"Hey, Arai-chan. I want you to help me kill someone. You can do it, right~?"

Whatever she was expecting after his suspension wasn't this. She was stuck between emotions, not understanding how to react. Finally, she spoke,

"Wait, wait, wait, let me get this straight, Karma-kun." Nagisa sweatdropped as he watched the two in the back kitchen of Chiffon. Karma wasn't kidding at all apparently when he said that they were going to get something to eat on the way home after attempting to kill Korosensei with a jump off the cliff and a gun in hand. He wasn't kidding that he was going to kill Korosensei tomorrow or use the loose change he took from the alien's wallet as a contribution either. The girl with the same color hair and eyes as him except with much darker shades deadpanned; her long dark blue ponytail waved in wisps behind her with the movements of the egg beater she pointed at Karma's mirthful golden eyes. "You want me to help you kill someone."

Nagisa was a bit at disbelief himself that Karma would suggest such a thing to an ignorant normal student at Kunugigaoka Junior High School. Even if said person was Arai Koon… Actually… especially because it was her. After all, just a few days ago, it was him who was asking her how to use weapons properly. Karma merely beamed,

"Oh so you do get it! I was worried for a moment, but I'm proud of you, Arai-chan! You actually do have ears that work because that's exactly what I want you to help me do."

"Karma-kun…" She pinched her brows, "There are so many things wrong with that. And you just got out of suspension. Wasabi cake's fine, but murder? You're supposed to be smarter than that."

Nagisa quietly agreed. Karma was undeterred as he grinned, "Oh, come on—" He was about to touch her shoulder in a friendly manner, but she gave him the look to go wash his hands, which he did twice immediately to return in slinging his arm around her neck, continuing as if nothing happened, "Arai-chan~ It's not like I'm asking you to kill a real person. It's only a practice exercise! We're even using these amazing blue rubbery knives and BB pellets. No human will get hurt and everyone will learn — what a great P.E. activity, right~?"

Leave it to Karma to find a way to use those facts in mapping out his lies, Nagisa thought as he watched the lies and truths unfold together in a mergeable mess. Arai gazed at the knife and its flexibility before huffing, "And why me? If it's a P.E. activity, actually try to befriend your classmates and use them."

"Of course, of course, but I really thought to invite my very best friend from the main campus since it's a lenient project~ Besides, you know they can't do much when even Nagisa-kun himself asks you for help in the self defense~" Her eyes widened as she remembered that day. Was that what that was for? Nagisa wondered if he should speak up and tell the truth. Then again, the punishment was Memory Erasure Treatment. Were they even allowed to even say this much?

Karma continued smiling in a friendly but more than suspicious manner until finally it became genuine as she gave in if only to get the redhead away from her and… to pocket that extremely tempting amount of cash that he moved across the table. Arai at times could be a real greedy girl.

"Fine, fine, I'll help." She shook her head in exasperation, "So when's this P.E. lesson of yours?"

"It actually lasts for an indefinite amount of time, but I'd like to plan out and set up things today."

"...What kind of exercise was this again?"

"A P.E. training one! Like those in the army! A simulation to use all the skills a person learns in school to do something practical!"

"Like killing a person."

"Yup! Like killing a person!"

She sighed, shaking her head again but more or less giving him a generous amount of benefit of doubt, though it was more or less for her money. It seemed real at least — this 'killing' thing that they had to do— with Nagisa standing behind him, "Whatever. My shift ends in an hour and a half. Where do you want to meet?"

"Oh good! That's enough time to watch a movie while waiting!" Because God knows how much the two loved American movies. "Jya, come to my apartment — we'll be waiting for you, Arai-chan~!"

Nagisa finally commented once they left through the backdoor, greeting Arai's boss along the way, "Are you sure we were allowed to tell her that?"

"Hm? Are you worried about the Memory Erasure Treatment thing?" Karma waved it away, "No worries, Nagisa-kun, they just said that we weren't allowed to reveal the secret behind the Earth's crisis. Since when did I ever mention that?"

Karma really had a way with words, but Nagisa smiled. They might actually be able to do it tomorrow. After all, Arai could be called Karma's greatest rival a long once upon a time.

