A/N: We're now approaching the end of this fic. Just one more chapter and a little extra bit to go! Prepare yourselves. ;)

It had been so long. There had been a chill that never seemed to fade, drifts of snow lingering at the roadside, nights that stretched on into fervent hope, days full of messages along with the occasional kiss, and months and months of their lives that slowly passed by, but finally, spring was on its way.

Yuuji could taste just a hint of it in the air. He felt a trace of it as he walked through the park with Nagisa, Yuuji's footsteps becoming lighter as if his body too could sense the subtle change towards warmth.

They walked together in the newly-reborn sunlight. Yuuji was wearing one of his normal outfits, plus a jacket from a high-class fashion outlet. Gotta keep up appearances. Beside him, Nagisa strode around in cargo pants and a light blue sweater. Somehow, the combination made him look adorable. The two of them weren't holding hands—they couldn't, someone might see. But somehow, Yuuji thought, he didn't mind it that much.

The two of them said no words. Silence stretched on through the park, scuffing up off of the dirt path and hovering in the space between the two of them and other people, the nearest stranger located many meters away. But it was a comfortable sensation. Not a nervous one. As it turned out, silence was not always something that needed to be filled.

For instance, as the two of them gradually rounded the next corner, Nagisa looked up at Yuuji and smiled. Yuuji felt his heart melt a little at the sight. He turned away so Nagisa wouldn't be able to tease him about his red-as-a-tomato blush. Not fair.

Yes, Yuuji thought, he loved Nagisa's smile. But he was beginning to love his kisses even more.

Eventually, Nagisa led them both to a secluded bench by a small pond. He sat down, Yuuji following after.

They sat for a minute, the sunlight reflecting off of the rippled water in front of them, the green crowns of trees reflecting and bleeding into the image. A few birds pecked around the water's edge on the opposite side.

All at once, Nagisa took a deep breath and let out a sigh. "We should be alone here," he said.

Yuuji nodded, distracted. Then the words caught up with him. Alone? Yuuji's heart thumped as his mind started working again with a flash. Just what was Nagisa hoping to do-

But the boy just looked up at the sky.

"Do you remember that day when the moon exploded?"

Yuuji blinked at Nagisa's words. A single expression flitted across Yuuji's face: Huh? But he too turned and looked up at the sky. Hanging there in the distance, smudged and pale against the expanse of blue horizon, was the crescent moon. That's right, Yuuji's thoughts whispered. The moon hadn't always looked like this.

It felt so long ago that it was hard to remember. But actually, Yuuji realized, it had only been around nine short months since the event. God, it was weird to see how fast humanity adjusted.

He remembered the day it had happened. Everyone running, screaming, traumatized, with an endless rush of people streaming by him and elbows jabbing into Yuuji's sides as he too instinctively ran for cover. There had been a sonic boom, rattling the very atmosphere itself, popping ears and knocking the elderly and infirm to the ground. Then came the sheltering in place, people going into silent, grim earthquake drill mode. Japan had preparations for earthquakes. But never anything like the destruction of the moon. Still, it seemed to be what people felt was right.

Once the sheltering was over, Yuuji remembered suddenly feeling like he had to go home, at once, immediately. He recalled the soreness of his feet after walking the dozens of kilometers it took to get back to his neighborhood, since the buses were all cancelled and the lines for trains were enormous. The warm arms of his mother once he finally stepped in the door. He honestly hadn't expected her to be home. Then later, the incessant ringing and buzzing of his phone, everybody wanting to check in with where their friends were, what was going on, did you see, hear, feel that too, oh god are you okay?

It hadn't just happened to Japan, though. The whole world had lost their moon.

In retrospect, they were lucky it had happened during the daytime, when most people were at work or school. Other nations experienced it at night, and got to see the final chunks of rock flying off, the outer mantle of the moon fizzling away when seen through a telescope lens and disintegrating into nothingness. Reports came in, the Internet soon filled with footage of people from other countries running and hiding as well. People assailed their governments, asking for an explanation, for a response, for something. But when nothing deadly happened and the world continued to spin through a few more days and nights, the fears began to die down. They always did.

Seventy percent, came the final reports. It was a mind-boggling amount. That was more than half. That was nearly three-quarters. It was the kind of change that might warp gravity, might shift an orbit. If it had happened on Earth, it might as well have meant the apocalypse, with all of the riot and damage that would occur on the remaining pieces alone. Seventy percent.

Scientists said that it was a miracle no cosmic-scale disaster happened in the wake of the event. Why the tides did not go out of whack when their greatest source of gravitational pull was depleted by seventy percent, why the quarter-rotation of the moon had not been disturbed, so that the Earth remained facing the exact same side of the moon as it had before, they could not answer. It had led to a deluge of new scientific theories. That was one thing, at least, the scientists admitted. The destruction of the moon had done much to reshape human understanding of the cosmos and its mind-boggling laws. If only such a level of progress could have been reached without needing to sacrifice the moon to get to it.

