Chapter 27: Chapter 26
Gakushuu was not thinking about Karma the rest of the ride to Kyoto. He also wasn't avoiding eye contact with Anaya.
He didn't want to explain to Anaya that he might have sort of liked Karma but also totally thought his father would either kill him or have a heart attack if he knew, which made it even more enticing.
But he definitely liked Karma first and wasn't that a stupid thing to think about? Of course, he liked Karma first but ugh.
He didn't want to actually say it.
Or talk about it.
Not only was it not very socially acceptable for Gakushuu to be…pansexual? Or attracted to people he considered a threat?
What did he even call it?
Gakushuu liked the thought of being threatened. Didn't that mean he was a masochist?
Gakushuu, now, wanted to talk to Anaya even less.
Especially about his dating preferences.
Though Gakushuu had made plans, but, he also had plans for just about anything else, though maybe not for the world destroying creature teaching class E.
But Gakushuu didn't have a shortage of plans, and he could always make more. Or find alternatives.
Gakushuu would be diagnosed with a slight anxiety disorder, if he ever actually went to get diagnosed, that is.
But yes, basically. Gakushuu did not want to talk to Anaya and he spent the rest of the trip making sure she knew it. He could tell she was laughing at him.
He could also tell she was telling him that there wasn't anywhere he could run from her.
Which wasn't very reassuring.
At all.
The classes were separated by buses after they reached Kyoto. They dropped their bags at their hotel and then they were free to do whatever they wanted.
Gakushuu accompanied his group for half the day, then slipped away on his own, to meet up with a few other people in Kyoto on his own.
One of the people he was meeting was a young genius physicist who had finally reached 18 and was enjoying a life of debauchery in Kyoto.
No, not really. She wasn't interested in human beings at all. But she was an absolute car maniac, and cake. For some reason.
She had caught Gakushuu sneaking around at age 11, when she herself was 14. And both were in the wrong city.
It was a time that Gakushuu could and moreover, would never divulge. He might be praised by his father, but he was pretty sure none of the things they had done were socially acceptable.
There was only so much they should be allowed to do in the name of knowledge.
Anyway, when she heard about Gakushuu coming to Kyoto, she immediately jumped at the opportunity.
He skipped out on the dinner plans his class was making and went to meet her.
She was drunk.
He had called up Ren to tell him he would be late coming back because he planned to dump her home.
She had wine at home.
(He got drunk.)
The proceedings of the night were once again going under 'things that definitely didn't happen' and he was pretty sure her basement was now toxic.
He reached his room at 3am and she was still attached to him. He didn't really care though.
The next morning, Ren opened the door to find Gakushuu sleeping with a half naked older woman.
Of course, the first thing he did was scream, panic and then invite the whole class over to watch the show.
And so Iriya woke up to Gakushuu's classmates gawking at her. Uncaring of the eyes on her, she cuddled up against Gakushuu's back and went to back sleep.
His class shrieked in response.
Gakushuu woke up, bleary eyed, about ten minutes after, by which time Iriya had started shaking Gakushuu to make him get rid of his classmates.
Gakushuu convinced them to go out with Anaya side eyeing the woman and Ren looking at Gakushuu like he was going through another weird phase.
Everyone was utterly convinced he was in a relationship with her no matter how much he tried to explain otherwise.
When Gakushuu and Iriya finally got out, they were both gulping down coffee like it was their last meal, they had breakfast, then Iriya planted a kiss on his cheeks before taking her leave.
The class gawked at them the whole time.
"I can't believe you're dating someone already," someone enviously murmured.
"And she's pretty hot too," another whispered.
"No, in the first place, Gakushuu being single would be weirder, right?" Shizumu pitched in, surprisingly into the topic of Gakushuu's love life.
"But he doesn't have time to do much in the first place, it would literally be weirder if he was in a relationship," Hinata reasoned.
"And someone that much older," someone added.
"Maybe that's why it works out!" Ayaka gasped, her hands clapping together in realization. "It's a long distance relationship."
They turned to look at Gakushuu in unison.
"He's still a teenager though…?" Hinata faintly added. Then after a moment of silence where everyone stared deeply at him, "maybe it could happen?" She changed her opinion.
And suddenly they were discussing the kind of person he would be in the relationship.
"Wouldn't he be really giving? He woke up when she insisted and kicked us out," Miyuki pitched in with her opinion sometime after.
"Yes, but he was also being cuddled by her, maybe his love language isn't physical touch? Does he not like being touched, maybe?" Everyone turned to eye him again.
Gakushuu wondered about the random discussions going on in front of him and pretended he couldn't hear anything.
It was always a little awkward every time they started on an odd tirade, specially if they were talking about the multitude of inhuman qualities they felt Gakushuu had.
"-seems like a bottom in some ways-"
"But isn't there-"
"-like Ren? Was he inclined-"
The girls started gossiping with their voice even lower and Gakushuu pretended, along with the other boys, that they could hear nothing.
He had no idea what topic the girls had been researching, but it didn't seem like something he needed to know about either way.
Just when Galushuu was about to relax, he got a surprising call from Karma.
He moved away from his group who were spread around one of the hundreds of shrines of Kyoto, and accepted it.
"Hey, Shuu. I got some dicks here who caused some problems. Can you get someone to clean them up?"
Gakushuu sighed.
"It's literally a school trip, not a fight club. Don't just pick a fight with anyone." Then he remembered that Karma was supposed to go around with a group as well and frowned, "Did they do something?"
Karma hummed cheerfully, "If you count kidnapping the girls and getting some shady photographers to try to come and take their pictures."
This time it was Gakushuu who was getting angry. He understood the implications just as well.
They were planning to humiliate the girls, probably make them strip or take videos and pictures while doing a multitude of even worse things to them.
Girls were far more vulnerable to acts like that, after all.
"... they also might have mentioned something about getting them to keep it quiet after so they could continue it after we returned," Karma continued to add fuel to the fire.
Gakushuu understood.
Karma couldn't forgive them. He couldn't forgive them, but he could only physically torment assholes like this.
Only when Gakushuu was making them feel the true punishment, could Karma be satisfied by beating them up. Just hitting them a few times wasn't enough to satisfy his anger at all.
Gakushuu couldn't forgive them either, so it was a simple decision.
"Are they at your location?" Gakushuu asked calmly.
"Nope, I left them behind in the abandoned building. You can get the location right? I just came from there," Karma replied, his tone still weirdly cheery.
Gakushuu felt a slight shiver crawl down his spine.
"... yeah," he said, suddenly wondering what state he was about to find the criminals in. Already, a juvenile wouldn't be out of the question, what with the kidnapping charge. The blackmail and others would be cherry on top.
"They're still in one piece. My classmates were still with me so I couldn't really do anything," Karma reassured him, seemingly understanding his thoughts.
Gakushuu hummed agreeably, already planning out the lawyer he was going to get on this case.
"I will need a follow up report on this from the kidnappee, but their presence shouldn't be required," Gakushuu said as he planned.
"Yeah, I know," Karma reassured again, already used to the procedure.
It wasn't his first time either. Karma had already gotten involved with all sorts of random incidents throughout his life.
He was a kid with too much time, money and fight in him after all. It was easy for him to run into problems.
His way of dealing with said problems had just been adjusted forcefully (aka Gakushuu being nosy) to accommodate long term penalties for the perpetrators now too.
Though Karma had only been able to get away because of Gakushuu's timely intervention. But this time he wondered if Karasuma would be willing to help punish the idiotic high school students. After all, they were technically his students too.
But Karma had probably asked him to make sure they did get punished, instead of just getting their memory erased and dropped off.
They were both aware of exactly how much the class E's well being was worth to the government.
Nil, that is.
But as Gakushuu left the call, he still felt oddly disturbed by Karma's sharp cheerfulness.
It almost felt like that had been directed at him. He had thought it was because of his classmate's kidnapping but…
…there was no way Karma knew about Iriya, right?
Also, it was odd for Karma to call him after leaving the scene of crime.
Hmm. No way, right?
It wasn't like Karma would lie about his classmates getting kidnapped, but wasn't it a little excessive to call Gakushuu when the military was right there.
Was it because he didn't trust the military to not just mind wipe them and drop them off somewhere else?
Then he sighed.
Maybe he was just hoping too hard.
