Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter1 (section)

===Part 12===

Now, then.

Ultra-destructive Misaka Mikoto had abandoned her humanity to become a lightning goddess with a glimpse of outer space showing through her body, but her thoughts were actually quite calm.

She had experienced this before, but her mind had a tendency to turn inwards while in lighting goddess mode.

And a question had occurred to her.

First of all, it was strange she had such free control of the lightning goddess. It hadn’t been so simple last time.

And furthermore…

(When is this happening timeline-wise?)

The most obvious thing out of place was Shokuhou Misaki’s Exterior. After it was nearly discovered during the Daihaseisai incident, the #5 had decided it would be too much of a pain to continue hiding it and managing it, so she had personally destroyed and abandoned it.

So was this before that?

But that didn’t work either. This included things that clearly happened after the Daihaseisai. For example, Kazakiri Hyouka may have fit in that part of the timeline, but the uncontrollable Fuse Kazakiri and the golden angel Kazakiri had come later – the latter during World War Three. At the very least, Tokiwadai hadn’t still been wearing their summer uniforms when those things happened.

This led to a simple conclusion: ''this Academy City couldn’t be real.

(Would the safest bet be a virtual reality? Academy City’s tech is supposed to be 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world, so I could see that tech existing here. That would explain why Shokuhou has no qualms about destroying everything in her rampage. Even she wouldn’t take it this far otherwise.)

Mikoto also wouldn’t have chosen so many options liable to kill someone. She had even blown away Shirai Kuroko with a Railgun after Shokuhou brainwashed her.

And if this world was recreated with electronic technology, Mikoto could easily break through.

She could send out an error-inducing electric signal.

No matter how detailed a virtual reality was, it was ultimately a collection of 1s and 0s. That meant she could write her own code. If she emitted electric noise that perfectly recreated the array of 1s and 0s forming a computer virus, the supercomputer constructing the virtual world would run a self-defense subroutine to prevent the noise from appearing. Whether it was in a drawing or in music, any data array that indicated the numbers of a virus code could destroy the program from within, so it was an obvious defense measure.

So the conditions were simple.

If Mikoto attempted to produce the noise and nothing happened, this was virtual reality.

If it worked, this was actual reality.

“Okay, I was getting tired of messing with Shokuhou anyway. It’s time to log out of this virtual reality!!”

The deified #3 sent sparks crackling from her forehead.

And crackle they did.

Which meant the error-inducing electric signal…had occurred like normal?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Um, but that would mean…?”