Elements

by Reki Kawahara

  “Heh…heh-heh. How like a king. Top rate at sour grapes. I’m looking forward to it, you know: you in tears, begging for your life. And just to let you know, Nick’s special-attack gauge still has a little left in it.” He yanked on the reins, and the dinosaur roared as it opened its mouth.

  If she were showered in that flame breath again, even without the combination with the black gunpowder, she wouldn’t last ten seconds. If she escaped in a full-powered dash, it might have been possible for her to last until the portal in the hotel, but abandoning the still-collapsed Crikin, Dolphin, and Merrow was out of the question. Her only choice was to somehow stand her ground there and find a way to survive, nipping in and out at top speed to attack without taking any damage.

  Kuroyukihime was about to brace herself, her confidence in her success fairly low, when in that instant, she felt an inexpressible something and quickly looked up. There was no change in the reddish sky of the Weathered stage. But she definitely felt something. Something accumulating high-density information and trying to overwrite the world. An enemy attack? Or backup?

  “It’s all right, Sister.” A small voice rang out behind her.

  She looked back, and Mana—Coral Merrow, who had sat up at some point—was staring straight up into the sky. But she seemed strange. The color of her eye lens also seemed slightly different. Just like when she had asked Kuroyukihime for the fourth XSB cable right before they dived.

  “She’s coming,” Mana said, and then loosely held her right hand up to the sky.

  10

  To go back approximately sixty minutes in Accelerated World time—or a few seconds in real-world time—the person who had watched Kuroyukihime, Ruka, and Mana heading up to the dive space on the second floor of the resort hotel, from the shadow of a pillar in a corner of the elevator lobby, had started chasing after them the second the three entered the booth.

  The reception was automated online and set up so that users selected an empty spot from the booth layout displayed in their field of view. However, their pursuer confirmed the position of the sole four-person booth and headed that way without hesitation.

  The door to the booth deep in the dive space was closed and locked, naturally. No voices could be heard from inside. The three users were likely already in full dives. The pursuer touched the door, and a dialog box appeared, requesting the input of the electronic key.

  A pale finger popped out from the sleeve of the thin hoodie and pressed the OPEN button of the dialog. Normally, the door would not open, but now it was unlocked with a faint sound. That same finger pulled the sliding door open, and the slender body attached to it slipped into the booth. In the end, the door was soon closed and locked once more.

  The electronic key to this dive space was the same as the key used for the rooms in the hotel. Thus, strictly speaking, there was only one person other than Kuroyukihime who possessed the same key: the Umesato Junior High student council secretary sharing her room, Megumi Wakamiya.

  What Megumi saw after stepping into the booth was three girls, bodies totally relaxed, eyes closed, on the reclining sofas opposite each other. The one sitting alone on the left was, of course, Kuroyukihime. On the right were two girls who seemed a bit younger. She had never seen their deeply tanned faces before, and they were wearing an unfamiliar design of sailor uniform, so they were probably not Umesato students, but rather attended a local school in Henoko.

  The instant she recognized this, Megumi’s face twisted up and she bit her lip hard. The Kuroyukihime that Megumi knew seemed sociable, but the walls around her heart were actually tall and thick. She never let her guard down around people on first meeting, so that the number of people who knew her true face, sarcastic and childish, hidden in the depths of her incredible beauty, was seriously limited.

  And yet that very girl was on a full dive with local girls she had likely only just met, on a direct connection no less, albeit through a router. Megumi could come up with only one reason for that: the other world.

  A different land, where half of Kuroyukihime lived, hiding on the other side of reality. These two girls were residents of that world, and most likely, at that moment, they were visiting that place with Kuroyukihime. A world Megumi had never seen, much less set foot in. A world whose name she wasn’t even permitted to know. And accessed using the time set aside for picking a souvenir for her.

  Her left hand trembled and pulled itself up, moving toward Kuroyukihime’s Neurolinker. The tips of her fingers touched the XSB cable stretching out from the piano-black exterior shell and grabbed hold of it tightly.

