The chain of unfortunate circumstances continued beyond the morning arrival at 3-E's satellite campus, with no possible end as far as Amaya could tell. The tension about the class was palpable, suffocating even, and there was nothing that could be said or done to alleviate the situation at all.

Science during first period was a nightmare for Amaya. An already boring and tedious subject was made so much worse by the encroaching tension in the room that Amaya found herself wanting nothing more than to bury her head in her arms and try to sleep instead. Math for second period was no better for the ten minutes that she was even in the classroom at all, and by the time third period had arrived Amaya was about ready to snatch her bag up and get as far away from this place as she could manage.

Coexistence didn't matter when everyone was silently feeling sorry for the situation they were in, and it was obvious that everyone had been doing nothing but considering the situation all over winter break. It was of course more evident since the proposed assassination plan Isogai and Kataoka told her about had effectively been canned without so much as a word.

Nobody said a word to one another unless it was necessary, only Koro-sensei's explanations on the subject matter at hand rung through the air.

It was as if he were talking to an expansive brick wall.

Eventually however, third period chimed in some form of relief for Amaya and her patience.

The subject was PE, and for what felt like the first time in months, it was solo-training. The perfect excuse to get as far away from everyone else as she could manage without being particularly rude about it.

It was the first lesson with guns since Amaya had gotten contacts and glasses, so it was of course, the perfect time to see exactly how much easier it was for her to hit the targets. Unfortunately however, all Amaya had were her glasses tucked away in her pocket. She tended to forget to wear her contacts now that she was walking her siblings to and from school every day.

Amaya stood silently at the edge of the class, listening to Karasuma's instructions as she traced her gaze over their surroundings in the clearing. She ignored the chill in the air as she tried in vain to blink away at the blurring in her vision. The dull treetops were a curtain of brown against the muted blue skies above, and even at close to the middle of the day, there was no warmth or brightness to the sun. There were no birds in the skies, no clouds nor wisps of crumbling leaves caught in the breeze. However, there was the faint hint of a glimmer somewhere in the distance, some kind of white glow that flickered slightly with the shift of the breeze through the trees.

It was prominent enough that Amaya had paused to try and get a better look at it.

She couldn't quite tell what it was, though she at least knew enough to say with little doubt that it wasn't just a frost-coated leaf reflecting sunlight at the right angle for her to see. Perhaps she could see it better if she just wore her glasses, but she wasn't concerned enough about it to go to the bother.

'Katsuragi-san.' Karasuma called out all of a sudden, bringing the girl to promptly snap her attention away from the glimmer of light in the distance. 'Pay attention.'

'O-oh. Sorry.' The startled girl responded.

As Karasuma began to assign tasks to each student, Amaya cast a brief glance back towards that glimmer of reflected light.

But it wasn't there anymore.

When Amaya's attention returned to class, she'd noted that everyone was already splitting up on their assigned tasks. She promptly wandered off to the further-most target set up for handgun practice, ignored glances from nearby classmates and settled in for what she hoped was an uneventful and enjoyable class. She pulled the hood of her PE jacket over her head to hopefully block any prying eyes from notice and quickly pulled on her glasses.

Before long, Amaya had checked her handgun over, loaded a fresh clip of anti-tentacle pellets and fired away.

The glasses she was wearing definitely helped her vision, now that she was more used to them, and honestly she was quite proud of how well she was now doing. She could clearly see where all of her shots had struck the target fifty meters away, and with each round she got closer and closer to the desired mark without fail.

She could also tell that with every accurate shot she fired without cursing or muttering, the more people seemed to look her way.

Amaya's gaze remained stubbornly upon the targets, even as she heard footsteps begin to approach her withdrawn form. Firing away without pause beyond the swift motion to reload with a fresh pellet clip, Amaya ignored the presence of others even as the first of the footsteps came to a halt a few feet away. The others soon came to a halt around the other, hovering just over Amaya's shoulders as if they were watching her shots hit the centre of the target repeatedly.

It definitely wasn't Karasuma. She could hear him talking to somebody from a different direction.

'Umm... Amaya-san?' Spoke up none other than Kayano, just as Amaya had fired the last pellet of her 30 piece clip. 'Can we talk?'

Oh. Great.

She had somehow forgotten that yes, there was still that underlying problem. It was easy to do considering how weird everyone was acting towards Koro-sensei.

