Shadowed Glass
[ACMI:Alchemy]
Sitting on a park bench, GV held a pair of notes in his hand as the late morning sun shone from overhead. The first one had been sitting at his home when he arrived in the morning.
"Dear GV. We've taken Joule. She will not be experimented on and will be returned within the next few weeks."
The second note had been passed to him via a friend, their choice of messenger really said something.
"So, what does it say?" Misaka peaked over to read it with him. She'd said Tokiwadai had given her the morning off and that someone had asked her to deliver the message to him. She'd been confused but now…
The second message, as GV removed it from the envelope, read as followed.
"Stop searching, you should know that we're not foolish enough to hurt her. Her life isn't being used as leverage or anything of the sort. We know who we'd be making enemies of if we did."
"Oh." Misaka blinked at the piece of paper "Joule has been kidnapped, hasn't she."
"She has." GV confirmed, showing her the first message as he looked over the second one again "I don't really understand why they took her if they didn't want any leverage or to experiment on her."
"What did you do to them?" Misaka handed him back the note.
GV shrugged "There was a dark side related thing, I was recruited to a new group but I basically ignored the mission objective as it would have required me to hurt some familiar faces."
Misaka scowled at that "You really need to get out of dark side business if this keeps happening. Don't you and Joule both have level 4 budgets? It isn't like you'd have trouble paying for anything."
GV shook his head "I'm doing it mostly for information at this point. I'm worried about most of the secret experiments the city is doing and they're well hidden from the surface."
Misaka grunted at that and looked up into the sky. Overhead a blimp was flying by with a message that made her react.
"Oh yeah, did you hear about that?"
"Hear about what?" GV looked up from the letter, following Misaka's gaze to the blimp. It was showing a news report titled "Academy City Board of Directors responds to War declaration."
"War's broken out." Misaka muttered "Russia declared it last night."
"Huh." GV sighed "That must have been when I was already out on the mission."
Silence passed between them as GV looked at the notes again.
"I don't think we'll have much trouble here." Misaka was still looking up at the blimp "I've heard they're evacuating some of the overseas bases but nothing like that has been announced here."
"Who'd you hear that from?" GV asked as he folded the notes and put them away in his pocket.
MIska closed her eyes "One of my sisters, '46, she mentioned it earlier today. Apparently the evacuees contain a good number of my Sisters."
GV nodded, though he was surprised, he didn't know Misaka kept so close a contact with her sisters that she saw them regularly.
The two were silent for a moment as GV pondered.
"Do you have any ideas?" Misaka asked softly "About what to do or where she is?"
"Nothing." GV muttered in an annoyed tone. "If they'd sent the message digitally I might have somewhere to start. With things as they are though, basically my only lead is whoever gave you the message."
Misaka thought back, tilting her head to the side "The Dorm Supervisor. She should still be there today if you want to talk to her."
GV considered the notes again. Whoever had taken her wanted him to stop searching, but didn't really give him a reason to do so. They weren't threatening Joule in any way after all.
"Yeah." GV nodded "I think I do want to ask her, though neither of us will be able to tell if she's telling the truth."
Misaka frowned, as if an idea was making her a little uncomfortable. "We could ask Shokuhou after school."
GV considered that, but then shook his head "No, there's someone we can ask before that. She's not doing any education right now to my knowledge so she should be free to help. I'm just going to have to ask you not to mention Shokuhou when we talk to her."
"Who is it?" Misaka asked.
GV pulled out his phone "I don't think you've met, her name is-"
"Mitsuari Ayu." The girl gave a nod to Misaka as they met up at a Cafe outside the School Garden "Pleased to meet you, Miss Railgun."
"Just call me Misaka." Misaka was wary of the girl. GV had only mentioned that she was a talented telepath but-
"Are you sure we've never met before?" Misaka asked, "Something about you seems familiar."
From the look of her, it seemed like whatever it was could be on the tip of her tongue.
Mitsuari shook her head though "I know you by reputation, though we have been involved in a few events in the past. Have you heard of the Ideal Laboratory?"
Misaka's eyes grew lidded as she thought back "I have encountered it a few times but I can't remember you specifically."
Mental Stinger shook her head "Regardless, GV, I hear someone tried to poach you."
"There were some disagreements in how they did things." GV remarked casually "I probably won't work with them again. Said arguments also involved someone being kidnapped, I want to ask for your help in tracking them down."
The girl nodded as she thought before looking up "Very well, I'm in. What are we doing first?"
End of chapter.
Now I'm violently swerving from what I thought the WW3 arc was going to be, because there is no sensible way to get GV involved in the war itself. Joule's kidnappers aren't stupid enough to send her out of the city (which was part of my original plan) and nor are they stupid enough to threaten her.
Instead I'm going to take this time to analyse a few dangling plot threads that exist from this story before we get to the awaited October 30th.
The name of this arc in my notes is "Null Gemstone."
Side note: The repository I previously used to read the light novels for the Acqua arc has been removed, which means I'm somewhat worried that once I hit the end of Index 3, I'm going to be out of canon material for the future.
Edit: Damn, forgot to upload this at the normal time again. I should really set up a dedicated reminder.
