Being finished off by Reikos hugging tackle did nothing to save her from having to deal with the approaching interrogation - In fact, all it really did was postpone the inevitable for a later date.

Amaya had awoken at some time in the early hours of the morning, finding herself lying on her bed in her room. It was hell to try and get her body to move for her - It felt like she'd been hit by some kind of vehicle, and she was just one giant bruise.

PE was going to be a nightmare, today.

She was contemplating just ditching school altogether so she could refrain from moving at all.

However Amaya decided it probably wasn't in her best interests - She did promise to hang out with Maehara and Isogai after school, and she'd only been at school for once day since her twelve day absence. Koro-sensei might actually turn up at her very apartment to give her a lecture about proper behavior and punctuality, and she wouldn't be able to guarantee that her siblings wouldn't meet him that way.

Amaya rolled out of her bed after a few minutes of arguing with herself over it, not the least bit surprised to find that she was still fully clothed.

But of course it felt like weights had been tied to her arms and legs, and she was very sluggish.

She learned it was around about four in the morning - She glanced at her alarm clock as she gathered up a clean change of clothes plus her phone, and found herself a little surprised. Though it was beneficial for her - She needed to get morning tasks out of the way.

Several minutes later as she emerged from the bathroom clean and in a fresh set of clothes, something caught her attention from the corner of her eye, drawing her to a stop as she looked over in confusion.

Over on one of the couches was a rather familiar mop of red hair, and the boy it belonged to was lying there much like he was asleep.

Wait a damn second!

Karma was actually here, asleep on one of the couches?

She didn't doubt this was in some connection to the talk they were supposed to have last night, but it still surprised her. Unfathomable curiosity gripped Amaya at the rather rare sight, and she found herself tiptoeing over to investigate.

Lying on his back with his head resting upon his right arm folded beneath his head, Karma was dead to the world in his slumber. He looked like he'd been asleep for quite a few hours already, and there was no sign that he was going to wake up anytime soon.

What a swap in roles - He was right there, asleep and completely unguarded. She could do horrible, horrible things to him in revenge for every time he did something to her when she was asleep. After all, she didn't have a key to his apartment and of course would never turn up unannounced if she did have one, and he was never asleep on the couch like this if he ever stayed the night. There really might not be a chance as good as this for a very long time, and she really wanted to take it.

But she decided that she'd better not. Who knew what he'd do to her if she took advantage of his sleep for mischief when he already had an issue with her.

Amaya let out a wry, breathless laugh as she lifted her phone from her pocket, deciding to do something else that he didn't need to find out about.

She took a photo of the rare sight in front of her, deciding that she may as well keep it as some kind of teasing material for future use, now that she'd learned how to change the passwords on her phone.

Or at least she used that reason as an excuse.

In reality, she just wanted to snap a picture because she wanted to, and she might never see him this unguarded again.

She ignored the colour rising to her face as she stepped away from the slumbering boy, deciding that she was going to be nice to him while he was asleep.

'Hey, Karma...' Amaya spoke softly as she returned with a blanket and a pillow, poking him in the face with the pillow gently over and over again.

There was no response to her poking at all, not even a twitch or a change in his breathing, causing her to scoff slightly.

He really was out cold.

Deciding there was no point in trying to torment him into taking the pillow himself, Amaya unfolded the blanket and threw it over him, bracing herself for any form of repercussion as she then carefully lifted Karma's head just enough to set the pillow in place.

However things didn't quite go as she'd planned.

After all, it was rare that they ever did.

All of a sudden, Karma'd taken this moment to roll onto his side in his sleep, effectively trapping her left arm beneath his shoulder as she'd stumbled. She'd only succeeded in stopping herself from falling on top of him by catching the back of the couch with her other hand.

A soft snore escaped the sleeping redhead as Amaya began to sweat buckets out of sheer nerves, and her face erupted into a vivid blush.

He was still asleep ... Thank god for that!

Of all the damn moments he could have chosen to roll over, why the hell did he choose now?!

Amaya began to freak out as she tried to frantically figure out how to get herself out of this predicament - If he woke up now, she'd surely crack.

