Accel World:Volume SS1 Chapter 4
Chapter 4[edit]
Today’s second normal duel field was a complete change from the «Moonlight» stage; it was the markedly wrecked «Weathered» stage. It had transformed into a dreary affair where in all the surrounding buildings, steel frames covered with rust jutting out from concrete that had decayed into tatters. The road was also finely cracked, and an incessant wind also caused several trails of dust to linger about.
However, the sky was beautiful. Its serene sky blue was brimming with the dry purity of the aftermath of mankind’s disappearance from this star.
Haruyuki, who had been enthralled by the blue of the sky for just a moment, blinked and checked the health gauge in the upper right hand corner of his field of vision. The name displayed was 【Jade Jailer】. His level was 3, one above his own.
“Jade……is the green-white stone, right. Which means he’s a green-color, isn’t he. Jailer means……the jail person? I wonder if it means “prisoner”[1]……?”
Unfortunately, with a first-year middle schooler’s……or rather, with Haruyuki’s English command, that was the limit of his analysis. In reality, everything about the Brain Burst system was written in English, so to a Burst Linker one’s English was a rather important ability, but it was not something that could be acquired overnight. Though if he were in a tag duel with Takumu, Takumu would immediately translate almost all the English words for him, so there was also the aspect of Haruyuki unconsciously depending on him.
At any rate, if he saw his opponent in person, he should understand the meaning of the word «Jailer». The guide cursor floating in the center of his vision was pointing almost perfectly east. The fact that its compass needle was minutely quivering was the proof that his opponent was in the middle of approaching in a straight line.
“……Straight-line movement with this terrain? Although since it’s a residential area there shouldn’t be anything like a straight path……”
After murmuring that, Haruyuki realized it at once. His opponent was not moving on the road. In destroying some lumps of concrete in succession, he charged his special technique gauge, and with a vertical jump in using his wings, he jumped up to the straight-line structure running east and west overhead—namely, the central line overpass.
The trajectory slabs supporting the train tracks were also full of cracks, but only the rail above them shone a dull color. Though it depended on the stage, if there were a decent track, generally a train from outside the area boundary ran on it. Of course, whether it would happen once in a duel was a rare event, but if he were run over a large amount of damage was inevitable. He quickly checked his front and rear, but for the moment neither its shadow nor its shape was visible.
However, in exchange there was a silhouette approaching at high speed from the direction of Koenji Station. Of course, it was probably his duel opponent, Jade Jailer. As the distance between both of them shortened, a further number of human figures appeared on the building rooftops from a position where they could look down at the railroad track. The members of the gallery, who had enabled battlefield following mode, had teleported here.
It was not the time to be looking around; however, in spite of that Haruyuki checked the lineup of the spectators with a glance. It was natural that Takumu, who was supposed to still be in the middle of club activities at his school in Shinjuku, was not here, but the figure of Kuroyukihime—Black Lotus, with whom he had just parted a moment ago, was also not visible.
Of course, there was also no way that Kuroyukihime, who was currently hospitalized, could have automatic spectating turned on around the clock, but after feeling just a little bit forlorn in spite of that, Haruyuki rebuked himself. This duel was for the sake of making sure of the path down which he should advance. Whether his «parent» were there or not, he would only give it his all.
As he tightly clenched his fists and returned his gaze to the front, his duel opponent was just on the point of putting about ten meters’ distance between them and stopping his feet between the two rails.
If his enemy’s color name had been of the «long-range red» class, then his opponent would aim for a surprise attack in jumping off one of the surrounding buildings without mounting the train tracks in a foolishly honest manner, but if he were a «defensive green-color», then the likelihood that Haruyuki would be attacked by a projectile weapon was low. —His prediction was not astray; it seemed that his opponent did not have any guns or bows or anything of the sort.
Having said that, he was not completely empty-handed like Crow either; both his hands were a special shape. What existed in place of five fingers were huge rings maybe fifty centimeters in diameter. They were thin like washers, but there was no sign that they had blades on their edges. The color of his entire body, including his rings, was a jade green, just as his name stated.
