Greetings. I'm nursing my fourth cold of the year, so time for another chapter.

Initially this was supposed to be a oneshot, but everyone in the reviews wanted more, plus I realized that story had more potential, so I'm making it multi-chapter. That being said, this will be an update-when-I-can thing.

It was the beginning of Nagisa's and Gakushuu's third year at Kunugigaoka Junior High. The cherry blossoms had bloomed early this year, and allergy season was in full swing. Fresh-faced 12 to 15 year-olds walked to the wondrous campus of Kunugigaoka Junior High.

But there were twenty-four exceptions to this.

When that fateful morning came, Nagisa got up early and immediately started on the trek up to the satellite campus on the mountaintop, as did the other twenty-three 'failures'. E-as-in-End Class, here I come, he thought with derision.

While they all walked by, those two goons from D Class jeered.

"Hey E Class losers! Remember the main campus, 'cuz it's the nicest place you're ever gonna have been!"

"Don't get to upset, Tanaka, at least they're quarantined like this!"

Sigh. If only Karma were here he'd punch them. But he'd been suspended for that exact thing.

The short boy kicked a pebble out of the way. He yawned. Nagisa was soon joined by Maehara and Kataoka.

"So you ended up here too." The girl observed.

"Yeah." Nagisa responded.

"Me too." Maehara butted into the conversation. "Focused too much on the ladies." He edged closer to Kataoka and reached an arm over her shoulders. She walked away, and Nagisa noticed that the calm and polite Isogai glared daggers at his best friend. Maehara saw and visibly gulped. Any other day Nagisa would have laughed at the absurdity of Isogai of all people looking at his friend like that, but today was the day of his demise.

Nagisa entered the classroom. Or, what they called a classroom. It was stifling hot in spite of the fact that it was only late March. He observed and took note of his new classmates. The Terasaka gang (predictable). Okajima (these poor girls). Nakamura (oh, this class was gonna be HELL). Hayami and Chiba (not expected, to be honest). Okuda (Nagisa didn't think he ever heard her say one word in all of their first two years). Nagisa ran his fingers through his long blue hair. He just hoped that the new teacher wouldn't mistake him for a girl, like Ono-sensei did. Reluctantly he took his seat, the one that had a nametag with "Shiota Nagisa" on top of it.

Yukimura-sensei, the very young teacher, smiled at them all. "Hello, Class of 2016! Welcome to your third year! I'm Yukimura-sensei, your new teacher..."

Meanwhile, Gakushuu was giving a speech to the incoming seventh graders. It was scripted, and he didn't even write it himself. His father did. His father was always the charismatic, persuasive one. Gakushuu tried his best to absorb at least some parts of his personality, but he felt like he fell flat in comparison. The only people he could enthrall were his own classmates. Even the election for student body president was rigged by the old man.

"Just be sure you study hard, and don't end up like certain somebodies..."

It brought him no joy. E Class was not here to hear their critics. Gakushuu was just repeating words that he memorized from a paper. They meant nothing to him.

"So it is with pride, and with confidence, that we welcome you all to Kunugigaoka Junior High. Congratulations class of 2018!"

All the peons cheered. Finally, that awful speech was over. He left the podium without haste, dropped the false smile, and made his way to his classroom. He whispered to the classmate next to him.

"Get me coffee. I'm gonna need it." Completely forgetting that there was no place to get coffee on campus.

Meanwhile, Nagisa was actually faring a bit better. Yes, the environment was less than stellar, but he saw that Yukimura-sensei actually cared about her job and put effort into their education. She wasn't like the other teachers he'd had at Kunugigaoka.

"Think of it this way: If you're up here, you don't have to deal with those assholes on the main campus!"

Nagisa cracked a genuine smile, for the first time all day.

The days passed slowly. Nagisa found himself getting used to making the walk all the way up and down the mountain. He told himself it was good cardio. And Yukimura-sensei's silly shirts at least provided comic relief. Gakushuu and he were making small talk at night while they were lying in their respective beds, waiting for sleep to come.

"Hey Asano-san?" He referred to his stepbrother as Asano-san and his stepfather as Asano-sensei to avoid confusation.

"Yeah?"

"Does it ever feel lonely on top?" Nagisa remembered something that Karma had told him two years ago.

"You mean like valedictorian and class president and all that?"

"Yes."

"Sometimes. I really don't like being in charge of student government. I did it to please my father. Maybe someday I'll drop all this crap and pursue my real dream."

"What would that be?" Nagisa yawned.

"Basketball." Gakushuu sarcastically said as he rolled over and went to sleep.

Little did he, or anyone know, it was the last day the moon as they knew it would be.

It was the day the moon exploded.

Well, not exploded, per se, but was destroyed. Fragments of it shattered and floated in its orbit. It was now permanently a crescent shape. When the step-brothers got up and walked downstairs in the morning, their jaws dropped.

Gakushuu shot up from his seat. "Th-Th-The moon's..."

"Ruined!" Nagisa finished.

There was spilled coffee all over the counter (courtesy of the parents), that both were cleaning up.

"Shock of a lifetime." Hiromi muttered. "How will this affect the tides?"

"I don't know, but I expect a pop quiz on it today." Gakushuu ran his fingers through his hair, suddenly not caring about the strawberry jam on toast that he was looking forward to.

"No more romantic moonlit walks in the park." It was the first semblance of emotion Nagisa had seen Gakuho express. They still weren't out of their honeymoon stage.

"I heard the moon affects people's emotions. Will people now be... I don't know, more moody?" Nagisa wondered aloud.