And there'd be no way he'd buy the honest-to-god truth that all she was doing was giving him a damn pillow!

She had to think carefully on what she was going to do - Just because she was well-known to sleep like a log, that didn't mean that everyone else did. In fact, it was a miracle the boy was still asleep as it was.

The other miracle was that the twins were snoring away in their respective rooms right now - If the twins saw her now, they'd torment her mercilessly and find great enjoyment in the fact that she was kind of stuck.

Amaya shut her eyes tight as she came to a decision, shifting her weight on her feet and bracing herself with her hand still atop the back of the couch.

It was now or never - Her nerves wouldn't last much longer, and it was better to be out of sight before he could wake up and realize she was responsible for disrupting his sleep.

With the silent count to three, Amaya yanked her arm free with all her strength, throwing herself into a desperate dash for the safety of her room as soon as she was free and slamming the door shut with a bang.

All the redhead had done was stir slightly in response to the jostling, rolling onto his back once again as he continued to sleep.

Nobody else was aware of what had transpired that morning, and the poor girl couldn't look Karma in the eye without erupting in a rather sudden blush of embarrassment in less than three seconds.

'So this person you're taking these lessons from,' Karma began as they made their way up the trail that lead up to the classroom, his hands buried in his pockets as he kept his gaze ahead of them. 'Do you actually know them from somewhere?'

Amaya let out a breath at the question, her brow knitting together as she tried to scratch her brain for an answer that would at least tide him over for the time being.

He'd brought up the question of her questionable whereabouts yesterday afternoon, like she'd expected, and she'd done her very best to give him as fair an answer as she could, while maintaining that level of secrecy that was required.

So far, the story was that she was learning from one of the old kenpo teachers she'd bumped into from time to time so that she could at least figure out a way to teach Yuta and Reiko some self-defense. It was something he should know she'd do if she felt like it was necessary, and it was a convenient scenario that also explained why she was kind of beat up when she got back.

'I bump into him every now and then.' Amaya responded, turning her head away from Karma a little more as she let out a breath. 'Not really much more than that.'

Karma was silent at first, though she did see him look at her from the corner of her eye.

Just the look was enough to make her feel like she was starting to blush a little, and it bothered her.

'I guess I'll let that lie slide, for now.' Karma remarked as he looked away from Amaya, a somewhat bored and withdrawn look touching his face as he looked over at the classroom ahead of them.

Damnit, she hated how he said that like it was obvious.

'What makes you think I'm lying?' Amaya questioned, daring the tiniest glance at Karma.

She didn't miss the roll of the eyes she got in response, though he didn't look at her.

'Just forget I said anything, Amay.' He responded in a bored tone of voice.

Amaya let out a breath, dropping the topic altogether.

First Period was PE, much to Amayas disappointment - Her body was still aching like mad, and she found herself a little worried by the fact that there were many pairs of wooden logs set up so that they were raised platforms, and many basket-balls painted to look like Koro-sensei's face were hanging just a meter and a half above the platforms.

Amaya wouldn't normally skip Class E's PE lessons, however her body ached just way too much to stand on logs stabbing away at a mock Koro-sensei face for what was obviously a Balance-Class.

But this time was an exception.

Amaya tried frantically to come up with an excuse to sit out of PE that Karasuma would buy, especially when he looked like he was in a foul mood already, however she didn't get too far into that.

As she went to approach Karasuma over at the new additions to the schoolyard, a hand suddenly closed around her elbow and tugged her in completely the opposite direction.

'Ow-owwww! Let go!' Amaya complained as she stumbled on her feet, struggling to right herself so that she could regain her balance.

'We're skipping.' Karma told her simply, the tiniest hints of a taunting tone in his voice. 'You'll break your neck if you try that right now.'

'I'm gonna break my neck if you keep dragging me around like this!'

'Only because you're an accident waiting to happen.' He responded immediately.

Amaya huffed slightly, trying her best to ignore the taunt.

She resigned herself to the idea that since Karasuma looked like he was in a bad mood, he probably wouldn't let her skip PE if she asked.

