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Leap to Infinity (無限への跳躍, Mugen he no Chōyaku) is an extra short story written by Kawahara Reki. It was released during the premiering of Accel World: Infinite∞Burst and is a prequel to the events of the movie.

Plot[]

In a Brain Burst duel, Risa sat together with her Parent Mimosa Bongo at the top of a huge cliff. There, Mimosa told her of the Level-9 exclusive command “Physical Full Burst”, which accelerated a Linker’s physical body by a hundred times. Hearing the incredible potential of the ability, Risa began pondering the use of it in gymnastics. Thinking out loud, she mused that she wanted to experience the fourfold somersault dubbed “Racovita’s Jump”—which she had been dreaming about ever since she was a child—no matter the cost.

At this, Mimosa, knowing the determination of her Child, began to plead for Risa not to risk her life to attempt the jump, saying that sports weren’t created to have athletes risk their lives for a single instant of glory. Hearing this, Risa reassured her Parent, who was in tears, that she would not do anything foolish. Soon afterwards, the two left the duel field.

That afternoon, Risa’s mother drove her home from school. In the car, Risa reflected on her mother’s recent behavior. Her mother had always been supportive of her gymnastics career, but recently, her overprotectiveness had gone past reasonable bounds. Furthermore, she seemed to have stopped distinguishing Risa from herself. Pondering these thoughts, Risa closed her eyes and tried to get some sleep.

After eating dinner (which had been carefully calibrated by her mother in terms of nutritional value) and performing her daily set of exercises (carefully supervised by her mother), Risa went to take a bath. There, she connected to the global net and opened the Brain Burst program. Choosing the name Comet Squeaker from the matching list, she began the duel.

In the duel field, which was currently in the Factory stage, Risa changed into her snow leopard form and began running to meet her opponent. Suddenly, a large, squeaky toy hammer fell from the sky, just barely missing Risa. Leaping up onto the roof of a nearby building, she came face-to-face with Comet Squeaker, who was slightly disappointed that her Enhanced Armament had missed.

Curious about how she had been detected, Risa questioned Comet. After a moment of hesitation, Comet responded that she had recently chosen her Level 6 bonus. At this, a small animal that looked like a cross between a squirrel, and monkey, and a rabbit appeared on Comet’s shoulder, introducing itself as “Boleri”. Comet explained that as her Level 6 bonus, she had chosen the “Enhancement of Accessory” option, which had resulted in the creation of Boleri. One of the functions of the pet was that it could act as a “scout”—it was this that had revealed Risa’s location to Comet.

After this exchange, Risa asked Comet if she could talk to her about something. Happily agreeing, Comet led her to a peaceful rooftop above a quiet mansion. There, Risa explained that recently, she had begun to develop a fear of the gymnastics horse—the apparatus used in the vaulting event. When running up to the horse, Risa could not bring herself to run fast enough; her body naturally limited itself to only eighty-percent of her top speed. As such, she could not build up enough momentum to complete the Produnova’s Jump—a high difficulty triple-somersault that she wished to perform at the national championships taking place in two months, which was her only ticket to the 2048 Olympic Games.

Hearing her troubles, Comet suggested that she could train in the Unlimited Neutral Field. As time passed a thousand times slower there, Risa would have all the time she needed to prepare.

The next day, Risa asked Mimosa Bongo, who in real life was called Inadate Nozomi, to accompany her to the Unlimited Neutral Field. Nozomi agreed, and gave Risa a set of instructions to dive into the Unlimited Neutral Field.

That night at ten o’clock p.m., Risa dove into the Unlimited Neutral Field, which was currently in the “Sacred Ground” stage, and met with Nozomi. Although Nozomi was supportive of Risa’s plan to train in the Unlimited Neutral Field, she was also slightly worried—her parent had done the same thing, diving into the Field for years at a time to train for gymnastics. In the end, she had been mysteriously deprived of all her Burst Points during a long dive in the Unlimited Neutral Field, and was robbed of all her memories of Nozomi. The next time Nozomi saw her, she didn’t seem to recognize her at all.

At this point, Nozomi began to cry. After being cheered up by Risa, she made her promise to not stay in the Unlimited Neutral Field for more than eighty-three days (two hours in the real world) at a time.

Soon afterwards, the two travelled to the Yoyogi stadium. Before she left Risa to her own devices, however, Nozomi gave her one final warning to not enter Yoyogi park. In the early days of Brain Burst, the park had been the home to a labyrinth known as the Fifth Great Dungeon. However, this one was far more dangerous that the other four—in the very first raid, many Burst Linkers were trapped in an Infinite Enemy Kill by the powerful Enemy that ruled the dungeon. As such, it had been deemed to be too dangerous and was forever sealed. With this cryptic warning, Nozomi left the Unlimited Neutral Field.

Right before she was about to enter the stadium, however, Risa felt as if someone had called out to her . . .

Two months later, Risa competed at the 101st National Qualifying Championships. When it was her turn to vault, Risa calmly ran towards the horse at full speed, with each step performed flawlessly—the countless months of training she had done in the Unlimited Neutral Field had paid off. Right as she leapt onto the springboard, however, a terrible crunch reverberated throughout her being—the springboard had snapped. Launched by the broken springboard, Risa flew uncontrollably through the air. In those terrifying instants, Risa realized that an impact at such a speed would do severe damage to her spine; in the worst case scenario, she would never be able to do gymnastics again. She could almost hear her future shattering to pieces.

Right then, she heard someone’s voice calling to her—the same one that had called out to her right before she had entered Yoyogi stadium two months ago. In the instant before she crashed into the ground, Risa called out a single command: Unlimited Burst.

Gallery[]

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