[I'm really sorry this has taken a long time for me to get out. It's two weeks after Halloween, and I've only just finished this. Life has been so busy for me, I haven't had a chance to get much done. So I've shortened this just so I can get it out before Thanks Giving. In any case, I hope you guys find this to your enjoyment. And just to remind you guys, this is set just after the God of Death arc. Again I'm really sorry for the lateness.]
If anything, in spite of the deemed idea that the class was going to have a Halloween evening to bring forth positive feelings for the event, for Amaya she just found herself hating it even more. She had seen Koro-sensei's yellow cranium poking in through the window to check that she hadn't tried to run off in the whole time she'd been in the Faculty office just reading silently in the corner, and the few giggling fits she'd heard ringing through the wall about the deemed Maid-Outfits just drained away all the tolerance she had barely managed to gather up during her time-out.
Part-way through her time here, Irina had practically forgotten the agitated student was even there and moved on towards trying to hang off of Karasuma. Though Amaya accepted that fine enough – Anything was better than being in that classroom filled with the festivities she really did find herself hating.
As the sun began to set in the horizon, Amaya found herself wishing for nothing more than to go home.
But alas, her hopes and wishes were usually made in vain. Today was no different.
Just as Karasuma had shooed Irina away for the tenth time that afternoon, the door slid open to reveal Koro-sensei standing on the other side. His grin was still broad, but instead of his usual teaching robes he was dressed in the standard garbs of a ghost.
'Amaya-san, are you ready to join everyone outside?' The octopus asked.
Amaya snapped her book shut with a loud thud as she lifted her gaze to look at the creature.
'I'd prefer to go drown myself right now, thanks.' Amaya deadpanned, though her expression darkened as she lifted herself, bag and all from the floor. 'I've got more important things to do than play these stupid games.'
'Is that so?' Koro-sensei responded almost whimsically as he watched Amaya walk right over to leave the room. 'Then Sensei won't stop you from going home.'
Thank god for that!
'Jeez, I hope the house hasn't been trashed already...' Amaya muttered as she marched herself away from Koro-sensei, far too preoccupied to notice anything about her surroundings at all, though something did smell oddly acrid on the air. It was also oddly dark in the building. 'I've got all that housework to get done ... hell, what can I cook this la--'
'Sorry to do this, Amaya-san. Please forgive us~' An amused, female voice giggled the very second Amaya set foot into the foyer, and a sudden force slammed hard into her stomach before she could even react. Before she so much as managed to stumble back, hands grabbed hold of her to render her motionless. 'There's no way we can twist your arm on fair grounds~'
'W-wait! What are you doing?!' Another rather horrified voice shrieked out.
And yet whatever was said next didn't come to Amaya.
The very instance that Amaya realized what the chemical stench was, her temper broke out of her control the moment she felt a cloth touch her face. With all the strength she could muster, she wrenched her arms free of the restraining grips to shove bodies back with great force. She heard people fall to the floor with startled squeaks, one after the other as Amaya struggled to shove all her assailants back, miraculously avoiding any harm.
But then just as she managed to free up an escape route through the bodies in the dark, she was pulled backwards into a choke-hold as that damp cloth was forced over her face. She was too angry to manage rational thought, let alone hold her breath – Her throat burned with every gasping breath and she practically choked on the chemical taint. She managed to kick one person in the stomach, with her head slamming back into the jaw of the person holding the cloth over her face.
And then, the world began to turn black around her, though not without her managing to slam a few solid elbows back into her assailant's ribs.
Giggling voices filled the disjointed darkness, peppered with the shouts of reprimand somewhere along the line. Most words were indistinguishable among all the noise, an endless chorus of voices that gave her no information at all. Everything else was out of her grasp.
By the time her senses began to come back to her, several things had changed.
Her surroundings weren't the first she took note of, though they weren't far behind her immediate glance over her own condition. The burning pain in her airways was still as present as ever, and her head was aching as if somebody had slammed a piece of 2x4 against her skull with all their strength. She was rather disorientated, however, thanks to her twisted and pitiful upbringing, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she had just woken up after being drugged. The symptoms were so disgustingly familiar that she didn't even wonder – She knew how long ago, how much she had likely been drugged with, and just how long her airways were going to burn like this.
