There wasn't a lot that could be said about Amaya's time leading up to Monday.

After spending the whole of Thursday deliberately wandering through areas known to be delinquent hot-spots just to try and goad some of the idiots with half a brain into picking a fight with her, Amaya returned to her apartment covered in enough blood to even scare some of the railway security guards into asking if she was in need of medical attention.

Of course, she actually was, but she waved it off pretty well by telling them she was actually on her way to a hospital she trusted.

One of the delinquents right at the end of her beat-down rampage had pulled a knife sharpened to a razor edge on her, and in the middle of trying to pin her to the ground by stabbing her through the shoulder, he had managed to not only slice several rather nasty gashes into her left arm, but cut a chunk of her hair right up to her shoulder as well. That's disregarding all of the little nicks to her neck, shoulder and face she'd sustained just trying to avoid the knife-happy asshole from turning her into swiss cheese.

So she not only needed to sew her arm shut, but she also had to get a haircut.

She couldn't bring herself to regret any of it, though.

The time that wasn't spent kicking delinquent teeth in was actually spent trying to figure out what she wanted to do. By the time she got home, she had a plan of action. She put that plan of action into motion immediately.

There was no point in skipping the trip; Her gut told her that something was going to drag her whether she wanted to go or not. It could be one of her classmates, or it could be the octopus himself. It could even be Karasuma or Irina that would step in and drag her along despite her wishes.

So Amaya decided that she wasn't going to go to school on Friday just to see what would happen.

After cleaning up and sewing the gashes in her arm shut, Amaya began to make arrangements, trying her absolute best to ignore the large chunk of hair that had been chopped off on the left side of her head.

Nothing too dramatic, of course. Just some barriers to keep a hypocritical octopus from touching her the whole time she'd be in Kyoto. And it would be interesting to see if any of her ideas had an effect on him, and in what way.

After being in Class E for just under a month, Amaya had learned something that the weakness-spotting Nagisa may not have realized.

Koro-sensei hated being ignored, especially if it was obvious he was being ignored on purpose.

If he was trying to talk to a student and they plain well ignored him for no reason at all, he would grab whatever had the student's attention just so he could talk to them.

Therefore if Amaya ignored Koro-sensei at all during the trip, he was going to make at least a couple of attempts at getting her attention.

He'd do things like tap her on the shoulder, or yank whatever she was looking at right out of her hands. So she had to take measures to dissuade that.

She ground up the whole packet of Anti-Sensei BB's she had into a fine powder, mixing a portion of it with some fabric softener to soak several sets of her makeshift uniform in it for a while - She'd also iron them just to try and have the dust adhere to the fabric a little. After that, she mixed some of the dust with some clear shoe-polish, and cleaned up her bloodied boots before adding a layer of it to the leather, and did the same for her fingerless gloves.

Deciding to go the extra mile, Amaya mixed some of the BB-dust with a clear paint and applied it to her headphones, cable and all.

Basically anything that she could apply the BB-dust to, she did. The more she could apply it to her person, the less likely Koro-sensei would be to try and get her attention if he'd start turning to gloop upon contact.

She'd be a cactus to that octopus, something he couldn't touch unless he wanted to suffer.

Since he was too fast to try and stab, she'd let him burn himself instead.

At the end of her night's efforts, Amaya ended up dry-brushing some of the anti-sensei paint she'd made on her messenger-bag, just because she felt like it.

It was about 2am by the time Amaya had finished her preparations - The twins had gone to bed, leaving Amaya the only one conscious.

There were a few unread emails on her phone, however she wasn't interested in reading them.

She just waved them off for another time and went to bed.

Friday was uneventful in every way imaginable.

Amaya woke up just before lunch to find that the twins had let her sleep by stealing her alarm clock again, and she'd gone downtown in one of the new outfits they'd bought her, that of a pair of black shorts and a red tank top paired with a black paperboy hat completely hiding the mess that was her hair.

There were no delinquents around at all, despite the time of day and what day it actually was - Amaya wondered if she'd beat them all up yesterday, but eventually shrugged it off as she wandered into a hair-salon she'd vaguely recalled a classmate at some point recommend to one of the other girls in class.

