The wind blew pleasantly, a lazy and salty breeze that rustled Karasuma's shirt. Karasuma closed his eyes for just a second as he stirred breakfast. Despite his attempts to apply sunscreen daily, he was beginning to feel the onset of sunburn. Strangely enough, though, he couldn't bring himself to care. The sun was warm but not yet too hot, the soft breeze was soothing, and the cerulean sky overhead was dotted with perfect white clouds. Above all, there was a perfect, perfect silence.
In that moment, Karasuma could almost convince himself that he wasn't trapped on this island, but instead vacationing here in paradise.
"Karasuma-sensei!"
Karasuma shut his eyes tighter. He did not just hear that. This island was a paradise, after all. There are no headaches in paradise.
"Karasuma-sensei!"
Ah, there it was again. But no, it couldn't be. That frantic call, at first distant but now sounding even closer, could not be a call of distress.
"Help!"
He refused to look up. Acknowledging the almost certain disaster would make it real.
"KARASUMA-SENSEI, HELP!"
By now, Karasuma could feel an approaching bloodlust that was strengthening by the second, as if it was getting closer. Karasuma leaned his head back in defeat, his hands curling into fists. Well, best get it over with quickly and find out what the octopus had gotten himself into this time.
When he snapped his eyes open, it took a moment for his vision to adjust in the glaring sunlight, but once it had, it took little more than a second to register the sight of his target barreling towards him across the beach, a tiny, bright bird with—if his eyes could be believed—tentacles in hot pursuit.
Suddenly, the bird sent one of its tentacles whizzing through the air, only narrowly missing the former assassin and sending sand up in a cloud where it impacted the beach with a resounding thud.
"KarasumaAaaAaAAAA—!" Korosensei shrieked, his voice sounding nearly two octaves higher, if that were possible.
Karasuma took everything back. This island, this horrible, terrible island was anything but paradise; it was Hell.
It took less than a second for Karasuma to swing into action. Dropping the ladle into the breakfast pot, Karasuma's hand flew to his gun, quickly raising his arm and taking aim. The octopus made no move to get out of the way; not that he easily could, of course, not with a creature like that on his tail, but Karasuma supposed if he really wanted to he could have managed. The octopus knew what a good shot Karasuma was, so he must trust his aim to be true, even at this distance.
And indeed it was. Karasuma fired, the bullet whizzing through the air and making a direct impact with the bird. Under normal circumstances, a bullet of that size on a bird so small would have torn the thing apart, sending feathers flying as what remained of the tiny body careened back to earth. However, there were no squawks, no feathers sent flying.
Nothing.
Karasuma was sure that he had hit it, though. Had he actually missed?
Karasuma took aim and fired again, eyes focused more intensely on the bird this time. Time seemed to slow down as he watched the bullet slice through the air and directly into the bird's chest.
Karasuma's eyes widened and he watched in abject horror as the bullet disappeared inside the bird with seemingly no effect. No, disappeared was the wrong word. The bullet was swallowed. What's more, he recognized that reaction.
His assassination target and the tentacled bird following close behind him were nearly to the campsite as Karasuma flung his gun to the ground and reached for his SAAUSO gun that was loaded with anti-sensei BB's. Just when his target managed to narrowly avoid another blow from the bird's tentacles, Karasuma fired, the bullet finding its mark, and this time there was a horrible squawking as the bird's flight faltered, its chest cavity melting into a familiar goop.
It seemed he had missed the creature's heart, but Karasuma didn't dwell on it. He hardly paused as he raised his gun and fired once, twice more, each shot finding its mark.
The bird released a piercing screech, angered and in pain, and when one of the anti-sensei bullets found its wing, it plunged toward the ground.
Karasuma clucked his tongue as he lost a good visual on the bird and ran closer to finish the job, but he wasn't fast enough. Recovering from the initial shock of being wounded, once the bird had regenerated its chest, it grabbed onto a far off tree branch with its tentacles and pulled itself forward at an incredible speed, disappearing into the jungle with little more than a rustle of leaves.
With the immediate danger gone, Korosensei wasted no time in flopping face-first into the sand, chest heaving as he struggled to catch his breath.
Karasuma ran to him immediately, allowing him no time to recover as he began to bombard him with questions. "What the hell was that thing, octopus?!" he demanded.
"Please, please, please slow down, Karasuma-sensei, my head still hurts you know," he complained breathlessly, spitting out a mouthful of sand as he looked up at the man looming over him.
Karasuma crossed his arms, in no mood to show his target any remorse when this unprecedented predicament had his name written all over it. "You better explain and you better do it fast," he threatened, expression dark.
Korosensei pressed his lips into a firm line and closed his eyes, flipping over onto his back in an attempt to regulate his breathing again.
Karasuma tapped his foot in impatience.
Korosensei sighed in defeat. "I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?!" Karasuma roared, kneeling and grabbing onto the octopus's tie, which he pulled on until his target's face was only centimeters from his own clearly irate one.
Korosensei raised his arms in surrender, shrinking back as far from his snarling coworker as possible. "It means I don't know! Honestly!"
