Whatever repairs were completed at the end of the day, Amaya couldn't say.

Following her latest spat with a handful of her so-called classmates, even an eavesdropping Koro-sensei had decided that enough damage had been done, and it was in her own best interests for her to leave early.

She had helped out enough, she had been targeted enough, and it was entirely understandable that she wanted to be anywhere else by now.

Amaya went and tried to expel some of her anger at the gym, wore her knuckles raw through her sparring gloves, returned home with takeout for her siblings and proceeded to detail clean the whole building interior top to bottom, regardless of the time. Upon her arrival home, the twins had immediately noted her horrid temper and proceeded to keep Samuel in line like mute drill sergeants, promptly stifling any and every hiccup that had any chance to worsen the girl's already volatile mood.

Not that it would have changed anything in the end.

Amaya was about as angry as she could be without exploding.

It was well past midnight by the time Amaya had exhausted every single piece of cleaning, maintenance and organizing she could complete without waking her siblings up, and easily past 3am by the time she had worn herself out enough to force herself to shower and collapse in bed.

There was no alarm ringing to rouse Amaya in time to cook breakfast and packed lunches, nor was there any commotion from departing siblings shouting their farewells as they left for school. After what felt like mere minutes since she had switched off the light and curled up in bed, she was awoken by the jarring sensation of being shaken awake.

She cracked her eyes open to find herself staring blankly at the wall in front of her, curled rather tightly in a ball on her side. She actually felt cold, like there was a chill in the air trying to seep into her bones, and beyond that, she was exhausted.

Her body felt so heavy, all she wanted to do was go back to sleep.

'Amay?' Came Karma's voice, reminding the weary girl that she had not awoken naturally

Sluggishly, Amaya turned her head to look up at the evil incarnate from over her shoulder, blinking slowly as she struggled not to nod straight back to sleep right then and now.

'...What are you doing?' She mumbled out.

'Yuta-kun asked me to wake you up.' He explained after a moment with a strange lack of his usual taunts as he watched her without waver. 'Apparently they couldn't wake you up, no matter what they tried.'

'Oh...' Amaya could feel herself nodding off as those words sunk in on her.

'You were pretty close to cracking yesterday, huh?' Karma asked.

'...I was?'

She honestly couldn't remember at that moment, but she didn't disbelieve him.

'Amay, the kitchen and living room swapped colours overnight.'

After a few seconds of sluggish thought, Amaya recalled that Karma had not turned up, though presumably that might have been because she was out at the gym trying in vain to vent her anger when he might have turned up at the house. So he went home, instead?

She sighed as she lifted a hand to try and rub the sleep from her eyes.

'The cracks Samuel's door-slamming put in the walls bothered me...' She explained.

The kitchen was now sandstone and the living room was now apricot following her task of filling in all the cracks and sanding the excess away. She repainted the rooms in the other's colours because if she didn't, she wouldn't have had enough paint to finish the job.

There was no real reply to her comment, though she knew it hadn't been ignored.

She was too exhausted to really think anything of his position sitting on the edge of her bed, or even why he was being exceedingly patient with her right now, when usually he'd be doing any number of annoying or downright petty things to drag her out of bed because he didn't get to sleep in, himself. She couldn't even deny the possibility that she might just be imagining all this in her half-awake state.

However, just as she almost drifted back off to blissful sleep, she was jostled lightly to rouse her attention again.

'Sorry Amay, you can't go back to sleep yet.' She was told as a firm grip closed around her forearm and tugged her back across the bed, effectively earning a weary groan from her. 'I hate to admit it, but Koro-sensei demanded that you have to come to class today.'

What exactly did Koro-sensei do to have Karma actually listen to him like this?

Still, she grudgingly listened to him, if only because she really didn't have any energy in her to truly think about arguing, let alone ignore him.

She picked herself up out of bed once the evil incarnate was certain she wasn't going to just go back to sleep the moment he left the room, eventually got herself organized and then, they were wandering up the vehicle trail of the mountainside.

As per her usual luck when exhausted, Karma had to catch her by the back of her jumper a couple of times before they'd reached the half-way point, and eventually he'd decided to just keep a firm grip on her arm to prevent any further incident.

Amaya learned upon their arrival that the classroom had been fully recovered, and there was nothing all that out of place. The schoolyard had been raked up and the disturbed earth shifted back in place, the walls and ceiling were repaired and the glass panes were replaced in the window frames. Everything was back in order, and there was no sign that anything had gone amiss less than 24 hours ago.

