Disclaimer: I don't own Assassination Classroom!

Title: Today on: kids who don't have proper coping mechanisms

Summary: Shoutout to that time Karasuma knocked out Reaper and the kids saw a dead body, was that messed up or what.

...

"What's with that face? You oughta be celebrating."

Karasuma is used to Irina's voice, her presence by his shoulder. He shouldn't have allowed himself to be so comfortable with it, but he is, and even after trying to kill him that hasn't really changed. But Irina's changed- the relaxing of her shoulders say as much. The gentle glow in her eyes. She could shoot him and everyone else here... but she might actually regret it.

"I did just kill a man," he pointed out.

She snorted, but pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. Karasuma hadn't seen her smoke in a long time now. "If you could call that a man." She waggled her unharmed hand towards the kids- each being carefully examined by a particularly concerned tentacle monster. "I thought you'd be happy. They don't even have a scratch."

"They're too young to see a body."

"Are they?" she asked, genuinely curious. Karasuma doesn't know many details, but he's come to realize Irina has had it pretty rough, perhaps in ways even he couldn't imagine. She's twenty-one, his mind reminds him, and that shouldn't feel so young. He's not much older than her. "Hadn't you been at a funeral by their age?

"Hadn't you?"

"Sure, but the difference there was that I'd killed the person in the casket." Irina struck the lighter and raised it to the cigarette, squinting against the heat. "I'm not a great example here."

"No one should have to see someone be murdered," he answered softly. "Especially not children."

"Relax, you big baby. They're fine. Look at them."

Karasuma is, and they are, and that's somehow even worse.

Isogai was exchanging awkward but friendly chatter with Itona as they waited for their turn. Okuda was scribbling in a notebook he knew was for chemical concoctions, probably hoping to copy the Reaper's covering agent. Kayano hung off her every word. Kurahashi had an arm around Sugino and Takebayashi, cornering them for a long-winded lecture on the velvet ant. Rio had Terasaka in a solid noogie.

Hayami and Ryunosuke were side by side, as they often were these days. Yoshida was grumbling something about driving at night. Karma and Nagisa were gone. Not surprising, he figured. Karma was almost always first checked, seeing how he tended to bring trouble in, and Nagisa had gotten a decent spook tonight.

Still.

It was far too normal a scene for the story at hand.

"We've ruined them you know," Karasuma said, with finality. "They'll move and grow up from this, but they won't ever be what they were. They just saw someone die. We did this."

"They were going to see a body before the end of the year. At least this was someone they didn't particularly like." Irina shook her box; and Karasuma, sad and a bit ashamed (if twenty-one is young, what does that make them?), took one for himself.

Karma and Nagisa walked home together. It was fairly routine. They lived close by, took the same trains, walked the same streets. It'd be more of a hassle if they didn't. And, luckily, Karma and Nagisa tended to get along pretty well, all things considered.

(All things being that no one can really tell who's more dangerous, these days.)

"So," says Karma, as they walk down a dark street. "That was pretty messed up."

"It upset you?"

"Not really. The guy deserved it. I mean, he was gonna kill a buncha kids." He paused, humming. "Kept waiting for him to blink. It was trippy."

"I was expecting a jumpscare. Like in the movies, you know? A 'I'm not dead, just joking' thing."

"Yeah, fair. But he is, absolutely, dead."

"Yup."

"...I feel like this should be more riveting dialogue, don't you?"

"Probably. He didn't have a face. That's kinda cool?" Nagisa tilted his chin up, pondered, and sighed. "I should feel something. Anything. But... I don't."

"That's kinda screwed up, man."

"I don't see you bawling your eyes out, either."

"Guy was a bitch and he went out like a bitch," Karma said, without hesitation. He looked down at his hand, as if something would appear out of place on it. "I feel different, I guess? Karasuma did a pretty cool takedown. Wasn't a lotta blood or nothing. Honestly, you could tell me he woke up and walked off and I wouldn't be surprised. This shoulda popped my assassination cherry, and all it really did was make me worry if the water supply in town is gonna taste alright with all the weird flooding and stuff."

"Hmm," said Nagisa.

"But, unlike some of us, I've never felt the kind of rage wanting to kill gives. At least, not strong enough to go through with it." A couple of broken bones was an easy price to pay, in Karma's mind. Talk shit, get hit. That was nothing compared to the anger one must feel to pick up a knife and prepare to stab a man to death. "You were ready to get your hands dirty."

"I think we have to be," he answered earnestly. "We're not distance shooters like Hayami and Ryunosuke. When we strike down our target, we'll be right in front of him. He might be yellow goop, but that's still a kind of blood, isn't it?"

"Would you still have done it?" Karma asked- the question had been hounding him lately. "Even if we knew the virus wasn't deadly, would you still have wanted to kill him?"

Nagisa shrugged, surprisingly nonchalant for a boy asked about his moral compass. "Probably. I got mad at the Reaper because he thought he'd hurt Okano's ribs. Takaoaka honestly thought we were going to die, and he liked that. That's enough for me."

"You're one messed up little dude, Nagisa."

"Thanks," he said, and meant it.

Author's Note: Shoutout to that time they thought the Reaper was probably dead, and all these kids saw a "dead" body.

Look if I have to drag the "wow it's kinda messed up these kids learned to kill" and "Class E are badasses" tropes out in this fandom kicking and screaming by god I'll do it. Don't test me.

-Mandaree1