Hello, Satsuki's back! I am sorry for the delay, I really am! Honestly speaking I've been engaging in lots of activities lately - taking up violin, chemistry competition and I'm doing my german certificate this month. It's quite a lot but at least I managed to write something down :)

I thank you all for the reviews and support, I know it's unbearable when the updates suddenly get so irregular and slow, but please bear with me. I really am trying to keep up and I assure you that I still love Assclass and the characters. I have some plot twists planned so I'm not abandoning this! Don't worry and stay tunned XDD

Lots of love, your Satsuki!


Asano's P.O.V.

"Don't move,"

The sudden violation of the tranquility I was engulfed in just a while ago sent chills down my spine.

Someone had crept from behind me without my knowledge. And now I was on mercy to that crazy killer. My mind went through countless of ways how to fight back but all of that was quite useless with the knife so close to my artery, the attacker out of my vision and most probably twice of my own weight (which in combat played quite a significant role). I also doubted that I would be able to take this most certainly trained man on my own, taking into consideration that my ankle still kind hurt from the fall.

"What do you want," I asked carefully, not giving off the tension building up in my chest.

"You know what I want, now give it to me before I reconsider and decide to cut off a finger or two of yours," the guy hissed.

"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about,"

The knife under my neck was now pressed even closer and I felt it cut through my skin, blood drops falling down. Not a very pleasant feeling, not so surprisingly.

"Don't play dumb, give it to me this very instant. I have lost too much time playing hide and seek with you lot," the tone of his sounded extremely poisonous and irritated.

Obviously I couldn't afford to anger him anymore but that was currently more or less impossible, since he wanted something from me and I didn't know what that was.

Either way, I did my best to sound as truthful as possible: "Look, I really don't know what you want. I am just-"

"Oh, you won't fool me, brat. You or one of those classmates of yours have him, isn't that right?" his hold on me tightened. "Who has it? You? The redhead? That blue midget?"

I suspected it was my brother who had that something in possession but hell, what was I supposed to say? If I repeated that I had no fucking idea what that fucktard was on about, he would very gladly gut me right then and there. He was way too near and in advantage for me to strike back. This was seriously, seriously bad.

While my stream of thoughts whirled around in my head, it seems his patience already wore off: "Not up to speaking? Oh, I will make you-"

But before he could even start with - what was it that he threatened be before, cutting off fingers? - a somewhat sweet yet very sick voice interrupted him: "Wait a wee bit,"

It was from behind so I couldn't see the person approaching us, but the man who had me trapped turned around, his hold slightly loosening up. I took the small chance and disarmed him in a quick motion, the knife falling down. In the second he had yet to realize what happened, I freed myself and ran as quick as possible.

My ankle burnt as hell so it was extremely hard to adjust to the diverse surface of the forest full of broken branches and stones all around. I heard steps of two man behind me, to my displeasure getting closer and closer, accompanied with curses and death threats.

Obviously I couldn't outrun them. So I decided to fight. Before, I couldn't do that because of the distance and the weapon too close to my vitals. But martial arts was my forte and taking two men would, although of course not that easily as usual, be managable. Besides, after having to deal with Karma's dirty tricks, I was sure there wasn't anything left to surprise me in a fight.

Stopping in my tracks, I stood in a combat posture, fists ready. They noticed and did the same, attacking right away.

The first few seconds went very well for me. I successfully protected myself and even managed to strike once in a while. They were both pretty pissed off, all right, fuming like chimneys and eyes giving off their desire to cut me into small pieces and throw them to sharks.

Well, it seems they would get to fullfil that pursuit of theirs.

I made the mistake by trying to kick them when I forgot I was unstable on the other leg. They saw the sudden disbalance and used it. With one hard punch, I ended up on the ground, coughing, feeling so sick the world was spinning.

"This brat will fucking suffer," I didn't see anyone of them, only the leather boots they were wearing, but I recognized this voice as that of the first guy who found me. The one with blue eyes and knives. And the one who attacked us at the hotel. And just before. And now. The point is - I was screwed.

"You can do whatever you want with him later, for now-" the disgustingly-sweet-voiced guy pulled me by the colar of my shirt, making it harder for me to breathe properly, "Where is that thing?"

I now saw properly into face of the second man. And I realized I have already seen him in the documents of Kunigigaoka's new teachers (in this case, the former teacher).

Akira Takaoka, assigned to teach the E-class PE. He was formerly in the army. It has always struck me why he would suddenly be hired at school, to have such failures on to teach on top of that.

He looked completely different from the photos though. There were new scars on his fat face, ugly and big, and his eyes completely mad. His hair was a mess and his chin looked like forgot how to shave. Most people would probably shrink in fear having to look him in the eyes from such proximity, but I felt disdain in my stomach. This person was a wacko. The guy with knives and explosives at least looked like someone with a brain, Takaoka reminded me more of a psychiatric patient on loose.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," I repeated for the -what- 10th time in the last half an hour. "And even if I did know, I don't have it,"

"This little-" the other one (I will call him the knife guy) tried to step in but got abruptly stopped.