Karasuma eyed him critically. "So you're telling me you have no idea why you no longer have your tentacles, but that bird somehow has them?"
"Yes?"
Karasuma shoved his target back to the sand and got to his feet, pacing back and forth as he tried to peer past his anger and make sense of it all.
For once in his life, the octopus had the sense to keep his mouth shut.
"That bird's whole body was made of antimatter," Karasuma finally said, pausing as he ran a hand through his hair. "And I get the feeling that we haven't seen the last of it."
Karasuma looked at his anti-sensei gun, only one bullet left in his current clip. He inwardly kicked himself upon the realization that that was his last one; he'd used all the other BB's when he'd attacked his target in a fit of rage, back when he had first discovered the octopus had been stripped of his antimatter cells.
With tentacles like the bird had, close-combat was hardly an option, Karasuma thought grimly as he regarded his anti-sensei knife. If they wanted to survive, their only chance was to scrounge up more anti-sensei bullets.
"Octopus," Karasuma began. "Remember that night when you told me you'd lost your tentacles?"
Korosensei nodded.
"And all the anti-sensei bullets I fired at you?"
"Yeah, that hurt," Korosensei grumbled, but then his eyes lit up as he caught Karasuma's drift.
"I'll take the area closer to the forest," Karasuma said. "You can take the area closer to the ocean."
Korosensei nodded as he stood, brushing sand from his clothes. Without another word, both men took off in the direction of their first campsite.
"Any luck?" Korosensei asked as he approached the spot where Karasuma was kneeling in the shade, hand combing through the sand in search of anti-sensei bullets.
Karasuma opened his left hand to reveal twelve BB's. "You?"
Korosensei opened his own hand to reveal only eight. "This was all I could find."
Karasuma went back to searching through the sand, but he watched his target sit in the shade out of the corner of his eye. The octopus was panting and rubbing at his temples; his headache must still be bothering him. "Let's switch spots," Karasuma suggested, getting to his feet and sliding the anti-sensei bullets into a pocket.
Korosensei graciously accepted, a grateful look on his face.
Karasuma crunched out onto the sunny beach, eyes squinting in the sudden brightness. The glare from the sun and the white sandy beach reflecting it burned behind his eyes. When he'd reached a spot that appeared undisturbed by his target's searching, he knelt to resume his search.
To his dismay, he found that the area he was searching was relatively devoid of the BB's, just as the other spots were. He had used six full magazines of anti-sensei bullets that night, yet they'd only managed to locate about twenty individual BB's so far. It was possible that some of them had been washed away or buried by the recent rain, and the ones closer to the ocean could have been swept out to sea by the tide.
Karasuma sighed, slipping the few bullets he'd recovered into his pocket. Standing up, he looked to the sky, where the white puffy clouds of earlier were growing bigger and darker, as if an afternoon storm was brewing. He could smell rain on the wind.
Karasuma briskly returned to where his target was sitting in the shade and combing his fingers through the sand. "Find any more?" he asked.
His target held up a solitary BB.
"I think we'll have to make do with what we've found," Karasuma said, gesturing to the sky which was clouding up at an alarming rate. "For now let's return to camp and pack up. We should move to a different site before that bird returns."
In agreement, Korosensei stood, slipping the anti-sensei BB's he'd collected into one of his pockets. Then the two men jogged down the beach to their campsite, the sun gradually being stifled by the clouds overhead.
Belongings clinked against each other as the teachers shoved them hurriedly into bags, trying their best to be both expedient and effective in their packing, though the mess they were creating suggested otherwise. The tentacled bird showed no sign of returning, but it was a viable possibility at any moment.
Overhead, the sky was overcast, the entire island now bathed in a dull gray light.
Karasuma paused in his packing, scrutinizing his personal cache of spare weapons. After a minute he picked one up, turning it over in his hands as he contemplated it.
"Here, take this," Karasuma said, throwing an anti-sensei gun to his target without so much as a warning.
Korosensei dropped what he was doing and fumbled to catch it, nearly dropping it in the process.
"You'll probably be needing that," he advised, turning back to his work. "And this," he added, throwing a thigh holster over his shoulder.
Korosensei regarded the toy-like SAAUSO gun and holster in his hands with an unreadable expression, then tucked it into the holster and secured it to his body.
Meanwhile, Karasuma gazed skyward at the ever-darkening sky.
The smell of rain hung thick in the air now, and the waves that crashed into shore were coming in much larger and faster than before. Further out, the ocean looked choppier. A wind was starting to pick up.
Karasuma frowned. From the looks of things, this was going to be no mere shower, not even a downpour would probably do this storm justice.
They had two choices: they could stay at the campsite where it would be dry and risk high winds, lightning, and the return of the tentacled bird, or they could venture out to find a safer location, but be forced to brave the storm out in the open.
Upon zipping up his pack with an unmistakable finality, Korosensei looked up from his task and noticed the furrow of Karasuma's brow, intuiting his dilemma.
"Damned if we do and damned if we don't, huh?"
