Signal Fire at the Water’s Edge

by Reki Kawahara

  If only Brain Burst could be installed a second time.

  Even knowing this thought was just selfish sentimentality, Haruyuki couldn’t help thinking it. Although, of course, the Nomi of now wouldn’t agree to a copy/install of a suspicious program at Haruyuki’s invitation, what with them being basically strangers at this point. And more importantly, the Nomi of now didn’t need the salvation of the Accelerated World. Even so, the thought that there could have been a different way wouldn’t leave Haruyuki.

  He couldn’t have done anything about Nomi’s parent, but if he had at least met Nomi before the Acceleration Research Society…If only they’d been able to simply and earnestly duel without the intervention of the BIC or the video trap. He and Nomi, with his enormous hunger, could have come to understand each other at some point. Haruyuki wanted to believe that.

  On the stage, the samurai paired off and faced one another, slamming their swords together at a slightly frightening speed. The clanking of metal was naturally a sound effect coming over the speakers, but it perfectly matched the swords as they came together before his eyes. The fierce mock fighting continued, the samurai switching partners one after another, and just as it started to take on a chaotic aspect, they all lined up and raised their swords above their heads. The music and the choreography all stopped, and the people clapping along stopped soon after.

  Yaaaaah! With a mighty roar, all the dancers brought their swords slicing through the air, and the samurai dance was over.

  Staring at Takumu and Nomi smiling under the spotlight, Haruyuki clapped as hard as he could along with everyone else in the audience.

  “That was seriously amazing, Taku. How long did you guys practice for?” Haruyuki asked, immediately after they joined up with Takumu—now in a tracksuit.

  “Aah,” his childhood friend, who had impressively handled the important role of dance captain, replied with a bashful look. “It’s more like we did the thing without any real rehearsal. We have the main tournament at the end of next month, so we couldn’t exactly take that much time to practice the routine or anything.”

  “Still, it turned out pretty great, huh? And the costumes and lighting were solid, too,” Chiyuri remarked.

  Takumu pulled his head back, looking even more embarrassed. “That’s ’cos the girls’ team worked super-hard for us. On everything from the choreography to the costumes—all of it. Although I was actually kinda embarrassed with that look.”

  “Nah, not at all, Professor. If you could fight in kamishimo over there, too, your win rate’d prob’ly go up a little more,” Niko said, giggling.

  “I-is that supposed to be a compliment?” Takumu responded, and the whole group burst out laughing. Even Pard, who normally didn’t laugh out loud, and Aqua Current, who somehow resembled her, were grinning along with the rest of them, and Haruyuki was glad.

  Since it was almost lunchtime, they decided to wander around the refreshment booths outside this time and have lunch there, so the group, now nine people, stepped outside. If Kuroyukihime had been able to join them, they would have been a party of ten, but apparently, the student council project was going to take a little more time. Haruyuki got a mail from her to the effect that she would be able to come in another fifteen minutes, so he replied with where to meet them.

  Then he suddenly remembered what she had said to him before the festival started, and he moved over to Fuko’s side. “Um, Master. Have you seen any movement that looks like an attack so far?”

  “Oh, yes, right. I checked the matching list twice, but there was nothing unusual. Although we still can’t let our guard down.”

  “Right. But I think that even a kit user would take one look at the Umesato list right now and run away with their tail between their legs…”

  On top of the fact that the names of ten Burst Linkers were on the list, enough to rival the total for a smallish area list, there was one each of level six, seven, and eight, plus two level-nine kings to finish it off. He couldn’t believe that even Magenta Scissor would come barging into that.

  Hearing Haruyuki’s optimism, Akira, who was situated in front of Fuko, touched her glasses as she replied, “Put another way, it would also be a change to attack two kings at the same time. If their objective is simply to spread the kit infection, it’s quite possible they would try a suicide attack, completely prepared for defeat.”

  “…U-understood. I’ll make sure to check the list frequently, too, to find them as soon as possible so we can attack first.”

