-2 Months Before the Present-

3RD PERSON'S POV

A masked figure was sitting elegantly in front of its desktop. Tons and tons of stories were getting copied without the real Author's consent. It was illegal and a big crime to commit. Especially that it was Associated with Celestial Academy, The Home of the Best Authors, and the most Elite school in Japan, also known worldwide.

"With one click--everything will be mine." It sighed in relief, leaning back to its chair as it played with a pen in his hand. "I'll destroy everything and put it to ashes. Everything that you all worked so hard for will burn to the ground." Finally, it pressed a key on the board and every original story was done copying was immediately deleted. "It's time to publish you, my babies." He says again in a low tone. Again, with a click from the mouse. The stories were yet again on the edge of getting published.

He stood up with a satisfied grin plastered on his face. He fixed his vest and the buttons on his wrist, "It's showtime." He chuckles evilly, shoves his hands inside his pockets, and walks away.

On the other hand, the Celestial Academy Board Members and Directors held up an Emergency Meeting regarding the matter. Everyone sat on their respective seats as Chairwoman Lee massages the side of her head with her eyes closed, you can sense the awkward and tense atmosphere inside the Meeting room.

"Safi, please call the Writers immediately, we need to discuss this matter." Principal Giichi exclaims in an irritated tone, Safi quickly complies and dashes off of the room. "Head of Security, Mister Park, please don't let any reporters inside the school."

"Noted, sir." He says too and walks off with his finger on his earpiece, instructing his underlings everything that they need to do.

The Head of Professors was the one to speak up first, "I already got a call from Lizeth Montegue regarding the disappearance of her book on the web. It's the only copy that was posted and now it's gone." Zei kept on looking at his phone, checking if it has any new message from the mentioned writer.

"How about the script on her desktop? I'm sure she kept a copy." Min, the Assitant Professor of the school started with sweat dripping down her forehead.

"She hasn't replied yet." He sighs in frustration, "I'll give her a call once this is over."

"Can't she come to the meeting?" Principal Giichi asks as he dead-ass looked at Zei like he was going to kill him.

Zei shook his head no, "She's in Malaysia for a meet and greet. She'll be staying there for a week."

"Too bad, Lizeth's book was in the process of it turning to a real book." Chief Professor Nero sighs in disbelief.

"Where are the Board of Directors?" Chairwoman Lee gritted her teeth in annoyance, "They are late! We need to fix this mess, and yet they're not here!" she roared, silencing everyone inside the room.

The door opened, revealing a very important member of the board, "Please do calm down, Chairwoman Lee," She comes with a smile, still staying positive even though everyone knows that the school is in a big mess.

Chairwoman Lee sighs, she stood up and approached the new arrival with a bitter smile, she's good friends with the woman but regarding the situation, it was degrading her entire existence. "It's good to see you again."

The woman smiled and patted the Chairwoman's shoulder, "Everything will be okay, we will fix this matter."

Chairwoman Lee smiles and nods at her statement, she faces everyone, ready to introduce the woman that was confusing everyone. "Everyone, this is Yumi Mitsuo, The owner of Yuno Japan, the Co-owner of Celestial Academy, and one of the first teachers here. She's also one of our biggest investors. please do give her a warm welcome."

Everyone was shocked, they all recognized the woman. She was Senichi Mitsuo's ex-wife, the Power Couple of Japan and South Korea before, she was rumored to have a third party, the reason for their divorce. They didn't know that she was associated with Chairwoman Lee.

They all stood up and bowed down to the Woman, greeting her with big smiles on their faces.

"Ah, Ms. Yumi, you still look the same from the last time that I saw you." Principal Giichi praised Ms. Yumi with a smile.

"Thank you for the compliment." Ms. Yumi says with a sweet smile on her face and walks up to her seat, "But I do believe that we should resolve this matter first."

After a few minutes, The Board of Directors arrived and they received a very cold treatment from Chairwoman Lee. The next to come was the writers who had their stories deleted from the web.

"I think we should call the one who operates the web, that person can be partially responsible for this." Ms. Yumi suggests which everyone agreed upon.

Member of the Board Mr. Shono shook his head, "There is a problem in that. The Web doesn't have an operator for a week now."

Chairwoman Lee's ears fumed, she immediately stood up and slammed her hands on the table, "How can you leave the Web unsupervised?!" She roars, already turning red by the second. "Who is responsible for running the operators?! Who didn't appoint a new one?!"

