Assassination classroom one-shot focused on Karma and Asano around the end of high school. Takes place a few years after the anime. Rated K+, but the only warning that really applies is a few swearwords.
They had a month left before their final exam. Those final exams that decided which university they ended up in. While Karma was fairly well equipped with the basics and a lot more thanks to his extraordinary teacher (and time spent at home studying which he would rather not admit to anyone), it was still going to be a difficult test, and an important one at that. That was not to say that the redhead would have stressed over it by any means; what it meant was that he could laugh his ass off at Asano. His rival for some reason still wanted to keep his position as the president of the student council apart from being class president, which resulted in random people walking up to him with their own little problems all the time, including the few hours which he had originally planned to spend with practicing the more difficult exercises or reading literature that could possibly be used as material by those who put together the national exams. Karma actually had a pretty good idea about what that year's quotes might be from, but sharing his knowledge with Asano would have been against their unspoken rules of never helping each other by any means. He just glanced down at the troubled blond from the first floor of the library, catching purple eyes as they glared back at him with that familiar fire. Yes. Asano was fun to compete with. Karma felt content finally having found a worthy nemesis. Because while most people tried their best to get good grades to get into their dream university, the ex-assassin didn't give a damn about that. It was secondary… hell, tertiary even. What he wanted was to have some decent competition, a fight of sharp minds, trying to beat the other. Asano could give him just that, and it was an open secret that the redhead's number one reason to stay there instead of changing schools was him. Not that rubbing his results and the fact that he came back from the E class in the top students' face was bad, but it was still Asano who meant the greatest appeal to Kunugiaoka High.
Sucks to be you, Karma's expression signaled, and the one he got in response could have been converted to the words fuck off.
At the end of the day, Karma walked over to one of the wending machines to get some strawberry juice. It was a nice feeling to walk home while drinking that in the warm afternoon.
After grabbing his drink, he was about to leave when he spotted that unique strawberry blonde hair in the backyard of the school. Always eager to tease his rival, Karma casually walked over to see what the other was doing. As it seemed, he was tutoring a few kids from their class about some chemistry related problem. Karma had way more fun than he should have had upon seeing the small, barely visible flinches of the Asano kid. He was a fine actor, all right, but when you learned how to read his expressions, it became hilarious to see how he tried to keep himself composed and seemingly kind while it was obvious that he would have liked to kick the guy in glasses in the face who didn't understand even at the third explanations that some metals were indeed flammable…
Struck by an idea, Karma walked over to one of their teachers who was just about to leave school through the main gate.
"Excuse me, sensei" he said with a sweet smile that made the man second-guess the teen's intentions immediately. Karma had quite a reputation after all.
"Yes, Akabane-kun?"
"I accidentally left a book of mine in the chemistry labor, would you mind coming back with me? I really wanted to look up something about the isotopes in chapter eight, but if I don't have it…"
The man looked extremely uncomfortable all of a sudden.
"Eh, you see, I was about to leave and have things to do this afternoon… Sorry, but…"
"Ah, that's not a problem at all. Of course sensei has important things to take care of" he chimed, keeping himself from blurting out that the guy was probably going home to his empty flat and watch porn.
"Ah, really? Well, I mean, yes, of course I do."
"So if you gave me the key now, I could quickly get my book, and then drop the key off at the welcoming desk for you to pick up tomorrow…"
Five minutes later Karma was watching with glee how the three students were trying to take out the fire caused by the titanium powder in the middle of the yard, only making things worse. It was a good thing Gakushuu went to a quick toilet break, otherwise he probably would have stopped Karma from having his fun.
"You won't be able to take it out like that, you know" he added in what sounded like a helpful tone, while in reality it was anything but.
He watched with glee as the taller of the boys rushed over to the closest fire extinguisher.
"That thing is filled with carbon-dioxide… you know it won't help, right?" the redhead asked with a bright smile. The fire illuminated his face in a way that he looked sinister enough to be mistaken for the devil himself.
He was having the time of his life (well fine, time of his week anyway) when an angry yell snapped him out of it. Gakushuu was shouting at the top of his lungs about violating school regulations and idiots endangering fellow students which Karma promptly ignored while parkouring his way up to the rooftop where Asano could probably not reach him. With stress on probably; the class president could be surprisingly good at things that a high schooler should not be, often making Karma wonder what it would have been like to have him as a fellow assassin in class E. Not that the blond would have let the "tragedy" of sinking so low happen to him anyway.
Karma watched as his rival simply took out the fire with a bucket of salt (where he got that, he had no idea, there was nothing like that in the chemistry labor where he stole- correction: borrowed – the titanium powder from).
"Well, now you know about flammable metals and class D suppression. No need to thank me" he said with a wink towards his terrified fellow classmates, then started running parallel to the school yard on the rooftop. That was a good way to keep his skills fresh (who knew when he would need them after all) and it was a bonus that his dangerous parkour escapades annoyed the ever loving shit out of Asano. Now what was that if not pure gold?