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02. speak of the devil

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Celia Slone was used to tantrums from the Genovese offspring; it was, in essence, what set them apart from other famiglia. Unhinged, the lot of them—she'd known since Dino himself had stepped up as Don that their bloodline was cursed.

"I can't believe it!" The young woman, usually the epitome of poised and graceful, threw her head back in a taunting, spine-shattering arch, letting out a laugh that made the hairs on old Vitali's neck erect. Celia rubbed at the gooseflesh on her arm, willing herself to calm down. Calmati. Rabbonire. "She left. She actually left. After all I've done for her, she left."

"I don't blame the little signorina for leaving, but goddamn, did she have to leave us with this crazy puttana?" Vitali muttered under his breath.

"Shut up, stupido," Celia warned. Unlike Dino, the madman, his sister was—or at least, used to be—saner. Poignant. A fortified recluse, of sorts, armed with an adroit demeanor and a rather shrewd sense of humor, though she was not unkind. She spared the children, pitied the mothers, and seldom left women widowed—not without compensation, at least.

Celia wondered when the episodes had started, and dreaded the days it would worsen. And worsen, it did. Her Donna barely left the house out of ill spite, the progression of the brain-eating curse only hastened by the little one's departure. Celia couldn't bring herself to hate the girl, though at times, she swore she could.

"Oh, Celia," she sang, nearly giving the woman a heart attack. Wide, dark eyes rolled to focus on the elder lady, a lopsided smile forming on the dark-haired head that hung from the couch. Celia shivered at the pinpricks that made up her pupils, unnerved to witness her descent to madness. "Do you think she misses me? She's quite stupid on her own. I remember that trip to Venice, when she tried to pick a flower for me...from that patch of magnolia. She fell and nearly had her head split open!"

"...I'm sure she does, Donna," Celia murmured, unwilling to move her gaze from the carpet. She heard the woman shift, sigh, and begin tapping her fingers on her temple, a sure sign she was gazing contemplatively at the ceiling.

"I really… I really wish I could've made her happy," she murmured. Celia felt her heart break.

"There's no need for melodramatics." Vitali responded stiffly. "We'll find her, and you'll see her once more. We'll have her trained and prepared for Dino. She won't die, signora—we will make her strong."

"No, no, no." The woman squeezed her eyes shut. "Not Dino—never Dino. Dino can never be allowed to—oh." Her eyes popped open, a look of bewilderment in them. "That's right. I need… I need to… oh no," she moaned, burying her head into a pillow. "She hates me now, Vitali. I wish… I wish I could get her to forgive me."

She let out one last sigh before collapsing on the armrest in a fit of sobs.

Nagisa Shiota had a knack for reading people.

Now, he wasn't a profiler of any sort—he couldn't tell what brand of shampoo you used by glancing at your hair, nor could he tell your blood type by your behavior. He doubted he could even distinguish a company worker from a con artist, but his observational skills was something he was rather proud of.

Everyone had their own frequency, similar to a heart monitor of sorts. In times of danger, adrenaline spikes would cause irregularities, while a constant rate signified rest or intense concentration. But above all else, Nagisa could gauge a separate entity of an individual's persona—an entity he simply referred to as bloodlust.

Everyone had it—some, dulled, some at an excess, some displaying it openly while others, like himself, pushed it down. It could come off as distressing to others, he noted, though they could probably discern he meant no harm.

But, his point was, everyone had some form of bloodlust, perhaps in varying amounts, but always—always—present.

So when he bumped into the neighbor that had just moved into the tiny complex three doors away, a chill ran down his spine.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy about the girl. She was a foreigner, that much he could see, but unassumingly so; she was admittedly rather pretty, in a tall, elfin sort of way, with a prominent, aristocratic nose and eyes that were a tad too large for her face. But she was a far cry from the buxom blondes that painted Japanese views of foreign women, too lanky, too ungraceful. Her hair was pale and brown, she was neither elegant nor docile, and she was as ordinary as any other civilian—

She had no bloodlust.