Amaya's altered change in clothes came at much less importance to her, as did her current location. Her outfit of grey cargo pants and long-sleeved white shirt was completely replaced with what she felt was the most unpleasant of outfits. A sleeveless teal, grey and black dress of frills and lace was an uncomfortably form-fitting replacement, combined with thigh-length white socks and a white apron. Along with the obvious maid outfit was a belled collar around her neck, a white tail sewn into the dress, and a white hairband tied in legitimate knots around her hair to pin up a pair of white cats ears to her head. What was worse for Amaya was the fact that she was waking up alone in the classroom, and all of her belongings were gone. Her keys she'd had hanging from the chain around her neck were robbed from her, no less.
Amaya slowly turned her head towards the clock at the front of the classroom to find that it was no earlier than 8.42pm, at least two whole hours past the time she always tried to have dinner prepared for her siblings. And today in particular, it was four hours since she wanted to be home to finish that housework.
At the sound of giggling voices outside the classroom, Amaya's gaze was rerouted from the clock towards a sight that would have made her rather curious, had it been any other day. The whole clearing was decorated in all those carved pumpkins, lit up with candles to cast an orange glow of faces through the dark. The female portion of the class was standing just part-way down the path with a few members appearing absent. All the boys were seemingly absent, as was Koro-sensei. Undoubtedly Irina and Karasuma had been roped into this as well, though they were missing from sight.
The sight of the girls all laughing and looking very pleased right now did nothing to subdue the growing pit of agitation inside of her as she made her unsteady walk through the dark classroom towards them. Costumes of varying effect were worn by all the girls present, Pirates, ghosts, and all other varying roles.
'Oh! Amaya-san, you're awake!' One of the girls called out at Amaya's arrival, though Amaya couldn't care less about who it was that had called out to her.
'You took your time waking up!' Nakamura's familiar voice rung out as they began to approach Amaya's form standing in the doorway. 'We thought you were going to sleep through Halloween after all!'
'Got a question for the lot of you...' Amaya managed to speak up, wincing slightly as her throat ached.
'Sure~!' Nakamura responded easily.
It was here that Amaya lifted her head to fix a rather cold stare upon the girls, causing the cheeky smiles across their faces to falter ever so slightly. She vaguely noticed that Okuda, Kataoka and Hazama were nowhere to be seen.
'A-Amaya-san, you look kind of scary...' Kanzaki meekly remarked.
'What did you do with my belongings?' Amaya questioned as her hand not to the door-frame actually lifted to where the chain around her neck would have been if not for it's theft.
'Ah, we've hidden them all over the place.' Nakamura answered as she cast a rather hesitant smirk in Amaya's direction. 'We all know you would have just gone straight home if you still had your stuff, so we decided to play a game. You'll have to find everyone and have them tell you where they all hid your stuff.'
'I see.' Amaya responded, a little too calmly for the more quiet members of the female group's comfort.
'Yeah, so lets get started, an--'
'Next,' Amaya cut the girls off quickly, causing them to practically flinch in response. 'Did you stop to so much as think that I might have needed to go straight home after school? I needed to be home three hours ago. I have housework I cannot shirk. I have obligations I cannot afford to neglect even once!'
'O-oh, if it's about your siblings, don't worry.' Hara spoke up with a rather wry smile across her face. 'We asked Koro-sensei to take dinner out to them, so they're fine. We would never leave them starving!'
Amaya's breath hitched as she struggled to keep a straight face, though inwardly she was angry. She took a slow, deep breath as she willed herself to not raise her voice.
'If that's all your questions, Amaya-san, then we really should--'
'Who was the clever bitch who suggested to drug me?' Amaya cut in mercilessly as she adopted an exceedingly innocent smile that could beat one of Karma's own on a normal day. 'I don't need to ask who agreed with the plan or who actually drugged me, because I can smell the stuff over your hands, Nakamura-san.'
