Hello, my dear readers :) The new chapter's up and I thank you all for favoriting, following and reviewing this story. And not giving it up. I'm slow at updates, so thank you again.

I just wanted to remind you that this story isn't going to strictly follow the canon storyline since it focuses on the family stuff XD

That being said, have fun!


When Asano confronted the rest of the virtuosos with the very same issue he talked about with Ren, he expected to be met with disagreement - at best. However, much to his surprise, all they did was meekly nod and even verbally agree. It was only then that he realized that for a while now, the scornful trash-talking they enjoyed so much was, in fact, a sign of an underlying feeling of insecurity and confusion.

The truth was - they were intimidated by the rapid growth of the E-class but at the same time, they started to respect it. And that confused them. As it did with Asano. That's why, when it was their leader who brought up this fact, they must have understood that they weren't the only ones who had this view and that it didn't mean there was something wrong with them.

They were all just humans, after all. Clueless teenagers still searching for their way in life.

That's why Asano remained positive when they all got called into the chairman's office. He relayed everything he and his classmates (friends? was it too early for that? No? Okay.) agreed on to his father, about their opinion of the E-class, of their own class, of the chairman's teaching methods. They all stood strong and together.

He didn't think anything could break that. Not even those three minutes he has been asked for by the chairman, the mere three minutes his father wanted so that he could talk with the virtuosos alone.

And as if the whole world wanted to laugh at his face, those thoughts had been overturned the very moment he stepped back into the office, only to find his friends with horrified faces, muttering gibberish.

"Wha-WHAT DID YOU DO?!" The boy almost screamed, his mind getting clouded by the thick mudded air in the office.

His father's voice was cold, colder than that time he beat up the foreign students: "I just fanned the flames of their hatred, that's all. It only takes a whispered word or three for those "connections" of yours to collapse."

Gakushuu bit his lip and glanced at his friends. From what he saw, that wasn't hatred. That was fear. That was despair forced into their brains, terror at every word they were told by this monster he called father. He no longer felt surprised when he realized that.

"The strength I teach is nothing so fragile," the man stated without any hesitance.

And it made the younger Asano scoff inside. This? This is what he calls strength? This primitive though understandable reaction called self-preservation instinct? Of course the students' resolution would buckle. Hell, they were all kids. Kids with no other option than to give in. Because no matter how strong a person is, there will always be something they fear and this man here was specialized in taking advantage of that.

Knowing that nothing was lost yet, he remained hopeful and carried on. He even texted his four friends in the evening, offering words of comfort. His father was home the whole evening but they did not say more than one or two sentences to each other. Despite it being so huge, the house felt stuffy. The only place he could put his guard down a little was his room and even then he had to keep an eye on the door. If there has ever been a time he felt fully comfortable in his house, he didn't remember it.

He had been studying for four hours already when he realized he forgot to check his phone for any replies. Opening it, he noticed only two notifications. One from Ren and the other from Karma.

Ren's text actually included a response from all four virtuosos. They still believed in Asano but the things that have been imprinted into their minds weren't going to leave that soon. He expected that. He didn't blame them, only hoped that it wouldn't break them.

Karma's text was coded. Both of them figured that if it were the chairman, they couldn't rely on Latin anymore. He could learn it to understand most of their texts in under two days - that was unless he had already mastered the language. That's why they agreed on the simple yet effective book cipher, the catch being that they didn't use an actual book but Asano's literature notebook (Karma received a copy). Simply said, they texted each other numbers, which gave the position of the particular word, the order of numbers being the place of the word, the line it was in and then page.

It was slow but actually fool-proof.

When the boy finally deciphered the text message, he kind of wanted to throw the phone out of the window. He just wasted 3 precious minutes of his life on a "You would look good in a maid dress up".

Hell yeah he would look good, he looked good in everything.

What do you want? he sent back and didn't even have to wait two full minutes for the phone to beep.

We bought a maid dress for blue hair-kun but it's too big. Might fit you. Try it. (Asano laughed at the "blue hair-kun" because he didn't have any names written in his notebook and Karma's way of dealing with that was awesome)

And bellow, there was a picture of an actual flipping maid dress with pink ribbons and oh my god was it ugly.

Ew. That's an abomination and you know it. Now what do you want for real? he wrote because his brother always started conversations with something ridiculous when he had something on his heart. This was apparently one of those times.

Yeah I know, I was just messing with you. Wanted to ask what's up with the rumors about chairman snapping and shit.

Now, Asano would like to mention one thing: There is no "shit" in his literature notebook. So if a normal person was to read this message, they would see a series of numbers and at the end, the word "shit". It was funny but the boy was never going to admit that.

