Chapter Text
The mountain air is cool against his skin, and damp from the recent rainstorms, and the underbrush smells like oily leaves and freshly overturned dirt.
Nagisa is flat on his stomach, warm and dry in his camouflaged clothing. Some of the latest technology boast that they can turn you truly invisible - that cameras hidden behind you and computer software can change the color of your clothing so that it matches the view behind you perfectly. But Nagisa has always believed in tried and true basics rather than fancy technology or software that could crash at the most inopportune time.
Let other assassins depend on clunky cutting-edge technology as crutches. He is the real thing.
Below him is the gorgeous panoramic view of a massive hotel overlooking a moor, with the number of sparse clumps of brushes matching the stars in the sky. This is a nest den for bureaucrats and politicians looking to make deals outside of the confines of a city, where important people congregate year after year to drink and flirt and fuck and pass money around like water.
Nagisa has been hired to kill one of those people today.
He hasn't been given a name, which isn't all that unusual. Sometimes, when the person who posts the contract is looking for revenge, all they have are the details of the crime. What is unusual, however, is that this contract has specified the exact time and date of the requested killing, as if they had already done all the investigative work themselves, and are just too queasy to pull the trigger.
Nagisa usually only takes contracts where he can do some investigating beforehand. There are certain people that he will never touch - women or children, or men who have never committed a crime worse than adultery. That leaves him a small pool of money to work from, and yet he has been so effective with those that he has now gained a reputation.
He hears the sound of tires on gravel - the ending of the main road was several miles back. Hiding the existence of this monstrous building must not have been easy. There is a car approaching, and as Nagisa looks through the scope of his rifle, setting the magnification as high as it will go, he is able to just barely make out the license plate of the car coming down the road.
He has the license plate memorized. This too, was in the contract.
It matches.
Nagisa suddenly stills. His breathing goes deep instead of shallow. He is filling his body with oxygen so that in the next few moments, he can concentrate without being distracted by the need to breathe. He does not need to shift in order to get more comfortable. He has been lying like this all day, and can potentially lie like this for many more hours if necessary.
The black limousine is late to the party. The hotel is already vibrant with yellow lights and party music. The event started hours ago, when the sun was still up in the sky, scorching over the moor and drying out much of the rain that had fallen earlier. The sound of a muffled gunshot will not be louder than the laughter and shrieks of drunk men and women. The only people who will know are the drivers and the hotel doorman. And all they will see is some hapless politician-bureaucrat, possibly accompanied by his family, possibly accompanied by his mistress, crumple to the gravel in a heap.
The limousine comes up the driveway and stops.
Nagisa's breathing stops as well.
There is a slight flurry of movement as the driver gets out and comes around the other side. The doormen get ready to prepare for their new guest, unaware that their new guest may never even make it to the door.
The driver opens the door, and holds his hands out to prevent the target from banging his head against the top of the car as he comes out, not knowing that another threat is aiming for that head at that very moment.
Through the rifle scope, he sees Karma Akabane step out from his sleek black limousine. The crosshairs are directly on the apple-red of his hair, and the scimitar slash of his smug smile.
Nagisa's finger stills on the trigger.
For a moment, his mind is so blank with shock that he can hardly think. This is impossible. This can't be happening. What is Karma doing here?!?
Karma looks at him through the scope, almost directly into Nagisa's eyes. His smile becomes knowing.
.
Nagisa does not pull the trigger. How can he? This is Karma. Even he still has enough left of a soul to remember that.
Instead, he breaks down his setup, undoes all the traps and the wires, the communication arrays and the rest of radio equipment. He's going dark, which won't freak out the organization he's with. He has gone dark many times before.
But this time it'll be different. This time, his target won't show up on the news headlines the next morning as a mysteriously killed leader. Then, they'll know that he has gone rogue.
Nagisa can't even bring himself to care. He packs away all his things, decides at the last moment to bring a knife - he knows Karma won't hurt him, but he's not naive enough to believe they are the only two people that exist in the world.
He goes down the mountain, silent as a snake, tense and coiled as if he were about to strike.
.
Karma is staying at one of those gilded, white-polished-marble-floors, drinks-when-you-check-in, resort-style hotels that this country enjoys putting bureaucrats in. The alcohol is there to make it easier for spies and other local plants to get state secrets from them. The rest is all for show, to say: see how well we're treating you? Maybe if you listen to what we say, we can treat you a little better.
