Musset

Musset (ミュッセ) is a minor character in Toaru Majutsu no Index. A French terrorist, he along with his accomplice Eiker Lugoni, was involved in the Sky Bus 365 terrorist incident, but was thwarted by the efforts of Kamijou Touma.

Personality
Patriotic to France to a fault, Musset is very anti-England, and sees the country as already guilty for putting France in a troublesome situation, without any evidence at all and contradicting information. He is willing to sacrifice lives even his own to do his mission.

For much of his appearance, he is fidgety and nervous as his plans have already gone awry before his operation began.

Background
As part of a French anti-English organization, Musset believes that the Eurotunnel bombing, which is hurting both of England and France's economies, is all England's fault and swore to do an equal amount of damage to it through stopping England's air routes. To do this, the terrorists wanted the destruction of the master recorders for the 4 major airlines in the United Kingdom.

Wanting to hijack a plane without any weapons, the terrorists strike a deal with several organizations for information and shelter in exchange for teaching them what they knew. With this, the group is able to make use of the information given to them about Sky Bus 365 stopping at France to be used to transport goods, and chooses it as its target. Knowing of the structural defect in the Sky Bus 365's model, the terrorists take flights on planes with the same model as "practice runs". These planes are Flight 5991 from Paris to Moscow, Flight 4135 from Neath to New York, and Flight 7558 from Marseille to Beijing, cutting their engines for 15 seconds during mid-flight during their tests. Armed with this knowledge, one of them then sends an e-mail threatening the airliner and specifically mentions the structural defect of Sky Bus 365's model likely to add weight to their threat.

Eiker meanwhile, has Musset apparently board the plane apparently at Academy City in the business class section of the plane. He would also book a seat next to a square portion of the plane that can be removed easily under a false name. This is where they can take advantage of the structural defect in the Sky Bus 365, and use it to make it crash. Eiker gives Musset a notepad containing vital information to the plan, like the seat plan for the flight, and instructs him not to look on it if he didn't have to, and only recheck it if it is important. Musset also had with him a cell phone with a program that if he is able to connect to Sky Bus 365's system, then he will be able to infect it and cripple its emergency landing stabilizer. From then on, he would likely force the plane to do an emergency "belly landing". He also arms himself a knife made from animal bone, allowing it to go by metal detectors undetected. Later, after the plane lands in Paris to transport the goods, Eiker will smuggle himself into the plane's cargo hold. He would bring with him a collection of explosives, intending to bring down the plane if their primary failed. Basically, the plan was to manipulate the emergency landing stabilizers and threaten to crash the plane if the United Kingdom doesn't destroy its master recorders for the airlines, if that fails then they will be forced to make use of the second plan, where the plane would be threatened in being blown up instead.

On October 17 of the story's first year, the airliner was scheduled to fly from District 23 in Academy City to Edinburgh, Scotland. Musset boards the plane and sits in the business class section, in an area where he can see the supposedly empty seat in the economy class section.

British Royal Family Arc
After Sky Bus 365 safely takes off from Paris after taking in goods for transport to the United Kingdom, Musset makes his move. He has been watching Touma as he is the seat that was supposed to be empty. After rechecking his notes, he concludes that Touma was able to purchase a ticket for the seat after the "passenger" that Eiker booked was cancelled after the boarding deadline. To deflect suspicion from him, he goes to the second story of the aircraft and doubles back down to his story. He walks pass by Touma, secretly observing him, wondering what he should do.

Seeing as his primary plan has already fallen apart, Musset strikes a female flight attendant at the back of the head in order to steal her card key, wanting to enact the second plan where he takes Eiker out of the cargo hold and have him use conventional explosives instead. Musset later retreats to the area where the emergency hatch was after stealing the flight attendant's card key. Despite having the card, Musset could not get the emergency hatch to open in order to get Eiker out of the cargo hold for their backup plan. He later rechecks Touma's seat and finds out he isn't there, and Index was also wandering about in the aisle. Seeing his chance, he leaves to once again go to the stairs to get to the other floor and come back down and approach the seat from the other direction.

Despite his precautions, Index still notices and approaches him, telling the Musset that he is sitting on Touma's seat. Irritated by the setbacks, Musset pulls out his animal bone knife and threatens Index discreetly from the eyes of the passengers and crew as he continues on with his operation. He opens up the square portion of the wall but finds that the port where the connector of his phone was supposed to go to was broke. Index points out that the portion was "opened up" (as in accidentally hit) by Touma a while ago. With his plans in disarray, Musset was in a loss. And with Index being a witness to his operations, decided to get rid of her first before deciding what step he should take next.

Touma however, hears noises outside the room where is being held captive by the captain in order to prevent panic and chaos in the passengers after discovering there is a terrorist in the plane. Here, he also hears the familiar sound of Index's whistle as the terrorist leads Index to a storage closet as he begins strangling her. Paranoia grips Touma and believing that worst, Touma takes an aluminum cart and smashes it through the door, bringing it down. He then finds a closed door and open, and there he finds Musset straddling Index and trying to choke her with a hose. Furious, Touma throws Musset away from Index, making him hit the wall before falling to the floor. Touma tries to kick him but he manages to dodge, making Touma kick the thin wall and breaking it. Musset attacks Touma's leg with his animal bone knife, making a small cut. Touma however grabs the broken handle of the aluminum cart. He flinches in fear, but before Touma can strike, the pilot and the flight attendant Touma appear. Musset then flees before they can arrive. With Index a priority first, Touma goes to her where she mentions to him about flight stabilizers.

After fleeing, Musset later blends in with the with the passengers, making Touma unable to find him. Wanting to unnerve the man, Touma returns to the wall separating the business and economy classes, and turns on a switch that makes an alarm sound throughout the plane and forces the oxygen masks out of the ceilings for the passengers. This predictably unnerves the Musset as he believes that the plane might crash in an accident before he could enact his plan and making his and his group's efforts for nothing.

The pilot decides to do an emergency landing after being fooled by Necessarius' manipulations. Noticing that the plane is going for an emergency landing even before he can tamper with the emergency landing stabilizers, Musset goes to the wall area and uses the microphone there to contact the cockpit. There, he bluffs to the captain that he has control over the Sky Bus 365's structural defect and he can bring down the plane any time he wants. He then demands that if he doesn't want the 500 people on-board to die then the pilot should take them back to the proper altitude. Despite this the pilot says that he cannot do it, confessing to the terrorist what he thinks is happening to the plane. The terrorist threatens again, saying that he will kill passengers one by one after 3 minutes if they still don't follow his demands. Despite this, the pilot is adamant in continuing for an emergency landing, saying that even if the terrorist kill half of the passengers, there is still plenty left if he is able to land. In spite of the pilot's intentions, someone from Scotland has sealed their long distance illusion magic. This then allowed the pilot to return to their proper altitude.

Musset notices the change as well, but before he can take advantage of the situation, Kamijou Touma has finally found him. He tries to draw his animal bone knife, but Touma was already too close, and he was able to prevent him from using it lest he'd be injured himself. He tries to shake off Touma but before he can do so he head-butts him. He then knees the man in the gut, making him collapse on the ground. There, he reaches into his suit pocket to get his knife but discovers that it has broken in two. With Touma having the complete advantage, he punches Musset several times. Touma later ties him up and puts him in one of the small rooms in the "wall".

After the defeat of Eiker, it is likely that both Musset and Eiker are later taken in by the authorities after the plane safely lands.

Quotes

 * (To Index, from Volume 17): "Airport security mainly gets by with metal detectors... So it’s surprisingly easy to get something like a knife made of whittled animal bone past them. And it’s enough to pierce an organ or cut an artery."