Power wasn't just won; it had to be maintained. Gakushu considered himself an attentive student of history, so he knew that one of the most crucial aspects to sustaining an empire was nurturing the will of the people, from the faceless masses to the close circle that solidified his hold and cemented his standing on what he had amassed.

It was to that end that he had arranged a reward for the twenty highest performing students on the midterms – on a separate day, the elite of each grade would be sent on an all-expenses paid trip to whatever excursion was chosen by popular vote. Of course, assuming that the second years would end up going anywhere that Gakushu hadn't already chosen was naïve at best – he didn't need to force votes to get what he wanted. A much subtler approach kept the peace with well-practiced efficiency.

There were a few surprises on the list, people that the president wouldn't have immediately assumed to be top performers. However, in keeping with the practice of fairness and maintaining connections with the best of the best, Gakushu laid down the law hard and fast – whoever made the cut had earned it, and it was in the spirit of camaraderie and celebration that they were going on this outing. Any behavior to the contrary was grounds for an immediate return home. Much more dangerous was the fact that Gakushu would never forget, or forgive, the behavior. Which meant that things should sail along smoothly as the twenty high schoolers departed the bus outside the Xtreme Entertainment complex on a Saturday.

Such expectations would have been nothing less than the gospel truth in any universe, except the one inhabited by Karma. And as he leaped off the bus last, his hair a rich, gem-like glint in the late-fall sunlight, Gakushu was weirdly unsure of the rush of sensation that spiraled through him. Dismay, definitely. Exasperated impatience, obviously.

But… anticipation? That could spell nothing but the most ridiculous of trouble, certainly. Gakushu tried to fix a forbidding frown on his face, but was surprised to find it rather difficult to tack on, the pins slipping as Karma threw his arms around the shoulders of two other random students, the combination of feeling terrified and privileged writ large across their faces in an expression really only Karma could elicit as he snarked and joked. Gakushu sniffed, assured himself he was in no way jealous, and turned to lead the way into the complex. The students followed their shepherd without complaint, but Gakushu was always aware of the wolf slinking along at the rear of the herd.

As high schoolers and the cream of Gakushu's crop, he felt no compunction about cutting them loose. They knew what they stood to lose, and would no doubt behave accordingly. Except, of course, Karma.

Winding lithely through the dispersing pack of students, he slipped to Karma's shoulder, resisting the entirely inappropriate urge to run his fingertips through that head of bright, disheveled hair, cup that skull, and drag Karma in for a sinful, scorching, damning kiss; instead, Gakushu wrapped his fingers around the crook of Karma's arm, invisibly locking them together.

Sly as a fox, Karma angled his head and slid his eyes over to Gakushu, making no attempt to pull against the hold the president had on him. Which was just as well, since his fingers seemed wrapped around muscle and bone with the tensile strength of steel.

"You stay with me," Gakushu commanded under his breath in Karma's ear, and he tried to stifle the shiver that ran down his spine at the low, powerful pitch in the president's forbidding voice. When exactly had he sharpened that particular blade? Because that weapon could be deadly. Smoothing feathers he refused to admit had been ruffled, Karma just turned his head, bringing their faces dangerously close, and blinked slowly with doe-like innocence lighting his eyes.

"Of course, Prez. No place I rather be," he simpered. As Gakushu towed him farther into the complex – and he obediently allowed it – to the flash and clink and squeal of the arcade, Karma shoved down the knowledge that he'd spoken nothing less than the truth with a vicious hand.

The pair wove through the crowds, destroying at the handful of games they tried their hand at, no surprise. Ren narrowed his eyes with a knowing grin as he watched the two pass, Gakushu smiling in that way he had as he was about to bloodlessly eviscerate someone. Karma just snickered and gamboled, and it suddenly dawned on Ren that the pair of them were enjoying themselves. The epiphany was stunning, but one he doubted either of them would pick up on any time soon. Instead, the pair were terrifying everyone as they played skeeball – throwing the balls hard enough to crack bone instead of tossing them up the slide. Gakushu broke the record on file, his time on the baseball team in early middle school giving him the slimmest of edges.