  If I pull this out, she’ll come home to me. She’ll probably lose something precious forever, but she’ll come back to this place where I can reach her.

  “You can’t.” Abruptly, she heard someone’s voice echo inside her head.

  She blinked with a gasp and looked at the three faces, but they were all still on their full dives. Their eyelids were shut tight, and their lips didn’t so much as twitch. The router built into the low table indicated that the three cables were all currently transmitting to the global net.

  Megumi finally noticed it then. There weren’t three cables. A fourth XSB cable stretched out from the router, but the opposite end was still lying on the table.

  “It’s a…door. A door to invite you just once more to a distant land. Now, then…”

  Guided by the childlike yet strangely commanding voice, Megumi took her hand off Kuroyukihime’s cable and reached out to the coffee table. She picked up the fourth XSB cable and brought the plug to her own neck.

  Directly connecting with an unknown circuit was, in terms of security, a deeply risky thing to do. Although Megumi knew as much, just that minute, she didn’t feel even a touch of hesitation. She connected the plug to her floral pink Neurolinker, and the wired connection warning popped up.

  And then Megumi had a vision of a book appearing soundlessly on the table before her. There wasn’t a real book with physical substance or even a 3-D object, but it was definitely there.

  “Oh.” A faint breath escaped her lips. This…this was it, the book she had loved so long ago. The book she had read over and over so many times, and yet couldn’t remember the story of at all. She had lost it at some point and never found it again, that precious book.

  She sat down next to Kuroyukihime, and gently reached out to the large hardback book. There was no title on the cover. Just countless colors joined together in an arabesque pattern. Timidly, she opened it.

  On the first page, there was only a single line of English text. Written in black ink was a spell. The magic word to visit the world of the book. Megumi took a deep breath and then uttered the two words of the phrase like a song, like a prayer:

  “Unlimited Burst.”

  11

  At the words “She’s coming” from Mana, Kuroyukihime stared intently up at the sky of the Weathered stage once more.

  But all she saw were countless scattered clouds flowing past one after another; there was indeed no one there. And there was no reason there should have been. In that moment, the only Burst Linkers in Henoko were Kuroyukihime, Ruka, Mana, and Crikin. The invader Sulfur Pot was using some trick to dive long-distance from Tokyo, but she couldn’t believe that other Burst Linkers were able to freely use this same setup. Which meant that even if, hypothetically, someone did appear, they would be Sulfur’s comrade, and the situation would be that much worse.

  Suddenly, she saw a light.

  At a single point in the sky, a small glow, the color of cherry blossoms, appeared and spiraled downward, almost like a flower petal fluttering on the whirlwinds of spring. The pale pink vortex immediately expanded in scale to fill Kuroyukihime’s field of view with dancing flowers.

  From the center, two legs descended silently. High heels transparent like glass glinted in the light, followed by a broad, pale-pink armor skirt spreading out. The waist pulled in tightly, and a large ribbon adorned the back. The shoulders of the dress were round and puffed out, and sl
ender arms carried a single lovely scepter. The face mask was the height of elegance, while the long, clear silver hair parts fluttered in the faint breeze, ringing crisply.

  It was a duel avatar Kuroyukihime had never before set eyes on. However, at the same time, she was struck by a single firm conviction: I know her.

  The light-pink, female-type avatar came fluttering down slowly from an altitude of several dozen meters, as if free of gravity, until its glass heels touched the ground in front of Kuroyukihime. The gentle mask smiled, and then that voice uttered the words:

  “Hime. I…I’m here.”

  “I-it can’t be…M-Megumi?”

  The greatest taboo in the Accelerated World was to give voice to someone’s real name, but the shock was enough to make her forget even that. This was the first time she had ever seen the elegant duel avatar before her, but there could be absolutely no doubt about the voice and, more than that, the gentle aura radiating from her entire body. This Burst Linker was Kuroyukihime’s close friend, Megumi Wakamiya.

