Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter2 (section)

===Part 16===

“…”

Kamijou Touma could not speak for a while.

He was utterly overwhelmed.

The Virtual-On match had ended and he had been thrown out into the open world away from Temjin. He trudged up the stairs and returned to the city surface.

But.

Before, there had been another person…no, two other people in this city who were no longer there.

In truth, they might still be out there somewhere in Academy City. Except they would only be there to let someone destroy them. They had been turned into zombies who were eternally defeated over and over again.

“What was that…?”

He spoke of that hopeless outcome in a dazed voice.

“That’s too cruel. Things like that aren’t supposed to happen. It’s…it’s just…!!”

He felt anger, but he had nowhere to direct it. He had no way of knowing where that girl had gone or where she would appear next.

But was it really right to do what Mikoto was doing and attack the players targeting NPCs? He knew firsthand that forcing others to keep up with his Defected Virtuaroid could trigger a new Defection.

“…Lilina.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Misaka said something about not using her friend as a stepping stone, right?”

“Misaka-san? Searching list of names…hm? Hmm???”

He realized that the previous one-sided transmission had never included the name Misaka Mikoto.

“I mean that purple Raiden that intruded on our battle.”

“Oh! Link made. I can respond appropriately from now on, Touma-sama.”

(Was that girl the friend she mentioned?)

Kamijou thought for a bit.

(No, if everyone who drops out after Defecting ends up ''like that''…just how many players have been turned into NPCs? It’s possible that a unit other than that Cypher or Fei-Yen holds someone much closer to Misaka.)

It could be someone else from Tokiwadai Middle School.

It could be someone who was always by her side.

It could be someone who lived in the same dorm.

…It could be someone she wanted to avoid losing at all costs.

(Think…)

Kamijou Touma wrinkled his brow as he lost himself in thought.

(I’m a part of this. Since I’ve Defected, I could end up ''like that'' if I make the wrong decision. So think. What was that? Is it possible to save them, or is it too late? Whether or not you can save them and knowing how to if so is the key to preparing a lifeline in case I need it. So what am I supposed to do? Where should I start on this?)

A few names came to mind: Aogami Pierce, Tsuchimikado Motoharu, Misaka Mikoto, Furashina Ririn, and the Blue Stalker.

They were “in the know”.

They knew more about Virtual-On than Kamijou.

“Hello? Touma-sama? Should I enter power saving mode?”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Also, an odd reading is approaching from four o’clock.”

“?”

“It’s a Virtuaroid reading, but there is no sign of a match nearby.”

Immediately after that result, some rough-sounding male and female voices arrived from the distance.

“Hurry up and carry her!”

“This is a bad idea! I knew I’d think that once my head cooled, but this is really bad idea!!”

Kamijou turned toward the shouting voices and spotted a familiar face a short distance away.

(Lilina… No, is that the Furashina girl?)

But he did not have time to call out to her.

The atmosphere changed.

A section of the twilit city was filled with solid tension, like a photograph with an unnatural image pasted onto it.

Furashina Ririn was held on either side by a boy and a girl. A van sped up alongside them and came to a rapid stop as its tires screeched. The side of the van bore the name of a material transportation company that did work for the Virtual-On tournament, but that label was obviously fake.

Kamijou could tell Furashina Ririn would be stuffed in the back seat in no time.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait! What’s going on!? Did she get herself in trouble again!?”

“I have turned video recording on, but should I send the license plate number to Anti-Skill?”

“Please do. That means I’ve gotta buy some time for the grownups to show up!”

“Hm? Wait, Touma-sama, what are you doing!?”

Fortunately, the van’s path took it toward Kamijou after getting Furashina Ririn onboard. And there was a reason Lilina grew so frantic despite being a voice processing program.

Kamijou had ducked into an alley, grabbed a metal pipe from the ground, and returned.

“Wait, wait, wait! My infrared sensor is telling me that van is moving at an estimated 60kph. You’ll die! Stand up to that and you’ll die! At least let me back myself up to the cloud first!!”

“Don’t be so sure.”

Kamijou held the blunt weapon like a baseball bat.

The van made a lot of noise as it approached.

“You don’t have to smash the hunk of steel to pieces. As long as you hit it, you can stop a car.”

Just as the target vehicle was about to pass him by, Kamijou Touma swung the metal pipe horizontally like some kind of joke.

At first glance, it looked like he was sacrificing both his arms.

But.

A moment later, the bumper detected an impact and the van’s airbag triggered.

