3rd POV
In the middle of the mountains resides an abandoned classroom building.
An unseen figure flies through the clouds at a rapid speed.
Despite its rundown appearance, it holds residents to residents to an infamous teacher, one the likes the world has never seen before.
The figure stops above a large urban area in Tokyo, Japan.
Alongside this teacher is a class of 25 students, a number that will fluctuate as the school year progresses forward.
It continues to fly towards the mountains and stops near a classroom building, leaving a large dust cloud as he lands. The dust rattles against the windows of the building, alerting the students that their target has arrived.
Hang onto your asses folks, things are about to get messy.
The figure slithers through the halls of the classroom, making a loud squishy noise as it walks. It slides open the classroom door and places a roll book on his desk.
Welcome to Class 3-E.
"Now then, let's get started." The figure revealed itself to be a large yellow octopus dressed in a black academic dress with a large black tie with a yellow crescent moon in the middle. A small black mortarboard cap rested on top of his bulbous squishy head. "Student on duty, on your command."
Where assassination, is on the class syllabus.
"S-Stand up!" All the students followed suit on Nagisa's orders. Each holding different types of guns aiming at their teacher. "Attention." He paused for a split second before giving the order. "Bow!"
A barrage of Anti-Sensei BB bullets fired at the yellow octopus, however he dodged them all at an incredible speed and began attendance. "Good morning. Fire all you like—I'll just be taking attendance. Isogai-kun?"
"Here!" Isogai spoke, but the gunfire made him hard to hear.
"I'm sorry, you'll have to speak up with all the gunfire."
"HERE!"
"Okajima-kun?"
"Here!"
"Okuda-san?"
"Here!"
"Kataoka-san?"
"Here!"
"Kayano-san?"
"Here!"
"Kanzaki-san?"
"Here!"
After attendance was done, the gunfire ceased as all the students took a break from their failed assassination attempt. All of them looking tired and defeated.
"All right." Their teacher closed his attendance book and his face turned orange with a bright red circle in the middle. "No tardies. Excellent! That makes me very happy."
"He's too fast." Nakamura complained.
"So the whole class shooting at him doesn't work?"
Isogai looked at their teacher in defeat.
We are killers.
Nagisa looked down at his gun as he monologued in his head.
And our target is our teacher.
"Too bad. Not a single bullet hit it's mark today, either." Their teacher began to give advice to his students. "Methods that rely on sheer numbers lack any individual thought. Line of sight, barrel position, finger movement—each of these is far to simple. You've got to be more inventive! Otherwise, you'll never be able to kill me at my max speed of Mach 20."
"But, like, see..." Maehara pointed at their teacher in accusation. "No way did you seriously dodge all of those!"
"I mean, these are just BB's. You coulda just stood there grittin' your teeth as they hit you." Sugino took a closer look at the Anti-Sensei BB's they fired.
"Yeah! That's right!" The whole class spoke in agreement, complaining that their ammunition must not be working. The yellow octopus sighed at his students complaints.
"Gather up the BB's and hand them over." He reached out a tentacle and Okano handed him her gun. "I told you these may be harmless to you...". With the gun she shots off one of his tentacles, leaving the class speechless at the geyser of slime coming out of where it used to be. "...but they're special anti-me BB's developed by the government. If one hits me, it can slice through my cells like they were tofu." The class all stared at the wriggling tentacle on the ground in shock.
"Of course, they regenerate a few seconds later." A new tentacle appeared where the old one once slithered. "Then again, you could end up shooting your eyes out." He pointed at the class and stated a new rule. "No shooting in the classroom unless you're trying to kill me." His face had changed to green stripes on his yellow face and his smile grew wider. "I do hope you can kill me—before graduation, that is."
"Now then, let's put away the guns and BB's and start on our work." The class began moving their chairs to sit down for first period.
Class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High School: the assassination classroom. Another day, another class bell rings.
— Time Skip —
Their teacher began writing a question on the chalkboard. "Now, here's the question: Isogai-kun!"
"Y-Yes, sir?" Four different colored tentacles, white, blue, pink, and green, began to sprout from under his robe and pointed at four different boxed "who's" on the board.
"Which one of these four tentacles is not like the others?"
"Um...the blue one?" The octopus's face turned orange
again and he made a circle with his tentacles.
