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

===Part 7===

The first thing they did was visit a waste treatment plant in District 7.

Most trash in Academy City was recycled, but it was far more active at some times than others. Simply put, its peak activity was from early morning to evening, so it was completely stopped in the middle of the night. It did not handle valuable materials, so the security was lax and it was easy to sneak into. That meant it was used for dangerous deals much more often than the abandoned buildings that were already marked as hotbeds of crime.

And…

“There are tire tracks from something other than garbage trucks.”

Accelerator crouched down and traced his fingers across the asphalt.

“And based on the way they overlap, this is the topmost one…it’s relatively fresh. It may have been after the place shut down for the day.”

“Can we really follow that?”

“Even you can do it now.”

Accelerator spoke with a mocking tone and pulled out his portable device.

He aimed scanner on the back toward the ground.

“The Material Analyze?”

“Lilina, scan this tire track. But expand the definition and selection range to cover the entirety of the track.”

The small device hummed and emitted a ring of light much like the Ring Scan.

It was almost like AR. When viewed through the screen, even the faint tire track was highlighted so it was visible with the naked eye. His selection was literally visualized.

The Material Analyze required approaching the target, but as long as it was connected by a single line, it fell within the selection range no matter how far it spread. For example, scanning a car from the side would still gather information on the opposite door. The entire car was a single unit.

So if he selected the tire track, the selection range could spread to anywhere in the city.

“Let’s go. Unless the bastard changed vehicles midway, this’ll lead us right to him.”

While following the tire track on the screen, they wandered around a fair bit and ultimately found themselves among the automated factories of District 17. However, they were not at one of those factories. It was a giant warehouse within a line of similarly designed buildings.

Kamijou looked up at it.

“Is this the place?”

“If you have time for stupid questions, how about keeping your guard up?”

There was a human-sized door next to the giant shutters, but the locks on both were meaningless. When Accelerator grabbed and turned the knob, the internal structure was destroyed with a metallic noise.

There was of course no light inside.

They had to rely on the backlight of Accelerator’s portable device as he walked around with his cane.

The vast space contained something like a jungle gym made of metal pipes and diagonal metal panels. However, it did not fill the entire space and seemed to mostly fill in the edges.

“What is that…?”

There seemed to be a disconcerting empty space in the center. Kamijou thought for a bit, pulled out his portable device, and aimed it toward the center of the warehouse.

And he spoke to the small device.

“Lilina, do you have data on that blue Cypher? Place a life-size image of it on the screen.”

“Aye, sir.”

The AR-enhanced scene fit perfectly.

The giant jungle gym surrounded the Cypher when it was down on one knee. This was scaffolding. There was a small stairway up to the V-Disc on its back and it was positioned so someone could climb in as if there was a tunnel there.

But.

(What for…?)

Normally, Virtuaroids were rearranged and maintained on the portable device’s screen. A life-size hangar was not needed, so did the Blue Stalker simply have some odd habits?

“There’s one set of footprints.” Accelerator was investigating something else. “Lilina, record a sample of the footprints, search for similar ones in the area, and redisplay.”

In no time, the screen highlighted all of the footprints that presumably belonged to the Blue Stalker. The #1 slowly followed that trail and looked around the area.

Half impressed and half exasperated, Kamijou spoke up.

“Your Lilina is pretty amazing. Or am I just not using mine right?”

“But why is that Lilina so quiet?” asked Kamijou’s Lilina. “Was she not raised with enough love?”

Then Accelerator called over to him from a short distance away.

“Look.”

He pulled back a blue plastic sheet to reveal a small safe. As usual, Accelerator tapped it with his toes and the door burst open from within. It was full of papers. But these were not in Japanese. They were in…hexadecimal? They were filled by the digits 0-9 and letters A-F, so it was an odd sight.

Was the Blue Stalker able to read them without passing them through a machine first?

“Lilina, scan the pages and decrypt them. I don’t know if it’s possible, but try to translate them to Japanese.”

“No, that’s not what we need to do, dumbass.”

