XXXV.
Kataoka freed from her inner demons, Tagawa tortured or tutored depending on how you saw it, and many puns thrown into the water. That night had been successful in many ways. If we only had gotten sleep afterwards.
But we hadn't and thus all of us were greeting each other with some rather deep eyebags and a tired satisfied smile.
"Woah, what's up with you guys? Did you want to continue Sayori's panda bear impression?" I wacked the offending speaker with my bag, which turned out to be Sugino.
"Yes," I groused. "That's what is obviously going on."
"Woah, you don't wear sleep deprivation very well, Sayori," Nagisa remarked equally tired but infinite times more cheerful than me. Well, you couldn't multiply zero and get something other than zero.
"Whoever does," I muttered but conceded to his point. I didn't quite remember times when the lack of sleep had not made me irritable to a certain point. Normally, I was better at staying polite when that happened, but snark and pubescent hormones made it for sure harder to stay nice.
"You certainly don't, Sayo. You always exude such a murderous aura when you sleep too little!" Karma was even more cheerful and looked so much more rested than us despite the fact that we had slept the same amount. Why was the world so unfair?
"Karma-kun, you know, that you are way too cheerful for someone who also slept as little as we did?"
"I heard that one about a thousand times from Sayo already," the redhead cheerfully replied and swung around our hands, which had been clasped together after I had whacked Sugino.
Grumbling and chattering around we made our way towards the classroom with minimal causalities.
"You're such a shithead, Terasaka." The grinning group of boys flinched, smiles slipping off their faces faster "Yourthan Sensei could toss away his burning hot Takoyaki.
"Hah? What did you say, Kitani? Care to repeat that?" The other boy immediately got close to my face, almost spitting out his words in anger.
"You," I repeated calmly. "Are such a shithead and I can't believe you would go, and fucking destroy the pool."
"Where is your proof, you arrogant bitch?"
"The footprints of your shoes all over the place, shithead." I jutted my thumbs over to the large number of footprints in the sand. For some reason they did not seem to have changed their shoes when they had ripped the pool apart.
Everyone was already aware who had done the deed, but it made a bigger impact for sure to have them called out for their actions. I could feel the animosity against them spiking within our class.
"Maa, maa, everyone, calm down. This is easily fixable." Before anyone could act on the rising tension, a swirl of motion interrupted the intense stare-off between Terasaka and I.
The broken pieces of the outdoor swimming pool seemingly fixed themselves without much input except for a few yellow blurs in between. The trash that had been soaking in the water scooped up and deposed inside trash bags beside Terasaka's group. There was even a neat little bow tying the bags shut.
The tension deflated like a sad attempt at soufflé.
"You don't have to worry, everyone. I can easily fix everything that happens to the pool and our classroom. It doesn't mean that I encourage you to destroy the property, but you shouldn't get too emotional over something that can get easily fixed."
Without even looking at me I knew what he was trying to say. Don't destroy the class' harmony over something like this. Don't pit your classmates against each other.
Fucking okay, sensei. Tell them to be less dumb and stop being assholes and I would agree.
Ironically enough, both Terasaka and I also were radiating the the same emotion. Frustration. But for different reasons for sure.
"But as Sayori-kun pointed out, the evidence speaks against you, Terasaka-kun, Yoshida-kun, Muramatsu-kun," Koro-sensei started again, effectively surprising the whole class despite the logical leap of events. "So, I sentence you three to remove the trash I accumulated to the dumpster down the mountains witouth anyway help from anyone. Let it be a lesson for you to not let emotions blind you. Actions like these have consequences."
Emotionally, I wasn't sure how to take the punishment that our teacher was inflicting upon them. It was going to be a pain to move this trash bags down the mountain and go up again to repeat the process. Sensei had made sure for them to be numerous enough that Terasaka and the others had to go at least two times.
But knowing that they had vandalized willingly the pool which had been a source of joy and a physical relief to the whole class was another thing. All due to some petty grudge Terasaka was harboring. It wasn't a secret that he didn't like what the class was becoming.
But his inferiority complex was fucking ridiculous and going up and down the mountain a few times was not going to change that. Even if the weather made him sweat like mule under a lot of stress. Pigs actually didn't even sweat a lot.
Something drastic would have to happen for him to accept that out teacher was actually helping for our class. That the offered tentacle, so to speak, could only be for his benefit.
I frowned at the thought.
Something drastic…
The logical side of my brain refused to call our life a shounen manga but what was happening was essentially that. We got a crazy goal as a mission, that was life changing, adventurous and emotionally devastating. It was a whole shounen manga crammed into a school year.
But conflicts in our class weren't always solved immediately, especially personal ones. Life wasn't magical like this. Even though this current stand-off between the class and Terasaka's group was screaming for something crazy about to happen.
But would it be our crazy octopus of a teacher solving it? Or actually something else?
Nagisa talking shook me out of my spiraling musings. It was something that was better of contemplated at a more suitable time.
"I can't believe they did that." We had all moved towards the classroom while Koro-sensei had begun to lecture the guys in his very annoying way also threatening them with extra work and detention if they didn't follow his directions.
"Actually, I can believe it. That monkey is angry that his monkey kingdom is falling apart," Karma chipped in his two cents, not looking particularly concerned about this whole situation despite probably reading the situation as well as I did.
"Eh, I hope he calms down, before he does more dumb stuff like that." Sugino crossed his arms behind his head. "I was really bummed when I saw the pool looking like that. Sensei did a really good thing for us there."
"Cheer up, Sugino-kun! Sensei's looking out for us," Kayano assured him and with that the discussion moved onto lighter topics.
I stayed silent during the discussion, but the others were probably chalking it up to my lack of sleep.
Call my animosity against Terasaka petty, but I was sure that this wasn't going to be the last of it.
"Are you worried about those monkeys from today, Sayo? You're really quiet today."
"… Kinda," I admitted once we were walking home alone from school. Nagisa had already gone off towards the direction of his home and I was going to stay at Karma's tonight, since my parents were out on a date night. It was awesome that my parents didn't change their behavior towards us dating that much, but I could have gone without the awkward 5 minutes with my parents which had been the attempt at the talk.
Just awkward. I knew enough. But then again, they didn't know that.
"Why even worry that much about them? Everything they can even come up with is going to get countered by that octopus. There's no way they can outsmart him." Karma's point made a lot of sense but there was still something that was worrying me. Terasaka was for sure not that smart but what if…
"What if someone else is going to use them to outsmart Sensei? "I spoke my thoughts out loud.
It would make sense. If the student consented to the outsider's plan it would involve part of the class and weaken Koro-sensei abilities since our safety went beyond anything else. Even if part of our class was endangered, the successful death of earth's current biggest danger would wipe away any attempt of a lawsuit for a while.
I bit my lip at my thoughts. There were certainly enough people who would bet on these odds. Had bet on even lower odds.
"They tried Ritsu, who's the most developed A.I. in existence. Who could come up with a better plan?" Karma grabbed my shoulders and led me into the house. "Even if someone is going to do something, you can't change that by worrying until you get wrinkles. Relax a bit, Sayo."
He bopped my nose with his last words, making me go all cross eyed. I stared at his hand balefully.
"I can't help it," I actually whined at him. "It just irks me. There's obviously something going to happen."
"Yeah, so what? Think of something else then." I blew out a long sigh at that. Karma was right. There was nothing I could do short of stalking Terasaka and his group, which wouldn't even promise results.
"Okay," I gave in. "You think of something to distract me then, Karma."
His eyes lit up with a wicked gleam.
"Gladly, Sayo-chan. Let's get your mind off these things."
"Achoo!" I sneezed once again at the gas that Terasaka had released a few minutes prior. My eyes kept watering at an alarming rate, which meant that my glasses couldn't be used for their intended purposes. I couldn't fucking see.
"Terasaka, I swear to god, I will wring your neck once you get into my reach," I muttered murderously, once I had wiped my eyes from the tears misting my view. I had started coughing after inhaling the smoke, but it hadn't set off anything with my asthma. I was glad for that.
