"Did I just… accelerate?"

Haruyuki transported himself to a next-gen VR world, one that was above the specifications of the games of the current era. The setting was a bit futuristic, like the maps you would find in a sci-fi game. He landed close to what would be known as the starting point, which was a city full of tall buildings with neon lights running through them. The sky was dark with pale moonlight.

"Amazing… so this is the accelerated world…", he thought. "It's a lot vaster than what I had imagined."

The game he tried out was a bizarre application called cc2040-exe, or 'Cosmos Corrupt 2040'. It was a top-secret game that was just handed to him one fine night, from a sender known only as 'KA'. He had an idea on who it was however.

Ever since he was little, Haruyuki had received help from two researchers at RECT: Kirigaya Kazuto and Yuuki Asuna. He was introduced to them through his father, who was a close associate of them.

His mother, having given birth to him at the tender age of twenty-two, was not able to provide sufficient parenting for him, and thus heavily depended on the Neurolinker ever since he was born. Fortunately, the Neurolinker she had ordered for him was a model from RECT, enabling Haruyuki's father to set up some connections in order to give something his son lacked.

In exchange, Kazuto and Asuna provided Haruyuki with the things he desired the most, eventually inculcating his own love for games. They would take his own data, as well as those of similar children with dark and troubled pasts, and use them for research. Well, 'research' was the official reason. In reality, they wanted to develop three high-spec games to put them in, though Haruyuki had little to no idea about the other two, or what its objective was.

He also had a support AI installed into his Neurolinker named 'Yui', who offered him mental health counselling as per her initial purpose. Kazuto and Asuna saved her from deletion many years ago and have since called her their 'daughter', but their bond was one of a true family. Haruyuki soon developed a special fondness for Yui, eventually calling her his sister after initially seeing her as a playmate.

Yui accelerated along with him, and appeared in the form of a pixie avatar she had been using since long ago.

Haruyuki looked at a nearby mirror and saw that he was clad in armor of the purest white, with a sword buckle.

"Perhaps this is what they call a knight in shining armor.", Haruyuki thought to himself.

When he checked the status screen in front of him, he saw an HP bar, a number which indicated Level 1, and the name 'White Knight'.

"Hmm… this is kinda embarrassing… can I change my avatar?"

"No, the Neurolinker accesses the deepest recesses of your soul and creates your avatar from that. You can't switch Neurolinkers either.", Yui answered.

"That's a problem! I don't remember wishing to be a knight…", Haruyuki complained, but then realized this was a different game from most, so it wouldn't do him any good. He focused on something else instead. "Hmm, the clock's not moving, yet it says I accelerated, so… Nee-chan, up to what rate does this game accelerate?"

"Up to about… a thousand times that of real time."

"That's quite a huge rate!", Haruyuki exclaimed. "But it leaves me with a lot of time to explore, so I can't complain."

"Now then, if I'm a knight, I need to find my princess.", he advanced with this romantic thought in his head, wandering around for a bit until his eyes caught the attention of something astonishing.

Another player avatar appeared right before his eyes, seemingly an F-Type. Unlike his pure white, this avatar was made out of obsidian colored in the deepest of black, with skirt-like appendages near her waist. She had purplish lenses for eyes and long flowing hair at the back.

For some reason, she was punching and kicking a nearby wall, probably trying to check her character build. She turned her eyes to see Haruyuki, having taken notice of him through her sixth sense.

"H-Hello, nice to meet you!", Haruyuki stammered before getting his words out right.

The avatar spoke out in a clear, silky voice, while exhibiting elegance similar to that of a real princess:

"Yeah, likewise."

It was a greeting that carried neither contempt nor pity, but rather a hint of loneliness. Despite that, Haruyuki could not help but be enthralled by the mysterious aura this person carried.

"Amazing…", he thought while standing motionless for a few seconds.

The obsidian girl was clearly not amused at him continuously staring at her.

"Hey, did you come to me to say something, or are you just going to stand there like a stone?"

He snapped from his trance-like state, and stuttered his next words:

"Huh, n-n-no! It's just… I've never seen an avatar as beautiful as yours."

She was taken aback by his direct remark, but quickly composed herself and said:

"…T-Thank you. Though the same goes for you."

They both got a little awkward trying to talk to each other like this. Seeing as they were getting nowhere, the obsidian girl decided to switch to introductions.

"So, what is your name?"

"Oh, mine's White Knight. Yours?"

"Well, umm… try not to laugh…"

She lowered her voice, clearly embarrassed trying to say her name.

"…Black Princess."