However, his greatest characteristic was the thick chain joining the wrists of his right and left hands. Its length was perhaps a good two meters; it hung down with a clinking sound close to his feet. If it were that long, it would not be a hindrance to his attack movements, but it strongly gave the impression that he was having his freedom robbed from him.
—Maybe “jailer” meant «prisoner» after all.
While thinking that in his heart, Haruyuki lowered his head with a bow.
“Uh, nice to meet you, I’m Silver Crow, belonging to «Nega Nebulas». My apologies for having intruded on you; it’s a pleasure to meet you!”
His opponent was also still level 3, so there was not much difference between them in the extent of how inexperienced they were, but as it was he who had provoked the duel, he had greeted him just in case; his opponent rang his two hands’ chain with a jingle and also replied.
“……I present myself[2], Jade Jailer, belonging to «Great Wall».”
…………Present myself?
After furrowing his brow, on second thought he realized that it was not that that he should be worrying about. «Great Wall», the legion of the Green King, was the largest-class legion in the Accelerated World, owning the vast territory from Shibuya to Meguro. Shibuya tentatively was adjacent to Suginami, but members of Great Wall almost never went as far as the neighborhood of Koenji.
As if he had read Haruyuki‘s thoughts, Jailer shook his head, which was in a shape as if he were wearing a braided hat, left and right.
“There is no need to apologize for the intrusion. I, your humble servant, did not come to the domain of Suginami for the purpose of a bout with you. Since I was unable to commit an intrusion from my side, it is excellent that I was able to receive a challenge from you.”
…………Your humble servant? The domain of Suginami?
While still getting tripped up over the particulars of his remarks, Haruyuki lowered his head once more.
“I, I appreciate that, my thanks for having come from such……from such a long way.”
“Don’t mention it, it does not merit gratitude. Seeing that at any rate, I intend to……”
There, Jailer pointed the ring of his right hand at Haruyuki with a clink and raised his voice.
“I intend to add you to the newest page of my detective’s memoirs[3]!!”
“……De, detective’s memoirs?”
What is that? In place of Haruyuki, who had tilted his head in puzzlement, the cheers of the members of the gallery on the roofs of the buildings to the left and right rained down.
“Yo, Constable Jade-nosuke[4]!”
“That Crow won’t be easily arrested, ya know!”
From the appearance of the gallery, somehow or another it seemed that Jailer was quite a famous person in the neighborhood of the Suginami area. However, if one were to say that, then the name of Silver Crow had now reached as far as the opposite side of Tokyo, so it seemed.
—In spite of being a shackled prisoner avatar, if you plan to be able to arrest me……just you try!
He retorted back assertively just inside his heart, and in sync with his opponent Haruyuki readied the unyielding stance of his left and right hands.
“Then, allow me to begin!”
“When the time comes, let us have a fair match!”
At the instant when both their spirited remarks had caused some small sparks to fly at some point between them, they moved simultaneously.
Haruyuki knew not a whit of either Jailer’s fighting style or his abilities. However, at the least it seemed that there was no mistaking the fact that he was a close-range type; his opponent too was charging at him in a straight line.
……At times like these, if I had some long-range-type special technique like «Radial Shot», it’d take one hit to restrain him in order to be able to check my opponent’s moves out.
Pushing out of his head those thoughts that kept stubbornly coming up, Haruyuki concentrated on his enemy’s weapons—the rings in his two hands. There were no blades attached; basically, they were not of the slashing but of the striking attribute, but that was rather a menace to Crow, who was a metal-color. Perhaps he should deal with it by evading rather than guarding.
“Hey!”
With a sidestep, Haruyuki dodged the ring of Jailer’s right hand swung down from straight above together with a rousing shout. That moment,
“Hold it right there!”
This time, the ring of his left hand pressed in at a horizontal trajectory; he dodged this one with a jump. However, that seemed to be what his enemy was aiming for; the third strike—the chain linking both of Jailer’s hands traced an arc from the front and assaulted him.
Normally, one could only guard against «anti-air techniques while in the middle of a jump». However, only Haruyuki was able to change his trajectory even in the middle of a jump. With the wings on his back, by pulling the short back thrust that he had discovered through a flash of enlightenment just in the midst of his duel earlier with Kuroyukihime, his jump stopped in midair.
