Hey guys, sorry I'm late by two days but hey, I made the chapter extra long in exchange ;)
Thanks for the patience and also for the feedback! Always lovely to hear what you think. I'm glad you guys actually came back to reread it, it really warms my heart T.T
Guest reader asked about the "made-up name" thing - back when I started writing this fanfic, I established that Karma was actually a fake name. I have no "real" name prepared for him coz it's just weird giving him a different one (even if it would be canon in this fanfic) + the chairman and Gakushuu and literally everyone else already know him by "Karma" so there's no point in reverting to the old name.
Tbf, the past me didn't think through everything when she started writing and did whatever she wanted so the present me is now suffering in cringe and trying to think of the logic behind everything. Yay.
Anyhoo, enjoy this chapter 3
Asano Gakuho didn't tolerate disorder.
His daily routine, methods and philosophy all followed a clear path, all working towards one goal. Everything he did and every person he surrounded himself with served one purpose. Never did he stray from his ambition, never had his efforts turned fruitless and never has he been disobeyed.
Or so he thought. As he leaves class D, then C, then B's homeroom after giving them a... poignant lesson for the future, each time there's a more vigorous and violent vexation boiling inside of him. The students he had high hopes for and personally motivated have disappointed him - no, absolutely failed him - as well as caused a situation that he found undesirable, to say the least.
Gakuho is a cold and calculated man, in full command of his emotions and equally so the emotions of others, yet today, he struggles to keep his students in line and his own mind clear. Maybe it's his tea getting cold too fast in the morning. No, it must be the fickle weather. Or his life philosophy and teaching system collapsing because of one measly creature that likes to call itself a teacher. Perhaps it's his youngest son refusing to be associated with him, getting hospitalized and his eldest son blaming him for all of it.
Nevermind though. He can handle those inconveniences. All of them are just small obstacles in his way of creating a perfect educational system that births generations of strong, brilliant minds. He can reignite the fire in his students and tame his sons' defiance, he will make them all realize that sentiment and empathy will only get them killed or taken advantage of. He'll eradicate their weaknesses whether they want it or not because there's no place for them in this cruel dog-eat-dog world.
That was his kindness.
As the man steps into the vicinity of his last destination, he overhears voices spilling all the way to the hallway. There are many of them joining the discussion, one he finds quite curious, so he halts and listens.
"We just thought he was attacking you, we couldn't let that happen!" a male student says in a slightly panicked tone. "We were just so confused, it all happened so quickly. He was the one to throw the first punch too!"
"After you guys surrounded him like wolves," surprisingly, a girl snapped back. "He was probably just defending himself."
Then, another girl joined the conversation: "We're sorry, Asano-kun. We didn't know you two were friends. After all, he's from the E-class..."
He hears the shifting and then his son's levelled yet cold voice: "So if we weren't friends, attacking him would be alright?"
"No, of course not. We're sorry. We made a mistake," she swallows hard, faltering.
"There was a lot of frustration and panic going on. But we know it's still inexcusable. We're sorry," others add and there's a round of solemn agreement.
Asano-kun stays silent after that. He can imagine the boy sighing into his hands with closed eyes, a gesture he does when he tries to think through his response. The room remains quiet as everyone awaits his verdict.
"I know where you're coming from, but your results are nothing that the E-class or Karma is to be blamed for," he says at last. "With the way you were studying, you couldn't have won. Not that I have much to brag about either,"
Gakuho feels the vein on his temple angrily pulsating at that statement. The way they were studying? No. That wasn't the problem, it was their fragile mentality, the lack of hunger for victory. He needed to rid them of that deficiency. He needed to make sure this wouldn't repeat itself.
"You need to make it right with Karma. That's first."
At that, the students agree and promise to visit and thoroughly apologize.
"Second, this frustration of loss – make use of it and learn from it. I'll damn sure make use of mine and keep winning. And I'll find a way for you to win too. In high school and in the future. So in return, please lend me your strength-"
At that moment, Gakuho chooses to step in. He doesn't want to hear let alone allow anyone to even acknowledge that piteous excuse, so he opens the door and swiftly cuts off the boy in a more irritated manner than characteristical of him:
"Can you really say that after losing the battle you bet your life on?"
