears welling up for the millionth time that day in his avatar’s eyes.

  “…But. But. I…My wings aren’t coming back. You wouldn’t get it. You get to keep fighting forever with that bike of yours.”

  Again, a long silence.

  The Gallery on the surrounding buildings started to make impatient noises. However, Ash Roller appeared not to pay them any mind as he shook his head and spit out quietly, “Dick. You giga dick. No, tera. You fucking tera dick. You made it to level four and you still don’t get it at all…When we dueled the third time and I watched you suddenly fly and all, do you have any idea how much I— No, not just me. Every single Burst Linker who learned there was some guy in this world who could fly. Do you have any idea how floored we were, how much we…”

  The skull rider swallowed the rest and thrust his face forward abruptly. “Hey. Where are you now?” he asked in a near whisper.

  “…Huh?” Haruyuki blinked eyes full of tears, not quite understanding the sudden question.

  “I’m asking you where you dived from.”

  As a general rule, you should never be asked for the location of your real body during a duel. But for some reason, Haruyuki, thrown for a loop, answered without a single thought of the risk of being outed in the real. “K-Koshu Kaido…I’m on a bus.”

  Ash Roller clicked his tongue briefly and kept talking, his meaning becoming increasingly incomprehensible. “Okay, when we’re done here, get back to your house ASAP. Go to the toilet, get in bed, and then dive up.”

  “U-up…?!”

  “Keep your voice down, idiot. The Gallery’s gonna hear! And what else does ‘up’ mean but the Unlimited Neutral Field? Once you dive, come to the lights at Kannana and Inogashira Street again. As for the dive time…right. Nine on the dot. You better not be even a minute late.”

  Having given the dumbfounded Haruyuki this order, Ash Roller yanked himself up and ran his finger through the air. A draw Offer opened up in front of Haruyuki.

  “C’mon! Just say yes already!”

  Pushed by Ash Roller, not understanding anything about anything, Haruyuki clicked the OK button.

  The duel ended in an unexpected way, and once he had returned to the electric bus racing along a real world road, Haruyuki immediately cut his global connection. He almost tripped down the stairs in his urgency to get off the bus when it stopped at the next stop, looked both ways, ran to the nearest intersection, crossed to the opposite side of Koshu Kaido, and leapt onto a bus headed back the way he’d come.

  As he tumbled into a seat, panting, he wondered what Ash Roller had in mind. Was he planning the coup de grâce? Did he invite Haruyuki to the Unlimited Neutral Field where there was no instant logout, to steal all his points and force the cowardly Silver Crow to leave the accelerated world forever?

  No way, that couldn’t be it. Ash was putting himself in the same level of danger, after all. He had no guarantee that Haruyuki wouldn’t show up with a bunch of friends. But then, why—

  “Well…whatever,” Haruyuki muttered, and gave up on thinking altogether. Ash Roller might have been the foe he had most frequently come up against in the accelerated world, but Haruyuki definitely didn’t hate him or anything. If an opponent like that was to be the one to deliver his final blow, then so be it.

  When he returned to the Koenjirikkyo bus loop, the hands of the clock had swung around to half past eight. After running full speed all the way home, Haruyuki, as instructed, used the bathroom, drank some oolong tea, stuffed a slice of yesterday’s leftover pizza in his mouth, and jumped into bed.

  This might be my final acceleration.

  In which case, I wish I could see the person who invited me into this world—Kuroyukihime. Even if I can’t explain everything that’s happening, I wish I could just say a few words to her.

  Although this thought popped into his head, he was reluctant to call Kuroyukihime himself, when he knew she was in distant Okinawa, hands full, no doubt, with her responsibility to keep 120 students together. And yet, as the time display at the edge of his vision approached nine, he thought that, maybe, she might call him. He waited the whole time, but the receiving icon didn’t flash even once.

  When the digital readout reached 8:59:58 PM, Haruyuki closed his eyes tightly, took a deep brea
th, and murmured the command.

  “Unlimited Burst.”

  10

  It was the second time Haruyuki had visited the Unlimited Neutral Field, the infinite world built above the Normal Duel Field, and his first time diving there alone.

  Under the faint yellow sky, the view of the reddish-brown megaliths lined up had a Wasteland vibe somehow. But this world employed a “Change” system, and so its characteristics switched periodically. Haruyuki ran intently along the dry earth to attempt to reach the rendezvous point while there were still good footholds.

  Whatever the characteristics, the terrain of the accelerated world conformed to the real Tokyo. The ring road Kannana Street existed as a wide, dry valley, tucked in between the groups of megaliths.

  As he raced forward, choosing the shadow of the rocks and avoiding the center of the road, Haruyuki watched both sides and kept his guard up. The Unlimited Neutral Field was inhabited by Enemies, monsters generated and moved by the system. He had only seen a large one once and hadn’t yet fought any. Alone and unable to fly, if an Enemy with the strength of a high-level Burst Linker attacked him, the monster would easily beat him into next week.

  Fortunately, however, all he saw were a few cow-and snakelike things moving sluggishly around a distant wilderness, and without getting in their sights, Haruyuki managed to reach the area of the nearby Daita Bridge, on the border between Suginami and Shibuya.

  Just in case, he hid in the shadow of a stone a ways off and felt out the scene, but it didn’t look like there was a large number of people lying in wait. That said, the instant he peered at the point where wide valley crossed regular valley, all the strength drained from his body. Leaping into his field of view was the rider in the flashy skull helmet, arms crossed, reclining on his American motorcycle, which was stopped right in the middle of everything.

  “Laaaaaaaaaate! You’re late, man!!” Ash Roller shouted, waving his right hand as he watched Haruyuki approach.

  “I-I’m sorry. I had to run here, so—”

  “And you prob’ly snuck over here, all spooked by the Enemies. Don’t worry. The only ones who show up on a main road like this are the super big guys.”