“A win ratio of 100%!”

After firmly clenching his right hand, Haruyuki dropped his shoulders and continued.

“..Is how it should have been, but we lost that last battle..”

The next day April 20th, Saturday evening. The location was the same as yesterday, the living room of the Arita home.

The territory battles between legions, composed of the best within the fighting game ?Brain Burst?, were performed every week at this time. The legion that Haruyuki and the others belonged to, ?Nega Nebulas?, had expected a hard fight this week with their master Black Lotus not present, but once it started the results had been mostly complete victories by them.

The reason for this was because Lime Bell, who had just joined their legion yesterday, had immediately participated in the battles.

Although her ?healing ability? was actually a ?time-reversing ability?, it could certainly be used as a means of pseudo-HP-healing. The only problem was that, when they were repeatedly healed, then shot, and then healed again, they returned all the way to their previous damaged state if their time was turned back too much, but that problem could also be covered by the ability-user’s intuition.

Therefore, Haruyuki and the others used the tactic of having either Silver Crow or Cyan Pile always protecting Lime Bell, and meanwhile having the other one of the two perform a kamikaze attack and then return to their base and get healed. This method functioned well, and they thought that they could score victories in all of their territory battles—but.

The long range-type three-person team that challenged them last didn’t approach the base of Haruyuki’s group at all, but instead used the strategy of showering concentrated firepower on the person that performed the kamikaze attack. As a result, the remaining two members of their group had had no choice but to advance forward gradually, and then received the fortified attacks of special techniques when they reached the place where the three opponents had gathered, and so quickly got annihilated.

“Well, it can’t be helped. It’s enough that we were able to win this much with this hastily constructed team.”

As Takumu said that and sipped his L-sized drink, Haruyuki pouted his lips.

“Yeah, but still. In the end, our weak point of having no long-range firepower was struck at and we lost.”

“That weak point won’t change even once Master returns, after all..”

“That’s if we omit her mind power, though.”

The two of them remembered at the same time Kuroyukihime’s long-range technique that had cut apart the distant Umesato school building with one blow, and their backs shuddered.

Perhaps because she was embarrassed about her huge sobbing fit yesterday, Chiyuri had said she would Dive from her own home and didn’t come to Haruyuki’s place, so it was only the two of them together right now. After throwing into his mouth one of the fries from the hamburger set that he had bought at the shopping mall on the first floor, Haruyuki gave a cough and changed the subject.

“In any case, that’s enough about the territory battles. So next..Taku. Umm..have you gotten any kind of contact?”

It was a question that omitted the last words ‘from Noumi Seiji’ at the end, but Takumu gave a small shake of his head.

“No..not at all. I’m also worried about it, though..Even if it was a duel proposed by him, I can’t believe that Noumi would immediately give up after losing.”

“Me too.”

They both sunk into silence at the same time as the atmosphere suddenly became heavy.

While taking another fry and chewing its tip, Haruyuki mumbled.

“....The avatar called ?Black Vise? that appeared there. He said something strange. That ex-Acceleration Ability Users who have lost Brain Burst cannot interfere with Accel World in any way. Just what did he mean by that..?”

“Eh..? Didn’t he simply mean that, since they can’t accelerate, they also can’t duel?”

“I also thought that was what he meant back then. But he didn’t say it like that..I feel like there’s something he purposely wasn’t saying. —Hey, Taku. What I’m about to ask may be unpleasant to you, but.”

Looking at Takumu who was sitting down on the sofa next to him, Haruyuki asked.

“Your ?Parent?..the kendo club captain in your previous school, he underwent the forced uninstalling of his Brain Burst from the Blue King’s ?Judgement Blow?, right?”

“..Yeah, so I heard.”

“After that, did you talk to him? About Brain Burst.”

Then, Takumu knit his nicely shaped eyebrows, and looked as if he was thinking about it a little.

