Armor of Catastrophe

by Reki Kawahara

  He tried to bolster himself with this declaration anyway and looked up at the older girl sitting. “Understood,” he replied in a firm thought. “But just in case, I’ll be careful on my way to and from school.”

  “K. You should walk home with someone else especially when you’re going home late. Don’t get too close to anywhere the social cameras can’t see, either,” Leopard added, and the conversation was barely finished before she was yanking the XSB cable from their Neurolinkers. She quickly coiled it up and stuck it in the pocket of her skirt.

  Since the directing had been released, Haruyuki opened his mouth to thank her with his real voice. “Oh, uh, seriously, thank—” But he was forced to unexpectedly interrupt himself.

  Pard pulled a spare jet helmet out from the luggage space at the rear of the bike and plopped it on his head. After nimbly fastening the strap under his chin, she grabbed her own full-face helmet from the handlebars and slipped it on.

  …Huh?

  Without giving him the time to even open his eyes wide, the high school rider grabbed both handles from behind Haruyuki as if covering him, and murmured the voice command, “Start.” The motorcycle’s dash, connected with her Neurolinker, flashed brightly, while the front and rear active suspension raised the vehicle body up in a supple motion, like a leopard about to jump out after its prey.

  “Uh, uh, um!”

  No way. No. Don’t. I’m not ready. Haruyuki’s mind raced, and in his ears came a low murmur from the in-helmet speaker.

  “I took a fair bit of your time. I’ll give you a lift to the school gates.”

  “I-i-i-i-i-it’s okay, y-y-y-y-y-you don’t have to.”

  “NP.” She lightly opened the throttle, and the bike sleepily moved forward and out onto the road along the overhead train tracks. She dropped the machine into a right turn, and the front wheel headed in the direction of the station. In the next instant, the two large output in-wheel motors roared ferociously.

  “Aaaaaaaaaah!!”

  The scream he let out as he clung to the vehicle with his arms and legs was without a doubt heard with a significant Doppler effect by the students walking along the left side on the sidewalk.

  Having hit hard with the super technique of riding up to the school gates on an electric bike that the average junior high school boy would call nothing but “super ultra great cool,” in tandem with a high school girl in a sailor-style uniform to boot, no sooner had Pard waved lightly and raced off toward Kannana than Haruyuki was activating his special attack Dash and Flee for the first time in a long time to race inside the school.

  Begrudging even the time it took to change into his indoor shoes, he climbed up the central stairs of the first school building and arrived at the classroom of eighth grade’s C class, where he finally let out a long breath. With a feigned nonchalance, he took his seat and fiddled with his virtual desktop in a purposeful manner.

  Slap! At the same time a hand hit his back, a familiar voice rang out. “Morning, Haru.”

  His shoulders stiffened up momentarily before he awkwardly turned around to return the greeting. “M-morning, Chiyu.”

  The instant Chiyuri Kurashima—his childhood friend who it was no exaggeration to say he had known since he was born—saw his face, her own went from puzzled to intent stare. “You’ve got that ‘oh crap’ look on your face.”

  “I—I do not. This is just my ‘I hate gym first period’ face.”

  “That’s tomorrow. First period today’s math.”

  “Oh! Uh, um, then it’s my ‘I hate math’ face.”

  Here, her expression finally changed from intent stare to eye rolling, and he let out a sigh of relief. Having gotten to class before him, Chiyuri had no way of knowing yet how Haruyuki had come to school, and even if she would find out sooner or later, the best policy at the moment was to avoid it. He shifted his gaze with maximum naturalness, looking toward the rear of the room, and opened his mouth. “Uh…umm, huh? Taku’s not here yet? He never cuts it this close.”

  Noticing that his other childhood friend’s desk was empty even though there was only five minutes left before the first bell, Haruyuki made this remark solely to change the subject. But the moment he did, Chiyuri’s forehead creased with worry, and now it was his turn to look puzzled.