Karma, however, slaughtered when they paired up on a zombie shooter. Ren caught the edges of it, but to Gakushu, it was patently obvious – Karma had been trained. This was different than skill with martial arts or natural physical talent. This was dedicated, honed proficiency. How and why, he remained deeply suspicious of. The curve of Karma's ass hugged lovingly by his jeans as he angled to shoulder his plastic rifle was just distracting enough to keep Gakushu from getting actively pissed that he still didn't know the details of what had gone down nearly three years ago. But it was there, and he'd be a fool to discount it.

Gakushu Asano was nobody's fool.

So he decided to put it to the test. Gathering the group, Gakushu led them up to the second floor. The entire space was dedicated to a laser tag course, and when he suggested a friendly game, there was yips of excitement, not unlike coyotes readying for a hunt. Then there were flashes of fear, interest, and anticipation when he asked Karma if he wanted to lead the other team. No one was looking at Gakushu in the breathless moments that followed his question, so no one saw the muted, full-body shiver that glided over him when Karma slid his hands into his pockets, jutting his hip slightly and smiling with the slow, sticky sweetness of sun-warmed honey. It was terrifying, and knee-weakening.

"Sure. Should be fun."

Picking teams was too childish; Gakushu had the group count off by two's – he took the one's, Karma the two's. Only fair, since Karma had come in second on the midterms by a single point. They suited up, loaded up, and headed out. The course seemed straight out of a video game – lit only by dispersed blue and red neon lights, the terrain was built from cube blocks of varying sizes, padded in foam for the sake of insurance, odd angles and an almost labyrinthine design for the sake of fun.

Gakushu's advantage was instant, and obvious. Karma's role as 'crazy guy of the grade' cost him when it came to knowledge of his peers – meanwhile, Gakushu knew every student, and exactly what they were capable of. Three were out within the first five minutes, Karma's team at an immediate and serious disadvantage. First blood was Gakushu's.

As the groups spread out, though, casualties suddenly dropped, and Gakushu was struck with the realization that, yes, he knew what every student was capable of, where they were best deployed, and what they could be counted on to achieve.

Except Karma. Nobody knew Karma. He was the ultimate wild card, striking fast and hard, and taking out two of Gakushu's team before he could employ the defense he'd begun building. Rallying his group, Gakushu reassessed his flanks, and decided to move in a spread phalanx. It was no hardship for Gakushu to sacrifice a few minions for the sake of information. Sure enough, he lost two more players, but now knew that the bulk of Karma's forces were centralized on the right side of the course, having chosen the rougher terrain for the benefit of cover. Quick adjustments and unquestioning obedience had Gakushu's team moving in a pincer that snapped closed like the jaws of a trap, plucking three more from Karma's roster.

But then, Karma's advantage of terrain came into play. The remainder of his team dissolved into the forest of cubes, and Gakushu was again, literally and figuratively, hunting in the dark. They caught a pair, though, the offense bringing Ren within sight as they advanced. Here, familiarity and solidarity were the ultimate advantage, and the two of them worked in coordinated, practiced tandem to decimate the rest of Karma's team.

Except the leader himself.

Karma was nowhere to be found. And then, the assassinations started.

One by one, Gakushu's team of six was picked off, and there was a unanimous thread among the fallen – they hadn't seen it coming. Confused and shaking their heads as they abandoned the field, Gakushu couldn't help the sensation of being stalked as he and Ren tried to hunt down the final opposing player. His… fuck buddy? Lover? Opponent that he sometimes had sex with?

So distracted by that sudden, impossible thought, Gakushu barely dodged and rolled in time to avoid the shot that took out Ren. Taking cover behind the edge of a large cube, Gakushu fought to shake off the lust and confusion, and focus on Karma. And, God, wasn't that a dangerous, delicious task.

