Amaya found that she had nodded off while lying on the grass outside.

It felt like a mere few seconds after she'd lied down when the irritation of poking roused her from sleep. It was a familiar, frustrating poking right in the side of her face over and over again, like the person poking her was out to annoy her awake.

She knew exactly who was responsible, too.

'Poke me one more time, and I'll bite you.' Amaya ground out, earning a snickering in response.

And then all of a sudden the mischievous red-head poked her in the ribs - Hard.

A startled squeak escaped Amaya immediately, and before she knew it, she'd thrown herself upright with a bit too much force - She didn't have a chance to catch her balance, and went tumbling down the slope to crash in a heap at the bottom.

Immediately, the cause of her most recent misfortune started laughing at her from up the top of the slope, causing Amaya to gingerly untangle herself and glare up at him.

Karma was now crumbled on the grass, clutching his stomach as he laughed a bit too much at Amaya's little accident for her liking.

In fact, she felt throughly insulted.

'God damn it!' Amaya exclaimed, throwing herself into a sprint towards Karma. 'You're dead!'

Or at least she had begun to.

In the second before she would have finally managed to tackle the red-head to dish out some long-awaited retribution, something latched onto her right ankle. With a scream of fright, Amaya was hoisted up into the air to hang upside down from her ankle, where she found herself face to face with none other than Koro-sensei.

At the sight in front of him, Karma erupted into even more laughter.

The Giant Octopus was wearing his ever-normal grin as he said, 'Now now, Katsuragi-san. That little accident was your own fault.'

Amaya remained silent, crossing her arms over her chest as she fixed Koro-sensei with the most filthy look she could manage, which was nothing to scoff at, given her years of practice.

The yellow creature actually let out a startled exclamation as Amaya glared at him, and he began to sweat profusely.

'Sensei had no idea you were this scary...' Koro-sensei hedged, seeming uncertain as to what he should do right at this second.

Amaya felt her right eye twitch slightly as Karma continued to laugh at the scene in front of him.

'Koro-sensei.' Amaya spoke up in a controlled, emotionless turn.

'H-Hai?!'

'Can you put me down, please?' She asked, staring the nervous octopus down.

'O-Of course!' Koro-sensei announced, gently returning Amaya upright as he set her back down on the grass.

Karma had quietened down to a constant barrage of snickering as Amaya stormed away from the rather stumped Koro-sensei, and he didn't stop, even as Amaya smacked him on the arm and continued on her way back inside.

It turned out that everyone was back from the main campus now, and it was supposed to be an English Class next. In fact, apart from Karma, everyone was already inside the classroom.

Amaya huffed slightly as she dropped herself down in her chair, her glare still present across her face as she began to draw in the corner of her notebook silently.

It wasn't long before Karma came strolling into the classroom, still snickering to himself as he wandered over to his desk.

Amaya was tempted to throw a glare at him, however Koro-sensei's sudden arrival stopped her.

It was probably for the best - It would just amuse him all the more if he found that she was actually annoyed at him.

Koro-sensei made his way to the front of the classroom, standing in front of the teachers desk instead of behind like normal. He seemed to wait for the remaining few students to take their seats with his arm-tentacles crossed over his chest, that neutral grin of his in place.

It was the very moment that the last student - being Kayano - sat down that Koro-sensei broke his silence.

'Well then!' Koro-sensei announced enthusiastically, and then all of a sudden there were five of him standing in the front of the classroom in an instance. 'Let's begin!'

Amaya actually jumped as the room was suddenly filled with 27 Koro-sensei, each one wearing a headband with either Science, Civics, English, Japanese or Maths written across it.

What the hell was going on?!

Since when could Koro-sensei actually split himself into multiple copies?!

'Midterms are coming up.' A Japanese-donning Koro-sensei announced.

'That being the case...' A Maths Koro-sensei added, with a civics Koro-sensei continuing with '...today we'll have...'

'A high-speed study session!' Finished a Science Koro-sensei with a very dramatic look across his face.

Ah. So that's what he was doing.

Amaya had heard Yuta gush on and on about how in shonen anime and manga that the really fast characters can create copies of themselves by moving at really fast speeds.

She thought it was some kind of gimmick, but obviously not quite so ...

'My visual clones will teach you one-on-one...' All Koro-sensei's announced as they suddenly appeared in front of everyone's desks. 'Focusing on your weakest subjects!'

And immediately, Amaya discovered that there was a Maths Koro-sensei standing in front of her.

'Oh my god no!' Amaya squeaked out in horror, causing Karma to snicker at her.

'Very well, Katsuragi-san.' The Koro-sensei clone in front of her spoke, and then his headband all of a sudden changed to Science. 'You have two subjects in dire need of attention, so we shall start on Science instead.'