Ms. Yumi sighs, "Please calm down, Chairwoman Lee, screaming and getting mad at everyone won't resolve anything." She says in a calm tone, "Now, let's not get mad at anyone in here, it already happened and we can't do anything about it except fix the current problem which is the disappearance of the books of the writers."

Chairwoman Lee leans back on her chair, resting her head on her hand looking so stressed as ever. "We won't resolve anything if we continue being mad, Chairwoman." Principal Giichi was the one who spoke now.

"I say, let's go and appoint a search team, investigators and all necessary people who can help us find anything that can lead us to the culprit." Ms. Yumi suggests again, "After that being taken care of, we'll file a lawsuit against that person. No need to be panicking Chairwoman Lee, everything will be taken care of and everyone who was involved in that sickening crime will get punished severely."

CHAIRWOMAN LEE'S OFFICE:

"You still have a bad temper, In-ah. You should get that fixed." Ms. Yumi chuckles before taking a quick sip of her tea. "I already told you, everything will be fine and you don't need to go around and yell at people like that." She glanced at Chairwoman Lee, "I also told you to start yoga and meditation. That'll help you with your bad temper."

"There you go again, nagging at me. You can't go a day when we meet without nagging at me, can you, Yumi?" Chairwoman Lee rolls her eyes, only earning a chuckle from her best friend.

*KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK~!*

The door slowly opened, revealing the Head Professor of the First year, she was wearing a genuine smile, not until her eyes landed on Ms. Yumi. She quickly shifts her eyes on Chairwoman Lee. As for Ms. Yumi, she was shocked to see the young female.

"Chairwoman Lee." Emiko bows with a smile, showing respect.

"It's good to see that you came here immediately, please take a seat." Chairwoman Lee offered the seat right in front of Yumi.

"I'll assume that you have heard about the news about some stories getting deleted." Chairwoman Lee started with a smile, "Is anyone affected by it?"

"Well--" Emiko thought for a minute, "The other teachers from the Literature Department didn't say anything but some of the students who were already in school were already discussing it, wondering why it was deleted from the web. Some stated the web was just malfunctioning. But I think the web was hacked."

"Hacked?" Chairwoman Lee asks curiously.

Emiko nodded with a thin smile on her lips, "I know that the Celestial Web runs a very complicated Defend system and mechanics or malware to Protect our precious Celestial Web. I'm pretty sure that the hacker got inside the school, pretended to be an operator or something and tapped the system."

Chairwoman Lee nodded in agreement, "You have a point there." Chairwoman Lee nodded to herself and glanced at Emiko again, "Perhaps are you busy, Miss Mitsuo? Do you want to come with us to get some cup of coffee?"

Emiko smiled again, "Thank you for the invitation but I'm afraid that I still have a lot of things to take care of. I still need to finish some of my Saturday's lectures."

"I understand." Chairwoman Lee bows again, "You are free to leave now."

Emiko stood up and bowed once again before leaving the room.

"Did you recognize her?" Chairwoman Lee asks before sipping her tea.

Yumi smiled bitterly, "That's my daughter." She sighed and places down her teacup on the table, "She had grown up so well and It's kinda sad that I'm not there, not a part of her life anymore."

"That is true. But your children don't know the truth." Chairwoman Lee sighs as well.

Yumi looked at her confused, "What do you mean?" she was intrigued about Chairwoman Lee's statement. What did she mean by that? What does she mean by truth?

Chairwoman Lee chuckles to herself and shook her head, "Don't give it much thought."

Yumi was skeptical about it but she just brushed it off. They were having a decent chat between old friends but Destiny didn't want them to just relax.

Loud footsteps and clicking were heard from outside the office. Yumi and In-ah exchanged looks, they were getting alarmed in some way and their hearts began to race.

*BLAG~!*

The door suddenly flew open, revealing Emiko who was now trying to catch her breath.

"What's going on?" Yumi stood up with a worried expression written on her face, "Are you okay?"

"Someone published all the deleted stories to another account in Celestial Web! It's not under the Original Authors anymore!" She was looking at her phone with horror in her face.

FAST FORWARD:

"I'll call Safi and tell her that we need to conduct an emergency meeting." Ms. Yumi says as she pulls out her phone, walking much faster than Chairwoman Lee and Emiko.

Chairwoman Lee continued walking and quickens her phase, "How did you know about it?" she asks Emiko.

Emiko was panicking as well, she looks at her phone then back at Chairwoman Lee, "After our discussion about it earlier, I wanted to check and see if they were back or if the Web was malfunctioning. Then I found the book covers but it wasn't published by the original Authors."