Karasuma glanced at him from the corner of his eye before turning his attention back to the sky.
Even when he was not looking at him, though, Karasuma could practically feel his target standing there awkwardly, fidgeting as if there was something on his mind that he was desperately trying not to blurt out.
"Have something to contribute?" Karasuma asked, not even sparing him a second glance.
"No, not at all," his target assured him, though he continued to stand there in an uncomfortable silence.
Karasuma sighed, turning to him. "Alright, what is it?"
His target stared at him as if he had grown a third eye. "You want to hear...my opinion?" he pointed to his chest incredulously.
"Out with it before I change my mind," Karasuma grumbled, a flash of impatience flickering across his face.
"Well," Korosensei hurriedly began, as if his viewpoint being valued by Karasuma was the honor of a lifetime, "I thought it might be more beneficial if we stayed on the beach for now. I mean...the storm is nearly here, and we're going to need shelter during it. Plus, I doubt that bird will be returning in that kind of weather. Not when its tentacles bloat when in contact with water."
"What about after the rain?" Karasuma countered. "Won't the bird have a clear shot at us, then?"
Korosensei shook his head. "It'll probably stay deep in the forest to avoid the rain, but if not, it'll be too bloated to make a move right away."
Karasuma cast a doubtful look to their shelter. "You think that will withstand the storm?"
Korosensei followed his gaze. "It'll have to."
Karasuma remained silent, furrowing his brow as he considered. From what he could tell, the wind was blowing from the opposite side of the island, the dense forest of tall trees acting as a barricade between the worst of it and their shelter. Like this, perhaps their quaint shelter would indeed avoid the brunt of the storm. There was no perfect scenario here, to be certain, but the octopus posed a reasonable argument. He had no better plan himself, and the rolling thunder was no longer distant.
"Okay," Karasuma relented, picking up his bag. "We stay. But the minute the storm ends, we leave camp. I'm not about to let that fowl catch up to us."
Korosensei beamed, clearly pleased that Karasuma had chosen his plan. There was an unmistakable spring to his step as he picked up his own bag and followed Karasuma to their shelter.
Karasuma pretended not to notice and shook his head almost imperceptibly.
The two men sat huddled in their shelter as the wind picked up, the swishing sound of the trees being swayed almost deafening. Still, not a drop of rain had fallen.
"This storm is looking pretty bad," Korosensei said, a nervous tightness to his voice as he peered outside at the nearly black sky.
Suddenly, there was a blinding streak of lightning that lit the clouds, accompanied by a nearly simultaneous clap of thunder that shook the earth. Korosensei jumped back.
Karasuma didn't say a word, only clenching his fists in his lap. He was getting concerned. He had expected the storm to be bad, but it was appearing worse by the second, and not a single drop of rain had fallen yet to boot. Part of the reason he had so readily agreed to stay at their current site to weather the storm was because he believed the rain would momentarily begin, and just as the tentacled bird needed shelter from it, they needed shelter as well. Without the rain, though, they were like sitting ducks, ripe pickings for an enraged tentacle creature.
Karasuma looked up to regard his target, who was doing a poor job of disguising his anxiety. With his shoulders squared, back ramrod straight, and fingers fiddling unconsciously with his tie, he looked every bit as tense as Karasuma felt.
Korosensei nearly jumped when another clap of thunder sounded, sounding as if it was to the right—no, to the left—no, everywhere. The entire island shook on its foundation.
Karasuma had seen enough. "This storm is looking a lot worse than we originally thought. I don't think this shelter is going to last."
Korosensei met his eyes, and the two exchanged a look of understanding.
"Where will we go?"
Karasuma clenched his fists. "There's a cave in some rock formations toward the other end of the island. It would provide shelter from the storm and any falling trees."
Korosensei looked at him, aghast. "That's in the forest."
"Yes."
"What if it corners us in the cave? We'll have nowhere to run."
Karasuma grit his teeth. "I know. But we're running out of options. If it's between getting blown away in this storm and fighting off a single bird, I'd rather take the bird."
For once, Korosensei looked to have misgivings.
Karasuma rolled his eyes. "Do you have a problem with that?"
Korosensei bit his lip, as if he was about to say something that might incur wrath, but in the end he decided against it. "No," he finally said. "Your plan has sound reasoning."
At the back of his mind, Karasuma was curious as to what his target was originally going to say, but another flash of lightning and boom of thunder, this time much too close for comfort, reminded him that time was of the essence. "Let's go," Karasuma said, shrugging on his pack and drawing his anti-sensei gun. "Maybe we can reach the cave before the rain starts."
Korosensei nodded, drawing his own gun as well and exiting the tepee behind his colleague.
Outside, the sky was nearly pitch black, and the wind howled through the trees hauntingly. At sea, the waves were choppy as they crashed relentlessly into the shore.
Karasuma took a quick look around, and when the coast seemed clear he ventured further onto the beach, beckoning his target to follow and making a beeline for the forest. He continued to eye the dense foliage for any signs of bloodlust or tentacles when—
"Look out!"
