Cradle of Stars

by Reki Kawahara

  Once most of the dripping was under control, Kuroyukihime gave instructions calmly. “One minute to go. Ready your global net connections.” They all put a hand to their Neurolinkers. Great Wall would be making the stage that would serve as the setting for the meeting, so all Haruyuki and his comrades had to do was wait. Of course, they had registered the starter Iron Pound on their automatic Gallery list.

  “Thirty seconds. Start the connection.”

  He held down the connect button on his Neurolinker. The global net connection dialog box was displayed in his field of view.

  “Ten seconds. Nine, eight, seven…”

  As he listened to Kuroyukihime’s countdown, Haruyuki closed his eyes.

  “…three, two, one.”

  Not even a second late, a row of characters wreathed in flames shone red against the back of his eyelids.

  A REGISTERED DUEL IS BEGINNING!

  9

  His avatar’s feet touched hard earth, and he felt the usual gravity of the duel stage. In other words, this was not the Space stage.

  Opening his eyes, Haruyuki took in a magnificent gradation from a vivid gold to a bright canary yellow to madder-red and through violet down to dark blue. The eternally dusky sky—the Twilight stage.

  In the real world, they were on the top floor of Shibuya Ravine South Tower, but he was quite close to the ground now. More precisely, in one corner of the central rooftop plaza. To his right was Ravine Tower, to his left the skyscraper condo, and the South Tower rose up in that very direction, so it appeared that he was indeed in the bottom of the “ravine.”

  Haruyuki took his gaze off the cluster of skyscrapers now transformed into massive temples and felt something like a mixture of disappointment and relief that it wasn’t the Space stage as he checked for his comrades around him. Not one of them was missing, from Black King, Black Lotus, and Submaster Sky Raker on down.

  Which meant.

  “Crow must die…”

  These curse-like words echoed from directly behind him, and he turned around with a jump.

  Standing there was the fin de siècle rider, eyes burning white-hot in the skull helmet. They were in the Gallery, so he wasn’t on his motorcycle, but the aura he was emitting was 130 percent of their regular duels. Through the helmet shield came a voice trembling with rage.

  “You. Who said you could flirt and flirt and flirt and flirt with Rin in a bathing suit…?”

  “I—I wasn’t flirting or anything like that at all, Big Brother!”

  “No. Calling. Me. Brother! So you were just eyeballin’ Rin in her bathing suit! This crime is worth ten! Hundred! Deaths! Crooooow!” The rage meter of Rin Kusakabe’s older brother, aka Ash Roller, was shooting upward.

  A hand from behind gently patted his shoulder. “I believe the saying is ‘Ten thousand deaths,’ Ash.” The owner of the voice was his parent and master, Sky Raker. Similar to Ash, she was not using her wheelchair Enhanced Armament, but rather standing on the white tile on two elegant legs.

  Ash froze in place, while Raker started to speak, her voice endlessly gentle. “To begin with, if you’re going to translate the saying into English, it’s probably more like ‘Your crime deserves capital punishment.’ And I also got a good look at Rin in her swimsuit. Does that mean I must die ten thousand times?”

  “That’s no big nothing at all, Master!”

  “Well then, we don’t have time for this, so it would be wonderfully helpful if you would get to work.”

  “Oh! Aye, aye, sir!” Ash Roller shouted, snapping to attention as he ran to the middle of the large rooftop.

  The roof of the Ravine Square central building offered up something along the lines of a park in the air, the ground covered in soft undergrowth. Pillars like temple ruins stood in each corner, while the central area laid with marble tile conveniently had large benches facing each other. But there was no one there at present.

  Haruyuki glanced at the two health gauges displayed in the top part of his vision. The gauge on the left had the name of “Fists” Iron Pound, the third seat of the Six Armors that was the Great Wall executive group.

  And the name on the right was Viridian Decurion, the second seat of the Six Armors. Pound had called him Viri at the meeting of the Seven Kings a week earlier, but Haruyuki had never even seen him before, much less fought him.

  At any rate, the duel starters were just as had been announced beforehand. Now where were they? Haruyuki started to look around for them.

