This is a side story that was published in the back of volume 12. The translation was partially done on Baka-Tsuki, so we picked it up and finished it. You may want to read all the currently released volumes before reading this.

Part 1

The world was spinning.

He felt drunk, as if he had been hit by the Yellow King’s – Yellow Radio’s – special move, “Silly Go Round”. But it was nothing of the sort. Because this was the living room of the Arita family’s apartment on the twenty-third floor of a high-rise apartment building in North Koenji, in the real world.

The reason Haruyuki was unsteady on his legs, lurching forward, his vision spinning and inverting, wasn’t a fever or alcohol or strange mushrooms. Just ten seconds ago, having dived into Kuroyukihime’s handmade VR space… codenamed “ZG01”, it had continued to strongly affect Haruyuki’s sense of balance, even after he had Linked Out.

“U… eep…” A strange sound leaked out of his mouth, and Haruyuki desperately pressed both his hands against it. But the feeling that his stomach was about to do somersaults wouldn’t go away.

“Bear with it… you can hold on, Haruyuki-kun!”

Hearing that voice, he looked to the nearby sofa, where Kuroyukihime was also swaying slightly with a green face. In front of the sword master who he respected and loved, he couldn’t let the mentaiko spaghetti in his stomach come up, especially when she had personally cooked it for him just an hour ago. Standing up was making him dizzy, so he retreated to the sofa to sit down.

But he stumbled again, and veered off his planned course by about thirty degrees. There was no way he could correct himself now, and his waist began to fall as if half his body had collapsed-

Instead of the hard surface of the sofa, a soft and unusually alluring feeling wrapped around him, from his buttocks to the middle of his back. At the same time, a gentle voice spoke by his ear.

“Ara ara. Are you alright, Crow-san?”

Confused, he turned his head to try to understand the situation. Somehow, instead of the sofa, he had ended up sitting on the third person in the room.

“Eh, ah, s-sorry…!”

Haruyuki made frantically to stand up, but before he could do so, supple arms reached out from behind him and wrapped around his chest.

“It’s fine. Here, let the bad feelings all fly away~”

With that voice, and the hands rubbing his chest, the dizziness was really starting to fade away. Instead, it was completely replaced by surprise. Haruyuki was, it seemed, sitting on the lap of the girl who seemed to be able to use debuffs in real life, Kurasaki Fuuko. The drunkenness he had been experiencing up till then vanished.

“…just how long do you plan on hugging him!?”

It was Kuroyukihime, who seemed to have recovered from her own dizziness. From the glass table, she picked up one of the roasted mochi snacks intended to go with tea, and headshotted Haruyuki with it.

—

Five minutes later.

Haruyuki, whose senses had finally returned to normal, rubbed his head and said with a sigh, “Senpai, even though you made this VR space… it’s a little off. When you enter, your eyes spin, and when you leave it feels like you’re drunk…”

“Y-yeah… I didn’t think this would happen to me too. Speaking of which, why is Fuuko the only one who’s fine!?”

Fuuko, who had returned at the same time as Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime, lifted a glass of cold tea to her lips and laughed. “I’ve never gotten motion sickness before. Even when playing 2D racing games in the car, I’m perfectly fine.”

In this case, “2D” referred to games which weren’t played with a Full Dive, but rather opened in a normal window on a virtual desktop. In other words, your five senses would still be attuned to reality, and the acceleration of the automatic car you were in, as well as the G-force you experienced from turning and such, wouldn’t be the same as that of the car in the racing game. Unable to bear even imagining it, Haruyuki mustered up a weak smile.

“T-that’s amazing… I thought I was good with motion sickness too, but I give up on this already.”

“Ufufu, it’s okay to spend a while more getting used to it, Crow-san. There’s still a long night ahead of us.”

“A-are you still intending to continue?” Haru asked, his smile stiffening.

Fuuko nodded as if it was obvious, and turned towards Kuroyukihime, who was buried exhaustedly in a nearby sofa. “Of course. Since Sacchan worked so hard to make it… a “Null Gravity VR Space” that should have originally been impossible.”

That was true.

The name of Kuroyukihime’s handmade VR space, “ZG01”, stood for “Zero Gravity Number 1”. What the three of them had just Full Dived into a few minutes ago was a virtual world where the feeling of gravity was completely canceled, something the manufacturers of the Neuro Linkers themselves had prohibited.

