The first thing he felt was a merciless chill, as if the season had reversed to three months back.

He timidly opened his eyes, and only colors that went from white to blue expanded out across his entire vision.

It was snow—and ice. All of the surrounding terrain was formed out of thick ice, and pure white snow thinly covered it all. The whole sky was filled with milk-colored clouds.

“The ?Ice and Snow? stage, huh. I don’t like this one.”

After Haruyuki looked to his right where the voice came from, a girl-type avatar with ruby-like vivid crimson armor stood there while shaking the long antennas on her head.

Her size was slightly smaller than that of Silver Crow. Whether it was her face-mask with sparkling round and cute lenses or her body which had almost no sharp edges, she could only be seen as a harmless mascot character.

But this duel avatar was the body of the long-distance firepower demon that silences even crying children, the boss of the legion ?Prominence?, Scarlet Rain.

The Red King looked up at Haruyuki and spoke in a seemingly dissatisfied voice.

“Hey Crow, is that metal armor cold resistant?”

“Y-Yes, on the whole..”

Nodding and shouting “Unfair!!”, she suddenly scooped up some snow at her feet into her hands and struck it against Haruyuki’s back.

“Uhyarue!”

“Come on, make this body rust! Come on, come on!”

“Hyoguu! W-When I say resistant, it’s only in terms of numerical damage, the c-cold itself is still the same!”

As he hopped away to escape from the cold-feeling attack, a magnificent cough was heard from a little ways away. As he turned to look in that direction at the same time as Niko, a large avatar with dark blue armor was standing there with his arms folded. Of course, it was Takumu—Cyan Pile.

“O-Oh, that’s right, that’s right.”

Scarlet Rain moved away from Haruyuki while seeming a little embarrassed, and also coughed.

“For the time being, I’ll say welcome to our Nerima area. If it weren’t for this kind of situation, you’d be immediately attacked and driven out, though!”

She quickly spread her arms wide, so Haruyuki looked around at his surroundings once again.

The first thing he felt was that the wideness of the sky. He immediately understood the reason for that feeling. The three of them were currently standing in a not very wide space that stood at an intersection of frozen roads, but almost no large geographical objects that could obstruct their vision were within sight.

Only, he could see a slightly tall ice palace that was a little ways away from them to the northwest. When he compared it to a map of the real world in his mind, it was probably the Nerima District Government Office. In addition, he noticed a huge tower that grew hazier as if melting the higher it went, far away in the sky to the east. That was probably the Sunshine City in Ikebukuro within the Toshima district, where they had fought ?Chrome Disaster?. There were also no ?Enemies? or other Burst Linkers within sight.

Haruyuki sucked a deep breath of cold air into his chest and then spoke.

“This is a spacious and comfortable area, isn’t it!”

Just then, a howling flying snowball hit Silver Crow’s helmet right in the center.

“S-Sorry that there isn’t anything here! We don’t have anything like your Suginami!!”

Shouting with her antennas standing on end, Niko turned away in another direction and continued.

“Ah geez, the preface is over! We’re quickly starting the class! You guys sit down over there!”

Sensing that his words had pressed the anger switch of Nerima residents, Haruyuki looked at Takumu and then they both hurriedly sat down in the center of the intersection.

As she folded her arms and raised herself up to her full height while briskly walking in front of the two of them, Scarlet Rain’s presence—suddenly changed.

The childishness she had been given off until now evaporated without a trace. The light within her lenses became sharper, and it felt like her avatar’s body itself became bigger.

“I’ll say this first.”

The voice she let out also had a tone that was clearer and more frigid than the stage’s cold wind.

“Before I teach you about the ?Incarnate System?, you have to promise me one thing.”

Looking one by one at Haruyuki and Takumu as they gulped, Niko declared clearly.

“You must never use an Incarnate technique outside of a situation where you are attacked with an Incarnate technique. Promise that you will uphold this on your pride as Burst Linkers!”

“....U-Umm, is that because it’s cowardly to use it otherwise?”

When Haruyuki unconsciously asked that, Niko immediately denied it.