"Correct! Only the "who" in the blue sentence is a relative pronoun. A relative pronoun qualifies the noun right before it, so here..."
His voice drew out as Kayano whispered at Nagisa. "Hey, Nagisa." She pointed at the crescent moon in the sky.
"—"who is standing over there" is describing "boy" over here."
"The crescent moon's out, even though it's daytime."
Nagisa started at the moon and began monologuing in his head again.
How did we end up like this? Three things happened at once as our third year began.
— Flashback —
A bright light emerged from the moon as a large circle of light bounced off it. In a bright flash of light, the moon blew up, leaving it a permanent crescent shape.
The first was the moon suddenly exploding into a crescent.
News channels broke out into breaking news to cover the shocking event.
"Uh...we interrupt this program to bring you breaking news."
"We've just gotten word that about 70% of the moon has been vaporized into nothing. I repeat..."
"Will we only have a crescent moon to look at for the rest of our lives?"
And the second was this:
"How do you do? I'm the one who blasted your moon." The yellow octopus introduced himself to the class, leaving everyone in shock. "I plan to do the same to the Earth next year. Now I'm your teacher. Nice to meet you."
The entire class deadpanned and thought at the same time, 'There are at least six things wrong with this picture!'
The feeling was unanimous.
The man standing on the left of the octopus spoke up, "I'm Karasuma from the Ministry of Defense. First, please understand that what I'm about to say is a state secret." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "Let me be blunt: I want you to kill this creature."
The class had their mouths open in disbelief, before Kimura spoke up and pointed at their new teacher, "Um...what is that? Is that the alien or whatever that came to attack us?"
The octopus began to freak out and flailed his tentacles, "How rude! I'll have you know I was born and raised on Earth!"
Nagisa's eyes widened.
He was?
"I'm afraid I can't discuss the details, but he's telling the truth. Come March next year, this creature who smashed the moon will destroy Earth as well. Only the world's leaders know about this. If news that this guy gets out there, we'd be looking at a global panic. You've got to kill him in secret before that happens. In other words..." Karasuma pulled out an Anti-Sensei combat knife from his suit jacket and tried to stab the octopus, "...an assassination."
The octopus dodged Karasuma's attacks and appeared behind him, "But this guy..." He tried to stab again, but the octopus dodged once more, "...is extremely fast! You try to kill him..." The octopus appeared right behind Karasuma and began plucking his eyebrows with tweezers and grooming scissors, "...and he ends up grooming your eyebrows instead--immaculately!" The octopus's face turned pink with round blushing cheeks under his eyes before Karasuma tried to attack once more.
The students closed their eyes as they were almost blown away by the wind left from the octopus's fast speed. "This super being has the power to turn a full moon into a crescent. His speed tops out at Mach 20! In short, if he gets away, we'll be left helpless, awaiting our destruction." The octopus put away his grooming items in their case.
"And that's no fun. So I made your government an offer: No killing me." A red irk mark appeared on Karasuma's head, "Instead, I'll teach Class 3-E at Kunugigaoka Junior High School."
What? Why?
Another smaller irk mark appeared on Karasuma's head, "We don't know what he's after. But we were forced to agree, on the condition that he doesn't harm any of you students. We have two reasons: First and foremost, coming to a classroom every day lets us keep an eye on him, and second it gives some thirty people the opportunity to kill him from extremely close range."
— Flashback Over—
Nakamura shot an Anti-Sensei BB at the octopus, but he caught it between two pieces of broken chalk infront of his face.
"Nakamura-san..." His face turned red and a tiny irk mark appeared on his head, "Didn't I tell you not to let assassination interfere with your studies?"
She rubbed the back of her head, "Sorry..."
He pointed one of his tentacles to the back of the class. "As punishment, go stand in the back!" Nakamura sighed in defeat as Nagisa began internally monologuing again.
Why did this creature become our teacher? Why should we have to assassinate him? These cries faded with word of one final condition.
— Flashback —
Karasuma made one last proposal to the class leaving everyone shocked, "Success will be rewarded with ten billion yen. It's only right. A successful assassination will literally save the Earth. Luckily he doesn't think much of you." The octopus's face grew green stripes, "See? Those green stripes mean he's looking down on you!"
