Hi my name is Kou and I was half-drunk when I wrote this. I admit this is badly written and I can predict there will be a lot of grammatical mistakes and I didn't have the courage to ask someone to beta-read this for me so yeah. This fanfiction is based on koyori's song, Sainou Sampler. It's a really good song, you should listen to it.
Anyway, have fun cringing.
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Clang—!
The scalpel Karma was holding had slipped off of his grip, dropping to the ground with a loud clatter that had itself echo for a brief moment around the chamber. His teeth quivering and it was so awfully audible he hated it. His golden eyes were wide, his whole body was trembling; however, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't put the trembles to a stop. Water gathered in the corner of his eyes, threatening to fall down—but then again he couldn't care less about water and tears.
All he cared about was the body lying on top of the lab bench before him. The chest wasn't rising and falling, and Karma couldn't hear the sound of air coming in and out from the nose. No longer breathing—dead, for sure.
But that was not the case here. Well, yes, maybe, there was a dead body before him. But what made Karma so horrified and petrified was the fact that the one who owned this body was . . .
Karma had a friend whose name was Shiota Nagisa. And unlike Nagisa's life which had been a roller-coaster—almost literally—these past few months, Nagisa himself wasn't so special.
He was your typical average boy, excluding the fact that he had a rather girly appearance. So very ordinary to the point that someone whose name was known by the whole world would not bat an eye on the blue-haired boy.
But Shiota Nagisa had a talent; an astounding, albeit hidden talent which could not be shown without it being triggered or without a very keen observation.
And Karma was jealous of it.
The current situation was not helping, too. The current setting and place and state Karma and the other Class E students were forced to go through were not helping him. It was like the world didn't want Karma to be number one or something. And it wasn't like he wanted to be number one—he just wanted to be known for having a remarkable talent in assassination, rather than academics.
Correct; Nagisa's talent was very remarkable in assassination, to the point Karma had no other choice but to admit it. In addition, Nagisa's remarkable talent had been too prominent for everyone to see lately. And it bugged Karma so much—so much until he couldn't stop the jealousy toward Nagisa growing inside of him.
Nagisa and Karma had been friends since the eighth grade. Now that didn't seem to be a long time since currently, they were in ninth grade, but the offbeat situation—which was the sudden arrival of Koro-sensei—brought them closer than ever. But the closer they were, the more likely they'll get into a fight.
And they did.
Just yesterday, the two of them had gotten themselves wrapped up in a conflict about whether the class should just finish Koro-sensei off, or let him live. If the latter was the final choice, however, they will have to find a way to prevent Koro-sensei to blow up the entire human existence to oblivion. What Nagisa didn't seem to realize was the fact that doing that would take a very long time, and it was very to be expected that they will not finish on time. That was why Karma preferred the former option.
Oh, but no. Being a stubborn and arrogant boy as he'd always been, Nagisa refused to accept the fact that the latter option was nearly impossible. This grinded Karma's gears even more, because in spite having an astounding talent in assassination, Nagisa wanted to save Koro-sensei.
The conflict ended up with the two exchanging blows. This fight affected the whole class even more than Karma had first expected. It caused the class to be divided into two teams, one who favored Karma's option and one who favored Nagisa's. Basically a small civil war, you could say.
Koro-sensei made a game to determine which path they were ought to take. It was your typical paintball game, which Karma found tedious and unnecessary. Karma decided to just sigh and go with it.
And then a certain idea popped up in his mind. A really wicked idea, in his opinion—but it was worth a try.
"But where can I find the right instruments and place . . . ?"
"What in the world are you talking about?"
Catching himself staring vacantly at the ground, Karma looked up, only to meet with a pair of idiotic eyes. Karma quickly broke the eye contact and looked around the room, making contacts with a lot more people than he thought he would. Then he looked back to Terasaka. "Oh, still discussing about tactics, are we?"
"Not really," Nakamura replied. "We were done exactly ten minutes ago when you decided to doze off."
"Did I?" Karma frowned, then he recalled. "Oh, right."
"Well, I couldn't care less about that." Nakamura tucked some strands of her hair behind her ear before turning to Karma. "We've been waiting for you to dismiss us but you're spacing out. Can we go now?"
"Oh, yeah, well," Karma cleared his throat, straightening his limbs. "Before that—does anyone have an idea where I can find a scalpel?"
Everyone in the room gave him a bemused look. A short silence filled the room before Terasaka spoke up. "And what are you going to use it for? If it's you, you might as well use it to murder someone."
"Oh, come on!" Karma threw Terasaka a disbelieved look as he threw his hands up in the air. "I wouldn't kill someone, would I? Plus, I'm just going to experiment on something."
"You mean someone," Terasaka rolled his eyes.
Before Karma could give the muscle-brain a response, he could hear Nakamura clicking her tongue in annoyance, muttering "boys."
