Chapter Text
Have you heard the rumor?
“Hey there, Nagisa,” Karma smirked at him, golden eyes swimming like cauldrons, mysteries bobbing just below the surface. Two years were nothing to him. The same blood stained style, identical to the very day they met, framed a face so pale it was near ethereal. That same taunting smile filled with knowledge so deeply obscure that Nagisa could never quite grasp it, as though Karma resided in a separate plain of existence. The scene could have been ripped from his memory. It made him nauseous, as though seeing a ghost of a time long buried, a friendship that was prematurely slaughtered. “Been a while.”
Of the dead kid who lives?
“Karma?” Nagisa’s classmates used to whisper behind both their backs. Used to say Karma’s demotion to Class 3-E was an inevitability. Karma had been labeled a class E delinquent before their first year was half completed and yet, Karma never let the words land. Nagisa admired his former friend’s seeming immunity to the taunts of others, how he twisted it back at the bullies to force a fight but never showed a hint of upset. Karma’s violent tendencies were all the majority of the student body noticed but Nagisa’s eyes were glued to the near flawless test scores.
Nagisa demotion had been fully anticipated.
It was expected.
However, seeing Karma on that field with killer instinct in his eyes, masked with a carton of strawberry milk and a sly smile, was a true shock. “You’re back?”
When the ghost is around things always happen to go wrong.
“Huh, so this is the infamous Koro-sensei?” Karma brushed past Nagisa without a second glance, cold gaze trained on the teacher. As Karma strode past the wind kicked up, an icy breeze greeting the teenage devil with frozen claws. It was so familiar, watching Karma move ahead, watching that back. “Whoa! He really does look like an octopus.”
Pipes violently burst. School books vanish as if they never existed. Flower petals rain from the vents.
“You must be Akabane Karma, right? I heard your suspension was done today,” the aforementioned octopus greeted, half moon smile glued to his face which displayed no hint of understanding the tempest that had graced his footstep. The others gathered, curiously peering around each other at the new addition, hands hiding gossiping mouths.
“But that’s no excuse to be late for your first day back!” Koro-sensei scolded, his bulbous head turning a deep, disapproving purple. In response, Karma laughed, the sound so sheepish even Nagisa was almost convinced he meant it.
Reality itself almost seems to shift.
“It’s hard to get back into the swing of things.” Karma shrugged. Then, for just a moment, his eyes sparkled. Just as Nagisa would expect from the redhead, not a single sign of struggling with the oddity of Koro-sensei. It had taken days for most of them to adjust while Karma was so nonchalant about the strange teacher. “Also, feel free to call me by my first name.”
The abnormal becomes commonplace.
“It’s nice to meet you, Sensei.” Karma extended his hand in an apparent truce.
When graduation at Kunugigaoka comes so too does a realisation.
“Likewise. Let’s have a fun year.” Koro-sensei accepted his new student’s hand. For a moment, there was calm as wiggling limb met pale fingers.
Then the tentacle burst.
A class will come to find that one of their classmates never existed at all.
Yellow goo dripped to the floor. Koro-sensei appeared further down the field, having jumped back in shock.
Is one of your classmates an impish spirit?
As Karma retreated from the scene, their classmates staring in shock at the yellow splatter coating the grass, Nagisa swore he heard the boy whisper under his breath. So quiet no one else could possibly catch it, his eyes hidden behind a crimson curtain.
“Don’t go anywhere Koro-sensei.”
There was something about those words, spoken to the wind like an oath, that was so unlike the vision of the boy Nagisa had constructed in his mind. They were warped, something so wrong about the painful tone they were uttered.
They were full of anguished awareness.
“I’ll show you what it’s like to die.”
“See you tomorrow!” Sugino waved back, rushing towards his own train. Nagisa let his hand drop, resting at his side as he watched his new friend retreat, mind stuck on an old friend.
