Vol 6 Chapter 4

“Hey, get back to your seats already! Long homeroom is starting!”
As the homeroom teacher clapped his hands, a portion of the students raised their voices in discontent.
“What, the bell hasn’t even rung yet. We have to be precise!”
“Well then, everyone who isn’t sitting on their chair the moment the bell rings gets extra homework! It’s going to ring, it’s going to ring! Three, two, one…”
Haruyuki, resting his chin on his hand, got an earful of the sixth period bell and the clatter of the students hurrying to their seats.
Outside the window, as usual, the fine rain painted the city a grey color. According to the forecast, the end of the rainy season was two weeks away, but with the end of term tests closing in right after, he couldn’t get himself in an expectant mood either.

Of course, if he could fight his way through the tests, a bright summer vacation would arrive, but he was not mature enough to become optimistic over that kind of long span anticipation. Just thinking about the classes (especially phys ed) and homework (especially composition) that would assail him this following week made him sigh.
Well, when it comes to homework, even if he kept procrastinating on it, there is always the heavy handed method of spending a bust point and burning through it all right before turning it in. Haruyuki’s homework processing ability, in the last thirty minutes Acceleration earned him, was enough to make high achiever Taku wonder, astonished, “Why don’t you display that concentration power normaly?” However, even with acceleration, there is no way to do centralized processing for the classes packed all the way from morning to the late afternoon. In fact, during gym class, as he wearily ploughed along the track, for instance, he felt instead as if a de-acceleration ability was working. Wait, that might actually be the case. Going by the Brain Burst base functionality, by increasing the heart-rate, it accelerates the mind’s “clock”, and stretches your perception of time. Does that mean that if he trains himself so his heart won’t start pounding even while running, gym class will fell shorter? Okay, shall I try downloading a kempou training app one of these days, and do some chakra-like special training?

Staring blankly through the window, and thinking over those pointless ideas, the homeroom teacher’s voice went through one ear and right out the other.
“…so it’s been two months since this class was formed. Just about the time people start slacking off. Here, look at this graph, the increase in tardiness and forgetfulness is…”
Usually, the last homeroom was an important time for working out his plan for the duels after school. Which area to go, which tactics to try, who to fight, or even who’s battles to observe. For Haruyuki, who likes simulating things in his head, it’s a pretty fun moment, before the real battles start. Normally before he knows it the homeroom is over, but today time was moving rather sluggishly.
The reason was obvious.
Right now, Haruyuki has been chased into a situation that leaves no room for planning battles. You could even say that the pressure was greater than the time, two months ago, when his Flight Ability was hijacked.
In other words- The crucial moment that would decide whether he could remain as a buster linker.

Yesterday, a Sunday, after the kings summit was over, Haruyuki was delivered to his house in Fuuko’s car.
Despite somehow managing to respond to Kuroyukihime and Fuuko’s encouragement with a smile, as he returned home by the sidewalk of Kannana, he did look down at the pavement and counted the tiles.
Still hanging his head, he rode the elevator up to the 23 th floor. Walking the silent hallway, just as he was about to touch the unlock button displayed on his visual field, next to his apartment door-
A moment before, Haruyuki noticed a small figure furled up next to his door and stopped dead.

A T-shirt with a flashy logo, tight cut jeans. Faded sneakers on her feet. Even with this rough outfit, he could immediately see it was not a boy. Even under the dim light, the hair, red like flames, and tied on either side of her head, shined lustrously.
“Ni-Niko?”

As Haruyuki, dumbfounded, called out her name, the petite girl slowly lifted her head, and showed a brazen, yet somehow weak smile.
“You’re too slow. We got out of the Chiyoda area at the same time, and you make me wait for ten minutes?”
“S-sorry.”
He reflexively apologized, and she shrugged her sharp shoulders lightly.
“Well, I had Pard bring me here on her bike, so I guess it’s obvious I’d be early.”
“Th…There’s no way I’d beat that. Actually…”
Blinking furiously, Haruyuki asked:
“Why…are you here?”
Hearing that, Niko looked away for a second, then snorted shortly, and said:
“If I start talking, it’s gonna get kinda long. You wanna hear it in the hall?”
“Oh…oh, I’m sorry”
Haruyuki hurriedly touched the unlock button that was still on display. After the, as usual, empty apartment’s door opened, and he told her to please come in, Niko exhaled a long and thin breath, put her hand on her knees and got up.
Waving the unexpected visitor into the living room, fixing two glasses of orange juice in the kitchen and returning, Haruyuki once again cocked his head, puzzled.
The younger girl sitting on the sofa and looking out the window to the cloudy sky was, no matter how many times he looked, really Kouzuki Yuniko, also known as Niko- In other words the red king, leader of the legion Prominence, Scarlet Rain herself.

