(Oh boy, another fight! Too much fighting, maybe?)

It was lunchtime and I sat with Kuroyukihime this time. We talked about various things, but mostly about the Accelerated World. I had questions and she had answers. I even got to know her personal life, like her relationship with her friend that she's known for a long time, Megumi. She was the one who asked her who I was yesterday. I told her about myself as well, and she seemed interested. I wasn't very interesting, to be honest. My past was like any other child's. Kuroyukihime didn't like talking about her past, though. She said she had a lot of painful memories and just kept it at that.

"Lan-kun, what're you doing here?" asked a voice, interrupting us. It was the student who sat behind me in my first class.

"I always sit here with Kuroyukihime," I said calmly. Actually, I only started hanging out with her today.

"Well, she's not going to sit with you any longer. She's going to be my date for the upcoming school dance!" he said.

"What?" I asked, bewildered.

"I didn't agree to this," Kuroyukihime said coldly.

"You will when I defeat you in a fight!" he proclaimed.

Kuroyukihime and I were confused. Was this student really going to beat up another student while in the view of multiple social cameras? He wouldn't be that rash, would he?

"Burst Link," I muttered.

I returned to the familiar blue cafeteria yet again and opened up the matchmaking menu for Brain Burst. Again, the three names appeared. Perhaps this student was Olive Driver? Since he said he was going to 'fight' Kuroyukihime, he probably meant here, in the Accelerated World. But why would he do that? Why not just ask her out the normal way? Was fighting someone in the Accelerated World worth more than what I had thought?

Olive... it was a shade of green, if I recalled correctly. During my short training session with Kuroyukihime, she showed me the basic color wheel for duel avatars. Green specialized in defense, so this battle would be a little tough. I hit his name and requested a duel. The world reconfigured itself to a rocky stage; lava flowed from the walls and the ground had gaps full of lava. A volcano setting, huh? My opponent appeared in front of me and struck his shield into the ground. My opponent, Olive Driver, had an enormous pale green shield. It was hard to see his features from this angle, as his shield was nearly the size of his avatar! All I could see was his round helmet with two slits for eyes. The message to fight appeared and I readied myself.

"Red Hero? Who are you?" he asked.

"The one protecting Kuroyukihime," I said gallantly.

I pulled out my laser sword and ran as fast as I could at him. He was shocked; perhaps he was prepared for me to pull out a ranged weapon or something, since I was red. I slashed his shield and barely scratched it. He pulled it out of the ground and smashed me with it. I was sent flying and lost about 10% of my HP gauge.

That shield is unbreakable! I thought. What can I do if he's just going to block all of my attacks? I figured I might as well charge up my special attack gauge by striking his shield a few more times and then figure out how to defeat him. After attacking his shield multiple times without doing much to his HP bar, he quickly moved and punched me with a large amount of force. I was sent flying into the wall and falling into some lava. Such power! I swam out of the lava and gasped for air. I had already lost 50% of my health while my opponent had almost all his health still.

"You can't break my shield no matter how hard you try!" he proclaimed loudly.

I ran at him again, this time, jumping over his head. He quickly faced me with his shield. I couldn't hit him from behind, no matter how fast I was. Despite his giant shield, my opponent had incredible speed. If I couldn't move behind him, what could I do? I didn't have any other weapon on me. If this sword was all I had, how could I penetrate his shield?

"Give up already?" Olive Driver sneered.

"Never!" I said.

I stared at my laser sword and wondered if this was the only weapon I could use. I had previously checked my body over for other armaments, but found none. I specialized in ranged attacks, though. Maybe this sword could be able to change into other weapons? A gun wouldn't be useful here. Maybe a boomerang? Those were pretty popular years ago, I was surprised I knew about its existence. I gripped my sword and tried to force it to become some sort of boomerang type of weapon.

Please! Anything that I could shoot or throw!

My sword responded by vibrating. It vibrated so much that it hurt and I had to let go of it. My sword began to spin extremely fast and attached itself to my right arm. It created a kind of shield.

