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

===Part 31===

Kamijou had no idea what she meant.

Her words made not even one iota of sense to him.

“Wait,” he said in his Temjin’s cockpit. “Furashina…Ririn? Is that what you just said?”

“Yes. What about it?”

“But that makes no sense. I mean, Furashina is in my room right now! She can’t be trapped inside a Virtuaroid as an NPC!!”

“What…?”

“We need to go back over all of our information! Something isn’t right! But this contradiction is sure to be an important key to all this. So, Misaka, please tell me everything you know!!”

“There isn’t much to tell.” Mikoto seemed confused and her explanation came in bits and pieces. “There’s a girl named Furashina Ririn. She taught us about the Next Generation Game of Virtual-On, she gave us a lot of ideas about how to fight, and it’s thanks to her that we managed to defeat Shokuhou and continue onto the main tournament.”

Something seemed off.

So he asked about it.

“She gave you ideas? So this Furashina didn’t actually fight alongside you?”

“But she was part of our team!! She was the 5th member!”

“But you’ve never actually met her, have you? ''You were speaking with someone going by the name Furashina Ririn, but you have no proof it wasn’t someone else entirely''!”

“Eh? Wait a second. Where are you going with this!? I promise you I-…!!”

Her words were suddenly cut off.

There was a simple reason.

The sound of an empty can being crushed was amplified several hundred times as it pierced through the Raiden’s chest.

“…Ah?”

Kamijou Touma’s thoughts ground to a halt.

Whether Defected or not, this was all based on Virtual-On, so no amount of hitting each other could put their lives in danger.

But the glowing projectile that tore through Mikoto’s Virtuaroid rejected that assumption.

The beam of light punched through the Raiden’s chest and out the back.

The rectangular backpack of the V-Converter was torn through, the motor deck bent out from within and was blown away, and the V-Disc contained inside was shattered.

The red hot shards flew through the air.

Like the fading flames of life, they fell to the ground and lost their light.

“…Bah…ksshh, ahh, ksssshhhhhhh…”

“Wait, Misaka.”

“Ksssshhhh!! Kssshhh!! Kssssssshhhhhhhh!!”

“Misaka!!”

“Click!! ———————”

Only a plain electronic tone sounded.

He had no idea what that meant.

But it sounded to him like the flatlining signal of an EKG.

“Ahh.”

And.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

She was disappearing.

With a giant hole blown in her chest, the Raiden seemed to dissolve into the air.

He knew it was happening and he could see it happening, but there was nothing he could do.

The referee sphere overhead did nothing.

He did not recover from the wait for the results. He pressed the buttons and moved the sticks like crazy on his portable device, but Temjin did not even budge.

This was different from simple destruction.

She had been shot.

She had been defeated.

She had died.

Died!?

“Touma-sama, you are receiving a communication request from username Akj*daj5hinrl19…hm? Hmm?”

“A corrupted name…could it be!?”

After a burst of static, a young man’s voice spoke.

“It didn’t matter to me which one remained, but I chose you to survive on a whim.”

“The Blue Stalker!!” shouted Kamijou as another small window opened in the corner of his vision.

It was a chat request.

And it said:

“Furashina: My plan was to spread rumors to create an outline for the nonexistent Furashina Ririn, but since there had to be some basis behind them, I had to prepare a few things first. I registered an empty apartment with a fake name, placed a nonexistent student’s data in a school server, and left trash or a handkerchief at a meeting place to make it look like she just missed someone after setting up a meeting. I did similar things with online activity. Simply sending messages doesn’t provide much realism, so I placed hints here and there which could be combined into what seemed like a real presence. But the rumors have grown so much now that I can just sit back and watch as more and more people claim to know Furashina Ririn or that she’s a friend of a friend. Now do you understand what happened?”

“…!!”

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

He doubted this was really Furashina Ririn. It was clearly someone pretending to be her. He was being toyed with by the Blue Stalker who had tricked Misaka Mikoto into trying to save a friend from the Defection trouble.

The chat window closed and the man spoke directly once more.

“Once the results hit a certain level, I just have to wait for the final result to appear on its own. You can take your time and praise your freedom until that final moment. Although the end result will be the same no matter what you choose.”

Far in the distance, he saw a Cypher with distinctive blue coloring and yellow lines. It was lit by multiple guide lights and yet still blended into the darkness.

The Blue Stalker wielded a brutal close-range sword longer than it was tall.

But Temjin did not move a finger.

His opponent slowly turned around and transformed its humanoid form into something more like a fighter jet.

Kamijou let out a roar when he realized the Blue Stalker was preparing to leave.

“Wait!!”

“If you have regrets and still wish to struggle, then come with me.”

A repulsive pressure blew back at Kamijou as an answer.

The one who knew everything had once more stole something from Kamijou and then left before his eyes.

It was over.

Silence surrounded him.

The maddening heat in his head cooled.

He finally grasped the current situation.

Kamijou Touma screamed.

He screamed on and on as if to crush the pressure of what he had lost.