—his target tackled him to the sand, something whizzing right over their heads and plunging into the ground directly behind Karasuma, only inches from his body.
Korosensei didn't even have time to ask if Karasuma was okay, instead jumping back to his feet and raising his gun, taking aim, and firing.
Karasuma reeled, having had the wind knocked out of him, and the fast change of pace left him disoriented. Karasuma didn't have to look to know, but unable to resist, he craned his neck to see it embedded in the sand behind him.
It was a tentacle.
In a fraction of a moment, the tentacle suddenly vanished, retracted at a terrifyingly quick speed by its owner. Karasuma could only blink in disbelief at the small indent in the sand it had left, the only evidence that the tentacle had ever been there at all.
"Agh!" his target screamed, and Karasuma whipped toward him just in time to see Korosensei's gun torn from his grasp by a different tentacle. Despite the setback, Korosensei didn't miss a beat, his other hand flying to his anti-sensei knife and countering blow after blow as the tentacles whisked toward him at an ungodly speed.
Karasuma quickly grabbed the gun he had dropped when he'd been tackled, trying to aim it but never able to get a solid sight on anything. The tentacles' movements were too fast; he could scarcely see them at all.
He was amazed that his target was capable of fending them off to the degree he was, but even he was clearly struggling.
Suddenly, a tentacle came shooting toward Karasuma, only barely missing because of the knife the former assassin threw in his direction, intercepting the tentacle before it ever reached Karasuma. In the blink of an eye, Korosensei rolled to avoid another strike from the tentacles and to simultaneously retrieve the gun he had dropped. Still on the ground, flat on his back, he fired three shots, catching three tentacles only a few inches from his face, tentacles that had tried to catch him while he was down.
With a start, Karasuma realized that his target was fending off tentacles aimed not just at himself, but at the both of them.
"Octopus, fall back!" Karasuma shouted, raising his gun. "I will assist!"
His target rolled and jumped to his feet, avoiding two tentacles and destroying two more. His magazine empty, Korosensei rolled over, simultaneously ditching the old magazine and withdrawing a spare one from the holster on his leg. He reloaded swiftly, not even looking at what he was doing as he was forced to keep his eyes on the assault.
"STAY BACK!" Korosensei shouted to him, his voice stronger than Karasuma had ever heard it. "This is nothing you would be able to handle!" He parried a particularly swift blow from a tentacle.
Karasuma felt a spike of annoyance. Where did he get off addressing him like that, one of the most capable Ministry of Defense agents in Japan?
Yet as he watched his target fight, Karasuma became keenly aware of just how out of his league he was. This was a battle at a completely different level. He could barely even see his enemy's strikes, let alone counter them. His fingers itched to do something, not used to standing idly by, utterly useless.
As he could only watch and stay alert for any strikes that his target may miss, he became increasingly aware of his target's skill. So this was the man they called the God of Death?
Indeed, there was something ethereal to his movements, to be sure. Even in the midst of a battle with multiple opponents and incoming strikes so fast they were nearly invisible, the octopus's movements showcased a certain inexplicable grace. The way he so fluidly ducked and rolled out the way, only to effortlessly strike back at the perfect moment, each movement leading into the next as if his motions were flowing notes in a concerto.
Karasuma could see now why he had become the finest assassin in the business. Assassination was not his occupation; it was his art.
And he had mastered his craft.
Suddenly, Karasuma felt a drop of water on his head.
Rain.
He stuck his hand out and sure enough, a light sprinkle had begun, but it wasn't nearly enough, not yet.
"It's raining!" Karasuma shouted to his target, but if Korosensei heard, he offered no indication. He was thoroughly embroiled in the heat of battle.
The wind was picking up even more, and Karasuma had to squint to avoid sand being blown into his eyes.
Suddenly there was a whoosh, and with a gasp, Karasuma realized that another tentacle had joined the fray. However, while the previous ones they'd been fighting were black and a vibrant orange—the colors of the tentacles' owner—the new one was a dark green. There was another whoosh, and in the blink of an eye, his target was fending off an additional two tentacles.
That could only mean that there were more than one creature with tentacles on the island.
But how many?
The storm was picking up, but the assault was not weakening. If anything, it was gaining strength. The rain had not begun in earnest yet, so the enemy was still at full force.
Korosensei furiously met the opponent blow for blow at an impossible speed, but it was clear that even he was struggling. It was subtle, but his movements had become slightly sluggish. In a normal fight, such a minute difference would have had zero ramifications, but in a fight of this caliber, it was deadly, for even one slight misstep could spell instantaneous death.
Suddenly, a gray tentacle shot from the forest, hurtling toward Korosensei at an extraordinary speed.
Korosensei was in line to easily sidestep it as he thrust up his weapon up to catch another tentacle before it could reach him. But he never got to execute his plan.
At that precise moment, a large gust of wind tore across the island, slamming into the two men and causing Korosensei to stumble sideways—
—and right into the path of the incoming tentacle.
