Author's Note: Hey hey, this is IrisRaylene! And before you all send the angry mob after me, I will apologize for taking over a month to write this. I took a week off of writing for finals week at school. And then I was home on spring break and didn't want to do anything that involved my brain. At all. After I got back to school, I actually did write this entire chapter in about three days. It was awesome. I was just about to post it too, when my computer decided that it really needed to update its software right freaking now. When I opened the recovery file of this chapter, all that was on it was my author note. And, like the genius that I am, I forgot what I wrote in this chapter.
So yeah…that was embarrassing and painful and I'm sorry OTL. But on the bright side, this story now has almost 100 views! *cheers* That really isn't a whole lot, but it's certainly more than I ever thought I would get on this story, as sad as that is to admit… -_- Thank you everyone for reading this and I hope that you will continue to support me in the future.
And now, since I'm sure you're all sick of this note already (if anyone even bothered to read it…), let's start the long-awaited (hopefully) chapter. If you could review, follow or favorite, I will love you forever. Enjoy! 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Library War. Obviously. Since this is a fanfiction.

-x- Chapter 4: Because the Library's In Danger! -x-

Ryuu:

Dear gods of luck,

If I have done something recently to offend you, then I offer you my most sincere apology. If it was Aki who offended you, I will apologize for her as well. She probably didn't mean it.

So, if you could find it in your hearts to maybe lift the terrible luck you have given us today, I would very much appreciate it. If our luck continues like this, Aki and I will end up dead or arrested by dinner time.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely, Ryuu

It wasn't even funny anymore. Not that it had ever been funny in the first place. But this, our level of luck today, it was beyond ridiculous. Though I generally consider myself to be a realistic person, it was hard to completely dismiss the idea that there were some greater forces conspiring against us.

Aki and I were talking to Hisoka and Rie about a new mystery novel that had come out recently. Aki was particularly excited about this, since she had been an avid fan of the series for years. And then, right when I was finally starting to relax a bit, it happened again.

"Hey, you two over there!" I was slowly being conditioned to fear those words. "You're going to be late!"

"Late?" Aki turned to the small group that had called us out. There were five of them, two Defense Force members and three Administrative Division librarians. One of the librarians nodded eagerly.

"Haven't you been paying attention to the time? The break is over in two minutes!" Break? What was she talking about? "If we don't leave right now, then we'll be late for the meeting! And they're finally going to get into the important stuff!"

"Ack!" Aki clapped a hand to her head, looking very much like a person who just forgot what time it was and was about to be late. "We'd better get moving then! Lead the way, guys!" She started walking after them.

"Wait, what? Aki, what do you think you're doing?" There was no way we could possibly attend a meeting where all of the important Library Force members would be gathered.

"It'll be fine, Ryuu. We can use the cover of the crowd to sneak out once we get there." She whispered.

"That's…actually a really reasonable plan." How uncharacteristic of her.

"You just thought something rude, didn't you?" She frowned. "Oh, wait a second, I almost forgot something!" Before the group of legitimate employees could continue on their way, Aki skipped back over to Hisoka and handed him the book that they had been discussing. "I almost forgot to give this back to you! Sorry!" She gave him a small smile and whispered something that I couldn't quite catch. Hisoka, however, must have heard her, because he nodded enthusiastically.

"Alright, let's get going!" Aki grabbed my arm and dragged me along with her as she sprinted after the others.

-x-

We made it to the meeting room just as everyone else had started filing back in. I couldn't see anyone likely to cause a problem for us, but that didn't mean that we could let our guard down. Fortunately, in the mass of Library employees shuffling through, we had managed to lose the group that brought us here. This might be our only chance to sneak away. And then I was going home. I was done with this 'adventure' and all of the stress that it was causing me.

"I wonder what this meeting is going to be about." Someone in the crowd grumbled. "It seems like no one knows anything about this."

"I heard that this meeting was specially ordered by Commander Tedzuka. Only the Commander and the Special Task Force know anything about this." Another person offered.

"Seriously? Must be pretty important then…"

"An all-day meeting on a topic so secret that only the very top-level people know about it, there's no way it can be something trivial. I just hope that the Library's okay."

Aki stopped walking.

"Oh no…" I tugged her arm, hoping to drag her out of the crowd before…too late. It was too late. She was already overcome with curiosity.