  But that was logically impossible. The fact that Megumi did not have the Brain Burst program was proven when she did not appear on the matching list of the Umesato local net. And it was also unthinkable that she had become a Burst Linker on this school trip. Because to dive into the Unlimited Neutral Field, a player needed to have reached level four, and that was absolutely impossible to do in a mere day or two.

  Having thought this far, Kuroyukihime noticed that the Megumi-like duel avatar’s entire body was slightly transparent. And the hem of her skirt and the tips of her long hair parts were shimmering almost like a heat haze. The instant she confirmed this, a single insight visited her, like divine inspiration.

  The past?

  Had Megumi been a Burst Linker in the distant past? Before Kuroyukihime had formed her Legion, back when she was training in the Minato Ward area, had Megumi left the Accelerated World, lost Brain Burst, and now, through some logic, had she been invited to this world once more?

  She didn’t get the chance to put this supposition into words because, from behind her, riding an enormous wave of anger and vexation, a voice rang out like a cracked bell.

  “What is this?! What is going on with you guys?! No more! I’m not letting any other weirdos get in my way!”

  Whirling around, Kuroyukihime saw Sulfur Pot standing tall on the back of the dinosaur Nidhogg. The color of hatred boiled in his round eye lenses, and he glared down on the five people—Kuroyukihime, Crikin, Ruka, Mana, and Megumi—in the intersection.

  “I’ll wipe you all out together. Burn you to tiny crisps,” he spat in a creaking voice. Holding the reins, he stretched out his arms straight ahead, and a thin smoke started to leak out from not just the two holes in his palms, but also the holes on his shoulders, chest, and hips. “Charcoal Storm.”

  Immediately after he called out the technique name, clouds of black smoke erupted from the yellow avatar’s entire body, on a scale several times larger than the earlier attack. Without waiting for directions, the smoke spiraled up to blanket a thick region in the area. Apparently, this time, he intended to send the whole town up in flames.

  “Y-you can’t!” Staggering, Kuroyukihime moved to take a step forward. However, a slender hand on her shoulder gently restrained her.

  “It’s okay. I…I’ll protect you, Hime,” Megumi said gently but resolutely, and brandished the scepter she held in her left hand.

  The large gem embedded in the tip of the staff shone a dazzling rainbow color. The glittering immediately enveloped her avatar’s entire body and soared up into the sky. With a light inflection, Megumi called out as if in song:

  “Paradigm Revolution.”

  Instantly, an immense light soared up and ever higher. When the pillar of light shimmering across the spectrum of seven colors pierced the distant sky, it puffed out into a ring. Fluttering almost like a curtain, it flowed in all directions.

  Although it was the first time she had seen this technique, Kuroyukihime had witnessed a phenomenon that almost perfectly resembled it any number of times in the Unlimited Neutral Field. A seven-colored aurora that always appeared when the field attributes switched—no, when the world was reborn. In other words, that meant this technique…

  “A…forced…Change!!” Kuroyukihime shouted in a trembling voice.

  The Change. The superhuman feat of universally overwriting the state of the Accelerated World. It was incredibly hard to believe that a single Burst Linker could bring that about through her own will, but that was the only way to explain the phenomenon occurring before her eyes.

  Because on the inside of the aurora ring spreading out endlessly, even the color of the sky was changing. From the dark clouds of the Weathered stage into a clear blue sky. The dusty gusting wind shifted to the dry, gentle breeze of a southern country.

  “Wha—?! What is—?!” Sulfur Pot shouted from Nidhogg’s back, as the eruption of gunpowder stopped, and he changed his grip on the reins.

  “Nick, ignition! Blow them all away!! Scorching—”

  But that instruction was not carried out.

  Abruptly, the ground disappeared. More precisely, it didn’t exactly vanish. The sand-covered wasteland at once transformed into the blue surface of water. Kuroyukihime, Ruka, Mana, and Crikin, still on his back, along with the enormous dinosaur Nidhogg and its knight, were helplessly swallowed up by the water.

