Chapter 7
Summary: Haruyuki duels Ash Roller and they discuss the emergence of the ISS Kit.
Finishing his breakfast of cornflakes with milk in big bites, Haruyuki hurried out of his home after informing his mother in her room that he was going to school.
Although today is a rare sunny day, it is still quite humid, immediately increasing one’s unhappiness index early in the day; the tiniest amount of exertion is enough to cover one’s entire body with sweat, but Haruyuki persisted with a pace close to jogging towards the main road to the front of the large building.
He is not running late; his intended destination is not his school either, but a location en route to where he normally travels to school. Reaching the side of Seven Rings Road, he continues to walk south along the wide pedestrian path, deviating from his usual route of turning right at the turn.
Entering the central flyover and climbing the gentle slope, he soon reaches the junction of Seven Rings and Aoume Avenue. Getting on the skybridge escalator, Haruyuki stops at the center of Seven Rings Line and checks the time in the lower right corner of his vision. It’s now 7.45am.
Switching his line of vision to the lines of EVs1 underneath him, Haruyuki softly utters:
“Burst Link.”
*BASHIII!* With that sound effect, the world is silenced and is dyed blue. This is the Initial Accelerated s.p.a.ce, which the Brain Burst program created by amplifying the quantum clock pulses of Haruyuki’s heart and accelerating his thoughts by a thousand times.
At first glance, the EV traffic, dyed a uniform, vivid blue, seems to have completely stopped, but a closer examination reveals that these cars are in fact moving forwards by about a centimetre every second. Against this strange backdrop, Haruyuki moved the hands of his pink pig avatar and opened the Matching List Option in Brain Burst. Locating the name he was looking for from a long list of familiar names, he exhaled a virtual sigh. With naught a trace of hesitation, he selected it and pressed “DUEL” on the resulting popup.
The world changed again. From its outer edges inwards, the sky turned an inky black. Scars appeared on the walls of tall buildings and convenience stores on either side of the road. Every car vanished and countless broken walls sp.a.w.ned by the roads, including potholes and rusting gasoline barrels.
The «End Of Century» stage is still a considerably windy environment, and Haruyuki couldn’t help but crack a smile. It wasn’t that he particularly liked this stage, but there was no stage more suitable than the current one. That’s because the opponent Haruyuki had chosen mere seconds go had fought in this particular stage for his first «Duel», and furthermore, it was when Haruyuki – Silver Crow had made his debut as a Burst Linker.
Tilting his ear attentively, it wasn’t long before Haruyuki picked up on the characteristic sound of a revving internal combustion engine coming from the wide, open northern main road. He should be joyriding towards Haruyuki’s position straight as an arrow with the engine at full throttle, since the water-coloured Guide Cursor is practically motionless. Within his heart, Haruyuki was lured for an instant to audaciously attempt the same trick as he had on a similar footbridge in the past: waiting for the opponent just before he pa.s.ses directly underneath the bridge, jumping down and dealing a full-force flying kick.
But Haruyuki stuck to his original plan, and before he could even see the silhouette of his opponent, jumped down from the handrails of the footbridge. Opening his wings to slow his descent, he landed on the road surface gently.
“Eh?”
“Crow-kun has gone down already? Why?”
This chatter came from the gaggles of Gallery Members gathered on the rooftops of various buildings. It was probably jaw-dropping for them to see Haruyuki squander such a rare advantage; but contrary to what they believed, Haruyuki had not «Accelerated» this time for the sake of a duel.
Putting his hands on his waist, it wasn’t long before Haruyuki could make out a shining headlamp from the darkness and the sound of a roaring V-twin engine. It appears that the opponent too, had noticed Haryuki and had changed gears, preparing to charge straight in; however, he had instead, raised his hands high rather than a.s.sume a combative stance to attack first, indicating his lack of intention to fight.
Fortunately, the opponent seemed to have understood his intent. Emerging from the darkness, the front and rear brake rotors of the steel ride emitted sparks from the deceleration, with their orange light reflected in the chrome plating of the upper half of the bike. The rear wheel was skidded and the bike came to a stop before Haryuki, and the rider removed his hand from the handlebars to shake a finger while clicking his tongue:
“So Bad, you lookin’ for a fight with me but surrender before we started?”
Facing the devilish scarface mask of the avatar who is probably Accel World’s one and only motorbike rider Ash Roller, Haruyuki bowed his head and replied:
“I’m sorry, but today I have something I want to discuss with Ash-san…”
The legion that Ash Roller belongs to is the Green Legion «Great Wall», whose territory is the area of Shibuya to the south, so their main duelling territory is of course Shibuya. Yet for reasons unknown, Ash Roller can be found on the Matching List on normal days in the morning and evening for a short period of time in Suginami. Perhaps it was because he takes a bus that pa.s.ses through the Seven Rings road to get to and back from school, so this period of time is considered a «Neighboring Excursion». And if this is truly the case, then it is certainly very daring on his part; since it is possible to determine from the duel avatar’s sp.a.w.n location the position of the bus that he is riding on, it’s difficult to protect himself from «Real Life Harm» incidents occurring.