But, why? With Niko, he had not only exchanged anonymous mail addresses but also phone numbers, so there’s no lack of means to make contact. And most importantly, sitting, hugging her knees, and waiting for the person she wants to meet by the entrance to his house goes completely against Niko’s image. While setting the juice in the glass table, he peeked at her small profile once again.
On the slightly freckled cheeks he could not see the usual shining liveliness. She almost seemed a little insecure. It was hard to think it was the same red king who had uttered harsh words from the seat in the reunion. The sharp voice resurged in the back of Haruyuki’s head.
- There’s one guy mixed in here who’s not appropriate for all this talk about the threat of the incarnate system.
The moment he remembered the powerful heat of that accusation, like a scarlet flame, almost as if she had read Haruyuki’s mind, Niko whispered before his eyes:

“…My bad, saying it like that…”
“Wha-… No, it’s okay.”
Lifting his waist, that had just sunk into the sofa, he quickly shook his head.
“O, of course I was startled at first, but later sempai and Raker explained it to me… That Niko brought me… no, the disaster armor infecting me, up at that moment, as to not let one of the other kings, specially the yellow king, take the lead in that topic. “
After he rapidly said that, Niko blinked, two, three times, and in her big eyes, that depending on the light could look green or reddish brown, a hint of wryness showed.
“Tsk, you saw through it? You all don’t have any naiveté in you, do you?”
While mocking him, she buried her back in the sofa, crossed her startlingly thin legs, and let her slippers hang from the tips of her feet.
A bit relieved by that behavior, Haruyuki tilted his head a little and asked:
“Wait, you had met Raker before?”
“Nah, we’d never met face to face ‘till just now. It’s just I’ve heard a lot of stories from Pard.”
“S-stories? Like… what?”

Niko put on a meaningful smile, and answered with a question.
“Hey, her nickname ICBM, you know where it comes from?”
“Huh? Isn’t it simply comparing her booster with a missile…?”
“Yeah, but it’s not just that. To be precise, it comes from a strategy the old Nega Nebulas sometimes used in large scale area battles. Let the opponent advance his front line on purpose, spread out their forces, and then Raker would, by herself or carrying a buffer, fly into the enemy’s rear position with her boost jump. ‘Cose Normally in the back you have these super long distance types with paper thin armor, y’know, so looks like she’d deal some serious, strategic missile-level damage.”
“I, I see…”
Even though they were talking about an ally, Haruyuki instinctively broke out in a cold sweat as he nodded. Niko’s expression softened, and almost as if those were her own memories, she continued her words:
“’Cose, as you know, Pard is a speed demon. When they got hit with the missile plan, she’d be the first to fall back to the rear, and apparently they beat each other around a lot. It’s unbelievable, even with the truce and everything it’s the enemy’s troops we’re talking about here, she got so damn happy that Raker is back on the front… Did y’know Crow, the reason Pard is still level six though she’s a pretty veteran buster linker is…”

Because at that point Niko held her tongue, Haruyuki unconsciously started leaning forward. That was, after all, a doubt he had felt many times before.
“Sh-she’s a level six because…?”
“Nah, I’d better not tell. You go and ask her personally later.”
She smirked, and thanked him as she lifted the glass from the table.
Apparently thirsty, she drank vigorously, and he could no longer find in her appearance that strange weakness. Maybe it was an illusion, though Haruyuki as he retorted:
“I have a strong feeling she’s not going to tell me even if I ask… Well, but anyway… So, Niko, you came here especially to apologize about the thing in the meeting?”
“What, you say that like I’m bothering you or something?”
Getting glared at through the green glass, he hurriedly shook his head.
“N-No, it’s no bother at all! It’s just kind of surprising given your personality, oh, I-I don’t mean it that way, I was just thinking, I’m the one who should be apologizing…”
Once it started moving, he couldn’t stop running his mouth, and something he felt he should convey in a proper fashion started turning into awkward noise.

“I-It’s just… The armor that was supposed to be destroyed after all that suffering, because of my miss I let it survive, and on top of that you dealt the Judgment Blow to the previous owner, Cherry Rook, but I’m still allowed to remain a buster linker…”
To Haruyuki’s words, that couldn’t quite hit the point, Niko heard with unexpected seriousness.
However, eventually she just shook her head and cut of his words.
She set down her glass, and after once again crossing her legs and sitting deeply into the sofa, the young king whispered quietly:

“Nah… It’s not like I’m mad at you over that matter. I didn’t Judgment Blow Cherry ‘cose he was the owner of the armor. It was because he was engulfed by the armor’s dominance, and attacked, no, ate, a bunch of buster linkers. In case he had, with his own strength, forced down the armor and controlled it, I would have protected him instead. No matter what the other kings had said… you know...”
Niko’s voice slowed down, strained. Haruyuki blinked, and looked down at the white, crestfallen face.
In her eyes, which now seemed a deep green, surfaced again the same dark shadow they had showed in the hall. This time, for once, Haruyuki grasped the nature of that expression.

It was fear. And also, anger at your frightened self. Along with that, just a little bit of resignation. The same expression that once, Haruyuki himself must have showed, curled up in depression over his own powerlessness.
“Ni-Niko…”
When he called her name with a stifled voice, the girl raised her eyes for a moment, and quickly lowered her face again, with a weak smile.
“I had both the choice of protecting Cherry, and the power to go through with it. That’s what I believed in, for this last half of a year. But you know…”
Her arms that came out of the T-shirt sleeves suddenly grasped each other tightly. In the middle of the stifling heat of June, it was almost as if she had been assailed by a powerful shiver.
“…….Crow. Back at the meeting, you didn’t feel it?”

“Fe…feel what…?”
Asked back Haru, timidly, and Niko- the second generation red king, the Immovable Fortress, groaned with a cracked voice.
“That amongst the kings reunited in that place… were mixed in real monsters. That information pressure… Unbelievable… - You know, I really intended to protect you no matter what. Just ‘cose … I’m in debt with you for saving Cherry. In today’s meeting, I somehow managed to push it to a compromise. But… if, they had seriously went for execution… I…”
There she stopped her mouth, and for a while, Haruyuki could say nothing to Niko, as she sat on the sofa, holding her knees together.
He couldn’t believe it just like that, or he should say, couldn’t understand it. That Niko would call other buster linkers monsters, and even show an expression of fear.
To Haruyuki, the red king Scarlet Rain is a being of an absolutely different level. If they were to duel under equal condition, he was confident he would lose 100 out of 100 battles. When she deployed all of her enhanced armaments, that super-dreadnought-level long distance firepower was undoubtedly one of the accelerated world’s greatest. After all, her main cannon had blown away half the Shinjuku Government building with one shot.
No, even with only the little avatar equipped with a single pistol, Niko concealed immeasurable power. In fact, from the seat on the seven king’s summit, Haruyuki felt from the red king an immense pressure that lost in nothing to that of the other kings.

Shaking his head shortly, Haruyuki finally responded with a hoarse voice.
“N-No way… I mean, from my perspective, everybody in that place is above the clouds, but I can’t imagine there was someone there that should make you say that much. I-I mean, you are a level niner like the rest of them, right? Isn’t “same level, same potential” one of the principles of the accelerated world…..?”
When he stopped, the red-haired girl peaked at Haruyuki from over her tiny kneecaps, and slowly shook her head from side to side with a bitter smile.
“…It’s that “there are exceptions to every rule” thing. Listen here, level 9 is, in reality, the “cap” for brain burst. ‘Cose no matter how many points you earn, you can’t go to the next level. The path to become level 10 is hunting down five other level 9s… meaning making five other people lose all their points. On the flip side…”
Lowering her eyes again, Niko whispered quietly:
“That means when you become level 9, nobody else can figure out how much time you spent on the accelerated world, and how much experience you gained. On that I thought I ain’t losing to the rest of the king crowd. In the accelerated world, I thought I got the power to not get taken away again what I lost in the real world. But… I was naïve. They… the Originators, have long ago overcome the wounds I’m clinging to. Those… What would you call them, if not monsters?”