After hearing that, Haruyuki almost burst into laughter, which earned an angry glare from the girl, but then he remembered he had an equally weird name for an avatar. He wondered who came up with these names if not the players, but soon killed that thought and focused on the girl in front of him.

He noticed that she had a sad look on her face, possibly having lived a life of sorrow like him. He extended his hand to the girl known as Black Princess, hoping to be friends with her.

"I hope we can get along well, Ohime-sama."

He was expecting her to be slightly apprehensive of a random stranger and his rather straightforward way of addressing her, but she surprisingly received his handshake in kind.

"Yeah, same here, Kishi-dono."

The two players quickly formed a pair, and sooner or later, other players appeared.

The concept of the game was to get strong enough to challenge the final area. To aid in this, there were monsters, typical of the MMOs of the past, that players could defeat. In this game however, some monsters were tough to the point where one player could not do it alone.

There was no option for PvP, and a shield activated whenever a player tried to harm another player, to discourage PKing. Whenever players were going to challenge a dungeon, monsters would appear roughly ten levels higher than the highest level on the party, though its base stats stayed the same. The players themselves could only go up to Level 100 however.

For some bizarre reason, White Knight and Black Princess had attributes that were complementary to one another, making themselves well known to most Corrupt Linkers as two of the three who could use swords, the weapons that represented the ultimate attack power. There were rumors of a third person who could use swords in both arms, but he was very elusive and hard to come across.

As for the other two, it was fate… no, something close to divine intervention that brought them together for a purpose. Yui, aside from monitoring other Corrupt Linkers and counselling them, had also guided the pair into secret locations and taught them tricks she had learnt from her parents on maximising experience gain. Haruyuki once asked her why she's going through so much for them, only for her to tell him that the answer would spoil their journey.

In this way, Haruyuki and the obsidian girl displayed a tremendous amount of growth. They had met others and made strong companions, but in the end, they were the ultimate pair for each other.

They almost always set up dive times together using the communication feature. They did some reckless things themselves, argued back and forth a little, but in the end, they always pulled through, and became really close friends as a result, to the point where Haruyuki started calling Black Princess 'Hime'. The obsidian girl was initially suspicious of the AI that he referred to as 'Nee-chan', but she eventually opened up to her as well.

Six months later in real time, the pair stumbled upon the final area of the game, the 'Castle'. Black Princess had just reached Level 100 right after White Knight, but they realized they weren't strong enough. They had to assemble a large team.

"Umm, are you sure about this, Hime?"

"Yeah, there seems to be no other way if this is the final area."

"B-But…"

"Well, what else can we do? We hit the max cap for our level, and the boss over there is still pretty challenging with just the two of us."

"R-Right…"

"We have no choice. Knight, we enlist the help of everyone available tomorrow to clear the game.", Black Princess said, more determined than ever to reach the end.

"Yes, but for it to come to an end so soon… I'm just… worried."

"Worried? Of what?"

"Of all the bonds we formed here. It hasn't been that long, but the bonds I formed here are really precious to me. I'm afraid that we might end up losing them after the game is cleared. We haven't met in the real world yet, but… you are my…"

Haruyuki wanted to say the rest, but couldn't open his mouth further. The obsidian girl stood speechless for a moment before bursting into laughter.

"Hahaha! You really are a simpleton, Knight."

Though she didn't have lips or a mouth to show it, she was clearly smiling.

"But… that is why…"

Haruyuki wanted to hear the rest of the sentence, but she cut it off and said something else.

"Don't worry. I do not know what we have been chosen for, but the bonds we have here, the time we both spent together… is all so precious to me too. I wouldn't forget it just like that."

This only made Haruyuki have further doubt. Having sensed this, the obsidian girl went in to grab his hand, looking as if she was about to propose to him.

"I promise you, when this is over, we'll exchange our real names and meet up in the real world one day. So please… wait for me until then."

Just then, Yui also offered words of encouragement.

"That's right, Knight-san! You shouldn't give up! Just focus on the end!"

"Hime… Nee-chan…"

After hearing these comforting words from the two people who had guided him in his journey till now, Haruyuki cried a little, but he felt relieved.

"Right… let's move forward… towards the end!"

The next day, there was a wild unrest going on. With rumors of the final area having already been discovered, the Corrupt Linkers were not sure what to do next. Some wanted to rush forward, while others felt a desire of powerlessness.

