Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter1 (section)

===Part 6===

However.

Kamijou Touma did not have explosive reflexes or kinetic vision, so no amount of resolve would let him defeat Index’s Bal-Bados right away.

He had to learn everything from the ground up, all while being blasted, tripped, and kicked over and over.

What even was Virtual-On?

“In general, it’s something like a serious battle with weapons,” summed up Lilina. “Once one side wins 2 of the 3 sets, the game ends. But unlike a normal fighting game, your primary objective is not wearing down a stamina or armor gauge. Forcibly wearing down your opponent like that will earn you some points, but the victor is determined by whoever has more points from legal blows, much like judo or wrestling. Overall, it’s more like a sport than a fight.”

“Either way, it’s bad to let attacks hit you, right?”

“Of course. If your unit is destroyed, you lose 5 points. And when fighting solo like you, you can’t swap someone else in, so you lose the set right then and there. But as long as you have some endurance to spare, it is possible to intentionally take a hit without letting it knock you down,” remarked Lilina. “The units in Virtual-On come in a number of variations, but they have some set categories. For example, on ground or in air, close-range attacks or long-range attacks, and walking or dashing. All of a unit’s abilities can be seen as a combination of those categories.”

The nun-like Bal-Bados that Index was piloting was staying well away from him. She kept her distance and mainly fired glowing projectiles from the cannons that were her arms.

“Ow!! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!! I can’t seem to dodge at all! She keeps hitting me, so I can’t get close!!”

“You can’t exactly expect to dodge when you walk around an open area without dashing. When the enemy fires, move quickly! And not just in one direction! Cut back and forth so they can’t predict your movement!! She’s locked onto you, so she can just tap the button to hit you as much as she wants!!”

He operated the portable device’s sticks and buttons as told, but he still could not dodge very well. He was hit over and over until he was knocked to the ground and lost points for going down. His unit’s endurance was also worn down, so the unit itself was destroyed before long. He lost in no time at all.

He continued to the next set, but it too ended before he could accomplish much of anything.

“Yeahhh…”

“Can I get more than ‘yeah’?”

“As I said, the sets are determined by points and the game ends after one side wins 2 out of 3, but if all the units on a team are destroyed, the set ends without calculating the points.”

“…”

“No matter how much your endurance gets worn down, the final calculation begins if you survive 90 seconds. Once there, the points are what matters. But that’s going to be difficult at your skill level, Touma-sama. Even if you try to stretch it out, you’ll just get a ton of points taken in the next set and lose the normal way.”

He had been utterly defeated.

And a thought occurred to Kamijou.

“Maybe the problem is with Temjin?”

“That’s quite possibly the worst comment you could have made. It has rookie written all over it.”

“Maybe I could try another one.”

He returned to the unit selection screen. When he placed the cursor on one, Lilina pulled the information from the official website and displayed it for him.

Some of them specialized in standard weapons like missiles or beams while others used more twisted methods like psychological attacks.

“Oh, some of these look a lot lighter! Fei-Yen…I’m a little hesitant to choose that one. But how about this Cypher one!? It’s pointy like a jet!! It looks fast and strong and its knees jut out! It’s like a main character!!”

“Well, if that’s what you want. And Fei-Yen is a perfectly good unit. But I wouldn’t recommend it when you don’t know how to dash or jump.”

“Gnyahh!!”

He was pummeled soon after beginning.

He was easily destroyed before the points could even begin to matter.

Lilina gave up on her real-time voice support and gave an exasperated comment.

“Y’know, the light and fast units generally have thin armor that allow damage through more easily and they go down a lot easier. You can’t make use of their advantages when you can’t dodge properly, so you might as well be an animal rolling over to show its belly.”

“Then I’ll go with a tough one that can take a beating! Aogami mentioned one called Dordray! I’ll try that one out!!”

“Ahh, well, if you want.”

He was exposed to a downpour of long-range fire before he could even begin moving around.

He was not destroyed this time thanks to the high defensive power, but for the entire 2 sets, he was either knocked down or unable to move as he was knocked back. Of course, that meant he had more and more points stolen and he had no chance of winning. No chance at all.

“Doesn’t she realize this is supposed to be a game!?”

“The units with thick armor are generally heavy and have difficulty moving. And trying to find an easy way out is the wrong way to go about this! Even that extraordinarily large boss Jaguarandi has a weak point. No Virtuaroid is a safe zone that ruins that balance!!”

“Uuh…”

“Don’t give me that. Every unit has its pros and cons, so part of your strategy can be using a Virtuaroid well-suited for taking on Bal-Bados. You’re playing 1-on-1 here, but in a 2-on-2 game, you can swap out with your partner to have a better match for your opponent. But you need to learn the basics before doing that! You can’t exactly pull your weight on a team if all you do is trip them up.”

