Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter3 (section)

===Part 6===

It was late at night in the hospital where the crashed van’s driver had been transported for emergency care.

But he had no life-threatening injuries and only had some light whiplash in his neck. Anti-Skill had insisted he be hospitalized regardless. In other words, something seemed fishy about the crash, so they had him hospitalized as an excuse to keep him from fleeing.

Being hospitalized for such light injuries was odd and it was incredibly unusual to be given a private room right away, but few people were going to ignore the doctors and head home.

And that man currently had two visitors even though it was well past visiting hours.

They were Kamijou Touma and Accelerator.

The man in the bed wheezed like a whistle when he received these rude late-night visitors.

“Ee, ee.”

“I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but I can see from your reaction that you know we’re already ‘acquainted’.”

“E-eek! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!?”

He frantically reached for the nurse call button and rapidly tapped it with his thumb.

But there was no response.

Something had stabbed into the top end of the bed.

It was the grim reaper’s scythe.

Accelerator had summoned Ifleesa from thin air and cut the nurse call cord along with the mattress and springs.

“We could always ask you our questions after I destroy your head with ‘this’,” said the white monster.

“A-abhah!? Abrbah! Please wait! I’m in the hospital!!”

“Now, now, now.”

Kamijou maintained a smile as he dragged over a folding chair for visitors and walked over to the bed. All while holding a blunt weapon that could probably smash a human skull if he swung it down.

“One of them was Grys-Vok. The other was Apharmd. So what about you? Temjin? Fei-Yen? Oh, that’s right! You can’t use electronics in the hospital, can you? Then I guess you don’t have that Defected portable device that makes you so special. You can’t pull out your prized Virtuaroid weapon.”

He was defenseless.

Now that he was reminded of that, the man trembled and asked a question.

“Wh-wh-why are you here!?”

“Oh, no reason! I’m not going to do anything. Even if your good friend the Blue Stalker ‘killed’ two girls I know, I’m not going to do anything to you. He’s an exception. I saw him entirely ignore the rough play check and the NPC player issue to fire straight through the V-Converter on a Virtuaroid’s back and eliminate the player in a single shot. But I won’t do anything even if that happens to you. Oh, but will you turn into an NPC if it happens when you aren’t in a Virtuaroid? Or will you just be burnt to cinders? What do you think will happen?”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

The man’s mouth flapped wordlessly and he looked up at Accelerator, in search of help.

He felt such great pressure that the monster wielding a more obvious weapon seemed like the safer option.

Still smiling, Kamijou slowly sat down in the chair.

“And with that in mind, we’d like to ask you some questions. How much do you know about the Blue Stalker? You were abducting Furashina for him, weren’t you? You can’t be complete strangers.”

“I-I can’t tell you that. You know he’ll kill me!!”

“Let me ask you something else.” Kamijou spoke each word carefully. “Do you still not know how we found you here?”

“Eh? Um…well…”

“How many hospitals do you think there are in Academy City? Hell, let’s just narrow it down to District 7 alone. There would normally be no way to know which hospital an ambulance will visit after an accident. Unless, that is, some internal information leaks out. And if we could do it, what makes you think the Blue Stalker can’t?”

“Y-you don’t mean…?”

“I said one of them was Grys-Vok and the other was Apharmd, didn’t I? Do you not know what happened to them?”

How could he know?

He had been confined to this room ever since taken to the hospital and the TV news had only mentioned that there was a traffic accident.

But if these two had located this hospital right away…

“Anyone will do what it takes to stay alive,” said Kamijou. “If they sold your information to us, they might sell it to someone else too. I mean, you 3 failed your job and let Furashina Ririn escape. The Blue Stalker is pissed. He can’t have his information getting to Anti-Skill. The Grys-Vok and Apharmd managed to go into hiding, so they might have a chance to recover. But you? Not so much. And I’m sure those 2 want a gift to get back on his good side.”

“That’s not true… That can’t be true!! Marika and Takato have worked with me for ages! We were a great team! Th-they wouldn’t just sell me out like that!”

“If you say so. Well, we’ll be going.”

“Ah? Eh?”

Kamijou ignored the confused man and turned back toward Accelerator.

He stood up from the folding chair and spoke.

“He can apparently handle this on his own. I’m worried about the Grys-Vok and Apharmd too, but if he can manage on his own, we can try elsewhere.”

“…Are you sure? He’s almost certainly going to die.”

“He’s convinced otherwise, so there’s nothing we can do. And we won’t get anything by forcing an injured man to talk.”

“What a fool. If we could defeat the Blue Stalker, he might just survive, but I guess he prefers almost certain death.”

“Again, he says he’ll handle it in our stead. Let’s take him at his word and just protect the Grys-Vok and Apharmd until the storm passes. We can each take care of one of them, right? The fewer sacrifices the better, even if we can’t reduce it to zero.”

They both breathed an exasperated sigh and readily started for the hospital room’s exit.

That careless treatment caused unease to rapidly swell up in the man’s chest.

…Almost like someone had slapped a “limited time only” sticker onto a product he had not particularly wanted.

“W-w-w-wait-wait-wait!!”

“…Yes?”

Kamijou looked back and words flowed from the man’s mouth like a tap had been opened.

“I don’t know much! I don’t really know the Blue Stalker! I was only hired to kidnap that Furashina Ririn kid and take her to him!!”

“Sigh. That’s not really enough to set up an ambush for him.”

“I’ll tell you everything I know!! We were paid via an online bank. He of course tried to eliminate all traces, but I don’t think it was perfect. I’ll give you the data. A-and we were given a location to take the kid! Of course, I’m sure he knows the deal fell through, so I doubt anyone’ll show up if you lie in wait there. But…!!”

“The Blue Stalker was building up a foundation in Academy City using what he inherited from a certain old man,” said Accelerator. “But people aren’t as easy to inherit as money. I managed to get a list of the people working for the old man, but the Blue Stalker could only use the very lowest members. At that level, they probably didn’t even know they were working as that old man’s pawns.”

“Eh? Huh?”

“The Blue Stalker might have been personally waiting somewhere with a view of the drop-off point. And if he was there for long enough, he might have left some kind of trace.”

“W-will I be…safe?”

“You’d better pray on that one. Oh, and one other thing.”

“Wh-what?”

Kamijou asked one final question of the fearful man.

“How much do you know about Furashina Ririn?”

“Almost nothing. We were only given a photo and a map of her general field of activity. Also…”

“?”

“We were told she’s tougher than she looks, so ''it would take quite a lot to kill her''.”

“…”

Now that they had the necessary information, Kamijou and Accelerator really did leave the hospital room.

The #1 monster sounded half-exasperate as he walked down the dark hallway.

“You’re a scary guy.”

“How many times do you think I’ve tangled with monsters like you? I have far too many examples to follow when it comes to playing the frightening young man for a bluff.”

Kamijou spat out the words like he was suffering under a large weight bearing down on his shoulders.

But he was unaware.

Getting whatever information you wanted without laying a finger on someone was a feat that not even many in the city’s dark side could pull off with much success.