Night.

A huge pale disc shone brightly in the black sky.

The ground, the buildings, everything was a white stripped of color. It wasn’t colorlessness, but the color of dry bone. Square houses casted distinct shadows over the wide road. Over there, the Shinjuku sub-center, which had changed into a spiral-formed chalk spire, rose so high it seemed to pierce the sky.

“..The ?Moonlight? stage, huh.”

Takumu—Cyan Pile murmured that after looking around at this virtual world’s Western Tokyo.

Haruyuki also quickly listed the features of this stage that he remembered.

“It’s bright, but you can see almost nothing within the shadows. Sound carries over a far distance. There are few Enemies. Trap-type terrain effects also don’t exist..”

“In open spaces, unexpected attacks from hiding places are almost impossible. Using the school campus was a correct choice after all.”

After nodding to each other, they glanced behind them.

In this empty white space whose was basis the living room of the Arita home, the vivid emerald and shining ?Lime Bell? stood silently as well beneath the moonlight.

There was no change in her outward appearance since they had seen her on Tuesday. However, by doing an enormous number of duels over only two days and winning completely in all of them, she had already reached the same Level 4 as Haruyuki and Takumu.

Though, because there had been an interminably long time since they had become Level 4, there was probably a wide difference in total point acquisition between the two of them who would soon reach Level 5 and Chiyuri, but her potential at least must be equivalent to theirs.

While catching up that close to them in a short period of time, Chiyuri who served as Noumi’s healer/bait had surely been exposed to all kinds of attacks from countless Burst Linkers. Haruyuki also understood just how painful those harsh, difficult experiences must have been.

However, Chiyuri stood right in front of the two of them with movements that didn’t betray her fatigue at all, and she spoke only a short sentence.

“Let’s go.”

And then, without hesitating, she jumped down from the high terrace that corresponded to the 23rd floor of the original apartment building. She descended from slightly lower terraces and decorated scaffolds to the ground. There was not a fragment of newbie awkwardness in her movements either.

Haruyuki and Takumu looked at each other once again, and after reflexively smiling bitterly, they also jumped down in the same way.

The three of them avoided the main road they usually used when commuting to school, and instead went by back roads at a half-run. While paying attention to their surroundings, Haruyuki and Takumu destroyed suitable objects and filled up their special technique gauges.

They didn’t go straight into the school, but first came out onto the roof of the family restaurant on the other side of Oume Street, and confirmed the status of the dual location from behind cover.

Umesato Middle School had changed into a form like a European palace from the Middle Ages. In what could be described as Gothic-style, huge pillars were placed in a row in the front, and many statues of angels or demons protruded out from the surface of the walls.

After concentrating his eyes to see that there were no other duel avatars there and confirming that everything there was made of stone, Haruyuki looked at the schoolyard once again.

The large grounds had become a garden intricately covered with small tiles. There were no objects there at all, and only a spear-like tower that stood at the southern end—originally the support pole of a ball fence had a long and thin shadow that stretched over the ground.

“..There doesn’t seem to be anyone hidden there.”

Haruyuki murmured that, and Takumu nodded.

“Yeah..But, Noumi isn’t there either..His Dive should only have been delayed by half a second..”

“If he doesn’t come after five minutes, let’s temporarily retreat away from Koenji Station..No, wait.”

At that moment, a very faint wind noise reached Haruyuki’s ears. Since the stage was completely still, something must be moving the air. A flying-type Enemy—or, a flying-type avatar.

As Haruyuki quickly looked up to the sky in the southwest, his whole body hardened the instant he looked.

A silhouette was approaching in the night sky filled with small twinkling stars while being palely illuminated by the moonlight.

A thin body. Claws on his hands. And devilish wings extending out on his back.

“Nou..mi..”

As Haruyuki groaned that name out unconsciously, the avatar started descending as if being pulled by his voice. He folded his arms, drew a graceful spiral through the air and alighted down in the center of the schoolyard.

His landing was almost silent. Just by seeing that manner and posture, Haruyuki could tell that Noumi had already completely mastered the operation of flight ability.