He ended up returning to Temjin and practicing over and over. He was still only dodging some and getting hit some, so his frustration continued.

“If you like, I can show you the training command log.”

“All I see are rows of arrows and colorful circles and I have no idea what any of it means.”

“Touma-sama, all you have to do is input the given sequence with the buttons and sticks!”

“Some of them are inside red or blue frames.”

“I said Virtual-On is a game of points, right? The moves that will work in your favor are colored blue and the ones that will work against you are colored red. More importantly, you need to hurry! Dodge, dodge!”

But as he was hit more and more, something unexpected saved him.

He just so happened to move behind one of the city’s many buildings.

“Huh? Did I just cheat???”

“It’s fine. Using obstacles is one of the most basic techniques. But then we have to rely on the cursor for the opponent’s location, so there’s a chance that they’ll move closer, circle around the obstacle, and hit you with a major attack. And explosive weapons can be dropped beyond a wall to damage you. There’s no such thing as a perfect save zone, so I recommend you keep your guard up even after moving behind cover.”

Kamijou could not dodge well, so he always felt like he was gradually losing in a direct firefight. That was why he moved from building to building in order to challenge Index’s customized Bal-Bados at close range.

However…

“If you’re going to get close, you need to hurry it up.”

“Eh? Why? I’m sick of getting hit by all those projectiles, so isn’t it better to observe things from here?”

“You can’t just stand around. In fact…ah! Oh, no!!”

Some text appeared on the edge of the screen: Negative Alert.

“If you sneak around and don’t do much fighting, you’ll be docked a point as punishment! So we’ll lose even if you aren’t hit!! This rule keeps things fair because the winning side has to keep fighting.”

“What? But it’s working against me and I’m on the losing side here!”

“In pure points, yes. But what about unit endurance? What about position? What about remaining ammo or accuracy? Look at it holistically and it’s possible to see you as the one with an advantage.”

“Oh, come on…”

“Besides, the default length of each set is 90 seconds. If the losing side has their points taken, they can have the set stolen from them!!”

“Ah, what a pain!!”

He put up a frantic struggle, but he could not change his tactics and charged forward. He kept the high-speed dash going to quickly move toward Index’s Bal-Bados from behind cover. In addition to his legs, he was supported by…a tailwind? No, it was the invisible repulsion. With the assistance of that power, he felt like a flying arrow or bullet.

However.

Partway there, Kamijou’s Temjin slowed down. The support of the repulsion gave out and he returned to his slow “normal movement”.

“Wha- huh!? What happened!?”

“A single dash using the turbo only takes you so far!”

“Come ooooon!”

He grabbed the small device in his hands once more and kept tapping the turbo button for the dash.

“Why! Can’t! I! Move! Forward! At! All!? I just keep pitching forward worse than before!! Am I stalling out!?”

“You moron!! If you hit the turbo again while dashing, it cancels the dash! You’re interfering with your own dash! The dash is supposed to take you a set distance in a single direction and the cancel gives you freedom of motion mid-dash, but you’re just tripping yourself up!”

Meanwhile, glowing projectiles flew in from distant Bal-Bados.

Kamijou focused on the turbo and sticks to dash sideways toward a building wall, move forward at full speed, and dodge the best he could.

“Dashing in Virtual-On is best pictured as points connected by straight lines. The distance you can move with each dash is set, but you can also cancel it partway like you were doing. Moving between points might sound inconvenient, but you can move quite smoothly if you use right angles and zigzagging paths properly. And it doesn’t really wear down your gauge, so you can use it all you want to confuse your opponent.”

He did not have time to stop and listen. The match was underway and the glowing projectiles were targeting him. Kamijou continued using the dashes and tried to approach Bal-Bados while scattering his own projectiles.

“Not good! Ohh, not good, not good, not good! Ahhh!!”

“What is it now!?”

Before he could even finish asking his question, he heard what sounded like a game show buzzer. He looked over and realized the sword-like weapon had stopped firing beams of light.

“Eh? Eh? Did it break!?”

“There are generally 3 different types of attack: right, left, and center. Each of them has its own gauge. Fire too much and you have to wait for it to recover or reload and you’ll be defenseless. Firing from a distance to deter your opponent isn’t a bad idea, but you’re wasting your ammo if you don’t lock onto them! Touma-sama, you’re not using an area of effect attack that produces an explosive blast!!”

“3? There’s only 3 in all!?”

“Well, they change depending on a variety of factors: long-range, short-range, while pressing the turbo button, while jumping, while crouching, etc. And they each have their own unique traits such as long-range attacks being unblockable and close-range attacks not having a gauge.”

“How the hell do I crouch!? When I push the sticks down, all I do is back up!!”