'Not interested.' Amaya dismissed.

'Please?' The greenette pleaded.

Without a word, and no ounce of abrupt haste in her motions, Amaya simply picked herself up off the ground and moved herself towards the next set of paper targets further away.

However, they followed no matter where Amaya went in the classroom grounds, haunting her every step like shadows as they tried to talk to the albino in spite of the situation.

And she really wasn't listening.

This wasn't a show, a disinterested front when she was listening to whatever it was that was being said. Amaya really, truly wasn't hearing anything. She filtered everything out and focused on the tasks she was given, making a point to fully disassociate herself from anything going on around her, and it was blatantly obvious to anyone who was watching.

'Kayano-san, Kanzaki-san.' Karasuma called out sternly before long, causing Amaya's unwanted shadows to promptly halt in their steps. 'You haven't completed the tasks I have given the both of you.'

'S-sorry, Sensei!' She heard the two girls stammer out, and finally, they left her be.

Amaya let out a relieved breath as she loaded the next clip of anti-tentacle BB's and proceeded to pepper the distant targets with puncture holes.

Eventually Karasuma had approached her to evaluate her marksmanship, and beyond the initial instructions to aim for certain targets in a particular order, nothing much was said. She was given the okay to finish up, and she certainly took up the offer, if only to put more distance between herself and certain members of the class.

The faint chiming of the PA ringing the end of class echoed throughout the building as Amaya roughly shoved her PE uniform into her bag, sparing no care for the packets of anti-tentacle BB's she had just broken with the endeavor, nor did she particularly care that it was going to get BB dust all through the hefty material. Instead, her thoughts were promptly on the fact that it was now lunch break, and it was in her best interests to disappear now before anyone else decided they wanted to break their distancing from her.

So Amaya did just that.

She quickly walked her way out of the building, ignoring the odd gaze here or there as she took off into the mountainside forests with naught but the clothes on her back.

Amaya quickly jogged through the cold forests with no intent on a particular destination. She just wandered through the sea of trees until she reached a far-enough place that she was comfortable to kick back in. It was a small little pocket of space overlooking a small offshoot of the stream, with a small rocky wall that formed a little sheltered hollow about the size of the shed's open floor space back at the classroom.

The albino let out a breath as she tucked herself away in the smallest corner of the sheltered hollow. She was quite thankful that the cold winter air didn't even seem to reach into the small pocket of space, and strangely enough, it was cosy. She could feel herself warming up, thankfully.

While being indoors would be much better, at least here was comfortable enough for her to escape prying eyes and somber moods.

Amaya wondered what was going to change in the classroom as she leaned back into the rocky wall at her back and turned her gaze upon the darkening skies overhead. Something had to give. It couldn't continue and coexist in such a strained condition. It wasn't healthy.

But her own interference wouldn't work.

Nothing she ever said would help. Nobody ever wanted to hear what she really had to say.

They just wanted to hear her agree with them.

If she didn't, her thoughts and opinions didn't matter.

'So this is where you got to, Amay?' Karma's voice overhead promptly startled Amaya out of her thoughts with a yelp.

Reeling with the sudden knowledge that she wasn't alone anymore, Amaya frantically craned her head to her right to try and locate where Karma was standing.

And she promptly cast him a frown when she finally spotted him peering over the lip of the rock wall over her shoulder.

'What the hell? How'd you track me down so quickly?' Amaya asked, suspiciously.

'I saw which way you were going when you took off.' Karma responded with a smirk as he dropped himself over the lip of the rock wall to land just a few feet away. 'And you know, the back trail we usually take to get to class is about a hundred meters away. You would have had better luck hiding near the main campus.'

Huh. Well, fine then.

Amaya scoffed as she shuffled over in her tiny hollow so there was plenty of room for him to sit out of the frigid air as well. She wasn't heartless enough to make him sit out in the cold when he clearly intended to skip classes too, if the fact that he had both their bags with him was anything to go by.

The clouds overhead looked almost like they could start pouring rain at any moment.

'Did you have a change of heart, or something?' Karma asked as he sat next to her, bringing the albino to cast him a suspicious stare as she held a hand out for her offered bag. 'I thought you were determined to never let me catch you wearing those again.'

Those?

What?

Seemingly in response to Amaya's confused thought, he reached over and tapped the arm of her glasses with a smirk. Of course, all Amaya did was swat at his hand and petulantly turned her head away.