Chairwoman Lee stopped on her tracks and looked at Emiko right dead in her eyes, "What's the name of the user that published the stories illegally?"

INSIDE THE MEETING ROOM:

"Blank," Emiko says, biting her lip and playing with her fingers.

"Blank?" Chairwoman Lee asks in an irritated tone, "Just Blank? What's that supposed to mean?!" Chairwoman Lee was losing her wits again, getting mad all of a sudden made Emiko whimper like a puppy.

Ms. Yumi sighs, "Chairwoman Lee, please do not raise your voice at the Professor. She's only here for one reason and one reason only. She's here to report per your request not to get yelled at." This time, it confused everyone inside the room. Ms. Yumi was all calm and optimistic earlier but now, she was wearing a pissed off face, she glanced at Emiko and sighed, "You are free to leave now."

Emiko was confused but nodded and bowed to show respect to everyone that was inside the room. She then exited immediately after doing that.

"Ms. Mitsuo said earlier that the Web might have been tapped." Ms. Yumi explains, she was now serious about this and all the optimistic aura had vanished.

Everyone started to murmur at each other, "How come? The Web's Firewall is extremely hard to get passed on."

"She said earlier that the hacker might have disguised as one of the Celestial Web Operators and hacked it from inside the main Cyber lab." She explains in a stern voice, "What's more troubling is the fact that hackers managed to get past our complicated malware."

"Do you think they got an accomplice?" Professor Min asked out of nowhere which made everyone gasp and stop what they were doing.

"There could be a possibility." Professor Nero shook his head in disbelief.

"It's not entirely impossible." Professor Zei voiced out and looked at the papers in front of him.

"Is it set then?" Chairwoman Lee rested her elbows on the table and clasped her hands together, "We'll call some investigation team?"

Ms. Yumi nodded, "Let's also tell the faculty members to help out on the investigation. The more people we gather, the easier we can clean this mess."

"Safi," Chairwoman Lee called, radiating a negative aura, "Please call Detective Moon and set a meeting for me." She ordered in a stern voice. Safi immediately obliged and left the room to make the call. "Stay in your posts and be attentive to your surroundings. Immediately report to me if you find someone suspicious and I'll take things from there."

CELESTIAL GIRL'S DORMITORY:

"Akiko!" Miyuki's voice echoed around their Dorm, waking everyone up and alarming them in the process.

Akiko, Hinishita, and Koneko rushed out of their rooms in their pajamas, panicking on what the heck happened to Miyuki so early in the morning that made her scream.

"What happened?" Hinoshita asked, sweat dripping down her forehead with wide eyes.

They saw Miyuki sitting on the floor with a pout on her face and furrowed brows, she was looking at something on her phone and the three other girls didn't have any idea what it was about, "Truth or Death was deleted!" She was whining on the floor like a baby, Koneko's brow's twitched, Akiko heaved out a sigh and Hinoshita looked at her pathetically. "I just got into it! The story is so good but now it's gone! The Writer, Lorie Ann deleted it from her site!"

"That's strange." Akiko looked at Miyuki and shook her head, "Truth or Death was one of Lorie Ann's most successful books, why did she delete it?"

Koneko shrugged on her place, "Maybe she's gonna re-edit the mistakes. She mentioned it before in an interview."

"No," Miyuki shook her head and showed them her phone, "She didn't post about it. She always lets her readers know beforehand."

Hinoshita sat down on the couch and thought to herself, "The students of Celestial Academy are the only ones who have access to the Celestial Web. It means that we're the only one who can view the stories that the writers make before they get published under another publishing company, whether it's a Web Company or an Actual Book Publishing company."

"What are you getting into?" The other three girls asked.

"I can sense something going wrong."

*KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK~!*

"Who could that be so early in the morning?"

"Open up! Hurry!" A familiar voice from outside chanted and kept on banging the door.

"That's Otoha and Hanabi, I'm sure." Akiko walked over to the door and opened it, wasn't even surprising that it was who she said it was.

"What's with the desperate knocks?" Hinoshita asks from the couch, Koneko poked her head from the other side of the door and Miyuki sat down with the white-haired girl on the couch.

Akiko instructed the two little girls to come inside their dorm, "I just got a text from my cousin! Kuya Sora said that the school is shut down for today."

"Eh?" Koneko was confused, "Why though?"

"I don't know." Otoha pouted, "But I can sense this is trouble."

Akiko heaved out a sigh, "I'll call Aito and tell him to gather everyone on the rooftop."