It had been amusing to watch Karma fall back into that prankster role that always suited him. Stealing Koro-sensei’s gelato was nothing to when Nagisa had listened as Karma overtook the PA system and blasted English classics such as ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and ‘Uptown Funk’ non-stop as the school descended into chaos searching for the culprit.
He was never caught.
They never even figured out how it was done, the experts that were called in even quit their jobs in frustration.
“Look,” a familiar voice exclaimed, the mocking tone locking Nagisa’s limbs in place. A former classmate. A person who had retained their noble status as Nagisa was tossed aside. “It’s Nagisa!”
“He must be right at home in E-class.”
Mocking.
Back and forth.
As Nagisa just stood there, unable to act as every word pierced his heart.
“Hah, loser. He’ll never make it out of there.”
Such a familiar song and dance.
“Did you hear Akabane’s back from his suspension? He’s down there too, now.”
The only person that had ever truly stood up for him but that had been before Class 3-E.
He had never felt more like he deserved those words than when he was first demoted. Never felt so hopeless. He could never be like Karma, able to fight back with so little hesitation and that was when he truly knew it.
“I’d rather die than be stuck in E-class, especially with that devil.”
“Really? You’d rather die?” Nagisa startled as a bottle hit a pillar, shards of glass scattering at Karma’s digression. The enigma pointed the jagged remains at the bullies. His grin was cruel, unnaturally jagged teeth flashing at the trembling teenage boys. Were his teeth always that sharp? “That can be arranged. How about… now?”
Nagisa had not heard him approach.
He had just appeared, slipping onto the main stage from behind a curtain, exiting a backstage that Nagisa could never quite glimpse.
Their former classmates ran away and that was it. Such a simple solution for something that had put Nagisa through such pain.
It was so familiar. Once this appearance, defence, would have brought relief but Nagisa only clenched his fists, the hopelessness sticking to him like a stubborn stain.
“Like I actually would,” Karma laughed, tossing the glass remains away. His eyes landed on Nagisa for just second before his gaze wandered. “I’ve got a new plaything! Can’t exactly risk another suspension.”
Disinterested.
Look at me, Nagisa thought, clenching his fists tighter. He imagined his hands dripping blood, crimson pooling on the floor and marking his pain for all to see. As if he were truly there. Important. But, he was too weak to even break skin. Why does no one…
“So, Nagisa.” his head shot up, watching the red devil walking to the platform slightly in front of him. Nagisa had been watching that back for years, that seemingly impenetrable composure, the rebellious jacket, not a care in those relaxed shoulders. Nagisa had been alright living in his friend’s shadow, wandering through life as a ghost chained by Karma’s presence.
It had been Karma who broke the arrangement.
He never told Nagisa why.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
“Yeah?” Nagisa prompted. He felt a flicker of hope. Perhaps for acknowledgment, for answers on their falling out.
He stamped down the ridiculous notion.
Feelings like that festering had never served him well.
“Would he get mad if I called him an octopus?”
Nagisa contemplated that for a moment. He doubted it. He tried to not let it sting that their first conversation in over a year was about a giant yellow octopus. He tried. “No, rather I think it’s like a mascot for him. If anything he seems to identify with it, even marks tests with a little octopus.”
“Perfect!” Karma grinned manically as they reached the platform. “I was worried he was just going to be some weird monster. Sounds like he’s an actual teacher.”
Nagisa was a master at reading people. It was not something he did consciously and it was certainly never something he would boast about. It was survival. He knew how to skirt around a foul mood, how to identify a bad day from malicious intent, could read a person’s body language with ease.
Karma, however, remained a true mystery.
He was so secretive even his body gave little away.
Experience had allowed Nagisa to comprehend a little. He could see that darkness that promised violence, the slight twitch in Karma’s facade when he truly lost his composure, but so many mannerisms only mystified Nagisa.
His brain itched to understand. If he could understand he would be safe. If he could just understand. He needed to know, to predict.
He should be scared of the uncertainty that surrounded Karma. Perhaps he was, his guard was always somewhat raised around the devilish boy waiting for the yelling and hitting, but there was truly something so interesting about someone who made no logical sense.