This avatar with the attribute of ?robbing? slowly folded his wings and stopped moving there.

Once again, complete silence filled the world.

Haruyuki’s sense couldn’t grasp any changes either. No movements of stealthy approach, no footsteps creeping in at a blind spot, nothing.

After waiting more than a full minute, Haruyuki whispered.

“..Let’s go.”

After Takumu nodded next to him, they rose at the same time and jumped down to the road. Hearing their footsteps, Dusk Taker quickly turned his face towards them.

While he gazed right at them, Haruyuki and the others entered the grounds of Umesato Middle School through the gate, and then went around the end of the school building and headed towards the schoolyard.

The footsteps of the three of them make a hard sound on the tiles. The moonlight clearly etched their shadows into the ground.

Chiyuri did not go into the schoolyard, but instead walked along the southern wall of the school building and then stood quietly within its shadow. Haruyuki and Takumu headed straight towards the center of the wide space.

Stopping about 20 meters away from Dusk Taker who was standing in the center, Haruyuki threw a silent look at him.

After taking that look for a few seconds, Noumi unfolded his arms in front of his chest and lightly spread them out left and right.

“..Just like I said you could extend the time as many times as you wished, I’m definitely the only one here!”

The boy’s voice, which was tinged with a metallic effect, resounded lightly through the pale world.

“I didn’t think you would prolong it so long, senpai! Is that being cautious, or distrustful, I wonder..?”

“It’s because we’ve already learned that we can never be careful enough against you.”

After letting out a short ‘Kukuku’ laugh at Haruyuki’s retort, Nomi stuck out his right hand in front of him.

There was a card in between his fingertips. It looked similar to the item that the Yellow King, Yellow Radio had used before to replay a video of the past, but this one was red like blood. Haruyuki had heard that the special items sold at the ?shops? within the Unlimited Neutral Field were mostly in the form of cards like that.

Noumi showed it to Haruyuki and Takumu, and then spoke.

“This is, just as its names says, a ?Sudden Death Duel Card?. It cost a fairly high price, but consider it my treat.”

He gave another ‘Kuku’ laugh.

“..First, I charge all of the points I have into this. The remaining two dueler frames are set as a team, so you two need to bet your respective points as well. If both of you have survived by the time my HP gauge reaches zero, all of the points charged into it will be equally distributed to you two. If only one of you remains, the winner takes it all. And when I beat the two of you, I’ll get all your points.”

“In other words, in the case that the two of us survive together, we won’t have to fight each other, right?”

“Exactly. Well, this is a little bit of consideration. It’s important..”

Noumi brandished the card around once again, and spoke.

“This duel won’t end until someone dies. And those that die will definitely lose Brain Burst. There is no exception to this at all. I’ll say this now, but if you ?retreat? through a portal, it will be treated as your loss at that moment. At the same time as you return to reality, the forced uninstall will activate.”

“..I see.”

Nodding, Haruyuki looked at Takumu.

Cyan Pile’s eyes shined strongly behind the slits on his mask for a moment, and he firmly nodded his head.

“All right, that’s fine.”

Noumi slowly nodded to Haruyuki’s words, and then touched the card with the fingertip of his left hand. After he operated it a bit, the card shined a bright crimson for a moment.

He then threw the card to Takumu, who caught it and touched it the same as Noumi had done, causing it to shine again.

Takumu threw the card to Haruyuki, who then held it between the fingers of his right hand.

After taking a big breath, he clicked on it with his left hand. A holo-window was displayed in the center, and he touched the charge button.

After the explanation of the Sudden Death rules in a blunt font flowed down the screen, a confirmation dialog of Yes/No appeared. Yes.

When the exceedingly blunt Brain Burst system then once again asked the usual ‘Is this really okay?’, Haruyuki finally understood the reality that this was the edge of the edge of the point of death. Though he should have been detached from his real body, his back quickly grew cold. At the same time as his limbs became numb, virtual adrenaline was released into his blood vessels.

However, of course, he chose Yes.

