Accel World Vol. 22: Sun God of Absolute Flame Read online

  Megumi told Haruyuki then that she was a Burst Linker, and she was supposed to have lost all her points long, long ago, but her memories had come back to her mere hours before the start of the Territories. And that White Cosmos, the White King, had told her that if she followed her instructions, Cosmos would bring Megumi’s parent, Saffron Blossom, back to life.

  Haruyuki was convinced that this was a lie on the part of the White King, because it had been the White King herself who’d forced Saffron to total point loss in the distant past. But Megumi had refused to listen to Haruyuki and tried to close herself off in her shell once more.

  Then they had heard her voice. Saffron’s.

  He didn’t know whether it was real or an illusion. But Megumi had listened to her—“Do what you think is right, Orkki. Do what you can now for the sake of the person you love”—and returned to the battlefield, where she restored it to its original Territories field from the Unlimited Neutral Field.

  With the attacking team on the verge of annihilation on the main battlefield, when the stage changed back, team leaders Kuroyukihime and Niko launched a combined counterattack with their full-powered Incarnate techniques and eliminated the defending Oscillatory team. The Territories finished in a Nega Nebulus victory, and Minato Area No. 3 finally became Black territory.

  But the report they got back from Cobalt Blade and Manganese Blade, the Blue Legion’s Dualis who had taken on the job of observers, stunned Haruyuki. Even after the right to refuse challenges had been stripped from the White Legion, not a single member of the Acceleration Research Society appeared on the matching list in Minato Area No. 3.

  And then, as the party grew dejected, Shihoko Nago said something utterly astonishing. Desperate, surrounded by ten Devil-class Enemies, she had decided to memorize and record her brave comrades engaged in this fierce struggle. So she had unexpectedly caught the moment on a secret replay card. The moment when Ivory Tower—the most powerful executive member of Oscillatory Universe, full proxy to the White King and fourth of the Seven Dwarves—transformed into Black Vise, the jet-black layered avatar who called himself the vice president of the Acceleration Research Society.

  The replay card item could only be obtained at a shop in the Unlimited Neutral Field, and editing or processing of the video recorded on it was absolutely impossible. Thus, Shihoko’s recording could be more than sufficient to serve as the concrete proof Haruyuki and his comrades had been looking for.

  Black Vise had barged into the Hermes’ Cord race at the beginning of June together with Rust Jigsaw, another confirmed Society member, and revealed his distinctive form to the eyes of the large Gallery gathered there. At the first meeting of the Seven Kings soon after, Kuroyukihime had announced to all assembled the names of these two avatars and the organization to which they belonged. So the other kings likely had no doubt that Black Vise was, for all intents and purposes, the ringleader of the Acceleration Research Society.

  Ivory Tower would be at this fourth meeting of the Seven Kings, feigning ignorance. If they played the replay card and showed him and everyone one else at the meeting the scene where he transformed into Black Vise, this time for sure, there would be no way for him to evade the issue or argue his way out. For sure. Definitely.

  While Haruyuki was certain of this, he couldn’t completely erase the vague anxiety in his heart, and he wiped a sweaty palm on the pants of his uniform. When he lifted his head, he found that the happily chatting troop of girls had also fallen silent while he’d slipped down the rabbit hole of his thoughts.

  Fuko stopped the car in a parking lot near an office area a little west from where they’d turned onto Uchibori Street. Unsurprisingly, given that it was Sunday, they were the lone car in the lot. The only sound in the cabin was the faint whir of the air-conditioning and the chirping of the cicadas seeping in through the glass of the windows.

  Haruyuki stared for a moment at the line of Kuroyukihime’s cheek that he could see through the gap in the headrest. She seemed totally the same as always in the way she spoke and acted, but there had been a faint anxiety coloring that profile all morning. He knew the reason for that, too.

  Orchid Oracle—Megumi Wakamiya. After talking with Haruyuki in the Territories the day before, she had returned the stage to the original duel field, bringing about the Nega Nebulus victory. She and Kuroyukihime had been friends since they started at Umesato Junior High, and Kuroyukihime hadn’t been able to get ahold of her since the end of the duel.