“No. It’s because, in this game, your true enemy is yourself. Because ultimately, mind power exists not just to defeat enemies, but to confront your own weakness.”

Haruyuki and Takumu couldn’t press the issue and say no. Besides, they by no means wanted to learn about the Incarnate System in order to win duels by using it. They just wanted to fight against the mind power-user Dusk Taker.

Haruyuki and Takumu looked at each other for an instant, and then cried out “Yes!” at the same time.

“Alright. If you break this promise, I’ll make you experience a horrifying day in order to take responsibility for it, after all.”

After nodding his head many times at high speed, Haruyuki cautiously asked an additional question.

“..U-Umm, but. I think it’s difficult to distinguish between the appearance of a normal technique and an Incarnate technique..I feel that I can’t tell if I’m not hit by it..”

“Hey, you’ve already learned the bare basics, haven’t you?”

Niko let out an amazed voice, and struck out the index finger of her right hand with a snap.

“Listen well, Incarnate techniques have two big differences with special techniques..First, even if you use it, the special technique gauge doesn’t decrease!”

“Ah..yeah, c-certainly, that’s true..”

Haruyuki nodded once, but then immediately the next question gushed forth in him.

“..But then, what do you do if you’re in the Unlimited Neutral Field, where the opponent’s gauge can’t be seen?”

Then Niko stuck out a second finger and—

“That is the second difference! It shines!”

“S-Shines?”

Haruyuki shouted back that far too vague word. Certainly, when mentioned it, Haruyuki’s ?sword of light? shined white as its name suggested and Noumi’s ?wave surge of nothingness? also emitted a purple light, but was that a system-like phenomenon that was common to all Incarnate techniques?

Hearing Haruyuki’s uncertain voice, Niko gave a thin smile.

“It isn’t something vague like ?determination? or ?fighting spirit?. Listen well, when using Incarnate techniques, our consciousness and duel avatars are connected to an ?image control system?. When an excess of imagination passes through the circuit, the system overflows and the irregular signals are processed as a particle-like effect without substance—in other words, as light. Specifically..like this.”

Niko tightly clenched her still struck-out right hand.

Suddenly, her arm from her fist to near her elbow burst into red flames, no, it wasn’t exactly flames. It was a crimson light covering and shaking over her arm.

“..It also depends on the strength of your mind power, but if it’s a strong image that can be used in battle, it will definitely shine like this. We call this ?Over-Ray[1]?. Listen well, the phenomenon of an avatar continuously emitting light like this never occurs except when activating the Incarnate System. Since even if special techniques emit light, it’s only for an instant.”

Abruptly putting out the flames, Niko spoke to sum it up.

“In other words, if an enemy avatar shines with an aura like just now and moreover their gauge doesn’t decrease, that’s an Incarnate technique. But..even in such a situation, if you can run away, then run away. Fight back with mind power only in battles that you can’t concede no matter what. Understood!?”

—Naturally, they had the question of ‘why does it have to be restricted so strongly?’. But, Niko, who was waiting for their reply, was surrounded by an intense intimidating air that was truly like that of a King, so Haruyuki didn’t question it any further.

“..Yes, understood!”

He shouted that out in a single voice along with Takumu, and the Red King finally seemed satisfied and nodded.

“Good. Then, with this the preface is over.”

Folding her arms in front of her flat chest, she gave a single cough and then—

Niko suddenly said some unexpected words.

“Right now, you guys should be thinking this. ‘Since its use is so insistently restricted, the ?Incarnate System? must possess a terrible power and if mastered anything can be done.’ But, that’s a big mistake.”

“..Eh....?”

Feeling far more surprised at the contents of her words than the Red King’s intimidating air, Haruyuki unconsciously raised his voice.

“N-No way. Mind power should be able to make the impossible possible..”

“No. Listen well, mind power is never an almighty power. Drive this into your brains first.”

After declaring that in a tone that made one think of hot flames, Niko gave an imperceptible smile over her mouth and continued.

“You seem dissatisfied, Crow. You don’t agree?”

Swallowing his saliva, Haruyuki nervously nodded.

“Y..Yes. Because, I..experienced just how amazing mind power is with my own body. Both by being hit by that power and by attacking with it myself.”