In his seat next to her, Karma was beginning to laugh, once again.

'God damn it, Karma! Shut up!' Amaya snapped at the red-head.

Of course he didn't listen, instead laughing at her even more.

She made a mental note to wring his neck later when there wasn't this havoc with the multitude of Koro-sensei clones.

'So stupid... And you made headbands, too.' Terasaka muttered from over in his corner of the room, bitter exasperation evident in his tone of voice.

Amaya let out a sigh as she sunk in her chair, only to jump as a sudden exclamation rung throughout the room.

'How come I get Naruto?!' Terasaka exclaimed, causing Amaya to snap her gaze over immediately.

'Who doesn't like Naruto...?' The Koro-sensei standing in front of Terasaka's desk questioned with that same grin across his face. 'Besides, you're in need of some Ninja help.'

Amaya blinked in surprise as she found that the Koro-sensei standing in front of Terasaka's desk was in fact wearing a headband from the series, and also had the whiskers to go with it drawn on his face.

Well, it looked like Koro-sensei was in a good mood... maybe?

Had something happened?

Well, either which way, it didn't look like Amaya was going to get too bored right now. And the noise was going to guarantee that she didn't fall asleep at her desk, or drift off into thought like she had been all day.

'Well then, without further ado, let's begin with Chemistry!' Koro-sensei announced with gusto, causing a sigh to escape Amaya.

Oh, yay. He picked Chemistry first...

Was he feeling a bit evil?

No, it was probably because the last Chemistry class, she ran out of in preference for self-study in Algebra.

Well, there was no way he could whip out a set of beakers and other things and have her do some practical work right here and now, so she was kind of safe from her dreaded sensitive nose.

Thus fifth period of Monday afternoon was underway, spent with a loud chattering of Koro-sensei talking at what felt like Mach 20, and the beginning of Amaya's torture.

Koro-sensei ran her through many Chemistry questions, drawing diagrams on her notebook for her, reading from a chemistry text-book he had in tentacle, and other things.

All in all, it was an in-depth one-on-one tutoring that was ... enlightening.

If for no other reason than the fact that Koro-sensei's teaching methods were kind of peculiar.

In honesty, she could vaguely understand the way he was explaining things, but after a short while he seemed to explain almost exclusively in pictures.

And yet Chemistry wasn't a subject that pictures really worked with ... not really.

But she still understood it better than without the pictures.

And it was better than Maths, where no pictures were really possible.

The Koro-sensei clone assigned to Amaya let out a small, relieved sigh as Amaya finally grasped the concept of why chlorides were different from dioxides.

'It's a pity that none of your best subjects are amongst the curriculum's main selection, Katsuragi-san.' Koro-sensei mused, his arm-tentacles wriggling as he flipped her notebook to a new page for her.

'Sorry?' Amaya spoke up curiously, looking up at the yellow clone.

'Your English and Japanese are your strongest subjects amongst the curriculum's main selection; Those being Maths, Science, Japanese, English and Home Economics.' Koro-sensei explained as he quickly began to jot down a list of subjects on the right page of Amaya's notebook. 'However they pale quite considerably when comapred to subjects that are viewed as secondary at best.'

'Okay ...?'

'For example, your--' Koro-sensei had begun, however something rather alarming had taken place and caused a sudden exclamation of fright to echo from a few students.

All of a sudden, the side of every Koro-sensei in the room was deformed, like a chunk of his face had been blown off.

'Please hold off on your Assassination Attempts, Karma-kun!' Every Koro-sensei in the room commanded, causing Amaya to blink in surprise as she looked at the red-head. 'Avoiding you is giving me a headache!'

Amaya could understand why.

Karma was sitting at his desk with his right arm outstretched towards Koro-sensei's face, his Anti-Sensei knife held right where that missing chunk of his face was. He was also poking his tongue out all mischievously.

At the sight of Amaya looking at him in surprise, he turned his head to grin at her.

Of course, this caused Amaya to burst into a fit of laughter in her seat.

'This is no laughing matter, Katsuragi-san!' Koro-sensei rebuked as Karma lowered the Anti-Sensei knife, however Amaya begged to differ.

'Ne ne! Karma! Wonder if Koro-sensei's face will turn into a doughnut if you go for between the eyes, instead?' Amaya questioned brightly.

'Katsuragi-san!' Koro-sensei reproached the girl, while a cheshire grin suddenly appeared across Karma's face.

'Heh, I want to test that out.' Karma remarked with an evil snicker,

'What!?' Koro-sensei exclaimed in alarm.

'Hold still for a second, Koro-sensei!' Karma ordered the octopus as he suddenly went to stab him right where Amaya had suggested.