  Megumi had betrayed the White Legion, and Haruyuki couldn’t believe that the coldhearted Black Vise—or the White King—would forgive her so easily as all that. In the worst case, they might even push Oracle to total point loss once again after bringing her back to life.

  On the drive over to the Chiyoda area, Kuroyukihime had said, “Megumi’s a whole lot tougher than she looks. They won’t catch her so easily.” But the way she said it had sounded more like she was trying to convince herself. And since Kuroyukihime still hadn’t heard a peep from her via mail or voice call or anything, he could only assume something had happened to her.

  If she wasn’t answering her phone or mails, the only other option was to go over to her house. And Kuroyukihime was probably intently pushing back her desire to do just that. All he could do right now was wait for his Legion Master’s decision.

  “Your nerves are infectious, Haruyuki,” Kuroyukihime muttered abruptly, and touched a finger to the small monitor embedded in the center console. Modern cars were set up to display speed, battery life, and even route navigation directly in a driver’s visual field via the Neurolinker, but since not all drivers used Linkers, cars were still often equipped with physical gauges and monitors.

  She turned the flashing monitor into a television screen, and instantly, cheers spilled out from the speakers at a modest volume. On the screen was a stadium or gymnasium somewhere. A girl in a red leotard was waving a hand to the crowd that filled the spectator seats. Half of the screen switched to a replay video.

  “Oh, right. Today’s the national gymnastics meet,” Chiyuri murmured.

  Fuko pushed a button on the steering wheel and turned the volume up a little. The commentator’s voice rang out in the vehicle cabin.

  “—was a wonderful performance. Next up, we have Risa Tsukiori in the academic artistic gymnastics division vault.”

  Both screens changed to show a gymnast in a white leotard with splashes of violet, her slightly lighter black hair pulled back into a ponytail.

  “Tsukiori will be doing a Produnova vault, a front handspring followed by two front somersaults. This is an extremely challenging vault with a difficulty score of 7.0, but she performed it magnificently in the preliminaries…”

  As the commentator spoke, the gymnast in the white leotard loosely held up her right hand and began her approach run. Swinging her outstretched arms like whips, she ran down the runway, light on her feet like a wild animal. Unlike the previous gymnast, she didn’t do a roundoff, but rather planted hard on the springboard with both feet. And then they heard an obviously abnormal high-pitched metallic squeal over the speakers.

  “Ah!”

  He wasn’t sure if it was Chiyuri or Shihoko who cried out.

  The gymnast lost her balance in midair and spun around diagonally twice before hitting the mat headfirst. She bounced and then fell facedown, where she stayed motionless, not so much as twitching. There was a cry of anguish from the spectators, and a woman who looked like a coach, the meet staff, and several gymnasts all raced over to the ponytailed girl on the ground. They turned her over carefully, but her eyes remained shut.

  “It looks like the springboard broke,” Fuko said in a concerned voice, peering close to the screen. “I can’t believe an accident like that would happen at a national meet.”

  “I hope she’s not seriously injured,” Kuroyukihime said, and Haruyuki bobbed his head in agreement.

  Tring! He heard a faint echo in the core of his mind. Much more ephemeral and clear than the
sound of a bell, the sound was not of the real world nor a Neurolinker notification nor even a hallucination. From the distant Accelerated World, a voice was calling his name…

  “Um, Kuroyukihime?” he timidly called out to the front seat. He was worried about the injured gymnast, too, but he couldn’t exactly ignore this sound.

  Kuroyukihime looked back at him. “What is it, Haruyuki?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just…,” he said. “Is it all right if I go for a second? I’ll be back before the meeting.”

  “Go where? The washroom? I wonder if there’s a convenience store nearby.” Kuroyukihime moved to switch the monitor to the navigation screen, and he hurried to stop her.

  “N-no, not the washroom. To the Unlimited Neutral Field…”

  “What?!” Chiyuri shouted. Fuko and Shihoko also turned toward him with question marks in their eyes. “Now listen, Haru. We only got five minutes until the meeting starts. If you wanna hunt Enemies, you can do that after.”

