10. Tadaomi Karasuma: They Grow Up So Fast (57/17)
August 3, after Nagisa's first real assassination
"Thank you for all your hard work. Dismissed."
I barely manage to keep my voice neutral, but Nagisa doesn't seem to notice. That's no surprise after what he's done today. He's clearly shaken. Hardly in the state of mind to make his usual observations. He bows tensely and quickly turns to leave the dimly-lit makeshift office that we've set up in a suburban safehouse. No part of this matter can come anywhere near any official government facility.
One of my students has become a killer. The skills that were meant to save the world have been turned on a petty criminal. That friendly, positive innocence has been tainted forever, in a wildly illegal act made solely for the sake of convenience. It's sickening. I feel like this never should have happened at all.
"I am not happy about this." I say, almost to nobody, but there happens to be a man leaning smugly against the wall next to the door.
Lovro shrugs. "There's no reason for that. The order came down from above you, and he accepted the contract of his own free will. You're completely in the clear."
The last of my control snaps and I'm on my feet in an instant. "It has nothing to do with me! This operation should never have been conceived of!"
"And just what are you afraid of? Perhaps that your government, which previously had no contacts in the world of hitmen, will become addicted to their use?"
I honestly can't find it in myself to care about the government at the moment. My concern is my students. Though they haven't seen much of it, I have always fought to ensure that they would not become like the child soldiers of some African dictator. If only Nagisa has just said no when I offered the job to him. I couldn't believe it. He barely seemed to even consider it before accepting.
"You know what I'm talking about. He's only 15. Far too young to have the mental fortitude to deal with something like this."
"The results he got would seem to disagree with you. Perhaps you are projecting your own feelings onto him. He handled it far better than you seem to think." Lovro says coolly. "Irina was even younger, just 12, when she first killed someone, and she turned out…" He looked away, face hardened with annoyance. "More or less sane." He pushed off the wall and approached my desk, clasping his hands behind his back. "Perhaps the real problem is that you underestimate that one's talent. But I can see it. He was born for this."
I bristle at the implication that he knows my students better than I do, and I imagine him pulling a weapon out from behind his back so I'd have an excuse to break his arm. But a part of me knows that he could be right, about Nagisa if nobody else. Frankly, I'm frightened sometimes by what he's shown himself to be capable of. Even though I feel particularly protective of him because he's so unassuming, that just makes his abilities even more disturbing.
Doubt has restored my control, so I hold my tongue as Lovro continues almost wistfully. "I suspect he instinctively knows that because he lacks the strength to defeat most others in a fight, he must use lethal force to win. It's a killer instinct the likes of which I have rarely seen. If you can't see it, then you don't give them enough credit. Even as you train them, you look at them as children first and assassins second." He slams a palm down on the desk, meeting my glare with one of his own. "Do you really think you can train them to kill that planet-destroying abomination with such a feckless attitude? Without even trusting them to be able grow along their own paths, in ways you can't predict? You cannot create world-class assassins with the same mass-production methods as soldiers."
"I'm trying to get them through this so they can grow to be upstanding members of society, not murderers!" I declare. The world is not so weak that they have to be ruined to save it.
"And why should they want that?" Lovro snaps, spreading his arms. "They have something unique here. They're capable of so much more than being mere 'upstanding members of society'." He says contemptuously. "There are so few outstanding young assassin candidates native to first world countries."
"You will not drag them into your world." If there is anything I absolutely won't allow, it's that.
"…No, I won't." Folding his hands behind his back again, he turns and moves to leave. "I won't have to. When the time comes, I'll just ask. I wonder how many of them, who have been treated like filth by the social order, will say yes." He pauses in the door frame, and I can feel an ultimatum coming. "They need to be molded properly, into true professional hitmen who never let personal feelings interfere with their work. If they aren't, what do you think they'll do with their skills after they graduate?" Finally, he was gone.
Now that I'm alone, I sit down and fold my hands together on the desk, trying to remember myself. What I want, first and foremost, is to ensure the safety of the world, of course. But I've always kept that goal in balance with the physical and mental well being of the students… Though sometimes not as successfully as I would like. It's true that I've been teaching them like soldiers, even as I regard them like children. It's contradictory. Because of their training, they've gained confidence, and grown much faster than I expected. I'm used to actual soldiers, who are already adults. The growth of my current students is different, and I'm starting to see how much it's gotten away from me.
Lovro was definitely right about one thing. I can't risk them misusing their skills once this assassination is over, and considering Nagisa, I can't discount any of them. But I'm ultimately a military man. They're sharp enough to spot the hypocrisy of me telling them to choose civilian life. There isn't much more I can do to keep them on the proper path. I may just have to compromise and teach them not to get personally invested. So long as they don't go off killing for their own purposes, that may be the best I can hope for, as repulsive as the thought is. Which is exactly what Lovro wants. I want to hate him for backing me into a corner like that, but the truth is I got here all by myself. It's a consequence of training my students seriously instead of only fulfilling the letter of the agreement with the target. This situation is of our own making, and I may be the only one who cares enough to see it set right.
Fine. As hard as it may be, I will make no excuses. I accept the all of the responsibility, because whether they know it or not, my students are counting on me. I absolutely will not lose them to their own talents.
This is a direct follow-up to the previous chapter, since I felt it really merited it considering the game-changer it represented. This, along with Isogai's chapter, is when I'm starting to get into AU territory, but for the moment I consider this story to still be essentially compatible with canon. Of course, that won't last forever, but I'll keep up the pretense as much as I can.
Karasuma really is an interesting guy, and an excellent teacher. Despite the stakes involved, he keeps his morals intact and treats his students right. His expectations are high (he seems to really expect of the students to pull off the impossible), but fair, and he doesn't lose sight of the fact that class 3-E was essentially drafted. They didn't volunteer, so he doesn't ask as much of them as, for example, Takaoka did before he was summarily deposed. Really, he and Koro-sensei have a lot in common, as much as he'd hate the comparison.