Of course, this application and Brain Burst were unrelated, meaning they had dived in for only fifteen minutes. Even so, Haruyuki’s sense of balance had been completely paralyzed, and in the split second after returning to reality, he had been assaulted by strong gravity and a feeling of drunkenness. Wondering if it being prohibited by the manufacturers would make it obstacle-free, Kuroyukihime had painstakingly created the zero G space, and connected it directly to Brain Burst.

For some reason, there was a certain rumor circulating in the Accelerated World right now. A rumor that a month after the Hermes Code Race, on the coming July 5th, a new stage for normal battle use would be released – and furthermore, it would be an “Interplanetary Stage” with a completed null gravity environment.

“If the rumors turn out to be true, whether or not we can get used to zero G could make a huge difference…” Saying that partially to himself, Haruyuki suddenly clenched his fists and continued, “I’ll work hard. By tonight, I’ll show that I can at least get a little used to it. Senpai, let’s try again!”

It was a line full of passion, but Kuroyukihime did not immediately respond. After a moment, she slipped off the sofa wordlessly, her eyes still closed. Normally, she would reply with “Yes, that’s the spirit!” in this kind of situation, but now, with Haruyuki watching over her-

A few seconds later, her eyelids finally opened slightly, and she looked at the ceiling with lidded eyes. From her lips that only moved a little came a single word, “…bath.”

“Y-yes?”

“I’m going to take a bath.”

Kuroyukihime stood up, her upper body swaying in an unstable way. Having come to the Arita household straight from Umesato middle school, she was still wearing her school uniform. And even though Fuuko had gone back to her house before coming here, she was for some reason still wearing her high school uniform.

Fuuko stood up, smiling exasperatedly at Kuroyukihime, who was carrying a huge sports bag that seemed to contain a change of clothes. “Sorry, Crow-san. We’ll be using the bath first. I’ll take care of Sacchan for a bit. In that state, she might drown in the bathtub.”

“Y-yea?” Stiffening, Haruyuki thought about Fuuko’s words. He understood that they basically meant “I want to bathe with Kuroyukihime.” Although the bath was prepared, he had intended to use it after the null gravity training, so the thought had caught him a little by surprise. “Y-yes! Please, take your time!”

Even so, his upper body shifted into standing mode from the sofa, and Haruyuki sent the two of them off to the door.

Supporting the still-swaying Kuroyukihime with her left hand, Fuuko opened the living room door with her right. Suddenly, she looked over her shoulder and asked, “How about this? Crow-san, since it’s troublesome, why don’t you join us…”

Her sentence trailed off as Kuroyukihime’s fingers flashed with speed and pinched Fuuko’s cheeks.

“Ish hursh, Hahyan.” (It hurts, Sacchan.)

While pulling Fuuko, who was complaining slightly and smiling, along behind her, Kuroyukihime disappeared down the corridor. Fuuko, who was flailing and facing this way, pulled back her left hand and shut the door with a bang, and Haruyuki let out the sigh that he had been holding in.

Like that, he sank into the sofa and looked at the analog clock on the wall.

The two hands had finally turned and pointed at twelve. It was the last Friday of June, and although he didn’t know why, he had received a mail from his mother saying that she would not be back that night. In other words, it would be another long night.

They were meeting today to train for the upcoming battle against Oscillatory Universe. However, out of the members of Nega Nebulas, only Kuroyukihime and Fuuko were here, and the other members, namely Utai, Takumu and Chiyuri were not present. And the two girls here had also prepared items needed for a sleepover – just why was that so?

A month ago, the night before the Hermes Cord battle, due to a thunderstorm resulting in a network failure, Kuroyukihime stayed over at Haruyuki’s house for the first time. The next morning, Fuuko had arrived at the Arita residence, which was used as the HQ for the race, a few hours before the arranged meeting time, and had seen whatever happened then. Then, Kuroyukihime had emerged from Haruyuki’s bedroom in sleepwear, and headed over to the toilet.

They had been made to explain the “extenuating circumstances” that had occurred the night before. Fuuko completely understood, but had still unleashed her [Raker Smile] and proclaimed, “Please allow me to enjoy your hospitality at some point too. That is the price to pay for my silence.”

From Haruyuki’s perspective, it was a joke. Even if it wasn’t a serious mattter, they just had to pull through the month – but, a few days ago, after a battle in the Accelerated World, she had given him the reminder that “June is ending soon!”, which made Haruyuki realize that Fuuko’s request was neither a joke nor something to be put off, and thus went to find the other accused party – which would be Kuroyukihime – and a long period of discussion led to this.

That was to say, today’s event was not just [zero-gravity training], but also the promised [sleepover night].

Of course Haruyuki was happy that his beloved legion master had come to stay the night, but could not publicly display this. This was because, as Haruyuki’s [mentors], when Kuroyukihime and Fuuko got together, the topic would naturally drift to [Silver Crow’s training]. After the zero-gravity session would be the [one-on-one tutoring in the Accelerated World] – oh crap. That would definitely happen.

“What if I escaped to Chiyu’s house now…” thought Haruyuki to himself, as he rolled around on the sofa.

Kurashima Chiyuri, who lived two floors below the Arita household in this high-rise apartment building, would nag at him for quite a while, but would eventually agree to hide him. But that was too short of a distance to hide from the [super radar] possessed by the two masters. How about Takumu’s house in the adjacent building… no, maybe the Shinomiya household in the southern parts of Suginami Ward, or perhaps the Red Legion’s cake shop in Sakuradai, Nerima Ward….

At this point, a “ring” sound effect popped up, and a video chat window through the Arita home server appeared in his vision. The source was the audiovisual CCTV camera system, which was to say –

“Ah… what… what?!”

The screen was filled with white (from the shower foam and steam) and pink (the skin of the other party), and Haruyuki instinctively leapt back and fell off the sofa. However, the window did not disappear.

“Oi, Fuuko, why are you looking at the ceiling?”

“There’s something I forgot to warn about.”

“Warn who?” Haruyuki could very clearly hear the conversation in the bathroom. The people who were talking, that is the pink blobs, were Kuroyukihime and Fuuko.

No peeking! Haruyuki closed his eyes and covered them with his hands, but the window remained on the virtual desktop – as it existed only in Haruyuki’s head, it would not disappear just because he did that. All it did was block the lights of the living room, which made the visual imagery sharper.

“Karasu-san, just in case, I shall say it clearly – if you run away while we’re in the bath, you know what will happen~”

“Yeyeyeyes, of c-c-course.” Just as Haruyuki answered –

“Wh… wh… what?” Said a voice reminiscent of the rivals in manga from the last century.

“D-d-don’t tell me, Fuuko, you’re planning on direct-connecting with Haruyuki-kun?”

“Well, there’s no problem with that, Sacchan, the calculation of angles and obstacles in the way will protect me~”

She was right. Due to the steam and the angles they were sitting at, only Fuuko’s back and left arm could be seen in the right side of the screen.

But in front of her, Kuroyukihime who was washing her hair – that is to say, the Black King who had all sorts of defenses in FullDive – was completely unprotected.

“How, how about me?”

She instinctively used her hands to cover her chest, but this action only served to reduce the amount of bubbles in the air. “Senpai, how could you do this, we’re still middle school students…” thought Haruyuki, who wanted to turn his head around. But the virtual window would also follow him, so that was pointless. He could cover his eyes with his hands, or resize the window to be as small as possible – why didn’t he think of that?

“Hmph!” Kuroyukihime’s right arm suddenly moved and cut through the bubbles just like her avatar Black Lotus’ blades, and covered the lens of the camera mounted on the ceiling.

“Haruyuki-kun.”

“… ye, yes.” replied Haruyuki, in fear, but her tone suddenly became much gentler and softer,

“before we come out of the bath, prepare three Direct Connect cables and a router for disconnection. Seems like tonight’s training will take a while.”

If a router was to be prepared, that would mean they weren’t going into the normal field, but the [Unlimited Field] above. In that case, “will take a while” suddenly acquired a really scary meaning. For example, in intergalactic space travel stories, the passengers of a FTL ship would look at their home planet and think, “this is going to be a long journey…”

“Just, just how long will it be…” asked Haruyuki.

The reply he got was, “As long as it takes for you to forget what you just saw.”

Part 2

Kuroyukihime dried her hair with a towel and returned to the living room, seeing that a small router and 3 XSB cables had been prepared on the glass table, and Haruyuki who had greeted her with a glass of water.

