Kuroyukihime’s Return

by Reki Kawahara

  Cyan Pile, drawing himself up abruptly, raising the launcher in his right arm high, drew a complicated trajectory with the tip in the air. As he did, the launcher was wrapped to his shoulder in a crisp blue light.

  Suddenly, the launcher expanded to three times its size with a thick noise. From within, something akin to an enormous hammer popped its head out, front face flattened. The striking surface of the hammer turned sharply toward Haruyuki, who was unable to think, much less move.

  “Now. Shall we put an end to this, Haru? All of it.” This Duel and the pretense of our friendship. Cyan Pile’s eyes communicated this message loud and clear.

  The end of the hammer began to emit an intense light. “Spiral Gravity Driver!”

  Skrrrrk!

  Haruyuki tried desperately to avoid the hammer as it struck while still rotating, making a mechanical noise like countless gears catching. However, Cyan Pile had a firm hold on the bottom of his lone leg, and he couldn’t escape. The massive hunk of steel came crushing down on Haruyuki’s chest, followed by a duet between the high-pitched shriek of his silver armor being pulverized and the deep rumble of the floor beneath him being crushed.

  Unable to even cry out, Haruyuki was beaten down a level along with the rooftop below him, slamming into the floor below in the hospital. But the hammer didn’t stop there, smashing Haruyuki right through that floor as well.

  Thump! Thud! Thump!!

  The sound of destruction ringing in the air, Haruyuki plunged through all five levels of the hospital and finally stopped moving after becoming embedded in the ground floor.

  Flash. Flash.

  In the obscure darkness, something red was blinking in the top left of his vision. It took Haruyuki a few seconds to realize that it was his own health gauge reduced to just under 10 percent.

  As if regretting the fact that it hadn’t beaten his gauge down entirely, Cyan Pile’s hammer stayed wedged in Haruyuki’s chest for a while but eventually rose up, grindingly, rotating in the opposite direction.

  Once the hammer had been lifted causing debris to rain down, all that was left in front of Haruyuki was a tiny hole leading up to the distant roof. Through it, he heard Cyan Pile’s voice echoing weakly.

  “Aaah, you still have a little health left. Well, whatever. We only have five or six minutes; it’ll be time up before I can come find you and finish you off. And once I’m done here, I can get to my real mission, the boss battle. So!” His tone of voice changed, tinged with pride or perhaps fawning. “I hope you saw, all of you watching! Especially all of you in the Blue Legion!! I can still be of great use! I mean, I can definitely fight in the unlimited field above this! You must be regretting tossing me aside just because I used a few too many points? Right?!”

  Taku…Takumu…You…

  A broken doll at the bottom of a dark hole, Haruyuki felt hot fluid running along his cheeks. His tears. But he didn’t quite know what he was crying about. He was probably shedding these tears for something that broke without him noticing it, something important he had completely lost.

  But he couldn’t afford to lose this Duel. He absolutely had to win—for himself, for Takumu, for Chiyuri. And for Kuroyukihime. And yet…

  Carrying the pain of his tremendous regret, Haruyuki pulled himself up slowly. From all over his body, pieces of his cracked armor fell like rain and scattered. There was no more point in standing up anymore. He should just accept his decisive defeat and go back to the him before he knew Brain Burst. Haruyuki clutched his knees and decided to wait for the timer to reach zero.

  Just before his eyes closed.

  In the corner of a dim room.

  She floated up like an illusion.

  The bed was braided out of black wild roses. The slender figure lay as if enclosed by the inky black petals of countless flowers in full bloom.

  A dress blacker than night. Silver edging. Parasol resting close by. And the shiny black hair fanning out over shining skin whiter than snow in the dim light. Her long eyelashes peacefully shut.

  Am I hallucinating?

  As he wondered this, Haruyuki approached the black rose bed slowly, very slowly, dragging what was left of the right leg he had lost. But no matter how close he got, Kuroyukihime’s avatar showed no signs of disappearing.

  Thrusting his right hand onto the edge of the bed as if to catch himself before he fell, Haruyuki finally understood. This, this place was the nanomachine room in the ER where the real Kuroyukihime was being treated. And Kuroyukihime’s Neurolinker was connected to the hospital net. So the instant Haruyuki initiated the accelerated fight, her automatic spectator mode was activated, and she was also brought onto this stage.

