"That bastard!" Terasaka stood up and scrolled up his sleeves, "I'm gonna beat the shit out of this guy!" He sounded furious, everyone was! They couldn't believe that the masked man attacked one of their classmates after setting a deal with them, the feeling of getting betrayed overwhelmed them.
"Are you really getting mad because our opponent didn't keep a promise he never made in the first place?" Karma shook his head and looked at his class disappointed, "Nagisa and I already warned you about it, he's a professional! It's not gonna be like in school where Koro Sensei always made sure that we'd have a fair fight! How naive of you, thinking he wouldn't target us just because we had a deal?"
Karma was right, it was obvious all the time, but the students weren't ready to accept reality, they were still stuck in the time back in middle school were every task was simply a challenge, were they rarely had to deal with the dirty nature of human being on their own.
"Karma's right, rather wasting time getting all upset about it, we should discuss how we're going to fulfill the task. We need a plan, information and equipment. Nagisa, you already fought the guy, how are you judging his abilities?" The calm nature of a sniper made Chiba to think more logically than the rest of the classmates.
"I'd say he's a little bit weaker than the God of Death and Karasuma Sensei. The only reason I was able to fight him was because he was underestimating me and I took him by surprise." Nagisa thought about his fight and made his guess.
"Wait, if he is that strong, you shouldn't be able to handle him even if you had this advantage! Remember what the God of Death did to you? You were like a monkey he toyed with!" Kurahashi boldly stated, not minding Nagisa's awkward face at all.
"…Kurahashi, that's harsh." Nagisa felt really uncomfortable of how she was describing him. "But yeah, most of you guys don't know, but I've been training with Master Lovro for the past 6 month." His explanation only made things worse.
"What? So you've decided to become an assassin?!" Nakamura screamed in surprise.
"No! I still want to be a teacher like Koro Sensei, but if I don't have enough strength to protect my students, I might end up like our schools chairman." Nagisa quickly shook his head in denial, "and I also wanted the strength to protect the people who are important to me."
"Hmm, people who are important…" Karma repeated Nagisa's sentence while obviously switching his sight between Nagisa and Kaede.
Nagisa was too focused in explaining himself so he didn't notice, but Kaede saw Karma's glare and instantly started to blush.
"Hmm, so you've improved is what you're saying." Karma lifted his head, he seemed like he was thinking of something. "How about a rematch Nagisa? You and me, one on one."
"Sure… Eh?! What?" Nagisa agreed instinctively but quickly realized what Karma was asking for. "Huh? Why?" Nagisa didn't expect that, he never was the type of person seeking to fight.
Unlike Karma, Nagisa dislikes fighting. He would never provoke somebody into a fight, if there was no reason. For Karma, picking a fight had already become a habit.
"We have to know what you're capable of so we can use your skills to the limits right?" Karma had a smirk on his face, his reasoning made sense, but that was definitely not why he was challenging Nagisa.
Nagisa knew that, but this time, he was tempted to fight Karma. Nagisa trained for half a year and he was certain that he had improved in a certain degree. But he never had the chance to actually indicate his improvements. He had a fight against Karma before, if he would fight him again, he certainly would be able to clearly see his progress.
"Alright, let's do it Karma." Nagisa stood up and with a confident and excited smile on his face. Karma was surprised, Nagisa and he had competed not only once before, but every time they did, Nagisa went into it already assuming that he would lose. He never had any confidence in himself even on the stage of assassination. Nagisa always felt beneath Karma, but this time, he was facing Karma with confidence.
Kaede loved this face of Nagisa, it was like a new world to her. Nagisa had confidence in himself! Ever since she knew Nagisa, he had always been the one boy who would give his best in everything. It was his seriousness and focus that made Kaede fell for him, but most of the time he only scored good or average as result.
Nagisa always put a lot of work into everything he did, but the reason to that was, that he thought no matter how much work he'd put into something, he'd always score average. This was the first time Nagisa had faith in himself, he was confident yet still focused.
-Ok… I better be careful, he must have really gotten a lot better for being confident about his skills.-
This smile was like a warning for Karma. He knew Nagisa well, if Nagisa was confident about something, the result was almost guaranteed.
The entire class took some distance and formed a stage around Nagisa and Karma. It was a fact that Nagisa was the better assassin. He was a prodigy in that stage. So to show Nagisa's progress, they wanted to see Nagisa's combat abilities, a one on one without tricks or camouflage.
"Ready?" Nagisa smiled at Karma while stretching his body.
"Mhmm, bring it." Karma responded with his devilish smirk.
Nagisa charged at Karma the second he finished his sentence.