“I’ll teach you how later!! Oh honestly! You used up both your right and left hand attacks already…”

Kamijou’s Temjin wanted to challenge Index’s Bal-Bados to a close-range fight, but if he stopped attacking, it gave her more freedom.

So…

“Huh? Where’d Index go!?”

“If the FCS cursor disappears, it means she isn’t in your field of vision. Focus on the arrow pointing up, down, left, or right! This one’s up!!”

Index’s Bal-Bados had all of a sudden ended up on a building roof and she aimed her arm cannons at him while peering down at him.

He wanted to flee, but he was stuck between buildings in front of and behind him and he could not dash even if he pressed the turbo button. Or rather, he would end up running toward the wall.

“Gyawah!!”

“Long-range attacks are unblockable! There are only 3 options: dodge it with your speed, hide behind cover, or attack to stop her!!”

Even if he could challenge her to a rematch as many times as he wanted, he hated being taken out in such one-sided beatdowns. But he could not dodge the rapid-fire attack when he was in such a cramped place and was still unused to the controls.

“Your left, right, and center long-range attacks are reloading. You’ll have to run away and wait for the gauges to-…”

“Not a chance!! Index is right there!!”

Kamijou’s Temjin jumped straight up. Just like when dashing, he was supported by the invisible turbo repulsion, so the scenery quickly moved around him.

“Double lock. Your weapons have switched over to close-range.”

The colors of the right, left, and center gauges changed. The slowly recovering bars were now brand new.

And the weapon in his right hand changed form.

Kamijou adjusted his grip on the close-range sword named Blitz Saber. A hit from that had to count for a lot.

But just as he prepared to attack, the screen blurred.

Then he shot right past Index’s Bal-Bados.

The sudden occurrence confused Kamijou.

“Oh, you automatically lock onto the closest enemy when you jump.”

“What for!?”

“It’s just how it works☆ And how long are you going to cruise around in the air!? You’re too high!! Way too high!! There’s nothing to use as a shield in the sky! Keep this up and you’ll be the perfect target!!”

“Ahh.”

After a horrifically violent-sounding racket from below, Kamijou Touma’s Temjin transformed into a firework.

With the unit destroyed, he lost the set.

Kamijou slumped down as the negative results appeared on the screen, so Lilina spoke to him from her window.

“By the way, jumping is crucial, but you can also cancel a jump by hitting the jump button again. That lets you make a short hop. If you just hold down the button the whole time, you’ll move pretty slowly and your opponent can hit you pretty easily. That’s a basic technique.”

“Oh, is that so? I guess I’ve taken another step toward adulthood…”

“In a 2-on-2 match, you can ask your partner for help when you’re in a pinch like that. And you can register up to 4 people on a team, so you can also use a pit stop to swap someone else in. But that can wait until you have a handle on the basics.”

He had no reason to give up here.

He was prepared to lose as many times as it took to get stronger.

For the second set, he went on the offensive, lost badly, and requested another rematch.

He heard a deafening sound and his Temjin ended up covered in damage. He fell over, the referee sphere floating overhead judged it as a down, he had a lot of points taken away, and he lost.

But through all that, he gradually came to understand some things.

He had to throw out his pride.

He did not need to stick with just Temjin.

At one point, he requested a rematch while using the same Bal-Bados that Index’s unit was based on. But this was not just him feeling jealous and wanting to do the same thing as her.

“I see… She looked so invincible, but this is how the thing moves. It’s not all that nimble. And it’s good at close-range, but it’s got some weird idiosyncrasies.”

“You’ve learned a little more. However they might have been customized, the base Virtuaroids are all publically available, so using the enemy’s unit to analyze its pros and cons is one method you can use.”

Of course, he could not win.

Index had been playing Bal-Bados all along while he was only trying it out, so he did not stand a chance. He could not get close, he lost plenty of points, and he was defeated without accomplishing anything.

But it was a learning experience.

Bal-Bados was not an unbeatable wall. It could lose depending on how it was used. In other words, it was the same as Temjin. It only looked unbeatable because Index was making use of its strong points and making up for its weak points.

He was still severely disadvantaged, but he caught the faintest glimpse of something.

He returned to Temjin, grabbed the portable device in both hands once more, and spoke.

“Temjin really is an all-around unit. It can fight close-range and long-range. It has fairly tough defenses and it’s fairly quick on its feet. It might not outdo Index’s exceptional Bal Bados, but it can produce decent results no matter what it does.”

“That’s right.”

“But Bal-Bados is a lot trickier to use. That’s why she never approaches me. …If I can do everything fairly well, there’s no reason to fight in her field. Temjin has no outstanding specs, but it can also take advantage of the weaknesses of any other unit.”

