Countermeasures Group

The Countermeasures Group is the name given to the group of students that are responsible for the safety of the students in Class 3-3 of 1998 of Yomiyama North Middle School, and they are the main protagonistic faction of "Another: The Call For Blood", and its rewrite.

History
The Countermeasures Group of 1998 was established long before Adam Robertson, then a Master Assassin, joined the class. At first, Adam didn’t get along with the Group, as they treated him with open hostility. That changed when Adam saved Yukari, one of the leading members of the Group, from her near-death via the Calamity, as well as the Head of Countermeasures, Izumi Akazawa, informing him on the situation and rules in the class. This change signified Adam’s becoming a member of the Group, and acting as the Group’s “Enforcer”, meaning whenever he would hear of a member of the class not adhering to the Group’s rules, he would encourage them to follow along, using intimidation if necessary.

When the Group decided to enact the countermeasure of making two people “non-existent”, rather than the usual one, to counteract the Calamity, Adam was one of the first to be doubtful of the measure’s success probability, but he quashed his concerns, helping spread the news of the new rule. However, this act was soon after doubted to be effective, as Ikuo Takabayashi, a sickly student in the class, died of a heart attack the day the countermeasure was implemented.

Soon after this, Kubodera, the teacher for Class 3-3, committed suicide in front of the class by stabbing himself in the neck with a kitchen knife, despite Adam nearly saving him. After this, the Countermeasures Group realised that the Calamity was in full swing, and decided to make the two “non-existent” students, Kouichi Sakakibara and Mei Misaki, exist again, despite the potential backlash from the rest of the class. After this, the Group nearly lost one of its members, when the Calamity targeted Adam, although he was saved by his quick reflexes from being hit by a car.

A short time later, the Group was informed by Teshigawara and Mochizuki that there was a man by the name of Katsumi Matsunga, and he had stopped the Calamity prematurely in his year. To try and get information out of Matsunaga, many of the Group took a day trip out of Yomiyama to a seaside resort. Even though Adam, Izumi and Kouichi learned that Matsunaga had hidden a clue somewhere in the old building of Yomi North, they were irritated when he couldn’t remember where. Tragedy then struck, as Junta Nakao, one of the members of the Group, was hit by a boat after trying to retrieve a ball the Group were playing with. This planted dissent in the ranks of the Group, as they had believed that the Calamity couldn’t affect them if they were outside Yomiyama. However, a conversation they had with their teachers after Junta’s funeral revealed that Junta was in fact dead before the boat even hit him, due to an aneurysm he obtained the morning of the trip by falling down the stairs bursting as he tried to retrieve the ball. The event that led to his death had actually happened within the confines of Yomiyama.

However, despite the horror of Junta’s death, the event shocked Matsunaga out of his PTSD, and he remembered that he had hidden his clue in the old classroom for Class 3-3. After this, Teshigawara, Mochizuki and Kouichi met to discuss attempting to find the clue, and they invited Adam along, but he missed the chance, due to sleeping in, as well as encountering Yumi Ogura, who would later go on to be affected by the Calamity, and his place was instead taken by Misaki. Their search revealed a tape, made by Matsunaga, which held the key to stopping the Calamity, but Teshigawara accidentally ruined it before they learned what that method was. Luckily, Mochizuki took the tape, and had someone repair it, just in time before the remaining members of Class 3-3 took a class trip to an inn, where they would stay, before travelling to an old shrine at the top of the mountain. There, they would pray to the gods, hoping to be protected from the Calamity. Adam was even requested by Miss Mikami, the new teacher after Kubodera’s suicide, to personally attend the trip.

Unfortunately, the Class would never make it to the shrine, as at dinner on the first night, a large-scale argument broke out among the class, which was only ended by Adam’s use of his Hidden Gun, revealing his identity as an Assassin in the process. Soon after, the tape revealed that the only way to stop the Calamity, was to “send the dead back to death”, in other words, killing the dead person who was the extra in the class.

Doing so would cause the memories of the extra to fade from the minds of everyone who wasn’t present at the death of the extra, but even for those who were present, their memories would fade in time. While Adam and the other four who found the tape wanted to keep it hidden, it was eventually heard by Takako, who mistakenly believed Misaki was the dead one, and convinced the rest of the class to try and kill her. This led to her almost being strangled to death by cables, had it not been for the timely intervention of Adam, who saved Takako, and learned from Misaki that she could tell who the extra person was, which made him give her and Kouichi the task of killing the dead one, before the Group split up to warn the remainder of the Class about a fire that had started to spread through the inn. Later on, Adam saved Yukari and Yumi from a couple of mercenaries, and after examining their bodies, he found a red cross necklace, revealing him to the presence of the Templars at the inn.

Meeting back up with the Group later that night, Adam defused an argument the Group were having, before being forced to put his life at risk to protect Izumi from shards of glass sent towards her by a lightning strike, which ended in him being pinned to the wall by his hand instead. Ordering Misaki and the rest of the Club once more to kill the extra, Adam released his hand from the glass, and shortly after, he, Yukari and Yumi met back up with the others, who were all looking at one person trapped under rubble; Miss Mikami, the assistant homeroom teacher of Class 3-3, but who was in reality Reiko, Kouichi’s aunt. Surprisingly, Misaki claimed she was also the extra person. Seeing no other way, Adam ordered Kouichi to kill Reiko, which he did reluctantly, thus ending the threat of the Calamity altogether.

Weeks passed, and Adam, who had now renounced the Assassin Brotherhood, joined Anna Montgomery, a former Templar who was now Adam’s ally after a fight they had at the inn, on a plane back to Scotland, where they planned to take revenge on the Assassins and Templars, saying his farewells to the Group beforehand. A couple of months later, the school year ended, and most of Class 3-3 graduated, bringing an end to the need for a Countermeasures Group, effectively rendering the Group of 1998 defunct.

Relationships
Allies: Enemies:
 * Yomiyama North Middle School Class 3-3 of 1998 - Alies, classmates
 * Shoji Kubodera † - Teacher
 * Reiko Mikami † - Assistant Homeroom teacher, later main teacher, Kouichi's aunt
 * Tatsuji Chibiki - Ally, librarian, later teacher
 * Aya Ayano † - Classmate, Yumi's best friend
 * Ikuo Takabayashi † - Classmate
 * San Watanabe - Classmate
 * Sayuri Kakinuma - Classmate
 * Kenzou Kawahori † - Classmate
 * Kyouko Kaneki - Classmate
 * Aki Matsui - Classmate
 * Takeru Mizuno - Classmate
 * Makoto Ouji † - Classmate
 * Daisuke Wakui - Classmate
 * Anna Montgomery - Ally, saviour, former enemy
 * Tomoka Mochizuki - Ally, Mochizuki's older sister
 * Katsumi Matsunaga - Ally
 * Templar's Militia - Enemies, attempted killers
 * Assassin Brotherhood - Enemies, Adam's former allies
 * The Mentor † - Enemy, Adam's former Mentor
 * The Architect † - Enemy, Adam's former colleague
 * Knights Templar - Enemies
 * The Grand Master † - Enemy