  “That’s a nice sentiment, but be careful not to waste your points.” When Akira—Aqua Current—said this to him, it carried real weight, and Haruyuki nodded silently.

  Although he was discussing this with the Four Elements, Haruyuki expected that there wouldn’t be an attack that day after all. There was some distance between them and Magenta’s base in Setagaya, and in this situation, the list of attackers was too large. If they made a wrong step, not only would they be counterattacked, but they might end up cracked in the real. Given how extremely rational Magenta was, even while having an ISS kit, he couldn’t believe she would carry out a reckless attack.

  But.

  Haruyuki had forgotten the tiny misgiving he’d felt three days earlier.

  In fact, Magenta Scissor had attacked. And she’d already finished it before the school festival had even started.

  Haruyuki understood this after Rin Kusakabe, walking behind him, fell forward without a sound as if to lean up against him.

  8

  At first, he figured she was actually just sick and it had nothing to do with Brain Burst. Rin hadn’t looked good right from the start that morning. She had said it was food-related, but a simple digestive issue wouldn’t have gone on for several hours. Cursing himself for not paying more attention, Haruyuki had Takumu help him bring her to the nurse’s office on the first floor of the second school building.

  Fortunately, all the beds were empty, so they laid Rin down on the one farthest in, but there was no sign of the health adviser, Ms. Hotta. He looked around the room and found a holotag spinning on top of the desk that said, OUT FOR ONE HOUR. I’M IN THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE. BE BACK SOON.

  Haruyuki started to fly out of the room to go get her, but Takumu stopped him, saying, “I’ll go get her; you stay with Kusakabe,” so, with no other choice, he returned to Rin’s bedside.

  “It’s not your fault, Corvus.”

  When he looked up, he saw Fuko, the only one of the troop of girls to come with them, standing next to him. Since they couldn’t exactly march into the nurse’s office en masse, the other six were on standby next to the fountain in the front yard. Fuko had come with them because, of course, she was Rin’s parent.

  “…I should have noticed. She might not look it, but Rin has a tendency to push herself too hard. I knew that, and yet…”

  “No…All morning, I was thinking how Kusakabe didn’t look good. But I just dragged her around all over the place anyway.”

  Biting his lip hard, he looked down at the girl lying on the bed before him. Her cheeks were pale, and her breathing was shallow and quick. If she hadn’t been feeling well for several hours, then it wasn’t just simple anemia, either. Maybe an unseasonal cold or…Still reproaching himself, he sent his thoughts racing around for an answer.

  Abruptly, Rin opened her eyes a crack and said in a voice that threatened to fade out of existence, “……I’m sorry, Arita. I’m sorry…Master Fuko.”

  “Oh! You don’t have anything to apologize for, Kusakabe. I’m sorry for pushing you so hard. The nurse’ll be here in a minute, so…” Haruyuki worked to keep his voice from jumping up into a shout.

  But Rin moved her pale face slightly from side to side. “This…isn’t. A cold. There’s…nothing wrong. With. My body. What’s struggling isn’t. Me. It’s my duel avatar…Yesterday. My brother was infected…with an ISS kit.”

  Rin told them that Magenta Scissor had challenged Ash Roller Saturday afternoon, in Setagaya Area No. 1. It had b
een right after Rin had left school, gotten on the bus on Kannana Road, and connected her Neurolinker globally.

  Ash had fought bitterly against Magenta, who used the long-distance technique Dark Shot over and over, but normal resistance to an enemy who didn’t hesitate to use Incarnate attacks was impossible. When Ash was finally no longer able to run, Magenta performed “surgery” using her scissors and forcibly infected him with the ISS kit.

  Normally, this was when Rin would have immediately contacted Fuko and discussed how to respond. But Ash Roller, who had the personality of Rinta Kusakabe, Rin’s older brother, had turned his thoughts to his beloved little sister. I can hold on for a day, piece o’ cake. So you go and have fun at the festival tomorrow.

