Archive of Our Own ^beta

Rinka waits until there are no cars on the road. Even though it’s 6 am, traffic stops for no one, especially her it seems. Yet she tries to be patient. Long distance shooting has taught her that skill well. Sure enough, in short time a large enough gap appears.

Now that no one can see them, this is the perfect opportunity. “Let’s go in,” she whispers to Chiba.

Rinka knows this is illegal. Probably more than most. But it’s the only place around her house that’s wide and long enough to practise her shooting. And truly, the abandoned military base has everything she could ever want for training: tall trees to climb, wide yellow grass fields, a winding lake and more space than anyone could ask for.

She shows Chiba how to jump the fence. It’s his first time here, and Rinka can tell he’s a little bit nervous about it. He trips, foot tugging the barbed wire along, but he makes it over safe and sound.

“It’s so,” he pauses, “quiet.”

Rinka nods. That’s why she likes it so much. Sometimes after school she’d go down to the lake and enjoy the peace.

They wander through the old dirt roads until they reach the shooting range. Isogai had asked them to work on a long shot for their upcoming vacation trip, some big part of an assassination attempt the class put together. But he’d also asked for them to keep it secret - if Koro Sensei learned of their plans it would be game over. Rinka sighed. She’d have to share her space of solitude after all if she wanted to honour Isogai’s request.

But, at least it’s Chiba she’s exposing her secret to. She doesn’t need to talk or explain things to him. He gets her. While she can talk to the other girls in her class just fine, there’s always this invisible pressure surrounding her, like she should say this thing or that thing to relate to them. The girls in class aren’t mean at all. She just feels a bit awkward with them sometimes.

They reach the pavilion. Rinka tosses Chiba two rusty cans, and picks up two for herself.

“We’re shooting at these”, she says, “should we practise by the water?”

“Sounds good.”

What was someone’s rubbish was now their target dummies. With their bulky rifles slung on their backs, Rinka felt relieved when she could finally put it down. The grass was long here; green and flowy, reeds jutting out sporadically from all across the riverbank.

She remembers when Karasuma first taught them to shoot. Back then, Rinka thought she was no good at it at all. Chiba had a knack for it immediately, so Karasuma predominantly focused on his training over the rest of the class. Truthfully, she was a little frustrated at her lack of progress.

Rinka found no satisfaction with knives or combat. While she had good stamina from dance, she couldn’t comprehend the strategy and the instincts of a live fight. She was quick, but she didn’t like dealing physical slashes on another person. It just didn’t feel right.

So instead she practised shooting in Chiba’s shadow. She’d go to the woods on campus and take aim at birds during lunchtime, back when Koro Sensei let them go anywhere as long as they came back in time for the last period. Rinka would sit on a tree and observe how the birds move, how quick they flew around, and try to shoot at them every so often.

It was inevitable that someone would find her there. But out of the whole class, she really didn’t expect it to be Chiba. He approached her calmly. Made himself loud so she wouldn’t accidentally shoot in his direction. From then on, Chiba would sit and watch the birds with her. He complimented her when she struck one down, albeit in his own quiet way.

Rinka couldn’t even express how happy that made her. And it’s a good thing their relationship isn’t built around words, because she doesn’t have to verbalise it. If they wanted to, they could lie on the grass and just stare at the sky all day and point out the shapes in the clouds. It wouldn’t feel awkward. It wouldn’t be boring or silly, because Chiba was there with her. He wanted to be there.

When he was feeling less silent, he’d share the tips he got from Karasuma. It was small stuff like where to hold the grip and how to balance the rifle, but soon Rinka noticed a difference in her success rate.

Before long, Karasuma realised Chiba wasn’t the only sharp shooter in class. Rinka was gaining on Chiba.

Karasuma started working with her as well after that. But the things he’d teach her were a lot different from what she’d heard from Chiba’s lessons. While Chiba would work on his vision and trajectory, Karasuma taught her how to move around with her weapon. She liked it a lot. It was way more satisfying than sitting still.

“Is this it?” Chiba asks. They stand on a creaky wooden bridge that crosses the lake. It’s seen better days. The rope is frayed, and the ends fall loose in places, but Rinka has walked across it enough to know it won’t break.

“Yeah”, she tells him. “I was thinking we could shoot from the bridge and throw the cans in the water. That way we don’t have to set up targets from far away. The water will move the cans for us.”

It wasn’t environmentally friendly, but if they couldn’t perfect this shot, then the planet wouldn’t be around to care about water pollution. Chiba adjusts his position so he’s sitting at the edge of the bridge, feet dangling metres above the water.