She was still getting used to having to remember the tiny capsules sitting on her bathroom sink, and it certainly didn't help that she hadn't so much as looked at them all winter break.

'I forgot my contacts...' She muttered sourly. 'Why do you care enough to comment on it, anyway?'

'No reason.' He dismissed with an amused hum. 'I just couldn't help but remember how defensive you were about them last time.'

With nothing left she was able to say, Amaya scoffed as she turned her head further away.

She ignored the barely-there chuckle from him as he began to go through his bag, though she did note how his mood didn't seem quite like normal. She couldn't quite put her finger on why, but there was something about it that just felt off.

Of course, her train of thought was promptly interrupted with the sudden presence of something cold being shoved against the side of her face.

'Is that really necessary?' Amaya snapped as she shoved whatever he'd attacked her with away from her face.

'You're the one who's trying to avoid looking at me.' Karma countered as he then dropped what turned out to be an obentou in Amaya's lap. 'And here I went to the trouble of making you lunch, earlier.'

Amaya was silent at first as she looked down at the box sitting in her lap.

This definitely proved his mood was still off. He'd never once made her an obentou before. It was eerily domestic in contrast to the other times he'd cook proclaiming she was bound to poison somebody if he didn't intervene.

But beyond a brief muttering of thanks, Amaya decided it in her best interest to refrain from commenting.

The contents of the obentou were bright and colourful, fragrant on the spicy side. Fish, curried tempura prawns, all the things he would usually save as things he could butter her up with, things that should have made her happy to see, but she just didn't have much of an appetite. She seldom ate all that much of late, especially since her little dispute with Kayano's friends at the gym.

Honestly, Amaya felt bad looking at the clear amount of effort he put into this while knowing that she probably wouldn't manage to eat even half of it.

She felt even worse when she cast a cursory glance at Karma's own, dramatically different obentou.

Lunch was eaten in moderate silence between them, slowly in Amaya's case as she tried to will up a better appetite so she didn't up offending the evil incarnate. And she had difficulty. She knew it was freshly made, knew what it was supposed to taste like because she loved his cooking in spite of herself, but every bite to her was as palatable as chewing on styrofoam.

'Not feeling well?' Karma actually asked her between bites of his own obentou, bringing Amaya to reluctantly shake her head.

'Sorry... just don't have an appetite.' She admitted.

She expected some kind of quip about her having a problem with his cooking all of a sudden, but that's not what she received.

'I know. Yuta-kun told me.' He instead told her as he glanced down at her barely-touched obentou. 'Just eat what you can.'

That was even stranger, but she certainly wasn't going to question why he was being so openly nice to her.

Still, it didn't change the fact that she felt guilty about it.

She attempted to eat more, but as the minutes ticked by she found herself less able to maintain her focus, until eventually she fell asleep.

It was an apathetic sleep that brought her no form of rest no matter how long she had slept. And when she did eventually wake feeling no better than when she was last awake, she had found that, strangely enough, quite a few things had changed.

What had awoken her was the faint sound of Karma's voice overhead, hushed as if he were trying to speak as quietly as possible. It took her several long seconds to register that she wasn't upright anymore, or even propped up against the rocky wall at all. She was lying on her side with her head propped up on Karma's lap, and as she struggled to force her heavy eyes open, she felt the telltale sensation of fingers gently trailing through her hair. Wherever the obentou was, it wasn't in her hands, and she wasn't wearing her glasses anymore.

When Amaya finally managed to open her eyes, she found herself wearily conscious of the fact that she had been asleep for at least a couple hours. In fact, judging by the yellowing hue of the sunlight, she would dare say they had missed all of their afternoon classes.

Not that Amaya was complaining at that moment.

'What, now?' She heard Karma murmur, though she heard no other voice he could be responding to. Obviously, he was on the phone. He certainly didn't sound all that eager to be talking with whoever it was that had apparently called him. 'Is it actually something important?'

Amaya let out a weary breath as she forced herself to sit upright, much to her bodies protests at that moment.

'Fine, I'll be there soon.' The redhead audibly sighed before he seemed to hang up on the person on the other end of the call.

'...Did something come up?' Amaya brought herself to ask.

'Nagisa-kun wants to meet up for some reason.' Karma informed her, though he sounded like he'd rather do anything else right now. 'It seems like everyone else is going to be there.'