"Shit," a curse flew from her lips. There was something fascinating about hearing such a common, practiced phrase from a native speaker. "I mean—sorry. Yeah, sorry—I really should be watching where… where I'm going."

It was obvious she struggled with Japanese. There wasn't any obvious accent—in fact, her pronounciation was commendable—but her usual fluency had adopted a higher note, making her sound somewhat like a cornered mouse. She struggled to form sentences, bit back English phrases, and took a few seconds to piece together her replies. Despite himself, Nagisa couldn't help but smile.

"It's fine, don't worry about it."

She looked relieved. "Thanks. I'm Iza, by the way—I just moved in next door. I really am a klutz and I ho—ly schnitzel, is it already seven?" She grabbed Nagisa's wrist, peering over at his phone screen with wide eyes. Normally, he would've been uncomfortable, but there was something about her—probably her utter lack of evil intent—that kept him from flinching. "Frick. I'm already a week late, they might as well kick me out all together for being tardy on the first day. By the sound of his emails, that Karasuma guy doesn't exactly sound like a happy camper."

Nagisa's eyes flicked up to her in surprise. It was then he noticed that she donned the atypical Kunugigaoka ensemble, collar erect and buttons messily done, and the skirt had been hiked up to resemble less of a nun's habit—a measure taken by most girls in his class, save for Kanzaki and Okuda.

"Um, if you don't mind me asking, could it be that—"

"Sorry, gotta run!" A clumsy spin of the hips, one that nearly left her tripping over her own foot, a deep breath, and she was gone, her stumbling figure running down the lobby and nearly getting caught in the doorway. "See you later sometime, pigtails!"

...pigtails? Nagisa touched his hair, peeved.

"It's Nagisa!"

I was a pacifist.

I donated my weekly allowance to polar bear conservation, cried when I found out swans could be gay (because that was really nice), and held a funeral for the pigeon I'd accidentally run over with my bike.

(I was inconsolable that week. My sister, of course, jumped the gun and locked me in the veranda for the night as punishment—a drastic measure in order to prevent me from "dying my hair black, befriending emo's for the next five years, and graduating into the gutter".)

(Her words, not mine.)

But, above all, I was a realist.

I didn't care for government conspiracy theories or the paranormal. If you showed me proof that our president was actually a reptilian in disguise, I'd laugh in your face and ask if he was born on American soil. Poltergeists and alien vagabonds alike had nothing on my sister.

Now, that may seem ludicrous, but you haven't met my sister. She was your archetypical slim, permanently-smiling hell's nightmare you'd only see in gothic Japanese films from the 80's. And she'd most certainly be up waiting for me at eleven on a school night.

So when government officials informed me that my mission was to assassinate an octopoid alien that looked like it jumped straight out of an episode of Lilo and Stitch before it destroyed the planet by March, naturally, I laughed.

My second instinct was to cry.

I shouldn't have been freaking out. I really shouldn't have.

That's what the rational part of my brain was telling me. The sissy half, on the other hand, was shot to pieces, unable to form a coherent response.

After all, I fled the country to escape from my crackpot sister and her dream of enslaving me to the mafia—which, contrary to popular belief, isn't as cool as it looks on paper. So you can imagine why the idea of trying to assassinate my self-appointed cephaloid teacher before graduation is just a tad bit disappointing.

"Karasuma, I don't think she understands. Should we get a translator?"

"...I doubt it. She should be fluent. I think." He sounded uncertain. "...though I'm not sure if she's crying or laughing."

After wheezing, doing a double-take, and pounding on my chest to squeeze out any excess emotion, I smiled, wiping the tears from my eyes.

"Nice try, guys. Where are the cameras? If this is your idea of an initiation, quite frankly, it's stupid. You could've picked something a little less... cartoonish?" I giggled, waving the flyer with my free hand. "Seriously, you should go for something more Demogorgon and less Teletubbies, for starters. I'll give you points for creativity, though—is this thing, like, the school mascot or something?"

