Chapter 5: The K team
Kyosuke Munakata entered the office, where Chisa and Juzo Sakakura were already waiting for him.
"Welcome back to Hope's peak, Munakitkat," Chisa said.
"I'm never going to live that down, am I?" Munakata said. Juzo snickered at his reaction.
"Not until you do something funnier." Chisa said.
"Anyway, what's been going on with the investigation?" Munakata cut to the meat of the matter.
"I got into position as the teacher of class 77, thanks for the help on that by the way," Chisa started.
"No problem."
"They're a nice bunch, but the whole ordeal with them has been… Telling. Most of the class has some nasty skeletons in their closet, and not only are they not required to come to class, they were barely interacting with each other until I dragged them all back myself. I also heard that the teachers are completely unqualified, basically taking whoever will work for the cheapest or is already on staff to be written in as the teacher. However, since students aren't required to take class, I've already found that some teachers don't even bother to show up themselves. It's a mess of a school, overall. The only real consolation seems to be that all the employees realize what a hellhole this place is and aren't happy about it." Chisa's words were starting to get heated.
"What do the skeletons in the closet have to do with anything?"
"They're a mess overall, many from damaged families or generally poor living conditions, and are not exactly in a good place mentally… But they're good kids, and I tried my best to help them despite the lack of care and support from the school. Someone to talk to, an emotional support, whatever I could offer."
"Do they have anything to do with that button?" Juzo gestured toward the green button on her apron with the words "Ultimate Mom" printed on it.
"Kazuichi made a machine that turns soda cans into buttons and wanted to test it, and the word 'Housekeeper' didn't fit," she said, a bit flustered.
"Sure thing, Ultimate mom," Munakata said.
"Hush, Munakitkat. Anyway, after Nagito's little incident with the exams, I got booted to the reserve course, where things were even worse. It makes me sad just thinking about it, so I'm not going to go into detail about it, but they are definitely not getting their money's worth out of this education. I also had Juzo grab me a trustee ID card, and used it to find out about the Kamakura project."
"Juzo's carrying the team as usual, nothing new there." Munakata ignored Juzo's laughter at the comment.
"Anyway, I found it's a project involving human experimentation. It was apparently a contract with the military to create a process to turn anyone into a supersoldier by giving them an influx of talent, a contract which they were given money to pay for. Either it wasn't enough or they were pocketing part of it, because they needed more, and so the reserve course was made. Part of the process involves wiping the memory and personality of the subject to avoid 'contaminating their mind', and they've only had one subject so far, a kid from the reserve course that I met once or twice." Chisa had to stop to take a breath. "That's all I've got."
"Well… That's some heavy stuff… Juzo, do you have anything?" Munakata said, writing out some notes on what she had said.
"Some, but nothing good. Being head of security sucks. I'm not allowed to hire new guards, decide anything about the rules or the punishments that go with them, or even enforce the rules if the trustees say I can't. Honestly, without petitioning the trustees to do something, which they won't do unless it's free and is guaranteed to cause them zero inconvenience, all I can do is tell the dozen security guards I have where to stand." Juzo sounded quite annoyed.
"Well, their poor security is to our benefit in this case."
"Yeah, but even if I was actively looking to upend Hope's peak this would be embarrassing. I don't even have a full dozen anymore, five of the guards mysteriously disappeared a few days ago when I had them patrolling the labs to keep them out of Chisa's way."
"And how are the trustees acting?"
"Terrible, as usual. They decided those guards who disappeared would be reported as having left work as normal and not showing up the next day. Then when the police come, they'll insist on an internal investigation, which is mostly them yelling at me to solve it with no equipment or training, and only the help of seven men with a collective IQ in the double digits, all while still doing my regular job of keeping the students under control. The recent disappearance of the student council is coming up to vote in a day or two, but I can already tell you it's going to go the same way. And you can bet that if anything goes wrong, I'll be the one taking the blame."
"Is this place actually a school or just some kind of elaborate tax scam?" Munakata asked, somewhat rhetorically.
"Wish I could tell ya… Wait a minute…" Juzo said, pulling out his phone. He looked up nervously at Chisa and Munakata. "Munakata, you'll want to see this. Chisa… You definitely don't…"
Munakata walked over behind him, and saw the video he had on his phone. A boy with red eyes and black hair, slaughtering the student council. It looped back to the beginning, and there was a short speech stating that it was a test of the Kamakura project.
"We have to call the police," was all Munakata could say.
"It might be too late," was Juzo's response.
"What happened?" Chisa asked, concern etched into her face.
"The student council is dead, they were killed as a test of the Kamakura project," Munakata said.
"WHAT!?" Chisa shouted, holding her body up off the table with both arms.
"It might be a trick by some outside party, but I'd have a hard time saying Hope's peak wouldn't do it…" Juzo said.
