章 28: Chapter 28
Gakushuu got hacked through class E.
Gakushuu had left open ended connections to a random unrelated abandoned ghost house and he had used the black market to make up the whole set up, but he had been forced to abandon his class E watching.
Gakushuu's devices automatically self-destructed, and the connection that the hacker was using shut down.
Luckily, the self-destruct was fast enough that the hacker hadn't been able to pinpoint the ghost house Gakushuu had used.
Unfortunately, he still had to abandon it. He didn't want the military to pinpoint one irregularity on Gakushuu and just take his memory of it away. He would end up making clumsy moves that would expose him.
Fortunately, he hadn't been besieged by any military personnel, and even if he had been, he held a slight hope that his father didn't want his highly intelligent son's brain scrambled with.
Though, Gakushuu probably knew far more than his father by now.
Fortunately, Gakushuu had been able to pinpoint the deviation from the normal class E schedule soon after. He hadn't been able to get any video for the whole day since all his equipment was useless already.
A transfer student had been the reason. And along with the big machine he had seen the government agents move into the classroom the night before, told him it was probably someone who was really far away.
Disabled, intelligent student?
There were many people like that, who had severe disability, as if to make up for their creativity or intellect.
Someone like that might actually cover a lot of the bases that class E lacked. Obviously, this person was tech-savvy.
Gakushuu already liked the newest transfer student, just by the fact they had just casually hacked into Gakushuu's system.
It had been something neither Koro-sensei had cared to do, nor had Karasuma.
This kind of casual safety was what he wished everyone would learn. Something watching you in your vicinity, you go and check who it is.
There would be more problems sometimes, but well, it wasn't safe either way, and not knowing is definitely worse.
But it was too bad that Gakushuu had lost so much in one go. Although he didn't really need to keep a close watch, or even a normal watch on them anymore.
He was a little disappointed but it was for the best that he stop obsessing over Koro-sensei. He didn't need to have any placebo feelings for Koro-sensei.
That would help no one in any way. It wasn't like he was in class E.
Not to mention he had so many things to do for his club as well. It had changed a little to accommodate the students joining in.
A theoretical aspect that told them about rules and regulations to follow and a practical aspect where you could learn techniques or practice them against a few other students, not always including Gakushuu.
It was practically self sufficient.
But otherwise, Gakushuu suddenly had a huge chunk of time freed up. He was still looking into Koro-sensei, but it was much harder.
Even Iriya hadn't told him about the ongoing events, but instead made sure he knew enough to keep himself safe. Or at least, as safe as could be with the world's best assassin in Mach 20 teaching on the hill behind the school.
He sometimes still wondered what the hell must have happened to turn someone like that into that. People said that geniuses were generally crazy, and Gakushuu would be inclined to agree, looking at his father and some of the people he knew.
But even then, Koro-sensei's change was quite excessive.
Maybe being near death, or everyone else's death did that to you. Gakushuu wondered if he'd be more weird if he had remembered this time as dead. Or more of his past life as a living person.
Even then, he felt like an addict. Going around dressed as someone he technically wasn't anymore, someone who didn't even exist.
He didn't really need to. It wasn't just about being a 'safe space' for himself. He was plenty strong enough to create one for himself.
He just, kept doing it. Like it was a bad habit. Or something he was already stuck doing.
Asano Gakushuu was male. But someday, he used to be female.
He used to be a she .
And then she became a he .
So in this case, which would be a truer identity?
The right answer might have been 'he'.
It was an acceptable, obvious answer. Of course, he had all the physical components, he mostly felt male. There shouldn't be a desire to stay as a woman anymore.
But, he liked it.
There wasn't any need for it. But, he just liked it.
He felt closer to the person he used to be. Maybe his memories didn't change, but he somehow felt like he was looking at the world through a new perspective.
Maybe it was because he had created a persona for himself when he was really young, but he could let go of his responsibilities as Asano Gakushuu easier.
It was similar to how you sometimes convinced yourself that being under the blanket meant the monsters under the bed couldn't reach you.
Gakushuu didn't have a proper understanding of the situation from either of his lives, but he was pretty sure it was close enough.
A safety cover, a comfort that didn't need to be, but was. Gakushuu was an effective stranger to everyone he knew.
If no one knew he was doing it, from their point of view, he wasn't really doing it, was it? People saw this as 'results'.
If you couldn't see the results of an action, people wouldn't know you were working for it in the first place.
Gakushuu felt similarly.
No one could see Gakushuu when he called himself Chiho.
All it took was some skills, a fashion sense and a name change.
Suddenly, Gakushuu was a stranger to the world he knew. People didn't always work the same way when they thought his gender was female, and Gakushuu had to work to learn even more things.
He learnt about the sides of people he would rather not have known.
Gakushuu couldn't have a fight on the streets, but when it was Chiho , people came looking for fights like they couldn't have enough. Maybe it was the hair, the slender figure or the feminine appearance, but Gakushuu was surprisingly more influential as a female.
Also, it was actually a really good cover. It wasn't what it had started out as, but one of Gakushuu's ways inside the underground was as well Chiho.
It was slightly more unsafe, considering his identity might be exposed, but people didn't expect a male to crossdress, for some reason. Also, he was pretty good looking as a female. That probably helped too.
