Dynamite And A Laserbeam - Redux

Vol 8 - 6: Final Exams - Part 2

[Beta Read by Doc43Souls]

[The Final Exams – Part 2]

The U.A. Conference room was filled with an eerie sense of dread. After all, because of the actions of a Vampire, one student, Nejire Hado of Class 3 – A, was severely wounded with several broken ribs, a collapsed lung due to one of the broken ribs that had pierced her left lung, and spider-web cracks had formed on her skull and pelvis regions respectively. Another student, Togeike Chikuchi, was murdered by The Vampire by way of the Flesh Bud in her head erupting, causing quite a mess that needed to be cleaned up.

It was a rather harrowing event. Something that the staff should have seen coming considering this same Vampire was more than happy to kill a student before this assault, that student being Tenya Ida. No one thought that The Vampire would have been bold enough to send a thrall and one that was a student at U.A., no less. Whether Chikuchi had been a thrall the entire time, or whether she had been unlucky enough to have encountered The Vampire by chance was an entirely different topic.

In response to this, The Speedwagon Foundation and Hero Safety and Protection Committee urged U.A. to go under lockdown, much to U.A. 's chagrin. However, if they were to protect the students, then they had to do anything they could to make sure the students were safe. And, after some debating, they came to an agreement that U.A. would go under lockdown for one whole year.

And a week into it, things were already going belly up. Students were fighting a lot more, productivity was at an all-time low, and the media were more rancorous than even the most deadly of villains, putting more and more pressure on the school than what probably would have happened had they not gone into lockdown, and demanding the school to release the kids.

In response, everyone decided to do yet another meeting before coming out to the public to address the backlash.

"So, we can all agree that this backfired harder and faster than everyone here expected, correct?" Yamada stated rather than asked, as a round of grumbles and annoyed "yes's" filled the conference room. "So, does anyone have any ideas? Because from what I can gather, we can't do this for much longer. Otherwise, The Government, even though they allowed it, will get pressured to force us to undo it, and run the risk of causing massive defunding of the school."

"Well," Johnny began as he clasped his hands together. "We could always lower The Lockdown time from a year to a few months."

"Respectfully, Mr. Kujo, I don't think that'll help things any better than this is already doing," Sugimoto spoke up in reply, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes. "Do not get me wrong, The Lockdown was a good deterrent for the short-term, but with everyone's mental health tanking and tensions in classes spiking due to not being able to leave campus, I believe it would be best to end The Lockdown, period."

"Unfortunately, we can't do that," the representative of the HSPC interjected, placing their hands firmly on the table in defiance. "The HSPC has already sunk 100 Billion Yen into hiring the guards. For you lot at The Speedwagon Foundation, that might seem like some loose change, but to use, that cuts into our personal coffers. We can't waste that much money on something that gets shut down after a single week."

Nedzu hummed, his expression unreadable as he took a puff from the cigar he was smoking. It wasn't often that Nedzu smoked, but when he did, it was during high levels of stress. There was no doubt in everyone's mind that Nedzu, out of everyone else in the room, was the most stressed out at the moment.

After all, he had information that no one else had.

"There is a traitor amongst you." Those words haunted the Headmaster's mind with each passing day. Part of the reason why The Lockdown was agreed upon was to prevent The League Of Villains from getting information, unbeknownst to everyone else. But, if the letter was to be true, it didn't matter if the school was in Lockdown. The Traitor could just leap through a portal, most likely created by the villain known as Kurogiri, and go wherever they wanted without getting caught.