'Okay, I'll skip! Just let go, damnit!' Amaya complained.

Thankfully, Karma complied, allowing her to regain her balance.

Over by the classroom door, Isogai and Maehara watched curiously as Amaya followed Karma with a frown across her face.

She failed to notice them, however.

The majority of PE went along without too much of a disturbance - Nothing really happened other than her classmates repetitively striking the basket balls while keeping their feet firmly planted on their two platform logs beneath them.

Out of everyone in class, it appeared that Takebayashi had the worst balance. Amaya counted a good seven times he'd wobbled, three times he'd almost fallen off, and four times where he actually did fall off of his logs.

Though thankfully Karasuma was always close enough to catch the guys arm so he didn't faceplant.

Kayano was probably the least adept in terms of balance right after Takebayashi.

The difference between Amaya and Kayano was that Amaya had pretty decent balance, it was her bad luck that caused her so much grief.

There was some point right in the middle of class where everyone seemed to stop their balance drills to crowd around Karasuma as he explained something. But of course Amaya couldn't hear from her distance.

She let out a breath as she remained lying on her stomach in the grass over by the line of trees, her chin propped up on her arms folded on the ground in front of her.

It was a few minutes later when Amaya caught the tiniest glimpse of movement in the far corner of the schoolyard.

She felt her brow furrow as she looked over curiously, her sharp gaze searching for that tiny glimpse of suspicious activity she'd caught.

Then out of the line of trees came Irina in that space she'd seen movement, strolling like she owned the place, like usual.

Out came Koro-sensei, too, dressed like a ninja with a bandanna and sunglasses, and then someone else.

It was someone Amaya had never seen before, and she was shocked beyond belief at seeing a stranger up here, too. He was a slightly short man in his fifties by the looks of it, short black hair, a serious looking face, and dressed entirely in black, combined with a long coat.

Just who the hell was that?!

'Hey, Karma?' Amaya spoke up as she stared after the stranger as he walked into the building after Irina and Koro-sensei. 'You have any idea who that guy following Koro-sensei is?'

No response - She wondered if he'd fallen asleep, or if he was just ignoring her.

'Oi!' She huffed slightly as she glanced over at where she'd seen Karma sit down earlier, to find that he wasn't there anymore.

Well great - It looked like he'd ditched her.

Or so she'd thought.

'Hey, Amay.' Karma spoke up from right over her right shoulder a minute or two later, causing her to blink in surprise.

'Yeah, what?' She asked, a little suspicious as she managed to look over at Karma.

But then she froze the moment she caught sight of something crawling over the back of her shoulder from the corner of her eye.

Fuzzy and black with many short, thick legs touched with flecks of orange, and equally as large fangs, Amaya found herself face to face with one of the few creatures in the world that could actually scare her.

A massive spider with a leg-span equally as large as her actual face was crawling up towards her face.

And it didn't help that Karma was couched down just out of reach, watching with that evil grin of his.

She didn't know when she'd stopped breathing, but right now it honestly didn't matter. All the colour had drained from her face and a cold, clammy sensation had overcome her as she realized that the evil boy had put the spider on her.

She could handle spiders so long as she couldn't see their fangs.

The moment there were fangs that she could easily see, she couldn't touch them - She wanted to be as far away from them as she could.

But screaming wouldn't do her any good, and trying to shake it off would only ensue in the arachnid either latching on or sinking its fangs into her.

'K-Karma, get it off!' Amaya squeaked out, struggling to remain still as she felt the spider actually moving up her back.

'Nope.' Was his only response, that grin growing larger as he watched her distress.

'Please! You know I don't like spiders!' Amaya pleaded, unable to stop that involuntary flinch from shooting through her form as the spider moved even more.

All she received in response was a snicker from the thoroughly amused boy.

Why was he being so mean all of a sudden? Was it because she didn't scream at the sight of the creature?

She didn't know why - All she knew was that she was on the verge of freaking out, the only thing stopping her from actually doing so was the uncertainty of the spiders response.