…

"You really didn't have to do all that, you know." Karma once again deadpanned when he felt sparkles behind his back once the movie finished.

"It was dirty." The girl simply said as she washed her hands and sat down in the now clean and tidy room. Everything seemed to sparkle from the cleansing tactics of their local raccoon. Taking the important looking notebook from Nagisa's hands, she flipped through the observations and weaknesses of this so called fake target; eyes narrowed in concentration. Nagisa was amazed by how focused she was despite what should be nonsensical words to a person who didn't know that Korosensei was really a real alien. Finally, she peered at the map of Class E's room. "This isn't good. We need the blueprints if we want to do quick modifications and all around traps. I'll head to the school archives."

"Yosh!" Karma pumped his fists in the air, grabbing six suitcases of weapons and a large container containing a healthy amount of bullets. He had gotten them from Karasuma once asking for more. Nagisa helped him carry them, asking,

"You don't… think that the target's weird?"

Arai shrugged, "Mach 20, sticky liquid, shedding tactics — who knows how good technology has become and how far science has advanced now, even if you had all the connections in the world. After all, the target's from the army which should be from innovating America since Japan doesn't have a military, right?" Her dark blue eyes narrowed slightly, "Unless you're lying…"

"Of course not!" Karma butted in with his grin; his golden eyes edging Nagisa to say the same loudly. When she went ahead to get the blueprints, planning to meet them at the old school building with flashlights, Karma ruffled his blue hair, "Come on, Nagisa-kun~ I already donated a lot of money to her for the assassination."

"You mean, Korosensei's spare change…"

"Oh, Nagisa-kun. Money always changes hands. Like how it became mine after and then hers~"

"Right…" Nagisa felt a bit bad for lying to the girl. Excited for the plan though, he continued working and finally after a long night out, the three departed from the old school building area with Nagisa sending a text message to everyone to avoid stepping on certain areas.

…

"So there should be a trap in those areas?" Sugino Tomohito indiscreetly examined the wooden boards in their classroom, making Kataoka Megu whack him,

"Stop staring. Don't ruin Nagisa-kun's traps before they even get tested."

"He'll probably already notice somehow and just step on them purposely though." Isogai Yuuma sighed, "Korosensei's always like that."

"Where'd you even get the idea of traps, Nagisa-kun?" Kayano Kaede asked curiously, trying to spot them, "I can't see any difference."

Nagisa sweat-dropped, "It was sort of Karma-kun's idea." Hiring her that is. "I just helped with setting them up. Anyways, don't step in the areas mentioned in the text message…" Remembering the things they placed in there, he asserted more seriously, "You wouldn't want to."

Terasaka stopped mid-stomp on a floorboard; the guy was about to blatantly sabotage the plan until he heard Karma's name. Nothing that the redhead did could ever be good… or safe. So they waited with Karma humming at his seat with an anti-sensei knife openly in hand and Nagisa clenching an anti-sensei handgun behind his desk. Finally, Korosensei arrived with Karasuma trailing behind, the alien blinking at the sight of the redhead in the back outright waving his blue knife as if waving bye,

"Ah~! You're really going to try assassinating me today, Karma-kun~?" His head turned into green and white stripes as he grinned widely, "Too soft, too soft. There's no way you can ever reach me with that puny knife of yours — NUAH!"

Karasuma immediately jumped back into the hallway when the yellow octopus fell backwards; his sense of balance falling with a tentacle melting upon touching a floorboard. While falling, Korosensei touched both sides of the open doorway, causing the door frame to collapse in, revealing large distinct blue anti-sensei knives without handles that were about to stab him from above; his weight causing a floorboard with another similar anti-sensei knife attached to launch up like a see saw. With his speed, however, he quickly regained balance and darted forward, jumping over the wooden floorboard that melted a tentacle only to feel another one melt and see the ceiling suddenly rain anti-sensei BB pellets.

