Shrine Maiden of the Sacred Fire

by Reki Kawahara

  The swordmaster returned a gentle nod and, fingertips still on his cheek, she softly repeated, “I promise. I will protect you.”

  “…Okay. Okay…I trust yngerk!”

  A mess of noise drowned out the end of his sentence, as he was crushed by the driver’s seat back dropping onto him abruptly.

  A hand reached over the edge of the seat to yank on Haruyuki’s left ear, followed by Fuko’s face popping out, cheeks puffed out. “Look, Sacchi!” she said indignantly.

  “Corvus! Getting carried away all by yourselves in someone else’s car is not okay!”

  It was almost 2:30 PM by the time the front seats had been returned to their original positions and Haruyuki had pushed himself deep into the backseat. Outside, the mid-June sky was slightly cloudy, a bit grumpy, but they could see pops of pale blue here and there. A sudden thunderstorm seemed unlikely, so there was no need to worry about Neurolinker connection problems.

  Kuroyukihime cleared her throat lightly. “This meeting is not going to be in Battle Royale mode,” she said, sounding much more nervous. “Not everyone connected is going to be a duel opponent. Instead, the duel is between our host, the Blue King, and a close associate, with the rest of us automatically diving as the Gallery. Which means we don’t need to consider the risk of anyone attacking us.”

  “Um…Even attacks via the Incarnate System?”

  “Yes,” Fuko replied. “Even if someone were to try and use Incarnate, it’s impossible for the Gallery to attack or be attacked in a general duel field. Members of the Gallery come into the stage without HP gauges. The reason both participants and spectators got hurt by Rust Jigsaw’s Incarnate in the Hermes’ Cord race last week was because of the Special Field status. Everyone had HP gauges, but the values were locked.”

  “Oh, that’s right…I just…Somehow, it’s like…,” Haruyuki muttered unintelligibly.

  “Somehow,” Kuroyukihime interrupted quietly, “it’s as if an opening was deliberately left for someone to use Incarnate to destroy the race. Is that it?”

  He hurriedly shook his head. “Huh? N-no, I wouldn’t go that far.” Because if he did, he would be forced to accept what inevitably followed from that thought: that the developer of Brain Burst approved of Rust Jigsaw’s destructive behavior.

  But there was no way. That couldn’t be true. The exact motives of the unknown developer were still a mystery, but Haruyuki had come to feel a nebulous sort of respect for him or her as a gamer. A person who could build and maintain this sort of fun, exciting, and totally compulsive game—no, world—would never help anyone who played as dirty as the Acceleration Research Society.

  “Haruyuki.” Kuroyukihime’s gentle voice called him out of his thoughts when he began to forcefully grind his teeth. “Listen. Remember this at least: The main actor in the Accelerated World is each and every Burst Linker. This means you as well. The choice of how you’ll commit to this world is left entirely to you. Whatever the intentions of the developer.”

  “…Right!” He nodded fervently, while the clock in the edge of his field of view announced that they had ten seconds to go.

  “Good answer. All right, then, everyone: Open a global connection.”

  At their Legion Master’s instruction, all three pushed their Neurolinker link buttons. The global net connection display flashed, followed by the connection status, and then about two seconds after these icons disappeared—

  Skreeeeee!! The sound of acceleration filled Haruyuki’s senses. The flaming text A REGISTERED DUEL IS BEGINNING! burned brilliantly in the center of his vision.

  2

  A sky filled with a curious yellow-green light. Ground covered in blue-black tiles. Clusters of buildings adorned with fanged protrusions, and a thick fog flowing down, out, and around these.

  “A Demon City stage? Well, I suppose it’s a good match for today’s agenda,” the Black King, Black Lotus, said, each step of her sharply pointed tiptoes ringing out on the tiles.

  After staring momentarily at the fluid, ferocious figure of the Legion Master he so loved and respected, he let his eyes rest on the sky-blue avatar standing next to her inconspicuously. Simple and graceful, she had thick, blue-tinted hair that flowed like wings down the back of her slender, feminine body. The smooth lines of her legs and arms showed no sign of any equipped weaponry.