  “I. I thought about disobeying my brother. And calling you, Master. A lot. But. I…felt it. My brother had also been. Excited about Arita’s school festival. For a few days. So…I,” Rin said in a trembling voice, and then brought her right hand out from under the blanket to gently touch the Neurolinker on her neck.

  Here, Haruyuki finally understood the reason why something felt off when he met Rin that morning.

  Rin Kusakabe normally used a pastel-green Neurolinker. She only changed to the metallic gray one when she was dueling. This was the Neurolinker her older brother Rinta had used, and it was in this one that the Brain Burst program was installed.

  So on that day of the school festival, when there was no need to duel, Rin should have been wearing her own Neurolinker. But from the time they had met up at the front gate that morning, her brother’s terminal had been equipped on her neck. Perhaps the reason for that was that she wanted to communicate the atmosphere of the school festival to Rinta, who was in a coma in a hospital in Shibuya.

  But the truly terrifying part of the ISS kit was that, even when you weren’t accelerated, even when you took your Neurolinker off, this mental parasite kept progressing steadily. The kit that had infiltrated Rin’s duel terminal had been growing bit by bit—after she got home the previous day, while she was asleep, when she set out for Umesato that day, and while she was going around the school festival.

  “…We have to hurry and purify it before the parasite goes any farther…” Haruyuki leaned over the bed and squeezed a voice from his throat, staring at her Neurolinker, which had a crack like a lightning bolt on the outside. Once the personality change advanced, it would be extremely difficult to remove the kit. Even the two good friends of Chocolat Puppeteer he’d met the other day in Setagaya area had turned deaf ears on Chocolat’s desperate pleas at first.

  No, more than anything, I don’t want to see an Ash Roller controlled by the kit. No way.

  Haruyuki jerked his head up and turned back toward Fuko. The Nega Nebulus deputy also seemed quite shocked, but the second she met Haruyuki’s eyes, she nodded resolutely.

  “Corvus, we should first check on Ash’s condition. But if we duel over the local net, then Sacchi and the others will be pulled into the Gallery.”

  “A direct duel, then. I have a cable.” He dug around in his small daypack and pulled out an XSB cable. A similar cable appeared from Fuko’s pouch so the three of them could all direct. He opened up two of the folding chairs set against the wall and sat down before plugging one end of the cable into his own Neurolinker and offering the other end to Rin.

  “Kusakabe…Can I?” he asked.

  Rin showed him a faint smile, while still looking quite pained. “The opposite…of that time, huh?”

  He understood what she meant immediately. Ten days earlier, when he became the sixth Chrome Disaster, Haruyuki had tried to run away from his Legion comrades, but Rin, at their first meeting (on the first floor of his condo), had stopped him. She had pushed him back in the rear seat of Fuko’s car, parked in the basement of his building, and forced him to direct. To save him.

  “…We’re definitely going to save your brother,” Haruyuki said, and Rin nodded, the faint smile still on her lips, as she turned her head to the right. Haruyuki inserted the plug in his right hand gently into the exposed direct terminal of her Neurolinker.

  At basically the same time, Fuko’s cable was connected with Haruyuki’s Neurolinker from the left. When the warning of two wired connections was displayed, he heard the sound of several feet approaching quickly in the hallway outside. Takumu was returning with the health adviser in tow.

  Haruyuki glanced at Fuko, and they nodded together. A normal duel was at most 1.8 seconds. They’d definitely be finished before they arrived.

  “I’ll be the starter,” Fuko announced, and before Haruyuki could object, she was murmuring the acceleration command. “Burst Link.”

  A virtual thunder roared, and the sight before his eyes of Rin and the nurse’s office froze blue—along with the hustle and bustle of the festival, which was picking up now that it was the afternoon.

  Haruyuki’s wish for a favorable stage was at last half granted.

  Before his feet touched down on the ground, he could hear busy music with an accordion as the main player. In the old fighting games, each stage had its own background music, but stages with music were fairly rare in Brain Burst.

  Listening to the music, which was cheerful yet slightly eerie—perhaps because the sound was off occasionally—Haruyuki quickly checked out his surroundings.