Korosensei panicked, especially at the heavy flood of those accursed bullets and Nagisa immediately took out his gun to shoot the wooden lectern, causing knives to stab out of the wooden thing, taking away two tentacles as Korosensei slowly reacted from having to dodge the thick mass of things from above. The blue haired boy continued shooting at the yellow tentacles extremely close to the ground so that they made heavy noises when contacting wood; an anti-sensei knife stabbed up immediately from the cracks of each wooden floorboard Nagisa aimed at. Korosensei started looking at the ground with the rain over to watch where Nagisa was shooting and the anti-sensei knife was going to pop up, noticing a bit too late as Karma took advantage of his concentration of below and the loud noise from above to stab from the front with his knife, having casually walked up to the front of the class.

Being an alien that could move at Mach 20 though, the teacher was able to grab his arm before the knife reached. Korosensei sighing in relief when Nagisa's gun ran out of ammunition and the rain of bullets ended. Then, the smile stretched,

"That was a very nice assassination attempt, Karma-kun, Nagisa-kun. You two really scared me—"

"Bang." Karma said as he shot the gun with a grin. Korosensei narrowly dodged it, continuing his words after a pause of surprise,

"Korosensei's very pleased that you spent a lot of time thinking about this~! Karma-kun showed me a knife first so that I would assume that you were charging with one when it was really a gun. You two must have spent the night making anti-sensei powder and spreading it on the floorboards where I was most likely to step on. As well as breaking the door frame and putting it together with anti-sensei shards in between cracks so that it would fall once I put pressure on it as I fall~!" Korosensei gazed down to the now inactive wooden floorboards. "I'm still figuring out Nagisa-kun's gun and knife trap trick though. Hmmm…"

While he was talking, Karma had casually shot thrice at point blank, watching coolly as Korosensei dodged it before stopping. Korosensei looked at him questioningly as he still had two more bullets to go. The redhead though grinned, moving his gun up at Korosensei's head,

"You talk too much, Korosensei. Thanks for the noise pollution." The meaning of the words escaped the yellow alien when large cracking noises filled their ears.

The wooden planks beneath the chalkboard of the wall behind Korosensei fell forward, crashing into Korosensei's tentacles and drawing blood with the anti-sensei shards on top of them. A girl dashed forward, catching Korosensei's attention and blinding his eyes with the haphazardly flashing white light of her cellphone and stabbing into another before Korosensei caught his wits. He had almost no where to escape to however as anti-sensei powder smoked up like dust clouds before him and he noticed way too late the nearly invisibly thin wires coated with the blue powder around him; a fraction of the BB pellets having brought them down from the ceiling to trap him. Karma shot the two bullets immediately after speaking; already pointing point blank at his head.

The class gaped at the action that played before their eyes. Karasuma especially as he watched from the broken doorway where the same wires blocked the exit, having been brought down by the knives. There was no way Korosensei could have dodged that with his limited range of possible movements and the anti-sensei smoke melting his already maimed body, decreasing his mobility.

But then a flash of bright light blinded their eyes and Korosensei disappeared once the powder cleared, settling on the ground. The girl frowned as she glanced around and then stuck her hand out through the barrier of invisible wires; Nagisa noticed and tossed his notebook to her and she sped-read it in a few seconds, nodding,

"Yup. That ability's not in here." Glancing behind her where she came from, she saw her wires, "And I blocked that exit… You failed to tell me something, Karma-kun, Nagisa-kun, because I don't see the target. His corpse should be here even if corroded."

Karma frowned as he moved the sharp wires carefully by pushing their respective bullets to the side with a shoe. He peered around like a detective,

"Yup. I don't see him. My bad; he must have had another ability. The target had a stupidly useful body despite being one of those things—" He vaguely ended, making her sigh as she reminded him,

"You told me that he was some sort of biological robotic creation from the American army that was shipped over to your class as an experiment to see how well it fared in combat since your class had nothing to do or future anyways being in Class E and the Americans wanted to help the future special defense force recruits of Japan to grow stronger."

"That." Karma grinned while the class sweatdropped. To make it better, it was her herself who developed half of that bs. He patted her amiably, "Ah, whatever, that was the best we ever did so wherever he had gone, he'll come back and I'll tell you for the next time. After all, I did pay you already~ You're not going to abandon a job, are you?" He teased challengingly.

