War Against Boredom

by Colorslander

Rio makes a bet. Class E suffers.

"War Against Boredom."

Disclaimer: I own nothing. The title is inspired by a quote from the manga koe no katachi.

This is a companion piece to my other fic "Phantom Pains" but it's not needed to understand this one. Various pairings but not a romance fic.

i.

Alleviating boredom is something of a learned skill, and Rio is nothing if not a master. There is, of course, not much that can legitimately called boring nowadays without admitting a sense of entitlement. And there is much less riskier ways of having fun than placing bets on your comrades, who have been professionally trained to kill a person with minimum evidence. But what fun is there without risk? Fortune favors the brave.

"This is a terrible idea,"Megu informs.

"Of course," Rio happily agrees. "Most great ideas are."

Today they witnessed how many rubber balls could fit in Muramatsu's mouth (an impressive three), how long Itona and Okajima secretly stalk the girls before Okajima gets pummeled into human shaped goo (ten minutes- Itona once again escapes divine punishment), and if Yada could actually distract the substitute assassination teacher just by taking off her coat (she couldn't, but he seemed more interested in Nagisa anyway).

Rio managed a profit in the end, she guessed correctly on Yada and Okajima, and no one correctly guessed Muramatsu so it was a stalemate.

It was a good day to be Rio, with or without the approval of Megu.

"I'm going to do it!" Justice shakily calls from the roof of Class E. He's a little jittery in the legs, but still looking straightforward at his target; the large sycamore tree across the path was larger than its surrounding neighbors, and it's numerous limb-like branches were more than sturdy enough for a middleschooler.

"Don't do it!" Megu shouts at Justice, crossing her arms. "Even you can't make that jump. You're going to get yourself killed!"

Justice doesn't look away from the tree, but he begins to visibly sweat.

"Bah, that's crazy talk," Rio calls after him, "That's what training is for! Kataoka just doesn't believe in you!" She side eyes Megu. "C'mon, I got seven hundred yen riding on this. I'm going to buy some ice cream for this heat."

"How's training going to heal a broken neck?" Megu whispers to Rio. "You think his mom is going to appreciate him getting hospitalized because of a stupid bet?"

Rio just shouts louder. "You should hear the shit she's saying about your mother now!"

Megu rolls her eyes at Rio's self-satisfied grin and leaves while muttering something about getting Takebayashi.

After a few more nervous glances from Justice, and some coaxing from Rio by way of unflattering comparisons ("C'mom my nan is more hardcore than you!") he finally takes a deep breath and full on runs toward the edge.

Rio has to admit, the boy is fast as the devil, it's a fantastic sprint and a fantastic leap.

It's a less than fantastic fall though. And would be hilarious- if not for the potential for severe bodily harm, he just seems to hang their in the air like gravity isn't sure what to do with him, before the momentum arcs towards the ground and begins the plummet.

Before Rio can even begin to panic, a flash of misshapen yellow obscures her view, and a second later Kuro-sensei is cradling a very pale faced, would-be assassin.

Rio comes running to them. "Kurosensei, oh man, you've got some amazing timi… oh."

Kurosensei's face is slowly tightening, veins begin popping, and his color begins to darken into a murky, ominous shade of midnight.

He's got that wrath of gods brewing under his skin, and she hasn't seen that in a long time. She could go her entire life without witnessing it and be okay with that, it's one of the few times she believes it when they say he's got entire governments wetting their pants over him.

"Before learning, before creating friendships, before fun… safety," he seethes, each word dripping with power and rage, "Safety is the priority. Knowingly putting your friends in danger to test their limits is not funny, nor amusing."

Megu manages to return from wherever she left from, and that's all Rio needs right now. More "told you so's."

"Oh but Kurosensei," Rio says putting on her best innocent face. It wasn't believable, she has a shit "sweet" face that wouldn't convince the blind. "We're constantly told by our school about how we can't do anything and are reminded what are limits are. We just want to.."

"Don't underdog story me!" Kurosensei isn't loud but he doesn't need to be for her spine to stiffen and prickles in her skin to run down her arm. Poor Justice is ground zero, and he looks like he wants to melt away. "I speed through every shounen magazine on my way to work. I'm immune to sympathy from underdog stories."