"So your sword can spin around really fast? So what? If you think that will help you, you're dead wrong!" Olive Driver cried. He threw his giant shield at me and I was struck by it by surprise. It penetrated my chest and stuck me to the wall. An immense amount of pain appeared in my chest as I gasped for air. My health bar immediately dropped below 50% and I figured I was done for, since all he needed to do was to pound me until I was nothing but dust.

Gotta do something with this shield...

My body grew brighter as I charged up. If "Charged Shot" worked with my sword, it would surely work with my shield. I released the energy within my shield and threw it with all my might at Olive Driver. The shield hit him square in the torso and cut him in half. His HP bar dropped below 50% in an instant. His top half fell slowly as he screamed in pain. I removed his giant shield that was stuck in my chest and fell, weakly trying to get up. Before I could do anything else, my shield came back, cutting off Olive Driver's head. I was surprised at what happened. My sword turned into some sort of shield boomerang? It returned to my right arm and I changed it back into its original form. The winning message appeared as I sheathed my blade and then returned to the real world.

"I lost?" Olive Driver cried as I flashed back.

"You lost?" Kuroyukihime asked, confused. She turned to me with a puzzled face.

"Of course you lost. Now you don't get to take Kuroyukihime out," I said smugly.

Olive Driver glared at me and walked away in anger. He threw chairs around and screamed. Teachers came by to discipline him.

"So you dueled him before he could get to me..." Kuroyukihime observed.

"Yup!" I said with a smile.

"You idiot, I would've been able to take him on just fine," she said, shaking her head.

"Oh. Well... Sorry, I guess."

"It's perfectly fine. You need the experience."

The upperclassmen were confused as to what was happening. Kuroyukihime said that it wasn't a big deal and that they shouldn't worry about it. They quieted down, but remained suspicious.

"Well, I'll see you after school then, Kuroyukihime," I said.

"Yes, of course," she said while waving good-bye.

I left the lounge and went to my next class.

After school, I told Kuroyukihime the details of the duel. She was fascinated about my avatar having the ability to switch weapons. She said hers was able to change weapons too, but on a much smaller scale.

"You may be the most versatile duel avatar yet. You're red-colored, yet you can use an assortment of weapons. I wonder what kind of hidden potential your duel avatar is hiding. You should find out by fighting more Burst Linkers," Kuroyukihime said.

"I will. Thanks, Kuroyukihime. Hey, do you think I'll ever get to see your real avatar?" I asked.

"Perhaps. We'll see."

Kuroyukihime and I spent our after-school time in a nearby park. We walked and talked for a bit and sat down on a bench together. I don't know why, but I felt nervous sitting there. She was really close to me and I had never sat side-by-side with her at lunch. I've only sat facing her.

"Lan-kun, did you really try to protect me, or did you just want points to yourself?" Kuroyukihime asked all of a sudden.

"Uhm, well... I honestly wanted to protect you. I didn't even know he was a Burst Linker until he said he was going to fight you," I said nervously.

"Ahh, right. About that."

"About what? The fight?"

"No, the school dance. I was going to ask you to, erm..."

She looked really nervous. I had never seen her like that before.

"Are you saying you want me to go with you?" I asked.

"Y-Yes. I want you to come with me to the dance."

I looked at her for quite some time before giving her my answer. This girl who had became my friend and taught me the ways of acceleration was now asking me to be her date. Did she really like me in that sort of way? I didn't know if I liked her that way either, but I was always happy around her and she made my heart race sometimes.

"I'll go to the dance with you," I finally said.

She gave me a big smile and hugged me. I felt like I said the right thing and hugged her back. I've never felt any happier.

We remained sitting next to each other until the sun started setting. We decided it was getting late and parted ways. As I walked home, I couldn't stop thinking about Kuroyukihime. She was really pretty and I loved the way she smiled. I don't know, I've never felt this way about someone before. She was the first. I entered my house and found that nobody was home. I slipped out of my school uniform and into casual clothing before jumping into bed. I had homework to do, but I decided to do it later. I wondered if I should have a duel first before going to bed...

I decided against it and fell into a deep slumber.

(Yep, my OC is going to be paired with Kuroyukihime. I'm sorry if her character isn't very canon-like!)