AT THE ROOFTOP:

"I'm so thankful that we don't have school today because I haven't done our Math homework and I'm dead if Professor Jake gets his hands onto me." Hisoki dead-ass told everyone with a blank face.

Ohta shook his head, "I'm still shocked that you're bragging about it to everyone."

"It is something to brag about." Hisoki proudly chuckles, everyone just looked at him stupidly.

"That's why you have bad grades." Ohta dead-ass replied with a straight face. Everyone started laughing at his response to Hisoki who was now blushing like a ripe tomato.

"Hey, guys." Akiko greeted the girls on her back. "Is everyone here?"

Aito shook his head, "Etsuko isn't here yet. Kentaro, Denji, and Itsuki said that he wasn't in his room when they woke up."

"He's not even a part of our class," says Kentaro, "Though he's a close friend so, whatever,"

"Don't worry. I already texted him saying that he should meet us here." Kentaro says and waves his phone.

"Why did you call us here though? You should've just said it in the group chat." Aito crossed his arms while looking at Akiko with a straight face.

"We figured that something's wrong. They shut the school down for today and Lorie Ann's Truth or Death was deleted from her site?"

"Wait," Aito paused, "Isn't that the story that hyped everyone 8 months ago?"

Akiko nodded, "It's gone now."

"That's messed up." Ohta shook his head, "What happened?"

"No one knows." Hanabi pouted as well.

Everyone was already discussing it when Haruto arrived with his hands in his pockets.

"There you are! Where have you been, huh?" Kentaro already started to nag his best friend who looked like he wasn't gonna buy any of his wits today.

"I went to see my sister since Professor Hotaru isn't present for today and Professor Eyebrows doesn't give a bleep about us, she told me to tell y'all that there's something wrong on the Celestial Web." He explains with a straight face.

"That's what we were talking about before you arrived!" Aki boomed but she was indeed worried, "What happened though?"

"She said that the Celestial Web might have been tapped. Someone deleted the original stories and published it again as it's own." Haruto explains again, making everyone gasp and murmur.

"That's illegal!" Denji yelled, "That's plagiarizing!"

"Without consent?" Kaya suddenly asked with furrowed brows.

"Obviously, yes." Haruto sighs, "They're already taking care of it though, so early in the morning."

Jun sighed in disbelief, "Let's talk about it in the Cafeteria, I bet everyone hasn't had their breakfasts yet."

"Wait the Cafeteria is open?" Itsuki asks the male beside him, earning a smack in the shoulder. "Not that one, idiot. I'm talking about the Cafeteria outside the Main Campus. That one is always open, Rei and I always eat there."

"Wow, you have the nerve to call the smartest kid in our class an Idiot, Jun," Riku stated sarcastically.

"It's just an expression bro!" Jun chuckles and instructs everyone to go to the Cafeteria.

"I'm not going." Haruto directly spat and started walking away. Kentaro immediately got a hold of him and wrapped his shoulder on the other, "Where do you think you're going? You're gonna have breakfast with us!"

"I'm not even hungry and I already ate."

"Then you can have a double breakfast!"

"I said I'm not even hungry."

AT THE EXTEE-CAFETERIA:

"Jaaa~ We're here!" Jun exclaimed with a smile on his face, inhaling the fresh and warm scent of coffee and bread.

"The food here better be delicious, that was a long walk!" Shiratori nagged with her eyebrows twitching from annoyance. They all grabbed a table but they ended up three tables because they were a pact.

The Extee-Cafeteria was already filled with people, some they recognized. Some were from the higher class or their seniors.

"Ugh, suddenly, I don't feel like eating. Some trash arrived and I've lost my appetite." One girl from Class B spoke ill of the class that has just arrived.

"I know right? They have the nerve to eat with Elites, ew."

"Oh! Have you heard about the Deleted Stories? I think they're linked to that! OMG, that's it!"

"Really? That's so messed up they dare to do that crime!"

"I swear--" Yuki's eyebrows twitched as she gritted her teeth. She took off her glasses and tried to calm herself down. "Yuki, calm down. Don't make a scene here." Tanaka tried to cool off her friend, she knew that one more word can snap Yuki off.

"They're not even supposed to be here, trash like them needs to be expelled."

That was the last straw, Yuki stood up with a negative aura. She was ready to throw hands at whoever that was. She looked at those two women, they were students at Class B, and she wasn't having any of their wits, "Pardon me for interfering with your session of bad-mouthing a group of people. But can you please take your negative wits somewhere else? We're trying to enjoy our morning and your murmurs are kind of ruining our mood." She said politely but with a hard tone.