'What the hell kind of skin is that?!' One of the students thought.
"Obviously! If the government can't kill me, how could you? Even when they sent their cutting-edge fighter jets after me...I ended up giving them a coat of wax right there in midair!"
'What's with all the grooming?'
Karasuma held up his Anti-Sensei knife as his underlings brought in more weapons. "You must find a chink in his defenses and strike at it. You'll gave weapons and ammo that won't hurt humans, but will work on him. You must keep this a secret from your family and friends. There's no time to lose. If the Earth should disappear, we'll have no where left to run."
"And that's about it! Now let's make the most of your one remaining year!" The octopus, their new teacher, rubbed his tentacles together, ready for class to begin.
— Flashback Over —
The octopus began writing more questions on the chalkboard.
We only have a year. If we don't manage to assassinate this guy, Earth will be history.
•••
The bell rang, letting their teacher know it was the end of the period. "Ah, lunchtime! I'll just pop over to China for some mapo tofu." He opened the window, "Any aspiring assassins are welcome to hit me up on my cell." He quickly left out the window, leaving a large gust of wind behind.
"Let's see...if he's traveling at Mach 20..." Nakamura began the calculations, and Nagisa finished them.
"...it'll take maybe ten minutes to get to Sichuan, home of mapo tofu."
Maehara rested his head on his desk and complained, "Guess no missile could shoot that down. Heck, that octopus even grades test while moving faster than sound!"
"Seriously?!"
Isogai reminisced on his previously graded English test, "Mine came back with a drawing on it."
"Don't you think he's pretty good at teaching, though?"
Kurahashi remembered one of her study sessions with their teacher, "Right? He taught me math after class and I did great on my test!"
Mimura muttered, a shadow covering half of his eyes, "Yeah, but...we are the E class."
"Tryin' our best won't do much." Okajima held his arms behind his head and looked to the ceiling.
True, he was a super octopoid creature and our assassination target, but...for whatever reason, he does a perfectly normal job of teaching.
Nagisa looked down at his blade.
And though we're impromptu killers, we're perfectly normal students...but the E class is a little different from the rest.
Their thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a sliding door, revealing the small daughter of their new teacher. She bowed her head and greeted the class, "Good afternoon."
"Oh, g-good afternoon Kanna-chan." Kataoka and Isogai went up to greet the child, snapping out of their darkened thoughts.
"Where did Papa go?"
"Ah, he went to China for..."
Their conversation was cut off by Nagisa's internal monologue once more.
Oh...and lastly, the third one.
— Flashback —
"Now that we have all been introduced, I'd like you to meet my little assistant. Kanna-chan, please come in and meet the class. I'm sure they're excited to meet you." Kanna clutched the strap of her messenger bag and entered the room. She stood infront of the octopus's desk as he placed two of his tentacles on her shoulders. "Class, I would like to introduce my daughter, Kanna! Isn't she just the cutest!" His face turned bright pink.
'...YOUR WHAT?!'
Karasuma sighed and introduced the child, "This is the target's daughter." She bowed her head and greeted the class in a calm voice.
"Hello, my name is Kanna. It's nice to meet all of you."
"Don't be concerned, the kid isn't your target. From what we've seen now, she doesn't have any powers in relation to the octopus, so harming her is not permitted."
"Now Kanna-chan is a little shy to strangers, so make sure to get to know her in the year you have left!" His face grew green stripes. "Kanna-chan, is there anything you would like to say to the class."
She nodded her head and smiled to the class, "Good luck."
— Flashback Over—
Even though we're trying to assassinate her father, she doesn't seem worried.
Nagisa looked at the child giving a warm smile, asking about how to assassination attempt went.
Is it...because she thinks we can't do it?
As he stared at the girl, his thoughts were interrupted by someone calling his name.
"Hey, Nagisa." Terasaka, Yoshida, and Muramatsu stood beside his desk. Terasaka pointed his thumb outside, "Come with us. It's time to put our assassination plan into action."
He nodded his head and headed outside with them. Kanna took notice and looked in their direction. 'Where is Nagisa-san going?'
"Kanna-chan? Are you alright?" Kataoka asked.
She snapped out of her thoughts and looked back towards the class representatives, "I'm okay."