“I can’t believe I get to kill a teacher with my very own hands!” A train rumbled past behind Karma as he grinned with his fangs exposed, somehow even sharper than a minute earlier. His body language was almost unnatural, leaning back too far to truly be able to maintain balance, especially not so casually. His eyes practically glowed in that mundane train station, two mini suns set on watching their tiny classroom burn. “I will destroy any perception of him as a teacher and this wretched class with him.”
Nagisa blinked.
Karma was nowhere to be found.
A violent delinquent, huh?
The delinquent in question laughed, driving a fist into an older boy’s face with an unfortunate crack. Another swiped at the boy but he swept the older kid’s leg out from under him with a swift kick.
Nagisa could see the violence in every move the other boy made. He was rude, provoked fights and was often truant, yet he could be so strangely kind.
The boy, only in first year, held off multiple third years with ease. He ducked with ease, predicting each punch
Nagisa, only twelve, stood at the mouth of the alley, horrified by the sickening sight of blood splatter but unable to turn his gaze from the delinquent he had recently befriended in a comic shop. A boy who could transition seamlessly from sadistic to subdued, who so often stared blankly at the wall as though deep in another existence and still managed to memorise every tiny detail about himself that Nagisa had ever shared.
Cruel is what others would call him.
He had earned the nickname of ‘red devil’ in just the first week for his blood tipped hair and the sharp canines that used words as a weapon, digging into soft necks with sharp insults.
Nagisa had not thought about who Karma sunk his talons into until that moment. Further observation deemed that in some cases there was no apparent pattern, as if the boy was just using the fight to alleviate a burning star of anger that was growing too great for his body, but the overwhelming majority saw Karma with a particular type of target. He did not make the connection until he watched those fists so often hidden behind a slouching back enact cosmic wrath on a group of teenagers while he shielded their beaten victim behind his perfectly straight back.
Ever since, while his true feelings remained a thickly veiled secret, Nagisa had come to see Karma as more than a violent delinquent. Someone he could rarely read, whose body twisted abnormally during every fight, who emerged with more bruise than skin showing but never seemed to feel pain. A layer of molten rock Nagisa wished to crack, to peer beyond the hissing surface and percieve the mechanisms that made him burn.
A spirit of retribution.
A wrathful reaper, executing revenge on those who wronged others.
At first he had considered Karma as some sort of heroic defender and had viewed him with wonder but that vision had shattered quickly. Karma was no pillar of morality, he was just a near invincible force who dealt out consequences.
He was a karmic force hurting those who dared to hurt others.
Nagisa had wondered when that resentment would be directed at him.
Karma jumped.
Karma jumped off a cliff and Nagisa just watched from the sidelines.
Frozen. Completely unable to act while Karma jumped.
He knew his nightmares would be haunted by that serene smile, those closed eyelids which held back a dam of information. He never knew what the other boy was thinking and he was forced to confront that he might never know.
That Karma could die.
He could live his life without the knowledge of that strange boy. He had, in a sense. A year had gone by without a word of exchange, but permanency was harder to stomach.
Karma had seemed invincible.
No one was, not truly. Not even those who seemed otherworldly.
Karma was human.
The silence was suffocating.
They walked down the twisting path of the 3-E mountain, Nagisa watching Karma’s back as the other boy pressed on ahead with long strides which felt purposeful. An escape. Nagisa was reminded of how he could never catch up, was almost left behind like an ignorant shadow, hidden from the sun by the target whose image he mimicked.
He was sick of it.
Being left in the dark. Biting his tongue. Being left behind.
Watching a boy he cared about, because curiosity had long morphed into a strange concern that festered even as the object evaded his sight, hurt himself.
Nagisa knew what it was to place your life on the line. The sick freeing feeling in his stomach as the grenade went off, the doubt that drove one to it. At least by saving the world he would be worth something.