One of the girls pretended to be a blind eye, "Oh, you must have heard those, are you affected? Since you already heard, why don't you scoot along and leave so we can enjoy our meal."

The others were trying to calm Yuki down but she wasn't in the mood anymore to be nice and polite. "Do you own the place? Do you have any right to kick us out?"

The other girl stood up, "Shouldn't you be respecting us? We're more superior than all of you."

"But they have the attitudes that are better than yours."

Everyone looked back at the counter to see Professor Emiko, sitting there with a cup of coffee and a plate of cookies. "I can't help but hear what you were saying. Ms. Himari and Ms. Yua. They arrived here and they weren't doing anything wrong." She fixed her glasses and looked at the two females, "The two of you started to bad-mouth them and call them trash. That's not very nice."

But Yua and Himari weren't having it, "They got affected--"

"Of course they got offended by it. When Ms. Hari asked politely why you're kicking them out, you got offended and used your Superior card. That's not how things work." Emiko explained with a smile on her face, even though she didn't admit that she was getting annoyed as well, she kept her cool and tried to lecture the students.

"Well then they should have been the bigger pe--" Yua was cut off by Emiko again, slamming one of her hands on the counter making everyone yelp and jump on their seats.

*THUD~!*

"Ms. Yua, Be the bigger person is a bit of stupid advice. Their bigness is not determined by their capacity to quietly absorb bullying, degradation, or abuse." Emiko gritted her teeth, she couldn't keep her cool anymore. "I do apologize for lecturing you in public, but I won't let this go unnoticed. You have gone too far for calling those students who require help trash and using the incident that occurred to our school and blaming them for that?" Emiko shook her head in disappointment, "I expected a lot from the two of you because Professor Mari always bragging about the two of you. Kindly apologize to Class E, if you don't want me to call your parents and inform them about your verbal bullying to lower classes."

Yua and Himari exchanged looks and bowed in front of Class E, "We apologize." they said in unison. They immediately grabbed their bags and left the place.

Emiko sighed and faced Class E, "I'm sorry about that, are you getting treated like that daily?"

Hanabi fidgets with her fingers and couldn't look at the Professor, "It's sad to say but yes. We can't do anything about it though."

Emiko's heart broke after hearing that, "I'll try to do something about it, okay?" Emiko gave them a big smile, "Order your food, it's on me."

"Yes! Free food!" Shun cheered and everyone chuckled at his reaction to food.

"I'll pay for their food and head out. I still have a lot of things to do." Emiko explained and went straight to the counter to ask for the bill and paid it, "I'll get going, I still need to go back to the faculty." She smiled bidding her goodbyes to everyone, "Bye guys! I'll see you around!"

"Bye Professor Emiko! Thanks for the food!"

AT THE SECRET LAIR:

"You're here." He smiled and crossed his arms, "I didn't really expect that you'll come immediately since the news already broke out inside the school."

She hummed, "Chairwoman Lee was losing her mind. We should be careful though, they already called some detectives to help investigate."

"We didn't leave any evidence in the Cyber Lab, but double-check just to be sure." He instructed, "You're the only one who can go there without suspicion."

"Don't worry about it. Once we're done here, I'll go there, double-check and get rid of any evidence left." She looked at her watch and crossed her arms, "Why did you do it though? For fame?"

He shook his head no, "Of course not. I used to be a writer but--Celestial Academy was the one who shattered that dream of mine. I'll tear their precious school down." He walked towards his desk and sat comfortably on his swivel chair, he looked at his desktop and saw that there were a lot of hate comments on the stories that he published and plagiarized. "Thanks to you, I managed to get step one done in no time without any sweat."

"I'm glad to help." She smiled but then cleared her throat, "But don't be celebrating yet, we need to pull this off well."

"Of course not." He smirked, "I still didn't ask you." He paused, "Why are you helping me?"

She sighed, "One of the Professors there is my enemy and she's taking everything away from me. I hate her so much, I felt like she betrayed me."

"What's her name?" He asks curiously.

She smirked, "Emiko Mitsuo." she gave him a picture of Emiko.

"I'll make a couple of changes on our plan and add on her on every bit of it to make her suffer." He glanced at the female, "She won't be taking anything from you, again."

"Thank you," She smiled and hummed, "I'm still curious though. What's your next plan?"

He chuckled evilly and looked at the female in her eyes,

"We'll destroy Celestial Academy and make them all suffer."

***

PROLOGUE: END!

***

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- Y U M A P H E U S N Y X ❤️