  “…Kuroyukihime,” Haruyuki murmured hoarsely, stretching out his battered right arm to stroke her cheek softly. The words came tumbling out, one after another, as if the dam had broken. At the same time, more tears. “I—I couldn’t save you. I couldn’t protect your dream, your hopes. I couldn’t live up to your expectations.”

  The tears trickling from the cracks in his half-shattered helmet fell in drops on Kuroyukihime’s cheek, caught the minimal light, and shone before disappearing.

  “I can change…That’s what I thought. With your words, your kindness, your love, I could change…But I couldn’t. It’s not my avatar’s fault…This avatar was probably created to reflect my ‘resignation.’ I’m the one who made him, who made Silver Crow like this. Me, never trying to look up, eyes always on the ground, living my life on my hands and knees.” Haruyuki bent over slowly and clung to Kuroyukihime’s shoulder. “I wanted to go there. Where you were…High up in the sky, where you were lightly flapping your wings. High up…far away…escaping the swamp of the real world…with you…”

  With a sob, Haruyuki squeezed the last words out.

  “I wanted to—fly.”

  Thump.

  Almost as if in response to his voice, he heard a faint sound.

  Thump. Thump.

  The source was Kuroyukihime’s chest against Haruyuki’s cheek. A small, faint, but definite rhythm being carved out. Her heartbeat.

  Here in the accelerated world, there was no way he should have been able to hear the sound of her heart beating in the real world. But it couldn’t have been a hallucination. He strained his ears and listened, and suddenly, Haruyuki understood.

  This was the echo of Kuroyukihime’s will. Right now, Kuroyukihime was fighting desperately. On the border between life and death, she was fiercely fighting to hold her ground. Her strong will became a heartbeat, echoing in the virtual battleground.

  “Right,” Haruyuki murmured. At the same time, new tears spilled out and trickled down warmly. In his ears, something Kuroyukihime had once told him echoed faintly.

  In the end, strength doesn’t mean winning.

  It’s like I never knew the meaning of the word strong. And not knowing, I was jealous, and I gave up.

  “Strength isn’t just winning…”

  Even if it was ugly. Even if it was funny. Even if you lost in the end, fell to the ground, and ended up covered in mud.

  After surviving the death match of the kings, Kuroyukihime—Black Lotus had held her breath in a tiny net and stayed hidden for two years. But it wasn’t because she was sneaky or cowardly. It was because she hadn’t given up. It was because she refused to hang her head in shame.

  “Just fighting itself. Falling down and still looking up at the sky…That’s the proof of strength. That’s right, isn’t it…Kuroyukihime.”

  He got no answer.

  But he felt a powerful heartbeat being born deep inside his own chest. The pulsing of his heart became a signal to drive his brain. And then his spirit, his will, and the nerve to face adversity, all of it accelerated.

  As long as this sound echoed in his chest…

  “I’m still standing…I can still fight!” he screamed to himself and to Kuroyukihime.

  Gripping the edge of the bed with his right hand, he put his strength into his left leg and stood up, stagge
ring. Tiny shards glittered as they fluttered down from all over his body. However, the heat generated from within his chest reached to the tips of his four battered limbs, and he shivered fiercely.

  Suddenly.

  Several rays of intense white light shot out from the cracks in his armor.

  At the same time, the armor on his back cracked wide open, and he had the sensation of it being blown off. Haruyuki opened his eyes wide and threw his head back.

  On the wall not far in front of him hung a large mirror. It was probably the two-way mirror leading to the monitoring room next door in the real world. Now it was an enormous full-length mirror edged in the same black cast-iron roses as the bed. Reflected in its center were the rose bed, Kuroyukihime lying in it, and Silver Crow standing there.

  The armor all over his body was in a terrible state. His left arm and his right leg were half torn off, and deep cracks radiated outward across his chest. The fractures also wrapped around to his back, which was the source of the cracking sound. Each time a tiny spark flew up, a piece of his smashed armor scattered.

  Haruyuki stared dumbfounded as something white and shining started to very slowly spread out on each side of his back. Thin, sharply triangular shards of metal. Swords?

