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Koro-sensei wasn’t even human. What right did he have to be panicking? What business did he have giving out his phone number to all of his students in case of an emergency? He wasn’t their parent -- far from it, actually. He was their murderer. The person they needed to kill to survive. Why was he flying as fast as he could back to the classroom when it was clearly his gelato in Italy hour? Why couldn’t he just be selfish like the monster he was for once?
His heart was thumping erratically in his chest. He felt sweaty. He wanted to scream. To puke. All these human things he hadn’t felt in so long all of a sudden came rushing back.
No, what he wanted most in this moment was to hold all of his students unbearably close to his chest and never let them go, because if he did let them go, they would die, and a piece of him along with them.
The line for the gelato stand was unusually long, which allowed Koro-Sensei some time to relax in the warm, Italian sun. It was beautiful down here by the waves, with just a hint of a breeze and the squawk of sea birds.
His phone rang.
He didn’t even think twice about answering it with a cheery “hello?” But then stopped dead because it sounded an awful lot like someone was screaming in the background.
“Koro-Sensei?” It was Kayano. “Koro-Sensei?!”
“Kayano, what’s wrong?” His throat constricted when he heard a loud crash in the background.
Sure, it could just be PE, but something in him told him it wasn’t.
“Sensei, I don’t know what happened, b-but--” there was another loud crash and then someone sounding suspiciously like Nagisa yelling, ‘NAKAMURA!’ “I-I don’t know there was fire everywhere and then the roof caved in and we’re trapped and I think Karasuma-Sensei is unconscious and I don’t know where--” Kayano screamed, and Koro-Sensei shot into the air. Mach 20 or not, he was pushing every sound barrier there was to reach his students.
“Stay right there.”
Suddenly, gelato wasn’t important anymore. What was important was the fact that the line had gone dead and he didn’t know if his students were okay, and--
He was at the campus in mere seconds.
It was like something straight out of a nightmare. Thick, black smoke billowed into the air and flames viciously devoured the wooden building. His...his kids were in there.
He ran as fast as he could into the building, breaking down every barrier created by the collapsed ceiling.
Thank God for mucus.
Koro-Sensei had 28 kids -- sorry, 27 because Ritsu couldn’t be hurt by the fire the way the rest of his kids could -- to save from this, and he made it his goal to grab as many as he could and deposit them outside before they were suffocated, crushed, or burned.
First was Sugaya, Hazama, and Hayami who were huddled together under his desk watching with wide eyes as the world crumbled around them. Hayami was sporting a rather large burn on her thigh, and Hazama had a gash on his cheek, but all in all, they seemed to be okay.
It was a relief to see them alive, but he still couldn’t help but feel more sick knowing that there was still fire in the building, and he had to get his kids out now.
He deposited them outside and barely waited enough time to bat an eyelash before darting back in through the path he had already created and grabbing Kurahashi, Okano, and Yada. The three girls were sobbing and holding each other as the ceiling fell around them like dead birds and embers licked at their skirts. Again, none were injured, but Yada was having trouble breathing, and gasped desperately for air when Koro-Sensei brought her out into the crisp, fresh, afternoon.
He could hear sirens.
But… he couldn’t just wait.
Isogai and Maehara came next, the darker haired boy holding the blonde and consoling him as he cried into his jacket. Koro-Sensei wanted to do that. To hold his students and promise them that it was all okay, and that nothing would hurt them again.
There was no time.
Kanzaki, Chiba, Mimura, Muramatsu were in the men’s bathroom. It was the quickest place to hide. Koro-Sensei was prepared to move on, and then remembered there was a second bathroom and frantically flung the door open, sighing in relief when he found Fawa, Hara, Kataoka, and Okuda in there uninjured, having turned on all the sinks to protect themselves from the fire to whatever extent they could. Still though, it seemed as though they were late to find safety, as Okuda’s uniform was burned off of her left side and Kataoka’s hand was blistering and red. From touching a doorknob, no doubt.
He’d never been happier to see his students so alive.
He held them tightly to his uniform when he carried them out, letting himself inhale their smell and assure himself that they were here in his arms.
Then there was the classroom himself, which he really should’ve prepared himself for, but still, the smell of burned flesh, hair, and wood assaulted him like a gun never had, and he had to stop himself from screaming.
He was the teacher here. This was his job.
The sirens were getting louder, but he couldn’t wait. He couldn’t they could die in here.
Kimura, Terasaka, Yoshido=a and Takebayashi were all sporting mild injuries, but most looked like bruises from falling or tripping, and none were sporting burns. He did note that their jackets had been removed, and he couldn’t find them anywhere. He assumed they burned.