'Nyuwaah!' Koro-sensei yelped as he removed the clone from in front of Karma's desk. 'This is supposed to be a high-speed study session! You're supposed to be listening while I help you with your subjects!'

Karma tossed the anti-sensei knife over to Amaya behind his back without tearing his gaze from the Koro-sensei in front of Amaya, to which she caught and immediately flicked it around to stab Koro-sensei instead.

However this time Koro-sensei had decided to catch Amaya's wrist before the knife had hit it's mark.

'Confinscated!' Koro-sensei responded, and then the knife was suddenly gone from Amaya's grip. 'You will get this back after school, Karma-kun!'

'Awww...' Amaya pouted as she leant back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. 'That's no fair cheating!'

'He really doesn't play fair, does he?' Karma remarked, more to Amaya than Koro-sensei.

The Koro-sensei clone standing in front of Amaya's desk was silent, glancing from Karma to Amaya.

'...Sensei thinks placing your desk next to Karma-kun's was a poor choice.' Kori-sensei remarked in a reluctant tone.

'You only just realized that now?!' Maehara exclaimed from the front of the classroom, right on cue in that wonderful deadpanning manner of his.

Karma snickered whilst Amaya smirked at the octopus.

The Koro-sensei clone reappeared in front of Karma's desk all of a sudden, thus beginning the high-speed tutoring once again.

Amaya blinked in surprise as the Koro-sensei clone right in front of her suddenly swapped his headband, which read a very, very specific subject instead.

Algebra.

'Oh god damn it!' Amaya whined at the sight of the swap, earning a snicker from Karma once again.

'As punishment for disrupting the class, Sensei will teach you Algebra for the rest of the day!' The Koro-sensei clone announced with gusto.

Amaya groaned as she dropped her head to the desk with an almost frightening thud, earning a startled exclamation from Koro-sensei, while Karma of course continued to snicker at her.

The next hour and a half continued in much the same manner, with Koro-sensei's many clones teaching everyone and Amaya being subjected to torture.

It was torture for her, because it was a subject she loathed, and oddly enough it appeared that Koro-sensei was having trouble teaching it to her.

He tried many different ways of explaining the problems to her in the hopes that she would understand how to work them out, but they just weren't sticking in her head and in fact confused her all the more, and being a subject where pictures were next to impossible to use to help illustrate a formula, there just wasn't any hope.

In fact, come the last few minutes of final period, Koro-sensei had let out a horrified exclamation.

'What?! You could solve this problem when we started just an hour ago, Katsuragi-san!' Koro-sensei exclaimed, a very, very dramatic look touching his face as Amaya stared down at the open notebook on her desk. 'It's a simple problem with a simple answer! You've done this exact problem before!'

Amaya stared down at the problem on the page, biting her bottom lip as she tried to wrack her brain for any hope to solve it.

But unfortunately it all just muddled together in her head, and she couldn't make heads or tails of anything.

5(-3x - 2) - (x - 3) = -4(4x + 5) + 13

That was the problem she had to solve, but she couldn't even get her brain to accept the numbers in her head.

What was the god damn problem with her!?

Why did this happen every time someone tried to teach her Algebra?!

She could understand when Karma would translate it for her, but not anybody else...

Was she actually stupid, or something?

'I just don't understand, Katsuragi-san.' The Koro-sensei clone mused, a grim look touching his yellow face as he stared down at the problem on Amaya's notebook. 'How can you unlearn something you were already able to do in a matter of minutes?'

Amaya remained silent, still chewing on the inside of her bottom lip.

She really wanted to know the answer to that, too.

'Well, I suppose that will be enough for today.' Koro-sensei surmised at the rather depressed look across Amaya's face. 'Your homework for today is to go through all of the problems we covered, and make sure that you can complete them by tomorrow.'

Amaya nodded her head wordlessly, and then Koro-sensei's clone vanished from in front of her desk.

Immediately, she slumped forward, her forehead hitting the wooden surface with a remarkably loud thud, while Koro-sensei continued to speed-teach nearly everyone else in the classroom.

'He finally fried your brain, did he?' Karma spoke up all of a sudden, however the mentally drained girl just gave a small, tired hum in answer.

There was no snicker from the red-head, and instead he seemed to remain silent for a few seconds.

She guessed her lack of usual bite to his remarks wasn't all that entertaining to him right now.

It was to be expected, though.

'Excellent! That completes today's high-speed study session!' A single Koro-sensei at the front of the classroom announced, as soon as all of the others had vanished without a trace. 'Your homework today is to review everything we covered.'

A chorus of tired and acknowledging words echoed in response, along with the clattering of chairs as Kataoka in the front of the classroom called for everyone to follow closing class procedures.

