Friday.

Haruyuki trudgingly walked along the sidewalk with his shoulders drooped dejectedly among the other students, who were going to school with shining expressions at the prospect of the holiday the day after tomorrow after the long week finally ended.

"A guy... a guy like me..."

He mumbled to himself, filled with maximum self-loathing so early in the morning.

If the dream he had on the night of installing Brain Burst was the scariest one of his life, the dream he had last night would have to be the lowest and most disgusting one. If the other person, who had done things he only knew about through virtual knowledge, had just been Kuroyukihime, it might have been the best dream he had ever had. But before he knew it, the number of people in the dream increased to two, and the second person was—.

"Auu...aaa..."

He desperately pushed back the urge to grab his head and run.

Currently, the producers of Neuro Linkers were said to be ruthlessly competing to create a truly dream-like application called ?Dream Record?. It was a good thing that it didn't exist yet. No—well, he had to admit that part of him was disappointed about that...

"Hey, good morning, boy!"

Haruyuki jumped as somebody greeted him cheerfully with a slap on his shoulder.

Then he jumped again after turning around and seeing the beauty in black standing there.

"Hwuaaa?!"

"...What was that? Is it a greeting that's popular these days?"

Kuroyukihime had a dubious expression on her face. Haruyuki shook his head.

"No, it-it's nothing!! Umm, go-good morning, senpai!!"

"...Hmmm."

Kuroyukihime cocked her head once more, then coughed slightly and spoke again.

"Hmm—. Ahh—. Well, I... apologize about yesterday. I wasn't being very mature."

"N-no... there's no way it's like that, it's nothing of the sort. I should be the one apologizing... I went home without even saying goodbye properly..."

As the two of them stopped speaking, students wearing the same uniform slowly started milling around them. Not just first years but even second and third years were waiting to greet Kuroyukihime with looks of admiration in their eyes, and before they knew it, a line had formed behind them.

Having seen this, Kuroyukihime finished her greetings in one fell swoop by shouting "Hey, good morning everyone!" to all the people in the back, and then tapped Haruyuki on the back and hurried off. She continued the conversation, whispering in Haruyuki's ear after he had hastily caught up with her.

"No... of course you wanted to get away. I had treated your precious... friend, as a cowardly marauder. Because of that, I made you say something impossible, that you would check Direct Connecting. I sincerely apologize."

"Huh? Ah... Well, I did it... the Direct Connect."

"...What?"

Her face froze. She spoke even before Haruyuki could put up his guard. He had the feeling that something wasn't quite right.

"Where did you do it?"

She asked with an edge to her voice, so there was no choice but to answer truthfully.

"That-that is... at her house..."

"Where in the house?"

"I-in a room... He-her room."

"...Ho."

Kuroyukihime increased her pace for some reason. Haruyuki had to chase after a person with a much longer stride than him with sweat running down his brow. It took him a couple seconds to catch up and continue the conversation.

"So, I sneaked a peek at her memory... and in her Neuro Linker there was..."

"How long was the cable?"

Kuroyukihime asked with an aura that seemed to bore into him. Haruyuki answered timidly, feeling more and more frightened.

"Th...irty centimeters."

"...Hmph."

Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap.

Haruyuki could only watch Kuroyukihime's long hair shake to and fro as she walked towards the school entrance ahead of them at a frightening pace.

I don't understand. This world is just full of things I don't get.

After seriously listening to the morning classes, half as a way of escape, and taking a mountain's worth of notes, Haruyuki couldn't himself to take any sort of action even when he heard the lunch bell ring.

If he thought about it logically, he should immediately go find Kuroyukihime and talk about the backdoor that ?Cyan Pile? had installed in Chiyuri's Neuro Linker, as well as how to track the packet down. But before that, if he couldn't figure out the reason behind why Kuroyukihime had been acting strangely ill-humored since yesterday, he wouldn't be able to concentrate on the conversation.

It was true that he made people in front of him feel disgusted quite a lot. It would be more of a surprise if there was someone that didn't get annoyed at an overly obese guy that sweated like a waterfall and mumbled almost inaudibly. And the expression that conveyed that on the person's face would further intimidate Haruyuki and his voice would continue to get smaller until it became hard to even hear.

Perhaps Kuroyukihime had been secretly tolerating him until now. And perhaps she had finally gone past her limit.

If so, it would be better to give up talking to her face to face in real life. If they talked with their full dive avatars, he wouldn't sweat at least and the volume of his voice would be automatically compensated. Getting things done like this smoothly and efficiently would be the most desirable thing for him as well.

As Haruyuki kept telling himself this while gazing at the table, an unfamiliar and loud voice suddenly blared down from above his head.

"Hello! First year, Class-2 Arita Haruyuki-kun, right?"

He jerked his head up in surprise. Two girls whose faces he didn't know were standing in front of him. Both had a holo-tag on their shoulders that showed that they were in the middle of a club activity. [Newspaper club].

Geeh, a new icon flashed in Haruyuki's vision as he almost fell down in surprise. [SREC], that was an icon that told you that the other person was recording your conversation. Of course it wasn't something that was freely allowed, but it was allowed in very few instances within the school.

For example, collecting data for the newspaper club.

Haruyuki couldn't even look at his classmates who were watching with interest around him. He prepared to run away, disregarding how he would look. But, as if they were used to these sorts of situations, there was someone who stood behind him to block his escape route.

Right in front of Haruyuki who was frozen in a half-risen position, the attacking reporter pushed out her hand that was holding a holo-board and threw out the question which struck at the heart of the matter.

"This is Umesato Real Times, ?Head☆shot to that guy in the rumors? corner!! Well to get straight to the point, is the rumor that Arita-kun is going out with that famous Kuroyukihime-san true!?"

Haruyuki glanced at the blinking recording icon.

Then, he concentrated all his mental power and managed to reply in what could be called a calm voice.

"It's a lie. A rumor. Groundless."

The reporter typed furiously on her invisible keyboard in front of her and then launched a counter-attack.

"But according to the information we have gathered, Arita-kun has direct connected with Kuroyukihime-san twice in the lounge and even did a non-stop Direct Connect date in a café within the school district!"

"Wha..."

Looking down at Haruyuki who was shocked and thinking "Why do you know that?", the female student made light flash across her real glasses, which were a rare thing these days.

This was bad, really bad. If he answered wrong here, it would become something that can't be taken back.

Several sensational headlines appeared in his head. He could even hear the battle cry of the Kuroyukihime fan club as they saw that and swore bloody punishment.

With one of his cheek twitching and convulsing in spasms, Haruyuki made his brain think three times faster than the time he had fought ?Ash Roller? and came up with an answer that seemed innocent enough.

"Eh—, w-w-well that is. I-I-I know quite a lot about Neuro Linker operating systems, and umm, senpai's Neuro Linker was in bad shape, so I just fixed it for her when she asked me to, and the thing in the café was nothing more than compensation for that. There wasn't anything else to it, really, not even a little."

As he shook his head with a stiff smile, the newspaper club member stopped typing and frowned.

Even if they saw them direct connecting, it was impossible to tell if they had talked through or if he had just fiddled with the Neuro Linker. It wasn't a great excuse but they wouldn't be able to refute it.

As Haruyuki calmed down, he kept talking to make his defense stronger.

"Be...Besides, if you look at how that person acts when she's with me you'll know. Senpai gets upset really easily when she talks with me. There's no way that she's going out with me."

With this, the interview was over.

That was what he thought, but the girl cocked her head and repeated his words as if suspicious of something.

"Upset? It didn't seem that way at all..."

"I-It's true! Even this morning, she went off by herself and was angry for some reason... She's always acts like that whenever I talk about Chiyu, I mean Kurashima..."

"Kurashima...san? You mean the girl who quarreled with Kuroyukihime over something at the school gate...?"

After blinking her sparkling eyes behind her glasses several times—

The newspaper club club member's dramatic attitude suddenly vanished and moved her finger. The recording icon disappeared from Haruyuki's sight.

"...? Has the interview finished?"

"Erm, well... that is......"