Curiously, Amaya pulled her phone from her hip pocket to check if she'd missed anything, and without a word Karma passed her glasses over when she glanced around for them.

But there was no email waiting for her, no missed call or any such notification that showed anyone was looking for her.

Nothing.

Nobody had tried to contact her at all.

'Did he say anything about me?' Amaya asked as she frowned down at her phone.

'Not a word. He just said to meet up with everyone else.' Karma promptly answered.

And yet there was nothing coming in, no matter how long Amaya stared down at the screen.

She wondered if that was on purpose.

Amaya watched silently as Karma reluctantly picked himself up, bag and all, inwardly debating what she was going to do, when he suddenly held out his hand to help her up.

Well, that answered the question she had about what she should do.

She accepted the offered hand and without a word, they both began to make the slow ascent back up the mountainside.

They eventually found everyone else from class out of sight of the satellite campus building, but within five minutes walk away just as Amaya's phone started ringing. Most looked up when they'd heard her ringtone, and oddly, a number of classmates looked surprised to actually see Amaya in tow as well, enough so that it was clear it wasn't simply because she was still wearing her glasses.

Her phone promptly stopped ringing a second later, and Amaya noticed that it was Yoshida of all people who was putting his phone away with a relieved sigh.

Well, at least somebody had tried to let her know something was happening.

She cast the motorbike enthusiast a brief nod as she stood with her back against the opposite side of the tree Karma had leaned against, if only so she was out of the immediate view of the majority of the class.

'So? What is it, Nagisa?' Terasaka grunted out disinterestedly from his place sitting on a nearby clump of raised ground. 'It is rare for you to call all of us together.'

'I'm sorry, but... I have something to propose to you all.' Nagisa began after a moment.

This didn't sound good.

'What...?' Hara urged the boy to continue when he'd trailed off. 'Just say it.'

Nagisa was silent at first before he brought himself to speak.

'I don't know if such a thing is possible, but...' Amaya noticed the bluenette step more into the centre of the group from over Karma's shoulder. 'I want to search for a way to save Koro-sensei's life.'

The shock that engulfed a number of the students in response to the declaration was palpable.

But that wasn't what had grasped Amaya's attention.

He wanted to save Koro-sensei's life?

Maehara hadn't told her anything of the sort, granted, she did tell him she didn't need to know anything. But... he'd said she'd pegged everything all on her own when he pushed for her to elaborate her knowledge.

'Save... In other words, a way to make it finish so that he doesn't explode in March?' Mimura asked for clarification.

'Is there really a way?' Okano questioned.

'Clearly there is none right now, but after listening to his past... I cannot see him as a target like I did before, and you should also feel the same. And the fact that the earth should explode in March is not what Koro-sensei desires, as well. He is not that different from us, after all.' Nagisa proceeded to explain, causing the albino to frown. 'Just like us, he failed... regretted, and came back reborn. He's taught us many things so we don't fail just like he did. And more importantly I really enjoy staying with him. It is only natural to want to help such a teacher instead of killing him.'

But that isn't what this classroom is about.

You can't just throw the towel in and change the whole plan when you're under the government's orders.

'I agree!!' Kurahashi squealed out with an enthusiastic grin. 'I want to know a lot more about Koro-sensei and other living things!!'

'I was thinking of saying something if you didn't.' Kataoka began, drawing everyone's attention away, immediately. 'I want to repay him, after all.'

Amaya tore her gaze away when she heard many others begin to promptly agree with Nagisa and his cotton-candy ideals. Of course there were those who so promptly agreed, and yet, Amaya found herself hesitant to agree.

It was a nice ideal, sweet and innocent, but like usual... just like every idea they got in their heads, she was certain they hadn't fully thought it through. She was positive they hadn't considered that the government would say no. That the powers that grant them their happy little classroom life with the person they're trying to assassinate would have qualms with their decision.

They were already celebrating when half of the class hadn't so much as said a word, hadn't so much as lifted a finger to voice their so called agreement with Nagisa's idea.

However, from the corner of Amaya's eye, she saw Nakamura let out a weary sigh.

'Sorry to ruin your party, but I'm against it.' The blonde announced, seriously.

The celebrating party had whirled around in abject horror to gape at the outspoken girl.

'Our bonds are between those of an assassin and their target. That's what he told us. And those bonds formed between us are really dear to me.' She proceeded to voice out, undeterred. 'And for that reason, I have to kill him.'