•••
The four boys were outside of the classroom building, Terasaka badgering Nagisa with questions. "That octopus's face changes color according to his mood, right? Did you do those observations I told you to?"
Nagisa pulled out his notes and read aloud, "More or less. We know it's striped green when he's feeling confident. When we give a wrong answer, it's dark purple. A right answer makes it go bright scarlet. But what's really interesting is after lunch..."
"I don't need to know all that." Terasaka walked down from the steps and pointed his knife at Nagisa, "I have a plan...and when he lets his guard down the most, you are going to carry it out."
"M-Me? But..." Terasaka got into Nagisa's face.
"Don't be such a goody-goody. We're the E Class, the misfits that can't keep up at this famous prep school. They call us...the End Class. Every day, they send us to this isolated mountaintop campus, discriminating us like we're scum." He wrapped an arm around Nagisa, "When would us losers ever in our lives get another chance to score a cool ten billion yen? We're gonna make it--make it through this crappy situation..." He pulled out a small pale orange bag from his pocket and placed it in Nagisa's hands, "by any means necessary. Just don't screw up, Nagisa-kun."
Nagisa looked down at the bag, remembering what his classmates once said when they learned he was sent to E Class.
"I heard that Nagisa is headed for E class."
"Ooh. Well, that's it for him."
"I'm gonna delete his contact info."
"Me, too. Can't have people thinking we're on the same level!"
He snapped out of his thoughts when he heard a large whistling noise from behind, revealing his teacher holding a skinny missile. "I'm back!"
"H-Hello, sir...What's with the missile?"
"A souvenir for Kanna. The Self-Defense Force was waiting for me in the Sea of Japan."
"I-It must be terrible, being a target."
"Not at all. You know you're powerful when everyone has it in for you." Nagisa's eyes widened as he took notice to something, "Now let's begin fifth period."
Nagisa looked down in his own silent despair, "Yes, sir."
He doesn't understand. If you're everyone's assassination target, that means they all acknowledge your power. A creature like that wouldn't understand what it's like being unworthy of anyone's expectations or fear, or even their recognition...
Nagisa remembered the last thing his old teacher said before being sent to E Class, "Thanks to you, my evaluation is in the gutter! The only good thing about it is not having to see you anymore." He clutched the string of the small bag as he stared at the ground.
I might just be able to kill him. After all...this teacher can't see me, either.
"Nagisa-san." Nagisa snapped out of his thoughts and looked at the small girl standing beside him pulling at his waist coat. "Papa's starting fifth period."
"R-right...sorry Kanna-chan, I was a little distracted."
"It's okay. Shall we go?"
"Yes."
•••
Kanna sat down on her desk eating some mapo tofu her father bought for her. The octopus began writing on the chalkboard, "All right, then, compose a short poem to go along with our theme. The final line should be "was tentacles all along."
The phrase left the class confused. Kanzaki raised her hand in clarification, "Was tentacles all along?"
"Indeed! When you're finished, bring them to me. I'm looking for proper grammar and whether you've conveyed the tentacle's beauty. An example: Not the storm of garden's snow I of flowers moving on But sprouting there instead I was tentacles all along.
"It was tentacles? Really?" Isogai muttered to himself.
"Once you're done, you're free to go home!"
The class whined. Kurahashi complained, "How are we gonna write about that?"
"Now, now--aren't any marvelously slithery phrases coming to mind?" He began slithering his tentacles, "Slither slither slither slither!"
"Enough with the slithering!" Maehara yelled.
Kayano raised her hand as the octopus's face began turning pink, "I have a question!"
He snapped out of it and responded, "Ah--yes, Kayano-san?"
"This is a weird question to ask now, but...what's your name? How else can we tell what teacher we're talking about?"
"My...name?"
Sugino turned to Fuwa, "Now that you mention it..."
She finished his sentence, "...he never did tell us."
"Hmm...I don't really have the kind of name you tell people, even my daughter doesn't know it. Go ahead and give me one."
'You sure about that?' Maehara thought, sweating at what sort of names their teacher could be called.
"But right now, focus on your schoolwork."
"Yes, sir."