The card shined an even more dazzling blood-like color and—it lifted up from Haruyuki’s hand and floated up to a slightly higher position.

The digital numbers of a countdown slowly rotated around it.

If this duel was made widely known in Accel World, an amazing number of gallery viewers would surely gather here. Although half a year had passed since Haruyuki had become a Burst Linker, he hadn’t heard any talk about something like a Sudden Death Duel where you betted all your points.

—No.

That’s not right. He had heard of it.

The king of swords who Haruyuki respected and admired more than anyone else, The Black King ?Black Lotus?. As part of the special rule that was imposed only on Level 9 Burst Linkers, she was always fighting while carrying the possibility of sudden death. That’s right, for example, in the weekly territory battles, if the other kings were to arrange meticulous preparations and appear there. If she were to lose to one of them. That person would immediately undergo the permanent loss of Brain Burst.

....Senpai. You must always be living under this kind of pressure.

One second after he murmured that within himself—

The countdown reached zero.

The blazing letters that flared up said ‘Duel Start’.

Dusk Taker widely hoisted up the claws of his hands.

Haruyuki also lowered his waist and prepared his hand-swords in front and behind him.

Noumi’s wings remained folded, and he didn’t show any signs of taking out his purple wave motion attack. He must first wish to have a ground battle of incarnate techniques.

—That’s just fine with me!

Crying that out within his mind, Haruyuki then kicked off the ground.

He dashed fiercely in order to close the 20-meter distance between them at once. The enemy’s silhouette in the center of his vision rapidly became larger.

He crossed over the shadows of the poles that stretched over the white courtyard. One pole, two poles—

When he stepped on the shadow of the third pole, it happened.

From the darkness of a thin shadow no more than 10 cm wide which shouldn’t have been able to hide anything, something sprang up as if gushing out and approached Haruyuki from his left and right.

They were square plates that seemed to be about 1 meter long on each side. These two dim deep black plates rose up like springs the moment that Haruyuki had stepped on the shadow of the poll, and squeezed him between them from both sides with a tremendous force.

Even with Silver Crow’s speed, he was not able to avoid them. He could only spread out his hands and press them against the surface of the plates with all his strength.

*GAAN!*?A metallic sound resounded, and sparks flew from the joints of Haruyuki’s arms. The HP gauge, which was the only thing he could see, decreased slightly.

“Guh..”

He involuntarily cried out from the sharp pain. Although they were ultra-thin plates that were less than a few millimeters thick, they had a frightful pressure that pressed hard on him in a huge vise. He couldn’t extend his arms out at all, so he adjusted the position of his hands and desperately resisted with the armor of his elbows and hands. However, the plates instantly crammed Haruyuki into a 50 cm wide gap, and then finally stopped in that position.

*GISHI, GISHI*?While hearing the sound of his avatar creaking, Haruyuki forcibly shook off his shock and thought.

—There are no traps in the ?Moonlight? stage. Then, is this an unknown special technique of Dusk Taker!? No, if it were, there would definitely have been some kind of motion or voice command on his part in order to activate it. Besides, if he had such a powerful technique, he would have used it in our last duel. In that case——

This jet-black board was not Noumi’s technique. Of course, it wasn’t Lime Bell’s either.

In other words, there was someone else on this battlefield..

No, that’s impossible. There shouldn’t be anyone who could have performed an ambush in this duel that was repeatedly postponed so many times until just before it began.

When his instantaneous thoughts had reached that far, as if to betray his thoughts all too quickly, Haruyuki sensed a very faint presence.

His gaze was drawn to the left, in the direction of the school building.

The northernmost end of the white schoolyard was sunken darkly in the shadow produced by the 4-storied school building. The figure of Lime Bell who was crouched down alongside the wall looked small in comparison.

Haruyuki, and Takumu as well behind him, watched without speaking as a fifth avatar silently appeared right in front of her from the nearly-pointed tip section of the school building’s shadow.

Strange.

That was the only word to describe its appearance. Haruyuki had never once a duel avatar that had a stranger form than this in Accel World.