But at the end of all the panic, the message was clear. They would only be able to see a crescent moon for the rest of their lifetimes. It hung above them now in a sliver, not due to waxing or waning. It was simply like that all the time now. The moon, never again to be compared to a silver coin, hung in the sky forever wounded.

With a swooping sensation in his gut, Yuuji realized that soon there would be a generation of human beings that had never known anything different. There were children being born right now who would always grow up underneath a fingernail-shaped moon. They would think that was normal. In a hundred years, it would be. People would have to look at a picture of the full moon—round and glowing—in a textbook and choose for themselves if they wanted to believe that that past could have ever been possible. The thought made Yuuji feel like he was floating on air.

He remembered what his father had done on that day. And for many days after.

Yuuji's father had rushed to the studio, appearing on television once the frequencies had all been reset, being one of the first to offer a familiar face to the public. The man had gone to endless interviews, had hosted endless experts on his show, doing all he could to reach out to people and get the news out. And maybe, to comfort them.

Yuuji remembered sitting in the studio, his parents wanting to keep him near. He remembered his father's face, lines of stress carved down his cheeks, eyes beginning to droop at the edges with exhaustion, his hair styled but with a few strands loose. The haunted look in his father's eyes, empty with the stress of being an adult who, despite all his skills, could do nothing to stop or to reverse what had just happened. But also, the presence of grim determination. In that moment, he had looked over at Yuuji and smiled. Smiled even when no one else could.

The media had helped, also. Yuuji remembered the endless swarm of people around his father, jabbering into phones and sitting at their desks, furiously typing up reports and bringing the people updates with every second that new information was revealed. He watched them as they clicked and clattered away. At times, the media was an industry accused of sensationalism. But for now, they were the public's only ears to what was really going on.

It was one of the few times Yuuji could actually remember feeling proud of his father.

"Yeah," Yuuji said, his voice rough with memories. "I do remember."

Nagisa was quiet for a second. Then he spoke. "There's something I should have told you long ago. It's been a while, and well…you've become so involved in all of this, you deserve to know."

"You're not allowed to tell anyone that I told you, though," he addressed Yuuji. Nagisa held out his hand, one finger extended for a pinky swear. "Promise?"

Yuuji looked at the hand for one second and then hooked his pinky with Nagisa's. "Promise," he said, and shook.

And so Nagisa began.

Yuuji listened as Nagisa told him about the bizarre, awful bargain that his class had been offered at the beginning of the year. About what all of their training, special weapons, and razor-sharp focus on "assassination" had really been for. About the collaboration of multiple nations that had been going on being the world's back. About how Class E's skills had lead them into numerous times of trouble and had gotten them back out again. About how their target for the past almost-a-year had actually been their teacher.

And about how there was a giant yellow octopus that was going to destroy the world.

At the end of it all, Yuuji stared at Nagisa, eyes wide. "Are you serious?" he said, voice gone weak.

Nagisa nodded. His gaze was calm, steady and as open as the sky itself. A small smile was on his face. He looked already well-prepared for Yuuji's shocked response. For a moment, it reminded Yuuji almost exactly of how Yuuji had seen him once long ago, the two of them sitting in the space behind the Class E building, Nagisa having just said something that flipped Yuuji's entire world upside down, gazing gently towards him and saying in response to his protests, 'Do I look like I'm lying?'

Yuuji grit his teeth. Dammit. He looked just as honest as he did back then. Yuuji had no choice but to believe him.

Privately, Yuuji felt the resistant side of him flop down, defeated. In fact, if he was being honest with himself, he already did believe Nagisa. But a flying monster teacher that moved at Mach 20? A mass of sentient tentacles that was capable of blowing up the Earth? A national secret calmly showing up to teach homeroom? Kids being taught murder techniques at their middle school for 9 months? It felt necessary to give something so crazy the amount of skepticism that it deserved.

"So…there's some kind of giant octopus-creature?" Yuuji said, feeling his thoughts bubble on the edge of hysteria. Dimly, he realized that his eyes were focused on nothing, his fingers digging into the bench besides him.

"Yup."

"And that's what you've been fighting this entire time?"

"Yup."

"And when the energy in his body finally runs out, he'll take seventy percent of the Earth with him? Like the moon?"

"Yup."

Then Nagisa shrugged. "I mean, he might not explode," the boy said. "There's only something like a 1% chance of it actually happening. But lots of other organizations don't know that." He frowned. "And something tells me it's not going to be that easy. Besides, no matter what, all of this will end somehow. We can't just ignore our deadline." Then, in a softer voice, "I doubt he would let us."

Yuuji barely heard the boy's words. His mind had gone foggy, capable of holding only those thoughts of most importance and panic. He could feel himself start to hyperventilate. "And you have to kill this thing? In how many months?"