However, Amaya was too exhausted to truly care about that, and simply ambled along at Karma's tugging insistence.

Inside was another matter entirely, however.

The faint sound of discussion inside filtered through the air, enough so that Amaya vaguely heard it through her exhaustion, though not so much enough that she could hear what the words were. She had waved it off as another discussion into assassination attempts, discussions that were never really held with her in attendance, however, as soon as she was about to reach for the front door of the classroom, Amaya was tugged away from it all of a sudden.

Without warning or any understanding on Amaya's part, she found herself looking up at Karma's motionless form just before her. He had stopped all of a sudden, without her even knowing it until he'd pulled her back, and his attention was fixed upon the classroom inside. Or rather, upon the discussion that was currently taking place inside.

Now, however, with her close proximity to the door of the room, Amaya could actually hear what was being discussed.

And the discussion matter in mention?

It was about her.

A voice Amaya vaguely registered to be female spoke up from within the room, speaking quickly about the incident yesterday and Amaya's worsening mood, until finally, after a few minutes, fell upon an unpleasant topic that had Amaya's breath catch in her throat.

It was about her refusal to humor the questions Kayano and Fuwa had asked of her yesterday afternoon.

'And what did Amaya-san say when you asked her?' Isogai's strangely serious question pierced the air sharply, enough so that Amaya actually felt the grip Karma had of her arm twitch slightly.

'Well, nothing really...' Fuwa hedged awkwardly. 'She just got really mad and said some nasty things to us.'

'You probably asked for it.' Maehara grumbled.

'Actually, it really wasn't warranted, even if Kayano-san and Fuwa-san did ask her when she was already in a poor mood.' Hayami commented.

There was a brief pause of silence within the classroom, before the sound of a chair scraping against the floor filtered through the ajar door.

'I'm sorry, but out of respect for Amaya-san's wishes, you need to let this go.' Isogai announced loudly, earning a few disbelieving gasps in response. 'I imagine she told you that it was nobody's business but her own, and if that's indeed the case then you have to respect that.'

'But you've got to admit, she's so suspicious!' Fuwa responded.

'Maya-chan's not suspicious.' Maehara snapped from the front of the classroom. 'You're just making her look like it.'

'That talk about her transferring to Germany over summer break, how ballistic she went and nearly killed Bitch-sensei that time, and now that Principal saying that she not being expelled is because somebody keeps bribing him to keep her here? That's not us exaggerating it!'

'And not to mention how angry she got at being asked a simple question.' Hayami added. 'She doesn't contribute or volunteer to help, and when it looks like she is about to, like yesterday, she reacts violently when you try to help.'

'Anybody knows if you bother a sour cat, you're going to get scratched.' Yoshida intoned simply. 'Guess what? Amaya-san's a cat, through and through. You were asking for it by even bothering her when she'd already made her bad mood known.'

'Even Terasaka knows better than that.' Itona deadpanned from his corner of the room.

'Oi.' The burly boy in mention grunted sourly at the implied jab.

'But that doesn't change anything!' Fuwa complained.

'Very well, then let's take a vote.' Isogai announced, though he didn't sound as chipper as he usually would. 'All those who feel we have a right to know in spite of Amaya-san's feelings, raise your hands.'

There was a brief pause of silence as certain students seemed to do as instructed.

'And those in favor of leaving Amaya-san in peace on the matter?'

This time, there was an audible gasp of disbelief that rung through the classroom.

'There you have it, Fuwa-san, Hayami-san. That is nineteen votes in favor of dropping this matter entirely, against eight.' Isogai continued before long. 'That's the decision, so everyone has to let this go and leave Amaya-san's secrets to herself.'

'But wait a--'

The sounds of protest that had been uttered were suddenly cut short at the sound of the door sliding open and the sudden presence of Koro-sensei's enthusiastic morning greeting, bringing Amaya to snap her gaze up from the floor beneath her feet. The sudden gust of wind that swept past Amaya and Karma's motionless forms was sign enough that the octopus had appeared "suddenly".

'Everyone please take your seats.' Koro-sensei instructed everyone as he motioned for Karma and Amaya to step inside ahead of him. 'It's time for homeroom.'

There was no room for argument, and right now Amaya was not the least bit interested in even trying.

She remained silent as she felt Karma tug her along after him inside and ignored the assorted glances and stares she received as she set foot in the room.

Attendance was taken, like usual, and it appeared that following what was the morning Class Representatives meeting at the main campus there was a discussion that had been held. The topic wasn't necessarily announced with enthusiasm, however as Isogai and Kataoka began to hand out a set of papers to everyone, the class was informed that there was yet another festival to be held during the last week of term.