Only silence returned my light-hearted banter.

"...you're... you're not joking, are you?"

Tall, brooding muscle man gives me a look as if to say, do I look like I joke? The answer to that, obviously, would be a flat fuck no—truth be told, I'd never truly witnessed a candid exemplar of 'permanent stick up thy ass' until I met Karasuma. A pity, really; with a face and bod like that, he had so much potential.

"...I... I can't do this." I shook my head, backing away from the confrontation. As usual. "You don't understand. I can't kill this thing—I can't even kill a fly. My morals would never allow it. I was president of the rodent protection club at my school—I tried to sue pest control for trying to kill off a rat infestation. I'm vegetarian, for crying out loud—I can't even stomach the killing of animals, and you want me to murder my teacher? Is this even legal?"

"It's a government secret. Look, if you're not up for it, we can always erase your memories and send you back to where you came from."

"Are you threatening to deport me?"

"If that's what's necessary."

"...I'm torn between being scared and insulted."

"Look, kid, if you don't manage to murder this thing by March, you're toast—along with the rest of this planet."

I opened my mouth to speak, to again rant about how ridiculous and illegal this was, when the mostly silent kid next to me decided to speak up.

"Sounds fun to me."

I'm sorry, but what the fuck?

I stared in half disgust, half mortification as he played with the rubber knife Karasuma had given us, skeptical of the way it easily compressed and bounced back in place after removing pressure. He wore a smirk infuriating enough to make my hands twitch—I wanted to slap it off.

"You're kidding, right?"

"To be honest, I couldn't care less if he was human or not." He snatched the paper from my hands, a smirk growing on his face as he read it. "After all, I've always wanted to try killing a teacher."

Freak.

"Hey," I muttered to Karasuma, a cupped hand hushing my whisper. "I get why I'm here, but who's this freak? Did you pick him up from juvie or something? He looks like he kicks puppies after school to kill time."

"That's Akabane Karma. He used to be in Class 3-A, but he got demoted to 3-E after engaging in physical violence with a peer. His suspension just ended, which is why we're only now having this talk with him." He regarded me with a nod. "I figured it'd be easier to kill two birds with one stone. By the way, he's also the one who'll show you to class. A fair warning—3-E's campus is quite a journey from the main building. If I were you, I'd follow him before he's out of your sight."

I whipped my head, only to realize said delinquent was already out the door and halfway across the hall, his figure resembling a mere dot. My eyes widened.

"Hey! Wait!"

He never made a move to stop. Didn't even turn around. I knew the bastard heard me, though, because he raised his hand and jerked it forward in a "come hither" motion.

Asshole.

I sprinted in his direction, an action I immediately regretted because 1.) I almost knocked into a guy in the hallway, a slightly hunched character with glasses, buck teeth, and a butt chin, who had the nerve to sneer, "out of my way, scum" despite looking like he rolled out of an ass, and 2.) by the time I'd caught up to him, I was sweaty, red-faced, and breathing like I'd just run a marathon, because that was the kind of shape I was in.

Or rather, lack thereof.

"Hey!" I was beginning to get frustrated and seriously contemplated kicking his leg. "Can you try to, I don't know, slow down? It's a bit hard to keep up with you when you're jumping from place to place like freaking Popeye the Sailor—ow."

I rubbed my nose, which had been abused for the second time that day. Either I was losing my motor skills, or the Japanese had a serious habit of stopping in the middle of their walk like they'd just seen the devil. "Why'd you stop all of a sudden?"

"Well, well, if it isn't Akabane?" I blinked, peering up from behind his shoulders at the source of the voice. Two males blocked the rear end of the hallway, both sporting injuries—one, a cast around his left arm, and another with bandaids littering his cheeks and forearm. The bespectacled one looked particularly smug despite extensive bruising, eyes shining with what could only be identified as malicious intent. I glanced up at the boy in question, who looked as lackadaisical as ever, though I didn't miss the way his eyes sharpened and teeth ground against each other.