The chain before his eyes passed by too far, and at the point where it had hit the concrete railroad track slag in vain, he resumed his attack anew. His midair clockwise kick hit Jailer’s left shoulder.
Clang! That hard impact sound reverberated, and his opponent’s health gauge sharply decreased by five percent. The fact that it had decreased this little in extent in spite of the fact that it was a clean hit meant that his defensive power was considerably high after all. It would probably take quite a bit of trouble to advance in his superiority in this hand-to-hand fight.
……At times like these, if I at least had some serial-attack-class special technique like «Rapid Knuckle».
……Wait, how long are you going to be thinking about that! Concentrate on the fight!
While scolding himself, he used the recoil of his kick to do a backward somersault. He put a good distance between them and landed.
For the present, he had gotten the first attack, but with it his opponent would also recognize Crow’s fighting style. From here, the vastness of their drawers of knowledge would determine victory or defeat.
Jailer, who was probably also thinking the same thing, rang the chain between his hands with a clink, picked himself up, and shouted.
“I see, as expected you do move pretty well! Seeing as I am at a disadvantage in hand-to-hand fighting, allow me to use my trump card right away!”
“A, as you please, do so freely!”
While answering, he checked his enemy’s special technique gauge with a glance. Combining the portion that had been amassed beforehand and the portion that had been stored up when he had been hit just right now, it had been charged over halfway.
Jailer put both his arms straight out in front of him and suspended his chain in a dangling manner. As soon as he had raised it overhead with a snap of the wrist, he uttered a technique name.
“«Skipping Chain»!”
—Ah, just as expected the special technique name would be in English, wouldn’t it.
He thought that for just a fleeting moment. Haruyuki made his eyes round in response to his enemy’s movements.
The scintillating green chain struck the ground at Jailer’s feet, and without a moment’s delay he hopped over it with a jump. From behind him, the chain revolved over his head and again went toward the ground. At the same time as its tip hit the concrete with a clank!, he jumped again. Jailer repeated the same movement three times, four times.
This was basically «jump rope», no, «jump chain», which Haruyuki was extremely bad at. Even while he was watching, dumbfounded, his cycles quickened rapidly; the clank, clank sound rose to a continuous clankclankclankclank sound, and the next instant—.
Jailer, who had become a luminous green sphere, charged at Haruyuki in a straight line while carving a shallow rut in the slag.
“Wa, waaah!”
He hurriedly dived out of the way backward right, but the jump rope ball also changed its trajectory and followed him. His chain touched the steel rail, and red sparks scattered in large quantity. From what he had seen of the nature of his technique, even if he guarded with both arms a considerable part of his gauge would be taken away from scraping damage. Though it was a somewhat pitiful way of dealing with it, for the moment he could only take refuge in the upper skies with his «flight».
“Kk……!”
He kicked the ground and jumped; at the same time, he made his wings vibrate. The produced dynamic lift tightly lifted his body up, and he ascended vertically toward the sky in a straight line—
“I have gotten youuu!!”
—On the verge of doing so, together with that voice the sphere bounded straight up. Wholly as if the chain rotating at high speed were producing some sort of propulsive force, it closed in on Haruyuki, who was already three meters away from the train tracks. The ball shining green touched the tips of Crow’s toes, and then in that moment.
“Whaaa!”
The chain was caught on his ankle and Haruyuki was driven down to the ground with a forceful momentum. Though he had avoided just the crash into the slag with the last of his dynamic lift, he fell facing up. There, from the sky the chain ball was coming down as it continued to rotate even more. If he were pinned down by it, this time for sure his gauge could well be scraped away to the last bit.
However, fortunately there Jailer’s special technique gauge was exhausted. He was released from his jump rope state, and his avatar was exposed in midair.
——Here’s my chance!
Haruyuki quickly stood up and waited for the chain hanging in a dangling manner from the wrists of Jailer, who was falling down. If he seized that chain, took off again, and then lifted it up to the high skies, it would undisputedly be Haruyuki’s win. No matter how sturdy a green-color he was, he could not withstand falling damage from a hundred meters above the ground.
