Unrelated Chaos

[ACSR: Memories]

The fact that Joule was being pulled into so much to do with the cards was basically confirmation that the next big event would involve them in some way.

...Well. The events around Yuuri Senya could have been called big but the mystery of the second person who was using the cards was still up in the air.

Why was Joule thinking about this? Oh yes. It was because Saten had invited her on a hunt for interesting cards on the seventh. Joule had taken the time to try out Saten's card from the last time they had talked and now she could use a Kendama quite well. The card had run out though so they sadly had to throw it away.

Regardless, the hunt was just like previous adventures with Saten, they were basically just rotating between some of her favourite merchants and checking their new stock.

Red light filtered by overhead as the evening dragged on and Saten led the way to the next collecter, the very same collector that had been holding onto Bust upper as it happened.

"You?" The shopkeeper seemed surprised to see her.

Saten looked at Joule with surprise but Joule just explained quickly there'd been something that had happened with some of his cards.

It's a pity there was no clean way for her to ask why so many of the cards were about people with small breasts. That felt a little strange to ask about in public. Saten was already looking at the new cards he had on sale though.

"Have you had any good cards come in lately?"

The collecter looked down at his cards and thought about it.

He thought about it for a moment.

"One that you might like? Hmm..." He then pointed at some of the cards "There's this one from a clacker champion, thos one from a coin-stacking record holder and then this-" He held up the card he had been looking at for her to see "It's from an incredibly skillful chopstick handler."

Joule smiled "Lots of little tricks."

Saten nodded back, an equal grin on her face "You know it... let's see."

She ended up buying the chopsticks card, trading with a dice trick card she'd apparently used last night to lower the cost, and they went to move on.

They strolled down the street together as Saten pulled out her phone and opened a text app Joule hadn't seen before.

"What's that?" She asked, looking over.

Saten explained simply as she typed "It's called Speech Bubble, it's a new messenger app that doesn't use usernames but instead you make custom images, see?"

On the screen, Saten's message about finding the chopsticks card was being said in a speech bubble by a little circle with a flower design in it.

"A flower? I thought you'd go for a paper airplane if you got to design it?"

Saten shrugged "Well, I like it. And Uiharu doesn't use it yet so..." glancing away, Saten looked at the highway bridge to their right "It's been getting more popular lately, you want to join?"

"I'll download it later." Joule noted "Who were you sending that too though?" The symbol of the person she was talking to was a doll.

Saten shrugged "What was her name... I told you about her didn't I? Frenda, the girl who opened the mackerel can with explosives."

Joule nodded "Yes, I remember. Oh! You said you'd been chatting, was it with this?"

Nodding once more as she put her phone away, Saten looked at the chopsticks card again.

"I can't wait to use this." She smiled as she spoke.

Joule nodded "It seems like your thing, but do you really think it's possible to do it with a normal pair of chopsticks? If you really try it on something as small as a grain of sugar, surely the sugar would just slip. Or it would get disolved if there was any liquid on the chopsticks themselves."

Saten shrugged "I think it would still work somehow. I guess I'd be able to tell you tomorrow though... Oh, I should also tell Uiharu!"

As she pulled out her phone. Lumen seemed to react to something.

"Joule, Something's wrong..."

[ACSR: high speed]

At that moment, a car swerved onto the pavement just in front of them. Joule helped pull the slightly distracted Saten back for safety.

Before they could react though, some other pedestrians had caught up with them. Saten looked to the side and Joule reacted quickly when she heard something spraying.

Saten fell back, seemingly sedated from some kind of aerosol the man had been holding and another man grabbed her.

"What!" Joule yelled out as indigent rage filled her. That and fear for her friend.

The men looked at her and the man raised the spray again. Though Joule tried to get away, the other man grabbed her arm and she took a blast of the sedative to the face too.

The last thing she felt was being roughly grabbed and thrown into the car that had swerved into the pavement.

She'd been kidnapped again. Oh, but Saten was with her too this time. That was nice...

End of chapter

Now I have the timeline in the right order again, it's time for this miniarc. Bit of a shorter chapter but this needed set-up.