Its whole body was made out of thin plates arranged perpendicularly. It was as if many sheets of rectangular clipped paper had been piled in the form of body parts. Since gaps of approximately 1 cm existed between each plate, although its silhouette could be seen distinctly from the side, it only looked like thin vertical lines placed perpendicularly from the front.

Also, all of the dozens of plates that constituted the avatar were dyed a dim black as if they were smeared in ink.

To Haruyuki, he didn’t know if it was the avatar’s modeling or its color that was more shocking.

The laminated plate avatar was completely black no matter how he looked at it. It wasn’t like the ?blackish? avatars he had seen before—not silver like Chrome Disaster, nor purplish like Dusk Taker. It was a perfect black which absorbed the light of all wavelengths and refused to be dyed.

“....You.”

Haruyuki murmured that in a hoarse voice.

However, the avatar didn’t respond, but instead tilted its square head and stared at Haruyuki from inside its many gaps. In that instant, the pressure of the two plates on each of side of Haruyuki increased the pressure on his body. Silver Crow’s armor made an unpleasant sound and creaked.

At this point, Haruyuki finally noticed that the right arm of the laminated avatar didn’t exist at all. Instead, a hazy grey light trembled at the end of its shoulder.

Haruyuki didn’t understand what kind of logic it used, but it was clear that its right arm was the two plates currently restraining him, considering both their color and form.

And there was one more thing that was clear.

This black avatar was an ambusher that Noumi had prepared. An ambush that should have been carefully eliminated after Haruyuki and Takumu examined all the possibilities.

“..Why..How..It should have been possible for the time to have been specified..”

Takumu, who had remained standing behind him, cried that out like a groan.

Even after he said that, the laminated avatar remained silent. Instead, the one that let out a short ‘Kuku’ laugh and spoke was Dusk Taker, who was standing several meters in front of Haruyuki.

“Fu, fu. Geez, you people make me enjoy myself time and time again. It’s nice, that astonished-manner of yours. So much that it makes me want to pay a viewing fee..Speaking of which, what did you say a little while ago? ‘We’ve already learned that we can never be careful enough against you’? Unfortunately, it seems that your diligence wasn’t enough, haha, HAHAHAHA!!”

After letting out another short bout of loud laughter, he suddenly spread out his hands.

“..Though I say that, since the two of you are in the position where you’ll be losing all your points soon, it’s meaningless no matter what you get at this point. At the very least, I’ll let you in on the secret as a farewell gift. —It isn’t because I predicted the time you specified, but neither is it because the person over there waited on this side for months before we appeared here, of course.”

He further moved the talons of his right hand and tapped his head which had a lens-type visor fitted to it.

“The two of you already know that?we?have a Brain Implant Chip here. The BIC, that is to say a growth-type terminal is connected to the sensory area of our brains as a bio-electronic interface, but..depending on the programming, it is possible for it to reach the deepest parts of the brain.”

“De..Deepest parts..?”

As Haruyuki muttered that, Noumi nodded his head in an exaggerated manner.

“Yes. Naturally, it’s extremely dangerous. Even I haven’t gone that far. But, the person over there is quite daring despite his appearance. His terminal extends all the way to the thought clock control center of his brain.”

Thought clock.

Those were the words that formed the basis of the super-technology which realized the ?acceleration? of Burst Linkers. The Brain Burst program accelerates the user’s thoughts by increasing the base clock inside the brain, which uses the person’s heartbeat as the basis, by 1000 times. Whether it was Diving into the usual duel field or the Unlimited Neutral Field, that multiplication rate was fixed and couldn’t be manipulated at all.

In other words, since Haruyuki and Takumu had postponed the time of the duel for more than an hour, nearly two months of subjective time had passed in this world. Noumi shouldn’t have a comrade that would help him by intently endure such a length of time and waiting in ambush—that was how it was supposed to be. However.

“I’ll say it one more time. He dived into the Unlimited Neutral Field at 8 PM in real world time. However, he never had to wait so many months inside here. Listen well..By deactivating his brain’s thought clock control center by using the BIC, he can arbitrarily stop the acceleration of his thoughts. He’s, in other words,?the only ?Deceleration Ability User? in all of Accel World!”