  Outside. Probably the roof of the Umesato Junior High second school building. And because he was a member of the Gallery, he had materialized a distance away from the two duelers.

  The sky was dark, but Umesato, on the ground, was blanketed in a warm light. About two stories above the ground, electric wires were suspended under dark clouds, with several large incandescent light bulbs, the kind that weren’t found in the real world anymore, hanging down from them.

  Zzt, zzt. Beneath the lights, which buzzed and occasionally flickered unreliably, human-shaped silhouettes with no real substance writhed in groups of twos and threes. Forming circles and dancing or walking along in groups, the shapes were skinny like poles and only about a meter or so tall, so they had the same sort of bustling strangeness to them as the music did. Shabby booths were lined up along the wall of the school building, and the shadow shopkeepers—who sported no substance, of course—were selling their curious wares. Similar to the atmosphere of the school festival in the real world, but decisively different somehow, this was the Bizarre Festival stage. A midlevel dark type.

  Given that it was dark, it was a tricky stage, with all kinds of gimmicks to interfere with movement built into it, but this time, there was the possibility that the battle wouldn’t even happen at all. Haruyuki raced to the edge of the roof and looked down in the direction indicated by the guide cursor.

  Both duelists had already left the nurse’s office for the world outside. At the entrance of the front yard, wedged in between the second school building, which Haruyuki occupied, and the first one, he could see a slender duel avatar sitting in a wheelchair. Motionless there, paying no mind to the swarms of tiny figures around her, was the deputy of Nega Nebulus, “Strong Arm” Sky Raker.

  Her eyes should have been turned toward Ash Roller, but lacking directionality, the light of the incandescent bulbs didn’t reach that far. Plus, he couldn’t see past the front gates of the courtyard, where the world sank into darkness. But if this was the usual Ash, then he’d be rolling up with a “Hey, heeeeey!” and revving his massive engine as soon as the duel started. Haruyuki was forced to decide that Ash being silent now meant he was already not in his normal mental state. Beside himself at the thought, Haruyuki flung himself from the roof.

  Because he was in the Gallery, even falling from the third floor had no impact. Landing gently outside the nurse’s office window, Haruyuki moved to approach the wheelchair to discuss the situation with Raker. But immediately before he could, an intense light cut through the darkness near the main gate.

  The light source was not the familiar yellowish-white halogen lamp, but rather a ruby-colored one, like a red traffic light, or blood. The black silhouettes
squirmed and shuffled, trying to escape the vertical range of the illumination. Then the roar of an internal combustion engine starting filled the stage. This too was not the usual sunny sound of the V-twin; the low, wet, rumbling groan sounded more like the threatening protest of a large living creature.

  Bathed in the sinister light and sound, Raker, in her wheelchair, didn’t so much as flinch. The fluid metal of her hair parts and the hem of her white dress fluttering slightly, she stared directly ahead of her.

  As if irritated by this silence, the red light finally moved. It approached slowly at first and then gradually picked up speed, so that by the moment it appeared beneath the light of the incandescent bulbs, the engine was howling violently. This acceleration exceeded the domain of a motorcycle, and in Haruyuki’s eyes, it looked like nothing other than the leap of a massive beast wrapped in black and silver.

  Sky Raker and her wheelchair were by far the smaller of the two, but she still didn’t move a muscle, even as she saw this massive form charging toward her. She simply narrowed her dark-rose eye lenses slightly and appeared to be measuring her timing.

  In the Territories not that long before, Raker had avoided Ash’s charging attack with the superhuman feat of luring him in until the very last possible second before grabbing on to the handlebars as she dashed backward to flip the bike.

  But he couldn’t believe she’d be able to use the same technique again here. The acceleration of the motorcycle was on a different level, and there was a door a mere ten meters behind Raker. Plus, entry into buildings was not allowed in the Bizarre Festival stage, so there basically wasn’t enough space for her to do a back dash.

  “M-Master!!” Haruyuki kept the volume of his voice in check, but he couldn’t keep himself from calling out.