She sighed, slicing through the wires behind her with a real knife and retrieving her bags — a black school bag with a raccoon figurine charm attached to the strap and the cloth bag of sweets she always had. Her face was of utter disappointment as she unwrapped a green lollipop to stick in her mouth, moving her hands down to pat off the dust and harmless powder. She wore the proper Kunugigaoka Junior High Uniform without the jacket and vest.

"Kinda disappointing. All that work for nothing…" She gazed at the tentacles, grabbing three, "Hmmm, the blood's done pretty well for a dummy target. I'll go see if there's any other weaknesses you missed then, my little inefficient clients~" She waved, heading towards the doorway. "See you later…"

"Ah, bye, Arai-chan!" Nagisa shouted while Karma twitched a bit at being called inefficient, muttering a few things but unable to deny it without giving away Korosensei's catastrophic, future world-destroying alien status.

The girl sliced the wires of the doorway, walking past Karasuma and offering the guy a bow, "I apologize about mangling up the classroom, sensei. I'll clean up the mess after school so please use the next door classroom I cleaned beforehand."

"Ah, yeah.," Karasuma nodded after gazing at the girl in mild shock as she left with a smile, giving him a pat,

"Must be troublesome to have Karma-kun in your class." She indirectly but cheekily teased the redhead, "Best of luck teaching Kunugigaoka's misfits, but don't give up on them, sensei~"

And she left with a tall stride despite her rather short stature. But once she turned around the corner, she fell to her knees in a huff. Her heart pounded loudly in excitement and she was afraid she couldn't hold it in anymore. She wanted to cause more mischief, trouble, chaos — she wanted to do evil, but she couldn't. She was a student and she was a morally good citizen.

"I almost killed something…" A silly grin marked her face and then, she remembered the money in her wallet, "...but I failed. At my one job too." Arai sighed, slowly getting up again, "I can't believe it. It's been a long time since I failed at something I was paid to do."

Ironically, Karma was the last failure.

…

"WHOA! You almost killed him, Nagisa, Karma!" The class shouted with varying suffixes attached to the two boys' name. They roared and cheered, rising up from their seats to run to the front where many tentacles laid around among the blue powder of anti-sensei material. It was exciting like seeing a movie live — the plan, the tension, the actions that all counted towards the final goal of killing the unkillable. Okuda Manami beamed as she took a tentacle as well, quietly such that no one noticed among the ruckus. It was just so inspiring to her, especially after watching so many futile useless attempts. She too was going to try and see what information she could find out.

Sugino slung an arm around his friend, "Who was she?! That was amazing — especially when she just crashed out of nowhere and slashed his tentacles as if they weren't anything!"

Kayano Kaede gazed at the hole, "How did that even work? And what was Nagisa-kun's trick in the end anyways?" She stopped when Nagisa placed a hand on her to prevent her from walking into the barely visible wires. "Where did these wires come from anyways?"

"Shiota-kun shot the floorboards to inform the girl who was underneath where Korosensei was. His target wasn't the tentacles, but mere information." Karasuma spoke as he too walked into the classroom, gazing at the wire barrier with interest, "Then after twelve bullets and while Korosensei was talking, she snuck into the classroom behind this one and waited for Akabane-kun to say the keyword which I'm assuming was 'noise pollution'." Karma nodded. "She used the flashing white light to blind and attract Korosensei's attention while you already had the gun on his head, ready to shoot right after you said the keyword. She blocked off all exits and limited his paths so that he couldn't escape with wires tied to BB pellets that had holes drilled in them."

He held one up to see that it was like a necklace bead with the large hole inside the small sphere. "The knives that attacked him in the doorway were the same. These are coated with anti-sensei powder and are almost microscopic to increase surprise especially when the target was panicking from the assault of a stranger he did not know and a situation never encountered before." Finally, he gazed up at the ceiling and then lifted the podium to see that it was carved out, connected to the old building's underground. "You three must have spent the whole night modifying your surroundings to suit your needs for the plan as well as use a neutralizing odor to cover up your and your traps' scent. And a heavy weight animal, perhaps a dog, scattered the bullets and later the powder on signal through the cracks in the ceiling."