"Oh, Sayo, that got you really bad, what?" Kanzaki handed me another tissue, after the one I had used was quite wet now. Karma handed me a little box, which I assumed was some kind of drink. My eyes were too blurry to catch the details.
"Just, someone punch that idiot for me."
"I will," Karma promised solemnly, aware of what could have happened. My asthma wasn't as bad as before, now somehow more set off by panic attacks, but a shortage of breath had been occurring more often as the intensity of our training had increased.
The redhead headed near the figure that was probably Terasaka. Served that asshole right.
"Nagisa?" I called out to the blue blob, that was standing near the area where I had last seen that cursed bottle of insect spray last.
"Yes, Sayori?"
"Would you perhaps write down for me that damn brand Terasaka used? I definitely have to avoid buying it. This is just plain nasty." Somewhere to my right I could hear someone gasping. Female by the sound of the voice.
"You really shouldn't buy bug spray, Sayori-san! It's really harmful to the ecosystem and all those insects," a blond girl approached me and by the stature and voice I could vaguely recognize Kurahashi talking. Huh, what?
"Eh, Kurahashi-san, I don't buy insect spray that regularly, but I really don't want them near me if possible." I held up my hands in a vaguely defensive motion, not entirely sure what exactly was drawing her ire that much.
Shouldn't she have snapped a Terasaka in first place since he was the one who used it in first place? But then again, that asshole wasn't even there to get his ass kicked by several very irritated classmates.
The ass kicking would normally include me but wasn't possible due to my lack of vision. Urgh, this was horrible. What was even in that spray?
"Sayori-san, bug spray is very harmful to the environmental balance since it just kills all those insects. They are important." I actually could hear the italics in her exclamation.
"Alright," I said in a placating manner. "While I wipe all those tears of mine, why don't you tell me about other methods to keep those bugs away from me?"
And all of a sudden, the rest of the class was also roped into an impromptu lesson about insects and friendlier prevention measures.
"Ah, Nagisa, what was the brand that Terasaka actually used? I forgot to ask after Kurahashi started her lecture." The way home was the perfect opportunity to ask my classmate about what I hadn't been able to do during school.
"Ah, wait a moment, Sayori. I wrote it down in my notebook." The boy rummaged around in his backpack, fishing out a small booklet. Making a triumphant sound at finding it, he opened the page he had written down the name. "Here's the brand name. It's a fairly well known one though."
Huh.
"That's odd." I squinted at the brand name, fairly certain that the name couldn't be right. "I just bought a bottle of their spray and my parents have used it in the past, but I never had such a reaction."
"Okay? But that's definitely the name of the brand. I checked twice." The blue haired boy scratched the back of his neck in confusion. "Maybe it's faulty can? I mean they aren't supposed to crack like that also."
I furrowed my brows.
"That's just slightly suspicious." I exchanged a look with Karma, reminded by the conversation we had had the evening before.
"What is Terasaka doing?" And wasn't that just the big question?
Apparently, the week was somehow all about fluids. Body fluids especially.
"Sensei, stop trying to glue us into place with your weird cement! Why are you even leaking like a freaking fountain?! That's nothing what a cold does!" Sugino did not seem to appreciate how the day was going. But hey, he was just feeling like everybody else.
Well, Sugino was appreciating the snot on the floor as much as I did to Terasaka offering us a plan to kill our teacher. Which was not very much.
"I'm out, goodbye, you idiot." I stood up with my lunch and bag and left the classroom, half from wanting nothing to do with Terasaka, half from wanting to get my shoes out of the disgusting soup on the floor.
The voices of Chiba, Kurahashi and Okano followed. Karma having already left the classroom once Terasaka had started talking, was standing outside the door.
"I don't think whatever he is planning is going to go well," I admitted to Karma. There was no way Terasaka had a foolproof idea how to push our teacher into the pool.