Trapped between two unlikable choices, Amaya went with the second and buried her face in her arms to try and wait for the spider to eventually climb off of her - She couldn't flick it off of her back, even if she wouldn't freak out just by touching it with her hands. She could hear Karma snickering away, however she remained motionless, her fingers gripping tightly at her arms as she tried to keep herself from tearing up.

If she stayed still, it would go away all on its own.

It would, wouldn't it?

'You can stop freaking out, now.' He remarked after what felt like a few minutes, and the crawling spider on her shoulder disappeared a second. 'It's not on you anymore.'

Amaya sucked in a trembling breath slowly, hesitantly lifting her head from her arms to look up at Karma.

But she instead found the spider in the palm of his hand, held no more than a mere foot away from her face.

A strangled, terrified cry escaped her as she threw herself away from the live spider as fast as she could, her back crashing against the trunk of the nearest tree, hard.

Her heart was racing so fast it hurt, and she could feel bile beginning to rise in the back of her throat.

Appearing to have finally received the reaction he'd wanted from the very beginning, Karma burst out in a fit of laughter, the spider slowly crawling over his hands, not the least bit bothered about where it was.

However Amaya didn't find this funny at all.

In fact, she felt like she was going to be sick.

Ignoring the laughing redhead as best she could, Amaya managed to drag herself to her feet through the bombardment of goosebumps, rising nausea and brimming tears.

She understood this was just one of his rather mean pranks he did - She understood he didn't really mean to upset her.

But he also knew she didn't like sizable spiders, especially one that big.

Though he suddenly fell silent as he saw her shoulder her bag and straighten up on her feet, almost as if he'd noticed her discord.

'Wait -- You're not mad, are you?' He asked, his tone reflecting the surprise that he was obviously feeling.

However Amaya didn't answer him - She crossed her arms tightly over her chest as she began to walk quickly towards the classroom.

'Amay?' He called after her, but she didn't stop.

Nor did he follow after her, either.

Her body began to tremble from the strain of maintaining what she could of her composure for so long, and she didn't bother to change her shoes over as she turned down the corridor to head for the girls change-room. She was so lost in her thoughts that she'd almost walked right into Irina, who'd just walked out of the faculty office to head out the back.

She appeared to be in just as much of a hurry to get to her destination as Amaya was her own, a bright pink thermo canister held in her carefully manicured hands.

It was no skin off of Amayas nose - She retreated into the change-room picking the furtherest corner to hide out in until she calmed down.

She also took the opportunity to strip right down to search for anything else undesirable that might have ended up clinging to her.

It was a good twenty minutes by the time she'd reemerged to the world outside, and class was just about to start.

She could actually hear that mostly everyone was already inside, too.

Oddly enough however, set just next to the door of the change-rooms were Amaya's indoor shoes, much like someone had left them there for her so she didn't have to walk all the way back to the shoe shelves to swap them over.

As if the person who'd left them there had seen her retreat into the room.

It certainly wasn't one of the girls, because they would have just walked right in if that was the case.

She slowly crouched down, hesitantly reaching out to lift one of the shoes for careful inspection, no thanks to the paranoia that had taken hold of her following the spider incident.

Shoes swapped, her boots left sitting in the change-rooms, Amaya made her way towards her seat in the classroom, setting her bag on the hook of her desk as Koro-sensei arrived to begin second period.

All was normal, everyone was in their usual state of mind, and nothing was out of the ordinary.

The desk beside Amaya was empty, however.

The onset of paranoia was painful for Amaya - Every tiny sensation against her skin drew uncomfortable shudders from her, and to stop herself from jumping every time her brain would scream out that there was a spider crawling on her like a masochist, Amaya had taken to pressing the heel of her right foot hard over the top of the toes on her left foot, the effort of maintaining a constant pressure dancing between firm and painful proving enough to inhibit the flinches and jumps.

Second Period was Maths, which was followed by History.

And yet there was no sign of Karma anywhere.

'Amaya-san?' Koro-sensei's voice cut through the paranoid thoughts that bounced away inside her skull, causing Amaya to lift her gaze from the top of her desk to look up in response.

The yellow creature was standing at the front of the room, his unwavering gaze upon her face.