"Uh…well, less than one," Nagisa admitted. "Our deadline is in March."

Yuuji blinked. The pressure that had been building up inside of him seemed to burst at Nagisa's words, leaking out slowly in something that he was sure that, had it been audible, would have almost certainly sounded like high-pitched screaming.

The entirety of all of his hopes and dreams seemed to close in on Yuuji all at once. He felt the weight of the world—cities, discoveries, human progress, human lives—come down heavy on his back. It would all be destroyed. In an instant, one day, when he was least expecting it, it was all going to vanish. In a flash, just like the moon. They would all be consigned to nothingness. All at once, his plans past March shattered and broke, disappearing into something pointless. He had been going to go to high school. He had been going to meet new people, see new places. He had been going to live out his entire life, but now…

The end of the world…

"Woah!" Nagisa grabbed Yuuji's shoulder and held him steady. "Are you okay? Not gonna faint, are you?"

Yuuji gulped. For some reason, the concern in Nagisa's voice irked him. So what if he did? That would be the sensible thing to do.

"No," he said instead, waving Nagisa off. "I'm fine. Well, not fine, obviously, but as fine as it gets. For now, I mean. Considering that the world won't be fine. Soon. Oh dear god…"

Nagisa nodded. He kept one hand on Yuuji's back. The feeling was reassuring. "It's a lot to take in," he admitted. "I guess my classmates and I are just used to it by now. But don't worry. We're all aware of what's at stake. The only thing I can promise is that we're prepared to put everything that we've learned to the test. We haven't spent the whole year in an Assassination Classroom for nothing."

Silence fell for a few minutes, the pond stretching out in a calming blue before them, a brief wind rustling through the trees, the sunlight suddenly feeling even more sweet where it touched Yuuji's skin.

It was all so…alive. Yuuji never wanted it to end.

"Nagisa…" he spoke. "This is the craziest thing I've ever heard. But," Yuuji took a deep breath. "But I trust you."

"You can do it," he said, seeing Nagisa's expression change to surprise out of the corner of his eye. "You and all your friends. I…I believe in you." He took the boy's hand and squeezed.

Nagisa's expression was one of pure astonishment for a moment. Then it softened, a grateful smile dawning across his face. "Thank you," Nagisa said, and it sounded like he meant it. He leaned into Yuuji's side, resting his head against Yuuji's shoulder. "You know, if this doesn't work out, or if…something unthinkable happens, I'm glad that I met you. If I hadn't had your support, this would be a lot harder."

He pulled away from Yuuji's shoulder and smiled back at him. "I look forward to seeing you on the other side of this."

Yuuji just nodded. "Yeah," he whispered around a sudden blockage in his throat.

The two of them discussed things for a while. They talked about how Nagisa would focus on saving the world full-time now, with the deadline approaching. They talked about how, no matter what happened, Yuuji would not—could not—tell a single soul. And this time, Yuuji understood. He understood completely—this was not something with which he could get in Nagisa's way, not something with which he could play heroics. This was the most important moment in Nagisa's story, and if Yuuji's only role was to be the motivation needed to get through to the other side, he would gladly be so.

They discussed what to do if things didn't go as planned. What to do if it all went sour, if another assassin team was brought in, if the world's governments got involved. They discussed all that they could.

When all that could be said was said, and all that could be felt was felt, and when Yuuji was just maybe actually starting to accept the idea of a Mach 20 flying spaghetti sensei into his long-term memory, they at last stood and left the bench. Together they finished their walk, walking a bit closer to each other than they had been before. The ends of their sleeves brushed.

They said goodbye at the entrance to the park, Nagisa needing to go home a different way than where Yuuji was headed. Just before they parted, Yuuji held up one hand and extended his pinky finger, winking as if to remind Nagisa that he would keep his promise. Nagisa stifled a laugh at the sight.

Then he turned and was gone.

Yuuji stood alone by the park gates, content just to stare at the world around him for a moment. As scary as all this was, he couldn't help but feel the distinct sense of release somewhere inside his heart. All secrets had been revealed. Something which had always been hidden behind a tightly-vaulted door was now open. And as he watched the blue-and-white form of Nagisa fade into the distance, Yuuji realized that he couldn't think of any other hands that he would rather place the world in.

A sigh escaped Yuuji. So, that was it, huh? The end of the world, always a plot device in books or movies, was now just a moment's breath away. He looked up once more at the permanent-crescent moon.

Then Yuuji brought his gaze back down. He moved, walking off and heading out of the park. One thing was for sure. He was going to spend some time with his family.

Afterword:

I always wished that we could have gotten a bit more detail in canon about The Day The Moon Exploded. I understand it's played for laughs because AssClass is a comedy series, but honestly, the details are pretty scary to think about. Kudos to the fic "Judecca" for having a chapter or two regarding the moon-exploding-events that helped to inspire some of the description, as well as Yuuji's father's role.