It wasn't like Karma was so jealous he actually needed an excuse to call Gakushuu.
He called Gakushuu randomly all the time. Well, though it normally was for post-fights clean up though.
He groaned to himself.
Liking someone was already too stressful, he didn't need potential reciprocation to complicate matters further.
…and he still had to talk to Anaya about the whole Karma thing.
The news spread.
'Gakushuu woke up with a girl in his bed' became huge news to the student body, Ren told him.
Everyone was already aware of the news since they both came down together for breakfast. Gakushuu felt slightly dumbfounded that he hadn't even considered it.
He had been exhausted and relaxed with Iriya so much that he had forgotten that class B had also been in the same hotel.
It wasn't a good option to mix his daily life with the people he stayed with during his runaway days.
He felt oddly sheepish about the whole issue.
Of course, that hadn't been the end of it.
His father called him the night after Iriya stayed overnight.
"So you're aware of the things being said, is that correct?" Gakuhou asked. His face was so straight Gakushuu wondered if he was taking this seriously or if he was amused by the situation.
"Yes, sir," he replied.
"And you're aware that this sort of acts is strictly prohibited during the school trip?" Gakushuu stiffened.
"Yes, sir," he replied instead of protesting. Gakuhou wasn't even talking about something like sex. He was simply reprimanding Gakushuu like he was a child.
And the worst thing was, Gakushuu had behaved immaturely. Getting drunk?
He had never gotten drunk before.
Iriya made him reckless, made him get into a mood where it felt like the craziest things were possible. It was freedom, he tasted with her.
But the same couldn't be said about his daily life.
He really shouldn't have brought her into his normal life.
But he had to.
Iriya was a physicist.
He had to know about the things that were happening. About a being of antimatter, about the moon blowing up, and about the potentially illegal experiments taking place in Japan.
The fact that she had been in Japan, and had gotten that drunk when she was supposed to be busy, meant that she had some amount of knowledge.
He needed to get information out of her too.
The easiest way was to get drunk and pretend to forget about everything they discussed when drunk.
Iriya might have already been aware of Koro-sensei though. She wasn't someone who could be overlooked.
The first time they met, Iriya had crossed countries to go to Japan illegally and alone, and accidentally stumbled across Gakushuu.
She was someone who could do things.
That Iriya had gotten drunk.
She was crazy, but she wasn't stupid. Her getting drunk was absolutely Gakushuu's best opportunity, and it was possible that she had either gotten drunk to relax, or be able to slip through between loopholes to tell Gakushuu some things.
And Gakushuu had gained more information from her.
He had gained quite a bit of what had happened, and it wasn't what he had been expecting at all.
Koro-sensei had been human, yes. But, he had also been the world's greatest assassin.
So no fucking wonder.
Class E was learning the art of assassination from the best assassin in the world.
Gakushuu was suddenly very very aware of the kind of existence class E was on their way to become.
A class taught by a Mach 20 dedicated super creature would be enough to turn anyone into someone amazing, but, learning it from the best assassin in the world?
That was a whole different level.
Suddenly the few moments of change he had already witnessed in the class felt significant.
Karma, Nagisa, Kayano, Nakamura, Okuda.
He had witnessed the sharpness in their gaze. The killing intent that they were nurturing.
They weren't just living through something strange.
They were being tempered by the will of the greatest assassin to be his assassin.
Somehow… Gakushuu felt eager to see the end result.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Siera_Knightwalker
Siera_Knightwalker Students of Class A:
Gakushuu
Ren, bestie
Araki, info gatherer
Tadashi Morisuke, rival
Miya, Morisuke bestie
Kazuki Mimeya, messy
Akira, sexist
Masachika Satoi, foodie
Seiji Shiba
Kaito, chika's alt
Asahi, tsun Shuu stan
Seo Tomoya, Hinata's cousin
Natsuhiko Koyama, minion #1
Kimiko, ballet gangster wannabe
Amami, introvert friend
Hinata, extro crier
Anaya, stoic babe
Keiji Shimizu, independent loner
Ayaka, loud baby
Miyuki, shyest
Tomomi
Satsuki
Emiko, tired of shit
Yuzuki, proud richie
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone