The first thing that Karma feels, as Kayano raises her gun at him, is realization. And then it's followed by a bolt of panic, lightning-fast and steel-sharp, because she's going to—
She fires.
There's the sharp pop of a paintball bursting.
And then she falls down, down, down, and disappears under the edge. A few seconds later, Karma hears a soft thud from somewhere beneath him.
Silence.
Karma slowly turns his gaze downwards.
The front of his uniform is clean. He didn't feel an impact on his body, either.
So that means...
Karma looks behind him.
There's a burst of blue paint on the ground.
With a sharp inhale, he glances over the edge. Kayano's on the ground a dozen or so meters beneath him. Their uniforms have shock absorption. From that distance, there's practically no chance that the fall actually injured her.
And more importantly...
Karma whirls around, back to the direction of the field, back to the direction of the Blue Team's flag.
This might just buy him enough time to get the flag.
He begins making his way through the forest in a hasty jog, retracing the steps they took as they moved through the area during their fight. Judging from the height of that ledge, it'll only take around a minute for Kayano to climb back up.
He quickens his pace.
And she'll instantly realize what he's doing, with that intuition she has—she could sense the paintball aimed at Isogai, could anticipate Karma's own advance towards the flag even with the diversion, and...
When they both lost their knives, when their fight moved to close physical combat, she knew she couldn't win it, not against Karma at least. So she deliberately let herself get cornered to pull off a surprise move.
Karma feels leaves crunching and twigs snapping beneath his steps.
A surprise move that would've ended the game. That would've sent a paintball flying straight at him at point-blank range with no way for him to anticipate it, let alone dodge it.
That would've eliminated him right then and there.
Karma can just about make out the edge of the field in the distance through the trees.
Should've eliminated him.
Karma pauses.
~.~.~.~.~.~
Kayano pushes herself to a sitting position.
Mr. Karasuma's supposed to announce the winning team the moment either side wins.
But as she silently raises a hand to wipe at the tears in her eyes, she only hears the rustle of leaves in the distance. It's accompanied by the faint chirping of birds and the faraway gurgle of the river.
No voices. No announcement of victory.
Which means that...
Her stomach sinks as she wipes away the last traces of blurriness in her vision.
She missed.
And Karma's probably making his way to the flag right now.
She stands up and walks over to the cliff face. Gripping onto a rock jutting out from it, she begins climbing up.
Part of her wonders if she should even be bothering. After all, it's only a matter of time before Karma secures the flag and the announcement of the Red Team's victory rings from her speakers. Only a matter of time before her efforts will all be in vain and the class will continue with their assassinations.
Maybe this was a hopeless battle ever since the start. It's crystal clear to her now—no matter how hard she tried, she still couldn't fully match up to Karma's combat prowess.
"We both know how much you wanted him dead. And now you want me to believe that you truly want to save him."
And no matter how hard she tried, she still was never able to make Karma believe the sincerity of her words.
She takes in a shaking breath as she approaches the top. Then she grabs it and pulls herself up to hang off of it.
A hand is outstretched in front of her.
Kayano looks up. Then, slowly, silent from the surprise, she grabs Karma's hand. He doesn't say anything as he pulls her onto the ledge.
When she's finally back on the ground, she turns to him. "Why are you—"
"You missed."
"What? You mean..." Then she notices the splash of blue on the ground behind him.
"You missed that shot, even though it was practically at point-blank range." Karma's tone betrays no emotion. "How?"
"I..."
That's not what she was expecting.
I what?
I had tears in my eyes?
She almost wants to laugh at how absurd that sounds. Kaede Kayano, the student who seamlessly infiltrated the class, who laughed and smiled and fooled everybody as tentacles ate at her mind, who flawlessly hid her murderous intent from Korosensei himself, somehow tearing up in the middle of such an important battle? Akari Yukimura, the acting prodigy, tearing up out of nowhere just like that?
I can promise you that my words are true, she told Karma, in nearly a desperate plea, not even an hour ago.
And she can still hear his response, cold and firm—Sorry, Kayano, but any promise you make means nothing to me right now.
After all, she spent the entire year deceiving her classmates. Why would he trust her this time?
Already, she finds herself scouring her mind for any other plausible explanations she can give him instead. Maybe an excuse about the wind. Or the fact that her aim was never the best in the class. Or maybe because—
Now that the tentacles are gone, maybe you can finally be honest about yourself to us.
Kayano freezes, because the echo of Maehara's words is sudden and unexpected and new. Then it's followed by Nagisa's.
I hope that someday, you'll be able to express yourself without hiding. Both the good and the bad.
And she takes a deep breath and looks at Karma.
"The reason is probably stupid."
Karma tilts his head ever so slightly.
"I deal with Terasaka on a daily basis. I can handle stupid."
Kayano manages a small smile. "I don't know."
"I could've gotten the flag by now."
"I... I know."
