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

===Part 24===

Accelerator had arrived on one end of District 7.

In an abandoned subway station, he descended the stairs a step at a time, glanced over at the vast underground space that was empty now that the shops had left, and spotted a highly unnatural form enshrined there.

It almost looked like a beached whale.

The mass of metal that measured 150 meters or more was a cruise ship. Instead of water, it was supported by hundreds if not thousands of wooden pillars. It was the same weight distribution method seen at shipyards. And it was likely being used for the exact same purpose. The pieces had been carried in through the subway stations’ narrow entrance and the giant cruise ship had been constructed inside just like a bottle ship.

That ship was never expected to voyage out to sea and it instead acted as a certain old man’s castle.

This VIP had given great sums of money to the Blue Stalker, advanced the Next Generation Game of Virtual-On, and seemed to be plotting something.

Accelerator climbed the gangway to the deck and walked through the ship which was as eerily quiet as a ghost ship. He did not encounter any guards or servants along the way. In fact, the security’s power was out. Accelerator found this odd, but he soon found his answer.

“…So he kicked the bucket on his own,” he spat out.

That might not have been technically accurate. A capsule-shaped device sat on the luxurious canopied bed and the old man was contained inside it. It looked like cold sleep, but it was apparently not. His body was solidly encased in a clear substance much like glass or plastic.

Ever since the mummies left in the Egyptian pyramids, preserving the human body always came down to the prevention of rotting.

Accelerator glanced over at the bedside table. Something like a journal sat on it, but it only contained a name jotted down over and over. And there had clearly been more pressure on the pen for some than others. There were also a few bags of medicine, presumably prescribed by a hospital.

(Was he having trouble with his memory? It looks like he tried to stop time for himself before he forgot something.)

This man had given a pile of money to a stranger to achieve his goal, but that would be all for naught if he could not remember what that goal was. In a way, he had given up on the Blue Stalker. He had decided he would forget before the goal was achieved.

(But I might be able to ask him about it with this.)

The #1 monster summoned the scythe named Ifleesa from thin air. Specineff’s power could eat into or destroy someone’s mind, but it might also be able to forcibly draw information out of someone who was frozen but had active cells.

It was a device to directly touch the “mind” which existed at a higher level than the brain cells or electrical signals.

(Well, I know he isn’t going anywhere. If I have time, I should probably see what I can get out of him.)

He left the main target and checked around the other rooms.

A lot of them had strange interiors. One room’s walls, floor, and ceiling were entirely covered with pictures of a little girl. One room was overflowing with stuffed animals and toys that the old man himself would have no need for. The kitchen was plastered with recipes for childish snacks. The home theater contained a list of films that showed the recorded life of a certain girl.

It was all rather overwhelming, but once you grasped the backbone behind it, it all exuded humanity.

Simply put, this was what the old man had not wanted to forget.

The picture frames showed the old man smiling with a girl. The effort he had put into remembering this and this alone showed itself in the strange repetitiveness seen here.

(The lonely old man and his granddaughter, huh? That’s simple enough.)

As Accelerator viewed what the old man had left behind, he discovered a few pieces of information.

(His granddaughter disappeared one day…no, ''she was replaced by a stranger who looked identical''. And while he tried to find her, he ended up on a strange path. As he ruled out all the normal options, only one option remained… What is this? The Tangram? Is that a code word or something?)

But…

He eventually ran across a different sort of room. This one alone had nothing to do with that girl. The walls were covered with graphs, diagrams, equations, chemical formulas, and some kind of schematics. It looked something like scientific technology, but some parts were unclear. Being Academy City’s #1 esper was to have Academy City’s #1 brain, but even Accelerator could not guess what some of it meant.

Limited Wars that became show business, Virtuaroids, V-Discs, Cyber Imaginary Space, data materialization, Earth Crystals, Shadows, the Original Fei-Yen, parallel worlds, the Plajiner girl, and the Tangram.

“Hold on…” muttered Accelerator.

He looked around at it all.

“Since when did the darkness of this city connect to a fairy tale world?”

The problem was not that this fairy tale was utterly absurd. On the contrary, viewing it all revealed that a single connected theory could explain it all.

And the massive amount of documents and connections the old man had collected had all been handed over to the Blue Stalker.

That left one thing to ask.

Accelerator faced the old man encased in a clear material inside the capsule-like device. He stuck Ifleesa’s tip through the case.

He forcibly shook the old man who had tried to protect his memories even if it meant separating himself from reality.

“Speak. What is the Blue Stalker?”

It seemed almost profane.

With his entire body solidified like a specimen, he should not have been able to move his wrinkled body or to speak. And yet, his mouth provided a dry cracking sound as it was moved by force. All risk was entirely ignored.

There was no voice.

But the lips finished moving.

“They are not alone.”

“?”

Did that mean it was an organization rather than an individual?

That was Accelerator’s guess, but the old man continued.

“They look like an individual, but their true essence is different. They cannot be explained using our laws, but their theories are sure to change again. If you must, read through the documents and think on it all. I will not hold anything back. I cannot. I am merely saying you can achieve more definite information that way than from my fragmentary words.”

It was true he would be unable to lie.

But in that case…?

“They are lonely, perhaps even more so than me. But there is no way to fulfill that desire, perhaps even more so than me.”

“…”

“After all, they are not alone. While I have a personal starting point, they have no goal to achieve. That might sound twisted and contradictory, but it is the truth. They are plagued by loneliness more than anyone.”

That seemed to be the limit. Even under the influence of Specineff’s power, the old man reached his physical limit and fell silent.

Left alone, Accelerator thought in silence.

What was this?

Who was the Blue Stalker?