Yet upon a second thought, there are no other Burst Linkers who could be appropriately described with ‘daring’ and ‘rough,’ and therefore Haruyuki made his decision to interrupt his thoughts and walked closer to the bike. Lowering his voice, he spoke:
“And, if we could talk in «Closed», it would help me a great deal…”
«Closed Mode«, as it implies, is the complete exclusion of Gallery members from spectating the fight, or in other words, a private duel. It can be initiated with the consent of both sides, but doing so would lead the Gallery to think that the fighters were petty about being seen. Furthermore, «expressing in view of everybody» is the reason why Burst Linkers throw themselves into a fight wholeheartedly, so next to no one ever uses this mode.
Ash Roller too huffed with dissatisfaction, but agreed in a small voice of ‘Understood’ given the serious tone Haruyuki had used.
Facing the four directions of the stage in turn, the motorbike rider shouted in a loud and clear voice:
“HeyheyHEY! Boyz an’ Girlz! Sorry that you guys can’t see Ore-sama win today, SO SURRY, but juz for this fight, everyone, take it that NOTHING happened at all!”
Thunderous protests immediately erupted from every direction above on the rooftops.
“Oi oi, that’s might boring!”
“I haven’t seen Ash vs Crow for such a long time now, you guys really should have a go!”
But no matter how fiercely the Gallery opposed him, when Ash added an unnecessary line:
-“What can I do! It’s this Crow who wants to confess to Ore-sama!”
The roar of protest immediately changed to rapturous applause in a single breath.
Hearing the waves of clapping and whistling, Haruyuki was utterly fl.u.s.tered and shouted “What, it isn’t so!” But even if this carrot hadn’t been given, more than half the Gallery refused to leave the duel anyway. Whether or not Ash Roller had been serious or merely joking, Haruyuki absolutely wouldn’t bow to this.
Hence, he reached and touched his name in the upper left corner of his vision, and from the menu to change the duel type, selected ‘Closed Mode’ and pressed OK. A [YES/NO] option must have appeared in Ash Roller’s vision too; his hand moved just a little and every cheer and whisper from the audience immediately disappeared in a flash of light.
A silence settled in over the stage as though the ‘mute’ b.u.t.ton had been pressed, save for the low rumble of the gasoline engine of the V-Twin bike; it was exempt from the rule.
Ash Roller reached out with his right hand to toggle the ignition and cut the engine.
“…Alrighty, whaddya wanna say now? Your wings missing again? …Doesn’t seem like it, eh.”
“Uhh… That is… This…”
At a loss for the words he should use to explain the situation, Haruyuki decided to simply recount the truth as it had happened, and began:
“Yesterday, I entered into a duel with ‘Bush Utan’ from Great Wall…”
But that was all he got to when Ash Roller responded in a completely unexpected way:
“What… What did you say?”
The masked rider with a fierce appearance dismounted his bike, his skull-like face mask nearly touching Haruyuki’s, shouting:
“Where? When did this happen?!”
The two of them found a suitably-sized chunk of cement and sat down, while Haruyuki related the previous night’s events in detail:
How he had found Bush Utan and Olive Glove in Suginami Battle Area 2 at seven-thirty yesterday evening in a tag team battle,
Bush Utan’s repeated use of ‘-deyansu2 in his speech, followed by his equipping of the ISS Kit, and how his att.i.tude drastically changed instantly,
And how Utan had said that this kit ‘had been given three days earlier.’
The only part he had left out was Ardor Maiden’s name and her power. The rest of the story would make its way to Ash sooner or later from the spectators present during the duel; the principle was to not spill out information about your own teammates’ information anyway, and Ash didn’t ask about anything as such.
After listening for about ten minutes, with his hand on his thickly armoured kneecap and his body hunched forwards, Ash let out a deep sigh.
“You said, this is called the ‘IS Mode Training Kit’…….”
After saying that in a low voice, he glanced down to meet Haruyuki’s eyes and asked simply:
“This IS Mode, it’s that so-called ‘Incarnate System?"”
“Y…Yeah, I guess. Hasn’t Ash-san learnt Incarnation already?”
With that question leaving out a great deal of information, the skull-like helmet slowly shook from side to side:
“I’ve only heard the name from Master. Before activating the V-Twin Fist technique in a pinch, Master would tell me that I had such an ability, but I’ve never actually seriously trained. How should I say it… It’s that I’m scared. After hearing about the dangers of falling into one’s own darkness, I got really scared……and now since Master has rejoined Nega Nebulas, I can’t say the same of her teaching me.”
The ‘Master’ Ash referred to was his Parent, and the same Master who taught Haruyuki Incarnation: Sky Raker. In May this year, she had formally returned to her old territory of the Black Legion, Nega Nebulas. Hence, she was essentially rivals with Ash Roller, who belonged to Great Wall. While they naturally did not appear to give much thought to this and continued to fight fiercely during Territorial Battles, it would seem that Ash could not rid his heart of his unease about being unable to depend on his Parent.
While they had deviated considerably from the question, Haruyuki took the opportunity to ask a question he had been curious about, and opened his mouth:
“Just to ask… why did Ash-san join Great Wall?”
Notes:
1. ^ Electric Vehicles.
2. ^ This was something untranslatable in Chapter 6; Bush Utan, as opposed to ending sentences with the formal ‘-desu,’ instead ended a great deal of his sentences with ‘-deyansu’ to emphasise himself.