  But Haruyuki knew. He knew that those thin legs themselves, planted firmly on the ground at that moment and keeping the avatar upright, were proof of the miracle that had happened with her—Sky Raker.

  If Black Lotus was the swordmaster and Haruyuki’s “parent,” then Raker would have to be his teacher, his Master. She had retreated from the accelerated duels that were the world’s battlefront to live for a long time as a recluse at the top of the old Tokyo Tower, a place forgotten by everyone else.

  Because two and a half years earlier, she had, of her own volition, cut off both legs at the knee, and with them, the better part of her fighting power. However, after meeting Haruyuki, who had also temporarily lost his own power—the ability to fly—and initiating him into the ways of the Incarnate System, she gradually regained her passion for the duel until finally, in the Hermes’ Cord race the week before, she was able to overcome the psychic trauma that had bound her and recover both legs.

  After being taken over by Chrome Disaster even just that one time, Haruyuki knew in his bones how very difficult it was to get out from under the influence of negative imagination. Most likely, if Chiyuri—Lime Bell—hadn’t helped him with her special attack—her transcendental ability to turn back time for the target avatar—Haruyuki would have been swallowed up by the armor and his own self-hatred and indiscriminately attacked the hundreds of people in the Gallery.

  In only a few minutes, the negative will of the Armor had penetrated his marrow, so much so that he had been on the verge of never finding his way back. And yet Sky Raker had somehow managed to cut the chains of fear and despair that had held her for two and a half years of real time. If that wasn’t a miracle, then what was? Struck by deep emotion, he stared hard at Raker’s legs.

  “Honestly, Corvus. Do you like my beautiful legs that much?” she said in a voice filled with mirth.

  Haruyuki hurriedly waved his hands somewhat frantically in front of his face. “N-no—I mean, of course, they’re incredibly beautiful, but that’s not what I was—”

  “Oh ho! So you have a leg fetish? Sorry I don’t have calves or ankles.” Kuroyukihime spoke now, her violet-blue eyes glittering dangerously.

  “Th-that’s—!” Haruyuki turned his head and excused himself again. “I love your legs, too—I mean, it’s not like I have a fetish or anything like that, okay?!” He felt like he would just sink further into this swamp if he said anything more, so he pointed southeast and shouted, “A-a-anyway, look! The guide cursor’s pointing that way! Let’s hurry! Let’s get going!”

  Just as Haruyuki noted, the two gray triangles in the center of their fields of view were still, pointing in the same direction. Beyond them lay the two members of the Blue Legion executive who were hosting that day’s meeting. Two HP gauges were also lined up above the cursors, with a countdown between them. The timer would have started at 1,800 seconds but had already dropped to 1,750.

  “Mmm. Now that you mention it, we did say to ensure that we met within a hundred seconds. That does it, then. Shall we run?”

  All three nodded and took off as one south along the roads of the Demon City.

  In exchange for not having the right to destroy the terrain or objects, members of the Gallery in a general duel were given maximum mobility and jumping power. Haruyuki and his Legion Masters ran up the wall of a building blocking their way and then charged forward in a straight line from rooftop to rooftop.

  After they had been running for about twenty seconds, the heavy fog blanketing the road ahead abruptly broke.

  “Whoa!” Haruyuki unconsciously cried out at the sight spreading out before their eyes. “I-it’s huge…”

 
The palace.

  An enormous building soared up as if to pierce the sky a little to the southeast of the cursor. Made up of steel spires shining with a blue light and bizarre sculptures, the palace stood in the center of the demonic stage with a sense of presence that overwhelmed all else; it was almost even divine. The building was surrounded by high castle walls and a wide moat, with nothing remotely resembling an entrance to be seen.

  Although he had caught glimpses of the palace rising up in the distant eastern sky from countless duels in Suginami and Shinjuku, this was the first time he had ever been so close to it, and he gaped as he took in the majesty of the colossal castle.

  “In the real world, that is the Imperial Palace,” Kuroyukihime murmured, immediately to his right. “The only place you can never enter, in the Accelerated World as well, no matter what you try.”

