33. Consider

Ten are incapacitated, two are staying behind-- which leaves fourteen heading up the hotel with Karasuma. Isogai and Kataoka took roll, noting down who were infected and who weren't.

Then Nao took over, and began noting down the various symptoms.

Even if this was going to just be a scary health bug in the end, they had to be monitored for other reasons-- like the fact that a fever this high might leave lasting damage if left unchecked, and Okajima's blood loss is not looking great.

"It strikes me as odd that it's so potent, but it's not affecting you at all, Kuma-sensei," Takebayashi says.

Nao hummed at the observation. "And what does that mean, scientifically?"

"That..." Takebayashi took a moment, "it's not contagious. At least not airborne, so it's a drug that was in our drinks, or our food."

"And it was administered at a time and place where Kuma-sensei wouldn't be," Okuda interrupted them. "So it happened during the daytime, when you and Karasuma-sensei were doing all the legal work."

Because an immunocompromised person like Nao would've gotten a full force of this, whatever this is, if he'd been struck. And the hotel staff aren't affected, so it was a method that was surefire to only hit the kids. 

Splendid observation, it's not very complicated at all. 

But Nao wasn't trying to solve the mystery here-- he was just trying to make them think as a distraction, so they could exercise their minds in a logical direction around the issue and calm themselves down.

"And it's not any of the drinks inside the hotel rooms either," Nao added.

"Daytime, a time when we all ate or drank together," Fuwa appeared beside them, and Nao involuntarily jumped. When did she get here?

Korosensei was in the center of the other table with Karasuma, and both were looking over. Some of the students were scurrying about, getting changed and ready to go.

"But we were all split into groups then," Okuda says.

Nao looked at the list. "Every team was hit, but the teams that are least affected are..." he hummed, "Chiba's group and Nagisa's group."

They took a moment.

"The sniper team!" Okuda realized.

"Nagisa, Kayano, and Karma were part of the group that went to scout out the underwater first, right?" Nao said, "because Isogai and Kataoka had to take roll and settle room arrangements before the rest of us."

"So it's in the first few hours of our arrival?" Karasuma finally stood up, contributing to the conversation with his interest.

Then it finally clicked. "The welcome drinks!" Fuwa declared.

At that, Sugino bolted upward upright like a zombie waking up from a nightmare. "That guy?!" he exclaimed. He then immediately fell back down, unconscious.

(Is he an idiot?)

Okuda quickly went over to check on him. He was fine.

"Describe him," Karasuma said. "Ritsu might be able to identify the poisoner."

"What-- from what?"

"It's against government rules to stick my hands too far into the underworld, but I personally keep a recorded list of currently renowned hitmen that I hear of. I gave it to Ritsu."

"You gave what to Ritsu?" that's Irina and Korosensei synchronizing.

"Lovro filled up half of it so it's legitimate to some degree."

"Excuse me?"

-

"Terasaka," Nao said as the boy lingered around the lobby.

The rest of the students, particularly the ones that were most waterlogged-- went back to their rooms to quickly change into something more breathable.

He doesn't miss the way Terasaka flinched, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Nao didn't look over. "If your symptoms get worse, I want you to sit down and don't stress our body out. Understood?"

Terasaka took a moment. "I don't have any symptoms," he said.

Nao sighed, turning over. "I can tell, Terasaka," he said, fixing a firm eye on the boy. "You either promise me that, or you're not going."

"I am going whether your half-dead ass wants me to or not," was Terasaka's biting remark to that order.

Anger flaring up, Nao dropped his pen, spinning back to grab Terasaka in one hard twist of his fist in his collar. Then he tugged the boy forward, earning an undignified squawk when the delinquent didn't expect the sheer strength of the pull.

"If you don't take this seriously, all of you are going to end up getting graves before your fucking half dead teacher," Nao hissed, tone threatening. "Understood?"

Terasaka swallowed nervously.

"U- Understood."

Nao let go, and Terasaka staggered to his feet.

Seriously, you'd think the students would take this more seriously. Or maybe he's just acting tough-- but whatever. Nao sighed, setting down the paper on the table.