As Kamijou spread the documents out on the floor and gave his portable device some instructions, Accelerator spoke to him like he was a moron.

“If he really didn’t want the information getting out, he’d hide it in his own head. And this safe is too sloppy. If he had time to encrypt the documents, it’d be better to burn them. Plus, if he’s working alone, he wouldn’t need documents spelling out his plan. There’s only one other reason to leave behind something like this.”

“Wait. You mean…?”

“An obvious safe with meaningful-looking encrypted documents inside. It’s obvious what the Blue Stalker is doing: keeping any intruders here for a while.”

Meaning…

“It’s coming!! Some kind of attack is going to blow the entire warehouse away!!”

Someone clicked their tongue.

It was lucky they were holding their portable devices for investigation purposes.

Kamijou’s vision blurred and then he found himself inside Temjin’s cockpit.

A moment later, a blinding beam of light surged through.

More and more glowing projectiles were fired. They pierced the warehouse’s thick walls from outside and swept forcefully from one side to the other. Kamijou’s Temjin rolled to slip below them and Accelerator’s Specineff just ignored the attack. He did not even raise his Ifleesa scythe. As soon as a beam touched the surface of his sharp and pointed Virtuaroid, the light’s path bent like it had passed through a prism. It tore even more complexly through the warehouse’s walls, sending them crashing down in pieces.

This was clearly more than a normal Defected Virtuaroid. It could directly damage a normal building instead of just other Virtuaroids.

And.

Their enemy stood at the source of the attack.

That unique Cypher was colored blue with bright yellow lines.

Looking at it again showed how out of the ordinary it was.

No, the unit itself was not all that different. It had a Virtuaroid’s unique streamlined curves that could not be reproduced by any metal or mineral of this world. Even if Temjin, Specineff, and Cypher had their individual traits, they all still fell under the category of Virtuaroids.

But.

Something that could only be described as its core was different.

That feeling oozed out from it.

It was like the difference between a child holding a real sword and a master wielding a bamboo sword. Which one would inspire more fear of death? Could the pilot really change the impression of a unit to this extent?

“Blue Stalker!!” roared Kamijou.

But before any response arrived, something changed in an unexpected place.

“Ksshh, processing speed…overload…critical…overflow…”

“Lilina?”

“Ahg67FsmAhwhMk**hAoshguiTo*NN1OtuskliSJia546gO*Nu**cdimARi***go90SuI***chi, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.”

A deafening frictional sound came from behind him.

The V-Disc on the back of the unit was probably rapidly heating.

“Hey, Lilina!? Dammit!!”

He could see, but all of the displayed text had grown corrupted. The different cursors were warping all over the place, so they were not at all reliable.

The entire battle zone was messed up.

With the warehouse’s walls torn to pieces, his vision opened up, but there were no walls to demarcate the field. The compression artifacts that protected the field objects (i.e. the city Kamijou lived in) did not exist here.

The usual rules no longer applied.

This was the Blue Stalker’s territory. It was controlled by the same rules he had used to “kill” Mikoto and Index while ignoring the safety regulations.

The rules had been rewritten.

The regulations had been hijacked.

“What did you do…? What the hell did you do!?”

“Nothing. But if you insist on an answer, it might be accurate to say I returned Virtual-On to its original form. Now it is no longer a Next Generation Game.”

A sticky yellow light raced across the blue Cypher.

“It is once more a cutting-edge weapon meant to efficiently kill and achieve victory in Limited Wars.”

Lightning surged out horizontally.

By the time Kamijou realized that was the Blue Stalker’s afterimage, the first exchange was already over.

His enemy wielded a fearsome close-range sword as long as he was tall. A single hit from that could easily bisect him and the sight of it made him shudder.

A tremendous amount of sparks flew from Temjin’s Blitz Saber that he had immediately raised.

He had not seen the movement, but his body had kept up on its own.

More and more clashes followed. Kamijou was inside the cockpit, but the vibrations still hit him with enough force to shake his cheeks.

Meanwhile, small windows appeared out of the way of his vision.