'Are you feeling alright? You're much more pale than usual.' Koro-sensei asked, and in response to his words, a couple of her classmates looked over in concern.

'I'm fine.' Amaya responded, increasing the pressure on her foot as she felt an uncomfortable shudder threaten to take hold of her.

Koro-sensei seemed to gaze at her for several long seconds, before he returned his gaze to the textbook held open in his right arm-tentacle.

'Very well, please let Sensei know if you start feeling unwell.' He remarked, returning to reciting passages from the text-book as he walked around the front of the classroom.

Maehara turned a little towards her in his seat, shooting her a look that was disbelieving of her remark.

Amaya returned the look with a small smile, before she focused back on keeping her flinching in check.

She was quick to retreat outside the moment lunch break had come around, ignoring the sudden crash of movement that echoed from the Faculty Room as she walked past. There was an exchange of voices inside, but right at that moment, Amaya couldn't care less about the mystery man or Irina's strange behavior.

She set herself down to sit at the bottom of the slope just outside the back door of the classroom building, her arms linked around her knees as she tried to just get over the paranoia that refused to leave her.

A form crouched down right in front of her without a word or sound escaping them, seeming much like they'd just appeared out of thin air.

She looked up to find that Karma had gotten back from whatever it was he'd been up to, an unreadable look across his face as he seemed to observe her for a moment.

It was seconds later when he seemed to let out a breath, burying his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

'Hands out.' He commanded her, though his tone was surprisingly gentle.

Confused, but not in any mindset to argue right now, Amaya did as she was told - She lifted her arms from around her knees to hold her hands out.

Pulling his hands from his pockets, he set the contents of his right hand into her own, before he rose to his feet and began to head inside. Amaya watched after him for a few seconds, before her attention was eventually dragged back to what he'd set in her hands.

She found herself staring down at a little tangle of nylon cord and what looked to be blue material.

Curious, Amaya lifted it by the cord gently, and the item untangled on its own.

A miniature blue and purple song-bird figure about an inch tall dangled from what turned out to be a hanging cord, with three bells hanging from the cord that hung from its feet.

She gazed at it with a strange sense of wonder, and as her phone in her pocket vibrated in notice of a message received, the wings of the little figure flapped twice as it emitted a brief three-chirp call. She realized that the little bird was one of those sensors that reacted to the frequencies of a cell phone.

She guessed he'd actually felt bad for upsetting her so much - He wouldn't have made such a point of getting anything for her if he didn't.

And little robotic charms like this weren't exactly cheap, either, let alone one so well made.

So with a small, sweet smile, Amaya looped the charm in place on her phone before she began to head inside too.

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

And here's another chapter :) I hope you all enjoyed it, despite poor Amaya's luck today xD Chapter this time around is dedicated to amber_manz, because I was hinting in other conversations about the content in this chapter just so I wouldn't get eaten xD Hope this meets your expectations, amber-chan :D And thank you all so much for reading :) You're all awesome :D

On a completely unrelated note, how many of you lovely readers are familiar with Hataraku Maou-Sama/The Devil Is A Part-Timer? Any fans? And if you are, who's your favorite character? ;) I've been watching it again and my fondness for Urushihara has been reignited xD

Anyways, next update will be Friday the 11th at the absolute latest. I won't be doing any writing on the 6th cause it's my brother's birthday. Oooh the weirdness of Aki sharing Maehara's birthday xD Talk about a coincidence xD

Translations for Chapter 48 of Marionette :)

Kumo - In this instance, Kumo translates as Spider, which I believe is written as 蜘蛛 in Japanese. On a similar note (And one Yuru Yuri viewers into Season 3 will understand) Clouds is also Kumo, but it's written as 雲 in Japanese. For those who haven't seen Yuru Yuri, there is an episode where Yui finds a spider on a set of folded clothes she was about to pick up and she can't handle spiders, so she calls Akari to ask if she can help, because calling Kyoko wasn't in her best interests at the time. She asks if Akari likes Spiders, but because Spiders is said the same as Clouds, Akari thinks Yui's talking about Clouds, and yeah, you get the picture.