Accel World Vol. 21: The Snow Sprite Read online

  She moved to the very edge of the ten-meter limit of movement away from her marker in the monochrome world. When she slipped through the ice wall with her immaterial avatar body, she saw the massive bulk of Glacier Behemoth a little ways off. The ice-dragon avatar, which anyone would assume to be an Enemy if they didn’t know better, had folded his arms and legs under him and was crouching down, eye lenses closed. He was probably closing off sensation and focusing solely on maintaining his Incarnate technique.

  He wasn’t alone. A small fairy-like avatar was standing on his head—most likely Snow Fairy, the second ranked of the Seven Dwarves—and she, too, had her eyes closed, not so much as twitching a finger in movement. She was also getting ready, so she could activate her terrifying, instant-death Incarnate technique Brinicle the instant Shihoko and her friends regenerated after an hour.

  Having only recently made it to level five, Shihoko was anxious about how many Burst Points she had left. Her supply would probably dry up first out of the fourteen if the Unlimited PK kept going. Naturally, she was afraid of total point loss, but she had only just recently learned after joining Nega Nebulus that, when her Burst Points dropped to zero, not only would the Brain Burst program forcibly uninstall, but all of her memories related to the Accelerated World would also be erased. In other words, she might forget Haruyuki Arita and Kuroyukihime and the others who she’d only just become friends with—and maybe even Satomi and Yume, too. She absolutely hated that thought.

  But at the moment, more than fear, it was the deep puzzlement of “why” that settled like a shroud over the heart of ghost Shihoko. She turned and walked back through the soundless world to her own marker.

  And then she noticed a fifteenth death marker spinning off on its own toward the wall. It didn’t belong to any member of Nega Nebulus. It was the marker of the Oscillatory Universe Burst Linker who had appeared suddenly inside the ice wall just as Snow Fairy’s instant death technique was on the verge of exploding and used the Incarnate technique Imaginary Time to extinguish the abilities of all the Nega Nebulus members. He, too, had been caught up in Brinicle and died. And he likely intended to keep doing the same thing until the majority of the Nega Nebulus side were at total point loss.

  Why…? What pushed them to go to such lengths? What were they trying to gain out of actions like producing the Armor of Catastrophe, spreading the ISS kits throughout the Accelerated World, and annihilating Nega Nebulus?

  No matter how she turned this question over in her mind as she stood there in the gray world, Shihoko couldn’t begin to understand the thinking of the White Legion and the Acceleration Research Society, given that she’d only just left the small box in which she’d been locked up for so long. But the one thing she could say with certainty was that she didn’t want to lose like this. She was afraid of total point loss, but more than that, as a Burst Linker, she refused to let them just have their way with her.

  She wouldn’t give up; she would think about what she could do. At that very moment, Satomi and Yume and, of course, Fuko and Utai and everyone else had to have been doing the same thing. She crossed her semitransparent arms in front of her and took a wide stance, drawing herself up to her full height in an imposing way, and glared hard at the ice wall.

  Fortunately, Kuroyukihime and Niko passed through the Shibaura Island area, slipped under the overhead Shinkansen and Yamanote train lines, and arrived in a spot near Sengakuji Temple—the center of Minato Area No. 3—without encountering any new Enemies. If the field had still been the Territories stage, the stronghold, the most critical point in the stage, would have sat within the grounds of Sengakuji. But since they hadn’t found a single of the smaller footholds along the way, the stronghold was also likely gone.

  In other words, there was no longer any need to occupy Sengakuji, so the members of both armies wouldn’t necessarily be gathering there. But even so, the instant she caught sight of the roofs of templelike buildings up ahead, Kuroyukihime felt something akin to an electric shock at the nape of her neck, and her feet unconsciously came to a stop.

  Niko also stopped next to her, as if repelled backward. Putting her right hand to the handgun on her hip, she produced a low, hoarse voice. “Some serious info presh here. Two—no, three of the Seven Dwarves are in there.”

  “And not only that. This feeling…Someone’s using Incarnate techniques,” Kuroyukihime murmured, glaring at the tall temples rising up on the other side of the low buildings.