  And then, Ash, standing still in the middle of the plaza, likely fifty meters on each side, spread his legs out, clasped both hands behind his back, and leaned backward. “Great Wall member, Ash Roller!” he shouted. “I have guided the Black King, Black Lotus, and her six party members to the king!”

  There was no trace of Ash’s peculiar way of speaking in this announcement, which echoed off the surrounding high-rise temples and disappeared. A full five seconds passed.

  “Good work!” A throaty voice broke the silence, and the opposite side of the floor rose up as if exploding from inside the building and flew off in all directions.

  From inside the large, two-meter hole came a steel-colored avatar with his boxing-glove fist thrust high above his head. Iron Pound. He had apparently broken through the ceiling from the floor below with a jumping uppercut.

  “Oh, Fists! You put on this pointless cool act just because you’re the starter, hmm?”

  Fortunately, he appeared not to have heard Raker’s overview, and Pound did a somersault backward through the air before coming to land on the roof.

  One new silhouette after another jumped up through the hole Pound had made. Two, three, four people. When they had lined up, two on either side of the hole, a remarkably massive silhouette finally appeared. Causing the ground beneath even Haruyuki and his comrades on the far side of the roof to shake was a super-heavyweight duel avatar covered head to toe in vivid-green armor with an enormous cross shield in his left hand. There was no doubt that this was the head of Great Wall, the Green King, “Invulnerable” Green Grandé.

  Haruyuki, Takumu, and Chiyuri pulled back slightly at the overwhelming information pressure that almost made the air of the stage crackle, but the youngest of their group, Utai, spoke in an even voice. “Is that the end, then? Even if they include Ash, they’re still one person short.”

  Now that she mentioned it, that was true. In contrast with the full seven members on the Nega Nebulus side, the Great Wall side had the Green King, Pound, and Ash, plus the three whose names Haruyuki didn’t know, for a total of six. But he was pretty sure Pound had said last week that they would match Nega Nebulus’s numbers.

  “Well, I don’t mind if they’re short or not. Now, shall we go?” Kuroyukihime started to move with a gentle hover, so he hurriedly chased after her. At the same time, the green camp started to walk to the central area where Ash was waiting.

  Twenty seconds later, both camps were facing each other, separated by a distance of ten meters. Ash looked at each of the Black faces in turn before nodding slightly and joining the end of the green line.

  The first to speak was, of course, Iron Pound. “To start, we will remove the Gallery approach restriction! Like this, we can’t talk without yelling!”

  “We have no issue with that.”

  Sky Raker had no sooner responded than Pound was opening the Instruct menu from his own health gauge and deftly operating it with a hand stuffed in a glove. Once his opponent received this and pressed the button to accept, a message appeared in front of the eyes of Haruyuki and his comrades that the ten-meter limit had been lifted.

  Both sides advanced once again and stopped to stand immediately behind the large benches facing each other in the center of the plaza. They had closed the distance to three meters, and Haruyuki could clearly see the face masks of the other side.

  Standing in the middle of the seven of them, Kuroyukihime gazed at the Green King standing before her as she spoke quietly. “Grandé. I thank you for accepting my re
quest for a meeting.”

  The Green King nodded ponderously in return, but as usual, he did not speak.

  Kuroyukihime was also accustomed to this, so she continued without seeming to pay it any mind. “Now then, there are some here who have not met before, so perhaps we could start with introductions. I am the leader of Nega Nebulus, Black Lotus.”

  Submaster Raker, Akira, Utai, Takumu, Chiyuri, and Haruyuki all gave their names in turn. And in Great Wall, they started with Ash Roller, likely the lowest level among them, and then the midsize avatar with the solidly built silhouette standing next to him bowed neatly.

  “’Sup. I’m the fifth seat of the Six Armors, Suntan Chafer.”

  This voice was definitely a girl’s, which gave him a bit of a shock. And then the name sounded more Chinese than English, which was his second shock. Could it be like Chocolat Puppeter, and she was just choosing the pronunciation she preferred for the name she’d been given?

  “Suntan is light brown. Chafer is a kind of beetle,” Akira informed him quietly, from where she stood to his right.