"Meanwhile, I'll just take a little break, Kanna-chan, come here, please." As his face turned pink and he began sitting down, he stretched a tentacle out towards her. Smiling, she stood up from her desk and sat on his lap. He started braiding her hair and asked about her day. Nagisa took noticed at his completion and stood up. "Finished already, Nagisa-kun?" The octopus quickly finished up Kanna's braids and brought over her chair. He lifted her up with his tentacles and sat her down.
Terasaka smirked at Nagisa's actions and Kayano noticed the knife behind his shikishi board.
After lunch, right around the time we get sleepy, his face sometimes goes light pink. He was a little slow responding to Kayan's question, too. That might be when he's at his most vulnerable.
His classmates took notice to his actions too, wondering what he's gonna do.
Us prep-school failures are always thinking. "We gotta get back at 'em somehow." You can do it if you try. That's what our parents and friend and teacher say. You can do it if you try.
He pulled out his knife and stabs at the octopus, his eyes listless. However, the octopus blocks it, using a cloth napkin to hold the end of the knife. "I told you: be more inventive!"
We have to prove ourselves...
Nagisa jumped and hugged the octopus...
...by any means necessary.
...revealing a grenade around his neck.
Kanna looked up in surprise, "Eh?"
Right before Terasaka pressed the detonator button, causing it to blow up in a blinding pink light. The BB's scattered across the classroom at a rapid speed. The class covering their faces to protect them from the ammo. A smoking pile was left on the ground.
"Yesss!"
"We did it!"
"--Ten billion yen! Cha-ching!"
Terasaka, Yoshida, and Muramatsu all ran up from their seats to check their work.
Kayano covered her mouth in shock and horror, "Nagisa! Kanna!"
"Serves you right!"
Their classmates looked back at them in anger.
"Terasaka!" Isogai yelled.
"What have you done?!" Maehara screamed.
Terasaka bent down at the burning husk of tentacles, "Bet he never expected a suicide bomber!"
"Hey!" Kayano stood up in anger, "What'd you give Nagisa?!"
"Huh? A toy grenade. But I beefed it up with gunpowder so it'd shoot three hundred anti-Sensei bullets at crazy-high speed!"
Isogai stood up, "Oi! You knew Kanna was right next to them! Why the hell did you drag her into this, she's just a kid?!"
(A/N: That's right Isogai, go off. Look at who you almost killed you heartless cretin.)
"Relax, they're not strong enough to kill anybody." He crouched down to get a better look at the bodies, "My ten billion yen'll cover their medical bi--huh?" Both Nagisa and Kanna were covered under a thin membrane. "They're not hurt? Not even a single burn?" He pulled at the membrane, "And...this membrane...--is attached to that octopus's corpse?"
"--As it happens," Terasaka stood up, looking around to see where the voice of his supposedly dead teacher was coming from, "I shed my skin once a month." Nagisa and Kanna sat up, causing the membrane to break around them. "I protected Kanna-chan and Nagisa-kun there by covering them with my old skin." Terasaka looked at the ceiling revealing their teacher clinging on with his tentacles, his eyes glowing a bright red. "It's my once-months ace in the hole." The four boys started up at him in shock.
"Terasaka, Yoshida, Muramatsu." A dark fog grew around the classroom as the students looked up at their teacher terrified.
You don't have to look at the color of his face to know.
His teeth began separating and his face turned into a darker hue.
Pitch black! He is furious!
"You three...you're behind this, yes?"
The three boys were whimpering in fear.
"N-No!"
"It was all Nagisa's idea!"
The octopus quickly zoomed out of the classroom around Tokyo, hitting up different neighborhoods and streets, specifically twenty-five.
"He's gone." As Terasaka finished that sentenced, he reappeared, revealing the nameplates of Yoshida's, Terasaka's, and Muramatu's houses.
"The nameplates off our houses?!"
"My agreement with your government says I won't harm you. But if you try another assassination like that one..." He pulled up Nagisa's nameplate from his sack and tossed out everyone else's, "...I might just harm someone else. You're family, you friends...Or I could wipe out the whole planet apart from you." His threat left everyone terrified. "If you try to take my world away, I'll take yours as well."
Five seconds, and we all knew: There was no running to the ends of the Earth for us. If we really wanted to run...all we could do...was kill him!