After strangely faltering and exchanging glances with her partner behind her, she then continued to talk in what seemed to be her normal manner of speaking.

"Well, you see. The truth is, we were also skeptical and just came came to collect data thinking it was just some silly mistake, but..."

"Yes...?"

The girl brought her face closer and whispered low enough so that only Haruyuki could hear.

"Hey, Arita-kun. It couldn't really be... well this is what I think... but maybe, are you and Kuroyukihime, really... like that?"

"Haah!?"

"Well, y'know, if she gets upset every time you talk about that Kurashima-san who's close to you, that's, well... you know?"

The other club member who stood next to her continued.

"Yeah. That, the only thing it could be is..."

Then both of them whispered to Haruyuki at the same time as if they were oracles from a temple.

"...jealousy, right?"

When Haruyuki recovered his state of mind, Haruyuki found himself in his usual cubicle in the men's restroom.

In the end, he had run away, but he didn't have the luxury of mind to feel remorse for what he had done.

'Jealousy? With what characters is that written with? I don't know of any such word in Japanese.'

He wanted to run away from his thoughts like that, but the kanji to spell it was already etched into his mind like a red hot iron brand.

The reason that Kuroyukihime showed a displeased face when they talked of Chiyuri was because of...jealousy.

Yes, that's what the two of them had said.

Jealousy. Envy. In other words, Kuroyukihime had not been acting or joking, but had seriously been—

"It's a lie."

Haruyuki rushed ahead of where his thoughts were going and muttered that. There was no way that was true. It might happen to other people but to him, Arita Haruyuki, such a thing cannot happen. Don't think like that. Don't wish for it. If he did, he would, without a doubt, toss and turn in his bed while regretting it two to three times more.

Haruyuki banged the back of his head on the flush tank behind him and told himself again.

"It's a lie...a lie."

But the more he kept telling himself that, the more the little actions, expressions and words Kuroyukihime had showed and told him flickered through his mind.

That time...and that time, and that time, did that person really...?

"......It's a lie!!"

Bang! Haruyuki punched the cubicle wall and hugged his head.

It was painful to even continue thinking now, he wanted to run away from here more than ever, but—at the instant he was going to give the command for Full Dive.

He remembered the crazy high score that Kuroyukihime had managed to achieve in virtual squash.

He could never exceed that score. If so, he couldn't use that game to escape from reality anymore.

"...Why."

He muttered again, a little louder this time.

"...Why!? Why me!?"

You have everything. Looks, brains, physical skills, social graces, and even—the one thing I really prided myself on, reaction speed in virtual games.

In comparison, I am just an unlikable person with a flabby and sweaty body along with a stupid face.

In other words, I didn't have anything that was better than you.

"And yet...why did you say that you believed in me...?"

Of course Haruyuki was the person with an aptitude for Brain Burst that Kuroyukihime had been looking so hard for.

But even then, there were three of them in the same middle school, it meant nothing more than that.

Furthermore Haruyuki's ?Silver Crow?, with its huge helmet head attached to tall and thin wire-like body, had no skills beyond kicking, punching and headbutting. With a duel avatar like that, he wouldn't be of any use other than finding out the identity of the enemy—?Cyan Pile?. In that case, he wanted to be suitably treated according to that. He wanted to just be commanded calmly, indifferently, as a chess piece.

He didn't wish for anything more than that. He wouldn't have dreamed of anything more than that. Yet—why, why did Kuroyukihime act like that, make such expressions, and look at him with such eyes?

Finally Haruyuki decided to cling onto the single conclusion with the sole wish to set his mind at rest. It didn't seem as if he would be able to find any reason other than that now.

Although the person who had extorted food money from him had already disappeared, Haruyuki had skipped lunch, but he wasn't conscious of being hungry and just passed through the afternoon classes indifferently.

In homeroom, the teacher seemed to have talked about Araya and his gang, but Haruyuki ignored that too, and after the other students rushed out of the classroom just as the school bell rang and in high spirits in anticipation of the weekend, he stood up slowly with his bag in his hand.