It was at that moment, I had an epiphany—he wasn't just some random delinquent.

At that moment, Akabane Karma looked like he could kill.

"Fancy seeing you around these parts. Didn't think you had the guts to show your face—now that you're in the same bin as those End Class losers." Sneering, the shorter of the two pushed up his glasses. "How was suspension? I see you found the time to snag yourself a little girlfriend." He looked at me like he'd just found a roach in his burger. "Couldn't bag yourself a decent Japanese chick, huh? How much did you pay to have her enroll?"

This time, it was my eye that twitched.

"Did... did you just imply that I'm a whore?"

"Oh, so she speaks! Did you pay extra for her to learn the language?"

"No, but your mother should've paid extra for Plan B."

Well, there goes any plans of staying off the radar.

I slapped my hand over my mouth, eyes wide. Glasses-kid and his taller companion just stared at me, jaws slack. There was a pregnant pause, and then—

"Pfft."

That snapped them out of it. Glasses looked murderous, face turning an angry shade of purple.

"End class loser, you say," the psycho drawled, teeth bared in a taunting grin. "Yet you get mouthed off by some foreigner who can barely read bathroom signs in your own language—"

"—hey,"

"—and they call you a prodigy? Something reeks of bullshit, and it isn't just your breath." Karma wrinkled his nose, waving off an invisible odor.

Three things happened at once. Glasses lunged, filling the air with indignant screeching noises, I fell back with a short-lived shriek, and the psychopath laughed before spraying the nerd in the face with an aerosol.

I expected it from delinquents. Especially him. The ugly part of the equation was my asthma, which wasn't partial to some—most—chemicals.

I collapsed to the floor in a coughing heap, feeling my lungs constrict at the offending substance. Glasses wasn't faring any better, though no doubt he'd be as good as new in under a minute. I glared weakly at the child criminal, currently strolling out with a hum, hands folded in his pockets, and managed to yell out,

"I'm asthmatic, you bastard!"

He walked out on me. The little bitch.

By the time I had reached Class 3-E's isolated campus obscured by thickets in a nearby mountain terrain (hey, who knew those existed in Tokyo?), I'd come to the realization of three indisputable facts.

One: Whoever said Japanese people were polite and docile needed a serious ass kicking. By the time Glasses & Co had recovered from their coughing fit, I'd taken a turn for the worse and most likely looked similar to a fish out of water—suffocating, eyes bugged out, and flopping like my life depended on it.

"So," Glasses' sidekick pointed at me. "What do you wanna do with that?"

Glasses wore a wicked smirk.

"Wanna bully her?"

And thus, I spent a good half an hour running from spawn of satan hellbent on chopping my hair off with safety scissors. They'd managed to hack off pieces in the process of me jumping out the window (don't worry, it was only the second floor), leaving one side of my hair notably shorter than the other. I digressed, screaming something about suing them and insulting their mother, but by that point, they'd left, yelling, "Speak Japanese, you damn foreigner!"

Point in check: kids will be evil no matter what country they're from.

Secondly, the kids in Class 3-E were weird. Not in the likes of, say, occultists that tried to sacrifice you to the antichrist (well, only one of them), but more in a sense of, let's all be good kids and learn as much as we can simultaneously while trying to murder our teacher!

Seriously, it was weird. I mean, what else are you supposed to think when you walk in and see tentacles wrapped around the knife-wielding hand of a student who was clarifying a question from her textbook? As far as first impressions went, this took the cake.

Last but not least, the phrase "the world is a small place" was the understatement of the century.

The minute I walked in, the brightly-colored octopus looked up at me with his beady, cartoonish eyes and ever-present grin, raising a free tentacle in greeting.

"Ah."

"Ah."

Everything paused for a good two seconds before I erupted like Mount Vesuvius.

"IT'S YOU!" Both of us pointed at each other. Me, with a finger, and him, a tentacle.

"You're the rude little girl who insulted my fashion taste!"

"You're the pervert that was peeping at that couple in the park!" Cue said octopus flailing, stammering, denying any truth to my words.