Korosensei hissed through his teeth as the tentacle grazed his side, narrowly avoiding what could have been a fatal strike. Despite the close call, he didn't have time to hesitate, ignoring his wound and only barely managing to roll out of the way in time to avoid strikes from the other tentacles whizzing toward him.
Though the wind had been responsible for endangering him, it brought with it too salvation in the form of rain, which quickly began to pour down, slamming the island with a torrential downpour. The attacking tentacles were quickly rendered useless as they were soaked through with water, becoming so bloated they could scarcely move and were dropped to the ground, some of the creatures even trying to withdraw them. A horrible cacophony arose from the trees, primal shrieks and cries of frustration and anger as tentacles became useless and the creatures found themselves unable to carry out their bloodlust.
Karasuma was not one to generally feel fear, but upon hearing such an ungodly noise, he felt it quite acutely.
God, how many of those monsters were there?
With the immediate danger put on hold, Karasuma soon became keenly aware of the secondary threat. Rain was slamming into him like a brick wall, threatening to bowl him over, and the wind was howling and swirling sand and water and debris into his face. Very quickly, visibility became almost nonexistent.
In only a few seconds, he found that his clothes were soaked through, not a single patch of dry cloth to be found. In a horrendously contradictory fashion, his water-saturated garments hung heavily from his frame while simultaneously sticking tightly to his body. Karasuma squinted to see through the deluge of water.
"Octopus!" Karasuma called, digging his heels into the sand for traction as he walked toward the general area where his target was, bracing himself so as to not be whisked away by the storm. Over the roar of the rain, Karasuma could hardly even hear himself, let alone an answer to his call.
Naturally, Karasuma heard no response to his call, but as he squinted his eyes and held a hand up to shield his face, he could make out the form of of the octopus getting to his feet maybe ten feet from him.
It took longer than it should have to finally reach each other, each man forcing himself onward until they were face to face with one another, soaked to the bone with water streaming freely down their faces.
"Follow me!" Korosensei had to yell, though he was barely a foot from Karasuma. He turned and trudged onward, a sense of urgency to his rather labored steps.
"What are you doing?" Karasuma yelled back. "The cave is that way!" Just then, a particularly strong gust of wind sliced across the island, the sheer force of it shoving Karasuma backward, causing him to nearly stumble. When he snapped his head back up again, he found that the gust had even thrown his target, no doubt a much lighter person, to the ground.
"Octopus!" he shouted again, forcing himself onward as he walked straight into the wind. When he reached his target's side, Korosensei was trying to push himself back to his feet without falling backwards, to little success.
Wordlessly, Karasuma bent down and slung his target's left arm across his shoulders, draping his own right arm over his. With an almighty push the two found themselves standing once again.
On their feet again, Korosensei tried to disentangle himself from Karasuma's grip and continue walking on his own when Karasuma caught his left wrist, his right hand tightening on his target's right shoulder.
"We'll get nowhere like that," Karasuma shouted over the din. "We'll get blown away. We have to combine our weight to withstand it!"
Korosensei looked at him incredulously, but as Karasuma tried to turn them around and head back the other way, Korosensei snapped out of his surprise.
"The cave's no longer an option!" Korosensei shouted. "It's deep in the forest, where the animals are! It will be dryer there, they'll get us!"
"What do you suggest then?!" Karasuma shouted back, more than a little angry.
"We have to stay out in the open like this, where it's wet!"
Karasuma shot him an incredulous look of his own as if to ask if he was crazy, and as if to prove his point, a bolt of lightning streaked to the ground on the opposite side of the island, a resounding crash echoing throughout the heavens.
"Are you insane!? We'll die!"
"I know a place!" Korosensei insisted, "Where we'll be safe. We just have to get to the other side of the island!"
"Look what happened the last time we followed your plan!" Karasuma rebutted, unable to physically gesture to their current situation but obviously referring to it.
Korosensei held his gaze regardless, silently pleading. This was their only chance.
Karasuma sent him a long look, staring into his pleading eyes as his distressed brain grasped for something better—something, anything! But there were no alternatives. As if to remind him of their dire situation, another flash lit the sky and a crack of thunder shook the island.
With a final, reluctant glare, Karasuma relented. "Don't mess this up!" Turning briskly, Karasuma faced forward and trudged onward.
The two men leaned heavily upon one another as they slowly moved, their steps perfectly in sync. The rain came in sheets, lashing mercilessly at them, the pair gripping each other's shoulders for balance as wind and debris threatened to tear them apart.
Soon, Karasuma could feel Korosensei growing heavier with each step, and annoyed, he looked down to see what his problem was. Opening his mouth, all too prepared to berate him, he shut it just as quickly when he realized that his target's head was hanging and lulling to one side. His target had not just been leaning on him for balance, it seemed; he had been leaning on him for support.
"Octopus!" he shouted, stopping in his tracks and shaking his target's shoulders. "What's wrong? Hey!"
Korosensei raised his head a fraction at that, his eyes only half open. "I'm fine, I'm fine," Korosensei assured him, trying to take a step forward and nearly falling when Karasuma didn't step forward as well. Though he was conscious, and he was making a valiant effort to walk, he was still leaning much too heavily upon Karasuma.