  “So, the thing is, Haru”—Chiyuri glanced back herself and lowered her voice—“Taku’s home with a cold.”

  “What…” Reflexively, he ran his fingers along his virtual desktop and opened the class register in the local-net menu. An “absent due to illness” icon was indeed displayed beside the name Takumu Mayuzumi, class number 31. When he clicked on it, the simple explanation FEVER DUE TO COLD popped up.

  “That’s weird. That guy getting a cold…” Haruyuki furrowed his brow. Having trained in kendo from a young age, Takumu had always been much healthier than Haruyuki. They had known each other a long time, but Haruyuki couldn’t remember any more than a mere handful of times Takumu had been taken down by a cold, and all of those had been in the winter, when it was already going around.

  It didn’t seem to make sense to Chiyuri, either. She brought her face in close abruptly and lowered her voice even further. “So, like, last night, he didn’t look like he had a cold at all, right? Maybe the fever started after that?”

  “Oh, now that you mention it…And if he had been feeling like he was coming down with one, he would’ve been super careful to try not to give it to us.”

  Chiyuri nodded deeply. Takumu was the kind of person who would never neglect this sort of consideration. So then maybe he had gotten sick after he’d gone home after ten—

  No. A sensation like a sudden cramp ran up the back of his head, and Haruyuki’s eyes grew unfocused.

  Something Takumu had said at Haruyuki’s house, and something in the information communicated to him that morning by Pard. The two combined, and a hazy anxiety began to bloom. Some place deep, deep down where light didn’t reach, something was coming. And while he was sitting here, a situation he would never be able to come back from was drawing nearer moment by moment. A premonition-like panic.

  “What’s the matter, Haru?” As if his unease was contagious, Chiyuri also furrowed her brow.

  He brought his eyes back into focus with a gasp and shook his head sharply. “N-no, it’s nothing. Right. On our way home, let’s go visit him together. Mail me once practice is over.”

  Chiyuri turned large eyes on him as if trying to see through to his heart, but finally she nodded. “Yeah…Okay. And you have Animal Club stuff, too, right? Tell me when you’re done working there.”

  “Okay, got it.”

  The first bell rang, and she waved lightly before returning to her own seat. Haruyuki turned to face forward again, and staring at the still-open class list, he fought the urge to mail Takumu right then and there. Currently, all students, including himself, were forcibly cut off from the global net, so there was no way for him to get in touch with Takumu, who was supposedly at home in bed.

  It’s fine. It’s all in your imagination. As of this moment, the only one exposed to any Brain Burst–related problems is me. The Armor of Catastrophe, the ISS kits, Remnant—none of it has anything to do with Taku being absent. I’ll buy him some of that matcha ice cream he likes and go see him, and he’ll totally be smiling, kind of embarrassed, in his bed, Haruyuki told himself, and promptly swiped the window away with his right hand.

  Their homeroom teacher yanked open the front door, and the orders for the day began to echo listlessly through the room.

  7

  As Haruyuki digested his four morning classes in the same way as always, the bizarre uneasiness just wouldn’t fade.

  At the chime to signal the start of lunch, which sounded a tiny bit lighter for some reason, Haruyuki stood up. He considered his options, a crease popping up between his eyebrows—should he take care of things the cheap way with bread and a juice box, or dine in luxury in the cafeteria on katsu curry?

  Regrettably, until the sch
ool festival at the end of June was over, lunch in the lounge with Kuroyukihime would have to wait. Given that it was the last big job of the current student council, even Kuroyukihime, who asserted that she’d only joined for the sake of Brain Burst, wouldn’t be able to neglect her duties.

  When Kuroyukihime’s busy, I feel weird with luxury lunch by myself. I’ll hold off today, maybe just milk and a katsu sandwich—no, I could be forgiven for adding rusk at least…Seriously struggling with the issue, he moved toward the rear door.

  Clatter! The door slid open with a fair bit of force, and a human shadow took a large step in from the hallway.