"S-sensei was not peeping! Sensei would never stoop so low as to do that!" The octopus protested, feeling the distrustful gazes of his students stab into his back. "Transfer student here must be mistaking me for someone else! I won't allow you to blindly accuse me like this!"

I sweatdropped. This was the so-called superhuman octopus we were supposed to kill? A tentacled pervert in disguise? Seriously, they couldn't have picked any other animal?

"New student-san, why are you poking my face?"

"Checking to see if you're real. Wow, this costume's pretty realistic. What's under that weird get up?"

"New student-san, if you'd please—WHATAREYOUDOINGDON'TLIFTMYCLOTHESLIKETHATTHISISANINVASIONOFMYPRIVACYHGNNNN—"

"Holy crap, you're real." And you squeal like a little girl.

"NEW STUDENT, YOU'RE CROSSING THE LINE—"

"Sensei, who's this?"

"—AND I WON'T STAND FOR THIS DISRESPECT. Ah, I'm so glad you asked, Isogai-kun. Come now, Dziekowska-san. Introduce yourself to your new class!"

I nearly threw up at the combination of the honorific and my last name. It sounded like complete garbage in Japanese, like some foreign disease or a rotten banana. Painting what was likely a nervous smile on my face, I turned to face twenty-five scrutinizing gazes, feeling my next words get stuck in my throat. My palms were clammy, I felt nauseated, and I probably looked like shit from the confrontation that morning.

"So, um, hi." I mentally kicked myself. Iza, you fucking idiot—these kids were Japanese. Why the fuck did I just say "hi" like some fucking dumbass. "I mean, hi. I'm Iza. Iza Dziekowska. My last name's sort of a mouthful, so feel free to just call me Iza. I'm from Flori—I mean, Poland. That is, I'm Polish, but I lived in the U.S. for a while. I'm still Polish. Yeah...I'm from Poland." My cheeks burned in embarrassment. After fourteen years of living, I still sounded like a complete moron. "...m-my Japanese is still shaky, so please bear with me. I hope... I hope we can all fly to Mars—I mean, have a fun time—this year..."

Way to go, you fucking idiot.

Just when I thought I could die from embarrassment, someone giggled. And just like that one anime my sister used to watch, the majority of the class joined in.

Honestly, I didn't know whether to be relieved that they didn't insult me or whether to take this as an insult. Did they find my humiliation amusing?

"You don't have to be so stiff," a notably tall girl with a ponytail offered me a smile, wiping a stray tear from her eye. "Your Japanese is fine. Relax a little."

"That's right," a green-haired classmate chimed in. "Your mistakes are super adorable! Don't feel pressured to speak perfectly. You'll get the hang of it in no time."

"Ah, thanks—" If I was red before, I was sure to be a shade of lobster by now. "Um..."

"Kayano. And that's Kataoka." The petite girl stabbed her thumb in the direction of the taller girl.

"Megu is fine."

"Hey, hey, hey," a blonde cut in, her eyes sparkling with mirth. She appeared to be the most sociable out of the bunch. "If you're having trouble with Japanese, just ask. I'm pretty okay with English."

"O-oh, really? Thanks! That'd be a big help!"

I smiled in relief, the irregular staccato of my heart coming to a rest. Despite their assassination mission, it seemed like this class was the kinder of the bunch—welcoming, even. I glanced over at something Kayano was asking, nodding along at her words when my eyes caught sight of blue hair.

Small world, indeed.

"Ah! Pigtails!"

"...it's Nagisa." The androgynous boy looked exasperated.

"Nagisa-kun, you know her?"

"Yeah, she moved into the same complex as me. If you hadn't run out so fast in the morning, I would've offered to show you the way."

"Ah, sorry!" I clapped my hands together in apology. "I was in such a rush I didn't notice. Don't hate me?" I peeked up at him with one eye.

"Um—it's fine." He looked startled at my sudden apology. My lips twitched, threatening a smile. Nagisa really was cute, be it his quiet demeanor or his easy-to-fluster attitude.

