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

===Part 3===

Kamijou Touma was trapped by an odd pressure.

The space itself was like a spindle-shaped cocoon. He could not see any kind of chair, but he definitely felt his back being sucked in toward a chair back. There was no seatbelt either.

The interior was smooth with no decorations.

He saw nothing like a clear window or a hatch.

He apparently controlled the unit with only the portable device in his hands.

However, the plainness was not just a feature of a specific unit such as Temjin or Raiden. It was due to Kamijou being a beginner who had yet to customize it in any way. If he wanted to, he could design it to look like a tank or fighter plane cockpit. Some people might place a shogi board on the floor or have hand puppets dangling from the ceiling as shortcut keys for pilot assistance. Simply put, the space could be freely redesigned if you put in the effort.

Of course, Kamijou was not that “into it”.

If the portable device alone was enough, there was no better option.

(So…this is Temjin?)

He looked around the cockpit, but it was only for show.

He looked down at the portable device in his hands and saw the unit name displayed on the screen.

(Are you just thrown into one of them without going through a unit selection screen like in a normal fighting game? Oh, no, that isn’t right. I chose a face icon to register my portable device when I first got it, didn’t I? I just never used it after that.)

He sighed.

He leaned against the invisible chair back (Was his physical body feeling this back in the real world?) and then started questioning this.

(But…)

Still sitting in the cockpit, he wiggled his fingers while thinking.

(How does this even work? Can it really control all of my senses just from putting some goggles on my head?)

If he was only viewing an image on the goggles, his senses would not feel separated from his body. It was a weird example for a student of Academy City, but it reminded him of an out-of-body experience.

“Well, that doesn’t matter. As long as it’s fun.”

After all, piloting a giant robot was like a dream come true. Academy City might be able to build something like that using its tech, but a normal high school boy like Kamijou would never be given a chance to pilot one. It was like an unreachable dream. He was still mentally distancing himself from it a bit, but if he could enjoy this, it would be best to go all out.

And.

That round of positive thinking seemed to act as a signal.

Light filled the dark cocoon. His vision expanded in the 180 degrees ahead of him. An image was displayed on the spindle-shaped wall. Except it felt more like the wall had grown transparent.

Controlling weapons on all of the joints sounded like it would be overly complex, but the portable device in his hands was all he needed.

He thought about where his fingers needed to be.

His palms were sucked in toward the device and he felt like he had become a cog in the machine.

(Let’s see…what? …Stand, can I stand, wah, I stood up!!)

He checked on the movement of the Virtuaroid’s arms and legs and he heard low, heavy sounds from all around. It was more like bundles of thin fibers stretching and contracting than gears and cylinders. They were artificial muscles. …Yes, he vaguely recalled incorporating that from a roadside tree pruning robot when he went outside with Index earlier.

The spherical device that acted as a referee floated at a point in the sky and a square of the city scenery was divided off by glowing walls.

A small window opened on the edge of the building scenery so as not to obstruct his view. It seemed to be a video chat and it displayed a girl’s face.

[[Image:Index_VO_057.jpg|thumb]]

“Yahoo, Username Touma-sama. Lilina-chan has successfully booted up. You’d neglected me for soooo long after initial registration that I was getting really sick of sleep mode.”

“What, what, what is this? A transmission!? I didn’t approve that!”

“Oh, dear. Has it been so long that I need to open the help menu? And to be clear, this isn’t an external transmission. I’m Lilina-chan, the support AI preinstalled on your portable device. Nice to meet you. I’ll also support you in battle.”

Index also seemed to be ready.

The Virtuaroid standing a short distance away was…Bal-Bados, he thought. It was a relatively skinny one and, instead of holding weapons with its hands, its arms themselves were cannons. But the lower armor looked something like a skirt and white armor flowed back from the head part, giving the overall silhouette a certain shape.

“It looks like Index. What is that? You can customize them that much?”

“That’s one way to enjoy it. Use the Material Analyze function and you can incorporate any material found on Earth. I’ll tell you how to do it in good time, but using a plain unit is pretty rare.”

He looked at the modified Bal-Bados once more. The primarily white unit was mid-sized when compared to the lightweight Fei-Yen and heavyweight Dordray he had seen on the poster, but that meant it was harder to imagine how it would move. It had cannon muzzles instead of hands, but would it fire from a distance or from point-blank range?

Its motions seemed oddly stiff, but that may had more to do with Index being the pilot than the unit’s own abilities. It would not surprise him if she viewed the Virtuaroids as marionettes controlled by strings more than as weapons or machines.

(I guess I’m the same in that sense.)

The Temjin that Kamijou Touma was piloting was also average and thus made it hard to predict what strategy it would take. It was the standard all-around protagonist unit. It felt like the character in a fighting game that could use both projectiles and anti-air techniques and held the default cursor spot on the character selection screen.

Its main weapon in its right hand was…a sword?

“That is Sleipnir, Temjin’s primary weapon. It switches modes to match the situation, so it can become a variety of weapons such as a close-range sword called the Blitz Saber or a long-range rifle called the Neutral Launcher.”

Lilina quickly did her job.

As Kamijou listened to her explanation, a different transmission arrived.

Needless to say, it was from Index.

“Touma, this is meaningless if you don’t take it seriously.”

“Isn’t that a little strict for someone who still doesn’t know how anything works? Well, this looks fun, so I might as well try it out.”

With an announcement of “get ready”, his unit was given freedom.

The result was instantaneous.