Hiromi glared at him, as if he should be ashamed to ask a question at all, then looked back at the TV.

For a change, Nagisa and Gakushuu walked to school together.

"What do you think's gonna happen?" Nagisa stared at a cloud that drifted by, covering the moon.

"I don't know. By the way, how's 3-E?"

"Oh? Actually not that bad." Nagisa was startled by the sudden change in topic. "Our teacher's great, my classmates are pretty easy to get along with. I actually find it a more accepting environment than the main campus ever was."

"Hmm." Gakushuu hummed. "Wish I could say the same about 3-A."

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

That was the same exact day, only two weeks into the new school year, Yukimura-sensei disappeared. E Class thought- hoped- it was only a temporary thing, but it went on for a few days. She was replaced with a substitute from the main campus who looked down his nose at them. When they asked where Yukimura-sensei was, all the answers they got were "Health reasons" and "Personal stuff". Nagisa sighed, staring out the window at the new crescent moon. It was back to the old grind, it seemed...

Gakushuu grabbed his head in frustration. This teacher was... kind of an ass. He refused to answer anyone's questions. And he moved too fast. The two-time valedictorian of the class of 2016 (only beat Karma Akabane by one point each time) looked around at his classmates. They were paying attention attentively, but they seemed to be struggling. This year was going to be harder than the previous years. Well, I'll just catch up at home, hopefully before the principal's dinner quiz... Gakushuu scratched his head. But he suspected that wasn't likely.

It indeed wasn't likely, when his father asked him questions about trigonometry that evening, he fell flat and didn't answer a single one correctly.

"I'm so disappointed, Gakushuu." His son knew that that was code for 'stay in your room and study for the rest of the night and I better not catch you downstairs for any reason whatsoever'. The principal then looked at his wife's son, as if pondering whether to start this tradition with him, but then shook his head and continued eating.

The world did not get used to the crescent moon. The news was all full of 'scientists' explaining that the moon was hit by a massive meteor and was partially shattered. Gakushuu found that a little bit strange (wouldn't the meteor be visible on the videos?), but he chose to believe it, as he had no other explanation. It was all anyone could talk about at school. Civics classes were all about how this would affect world politics, Science classes were about how this would affect the earth's environment, and English classes were just translating American or British newspaper articles on the moon into Japanese. The moon dominated every public or private conversation.

Hiromi spoke to her son for the first time since he dropped into E Class on the day that he came home with his long hair pulled up into two cute little pigtails. He was ginning and touching them, like he couldn't believe he had finally done something with his hair.

She grabbed them and almost tore the hair out of his head. "How could you do something so stupid! You had the most perfect hair! It took your whole life to grow out!" Nagisa removed the hair ties and let his blue locks flow down.

Hiromi's cartoonishly angry expression melted away. "There we go, my baby." She patted his head. "Remember Mommy was supposed to have a girl, but she got you instead."

Gakuho followed his wife's example and acknowledged the boy. "Sorry about the E Class thing, son. But your grades made it necessary. I can't make exceptions just because you are my stepson."

Nagisa didn't even beg forgiveness. He didn't feel sorry, one because he felt he had the right to do as he wanted with his hair, and two because he knew the principal was not the forgiving type. He just headed to his room.

Gakushuu, who was sitting in the living room during the whole ordeal, was frozen in shock. His step-mom treated her own flesh and blood like that!? Even Gakushuu's own father allowed him to do as he wanted with his hair. And he certainly never grabbed him or insinuated that he was disappointed with his birth. He was getting even more of an idea of what his father had welcomed into the family.

Gakushuu later entered the room that he shared with Nagisa, and pushed a tray of sushi into his step-brother's hands "Here. Your favorite."

The blue-haired androgynous boy was taken aback by his brother's display of generosity. "Thanks, I don't know what to say..."

"You don't need to say anything." Gakushuu threw some blankets down on the floor and sat on them, like a picnic setup. "So, you did your hair yourself?"

"Nah. A girl did it for me. A new transfer student. She switched into E Class today. I don't think you'd know her, though."

Gakushuu had heard his father ranting the other day about a transfer student he already had to send to E Class. He racked his brain for a name. "Kaede Kayano?"

"Yeah, her." Nagisa joined Gakushuu on the blanket.

"Don't mention her to the principal. He's got it out for her. She broke a particularly expensive belonging of his, in his office. And, well, you don't want to cross the principal." Gakushuu brought out a juice box and starting sipping on it. "I'm sure you understand that much already."

"Not 'your father'? 'The principal'?"

"In case you haven't noticed, he's not exactly the fatherly type."

"I have noticed." Nagisa was already halfway through his roll of sushi. Raw salmon and avocado, yum. It even had ginger and wasabi on the side.

"What about your mother? She isn't winning any Parent of the Year awards either." Gakushuu sat back and leaned on the wall.

'She's... Well, you saw. She has her moments. I recommend just staying out of her way, or you might become her next emotional punching bag."

"That's good advice."

Nagisa, having eaten every last bit of his sushi, bowed. "Gochisousama."

"Did you like it?" The honor student sat up.

"Yes, thank you." Nagisa got up to bring the dishes downstairs.

"That's good. I made it myself."

Nagisa gave him another honest smile. "Thanks... Gakushuu."

The next day, Gakushuu went to class to find a bunch of students sleeping at their desks and complaining about the English homework, meanwhile Nagisa was greeted with a government agent and a giant yellow Mach 20 superhuman octopus.

The Assassination Classroom had begun.