Ghost stories.

[ACSR: Kazari Uiharu]

On the way over to the office, Hokaze explained the situation to Joule. At first, she only said that she was looking for someone and showed Joule a picture of a girl but Lumen chimed in, her voice carrying to Joule and the Level 4.

"So, you're trying to identify this girl then?"

Lumen explained that she was able to see the girl floating around Hokaze. Joule couldn't but Lumen shared her vision for a moment to allow Joule to see through her eyes.

Indeed. The girl looked to be weightless and floating around, kind of like Lumen in a way.

"So..." Joule began "She's new right, not someone you've ever seen before?"

Hokaze shook her head "I've only started seeing her since the Daihase festival ended."

It wasn't a perfect match for Joule's experience then. It might be someone else's "Lumen" though.

"She's made of AIM." Lumen noted as they walked. She was speaking at a normal volume for the benefit of Hokaze and the ghost who could see and hear her too.

"So it's not something supernatural then." Hokaze nodded "I had suspected that already but-"

So, the girl could possess things, move through objects and fly. Very ghostly but Joule had an idea "Maybe it's something like the AIM burst? Or Kazakiri?"

While the other two girls didn't know much about the events, Lumen nodded "Something like that, except it's one person's ability instead of a collection of overlapping AIM fields."

"So my body is out there somewhere?" Joule heard through Lumen's ears. The girl was hovering next to Hokaze as they walked but walking while having all of her senses shifted up to Lumen's view point would have caused problems.

Lumen nodded "Probably. You're probably in a coma of some sort."

"Should we check with the hospital then?" Hokaze suggested.

Joule nodded "Sure."

Hokaze paused before she continued walking "No, I'll ask Judgement first, then we can check the hosptials."

Getting as many people on this as possible was a good idea.

As they continued chatting, they reached the judgement office and after climbing some stairs, Joule knocked on the door.

"Come in." it was Uiharu that replied.

Hokaze opened the door "Hello, I'd like to ask for some help with a missing person case."

Uiharu was looking at her computer but she nodded "Oh Yes, Shirai already told me. She's been busy lately. I don't know if I'm going to be of any help but-"

As she was talking, she turned to face the door as Hokaze and Joule stepped in. She paused as she took in the two of them before speaking, apparently without thinking about it.

"Ahh! It's the girl with the incredible hair!"

There was a pause before she waved her arms frantically.

"No, it's nothing!"

Hokaze and Uiharu introduced themselves to each other and they all sat down on the sofas in the center of the room. Saten had also shown up so she got herself involved too. Between the two of them (and a telepathic link formed between Lumen and the other two girls in order to allow them to hear the ghost girl and Lumen's parts of the story) what they knew so far was shown to Uiharu.

Uiharu took a look at the picture but she didn't know if she could put it through any databases.

Saten though was excited.

She'd heard about ghost stories at Tokiwadai and Hokaze had explained how the ghost had first appeared after dealing with one of the ghost stories.

Uiharu had opened up a note document on her phone as she began to type the information they knew down.

"So, she first appeared in Tokiwadai. I've not found anything when looking through the ability database on this sort of ghostly abilities so it can't be anyone actually attending Tokiwadai."

Everyone at Tokiwadai was constantly undergoing ability development so there was a lot of info for each and every student.

"A friend maybe?" Joule pondered "The problem is figuring out who."

Academy city's population was mostly students and most of them were within the same age bracket as Tokiwadai. There were too many of them for a search for people in the right ages.

"So the coma idea might hold the key." Hokaze remembered the talk from earlier.

Uiharu nodded "The hospital does keep records on patients and their abilities, but we'd need to ask for the information directly. I'm not going to hack into the hospital just to speed up the investigation."

"So... the frog-faced doctor?" Saten suggested.

Joule nodded "It can be a good place to start, he knows a lot anyway so he could give us a good place to start looking even if there isn't anyone under his care."

As they stood up to leave, Uiharu raised her hand "Actually, I can't come. I have a patrol with Shirai in a few minutes."

Saten was sad but she gave her friend a thumbs up "Don't worry, Joule and I can handle this."

And so their little group of three girls and two ghosts set off.

End of chapter

And yes, I am bucking the rails of the Astral Buddy arc for a bit. The information that the ghost girl is definitely an esper and that she's probably in a coma would be figured out by Joule and Lumen quickly due to their knowledge from previous arcs.

We're probably going to rerail by the 28th but for now and it probably won't affect the plot meaningfully.

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