Karasuma gave him a severe look, searching his target's face for any signs of pain, but found none. Instead, he noticed how pale he was. Was he always this pale? Or was it just the rain?
Karasuma shifted his arm around his target's back and under his right arm to better support him as Karasuma leaned forward and craned his neck around his target's front.
His heart stopped when he saw it.
His target's entire left side was covered in blood. It was plain to see on his outlandishly tacky, yellow Hawaiian shirt. The rain only made it worse, streaking the red down his side and onto his leg.
"When?!" Karasuma demanded, causing Korosensei's dull irises to flick towards him for the briefest of seconds before snapping back to stare intently in the opposite direction.
"We're almost there," Korosensei said, completely ignoring the question. "I'll be fine."
Karasuma opened his mouth to protest, but Korosensei, anticipating his words, cut him off.
"Karasuma, please."
Karasuma balked at that. Hearing his name from his target's mouth without the affectionate "sensei" tacked on felt foreign and wrong, leaving him with a horrible churning in his gut. Karasuma closed his mouth, pressing his lips into a thin line.
When had it happened? How could he have not noticed? He had been watching him fight the whole time, and they'd been holding onto each other as they fought the violent storm for even longer. How could he have possibly missed his target's injury?
Karasuma grit his teeth, raindrops slicing like knives into his back.
It took but a second for him to make up his mind.
"You stupid octopus!" he bellowed, hoisting Korosensei up by the underarm and allowing him to lean practically the entirety of his body weight on him. "Bunch up your shirt and press it to that wound! I'm not about to have you bleed out on me!"
With that and an almighty heave, Karasuma plunged into the wind, feeling how his target tried his utmost not to burden him, attempting to carry all of his weight that he could and trying to keep his feet moving in sync with Karasuma's.
"There!" Korosensei finally blurted, albeit weakly, raising an arm to point faintly in the direction of a copse of trees.
"That's the forest!" Karasuma objected.
"Trust me," Korosensei said, smiling reassuringly.
Karasuma grumbled but followed the course that his target's finger indicated, diving into the swaying trees, wet leaves clinging to him as he went.
"Hey, octopus, are you sure—" Karasuma trailed off as he beheld the sight of a footpath. It was narrow and barely noticeable due to the flora that tried to grow and obscure it. It seemed like it had been forged by the shuffling feet of the island's animals, but had fallen into disuse as of late.
It was much dryer here in the trees, and the wind didn't whip quite as fiercely as it did on the open beach. However, Karasuma was instantly wary now that they were in the forest; the danger of tentacles lurked around every corner.
Karasuma followed the footpath until suddenly, the trees began to noticeably thin until Karasuma and his target found themselves looking up at a waterfall. It wasn't huge, its water source being only a creek after all, but with the rain feeding into it, it ran quite steadily. The bluff it ran off of was not towering, but it was reasonably tall, perhaps the height of some of the medium sized trees in the forest.
It was strange; Karasuma hadn't noticed this waterfall before when they'd been mapping out the island. How had the octopus known about it?
"What now, octopus?" Karasuma demanded.
"Behind the waterfall," Korosensei muttered, sounding terribly weak despite his efforts to hide it.
Karasuma tightened his hold on the other man. "What do you mean?"
"There's a cave...behind the waterfall...we'll be safe there," he paused before continuing, struggling to catch his breath. "We'll have to cross on those rocks," he said gesturing to a cluster of large rocks that peeked above to racing current of the creek. "There's an entrance on the other side."
Karasuma stared at the places his target had pointed out, planning their route. The creek had flooded its banks, making it nearly impossible to get to the waterfall on this side of the creek. Sure enough, on the other side of the waterfall, there was a pile of boulders that looked easy enough to climb, leading up to a spot in the waterfall where the water didn't cascade down quite as fiercely. On any other day, they could have easily crossed the creek with parkour alone, but the raging storm made such a feat too risky now. They would have to traverse the creek on foot. As it were, the rocks in the creek looked sturdy enough, but the rain had made them slick and slippery, and if they took so much as one wrong step, they would both be pulled into the creek.
Noticing Karasuma's reluctance, Korosensei untangled himself from the other man's grip and forced himself upright, still holding a hand bunched in his reddened shirt to his side.
"Hey—" Karasuma protested, but Korosensei cut him off.
"I'll be fine, I think the bleeding is starting to stop," Korosensei said, nearly fooling Karasuma had a small twitch at the corner of his smile not given him away. "I know the way. Follow me."
Karasuma watched suspiciously as his target walked forward with surprising wellness, scarcely a trace of injury to be seen in his demeanor, then stepped swiftly onto one slippery rock and then onto another. Reluctantly, Karasuma followed.
Toward the center of the creek, there were hardly any tree branches hanging above and providing shelter from the elements. The wind somehow wormed its way into the forest and the rain crashed down just as hard as ever. Karasuma was hyper-conscious of every slippery step he took.