And of the people standing silently, previously unspoken, it was Terasaka's group who decided to step up to join her. Amaya could see they agreed with Nakamura. A clear divide in the classroom much unlike the trend in the past.

'You are telling us to help him, but how do you plan to do it in practice?' Terasaka spoke up. 'It would be different if we had the full knowledge on how to create that octopus from scratch, but both Okuda and Takebayashi's academic knowledge is at university level.'

'B-but--!' Nagisa attempted to protest.

'Nagisa, it's not like we didn't think about what you have just said.' Yoshida interrupted Nagisa.

'But what would we do if we search for a way to help him to find ourselves empty handed when we run out of time? We would just not use the greatest skill at our disposal, that is our assassination power and let time pass, getting closer and closer to the deadine.' Muramatsu continued.

'Do you really think that octopus would be happy with such a half-assed conclusion and incompetent students?' Terasaka added.

'B-but you can't be sure that it would be useless to think about...' Nagisa countered.

'People with talent often have the wrong impression that things will go as they think.' Karma interrupted, so suddenly that even Amaya had been surprised.

She turned her head to look up at what little of his face she could see from over his shoulder, eyes wide as she recognized that detached, drawling tone of his.

This... wasn't going to go well.

'Hey, Nagisa-kun. Don't you think you've been getting a bit too cocky, lately?' He asked the stunned boy across the circle of students. 'You are the one with the greatest assassination skills in our class, you know? And you are the one proposing to us that we give up on the assassination? Without even thinking about those without any talent who are desperately trying their best in the assassination plans. This feels like a popular girl who says to the ugly girls around her "We should stop searching desperately for men, you know~" Don't you agree?'

Amaya gaped at Karma, inwardly struggling to come up with any way she could to salvage the situation before it turned into a disaster. It was like watching a trainwreck in slow motion, knowing for certain that once it's started, it wasn't going to stop.

She had never heard Karma actually talk like that to somebody he was supposed to be friends with.

'I didn't mean something like that.' Nagisa argued weakly. 'And in the first place you, Karma-kun, are way better than me when it comes to assassination.'

'Now that you've said it, that's pissed me off even more.' Karma bit out sourly as he stepped away from the tree to approach Nagisa, in spite of how frantically Amaya tried to catch his sleeve to urge him otherwise. 'Could it be that in truth you're unable to understand the feelings of the weakest people around you?'

'You're wrong! It's not like that! My feelings are more honest than that!!' Nagisa shouted. 'Do you hate Koro-sensei, Karma-kun? We went together with him to watch movies and enjoyed a lot of things together with him, right?!'

'That's what I'm telling you! That octopus did his best so that even worthless people like you would not skip the class and enjoy his lessons!!!' Karma roared back in kind. 'IF OUR BLOOD LUST DULLS, THIS ASSASSINATION CLASS WILL FALL APART!!! YOU AREN'T EVEN ABLE TO UNDERSTAND HIS EFFORTS!!! ARE YOU AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KID NOT ONLY IN APPEARANCE BUT ALSO IN YOUR BRAIN!?'

Everything was silent, except for the screaming inside Amaya's head. She stared helplessly, growing more distressed with every passing second.

She wasn't hearing the words that Karma snarled out next before he roughly shoved Nagisa back, didn't see the way Isogai and Maehara took note of her obvious anxiety and seem to ready themselves to intervene if need be.

All she knew was that the moment she'd realized this wasn't going to end with angry words alone, she was already dashing towards the classroom building for help.

However, before she had gotten even ten meters away, she had run head-first into Koro-sensei himself.

She didn't have a chance to even say a word, even if she could manage it, didn't even have the second to lift her head to look up at the silent octopus before she had been gently steadied on her feet and hushed with an encouraging smile from the octopus.

'It will be okay, Amaya-san.' Cop-costume Koro-sensei patiently told her as he patted her haywire hair down and gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze before he continued to approach the ensuing commotion, clad in costume and wielding boxes of paint-drenched weapons. 'You'll see.'

It didn't stop the flinch from shooting through Amaya when she'd heard Maehara and Isogai shout out at Karma to calm down.

All it did was make her feel even worse.

Amaya stood silently, staring down at the ground as things continued, mute and deaf to the world as even Karasuma and Irina arrived and passed her by to join Koro-sensei in the centre of the commotion.