"Ryuu…" She pleaded, eyes shining. If I dragged her away now, I would never hear the end of this. She'd spend the rest of the summer on the floor of my room, complaining about how she never got to hear what this meeting was all about. This decision was entirely for that reason. I only agreed to this because I wanted to be able to do the rest of my summer homework in peace. It wasn't me giving into Aki. This was an entirely selfish decision, got it?

"At the next break, we are leaving, okay? I'll buy you ice cream or something to make up for cutting this short." Aki nodded in agreement.

"We'll go right home at the next break, of course." She must have really wanted to go to this meeting. Under any other circumstances, Aki would have tried to get me to give more than that. But she had accepted immediately.

"Let's go find some good seats then. In the back, close to the door, I think."

Fortunately for us, since everyone was so curious about this subject, they all took the seats in the front. The seats in the back were mostly empty and under dimmer lighting. If we kept our heads down and stayed quiet, it was maybe possible for us to last until the next break like that.

We watched the rest of the Library Force make their way into the meeting room and take their seats. Many of them were high-ranking members too. For all of them to be here at the same time, this had to be a really important meeting. Would we be okay listening in to this? We weren't going to get in trouble for hearing some classified information, were we?

But…wait…even though there were all of these important people here, I hadn't seen the Base Commander yet. Several members of the Special Task Force had arrived, but no Commander. That was a relief.

"Alright, settle down, settle down. I know that you're all so excited for this meeting, so let's get going and get it over with quickly." A tall older man stood at the front of the room, motioning for everyone to settle down. I had never seen him before, so I wasn't sure, but I think that he was Library Director Komura. (AN: his name isn't important. I just picked a name at random since he isn't an important character. He probably won't even appear again after this chapter. Poor Komura…)

"I know that a long and tedious meeting isn't at the top of anyone's list," Komura continued, drawing a few laughs from the crowd, "but this is important. Let's move this along quickly then, shall we?"

-x-

Aki:

A library-wide meeting on a mysterious subject, specifically scheduled by the Base Commander. I didn't know what was going on here, but it had mystery and intrigue written all over it. I had done really well in picking a day to come.

The Library Director stood in the front with a small stack of notecards in his hand.

"The topic of today's meeting is a recent security breech in the Library Base, brought to attention by the Base Commander. According to these notes that I was given just before the meeting, the most recent breach in security occurred earlier this morning when a small group infiltrated the Base dressed in stolen Library Defense Force Uniforms. We don't know how many there are in total, who they are affiliated with, or what they intend to accomplish here. However, given how smoothly they were able to make their way in, it is safe to assume that they are skilled at infiltration and have practiced this before. It's possible that this group has been sneaking onto the Base for a while now, but hasn't acted yet. Commander Tedzuka and I believe that, if they are going to act, it will be soon. If this group is in any way aligned with or in support of the Media Improvement Act, then they have to act before the end of next week. Next week, as I hope you all remember, is when the courts will make their final decision about further limitations to the Act. I don't need to tell you how bad it would be if they were to find a weak point in the library's system right now." The crowd buzzed with nervous chatter. "So, in order to efficiently handle this-"

"Wait…WHAT?!" Someone near the middle shouted. "There are spies here?!" Oh god, please tell me that wasn't…

"What the hell kind of idiot are you?" Another voice hissed. "Sit down and stop making a scene in the middle of the meeting!" There was a dull thunk. Yup. It was them.

"Did you really have to hit me? You're making just as much of a scene as I am!"

"And who's fault do you think that is?!"

"Is there a problem over there?" Director Komura frowned in the direction of the commotion.

"It's nothing to worry about, sir," a third person assured him. "Just the Doujou couple with the usual. Carry on, they'll settle down in a minute."

"Ah," Director Komura nodded, completely accepting this explanation. "Then, as I was saying…"

Seriously? He was just going to ignore that embarrassing outburst and keep talking like it was nothing? Actually, when I looked around the room, it seemed like that scene hadn't phased anyone. A few people had turned to see what was going on, but their attention went right back to Director Komura. Most people hadn't reacted at all. It was as if that was so common of a scene that everyone just wrote it off as a perfectly normal occurrence.

My head sunk down to the desk.

"You okay?" Ryuu whispered.

"Not even a little. Who asked those two to be so embarrassing?" And why did I have to be related to them? "I knew that's how they acted at home, but I had always assumed they were…you know…more reasonable in public." I have no idea why I assumed that. It was really more wishful thinking than anything else.

