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

===Part 25===

“So, Touma. You were supposed to be buying ingredients for dinner, and yet you return with an unconscious girl. That’s what happened here, right? So what am I supposed to do about this? Eat her???”

“Annnd there we go. It’s the usual rule of ‘no good deed goes unpunished’! I should really start charging a fee every time I get caught in some kind of battle.”

“How can you say that when you’re kidnapping someone in the old-fashioned ‘rice bag over the shoulder’ style!?”

“Lilina said the same thing. By the way, Index.”

“What now!?”

“What do you have to say about this tonkatsu roast meat in this shopping bag here?”

“Uhohoi!! That’s the perfect surprise, Touma!!”

Index’s stomach was easily won over by Kamijou Touma’s house-husband technique.

After lowering sleeping Furashina Ririn onto the bed, he began cooking dinner.

“You can make half into tonkatsu and half into katsudon. Muhah! I can’t wait!”

“If you want to sound like a grand champion, say you’re eating katsudon with tonkatsu on top, Index. But it’s easy to make, so that’s fine by me…”

A fatty fried dish was too high-level for a kitten, so the calico cat got its usual cat food. But the smell alone seemed to increase its voltage unnecessarily, so it was flailing on the floor in protest.

Kamijou made sure to prepare a serving for Furashina as well, but she showed no sign of waking. He had to place plastic wrap over that one and then a plastic bowl over that to make sure the cat did not get up to any mischief.

“Touma, they said on TV there’s such a thing as cutlet mille-feuille.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that. If you’re going to slice the meat so thin, it seems like you’d enjoy it more if you made it into shabu-shabu.”

“And there are cutlets where cheese oozes out when you bite into them!”

“…”

“There are also simple radish and chicken cutlets, creamy cutlet curry with soft-boiled eggs on top, and rich beef cutlets eaten with demi-glace on top!”

“If you have a problem with my guy cooking, then just say so, Index.”

Like that, they enjoyed a peaceful dinner together.

Eventually, Furashina Ririn blinked her eyes open, perhaps roused by the smell of food.

She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and then looked over at them.

“We’re having tonkatsu tonight. Want some?”

“I do.”

“Earlier, you insisted you didn’t like hot or bitter things, but this is fine? Eating tonkatsu right after waking up isn’t normal.”

“Eh? Why not, Touma? Give me food when I wake up and I’ll eat it whatever it might be.”

This room apparently suffered from a severe lack of common sense.

After preparing Furashina’s portion which he had left with plastic wrap over it, he prepared the bath while the girls ate. Incidentally, Furashina Ririn seemed to be the type who started with the shredded cabbage. A certain nun immediately scarfed down every piece of meat she could see, so Kamijou wished she would learn a lesson from Furashina.

“Do you have a set order for the bath?”

“Not really,” replied Kamijou. “I need to do the dishes, so I’ll go last. You two figure out what to do on your own.”

After Kamijou’s suggestion, Index and Furashina Ririn for some reason decided to visit the bath together.

(Huh? Come to think of it, what’s Furashina going to do about pajamas?)

He doubted she would put back on her blue dress-like outfit, but did that mean she intended to steal one of his shirts like Index did?

While listening to the TV and the sound of the shower through the wall, Kamijou worked at washing the dishes. And he spoke to the portable device on the counter next to him.

“Lilina.”

“Returning from sleep mode. What is it?”

“I have something to ask of you.”

“If that water I hear is from a shower… Oh, no. Do I really have that kind of perverted user? I mean, I am confident in my picture quality, but I can always make sure it’s out of focus and disguise it as a photography error. Sigh…it’s so exhausting doing things that make people doubt my specs.”

“I don’t know what you think I’m talking about, but I’m just going to ignore it. We’re heading out while those two won’t notice.”

“Why?”

“To fight a battle. You need to get ready too.”

“Umm, with who? The Blue Stalker? The kidnappers?”

“Misaka Mikoto,” replied Kamijou. “If her method to save the NPC players will only make more of them, she’s putting the cart before the horse. And I want some information from her. So that’s two reasons to contact her. …Even if I have to beat her in Virtual-On first.”

“Hm, but do you know where she is? My ability to search for a match only goes so far.”

“It’s true I don’t know where Misaka is.”

He admitted that.

“But she seems to be able to tell what I’m doing. That’s clear enough from how she intervened when I was fighting the NPCs. Did she use some kind of esper power, did she take advantage of the rules of Virtual-On in some way, or does she have likeminded allies around the city who share what they see? That I don’t know.”

“Meaning?”

“She’s intervened once. It pains me to do this, but we just have to recreate that situation. If I attack another NPC player like I haven’t learned my lesson, Misaka’s sure to come running.”

“Ugh… You look hot-blooded at first glance, but you can come up with some devilish ideas.”

“That’s not it. I’m just focusing on my goal.”

Kamijou looked over toward the bathroom.

It did not look like they were going to leave anytime soon, so he slowly approached the main entrance and stepped into the outside world.

After locking the door from outside, he refocused his thoughts and spoke.

“Lilina, make the search for me. It needs to be an NPC Virtuaroid in District 7, since that’s my and Misaka’s home ground. Yes, and make it the same type as before.”

“It was a Cypher and Fei-Yen before.”

“Hmm…”

He had no proof, but Kamijou continued ahead regardless.

“Let’s start by keeping things as identical as we can. Before, we challenged a Cypher and the Fei-Yen joined in, so let’s start by focusing on the Cyphers in District 7. If that doesn’t lure her in, we can expand our range to other districts and hunt down the Cypher NPCs there too.”

“And if that doesn’t work either?”

“Then we shift to the Fei-Yen NPCs. We just keep going until she reacts.”

“Aye, sir. I’ll get started right away!”