Shit that usually works.

Megu steps forward and Rio thinks here it comes. She just hopes the bus she's about to get thrown under does its work quickly.

"Kurosensei," Megu says, with a much more credible innocent face. "We weren't trying to test each other or any of that nonsense. We just heard that Okano might have carved the name of her crush on the tree. Justice must have overestimated his control out of curiosity."

It's like a switch, Kurosensei deflates and his lewd smile returns; when air calms Rio finally exhales the breath she didn't know she was holding in. "R-Really?" Okuda you say? Crush you say?"

The only thing powerful enough to thwart a rampage by the strongest monster on the planet turns out to be school gossip. Kurosensei instant transmissions out of sight, dropping Justice on the ground, and begins to mach 3 around the tree.

He returns a split second later and looks at them with a look of poorly disguised disappointment. "There's nothing here!"

Megu sighs dramatically, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Another bust. It must be a different tree."

"Y-You don't say." There's a long pause. "I just remembered I had an important errand, I'll be back before lunch is over." Kurosensei begins his search for the nonexisting tree in earnest.

Rio's legs gives out and she falls unceremoniously on the ground while decompressing. She turns to Megu with newfound appreciation. "That was impressive Kataoka-chan. Didn't know you had it in you," she marvels.

"Yes well," Megu shrugs in humility. "Having your teammate's back is part of my training. Just. Try not to get into anymore life threatening situations."

"I promise," Rio lies.

It's all well and good because next month when they try again, he actually makes it, nobody dies, and Rio wins back all her loses.

ii.

On some days, humility and forgiveness is its own reward.

Normally though, Rio finds that laughing at the expressions on Class A's faces as they try to remove their chairs, ducktaped to the ceiling, to be far more satisfying.

She's long since brushed away her grievances of them, their sneers barely register and between tentacle monster teachers and assassination training, their approval just holds no weight in her life. But man, the catharsis after a successful prank is hard to resist.

"I give it a day," Terasaka speaks with full confidence. But he's always made it a habit of giving himself far too much credit, his confidence alone means nothing.

Fuwa tut-tuts, waving her finger in a calculated pose, more than likely mimicked from one of her detective mangas. "I give it a week before they start to blame class E."

Terasaka makes a noise that's closer to a string of indignant constants than words, somewhere between a "Bwah!?" and a "Pfft". He has a tendency to aggressively grunt when engaging in basic conversation. "Those guys are always tripping over themselves to piss on class E. If someone farts in their class it'll be our fault. There's no way it'll take a week."

Another ridiculous detective pose by Fuwa. "You underestimate their need to feel superior. Not only would accusing us mean they admit to being bested by the very people they look down upon, but they have no prior knowledge of our assassination training. To them, there is no possible way we could have pulled it off without getting caught, they would look like fools pointing fingers at us." Fuwa points at nothing in dramatic fashion. "There is only one truth."

Rio is torn, she isn't sure what side to put money on. On one hand, Fuwa is always safe, her years of reading detective manga has given her a habit of analyzing everything. This makes her an absolute pain in the ass to deal with at times, she rarely loses when she gets involved in her bets and most people have come to learn her opinion's worth. There's little money to be made when everyone knows who the sure bet is.

While Fuwa uses deduction and logic to her ends, Terasaka finds his solutions the same way he goes through everything in real life, with sheer brute force. There's a reason the boy is twice the size of Nagisa and twice as mean, he runs head first into walls of problems until something breaks. Sometimes it's the wall, sometimes it's his head.

Between his inability to look ahead and the negative impact of all that blunt force trauma, most people overlooked the guy. Rio certainly did at first, but as time went on Terasaka was managing to win bets and come out of bad situations with minimal bodily harm. It wasn't his tactics that changed, something evolved, and it wasn't just the occasional ability to resemble a decent human being.