  “Th-that’s not it. I’m not going to hunt Enemies…Metatron called me,” he announced meekly.

  “Huh?” Chiyuri blinked repeatedly, eyes wide. “Metacchi called…?”

  Meanwhile, Kuroyukihime made an obviously distasteful face. “Honestly. At a time like this— No, wait.”

  Then a dumbfounded look crossed both of their faces simultaneously.

  “Metatron called you?!” Kuroyukihime shouted.

  “From the Unlimited Neutral Field?! How?!” Chiyuri cried.

  It was only natural they were surprised, and both Shihoko and Fuko were also staring at him with wide eyes now, but he didn’t have the time to explain. While they were sitting there like that, time was passing a thousand times faster in the Unlimited Neutral Field.

  “Uh, um. I’ll explain everything later! I’ll be back in two—no, one minute. If I’m not back by then, please pull my Neurolinker off my neck!” he yelped tongue-twister fast, and then leaned back in his seat before connecting his Neurolinker to the global net. The connected icon had no sooner flashed in his field of view than he was shouting the command.

  “Unlimited Burst!”

  Skreeeeee!!

  The sound of acceleration freed Haruyuki’s mind from his physical body and sent him flying to the true Accelerated World.

  2

  A dry wind blew across the rust-colored landscape. Haruyuki stepped onto the gravelly earth with hard silver feet and looked around.

  All the office buildings encircling the hourly parking area in the real world had been transformed into giant rugged rocks. He could see essentially zero plant objects, and there were no birds in the pale-yellow sky. A Wasteland stage—which vied for first or second place in the super-yawn stage rankings.

  But Haruyuki didn’t actually hate the Wasteland. You couldn’t go inside the boulders that took the place of buildings, and there were no weird terrain gimmicks or traps, so you could just focus on your battle with your opponent. Naturally, however, he had no duel opponent now. Even so, he did a brief scan of the area and once he confirmed that there were no Enemies or duel avatars around, he closed his eyes beneath his mirrored visor.

  “I’m here, Metatron.”

  He had previously needed nearly a minute to establish a link with the Archangel, but with just this single thought, a dot of white light appeared in the center of his dark field of view. It instantly stabilized from a blinking state and when he opened his eyelids—or more precisely, the shutters of his eye lenses—a glowing three-dimensional icon had materialized before his eyes.

  “You’re late!!” The icon snapped an unfortunately familiar phrase before Haruyuki could say a word, as she slapped at Silver Crow’s helmet with tiny wings. “Do you realize how much time has passed since I called you, servant?”

  “S-sorry. But time’s a thousand times slower in the real—I mean, the Lowest Level…”

  “In that case, you must simply move within .001 seconds of my call,” she sniffed.

  “That’s bonkers!”

  His pathetically strangled cry made him realize now was no time to be argumentative. The minute he had promised Kuroyukihime and the others was in fact sixteen hours and forty minutes in the Unlimited Neutral Field, but he really should get back right away if possible. “W-wait, wait, forget that. Um, why did you call me? If you don’t need me for anything in particular, we have a big meeting soon on the other side, so—”

  Whap, whap, whap!

  “Foolish creature! I am quite busy myself, so the idea that I would call you here with no particular need…I won’t say I would never do that, but this is not one of those times.”

  “Huh? So then what is it?” he asked as he rubbed his head at the site of the repeated wing slaps.

  But the 3-D icon didn’t immediately reply. Instead, she examined their surroundings. “This place is…Hmm, it’s not very far away at all. Remain on standby for approximately thirty seconds.”

  “Huh? Th-thirty seconds?”

  Not far? From where? Haruyuki wanted to ask follow-up questions, but the 3-D icon had already vanished without a sound.

  Left with no other choice, he counted down the half minute as he stood in the middle of the empty lot surrounded by massive reddish rocks. He counted ten, twenty, twenty-five seconds, and then he heard a faint echo of an unfamiliar sound, like something resonating at a superhigh frequency above his head.

  Gah! Enemy attack? He dropped into a ready position and looked up to see something shoot straight down from the sky above. A female avatar, two wings spread wide, silver hair rippling gracefully. There was no mistaking her—this was the second form of the Legend-class Enemy the Archangel Metatron; in other words, Metatron’s true form.