"Fine, you all can go," Karma said, and only in a matter of seconds, the room was empty except for him.
"Well, that was fast," Karma murmured, standing up from his seat. "The tactics we'll use won't matter, will they? Since I am sure Nagisa wouldn't be able to come to the game." The smirk on his face vanished when he caught himself talking to himself again. He stood up, and began to stride out from the room.
"What a bad habit."
Karma decided the shed would be a good place to do it.
He'd gained everything he needed in only a few hours and without anyone's help, and he had put them all in the shed correctly—or in the order he thought was correct. He wasn't like Takebayashi or Okuda—he wasn't a science master, but indeed he excels in all subjects.
Karma had put things that were unnecessary for his project aside in one corner, making a haphazard pile of stuffs. While the necessary things—he'd put them in the middle of the shed neatly. The most notable one was a lab bench and a silver table beside it, with several surgery instruments on top of it.
As it was night and the only source of light was the little square window on the corner of the shed, Karma brought an emergency lamp with him.
After putting on a surgical mask and wrapping his hands in medical gloves, he slowly made his way toward the silver table, his back on the lab bench. Just as he picked up a scalpel, though, he heard whimpers coming from behind him. Beneath his surgical mask, a smirk resembling Cheshire-cat's grin was made.
"Well, look who's up," Karma sneered as he turned around, carefully holding the injection in his hand. Golden eyes immediately touched a pair of familiar blue ones. The owner of those eyes looked afraid and horrified, and for some reason Karma couldn't really clarify, that frightened demeanor pleased him. Karma's grin widened beneath his mask. "Nagisa-kun."
"Karma—Karma-kun, why—i-is it because of our fight earlier—"
"No," Karma replied honestly. "This is more than that, Nagisa-kun. You have no clue what my motive is, yeah? Well, that doesn't matter, since I'm going to tell you."
Karma had never seen a real surgery before, not to mention he'd never done a surgery before. But that didn't stop Karma.
"You know, Nagisa-kun," Karma started as he played with his scalpel. "I'm so envious of you." Nagisa seemed to response Karma's words by pleading, but Karma refused to hear so he continued. "You're brimming with talent, you know that? A talent in assassination, which appears to be so convenient, the fact that you are currently in a class with an objective of killing someone."
Karma played with his scalpel more, studying Nagisa's countenance which was shifting from terror to—well, more terror. The red-haired liked the look of it. "I'm envious, have you noticed that? We're so close, Nagisa-kun, you must've noticed that."
Karma watched as Nagisa forced himself to answer, despite the fact that his teeth were quivering so much to the point it was almost impossible to make out words. "B-But Karma-kun, you yourself are remarkable—w-with your scores and all—a-and you're very strong, too—" Nagisa continued his sentence with an earsplitting scream, as Karma dug his scalpel into the boy's chest—to where his heart should be. His scream ended abruptly as Karma put his palm tightly against Nagisa's mouth. "I should've used anesthesia," Karma said to himself, completely ignoring the pained whimpers from Nagisa.
As he continued to dig deeper into Nagisa's chest, Karma resumed his earlier words. "That doesn't compare to your amazing talent, Nagisa-kun." He sounded like he was holding back anger, as his teeth were clenched and irritation moderately visible in his eyes. "I want to be the one who kills Koro-sensei. But I don't seem to have the talent to do so. But Nagisa-kun, you—an average person with supposedly average scores—have the talent to kill, and that is very, very astounding. I am envious of that, Nagisa-kun, is it so hard to tell?
"And your actions earlier today irritated me so much to the point I feel like I just have to do this. It's like it's my job to do this to you."
His sentence was finished with a scream. Karma glanced at his friend, immediately catching the sight of Nagisa's dread across his pallor countenance. There were drools trailing down his lips and his eyes were rolled back so much they looked like two completely white balls, and for a moment, Karma wondered if Nagisa could see his own brain or not.
His lips were moving, trying to form words between pained whimpers and, but Karma didn't bother to pay attention. He continued his surgery without paying much attention to his patient.
"Do you know why I'm doing this?" asked Karma. "Do you?"
But of course, there was no answer. If any, Karma only gained more whimpers and sobs and whines. Karma ignored those.
"Well, I'm going to tell you anyway." He pulled his scalpel away from Nagisa's chest, which was now a hole with blood decorating it and a beating heart behind the ribs and pulses and arteries and veins. This is going to be messy, Karma thought in his mind.
As he carried on with his bizarre surgery, Karma continued his explanation. "I," he started, "think it might be a good idea to take your talent away from you and give it to me, rather than fighting over two options where it is obvious which one is the right one.
"How, you ask? Well, I think by exchanging my heart with yours, I can acquire your talent. Hm? Why not the brain instead? I guess the brain is the source of everything—the brain is also more important than the heart, since if your brain stops, you're officially dead.
"The brain, however, listens to the heart. And that is why I decided to take your heart instead of your brain." Karma finished cutting the ribs, so he took the scalpel from earlier and began to cut the arteries. "And note that no artificial intervention is possible and there is no way to transplant a new brain into a person," Karma finished talking, as well as cutting the arteries.
He glanced at his friend's face, whose dread hadn't lessened one bit. Karma was glad he'd put a mask on. If he didn't his devious smirk would be unveiled to the whole world.
"Now, won't you give your talent to me, Nagisa-kun?"
Gently, cautiously, but surely, he cut the inferior vena cava, the right and left pulmonary veins and arteries, the brachiocephalic trunk, the left common carotid artery, and the left subclavian artery, so that he can scoop up the heart, still beating vigorously in his grip. The sound of the heart beating in his hand sent shivers down Karma's spine, but in a good way. It was like he was content with the result. And he was, truthfully.
Then he realized it was getting rather quiet. Eerily quiet, if he had to add an adjective. The whines and sobs had stopped so abruptly. He raised his eyebrow, and finally paid attention to his friend.
Clang—!
The scalpel Karma was holding had slipped off of his grip, dropping to the ground with a loud clatter that had itself echo for a brief moment around the chamber. His teeth quivering and it was so awfully audible he hated it. His golden eyes were wide, his whole body was trembling; however, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't put the trembles to a stop. Water gathered in the corner of his eyes, threatening to fall down—but then again he couldn't care less about water and tears.
All he cared about was the body lying on top of the lab bench before him. The chest wasn't rising and falling, and Karma couldn't hear the sound of air coming in and out from the nose. No longer breathing—dead, for sure.
But that was not the case here. Well, yes, maybe, there was a dead body before him. But what made Karma so horrified and petrified was the fact that the one who owned this body was . . .
Nagisa.
"N-No—No—w-wait—I . . . !"
The pleasure and bliss Karma had felt earlier just vanished into thin air, just like that, so abruptly, and were replaced by dread and terror of the fact that he'd just killed another human being. Not just a mere human being—his friend, his dear friend, who was the closest to him, who he treasured so much, who he admired so, so much.
And now he was dead, with his heart still beating in his killer's hand.
"Why—why did I even—" Karma fell down to his knees, not bothering to wipe the tears trailing down his cheeks. "Nagisa-kun, I'm sorry, I didn't—what had gotten into me—why . . . !?"
Sobs and wails filled the shed. Nagisa's heart, which wasn't beating anymore, fell from Karma's grip to the ground. Without his knowledge, it seemed like Karma had accidentally painted the room's floor with Nagisa's blood.
"I'm so sorry . . . I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so, so, so, so, so sorry . . ." Karma wailed. "I knew, I knew I could never be as talented as you, Nagisa-kun! I knew that, but I still . . . did this . . . Ahh, I'm horrible, I'm horrible . . ."
Karma kept on crying and crying. He couldn't stop his wails and sobs and whimpers. It was like there was no end to it. He wanted a better ending. A better ending where Nagisa could live.
It'd be real nice if time stops at that very moment.
Or better yet, it'd be nice if time rewinds itself at that moment. . .
Karma's eyes fluttered open. His back was cold, but he was sweating. Numerous sweats were dripping from his forehead down to his ears.
It appeared that he was lying back against metal—a lab bench, perhaps. He couldn't remove any of his limbs, but for some reason he wasn't panicking.
He couldn't see much as his view was still blurry, but it was enough to make out the silhouette that was standing beside him. He couldn't make out who it was though.
A couple of seconds later, his view was adjusted and now he could make out colors and lights. There was not much light, but it was enough to let him make out who the person was and what they—no, he was doing.
That person seemed to take notice of Karma's awareness, that he turned around and paid his attention full to the redhead.
It was a boy. He was blue-haired and very, very pale. In fact, he was literally white. But what stood out the most of the boy was that his chest was practically a hole. Karma could see what was behind the boy, but for some weird reason, Karma wasn't surprised. It was as if he knew it was going to be like this. Karma studied the boy's countenance, and noticed that he was wearing a bloody surgical mask—and his eyes were smiling.
"Awake, are you?" said the boy as he cleaned a bloody scalpel in his hands. "It's three in the morning, so we still have plenty of time."
Karma didn't respond. He just laid there, eyes following the blue-haired boy's movement. He was too tired to speak; he didn't know why he was tired, however.
A few couple of minutes later, the scalpel was finally clean and looked as though it'd just been bought. The boy shifted his attention to Karma, his eyes indecipherable but smiling. The scalpel in his grip seemed to gleam in the emergency's lamp light, making the situation eerier than it was before.
"Are you ready, Karma-kun?" said the boy.
A weak grin split across Karma's lips, as he responded with all of the strength he had left, "I'm counting on you."
Then Karma caught himself shrieking an earsplitting scream.