“Take this!”
While yelling, he tightly grabbed hold of the chain with his outstretched right hand—at the same time,
“Not so faaaaast!”
Jailer also swung down the ring of his right hand. There was no time to evade, but Crow was a metal-color. He could bear one blow of a normal technique. The ring scythed horizontally at the body of Haruyuki, who had tightened his stomach and was preparing for impact.
However. There was almost none of the shock he was anticipating.
As to why, the left half of the ring had moved toward the inside with a pivot hidden at its vertex as its axis. Next, it had revolved with a twirl, went around to Haruyuki’s back, made a shrill gachiing! sound, and had returned to its hoop. Basically, Crow’s waist had gotten into the interior of Jailer’s right-hand ring.
“—You are under arrest!”
Jailer’s sonorous shout wholly seemed like a proclamation of victory, but with his action of just then Haruyuki’s health gauge had not decreased by even one dot. Regardless of the phenomenon, he tried to take off, but Jailer took another unexpected action.
As soon as he had landed, this time he struck the steel rail at his feet with his left-hand ring. While he crushed the brittle concrete slag, half the ring revolved like earlier and reconnected with a snap. This one was in the form of eating into the interior of the rail.
Unable to read the intention of Jailer, who had fixed in place Haruyuki in his right hand and the rail in his left, Haruyuki was lost for a moment as to what he should do. However, what he was truly astonished at was the phenomenon that happened after that.
Releasing a dull metallic sound, the rings of Jailer’s hands detached from his wrists.
The jade-colored avatar who had lost his two hands jumped greatly backward and put some distance between them. What was left were the ring eating into Haruyuki’s torso and the ring eating into the rail, and then the chain two meters in length joining the two—.
“Ooh…………”
Here, finally and far too belatedly, Haruyuki realized what Jailer’s characteristic two hands were.
They were not weapons made to strike; they were a huge pair of «handcuffs».
And then the meaning of «Jailer» was not “prisoner”……«prison guard».
“Silver Crow, I’ve apprehended you!!”
Roughly folding his two arms of which there was nothing from the wrist down, Jade Jailer declared that, and the voices of the gallery from the buildings on both sides of the track rained down.
“Yo, splendid, Jade-nosuke!”
“Ah-ah, Nega Nebulas’ Crow’s been nabbed too, huuh. But weell, it can’t be dealt with at first sight riiight.”
“Karasu, you boy-, next time don’t get arrested okay-”
……It was just like both the gallery and his duel opponent were talking as if with this the match had been decided.
However, their health gauges had decreased nearly equivalently. And then there was also fifteen minutes of time left.
“……It’s not over yet! I’ll make a jailbreak out of these manacles!”
Yelling, Haruyuki seized the chain suspended from the ring in which his torso was stuck with both hands. With all his might, he pulled the ring, which was connected to the rail on its opposite side, and immediately it went tense with a clang.
“Uh……nnoooo……!”
Putting power into his whole body, he continued to tug, but the jade-green chain did not even twitch. From a place five meters away, Jailer spoke while shaking his braided hat-shaped head.
“It is to no avail. Even Frost Horn of Leonids, the Blue Legion, cannot tear that chain off.”
“Eh……are, are you serious……”
Frost Horn was the super-close-range-type avatar with an intense charging ability and arm strength whom people were taking heed of more and more. In terms of simple power, he quite surpassed Crow.
“In, in that case……!”
This time, he struck the taut chain with his right fist, but that did not create much of a crack either. Even when he dangled it above the slag and stamped it furiously with his feet, the result was the same.
If the chain were no good, then if he destroyed the rail stabilizing the ring on the opposite side… He thought about that and sent the steel rail flying with an all-out kick; of all things, on the contrary, he suffered some slight damage. The feel of it was probably that of an indestructible object.
His thoughts, which had a touch of a fit of anger about why something that was only a rail at most was being protected that much—changed to a fearful shudder immediately after.
