The Cure (Assassination Classroom)

THREE

(this is going on at the same time as Karma's abuse)

Kayano Kaeda walked along the streets of Tokyo on her way home. She'd just parted ways with Okuda and Rio and was taking a shortcut through the alleys. Big mistake, as this gave the men who had silently followed her around town time to strike.

"What's an ickle bittie girlie like you doing in the back-alleys?" one of the gang members sneered. Kayano looked up at the men, but their faces were concealed by the hoods of their black jackets.

She furrowed her eyebrows and remembered when she and Yukiko Kanzaki were kidnapped back on the school trip in Kyoto, and how Karma had attacked the kidnappers. She had seen a glint of smug insanity in his eyes when he had pushed the aggressive highschool troublemakers to the ground. Admittedly, after that he had been knocked to the floor and kicked, but that's not the point now.

A sharp blow to the back of Kayano's head not only knocked her back down to Earth from her stroll along memory lane, but also knocked her out. Period.

~~~

The next day at school started on the wrong foot. For one, Karma had a completely noticeable black eye, and a slight limp. For two, Nagisa was about to be late, but for three, Kayano was nowhere in sight at all. The students ruled it off as illness, the thought of kidnapping hadn't even crossed their minds.

Karma lent back against his chair at the back of the room, bored as per usual. Class didn't start for another fifteen minutes, yet there was still no chance of the usually early Nagisa Shiota.

A couple of minutes of lazy pen tapping later Nagisa walked in. "Hey hey, look what the cat dragged in!" Karma mused with his usual cocky grin. Nagisa smiled as well, but stopped when he saw his friend's face.

"Karma what happened?!" he asked in horror, drawing more unwanted attention to the sarcastic redhead. Nagasi walked up to Karma's desk at the back. Karma didn't meet the bluenette's gaze.

"I got into a fight, it's no big." Karma replied, turning his sight back to meet Nagisa's, and plastering his usual crooked grin on his face. Nagisa wasn't fooled.

"You've gotta be more careful Karma, what if something bad happened to you?" Nagisa asked in worry. Karma started to get irritated at why his friend couldn't just leave him be, but he still laughed dryly. "I can take care of myself well enough." Karma grinned smugly. Nagisa was still unresponsive to the cocky behavior.

"Just tell us why you keep getting into these fights!" Nagisa pushed forwards in exasperation. Karma frowned. His friend got the wrong impression, that Karma was frowning in uncertainty not annoyance. Thinking he was getting through to the boy, Nagisa continued. "Just get off of your high horse for once and accept some help!"

This was the trigger to Karma's fury.

He stood up for the advantage of height and intimidation, ignored the pain that flooded through his left leg from last night, and glared into Nagisa's eyes.

They silently stared each other down for what seemed like an eternity (but in reality was about two minutes) when Karma, without realising that his anger was in control of his actions, backhanded Nagisa across the cheek.

Nagisa's head jerked to the left, a red patch throbbing on his face. He growled.

Karma was shocked at his own actions. "Wait Nagisa, I'm sorry-" he started, but was cut off when Nagisa ran out of the room, and his classmates glared and muttered about his action.

Great. Guess I'm as abusive as my father then. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, huh? Karma cursed himself, as he sat back down.