The person who spoke to Kojiro was a girl about his age.
Her hair was short, with the ends curling slightly inward. On her small face sat a pair of red plastic-framed glasses, the kind rarely seen these days. She looked smart, the sort of girl who would suit a paper book, or even a hardcover, far better than her age would suggest.
Kojiro couldn’t hide the look of dismay on his face. He had just realized that his reaction had been anything but what an ordinary civilian who knew nothing would show. As proof, the girl who had been carefully watching his response until a moment ago now wore an expression of certainty. Then she grabbed Kojiro by the collar and shouted, "So you really were the PKer!"
"No, that’s..."
That was too far!
Just as the flustered Kojiro was about to protest, the girl swiftly thrust something out at him.
It was a cable. A small plug was attached to the end of a thin silver-coated cord, and one side was already connected to the girl’s Neuro Linker. Now she was extending the other end toward Kojiro’s neck, or more precisely, toward his Neuro Linker.
She was attempting a direct wired connection, commonly called a wired direct communication. Neuro Linkers normally communicate wirelessly through network servers existing in the current space, with several layers of security programs intervening in between.
But with a wired direct connection, most of those barriers were rendered nearly useless. Anyone with a certain level of Linker skill could even peek into the other person’s private memories or plant malicious programs. So forcing a connection like this without the other party’s consent was a crime in itself.
Even so, Kojiro did not stop the girl’s hand reaching for his Neuro Linker. She was probably a Burst Linker like him, and from the way she was speaking, she seemed to be looking for a PK player like himself. Most likely, she was trying to direct-connect so she could challenge him to a duel.
In that case, it might be better to let her do as she pleased. If he stopped her too hastily, the misunderstanding might only deepen. It would be easier to clear things up in a normal duel field with no interruptions.
Just as Kojiro expected, the girl inserted the other plug into her Neuro Linker and quickly shouted, "Burst Link!"
A dry peal of thunder rang in Kojiro’s ears. Then the string of text announcing a challenger’s appearance blazed red across his vision.
*
Now transformed into the Duel Avatar [Ultramarine Swallow], Kojiro found that the girl who had just been gripping his collar had been replaced by a Duel Avatar he had never seen before.
Her height was about the same as Kojiro’s, and her slender, intelligent-looking arms and legs stood out. There didn’t seem to be any weapon-like equipment on her body. Or rather, it might be more accurate to say that her entire body was wrapped in special equipment.
That was because the avatar before him was covered from head to toe in a high-speed curtain of flowing water. Water streamed silently from her shoulders down both arms, then from her chest past her waist and down both legs. At the ends of her limbs, it formed thin water cables that arced up in a wide circle behind her, then wrapped around her again from behind her head.
The water streams were probably only two or three centimeters thick, but no matter how hard he stared, he couldn’t see through them to the avatar’s true body inside.
Kojiro then checked the avatar name above his field of vision. The avatar name was Aqua Current. Level 4.
Water current? Hah. This was the first avatar he’d seen whose name matched so well.
For Kojiro, who ranked among the oldest veterans in the Accelerated World, a name he had never heard before meant either a newbie who had only recently entered the Accelerated World, or someone whose home area was too far away for them to meet. Judging by her level, Aqua Current was probably the latter.
Then Aqua Current, who had been staring intently at Kojiro’s avatar name and form just as he had at hers, muttered blankly, "Ultramarine Swallow...? Don’t tell me you’re the Swallow swordsman?"
"You know me?"
"No way! Why would you, no, have you been earning points with those underhanded tricks all this time?!"
This girl has completely the wrong idea.
"Let me say this first: everything you’re thinking right now is a misunderstanding. I just came here for personal business."
If Kojiro had been an ordinary Burst Linker, Current would probably have launched an attack no matter what excuse the other side gave. But fortunately, Kojiro, or rather the avatar name Ultramarine Swallow, had near-absolute recognition in the Accelerated World.
Enough that even Aqua Current, who had charged in with the resolve to settle things by force, was now thinking, Huh? Something’s weird here.
After staring at Kojiro from head to toe for a long moment, Current finally dropped her combat stance and stepped back. It seemed her head had cooled a little. Kojiro shrugged as if to say, Well then.
"Looks like we need to talk."
*
The place where Kojiro and Current stood was on top of a water tank jutting out from the roof of a building.
The cityscape spread out in every direction was, just as it had been before the dive, covered in countless neon decorations. The many lights and laser illuminations rising from the ground reflected off the low clouds hanging in the night sky. Blimps flashing giant advertising panels flew overhead, and advertisements in bizarre languages glowed from all over the streets.