It was all the more reason he respected Irina. She might have had more protection, but no one went unscarred by the underworld. Not Gakushuu and certainly not Irina.
Karma was frustrated.
Mach 20 hadn't seemed easier when Koro-sensei was painting his nails or giving him a trim, but it was far harder than it seemed as he slowly worked his way up.
Maybe he could say that the first time he had felt the 'wall' of excellence was when he first met Asano Gakushuu.
Asano wasn't just a person, but also a goal. Karma knew he was smart, of course. Life wasn't easy but it certainly felt simple enough. He could easily coast by.
But excitement was the name of the game. So he got into fights, most were easy, some were hard but achievable. There were very few he couldn't actually cross with a minimum level of effort.
But it was in Kunugigaoka, that he understood the saying about being the 'big fish in a pond'.
Gakushuu was effort personified.
He wasn't just strong, he wasn't just smart. He wasn't just charismatic. He wasn't just quick witted.
He wasn't 'just' anything.
It felt like Asano Gakushuu lived to give Karma a complex.
And worst yet, Gakushuu was determined to direct every single bit of his charm towards Karma.
He slowly creeped in, pulling Karma like he was hooking a fish. He set traps, set off bombs to throw him off. He let himself be vulnerable, so Karma could see the human skin underneath.
Then he laughed like Karma's beating heart was a joke.
The world felt like a joke.
Gakushuu looked at Karma, and only at him.
He didn't waver, or pull away. He didn't push, or pull at his edges. He was just, always looking right at him.
Koro-sensei did the same, he knew. He could tell why class A had become who they had after being in the same class as Koro-sensei taught.
He looked right at the person in front of him. Like he was accepting the person, with their layers and mistakes, with their choices and their masks and everything.
He didn't try to peel their armor apart like Asano Gakuhou looked like he was always doing. Karma had been under the Principal's eyes enough times to have had that expression directed to him.
But Gakushuu was different even from Koro-sensei.
Gakushuu had bared his awful human heart to them too. He had placed the knives in their hands, then told them to fight with their backs to him.
And they had, because he was also an excellent judge of character.
Gakushuu was lethal too, but they could all trust him to watch their backs, just like he trusted them to not stab him with the knives.
Karma wasn't in class A.
But he trusted Gakushuu.
It wasn't because of class A, or because of their back and forth relationship, or even because of the cats.
It was simply because Gakushuu had spent the last two years doing just that.
It wouldn't just be Karma either. He couldn't see anyone in class E actually considering Gakushuu to be an enemy. Maybe a rival, but not an enemy.
Maybe even an ally actually. The whole school might.
It was because Gakushuu worked hard.
Unlike Karma, Gakushuu worked in every aspect of his life. He spent so much effort doing things that sometimes seemed meaningless or pointless. But his results were proof that it wasn't all like that.
Unlike Gakushuu, Karma didn't actually work for it. He coasted along other people's efforts.
And Koro-sensei was proving it.
Mach 20 wasn't a speed that could be achieved by humans. But Karma and his class needed the best reaction time along with creativity to kill Koro-sensei.
It didn't need to be pretty, but it needed to be effective.
Karma's line of thought had always been simple. The kind of thing that elicits a response from even emotionless people is disgust.
Well, pain and fear too, actually.
But it wasn't love or hate or whatnot.
Disgust was easiest to bring out. Pain was much more effort than worth it for a Mach 20 creature. Fear also wasn't easy to use.
Karma didn't have the ability to follow through it, no matter what he induced in Koro-sensei, either way.
So Karma had to spend time training and learning. He had a renowned teacher straight from the military, it was almost a shame not to use it.
Karasuma taught them effective movements. Disabling an opponent was good, but it was even better to get a one move kill in instead.
Karma was good. But growth wasn't always even. And Karasuma was a fully grown adult with his own battle experiences.
So Karma skipped a few classes.
Anyway, he knew the syllabus and he had already scored better than his class just by listening to Koro-sensei for revision.
But with Ritsu who could fire hundreds of bullets with inhuman AI-led precision, or Itobe who could literally swing around tentacles, he needed to work on himself.
An assassin.
Someone who would kill their target no matter the cost.
The pride of an assassin wasn't simply their own skills but also their minds which could accurately assess and make plans in an instant. It was to make traps to kill the target, not simply weaken them.
As assassin's goal was always to kill.
Karma closed his eyes and imagined Karasuma in front of him.
He took in the environment around him, and moved first.
Karasuma could counter every move. He knew Karma's limits because he had trained him himself. He knew the movements because he had taught them.
Then, Karma remembered Gakushuu, someone he had lost to, once.
It wasn't simply quick, unexpected movements or using the environment best. It was also about controlling the pace of the fight. Accounting for the other's timings and habits.
When people trained, they built reflexes and habits. When people built habits, they could be analyzed and found out. A person whose habit was exposed could be disabled.
It wasn't something Karasuma had taught Karma. This was something that Gakushuu's fight had told him.
Karma needed to be aware of his own habits to make sure he wouldn't get caught out again, and even if he did, he would have a trick or ten up his sleeve to counter that.
Maybe someday, he would see the limits of Karasuma's ability too.
クリエイターの想い 
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
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット