e limit.

But, in this case, the egg being there wasn’t a coincidence.

Chiyuri had produced it. She had noticed the silhouette of a large insect moving on the other side of the mist while fighting. Then, she had had released her special technique while pretending to aim at Haruyuki, when in fact she was targeting the insect.

?Citron Call? wasn’t a true healing ability. It was actually the power to ?turn back the time of the target?. It healed the health gauge in a pseudo-manner, but it also canceled things like alterations by Enhanced Armaments, and if it hit an object on the stage, its state would be reversed in time. Destroyed objects would be restored to just as they were before—and a huge long-horned beetle would return to being an egg.

Naturally, Frost Horn probably would have normally noticed what had happened as well and not approached the egg. However, the frost drifting thickly through the air had obstructed his vision and hidden Chiyuri’s true aim. As a result, he had been deceived by Haruyuki’s guidance and smashed straight into the egg—

“Hiiyaaaaah—!!”

That shrill scream and the huge insect’s angry cries went far off into the deep forest to the west, in the direction of Shinjuku Central Park. ?Frosted Circle? also moved along with him, and the surroundings regained their original brightness immediately.

Watching his partner’s fleeing escape in a dumbfounded manner, Tourmaline Shell turned around and shouted while looking from Haruyuki to Chiyuri in turn.

“..I’ll take revenge for Horn-kun! C-Come at meeeeeeee!!”

Of course, they came at him.

“Good work!”

Haruyuki bumped his own fist against Chiyuri’s stuck out right fist as she said that with a smile over her entire face, and then dragged himself to sit down on one of the benches lying along the passage of the Tokyo Government Office Building’s top floor.

He let out a long breath and cut off his connection to the Global Net for the time being, before collapsing and turning his face skyward.

Even though he had merely finished a single normal duel without anything other than Burst Points hanging in the balance, he was somehow extremely tired. The reason was probably because he had forced himself to continuously fight in close-combat on the ground, a way of fighting that wasn’t his usual style.

The stress of ?not flying? truly was like being in a desert without water to him. When the first school term had started, there had been a time when he couldn’t use his wings for more than a week, but that experience had only seemed to increase his desire to fly even more.

A year had still not yet passed since Haruyuki had become a Burst Linker. If it was ?that person? who had six years of experience, it wouldn’t be strange at all if she had continued hiding her passion for the sky more and more until it was maddening. Although signs of that couldn’t be felt at all from her usually quiet manner..

“Hey, what are you spacing out about!”

*GOTTSUN*?Haruyuki confusedly blinked his eyes as his head was hit.

Sitting on the next bench beside him, Chiyuri puffed up her cheeks and gave him a sidelong glare. It seemed he had completely missed what she had been saying.

“S-Sorry. What were you saying?”

“‘Shall we do another battle?’ is what I asked!”

After she said that, Haruyuki glanced at the time display at the lower right corner of his vision, and saw that only a few minutes had passed since they had arrived at the viewing platform. Burst Linker duels finished after 1.8 seconds at the most, so it was only natural, but Haruyuki thought it over a little, before answering.

“Hmm, even if we wait for another duel challenge as a tag team, I feel that we’ll probably just end up battling with Horn and Shell’s team again..Well, that’s not that bad either, though.”

Chiyuri rolled her cat-like eyes, before shaking her head.

“Certainly, fighting the same team might be boring. But, it’d also be a waste to do solo duels after the two of us came all the way here..”

After staying lost in thought for a while with an expression where she would probably have been moving her big cat ears if she were in the avatar form she used on the school’s local network, Chiyuri suddenly clapped her hands together and spoke.

“Ah, I know! Since we’re already in Shinjuku, let’s call Nee-san[4]?over! If I remember right, she attends a high school in Shibuya, so she could just travel over one station.”

The instant he heard that, Haruyuki was a little surprised. That was because the ?Nee-san? that Chiyuri spoke of was ?that person? who Haruyuki had been thinking of just now.

Her name was ?Sky Raker?. She was a senior Burst Linker that had joined—no, returned to Nega Nebulas just two months ago, and was also Kuroyukihime’s old friend.