But of course, this was not the real-world Akihabara. It was a 3D field reconstructed from footage in the social cameras network. Its attribute was "downtown."
Thinking it was quite a sight, Kojiro’s gaze moved past the neon-lit nightscape of the city and toward Current’s profile. After hearing his explanation, she apologized for suddenly attacking him once the misunderstanding had been cleared up.
Kojiro accepted the apology and asked Current about her situation as well. She looked like she was thinking it over, but before long she seemed to have sorted out her thoughts and began explaining herself.
"I came here for the same reason as you."
"To catch the PKers?"
"Yes. They drove my precious friend out of the Accelerated World."
"Were you friends in real life too?"
"She was the only Burst Linker at the school I attended who was the same as me. We teamed up, fought together all this time..."
Even through the avatar face, Kojiro could feel Current’s sadness. He felt a little reluctant, as if he were poking at a wound, but there was no way he could avoid asking.
"How do you know she was PKed? Did she tell you herself?"
Current fell silent for a moment, then suddenly asked an unrelated question.
"Do you know what happens when a Burst Linker’s Burst Points hit zero?"
"Well, they lose Brain Burst."
"That’s not all."
A shocking piece of information spilled from the water-colored avatar’s mouth.
"They lose their memories. All memories of Brain Burst. Doesn’t that seem strange to you? No matter how much Burst Linkers might want to hide information about acceleration, it’s already been months since the game leaked, and yet not a single thing about Brain Burst has become public. There’s no way all the former Burst Linkers who lost acceleration would keep their mouths shut forever."
That was something Kojiro had also found strange. Aside from BB Net, he couldn’t find any information about Brain Burst anywhere on the internet, which had puzzled him. So there really was a hidden function like that.
Current went on.
"A second-grade elementary school girl was suddenly taken away by strange men she’d never seen before and forced into a direct connection. Then she was compelled into a duel she didn’t want. Outside, she was threatened with a cheap pocketknife. They told her, ‘If you resist here, we’ll do something to your real body.’"
Current’s flat voice sounded cold at first glance, but the fury contained within it felt hot to Kojiro.
"In the end, that girl’s Burst Points were completely drained, and she lost Brain Burst and all her memories of it. Even so, she couldn’t forget the fact that she had been attacked. No, it only got worse. She was no longer a Burst Linker who had fought countless avatars in the Accelerated World. She had become nothing more than a fragile little girl."
"...That must have been a huge shock."
"It was. She’s in a psychiatric hospital now. And who could blame her? She was dragged off by men she’d never seen before, threatened with a weapon, and forced into a direct connection. And because it happened in a place without social cameras, there’s no evidence. On top of that, even though she was threatened, she doesn’t have any special external injuries, so the police won’t even properly investigate."
"So you’ve been wandering around alone looking for those guys?"
"Yes. The only clues I have are that the place she was attacked was this amusement center, and what those bastards looked like. If that’s the case, then I have to at least call it revenge."
When Current finished speaking, her eyes were burning hot, unlike her watery avatar. Kojiro asked,
"So you weren’t just friends. What exactly were you to each other?"
"...My parents. In the Accelerated World."
"I see. Hm..."
Kojiro let out a sigh. So the thing he had feared had really happened. The PKers couldn’t be much older than himself, and yet they were running around doing this kind of thing? Or did they have some kind of backing? He didn’t know that yet, but this was no time to be taking it easy.
"Like I said earlier, I came here for the same reason as you."
So Kojiro made an offer to Current.
"I think we can be useful to each other. How about we join forces?"
"Join forces?"
"I have the muscle, and you have the information. What do you think? Sounds tempting, doesn’t it?"
"..."
Current stayed silent for quite a long time, thinking it over. Her mind was probably pretty complicated right now. The person who had suddenly appeared, or rather the one she had challenged to a fight, was now offering help instead. Kojiro had explained why it made sense for him to help, but it was still bound to seem suspicious.
But then, as if she had made up her mind, she suddenly raised both hands and took a fighting stance. Kojiro was disappointed. Was that her way of refusing?
"I’ve heard a lot about you, but I’ve never actually fought you myself. So show me. Show me whether you really are as strong as the rumors say."
Fortunately, Current’s choice was neither yes nor no.
"Burst Linkers speak through duels, huh? Fine. That’s exactly my style."
With a light motion, Kojiro drew the sword at his back in one smooth, long pull. Against the neon-bright city backdrop, a samurai and a water-colored avatar faced each other in tense opposition. The city’s noisy din lay faintly in the background between Kojiro and Current.
Aqua Current
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