What was she even doing, anymore?

Why did everything she did, openly or otherwise, feel like the wrong thing?

Why did it feel like all she was good for was to make things worse? That no matter what she did, what she touched, she ruined things?

Just what was she supposed to do?!

'Amaya-san.' Somebody had called her, intruding upon the spiraling thoughts and breaking her out of it before it worsened. 'We need an answer from you, as well.'

The albino hesitantly turned her head towards the people standing in that group, to the octopus who had called out to her when everyone else had forgotten she'd even been there the whole time.

Every student had already divided into two teams, armed with weapons painted in either red or blue. But her eyes did not stray from Koro-sensei standing at the front, holding out toward her two pairs of gloves painted red and blue respectively.

'You are the only one who hasn't chosen a side.' Koro-sensei instructed her patiently, even though he could see the torn, almost heartbroken look across her face as clear as day. 'Do you want to kill me? Or save me? You need to tell everyone your answer nice and loud so we understand your feelings.'

But she was mute.

She could feel everyone's gaze upon her, waiting for her to cough up an answer to be done with it, but she couldn't.

It felt like she had just been slapped across the face, struck so hard she had temporarily lost control of her body.

Because this question? This simple question to kill or save? It was far, far more personal than anyone understood.

'Amaya-san.' Koro-sensei called out to her as he moved to crouch in front of her, so that he was closer to her height. 'You haven't answe--'

'They won't let you stay.' Amaya quickly whispered, interrupting the octopus with her trembling words. 'Th-they'll just take you somewhere else to do it all over again. Even if we can save you, you can't even stay here anyway... You can n-never be free...'

'That is likely correct.' Koro-sensei quietly agreed.

Just like her, even if he could be saved from self-destructing, people who could use him would still come after him. People in the know wouldn't stop.

'Then... even so, even if they don't... When March comes and you've finished what you set out to do...' Amaya next asked. '...Will you still be here?'

Or, will he disappear all on his own?

Vanish from the world with no last goal, nothing left to live towards, alone in a world that will see him as nothing but a monster?

Does that even count as saving him?

Koro-sensei gave no answer that she could discern, no response that prickled at her ears or telltale sign that he'd even heard her question at all.

But she knew for certain that he had.

It was in the way that he didn't respond, staring down at her as if she were entirely transparent, honest in spite of her deepest attempts at hiding herself away.

Even though she was the one asking the questions he stared down at her as if he could read the innermost facets of her very soul.

'Are you still going to be here?' She asked him again.

'I can't give you the answer you're looking for, Amaya-san.' Octopus responded, quiet enough that prying ears failed to overhear. 'My answer is not the same one to the questions you have for yourself.'

But why not?

They were the same, weren't they?

Though happenstance and time differed, they were still twisted and dehumanized in the same ways. Their fates were the same in the end. Endless running, hiding, trying to postpone the inevitable and live what little of their lives they had left. Turned into monsters at the whims of some person seeking to live out a sick fantasy at the cost of multiple lives.

What difference was there?!

If she were in his position, if she was wrapped up in the same circumstances with the same end game, then she...?

'I'd ... want to die.' Amaya whispered in spite of herself. 'I-if the end game was the same... I'd want to die now then spend the rest of my life running...'

'Is that how you would feel if you were in my shoes?' Koro-sensei asked her.

But Amaya didn't answer; She couldn't.

If she did, she'd have to accept what that meant for her own fate.

'Red team's down by one person, right?' Amaya instead spoke up as she scrambled for anything to avoid opening up any further. 'I-I can't answer... but I'll even the numbers so it's even chance... Is that okay?'

She knew for a fact that she wasn't fooling Koro-sensei, but thankfully, he gave no indication that he was going to derail her attempts to postpone her introspection.

'If that's how you feel, then nobody can argue.' Koro-sensei answered.

Hesitantly, Amaya nodded and reached forward for the red-coloured glives with a trembling hand.

'Only to even out the numbers.' Amaya reaffirmed, hopefully loud enough that the others heard. 'I... I can't...'

'I understand.' Koro-sensei told her as he allowed her to take the painted gloves.

And then, Amaya dared a look at the rest of the class.

She could see a lot of apprehensive faces on the blue team, wry smile from Isogai and Maehara, terror on some. The red team were mostly indifferent.

Everyone except for Karma.