And it's like time has stopped. All eyes are on him, visibly shocked by his sudden appearance. They barely breathe as if afraid of making themselves visible and Gakuho feels sickened at the sight of them cowering in fear like prey animals. Is this what three years of his teaching principles resulted in? This?
Unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable.
"Life is always a great unknown." He speaks up, measuring each and every one of them with an icy glare. "Will losing one battle mean losing your life as well? You'll never know until it's all over."
Until all that's left is their broken lives with nothing to hold on to and nothing to aim towards. He won't let that happen again. He won't have a single of his students lose their life like that again. That's why...
"That's why you must keep winning. I have an obligation to teach you as much. And I'll get your brains better by graduation time, all right," Gakuho promises. He's about to carry on with his valuable life lessons when one of the virtuoso boys asks for his attention:
"Principal Asano..." the student starts. Araki Teppei, he remembers. "It's clear to us now."
"With these current methods, we can't beat class E," a boy next to him, Sakakibara Ren, continues.
Gakuho freezes at those words as a wave of repulsion washes over him. Before any of the rest can join this nonsense, Gakuho audibly drops his textbooks on the lectern, a loud snap piercing through the air that dares anyone to interrupt him again.
"Don't be absurd. The E class stays at the end. You are to become the rulers, the top of this society-"
"The top belongs to Karma now," his son insolently interjects, and despite the alleged bitterness of that loss, he seems oddly proud of his statement. "And after me, it's class E next. Their victory undeniably proved that your ideals and methods are obsolete, chairma-"
"That reminds me, Asano-kun, isn't that quite cruel? Demoting your little brother to a mere 'friend'?"
There's a glimpse of shock in the strawberry blond's eyes but it disappears as fast as it came. He seems to have expected Gakuho to reveal their little secret as he says nothing, only glares back in defiance.
The statement causes a minor commotion as the students debate about the meaning of those words. Their confused gazes switch between Asano-kun and him, but those two are too caught up in their own personal staring contest and provide no information.
"Did he say brother?" The students not so quietly inquire among themselves.
"Akabane? That's impossible," others insist.
Gakuho supposes there's no need to explain himself, as long as everything goes according to the plan. And it will. There will be no disorder in this hierarchy he built when Karma-kun becomes a class A student. He can arrange that immediately, changing his personal information and class before the results are printed on their yearly report and diplomas.
There will be no question about the superiority either when it's two Asano boys at the top. All that will be left after that is to convince his youngest about the rightfulness of his philosophy and bend him to his will. Nothing a little bit of manipulation and blackmail won't do. Admittedly, his eldest proved to be a challenge to control but once Karma-kun gives in, Asano-kun won't have a choice but to follow. After all, he cared too much about the redhead to abandon him. A weakness, indeed, but one that Gakuho will for now gladly exploit.
Either way, soon enough both will realize how this world works and learn to believe their father.
And about the rest of the E-class? Well, he has an excellent solution to that. After all, there soon won't be a class E at this school to count into the results anyway, will there?
"Asano-kun," Sakakibara Ren suddenly urges the strawberry blond as more discourse takes over the class. The fact that he hasn't denied such a claim was enough in itself to instil uncertainty as well as fear. As preposterous as it sounded, it was the chairman telling them that information and it now started to make sense why the student council president suddenly became so fiercely unapologetic and protective when it came to the redhead.
Asano-kun's brows furrow in defeat and he turns to the class: "Yes. Karma is my younger brother. We've been hiding it for personal reasons," he finally admits.
The virtuosos along with the rest audibly gasp. There are many emotions passing through their faces as the information sinks in, most are shocked, some genuinely terrified of the repercussions of hurting the chairman's son and student council president's brother.
"And he will be joining you in class A very shortly," the chairman declares, tasting victory on his tongue. "I'll lead you all until graduation. You will remain at the peak of this chain and there will be order again."