"Can't be helped, can it? You don't belong to the E class. I recognize you, kid. Asano Gakushuu, son of Asano Gakuho, isn't it?" His smile got even more twisted. "You indeed are a splitting image of the chairman."

With that, he threw me down and then put a leg on my chest, the weight making it feel like he was crushing my ribs.

"Your daddy made me really angry, you know? He humiliated me and then fired me,"

I hated my father and all, but that was like the one decision he made that I did understand and approve of.

"Don't you think he deserves a punishement?"

Well of course I do, but I didn't like where this was going.

"What if he for example didn't get his beloved only son back? Hm? That would be nice. That would be perfect. Would it hurt him? Would it make him beg on his knees?"

Okay, I know I must have been made, but I couldn't help but laugh at that:

"In your dreams," I snickered but earned myself a kick in the side.

"What is so funny," Takaoka hissed, his leg ready to hit me again.

"Your naivity, that's what's funny," Aaaand yeah, there goes a broken rib. But I couldn't shut my mouth up, could I?

"My father wouldn't give a shit about me. He'd actually be rather happy to have someone punish me for the failure at the exams,"

This bitter remark was meant only to myself but both of the men heard it. The psycho then chuckled in a somewhat satisfied way, making me sit and then bending down on the same level as me.

"And here I thought you were the spoilt little golden boy. Seems like the chairman made your life hard as well."

He took my chin to look me in the eyes: "Don't you want to make him pay? We can work together. You will help us get what we want and we will help you with revenge. Doesn't that sound great? Doesn't it?"

Despite the offer being quite interesting, I had more things on my mind, much more important than revenge (which would by the way one hundred percent fail anyway, coz this was my father). The safety of my baby brother for example.

That's why I refused.

"What do we do with him?" The knife guy suddenly asked as I lay leaning on the tree.

They weren't even trying to hold me down anymore, I think that the pain and fatigue were quite apparent now so they believed I wouldn't be able to just stand up and run again any time soon.

"He is from the A class, those shits don't know a thing."

"So he's useless?"

It took a minute for Takaoka to answer. But when he did, I got chills.

"No," he turned to his buddy, "he can make a good hostage. But before that, he will have to be my punching bag. I need to relieve all the frustration and hatred. You don't mind, do you?"

I actually did but heyy it's not like I had any right to object, did I?

Have I said this guy was a psycho?


Karma's P.O.V.

We knew something was wrong.

Gakushuu hasn't returned for more than fifteen minutes already so we went around to search for him. He was nowhere near and I feared something has happened to him.

"Nagisa-kun, you got anything?" I called out in despair, not knowing what to do. My brother was not someone to idle around for long while there was danger lurking outside. He was much smarter than that.

"I'm sorry, Karma-kun. Nothing. Do you think he was-"

"I don't know," I tried to ignore the expression Nagisa-kun was giving me. I didn't want to even think of what would happen if he indeed were captured.

Sure, Gakushuu was a very good fighter, a smartass as well, but his arogance is also quite a problem (now I see the family resemblance). Not to mention assassins were something completely different from controlled fighting in judo and other martial arts. Here you were supposed to strike the opponent right away, one quick motion. No fight. Just killing.

But they wouldn't kill him, an innocent (weeeell...) student, right?

Either way, the knots in my stomach only grew more and more. To the point I was getting sick. No, seriously, I felt sick. Might be the concussion.

I gulped, supressing the urge to throw up and collapse, instead focusing on a much more important issue.

Where would he go?

I decided to follow my instincts. No other option right now and just standing in one place with anguish eating you up was no good.

"Koro-sensei, what should we do?" I heard Nagisa-kun asking behind me.

Our teacher however had no smart thing to say or a tip we could follow. He was also sweating, made me wonder how he could even breathe with such isolation. Did he even breathe?

"This is indeed a bad situation. Try climbing up a tree and look around? Or not, the forest is quite de-"

"Asano-kun!" I called out, not even feeling up to listening what the yellow thing had to say. I knew that it was one of the stupidest but also best things to do. Stupid because we would attrack attention. Best because we would attract attention - as well. The difference was only whose attention. I hoped it would be the strawberry blonde's.

We searched for at least twenty minutes. Going around and shouting (me).

Then I caught a glimpse of something shiney. I walked closer towards the thing on the ground, picking it up.

It was a knife.

"Nagisa-kun! I've got something!" my voice was hoarse from all the shouting.

The bluehead ran to me, taking a good look at the weapon: "That's the assassin's knife. I saw it hanging off his belt."

Around the place we stood, the grass was quite damaged from being stepped on. I could safely asume two people were here.

I cursed.

So Gakushuu really was in trouble.

"We need to follow the footsteps," I declared and immediately focused on any piece of ground that had anything resembling traces of people walking.

I found lots of broken branches as well and that was all I needed. It didn't even take five minutes and I heard noises.

One of them being the my brother's pained voice.