Lesson Learned

Don't think about it

Karma shrugged, gathering a heap of snow to roll into a ball for the middle of the snowman. "That's part of the fun."

She laughed, patting down the first large snowball of the snowman. It still needed to be rounded since it was lumpy in places. "Well, I don't want you to kill each other yet." She smiled warmly. "It's our birthday in a few days and I want us to spend it together."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." He shrugged, crouching down to mould the snow into a ball; he was wearing fingerless gloves which she had advised against. "Don't worry, you two will get your twin birthday."

Mitsuko nodded. "Good." Her smile wavered when she looked up at his bedroom window. "It might be our last one, so I want it to be special."

Karma was quiet for a bit. "Hey, don't be such a killjoy." He smirked. "We'll kill the pervy-octopus in time." His smile was sadistic. "I told the others we should make him watch the island video again before we snuff the life out of him!"

She wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. "Heh...right..." She looked down and patted the snow some more even though it was already smooth. "It's just...I don't know..."

"What?" He looked up curiously.

She chewed on her tongue, shrugging. "Do you think there's another way?"

Karma froze, frowning. "Huh?"

Mitsuko shrugged, standing up when her knees started to hurt, dusting off some snow from her woollen leggings. "With Koro-sensei..."

He stared at her for a moment, making her frown. "...You mean besides killing him?"

She shrugged again, growing unsure. "Well, yeah. Haven't you ever thought about it?"

Karma gave her a long hard look which reminded her too much of her brother. "No."

"Oh." Mitsuko's shoulders slumped as she shifted on the spot uneasily. "Well, that's fair enough." She sighed. "It's just something I've been thinking about."

Karma hummed. "Right." He focussed on putting the ball of snow on top of the larger one. "We still have a mission though."

"I know but..." She grimaced, crossing her arms. "I mean...he did save my dad." Her stomach twisted. "And that's only a fraction of the stuff he's done for me and my family...it feels like I owe him, you know?"

He stared at the half-finished snowman and shrugged again. "We have to kill him to graduate as assassins, right?"

"Well, yeah..."

"That's how the whole point for teaching us," Karma pointed out. "Way I see it, killing him is out of respect."

Mitsuko frowned, nodding. "You have a point..." Koro-sensei had done nothing but encourage them trying to kill him. It was the cornerstone that had caused them all to come together and become friends. "...He did keep pushing me to try to kill him, even when I wasn't sure."

They'd made a commitment to kill him but after everything he'd done...it was hard to just fully go through with it without feeling guilty. No one was talking about it, not even in their message group, but she couldn't really blame them. It wasn't nice thinking about what Ms Yukimura had gone through and how she'd died, just how it wasn't nice realising that their teacher was a trained killer who had murdered more people than Bitch-sensei and Mr Karasuma combined.

But still...

She took in a deep breath. "Whatever." She shook her head. "I honestly don't even want to think about it, I'm stressed enough just processing everything he's told us."