10th Chapter. Please read and review!

Trap Time

English. It was… interesting.

The teacher was called Bitch-sensei. Killua supposed that should have been an indication of what sort of lesson would follow. But still, he hadn't been expecting it to be quite so… bitchy.

Irina Jelavic was a striking woman, to say the least. Not just her tight clothes vaguely resembling that of a school teacher or the somewhat outrageous behaviour (did she have to choose such… weird… phrases for the students to learn?), but the aura surrounding her.

Aura? It didn't seem like the right word.

Atmosphere. Feeling.

Everything about her demanded attention, sucking it in like a vacuum. She taught with a forcefully energy, squeezing the information down to simple points and wrapping them in parcels for the students to absorb.

According to Nagisa, she was an assassin too. Killua couldn't see it. What was it that made assassins into teachers? To mould students into hitmen? Maybe it was the people skills. Bitch-sensei was weaker than what Gon had been back in the Hunter Exam. Infiltration must be her key advantage, and with it, people skills. Killua couldn't help but laugh internally at trying to put Bitch-sensei and Illumi in the same category.

Killua could shake out the feeling that Korosensei was somehow similar. He wasn't an assassin though, was he?

"Killua-kun, can you repeat what I just said?"

(Oh, damn.)

Whilst Killua had dosed off, Bitch-sensei had managed to come up to his desk. Pale palms down on the wood in front of him and chest thrust forward, she stared at him expectantly.

Face calm, Killua twisted his head to look at the board. There was a sentence written there, in neat, loopy writing. A breath of relief escaped him. He knew English as well as he knew the Hunter language; they were universal and popular, after all, and therefore something he had learnt early in his training.

"I want you to know, you are the most perfect person in the world," he read. Bitch-sensei gave a grin. It was quite a scary grin, full of manic delight. Killua was painfully reminded of Bisky when she found an excuse to punch him to the horizon.

"Brilliant reading, but unfortunately, not what I asked," Bitch-sensei said. Killua opened his mouth to retort.

She winked. The move was so out of place, so casual, Killua dropped his guard.

The next moment, a kiss is being shoved firmly onto his lips.

Killua couldn't really think properly. He could breath. He didn't know what he was doing. Instinct guided him, and he did the first thing that came to his mind – fall backwards. By kicking off the floor, the chair tipped backwards. The pressure on his lips disappeared and Killua ended up sprawled on an upturned chair, arms on his lips as though trying to wipe away whatever was there, staring with bemusement at Bitch-sensei.

What the hell!

A faint ringing sound could be heard in his ears. Gradually, the sound changed to laughter as the class erupted. Killua was more than aware that he was now the centre of attention. The grins bore into his back.

"First kiss?" Karma asked from the back of the class. A blush spread across Killua's face.

"None of your business." Killua tried to sound like he didn't care, but the voice came out high pitched and wrong. He must be the only student to have reacted quite so dramatically.

He had been kissed. Kissed!

("Have you been on a date before?" Those brown eyes staring at him as he lifted the weight easily. "Yes." The shock, the bafflement. He was so grown up, and he hadn't even noticed… he felt like he was being left behind. "What about Killua?" "Of course not.")

"Are you ok?" a voice said.

"I'm fine," Killua replied. He picked up his chair, sat on it.

The class had settled somewhat and the scene now over, Bitch-sensei continued to teach. However a few sniggers were still sent his way and Killua tried to ignore them as much as possible. He looked solidly ahead, at the board, resisting the blush still residing on his cheeks.

Bitch-sensei. Killua now knew what they meant. And he had certainly learnt his lesson. Killua made sure to listen for the rest of the lesson.

With the return of Takebayashi, the members of Class E once again fell in their old routine. That is, coming up with assassination plans at break times. Once Korosensei had left, the class gathered around a few desks pushed together.

"So, any ideas?" Megu Kataoka, the tall girl in the centre of the group, asked.

"How about we make a trap out of bras?" Most members of the class paled (some radiating fury and disgust) and turned to the caller, a boy with black hair smiling widely. He took on the stares unflinchingly.

"You know, it could work. You know what he's like," said another boy. Killua winced. Seriously? As though seeing the confusion on his face, the girl standing next to him hastily explained.

"It's one of Korosensei's weaknesses. He's such a pervert," she said with scowl, although her attitude seemed to be quite carefree. Killua studied the girl – the mint green pigtails perched on the top of her head were distinctive, not dissimilar to Nagisa's blue in style.

"Oh, really?" he said.

"Especially if it involves Bitch-sensei," another student joked. Bitch-sensei – the nickname of the resident foreign languages teacher, given to her by the students. Another assassin, apparently. Killua really couldn't see how.

"Let's think seriously," Kataoka said with a sigh.

"I am being serious. We need to take advantage of Korosensei's weaknesses," the boy said. For all his seriousness there was a cheeky grin slapped across his face.

"Okajima has a point," another boy mentioned, a devious grin on his face. So that was his name, the class pervert.

(You'd have thought it was Leorio, going by the way he acts.)

"But just… that… isn't going to work," Kataoka said, stuttering over what pronoun to use. "We need something different." Across the table, Nagisa jumped upwards, his arms uncrossing slightly as though he had been struck with an idea.