  The light of the dawn coming from behind got in the way, so she couldn’t see clearly, but there was an obvious pale-blue light shimmering upward like a mirage from the plaza at Sengakuji. She had no doubt that it was Incarnate overlay. And not Fuko’s or Akira’s or Utai’s or anyone else on their team’s.

  “Someone on the Oscillatory Universe side’s using Incarnate, huh,” Niko said, even more quietly, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “But for all that, I can’t sense the auras of Pard and the gang.”

  Kuroyukihime nodded silently. If the enemy was using Incarnate techniques, then that was because they were fighting Nega Nebulus, but no sound or light of battle, much less the auras of their comrades, reached them. An ominous feeling growing stronger inside her, she took a step forward. “We can’t know the situation from here. We have to at least move to somewhere we can see the plaza.”

  “Yup,” Niko replied briefly, and then she quickly scanned their surroundings before pointing toward a building standing on the west side of Sengakuji. “Let’s climb that building. The walls are all slippery, so those Oscillatory Universe kids won’t be looking there, either.”

  The buildings of the Demon City stage were impenetrable as a general rule, so if you wanted to get to the roof, your only option was to climb the walls. This was possible if there were some kind of indentations to use as handholds, but the exterior of the building Niko had selected was all smooth, exposed steel plates. Unless you had the ability to move along the surface of walls like Blood Leopard, it was essentially unclimbable.

  “If they won’t be watching it, that’s all well and good. But how are we supposed to climb it?” Kuroyukihime asked.

  The second Red King grinned and turned her back toward her for some reason.

  “…What’s that about?”

  “Piggyback. Hurry up and get on.”

  Whaaaat?! She very nearly shouted but narrowly managed to hold the cry back.

  “I said, hurry it up. Or would you rather I carried you in my arms?”

  Left with no other choice, Kuroyukihime carefully straddled the back of the other, much smaller duel avatar. With two small hands, Niko grabbed hold of Kuroyukihime’s legs and yanked her up.

  “Mkay, here we go…Pyro Planing.”

  As she whispered the technique name, red flames wrapped around Niko’s legs, and she began to race down the road at an incredible speed. The steel building looming up ahead drew closer with each breath. If they crashed into it with this much force, neither entity would make it out unscathed. Just when she was about to yell for the younger girl to put on the brakes, Niko jumped.

  When her feet came into contact with the smooth surface of the wall, she dashed upward against the laws of gravity and climbed the twenty-meter wall in mere seconds, decelerating only slightly toward the end to sail over the perpendicular edge. She crouched down, and Kuroyukihime slid off her back, still hunched into herself.

  When she peered down, two tracks remained on the wall and the surface of the earth, shining a bright red. These, too, quickly faded and disappeared. Most likely, this was a first-quadrant movement-expansion type of Incarnate technique, in which the flames on her feet melted the ground very slightly and allowed her to slide on top of the molten metal like skating. Kuroyukihime understood the rationale, but to run up a vertical wall took a fairly high level of overwrite.

  “Have you always been able to use that technique?” she asked, pulling herself back upright.

  “Yeah, but it’s only lately that I’ve been practicing c
limbing walls,” Niko replied. “Sixty percent success rate, so we got lucky here.”

  “You…No, never mind.” Kuroyukihime shook her head and then turned her mind to the area ahead of them.

  Since they were both crouching down, they still couldn’t see the plaza at Sengakuji. They briefly made eye contact and then moved, their bellies pressed to the cold steel plates of the roof. When they reached the front edge and raised their heads just a little, the full spread of Sengakuji finally came into view.

  Because it was a Demon City stage, the main gate and hall had been transformed into curious temples. But the main building had been smashed to pieces; there was no sign of it. The stronghold should have been in the plaza between the main gate and building, but she couldn’t see it anywhere. It hadn’t been destroyed, however. This was an effect of the field changing from the Territories stage to the Unlimited Neutral Field, as she’d guessed earlier.

  In its place was a strange object in the center of the large space. A mountain of ice, transparent blue. Actually, it looked like the inside was a cave, so it was not a mountain but a tower perhaps. Ten meters or more around—and even taller than it was wide. The pale-blue overlay enveloping it was proof that it had been created through Incarnate.