The fury still radiating from his very being actually scared her, even moreso when he'd looked at the colour of weapons she had picked and he seemed to even glare at her as if he found a problem with her choice. The sheer force of the glare had even hurt, even though she knew it wasn't her that he was mad at.

This was serious, he couldn't go into this match with such a volatile state of mind.

He was going to do something he was going to regret, if he did.

Amaya ignored whatever it was Koro-sensei had said as she willed herself to move, forced herself to pick up the pace after Karma as he stalked off back to the classroom building along with everyone else.

'Karma!' Amaya called out as she dashed past Terasaka and his posse just up the trail. 'Wait a second! Please!'

He wasn't stopping, or even slowing in his steps.

But she knew he'd heard her.

This was going to come back to bite her, it really was. She knew better than to harass him when he was half as angry, but this?

She just couldn't leave him be to self destruct like this. She'd accept a few burns if she had to if she could prevent something far worse from happening. She was going to force him to redirect some of that anger at her, if nothing else.

She'd do it for him, because she didn't want him to come out of this regretting anything.

'Just stop! Please!' Amaya pleaded as she reached out to try and grab him by the sleeve.

Unfortunately, that only wound up with her hand being slapped away so forcefully it had hurt.

'Will you just back off already?!' Karma spat at her, causing the albino to wince at the full brunt of his tone. 'I thought it was obvious that I don't want to fucking talk to you right now!'

He'd never spoken to her quite that viciously before, certainly never sworn so violently at her in person, and she'd be lying if she said it hadn't hurt worse than the welting mark he'd just inflicted over the back of her hand.

'I get that. I do.' She responded with grit teeth, biting her tongue as she tried to keep herself from flinching away. 'But I'm not going anywhere until you calm the hell down!'

'I don't need your fucking approval!' Karma snapped harshly at her as he turned and promptly resumed his anger-fueled march to the classroom.

'That's not what this is about!' The albino called after him as she followed closely behind. 'For gods sake Karma, you need to calm down and get your thoughts in order! Just talk to me! Hell, vent at me if that's what's going to help! But I'm actually worried about you!'

'You're wasting your time! I'm fine!'

'You're not fine!' She rebuked, hyper aware of the following classmates who could hear every word they were saying from down the trail. 'You're acting on anger more than rational thought, and that's the last thing you should be doing right now!'

All of a sudden Karma had halted dead in his tracks, body so tense he looked like he was trembling, and a second later she didn't even realize what had happened. Her heavy boots slid to a halt along the track, dislodging pebble and sand alike as she found herself startled by Karma's sudden movements. Promptly, before she even realized exactly what was going on, he had rounded upon her in anger, yelling words at her that she failed to grasp at first.

She was paralyzed by the hostility and fury in his gaze that was so fierce, if felt like she'd just been kicked in the gut. But he wasn't looking at her, and she knew it. He was riled up to such a point that all he was seeing was red, the words were spilling out just as she'd intended, but...

She could hear the voices of classmates suddenly stop, she heard footsteps come to a halt mere meters away, and there was nothing she could do.

The poor girl was rendered speechless, eyes wide as she stared up at the boy she could hardly recognize at that second.

'You know what, Amaya?! You're the last person I ever want to hear that from!' Karma had shouted at her, words spilling so fast she almost couldn't catch it all. 'You have no right to criticise me when you're so stuck in your past that you have no sense of stability at the best of times! You let your fucking trauma rule your life when it's been years!'

Stop...

She knew what he was going to say.

'K-Karma, calm down!' She begged him.

Please, don't do this!

But he didn't.

'And what good's that done you?!' He shouted, loud enough for all to hear, for the whole mountainside to hear every single word. 'You're so terrified of your fathers fucking shadow that you refuse to accept the fact that he's been dead for months!'

In that very second, Amaya felt like her heart had just been ripped right out of her very chest.

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

Chīsana Seiiki no Owari - End of Small Sanctuary, written as 小さな聖域の終わり in Japanese (I believe). The choice for the title should be self explanatory, but additionally, it is the name of a piece from Silent Hill 3's soundtrack that fit the bulk of the chapter in terms of emotional feel, as well.

Sooooo. Yeah, that happened, lol.

Not long now.

Let me know what you all think of the progress so far. You know, aside from the screeching you're all probably doing at Karma at the moment lol.

<3 SnappyCockatiel