SWEET [Assassination Classroom]

The bell guardian [Chiba Ryuunosuke]

  (Hallucinating! Reader x Guardian! Chiba AU. There's mention of horror and verbal abuse. Please read at risk. In the story, the reader hallucinates a lot. I got this inspiration greatly from Madoka Magica and the paper-like style they adapted to animate the witches, which will be the same style the reader hallucination looks like.)

"We're moving...? Again?"

"Now, now, (F/N), you know you're not in any position to talk. You should be lucky you're even getting a place to stay, so you better not use that voice with me."

"..." Your eyes sharpened like the edge of the knife as they stared right into the gaze of the adults in front of you, as if it was about to stab their very own orbs. Your tone as toxic as the poison river tainted by the evil of this world. Those humans in front of you was shaded in complete darkness, you can't see their face, barely hear their voice, or even touch them. The only thing visible on them was that heinous ugly grin and nefarious eyes. Without a word, the woman before you roughly pulled you by your shoulder and shoved you into the moving truck that was accompanied with all the furniture without a word. Just then, a child of your age showed up just behind them. It was their daughter, Ureika, or who you like to call, 'The cotton candy moth'. There were paper flowers blooming around her with flimsy decorated butterflies fluttering, but the closer you observed, the more disgusted you became. When you glanced down, you saw the crimson blood sliding down her small skinny legs as they quickly gathered into a pool of juice. The sweet smile that she wore on her face suddenly wrapped and twisted into a horrendous expression.

"Aw mommy," Her voice was mixed with so much sweetness, it made you want to vomit. "Why does she sit with those old, distasteful furniture? I feel SO sorry for her, don't you think she should come and sit with us in our nice big car?"

The witch lady's grin stretched even wider than what you've seen before. "That's so sweet of you, Ureika. How I wish someone will be as sweet as you! But I'm sure she will be just fine here. After all, bad children don't deserve good things."

As the two of them let out a fit of agonizing laughter, you felt your glass heart shattering again as the shards stabbed you on the inside without mercy. With no more words exchanged, they shut the truck door right into your face as the darkness rushed in to replace the light and engulfed you. At the very instance, the voices you heard every night came flooding back to the atmosphere as they fought with each other to win over your brain. Your hands shot up like a spring as you cupped your ears as tightly as you possibly can, your eyes shut closed so that not even a single bit of light can even come through. As you struggled, the tears slowly dripped down your cheeks.

"She's alone! She's alone! Finally! In a dark dark place, where nobody likes her, nobody likes her!" The childish doll-like voices sang as though they were in a celebration festival, "It's okay, it's okay! Be our guest, be my guest, if you follow us, if you follow me, you can be good too, be good too!"

Suddenly, you felt tiny doll hands touching your arm, and they felt like they were made out of papers. Feeling the fear overcame you in seconds, you let out a high pitched shrilling scream and swung your arms around as fast as you could, trying to chase away the hands of the creatures.

"DON'T TOUCH ME! PLEASE! PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME! I BEG YOU!"

You kicked and shouted with the most effort you have as the paper dolls cut you with their black laces festooned sheet hands. The words 'it hurt' flashed through your brain like a wave of electricity as you let out an ear-piercing scream. The whole cartridge quaked under your feet as you heard the crumbling of the concretes and metals, leading you further more into your brain of despair and hopelessness.

"Look at her! She's bringing herself her own doom, guess that saves us the trouble! AHAHA!" The voices shrieked with immense laughter and their flimsy hand gripped onto you like metal claws. Terror and horror travelled through your entire body, reaching every single part of your veins as you felt your body being dragged into the infinite void right below your legs.

"SOMEONE! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME! PLEASE- I DON'T WANT TO-! " Your sentence was immediately cut short when those paper hands buried your mouth. Liquid poured out of your eye sockets, a horrifying mixture of blood and tears gushed out like waterfall and you watched in utmost jitters. As you fell back, your heartbeat started thumping faster and faster, increasing at an abnormal speed till it almost exploded. You were on the verge of apprehension, you wanted everything to stop. You just wanted to be-

'Let go of her!'