“..Deceleration..Ability..”

Haruyuki didn’t know whether those repeated words came out of his or Takumu’s mouth.

As Haruyuki couldn’t find any other words to say, a new voice finally reached his ears.

“..Good grief.”

It was the quiet voice of a youth, which seemed genial somehow even under the electronic effect that was characteristic of duel avatars. Haruyuki felt like it bore a strong resemblance to the voice of a young glasses-wearing male teacher that had been his only favorite homeroom teacher in his elementary school days.

While still restraining Haruyuki with tremendous pressure, the laminated avatar spoke for the first time in a soft voice without any strain in it at all.

“Hey, Taker-kun. I can’t help but feel that that talkativeness of yours was what bounced you around and drove you into a Sudden Death Duel situation like this.”

“Haha, that is merely a difference of opinion. Like you consider silence as a weapon, I only consider eloquence as a weapon. So, how about their shocked faces? Doesn’t it look like they’ve already lost the will to fight in the face of our technological capabilities?”

“I don’t know about that. That small kid there is still doing his very best to hang on. I can’t crush him any harder than this.”

“Hee, even if he’s weakened, he’s still a metal color after all.”

As Noumi let out a ‘Fufufu’ laugh, the laminated avatar signaled Noumi with a small movement of his left hand.

“Under these circumstances, my hands are full with pinning him in place. It would be helpful if you could tidy up the big one back there a little early than planned.”

“Roger, roger. I don’t plan to make you work more than the remuneration I paid you. Just give me three minutes..no, thirty seconds.”

Those words of contempt by Noumi—

Finally relit Haruyuki’s fighting spirit.

—Just thirty seconds? You, who has never won an honest match against Taku, in just thirty seconds!?

Gritting his teeth hard, he ran his gaze over the plates on either side of him for a moment.

—This isn’t a situation where I can remain restrained forever by such flimsy plates. If the enemy is two, our side is also two. I’ll leave Noumi to Taku, and I’ll take down..this guy!

Haruyuki concentrated all of his consciousness that contained those thoughts into one point on his brow.

Suddenly, a metallic high frequency sound was produced out of nowhere and Silver Crow’s body shook. The feeling that his consciousness was connecting to the imagination circuit hidden within the Brain Burst program.

The laminated avatar that was constantly restraining Haruyuki had a grey aura around his right shoulder. Niko had said that the phenomenon of continuously emitted light, in other words ?Over-Ray?, was proof of the Incarnate System being in use. In other words, these plates were the incarnate technique of that avatar. In that case, he also had to muster all his strength and fight back.

A white light was lit on Silver Crow’s sharp fingertips.

It quickly covered all the way from his wrist to the vicinity of his elbow in a pale light.

Haruyuki sucked in a big breath—and shouted out loudly the name of the incarnate technique that he had just recently named.

“?Laser..Sword?!!”

Then, he crossed his arms, and thrusted the fingertips of his right hand at the left plate and the fingertips of his left hand at the right plate.

*GYAAAAAN!*?Along with a high-pitched sound, his swords of elongated light crashed into the jet-black plates and threw off dazzling sparks.

The parts that the swords ate into instantly became red hot as if they had been showered with the flames of a plasma arc. A glow rapidly spread over the surface of the thin plates, and they vibrated violently.

—At this rate, I’ll break through them!!

The moment he cried that out inside his mind and strained all of his image power.

“Oops..my, my, this is serious.”

A calm voice was heard. Then,

“?Static Pressure[1]??.”

The call of a technique name.

Suddenly the two plates rumbled with a ‘GOGON!’.

The thickness of the plates, which had only been a few millimeters, rapidly increased. Exceeding 5 cm, then 10 cm, they changed into something that would better called ?lumps? than plates.

The two huge cuboids, which had a texture that felt like it could cut darkness itself, poured pressure that easily exceeded the pressure from before onto Haruyuki.

“Gu..uh!”