The words Amaya spoke did nothing but horrify the girls standing in front of her – In fact, they all actually looked rather insulted by her blunt words.
'W-we understand it was a little uncalled for...' Okano hedged as she tried to wave off the unnervingly cold look in Amaya's eyes. 'There's no point in having a fun Halloween without everyone here, and there's no way we could overpower you otherwise... I mean, you're practically one of the boys, after all. You wouldn't even be wearing that dress up until now if we didn't...'
'That's not what I asked.'
'B-but Amaya-san--'
'You don't seem to understand what the hell you idiots have done!' Amaya finally snapped as the girls refused to give her that one answer she wanted. 'Do you even think about the feelings of the person you're messing with?! No, of course none of you do! You didn't think about it when it came to Jelavic-san, and look where that got the lot of you! You're special little plan done your way hurt her so bad, she ended up almost killing all of us just last week!'
'That's a very different thing, entirely.' Hayami spoke up this time with a rather serious stare.
'Of fucking course it is, you moron!' Amaya shouted. 'What you've done to me is even worse ethically because it's illegal! This is the kind of bullshit that gets people thrown in prison in most countries!'
Her anger appeared to finally make sense to some of the girls at that outburst, for a larger portion of the group actually seemed to appear rather lost for words and rather guilty. However in spite of this, Nakamura smiled meekly as she tried to speak once again.
'Now now, Amaya-san, I think you're blowing this way out of proportion here. Yes, it might be illegal, but trying to assassinate somebody is illegal, too. If you're upset about illegal things happening, then why aren't you upset about having to kill Koro-sensei?' The blond hedged as she seemed to hold her hands up defensively in spite of her words. 'We didn't do this with any nasty intention to do you harm. Loosen up and try to have fun with us for once. All you're doing is being dramatic about this.'
She was being dramatic?
Loosen up?!
The anger inside of Amaya rose in spitting waves to rip the control out of her grasp as those words sunk in on her like she'd just been slapped. Whatever look the girls were wearing didn't reach Amaya as she felt herself lunge forward. All she could feel was the spitting fury that had returned to wrench a spanner in her state of self control.
And then a second later, she felt an arm latch around her chest from behind just as a hand landed firmly over her eyes to blind her.
'Karma-kun?!' She faintly heard somebody squeak out in surprise.
Yet there was no reply as far as Amaya could hear in her fit of rage. She felt the ground beneath her feet shift as she was dragged awkwardly away from the shocked group of girls and into the foliage of the mountain forest.
Her energy slipped away like the trailing of water after dragging oneself out of a swimming pool, and before Karma had even decided he'd forced enough distance between her and the other girls, she felt herself becoming rather light-headed. It was the same every time, and now that she was regaining self-control one again, she was hating it even more.
All she really wanted was to curl up in the attic and stay there in the dark, away from everybody.
'Amay!' Came Karma's sudden call, jostling Amaya right to attention.
Somewhere, without her even realizing it, they'd come to a stop somewhere in the forest, and she'd been freed from the restraining hold Karma had of her when he dragged her away. Instead, he was standing in front of her with his hands to her shoulders, as if he'd had to catch her from tumbling over at least twice. The rather knowing and uncannily patient look written across his face said that he at least had an educated guess as to where her mind was at.
'Are you awake, now?' He asked.
'Y-yeah ...' Amaya eventually responded as she lifted a hand to grasp at her aching head. 'Sorry ... about that.'
Without a word or even taking a second to appreciate her response, Karma let go of her shoulders to immediately pinch her face.
'Oww.'
'Don't apologize to me.' He scolded her, though he did adopt the smallest hint of a smirk, which Amaya returned with a frown. 'If I didn't already know you'd feel worse for lifting a hand against them, I would have let you get a few hits in before I dragged you away~'
'Why the hell would you let me do that?' Amaya questioned with a rather distinct scowl.
He hummed momentarily as if he was actually thinking on her question, though she sincerely doubted that. The smirk which remained plastered across his face actually seemed to broaden a little as he eventually loosened his pinching hold of her face.
