1.10 – What it takes

The halls were already beginning to fill with students peeking out of the classrooms, yet nobody was running quite as intently as Nathan and Alicia were. The only exceptions were the few teachers, some of them running, others flying in the direction from which the smoke began to fill the hallway.

No other explosion followed, but there was so much smoke just after a minute of running that Nathan wondered just how big the explosion was. It wasn’t as large as the one he had seen yesterday, that was for sure. But why there was an explosion in the middle of a university was beyond him as well.

Although I guess there’s far too many reasons for there to be an explosion here. He wondered, as he began losing his breath. There were far too many superpowered people in one place here, and that meant all manners of accidents were just prone to happen rather sooner than later. Perhaps this was a common thing to happen? Yet he just never experienced it in the game?

He also couldn’t suppress the feeling of irritation that rose within him. The class he was in had just begun delving into interesting topics, and the main villains would surely be vital information for Nathan for the foreseeable future. The game did focus on some of the smaller gangs located in Tokyo as well, but the biggest gang? He couldn’t remember for now. He knew, however, that they were the most dangerous villains in the whole of Asia.

If the happy endings meant what he was beginning to suspect they meant, then the knowledge would be a hard requirement.

Finally, he made the turn in the opposite direction from where his own class was located, and the smoke billowed from the classroom on the rightmost end. The door was blown apart, placed on the floor. Several teachers gathered there, looking into the classroom, with horrified expressions on their masked faces.

Nathan and Alicia finally closed the distance, and upon glancing into the classroom, immediately understood why the teachers looked so horrified. The class was completely filled with blood. The wall on the opposite side and the windows were missing completely, blown out into the grass. Heads and bodies, or whatever remained of them, littered the space wherever he looked. Students, twenty years old or so, several dozen of them were dead.

Heroes that could have helped in the fights for the future were just gone.

For whatever reason, and he didn’t really know why, Nathan didn’t feel as shocked as the teachers around. He instead stepped into the classroom, his mind set on looking for any survivors. The explosion was giant, sure, but these were superpowered people. Perhaps if somebody noticed just a millisecond before the explosion went off, they could have saved themselves.

It was at this time that he noticed there was one teacher in the classroom already, looking for survivors, just as he wanted to. Vermilion Strike, throwing the dead, or what remained of them, out onto the grass and trying to check for the pulse on any student she found in mostly one piece.

Nathan somewhat registered Alicia retching on the floor behind him.

“Strike, have you found anyone alive yet?” Nathan asked, rushing to stand beside her. He did his damned best to ignore the feeling of the blood seeping into his boots and failed completely. The sounds of retching also made bile rise in the back of his throat, but the fact that he actually wanted to save someone helped remedy the feeling somewhat.

“No, nobody yet. Help me look.” She said, her red hair swaying behind her. “Hey, you two! Help me as well!” She shouted at the teachers, not bothering with their names.

Nathan joined in her search, moving the bodies and body parts to the side as he searched for anyone that could still be alive.

What… how did the explosion happen?” Nathan asked, trying to put his mind onto other matters.

“Nobody knows yet. There was probably a bomb attached to the window from the inside. Somebody must have gotten in here during the night, and nobody noticed.” Vermillion said, disgust palpable in her voice.

In her past life, she’d be leering at a situation like this, but now she seemed genuinely hurt, as if she was one step away from breaking down. Nathan noticed how her hands shook, how her pupils dilated as she looked around, and yet she kept searching, trying to save at least one life.

Nathan also noticed that Alicia finally picked herself up from the floor, stepped over the pile of bile she left there, and joined the search as well. Even though the teachers warned everyone to stay in the classrooms, none of the three reprimanded either Nathan or Alicia. Apparently, now that they were here, they could act as heroes that they were meant to be.

This book’s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Suddenly, Strike touched her ear, making Nathan notice the earpiece for the first time, and she grunted as somebody spoke to her.

“What is it, Mrs. Strike?” Nathan asked, trying to discern the expression she was making, though her face could have been stone for all that it showed.

The playful smile from yesterday was nowhere to be found.

“There were several explosives like this all around the top classes.” She said, shaking her head. “Apparently each S and A class had one.”

For the first time, Nathan realized that he didn’t know what this class was even supposed to be. The people under his feet were mostly severed from their body part, and so it was a harder task than it normally would be, but if this was class A or S, then that restricted his guesses somewhat. It also meant that quite possibly at least one or two people from this class would have been in the video game, either a minor or bigger role.

“That’s not the worst of it.” Strike continued searching. Still though, her shoulders slumped in a way that showed that she wasn’t that hopeful about the prospects of finding anyone alive. “This was Class 2-A. They had so many hopeful prospects for the future.” She shook her head, one hand placed on her forehead. “They would have made such great heroes, saved thousands of lives if needed, now dead.”

It was still hard to connect that this was the Vermilion Strike that Nathan hated in the game, but in front of him was a person that seemed genuinely scarred from what they were seeing.

“Did the other classes explode as well?” Alicia asked, not bothering to go through the small puddle of blood anymore. Apparently she came to the same conclusion as the teacher has.

“No. Clarence turned all of them off, but if this is what I think it is, then that’s just the start of our problems.”

She looked at the other teachers in the classroom, but they were already going out, apparently called by the principal or whoever else was ruling this school. Nathan never cared; he knew that the school was a university, though with a strangely high school-like structure; a hierarchy, more like. Now the principal told them not to bother checking for bodies. He didn’t know how that made him feel.