Somehow, maybe as divine compensation, Terasaka gained a knack for pure dumb luck. Fuwa was the kind of girl that would scoff at the concept and proudly claim that people made their own luck, but Rio made her profits off of gambling. She would no more scorn lady luck than bite the hand that feeds her.

She places two hundred yen on Terasaka.

She loses.

In summary, Class A waffles about for a whole eight long days, sniffing indignantly and pointing at each other until one of the group, either more clever or stupid- it was hard to distinguish between the two- begins to crow about Class E. Despite the lack of evidence, the rest of the class take up the blame game, whining and stomping their feet when they find all their indoor shoes glued in their lockers and all the toilet paper replaced by saran wrap.

There's, of course, no way they can prove it, much to their chagrin, but nevertheless chairman pays them an unexpected visit.

He doesn't say anything but he knows and he watches, it's enough. Trying to learn while the chairman visits is akin to trying to make breakfast while the kitchen is on fire. The entire ordeal is frustrating and terrifying, and you end up unsatisfied with a certain amount of trauma. And maybe dead.

So by the end of the day Rio is out two hundred yen and nursing a pounding headache. She groans, faceplanting on her desk while glaring at Terasaka.

He glares back and makes another grunt that supposedly resembles a "whattayouwant?"

Rio snorts. "You're such a damn mistake."

She ignores the angry noises and ducks the flying desk with ease. Never bet on Terasaka.

iii.

Karma leans in, Rio's alarm bells begin ringing. Karma is many a thing but subtle is not one of them, and she feels his killing intent sharpen to a dagger's point right at her throat. That smile is not helping either.

"I heard you got a running bet on Okuda."

Rio swallows her nervousness and shrugs casually. Karma can be terrifying, but she knows how to play the game. "I sure do, we're running bets on the next side effect her potion creates. You want in?"

Karma's smile darkens. It literally changes the lightning in the classroom, how the hell does he manage that? "Drop it."

"No can do. I have running bets on everyone, fair's fair."

He leans a little closer, it gets a little darker, and the temperature drops. "When have I ever given you the impression I was fair?"

-x-

"Hey Nakamura, can I have five hundred yen on Okud-"

"Sorry, I don't do bets on Okuda."

iv.

Chiba and Hayami may as well be mutes for how much they avoid conversations, but somehow they can communicate with each other just fine. Rio wonders if it's something they had to learn or if they were born with it.

"Maybe they speak with their eyes," Okajima offers. Then he gives her a crude look, which involves a half upturned smile and the wriggling of the eyebrows. "They're always giving each other the eyesex."

Rio flips her hair. "Okajima, it doesn't matter how much porn you consume on a daily basis, I'm not going to take your word on any subject remotely resembling sex or sexual tension." Okajima doesn't deflate because he's immune to such verbal attacks now. He is nothing if not tenacious. "Besides, Chiba never shows his eyes. To anyone. Not even Hayami."

"She has the best marksmanship of the girls,"Sugaya interjects, "if anyone can see something we can't, it's her."

Okajima wraps his arms around himself in loving embrace, making the most revolting kissing face Rio has ever had the displeasure of witnessing. "Plus, she's probably gazed on it when they were under the shee-"

"I bet Chiba doesn't even have eyes," muses Sugaya, firmly interrupting Okijima's tirade.

Okajima continues, "Lovers oft-"

"I wonder if he's got some sort of disease, you know? That's why he doesn't show them."

"You can feel the sexual passion fl-"

"How much you want to bet Hayami knows what's going on under his bangs?" Rio decides to lay her cards on the table.

Okajima's voice begins to raise, demanding attention. "I bet she knows what's going on under his pan-"

"She'd never tell us. She doesn't even like telling people what she had for lunch, much less anything about Chiba."

"So we wait, ghost Hayami and if he ever shows her his eyes, I'll give you a thousand yen."

Okajima slams his fist on the table, near tears. "I'll take that bet," he shrieks at Rio and she winces a bit. "I can do surveillance better than anyone in the class, and then you have to listen to at least one joke." He gets up and runs for his camera in a a pained spring.

Rio watches him rush out of the room before looking back at Sugaya. "A thousand yen it ends with him getting shot by Hayami."