He then slowly walked to the entrance, changed his shoes and left the school building.

Even though it was only just past 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the late autumn sun was already a deep red and had sharply gone down in the sky, illuminating the school gates. Catching sight of a black silhouette standing there as if absorbed into the gatepost, Haruyuki approached while dragging his feet.

"..Hey."

Kuroyukihime stopped her hand, which had been typing on a holo-keyboard, and raised one small hand along with a slightly stiff smile. Probably, she had expressly taken out the work which she should have dealt with in the student council room here in this uninteresting place.

In contrast, Haruyuki just bowed his head silently.

An awkward silence instantly descended between them. A cold wind passed through them, rustling the leaves at their feet.

As Haruyuki still hung his head, Kuroyukihime lightly cleared her throat and then continued speaking.

"..Let’s talk as we walk."

"Ok."

Haruyuki nodded as he gave a faint response.

Kuroyukihime walked silently, while Haruyuki followed a step behind on her left as they walked out of the school gate.

After walking for a minute or two without talking to each other, Kuroyukihime began to speak after clearing her throat once more.

"Umm..That is, I'm very sorry for this morning. I had a strange attitude."

"No, I...don’t particularly mind. I should apologize too, for not coming to find you during lunch time."

After hearing that unusually smooth reply from Haruyuki, Kuroyukihime seemed to tilt her head slightly, but then nodded.

"Then, it’s fine, but..Umm. Even I don't know what exactly came over me, but..yes, when it comes to talking about ?Cyan Pile?, I'm unable to keep my calm."

With her gaze set straight ahead, Kuroyukihime kept talking just a little fast—

Haruyuki cut her words off with a dry voice.

"About that. I’ve found the connection between ?Cyan Pile? and Kurashima."

"..Eh? Ah..I-I see. Then, let’s talk about it through direct connect. Since someone might hear what we say."

Kuroyukihime spoke quickly, and searched through the bag hanging on her right hand instead of her pocket.

What she pulled out was a small paper bag that had the name of a store within Umesato on it. Breaking off the tape with a stinging noise, Kuroyukihime drew out a new XSB cable from the bag.

"Ah, I accidentally broke the cable that we used yesterday. So..I didn't have a lot of money with me, and could only buy this."

Haruyuki purposely ignored Kuroyukihime’s explanation, which sounded like an excuse, as she held out a 1-meter cable—the shortest size sold in stores. Without meeting her eyes, he silently took the plug at one end of the cable and inserted it into his Neuro Linker.

"...."

Kuroyukihime seemed to be waiting for Haruyuki to say something, but eventually she inserted the plug at the other end into her own Neuro Linker. As the Wired Connection warning appeared and then disappeared, Haruyuki sent out his dry thoughts to her.

"Kurashima isn't ?Cyan Pile? herself. ?Cyan Pile? has installed a virus in Kurashima’s Neuro Linker and made a Backdoor inside it. That’s why he appears on the stage from the coordinates where Kurashima is within the school."

After Haruyuki had spoken up to that point, Kuroyukihime did not respond immediately.

Eventually, her voice sounded through the center of his brain, sounding suspicious, or perhaps just a little scared.

"..Did something happen to you..? Somehow...you’ve been a bit strange since earlier."

"Not really..nothing’s wrong."

Haruyuki responded to Kuroyukihime as she walked beside him 1 meter away, obstinately not turning to look at her.

"But..—Could it be that you’re angry? Because I acted strangely this morning and yesterday..?"

"No way. There's no reason for me to be angry at senpai..I’m fine, so let’s return to the important discussion here."

Once again, only silence flowed through the thin cable.

With dusk approaching, the sidewalk was dim and gloomy from the group of buildings lined up to the left, and the people who came and went were all sunk into black shadow. No one paid attention to Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime as they walked while direct connected, it was as if there was just the two of them, wandering through a calm country of shadows.

"...Do you have evidence that proves this?"

Abruptly, a thought that had suddenly changed to cold resounded in Haruyuki’s mind.

"Did you get a hold of evidence that proves that Kurashima-kun really isn't ?Cyan Pile??"