“Ready?”

Chiba nods. Rinka tosses her can; it still has its old label on it - some corn kernel brand - and Chiba follows it with his eye. He braces himself and pulls the trigger.

A miss.

“It’s okay,” Rinka frowns, “we have a few weeks to get the hang of this.”

Chiba sighs, and rests his rifle on the wood. Rinka understands his anger.

When Koro Sensei first arrived in class, Rinka thought there’d be no chance of killing him. She wasn’t prepared to die, and she would do whatever it takes to save the world and herself, but Rinka believed this task was way out of her abilities. The whole class did. 3-E was considered the lowest of the low. Rinka thought she had lost all of her worth already.

That’s not how things turned out though. Never would she have imagined this as her future. Rinka was always the good child - she followed her mother’s curfew, she’d say no to violence and she would never dream of trespassing on government owned property. But things change. If she wants to assassinate Koro Sensei once and for all, and protect everyone she knows then she would have to sacrifice some things.

So Chiba shouldn’t be disheartened at the first missed shot. There’s always a learning curve.

“Do you want me to throw one out for you?” He asks.

Rinka prepares for Chiba’s throw. Unlike him, she stays on her feet crouching. If she’s completely stationary, then she can’t make an adjustment if her initial shot was off.

“In three”, Chiba flexes his wrist. “Two. One.”

It goes up in the air. For a second, the morning sun catches Rinka’s eyes, and everything goes white. She blinks and tries to find the can, firing where she estimated its moving path is. At the top of its motion is the best place to hit a moving object. Once it reaches zero acceleration, it completely stills for a split second. Rinka pulls the trigger.

She misses. And curses.

“Close,” he reassures. “Sorry. I threw it too high.”

“It’s fine”, Rinka appreciates the thought, “We might have to look into the sun when we shoot Koro Sensei.”

Chiba nods, agreeing. “Hopefully not”, he adds.

Chiba’s bangs sit so far down his face that Rinka wonders how he has such good vision. Maybe it was because he could barely see, that his eyes had to adapt to make up for the impairment. In that case, Rinka should grow out her bangs as well.

She hears a prolonged yawn from her left, and sees Chiba stretch out his arms. She would feel guilty, waking him up so early if there was an alternative. Koro Sensei would be awake at any other time of the day, and making a guest appearance was the last thing their class needed.

“Did you bring any food?” Chiba asks. He’s such a boy, she thinks.

“Only if you hit the next one”, she says, standing up with her can. “Is that motivating?”

He props his gun up on his shoulder. It’s a yes then.

“Pull the trigger a millisecond later this time. You were a bit early before”, Rinka advises. “Here it goes.”

Chiba waits for the can to hit the water this time. It ripples across the river bank, yet he never moves his eye from it. With every second that passes, it drifts further away. Which is exactly what Isogai taught them to practise: shooting on water.

There’s a sharp bang sound. The can goes flying onto the long grass, and Chiba lets out a happy noise. Rinka finds it funny. She tries to not laugh as he places the gun down.

“What food do you have?”

Rinka digs around in her backpack. She had the foresight to bring water and snacks, luckily, and she retrieves a chocolate muesli bar stuffed in the corner. “Catch”, she throws it at him and he almost drops it into the lake. He takes a great sigh of relief as he tears the plastic packaging open.

Even though Rinka prefers solitude, she’s enjoying herself with Chiba around. It’s probably one of the best mornings she’s had in a while. A lot better than staying home and sleeping through a day like this. Next time, she has to take Chiba here when the sun actually rises.

They finish off the cans with various success. Rinka didn’t expect any more than that. It doesn’t matter how good they can be, or how well they hit a target in class: if they can’t always hit a target, then they have no chance of killing their teacher. They need to be reliable. Which means a lot more work.

But they can’t stay out here forever. They have school in an hour, and Rinka is effectively wearing pyjamas.

“How often do you want to practise this?” She asks Chiba. She’s a morning person, so this doesn’t bother her much. Chiba is definitely not.

He pauses a second to think, “we could do this on weekends,” he says, “so I can sleep after.”

That’s fine by her. She leads them out of the park, pointing out where the security cameras are to Chiba so he can stay safe if she’s not there with him. Although Rinka half believes that no one checks the footage. Why would they? But she would rather warn Chiba - he is better safe than sorry - she resolves.

They will be seeing each other every day then. Every day of the week.

Rinka looks forward to it.