"Was that your real goal the whole time?"

"Oh yeah."

"Fine, I'll bite. Chiba shoots, Okajima ain't wrong on this one. You can insult Chiba, steal his food, take his stuff, but you don't mess with Hayami in front of him."

"We'll see."

It argument ends up moot though, Okajima is a colorful mess between the paint pellets and the resulting bruises from both Chiba and Hayami's practice guns. The first hit is done in perfect synchronization right between the eyes.

v.

"You know, just because Sugino practices to be a pro baseball player doesn't mean he's god," Muramatsu says, flipping a knife in the air, and catching it with ease. "There's no way he's can hit a ball thrown by Kurosensei."

Rio waits for Kanazaki's reaction but there is none, so she says, "Kurosensei says he's going to pitch at a reasonable level."

"Kurosensei is a yellow, moon destroying mass of destruction who steals snacks from middle schoolers. There's a lot of wiggle room in what he considers reasonable."

"That's fair."

Kanazaki finally speaks up, smoothing the perfectly pressed skirt under her fingers. "But when it comes to teaching he has never steered us wrong. I don't think he would intentionally set up Sugino-san to fail."

"Kurosensei won't dumb down his practice to make him feel better," Muramatsu shoots back, "Sugino's good but he isn't that good. He's going to need more than ten minutes of prep to hit that."

"Good thing Sugino practices day and night," Kanazaki says with all the patience in the world.

Rio lightly kicks Maramatsu to get his attention. "Shut up you two, he's starting." Both of them fall silent and lean against the chain-link fence.

The two couldn't be more different; Muramatsu takes a page of the Terasaka group, he's all slumped shoulders and hands in pockets, looking out like it's all boring to him, but despite the devil-may-care nature his eyes never leave the field. Kanazaki is straight spines, hands gently folded in front, with a pleasant smile that's a little too trained. But Rio knows the eyes of a gamer, there's a quiet spark there, she likes the thrill of action and promise of competition. This bet is fun to her too. Rio's pockets also have Yoshida and Hara's bet money- both placed on their teacher.

Kurosensei throws the first ball a little too hard, Sugino doesn't even have the chance to swing and Okano yelps as it hits her glove and she's thrown back like a ragdoll. She waves off the concern because she's got this pride about her and she'll sooner confess to Maehara than back down from a physical challenge.

Kurosensei is all apologies and seemingly lost a little confidence by the second toss, not only is his face so visibly deflated that it changes color and goes flat, but the ball is sloppy and goes way too high. Okano calls ball.

Sugino would have hit the third one but it was deceptively slow, and that's two strikes. The next is thrown too far right and it's the second ball.

"He's doing this on purpose now," Muramatsu mumbles, irritation all too apparent. "The damn octopus is a drama queen."

"Sugino-san still has a chance," Kanazaki says in perfect feminine stoicism.

Sugino hits on the fifth throw, it's sloppy and it immediately grounds but he did it. He's so flabbergasted that he actually hit a ball thrown by someone that considers running around the planet a leisurely stroll that begins running for first base despite not actually being a game.

"Of all the damn…" Muramatsu groans watching his yen go to Kanazaki and Rio. Kanazaki laughs at this, but in a way to devoid of cruelty, waving congratulations to Sugino before walking back inside with her grumbling classmate.

Once the crowd disperses, Rio counts out a few coins from her stack of winnings while Sugino makes a mad dash to her, cropped hair flattened from sweat and wind and face warm from exertion.

"Well," he says between pants, giving her such a yearning puppy dog she's almost gets affected by second hand embarrassment, "Did Kanazaki bet on me to win?"

"Yeah, yeah," she says as she hands Sugino the money. His eyes begin to shine and his whole face brightens like he won the lottery rather than five hundred yen. He looks happier about Kanazaki than the whole baseball thing.

"Yes!" he roars to the sky, red faced and excited, the yen all but forgotten. He pushes the coins in his pockets with disinterest before he begins to make wild laps again, punching the air in victory and squealing like a girl in love. Rio rolls her eyes with a certain amount of affection.

