Taishou Roman Academy

The Taishou Roman Academy was the name of a failed attempt to create a school for the enrichment and education of future members of the Capital Defense Plan.

Origins

The Taishou Roman Academy was first put into the planning stages sometime in 1926, as a combined project between Count Hanakoji, Grand-Mere Lilac and Michael Sunnyside. It was at the time considered the ultimate end-result of the capitol defense plan, as each branch would have jurisdiction of the whole. It also offered a clear and bright future for the defense plan, as they would no longer have to fear problems with future member recruitment. Due to this, the school was codenamed "Project New Utopia".

After gaining monetary backing from each of the plan's government members (with major backing coming from Sunnyside himself), a small island was purchased from Japan in to provide land for the academy. In 1927, ground was broken and a small ceremony was performed to announce the start of construction.

The faculty of the school was to be made up of a combination of soldiers, civilians as well as members of the defense teams. Several were confirmed for employment including Sakura Shinguji, Erica Fontaine and Kanna Kirishima, who joined reluctantly.

By 1928, several buildings had been completed, including the student living facilities. At the same time, several training Koubu were also finished and immediately put into storage until the school could be opened. Recruitment proved to be more troubling, as the filtering for students had to be done extremely carefully, resulting in it being fairly slow. One year later, there had been only two confirmed students signed for the academy, a boy and girl whose names have now been forgotten to history.

In 1929, the main hall for the school was complete. In addition, Gemini Sunrise of the New York Defense Team joined the teaching staff. Soon after, a single staff meeting was put together to allow each member to meet and get to know each other.

As the year ended, a final date was planned for the opening of the school: April 1st, 1931.

Taishou Roman Academy (Concept Art)

Difficulties and Cancellations

However, this was not to be. The Great Depression at the beginning of 1930 put a halt to all further construction, as many of the government backers pulled out, deciding to funnel the money back to economic relief programs. Though Sunnyside attempted to continue financing it on his own, he too backed out as he found it more important to fund the New York branch rather then sacrifice the team for the project. Still, this was considered at the time only a simple bump in the road, and many were optimistic that it could be salvaged after the economic climate righted itself.

The betrayal and failure of the Berlin team proved to be the final nail in the coffin for the project, as it showed the possible dangers of a defense team if corrupted. Soon after this, Kanna Kirishima resigned from the teaching staff, soon followed by the rest of the defense team members. The koubu were locked in their storage vaults and quickly forgotten, while the two initial students were let go and their files presumed destroyed.

As a final coda to these events, the island was quickly reclaimed by the Japanese government, with it's buildings used for storage by the military. Sunnyside was never repaid for his investment, despite having won a lawsuit against the government for the fair market value of the land and materiel (350 million dollars). Adjusted for inflation and not counting interest, Sunnyside is entitled to collect $4,592,162,790.70, a huge marker has has yet to call in.

Fate

The buildings were used to serve as rooming for soldiers and storage for weapons through most of WWII. Eventually the island was attacked by American forces during their island hopping campaigns, resulting in most of the structures being completely destroyed in the process. After the declaration of peace in 1945, the rest were quickly bulldozed over by the Japanese and the island has currently been almost completely reclaimed by nature.

On January 10, 2012, Matsumi Kaze was alerted to the fact that the training Koubu constructed for use in the academy had been found. She is currently considering their future use in conjunction with her operations.

The two students who signed up for academy are still unknown to this day.