Karma had been well-aware of his disadvantage from the start. It had tickled him, actually. What had been such a powerful benefit during the Civil War was now turned against him; Gakushu was the one who knew what his troops could do, probably better than they themselves. And he deployed them with the polished skill and tactics of a born general. But Karma had been learning and growing in the time since his and Nagisa's friendship had been at its most fragile, not just resting on his laurels. And because the situation called for it, he adopted his friend's strategies with relative ease.

He'd appointed Shindo as his field commander, since, as a popular student and captain of the baseball team, he knew his classmates and was experienced enough to manage leadership. Funneling his directives through Shindo, Karma had been waiting and watching, taking the ultimate high ground – a massive stack of cubes that he was fairly certain was absolutely not meant to be climbed. And then, when it seemed that there were no more moves for his team to take, their abilities played out and their ranks depleted, he slipped into the fray.

They weren't Nagisa. They weren't Karasuma, or even Chiba or Hayami or Itona. They were just… normal.

Except Gakushu – part of his attraction to the president was that the guy was perpetually exceptional. Even caught by surprise by someone who had spent an entire year training in the art of combat and assassination, Asano still managed to dodge a kill shot. But now, it was just the two of them.

Exactly the way Karma had wanted it.

Abandoning his comm, Karma completely focused on the task at hand, shadowing Gakushu's moves through the cubes. The guy was fast, calculating as he ran, circling around as he tried to catch the edge of Karma's vulnerable flank. Karma hadn't been the only one who'd learned from the many encounters between their classes that last year in middle school; it was only a recoil more instinct than intent that had him dodging Gakushu's assault. The reason it got so close is that it came from up high – the president had gone off-road, clambering over the uneven terrain to get a better, unexpected vantage point. That bout of pole toppling, it seemed, had stayed with him.

But, in the end, with skills so closely matched, it came down to the benefit of experience. And sex. Irina would be the first to confirm that sex was always an advantage, if you played it right.

Karma analyzed as he sprinted, and he was quite pleased with just how close he'd been – just as Gakushu dashed down a corridor, Karma barreled in from the left. Crashing into Asano like a freight train, he sent them bouncing against the padded wall in a deeply shadowed corner, and suddenly it was all hot breath and coiled muscle. So Karma, true to his nature, did what he wanted; he kissed Gakushu with a determination and urgency that had them both going blind.

Lips and tongues and teeth madly clashed, Gakushu's vision going brilliantly white before sinking again into the thick, velvety dark. Adrenaline still coursed through him like acid, spearing into his muscles and scorching arousal along his skin. He was still a little stunned from the collision, and the way Karma was kissing him was less about attraction – Gakushu couldn't quite believe it, but he was being conquered. So he kissed back, savage and certain and seeking, hungry for more, stunned by the feast he suddenly found himself hip-deep in.

Hands were occupied or pinned, so it came down to the press of mouths and bodies, legs tangled, hips shifting restlessly. Gakushu's throat went thick, drowning in the scent of strawberries and sandalwood and the sting of sweat. Astonishingly, he forgot – where he was, what he'd been doing, why this was dangerous and careless and a show of vulnerability he couldn't afford. The only thing that stayed strong and bright in Gakushu's mind was who he was with, and why it felt so damn good. And the two were intertwined, tangled in his brain like a bundle of bright, brassy strings.

So focused, he didn't cue into the light tap against the chest plate of his vest, nor did he hear the sharp snap of plastic. What Gakushu did finally hear, though, was the trilling in his ear from his comm – it was the sad, descending notes that announced he'd been tagged. Karma's lips, body, and presence were suddenly gone, and Gakushu's eyes flashed open to see the redhead strolling away, idly wagging his pistol in the air, leaving Gakushu sagging against the wall. Karma paused, and glanced over his shoulder with a Cheshire grin.

"Looks like the win goes to me, Chief." And then he lazily ambled away.