  And she instantly knew which Burst Linker had activated the Incarnate System. A frighteningly massive shadow was crouched quite close to the tower of ice. At first glance, it looked like a four-legged Beast-type Enemy, but it was not. This was the seventh of Oscillatory Universe’s Seven Dwarves, Glacier Behemoth.

  And a small Burst Linker was sitting on top of his head. Compared with the enormous beast avatar, she was ridiculously tiny, but her sense of presence was even greater than Behemoth’s. The second of the Seven Dwarves, Snow Fairy.

  Around the plaza, Kuroyukihime could identify twelve other human shadows. It appeared that the majority of Oscillatory Universe’s territory defense team was gathered at Sengakuji.

  Meanwhile, however, she couldn’t see a single member of the Nega Nebulus attacking team. Were they gathered somewhere else and standing by? If that was the case, then they had to find out where.

  That was when Kuroyukihime realized a large number of somethings were locked away inside the massive tower of ice.

  All that made it through the thick wall was a variety of colors, but they were too small to be duel avatars. Was the brightness cycling regularly because they were spinning at a fixed speed? Some kind of item. Or maybe a marker…

  Kuroyukihime gasped, and Niko shuddered beside her.

  They were all Burst Linker death markers. Whose? No, it was obvious; they belonged to the newly born third Nega Nebulus’s territory attacking team—to Sky Raker, Aqua Current, Ardor Maiden, Silver Crow, and the others. Oscillatory Universe had changed the Territories stage to the Unlimited Neutral Field, brought Raker and the others together in this plaza, and then eliminated them in one go with Incarnate techniques.

  And not only that. Given that Behemoth continued to close the death markers off inside the ice wall—the cage—with Fairy standing by, they were planning to do the same thing again. The instant Nega Nebulus regenerated in an hour, they would kill them with Incarnate once more. Until every member of the attacking team lost all their Burst Points.

  It had been a trap. Oscillatory Universe, no, the White King herself had foreseen Nega Nebulus’s attack in the Territories and made meticulous preparations in order to completely annihilate the Legion and remove them from the Accelerated World forever.

  Kuroyukihime’s field of view was dyed a faint red, and the swords of both arms were trembling.

  You’d probably say that the one who is caught in a trap is a fool, hmm? But in that case, you won’t object if I do the same thing to you. You can’t complain if I eliminate everyone here with Incarnate and take all their points in an Unlimited PK, Cosmos!!

  Kuroyukihime was on the verge of leaping to her feet when Niko quickly caught the sword of her right hand. The passive ability Terminate Sword was always activated in the swords of Black Lotus’s limbs—the manifestation of Kuroyukihime’s mental trauma, of hurting everything by simply touching it. The sharp blade dug a few millimeters into Scarlet Rain’s slender fingers, and a red damage effect like blood spilled out. But Niko didn’t move to open her own small hand.

  “Wait, Lotus,” she said, hushed.

  “I can’t!” Kuroyukihime replied, barely keeping her voice down. “They’re planning to drive Raker and the others to total point loss! And Leopard and the Triplex are in there. Niko, you—”

  “Yeah. My blood’s boiling, too. But that’s exactly why you need to calm down for a sec!”

  Scolded by a girl three years her junior, Kuroyukihime had no choice but to obey. She let out a long sigh, and the tension left her body.

  Niko finally took her hand off the sword and turned her gaze back to the plaza. “Crow’s prob’ly not in there,” she said unexpectedly.

  “Wh-what?” Kuroyukihime hurriedly peered into the ice cage.

  The Incarnate-generated ice was nearly a meter thick, and the interior was only hazily visible. She could barely manage to see that there were some dozen or more death markers inside; she very much could not identify which one was whose. “How do you know that?”

  “That ice’s open at the top.” Niko grinned. “A crow could just fly away.”

  “N-now, look.” Kuroyukihime struggled with how exactly to retort to that logic.

  Niko grew serious again as she continued, “And with my Vision Extension ability, I can visualize things like wind changes and heat sources and info pressure. The information pattern of death markers is unique, so that’s easier to identify than trying to see through that ice with my eyes. I can’t tell which marker is whose, but at the very least, I know there’s only fifteen of them in there. That’s for sure.”