While groaning like that, he mustered as much mind power as possible and resisted with his Laser Swords. However, even though it had looked on the verge of melting just a moment ago, the red hot portions were reduced by half the instant the thickness increased.

An even stronger gray aura was being released from the laminated avatar’s shoulder. It was already definite that this technique was not a special technique regulated by the system, but a incarnate technique derived from the image power of the enemy avatar.

Through the imagination output of the two sides fighting each other, Haruyuki felt himself touch what filled the inside of the laminated avatar.

Darkness.

Unlike Noumi’s mind power, it wasn’t a hungry nothingness that sought to swallow everything. Although it certainly existed there, it didn’t possess any kind of energy, and therefore did not give nor take, but instead rejected all interference. No, it wasn’t even an active rejection. It was ?isolation?. An absolute detachment that couldn’t consider the state of people’s hearts at all.

The instant he felt that, Haruyuki reflexively feared coming into contact with it through mind power.

His hand’s Laser Swords weakened in that short instant and flickered.

That was enough. Becoming tremendously heavy, the hard objects dug into Haruyuki’s shoulders, and Haruyuki’s movements were completely confined. Once again, he heard the voice of the laminated avatar.

“Hey, you. If you could, please remain quiet and still like that. The work I’ve been contracted to do only involves temporarily pinning you in place. I have no intention of fighting.”

—What..kind of selfish thing are you saying!

Shouting that out sharply within his mind, Haruyuki once again raised the output of his Laser Swords. However, it took all his strength just to reduce the pressure of the black lumps slightly, and he couldn’t push them back much more than that.

While he was completely restrained and unable to move, the figures of two avatars slowly stepping up to each other came into Haruyuki’s vision.

From the west, with his slightly longer arms compared to his short-statured body handing loosely at his sides, was Dusk Taker.

From the east, with the top of his right arm’s ?pile driver? shining sharply, was Cyan Pile.

Both of them took a little distance and faced each other in the middle of the white schoolyard.

An atmosphere of fighting spirit that was rapidly increasing filled the field and pushed up the density of the air. In this feeling of tension that trembled violently, Haruyuki could neither speak out nor pray for anything.

“....Heh.”

Suddenly, Noumi spoke while idly waving his wrists.

“It seems you’ve made your own preparations. In that case, I should be able to enjoy myself a little..right?”

He then raised his hands and made his fingertips touch the front of his chest. A distorted ‘IIIIIIN’ vibrating was produced, and suddenly, a pulsating purple light gushed out strongly. It was Noumi’s incarnate technique which Haruyuki and the others called the ?wave surge of nothingness?. Haruyuki thought that he would immediately fly up and attack with long-range firepower, but it seemed like he intended to fight a ground battle, perhaps in order to mock Cyan Pile.

“Does that technique have a name?”

Takumu asked that in a calm voice. In response, Noumi answered with a laugh that made it seem like he was letting out a great breath.

“Hah, I don’t have any reason to give names to my techniques. Although having no name for it seems to make the activation somewhat slower, I decline doing that kind of game-like behavior! ..Besides..”

He spread out his hands wide. The wave surge light left a hazy trail behind it in the air.

“Is there any reason in you asking something like that? When you’ll be losing Brain Burst in just a few minutes?”

“There is a reason, of course. Because I want to remember, at least for a little while, the details about the opponent for whom I’ll be performing their last rites over their corpse.”

Coldly retorting like that, Takumu moved his right arm’s Enhanced Armament in a stance sideways in front of his chest.

Haruyuki also knew that Takumu had done mind power training under the Red King Niko’s coaching over a period of one week. However, he hadn’t heard what kind of technique Takumu had obtained, nor even whether he had reached the level where he could use it in real battle.

Despite being in a situation where he was stuck between two lumps and his avatar was screeching, Haruyuki wasn’t able to stop himself from pouring his gaze intently on Takumu.

Next, Cyan Pile lifted up his left arm as well, and—

He did an action that Haruyuki didn’t expect.

With the fingers of his left hand, he strongly grasped the steel stake that stuck out from his Enhanced Armament.

..Taku, what the heck are you d-->>

next page