The sound of the bell signified that break had ended and Maiyu still had not returned. Anxiously debating whether he should get up and look for her, Yukio drummed his fingers against his desk impatiently

The latecomers filed through the door and now his hand hovered over the phone icon visible the top right of his vision. Should he call her? Maiyu isn't usually late for classes. Actually, now that he put some more thought into it, she was really never late from lessons. With the last of the stragglers entering the classroom, his finger tapped the icon just as she entered. Shifting his virtual screen to the side, he signaled for Maiyu to come over.

"Maiyu is something wrong?" He had noticed that she had been looking more stressed ever since the spring term ended a week ago and this had been bugging Yukio for a while.

Shaking her head and looking at him with tired eyes.

"We have been through this a few times already, there is nothing wrong so stop bothering me."

This time however, Yukio wouldn't back down so easily. He wanted to really know what was happening to her and would not be pushed off easily.

"Did something bad happen to you during spring break?"

"Burst Link."

He barely heard her quick muttered words before she grabbed his uniform and pulled him to the side. A loud crack erupted followed by the sounds of breaking glass. Looking at the spot where he once stood, a rolling softball was surrounded by shards of lethal glass. Yukio shivered at the thought at the mess he would have been if Maiyu had not saved him. But …

"Maiyu what did you say just now?"

She turned towards him, hands covering her face as she thought deeply.

"Meet me after school, usual place, I'll tell you what's wrong."

The usual place would be where they had first met, behind the school gym where she once hid from the mocking eyes of the students. Her infamous,drunk father had been the subject of the insults she had received and this caused her to be unfriendly to almost everyone. Except Yukio.

Maiyu sat on the steps leading to the backdoor of the gym, watching the school gate closely as students left for home. So intent she was at spotting out the leaving student's that she leapt of the step and released a sharp squeak when Yukio tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

"That's a cute sound you have there, looking for someone?" His poker face reaction made it too obvious that he enjoyed the reaction. Or maybe he did not. Stoic and rather stubborn, Maiyu sometimes never knew whether he did a prank like this on purpose.

"Yes, wait awhile longer, more people have to leave first." Motioning him to sit, she resumed her lookout. It was not until twenty minutes later before she released a sigh of relief and sat beside Yukio.

Reaching into her skirt pocket, she withdrew a XSB cable and plugged one end into her neuro-linker. She handed the other end to a stunned Yukio. Wired direct connection was something they had never done before and this was usually reserved for lovers and so, Yukio could not help but feel uncomfortable that they were using this channel of communication. However since they are about to discuss what is likely the secret of her problems, he abided and plugged it into his own neuro-linker.

"You can hear me right?" Maiyu's soft voice echoed in his head after the connection warning had disappeared.

"I can hear you clearly." There were no connection issues so now Yukio waited for Maiyu to continue. She avoided his gaze, biting her lip, trying to find a way to begin the conversation.

"You said you will tell me what's been bugging you, so ...?" She looked at him blankly for a minute and finally, brought her right hand up and slashed away at her virtual screen..

Execute BB2039? YES/NO the pop-up appeared suddenly.

"I can't really tell you if you aren't ready to help me. Install that and I will do my best to explain. Be warned however, this program may change the life you have right now, just as it changed mine."

Answering his unspoken question and ending it off with a rather depressing ending, Yukio hesitated before coming to a decision. Change his life? Is there something capable of that? He looked into Maiyu's eyes and they showed hope, almost begging him to accept. If he wanted to help her, this might be the only way to find out.

Upon hitting the yes button, flames erupted nearly causing him to leap from his seat, but Maiyu held him down, predicting his startled reaction. Slowly the flame consolidated in front of him and it parted, revealing a logo surrounded with fire.

BRAIN BURST

After a short installation process lasting a minute, the words, Welcome to the Accelerated World appeared as a parting message before everything returned back to normal.

"And so your problem is that you are addicted to this game, Brain Burst?" Yukio kept his voice passive as he asked the question.

"It's not like that. This program is not just a game. It is ... special." Maiyu hesitated unable to find the right words.

Unable to hold his disappointment, he released his anger

"Special enough that you must have played it during the entire week of spring term. This changed your life for the worse. I can't believe ..."

He stopped as he realized Maiyu bunched up her fist and held it up, threatening his nose.

"Say burst link before I hit you." her voice said menacingly in his head. The fist hurtled forward and driven by panic, Yukio shouted.

"Burst Link!"

The colors of the world faded away, slowly replaced by a light, translucent blue. He and Maiyu were covered in the bright blue that now finished painting the area. He then realized, he was looking at himself. Frozen, with a panicked expression across his face as Maiyu's fist halted its progress mid-air. Looking down, he found the paws of his tiny grey wolf network avatar. Did he connect to the school net? He did not remember that they had an area like this.

"I take it that you are shocked." He turned around to face Maiyu's avatar, a cute little nine-tailed fox in a pink dress.

"Where are we? The School network?" She shook her head and answered.

"We are in Acceleration."

"Acceleration?"

"Time seemingly stops in acceleration but we are in fact moving very slowly, and you can't move things while in acceleration." She said in reply to Yukio's attempts to push her fist from its path.

"So this is not part of the school network. Then what is this?"

"I told you , the tool of Brain Burst. Acceleration. This is used to help us figure out ways to escape messy situations such as the one you are in."

"Us?"

"People who use Brain Burst, Burst Linkers. There are many burst linkers in this world and some of them are in our school."

Yukio shook his head and covered his face with his paw. This was way more than he had expected.

"Is this thing for real? How does a program stop time?"

"I do not know much about how this program does things. And it is for real. It saved your head from injury today."

And it did. Brain Burst allowed Maiyu to pull him out of the trajectory of the baseball and away from the fragmented glass that came from the incident earlier in the morning.

"And how do you know all this?" Yukio felt that he had to ask.

"Someone else in the school gave Brain Burst to me and delivered the same speech about it."

Before he could ask another question, she put her paw to his mouth, stopping the next question.

"Now on 3 , I'll say Burst Out and we will return back to reality."

"But your fist is still going to hit me." Yukio pointed it out

1

"You deserve it for your rudeness earlier."

2

He quickly turned to his real body and analysed. His right hand was rising in a gesture to stop. He would move it higher to sweep the punch to the right and bend his head to the left to dodge the blow.

3

"Burst out."

The blue world slowly lost its color, transforming back to the vibrant colors of the real 's viewpoint was reverted to his body and he could see Maiyu's fist moving faster and faster from it's frozen position. Quickly carrying out his plan,he forced his right arm up to push the blow aside and shifted his body to the left to avoid the blow. The world went back to full speed and his actions resulted in him dodging Maiyu's punch skilfully and she lost her balance, having hit nothing and fell forward.

Having only Yukio in her path, she tried fruitlessly to push herself off him and only managed to crash into him with her arms wrapping around him by accident. With her chestnut brown hair covering Yukio's view of her face, he could not see her face coloring into bright shades of red. Hurriedly, she disentangled herself and pushed him away. Turning around to hide her embarrassment, she muttered silently.

"Baka*. Baka."

"I was avoiding your blow. How does that make me an idiot."

"You should have taken it like a man. How could you let me fall into you. Such a shameful act."

She raised her hand to disconnect the cable but stopped and gave him some instructions.

"Do not connect to the global network from this moment forth. Tomorrow we will meet here again same time. Do not join the school network tomorrow as well. And you must not remove your neuro-linker. See you."

Baka = idiot