"I need to get back to my class…" Chisa said, pushing her chair back and moving for the door.
"I'll talk to the principal. Juzo, find the trustees and make them do something. You have my permission to get rough if necessary," Munakata said, pulling the katana out of his jacket and tying the string on the sheath through the belt loops on his pants.
"Gotcha."
The three split up, to try their best to stop things from spiraling out of control.
Chisa arrived at her classroom. Her empty classroom, devoid of the students she had tried so hard to bring together. Her mind jumped to the disappearances of the other students and the guards, and panic set in. She sprinted down the hall, calling the names of her students and hoping against hope that they were fine.
After an hour of running through halls, between buildings, and just around campus, Chisa broke down and dropped to the ground crying. Her whole body was wracked by sobbing, while her makeup ran with her tears. For several minutes, she stayed like that before she pulled herself together.
Her attention was drawn to the rioting of the reserve course. Hundreds, if not thousands of students who had faced months to years of mistreatment now pushed over the edge. She couldn't blame them for their anger, but rioting wasn't going to solve much. Still, it's not as if she could help with their plight. All she could do was keep calling for her students, and praying for their safety.
Munakata reached the principal's office, to find the door blocked. He pounded on the door, and it opened an inch. Kizakura looked out.
"It's Munakata," he said, tilting his head toward the inside of the room.
"Let him in," a voice Munakata recognized as Jin Kirigiri said.
There was a bit of rumbling and then the door opened. Munakata entered, and Kizakura closed the door, pushing the couch in front of it. Jin had his head in his hands on the desk.
"Principal Kirigiri, what do you know about this?" Munakata asked.
"A little… Some…" Jin's words were broken, he couldn't make a coherent sentence.
Munakata drew his sword, placing the point on the desk.
"Okay, I knew it all… but this… this was never part of the plan." Jin pulled himself together a bit, "I would never have given the go-ahead for this kind of test, I was barely on board with using a student as a test subject. If you want to kill me, I probably deserve it…" Jin hung his head in his hands again.
"You need to do something." Munakata said, keeping his sword drawn.
"I can't do anything! Any decision besides which students to let in have to go through the trustees. I can't do anything here, now this place is falling apart and I can't even provide a place for my own daughter…"
"Dammit, that's not good enough! You're the headmaster of Hope's peak! Make an announcement! Call someone to come help! Throw money out the window! Anything's better than sitting here crying!" Munakata was nearly shouting at the man, but his words did seem to be getting through.
"I… I actually might know someone…" Jin grabbed the phone and started dialing. "Detective Matsura? It's Jin, I need a favor."
Juzo stood before a pack of men of various ages in business suits. Men who were making things incredibly hard.
"If this gets out, there could be an investigation. We could lose everything." One of the men said.
"We need to get to the bunker, it's there for just such an occasion," another said.
Juzo sighed, it figured that the one thing they would spend money on would be to protect them and them alone.
"No. No running. You idiots let it get this bad with your incredibly terrible policies, now you're going to fix it," Juzo said, keeping his voice calm despite his anger.
"But they are completely beyond reason, these talentless beasts couldn't understand any logical argument-" The man was silenced by Juzo's fist. The cracking of bones beneath his fist wasn't an unfamiliar sensation to the ultimate boxer, but it wasn't a typical day in Munakata's service that he felt it.
"No, you're not arguing, you're retiring. All of you. There's a connection to the intercom right down the hall, we're going there and you're all going to say that you're going to let go of your positions as trustees without compensation."
"What? But for all our work-" Another broken jaw. At this rate, Juzo would break his old record before these guys got the hint.
"You guys seem like an educated lot, so I hope your pattern recognition isn't this bad. We're going to the intercom, and you're retiring from your position as trustees. Apparently you don't fear the students enough, so I'm going to make myself very clear: talk shit, get hit." Juzo spoke slowly, enunciating every word. It was something the trustees had done to him when they were complaining about his results, but the irony was probably lost on them.
News crews were arriving at Hope's peak as the reserve course was climbing the fence, running through the halls, and tearing up everything they found. Talented students were holed up in dorms and rooms, fighting off the reserve course when they found them. Finally, a call echoed around the school through the intercom.
"The trustees of Hope's peak would like to formally apologize for the poor judgement regarding the Kamakura project. We are announcing an early retirement, and will be leaving our current duties to the headmaster, effective immediately."
The students stopped rioting, partly in confusion over the announcement. They started pouring into the courtyards of the school. A car pulled up, flanked by several police cars. The intercom kicked up again.
"Headmaster Kirigiri here. Formal investigations into the recent string of crimes and disappearances on campus will be carried out by Detective Matsura. All students are asked to comply with police questioning."
Chisa managed to pull herself together enough to approach the police, and pleaded that they help find her students.