“—I had hurriedly transferred to another school after that, so..Although I went to the kendo club to give my greetings and farewells, there were other club members there on that occasion, so naturally I didn’t talk about Brain Burst with him. Besides, somehow, he seemed unexpectedly unbounded by something, so I also didn’t dare to bring it up again with him.”

“Unbounded, you say..”

After murmuring that, Haruyuki thought a little about having heard something similar somewhere before. He immediately realized. It was the Red King Niko’s Parent, ?Cherry Rook?. After using the Armor of Catastrophe, Chrome Disaster, and rampaging through Accel World, he had received the Judgement Blow by Niko’s hand, and had lost Brain Burst.

Niko had spoken about him after that. Saying that he had returned to his original self and that the two of them had properly talked. That, even if he was moving away, they planned to continue playing other net games together. Somehow, it was similar to Takumu’s story.

However, he couldn’t believe at all that the examples of these two could be applied to Noumi as well. Noumi's shout of resentment just before he left Accel World still rang through his ears even now. Very probably, Noumi was determined to achieve revenge against them—and yet. He still hadn’t contacted Haruyuki, Takumu or Chiyuri yet.

“..On Monday, we’ll have no choice but to talk to him directly.”

Takumu said that with a sigh, so Haruyuki also gave a small nod.

“I suppose so..There’s also the matter of the video..”

If they thought that what Noumi Seiji would do now that he wasn’t a Burst Linker and had nothing to lose in Accel World anymore, it was possible that he would expose that peeping video for the sake of revenge and distribute the real life information of Haruyuki and the others to other Burst Linkers. The only hand they had that could oppose him was the Brain Implant Chip that Noumi had in his head, but Black Vise had also said something worrisome about that as well.

If Brain Burst is lost, the BIC also automatically ceases functioning, and will dissolve away like that.

The real form of the BIC was an aggregation of synthetic protein micro-machines. Since it was also possible for them to separate and dissolve depending on their programming, they couldn’t be detected with a scanner anymore if that happened. In other words, it couldn’t be used as a reason to make Noumi drop out of school.

Therefore, Haruyuki and the others couldn’t cut off contact with Noumi like this. They had no choice but to carry out direct negotiations one more time and make sure the video was erased. It was a topic that was truly heavy on their minds.

Finishing his drink, Takumu spoke after throwing away the ice inside it in the kitchen, washing the recycled material cup and throwing it away in a cup-exclusive bag.

“Then, see you at school on Monday. When you go meet with Noumi, should I also go with you?”

“No, I’ll be fine. I’ll go by myself, but thank you. Good work today.”

Seeing Takumu off at the door and then returning to the living room to clean up, Haruyuki let out a sigh.

He looked at the clock of his virtual desktop, and then gazed out at the evening sky outside the window.

—Is that person still on the airplane? Or has she already arrived at the airport?

After thinking that absentmindedly, he shook his head and changed his feelings. He would meet her at school on Monday. He had endured for a week, so he could last another day and a half.

Therefore, when the door chime rang immediately after he firmly held down his feelings, he believed that Takumu had come to get something he forgot and so did not suspect a thing.

He decided not to take the time and effort to open the interphone’s window, and returned to the door. He canceled the lock while saying ‘Yes, coming’.

“Just what did you for-”

The last syllable of ‘-get’ got stuck in his throat, and his breathing stopped. However, without being conscious of it, Haruyuki widened his eyes as he just stared at what was before him.

Standing there was a female student in an Umesato Middle School uniform, with a paper bag hanging from her right hand and a carry-on bag with a motor assist hanging from her left hand. Her dark-red ribbon and long black hair swayed in the blowing gentle breeze, and he faintly smelled the scent of the south drifting from her.

“..For how many seconds do you intend to remain frozen?”

As she said that, Haruyuki’s brain finally rebooted. After repeatedly releasing several rough gasps, Haruyuki squeezed out a hoarse voice.

“....S-S-Sen, sepa..senpai!? W-W-What are you..?”

“How rude. Even though I came here directly from Haneda[1]?to deliver your souvenir.”