  Nicely shaped, long legs wrapped in black tights. The skirt was the same gray as the other students’, but the short-sleeved shirt above it was jet-black. Even blacker lustrous hair flowed down on both sides of the dark red ribbon indicating that this was a ninth-grade student.

  The Umesato school rules prescribed a uniform shirt that was “uncolored and in compliance with the style indicated by the school.” And when you put this “uncolored” into a dictionary app, the explanation “a color from white passing through gray to black” popped out. In other words, although it couldn’t be said that gray or black was against school rules in the strictest sense, because the manufacturers were given instructions and only white shirts were registered on the sales site, the students had no choice but to buy those in the end. Excluding the sole case where a special order was placed with the manufacturer for black fabric.

  There had been only one person in the thirty-odd-year history of Umesato Junior High who had gone to all that trouble, and then coolly used the school rules as her shield against the natural requests from the teachers to fix the situation.

  That very person was now standing two meters in front of Haruyuki, hands on hips, head tossed back resolutely, a lovely and yet stern expression on her face—Kuroyukihime.

  As the students of class C fell silent, the vice president of the student council took a deep breath and let her dignified voice ring out. “The Animal Care Club president selected from this class is requested to present himself immediately in the student council office!”

  A second later, together with a quiet chattering, the eyes of a dozen or so people focused on Haruyuki. By nobly standing and declaring his candidacy—in fact a mistake due to his own carelessness—he had been selected for the Animal Care Club, a fact which was still fresh in everyone’s memory. Immediately, the faces of the students around him were practically begging him to explain what was going on, but Haruyuki himself had absolutely no idea.

  “Um…o-okay…”

  Kuroyukihime shot a look at Haruyuki. “You, then? Fine, come with me.”

  “You, then?” She already knows that I’m the Animal Care Club president and all that, and anyway, I’m her child and her Legion member and stuff…

  Even as his thoughts raced, confusion reigning in his brain, Kuroyukihime whirled around, the hem of her skirt flipping up, and started marching down the hall at such a brisk pace that somehow her rubber-soled indoor shoes mysteriously clacked against the hard floor. After standing there stock-still for a second and a half or so, Haruyuki hurriedly chased after her.

  As they went down the stairs and headed west in the hall on the first floor, Kuroyukihime did not look back once. They passed the ninth-grade classrooms and finally arrived at the student council office in the depths of the first school building. When Kuroyukihime waved a hand abruptly, he heard the weighty sound of a lock being released. The student council vice president opened the door and disappeared inside.

  He gulped loudly before stepping over the door’s sliding track himself. The door closed on its own behind him and locked itself once more.

  When he had come here the day before yesterday, the orange light of the setting sun had given the room a warm hue, but under the gray light spilling out from the cloudy sky, even the air itself felt cold. Having advanced to the center of the room with the lights dimmed, Kuroyukihime finally turned around and looked at Haruyuki with stern eyes.

  “Uh, um,” he said in a very thin voice, as a weak smile started to grow on his face. But before it could, he pulled his lips down firmly.

  After school was possibly a different story, but there was no way Kuroyukihime would mix work and her personal life by using the student council office for private business over the lunch break. In other words, this was an official request from the vice president of the student council to the president of the Animal Care Club to present himself. He knew it; without even being aware of it, he had messed up some part of his club duties.

  In which case, he could at least accept any reprimands seriously. Having resolved this in his heart, Haruyuki waited for Kuroyukihime to speak.

  A few seconds later, she pursed her lips and puffed out her cheeks. At the same time came her voice, peevish. “I heard about it, you know, Haruyuki. This morning, you rode up to the school gates on a motorcycle with a beautiful, cool older woman, didn’t you?”

  “…Huh?” Haruyuki asked in response, his eyes, mouth, and even nostrils opened up into wide circles.