Everything went blank.

--

Your eyes twitched in reactance to the burning sunset light as you frowned, forcing your eyes open with as much effort as you can. The first thing you came to was the cantaloupe coloured sky, accompanied by the blood orange sun that had woken you up. You sat up and found yourself still sitting inside the truck, and the sunlight had stolen the opportunity to enter through the agape doors. You rubbed your eyes and felt the dried up tears around your socket before your heart skipped a beat as the whole memory flashed through like lightning. Shakily turning your hand around, you had expected to find blood on it but to your relief, there was nothing there. Glancing around, the furniture that escorted you through the traumatising experience had currently disappeared. There was no one to be found even near the vehicle. You looked down at your trembling hands, debating whether to step out of the truck or not. Still, staying inside here served no purpose to you, what's worst, those things might come back again.

Steadily, you jumped out of the truck and landed on your both feet. Your eyes scanned your surroundings to find the 'nice big car' parked along the roadside. Lifting your head up, you finally saw the huge gigantic luxurious home in front of you. You weren't surprise, after all, they are very wealthy people. In spite of that, nothing will even matter to you anyway. While the sweet cotton candy butterfly girl gets a gigantic and warm pinkish bedroom, you'll always end up in the attic or the basement. Tears welled up in your eyes as you thought about the following consequences of your new house. Every single time, there will always be new 'friends' living at the place you were staying at, and you'll have to spend every night nearly being killed by them. You gripped the collar of your shirt tightly as you nervously made your way through the entrance and into the house. The whole family was seated at the beautiful shiny glass dining table while the Cotton Candy Moth pranced around the house, squealing in delight and happiness. There was other stranger wearing a uniform, which you assumed is one of the movers who were clearing out the furniture. There was such a bright and light air floating around, but it reeked of sweetness.

The moment they caught sight of you, you could practically taste the sweetness shifting into bitterness. The woman gave you a vile look as the man refused to even let his eyes see you, as if you were a needle, ready to prick their eyes till it bleeds. The Cotton Candy Moth stopped too, but her façade didn't wear off as fast as the adults'. Instead, she danced over to you, her eyes is covered with sweets and desserts as the chocolate sauce slowly leaked from the corner of her eyes. You bit your lips before she suddenly reached down to hold your hands and raised it high up in the air. At the moment, the blood oozed out of her hand and travelled down your entire arm and dripping into your t-shirt. You cringed as the warmth of the blood filled you up, considering it was the only warmth that you didn't want to have.

"Welcome to our new home! I hope you like it! It will be nice if we can both get a bedroom, but mommy told me we won't have enough. So I'll be getting one, but you have to sleep somewhere else!"

You had already anticipated it from the start. With another blink of an eye, the blood and sweets had vanished from your sight as you once again confirmed it to be your hallucination.

"Don't fret, you can always come to my bedroom. But you have to make sure you wash yourself properly and not smell like how you smell like right now!"

The malicious laughter of the family flew past your head like a breezing wind as your eyes widened in surprise. This was the first time that you weren't sure whether what you were seeing is actually your imagination or the reality. Never in your life, have you ever seen something bursting and blooming in such enormous amount of colours. Right past the wicked family, behind that wall, the door leading to the basement, there stood an exquisite being, a being that you have never seen before. Its hair was long, long enough to cover its own eyes, yet at the same time, it was nowhere near the length of your own hair as it was shorter. Down its double vested suit, there was a huge bell hung around its neck coloured in blue and green, it was a surprise it can held it up just like a normal necklace. On top of its hair, there was a small crown with bells designed carved on it. Ignoring the bizarre outfit, what you were more surprised about was the thing on its back.

It has wings.

Sure, it wasn't exactly the correct size to be carrying a person's weight, but what was more captivating wasn't the size, instead it was the patterns that intrigued you.

