Red Assassination

Chapter 36 ~ Grenade

Somehow, probably due to our superhuman teacher, we all managed to come in the top 50! Terasaka came in 46th place so we knew that if he somehow got a top spot, we all did. As a reward, Koro-sensei told us a very critical piece of assassination information: he can be captured if all his tentacles are held down at once. I wouldn't be surprised if that's how we end up taking him out in the end.

"Karma! You got first place!" I exclaimed. He seemed genuinely shocked.

"Feel pretty good, doesn't it?" Koro-sensei said. "Getting the top spot on such an unforgiving battlefield?"

"Yeah, I guess it does." He blushed. "But to be honest, I don't think I could have solved some of the problems if I hadn't spent the last year with you guys."

"Awww~" I hugged him.

"I'm actually glad now I got kicked out of the main campus." Takebayashi said.

"Don't be so depressing!" Terasaka objected.

"I think I can get into my dream school now." Chiba said.

"I'd love to see A-class' faces right now." Okajima smirked.

"To be fair, A-class did very well on the first half of the exam," Koro-sensei said. "But they ran out of steam as the questions got harder. You boys and girls are now able to transfer out of E-class though. Anyone have the guts to do so?"

"If you have a better place for assassination, we're all ears." Okano said as we all fired our guns at him. It all stopped, however, when it felt like an earthquake hit the building.

We all looked out the window to see a crane smashing into our school-building. "Evacuate the premises please." Principal Asano said to us. "You'll be moved to another campus to performance-test their facilities."

"We're graduating from this campus!" Sugino insisted.

"So you'll stop at nothing to see your ways carried out." Koro-sensei said.

"Correct, and your services will no longer be needed." The principal pulled out some walking papers. "This is my chance to terminate you, literally. You don't fit with my vision, Koro-sensei.

"I'd tread carefully even in your shoes." Karma said. "The octopus is clever."

"Hold up on the demolition for now please." The principal told the destruction crew. "I have unfinished business inside."

And so at Principal Asano's request (more like order), we students stayed outside while he and Koro-sensei went inside the classroom. The principal prepared five books full of exam questions with a grenade placed in each of them. Four contain anti-sensei explosions, while the last one is fatal to humans. The way Koro-sensei has to turn the book pages will detonate the grenade. Even further, he can't move until the problem has been solved. Principal Asano, however, said that he would be taking the last book for himself.

"Kill me or force me to withdraw and E-class can stay here." He said to Koro-sensei. "Show me how serious you are about your chosen profession." The game was clearly in the principal's favor, and there was no way out for Koro-sensei.

Despite how fast our teacher is, the first question threw him off guard and he got blasted with anti-sensei explosions, melting parts of his head and tentacles. "Only three more to go and you win the game." Principal Asano smiled.

"There's no way he can survive three more of those explosions!" Yoshida said.

"The set-up is so simple!" Muramatsu said.

"The weak have to rely on assassination, while the strong can kill at their leisure." The principal said. "Soon I will plant institutions across the nation that will drive home this truth, all with the reward money for killing your teacher."

In the blink of an eye, Koro-sensei opened the second book, solved it, and closed it. "I happen to remember which questions are on which pages for these particular books." He said. "The first one had been loaned out to a student for a while so I forgot it."

And so Koro-sensei finished all his books, so it was now Principal Asano's turn. He was basically staring his own demise in the face. "You may be an exceptional human being, but taking a grenade won't end well for you." Koro-sensei said.

"This was your idea, so just gracefully accept defeat!" Yoshida said.

"And firing Koro-sensei won't make a difference." Kanzaki spoke up. "It'll be sad to leave this place, but we'll go right along with him."

"We'll keep this class going no matter what." Isogai said as Koro-sensei cried.

"Koro-sensei." Principal Asano said. "You may well destroy the earth, but even so with my educational philosophy, it will make no difference whatsoever." And so he opened up the last book, immediately firing off the grenade.

We all squinted through the smoke into the classroom, only to find Principal Asano good and well covered in Koro-sensei molt. "Why exactly would you not use this on yourself?" He asked Koro-sensei.

"I was saving it for you, of course." Koro-sensei replied. "I suspected that if I won, odds were fairly good you'd think nothing of blowing yourself to bits."

"But how could you be so sure of what I'd do?" I may not know the principal all that well, but I had never seen him so shocked before.

"Because we have a lot in common." Koro-sensei answered. "We're both stubborn educational teachers, willing to forfeit our lives for the privilege of molding young minds. I hope you won't mind, but I talked to your old cram school students. Their memory of your teaching methods back then are similar to mine now. This class works as a team and holds each other up. Credit for conceiving and implementing this class goes to you. See? You've been abiding from the same vision you began with all along, but the taking of human life plays nothing in our approach. So why don't we stay true to ourselves and continue down this road."

"Students have to be strong. My successes over the years prove that." The principal said. "So long as you acknowledge its proper function, you and E-class can remain here as you are."

"Still too proud to accept defeat I see." Koro-sensei laughed.

"Oh, and do you mind if I pop by sometime and try to kill you myself?" Principal Asano asked with an anti-sensei knife.

"Be my guest." Koro-sensei accepted. "I'm always willing to oblige a worthy rival."