She took the glass and drained it, the ice hitting the wall of the glass. Haruyuki remained standing in front of her, occasionally stealing glances at the Legion Master who had just come out of the bath.

This set of grey pyjamas had been purchased during the sleepover incident a month ago from the shopping mall below Haruyuki’s apartment complex. She had even complained back then “there was no black!” but had still brought it over. The pale pink of Kuroyukihime’s skin contrasted with the grey of the pyjamas.

… or maybe this was his imagination becoming reality, he thought. Just when the footage captured a while ago was about to start playing in his mind, the cold glass that had only ice inside was pressed against his cheek by Kuroyukihime.

“Ahhhh!?” Haruyuki jumped up, and was soon attacked with a [Extreme Cold Kuroyuki Smile].

“Haruyuki-kun, the sooner you forget, the sooner your training in the Unlimited Field will end, okay?”

“B…b…but why aren’t we continuing with the [zero-gravity training]?” “You’ll get dizzy. No, to be more precise, I’m not really pleased with the quality of the simulation, so we’ll talk about that next time. Or were you implying that you wanted to remember that in the zero-gravity field?

“Noo, no, definitely not! I’ll forget it! I’ll forget it all! Maybe I already have.” said Haruyuki as he rubbed his face with his hands.

“My, my, Karasu-san, what is this? That is to say, did you forget what I told you about too?” Haruyuki froze upon hearing that voice, facing Fuuko who was a step behind Kuroyukihime and dealt the critical move [Vacuum Destruction Raker Smile].

He was starting to panic. “No no no no no, I didn’t forget! I remember it crystal clear!”

“What did you say? Do you want your training to be extended a month?”

“No no no no no, I don’t… well, I didn’t… no, that…” Haruyuki waved his hands around, clearly in a [Confused] state.

The two girls laughed, softly at first, then became louder. By then, Haruyuki could no longer react, and was thus rooted to the ground.

Five minutes later.

Haruyuki, still bearing the weight of the psychological assault from just now, sat in a corner, dazedly watching Kuroyukihime dry her hair with practiced movements. While she wore a set of grey pyjamas, Fuuko’s was a light blue.

The way Fuuko sat on the sofa exposed her 65-centimetre long legs, which were exposed from under her lace-trimmed skirt. Even though Haruyuki did not dare to look, he found his head turning in that direction, something he excused due to his current mental state. As he thought like that, he admired the wonderful scenery.

“Ah…” and he saw something. He quickly averted his vision and kept his head down. This wasn’t because he saw something he wasn’t supposed to, but it was the opposite, something that he didn’t see that was a regular part of Fuuko – that is, her stockings –

“It’s okay, Karasu-san.” He shook his body on seeing that, but nevertheless did not raise his head.

“But, but…” From where he was, he could only say that. Fuuko’s reply, unlike previously, was warm and gentle. “I wanted to let you see that anyway. So, look all you want.”

“…”

Haruyuki hesitated for a few seconds, then slowly shifted his eyes back. The patterns of the carpet transited into the corner of the sofa, then turned left, and he finally saw a pair of white feet. The nails and bone structure looked otherwise normal, but it was built differently from Haruyuki’s or Kuroyukihime’s – it was a structure built of both metal and biosynthetic material, that was to say, a prosthetic leg.

Following the sofa, Haruyuki made eye contact with Fuuko, who welcomed Haruyuki with a warm smile. “Come closer.”

Kuroyukihime, who was having her hair combed by Fuuko, had gave him an uncharacteristic welcoming smile too.

Haruyuki, decisively, crawled along the carpet, stopping in front of the two girls. He sat on the floor. Fuuko also stopped what she was doing and sat properly on the sofa. While she did this, Haruyuki heard a very soft, but audible, motor noise.

“Approximately eighty per cent is made of synthetic flesh and muscle, but even just by this, it’s still difficult to delicately control the leg. At this point there is still a need to rely on servo-motors in the leg.” said Fuuko, pointing to an area near her knee.

On further inspection, about five centimetres above her knees, there was a thin line encircling the entire thigh. This area, usually covered by her stockings, was probably where the real leg ended and the prosthetic began, but as the colour of the skin remained the same across the gap, there was a precision most people could not think of.

“That’s excellent… just like, a work of art – so, master, if it’s that beautiful, why not do away with the stockings… it isn’t a real body after all.”