"I'll listen to you, Kuma-sensei," Terasaka spoke, his volume low in a way that was him pretending to not be saying anything as he fixed his own collar, looking away. "But you're a hypocrite and I hope you know that."

Pain flared out in Nao's chest.

He smiled, raising a hand to pat him on the back.

"Do as I say, not as I do," he told him. "All teachers, deep down, are hypocrites to some degree. We're-- at least, a lot of us-- are quite self-aware."

Terasaka scoffed, barely faltering. "Well, you aren't," he said. "You worry more about us than you worry about yourself, and you don't expect any of us to do the opposite. I've always hated that about you."

Nao chewed on that.

Well, maybe he's right.

People are three dimensional, after all. Nothing is ever the same with them, and their hearts change every couple of moments.

He didn't compose an answer for that.

Instead, he laughed bitterly.

Terasaka, unable to find an answer to that-- simply scowled in an emotionally conflicted manner-- and then turned away.

-

Nao doesn't accompany them to the hotel.

It wouldn't make sense for him to be there, after all. Irina and Karasuma would be more than enough to help those incredibly competent little assassins make their way to the top.

He stays at the inn with Takebayashi and Okuda, monitoring everyone's condition and making sure no one conks out earlier than expected.

(He almost laughs at the incredulity of everything.)

(For once, Kuma-sensei isn't the weakest link in the classroom.)

He breathes out, slowly-- and does what he needs to do.

This is not his time to do anything of worth, after all. He needs to stay on the sidelines and let his students have their time to shine.

That's his role as a character of this story.

-

-

-

"Sure glad it turned out alright in the end, huh?"

"Huh? Uh, yeah."

After a very long night of running around, keeping everyone alive, and finally greeting the hotel infiltration team back and receiving great news of the poison not being as lethal as they thought-- Nao sits by his bed, watching the sun rise from the window.

It took a long time to get everyone stable enough to return to their rooms and sleep it off normally, so it was only about half an hour to daybreak when the teachers finally got a break.

"Hey Ritsu, could you show me that list Karasuma gave you?"

"EHhh?!" Korosensei, still orb-ified, squawked from his spot in Nao's lap.

Nao and Ritsu hurriedly shushed him. In the distance, Karasuma turned over.

Oh damn, that guy's definitely awake now. What a shame, let's hope he goes back to sleep soon, because he deserves it.

Even Karasuma needed a short nap at this point, so Nao offered to stay awake so the orb of Octopus can be watched over.

He could easily have asked another government agent on standby to safekeep it until they were ready to bury it in cement, but Karasuma decided to delay informing them of the situation out of spite for their prior uselessness in handling the student hostage situation.

And well, Nao could respect that.

"I could, but may I ask why?" Ritsu chimed from Nao's phone. A loading bar popped up on the screen before her, indicating a progress of data download.

"Just to while some time away, I'm bored out of my mind here since I need to babysit an orb of octopus," Nao said, ignoring the offended whine from Korosensei. "I'm just a commoner, so it won't matter if I skim through a list of names, right? You can delete it once I'm done."

Ritsu nods at that. Karasuma did tell her not to pass it around, but Nao should be fine, right? She's monitoring the spread of data, after all.

"B-But," Korosensei spoke up in some attempt of a hushed tone, "wait. Kunomasu-sensei, this isn't a literature novel, you know? You shouldn't just skim through dangerous information like this. In the case where someone figures that you know this information, you may be at risk!"

"Wow, life-risking situations," Nao deadpanned, unhesitantly opening the document and allowing the list of names and prestige to flood his screen. "Don't worry, I sort of eat that for breakfast."

Almost immediately, a name catches his eye.

[Arcobaleno.]

He fell silent.

Oh, so the worlds are interconnected, he realized. He skimmed past it immediately, catching a few more familiar names in that line, and pretended not to think about them.

Murderers, murderers, terrorists, poisoners, torturers, and juveniles.

"I never would have thought someone would find amusement in such a gruesome list," Korosensei says, exasperated.

"The most amusing parts of history have always been the sections listing enormous amounts of casualties," Nao says without even batting an eye. "And the most fascinating portions of a history museum are the torture devices. Lists like these are par for the course-- I like reading them."