*PUKU*?As his upperclassman—Kuroyukihime puffed up her cheeks cutely, Haruyuki stood straight at attention when he saw her expression. He made his hand go back and forth at high speed as if he were a traffic control robot, and spoke.

“Ah, c-come, come in! Please enter!”

“Thank you. Sorry for intruding.”

Nodding, Kuroyukihime stepped through the door, put down her shoes and carry-on bag, and entered the hallway. She quickly passed by Haruyuki and went into the living room.

Chasing after her while his feet got tangled together, Haruyuki looked all around his home without knowing what to do anymore, and then spoke.

“..U-Umm, my parent never comes back until late.”

“I know. That’s why I came.”

“I-I see. Err, umm..I-I know, I’ll prepare some t-t-tea.”

As Haruyuki headed to the kitchen while telling himself ‘First calm down! Deal with the situation calmly!’, Kuroyukihime said ‘Ah, that’s right’ and put her hand into the paper bag.

“Then, why don’t you warm this up as well in the microwave?”

What she took out was a huge dark-reddish brown sphere. Haruyuki received the 15 cm-diameter sphere with both his hands and stared at it intently.

The characters printed in truly Okinawa-looking font on the transparent packaging read as ?Bomb Andagi?.

“....T-This is..sata andagi[2]?”

“Yes. Your request was that you wanted to eat something 30 cm in diameter, right? As expected, there wasn’t anything that big, so please make do with that.”

“N-No, this is already huge enough. I’m surprised at its size.”

“Right? I was also surprised when I saw it.”

Staring at Kuroyukihime as she gave a ‘Fufufu’ laugh, Haruyuki finally felt his tension drain away. At the same time as that, his eyes grew moist of their own accord, so he hurriedly turned around and retreated to the kitchen.

He picked out the huge Okinawa-style donut from the bag and warmed it in the microwave. He carried a bottle of Oolong tea and two glasses to the table, placed the andagi that had finished heating on a plate, and, after considering it a little, brought a petit knife to go with it.

Kuroyukihime, who was already sitting at the dining room table, took the knife from the plate and cut the andagi into two equal pieces while expertly handling the edged tool as expected. She held out to Haruyuki one of the halves that had steam warmly rising from its golden section.

“I..Itadakimasu.”

He accepted the offered portion and took a big bite out of its end. He enjoyed both its crunchy surface and its moist interior, and thought to himself ‘I see, this size also had a meaning to it’.

“I-It’s very delicious.”

“I see, that’s good.”

Here, Haruyuki finally arrived at the question of ‘In the first place, why did I request only something like a huge andagi?’.

As he desperately tried to remember his actions from back then while munching and chewing, Kuroyukihime, who was smiling on the other side of the table, gave an even wider smile on her daffodil-like beautiful face—and spoke.

“Now then, Haruyuki-kun.”

“Y-Yes.”

“I’m going to inform you of what I’m feeling right now.”

“Ye..Yes.”

“49% of me wants to praise you for doing so well. And 50% of me wants to give you a good whaling.”

..And the remaining 1% is?

There wasn’t the room for him to ask something like that, and so he straightened his back with a ‘HII’. A large fragment of food blocked his throat, and after he swallowed it down somehow, Haruyuki bowed his head down at full speed.

“I..I’m sorry! It’s all my responsibility. Even though I decided not to give trouble to senpai while on your trip, I depended on you in the end..And you even ran for 15 hours from Okinawa..”

“Hey, you.”

Suddenly changing her smile into a dangerous expression, Kuroyukihime spoke in an extremely displeased voice.

“I’m not getting angry with you because I had to fight. It’s the opposite. Why didn’t you call me from the beginning? If you had explained the situations in just a few words, I would have immediately flown from Okinawa and returned!”

“T-That’s..because, it was your only school field trip in your whole life..”

“I didn’t have that much fun there anyway! Will you not understand unless I also explain the reason for that as well!?”