'Haven't I already told you? You never get angry because you've been hurt, its always because somebody else has.' He eventually answered, confusing Amaya with little effort. 'This is probably the first time you've ever been truly angry for yourself in the whole time I've known you. And I'll be honest, it's a nice change to see.'
'I've been angry at you plenty of times.' Amaya muttered.
'When I've made your life difficult, yes, but never when I've actually hurt you.' He corrected her. 'I've done that enough times to know the difference, Amay.'
Amaya remained silent at first in spite of the urge to wave his remark off entirely. It was hard enough to not actually look away.
'That doesn't explain why you'd let me hit them, though...'
'I enjoy watching you make somebody else suffer, doesn't matter who it is.'
'That wasn't going to make them suffer, Karma...'
'Let me rephrase that, I enjoy watching you make somebody deserving suffer immensely.' He reiterated with a distinct snicker in his tone.
'But they don't--'
'They deserve it, at least a little.' He cut in, silencing Amaya with just those words alone. 'I think a few black eyes or broken noses would have been fair, though honestly, I spent the whole time actually wondering if you were ever going to try and take a swing at them.'
Eventually, a small sigh escaped Amaya as she put two and two together.
'Just how much did you see?' She couldn't help but ask.
'Well, I already knew. Okuda-san told me what was going on.' He answered as the smirk written across his face actually faded a little. 'She was upset about it, but I think that might have more to do with the fact that she feels responsible for what happened than anything else.'
'Huh?'
'Okuda-san made that sleeping draught, but it was for Koro-sensei, not you.'
'Oh...'
There honestly wasn't anything more Amaya could actually say. She hadn't thought at all upon the fact that the drug existed or who had even had it at first, only that it had been used on her.
But then the rustling of leaves nearby snatched both of their attention from the topic at hand.
'Th-there you are!' Gasped a rather breathless Okuda as she stumbled through the underbrush. Dressed in what Amaya immediately recognized as a witches hat and black dress, the bespectacled girl appeared to have been running for more than a handful of seconds from the leaves and twigs that were tangled in her plaits and clothes.
It was also here that Amaya finally noticed the devil horns and black cloak that Karma was actually wearing.
'Ah, Okuda-san~' Karma greeted pleasantly enough. 'Perfect timing, we were about to go looking for you~'
Whatever Okuda was about to say was lost as she froze in response to Karma's words.
'S-sorry?' She meekly questioned, her expression mirroring the utter confusion that was written across Amaya's own at that very second. 'I don't quite understand...'
Amaya felt her confusion merely grow as Karma turned his head to fix her with a small smirk before returning his gaze to Okuda.
'We need all of those smoke bombs and other particularly useful things you've made. Think you can help with that?'
'E-ehh? Umm... May I ask what for?'
'Isn't it obvious? It's Halloween.' Karma answered with a remarkably evil smile spreading across his face. 'It's the perfect excuse to do evil, horrible things for some payback~'
In spite of the reaction she had expected from Okuda at such a declaration, Amaya found herself thoroughly floored to see comprehension dawn in the bespectacled girls face as she nodded and disappeared back through the foliage. Undoubtedly to dash back towards the classroom to do exactly as Karma had asked.
As the sounds of some of their classmates yelling profanity at a poor excuse of a ghostly octopus began to ring over the fall breeze, Amaya felt a grip close gently around her right hand.
'How about we go make their lives horrible for a while?' She heard Karma ask, with a particularly eager edge to his already evil tone. 'You need your stuff back anyway, don't you?'
'I guess...' Amaya muttered wearily beneath her breath.
Almost as if he'd already expected her resignation, she heard him chuckle as he began to tug her along after him.
'The sooner we do this, the sooner we can leave~' He announced with a cheeky grin as his grip tightened just a little more. 'Unless of course you're fine with being dressed like that for the rest of the night? I'm certainly not complaining if that's the case~'
Instead of uttering a familiar rebuke in turn, Amaya actually felt her face tinge red just a little at the remark.
'Sh-shut up, you jerk!' She muttered weakly.
And so, that night Satan, the Cat and the Witch filled the mountainside with chilling screams and shrieks of terror one victim at a time.