  “E-even if you’re flying?”

  “Yes.” The answer to his question came from Fuko running to his left. “There are invisible barriers set above and below the castle walls, so you can’t get in even if you try to fly over or dig under. Apparently, in the early days, people tried all sorts of things, but…”

  “Mm-hmm. There were any number of rumors, too, that there was a super-amazing Enhanced Armament hidden inside, things like that. But in the end, not one person was able to penetrate those walls. In the Normal Duel Field, at least.”

  Sensing something in Kuroyukihime’s phrasing, Haruyuki asked in response, “Huh? What do you mean?”

  However, before she could give him an answer, Fuko said sharply, “I see it. On top of that hill!”

  He turned his gaze in the direction she pointed. And indeed, there, on the top of a small hill ahead of them, he could see two—no, three small human figures. The place probably corresponded with the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace in the real world. Unlike the palace, this area was open to the general public; Haruyuki himself had been there a long time ago, on a social studies field trip in elementary school.

  Slowing slightly, he approached cautiously. Although they were participating as the Gallery and there was no possibility of being attacked, he couldn’t keep himself from shaking at just the thought that he was about to finally have a close-up encounter with the Seven Kings of Pure Color, the rulers of the Accelerated World.

  They crossed the bridge over the wide moat, slipped through a magnificent gate, and climbed the stairs set into the slope of the hill. The utterly impenetrable Demon Castle stood to their immediate right, but Haruyuki didn’t even glance at it, instead training his gaze exclusively on the top of the hill. The stairs finally came to an end, and an expansive space covered in paving stones opened up before his eyes.

  In the real world, this would have been the lawn of the remains of the inner citadel of Edo Castle. But not a single plant grew here; there was only a stand of steel pillars, forming a large circle. For some reason, however, a single pillar on the other side was noticeably shorter, only fifty or so centimeters tall.

  And on it sat a duel avatar.

  Blue. A deep, somehow transparent blue that threatened to suck any viewers in. It was not the color of the sky, nor of the sea. The avatar’s entire body was a pure blue, so pure that a real object that color would have been hard, if not impossible, to find.

  The armor shape marked it as a perfect knight type, but without a shred of the ominousness of the Armor of Catastrophe; a gallant figure, the hero of legends. Dragon-like horns stretched out on both sides of the visored helmet, while a two-handed longsword hung from the left hip.

  The blue avatar, who had adopted a relaxed pose—both arms crossed, left leg on right knee—was not that large. Standing, he was most likely the same height as Takumu while in Cyan Pile. However, his entire being emanated an overwhelming force, a meteorite hurtling toward the earth through space, and Haruyuki stopped when they were still more than twenty meters away from him.

  “Th-that’s…,” he said in a hoarse voice, and Raker next to him nodded slightly.

  “Yes. That’s the leader of Leonids, the Legion ruling the areas of Shinjuku and Bunkyo. The level niner also known as ‘Vanquish,’ ‘Legend Slayer,’ and many other nicknames, the Blue King, Blue Knight.”

  “Blue…Knight…”

  It was an extremely simple name, the sort that would get attached to some small-fry monster in any other game, but hearing it in the Accelerated World, there was something about the name that made Haruyuki conversely feel the absolute uniqueness of it.

  A shiver ran up his spine at the fathomless air of intimidation before he finally remembered that the knight was not actually his duel opponent. In terms of position, they were both simply members of the Gallery. That Haruyuki would feel this kind of force from an observer with absolutely no actual fighting power, without an HP gauge even…Just thinking about the hypothetical possibility of getting stuck in a one-on-one duel was terrifying.

  At that moment, he heard a slight ringing sound and the ice in his heart receded slightly. It was the sound of Kuroyukihime taking a single step forward. The Black King, Black Lotus, moved forward several steps as if to say the fierce air of the Blue King was nothing more than a gentle breeze to her, and then waved the sword of her right hand lightly.

  “You’re the host today, so I’ll let you save face and say my greetings first. You look suffocating as always, Knight.”