Honestly, if he only cared about Kanazaki he should have just let her keep the money.

vi.

She doesn't outwardly show her discomfort, but Rio doesn't really know what to feel about Kayano after her big reveal. It's not that she hasn't forgiven her, forgiveness came easy because no one really blamed the girl. A sob story flashback didn't hurt either.

But she isn't sure how Kayano neatly fits into her world view anymore. Rio doesn't know what parts of her were a show and what parts of her were sincere. Does she really have the physical strength of a wet sock or was that just the disembodied tentacles sapping her energy away? Does she really love sweets or was that an easy cover? She doesn't even know what name she should go by.

Rio likes a little surprise in her life, variety is the spice that makes the mornings bearable and the tomorrows filled with promise. But the unknown is a considerably more romantic concept when it doesn't hold the weight of your friends in the balance. It's a lot less comfortable when the monster was really hiding underneath your bed for all this time.

She doesn't know how to think of Kayano, and worse it makes her feel a little weak.

This inner turmoil prevents her from making bets on Kayano. It prevents her from… anything Kayano.

Kayano picks up on that, she must have. Or at least, Rio thinks she might have. Rio isn't even sure of how intuitive the girl is anymore.

Well hell, Valentines day is coming up, the Christmas of all middleschool betting rings and she can barely concentrate because of this mess.

Rio leans on the wall and lets out a long suffering sigh like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders (she kind of does, but the actual threat of Kurosensei gives her a lot less stress).

"You look beaten," Karma joins her supporting the walls. "That's not something easily done."

"I dunno. Maybe I'm running out of steam, I mean, you got me to stop taking money on Okuda."

"Yeah but I'm good."

Rio snorts to that, and Karma gives her a shit eating grin.

Jackass.

"What do you think her deal is?" she asks, indicating to Kayano with the slightest of head nods.

"Dead sibling complex," he replies simply. "Revenge, tragedy induced super powers, redemption. All the classic stuff."

"No, I mean now." She notices that despite Karma saying this with a flippant attitude, he's gotten a bit more stiff and ah. Karma's got a thing about not letting his guard down. He's just as unsettled by the Kayano blow out, but if he doesn't like to show weakness he's certainly not about to confess it.

Potentially useful. If I wasn't in the same boat.

That was when Rio and Karma noticed it, the one flaw in Kayano's armor.

One of Kayano's hairband snaps and her, rather absurd, hair cat tails that somehow defy the laws of reality fall, green tumbles down her back. Nagisa laughs, because somehow all that heavy atmosphere between them has long been resolved, and gives her the one from his wrist.

Kayano was a paid actress of great critical success. Kayano is training to be a highly efficient assassin. Kayano fooled them all, including trained government officials, into thinking she was something she wasn't, all while in critical agony.

Kayano's face begins to resemble an overripe tomato and she begins to mumble something that doesn't remotely resemble Japanese, and then drops the hairband. Nagisa, for being such a master of observation, shrugs it off as a silly mistake and doesn't notice that Kayano is so red she's practically glowing. She's looking like she just might want to attempt murder-suicide again if it would get her the hell out.

Rio and Karma side eye each other, evil grins threatening to swallow their faces whole.

There's something humanizing about the ridiculousness of it all. It's all it takes for would-be killer Kayano, monster of class E, to turn into a stammering-blushing potential source of revenue for Rio.

Puberty is great.

Scratch that, puberty is hell. It wreaks havoc on your body, and quite possible makes you legally insane. It's why her peers can't seem to calm down, and why no medical professionals will diagnose them with all the personality disorders they're sure to have.

But Rio will be damned if puberty isn't profitable.

The next day the entire class already has money on when the two gets together, the fear long gone.

vii.

"Go forth and lay waste to your enemies, Bishamonten, so they never forget your power," Rio booms, on her feet and hands full of ready to be won money. The ponytailed girl next to her raises a brow.

"You do know you're shouting commands at a bug." Rio ignores Yada's useless commentary.

Class E probably looks a little ridiculous, surrounding a small tree stump, cheering on two horned beetles as they struggle to push each other off. Then again it couldn't look any stranger than middle schoolers swinging their knife at imaginary things in the air as they practice the proper technique to slit a throat (don't pull the head up, push it down, stab the side, then slide).

"Not a bug. Bishamonten, god of war," Rio clarifies. "It's money on six legs."

"A kabutomushi," Kurahashi says, pushing her orange hair behind her ears. "Allomyrina dichotoma if we're being totally technical. They're beautiful." Kurahashi looks more interested in the bugs than the match, Rio doesn't quite get the appeal, but she's learned to forgive her class of their eccentrics.

Especially when people like Kurahashi have potentially lucrative quirks. She's the one that picked out Bishamonten after all, and if there's one things Kurahashi knows, it's bugs.

"Come on Bishamonten-sama," she clenches her fist as she speaks to her beetle, "You're the damned god of war, don't let 'em get the best of you."

Hazama sulks through the shadows to Rio and points to the rival beetle. "Two hundred yen on Taiho."

Rio pats the girl on her shoulder. "Best of luck to you, but my girl is a winner."

"Guy," Kurahashi clarifies. "Kaubtomushi species have significant sexual dimorphism, the horn in a specifically male trait."

"My guy is a winner." Money doesn't have gender anyway.

As if on queue, Bishamonten wiggles its horn under Taiho, presses up and flips him off the stump. Half the class jump to their feet in cheers and whoops, while the other half moan in loss.

"What, why?" Hara complains, picking up the wriggling Taiho. "He's at least got a couple centimeters on him."

"Size isn't the only thing that's important," Rio says shrugging, ignoring the snickers from Okajima. "If being big was the only qualification for winning a fight, how do you explain Terasaka?"

"What the hell is that suppose to mean?" Terasaka bellows from somewhere in the crowd.

"To be fair, I don't know many people who can beat Terasaka in a one on one fight," Hara points out.

Rio puts a hand to her hip. "You think he can beat Karma?"

"If it's just a hand to hand fight, yeah," Yoshida pipes up. The rest of Terasaka's crew nod in loyalty

Somewhere in the mounting testosterone fueled environment, Karma interprets this as a challenge, and ever so subtly straightens his posture, and his gaze sharpens. "If Terasaka needs some public education, it's only polite that I lend my services."

Terasaka comes hulking through the crowd, parting it like an ocean. "Oh, Karma's acting a fool again. It must be Tuesday."

Karma smiles and puts his hands in his pockets with deceptive laziness. Even when shorter than Terasaka, he seems to look down past his nose at him. "It's Wednesday."

"Shut up."

Isogai pulls his best diplomatic smile and steps between the two. "C'mon guys, we should stop this."

"We should," Rio pipes up. Then adds. "Five thousand yen on Karma."

Terasaka reaches over Isogai and pulls Karma up from the collar of his shirt, which just flips Karma's invisible switch and Rio sees his sanity rapidly dwindle.

"Oh Terasaka, you're affection is going to make me blush. I'm flattered, but I always thought you were more of a Itona-kinda-guy."

Itona steps forward at that. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"You tell 'em Itona."

"Terasaka has no type, I am not even sure he has hit puberty."

"You socially stunted, albino twitch monkey -"

No one knows who swings first but at this point it doesn't matter, class E has been swept up in the energy of it all and bodies push together in a disgusting mess of testosterone and ego. Isogai throws his hands up and in a moment of clarity shouts, "Kabutomushi rules! First one on the ground loses!"

By some miracle it actually works, and the nonsensical mass fist fight that threatened to leave broken noses and bloody lips transforms into a non-lethal battle royal. Rio doesn't know how he did it, but then supposes that limitation is the monster that feeds creativity, and poverty is the mother of all limits. It makes a certain kind of sense that Isogai would be good at thinking on his feet. She would marvel at the ingenuity of it all, but Okano leg sweeps her and she falls on her ass. Hard.

"Oof, Okano just you wait-" but the girl already did some over the top backflip into the crowd. Even with Rio technically out she contemplates giving chase and sabotaging her. There would be no point though, as long as Maehara is still in the fight somewhere, she'll never win. Okano had the best chance out of the girls to actually make out the victor, but that meant nothing if your worst enemy was your own hormones.

"Hey asswipe, heads up!" She hears Terasaka shout out, and Rio witnesses probably the most bizarre scenario since they all decided that space travel was a totally okay idea. Terasaka grabs a poor, unsuspecting Nagisa who has been doing his best not to get involved in this whole affair, lifts him above his head like he was made out of nothing, and hurls, literally hurls, him at Karma. Either Karma is just as baffled at what happened, or Terasaka's famous luck finally kicked in because Nagisa collides into Karma and they both fall down in a heap of limbs and confusion.

It's like all of a sudden someone hit the mute button, everyone freezes and shuts their mouths, even the birds stop chirping. They glance at Karma who just lays on the ground as Nagisa scrambles off of him, apologizing profusely.

Then Karma laughs. "I can't argue with a defeat like that."

There's a collective sigh of relief (from everybody but Terasaka, who gave no shits and continued to slam people on the ground), it's amazing that Tersaka manages to avoid Newton's Third Law style vengeance, but they all take it as a go ahead to continue.

Rio grimaces. "Well, it's Terasaka's to win now." Really though, in a brainless brawl, there should be no doubt Terasaka's place.

"You think so?" Hazama hisses, suddenly kneeling next to Rio with a knowing smile on her face. Rio can't help but almost jump out of her skin. How does Hazama do that?

"You think someone can beat him now? I thought you guys had Terasaka's back."

The lanky girl shrugs. "This and that are two different things. I just want to know, if Terasaka doesn't win, do I get my money back."

Rio considers this. "As long as you two haven't preplanned to take a dive, it's double or nothing."

"Good." Trust Hazama to take something like smiling and turn it into something creepy and sinister, because her smile just now gives Rio the impression that she made a deal with the devil.

Hazama walks in the middle of the chaos and just stands there, lingering in shadows cast from nothing. Blinded by energy Terasaka nearly piles drives into her from behind, but stopped when Hazama snaps her head in his direction like she was from the exorcist.

"It's bad luck to hit a woman, Terasaka," she croons like darkness. It actually makes him widen his eyes.

"N-no it isn't, stop speaking bullshit."

"You want to take that chance?" Her voice drops an octave.

"I- I uh." His eyes dart around, "I'm going over there." Hazama actually has him cowering away, the guy that had no problems throwing one of the deadliest assassins in their class right at the other deadliest assassin.

In fact, the rest of the class has stopped and stared at the woman, who is now for some reason muttering unnervingly to herself.

"Uh, who's going to take her on?" Mimura asks.

"You do it," Kimura says, "I'll get Takebayashi to fix you up if something happens."

"Takebayashi can't fix curses."

"Curses aren't real, dude."

"Then you try."

"I… I'm actually forfeiting." Kimura coughs in his hand. "I'm not feeling to well."

"… Me too." More coughing.

One by one, the group takes one good look at Hazama, looking like something out of Fuwa's horror mangas, and voluntarily drops out. Once she's the last man standing she makes her way to Rio the way a snake would, like dark silk slithering her way through the grass, and takes her money back.

"It's like you said. Don't need to be big to win."

viii.

Aside from Okuda, and Kayano for a brief period, there are very few limits on what Rio is willing to exploit for some extra pocket money. And despite how much they doth protest, very few things that her friends will not join her on her war against boredom.

They have running bets on who will kill Kurosensei, on who falls in love with who, on their test scores, on who is most likely to snap next. And perhaps all the focus on murder and dead teachers made them develop a strong affinity for black humor because they even began to bet on their dysfunctional home lives.

But when career week creeps up on them, Rio does not take any money.

It's a very conspicuous gap of gambling, but no one calls her out on it. There's almost no commentary of any kind, save an occasional awkward chuckle at their own expense. It's more of a stressed reaction, the kind one makes when there's too much on the line and an awkwardness when facing it.

