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

===Part 8===

The blue Cypher was smashed to pieces.

Due to its excellent transformation structure, it was hard to tell what any individual piece did. Some parts looked a lot like arms or legs and others looked more like wings or weapons.

Either way, it was obvious he could no longer fight.

He had brought things back to the “original war” to blow away Misaka Mikoto and probably Index and Furashina Ririn as well, but that had been turned back against him.

And even if he was back to normal when the 3rd set began, Kamijou would not fall back.

Was it over now, or would it be over next time?

That was the only difference.

The Blue Stalker could be defeated. Knowing that meant a lot.

“So will everything go back to normal now?” wondered Kamijou inside Temjin.

He received an immediate answer.

“Yes, it will. In the way I wanted it to.”

“The Blue…Stalker?”

Kamijou looked over to the smashed-up remains of the Cypher.

A V-Disc was sticking out from the crushed V-Converter.

“In another dimension, Academy City was a single girl: L’Ln Plajiner. That worldwide joker develops and manages all cutting-edge technology. Neither form is more correct. They are both correct answers. They simply took different forms among the branching possibilities of the parallel worlds. So all I had to do was return her to the form I wanted. As long as she took the same form as the girl with full access to the Tangram, nothing else mattered. That was all I needed to win.”

“What are you talking about? You can’t just transform Academy City. The entire city would disappear and you’d be caught in the middle!!”

“All I had to do was complete Furashina Ririn, the Second Plajiner. Once she passed a certain stage, the transformation would continue without my interference. No one can stop it now. I will return to that universe of death and resignation that is ruled by the plants and Limited Wars. I will return to blow a new hole in it. Academy City and myself inside it are no more than the rocket engine needed to achieve escape velocity. No matter what must be purged and discarded along the way, I will succeed as long as the payload is placed in orbit.”

For just an instant, something burst from the cracked and scarred V-Disc.

It looked like a young man wearing a strange suit.

But Kamijou could not say for sure.

After all, his eyes were dyed pitch black and an unnatural darkness lurked within them.

“You…?”

“It does not matter what ‘I’ am.”

The darkness scoffed.

The black in his eyes spread to the rest of his body. No, his body peeled away and collapsed.

“The man who attempted Code Phoenix failed at some point and became a part of ‘me’. I am the unified desire to return home of all my brethren who were rejected by the Tangram in the past and sent to different parallel worlds. Or perhaps I began as that and have split off into something else. It matters not as long as I can remain here as the Blue Stalker who obsessively seeks the Plajiner girl.”

“…”

Hadn’t the Academy City report mentioned that the Blue Stalker’s identity was completely unknown? But another document had said if Person A was rejected by the Tangram, they would be swapped out with Person A in a parallel world. So they were not entirely annihilated and they did not just appear out of thin air. But the Blue Stalker alone functioned under different rules.

Was this what had happened?

Was he a collection of desires, so the Tangram had been unable to find someone to swap him out with?

“Did you think killing me was enough to stop the transformation? You are already seeing the center of the transformation. And I am of course not referring to myself. The time bomb’s timer has already reached zero. It was counting down even as we fought this pointless battle. Even if I lost once, I could still return using the Second Plajiner, so this is checkmate. This city will change. I lost the right to watch it from a front row seat, but I will pass that right along to the victor.”

''Kssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

The words, the unit, the person, and the life all disappeared into the static.

Not even the referee sphere floating overhead could keep up with the situation.

The Blue Stalker vanished into empty air.