"No. If I touched the virus, there was the danger of them noticing, so I just checked it."

"Ho. That’s a calm decision, but at the same time it lacks persuasive power. Even I’ve never heard of something like connecting to Brain Burst via a Backdoor virus, so how should I believe your words?"

As she kept composing her words, Kuroyukihime’s thoughts became more and more sharp. Haruyuki clenched his teeth firmly and replied in an even more monotone voice.

"So in other words, you’re pointing out the possibility that I made up the story about the virus.. in short, that I changed sides over to Kurashima, ?Cyan Pile?? If that's the case, it isn’t about evidence or the like. How the matter is judged all depends on what senpai decides."

"..I never said any of that. You’re thinking too much."

Kuroyukihime’s words shook a little, but Haruyuki obstinately gave nothing in reply to that.

"—Are those really your heart-felt words?"

Kuroyukihime’s feet suddenly stopped and she spoke with a stiff voice that made the temperature quickly fall.

"The instant I concluded that you had gone over to ?Cyan Pile?, I would hunt you, take away all of your Burst Points, and drive to forced uninstallation of Brain Burst. You would forever lose the ability to accelerate. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I understand. I’m just an ordinary chess piece, an ordinary tool for you to freely use as you like. When I’m no longer needed, I’ll be thrown away."

"..You.."

Suddenly, Haruyuki’s left shoulder was lightly seized.

When he looked up, Kuroyukihime’s face was close to him, strained hard like a work of ice.

"You really are angry with me. Certainly, I haven’t been perfect either. I apologize for that. But."

Her lips faintly trembled, and she squeezed her words in a forcibly restrained voice.

"..I also can’t freely control all my emotions. When I get irritated, I also think anxiously. Especially concerning you..and Kurashima-kun.."

Hiding her gaze for a moment, Kuroyukihime tried to continue speaking as her pale cheeks stiffened.

"..Very well, if you wish to know the reason, I’ll tell. I.."

Before he received her thoughts through the cable, Haruyuki turned his head to the side and cut her off.

"It’s fine, just stop it already."

"Eh..W-What..?"

"It’s also tough to watch it. It’s painful to see."

"What are you talking about..What do you..mean?"

While fixing his gaze on a single pavement tile on the lower-right, Haruyuki spoke out loud the ?only conclusion? he had arrived at earlier today.

"You..hate yourself, don’t you?"

The sound of a sharp intake of breath.

Haruyuki was conscious of the fact that the words he was giving shape to right now could not be taken back.

In his ear, he faintly heard Chiyuri’s encouragement from last night like a refrain, but he could no longer stop thoughts he was letting out.

"You hate yourself for being too perfect in everything. So you purposely try to diminish yourself. Isn’t that right?"

Kuroyukihime’s fingers which were holding his shoulder stiffened hard, as if they had become iron. While thinking that “This will be our last contact”, Haruyuki threw out the last words which would destroy everything.

"By speaking to me..to a fat, unattractive and unlikable person like me, by touching my hand, by showing kindness..or rather, showing something like kindness to me, you were just trying to dirty yourself..Even if you don’t do those things, I will still do as you say. I don’t wish for anything else. I don’t need compensation. Being just a pawn, just a tool to be ordered about, is suitable treatment for someone like me, you should also understand that!!"

Slowly—Slowly, the white hand left his shoulder.

‘That’s fine.’

‘Without touching me, nor meet my eyes again.’

‘Without even facing me in the real world, just make me into an ordinary tool.’

Haruyuki didn't know whether those feelings reached her as thought.

‘Goodbye.’

Just as he murmured that at the end.

Slap!!

A sharp sensation hit his left cheek.

Feeling a burning heat, Haruyuki raised his face in astonishment.

"..Idiot!!"

That word came from her pale lips as real sound.

Dumbfounded, Haruyuki watched as tears poured out like a waterfall on that face that was twisted to its limits, yet was still extremely beautiful.

While still in the stance of having waved her left hand in a big way, Kuroyukihime’s face and entire body became crumpled and disheveled like an infant, and she kept shedding tears without interruption.