"Electricity!" he said. Karma glanced at Nagisa, then to Killua.

"Oh yes," he said with a small smirk. The class regarded all three with curiosity. With all that had been going on, it was apparent that neither Nagisa nor Karma had managed to inform the class of that particular incident.

"What is it?"

"Killua tried to assassinate Korosensei the day before yesterday," Nagisa explained.

"How did it go?" the girl with green pigtails asked, tipping her head slightly to one side in curiosity. Killua shrugged.

There was amusement in some of the other student's looks – evidently the last 'incident' hadn't been forgotten and they were struggling to take him seriously.

"He was brilliant! He was so close, but Korosensei shed his skin last minute," Nagisa explained. Suddenly, the atmosphere changed. Those who had been only half listening leaned in, capturing every word.

"You mean he's already shed this skin?" somebody said. "That's one defence down."

"You said electricity? So it worked?" another asked.

"Yes," Nagisa said. "He froze; it was just for a second but he did. If he hadn't shed his skin, Killua would have got him." The attention shifted to Killua. It was similar to what Nagisa and Karma had given him two days before – admiration, delight…. Comradeship.

"Where did you get a stun gun from?" Terasaka asked. He was a tall, burly boy, with the hair on the side of his head dyed blond. There was a scowl on his face and, just like Killua, he stood near the back of the class, a little separate from the group. An emitter, if he ever saw one.

"Who knows?" Killua replied with a cat-like grin. Sensing the fight in his tone, Terasaka glared at him. Killua held his stare.

"Well, we can use that," Kataoka said loudly, breaking up the staring contest. Killua nodded. He had a stun gun back at the apartment, which he used if he needed to charge up quickly. It didn't create quite the same effect as he had done for Korosensei, but it would be similar enough.

"So electricity."

"What about we trick Korosensei in to touching something, and shock him?" Nakamura suggested. A girl with long blond hair, let loose over her shoulders.

"Sweets. He loves it," Kayano said with a small smile. "I was thinking of something similar actually." At the word sweets, Killua perked up. He loved sweets.

"Maybe a bowl of sweets, a sort of trap at the bottom?" Nakamura said.

"We'll need to disguise it though. Make it realistic."

"That'll be my job," a boy with silver hair said (Sugaya?), getting a paintbrush from his trouser pocket. Killua wondered whether he always had one in his pocket.

The air was electric, ironically. Ideas that flickered through the air, knitting together into a plan. They all understood each other – their strengths and weaknesses – and knew how to use it to their advantage. There was something slacking about it though. No, not slacking. More... lack of seriousness, as though their lives didn't rely on it (it didn't). As though they knew that there would always be a second chance.

(In the real world, a second chance wouldn't exist.)

"We have a party, a celebration for Takebayashi coming back."

"And then, we can offer him a bowl of sweets with a stun gun at the bottom."

"Have snipers positioned around him too, to make him disorientated."

"Then the final shot is to kill."

"The final shot should be you Takebayashi." It was so different to the assassination that Killua had grown up knowing. His was done alone and quickly, utilising little more than brute force. However he had learnt how to use intricate plans too, as part of his training, and in his eyes the holes within the fabric of the plan were becoming clearer.

"No," he said. Whether it was intentional he did not. But with the single world, a small burst emitted from his bloodlust. An old habit, one that he had learnt even before nen.

The reaction of the class was instant. Suddenly, the attention was centred on Killua. For an untrained eye, it would have been a subtle, almost unnoticeable difference, but for Killua it was as obvious as daylight. It was eerie, how well a trained person could control the emotions of those unprepared. Killua had been under the influence of Illumi's aura for a long while, and the thought he could do the same thing quite as easily left stray chills flowing down his back.

It was too late to pull back now.

"Electricity stops him, but only for an instant. If you don't want him to pull anything off..." Killua stopped, looked at straight ahead. In front of him, Nagisa returned the stare, straight into his eye. "You need someone fast."

"And you think that's you?" Karma asked. His tone was mocking but wary – he had seen what Killua could do but that wasn't going to stop him being his usual critical self.

"Yes," Killua said simply.

"How do we know you aren't going to try something stupid? We've seen plenty of assassins before."

"Yeah," another boy joined in. "We're the one who knows his weaknesses best."

Karma looked to Nagisa. The entire class looked at Nagisa. At the centre of attention, Nagisa simply looked uncomfortable. The class trusted his judgement, but it seemed he was unsure of his own.

"I think he's good…" Nagisa said. Killua shot him a (hopefully) supportive smile.

"Fine…" Kataoka said, finally.

Nagisa's opinion wasn't the only factor in this decision: they had seen Killua fight with Karasuma and knew he wasn't bluffing, or so Killua liked to think.

Glancing at the clock Killua saw it was almost time for the lesson to start. The tables and chairs were put back in their original place – rows and rows of square desks – and the class dispersed. Killua didn't know whether the class was satisfied with his contribution, but he sure wasn't going to fail. He could do this, if he played it right.

Then he could buy Alluka a really good present with the bounty money.

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