Saying that with such force that she would have definitely cut the table in half with just her sword spirit if she had been in her duel avatar form, Kuroyukihime gave a sullen look with a ‘MUUU’. However, she fortunately breathed out immediately after, and dropped her tone a little as she continued.

“....Well, it’s fine. In any case, I’ll have you tell me about it. From the beginning to the end, without leaving out even 1 byte of information!”

And so Haruyuki recounted everything that had happened while munching on the huge andagi. The long, long story, which went from Noumi Seiji’s first appearance, to the first battle with Dusk Taker, to the training in the Unlimited Neutral Field—and finally to yesterday’s duel.

After she finished listening to the explanation that took about an hour, Kuroyukihime turned down her long eyelashes, and gave a thin sigh.

The words that came out of her mouth after several seconds were—

“..Haruyuki-kun. When you summoned that Enhanced Armament..?Gale Thruster?, I thought my heart would stop.”

Drinking his Oolong tea, Haruyuki raised his face with a start. However, no words came out from his mouth.

Accel World’s recluse who had given Haruyuki the ?Gale Thruster?, Sky Raker. She had been a main member of the first ?Nega Nebulas? in the past, and furthermore had been Kuroyukihime’s friend as well.

Having foolishly sought the sky, Sky Raker had asked Kuroyukihime to cut off her legs. Kuroyukihime had complied with her request—and after that, had thrown herself into a desperate and bloody battle with the other kings.

But right now, only a gentle, and also somehow sad, smile was shown on Kuroyukihime’s face.

“I can’t believe it..That the one to introduce the ?Incarnate System? to you would be her..”

“....I’m sorry. I did something selfish without obtaining senpai’s permission..”

As Haruyuki apologized, Kuroyukihime gently shook her head.

“No. She would have been more qualified for it than me. Since Raker is probably the one that believes the most in the possibilities of that system among the high-level Burst Linkers that have mastered mind power. Besides..unlike her, I would not be able to completely turn into a demon when training you.”

She showed a smile, and Haruyuki also gave a big nod.

“Sh..She really was dreadful. She pushed me off from the top of the Old Tokyo Tower, after all.”

“Hahaha, that sounds like her.”

After laughing nostalgically for a bit, Kuroyukihime suddenly sank into silence.

Her gaze dropped down to a point on the table, but eventually she made her chair lightly screech on the floor and she stood up. She moved over to stand in front of the big window on the south side of the apartment, and stared into the night sky outside in silence.

Haruyuki looked at her back with her long black hair flowing over it for a while, but then he made up his mind and also stood up. He walked over to stand next to Kuroyukihime, and similarly looked outside.

“..The power of the Incarnate System is too enormous.”

She let out those words after several seconds.

“Therefore, all those who touch it become entranced by it. They reach into the deepest depths of its power, and plunge forward as if it belongs to them. But..I thought this. If it’s just a program bug, the administrator of the game should not have left it alone without dealing with it. Therefore, that power isn’t some irregular system that was created accidentally..instead, isn’t it a certain kind of trap that was prepared in Brain Burst from the beginning?”

“A-A trap..?”

“Yes. For the sake of tempting us Burst Linkers and drawing out our souls to another dimension somewhere..”

The meaning of those words was a complete mystery to Haruyuki. Even so, he furrowed his eyebrows in order to try to understand somehow, and then Kuroyukihime glanced at Haruyuki and gently placed her left hand on Haruyuki’s cheek.

“No, don’t worry about it. You should merely progress straight ahead as you’re doing now. Yes..if it’s you..Only you may be able to overcome that deep darkness, and approach the truth light of the heart..”

Smiling softly, Kuroyukihime faced him directly, and also put her right hand on Haruyuki’s face,

She then changed her expression and tone, and—

“Now then. With that out of the way, I’ll now tell you the remaining 1% of my feelings.”

*HII*?Haruyuki’s entire body stiffened. Was it on the side of ?giving him a good whaling?!? In other words, a judo foot technique!? No, a submission technique!?

