Blue Archive - M.O.T.H.E.R. (Volume 1)

13

They had arrived in Millenium. Sensei and the student were walking down the street while they watched as the students looked in their direction and murmured. With that, he hoped that at last the blissful rumor of the disappearance would, let's make it redundant, disappear. They were on their way to see Utaha about the assignment. At the engineering club workshop Hibiki and Kotori welcomed them. They were told that Utaha was not in. He had left early and would be back in a while. Meanwhile, Hibiki was showing his deadly weapons to Sensei and Kotori was frying Nodoka's neurons with banal data until Nodoka asked her if she had any interesting facts about Sensei. Smoke came out of Kotori.

Walinex 8985. A cleaning robot that could take care of every nook and cranny of the home and capable of sweeping everything within a hundred feet with the self-destruct button Hibiki had installed on it. Sensei was watching it with intrigue and terror as he was whispered softly in his ear.

''Sensei.''

His skin bristled before he gave a jump where his heart almost stopped. Noa laughed. Yuuka was scolding her and Nodoka was trying to give first aid to Sensei. With his soul returned to his body, Sensei sat down with the seminar girls to talk.

The stargazing mistress watched Noa from behind her beloved teacher's seat. Yuuka asked him who she was. Without going into details, she told him that she was someone from Red Winter who she had asked for help with a job. Noa got up and walked over to the custodian. The student from the largest academy in Kivotos took a few steps back. She hugged her unceremoniously and told Sensei that she thought Nodoka was cute and reminded her of Yuuka-chan. The treasurer scolded her blushing and sent her to sit down. The blue-haired girl apologized to Nodoka and Sensei for her partner's actions and told him that as soon as she knew he would arrive at Millennium, she prepared the information she had obtained by researching the documents he had shown her. The student council secretary revealed that Yuuka spent the whole morning preparing for that moment. It was the third time she had seen him that week and she wanted to make sure she would look good when she saw him.

''Don't you think the least she deserves is a 'How pretty you look?'''

Yuuka didn't see it coming. She froze with a mentally blank expression as she passed the papers to Sensei.

''I'm sorry, Yuuka, I'm sorry... I think I overdid it this time.''

Sensei, intending to make her not feel embarrassed, gave her the final blow by saying that whenever he sees her, he thinks she looks cute. Nodoka puffed out her cheeks in envy as did Noa.

''D-d-don't make fun of me!''

''B-but I...''

She handed him the papers and with an apparent attitude of arrogance and anger sat with her arms crossed. The papers had notes, underlined lines and some words and numbers circled. Noa had to explain what they had found.

Going back to what Yuuka had told you over the cell phone, the receipts pertained to a transaction between Cute & Funny Inc. and an anonymous financial institution in Gehenna. When first checked, the serial numbers on the products did not match what was being sold, but digging deeper into why, as it was very suspicious, and they did not match because of the date. The purchases were already a few months old. The company had recently been acquired by another entity in Kivotos so it had been gradually being restructured, and with it, its products. Knowing that, they dug into the past of Cute & Funny Inc. No matter how hard they searched, they only found that it was a company that moved in the black market, an area that is not far from having its own jurisdiction, they were quite cautious about who they did business with and their products were nothing that could be considered extraordinary except for the sheer quantity in which they were purchased.

In Kivotos there is a law that says that all movements of money in large amounts, whether in cash or transactions between financial entities, have to be registered. That was arguably the number one reason why these invoices existed. Even in such a dangerous area, not complying with the rules could get the black market in trouble with the General Student Council. At first glance, the receipts didn't say anything important, what changed the game was the reporting. The only thing that is reported to the Kivotos administration is the receipts or vouchers for the movements. The report Sensei had received had been written by someone who knew what was hidden behind the receipts. Noa said that there was an encrypted message between the words and the only person she remembered who wrote that way and hid messages with that method in the documents was Kurosaki Koyuki. Summing up what the lucky white rabbit wanted to communicate to sensei was what was purchased, a location out of Kivotos, the buyer and the purpose of the purchase. The girls had seen sensei serious, annoyed and angry before, even without saying a word and just seeing him change his posture and frown, they could tell he was angrier than ever.

Utaha arrived to find an extraordinary gathering in the small corner they had in the workshop for snacks. Everyone looked serious. The atmosphere was quite tense. The president became nervous and didn't hesitate to ask what Hibiki had done. The first-year student nervously claimed to her saying that she had not done anything. The others laughed. The laughter brought Sensei out of his thoughts. He greeted Utaha and asked her if she had found out anything about what he had given her. She handed him back the bag with the three bullets. Utaha said that two of them were generic, cheap, ordinary bullets. That type of bullet was of a spherical design to save costs and could be used in almost any type of weapon and possibly even be reused if necessary. It was the type of bullet regularly used by gang members. The other bullet resembled the other two, it could be said that there was almost no difference, if it were not for some small cracks that she found and because it looked more deteriorated than the other two. At first glance it could be said that it had been used many times, however, the material it was made of was different. It was a metal alloy known to be able to maintain a constant high internal temperature. The outside of the bullet was weaker than the inside and hence the reason for the cracks. The third-year student took the bullet to a well-known genius at Shanhaijin Senior Secondary School. Utaha called the aforementioned genie. Saya's hologram appeared.

''Oh! Sensei, it's been a long time!''

''Hello, Saya.''

''When are you coming to Shanhaijin? I need someone to exp... I mean... Someone to give me a neutral opinion of my experiments.''

''Neutral?'' Nodoka asked.

''I'm sure the Valkyrie girls don't think those experiments are very legal.''

''Tch... They're always sticking their noses where they're not called.''

''Well... we'll talk after ethics. You could tell Sensei the results of the analysis of the bullet I brought you.''

''It was contaminated with bacteria. It's the first time I've seen such a bacterium, but with the tests I've done, I've discovered a couple of peculiarities. The first is that it can only survive at high temperatures. Number two is that not only they are able to infect a body like any other bacteria but through that they are able to steal energy and store it like little batteries.''

''Did you figure all that out just by checking that bullet?''

While Saya was praised, Nodoka told Sensei that what was in the report made more sense after what the Shanhaijin student had said.