Chapter Text
“Nagisa?!”
“Nagisa, are you ok?!”
“The helicopter is going to be here soon-!”
“GET UP, NAGISA!”
Makoto Naegi shot awake and harshly gasped for breath, feeling as though he had been forced awake by a terrible nightmare. His heart was racing, pounding inside of his chest, and he groaned as his body ached horribly.
What… what happened?
“Oh my gosh, Nagisa! Don’t scare us like that!”
Makoto sat up and turned his head to see a petite girl with light green hair staring at him, tears in her pretty yellow eyes. She was surrounded by other people who seemed to be about the same age as him. Makoto just stared, unsure of what to do and trying to recall how he got… where he was.
“Huh?”
“Heh, you scared us good there, Nagisa. Don’t do that again, you idiot! You could have died!”
A boy with brown and blond hair had spoken, glaring at Makoto while breathing heavily. The lucky student was very confused.
“Wait, wait, sorry- who are you? And are you talking to me?”
That… definitely wasn’t the right thing to say.
Most of the teens stumbled away from him in shock, some gasping and others saying nothing at all. There was an adult that he hadn’t noticed before; the man looked to be in bad shape but seemed to be powering through it.
“Nagisa. What do you remember?”
Makoto stared at him.
“I… uh, I’m not… I’m very sorry sir, but I’m not Nagisa.”
He cursed and turned away. Makoto heard him curse under his breath.
“Shit, it’s worse than I thought.”
A soft laugh caught his attention.
“Aw, c’mon Nagisa, you’re scaring the class! And you’ve certainly done enough of that already, hm?”
A boy with red hair crouched next to Makoto so that he was at eye level. His piercing eyes stared straight into Makoto, and the lucky student felt nervous.
He was searching; what was he looking for?
After what felt like an eternity, something flickered in the boy’s eyes; he had seen something, figured something out.
“Oh, I see. Hm. Interesting.”
He leaned forward, his red hair brushing against Makoto’s cheek as he whispered dangerously into his ear.
“We are going to have a little talk later, mkay? Until then, you aren’t going to say anything about who you are. Do you understand me?”
Makoto’s breath hitched. Ok, so this person knew that he wasn’t Nagisa, but he was acting as if he had taken something from whoever Nagisa was. And he did not sound happy about it, though his tone was playful.
“Answer me.”
“U-Uh, y-yes. I u-understand.”
The boy nodded and leaned back before standing up nonchalantly. Makoto let out a breath that he didn’t realise he was holding.
He… he was dangerous. That boy was deadly.
And Makoto knew deadly.
“Damn, Karma, what did you say to him? The poor guy looks like he’s gonna throw up!”
Karma. What an interesting name.
“I mean, that could also be because of him almost getting killed!”
Killed.
Makoto paled.
Where are my friends?
He staggered to his feet, face white and pale. Everyone turned to him, but Makoto was too focused on where he was.
“I… I’m outside.”
“Yes, you are. Don’t make a scene.”
Karma had spoken, responding to Makoto’s softly spoken words. The red-haired teen was the closest to him; it seemed like he was the only one who had heard the lucky student’s amazed whisper.
“The helicopter is going to arrive soon. Karma, help Nagisa out of the way. He doesn’t seem to be in a good state right now, and I don’t trust him not to get into another stupid situation.”
Makoto tensed as Karma nodded with a mischievous smirk on his face, before strolling back over to him and flinging an arm over his shoulder. Makoto didn’t dare turn to look at him.
“Don’t worry, Mr. K! I’ll take good care of our friend here!”
He heard a huff of amusement as sweat dripped down the back of Makoto’s neck and onto Karma’s arm.
What is going on?!
Makoto decided that the best thing he could do in this situation was collect his thoughts.
Where was I…
The secret room!
Karma started to lead Makoto away, chatting about how they should get away from the helicopter landing pad. The lucky student was too busy thinking to process the chatter.
Kyoko sent me in, but what happened after that? I can’t remember…
Wait, no, there was… something… someone… behind me?
But that doesn’t explain how I got here…
“Alright, that’s enough thinking. Back to the present now.”
Karma’s whisper jolted Makoto out of his thoughts. The two of them had moved near the edge of the roof, and Makoto could see a helicopter that looked like it was going to land on the helicopter pad they had been standing on before. Makoto decided that he needed to at least get some sort of grasp on the situation.
“K-Karma… I need you to tell me what’s going on. I don’t know where I am, but I have friends that I really need to-”
“We aren’t going to talk about this here. We’re going to talk about this when we can guarantee we won’t be overheard.”
A deadly, almost psychotic aura slammed into Makoto, making his breath catch.
“Wh- K-Karma- Wh-What are y-you-”
“I don’t know how you’ve done what you’ve done,” Karma whispered threateningly, “but I’m going to find out what you did to Nagisa and who you are.”
The arm around his shoulder retracted, until his hand was on the base of Makoto’s neck.
“Sleepy time, imposter. I’ll see you later.”
