And more questions are born

[ACSRT: Childhood Days]

They took a slower and safer walk to the park where they met up with Uiharu and the dog.

Miyama's joy was clear to see as Uiharu held the dog towards him.

"Other than some possible smoke inhalation, he's fine. Shirai and Konori got him out safely. Shirai will able to go with you and him to the vet later."

As he held the dog to himself, Joule looked at the fire. Helicopters were now flying overhead and dispensing a foam that would put out the fire.

"What actually started the fire?" She wondered aloud.

Uiharu answered her, holding some sort of vial made of green glass, it was broken aat the top.

"These were spread throughout the park."

"Bombs?" Saten stepped back quickly but Uiharu shook her head and continued.

"Maybe that was the intention but this is a plant ampoule. When planted at cherry trees, it makes them bloom even when it's out of season for them."

Saten stepped back in and looked at the small ampoule.

"And what? It was explosive?"

"Highly flammable." Uiharu nodded "And once it would have gotten in the trees..."

They'd be flammable too.

Joule nodded but paused "Why though? If the goal was just to see cherry blossoms..."

She heard footsteps as Konori walked up.

"Evening all of you, thank you for bringing Miyama."

"Thank you for helping save his dog." Joule nodded in return.

Konori accepted the thanks and looked around as Shirai teleported in besides them, pulling off a breathing mask as she did so.

It seems the problem was over then. That said, it was late.

Everyone went home for the night, Shirai taking Miyama and his dog to the vet first of course. Her long day wasn't over yet it seemed.

Joule though was able to relax in her and GV's room. He's just gotten back himself.

She told him about the day as they ate a late supper and the discussion eventually came back to the ampoules.

"I don't really understand it." Joule admitted "If someone had the skill to make something that could affect trees in that way, surely they'd know it was dangerous. If they wanted to make something beautiful, why not warn people about the danger. If they wanted to hurt people, there were probably better ways than with a compound that would do something as obvious as make flowers bloom out of season."

GV thought about it for a second before thinking of something.

"How about the poker cards?"

"I thought that matter was over though?" Joule tilted her head "I thought the culprit behind it would have stopped."

GV shook his head "The culprit behind the cursed cards, the ones from Clone Dolly's Ideal lab, isn't still working on them. She's offered a job to be actually, I spent part of today looking into that matter."

"What matter?" Joule asked.

GV paused, looking for the right words.

"She wanted me to look into the research done on Mental Out, the ability, not Misaki herself. Other than Exterior, there were other projects in the works."

Joule nodded, she remembered Misaki mentioning Exterior and seing what it could do.

"And you asked her about the Poker cards?"

He nodded "She wasn't working on them at first, she only realised she could use them for her plan when someone else started distributing the plans for the printers first."

So, that still raised the question of who was the true mastermind?

Well, Joule thought, we're probably going to figure it out within the next few days, that's normally how this went.

End of chapter.

A short one, but it was useful to close out that arc.

Next time, Bust Upper. Or "A chance to look into Joule's envy of Lumen."