He deposited them outside as gently as he could, ignoring their cries for him to come back! And rushed back in. There were still six students. He reached the classroom again, and for once in his fast paced life, he paused. There was nobody else. There was only the desks and chairs and a wall…
Wait no, the classroom was smaller than normal, and that meant--
That wall in the back, he realized, wasn’t a wall at all, but the caved in expanse of ceiling and from underneath it he could see an unmistakably adult hand.
Karasuma.
Koro-Sensei wasted no time in prying the boards off of him, and wincing when he saw deep lacerations and boiling burn marks on his back. The man was out cold.
“KORO-SENSEI!” The scream came from Sugino, sounding more watery and scared than Koro-Sensei ever wanted to hear again in his entire life.
The octopus threw the teacher over his shoulder and picked his way through the rubble, gasping when he saw Kayano entirely motionless in Sugino’s arms while a bloody Itona leaned against the baseball player’s shoulder as a crutch. He took note of the crushed phone on the floor. Kayano’s.
“S-She was calling you and then this huge board came loose and hit her in the head!” Sugino cried, thick tears rolling down his cheekbones. “There’s a lot of blood!” He sobbed, and Koro-Sensei felt his heart ache for the boy. “A-And then Itona tried to help her, and Nagisa too! But then Rio was hurt and Karma-- I don’t know what happened but suddenly there was this huge crash so Nagisa left and then the fire got worse--”
The kid’s gonna hyperventilate. Gotta get him out. Now. Too much smoke.
“Let’s go.” Koro-Sensei commanded, wrapping the three carefully in his mucus covered arms and holding Karasuma tight.
When they were finally outside, there were firefighters with huge hoses dousing the flames.
“Where are Shiota, Akabane, and Nakamura?” He panted, breathlessly. “Where?”
“I-I think they were in the hallway when it happened, I don’t know.” Isogai spoke up, and Koro-Sensei didn’t wait for another opinion.
Three more.
He had wasted so much time.
Please let them still be alive.
He tore through every doorway, searching, scanning, a flash of blonde, a dart of read, a streak of blue, anything.
There, in the back nearest to the patio door, like they had almost escaped was Nagisa, hand clutching his side, two bodies strewn on the floor beside him. His face had a nasty burn on it, his blue hair was down, and a chunk of it was missing. His pants were gone, too. Koro-Sensei saw them burning only a few feet away. The yellow man didn’t want to see the skin where they had been.
Akabane’s head was in his lap, left side exposed and blistering in the heat. A board snapped and loosened above them, and Nagisa’s blue eyes flicked up to see it hang by a thread, then down at Nakamura’s form -- her hair significantly shorter, arms burned red, face down by Nagisa’s arm -- and then finally noticed Koro-Sensei standing there.
“SENSEI!” He cried out.
Koro-Sensei would never forget the fear he saw in his student’s eyes that day. The pure panic , but also, most hauntingly, almost a… resignation to die. Like there was nothing he could do.
“KARMA IS UNCONSCIOUS!” The kid screamed over the crackle of flames, “A-AND I DON’T THINK NAKAMURA IS B-B-BREATHING!” His voice cracked as he spoke, and then he coughed a sticky, wet cough.
The board above him creaked. He didn’t move out of the way, and with a jolt of horror, Koro-Sensei realized he couldn’t with his leg stuck under the air conditioning unit like that. The unit was alight with flames, but Nagisa wasn’t batting an eye.
He couldn’t feel it.
He couldn’t feel anything.
Koro-Sensei had them in his tentacles and outside in a moment.
Nagisa sat in stunned silence, breathing heavily before his eyes found his bloody, mangled leg, and it was almost like he realized he was in pain because suddenly his eyes were full of tears and he was screaming, laying on the grass, back arching in agony.
Koro-Sensei wanted to hold him, to whisper in his ear that it was going to be okay, to heal him and make it as though the whole accident had never happened.
He shouldn’t have left.
He couldn’t do anything he wanted though, because Nagisa was being lifted into the air by a team of paramedics, and the other students with serious injuries were being driven away already down the mountain and--
“Koro-Sensei?” He almost didn’t hear when Karma sat up, slowly, minding his bleeding body. “What… what happened?” He looked around, “Where-- where’s Nagisa?” His breathing hitched. “He pushed me out of the way of the unit that caught on fire, and then I don’t know, I blacked out and--”
Koro-Sensei knelt down, wrapping a tentacle around the boy’s shoulders. “He’ll be okay. He’s being taken to the hospital now.” He sized up the redhead’s state. “You need to go as well.” Reluctantly, he removed his tentacle and hailed one of the EMTs over (shifting back into his human looking form just in time). Once they saw Karma, they didn’t ask any questions, just took him, laid him on a stretcher and just like that, all of his students were gone.
He was left on the mountain.
Alone.
Because… what could he do?
He wasn’t human, after all.
(But his heart loved like one.)