“I didn’t wear the stockings to cover my prosthetics, but to protect the artificial skin. To be precise, around fifteen centimetres up from this scar also isn’t strictly human muscle.”

“Eh?”

“The artificial skin also covers what used to be my real legs. But because both have already joined together at the cellular level, even I myself am unable to remove the prosthetic leg.”

“The real… legs…” Haruyuki repeated that in a soft voice, Fuuko nodded her head and continued.

“I believe I mentioned it before. The reason why my legs are like that is not due to an accident or illness, but because of abnormalities in the genes. That is to say, when my mother was pregnant, they should have already known about their child’s deformity.”

And he thought that the elder girl could say such things without changing her usual expression, But somewhere, she felt somewhat chilling, and Kuroyukihime closed the gap between them on the sofa, stuck her body close to Fuuko’s, placing her hand on Fuuko’s right knee. She had been encouraged by this act, and thus continued.

“Under this sort of circumstances, if a child lacked its four limbs, abortion would be considered. In fact, I was this close to not existing in the world. In fact, back then, my parents were also facing a dilemma. In fact, I should be thanking them for having me, but… from when I was young, even now when I’ve turned sixteen, I still hate them. It still affects me greatly. Why… why did I have to be born…”

“…”

Haruyuki was speechless. He remained sitting on the carpet, holding his hands tightly.

Within all Burst Linkers, there lay a [mental wound]. The Brain Burst Program read this to create the appearance of the Duel Avatar. Hence, the appearance and abilities of the Duel Avatar would thus be based on just what bothered the Burst Linker deeply.

For Fuuko’s avatar, Sky Raker, its most distinguishing factor was not the feminine appearance of the Avatar, but the [Gale Thruster] that it had been created with. Even though the time of a single thruster-assisted boost was short, but the backpack-like rocket boosters were able to produce a thrust that rivalled that of Silver Crow’s wings.

Fuuko had once stated that her Gale Thruster was [a pair of incomplete wings]. Even when she had looked to the skies, the fear of heights that she had had given her a 350-metre height limit. However, in the finale at the Hermes Cord as they crossed the finish line at the top of the cabled space elevator, they understood something. Gale Thruster… no, the avatar that owned it, Sky Raker, was born to fly amongst the stars, free of the Earth’s gravity.

“- But, Crow-san, you’ve already dealt with that for me.” Those words resonated in Haruyuki’s ears and mind.

The motors made a noise and Fuuko rose from the sofa, kneeling in front of Haruyuki. She then sat in a seiza position in fluid movements unthought of with prosthetics, and extended her left hand, holding Haruyuki’s balled-up fists in her hand.

“At the end of the Hermes Cord Race, what you told me, ‘so Sky Raker is actually a avatar meant for outer space’, those words made me realize what was important to me. That is… even if my legs aren’t whole, there’s a meaning behind too.”

“A meaning behind it… “ “Yes.”

Fuuko nodded, and at some point had let go of Haruyuki’s fists, and touched her legs. “Somewhere deep within my heart – in a place where I can’t sense, I must be looking for it. Still looking for the point where my legs can see the natural world. That is…”

“A zero-gravity environment?” Haruyuki, who had been led on to Fuuko’s conversation, said that. The smile in front of him radiated warmth, and continued moving up and down.

“Even though I’ve forgotten most of it, but when I was still in grade school… That is, before I became a Burst Linker, I came across a paper book in the library near my home. It was a science fiction book targeted towards adults, and had rather difficult vocabulary. It was quite difficult for me to read it, but with the Neuro Linker’s AR reading guide, I continued on. That was because that book talked about children who had been genetically modified to replace their legs with arms in order to survive a zero-gravity environment. I felt like I was one of them, and somehow or rather got sucked in…”

At this point, some sadness could be seen in Fuuko’s smile.

“That book was a rather old book that had been published in the previous century, and as such did not have age restriction data yet, that’s why I was able to read it. In fact, children under fifteen were forbidden from reading it, and I was discovered by the librarians, and the book was taken from me. I really wanted to read the ending, so I persuaded my parents to look for an electronic version for me, but they couldn’t find it. And not long after, the paper book was also taken from the shelves, and I was no longer able to read it.”

Fuuko rubbed her kneecaps with a finger, as if she were reading the pages of a book.

