Before Kojiro left the dormitory for school, he prepared himself and connected to the global network. Then he shouted,
"Burst Link."
At once, a shockwave shook the world.
The blue world, just as he had seen before, moved so slowly it looked frozen in place. Kojiro then checked the matching list.
The name at the very top was "Ultramarine Swallow." He did not really know the English part, but he remembered learning the word at school. It was probably the name of his avatar.
"Swallow, huh."
Kojiro gave a wry smile. To think his rival from his previous life was now his own alter ego. Kojiro thought that was a strangely fated connection.
He looked over the matching list again. Excluding his own name, there were about ten others. They were probably people who, like him, had received the program from someone else and installed it. Judging by the numbers beside them, they were all Level 1.
Since there was no name that especially stood out, Kojiro was just about to touch some random English word when one caught his eye. "Chrome Falcon." It was a word he had learned together with swallows while studying English.
He did not know the first word, but the second referred to a bird of prey: a falcon. Thinking that was another strange connection, Kojiro touched the avatar name "Chrome Falcon" and requested a duel.
In an instant, the world changed again.
The people vanished from the dormitory building that had been frozen blue. The pillars and doors regained their color and began to decay as if weathered away, while a thick layer of dust settled over the glass. Then the sky was dyed a deep orange in one sweep.
A dry wind blew in from somewhere, rustling the nameless weeds sprouting here and there across the ground. Then the number 1800 suddenly appeared at the very top of his vision. Blue bars stretched out to the left and right, and finally the flaming word "FIGHT!" flashed into view before disappearing.
Kojiro had never played any fighting game other than Brain Burst, so he did not know it, but anyone familiar with that sort of game would have felt a familiar wave of nostalgia.
What surprised Kojiro more than that was the fact that such a delicate virtual space existed at all. The pixels were packed so densely they were impossible to distinguish by eye, and even each pebble beneath his feet had been rendered with overwhelming detail.
Then what about his own body? Kojiro lowered his gaze.
What came into view instead of the familiar human hand was a slender, polished navy-blue mechanical hand, thin as a needle. It was like a robot—no, not like one, it was a robot itself. When he touched his face, he felt a smooth helmet-like curve instead of the shape of a nose or mouth.
After wiping away the dust from a nearby window, Kojiro was finally able to see his avatar properly.
His entire body was covered in metal, and though he was wearing clothes, even those were metal in substance, with only the form of clothing. The design of the outfit seemed to be a slightly altered version of the clothes from the late Sengoku period and early Edo period from his previous life.
Perhaps his memories had influenced it. A long ponytail starting from the top of his head fell all the way to his waist. Finally, a long sword without a guard, about five shaku, was strapped to his back. Including that, his whole body was dyed a deep ultramarine.
To put it plainly, it was almost exactly the same as Kojiro’s appearance in his previous life.
As he was studying himself, he noticed several human silhouettes moving in the reflection behind him, far off in the distance.
When he turned around, he saw that, without his noticing, several figures were watching him from behind the ruins of the weathered building. They were too far away to see clearly, but it looked like they had their heads together and were talking about something.
Kojiro found himself listening without meaning to.
"A newbie showed up!"
"Finally, Nerima Ward gets a newbie too."
"But how do you know he’s a newbie? He might be on a raid from another area."
"Can’t you tell at a glance? We looked like that when we first started dueling too."
"Yeah, and the name’s one I’ve never seen before. Looks like a newbie’s first duel."
"Who in this area has been playing Brain Burst for more than a week? If you think about it, we’re all newbies."
"But the way he looks is just..."
"Looks insanely strong, right?"
"So cool~ Like The Samurai or something?"
From what they were saying, it seemed like they were players like him...
Was it possible to watch other people’s duels in this game too?
Just then, he suddenly felt a new gaze and turned his head. About fifty meters away, a new figure was standing there.
It had a slim, sleek body and was silver-gray in color. It was an avatar in the form of a robot, just like Kojiro’s. While Kojiro was thinking that maybe all avatars in this game were robot-shaped, the other side spoke first.
"Uh, hello..."