Though, there was something odd about him. I thought so when I first met him, at least—how he seemed to have just appeared out of thin air, not a word or sound, and how he seemed to vanish in the crowd when I looked back to see if he was still there. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but something about him was...different.

Okay, I know what you're thinking. Shut up. I'm not one of those heroines who think a guy is "different" and end up falling for the asshole.

I'm not a heroine at all, actually, so if that's what you're expecting, you're in the wrong place. I ran from trouble, avoided conflict like the plague, couldn't fight for shit, tripped over thin air, and could barely hold an intelligent conversation for more than ten seconds. Trouble, however, seemed to be attracted to me like a magnet, but I wasn't just going to sit here and let fate paint me as the main character of some story.

Because everyone knew all the tragic shit happened to the hero. I didn't have the time, patience, mentality, or resilience for that, so fuck that.

After I'd settled into my new seat—a rather lonesome spot in the back of the classroom next to the burly Terasaka who looked like he'd rather eat cyanide than make small talk with me—Korosensei, as I soon learned, shuffled his attendance sheet, looking thoughtful.

"Iza-san," he began, while I observed in fascination how his mouth never moved. "You were supposed to come in here with another student, correct? Do you know his whereabouts, by any chance?"

My face broke out. My crops died. My grades sank. The sky clouded. I suddenly couldn't hear.

I schooled my expression so it didn't look like I'd seen the face of the man that murdered my puppy.

"Who?"

"You know,"

Don't say it.

"The other student Karasuma-san was supposed to inform?"

Don't fucking say it.

"Akabane Karma-kun, was it?"

My eye twitched. The pleasant smile I'd plastered on began to crack.

"What the fuck is wrong with this chick?" Terasaka muttered from beside me.

"Pass," an annoyingly familiar voice called out.

Speak of the devil. I looked up just in time to see the door being jerked open, a head of red hair peeking through.

The amount of murderous rage I harbored just multiplied tenfold.

"Counterfeit passes, Akabane Karma-kun?" Korosensei wasn't falling for it.

To my surprise, the psycho offered something evocative of a genuine smile. I would've believed it, too, had it not been for my prior experience.

The kid was neurotic.

I heard a girl two rows upfront take a sharp breath. Probably sensing my disbelieving (disgusted) stare, she turned around, cupped her mouth, and with twinkling eyes, murmured something horribly reminiscent of, "he's hot".

Of course, she couldn't see the devil horns poking through his skull. All she saw was tall, lean male.

"I had a meeting with my counselor. Community service hours, you know?"

Bullshit. The only service this bastard would ever perform would involve him and heavy traffic.

"Still," he walked up closer to the poor guy, hands stuffed into his pockets. "Never expected this; it really does look like an octopus."

Fortunately, Korosensei didn't buy it. "I heard your suspension was over today, but that's still no excuse to be late to class."

At that, Karma let out an apologetic laugh. Faux-apologetic, that is. "It's a little hard to get back into the swing of things. Anyways, feel free to call me by my first name. It's nice to meet you, sensei."

He offered a hand.

Don't do it, I screamed in my mind, hoping he'd magically develop telepathy. Everyone knows you shouldn't shake hands with the devil.

Instead, Korosensei reached for his hand. "Likewise. Let's have a fun year."

Three things happened at once.

First, the tentacle used to shake Karma's hand exploded like putty, similar to the pudding I'd once stuck in the microwave for too long. The psycho, seizing momentum, whipped out a rubber knife, swiping it at the poor guy at lightning speed.

The octopus, however, was having none of it—in a movement far too quick for any human eye, he'd intercepted the attack, having flown at least three feet away from his assailant.

"Oh, so you're as quick as they say you are," the psycho hummed, showing off his fingers. I felt a momentary lapse of shock—the bastard had cut up the rubber into pieces, taping them onto his palm. I couldn't decide if that was genius or just plain dirty, though, and felt more comfortable settling on the latter. "...and these things really do work. But I'm surprised you fell for such a simple trick, sensei. And you jumped back so far, too—could it be that you're scared?"