  At Kuroyukihime’s words, Haruyuki shrieked in his head, You’re practically sticking your tongue out and challenging him to a fight! When Raker laughed softly next to him, he got ready to flee with a frantic back dash, but fortunately, the blue warrior was faster than he was.

  “Now, look, that’s no greeting, Lotus,” he said in the clear and cool voice of a young boy. “I haven’t seen you in two and a half years, and you’re just as crabby as ever.” His armor clanged as he shrugged his shoulders. At the same time, the bloodlust he had been radiating vanished as if it had never been at all.

  From his tone, the Blue King appeared to be much more affable than Haruyuki had been expecting. The Blue Legion attacked Black territory without fail every week, so he had assumed that the King himself would certainly be burning to censure Kuroyukihime, but unexpectedly, this appeared not to be the case.

  Just as Haruyuki relaxed his shoulders, two very similar human forms silently slid out of the heavy fog to linger on either side of the Blue King.

  Traditional warriors! was his immediate thought. Complete sets of Japanese armor covered the slender, tall figures, layers of rectangular metal panels. The avatar on the left was a deep ultramarine, and on the right, a fairly bright blue green. Rather than full kabuto helmets, they had armored hachigane headbands tied around their foreheads, and their bound hair hung long. From the size and shape of their bodies, both were female types.

  The two female warriors advanced several meters with a strange way of walking that was more like gliding, placed a hand on the grip of the sword dangling from each left hip, and spoke quietly at the same time.

  “You who sneers before our Vanquish does not deserve the title of king!”

  “The traitor should be grateful she’s even allowed in this place!”

  And then, again, a bloodlust to make the air tremble jetted in the direction of the Nega Nebulus delegation, and Haruyuki squeaked.

  As the Black King’s follower, he likely should have fought back, tossing off a similarly cool line right then and there, but he felt like they would send his head flying the moment he uttered a single word, and he was unable to even open his mouth. There was no doubt that these were the Blue King’s aides, the ones who had generated the field—in other words, the duelers—and thus they alone had the right to remove any obstructive members of the Gallery, as long as they both agreed on which members those might be.

  However, in the next moment, Sky Raker replied in a voice filled with laughter. “Goodness, I don’t see you for a while and you manage to find your big-girl pants, hmm, ladies?” Moving to stand next to Kuroyukihime, her high heels clackin
g, she stretched out the palm of her right hand to the warriors and waggled her fingertips. “I’m ready to hang both of you from the top of the government building again anytime, you know?”

  Eeeeeeee! Haruyuki screamed silently once more. Did you really just say that?! he shouted in his heart before accepting that Sky Raker was just the sort of person to say that much at the very least.

  A blazing anger flared up in the almond-shaped eye lenses of the armored warriors, and they grabbed the hilts of their swords simultaneously.

  “You—!”

  The shout, two voices in perfectly synchrony, was interrupted from behind by the wry laugh of the Blue King. “Let’s stop right there, Cobalt, Manga.”

  “…Fine.” The pair quickly bowed deeply and took a step back at the same time.

  Haruyuki breathed a sigh of relief before once again staring at the two HP gauges lined up in the top of his field of view. Underneath the left-hand gauge shone the avatar name Cobalt Blade, while under the right was Manganese Blade. Given the amount of overlap in name and appearance, they must have been fairly similar in the real world as well. If, for instance, they were twin sisters, the Blue King really had to be an incredible person in many ways to be able to inspire both to follow him like this as his closest aides. This and other random thoughts wandered through his brain, while Kuroyukihime opened her mouth again, shrugging lightly.

  “So then, Knight. Maybe you could get me a chair so you’re not the only one sitting?”

  “Whoops. Excuse me.” With a wave of his hand, the Blue King signaled his two aides.

  They dropped into fighting stances immediately to brace themselves and set hands on the hilts of their swords once more. Haruyuki didn’t even have the time to jump and shrink back before two beams of pale light sliced a broad circle around the stage, accompanied by the clear, high-pitched clang of metal.

  Reopening his eyes, Haruyuki saw a blurry mess of motion in the warriors’ hands, swords glittering for an instant before being returned to their sheaths; the whole scene wouldn’t have taken up even three frames of a film.