Things happened, I and the 4 V told him we no longer want to follow his teaching and he kinda lost it? Brainwashed them all. Wants to take over the lessons to prove his methods are effective. Borderline mad. Have to study, good night.

And with that, he put the phone away to carry on reviewing his notes. It was getting pretty late and if he wanted to sleep at least four hours, he should hurry up and stop fretting about what was yet to happen. It wasn't like he could help or prevent it anyhow by worrying.

Turns out, he was quite right to feel uneasy. The next day, his father turned up in the classroom and at that very moment, all his instincts screamed. The chatter in class A turned into eerie silence which then got broken by the new teacher and his announcement.

Ten minutes into the lecture and it became apparent that the speed at which the students were forced to learn was over the top. He saw sweat falling down from their foreheads, the tremors in their hands after writing too much, too quick. There was no doubt the chairman wouldn't fail to... "motivate" them to go past their limits and study like crazy. But was this the purpose of education? Cramming textbooks for short-term, use that knowledge to achieve high results only and then forget it all, burnt out? Yes, Gakushuu might sound hypocritical speaking about the results. But everything he had learned, he learned willingly, in his pace and with the belief that it would bring something into his life. Understanding, experience, maybe even passion.

What he was being a witness to right now? This was borderline emotional abuse.

How he failed to see this earlier remained a mystery to him.

Just when the boy was about to say something, his father addressed him: "Asano-kun? You can go home and study on your own. With your skills, you will keep the top spot if you just stay on your guard," his eyes turned colder than he thought was possible, all the traces of humanity absent.

"I will be the one to lead everyone upward."

And with that, there wasn't any room for the boy to argue back.

The strawberry blond felt honestly anxious about what to do next. He had considered all his options by the time he left the school and the one that seemed most logical was also the one that proved to be the hardest.

So here he stood, the school's number one, the definition of pride itself, bowing his head to the E-class and asking them for help. He didn't do well at first, not being able to prevent the insulting insinuations towards them because habits die hard but as he spoke longer, more sincerely, he dropped the facade.

"You can only gain so much strength in hating, scorning, misleading your foes," he said and it tasted so strange on his tongue, it tasted so humble and yet true, almost unreal.

The E-class noticed the raw feelings of his speech and dropped all the initial hostility aimed towards the boy.

Karma, on the other hand, was a different case. He would be lying if he said he didn't love seeing his brother like this - unpretentious, no longer speaking like the world belonged to him. But at the same time, he hated it. Gakushuu had never looked this defeated and it made Karma feel uneasy and to some extent scared because his whole life, even if there was nothing certain, nothing for him to hold on, there was always the reassurance of his unbreakable older brother. The brother who always kept his head high and never wavered.

Not knowing how to approach this unsettling situation, the redhead did what he always did: tried to make it less serious. And so, he spited the strawberry blonde and completely destroyed the mood.


"To my defense, I was freaked!" Karma reasoned when he got confronted with that fact. The screech in his voice made the latter squint and he already wanted to lecture him about being so noisy, but then he remembered that they were sitting in the special, secret place of theirs. The one they had been using to meet up since forever ago.

Not really surprised but liking the frustration painted over his younger brother's face, Asano snorted: "Yeah, but that was plain disrespectful."

"Disrespectful? Who's that? I don't know her,"

"Don't you meme me, brat,"

"Oh my god, you know what a meme is," the boy gasped, feigning tears.

"Yeah I do, now shut up," and with that, he completely dropped the subject. Instead, he focused on the fact that finally, after everything that has happened and the chairman too busy putting the exam questions together, he finally had the opportunity to catch his breath. The last week has been hell. And hell was a nice way of putting it.

He might have not been subjected to the emotional torture like his classmates, but the pressure he felt only increased as each day passed. His father still said few to no words to him outside of when it came to the exams and what was worse, he hasn't put that demonical mask down yet. Usually, there were pauses - times when he somehow looked like a normal human, normal father even, times when they exchanged death threats with only about 80% of seriousness in them. But now, it was pure concentration and bloodlust oozing out of him.

It didn't make Gakushuu feel afraid. It made him worried, as strange as it sounded. About what? He did not know. But it definitely was not for that man. The best he could describe it was more like anxiety before something big happening. Something bad. As if the situation now wasn't bad enough.

"I can hear you thinking," Karma stated out of nowhere, pulling the older boy from his train of thoughts.

"Funnily enough, I can never hear you thinking," he huffed, not really meaning it.

"Yeah, right, whatever. I bet you're just scared I'm gonna kick your ass tomorrow in the exams," the redhead teased back.

