[TRANSLATION] Graphite Edge Side Novel Short Story

10/11/12 (Thu) - http://archive.foolz.us/a/thread/72869961#p72890424

“Ha~....nhn~....ah...”
Moving his finger side to side over the window open on his virtual desktop, Haruyuki moaned.
The window was the console screen of the multiplayer fighting game Brain Burst. Even on an un-accelerated state, you could open it and view and control your avatars status, battle history, current acquired burst points, amongst other things.
What Haruyuki was staring at, on his avatar status, was the Level-Up Bonus tab. This screen, that had, since he had become a Buster Linker, been empty, now had as many as four options on display. The reason for that being that last week, his acquired points finally reached 300, and Silver Crow finally turned level 2.

On that occasion, there was the matter of him forgetting to keep a safe margin and upping his level, reducing his points to a single mere digit, and leaving him, along with his appointed instructor, Takumu, turning pale; but having somehow succeeded in recovering his account balance, that was now just a good memory. Though he found it curious that strangely his memories of his recovery duels were a bit fuzzy, right now the most important is the challenge just up ahead.
Though whatever you call it, this time, it’s a so called “happy lament”. After all, on the bonus screen before his eyes, shone brightly an extravagant menu of two new finishing moves, one new ability, and strengthening of an existing ability.

“Ah…I guess I’ve gotta go with a new finishing move… But a new ability is nothing to be scoffed at, either… and even if I go with a finishing move, I wonder which one is more powerful…”
His finger only moved in a random order over the three buttons, but never got over to press any of them. Though that was partly the fault of the ability real-life Haruyuki had strengthened and strengthened again, Indecisiveness, the problem is that in Brain Burst there is no saving and loading at all. As a principle, the trick of choosing one, than if you don’t like it load and do it over, just doesn’t work. In other words, it’s make it or break it.
“…..Mu, nununu…..I’s it’s going to be like that I should just not look at the buttons and leave it to luck…”
Moving his eyes away from the screen, he pulled back his finger, grew some courage and stuck it out… or pretended to, then muttered “Guess not…”

Once again leaving the choice for later,Haruyuki started lowering his hand as he sighed.
But just before that…
“Yo, kid, sorry for the wait! The examination took a while.”
As that voice rang from behind, his back was hit with quite a bit of force, and Haruyuki’s entire body trembled.
With that momentum, his right hand almost made contact with the virtual desktop,
“Wa-waaa!?”
He let out a scream and pulled his arm off with all his strength. Though luckily, he avoided another tragedy brought about by careless screen operating, for some reason he heard a weird hiccup from behind. As he tried to return his arm that had been thrown wide open, the tip of his finger caught on something.
What Haruyuki saw as he turned around timidly was…
Kuroyukihime wearing pajamas, with a cardigan and a thin shawl over it, and his finger, infiltrating the inside of the pajama through the gap in the front.
“S- Swworry!”
As he emitted this indecipherable scream, Haruyuki’s hand pulled back with full force. Consequently, the second button that was stuck to it came off, and the cloth opened up slowly.