"Hey, Octopus," Karasuma called ahead to his target, who was already a few steps ahead of him. "Octopus!" he repeated when he received no response, shouting to be heard above the storm.
As it was, Karasuma was struggling with every step he took, understanding full well that a single misstep would leave him submerged and whisked downstream. His target seemed less concerned with his footsteps, as if the only thing left on his mind was getting to the cave as quickly as possible. In a few seconds he might even be out of reach.
"Octopus, slow down!" Karasuma demanded, voice strained as he tried to increase his speed while not falling. The octopus was being reckless again, wasn't he?
Suddenly, Korosensei flailed his arms wildly as if losing balance, but he just as quickly managed to right himself again before any damage could be done.
The small hiccup in his pace allowed Karasuma the window he needed in order to catch up to his target, however.
"Don't be so reckless!" Karasuma chided him. He shot his target a severe glare, but his target avoided it.
Korosensei dismissed his concerns, instead stepping to the next rock. "I'm fine. Let's keep going."
Karasuma was not nearly so dense as he let on, though. While he could admit that he'd been largely ignoring his target ever since they had crash-landed on this God-forsaken island, his target had a way of forcing his way into things. Despite Karasuma's efforts to keep the other man out of his life, being trapped together on this island had made such an option an impossibility, and in the process Karasuma had ended up gaining a more intimate understanding of his target than he ever cared to.
Before, he may not have noticed. It was in his small gestures, ones Karasuma would have easily dismissed as pride in the past, having possessed only a base understanding of the machinations of his target's mind at the time.
But it was no longer "before." That's why, when his target so adamantly refused eye-contact with him, even going so far as to turn his back to him, Karasuma knew it was not mere pride that spurred him on.
It was the same reason he hadn't told Karasuma about his injury, the same reason that he was keeping things like secret waterfall caves a secret, the same reason he refused to share his ideas.
A miserable, drunken version of his target surfaced in his mind, his slurred voice ringing in Karasuma's head.
"I can't do anything right!"
"No matter what I do, it's never good enough."
"Because Karasuma-sensei is always mad at me!"
It was the reason why he had looked so happy when Karasuma had adopted his plan.
"Can you walk?" Karasuma inquired.
"I'm perfectly fine. I almost slipped is all," Korosensei assured him, yet never turned to meet his gaze.
However, when Korosensei began to step forward, Karasuma caught his arm. "Look at me."
Korosensei wouldn't.
"Look at me," Karasuma repeated, grip tightening on his arm.
Still, Korosensei wouldn't.
Korosensei tried to pull free from Karasuma's grip, but Karasuma was too strong. "Stubborn octopus," Karasuma grumbled grimly, correctly interpreting what his target's lack of a verbal response and eye contact meant. Without so much as a warning, he swept the former assassin up in his arms, surprised to find how light he was.
"Hey!" Korosensei protested, but even his protests lacked spirit. Looking at his face, Karasuma could see why his target wouldn't show it to him. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his skin was deathly pale. With all the rain glancing off of it, his skin even had a clammy pallor to it. No one who saw that face would believe for a second that the person it belonged to was in any way "fine." No forged smile, no matter how impenetrable the disguise, could hide something like that.
"If you needed help, then you should've just said so," Karasuma fumbled for the right words to express himself. As much as he himself hated it, he could see that lone-wolf assassin-style tactics were out of the question now. If they wanted to survive this ordeal, their only hope was to operate as a team.
"How can I expect to leave this island alone?" Karasuma finally blurted, stepping forward slowly as he focused on each step he took, looking for sturdy rocks that would provide the most traction. "Listen to me. As far as I'm concerned, you are no longer my target. I was assigned to kill a super creature, not a man. But to those students, you are still their target," he continued. "And I am not about to let them down. So we are both getting back to that classroom, understand? Those kids are waiting for us."
Karasuma took another step.
"They're waiting for you."
For a moment, Korosensei didn't say a word or give any indication that he'd heard, and for a second Karasuma thought he might have passed out. Until—
"That one," Korosensei finally said, pointing faintly to a rock to his left. "Take that rock."
Karasuma eyed him questioningly, only to find his target's—no, his colleague's—gaze boring into him, his eyes having regained some lost spark. Karasuma took his advice, finding that the rock he indicated was indeed a good choice.
"Now that one," Korosensei supplied, this time indicating one to their right.
It was significantly harder to keep his balance with his colleague in his arms, but he wasn't the Ministry of Defense's most prized agent for nothing. He managed, and in hardly any time at all, Karasuma had stepped back onto the solid ground on the other side of the bank.
From there, Karasuma quickly made his way over to the place where the cave's entrance was supposed to be, Korosensei still in his arms.
When they reached the base of the stack of boulders leading to the supposed entrance, Karasuma set him down and stared upwards, assessing their route. The boulders looked slippery, but they possessed some good hand and footholds. Climbing would no doubt prove to be difficult, but it was by no means impossible.