  Quickly throwing out her arms to stop her sinking, Kuroyukihime popped her head above the water’s surface and looked around, but she could no longer see a hint of land. The world was covered in water all the way to the horizon in all directions, with only a smattering of small rocks and islands off in the distance. This was the ultimate nature-type, water-attribute stage—the Ocean stage.

  “Hime.”

  Kuroyukihime quickly moved her head and saw something entirely unexpected.

  The duel avatar that was supposedly Megumi was not even close to submerged. Her glass heels barely touched the water surface, and she smiled gently. “The magic hour is ending, so I have to go home. Hime, keep going straight ahead on your path, okay? And I’m not going to look back anymore, either.”

  Kuroyukihime didn’t feel like she could understand the full meaning of those words in that very moment. But she nodded deeply and replied, “Mmm. Thanks, Megumi.”

  Megumi dipped her head gently and began to ascend. Kuroyukihime stared motionless at the cherry-blossom avatar returning to the sky and silently murmured “Thanks” once more, before taking a breath and letting her entire body sink into the sea.

  The emerald-blue ocean water was abnormally clear, so she could easily make out the situation.

  The enormous Nidhogg was kicking its short legs a little ways off. Its rider Sulfur Pot was intently yanking on the reins, apparently trying to get the dinosaur to float up somehow, but from its form, the Enemy was clearly not adapted to water. Countless bubbles burbled up from its mouth, and it didn’t seem to have the leeway to release its breath. The mist of black gunpowder that Sulfur had released earlier had also disappeared neatly and completely.

  Very close to Kuroyukihime, Ruka and Mana were looking around goggle-eyed as they swam smoothly in a standing position. It seemed that they couldn’t yet digest exactly what had happened. And then at their feet was Crikin, also kicking and flailing. A voice—or rather a cry with a burbling effect applied to it—reached her ears.

  “H-h-h-heeelp! Precious me is no good in the waaaaater!!”

  Just as he said, his screw avatar, which must have had a fairly high specific gravity, was gradually sinking. But in the Ocean stage, there were very few metal objects that Crikin might have been able to use. At the bottom of the ocean, there was the incredibly rare sunken ship, but they didn’t have time to go looking for anything like that right then.

  “Sorry, you’ll have to sink for a while, Crikin. That was nice work back there,” Kuroyukihime said coolly.

  Ruka and Mana waved. “Njichahbira [good-bye], Master!”

/>   “All right. Dolphin, Merrow. This is where the battle is decided. Before he can escape to some island somewhere, we’ll finish this in one go!”

  “Okaaay!!”

  “I’ll charge in first and handle the dinosaur somehow, so you two attack from the sides, being careful not to let it target you,” Kuroyukihime instructed, and Ruka and Mana looked at each other, grinning broadly.

  “Don’t worry, Sis! I mean, it’s the ocean!”

  “You just leave the water stuff to us!” they said, and before she had the chance to stop them, they had started swimming. Their movements were smooth, befitting the dolphin and mermaid that ruled their names, but Kuroyukihime worried that, in a battle with an Enemy, that alone…

  But in the next moment, Dolphin and Merrow spun around once in the water and cried out with one voice, “One, two! Shape Change!! Marine Mode!!”

  Their bodies were wrapped in a blue and a coral light. The small fin-shaped parts that protruded from Lagoon Dolphin’s elbows to her hips quickly grew in size. Her legs changed to a smooth, flowing shape, and her feet were also equipped with large fins.

  The change that came over Coral Merrow was even more dramatic. Her two legs fused into one, turning into a fish’s tail. The pointed tail fins flicked, and her body wriggling around in the water was very much that of a mermaid.

  Having changed into forms perfectly adapted to the water, the pair nodded at each other once more, and then began to swim in a straight line.

  Their speed was incredible, obviously faster than when they were running on land. They easily pierced the dense ocean water and closed in on the enormous Nidhogg like torpedoes.

  Sulfur Pot finally seemed to notice the two approaching him. “Small fry, huh!!” he spat and yanked the reins back as hard as he could. The dinosaur changed the direction its head was facing, looking pained all the while, and turned its maw lined with sinister teeth toward Ruka and Mana.