  Haruyuki was frozen in place as Metatron landed silently and approached Silver Crow’s mirrored visor with a beauty that made its intense majesty felt even though her eyes remained closed.

  “What do you think? I made you wait only a mere twenty-eight seconds, yes? You would do well to learn from my example and come immediately when called.”

  “W-wait, wait, wait! F-f-f-f-f-first…” He raised his hands unconsciously and grabbed the Archangel’s slender shoulders as he interrogated her. “H-how are you in this form in the Mean Level of the Unlimited Neutral Field? We defeated your first form in the Contrary Cathedral nearly a full nine days ago in real time. You should have gone back to your first form with the Change and returned to the dungeon ages ago— Oh! Is this maybe a vision or a holographic projection or something?”

  As he rambled on excitedly, he squeezed and shook Metatron’s shoulders.

  “S-such insolence!” The Archangel’s right wing snapped to attention and she flicked Haruyuki’s forehead with the tip of it. She might have intended it to be the lightest of touches, but given that this was a blow from the strongest Being in the Accelerated World outside the Four Gods, it was an order of magnitude stronger than the slaps of a 3-D icon with no battle strength to speak of.

  “Hngah!” he cried out pathetically and flew backward to slam into a reddish-brown rocky pillar. That he escaped with only a 20 percent drop in his health gauge might have been due to the fact that the instant he took the wing poke, he instinctively tried to let the damage wash over him with the Way of the Flexible.

  Even so, the effect of taking an incredible blow to the top of his head didn’t disappear right away, and when he peeled himself off the pillar, he fell face-first onto the ground. There was probably the white light of a stun effect circling around his head.

  “Goodness. You did go flying farther than I’d expected.” Metatron glided over to him and, cupping her wings out to use them like hands, lifted Haruyuki up and cradled him. His depleted gauge remained that way, but the pure white phosphorescence of her wings was cozily warm.

  “Unh.” More or less recovered from the stun effect, Haruyuki protested feebly, “Th-that was awful, Metatron.”

  “It is your own fault for acting in such an unseemly fashion earlier.” She turned her face away from
him sharply even as she continued to support him with her wings. “At any rate, you should now understand that I am not an illusion or anything of the sort.”

  “Y-yeah. I understand completely. But…then how are you outside? Your first form in the Contrary Cathedral must have been restored ages ago.”

  No matter how many times Enemies in the Unlimited Neutral Field were defeated, they were restored every time the Change occurred, and the Four Gods were no exception to this rule. And the interval between Changes was roughly seven days of time inside. Haruyuki and his friends had defeated her first form the previous evening, so it had already been nearly two years on this side, and countless Changes had to have occurred during that time.

  Metatron nodded slightly, her eyelashes still lowered. “Yes, my first form has indeed been restored to the deepest level of the Contrary Cathedral.”

  “Huh?” He stared hard at her. “So, so then don’t you have to go back in there, too?”

  “I anticipated that myself…” Unusual for her, the Archangel allowed her sentence to trail away.

  Now that he was thinking about it, pretty much all their conversations had been carried out via the 3-D icon or on the Highest Level where neither of them had actual bodies, so this was essentially the first time he’d had the chance to get a good look at the actual Metatron up close. Her face had the same structure as a human girl’s, but there was no whiff of humanity to her. It wasn’t that she looked polygonal or that she was too beautiful to be real, but rather that she had a divinity to her, akin to a real angel.

  After talking to that tiny icon all this time, maybe I kinda forgot what Metatron’s really like…

  Metatron opened her mouth once more, perhaps aware of what was in Haruyuki’s heart, perhaps not, as she stroked Silver Crow’s armor with both wings, almost tickling him. “Somehow, I…It seems that the system could not anticipate a situation in which the first form of Metatron would be outside what you little warriors call the ‘boss room’ when the transition occurred. I had returned to my castle prior to the transition’s arrival when you previously destroyed my first form, so I did not realize it before. But it appears now that I will not be forcibly returned to the room of the first form no matter how many times the transition happens.”