"I won't be able to climb those boulders with you in my arms, and I'll be carrying my pack on my back," Karasuma said, offering him a serious stare. "Will you be able to manage on your own?"
"Of course," Korosensei said, a confident smile playing at his lips. There was something about it that seemed forced, but the spark in his eyes most certainly wasn't.
Karasuma could feel the doubt churning in his gut, but he pushed it down, lending all his faculties to the predicament at hand. His colleague was the God of Death.
And he'd promised that they'd both leave this island together.
"Then I'll go first," Karasuma said, grasping onto two rocks with his hands and pulling himself up to jam his foot in a small crevice. "Follow my course exactly."
Karasuma climbed and climbed, trying not to go too fast to allow his target time to catch up. The rocks here were slippery, and to make matters worse, the rain continued to pour from above, slamming into Karasuma's face and making the going even more treacherous. Finally, the supposed entrance was in sight, and Karasuma reached a hand up to grasp at a ledge, intending to use that grip to pull the rest of his body up and into the cave—
"Ah!"
Karasuma reacted instinctively, flinging out an arm reflexively and catching Korosensei by the wrist. By the time his brain caught up to his body, he realized that his colleague had just slipped on a rock and had nearly tumbled to his possible death, and was currently hanging freely in the open air, the only thing supporting him being Karasuma's hand on his wrist.
Korosensei seemed to realize what had almost transpired almost precisely when Karasuma did. He gazed upward at Karasuma, shell-shocked and eyes wide. His chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath, shaking from what Karasuma presumed was the shock of the near-accident.
"I've got you!" Karasuma yelled, gritting his teeth as he struggled to support the other man's weight, feeling his own fingers slipping both on the rock and on his target's arm.
"Can you regain a foothold?"
Korosensei's feet scrabbled at the rock's surface, but found no such place for them to find purchase. His free hand searched as well, but it was in vain. He couldn't find a single reliable spot to hold onto.
"Shit," Karasuma muttered, assessing their options and feeling panic begin to set in when his grip started to falter.
He would have to pull him up. That was their only option.
Karasuma looked down at his colleague and then up again at the cave entrance, then back again to his colleague. Maybe...
"Octopus, I'm going to pull you up!" Karasuma shouted. "I'm going to pull you up and throw you into the cave. Do you think you can make a good landing?"
"What?" Korosensei exclaimed in a shaky voice, as if he either couldn't hear or believed he'd heard wrong.
Karasuma ground his teeth together as he could feel his grip slipping even further. "On the count of three, I'm going to pull you up and throw you into the cave!"
Korosensei tried to say something, but a low rumble of thunder drowned out his response. Instead, using the hand of the arm that Karasuma so steadfastly held onto, Korosensei wrapped his hand around Karasuma's own wrist and gave it a squeeze.
Karasuma understood.
"One," he started the count, summoning up all of his strength. "Two," he shouted, noticing how Korosensei tensed up, bracing himself for what was to come.
"Three!"
And with that, Karasuma drew from his last reserves of strength to pull upward as hard as he could, hurling his colleague up and straight through the thinly-veiled entrance to the cave.
By some miracle, Karasuma managed to avoid losing his own grip on the rocks beneath him, and with a steely determination, he powered up and onward until he was able to leap through the entrance himself, rolling skillfully to break his fall.
After plunging through the sudden wall of water that cascaded over the entrance, Karasuma could instantly feel the change. For one, the cave was colder. The sting of falling raindrops no longer plagued him, and the deafening roar of the storm was drowned out by the sound of the waterfall plunging toward the stream below. In the sudden quiet, he let himself lay there, panting as he tried to catch his breath.
They made it.
Finally, Karasuma regained enough strength to lift his head up and gaze at the cave, so dark that the only sight that greeted him was an inky blackness. Karasuma shrugged off his pack and fumbled for the pocket he knew held a flashlight. After some rummaging, his hand eventually curled around the smooth cylinder of the flashlight's barrel.
Karasuma flicked on the light, squinting as the cave's interior was illuminated. It didn't seem to be terribly wide, maybe fifteen feet across, but the cave certainly seemed long, its path fading into blackness as it got too far for his flashlight's meager beam to reach.
Karasuma pointed it up toward the ceiling, the light catching several glimmering stalactites. "Hey, Octopus, I don't suppose there are any tentacle bats here," he said sardonically, although a part of him was deadly serious.
The only response he received was the crashing of the waterfall outside and the steady drip-drip of the stalactites inside.
"Octopus?" he tried again, swinging his flashlight around until its beam caught the flash of a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt, its wearer lying face-down on the rocky ground, blood pooling around his middle.
Karasuma's stomach dropped.
"Octopus!"
A/N: It is interesting to note that while Karasuma can be uncooperative, he is at heart a team player, typical of a Ministry of Defense agent. Korosensei, while cooperative in nature, is at heart a loner, typical of an assassin.
This disconnect between them becomes most apparent in how each chooses to deal with dire situations like the one they are currently facing.
Unless Karasuma can learn to be more cooperative and Korosensei can learn to be part of a team, their survival on this island may prove impossible.