Nagisa knows all the routes into the hotel already. He knows the blueprints like the back of his hand. If he had failed to kill his mark on his way from the car to the hotel, his plan B would have been to enter the hotel.
Granted, plan A through L had all been scrapped the moment that Karma Akabane's red hair had emerged from that limousine.
Nagisa shoulders his pack, black and nondescript, the same that American tourists often wear when backpacking across multiple countries. He makes his way across the hotel lobby without even glancing at the valets and the service desk. He flashes a white index card at the concierge, which got him past the first level. After that, there is no one else around to fool.
"I should probably leave a one-star review for this hotel," Karma has been waiting for him. He's tall in his dark suit, sharp and gleaming and dangerous and familiar. "The security here is shit."
"Karma," Nagisa breathes, and he's a child again, seeing his friend after so so very long. He reaches out, and Karma is already there, arms wrapped around him. The sudden proximity makes Nagisa shiver. It has been a long time since he has let anyone come this close.
"Hey Nagisa," Karma laughs, and ruffles Nagisa's hair so badly that it will have to be tied up again. "I'm glad my message got to you."
"You idiot," Nagisa pushes his hands away, scowling and relieved and frustrated and happy all at once. "What if someone else had taken up that contract? Jesus, Karma. You could have been killed! What kind of shady politician posts a contract to kill himself? Do you have a death wish?"
Karma, surprisingly, is serious. "It was the only way to contact you," he says before turning away. "In any case, it's not safe to talk here. Come with me."
.
The hotel room that Karma has been assigned speaks to his current station in life - it is lavish and beautiful, with multiple rooms and plush carpets. More importantly, it is private. He is the only one with the keys to this room.
Nagisa wants to smile and comment on these observations, and what they mean. Very few bureaucrats actually have enough power to demand such respect, but clearly Karma has become well known as someone who can help you with things, even in a country like this.
But Karma is in no mood to talk about himself. Nagisa already knows all about his life. Karma lives in the public eye after all, and Nagisa has kept track of all of his old schoolmates. They have all done well. In a certain light, he has done well too, only he cannot call his friends and chat whenever he wants to, and he cannot readily tell them how he is doing.
Karma gets to the point quickly. He has never been one for many words, not when there is business to take care of.
"Come back, Nagisa." Karma's voice has all the slick confidence of a man used to being obeyed, but he follows it with a small pleading gesture - his knuckles brush against the fall of Nagisa's hair. "We were surprised when you didn't pick up on any of our other communications. It took us a month to figure out that you had abandoned all of those completely. It took us another month to figure out what you've been doing."
Nagisa flinches, but Karma continues without stopping. "I know you feel like you need to do this, to follow in his footsteps, but this isn't you. You don't have to take his place in the world."
It hurts to have Karma understand him so completely. Nagisa had deep-sixed that thought over years and years of routine and professionalism - I have to replace what I took away. Otherwise I'll never be forgiven for taking such a great talent away from the world.
"Do you think Koro-sensei would have wanted this for you?" Karma asks. "Our assassination classroom was supposed to have ended with his assassination."
Nagisa blinks at him. This? Coming from the most bloodthirsty member of their class?
"It doesn't matter," he says numbly. "I'm on at least five wanted lists. I'm stateless. I have nowhere to go back to, no way to live."
Karma grabs him, and for once his perfect control slips. He doesn't have to say anything. The anger on his face says enough. Nagisa knows what he's thinking, and it makes his chest tighten painfully to know that the offer is still there, after all this time.
"No," Nagisa hisses at him. "You would be killed within a week if you were found to be harboring me. Any of you. I won't have that on my conscience. I've already killed -"
Karma shoves him against the wall, and cuts off the rest of his words with a kiss. It's not a romantic kiss. They know each other too well for that. They've taken the same lessons. It's just a tool Karma uses to shut him up without having to use his hands, a way to say no, stop thinking. Stop thinking right now. A way to say I still love you. Don't be sad. I want you to feel better.
"Don't." Karma says when he backs away. His eyes are blazing with fury. "Don't blame it all on yourself. We were all there. We all -"
"But I'm the one who drove the knife in," Nagisa says, and Karma falls silent. He presses his forehead against Nagisa's, disappointed that his kiss didn't work, angry that none of his arguments are working. The sound of their breathing fills the room, and Nagisa feels so dizzy that he might faint, from the desperate way Karma is holding him, as if he's afraid that Nagisa will leave. "And so I'm the one who has to take responsibility."