It was glowing in bright shades of amethyst and aquamarine, lavender and galaxy colours swirled in it as if they were dancing in a masquerade, twirling and swaying around. Everything looked like it belonged, unlike you. The creature tugged on its bell as a gush of air rushed through and blew the surrounding. You closed your eyes on instinct as the ring sounded in your ears. For the first time, you felt an unfamiliar yet addicting tender feeling rose in your heart, filling up the empty voids that you've held for so long. Unfortunately before you know it, the creature has disappeared from your sight, leaving you completely blown away.

"Excuse me?! Are you even listening?" You heard the grotesque voice tainting your heart once more as the feeling vanished into the thin air like vapour. You clenched your fist in irritation that she had ruined the small amount of satisfaction you finally got after so many years in your life. Your signature glare washed over your face immediately, can't you enjoy even one minute, one second of...something? The Cotton Candy Moth flinched at your gaze as she cried out in a pathetic tone.

"Mommy! (F/N) is glaring at me! She hates me, she hates me! Nobody likes me!"

Unlike usually where you wore the mask of apologises, you didn't felt like that at all at this moment. This was totally different, she ruined so many things for you, but this time, she had really ruined something big. Your eyes only squinted tighter, your eyebrows furrowed together, your teeth was gritting so hard that it seemed like you were going to crush your own teeth. Your nails dug into the skin of your palm, drawing a significant amount of blood. The witch rushed to her daughter's side as she attempted to comfort, however, her attention shifted to yours very quickly. Veins popped on her wrinkled face as her face scrunched up in a dissatisfied manner.

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?! HOW DARE YOU LOOK AT MY BELOVED CHILD WITH SUCH A HIDEOUS LOOK!?" She screeched vociferously. "I TOOK PITY ON YOU AND LET YOU IN MY HOUSE AFTER YOUR PARENTS DIED, AND THIS IS HOW YOU RESPECT ME?!

NOT ONLY THAT, I TOLERATED ALL YOUR CRAZINESS AND INSANITY. DO YOU KNOW HOW SHAMEFUL IT WAS FOR ME TO EXPLAIN TO THE WORKERS WHY YOU WERE SHRIEKING AT THE BACK OF THEIR MOVING TRUCK JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE SEEING SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T EXIST?!"

Her voice fuelled your anger like a raging fire as you felt every single nerve in your body dying to go insane. Every part of you wanted to murder her and wipe her existence away from this goddamn place. Every part of you wanted to scream out that you were sick and tired of holding in your intense hatred.

"How about..." You muttered under your breath, "HOW ABOUT YOU CAN GO AND FUCK YOURSELF?!"

You bellowed without any hesitation and watch as their awful face twisted into shock. Feeling the adrenaline rushing through your blood stream, you rushed out of the house and ran as far as the gust is willing to lead you.

--

It was currently night time and there was slight drizzling as the liquid tickled the palm that you have reached out. To your astonishment, there was a small bell tower in the town that you moved to. Right now, you have taken shelter under the building, avoiding the rain. Despite the alluring starry sky comforting you, you were still terrified to the bone. You'd never know when your 'friends' might return again, especially since how they always loved to attack you whenever you're alone. You kept looking at the vast sky, convincing yourself that if you don't think about it, it will all be alright.

'I'll be okay. I hope....' Sourness banged at the entrance of your throat as they struggled to escape your mouth. The tears wielded up in your eyes again as you brought your knees closer to yourself.

'I know I finally stood up for myself. But, from now on, where am I going to go...?'

Just then, you heard the same nightmarish voice calling from the distance. "Lookie, lookie! She's alone again! What a good time to go after her! We're coming, we're coming, (F/N)!"

Your feet shot up without another thought as your eyes flew wide opened, desperately searching around for the source. Your body shook in ultimate panic, if you die right now, nobody will know, nobody will come and save you. As your thought ceased, you noticed the small monsters crawling out from the ground at a great distance. Their left eyes with sow with buttons and the other one was a real eye. Their face painted with clown colours while their head twitched as they moved. As you stared in dismay, their army size increased more and more. Your legs started to act like jellies, they were crumbling and losing touch right under you. Before you knew it, you have sprawled over the floor as the energy is slowly drained out of you. The monsters were slowly approaching you. You bit down on your lips as fear overcame you in seconds. With your last fragment of sanity, you yelled.