The usually mustard-yellow skin Korosensei donned morphed into a hue of angry red—a shade that would put me to shame.

"I heard you're unkillable, but...what's this?" He leaned in, and Korosensei inched back. "Could it be that you're actually a pushover?"

I would've punched the kid by now.

"Well, it's fine. I'm at the back, right? I'll just sit down for now." He paused in his walk. "Oh, hey. It's been a while, Nagisa-kun."

I kept my head down low, focusing on my laced fingers.

Don't let him come here, don't let him come here, don't let him come...

"Y-yeah," I heard Pigtails' shocked reply. "Never thought I'd see you here."

"Hmm... well, things happen." His footsteps were getting closer. And closer. And closer. "But honestly, this seems like a whole lot more fun than whatever's going on in the main building. Ah,"

My fingers dug hard enough into my palm to draw blood.

"Newbie?" His voice snapped me from my mantra and I hoped he didn't see me flinch. His blazing eyes—blazing, like the depths of hell from which he came from—flashed mischievously as he slowed in front of my desk. The girl who'd drooled at his initial appearance—Yada, was it?—smiled conspiratorially my way as if we were best friends.

"How're the lungs holding up?" He asked cheerfully. I tightened my twined fingers so I wouldn't slap him, because most of the class was now looking at me curiously or staring at my chest.

"They're great," I responded through gritted teeth. The psycho gave me a condescending smile and shook his head like I was hiding something. By now, people would assume I was either a smoker or a lung-cancer patient. He knew this. My hand clamped around the reliever in my back pocket for reassurance as my breathing escalated.

Karma glanced around, noted the discomforted look on everyone's faces (excluding Korosensei), and nodded at me before taking a seat.

Right.

Next.

To me.

I glared at him as if I could laser his head off with my eyes. The classroom was still eerily quiet, glancing over at me like they expected me to cough up a lung or something.

Unable to handle their stares, I announced, "I'm asthmatic."

Most of them relaxed, but the kids out of earshot still looked uneasy.

I turned my gaze to again glower at the psycho, who gave me a sharp-toothed grin.

"Why the hell are you here?"

"Whatever do you mean?" He played dumb.

"Cut the crap," I whispered harshly. "And go sit somewhere else. The last thing I want is to look at your ugly mug, you sadist—how could you just leave me half dead with those losers?"

"Aww." He taunted, using a baby voice. "But there's no more free seats next to anyone. I'd be lonely in the corner by myself."

"Go choke on a dick, you bas—"

"Iza-san! Karma-kun! No chattering during class!"

I clamped my mouth shut, biting my cheek in anger.

"Sorry, sensei~," Karma threw an arm around my neck, "she and I just get along so well, you know? I'm her first friend at this school, after all! Right?"

I gagged. The psycho tightened his arm, restricting my air flow.

"Th-that's right," I managed to spit out, red-faced. "We're...friends."

I threw up in my mouth at the word.

Karma's sharkish grin loomed over me like an evil omen.

"Let's get along, newbie."

Memory-erasing and deportation suddenly didn't sound so bad.

A/N: I think this is the fastest I've ever updated. Also, this might be the longest chapter I've ever written.

It's a little hard getting Karma's character down. Sometimes I feel like he's a complete psycho, other times, he's not so bad. Not sure if he came off as OOC.

Nagisa, on the other hand, is easy to write. That may just be because the anime was directed from his POV, and this, I basically know him to a tee.

I wanted to make Iza curse less but that didn't work out. She's just an angry, awkward teen that hates confrontation and cusses too much—not sure if I characterized a fourteen year old correctly.

The plot will progress according to the storyline. Basically, Iza transferred in at the same time as Karma—the classroom scene was basically a replay of Korosensei meeting Karma for the first time, just in a different setting. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and it made you laugh. Or roll your eyes. Or something.

—helxium