"Missing the shot practically ensured your loss. There's nothing you could've gained from that. It doesn't make sense." He raises an eyebrow. "So whatever explanation you have, I want to hear it."
"I had tears in my eyes."
He blinks. "What?"
"Literal tears." Kayano smiles wryly. "I couldn't aim properly because my vision was too blurry."
"You were... crying?" Now he looks confused. "Wait, did my attacks hurt that—"
"No, not because of your attacks."
"Then why?"
"It's because I was remembering my sister."
Surprise flutters across Karma's features.
"She died last year, so the memory of it is still... pretty fresh." Kayano isn't sure how she's managing to say this all easily when she was hesitating just moments ago. But even then, she can't help but let herself look away from Karma as she speaks, bracing herself for that doubt and distrust to begin filling the air between them. "I'm mostly fine by now, but those months after her death were... pretty bad. And even now, thinking about it all still hurts."
Karma stares at her, silent, his expression now unreadable.
"But the thing is, that's why I want to save Korosensei." Kayano feels a familiar tightness growing in her chest, but she pushes through it. "I lost my sister, and I don't want to lose him too." She takes a deep breath. "So fighting you, fighting for that cause... I guess it brought back those feelings."
Karma continues gazing at her wordlessly.
"It's fine though," Kayano says quickly. "There are other reasons, too. It's just that—"
She realizes that a tear has already trailed down her cheek.
~.~.~.~.~.~
There are very few occasions where Karma finds himself wordless not out of disinterest, but out of actual speechlessness. But as he listens to Kayano and watches a tear slide down her cheek, there's nothing he can use to describe this feeling besides speechlessness. He can still feel that buzz of uneasiness inside him, incessant as always, but now there's something new underneath it. He doesn't quite know what it is yet, but it's enough to make him gaze at her in silence, listen to her words, empty of any of his usual criticism or retorts.
"It's fine though," Kayano suddenly says, and he can see her try to give him a reassuring smile. "There are other reasons, too. It's just that—"
She freezes. Then she raises a hand to her cheek.
"Ah, sorry," she mumbles. She rubs the tear away with her palm. "I don't know why that happened."
With strong emotions, they latch onto your mind, Itona told Karma when he asked about tentacles. Especially if you're mentally at a low point. The negative feelings are amplified, and they turn into the only thing you can focus on.
And now, as he watches Kayano take in soft, deep breaths and press at her eyes with her sleeve, he can hear too clearly the echo of Kayano's words in his head—I'm mostly fine by now, but those months after her death were... pretty bad.
I lost my sister, and I don't want to lose him too.
She could be faking this all, that dark, bitter part of himself instinctively growls. But the distrust and fury that drive those words somehow now feels dull in the face of this...
This what?
Indecision?
Pity?
Or maybe, whispers a barely-there thought inside him, understanding.
And then Karma finds himself saying, "You can cry if you want."
"What?"
His own words feel unfamiliar to him. "It's... understandable."
Kayano shakes her head and drops her hand. "No, really. I'm fine."
"You... sure?"
"Yeah," Kayano says. "And I can usually control my tears. Since I had actor training and all that, you know. But this time..."
This time, she couldn't, because the tears were real. This time, she couldn't, because her feelings were genuine.
This time, she couldn't.
And she missed her shot.
The answer he was looking for.
"This time... things got weird," Kayano finally says, with a small laugh. "Our fight probably distracted me too much. It was pretty intense, after all."
Karma turns to face the forest. "Then let's go."
"Go?"
He glances back at her with a challenging smile. "Like you said, we still have a fight to finish."
~.~.~.~.~.~
To Kayano's surprise, Karma leads her out of the forest and back to the field.
"Why here?" Kayano glances around the clearing. She spots her classmates sitting on a wooden platform in the distance and can vaguely make out the confusion on their faces. "Our fight technically was stopped back there in the forest. This is where our fight began."
"There's something that I think should be fixed."
She follows him with a frown.
Karma pauses and murmurs, "I think it was around here."
"What are you talking about?"
"You were here." Karma then walks away from her, and to her growing alarm, towards the Blue Team flag. He stops just over an arm's reach away from it.
"And I was here." He turns back to face her. There's around a dozen meters of distance between the two of them.
Kayano tightens her grip on her gun. "What are you—"
He smirks. "Let's test your reaction time for real this time."
Then he lunges at the Blue Team flag, and before she knows it, her gun is in the air.
The paintball hits Karma a moment before he seizes the flag.
He stumbles to a stop with the Blue Team flag in his hand and bright blue paint splashed across his chest.
Kayano stares at him with her gun still raised. She's just now able to process the feeling of the trigger pressed under her finger.
There's a beat of stunned silence.
And then Mr. Karasuma's voice booms across the clearing.
"With the capture of the flag invalidated by the elimination of the last Red Team member, Blue Team—the 'don't kill' team—has won!"