"Idiot..Idiot.."

The sound of that repeated word seemed different from the ?idiot?[1]?with a mature and wry smile he had heard up until now.

As a single girl of suitable age—of 14-year-old, Kuroyukihime had abused Haruyuki so, so many times.

And Haruyuki, without even some responses that a 13-year-old boy should be able to do coming to mind, just stood there stock-still and wide-eyed.

The words he spoke had deeply injured the person in front of him. He understood that.

However, Haruyuki had thought that, if it’s Kuroyukihime—if it’s this person, who is perfect in everything and possesses a reasoning and ability to think beyond that of adults, she would simply hate Haruyuki, be disgusted with him and separate her heart from him.

To think that she would cry so much. That she would have such a fragile face. Such a—such a possibility was..

Haruyuki opened his mouth as he tried to say something.

Kuroyukihime covered her flowing tears with both hands.

Only a momentary breeze passed by them as they stood on the sidewalk as it sunk into the color of dusk.

Immediately after that—

The dreadful sound of metal striking metal hit Haruyuki’s ears.

At first, he thought that it was quantum noise that originated from the Neuro Linker.

As Haruyuki was shocked and his heart jumped, he turned his neck and upper body to the right.

What burst into his field of vision was—a terrible sight.

A white car, as it cut down the guardrail that separated the road and the sidewalk with its left front fender, was hurtling straight towards him.

An accident!? No! He couldn’t hear the sound of brakes.

Those four thoughts flashed through Haruyuki’s mind in less than 0.1 seconds.

His mouth moved almost automatically and sent out one word. And at the same time, the same words sounded in his mind through the direct connect cable with a voice completely different from his own

""Burst-Link!""

Bashiiiiiiii!!

Along with a sound similar to thunder, the world stopped.

Blue.

A frozen scene, that was transparently blue as far as one could see.

But, Haruyuki was immediately conscious of that fact that it wasn’t completely stopped.

The tires of the large sedan that was driving right before his eyes, as if resisting the freeze, were turning little by little, little by little, gnawing on the road surface and decreasing the distance between them

..Uwaaah!?

Though a little late, Haruyuki screamed and sprang back. Instantly, the form of the car vanished. Hiding it from view was his—roundish back, wearing the Umesato middle school uniform.

This blue world wasn’t simply a scene of reality. The Brain Burst program was hacking the images from the countless Social Security cameras installed in the surroundings streets and reconfiguring them as a polygon-made pseudo-reality.

Turning his gaze down a little, he saw that his body had changed into a pink pig. Moving his familiar virtual avatar, Haruyuki went around the back of his real self and saw the white sedan once more.

There was only three meters of distance between Haruyuki and the car, which had slantingly gone outside of the road and crashed through the gap between guardrails. Also, judging from its speed as it gradually but steadily advanced forward, it would come into contact with the two of them in less than ten minutes within this accelerated world.

For such a thing to happen—Why!?

Haruyuki thought desperately within his confused mind.

It was normally impossible for a car to deviate away from the road. Because the instant an abnormal course was detected, the control AI of the car would take the driving authority away from the driver and automatically perform a course correction, deceleration and stop.

In other words, this car’s control AI must have been broken, or temporarily stopped by the driver's manipulation.

Most likely the latter, as Haruyuki quickly surmised. Because his ears couldn’t hear the screeching sound of the tires chafing against the road surface due to full braking at all.

The driver wasn’t stepping on the brakes. Rather, he was plunging forward by accelerating full throttle.

This was an intentional attack. Kuroyukihime had hinted at it before, about ?attacks? on the side of reality by Burst Linkers.

Was the attacker an unknown Burst Linker belonging to the legion of a ?King?? Or was the person at Umesato middle school, ?Cyan Pile??

Most of the surrounding social security cameras didn’t seem to catch the image of the car’s interior, and the window couldn’t be seen through easily. Haruyuki changed angles, strained his eyes and finally found a position where he could peek into the interior.

After raising the short pig avatar to its full height, he saw that the driver, who had almost collided with the car hood, was—

“Wha..!?” -->>

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