Amaya'd ended up being tended to by a rather energetic hairdresser that immediately gasped in horror at the sight of such long hair being hacked so horribly. After briefly explaining to the hairdresser what happened, and that she honestly didn't care what was done so long as the mess was fixed, Amaya'd walked out half an hour later looking greatly different from normal.

The hair dresser had even done the cut for her at half price, just because she deemed it to be an emergency job.

Her hair had been cut right up to just beneath the chin in a layered cut, and her fringe had been thinned out a little.

It was a boyish cut that actually suited Amaya far better than her long hair had, greatly similar to her hair style when she'd moved to Tokyo.

The only reason she had long hair up until now was because she had other things she needed to spend money on and there had never been an instance when part of her hair got lopped off before.

Someone at one point said that they liked short hair on her, but she honestly couldn't remember who it was. It was something someone said to her when her hair was growing out.

Oh well, whatever.

Amaya had decided to read those emails on the way home, now that the problem of her hair had been taken care of. She was just standing there in her little spot on the train with a good ten minutes left until her stop, so she might as well do something while she waited.

She was rather surprised to find that another two had joined the three from Thursday, especially when she read who they were from.

Aside from the three from Thursday being parts of a long email from Isogai containing all of the information for Monday for her, one was from Maehara, and the other from Nagisa.

It was the one from Nagisa that had surprised her, considering that he rarely emailed her unless it was something important. And of course none were from Karma - He'd only email her when he wanted to torment her with something, or on the very rare instance that she vanished and he couldn't track her down.

Odd.

[10:24, Shiota-kun: Katsuragi-san, are you coming to school today?]

[13:01, Maehara-kun: Oi! You damn well lied about not being bothered, didn't you?]

Amaya felt her brow furrow as she glanced up at the time displayed at the top corner of her phone's screen, to find that it was just after two in the afternoon.

Well, she had decided not to got to class just to see what would happen, after all.

She stood there holding onto the passenger rail of the train while she considered what to send in reply, her brow furrowing all the more.

At least until her phone started to vibrate in her hand.

She blinked in surprise as she realized that she was receiving an incoming call, though there was no information.

It just came up as a number, which meant this was someone she'd never given her number to.

Letting out a sharp, quick breath, Amaya tapped the 'accept' icon on the screen of her phone, and pressed it to her ear.

'Hello?' Amaya spoke into the phone as she leaned against the vertical railing just to her right.

'Good afternoon, is this Katsuragi Amaya-san?' Echoed a deep toned voice that she recognized immediately.

It belonged to a man that wore a serious-expression as a neutral face, bringing her to furrow her brow ever so slightly at the situation she was in. She couldn't help but wonder if she was in some kind of trouble for skipping school, though Karasuma wasn't one to punish a student for skipping just like that.

'That's right. What can I help with, Karasuma-sensei?' Amaya spoke in a courteous tone of voice, her gaze going to the city-scape outside the train.

'I am calling to clarify whether you are attending the Class Trip on Monday.' Karasuma explained, his tone matter of fact and the manner in which he spoke was straight to the point. 'It was expected that you would attend classes, today.'

'Sorry, something came up.' Amaya waved off Karasuma's remark with little thought.

'I see.'

Amaya let out a small breath through her nose for a second, her free hand lifting to pinch the bridge of her nose.

'I'll come.' Amaya eventually spoke up, glancing down at her BB-dusted boots for just a second. 'It's not like I actually have anything better to do with my time.'

Amaya really didn't like admitting that, but unfortunately it was the truth.

And just not turning up at all was going to look like she was throwing a tantrum, nothing more, nothing less.

'I will let the Target know.' Karasuma responded, no change in his tone whatsoever. 'You are to be at the Classroom by 7am, in preparation for departure at 8.15am. You are permitted to bring your knife and gun, and any personal affects you may use throughout the trip.'

Amaya blinked slowly as she thought on Karasuma's words.

'Can I bring a book, or something?' Amaya asked.

There was silence for a few seconds on Karasuma's end of the line.

'You may bring whatever you'd like, Katsuragi-san.' He eventually answered, surprising Amaya.

His tone was a little soft in comparison to usual, as well.

'T-thank you, Karasuma-sensei.'

And with that, Karasuma bid her farewell, and the line disconnected.

Amaya slowly pulled the phone from her ear to stare down at the display, before she saved the number under 'Karasuma-Sensei :|'.