Gakushu told himself it was because he was thinking, but a major reason he didn't straighten and follow right away was because he was still waiting for feeling to return to his rubbery legs. However, his mind was indeed racing. The son of a bitch, Gakushu thought wonderingly. Karma had smashed into him like a rhino, pinned him against the wall, kissed his brains out, shot him point blank in the chest to snag the win, and strolled way. The balls it took. The sheer nerve. He'd be pissed, Gakushu could admit to himself, if he wasn't so fucking impressed and turned on by it.

No one would say Karma was still waters. A restless river, maybe. Vicious rapids, peppered with hidden rocks that could gut the bottom of your boat like claws. As shallow as he liked to play it, though? No, Gakushu admitted as he finally straightened and headed back to the rest of his class. There were depths there, practically untouched and impossibly lethal to reach. But Gakushu was starting to hone in on the fact that he potentially wanted to go there – wanted to plumb those depths, to peel back the layers of bravado and brazen nonsense that guarded something… more. He'd probably die in the process. But, he thought with a wicked grin curling over his face, it would probably be worth it.

The midterm reward trip marked the beginning of a strange period for the second years at Kunugigaoka High School. A predator was suddenly brought into the fold, and the only reason it didn't cause rebellion was because it had been sanctioned by their fearless leader.

Karma Akabane became a fixture at Gakushu Asano's side. Those who had attended middle school with the pair were reminded of how Gakushu had arrayed the satellites of his Virtuosos around him. And while Ren still reigned from his standard place to the president's left, the most unlikely – and yet, ironically, likely – of faces now stood at his right. It wasn't anything official, and Karma still shirked responsibility the way water ran off a greased duck. But when there was free time to be had, instead of lurking around the school's dark corners causing chaos, Karma inevitably drifted to the president's side, where they bickered and snarked.

Karma set fires; Gakushu put them out. Karma started fights; Gakushu ended them. Karma still wore his mantle of bully hunter with ghoulish delight; Gakushu now brought an official hammer as the finishing blow against those who targeted the vulnerable. Not a single student would dare claim that the redheaded psycho was tamed, or that their president was tainted. But there was a strange new level of leadership and madness that settled over the school. And, by and large, the student body didn't think it was that bad.

A week after the bout of laser tag, Gakushu and Karma were in the deserted biology lab, grinding through hydrocarbon equations – well, Gakushu was. Karma was doing… stuff with chemicals, and Gakushu was doing everything in his power not to nag and flutter like a worried mother hen. But the latest flash and bang was the straw against Gakushu's back; he stood with a screech from the lab stool, hands planted on the counter as he glared at Karma, who grinned back with a disgustingly innocent expression, even as fumes that smelled like burning metal cleared.

"You're trying to blow us up, aren't you?"

Karma chuckled, rolling his eyes as he measured something into a volumetric flask already containing a blue liquid, swirling it and watching it change to inky black.

"What makes you think that? I know what I'm doing."

Gakushu growled low in his throat as he rounded the edge of the table and advanced, watching with a swirling mix of dismay and appreciation as Karma tapped in flakes of something shiny, and the liquid in the flask sparked on contact, then began to bubble.

"Do you? Because if you end up toasting the school in an explosion, I'll wring your neck. Assuming, of course, we manage to survive the blast."

Karma smirked as Gakushu got closer, raising the flask to watch the reaction closely even as he idly snorted and continued.

"Please. I wouldn't be so stupid as to blow up my boyfriend."

Gakushu froze, staring at Karma. What?

"Did… you just call me your boyfriend?"

Now it was Karma who fell still, paralyzed as his gold eyes went wide. Stunned, Gakushu watched as color spread across Karma's cheekbones, the first time he'd ever seen Akabane affected by the curse of the fair-skinned. He couldn't bring himself to move until he saw Karma's throat bob, his mouth opening, curved cruelly, about to shatter this moment in a move of desperate defense.

"No." He lunged forward, plucking the flask from Karma's hand and setting it down with a clink on the countertop. "Don't."