The Kunugigaoka Middle School Drama Festival.

At that announcement, Amaya stopped caring to listen and instead slumped forward over her desk to try and sleep.

Or at least she hoped she could.

Within seconds it seemed, Isogai had appeared standing over her slumped form with a wry grin across his face as he held out papers towards her. And even at her adamant reassurance that whatever it was would simply wind up thrown in the trash if it wasn't important to her, he still insisted she at least glance over its contents before she made that decision. Patiently, of course, with that edge of humble understanding she honestly couldn't gripe at.

So she reluctantly held her hand out for the papers without so much as lifting her head, inwardly groaning when Isogai promptly deposited the two pieces in place and left her be.

'We just can't catch a break!' Somebody complained from the front of the classroom.

The faint sound of clicking buttons and digital music at Amaya's side was sign enough that Karma had already glanced over the papers and was quite disinterested in the drama festival. So Amaya let her arm drop and resumed her attempt at sleep.

'Amaya-san?' Came the soft-spoken voice belonging to Okuda. 'Are you interested in--'

'Let her sleep, Okuda-san.' She heard Karma interrupt the bespectacled girl promptly.

'Eh? I-is she not feeling well?'

'Probably.'

'We might as well be Hors D'ouevres!' Somebody exclaimed loudly in the front of the room.

The more outspoken students content to complain uttered their distaste for the situation, bemoaning the fact that this so called festival was compulsory when they had high school entrance exams to prepare for.

Not that it mattered to Amaya.

She was going to skip this festival, and she didn't have any intention of applying for High School.

The complaints continued for a brief while, before Isogai's voice spoke up in response, silencing the majority of the students. Whatever was offered was soft enough where Amaya felt herself begin to sink into her position slumped over her desk. A faint sigh of relief threatened to escape her as she finally began to drift off to sleep.

At least until the sudden exclamation of one Yoshida jostled her wide awake, causing the sleep-deprived girl to hiss out a rather colourful string of curses beneath her breath.

'All right! Once we get going, we can get this play done in a flash!' The motorbike enthusiast announced with a cheer.

'Let's hurry up and decide on the roles and script!' Somebody else exclaimed in kind.

Reluctantly, Amaya lifted herself upright to stare blearily at the students before her.

Karma was gone from his seat, harassing an indignant Nagisa with another so-called "sketchy offer". A taunting Terasaka was swatted over the head with a broom by none other than Kayano, and all the while Amaya was honestly questioning why she even listened to Karma and came to class at all.

'Our director will be Mimura-kun!' Koro-sensei announced brightly, deciding to interrupt the chaos at long last. 'And Hazama-san will write the script.'

'But what about the lead role?' Somebody Amaya couldn't care enough to identify, questioned curiously.

'I wanna play the Lead Role!' Koro-sensei announced with a pout.

In true 3-E fashion the classroom was silent for just a moment, before all hell broke loose.

Defiant screeches from various students ensued as they all swiftly drew their handgun-replica airguns and unleashed a hail of pink gunfire upon the comically startled octopus. BB's that ricocheted against the blackboard and walls shot across the room, with a great number of BB pellets peppering an already irate and exhausted Amaya.

'Fine. I'll write you in.' Hazama announced dryly, loud enough to catch the attention of both octopus and students alike. 'I'll make a script with you as the lead role.'

At the sight of Koro-sensei's delighted expression, Amaya decided she'd had more than enough of these 3-E shenanigans for one day.

Hell, for the rest of the year, even.

Amaya uttered a weary sigh as she picked herself up out of her seat as casually as she could manage so she didn't alert anyone to her movements. She ignored Hazama's role delegating to both Sugino and Kanzaki, with the former erupting into an excited gushing of glee at the news.

She didn't care about this play, about the excitement that was now flooding the room in waves. The cheering voices that deafened her did nothing to instill even a sliver of lighter thoughts.

It just wore her out.

'Oh yes, before you disappear, Amaya-san.' Koro-sensei called out the very instance Amaya had managed to slide the door of the classroom open, bringing the girl to inwardly swear as she heard the commotion die down, no thanks to Koro-sensei's interruption.

She didn't need to look to know the octopus was fixing her with that calculating grin of his. And she certainly didn't look away from the empty corridor right in front of her.

'I should have mentioned this earlier, but you will write the music for our play.' He announced brightly, oblivious to the bewilderment of his students.