Rio understands this. She remembers the crestfallen looks on her parents' faces when they realized she was dropped to class E. She remembers the quiet dinners while they struggled to find of a way to talk to her without getting into another fight. She remembers standing uncomfortably as a spectacle for all the other classes, an example to mock and look down on. She remembers her first march to class E, a walk of shame that was a good twenty minutes past her former classmates who snickered behind their hands. She remembers disappointment, pity, ridicule, but mostly the self loathing.

The past months they've rekindled parts of their egos and confidence, but the sting of stigmatization runs deep; it's an itch to far below the skin to scratch. They can work past it, but there is no forgetting.

So there's no bets this week, but the lack doesn't make the days feel empty. It's filled with something different; there's a lot of contemplative silence, navel gazing, and fingernail biting from bad habits. Killing your teacher is scary, facing murderous psychopaths is scary, surprise tentacle classmates are scary, but planning for the future is downright terrifying.

"I think, I'd like to be a diplomat."

The confession feels odd on her tongue. It's like a punchline to a very bad, misfired joke, all at her expense. Her friends should probably laugh at that, but they won't because they're all in the same floundering position she's in.

Maybe she should add something at the end, something more like her. Maybe; "You'll never know when I'll need that diplomatic immunity! Haha" or "Potentially ruin the livelihood of two countries for the price of one, I've always been ambitious."

She doesn't say that though. She's left with an uncomfortable sincerity that has made her more vulnerable than she's been since she stopped writing to Santa.

"Yeah. That's who I want to be."

At the end of the when day, the old, decrepit school bell clangs something awful and everyone shuffles out the rickety, neglected class doors, something comes over Rio.

"One last bet."

Her friends pause and Megu wrinkles her nose at this. "I'm disappointed in you."

"Yeah, so is my mother. And you don't make me breakfast in the morning." There's no malice in her tone though, and she pulls out a hundred yen coin.

"I bet that from ten years from now, we're all going to be happy."

Megu blinks in a mild surprise, then a smile slowly warms her face. "Okay then. I'll take that bet."

"Me too," Terasaka adds to everyone's surprise, and the unwanted attention causes him blush like an idiot. "Is it so much more damn surprising I like to bet on this kind of cheesy crap, but not Nakamura? Stop staring, jackasses."

That surprise ends up opening the floodgates.

"Here's mine."

"What do I have to lose? A month ago I wasn't even sure I had a ten years from now."

"I don't got much but I can spare a hundred yen."

"I've transferred the equivalent of coin into your family's account, Nakamura-san, and will collect it if need be."

A shadow passes over her, and a delayed wind lifts her hair. Rio smiles.

"Are you in too, Kurosensei?"

"Ufuu." Kurosensei pats her head like she's a snot-nosed kid, but she doesn't mind it. "Sensei usually doesn't partake in gambling, more often than not what you are risking is not worth what you could potentially get. But a vice once in awhile doesn't hurt."

He gives her a hundred yen, and Rio stares at it for a long time. It's old, and it's warm from being held in pockets, and Rio carefully gathers it with the rest.

Kurosensei continues to pet her head. "I'll bet to your happiness, I have all the faith in the world it will happen."

ix.

Many, many years later, when they're grown and all of Kurosensei has been wiped from this earth, class E is disbanded and went their separate ways.

Rio doesn't have much of left of Kurosensei now but her memories, and twenty-eight 100 yen coins that she never spent. (they all won)

---

Author's note: I'm not entirely happy with this one, but I promised myself I would finish it. Specifically, I wrote Phantom Pains and Anon said I should write a story about Rio taking all the bets and I was like "! I should!" And this abomination was given life. That was months ago, I'm not quite sure why this was hard to write but it was.

I love writing Rio though, she's a gem. And I make fun of a lot of characters but I adore them all. Terasaka is one of my favorite characters so of course I enjoy making him my punching bag 3. I might have gotten some of their speech patterns wrong, but I can't remember how everyone addresses each other, especially since not all the scanlations always put them in but eh.

The end is coming. Maybe. I find it weird that he hasn't officially announced it like other SJ mangakas have, and I think it started its own chibi spinoff? The timing is odd, but everything is pointing to a conclusion. I'll miss it.