"Don't move."
The sudden violation of tranquillity sends chills down his spine.
Gakushuu curses under his breath. How? How did someone creep up on him from behind without a single giveaway? Gakushuu didn't hear anything. Hell, he didn't even feel a presence. And that weakness, that one shortcoming has now resulted in him landing in the hands of this crazy man.
In those few seconds, Gakushuu's mind has already run through countless ways to fight back. Yet every move he mentally plays out ends with his jugular and carotid slashed. The knife presses on his neck, cold and unforgiving - and no matter how strong and fast Gakushuu moves, he can't outdo one swift cut of an opponent twice his size. Plus, he can't even see the assaulter.
To rub salt into the wound, Gakushuu doubts he'd even be able to outrun him. He may or may not have gotten a terrible bruise on his leg which hurt upon any movement.
So right now, only one option remains.
"What do you want," Gakushuu asks carefully, willing his voice to steady.
"You know what I want, now give it to me before I decide to cut off a finger or two," the guy hisses.
"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."
The pressure increases, breaking skin and Gakushuu feels a sting before blood drops on his shirt.
"Don't play dumb, give it to me this very instant. I lost too much time playing hide and seek with you lot," the man seethes, clearly irritated.
Gakushuu knows he can't afford to mess with him, but neither can he fulfil that request. He has no idea what it even is, in the first place. He forces his breaths to come slower and deeper, the panic threatening to swallow him whole.
"Look, I really don't know what you want. I am just-"
"Oh, you won't fool me, brat. If it's not with you, then with those two classmates of yours, isn't that right?" His hold tightens. "Who has it? The redhead? That midget?"
Gakushuu suspects it's his brother who holds said something in possession but hell would freeze over before he'd let that information slip and endanger Karma. Yet playing coy obviously doesn't work with this man and Gakushuu scrambles to find alternatives, ways to keep his neck attached to his head and all fingers intact in the foreseeable future.
While of thoughts whirl in his head, his attacker's patience wears off: "Not up to speaking? Fine, wait until I-"
But before he could even begin to describe all the horrors he'd subject Gakushuu to, an overly sweet voice interrupts him: "Hold on a second."
It comes from even further behind, out of Gakushuu's view. He hears the person approaching, his feet striking the damp earth heavily and can already tell that it's yet another strongly built individual.
However, for that split second, the man who holds Gakushuu captive turns around, the knife lifting from his throat slightly.
A chance.
It's a gamble, but it presents the only sliver of hope and he decides to take it. Gakushuu grabs the man's hand with both of his and pushes it away from his neck with all strength, head ducking in the opposite direction and wringing himself out of the hold. It works, the moment of surprise on his side, and the assailant buckles, letting the knife fall down.
Without a second to spare, Gakushuu dashes into a sprint.
His heart races so loud it's difficult to tell how close his pursuers are to catching up. Gakushuu winces, his leg screaming in pain having to adjust to the rough surface of the forest, lest he wants to trip on branches and stones. He doesn't know where exactly he's going, only that it's not the direction where Karma's hiding right now, and that's good enough.
But even Gakushuu, top of his class in sprints, can't outrun two professional fighters forever. It becomes more obvious when the sound of his heartbeat gets drowned out by the series of curses from behind, increasingly louder.
So he decides to fight. His chances aren't phenomenal per se, but there isn't a knife stuck to his neck anymore and that's already a leap forward. And while his martial arts instructors always drilled into him that the best defence is to run, they also taught him enough that it wasn't his only option. If he was smart about it, he could maybe even snatch a weapon or two (which he also got enough practice in, after dealing with Karma's shenanigans for years).
Gakushuu stops in his tracks, bends down and grabs a fistful of earth. Then he turns around and throws the dirt into the men's eyes, blinding them temporarily. He throws a hard punch to the first guy's solar plexus which makes him double in pain and then strikes the other's neck. It works out great and Gakushuu's already reaching for one of the butterfly knives hanging on his pants.