"You're probably right. Let's maybe stock up on some bullets or something." He looked at the small amount of people who had escaped the snot/cement. "You guys in?"
We heard the explosion first before we felt it. It shook the entire building. Alarmed, our group looked up from the floor of the warehouse where we had finished lunch.
The warehouse was basically a bigger shed that held all the materials we needed for assassinating our teacher.
Sensei had actually declared the lessons canceled for the plan Terasaka had in store. Despite telling us to come with the others we had adamantly refused.
The class, sans us, had gone down to the pool in swimming gear and only knifes on their hand. It had been a rather poorly equipped look.
Scrambling to get onto our feet, we all ran towards the pool, not sure what was going to await us.
"I-," Terasaka was watching us arrive with terrified eyes, panic clearly setting in as the noise of the water pouring out started to ebb away. "This is not my fault! I was tricked!"
"You fucking-," I couldn't even bring myself to say more once I had taken the situation in, already done with that monkey. Eyes already tearing up, I shoved Terasaka at Karma. "You deal with his Idiot, Karma. You probably already have a plan with his fucking shirt. I'll go and help Hara."
Diplomatically dealing with idiots and manipulating monkeys was Karma's special ability. I was the empathy and emotional support for small plans. No way I was going to produce anything useful with someone like Terasaka.
Grabbing a wet Isogai and Chiba, who, dry and still in his uniform, was holding a rifle in his hand by their shoulder, I lead us towards the tree that Hara was clinging on desperately. The amount of swinging tentacles was about 2 meters beneath her, and I could see Yoshida and Muramatsu on the tree and the rocks around her.
Right, I had some wire, a gun, and several knives I had brought in my bag, which I had grabbed with haste when the explosion started. I regretted not having my net yet out of anti-sensei material yet since that would have probably saved Hara a lot faster than the things we currently had.
"Yada," I called out to the girl nearby. "Keep and eye on the Shiro dude and scream if he's doing something."
"Got it!"
"Chiba," I addressed the boy with the rifle. "I'm gonna throw on end of the wire in a few minutes. Do you think you can shoot accurately enough near the tentacles if they get to close to the knives?"
"I can try. " He nodded at my request.
"Great." I gave him a thumbs up.
"Isogai, help me tie the wire to the stones and knives here on both ends. I have like 5 wires, I think." I saw Kurahashi standing near Yada. I waved at her to come over.
"Once we're done with the wire, please hold onto one end of the stones. Isogai and I are going to throw the knives at Muramatsu and Yoshida. Hopefully they can get them." I looked at the fight. Sensei was struggling but seemed to be in enough control to stop Itona from grabbing him. Okay, we got this.
"I can do that, but what are you planning?" Kurahashi was helping Isogai and me, while asking nervously.
"I want the tentacles gone from Hara, so we're going block them with the wire. It's anti-sensei material. If those two can either hold them, or we can get them secured enough on the other side, we can drag the wires down slowly, so that the tentacles can't come near Hara without being destroyed," I answered, furiously tying a lot of the wire to the first knife. They couldn't get loose. "I'll climb the tree and get Hara closer to the stem instead of the end of the branch. If she gets hit by some stray tentacle, she could seriously get hurt."
Okano, who had followed Kurahashi, intercepted.
"I'll come with you, Sayori-san." No time to waste, I nodded at the athletic girl. She would have an easy time climbing the tree.
"Tie the rest of the wires, Isogai. I'll get Yoshida's and Muramatsu's attention." I handed my finished wire to Kurahashi, who had attached the wire to her own knife. "Sit on this or something. We need this end here."
Standing up to run closer to the slope where the water was pouring out, I cupped my hands around my mouth.
"Yoshida, catch this!" I waved with the knife in my hand. I didn't have enough knifes for the wires, so stones would have to do for some of the wire ends. "Muramatsu, get near him and do the same and tie the wire somewhere below you!"
Seeing that the two had noticed me, I motioned that I was going to start throwing. The knife sailed with a relatively straight trajectory near Yoshida, who scrambled to follow my instructions.
I picked up another knife that Kurahashi handed me.