To Haruyuki, novels, manga, anime and shows were all digitized, and all over the internet. The phenomenon of “a book that you’ll never be able to read again” was unimaginable to him, but somehow, Haruyuki found himself able to empathize with Fuuko’s sadness.

She raised her head, nodded, and continued. “Of course, I was rather sad at that point, but back then I was a kid. So I slowly forgot about it. I can no longer remember the book’s title or the author’s name. But.. the wish of one day going to a world like that remained in my heart, and when I became a Burst Linker, the BB Program used even the scars and dreams that I could no longer consciously remember, and creates Sky Raker and Gale Thruster.”

As Fuuko finished, she turned to look at the Legion Master that had remained sitting on the sofa. Kuroyukihime in her black pyjamas remained silent, finally getting up soundlessly and sitting down next to Fuuko.

She thought for a while, then continued.

“But, the real wish I had forgotten, had also lowered my abilities in the Accelerated World. What the avatar truly thrived in, was not [the sky], but [outer space]. Had I realized this earlier… If I had believed that someday I’ll reach an [Interplanetary Stage], and waited all this while, had I hurt Sacchan, contributed to the collapse of the Legion, all this would not have happened…”

“It’s not like that, Fuuko.” Kuroyukihime held the other girl a year older than her in a tight embrace.

“If you want to blame someone. blame me. For not understanding your suppressed wishes. And the rest of the legion. You broke free from the chains of despair and reached Level 8, but did not reach the stars. I should have accepted that as the reason why you wanted to throw away your legs, but I did not. On the other hand, I told you, because I had underestimated your power, that it was I who had done such a selfish thing as aiming for Level 10, thus incurring the wrath of the Six Kings…”

Back then, Haruyuki had not been a member of Nega Nebulas, in fact he had not been a Burst Linker yet, and could only guess what had happened. However, thanks to what he had learned, he was able to get a grasp of what had happened two years ago – the winter of 2044, when the first Nega Nebulas was destroyed.

The events leading up to this were very complex. Kuroyukihime had accepted Fuuko’s request, using her own sword to sever the two legs of Sky Raker. In the following Seven Kings’ Conference, she had beheaded the first Red King, Red Rider, who spoke of non-aggression. In the following chaos, the entire legion had formed into groups to challenge the [Imperial Palace] protected by the [Four Gods] – these were all not unrelated.

In fact, it was because of fears that Fuuko would still hold a sense of self-hatred, she had still remained without her legs even after the formation of the second Nega Nebulas. What should have been a temporary debuff for one battle had became permanent, due to the [Incarnate System] that she had been subconsciously invoking, thinking that she did not have the rights to have her legs back. In a way, it was like a curse that she had placed on herself. So…

“… we just need to slowly find again, one by one, what had been lost.”

Those words came out of Haruyuki’s mouth. As Kuroyukihime and Fuuko looked up at him, Haruyuki would have, under normal circumstances been scared stiff and unable to say anything, but this time he forced himself to say what he really wanted to say.

“Even if you get lost, even if you lose something, even if you make mistakes, all we need to do is look back, and we should be able to find what we lost. Then, if we can just take a step forward from there… because Master and Shinomiya-san had been able to return to the legion, the other two of the [Four Elements], as well as the rest of the legion, will quickly return to senpai’s side. That is what I think…”

The words, while not numerous, took all that Haruyuki had to say, and he kept his mouth shut after that. But after a few seconds, when he heard no more from the other two, and wanted tto rn off to the toilet apologizing, thinking that he had done something wrong –

“Really, even though Crow-san’s younger than me, something he can really move onee-chan… how crafty.”

Haruyuki panicked on hearing “onee-chan”, and slowly looked up. Fuuko, who was just wiping the corner of her eye with her finger, quickly snapped back to her default Raker Smile, then relaxed her posture and inched towards Haruyuki.

“As a reward, you can touch them~~” The sheer destructive potential of that statement nearly sent Haruyuki’s logic processing into a BSOD. Thus, he neglected the unnaturalness of that situation, as well as Kuroyukihime’s face which had a sour expression, “Y, yes,” and slowly edged the finger of his right hand forward.