She wondered about the odd way that Karasuma had answered her question about bringing a book.

That didn't sound at all a normal Karasuma response, but she wasn't going to complain about it.

Maybe because the Teachers were going to be chaperoning the students the whole time, there wasn't going to be anything for her to do other than to sit there and twiddle her thumbs.

Maybe that was it?

Karasuma probably would find it kind of sad to have a student sitting there twiddling her thumbs all through the class trip.

Amaya was comfortable to wave it off as that.

As the train paused for just a minute at one of the stops along her line, Amaya let out a sigh and began to reply to Maehara's email.

She didn't think she really needed to reply to Nagisa's one, considering that the day was already pretty much over.

'What happened to you?' A familiar voice spoke up all of a sudden, startling Amaya with little effort.

After near on jumping out of her skin, Amaya blinked owlishly as she recognized the voice, and she turned her head just to her right to find that Karma was standing just over her shoulder. He wore a mostly curious look across his face, however there was the tiniest hints of a frown there - He appeared to be eyeing her hat rather suspiciously.

Amaya offhandedly wondered how he'd magically appeared on the train, until she reminded herself that she was on her usual route back home.

Which meant the stop they'd just left was Kunugigaoka, and Karma had decided to skip fifth and sixth period, it seemed.

'What happened to who, when?' Amaya questioned the red-head curiously.

For some reason, Karma didn't make any attempt at picking on her choice of words like he usually would - Instead, his brow furrowed ever so slightly as he looked up at her face from her bandaged arm.

Was he in a bad mood, or something?

'What's with the hat?' He asked, making an obvious play at ignoring her rather jumbled question.

'Just felt like wearing one, I guess.' Amaya shrugged as she looked back down at her phone.

'Eh? Since when have you ever felt like wearing one?' Karma drawled out, before he grabbed the hat and pulled it right off her head to reveal her much shorter hair beneath.

Amaya wasn't the least bit surprised or startled by the sudden theft of her hat, and instead kept her gaze upon the device.

There was silence from Karma for what felt like several long seconds, enough so where Amaya almost turned to look at him.

'Done staring at me, yet?' Amaya asked as she hit send on the email to Maehara.

A sigh escaped Karma as he shifted to lean against the wall of the train next to her, a frown written clear across his face as he looked at her.

'Who'd you pick a fight with?' He asked her, his tone hinting at a warning to not avoid the question.

Okay, he really was in a bad mood.

She wondered what was wrong.

'Some short, stabby bastard out near Hayashi's part of the city.' Amaya shrugged as she spoke, locking her phone and tucking it in the pocket of her shorts. 'Curb-stomped a good number of them all yesterday, come to think of it.'

'That explains why it's quiet, today.' Karma remarked, though he didn't sound too pleased about it.

Amaya turned her head to look at him after a couple of seconds.

He was standing with his hands buried in his pockets, staring off at the window on the opposite side of the train. His brow was still slightly furrowed, like he was annoyed.

'Are you in a bad mood, or something?' Amaya couldn't help but ask.

'Not really.' He responded as he glanced at her.

'Huh.' Amaya frowned for just a second, before she shrugged and disregarded it. 'Well, alright then.'

He glanced at her once again, however this time there was a hint of mischief in his gaze.

She'd missed it, however, and was looking out the window in front of her.

She'd also failed to notice that he hadn't given her hat back, yet.

'Ne, Amay?' Karma drawled after a few seconds, causing Amaya to blink in surprise.

She turned her head to look back to Karma, only to find that he was suddenly right next to her, his face mere inches away and he had a particularly evil glint in his eye.

Immediately, Amaya's first reaction was to flinch away with a squeak of fright.

'Wh-what are you doing?!' She questioned frantically, finding herself a little perturbed as the red-head just grinned mischievously at her.

'So what's this I hear about you hanging with Maehara-kun and Isogai-kun all Saturday at the Arcade?' He questioned her, his tone heavy with a drawling tone that actually made her a little nervous.

'I-it wasn't all day, dammit! It was a few hours, and I ended up needing you to unlock my apartment, remember?!' Amaya responded, but then a small pout touched her lips as she came to a thought. 'W-why're you asking, anyway?'

'I just heard him say something interesting about it.' Karma remarked in a vaguely offhanded manner, though Amaya guessed pretty quick that he was up to something. 'Something about how you've never played video-games, before?'