All was silent as those words sunk in, and even as students spoke up their confusion, Amaya was left reeling at the sheer audacity Koro-sensei had to assign her on something that he already knew she strongly refused to so much as touch.

'Wait—what?!' Somebody had exclaimed in disbelief.

'Wouldn't be easier if Bitch-sensei helps us with it?' Somebody else asked.

'No no no! Amaya-san is perfectly able to write the music for our play!' Koro-sensei countered confidently, deliberately. 'Isn't that right, Amaya-san?'

However Amaya didn't respond, or really do anything at all.

Instead, she slammed the door of the classroom shut behind her, and left.

That night, Amaya returned home after hours of grueling venting at the gym with her already-raw hands cracked and weeping, worse aggravated than the ever-present stinging they had been throughout the morning. Expecting to have a dramatic hamster and fox whining for the hour she was returning and lamenting their non-existent dinner while a ferocious hare reprimanded them for their complaints, Amaya was instead greeted by a flurry of feathers and the collision of a tiny, flying body to the face.

Clawed feet scrabbled until the toes had latched firmly around tufts of loose hair hanging down Amaya's face, and she almost let out a weary sigh the instance she realized what had pounced on her.

'A-Amaya! Sorry!' Yuta's startled yelp rung through the air as Amaya carefully pried an exceedingly amorous Koko from her head. 'Your bird got out of its cage again and I couldn't catch him!'

'Did somebody try to play with him? Again? After I made it clear to leave him alone?' Amaya questioned pointedly.

The weary sigh that escaped Yuta and a certain blond's absence was answer enough.

'Fine, whatever...' Amaya muttered as she set the amorous ball of feathers atop her head properly and let him be. 'I'll be putting padlocks on all the cage doors, then.'

'What?! But--' Came Samuel's sudden exclamation from behind the couch, followed by the painfully audible sound of a gasp and the slapping of hands cutting the words off completely.

She honestly didn't want to have to put locks on the cage, but this was getting ridiculous.

Needless to say, Amaya only sought to do the bare minimum that evening. Preparing dinner for her siblings, letting Koko have some time to spread his wings before she put him back inside with some diced fruit, and a brief shower was all she took for herself.

She wanted to go straight to bed, but a nagging ache in the back of her head refused to let her be, and her hands were starting to cause her some grief now that she'd showered.

However, even her attempts at sourcing out a cup of tea to try and drink to help with anything was thwarted by a hand that had come to push the kitchen cupboard closed against her weary grip.

'I think that's enough housework for one week, Amay.' Came none other than Karma's blunt remark, bringing the girl to turn her weary attention upon him in turn.

It had been a long time since she was truly surprised to find the evil incarnate in her house without her prior knowledge, especially so now that she was living out near Asano Gakushuu's residence in particular. And while she was a little perplexed by his sudden appearance when he hadn't been here half an hour earlier, she didn't so much as question it.

'Housework?' She repeated sluggishly, blinking up at the mischievous one's rather deadpanned expression. Or what seemed like a deadpan to her, in any case. 'The hell kind of housework does making a cup of tea even look like?'

'You turn anything into housework if you're in enough of a bad mood.' He countered.

'Well I'm not. I just want the damn cup of tea.' She bit back.

'Really?'

'Did I stutter?!' Amaya snapped.

'You don't ever really drink tea.' Karma responded just the same as he continued to hold the cupboard door shut. 'You don't even drink coffee unless somebody puts it in front of you.'

Seriously?!

A sigh escaped Amaya as she released her hold of the cupboard door and slumped back on her feet.

'Fine, whatever you say...' She muttered sourly as she turned and left, too exhausted and sore to be bothered in arguing over a cup of tea that probably wouldn't even help enough to give her any real relief, anyway.

Needless to say, she locked herself up in her room with a chair propped up beneath the door handle and went straight to bed.

Morning came with a bout of chiming, electronic sound ringing from the windowsill over her bed, drawing a faint string of curses from Amaya the moment she realized that it was her phone ringing. It was still dark, at least to the sleep-deprived girl running off of a handful of hours sleep for the past few days, and she was tempted to just throw the device across the room to be rid of the disturbance.

But with the chance that the call could be Shigure or Karasuma about something important, and the fact that she had gone through a great number of phones this year already, she lifted her aching, clumsy hands reluctantly retrieved the device to peer down at the screen.

It was an incoming call from Koro-sensei of all people...

And judging by the little red icon at the top of her notification bar, this probably wasn't the first time he'd called.