"You have no grounds to complain when you're a carbon copy of your parents."

"I know…" I sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Ryuu. I will never cause trouble for you again."

"Can I have that in writing?" He asked with a quiet laugh.

"…and if you see this group, you are all strongly advised to avoid confrontation. Report it to the Special Task Force immediately. Likewise, if anyone has any information that could be helpful, you are asked to report to the Commander's office during the next break. I cannot stress enough how urgent this is. We need to find out who these people are and what they want before anything bad happens." Director Komura continued.

"They're really going all out to catch these guys, aren't they…?" I hoped that they could catch them. What kind of people would break into the Library Base at a time like this…wait...oh. Oh no. It couldn't possibly be… I glanced over at Ryuu, who had gone pale.

The two of us sat there in stone silence until the next break.

-x-

Ryuu:

I knew this would happen. I had completely seen this coming. I told Aki that this was what was going to happen before we even left for this stupid little adventure. Why couldn't I ever just listen to myself? But no, I had to go ahead and let Aki do whatever she pleased and look where that got us. This was by far the worst trouble she had ever gotten us in. And there was very little that I could do to resolve this situation. We were both dead. Dead for sure.

When the next break came in the meeting, a little over an hour later, I grabbed Aki's wrist and hurried the two of us out of there. We were going home now. We'd just go home, put away the uniforms, and never speak of this day again. That is, assuming we could make it off the Base without rousing the suspicion of everyone else. I had less than no desire to be dragged off to the Base Commander's office as a criminal.

"Ryuu…I know that I promised we would go right home at the next break, but we have to do one more really important thing first."

"Unless that important thing is 'to dig a hole and hide in it until this all blows over,' I really don't want to hear it."

"Don't be ridiculous." I was being ridiculous? Seriously? Which one of us was the one that wanted to stay in a place where we were being hunted down by people trained to us guns? "We have to go to the Commander's office."

"Excuse me?" Aki was reckless, of course, but this was too much even for her. "You are aware that the Commander and the Special Task Force are actively searching for us because they think we're supporters of the Media Improvement Act, right?"

"Not us," Aki shook her head. "Weren't you paying attention? This meeting has been scheduled for at least a week. Meaning that the issues with security have been going on for longer than that. We can't possibly be the group that they're talking about because this is the first time I've ever been on the Base. And you haven't been here in years."

"That's…" She had a point. Amazingly enough, Aki had been calm and rational enough to pay better attention than me to the Library Director's lecture. "So…if it isn't us that they're after, why do we need to meet with the Commander? Can't we just cut our losses and get out of here while they're all distracted?"

"No! We can't leave now. Because even though we aren't the ones they're looking for, we know who is."

"I'm not following…"

"Think about it." Aki sighed, looking disappointed. "The real culprits also snuck into the Base today, dressed in Defense Force uniforms. So who did we see while exploring that was wearing Defense Force uniforms and didn't quite fit in with the rest of the Force?"

"Those men that ran into you in the library." I had thought there might be something off about them, but at the time, I just wrote it off as paranoia. However, if they were the ones behind all the security breaches lately, that made a lot of sense. "But, even if we saw them, there must have been a dozen others who saw them as well. We can't just march into the Commander's office. Especially since the Special Task Force will be there as well. That means your father. If you go in there, you'll never see the light of day again."

"Ryuu, I can't just sit around and assume that other people will do this for me. We have the ability to help, so we have to do it. Even if it means getting into a bit of trouble." I had never seen her look so serious in her life. Even this morning's level of stubbornness couldn't compare.

"Why are you so serious about this?"

"Because the Library's in danger, dammit!"

And with that, I was dragged off to the office of Base Commander Tedzuka to face whatever horrible fate awaited us in the name of saving the Library. I could only hope that this ended well for everyone involved…

-x-

Final Note: Phew *wipes sweat from brow*, finally done. I had to rewrite this chapter so many times that it's not even funny anymore. Hopefully the next one won't be as painful. Or take as long to write. I'm really sorry that you all had to wait so long for this to come out, but thank you for your patience and I will do my best not to let it happen again.
If you could be so kind as to take a minute to write a review, I would really appreciate it. I would love to know what you thought of my story, if you liked it, or what I should change/work on next time. Until then, I hope you enjoyed my story and I look forward to seeing y'all again soon.

With love, IrisRaylene