  “Th-thanks.” Apparently, it only sounded like Chinese, but it was actually proper English.

  The next to give a name was clearly an F-type this time, a slender duel avatar who seemed out of place in Great Wall. On top of pale-green armor, she wore a dark-green cocktail dress.

  “Six Armors’ fourth seat, Lignum Vitae.” From her calm voice to her unadorned manner of speaking, she was shrouded in an air somehow similar to Aqua Current. Curious about the reaction of Akira, called the only bouncer in the Accelerated World before her return to Nega Nebulus, Haruyuki glanced to his right, but there was absolutely no change in the eye lenses beneath the flowing water armor.

  “Lignum Vitae—that’s the name of the wood that’s said to be the hardest in the world,” Akira explained for him once more, and he thanked her again before returning his gaze to the front.

  Next up was an opponent he knew well.

  “Don’t think there’s any need for me to introduce myself, but anyway. Third seat. Iron Pound.” He brought his fists up in front of him and did a quick one-two punch, which was apparently Pound’s way of saying hello.

  When Pound lowered his hands, the large avatar next to him bowed, his heavy armor squealing, and gave his name in a baritone that carried. “Six Armors, second seat, Viridian Decurion. At the moment, I’m the Legion Submaster.”

  Which means this guy’s GW’s number two? With this in mind, Haruyuki focused on him more closely.

  Just as the name Viridian would indicate, his armor was a deep and vivid green. Clad in armor and helmet resembling that of ancient Roman soldiers, he was equipped with a circular shield on his left arm and a slightly smallish sword on his left hip. Even just at a glance, it came through loud and clear that this was a powerful veteran.

  Still, the meaning of the avatar name Decurion…

  “Cavalry officer. In charge of ten men.”

  And again, Akira offered an explanation, and Haruyuki uttered “Thanks” for the third time, sounding apologetic. At basically the same moment, Viridian Decurion raised his right hand and introduced the Legion Master.

  “And this, before you, is our king, Green Grandé.”

  Grandé simply nodded slightly again and stood wordless as always.

  Opening her mouth in his place was the Black King. “Now that everyone here has given their names…Are you sure you’re all right with six people? I do have a memory of Pound saying you would come in equal number.”

  “Oh…The thing about that, okay…” Rubbing the gear on his head with a glove, Iron Pound groaned. “Like, we were planning to have seven people…How about it, Viri?”

  “Quit with that nickname in a place like this,” Viridian Decurion replied in a low voice. “Otherwise, I’ll call you Anpan.”

  “Whoa! Spare me…So? Is the first seat coming?”

  Haruyuki unconsciously gasped.

  Viridian Decurion, the second seat of the Six Armors, was the Legion’s number two. Haruyuki had just gone with it because they were both “two,” but just like Nega Nebulus’s Four Elements, the Six Armors were Great Wall’s executive group. In other words, in terms of rank, there definitely ought to have been one more person between Decurion and the Green King, the Six Armors’ first seat.

  But Decurion made a show of shrugging and remarked, in a tone that didn’t imply much respect for someone higher up than he was, “I can’t deal with all his whims. I contacted him at any rate, but it’s been five minutes, and he still hasn’t shown. We can just forget about him.”

  “Yeah? Tch! I figured today of all days I’d get to gaze upon the face of the first seat,” Pound grumbled.

  “Huh?!” Haruyuki unconsciously cried out. “Pound, you’ve never met the first seat, either?”

  The iron boxer turned his eyes on Haruyuki and nodded. “Nope, not once. Or like, the only ones in all of GW who’ve met him are Boss and Viri—I mean, Decurion. I’m the third seat, and I don’t even know his name.”

  “Whaaaat?! Is that even possible?”

  “Just the way it is. Totally crushed Decurion in one-on-one, even got the boss to a draw. If he’s that strong, then I can’t say anything in a meritocracy.”

  “A…draw…,” Haruyuki repeated, stunned, as he looked up at Green Grandé. The Green King was imperturbable, but his powers were unfathomable, to the point where he had easily stopped Haruyuki charging with all his might when he had been transformed into the sixth Chrome Disaster.