“That’s more like it, Touma-sama! It doesn’t matter if you have the right answer. What matters is that you think for yourself, predict your own traits, and pilot your unit consistently. Don’t just mash the buttons randomly. Have a goal in mind and focus on that throughout. If you do that…”

Bal-Bados moved.

The arm cannons fired, scattering barrage after barrage.

“The Virtuaroid will become an extension of your body.”

Kamijou’s Temjin used the turbo for a high-speed dash to the side supported by the invisible repulsion. After dodging the first barrage, he switched to forward movement. After moving in close, he reached a field he had almost never reached before: a close-range battle.

Of course, a rookie like Kamijou could not cleanly dodge every shot.

He still got hit.

But it did not matter. Not as long as the damage he took was less than the damage he did with a single hit from the Blitz Saber. If his powerful attack knocked her over and qualified as a down, he would earn some points and take the lead. Destroying your opponent was just another way of earning points. Virtual-On was about earning points through legal blows instead of wearing down your opponent’s stamina. The number of points was more important than the number of hits, so the damage was unimportant if he could win in the end.

That was the fighting style he had chosen.

It was not written in the manual and he was not following any kind of walkthrough.

It may have been awkward and entirely misguided, but Kamijou Touma had still put together this fighting style on his own.

“You begin a dash by pressing the turbo button and pushing the stick in one direction, but if you bring the stick back to its neutral position and push it in another direction, you can change direction in the middle of a dash. That’s known as a vertical turn, but if you incorporate it into your movements, you can easily avoid the attacks your opponent fires along the predicted points of your path.”

“Oh, oh. Like this?”

“You can break free of a lock by moving out of your opponent’s field of vision. So the closer you get, the more easily you can break free by circling around Bal-Bados. The time it takes her to reestablish a lock will create a defenseless lag. That’s your chance to move in and attack!!”

They were now nearly at point-blank range.

Temjin and the customized Bal-Bados glared at each other for a moment.

Index seemed to be saying she would move to block Kamijou’s Temjin if he tried to circle around to either side. And then she would hit him with a cross-counter to score a down and steal his points.

But Kamijou did not cut to the right or left.

He went up.

He continued the momentum of the high-speed dash with a jump right in front of Index.

He tapped the button twice.

Instead of jumping high into the sky, he passed just barely over Bal-Bados.

This was known as a jump cancel.

“Well done. Virtuaroids don’t handle attacks from directly above very well. Due to the way the FCS works, the cursor indicating the enemy unit’s location prioritizes the horizontal directions of front, back, left, and right, so it takes a second to display when an opponent pass straight overhead!”

He landed right behind Index who was still facing forward.

Temjin and Bal-Bados stood back to back.

He tightly gripped the Blitz Saber.

And he spun around.

The two Virtuaroids swept their close-range weapons toward each other as they turned around.

Temjin used a plain close-range sword wrapped in light.

Bal-Bados used a fork-like thing with multiple pointed optical weapons rotating quickly.

Both weapons had their pros and cons, but Temjin had the greater close-range attack specs.

A high-pitched metallic sound rang out.

Something spun through the air. It was the customized Bal-Bados’s right arm. The arm itself was a cannon and it was supposedly intercepting Kamjiou’s attack with a close-range optical weapon.

It had been severed.

“I did-…”

“Not yet!!”

Lilina shouted back as the rotating right arm came to a stop in midair. The same repulsion used to control the units seemed to pin it in midair and it floated there with definite human intent behind it. Then the cannon arm resumed targeting Kamijou’s Temjin from the optimal range.

“!!”

He immediately moved back to put distance between him and Bal-Bados.

Rapid-fire attacks stabbed down into the ground and were deflected by what looked like compression artifacts. The two Virtuaroids moved apart as Kamijou was forced to abandon the close-range he had finally achieved.

When he looked back, he saw the nun-like customized Bal-Bados’s remaining left arm detach at the elbow and float up into the air.

“I forgot to mention this.” Lilina gave a belated report. “Bal-Bados’s greatest selling point is its ability to detach its body parts, control them independently, surround its enemy, and simultaneously attack from multiple lines of fire. The arms are known as ERLs, or Ejectable Remote Launchers. As that name suggests, ''the battle truly begins once both arms have been detached''.”

“…”

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

But as Kamijou slowly exhaled, there was a fierce smile on his lips.

“In other words, Index is finally starting to sweat. Good, good. I’ve taken away her ability to look down on me. I finally feel like we’re standing on the same field. And you know what that means?”

“Eh heh heh…”

“''I’ve finally got a real shot at winning.''”

“Ah ha ha ha ha!! Are those the words of a rookie who only started Virtual-On today!? Where did you learn to enjoy combat like this!?”

The battle was underway.

Temjin and Bal-Bados ran through the streets at tremendous speed.