Lilina could not speak with him, but she was apparently still doing the job he had left with her. A few of the documents found in the warehouse had already been translated into Japanese.

Each time he read through one, he processed it into something he could understand. Was it thanks to his contact and firsthand experience with Virtuaroids that he was able to rework all of that strange terminology into something that made some sense to him?

He wanted to know anything he could.

Even as the tension scorched his skin, something stirred in his heart.

He wanted to know even the most trivial detail if it might help him win. He hoped it would let him decode this person known as the Blue Stalker and predict what he would do next.

His eyelids trembled and his lips twisted, but he wanted even the tiniest shred of data now!!

——''The Tangram is an existence that can be called the central point of all things.

(Is it talking about an observer who views the entire world? Sounds like someone important.)

——''It is a single existence, yet it simultaneously holds alibis in all parallel worlds.

(To put it in terms of the quantum theory used in esper development, is this some ridiculous being that shares all results of the different “ifs” that are influenced by observation? If it can choose the individual outcomes, then it’s sounding something like a god.)

——''Successfully contacting it will place the entire world in the palm of your hand. You will be able to manipulate time, causality, destiny, and all such unreachable things.

(Contact? Is there a way for humans to control god? Would that make you into something like an almighty esper with control over the entire world instead of just fire or water or something?)

——''On the other hand, the Tangram has something like a will of its own, so even if you do contact it, it will reject you if you are not accepted.

(If something like that went berserk, well, I can see how that would end badly. So does this Tangram god have a mind of its own?)

——''That rejection takes an incredibly simple form. The power of the Tangram eternally exiles you to one of the infinitely expanding parallel worlds and you trade places with the same person in a different dimension.

(So basically, it’s like using a time machine to make it so you were never born? No, it sounds more like you’re swapped out with someone who looks just like you and they take over your body.)

“Can you imagine what kind of place my home was?”

The blue enemy unit blurred as it made repeated high-speed dashes to the left and right using quick bursts of repulsion. Or so it seemed until the Blue Stalker vanished from Kamijou’s view. He sensed the killer intent circle behind him.

But before he could turn around, Accelerator’s Specineff launched a jump kick like a shooting star. That eerie, demonic-looking unit repeatedly swelled out and settled down as if it was suppressing something trying to burst out.

The blue cypher allowed its humanoid form to collapse. Its silhouette crumpled into something halfway between human and fighter jet, but that allowed it to just barely avoid Specineff’s kick. That unique silhouette shifted its center of gravity more than would have been possible otherwise and it quickly slammed on the brakes. And like a bursting liquid being played in reverse, it regained its humanoid form and once more targeted Kamijou.

Kamijou’s movements finally caught up.

Temjin swung his Blitz Saber while turning around and locked blades with the blue Cypher’s brutal blade that had been targeting his back.

(He isn’t remotely fazed that it’s 2-against-1!! In fact, it’s more like he uses his Virtuaroid entirely differently. It’s like the difference between sport karate and an ancient art of assassination!!)

“It was awful. Truly awful. A few corporate groups monopolized the top and placed a lid on the heavens. Even war was turned into a tool of entertainment and the resources and land were worn away. The people did everything they could to ignore how obviously we were sucking the world dry and tried to believe they were the winners. …But the worst part of all was how almost all superior technology was focused on a single point and those who did not receive its blessings were doomed to fall.”

——''We were not chosen by the Tangram. That must be a role exclusive to L’Ln Plajiner.

(Chosen? Role? Is it like a fingerprint scan and only a specific person will be accepted by this Tangram god?)

——''But there is a way to make use of not being chosen.

(…?)

——''The Tangram exiles the unchosen to a parallel world. Person A in the one world is swapped out with Person A in the other world.

(The same paradox as before? So in our world, it would be like the birth a different person with the same name. But from his perspective, it would feel like being exiled.)

——''From the perspective of the original world, it is no different from having your existence erased.

(Why is he so focused on that method of exile? And he makes it sound like it can be used in a positive way.)

——''But we are not actually annihilated.

(Don’t tell me…)

——''We travel to another world, a world of possibility.