“Hmph, you seem rather confident. Okay, stand up.”

Obeying her raised index finger, he timidly stood up. While feeling Takumu’s gaze, he took several steps forward.

“Now then, show us that power of yours.”

Those were the words Haruyuki had expected, so he had already been prepared for it the moment he stood up. After answering with just “All right”, he stepped up to one of the blocks of ice scattered about close by.

‘My Incarnate technique will surely be nothing special when seen by the King Niko, but—let’s show her something a step above her expectations’, such thoughts and feelings also existed within Haruyuki. The ?sword of light?, which Haruyuki had mastered by facing off against the cliff that exceeded the 300 meters of the Old Tokyo Tower over the course of a week, had also certainly been able to pierce through the ?wave surge of nothingness? of the formidable enemy Dusk Taker.

Stopping one meter in front of a transparent blue block of ice that was about the same size as himself, Haruyuki lowered his waist. It was a suitable distance that absolutely could not be reached if he threw out an ordinary punch.

He folded his right hand’s thumb into his palm and straightened together his remaining four fingers. While twisting his upper body to the right, he prepared his blade-shaped hand sword at his side.

—My hand is a sword. A sword that pierces through everything at the speed of light.

The sound of the cold wind blowing through the stage went off far away and disappeared. The surrounding scenery also sank into dimness, and only the center point of the blue block of ice stood out clearly in his vision.

*iiiIIIN*?Minute vibrations were transmitted through his body, and a white light, what Niko called ?Over-Ray?, appeared on the tip of his piercing hand. It soon spread from his wrist almost all the way to his elbow.

“....Shi!!”

With a momentary fervor, Haruyuki made his waist rotate and then stick out his hand sword straight forward.

*SHUKIIIIN!!*?Along with a high and clear sound, a sharp white light was send out from his extended right arm, and sunk into the middle of the block of ice.

A beat passed by after the light vanished, and the ice let out a cracking sound—And then the huge block split apart right and left from a vertical crack in the middle and fell down. With a solemn impact, thinly-piled snow went flying through the air.

As he let out a breath and raised his body back up, Haruyuki was greeted by Niko’s applause when he turned around. Takumu wholeheartedly banged together his left hand and right arm’s ?Pile Driver?, and Niko also clapped her hands without reserve.

“Heh, that was a more decent technique than I expected. Impressive.”

As Haruyuki scratched his head and said “Oh no, I wouldn’t go that far” in response to the Red King’s comment, his movements were stopped as her words continued.

“—For the first step of the first step, that is.”

“....F-First step?”

“Of course! What you used just now was one of the four basic types of Incarnate techniques, ?Attack Range Expansion[2]?.”

“....B-Basic?”

After beckoning at the dumbfounded Haruyuki who was repeating her words and making him sit in his original place, Niko coughed and then continued.

“Listen well, it may be called by the exaggerated name ?mind power?, but in the end this is only a single logic that operates within the Brain Burst program..In other words, it is an operation that functions according to the Diver’s image power. To put it another way, due to one’s intense subjective impression, this world’s God..the system mistakenly believes it to be reality.”

After taking a short pause to breathe there, the scarlet avatar spoke slowly in order to engrave her words into the minds of her two students.

“But, in order to actually cause this phenomenon, an image that is strong enough to deceive even yourself is needed before the system can be deceived. A ?belief? that surpasses the level of imagination power. And two things are needed in order to conceive that belief in your heart. ?Experience? that has been instilled over an overwhelming amount of time, and a ?desire? whose source is an absolute lack of something. An image that isn’t backed by these two things will never become reality.”

“....Experience, and a desire....”

Nodding slightly at Haruyuki as he mumbled that in a hoarse voice, Niko stepped back several steps and spoke while loosely hanging her arms at her sides.

“—This is a huge service. I’ll demonstrate it just once, so look carefully.”

The instant they heard that, Haruyuki and Takumu corrected their sitting postures with a jolt while sitting in seiza[3]?position. In order to miss nothing, they opened their eyes so wide that they were practically spilling out from their helmets.