As Haruyuki’s uselessly spun around in that way, Kuroyukihime put her arms around Haruyuki’s neck and drew him to her chest with all her strength.

*MUGYUUUU*?Held by that intense strength, Haruyuki’s consciousness over-revved up too quickly from that all-directional pressure and the sensation of direct contact with what was in front of his face, and the gears in his head screeched.

Her voice reached his left ear, which was probably blazing crimson, so close that her lips touched it.

“—I wanted to do this. Since the time when I learned from Chiyuri-kun’s email that you had lost your wings..and yet were still doing your best to face your enemy, I always, always wanted to do this.”

Hugging Haruyuki even tighter with a strength that made him think ‘Just how far will I be absorbed by this thin body?’, Kuroyukihime whispered in a trembling voice.

“You truly did your very best. Under such painful circumstances..—At such a time, I wasn’t at your side and could do nothing for you. I..am a failure of a ?Parent?..”

A hot drop touched his left cheek with a drip.

Haruyuki widened his eyes. The beautiful hair that swayed in his vision got mixed with the light of the room and blurred.

Unconsciously raising both his arms, Haruyuki also put his hands around her thing waist and squeezed out a trembling voice.

“I..I’m sorry for making you worry.”

At that instant—

“I was worried. I was so worried. Thinking that, if you were no longer here, what would I do..I was scared. I was so scared!”

Saying that as it turned into a shout halfway through, Kuroyukihime’s shoulders trembled slightly.

His throat blocked, Haruyuki didn’t say anything else. Therefore, he continued desperately praying inside his heart. ‘I’m right here. I’ll always be by your side. I definitely will not disappear.’

Kuroyukihime leaked out thin sobs like that for several dozens of seconds, but eventually she sucked in a big breath, and finally loosened her hug slightly.

“..I have to give you a prize.”

When she suddenly said that, Haruyuki blinked in surprise.

“Eh, a pri..?”

“You defended splendidly in the territory battles, didn’t you? Like I said, if you defend Suginami to the last, I’ll listen and give you one prize you ask for, no matter what it is.”

As she whispered such a thing into his ear, Haruyuki’s consciousness once again rushed into the red zone.

—However.

The insolent ideas of a Direct Connect with a 30-cm cable or a swimsuit photo of her were instantly swept away in his mind.

Being like this right here, right now.

Besides having this person here in this world right now, what more could he possibly wish for?

..I will become much, much stronger, and become a knight who can protect you from any enemies someday. So, please always remain by my side until then, watching over me and guiding me.

The instant he wished that, his mouth moved half-automatically.

“..Then, please stay by my side.”

With a feeling boiling up from inside his chest, Haruyuki spoke in a hoarse voice.

“Please always, always stay by my side. That..is my only wish.”

Even once you graduate. As my senpai. As my legion master. And as my ?Parent?.

Haruyuki added those words in his mind—is what he intended, but.

The body of Kuroyukihime who had been loosely holding Haruyuki’s head intensely stiffened with a ‘BIKUUN’.

Suddenly releasing her hug, she back-dashed about two meters with a ‘SHUBAH’, collided with the sofa and fell down on it. Even though her face just been quite serious with tears, the person herself widened her eyes as if she had forgotten that, and flapped her mouth open and closed.

Eventually, she rapidly reddened from her neck to her forehead. Her voice, turned inside out, resounded in a high tone.

“W-W-Wha..W-W-What are you saying!!”

“Heh? Umm, eh..? I-I just, umm, meant nothing in particular.”

Not understanding the situation, he similarly opened and closed his mouth at high-speed, and after a full ten seconds passed, Kuroyukihime’s face began to return to its original whiteness from top to bottom. While letting out an unbelievably long sigh, she shook her head left and right many times.

“....I understand.”

Suddenly, Kuroyukihime muttered that.

Standing up, she walked over to Haruyuki once again and placed her right hand on his head with a plop.

“I promise. I’ll stay by your side. Always. For eternity.”

While disheveling his hair, Kuroyukihime gave the highest grade smile, and said that.