It was a somewhat timid voice. And judging by the voice alone, the speaker was at most an elementary school student. So was he going to have to fight an elementary schooler now?
Thinking that made him feel strangely embarrassed.
While Kojiro was briefly distracted, Chrome Falcon, unaware of any of this, assumed the other party was just nervous about their first duel.
Even Falcon himself had been so nervous during his first duel that he had stood there blankly and handed over points to his opponent without doing anything at all.
By now, among Brain Burst players, the first duel had come to serve as a kind of initiation rite.
"Um, is this your first duel?"
"Yeah, this is actually my first one."
"Oh, I see. I’ve only been playing this game for less than a week too."
"Really? Then how much duel experience do you have?"
"About five times..."
Even as he answered, Falcon wondered why he was replying so easily. Strictly speaking, he had just been challenged to a duel.
Of course, this was all inside a game, but given how shy he usually was, it was a little awkward to be chatting so casually with a stranger.
Probably because of the other party’s attitude. The cheerful, composed atmosphere of the samurai avatar in front of him. Even though he was clearly around the same age, he gave off the unmistakable feeling of a grown adult.
Maybe that was why. Falcon did not feel the slightest bit of resistance even when the other person naturally spoke to him without using polite speech. If anything, he found him oddly charming.
"If you don’t mind, could you give me a moment before we start?"
"Sure, that’s fine."
In fact, in Brain Burst duels, giving the opponent time was absolutely forbidden.
Depending on the avatar, some had terrible basic potential but could still aim for a sudden reversal by charging up their finisher gauge and landing one decisive blow. Because of that, such avatars would often smash whatever scenery they could the moment a duel began.
But neither Falcon, who had only five duels under his belt, nor Kojiro, who was about to have his first, had any way of knowing such detailed rules.
"Then I won’t hold back."
Kojiro stood in front of a weathered streetlamp and casually drew the sword equipped on his back, taking his stance.
In his previous life, Kojiro had specialized in swinging his sword from a natural, unforced posture without taking any special stance. But now, to see how much of his former skill he could bring out, he took the high guard, the foundation of swordsmanship.
At that sight, not only Falcon but even the gathered spectators around them held their breath. The blue samurai avatar in traditional clothing holding a sword was cool enough on its own, but even to the untrained eye, the stance looked incredibly convincing.
Hss... hoo!
With a short kiai, Kojiro’s figure blurred. To the spectators, it looked as if the avatar’s afterimage had stretched out and then shrunk back again.
Then, as Kojiro steadied his breathing and returned to his original high guard, the streetlamp standing in front of him split into three pieces and toppled to the ground as if it had been waiting for the moment.
Clang!
Along with the unpleasant crash of the falling streetlamp, the spectators who had been staring dumbly finally seemed to come to their senses and burst into loud chatter.
"What was that just now?!"
"A finisher? That was a finisher, right?"
"No way, he doesn’t have enough gauge to use a finisher! Besides, his gauge should be at zero right now!"
"Then what was that just now?"
"He moved that fast without any system assist?!"
Even though the outer ring was making a racket, Kojiro could not hear any of it. The sword technique he had just displayed was the very realm he had longed for in his previous life.
Even if it was only in virtual reality and not in a real body, being able to actually perform the sword movements that had existed only in his imagination until now was pure emotion for Kojiro.
Of course, since this was virtual reality rather than his actual body, he still had not reached one of the "ultimates" he had attained in his later years, but he had never expected that to begin with.
Kojiro concluded that some fine adjustments were still needed, but this was good enough to pass. Conveniently, there was a perfect test subject standing right in front of him for those adjustments.
"Sorry to keep you waiting."
Having seen that terrifying display right before his eyes, Chrome Falcon was still wearing a dazed expression when he answered without thinking.
"Huh?"
"Then let’s begin the duel."
Kojiro slung his beloved sword over his shoulder and flashed a bright smile.
What had happened? Just a moment ago, it had been a cheerful smile that felt likable. But now Falcon could think of nothing except running away from this place at once.
Ultramarine Swallow
Please imagine the armor in the illustration above does not exist.
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