"I thought I wouldn't have to say this rule because I believed you students wouldn't harm a child, but I suppose I must. If Kanna suffers any physical or psychological damage from one of your assassination attempts, the ten billion yen will be null and void. I may be your teacher, but I'm a father first."
— Flashback —
As Koro-Sensei made his proposal to the world leaders about teaching at E Class, four gunmen were shooting at him from all directions. Kanna was waiting patiently on the side. One of the gunmen, knowing that their attempt was failing took notice of the girl and rushed at her. He grabbed her by the arm and held a gun towards the side of her head.
She looked dumbfounded and stared at Koro-Sensei, "Papa?" He paused and noticed that the other gunmen were aiming their guns at her too. Before anyone could say anything, the man holding Kanna hostage flew across the air at a rapid speed.
He hit the side of the building, leaving a dent on the side of the wall. The others followed suit, being flown in opposite directions by the pitch black Koro-Sensei. As he slithered up to his daughter, his face turned back to normal and he dusted her shoulders off. He held the arm the gunman grabbed, "Are you alright Kanna-chan? I'm sorry, Papa was distracted."
She nodded her head, "The bad guy flew as fast as you Papa."
He smiled fondly and turned towards the world leaders, his tentacles holding Kanna's shoulders, "Now then, I would like to add some conditions to my proposal as well."
— Flashback Over—
"What the hell's your deal, anyway? You're just a giant pain! Showing up all "I'm gonna blow up Earth" and "Assassinate me"! What's so wrong with using an annoying method to kill an annoying guy?!"
The octopus's face turned orange, "Annoying? Hardly. Your idea itself was a very good one. Especially you, Nagisa-kun." He pet Nagisa's head with his tentacles, "The way you carrie yourself so naturally on your approach gets full marks. You made it right through the chinks in my defenses."
His face turned back to normal as he pointed at the three boys, "However! None of you looked out for Nagisa-kun, not even Nagisa-kun himself. In addition, you brought my daughter into the crossfires. An assassin always focuses on his target and his target alone, harming innocent bystanders just to reach them is just sloppy. Students like that aren't fit to assassinate anyone." His face turned purple. "We need an assassination worth smiling about--one to be proud of! You're all capable assassins who have that power within you. Some advice from your teacher and your target."
Nagisa rubbed his head where the octopus placed his tentacle.
Chewed out at Mach 20, then praised with waving tentacles...This unusual education made me pretty happy. All because this unusually teacher was actually looking at us head-on.
The octopus looked down at a small burning mark on his desk.
— Flashback —
In the middle of a desolate and destroyed area, a tentacles creature stood over a dying woman in a lab coat.
"If you...If you would give your time, go teach those children." She caressed one of his tentacles, "What splendid tentacles...With hands like these...I'm sure you'll be a splendid teacher." The creature looked at her with his beady white eyes.
— Flashback Over—
The octopus placed his tentacle on the burning area. "Here's a question for you, Nagisa: I have not the slightest intention of being killed. I will enjoy my time with you all until next March, and then blow Earth up. If you don't like it, what are you going to do about it?"
We've never assassinated anyone before, and there's plenty of other stuff we should be doing.
Nagisa clenched his fist.
But you know...I think this teacher might even accept my bloodlust.
"Before you destroy Earth...I'll kill you."
His face turned green once more and laughed at Nagisa's answer. "Then do it now!" His face turned normal as he faced the class, "Once you've killed me, you're free to go home!"
"Eh?!"
"Just like that, huh?"
"You know we can't kill you!"
We are killers. And our target is our teacher.
Their teacher zoomed back to his seat and began wiping one of his students name plates clean.
"--Wipe, wipe, wipe it clean!"
'--Even if we shot him now...'
'...we'd just be polished up like those nameplates.'
'We're never going home!'
"An unkillable teacher..."Korosenai"..."koro"...Oh! How about "Koro-Sensei"?"
"Koro-Sensei?"
Koro-Sensei took notice at his new name.
It's us and Koro-Sensei, in our assassination classroom. Another day, another class bell rings.
(A/N: You know how at the end of every episode, there's a quick image of Koro-Sensei dressed in different costumes? I thought it would've been funny to have something like that, so I tried adding images Kanna would've drawn at the end for every chapter. Will I regret this decision later? Maybe when I don't have any ideas...)