A pinch on the back of his neck sent the lucky student straight into an unnatural sleep.
Nagisa Shiota’s eyes fluttered open gently as his brain slowly started thinking. He felt sleepy and the back of his head really hurt. His thoughts were slow and sluggish (although they were still much faster than the average person’s- as is the mind of an assassin), his mind feeling foggy and his thoughts slipping away before he could grasp them properly. The boy felt as if he were floating, body weightless and free.
Concussion, Koro-sensei’s voice whispered in his head, that’s a concussion, Nagisa.
But… how did I get a concussion? Oh, wait- was it during the fight with Takaoka? Huh…
Tilting his head to the side, Nagisa let out a sharp cry of pain as his head burst out in agony. It felt like someone had slammed the hilt of a knife into the back of his skull, which definitely didn’t happen during his fight.
Ok, so no moving. His mind was still working though, so even though his thinking was much slower than normal, he could still analyse his situation.
He seemed to be in a storage room of sorts, but it had clearly been ransacked recently. It was completely empty. He seemed to have been knocked out from… behind. Definitely from behind.
What am I doing here?
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Nagisa knew he should be much more tense than he was. His surroundings were unfamiliar, he didn’t have any weapons at all, his classmates were nowhere to be seen, and he had a bad head injury, but he couldn’t manage to get in the assassin’s zone and focus on his senses at all.
…He was in so much trouble.
Koro-sensei would be so mad if he could see how absolutely defenceless he was letting himself be.
Slowly sitting up, Nagisa very carefully leant against something that he thought to be a desk attached to the floor, panting heavily. It had taken him quite a while to sit up, and his head hurt a lot. Half-tempted to just flop back on the floor and pass out (but knowing that would only make it worse), Nagisa groaned in agony, while trying to keep his voice as soft as possible so as not to alert anyone of his position. There was a shuffling noise, and he blearily blinked up as a door- a hidden door, more like- opened and a girl around his age walked in. She had purple hair and a purple outfit, and a cold expression on her face that shifted slightly in concern as she took in the assassin on the floor.
She wasn’t someone that he recognised, which was strange; Nagisa knew the faces of everyone in school, even if he couldn’t name them all.
“Makoto?”
Nagisa winced as his head throbbed with her voice as it seemed to drill into his mind. He groaned slightly and decided he should probably let the girl know that he was concussed.
“Mmngh… M’ head… hurts…”
That’s strange. His thoughts were much more coherent than his words. Also, that… wasn’t his voice.
The girl looked shocked at his injured state. She swiftly walked over to him and knelt on the ground. Nagisa instinctually tensed, but it was more of a soft flinch considering how his body wasn’t obeying his mind.
“Makoto, can you hear me? Are you alright?”
Nagisa blinked blankly at her.
“Wh… Who’s M’koto?”
The girl’s expression hardly changed, but Nagisa could see a sliver of concern and sadness in her purple eyes.
“Makoto, I’m going to bring Sakura here, ok? She’ll bring you to the infirmary. Stay awake, ok?”
Nagisa noted the urgency in her voice. He didn’t know her, and she seemed to have him confused for someone else, but it was clear that she cared. The least he could do, if he couldn’t defend himself, was ease her fears slightly and let her take care of him.
If he was in real danger here, the assassin was sure that Koro-sensei would find him.
As crazy as that octopus was sometimes, he knew that if Koro-sensei knew he was missing, he would find him and keep him safe.
That said, Nagisa knew better than to depend on someone else as an assassin.
“S-Sssstay… awake. Y-Yeah, ok. I… I-I can do that.”
She nodded and quickly ran from the room, and Nagisa leaned heavily against the desk. As sleep tried to claim him, he kept himself thinking.
The girl had been calling him… Makoto? Yeah, Makoto. Nagisa wondered who Makoto was, and why the girl thought he was him. Even if they looked similar, surely a girl who seemed so worried for Makoto would know his face well enough to know that Nagisa was definitely not him. Or her. Was he being mistaken for a girl again? Geez, he really hoped not.
“In here.”
The door opened again, and Nagisa was shocked at the incredible bulk of the girl who walked in. He stared at her as she walked over, analysing her every twitch.
That’s bad, that’s bad, that’s bad. She’s dangerous. She seemed to be expertly disguising the fact that she was tired, perhaps she had fought someone recently? But even then, he knew that he couldn’t face her with his head like it is.
“Makoto. Will you allow me to bring you to the infirmary?”
Nagisa gave a small smile. Apparently, she also thought he was Makoto, and the boy was too busy thinking correct her.
On one hand, he definitely shouldn’t be near her in this state, as there was no way he could take her in a fight. On the other, as long as they thought he was Makoto, he’d probably be safe. Maybe.
Where’s Karma when you need him?
“Y-Yeah, ok. Th-Thanks.”
The muscular girl picked him up with ease, and Nagisa’s head throbbed as he settled into her arms. As he was carried out, light assaulted his vision and he winced. His already fragile grip on consciousness faded, and everything went black.