The two things about Brain Burst.

[Destination]

After scanning some fanfiction about AW, I realised that most people focus on only one aspect of Brain Burst: the fighting component. Nobody, not even once, thought of the other aspect of it, which is equally important as the first is exciting. In fact, the rank of their importance is excruciatingly reversed and misinterpreted.

Let me explain.

As Kuroyukihime explained, the power granted by Brain Burst is [[Acceleration]]. There is no question about this. Using Brain Burst for anything besides administrative work requires you to spend one Burst Point from an initial balance of 100 Points. So the 'cost' of accelerating is 1BP.

The second cost of the power to accelerate is the time and effort spent to obtain more Burst Points. The only way to earn more points is to duel players, fight Enemies in the Unlimited Neutral Field, or sell Enhanced Armaments to Shops in the UNF. More ways to earn BP may be possible, but let's assume these three ways are the only ways to earn BP.

In other words, there's only two parts to the Brain Burst program that the user can use and appreciate: the earning of BP and the expenditure of BP. Earning BP by the three ways described above is the reward for 1 or 10 BP as a BP cost. The rewards gained by using Acceleration in real life is the reward for expending 1 or 5 BP. I'm deliberately ignoring the Kings' ability to use Physical Full Burst here because they're exceptional.

Most fans of AW focus on the BP Earning proportion, and this central idea is what drives the rest of the LN from V2 onwards. To have a sustained balance of BP, you not only need to do battle to protect your BP reserves and top it up after losses. And if you want to be a do-gooder and earn rep from other players, you get stronger and help in Enemy Hunts, so that everyone gets more points. (Even if the points earned are a measly amount...) But if you just want to be a total ass and hoard all the points yourself, then camp on weaker players, and take all the points you can before a do-gooder takes out a contract on you. The Kings' peace treaty takes this one level higher, do-gooders cooperating with do-gooders, uniting against the asses and theives, fighting for justice...you've gotten the drift, I hope.

What is horribly overlooked is the possible rewards from spending BP.

All players below Level 8 have two ways to spend their BP with the commands 'Burst Link' and 'Physical Burst,' costing 1 and 5 BP respectively. Burst Link accelerates your thoughts by 1000x for 1.8 RL seconds, while Physical Burst accelerates your mind by 10x for 3 RL seconds. We've seen Noumi exploit Physical Burst (henceforth PhB) in his kendo matches. But there are more, far more applications for Acceleration. We need to consider how Acceleration works.

When Burst Link is triggered, you're taken to the 'Blue World.' Your brainwaves are accelerated by a thousand times of your heartbeat, and you assume control of your VR avatar. The environment you interact with in the thirty minutes you're accelerated is created in the following manner:

[#]The images from the Social Security Camera Network are pulled by Brain Burst.
[#]The images are stitched together to create a 3D environment. Areas not mapped by the Camera Network are rendered as a smooth surface with artificial colouring.
[#]Areas mapped by the Camera Network are artificially coloured blue for emphasis that one is in a state of Acceleration.

The implication here is similar to how Black Lotus emphasises that the UNF is only limited by the Camera Network's reach: because in your immediate area, the Camera Network is continuous, and therefore you're free to move anywhere within the boundary for a full thirty minutes.

The power of Burst Link is enormous. If you're scared that bullies are lurking around a corner, for the cost of a single Burst Point you can stroll up and down the corridor and check all the blind spots in impunity. If you're feeling cocky, Burst Link next to your crush and you gain thirty minutes of uninterrupted time to admire her - albeit blue-tinted and uninteractive. There's nothing to stop you from opening up more programs to do your homework or get the time needed to think of a good riposte. You become an unbounded observer in the real world, extending time by as much as you like for a very low cost: winning a duel against a same-level player nets you ten BP. The profit in BP is nine, if you used up 1 BP to find him on the Matching List. Using all nine points on Burst Link grants you 4.5 hours of accelerated time for the cost of 9 BP and 16.2 seconds in the real world.


When Physical Burst is triggered, you no longer use the Camera Network. Instead, your brain waves in real time are sped up by 10x and you remain in control of your body. With the increased perception of time, your reaction time is vastly increased. Things that should move faster than the eye can see become visible, and the window of time to react increases.

For its increased cost of 0.6 RL seconds per BP expended (5 BP = 3 RL seconds) Physical Burst is what you want when you need to increased reflexes to react in a tense situation, as opposed to calmly thinking it through and observing while using Burst Link. This ability is needed by a multitude of sports because they all require hand-eye coordination and quick reflexes. It's no wonder Noumi and Takumu used it in their kendo matches, or an unnamed baseballer was able to score a streak of home runs.

And that's just using one command. What's there to stop you from using both commands together? What about Level 4s using their new command, Unlimited Burst, to train new skills, get a good night's sleep, or even just hang around and meet up in the Accelerated World? Heck, Chrome Falcon and Saffron Blossom dated in the UNF. Who knows what else could they have done in happier times?

The possibilities are truly as Haruyuki put it when he first glimpsed the Accelerated World: infinite.

=====

This is not an exhortation to see more roleplay or better quality fanfiction. I can't make anyone write a story based on this without their own free will. But there's more to Brain burst than a fighting game; it's a power to take time for a very low cost.

This is the reason why Burst Linkers fight for points. None of them thought of facilitating themselves in the beginning; all they wanted was more of this addictive power. And that is the driving force for their wish to fight.

[Destination]

Just a short note on Kings while I still have the energy:

Physical Full Burst costs a King 99% of all their BP in exchange for 100x increased reaction and movement speed. There was no definition on any limits, so let's say it's unlimited in duration (Let's not go into the specifics; they're nonexistent, so any discussion is speculation).

A King is called a King because they reached Level 9, earning what could well be millions of BP and pouring years of time in the Accelerated World. This is no longer simply playing Brain Burst for it's real-life advantages; it's actively working to understand yourself and the duel avatar that your heart wished for. Level 9 is a recognition of the strength you earn from facilitating yourself to overcome your wounds, as well as delivering you the reward for this strength: Physical Full Burst.

It's not as simple as it looks, however. The other reward that a Level 9 earns is the knowledge that if they defeat another King, the loser will immediately lose Brain Burst and all his memories with it. Forever.

Level 9 is a recognition of the strength and suffering one undergoes to hit Level 9. Would a fellow Level 9 do that to another Level 9...?

That's why the Kings don't want to fight each other as much as possible. There's no doubt that they possess the strength to do so, but none of them - besides Black Lotus and White Cosmos - could say with any amount of certainty that they could live with the guilt of doing so. Simply knowing that she cut away years of memories from the kid who played Red Rider, plus the reaffirmation that he then reverted to a kid, is the reason why Kuroyukihime is quite hung up over Red Rider. She doesn't love him - she detests herself for killing off the memories that make a difference between the kid Rider and the King Rider.

In a similar train of thought, no King would dare use Physical Full Burst except in the direst of situations. It doesn't have to do with the high cost: even if it costs them practically all their points, it doesn't matter to a King anymore, they no longer need points to Level Up and a loss to a Level 9 will erase BB anyway. Besides, if all you have is 1 BP, then executing PFB will leave you with zero BP but leaves Brain Burst untouched. For any linker to lose BB, they must die with zero or lesser points.

Then, what is the purpose of Physical Full Burst anyway? Is it really for the purpose of literally accelerating your world? No, I don't think so. If I understand Kuroyukihime's actions correctly...

Level 9 is in a way stating that 'You have the mind of an adult,' and this isn't much of an understatement. Not only is a Level 9 mentally old enough, the very act of pursuing strength over the real life rewards of Brain Burst demonstrates a maturity that separates the men from the boys. If Brain Burst was designed to finish at that point in time, then anyone who reaches Level 9 can be said to have 'graduated' from the game. They've seen and experienced enough to know how the world truly works.

That is to say, the act of claiming the final reward Brain Burst gives you is to port over that maturity in the real world, and the 'massive' BP cost is there for only the signifying the price of that act, to use it only at a precious time. Kuroyukihime, therefore, was in the frame of mind as a mature adult when she decided to recite PFB and saved the person she loved.

(Whether it was justified or not is a separate matter. I'm not in the mood to analyse KYH's state of mind.)