The smallest-sized female avatar turned her body towards the south side of the intersection and—

Suddenly, a pale red flame-like aura appeared on her left fist just as it did a while ago.

“This is the first of the four types of basic techniques, ?Attack Range Expansion?.”

With a voice empty of fighting spirit, she threw forward her left arm at such a fast speed that it became hazy. The air resounded like a whip, and a long straight line of flames was etched into the air.

Immediately after, a wall of ice that was 30 meters away spouted out pure white vapor into the air with a ‘BOSHUU’ sound. When that vapor had scattered to the winds, a huge hole of a size that a single person could slip through was visible in the middle of the wall. The color of the smooth inner wall had changed from blue to black, and it was impossible to tell just how deep the hole went.

The still-speaking voice reached the ears of the two dumbfounded boys whose eyes had peeled.

“And this is the second basic technique, ?Movement Ability Expansion[4]?.”

The aura of flames wrapped around her small legs this time. Her avatar quickly sank its body, and then her form suddenly disappeared.

No, Haruyuki’s eyes could just barely see a hazy silhouette. She was behind him. When he quickly turned in that direction, Niko was standing there with her hands against her hips. She had easily moved 30 meters from where she originally stood. When looking closely, a thin track that was melting and raising pale white smoke was etched into the icy road surface. Without giving them the time to catch their breaths, Niko’s figure disappeared a second time leaving only a ‘SHUWAH!” sound. She surrounded Haruyuki and Takumu with a circular white track and then returned to her original position.

It was overwhelming.

The range of her long-distance attack endlessly exceeded that of Silver Crow’s ?sword of light?, and moreover the speed of her side-dash easily surpassed the charge of Ash Roller’s bike.

While clenching both his hands in order to hold down his enormous shock, Haruyuki didn’t overlook a thing and waited for the next demonstration.

—But.

The scarlet avatar nimbly spread out her hands and spoke.

“That’s all.”

“B-But.”

The one who raised his voice was Takumu.

“You said before that there were four kinds of basic techniques..”

“There are. The third is ?Attack Power Expansion[5]?. And the fourth is ?Armor Density Expansion[6]?. But..I can’t use either of those.”

“Y-You can’t use them!? Can’t use a basic technique..a King like Niko can’t!?”

Glaring at Haruyuki who had reflexively shouted that, but without raising her tone, Niko explained.

“That’s right. That’s because..I myself know that I’m not that strong. That is the ?scar of the heart? that was used as the source of this avatar..of Scarlet Rain.”

Her cute mask turned straight up towards the snowy sky. The Red King, who was one of the strongest people that ruled over Accel World and who possessed terrifying long-distance firepower, spoke in a monologue with a voice that somehow felt lonely.

“....I’m scared of the world. The closer I get to it, the more it hurts me in every way possible. Brain Burst consumed my craving to keep the world away from me, and produced this avatar. Scarlet Rain’s long-distance firepower is like the spines of a hedgehog. The me inside it is just a weak brat without any power..That’s why I cannot strengthen the offensive power or defense power of this avatar’s body through mind power. Do you understand, Crow, Pile? That is the absolute limit of the Incarnate System.”

For a while, only the sound of the cold wintry wing thinly flowed through this world of ice and snow.

Haruyuki cast his eyes down deeply and reflected upon the Red King’s words in his mind.

In the real world, he couldn’t say that he knew very much about Niko—Koudzuki Yuniko. Without knowing the faces of her real parents, she went to an elementary boarding school that served as a shelter institution. That was all that he had been told. But, her early life had surely wounded Niko so severely that Haruyuki couldn’t imagine it. To the point that, even if she was disguised in an avatar of the virtual world, it was impossible for her to believe in her own strength.

‘In that case, I.’ Haruyuki continued to think.

—It’s all too clear that this avatar of mine is a projection of my longing of ?wanting to escape from this place?. A hand for seeking what I can’t reach. Wings for escaping to a place where no one else can go. That’s why I was able to master ?Attack Range Expansion? mind power and recharge the gauge of ?Gale Thruster? with ?Movement Ability Expansion? mind power. And for the same reason, I probably can’t use ?Armor Density Expansion? that raises defensive power.