But the shock factor only goes that far. Scarily enough, the two recover quickly and slash the air between them, making Gakushuu fall back. He rolls away instantly and avoids getting hit in the stomach. The attacks don't slow down but he's holding up his own, even landing a good few hits on them. Except Gakushuu fights like he always does, mindless of his own injuries and when he tries to kick them in the face, it's him who suffers the most.
The impact is feeble, restrained by the ache in Gakushuu's leg and the man catches it, throwing Gakushuu to the side. His body hits the ground, knocking the breath out of him.
"This fucking brat," the first guy groans.
It takes Gakushuu a while before the stars dispel themselves from his vision, only to be replaced by the sight of two leather boots in front of his face. They belong to the man who attacked them in the hotel, except now he's no longer cloaked (must have lost his cover while chasing after Gakushuu, probably), revealing short light hair and blue eyes.
"You can do whatever you want with him later, for now-" the second guy with a disgustingly sweet voice pulls Gakushuu by the collar of his shirt, making it harder for him to breathe properly, "-where is that thing?"
Staring directly into the man's face, Gakushuu realizes that he knows it. As someone who deals with documents, employees and their involvement at school on a regular basis, it wasn't difficult to recognize this man from Kunigigaoka's list of new teachers (in this case, the former teacher).
Takaoka Akira, assigned to teach the E-class PE. Formerly active in the army. It has always struck Gakushuu why such an overqualified individual would suddenly be hired at school, to teach the failures of their school on top of that.
However, the man in front of him looks nothing like his application photo. There are new scars on his fat face, ugly and big, and his eyes permanently wide, fibrosed into madness. His hair stands up in various places, messy and unkept just like the stub on his chin.
It's an unearthly sight, one that would make a normal person shrink in fear. But Gakushuu feels nothing but revolt deep in his stomach, churning at the sight of a madman. This thing, this runaway psychiatric patient, spent weeks as a PE teacher to his younger brother?
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Gakushuu repeats for the -what- 10th time in the last half an hour. "And even if I did know, I don't have it."
"Still trying to lie?" the knife guy grumbles.
"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?" Takaoka's smile widens. "You indeed are a splitting image of the chairman."
He lets go of Gakushuu then, letting his body fall to the ground before pinning it down with his foot.
"Your daddy made me really angry, you know? He humiliated me, fired me..."
For all the hate and criticism he bears towards his father, this is the one decision the principal made that Gakushuu understood and fully approved of.
"Don't you think the chairman deserves a punishment?" Takaoka asks. "What if he for example doesn't get his beloved little son back? Hm? That would be nice. That would be perfect. Would it hurt him? Would it make him beg on his knees?"
That train of thought amuses Gakushuu.
"In your dreams," he snickers, but it seems like the wrong answer because the pressure on his ribcage increases.
"What's so funny?" Takaoka hisses, the smile on his face gone in a split second.
"Your naivety, that's what," Gakushuu answers, though his voice comes out breathy from the pain. "My father couldn't care less about me. In fact, he'd probably rejoice at getting rid of one more disappointment."
This bitter remark has an effect on both of his captors. The psycho's eyebrows raise, an obvious shift in his mood, and he finally puts his dirty foot away. Kneeling down, Takaoka grabs a fistful of Gakushuu's shirt and makes him sit up.
"And here I thought you were the spoilt little golden boy. Seems like the chairman made your life hard as well." He shakes his head in false sympathy. "Don't you want to make him pay? We can work together. You help us get what we want and we help you with revenge. Doesn't that sound great? Doesn't it?"
Despite the offer being quite interesting, Gakushuu has bigger fish to fry and different priorities than just revenge. The safety of his baby brother for example. Besides, their attempt at coercing, blackmailing or anyhow affecting the Asano Gakuho would undoubtedly fail. As if the likes of Takaoka or his collaborator could ever even hope to reach that demon's level.
"Sounds stupid as shit," he scoffs (self-preservation skills be damned), leaving Takaoka seething. Gakushuu hits the ground again, this time with a kick to his side.
"Well? What do we do with him?" The knife guy asks then.