  The moment he had this thought, the two pieces of metal stopped crawling out and expanded into semicircles with a cold, clanging noise. Perhaps ten thin metal fins folded up on either side were deployed, the tips of those initial sword-shaped protrusions as fulcrums.

  This…this isn’t a weapon…

  They’re wings.

  Haruyuki stood dazed for less than a second.

  Hot!

  At the intense heat running through his body from the center of his back, Haruyuki snapped to attention. Writhing in agony, he retreated a few steps on his knees and drew his body in, cradling his shoulders in his arms. More than the temperature, he felt as though a ball of pure energy was sealed up in his back and was whirling around like a vortex, seeking a way out.

  I can’t. I can’t stand it anymore.

  Arching his body back like a bow, Haruyuki turned to look straight up.

  There he saw the enormous hole he’d torn through the building only seconds earlier. A small yellow light alone up there in the deep, black sky. A corridor leading to the distant heavens.

  It was calling to him.

  In an unconscious motion, Haruyuki raised his shattered left arm high and pressed his uninjured right arm to his side. He felt the raging energy at the tips of his shoulder blades increase in intensity suddenly and then contract.

  Bringing his eyes back down for just a moment, he saw the figure of his beloved lying there.

  He looked up again.

  “Gooooooo!!” He thrust his right arm straight out with a cry.

  Fwoomp!!

  With a half crash, half explosion, a silver light ripped through the darkness. Instantly, Haruyuki’s body shot up in a straight line like an arrow released from its bow.

  The air roared in his ears each time he passed a floor of the hospital.

  Piercing the dark path in mere seconds, his silver avatar flew out through the large hole drilled through the roof and soared higher, ever higher. The metal fins on his back shook at high speed. The energy accelerated his small body with an overwhelming power, and he easily cut his ties to any virtual gravity. Haruyuki pushed up, up, endlessly up.

  Soon enough, a swirling black cloud drew near. The moment his raised right fist came into contact with the thick lump, the round cloud was shoved aside with a thud, shooting through the black tunnel and ascending even farther. Haruyuki’s field of vision was filled with a blinding, pale yellow light.

  After passing through the sea of clouds, Haruyuki spread out his arms and legs and eased his acceleration. The high-pitched shuddering noise dropped in pitch, and a soft sensation of floating came over him, like being in a plane after takeoff.

  Hovering gently, Haruyuki rolled over. “Aaah…,” he half sighed. An unimaginable scene spread out below him. From the breaks in the sea of clouds twisting as they flowed along, he could make out the sharp colors of the enormous city sprawling endlessly. The building on the other side of the city subcenter of Shinjuku transformed into twisted spires, and the deep wood beyond was probably the Imperial Palace, looking like a soaring, magical castle.

  In the opposite direction, the city extended off into the distance from Suginami to Mitaka and on into Hachioji, with the Okutama Mountains beyond that. The steep mountain peak piercing the sea of clouds and towering high above them was probably Mount Fuji.

  Finally, turning his gaze to the south, Haruyuki caught sight of a gray, flat plane glittering. The sea. That’s Tokyo Bay. And, extending limitlessly, the Pacific Ocean.

  Infinity.

  “This world…it’s infinite…” Haruyuki gasped as he started to descend ever so slowly.

  Sinking into the clouds on his back, he slipped through to the bottom and approached the earth’s surface. When he had dropped to an altitude where he could once more see the details of the city, he made the fins vibrate fiercely to hover again.

  Directly below him as he straightened out was the roof of the hospital, a mere thirty meters away. After seeing the immensity of the Duel field, the roof looked small enough to pick up in both hands. Standing stock-still on the edge of the large hole piercing the center of the roof, a large blue figure looked up at him.

  Cyan Pile stared up at Haruyuki for a full three seconds as if his soul had been ripped out. He raised his left hand slightly and said hoarsely, “H-Haru—”

  But his words were erased abruptly in a sudden roar.

  Voices. The members of the Gallery watching the Duel between Silver Crow and Cyan Pile encamped on the roofs of the buildings surrounding the hospital shouted out all at once.

  “He’s not…he’s not falling?! He’s perfectly still!!”

  “It’s not a jump…He’s flying?! No way!!”