—But. Even if that’s how it is. I want to believe..in the words that that person repeatedly told me, ‘You can change’..

“..In other words, it’s something like this.”

The quiet mutter that Takumu let our broke the persistently long silence. Haruyuki raised his head with a start and looked at Cyan Pile next to him.

“..The type of mind power that one can learn is restricted to what complies with the nature of each duel avatar. Conversely speaking, even if one masters mind power, things that one cannot do simply cannot be done.”

“That’s right.”

Giving that short affirmation, Niko then turned to look at Haruyuki.

“For example, even the ?Attack Range Expansion? that Crow performed earlier is originally an unnecessary technique for Silver Crow since he had speed and flight ability from the start. Well, it is the optimal training for mastering how to use the image control circuit. The same can be said for the technique I just showed you. It showily opened up a big hole in the ice like that, but even if I didn’t use any image concentration, with this thing..”

She tapped the gun holster on her waist.

“If I used this, I could much more easily make a much bigger hole. Then, why are Incarnate techniques necessary?”

Staring at Niko as her words cut off, Haruyuki tilted his head and wracked his brain for an answer. But, perhaps as expected, Takumu answered clearly while sitting upright in seiza position.

“That’s because an Incarnate attack can only be defended by an Incarnate attack, right?”

“Exactly. It’s because the image control system determines the outcome of attack and defense faster than the motion command system can order the game’s system. It’s like the enemy having a laser rifle even though you yourself only have a leather shield and a club. If it’s the Professor here who received such an Incarnate attack from Dusk Taker without knowing anything, you should understand the unreasonableness of it very well.”

“..That fact really did strike home to me. That attack of Dusk Taker’s that could scrape off anything with his claws was probably an ?Attack Power Expansion?-type, but it felt as he could beat an edged tool with just his bare fist..”

Letting out a snort, Niko put both her hands on her hips and spoke.

“In short, if you’re going to seriously fight with Dusk Taker, you absolutely need to at least learn either ?attack? or ?defense?..Although we just dived into here and finally arrived at the main objective..”

Then, the Red King gained a rare tone of slight hesitation in her words.

“..Just as you said before, there is almost no hope of mastering a type of mind power that is contrary to the attributes of your avatar, no matter how much you train. So, there is something I have to ask here no matter what. —Pile, does your avatar have the attribute of ?close range? or ?long range??”

“Heh!?”

The one who raised his voice wildly like that was Haruyuki. After looking at both Niko and Takumu, he spoke in a dumfounded voice.

“I-It’s already decided that he’s close-range..right? After all, such a vivid ?close-range blue? avatar is not easily seen even in the Shinjuku area.”

“I also think that, but even so, there’s that Enhanced Armament of his..”

“Ah....”

Saying that, Haruyuki once again stared at the huge ?Pile Driver? that wrapped around Cyan Pile’s right arm from the tip to the elbow.

This Enhanced Armament shot out a built-in 1-meter long strong steel stake at a violent speed. Its piercing power was so great it had once torn apart the metal-color Silver Crow with just one attack in the past.

It could still be just barely thought of as a close-range armament up to that point, but the problem was Cyan Pile’s strongest special technique ?Lightning Cyan Spike?. That technique changed the stake into a beam of light and fired it. Its range easily exceeded 50 meters, and it was clearly classified as a long-range attack.

After staring at it unconsciously for several seconds—

Haruyuki raised his face up with a start, and subsequently turned his eyes away greatly.

A duel avatar was created with the scars of the heart as a source. Cyan Pile’s appearance and his right arm’s Enhanced Armament should represent the fears and desires that Takumu held. Haruyuki had decided in his heart that it was something that shouldn’t be inquired into.

However—

“It’s all right, Haru.”

Takumu said that in a quiet voice, so Haruyuki timidly raised his head.

“..T-Taku..”

“Since the moment I heard of the Incarnate System from you last night, I somehow expected it. That in order to master it, I would have to directly face my scars..”

“T-Then, I’ll leave here now.”

“No, I want you to hear it too. Because it’s something I really should have said much, much earlier..”