Black Princess, being more of the dignified leader type, attempted to rile up all the Linkers present with a single proclamation:

"Hear me out, all you Corrupt Linkers! My name is Black Princess, the one who desires to see the end of this game! I, along with my partner, White Knight, are going to stage an attack on the final area, the Castle. All those who wish to follow us, take up your weapons! The time to fight… is now!"

It was a simple call to battle, yet all the other Linkers, weak and strong alike, felt so moved by her earnest desire, and decided to go with her.

The boss they targeted was the Guardian of the West Gate, Byakko. It was at the max monster level of Level 150, yet proved to be impossible for Haruyuki and Black Princess alone with max player level to take down. Their plan of attack was to launch as many high-level attacks as possible to wear down Byakko, and then use the weak players to launch repeated attacks while it was weakened.

However, this turned out to be a challenge as Byakko wiped out most of the high-level players first, as though it could read the strategist's mind. Such an action wouldn't be possible if this were a simple monster AI, which meant that Byakko had a mind of its own. As if that weren't enough, two other monsters as powerful as Byakko came to its aid.

According to Yui, a total defeat in Cosmos Corrupt meant a forced uninstallation with no way to get it back. This meant that players only had one life in this world.

Seeing the overwhelming casualties, Black Princess ordered a quick retreat. However, they couldn't be given a second chance.

On the other side, Cosmos Corrupt was deemed a failure by the administrator supervising it as all the players combined could barely scratch the surface of the final area, and thus called upon an exterminator to destroy the world completely.

Right as the survivors who took part in the Castle raid were about to feel safe, a beast appeared before them. A super-class titan known only by the name 'Tezcatlipoca'. All of the surviving players tried fighting against it, but only delivered futile resistance, and could only hopelessly watch as every last one of themselves was eradicated.

Haruyuki froze in horror at the absolute terror right before his eyes, as it was about to consume him. However, at the last moment, Black Princess rushed in to sacrifice herself, leaving Haruyuki to scream out in despair.

"N-No… Stop… STOOOOPPPPP!"

She only showed a smile on her face while holding back her tears.

"Sorry… Knight…", she apologized for being unable to keep the promise they made.

Haruyuki couldn't watch as the first friend he had ever made in this world vanished before his eyes just like that.

At that moment, he fell into a state of guilt for not being able to protect her. Unable to bear this guilt, he ran away leaving his friends behind to fend for themselves. They may have cursed him for this, but they could only watch as they inevitably met their doom.

Eventually, the place became a barren wasteland. Haruyuki looked at the titan devouring a white figure similar to him. This made him helpless and unable to refute his fate, but Yui decided to sacrifice herself for him as well.

She appeared before him not as a pixie, but as a young girl with a sword. She held out for a few seconds until the titan decided to erase her completely for interfering with its destruction.

Before disappearing, she spoke something that Haruyuki could not seem to hear.

"No, Nee-chan… don't go…"

Haruyuki could only look up at the concentric circles on top of the titan, which were big energy beams targeted towards him. No matter how much he pleaded, it was too late.

He soon woke up in the real world, as if recovering from a horrible nightmare. He lost all of his recent memories after the traumatic experience he went through.

One night, Haruyuki happened to overhear his parents discussing something in a heated manner. He quickly realized that it was about him. Though he himself could not make much sense of what they were saying, it went something like this:

"Dear, don't you see that he was being used by them for some suspicious stuff?"

"I promised them his cooperation in the hope that he would find a bit of solace. Especially since you wouldn't do any parenting with him."

Deep down, Haruyuki's father was regretting sending his son into those experiments conducted by Kazuto and Asuna. He had lost a significant portion of his memory because of it. Finally, he added:

"If you don't want to, I'll look after him."

"I can no longer trust you after what you pulled, so he stays with me, no objections."

He surprisingly agreed to that, and decided to divorce with his wife, never to see her or his son again. He did, however, leave behind the classified documents on FullDive technology that he had collected on the Arita home server, possibly as a final gift to him.

Meanwhile, the hole in Haruyuki's heart grew bigger and bigger, and no matter what his childhood friends Chiyuri and Takumu tried, it would not mend itself. He ended up eating a lot in frustration. As such, he became fat and was constantly bullied.

Haruyuki didn't want pity from those two, so he began distancing himself from them around the beginning of their middle school years. He resigned himself to a life of solitude, not wanting to be pitied by anyone.

But then, a miracle beyond all possibility happened.

It had been six years since then. In the Umesato VR space, there appeared a butterfly avatar of ethereal beauty, possessing an aura that was vaguely familiar to Haruyuki. The words the girl spoke to him changed his life once again.

"Do you want to accelerate even further, boy?"