'I thought you already knew that?' She asked, a confused frown touching her face as she stared up at him.

'It's news to me.' He affirmed.

'Huh? Wait - why?'

'I'd always thought you were never interested.' Karma responded, a smirk appearing across his face as Amaya frowned a little more. 'After all, you bought Yuta-kun and Reiko-chan a 3ds each with games for their birthday last year.'

Amaya's frown faded from her face a little, and she let out a breath as she turned and leaned back against the wall of the train to put a little distance between herself and Karma.

If his face was that close to her own for very much longer, she wouldn't be able to stop the blush from appearing across her face.

'Just because I've bought them games before, doesn't mean that I've ever played them - They've always been for Yuta and Reiko.' Amaya responded, glancing at Karma momentarily. 'And besides, I'd rather not spend money on such frivolous things for myself.'

'You never spend money on yourself, full stop.' Karma responded.

'I got a hair-cut today.'

'Wow, that's less than five thousand yen all year, Amay.' Karma remarked, his tone heavy with mocking sarcasm.

Amaya pouted slightly as she turned her gaze away from him.

'Shut up. I just don't like spending money on myself.'

'And you don't like anyone else spending money on you, either.' He responded immediately.

'Your point, being?' Amaya questioned in exasperation.

'No point, really.' Karma told her, his rather simple tone of voice bringing her to look at him once again. 'I just don't really get why it bothers you so much.'

'It just does, that's all.' Amaya muttered under her breath.

'Right, like you just happened to feel like wearing a hat, today.' He responded with a smirk in the tone of his voice.

However Amaya grit her teeth and refused to give him response.

It didn't appear to bother him, though - He pulled away from the wall and stepped over to stand right in front of Amaya.

'What?' She questioned, frowning up at his smirking face.

'You're going to tell me what your problem is with that, one way or another, Amay.'

'And if I don't?' She questioned the oddly smirking boy, her brow furrowing even more as he didn't seem the least bit bothered by her question.

'You will.' He responded confidently.

She didn't know if he was messing with her right now, or being serious - It would bother her if he really was serious.

But she decided to play along, anyway.

'And what makes you say that?' She asked, her tone holding very clear exasperation.

'Because you always give in eventually, whether you like it or not.' He answered, a knowing smirk written across his face as Amaya stared at him. 'It's like when you refused to call me by my name - I just have to annoy you in just the right way to get you to spill.'

'In case you haven't noticed, you've been pestering me with that question for years, now.'

'I know - But I've got plenty of time to wear you down.' He responded, so sure of his words as Amaya listened. 'It's not like you're going to suddenly disappear without a trace. We've been stuck together for seven years, now - You'd miss me way too much to go and do that all of a sudden.'

She frowned, a little miffed at how easily he just said that. It bothered her, because she knew he didn't fully understand just how right he was.

Because it actually hurt to hear him say that all of a sudden.

'You're a jerk, you know that?' Amaya grumbled.

And of course he just snickered at her in response.

'And you're a moody cat.' He remarked with a mischievous grin.

'Are you gonna give my hat back, yet?' Amaya huffed.

'Hmm...' Karma seemed to look thoughtful for a few seconds.

Of course Amaya fixed him with a rather bitter frown as she realized he was messing with her again.

'Please? I'm too tired to try and steal it back.'

'You've never gotten anything back that way, and you know it.'

'Shut up, damn it!' Amaya seethed, much to the red-head's amusement.

As they sunk back into that familiar exchange of jabs and taunts, Amaya's couldn't help but find herself feeling better after her rather unfortunate Thursday.

But much like whenever she got to spend time with her best friend like this, she could feel it slowly beginning to become harder to keep her emotions in check. It was harder to stop the warmth from rising to her face, and the swirling warmth from appearing inside her chest.

This day was one of those days where she wished her emotions just had an off-switch.

Because it hurt whenever she'd remember that in truth, she was all alone in this world, regardless of how close to Karma she got.

---=[Authors Note]=---

Haha, I lied. Here's the next chapter today, just because I got it done ahead of time.

Not much in the author notes this time xD Just a howdy and hope you enjoyed the chapter :)

Translation notes for Chapter Thirty Two of Marionette :D

Hitori de - Translates as Alone, written as 一人で in Japanese