Korosensei's gaze stilled at that, horrified by the way the teacher held not even an ounce of remorse by the morally bitter things he had just said.

It was colder than he had ever thought Nao could be.

Nao was always warm and kind to the students-- but deep down, he had a piece of cruelty, just like everyone else. A part of them that was so wrong, they didn't even understand that it was wrong.

Some might argue it wasn't wrong-- that he had a point, but some things really should never be said, if only for respect for fellow human lives. Or lost lives, in this case.

Humanity was certainly a strange thing, and Korosensei hated it sometimes.

But well.

Well, Korosensei can't exactly judge, can he?

"Is Grip the one you guys faced in the hotel?"

"Yeah! He was quite a formidable one."

They go back and forth like that, mustang about the little details in things, allowing Nao to sense a faint touch of the underworld, if only to scrape the surface in curiosity.

It's a dangerous thing to do-- many criminals fall into depravity due to exceeding nosiness just like this-- but with Korosensei and Ritsu balancing the spread of information in a wordlessly tactical manner, Nao was left stumped in a lot of them.

"There's a strange information gap on quite a few of these..."

"Some things are too classified to remain in written form of any kind, so I've taken liberty to encode them. Karasuma-sensei knows the decryption code."

"So no hope of me ever understanding this. Got it."

Nao's eyes finally land on one name near the end of the list, and his finger stops for a moment too long.

[Windy.]

Gender, unknown. An expert infiltrator, assassin, information broker. Known best for being able to murder important, highly-secure political figures without fail.

There are rumours indicating they were a pair.

"Windy..." he whispers, the word not missing the notice of Ritsu and Korosensei. They don't ask any questions, though.

Karasuma didn't write much about them-- just that they were dangerous, always seemed to be everywhere, and no one knew their physique, or even their main active location.

There was only one constant-- they come and go with the wind, silent enough that sound detectors can't even find a trace of them.

(You take the 'Kaze'' from 'wind' and the 'on' from 'sound'... no, the latter would be read as 'ne'.)

(Put them together...)

(And you'll get the name, 'Kazane'.)

He chuckled at that. Maybe he's just being speculative, and his guess is way off the mark-- but that's one hell of an obvious codename she's chosen.

Not that it would matter. Her name no longer exists on any country's record, after all-- her real name may be as much of a code name as her false one could be.

Well, it doesn't mean anything anymore.

She's ignored his existence for a long time. It's only polite that he should ignore her life as well.

He continued scrolling.

"Heh, there's a lot of information brokers on this list," he mused, pondering on the simple, Japanese sounding name, 'Yuu'. "Are they considered hitmen too? All they do is sell information, so even governmental agents and detectives benefit from their work... I mean, that's how it goes in anime and manga, right?"

Ritsu doesn't get to answer this one, because Karasuma snatches the phone right out of Nao's hand and immediately purges the file out of existence.

"In theory, their sales are illegal," Karasuma said, ignoring the jaw-dropped look from Nao as Ritsu immediately runs data burning procedures. "The opinions of the masses may differ, but officially they are considered hitmen."

The PE teachers eyes are narrowed in an exhausted way, his hair a hot mess, his clothes disheveled and sweaty.

"Wow Karasuma-sensei, Irina-sensei would give you a hundred points right now."

"Shut up, translucent pachinko ball."

He's obviously had a rough night and was barely functioning for the sake of it, but he was standing straight, shoulders high and back straight. He had no intention of getting anymore rest today.

"So, any other questions?" Karasuma questioned in a way that sounded more like a threat than anything else. He must really not have wanted Nao going through the list.

Nao shook his head, slightly terrified. He quite trusted Karasuma to not harm a weaker human being, but he didn't want to push his luck.

Karasuma took Korosensei back into his hands (to the indignant, terrified squawk of the noise glass ball) and tossed Nao's phone onto the bed.

The message was clear-- thank you, now go to bed and don't do anything else you shouldn't.

He shut the door behind him, and Nao chuckled nervously at that.

"Okay, good night I guess."