(There are other possibilities there.)

——''Yes, for example…

(Which means…)

——''There is only one of that loathsome L’Ln Plajiner in a world, but in another world, we might run across her in a different form. An easier to manipulate form.

(Did the Blue Stalker contact the Tangram to intentionally have it go berserk to gamble on the unknown alternate world it would send him to!? Even if that means giving up his position in his original world to someone from another world entirely!?)

“L’Ln Plajiner. She was chosen as the sole individual to discover, use, develop, and operate our world’s technology. She was also a donor and gatekeeper for technology. …There had to be something else that plays an extremely similar role in this world.”

That was not Furashina Ririn.

It was another term that came to Kamijou Touma’s mind.

“You can’t mean…Academy City!?”

“That is the Plajiner bud in this world. Ha ha. Even I was shocked by the level of freedom between parallel worlds when I learned a single girl had changed into an entire city!!”

——''We will acquire a second L’Ln Plajiner.

(That means Furashina Ririn, right?)

——''We will acquire her and bring her back to our original world.

(Where is that? The world that originally developed the Virtuaroids? But is there a way to get back after being rejected by that Tangram god?)

——''The field of possibilities was closed because that girl ruled as the gatekeeper to all technology.

(Just like how Academy City leads the science side… So is that role held by a single person called L’Ln Plajiner in that world?)

——''If two Plajiners exist, the world’s equilibrium should collapse.

(Well, if a second Academy City suddenly popped into existence, who can say how far the chaos would spread.)

——''The Tangram that sent us away exists simultaneously in all parallel worlds.

(…)

——''And no matter what form it takes, if we control the Plajiner bud once it blooms, the Tangram will accept “her” as having the exact same inherent existence values as the first L’Ln Plajiner.

(Inherent…? I’m not sure what that means. Is it like saying the Tangram is locked to anyone but L’Ln Plajiner, so they’re going to bring in a second person with identical biometrics to try to access that god?)

——''So we only need think about continuing forward.

(If he assumes he’s heading back, he doesn’t need to worry about what happens to us afterwards.)

——''The completed second L’Ln Plajiner can take care of the rest and we can control the Tangram’s power to return us to our original world.

(Nothing matters to him as long as he can use Furashina Ririn to manipulate the Tangram god.)

——''Including myself, 1003 people were intentionally exiled. And if just one of us gets the Plajiner bud to bloom in one of those 1003 parallel worlds, we can rule over the Tangram which controls all causality and phenomena.

(So it was more than just the Blue Stalker? Did they just send a whole bunch of people in the hopes that one of them would happen across a world with favorable conditions?)

——''Those who fail can be brought back by the one who succeeds, so we can achieve our goal with zero losses.

(The people sent to different worlds can be retrieved using the Tangram which is connected to all worlds, so they can cancel it all out. That’s the theory they’re relying on.

——''That is why this is known as Code Phoenix.

(A suicide mission with an assumed resurrection at the end.)

——''This is a phoenix’s mission in which we fully erase our existence to achieve our goal.

(But shouldn’t that kind of genius be able to realize how wrong all of this is!?)



Temjin, Specineff, and the blue Cypher all came to a stop.

(The point judgement still exists? But he blew Mikoto away in a single hit.)

90 seconds had passed and the first set was over.

The result could not have been more obvious.

(No, it keeps going as long as I can keep moving. But if I’m bisected by his sword, it’s all over!)

The Blue Stalker won the set.

But Kamijou did not care. He shouted the words in his chest.

“In that case!! Are you after what I think you are!?”

“Yes! Furashina Ririn is not my goal. Academy City is the Plajiner bud and I will contain the entire city in the form of a girl. I will capture her in that form and take her back to my original world!! Academy City and L’Ln Plajiner are more than just doppelgangers; they are the very same being. It just so happens that the possibilities of parallel worlds gave her the form of a city in one world and of a person in the other. So I remade her. And now I will make her mine. Because the second key, the Second Plajiner, can access the Tangram!!”