There was nothing the driver could do.

The airbag in the steering wheel prioritized the driver’s life and showed little concern for anything else. The large balloon blocked his vision and his arms were knocked outwards.

In other words, the van lost control.

It briefly swerved in an S-shape but could not regain its balance. It collided with the support pillar of a nearby wind turbine and came to a stop.

Kamijou raised his left hand to his right shoulder and spun the entire arm around.

“Let’s get started.”

“You natural monster… Wouldn’t that normally dislocate both your arms!?”

“It’s not like I pulled off some crazy stunt like negating the blow by matching the center of impact. I’m only a normal high school boy, so the most I can do is let go of the pipe just before impact.”

With that, Kamijou ran over to the crashed van. He spotted something spherical floating in the sky overhead: a Virtual-On referee.

(?)

He found that odd, but the van and Furashina Ririn inside came first.

He saw no sign of anyone exiting the van.

(Thanks to the impact from the airbag, I don’t have to worry about the driver. That just leaves however many people were in the back. I hope it was just the 2 I saw earlier.)

But even if there were 3 or more, he had little to fear when they were crammed inside that small vehicle. They would be unable to move properly, no matter how many there were. The risk of death would only shoot up if they managed to get out and surrounded Kamijou.

With that in mind, Kamijou pressed against the crushed van’s rear sliding door.

Either it had not been locked or the lock had broken in the crash because it opened surprisingly smoothly.

And inside…

A smooth, oddly lustrous, and quite large gun barrel awaited him.

“Ah…?”

The weapon surrounded the shoulder of the boy who had shoved Furashina Ririn inside.

It looked a lot like a submachinegun, but perhaps due to how smooth it looked, it seemed oddly ethereal and unreal.

The muzzle stared silently at Kamijou Touma like a dark, empty eye.

More than the gun itself or its strange smoothness, it was the scent that most insisted this was a “weapon”.

Kamijou named the Virtuaroid that first came to mind.

It was standard, but it had a rounded, more human silhouette. It preferred modern weapons like machineguns or tonfas.

“Apharmd!?”

Immediately afterwards, a string of dry gunshots rang out.

He initially began to raise his right hand, but he instead used all his strength to swing his head to the side. He could not analyze what it was that made him do that. Perhaps because the immediate danger took the form of a gun instead of an occult sword or staff.

It really was Apharmd.

That machine pistol was known as the DKAS Gun System.

But that choice paid off.

He felt scorching heat on his skin. Bullets had grazed his right palm, the tip of his little finger, and his cheek.

Red blood welled up from his right hand which could negate supernatural power.

(''I can’t negate it''!? Dammit!!)

He did not know how it worked, but ''did this contain some kind of unknown power'' with enough interference or sheer quantity to force back his Imagine Breaker, just like Stiyl Magnus’s Innocentius!?

He scrambled away from the sliding door.

He had heard rumors of the Reverse Convert. As a reward for Defecting, it might be possible to incorporate Apharmd’s nimble footwork, Specineff’s psychological contamination attacks, or other similar powers into your own human body.

But…

Even so…

(Can they really just pull out the weapons!? That seems way too direct!!)

His opponents did not calmly exit through the door.

Kamijou heard a loud bang and the van’s entire roof burst outwards. It looked as easy as tearing through a wet candy box.

A girl with short hair poked her head up, presumably by standing up within the van.

Something seemed to flash around her and then something floated near her shoulders. A mass of metal made from 3 pentagonal prisms appeared over each shoulder.

(It isn’t just Apharmd. Are the Virtuaroids’ weapons really appearing here in the real world!? But how? And why?)

An unpleasant term appeared in Kamijou’s confused mind: Reverse Convert.

“You can’t be serious. It lets them do that…?”

The idea of returning the traits and features of a Virtuaroid to the human had never quite clicked with him. That was because Virtual-On was not as human-based as an RPG or baseball video game.

But this was far too straightforward.

They could draw out the weapons and make that firepower their own.

He did not have time to confirm what was true and what was not.

If what that girl had was what Kamijou thought it was, it belonged to a small Virtuaroid with thick armor thoroughly placed around it and with 2 small arms and 2 large arms that made it look like it had been taken inside another larger unit.

(Grys-Vok… And that’s its distinctive shoulder units known as the Grys Units.)

“A large guided missile launcher!? Dammit!”

As soon as he yelled that, all the guided explosives were launched at once, leaving trails of smoke in their wake.