Gakushu yanked at Karma's shoulder, spinning him around before shoving him back, Akabane's hips colliding with the edge of the counter. Still, though, those wide, glittering eyes didn't so much as flicker from the inevitable pain, stunned and vulnerable as they gazed into Gakushu's. That magnificent brain had ground to a halt – and it was because of Gakushu. He didn't know if he was pleased or horrified. But he had to see this through, had to know.

"Don't make a stupid joke. Don't run, not from me. Did you just call me your boyfriend?"

Frantically, Karma's eyes searched his, looking for something Gakushu couldn't begin to guess at. There were glimmers of fear and uncertainty, thrill and calculation. Slowly, apparently seeing whatever it was he needed to, a crooked smile bloomed over Karma's face.

"Yes?" His voice pitched high, wincing a little in a play at self-deprecation and humor that could sap the answer of its power if that's how this ended up playing out. It was all the vulnerability Karma could choke down packed into that dumb, forbidden joke. Gakushu's mind was racing, processing subterranean layers of possibility, refusing to settle for whatever it was Karma allowed to blip along the surface. When he continued, Karma had mellowed just the slightest at the absence of immediate, negative response, the tiniest edge of hope and question and fragility audible in his voice, likely because Gakushu was desperately listening for it.

"Is that what you want?"

It was more than he could bear; feelings too vast to fit within his skin. So Gakushu answered before he thought through every angle, every outcome. It felt… freeing.

"Yes. Just you and me."

Holy shit. Silently, they could do nothing but stare at each other.

Holy shit! Karma finally broke the stunned stalemate, reaching up to gently thread his fingers into the hair at Gakushu's temple.

"Just you and me." The confirmation was quiet, and spoken with absolute certainty. Then Karma tipped forward ever so slightly, brushing their lips together like feathers – delicate and soft and light.

It was slow, sweet, weird. For a moment, the rage and lust and fire were gone, leaving the most fragile and mild of ash in its wake, the kind that whispered, that stayed warm. They had tilted into each other on an invisible tide, and Gakushu couldn't help but stare when the ebb pulled them away again. He couldn't say for sure what the hell he was doing. It was stupid, and fantastic, and bound to be a hell of a ride. It was… more. And it was beginning to dawn on him that he'd always wanted exactly that.

It was too much, Karma simultaneously feared and anticipated. He'd been careless, and instead of losing it all, everything he hadn't quite known he'd wanted had fallen into his hands. It would be so easy to be terrified, and it was too simple to be elated. Karma didn't know how to be this way. So much at stake, and none of it anything he could secure with strength or smarts. Before he could undo everything a wandering mind and a hell of a dice roll had done, Gakushu leaned in to whisper in Karma's ear.

"Come over tonight. I'm amenable. To switching things up." A chant of greedy yes's marched through Karma's brain, but it wasn't just that. Gakushu was his boyfriend. Karma didn't know what it was like to have sex with a boyfriend.

Running the palm of his hand from Gakushu's throat to his shoulder, down his arm to his wrist, Karma finally laced their fingers together. He felt the surprise he saw in Gakushu's eyes mirror the whisper he felt within – this was nice. Who the hell would have thought that Karma Akabane could like nice?

Would he, though, if it was anyone except Gakushu? Could he? No, Karma decided. He liked nice with Gakushu because they usually weren't. Because they didn't need to be. Below the burgeoning wave of arousal was something deep and dense, too unwieldy for Karma to get his fingers into. But it was there, pressing against the backs of his eyes, suffusing him with a power that felt almost cosmic.

The grin that moved over Karma's face was pure wickedness, wild and savage and teeming with promise.

"Yes, sir."

Hi, kids! No smex yet, but lots of kissing, so that's something. Yay for kissing! I'm in school, a bad author mom, and feeling a little glum, so I looked to the Crimson Beasts to cheer me up after closing in on an AssClass rewatch I started months ago. Hammered this out, so it's probably hella rough – apologies.

PSA: Practice lab safety! Karma is an idiotic, sadistic genius! Do NOT do what he does, no matter how sexy it is, even if it garners you a defined relationship status!

Hope you like it!

Love, Tango