Chapter 67 Foul Play

"Lumina, please tell me you aren't going to–"

"You could ask any question about what you had mentioned earlier, Mrs Neider. I'm sure most of you have something to ask, and I would be happy to answer it." Lumina said.

All attention was back on Mrs Neider, who had begun shuffling through the stack of papers on her lectern.

"Are you crazy?! You haven't opened your book, nor were you listening!" Fae hissed, quickly adjusting her composure when she noticed Mrs Neider glance their way.

"Shhh! I'm trying to come up with a comeback." She looked around and among the students for her possible target. "There's no way I'm going to suffer such cruel treatment from Mrs Neider."

"Let's see, okay, here we go." She pulled out a report. "What went wrong with the last team's formation that had incurred lots of casualties?" Mrs Neider asked.

Fae adjusted her sitting posture, uncomfortable with the question posed to Lumina. That was a case similar to a staggering number of others in which no one had been able to know the cause.

What was strange was the fact that those who were dead, their bodies were never recovered from the scene. But if the they were never recorded, why were they concluded, dead?

Lumina's gaze went straight to Ayanami, her eyes narrowed.

'I would like to see how you escape this!' She could sense the irregular signals seething off Ayanami, clearly pretending to draw the formation on the holographic board, with a pencil which was clearly not sharpened.

"It would seem there was a bit of foul play, as anyone could rightly put it." Lumina said.

The whole class gasped in unison, the news about team Ruid had been a delicate one, and the students had all been curious to know what had actually happened, but none of them were willing to go too in-depth with their questions, for fear of ending in such a situation.

Lumina had a smirk on her face. She had been searching for someone who could fall into her trap and it just so happened that Mrs Neider gave her the right incentive.

"Are you suggesting there was foul play, Miss Lumina?" Mrs Neider asked. "That's a very serious allegation, one that you shouldn't be making, especially without any proof."

Lumina glanced over at Ayanami one more time, and then looked right back at Mrs Neider. "Well, it's not a hard thing to find out." She shrugged.

Ayanami turned around at this information, her curiosity was suddenly piqued. She wanted to know how far Lumina had gone into investigating the case file which she had tried to keep under wraps.

"Those two in the infirmary clearly stated that they had–"

"That's a total lie! They are paralysed, how could they possibly talk?" Ayanami blurted out without thinking about her words.

"There's nothing a good jolt from me can't do to any limp body part!" She wiggled her brows, showing a preview of her gift, tiny electrical currents ran through her palm.

Ayanami frowned, she suddenly felt that she had jumped right into a trap with her words.

Proceeding to continue what she had started, she cleared her throat, bringing her attention back to Mrs Neider, waiting for her permission.

Being given a nod of approval, she smiled and continued.

"... lost the feel of their body while in action. The reason? They felt a sting of some sort, and within a matter of seconds, they were unconscious." Lumina said, raising her hand and pointing at Ayanami.

A frown made its way to Ayanami's brows at the outright accusation made directly at her.

"One of your shapeshifting forms could cause paralysis, am I right?" Lumina questioned with a grin on her face.

"So what?" She scoffed.

"You could have chosen to make it happen at any time, yet you waited for the others to be in the wrong position, and then you had the nerve to try to claim victory. That was such a dirty move, and I can't imagine how you could be so cold-hearted." Lumina said, looking away from Ayanami.

The room had fallen quiet, not a single noise could be heard from anywhere in the room, except for the soft shuffling of papers as Mrs Neider shuffled through the papers she had, trying to check the statements that were given.

"You are accusing me of what?" Ayanami asked with a shriek, "I thought you were just trying to find a way to get back at me. You were always getting back at me before, and this is exactly the same. I'm sure you didn't think this through before coming up with such a bold and stupid idea."

"You shouldn't have said that, especially not to my face. It's not worth it." Ayanami hissed.

"So Ayanami, care to explain?" Mrs Neider asked, but it was more curiosity than a challenge. She didn't want to make a huge deal out of it if this was all a misunderstanding."

"Not at all." Ayanami responded calmly. "In fact, I'm not even sure where I was when it happened. All I remember is being in the middle of a battle, and then I woke but was surprised I was spared unlike the rest." She said, her eyes tearing up as a slight sniffle happened.

'What a lame excuse.' Lumina rolled her eyes.

Mrs Neider didn't believe her words either, but for the sake of knowing how far she could go with her words, she allowed her to keep on speaking.

In lies, there were tiny bits of truth. This was the only way to make it as believable as possible to anyone listening or watching.

There was a reason she had brought the case in the form of a question to Lumina. She had been an ace student who was calculative and smart when it came to tactics and the use of her gift.

With the turn of events, she was more than impressed with the results.

"It's a lot harder to explain. I don't know what happened to me too, but I promise you, it's not something I was involved in." Ayanami looked down, pretending to cry, burying her face in her palm.

Knowing her face was obscured by her cascading hair, coupled with her hand covering the lower half of her face, a sinister smile spread across her face.