  “He has the ability to fly…It’s finally showing up! Check out those wings!! It’s a flying avatar!!”

  Haruyuki didn’t understand why the members of the Gallery were making such a huge fuss. As he stared down in mute amazement, some of the several dozen duel avatars were moving, aiming for ground higher, while others were running their fingers along consoles.

  “Isn’t there any info on him?! Who the hell is this guy?! His Legion…Who’s his guardian?!”

  “Wh-whatever! We need to contact the head office! You, drop and tell them!!”

  “You gotta be kidding! You think I’m gonna miss this?!”

  Quelling the beehive-like commotion was an abrupt, fierce scream.

  “Aaaaaaaaaah!!” Cyan Pile howled, spreading out his arms and legs. The vibrations of his scream ripped the atmosphere, reaching Haruyuki in the sky far above like an electric shock. “No! No no no no no nooooooooo!!”

  With a mechanical crack, the launcher in his right arm turned toward Haruyuki. “You!! You!! On me!! You don’t look down on meeeeeeee!!” A cry like vomiting blood.

  At the same time, a jarring screech echoed through the air, and the loaded stake sent out several rays of light. As he adopted a posture with both legs spread out, hips dropped, and launcher readied in his left hand, the remaining 40 percent of Cyan Pile’s special-attack gauge dropped abruptly all at once.

  In the sights of what was most likely Cyan Pile’s final attack, Haruyuki, still hovering in one spot, raised his right hand lightly and closed it tightly into a solid fist. He finally understood what the special attack he had been given was.

  Punch. And then Kick. While these were his normal attacks, they were also his special super attacks.

  He pulled his tight fist back and expanded all his fins as far as they would go to change direction. Toward Cyan Pile, directly below him.

  “G-gooooooo! Lightning Twin Spikes!” As he screamed the name of the attack, a steel needle, transformed into a beam of light, shot forward from Cyan Pile’s right arm.

  Faced
with this, Haruyuki simply readied his fist and released the propulsive power from both wings.

  “Unh! Aaaaaaah!”

  Silver Crow’s body became a bullet of light, a rocket engine igniting, and charged.

  In the left corner of his vision, his green special-attack gauge started to drop all at once. At the same time, the radiance of the white light enveloping his right fist increased endlessly.

  “Haruuuuuuuuu!” Takumu screamed.

  “Taaaaaaaku!” Haruyuki cried.

  Skreeeee!

  A feeling of super acceleration, greater than the acceleration of Brain Burst, rushed over Haruyuki from his back, enveloping him.

  The color of the world changed.

  He saw Cyan Pile’s blue lance rushing up from the ground, the glint of the tip. The line of fire he had anticipated rose up in his vision like a phantom. The blow, like the lightning bolt of its name, was far surpassed by the speed of Haruyuki’s spirit. The power of one truly accelerated, who Kuroyukihime had found and believed in.

  I can see it…I can see it, Kuroyukihime!! Haruyuki cried in his heart.

  The lance slowed.

  Before it, Silver Crow increased his speed limitlessly, as if his very existence had become light itself.

  At the moment the two approached and blended, Haruyuki slid his charging trajectory slightly to the right.

  Skrrrrk!

  The lance scraped the left side of his helmet and passed by, releasing an intense shower of sparks.

  Then…

  Haruyuki’s punch penetrated deeply, ever deeper into the center of Cyan Pile’s chest. Carving out a gaping rut in the floor of the roof with a shrieking roar, the two bodies became one and went flying.

  Crashing into and pulverizing the railing of iron lances, sending bits in every direction, Haruyuki sprang out into the sky. “Aaaaah!!” he howled, flapping his metal fins.

  A powerful, dynamic lift enveloped his body with a start. His right arm still buried up to the shoulder in Cyan Pile, Haruyuki turned upward and ascended ever higher. In a few seconds, he had pierced the sea of clouds and sailed out into the yellow sky.

  When he eased up on the acceleration and shifted to hovering, Cyan Pile, who had apparently lost consciousness in the collision, made a coughing sound from under the mask riding on Haruyuki’s shoulder. “Keh…Hrk…” The enormous body twitched and shuddered, and he gradually lifted his face.