Of course Karma didn't bother, and Amaya just continued to melt over her desk.

Terasaka and the two boys that followed him around didn't either.

The torture of Algebra for homework was haunting Amaya, and if she wasn't so mentally drained already, she probably would have let out a distraught whimper.

How the hell was she supposed to review a subject she just didn't understand, anyway?!

'If I didn't know better, I'd think you'd actually died, or something.' Karma spoke up after a couple of minutes, a knowing smirk in the tone of his voice.

With a very obvious pout, Amaya turned her head to fix the amused boy with a frown.

He was still sitting at his desk, arms linked behind his head in that lazy way he often sat in.

It bothered her to see the amusement in his face, and to know that the evil bastard was probably going to get a perfect score without really trying.

'Shut up ...' She grumbled, before turning her head to bury her face in her arms crossed over her desk, once again.

Karma snickered at her petulant mood as he lifted himself to his feet.

'Sounds like someone's moody.'

'Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious.' Amaya muttered under her breath.

She could hear that most of the students had left the classroom now, and Koro-sensei was gone too.

Oddly enough there was a kind of familiar exclamation somewhere in the building that sounded like the giant octopus, but she couldn't be sure.

'You done sulking, yet?' Karma asked her, however his voice had come from right in front of her.

Amaya lifted her head slightly to frown towards the red-head.

She found herself rather surprised though that he was crouched down in front of her desk, that same amused look written across his face. It actually caused her to pout in a petulant manner, though she didn't tear her gaze away from his.

'I can sulk for however long I want, damn it!'

'You're better at sulking than maths, at least.' Karma responded with a grin, causing Amaya to blink in shock at his words.

At least until she realized exactly what it was that he had said.

'Shut. Up.' Amaya seethed.

Of course all she did was make him laugh at her.

Like always.

'Why are you so mean to me, anyway?' Amaya complained, swinging her feet slightly beneath her desk as Karma continued to fix her with that amused look.

'Am I?' He questioned with an air of mock thoughtfulness, causing Amaya to frown a little more. 'I hadn't noticed.'

'That's the biggest load of rot I've heard all day.' Amaya deadpanned.

'Heh, that was sarcasm, Amay.'

'Wow, you really do have a talent for obvious remarks.' Amaya deadpanned once again, however inwardly she knew he only really made obvious remarks to stir her up.

Instead of making another stirring remark, Karma shook his head slightly as he straightened up on his feet.

'Come on, let's go.' He commanded as he began to poke the side of her face sharply. 'I'm not waiting around all day to do my part of that bet.'

'Bet?' Amaya spoke up in question. 'What bet?'

Karma actually paused in his task of poking Amaya's face, and seemed to fix her with a curious look.

Though it was short lived - It was a couple of seconds later when he returned to annoying her.

'The one where you had to use the mochi on Bitch-sensei, remember?' Karma explained, poking Amaya yet again as she continued to stare at him. 'That wasn't even a week ago - You can't be telling me you forgot, already.'

Amaya was silent at first, swatting Karma's hand away as she began to gather her belongings.

It rung a vague bell, but with the whole chaotic weekend just been, there was little that Amaya really remembered at that point in time.

'I remember something about mochi and a prank, I guess.' Amaya answered honestly, glancing up at Karma to see that he was looking at her with a thoughtful expression. 'So I won, did I?'

He was silent for a few seconds, before an understanding look flashed across his face for a short moment.

'Something like that.' He eventually responded, though in a rather dismissive manner.

Amaya let out a breath as she carefully slung her bag over her shoulder and rose out of her chair.

'So, what'd I win?'

'Shut up, and you'll eventually find out.' Karma responded with a smirk, causing Amaya to scoff.

'Fine, whatever.' Amaya grumbled, however she wasn't really bothered.

She smiled ever so slightly to herself as she followed him out of the classroom.

They returned to a familiar banter of taunts and jests as they made their way home, unaware of Nagisa standing awkwardly outside of the Faculty Room.

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

Chapter Twenty Eight is complete! I hope y'all enjoy it, especially after the last few chapters that have been quite heavy in comparison to the previous trend. Lemme know what y'all thought of the chapter, and I'll see about getting another one submitted by Friday :3

No dedications again, but I have to say thank you to both Magical-Leigh and KhristynZoeBas for all of the votes and comments! You're both absolutely awesome! I hope you both enjoy the chapter most of all :3

Got any questions or have any suggestions or feedback? Please lemme know all about it in the comments, or if you'd like, you're more than welcome to PM me :D

Translation notes for Chapter Twenty Eight of Marionette (Just one, again):

Shigeki - Translates as Irritation, written as 刺激 in Japanese.