“We don’t have time to go shopping in Shibuya after school or to karaoke with friends or whatever,” she said. “Because we’re in it with gymnastics from morning to night. But with Brain Burst, for a mere one point eight seconds, we can spend thirty minutes in another world. We get to meet people we’d never meet in the real world. You’ve made new friends on this side, too, yeah?”
“Mm,” she agreed as the faces of several people, starting with Comet Squeaker, popped up in the back of her mind. “Five or six.”
Nozomi’s smile changed to a pained expression. “That’s not too many, given you’re already level six, huh…? Well, whatevs. You gotta treasure them. Brain Burst’s not only a tool for solving problems in the real. It’s another reality, and it gives us all kinds of stuff. Don’t forget that.”
“…I won’t.” Risa nodded.
Nozomi grinned, tugged on her cat ears one more time, and then stood up. “N’kay,” she said. “How about we head somewhere we can practice the vault? Around here…maybe Setagaya Park or Komazawa Park.”
Nozomi listed the names of parks near Taishido, and Risa had a sudden thought.
“Oh! Right,” she said. “Is that one place no good? It’s kinda far, but we are in the Unlimited Neutral Field, so there aren’t any walls between area boundaries or anything.”
“What place are you talking about?” Nozomi asked with a frown.
“Umm, Yoyogi Gym,” Risa replied.
Officially named Yoyogi National Stadium First Gymnasium, this was one of the leading indoor stadiums in the city, built for the first Tokyo Olympics in 1964—more than eighty years earlier. It had been significantly renovated for the second Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but the exterior was as it had been when it was first built. It was a place of dreams for athletes, the venue for many sports tournaments and national championships, and it was also where the All-Japan Artistic Gymnastics Championships for individual events would be held in July.
“Oh… Yoyo One, huh?” Nozomi abbreviated the name in a dubious fashion and fell briefly into thought as she looked up at the sky in the direction of Yoyogi. She finally nodded. “Well, sure, why not? But stay away from the central Shibuya area…and Yoyogi Park to the north there.”
“Huh?” Risa furrowed her brow. “I get Shibuya, since there might be other Burst Linkers there, but why Yoyogi Park?”
“I’ll tell you on the way,” Nozomi replied, and she began running toward National Route No. 246, which passed right by Carrot Tower. Risa hurriedly chased after her.
Once they got onto 246, Mimosa Bongo sped up dramatically. The way she ran was magnificent, making it clear that she was antelope adjacent. Risa couldn’t exactly allow herself to fall behind, given her status as a member of the leopard family. She widened her stride to accelerate and took her place diagonally behind Mimosa.
Apparently, a leopard-headed duel avatar by the name of Blood Leopard showed up now and again at the duel holy land, aka Akihabara Battle Ground, in the Akihabara area. Risa wanted to go up against her someday, but she didn’t have the guts to go on a trip from Setagaya to the distant Akihabara at present. Once the championships were over… If she could get decent results there, she would maybe get a little more serious about Brain Burst.
While she ran, thinking thoughts like this, the Shinsencho Intersection came into view. Continuing straight down Dogenzaka would be faster, but that was the center of Shibuya, and it would be a hassle if they ran into other Burst Linkers, so they turned west at the intersection onto Yamate-dori.
They made a right turn soon after, and once they slipped through the wealthy residential area of Shoto, the figure of the national broadcaster building revealed itself ahead. The broadcast center, which was rebuilt in the 2020s for an enormous sum, had been transformed into a massive temple in the Sacred Ground stage, with a crystal, shining remarkably brightly, enshrined on its roof.
“…I bet we’d get some good loot if we smashed that,” Nozomi said, slowing down slightly.
Risa felt a surge of excitement, but then shook her head vigorously. “If we do that and a huge Enemy shows up, we’ve messed the whole thing up! If it’s still there on our way home, okay?”
“Okay, fine.”
As they spoke in quiet voices, they went along the south side of the broadcast center, turned left, and now their objective came into view.
Yoyogi National Stadium First Gymnasium, a large structure with an elegant silhouette, like that of an ancient galley ship or a futuristic spaceship. It was basically the same shape in the Unlimited Neutral Field as in the real world, but the group of temples surrounding it seemed strangely natural there. They stopped for a second about three hundred meters away and carefully checked that there were no Enemies or other Burst Linkers before approaching it at half speed.
“…Now that I’m thinking about it, Mimo,” Risa said abruptly, “how come you said to stay away from Yoyogi Park?”
“Oh, that. Umm… Hmm.” Mimosa Bongo had said she would explain while they moved, but for some reason, she hesitated now. Risa peered over at her to see that the face mask beneath the horns had a hint of fear coloring it. “I’m just worried because you’re weirdly super curious, even though you’re so mousy…”
“Okay, first, I’m not mousy.” Risa sniffed. “And I promise I’ll stay away, so just tell me why.”
“Fine.” Nozomi sighed. “So, like, there’s this dungeon that is like the triple and maximum yikes in the Accelerated World under Yoyogi Park in the Unlimited Neutral Field.”
“Huh? Wait. That’s weird, though?” Risa cocked her head to one side. “Didn’t you tell me before that the four great dungeons in the Unlimited Neutral Field were Tokyo Dome, Tokyo Station, Tokyo Tower, and the Shinjuku Government Building?”
“I did,” the other girl agreed. “But I guess they used to be the five great dungeons with the one under Yoyogi Park. In the first large-scale attack on it, though, a whole bunch of people ended up in Unlimited EK—basically, they couldn’t escape. So they decided it was way too dangerous and sealed it off.”
“Sealed it off…” Hearing this, Risa did actually want to go and take just a peek at it, but she pushed back her curiosity, because it would be grating to hear Mimosa Bongo say, “I told you!” So she simply replied, “Huh.”
Even still, Nozomi got a dubious look on her face, but once they got closer to the gym, she clapped her hands, as if to shift mental gears. “Listen, Risa. The automatic disconnect safety in the real world will activate in eighty-three days on this side. You might think that’s an impossibly long time, but you can’t waste a second of it. You gotta jump and jump and then jump some more. Until you push past your duel avatar’s performance limits… Until you touch the light of the Incarnate, okay?”
“…Comecchi mentioned this ‘Incarnate’ last night, too,” Risa said slowly. “What is it?”
“You don’t need to know yet. I’ll explain properly to you one of these days, so for now, you just gotta jump!” Nozomi gave her a whop on the back, and Risa staggered onto the premises of Yoyogi National Stadium.
The enormous arena was sunk into silence, illuminated by pearly light. The nervousness she’d felt at the time of the individual All-Around Championships in April suddenly came back to life, and her breathing grew shallower. But that was all right. She had come to this place for exactly this reason, to resist this pressure and overcome it.
“…Okay, let’s go,” she called out, looking back, and Nozomi nodded silently.
They climbed the final slope and approached the entrance.
“…?”
As they were about to step inside the gloomy interior, Risa got the sudden feeling that someone had called out to her and stopped where she was. She looked back one more time, but there was only the tranquil, deserted world; not a thing was moving.