  “Fifteen…,” Kuroyukihime muttered, reconfirming the formation of the attack team in the back of her mind.

  Three of Nega Nebulus’s Four Elements. With Crow, Bell, and Pile, that was six. Ten adding in the Petit Paquet group and Magenta Scissor. Sixteen with the Ash Roller group and the Triplex. And with the addition of Trilead Tetroxide, who had only become a Legion member that day, seventeen. If she excluded the Archangel Metatron, who she assumed would not have a death marker, it was true that there were indeed two missing.

  “But how do you know that it was Crow who escaped?” Kuroyukihime asked before coming upon the answer on her own. “Oh, I see. To escape that Unlimited PK, one way would be to return to the real world through a portal and pull everyone’s Neurolinkers off their necks. In which case, that role would have been assigned to Crow, who can fly.”

  “That’s the gist of it.” Niko glanced up at Kuroyukihime before smiling faintly. “And, like, if you were locked up in there in this totally desperate situation, you’d have tried your damnedest to get Crow out of there, logical or not, yeah? I’m pretty sure Pard or Raker would’ve done the same.”

  “Mm. That is true.” She jabbed Niko lightly in the side as if to say the younger girl was no different and then turned her gaze up toward the dawn sky. “All of which means that Crow is currently moving toward a portal somewhere. But even if he did manage a lucky escape with no tail, it would take at least ten seconds for him to pull off everyone’s Neurolinkers by himself, even if he did hurry. Ten seconds in the real world is nearly three hours in the Accelerated World. Which means we can expect that they will be hit another two times at the very least by this Incarnate attack.”

  “I don’t think twice is gonna knock anyone down to total point loss,” Niko said. “But we got just two other probs here, okay? The bike guy’s buddies coming from GW to help—Bush Utan and Olive Grab, yeah? Weren’t they supposed to join the Territories from a train or platform on the Yamanote Line?”

  “Right. Crow can’t force them to burst out then,” Kuroyukihime replied. “And the second problem?”

  “That one’s simple. It’s that you and I will have to stay h
idden here like this and watch fifteen of our pals be killed two more times.”

  “You were the one who stopped me before,” Kuroyukihime pointed out.

  Niko snorted. “Doesn’t change the fact that I was on the verge of explodin’ myself. Can’t say I can just sit here without chargin’ in there if those guys actually try to kill Pard an’ them.”

  “Nor can I.” Kuroyukihime thought a moment. “If Crow succeeds in leaving, at the very least, one or two of the markers will disappear before everyone is regenerated. Let’s wait first for that. If not a single marker disappears, then it means that Crow’s escape has been obstructed. At that time…”

  “We strike when Pard and the others regenerate. You’re good with that, yeah?”

  “I’m good with that.” Kuroyukihime nodded again and took slow breaths, and let the tension slip out of her entire body. An incandescent rage still twisted and churned inside her duel avatar. She focused it all into a single point in her chest in time with her breathing and condensed it into a pale light.

  If she was to be honest, she did actually want to leap down from the building that very second and go full throttle with a destructive Incarnate, ripping the members of Oscillatory Universe limb from limb. Despite knowing that if they fought back and she lost, she would end up trapped in an Unlimited PK together with Fuko and the others—or maybe it was precisely because of that.

  But there were far too many unknowns at the moment. The fact that the entire Nega Nebulus attack team had made it into the stage meant that there should have been nineteen on the Oscillatory defense team. But in the plaza below, no matter which way she counted, there were only fourteen people. Which meant that the other five were somewhere other than Sengakuji. Was one of those people Megumi Wakamiya?

  She met Megumi the day she started at Umesato Junior High. With the largest bounty in the Accelerated World on her head as a king killer, Kuroyukihime could only refuse when she was invited to a class party outside of school because she couldn’t connect to the global network, and she decided to stay at school until the final order to leave at the end of the day. However, she had plenty of things she needed to do. When she was walking around trying to get a handle on the positions of all the social cameras in the school, she came across Megumi in the library—or maybe Megumi had found her.