Now, his students only need to give in to his control again. The rest he will take care of. Everything's perfect. Everything's going as he wants it to. It's just small setbacks.
Everything's-
"Principal Asano, sir! Asano-kun!" The students call out in unison, dramatically bowing down," We sincerely apologize!"
That gesture throws both the father and the son off. They break off the glaring and turn toward the class. What in the world-
"Not only did we fail to achieve our goals and let you down, but we also unnecessarily involved an innocent person. Your family," they explain.
Gakuho blinks.
No.
That's not what they're supposed to be saying. They're supposed to-
"Both the E-class and Asano-kun have learnt through their failures and become stronger than before. We on the other hand shamefully blamed others and never took a second to think about our own actions."
No. This was wrong. They should be scorning and hating the End class. They're supposed to be afraid of ending up there. Not attribute strength to it.
"With our current methods, we can't even measure up to them. We aren't worthy of staying in the A class."
No. No. No.
Gakuho hears cracks in his mind, he hears the foundation of his system break down piece by piece.
Why were they saying this?
What was happening?
"If you wish, send us to the E-class. I have the feeling we can learn and grow more there."
The shrapnels in his mind shatter, they scatter and fly into every part of his being until he's left paralyzed, body and soul. The sight of forty or so students he used to have high hopes for betraying him and throwing his efforts, his work, his life-long mission out of the window, ungratefully obliterating them - he wondered, was this reality? Was this his life right now?
The strawberry blond gapes in awe but recovers from his initial shock quickly, turning back to his father. What greets him is a completely emotionless face but he senses the world turning upside down in his father's head and instead of relishing in this apparent victory, he softens his tone in the hope of finding common ground:
"You have your answer, sir-"
And at that moment, something violently hits the side of his face and the whole room blurs. Immediately after, he makes a hard impact on something solid and cold and his head and body scream in pain, making him momentarily black out.
When he comes back to it, there are voices calling out his name. He reflexively picks himself up and simultaneously it dawns on him what has happened.
His father, ever so unexpressive, controlled, under all circumstances composed, has struck him.
The realisation makes Gakushuu chuckle. It's scary, it hurts, his hands and legs are shaking, but the strawberry blond lifts his gaze to witness the first human reaction from the man he deemed inhuman.
He laughs and ignores the numbness in his face and the taste of blood on his tongue.
"That look on your face, it's like you're glitching," he tells the chairman, "I may be seeing the fatherly side of you at last."
Gakuho's eyes remain fixated on his right hand, still stuck in the same position and slowly turning red. Yet he feels nothing. He hears nothing, not those words, not even the rest of the class scrambling to help his son on his feet or accompany him out of the room.
It takes him too long to finally come back to his senses. For seemingly an eternity, the words of his students play on a loop in his ears as his son's determined expression etches itself in his retinas, followed by the sight of his crumbled form on the ground.
Now, that hand starts to sting.
It stings like hell, like he poured acid on it.
Everything was wrong. Completely wrong. And it was only one person's fault.
The Octopus. That sorry excuse of a teacher was the one to ruin it. It was Koro-sensei that destroyed the system, that turned not one, but both his sons against him. It wasn't Gakuho who hurt Asano-kun, no. He would have never done that. Gakuho only wants the best for him after all.
It was that octopus that wanted to sabotage them.
He couldn't let that happen. He would never let that happen. He'd rather die than let an outsider trample on his philosophy, his mission. He's ready to kill to protect it as well as his family.
With that, he goes back to his office and starts gathering the necessary things for his plan. It's clear as a day now, what he has to do. Before he retakes control of the school, before he subdues Asano-kun and Karma-kun...
He's going to kill the source of it all.
Koro-sensei.
On the other side of the city, a certain hospital was getting flooded by another whole class of Kunugigaoka Junior High. While Koro-sensei managed to transport Karma to get treated in a split second, the moment he was taken in, none of the students were allowed to visit or contact him.
"We're sorry, but we're merely acting on orders. There's nothing we can do," the poor woman at reception explains for the fourth time. She feels bad for them, really she does. They came about an hour ago with their classmate covered in blood and have been waiting since he got taken away. She also appreciates and understands the concern they have for their classmate but she's too tired to be arguing with a group of high schoolers. She's also definitely not paid enough.
"But why?! We brought him here! He's our friend, why can't we visit him?" a blue-haired boy asks her.
"The chief supervisor made it clear that the only ones allowed to see the patient are his direct family and I'm afraid you don't fall into that category," she sighs. Despite having to adhere to her instructions, she also wonders about this peculiar situation. The boy in question was placed into a private room, one that usually costs more than a normal person would pay, especially for such minor treatment. Of course, it must have been a scary situation for all of them, but from what she's heard, the injuries were mostly superficial.
Right by her hand also sits a piece of paper with only two names on it, names that her supervisor wrote down and sternly specified that apart from those, no one was authorized to see that boy. Strangely enough, she recognizes those names - the surname more specifically, it was too famous in this city to not know after all - and they don't match the patient's, despite being "family".
"But his parents are not here," a blond girl protests, "he's alone after such an awful accident too! It would definitely help if we were there to support him."
The woman agrees with that statement. She shakes her head nevertheless with another apology and watches as the students turn in dejection and leave.
As they walk towards the exit, the only thing Nakamura thinks of is breaking in anyway. There will definitely be an open window or a blind spot where no one will notice them. Who were those people to tell them they couldn't see Karma anyway? Why would anyone even order that? Did his parents actually find out somehow and contact the hospital? That was impossible, she heard from Karma personally that they were rarely ever in Japan nor did they know about his daily life.
No, something was definitely fishy here. To start with, what was the redhead even doing at the main building? If this incident happened months ago, she wouldn't have had problems believing he came there to merely sneer at the losers from other classes, but now? That wouldn't make any sense.
Either way, it was good that Nagisa called to check on him. The phone rang only once before it got picked up but instead of Karma answering them, they only heard shouting and lots of commotion. Concerning enough for them to decide they should take a look, so they did.
Maybe it was luck and someone or something grazed the correct button, or maybe the redhead quickly picked up to let them know he was in trouble. Nakamura supposes she should be questioning it less and instead be grateful that nothing serious happened. Karma looked seriously messed up when they found him, with blood over his face and clothes. Even the Asano boy looked bewildered as he held their friend.
Right, the Asano guy. What was his role in this?
Questions, questions, questions and yet no answers.
Ugh, her head hurt.
"So that's the situation. They won't let us in no matter what," Isogai relays the information to their teacher. Koro-sensei disguised himself as Karasuma-sensei, which in all honesty absolutely looked horrible, but it was better than not having him there at all.
The man hums in acknowledgement and looks up at the enormous building in front of them. He seems to be lost in thought but immediately shifts his attention back to them and suggests: "I'll look through all the windows and try to find Karma-kun. If you can wait a bit-"
And with that, he vanishes into thin air. Meanwhile, ideas start to form:
"What if I pretend to have a heart attack and distract them while you guys sneak in?" Maehara suggests, "I'll like fall on the ground and seize up,"
As serious as the situation feels, this earns him a lot of amused smiles.
"I wouldn't even know where to begin. Has anyone been in the central hospital before? That place looks like a maze," Kataoka asks and looks around. Unfortunately, she's met with negative responses.
"So even if Koro-sensei finds the room he's in, we won't know how to get in," Terasaka mumbles, then he turns to Nagisa: "Hey, shrimp, he still not answering the phone?"
"Please don't call me that," the boy grimaces. Then he glances at his phone again and sighs: "No, still nothing."
"What if it's more serious than we thought?" timidly, Okuda speculated. She tended to try and see things positively, but the worry was starting to get to her. "I mean, there was a lot of blood right? What if-"
"He's definitely fine. Probably just too lazy to pick up his phone or he's taking a nap, that punk," Terasaka shoots immediately and although his words seemed carefree, his voice was noticeably strained.
Before anyone can comment on that, their teacher reappears. He's wearing a smile which eases their concerns to some degree.
"Koro-sensei," Nagisa blurts out impatiently, "did you find Karma-kun? How's he?"
"Yes, I did. He's currently on the eighth floor. The window was open so I managed to talk with him a bit," the teacher announces and with that, the students sigh in relief.
"He's alright, although groggy from being sedated. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to know anything about this arrangement of no visitors or about how long he's going to be kept in the hospital. He promised to contact you as soon as he can though,"
"Right," Nakamura exhales, suddenly a good few kilos lighter. "That's good, I guess."
She's still icky about the whole situation but at least there's one thing to be glad about.
"Should we go back then?" Isogai suggests, considering that there was no point in standing around.
The rest of the class hums in agreement and they all turn towards the path back to the mountain.
At the same time, a black car drives to the parking lot and stops right in front of them. It's a luxurious brand, that much they can recognize, and on the driver's seat sits a man with a stoic expression and a suit. Clearly a private chauffeur.
The glass of the passenger seats' windows is tinted black which only adds to the mysteriousness of this sudden appearance. Class E doesn't have to wonder about who the owner of this vehicle is for long though, because not even a minute later, the door opens to reveal a certain person. A person they definitely did not expect to be here.
"Asano-kun?" the blue-haired boy gasps. He stares at the class A student and notices the bandage on his cheek. Did he get injured too? "What are you doing here?"
The strawberry blond seems unfazed by the many eyes glued on him. He closes the door behind him and the car pulls away, parking a few meters away from them.
"Visiting Karma," he responds curtly, then returns the question: "Why are you still here?"
"We tried to go see him but they wouldn't let us. They won't let you in either so you can just go back to where you came from," Terasaka snaps, brows furrowed. What was this self-conceited asshole even doing here? "Some audacity you have, showing up after your class attacked our friend,"
"Terasaka!" Isogai promptly interjects with a warning. He then turns to Asano and apologizes: "Sorry for that, we know it's not your fault. But yeah, the rest is right, no visitors are allowed it seems, unless it's his family."
"Under whose orders?" the strawberry blond frowns.
He only gets a shrug back.
It's not like he really needs an answer though, he's well aware of his father being behind this. Of course. It shouldn't even surprise him anymore, should it? Isolating his target persons, in this case Karma, was after all step one of the chairman's manipulation tactics.
"Thanks for everything," he softly acknowledges, which surprises the students. He really is grateful though. If they didn't show up and take care of Karma, things might have escalated very quickly and very badly. Gakushuu knows for a fact that he was only a few seconds away from absolutely losing it and sending a few more students into the hospital himself.
"You head back to school. I got this." He walks past them and aims toward the entrance.
"Didn't you hear us? They won't let you in, no matter how much you sweet talk them," Nakamura calls out.
He turns around and looks her in the eyes. The girl raises her eyebrows, staring back in expectation. The class A student remains silent but she sees the contemplation reflecting itself on his face and there's a sense of anticipation bubbling in her chest.
Finally, he gives in: "They will," he assures them. Then, a bit more loudly:
"I'm his brother, after all."
Aaand hell breaks lose.
Koro-sensei be hiding in a nearby bush and his jaw be dropping to the ground so hard it cracks the earth in half. Thus, the world ends before March 13th and that concludes the series.
Jokes aside, this was also hella difficult to write because:
1/ Gakuho's POV was a real brain exercise for me. I mean seriously, who's supposed to know what's going on in this man's head? SO I took the liberty of making him messed up not only as an educator obsessed with winning but also as a helicopter parent, a controlling father who actually cares about his children so much he has feels the need to keep them safe by manipulating them into doing things he deems the best. That make sense?
2/ Dialogue and trying to not close every quote with "he said, she asked" etc etc. The amount of time I tried to think of an alternative is shameful.
3/ I'm so tired.
Also, did anyone catch the fact that I actually set up the phone call from Nagisa two chapters before? If you read carefully, you would have noticed that Gakushuu actually heard a phone ring in the middle of the fight ;)
Next update: I've got exams right now so unfortunately it will take a bit longer. I'll try to update on Sunday 23rd at the latest though!