"SOMEONE HELP ME!"

As if it had heard your wish, the gale of wind surged through the air and wafted away a few of those small monsters. You watched in amazement as your hair flew with the direction of the blast. Like magic, you heard the same bell rung throughout the whole area as the monsters melted like plastic at the sound, sinking and mixing together with the ground until they disappeared. You pushed yourself up with as much strength that you can whisked out, still too bewildered to say any words.

"Are you okay?"

You flinched at the voice as you spun yourself around as fast as you can, scared of who would still be around at such an hour. The sight before you left you speechless as the feeling that you desired earlier came rushing back.

It was the same creature.

It looked so dazzling up close, even though its dark long hair doesn't compliment well with the aura it was producing. It kneeled down to your eye level as the thumping of your heart started to drown all the sounds out. Observing its stoic looks, you were very nervous but also extremely thrilled by your first meeting. You didn't even give a damn whether this was still hallucinations or reality, from the moment you saw it, you knew you wanted to get close. It doesn't seem much of a talker though, as it never spoke another word after asking you that question in spite your non-existence reply.

"R-right. I'm...good." You struggled to answer the fairy-like being, still in awe. Bracing yourself for the worst, you inquired. "Are you...real?"

The being was taken aback by your question, but it answered. "I suppose it depends."

"W-what are you?" The burning questions set the flames in your brain as you fiercely tried to scrape the answers out of the creature.

"I'm..." It stopped to think, "I'm a guardian. A guardian of this bell tower you're in."

Seeing how it keeps providing such limited information, you were left with no choice but to continue to questioning. Hopefully this wouldn't leave a bad impression about you.

"So you're...a bell guardian?"

"I guess so."

"I still haven't thank you for saving me." Your legs retreated as you got into a kneeling position and bowed. It doesn't say anything until you got back to your place. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Chase away the...things. Furthermore, my own hallucination."

"....That's rare for you to know they're hallucinations."

Your lips curved up despite of the weight pulling you down.

"So how did you do it?"

The creature lifted up the heavy looking bell that hung around its neck to display it to you.

"In this town, the bell signal that peace has been granted. So every time I ring this bell, it helps to calm people down."

"That's...really fascinating. Are you the only bell guardian here?"

"Here, yes. But somewhere else, I don't know."

"Do they all look like you?"

"Me? Like my wings and outfit?"

"No. I mean like...how cute looking you are." You felt yourself smiling for the first time that you've already forgot the sensation. The creature's face was tainted with a bit of redness, but it brushed it off.

"I look like just any human does. Excluding the wings."

"No...humans don't look so pretty. I will never be able to match up to you."

"..." Its mouth was left agape before it swallowed its saliva. "I think you're cute."

It felt as if time had slowed down as you registered his words, the heat increasing in your cheeks. You could feel it for the first time, the feeling of joy, the feeling of being praised, the feeling of not being lonely, the feeling of having a friend. It was all combined in this simple four word it said to you. The same tears welled up again, yet this time, you were actually glad that you were crying.

"You're very nice. I've never been with someone as nice as you before. All those monsters, they kept coming after me, no matter how many times I told myself it wasn't real, I could see hear and feel them. I was very scared.

So thank you, for saving me."

You wiped the liquid rushing down your face as best as you could but to no avail.

"I would love to know more about you...I'm Ryuunosuke."

Hearing someone introducing themselves to you, your heart skipped another beat once more. You sniffed and flashed the best smile that you can put up.

"I'm (F/N)!

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This was quite a tough chapter considering it's so hard to grasp Chiba's personality. It's a bit of a sudden end, but I was wondering whether I should make another part for this >v< If you're wondering why I addressed Chiba as 'It', it's actually a way to express that the reader never knew how a real human can look like, considering her immense amount of hallucinations which ruined her sight of normal beings. Thus when she saw Chiba, she referred to Chiba as 'IT' as she believes that only creatures that aren't human can look so magnificent.

Thanks for reading! ^-^