Marionette

Skies, Chapter Seven - Tatakai [戦い]

After spending the entirety of the days school hours at Shigures temporary residence repeating Tuesday afternoons lessons, Amaya made her way up the mountain trail towards the classroom. After borrowing the bathroom for a shower, Amaya had patched up her bleeding knuckles and tended to other injuries before getting dressed and leaving for the day.

Shigure had been sitting in the massive tatami room when she'd turned up, and it appeared that her arrival had surprised him.

At least until she told him that a new student had arrived, and how suspicious his guardian was - After that explanation, Shigure had a look of understanding that almost seemed ... foreboding.

She'd shrugged it aside at the time, instead leaping into what was four hours of training, though this time Shigure decided to split it into two sets of two hour training, insisting that lunch was a necessity today, since the weather was peculiar.

Amaya didn't quite understand what he meant by that, but she didn't dare complain about being allowed a break half way through training.

As Amaya walked through the front door of the classroom building, she heard the end of day dismissal bell ring, causing her to let out a breath as she realized she'd taken longer to get here than she'd intended.

But it didn't sound like it had started yet, though even through the horrid humidity and pouring rain, Amaya could still smell the copious amount of sulphur in the building.

More than usual, which meant that the new kid was here too.

Amaya had no idea upon the events that had taken place since she'd left half-way through first period, but she'd stewed long enough on the situation to come to just one speculation.

Koro-sensei stunk highly of sulphur, and especially his blood.

Therefore, if Itona smelled of sulphur to such an extent, then there was a high chance that he wasn't entirely human.

That would explain why he'd smashed the wall without a care in the world with no visible tools at hand and without breaking a sweat, even.

Though she'd come to that prediction after Shigure had told her just one thing before she left the huge house:

'Be careful.' He'd told her, with one of those expressions that made her blood almost run cold. 'There is a lot of invested interest in your teachers assassination, and I certainly would not call a great number of those involved "human", even if their biological structure says otherwise.'

She did not trust Shiro, and Shigure told her that she shouldn't trust him either, almost like he knew who she was talking about, but he couldn't say anything to her one way or another.

And Shigures words convinced her that she was not imagining anything, at all.

As Amaya slid the door of the classroom open, she was met with a somewhat awkward atmosphere, though in a way it was also grave, too. The classroom desks had been rearranged to form a square of desks, somewhat like a boundary, with Koro-sensei and a blazerless Itona standing in the middle of it. Amayas classmates, plus Irina and Karasuma were standing outside the boundary-line, with Shiro standing on Itona's side of the room.

A couple of the students looked up at Amaya's arrival, though no one spoke at all.

So Amaya made her way towards the far side of the room to stand against the wall between Karma and Sugino.

'You must be sick of plain old assassinations, Koro-sensei.' Shiro spoke up from his place on the far side of the room, speaking for Itona, it seemed. 'Shall we lay down a rule here?'