  Grandé possessed one of the Seven Arcs, the large shield Strife, and could use the iron wall special attack Parsec Wall—to get a draw with him one-on-one…Who on earth was this first seat of the Six Armors?

  Freeing Haruyuki from his frozen state was the voice of Kuroyukihime, smooth as ever.

  “I understand your situation. There is always one problem element in any executive board.” At this near grumble, faint smiles rose up on the faces of Fuko, Akira, and Utai. “There’s no point in waiting for someone who’s not coming. Now to get right to it, I’ll begin discussing measures against the Acceleration Research Society—”

  Kuroyukihime cut off mid-sentence, so Haruyuki turned his gaze to the right.

  The Black King had frozen with her face mask turned slightly downward. Fuko started to take a step toward her, but then tilted her head back at the sky, as if sensing something.

  Sucked in, Haruyuki looked up as well.

  The three skyscrapers-turned-temples rose up sharply against the dusky sky of the Twilight stage. And the top floor of Ravine Tower up at a height of 230 meters melted into the madder-red sky, obscuring it from his view.

  Glint.

  Abruptly, something small flashed near the top of the building. Glittering with the reflection of the evening sun, it was approaching rapidly. A naturally destructing object— No. A human silhouette. A duel avatar.

  Haruyuki stared hard at the avatar plummeting head over heels from the top floor of the skyscraper temple.

  The armor color looked pitch-black because of the reflected light. The build was fairly slim, but the long coat-type armor billowed out past the waist, almost like wings. From the masculine design of the face mask, it was probably an M-type. Haruyuki still couldn’t see the color of the eye lenses.

  And then someone in Nega Nebulus let out a thin cry. “Ah…Ah!”

  At basically the same time, Haruyuki realized there was something long and slender equipped on the back of the mysterious avatar.

  Swords. Two long swords crossed in the shape of an X.

  A jet-black double swordsman.

  To be continued.

  1

  “Unh…Unnnh…Uuuunnnnnnh,” Haruyuki groaned, moving a trembling finger above the open window on his virtual desktop.

  The window was the console screen for the fighting game Brain Burst. He could open it even when he wasn’t accelerated, to view things like the status and duel history of his avatar—and the number of Burst Points he had. C
urrently, he was staring at the Level-Up Bonus tab in his avatar status. Blank since he became a Burst Linker, this screen now offered him four options. This was because, last week, he had finally reached three hundred points, allowing Silver Crow to move up to level two.

  When pushing the button to level up, he’d completely forgotten about making sure he had a few extra points to ensure his next loss wasn’t his final one, so his points had dropped down to the single digits, causing chills and stomach pains for both him and his teacher Takumu. But he had somehow managed to get his balance back up, and now even that frightening time was a fond memory. It was strange that he couldn’t actually remember much of the duels he’d fought to get his points back up out of the red zone, but he had bigger fish to fry at that moment.

  That said, this was one of those moments where you cried for joy. The bonus screen before his eyes shone with a special brilliance, an extremely deluxe menu of four choices—two new special attacks, a new ability, and an enhancement of an existing ability.

  “Unnnh…Gotta go with special attack…But it’s hard to walk away from a new ability…And if I go with the special attack, then which one is stronger…?” His finger hovered above the three buttons at random, never coming down on any one of them. Haruyuki had truly cultivated and built up his indecisiveness in the real world, but the real problem here was that the game Brain Burst did not allow players to save and load. So he couldn’t use that old trick of picking one of them and then reloading and trying again if he didn’t like his choice. It was, in other words, all or nothing.

  “Ngah, nngh…If that’s the way it’s gotta be, then I just won’t look at the buttons, I’ll leave it to fate…”

  He turned just his eyes upward away from the window, pulled a finger back sharply, and steeled himself before jabbing at the screen—or pretending to, at least.

  “Arrrgh.” Once again, Haruyuki decided to postpone his decision and was on the verge of dropping his hand.

  “Hey, sorry to keep you waiting, boy! The tests just dragged on and on,” a voice said from behind, accompanied by a strongish pat on the back, making him jump.