"He belongs to the A class, those shits don't know a thing."
"So he's useless?"
It takes a minute for Takaoka to answer. But when he does, Gakushuu's insides turn.
"No, not quite." He pulls Gakushuu up by his hair. "He can make for a good hostage. And before that, my punching bag. I need to relieve all the frustration after all. You don't mind, do you?" Takaoka sings, venom pouring out of his voice.
Gakushuu does mind, actually.
But Takaoka doesn't wait for an answer.
Karma's sure of it by now. Something's wrong.
Gakushuu failed to return even fifteen minutes after storming off and while that didn't necessarily mean anything to Nagisa-kun, that marked the breach of their unspoken time limit. Karma kicked up a fuss about it, not that much caring about hiding his worry anymore and both of them walked the grounds in search.
It's when neither of them find him or any traces of the strawberry blond in fact, that the worry blows up into panic.
"Nagisa-kun, you got anything?" Karma huffs, forcefully pushing the ache in his muscles aside.
"I'm sorry, Karma-kun. Nothing. Do you think he was-"
"Maybe. I don't know," he replies, wiping the sweat away. The thought of Gakushuu getting captured makes his heart race a mile per second.
Gakushuu is a very good fighter, smart about choosing his battles too. If anything, he'd be the one to retreat or run away should trouble find its way to him (unlike Karma, who would gladly engage no matter the odds). The fact that he disappeared for so long without giving them any sign only meant one thing - ambush.
Worse, maybe the assassin got fed up and took Gakushuu out once he realized he didn't have Koro-sensei.
No. Fuck no. Karma purges that idea from his head as fast as it came. His crafty genius of a brother is fine.
Still, he feels sick. His stomach churns despite the lack of substance and there's pure acid rising up his throat. It's both from the abrupt movements clashing with his concussion and from dread, none of which he can help.
Gakushuu is his only real family. If anything happens to him...
Karma gulps, suppressing the intrusive thoughts and urge to throw up. He needs to focus.
Where would Gakushuu go? When he stormed out, where would he take a turn? Where would he stop? Karma needed to move. Move and leave the anxiety behind.
"Koro-sensei, what should we do?" he hears Nagisa-kun ask behind him.
Their teacher however offers no quick solutions, sweating small droplets instead. Normally, Karma would wonder where that water even comes from and where it goes, how can any being even breathe in such an isolated room, but right now, he only cared about one thing.
"This is indeed a terrible situation. Could you try climbing up a tree to search? Probably not, the forest is quite dense-"
"Asano-kun!" Karma calls out, discretion be damned. It's clear at this point that the assassin must have caught Gakushuu so might as well just attract his attention and save themselves the time and effort.
His eyes scan the area, each tree and bush, every leaf and rock on the ground. For the longest time, he sees nothing.
Until something shiny catches his attention.
Karma runs there, the pain in his ankle forgotten and he crouches down to find a knife.
A very familiar-looking knife.
"Nagisa-kun! I've got something!" Karma yells, his voice hoarse from all the screaming.
His friend appears by his side in no time and takes a good look at the weapon. "That's the assassin's knife. I saw it hanging off his belt," he confirms.
Where Karma found it, the moss seemed more trampled. The leaves accumulated on certain spots and missed completely on others. It wouldn't have been a far stretch to assume those were signs people, of a fight having taken place here.
Further from that spot, more prominent blotches of dirt caved into the ground. Footsteps. Too easy to spot, especially for an assassin who should be trained to not leave any traces behind.
It must be a trap.
Still. Trap or not, Gakushuu's life might be in danger.
"We need to follow the footsteps," Karma declares, pointing at them.
Nagisa-kun doesn't protest, thankfully. Both are aware of how high risk the situation is right now, so they carefully sneak their way forth, constantly on the lookout.
It doesn't take even ten full minutes for them to start hearing noises.
One of them is Gakushuu's pained voice.
Karma, better hurry before Takaoka beats your brother to death
Nagisa... get ready
Shuu... I'm sorry?