"Wow! You're fast!" Karma didn't expect Nagisa to go for a frontal attack. Somewhere deep in his consciousness he still thought that Nagisa was inferior to him when it came to direct combat.
This time, Nagisa didn't use any tricks like he did when fighting the masked man. He wanted to know how far he can get when he went face to face with Karma.
Karma steadied his stance and prepared to block Nagisa's first hit, but Nagisa left him standing there with an abrupt change of pace. Instead of using his momentum and going for a straight punch, Nagisa stopped instantly, ducked, and went for an uppercut.
But Karma wasn't given credit by Karasuma without reason, his reflex and fighting instinct were top notch and he easily dodged Nagisa's attack with a tiny step back. That left Nagisa's side wide opened with an arm lifted to the sky.
Karma saw that coming and now that Nagisa was in this position, Karma had time for a free punch… or so did he thought.
Of course Nagisa wouldn't attack without thinking about the consequences of missing. Nagisa's uppercut wasn't going straight into the sky, but went to the left in an angle of 45 degrees. He took the momentum of his punch and spun his entire body sideward's into a powerful kick aimed for Karma's head.
Karma quickly reacted and blocked Nagisa's kick with his left arm while slamming his right fist into Nagisa's chest. Nagisa twisted his body midair to discharge some of the impact coming from Karma's punch, while ensuring the power in his kick.
Karma's punch sent Nagisa flying, but it was obvious that it didn't do much damage. Nagisa managed to twist his body that much, that Karma's punch only striped him and sent him spinning.
Karma also underestimated Nagisa's kick. He still remembered their fight in the civil war, Nagisa's kick back then didn't bother him at all. He could take 20 of these and still be standing.
But this kick was different, he could feel the heaviness and pressure on his arm and the kick was so powerful, that even his brain behind the protection of his arm and his skull was slightly affected. He felt a little bit dizzy, but could shake it away in the next second.
Nagisa also shook his head to get rid of his disorientated sense of direction. Karma's punch was in no way weak, even though Nagisa didn't took much of the impact, but his body spun 3 times around itself before landing on the ground. Nagisa managed to avoid his fall and was still standing with the support of one arm, but the fast rotation of his body made him feel dizzy as well.
-This is fun…-
The same thought came across their mind at the same time. They both enjoyed the fast exchanges of attacks within a second and the fact that no one could grab the upper hand.
Their fighting style was still different, while Nagisa focused on his mobility and flexibility, Karma depended on his strength and sturdiness. It doesn't mean that Nagisa is weak and fragile and Karma is slow and stiff, but it was obvious who was better at which of these four criteria.
The fight went on and on with both on them scoring some punches or kicks time after time. But none of them seemed to be able to finish their opponent.
The fight ended as a tie. Even with both of them protesting, the class decided that it was pointless to continue the fight. At first it was really exciting to watch, the fight was intense and even, but it was too even. After an entire hour of exchanging attacks, the fight was still even… not a single member of the class could tell who of them had the upper hand.
The goal was to test Nagisa's abilities and they had their answer. Not only had Nagisa improved drastically, but Karma also became a lot better in close combat. Of course Karma's improvement wasn't as astonishing as Nagisa's since he had been fighting every single day, but to class E, it was still good news.
"Hmm impressive Nagisa... Who'd ever thought you could go head to head with me, if it was an assassination and not a head on fight, I'd be down in no time." Karma stated putting his pride aside. There was no reason for him to be frustrated of Nagisa's improvement. Unlike Asano, Nagisa is a friend and comrade, his improvement had no harm for Karma.
"So what do you think? Can Karma and you as a tag team take down the man?" Kaede brought up an interesting idea. She wanted to hear Nagisa's thought about it, if he wasn't sure about it, she wouldn't let him go for it.
"Maybe... If Karma can get all his attention and I attack from the dark, we could manage. But it's still gonna be risky, I don't think he showed everything he was capable of in our last fight." Nagisa replied.
"That's enough for now, we don't have to think about how to confront the man before we finished his task. Let's talk about that first!" Isogai interrupted the conversation. And he was right, they won't get to the man if they can't fulfill the task the man gave them, they had to set their priorities.
Sorry for not updating for quite a while, I had to concentrate on my last exam. So here is another chapter, hope you enjoyed it. The next few chapters will most likely be preparation for the task and about Nagisa and Kaede.
Another thing is, I'll be flying back to China to visit my family. I'll see if I can find some time to write some chapters, but the update will be slower than it was until now. I'll be back in my place on the 11.04. Then the update will be back to normal.
And as always, thank you for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter ;)