Karma had not just put himself in danger, he had jumped off a cliff without the possibility of survival.
Nagisa had the thrill of the unknown, of whether he would miraculously scrape by with all limbs intact, but Karma could not have experienced such a thrill.
Death was certain.
“Why did you jump?” Nagisa spoke before he could hold his tongue. He was always curious but it had never seemed right to ask. He had learnt, with bruises and ribbons, that words could be presented with sequins, embellished and never matching the truth. What was the point in asking if the answer was pyrite? When he observed he struck gold with everyone but the concept of revenge himself. “Unless you expected the net, there was no possibility of living! Whether you killed him or not, you… you would be gone.”
Karma stopped but did not turn around. His hand visibly clenched. “Why would that matter?”
“Because I don’t want you to die?” Nagisa spluttered.
“Why? You barely know me!” Karma hissed, still not turning around. His back was like a stone wall, ramrod straight and shielding something unknown to curious onlookers. The next part was almost a whisper, imbued with bitterness. “Why should my death matter to you?”
He was right. Nagisa barely knew a thing. It was a relationship built off analysing the other, a knowledge that was exclusive to facial expressions without any emotional substance. A lie built around comics and video games, restricted to mundane activities and pointless discussion over school and anarchical pranks. Nagisa had no idea where Karma lived, if he had siblings, why he shut off sometimes. His attempts had been futile but not without intention. “I always wanted to know you.”
“Even now? After I ghosted you?”
“Yes, if you’ll let me.”
“That’s not an easy task, you know.” Karma turned back to face him but his impassive eyes landed over Nagisa’s shoulder. Seeing something beyond his comprehension, always residing in a different thread of reality. Never welcoming Nagisa to stand beside him, never allowing Nagisa to glimpse that indescribable world. A wall that had always existed between them. “No one has truly understood me in a very long time.”
“Surely you want someone to know. You were going to die unknown?”
“You tried. You were always observing yet you only ever saw me how you wanted to.” Karma had been the one to break their strange agreement. Nagisa had thought he was being a friend but had trailing behind, seeing Karma as some invincible force, truly been affection? Can friends exist with the presence of an altar? Nagisa had seeked recognition, to be seen, but, perhaps Nagisa was the one that was blind. Karma was right, Nagisa’s need to understand had become a problem for them both. He wanted to know but when no information was given he substituted his own perceptions. There was more to a person than the little Nagisa could read, especially with a mask obscuring the truth.
Still, did Karma ever truly give him the chance? Distancing himself and never truly speaking of himself. Karma had been as much of specter, had not even given the slightest push of a poltergeist, as Nagisa had been keeping his hands over his eyes and his head in the clouds.
It was Karma who left and Nagisa was still hurt by it, but maybe there had been cracks the whole time.
Maybe they both just had flawed notions of friendship.
Maybe they could learn.
“You’re right, but I want to learn. With you this time. Not through speculation, through memories.”
He was sick of living in Karma’s shadow.
He would make himself seen.
Karma huffed, a small smile inching onto his perfect mask, a slight glitch in the seemingly perfect system showing an expression too soft to fit the whole. Nagisa saw it for what it was now, a facade of unknown motivation, filled with the cracks of a flawed person. “I can give it a try. I have nothing to lose. Not anymore. Wanna go to the arcade?”
Maybe it was not an apology, it would not fully mend the frayed wire their friendship sat upon, but Karma looked right at him. Nagisa still did not know what ended their friendship, whether it was his fault, and the hurt of being discarded so easily still burned, but the person who had ended it was before him, willing to move past the problems that had plagued their friendship. It was the first step and Nagisa felt ready to fling himself into all that true friendship with the Akabane Karma could entail.
Slowly, keeping each step measured, he came to stand beside his abnormal friend.
Relishing in the feeling of being seen, investigating was the very last thing from his mind.
Nagisa returned the smile in kind.
It was not forgiveness.
It was hope that they could one day build something stronger than they once had.
“Sure.”