8. Sound

"Korosensei and the new teacher look like they're gonna shack it up in the storage shed," Muramatsu pointed out to Nao, "is that allowed?"

Nao groaned, lifting the Shounen Jump from his face as he rose from his sleeping spot on the grass. The light was bright against the world, so Nao decided he was going to sleep until it was dark again.

"Obviously not," he grumbled, irritated from being woken up from his nap under the shade, "this is a Shounen manga, not a Seinen. Matsui-sensei would get in trouble if he pulled fanservice further than Irina's existence."

"Did you understand that?" Muramatsu directed his concern to Nagisa.

Nagisa shook his head, resigned, "not at all."

Getting up with a yawn, Nao turned his attention to the hill upward toward the sports storage shed-- a bright yellow octopus and a blonde babe didn't mix well as a pair, but there they were, arm in arm, fawning over each other as they made their merry way toward the storage shed.

"Sorry," Karasuma sighed, reluctance in his tone as well as he viewed the very dissatisfying scene, "I'm under orders from the government to leave matters entirely to her, as a professional."

A professional, Nao repeated in his head. 

"She sure doesn't seem like it," Terasaka grumbled.

Nao couldn't suppress the laugh, "still, she seems pretty confident."

"That's what we don't like about her, Kuma-sensei," Sugino added with a resigned sigh, twirling the knife in his hand, "she's pretty egocentric."

Karasuma's sigh lined up with Naomasa's, the two teachers meeting eyes in ironic confusion.

"Still, to complete her preparations in one day--" Karasuma muttered, "there's no denying that's she's a top class hitman."

Nao stood up, making his way over. He placed a hand at Karma's shoulder (I mean, for no real reason, he was just there), and chuckled weakly to the statement.

"In a way, she's kinda like Akabane, isn't she?" Nao joked.

Irritated, Karma poked the teacher in the cheek with his anti-sensei knife, "you might need an optometrist, sir, Bitch-neesan and I have virtually nothing in common."

He was annoyed, but he wasn't physically threatening the teacher in any way.

Nao mused at the calm treatment he was given.

But really, Karma and Irina both failed miserably due to overconfidence-- then are eventually pacified by the overwhelming might that was Korosensei's education. They were very similar.

Nao sighed, considering himself.

"You'll see eventually," he decided.

A crack shattered in the air-- an explosion of gunshots blasted through riveting rifles like firecrackers reverberating through the landmass of the mountain.

Every leaped in fright--  Nao's heart skipped a very unromantic beat as he nearly yelped in surprise.

"Gunshots?" someone piped up, alarmed. 

"It from the shed!" Sugino pointed out, "they just went in, though."

The gunfire was such a loud noise Sugino had to raise his voice a treble to even be audible.

It sounded like wood splintering, glass shattering, bullets ravaging, and gunpowder sizzling. Shimmering in a bright light that erupted from a little flame, Nao was still.

His grip unconsciously tightened around Karma's shoulder-- he felt his blood run cold and his stomach sink in a sort of dismay. Like he was stuck on a roller coaster with his safety belt broken off-- fear.

He felt his heart tightened in a familiar difficulty, and reached up to clenched at it-- an instinct that did not at all ease the pain. His heart hastened heavily, each strum striking him like a weighty mallet, almost painful.

Pupils widening, his breath was ragged-- his hand clutched a little tighter at the fabric, feeling the ache throb at him with each blast of the bombardment.

The sound was hurting his ears with pain that wasn't just physical.

He was frozen-- petrified, trapped in a world that told him, reminded him, warned him, over and over, that there was danger beyond, somewhere. Somewhere, and somewhere near. 

Will it kill him? Hurt him? Take him? Cause him pain? It will-- it might, maybe it didn't-- but what if it did? He was confused, his thoughts were overlapping-- yet, nothing seemed to tell him exactly why he was feeling this way. 

It was scary, and people really didn't know why they feared things. It was unknown, it was scary, and we can do nothing but be scared and hope to run away.

The loud, incoherently crumbling noises filled his mind with nothing but an infinite darkness that trapped him in nothingness. Forever?

He broke free from the entrapment the moment the noise ceased to be. It was like light rushed into his vision again, throwing him back into the reality that he tried to remember he was in.

He found Karma eyeing him with concealed concern-- but the other students had their eyes stuck onto the shed. Nao broke away from Karma, letting out a strangled chortle in an attempt to assure the boy he was alright.

A tortured scream ripped through the air-- a female shriek, agonizing, from the shed-- and Nao had never leaped so hard. 

Suggestive slithering moaning graspy sounds echoed through the shed up the hill. 

Nao closed his eyes, "oh my god," he groaned, voice breaking, "what in the holy hell are they-" Everyone watched from a distance, absolutely exasperated, completely and utterly baffled. 

Nao, his previous bout forgotten, found himself speechless in absolutely horrified bewilderment alongside Karasuma. 

Seeing this firsthand makes it so much more stupid, Nao grumbled in his head, ready to just go back to sleep so he didn't have to witness this, wait, did we ever find out what Korosensei did in there? A massage? A facial? then? was she tentacle porned? was she? 

Curiosity overtaking them, the students ran up the hill to ascertain the situation. Nao stayed in place, wondering if he should resign from his job and face court after all.

  ー  

Sitting in his staffroom, Nao scribbled lesson notes in his free time. His coffee lay cold at the side, his laptop overheated in the long use-- but he simply eyed the white screen, inspiration failing to take him in his work.

His thoughts drifted to just a while ago-- his heart had acted up when the guns fired out. That wasn't normal, Nao knew-- something was wrong. With him.

Hole in the heart, Nao typed into his computer, sighing.

How did he die again? he found himself wondering. An electric telephone wire flew down at her in a storm-- slicing at her right at the shoulder. She died by electrocution.

Electrocuted instant death occurs when a electric shock too strong flows through the body, interrupting the process of the synapse and electrical impulses to be sent-- and would interfere with normal bodily functions, such as the signal to keep the heart beating.

Nao gulped, realizing the coincidence-- the cause of his death and this condition in his new life-- were they linked, somehow?

No, it couldn't be, right?

But that didn't explain why Nao felt his heart tighten at the guns.

He stayed still for a long, long moment, thinking of everything and nothing-- then sighed, calming himself. Stilling his breath, loosening his chest.

I shouldn't overthink this, Nao reminded himself.

He was just scared, he realized. Like how he was Astraphobic-- harboring a fear of thunder because of her death; Nao realized that he could no longer bear loud noises either-- because they reminded him so, so much of the thunder that roared on the very same night.

Sonophobia, Nao remembered the word now.

Clicking to save the document, he closed the window and shut down the device.

"Fuck this shit," he swore under his breath, the very first time in a while-- "screw this second life thing, afterlife god's way too fuckin' extra, is he a kid with no common sense?!"