The throw was similar to the one before, but I could see in slow motion how an incoming tentacles was going to knock it off it's intended course.
Shit. We didn't have that much wire to cover enough space. Even if the tentacle would probably get destroyed by the knife, the wire would be lost.
The click of a gun near me, informed me that Chiba had fired his gun and with pinpoint accuracy he actually hit the tentacle dead on. The knife landed above Muramatsu's head.
I turned around in amazement.
"You're awesome, Chiba!"
"Thanks."
"Isogai, you continue here. I'll move towards Hara now. Once all the wires are placed, you can lower the wires, so that they won't come hear Hara. I'm off to get her off the tree."
Receiving confirmation for my instructions, I ran towards our classmate in danger and climbed the tree in record time with Okano. Hanging off another branch in the crown, I shouted at Hara to get her attention.
"Hara! Look at me!" The girls gaze which had been fastened to the battle below her, probably not even noticing the flying knives and stones, turned to me. "I need you to shimmy closer to the start of the branch! If you continue hanging on the end of it, it will crack sooner!"
"I can't! I'll fall off!" The panic was clear in her voice. Understandable, but not helpful for the situation.
"The branch is gonna crack sooner or later. If you're closer the trunk your weight won't bend it that much!" Despite the logic in my words the other girl shook her head. So much for reasoning with her.
"Come on! Do you want to prove Terasaka right when he called you fat? That you can't move just because of your weight? I have seen you do more difficult things in P.E. and not even work up a sweat!" I switched tactics. Spite was such a wonderful motivator. If that didn't move her, I didn't know what to do.
I could see several more knives whistling through the air, spanning barely visible lines beneath Hara, and actually touching some tentacles, making the tentacles dissolve a little on the contact. The mass of swinging limbs moved away, further down, away from Hara. Nice, that worked.
"She's right, Hara!" Okano shouted beside me. "That idiot is wrong. You can get yourself out of here!"
That kicked Hara into gear and slowly and hesitantly, she began to shimmy closer to us. Her legs were closer to us than her arms, but we would just have to grab her ankles once she was close enough.
The steady slapping noise of tentacles ceased, and I looked over to see that they had come to some sort of standstill. Terasaka shouting something at Itona.
"Quick, Hara! They have stopped with the tentacles. They can't hit you anymore." That seemed to reassure her enough and Hara increased the speed she was moving at. She was almost within our reach.
A loud thud startled us all in the tree, making Hara jump and shake the branch more. The wood emitted an ominous cracking noise.
"Shit, Okano, can you hang upside down to grab one of her legs? I'll try to do the same." We moved hurriedly to get into a better position to grab the girl on the branch, hanging upside down by the legs on the sturdiest branches we could find and fastening our grip on a leg each.
The branch creaked louder.
"Brace yourself, Hara! Sayori-san and I got you!"
My heart was pounding so much I could feel it in my throat. My grip felt slippery on Hara's wet legs, increasing my nervousness. A fall from this height wouldn't kill Hara but she would land headfirst if she was unlucky. Neither Okano nor I wanted to risk it.
When the branch cracked, Hara hadn't even moved from her position. She was paralyzed by the fear of the branch giving in. Damn.
It was agonizing to watch her eyes widen in terror and startling how both Okano and I had to suddenly hold her weight and the weight of the branch, which she still had to let go off.
A brief moment of Hara feeling weightless and then the pull of gravity-
And all of a sudden, we weren't on the tree anymore, my grip on Hara's ankle broken and the sound of water splashing around us.
What-
Ah, Koro-sensei.
It took a few seconds for me and also the other girls to comprehend the situation, but once we processed out bodies sagged in relief.
The same feeling of relief I had felt when I had jumped after Karma from the cliff and our dumb teacher had caught us.
I let my body go boneless on our teacher's grip, eyes checking over Okano and Hara, who were just as relieved as I was. The branches Okano and I had been on, had been sturdy enough. The only problem on our side would have been a dislocated shoulder or our grip on Hara's leg failing.