[[Image:Index_VO_369.jpg|thumb]]

The second set began.

Accelerator’s Specineff moved once more behind the blue Cypher.

He raised the Ifleesa scythe.

If he had built his own Level 5 power into it as Misaka Mikoto had, that Specineff would have his reflection.

But the Blue Stalker moved just after Specineff charged in.

While locking weapons, he intentionally pulled back his close-range sword while shifting one leg back. He seemed to be opening the way and that caused Kamijou’s Temjin to pitch forward due to pushing “forward” with such great strength. The Temjin lost his balance and stepped forward, so the blue Cypher slipped past him and kicked him in the back.

And that sent him toward Accelerator’s Specineff and his reflection.

“…!?”

They were going to collide and the reflection would tear him to pieces.

But if one of them survived, they could defeat the blue Cypher. Since the Blue Stalker had altered the rules and regulations, he would not escape unscathed if he was defeated.

So it did not matter which one.

Even if Kamijou was defeated and destroyed here, turning him into an NPC player, the #1 monster could crush the blue Cypher.

As long as Index and Mikoto were returned to normal, nothing else mattered.

So he raised his voice.

“Just do iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!!!”

Accelerator took action in response.

He removed the reflection power covering his body.

They collided. They briefly came to a halt. But Kamijou’s Temjin was not torn to pieces. Only then did Kamijou realize what the #1 had chosen.

They were losing a second set in a row.

And the Blue Stalker’s special rules were in effect. So if someone’s unit was destroyed, they would be taken out regardless of their points and rough plays.

(You…)

“You idiot!!!!!”

A moment later, a beam of light surged out from behind the blue Cypher. The Specineff shoved the Temjin away in that instant. The blinding beam pierced the unit’s chest. It punched through. The Specineff came to a complete stop this time.

It had been destroyed.

No, it was just like with Misaka Mikoto…

“…Ksshh…”

There was static.

“It would’ve been the same either way.”

The static formed a human voice.

“So you do it. It would probably be meaningless for me to help with this problem.”

The voice vanished inside a great cacophony of static that sounded like everything falling apart. The stalled Specineff and the pilot inside vanished into the ether.

“Oh.”

And.

Kamijou Touma grasped the instant of opportunity available to him.

The Blue Stalker had prioritized defeating Accelerator, so he had used a sniping attack which left a lot of openings. Kamijou was in position to make full use of that slight moment of stillness.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

So all he had to do was fire repeatedly.

He transformed the Sleipnir in his right hand into the Neutral Launcher long-range rifle, aimed it straight ahead, and fired blinding beams of light from the end over and over. The blue Cypher used its crushed mid-transformation form halfway between humanoid and fighter jet to dodge the glowing projectiles.

But Kamijou would not allow that.

He would not allow himself to waste the opportunity he had been given at such a great cost.

He moved forward with all his might. His high-speed dash seemed to cut through space itself.

With an explosive noise, his Temjin rushed forward. This time, he used the destructive power of his close-range sword to make a horizontal slash at the half-transformed blue Cypher.

Due to the unnatural silhouette, large gaps had opened in the module, leaving it defenseless.

A single hit could easily deliver a fatal blow.

But…

“Not good enough…!!”

Just as he felt the slash miss, he saw the Blue Stalker completing his change to the fighter jet form.

He was finally using his full power.

That Virtuaroid would become a gust of wind that used overwhelming speed to slice through its target.

Or it was supposed to.

But in reality, there was a sound of gears breaking followed by the blue Cypher grinding to a halt. His transformation had not completed. Something had jammed it.

After checking on the details, the Blue Stalker’s eyes must have widened in shock.

“What…? Temjin’s close-range sword!?”

It was caught inside.

The tip of the Blitz Saber was stuck between the armor panels that were supposed to fold cleanly together during the transformation. It looked a lot like a giant hammer with the blue Cypher as the head.

“…”

Kamijou had nothing more to say.

He whirled his body around with all his might and used centrifugal force to swing the “hammer” down.

The flying bird was slammed down to earth with enough force to create a giant crater.