'Ah! Amaya-san, you've finally picked up!' Came Koro-sensei's painfully energetic voice through the earpiece. 'Sensei was wondering if you were purposefully every call for a while there.'

'It's a god damned Saturday, Koro-sensei.' Amaya muttered with a groan. 'And it's still early.'

'You're supposed to come in for Saturay classes, Amaya-san! Both you and Karma-kun, but neither of you do!' Koro-sensei responded tersely, and had Amaya been a little more conscious, she probably would have found amusement in the creature's obvious disdain for her lack of punctuality.

'I'm not going to go to Saturday classes and leave my siblings with free reign for mischief if I have any say in the matter.' Amaya responded.

Especially with the current perchance Reiko and Samuel have to create more housework for her than she had to deal with before Summer Break. She had house-shopping to complete, and she was not going to make the same mistake of asking her siblings to handle that for her.

'But you have to come to Today's classes. That's why I'm calling.' Koro-sensei countered. 'Hazama-san has finished the script, and today is the perfect opportunity for everyone to go over their roles.'

That woke Amaya up.

'I'm not coming in, Koro-sensei.' She declined.

'You have to, Amaya-san.'

'For what? For you to ensure I cooperate and partake in an activity I've already told you I have no want or interest in pursuing?!' She demanded with more of a snap to her tone than she'd intended. 'I don't want anything to do with this!'

'But this is the perfect opportunity to participate fully with your classmates, and--'

'Don't you think you could have chosen anything else to do that?!' Amaya cut in, silencing the octopus within an instance. 'It's not about group participation, Koro-sensei, you haven't pushed me to fully involve myself with them for weeks.'

There was silence for few moments, before the octopus decided to speak up once again.

'Amaya-san, I feel placing you in this role for the play will be good for you. So please, give it a chance.'

Amaya grit her teeth and maintained her silence.

'In any case, attendance this morning is compulsory, at least for the duration of the class meeting. So please, Amaya-san, at least come up for that alone.'

And with that, Koro-sensei gave her his farewells and hung up, leaving his instructions hanging in the air, prickling at Amaya's thoughts worse than the many times he'd issued her pop-quizzes as punishment.

Compulsory meeting for the play, huh?

Another sigh escaped the albino when she realized that she really wasn't going to get out of this at all. The octopus was determined to have her contribute in the play, even if she were to knuckle down with her petulance and hide away where he couldn't get to her.

She had to at least attend, long enough to turn around and tell them that she wasn't interested. To be the final word on the matter, to make it clear that she wasn't going to let the octopus win with this purely because he felt it was in her best interests.

It wasn't.

No matter what he thought, it wasn't in her best interests to dabble in this at all, especially now.

Amaya reluctantly tossed her phone aside onto her bed after glancing at the displayed time of 7.14am and got herself organized. Refusing to don even her own version of the school uniform for a meeting she didn't even want to be a part of, she dressed in a pair of baggy jeans and one of her remaining jumpers in a dusty orange with black feathers printed across the side. She shivered as the cold air bit at her exposed skin, sinking into her bones as if she'd been doused in water.

But she was familiar enough with this uncomfortable chill to know it was the lack of sleep doing this to her, though the aching weight of her body was at least mostly due to her time at the gym of late.

And once she had finally managed to put an antiseptic cream over the drying, splitting flesh of her knuckles where the skin had worn away from her sparring gloves, she wrapped them in gauze, collected her keys, purse and phone, and left to get this class meeting over and done with.

She was the last to arrive it seemed, and the only one not in uniform, too, though Karma was sitting reclined in his seat looking a little less than pleased to be here.

However, as she opened the classroom door to step inside, she found herself spotting a rather uncomfortable, chilling sight sitting where her desk was.

A large keyboard sat "innocently" upon her desk and another placed beside it to broaden the workspace for it, and there were music notebooks set out on the open desk space left unobstructed by the massive instrument.

Her heart sunk in her chest as she found herself realizing that, in spite of her adamant refusal, Koro-sensei wasn't giving her any opportunity to back out of this.

---=[Author Notes]=---

Sorry about the wait, guys (And especially to those of you on Instagram, who I told I was updating this about a week ago.) I'm sorry, I have no excuse. It's just been a very taxing week, and honestly, I've been very angry irl on top of other things, so it's kinda well, not really helped anything. But at least the chapter is here now, right?

Fukahi - Translates roughly as Unavoidable if I'm not mistaken, which is written as 不可避 in Japanese (I think?).

Anyways, all the best.

<3 Loki-Roki