.
It hadn't taken long for public perception to turn against them, against them all. Koro-sensei had been busy, during his time away from the school. He had single handedly advanced science by decades. He had built entire communities, saved entire cities.
And it had all been done in secret, until the clues had leaked out, one by one, put together by testimonies of confused witnesses and the investigative efforts of the government's top detectives. Once they realized, with horror, that there hadn't been any chance of Koro-sensei blowing up the earth at all, the entire class of 3-E had gone into a state of shock that had lasted for weeks.
Nagisa was suddenly, abruptly taken out of his idyllic life that had only just started to come back together. His parents were talking again. His friends were all moving on with their lives, healing slowly but surely from that immense, immense death.
It was just that the world changed too quickly sometimes.
It had come on the heels of the government's conclusion - that the entire Assassination Classroom had been a mistake, that those at the higher levels of the military were responsible for setting up such a dangerous experiment and thus should be punished. And finally, that Nagisa Shiota would be the scapegoat - the one solely responsible for killing a creature as kind and wonderful as Koro-sensei, removing once and for all one of humanity's greatest gifts.
The weeks that followed were a nightmare that got worse and worse with each time Nagisa fell asleep. Charges were drawn up and pressed. A kangaroo court was found. The world went mad from the revelation, and class 3-E was powerless amongst it all. The world was a wide place, and even though they had been trained to take it on, it was far too early for them to do anything against the current system.
Nagisa had been given a choice, one in the middle of the night, surrounded by his friends wearing faces of resignation and fury and terror and sadness, so very much like the night Koro-sensei had died. He could give himself up, to this sham of a government that had decided to sacrifice him to the mindless masses. Or he could run away, disappear into another country, another life, and wait for it all to die down.
He chose to run.
.
"Things have changed," Karma says, and Nagisa is pulled back to the present by the firm press of Karma's hands against his face. Karma is close to him now, still not letting him go, still intense in his fury and determination. "I finally have enough influence to change things now. We need you to come back, to make a full testimony about what happened that night. Say that it was all of us who killed Koro-sensei, not just you. Every single one of us will be there, and we'll agree. They can't do anything to all of us."
Nagisa puts his hands over Karma's. "It's too late," he says softly. It has been too late ever since he took that first contract, ever since he took that first step down this dark path. "I have blood on my hands. Thank you for doing this for me. Tell everyone that I said thanks."
They must have worked to the bone, amassing power and influence and good standing for most of their lives. They would throw it all away for him. The thought makes Nagisa feel warm and loved and safe as nothing else ever could. Tears even prick the backs of his eyes, and he does not have to feign his gratitude. That had been the plan. This had always been the plan, all those years ago when the remnants of class 3-E had gathered on that rooftop and had given Nagisa a choice - to give in or to run and wait, to surrender or to fight. Either way, he had been doomed to a life in the dark, but at least it was a dark of his own choosing. Until Nagisa had become an assassin for a living.
"They're not going to take that for an answer," Karma points out, dry and cutting Nagisa's tears off with how pissed he sounds. "This isn't a request, Nagisa. This is an order, from all of us. Come back. We have a plan to finally fix everything for you. Your family, your life, you can have it all back."
Nagisa shakes his head. "This is the only thing I can do now. I don't know how to do anything else."
Karma looks as if he's about to kiss him again, he looks so pissed. He has an angry set to his mouth and an impatient look in his eyes. He was never really any good at putting up with bullshit from others.
"Then learn," he hisses into Nagisa's face, challenging and demanding all at once. "Or have you stopped learning ever since Koro-sensei died? Have you been stuck in that time, like a child, while the rest of us have been growing up and fighting our way through the world?"
Nagisa tries to twitch away from him, in horror. He has wondered this himself, but with Karma in front of him, so tall and adult and grown up, so different from what he remembers, it's starkly obvious. He has been frozen in time, just as effectively as a cryogenic chamber, not just in height but also in mentality.
In the end, it’s the anger in Karma’s eyes along with the fact that he’s here, that finally makes Nagisa snap out of the dark mood he’s been in this entire time. Karma is here, telling him that it’s over, they’ve done it, they’ve found a way to save him.
Trust me, Karma seems to be saying, with a desperation that Nagisa has never seen from him before, not even during his initial attempts to kill Koro-sensei.
Nagisa takes in a deep breath and forces himself to be calm.
"Alright," Nagisa says, and feels the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders.