Sunday, July 21, 2047.
The spectator seating of Yoyogi National Stadium First Gymnasium was about 80 percent full for the women’s finals at the 101st All-Japan Artistic Gymnastics Championships for individual events.
Risa Tsukiori entered all four events and had advanced to the finals for vault and balance beam. She’d failed to qualify in the preliminaries for floor and uneven bars, but this meet brought together specialists in each event, and she’d never managed to advance to the finals in two events before. There was one gymnast who’d advanced to the finals in three events, and four in two, but they were all on the national team.
Nozomi Inadate also broke through the preliminaries in her specialty, floor, and right about now, she was no doubt getting ready for her performance in the finals somewhere in this same venue. Even if Risa couldn’t see her, she wanted them to at least give each other some last-minute encouragement on a Neurolinker voice call, but communication with other gymnasts at the stadium was prohibited.
Nozo, let’s win this together and go to the Olympics next year.
She called out in her heart instead, just as the words VAULT: STANDBY flashed on the backs of her closed eyelids. The gymnast ahead of Risa was finished. From the sound of the cheering, she’d put on a fairly impressive show, but Risa was not bothered by this the way she normally would have been.
She opened her eyes and stood up.
The new leotard she’d gotten for this competition had white as its keynote color, with a design of black dots on the chest. Of all the people in the venue, Nozomi was probably the only one who would get it, but this very closely resembled Nitride Uncia’s colors.
Uncia. Watch, okay? I’m gonna jump the way you do, she called out once more, this time to her own avatar, and then she came to stand at the end of the runway.
Her heart was calm. All sound receded. She didn’t even pay any mind to the eyes of her mother, who would have been in the spectator seating nearby. All she saw was the twenty-five meters of the blue runway and the vault at the end of it.
In the center of her field of view, the words VAULT: BEGIN rose up and disappeared.
She held her right hand straight up, brought it down, took a breath, exhaled. And began to run.
Risa would be doing the triple front flip—the Produnova. Ever since the head coach gave her permission to do it a month ago, she had practiced it countless times and brought her success rate up. Her landing had been the tiniest bit off in the qualifiers, but since she was the only junior team member to do a triple flip, the venue had erupted in applause.
This time, she would do it perfectly.
In the now silent world, Risa ran, taking large, bouncing strides. The runway she used to think was too short felt several times longer, thanks to the many hours of special training she’d undergone in the Unlimited Neutral Field. She could get more speed. More… More.
Finally, the springboard drew near. Five steps… Four… Three. She knew before she started running that her timing was perfect. She kicked at the runway without fear.
Two more steps… One… Now.
She threw both arms up, and slightly bending her knees, she brought her feet down on the springboard.
Her bare feet touched the nonslip rubber covering. She clearly felt the special alloy of the coiled springs compressing beneath the board through the soles of her feet. The kinetic energy accumulated during her full-speed run changed into jumping power.
Then.
Crack! The sound and the shock raced up Risa’s body to pierce the core of her mind.
The springs broke?!
By the time she instinctively understood this, her body had already been thrown ahead to the left.
The angle was too shallow. She was going to crash into the vault. She desperately threw her hands out and pushed her body up.
Somehow, she managed to get over the vault itself, but she’d only gotten half of her usual height, and she was going too fast. She lost her balance in midair. She couldn’t control her axis of revolution. Lights flowed diagonally past in her field of view.
On the distant floor area, she saw Nozomi desperately shouting at her. In the spectator seating, she could clearly see her mother pressing both hands to her mouth.
Then they both disappeared, and the landing mat drew near with alarming speed.
She didn’t have enough spin. She was going to land on her head. She needed to protect her head with her hands, but her elbows were numb from the impact with the vault and wouldn’t bend.
If she crashed into the ground at this speed, she would definitely seriously injure her spine. In the worst case, she would never do gymnastics—no, worse. She would never move at all again.
But gymnastics, the vault, they’re my everything.
But someday, I’m going to do a quadruple flip, the Racoviţă. That’s all I’ve lived for.
A black despair spread out inside of her. She could hear the sound of her future cracking and shattering.
Was she being punished? Was this payback for practicing in a place other gymnasts couldn’t go, in a way they couldn’t choose?
The instant this thought crossed her mind, she heard the voice from the first time she set foot in Yoyogi National Stadium First Gymnasium in the Unlimited Neutral Field. A voice inviting her to an eternal world.
The instant before her head collided with the mat, Risa shouted in a voice no one could hear.
Unlimited Burst.
Fade to black.
And then…
✦ ✦ ✦
To be continued.