The reason why Chiyuri called her Nee-san was very simple. It originated from when they exchanged name tags in their first meeting in the real world, where Haruyuki had noticed that, like how Chiyuri’s family name was ?Kurashima?, Raker’s real name was ?Kurasaki Fuuko?, and then nonchalantly commented ‘Since you’re an island and peninsula together, it’s like you’re sisters, hahaha’.[5]

Without waiting for Haruyuki’s response, Chiyuri started typing an invitation email to that Raker-nee-san. As his childhood friend typed on her holo-keyboard with slightly awkward finger movements, Haruyuki wavered over whether to say “Stop”. That was because he had an intuitive premonition that Raker-san would undoubtedly refuse that invitation.

While she had certainly returned to the legion, Sky Raker was still not released from the guilty consciousness that bound her. Even now, she still deeply regretted having left the legion a long time ago as if she were forsaking the leader Kuroyukihime. Chiyuri of course also knew about that. And in her own way, she was probably trying to knock at the door of Raker’s closed heart.

That’s why Haruyuki closed his mouth back shut.

Completing the email after a few seconds, Chiyuri connected her Neuro Linker to the Global Net for an instant and sent it. She cut it off again, and then after waiting a little while, connected it once more. After receiving the reply from Raker, she disconnected from the net again, and then looked at the text.

“....‘Sorry’, it says.”

After whispering that, Chiyuri then raised her head and gave a tiny laugh; Haruyuki carefully prepared his next words.

“Raker-san is in high school, so she’s surely busy on weekdays. Since she should be participating in the territory match next weekend, we can meet her there.”

“..Yeah, that’s right.”

His childhood friend sucked in a deep breath, smiled as if renewing her emotions, and spoke in a chipper voice.

“Then, shall we fight another round as solo fighters this time?”

“Hmm, I feel quite satisfied from the one earlier..If you’re unsatisfied though, Chiyu, I’ll keep going with you, of course.”

When Haruyuki gave that as his answer, Chiyuri showed a sincere happy-looking smile and nodded.

“Yeah, since we were able to win in such an interesting and cool way, I’m also done for the day. Ah, it was really satisfying!”

“Pretty much.”

Giving a smile of his own, Haruyuki reflected on their tag match earlier.

Just winning in a power battle with their avatars themselves was also very nice, but what was even more refreshing was having a strategic victory perfectly using the stage’s attributes. Furthermore, it wasn’t just something like a comeback victory while covered in disadvantages. That was evident by how the gallery had gotten thrilled and animated when the duel had been concluded.

Of course, the regret of having lost was also consequently doubled for the losers.

Chiyuri also seemed to recall at the same time as Haruyuki the magnificent words Frost Horn had declared to them after having somehow shaken off the hot pursuit of the huge long-horned beetle and returned to the battlefield only to be crushed by their concentrated attacks, and so the two of them burst into laughter together.

“Bufufu..‘Next time I’ll definitely dropkick you off from the top of the Tokyo Sky Tree!’. If he gives us advance notice like that, we can just easily dodge it, and it’ll end with him falling from that height.”

“Before that, there’s the problem of how he would reach up there. There’s probably 200 meters from just the viewing platform there to the antenna at the top, and in the first place, do the social cameras even..reach..that high..”

An idea suddenly flashed through Haruyuki’s mind as he spoke, and his words slowed down.

It was about the topic he had tried to remember just before they had been challenged to a duel. The first case of exporting the social camera technology outside Japan.

The memory of seeing it at a glance on the headline news finally came back to him.

As Haruyuki suddenly sank into silence, Chiyuri tilted her head in puzzlement.

“..What’s wrong, Haru?”

“Eh, ah, n..no, it’s nothing.”

When he simply shook his head, Chiyuri shrugged, before standing up energetically.

“Then, let’s get some tea somewhere and head home. You must be happy, Arita-sensei, you don't have to worry about going home all beaten up and full of holes with me![6]”

The thought ‘No matter how much we make game talk, she still says that kind of remark as usual’ flashed through Haruyuki’s mind.

“N-Not especially, even if I was beat up, I wouldn't really mind, not especially.”

As he mumbled that, a giggle from Chiyuri who had started to walk towards the elevator reached his ears. After sighing, he hurriedly chased after her.

Outside the window, only the white clouds continued slowly drifting through air as usual.