Hara on the other hand probably had felt like she could be dying in any minute.
The splashing around us increasing with increasing intervals and once again were we located to another patch near the pool and let done gently on the floor.
"Is every one of you alright?" Koro-sensei asked in a gentle voice, tentacles moving slowly along cuts and bruises on our skin.
I nodded mutely. Heart still pounding a little. It was times like this when I realized how crazy our life had actually become.
"Terasaka-kun worked well together with Karma-kun to distract Itona. He helped me get away to save you," the teacher explained, when we were all looking down at the situation where the standstill between.
"Great," I said tonelessly. I looked at my shoulder once I felt something wet touching it.
"What you did, was quite reckless, Sayori-kun, Okano-kun." I shrugged off the appendage.
"Someone had to do something to help Hara."
"Indeed, but-" Koro-sensei agreed but paused when Itona below is seemed to be on the verge of blowing up. "Excuse your Sensei for a second."
And he vanished with a boom, though it wasn't as powerful as the ones we normally hear. Guess physics did still apply to our teacher.
The situation cleared up soon enough once Koro-sensei intervened, Itona and the other guy disappearing quickly from our sight.
The class let out a collective breath at that.
With the adrenalin slowly draining out of my bloodstream, I slowly stood up on shaky legs, walking towards the edge of the water. After a few seconds, Okano and Hara did the same.
At first, I actually wanted to go and talk to Karma but seeing Terasaka standing there, halted my plans. After experiencing what I just did talking to Terasaka would probably go worse than conversation after the explosion. Hara didn't feel any hesitation at all and actually shouted Terasaka down for calling her fat. Good for her.
Though on a happier note, or a meaner one, depending on your perspective, I could see a blooming bruise along the sturdier teen's jawline, and I had the feeling that Karma was the one responsible for that one.
I felt kinda vindicated. Karma was getting something nice for that move.
Also, the fact that my boyfriend (wow, it was still such a weird thought) was now being dunked into the shallow water killed any will I had towards approaching him.
I just gave him a thumbs up at his inquiring look when he had gotten the breather to look at our direction. The redhead was promptly assaulted by several splashes again once the others had gotten wind of him getting a break from the assault.
Eh, we could probably survive without each other for a few minutes. We weren't that teenager couple.
"Terasaka's relationship with our class got better," Nagisa was starting a conversation with our teacher beside me. Both apparently had enough of the water. "Hopefully he will keep out of trouble now."
"Mmmh, indeed," Koro-sensei agreed, tentacles wriggling and wringing himself out. "Terasaka is not someone who can scheme behind the scenes. He works at best when he's enacting the plan with a good mastermind behind it."
"Doesn't help if he's being played a fool," I muttered at their conversation, annoyed how little shit they were giving him for being so easily manipulated like this. It wasn't really meant to be heard but our teacher caught it for sure, given that he actually answered me.
"Give him a chance, Sayori-kun. He's still a teen. Everyone makes mistakes after all." I stared at the others merrily playing along with Terasaka's plan of drowning Karma. Yeah, he had a point. Everyone here was still growing emotionally and physically. It was good to be reminded of that fact.
"It doesn't mean I have to like him," I answered almost absentmindedly, feeling somewhat disconnected from the scene in front of me. "I can accept that he's part of the class and actually helpful, but I don't have to forgive him for what he did."
"Fair enough."
"It's nicer though if everyone gets along at least a bit, isn't it, Sayori?" Nagisa asked me in a cheerful manner, not bothered by my less charitable thoughts about the other teen who had messed up quite a bit.
"Yeah, I guess." That at least I could give the other boy.
Guess this chapter is over. I wanted to start with the exam arc too, but this seemed like a good play to end it.
So, I'm writing again?
Thank you everyone, who left me such heartwarming reviews. It really motivated me to start this story again.
Uni has been hectic I can finally catch a break. I'm not promising constant updates, but I feel more inspired to write. I hope you can bear with me.
Have a great day!
Yuki
Please leave a review on your thoughts on this chapter!