Once his finger made contact with the surprisingly slim feet, Haruyuki found it hard to breathe. Besides the smooth feeling of the synthetic material, there was also a warmth that surprised him. No, actually, when one came to think about it – the heat energy created from converting the chemical energy in the batteries to the electrical energy for the motors, there should be some heat. But he never expected this [human warmth] to come from an artificial leg.

Haruyuki slowly moved his finger upwards, following the synthetic skin of the artificial leg with responded with a very natural bounce. It felt more [trained], compared to Haruyuki’s own legs. At the part where the lower leg met with the knee, it did not feel as machine-like as he thought it was, despite the presence of the mechanical equipment there.

When his finger reached the inside of the knee, Fuuko let out a “un” sound, and moved her legs slightly. Haruyuki was shocked, and asked in a scratchy voice, “Is, is there any feeling there?”

“Yes, but only some rough pressure. Besides, they’re still doing research on the sensors to feel things on the skin. It does feel a bit itchy though if you touch me like that.”

“S, sorry.” Haruyuki hastily apologized, and wanted to remove his hands. But Fuuko held on to them, and continued, “It’s no problem at all, I just wanted Crow-san to learn more about my legs. Please continue.”

“…o… okay.”

Haruyuki did as Fuuko asked, and placed his finger back on the artificial skin. Encircling the entire knee was a small line that could barely be seen. From below that line was the artificial limb. But as Fuuko said, above it had also become a region where her artificial and real skin fused together, a result of the artificial skin growing over the real skin to secure the prosthetic leg.

However, it was not immediately visible where the artificial skin was. Haruyuki exhaled on the state of control mechanics, and continued drawing a line towards the thighs.

Five centimetres from above the line, ten, fifteen… until he reached a point just under her nightgown.

“Ah…” Fuuko let out that sound and her entire leg shook.

“F, from here onwards is my real skin. How good the sensory nerves are, it feels completely different…”

“Y, you mean this is the border? It’s not visible at all… so the skin has really fused together…”

“Oi, Crow-san, if you continue it feels itchy…”

Pinch! This sudden attack came from the left, and Haruyuki took his finger off Fuuko’s legs.

“It huuuuuurrrrrrttttttssss!” “When do you plan – on – stopping?” The attacker was Kuroyukhime, who had stretched Haruyuki’s cheek with her right hand.

“Just touch a bit and that’s it! And Fuuko, you too, why has [touching legs] become a reward?”

“Oh, that’s what Pard-san from the Red legion told me. Crow-san has a low resistance to legs.”

“… what are you saying?” Kuroyukihime’s voice hinted at danger ahead. She stood up, her hand remaining on Haruyuki’s cheek.

“No, no, I definitely don’t have a leg fetish!”

“I don’t care if the info is real or not, why does Blood Leopard know about this?”

“I don’t know, all I’ve done is sit on the back of Pard-san’s bike, and leaned across the back of her avatar…”

Just as Haruyuki was trying to explain himself, both Kuroyukihime and Fuuko were giving him icy glares. Shit, Haruyuki would have thought, if he had the mental capacity to –

“Speaking of which, Fuuko, there’s still something for us to do.”

“That’s right Sacchan, we still have to train Crow-san, don’t we?” The two girls held on fast to Haruyuki, and dragged him to the side of the glass table.

“It’s late, there’s still school tomorrow.”

“Haven’t you already finished your homework?”

“B, but, the training in space is something we have to do.”

“Don’t worry, there will be other opportunities for that.”

“But, but, shouldn’t we be sleeping already?”

“Don’t worry, Haruyuki-kun, nights are long in the Unlimited Neutral Field.” said Kuroyukihime as she plugged in the cable that Haruyuki had previously connected to the router, and the other two took the remaining cables. Three LEDs turned on on the router.

“Then, on the count of 5. For every minute you’re late, the special training menu will get even more special~~” Saying that, Fuuko smiled more gently than before. The matter of Haruyuki not saying the command and escaping was out.

The Legion Master and Legion second-in-command held on tight to Haruyuki who was perspiring wildly, and the countdown began. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1,

UNLIMITED BURST!”

As Haruyuki said that, he thought.

What if the [Space] stage was added sooner. In that case, he could team up with master, relying on the force of Gale Thruster and the movement of Silver Crow’s wings to attain victory. Then, no longer would she be referred to as [Icarus]. Because master’s – Sky Raker’s brilliant wings would finally reach that place.

The world of stars, which she desired to reach more than anyone else…