Chapter 3: Why?
"….hurry…….do something………dangerous….."
Only catches of the hushed conversation on the other side of the door could be heard by the three students crouching by the door way.
"Damn. I can't hear them." a certain dark-purple haired boy cursed.
"Don't be so loud, idiot. You're hurting my ears. I don't want to be caught along with you. It'll ruin my chances of having that excellence award." A black haired girl answered, at the same time taking out what looked like the famous baka gun.
"I-Imai-san, that'll probably make just as much noise as he does," Ruka whispered, gesturing to the thing in Hotaru's hand.
"Remind me why I'm here again? This is such a waste of time." Natsume made to stand up, but he was stopped by Hotaru's next words,
"Do whatever you want. Mikan probably doesn't expect you to be able to do anything anyway." Natsume looked away while gritting his teeth, then without saying another word, crouched down beside them again.
Hotaru suddenly began to look for something inside the small bag that she was carrying.
"Imai-san? What are you looking for?" Ruka whispered out of curiosity. Hotaru continued to rummage around her bag without answering him. After a minute o two of puttering about, she took out what seemed to look like a stethoscope. Only, this stethoscope has many pairs of ear pieces attached to it.
""Tch. What on earth is that? Don't tell us that you have another 3 pairs of ears hidden somewhere?" Natsume asked sarcastically. Without another word, Hotaru plugged a pair of the ear-pieces into Natsume's ears with enough force to break through his eardrums.
Ruka, seeing what happened to Natsume, tried to pacify Hotaru in order to avoid having the same fate as his best friend. "I-Imai-san, what is that –er—creative invention of yours?" Hotaru immediately launched again into one of her famous monologue advertisements featuring her inventions. "This is a stealthoscope. It allows one to eavesdrop into the most silent and hushed conversations. One can get them for only 100 rabbits each."
Ruka sweat dropped but no longer did dwell on telling Hotaru that talking to one's self was considered weird because they've already missed much of the teacher's conversations and that they might miss anymore important information being secretly disclosed. Without another word he took the pair of ear-pieces left behind and tried to keep as silent as possible in order to hear the sound being transmitted. For a while they heard nothing but silence, then suddenly, they heard clearly and distinctly the voice of Jinno-sensei,
"Well, I did try to tell you from the start that taking in that girl was a suicidal move. But no, you didn't listen to—"
"We know what you said, Jinno-sensei. You made your feelings very clear from the start. But didn't you think that if we hadn't taken her in, there would have been a greater chance that the anti-alice organization would have gotten their hands on her?"
A very familiar voice cut through the electric-Alice teacher. It was the first time that the three of them heard Narumi-sensei speak in such a cold voice. Usually, he's full of smiles and affection, but now it seems that they're seeing a new side to his personality.
"And anyway, there is a small chance that she won't go against the Alice academy since she has made many friends here. At least that's a point in our favor." Narumi continued.
"Demo, Narumi, you know of the fact that she had the potential of being a special star student, but instead, she was made a no star and was made to suffer unnecessarily. And I don't need to elaborate just whose brilliant plan it was." A woman's voice sarcastically rejoined, giving extra emphasis on the word brilliant.
"Special star?" Ruka whispered, surprised.
Hotaru simply smirked and said, "I was right. There's more to this than a simple kidnapping."
"What do you mean?" Ruka asked.
"First, Narumi-sensei sought us out to tell us that Mikan is in danger. If it's just a simple kidnapping, the anti-alice organization could have gotten some other victim. But why were the members told to specifically get hold of Mikan? And another thing, when I asked Narumi-sensei why it would be a disaster if they got hold of Mikan, he simply did was not able to find any answer."
Ruka was prevented from asking any more questions when they heard another voice speak up,
"There's no other choice but to try to find that girl's location as fast as possible. If those scums are able to entice her into their side…" and he let his sentence hang.
("Damn, what does he mean?")
"You all probably know that the possibility of her going over to that side is going to be tipped to their favor by you-know-who." Jinno-sensei began to speak again. "So I suggest that you all just prepare for the possibility of fighting on opposite sides with that girl."
"You're wrong about that. You don't know her as I do. She will remain on our side." Narumi interjected, but even the ones outside could also hear the slightest intonation of doubt in his voice.
"We will see, we will see. You'd just better hope for the best." Jinno-sensei grimly answered.
"Let's go." Hotaru coldly said while rudely pulling off the ear-pieces from her companion's ears.
"Wha—But---!" Ruka sputtered.
"That's probably all that were going to hear. Anyway, I think that they're already finished, so if you want to be caught, fine with me." Hotaru said while calmly putting away her gadget into her small purse that seems to be bottomless. She then calmly starts to walk away, when Ruka started to go after her,
"But, what are we going to do?"
"There's nothing for us to do at this point but to wait." Hotaru answered without looking back.
Ruka looked back towards Natsume. "Natsume…"
"Hmph. I don't care about that silly little girl. It's not my problem." Natsume replied while turning his back on Ruka and starting to walk towards the opposite direction.
"But…. Natsume…" Ruka could do nothing but watch him walk away.
But, in reality, Natsume's thoughts are in chaos…
"Special star? But only those who get special stars are the ones who get to be sent to missions! The teachers are all in panic. And just what did they mean by 'dangerous'? That silly little girl? Are they trying to make me laugh!
Damn…Even Persona has shown as interest in her. Just who is she, really?..."