The reason why it was indestructible was decided. It was because trains ran on it. If he thought about it like that, both the reason why Jailer had chosen the overpass as his battlefield and the reason why Haruyuki was fixed to the rail came to light of their own accord.
Of course, it was to have Silver Crow run over by a train.
“It seems that you have finally noticed it. Be that as it may, it is already too late.”
Hearing that voice, Haruyuki lifted his face. As he did so, Jailer pointed his left arm straight in the direction of Shinjuku. What was flickering in the distance of the clouds of dust of the Weathered stage was—unmistakably, the headlight of a train.
“Kk…………!”
While grinding his teeth, Haruyuki pulled at the chain one more time. However, he had already confirmed that with Crow’s physical strength he could not sever it. Fine vibrations were transmitted to him through the strained chain. And the heavy rattle, rattle metallic sound as well.
……Is this no use? At this rate, am I only going to be blown away by the train? Though if Crow had projectile weapons, I would have been able to attack Jailer even in this state.
……No, am I an idiot! If I had projectile weapons, it would’ve been good if Jailer hit that blind spot, that’s all. The cause of my defeat is something more fundamental. Jade Jailer is an avatar specializing in the ability of «arresting his enemy and fixing him in place», and he fights thinking only about making full use of that power. This is the very strength of a concentrated-type avatar—.
“…………Not yet……it’s not over yet!”
Haruyuki roared, with more than half of it directed at himself.
“G……go!!”
Clenching his fists, he produced full-power thrust from both his wings. The body of Crow, who had taken off like a rocket, was however fixed in midair with a gaching! The chain, which was only a mere two meters, had been drawn tight in a straight line, and orange sparks scattered from both the rail and the trunk of Crow, who was fixed inside the ring.
“Wh……o……oaa……!!”
Stretching his hands straight up, he made his wings vibrate with all the power he had. A gigigigi creaking sound was produced from either the rail or the very body of Crow himself; he didn’t know which.
At last, the armor on his back lost to the pressure, and the ring began to eat into his back. At the same time, his health gauge began to decrease, but Haruyuki ignored it and continued his full-power ascent. The train had already approached till it was at a distance so close he could make out its unmanned driver’s seat. There was no sign that the automatic operation program would slacken its speed if there were any foreign objects on the rails.
At that time—.
He heard a faint pop sound, and at the same time, the health gauge on the right—Jailer’s health gauge slightly decreased.
In a cranny of his head, which seemed about to burn away, after wondering why he noticed it immediately. These handcuffs were not an Enhanced Armament. They were Jailer’s hands, basically a part of his body. Basically, the fact that his health gauge had decreased meant that—damage to the chain had begun.
“Kk……o……ooaaah——!!”
Yelling, Haruyuki squeezed out the last of his remaining strength.
There were probably twenty seconds till collision with the train. And then there were fifteen seconds until his special technique gauge was used up. But he flicked even that calculation out of his consciousness, and only the blue of the sky was reflected in his field of vision.
The sky. To that sky. I want to fly. Forever and high.
…………Aah, is that so…………
…………What an idiot I was. Even though I fully knew what I and what Silver Crow desired since the time I became a Burst Linker……no, since long before then.
Long-range techniques, serial-hit techniques; Crow doesn’t need things like that. The reason’s because I’m not in this world just for the sake of winning duels. What I yearn for from the bottom of my heart that’s more precious than that and that gives me a better feeling is—
Flying.
Haruyuki unconsciously slightly moved his outstretched left hand. He touched his health gauge, called out his instant menu, and then.
The train armored in rust-ridden steel plates passed by together with a great roar.
Right before then, a hard sheen! sound of destruction resounded.
From the ground, a silver arrow flew high, high toward the crystal clear blue sky.
References
- ↑ Keep in mind that the name Jade Jailer is in English and that the words composing his name are not the easiest vocabulary words.
- ↑ Jade Jailer speaks after the feudal samurai style; I try my best to convey this by giving him a formal manner of speaking.
- ↑ Jade Jailer also seems to play the part of a detective or constable from the Edo period.
- ↑ -suke (介) and -nosuke (之介) were popular endings for given names in the Edo period and are still common in male given names today.