"Eh?! Really?! There's a dog on the ceiling?!" Kurahashi Hinano, the class biologist, sparkled as she pointed up. Karma rubbed his head impressed and feeling a bit humbled from the spot on deduction. He called out,

"Oi! Inuou! Your owner already left so go ahead and go!"

"Ruff!" A dog barked before there were trods on the ceiling as a four-legged animal ran and jumped off, landing on the ground near their window. The German Shepherd with a camouflage-pattern bandana tied around his neck gazed at the two he knew before leaving with a dash into the forest.

"So cute!" Kurahashi shouted at the handsome canine.

"I'm impressed that you figured it all out, Karasuma-sensei." Karma complimented before he gazed around again, "Though I wonder how Korosensei escaped that."

"Who was she?" The man asked as he too looked for clues for the next assassination attempt to block off all possible flaws. For the safety of the kids, he also carefully undid the sharp wires. "Just making sure, you didn't tell her anything about the crisis or anything, right?" Karma arched a brow,

"A crisis? With her thinking that Korosensei came from the army of the nation protecting us by treaty from World War II?"

That was a good point as Karasuma also heard (and deadpanned) at her summary of things that the redhead had told her, which was all nonsensical — and amazing to actually know that she believed and did the things she did while believing those obvious outlandish lies. Then again, he also heard something about a job so the money was probably the deciding factor. Even if Karma told her about the crisis though, the girl was too useful to pass up if she was a student at this school and could actually cause that much damage to the alien when no one else had before — even at the World Conference. So he was right. It was only in this classroom where the alien could be killed.

Nagisa began, "Her name is—"

"Arai Koon from Class A! She's the one that makes it into the Top 10 in exam rankings and works at Chiffon part time." Maehara Hiroto shouted, snapping his fingers before grinning, "I'm right, right?"

They actually weren't surprised with how he was a gigolo who knew most of the girls in the school. Kataoka Megu blinked in surprise,

"From Class A? Someone from the main building actually came to this one? Knows you two Class E students?"

It wouldn't have been amazing if it weren't for the fact that the school held Class E as failures, outcasts, and the lowest of the low. Even Karasuma had noticed the discrimination on his first day in the main school building. Nagisa beamed,

"Yeah! Arai-chan doesn't care about that sort of stuff—"

"Because we bribed her." Karma interrupted; Nagisa continued as if the redhead said nothing,

"—and we've been friends since the later half of first year. Her brother was in the army and she takes jobs from anyone as long as they have enough money so Karma-kun thought to include her in this attempt. She made most of the plans and designed all of the traps, using the building blueprints."

Karasuma's eyes lit up, "Do you still have the blueprints?"

"Ah, yeah." Nagisa took the folded paper out of his notebook, handing it to the defense agent as he explained,

"Thanks, Shiota-kun. I've been looking for these. Where did she get them?"

"School archives." Karma answered before giving up on his search. How did that flash of bright light that covered the classroom appear anyways? "The classroom attempt won't work anymore. We lost our surprise and still don't know how he escaped. He won't panic next time he sees her."

Karasuma nodded in thought, having remembered the second weakness in Nagisa's book of observations. Korosensei was surprisingly quick to panic, which was probably the main reason why the surprise assault worked so well. It wouldn't anymore.

And who knows if the girl could even come up with another plan just as great or greater than this already well thought out one. Especially without more information or observations of the target. Her brother must have been a great army soldier for she was young yet could still create a working battle strategy from a mere briefing. It was impressive. Was this the difference between Class A and Class E?

…

Korosensei rolled with the downhill slump of dirt below the old school building. He chuckled amiably, having overheard the conversation above. Arai Koon, was it? And he recognized her as the baker in the bakery with delicious products. So this was a Class A student — and to think that Karma actually used his money to hire someone to kill him though. His poor money was gone and probably all spent…

He sighed as the orange sphere he was in slowly turned by the laws of physics. He didn't know that he could compress his body into an impenetrable crystal like this, but now he knew. Now, he couldn't move for probably 24 hours. But he now learned his lesson because…

"Sensei's do not only teach; they learn everyday too to be able to keep teaching their students new things."

Published April 25, 2014

Edited May 10, 2014