  The look on Kuroyukihime’s face grew even more fiercely sulky. “What, are you planning to lie to me even now? Let me just tell you, I am able to reference a video recording of the period of time in question. And you! I don’t want to watch such a thing, and you—”

  “Oh! No, that’s—um, j-j-j-just hang on a minute!” Haruyuki earnestly interjected, alternately shaking his head and waving his hands. He followed this with a timid question. “Um, so the ‘official request to the president of the Animal Care Club’…?”

  A faint red rose up in Kuroyukihime’s cheeks, and she jerked her head to one side. “That was just an excuse to call you here.”

  Whoa! This is super mixing business and personal. He staggered but somehow managed to get his footing before opening his mouth once more.

  “Uh, umm, so this is about the motorcycle. Maybe you haven’t met her in the real, but that was one of Promi’s senior members, Blood Leopard.”

  “…Oh?” She twitched a single eyebrow.

  “This morning, on my way to school, she came to warn—or, I guess, give me some information,” he explained, intently glancing at her face to check in with her mood. “And then we ran out of time, so she just gave me a ride. And, uh, I tried to say no, but she’s, like, super impatient.”

  As Haruyuki continued speaking, the look on Kuroyukihime’s face changed microscopically, but in the end, she pursed her lips once more and uttered something entirely unexpected. “No fair.”

  “…Huh?”

  “Haruyuki, the last time you and I met as just the two of us was already ten days ago! With all the student council things and what have you, I’ve been patient all this time, while you go taking care of animals and exploring the Castle with Uiui, and now a girl from another Legion.”

  “I-I’m sorry.” It wasn’t entirely clear to him at that moment what exactly he was apologizing for, but even still, Haruyuki reflexively bowed his head.

  Kuroyukihime stepped over to him, dissatisfied look still on her face, and stopped right in front of him. “If that’s how you feel, then give me one burst point and 1.8 seconds of real time as a present.”

  “What? O-okay.” He nodded, puzzled.

  Kuroyukihime flashed both hands with a whirl, and the plugs of the black XSB cable she had picked up at some point were inserted into the direct terminals of each of their Neurolinkers at lightning speed. For the second time that day, a wired connection warning flashed before his eyes, and he unconsciously traced the lustrous lips on the other side of that warning to shout the command.

  “Burst link.”

  Skreeeeee!! The familiar sound that accompanied the world freezing blue around him came on quickly.

  Haruyuki, in the form of his pink pig avatar, smaller even than his real-world self, took a heavy step forward. He raised his eyes, and a fairy princess avatar with a black spangle butterfly motif stood silently before him, es
sentially the same height as she was in the real world. The nature of it might have been different, but the beauty of that face was unchanged. A hue of dissatisfaction drifted across it somewhere even now, but as he raised his face, heart pounding, that hue disappeared into a faint smile.

  The relief he felt as he sighed was fleeting. Approaching him silently, Kuroyukihime leaned over and stretched out hands encased in long gloves and slid them under Haruyuki’s avatar’s arms.

  Gah?! He barely had time to think before he was raised up and pulled in tightly against her chest.

  “Uh, uh, um um um, K-K-K-K-Kuroyukihime!” he cried shrilly.

  A smiling murmur reached his ears. “If I did something like this in the VR space of the local net, much less the student council office in the real world, it would be a clear violation of school rules, but those foolish laws don’t apply in this world. Or would it be better if we were both our duel avatars?”

  He imagined it for a moment and then immediately shook his plump head. When the Black King had previously embraced Silver Crow in a way very similar to this, he had ended up in some serious trouble when, two seconds later, her level-eight special attack Death By Embracing had ripped into him.

  “Ha-ha!” Laughing once more, Kuroyukihime squeezed him even harder. “The truth is, I’ve wanted to do this ever since the Meeting of the Seven Kings was over on Sunday. To tell you that there is nothing for you to be afraid of.”

  Haruyuki swallowed lightly and pushed out a hoarse voice. “That’s…I—I…” I’m fine. He tried to finish the sentence, but for some reason, his entire avatar was shaking like a leaf, preventing him from producing normal sound.