Precisely correcting his sitting posture, Takumu looked first straight at Haruyuki and then Niko, and then spoke.

“—I think that this Cyan Pile is essentially a close range-type, as expected. Then, why was it created with a long range-type initial equipment..? That is most likely because my fear is embodied here.”

“..Fear..?”

Just what on earth did Takumu—Mayuzumi Takumi, who seemed to have looks, ability and everything else, fear?

Facing Haruyuki who was listening attentively while dumbfounded, Takumu spoke the following words.

“From third to fifth grade in elementary school, I was severely bullied. I also thought of jumping down from the roof of our apartment building more than once or twice.”

“......!!”

Haruyuki’s entire body froze with a start. ‘No way, impossible, for that Takumu to be bullied’..such thoughts whirled around violently in his brain. As if consoling Haruyuki instead, Takumu continued in a quiet voice.

“It’s understandable that you didn’t notice either. I was bullied neither at school nor at our apartment building, but at the kendo class that I attended at that time. I..although it may be immodest of me to say it, I believe that I had fairly good aptitude in kendo. I seemed to rapidly master the techniques from when I started learning in the spring of third grade. My rank also quickly rose, and I reached the point where I won against the older kids. But..it was when the second semester ended. When the teacher was absent from the dojo, a group of older students suggested practicing their thrust technique.”

“T-Thrust, you say, but..”

“Of course, that’s prohibited until high school. I said no to them. But, the practice was just an excuse. They bound my arms from behind my back and they thrusted a bamboo sword into my throat over, and over, and over again. I was horribly afraid..I cried out ‘Stop, release me’ from beneath my face guard. Before long my voice also stopped coming out..When they finally let me go, I had a terrible bruise even beneath my protector. Even now..”

Cyan Pile raised his right hand and traced the left side of his neck with a jerk.

“..There remains a scar here that won’t disappear. There were similar incidents repeatedly after that. But I didn’t quit the class. No, I couldn’t quit. I couldn’t say it at all to my parents..nor Haru and Chii-chan either. That I quit because I was bullied.”

“....Taku..I didn’t..notice at all..”

With a squeezed-out voice, Haruyuki somehow managed to say just that. But, Takumu lightly shook his head as if to say ‘It’s fine’.

“Naturally there was also the choice of consulting with my parents and the teacher. But since there were no social cameras in that dojo and our Neuro Linkers were removed according to the teacher’s policy, there was no proof..No, before that, I think I had lost even the energy to resist them. Along the road to the dojo, I would wish countless times to just disappear..The bullying continued until the guy that was the principal offender became a junior high student and left the class. When that guy was no longer there, I was so glad..”

Those words that were issued along with a sigh were something that Haruyuki was able to sympathize with as if it were himself.

However, Takumu’s story didn’t end there. What continued after a muttered “But” was an unexpected confession.

“But, as soon as I entered sixth grade, I noticed that I had certain habit. Even though I was fine when I practiced, when it was a match, I would reflexively protect myself with my bamboo sword when the opponent’s sword was pointed at my throat. It was a fatal gap in my actions. I persistently tried to cure it, but the more I concentrated on the match, the more that habit came out..I was deeply ingrained with the fear of receiving those terrible thrusts on my throat from that day. Even so, since thrusting is still forbidden in the rules, I’ve been able to somehow hide it until now, but when I become a high school student, I probably won’t be able to keep doing so in direct matches. I surely can’t endure receiving thrusts and using them myself.”

After cutting off his words there and looking one by one at the completely silent Niko, at Haruyuki next to him, and finally at the Enhanced Armament on his right arm, Takumu calmly brought his story to a finish.

“This ?Pile Driver? is the manifestation of my fear..and also anger towards thrusting. I wanted to line up those guys that bullied me back then and pierce their throats with this steel stake one after another..That’s why my duel avatar, even though it’s a close range-type, was created not with a sword but with a piercing weapon, Red King.”

His last words were aimed at the silently standing scarlet avatar.

Finished with listening to this long monologue, Niko finally nodded once and spoke.

“I clearly heard your ?scar?. So the reason the m-->>

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