"You wish."

"Right," the younger one replied.

He didn't say anything after that, even when Asano gave him the time and space to go on and make fun of him. Still, nothing came. And that was strange.

"What's wrong?" the strawberry blonde turned his full attention at his little brother and yes, he meant the little brother thing, because looking at that hunched posture and nervous eyes, he was taken back to the times when this boy here used to come to him when troubled, spilling it all out without any shame or reserve. He missed those days. But they were gone. Have been gone since they both started school, where they have been cultivated to trust no one and care about no one.

"Nothing."

"You don't expect me to buy that,"

"You don't expect me to actually tell you,"

"Why?"

"Because there are things I-" he stopped abruptly then, realizing that he was entering a dangerous zone. Gakushuu didn't know what that, but judging from the swirl of emotions that crossed Karma's face in a matter of milliseconds, he knew that it wasn't something to joke about.

"Things I can't tell even you," he finished at last, not really satisfied with his own reply.

"What-"

"Nothing. Whatever. Doesn't matter. I can deal," the boy trailed off, suddenly getting very interested in the grass between his fingers.

"You don't have to deal alone though,"

"It's fine, Gakushuu. I'm used to it," he sighed absent-mindedly, his voice carrying no sign of hostility.

However, the latter couldn't help feeling guilty. He stared at the way Karma plugged out grass leaves one by one. Usually, it would have a calming effect, yet now, guilt was starting to gnaw at his conscience.

He has been so busy focusing on his academical life and his own problems that he must have completely overlooked something was bothering the redhead.

"I know I'm a shit of an older brother but I'm trying. You can tell me and I won't judge or anything,"

Karma already wanted to say I know, but he stopped, realizing that he actually didn't know. Yes, he has always wistfully hoped that was true but he never really received the affirmation. Hearing it now was... relieving.

That didn't mean he could just blurt out anything he wanted. Especially when it didn't concern him only. Despite being aware of that, he felt the need to get it out. All his worries, the uncertainties that have been plaguing his mind for a while now. It wasn't about school though, it wasn't the exams or anything as trivial as that. Lately, he has been growing more and more aware of what was about to come. Koro-sensei's assassination.

Unfortunately, the future was inevitable. He couldn't help but think about it. March was close and soon, he - the whole E class - will stand between two choices. Kill the one who gave them hope, home, taught them self-love... or let the world be destroyed.

It was easy to make jokes about it with the class, always so light-hearted and so carefree. No wonder it was so easy to forget that they will, in fact, have to kill him.

"I- uh,..." he felt tears building up but refused to set them free. Not now. Not ever. He kind of hoped Gakushuu would get tired of waiting for him to say something but the latter stayed patient, giving him all the time in the world.

"It's just... I have never had all this," he tried to open up without actually disclosing too much, "The E-class. Friends. The sense of belonging. I don't know if you can relate, but I certainly never thought I would. Until now,"

"Okay,"

"It's all so nice and warm and for once, I don't feel alone," he felt his cheeks heat up, "But at the same time, I'm so afraid because I might lose that all soon. And I don't think I can- I don't want to go back to the way it was before."

"This isn't about graduation, is it?" The strawberry blonde asked, knowing the answer far too well.

"No..." Karma confirmed.

"I am not stupid, Karma. Ever since the incident on the island, I knew there was something big going on in your class," he began, observing his younger brother's reaction. The boy slightly flinched at the mention of the island, obviously hoping to avoid that topic.

"I won't ask unnecessary questions if that's what you're being so tense about right now. I'll just choose to believe that one day, when you're ready, you will tell me. But from what I have seen," Gakushuu looked up at the clear sky, remembering how tight the E-class students were, "you and those buddies of yours are close. So close that it would probably take more than the end of the world to take that away. Like a family."

A family we can never be, he thought bitterly, but shoved that thought away, because right now, Karma was more important than his own intrusive thoughts.

"So I have no doubts that whatever it is that's going to happen, you can overcome it. It may be hard at first, but eventually, you will. You guys are strong."

Asano never knew he could be so compassionate but he didn't hate it. The him from one year ago would scoff at the idea of saying something so pathetic, at Karma showing this vulnerable side of him. He would judge him for feeling the way he felt.

But he has grown. They both have.

"Thanks, Gakushuu," the boy whispered, eyes hidden beneath bangs.

"Anytime, little brother."


It was truly a beautiful afternoon. The familiarity of their safe place - this little meadow in the middle of nowhere - gave them the opportunity to let down their guard.

Though maybe the shouldn't have, as there was a certain unhuman teacher observing them and putting one and one together.

"Brothers... huh?"